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January 27, 2026

Summary

This episode of the Blockrunner Podcast breaks down one of the most revealing weeks we’ve seen at the intersection of crypto, AI, and creator monetization.

What began as a promising experiment in creator capital markets quickly turned into a live stress test for liquidity, incentives, and trust. We walk through the rise and collapse of the Ralph token, why it initially made sense, how it gained traction, and why it unraveled the moment the creator sold. The fallout wasn’t just about price action. It exposed deeper structural problems that most internet capital markets haven’t solved yet.

From there, the conversation expands into the accelerating timeline toward AGI, why looping AI systems and agent swarms change the nature of work, and what happens to human purpose when intelligence becomes abundant. We react to Davos conversations, including moments where Bitcoin is openly laughed at by legacy financial institutions, and explain why those reactions reveal more ignorance than confidence.

We then tackle the uncomfortable question most Bitcoin holders avoid: how the network remains secure long-term. Transaction fees alone are not a viable answer. We explore why Bitcoin’s security budget faces a real challenge over the next decade and why a second subsidy may be the only credible path forward without changing Bitcoin’s core protocol.

This episode ties everything together into a single thesis. Internet capital markets are early, powerful, and inevitable, but without proper incentive design and liquidity structure, they will continue to fail in dramatic fashion.

If you’re thinking seriously about AI, crypto, creator monetization, and Bitcoin’s future, this episode will challenge your assumptions.

Learn more about the second subsidy thesis at natgmi.com.

293

Summary

In this episode, we break down why Bitcoin feels range-bound despite massive macro shifts happening in the background. We explore whether the traditional 4-year cycle is breaking, how Fed policy and liquidity signals are changing the game, and what a potential U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve could mean if the government begins accumulating BTC at scale.

The conversation then expands into tariffs, UBI experiments, and how society might transition into an AI-driven future without destabilizing everything in the process. From there, we connect the dots between emerging military AR systems, space-based compute, and why energy, security, and infrastructure are becoming the defining narratives of the next decade.

In the final stretch, we go deep on Bitcoin’s long-term security budget problem, why fees alone may not be enough, and how NAT introduces a sustainable second subsidy for miners without changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules. We also cover miner adoption, hash-power tipping points, and why this could be one of the most important developments in Bitcoin’s history.

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292

Summary

Bitcoin’s biggest risk isn’t the SEC, ETFs, or alt-L1s… It’s the shrinking security budget nobody wants to talk about. We break down why treating Bitcoin as “digital gold” creates the Empty Castle Effect: a multi-trillion dollar asset sitting on-chain with collapsing fees and a weakening incentive for miners to defend it long term.

We walk through the timeline of miner adoption of NAT (Non-Arbitrary Tokens) and why having ~60% of Bitcoin hash rate already touching NAT matters for security. From COVID and the failed “metaverse pivot,” to AI eating all jobs, to tiny homes and Ready Player One, we zoom out on how economic incentives are shifting and why Bitcoin’s fee market can’t be left to vibes and rainbow charts forever.

We also react to an AI-generated explainer built with NotebookLM, talk Jensen Huang, reusable rockets, and first-principles thinking, then deconstruct Michael Saylor’s latest “Bitcoin rocket” diagram and the pyramid accusations around it. Finally, we go deep on why “Bitcoin will just keep doubling” quietly violates basic physics, how that ties into the security budget problem, and where Digital Matter Theory (DMT) and NAT fit in as a potential answer.

If you care about Bitcoin’s long-term security, miner incentives, and what a post-halving world looks like when block rewards fade, this is the episode you shouldn’t skip.

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291

Summary

We dive deep into the real tensions shaping the crypto landscape, from Bitcoin’s security budget and miner incentives to the rise of arbitrary L1 chains playing the same old ICO game. We explore why NAT and Digital Matter Theory offer a fundamentally different path forward and put the entire crypto ecosystem through what we call the “Alien Test”: if an advanced civilization judged humanity by our digital assets, which technologies would actually pass?

We break down the psychology of how people solve problems, why non-arbitrary tokens matter, and how space computing, satellites, and the Type-1 civilization shift directly connect to where Bitcoin mining is headed next. The conversation expands into NAT branding, the Dyson sphere narrative, decentralization risks, the flash crash, and new pressures facing institutional trading desks. We also cover MicroStrategy’s positioning, market maker wipeouts, and why the industry keeps repeating the same patterns with new chains.

If you’re trying to understand how Bitcoin, miner incentives, NAT adoption, and the broader space race fit together, this episode maps out the entire picture. Stay to the end as we address the most common criticisms of NAT and highlight community thinkers like Rossi who continue pushing the conversation forward.

Welcome to another chaotic-smart, high-signal episode right before Thanksgiving. Enjoy.

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290

Summary

Two years ago, Digital Matter Theory and the $NAT token were introduced as an experiment in redefining what Bitcoin could become. Today, that experiment has evolved into a live, measurable force inside Bitcoin’s mining economy. With hash price collapsing to all-time lows and miner revenues under historic pressure, the Bitcoin security budget problem is no longer theoretical; it’s visible on every chart.

We revisit the origin of DMT, the birth of $NAT, and the emergence of UNATs and @dmtnatcats. We break down why miner redirects matter, how 40% of Bitcoin’s hash power is now acknowledging NAT, and why the next phase of Bitcoin’s evolution hinges on incentives, not ideology. From the multiplayer Blockpad mint to the unexpected breakthroughs in digital physics, this conversation pulls together two years of discovery and honest reflection on where Bitcoin must go next to survive.

Whether you’re a miner, investor, or someone who cares about Bitcoin’s long-term security, this episode shows why $NAT didn’t just appear at the right time; it appeared when Bitcoin needed it most.

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289

Summary

Bitcoin just spent a year at all-time highs without a classic blow-off top—so did we actually already live through the bull market without feeling it? In this episode we walk through the red days, the compressed four-year cycle, and why a 60K–70K BTC “bottom” could trigger a slow-motion extinction event for miners. We break down what that means for network security, why miner incentives matter more than most people want to admit, and how NAT as a second subsidy fits into this picture if hash price keeps getting crushed.

From there we zoom out and compare this cycle to the last one: DeFi, NFTs, GameFi, and the Metaverse versus Ordinals, memecoins-as-a-service, AI agents, and the OtherSide. We talk about why the metaverse hype died so fast, whether Yuga’s $500M land sale can ever be justified, and how insanely fast humanoid robots are evolving in China, Russia, and the U.S.—plus what that means for labor, isolation, and the inevitability of digital economies. Finally, we connect it all to the macro race between China and the U.S.: gold versus digital rails, state-level attack surfaces on Bitcoin, and why all of these tailwinds converge into a “lightning in a bottle” moment for NAT, DMT, and Bitcoin-aligned incentives.

If you’re a miner, builder, or long-term crypto investor trying to understand what happens if this really was the top—and how to position around security budgets, hash power, and new subsidy layers—this one’s for you. Drop your questions in the comments, follow us on X, and join the NAT Telegram to go deeper into the miner incentive war. Nothing in this video is financial advice; do your own research.

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