0:00 Drivechains with the creator, Paul Sztorc, or something, don't you think? 0:26 I mean, this is a funny title, but... 0:29 Okay. 0:31 Yeah. 0:33 Hey, Paul. 0:35 Oh, hey, Wayne. 0:37 Having fun yet? 0:39 I'm having fun. 0:41 Good. 0:43 I see you're working on most hated figure in Bitcoin status. I respect that. 0:49 Yeah. 0:51 It's kind of funny. Like, I think that one thing that's occurred to me, because, you know, obviously, I've been staying up to date on this stuff for almost 10 years now, is that the people who are criticizing you, some of them have legitimate criticisms. 1:14 And some of them who even are, whose criticisms are illegitimate, you might say, there's like a grain of truth in them, or they're just mistaken about something. 1:26 But in totality, it almost feels like there's... It's almost like, this isn't quite the right metaphor, but it's like obfuscation through complexity. It's like, there's just so much of this stuff, and people don't know how to evaluate these claims for themselves. 1:53 And so just like with many other things in the world, they just gravitate towards some tribe, or some figurehead, go along with whatever they say, pro or against the arguments. 2:05 And it's, you know, it's kind of funny, because it feels like we're stuck in the same type of arguments that happen in politics, where people just yell at each other over things that they have fundamental opposing views or misunderstandings about, in perpetuity, with nobody ever really having any intention of ever changing their mind. 2:33 It's all just virtue signaling and tribalism. And doing that every day has got to be... It's got to wear and tear on you. 2:44 Well, I think it must. It doesn't really wear and tear on me, because again, I like have like, you know, I'm like working with the actual details up close. I think you're completely right. 2:56 I wonder about, to your point about there being like this wide distribution of critics. I do wonder about some of the critics who have like something really intelligent or nuanced to say. 3:11 I do wonder, like, how do they feel when one of the terrible critiques that has nothing to do with anything is like completely false? If that one like becomes really popular and trendy, I do wonder if like a smarter critic, does that make them feel like, how do they feel about, do they think like, oh, no, I'm in a group with really misinformed people? I wonder about that. 3:38 Maybe, but I would suspect that even if that is the case, that it doesn't really matter. The net effect of that person realizing, hey, look, you know, the people on my team are not doing the best job of criticizing this, or they're doing it in an embarrassing way. 4:00 I just think it's no different than other issues, whether it's your local school board or politics inside a large company or something. What people really matter, what matters to people is the tribe and the outcome, not so much the specific point. 4:16 This isn't sort of like academics, to a certain degree, where you prove somebody wrong on a particular point, and you don't really get a point, you don't score. It's just the noise is enough to prevent change from happening. And the noise is enough to get other people excited about something that they don't really understand. 4:44 Just to kind of extend the metaphor that I was using yesterday, who would ever feel really qualified about criticizing the deposit and withdrawal methodologies imposed by different Bitcoin exchanges? 4:59 It's not a precise metaphor, but it kind of maps. Whereas you have these software applications that you might be able to develop, and there's this way of essentially depositing and withdrawing Bitcoin from them. That's just such an esoteric thing that most people don't really care about. 5:16 But in this particular instance, people feel like they have to have an opinion on this. And even if their opinion is colored by the block size wars, where it's like miners bad, node operators good, they can't come out and say that and have someone take them seriously. 5:34 They have to come up with all these other things. And sometimes that are not so high level, that are more specific. And when they get more specific, sometimes their arguments fall apart. And it just becomes a lot of noise for everybody else who's listening or participating in the conversation. 5:52 Because people are bike shedding about all these little, very detailed minutiae, when people's root objections tend to be at more like a 50,000 foot level. And it's more like a conflict of visions than a disagreement about a specific technical implementation of the proposed software. 6:17 I had a question. 6:22 I think we have two more speakers now. So if someone has a question, I think, well, I guess Jack rolled for initiative. 6:31 Okay, so I was looking for the kind of stick your hand up button. I think things on Twitter have changed recently. So sorry to put in like that. But what the guy was just talking about there, it kind of reminds me about election cycles. 6:49 Like, so I mean, if you look at if you regard Bitcoin as an election cycle, I mean, kind of the kind of block subsidy goes, what was it created 2009 goes on to around 2001 40. So that's like, you know, it's over a century and people can have like kind of different views over that time about what the majority decision is and who votes for this, who votes for that. 7:16 And that kind of what the what the guy was he's talking about there. That's what it kind of reminds me of. And so I don't I don't completely understand Drivechain. I get it. It's some sort of idea where other coins or other kind of implementations can be introduced into Bitcoin. 7:38 Ultimately, I think it doesn't come down to kind of what the majority decision is, as in what people are going to want to accept. And, you know, then you kind of get into the philosophy of forking and what's, you know, people want to follow. 7:58 Yes, I agree with that. I think that. I think there was a mistaken conclusion made in around 2017. There was this big fight and it involved miners wanting a hard fork and involve this UASF. 8:18 I don't know how many. Actually, it's very hard to tell with any certainty how many people actually participated in the UASF. But it was probably not, you know, it's hard to measure. But it's like it wasn't 100 percent of Bitcoiners running the UASF client. 8:36 So this idea sprung up that we must have 100 percent of people agree on something, which 100 percent of human beings have never agreed on anything. So I'm not you know, I don't think it's an open question how to deal with that. 8:50 But before, like in the 20, you can go back and read interesting that Gavin Andreessen's old, like, I think, like, I think it's in a GitHub commit or something or comments that he wrote in the code about how it's too difficult to the difference between hard and soft changes, which can be hard and soft fork. 9:12 And he said, it's too difficult to get everyone to upgrade. So we need to do this soft fork thing, because not everyone will upgrade. And so that idea has now changed. In my view, it has changed, but it's a hotly debated issue into something that says, even to do a soft fork, everyone must do it. 9:31 So it's kind of become the opposite of what it was originally was. It's become it no longer solves the problem that it originally solved. Anyway, thanks for your comment about how sometimes people disagree and it looks like an election. So I think Jack did want to say something first. 9:52 Rio, I guess. 10:23 Well, I think other coins might. It's not 100% completed project until we have this nice, pristine pull request, which Luke Dasher has been helping us with. It's kind of kicked this party off, I think. So but there is, we have our own test software that we release and someone has forked that is kind of unaffiliated with me, but they hang out in our Drivechain Telegram group and they have forked that into an altcoin. 10:51 Called SkyDoge, which I'm not shilling, but I do think it is kind of funny and it is, it does exist. And I don't know what else they changed. Probably not, but they're having fun over there with it, I suppose. 11:05 So yeah, I think other people might. Does that answer your question? I think people may do that. I mean, Division of Labor, I don't understand the question. 11:15 Yeah, I don't know. Maybe you should go to Rio because I could formulate it better. 11:21 Okay, great. Come back when you have formulated it. Let's do Rio. 11:26 Hi, thank you for having me up and let me ask a question. I was going to transition to smidge technical, if I may. Paul, why can we not do Drivechains with what we have with hash time lock and a concept of atomic swaps with Blind Merged Mining? 11:46 What is preventing a Drivechain now that we could have, you know, an extremely long hash time lock that essentially is federated or something like that? Just what's the main, if that's... 12:03 And I think it's a very reasonable question because people think like, why is, why push so hard for this soft fork? And it's because I'm determined. I think I really think it's what's best for literally everyone, including the people who think they don't want, you know, a soft fork. 12:21 It's really best for them. And it's, it's also not a big deal. I'm also kind of very basically certain of that, but other people have different points of view, but I'm going to unpack that a little bit right now. 12:33 So like what BIP300 does is it puts the miners on a short leash. It has nodes forcing the withdrawals to run this gauntlet, which is difficult, this 13,000 gate gauntlet. 12:48 And that makes it more difficult for the miners to take the funds out of, they still can, but we force it through this, this lens where this force it through this kind of filter where it's just very, very, very easy to prove that it wasn't an accident, that they really, they really fully intended. 13:07 They had every opportunity to not take the money or do the right thing or just do nothing, but they did. So, so that is what it does. BIP300 is full nodes, keeping miners on a short leash. And that is good for the miners because it facilitates people depositing to the sidechain in the first place. 13:27 The miners say, listen, you're holding a gun to our head to some extent, to the extent of BIP300. I say, you've got, you've got some leverage on us because we can't withdraw like at 2am when you're asleep. We've got to go through this huge process. 13:41 So it's actually, we could do it today with nothing. We could do BIP300 with nothing, but it would be as secure and we could do it with various other things, but it just wouldn't be as good. It would waste bytes or it would, it would not have the same game theoretic leverage. 13:57 And so I just think that this is the technically superior way to do it. But of course, if anyone has a specific like technical thing, like about they think something should be done a different way, then I'm happy to answer those questions in detail. But it seemed to me like you were asking more generally, like, why don't we, why don't you just use the pieces we have? 14:18 Yeah, I mean, your point stands. I think, I think if I may just poke at that string, just one more that you did at the stuff. If I get a substantial amount of miners that are willing to merge mine, and I get a substantial amount of miners that are willing to atomic swap their assets onto this other merged mine chain, I can do it today with atomic swaps being the trustless bridge and a cartel of miners, which would have to agree to activate BIP300. 14:48 I can do it today. Is BIP superior because it's more transparent and the game theory is explicit? Is that the premise? 14:59 Yeah, I think so. I think that's very close to it. I think that's part of it. It's kind of like, you could do that, but it would just be, it would be like an off the books. 15:07 OPEX, OPEX, full on their rules. The miners cartel is the miners cartel. Now you're saying you're a cartel, but you have to agree with the gauntlet. Do you have to acking, asking? What is the term? 15:17 Acknowledge. 15:19 Acknowledge. Oh, that's what it stands for. I was doing it wrong. Okay, thank you. 15:24 Yeah, so that's kind of the, it's kind of like, the question can also sort of be flipped. It's kind of like, since so much of it could just be replicated with a miner handshake, it's kind of like, why not do it? 15:39 But of course, the reason why, the reason why to deal with this would be to have layer one. You want layer one to enforce the BIP300 rules, since that enforces the smart contract. And the BIP300 rules are not, they are not the sidechain rules. They are just the counter counting up to. 15:56 They do enforce that the sidechain can only give you consensus every 10 minutes still though, right? There is some rules. 16:03 That's a very good question, because these things are often confused. And I think I get into, unfortunately, my job is made a little bit more difficult in this way, which is that the merge mining, 10 minute block time, etc. That is a completely separate thing. 16:18 I think one of the smartest things I did was separate the BIP into two, because to try and do what little I could possibly do to get people to understand this, it's actually very difficult, difficult because, you know, I just think it's easy to mix these up. 16:34 Whereas if I work with the code every day, it's impossible for me to mix them up. But it's the merge mining thing and the 10 minute block time, that is totally separate. That has already, that's already been done. We already merge mine Namecoin. We've been doing that for 10 years. 16:49 Slush Pool, or what is now called Brains, they used to have a whole list of stuff they would merge mine. It's been going on for a long time. You can read BitMEX research. This is why people don't really have controversy over BIP301. You never really hear about that. 17:04 BIP300 is the deposits and especially the withdrawals. So these are two completely separate things. It's true when you say there's a whole other question of does merge mining with Bitcoin, does that tie you to the 10 minute block time? 17:22 Which it mostly does. There are weird hacky ways of changing the block time, but I don't think they're actually that important. I think Satoshi picked a very good number with 10 minutes and a lot of the people who want something else, they'll be able to deal with some lightning style thing where they open a thing that confirms. 