Welcome to this bonus episode of the Free Cities podcast. These episodes are only available to our subscribers on Fountain.fm or other value-for-value platforms. I’ll be dropping them in the weeks when the regular release episodes are ones you’ve already had early access to, or, like this week, simply because I wanted to share a bonus episode.

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A little background on this one: it’s part two of two separate conversations I had with the Bitcoin OG Gigi, which, unbelievably, had never been released until now. Back in the summer of 2021, I was working on a personal film project with Australian filmmaker Richard James, who was also on this call with us and appears briefly a couple of times.

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My part in the project involved conducting a series of interviews with prominent Bitcoiners, focusing on the subject of proof of work. Then, as now, I believed that understanding proof of work was the key to greater mainstream acceptance of Bitcoin, particularly around issues like energy consumption. Proof of work is one of the hardest aspects of Bitcoin to fully grasp, and since I consider Gigi one of the key voices on this subject, I was grateful to record more than four hours of conversation with him.

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This part of the conversation begins with us discussing what was, at the time, the hot topic of the week among Bitcoiners: Robert Breedlove’s very out-of-character endorsement of BitClout, a controversial blockchain-based social network. That incident raised important questions of trust and truth in the Bitcoin space, and Gigi was very publicly involved in the debate. Listening back now offers fascinating insight into what makes Bitcoiners tick.

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This is actually the first time I’ve revisited the recording since it was made, and I found it absolutely captivating. Later in the discussion, we venture deep into the Bitcoin rabbit hole, including some riveting exploration of the spiritual aspects of Bitcoin’s emergence, something Gigi speaks about with remarkable clarity. He also shares his powerful personal story of discovering Bitcoin and the transformation it sparked in his life.

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Bear in mind that the conversation occasionally slips into a question-and-answer format, which isn’t my preferred style, and recording online brought its own challenges. You’ll notice Gigi’s connection drops out briefly, though I’ve edited it together as seamlessly as possible.

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Long story short, this whole project ultimately fell victim to the pandemic, which was still raging in the background as we recorded. You’ll hear us reference it at the start. Around that time, I closed my office and went abroad with my family to escape the draconian measures in the UK. As a result, this interview, along with many others I recorded with other prominent Bitcoiners at the time, has sat idle on a hard drive for the past four years.

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I hate seeing work go to waste, so I decided this podcast would be the perfect place to finally share it. There’s a lot of signal here, and I was struck by how much has changed since these conversations in 2021—not only my own understanding of the subjects we discussed, but also the dramatic shifts in Bitcoin’s adoption and public image.

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I think you’re going to enjoy this one. I certainly did. Here’s the conversation. Many thanks to Gigi and Richard for giving me permission to release it in full.

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Enjoy, and I’ll see you on the next bonus episode.