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The Pregame
PubKey Media House
39 episodes
20 hours ago
Full audio recordings from our weekly X Spaces, recorded in the parlor above a PubKey. We invite our event guests to sign the wall and join us live for candid discussions about anything and everything that’s happening in Bitcoin and the world at large. You never know who might drop by!
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Technology
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All content for The Pregame is the property of PubKey Media House and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
Full audio recordings from our weekly X Spaces, recorded in the parlor above a PubKey. We invite our event guests to sign the wall and join us live for candid discussions about anything and everything that’s happening in Bitcoin and the world at large. You never know who might drop by!
Show more...
Technology
Episodes (20/39)
The Pregame
Has AI Broken the Internet? (w/ HRF & Will Casarin)

In preparation for their LIVE AT PUBKEY show downstairs, Frank Corva, Zac Guignard⁠ (Financial Freedom Content Associate at ⁠HRF⁠), and ⁠Will Casarin⁠ (founder of ⁠Damus⁠) crack open a few cold ones and pregame in the PubKey NYC Parlor, where they let loose for an UNFILTERED conversation about:


  • Yes, centralized platforms strip autonomy, but Nostr’s open protocol flips control back to the user

  • How Damus broadcasts to 100+ relays at once, making deplatforming nearly impossible

  • Why vibe coding is lowering the barrier to building decentralized apps

  • What it'll mean for our current online incentives for content to go viral without an algorithm (hint: it disrupts the entire Internet)


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PubKey meetups are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Join us to ask live questions and enjoy a pint together. Good food, bad opinions, great company.


🧡 NYC Meetups: https://luma.com/user/pubkey


🗽 PubKey NYC

🗽 85 Washington Place

🗽 New York, NY 10011


Follow us on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠

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1 week ago
41 minutes 14 seconds

The Pregame
What's the Final Boss of Bitcoin? (w/ HRF & Jorge Jraissati)

Thomas Pacchia and Jorge Jraissati (Venezuelan activist and president of the Economic Inclusion Group) crack open a few cold ones and pregame in the PubKey NYC Parlor, where they let loose for an UNFILTERED conversation about:


  • How Jorge's fight for financial inclusion led to building a pro-Bitcoin advocacy group in Washington
  • Why the Bank Secrecy Act (and the ways it enables financial surveillance and censorship) is the real “final boss” for Bitcoiners
  • The quiet alliance between big banks and regulators that keeps reform off-limits while crushing small businesses and human rights groups
  • How the same AML laws used to fight crime are weaponized against dissidents (and give foreign governments access to Americans’ PRIVATE data)
  • The definitive argument on why Bitcoiners must engage in politics


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PubKey meetups are FREE and PUBLIC. Join us to ask live questions, engage with experts, and enjoy a pint together:


🗽 PubKey NYC

🗽 85 Washington Place

🗽 New York, NY 10011


🧡 https://www.meetup.com/pubkey-meetups/events/

🧡 https://luma.com/user/pubkey


Catch the next livestream on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠

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2 weeks ago
49 minutes 59 seconds

The Pregame
OpenAI Can't Save You (w/ CK, Matt Ahlborg, & Kyle Olney)

In preparation for their Live at PubKey show downstairs, Christian "CK" Keroles, Matt Ahlborg, and Kyle Olney (with host Thomas Pacchia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) crack open a few cold ones and pregame in the PubKey NYC Parlor, where they let loose for an UNFILTERED conversation about:


  • Why Tether adoption in Argentina exploded while Bitcoin lagged behind
  • The problem with centralized AI APIs
  • Why OpenAI’s success mirrors Stripe’s (but who really controls the Internet?)
  • How PayPerQ could reshape AI access for activists, educators, and anyone sick of SaaS models
  • Bitcoin's cultural split: is it still a tool for dissidents, or has it gone full TradFi?


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PubKey meetups are FREE and PUBLIC. Join us to ask live questions, engage with experts, and enjoy a pint together:


🗽 PubKey NYC

🗽 85 Washington Place

🗽 New York, NY 10011


🧡 https://www.meetup.com/pubkey-meetups/events/

🧡 https://luma.com/user/pubkey


Catch the next livestream on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠

Show more...
1 month ago
47 minutes 50 seconds

The Pregame
Who's Afraid of Bitcoin? (w/ Max Keiser & Stacy Herbert)

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert pre-game at the PubKey NYC Parlor (with hosts Thomas Pacchia and Mike Germano) in preparation for their LIVE AT PUBKEY show downstairs. They let loose for an unfiltered, beer-fueled conversation about:

  • How Max’s early Wall Street failures, stand-up gigs, and film sets converged into his Bitcoin origin story
  • Why punk rock and NYC “asshole culture” are the real foundation of Bitcoin maximalism
  • Stacy’s reflections on cultural power, media collapse, and why El Salvador is the new Florence
  • The curse of soft men, the IMF, and what it'll take to fix the broken Western elite (yes, Bitcoiners may need a little more testosterone)


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Catch the next Pre-game livestream by following us on X: ⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠⁠⁠

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1 month ago
47 minutes 12 seconds

The Pregame
PRE-GAMING (w/ Quoth the Raven & Matt Kita)

Quoth the Raven pre-games at the NYC Parlor with Thomas Pacchia and Matt Kita in preparation for his LIVE AT PUBKEY show downstairs. They let loose for an unfiltered, beer-fueled conversation about:

  • Quoth the Raven's journey from disillusioned English major to bartender to short-seller... to accidental Bitcoin convert
  • Why the Fed is cornered the U.S. fiscal outlook is “beyond repair,” leaving most market participants due for a brutal reckoning
  • What the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad campaign says about the state of the nation
  • Why Bitcoin works not despite its culture, but because of it (“tattooed freaks,” dive bars, and all)


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Catch the next Pre-game livestream by following us on X: ⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠⁠⁠

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3 months ago
35 minutes 30 seconds

The Pregame
How AI Unlocks Free Speech Social Media (w/ HRF & Alex Gleason)

Thomas Pacchia sits down for a livestreamed chat in the PubKey Parlor with Alex Li (Bitcoin development lead at the Human Rights Foundation) and Alex Gleason (currently Soapbox, formerly ex-Head of Engineering at Truth Social). They discuss:


  • Why Nostr's keypair system makes it more secure than Twitter (or even Mastodon)

  • How Alex Gleason’s open-source software got co-opted by Truth Social, and how he discovered Trump Media wasn't TRULY interested in free speech

  • The massive vulnerabilities in Bluesky’s architecture and why it’s still “fake decentralization”

  • How AI is unlocking creative potential for both activists and developers on the frontlines of freedom tech

  • Why Bitcoin is still the glue that holds it all together... and why we need “freedom go up” alongside number go up


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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠⁠⁠

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3 months ago
54 minutes 22 seconds

The Pregame
What's the 2025 Bitcoin Meta? (w/ Alex Leishman)

Thomas Pacchia⁠⁠ and ⁠Drew Armstrong⁠ sit down for a livestreamed chat in the PubKey parlor with ⁠⁠Alex Leishman⁠⁠ (CEO and CTO of ⁠River⁠). They discuss:


  • Why River prioritizes operational excellence over financial engineering
  • How states like Ohio and cities like Roswell, NM are quietly becoming pro-Bitcoin
  • Why the rise of Bitcoin treasury companies could create systemic risks (and how River’s approach differs from the $MSTR playbook )
  • Whether "paper Bitcoin" is a threat among custodians like Coinbase

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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠⁠

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4 months ago
50 minutes 9 seconds

The Pregame
The Importance of Bitcoin Culture (w/ Peter & Conor McCormack)

Thomas Pacchia⁠ and Mike Germano sit down for a livestreamed chat in the PubKey parlor with ⁠Peter McCormack⁠ and his son ⁠Conor⁠, the father-son duo behind Real Bedford FC. They discuss:


  • How buying an F-tier football team accidentally became a Bitcoin branding masterstroke
  • What it takes to build a winning squad while orange-pilling a town in real time
  • Why Bedford might become the first truly Bitcoin-native city
  • The challenges of stacking sats, managing payroll, and selling out stadiums without fiat crutches
  • How Real Bedford balances serious football ambition with a global internet cult following


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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠

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4 months ago
49 minutes 48 seconds

The Pregame
The OP_RETURN Limit Debate (w/ Antoine Poinsot , ArbedOut, & American HODL)

Thomas Pacchia and Drew Armstrong sit down for a livestreamed chat in the PubKey parlor with ⁠Antoine Poinsot⁠ and ⁠ArbedOut⁠. Partway through, ⁠American HODL⁠ joins the table to stir the pot. They discuss:


  • What really caused the OP_RETURN firestorm, and why it’s about more than just inscriptions

  • How the push for more data storage is creating incentives for harmful workarounds and network bloat

  • Why Bitcoin Knots is no longer “just a slightly modified Core," and why that should concern you

  • The tension between “community values” and miner incentives in the age of alternate implementations

  • The uncomfortable legacy of mempool policy: from anti-spam fixes to today’s shadow consensus

