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What are the references in the Podcast intro?

The Bitcoin Cash Podcast intro is a brief chronology/summary of the history of Bitcoin - drawing on some of the most famous events and comments in the Bitcoin (Cash) timeline. Each year, the first half remains the same to honour Bitcoin's origins while the second half receives updates from the prior year to reflect new events and the continued progress of the community & cryptocurrency narrative.

The song is D1$L0YAL, by The Bitcoin Cash Podcast!

Every year​

  • Jamie Dimon (2015): Jamie Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan bank, and since the very early days of cryptocurrency has been like the "final boss" of bank opposition, slander and denial. Needless to say, his frantic bleating has been totally ineffective at stopping the movement, which has marched on through more than a decade of his complaining that it won't take over.
  • Bitcoin Whitepaper (2008): The original design document for Bitcoin, which explained the concept and spawned the entire cryptocurrency movement. It is only a brief 9 pages (including pictures, references and a lot of whitespace). Although some sections are a little technical, the general premise described in the Abstract and Introduction can be understood by anyone. Read it here.
  • Bitcoin Pizza (2010): The first purchase of anything for Bitcoin was made on the Bitcointalk forum by a user named laszlo. He paid 10 000 Bitcoins for his 2 pizzas, which in retrospect have become the most expensive pizzas in history. Of course, the only reason Bitcoin gained any value at all was this initial demonstration of paying in cryptocurrency, so he rightly has no regrets on this account. This momentous event is commemerated every year on "Bitcoin Pizza day". Read more here.
  • Silk Road (2011): The Silk Road was an anonymous online dark marketplace for buying and selling goods (frequently: drugs) using Bitcoin. This expanded the concept of Bitcoin commerce to demonstrate the ability to have an entire economy built around cryptocurrency. The site was shut down in 2013 by the FBI, and its pioneering founder Ross Ulbricht placed in prison, but was soon replaced by both legal and illegal Bitcoin e-commerce imitators.
  • Honey badger (2013): The early Bitcoin community would say "Bitcoin is the honey badger of money", to describe its relentless and uncaring persistence through any amount of chaos. This early billboard was a classic example. Note the strange Bitcoin sign with a slash through the lower half, which was one proposed early currency symbol that never caught on.
  • Dorian Nakamoto (2014): The identity of Bitcoin's anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, has always been a hotly discussed topic. In one of the most famous incidents over this mystery, a journalist called Leah Goodman misidentified an elderly Japanese-American man as Satoshi, based primarily on the coincidence of his name being "Dorian Nakamoto". Flabbergasted at the sudden surge of unwanted media attention he immediately received over a technology he knew nothing about, Dorian became an ironic cult celebrity in the Bitcoin community.

2022 Intro​

  • Punk rock (2015): Between about 2013 and 2017, Andreas Antonopolous was the most sought after and respected public proponent for Bitcoin. He tried a variety of ways to explain Bitcoin to confused audiences, and one of his most poignant was the description of Bitcoin not as the refined "smooth jazz", but as the unruly and uncompromising "punk rock". His inclusion here is a nod to his early contributions, but also a sarcastic poke at his later support of Bitcoin BTC - taken over and neutered by the banks - selling out the anarchic ideals of Bitcoin that he so fervently and accurately described for Bitcoin. It also partly inspired the song used in the clip, the Bitcoin rock song D1$L0YAL.
  • Bankruptcy (2018): After the 2017 split away from Bitcoin BTC, the Bitcoin Cash community had to reorganise itself. Internal tensions came to a head at the Miners conference in Bangkok, where Craig Wright - a man claiming without proof to be Satoshi Nakamoto - announced in an interview with Hayden Otto that if the network split he would bankrupt those not on his side of the split. Just as with his other claims, his mouth was writing cheques that he couldn't cash. Craig and his followers did split the network to form Bitcoin SV, but failed entirely to bankrupt the BCH community as promised. Bitcoin once more proved itself as the punk-rock, honey badger of money that suffers threats from no one and Craig again cemented his reputation as an ineffective liar.
  • Debate (2019): An all time classic of Bitcoin history, where "big blocker" and BCH supporter Roger Ver debates "small blocker" and BTC supporter Tone Vays in Malta over the truth of Bitcoin. Part of the debate focussed on the inability of BTC to serve as a payments mechanism without the much promised "Lightning Network" - which Tone admits to not even using himself despite his hypocritically adamant position that it would be a panacea for returning BTC to operation as a payments system.
  • Censored Debate (2021): This theme of BTC and BCH debate re-occured two years later, with a group of BTC "maximalists" debating internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom (advocating for BCH). A generally poor showing by the BTC side included a total "own goal" where they admitted that Bitcoin BTC was no longer a threat to the US Dollar - the founding mission of Bitcoin which the Bitcoin Cash community had retained. Ashamed by their own weak arguments and childish behaviour, the hosts deleted the debate audio, but it was preserved by the BCH community. A complete review with commentary was also conducted on The Bitcoin Cash Podcast itself.
  • Next generation (2021): In the 2021 year end review, an unscheduled appearance by BCH content creator Ryan Giffin's son Miles provided the perfect moment illustrating the change in generations that makes cryptocurrency adoption inevitable.