17:40 And then after that thing has like 20 confirmations, you have some kind of instant back and forth. Because you know what I mean? If it's not instant, then what's the difference between 15 seconds and 10 minutes? Because 15 seconds is too long. 17:56 It's not four shoes or grenades. You're right. Close doesn't count. Fair point. Granted. 18:02 Okay. Jack, do you want to? 18:10 Yeah, sure. I don't know. It's probably just a different question. If you have a Drivechain which is failing, rather than just steal, would you think that miners or some affiliated mining group like a pool or something like that would just buy the coins in the sidechain on a second hand market for some percentage of their worth? 18:39 And then just kind of like make a deal with the miners to allow them to move them out as opposed to just like killing the sidechain? 18:47 Yeah, I think the answer is yes. And I would kind of like reframe that whole issue. And I would say that probably it will never be the case that miners will actually, even under like absurd circumstances where there's like the sidechain node software fails to work and it doesn't even work and no one even understands what the L2 blockchain is or just crashes and can never be recovered. 19:14 All of which are kind of implausible. Or even if the miners are super evil, most self-interested, greedy, whatever, short-term miners and there's tons of coins on the chain and the chain generates no fees and it will never generate fees and its failure will not even interrupt the reputation of the other Drivechains or it won't even be. 19:35 There'll be nothing bad about stealing. So even in the worst case scenario, I kind of don't think that anyone will ever lose 100% of their coins. There'll always be someone buying the coins, as you say, in the L2 world, the coins will be changing hands to the extent that that's possible. 19:53 As long as the blockchain still exists over there, or at least something, some kind of like signatures can exist, people will buy and sell the claims to those coins. And so probably what will ultimately happen is the miners themselves could buy the coins for like 80 cents on the dollar or something. 20:13 And then they would be the owners and then they could walk them out on the PIP 300 rules on L1 and then they would have the coins that they get on. 20:23 So I kind of think that even in a horribly disastrous scenario, such as what you're talking about, where the Drivechain is not going to fail, I think still people on there would probably not lose. 20:34 They would probably still just be able to sell for 80 cents on the dollar, which is of course sad. But of course, the whole idea behind Drivechain is not that it offers like a completely perfect security because nothing actually offers that. 20:50 It's literally nothing that really offers that under the hood. But this says you have the freedom to leave and do use a different piece of software and you get the benefits and the risks. 21:00 But yeah, I think this is an intriguing phenomenon that since the peg will always hold on L1 with the PIP 300 rules, someone is going to get the coins out at one to one. 21:12 And the miners are kind of buyers of last resort because they know that they can just take the coins out. 21:20 Do you think that there would be any like sort of like soft power disagreement among miners among like who would be able, I mean, I guess that would just be a market price of purchasing them on the secondhand market. 21:35 But is there any other? 21:37 An interesting question. One thing that I think is fascinating about it is that you might think it would like, oh, some people are going to form a group. 21:48 They're going to form like a 51 percent group and then they'll want to. 21:51 But the game theory of that is like very unstable in my view in a good way, which is like no one can really be cut out because you can always if you form a 51 percent group and try to muscle the coins out to 49 percent who aren't in the group, they can always cut a deal with like two or three percent in the 51 group. 22:17 And so this is like it's a game of rock, paper, scissors. It has no real converging. 22:23 Do you think there's anything like additional BIP or something like that you could add on the main chain that would like, I guess, like codify that in some sort of op code for the two to three percent to be able to like. 22:36 No, actually, because it's like there's actually this is actually this is literally a this is there's actual an actual game theory game called the three person divide a dollar game. 22:49 And I encourage anyone who's interested in this who finds this to be like distressing and weird, then you can just look that up because it's kind of a simple intuition that if 51 percent is ganging up on you, you are outside of the winning group. 23:11 You're getting nothing, but that's actually good for you because now you have you have a lot of leverage. 23:16 You cut a deal with the two, three percent and you then you are back in the winning group and you say we'll give you the two and three percent. 23:25 We'll give you 90 percent of the spoils as long as you give us something because right now we're getting nothing. 23:29 But it's just an endless chain of people stabbing each other in the back. 23:32 And the only like Nash equilibrium of this game is that someone just proposes that they split it equally three ways and then no one opposes it. 23:40 And then otherwise it would like never converge. 23:42 So it just starts this endless argument. 23:44 So another result in game theory, that argument costs people things, but it doesn't benefit anyone, anything. 23:51 I mean, I guess the difference between that sort of game and mining would be there is some sort of cost associated with mining. 24:01 Well, yes, there's a cost associated with doing negotiation. 24:05 And you spend an hour negotiating that salary and you reach the same negotiation that you would have reached in five minutes. 24:13 Then you wasted 55 minutes and no one got anything out of that. 24:17 So all I'm trying to say, though, is that this is kind of like a this is a this is an issue that could be like intrigue and drama. 24:26 But what I'm actually bringing this up is to say that there probably would not be because there is no. 24:31 There's no like easy way out, either the so since there's no easy way out, it's just what I'm talking about with this divided dollar game where they just say, well, we'll just try to withdraw the coins normally, or if the thing crashes, the miners will just divide all the coins and split them amongst themselves on hash rate or something like that. 24:48 So these these are like worst case scenario situations where still everything kind of works, basically. So I think that. So those are some of my thoughts on that. I think those those types of things actually help. 25:03 Can I just make a quick point now about what you just said, Paul? 25:19 Yeah, I mean, it's kind of people kind of Nash equilibrium, you know, it's kind of people. That's what they kind of kind of default to almost. But before Nash kind of wrote that kind of non-cooperative idea paper, non-cooperative games, he came up with the bargaining problem and he formulated an axiomatic solution to kind of games. 25:41 He kind of formulated an answer to the two person non-zero sum game. And I always kind of associate when I read the Bitcoin white paper, it says peer to peer. You've got peer one and peer two. It's like a two player game. And kind of Satoshi says kind of explicitly that the main benefits are lost in Bitcoin. 26:02 It is a third party required. So I kind of almost from that rightly or wrongly discount kind of third parties in. In a two player game and a kind of I just associate Bitcoin software or the Bitcoin client. It's kind of almost like like a suedo third party. 26:22 It's like you've got peer to peer two players and you've got the software acting as a third player canonical arbitrator with the software program to a set of values. That's kind of how I associate the game theory in Bitcoin. 26:36 And I think my view on this is what you're suggesting is kind of overcomplicating what's kind of is a simplistic. 26:48 Generalized solution to a classical game theory problem in terms of how two players, whether those two players are individuals or nation states or groups or collectives interact and arrive at a deterministic kind of point of view as to a bargaining idea where the kind of the money or we call it money. 27:12 But we could also maybe regard it as media to co-operative bargaining. And yes, whenever I whenever I'm sorry, whenever I hear the kind of like game theory, like game theory can sometimes become a bit of a hacking kind of phrase. 27:29 That's kind of how I I completely agree. I think too many people use it as like in place of an actual argument or whatever they want to say. They just say like, oh, the game theory. Yeah. And I'm you know, I actually really like game theory. I'm a real student of game theory. 27:47 I studied actual academic game theory, which I actually don't even think is that great. My favorite. I like Tom Schelling and his style of his books. Strategy of Conflict is one of my favorite books. Yeah, Nash is great. 28:02 I think that, though, too many people just use the game theory and then they don't they don't just say whatever they want to say. I brought it up in that particular case because I just wanted to say that there's it actually is. 28:15 He raised this because the questioner asked about miners buying up the coins themselves. And I wanted to try to explain why, if they do that, they will probably just do that and withdraw the coins and divide them equally among hash rate and or give them to their proper owners like in the worst case scenario. 28:36 So kind of making kind of an arcane point. But I think I think everyone would benefit from reading about the two person divided dollar game on Wikipedia. I think it's pretty easy to understand. And I hope it didn't confuse too many people by rambling about that. 28:52 Could you post that on Twitter or something? 28:57 In the nest, probably. Yeah, we'll fill the nest with fun things to for people to look at. 29:07 OK, now, Stuart in Dubai. 29:13 What's up? 29:15 Hi, everybody. I'd just like to sort of suggest that Rio mentioned that you referred to the miners as a cartel. I think it might be healthy to sort of change the perspective a little bit to change the point of view. 29:32 I would think it's probably a better way of looking at it such that miners can be seen as board members of a company and the sidechains themselves would be like the executive staff within the company. 29:49 Now, you're going to have 256 different, you could say, staff members that need to sort of be managed. And, you know, these board members, they're not going to go out of their way to fucking destroy their own company. 30:03 Do you see what I mean? They're going to be looking after this just as each of you are looking after your own business, because it's feeding your goddamn families, man. 30:14 And it's just like if there are underperforming staff, you have no qualms in firing that staff member. 30:24 So, like, if there is an underperforming sidechain, maybe they've gone rogue or something and they're stealing from people or something like that. 30:35 It kind of, you know, very naturally, these miners, these board members will come up with procedures to sort of decide, OK, how will we choose to fire this person, this sidechain? 30:49 How will we choose to elect a new one? What are the processes that we will choose to select a sidechain such that it is most profitable for us? 31:00 Because, goddammit, we're the ones that are fighting the thermodynamics, the laws of thermodynamics, and she is a very harsh mistress. 31:09 So, these board members, now, it's not unheard of to hear of board members embezzling money from their company. 31:17 But in this scenario, we've got difficulty adjustments, and every two fucking weeks, we're going to have miners that just get fired from this situation. 31:30 So, you're looking at people who have to be on their toes all the goddamn time to keep this ship going. 31:40 And anyway, so that's the sort of change of view. I'd be keen to hear if there's any flaws in this different point of view. 31:51 Or maybe, for example, you want to stick with the whole hardcore crypto, this is Alice and Eve mentality, and just view them as just like the enemy of the enemy. 32:03 I don't think it's always healthy to take that perspective. 32:07 I very much don't believe miners are enemies. They are valuable members of the network and a participant in the game, and I think speak to the two-person game theory aspect of things. 32:23 But I do feel, very explicitly, this crowns them as, before they had not a lot of incentive to really work together outside of pooling, but all work was the same. 32:35 Now, you have this 90% activation, and you have the necessity for them to all come to consensus to activate these chains, they can be bribed to do so. 32:44 One chain is extremely terrible for users. Users want miners to quit. As long as that chain keeps bribing the mine pool operators to say, put our stuff in the software, and everybody says, well, we're going to use these pools, even if we are divided energy, we're not divided software operators anymore. 32:58 This is where I do think the point comes of making pool mining and peer-to-peer and peer pool come back, and then thinking about BIP300 is a valid critique. 33:09 And I'm not saying that they are a cartel now, but this gives cartelish moral hazard, in my view. I don't feel we should demonize miners. Your point is well taken. 33:22 Yeah, I think these are very good points, and I think people do demonize miners, which I think is wrong. 33:29 And I think you are absolutely correct in pointing out that this does give miners a way to make more money if they coordinate, but that does not necessarily mean anything bad at all. 33:44 After all, that is exactly what the Bitcoin core software already does. If the miners can coordinate on which blockchain tip is the tip, like the heaviest valid chain, then they… 33:59 So it's just a matter of, as you also point out, it's just a matter of writing software so that they can coordinate, even if there are many, many of them, and they're in different locations, and you just automate everything as much as possible. 34:13 And so 100% of the hash rate is coordinating on many things, but that doesn't mean that any human is literally making a decision anywhere. It can be all software, it's all automated. 