Episode Details

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe returns after 20 months to discuss the Clarity Act, BitGo's IPO and retail launch, quantum-resistant wallets, AI code auditing, and what changed since we last spoke in S16 E1. Time stamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:54 - Welcome to S17 E43: Mike Belshe Returns 1:26 - The White House Visit & the Clarity Act Vote 2:35 - Why Wall Street Needs the Clarity Act 4:43 - Martin Gruenberg, Operation Chokepoint & the Vulnerability Window 7:00 - Does Clarity Affect Bitcoin Payments? 7:18 - The Three Camps Inside Every Bank 09:12 - Will the Next Administration Rug Pull Crypto? 10:15 - Executive Orders vs. Legislation 11:08 - Larry Fink: "Everything Is Going to Be Tokenized" 13:30 - Market Structure as Infrastructure Robustness 15:42 - MiCA, the War on Cash & the Bitcoin ATM Ban 18:48 - The Cake Wallet Contest 20:17 - BitGo Today: Custody AND Self-Custody 22:00 - The Marble Pillars Lesson: How Banks Earned Trust 23:58 - Why BitGo Is Free for Individuals 25:13 - Coldcard & the Single Point of Failure Problem 26:19 - Two-of-Three Multi-Sig vs. Single-Key Cold Storage 27:38 - Bybit's Blind Signing Hack 29:47 - Random Number Generators & Why Every AI Says 17 32:42 - AI Code Auditing at BitGo 34:11 - The Frontier Model Business Model Is Broken 36:16 - AI Vlad & Seasons 18-21 in Parallel 39:18 - Regulators vs. Borderless Money 42:38 - The $3 Random Number Experiment 47:21 - Sponsors: Layer 2 Labs & Braiins Hash Power 54:27 - BitGo's Fork Policy: Replay Protection & the Three Criteria 58:41 - Why Two Bitcoin Forks in 2025? 1:00:53 - Belshe on Forks: Technical Merit vs. Politics 1:04:47 - Satoshi's Blueprint or Final Solution? 1:08:00 - Forks as Scaling the Idea of Bitcoin 1:10:03 - Satoshi's Unanticipated Centralization Vectors 1:13:16 - Clearing the Record: BitGo & the New York Agreement 1:17:46 - The Block Size Counterfactual 1:19:34 - Tether on Omni: A Technical Correction 1:23:56 - Liquid's Hack as Sidechain Vindication 1:27:11 - The Fee Subsidy Problem & Tail Emission 1:32:01 - Fixed Supply as Bitcoin's Fundamental Promise 1:37:03 - Miner Subscriptions & Marathon's Slipstream 1:38:48 - Fungibility, Privacy & the Regulatory Threat 1:41:34 - Zcash Shielded Adoption: 4.5 Million ZEC 1:43:12 - BitGo's Shielded Zcash Implementation 1:45:00 - Executive Order 6102 & California's Wealth Tax 1:48:16 - The K-Shaped Economy & Borrowing Against Assets 1:53:41 - Do Forks Inflate the Coin Supply? 1:58:28 - The Payments Expectation vs. Protocol Reality 2:04:24 - Stablecoins, Iran & Tether's Freeze Function 2:08:00 - Jameson Lopp, Casa & the New York Agreement Myth 2:12:15 - Ethereum, Solana & the Trade-off Landscape 2:14:30 - The BIP 39 Seed Phrase Experiment: Quen's Answer 2:15:19 - The Winning Number: 91 2:15:31 - The Religion Question 2:17:13 - SideShift Ad Read 2:18:10 - Quantum: The Perception Threat 2:21:38 - BitGo's Quantum-Resistant Wallet Architecture 2:24:07 - The Unspent Selection Mechanism Explained 2:27:03 - Satoshi's Coins & the Freeze Debate 2:28:11 - WBTC as Bitcoin's Largest Scaling Layer 2:28:25 - The Anthropic 100 BTC Bounty 2:32:06 - Open Source AI & the Arms Race 2:34:05 - Will Clarity Pass Today? 2:36:51 - BitGo Wants Competition 2:37:18 - Satoshi vs. Hamilton & Goodbye