2023 Intro​

  • Collaborate to Accumulate (Feb 2022): NeonDaThal started the year with a hopeful message for BCH in his Collaborate To Accumulate video. The Podcast talked to him about it on Episode 38.
  • Were we the bad guys? (June 2022): Notable former BTC maximalist Eric Wall shows previously unseen self-awareness and narrative breakdown in reflecting on whether or not he was on the right side of The Blocksize War. Covered in detail on Episode 50.
  • Mark Lamb on Bloomberg (July 2022): A nervous Mark Lamb, CEO of CoinFlex and operator of the SmartBCH bridge, appeared on Bloomberg TV to explain CoinFlex's questionable debt-tokenisation strategy during its calamitous meltdown. This was a crucial moment for the BCH Community, who had the SmartBCH ecosystem and locked funds at stake, on top of depositor funds. Covered in detail on Episode 52.
  • Unstoppable (November 2022): Rolando Brison, MP of St Maarten, explains on Episode 65 live in St Kitts at the BCH22 conference how he is resilient to trolling and attacks due to a personal history of dealing with such interference. This mirrors the experience of the BCH community.
  • Sunny's Champagne Shower (November 2022): Sunny Gehani - superstar BCH merchant adopter - performs his signature move, soaking BCH adopters in unexpected champagne at the BCH22 afterparty at Buddha Bar in St Kitts.

2024 Intro​

  • Roger & girls (April 2023): While mostly inactive in the BCH community, Roger Ver went to his first ever music festival. He was ridiculed in the rest of the cryptocurrency ecosystem with accusations that the girls present were paid to be there, but as the contrasting clip shows the joke is actually on his haters as the festival was nearly concurrent to widespread vindication of the Bitcoin ideas (raising the blocksize) he had been consistently preaching (& also ridiculed for) for years.
  • Vitalik roasts Taproot Wizards (July 2023): Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum & a self-described "medium blocker" during the Bitcoin Blocksize War, stumps Taproot Wizards Udi Wertheimer & (unheard) Eric Wall by asking them why BTC could not do a BCH-equivalent blocksize increase. This topical & widely-heard moment puts the lie to collapsing small blocker propaganda about Bitcoin. Full context & discussion on Episode 86.
  • Bcashers Were Right (September 2023): Capitulation on small blocker narratives continues on stage at the famously "laser eyed" Bitcoin maximalist conference Baltic Honeybadger. Sergej Kotliar of Bitrefill openly admits hindsight has proven at least some of the big block Bitcoiner arguments correct (undoubtedly capitulation on the rest is just a matter of time). A large segment of the panel, including a variety of other vindications of BCH ideas, was shown & discussed on Episode 92.
  • It works! (October 2023): David Shattuck, creator of Bitcoin Cash gaming platform A Fifth Of Gaming is pleasantly surprised as the public beta test of Bitcoin Cash tournament reward payouts goes to plan after Kallisti defeats Jeremy in a livestreamed Zerg vs Zerg Starcraft 2 series. This moment encapsulates the magic of Bitcoin as an automated internet currency & the growth of the BCH scene to be developing its own unique & impressive apps. David joined the show to discuss A Fifth Of Gaming on Episode 94.
  • Rising threat (December 2023): Karen-in-chief US Senator Elizabeth Warren begins to panic on mainstream media about cryptocurrency, attempting to slander it as a vehicle for terrorist & drug financing (of course, the US Dollar is overwhelmingly the most common currency used for terrorist & drug financing - not Bitcoin). Ironically she describes crypto as a "new" threat, when it's been around for nearly 15 years, but it's only at this point (once it's already mostly too late) that the significance of its ability to undermine her authoritarian politics & crony deals with the financial system is beginning to seriously dawn on her. The full clip was Meme of the Week on Episode 101.
  • CashTokens (May 2023): In honour of the CashTokens upgrade in May 2023, the coin flip logo now features a CashToken coin flipping to BCH instead of a BTC coin flipping to BCH.