0:00 Welcome to Drivechain Twitter Spaces. 0:22 Today is Friday, June 9th. 0:25 We're excited to have another chat about Drivechain. 0:31 Everyone is welcome to come on up to the stage and join our lively conversation. 0:39 We talk about Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 300 and 301. 0:45 Drivechain refers to those two BIPs. 0:48 Drivechain is BIP300 and BIP301. 0:51 Drivechain is an idea to develop better sidechains on Bitcoin. 0:56 Sidechains that are more peer-to-peer, as Adam Back has described it. 1:00 Sidechains that do not use a socially selected set of parties to control the Bitcoin sent to the sidechain. 1:11 Instead, the peer-to-peer network of Bitcoin miners play an important role in the security model of the sidechains. 1:24 I see some familiar faces in the audience. 1:27 Welcome to those who have joined us in the past, and welcome to anyone new who comes to chat about Drivechain. 1:35 Hello, Moonsettler. If you would like to chat, come on up to the stage. 1:40 Happy Friday to you. 1:48 Welcome, everyone. 1:51 We are excited to have another Drivechain Twitter Spaces today. 2:03 Hello, here we are. Happy Friday to all. 2:07 Happy Friday. 2:08 Happy reduction in the Quebec fumes. 2:13 Yes, yes. 2:15 For those who may be listening, there were recently a bunch of fires. 2:21 Yes, sadly. 2:22 All over the East Coast. 2:24 Very unfortunate. 2:30 All right. 2:32 One of the topics of today's conversation will be how Drivechain is all-time high technology. 2:38 It is very possible that the adoption of Drivechain would have a significant bullish effect on Bitcoin's price and a negative effect on the price of altcoins, even before activation. 2:52 The mere possibility of activation could be bullish for Bitcoin because in economics, participants in the economy are future oriented and they speculate. 3:05 So the price for Bitcoin at any moment is a reflection of everyone's expectations of its future demand. 3:12 And therefore, if Bitcoin upgrades its sidechains, then potentially the technology that is currently only available in a peer-to-peer arrangement on altcoins could be copied then to Bitcoin sidechains. 3:27 And that would lead to number go up effects on Bitcoin's price. 3:32 It's very exciting. 3:34 I think the idea is like, what if the traditional financial system just like collapsed or went away tomorrow? 3:44 Would Bitcoin be able to replace all of that infrastructure? 3:51 And the answer is clearly no right now. 3:56 But with 5300, it would kind of be yes, sort of. 4:00 Makes a pretty big difference. 4:09 Yes. 4:10 Moonsettler, in the past, I recall we discussed that you don't have as much confidence as I do in the probability that Drivechain adoption would be very bullish for Bitcoin's price. 4:27 Maybe you'd like to share your thoughts on whether that's the case. 4:32 In his conversation with Brad Mills and Jameson Lopp and Austin Alexander at Satoshi Roundtable, Adam Back said that when the 2014 white paper came out from Blockstream on sidechains, there was a moment where the altcoins fell in price. 4:49 People thought, oh, everything is going to move to Bitcoin. 4:52 Everything. 4:54 And I believe Drivechain will bring us to that kind of moment again, except that Drivechain, unlike that white paper, will have a real permanent effect potentially, where the value will flow to Bitcoin as the technology and users from the privacy coins and all the other valid altcoins. 5:17 All those users and value will flow to Bitcoin and that will make Bitcoin once again, as it was years ago, the center stage of technology in the blockchain space. 5:29 The reason why I have doubts about that is because I think that may have had a time window, but I'm not sure the time window has not closed now for various reasons. 5:48 So it may have been true back then, but I'm not sure it is true now in the current state. 5:57 So that is something that is a reason why I'm having doubts about that. 6:06 But mainly I wanted to talk about a topic that has popped up in relation to Drivechains. 6:14 I have seen some debate around whether Covenant Primitives can be used to implement Drivechains and how that could look like or how close it could get. 6:25 And when you guys are ready, I would like to maybe talk about that. 6:30 So I'm not in a hurry. 6:32 Feel free to. 6:33 Paul, would you like to do that? 6:34 I think that's a good idea. 6:35 Great. 6:36 Did you see what I was talking about with SuperTestNet? 6:45 And then there was a little back and forth. 6:47 And then I wrote a tweet about that. 6:49 And speaking of random tweets, can we put in the nest all the tweets that we had last week or whenever? 6:59 It seems like we have a good collection. 7:01 That's pretty cool. 7:02 Yes. 7:04 But, yeah, the one I'm talking about was this one where I said I was going to shed a little light on it. 7:09 And I said basically what is going on with BIP300 is or what's going on with any sidechain idea or any SPV proof. 7:17 The SPV proof is saying it only proves the work and not the validity on Layer 1 because Layer 1 doesn't want to know everything, every detail of what's going on. 7:30 This is a weird intersection of a lot of ideas such as Andrew Paul Stroh's using blockchains, what chains are for, type of an idea. 7:38 The proof should always – there's lots of, like, nuance and weird intersecting ideas. 7:42 But basically what I'm saying is the – in the sidechain idea as conceived not only by me but also by Blockstream and everyone is this SPV proof idea. 7:54 And the SPV proof idea is this, like, miner you prove the work only. 7:59 It's like the miners can steal issues tied into it inescapably. 8:05 And the – what I'm trying to get at is it's like a miner courtesy is every SPV proof. 8:14 And so what you do is you start with that and then you try to make it more and more and more and more difficult for the miners to actually misbehave. 8:23 And that's what BIP300 tries to do. 8:26 And so that's what I'm really getting at as, like, to whether or not something replicates that is really a function of that. 8:33 So I don't know if this makes sense. Does this make any sense to you, Moonset? 8:36 What I'm trying to say is that, like, the – every – just doing nothing, you already have sidechain if you want to trust the miners completely. 8:44 But then you slowly try to make it more and more difficult for miners to misbehave. 8:49 And that's the idea of sidechains is to make it as difficult as possible. 8:54 But without ever actually – the only perfect way to enforce, to make perfect deposit withdrawal system is to just force the miners to enforce all sidechain rules. 9:06 But then you – it's like shuffleboard where you make it as far as possible, as far as you can. 9:12 But then if you go too far, then you lose everything because forcing the rules to become part of the protocol just merges everything back into layer one. 9:21 And then you have failed to make a sidechain. 9:23 So this is why it gets kind of confusing to me to analyze what exactly people mean when they say we can do drivechains with something else. 9:33 So that was where I was trying to get at. 9:35 Yeah. First of all, I would like to make it clear that I don't believe that we can call those things drivechains. 9:45 So I don't think it fits the bill. 9:48 So it's not a proper hash rate escrow for the coins. 9:53 But I would very much like if we could do something better than the spacechains where the one-way peg requires the coins to be burned. 10:03 I don't like the idea that we are permanently locking coins into utilities. 10:09 And the whole thing is a bit hard to – I mean you could fold the spacechain as many times as you want and they could all lay claim to the same burned coins. 10:22 What is exactly stopping them from it? 10:25 So I don't particularly like the first or the ancient original spacechain idea. 10:37 And I think we can do something in between with simple Covenant primitives. 10:44 The one thing I wanted to mention first is if you want to move towards perfection where the miners can steal and can cheat 10:55 and we don't have some federation or arbiter to hang above our head and we still want to basically have something like it. 11:08 I guess the closest we can get to that is the zero-knowledge stuff. 11:14 So we could use zero-knowledge proofs that clients' nodes can validate without actually having necessarily the data. 11:24 They only check – they don't validate the data, the raw data, they just check that it is available. 11:32 So it's possible to add a short-lived blob space to an extension blob space to Bitcoin. 11:42 So let's assume in the future bandwidth becomes less of a problem but we don't want Bitcoin to bloat forever. 11:49 It could be a tradeoff where we say, all right, we are keeping these blobs around for four weeks, these extension blobs, and you can put roll-up data in there. 11:59 In fact, you have to put roll-up data in there for the proofs to validate. 12:04 And after the four weeks, the nodes will just prune it because we assume that everyone who participates in the roll-up have come online at least once in that four weeks. 12:16 If not, that's on them. 12:17 But it's very unlikely that they would lose access to this data. 12:22 If a lot of people have it, it's highly replicated with those who actually want to use it. 12:29 So these are pretty good assurances that people can be denied service and can be rugged and stuff like that. 12:37 And that is a possible way to move forward with this. 12:41 I believe that is not SPV exactly, and it's not trusting some third party or a federation. 12:51 And I'm not sure how far we are from that, but it has the distinct tradeoff that you actually need the bandwidth. 12:59 So mainchain nodes need to download the roll-up data even if they don't execute and don't verify it. 13:07 And that's still a tradeoff compared to SPV proofs and drivechains. 13:16 So I have...let's see. 13:19 Do we have the...why doesn't it work? 13:23 Do we have that tweet where the... 13:30 Are you talking about the tweet that I was talking about? 13:33 Yeah, someone was saying that you can implement drivechains with CTV or APO or something like that. 13:41 Anyhow, I don't think that is true. 13:45 So the hash rate has to be implemented in such a way. 13:48 Of course, we can do blind merge mining. 13:51 So with the Kovanon protocol, we don't have the problem with the key deletion trusted setup thing. 13:57 So we can do trustless blind merge mining. 14:00 And in this way, I would set it up, of course, so that it is allowing formal liability. 14:12 And basically, that means we are not really predetermining the transaction IDs that follow each other 14:21 because someone would add fees to the blind merge mining. 14:25 Someone would add fees and someone would put in an OP_RETURN every block. 14:31 And the relative time nodes would ensure that you can only advance this thing once a Bitcoin block. 14:41 And basically, you can create a chain for like a thousand years or however long you want. 14:48 Or three months, whatever. 14:50 You can create this chain and anyone can drive it forward. 14:55 Anyone can execute these transactions. 14:59 They don't require an authorization. 15:02 And anyone can bid for main block inclusion. 15:06 And they can collect the fees on the sidechain. 15:11 And they can bid for this transaction on the main chain. 15:16 And that's the very, very simple concept. 15:20 And the one thing that you can do with Kovanon, because you almost can do this. 15:28 Almost the same thing you can do something like this with anyone can spend. 15:32 But what you can do with anyone can spend is that if let's assume that a sidechain that offers a certain utility has a sponsor. 15:43 And this sponsor locks in his capital in this funding transaction. 15:48 And this funding transaction has a set release to his custody of this sidechain fund. 15:55 And basically, the sidechain rule set requires the equal amount of sidechain coins to be burned for a valid block. 16:04 Of course, we can make some allowances. 16:06 So for it to be economically recoverable, maybe the amounts are not released to the founder every block. 16:16 But say every 10 block, every day, something like that. 16:19 So it would be more like a staircase. 16:22 But on the sidechain, you would have to burn a fixed amount compared to that sidechain coin. 16:34 So the economic balance, the peg is maintained. 16:39 And basically, this means that only one person can peg funds into the sidechain. 16:46 And only one person can get the funds out. 16:49 But he can't get them out faster. 16:51 There is no way for him to get them out faster. 16:53 And the following happens. 16:55 If he tries to get his funds out and tries to screw the sidechain side and tries to ignore people who want to transact on the sidechain, 17:04 first of all, he would have to outbid them. 17:06 And then he would have to pay these fees to the miners. 17:09 And that means that he might actually burn more on these than what he gets out. 17:16 So he's burning his money if he's screwing with this. 17:19 He's very heavily incentivized to provide a good service to people who want to use his sidechain, who want to use his liquidity, his capital. 17:27 And those people would assemble the sidechain blocks based on their economic demand, their activity that they want to do there. 17:34 And they would bid for fees. 17:36 And they would drive this contract forward. 17:38 And thus the founder gets his money out without actually having to spend on transaction fees. 17:45 And he would get some extra out. 17:47 So if he puts in, say, 100 Bitcoin, then he would get out, say, 101 Bitcoin or something like that in three months. 17:55 That's not a horrible thing in a hyper-Bitcoinized world. 17:59 And so this difference comes from a small cut on the fees. 18:05 Let's say we are doing it with CTV. 18:11 So the CTV templates would enforce a contract, basically, that chains the first input. 18:18 And it always outputs a little bit more than what comes in from the first input. 18:26 And that difference has to come from the fee input. 18:30 So someone is making a fee input. 18:32 With the transaction that he funds, the fee input, he has to put in the up-return for the sidechain block. 18:37 And then he has to put in some money. 18:39 And he pays the founder. 18:41 And he pays the miners to drive this thing forward. 18:43 And I believe this is what I call sur-chain. 18:46 Because basically you are the big wave of liquidity and ride it out. 18:50 You are the big wave of liquidity, ride it out. 18:53 You can only append to the end. 18:55 But, of course, once you lock into a Covenant contract and it's confirmed, then you have access to that liquidity on the sidechain. 19:03 Because it is no longer possible to spend it any other ways. 19:08 So, basically, if the founder can guess well how much the amount will be for his liquidity on the sidechain. 19:16 And he pays a little bit of a market maker there to make people want to use it. 19:21 Because the primary utility in this is actually the peg, the price peg. 19:25 So he would buy and sell. 19:27 He would be a market maker. 19:29 And if he manages his liquidity well. 19:32 If he doesn't lock in too much, when there is just no economic demand for it. And he is not screwing with the users. 19:40 Then he will make like 1% on his investment every 3 months. 19:46 And if he is screwing with the user, if he overestimated the demand, if he is fucking up, he will lose a lot of money on it. 19:54 So he will get out a lot less than what he put in. 19:57 And that is the basic idea of the surfchains. 20:00 And I think this is as close as we can get to a drivechain. But it's totally not a drivechain. 20:05 It's not a hash. It has screws. The miners can steal. The founder can steal. 20:10 The only thing the founder can do is fuck off and leave people alone. 20:14 And stop stabilizing the sidechain price. 20:19 And even then, people who participate in this can actually still continue without him. 20:26 But that sidechain is basically doomed to die. 20:29 If the founder leaves and is not willing to add additional liquidity, then it will eventually die. 20:35 And probably the price, the exchange rate will be out of whack. 20:41 So it's not going to be a good experience. 20:44 But it's almost certain that the founder will lose money on not being a good actor. 20:52 So it's not clearly a custodial relationship so much. 20:59 And it's weird. I don't know what is the good name for it. 21:04 But it feels to me that a reputable financial institution or organization or person could run this. 21:14 And people could be reassured that they are not getting drugged in any way. 21:19 And it's really nothing in his interest. Literally can't. 21:23 He only maximizes his revenue if he is playing nice, I believe. 21:28 So this is the thing that you can do with a simple Covenant primitive. 21:32 And that is a far cry from a real two-way peg or a real drivechain, I believe. 21:41 And that is why I don't like it when people say, oh, we can do drivechains with Covenants. 21:47 I don't think so. At least not with something so simple. 21:52 Cool. 21:54 Yeah, I think – I mean there's a lot of weird – like people go through different moods. 22:02 Like people hated CTV, but now they like it. 22:05 So I guess CTV is the likable-approved thing. 22:09 So I always liked CTV myself. 22:14 I always liked CTV myself. 22:16 I'm not exactly sure what – I haven't actually compared op-vault to op-ctv yet at all, just because I haven't gotten to it yet. 22:28 Yeah, so lately op-vault includes op-ctv. 22:33 And interestingly, Matt Merkle has all the things. 22:37 Also includes CTV as a building block, a component, something they would like to build on. 22:44 And another interesting thing is Arc. 22:46 I actually spent some time lately trying to come up with ways how I would implement Arc with CTV or APU. 22:54 And it actually turns out that it's a lot better with CTV. 22:58 I'm not even sure it's actually workable with APU, because – I don't want to get too deep into this – 23:07 but basically APU, from what I found in the code, does not commit to the number of inputs. 23:12 So if you can add additional inputs, you can mullet the takes either. 23:16 You can only prevent this if you add a single sig, but if you add a single sig, then basically the ASP can play games. 23:25 If you want to make it trustless, you would have to make it an n-of-n signature. 23:30 And then, what is the purpose of APU? 23:32 It's almost completely unnecessary at that point. 23:36 We are back to the fully interruptive setup. 23:38 And CTV is just such a smooth sailing, and it's actually cheaper and simpler. 23:44 Cheaper for validation, cheaper for plot space, and it's perfectly suitable for this thing. 23:50 So these small things come together in people's minds, and they slowly see through. 23:55 And I think that is why, among other things, CTV is gaining popularity, even though it was very, very unpopular a year ago. 24:10 Yeah, people said all kinds of weird stuff. 24:13 What will happen if we have covenants will be that someone will make a covenant where the child coin must have the covenant, 24:23 and it also must be signed by a whitelisted government agent, and then the coins will just be tainted forever. 24:33 And then more and more coins will be tainted, and therefore then this one government agency will have all the power, 24:40 and then it will just be, Jeremy Rubin has destroyed Bitcoin. 24:44 That's something serious that people said. 24:48 Yeah, so I want to add two things. 24:51 Of course, now I think everyone understands that the receiver decides the address and the script that he receives to. 25:01 So if you send me a coin where it's logged in a two-of-two with you and me, I will not accept that as payment, 25:09 and I will tell you to go somewhere warm and not deliver you the service or the product that you want, 25:18 unless this is what we agreed on, unless this is an escort-type thing. 25:23 But the point is the receiver decides how he gets paid, and so that pretty much annuls or kills these FUD points. 25:35 But basically, if you really want to, you can do similar things with introspection. 25:41 So if you have opcodes similar to the elements opcodes on Liquid or what Bcash has, 25:48 then you can actually dig into the transaction details from the script, 25:56 and you can insist on certain script types. 25:59 So you could create coins that are forever logged into, say, taproot, pay-to-taproot outputs or something like that. 26:10 It doesn't really make sense. 26:12 And again, you could not pay anyone with it. 26:15 So if you are telling someone that you have to download this wallet or I can't pay you, 26:20 or I paid you but you have to download this wallet to spend it, 26:24 then he will probably tell you to screw yourself. 26:27 So it's not really working, I think, the way Bitcoin works and the way people use Bitcoin. 26:34 It's just not very possible. 26:39 I agree. That was like concern trolling, basically. 26:42 People were just like, oh, this is a really, really clever, kind of impressive argument we could make. 26:48 And so they just made it for kudos on the Bitcoin dev mailing list, 26:53 not because it was true and actually it ended up harming the program. 27:00 Yeah, it somehow blew up in the pleb circles. 27:04 It really, really blew up. 27:06 And I think it was partly because a lot of people or most people were sleeping on Covenants 27:14 and a few devs who were aware of them were still unsure how to approach this whole thing. 27:21 They were otherwise occupied. 27:23 They did not have the time to really deeply think about it. 27:28 And so there was not really a settled understanding in the space, 27:34 not even maybe among the devs, let alone the wider community. 27:39 And people were caught a little bit off guard with an activation effort. 27:45 And when some people started screaming, it, of course, spread like wildfire. 27:50 And there was this backlash, but things seemed to have calmed down considerably. 27:56 And now people are appreciating some of the aspects and some of the things that Covenants could give us, 28:05 especially with this Ordinal's inscription thing. 