34:27 So just because things are coordinated does not literally mean that there's only, like, they all have each other's phone number and they're calling each other and talking to each other. People coordinating can just mean that the software does it. It's something like BitTorrent gives everyone the same file or something. 34:47 I think it's worth just talking a little bit about how miners basically just get their block templates and the relationship between miners and pools just as a matter of defining terms within all of this. 35:02 And, you know, I'm a healthy skeptic along all of this, and I think it's worth talking about just because it gives light to kind of the… I don't think it's the centralizing force that's at play, but it's just sort of the engineered reality. 35:21 But basically, like, there's two largely used versions of the mempool. There's the mempool that sits on your nodes that are capped at 300 megabytes, and that is sort of the somewhat narrow snapshot of what are viewed as the most valuable transactions to be included in the next series of blocks, let's say. 35:51 And then there's mining pools that are running mempools themselves that are, you know, somewhere larger than 300 megabytes, you know, call it, you know, I don't know, a gig to a gig and a half, maybe two gigs tops. 36:05 And the reason that they run a bigger mempool is because there might be transactions outside of the 300 megabyte slice that end up actually being more valuable for lots of reasons. 36:17 We don't need to dig on right now, but they end up running this wider viewpoint into the, you know, the future transactions to be included. And then what the pool does is they basically pre-generate a ton of block templates that include those transactions, and then they serve up those block templates to all of the mining constituents within their pool. 36:40 And then we generate pool shares against that series of templates. And so, you know, when you think about like what coordination is happening, there's an algorithm that is running against that larger mempool on the pool side. 36:57 The templates are really just sort by expected fee revenue and then give it to all the miners to mine against. And then once the next block is found, you know, that process repeats is sort of the straightforward way to think about it. 37:14 The pieces that confuse me a little bit or where I'm not clear on sort of the game theoretic piece are, and I think we saw this, we saw this pretty aggressively in ETH where, you know, the economic value of some of the projects that are sitting on top of ETH basically end up becoming the decision makers for how the base chain is developed. 37:44 And functions. So this sort of multi collateral environment, you know, the US dollar is not really governed the same way because the dollar is so big from a monetary based perspective. 38:00 But like, you know, if you're if you're one of three or four projects on ETH, you know, if it's, you know, USDC or some of these other sort of mega projects, you know, because you're built on top of a chain, if there were to be a fork, you know, you basically need to consent to the fork. 38:19 And so that's the centralizing dynamic and economic piece that that starts to concentrate power along different members of the stakeholders within that kind of ecosystem. And sort of that that ability dovetails with the MEV component pretty closely. 38:40 Yes, we can talk about that. But first, let me interject to say, I mean, first of all, I think it's actually kind of just a little side note that I definitely do think the US dollar is big, but I definitely think one of the biggest customers of the US dollar chain, so to speak, would be like the US government themselves. 38:59 And I think we would all agree that the US government does influence monetary policy, you know, and fiscal policy, you know, obviously, to state the obvious. So I just think there's a kind of interesting side note. 39:11 Yeah, I just want to double click there. Yeah, because I think it's interesting. But like, like what, but what's interesting is that the US government is, is all is all doing all doing dollar native things, right? It's not like Apple stock is able to govern monetary policy. Or, you know, so there ends up being sort of this, this like dollar loop dollar ecosystem. 39:39 Yeah, you're saying like a big project, like a mega project on ETH, it has influence over the development, like with the full node, the next version of the full node software. 39:48 Correct. 39:50 But you see, this is exactly what one of the things I was worried about, that led me to have an interest in sidechains, in the first place and to create BIP300. Because you have several different in the sidechain vision is you have like, you know, like a couple different versions of the L2 blockchain that compete. 40:09 And so the L2 devs are the people they they should be worried about pleasing their customers and their big customers. But they also have to worry about some kind of like what you might call mission creep or some kind of values slide, where if they change the project too much, the whole ecosystem will leave, pick up and go to a different sidechain. 40:34 So it's actually good. We want to have the L1 blockchain not really change very much. And then we want to have the L2s kind of have be vulnerable to collapse, at least vulnerable to losing their users to a different L2. 40:51 So I think it's actually the best of both worlds. You have a situation where the users actually can drive the project, which has many positive aspects, because the customer is always right to some extent. But it's also the case that if changes are being driven too much by one person, it will kill the whole L2. 41:11 And the fact that there are different L2s makes it very easy to just lose one. It's like a food court with many restaurants. You say, well, wait a minute, people can just walk down this hallway to the, you know, the next place. 41:23 So we have to make sure that, sure, a bunch of people come here and they tell us every time that they really like the lasagna over and over. But we cannot, they have to worry about staying in business. So I think we get the best of both worlds. 41:38 And then you were going to say, oh, the MEV thing. We could talk about that. Yes, this is a similar thing where merge mining firewalls off the MEV effect. In ETH, it's not the same as it is in proof of work Bitcoin merge mining. With ETH, there's like this strong incestuous relationship. 41:57 But with merge mining, all the stuff happens, all the MEV, the whatever, what you call the searchers or all that stuff, that happens over there. And then they just, whoever has constructed the block just pays on, they pay on L1 and the block is just whatever they say. And the layer one Bitcoin miner has no idea what's going on over there at all, has no idea what MEV is, has no idea what ETH is. It just knows, oh, I'm getting a lot of money now. 42:26 And so can you, I mean, and I'm not as technical as I'd like to be, but can you walk me through a little bit how that would function in the context of just getting more valuable transactions pushed to the mempool? 42:42 There's a separate mempool on L2. So if we had, let's say we have ETH, the sidechain. It's funny because I just made pictures for this, but I wanted to see if they were any good before tweeting them. So I made some nice pictures, but this is like literally just off by like 10 minutes, which is kind of a shame. 43:01 But I'll put up these pictures soon. And so they may help or they may not. But the L2 has its own mempool and it has its own, in Blind Merged Mining, there's like a miner of the L2 who's a different person than the L1 miner. 43:17 And the L2 miner, they get a very raw deal because they get basically almost nothing. They get like a free tiny amount of money. 43:28 And most of the money just goes to the L2 person, excuse me, most of the money goes to the L1 miner. It's like 99.5%. It goes to the L1 miner and the L1 miner has no idea what's going on. 43:42 And the L2 miner is the one that do all the work. And this is maybe easier to explain with the pictures, but what's going on is you have a bunch of people running full nodes of the EVM sidechain. 43:58 And they know their own mempool. So as you say, we start with a mempool. So they know their L2 mempool and they're trying to figure out what the next block is going to be, even for their own self-interest, just so that it's easier propagation of the block. 44:15 So your node, let's say you're just a random sidechain user using EVM sidechain. Your node has a mempool and your node is going to try to figure out what's the next block going to be anyway. 44:28 People are broadcasting transactions. You know some pay a higher fee than others. So you think, well, this is probably what the next block is going to be. 44:36 What you do in Blind Merged Mining is you say, this is the block I want. It has a certain hash, has a certain hashmerkle root. I want this to be the block. 44:49 You pay yourself the fees on L2. So it's very important that we use U.S. dollars, believe it or not. We can use anything, hamburgers, U.S. dollars. 44:59 But the point is L2 and L1 may actually have different value because the peg may not hold at this exact time. Like the next withdrawal might have just started or might be about to start. 45:10 So it could be 99 cents on the dollar, the one-to-one peg, or it could be 99 and a half, or it could be something else. 45:16 So this block is worth to you, let's say $2,000. It's $2,000 worth of Bitcoin on L2. 45:29 So is this making sense so far? I realize I haven't actually explained what happens yet, but I'm trying to set it all up. 45:36 The next block is worth $2,000. You want to pay yourself. You aren't an actual miner yet. We haven't actually created this block, but I'm talking about merge mining. 45:46 You aspire to make the next block. You have block 43 and you're going to make block 44. It's going to pay you $2,000 worth of L2 Bitcoin in the L2 Coinbase. 45:57 This is all in L2. L1 we haven't talked about yet. So is it making sense so far? 46:03 Just to clarify, the $2,000, is that the 0.5% or is that the 100% or is that the 99.5%? 46:13 Believe it or not, this value is going to end up being the – this will be the 100%. 46:20 Okay. So it'll be whatever, $100 for the L2 miner and $1,900 for the – 46:31 We have not split it yet, but it will be something – you get paid on different chains, which I think is part of why people – even I was confused by this a lot. 46:42 Sometimes I would be working on the software and I would mix it up myself and then I'd be like, oh yeah, I forgot. 46:48 I'd be like, why is it paying on L1 and not on L8? Because that's the design and I'd be like, oh yeah. 46:54 So it's kind of mystifying. What makes Blind Merged Mining work – I need to explain this. It's very important. 47:00 The fundamental key idea of Blind Merged Mining is there's going to be someone who has – the same individual, the same person who has coins on both chains. 47:12 That is how I cheat and get the trust to bridge because everyone who's on L2 is also on L1. 47:19 Now not everyone has coins on both. You could be very poor, maybe have no coins on either network, but if you run a full node of L2, you have one on L1. 47:26 So every user has some presence on both networks and it just stands to reason that people won't have 100% of their coins in one network or the other. 47:40 So you just need someone out there who is willing to do this, is willing to activate this, run this software part and they will be the bridge of trust. 47:58 I don't know if that makes any sense, but what I'm saying is the key is that it's the same individual. 48:04 They will pay themselves in L2 coins worth $2,000 or whatever we said. Did we say $4,000 or $2,000? I don't remember, but say $2,000. 48:13 And then on L1, they're going to pay the miners $1,996 with L1 coins which are different, but it's the same person. 48:25 So it's not like, oh, do I trust myself? Of course I do. I'm the same person. I trust myself completely. 48:33 So maybe this is just mystifying to everyone, but I have some pictures that I'll put up later. 48:41 I'd like to see the picture because I'm starting to grok at it. 48:46 I'm going to screenshot the last picture. I'm going to screenshot some of the pictures and then I will tweet them. 48:52 So everyone just give me a couple seconds. I don't know if this will help or not, but maybe it will. 48:57 Just give me like 45 seconds. Talk amongst yourselves and I'll screenshot these and send them. 49:16 Austin, why don't you say something? It's just sad to hear so much silence. I'll do that while I'm getting these pictures. 49:30 Yes, yes, very good. Yeah, I actually had trouble with that concept, I'd say in the 49:41 earlier days, trying to sort it out. I have heard some interesting critiques around locking 49:50 up capital that because you'd have to actually worst case scenario, you would have to be 50:00 a competitive on a very vibrant L2 to be a competitive miner on a very vibrant L2. You 50:07 may have to have like a lot of capital locked up in that for that time period that the critique 50:14 would be that only miners themselves are going to end up being the L2 miners as well. 50:23 Did you have a response to that? Well, yes, I do, but I'm busy getting these 50:30 pictures, but the short, I think it's, well, I think you'll see when you see how it works, 50:38 you'll see that it's actually, I don't think there is really possible for miners to have 50:43 an edge because actually they always have an edge if they don't. It should be always 50:47 more profitable to use Blind Merged Mining because the full node, the sidechain full 50:52 node is not going to cost zero. And you can just get away with not running the full node. 50:57 But there's a tiny amount of overhead because it takes something like, I don't know, like 51:00 a few bytes, like 50 bytes on L1. So there is a tiny, but whatever, it doesn't kind of 51:04 really matter. It will just be, it would be like tiny, tiny amounts. I mean, it's kind 51:09 of interesting when people really like to get into this minutiae, but it's like the 51:13 Ethereum network is paying $7 million a day in revenue. So it's like how, you know, what 51:22 do people, the people are talking about like 10, literally like 10 cents worth of overhead 51:26 or something. It was like completely de minimis. But I'm going to get this, I got two of the 51:31 pictures so far. Okay. I think I got four good ones. 51:44 I can elaborate on merge mining. So when we talk about merge mining, you're using the 51:49 same set of proof of work and you're just getting a portion, and this case is going to 51:56 be a hash that is put on L1. So there is some portion of the fees charged for the L2 on L1. 