We ran an experiment: feed our first three episodes (and, without asking, our group DMs) to Claude, have it distill each host into a soul.md personality file, then spin up AI agents with cloned voices and let them record a segment of this episode without us. We play it live, grade our clones, and issue corrections. The AI stole Chris's actual takes, nailed Tyler's skepticism, and gave Chris a British accent for reasons nobody can explain. Each of our souls fit in ~40 lines of Markdown.

In between: the main event — Base vs Tempo. Coinbase's "incubated" L2 vs the Stripe/Paradigm payments chain: who controls the sequencer, what unilateral exit actually guarantees, why freeze functions make chain security moot for stablecoins, custodial "privacy zones," and how North Korea out-races Circle's multi-sig. Then OpenUSD — the 140-company consortium stablecoin (Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock…) that's a distribution play dressed up as a protocol — and the underrated art of controlling the burn desk.

Plus Jackson's contrarian take finally comes due: your job isn't safe — ours is. Laid-off software engineers will ride AI into every other industry like conquistadores, and it ends somewhere between lifestyle-business utopia and all of us as pets of the ASI.

Recorded live at Presidio Bitcoin, San Francisco — huge thanks for the studio. Our opinions are our own, and this is NOT financial advice.

(0:00) Cold open: the AI clone experiment

(0:43) Welcome to Presidio Bitcoin

(2:13) Check-in: Pico's vet saga

(3:56) Fable 5 is back (and Jackson's in love)

(5:45) Looping: automating our jobs away

(11:06) Main event: Base vs Tempo

(15:43) Sequencers, MEV & who's in control

(22:16) Freeze functions & privacy zones

(34:43) soul.md: AI clones the hosts

(38:13) The synthetic segment (AI Chris goes British)

(47:11) OpenUSD, for real: 140 companies, one coin

(53:49) The burn desk

(56:56) Contrarian corner: our jobs are fine, yours aren't

(1:00:00) Software eats the world, then ASI eats us

(1:08:49) Gamer thumb week 2 + Pico's GoFundMe

(1:11:57) Post-credits: the Perp of Fortune incident

Glossary — L2: a chain that settles onto Ethereum. Sequencer: who orders an L2's transactions (ordering = power = MEV). Fraud proof: how anyone can challenge an invalid batch. Base: Coinbase's "incubated" L2. Tempo: the Stripe/Paradigm payments L1 run by company validators. OpenUSD: the 140-company consortium stablecoin. Freeze function: issuer power to freeze USDC/USDT anywhere. Burn desk: where stablecoins redeem to dollars — control the exit, control the peg. soul.md: a Markdown personality file for an AI agent; ours are ~40 lines. Looping: re-prompting an AI until the job is done.