28:08 So I think now people have this understanding that if we add more main chain block space, 28:17 and it is a more permanent block space, like I said, if we just add a four-week block space, 28:22 I don't think people will put JPEGs on that because it has no permanence. 28:27 It has no promise of permanence, right? 28:29 So it's not really suitable for that. 28:32 But if you add permanent block space, probably it's going to fill to the brim with garbage, 28:37 even if there is no demand for block space. 28:40 And this new understanding with the people who actually understand the scaling limitations 28:46 when Layer 1 blockchain phases actually made them think, start to think outside the box and start to appreciate it. 28:56 The high fees probably helped a lot. 28:58 So people felt uncomfortable. 29:01 Lightning node operators suffered with it. 29:05 And so a new understanding dawned on people. 29:11 And I think it's really something that we should try and see how far we can push it. 29:20 So how far we can go. 29:22 I don't think it will solve all the problems of Bitcoin forever. 29:25 I'm not ready to say that. 29:28 But it certainly points to the good direction, I believe. 29:33 But as I like to say, we're eventually going to need more block space. 29:38 There is just no way around it. 29:40 And of course, people don't like to hear this. 29:44 A lot of people don't like to hear this, but I still think it is true. 29:48 And of course, like I said, mandatory block extension is not looking like a viable thing or something that would be very popular. 29:58 So we are back to non-mandatory block space extension, right? 30:03 And that's basically sidechains, the old idea of sidechains. 30:08 Yeah, I mean, maybe we should talk about the complete futility of various alternatives to BIP300, really. 30:16 Which is that, like, the futility of the idea. 30:22 Like, how can we summarize it in a way that people actually understand, though? 30:26 Which is like, I think of it as like there's like an on-ramp, off-ramp problem that BIP300 solves by adding a tiny bit of trusting the miners. 30:37 And that everything else, the solution for even things like Lightning or ARK, they either, in the case of Lightning, they don't solve it at all. 30:48 The onboarding part. 30:51 And the offboarding part actually involves more trusting the miners in the high-fee rate environment. 30:56 But I don't know how we can, like, summarize it in a way that... 31:01 What do you think of this onboarding-offboarding way of framing it? 31:06 So the thing is, if we are staying on the happy path and we are optimistic about how people behave and how things play out, 31:18 I would say ARK easily solves this problem. 31:22 So it can, I believe, actually help people hold these virtual UTXOs for, like, billions of people even. 31:35 It is technically possible. 31:37 The problem comes when things turn a little bit out of Xaria. 31:41 So it's always when that minimum amount of trust into cooperation and well-behavior, right, falls apart. 31:50 And you are going to, you are arriving to the point where you have to enforce your property rights on Layer 1 mainchain. 31:59 And that is where the problems start. 32:01 Because in a high-fee environment, you have this thing called the dust limit. 32:08 And even if you didn't have the dust limit, you would still just pay the transaction value in fees. 32:14 So it's almost like pointless to have below-dust transaction outputs. 32:22 Even if you could somehow push them on-chain, it's pointless. 32:25 It's basically dust and unspendable. 32:31 And so the worst-case scenario, creating a lot of dust or just not being able to afford to push your VTXOs, your tokens of property rights on-chain, 32:47 if you are not able to enforce these on-chain in a high-fee and adversarial situation, then is that really self-custody, right? 32:58 So how trustless that protocol is, it is more similar to how Lightning operates with below-dust payments, 33:08 where instead of HTLCs, which couldn't be enforceable on-chain, the parties basically agree to pay that difference to the miners instead. 33:21 And something like this you can do with R2, so you can have a situation where nobody is really interested in pushing these to on-chain, 33:29 because everyone would just lose with it. 33:31 So it's a lose-lose situation, only the miners would be happy with it. 33:36 And that's the best we can do with these amounts. 33:41 But if someone is a little bit bullish on Bitcoin, and you assume that, as we've seen, 30,000 and 50,000 Satoshi transaction fees, 33:51 they don't seem like an impossible thing for me in a high adoption future. 33:58 And if you assume sub-dollar parity in the future, let's say 10 years from now or something like that, 34:04 again, that doesn't sound impossible to me. 34:08 And that means that you would pay more in on-chain fees for a single VTXO than what is the life-saving of an entire person on average. 34:21 And that's just not viable at that point. It's just not working, it's not viable. 34:28 So while it might make sense from one approach, and like I said on the happy part, it just works perfectly, 34:38 it is not a completely trustless system under certain circumstances and assumptions. 34:45 And you don't really have that assurance that you can actually get your money out of it if things continue as they have been. 34:54 But it's still a hell of a lot better than being in straight-up custody. 34:59 So I could probably talk about why I like ORC and what are the advantages compared to custodial relationships for like an hour. 35:08 I don't want to bore people with it here, but not really. 35:11 So fractional reserve banking, and like I said, at least your savings may be enforceable on-chain, 35:19 again depending on the fee rate and exchange rate and your holdings. 35:26 So I think it's a huge thing. If we can do ORC, we should definitely do it. 35:32 But if we can do ORC on main-chain in the future, in the high adoption future, that is more up for debate. 35:42 And as I have seen in the Telegram group chat, other people are having doubts about this too. 35:53 Yes, we plan on making a sidechain that is just Bitcoin Core version 25, and then we just add all of them, 118, 119, OP_VAULT, 36:07 and then it will be pretty fun for people to play with. 36:11 Yeah, I asked Henry, I think like a few weeks ago, I asked Henry if you are planning to do that, 36:18 and I told him that you really should consider it, and I'm happy to hear that. 36:23 Because that is going to make life a hell of a lot more easy, I believe. 36:30 And I have speculated before that you could even, probably in the interim period, use ORC in a way where the on-chain, 36:41 the near and below dust amounts, near and below dust amount VTXOs are actually on a sidechain where they are still enforceable unilaterally. 36:54 And your large amounts, your holdings that you really want to secure may be on mainchain, 37:03 so this should not be completely impossible, especially if the sidechain has good covenant capability. 37:11 Then atomic swaps are possible between mainchain and the sidechain, and you would need a minimal overlap on the denominations. 37:22 Probably, because you can't really do the take-slop mechanism that ORC relies on between chains, 37:29 at least I'm not aware that you could do between chains, but maybe someone will figure it out, I don't know. 37:40 I think that only works on a single chain, but if you could, with a minimal overlap on the VTXO denominations, 37:48 have some atomic swap between chains, then your wallet could take care of this in the background. 37:54 Like, if you need more change, then it can just swap a larger denomination build to a sidechain and break it up there trustlessly once it's all settled. 38:07 So this should be possible, almost with the existing contractual capability with the simple primitives that we have. 38:15 And that is a very different ballgame, I believe. 38:18 So if you can actually enforce your holdings somewhere, and you have reasonably decentralized sidechains, 38:27 and you are not actually directly exposed to that, so you are basically having a relationship with the ASP, 38:34 and you are only having a relationship with the sidechain operators, if there are operators, 38:42 in which case it's a Bitcoin miners, you are only having a direct relationship with them if you are having a unilateral settlement scenario. 38:52 And I think this would be an interesting concept to explore, and it could actually work at scale, 38:59 and get people as close to holding their own keys with minimal on-chain footprint as we can probably get. 39:08 Moonsettler, is your main concern regarding drivechains the possibility that they would be only as secure as they have consistently high fees? 39:23 Is that your main concern? 39:29 So my main concern with it is that they would grow too fast, and basically be giant honeypots that are actually economic to attack, 39:43 and not really have nor the security budget, nor the widespread consensus, you know, the ecosystem and the users to naturally defend them. 39:58 So I have this idea or theory that the humans would naturally agree on property rights, we would naturally agree on that stealing is bad, 40:09 and once this thing is sufficiently mature, it would be unthinkable for miners to try to steal from the drivechain escrow. 40:21 But like I said, if this pot grows too fast, and the whole thing does not mature, the whole understanding and everything does not mature with it, 40:34 then we can get into nasty situations that can even lead to, you know, a new fork war, a nasty chain split, maybe a series of chain splits, chaos. 40:45 People don't really like the idea that Bitcoin would have people's voice heard and moral considerations in selecting the next value block. 41:01 A lot of people don't like that they want this thing to be pure and based on thermodynamics. 41:07 I think it already is not true. So we are not having a chain with the largest amount of cumulative hash power. 41:16 We are having a chain with the heaviest chain rule is applied within the validity of the rule set. 41:24 So we already have a social consensus on a rule set, and we are free to change that consensus on the rule set. 41:31 We are not bound to it forever, in my thinking. 41:34 And so it is already not true that it is some objective truth, and if 60% of the miners would start mining a hard fork that nobody cares for, 41:47 we could so easily ignore them. We could actually just thank them for mining a hard fork and make it easy for us to ignore them. 41:57 So that's kind of how Bitcoin works. They would not automatically win that game. 42:03 They would probably have to give up because they would not get paid. 42:06 So we kind of decide which chain we value and who we pay, and this relationship is always asymmetric to the soft fork side. 42:20 And that is how I generally think about this. 42:27 And I think this whole thing could work, but it would have to grow slowly, and it would have to go through the steps and take the time. 42:39 I said it before, I think it would take like a decade for drivechains to really accomplish some of what we are talking about, 42:50 to really have a significant role in getting fee revenue for the mainchain miners, to actually help scale Bitcoin with block space and stuff like that. 43:02 And I'm a bit afraid that people would rush ahead and lock too much value into it before it's actually ready for that role, 43:12 before the whole thing grows up, before Bitcoin mining actually becomes unstoppable and stuff like that. 43:20 So that's my main worry, that basically people would rush ahead. 43:26 Yeah, I kind of worry about that too. 43:28 I mean, what I had in mind when I wrote it was that it wouldn't be controversial at all, 43:33 and that the large blockers and small blockers would both see it as the solution to the scaling dispute, 43:41 and so that there would be this very full understanding, like everyone would get the idea, 43:49 and so everyone would know, okay, this is the risk you're taking when you deposit funds into this hashrate escrow. 43:57 They may be stolen, but also the idea that on the flip side, because it has many layers, 44:03 it was like one layer was they may be stolen, but the second layer is, as you say, 44:07 everyone would recognize that in the event of a dispute, it's perfectly easy for people who would not normally run the sidechain node software. 44:17 They could run it and just find that only one side of the dispute was right, 44:23 and so that's just, to me, that seemed like an awful lot of firepower on the one side, 44:27 such that they would kind of basically never lose, and then the onion has even more layers, 44:32 because it's kind of like if they never lose, isn't that just what I said was the bad thing earlier, 44:38 where now it's become part of layer one consensus? 44:44 And the answer is no, it's not the same. 44:46 Because you could choose not to at any time, check the layer two rules, 44:57 and what's coming back on layer one is just this extreme simplification of it, 45:02 this sterilization of it into just one hash every three months. 45:06 So that's the only thing that's coming back, and it's not mandatory for everyone all the time. 45:12 You can just go on vacation for a year and let other people do those four withdrawals for that year, 45:21 and then you come back, and then you can be like, oh, yeah, I guess people are still trying to steal from the hashrate escrows. 45:28 So I kind of thought, but to your point, it kind of relied a lot on everyone understanding what all the pieces were doing and why, 45:35 which now seems somewhat disastrous. 45:38 People are so confused about why this idea is being pursued and what it's for, 45:47 and people think that it's for adding shit coins to Bitcoin, which is the opposite of what it's for. 45:56 What a tragedy. 46:00 Yeah, well, a lot of people, I don't want to spend too much time on this, 46:07 but there is this line of worrying that I can't actually debunk, really, 46:15 that you are going to have EVM chains and stuff like that run as sidechains, 46:23 and they don't have the same UTXO ordering UTXO chains have, 46:30 and you are going to have sandwichable transactions, and the miners will start to extract value, 46:36 and you will have this situation where it's possible that the worst case, 46:42 because some people say miners will centralize, like mining pools. 46:46 I don't think that is a huge problem. 46:49 Like, mining pools actually running this algo, and miners being able to leave them, 46:58 and Stratum V2 gaining dominance, hopefully in the future, and stuff like that. 47:05 So, I don't think that is a huge problem. 47:07 I think people are more afraid of a different specialization centralizing the sidechain block validation, 47:19 because if there is a quant firm that can extract the most value from the sidechains, 47:27 and, of course, they can bribe the miners to always, or maybe they can even do more 47:35 things like they demand direct lines and skipping the mempool, 47:41 and have special deals with mining pools, and the whole thing becomes, 47:47 instead of being out in the open and open fee bidding and auction, 47:52 it's a small group would gain a lot of control over the Bitcoin ecosystem. 47:56 I think this is the line where a lot of people have worries, 48:00 that if we can have anything, like literally anything, as blind merge mining attached to Bitcoin, 48:08 and there is a significant value and economic activity locked into it, 48:13 then we can't really predict the consequences, 48:16 but we are seeing on Ethereum kind of where it can go worst case. 48:22 And that is something that I would also consider. 48:28 So if it was up to me, I would very much prefer if we only had UTXO sidechains, 48:34 and basically Bitcoin clones mostly. 48:37 Well, you know, I actually have a couple thoughts on that. 48:40 One is, first of all, it's already possible to have merge-mined altcoin that has EVM and not UTXO, 48:49 which honestly kind of should be enough to just get rid of that whole argument, 48:53 because it doesn't have anything to do with sidechains per se, 48:56 even though you could say something like, 48:59 merge-mined altcoin is so unviable that it will never have any effect on anything, 49:03 and so we don't even need to think about that. 49:05 But another thing to think about is that, in my view, 49:11 all this Ethereum DeFi stuff is actually really, really, really small. 49:17 It's like unbelievably small. 49:19 It's currently 15 to 20 times larger than Bitcoin, BTC, 49:23 but that is only because of just the current state of things in Bitcoin. 49:28 The Bitcoin's aspiration is to just replace every transaction in the world, 49:33 all the coffee transactions, everything, every time you buy a shirt, 49:38 when you buy a chicken sandwich. 49:42 There's just so much in the real world of payments that whatever is done in DeFi, 49:49 I don't even think it will be very big, 49:53 and I think actually the stuff that people like, it has nothing to do. 49:59 It would be better served by the UTXO model. 50:02 The stuff that people like about Ethereum is not any kind of complicated programmability at all. 50:09 What they want is to be able to basically do what Counterparty did or colored coins. 50:13 They want to be able to issue their own token. 50:15 They want to issue Moon Settler coin, which we can easily do with the UTXO chain 50:21 and which would actually be much better because, as you know, in Ethereum, 50:25 oftentimes you pay the fee and you don't even get what you wanted to get. 50:30 You have to pay the fee for the option of maybe. 50:34 The very fact that there's miner extractable value proves that there's a wedge being driven 50:39 between the buyer and the seller that is extracted by miners, 50:43 and that just proves that it's inefficient. 50:45 And so if someone rewrote, we have a primitive version of this right now, 50:50 the asset sidechain, where it's just UTXOs for assets, 50:54 and it's really assets is like 90% of what people like about Ethereum and DeFi. 50:59 Do people actually like the term completeness? 51:02 Not really. 51:03 So that's my multi-part response to that. 51:06 What do you think of those points? 51:08 Yeah, I think it's absolutely possible to write a decentralized exchange on the UTXO chain, 51:18 and I do believe that it would probably, it should win over the EVM approach. 51:26 And that requires a more comprehensive set of governance. 51:33 So I'm not sure if you've seen what Burak did on Liquid, Liquid with the elements opcodes. 51:43 He actually managed to create a peer-to-peer driven exchange contract 51:54 where you can bid for an operation, and you can set your spread tolerance, 52:02 and multiple people can get into a round, and it would execute and enforce the rules on chain. 52:10 So it was pretty magical what you can do with this stuff. 52:15 If you have a native representation of tokens, like on Liquid, 52:20 and you have these opcodes where you can dig into the transactions. 52:26 And so it's clear that UTXO chains can do these things. 52:32 It's pretty clear to me. 52:34 And probably going to offer advantages over EVM. 52:40 And probably the contracts will be more auditable. 52:45 The whole thing, I think, will be more performant. 52:51 That's my personal opinion. 52:53 Of course, I could be proven wrong on this. 52:56 And I think we should probably not be close-minded for this possibility. 53:04 What do you think, Paul, about the statement? 53:06 I think Roccat said this to me, that payments, that Bitcoin aspires to take over, 53:14 that payments are just peanuts compared to finance. 53:17 So actually, if you take all the payments, like credit cards and other payments in the world, 53:24 it would be nothing compared to finance. 53:29 And these difference in aspirations that Bitcoin has had and what is out there in the world to take 53:36 fundamentally actually do Bitcoin, in his view. 53:43 Well, that's an interesting type of a question because it's really an empirical question. 53:47 And I think what's intriguing about it is, first of all, we could just look it up. 53:52 But second of all, think about it. 53:56 What would it mean if it were wrong? 53:59 Would it actually change anything? 54:00 Because imagine that finance were smaller than payments. 54:04 Well, in three years, one could grow and the other could shrink and then it could reverse 54:10 and then it could reverse again. 54:12 And so it seems to me nothing can really hinge on whether or not that statement is true. 54:17 It happens to be a straightforward empirical statement that we can simply look up. 54:22 Certainly, there are many ways in which a financial transaction is not really different 54:28 from a regular payment for something. 54:31 If you buy something, you want a hamburger, then you buy a hamburger. 54:37 If you want to buy car insurance, you buy car insurance. 54:43 If you want to buy a house, it's partly land, it's partly house, it's partly homeowners insurance. 54:50 What difference does it really make? 54:52 But yeah, we could look that up. 54:53 I mean, sometimes, though, I do think people, they don't actually understand. 54:59 They don't do the accounting quite right, but maybe they do. 55:01 I don't know. 55:02 But I think they sometimes think they use numbers about like, they can play like stock to flow, 55:08 like the market cap to the volume. 55:11 And then it's like, if you buy a stock for $5, are you really buying, is it a $5 trade? 55:17 Or is it just the marginal value of you exchanging cash, $5 worth of cash? 55:22 To swap a $5 worth of cash, $5 worth of stock, what is the actual value of that transaction? 55:29 I may have quoted that statement wrongly. 55:33 I think the real point that was made was about the profit margin of these operations. 55:44 So that payments tend to, you know, towards the marginal cost. 55:52 And it's not a huge business compared to anything related to lending and finance. 