Mischa

A good beginner video for people who have not yet deeply looked into the fundamental reasons why some want to create a fork of Bitcoin. @Matthew Kratter

Strong interview with very interesting points.The fact that financial service providers must always chase higher returns just to keep capital, otherwise it moves to competitors, makes you question whether this system has any real winners. In the end, it feels like there are only two options: no money at all, or money based on debt and controlled through debt. Bitcoin finally offers a way out of this. Thank you, Peter. It’s clear that you truly want to make things better and that you are actively working toward change.

The Peter McCormack Show • #139 - Simon Dixon - How the Financial-Industrial Complex Runs the World • Listen on Fountain

Western politics appears chaotic - broken states, endless debt and permanent crisis. Simon Dixon argues it isn't chaos at all, it's structure. In t...

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Strong interview with very interesting points.The fact that financial service providers must always chase higher returns just to keep capital, otherwise it moves to competitors, makes you question whether this system has any real winners. In the end, it feels like there are only two options: no money at all, or money based on debt and controlled through debt. Bitcoin finally offers a way out of this. Thank you, Peter. It’s clear that you truly want to make things better and that you are actively working toward change.

Fountain

What Bitcoin Did • Only Bitcoin Can Stop Government Corruption | Peter McCormack • Listen on Fountain

Peter McCormack is back on the show for a conversation on power, the state of the UK, and why the system is broken. We get into how debt, inflation...

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The fiat monetary system is inherently unstable and can only function if it is continuously supported and steered by intervention. Interest rates, liquidity injections, bailouts, war and regulation are not exceptions but structural requirements. Without these interventions, the system collapses. If market shrinks, debt cant be payed back and the system collapses. That is the core problem. Every structural weakness produces crises, and every crisis is used to justify further intervention. These interventions inevitably concentrate power. Not because of moral failure, but because managing problems always creates hierarchies. Actors who gain advantages through special privileges force others to adapt. Those who refuse lose competitiveness, access to capital, and influence. Bitcoin escapes this logic. It requires no political intervention, no bailouts, and no special rules. It operates without central control and without privileged access. That is why we need Bitcoin. It enables, a truly free market with fixed rules that are not stabilized by power.

Bitcoin is not an investment product. It is a rule set. If you don’t run your own node, you accept someone else’s rules. If you accept someone else’s rules, you are not using Bitcoin. You are using a representation of it. Changes like those in Bitcoin Core v30 are not minor details. Policy is power. Whoever controls policy influences usage. Running a node is not a hobby. It is responsibility. No nodes, no sovereignty. No sovereignty, no Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Lightning payments have something special about them: your own coins on your own server, payment in seconds, near-zero fees and the product still arrives at your door as usual. The flow feels familiar, but the feeling is different: direct, private, with no middleman taking a cut.

Bitcoin works because humanity as a whole creates the most value. The chain with the strongest economic incentives attracts the most miners, gets most hashrate, and therefore becomes Bitcoin. Long term, Bitcoin is a collective decision: It is whatever people choose to store value in. That’s why it must be protected early. Money and power is concentrated today, and Bitcoin must remain decentralized until power is decentralized again.

Why a restrictive consensus fork can gain traction even without explicit miner support. One of the main reasons this could work lies in the asymmetry of consensus rules. The current rules are broader, while the fork tightens consensus. A block that follows the fork rules is valid on the current chain, while a block that follows the current rules may be invalid on the fork. This creates a situation we have never seen in Bitcoin before. Before the fork actually happens, once the rules of the potential fork are in effect, a miner can choose to mine blocks that are accepted on both chains. By doing so, the miner earns rewards on both sides, avoids the risk of mining on the wrong chain, and retains the option to later sell coins on one chain after the fork while keeping exposure to the other. If a miner instead produces blocks that are valid only under the current rules, a chain split occurs and the miner earns rewards on only one chain. Up to this point, there is a clear economically dominant strategy: following the stricter rules minimizes risk and preserves optionality. As long as it is not completely clear which side would ultimately prevail, there is no economically rational incentive for a miner to take the first step and realize the chain split. Triggering the split would forfeit optionality and introduce asymmetric risk. Once the split actually occurs, this dominance disappears. From that moment on, the outcome remains uncertain at first, and miners can no longer rely on a risk-free strategy. They must instead estimate future fees, liquidity, and market value, and choose accordingly. In my view, this makes the initial activation of the fork economically unattractive, unless expected fees or external incentives become large enough to compensate for the added risk. As a result, it is entirely plausible that miners will voluntarily align with the fork’s stricter rules even without an explicit chain split.