Stephan Livera Podcast

Most Asian markets still make buying and saving Bitcoin painfully hard. James of Ârc argues the fix is not another protocol breakthrough — it is local founders shipping simple DCA and savings products market by market.
James joins me from Mirissa Beach, Sri Lanka, where Arc is partnering with Fulgur Ventures on a continuous Bitcoin accelerator. He is a former EY advisor and Playfair Capital investor who previously built with Alexander Mann (now Fulgur GP) and later sold Consequence, an early LLM-on-databases company.
The conversation covers why the program is continuous rather than a six- or twelve-week cohort, how to apply at arc.lk/Fulgur, why Sri Lanka ranks among his top-three country bets, the South Coast talent melting pot, funding DCA apps across Asia even where operators already exist, AI agents as Bitcoin users, and why Strike expanding should not scare local founders.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro: James of Ârc
00:35 — From Accenture to Venture Capital
02:13 — Building With Alex Singh
03:21 — Fed Up With Monkey JPEGs
05:10 — Ârc Fulgur Bitcoin Accelerator
06:35 — Continuous Program at Mirissa
07:34 — Two Paths Into Ârc Fulgur
10:13 — Why Sri Lanka?
12:02 — Top-Three Country Bet
12:23 — Whales, Leopards, Beach Hub
15:00 — South Coast Talent Melting Pot
18:36 — 34 Local Founders Already In
21:39 — Fund DCA Apps Across Asia
25:23 — AI Agents Will Use Bitcoin
28:18 — Room for Many Asian Operators
32:23 — Just Focus on Your Customer
32:39 — Apply Now
Links: 
https://x.com/James_of_Arc

https://x.com/FulgurVentures

https://arc.lk/

Stephan Livera links:
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Mike Belshe, co-founder and CEO of BitGo, walks through how institutional Bitcoin custody actually works in 2026: qualified custody, self-custody co-signing, and why BitGo still centers a 2-of-3 model after pioneering P2SH multisig in 2013.
BitGo now operates as a US-regulated qualified custodian and public company, while still offering the same wallet stack individuals can run in self-custody mode. The conversation covers what “institutional security” means in practice — HSM-backed co-signing, open-source recovery paths, multi-jurisdictional key storage (including how BitGo moved WBTC when US regulation looked hostile), and why on-chain multisig still beats vendor-locked MPC for cold ops.
They also dig into the political and operational risks around large Bitcoin holdings: KYC and PII as honeypots, France tying names to amounts, the war on cash reaching Bitcoin, and whether an EO 6102-style confiscation risk still belongs in the threat model. On the institutional side, Belshe pushes back on multi-custodian setups that add failure modes, explains insurance limits versus the size of the Bitcoin market, and why splitting wallets matters after events like Bybit.
Timestamps
00:00 — Intro: Mike Belshe of BitGo
00:59 — Don't Lose Self-Custody's Power
05:41 — Retail Deserves Institutional Security
07:16 — Humans Are Terrible at OpSec
09:56 — 2-of-3 Protects Theft and Loss
14:35 — Retail Pays 160 Basis Points
19:22 — Why People Drift Toward Banks
20:35 — Self-Custody Is Never Trustless
23:39 — Why BitGo Sticks to 2-of-3
30:31 — A Public CEO Holds Zero at Home
31:27 — KYC Leaks Are Government Honeypots
39:28 — France Doxed Bitcoin Holdings
41:30 — War on Cash Reaches Bitcoin
43:45 — Multi-Jurisdictional Key Storage
45:29 — Executive Order 6102 Could Return
47:43 — Quantum-Resistant Wallets Today
49:27 — Multisig Beats MPC
53:33 — Splitting Custodians Adds Failures
58:29 — 2-of-2 MPC Can't Recover Loss
01:00:57 — $5–7B Insurance vs $1.6T Bitcoin
01:03:35 — Bybit Lost 10x by Not Splitting
01:05:21 — Multi-Institution vs Qualified Custody
Links: 
https://x.com/mikebelshe

