Geoff White has spent over a decade at the intersection of technology and organized crime. As Channel 4 News' technology correspondent, he reported on the Snowden leaks, exposed the Talk Talk hack, and dug into fraud across the online dating industry. He's the co-creator of the BBC's Lazarus Heist, a chart-topping podcast on North Korea's hacking operations, and the author of three books — Crime Dot Com, Rinsed, and, for Audible, The Dark Web and AI: Friend or Foe, the latter released back in 2019, well before AI became a household conversation.

In this episode, Geoff joins Yitzy to talk about his path from local newspapers to investigative journalism, the difference between writing a book and building a podcast, and how crypto has genuinely changed the mechanics of money laundering — not made it impossible to trace, but made it faster to move. He also breaks down how his team pieced together 350,000 leaked internal messages from the Conti ransomware gang, translation quirks and all, and gives his take on recent AI-driven hacks, including the Hugging Face/OpenAI incident and the Cold Card wallet exploit — plus why he's skeptical of confident claims about how much AI is actually being used in phishing today.

This episode is brought to you by FirstRead — the AI-powered contract and document tool built for lawyers. Use code BYNDTHECODE10 for 10% off, or sign up here: https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026

In this episode, we cover:

00:00 – Intro: who is Geoff White04:14 – From balloon modeler to investigative journalist09:25 – Going freelance and the leap into book writing11:05 – How book deals and advances actually work13:39 – Researching and writing Crime.com15:05 – Meeting Brett Johnson, the "OG of hacking"17:36 – Books vs. podcasts: what changes in the storytelling24:00 – What the reader knows and when: crafting a true-crime narrative26:18 – Rinsed: has crypto made money laundering easier, or just different?35:37 – Inside The Conti Files: leaked chats, translation chaos, and "the grandmas"42:30 – Personal safety and the risks of covering hackers directly44:22 – Revisiting AI: Friend or Foe, written in 201948:05 – The Hugging Face/OpenAI hack, the Cold Card exploit, and self-custody risk50:45 – Why Geoff won't say "AI phishing is worse" without the data

Connect with Geoff :

https://geoffwhite.tech/ (podcast and audiobook links, book purchases and contact details)

In this episode, we cover CJ Hetherington's path from a self-taught teenager trading crypto in the UK's Lake District to Co-Founder and CEO of Limitless, one of the fastest-growing prediction market platforms built on Base.

CJ walks through his early builds - a gamified NFT protocol, the Atlantis World metaverse — and how a chance conversation led him and his Ukrainian co-founder to raise crypto donations for humanitarian aid within hours of the full-scale invasion, eventually hosting a hackathon inside a bomb shelter with Vitalik Buterin. From there, he traces Limitless's founding in late 2023, why staying outside the Polymarket/Kalshi duopoly has been an advantage, the CFTC review process for US market entry, and why he sees institutional hedging — not sports betting — as the real endgame for prediction markets. We close on what Limitless saw in the data during the World Cup and CJ's read on where the broader crypto market is headed next.

Sponsored by FirstRead — the AI-powered contract review tool built for lawyers who don't have time to read every clause twice. Use code BYNDTHECODE10 for 10% off at ⁠first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026⁠.

In this episode, we cover Michael Terpin's journey from early internet PR (founding Globe Newswire, working with Motley Fool, Earthlink, and AOL) to becoming one of crypto's earliest and most recognized figures — a path that earned him the nickname "the godfather of crypto" from CNBC, by his account, for his PR work on Ethereum, Tether, and roughly 400 other early projects.

Terpin walks through his "Four Seasons of Bitcoin" framework — his own thesis on how fear-and-greed cycles play out predictably between halvings — and shares his (unverified, forward-looking) outlook on where he believes Bitcoin's cycle lows and highs may land in the years ahead. He also discusses meeting Coinbase's Brian Armstrong at the first Bitcoin conference in 2013, and his book and fund, both built around the Bitcoin Supercycle thesis.

Note: price levels and cycle predictions discussed are Terpin's own analysis and should not be taken as financial advice or confirmed fact.

This episode is brought to you by FirstRead — use code BYNDTHECODE10 for 10% off at first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026.

In one of the most unique conversations in Beyond the Code history, Yitzy sits down with Reuven "Ruby" Rivlin — the 10th President of the State of Israel — to talk about why, at 86 years old, he's betting on crypto.

