Show Notes
What is the connection between Bitcoin and Christianity?
There's a pattern in Bitcoin nobody talks about: skeptical, first-principles thinkers keep walking themselves into Christianity, often after years of study. Jimmy is one of Bitcoin's most respected technical voices, an early developer, author of Programming Bitcoin, and co-author of Thank God for Bitcoin, which puts him in a rare position to explain why this keeps happening.
I wanted his honest take on it. Not the surface-level orange-pill version, the deeper one.
His answer starts with what he calls little-t truth pills. You learn that the monetary system lied to you. Then you start questioning the food, the medicine, the experts, and the education system. Eventually, you run out of small lies to expose, and you hit the big one.
We also get into Rene Girard's scapegoat mechanism and how it explains losing VP candidates, the difference between judges and kings in Scripture, why debt sits uneasily with a sound-money worldview, and the one barrier Jimmy thinks stops most Bitcoiners from going the full distance.
You’ll Learn:
[0:00] Introduction [3:48] Begging his dad for a Commodore 16, then learning BASIC from a pregnant tutor [14:27] Writing two-hour emails in college quietly made him a better thinker [23:53] 2008 and Ron Paul's End the Fed turned a coder into a libertarian [26:43] The five-person email list that became his first Bitcoin community [33:38] Nobody predicting AI's future actually has a clue what it will become [40:11] The COVID Bible study that became Thank God for Bitcoin [48:56] Bitcoiners keep converting to Christianity through slow, methodical study [1:03:44] Judges over Kings, and what Israel lost by demanding a ruler [1:07:19] René Girard, mimetic rivalry, and why kings function as sacrificial scapegoats [1:13:08] The pattern of losing VP candidates as modern-day scapegoats [1:20:03] Coming to terms with sin is the real barrier for Bitcoiners meeting Christ
Resources Mentioned:
End the Fed by Ron Paul | Book or Audiobook The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous, et al. | Book or Audiobook The Ethics of Money Production by Jörg Guido Hülsmann | Book Honest Money by Gary North | Book or Audiobook
Find more from Jimmy:
Jimmy Song | X | Website | LinkedIn Programming Bitcoin | Book Thank God for Bitcoin | Book The Little Bitcoin Book | Book Bitcoin and the American Dream | Book Fiat Ruins Everything | Book
Find more from Adam O’Brien:
Adam O’Brien | X Adam O’Brien | Instagram Adam O’Brien | Spotify
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