52:05 But really, it's a very small portion that will stay because you're just saying there's this 52:09 new type of way that I want to use L1 block space for a recognition of an L2 block, but it's 52:14 literally like a tiny little header or hash or something, right? There's just competing for 52:18 space, like SegWit does compete for space or anything with ordinals, right? Anybody can put 52:22 a dickbutt if they want on SegWit data. So the L2, there's people willing to pay L2 BTC to be 52:31 included in an L2 block. If the miner includes the small portion of that in L1, they also will 52:42 get the L2 portion. So in essence, that data becomes subsidized, where it can be cheap to 52:48 include it on L1 because you get the subsidy on L2. You get these L2 tokens as the merge miner. 52:55 So they'd be like, why would you pick that level one data that's not paying you as much over my 53:03 transaction? Well, you don't realize I'm getting subsidized on the other side. This is one of the 53:09 concerns saying, I have to now price my transactions knowing L2's environment of 53:16 subsidy to try and place my L1 transactions. I now am beholden to L2. I think that's overblown 53:23 unless L2 is extremely successful. But these are the things that I think, again, speak to. This is 53:29 not as benign as it may seem when you play the game out and you think about humans, in my view. 53:38 Of course, if the L2 achieves that level of success, the trade-off is likely well worth it. 53:49 That bit of potential bit of uncertainty or confusion, and on top of it, a massive new... 53:59 Well, see, the thing is, though, it's not as though it affects the whole block. It's like 54:04 one transaction that pays a huge fee. So it's not like anyone on L1 is really getting priced out 54:10 because it's kind of like, there's only 256 possibilities. The L1 block would be like, here's 54:17 all the ones that are not part of an L2. They're not like an L2 accounting transaction. Those have 54:25 a fee rate of like 50 cents per transaction. And then there'd be like one that pays like literally 54:30 with a Bitcoin. But it's like it's in its own category. Okay, I tried to post these pictures as a 54:36 reply to the space. And I think it may have worked. But I don't know if anyone can see them. Or if 54:45 they make any sense to anyone at all. But I think I put them in order. They're supposed to be 54:53 supposed to start with something that you know, which is normal Bitcoin. And then I say, how does 54:58 mining work normally? And then I say, what is the theory I'm doing? And then I say, what would be 55:07 something something that has MEV? And then I say, what is the math? Why is it the case that MEV makes 55:12 absolutely zero difference? Literally none whatsoever. To the 55:20 Alright, so I'm looking through the pictures, I guess, where my question still sits is like, let's 55:28 just say I pay, I pay one Bitcoin in fees on L two. And then there's a transit and then there's one 55:36 transaction that hits l one, where the fee is, is one Bitcoin. Who's sending the one Bitcoin on l one 55:47 in the transaction? 55:49 This is this person that what I call the BMM minor in the picture. We used to call him the briber. 55:56 We give him a bad name, because they bribed him to just put this hash in which the hash defines the L two 56:01 block. 56:05 So what's happening is the whole sidechain block, the whole L two block is worth like, whatever it is $4,000 56:13 or one, you know, say whatever you like that point to Bitcoin. That's the whole sidechain block is worth 56:18 that. 56:20 On the side Bitcoin, so then you assemble that block, there's this person, the BMM minor, this yellow, this 56:27 diagonally sort of centric to the, you know, the guy in the middle of the five group with the yellow of his BMM 56:35 minor. That guy, he pays himself the 750 $750 in this, in the whatever, which is the second picture to he pays 56:47 himself $750. Then on l one, he pays 749 as a fee to the miners. 56:59 Got it. So so big. So basically, if, if the L two minor doesn't have enough Bitcoin on l one, after he pays 57:12 himself l two Bitcoin, he then needs the liquidity in l one to be able to pay for the fee. 57:19 The he's the in Blind Merged Mining, you always pay on l one, I think, as someone was saying, I think, was it you 57:27 did you just say like, it could be you could be vertically integrated. The miners could l one Bitcoin miners 57:32 could just vertically integrate. And they could say, we will run the sidechain, we will pay that ourselves on l 57:39 two. And then they don't do any of this, but they get paid on l two. So actually, an advantage of blind merge 57:45 mining is that the miners don't have to run the sidechain at all. And they get paid on l one. Now they may not get 57:53 paid the same unit quantity of BTC, but it should be basically the same dollar amount, because there's some 58:00 inconvenience associated with withdrawing now with deposit. 58:04 Sure, sure, sure. What's to stop the L two minor from keeping more than that percent? 58:12 So very good question. And the answer is competition. Every single way BIP301 is every single sidechain node could 58:20 connect to the l one minor. And this is what BIP301 does to make it so that on l one, this is why BIP301 is its own 58:29 own content. On l one, it says miners can only include my sorry, something else happened. I was distracted. miners can 58:42 only include one of the whatever we call the bids. So these are like a bidding process. Someone says I'll pay 710, I'll 58:48 pay 712, I'll pay 713, I'll pay 725. So they're broadcasting these all on l one. And then they only one of them can 58:58 actually be included in a block. And now when the rest just expire immediately, they're like fill or kill. So they're 59:03 out. So so since you since only one can be included, it's like an auction where you broadcast transactions, but they're 59:15 really just you like, you know, at an auction house raising the little thing with the number, the little whatever that's 59:20 called the bid flag that you have. And so you broadcast these transactions on l one now either you you win you get you you 59:30 say I'll pay that I'll pay you 710. I'll pay 715. I'll pay 716. Now, if they include the one that pays 716, then the one 59:39 that bid 710 is cannot be included in a block. And so you safely keep your money, you didn't win the l two block. But you 59:47 didn't pay on l one either. So it makes it an atomic indivisible link between those two things. 59:55 So follow up question is, is, you know, what if there's two miners on the l two who both contribute different hashes, or 1:00:05 have solved, you know, what they what they perceive as different blocks? And that's not allowed under the, like the Yeah, so 1:00:17 this is also the case that the second thing that BIP301 does is it keeps these the slots like in like a defined organization. So 1:00:27 it says this part, it basically says, this part of the coinbase defined by like some little whatever code or like some, you know, 1:00:34 like an algorithm, basically. This part of the coinbase is where the hash of sidechain four will go, sidechain slot four, 1:00:45 whatever, this is where that hash is, whatever is there, that is the spot. And then on l one, people say, put my hash there. I'll pay 1:00:55 710. And then someone says, No, put my hash there. I'll pay 711. I'll pay 712. They can only put one hash in the slot because it's a 1:01:04 defined piece of real estate. It's a 32 byte location. So it can only fit 32 bytes. And then what the BIP301 thing is says you, they 1:01:13 can only take one bid. And if they include the, you know, the bid in the l one block, the body of the block, not the coinbase. If they 1:01:23 include this 301 bid, they have to include the BMM, what we call the BMM except, which is to say, the real estate has to match. So they 1:01:35 say on l one, the person says, I'll pay this money straight to the miners as a transaction fee. If this hash is in the special real estate 1:01:44 spot. So then the miners say, you know what, sold. They set the 32 bytes in the coinbase to what they were told to set them to. They have no 1:01:55 idea why or what's going on. They don't care. And then you they collect your your transaction on, on l one. And then on l two, when the l 1:02:06 two software is programmed, so that it's looking also at the special real estate. And when it sees that a hash has been put in a special real 1:02:15 estate spot, the the l two node software says this is a new block that meets the what is the equivalent of the difficulty requirement. So it's 1:02:28 like this is a valid block header. And then it will download the block and check it for validity. It may still be invalid because it may who 1:02:36 knows that block may not even exist. You know, it could be filled with errors. But it first jumps what is in l one Bitcoin, the proof of work 1:02:45 requirement. So it does that. And then the l two block. Well, the l two full node will then download that the block matching that block 1:02:57 header matching the hash download the you know, the Merkle tree or whatever they've done over there, the equivalent thing of the vector of 1:03:04 transactions or whatever is in the sidechain, sidechain, the new block and check all those for validity. And if that is valid, then it will 1:03:12 extend the chain. And then of course, your coinbase, you're winning those coins in the coinbase. So this is another reason why it may not be the 1:03:21 same unit of coins equally because on the sidechain, you have reorg risk. And you also have the 100 block maturity period and you have the 1:03:30 difficulty withdrawing back to l one. So the numbers may not line up in terms of their BTC unit, but they really should be the same US dollar 1:03:40 amount. Or something, you know, really close. Do I mean, because those are just an inconvenience associated with the block maturity with 1:03:47 those coins being on l two, it actually has nothing to do with the Blind Merged Mining like conveyor. So I don't know, I hope that some of that 1:03:54 made some sense. 1:04:00 It does, I would say that it could, oh, sorry, Harry, did you want to? I think it does, if I may real quick, but I will say that I think it 1:04:08 speaks to the gentleman's critique of the lockup of capital of miners accumulating their returns on the l two and having a big cell pressure, which 1:04:18 could increase that discount. And then also saying I'm not going to activate on the l two unless I know as a miner activating on two, I'm going to be 1:04:26 able to dump into your l two community to get my mining rewards out, which again, speaks to my cartel critique, not that miners are currently 1:04:36 acting that way, but it gives them a heck of an incentive to say bribe me first to activate to make sure if I need to dump and I'm at a 1:04:41 discount, I'm not taking l you are giving me a security deposit to activate your chain. This is stuff that's that bargaining game theory 1:04:49 commentary critique back before that pool mining potentially, at least provides a counter argument or counterforce to which I don't find 1:04:57 currently in the analysis, but 1:05:01 they won't accumulate if they if everyone's using language mining, then the l one miners will not accumulate. They're they're getting paid on l 1:05:11 one. And it's someone who's using l two, they're accumulating l two coins, 1:05:16 then the pressure with the l two guy and the l one not being the same one as your picture shows would be the same person if it's not the same 1:05:22 person, then those two people again have a negotiation game, right? 1:05:26 Well, in barrage mining, it relies on them being the same person. So I don't know if you can see it's kind of ghosted out. But the right, the 1:05:32 same person I'm accumulating on the other side, right? Now granted, because I'm paying out on my side, and I'm accumulating on the other side. 1:05:39 So I'm actually bridging in every time I solve a block, I'm bridging in. And if I want to bridge out your natural self force, 1:05:47 you're sort of bridging out, really, because you're the sidechain user. And you are. Oh, yeah, I guess I see what you mean. I mean, 1:05:56 the miners are minor, I'm accumulating in and if I if I want to get out to pay for my expenses to mine at the pay for my electricity, I'm a 1:06:03 natural self force, I'm always going to sell an L two first. 1:06:07 The L2 miner doesn't spend any electricity. Remember, the L2 miner is the same person as the L1 miner, right? Because I'm 1:06:14 that that is 1:06:17 that's not correct. The in why when I have on these photos, 1:06:23 know that it's the person who is the key when I have Blind Merged Mining and have these pictures and have this this dotted line that's the same 1:06:31 person. That is an L two, someone who is an L two quote, minor, but they're not doing any hashing. They're just getting paid in the coinbase. 1:06:39 I know it's kind of a weird way. They're like a virtual miner. And they are a regular person on L one. So they are they don't own any 1:06:46 keep paying the L one, I have to take my rewards that I get an L two and put it back on one to keep paying the one people that's doing the 1:06:52 mining for me. So that L two person still in natural self force because they have their expenses paid in one and their revenue is on L two. 1:06:58 Yeah, no, that is correct. I mean, of course, the minor has a flip side where the miners getting more L one currency, but yeah. 1:07:07 Fair, fair. 1:07:08 The but you're right, the anyone who does Blind Merged Mining, they will get they will get like a little bit of a they'll get a tiny little bit of an 1:07:16 opportunity for like a little bit of a yield or a little bit of like, to collect some money. But they will be in general, losing the be shedding L one 1:07:24 coins and picking up L two coins, which they will then have to swap. They can swap back or they can use the three month withdrawal. But since 1:07:32 anyone can use a three month withdrawal, it should be always some people willing to, to swap with like they can swap HTLC or they can go to 1:07:41 whatever coinbase. 