Welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show. This is our year in review. So I'm here with none other than the splendiferous Luke DeWolf. How are you today, Luke?
I'm great, Knut. Yes, our year in review. It's a little bit between Christmas and New Year's right now, and I think we'll get this out already next week.
So we went through our year just before we started recording here in 2025.
I was saying that 2025 felt like it was like three years in one, basically.
Yeah, we've been busy.
We've been busy for sure.
I counted here 16 separate Bitcoin events during the year.
So I think that's a personal high score, if you can call it that.
More than one per month.
Well, shall we go through it and I think talk about the highlights of the year and then a little bit about what we have coming up in 2026?
Yes, for me, the year started in Miami, where I was at a friend's house for a New Year's Eve party.
And that was all good fun.
A lot of too much of everything, but we had a very good time.
I was there. Yeah, I met Hodlonaut there, who I hadn't met in a couple of years.
So that was really good to reconnect with him.
And we realized we had a secret language.
So we could run around at Sailor's Party and speak Scandinavian and say all sorts of weird shit and nobody would understand us.
And that was all good fun.
Yes, a bit childish, perhaps, but we had fun.
Very good.
Yes.
And well, the funny thing is that was the 100k party, right?
I mean, for all the talk of where the price is right now, I still feel like kicking around in the 80s, the 90s.
I don't even really care.
Like that's still way higher than it was four years ago, five years ago.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And four years ago is when I went to Sailor's House the first time.
And also with Daniel Prince, he was also at the 100K party.
And back then we used to joke around that this is holy shit, this is really happening.
And we sort of memed the whole 100K party into existence.
And we were there at 42K for the first time.
but now it was the actual 100k party so so yeah the meme it's like the living the meme meme because
this one really came to fruition it it materialized in a way we wouldn't have imagined so all good fun
no it's fantastic and i mean i think uh nothing but optimism i think for yeah the uh year ahead
in terms of of how that goes but just funny that you're kicking it off with a with a 100k
party. And then you were on the road quite a bit after that, right?
Yeah, I don't remember. Did we do a lot of... We did a couple... No, we postponed the whole
academy for a bit, right? Because of all my travels. I think that's what we did.
Exactly. We started that in March. So yeah, I guess maybe we can just quickly say that we
kicked off the Bitcoin Infinity Academy, which has been a really fun project.
Yeah, fantastic. So we kicked it off with, we were planning on doing it for a long time, but it got postponed and got postponed for different reasons. But then we finally kicked it off in February, I believe.
March.
March. All right. So beginning of March, I guess. And with Sovereignty Through Mathematics. So that entire course is on our YouTube channel. And now also the second course on Bitcoin Independence Reimagined is also there because we walked through that entire book.
two i don't think the last episode is released yet is it no no it's definitely released too
okay it was released last week or something right so we're all done already couple of weeks
time flies anyway the reason we didn't start that until march was that i was in colombia and el
salvador in like from mid-january until uh like first week of february so i was in in the area for
three weeks in the Americas.
Bitcoin Medellin was fantastic.
Colombia is such a beautiful country
and what a cool town or city.
Five million people in the middle of the
mountains with perfect weather
and just super cool people,
super cool place. And we had a whole
day of excursions
around Colombia and
it's just such a beautiful place.
I'd love to come back to Colombia.
After that, of course, El Salvador.
First time in El Sonte for me,
January and I spent about a week there I was there with my brother who also joined us on base for the
Nevermind gig after Plan B Forums in Salvador which was the big one of course we I remember
going to music stores with mass and buying guitars not knowing whether someone else would pay for
them in the end or not but we needed them for the gig so we we we got some gear and we played
and they tried to shut us down.
So this was at one of the national museums
and the Rocamodo was long.
There was a lot of people who came up
and did their thing.
And it was finally time for Nevermind
to do their whole thing,
which at this time consisted of me, Samson,
my brother and Mark from the Bitcoin Hotel.
We started playing and we got to like two songs,
but after that, they shut us down
and they tried to shut us up
because the Salvadorian authorities wouldn't let us play
after 12 o'clock or after 1 o'clock or whatever it was.
So I got pissed.
Like, what is this bullshit?
We haven't played two songs yet.
And then they turned off my mic.
So I had to scream to the audience,
are you anarchists or not?
You all know the lyrics to this one.
And then we played Smells Like Tin Spirit.
And it was in true rebel fashion,
everyone just jumping around.
So a lot of good fun there.
And a great conference in general.
A very nice hotel, the Sheraton Presidente in San Salvador.
Beautiful place.
Yeah.
And I went back from San Salvador and wouldn't return until November.
We'll get to that later.
But I'm returning to San Salvador this January.
So in about a month, I'll go back to San Salvador for the Plan B conference this year as well.
Fantastic.
I was going to say, let's maybe hold your impressions on El Salvador for the second one,
because you have some more experiences since then, slightly more fresh.
So let's hold that till the end here.
And yeah, so I think after this batch of travels,
the Academy was the next thing that we put out, basically.
And then just a point of emphasis there,
we have now got both of your books, Independence Reimagined
and Sovereignty Through Mathematics, are now fully available on NOSTER for free.
So you can go find them on NOSTER.
We'll put the links in the description, I'm sure. And basically, it's only there. So information is meant to be free. And now we've got these commentary videos. Basically, if you're not familiar with what the Academy is, it's chapter by chapter through each of Knut's books. And I read them, we commentate on them. And it's all good fun. Learning a lot. And hopefully, you listener are getting something out of it as well.
