THE Bitcoin Podcast — "FIAT IS THE TIME THIEF"

Host: Walker America
Guest: TC (Timechain Calendar)
Date: October 27, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the intersection of Bitcoin, time, and the human experience. Walker America hosts TC, the creator of Timechain Calendar, for an in-depth discussion about the philosophy behind Bitcoin's design, the journey of building a beloved Bitcoin tool, the meaning of time preference, how fiat money “steals time,” and the power of visualizing Bitcoin’s protocols. They also explore the rapidly shifting landscape for self-taught developers in an AI-accelerated world, balancing career, purpose, and family, and the empowering choices Bitcoiners are making for themselves and their children.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fiat as the "Time Thief" & the Morality of Monetary Systems

• Opening Reflection:
  • TC sets a powerful tone by declaring, "Fiat is the time thief. I mean, this is the biggest immoral part of all of this monetary system that we're trying to solve for. It's taking time away from you." (00:00)
  • He elaborates on how fiat incentivizes people to relentlessly work towards a deferred retirement, while inflation and the structure of the system continually erode the value of their efforts.
  • Bitcoin, to him, becomes a vehicle for regaining sovereignty over one’s time:

    "Bitcoin goes a long way towards solving that. You have to work hard, though. You have to actually stack and keep stacking. You have to learn and keep learning." (00:00)

• Life and Time Preference:
  • The importance of learning to cherish fleeting moments, especially with family, as time is the one resource that, once spent, never returns.
  • Emphasizes being present:

    "...there's fleeting moments and you have to actually stop what you're doing. You have to actually make that space to really be in that moment, to really gain from it and you never get it back." (00:58)

2. TC’s Background & The Birth of Timechain Calendar

• TC’s origin story as a software developer with a transition from web design to tech startups and then into Bitcoin:
  • Early brushes with Bitcoin in 2012 and 2015, but only truly “falling down the rabbit hole” post-2019 amidst global turbulence.
  • The genesis of Timechain Calendar: started after losing a Bitcoin job, transformed an old sketch into a weeklong “hack session” to produce the first version.
  • Evolved from a simple visualization tool (just a few data points, block height, circles) into a comprehensive educational dashboard over three years.
  • Now, with the launch of the mobile app (2025), it marks a major personal and professional milestone.

    "It's a heavy duty milestone for me. I've been working on this for the last about a year and a quarter. Although I'll tell you, there's times when it feels like it's been decades." (03:28)

3. Making Timechain Calendar Accessible & Valuable

• Key Features:

  • Real-time visualization of block height, difficulty adjustment, halving cycles, and Bitcoin’s overall supply issuance.
  • “Photo Tagging” with block height and price—allowing users to capture significant life moments denominated in Bitcoin terms:

    "...that was what I saw all the time on social media would be somebody's kid is just born and they're pulling timechain calendar out of their pocket to figure out what block height it was..." (17:17)

  • A strong focus on accessibility and tangible education for newcomers—seeing time and value in “blocks” rather than just fiat currency.

• Visualization as a Tool for Understanding:

  • Interactive UI showing time since the last block, the 24-hour distribution of blocks, progress towards next difficulty adjustment/halving, and supply issuance.

  • The “Circles” metaphorically represent layers of time, akin to a calendar:

    "...nested series of time frames. Here you are today and you're inside of this row of days for the week... Here in the time chain calendar, the innermost circle on the mobile app is that time since the last block, which I actually like to think of as...the expectation of 10 minutes..." (22:29)

  • “Grabbing the slider” to visually move through Bitcoin’s history and future supply issuance—a concrete way to build intuition on halvings and monetary policy.

    Memorable moment:

    "This, to me, is the value of visualizing things. This is what is so cool about effective visualizations...they help you get a handle mentally on the concept." (31:00)

4. The Genius of Bitcoin’s Protocol: Halving and Difficulty Adjustment

• The brilliance of the halving and difficulty adjustment mechanisms in ensuring fair, multi-generational distribution:
  • The halving delivers fixed supply—“without the halving, there’s no 21 million.”
  • The difficulty adjustment is “the mechanism that makes sure that it takes multiple human lifetimes to issue the supply of bitcoin.” (35:47)
  • The metaphors Walker and TC use make complex technical topics accessible to all listeners.

5. Purpose, Career, and the New Era for Developers

• TC’s personal journey from corporate employee to “unemployable” solo Bitcoin builder.
• He learned to build mobile apps from scratch—without prior experience—leveraging new tools (Flutter, Dart) and especially the accelerating power of AI:

  "We're in the era of there's no such thing as you don't know how to do it anymore. With AI and with determination and creativity, you can conquer your learning curves..." (50:36)

• Broader discussion about how AI and digital learning make “self-taught” developers not just viable but potentially superior in many contexts.
  • The shifting landscape for education, the diminishing ROI of traditional computer science degrees, and new arbitrage opportunities for driven individuals (especially young people and the children of Bitcoiners).

