I speak with Dr. James Kierstead, a Research Fellow with the New Zealand Initiative focussing on higher education policy, including academic freedom.
James co-hosts Free Kiwis!, a podcast dedicated to free speech in New Zealand, and also has a background in classical studies, in particular democracy in Ancient Greece.
We talk about the declining state of New Zealand universities and the impact this has on graduates bringing their ideologies into the public sector. We also dive into the importance of language learning and, the economies of ancient Greece city states, and what we can learn from the past.
🎉 Use discount code TTOV to get 10% off your BTC Prague tickets!
https://btcprague.com/?promo_id=19708&key=8847c7d6a512fc3cbdb9abf3d64045d9
---
Connect with The Transformation of Value
X: https://x.com/TTOVpodcast
Nostr at: npub1uth29ygt090fe640skhc8l34d9s7xlwj4frxs2esezt7n6d64nwsqcmmmu
Or send an email to hello@thetransformationofvalue.com and I will get back to you!
---
Support The Transformation of Value:
Bitcoin tip address: bc1qlfcr2v73tntt6wvyp2yu064egvyeery6xtwy8t
Lightning tip address: codyellingham@getalby.com
If you send a tip please email or DM me so I can thank you!
---
Links:
James Kierstead YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Cleisthenes2
James Kierstead X - https://x.com/Kleisthenes2
The New Zealand Initiative - https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/
Free Kiwis! Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/2Qj0gocW2L2CCc8OLMM07W
Palash is an Indian Bitcoiner sharing his thoughts on how to bring Bitcoin adoption to the world’s largest democracy. We talk about the sudden demonetisation of certain cash notes by the Indian government, the new unified payment interface and Indian CBDC. Palash also discusses how households approach savings, purchasing and gifting gold, and the social roles of money.
Kishin Kato is a Japanese Bitcoiner working on various Lightning and Bitcoin education-focussed projects, and heavily involved with the Bitcoin community in Japan. We discuss some of the broad connections between Japan and New Zealand, including the state of agriculture, free trade, financial gatekeepers, as well as the emergence of different Bitcoin narratives.
Andrew Begin is Director of Marketing at Galoy, a company building Bitcoin-native banking infrastructure for organisations. We talk about Galoy’s Bitcoin projects including the open-source Blink Wallet, made popular through Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador. I learn about the vision for the product as well as its Stablesats functionality and how this work. We discuss the power of communities taking ownership of their financial infrastructure, and the opportunities for grassroots Bitcoin adoption in Africa and Latin America. Finally we talk briefly about permaculture and regenerative farming and the connections with Bitcoin thinking.
I talk with James Viggiano about recent comments made by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Not soon after we spoke, James shared a clip that went viral of the governor talking frankly about the exorbitant privilege of money printing that the central banks and governments have. James and I talk about some of the game theory from the perspective of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to defend the Kiwi Dollar and their attempts to talk down inflation, and shift the narrative even as the cost of living crisis continues. We also talk about the opportunity for what New Zealand could look like on a Bitcoin standard and how that could interface with the legacy financial system.
Brandon Bucher is a Bitcoiner based in New Zealand working on several Bitcoin-related projects and an important figure in the local Kiwi Bitcoin community. We zoom out to discuss the recent high on-chain transaction fees, and what we can expect from discussions about scaling solutions moving forward. We talk about how rough consensus works for making changes to Bitcoin and what the situation was like during the period of the Blocksize Wars and SegWit activation from 2015 to 2017. Finally we discuss the importance of education and support for self-custody of bitcoin.