Stephan Livera

Why funding open source is NOT philanthropy with Pavlenex | SLP734 @pavlenex, Bitcoin open source contributor, joins me to discuss why funding builders matters, how open source projects evolve, and what’s new with Stratum V2 & BTCPay Server. Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (01:09) - Open source is not philanthropy (05:07) - Reaction to @MARAFoundation_’s initiative (06:40) - Stages of open source projects (11:51) - The necessity of economic incentives (16:42) - AI's impact on open source contributions (19:48) - “Upstream decisions, downstream impact” (24:33) - Open source as a complement to R&D (28:46) - Navigating corporate funding & control (31:14) - Identifying & supporting the right projects (35:56) - Directed grants vs Open grants (39:55) - The importance of supporting open source (42:41) - Updates on @StratumV2 (47:02) - Updates on @BtcpayServer (48:47) - What is the Samrock protocol for BTCPay?

Sparrow v2.5.0 released with: Silent Payments (SP) wallets SP-capable Frigate public server @2140_dev bitview.space fee rates source sparrowwallet.com/download

The importance of conviction with @sgmavinkurve of @sovanahq

Based Bezos is awesome

@Snz_BTC I'd say the SoV camp was more descriptive, not prescriptive of how it would likely play out. And remember a lot of the hurdle has been the state imposed regulations wherever bitcoin would interface with fiat rails and systems.

Blame the SOV-only camp for Bitcoins slower growth. They won. And successfully halted development of a startup ecosystem around Bitcoin in favor of wall street securities. Now merchant adoption is stalled. The SOV camps ideas was that we can initially solely focus on SOV to get rich first and then think about usage. Ironically the same haste to get rich might be its own enemy.

True

@will__mcevoy Why would I be shilling a premined shitcoin to human rights defenders?

Not the first scammers to use bitcoin, and not the last!

@GreaserRichard There's a famous pic of him licking a wrench or something

Was Andreas Antonopoulos Bitcoin's first sex symbol?

Learn how Sovana helps you get more bitcoin. This is best conversation about Sovana to date! We expected no less from the ledendary @stephanlivera. Thanks for having us.

Had the chance to highlight @sovanahq with @stephanlivera and @sgmavinkurve on this excellent discussion. Learn how Sovana helps real estate owners get more bitcoin with no money in!

Catch the show here: Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3RjSdq… Site: stephanlivera.com/736 Rumble: rumble.com/v7a0xsk-unlock… YT: youtu.be/mDIW0cXNK2M

Unlocking Bitcoin Exposure Through Real Estate | Sovana Explained | SLP736 @sgmavinkurve & @chasepalmieri from @sovanahq join me to discuss a new approach allowing property owners to gain Bitcoin exposure without selling real estate, bridging those with conviction with those who have fiat capital. (00:00) - Introduction (02:50) - The Problem with Home Equity and Bitcoin (06:38) - How Sovana Works (11:10) - What if Bitcoin is down in 5 years? (14:55) - Is this only for people who are already HODLers? (17:25) - Why TradFi can’t ignore Bitcoin anymore (19:17) - Would a 10 year period be possible in future? (26:35) - Comparing Sovana to Traditional Financing (29:05) - What about Capital Gains taxes? (32:55) - Real Estate vs. Bitcoin Performance (39:37) - Bridging the Gap: Conviction and Capital (47:55) - Closing Thoughts

Seeing the current headlines about Iran launching a Bitcoin-denominated insurance company for ships passing the Strait of Hormuz, I had some thoughts. It hits a sweet spot of Bitcoin, Insurance, and Nautical themes (basically @Anchorwatch if it were a headline on the world stage). Here are some thoughts: 1. Reserve Pool? Iran’s crypto ecosystem hit ~$7.8B in on-chain activity in 2025 (per @chainalysis), but the actual size of their bitcoin holdings is opaque. Pre-war they had ~1% of global hashrate and have been officially mining since 2018. Their current float of network block rewards still couldn’t underwrite these ships. A single loaded VLCC tanker could be worth north of $300M including both hull and oil cargo. If this were run like a real insurance company, one advantage Iran would have is the incredibly short "tail" (the window after policy issuance where a claim could be filed). Ships are only in the high-risk zone for roughly a day at most, which would allow for high capital turnover. They’d still need billions, if not $10B+ in reserves to underwrite the risk adequately. There is also huge catastrophic risk where dozens of ships under coverage could be lost all at once. It would be hard to write an insurance policy for this that excluded stuff like "war with the US" since that’s the obvious risk all market participants know about. 2. Isolated Market Iran would be the equivalent of an F-tier carrier: fully sanctioned, so no global insurance player (London, Bermuda, USA) would ever cede risk. They have to treat it as a state-run captive insurance carrier. (cc @matthewqueen84) 3. Bad Incentives There’s a misunderstanding around insurance in the Strait today. Ships have crossed while insured, but only when Iran signaled safe passage. When Iran was shooting warning shots, they froze the markets. Now they’re underwriting the ships themselves, literally acting as both the arsonist and the fireman. 4. Revenue Projections The announcement has been tied to ~$10 Billion in revenue coming from the program. With some cocktail napkin math, this works out to around $1 per barrel of oil that passes the Strait. This was the same as numbers floated previously as taxes/fees paid to Tehran for safe passage. What is interesting though is to place this in the price of an "insurance premium", which is somewhere around 0.8% of the value at risk. 5. Geopolitical Reality There is no world where the US lets Iran charge an “insurance premium” for passage when it’s just a dressed-up ransom payment. They’ll simply extend sanctions pressure and won’t let ships cross, even if they get Tehran’s blessing with an "insurance policy".

Every non-critical piece of software you know will be a weekend prompting project.

@gladstein I wonder if it's parallel to how early computers were these massive mainframes in universities and govt, then over time personal computers became more viable

Will future generations be hooked on corporate AI platforms? Or will they own their own intelligence? The time to act is now…

Buy more bitcoin than you sell.

@decentmoney2009 @_Checkmatey_ Yeah I'm thinking the same, we'll see a rise in bitcoin collateralised lending in Australia because of this change to CGT

@stephanlivera @_Checkmatey_ I wonder if the CGT change will incentivise people to not sell Bitcoin and instead leverage it as collateral on loans I assume that doesn’t count as a “disposal” that triggers a CGT event?

"Nobody actually wins under this new tax system except the government, lawyers, and accountants" - @_Checkmatey_ on this horrific new Aussie CGT rise open.substack.com/pub/checkoncha…

BREAKING: UAE discloses it’s building an additional second pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. The new pipeline will be finished in 2027 and will double the country’s export capacity in Fujairah (the current pipeline has a capacity of 1.5-1.8m b/d)

@ReserviorCap Yeah I'm still sad about the way things are going though. That's life I guess

@stephanlivera Must be glad to be out?

@_Checkmatey_ @r32a_ True they do not vote specifically for this CGT increase, but they vote for politicians who promise big welfare state and ndis scams, which necessitates either big fiat printing, high taxing or a combo.

@stephanlivera @r32a_ To be fair to Australians, they explicitly did NOT vote for this. That politicians lie is no surprise, but on this specific issue, they did run on not touching it.