55:59 I think it's more accurate to represent this point like that. 56:04 And that involves the miner revenue that can be extracted from, you know, the payments use case versus the finance use case. 56:14 Well, my guess is just, you know, basic economics type of idea would be that if it's really true that there is a lot of, you know, 56:24 and I agree with this. 56:26 See, if someone is buying and selling a hamburger, then people are cutting the profit margins because of the low barriers to entry. 56:33 It's not that hard for you to go to the supermarket, buy the inputs, go to Home Depot and buy a stove, 56:42 and start turning the inputs into a hamburger. 56:47 So that's not that hard. 56:49 And so that's competitive. 56:51 Whereas for people to offer financial services is not as easy. 56:57 The idea being if it's true that there's lots of profits in that industry, it's only because the barriers to entry are high. 57:06 And in fact, part of what we would be doing by creating the BitAsset sidechain, by creating open financial, open source software, 57:16 we would be the people who would be causing the barriers to entry to plummet. 57:22 And then we would be killing the profit margin, basically. 57:27 It's like my reaction to that question. 57:35 Yeah, interesting. 57:36 So I guess one could, I think, ask the question if we can afford to simplify out. 57:44 And I'm undecided on that. 57:47 So a lot of people just immediately start enumerating the scams in the DeFi space if it comes up. 57:55 But on the other hand, this could actually grow up to be in a future where, let's say, Bitcoin does take over in some sense. 58:07 And it would not be just scams. 58:12 Can we really just sit on our hands and not work towards the future? 58:18 I guess that's a question that is worth considering. 58:23 You and I would agree that mostly what is out there is scams, like 99 percent or whatever. 58:32 Again, though, it's kind of frustrating because this entire trajectory is because the lack of sidechains has both provided enormous cover to scams. 58:45 It has also shut down many people's Bitcoin aspirations. 58:50 People who would have been in Bitcoin and created a legitimate business found that way blocked, basically, 58:58 because the lack of sidechains closed down multiple different complete industries that could have opened up and really derailed, honestly, 59:07 the total growth of Bitcoin that would have affected everything from the exchanges to the miners where people had different ideas. 59:14 They were enthusiastic about different things. 59:17 Or even if they're enthusiastic about something like just general research or just kind of activism, like writing open source software for simple tools. 59:31 All of that would have been on a different path if we had had sidechains, which would have just like we would have been able to grow in an unlimited sense. 59:39 But also the lack of sidechains created this entire confusing food chain of just like what you had was just one thing after another, where it was like there was no Ethereum before the block size war kind of created Ethereum. 59:55 Whereas it didn't really break into the scene until people smelled blood. 59:59 They smelled like the Bitcoin community was like disunited. 1:00:03 The Ethereum community knew that they had to be more experimental and tolerant of weird ideas. 1:00:08 They were a new weird idea. 1:00:11 They had people creating all these tokens, many of which were versions of things that had been proposed, probably almost all of which. 1:00:20 There's probably nothing you could find in Ethereum from 2015 to 2017 that wasn't previously proposed on Counterparty or as some kind of weird Bitcoin mod on Bitcoin Talk. 1:00:32 So then you have now you have the alt versions. 1:00:34 And as a result, people are forced to become a little bit more what you might call open minded to new tokens, because now here's Ethereum is a thing. 1:00:41 These all these ICOs and things are things you got ICOs. 1:00:45 And then you have all these people with a vested interest. 1:00:48 We could name some funny names if we wanted to. 1:00:52 You know, this stuff about like fortunes were being made. 1:00:56 You know, that guy, William Guyar, the business blockchain guy, stuff like that. 1:01:02 Just the whole the whole derailment into like the blockchain without Bitcoin thing. 1:01:07 ICOs, all of that just created people with a huge vested interest in continuing to basically scam. 1:01:15 So I'm saying the scam is ironic. 1:01:16 I think the blockchain would have solved this problem. 1:01:18 Welcome, Ryan Dye. 1:01:20 Thanks for joining. 1:01:21 Please chime in. 1:01:23 Actually, Paul, I have a question for you on exactly that point. 1:01:26 Like, I tend to agree, I think, you know, one of the sad things about Bitcoin's history is the amount of kind of PTSD around changing Bitcoin. 1:01:38 Like, I think, you know, it was kind of Bitcoin's game to lose. 1:01:43 And in a lot of ways, like the PTSD out of the block size debacle, I think in a lot of ways, kind of kneecapped the Bitcoin community's ability to adapt to changing market circumstances. 1:01:56 And like, there's this idea that I've subscribed to around sidechains or roll ups or whatever that, you know, if we had it on Bitcoin, it would be better. 1:02:10 And if you, you know, used Bitcoin as the unit of account for like paying for transaction fees on sidechains or whatever other layer twos like that would be better because Bitcoin has like superior monetary and kind of governance properties. 1:02:25 But something I've been thinking about a lot lately is I really wonder if it's just too late. 1:02:30 And if we're in a point now where let's say tomorrow you could like wave a magic wand and we activated BIP300 and 301 and we got, you know, blind merge mine, hash rate, escrow, sidechains, we got drivechains. 1:02:46 It seems like the first thing that somebody would do, or maybe not the first, maybe the second thing, right? 1:02:52 Because I'm sure the first thing is that you've got a prediction market like in the chamber and we're going to go do that and it'll be awesome. 1:02:59 But maybe the second thing that we're going to do is somebody is going to make a better version of wrapped Bitcoin of like WBTC, right? 1:03:07 Because like there's way more Bitcoin in a custodial wrapped Bitcoin deployed on Ethereum than there is in Liquid and Lightning combined. 1:03:19 And so, you know, if somebody could say, all right, there's already a wallet ecosystem, there's already all these dApps, DAOs, like all these different products over in the Ethereum ecosystem. 1:03:34 And it would be really great if we could reduce the trust needed in wrapping Bitcoin and going and using that ecosystem. 1:03:42 Like that would be an incredibly high leverage way of using drivechains, right? 1:03:47 Like you basically just make a drivechain to wrap Bitcoin and deploy it on Ethereum. 1:03:53 And that gets you kind of all of the Ethereum ecosystem and all the crazy Web3 DeFi bullshit that people want to do. 1:03:59 Like you just get that on day one. 1:04:02 And if we do that, then maybe we only end up with like two drivechains, right? 1:04:06 There's like a drivechain to do wrapped Bitcoin and there's a drivechain to do kind of, you know, hive mind prediction markets. 1:04:16 And that's kind of it. 1:04:17 And like there ends up not being a whole lot of demand for other interesting Bitcoin sidechains. 1:04:23 Because if you want to do like Bitcoin things, you do that on Bitcoin. 1:04:28 And if you want to do other stuff, then do that on Ethereum with like a less trusted peg. 1:04:32 Like, does that make sense? 1:04:33 Or am I talking crazy? 1:04:36 There's a lot of different thoughts all wrapped in there. 1:04:41 I think it's certainly true that some people like network effects are big, but also features are big. 1:04:46 And this is a tug of war game that we all have to play. 1:04:51 Because if you think network effects will always win, then the US dollar is going to defeat Bitcoin. 1:04:57 So you just give up. 1:04:59 And if you think that features will always win, then you're not correct. 1:05:02 Because network effects matter a lot. 1:05:06 So it's definitely the case that Ethereum's state has its own very strong network effect at this point. 1:05:13 Where even if you could replicate, you replicate the EVM completely, 1:05:17 then people want to be on the EVM chain that their other stuff is on. 1:05:23 So that's also true. 1:05:26 The question of whether or not it would be wrapped. 1:05:30 First of all, I think it's a little pessimistic to say people would only use it in such and such ways. 1:05:34 You know, if there's demand, then people would use it. 1:05:38 There may not be demand. 1:05:39 But the idea of like, is it like wrapped BTC in the Bitcoin drivechain versus on Ethereum? 1:05:49 This is also something where there's lots of intersecting points where I would say that like, 1:05:54 custodial, we should do everything we can to sort of fight against custodial Bitcoin 1:06:01 by offering a good product or service. 1:06:04 That people like. 1:06:06 But we also have to accept that the custodial thing is going to have lots of advantages for many people 1:06:13 over the cypherpunky thing. 1:06:16 And there's just most people are not going to be going for the cypherpunky thing at the end of the day. 1:06:22 So it shouldn't really be surprising that when you compare liquid to wrapped Bitcoin. 1:06:28 And I would imagine that it's quite possible that some kind of custodial thing, 1:06:35 whether it's all in one UTXO on layer one or in a weird drivechain, 1:06:42 will be, I think that is real. 1:06:47 I think that the way to win is to try to give as many people what they want as possible 1:06:53 so that you have the biggest network effect. 1:06:55 And so what we want is for the people who wanted large blocks to get their large blocks. 1:07:02 The people who wanted small blocks to get their small blocks. 1:07:05 The people who wanted zk-SNARK, super privacy to get that. 1:07:09 The people who didn't want it because it interferes with the audibility of the 21 million coin limit. 1:07:13 They should not have it. 1:07:16 The people who wanted namecoin stuff should get namecoin stuff. 1:07:19 Other people should not. 1:07:20 People want assets, ordinals, they should get it. 1:07:23 So now, of course, we can never do this quite perfectly. 1:07:26 But what we currently do is a very, very shameful thing 1:07:30 where we just have one piece of software that changes very slowly. 1:07:35 We shame anyone who doesn't use that. 1:07:39 You know, we say if someone uses something else, 1:07:42 not only are they wrong, but they're a bad person 1:07:44 and they're misleading their friends and family. 1:07:47 So we don't do a very good job now of being kind of like customer is always right. 1:07:53 This is what I wanted to interject. 1:07:55 Just a little thing, a small thing that I have noticed. 1:08:02 Someone is having an idea, something that would be cool, 1:08:05 something that would be nice, something that some people would want. 1:08:08 And the Bitcoin moxes say, fuck off, make a shitcoin. 1:08:15 The guy goes and makes an altcoin and says, look guys, I built all this, it works. 1:08:22 Do you want to try out? 1:08:23 Fuck off, we are not buying your shitcoin. 1:08:26 And so basically, this is the repeating dynamic that I have noticed. 1:08:32 And I think this is one of the most unfortunate side effects of this that we do not have. 1:08:39 These acceptably not centralized or acceptably decentralized sidechains 1:08:48 since, I don't know, since like 2015 or something. 1:08:52 So this is one of this whole, as you guys said, PTSD that we are living. 1:09:00 And this dynamic is really unfortunate and sad. 1:09:05 Yeah, we see only the tip of the iceberg with respect to all of the people, 1:09:12 like even I only see the tip of the iceberg. 1:09:14 I only know like whatever I've... 1:09:15 Because it's a type of knowledge that doesn't diffuse 1:09:18 because it's like caught up in like shame and like all this weird cult nonsense. 1:09:22 So it's like... 1:09:24 But we know from first-hand experience, 1:09:27 so many people have either had an interesting idea or they have wanted to try an idea. 1:09:32 And these are just the few people who were willing to take the risk or... 1:09:38 Right now, it's actively discouraged. 1:09:40 It's not even like encouraged. 1:09:43 But so many people would just like take their own time. 1:09:45 Jeremy Rubin is a perfect example. 1:09:48 They take time out of their day to work on this idea and then not only invent the idea, 1:09:54 but then try to publish the idea, register like a domain, make a website, do all this work. 1:10:02 So I think this really speaks to how difficult it is to actually figure out 1:10:09 like what sidechains would be popular. 1:10:12 We really see only the tip of the iceberg of... 1:10:16 And it's unfortunate because just think of how... 1:10:18 Think of the cost-benefit analysis on running like a little scam 1:10:22 or just pumping NFT, the cost-benefit... 1:10:33 Paul, I can't hear you. 1:10:34 Yeah, I was wondering if it was me. 1:10:36 Maybe it cut out for him for a moment. 1:10:42 Reyndal, what you were saying was so interesting, how maybe one of the main uses of drivechain 1:10:51 would be the issuance of something better than wrapped Bitcoin. 1:10:59 It's interesting how demand for wrapped Bitcoin does create higher price for Bitcoin on mainchain 1:11:06 because of the two-way peg, although it's federated and run by BitGo. 1:11:12 You know, when people demand that wrapped Bitcoin token, 1:11:15 there's a higher price for Bitcoin as a result. 1:11:19 So it is good for Bitcoin in that sense. 1:11:21 As you described correctly, people want to participate in Bitcoin's monetary policy, 1:11:28 but use the features of Ethereum. 1:11:31 And that's why there's demand for wrapped Bitcoin. 1:11:33 It's like $4 billion. 1:11:34 But of course, Bitcoin is missing out on the transaction fees from that activity. 1:11:40 By the way, would it make sense to make a wrapped Bitcoin on a sidechain? 1:11:45 On a Bitcoin sidechain at all? 1:11:46 I mean, the whole point of sidechains is we are having an altcoin that is pegged one-to-one 1:11:53 to Bitcoin. 1:11:54 So you can just skip the textile step altogether. 1:12:01 Yeah, I think we all agree on that. 1:12:05 Basically, people want to use the Bitcoin token, the unit of account, 1:12:10 but they want the features of, for example, a privacy blockchain, 1:12:14 but with Bitcoin as the unit of account, a synthetic Bitcoin. 1:12:20 Sorry, guys, my app crashed. 1:12:22 So clearly, there's something that they don't want you to hear, you know. 1:12:27 But what I was going to say is that I don't really think anyone, 1:12:32 in my own personal experience, this may be incorrect. 1:12:35 I don't know. 1:12:35 But I don't really think anyone, most people, this may have been a function of when I joined 1:12:43 Bitcoin. 1:12:44 I don't know. 1:12:45 But just my personal experience has been that none of the people who later go on to do, 1:12:54 most people, if they have a good idea, they show up and they think, 1:12:58 wow, Bitcoin is way cooler than Chase Manhattan, like my checking account. 1:13:05 Bitcoin is way cooler than PayPal. 1:13:07 They're like, this is so cool. 1:13:09 I love Bitcoin. 1:13:10 And then what they think is, here's my cool idea for how to make Bitcoin better. 1:13:16 Almost no one shows up and then they say, okay, I'm going to launch an altcoin. 1:13:20 I'm going to compete with Bitcoin. 1:13:22 I'm going to defeat and overthrow Bitcoin. 1:13:24 And then I'm going to have conquered the world. 1:13:26 I don't really know of anyone who actually fits that description in the slightest. 1:13:32 Even Vitalik was co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. 1:13:34 He wrote for Bitcoin Magazine for many years. 1:13:37 He was like a diehard Bitcoiner. 1:13:40 Roger Ver was obviously a diehard. 1:13:42 People really do not turn to the altcoin solution. 1:13:45 It is like a last resort for most of the people I know who had any serious talent. 1:13:51 People are dragged cooking and screaming into the altcoin world to some extent. 1:13:57 And there's other people, not so much, but those are mostly the generic, 1:14:03 those are the projects that usually aren't as viable. 1:14:07 Those are the whatever, like the NFT or just something that's not... 1:14:13 I had one thing I was going to say before I got cut off about the earlier question about ETH. 1:14:18 I had a direct idea about will it just be a wrapped Bitcoin on ETH. 1:14:23 First of all, again, ETH does have network effects. 1:14:27 So there's some gravity to that. 1:14:31 But the ETH also has the property that the fees will fill up. 1:14:36 The fees are paid in Ether and the fees eventually become high on Ethereum, the altcoin. 1:14:43 Whereas if you have ETH, the sidechain, like EVM sidechain, 1:14:49 once the fees fill up, you can just stamp out a second ETH sidechain. 1:14:54 And now maybe it's unclear because different network effects and things, 1:14:58 but it does seem like then everyone's focused on just the right thing, 1:15:04 which is how to get more users, how to get more users. 1:15:07 Or if people are chasing lower fees, then maybe they start on network one 1:15:13 and then that one fills up. 1:15:14 And so somebody makes an alternative network. 1:15:16 And I think the thing that I'm trying to think through is whenever I... 1:15:23 There's like a substitution principle here, right? 1:15:25 Where it's like, if the thing that I want is I want to take my Bitcoin unit of an account 1:15:29 and go use it somewhere else that has better smart contracts or bigger blocks or more privacy 1:15:36 or whatever the thing is, right? 1:15:39 Within that category, maybe those other chains are fungible to each other, right? 1:15:45 Because I can always come back to Bitcoin. 1:15:48 So if I'm using Avalanche one day and Solana the next day, 1:15:52 if it has the features that I want, what do I care if I have 1:15:57 a trust-minimized peg back to Bitcoin? 1:16:00 And so I think part of the rationale for sidechains in the past 1:16:05 has always been that you'll pay your layer one fees in Bitcoin 1:16:13 instead of in whatever the native token is. 1:16:15 But these things have network effects. 1:16:19 And so if we end up with like, we activate drivechains tomorrow, 1:16:25 the day after tomorrow, drivechain ends up mostly just being used 1:16:31 as like a bridging mechanism to go from Bitcoin to these other alternative layer ones 1:16:38 that have these other capabilities that have like their own token and you're paying, 1:16:41 you know, ETH fees in ETH, you're paying Avalanche fees in Avalanche, 1:16:46 you're paying, I don't know, Cardano fees in Cardano, like whatever. 1:16:51 Like, maybe that's okay, right? 1:16:53 Like, because it still drives demand for Bitcoin. 1:16:55 It's still through blind merge mining. 1:16:57 You still provide like security budget for Bitcoin. 1:17:02 Maybe it doesn't really matter. 1:17:03 But I think it's like a little bit different from the, 1:17:07 I don't know, dogmatic view of sidechains. 1:17:14 Isn't the plan to clone the altcoin technology 1:17:17 so that there is no other blockchain other than the sidechains? 1:17:21 Yeah, but like, people actually use that, right? 1:17:24 Like, people have cloned ETH and put it on Rootstock. 1:17:29 And Rootstock isn't perfect, but there's, you know, many orders of magnitude, 1:17:33 more economic activity happening on ETH than there is on Rootstock, 1:17:37 despite the fact that there's analogs to all of the ETH things on Rootstock. 1:17:42 Isn't it an apples to oranges comparison when the entire Rootstock ecosystem 1:17:47 has to be federated by necessity due to the lack 1:17:50 of the peer-to-peer sidechain architecture of drivechain? 1:17:54 Well, I don't know. 1:17:55 Maybe. 1:17:55 I mean, it's hard to say. 1:17:57 Like, I wonder how many people actually even know or actually care about any of the... 1:18:04 I don't know about that. 1:18:05 I think RSK is like weird. 1:18:10 RSK is a weird... 1:18:13 It's kind of difficult for me to view RSK as an experiment. 1:18:18 I don't know. 1:18:19 Like, what I mean by that is there's a lot of confounding variables, I think. 1:18:24 One of them is the federation, which... 1:18:27 Does anyone know who are the federation members and how are they chosen? 1:18:31 And what is the ceremony? 1:18:32 It's the same problem with Liquid, where you just think, like, who are the people? 1:18:37 No one knows. 1:18:38 The whole thing rests on their... 1:18:39 Yeah. 1:18:40 You could argue that just having BitGo hold it is actually better than a federation with 1:18:44 unknown participants, because you don't know if the federation is just one dude in his basement 1:18:47 or if it's actually a federation of different people. 1:18:50 Well, Warren Tagami... 1:18:52 That is something that people pick up on with the federation. 1:18:55 They kind of think, like, in an abstract sense, they think a federation is okay. 1:18:59 But then when push comes to shove and you have to put your $200 on the chain, people 1:19:05 kind of think, like, they have this moment where they're like, wait a minute, what am 1:19:08 I doing now? 1:19:10 What kind of boat am I getting into right now? 1:19:12 And they kind of think, like, maybe I'll just wait. 1:19:17 So I do think the federation is worse than even the regular ETH altcoin consensus, because 1:19:25 people do eventually have this weird reaction where they don't really know. 1:19:28 Like, you're like, what does that mean, a federation? 1:19:30 And you can see why BitGo... 1:19:32 doesn't do it, because... 1:19:34 who wants to be... like, who wants this job? Like, no one. 1:19:37 You could sign up to be a federation member, there could be some kind of glitch, 1:19:40 and then you could be blamed. 1:19:42 Or you could get... 1:19:44 you know, Gary Gensler could be all you into Congress or something. 