Adam Krellenstein Returns: Counterparty’s Comeback & Bitcoin’s Soul Search [FULL EPISODE] In this episode of the Hell Money Podcast, we sit down with @agkrellenstein — Counterparty’s co‑founder and longtime lead maintainer — for a tour of Bitcoin’s formative years and the ideas shaping its future. Adam revisits the birth of XCP, explains why he walked away a decade ago, and describes what dragged him back into the codebase. Along the way we tackle the perennial question: What is Bitcoin for? Is embedding data on‑chain an evolutionary feature or a contagion best off‑loaded to sidechains? And if you aren't buying your daily coffee with BTC, has Satoshi’s dream failed, or merely evolved? We explore: - Counterparty’s origin story - Early Bitcoin dev culture - OP_RETURN drama, Blockstream’s sidechain vision & the data‑bloat dilemma - Whether Bitcoin is prepared for sophisticated political actors - Counterparty culture & NFTs - Adam’s decade‑long hiatus: burnout, philosophy of nature & why he’s back - What's next for Bitcoin TIMESTAMPS 0:00 The beginning of @CounterpartyXCP 17:30 Worse is better development 24:15 Early Bitcoin dev culture 32:05 OP_RETURN & Bitcoin core devs 38:05 Blockstream & sidechains, storing data on Bitcoin 45:15 Bitcoin is unprepared for sophisticated political actors 54:55 Counterparty culture & NFTs 1:00:30 Adam's departure from Counterparty 1:08:00 Philosophy of Nature 1:19:00 Returning to open source development 1:36:00 What's next for Bitcoin?