Curio Cards
Card #1 "Apples" by Phneep — the first art NFT minted on Ethereum
Type	NFT art collection
Blockchain	Ethereum
Launched	May 9, 2017
Founders	Thomas Hunt, Travis Uhrig, Rhett Creighton
Artists	7
Cards	30 (+1 misprint)
Total supply	29,700
Contract	Modified ERC-20
Website	curio.cards

Curio Cards are non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Created in 2017 as an online art gallery, the project is recognized as the first collection of NFT artworks on Ethereum.^[1] Curio Cards were developed by Thomas Hunt, Travis Uhrig, and Rhett Creighton, and launched on May 9, 2017.^[2] The collection features 30 unique digital images by seven different artists, with a total supply of 29,700 cards.

In October 2021, a complete set including the digital misprint "17b" was sold at Christie's Post-War to Present auction for $1,267,320 (393 ETH), purchased by Taylor Gerring, an early contributor to the Ethereum project.^[3]

History

The concept for Curio Cards emerged from the San Francisco Bitcoin meetup scene in early 2017. Thomas Hunt, a Bitcoin content creator known as Mad Bitcoins, had long been a collector of baseball cards and Magic: The Gathering cards. In a 2017 interview with Bitcoin.com, Hunt explained: "I've always been a collector... I thought, why not combine my love for cryptocurrency with my love for collecting and make something fun."^[4]

Hunt and software developer Travis Uhrig recognized that Rare Pepes, a meme-NFT project on Counterparty (built atop Bitcoin), had technical limitations and was associated with controversial imagery. They envisioned a platform for legitimate digital art on Ethereum. To build the smart contracts, they recruited Rhett Creighton, a former child actor and MIT-educated nuclear engineer whom they had met through the San Francisco Bitcoin meetup group.^[5]

Creighton initially proposed creating a dedicated Ethereum fork for the cards, but Uhrig argued this would leave the project "orphaned" on its own chain. They remained on the public Ethereum blockchain, a decision that would prove crucial to the project's long-term significance.^[6]

The "Three Parents"

In a 2021 interview, Travis Uhrig described Curio Cards as having "three parents" — three distinct influences that shaped the project's DNA:

• Rare Pepe — The early collectible art project on Bitcoin's Counterparty platform provided the direct inspiration for creating art-based blockchain collectibles and demonstrated that artists could monetize digital work through tokens.
• Bitcoin Art Shows — Uhrig and his colleagues had organized Bitcoin art shows and a Bitcoin craft show prior to Curio Cards, establishing a community of artists creating crypto-themed work and demonstrating demand for art tied to cryptocurrency culture.
• Doge — The Dogecoin community's irreverent, fun-first philosophy shaped the project's tone. Uhrig wanted Curio Cards to be "very low stress, very chill," in deliberate contrast to the serious, stock-certificate-like aesthetic of contemporary ICO projects. The original website was built on Blogger to keep things simple, and the project's mascot was Curio the raccoon with an infinity symbol around its eyes.

This combination — collectible art mechanics from Rare Pepe, community from the art shows, and playfulness from Doge — produced a project modeled on baseball cards and trading card games rather than financial instruments.^[12]

Technical innovations

Curio Cards introduced several technical innovations that later became foundational to the NFT ecosystem. Because no NFT standards (such as ERC-721 or ERC-1155) existed in May 2017, Creighton hand-coded the smart contracts using a modified ERC-20 token structure. Each card series functioned as its own fungible token contract with a finite supply, creating what the founders called "digital prints."^[7]

Key innovations included: purchasing artwork directly from a smart contract (the "vending machine" model); embedding IPFS hashes into the contract for decentralized image storage; and using non-divisible tokens in finite supply. According to NFT historian Adam McBride, Curio Cards was the first project to use IPFS for NFT storage, and the links remained active four years later when the cards were rediscovered.^[6]

Curio Cards is directly referenced in the ERC-721 EIP specification, the standard that would later define how NFTs work on Ethereum. The two most popular NFT standards (ERC-721 and ERC-1155) share many design elements with Curio Cards.^[7]

The 17b misprint

During deployment, something went wrong while Creighton was creating the contract for Card #17, requiring him to reissue the card. The original became known as "17b," a digital misprint that was briefly available before the contract was disabled. A small number of 17b cards were acquired by early users, making it one of the rarest items in the collection.^[6]

The wrapper

Because Curio Cards pre-dated modern NFT standards, they could not be listed on platforms like OpenSea. In March 2021, a "wrapper" was developed to make the old ERC-20 contracts compatible with the ERC-1155 standard. The first rushed third-party wrapper had a fatal bug: tokens sent to it became permanently stuck ("permawrapped"), making Card #26 the rarest tradeable card with only 105 remaining in circulation.^[6]

Artists and cards

The original 30-card set featured work from seven artists, each bringing a distinct visual style:

• Phneep — Created Cards 1–9 and 17, including the iconic "Apples" (Card #1) and the "Art Story Set" (Cards 7–9) depicting the evolution of art from prehistoric forms to masterworks. Phneep collaborated extensively with Hunt on the conceptual framework.
• Cryptograffiti — A pioneer in Bitcoin-themed street art. Created Cards 10–13, bridging physical crypto art culture with digital collectibles.
• Cryptopop (Luis Buenaventura) — Created Cards 17–19, collectively featuring crypto culture themes. Card #17 (UASF) marked Bitcoin's User Activated Soft Fork, Card #18 (Dogs Trading) depicted dogs playing poker with hidden cryptocurrency references, and Card #19 (To The Moon) captured the iconic crypto phrase. Buenaventura's style brought meme sensibility to on-chain art.
• Phneep — Also created Cards 14–16 (the corporate logo mashup series: CryptoCurrency, DigitalCash, OriginalCoin) and Card #20 (Mad Bitcoins), a portrait of Thomas Hunt as James Bond — the first portrait on Ethereum and a Patreon-style creator funding experiment.
• Robek World — Created Cards 21–23: The Wizard (#21, representing Thomas Hunt), The Bard (#22, representing Travis Uhrig — the only card with the number on the right side), and The Barbarian (#23, representing Rhett Creighton — possibly the first animated NFT, limited to a 2-frame GIF due to 2017 technical constraints). Robek originally proposed pixel art with a holographic overlay but was told the technology could not support it. His cards were the first to sell out, and he created the only promotional commercial ever made for Curio Cards — a Gauntlet-style RPG video that may now be lost.^[9]
• Daniel Friedman — A researcher in entomology whose hand-drawn physical artwork was shared via Flickr before being discovered by the founders. Created Cards 24–26 (Complexity, Passion, Education) with deliberately decreasing supply: 333, 222, and 111. Card #26 Education is the rarest card in the collection, with only 106 copies actively circulating.^[10]
• Marisol Vengas (Max Infeld) — A pseudonym for Chico, California-based artist Max Infeld, whose identity was revealed during the 2021 rediscovery. Created Cards 27–29 (Blue, Pink, Yellow) as a collectively-produced fine art series. Real photographs of buildings overlaid with foliage, created through a community algorithm at local coffee shops where strangers collaborated on the physical artwork. The original physical Yellow piece received a private offer of over $1 million.^[11]
• Thoros of Myr — The pseudonymous artist of Card #30 ("Eclipse"), the final card in the set.

Card gallery

#1 Apples

#10 Future

#17 UASF

#20 MadBitcoins

#21 The Wizard

#22 The Bard

#23 Barbarian

#30 Eclipse

Rediscovery and NFT boom

After the 2017 cryptocurrency crash, Curio Cards was largely forgotten. The founders tried to run it as a startup business, but as Uhrig later recalled, he "could barely give the virtual cards away on a Discord channel."^[6] The smart contracts holding the cards sat dormant on the blockchain for nearly four years.

In March 2021, as the NFT market exploded, a group of "NFT archaeologists" — collectors searching for the oldest tokens on Ethereum — rediscovered Curio Cards. Critical to the verification process were timestamped video archives from the World Crypto Network, where Hunt had interviewed the founders during the 2017 launch week. These videos served as definitive proof that Curio Cards predated CryptoPunks (launched June 23, 2017) as an art NFT project.^[2]

Adam McBride, one of the key archaeologists, described the experience: "The idea of having a failed business and then magically four years later it becomes successful is just impossible. And it actually happened to these guys."^[2]

Christie's auction

On October 1, 2021, a complete collection of 31 Curio Cards (including the 17b misprint) was sold at Christie's Post-War to Present auction in New York for $1,267,320 (393 ETH). The buyer was Taylor Gerring, an early contributor to the Ethereum project.^[3] The sale represented a milestone for both the project and the broader NFT art market, establishing Curio Cards as a "blue-chip" historical asset alongside CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs.

Arctic preservation

As part of the GitHub Arctic Code Vault program, the open-source code for the Curio Cards smart contracts was included in a snapshot taken on February 2, 2020. This data was written onto 186 reels of digital photosensitive silver halide film and deposited 250 meters deep into the permafrost of a decommissioned coal mine in Svalbard, Norway, within the Arctic World Archive. The foundational code for all 30 Curio Cards, including Card #21 (Mad Bitcoins), is now preserved alongside works from the Vatican Library, intended to survive for at least 1,000 years.^[8]

References

1. Curio Cards — Wikipedia
2. Howcroft, E. (2021). "A 'historic' NFT collection is on sale at Christie's." Quartz.
3. Christie's Post-War to Present Auction, October 2021.
4. Thomas Hunt Interview — Bitcoin.com, 2017.
5. "The Story Behind the First Art NFT" — Start With NFTs.
6. Castor, A. (2022). "The early history of NFTs, part 3: Curio Cards." Amy Castor.
7. Curio Cards Documentation — Official docs.
8. GitHub Archive Program — Arctic Code Vault.
9. Curio DAO on Medium — Founder profiles and history.
10. Curio Cards — IQ.wiki.
11. "Exploring the Rarest and Most Popular Curio Cards" — nft now.
12. Travis Uhrig (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #2: Travis Uhrig Interview". World Crypto Network.

Thomas Hunt, widely known by his online identity associated with Mad Bitcoins, is an American Bitcoin commentator, media personality, and one of the founding voices of the World Crypto Network (WCN). He is best known as the host and moderator of The Bitcoin Group (TBG), a long-running panel discussion program covering cryptocurrency news and analysis. Hunt appeared in 480 episodes of TBG, from episode 2 through episode 485, making him the most consistently present figure in the show's history.

Background and Mad Bitcoins

Hunt introduced himself on TBG's earliest episodes as representing Mad Bitcoins, the platform and identity under which he built his early presence in the Bitcoin media space. The exact founding date of Mad Bitcoins is not documented in available sources, but by the time of TBG #2 — one of the show's earliest recorded episodes — Hunt was already operating as a recognizable commentator in Bitcoin media circles, alongside figures such as Andreas Antonopoulos of Let's Talk Bitcoin.

Role on The Bitcoin Group

As host of The Bitcoin Group, Hunt served primarily as moderator and discussion architect. Each episode followed a structured format of numbered issues — typically four per episode — on which Hunt would solicit panelist opinions before offering his own commentary and posing exit questions. His approach was conversational and Socratic, frequently building on panelists' points, offering counterarguments, or synthesizing disparate views to move discussion forward.

In TBG #2, Hunt assembled a panel including Antonopoulos, Dovey Barker of Bitcoin.bombs.com, and Derek J. Freeman of PeaceNewsNow.com to address topics including Bitcoin price volatility, the role of China in Bitcoin adoption, the question of which nation might first adopt Bitcoin as a currency, and the potential of Bitcoin to assist the homeless and unbanked.

By TBG #47, Hunt was convening panels that included Bryce Weiner of BlockTech, Kristoff Atlis of Anonymous Bitcoin Book, Will Pangman of Topiki, and Victoria Van Eyck of Bitcoin Strategy Group, demonstrating the expanding roster of WCN contributors that coalesced around the program.

Views and Commentary

Bitcoin Price and Market Volatility

In the earliest episodes, Hunt engaged substantively with questions of Bitcoin price dynamics. During TBG #2's discussion of Bitcoin's surge past $200, he framed ongoing price oscillations as a structural feature of a maturing market, agreeing with Antonopoulos's characterization while also endorsing Derek J. Freeman's observation that Bitcoin's volatility resembled that of a penny stock due to its then-small market capitalization. He credited Dovey Barker's argument against the term "bubble" as a meaningful contribution, observing that the framing of "mania" or "craze" better captured what was occurring in the market at the time (TBG #2).

Geopolitics and Bitcoin Adoption

Hunt demonstrated a keen interest in the geopolitical dimensions of Bitcoin, particularly with respect to China and state-level currency competition. After Antonopoulos argued in TBG #2 that Chinese state television's favorable Bitcoin documentaries represented a deliberate strategic endorsement from the top of government — aimed at undermining U.S. dollar hegemony — Hunt described the analysis as a "really great point" and extended the line of inquiry to Russia, asking whether a new "currency Cold War" might be emerging. He was also receptive to Barker's caution against assuming all governments react immediately and overreact, noting the importance of distinguishing different governmental styles (TBG #2).

The NSA and Bitcoin Origins

In TBG #47, during a lengthy panel discussion prompted by the hacking of Satoshi Nakamoto's email account, Hunt offered a measured skepticism toward theories that Bitcoin was an NSA creation. He stated: "It's hard for me to believe that there would be someone working for the government who would have the ingenuity to come up with Bitcoin... not only just the technical understanding but the economic understanding behind Bitcoin as well, that would have such poor foresight to understand what effect Bitcoin is going to have on their future job. It just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever that you would have this team of NSA people that are like, yeah, let's come up with an invention that's going to remove the device that allows us to be employed by the US government." (TBG #47). Hunt went on to note that any institution dependent on petro-dollar funding could not logically benefit from Bitcoin's success, lending an economic rather than purely technical dimension to his skepticism.

Satoshi Nakamoto's Identity

During TBG #47's extended discussion of the Satoshi email hack, Hunt put forward a notable claim regarding the disposition of Satoshi's early-mined Bitcoin holdings. He stated: "I have it on good authority that the private keys are burned" (TBG #47), suggesting those coins were made permanently inaccessible. He noted this would likely disturb people upon discovery, but characterized it as the "smartest thing to do" for the health of the currency. Hunt also raised the point that the size and prominence of Bitcoin had grown to the point where Satoshi had even more reason to remain anonymous than at the project's outset, and expressed some retrospective doubt about whether the "I am not Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto" statement had genuinely originated from Satoshi, given that it was not cryptographically signed (TBG #47).

Bitcoin, the Unbanked, and the Homeless

Hunt engaged seriously with humanitarian dimensions of Bitcoin during TBG #2, moderating a discussion on whether Bitcoin could assist homeless and unbanked populations. He observed that Bitcoin ATM infrastructure remained insufficient to support a practical "begging to Bitcoin" economic strategy at the time, and endorsed Antonopoulos's framing of first-world homeless populations as a test case for whether Bitcoin could eventually serve the global unbanked. He highlighted access to documentation as a particular barrier, noting that homeless individuals frequently lacked the paperwork required to open a traditional bank account — a gap Bitcoin wallets could bypass (TBG #2).

Relationships with Panelists

Hunt maintained an engaged, collegial dynamic with the rotating roster of TBG panelists. He showed particular intellectual affinity with the analyses of Andreas Antonopoulos, frequently amplifying or building upon his points during early episodes. He credited Dovey Barker on multiple occasions for nuanced framings of economic terminology. His moderating style — issuing structured exit questions and synthesizing disagreements — positioned him as a consistent unifying presence across the program's diverse guest roster. By TBG #47, Hunt was also facilitating appearances by WCN contributors including Blake Anderson, whose introduction to the panel Hunt personally orchestrated mid-episode.

Key Quotes

On Bitcoin's volatility and trajectory: "I think that Bitcoin would look quite different if it was invented by some aspect of the government and put out there into the population." (TBG #47)

On Satoshi's early coins: "I have it on good authority that the private keys are burned... That's the smartest thing to do. It helps the currency." (TBG #47)

On the NSA-Bitcoin theory: "I don't think that if they were [capable of inventing Bitcoin] they would want to put themselves out of work." (TBG #47)

World Crypto Network

Hunt was a central pillar of the World Crypto Network, the broader media collective under which The Bitcoin Group was produced and distributed. During TBG #47, the program featured a promotional segment encouraging viewers to explore other WCN programming, including the beta show, Bitcoin Rush, and Midas Marty's Dark News, with the invitation extended via the worldcrypto-network.com domain. Hunt's near-complete presence across 480 episodes — from episode 2 through episode 485 — reflects his foundational role in the network's identity and longevity.