Rivlin is now Honorary President of Bitcore Capital, a publicly traded Israeli company building regulated digital financial infrastructure — including a shekel-pegged stablecoin, Bitcoin-backed lending, and what could become Israel's first crypto-native digital bank and have recently entered into a very significant partnership with Lava Network. The company has assembled a team of former senior government officials, regulators, and law enforcement leaders specifically to earn the trust of the Israeli public and regulators alike.

But before all of that, Rivlin was a trial lawyer, a Jerusalem city councilor under Mayor Teddy Kollek, president of Beitar Jerusalem football club, a 30-year Knesset member, Speaker of the Knesset twice, Israel's Communications Minister, and finally — the President of Israel from 2014 to 2021.

In this episode:

• Why Rivlin joined Bitcore Capital and what they're actually building
• The regulatory challenges facing crypto adoption in Israel
• How assembling former chiefs of police, ministers, and regulators is a trust-building strategy — not just optics
• His vision for Israel as a leader in the digital financial revolution
• Stories from his legal career, the Knesset, Beitar Jerusalem, and his relationships with world leaders

This episode is brought to you by FirstRead — your go-to source for crypto legal and regulatory intelligence.

Get 10% off with code BYNDTHECODE10 at https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026

This episode was recorded live at Consensus Miami 2026.

Jonathan Schmalfeld — known as 'Birdnals' across Crypto Twitter — is Policy Director at The Digital Chamber. He came up doing soft IP litigation, got into crypto around 2015, and eventually turned what he was doing for fun into his full-time work.

We cover the NFT IP moment, what it takes to be a real Web3 lawyer, the knowledge-sharing culture that makes this community unique, and how he went from associate at a major law firm to advocating for the industry in front of Congress and regulators.

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This episode is sponsored by FirstRead (use BYNDTHECODE10 for 10% off).

This show is hosted by Yitzy Hammer.

Make sure to 'follow' us and click the "alert" button so you don't miss any future episodes.

Check out our new website: www.beyondthecode.fm

A milestone episode, recorded live at Consensus Miami 2026: after three years, Beyond the Code has its first sponsor — and there's a good story behind why it's FirstRead.

Yitzy is joined by returning guest Mike Bacina, now a partner at NXT Law leading the firm out of Cayman, to talk about how boutique firms are gaining a real edge with AI, why the billable hour quietly works against adoption at big firms, and why "AI will take your job" is the same fear lawyers have had about every technology before it.

Sponsored by FirstRead — AI-powered contract help for lawyers. 10% off with code BYNDTHECODE10: https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026

Snir Levi is the founder and CEO of Nominis — a crypto compliance and blockchain intelligence platform. Before building Nominis, Snir was inside Celsius Network during its rise and sudden collapse, working in the security department with no warning of what was coming.

In this episode, Snir walks us through what it was actually like when Celsius froze withdrawals, how he turned that experience into a company, and what Nominis is uncovering today — including IRGC activity, sanction evasion through crypto, and why tracking inflows and outflows to Iran is the wrong way to look at the problem entirely.

We also get into the future of stablecoins, the slow death of the token economy, and where AI is reshaping compliance workflows.

🔗 Try Nominis: https://www.nominis.io/ — use code DLTLAW5 for 5% off.

🔒 Sponsored by FirstRead — AI-powered legal contract review.Try free at https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026 | Code BYNDTHECODE10 for 10% off.

Live from Consensus 2026 in Miami, we're joined by Russ Davis - "In Russ We Trust" - one of the co-founders of Shiba Inu, the meme coin that changed everything.

Russ tells the full story: from passing on Doge in 2016 (a decision that would've been worth $15 million), to taking over Shiba's marketing in February 2021 when it was stuck at a $2M market cap, to watching it explode to $40 billion in eight months.

This episode is sponsored by FirstRead — the AI-powered legal assistant that reads, marks up, and chats through contracts right inside your Word document. If you're a founder, builder, or anyone dealing with legal agreements, FirstRead is a game-changer.

🔗 https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026

Use code BYNDTHECODE10 at signup for 10% off.

In this episode, we cover:

- The exact post that started it all and why $100 turned into $2M

- Why most of his friends sold at $5,000 and kicked themselves in October

- Shiba Physicals — NFC-chipped collectibles and the post-NFT pivot

- The DeLorean partnership and what's dropping in Q2

- How meme coin communities actually work (and how Shiba avoided becoming a dumpster fire)

- Hopium: the Clarity Act, TradFi adoption, and the path back up