Yes, we have a lot of great back and forths there about the ideas in the books, and it's all good fun. And you were keeping busy while I was in Colombia and Medellin. For starters, you have your computer security fiat job, but in the Bitcoin and you're a father of a toddler, which is not the easiest job in the world either.
but you being the tireless workhorse that you are you also did the praxeology edit with me we
we re-edited the entire praxeology book first i rewrote it and added a couple of chapters and
then we went through it together and it's now been rewritten and re-iterated into perfection
and we released that later uh here this year released it for prague i believe what else what
else did you do? Yeah, you worked for B2C Hell, of course, which is not the easiest thing in the
world to organize a Bitcoin conference. So Luke was back in Helsinki with his fantastic team of
Bitcoiners there trying to make the B2C Hell conference happen. And ever throughout the year,
we got some new speakers, we got some new ideas for the thing. And that whole thing chugged along
while we were doing the other things. Yeah, it was a bit of a crazy time. And I mean,
that's why the beginning part of the year just feels like a blur. Like we had the, we did the
Academy, we did Praxeology, which we were, we were wanting to get that out by Prague, I think,
and some other, some other things. I mean, it was, it was an existing piece of work, but really we
did overhaul it completely. And I mean, I say, I say we, of course, like you're, you're still the
author on the masthead and everything. And we didn't do anything like inverse of clown world.
that didn't get a promotion. But it was a lot of fun to re-edit it with you. And I think it turned
out to be, the ideas were all there in the first edition, but now it's just fantastic book. And I
mean, I would say at this point, if I were wanting to give someone like a primer into the Bitcoin,
the monetary Bitcoin mindset, something like that, I would give them Praxeology and I would
give them Clown World and tell them to read in that order, basically. Yes. And yeah, the primer
to Austrian economics. That was always the purpose of the Praxeology book was to make a beginner's
level, a condensed version of Mises' human action, basically, to get people to start thinking in terms
of subjectivity and Praxeology. All good. Also to mention here and at the end of the show as well,
maybe, is that there's a live Praxeology course coming in 2026 to Lugano. I'll be
be giving a whole series of lectures there on the book or about the subject and the website
will be up soon. I'll be promoting that whenever it comes. Very happy to do that. And yeah,
there's a bunch of other things coming related to that too, but we'll get to those later.
Yeah, fantastic. And then since you brought it up, yeah, BTC Hell was chugging along the
entire year. Obviously, as it gets closer to the conference time, it started taking up more and more
and more of my time. We never actually pinpointed when I stopped appearing in the Bitcoin Infinity
show proper. It was sometime in the middle of the year, though, as far as I remember,
it was just getting to be too much to be in the episodes and also editing the episodes and
everything. I kept on editing everything. And so that was great. We had a short period of time
where we tried out an external editor,
but we brought that back to me after a little while.
Yeah, I mean, BTZ Hell really started.
I've told this story before,
but the first conversation about this
was when we were on Madeira for Bitcoin Atlantis
and just a conversation with me and Remo,
who ended up being the CEO of our,
we call it 21 events, Osaka Uhtier, or Y.
Of course you do.
Yeah, no brainer name. I think others have had the name in other jurisdictions and all this. But anyway, no brainer. So yeah, we have this conversation. Why don't we try this in Finland? Could we do this in Helsinki?
Absolutely.
And so obviously that's, we're talking like two years ago, really.
I mean, almost two years ago at this point, basically.
But, you know, we kept on bringing together a team,
figuring out who was interested in participating.
I think we made the decision to actually go in August of 2024.
We made the decision to, yeah.
You and me and Remo had an adult people's meeting at Baltic Honeybad.
You were like, are we doing this or not?
And we decided that, yeah, hell yeah, we're doing the Jukkas Jervjeis-Pete-Perkele conference here next year.
Exactly.
And so since then, it was just, yeah, lots of work.
And I mean, the team is fantastic.
I think there's four or five of us that we couldn't lose any single one of us.
Or at least we would have been sorely without needed resources and chicken with the head cut off and all this.
So contributions from everyone on the team and so many other people in the Finnish community, the Nordics community.
And I mean, it was fantastic to have so many great speakers come and support what we're doing out there.
And we're going even bigger next year.
So maybe we'll talk a little bit more about like how how the conference itself actually went. But yeah, I was I was busy, especially coming into kind of the three, four months leading up to conference time.
It's funny, we attend a lot of conferences, obviously, and we tend to see a little bit more of the under the hood perspective than maybe even some other speakers would.
We tend to get involved with the organizers and do a little bit extra, mostly through the books, right?
Like, for example, in Prague, these last few years, we've been involved with the book booth at Prague for various ways.
So we sort of know the ins and outs of how the speaker experience is and we know the ins and outs of how the sponsor and booth experience is right But there nothing comparing to trying to organize one of these things yourself So I got immense respect for everyone who puts on a Bitcoin conference no matter how big
no matter how small, and it's a ton of work. So I empathize a lot, but it's super rewarding.
So it's the thing I'm most proud of doing in Bitcoin. And sorry, Knut.
yeah no but rightfully so it was a spectacular event i don't think writing a book uh is comparable
to organizing a conference like of course organizing a conference is more work work yeah
but yeah as the year went on in march i continued my travels i thought maybe san salvador wasn't
too far away so i went to sydney for the second time to the fantastic bitcoin alive conference
Bitcoin is absolutely alive in Australia.
A fantastic trip.
Got to see JP's fantastic old technology collection at his apartment.
That was a trip in itself.
The conference was great.
About the same size as the two years before.
A great little community there.
Some people had trouble getting there because of a hurricane up in, where's my?
Probably Brisbane, I think.
Brisbane, yeah.
Probably.
but overall a fantastic experience i spent uh about a week there sydney is great i had this
epiphany that um staring out at the pacific ocean thinking there's half a planet of water there
and if i turn around and do 100 180 here there's a great big metropolitan area with rainbow flags
and whatnot here.
And then five hours flight time
of continent full of sand
and animals who want to kill me.
So Australia is a strange place for sure.
But yeah, I had a great time there.
And then we went back
and started doing more academy stuff
and started planning a bit more
for BTC Hell.
We started working on the schedule
and all of that.
What happened after that?
Oh, yeah.
Well, I think in the run-up,
so you also went to the Ireland conference
in May, Dublin.
Yeah, nothing in April.
I'm going to try to make it to that one this year.
Yeah, I went to Dublin as a great conference.
It's going to be even better next year
because it's going to be a four-day conference
instead of a two-day conference.
Great, everything great with it.
One of those smaller, cozier things.
And we got to see the Guinness Brewery
in downtown Dublin.
That was interesting too.
I had maybe one or two Guinness too many in Dublin,
but all enjoyable.
And a very nice event.
where we were staying in the hotel the event was at.
So that's always convenient to have the conference
in the same venue that you're staying in.
All good.
And a lot of great people in Ireland,
a lot of people that don't travel that much,
but they like Ireland so much, so they stay there.
But there is a thriving Bitcoin community there for sure.
So we'll see Lara Parr and everyone else there in 2026.