References

1. The Bitcoin Group #2. World Crypto Network. Thomas Hunt, Andreas Antonopoulos, Dovey Barker, Derek J. Freeman. Issues: Bitcoin Bubble; Bitcoin in China; Bitcoin Island; Bitcoin and the Homeless.
2. The Bitcoin Group #47. World Crypto Network. Thomas Hunt, Bryce Weiner, Kristoff Atlis, Will Pangman, Victoria Van Eyck, Blake Anderson. Issues: Satoshi Nakamoto's Email Hacked; Apple Pay; PayPal and Bitcoin; Overstock and Coinbase Go International.

Rhett Creighton
Card #23 "The Barbarian" depicting Rhett Creighton, by Robek World (2017)
Born	John Everett Creighton IV
Education	MIT — B.S. Physics, M.S. Nuclear Engineering
Occupation	Actor, engineer, blockchain developer
Known for	Crocodile Dundee II, Curio Cards
IMDb	nm0187311

Rhett Creighton (born John Everett Creighton IV) is an American actor, nuclear engineer, and blockchain developer. He is best known for his childhood acting roles in Crocodile Dundee II (1988), War and Remembrance (1988), and True Blood (1989), and for programming the smart contracts that powered Curio Cards, the first art NFT collection on Ethereum.^[1]

Early life and acting career

Creighton began acting at age four, appearing in national television commercials, movies, and plays. His most prominent role was as "Park Boy" in Crocodile Dundee II alongside Paul Hogan. He also appeared in the miniseries War and Remembrance as Louis Henry.^[1]

Education and engineering

After his acting career, Creighton left high school early to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Master's Degree in Nuclear Engineering. During college, he won MIT's annual autonomous robot competition (6.270) and starred in an episode of TLC's Junkyard Wars, which his team also won, building sand yachts from scrap parts.^[2]

Cryptocurrency and Curio Cards

Creighton became involved in Bitcoin through the San Francisco meetup scene, where he attended the first public presentation of the Lightning Network proposal. He contributed to Bitcoin Core's RPC test suite before meeting Thomas Hunt and Travis Uhrig.

In 2017, Creighton hand-coded the Curio Cards smart contracts in Solidity, deploying the first "vending machine" on May 9, 2017. Because no NFT standards existed, every detail had to be coded from scratch, and each card was manually deployed to the Ethereum blockchain. He is depicted on Card #23 ("The Barbarian") by artist Robek World.^[3]

References

1. Rhett Creighton — IMDb
2. Curio Cards Founders — Rhett Creighton — Medium
3. The early history of NFTs: Curio Cards — Amy Castor

Travis Uhrig
Card #22 "The Bard" depicting Travis Uhrig, by Robek World (2017)
Occupation	Software developer, entrepreneur
Known for	Curio Cards

Travis Uhrig is an American software developer and entrepreneur who co-founded Curio Cards alongside Thomas Hunt and Rhett Creighton. Uhrig served as the business development lead for the project, responsible for pitching the concept to venture capitalists and managing artist relationships.

Uhrig met Hunt and Creighton through the San Francisco Bitcoin meetup group. He recognized the potential of using Ethereum's smart contract capability to create a "Patreon model" for digital art patrons. His key contribution was persuading Creighton not to fork Ethereum for the project, arguing it would leave the trading cards "orphaned" on a separate chain.^[1]

Uhrig is depicted on Card #22 ("The Bard") by artist Robek World, described as a "song-singing leader" — the only card in the set with its number printed on the right side.^[2]

He appeared as a guest on the World Crypto Network. (WCN episodes featuring Travis Uhrig)

References

1. Curio Cards at Christie's — Quartz
2. Breaking Down Curio Cards — Start With NFTs

World Crypto Network
World Crypto Network YouTube channel logo
Type	Independent media collective
Founded	2014
Founder	Thomas Hunt
Focus	Bitcoin news, education
Videos	1,300+
Website	worldcryptonetwork.com
YouTube	WorldCryptoNetwork
Podcast	Apple Podcasts

The World Crypto Network (WCN) is a veteran independent media organization and podcast network dedicated to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency education. Founded by Thomas Hunt (Mad Bitcoins) in 2014, WCN has archived over 1,300 videos documenting the evolution of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The Financial Times described it as "a YouTube channel that covers cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin" (November 28, 2014).

Programming

WCN operates as a hub-and-spoke model with Thomas Hunt as the central node. Over its history, the network has hosted dozens of shows across news, education, interviews, technical deep-dives, and unconventional formats. Major programs include:

Flagship Shows

• The Bitcoin Group — The network's longest-running show (312+ episodes). A roundtable debate featuring Hunt and rotating panelists. (YouTube · WCN)
• Today in Bitcoin — Daily news show (266+ episodes) hosted by rotating WCN members. (YouTube · WCN)
• THS — Thomas Hunt Show — Solo show hosted by Thomas Hunt (95+ episodes). (YouTube)
• Adventures in NFTs — Covering the NFT ecosystem, including the history of Curio Cards. (WCN)

Interview & Deep Dive Shows

• Proof of Work — In-depth interviews with people in the Bitcoin space (55 episodes). (WCN)
• Bitcoin Op Tech Newsletter — Technical coverage of the Bitcoin Optech newsletter (48 episodes).
• One-on-One — Interview format show (47 episodes).
• Bitcoin Talk Show — Weekly Wednesday call-in show co-hosted by Thomas Hunt and Derrick J. Freeman (199 episodes). Believed to be the first call-in Bitcoin show. (WCN)
• You, Me, and BTC — Conversational Bitcoin show (67 episodes).

News & Commentary Shows

• The Bitcoin News Show — Hosted by Vortex (83 episodes). (WCN)
• Bitcoin Headlines — Quick news roundups. (WCN)
• Sunday Recap — Weekly news summary.
• Bitcoin to the Max — Commentary show (64 videos).
• Transmission — Bitcoin commentary (54 videos).
• FutureRant — Opinionated takes (8 videos).

Technical & Educational Shows

• Lightning Hacksprint — Technical deep dives into Lightning Network. (WCN)
• BTCIOT — Bitcoin and Internet of Things coverage (40+ videos). (WCN)
• Bitcoin Developer's Mailing List — Coverage of the bitcoin-dev mailing list (13 videos).
• Read Rothbard ~ Use Bitcoin — Economic reading group with Max Hillebrand (18 episodes).
• Future Money — Economic education with Max Hillebrand.
• Open Source Everything — Open-source advocacy with Max Hillebrand.
• The Ethics of Money Production — Economic reading series (14 videos).
• What Has Government Done to Our Money? — Murray Rothbard reading series (13 videos).

Product & Tool Coverage

• Wasabi Wallet — Tutorials, interviews, and the Zero Link Framework reading (33+ videos).
• Cold Card — Hardware wallet tutorials.
• nodl — Bitcoin Full Node — Full node setup guides (16 videos).
• Bisq Decentralized Exchange — DEX coverage (17 videos).
• LNbits — Lightning wallet/accounts tool coverage (15 videos).
• GPG + Yubikey — Security tool tutorials (9 videos).
• Purism — Privacy hardware coverage.
• DIY Hardware Wallets — Build-your-own tutorials (4 videos).
• NOSTR — Decentralized social protocol coverage.

Early & International Shows

• Dark News — Privacy and anti-censorship, hosted by Kristov Atlas (27 videos). (WCN)
• The Flipside — Early WCN show hosted by DJ Booth (19 videos).
• This Week in Cryptos — Puppet-hosted weekly crypto news recap from Indonesia, a Mad Bitcoins homage (18 videos).
• Bitcoin Rush — Early news show (39 videos).
• Blocktalk — Discussion show (21 videos).
• Mad Potcoins — Cannabis-meets-crypto show (41 videos).
• MidasMarni — Commentary show (22 videos).
• Crypto Audio Blog — Audio essays (39 episodes).
• Off Chain — Off-topic discussions (10 videos).
• Crypto Convos — Conversations with crypto figures (9 videos).
• Chris Before Coffee — Morning show hosted by Chris Ellis (11 videos).
• Hi Everybody with Mike Dupree — Talk show format (4 videos).
• Let's Meet with Margaryta DeCrypt — Interview show (6 videos).
• Jamie Nelson — Solo show (8 videos).
• Joesmoe Show — Commentary show (9 episodes).

WCN Spotlight Series

Curated playlists of appearances by major Bitcoin figures:

• Vitalik Buterin (3 videos) · Andreas Antonopoulos (10 videos) · Adam Back (3 videos) · Peter Todd (12 videos) · Eric Lombrozo (3 videos)

Conferences Covered

WCN has covered Bitcoin and cryptocurrency conferences worldwide, often as the only independent media present. Conference coverage playlists include:

• Unconfiscatable Bitcoin Conference (Las Vegas, 2020) — 25 episodes
• Hacker's Congress at Paralelni Polis (Prague, 2017 & 2019) — 25+ episodes
• BitBrum (Birmingham, 2019) — 9 episodes
• Working Man's Bitcoin Cruise (Mexico, 2019) — 5 videos
• Transylvania Crypto Conference (Romania, 2019) — 13 videos
• The Lightning Conference (Berlin, 2019) — 34 episodes
• Unchain Convention (Berlin, 2019) — 9 episodes
• Blockchain Hotel (Essen, 2019) — 6 videos
• Lightning Hack Day (Berlin, 2019) — 15 videos
• Bitcoin Trading Conference (Barcelona, 2019) — 15 videos
• Understanding Bitcoin Conference (Malta, 2019)
• Malta Blockchain Summit (Malta, 2018) — 13 videos
• East-West CryptoBridge (Frankfurt, 2018) — 2 videos
• Hayek Summer Workshop (Leipzig, 2018)
• Mises University (Vienna, 2018)
• Inside Bitcoins Conference (Berlin, 2015) — 9 videos
• Money 20/20 Conference (Las Vegas, 2015) — 10 videos
• MadBitcoins' Poolside YachtChain Interviews (Las Vegas)
• Bitcoin Halving (Halvening) Shows (2016, 2020, 2024)
• Occupy Hong Kong (2014) — 42 videos documenting the protests
• San Francisco Bitcoin Meetup — Ongoing (74 videos)
• Silicon Valley Bitcoin Meetup — Ongoing (3 videos)

Notable guests

WCN has hosted over 130 guests across its history. (Complete guest list) Notable guests include:

• Jimmy Song — Bitcoin developer and educator (episodes)
• Peter Todd — Bitcoin Core developer (episodes)
• Jameson Lopp — Co-founder of Casa (episodes)
• Samson Mow — CEO of JAN3 (episodes)
• Jack Mallers — CEO of Strike (episodes)
• Tone Vays — Trader and analyst (episodes)
• Adam Meister — "The Bitcoin Voice" (episodes)
• Ben Arc — LNBits developer (episodes)
• Vortex — The Bitcoin News host (episodes)
• Chris DeRose — Bitcoin advocate (episodes)
• Nick Szabo — Cryptographer, smart contract pioneer (episodes)
• Roger Ver — Early Bitcoin investor (episodes)
• Tatiana Moroz — Bitcoin musician (episodes)
• Stephanie Murphy — Let's Talk Bitcoin host (episodes)
• Eric Lombrozo — Developer (episodes)

Funding

WCN operates on a "Value-for-Value" model. It was initially funded through Protip, an automated Bitcoin tipping extension. The network later transitioned to Tallycoin for Lightning Network-native crowdfunding, and maintains a Patreon page as supplemental support.

References

1. World Crypto Network — YouTube
2. WCN Podcast — Podnews
3. WCN Hosts & Guests — Complete list
4. WCN Shows — All programs

Mad Bitcoins
Mad Bitcoins YouTube channel avatar
Type	YouTube channel, media brand
Created by	Thomas Hunt
Launched	2012
Network	World Crypto Network
YouTube	madbitcoins
Website	madbitcoins.com

Mad Bitcoins is a long-running cryptocurrency YouTube channel and media brand created by Thomas Hunt in 2012. It is one of the earliest Bitcoin-focused YouTube channels, predating the 2017 bull run that made crypto influencers a mainstream phenomenon. The brand operates under the World Crypto Network umbrella.

The channel is characterized by its high-energy, vlog-style format using humor and cultural references to explain Bitcoin concepts. Hunt adopted the "Mad Bitcoins" persona to make decentralized currency accessible to non-technical audiences at a time when Bitcoin discussion was dominated by academic whitepapers and developer forums.

As of 2026, the Mad Bitcoins brand has produced content across YouTube, Medium, and podcast platforms, with Hunt hosting programs including The Bitcoin Group and the Thomas Hunt Show (THS). The madbitcoins.com website catalogs hosts, guests, shows, and topics. (Guests · Shows · Topics · Playlists)

Hunt is immortalized as Card #20 and Card #21 in the Curio Cards NFT collection.

Episode Statistics

As of March 2026, the Mad Bitcoins archive contains 599 episodes with 598 full transcripts, spanning from 2013 to 2023. The archive has accumulated over 666,000 total YouTube views. Peak production occurred in 2014 with 240 episodes, during the early Bitcoin media boom. The most-viewed episode is "The Bitcoin Song" by Tatiana Moroz (103,472 views), followed by the Dogecar NASCAR segment (27,305 views) and the Shark Tank appearance (19,465 views).

See the full Episode Archive for complete episode listings, statistics, and most-viewed episodes.

The Bitcoin Group (often abbreviated TBG) is the longest-running weekly Bitcoin roundtable discussion show, produced by the World Crypto Network and hosted by Thomas Hunt (Mad Bitcoins). First aired on October 18, 2013, the show has run continuously for over twelve years across 485+ episodes, making it one of the most durable programs in cryptocurrency media. It features a rotating panel of 3–4 commentators debating current Bitcoin news, market movements, technical developments, and regulatory issues drawn from the week's headlines.

Format

Each episode follows a consistent structure: Thomas Hunt opens the show by reading the current Bitcoin price, then introduces a series of news headlines from the past week. Each headline is discussed by the panel, with Hunt moderating and often playing devil's advocate. Panelists represent diverse viewpoints — traders, privacy advocates, developers, entrepreneurs, and gold bugs — creating spirited debate. Episodes typically run 60–90 minutes and air live on YouTube with audience participation via live chat.

A signature element of the show is the closing price prediction round, where each panelist states whether they believe the Bitcoin price will be higher or lower by the following week's episode. These predictions have been tracked across hundreds of episodes, creating one of the longest-running public Bitcoin prediction datasets in existence.

Eras

The Bitcoin Group's 12+ year history can be divided into distinct eras, each shaped by different market conditions, panelist rosters, and the evolving Bitcoin ecosystem:

The Founding Era (2013–2015): 58 episodes

Launched on October 18, 2013, amid Bitcoin's first major rally to $1,000 and the subsequent Mt. Gox collapse. Early regular panelists included Davi Barker (Bitcoin Not Bombs), Chris Ellis (Protip), and Andreas Antonopoulos. The show established its format during the long 2014–2015 bear market, discussing topics like the Silk Road trial, early regulation, and Bitcoin's existential viability. Production was raw and experimental, reflecting WCN's grassroots origins.

The Block Wars Era (2016–2018): 106 episodes

Dominated by the Bitcoin scaling debate (SegWit vs. big blocks), the 2017 bull run to $20,000, the BCash fork, and the ICO boom and bust. This was the show's most passionate and contentious period, with intense debates between panelists. Key regulars included Tone Vays (65 total episodes), Theo Goodman (51 eps), Blake Anderson (46 eps), Gabriel DeVine (52 eps), and Will Pangman (26 eps). The famous 8-hour live BCash launch episode was the network's most-viewed broadcast. Andy Hoffman appeared during this era, bringing his gold-to-Bitcoin conversion narrative and the "Hoffman Line."

The Quiet Years (2019–2020): 52 episodes

The post-2018 crash era saw reduced episode frequency and a roster transition. Josh Scigala (Vaultoro) joined in episode #194 and would become the show's second-most prolific panelist (136 episodes). Dan Eve began his long run in #190. Max Hillebrand (Wasabi Wallet) appeared during this period. Topics included the COVID crash, the halving of May 2020, and early Lightning Network adoption. The show proved its resilience by continuing through the bear market when many crypto shows ceased production.