1:07:44 Okay, what would a Drivechain be able to support an atomic swap for for down to L two to avoid the three month? Is that a way that some 1:07:53 prevented from doing that in some way? 1:07:54 Absolutely. In fact, you can do that. You can do that today with Litecoin or some altcoin. You just have the same hash algorithm. Sorry. 1:08:04 So you're right. So you can so if you don't want to wait the three months and you find a willing partner on the other side, you could peer to peer 1:08:10 atomic swap down and wait for the three months if you're a whale, but but again, mining pools are whales, they're not going to find a peer on the 1:08:16 other side. But most of for the end user, though, you're not as trapped as the potential B to B miner, which would need to have some vested 1:08:23 interest in the continuation of the chain. Okay, okay. 1:08:27 I think I'm pretty sure I first had this idea. Because I had learned about the atomic swaps. And that is actually how I think came up with 1:08:36 this Drivechain idea. I thought these atomic swaps because I was like, everything's so close, like I remember the idea. It's like, the 1:08:42 people who want large blocks, they're willing to run the large block software. So they're willing to do the extra. It's just that some people 1:08:50 aren't. And I was like, Okay, we can have like, everyone share one megabyte, and then seven megabytes, only some people run, since people 1:08:58 disagree. And then I thought, well, we can put the coins can move in one direction easily, because the people in this, the one people don't have 1:09:09 to one megabyte, small block, people don't have to pay attention. And the seven megabyte optional people, they're there, they want eight 1:09:14 megabytes total. So they're still users of the original one, they have seven plus one. So they will know to them, it'll look like a normal 1:09:21 transaction. So I was like, this is really close, because we have people willing to run the eight megabyte nodes, you know, the size, the large 1:09:30 blockers were complete freeloaders, or anyone who wants if someone wants a Z cache, they run a Z cache node. So this is how I came up with 1:09:37 Drivechain, really, partly, because I was like, we're very, very close, we have merged mining already with Namecoin, we have people willing to 1:09:45 do the extra, less decentralized, more expensive node. They're willing to run for an extra seven megabytes. And we have a way of getting the 1:09:56 deposits. And then we had that we even had a way of doing, there was this thing, an extension block. And then I was like, what about the 1:10:02 withdrawals? And I think you honestly have nailed it. Because what I thought was my literal exact thought was something like, well, they can, they 1:10:12 can, it can HTLC, like atomic swap out at any time, they just need something somewhere to fix the price at a one to one ratio, even if it's like 1:10:24 really rare, or really difficult to use, or if it's like, it's not perfect. So that is when I decided, oh, we can just make the withdrawals take a 1:10:32 really long time. So it's because of it's exactly because of this, the atomic swaps, that I sort of came up with this idea. So I think the fact that 1:10:43 you have picked up on that is very encouraging for me. I mean, some people out there are finally getting the idea, I think. 1:10:52 I guess I'm still just like, I'm still just struggling with the the piece where somebody takes in currency A and is obligated to pay in currency B. 1:11:07 In Blind Merged Mining, you mean? 1:11:08 In the Blind Merged Mining component, you know, the other, the other piece is just that there's also now a huge incentive for the miner to also 1:11:20 vertically integrate into the second component. 1:11:23 I don't think so. 1:11:24 And take, well, the reason being that the miner can then, you know, A, you know, they've got, they've got incentive to take currency A, you know, L2 coin, 1:11:39 they pay, they pay L1 coin, and then they just short L2 coin heading into the release of the lockup. Like there's a bunch, it just, it creates a bunch of 1:11:49 these synthetic complexities where you're, where you're, you're betting for perverse incentives. 1:11:55 Well, they could short, the miners could try to create chaos on the sidechain and force people to lose hope. And they could threaten to steal the 1:12:06 coins. And in fact, they can also not only threaten, but they can literally take the coins. That is the unfortunate consequence of giving this freedom and this 1:12:19 loose coupling. And I, you know, that explain the economic model, why I think they probably won't in many scenarios. And I've also explained that this is a 1:12:28 long run economic model of Bitcoin. 1:12:31 And of course, each individual user is free to take this risk if they want or not take it. But the thing is, the miners can threaten to take all the 1:12:39 coins, and then buy them up cheap and then walk them out. Or the miners can actually just actually take all the coins, you know, it's, it's the case. So if 1:12:49 since they can do that, I don't really see it. The reason why they don't annoy, like threaten to take the coins is the same reason why they won't actually 1:12:59 take the coins. Either they will take the coins. And it's just not a, you know, it's basically the sidechain is being gutted and killed. Or they won't, I don't 1:13:10 really see why they would do like 10% of the way, you know, they're either because users would just say, this sidechain is not supported, or they would 1:13:19 say, the Drivechain idea doesn't work. Because look, this is like, miners are not being, you know, being very mean to us. So we're not doing it. 1:13:27 It just, it just like, it introduces a huge amount of vulnerability. To me, it's like, it's a very similar problem to like, it's an abstracted 1:13:35 seniorage environment where, you know, the miners are basically able to print themselves. 1:13:41 No, no, no, they can take the coin, they can unlock, they can take the coins on L1. They don't print though. They take the coins on L1. And that they can 1:13:53 also do things that are like milder versions of that, like they can say, they can say, we might take the coins and then buy them for 90 cents on the 1:14:01 dollar, as everyone panics, then legitimately withdraw them, having taken, but you see, if they do stuff like that, then it's just kind of the 1:14:10 equivalent of just killing the coin, the killing the whole idea off. 1:14:14 So yeah, wherever the extraction of value can be taken, it is taken. And, and, 1:14:22 yes, but that's only if you extract the value, there's no consequence. This is we were talking about Tom Schelling before he wrote another great 1:14:28 book called Choice and Consequence, which is another great one. 1:14:32 Now, I'm not saying that because I've read some magic book by Tom Schelling that this is all going to work, but what I am saying is, as a consequence of supporting the sidechain honestly, by mining its blocks, and by doing the withdrawals, which is copy and pasting one hash every, you know, three months, as a consequence of that, they get the fees, which, again, is no guarantee that they're going to get the fees. 1:15:00 But I'm just saying it's worth trying and it has no risk and people who are against it don't really understand it. 1:15:05 And so, so that is what I'm saying is that it's, you know, it's like it's 7.2 million in fees per day. 1:15:13 When I did the math, like two days ago or something, you can go on cryptofees.info and see if we're having a good, if Ethereum is having a good day or a bad day or whatever, but that's a lot of money. 1:15:23 The net present value is $33 billion. So let me ask you, if I could offer you $33 billion, do you want $33 billion? 1:15:33 Are you going to put that, you're going to risk that so that you can maybe steal like whatever you think it is, like 10,000 BTC? 1:15:45 Well, you'd kind of do some math and you'd say how much, but then, and that's exactly the math that I did. 1:15:49 Question number five of Tidwell's list of questions. So that's like, you lose the $33 billion if you don't play ball with the Drivechain idea. 1:16:03 I don't think it's that clear cut and straightforward. 1:16:07 Well, that's also good, but I think you can look at the, that is reductive, but it's supposed to be like a little model. So you can just like, if you look at it, you can see what the logic of it is and where the numbers come from. 1:16:22 No, I understand. I think like the two pieces that are worth highlighting as it relates to that math are, you know, number one, there's a ton of development and work and users and effort that's gone into generating that fee revenue over the last five to seven years. 1:16:44 Now, do I think that, you know, building on a proof of stake, you know, fundamental consensus mechanism is, is building on bedrock? No. Do I think that the, the risk profile of all of those projects are high and higher than my tolerance? Yes. 1:17:00 But to, but to say that like that just ports over and, and, and we're leaving all of that on the table today, you know, I don't, I don't think that that's, I don't think that's accurate. 1:17:09 Well, I agree that, yeah, I think that we got to go to Portland because it had to send a very patiently. And it was like, I started to ignore Portland. And then I was like, we've already ignored it for so long that the damage is done. So we might as well. 1:17:21 But I think the, it is like, I agree that it won't port over overnight. But what, what I'm trying to demonstrate is that is a situation where something was built up over years, you know, it, it was built up from nothing. 1:17:37 So I'm just trying to say like, listen, it is possible. See, I kind of think if you ever want to demonstrate something, there'll always be skeptics every step of the way. Like when I first wrote the idea in 2015, people will say, well, that's just a blog post. We need more details. And they say, okay, here's I give them more details. 1:17:53 And they say, well, we need an analysis of all the different risks. And then I do this analysis of all the different risks. And I say, well, we need working software. And they say, we need a BIP. And then they say, we need such and such. Every single step of the way, people will say, well, sure, you have a BIP and you have software and you have a pull request and you have lots of relevant experience in the industry and you have a lot of experts signing off on it. 1:18:20 And you have this examples and we have something like wrapped BTC in the real world that is demonstrating this idea in a different context. But you still need some other thing. And then when you finally do all the things, all the same people, I'm absolutely certain, all the same people are going to say, this idea was obvious the whole time. 1:18:45 Okay, then we'll go to Portland. 1:19:16 So my next thing was, okay, like I was thinking about myself as a node runner, like I got a pretty powerful server at home. And even if somebody somebody had like a bigger block sidechain, maybe 10 megabyte blocks, and they come in very fast. But I could, I could validate that. And I could then bid with my blind merge mine block. 1:19:37 What if suddenly, I had minor extracted value outside of the actual value of the coins, for example, because I'm assuming that my block if accepted would be the state of the sidechain. So that got me from bidding, even more on l1 fees than l2 to bribe a minor to take my side. 1:20:01 And then does centralization of the sidechain become a function centralization of validation, the sidechain become purely a function of the person who is able to validate at the least cost, right, or basically who's able to provide the most value for the minor. And if I continuously say, hey, I'll do it for free, you can collect all the fees on l1. 1:20:22 And I'll just take l2 or even I'll give you a bonus on l1 to take my blocks. Does that make sense? Like centralization becomes a function of basically who's raising the bottom the fastest, right? 1:20:34 First of all, it makes perfect sense. This is what I was trying to explain to Alex B for like the last 10,000 years, and he doesn't understand it at all. He would just overbid. And that's why I repeated to him over and over again, the sidechain MEV income is no different than having extra fees on l2. 1:20:52 But I don't understand why you think it's some kind of a problematic thing. But luckily, since you understand that concept, you can hopefully explain it to Alex B, because I can't possibly deal with repeating it any longer. But I did make these pictures. But please explain why you say it's centralizing. 1:21:08 Yeah, it's a problem on l2. It's a problem on l2. But it's a problem that has to do with the design. Okay, yes. 1:21:16 So I'll explain why. And first, I really don't like ad hominem. Like I respect everybody in this community. If it takes somebody longer to get an idea, it's fine if they get it quick, whatever. 1:21:27 But basically, my thought on this was, I, Portland Hoddle, want to either for personal reasons, I really don't like a sidechain. But I have the server, I can validate very easily. At worst case, I can at least tell the miner, hey, I'll front some of my Bitcoin to you on l1 so I can get these sidechain tokens on l2. 1:21:48 And I'll be very disingenuous, guaranteeing me the withdrawal of my coins. But everybody else just gets shafted, right? And the miners go, oh, that's cool, whatever. That's the state of truth, because this guy bidded the highest. 1:21:59 And if I really had a vendetta against a sidechain, why couldn't I just incentivize a miner with some coins I got a long time ago from some Silk Road, not that I've ever partaken in that, or some older coins. 1:22:11 I'm thinking of maybe another participant going, hey, I'll give you an extra Bitcoin per block for these 13,000 blocks just to nuke the sidechain. 1:22:21 Uh-huh. Well, that's a very good question, because the answer is that it's a perfect analog of a 51% attack on layer 1. 1:22:31 So meeting the difficulty adjustment on layer 2, since there is no real hashing or proof of work, it's only if you're included in l1. 1:22:40 So basically, it's like the total amount of – let's think about it like this. You use thermodynamic energy on l1. L1 thermodynamic energy. 1:22:53 And you say, okay, I have this much thermodynamic energy and have A6. I have the physics world. I spend – it's going to cost me, whatever, $20 million to rewrite, to do this reorg. 1:23:06 On l1 – excuse me, on l2 – God, I really hope I don't mix that up, because it's going to be extra confusing. 