Looking forward to seeing that again.
And then in June, of course, I went to Logano for the first time and had the Praxeology Guest Star Lecture, which is just a, they have, during the Plan B Business School, there's around 12 or 15 Guest Stars lecturers that go to Logano to give a lecture about this and that.
And my job was to talk about Praxeology and Austrian economics.
So I did that and then I went back and then our big travel thing started.
Started off with Prague in the middle of June and we had a lot to do in Prague this year, didn't we, Luke?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we basically ran their book booth, which was interesting.
Definitely an interesting choice considering we were so busy with a lot of other things.
But I mean, great fun. We'd been involved with the book booths the previous couple of years as well.
So nothing totally new, but definitely it was an interesting challenge, sort of juggling all the other authors and last minute requests and this and that.
And then, of course, in the middle of all of it, we had various speaking engagements and all this.
I was on stage for the first time in Prague moderating a couple of panels.
So that was a lot of fun.
Yeah, like Prague is fantastic.
It's the big conference in Europe.
And I certainly intend to go every year just because it's one of those things.
I've started to have this kind of thing.
Prague and Riga and Lugano are all starting to feel like parts of my life.
You know what I mean?
Like going every year over three years, something like that, it starts to be like, yeah, I know this place.
I know that place.
I know how the public transport works in Prague now, for example, and I know where to walk in Riga to get between the conference venue and the old town and everything the fastest way.
And it's just, yes, it's nice.
It's nice to see Bitcoiners there.
And we talk about this traveling circus and this kind of like going to all of these conferences and you see all the same people there and blah, blah, blah.
But it's great.
It's always good to kind of be there and represent.
And I think those of us who are a little more visible in the community and involved with whether it's education or other contributions to Bitcoin on the technical side or whatever it is, it's just good to show up to these things and show people that this is something that is worth considering, worth considering picking up.
And yeah, so love Prague, love the Prague conference.
And I mean, it's the big one in Europe.
I think there's other conferences that are at least try to be similar in size in Europe,
but Prague has got something special for sure.
Absolutely.
And it's refreshingly free from shit corners.
I mean, I got to debate Peter Todd.
That's one of the things I did in Prague.
So yeah.
And after Prague, I was there with my family.
I brought my family for the first time, thinking of doing that again.
And they went back to Sweden.
You went to Finland for a short time and then to Canada, I think.
Just to pick up my dog.
Yeah, to pick up the dog.
And I went straight to Naples, which was a side thing between Prague and Calgary.
So Naples, Florida, just for those who might think you meant Italy.
No, I didn't go to Italy.
I went to Naples, Florida and had a great time there with the guys from Cypherpunk,
who made a whole series about the Everything Divided by 21 Million book. So if you check them
out, the Cypherpunk is the name of the, so Cypherpunk apostrophe D, that's their Twitter name.
And the whole series can be found there and on YouTube. Very interesting and very cool place,
Naples, great to meet a lot of Bitcoiners there. This was a very busy month. I did an interview
at Breedlove's house with Eric Stacks on the way over there. And I did an interview with Cedric
Youngelman on the way up to Calgary. He was staying a couple of miles north of Sarasosa.
What's the name of the place? Saragossa? I don't even remember. Very beautiful though.
And Zed is always nice.
And then I flew up to Calgary, where you were already waiting.
And we stayed at your mother-in-law's house.
A beautiful experience, a beautiful week in Canada.
Or no, no, no, in Alberta, I should say.
The People's Republic of Alberta, a very beautiful place.
Calgary is super cool.
The Bull Bitcoin people were there.
A lot of cool base.
There's a lot of based Canadian Bitcoiners, as you know.
And yeah, we had a great time there.
yeah I mean it was actually my first time back in Calgary for almost four years and so that was
that was quite the thing for me I mean it was a combination of being COVID times and we we have
tons of people family and everything wanting to visit us in Finland and everything and it just
never happened that I actually got back there but yeah it was a almost a month back in in Calgary
since moving to Finland and so that was that was quite something and yeah it was it was great that
I got to show you my hometown. I'm not born in Calgary, but I've been there since I was four
years old. So pretty much. And yeah, I consider myself Albertan through and through as opposed to
Canadian, definitely. And well, yeah, lots of identity issues for sure. I wish Alberta
nothing but the best. And I think independence is the right thing for Alberta. Many Bitcoiners in
the area also agree with that sentiment. I think, well, my journey into Bitcoin pretty much started
by being disillusioned at the Canadian federal government doing things just to hurt the industries
in Alberta and to extract more money from that part of the country and taking it into other
places. And definitely that started sowing the seeds for my distrusting government and
wondering what the heck was up with this inflation thing and all that. It still took me a few more
years to finally figure that out. And then the real irony is that I went and left Canada. I left
Alberta, Calgary, before finding out about the fantastic community that's actually there, right?
And so I get embedded in this community in Finland and help put on a conference in Helsinki
and everything. Meanwhile, there's this established community back where I was before with a lot of
awesome people. So Dave Bradley is the guy who puts on the Bitcoin rodeo every year.
That's a fantastic conference. If I'm going back to Calgary.
That's the one we went to, by the way.
Exactly. Yeah. So if I'm going back to Calgary, I think trying to make it around Bitcoin rodeo is
just just the thing to do basically because why not yeah yeah and i had the best steak i ever had
in my life i think fucking awesome they promised and and delivered i was i was uh really really uh
i wasn't surprised exactly but it was it was a high claim that it would be the best steak you
ever had and yeah they had these i think they were basically alberta wagyu hybrid tenderloins
yeah it's a hybrid between some mangos and wagyu thing there and fantastic stuff it's definitely
the thing that i miss the most here in in finland is the is the availability and the quality of the
the beef although although i will say that uh since btc hell my beef connection has has improved
significantly one of the best things to come out of btc hell was the orange pilling and emergence
of the proprietor of Koki Tila,
which home space is a decent translation for that.
But he's a butcher and they produce all of these,
what is called nose to tail, like use the entire cow.
So they've got all of the cool organs and stuff like that.
But just great grass-fed beef, 100% local.
Fantastic.
From farms throughout Finland.
And I mean, that's one of the things I like about here
is that you can get a local version of everything.
It might cost a little bit more, but it already costs a fair bit anyway.