  • BONUS: the French idiom that perfectly captures why decentralized decision-making is so hard


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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠

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4 months ago
35 minutes 23 seconds

The Pregame
The Bitcoin Las Vegas 2025 Recap (w/ Frank Corva)

The team is back from Bitcoin 2025 and the Oslo Freedom Forum! Thomas Pacchia hosts a packed post-conference debrief with Mike Germano, Drew Armstrong, and Frank Corva to break down what went down in Las Vegas and Oslo:

  • What ACTUALLY happened behind-the-scenes at the Bitcoin Conference
  • Why corporate treasury strategies dominated this year’s Bitcoin conference
  • What it means when Bitcoin miners start acting like MicroStrategy
  • Why some fear the next crash will be triggered by the new wave of public BTC holders
  • How Pubkey’s Oslo Freedom Forum after-parties helped activists decompress
  • Why Vegas felt like Bitcoin’s Madison Square Garden moment… and whether that’s a good thing

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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠⁠

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5 months ago
47 minutes 25 seconds

The Pregame
From Louis Vuitton to Ledger (w/ Ian Rogers)

Thomas Pacchia and Mike Germano sit down for a livestreamed chat with ⁠Ian Rogers⁠, who went from managing the Beastie Boys’ digital presence to running Beats Music, building luxury tech at LVMH, and now pushing self-custody mainstream as Chief Experience Officer at Ledger. They discuss:

  • What the Beastie Boys taught Ian about decentralization LONG before Bitcoin

  • How iTunes reshaped digital commerce (and what it got wrong)

  • Why Louis Vuitton made him rethink scarcity, status, and what it means to “own” something

  • How Ledger is designing hardware wallets for the next 100 million users

  • Why streetwear, skating, and Bitcoin all thrive on earned identity, not marketing

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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠

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5 months ago
58 minutes 45 seconds

The Pregame
The Non-Profit MSTR (w/ HRF & Alex Gladstein)

Thomas Pacchia sits down for a livestreamed chat with Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. They discuss:


  • How HRF became an early Bitcoin-native organization (yes, even before Strategy)

  • The hidden power of activist-developer collisions at the Oslo Freedom Forum

  • Why authoritarian regimes (like North Korea) embracing Bitcoin might actually accelerate their collapse

  • The plan to bring open-source AI tools to human rights defenders and keep them out of OpenAI and Worldcoin's hands

  • ... and what scaling really means for Bitcoin’s next 100 million users


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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey

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5 months ago
56 minutes 37 seconds

The Pregame
Stateless, Exiled, Still Fighting (w/ HRF & Berta Valle)

Berta Valle, a Nicaraguan journalist and vocal critic of the Daniel Ortega regime, joins Arsh Molu (Financial Freedom at the Human Rights Foundation) and Thomas Pacchia for a live-streamed chat in the PubKey Parlor, where they dive deep into:


  • How Berta’s husband Félix Maradiaga went from professor to political prisoner

  • The moment her family lost access to all their savings overnight

  • How Nicaraguan police used banking data to hunt journalists and dissidents

  • How exiled Nicaraguans are using freedom tech like to stay connected and fed

  • The terrifying legal trap of being declared stateless (and what it means for families)

  • A daughter's letter that helped free her father from solitary confinement


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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠

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6 months ago
42 minutes 42 seconds

The Pregame
We Shall Overcome (w/ HRF & Evan Mawarire)

Evan Mawarire, a Zimbabwean pastor-turned activist who led a peaceful uprising against dictator Robert Mugabe, joins Ayelen Osorio of the Human Rights Foundation, Femi Longe, and Thomas Pacchia for a live-streamed chat in the PubKey Parlor, where they dive deep into:


  • The chilling story of Zimbabwe’s $100 trillion banknote—and what it felt like to hold worthless money
  • How Evan’s citizen movement started with a four-minute video and grew into a national protest
  • What it’s like to watch your parents’ $80,000 life savings disappear overnight
  • How Zimbabweans survive when their government zeros out their bank accounts without warning
  • The underground networks and WhatsApp groups people use to find fuel, food, and basic necessities
  • Why Bitcoin and freedom tech matter in countries where the financial system is weaponized against the people


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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠


Recorded on April 3rd, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

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7 months ago
1 hour 3 minutes 14 seconds

The Pregame
How to Orange Pill the Police (w/ John Dennehy)

Frank Corva (political correspondent at Bitcoin Magazine) and John Dennehy (founder of My First Bitcoin) join Daniel Modell for a live-streamed chat in the PubKey Parlor, where they dive deep into:


  • The insane story of how John was detained by Salvadoran police—and how he got out of it

  • How My First Bitcoin went from one classroom to 25 countries without VC money or corporate sponsorship

  • Why Bitcoin education is still stuck in “step zero” (and what it 'll take to move beyond it)

  • The tension between Bitcoin adoption as a top-down state project versus a bottom-up liberation tool


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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠


Recorded on March 31st, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

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7 months ago
1 hour 11 minutes 26 seconds

The Pregame
Who Will Build the Roads? (w/ 1A1z)

Dan O’Prey and Mas Nakachi join Daniel Modell for a live-streamed chat in the PubKey Parlor, where they discuss ​1A1z's recent reports covering both the organizations that fund Bitcoin core devs and VC firms focused on Bitcoin companies. They dive into:


  • Why are there only 41 people maintaining a trillion-dollar network—and who’s paying them?

  • What happens when the most important software in the world runs on a shoestring budget?

  • The quiet role of Jack Dorsey and a handful of anonymous benefactors... and how normal people can be even more impactful

  • Why Bitcoin’s biggest security risk might be a spreadsheet no one’s looking at

  • The bizarre funding gap between flashy altcoin projects and Bitcoin companies

  • What the VC world still doesn’t get about Bitcoin and everyday users—and how that might be changing


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    Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: ⁠https://x.com/PubKey⁠


    Recorded on March 20th, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

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7 months ago
43 minutes 22 seconds

The Pregame
Humanity Deserves Bitcoin (w/ Trace Mayer)

Thomas Pacchia sits down for a livestreamed chat with Trace Mayer, one of Bitcoin's earliest advocates.

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Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: https://x.com/PubKey

Recorded on March 19th, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

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7 months ago
55 minutes 50 seconds

The Pregame
I Want Security (w/ Nick Neuman)

Frank Corva (political correspondent at Bitcoin Magazine) and ⁠Nick Neuman⁠ (CEO of ⁠Casa⁠) join Daniel Modell for a live-streamed chat in the PubKey Parlor, where they dive deep into:


  • How the US suddenly woke up to Bitcoin’s strategic value
  • Why the government may not even know where all its seized crypto is stored
  • Lessons from nuclear stockpiles, Fort Knox, and even cheese reserves (yes, really)
  • The risks of custodianship vs. self-custody for a national Bitcoin reserve
  • Why time locks, multi-sig, and "vaulting" could save the US from catastrophic loss
    • How this moment could reshape Bitcoin development priorities... and what Casa is watching closely


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    Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: https://x.com/PubKey

    Recorded on March 13th, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

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    7 months ago
    58 minutes 42 seconds

    The Pregame
    A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin (w/ HRF & Jason Maier)

    Jason Maier (author of A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin) and Zac Guignard⁠ (Human Rights Foundation Research Associate) join Daniel Modell for a live-streamed chat in the PubKey Parlor, where they dive deep into:



    • How a single $20 purchase (and a wave of paranoia) sparked Jason’s obsession

    • The moment Jason knew Bitcoin's optics had a long way to go

    • Why progressives misunderstand Bitcoin, and how Jason is working to bridge that gap

    • The risk of Bitcoin becoming a single-party issue, and the fight to keep it politically independent

    • Why Bitcoin adoption will be won by reaching people who don’t know they need it yet
    • How Jason’s own wife became a Bitcoin advocate

    • A clear-eyed take on the Trump-era Bitcoin pump, and why Bitcoiners need to keep their long-term vision sharp


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    Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: https://x.com/PubKey


    Recorded on March 6th, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

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    8 months ago
    54 minutes 28 seconds

    The Pregame
    Never Sell, Borrow (w/ Max Kei, Sean Bill, & Adam Back)

    A livestreamed discussion on Bitcoin loans and institutional adoption with Max Kei (CEO Debifi), Sean Bill (CIO Blockstream), and Adam Back (CEO Blockstream).

    Debifi⁠ is building bitcoin-backed lending with their "Never sell. Borrow." mindset—helping you access liquidity without letting go of your sats.

    ⁠Blockstream⁠ is building the backbone of a bitcoin-powered future, from the Liquid Network to Lightning and beyond.

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    Catch the next Spaces by following us on X: https://x.com/PubKey

    Recorded on February 26th, 2025 at PubKey NYC.

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    8 months ago
    55 minutes 9 seconds

    The Pregame
    Full audio recordings from our weekly X Spaces, recorded in the parlor above a PubKey. We invite our event guests to sign the wall and join us live for candid discussions about anything and everything that’s happening in Bitcoin and the world at large. You never know who might drop by!