The Bull and Beyond (2021–2023): 170 episodes

The 2021 bull run to $69,000, the El Salvador Bitcoin legal tender announcement, the NFT explosion, and the devastating FTX collapse of November 2022 provided the richest period of content. Episode output surged to 63 episodes in 2021 alone. Ben Arc (LNbits developer, 95 episodes total) became a mainstay. Martin Wismeijer (Mr. Bitcoin, 40 eps) joined from the Netherlands. The panel roster expanded to include Victoria Jones (49 eps from #332). Topics ranged from the Canadian Freedom Convoy (and Tallycoin's role) to Elon Musk's Bitcoin reversals, the Luna/Terra collapse, and SBF's fraud.

The Modern Era (2024–present): 67+ episodes

Dominated by Bitcoin ETF approvals, the 2024 halving, the Bitcoin price exceeding $100,000, and the ongoing US regulatory landscape under a crypto-friendly administration. Josh Scigala, Dan Eve, Ben Arc, and Victoria Jones form the current regular roster. The show has continued its weekly cadence uninterrupted.

Notable Panelists

179 unique guests have appeared across the show's history. The top panelists by total appearances:

• Thomas Hunt — Host, 480 episodes (virtually every episode)
• Josh Scigala — 136 episodes (#194–#475). Vaultoro founder. 7-year span.
• Dan Eve — 101 episodes (#190–#472). 14-episode longest streak.
• Ben Arc — 95 episodes. LNbits developer.
• Tone Vays — 65 episodes. Trader, analyst. Block Wars era fixture.
• Gabriel DeVine — 52 episodes (#85–#263). Early-to-mid era regular.
• Theo Goodman — 51 episodes (#45–#205). Berlin journalist, Transmission host.
• Victoria Jones — 49 episodes (#332–#484). Modern era regular.
• Blake Anderson — 46 episodes. MIT cryptographic economist. 5-year WCN veteran.
• Martin Wismeijer — 40 episodes (#226–#356). "Mr. Bitcoin," NFC implant pioneer.
• MK Lords — 33 episodes. Bitcoin Not Bombs, Airbitz.
• Chris Ellis — 27 episodes. Protip founder.
• Derrick Freeman — 26 episodes. Bitcoin Talk Show co-host.
• Will Pangman — 26 episodes. BitcoinMKE founder.
• Kristov Atlas — 26 episodes. Dark News host, privacy researcher.

Major Topics and Narratives

Analysis of 485+ episode transcripts reveals the recurring narrative threads that have defined the show's discourse over twelve years:

• Scams & Hacks — The most-discussed topic across all episodes (433 episodes). From Mt. Gox to FTX to the endless parade of exchange hacks and rug pulls.
• Bitcoin Mining — Covered in 465 episodes. The show documented the evolution from GPU mining to industrial operations, halving cycles, and the energy debate.
• Price Rally / Bull Run — Discussed in 471 episodes. The panel has witnessed and debated every major rally: $1K (2013), $20K (2017), $69K (2021), $126K (2025).
• Bitcoin Scaling / Block Wars — 311 episodes. The SegWit vs. big block debate was the show's most heated recurring topic, particularly in 2016–2017.
• NFTs / Ordinals — 167 episodes. Coverage began in 2017 with Curio Cards and surged during the 2021 NFT boom and the 2023 Ordinals controversy.
• Regulation / SEC — A persistent thread across all eras, from early BitLicense debates to Bitcoin ETF approvals.
• Bitcoin ETF — Years of discussion culminating in the January 2024 spot ETF approval.
• El Salvador — The June 2021 announcement of Bitcoin as legal tender was one of the most discussed single events.
• SBF / FTX — The November 2022 collapse dominated multiple episodes and reshaped panel perspectives on centralized exchanges.
• Tether / Stablecoins — A recurring source of debate, with bulls and skeptics clashing over Tether's reserves.

Price Predictions

The Bitcoin Group's closing prediction segment — where each panelist publicly calls higher or lower for the coming week — has created one of the longest-running public Bitcoin prediction records. Tracked across hundreds of episodes, the prediction leaderboard (by accuracy) includes:

• Victoria Jones — 77.8% accuracy (highest among regulars)
• Jimmy Song — 66.7%
• Adam Meister — 63.3%
• Ben Arc — 63.2%
• Gabriel DeVine — 60.1%
• Josh Scigala — 58.0%
• Dan Eve — 51.2%
• Magic 8 Ball — 49.3% (the show's randomized control)
• Thomas Hunt — 45.5%
• Tone Vays — 45.5%

The Magic 8 Ball — a novelty prediction randomizer used as a humorous baseline — has notably outperformed some human panelists, a fact that Hunt frequently highlights on the show.

Archive and Analytics

The complete Bitcoin Group archive is maintained at 1n2.org/tbg-mirrors, which includes full transcripts for 486+ episodes, a searchable transcript database, guest profile pages with appearance timelines and co-panelist networks, topic analysis, narrative tracking, a quotes database, and the complete prediction leaderboard. The archive represents one of the most comprehensive single-show datasets in cryptocurrency media history.

The show has accumulated 888,000+ total YouTube views across 802+ videos on the WCN channel, with 7,300 subscribers.

References

1. "TBG Mirrors — The Bitcoin Group Archive". 1n2.org.
2. "The Bitcoin Group — YouTube Playlist". World Crypto Network.
3. "The Bitcoin Group episodes". worldcryptonetwork.com.
4. "TBG Guest Profiles". TBG Mirrors.
5. "TBG Predictions Leaderboard". TBG Mirrors.
6. "TBG Narrative Analysis". TBG Mirrors.

Adventures in NFTs is a show on the World Crypto Network covering the NFT ecosystem, hosted by Thomas Hunt. Episodes have featured interviews with NFT artists, collectors, and project founders, including discussions about Curio Cards history.

Browse all Adventures in NFTs episodes →

Today in Bitcoin is a daily news show on the World Crypto Network, featuring price updates, headline analysis, and technical development coverage. Hosted by rotating WCN members.

Browse all Today in Bitcoin episodes →

Dark News was a weekly show on the World Crypto Network hosted by Kristov Atlas, covering anti-censorship technologies, privacy tools, and the intersection of cryptography with digital freedom. The show was part of WCN's early programming lineup alongside The Bitcoin Group and Today in Bitcoin.

Atlas used the show to explore topics including Bitcoin anonymity, VPNs, Tor, darknets, and the philosophical underpinnings of privacy in the digital age. The show reflected WCN's early emphasis on cypherpunk values and financial sovereignty.

Browse Dark News episodes →

The Flipside Bits was an early show on the World Crypto Network hosted by DJ Booth. The show was part of WCN's original programming lineup, alongside The Bitcoin Group, Dark News, and Today in Bitcoin.

DJ Booth, who also created Tallycoin and Bitcoinal, used the show to cover Bitcoin news and developments from his perspective as an Australian developer and early Bitcoin adopter who had been following the technology since 2012.

Browse The Flipside Bits episodes →

This Week in Cryptos was a weekly cryptocurrency news recap show on the World Crypto Network, notable for being presented entirely by a puppet character. The show was created by a YouTuber from Indonesia who produced it as a homage to Mad Bitcoins, adopting a similar irreverent tone and rapid-fire news format but filtered through the persona of a puppet host.

The creator was also an independent filmmaker who produced short films with ambitious special effects including lightsaber fights and gun-heavy action sequences, demonstrating considerable technical skill in video production. This Week in Cryptos ran as part of WCN's diverse early programming, showcasing the network's international reach and its willingness to platform unconventional creative formats.

At least 19 episodes are known to have been produced. The show represents one of the more unusual entries in WCN's programming history and an early example of international crypto media production from Southeast Asia.

References

1. "This Week in Cryptos #19". World Crypto Network. June 28, 2014.

Kristov Atlas is a network security and privacy researcher who was a regular correspondent on the World Crypto Network, appearing on The Bitcoin Group and hosting his own show, Dark News, which covered anti-censorship technologies. He is the author of Anonymous Bitcoin: How to Keep Your ₿ All to Yourself, a practical guide to maximizing financial privacy with Bitcoin, and co-founder of the Open Bitcoin Privacy Project (OBPP).

Atlas holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and worked as an independent security consultant evaluating business websites for major corporations before turning to Bitcoin full-time. He joined Blockchain.info (now Blockchain.com) as a security engineer and performed a notable code audit of Darkcoin (now Dash). He has written for CoinDesk and spoken at the Texas Bitcoin Conference (2014), among other events.

On WCN, Atlas became known for his deep technical expertise on privacy and his ability to explain complex cryptographic concepts to a general audience. His show Dark News explored VPNs, Tor, stealth addresses, and the philosophical dimensions of financial privacy.

References

1. "Kristov Atlas". Bitcoin Press Center.
2. "I'm Kristov Atlas, Co-Founder of the OBPP. Ask me anything!". Bitcoin Forum. November 2015.
3. "Kristov Atlas". CoinDesk.

M.K. Lords (Meghan Kellison-Lords) is a writer, activist, and fire dancer from Pensacola, Florida, who was a panelist on The Bitcoin Group and appeared on various World Crypto Network programs. She served as managing editor of Bitcoin Not Bombs and community manager at Airbitz (now Edge Wallet), and organized two conferences: Bitcoin in the Beltway and Coins in the Kingdom.

Lords entered Bitcoin through libertarian and anarchist philosophy after the Ron Paul 2008 campaign, first working in precious metals at Roberts & Roberts Brokerage (one of the earliest to accept Bitcoin) before becoming a full-time Bitcoin advocate in 2013. She wrote for Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin Not Bombs, and Young Voices, focusing on Bitcoin's social impact — particularly remittances, direct action, and charitable giving. She highlighted how Bitcoin Not Bombs and Sean's Outpost used Bitcoin to help the homeless in Pensacola.

On WCN, Lords was known for bringing a humanitarian perspective to Bitcoin discussions, emphasizing the technology's potential to empower communities rather than focusing purely on trading or technical development.

References

1. "I'm M.K. Lords, Community Manager at Airbitz... Ask Me Anything!". Bitcoin Forum. November 2015.
2. "Interview: M.K. Lords of Bitcoin Not Bombs". Cointelegraph. April 9, 2014.
3. "Articles by M.K. Lords". Bitcoin Magazine.

Dan Eve, known online as the Crypto Raptor, is a British Bitcoin commentator, musician, and content creator who has been a recurring panelist on The Bitcoin Group (TBG), produced by the World Crypto Network. He made his first appearance on TBG episode 190 and has appeared in over 101 episodes through episode 472, making him one of the programme's most frequent contributors.

Identity and Background

Dan Eve is based in the United Kingdom and is consistently introduced on The Bitcoin Group under his pseudonym "the Crypto Raptor." He maintains a presence on YouTube under that moniker, which Thomas Hunt encouraged viewers to seek out during early appearances, describing his output as including crypto-related musical compositions. Eve has referenced holding a mortgage with the UK bank Northern Rock and has demonstrated familiarity with British financial culture and European political events, situating him firmly within a British context.

In addition to commentary, Eve is a rapper and musician who has produced Bitcoin and cryptocurrency-themed songs. Thomas Hunt praised these works on-air, stating he intended to retweet several of Eve's tracks (TBG #190). Eve himself performed at Coinbase's Christmas party in London, which he cited as his story of the week on TBG #206, noting: "I wrapped at Coinbase's Christmas party, which is pretty cool. London. So did my tunes. A bit of wrapping, that's singing."

Views on Bitcoin and Markets

Eve has consistently maintained a broadly bullish outlook on Bitcoin throughout his appearances, while tempering short-term enthusiasm with caution. On the question of recurring January price drops, he offered a structural explanation rooted in tax obligations: "I personally think that based on the last couple of years, I think since 2013, that there's a bit of a dump in January where people tend to sell off to pay their tax." He noted that attributing price movements to any single news event is inherently retrospective and unreliable (TBG #190).

During the COVID-19 pandemic period, when Bitcoin reached $10,000, Eve expressed enthusiasm tempered by macro context: "If we weren't in the whole COVID lockdown, I think it would be going completely mental right now." He welcomed the influx of stimulus check buyers into Bitcoin and anticipated the price would sustain above $10,000 in the days following (TBG #222). He also predicted a post-halving short-term dump before a longer rally, aligning with Juan S. Galt's cautious assessment and with the show's magic eight-ball segment (TBG #222).

On institutional and celebrity interest in Bitcoin, Eve has been broadly welcoming. Regarding billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones announcing a Bitcoin position, he remarked: "Anyone who's got money that buys in is a public figure [who] kind of lend[s] credence to the fact that Bitcoin kind of exists and it's not going anywhere." He drew a parallel to prior celebrity engagements with the asset class, including Katie Perry's Bitcoin-themed nails and Paris Hilton promoting an ICO (TBG #222).

Views on Regulation and Geopolitics

Eve has articulated a broadly libertarian but pragmatic stance on regulation. On China's move to regulate blockchain companies, he argued that any acknowledgment short of an outright ban was net positive: "Anything that's not banning from China is good." He drew an analogy to the Soviet Union, suggesting that government warnings about a technology often increase public curiosity and adoption (TBG #190).

Discussing the French Yellow Vest movement's proposed bank run, Eve was sceptical it would achieve its goals, drawing on his personal experience of the Northern Rock bank collapse in the United Kingdom to illustrate the danger of engineered bank runs. He noted that withdrawing cash during street violence would be counterintuitive and risky (TBG #190).

On the question of which country might first adopt Bitcoin as a national currency, Eve suggested Malta or another small European nation, while asserting confidently that the United Kingdom would be last: "The real key, the one that will be last — the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom will be the last to switch to Bitcoin." He also speculated Venezuela might experiment further with cryptocurrency given its existing experience with the Petro (TBG #190).

Regarding a report that Russia planned to move reserves into Bitcoin, Eve expressed scepticism about the source — a single academic with unclear governmental influence — while acknowledging that a sovereign Bitcoin purchase could trigger a geopolitical domino effect among other nations (TBG #190).

Views on Altcoins and Industry Figures

Eve has been generally dismissive of altcoins and scam projects, while taking a more nuanced view of asset-backed tokens. On the number of viable blockchains, he offered a characteristically audience-aware answer: "Technically there's like thousands that are called blockchains, but the easiest answer is just there's one, and only one — that's Bitcoin." (TBG #190).

On the BitClub Network fraud case, Eve concluded it was an obvious scam based on the federal charges filed, though he acknowledged the broader pattern of well-intentioned but ill-equipped entrepreneurs becoming scammers within the Bitcoin ecosystem (TBG #206).

Regarding Richard Hart's Hex project, Eve admitted he had not researched it thoroughly but observed that it appeared to be deliberately obfuscatory: "It's definitely like death by jargon with adoption amplifier and donating your coins instead of actually buying them — you know, well, sorry, donating Ethereum instead of an actual transaction being done, that would probably put it into the realms of a security." He predicted Dogecoin would outperform Hex, stating simply: "No way — Doge is going to reign. Doge reign." (TBG #206).

On China's proposed gold-backed cryptocurrency versus Facebook's Libra versus Bitcoin, Eve expressed the view that tokenisation of commodities and assets would continue at scale, and that gold-backed instruments represented a step in the right direction even if inferior to Bitcoin. He noted having personally worked on a gold-backed asset sidechain project at the time of TBG #206.

Eve was supportive of NFL player Russell Okung's decision to wear BTC Pay Server-branded cleats, endorsing both the choice of cause and the visibility it provided Bitcoin, while defending the legitimacy of open-source software projects as charitable causes (TBG #206).

Fundraiser for Unconfiscatable Conference

During TBG #190, Thomas Hunt announced a Tallycoin fundraiser to cover travel costs for Dan Eve to attend Tone Vays's Unconfiscatable Conference in Las Vegas. Hunt encouraged viewers to donate Bitcoin via the on-screen QR code and noted that both Eve and fellow panelist CoinDaddy might attend and potentially stage a rap battle. Hunt described Eve and CoinDaddy as being "up there" among crypto musical creators and promised to promote Eve's songs on social media.