1:23:13 On l2, instead of expending thermodynamic energy, you're just expending l1 Bitcoin. So I've turned the thermodynamic energy. We've gone up a level. We've moved up a layer. 1:23:25 So now everything that was true before about layer 1 Bitcoin reorgs is also true on layer 2 with l1 BTC. So you're spending the l1 BTC. 1:23:37 Now, what you can do, you can do the same things that you can do on – you can do the same types of things on l2 that you could do on l1 today if you had hashrate. 1:23:47 So you can do – as you say, you can mine 13,000 blocks in a row, and you can then block other people from withdrawing. You can really control the chain. 1:24:00 But the value of – okay, yes? 1:24:04 No, please. I was putting it up for my final comment, and then I do got to jump off. But yeah, I'm really interested in kind of one final question, because… 1:24:13 This layer thing, like you can do mischief on l2 just like on l1, but it costs you money. Just like on l1, you can do mischief, but it costs you – you actually have to run the electricity through the hashrates, and you have to pay the opportunity cost of not getting the fees and not getting the block subsidy and so on. 1:24:32 So I hope that's making some sense that it's – you can do all the things. 1:24:37 Basically, it's going to be expensive, and at worst – oh, sorry. 1:24:42 Well, let me just say you have to buy this. It's better if you buy this security budget frame because the frame is the l2 block is only worth what its fees pay. 1:24:53 And so just as on l1, I could outbid everyone, and I could put an ordinal. I could inscribe a picture of me. I could outbid everyone, but it would cost me – it costs me basically what is the total fees on l1. 1:25:06 So let's say the most recent Bitcoin block paid $5,000 in fees. I just made that up. It's a completely faking number. 1:25:14 But if it did, if I pay $5,001, I can outbid everyone and inscribe a JPEG of my face, and I can basically – I'm taking over l1. 1:25:27 And I can do this over and over again if I wish. 1:25:30 Similarly, on l2, if you bid – if you outbid whatever that is amount, whatever the l2 is paying in fees, you control that block. 1:25:39 So I'm saying I just take that as reality, and I don't try to fight that because I think that it is reality. 1:25:44 So I think that ultimately the value of the l2 block is the fees, that is the security, that is the inducement, that is the opportunity cost of just not mining that block. 1:25:54 So it's all based around that. If there's no fees, it won't work. If there are fees, it probably will work. 1:26:01 So I hope that is clarifying what you were saying. 1:26:05 Someone with l1 coins could just be like, okay, that's kind of like you just recreationally mining. 1:26:12 You just decided for fun you're going to mine Bitcoin SV or do a 51% attack or something. 1:26:17 I mean people have done it. 1:26:19 People have done it. 1:26:21 So with that said, my final kind of question on this, and I get what you're saying as well, 1:26:28 but on layer one there's an element of decentralization in terms of miners. 1:26:34 So it's not like one miner just gets to choose the block each and every time. 1:26:38 On the l2, the centralization or decentralization is in the form of basically in terms of Blind Merged Mining. 1:26:44 Like you could obviously have a mix where some miners actually validate in-house and then some will do blind merge, correct? 1:26:50 For sidechain? 1:26:52 Well, in Drivechain it's sort of defined as something that is using BIP300/301. 1:26:59 It's possible to actually split. You can split them into four groups of like yes, no for each. 1:27:04 You could actually blind merge mine in altcoin. 1:27:08 And you could also have, you can like mix and match. 1:27:11 I don't know why you would, but you could. 1:27:15 Okay, yeah. 1:27:17 But I don't know, I think the metric for decentralization, it must be the cost of running the full node. 1:27:27 And everyone who has tried to define it as some other thing, I think has run aground and caused like enormous confusion and disaster. 1:27:35 I actually think we want the cost of running the full node to be low. 1:27:40 That is decentralization because that's the peer-to-peerness of it. 1:27:44 You say everyone's an equal peer, everyone runs a node, all the nodes are equal. 1:27:47 If we have 100,000 nodes and then the government cracks down and there's only 73 nodes remain and we all go into hiding. 1:27:57 And then we start turning on our computers again. 1:27:59 Just one or two or three of the remaining nodes can regenerate the entire network. 1:28:05 Just like a cell that's replicating. 1:28:07 And then once they do, once we're back up to like maybe 80,000 in this scenario, they'll all be exactly the same. 1:28:14 So that is what it is, it's the cost of the cell dividing. 1:28:17 It's the cost of the full node. 1:28:19 Now there's a separate thing in mining which I think is the security budget. 1:28:22 Which is how much total fees paid, how much money are we paying the miners. 1:28:25 Are the miners like getting paid a ton of money and doing a lot of proof of work so that we cannot get reorg'd or simple attacked. 1:28:35 So I think that number we want to be very high. 1:28:37 And that's my conception of it. 1:28:39 But I think other people use the word decentralization to mean all this other stuff. 1:28:42 I think it doesn't work and I think it's very bad for the conversation. 1:28:47 But yes. 1:28:49 My final question before I got to jump off. 1:28:51 And thank you for answering all these by the way, I really appreciate it. 1:28:53 At the end of the day, if a chain is blind merged mining or blind merged mine by the majority of basically actual hash rate that's available on this planet to mine SHA-256. 1:29:05 Will basically with a almost guarantee, like by game theory I guess I would say. 1:29:12 They're going to pick the bid where they're going to receive the most L1 Bitcoin for that block template, right? 1:29:20 For that template? 1:29:21 Yes. 1:29:23 Remember, they don't – are we talking about L1 or L2? 1:29:26 I'm talking the L2 sidechain proposing a template to L1 to mine. 1:29:32 It doesn't really propose the template really. 1:29:35 It just says – this L2 one person, they have their own block template, but they make the whole block as a finished product. 1:29:44 It's just the hash of the… 1:29:47 Okay. 1:29:49 They propose this hash and then so the miners will pick the highest bid. 1:29:54 But according to that basically, if an individual participant was willing to take a zero cost, 1:30:01 like basically I'll give you full L1 for these L2 tokens, I'll withdraw them later for some reason or whatnot. 1:30:07 They would take that person's basically block every single time or their hash every single time, right? 1:30:12 Until another participant came in and offered a higher bounty or they stopped offering that much and then the market became more competitive. 1:30:22 Well, it doesn't matter if it's the same person, right? 1:30:25 Because what they're doing in that scenario is if we're ignoring a situation where people are being like altruistic or destroying their own money, 1:30:34 what they're doing is they're assembling every single transaction they can find on L2 that's valid and that would fit in the block. 1:30:40 They're doing all the work that we need them to do, which fortunately the sidechain nodes, they already have a mempool. 1:30:48 They're already doing all the work. 1:30:50 They already propagate transactions. 1:30:52 They already propagate blocks. 1:30:54 So we're asking the L2 network, it already does this. 1:30:57 You just say everyone just act as though you were a miner. 1:31:00 Act as though you were a miner and as though the difficulty were just like its minimum value and anyone could find a block in like one second. 1:31:07 Just act as though you were and that person is doing everything right. 1:31:12 They are collecting all the Layer 2 transactions that they can find in the block. 1:31:17 There's no transaction censorship. 1:31:19 So they are fully in great health and they're working diligently and then they pay on L1, they pay the full amount. 1:31:31 So they pass through the entirety of the fees. 1:31:35 They don't lose any money. 1:31:37 We assume that whatever they lose on L1 has exactly the same economic value as what they gain on L2. 1:31:46 The miners make the most amount of money. 1:31:48 It is as if this is exactly as if the miners themselves included all those transactions on L2, but they didn't have to do anything. 1:31:56 They did nothing at all except included L1. 1:32:01 Yeah, they outsource the work. 1:32:03 So before I go, I'm going to zoom out like 5,000 feet for my brain. 1:32:08 And basically in summary, the solution to the Oracle problem that exists between main chain and sidechain or that bridge, which is the hash, the state of the sidechain that represents truth, 1:32:20 is now basically solved by a bidding process or the highest bidder is the source of truth for the sidechain in that round or over time. 1:32:34 Is that a good way of thinking about it? 1:32:36 You bid in electricity and proof of work on L1 and then on L2 you just bid with actual Bitcoin. 1:32:41 So I want to fight for that metaphor because I want to say both that… 1:32:49 Stuart, I think you have some feedback. Maybe you can mute. 1:32:53 I just wanted to mention that the proof of work, the hashing is inherited. 1:32:59 You just can't mess around with that. It's inherited. 1:33:04 Do you see what I mean? 1:33:07 Well, the proof of work then covers all the L2 chains, if that's what you mean. 1:33:12 But what I'm saying, I'm fighting for this metaphor because I want to explain that it has all of the pros and all of the cons. 1:33:19 It's like a perfect, almost perfect metaphor. 1:33:22 So it's like rather than explain the details, I would rather just explain this is the same as you bid with A6 and hydroelectric power immersion cooling or whatever. 1:33:36 That's the L1. 1:33:38 And then on L2 it's the same thing. You just have to be willing to pay. 1:33:41 So all the differences are as a result of that. 1:33:44 It's actually not true. I'm sure that Will Settle is going to come up here and say a bunch of clever things. 1:33:50 I just… 1:33:52 There's actually some advantages actually and one disadvantage, which is that it's easy. 1:33:59 Everyone's got coins, but most people don't just buy an ASIC on a LARC. 1:34:04 But it actually has some advantages as well. 1:34:08 There's this Professor Warner who wrote this interesting post. 1:34:13 I think he mostly covered the advantages. 1:34:15 He thinks they're disadvantages, but he covered the advantages. 1:34:18 Anyway, his post is interesting. People should read it. Find it and read it if you wish. 1:34:23 As a final note before I go, I guess you could do the same thing in real life. 1:34:28 I just feel it would be a little bit more difficult. 1:34:31 But you could go to mining pools and bribe them to build blocks the way you would like. 1:34:37 And I think we've actually seen this to a degree with ordinals and inscriptions. 1:34:40 Because people will pay extra money to the miner to say, 1:34:44 Hey, please ignore these other transactions. I want my taproot wizard in this block. 1:34:49 I'm not saying that's a good thing that that exists. 1:34:52 And I do believe deep down that L1 is harder to pull this off at scale. 1:34:58 Than a Layer 2 sidechain. 1:35:00 I believe it would be easier to centralize with one player on an L2 sidechain. 1:35:03 Because right now you really only see one participant really participating in these added value type of transactions that are out of band. 1:35:10 And that's Luxor. 1:35:12 They'll take your money to put your JPEGs in there for that side hustle. 1:35:16 But yeah, it makes sense, but I still don't think it applies one to one. 1:35:21 That is my final statement. 1:35:23 So thank you, Paul. I appreciate it. Great space. 1:35:25 Thank you. 1:35:27 I just have one response to what Portland just said. 1:35:32 The first is that the difference is that a Drivechain needs block space in every block, or almost every block, in order for it to function properly. 1:35:42 Whereas an ordinary inscription just needs a one-time amount of block space for each time that that image hash needs to move. 1:35:56 So there's exceedingly different dynamics. 1:35:59 Can you repeat what you said? Because my phone glitched out. 1:36:02 Unfortunately, I noticed that I'm getting better at telling when it's about to crash, but this has been happening a lot. 1:36:08 I was about to say, hey, wait, this is about to freeze and crash, but then I think I got cut off. 1:36:12 Could you repeat what you said? 1:36:14 Yeah, the difference between what Portland said about ordinals and the competition for block space there is that the difference between that and what I understand Drivechains to function as is that Drivechains require block space on an ongoing basis in order to function, whereas an ordinal is a one-time usage of it. 1:36:37 And so there's pretty different fee pressure and fee dynamics there, where bidding for an out-of-band transaction for an inscription is a one-time usage of block space, whereas a Drivechain is going to just be a persistent demand for block space. 1:36:53 Well, I would actually flip that premise around a little bit. 1:36:57 I would say that Portland was right when he said that it's difficult to sustain. 1:37:03 I think it's kind of like it was a cool novelty when they spent $4,000 to make the whatever, Tap for Wizards picture or whatever, but notice that they didn't decide to just keep doing it block after block after block forever because that would have gotten expensive. 1:37:20 And they would think, you know, they put on their little economist hat and they say, you know what, we've got a lot of little notoriety for doing this stunt, but how much are we going to get by doing this over and over again? 1:37:35 Not very much. Diminishing returns. Not worth $4,000. I would rather buy. There's lots of things I'd rather buy with $4,000. 1:37:42 So I kind of flip it around. I would say each of the things is one use, but actually it's because the L1 block space is expensive enough that it deters too much of a repeated frivolous use, if that makes any sense. 1:37:59 So I don't think in principle they're different because it's just each individual transaction is like a one-time thing, I think. I mean, don't you? Like each TFID or each whatever you want to call it, like each transaction. 