This episode begins with thoughts about core traits of real cryptocurrency, given in different terms than I normally use. Independence, Proof, and Direct Action are similar terms to peer-to-peer, trustless (free of needing to trust), avoiding middlemen and gate-keepers and censorship-resistance. Sometimes the terms used in cryptocurrency sound complex or negative (in the psychology sense), but we arrive at these terms because our form of civilized society has removed us from a way of conducting ourselves in the world which in past times used to be simpler and self-evident. The times I mean are before the industrial revolution and education devolution.

For most of the episode, I use a couple social media posts from Richard Heart as a jumping off point to discuss stupid crypto news and things. My intent here is to be conversational and give a first impression on news and things with some background on the thought process of someone approaching from cryptocurrency first principles like I first mentioned, without going into exhaustive depth. I encourage you to do your own research, aka reading and thinking for yourself.

Independence, Proof, Action. If you are totally lost about this, go read the first page of the Bitcoin Whitepaper. So much of "the crypto space" is fake crypto that boldly rejects the core purposes of real crypto.

Thank you for listening!

Music from #Uppbeat, paid-for royalty-free tracks, not an ad. Intro: https://uppbeat.io/t/moire/steal-in-sixty-seconds Outro: https://uppbeat.io/t/mountaineer/dred-ends

An overview of the privacy concepts related to Monero, a fork of a fork of CryptoNote. Most cryptocurrencies do not have privacy features, they are just simple ledgers with a send function to move numbers from one address to another. What typically exists natively is a thin layer of privacy called pseudonymous public addresses. Most cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are almost fully transparent by design. We wish that central banks and governments were transparent, but they are desperate to stay hidden and will lock you in a cage to keep it that way. What are they hiding? They like to tell us that if you aren’t doing anything wrong then there is nothing to hide. For them, transparency is what we want.

Sometimes we want transparency in crypto, but for many transactions we would prefer more privacy. People and businesses generally don’t want others seeing what is in their account or what they spent on other people and things. It is natural and proper for private individuals and private businesses to have this kind of privacy. Monero employs some math based solutions to create more transaction privacy through obfuscation. It is not perfect, but it is an interesting, ongoing project. At the time of publishing this, I have not and do not use Monero, and I do not know it’s future. It is a layer 1 blockchain, which has and can update, and is not immutable, like all major layer 1 blockchains. If you have not spent the time to learn anything about Monero and you think your all your personal transactions should have a way to not be broadcast globally, then take an hour to listen.

This is Too Busy For Crypto. This podcast is for fans of cryptocurrency who want to increase their financial literacy and cryptocurrency literacy. I am not an expert. I am an enthusiast. This podcast is my hobby and is for education.

This episode is titled Privacy vs Monero, or, Hiding in Plain Sight Theory

Music from #Uppbeat, paid-for royalty-free tracks, not an ad. Intro: https://uppbeat.io/t/moire/steal-in-sixty-seconds Pre-outro: https://uppbeat.io/t/mountaineer/somewhere Outro: https://uppbeat.io/t/mountaineer/albion

Back for 2026! Two things got me motivated to make an episode. One is what I feel is mundane full spectrum censorship. The other is what I call "Step 1", things you are supposed to know before Step 2 but most people don't have the time or curiosity to figure out, leading to a persistent disadvantage. Royalty-free music intro and outro added, that's kinda fun. Using a new program and a new room and figuring out the sound.

RNG RNG RNG, do you know what a RNG is? Do you have dice handy?

Come listen, maybe you will learn something, or think about something, or maybe my voice will lull you to sleep. Win, win, win situation!

I think this may be my last "clean" episode if I start getting looser with the vocabulary and have to mark it as "explicit" in the future.

Lastly, remember: real crypto = avoid middlemen.

Music Intro and Outro via Mixkit, Need for Speed by Arulo. Shout-out, not an ad. https://mixkit.co/free-stock-music/discover/need-for-speed/