Relationships with Other Panelists

Eve appeared frequently alongside Thomas Hunt, Tone Vays, Juan S. Galt, and rotating guests including Ben from BTC IoT and Corey from the Bitcoin Podcast. His relationship with Thomas Hunt was warm, with Hunt actively promoting Eve's music and YouTube channel. Tone Vays expressed interest in having Eve attend his Unconfiscatable Conference and described him alongside CoinDaddy as a notable crypto content creator (TBG #190). Eve's calm, measured delivery often contrasted with the more assertive styles of Vays and Hunt, and he frequently acknowledged when he lacked full information on a topic before offering a considered view.

Notable Quotes

• "There can be only one." — on the long-term number of viable blockchains (TBG #190)
• "The United Kingdom will be the last to switch to Bitcoin." — on national Bitcoin adoption (TBG #190)
• "Anything that's not banning from China is good." — on Chinese blockchain regulation (TBG #190)
• "If we weren't in the whole COVID lockdown, I think it would be going completely mental right now." — on Bitcoin reaching $10,000 (TBG #222)

References

1. The Bitcoin Group #190. World Crypto Network. Dan Eve first appearance; Unconfiscatable Conference fundraiser announced; opinions on Federal Reserve, China regulation, Yellow Vest bank run, Russia Bitcoin claims, and 9/11 hacker group.
2. The Bitcoin Group #206. World Crypto Network. Dan Eve on BitClub fraud; China gold-backed cryptocurrency; Hex/Richard Hart; NFL BTC Pay Server cleats; story of the week — Coinbase Christmas party rap performance in London.
3. The Bitcoin Group #222. World Crypto Network. Dan Eve on Bitcoin hitting $10,000 during COVID-19; post-halving price prediction; Paul Tudor Jones Bitcoin announcement.

Theo Goodman (Twitter: @theog__) is a Berlin-based journalist, meme theorist, martial artist, and long-time contributor to the World Crypto Network. He appeared on 51 episodes of The Bitcoin Group between #45 and #205, making him one of the show's earliest and most prolific regular panelists. He also hosted Transmission, a WCN commentary show (54 episodes).

Goodman is the co-founder of the Rare Pepe Foundation (an early NFT art project on Counterparty/Bitcoin), the co-founder of the Frankfurt Bitcoin Meetup, and served as Chief of Memetics at Proof of Work Media. He has written for Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin.com, covering topics from technical analysis to the cultural dimensions of Bitcoin, particularly the role of memes and art in the crypto community. He later became community manager for Nym, a privacy-focused mixnet protocol.

On WCN, Goodman was known for bringing a European perspective to Bitcoin discussions and for his work covering conferences including the Hacker's Congress at Paralelní Polis in Prague alongside Thomas Hunt. His most frequent co-panelists were Tone Vays (27 shows together), Blake Anderson (16), and Gabriel DeVine (16).

References

1. "Theo Goodman — Author". Bitcoin Magazine.
2. "Theo Goodman — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Victoria Jones is a Bitcoin advocate, commentator, and the founder of Satoshi's Page, a Bitcoin-focused media and education platform. She is one of the most frequent modern-era panelists on The Bitcoin Group (TBG) on the World Crypto Network, with 49 appearances spanning episodes #332 (November 2022) through #484 (March 2025).

The Bitcoin Group career

Jones made her debut on TBG #332 during one of the most turbulent periods in cryptocurrency history — the week of FTX's collapse in November 2022. She was introduced as representing "Satoshi's Page" and immediately engaged with the panel's discussion of Sam Bankman-Fried's downfall, noting that the events had "certainly generated a lot of conversation" across the Bitcoin community.

Over the following two and a half years, Jones became a fixture of the show's regular rotation, appearing on roughly one in three episodes. Her 49 appearances place her among the top ten most frequent guests in TBG's history, alongside long-running panelists like Josh Scigala, Dan Eve, and Ben Arc. Her most frequent co-panelists are Scigala (15 shared episodes), Eve (12), and Arc (12).

Commentary style and views

Jones is known for a measured, experience-informed perspective on Bitcoin price movements and industry developments. On TBG #462 (December 2024), when asked about Bitcoin's price trajectory after reaching record highs above $120,000, she remarked: "Anything's possible with Bitcoin, nothing would surprise me. I've been around too long now." This pragmatic stance — neither blindly bullish nor bearish — became a hallmark of her contributions.

She has provided commentary on major events across her tenure, including the Craig Wright identity trial (TBG #400, where a British court ruled Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto), the broader regulatory landscape, and market manipulation concerns. On TBG #484, she discussed the Jane Street and Terra Luna accusations, noting she had read through all the court documents and found the implications "pretty terrible."

Satoshi's Page

Jones's platform, Satoshi's Page, focuses on Bitcoin education and commentary. She has consistently represented the brand across all her TBG appearances since her debut in 2022, making it one of the most frequently cited guest affiliations on the show during its modern era.

References

1. "Victoria Jones — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.
2. The Bitcoin Group #332 (November 2022). World Crypto Network.
3. The Bitcoin Group #400 (2023). World Crypto Network.
4. The Bitcoin Group #462 (December 2024). World Crypto Network.
5. The Bitcoin Group #484 (March 2025). World Crypto Network.

Martijn Wismeijer, known as Mr. Bitcoin, is a Dutch Bitcoin entrepreneur, biohacker, and regular panelist on The Bitcoin Group (40 episodes, #226–#356). He is the founder of Mr Bitcoin, a company that installs and operates Bitcoin ATMs across Europe, and gained worldwide media attention in 2014 for implanting NFC chips in both hands to store Bitcoin — what he called "the Holy Grail of contactless payments."

Wismeijer had two xNT NFC chips (2mm × 12mm each) injected between his thumb and index finger at a biohacking event in Utrecht, Netherlands. One chip stored encrypted Bitcoin private keys for cold storage; the other stored public information like contact details. The procedure cost $75 and was performed by a body piercing artist after his doctor refused. He joked about the storage: "I use it for cold storage, but it's not cold because it's 37 degrees Celsius inside my body." The story was covered by CBS News, Vice, International Business Times, and dozens of international outlets.

Before Bitcoin, Wismeijer worked as a web designer (building early KLM websites), a security consultant for Fortis Bank, and a networking specialist. He became involved with Bitcoin as early as 2011 and later worked at General Bytes, a major Bitcoin ATM manufacturer. He also invented ManySWITCH, a device that converts coin-operated machines into Bitcoin-operated machines, which earned second place at a hackathon.

On The Bitcoin Group, Wismeijer appeared most frequently alongside Josh Scigala (25 shows), Ben Arc (12), and Dan Eve (12).

References

1. "Man becomes human Bitcoin wallet with chip implanted in hand". CBS News. November 15, 2014.
2. "Man Stores Bitcoin on Chip Embedded Under His Skin". IBTimes UK.
3. "Martijn Wismeijer — Bitcoin Wednesday". bitcoinwednesday.com.
4. "Martin Wismeijer — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Gabriel DeVine is a Bitcoin commentator and one of the most prolific early-era panelists on The Bitcoin Group, appearing on 52 episodes between #85 and #263 (approximately 2016–2021). He is the sixth-most frequent guest in the show's history.

DeVine's most frequent co-panelists were Tone Vays (21 shows together), Theo Goodman (16), and Blake Anderson (6). His longest consecutive streak was 5 episodes, and his peak activity was in the show's middle era during the 2017 bull market and subsequent bear market discussions.

References

1. "Gabriel DeVine — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Jeffery Jones is a Bitcoin commentator who appeared on 26 episodes of The Bitcoin Group, active during the show's middle era. His most frequent co-panelists were Theo Goodman (5 shows), Gabriel DeVine (6), and Tone Vays.

References

1. "Jeffery Jones — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Andy Hoffman is a financial markets veteran, former Marketing Director of Miles Franklin Precious Metals, and Bitcoin advocate who appeared on 8 episodes of The Bitcoin Group (#175–#189). He is known for coining the "Hoffman Line" — a $100 billion Bitcoin market cap threshold he used as a key indicator.

Hoffman's career in financial markets began in 1989 at Paine Webber. He spent 15 years as one of the world's most prominent precious metals advocates through GATA, Torrey Hills Capital, and the Miles Franklin blog. In January 2016 he began investing in and writing bullishly about Bitcoin. In July 2017 he sold his silver holdings for Bitcoin the day SegWit locked in, and left Miles Franklin the following month to launch CryptoGoldCentral.com. He later sold his gold for Bitcoin in January 2018.

Hoffman advocated that Bitcoin and gold were complementary "twin destroyers of the fiat regime" rather than competitors. He was known for his daily commentary and his colorful confrontations with gold-only advocates like Peter Schiff.

References

1. "Andy Hoffman — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.
2. "CryptoGoldCentral.com". Steemit (andyhoffman).

Max Hillebrand (@HillebrandMax) is a Bitcoin privacy researcher, CEO of zkSNACKs (the company behind Wasabi Wallet), and a prolific contributor to the World Crypto Network. He appeared on 5 episodes of The Bitcoin Group and hosted multiple WCN educational series including Read Rothbard ~ Use Bitcoin (18 episodes), Open Source Everything (36 episodes), Future Money, and The Ethics of Money Production (14 episodes).

Hillebrand studied Austrian economics before entering Bitcoin, inspired by the 2017 User Activated Soft Fork which convinced him the technology was permanent. He became a leading voice in Bitcoin privacy, contributing to Wasabi Wallet's CoinJoin implementation and hardware wallet integration. He lives as a professional "Bitcoin nomad" and has described his goal as helping "build a parallel economy based on sound money and individual sovereignty." He has been interviewed by Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin Takeover, Watchman Privacy, and CryptoPotato.

References

1. "Video: Wasabi, Crypto Anarchy And Freedom W/ Max Hillebrand". Bitcoin Magazine.
2. "Privacy Matters with Max Hillebrand". Bitcoin Echo Chamber.
3. "Max Hillebrand — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Bryce Weiner is a cryptocurrency developer and commentator who appeared on 6 episodes of The Bitcoin Group. He is known for his technical analysis and outspoken views on blockchain development.

References

1. "Bryce Weiner — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Kyle Torpy is a cryptocurrency journalist and Bitcoin commentator best known for his work at Coin Journal and as a contributor to Nasdaq's editorial platform. He appeared as a panelist on The Bitcoin Group (TBG), the flagship program of the World Crypto Network, across at least six episodes ranging from episode 117 to episode 173. Torpy was noted for a measured, journalistically grounded perspective on cryptocurrency markets and policy, and was praised by fellow panelist Gabriel Divine as "one of the only real journalists in the world" (TBG #117).

Background and Affiliations

Torpy was introduced on The Bitcoin Group as representing Coin Journal, a cryptocurrency news publication. He also contributed articles to Nasdaq's online editorial platform, referencing at least one piece on the relationship between government cash restrictions and Bitcoin adoption, written earlier in 2016 (TBG #117). He was noted by Tone Vays as one of the panelists who received payment in Bitcoin, reflecting his deep integration into the cryptocurrency economy (TBG #117).

Views on Privacy, Regulation, and the IRS

During TBG #117, Torpy addressed the United States Internal Revenue Service's subpoena of Coinbase user data, agreeing with fellow panelists that Bitcoin users should not be attempting to evade taxes or engage in illegal activity. He noted that Coinbase, as a regulated company, was always likely to cooperate extensively with regulators, calling it a "target on their back." He also raised the historical precedent of the IRS targeting specific political groups, observing that authorities "have gone after specific groups of people in the past" (TBG #117). He was skeptical that most ordinary Bitcoin users had the technical knowledge to transact anonymously, noting that darknet market participants often overestimated the privacy they actually enjoyed.

On Coinbase's business model, Torpy drew a distinction between casual speculators and serious Bitcoin users, arguing that the latter were more likely to use LocalBitcoins rather than a KYC-compliant exchange. He speculated that Coinbase's strategic future resembled that of Poloniex, pivoting toward capturing trading fees across multiple digital assets (TBG #117).

Views on Bitcoin Price and Market Dynamics

Torpy was generally cautious about short-term price predictions, stating directly during TBG #117 that he did not "try to predict where the price is going over the short term." Nevertheless, he offered a bullish one-week price prediction of "Higher" in that episode's exit question. He flagged the potential impact of Bitcoin's scaling debate on price, observing that investors who viewed Bitcoin as "digital gold" considered a hard fork "very detrimental to the long term value" of the asset, as it would split the network effect and alter the rules of one chain (TBG #117). He cited a report from a public company and its conference call as raising similar concerns.

Regarding the 2016 Indian currency demonetisation and its effect on Bitcoin, Torpy wrote an article for Nasdaq on the topic and summarised his view on TBG #117: "Any time the government makes laws that hurt Bitcoin's competitors are going to be good for Bitcoin. So anything that makes online payment systems less private and less censorship resistant is going to be good for Bitcoin — any time they ban cash is going to be good for Bitcoin." He also shared information from a newly established Indian mining pool called GB Miners, which at the time of recording held approximately three to four percent of the global network hashrate, though its mining hardware remained based in China (TBG #117).

Views on Bitcoin Mining and Energy Consumption

Torpy pushed back against a Motherboard article claiming Bitcoin mining was environmentally unsustainable, arguing that the energy expenditure was not wasteful because it served the function of securing the network. He supplemented Tone Vays's argument by pointing out that many mining operations in China were located near infrastructure built to serve ghost towns — areas where power generation capacity existed but had no other demand — as well as facilities drawing on the Three Gorges Dam's hydroelectric output and geothermal sources in Iceland (TBG #117).

Views on Central Bank Digital Currencies

Commenting on Sweden's Riksbank exploring an "e-Krona" digital currency, Torpy was sceptical that the product would differ meaningfully from existing digital payment infrastructure: "I'm not really sure what the difference will be compared to how the system works right now." He doubted the e-Krona would function as a bearer asset and suggested it would more likely resemble an efficient digital banking convenience than anything resembling Bitcoin's properties. On the exit question of which country would first issue its own digital currency, Torpy declined to name one of the suggested candidates, instead speculating that a small nation or city-state such as Singapore or Liechtenstein might move first, and adding that whoever acted first "would probably be smart" as it could make their currency more valuable, while also acknowledging it might be wiser to be second and learn from the first mover's mistakes (TBG #117).

Views on Gavin Andresen and Bitcoin Development

Torpy offered a measured assessment of Gavin Andresen's public regret over supporting Craig Wright's claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto. He characterised Andresen as having been "wrong about quite a few things over the past year," citing Andresen's post-Ethereum hard fork statements and a Twitter dispute in which Andresen attacked Torpy, only to have Andresen's own allies come to Torpy's defence. He acknowledged that Andresen should be permitted to continue contributing to Bitcoin, but noted that his "Oracle status" in the community had declined (TBG #117).

Views on the Identity of Satoshi Nakamoto

Asked in TBG #117's exit question whether Satoshi Nakamoto was a single person or a team, Torpy initially said he had no idea and that a team "would probably be more believable given so many different topics that someone has to know about." He then reversed his answer: "I'm going to go with one person. It's been eight years. If it was a team, shit would have leaked by now. You can't keep secrets… if a team commits a murder, it never lasts." He argued that the absence of any credible leak over nearly a decade was strong circumstantial evidence for a sole creator (TBG #117).

Relationship with Other Panelists

Torpy frequently aligned with Gabriel Divine on macroeconomic and policy matters, and with Tone Vays on Bitcoin's sound money properties and the risks of hard forks. Divine offered an unsolicited commendation in TBG #117, describing Torpy as "one of the only real journalists in the world" while criticising Google and Facebook's moves to demonetise alternative media. Vays noted approvingly that Torpy "gets paid in Bitcoin" and shared his support for the hat Torpy wore on the show (TBG #117). Torpy's tone throughout his appearances remained calm and analytical, consistent with a professional journalistic background, and host Thomas Hunt regularly deferred to him for commentary on industry news and mining developments.