1:19:49 Like, who wants this job? No one. BitGo doesn't want to do the Ethereum thing, 1:19:53 and then the DAO hack happens. It's like a giant mess, so... 1:19:56 But there's a lot of confounding things with RSK. 1:19:59 RSK just has this weird X-factor that is very hard for people to place, 1:20:04 where you just think, like... 1:20:06 just, it's like kind of... 1:20:08 they have this dense, impenetrable quality about them 1:20:12 that it's very hard for me to understand or explain, 1:20:14 but it's something that goes along the lines of... 1:20:18 no one knows what RSK is doing, 1:20:20 they don't show up... 1:20:22 they show up to, like, some events, 1:20:24 but no, they don't, like, really... 1:20:28 It's difficult, because if you're into ETH stuff, 1:20:32 you would probably... 1:20:33 See, another confounding thing is that ETH has a viable... 1:20:37 like, the ETH plan is to flip in BTC. 1:20:41 So imagine that the final destination is $300 trillion market cap. 1:20:45 If you get there from $30,000, you did pretty well. 1:20:49 But you'd do even better if you can get there from whatever the... 1:20:52 if you adjust Ethereum's price to normalize it to 21 million units, 1:20:56 whatever that would be. 1:20:58 So if you get there from $4,000 for 21 millionth, 1:21:04 then you did even better. 1:21:06 So the ETH people, they like ETH, 1:21:08 and they think, well, if I think ETH is a good thing, 1:21:10 maybe we can flip in. 1:21:12 It's all about the flippening. 1:21:14 So they want to flip in also. 1:21:16 So if they really like ETH, they want to flip in. 1:21:18 So why join RSK when you can just break even 1:21:20 with every other Bitcoiner? 1:21:22 If you're into your ETH thing, 1:21:25 why not just throw in with Ethereum or whatever? 1:21:29 After all, you have a thing that you like 1:21:31 that you know that they are wrongly shunning. 1:21:35 So I think there's a lot of complicated things. 1:21:37 But with sidechains, it might be different. 1:21:39 It may be different. 1:21:41 And maybe, as was suggested earlier, 1:21:43 maybe kind of too late. 1:21:45 But maybe not. 1:21:47 And what I'm getting at is the idea would be, 1:21:49 once we have sidechains that are popular, 1:21:53 that everyone understands, 1:21:55 and that lots of people use, 1:21:57 people would kind of shrug, 1:21:59 and they would say, you know what? 1:22:01 Ethereum, the altcoin, doesn't have a future 1:22:03 because we have the EVM, 1:22:05 we have the healthy EVM sidechain. 1:22:07 And so not because of anything Ethereum did wrong, 1:22:09 but people would then abandon it, 1:22:11 and that would be the reason why 1:22:13 it would be different than RSK. 1:22:15 But this is a very weird thing. 1:22:17 A lot of stuff about RSK is just kind of like 1:22:19 difficult for me to think about. 1:22:21 And everyone else that I talk to 1:22:23 kind of feels the same way. 1:22:25 I don't know. 1:22:27 They're just hanging out down there 1:22:29 in Argentina or something. 1:22:31 I don't know. 1:22:33 I can't really explain it. 1:22:35 But there's a very imperceptible vibe 1:22:37 for some reason. 1:22:39 Randall, what do you think? 1:22:41 What are your current thoughts 1:22:43 on drivechain generally, 1:22:45 and how it might lead to a new understanding 1:22:47 throughout all of the crypto community 1:22:49 that almost anything can be built 1:22:51 on Bitcoin that previously 1:22:53 couldn't exist in a peer-to-peer 1:22:55 manner on Bitcoin, 1:22:57 and therefore that gave rise to altcoins 1:22:59 for a decade. 1:23:01 But then, because of the adoption of drivechain, 1:23:03 now all of that tech with its users 1:23:05 and value will flow back to Bitcoin, 1:23:07 and Bitcoin would be 1:23:09 the layer one for every blockchain, 1:23:11 literally. 1:23:13 Do you find that vision 1:23:15 potentially compelling? 1:23:17 So, 1:23:19 I think 1:23:21 that it's 1:23:23 not likely that 1:23:25 ETH has 1:23:27 half the market cap of Bitcoin. 1:23:29 So, I don't think it's 1:23:31 likely that if we had drivechains 1:23:33 tomorrow that ETH would just 1:23:35 poof, evaporate, and all of that 1:23:37 market cap 1:23:39 would come to Bitcoin. I think what's more likely 1:23:41 is 1:23:43 there would be a race 1:23:45 to say, hey, we're going to build 1:23:47 a... 1:23:49 Sorry, one second. 1:23:51 We're going to build 1:23:53 a, air quotes, trustless peg 1:23:55 to ETH, and 1:23:57 you can move Bitcoin onto 1:23:59 ETH and use 1:24:01 that ecosystem, and I think that thing 1:24:03 would be very 1:24:05 strong in the market. I think 1:24:07 what would be a good impact... 1:24:09 So, for one thing, that might 1:24:11 sound really gross, but I think 1:24:13 that would actually be a net positive for Bitcoin 1:24:15 because instead of people having 1:24:17 to say, oh, I have 1:24:19 Bitcoin, but I want to go use some 1:24:21 DeFi or NFT thing, they would 1:24:23 say, hey, I can go and use my Bitcoin with 1:24:25 that DeFi NFT thing, and I think that would actually 1:24:27 be a net positive for Bitcoin. 1:24:29 I think where you'd see 1:24:31 real 1:24:33 impact would be 1:24:35 that things that are like, net 1:24:37 new, instead of 1:24:39 it being like, hey, 1:24:41 I need to pick either Bitcoin with 1:24:43 less features or some altcoin 1:24:45 with more features, you could just say, 1:24:47 I'm going to use a Bitcoin sidechain. 1:24:49 If you wanted to do some crazy 1:24:51 new custody scheme, or if you wanted to do 1:24:53 some crazy new ZK scheme, or 1:24:55 some crazy 1:24:57 high throughput, but simple 1:24:59 transaction scheme, then 1:25:01 you could do that on Bitcoin, 1:25:03 and you could do it on a Bitcoin sidechain, and I think 1:25:05 that that would be really compelling. The thing 1:25:07 that I'm wrestling with is, I don't 1:25:09 think that all of the alt mark 1:25:11 cap would suddenly go to zero. 1:25:13 I think those network effects are real, 1:25:15 and I think that 1:25:17 Bitcoin would be able to better coexist 1:25:19 with them, but I think what would be 1:25:21 really nice is 1:25:23 if you woke up tomorrow and you 1:25:25 read some cool new ZK 1:25:27 paper for doing better, 1:25:29 more private payments, instead 1:25:31 of having to say, oh shit, let me 1:25:33 go find an altcoin for this, 1:25:35 you'd be able to say, let me do 1:25:37 a trustless Bitcoin sidechain 1:25:39 for this. So I 1:25:41 think, I don't know, 1:25:43 I've been pretty down on 1:25:45 drivechains generally. I'm 1:25:47 very slowly coming 1:25:49 around to it, and I 1:25:51 think that overall, 1:25:55 I don't know, I'm skeptical 1:25:57 about there being enough 1:25:59 consensus for activation, but 1:26:01 I think if somehow you were able 1:26:03 to do it, I think it would be a net positive for Bitcoin. 1:26:07 Rinder, quick question. 1:26:09 Would you like, 1:26:11 would you prefer a 1:26:13 drivechain implementation 1:26:15 of liquidity elements 1:26:17 of codes to 1:26:19 a federated one? 1:26:21 Yeah, I think I would, and I was thinking 1:26:23 about this a couple days ago, 1:26:25 so SuperTestNet 1:26:27 did a 1:26:29 thing called AnchorInk, 1:26:31 which was kind of like 1:26:33 a drivechain-like 1:26:35 thing, 1:26:37 but how it worked was 1:26:39 the idea is 1:26:41 that miners would put a 1:26:43 pubkey into the coinbase 1:26:45 transaction just as part of the OP_RETURN, 1:26:47 and then what you could do 1:26:49 is you could make yourself 1:26:51 a federated multisig 1:26:53 out of the pubkeys 1:26:55 that the last six months 1:26:57 worth of miners had 1:26:59 mined, 1:27:01 right? And so it kind of looks 1:27:03 like hashrate escrow, but it's with 1:27:05 this static set, and I was thinking 1:27:07 about what's wrong with that. 1:27:09 Without the hashrate escrow, right? 1:27:11 So it's really a miner 1:27:13 dynamic federation without 1:27:15 the hashrate escrow. Yes, exactly. 1:27:17 It's miner dynafed, right? 1:27:19 And 1:27:21 the thing that I realized is that 1:27:23 one of the things that's clever 1:27:25 about hashrate escrow 1:27:27 is that 1:27:29 say that you 1:27:31 are a drivechain 1:27:33 community, so like you're running a sidechain, 1:27:35 and you 1:27:37 think that the miners 1:27:39 are colluding to 1:27:41 pilfer your sidechain. 1:27:43 If you have enough 1:27:45 economic activity on your 1:27:47 sidechain, you could just 1:27:49 go and buy a bunch of 1:27:51 S19s, or go 1:27:53 and rent a bunch of hashrate, or go and 1:27:55 just pay a bunch of miners 1:27:57 to mine 1:27:59 blocks that resist 1:28:01 that peg out, that 1:28:03 resist that withdrawal. 1:28:05 You have 1:28:07 economic means to 1:28:09 resist a 1:28:11 malicious peg out under 1:28:13 drivechains, under proper drivechains. 1:28:15 And I think if you do something like 1:28:17 a 1:28:19 hand crank mechanism 1:28:21 where it's like a dynafed 1:28:23 that's looking backwards on 1:28:25 the last six months of blocks, then you don't. 1:28:27 And so I've been really 1:28:29 I still am 1:28:31 very cautiously optimistic on 1:28:33 having some 1:28:35 ZK opcode plus 1:28:37 a covenant 1:28:39 to do peg out from 1:28:41 sidechains or from L2s. 1:28:43 But I think you kind of always end up 1:28:45 running into a data availability problem. 1:28:47 So I think 1:28:49 you kind of have 1:28:51 to choose. Do you want to have a data 1:28:53 availability problem with some kind of 1:28:55 ZK rollup, or do you want 1:28:57 to have a 1:28:59 like miners can steal 1:29:01 but they are constrained 1:29:03 by their own economic incentives 1:29:05 problem. And I think 1:29:07 the magic of Bitcoin 1:29:09 is that it takes 1:29:11 what is an unsolvable problem 1:29:13 and 1:29:15 mitigates it with economics. 1:29:17 And 1:29:19 if we're already bought into that 1:29:21 idea, then maybe 1:29:23 we should just 1:29:25 embrace the fact that 1:29:27 miners can find MEV 1:29:29 anyway, so let's at least 1:29:31 standardize it and put it on chain 1:29:33 and make it in a way that everybody can audit. 1:29:39 One interesting thought experiment 1:29:41 regarding network effects from the 1:29:43 prior topic was 1:29:45 when you were saying that Ethereum has 1:29:47 a lot of network effects, so 1:29:49 if we just clone Ethereum into a drivechain 1:29:51 we can't expect those users 1:29:53 to flow over overnight. However, 1:29:55 imagine in a smaller example 1:29:57 the privacy altcoins, Monero 1:29:59 and Zcash. They have 1:30:01 a substantial amount of users 1:30:03 who are focused on not just 1:30:05 the number go up potential, but 1:30:07 the features, the privacy 1:30:09 technology that's more advanced 1:30:11 than what Bitcoin offers generally. 1:30:13 So... 1:30:15 I totally agree with those things. 1:30:17 By the way, we have 1:30:19 a bit harder as a speaker 1:30:21 and we just didn't let... 1:30:23 Yeah. 1:30:25 Well, 1:30:27 I wanted to ask 1:30:29 what do 1:30:31 you mean by 1:30:33 drivechain enabling 1:30:35 you to 1:30:37 do 1:30:39 wrapped Bitcoin better? 1:30:41 How can a drivechain make it 1:30:43 better than what already exists? 1:30:45 As I understand, 1:30:47 Bitcoin works already. 1:30:49 It's custodial. 1:30:51 Totally custodial right now. 1:30:53 So I think Rinda means that 1:30:55 you could somehow 1:30:57 create a trustless 1:30:59 bridge basically and some automatic 1:31:03 custodial 1:31:05 contract that issues the wrapped 1:31:07 Bitcoin or destroys the wrapped Bitcoin 1:31:09 as you peg out. No? 1:31:11 Okay, but how is it 1:31:13 different from like 1:31:15 the Ethereum sidechain? 1:31:17 Right now, there's no way... 1:31:19 Yeah, so there's no way 1:31:21 on the Ethereum side 1:31:23 you could validate 1:31:25 like that Bitcoin 1:31:27 is locked up on the Bitcoin side and you could 1:31:29 issue like a ERC-20 1:31:31 token that 1:31:33 represents like tokenized Bitcoin 1:31:35 like on the Ethereum side and you can go use that 1:31:37 however you want to use whatever other token. 1:31:39 On the Bitcoin side, 1:31:41 Bitcoin script is not 1:31:43 expressive enough to 1:31:45 let us validate 1:31:47 something like a token burn 1:31:49 on the Ethereum side, right? 1:31:51 That's not what I'm 1:31:53 saying. What I'm saying is 1:31:55 if we have an Ethereum sidechain that just 1:31:57 copies Ethereum 1:31:59 and we peg in Bitcoin into 1:32:01 the Ethereum sidechain, 1:32:03 wouldn't that accomplish the same thing 1:32:05 as doing the 1:32:07 trustless 1:32:09 wrapped Bitcoin? Oh, sure, yeah. 1:32:11 The point that I was making is that, you know, 1:32:13 Ethereum has like a whole ecosystem 1:32:15 of, you know, 1:32:17 Uniswap is there, there's stablecoin 1:32:19 issuers on there, there's 1:32:21 borrow-lend markets with like 1:32:23 a lot of liquidity, there's 1:32:25 L2s, there's wallet 1:32:27 ecosystems, like there's all this ecosystem 1:32:29 that you're not going to lift onto 1:32:31 an Ethereum sidechain. 1:32:33 But the thing is 1:32:35 all that ecosystem is kind of open source, 1:32:37 right? Like all the bullets and 1:32:39 so on, you can also copy them 1:32:41 along with the sidechain. 1:32:43 Sure, but like we've 1:32:45 seen people try that and 1:32:47 like, you know, 1:32:49 you have, 1:32:51 so Paul pointed out some good 1:32:53 reasons not to 1:32:55 believe in Rootstock, but like Rootstock 1:32:57 has kind of done that. 1:32:59 A more recent example is like PulseChain, 1:33:01 which is like a Richard Hart 1:33:03 project, 1:33:05 I guess is the 1:33:07 most generous way to put it, right? 1:33:09 They literally cloned 1:33:11 the entire 1:33:13 EVM state 1:33:15 and just airdropped it into their 1:33:17 sidechain, and it's not like 1:33:19 people, you know, 1:33:21 it's not like everybody went into Metamask 1:33:23 and said like, alright, fuck it, we're 1:33:25 pointing at PulseChain now, right? 1:33:27 Like, moving the software 1:33:29 doesn't move the liquidity, and 1:33:31 there's a lot of liquidity and a lot of 1:33:33 ecosystem there. 1:33:35 Yeah, right, but 1:33:37 kind of also the difference 1:33:39 is that 1:33:41 this PulseChain is that 1:33:43 PulseChain doesn't have 1:33:45 the advantage that Bitcoin has, 1:33:47 because, you know, Bitcoin 1:33:49 has the advantage of like larger market 1:33:51 cap and a very large 1:33:53 brand, right? 1:33:55 Things like that, and 1:33:57 Ethereum has its unique advantage, 1:33:59 which is like the technology, 1:34:01 the kind of also its own 1:34:03 brand, it's separate, 1:34:05 and like basically with 1:34:07 an Ethereum sidechain, we copy over 1:34:09 all the technology and 1:34:11 take away that advantage. 1:34:13 And that would be 1:34:15 just a competition 1:34:17 between the Bitcoin brand 1:34:19 with all the Ethereum stuff that does exactly 1:34:21 the same technology, and between 1:34:23 the Ethereum brand, which 1:34:25 also has the exact same technology, but 1:34:27 actually less, because 1:34:29 Bitcoin also will have 1:34:31 its sidechains, right? 1:34:33 All the other stuff, right? 1:34:35 Like the thing that I think 1:34:37 a lot of us 1:34:39 miss, right, is that 1:34:41 Ethereum developers, like the people 1:34:43 who have been building all this technology, 1:34:45 are all Ethereum bag holders, 1:34:47 right? Like if you've got a big bag of 1:34:49 Ethereum and Uniswap token 1:34:51 and Compound token, 1:34:53 you're not just going to 1:34:55 dump all of that, 1:34:57 because now there's a Compound 1:34:59 token on Bitcoin, 1:35:01 right? 1:35:03 But the insidious 1:35:05 thing is, because all of the 1:35:07 software is open source, you can just copy 1:35:09 absolutely everything they do 1:35:11 and have exactly the same technology. 1:35:13 Yeah, sure, but 1:35:15 that doesn't 1:35:17 make me bullish on Rootstock 1:35:19 or on Pulsechain. 1:35:21 They can lift all that technology 1:35:23 and replicate it over. 1:35:25 It doesn't really matter. 1:35:27 Yeah, that is true, 1:35:29 but I guess also 1:35:31 another problem with something like Rootstock 1:35:33 is, again, 1:35:35 Rootstock doesn't have 1:35:37 the advantage that Bitcoin has, 1:35:39 because Bitcoin is like the oldest 1:35:41 coin, 1:35:43 the biggest, right? 1:35:45 Because if you pair 1:35:47 being the biggest coin 1:35:49 with the most investors, 1:35:51 that's the most known, 1:35:53 with having exactly the same technology, 1:35:55 then there's a pretty good chance 1:35:57 of victory over something like 1:35:59 Ethereum, even 1:36:01 though Ethereum also has a pretty strong brand 1:36:03 and stuff like that. 1:36:05 I would like to 1:36:07 just one quick thing. 1:36:09 So, one thing 1:36:11 I would really like 1:36:13 if Bitcoin did its own thing. 1:36:15 I don't think 1:36:17 we should just go after 1:36:19 other chains, because Bitcoin 1:36:21 has found 1:36:23 a very unique set of trade-offs 1:36:25 and it's actually 1:36:27 comfortable in there. 1:36:29 And we 1:36:31 kind of should, instead of copying 1:36:33 Ethereum 1:36:35 and Ethereum technology or 1:36:37 Monero or Zcash and their technology, 1:36:39 we should do our own thing, 1:36:41 I believe. So, that's 1:36:43 also another reason why I'm much more 1:36:45 interested in Bitcoin clones, 1:36:47 sidechains, with slightly 1:36:49 more different capabilities. 1:36:51 And doing 1:36:53 privacy and scaling 1:36:55 mainly on Layer 2s, 1:36:57 because that's Bitcoin's 1:36:59 thing, right? That's something 1:37:01 that we are trying 1:37:03 to accomplish and 1:37:05 it makes sense in a lot of 1:37:07 technical sense. 1:37:09 And I 1:37:11 think 1:37:13 these 1:37:15 straight-up clones 1:37:17 of altcoins that made very, very 1:37:19 different trade-offs, 1:37:21 I also doubt that they will be very 1:37:23 successful on Bitcoin. 1:37:25 Simply because the people 1:37:27 who remain Bitcoiners and did not go 1:37:29 over to these altcoins, 1:37:31 who did not become Robert Monero 1:37:33 or Zcash or 1:37:35 Ethereum fans, are the 1:37:37 people who like this approach 1:37:39 generally and 1:37:41 like these 1:37:43 unique characteristics. 1:37:45 And 1:37:47 maybe we should just have more of that. 1:37:49 That's my two cents. 1:37:51 Yes, well said. I just wanted to 1:37:53 very quickly say, in agreement 1:37:55 with what WetHardware was saying, 1:37:57 and in response to your excellent 1:37:59 thoughts, Reindahl, regarding 1:38:01 network effects, imagine 1:38:03 not Ethereum as the 1:38:05 competitor to Bitcoin, but 1:38:07 just Zcash or Monero. 1:38:09 Their market caps 1:38:11 are just $1 or $2 billion. 1:38:13 Therefore, if 1:38:15 only 1% 1:38:17 of Bitcoiners sent Bitcoin 1:38:19 to a privacy sidechain, 1:38:21 it would be a $4 billion market 1:38:23 cap sidechain with, presumably, 1:38:25 high fees, or at least as 1:38:27 much as 1:38:29 Monero or Zcash. So there would be 1:38:31 some security. There would be a significant 1:38:33 market cap. It would begin to have network 1:38:35 effects and privacy 1:38:37 that rivals or exceeds 1:38:39 those altcoins. So therefore, 1:38:41 maybe 1:38:43 utility-focused users on those altcoins, 1:38:45 not the ones gambling on the 1:38:47 token, but holding it for the utility 1:38:49 and transacting privately, they 1:38:51 would move over to Bitcoin 1:38:53 to use this privacy 1:38:55 sidechain. And then, that would be the first 1:38:57 example, maybe, of Bitcoin 1:38:59 absorbing the value in users 1:39:01 of an altcoin. And if we do that 1:39:03 one by one, absorbing 1:39:05 the value in users and technology 1:39:07 of the altcoins focused 1:39:09 on things that aren't offered 1:39:11 on Bitcoin presently, then Bitcoin would 1:39:13 begin to have a greater 1:39:15 and greater network effect 1:39:17 more than it already has against 1:39:19 Ethereum, and would eventually 1:39:21 swallow up even its largest competitor. 1:39:29 You want to say something? I want to say something. 1:39:31 Yeah, Reindahl, what do you think of that? 1:39:32 Well, just really quick. I mean, because of this whole thing, I'm skeptical of the whole 1:39:40 Bitcoin will make alts go to zero. I think the real value of sidechains is that we can do higher 1:39:48 throughput, more private payments. It seems like the reason why people use Bitcoin is because it's 1:39:53 better money. And so, I think we can build better money capabilities on sidechains. And that might 1:40:02 be like, hey, let's get some 10,000 TPS plus perfect privacy payment system as a sidechain 1:40:12 or some other L2. And the NFT stuff, we just settle on, yeah, there's a better bridge from 1:40:22 Bitcoin to that thing. But that thing is on some other network that has its own established network 1:40:28 effects, and we just try to live with it. Well, I think it's all related because the 1:40:35 topic of creation, really, which is like those things probably wouldn't have been created if 1:40:39 there was some other outlet. But I think I wanted to go to the topic of Monero and ETH, which are 1:40:49 if you use a certain lens, like I re-watched the Theranos documentary, because someone did a 1:40:56 funny Bitcoin parody thread that I liked, and I was like, oh, Theranos, what a great story. 