And so, I mean, I won't say 100% that the beef I'm getting here now is on the same level as Alberta beef,
but it's at least close enough that I don't know the difference except when I'm in Alberta again.
So that was pretty cool.
And they have these Bitcoin beef bits, which is just awesome.
It's this dried beef snack that's dried with Bitcoin miners.
And honestly, it's just beef and salt.
like 93 grams of protein per 100 grams like it's it's fantastic it's fantastic and it's just i don't
know it's just it's just these little things that that would never have happened if you don't if
you don't connect with people and get it all together right like christos was contacted by
uho like three weeks before btc hell and they they pulled it all together to create this product uh
in three weeks uh fantastic so so just just all this all this cool stuff but yeah it was nice to
nice to bring you over to Calgary. And I felt like I didn't really get a real vacation at all.
I made my three or so weeks there, three and a half, because it was the one Bitcoin conference,
all of this preparation work for BTC Hell. I had to send all of these emails and make sure everyone
was good for their hotel bookings and this and that. And I had to do that in between, you know,
spending time with the family, which is what I was supposed to be doing. And the first time back in
four years is like, and trying to see everyone you want to in the span of three weeks, it just,
Yeah.
That was quite the time.
It was a vacation that was not a vacation, for sure.
So out of 100%, how many percent Canadian, Albertan, Scandinavian, and Finn are you?
80 Finn, 20 Albertan.
That's it.
All right.
So not Scandinavian, not Canadian.
No.
That's great.
Well, Finland isn't in Scandinavia.
It's in the Nordics.
Well, in the Nordic, then.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Finland is definitely in Scandinavia.
It's actually a part of Sweden.
I don't buy those fucking borders.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Something like that.
No, no, no.
But, well, I identify more with Finland and I appreciate living here very much.
People accept me for who I am.
So I know I'm not from here originally and I'm not, you know, I'm not, I don't pass for a native speaker usually.
But almost.
Almost.
And I love it here Plan to stay It would take the world really falling apart to get us to leave I think So I identify more with Finland at this point But I identify more as maybe a Bitcoiner and like a citizen of the world who just happens to get to live in Finland
Yeah, and it didn't take the world to get me to come to Finland because we're missing one thing.
I went to Helsinki in late May, beginning of June, right?
I don't even remember when.
Yeah, we had a little party and you were able to make it over for the weekend.
It was awesome.
It was the first time I got to see the pop-up store and everything.
So there's so much happening.
It's just ridiculous.
We got to practice our set for Prague, which didn't end up even happening, which was hilarious.
yeah yeah thank god i didn't have to do fucking rock and motor there and and i mean too much of
the other stuff it was it was just cool we got to go see the little practice space that uh me and
marty have that uh you know play uh play rock and metal together yeah it's always great seeing marty
and the other finnish community too both for that matter it's a base bunch for sure you got to see
our pop-up store which has turned into not it's not really a pop-up anymore we're kind of permanently
there. And it's turned into more of like a co-working space now. Very nice to have it.
There's a, there's an orange glowing light on this thoroughfare into Helsinki. And, and now that I,
I didn't use to have a car, but now I, now I drive more. And yeah, this is like one of the
main ways into the city from the various angles and you can't miss it. You can't miss the-
Follow the orange glowing light. That's all you got to do.
Yeah. So that was, that was really cool.
Yes, after Naples, I went back to, no, I went to Sweden and stayed, as I usually do, stayed in Sweden over the summer.
You stayed in Alberta for a while and came back like a month after me, I think.
This was a very necessary break for us, I think.
We had a little break between sovereignty through mathematics and independence reimagined for the academy that summer.
We had done most of the interviews back in May, I think, and June.
So we had a long backlog during the summer.
It's hard for us to record properly during the summer.
I mean, I don't have my office slash studio thing here.
It's a bit harder to do these things on the fly.
But yeah, after some time in Sweden, I had to leave again for Lugano for the business school week,
which is the 21 top students for that online course
during the rest of the year
get to go to Lugano and stay for a week
and see a lot of guest lectures.
I held two lectures there
and a lot of other great people.
Preston Pysh, Alan Farrington, Efrat Fenningson
and a bunch of other, Max Kaiden,
a bunch of good people there.
And we had a great time
as we always do in Lugano. After that, I went back to Sweden again. You were still in Canada,
I think. I came back in, I think, by July, I was back. Yeah. Or sometime in the middle of July or
something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I got to bring my son and my wife to Lugano. And that was
great too. We went on excursions up the mountains next to it. And yeah, it's a beautiful place.
Absolutely. Lugano is stunning, as always. And after that, of course, after some time back in
in sweden and for you in finland we went to baltic honey badger where we did have a an impromptu
rockamoto that was fun we were in some industrial area of this baltic country always fun and mass
had organized the whole thing and in this cool disco slash nightclub slash um the rock venue thing
we had a very small stage and a drummer that just showed up and we i don't think we've ever done
such a masturbatory gig,
but it was all good fun.
Crammed little room.
We were sweaty as fuck afterwards,
but all good fun.
And yeah, Baltic Hunting Badger was great as usual.
They're supposedly skipping a year.
That's at least what we've been told,
but I'd never believe them
until it actually happens.
No, no, I mean, Riga is fantastic.
I mean, Riga is huge for both of us
for lots of different reasons.
you because that was your coming out into the Bitcoin world back in 2019, right? But it also
was mine. That was my first conference in 2022. And it brings back a lot of memories. It's a great
conference, great people, great side events, great everything. And I got to see you shitfaced on
Absinthe. That was also a fun experience. Yeah. Thanks, Anna and Marcy for teeing me up for that
and I didn't know exactly what I was getting into,
but yeah, they do a thing where they pick a few lucky people
to get absolutely wasted and have some fun.
That's one of the only parts of that conference that isn't recorded.
Actually, they don't record the cypherpunk stage, I think they call it either.
Yeah, the privacy stage.
Privacy, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, these guys are just fantastic, though,
in terms of like tons of great work on privacy development.
It's one of those conferences where it's just kind of, it's pure signal 100%.
And it's the OG's OG conference.
Like, it's fantastic.
And we always have a good time.
And also, this was sort of the warm up to B2C.
Hell, we could afford to let loose a bit more in Riga, I guess, before the big one, which was, of course, Helsinki.
