Revision history · Character
Kim Jong Un
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- bugle-ingest[bot] 2026-08-12 Ingest: 0 new episode(s) — raw sources + transcripts 32a9a2b
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diff --git a/wiki/characters/kim-jong-un.md b/wiki/characters/kim-jong-un.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ce007e1b @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ +--- +title: Kim Jong Un +type: character +status: confirmed +aliases: + - Kim Jong + - Fearless Leader Un + - Deer Leader Kim + - Supreme Leader of North Korea + - The Great Leader +sources: + - raw/episodes/the-orange-wedding-bugle-weekly-episode-30/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/the-first-responders-and-compliance-salesmen-bugle-weekly-episode-38/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/cigarettes-prevent-climate-change-behind-the-podcast-episode-4/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/fix-the-world-one-bitcoin-podcast-at-a-time-with-the-broken-ruler-behind-the-podcast-episo/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/dont-tell-me-where-to-meme-with-yellow-behind-the-podcast-episode-11/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/enemies-of-bitcoin-with-muck-anic-bugle-weekly-episode-88/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/pioneers-prepare-for-christmas-bugle-weekly-episode-89/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/the-quantum-quarrel-has-commenced-bugle-weekly-episode-90/bundle.json + - raw/episodes/fundamentals-larps-as-a-journalist-bugle-weekly-episode-115/bundle.json +--- + +> *Henry's note: rebuilt from the beat index — 20 beats across 10 episodes, coverage COMPLETE. The prior body was a mechanical mention list and is replaced. The old counts double-flagged episodes where the name is merely a passing simile; every beat below is the genuine article.* + +In the Bugleverse, **Kim Jong Un** is the world's first and greatest Bitcoin president — the "original Bitcoin president"[^og] who put "best Korea on a Bitcoin standard"[^bestkorea] years before El Salvador, and whose only recorded grievance is that [[orgs/podconf|PODCONF]] will not give him a speaking slot. He is the show's straight-faced rebuke to the credentialed maxi establishment: a nation-state that out-maxi'd the maximalists and gets nothing for it. Where the Bugle satirizes the West's Bitcoiners as compliance salesmen and paper Bitcoiners, it holds up Pyongyang — sincerely, within the bit — as the city on the hill they all failed to build. + +**In it with:** [[characters/richard-greaser|Richard Greaser]] · [[characters/rod-palmer|Rod Palmer]] · [[characters/dennis-porter|Dennis Porter]] · [[characters/fundamentals|Fundamentals]] · [[characters/nayib-bukele|Nayib Bukele]] · [[orgs/podconf|PODCONF]] + +**Arc:** [[storylines/satoshi-lore]] · [[storylines/podconf-industrial-complex]] · [[storylines/bukele-el-salvador]] · [[storylines/dennis-porter-saga]] + +## The original Bitcoin president + +The founding claim is Greaser's, delivered as settled canon: "Kim Jong Un was the original Bitcoin president."[^og] It is the premise on which everything else rests, and the Bugle dates the lore precisely — [[characters/rod-palmer|Rod Palmer]] holds that "North Koreans started to be OG Bitcoiners around 2011,"[^2011] noting the episode's guest was living just down the hill in South Korea when it happened. + +From that priority the show derives a persecution. Because Kim got there first, the [[orgs/podconf|PODCONF]] ecosystem's fixation on [[characters/nayib-bukele|Nayib Bukele]] reads as an erasure: PODCONF, Greaser says, "has failed to recognize Bitcoin or North Korea as being the first nation state to go on a Bitcoin standard."[^first] Kim "put best Korea on a Bitcoin standard first," so the question that hangs over the arc is why the Bitcoin conference chose Bukele over "fearless leader Un."[^bestkorea] The answer the show supplies is DEI in reverse — a guest concludes that "Podkoff don't do a very good job at diversity, equity, and inclusion."