1:41:02 But anyway, if you do, then you can see part of what's going on with ETH, like we were talking 1:41:07 about before, the ETH bag holders, it speaks to the ability of capitalism to align all these 1:41:15 people, you know, Tim Draper, General Mattis, all these people, like huge numbers of people 1:41:22 all working together, they're all on the same team, that lawyer they bought off with stock, 1:41:28 and they are all aligned. So this is the enterprising power of capitalism, even when 1:41:33 the product doesn't work at all. And it's kind of like, you know, so this is like, you can get all 1:41:39 these people, they can buy a big office, they can have technicians, people will quit Stanford 1:41:45 to work there, and they are all aligned on the same mission of making the company a success, 1:41:50 they're all cooperating. And this, I think it speaks to a virtue of capitalism and a virtue of 1:41:57 finance and of, you know, corporation, that it can do this type of thing. But of course, 1:42:06 the thing is Monero is being used on the darknet markets today. And this is like, 1:42:11 the problem with Theranos is, it didn't actually collide with any people who are actually using it 1:42:17 for its actual features. A lot of people liked him like associated with it or whatever. But it 1:42:22 was supposed to be like testing people's blood. At the end of the day, push comes to shove, 1:42:26 and you have to actually do something. And the reason why I always bring up the darknet markets 1:42:30 is just because it was kind of like Bitcoin's first big break, so to speak, and it switched 1:42:36 from being whatever they were doing before to Bitcoin only was like prepaid cards or whatever, 1:42:42 and it was nothing. And then Ross Albright and Silk Road made it with Bitcoin. And then now it's 1:42:48 Monero only. And when you think of that, that kind of to me seems almost like what you might call 1:42:54 like real sales, for lack of a better way of putting it. Those are like the actual circuit 1:42:59 has been completed. And that's how you know that you're doing. Because the thing is, you don't know 1:43:05 you're working for Theranos, like you're in a cult. How do you know that you're in a cult? 1:43:10 Everyone around you, they say you're not in a cult. It doesn't seem like you're in a cult from 1:43:17 the inside. So how do you know? Because it often looks exactly the same inside and outside. And so 1:43:24 this is like, in one sense, you can view the Ethereum through this lens and say, aha, 1:43:30 just because it's so popular doesn't mean it will succeed. It has all this stuff, but that's just 1:43:36 people pumping their own bags. But then you can also look at Bitcoin through that lens and say, 1:43:43 why has Bitcoin left the darknet markets? Bitcoin is the, you know, then in that sense, 1:43:50 you could say Bitcoin is the Theranos. Yeah, Paul, I completely like, I love that analogy. 1:43:57 I want to give you another example that I think is hitting on the same point, but is maybe a more 1:44:03 recent example, which is the Canadian trucker protest last year. Right. So, you know, like 1:44:09 people speculate on Bitcoin. I would argue that the number one actual use of Bitcoin is speculation. 1:44:16 Most people don't actually use Bitcoin as a tool. They use it as a speculative vehicle. 1:44:21 And there's a lot of speculative narratives for Bitcoin. And I think one of the 1:44:26 most compelling is that it's a hedge or it's a tool to circumvent like oppressive censorship 1:44:33 or oppressive regulation. And when push came to shove, when like the rubber met the road, 1:44:39 there was a group of people that were being oppressed financially by their government, 1:44:44 and they needed a way to get money. And, you know, like you can go on Twitter or go on podcasts 1:44:50 all day and talk about like the way to send Bitcoin privately, the way to receive Bitcoin 1:44:55 privately, the way to use Bitcoin to like circumvent like government tyranny. And at 1:45:00 the end of the day, like there's a video online of Caribou like handing paper wallets through 1:45:05 truck windows to people because like that was like the best way that he could figure out to do it. 1:45:10 Right. And so like there's all this like speculation about like Bitcoin being able 1:45:15 to do all of these things. And when the rubber met the road, like somebody needed to use the tool 1:45:21 and they use the tool the best way that they could figure out how. And then like people got 1:45:26 really mad about it because it didn't live up to like the ideals of Bitcoin. And maybe that's like 1:45:31 not his fault. Maybe that's like the fault of kind of the Bitcoin ecosystem. And I think that 1:45:36 it's kind of a similar thing of, you know, when you have a detachment between like the actual 1:45:45 utility of a tool and like the narrative of a tool, then you end up having some like dissonance 1:45:52 between like actual value and perceived value. And I think you see that with darknet markets, 1:45:59 like moving away from Bitcoin. I think you see that with like Canadian truckers, like 1:46:02 having trouble receiving Bitcoin. I think there's like a number of places. 1:46:06 And the solution to that is probably not to get more religious and more sanctimonious 1:46:12 about like Bitcoin's immaculate conception and like monetary properties. It's probably to like 1:46:18 actually figure out how to make Bitcoin be a better tool. 1:46:22 Yeah. 1:46:22 Should we talk for a bit about funder? Maybe we should discuss. Pardon? 1:46:29 I just said it's 100% correct. 1:46:31 Yes. Well said, Reindahl. Thank you. Maybe we should talk about funder, 1:46:36 because Reindahl and Moon Settler both have mentioned today or in other conversations, 1:46:41 as I recall, that they of all possible drivechain applications, the most exciting side 1:46:47 chain to them might be a clone of Bitcoin with larger blocks to enhance Bitcoin's ability to 1:46:53 scale and onboard billions of people rapidly in a level of fees and decentralization that 1:47:00 they prefer to opt into, in addition to having main chain Bitcoin as an option. 1:47:07 Maybe we should talk about funder a bit. 1:47:09 And I keep repeating this, but I don't actually believe in one gigabyte block sidechains. So 1:47:17 I don't think we need to go crazy with that. What we can do with these sidechains is be a little 1:47:23 bit more bored with stuff like covenants and maybe not only be more free to use near and below 1:47:33 dust amounts on the sidechain than on main chain, it would be possible, but also we could 1:47:41 have more expressive covenants and we could have excellent wallets like what ARK aims to be. 1:47:50 So ARK is really giving us scaling and privacy, hopefully, and just an overall better wallet 1:47:57 experience than anything even on chain could give us, because the way ARK works is it's almost 1:48:03 giving you instant finality, not quite, but at least it is atomic. So it gives you instant zero 1:48:11 conf atomicity, at least I can say that with very good game theoretical guarantees. And that means 1:48:19 that just doing ARK on a sidechain where you don't have to worry about being able to enforce 1:48:25 your property rights on chain, that is a completely different ballgame. And I would very much like to 1:48:34 see more of that than straight up copying altcoins and trying to somehow make their weird trade-offs 1:48:42 work, like we are not sure that Monero is going to scale at all, we are not sure if their privacy 1:48:49 is actually standing up to reasonable statistical analysis type of things, it very much looks like 1:48:58 it won't. And there is a whole host of reasons why we should actually omit as much data optimistically 1:49:06 as possible from the chains, and actually keep the stuff just very difficult to trace or observe 1:49:15 by keeping this state of chain, and having stat addresses by default basically, ARK gives you 1:49:25 an address that you can receive coins to, but nobody actually sees coins being received to 1:49:31 that address, not in the coin joins, not on chain, so you get all the good trade-offs, 1:49:39 all the good wallet experience, and the only downside that ARK really has is this future 1:49:47 Bitcoin main chain fee marketing, and if you have a suitable solution to that, I think that alone 1:49:54 will be just a huge giant leap forward, and you would have basically a wallet that is lightning 1:50:02 interoperable, almost as probably as good a UX as a custodial lightning wallet is today, 1:50:08 so you have this very very good UX, you are not in custody, you are private, 1:50:14 you have stat address, nobody can really observe you efficiently, effectively, so that is what we 1:50:21 should be aiming for, and this whole thing is compatible with Bitcoin's UTXO model, and the way 1:50:26 it operates, and the trust model, and I think we should do more of that, that's what I wanted to say, 1:50:31 so not even all that sold on people actually doing on-chain transactions on the plane, 1:50:39 on the sidechain, right, it can just be a fallback. Yeah, I agree that actually, 1:50:48 like in the post, the idea is actually not to have like one large block sidechain, it's to have like 1:50:55 a bunch of geographically distributed, like 10 or so that each start at like 8 megabytes or 1:51:03 something small, and then they grow geometrically to like 800 megabytes over 10 years or something, 1:51:10 you know, you start off with one, and then when that one fills up, you start the second one, 1:51:14 so it's kind of like a combination of ideas, but it's true at the very end of the appendix, I do 1:51:19 the math on what a one gigabyte block size node would cost, but I kind of only do that to just 1:51:26 show, I was kind of trying to put like, because people have this like abstract fear, I mean first 1:51:30 of all, there's a night and day difference between layer one blocks, like large blocks on layer one 1:51:36 mandatory, which is a big mistake, and optional layer two large block, and the fact that it's 1:51:42 optional is all the difference, you know, it's the difference between being in a food court where you 1:51:47 can pick any food, or just leave or no food, and being in prison, you know, it's a big difference. 1:51:54 We should also point out that the post that Paul is talking about is now in the nest, 1:52:00 that LayerTwo Labs tweet where it says thunder can be the future, if you open that tweet and 1:52:04 click on the link, you'll get to the github. Yeah, so some people, you know, prison food is very 1:52:15 low quality, but some people really like cheap, super cheap cheap McDonald's food, or microwave 1:52:22 food, you know, they like that, so there's a difference between having the option and being 1:52:26 forced to do it, and the idea is not just one gigabyte, even though I think it's sometimes 1:52:32 described that way, but it's kind of silly, but anyway, I completely agree with you that 1:52:38 we, well, I think the way I frame it is, the way I see it is actually very different. The way I view it is 1:52:47 you join a team when you, when you show up on Bitcoin, you join like the Bitcoin team, 1:52:52 and then the team ends up having like disputes, and it's kind of like we have like in the United 1:52:57 States, we have like the Supreme Court, or we have whatever, you know, we have some way of resolving 1:53:02 the dispute, and so to me, it's something like there was a block size dispute, some people wanted larger 1:53:09 blocks, other people did not, and so that's where the sidechain comes in. It says we can accommodate 1:53:17 some of your dispute, not all the time, not always, whatever, so what I would really say is that we 1:53:24 should have like, there should be like a Roger Ver chain and a Moon Settler chain, or whatever, 1:53:30 where the Moon Settler chain is like 10 megabytes with BIP119, or with whatever, OP_VAULT, 1:53:38 and then there's the Roger Ver one, it's just not like that. It should just be, because it's like, 1:53:43 what do we really get by turning people away? Unfortunately, in the Bitcoin culture, you 1:53:50 can rise on the totem pole by being like, extremely inconsiderate, and you know, 1:53:59 basically throwing this attitude of smug complacency, but we don't, it's not actually 1:54:09 good, it's only good for you, that's not actually good for Bitcoin. What's good for Bitcoin is more 1:54:13 people using Bitcoin, more people owning Bitcoin, more people talking about Bitcoin, 1:54:18 more people just giving up on rivals to Bitcoin, including fiat currencies, so that is the, 1:54:25 we don't, we want the coalition to just grow forever, so if we have, we hit the dispute number 1:54:30 one, and it's, we want larger blocks, then we give people larger blocks, and then years later, in 2023, 1:54:37 we hit a new dispute, and Jeremy Rubin wants 119, or whatever, and other people don't, 1:54:43 we split that off, and that's how I see it, I see it as a very human thing, I see it as going from 1:54:48 like, dispute to dispute. And there is one more thing that I have tried to explain, I have this 1:54:56 intuition that if like, Bitcoin has, you know, we go with this whole remnant lot, and there is like, 1:55:06 let's say, 1% of humanity tops, that is a hardcore Bitcoiner, and everyone is 1:55:12 their servants, and serves, and whatever, I don't know, these fantasies are weird, so in that world, 1:55:21 you know, I think history shows that not even a 10% minority is really protected, and 1:55:27 shit is the fun, and someone is there to blame, and someone is doing better than the rest, and 1:55:33 it's just not a good position to be, because it's almost certainly guaranteed that there will be a 1:55:40 witch hunt, and these people will be somehow blamed for everything, from climate change to 1:55:46 whatever political, economical shitstorm that they managed to weather, better than the rest 1:55:52 of the population, so a 1% minority is just as good as dead, a 10% minority is still something 1:56:00 that historically, you know, easily fall victim to the majority, when it comes to 1:56:08 interfering, and someone to blame, but when everyone is a Bitcoiner, although almost everyone 1:56:13 is a Bitcoiner, it's just political suicide to, you know, single out Bitcoiners, and go after 1:56:18 them, that's how I also see this whole remnant versus big tent thing, that it actually makes 1:56:25 sense out of self-interest, you would want everyone to be a Bitcoiner. 1:56:39 Paul, perhaps you'd like to respond to a very interesting tweet 1:56:42 from Rijndael, I put in the nest. Okay, maybe I will, do we have a new speaker? 1:56:48 Yes, we do. Hello, Bitcode. 1:56:50 Yeah, hi guys. Thank you, Paul, for doing this, what you are doing, this is the 1:57:00 most exciting project on Bitcoin, and I can tell you that I'm so excited that I discovered 1:57:10 the drivechains, because I'm 14 years in this space, for a long time, and, 1:57:21 you know, I listened to what you were saying, and I agree with you, and I want to say that, 1:57:29 for me, what you are doing is the only way that we preserve the decentralization of the Bitcoin, 1:57:38 because, actually, you created something that does not affect the main chain, 1:57:45 but uses the same, the same, everything the same, what Bitcoin uses, so it's very good. I mean, 1:57:54 like, I tried the drivechains core, I ran it, I mined some drivechain tokens, 1:58:03 and I have some questions, so I get more, more knowledge about this, and I'm planning to do 1:58:10 my spaces with some other people, because I was working on, to create some sidechain. Actually, 1:58:19 our reason for creating, or trying to create sidechain is to bring everything back to Bitcoin. 1:58:28 Yes, well said. Thank you very much for those very warm comments. It's great that you're involved. 1:58:35 Welcome, David, to the stage. David Bailey. 1:58:38 What's up? Very bullish on BIP300. Very excited about what LayerTwo Labs is doing. 1:58:47 Whoa, hold on. Dave Bailey, I just want to say that I appreciate your mom. 1:58:54 Can we leave my mom out of this, please? 1:58:56 Yes. 1:58:59 So, this space is strictly for the kids, okay? This is strictly for the kids. 1:59:07 So, LayerTwo Labs, just my only question is, for people that are diehard fans of BIP300, 1:59:14 how can we support LayerTwo Labs? How can we make BIP300 happen? What is a positive, 1:59:20 value-adding action for people in the spaces to go do right now? 1:59:25 So, it turns out you need to make hats, and you need to wear them, and be very loud. 1:59:31 Some of the things you can do include joining a Telegram group, downloading our software at layer2labs.com, 1:59:38 and talking about it at your local BitDevs meetup, and sharing it with your friends and fellow Bitcoiners, 1:59:46 and especially running our software, as I mentioned, at layer2labs.com. Paul, what else would you mention? 1:59:52 Software is a really good way to learn more, but if you feel you have learned enough, 1:59:58 then I think just the important thing is to, I think, just keep the idea in the conversation. 2:00:05 We're going to have a new, soon we'll have a sidechain that is just Bitcoin Core version 25, 2:00:12 and we'll just add BIP119, 118, OPVALT, or whatever, into the sidechain so people can play around with it. 2:00:19 So, let me give you an example of, it's well known that in Bitcoin Core development, 2:00:28 things will not get merged unless they have overwhelming, there can't really be any controversy, 2:00:35 or even any kind of, they're very conflict avoidant over there. 2:00:41 So, I think anything that people can do to, if someone is a critic, then we'll send the critic over into the space. 2:00:49 That would be good. Send all the critics into space so we can talk it out and figure out what they are up to, 2:00:55 but other than that, just keep the idea in mind. Keep in mind this vision of Bitcoin, 2:01:02 like don't give up on the vision of Bitcoin replacing every single transaction in the world, 2:01:06 every altcoin transaction, every fiat transaction. 2:01:10 I think we have to push back a little on the complacency narrative, the idea that Bitcoin has already won. 2:01:20 We have to push back on that idea because that's not the case. 2:01:24 Bitcoin hasn't won until there are no more fiat currencies. 2:01:28 So, until then, we have to keep working hard to make Bitcoin a success. 2:01:34 I think one thing, the toxicity has to be handled a certain way. 2:01:38 People should just keep, there's such a, so many people will send me a message and say, 2:01:43 oh, I privately think this, but I'm not comfortable saying it out loud. 2:01:47 The more people who say it out loud, then the more you'll realize that a lot of other people feel the same way as you. 2:01:55 A recent, one thing that we just talked about was the whole idea that if someone has an idea, 2:02:03 they're told not to do it in Bitcoin, they're told do it on an altcoin, 2:02:06 and that once someone does it on an altcoin, they're told, 2:02:09 well, we're not even going to look at your altcoin because, you know, you're a shit-coiner. 2:02:13 So, like, there's no real path for, like, new ideas to take. 2:02:18 So, I just keep all this in mind and just bring it up. 2:02:21 I mean, Bitcoin, it has people who disagree. 2:02:25 We've had people who disagreed about the block size. 2:02:28 We've had people who disagreed about privacy. 2:02:30 Some people don't even want, some people want ZK-proof privacy, 2:02:33 but other people, they don't even want that because it interferes with the 21 million coin limit. 2:02:37 So, Bitcoin has all these disagreements, and that is what the sidechain idea is really about. 2:02:42 What is a tangible thing people can do? 2:02:44 You know, one thing, if you have a really, if you write a really great tweet, 2:02:47 we will add it to our, we'll add it to the layer2labs.com slash friends list. 2:02:53 We have a huge list. 2:02:54 Maybe we should put that, I don't know if we have that in the giant nest, 2:02:58 which is huge now. 2:02:59 It has millions of tweets. 2:03:00 But if you have a good tweet, then we will add you. 2:03:04 We'll find you because you can see it in public on Twitter. 2:03:07 You write a great tweet, and the better it is, 2:03:09 we sort the list based on how influential we think you are and how great the tweet is. 2:03:14 Yeah. 2:03:15 Basically, if anyone tweets that they support Drivechain, 2:03:18 if they're, especially if they're in the technical community, like Rheindel, 2:03:22 then I would add their tweet within seconds to my collection, 2:03:26 that public list of the favorable comments. 2:03:30 Because one thing that's very exciting that's happening right now is 2:03:34 LayerTwo Labs has retained an expert Bitcoin developer with tons of experience 2:03:41 to rebase the code. 2:03:42 So never before this has happened, 2:03:44 where never before has there been a pull request to Bitcoin Core 2:03:48 to merge the Drivechain code into Bitcoin. 2:03:51 So this request will come in the coming months, probably. 2:03:55 And then the community will really have the opportunity to take the final step 2:04:01 of including it or not. 2:04:02 And it'll be developers and technical community members like Rheindel, 2:04:06 Moonsettler, and others who will do that discussion. 2:04:10 But they need the support and encouragement of the whole community 2:04:15 who can understand Drivechain conceptually 2:04:19 and understand that it could really alter the narratives and potential of Bitcoin. 2:04:23 So they need the support of the whole community 2:04:26 so that they can feel comfortable with the overall concept of Drivechain. 2:04:32 Cool. Well, I have to bounce for a call. 2:04:34 But, Bruce, I'm curious, 2:04:36 how amazing of an idea do you think BIP300 is? 2:04:39 From a scale of an amazing idea to a really outstanding idea, 2:04:43 where do you fall on that spectrum? 2:04:45 I'm going to say 10 out of 10. I think it's awesome. 2:04:48 I mean, I've been saying for a long, long time, 2:04:53 I'm really interested in a couple of things. 2:04:57 One thing is Bitcoin and money, 2:04:59 and that it can be the best money in the world. 2:05:01 And it's sound money and everything that you all know well. 2:05:04 But I've also always felt that there's a use of distributed ledger technology 2:05:09 for things like security, because I come from securities. 2:05:11 And I know how crappy it is. 2:05:13 And it takes like a week to move a security from one person to another. 2:05:17 And the old clunky system, which is kind of based on paper, 2:05:19 that later became digitized, it's all centralized and goofy. 2:05:22 But like Litecoin doesn't work that way, 2:05:24 or Ordinal doesn't work that way. 2:05:26 An NFT on top of Bitcoin doesn't work that way. 2:05:29 You can send it. So I'm convinced that's going to happen. 2:05:31 And I've also, like, I've thought this for a long time, 2:05:34 but even though I'm more friendly to altcoins than some other Bitcoiners, 2:05:40 but I'm not confident in them enough to build. 2:05:43 I think there's a lot of shakiness. 2:05:45 And I do believe that proof of work is the best method 2:05:48 and that Bitcoin is by far the strongest chain. 2:05:51 And there's just so many crappy, goofy things that happen in our industry, 2:05:54 as we all well know. 2:05:56 Like, I'm not that smart. 2:05:57 So I look at, I just, I'm like strongest chain best, you know, 2:06:02 like, like, like, I'm not technical. 2:06:04 I can't tell you why Bitcoin's stronger. 2:06:07 I'm not that smart. 