Silk Road to Satoshi: Digging Up Bitcoin’s Buried Past with Pete Rizzo

Pete Rizzo Thinks We're Losing Bitcoin's History. I'm Helping Him Fix That.

Pete Rizzo’s been called Bitcoin’s historian — and after this conversation, you’ll understand why.

He’s spent the past few years diving deep into the stories, people, and drama that built Bitcoin from nothing into a global force. We talk about that work — the threads, the archives, the stories that never made it into the headlines — and how much of our history is already at risk of being forgotten.

This one goes deep: early Mt. Gox days, the Silk Road fallout, Ross Ulbricht, Julian Assange, the Dragon’s Den Slack channel, Bitcoin IRC logs, and even a theory that maybe Satoshi was Julian himself. There’s a lot here — from serious analysis to our own untold stories.

We also get personal: Rizzo opens up about why preserving this history became his mission, and I share how prison, books, and a Muslim roommate changed how I see the world — and Bitcoin.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

Pete Rizzo’s “Bitcoin Legends” Twitter threads

The Genesis Book by Jonathan Bier

The Satoshi Affair by Andrew O’Hagan

Assange’s RubberHose encryption protocol

Blockworks’ Supply Shock Podcast

Follow Pete:

Twitter/X: @pete_rizzo_

Podcast: Supply Shock

Quotes:

"Bitcoin is the only asset where history actually matters — and yet we’re letting it disappear." 

"We treated Ross like a pariah. Now he’s a symbol. That didn’t happen overnight."

"People think Bitcoin started with Satoshi. It didn’t. It started with the people who kept it alive after Satoshi left."

"When I left prison, I was at zero — actually, below zero. But I came out with the most valuable thing: stories."

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