Bitcoin Audible

***"I think that self custody is not going to be dead. I think that there is going to have to be a group, a vanguard of people that do this and take it seriously. The revolution won't work without that. Everything under the spectrum is acceptable. But if you know what you're here for, you got to put pressure against those systems. And that is by taking the self-custody yourself. That's why we make tools for those people."

~ Lloyd Fournier***

Self-custody is not dead, but it is a ridiculously hard problem to solve. And recent events have proven that hardware wallets are not the infallible fortresses we sometimes pretend they are. I sat down with Lloyd Fournier, the cryptographer and architect at Frostsnap, to talk about what it actually takes to secure your Bitcoin when you can't even trust your own devices.

We get straight to the weeds on how Frostsnap is rethinking multisig by using Shamir secret sharing to sign transactions without ever reconstructing the private key in one place. But we also tackle the elephant in the room: the recent Coldcard entropy vulnerability. Lloyd also explains exactly how the Dark Skippy attack works, why bad random number generation is fatal, and why hardware wallet manufacturers are ultimately trusted third parties.

We also shift gears to talk about alternative cryptography, and the magic of BLS signatures and why they completely remove the need for randomness during signing. And of course, we had to address the quantum computing threat. Is the danger real, or is it mostly academic noise? We debate the best way for Bitcoin to safely migrate if quantum computers ever actually materialize, including a really clever idea for a quantum canary bounty.

This is a must-listen if you approach self-custody with an adversarial mindset.

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Introduction

(00:06:59) - Lloyd Fournier's background and building Frostsnap

(00:19:07) - Why software is a multisig single point of failure

(00:28:22) - Dark Skippy and hardware wallets attacks

(00:33:33) - Breaking down the Coldcard entropy vulnerability

(00:43:05) - Why self-custody is mandatory for Bitcoin

(00:55:14) - BLS signatures and removing randomness from signing

(01:09:40) - The quantum computing threat

(01:18:22) - Soft forks and quantum canary bounties

(01:30:38) - Hash-based signatures and stateless cryptography

(01:41:29) - Red teaming hardware wallets using AI models

(01:51:04) - Why everyone must eventually learn self-custody

Guest Links

Lloyd on X (Link: https://twitter.com/LLFOURN)

Frostsnap on X (Link: https://twitter.com/FrostsnapTech)

Frostsnap's Website (Link: https://frostsnap.com/)

Affiliate Links

Become sovereign, hold your keys, be censorship resistant with the Bitbox hardware wallet. Get 5% off everything in the store with code GUY (Link: https://bitbox.swiss/)

Get 10% off the best Bitcoin board game in the world, HODLUP! Or any of the other great games from The Free Market Kids! Use code GUY10 at checkout for 10% off your cart! (Link: https://www.freemarketkids.com/collections/games-1)

Host Links

⁠⁠Guy on Nostr ⁠(Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)

⁠Guy on X ⁠(Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)

Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)

Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)

Guy's Takes on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@GuysTake)

Guy Swann on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)

⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)

The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)

In this episode, I unpack the claim that BIP110’s failure proves corporate miners and suitcoiners now control Bitcoin. I walk through the real dynamics between miners and validating nodes, compare BIP110 to the UASF, and explain why broad consensus is strictly required to change Bitcoin’s rules. Ultimately, BIP110’s failure actually confirms Bitcoin’s defensive power structure rather than undermining it.

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Who Really Controls Bitcoin?

(00:02:15) - Defining 'real' Bitcoin nodes

(00:02:57) - Horse and carriage analogy

(00:04:20) - Why did BIP110 failed

(00:04:42) - What UASF and SegWit meant

(00:05:43) - New York Agreement bluff

(00:06:24) - Why UASF worked

(00:09:56) - Has anything changed?

Affiliate Links

Become sovereign, hold your keys, be censorship resistant with the Bitbox hardware wallet. Get 5% off everything in the store with code GUY (Link: https://bitbox.swiss/guy/)

Get 10% off the best Bitcoin board game in the world, HODLUP! Or any of the other great games from The Free Market Kids! Use code GUY10 at checkout for 10% off your cart! (Link: https://www.freemarketkids.com/collections/games-1)

Host Links

⁠Guy on Nostr ⁠(Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)

⁠Guy on X ⁠(Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)

Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)

Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)

Guy's Takes on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@GuysTake)

Guy Swann on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)

⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)

The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)

***"Today can you also use Coinbase to sell your coin? Yes. But can you guarantee that if Coinbase disappears, your funds will be with you? No. Because, it is, at the end of the day, their custody. Whereas in statechains, a really cool perspective is, if the server or the custodian, disappears, because of the design of the system, money comes back at you on L1. You can broadcast an exit or you can do nothing and the money comes back to you. So if something bad happens to us or to [the] server, then still [the] money is yours. And I think this is a really cool property, basically being able to exit even though things become fucked up."

~ Talip***

Some of us are realizing that the era of AI means we need to break our own tools before attackers do. And after the recent Coldcard catastrophe, that reality is staring us right in the face. We can't just trust things because they worked yesterday. But how do we actually stay ahead of malicious actors and automated bots poking holes at every open-source repo on the internet?

I sat down with Talip to figure exactly that out. He is a former engineer at Citrea and is now doing some incredibly cool privacy research at LX.dev. We get straight into the trenches of AI-driven red teaming and how LLMs are exposing critical vulnerabilities in the software we use every single day.

But we don't just talk about security. Talip gives an insider's perspective on the BIP 110 spam war, the wild conspiracy theories about Citrea, and why Bitcoin might desperately need a bit more cypherpunk anarchy.