And yeah, we had about five days before the conference started, or four days, maybe.
Busy days, though.
yeah yeah well and i mean i i think that the certain thing with with honey badgers it was
it was coincidental that they put the date uh for honey badger a week before btc hell btc hell
selected uh we selected our date specifically to try to avoid the dates that bought baltic honey
badger has been in the past right uh but then they go in and pick the week before which was
like a month earlier than they'd ever done before.
But it worked out fantastically
because I think there were 30 or 40 speakers
that did both conferences.
And so it made total sense to just go there.
And a whole bunch of attendees too
that just decided on the spot in Riga
to just why not come to Helsinki next week.
Yeah, exactly.
If you weren't doing anything already,
you're in the neighborhood.
It's like a 45 minute flight from Riga to Helsinki.
So it's great.
I know a bunch of people even who went up through Estonia
and took a ferry and all this, which is a quintessential Finnish experience.
It's something I recommend.
I do it for fun, you know, a few times a year, the trip to Estonia and back.
But I mean, by a certain point, a lot of things are already in motion.
It's kind of like with two weeks left, there isn't a lot to do anymore
if you've really been on it, right?
It's just that the event has to happen now.
And that's, of course, a ton of work.
But there's also not anything you can really do about it either.
You just have to let the final tickets roll in and be ready to help out any last details.
We had a great time.
I mean, the conference itself, it went off without any major issues, for sure.
The venue was fantastic.
The weather was great the whole time.
So, yeah, I don't know.
BTC Hell, man.
No, BTC Hell was absolutely awesome.
and we did probably the best rock and moto gig we ever did with actual proper musicians in it
yeah and then we're not gonna we're not gonna do it like that next time but uh definitely we we had
a we had a great time like for example the the higher low if you've ever seen him around at the
conferences he usually plays with just an acoustic guitar but he actually he's from finland and and
and has a has a band here and so he came with his band and uh we had a we had a cover band that uh
that a friend of mine is the singer for.
And they played a couple of sets
and we had a couple of sets of our various bands,
nevermind in partial form as well.
And yeah, it was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun,
but it definitely, it was a bit much, the Rockamoto.
I think next year we do it a little differently.
Yeah, I mean, the real gig that people shouldn't have missed
is you and I singing one song each
at the karaoke bar in the middle of the night,
like the day after the conference.
Yeah, that was an experience.
It took you to like the tiniest hole in the wall karaoke bar,
the first place that I did Finnish karaoke.
And I mean, Finnish people love their karaoke.
Yeah, we had a delightful time to kind of end off the week.
And yeah, so many great people coming to Finland,
seeing what we're doing.
There's already been a lot coming out afterwards,
Like Helsinki, Finland, Finland is really a hotbed for Bitcoin mining.
Like really, it's the place in Europe that just has a ton of Bitcoin mining projects coming on all the time.
Mostly because the heat reuse use case, there's these district heating systems in virtually every municipality in Finland.
And they need heat.
They need to make heat somehow.
And usually they just burn stuff for their heat.
But you can just use Bitcoin miners instead.
and yeah there's there's just there's just a lot of exciting stuff going on and a lot of a lot of
great work going on with mining and all this very exciting and next year we're we're aiming for a
bit bit of a bigger crowd we can't be in the same venue because they just didn't have dates that
worked for us anymore but we're in a slightly bigger place like in my view it's the it's the
venue that I always wanted us to be in. It's this cable factory, it's called. And it's right on the
sea. And it's just this fantastic old industrial building. And it's great for conferences. I've
been in a bunch of events there. And it's a lot of fun. We're going to have a great time. And
yeah, really just looking to continue the momentum and growing the adoption in Finland and the
Nordics, we have a big presence from Scandinavia, from the Scandinavian countries, Scandinavian
speakers.
I think we'll even do at least a half day of Scandinavian language content, Swedish and
Norwegian.
Danish, probably not, because no one can understand Danish, not even the Danes.
But Swedish and Norwegian, I think, is acceptable.
Yeah, but if you understand Swedish and Norwegian, then you understand Danish and
Danish.
It's not a problem.
Right.
something like that. Yes. After August, I mean, I sort of said that it felt like three
separate years. I kind of, up until when we finished the Praxeology book in the first academy,
that felt like one little era. Then it was focusing on BTC hell for me and all of these
conferences and all this craziness. And then September and onwards, it's been a little calmer,
but also getting stuff done, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
We had one more run of European tour thingy.
I went to Sofia, Prague, and Lugano.
You went to Sofia and Lugano.
You skipped Prague in between.
Yeah, so Sofia, Bulgaria, my second time and your first time
at the Bulgarian Bitcoin Conference, a great conference.
A lot of cool people, cool venue, great food in Bulgaria.
I always like coming there.
And we got to see their new Bitcoin hub thingy.
Cool place.
Absolutely great.
After that, I did a small trip to Prague to see Trezor premiered their new hardware wallet with a new secure element and all of that.
And that was all good fun.
A great event, laser shows and whatnot.
and yeah I have a ton of friends in Prague and I got to see them and hang out and that was all
very well and good and cool and then we went to Lugano for the Plan B forum where we
signed books and played rock and roll and spoke and moderated panels on during the event
I was on a panel with Seyfeddin and Rahim about Austrian economics that was very all good fun
And then we did the Rocamoto gig, which was great.
We had the final lineup of Nevermind, which is you, me, Samson, and Marty Malmi on drums.
We did a little rehearsal thing in the park outside the venue in the middle of the day.
And that was good fun.
And then had a great gig.
Like the mayor of Lugano is our biggest fan.
And he introduced us this year.
And he was also in the mosh pit, as usual, doing his thing.
It was about 2,000 people in the tent.
It was all good fun.
And after the gig, I promised myself to be a good boy and go to bed.
So I went to bed around half past 12 or something or one-ish because we had to do a live Bitcoin
Infinity Academy about the one-shot principle at eight o'clock in the morning the day after.
So I went to bed, but I couldn't fall asleep until like three or four o'clock in the morning
because of all the adrenaline from the show.
So it didn't matter.
But we got up and we did the thing on a side stage there in the tent.
And then I think our responsibilities ended somewhere around there.