6. Time, Intentionality, and the Plea for Optionality

• The hosts reflect deeply on how Bitcoin changes one’s perception of time and value:

  • The freedom from fiat robbery enables intentionality—spending time on what really matters for one’s family, legacy, and societal contribution.

  • Walker shares the challenge of balancing work, purpose, and family, and how Bitcoin’s existence gives “freedom of choice” back to individuals who save in it.

    Notable quote:

    "Fiat’s just a really bad way to spend or save your time. So thankfully we have bitcoin." (76:00)

• TC reinforces:

  "It's huge to actually dictate what you're gonna be spending your lifetime doing versus kind of...somebody else's schedule, somebody else's terms. And that's your lifetime being spent with this dangling carrot of, oh yeah, decades from now, you'll be able to do it on your terms. It's such a Faustian bargain." (78:30)

7. The Future of Timechain Calendar & Personal Vision

• TC hints at upcoming app features:
  • More widgets (including smartwatch), rich alerts, expanded camera functionality, and eventually a powerful block explorer.
  • Vision: bring the “circles” visualization to every type of screen, making Bitcoin's heartbeat visible everywhere.
  • Developing “hidden art galleries” and new ways to experience Bitcoin history and culture via the interface.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• TC on Fiat and Time:

  “Fiat is the time thief. I mean, this is the biggest immoral part of all of this monetary system that we're trying to solve for. It's taking time away from you.” (00:00)

• Walker on Parenthood and Low Time Preference:

  “...after our son was born, oh, no, I didn't have any idea what real low time preference meant.” (19:54)

• TC on Building for Bitcoin:

  "I like to say I'm essentially unemployable at this point. No, this is it. This is all I work on. This is all I think about each day. And I'm operating solo." (49:42)

• TC on Visualization:

  “This, to me, is the value of visualizing things. This is what is so cool about effective visualizations, is they help you get a handle mentally on the concept, and then you can actually grow your own thinking a little bit more effectively from there.” (31:00)

• Walker on Spending Time:

  “What's the marginal value of that extra few hours worked that could have been spent spending time with your family?...it's a really difficult balancing act...” (70:55)

• TC on Life and Work:

  "What bitcoin represents is optionality in a future where so few people are going to have options." (68:00)

• Walker on The Next Generation:

  "The children of bitcoiners...are going to be leaps and bounds ahead of everybody else, and they're going to keep getting further and further ahead." (65:13)

• On Bitcoin Podcasting:

  “I want as many people as possible, as many plebs like me as possible to get bitcoin. And the more podcasts we have, the more people we have writing articles, the more people we have tweeting about it...that’s a good thing.” (74:42)

Notable Timestamps

• 00:00 – TC’s opening reflection: “Fiat is the time thief...”
• 03:28 – TC discusses launching the mobile app; “heavy duty milestone.”
• 05:25-12:00 – TC’s background and personal journey through Bitcoin.
• 17:17 – The origin of the block-height photo-stamping feature.
• 22:29-35:47 – Guided walkthrough of Timechain Calendar visualization, features, and educational philosophy.
• 35:47-38:09 – The importance of the difficulty adjustment and halving.
• 50:36 – TC on learning new tech, AI, and building as a solo developer: “With AI and determination...”
• 70:55-78:30 – Deep dive: balancing work, family, and the meaning of time/intentionality in a Bitcoin world.
• 79:53 – Sneak peek into future features, widgets, and platforms for Timechain Calendar.
• 83:40 – Celebration of "this day in bitcoin" feature and widgets for user connection.
• 86:01 – Episode wrap-up and where to find TC and Timechain Calendar online.

Summary & Takeaways

This episode stands as an intimate, philosophically rich exploration of the intersection between money, time, personal agency, and the “hardness” of Bitcoin’s design. TC’s journey as a builder mirrors the journey many Bitcoiners experience: awakening to the time-theft properties of fiat, finding inspiration and purpose through “going down the rabbit hole,” and ultimately reclaiming their future through learning, building, and family.

Timechain Calendar emerges not only as a beautifully crafted Bitcoin tool but as a symbol of the broader Bitcoin mission—to make time (and value) real again, in a digital age robbed by inflation. Listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of Bitcoin’s under-the-hood mechanics, the role of visual learning and self-sovereignty for plebs and devs alike, and inspiration for how to claim more intentionality over one’s own scarce time and life force.

Connect with the Guest and Resources

• Timechain Calendar: timechaincalendar.com (available on web, iOS, Android)
• TC on X (Twitter): @TimechainCal
• TC on Nostr: nip05: tc@timechaincalendar.com
• Walker America: @WalkerAmerica on X, primal.net/walker
• Podcast Info & More Episodes: bitcoinpodcast.net

Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant—thanks for spending your scarce time with THE Bitcoin Podcast.