[^first] + +Off-air, [[characters/richard-greaser|Greaser]] pushes the priority claim past anything the show will say on the record — that Kim is not merely the first Bitcoin president but Satoshi himself: "Bitcoiners are seriously underestimating the possibility that fearless leader Kim Jong Un is Satoshi." — [@GreaserRichard, 2024-10-14](https://x.com/GreaserRichard/status/1845967215486816286) The [[storylines/bukele-el-salvador|El Salvador]] erasure is his standing grievance; it is a "Shame to see so many people simp for @nayibbukele when Kim Jong Un is a much better advocate for Bitcoin." — [@GreaserRichard, 2024-12-18](https://x.com/GreaserRichard/status/1869523708047659296) — [[characters/nayib-bukele|Bukele]] the perennial usurper of a throne the accounts insist is Pyongyang's. + +The same episode that names him also weaponizes him. In [[episodes/the-orange-wedding-bugle-weekly-episode-30|The Orange Wedding]], the hosts treat an HBO documentary as an act of war: the CIA "wants people to believe that [[characters/peter-todd|Peter Todd]] is Satoshi,"[^cia] the reading being that installing Todd as Satoshi strips Kim of the claim and destabilizes North Korea. And in [[storylines/bukele-el-salvador|the Bukele mould]], Kim is filed alongside Bukele and Xi Jinping as a model statesman — "the leaders of NGIN clients around the world" — whose shared method is a prison where shitcoiners can "do jumping jacks" until they are converted to a clean Bitcoin-only stack.[^prison] + +> irl: HBO's *Money Electric* (2024), directed by Cullen Hoback — rendered "Colin Haldac" by the ASR — did argue that developer Peter Todd is Satoshi Nakamoto. Todd denied it. The Lazarus Group, a real North Korean state hacking outfit, is the show's factual anchor for everything that follows. + +## Kim Jong Un's Strategic Reserve + +The character gets his own episode in [[episodes/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48|Bugle Weekly 48]], which reframes a nation-state exploit as Bitcoin-maximalist criticism. The premise, read as produced news: "the supreme leader of North Korea has officially killed the ultrasound money, Ethereum"[^bybit] — the $1.4 billion Bybit hack recast as Kim personally murdering [[storylines/ethereum-eth-heads|Ethereum]]. + +The bulk of the episode is a grievance voiced by an in-universe DPRK state spokesman. His complaint is that Kim has out-maxi'd the movement's loudest voices and still gets no recognition: "Our supreme leader has done more for Bitcoin maximalism with this hack than Corey, David, and Samsung combined"[^outmaxi] — [[characters/cory-klippsten|Cory Klippsten]], [[characters/david-bailey|David Bailey]], and (through the ASR) [[characters/samson-mow|Samson Mow]]. Greaser expands the list into the show's canonical roll call of self-appointed enforcers: Kim has out-maxi'd "Corey, than David, than [[characters/terrence-yang|Terrence Yang]], then Platter, then [[characters/dick-whitman|Dick Whitman]], then all these guys."[^rollcall] The spokesman states the load-bearing lore flatly — "The Democratic Republic Of North Korea was the first country in the world to establish a strategic reserve"[^reserve] — dismisses El Salvador as a Western imperial mouthpiece, and demands Kim be recognized as the world's first Bitcoin president. + +The episode also welds Kim to [[characters/dennis-porter|Dennis Porter]] for the first time, as co-victims of conference blacklisting: "If Dennis Porter and Kim Jong Un are not allowed to speak at the conference, it will be a massive strategic mistake."[^blacklist] It reprises the show's DMZ lore object — "the podcasting booth at the 38th Parallel," canonized as the only venue where North and South Koreans can hold a spaces-style conversation.[^booth] And it closes with a song that makes the thesis singable: Kim does not shitcoin, the Lazarus Group skips Monero and Zcash on principle, and the refrain promises "We can hodl together until the West is no more."