I did an interview with Nico Simply Bitcoin as well What else did we do in Lugano that time around no that was pretty comprehensive but yeah celebrate my birthday absolutely exactly a nice uh nice dinner to cap it all off yeah
lugano was great uh this time i brought i brought my family on the whole trip so we went to bulgaria
and then we we just stayed a little longer in bulgaria and uh took a slower route to uh to lugano
than your hop over in Prague.
But yeah, yeah, like always great to get to travel to new places.
And Lugano had fantastic weather for the first time.
The Plan B Forum has had crap weather the two years previously.
It was just sunny and yeah, really fantastic out.
Yeah, love Lugano, love everything going on there.
Love Switzerland, love getting back there whenever possible.
And so, yeah, I think at least the Plan B Forum,
you'll be able to catch us there, no doubt about it.
Yeah, next opportunity, of course, to see me is the Plan B Forum San Salvador, as we mentioned before.
Speaking of, I did one final conference before I was done.
Oh no, two conferences, actually.
And in San Salvador, the first one being the Fantastic Bitcoin Historical, which was the presidential conference in the actual presidential national palace of San Salvador.
The most beautiful venue I've ever been to, like by far.
An actual palace and a great conference.
They had all the talks translated into Spanish on great big screens outside of the palace.
And there's a big public party going on outside at Centro Historico in San Salvador.
Also after that, just the two days.
So Historico went on for two days.
And the two days after that, there was the lovely Adopting Bitcoin conference,
which is much more grassroots.
I love the vibe there. It's a very merchant-y vibe. A lot of booths selling coffee and steak and T-shirts and whatnot. All very good. I had a lot of good conversations there. I think I did eight interviews or something in total in San Salvador, plus two pods.
I was in the national paper twice.
So it was a weird week with a lot of stuff.
And I had a gig in playing acoustic guitar in El Santa.
So that was all good fun too.
And what's your general impression of El Salvador these days?
Fantastic.
There's just an interview out now where I talked to Mike Peterson about this.
If you see the Live from Bitcoin Beach pod.
And so much has happened since January.
Just in these seven months or whatever it is, or eight months between my first visit and my second visit, there's a whole ton of construction going on.
The road down to El Sante is much better already.
Centro-Historico looks better than the first time around, a lot better.
So there's a ton of stuff happening in El Salvador, and it truly is a Bitcoin country.
I guess the whole top-down thing with Chivo Wallet and whatnot, when Bukele talked about Bitcoin the first time around, it didn't really take off with the El Salvadorians, specifically because it was top-down, because they have good reason to not trust the government given their history.
But now it feels like the grassroots movements are like blooming everywhere.
And, you know, El Sante and Berlin and Punta Mango and San Salvador, there's Bitcoin communities all over the country now.
And there's a lot of things happening.
I could go to the most remote village and pay for stuff in Bitcoin in the most weirdest of places.
So I absolutely adore El Salvador.
I urge everyone to go there and see it for themselves.
come with no expectations, good or bad.
Just take it for what it is.
This is a country that used to be a shithole
and is now one of the best, my favorite places on earth
in just half a decade.
It's truly remarkable what's happened there.
And a big thank you to Mr. President Naibu Kehle
for having me over for dinner.
That was an experience for sure.
A fantastic time with a bunch of other Bitcoiners there.
So that was a good, I mean, final thing for my weird Bitcoin year here.
Fantastic year in total, I'd say.
Yeah, absolutely.
And well, I've got a huge FOMO for El Salvador.
It's awesome.
I really want to get over there.
You will one day.
Yeah, exactly.
It's a long flight.
Well, and I think to cap off the year, the last couple of months have been very interesting.
We've kind of gotten a little bit into the fork wars or the spam wars a little bit.
I think we've always been on kind of the forefront of the monetary maximalist spam isn't good kind of thing.
But that's come to a bit of a head since October with the release of Core v30.
And, well, I think both of us have just been figuring this whole thing out in our own way a little bit.
I personally was a little bit, made some posts on Twitter that got a lot of attention,
talking about the couple of fork proposals and the reasons why I like them,
even if I'm not really going all the way to the point of saying that I think we should put them in there.
For example, something that would be a clear repudiation of spam, that those things are not good and that the network could reject them.
That's what I like about them.
Well, I think it's not that it's calmed down a little bit.
This is definitely a pressing issue.
And I think over the course of 2026, both of these fork proposals are moving towards potential activation.
And they are forks.
Like, they're soft forks.
They are forks.
So it's not wrong to call them a fork, but chain split is, I think, the thing that I personally want to avoid.
I don't want there to be any kind of monetary maximalist Bitcoin and then a spam Bitcoin and see which one wins Bitcoin cash style.
I don't think that would be good for the network.
But what do you think, Knut?
Yeah, as I said, that depends entirely on what side that wins.
But still, I would prefer it if everyone saw Bitcoin as money.
And I would prefer it if people didn't do stupid shit on Bitcoin.
We've been playing like we've been sitting on different shares here, Luke.
Like we both have had part in the discussions and taking very active roles, promoting a certain point of view.
But we've also tried to be, I mean, mediators in a way, especially with a show.
I feel like, I mean, I've interviewed Mechanic and I've interviewed Merch.
I've interviewed Adam Beck and I've interviewed a lot of people.
Who was I think Chris Guida?
So we've had people from both sides, if you can even call it that on, and trying to get
a more nuanced perspective while also not compromising our core beliefs.
I mean, I am not first and foremost a podcaster.
I didn't come into Bitcoin as a podcaster.
I've figured out that I like doing that later on.
And being a podcaster and an interviewer is a completely different game than being an author,
where you just ramble your own plebslop opinions to people.
Whereas if you're doing interviews, you sort of have to be more diplomatic and listen to different ideas.
And I think both things are needed.
I intend to keep doing both and try to be or try.
I'm still going to value my integrity higher than anything else.
That's, I think, why we thought we had a market fit here.
We wanted lighthearted honesty in the Bitcoin space.
I think it's rare, and I think that's what we're providing.
And I think we do a good job at it.
And I intend to keep doing that.
And I hope that people see that that's what we're trying to do.
So, yeah.
Also, we wrapped up Independence Reimagined.
That can be mentioned, too.
That's another thing we capped off the year with.
Yes, absolutely.
And just like, I think what some people don't understand is that you can never please everyone,
right?
That's kind of what audience capture looks like if you really are going for only one specific
audience.
