The Bitcoin Layer

In this episode, Demian welcomes back Joe Consorti for a conversation on the Clarity Act and what it means for bitcoin. Joe explains the bill's three buckets, how it would separate commodities from securities and put bitcoin under the CFTC, and why he sees that as a win for investor protections rather than price. He covers why the bill has stalled in the Senate over ethics concerns, why he thinks that fight is now ideological, and why the stablecoin rails it would create make it bullish long term. Joe also covers Russia legalizing bitcoin for cross-border settlement, the jobs revisions that boxed in the Fed, and why he thinks bitcoin's low is likely in.
The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Demian welcomes back Stacie Waleyko, a bitcoin developer with the Bitcoin Dev Project, on the Coldcard entropy vulnerability and the ongoing theft of funds. Stacie explains how hardware wallets are supposed to source randomness, why affected devices fell back to a weaker software path, and why anyone with funds from a post-2021 Coldcard should move them now. She covers the suspicion that attackers used an open weight model to grind through the reduced key space, how a licensing switch removed the Trezor library that had worked, and why she now points people toward multi-vendor multisig. They also get into covenants and why she argues self custody is not dead. The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik welcomes Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Strike, for a conversation on his exit from Twenty One. Jack describes the guilt and humility of stepping away from a company whose vision he says did not work, and where Strike sits between an operating company like Coinbase and a conviction vehicle like Strategy. He shares his reaction to the Coldcard vulnerability, which he calls a horror because the victims did everything right, and why he still does not think self-custody is dead. Jack also covers the red team of AI agents now testing Strike's code, and why he calls America's AI strategy shameful next to China's open-source push.
The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik welcomes back Alex Thorn of Galaxy Research on the Coldcard key generation vulnerability and the theft that followed. Alex explains how a March 17, 2021 firmware change left the devices silently defaulting to a much weaker random number generator, a bug that went unfound for five years, and why the victims are self-custody holders who never leaked a key or made a mistake. He walks through Galaxy's on-chain tracing across three confirmed waves totaling roughly 1,350 bitcoin, or about $88 million, why the stolen coins are sitting inert, how cheap compute and open source AI models made the exploit trivial, and what Coldcard owners should consider doing now.
The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik and TBL's Demian Schatt cover a breaking security situation: a seed-generation vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets that has exposed some bitcoiners to theft, with reports of wallets being swept over the last twenty-four hours. Nik, speaking as a researcher rather than a cryptographer, explains how bitcoin seed phrases are generated, why the entropy behind a seed is what keeps it safe, and how Coldcard's default seed generation left certain users vulnerable while those who added dice-roll entropy or a passphrase are better protected. He explains why bitcoin ETF holders are not affected and why he has long favored diversified storage. The video is a call to action: check your wallet and how your seed was generated.
The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.