https://x.com/bitgo

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Walter Maffione, CEO and co-founder of KaleidoSwap, join me to explain how the project grew from an RGB Lightning DEX into a broader swap engine and LSP stack — Lightning as rails between Liquid, Arkade, Taproot Assets, Spark, and RGB — plus KaleidoSDK, desktop app, and browser Extension.
We dig into web app and SDK integrations for merchants and unified-balance wallets, how HTLC atomicity works across layers, BOLT 12 multi-asset offers and Nostr discovery for competing providers, Bitcoin-only scope with Flashnet and Utexo bridges for external stables, and a product lineup of desktop app, browser extension, and dual SDKs.
Walter also covers agentic payments via MCP plugins, self-sovereign local models with Tether’s QVAC, fee ranges around 0.5–1%, and a one-to-three-month mainnet launch path for the extension, swap provider, and web app.
Timestamp:
00:00 — Intro: Walter & KaleidoSwap
00:50 — From RGB to Multi-Layer Swaps
02:14 — LSP Plus Swap Provider Stack
03:42 — Merchants, Stables, Unified Balance
05:38 — Why Swap UX Took Over Wallets
06:42 — Liquidity Ops and Mainnet Path
07:58 — AI Attacks After Boltz Shutdown
10:23 — Defending Non-Custodial Swaps
12:18 — How Atomic Swaps Actually Work
13:36 — RGB, Liquid, Arkade, Spark 
14:36 — Open Spec, BOLT 12, Nostr Discovery
18:23 — Pay Anything via the SDK
19:34 — Bitcoin Layers Only + Bridges
22:05 — Desktop, Extension, Dual SDKs
25:05 — UX That Adapts to the User
26:32 — Agentic Payments and QVAC
33:22 — MCP Plugins, Keep Your Own AI
35:11 — Fees Around 0.5–1%
35:57 — Launch Timeline: Next 1–3 Months
37:05 — Find KaleidoSwap Online
Links: 
https://x.com/bit_walt

https://x.com/kaleidoswap

https://docs.kaleidoswap.com/whats-kaleidoswap/introduction

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Recent attacks exposed how even large, educated Bitcoin holders remained exposed through single-vendor setups. The core lesson is that self-custody alone does not remove single points of failure; deliberate design is required.
Dhruv Bansal, co-founder and CISO of Unchained, joins to examine these incidents and the practical barriers that keep most hardware wallet users on single sig despite years of warnings.
The conversation covers the gap between theoretical multisig knowledge and actual adoption, the trade-offs between anonymity and regulated inheritance paths, why newer layers attract attacks first, and the need for human review of AI-generated code at Bitcoin firms.
Bansal argues that cryptographic hardware will become ordinary infrastructure for everyone in an AI-driven internet, not a niche Bitcoin tool, and that mature risk systems rely on fractal networks rather than centralized controls.
Timestamps:
01:42 — No Single Points of Failure Allowed
05:34 — Even Large Holders Skip Multisig?
09:14 — You Could Be Your Own Failure Point
13:35 — Anonymity vs KYC
16:27 — Don't Half-Ass Your Bitcoin Security
21:23 — One Wallet, True Multi-Vendor Security
24:24 — Single Sig Can Still Lose Everything
30:26 — Why Everyone Will Need Hardware Wallets
32:06 — Why Attackers Hit Bitcoin L2s First
36:32 — Bitcoin Firms Must Human-Review AI Code
40:05 — Bitcoin as Humanity's AI Defense System
42:59 — Remove Single Points of Failure Forever
45:25 — Hardware Wallets at Every Gas Station
47:34 — Bitcoiners and Key Entropy
Links: 
https://x.com/dhruvbansal

https://x.com/unchained

https://www.unchained.com/

Stephan Livera links:
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00:00 - Interview with Gabriele Vernetti of Stratum V2 @gitgab19
15:38 - Interview with Jimmy Kostro @jimmykostro
29:30 - Interview with James Check of checkonchain
Links: https://x.com/gitgab19
https://x.com/jimmykostro
https://x.com/_checkonchain
https://x.com/_checkmatey_
https://x.com/stratumv2
Bitcoinchiangmai.org