loader from loading.io

The Bitcoin Game #64: Farbood Nivi of Coinmine

The Bitcoin Game

Release Date: 06/15/2019

Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 6 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Giacomo Zucco show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 6 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Giacomo Zucco

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays and Jimmy Song continue their series of interviews examining the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Because Tone is only releasing this series as streaming video on X and YouTube, "The Bitcoin Game" podcast feed was revived to host this interview series for people who prefer a low-bandwidth audio podcast to consume this long-form content. This is Part 6 of the series, this time featuring Giacomo Zucco. The interview was recorded on November 13, 2025, in a side room at the Bitcoin Historico event in El Salvador.

info_outline
Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 5 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Knut Svanholm show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 5 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Knut Svanholm

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays and Jimmy Song continue their series of interviews examining the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Because Tone is only releasing this series as streaming video on X and YouTube, "The Bitcoin Game" podcast feed was revived to host this interview series for people who prefer a low-bandwidth audio podcast to consume this long-form content. This is Part 5 of the series, this time featuring Knut Svanholm. The interview was recorded on November 12, 2025, in a side room at the Bitcoin Historico event in El Salvador. The beginning of the recording has been edited to...

info_outline
Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 4 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Murch show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 4 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Murch

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays and Jimmy Song continue their series of interviews examining the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Because Tone is only releasing this series as streaming video on X and YouTube, "The Bitcoin Game" podcast feed was revived to host this interview series for people who prefer a low-bandwidth audio podcast to consume this long-form content. This is Part 4 of the series, featuring Bitcoin Core contributor Murch. The interview was recorded on November 7, 2025.

info_outline
Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 3 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Bob Burnett show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 3 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, and Bob Burnett

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays came out of retirement as a content creator to host a new series of interviews focusing on the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Together with Jimmy Song, he is speaking with a wide range of well-known Bitcoiners on all sides of the debate to help users understand what is at stake. Since Tone didn't set up an audio RSS feed for this series, and a lot of people prefer a low-bandwidth podcast over streaming video on YouTube or X, I brought this podcast feed out of retirement to make the audio easily available. This is Part 3 of the series, featuring Bob Burnett...

info_outline
Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 2 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, Luke Dashjr, and BitcoinMechanic show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 2 with Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, Luke Dashjr, and BitcoinMechanic

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays came out of retirement as a content creator to host a new series of interviews focusing on the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Together with Jimmy Song, he is speaking with a wide range of well-known Bitcoiners on all sides of the debate to help users understand what is at stake. Since Tone didn't set up an audio RSS feed for this series, and a lot of people prefer a low-bandwidth podcast over streaming video on YouTube or X, I brought this podcast feed out of retirement to make the audio easily available. This is Part 2 of the series, featuring Luke Dashjr...

info_outline
Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 1 with Tone Vays, Adam Back, and Jimmy Song show art Bitcoin Knots vs Core v30: Part 1 with Tone Vays, Adam Back, and Jimmy Song

The Bitcoin Game

Tone Vays came out of retirement as a content creator to host a new series of interviews focusing on the current tensions between Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core. Together with Jimmy Song, he is speaking with a wide range of well-known Bitcoiners on all sides of the debate to help users understand what is at stake. Since Tone didn't set up an audio RSS feed for this series, and a lot of people prefer a low-bandwidth podcast over streaming video on YouTube or X, I brought this podcast feed out of retirement to make the audio easily available. This is Part 1 of the series, featuring Adam Back....

info_outline
The Bitcoin Game #76: Andrew The Bitcoin Game #76: Andrew "Cybergibbons" Tierney

The Bitcoin Game

Welcome to episode 76 of The Bitcoin Game, sponsored by eToro. Andrew Tierney, otherwise known online as Cybergibbons, hacks everything from oil rigs to Cryptocurrency hardware wallets. We conducted this interview a bit before COVID-19 took over the planet, back when we were more worried about malware than going to the grocery store without an N95 mask. Andrew and I discuss hacking hardware wallets, IoT devices, home routers, his day job as a hacker for hire, and other stuff too.

info_outline
The Bitcoin Game #75: 2014 Interview with Dr. Jochen The Bitcoin Game #75: 2014 Interview with Dr. Jochen "Johoe" Hoenicke