2:06:08 Like, I can't tell you why, 2:06:10 why the technical advantages it has over the other chains, 2:06:13 but I can tell you that it's more secure 2:06:15 because you don't have to be that smart 2:06:17 to know that Bitcoin is a more secure chain. 2:06:19 It has more eyeballs on it, more dollars behind it. 2:06:22 Its structure is impeccable, you know, 2:06:25 as far as centralization and stuff like that. 2:06:27 It doesn't have some group. 2:06:28 I mean, it's just like, you don't have to be that smart 2:06:30 to know that it's the, it's the strongest chain. 2:06:32 So I love the idea of building on top of it. 2:06:35 And I'm also like pro experimentation. 2:06:37 And part of that is being pro even stupid ideas. 2:06:40 Like I, I love the idea of NFTs. 2:06:42 I wouldn't buy one. 2:06:43 I've never bought one, but I think it's great. 2:06:45 Yeah, go, good. 2:06:46 Collectibles is a multi-billion dollar industry. 2:06:48 World of Warcraft has billions of dollars worth of stuff online. 2:06:51 Go for it. 2:06:52 Go, go buy. 2:06:53 If it gives you joy to buy some stupid JPEG, go, good. 2:06:55 Do it. 2:06:56 Wonderful. 2:06:57 And, you know, all kinds of, you know, 2:06:58 medical records on the blockchain. 2:06:59 Okay, it's dumb, but what do I know? 2:07:01 Maybe somebody somewhere will figure out 2:07:03 some smart way to do some of this stuff. 2:07:05 And I'm all for experimentation. 2:07:07 And eventually the market will decide. 2:07:09 Good things will rise to the top, 2:07:10 like good equities and good companies. 2:07:12 Those always make sense and always will, you know. 2:07:14 So, so, you know, so I'm all for it. 2:07:16 I think it's awesome. 2:07:17 And I, and I think it's good for Bitcoin. 2:07:19 And I think that, you know, it's valid to say 2:07:21 that you may only end up with kind of 2:07:23 like a main proof of work chain 2:07:25 because the externality cost of mining 2:07:28 is the same for everybody. 2:07:29 Electricity is electricity. 2:07:31 So eventually, you know, if you, 2:07:33 especially if you believe that proof of work 2:07:35 is like the best method, 2:07:36 then you could really kind of end up with one chain. 2:07:39 So that's the other reason to, you know, build on Bitcoin. 2:07:41 So I, you know, I think digital world, digital asset, 2:07:43 I think it's awesome. 2:07:44 10 out of 10. 2:07:46 Well, thanks for your support, Bruce. 2:07:47 One of my favorite memories of you 2:07:49 that I sometimes think of when I think about sidechains 2:07:52 is when you had the debate with the Chewbacca mask guy. 2:07:57 And I was just thinking about 2:07:59 how you would not have had to go through that 2:08:01 if not even like if we had sidechains, 2:08:04 but also just if like counterparty 2:08:06 had been treated a different way 2:08:08 that there was some colored coins thing. 2:08:10 But yeah, I remember that. 2:08:11 And I remember just thinking like 2:08:13 you did a very good job of being sort of dignified 2:08:15 in the face of that, whatever that, 2:08:18 however you want to describe whatever that was. 2:08:20 But basically you were trying to say about like, you know, 2:08:22 assets on chain and there's, it's, 2:08:26 I think I completely agree with you. 2:08:28 And the experimentation thing is the main point, 2:08:30 which is you shouldn't have to justify your idea 2:08:34 to people who don't like it. 2:08:37 You should only have to justify it 2:08:38 to the customers who like it. 2:08:39 Like if you open a restaurant, you know, 2:08:42 you're accountable to the customers who like the food. 2:08:44 You're not accountable to like the whole world. 2:08:46 Like since when did you have to, 2:08:47 and this idea that the people on the Bitcoin dev mailing list 2:08:50 are going to be always aware of every single use case 2:08:54 and every single invention in like a timely manner 2:08:58 and shepherd them through the Bitcoin Core development process 2:09:01 like instantly is also not true. 2:09:04 But with respect to the assets specifically, 2:09:07 I think I started to look into it kind of after you, 2:09:12 you did like, 2:09:13 this is when you started that time of when you would like walk 2:09:16 and do the phone videos. 2:09:18 And I was very surprised as to like how bad it was. 2:09:22 And it's like, and now we started this own corporation. 2:09:26 Like you have to register, you have to tell the, you know, 2:09:28 Delaware how many shares you have and kind of like who has them. 2:09:32 And I was like, Oh, a blockchain actually would be much better for this, 2:09:36 this part. 2:09:37 Like surely the audited financial statements and the operations of the 2:09:40 company, there's no way that the blockchain will do that. 2:09:44 But actually I thought this was, you know, 2:09:48 there's absolutely no reason for people to push back against this idea. 2:09:52 It's a very good idea. 2:09:53 Yeah, I think so. 2:09:56 Can I say something just real quick? 2:09:59 Yes. 2:10:00 A lot of people, a lot of people. 2:10:02 And lately this has been, you know, 2:10:05 so there was a period where everyone wanted to put everything on the 2:10:10 blockchain. 2:10:11 And then there came this giant backlash where people were saying blockchain 2:10:15 is stupid. 2:10:16 It's the shittiest database in existence and we should eradicate 2:10:21 blockchain from everywhere possible. 2:10:24 So there is a line basically where I think very easy to see a clear 2:10:31 separation between the good and the not so good or not so smart use of 2:10:36 blockchain. 2:10:37 And that is making sure that in a decentralized setting, 2:10:42 consensus critical data is available. 2:10:46 That is an excellent use of the blockchain. 2:10:49 I'm not so much sold on the rest. 2:10:52 So like, you know, putting, 2:10:55 putting JPEGs and medical records on blockchains, 2:10:58 I don't think that's, that's an excellent idea. 2:11:01 But, but there are legitimate. 2:11:05 Different way though, I think, I mean, like, I agree with you. 2:11:08 Like there's like, what do we expect in equilibrium? 2:11:11 Will the asset, will like digital assets actually be like, well, 2:11:15 digital art, 2:11:17 will it be the actual JPEG on chain or will it merely be the hash? 2:11:22 I think you and I know that at the end of the day, 2:11:25 there's really no difference since it's just the computer interpreting the 2:11:28 JPEG file as an image. 2:11:30 There's very little difference between, 2:11:32 especially if you know about an info hash, like in BitTorrent. 2:11:34 Sorry, it's really raining here. 2:11:36 Can you guys hear this? 2:11:37 Oh my gosh, crazy rain. 2:11:38 No, we hear you well. 2:11:39 Okay, good. 2:11:40 The, the, 2:11:43 like we know from BitTorrent that a hash can basically transform into a 2:11:46 file. 2:11:47 And you also kind of know that if the file is right in front of you, 2:11:51 it's hash is kind of equal to the file. 2:11:53 And if you know the hash, someone else can tell you, hey, 2:11:57 this is the image. 2:11:58 So you and I know that basically the hat at the end of the day, 2:12:01 it's going to be the hash on chain. 2:12:03 But maybe if instead of an image that is like an inscription, 2:12:07 it's something else, like it's a, 2:12:09 some kind of advertisement or it's a, 2:12:11 it's like the Tiananmen square tank man photo, 2:12:14 or it's some other type of thing. 2:12:17 And so I think we should not be so quick to just dismiss the whole 2:12:21 category of like putting an image on chain or putting medical records on 2:12:26 chain. 2:12:27 You know what I mean? 2:12:28 Like you and I know that certain things in equilibrium are just 2:12:31 inefficient from an engineering point of view, 2:12:34 but that's not really the point. 2:12:36 The point is people are very clever. 2:12:39 And if they're willing to pay, if the miner is willing to mine, 2:12:44 you sell them the block space. 2:12:45 If someone is willing to buy and if developers are willing to write 2:12:48 software that users are willing to use somewhere in this intersection, 2:12:53 there will be something, something cool that benefits all four parties. 2:12:59 And I think that is how I would sort of reframe it. 2:13:07 Yeah, I'd say, you know, 2:13:09 it really depends on the use case and what the ultimate goal is. 2:13:13 The reason I mentioned medical records is because personally, 2:13:16 I think that's kind of a dumb idea. 2:13:17 It's something you've heard about for a long time, 2:13:19 but it's just kind of like, it's a dumb idea. 2:13:21 But my point was that, what do I know? 2:13:24 Maybe dumb idea works. Like I I'm not a medical expert, you know, 2:13:27 it might be solving some problem I'm unaware of, but, but, 2:13:29 but just to be clear, I'm not advocating, you know, the opposite. 2:13:32 I actually think it's kind of dumb, but, 2:13:34 but I'm also like a defender of stupid experiments because, because, 2:13:38 you know, stupid experiments is what you do. 2:13:40 Thousands of stupid experiments, something, something does become cool. 2:13:43 But the other thing is, so if you look at the actual, 2:13:46 like what are you trying to solve for, you know, 2:13:49 I view Bitcoin as like, you know, 2:13:53 some variation of solving the Byzantine generals dilemma, basically. 2:13:59 It's, it is, you know, 2:14:03 basically a way for you to distribute trust and not have to rely, 2:14:08 like to have a, have a group of peers decide what is true. 2:14:11 It's kind of what I view Bitcoin as, as core. 2:14:14 And I think that solves a real thing. 2:14:15 We know why it solves it for, for, 2:14:16 for money and being able to say who has what money where and not needing a 2:14:21 bank or something to say that I sent this to you, 2:14:23 we can get the network and both trust it and even run our own node. 2:14:27 And that is limited. 2:14:28 There's a lot of things where that's not useful. Like it's like, well, 2:14:32 who cares? You know, you know what, 2:14:34 why if it's just a JPEG that somebody gave you, 2:14:37 why do you care about having this billion dollar security network? 2:14:41 That's meant to be nation state resistant, have your record, you know, 2:14:45 but for other things, I, you know, 2:14:46 I know securities pretty well and I think like securities is an example that I 2:14:49 think it actually does work because it is similar to the Byzantine generals 2:14:53 dilemma, which basically is, 2:14:56 is about untrusted parties needing to communicate what's true. 2:14:59 So if you're in an environment of untrusted parties, 2:15:02 which is what we have now in the real securities world, 2:15:04 in the real securities world, big public companies, 2:15:06 you have hundreds of brokers and clearing firms and transfer agents and 2:15:10 the issuers themselves and, and all these groups, hedge funds, you know, 2:15:14 all these groups that don't trust each other. And like, you know, 2:15:17 so like Apple shares, Apple shares, who knows who has what Apple shares, 2:15:22 Merrill Lynch doesn't know. They only know Merrill Lynch clients, 2:15:25 Charles Schwab only knows Charles Schwab clients. 2:15:27 They will not share the list with each other. Who will they share it with? 2:15:30 Apple? Absolutely not. They might be doing a shareholder takeover. 2:15:33 They're not sharing it with Apple. 2:15:34 They're not obligated by law to and they don't have the mechanism. 2:15:37 So Apple doesn't even know their own shareholders unless they go to all these 2:15:41 clunky long story short centralized databases and yada yada. 2:15:44 But ultimately to make all this system work, 2:15:48 it relies heavily on centralized database. 2:15:50 In the US it's called DTCC where basically all the stocks are in this, 2:15:53 this thing. 2:15:55 So for you to know what's true when you move your shares from Merrill Lynch to 2:15:59 Robinhood that has to, you know, Robinhood reports it. 2:16:04 Merrill Lynch reports that it goes up through this clunky system, 2:16:06 through DTCC and CD&Co and this whole clunky goofy system, which is, 2:16:10 by the way, it's the only way they've been able to make it work. 2:16:12 These are smart people with billions and billions of dollars. You know, 2:16:15 a lot of people I've mentioned this before and somebody be like, Oh, 2:16:18 that's easy to fix. Just use the signature with the, with the PGP key or something. 2:16:22 Like, no, it's not easy to fix. 2:16:24 There's billions of dollars really smart people trying to work on it. 2:16:26 These firms don't trust each other and trust non-trusted parties sharing 2:16:31 information and verifying what's true is a difficult problem until Bitcoin 2:16:35 technology solved it. It solved a thing. 2:16:37 It's a real thing that was a real solution that was solved aside from the 2:16:41 invention of money. 2:16:42 It actually solved a thing that couldn't be, couldn't be done before. 2:16:45 You now have a way, you know, to kind of solve this way of, of, you know, 2:16:52 like, like, you know, sharing information and untrusted source. So I, 2:16:55 so I think like you could tag, there's some devils in the details, you know, 2:16:59 securities kind of need identity and identity doesn't jive well with this kind 2:17:03 of decentralized permissionless stuff. You know, there's, there's, there's, 2:17:06 there's devil in the details, 2:17:07 but I am convinced that in a digital world and especially a Bitcoin world, 2:17:11 you're going to have things like securities interact. And I am convinced that, 2:17:15 you know, just scrap DTCC, you know, 2:17:17 why do I need to go through 10 clunky parties to say what's true when I want to 2:17:21 own IBM stock? When, if I want to own a ordinal token, 2:17:26 I can see what's true right on my Bitcoin blockchain, you know, like why, 2:17:29 you know, that's just a better way. And, and, you know, 2:17:32 I'm making it overly simplistic, maybe it won't be on chain or whatever, 2:17:34 but you know what I'm saying? It's like, 2:17:36 I think it depends on the use case is basically what I'm saying. 2:17:39 Well, 2:17:40 one thing that is interesting is when you have a trusted issuer or some trusted 2:17:44 arbiter that does the ultimate enforcement or redemption, 2:17:49 then you can suddenly compartmentalize the burden of 2:17:54 validating these things. 2:17:55 And there are a lot of people working on client side validation stuff, 2:18:00 where you basically just commit to these actions, 2:18:03 but completely hide them from on chain, 2:18:07 but you still kind of have, you know, 2:18:09 the Bitcoin blockchain or a sidechain as a, 2:18:12 as an encore to this thermodynamic ordering of event stuff that, 2:18:19 that we like Bitcoin for. 2:18:22 And basically you get the benefit, 2:18:25 but you also can just leave everyone out of your private dealings of, 2:18:30 of these assets that, like I said, 2:18:33 are issued by some centralized authority in a sense. 2:18:38 Well, 2:18:39 I think you said that you would specialize, 2:18:43 you divide the labor and you'd say, everyone agrees that, you know, 2:18:48 Apple has this ticker symbol in the digital asset world. 2:18:53 And then anyone can look up on the blockchain, 2:18:56 like how many shares of Apple there are and even get in contact with those 2:19:00 people in a way, or know that they, who they're dealing with. 2:19:04 And so it's, 2:19:05 it would seem to be an enormous improvement over the current system. 2:19:10 Even if it of course cannot do anything about the operations or like can't 2:19:14 guarantee dividends are paid. Although it could also, you know, 2:19:18 you could force the dividends to be paid on chain. 2:19:20 Then at least you would know whether or not they were paid. 2:19:22 That would also be there. It just seems like there's, 2:19:24 but I think it's missing the bigger point, 2:19:26 which is that the alternative to like. 2:19:30 What Bruce was just saying about like the dumb experimentation, like the alternative to that is someone who is omniscient. 2:19:37 So if you have someone who's omniscient, then we don't need a dumb experimentation because you can just ask that one everything. 2:19:46 You ask that person and they'll tell us whether or not an idea is good or not, but otherwise we kind of need to try each idea to see whether or not it's good. 2:19:57 I can give you another example that happens to be with digital assets, which I was going to write this post up, but I didn't get to it. 2:20:03 But one curious thing about NFTs is that actually they can lower your taxes in a way. 2:20:10 If in certain cases you think like, what am I talking about? 2:20:14 But that's why I was going to write this post because it's such a funny little weird argument. 2:20:19 But it's basically like if you have money, you have dark net money that you want to, you know, let's say you wanted to make it taxable. 2:20:28 You could either do like what Jesse Pinkman in Better Go Breaking Bad, they buy the nail salon or whatever, the car wash. 2:20:35 That's like one pop culture reference. 2:20:38 But you can also like make an asset and then like trade it to yourself and then it's in the capital gains world. 2:20:45 Now, I don't know like how legal this is or whatever. It's probably illegal. 2:20:49 But I just bring it up to show the idea that when you have like Francis Puyo or whatever, I like Francis Puyo a lot. 2:20:55 But if they're saying like there's no people getting like frothing at the mouth and like very angry that something can never be allowed, it should never, it is irredeemably evil. 2:21:05 There are often a lot of motivations why someone may want to do something. 2:21:09 Some may be overt, some may be covert. 2:21:11 I don't think anyone is actually doing this NFT tax thing at all. 2:21:14 I just point it out because I think it's funny. 2:21:16 Like if you say on your tax return, oh, I made – I held whatever. 2:21:23 I held Moon Settler coin for 13 months and I made $100,000. 2:21:34 We might have lost you, Paul. 2:21:36 The connection might have gone. 2:21:38 I can't hear him. 2:21:40 How about you, Randall? Can you hear him? 2:21:43 The connection might have gone if anybody wants some rare inscriptions. 2:21:48 Yeah, just to be clear, we at LayerTwo Labs recommend everyone pay their taxes as appropriate. 2:21:55 But yeah, it's true that a lot of the activity in the NFT world may be for reasons that aren't obvious or publicly stated. 2:22:03 People might be doing things for their personal reasons that have to do with the values involved. 2:22:10 I'm just saying particularly in regards to Securities. 2:22:14 Securities is not a distributed decentralized game. 2:22:19 As others have mentioned, it is a regulated game where you have an authority at the end of the day. 2:22:28 The main property of these Securities and various tokens that represent real things is it's not really enforceable just on the blockchain. 2:22:40 At one point, you are going to need to have a guy with a stick. 2:22:44 The guy with the largest stick is basically the state, the authorities. 2:22:50 You need a guy with a stick to enforce these small contracts because they relate to real world things. 2:22:59 You can divide and conquer or whatever. 2:23:03 It's like with Tether. 2:23:05 You say there is a backer. 2:23:09 One thing with Tether is I don't know how much money they're making now. 2:23:15 But as interest rates rise, they must be making whatever it is per month for doing nothing. 2:23:23 Just because people trust them with the billions of dollars of cash, basically. 2:23:28 Because they can just buy bonds. 2:23:30 I'm sure they're like MF globaling it or whatever they're doing where they get a little yield from all these interest rates. 2:23:36 I think it's a case where they say we're going to break it down into different tasks. 2:23:42 We're going to say we will handle the redemption part. 2:23:45 We will shoulder the risk. 2:23:47 It's just basic division of labor. 2:23:49 It's like an Adam Smith thing where they say we will break it up. 2:23:52 Whether or not you transfer USDT to someone or not is up to you and the blockchain. 2:23:59 That's how progress works. 2:24:04 You break the task up into different pieces. 2:24:09 Anyone who would protest against that and say it's not a real example, they have their work cut out for them. 2:24:16 Because they have to say that Tether isn't real or that Tether isn't a good thing. 2:24:26 I did not say that. 2:24:28 To clarify my point, this use case does not actually need a global consensus on what is happening. 2:24:36 It does not actually require everyone to know what is happening. 2:24:39 That is the beauty of the client-side validation. 2:24:41 It's the curse of the client-side validation. 2:24:43 Don't you think? 2:24:44 Sometimes people do want to know. 2:24:46 I want to know if I buy Apple stock, I want to know how much Apple stock is there. 2:24:51 Yeah, you can. 2:24:53 People who buy Apple stocks obviously will see Apple issuing X amount, X number of stocks in a funding transaction. 2:25:06 Basically, that is the root of this whole thing. 2:25:09 I'm just trying to say not everything needs to be a global burden. 2:25:13 That was my main point with all these things. 2:25:16 Blockchains have an important role, seemingly, in rooting these things somehow in reality. 2:25:23 But these are not necessarily decentralized legally or otherwise enforced things that do not actually require a global consensus. 2:25:35 That's what we see. 2:25:36 It's different from Bitcoin. 2:25:40 I may be wrong, but I think client-side validation… 2:25:46 I don't know. 2:25:47 I think people actually like… 2:25:49 Since the asset is already digital and it's already abstract, it's not like you're buying a car or something real that you can push up against it and you can feel how heavy it is. 2:26:05 It's already very intangible. 2:26:08 And then the idea that you can't… 2:26:11 People like a block explorer. 2:26:13 They like knowing they could look it up and see, oh, how many coins do I have? 2:26:17 People don't really understand. 2:26:18 They know they're running a node, but they kind of want to know something about what do other people's nodes say. 2:26:27 I think that's just a very human emotion. 2:26:29 I actually think that this will be tough for client-side validation. 