In this episode of Contra Cast, I break down the quiet shift happening beneath the surface of Bitcoin, Lightning, and Nostr. While governments and mainstream institutions spent years dismissing Bitcoin as worthless or dangerous, the U.S. government now reportedly holds hundreds of thousands of BTC and is considering legislation to acquire even more.At the same time, Lightning adoption is accelerating, Nostr developers are shipping new apps at an incredible pace, and machine-to-machine payments powered by Bitcoin are beginning to emerge. The episode argues that Bitcoin is no longer just a speculative asset, it’s becoming the monetary layer for a new parallel internet built on sovereign identity, open protocols, and permissionless communication.The central thesis: the infrastructure everyone ignored is quietly becoming the infrastructure that wins.