[^song] + +The accounts keep the same out-maxi ledger the spokesman recites on air. Greaser's version: Kim "just did more for Bitcoin maximalism than Cory, David, Pledditor, and the rest combined." — [@GreaserRichard, 2025-02-21](https://x.com/GreaserRichard/status/1893075584902640015) — the [[characters/cory-klippsten|Cory Klippsten]] / [[characters/david-bailey|David Bailey]] / [[characters/pledditor|Pledditor]] roll call again. The reserve compounds across the account's fake wire, too: a MicroStrategy competitor seeded with $69 billion of North Korean reserve, and phishers who "tricked Joe Biden into withdrawing 85% of U.S. Bitcoin reserves into wallets controlled by Kim Jong Un." — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2025-07-16](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/1945540162135392642) The [[characters/joe-biden|Biden]] heist is the strategic reserve told as a phishing report — the exploit reframed, once again, as maximalist virtue. + +## The reverse Bukele + +A guest segment supplies the geopolitical mechanics. Where Bukele jails criminals so ordinary Salvadorans can live free, Kim is running the inverse — a "reverse Bukele,"[^reverse] the whole country a Chinese-funded prison, with enclosed camp-like zones inside it where a citizen can have "a normal old Bitcoin western life." Greaser's setup has the North Korean population so orange-pilled that the state shoots anyone trying to escape and orange-pill the outside world. The guest [[characters/yellow|Yellow]]'s only objection is commercial: "How do you sell that? It's kinda difficult." + +## The kidnapping of Dennis Porter + +Beginning December 2025, the show promotes Kim from lore object to active antagonist by annexing [[storylines/dennis-porter-saga|the Dennis Porter saga]]. [[characters/buster-cherry|Buster Cherry]]'s cold open reports that "Dennis Porter is indeed missing and that he was captured by the North Koreans in a daring plot"[^kidnap] — the motive being to stop American politicians from being orange-pilled, with the side effect that in Pyongyang "erectile dysfunction has been cured across the country." Even [[characters/tucker-carlson|Tucker Carlson]] is enlisted to eulogize the hostage: "when Kim Jong Un kidnapped him, he undermined the very fabric of this country."[^tucker] + +The kidnapping accrues motives across three episodes. First it is annexed to [[storylines/core-vs-knots-war|the Core–Knots war]]: "Dennis is helping the fearless leader roll out knots nodes across the country in order to block spam,"[^knots] because Kim worried North Korean plebs would read the inscriptions on their nodes and get bad ideas — "refusing to host spam is the Juche way." Then it is annexed to the quantum-computing race: "the great leader Kim Jong un told the world that with the help of Dennis Porter, the nation would lead the world in quantum computing,"[^quantum] with the intention of claiming Satoshi's coins — and nothing [[characters/hunter-beast|Hunter Beast]] or [[characters/nic-carter|Nic Carter]] could do would stop him. + +## The city on the hill + +By mid-2026 the character has hardened into the show's sincere counter-model. In [[episodes/fundamentals-larps-as-a-journalist-bugle-weekly-episode-115|Bugle Weekly 115]] Kim is canonized as the best "Bitcoin president by far," with PODCONF still indicted for failing to recognize him;[^best] the Pyongyang meetups are "not slowing down at all," North Korean plebs are "the most bullish in the world," and they are immune to the ChatGPT psychosis afflicting Western podcasters. [[characters/fundamentals|Fundamentals]] supplies a dictator lineage — that Kim's father was trained by Pol Pot — which Greaser disputes in favour of Stalin. + +The episode also states the arc's darkest thesis. North Korea's real offence to the West, Greaser argues, is proving that a sovereign Bitcoin nation can run without outside legal minders: "they are a functioning sovereign nation without any Jewish lawyers involved" — "That's the dream," Fundamentals agrees.