Bitcoin Tech Talk #291

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What I've been working on

1. Covenants and Property Rights - My column this week is about how property rights get muddled with covenants. I like the technology around all the covenant proposals, such as BIP119/OP_CTV, but the bigger question that we haven’t really resolved is whether covenants undermine property rights. This is a more important economic question that I believe trumps the technical benefits.

2. Christian Bitcoin Conversation - For Christians, this is my argument in podcast form for Bitcoin. I talked about how many churches slowly became subject to the state and how Bitcoin has changed me as a Christian. I think Christians are very ripe for orange pilling and they just need a little nudge. Ultimately, if they understand that the money is broken, then they’ll look for a solution, which is Bitcoin.

3. Subverting Health Insurance - I talked to Andy Schoonover about his new company, which is something like a health-care coop. This is an alternative to health insurance, which, as Andy points out, is a giant rent-seeking machine. His service will take out the middle man, make health care much more community driven and bring rationality to health care costs. If you’re on a healthcare.gov program, I would highly encourage you to listen to this episode and look at how you can have a health care account that uses Bitcoin as savings.

What I'm up to

1. More Podcasts - I recorded with London Real and Faith Driven Investor this week. They’re pretty different audiences, but surprisingly, I talked a lot about the same things. They should be coming out in the next week or so. If you’re a fan of either or both, please spread the word.

2. Oslo Freedom Forum - I will be speaking at this human rights event. If you are in Europe, I would highly encourage you to go to see how Bitcoin affects human rights! There will be a lot of speakers this year, given the many conflicts going on in the world and there will be a ton to talk about. This is one of my favorite events as it really highlights the need for Bitcoin from a global perspective.

3. Bitcoin++ - I’ll be at this Bitcoin event in Austin before Consensus 2022. I’m aiming to have a workshop on BIP32/BIP44/BIP39 HD wallets. It’ll be two hours and be similar to the Programming Blockchain class in that there will be lots of unit tests, some lecture and Jupyter notebook to do the exercises. Stay tuned if you’re interested.

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