The Bitcoin Game

Welcome to The Bitcoin Game, sponsored by eToro. I'm Rob Mitchell. One of my favorite old interviews is an exclusive with Dr. Jochen "Johoe" Hoenicke, the 2014 Bitcoin Hero. He rescued insecure Bitcoin from Blockchain.info wallets. A bit after this 2014 interview, Johoe responsibly published a side-channel attack on a TREZOR, which led to Satoshi Labs hiring him. Enjoy my first "rebroadcast" to celebrate 75, the only audio interview with Johoe that I'm aware of. Full show notes & links at TheBitcoinGame.com

info_outline
The Bitcoin Game #74: David Jevans of CipherTrace show art The Bitcoin Game #74: David Jevans of CipherTrace

The Bitcoin Game

Welcome to episode 74 of The Bitcoin Game, sponsored by eToro.

info_outline
The Bitcoin Game #73: Tim Pastoor, P2P Identity show art The Bitcoin Game #73: Tim Pastoor, P2P Identity

The Bitcoin Game

Tim Pastoor has been focused on peer-to-peer identity and reputation systems for the past five years, supporting Martti Malmi's work in the space (Martti was the first coder to work with Satoshi on Bitcoin). Twitter's Jack Dorsey recently got tons of attention promoting the goal of decentralized social media, and P2P identity may well be the base layer for such projects. Please check the full show notes with links at TheBitcoinGame.com.

info_outline
 
More Episodes

The other day, an interesting post crossed my path on "Crypto Twitter." This guy was super excited about receiving his Coinmine, a device I was not familiar with. It appeared to be a plug-and-play multi-purpose GPU miner and Bitcoin/Lightning Network full node. And it looked pretty. I was intrigued. I started investigating the product, and quickly discovered that Coinminer's headquarters is right here in Los Angeles. And that's how my interview with Farbood Nivi, CEO and co-founder of Coinmine, was conceived.

I hadn't really considered multi-purpose devices such as a Coinmine, which currently can mine Ethereum, Monero, Zcash and Grin. It's not hard to imagine that future incarnations of this product could bring full Bitcoin/Lightning nodes and speculative Cryptocurrency mining to many new mainstream people who are willing to pay a premium for this level of simplicity. Could cloud-controlled plug-and-play devices theoretically give a centralized party too much control over a lot of miners? Please comment below if you have thoughts!

After arranging this interview, Coinmine offered me a $50 discount for listeners, which can be claimed using the discount code BitcoinGame at checkout, or going to this URL: https://coinmine.com/bitcoingame. The Bitcoin Game will receive a referral fee for purchases using this code, however, that did not influence the content of this episode. Before purchasing, please consider electricity usage in addition to the cost of the miner itself, and note that Bitcoin and Lightning Network features are not active yet.

Coinmine


EPISODE LINKS

Coinmine
https://coinmine.com

Farbood on Twitter
https://twitter.com/farbood

Coinmine co-founder Justin Lambert
http://www.justlambert.com

Radeon RX580
https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/radeon-rx-580

Casa Node
https://keys.casa/lightning-bitcoin-node

Grin
https://grin-tech.org

Handshake
https://handshake.org

Monero
https://www.getmonero.org

Farb's mining article on Hacker Noon
https://hackernoon.com/how-at-home-crypto-mining-outperforms-buying-crypto-8f30d87d2348

Compound Finance
https://compound.finance


STAY IN TOUCH

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen to The Bitcoin Game!

https://Twitter.com/TheBTCGame
http://TheBitcoinGame.com
Rob@TheBitcoinGame.com


SPONSOR

Bitcoin 2019 LogoThe upcoming Bitcoin2019 conference is taking place on June 25 and 26 in San Francisco. There's an amazing line-up of, literally, some of the biggest names in Bitcoin. Go to Bitcoin2019Conference.com now and claim a 25-percent discount with promo code BG25.

Bitcoin2019Conference.com


CREDITS

All music in this episode of The Bitcoin Game was created by Rob Mitchell.

The Bitcoin Game box art was created from an illustration by Rock Barcellos.

Bitcoin (Segwit) tipping address:
3AYvXZseExRn3Dum8z9tFUk9jtQK6KMU4g

Lightning Network tipping:
https://tippin.me/@TheBTCGame


Note: We've migrated our RSS feed (and primary content host) from Soundcloud to Libsyn. So if you noticed the Soundcloud numbers aren't nearly as high as they used to be, that's the reason.