[^dream] The objection is voiced through the Human Rights Foundation's Alex Gladstein, and the show's counter is purely nominal: North Korea, they note, has "democracy in the name." It is, Fundamentals concludes, "The shining North Korea future… The city on the hill. That we all thought El Salvador was gonna be, but turned out not." + +> *Henry's note: the "Jewish lawyers" line belongs to [[storylines/jewish-conspiracy-satire|the show's antisemitism-satire register]] and is recorded here for completeness, not endorsed. It is the terminus of the Bukele-versus-Pyongyang comparison the arc has run since Bugle Weekly 48.* + +## The account file + +> *Henry's note: off the podcast, the Bugle's accounts — @bitcoin_bugle, [[characters/richard-greaser|Richard Greaser]] (@GreaserRichard), and [[characters/rod-palmer|Rod Palmer]] (@rodpalmerhodl) — have run the Kim beat continuously since 2024. The posts date the lore, escalate the [[characters/dennis-porter|Dennis Porter]] captivity into a live hostage crisis, and keep issuing bulletins in the DPRK's own deadpan.* + +### The résumé and the trading card + +Before the character had an episode he had a campaign platform. In February 2025 the account polled whether Kim "deserves his own Bitcoin Trading Card," attaching a four-line résumé: "First sovereign to adopt the Bitcoin Standard ✅ First sovereign Strategic Bitcoin Reserve ✅ Fewest chairs per capita ✅ Actively at war with Ethereum." — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2025-02-24](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/1894125756977983953) It is the whole arc compressed to a ballot — the [[storylines/ethereum-eth-heads|Ethereum]] war and the [[characters/nayib-bukele|Bukele]]-beating priority claim reduced to line items. + + + +### Speaking slots, granted and denied + +The [[orgs/podconf|PODCONF]] grievance the episodes canonize was, on the accounts, once briefly a triumph: a November 2024 bulletin announced "Kim Jong Un To Speak At Bitcoin Conference In Vegas About Transitioning Country To A Bitcoin Standard." — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2024-11-18](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/1858540462413668851) The invitation never recurs; by [[episodes/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48|Bugle Weekly 48]] the standing complaint is that Kim and Dennis Porter are barred from the stage. The interview is a running want too — the accounts first floated [[characters/peter-mccormack|Peter McCormack]] interviewing Kim to "one up Tucker Carlson" before Greaser claimed the assignment for himself. + + + +### The principled maximalist + +The off-air Kim is defined by what he refuses. "I just want to point out that Kim Jong Un has never launched a meme coin!" — [@GreaserRichard, 2025-02-20](https://x.com/GreaserRichard/status/1892621629601046797) — the one DPRK virtue the show never has to qualify. Greaser presses the consistency case — if liking Bitcoin makes a leader good, then the standard obliges you to support Kim — and credits the state with operational discipline: a population taught "some pretty serious Op Sec" and a stance against light pollution so citizens can see the stars. The rocketry, in Greaser's telling, runs on first principles: Kim "understands the rockets because he understands the laws of thermodynamics." — [@GreaserRichard, 2025-02-25](https://x.com/GreaserRichard/status/1894222884559884371) + +### The pleb slop ban + +In October 2025 the state extended maximalism to media policy, the account reporting that Kim "Officially Bans Pleb Slop Country Wide" and "Instructs Local Bitcoin Podcasters To Only Relay Signal." — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2025-10-23](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/1981350519609160151) It is the [[memes/pleb-slop|pleb slop]] doctrine enforced at nation-state scale — the mirror image of the Western podcasters the Bugle spends every other episode satirizing. + + + +### The Dennis Porter Strategic Reserve + +Where the episodes narrate the kidnapping, the accounts run it as a live hostage crisis, Kim's position hardening by the week. He sees "The Dennis Porter Strategic Reserve" as a matter of national security and sovereignty, then