In this episode of the Hell Money Podcast, we sit down with Adam Krellenstein — Counterparty’s co‑founder and longtime lead maintainer — for a tour of Bitcoin’s formative years and the ideas shaping its future. Adam revisits the birth of XCP, explains why he walked away a decade ago, and describes what dragged him back into the codebase. Along the way we tackle the perennial question: What is Bitcoin for? Is embedding data on‑chain an evolutionary feature or a contagion best off‑loaded to sidechains? And if you aren't buying your daily coffee with BTC, has Satoshi’s dream failed, or merely evolved?We explore:- Counterparty’s origin story- Early Bitcoin dev culture- OP_RETURN drama, Blockstream’s sidechain vision & the data‑bloat dilemma- Whether Bitcoin is prepared for sophisticated political actors- Counterparty culture & NFTs- Adam’s decade‑long hiatus: burnout, philosophy of nature & why he’s back- What's next for BitcoinFOLLOW ADAM: https://x.com/agkrellensteinGet bonus content by subscribing to @hellmoneypod on X: https://x.com/hellmoneypod/creator-subscriptions/subscribeOr support the podcast by sending a BTC donation: bc1qztncp7lmcxdgude4px2vzh72p2yu2aud0eyzys ORDINALS PROTOCOL SHIRT: https://shop.inscribing.com/products/ordinals-protocol-shirtTIMESTAMPS0:00 The beginning of Counterparty17:30 Worse is better development24:15 Early Bitcoin dev culture32:05 OP_RETURN & Bitcoin core devs38:05 Blockstream & sidechains, storing data on Bitcoin45:15 Bitcoin is unprepared for sophisticated political actors54:55 Counterparty culture & NFTs1:00:30 Adam's departure from Counterparty1:08:00 Philosophy of Nature1:19:00 Returning to open source development1:36:00 What's next for Bitcoin?

We sat down with Carl Dong — former Bitcoin Core contributor, now founder of Obscura VPN focused on real-world censorship resistance.

In this episode, we dive into:

- Why Carl walked away from Bitcoin Core development to tackle privacy head-on

- What sets Obscura apart from other VPNs

- Lessons from the Great Firewall and routing traffic through hostile networks

- Chinese numerology

- Carl & Casey's long and storied shared history

FOLLOW CARL: https://x.com/carl_dong

Get bonus content by subscribing to @hellmoneypod on X: https://x.com/hellmoneypod/creator-subscriptions/subscribe

Or support the podcast by sending a BTC donation: bc1qztncp7lmcxdgude4px2vzh72p2yu2aud0eyzys

ORDINALS PROTOCOL SHIRT: https://shop.inscribing.com/products/ordinals-protocol-shirt

TIMESTAMPS

:0:00 Intro & Carl's journey to Bitcoin development

11:59 Hard problems in Bitcoin

16:00 Binaries, compliers, and reproducible builds

37:30 Transitioning from Bitcoin core to working on Obscura VPN

1:05:00 Advice for current Bitcoin core contributors

1:10:00 Ordinals numerology

1:39:00 Outro

While Bitcoin 2025 and Inscribing Vegas lit up the Strip, we camped out with a mic and grabbed the builders behind the biggest moves in Ordinals. Episode #1 from Sin City features Nick Sainato —Gamma Co‑Founder, now debuting Signals.art, the platform out to kill the NFT whitelist grind and give everyone a social credit score.We dive into:- Whitelist grind culture & inefficiencies in the market- Price discovery and go-to-market strategies for NFTs- Signals.art walkthrough- Early Ordinals lore & Nick's origin storyFOLLOW NICK: https://x.com/nicksainatoFOLLOW SIGNALS: https://x.com/signalsartCLAIM 300 BARS ON SIGNALS.ART WITH CODE "#HMP": https://signals.art/Get bonus content by subscribing to @hellmoneypod on X: https://x.com/hellmoneypod/creator-subscriptions/subscribeOr support the podcast by sending a BTC donation: bc1qztncp7lmcxdgude4px2vzh72p2yu2aud0eyzys ORDINALS PROTOCOL SHIRT: https://shop.inscribing.com/products/ordinals-protocol-shirtTIMESTAMPS:0:00 Intro & Inscribing Vegas review8:55 Signals.art & where we're at in the market14:00 Fixing the whitelist grind18:30 What is Signals?29:00 Clearing price auction price discovery38:10 Signals is chain-agnostic41:00 Pricing psychology52:00 Mint behavior59:00 Signals walkthrough1:08:15 Nick Sainato origin story1:18:15 Early Ordinals lore1:25:50 Outro