SDE Ep. 38: Arkad on Sovereignty and Privacy in Bitcoin

In episode 38 of Separating Money and State, Iván Gómez interviewed Arkad, co-founder of Semilla BTC, about individual sovereignty and privacy in Bitcoin. Arkad argues that Bitcoin acquired with KYC is limited to speculation, as each expenditure becomes a traceable tax event, while Bitcoin without KYC allows for free transactions. He discussed the state of privacy tools following the ruling against the developers of Samourai Wallet, whom he considers scapegoats. He mentioned the domino effect in the ecosystem, such as the cessation of Wasabi and the withdrawal of Whirlpool from Sparrow, and the ecosystem's response with tools like Ashigaru and PayJoin. Arkad emphasized that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for privacy, which is built by combining tools and mastering wallet management. He highlighted that he has been co-hosting Directo Bitcoin 2140 for six years and that am-i.exposed allows users to connect to their own node. He also mentioned the case of Canadian donors with blocked accounts and proposed using Lightning to deposit funds into exchanges without a trace. He recommended wallets like Sparrow, Ashigaru, and Electrum.

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