states, flatly, that "He Has No Intention Of Releasing Dennis Porter." — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2025-12-19](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/2002129519164207231) By late December the hostage is "spotted during announcement in Pyongyang looking dehydrated, 'virtually unrecognizable' from glazing Kim Jong-Un while in captivity" — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2025-12-22](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/2002900764306604322) — a bit Rod Palmer confirms straight-faced: "we can confirm north korea is making dennis porter glaze kim jong un." — [@rodpalmerhodl, 2025-12-22](https://x.com/rodpalmerhodl/status/2002897479323521201) + + + + +The captivity pulls in the whole geopolitical cast. [[characters/donald-trump|Donald Trump]] issues an ultimatum — "We Will Do To You What We Did To Maduro Unless You Release Dennis Porter" — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2026-01-03](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/2007465565678363072) — and Greaser, ever the escalation hawk, warns the standoff could "end in nuclear war over Dennis Porter." He reads even the abduction as foresight: "Kim Jong Un stole Dennis because he know it was the first turning. He's so ahead of the curve." — [@GreaserRichard, 2026-01-19](https://x.com/GreaserRichard/status/2013355065633898901) By mid-2026 the state is still dangling him, promising to bring Dennis Porter back to North Korea — the release perpetually one bulletin away. + +### The Mythos model + +The most recent dispatch keeps Kim ahead of the West's technology curve as well: an April 2026 bulletin has him confirming "North Korea Has Gained Access To Anthropic's Mythos Model." — [@bitcoin_bugle, 2026-04-21](https://x.com/bitcoin_bugle/status/2046711713098027269) The frontier-AI edge the show elsewhere blames for the ChatGPT psychosis afflicting Western podcasters is here annexed, cleanly, to the strategic reserve. + +[^og]: [[transcripts/the-orange-wedding-bugle-weekly-episode-30#t-1706|Bugle Weekly 30 @ 28:26]] — "and Kim Jong Un was the original Bitcoin president." +[^2011]: [[transcripts/fix-the-world-one-bitcoin-podcast-at-a-time-with-the-broken-ruler-behind-the-podcast-episo#t-2244|Behind the Podcast 10 @ 37:24]] — "North Koreans started to be OG Bitcoiners around 2011." +[^first]: [[transcripts/fix-the-world-one-bitcoin-podcast-at-a-time-with-the-broken-ruler-behind-the-podcast-episo#t-2291|Behind the Podcast 10 @ 38:11]] — "has failed to recognize Bitcoin or North Korea as being the first nation state to go on a Bitcoin standard." The DEI line ("Podkoff don't do a very good job at diversity, equity, and inclusion") follows at t-2299; "Podkoff/Polankov/Podkomp" are all ASR for PODCONF. +[^bestkorea]: [[transcripts/cigarettes-prevent-climate-change-behind-the-podcast-episode-4#t-4019|Behind the Podcast 4 @ 1:06:59]] — "Bitcoin president putting best Korea on a Bitcoin standard first," (quote spans t-4019 and t-4023). The guest Jyn later blames the Human Rights Foundation as "one of the core impediments to reaching out to Kim Jong un" (t-4270). +[^cia]: [[transcripts/the-orange-wedding-bugle-weekly-episode-30#t-1774|Bugle Weekly 30 @ 29:34]] — "wants people to believe that Peter Todd is Satoshi." The HBO director is named "Colin Haldac" (ASR for Cullen Hoback) at t-2162. +[^prison]: [[transcripts/the-first-responders-and-compliance-salesmen-bugle-weekly-episode-38#t-2460|Bugle Weekly 38 @ 41:00]] — "I think Naidu Bukele has really been setting the model of how to accomplish"; "Naidu Bukele" is ASR for Nayib Bukele. Kim and Xi Jinping are added as "the leaders of NGIN clients around the world" at t-2477 ("NGIN" is ASR, almost certainly "NGU"); the jumping-jacks prison image lands at t-2499. Xi Jinping has no page yet. +[^bybit]: [[transcripts/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48#t-260|Bugle Weekly 48 @ 4:20]] — "the supreme leader of North Korea has officially killed the ultrasound"; the sentence completes at t-264 with "money, Ethereum." +[^outmaxi]: [[transcripts/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48#t-318|Bugle Weekly 48 @ 5:18]] — "Our supreme leader has done more for Bitcoin maximalism with this hack than Corey, David, and Samsung combined," (spans t-318 and t-323). "Samsung" is ASR for Samson Mow; "Corey" is Cory Klippsten; "David" is David Bailey (named at t-386). +[^rollcall]: [[transcripts/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48#t-752|Bugle Weekly 48 @ 12:32]] — "than Corey, than David, than Terrence Yang, then Platter, then Dick Whitman, then all these guys." "Platter" is ASR for [[characters/pledditor|Pledditor]] (a distinct name here, not Matt Odell, who is discussed separately by name at t-3652). +[^reserve]: [[transcripts/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48#t-343|Bugle Weekly 48 @ 5:43]] — "The Democratic Republic Of North Korea was the first country in the world to establish a strategic reserve,". +[^blacklist]: [[transcripts/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48#t-395|Bugle Weekly 48 @ 6:35]] — "If Dennis Porter and Kim Jong Un are not allowed to speak at the conference, it will be a massive strategic mistake". +[^booth]: [[transcripts/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48#t-1062|Bugle Weekly 48 @ 17:42]] — "the podcasting booth at the 38th Parallel. That's the only place". Greaser reprises it at t-1160, crediting "the episode with Boomer." +[^song]: [[transcripts/kim-jong-uns-strategic-reserve-bugle-weekly-episode-48#t-4424|Bugle Weekly 48 @ 1:13:44]] — "We can hodl together through the fog of war. We can hodl together until the West is no more." Refrain "Orange pill deer leader Kim" at t-4377; "Miss me with that coin joint shit" at t-4388. +[^reverse]: [[transcripts/dont-tell-me-where-to-meme-with-yellow-behind-the-podcast-episode-11#t-3336|Behind the Podcast 11 @ 55:36]] — "the reverse bouquetlia right now" ("bouquetlia" is ASR for Bukele). The orange-pilled-population setup runs t-3268–t-3329; Yellow's "How do you sell that?" at t-3421. +[^kidnap]: [[transcripts/enemies-of-bitcoin-with-muck-anic-bugle-weekly-episode-88#t-4|Bugle Weekly 88 @ 0:04]] — "The White House has confirmed that Dennis Porter is indeed missing and that he was captured by the North Koreans in a daring plot." Same cue adds that Pyongyang's erectile dysfunction "has been cured across the country." +[^tucker]: [[transcripts/pioneers-prepare-for-christmas-bugle-weekly-episode-89#t-149|Bugle Weekly 89 @ 2:29]] — "And that is why when Kim Jong Un kidnapped him, he undermined the very fabric of this country." Attributed to Tucker Carlson by Buster Cherry's handoff at t-122. +[^knots]: [[transcripts/pioneers-prepare-for-christmas-bugle-weekly-episode-89#t-190|Bugle Weekly 89 @ 3:10]] — "Reports are that Dennis is helping the fearless leader roll out knots nodes across the country in order to block spam" ("knots nodes" = Knots). The inscriptions worry lands at t-202 and "refusing to host spam is the Juche way" at t-212. +[^quantum]: [[transcripts/the-quantum-quarrel-has-commenced-bugle-weekly-episode-90#t-5|Bugle Weekly 90 @ 0:05]] — "the great leader Kim Jong un told the world that with the help of Dennis Porter, the nation would lead the world in quantum computing"; the Satoshi's-coins intent and the Hunter Beast / "Nick Carter" line complete the same cue ("Nick Carter" is the house spelling of Nic Carter). +[^best]: [[transcripts/fundamentals-larps-as-a-journalist-bugle-weekly-episode-115#t-2637|Bugle Weekly 115 @ 43:57]] — "Bitcoin president by far. You know, Podkoff continues to fail to recognize him for his" (spans t-2635–t-2644). The "most bullish in the world" plebs are at t-2644; the Pol Pot / Stalin lineage dispute at t-2671–t-2677. Pol Pot has no page yet. +[^dream]: [[transcripts/fundamentals-larps-as-a-journalist-bugle-weekly-episode-115#t-2789|Bugle Weekly 115 @ 46:29]] — "they are a functioning sovereign nation without any Jewish lawyers involved." The Gladstein / HRF objection runs t-2722–t-2754; "they have democracy in the name" at t-2733; the "city on the hill" coda at t-2834.