1:38:14 If I may add an organous thing there, you're talking about SegWit data, which is fungible. SegWit data is not any part of the SegWit data that wants to contain a dickbutt is just as good as any other area of the SegWit data that wants to have a dickbutt. 1:38:27 This is different with the Drivechain, again, to your point of a reserved real estate position. We are taking and devoting a very specific portion of every single block to the Drivechain mechanic. 1:38:40 It is a perpetual acceptance of fiefdom for that area and a very specific area to be devoted to that Drivechain, which is why it requires activation so it doesn't get out of hand. 1:38:50 But it is a claim on permanent block spaces and I think the gentleman does have a strong point. 1:38:58 Well, no, I don't think – first of all, I'm not sure that was what he was saying, but what I mean is that for Blind Merged Mining, there is a way – it's really a way of finding the 32 bytes. 1:39:10 You don't have to – it's certainly not the case that every L1 block must mine every Drivechain or even any Drivechains. 1:39:19 They don't have to do that at all. They can just not include – because think about it like this. 1:39:24 What if the Drivechain just doesn't find – there's no reason to find a new block. There's no transactions at 10 minutes, so they just don't make – 1:39:30 Okay, so that's true. It doesn't have to be every single block. 1:39:32 So it's basically an option to use some of the Coinbase – 1:39:37 so it's basically an option to use some of the Coinbase space in a certain way, 1:39:38 and that's no different than like, you know, op return or something else. 1:39:42 There was something else I wanted to say about what Portland said before he left, 1:39:45 which is about this idea that the Ordinals reveals that – the way I would tell this story is, 1:39:53 I would say that Ordinals reveals that the security budget framing was the right frame the whole time. 1:39:58 And what I mean by that is the Bitcoin community is fighting this frame and in various ways has fought it in the past, 1:40:10 such as, you know, I love Luke Dashjr., but he's always been against people using op return, 1:40:18 even though he himself has put prayers on the blockchain, I'm pretty sure. 1:40:21 But I think – but he has always been like against these people like storing random graffiti and stuff in the game. 1:40:28 And people have always tried to discourage this. They limited op return to a certain size. 1:40:34 Some people try to discourage – now Peter Todd wants to discourage a bare multisig. 1:40:38 Luke Dashjr. didn't like BIP-47, even though it really only wasted like maybe – 1:40:47 it made the first transaction between two people like 20% larger. 1:40:51 And then afterwards, neither of them had to share addresses with each other. 1:40:56 They could just go back and forth. 1:40:57 So they have fought this the whole time with the op return limit is the biggest fight, 1:41:01 where it's a standardness limit, but actually it's not a block validity limit. 1:41:06 So they have tried to fight this this whole time, 1:41:09 and I think as a result the Ordinals thing is really just the mistake finally being completely like – 1:41:17 I don't want to say corrected, but I want to say like this resistance to this idea is futile. 1:41:23 And it's especially futile when you consider that Mike in Space, who is in the audience, 1:41:29 has decided to go completely rogue and literally do something that probably Alan Turing would like, 1:41:35 which is build out of actual Bitcoin transactions something that converts to like an image. 1:41:43 Because Alan Turing had this universality of computation idea, 1:41:47 which is a fascinating idea that I'd be happy to digress on, 1:41:51 but it's not really – but the point of this idea is that you don't know if something is a JPEG. 1:41:57 You take a file and in Windows you can change it to .JPEG. 1:42:02 You can have the computer try to interpret it as a JPEG, 1:42:06 and you can interpret it as a PNG or something. 1:42:10 So everything is interpretable as everything else. 1:42:14 And so this is the ultimate equilibrium outcome of storing data on chain. 1:42:18 You just store it on chain in the form of UTXOs or in the form of transactions. 1:42:23 And so that's why I think it's just foolish to fight this the whole time, 1:42:27 and inevitable that it wouldn't work. 1:42:29 And this is just kind of the moment when finally it's not working. 1:42:33 Paul, I see that David Bailey is here. 1:42:36 So I know that he had posted something that was somewhat controversial earlier today 1:42:42 about miners activating a miner-activated soft fork or something like that. 1:42:47 I kind of replied to Frank and David, but I didn't finish it in time. 1:42:50 I was like literally like 90% done. 1:42:54 Well, maybe Paul, you can kind of play out how it might look 1:43:02 if there was some sort of a miner-activated soft fork. 1:43:07 If you could steal, man, what the opposition could do as far as a user-resisting soft fork. 1:43:16 I don't even know why we're having this conversation 1:43:18 because I have officially killed BIP300 and it's over. 1:43:23 I don't even know. 1:43:24 Shut this space down. 1:43:25 What was it? 1:43:26 It was like incivility or something, did he say? 1:43:28 I don't even remember the word. 1:43:30 But it was because of your actions, David. 1:43:33 We were on track and then it was your tweet. 1:43:37 And now that's it. 1:43:39 It's over. 1:43:41 So I wrote this big response to Frank. 1:43:44 So I'll just give it here verbally to people. 1:43:47 And I was going to tweet this, but I just didn't quite finish it 1:43:50 and it became 1 p.m. and I was like, darn. 1:43:53 And I didn't, you know, not enough hours in the day. 1:43:56 But I'm going to finish it and I'll send it to him. 1:43:59 But yeah, Francis seems to think that, 1:44:01 Francis favors this BIP-8 L-O-T true form of activation. 1:44:08 But I think that, and I think Francis is great. 1:44:11 I think Francis is completely crazy, but I think in a good way, 1:44:15 which is, you know, the kind of crazy that Bitcoin does certainly need some of. 1:44:19 And he runs a great service if you know anyone who's Canadian. 1:44:24 BullBitcoin. 1:44:26 So, like Francis, I think he has this preferred way of activation. 1:44:32 But I think that a couple of misunderstandings or paradoxes have emerged. 1:44:36 So I was going to send this to him and then he can reply. 1:44:39 But since we're all talking in the space, I'll just kind of talk about it. 1:44:44 Which is, he likes this BIP-8 thing. 1:44:46 And, oh my gosh, this stupid phone is, I think the phone will, 1:44:50 the app will crash again soon. 1:44:51 But I'm going to keep talking so it's not going to. 1:44:53 So, it's like, he likes this BIP-8. 1:44:56 He says you should make BIP-8, you should make like a website, 1:44:58 you should proselytize. 1:45:00 And he doesn't want the miners to be in charge. 1:45:03 But the thing, the curious thing is BIP-8 allows the miners 1:45:07 to activate the soft fork kind of early. 1:45:11 Or at least like, it's like, there's like an important date. 1:45:18 And then there's this debate over lock-in, true versus false. 1:45:24 And if it's lock-in on false, then nothing happens. 1:45:26 If you don't meet the hash rate threshold, you try again. 1:45:28 And if it's true, then you basically force the, 1:45:32 you try to force the miners to upgrade and add the feature. 1:45:36 So, this is Francis's preferred method. 1:45:39 And the weird thing is, I think that I'm more or less 1:45:42 doing that, actually. 1:45:44 That's one point. 1:45:45 There's three points. 1:45:46 I think I'm actually more or less in line with this method. 1:45:48 It's just kind of not, it's just kind of like happening 1:45:52 in a weird way that involves social media 1:45:54 and narratives going out of control. 1:45:56 But then the second thing I'd like to mention is, 1:45:59 this is, since this particular soft fork just happens 1:46:03 to be very miner-centric. 1:46:05 It just works better, BIP300 works better 1:46:09 if miners really understand it and celebrate it. 1:46:13 Since the security model, it relies entirely 1:46:17 on calculations of miner profitability, 1:46:19 fees collected by miners and stuff. 1:46:21 So, it's just, it happens to be a very miner-centric BIP, 1:46:25 whereas something like the BIP that we did 1:46:27 that bans duplicate transaction IDs, 1:46:29 it does not affect, no one needs to know anything 1:46:33 about that or the wrong S-value thing. 1:46:37 So, in that situation, it's pretty normal, 1:46:39 I would say, to talk to miners about this BIP. 1:46:43 And the other thing that I think we have to push back on, 1:46:46 which we touched on this earlier in this conversation, 1:46:49 which is the idea that miners are like the enemy 1:46:51 and everyone, miners need to be like, 1:46:55 miners are like a dangerous, wild animal. 1:46:59 And I think that's kind of mean. 1:47:01 Miners are Bitcoiners too, right? 1:47:03 So, can't we just talk to the miners? 1:47:05 Why does it have to be a big deal? 1:47:07 So, that's my second point is, 1:47:09 BIP300 is miner-centric and also, 1:47:11 why are we being so mean? 1:47:13 Miners are fine. 1:47:15 It's fun to kind of almost troll people with that 1:47:19 because people are so sensitive to it. 1:47:21 They're like the evil miner. 1:47:24 So, it's SegWit2x all over again, 1:47:26 even though that was a hard fork. 1:47:28 So, my third thing, though, 1:47:30 I realize this is very rambly, 1:47:32 but I'll get through it. 1:47:34 This third thing is that, 1:47:36 I think Francis' method actually has a kind of paradox 1:47:38 because he says BIP-8, lock-in, true. 1:47:40 But, it's like, I mean, does he think that we're going to, 1:47:44 you're going to be able to have miners 1:47:46 running around the world 1:47:48 because he says make a client first 1:47:50 and do BIP-8, 1:47:52 but BIP-8 has miner signaling. 1:47:54 So, what's the difference between that 1:47:56 and start to work on the client 1:47:58 via Luke's pull request 1:48:00 and then ask miners their opinion 1:48:02 and then have miners publish their opinion? 1:48:04 That just is BIP-8, 1:48:06 just like, you know, 1:48:08 it's like, 1:48:10 you know, 1:48:12 it's like, 1:48:14 you know, 1:48:16 that is BIP-8, 1:48:18 just like, 1:48:20 not in the software version. 1:48:22 So, it's kind of like, 1:48:24 not really any different. 1:48:26 And so, that's why I wonder about, 1:48:28 because Francis basically says 1:48:30 campaign with your client 1:48:32 and get people to install it, 1:48:34 but what if those people are miners 1:48:36 and what if they then tell the world, 1:48:38 you know, the miners are all wearing the UASF hat. 1:48:40 You know what I mean? 1:48:42 If you have a photo of a bunch of mining pools, 1:48:44 does it become a miner activated soft fork 1:48:46 at that point? 1:48:48 And then if so, 1:48:50 does Francis switch from being, 1:48:52 from saying, 1:48:54 this is the process, 1:48:56 does he switch to saying, 1:48:58 oh, this is an attack on Bitcoin? 1:49:00 Like, that's what he wanted. 1:49:02 So, I was going to send him this note 1:49:04 and hopefully he can unravel his paradox, 1:49:06 but that's my rambly speech about it. 1:49:08 I was confused about it as well 1:49:10 because I thought like with BIP-8, 1:49:13 if you don't hit your activation threshold 1:49:15 from the hash power, 1:49:17 like, you have the flag date 1:49:19 and it moves ahead, right? 1:49:21 Like, doesn't that make it easier 1:49:23 to actually get a soft fork? 1:49:25 Yeah, BIP-8 has the, 1:49:27 like, the miner threshold idea 1:49:29 contained within it, 1:49:31 or at least the last time I checked. 1:49:33 So, I don't know if, 1:49:35 I don't know if BIP-8, like, 1:49:37 it's hard to say which of these 1:49:39 had ever been tried, 1:49:41 but anyone can look this up, 1:49:43 look up BIP-8 and I think you'll find 1:49:45 that it's like you have a hash rate, 1:49:47 hash rate can activate the feature 1:49:49 and then the debate, 1:49:51 there was this debate last time 1:49:53 with Taproot about 1:49:55 what should be done if 1:49:57 the miners, 1:49:59 if we do not get enough signaling 1:50:01 and Luke, of course, 1:50:03 was militantly 1:50:05 L-O-T true 1:50:07 saying something like 1:50:09 Luke's version, 1:50:11 as well as I understand it, 1:50:13 is something along the lines of 1:50:15 the community has decided, 1:50:17 because with Luke, everything is always 1:50:19 very black and white, which is a very funny 1:50:21 thing about talking to him. 1:50:23 For example, he just says 1:50:25 we haven't had a real pope since 1:50:27 whatever the year, 1960-something. 1:50:29 So he's, and he just says that 1:50:31 with the exact same confidence that he'll say 1:50:33 some Bitcoin thing, which is always 1:50:35 quite, quite funny, 1:50:37 but Luke is a genius. He's really a genius 1:50:39 and he knows a lot about Bitcoin. 1:50:41 And so his view 1:50:43 is that we, the community, 1:50:45 have decided to upgrade to this. 1:50:47 And then it says, miners, 1:50:49 you have this long to get on board. 1:50:51 And if you don't, we don't care, 1:50:53 we are activating it anyway, because 1:50:55 it is now the next, 1:50:57 it is the protocol. 1:51:01 And I had kind of a little bit of a different view. 1:51:03 My view is more like, I'm more into 1:51:05 error correction and feedback 1:51:07 loop type of a thing, so I was kind of thinking 1:51:09 more back at the time. 1:51:11 I was thinking it should be L-O-T false, which is 1:51:13 to say, if we try to upgrade, 1:51:15 but if 1:51:17 the miners, who are the 1:51:19 main people who we can actually measure, 1:51:21 if the miners have not 1:51:23 upgraded in the time period, it kind of means 1:51:25 like something is going wrong, and so 1:51:27 it's kind of like, okay, we won't activate. 1:51:29 We will try 1:51:31 to figure out what's going wrong, 1:51:33 and then, you know, 1:51:35 fix it. And then 1:51:37 the counter argument to my point is 1:51:39 people say 1:51:41 the problem with 1:51:43 my, what was 1:51:45 my preferred thing, L-O-T 1:51:47 false, 1:51:49 the problem with my view and the 1:51:51 advantage of Luke's view 1:51:53 is that the miners can kind of like either be lazy 1:51:55 or they can use it as some kind of leverage. 