2:26:33 In fact, it manifests itself with a concern that I think Peter Todd has written about. 2:26:38 Maybe I'm misremembering this, but the concern goes basically something like this. 2:26:42 You can release a version of client-side validation version one, and then a different person can simply release a second version of the compiled software or whatever it is, the protocol. 2:26:59 And in that second version, it's like basically a hard fork, or they can do all kinds of mischief, like give themselves out because it's a different version. 2:27:07 And then the two versions kind of compete in the wild in a kind of popularity contest where there's no proof of work, like promoting one software version against the next. 2:27:20 And I may be wrong, but I think that this is why RGB took so long. 2:27:24 It's because they wanted to try to finish it as much as possible. 2:27:27 Although, of course, is it even possible to succeed at that task because software is never finished? 2:27:33 I don't know. 2:27:37 One way of putting together what Bruce said and what Moon Settler said, like I heard Bruce talk about the interesting potential to have securities on blockchain. 2:27:47 And then Moon Settler seemed to say, we don't need that kind of thing on blockchain. 2:27:52 But Hivemind would be a futures market on blockchain. 2:27:57 Well, that's a completely different thing though. 2:28:03 The assets in Hivemind are built in this Oracle system. 2:28:09 So that is a completely different thing. 2:28:12 But it's also very cool. 2:28:14 What I meant was… 2:28:15 The original thing that I invented that people liked. 2:28:18 And in fact, all the OGs probably only remember me for that, which is kind of a weird paradox. 2:28:25 What I wanted to just quickly say was that one of the main reasons to have a blockchain is if the market is suppressed by the government. 2:28:33 Like the market for money is heavily regulated and suppressed by governments. 2:28:36 So that's why peer-to-peer cash has great potential. 2:28:40 And similarly, there's a lot of futures markets that are heavily regulated or completely banned in many places. 2:28:46 So if people had an outlet for that kind of value, creative activity and commerce on blockchain, then that would be a market that otherwise wouldn't exist. 2:28:55 So I think Bruce is very close to the view that I'm optimistic about, which is that Hivemind could provide a new market of financial activity that otherwise wouldn't exist at all. 2:29:08 One small correction, if you allow me. 2:29:12 So that is not an entirely correct way to put what I said. 2:29:16 Because these client-side validation things do need the blockchains to be as permissionless and free in the transfer within the rules as they can be. 2:29:31 So it's not like you don't need a blockchain. 2:29:35 It's like you don't need to put everything on the blockchain that only concerns a few people. 2:29:41 That's the big difference. 2:29:48 Yeah, and you don't want to clog the chain itself. 2:29:54 And your point on the centralization. 2:29:56 With securities, you have an issue where it's centralized, but you're not solving for that. 2:30:02 You're not worried about Facebook stealing your shares and you're trying to get censorship resistance versus Facebook. 2:30:09 That's not a problem you're solving because you already trust the issuer. 2:30:13 What you're solving for is trust of the ledger manager, which these days is usually different than the issuer. 2:30:21 For a small startup, the startup will know who their own cap table is. 2:30:25 But for a big public company, they don't know who their cap table is. 2:30:29 They vaguely know, but it's all kind of distributed. 2:30:32 So for that one, you'd be solving. 2:30:34 You wouldn't want to replace. 2:30:35 It's not like you own Apple shares. 2:30:37 You want to replace Apple with a blockchain. 2:30:39 It's like you own Apple shares. 2:30:41 You want to replace the ledger manager, which is DTCC. 2:30:46 Yes, and you can actually do that without putting everything on the blockchain and expressing everything that you do. 2:30:56 I'm not sure about that. 2:30:57 I think it is better. 2:31:01 I don't know. 2:31:02 Maybe. 2:31:03 I don't know about the single-use seal thing. 2:31:05 I don't know if it will. 2:31:06 But the bigger point is that multiple different things should be tried, I think. 2:31:13 One more point, and then I will let this go, I promise. 2:31:16 So the point with client-side validation is there are people who want to play this game, 2:31:21 and the rest of the population, the rest of the users don't need to know about it because they are not interested in it. 2:31:28 These people either adhere to a rule set very strictly, or the other participants in the game will not accept the proof that they provide. 2:31:38 So if you just start to make Apple shares, like multiply your Apple shares from one transaction to the next, 2:31:45 you basically destroyed your Apple shares. 2:31:47 That's what you are doing in the end. 2:31:50 Like I said, there is a trusted issuer. 2:31:53 Apple is going to say, like, that transaction is bullshit. 2:31:56 Sorry, you have violated the terms of service, whatever. 2:31:59 So game over. 2:32:01 And it works perfectly well. 2:32:03 Like I said, some of these things are absolutely not consensus critical from the moment that you have a trusted issuer and a trusted redeemer, 2:32:13 a trusted arbiter of truth, and that other people can also just look up what you have done. 2:32:20 Because I will not accept your made-up Apple shares if you don't show me the entire transaction history of valid splits and merges and operations on this client-side validation stuff. 2:32:34 I will just not accept it unless I can verify it, and I can do that off-chain. 2:32:40 But I think that is a very interesting thing and basically can reconcile these two worlds, 2:32:46 that people want to have the advantages of blockchains, but blockchains are not really suitable for this type of thing. 2:32:55 You know, outright experts. 2:33:00 Reindahl, did you have a thought earlier that you didn't get to say? 2:33:04 No, I think earlier the conversation was going somewhere else, and I was going to ask Paul if the plan was still to do a prediction market if 303.01 could activate. 2:33:17 Because I actually think that that's still one of the better uses of a drivechain. 2:33:25 Well, it's a kind of a chicken and egg problem because the prediction market thing is itself a sidechain. 2:33:32 But I think, what would it be about? Would it be like, will it activate within a year or what would the price be if it did activate? 2:33:39 That would be like, that second one was like what I would do. 2:33:43 I think we could do that. There was like the fork futures idea. I like that idea. 2:33:49 That was in a different context, but that at least gives people something fun to look at every day. 2:33:57 I think what Reindahl is asking is perhaps, if drivechain is activated, would HiveMind potentially launch soon after that? 2:34:05 Oh yeah, that's definitely the case. 2:34:08 Yeah, that was the question. I think something like HiveMind for political prediction markets is one of those things that would give Bitcoin maybe more utility than just baseline money. 2:34:26 And of course, I don't know if it's possible, but something that has struck in my mind since I read about it, 2:34:36 and that's basically, you know, hash rate futures that allow miners to hedge their strategies in a more complex way. 2:34:46 Is that something that would be possible? 2:34:50 Didn't we talk about this before? I kind of vaguely, this is giving me deja vu, that isn't it like, it is possible, 2:34:57 but if you buy, if you're a miner and you own like an ASIC, that is already like a hash rate. 2:35:04 Like you're kind of just betting on your own performance relative to anyone else. 2:35:09 And who would bet, like why would you bet against yourself? Who would bet for you that's not you? 2:35:17 Maybe I skipped a bunch of steps there, a bit of proof, but basically the hash rate derivative is similar to just buying, you know, an ASIC or buying Bitcoin itself. 2:35:30 Just filtered through the idea that you would, you're betting on, like if you're betting the difficulty goes up, 2:35:35 then you're betting that all the mining technology will improve relative to the price of Bitcoin. 2:35:40 I think it's probably have to do with the frequency of trading. Like you can't buy and sell ASICs with light speed probably. 2:35:48 And the way Bitcoin miners would integrate to the energy markets, like miners could turn on and off based on, you know, the spot or even the futures, high frequency trading or the energy markets. 2:36:05 Well, I'll give you another example, right? Like there's a big lag between when a large miner starts deploying capital and when they're able to actually turn on hash rate, 2:36:16 because like they've got to buy energy purchase agreements, they might have to like build data centers, 2:36:22 they have to like rack and stack ASICs and like those have their own supply chain difficulties. 2:36:27 There's like a lot of, you know, just like on the ground logistics. And so if you're a large or medium Bitcoin miner and you model out that the hash rate is going to go up by like a certain percentage over the next nine months, 2:36:43 and you factor that into your economic model and you say, all right, as long as the hash rate doesn't go up by more than, you know, make up a number like 20% over the next nine months, 2:36:53 then like this investment will be profitable. But, you know, maybe you want to be able to hedge that by buying some hash rate derivative so that if the hash rate goes up by 50% and, you know, you're no longer deploying enough, 2:37:09 like your, you know, capital deployment now, it doesn't make any sense, you are hedged. 2:37:15 Yeah, you know, you guys, you are right. And I was wrong. And in fact, I fell into the trap I was just talking about earlier, where I don't actually know if what you said makes any sense, but it doesn't really matter because with Hivemind, 2:37:27 you can create the derivative that is just pays on whatever the hash rate is or whatever the difficulty is more likely. And people can then buy and sell that for any reason, including recreation, like just gambling, or no reason. 2:37:42 And if people out there want to find a reason and they think their mining rig will only be popular for certain regions of difficulty, and they want to buy that and someone else wants to sell, then it doesn't really matter what I think. 2:37:57 Or if they just want to gamble, who cares? It's their money, right? 2:38:00 Right. 2:38:02 So, such a thing is such a prediction market is possible and very, very easy to make, it will be very easy to make whenever Hivemind exists, it will just be typing and clicking some buttons. 2:38:16 And then the prediction markets thing, I think people don't even realize like, we stand on the precipice of all kinds of really cool stuff. 2:38:26 I think you should go to my website, BitcoinHivemind.com and just read a little there. Watch this couple of videos there. 2:38:34 And someone needs to invite me, I did a part two to that Anarchapulco talk, and it was canceled because of COVID. And I have never had a venue to give the part two, which means I will never actually finish the slides per se. 2:38:50 So someone needs to invite me somewhere, and I'll give part two of that talk. 2:38:55 Very good talk. And that's a really cool project. 2:39:00 There won't be anyone like Bill Maher or whatever, these people who say, well, cryptocurrency isn't for anything. 2:39:07 That'll be the end of that, if we were to get this off the ground. 2:39:14 I think Namecoin is also totally underappreciated. 2:39:16 I don't understand. I find it mind boggling, honestly. I don't understand why. 2:39:27 Someone dropped the ball on that. Someone dropped the ball on making that popular. I don't know what happened. It's such an amazing idea. The core of the idea is like you have one name that you use everywhere. So your Twitter handle or whatever it is, it's just your name everywhere in the world. And it's like also how people find you on Nostr. It's how people find you. It's how people email you. It's how they send you Bitcoin. There's no Bitcoin addresses. That's like the vision of the idea. So it's a huge idea. 2:39:54 For the non-technical here, could you explain what would the Namecoin sidechain be? And would it realize the vision that Satoshi contemplated briefly in that one thread where he talked about BitDNS? Would it be self-sovereign ownership of website addresses? Or is that a good synopsis of what we're talking about here? 2:40:15 Oh, yeah, but it'd be far more than that. Because basically, the way it would work is your quote, website, unquote, would basically be like you'd go to the site, like you'd go to like PaulStorts.com, or PaulStorts.bit, or whatever it is, PaulStorts.anarchy or whatever, you know, we'd be having some fun with this, I'm sure. But your computer would go there. And then it would look up, you'd have like a big JSON list or something of all of your stuff, your Bitcoin address, your Z address on the 2:40:45 Zcash sidechain, your Nostr address, your PGP key, your email, your phone, your telegram, everything would like it would all be all your whole identity would be there updatable by you only this, this would be like your website, but it would include a link to your, your onion website or your I2P site. So just like every single person would just get, you just get everything, all the authentication, all the finding people, 2:41:13 all of that would be fixed. And with that comes an end to many problems, but just like just authentication with username and password, which is annoying and doesn't work very well. Spam also, because you just have everything would just be whitelists. So you'd just be you'd, there'd be no spam, because it'd be whitelist on one hand, and then introductions would be gated by, like, like a like an onscene fee paying message. 2:41:43 Like a paymail idea or whatever, which is like, 2:41:47 how did the the original idea or the mortgages deal with this, you know, this huge speculative squatting problem where basically every intelligible word and word combination would be, you know, registered in the first five minutes of launching. 2:42:06 100% agree. No, you're 100% right. I think that's why the first Namecoin failed was the squatting. And I think I have the plan for that, too. But I think it was also it was more than that. I think it was just like way ahead of its time. And like, no one understood it. Like, no one really understood it for what it was. 2:42:23 And, like, like people also like it had an altcoin in it. And it was kind of that's kind of weird had NMC. And it was just weird merge mining, I think only like 40 people on the entire planet Earth actually like graphs, like, what are you doing or something? 2:42:38 Did anyone actually try to make something like this, you know, combined with, say, proof of work? Like, you would have to work like a thing with proof of work, Namecoin itself has existed. It was invented in 2010, long ago. 2:42:56 And still the squatting was heavy. 2:42:59 The squatting Yeah, but the squatting is my I have a plan for that. And you can read all about it in my posts, if you want to read about it. But the the basic plan, because I think that this is right. This is the the property rights on the name. People reacted badly to this. They said I already paid whatever $100,000 for google.com. And they say now I missed my chance to register this. And this this threw off the the coalition building human element of the idea. 2:43:29 squatting. And so how do you deal with squatting? And I say, well, we basically do is we hard fork the the ICANN UTXO set with transaction replay, which is a weird way of describing it. But but what I really mean is, if you own google.com in the real world, we'll have the we'll have you own google.com in the blockchain world, and we'll have that update be done in a special key that works only within the L1 world and only on 2:43:58 ICANN formatted names. So the ICANN formatted names will all be in the Namecoin blockchain, the Namecoin sidechain, which I call BitNames now since Namecoin is a different thing. So in this BitNames blockchain, they'll all be in there, all the names will be in there. The ICANN names and if someone buys an ICANN name, they'll be able to get it in the blockchain, but the blockchain will be doing all of this without actually leaving 2:44:28 it's itself without actually leaving the the blockchain world and asking ICANN. So it'll be like a one way street. And I think that would be enough. You'd say this is interoperable with the old system, that would be enough to deter, no one would be able to squat like you could squat google.anarchy, but you couldn't squat google.com. And so but that's not the point. The point is this, this type of thing wouldn't be for google.com, you have to try to 2:44:58 preserve everything about the internet that already works, which is the google.com part, but you would want to add on to it, you'd want to add in like, whatever it is Edward Snowden.bit, or Julian Assange.anarchy, or whatever it is. So or whatever, whatever, you know, whatever Vladimir Zelensky dot, you know, dot bit or whatever, you know, whatever, whatever the thing is of the day Canadian truckers that bit. So, and then we would not have the 2:45:27 problem mentioned before the Canadian truckers, which is a total embarrassment. And that is another clue that we are not doing things the right way, which is that it should be possible within like 15 minutes for everyone to figure out how to get money from wherever you are to some kind of political protest anywhere in the world. If we can't do that, then we're really kind of lame. 2:45:53 you were gonna say, hardware tax, 2:45:59 which would also be like a fun experiment to run. 2:46:01 And if there's a way to do 2:46:03 you know, permissionless L2s or sidechains on Bitcoin, then maybe we could play with a 2:46:08 Arbor Tax, a BitTNS system. 2:46:14 See which one wins. 2:46:16 Yeah, I think part of it was that it was described as a DNS system. 2:46:24 I think that's part of why it didn't catch on because Bitcoin was just very nerdy at 2:46:30 the time. 2:46:31 You know, it's like 2010. 2:46:32 So it's like ultra nerds, and these are people who are really, really, really familiar with the problems of DNS, which is just like basically that you... 2:46:40 One silly thing is that you have to pay, you rent them, you know. 2:46:44 The database update, when you buy it, there's one database update. 2:46:49 But you have to keep paying every year, and you have to pay for, if you want HTTPS, there's 2:46:55 you know, exceptions and stuff, but basically, most people have to pay like five, six dollars 2:47:02 a month, or whatever it is, I'm not familiar with the going rates, but you have to pay 2:47:06 for HTTPS, which is like ridiculous, because it's all authentic, like we have private keys 2:47:12 and public keys. 2:47:14 the cryptography is all free. 2:47:15 Well, I think one of the other things that was like that, that, that, like Namecoin got wrong, and then ENS kind of got right, is, I think, if on day one, you say, we're gonna try to replace DNS, then like a category error that I made was saying, 2:47:34 Alright, well, look at all of the software that supports DNS. And are you going to either port or bridge like all of that to work with like this new naming system? Like, that's insane. And then I think what other projects did, like ENS did this, I think, really well, is they said, we're going to build a, you know, a decentralized name system kind of analog, that makes a ton of sense within this one, like vertical, and just like take that thing over and then slowly expand outward. 2:48:03 So you do something similar, right? Like there's something happening kind of like that in the Ordinals ecosystem, where people are coming up with like naming schemes for trading around their rare Satoshis. And, you know, folks are starting to like add software support for like other things that use that same naming scheme. And that's like a more reasonable way to kind of land and expand and just say, like, hey, Google, don't worry, we reserved your bit DNS for you. 2:48:32 Yeah, but the other side, the other side of the coin, by the way, with this whole DNS and this certificate authority system is that it is actually abusable. So there are authorities that can take your DNS, your certification away or your issue, you know, for some malicious or maybe in your perspective, malicious, but maybe they are a government agency. 2:49:01 So government agency can just simply get a perfectly valid certificate issued to them in your name. And you don't really have control over this whole thing. So you are completely beholden to centralized doctors and their good grace and their good behavior. 2:49:19 behavior and if you expect that these root certificate authorities 2:49:25 will not, you know, issue legitimate certificates to, 2:49:30 I don't know, Russian hackers or whoever or Chinese hackers, you are going to 2:49:39 happen. I think that is another side of this coin that 2:49:44 people who kind of wanted to get 2:49:50 away from this, maybe not primarily wanted to get away from the rent 2:49:56 -seeking, they wanted to get away from authority. 2:50:02 Yes, I think also, I think I 100 % agree with all that. 2:50:07 The better way would have been for a name coin to like target like someone like Edward 2:50:12 Snowden, like quickly, and you could get him like, this is how you can 2:50:19 I actually have this weird idea that celebrities would like it. And this probably sounds really weird because what most people first think of is they think of celebrities are going to use something that's really flashy. It's really expensive. It's like very high status. Why would they adopt something nerdy and weird like this? 2:50:39 But I actually kind of think that they might because they must have a horrendous spam intake problem. You know, they must just get constant emails, phone calls. They have to constantly change their phone. So they would adopt it, honestly, just for the feature, which is that they would own their name. Because if you're a celebrity, your identity is like very important. You know, you don't want to get kicked off Instagram or these people getting de-platformed. 