And there's always going to be people on any side of the spectrum who are going to get pissed off and not like what you did.
But I think especially the merch interview, just letting him tell his view of things.
There's a point to that, right?
And then if someone wants to respond or rebut, there was a talk or an invitation of doing like a debate style thing.
I don't think it's going to happen.
But I mean, I think I think the thing there, too, is that like I was I was very careful the entire time to just stick to the facts.
My perspective on things, I was I was open to corrections, especially on the technical side of things like I'm a technical person.
I have a computer science degree, all of this. Right. But yeah, I mean, I mean, the the entire the entire thing is that Bitcoin is complicated and I haven't been neck deep in the code the entire time.
It's inspired me. This whole interaction has inspired me to get better at the technical side of Bitcoin and understand it better and all this. I ended up doing a code challenge over the last month or so here. That was quite interesting. It was an entertaining little story. I don't want to spoil anything, but there's references to Craig Wright and taking through a whole bunch of scenarios like playing around with Bitcoin script and how lightning works and things like that.
So it was interesting. And I definitely have tons of respect for the Bitcoin developers, people who are working on Bitcoin on a technical level. And I want to understand that better. And I want to both marry the perspective of being a monetary maximalist and being a technically sound and correct individual in the space also.
And I think it's been my observation that this is the primary disconnect here is that people coming from kind of the more technical lean on Bitcoin, they value things in Bitcoin differently than those who are coming at it from the money side of the perspective.
And we're definitely on the money side of the equation here, 100%. But acknowledging what is technically possible and able to happen in Bitcoin is also important too.
So, yeah, that's what I've been focusing on lately.
And I've found some sort of synergies with my own fiat job, like the parallels to how my cybersecurity day job has really informed my opinions on Bitcoin and my view of things.
And I've started exploring that more.
And I've had a few posts on the topic.
And I think I'm going to continue to talk about this more and more and more.
And so I think that's going to be one of my focuses of 2026 is really exploring that angle.
That's important.
Yeah, I'm excited for whatever comes out of that.
It's like a perfect match.
Yeah.
I mean, if there's any point that I'd like to repeat about this whole debate that's been going on this year is that I think people should be happy that it's happening.
Every Bitcoiner should be happy that this war, if you want to call it that, is going on because that is good for Bitcoin.
A lot of people have done the same thing you've done, which is go deeper down the rabbit hole and deeper down both the praxeological and the computer science aspects of it and understanding more and running their own nodes, choosing what code to run and what code not to run.
Everyone should be happy that that is happening because that's the whole purpose of Bitcoin.
We are the network and we decide what it is and what it's supposed to be.
so so on the whole i'm happy that this whole thing is is happening uh complacency is in my
view the only real threat to bitcoin so yeah there's that anyway we have a ton of stuff coming
up next year where maybe we should briefly go through that before that this was sort of 2025
i think this sort of wraps this thing up also huge thank you to all of the all of our sponsors
all of our guests on the show.
We've had a whole bunch of great guests.
We had a very good fall, a lot of great guests,
and we have a lot of great ones lined up for next year as well.
So really looking forward to keep chugging along
with the Bitcoin Infinity Show.
You might next year, let's start there.
You might take a little part of the Bitcoin Infinity Show again,
like look and not stay completely out of it
as you have for the last six months.
yeah i've missed it for sure uh it's it's nice to get to talk to people and and explore things and
different perspectives and all this and so yeah we've we've 100 uh agreed that this is this is
one way to do it it's hard to get our schedules to match up exactly and so i think it keeps us
flexible to do this but yeah i think i'm going to um yeah one or two interviews a month maybe
I don't think these will be extra.
I think we'll just fit this into the schedule, but who knows?
We'll see how much we both enjoy doing episodes and how it fits with our bandwidth.
So it's all good.
Yeah.
And I think in the past when we did them together, it's sort of like, I'm David Letterman and you're the, what's he called?
The piano guy.
So you haven't sort of taken a bigger role.
I think going forward, maybe the episodes that you do join, you will definitely be in them more than there are the ones where there's only me.
I mean, you're still the producer and the brains behind this whole operation.
You're the one with the scissors cutting out all the uh-uhs that I'm doing right now, for instance.
So looking forward to doing that.
we've decided to do up until episode 210.
And after episode 210,
we'll make some sort of decision
to where the Bitcoin Infinity show
is going in the future.
We've given ourselves some time.
We're very undecided of what it turns into.
If we just keep chugging along as we have,
or if it turns into something else,
we'll see at episode 210.
It's time to evaluate the whole thing.
there's two academies coming up in 2026 the first one is of course everything divided by 21 million
my most famous book we're going through that chapter by chapter in the academy that'll be a
big thing for sure we'll have a lot of fun with that and after that uh at some time uh i think in
august or something like that we'll we'll start bitcoin the inverse of clown world which is the
the book we wrote together so that really excited for that one as well the academy has a great year
coming up and we're also due to go to a bunch of bitcoin events aren't we luke yeah i think the
ones were confirmed for are ireland prague lugano at this point btc hell again will be happening
september 25th and 26th so a little later than last year but um yeah the bigger venue and etc
so the the timing should be good we'll see we'll see which other ones we end up at
yeah first of all of course plan b forum san salvador for me then dublin and uh after dublin
oh maybe we'll go to bedford we'll see uh see if we hear anything from them there's the madrid one
in may mad bitcoins uh i'm definitely going to that one it's going to be super cool by the way
bitcoin inverso del mundo paeso the spanish translation of the inverse of clown world is
just coming out. It's done and we are to just press the buttons, I think, and then it'll be out
if it's not out already. So that is coming. I'm bringing some of that to San Salvador to begin
with, bringing some of that to Madrid. There's all already and everything divided in Spanish.
We'll keep working on the translations in the background here. What else? Yeah, I hear that
there's an infinity day party in Prospera again on Roatan, the island outside of Honduras,
The free private city there.
There was an Infinity Day party last year or this year there I might be going there I haven decided yet Pretty cool I mean comment below how you going to celebrate Bitcoin Infinity Day this year
I always love to see those, of course. So those are the big ones for, of course, the Praxeology
course in Lugano here in May or June or whenever that'll be. That's going to be great too. And I'll
be there this summer for the business school as well. So basically, we're going to keep busy,
maybe not quite to the same pace or level of innovation as last year, but maybe we'll surprise
ourselves. Who knows what could come up out of the horizon here. So very much looking forward.