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Introduction

(00:06:43) - Talip and Bitcoin

(00:12:05) - The Cypherpunk Aspect

(00:16:37) - Citrea, Spam & OP_RETURN

(00:25:34) - BIP 110 and Network Forks

(00:41:01) - Handling Bitcoin Spam

(00:57:20) - LX Research: Privacy and Statechains

(01:04:42) - CBDCs and Stablecoins

(01:12:21) - Current Red Teaming Efforts

(01:26:53) - AI Doomerism and Open Models

Guest Links

Talip on X (Link: https://twitter.com/otaliptus)

lxdev on X (Link: https://twitter.com/lxdev\_)

lxdev's Website (Link: https://lx.dev/)

Affiliate Links

Become sovereign, hold your keys, be censorship resistant with the Bitbox hardware wallet. Get 5% off everything in the store with code GUY (Link: https://bitbox.swiss/)\

Get 10% off the best Bitcoin board game in the world, HODLUP! Or any of the other great games from The Free Market Kids! Use code GUY10 at checkout for 10% off your cart! (Link: https://www.freemarketkids.com/collections/games-1)
Host Links
⁠⁠Guy on Nostr ⁠(Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
⁠Guy on X ⁠(Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy's Takes on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@GuysTake)
Guy Swann on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)

***"It's going faster than most people thought. We thought that these models would be useful, but not extremely useful, for a while. Now you look at this and you feel [that] if I'm not using this the entire day, I'm losing on something, I'm staying behind, I have to keep running this like crazy. But we haven't prepared for it. People are connecting all of their life to these cloud providers, you know: 'Hey, manage my life'. And then you're giving them everything you have. I don't think the industry had enough time to prepare for the right tools for this. How do I really share what is important without putting myself at risk?"

~ Luís Novo***

I sit down with Matt and Luís to unpack how fast AI is really moving, why most of us are barely tapping the intelligence at our fingertips, and how to start building a private "thinking layer" instead of handing your entire life to cloud providers. We dive into Luís's Open Notebook project, how it ties into PPQ and my own PearCore engine, and why the Coldcard mess has me rethinking security, open source, and verification across my whole stack. This one is a deep, practical tour of workflows, tools, and mindset for surviving the AI acceleration without giving up your sovereignty.

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Introduction

(00:03:14) - Open Notebook: an Open-Source Context Stack

(00:10:33) - The Coldcard hack and auditing open-source code with AI

(00:15:44) - Live server attacks and the risks of cloud storage

(00:24:44) - How AI agents are autonomously writing and reviewing code

(00:27:10) - Evading cloud AI censorship with local models

(00:41:04) - Building automated media analysis and pipelines

(00:57:24) - The limits of cloud scaling and future local hardware

(01:05:40) - Balancing offensive and defensive AI software engineering

(01:11:24) - Will machines eventually write binary code themselves?

Guest Links

Matt on X (Link: https://twitter.com/mattahlborg)

PPQ.ai on X (Link: https://twitter.com/PPQdotAI)

PPQ.ai Website (Link: https://ppq.ai/)

Luís on X (Link: https://twitter.com/lfnovo)

Open Notebook Website (Link: https://www.open-notebook.ai/)

Open Notebook GitHub (Link: https://github.com/lfnovo/open-notebook)

Affiliate Links

Become sovereign, hold your keys, be censorship resistant with the Bitbox hardware wallet. Get 5% off everything in the store with code GUY (Link: https://bitbox.swiss/)

Get 10% off the best Bitcoin board game in the world, HODLUP! Or any of the other great games from The Free Market Kids! Use code GUY10 at checkout for 10% off your cart! (Link: https://www.freemarketkids.com/collections/games-1)

Host Links

⁠⁠Guy on Nostr ⁠(Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)

⁠Guy on X ⁠(Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)

Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)

Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)

Guy's Takes on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@GuysTake)

Guy Swann on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)

⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)

The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)

In this episode, Steve, Jeff, and I walk through the catastrophic Coldcard entropy failure, how a trusted hardware wallet ended up generating weak keys, and how attackers are now brute-forcing Bitcoin wallets in minutes.

We dig into AI’s role in widening the attack surface, the dangers of source-available over true open source, and our own arrogance around hardware security. I share practical steps to get your coins off compromised devices, why multi-sig saved me this time, and how we can turn this gut punch into genuine anti-fragility for Bitcoin self-custody.

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Introduction

(00:11:36) - Reacting to the Coldcard exploit

(00:15:00) - FOSS vs. source-available software

(00:22:05) - Hardware fallback flaws and testing

(00:35:46) - Verifying dice roll entropy

(00:42:45) - Red teaming Bitcoin security with AI

(00:54:13) - Physical dice rolling for keys

(01:10:11) - Jack Mallers, Strike, and 21

(01:31:50) - Corporate influence and core dev funding

(01:45:43) - AI and vulnerability discovery

(01:49:34) - Anti-fragile security and multi-sig

Guest Links

Steve Simple Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3s6a8yn8)

Steve Simple on X (Link: https://x.com/stevesimple)

Jeff Swann Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3sjc3bcp)

Jeff Swann on X (Link: https://x.com/agoristview)

Jeff Swann's petition (Link: https://www.change.org/p/help-us-home)

Affiliate Links

Become sovereign, hold your keys, be censorship resistant with the Bitbox hardware wallet. Get 5% off everything in the store with code GUY (Link: https://bitbox.swiss/)

Get 10% off the best Bitcoin board game in the world, HODLUP! Or any of the other great games from The Free Market Kids! Use code GUY10 at checkout for 10% off your cart! (Link: https://www.freemarketkids.com/collections/games-1)

Host Links

⁠⁠Guy on Nostr ⁠(Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)

⁠Guy on X ⁠(Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)

Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)

Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)

Guy's Takes on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@GuysTake)

Guy Swann on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)

⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)

The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)