2:51:04 Anyone being de-platformed, which would like Edward Snowden kind of falls in this category. But even if you're just someone who is like a Milo Yiannopoulos, remember that guy? He had this like big cult he was building or whatever. But then he got kicked off of Twitter and then he was like no one has ever heard of him since or whatever. 2:51:22 But someone like that, a celebrity type person, they would get their name, their BitName. And then they would – the idea is they would have the name and then they'd have like their whitelisted friends who can contact them anytime. And then they'd have like the pay mail for the introductions. Like someone would pay $20 or $50. Or like if it's Taylor Swift or something, they'd pay maybe like $500 or $1,000 to send them like a little message. 2:51:51 And then that way they can always be reached, but they don't get any spam. They get no spam. And if you book a flight or whatever, they look you up based on your BitName. Obviously, this is like 10 years away of total integration. 2:52:04 But if you – there's never a reason to get any spam. There's people you've whitelisted with and then if you buy a concert ticket or if you buy – like they don't ask you to make an account. You already have an account everywhere because you have the name. 2:52:20 So if you just say at Paul Sztorc buys a ticket to this concert, if I buy a ticket to an NFL game, I can just go and I just type in my own – I type in my BitName when I get to like the kiosk or when I go wherever, however they do it or however they let you in. 2:52:42 And then it just looks me up and then it says, are you this person? I get a little notification on my phone. I like tap BitNames app on my phone or whatever and I just tap – I show them the code or whatever and then they just let you in. You don't even need like ticketing. You don't even need – you don't need anything. You don't need any account. 2:52:59 So this is kind of hard to explain because it's so different. But yeah, that was one thing that I thought that celebrities actually might – they might need it for the feature because I don't understand how they – how do they survive? Like if you're someone like, for example, Taylor Swift, how do you have like a phone number? I'm just curious about that. I would love if anyone knew the answer to that. 2:53:29 He says something like, a lot of people say they want to be rich and famous and he says, I always tell them the same thing. Try being rich and see if that doesn't do it for you. Being famous is really difficult, he says something like that. So that's the point of the quote is who wants to be rich? You don't want to be rich and famous. You only want to be rich and not famous. 2:53:48 And a lot of people find it annoying and I think – I just would love to know exactly how they operate like a phone or an email because I would just imagine it would just be overrun as soon as – they keep it secret for as long as possible and then it's overrun. 2:54:03 Weird thing about this though that all of this white listing can be done on your side. So like literally it's just software that can filter your email for you, that can filter your instant messaging for you, that can – I mean phones are a bit different, right? Because you can actually run a denial of service on someone if you try to call them and you get rejected. 2:54:30 So that's a different system. But on these internet systems, messaging systems, it's very easy to actually filter on your side. I don't think you need a global system for that. 2:54:45 Yeah, but you know that it's for the name. I agree. It's like BitNames, Namecoin sidechain plus like a telegram bot. 2:54:56 The other thing is I would expect – if I were to implement such a system, I would just simply use a global ledger to establish ownership and nothing else. 2:55:12 So basically I would just let everyone know that this is the public key that is authorized to update the distributed hash table entries and nothing else really. So I would just simply sign the distributed hash table entries and just broadcast them and that's how the whole thing would work. I would not put every operation on chain, right? Just the ownership transfers. 2:55:39 Yes, it's mainly the key. But there's a couple other things I think you might want in there as well. Like you probably want some other way of being contacted so that you don't have to be – exactly so that you don't have to be contacted on the blockchain. 2:55:51 Because if you're contacted on the blockchain, that's like 200, 300, 400 bytes minimum. But if you just say on the left – basically it's a table. On the left is Paul Sztorc and on the right is a little – only the hash will be in consensus. 2:56:10 But there will be some other place of looking it up. Someone else – there will be like a super node or like Google will just have it all just like you have the MIT PGP key server. But only the hash will be in consensus. So that's only whatever, 32 byte. But the data itself would still be something like a key, like a pub key or maybe even a Bitcoin address so that it's like a hashed key. 2:56:37 But the pub key would be there and maybe like your Telegram name would be there. Because you want – you actually want a way for – one thing you want is to be able to verify yourself. So if I contact you on Telegram, you say I'm the real moonsettler. Then I say how do I know that? 2:56:55 And then at least I have – I can look it up and I can ping you on Telegram and the bot, the Telegram bot can like – it can only show you like the six – the PIN code or whatever and then you just – you give me the PIN code and then I see that it matches the one that I sent you or just whatever. Because you want it to have some kind of – you want it to be doing some work. You want it to be – but yeah, the key is the big thing is the mapping the name. 2:57:20 Yes, yes. 2:57:22 To map it to an endpoint, right? So you need to map a name, a public name, a domain name. You need to map to an endpoint and from that moment on, you can serve everything really. You can authenticate with that public key. You make everyone know what public key is authorized to update these entries. 2:57:48 And then you can authenticate yourself and then you can serve everything else. You can combine this perfectly probably with ION, the ID system, and then you can have a lot of discretion over what data you share with whom, right? 2:58:06 You have encrypted Merkle trees of claims that are certified by authorities and you have freedom over what you share. You can combine this with zero-knowledge proofs. Did we lose Rinder? 2:58:21 I think so. But you're 100% right. I would imagine like a nested hash, nested Merkle tree type of a thing where if you go all the way – if you go like 10 nests deep, then it's like all your medical records are there maybe and only your family has that or whatever. That's just like planning it out too far. 2:58:41 But yeah, you're right. You map it to one thing. Some people want this to be like an IP address and like a name server type thing, but that's what I was saying is some people want it to be – maybe this is what you mean when you say an endpoint, but they want it to only be like the telegram screen. 2:58:57 But it can't only be the telegram screen name because then you're vulnerable to that. It really has to be – 2:59:03 this is why it needs the blockchain actually because it has to actually be you owning the actual name 2:59:09 itself on the left because if telegram decides – telegram admin decides to rug pull everyone and 2:59:15 start stealing people's names or whatever or charging you to use your name, you have to be 2:59:20 able to go into the Namecoin sidechain and say, I am the real Moon Settler and this is my new 2:59:26 telegram, this is my Nostr key, this is my whatever, this is my Twitter. Yeah, yeah. I wanted 2:59:31 to say Nostr fixes this and also DIDs, right? So DID is a more comprehensive fix to this whole 2:59:38 problem because you would not be known by your telegram handle, right? The telegram handle would 2:59:44 be maybe a part of your DID structure, but more importantly, you can actually be notably 2:59:54 identified on the platform by whatever part of your DID that you are willing to share and you 3:00:00 have full control over that. So at least you own your identity. They can just impersonate you 3:00:06 hopefully, especially if you do sign your events, right? On Nostr, it would be pretty hard to 3:00:11 impersonate someone without their private key if someone is known. I mean, I don't think that's 3:00:19 accurate in a way. I mean, I think that definitely if the Namecoin thing works, then under the hood, 3:00:25 your telegram name could just be like garbled characters and then humans wouldn't even see the 3:00:30 actual telegram name, so to speak. But I mean, I don't know if maybe by Nostr you just mean that 3:00:34 things or events are signed, then that would fix this. But I think Nostr actually, the weakness 3:00:40 of Nostr or one of the weaknesses is that everyone has, in order to friend someone on Nostr, 3:00:47 you need to know their giant garbled unreadable key and I actually think that that is part of what 3:00:54 the Namecoin sidechain idea would solve because you want to be able to just pronounce it out loud, 3:01:02 you know, like in a television commercial or in a whatever, you don't want to be able to go like, 3:01:10 it's just like, it just doesn't, the human readable thing has many advantages other than 3:01:14 being easy to remember and spell. If you did like Photoshop out a QR code and put a different QR 3:01:20 code in there, but if it's like canadiantruckers.bit, then it's not, it's more than just 3:01:25 being human readable, it's like that is the logical name that it would be or something, 3:01:31 you know, and then it's like if someone wants to say that one's fake, well then you can have 3:01:34 antibodies. Everyone can say canadiantruckers.bit is the fake one, but you can't do that if it's 3:01:40 a QR code or it's just unreadable garbled nonsense, so I actually think it's pretty big. 3:01:45 So in NOS currently, it's always centralized solutions that give you this namespace 3:01:52 thing, this human readable alias thing, so there is an authority and this can be Twitter or GitHub 3:02:02 or the server that you are using the client of and they can give you this human readable name, 3:02:11 but your real identity is actually your pubkey and that is something nobody can take away from you 3:02:19 and it's fairly easy. The reason we're talking about this is because the Namecoin sidechain 3:02:25 would map a human readable name that you own to that. Yes, exactly. So you don't have a central 3:02:33 authority anymore, so that is solved. I'm just saying that I think the other things are also 3:02:42 important, you having this flexibility and control over your stuff, so and that's why I think 3:02:47 basically the best way to approach it is to really just have a key, an ownership associated 3:02:54 with a public key and then you can update these distributed hash tables for your endpoint and 3:03:00 then your endpoint can serve your proofs and from that you are very much free and 3:03:06 that actually doesn't need to be on the blockchain, it seems to me, but of course we will see. 3:03:13 Well, it doesn't, yes, but don't you understand the benefit of the blockchain is the human readable 3:03:18 name for the key? Yes, I'm not disputing that. You have to answer some mysterious questions 3:03:27 like, you know, the internet that we use that has like google.com and facebook.com 3:03:33 that has human readable names, so it seems like people do like them, yes. Sorry, so maybe I was 3:03:39 not clear, I want the human readable name to be tied on a public ledger to a public key and that is 3:03:47 the ownership and from that we can basically take the whole thing off-chain and have a very 3:03:54 flexible and good experience off-chain because that is the crucial thing that actually needs 3:04:00 to be in a public ledger. Yeah, I completely agree, but I also think that there's some utility to 3:04:06 being able to return on-chain for some functions that would never actually, this would be used like 3:04:13 very rarely, but in the case of someone like being de-platformed they might want to sign a message, 3:04:18 like if they're de-platformed everywhere, they may want to use the Namecoin sidechain actually 3:04:25 as a kind of Twitter and it's unfortunate. I think this is partly related to what we were 3:04:31 talking about before where everyone went through the blockchain without bitcoin 3:04:37 phase in 2016 and it was so dumb that it dumbified everyone forever into thinking that 3:04:43 any use of a blockchain must automatically be the worst idea to have ever been invented, 3:04:49 but this is a similar thing where no intelligent person says every single tweet should be 3:04:55 on the blockchain, that's a ridiculous idea, but actually in the one moment when you're de-platformed 3:05:01 from everything you may want to be able to sign and globally broadcast one big message that's 3:05:08 by big I mean like 400 bytes, so really really small, but it just says something like here's my 3:05:14 new Twitter, here's my new Telegram, here's my new email, here's my new everything, here's my new key 3:05:19 or whatever it is, so in that case it may as a fallback may be sort of invaluable. Anyway, we have 3:05:26 a hand up, yes? Bitcoder, please share your question. Guys, I want to share my thoughts about where 3:05:36 I see the blockchains in the future and also ask you what do you think about my 3:05:43 my view about blockchains. I think that and also this is important for the drivechains because I 3:05:50 think there will be the main driver of this, like I think that and this is my thoughts from 3:05:59 a long time ago when I discovered Bitcoin, maybe 14 years ago. I thought that one time 3:06:06 blockchain will replace the old IT infrastructure as a base layer, so I think that and this is also 3:06:14 I'm adding on your conversation about the shares and you know issuers and stuff like that, so like 3:06:21 the I see the blockchains like that everybody, companies, institutions and whatever they are 3:06:29 centralized or decentralized, by the way I'm strongly supporting decentralization and first 3:06:34 principles of crypto and I see them like using sidechains and whatever they want to do, how they 3:06:46 want to be centralized, decentralized is their way, but actually the most important thing 3:06:53 is that they will use the decentralized security from the most decentralized blockchain Bitcoin 3:07:01 Bitcoin blockchain, so what do you think? Do you see this happening? Do you believe in this or 3:07:10 it's something that the first part 3:07:14 the obviously the most like the most decentralized this you want to have a small block 3:07:21 layer one you want to have a layer one be small blocks be very simple 3:07:26 not change too much and have high hash rate and have like global permeability or whatever but 3:07:34 then what were you saying would be on top of it I didn't understand yeah yeah using using 3:07:39 drivechains as a as a sidechain for main for main operations but then as you you said the 3:07:50 the BIP300 and BIP301 the the security and the transactions will be validated on the main chain 3:08:01 I think he's expressing the drivechain view in a summary which is yeah yeah yeah in drive 3:08:07 chain in drivechain we have the Bitcoin base layer that's the main chain and it has small 3:08:13 blocks and it has stability and it has a monetary policy we all know and then every other blockchain 3:08:19 in the world would be a sidechain that has the same monetary policy as Bitcoin it shares Bitcoin's 3:08:24 monetary policy no inflation but new features and a different layer a different level of security 3:08:32 and decentralization than the main chain so it's a different experience except you're using the 3:08:37 same miners and you're using the same monetary policy yeah yeah so that's yeah that's our view 3:08:45 every single blockchain in the world would then be paying fees to Bitcoin miners and sharing the 3:08:50 same miners and every blockchain in the world would be a Bitcoin sidechain and it would have 3:08:55 its own layer of its own level of security from the fees on that sidechain and its own level of 3:09:03 decentralization based on the block size of that sidechain yeah yeah because did like this is the 3:09:13 this is the thing that I believe in the future every company even maybe individuals who 3:09:19 will have their sidechain or blockchain a small blockchain that you know you can you can do 3:09:26 as a sidechain but actually you are secure because you are using the the Bitcoin blockchain 3:09:33 as a base layer so I think that the old IT infrastructure with what is centralized at 3:09:42 the moment I think will be replaced with with sidechains that uses the Bitcoin blockchain as 3:09:50 a base layer well said yeah that's our view Paul do you think we should continue today we've been 3:09:56 going for three hours now we could continue if you'd like or we could resume on Monday this is 3:10:02 our what do you feel oh um I think we've been going for a while I guess I don't know 3:10:10 maybe we should demand I don't know if the audience will do final questions 3:10:18 today's been a great space thank you everyone who's listened and welcome to those who are new 3:10:23 this is Drivechain Twitter Spaces hosted by LayerTwo Labs we speak every Monday and Friday 3:10:29 on Twitter Spaces about Drivechain that's Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 300 and 301 3:10:36 and we're going to have our next one on this Monday so just in a few days from now today's 3:10:41 been a three-hour space usually we just go for an hour and a half um are there any final questions 3:10:47 from the audience you can come up and ask your question or final thoughts from Moon Settler 3:10:55 Moon Settler are you ready to announce or have you are you still are you still considering and 3:11:02 analyzing we hope one day you will decide that it's time to fully and emphatically support 3:11:09 this proposal without the support of the technical community members like you 3:11:15 this idea can't be adopted we need the support of people like you 3:11:21 maybe we need to wait basically no I'm just kidding 3:11:25 yes so I just wanted to again reiterate that I think we should um I don't discount blockchains 3:11:36 because they do a few things like I said when you have to make consensus critical data available in 3:11:42 a decentralized setting and when you want to solve for the interactivity because it's very easy to do 3:11:49 and basically byzantine proof systems in the world but not in the way and of course blockchains 3:11:57 not really byzantine proof they don't solve the byzantine general problem anyone that says bitcoin 3:12:03 solves the byzantine general problem is wrong I think bitcoin is a proof that you don't need to 3:12:09 solve the byzantine general problem that's a more correct way of putting it but you can actually 3:12:14 solve the byzantine general problem in distributed systems if you don't mind interactivity so 3:12:21 basically blockchain gives us no interactivity and and gives us data availability consensus 3:12:27 critical data availability those are the primary functions and we need to look at 3:12:31 the stuff we want to do we need to look at what is the core that that needs these properties and 3:12:37 what is that don't need these properties and a little bit sounded to me that there are actually 3:12:45 some people who want to put everything on blockchains and and again I don't believe in that 3:12:51 but I also don't believe in the notion that blockchains are completely useless and we just 3:12:57 don't need them and we should get rid of them so I'm between the two extremes basically 3:13:03 well said very well said all right our last speaker our last question or comment will come 3:13:11 from crypto voyager welcome to the stage your question or comment thank you very much I have 3:13:19 a question since since the drivechains how many drivechains could I have actually then 3:13:26 on whatever layer you want using using the bitcoin blockchain that's a great question 3:13:32 you can have that be calculated there can be set up for 256 which is the size of one byte 3:13:39 its ability to count but actually you can have sidechains of sidechains or you can just 3:13:46 add 300 again and add another 256 so the real number is unlimited 3:13:54 thanks for the question all right that's the end of our space today we invite everyone to 3:14:01 continue the conversation in drivechain talk to the telegram group with over 700 members 3:14:06 talking about drivechain you can find it if you go to drivechain.info and then look at the links 3:14:13 one of the links is for the telegram group we also have a great youtube channel with many videos of a 3:14:19 videos of a very advanced and both and also some elementary level videos at LayerTwo Labs 3:14:26 youtube channel and you can find that link if you go to layer2labs.com that's LayerTwo Labs with no 3:14:33 number just letters layer2labs.com scroll to the bottom and you'll see our youtube channel link 3:14:39 and of course if you're technically ambitious please download our software and run the drive 3:14:44 chain testnet code on your own computer and interact with the sidechain software that's 3:14:50 been developed and you can also go to the LayerTwo Labs github page and at the LayerTwo Labs github 3:14:58 page you can see the drivechain code and the code for the sidechains and it's very exciting 3:15:05 thank you all for being here this is a recorded space you can listen to the whole thing on demand 3:15:10 we'll see you on monday for our next one we do these twice a week 3:15:15 thank you so much moonsettler and everyone else who asked questions