Notable Quotes

• "Any time the government makes laws that hurt Bitcoin's competitors are going to be good for Bitcoin." — TBG #117
• "I'm going to go with one person. It's been eight years. If it was a team, shit would have leaked by now." — TBG #117, on the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto
• "If you're a Bitcoin user, you really shouldn't be doing anything illegal… It's still very difficult to hide your transactions in Bitcoin unless you really know what you're doing." — TBG #117

References

1. The Bitcoin Group #117, World Crypto Network. Kyle Torpy introduced as representing Coin Journal. Discussions covering IRS/Coinbase, Indian demonetisation, Bitcoin mining sustainability, Gavin Andresen, Sweden's e-Krona proposal, and Satoshi Nakamoto's identity.
2. Gabriel Divine, TBG #117: description of Torpy as "one of the only real journalists in the world."
3. Tone Vays, TBG #117: confirmation that Kyle Torpy is paid in Bitcoin.
4. Kyle Torpy, TBG #117: reference to authored article on government cash bans and Bitcoin published on Nasdaq.
5. Kyle Torpy, TBG #117: reference to correspondence with GB Miners, an Indian mining pool holding approximately 3–4% of global hashrate at time of recording.

Juan Galt is a Bitcoin advocate, entrepreneur, and recurring panelist on The Bitcoin Group (TBG), produced by the World Crypto Network (WCN). He is publicly associated with the hardware and software project Phone HODL, and has participated in Bitcoin community events in Mexico and internationally. Galt appeared on at least six episodes of The Bitcoin Group between episode 212 and episode 415, consistently presenting libertarian, Bitcoin-maximalist perspectives on economics, technology, privacy, and geopolitics.

Phone HODL

Galt is affiliated with a project called Phone HODL, which he identifies as his primary professional endeavor. On TBG #212, he referenced sourcing components for "the next generation" of Phone HODL from Chinese suppliers, noting that the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020 was causing delays and complications in supply procurement. He described receiving messages from suppliers and observed that customer service response times were slowing, which he interpreted as evidence of the broader economic slowdown in China affecting the global supply chain.

Lightning Network and Bitcoin Wallets

Galt has been an active participant in Lightning Network development at a grassroots level. On TBG #212, he described hands-on testing of the Lightning Network at the Guadalajara meetup in Mexico, identifying channel rebalancing as one of the primary pain points discovered during that testing. He welcomed the release of Lightning Loop by Lightning Labs as a meaningful step toward solving this problem for developers. He recommended the Wallet of Satoshi as an accessible entry point for new users, while explicitly cautioning that it is custodial and that users should not store more than "a couple hundred bucks" in it. He also recommended the Blockstream Green Wallet, describing it as "the best wallet in the industry right now" for Android and iOS due to its open-source, deterministically built code.

While supportive of the Lightning Labs $10 million fundraise announced in 2019, Galt expressed the need for continued community vigilance. He drew a parallel to the history of the Twitter API, warning that a successful Lightning Labs could potentially follow a similar trajectory from open protocol to proprietary chokepoint. He endorsed the panel consensus that Lightning Labs should remain an open-source development house rather than becoming a trusted third party, stating: "We're going to keep an eye on them because you never know." (TBG #212)

Views on ICOs and Altcoins

Galt holds a strongly skeptical view of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and token-based projects. On TBG #212, he argued that ICOs tend to kill projects rather than sustain them, observing that once founders receive large sums of money through token sales, development motivation frequently collapses: "The moment that the developers and founders get all the money, they're just like, hey, lab, both time, just go to Vegas, hotel, conference tour." He contrasted this with Blockstream's model of raising traditional private investment while continuing to develop open-source software.

On TBG #217, discussing the liquidation of Factom—one of the earliest ICO-era blockchain projects—Galt argued that the failure was structurally predictable. He contended that projects which insert a proprietary token as a middleman between users and a service create unnecessary friction, and that competing solutions such as OpenTimestamps and OpenTimestamps-style approaches had solved the same problems without such tokens. He stated: "Middleman tokens are a friction point." (TBG #217) He expressed sympathy for the Factom team personally, noting he had met members of the project, but maintained that the model was fundamentally flawed.

On the subject of altcoins more broadly, Galt noted on TBG #217 that charts tracking altcoin performance against Bitcoin over time show most trending toward zero. He cited analysis from the Woobull charting site as evidence. He made an exception for Namecoin, which he described on TBG #212 as "the first altcoin" and the only altcoin in which Satoshi Nakamoto had a documented role. He reported that Namecoin had successfully completed a pilot integration with the Tor network, enabling the use of .bit domain names to locate Tor hidden service addresses, calling it "a very rare case of an altcoin doing something useful." He announced a forthcoming interview with Jeremy Rand, lead developer of Namecoin, to be published on the World Crypto Network. (TBG #212)

Bitcoin Price and Macroeconomic Views

Galt is consistently bullish on Bitcoin's long-term price trajectory. On TBG #212, ahead of the May 2020 halving, he described himself as "so all in—it's ridiculous. Very, very all in," and predicted Bitcoin could cross $10,000 in the near term. He expressed the view that the market structure had shifted following the recovery from the $3,000 low, observing three consecutive green months as a positive signal. He cautioned, however, that past halvings are useful for predicting future price action but are not a guarantee.

On TBG #217, following the sharp market crash of March 2020 triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, Galt offered a more nuanced analysis. He argued that the crash was partly caused by forced liquidation of leveraged stock positions, which compelled holders to sell Bitcoin and gold to cover margin calls, and that this mechanism—rather than fundamental Bitcoin weakness—explained the correlation with equity markets. He described Bitcoin as a strong hedge against fiat inflation and currency debasement, but acknowledged it was not designed as a hedge against supply shocks or pandemics. He noted that the sell-off had emptied BitMEX order books at the lows, providing a technical argument that a bottom had been established. He described the bullish argument for Bitcoin in 2020 as "stronger than it's been probably in the last year, year and a half," while urging viewers to maintain food stores and physical preparedness before relying on Bitcoin as a financial safety net. (TBG #217)

Geopolitics, Privacy, and Technology

Galt holds strong views on authoritarianism, surveillance technology, and digital privacy. On TBG #212, discussing the interference that COVID-19 face masks caused with China's biometric facial recognition infrastructure, he drew a sharp contrast between decentralized and centralized systems of control. He described China's top-down political structure as inherently unable to process dissenting information, pointing to the suppression of the 34-year-old Wuhan doctor who first identified the coronavirus as an example of how the "save face" culture within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had worsened the outbreak. He expressed hope that the pandemic could contribute to the political weakening or eventual end of CCP rule and the emergence of more democratic governance in China.

Galt also offered a perspective rooted in religious symbolism, arguing that KYC systems and biometric surveillance constitute what some traditions call the "mark of the beast," while Bitcoin functions as a liberating counterforce: "This KYC system, this biometric system, this facial recognition system—that is the mark of the beast. Bitcoin is a liberator, it is a liberator from the mark of the beast." (TBG #212)

He also addressed the concentration of Bitcoin mining hash rate in China, referencing a CoinShares report identifying the Sichuan region as holding a significant share of global hash power. He noted that a severe disruption in China—such as a pandemic—could slow the growth of Bitcoin's hash rate and potentially increase vulnerability to network attack, while simultaneously creating an opportunity for miners in regions such as Texas, Washington state, and Canada to increase their share. (TBG #212)

Views on Binance and CoinMarketCap

On TBG #217, Galt reacted with measured skepticism to the news of Binance's $400 million acquisition of CoinMarketCap. He acknowledged the site's historical utility as a search engine for finding official coin websites and a quick price reference, but said he had largely stopped consulting it in the preceding months after losing confidence in its rankings due to apparent volume and supply manipulation by listed projects. He speculated that CoinMarketCap's peak traffic may have already passed following the 2017 altcoin bull market and questioned whether the acquisition price was justified. He raised concerns about Binance's broader conduct, citing reports that Justin Sun had purportedly offered Binance's assistance in orchestrating a market pump during negotiations over the Steem blockchain fork as evidence of market manipulation. While predicting on the exit question that Binance would not restrict CoinMarketCap listings exclusively to Binance-listed coins, he acknowledged the long-term commercial incentive to do so. (TBG #217)

Conference Appearances and Community Activity

Galt participated in or planned to attend multiple Bitcoin community conferences alongside Thomas Hunt and fellow panelists. On TBG #212, he was referenced as attending the Uncomfiscatable conference in Las Vegas, where the World Crypto Network planned to record a live episode of The Bitcoin Group with guests from the conference floor. Additional conferences mentioned in connection with Galt's attendance included Mallorca Blockchain Days in Spain and CoinFest UK. He also organized or participated in a Bitcoin and Lightning Network meetup in Guadalajara, Mexico, which served as a practical testing ground for Lightning channel management experiments. (TBG #212)

Relationships with Other Panelists

Galt appeared regularly alongside Thomas Hunt, who served as host of The Bitcoin Group, and frequently shared the panel with Dan Eve (the Crypto Raptor). The two often reached broad agreement on Bitcoin fundamentals while offering complementary analytical styles—Galt tending toward structural and libertarian-philosophical arguments and Dan Eve toward technical and market-based observations. On TBG #217, Galt also appeared alongside Ben Arck from BTC IoT, with whom he agreed on the desirability of more localized, community-driven economic structures in the post-COVID environment. Across episodes, Galt and Hunt engaged in frequent call-and-response exchanges on exit questions regarding Bitcoin price direction, with Galt generally taking a bullish position while acknowledging uncertainty. (TBG #212, TBG #217)

References

1. The Bitcoin Group #212, World Crypto Network. Panelist appearance by Juan Galt (Phone HODL). Topics: Lightning Labs fundraise, Bitcoin halving, coronavirus, facial recognition, Namecoin/Tor integration.
2. The Bitcoin Group #217, World Crypto Network. Panelist appearance by Juan Galt (Phone HODL). Topics: Bitcoin price post-COVID crash, Factom liquidation, Binance/CoinMarketCap acquisition, global economic outlook.

Robert Allen is a Bitcoin commentator, content creator, and recurring panelist on The Bitcoin Group, the long-running weekly news program produced by the World Crypto Network (WCN). He is associated with the YouTube channel and project known as Bitcoin and Friends, through which he produces Bitcoin-focused educational and entertainment content. Allen appeared on The Bitcoin Group across a span of episodes from #214 through #481, making at least six documented appearances as a panelist alongside host Thomas Hunt and fellow commentators.

Background and Association with WCN

Allen is identified consistently on The Bitcoin Group as representing Bitcoin and Friends, a project oriented toward accessible Bitcoin education and advocacy. His familiarity with Bitcoin markets, monetary philosophy, and libertarian political thought made him a recurring voice on WCN programming. He describes himself as a veteran participant in the Bitcoin space, comfortable enough with market volatility to take leveraged trading positions during extreme price dislocations.

Views on Bitcoin and Markets

Allen has consistently maintained a long-term bullish outlook on Bitcoin. During episode #214, recorded amid the sharp market crash of March 2020 in which Bitcoin fell approximately 50% in two days, Allen encouraged viewers to "think long term with Bitcoin," noting that "nothing fundamentally has changed about Bitcoin" and that the network was still producing blocks reliably. He disclosed that during the crash he personally purchased a leveraged long position on an exchange, sleeping overnight with the position open and waking to find it profitable — while carefully noting he was "not advising people to do that."

When asked for a price direction prediction in episode #214, Allen delivered what became one of his most characteristically simple responses: "Always higher for Bitcoin. Always higher." This optimism was tempered slightly by his broader skepticism about the macroeconomic environment, as he framed the price drop partly as a consequence of a "sick financial system" addicted to easy money, where leveraged participants were forced to liquidate across all asset classes simultaneously.

Political and Economic Philosophy

Allen articulated a clearly libertarian and voluntaryist political philosophy during extended discussions on The Bitcoin Group. In episode #214, during a wide-ranging debate on coronavirus economic policy, socialism, and state power, Allen argued from what he described as "first principles," asserting that coercion — whether by individuals or governments — is morally equivalent regardless of who exercises it. He stated: "If it's wrong to steal as an individual then it's wrong for a group of people to gather around someone else and take their money by force and call it taxation."

Allen positioned himself as a minarchist or voluntaryist rather than a strict anarchist, acknowledging that some minimal legal framework might be necessary to protect individuals. He expressed deep skepticism toward socialism as a political program, not on the grounds that its goals were necessarily wrong, but because he argued that any coercive system historically devolves into tyranny when captured by bad actors. He stated in episode #214: "I believe that that is very true... I think a lot of these things and this is where I differ probably from some that would be more on the social spectrum — I think we have to move from a place of first principles where we acknowledge that there is universal moral truth for all humans."

During the same episode, Allen distinguished himself from panelist Ben Arc and host Thomas Hunt on questions of government economic intervention, opposing bailouts and stimulus on ideological grounds while acknowledging the practical arguments for them. He was critical of the narrative that large governments act in the public interest, arguing instead that they tend to serve oligarchic interests and entrench established corporations through regulatory capture.

Views on the Coronavirus Pandemic

In episode #214, recorded in March 2020, Allen expressed notable skepticism toward the official narrative surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. While he acknowledged people would die and encouraged his parents to avoid public spaces, he suggested the severity of the crisis might be overstated, and floated the possibility that the pandemic was being used as a cover story for a financial market collapse that was already inevitable. He stated: "I'll take the other side and say that my positive is there's a chance that this whole thing is a CIA op cover for a market that was already going to crash anyway."

He also raised, with acknowledged uncertainty, the hypothesis that the virus may have originated or escaped from a laboratory, and expressed distrust of government institutions generally. When asked how long the world would be impacted by coronavirus, Allen gave the most optimistic estimate among the panelists: "Six months." This contrasted with Ben Arc's prediction of "forever" and Thomas Hunt's view that the event would be world-changing even if forgotten over time.

Relationships with Other Panelists

Allen's interactions with Thomas Hunt were often substantive and occasionally contentious, particularly on political economy. In episode #214, the two debated socialism, taxation, and the role of government at considerable length, with Allen staking out a harder libertarian line against Thomas's more pragmatic mixed-economy positions. Despite disagreements, the exchanges were characterized by mutual engagement rather than hostility.

Allen showed alignment with Ben Arc on questions of Bitcoin's fundamentals and long-term value, and both shared a broadly skeptical view of state power, though their frameworks differed. Allen's debates with panelist Dan Eve were more exploratory, with Dan Eve frequently bridging positions and acknowledging the validity of multiple perspectives.

Notable Quotes

• "Always higher for Bitcoin. Always higher." — TBG #214, on the weekly price prediction.
• "Nothing fundamentally has changed about Bitcoin. It still is producing blocks roughly every 10 minutes." — TBG #214, on the March 2020 price crash.
• "I think we have to move from a place of first principles where we acknowledge that there is universal moral truth for all humans." — TBG #214, on political philosophy.
• "I'm just highly skeptical of the official narrative." — TBG #214, on the coronavirus pandemic.

References

1. The Bitcoin Group #214. World Crypto Network. March 2020. Robert Allen panelist appearance; Bitcoin price discussion, coronavirus commentary, political philosophy debate.
2. The Bitcoin Group episodes #214–#481. World Crypto Network. Robert Allen listed as panelist representing Bitcoin and Friends across six total appearances.

Paige Peterson is a Bitcoin and privacy advocate who appeared on 4 episodes of The Bitcoin Group. She is known for her work in decentralized technology and privacy-focused projects.

References

1. "Paige Peterson — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Adam McBride is a Bitcoin advocate who appeared on 8 episodes of The Bitcoin Group (#254–#408). His most frequent co-panelists were Josh Scigala (5 shows), Martin Wismeijer (3), and Michael Dupree (2).

References

1. "Adam McBride — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Michael Dupree is a Bitcoin commentator who appeared on 5 episodes of The Bitcoin Group. He also hosted Hi Everybody with Mike Dupree, a talk-show-format program on the World Crypto Network (4 episodes).

References

1. "Michael Dupree — TBG Guest Profile". TBG Mirrors.

Bitcoin Not Bombs (bitcoinnotbombs.com) is a Bitcoin advocacy organization co-founded by Davi Barker and M.K. Lords (Meghan Kellison-Lords), dedicated to promoting Bitcoin as a tool for peace, charity, and direct action. The organization bridges cryptocurrency with the libertarian activist community, emphasizing Bitcoin's humanitarian potential over its speculative value.

Bitcoin Not Bombs gained early recognition through its "Hoodies for the Homeless" campaign, in which donors purchased a t-shirt for themselves and the proceeds funded hooded sweatshirts for homeless people through Sean's Outpost in Pensacola, Florida. Over 325 hoodies were distributed in the first year. The organization also helped nonprofits including AntiWar.com, Fr33 Aid, and the Free State Project set up Bitcoin donation systems, and produced educational materials like the Bitcoin Start Guide.