And yeah, looking forward to continuing to contribute to Bitcoin and let's see where
everything goes in in 2026 2025 was was awesome absolutely insane lots of better better than i
could have imagined so love it yeah absolutely also i might record some music in 2026 i've been
saying that for a while now but i i have enough material to do something with it long-term project
and there might be other things up our sleeves as well if we had sleeves i mean wearing t-shirt
yep uh i think uh maybe it's a good time to just uh shout out our our current sponsors uh who very
graciously help us to to put this on what do you think knut yeah absolutely we can start by
mentioning bitvolt the uh that signed up with us in logano this summer a very cool swiss company
that does a time lock slash multi-sig Bitcoin security solution.
So BitVault, what is it now?
CH? Do you remember?
SV, BitVault.SV.
Sorry about that.
BitVault.SV, you can use code infinity for a discount
and sign up for their super cool Bitcoin hardcore security solution.
Yes, definitely.
And I mean, this is of course one aspect of the security stack
that I think Bitcoiners don't talk about enough.
They use time locking and other interesting things
to basically mean that if you get $5 wrench attacked,
you can appear to have sent your Bitcoin,
but you actually can still get it back,
which would be very, very nice.
And yeah, great to have them on board.
And I think what they're rolling out
is basically their subscription.
It's a service because they do have some interaction with management.
And this is, of course, always a trade-off, right?
How much do you want a third-party company involved in your personal Bitcoin stack?
But it's definitely a fantastic option if you want to increase your level of security, especially against physical attacks.
And I think they dovetail nicely with the Bitcoin Advisor, who is all about Bitcoin inheritance planning and secure multi-sig solutions, managed multi-sig solutions.
They from Australia although there are advisors from all over the world who can help you get set up with what they doing And basically they help you to set up a managed multi which has tons of uses But basically if you lose one of your keys they can help you securely move your Bitcoins to a new multi wallet and all this
And inheritance is one of the major use cases for that is that they can help your loved ones in an inheritance situation. So kind of two sides to the coin here, basically, BitVault and Bitcoin Advisor.
Yeah, absolutely. And we talked a lot about Plan B already, but they're also great, of course, where they have their business school and their developer school are now sort of merged together. So the courses, there's a mixed course where you can get both the business knowledge and the developer knowledge at the same time. So check out planb.network for more and find all the courses there.
fantastic and and then the latest one we brought on board was a club orange
timed in line for their rebrand so why don't you say a little bit more about club orange canute
yeah club orange is this is sort of a uh we've we've had them on board before and we're tightening
the the collaboration a bit this is formerly known as orange pill app where you can find
other Bitcoiners in real life through this app.
So it's not a social media app because it doesn't have a feed,
but it has a lot of other features.
Nowadays, it comes with a built-in Lightning wallet,
which has some cool new features,
not existent anywhere else, to my knowledge.
You can GeoZap, for instance,
which is when you Zap every Bitcoiner in a certain area of the world.
You can Zap the entire world if you want to.
I saw someone zap Spain the other day with some ad for the Bitcoin Madrid conference.
Mad Bitcoins, just 21 sats to everyone.
And you can attach a little message to these things.
It also has an integration with bcmap.org, one of our other favorite projects.
So you can find Bitcoin retailers and Bitcoin people around the world.
You can also share your location if you want to.
It's optional.
And see how far away other Bitcoiners are.
There's no exact positioning, of course, for security reasons,
but you can find Bitcoiners near to you.
Yeah, a bunch of cool stuff in Club Orange, absolutely.
The events thing is great nowadays, too.
Fantastic.
And last but not least, of course, is our long-term partner Bitbox.
and the Bitbox 02 Nova Edition is their latest hardware wallet.
And Bitbox is just super easy to use.
Your grandma can figure out the interface is one of the things.
I forget if they like to say it or just we like to say it,
but easy to use interface works with pretty much every other wallet out there.
And yeah, so I think for our audience,
it easiest to recommend as a gift for those who you want an orange pill But if you need another hardware wallet for any reason Bitbox is great to look that up They also got a few other things on their website
some other accessories, steel plates,
and a few other things that work with the Bitbox.
And of course, it's the Bitcoin-only firmware that we recommend,
and it's the only one that we recommend.
So check that out at bitbox.swiss slash infinity.
Yep. Do we have any more sponsors to mention?
No, not at the moment.
No, but great to have them on board.
And thanks for the support.
And thanks to you for the support.
The other thing I think to mention is that you can, on Fountain now, you can subscribe to the show and get all of our episodes one day early, ad-free.
And it's $5 a month.
They still are fiat denominated only.
Otherwise, we would have made it a Bitcoin denomination.
You can also purchase individual episodes, the ad-free version, for $1 each.
So feel free to do that.
It's all lightning enabled and all this.
Happy to be using the Value for Value Rails.
So check that out.
If you like, listen on Fountain and support us with Value for Value if you like.
And of course, you can always go to the BitcoinInfinityStore.com and check out everything that we've got.
You can buy it for sats.
You can, of course, get our books on Amazon also.
But, you know, if you want to support us with sats, spend your sats.
You can do it from BitcoinInfinityStore.com.
Anything else, Knut?
Yeah, I mean, it's denominated in fiat, but you pay in sats.
Just to make that clear.
You can also go to our Geyser fund, geyser.fund slash project slash infinity, where you can support our academy efforts directly.
There's a bunch of other perks to that.
as well. So that's coming. There's a bunch of collaborations with a bunch of other Bitcoiners
coming in 2026. Yeah, we said sponsors before. I prefer to frame it as collaborations because this
is really what we're trying to do. We're trying to live the whole notion of Bitcoiners being
incentivized to help one another with whatever we're doing. So we're just building these
connections and I think you should too. Everyone should get to know other Bitcoiners. It's a great
experience. So, I mean, do we have anything to add to that, Luke? No, I think this has been a good
look back at 2025 and look forward to 2026. Yeah, so comment below who you want to see on the show
next year. If there's anything you want us to do or bring up in the academy or whatever you want,
basically like subscribe and brush your teeth so with that said this has been the bitcoin infinity
show happy new year's everyone and see you next year see you next year