The project debuted at the first US Bitcoin Conference in San Jose (2013), where Barker and collaborator Drew Phillips sold out nearly all merchandise. The organization later sold products on OpenBazaar and Purse.io, and Barker's t-shirt designs were featured on store.bitcoin.com. Bitcoin Not Bombs is now celebrating ten years of promoting free markets and peace through cryptocurrency.

References

1. "Bitcoin Not Bombs — Celebrating Ten Years". bitcoinnotbombs.com.
2. "The Currency of Compassion at the Texas Bitcoin Conference". Bitcoin Magazine. March 19, 2014.
3. "OpenBazaar Ecosystem: Bitcoin Not Bombs". Medium (OpenBazaar). September 21, 2017.

Davi Barker is a Bitcoin advocate, production artist, journalist, and the co-founder of Bitcoin Not Bombs alongside M.K. Lords. He spent five years in production art and five years in journalism before becoming a full-time Bitcoin activist, with editorial work at DailyAnarchist.com and service as assistant director at Muslims4Liberty.org.

Barker first heard about Bitcoin on the libertarian radio show Free Talk Live and installed the Satoshi client when Bitcoin crossed $1. He became known for designing Bitcoin Not Bombs merchandise — t-shirts, hoodies, lapel pins, patches, stickers, and other items — and for co-creating the world's first coin-operated voting machine as an art project. He appeared on the World Crypto Network and spoke at conferences including the Texas Bitcoin Conference (2014) and Bitcoin in the Beltway (2014), where he was on a keynote panel with Jason King, Andreas Antonopoulos, and M.K. Lords.

Barker has written about the intersection of Bitcoin and Islamic law, and has emphasized Bitcoin's potential to make economic sanctions unenforceable, quoting Frederic Bastiat: "If goods don't cross borders, soldiers will."

References

1. "The human face of cryptocurrency: An Interview with Davi Barker". Cointelegraph. April 10, 2014.
2. "Davi Barker". Cointelegraph.

Derrick J. Freeman is a libertarian activist, entrepreneur, podcaster, and the co-host and co-founder (with Thomas Hunt) of the Bitcoin Talk Show on the World Crypto Network — a weekly Wednesday call-in show that ran for 199 episodes and is believed to be the first call-in Bitcoin show. He also co-founded the Free State Bitcoin Shoppe in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, claimed to be the first cryptocurrency-only brick-and-mortar retail store in the United States.

Freeman is a prominent figure in the Free State Project and first received Bitcoin as a tip while hosting the libertarian radio show Free Talk Live. He went on to co-found AnyPay, a Square-like app that allows merchants to accept cryptocurrency, with partner Steven Zeiler. Through the Free State Bitcoin Shoppe and grassroots outreach, Freeman helped establish Portsmouth as "Bitcoin Village," with 22 local businesses accepting Bitcoin in a town of 22,000 people. He appeared on WCN at the Hacker's Congress at Paralelní Polis in Prague (2017) and is also known for his documentary Derrick J's Victimless Crime Spree and his activism with the Free Keene blogging collective.

References

1. "New Bitcoin-Only Shop Open in New Hampshire". Bitcoin News. April 6, 2018.
2. "#HCPP17 — Interview with Derrick J. Freeman". World Crypto Network. November 15, 2018.
3. "Chasing the Bitcoin Boys in the Crypto Capital of the World". Traders Magazine.

Blake Anderson (Twitter: @BitcoinBlake) is an MIT-educated cryptographic economist and information/computer scientist who appeared regularly on the World Crypto Network for approximately five years, primarily as a panelist on The Bitcoin Group. He is one of the longest-serving regular contributors to WCN programming.

Before Bitcoin, Anderson managed over 200 enterprise-scale information technology projects with a focus on cryptographic security for Fortune 50 corporations. He first discovered Bitcoin while working as a project manager for the encryption and cryptographic services unit at a Fortune 25 financial institution, when a business analyst showed him the technology. After reading Satoshi's white paper, Anderson quit his job to work on Bitcoin full-time. He has described the experience of reading the white paper as bringing him to tears, recognizing its implications for human progress.

Anderson served on the board of advisers for Crypto Biz Magazine, contributed as a subject matter expert for Cointelegraph, and was a C4 (Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium) board member. He spoke at conferences including Bitcoin in the Beltway (2014) and has been a vocal advocate for pseudonymity best practices and Bitcoin privacy.

References

1. "Blake Anderson: BTC Lets Individuals Wage War Against Institutionalized Theft, Violence". Cointelegraph. June 17, 2014.
2. "Bitcoin Bear Market Diaries Volume 8 with Blake Anderson". HackerNoon. March 14, 2019.
3. "From The Fortune 50 To Decentralized Autonomous Corporations". CCN.

Josh Scigala is a Bitcoin entrepreneur and co-founder of Vaultoro, a gold-and-Bitcoin exchange. He is one of the most frequent panelists in the history of The Bitcoin Group on the World Crypto Network, having appeared on 136 episodes from episode 194 through episode 475. Scigala is consistently identified on air as representing Vaultoro and is known for his pragmatic, experience-grounded perspective on Bitcoin adoption, monetary sovereignty, and the limitations of altcoins.

Background and Bitcoin Origin Story

Scigala has spoken openly about his personal "aha moment" with Bitcoin, which he dates to approximately 2012. On TBG #210, he recounted the experience in detail: an Iranian musician living in his mother's basement had released part of an album online, and Scigala wished to pay for the full work. Every conventional payment method failed due to international sanctions preventing the transaction. When Bitcoin was proposed as a solution, it worked — allowing Scigala to send value directly to the creator with no intermediary able to block the transfer. He described the moment as "really cool" and framed it as a visceral demonstration of Bitcoin's capacity to circumvent the collateral damage of geopolitical financial restrictions.

Scigala has indicated familiarity with economies experiencing severe inflation, noting on TBG #194 that he is "always blown away" when people in certain South American countries describe 20% annual inflation as fortunate compared to the 150% or higher inflation rates prevalent elsewhere. This perspective informs his view that Bitcoin's value proposition as a medium of exchange — not merely as a speculative store of value — is especially critical in high-inflation environments.

Views on Bitcoin

Scigala is a consistent Bitcoin advocate who nonetheless takes care to ground his positions in practical utility rather than maximalist ideology. On TBG #194, he argued against the pure "store of value" framing for Bitcoin, stating: "I don't love the whole store of value argument that it's just a store of value because that inherently makes it a speculation because you're speculating that it will store its value." He maintained that Bitcoin's success across any single critique — technological interest, inflation escape, cross-border payments, or simple social adoption — ensures its continued growth.

He has repeatedly highlighted the importance of merchant adoption, even when transaction volume is low. On TBG #194, he argued that a business accepting Bitcoin at minimal volume does not need to immediately convert the proceeds to fiat, and that simply displaying a "Bitcoin accepted" sticker contributes to cultural normalisation. He described a San Francisco bar that accidentally held a bar tab paid in Bitcoin through a price spike, finding themselves unexpectedly well rewarded: "The bar was very pleased with us. We were getting greeted by name. They knew our drink in advance."

On the question of self-custody versus institutional custodianship, Scigala expressed a nuanced position on TBG #210. While affirming the old-school ethos of holding one's own keys, he acknowledged that large institutions would inevitably rely on specialist custodians, noting: "If you're a large institution and you deal with money, you want someone to look after that. That's just how the ball game is played." He simultaneously warned that concentration of holdings — such as Coinbase reportedly holding nearly one million Bitcoin — represents a dangerous honeypot for attackers.

Views on Altcoins and Competing Blockchains

Scigala maintains a sceptical but non-dismissive stance on altcoins. On TBG #194, when asked to pick an altcoin that might outperform Bitcoin in a bull market, he expressed interest in tokenised in-game items, specifically mentioning the WAX token as a project exploring that concept: "In-game items are native to the internet. They can be tied very easily. And people spend a lot of time mining these crazy items which they hold dearly." He was careful to note he had not purchased any, and was simply identifying an interesting use-case category.

On Ethereum specifically, Scigala declined to categorise it alongside the "shittiest of shit coins" given its network size and developer activity, but was equally unwilling to endorse specific price predictions, stating on TBG #194: "I just don't buy anyone that tells you it's going to be a certain price." He noted the competitive pressure from platforms such as EOS and NEO and questioned the usefulness of many Ethereum-based projects.

Views on Facebook Coin and Corporate Crypto

On TBG #194, Scigala offered a detailed analysis of Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency. He argued that a truly decentralised Facebook coin could become enormously valuable, but that a centralised version would merely replicate the problems of PayPal — expensive dispute resolution, overhead from reversed transactions, and court costs. He acknowledged Facebook's massive network effect while warning against dismissing it, stating: "We shouldn't, as people in the crypto space and Bitcoin Maximalists types, be silly enough to go, 'Well, their network effect doesn't matter.'" He also pointed out that Facebook had a history of appropriating ideas from smaller competitors, referencing the Kik/Kin token situation as a likely source of inspiration for Facebook's coin strategy: "These are test cases. These are Petri dishes."

Regarding Mark Zuckerberg's stated turn toward privacy, Scigala was sceptical, recalling the early Zuckerberg quote about users being "stupid" to trust him with their data, and concluded: "I don't give too much value to it. I don't like Facebook. I think it's a scummy network. But I think that I'd be stupid to put my head in the ground and go, no, no, no, they don't have a chance with cryptocurrency."

Views on Sanctions and Monetary Sovereignty

Scigala's 2012 experience paying an Iranian musician with Bitcoin informed a broader, consistent position that economic sanctions harm ordinary citizens rather than the governments they target. On TBG #210, he stated: "At the end of the day, the people suffer with these sanctions. The government doesn't suffer. They know how to get money around... It's the little guys on the streets trying to get their milk, trying to get their food for their family, trying to get an education. They're the ones that really suffer with hardcore sanctions." He framed both the sanctioning and sanctioned governments as "mafias" whose disputes are ultimately borne by civilian populations, and described Bitcoin as a tool capable of bypassing that dynamic entirely.

Views on Regulation and Grassroots Adoption

On TBG #194, when discussing Bitcoin outreach strategies, Scigala endorsed direct conversation with shopkeepers and small business owners as his preferred grassroots method, noting that even a simple query — "Can I pay with crypto?" — can initiate meaningful conversations. He also expressed enthusiasm for the "stamp every bill" tactic, describing dollar-bill stamping campaigns as an underrated form of awareness building. He was consistent in recommending that businesses accepting Bitcoin not immediately convert their receipts to fiat, arguing that even low-volume merchants holding a small amount of Bitcoin creates an organic alignment of incentives.

On regulation, Scigala argued on TBG #194 that oppressive licensing regimes — citing New York's BitLicense specifically — are self-defeating because internet-based businesses can simply relocate, referencing the United Kingdom's brief imposition of VAT on Bitcoin as an example of a policy quickly reversed after businesses threatened to leave.

Relationship with Other Panelists

Scigala has appeared extensively alongside Thomas Hunt, the show's host, as well as regular panelists including Theo Goodman, Rhett Creighton, and Ben from Wales. His contributions are typically characterised by a conversational, anecdote-driven style that complements more analytically structured panelists. He and Goodman frequently agree on the primacy of Bitcoin's practical utility over speculative framing, while Scigala and Creighton often find common ground on merchant adoption strategies and the importance of grassroots outreach.

Key Quotes

On Bitcoin and Iranian sanctions (TBG #210): "Some kid has got nothing to do with borrower of financing anything. He's just a kid making music in his mum's basement. And I was able to supply him some value in exchange for the value that he created in my life. And that was really cool."

On Facebook's network effect (TBG #194): "I'd be stupid to put my head in the ground and go, no, no, no, they're not, they can't change and they don't have a chance with cryptocurrency. I think they do because of the network effect."

On Bitcoin's multiple paths to success (TBG #194): "Even if you don't like any of those, your friend wants to pay you and everyone starts falling down that trap. So you just accept it. And any which way it happens... there will be a definite bet of a thousand shit coins that are a casino. But I think that will rise this one solid crypto or maybe five or six."

References

1. The Bitcoin Group #194, World Crypto Network (2019). Josh Scigala comments on Facebook coin, Ethereum, UK crypto adoption, Philadelphia cashless ban, and grassroots Bitcoin outreach.
2. The Bitcoin Group #210, World Crypto Network (2020). Josh Scigala discusses Iran Bitcoin strategy, his 2012 Iranian musician Bitcoin payment experience, and Coinbase custodianship of Bitcoin holdings.

Will Pangman (b. 1982, Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is a Bitcoin educator, community organizer, and frequent panelist on the World Crypto Network's The Bitcoin Group. He founded BitcoinMKE, the Milwaukee Bitcoin Meetup (150+ members), whose outreach strategies were replicated by community groups across North America. He later joined Airbitz (now Edge Wallet) as marketing manager, working alongside M.K. Lords.

Pangman's professional background includes film and video production, social services, and marketing. He learned about Bitcoin in late 2012, purchased his first BTC in January 2013, and became a full-time advocate. He served as Chief Communications Officer at Tapeke (a crypto personal finance app), co-vice chair of the Bitcoin Foundation's Education Committee, and co-directed the BTC-EDU project with Pamela Morgan to introduce Bitcoin curricula to universities. He also contributed to the College Cryptocurrency Network and the Digital Chamber's Bitcoin Education Day on Capitol Hill.

On WCN, Pangman was known for his ability to communicate Bitcoin concepts to non-technical audiences. He has delivered a TEDx talk and appeared on podcasts including Midwest Real, The Rundown Live, David Seaman Hour, and Tragedy and Hope. He later worked on a crypto documentary series and served as Head of Operations at Tantra Labs, a Bitcoin mining venture.

References

1. "Profiles in Bitcoin Outreach: Will Pangman". Bitcoin Magazine. May 28, 2014.
2. "Will Pangman". Cointelegraph.
3. "Airbitz Welcomes Will Pangman as Marketing Manager". Edge.
4. "People of Bitcoin: The Bitcoin Maven". CheapAir. October 31, 2014.

Protip was an open-source Chrome browser extension founded by Chris Ellis and developed with a team of six, including Thomas Hunt, that automatically tipped content creators in Bitcoin based on the time a user spent on their page. First conceived around May 2014, it was one of the first implementations of the "Value-for-Value" (V4V) content monetization model.

The extension functioned as a specialized Bitcoin wallet in the browser. It scanned websites for Bitcoin addresses, tracked time spent on pages, and made automatic weekly tips distributed proportionally to the user's top-visited sites. Ellis described it as "your own personal automated patronage system." Users could set weekly spending budgets, whitelist or blacklist sites, and configure qualifications such as minimum time spent. The extension also supported pay-what-you-want subscriptions and content paywalls.

Protip raised nearly $10,000 through an Indiegogo campaign (combining fiat and Bitcoin donations) and was covered by CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, and Fast Company, which asked "Can Bitcoin Patronage Replace Annoying Banner Ads?" Ellis served as chief education officer and community manager, while working from the World Crypto Network. The extension was released as open source on GitHub.

Protip pioneered concepts later realized through the Lightning Network, including automated micro-donations and time-based payment streaming. The World Crypto Network was initially funded through Protip before transitioning to Tallycoin.

References

1. Ellis, Chris (March 29, 2015). "ProTip App Proposes Bitcoin Solution for Content Monetization". CoinDesk.
2. "Interview With ProTip's Chris Ellis On Saving Media". Cointelegraph. March 19, 2015.
3. "Can Bitcoin Patronage Replace Annoying Banner Ads?". Fast Company. April 23, 2015.
4. "ProTip". GitHub (MrChrisJ).

Tallycoin was a Bitcoin-only crowdfunding platform created by DJ Booth and Thomas Hunt (Mad Bitcoins). It allowed creators and projects to receive Bitcoin donations directly to their own non-custodial wallets with zero platform fees. The platform operated from its founding until it officially ceased operations on June 1, 2024. Tallycoin gained international attention in February 2022 when it was used to raise approximately $1.2 million CAD in Bitcoin for the Canadian Freedom Convoy after GoFundMe froze $10 million in donations to the protest — an event that was featured on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program and covered by CBC, Fortune, the Globe and Mail, and Bitcoin Magazine.

Features

Tallycoin's core principles were self-custody, censorship resistance, and privacy. Donations went directly to the recipient's own Bitcoin wallet — the platform could never freeze or hold funds. No account registration was required to donate. The platform supported both on-chain Bitcoin payments and Lightning Network payments through Tallycoin Connect, a lightweight software that ran on the user's own node.

Creators could embed Tallycoin's plug-in (Tallypay) on their own websites, and each donation could include a 140-character comment displayed on the project page. DJ Booth open-sourced both the Tallypay widget and the Tallycoin Connect node software on GitHub.

Canadian Freedom Convoy (2022)

Tallycoin became internationally prominent during the Canadian Freedom Convoy of January–February 2022. After GoFundMe froze approximately $10 million CAD in donations to the trucker protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, a group of Canadian Bitcoin advocates calling themselves "HonkHonkHodl" — including Greg Foss, Jeff Booth, NobodyCaribou (Nicholas St. Louis), and BTC Sessions — launched a fundraising campaign on Tallycoin as a censorship-resistant alternative.

The "HonkHonk Hodl" campaign received its first donation on February 1, 2022 and quickly became Tallycoin's top-ranked fundraiser, surpassing its 21 BTC target with over 5,000 individual contributions. Kraken CEO Jesse Powell publicly donated 1 BTC. The campaign raised approximately $1.2 million CAD in total according to the Public Order Emergency Commission. Of those funds, roughly $800,000 was distributed to truckers — often through physical envelopes containing Bitcoin paper wallets, a process documented on video by NobodyCaribou.

The event drew mainstream media attention far beyond cryptocurrency circles. Fox News host Tucker Carlson explained Tallycoin on his prime-time program, telling millions of viewers: "Tallycoin is a small crowdfunding service that uses Bitcoin. It's not controlled by banks, that's the point." He argued that government attempts to freeze donations were making the case for decentralized finance. Fortune, the Globe and Mail, CBC, Cointelegraph, and Yahoo Finance all covered the Tallycoin campaign extensively.

On February 14, the Emergencies Act was invoked and the RCMP issued an order to all FINTRAC-regulated entities demanding they cease transacting with 29 Bitcoin addresses associated with the protest. A Mareva injunction — the first in Canadian history used to freeze cryptocurrency — ordered Tallycoin and other platforms to freeze transactions related to the identified wallets. Defendants included protest organizers Tamara Lich, B.J. Dichter, and Nicholas St. Louis. The remaining Bitcoin was held in a multisig wallet.

The Freedom Convoy episode became one of the most significant real-world demonstrations of Bitcoin's censorship-resistance properties, and was widely cited in Bitcoin advocacy as proof of concept for the technology's role in protecting financial freedom during political disputes.

Legacy

Beyond the Freedom Convoy, Tallycoin helped fund hundreds of smaller projects including software development, documentary filmmaking, book writing, and charity campaigns. It was a successor to Protip as the primary funding mechanism for the World Crypto Network. After Tallycoin's closure in June 2024, Geyser Fund has been recommended as an alternative Bitcoin crowdfunding platform.

References

1. Namcios (June 30, 2022). "Honk, Honk, HODL: How Bitcoin Fueled The Freedom Convoy And Defied Government Crackdown". Bitcoin Magazine.
2. Tunney, Catharine (November 3, 2022). "Money flowed to convoy protesters through envelopes of cash, cryptocurrency campaign, inquiry hears". CBC News.
3. Sigalos, MacKenzie (February 11, 2022). "Canadian trucker protest raises over $900,000 in bitcoin". CNBC / Yahoo Finance.
4. "Freedom truckers in Canada get Bitcoin lifeline after GoFundMe freezes millions". Fortune. February 8, 2022.
5. "Why the Ottawa truckers protest has turned to cryptocurrency for fundraising". The Globe and Mail. February 10, 2022.
6. "Bitcoin is not Controlled By Banks, That's the Point, Says Tucker Carlson While Praising TallyCoin". Watcher.Guru. February 8, 2022.
7. "Trucker Convoy Demonstrates Bitcoin Value Prop". Bitcoin Magazine.
8. "Canada Issues Order Against Freedom Convoy Crypto Addresses". Elliptic.
9. "Tallycoin Review [Bitcoin Crowdfunding]". H17N. January 9, 2025.
10. "Tallypay". GitHub (djbooth007).

Bitcoinal (bitcoinal.com) is a live Bitcoin price chart and dashboard created by DJ Booth, the Australian developer also behind Tallycoin. Described as "the fun bitcoin price chart," Bitcoinal combines real-time price data with hidden games and Easter eggs embedded throughout the interface.

Design and Purpose

Thomas Hunt (Mad Bitcoins) consulted on the site's original design. A key requirement was that all essential Bitcoin data should be visible on a single screen — the Last price, the 24-hour High, the 24-hour Low, and the number of bitcoins changing hands — so that Hunt could read the price at a glance during his live Today in Bitcoin YouTube broadcasts without scrolling or switching tabs.

One of Bitcoinal's most distinctive features is a toggle that displays the price in dollars per satoshi rather than dollars per bitcoin. This inversion allows users to monitor the approach of milestones like the $1 = 1,000 satoshi barrier — a symbolic threshold representing the point at which a single satoshi (the smallest Bitcoin unit, one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin) becomes worth a tenth of a cent. The satoshi-denominated view was included at Hunt's suggestion as a way to track Bitcoin's long-term purchasing power from the perspective of its smallest unit.

Data Sources and Features

Bitcoinal pulls real-time price data from Bitfinex, with additional statistics sourced from xSATS, Blockstream, Mempool.Space, Coinmetrics, CoinGecko, and 1ML. The chart includes interactive elements — users are invited to "click around the chart to discover hidden game features." DJ Booth has described Bitcoinal as one of his two main Bitcoin projects alongside Tallycoin.

The site reflects Booth's philosophy of building simple, non-commercial Bitcoin tools. As he noted on his personal site: "I started following Bitcoin in mid-2012. On Bitcoin's 4th birthday, I launched an educational website detailing key milestones in Bitcoin's short history, my first project. Ever since, I have dedicated my time and mindshare to Bitcoin."

References

1. "Bitcoinal — The Fun Bitcoin Price Chart". bitcoinal.com.
2. "DJ Booth — Bitcoin App Developer". djbooth007.com.
3. "DJ Booth". Bitcoin Donation Portal.

DJ Booth (GitHub: djbooth007) is an Australian Bitcoin developer and the creator of Tallycoin, a Bitcoin-only crowdfunding platform, and Bitcoinal, a live Bitcoin price chart. He co-founded Tallycoin with Thomas Hunt (Mad Bitcoins) to provide censorship-resistant fundraising infrastructure for the Bitcoin community. Booth also hosted The Flipside Bits, an early show on the World Crypto Network.

Booth began following Bitcoin in mid-2012 and previously operated a web hosting and development business in Australia for 20 years. As the sole developer behind Tallycoin, he built and maintained the platform including its web interface, Tallypay embeddable widget, and Tallycoin Connect node software. He also created Bitcoinal in consultation with Thomas Hunt, designing it so all key price data fits on a single screen for use during live broadcasts.

xSATS

Booth created xSATS (xsats.net), a live Bitcoin-to-fiat currency converter that allows users to convert between Bitcoin denominated in satoshis and dozens of world currencies. The tool includes an embeddable widget (xsats.net/widget.php) that website operators can use to display live Bitcoin exchange rates on their own sites. Booth also built a CPFP (Child Pays for Parent) fee calculator (cpfp.djbooth007.com) to help Bitcoin users unstick transactions stuck in the mempool.

Booth is listed on the Bitcoin Donation Portal (bitcoindevlist.com) as a developer "working on Tallycoin." His work on Tallycoin helped pioneer the model of zero-fee, self-custodial crowdfunding that influenced later Bitcoin-native fundraising platforms.

References

1. "DJ Booth". Bitcoin Donation Portal.
2. "DJ Booth (@djbooth007)". Tallycoin.
3. "Tallypay". GitHub.
4. "xSATS — Bitcoin Fiat Currency Converter".
5. "DJ Booth — Bitcoin App Developer".

Chris Ellis (also known as MrChrisJ) is a British Bitcoin advocate, developer, presenter, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Protip, a peer-to-peer Bitcoin tipping platform, and was a presenter and community manager at the World Crypto Network. He is currently Head of Product at Shift Crypto (makers of the BitBox hardware wallet).

Career

Ellis began his career in photography and the film industry, with credits including work on Casino Royale (James Bond). He later transitioned to cryptocurrency, becoming an early supporter of Feathercoin and a "crypto-journalist" who hosted the Bitcoin-focused YouTube show Chris Before Coffee.

In 2014–2015, Ellis conceived and led the development of Protip, a Chrome browser extension that automatically tipped content creators in Bitcoin. He served as the project's chief education officer and community manager, raising nearly $10,000 via Indiegogo, and garnered press coverage in CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Fast Company, and CoinGecko. He described his mission as "trying to build a culture of reward so that artists, writers, and journalists can earn a living with their work online."

As a member of the World Crypto Network, Ellis contributed both as a presenter and as a developer, bridging the gap between content creation and the technical infrastructure needed to fund independent media through Bitcoin.

Ellis has also been involved with the World Citizenship cryptographic passport project, and maintains a public GitHub profile with projects including Bitcoin Fullnode setup guides for Raspberry Pi.

External links

• GitHub (MrChrisJ)
• X (Twitter) @mrchrisellis
• CypherHunter profile

References

1. "ProTip App Proposes Bitcoin Solution for Content Monetization". CoinDesk. March 29, 2015.
2. "Interview With ProTip's Chris Ellis On Saving Media". Cointelegraph. March 19, 2015.
3. "Can Bitcoin Patronage Replace Annoying Banner Ads?". Fast Company. April 23, 2015.
4. "ProTip Allows Content Creators To Monetize Creations With Bitcoin". CoinGecko.
5. "Chris Ellis". CypherHunter.

Phneep is a digital artist and the most prolific contributor to the Curio Cards collection. Phneep created 17 of the 30 cards in the set — Cards 1–9 (the original launch series), Cards 14–16 (the corporate logo mashups), Card 17 (UASF), and Card 20 (Mad Bitcoins) — making him the artistic backbone of the project. A friend of Thomas Hunt from the San Francisco Bitcoin meetup scene, Phneep collaborated closely with Hunt on the conceptual framework for the collection.

Background

Phneep was already known within the Bitcoin community before the Curio Cards project began. He was one of the first artists recruited by the founders when they conceived the project in early 2017, drawing on existing relationships from the meetup circuit. According to Daniel Friedman, Phneep and Hunt worked together on the earliest cards, with Phneep serving as the primary visual collaborator during the project's formative phase.

Cards 1–9: The Launch Series

Phneep's first nine cards formed the original Curio Cards release on May 9, 2017. The early cards were predominantly Bitcoin-themed art and parodies, reflecting the project's origins in Bitcoin culture. Notable works include:

• Card #1 ("Apples") — Hunt has said this card represents the fall from grace in Adam and Eve, plus Apple Computer, and was fitting as the first card because it starts with "A."
• Cards #2–3 ("Nuts" and "Berries") — Reference lyrics from a Talking Heads song.
• Cards #7–9 ("The Art Story Set") — Depicts the evolution of art from prehistoric crude forms to masterworks, representing Sculpture (#7), Painting (#8), and Music (#9).

Cards 14–20: Later Works

Phneep returned to create additional cards as the collection expanded. Cards 14–16 form a corporate logo mashup series: CryptoCurrency (#14), DigitalCash (#15), and OriginalCoin (#16), each riffing on recognizable brand aesthetics with crypto twists. Card #17 (UASF) commemorated Bitcoin's User Activated Soft Fork. Card #20 (Mad Bitcoins) is a portrait of Thomas Hunt as James Bond — notable as the first portrait on Ethereum and an experiment in Patreon-style creator funding, where owning the card was analogous to supporting Hunt's work.

Legacy

As the artist behind more than half the cards in the collection, Phneep's work defined the visual identity of the earliest art NFTs on Ethereum. His cards span a range of styles from playful Bitcoin parodies to conceptual art commentary, and the complete set of his works was included in the Christie's sale of the full Curio Cards collection in October 2021.

References

1. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #4: Thomas Hunt Interview". World Crypto Network.
2. Daniel Friedman (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #3: Daniel Friedman Interview". World Crypto Network.
3. Curio DAO (September 12, 2022). "The Meaning Of Each Set In The Curio Cards Collection". Medium.

Robek World (also known as Robek Dirstein, sometimes credited as rwx) is a digital artist, cartoonist, writer, and NFT collector who created Cards #21–#23 in the Curio Cards collection. He was the first community artist to join the project, having discovered it through the federated social network GNU Social before nagging the founders into letting him contribute. His bio for The Avatar Project satirically claims "Robek World invented NFTs in 1998" — a reference to the binder of anime art he assembled as a child, not unlike a modern NFT wallet.

Early Life: The Binder

Robek's roots as an artist and collector go back to childhood. Enamored with Japanese anime, he scoured early dial-up internet for images — 56kb files that took an entire day to download — and organized them into translucent binder sheets. This binder was his first "gallery": a curated collection he brought to school to share with friends. In today's terms, as the Curio DAO profile noted, it was not unlike "acquiring JPEGs on OpenSea and storing them in your wallet collection."

He drew comic characters inspired by Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon, and by seventh grade had started his own hand-drawn comic that he distributed to friends as physical "issues." By his senior year he was publishing an actual webcomic, and in college he sold his comics at conventions from his own artist alley.

He was also a devoted trading card collector — Magic: The Gathering, baseball cards, comic books. In an Adventures in NFTs interview, he described growing up in the era of "bagging and boarding" comics, and conducting hundreds of trust-based forum trades as a child on early eBay, never once being cheated. He eventually stopped his webcomic around 2012 after an angry fan complained he wasn't producing content fast enough: "Basically, they had this entitled opinion that I wasn't producing content fast enough for them." After six years of creating the comic for free, Robek stopped drawing entirely and "did nothing for four years."

The Writing Phase and Open Source

Robek returned to art through writing. He launched an online publication, Robek World, writing "long-winded" articles — mostly "warped, gonzo futurology with a dystopian point of view." He illustrated them with pixel art made using a computer mouse in Piskel, because he could produce it "quickly" and generally, if he didn't publish something the same day, it never got published.

This period proved prescient: in 2017 he published "Digital Dreams are Made of Wires and Things," an article about Facebook's acquisition of Oculus that effectively predicted the company's metaverse pivot — years before the term "metaverse" entered mainstream discourse.

His interest in open source software grew from his anti-media stance. When Twitter changed its algorithm in 2016, Robek migrated to GNU Social — a federated social network. After being kicked off one instance (QuitterSE, run by a "self-proclaimed space communist" who disliked shitposting), he found shitposter.club, a new instance created by a developer named Moon. Robek reached out to Moon about doing a logo, and they quickly became friends.

Discovering Curio Cards via Moon

In the first half of 2017, Moon showed Robek a project launching digital collectibles on Ethereum — Curio Cards. Robek became an immediate fan. It was his first real exposure to Ethereum; as he described it, even looking at his wallet, "the first few transactions: it's some ETH moving in and out, and then, just Curio purchases or transfers."

Together, Robek and Moon built Token.gallery and Lexitoken — an experimental "card binder" social media platform for showcasing on-chain token collections, pulling ERC-20 tokens including Curio Cards with custom visualizations. It was the 1998 binder in digital form.

Moon was Curio Cards' first fan. He introduced Robek to the project and sent him some early cards. Robek then hung out in the Telegram chat, waiting eagerly for the YouTube stream for "New Card Tuesdays." As one of only two people in the chat (along with Moon), Robek would spam it with MS Paint raccoon drawings, thinking it was funny.

According to Thomas Hunt, Robek persistently nagged the founders on Telegram, "half-jokingly," to let him create cards. He described it as a kind of "LARP" — driven by imposter syndrome. Hunt reviewed Robek's website — a blog full of cartoons in a consistent style — and confirmed he was a legitimate artist. The founders agreed to let him do Cards #21–#23.

The RPG Cards

Robek's initial concept was pixel art of dungeon-crawling character classes — a wizard, bard, and barbarian — inspired by games like Gauntlet. He wanted to include visual differences between the cards, with the rare card having a holographic overlay.

"I wanted to do a rare one, that's holographic," he explained. "So, I had this elf wizard that had a holographic overlay on it, and was like 10 billion frames. And they were like, 'There's technical reasons we can't make this thing happen.'" He redesigned the cards as hand-drawn cartoon portraits of the three founders: Thomas Hunt as The Wizard (#21), Travis Uhrig as The Bard (#22), and Rhett Creighton as The Barbarian (#23).

When Robek asked again about animation for the Barbarian: "Can I have any animation?" — "They were like, 'You can have two frames.'" That is why The Barbarian winks and flexes. Robek reflects sardonically: "It's funny, because Card 30 came out and it had 24 frames. And I probably gave them shit for it, but I guess they figured it out by then."

Robek also innovated with supply numbers. Instead of 500, the Barbarian had only 250. Before that choice, there was "no real reason behind the supply numbers for the first twenty cards." His intuition paid off — the Barbarian was the first card in the collection to sell out entirely, followed by his other two cards as people strove to complete his three-card set. Card #23 is also considered possibly the first animated NFT (a 2-frame GIF).

The Trolling Collector

Robek was not only an artist but an aggressive early collector. He bought large amounts of cards in the beginning — partly to learn about smart contracts, and partly for trolling. He purchased a large number of Card #26 (Education, by Daniel Friedman) because he "thought it was funny" and "wanted to front-run and see how many people were gonna try to get in." For Cards #27–#29 by Marisol Vengas, he anticipated which would have the limited supply: "I was like, this is gonna be the one with the limited pool. I'm going to buy all of them. Because, it will be hilarious. And everybody will hate me."

On April 1, 2022, Robek burned 23 editions of Card #29 (Yellow), each currently valued at over 32 ETH. He did not enter NFTs for money; he did it because he "liked what it could be."

The Rediscovery and Legacy

Between 2017 and 2021, Curio Cards went dormant and Robek "basically woke up from a four-year coma." His Barbarian card sold for 192.79 ETH (over $600,000 at the time) — a sum he called "crazy" and "humbling," as the cards were originally "just something fun." His art was included in the complete Curio Cards set sold at Christie's for $1.27 million in October 2021.

On April 1, 2021, Robek recalled: "I could sell everything and walk away from crypto and be done with this forever." But he didn't. "Because, if everybody who ever sold an NFT left crypto, or left the ecosystem, or left the space, then we would have no innovation. We would be stuck with what currently exists. We have to pay it forward."

He has since continued rewarding holders with Curio Cards remixes by artists including 0010, Rylen, and sgt_slaughtermelon. He became a prominent collector of one-of-one NFTs, particularly the work of 0010, whom he described as "one of these people you meet that kind of changes your future." His 2021 essay "Thoughts as a collector" has been widely circulated in the NFT art community.

References

1. Curio DAO (May 1, 2024). "Binding Art and NFT Collecting: Robek World". Medium.
2. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #6: Robek Interview". World Crypto Network. YouTube.
3. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #3: Daniel Friedman Interview". World Crypto Network.
4. JL Maxcy. "Interview with Robek World". mirror.xyz.
5. ZeroG (2021). "Conversation with Robek World". YouTube.
6. Curio DAO (September 12, 2022). "The Meaning Of Each Set In The Curio Cards Collection". Medium.

Cryptograffiti is a pioneering Bitcoin-themed artist who created Cards #11–#13 (BTC Keys, Mine Bitcoin, BTC) in the Curio Cards collection. He was a friend of the founders from the San Francisco Bitcoin meetup scene and one of the most prolific Bitcoin artists of the era.

His three cards repurpose major bank logos with Bitcoin's ticker symbol: the Union Bank of Switzerland (#11), Mastercard (#12), and Citibank (#13). As the Curio DAO described it, the bank-resistance message is "all over his Cards, which capture the pro-Bitcoin ideology common among early cryptocurrency advocates." His physical works include destructed credit cards, modified bank logos, and Bitcoin ads attached to bank buildings and ATMs.

Thomas Hunt identified Cryptograffiti as a "friend of ours from the Bitcoin meetup" in the Adventures in NFTs Daniel Friedman interview. Card #13 (BTC) shares the rarest supply tier at 111 copies, alongside Card #26 (Education).

References

1. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #3: Daniel Friedman Interview". World Crypto Network.
2. Curio DAO (September 12, 2022). "The Meaning Of Each Set In The Curio Cards Collection". Medium.
3. "Cryptograffiti episodes". Mad Bitcoins.

Daniel Friedman is a researcher in entomology and a self-taught artist who created Cards #24–#26 in the Curio Cards collection. His hand-drawn abstract patterns brought traditional physical art to one of the earliest digital collectible projects on the Ethereum blockchain. Card #26, Education, is the rarest card in the entire collection with a supply of only 111.

How He Was Selected

Friedman applied to the Curio Cards project through a Google Form that the founders had set up to recruit artists. In an Adventures in NFTs interview, he recalled the beginning as "shrouded in forgetfulness" — he did not remember exactly how he found the form, only that he filled it out thinking "I like art, I like crypto, and this is a natural overlap."

Thomas Hunt described the selection process from the other side: he reviewed Friedman's submission, looked at his Flickr account which contained hundreds of pen-and-ink drawings with a "very precise, geometric pattern, like maybe an Islamic thing, like the great pyramids and things in the Burj Khalifa." Hunt confirmed that Friedman was clearly producing original work — "he's obviously a hundred percent really making these" — and slotted him in as the next artist after Robek World.

Friedman himself noted the coincidence of the project's themes with his own practice: the "proof of life" and "proof of work" concepts in blockchain mirrored the proof of authentic human creation that the selection process required. He confirmed that the drawings originated from doodling in the margins of his school notes, which eventually evolved into dedicated drawing with no pretense of taking notes at all.

The Friedman Trio

Friedman's three cards — Complexity (#24), Passion (#25), and Education (#26) — form the "Friedman Trio" or "Friedman Abstract" subset. He chose decreasing supply numbers: 333, 222, and 111 copies respectively. This deliberate rarity structure, following Robek World's precedent of varying supplies, made Card #26 the single rarest card in the entire Curio Cards collection.

The physical artworks are intricate hand-drawn patterns that Friedman created with pen and ink. They represent abstract interconnected systems (Complexity), raw emotion (Passion), and knowledge (Education).

Market Significance

Education (#26) has commanded some of the highest prices in Curio Cards history, with an all-time high sale of 125 ETH during the August 2021 NFT boom. The scarcity of Card #26 (111 total supply, approximately 106 active) effectively caps the number of possible complete Curio Cards sets at 111, making it the bottleneck for set completion.

References

1. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #3: Daniel Friedman Interview". World Crypto Network.
2. "Breaking Down the Story and Meaning Behind Curio Cards". Start with NFTs.
3. Curio DAO (September 12, 2022). "The Meaning Of Each Set In The Curio Cards Collection". Medium.

Cryptopop is the artistic alias of Luis Buenaventura, a Filipino digital artist and crypto advocate who created Cards #17–#19 in the Curio Cards collection. Based in the Philippines, he spent roughly 100 consecutive days in early 2017 creating daily Bitcoin doodles before being introduced to the project through investor Rick Chan.

His signature creation was the "Bitcoin Bulldogs" — cartoon dogs used as stand-ins for Bitcoin bulls. Card #17 (UASF) references the User Activated Soft Fork of August 2017 and spawned the accidental "17b" misprint. Card #18 (Dogs Trading) depicts dogs at a poker table passing Monero under the table amid ICO-era coin references — it has the highest total trading volume of any Curio Card. Card #19 (To The Moon) captures the iconic crypto phrase. As Thomas Hunt explained: "Rick turned us on to his friend Luis, who's now doing really well in NFTs with Crypto Pop, and he did those great dog cards."

References

1. Thomas Hunt (October 7, 2021). "An Interview with Luis Buenaventura (CryptoPop!) — NFT & Curio Card Artist". Adventures in NFTs, World Crypto Network. YouTube.
2. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #3: Daniel Friedman Interview". World Crypto Network.

Marisol Vengas is the pseudonym of Max Infeld, a Chico, California-based artist who created Cards #27–#29 (Blue, Pink, Yellow) in the Curio Cards collection. His identity was only revealed during the 2021 Curio Cards rediscovery.

In an Adventures in NFTs interview, Infeld described himself as an artist who had "made a ton of different artistic personalities and aliases" and could not find one to "meet all my complex needs as an artist." When Thomas Hunt contacted him about Curio Cards, Infeld recalled: "You contacted me like, do you have any art? Like, of course I have some art."

Infeld's artistic philosophy centers on community collaboration and two-directional art. Rather than traditional one-way pieces, his Marisol Vengas works were created with participants — friends and strangers coloring pieces together at coffee shops in Chico and the Bay Area. He described this as a "community algorithm" involving "extremely affordable materials and help from people who never met each other." The physical artworks for Cards #27–#29 are small enough to hold in one hand. Infeld has reportedly received a private offer of over one million dollars for the physical Yellow artwork.

When asked about competition for becoming an NFT artist in 2017, Infeld replied: "If I'm not mistaken, I think we were the first NFT project. So, zero competition."

References

1. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #5: Max Infeld Interview". World Crypto Network.
2. Curio DAO (September 12, 2022). "The Meaning Of Each Set In The Curio Cards Collection". Medium.

Thoros of Myr is the pseudonymous artist of Card #30 ("Eclipse"), the final card in the Curio Cards collection. The pseudonym is a reference to the Red Priest of Myr, a character from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. The artist's real identity has remained a closely guarded secret throughout the project's history.

Card #30: Eclipse

Card #30 was released in August 2017, timed to coincide with the Great American Eclipse — a total solar eclipse visible across the United States on August 21, 2017. Thomas Hunt had originally envisioned photographing the eclipse with specialized time-lapse equipment to create the card's artwork, but the technical requirements proved impractical. Thoros of Myr stepped in and created an animated piece featuring the eclipse, delivering the artwork on schedule. The card features animated graphics with visible dithering effects in its smaller frame renderings.

As the final card in the set, Eclipse served as a fitting conclusion to the collection, and its animated format — with more frames than Robek World's two-frame Barbarian — showcased how the project's technical capabilities had evolved over its run.

Identity and Involvement

Thoros of Myr is described by the founders as a friend of Travis Uhrig. Despite remaining anonymous, Thoros has contributed to the Curio Cards community in ways beyond Card #30 and is present in the project's Discord server. The artist's identity is not publicly known even to all of the Curio Cards founders, and community speculation about who Thoros might be has become a running element of the project's lore.

References

1. Travis Uhrig (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #2: Travis Uhrig Interview". World Crypto Network.
2. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #4: Thomas Hunt Interview". World Crypto Network.

The Christie's Curio Cards auction took place on October 1, 2021, at Christie's auction house in New York City as part of the Post-War to Present sale. A complete set of 31 Curio Cards — all 30 original cards plus the rare 17b misprint — was sold for $1,267,320 (393 ETH). The buyer was Taylor Gerring, an early contributor to the Ethereum project. The auction was live-streamed across YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, and Facebook, with approximately 500 concurrent viewers.

The Auction

Bidding lasted approximately five minutes. Multiple bidders competed, with the price escalating from an opening range around 160–170 ETH through rapid increments to a final bid of 320 ETH, placed by a bidder identified as "Florida." The final hammer price with buyer's premium was reported as 393 ETH ($1,267,320). Only about 15 known complete sets existed in single wallet addresses at the time, making the offering exceptionally rare.

An additional lot featuring Art Blocks curated pieces (generative art by Fidenza, Squiggle, and Archetype) did not meet its reserve price.

Context and Significance

The auction represented a landmark for both the Curio Cards project and the broader NFT market. A full set of Curio Cards had last changed hands for approximately 60 ETH in 2017 — worth roughly $60 at the time. The Christie's sale validated Curio Cards as a recognized historical artifact of early Ethereum art, placing it alongside CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs as a "blue-chip" NFT collection.

For the artists, the sale was deeply personal. Daniel Friedman reflected during the livestream that the fact it made it to Christie's was itself a great achievement. Other artists described the experience as transformative, noting it had given them opportunities to pursue art full-time. The sale generated a 22% increase in Curio Cards trading volume within 24 hours on secondary markets.

References

1. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Curio Cards #LIVE at Christie's Auction House". Adventures in NFTs, World Crypto Network. YouTube.
2. Howcroft, E. (2021). "A 'historic' NFT collection is on sale at Christie's." Quartz.
3. Christie's Post-War to Present Auction, October 2021.

The Rediscovery refers to the rediscovery of Curio Cards in March 2021 by a group of NFT collectors and historians who had been systematically searching for the earliest art NFTs on Ethereum. After nearly four years of dormancy following the 2017 cryptocurrency crash, the project was identified as predating CryptoPunks as the first art NFT collection on Ethereum.

The Search

The rediscovery was driven by collectors in a Telegram group whose explicit goal was to find the first NFT art on Ethereum, inspired by the earlier rediscoveries and subsequent valuations of CryptoPunks and Moon Cats. A collector known as "die-aping" is credited as the first to identify Curio Cards as the target project. Die-aping subsequently shared instructions with the community on how to find and purchase the dormant cards.

Reverse-Engineering the Vending Machines

Because Travis Uhrig had taken down the original website and sales interface years earlier, collectors had to reverse-engineer the original vending machine smart contracts to interact with them. They traced the project through old tweets from the 2017 launch, Bitcoin Talk forum posts where the project was originally announced, and Git history of the website code to recover vending machine contract addresses. The smart contracts had not been verified on Etherscan at the time, adding an additional layer of difficulty.

Critical to the verification was the archive of timestamped video content from the World Crypto Network, where Thomas Hunt had interviewed the founders during the 2017 launch week. These videos provided definitive proof that Curio Cards predated CryptoPunks (launched June 23, 2017).

The Rush

Early confusion existed about the supply of certain cards — some collectors initially believed Cards 1–13 had 100,000 copies each (the minted quantity before burns), causing them to undervalue the cards. Once the true circulating supply was understood, a "whale" collector moved in and purchased all remaining cards available through the original vending machine contracts, including the misprinted Card 17b. This effectively closed the primary market that had sat open on the blockchain since 2017.

Aftermath

The rediscovery led to the development of a "wrapper" contract that converted the original ERC-20 tokens into the modern ERC-1155 standard, enabling listing on platforms like OpenSea. Artists voted via Snapshot to implement a 1% royalty on secondary sales, distributed through a multi-sig wallet. The community also developed gallery viewers, a leaderboard tracking complete set holders, and comprehensive documentation. The momentum from the rediscovery culminated in the Christie's auction seven months later.

References

1. Travis Uhrig (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #2: Travis Uhrig Interview". World Crypto Network.
2. Thomas Hunt (2021). "Adventures in NFTs #4: Thomas Hunt Interview". World Crypto Network.
3. Castor, A. (2022). "The early history of NFTs, part 3: Curio Cards." Amy Castor.
4. Howcroft, E. (2021). "A 'historic' NFT collection is on sale at Christie's." Quartz.

Jimmy Song is an American Bitcoin developer, educator, author, and venture partner at Blockchain Capital. He is known for his work as a Bitcoin Core contributor, his programming courses, and his books on Bitcoin development. Song has been a recurring panelist on The Bitcoin Group and contributor to the World Crypto Network.

Technical Work

Song is a Bitcoin Core contributor who has worked on various aspects of the protocol. He is the author of "Programming Bitcoin," published by O'Reilly Media, which teaches developers how to program Bitcoin from scratch in Python. He also created the popular "Programming Blockchain" seminar series, which has taught hundreds of developers the fundamentals of Bitcoin development.

Bitcoin Maximalism

Song is one of the most prominent and vocal Bitcoin maximalists in the ecosystem. He authored "The Little Bitcoin Book" (as part of a group of authors) and "Thank God for Bitcoin," which examines Bitcoin through a Christian theological lens. He frequently argues that altcoins and tokens are fundamentally flawed and that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with genuine long-term value.

Media and Education

Beyond his books, Song publishes a regular newsletter and YouTube content focused on Bitcoin development and economics. He is known for his signature cowboy hat and his willingness to engage in public debates about Bitcoin maximalism versus the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.

WCN Appearances

On The Bitcoin Group, Song has discussed Bitcoin protocol development, the economics of proof-of-work, his views on altcoins, and the technical education gap in the Bitcoin ecosystem. His appearances typically blend deep technical knowledge with strong ideological positions on Bitcoin's unique value proposition.