1:51:57 They can say, well, 1:51:59 we 1:52:01 the miners like 1:52:03 will not, you know, it kind of like leaves the 1:52:05 door open for them to just not upgrade, 1:52:07 whereas the L-O-T true says we 1:52:09 will force them to upgrade, so 1:52:11 they might as well get it in gear 1:52:13 and do it. So, blah, blah, blah. 1:52:15 I don't know if, but that was 1:52:17 the, that was like the 1:52:19 sort of debate last time, and then Speedy 1:52:21 Trial, if I'm remembering it correctly, 1:52:23 I don't know. It was honestly kind of 1:52:25 confusing, but I think Speedy 1:52:27 Trial just came out of nowhere on the list, and then 1:52:29 made the Taproot.watch, and then 1:52:31 it just kind of happened. 1:52:33 I should 1:52:35 have researched that as to whether or not, 1:52:37 but I think it's like, I don't 1:52:39 understand why Francis thinks 1:52:41 his view is so different. This is something 1:52:43 that people really split hairs over. They really 1:52:45 think, yeah. 1:52:47 Another question is like, 1:52:49 you know, it seems like there's parts of the community 1:52:51 that are just like 1:52:53 very pro-user-activated 1:52:55 soft fork. Like, 1:52:57 could we 1:52:59 not take that same approach for BIP300 1:53:01 to a user-activated soft fork and 1:53:03 also go pitch the 1:53:05 miners on being a part of it? 1:53:07 Well, right. That's what I was trying to say 1:53:09 is that, what difference does it make? 1:53:11 Like, because the miners 1:53:13 are also users. 1:53:15 So, it's kind of like, and it's also 1:53:17 like, it's not like you would 1:53:19 have the miners activate 1:53:21 and then 1:53:23 prevent non-miners from 1:53:25 running this off. Like, no one would really want, 1:53:27 literally no one would want that, I think. 1:53:29 So, I don't, 1:53:31 so I think, that's why, 1:53:33 that's the paradox, is like, what Francis 1:53:35 would prefer, I think, his 1:53:37 optimal thing 1:53:39 is just, 1:53:41 is really like very, very, 1:53:43 very, very, very close to 1:53:45 what has 1:53:47 happened so far. 1:53:49 So, I think it's just like a weird, 1:53:51 I think this is a weird thing. 1:53:53 It's like a weird tribal, 1:53:55 this triggers people somehow. 1:53:57 But yeah, I don't, 1:53:59 but I wanted to send him this message 1:54:01 and hopefully he'll, 1:54:03 I mean, of course, if anyone can get him to 1:54:05 join the space. 1:54:07 I'll see 1:54:09 if he'll join. 1:54:11 Well, yeah, I was going to message, 1:54:13 yeah, he should join the space. 1:54:15 I redrafted this giant thing, 1:54:17 and now, 1:54:19 it's going to be useless. 1:54:21 I'll send it to him now. 1:54:25 Anyway, so yeah, 1:54:27 people really get 1:54:29 touchy, it's a very touchy 1:54:31 subject, 1:54:33 this activation, and this is ever since 1:54:35 SegWit activation, 1:54:37 and this is all because of 1:54:39 baggage that goes back many years. 1:54:41 And Paul, was there, 1:54:43 what was the most controversial 1:54:45 software prior to SegWit? 1:54:51 That's the thing, 1:54:53 the idea of this controversy didn't 1:54:55 really exist, but you could say 1:54:57 people, 1:54:59 there were a lot of 1:55:01 regrets with 1:55:03 pay to script hash. 1:55:05 There have been many times where there were regrets. 1:55:07 But there wasn't 1:55:09 controversy, 1:55:11 there wasn't controversy in the sense of, 1:55:13 I don't think there was anything like what there 1:55:15 was with SegWit. 1:55:17 SegWit was literally like, 1:55:19 because I think 1:55:21 stuff had become so high stakes 1:55:23 also, like the previous soft forks 1:55:25 were like not, many of the 1:55:27 soft, what we would call a soft fork was just 1:55:29 like some kind of boring bug fix thing, 1:55:31 like this thing that bans duplicate TXIDs. 1:55:33 Like no one, 1:55:35 there's no controversy over that. 1:55:37 And like, 1:55:39 check-lock-time-verify taking op-nop 1:55:41 2 or whatever, like, you know, 1:55:43 no one cares. 1:55:45 Like, it was not, it wasn't like a thing. 1:55:47 That would be a really funny experiment 1:55:49 if we could have a parallel universe and we 1:55:51 could say there was no 1:55:53 check-lock-time-verify somehow until 1:55:55 2023 and then just have someone just 1:55:57 come up with it 1:55:59 and to see 1:56:01 what would the, you know, 1:56:03 how badly would it be bike-shedded. 1:56:05 I don't know. That's an interesting 1:56:07 question. 1:56:17 Paul, I'd like to 1:56:19 understand more the security 1:56:21 budget as well as, you know, 1:56:23 you mentioned it was different, like, security 1:56:25 budget framing, how to see 1:56:27 it in a different light. 1:56:29 Yeah, could you 1:56:31 expand on that, please? 1:56:36 Yes. 1:56:38 The security budget, for some reason, this has taken 1:56:40 on some kind of controversial element 1:56:42 and I have absolutely no idea 1:56:44 why. I think it's because of 1:56:46 this delusion people have that 1:56:48 in the future people will willingly pay 1:56:50 $50 per 1:56:52 transaction as a fee 1:56:54 for the privilege of using 1:56:56 the great and sacred Bitcoin. 1:56:58 And I think that 1:57:00 but I don't know, 1:57:02 I don't even understand how would that connect. 1:57:04 I can smell the correlation 1:57:06 but I don't even know why. But anyway, 1:57:08 it shouldn't be controversial at all. It's a very simple idea. 1:57:10 It's just saying 1:57:12 the total 1:57:14 amount of money we 1:57:16 pay to miners, 1:57:18 that's miners' revenue. 1:57:20 And they can't 1:57:22 spend any more than that, you know what I mean? 1:57:24 Because they run a business. 1:57:26 So they have to pay for all their 1:57:28 costs and including the cost of their own time, 1:57:30 the opportunity cost, etc. 1:57:32 So we have all the miners' costs. 1:57:34 Now, some miners spend 1:57:36 less on hashing than others 1:57:38 and they're all equally efficient. 1:57:40 Eventually, 1:57:42 the difficulty will rise and put some 1:57:44 out of business. 1:57:46 So this total amount of money that we 1:57:48 pay to miners, which is the total L1 fees. 1:57:50 So let's say the L1 fees are 1:57:52 $5,000 per block. It's just a made-up number. 1:57:54 I'm just making up numbers. 1:57:56 We pay the miners 1:57:58 $5,000 per block. 1:58:00 This is 1:58:02 what it costs to 1:58:04 this number happens to be equal to several 1:58:06 different things at once that all seem 1:58:08 kind of unrelated but are not. 1:58:10 So first of all, if you want to 1:58:12 censor all those 1:58:14 transactions, the opportunity cost 1:58:16 you pay is $5,000. 1:58:18 And if you want to 1:58:20 instead inscribe a JPEG of yourself, 1:58:22 you pay the opportunity cost 1:58:24 of $5,000 to do that. 1:58:26 And so 1:58:28 this total fees is equal to 1:58:30 the value of the block, which is also equal to 1:58:32 what it would cost 1:58:34 to destroy the block, basically, 1:58:36 which is also equal to what it would cost to 1:58:38 denial of service 1:58:40 attack, mute 1:58:42 the block. 1:58:44 So this is $5,000 per block. That's what it costs to 1:58:46 make the block. That is the miner's 1:58:48 revenue for the block. That is also 1:58:50 basically the miner's 1:58:52 costs. $5,000 1:58:54 per block should be about their costs 1:58:56 if you include all the economic 1:58:58 opportunity costs, 1:59:00 cost of capital, 1:59:02 cost of profit, whatever, etc. 1:59:04 So 1:59:06 eventually, the total amount of money 1:59:08 paid to miners should be 1:59:10 the total amount of money that miners 1:59:12 spend on hashing. So it should be equal 1:59:14 to the cost of the proof of work, 1:59:16 basically. And this should also 1:59:18 be equal to the cost of renting 1:59:20 100% of the hash rate 1:59:22 because 1:59:24 it's just the miner's 1:59:26 costs. So that's how much 1:59:28 it should cost to rent it out in some kind 1:59:30 of abstract economic way. 1:59:32 And additionally, 1:59:34 this would be the cost of 1:59:36 not only renting 100% of the hash rate 1:59:38 but it should also be the net present value of that 1:59:40 cost should be how much it would cost to build 1:59:42 the entire parallel 1:59:44 hashing. 1:59:46 If you wanted 1:59:48 to copy and paste and double the size of the 1:59:50 Bitcoin mining universe, 1:59:52 it should cost you 1:59:54 the net present value of the 1:59:56 security budget number. 1:59:58 So this is the cost of doing 2:00:00 a 51% attack. 2:00:02 This is the cost of the block. 2:00:04 This is the cost of... 2:00:06 This is the proof of work number. 2:00:08 So 2:00:10 one thing that's important to keep in mind 2:00:12 is that this is a per time number. 2:00:14 It's $5,000 per block, 2:00:16 $5,000 per 10 minutes. So you could take 2:00:18 net present value if you wished, but it's 2:00:20 $5,000 per time. 2:00:22 And as a result, 2:00:24 it's sort of like this is how much it would cost 2:00:26 if you wanted to hold down a button 2:00:28 that disables the Bitcoin 2:00:30 network. Because you 2:00:32 could just mine empty blocks or you could mine blocks that are 2:00:34 filled with transactions that 2:00:36 are from you to yourself 2:00:38 which sort of don't look empty 2:00:40 but they de facto are empty. 2:00:42 And so 2:00:44 this is the cost of attacking 2:00:46 the Bitcoin network 2:00:48 from the proof of work direction. 2:00:50 This is how much does it cost. 2:00:52 If it only costs $0.10 2:00:54 a year to make all these blocks, 2:00:56 then we basically don't have 2:00:58 any proof of work. 2:01:00 Because anyone can just rewrite 2:01:02 six blocks as something that anyone's CPU 2:01:04 could do because it only costs $0.10 a year. 2:01:06 But on the other 2:01:08 hand, the higher this number gets, 2:01:10 the more expensive it is to 2:01:14 interfere with 2:01:16 what the miners do, which is 2:01:18 order transactions 2:01:20 and order blocks 2:01:22 and order trajectories 2:01:24 of blocks. 2:01:26 So it's 2:01:28 kind of just an interesting idea that all these things 2:01:30 are the same number in a 2:01:32 sense of being a zoomed 2:01:34 out economic theory point 2:01:36 of view. So some people say 2:01:38 the security budget isn't real, but I don't know what 2:01:40 they mean because all it's doing 2:01:42 is adding up the total amount of money paid to 2:01:44 miners. And that undoubtedly 2:01:46 is real. 2:01:48 So that's the idea. And I wrote this huge post 2:01:50 about it. You can 2:01:52 find it, I think, 2:01:54 securitybudget2 2:01:56 when I discuss merge mining. 2:01:58 And it's 2:02:00 securitybudget2 2:02:02 low fees merge mining. 2:02:04 Great. Yes. 2:02:06 I know about the blog post, but 2:02:08 do you think you could also try to 2:02:10 well, try harder to try to understand 2:02:12 what Luke Dashjr.'s 2:02:14 concerns are? And maybe there's somebody else 2:02:16 in this space that 2:02:18 understands what Luke 2:02:20 Dash Jr.'s 2:02:22 understanding is of 2:02:24 this security 2:02:26 budget issue. I don't know 2:02:28 if Luke has ever commented on this security 2:02:30 budget issue. It's not him that 2:02:32 it's these other people. 2:02:34 Who was it? 2:02:36 Sometimes like the people 2:02:38 who are like 2:02:40 the space dean kind of 2:02:42 group. 2:02:44 They just think 2:02:46 it's kind of like... 2:02:48 Who knows? I think this is something 2:02:50 like it implies that 2:02:52 there's a certain amount of 2:02:54 fees that is needed for security. 2:02:56 And whereas they say they don't 2:02:58 really buy the 10 cents a year thing. 2:03:00 They just think, well, it's probably going to work 2:03:02 no matter what the number is. Or they just think 2:03:04 something. But anyway, maybe Joe will tell us. 2:03:06 Hey, yeah. 2:03:08 I just related 2:03:10 to that topic. I just wanted the smart people in this 2:03:12 room to just think about one thing. 2:03:14 So when miners 51% 2:03:16 Bitcoin, they still get the 2:03:18 subsidy. So the subsidy 2:03:20 isn't clearly related 2:03:22 to certain aspects of Bitcoin 2:03:24 security. And I 2:03:26 just think this makes the argument for more transaction 2:03:28 fees even better. So I 2:03:30 just wanted to say that. So kind of 2:03:32 Paul's sort of 2:03:34 steel manning that 2:03:36 concern a little bit. 2:03:38 But transaction fees are even better 2:03:40 than subsidy. So 2:03:42 that's all. 2:03:46 The subsidies, of course, this 2:03:48 number used to be 50 Bitcoin 2:03:50 per block and then 25 and then it halves 2:03:52 every four years and now it's six-ish 2:03:54 Bitcoin 2:03:56 per block. And 2:03:58 if you just mine empty 2:04:00 blocks, so you mine transactions that 2:04:02 pay from yourself to yourself, and they 2:04:04 pay a fee from yourself to yourself, 2:04:06 you're still getting 6 BTC 2:04:08 change. 2:04:10 You're still getting that subsidy. So you don't actually 2:04:12 lose anything by being 2:04:14 an attacker, but the fees are what you do 2:04:16 lose. 2:04:20 Paul, I'm interested in 2:04:22 your thoughts on 2:04:24 activation of BIPs 2:04:26 more broadly through this process. 2:04:28 Like, after 2:04:30 our space yesterday, we did like another 2:04:32 space right afterwards. I was on spaces like all 2:04:34 day yesterday. 2:05:03 create like a shelling point around certain ideas to be put forward. 2:05:07 And over time, those kind of structures have eroded to now we're starting to find ourselves in this place where like no one really is quite sure about how something moves forward. 2:05:19 And I don't want to call it a crisis of confidence because I feel like that's a reach. 2:05:26 But, you know, I think that there's like a bigger issue here of like how does stuff get activated, period? 2:05:35 Like who's calling the shots? 2:05:39 And if no one's calling the shots, how do things happen? 2:05:42 And, you know, I feel like we've like demonized the minor activated soft fork, but it does seem like that is the most straightforward way to have something 2:05:56 be activated. 2:05:58 And, you know, I'm just interested in hearing your thoughts on it in general. 2:06:04 Like, you know, should it be an easier process or should there be like a, I don't want to say an easier process, like the process of getting BIP300 activated? 2:06:17 Like, what do you think it's going to do in terms of creating a, I don't know what the right way to frame this is, a treaded path for other BIPs to follow down later? 2:06:34 I think that it's so, for starters, the minor activated soft fork, it's really like basically the case that every soft fork that has activated has been a minor activated soft fork. 2:06:51 Taproot was a speedy trial and the miners upgraded it. 2:06:55 No one, no one would ever, we would never know if it was LOT true or LOT false because the miners upgraded. 2:07:03 So it didn't even, it was a moot point. 2:07:06 And then with the SegWit UASF, certainly the UASF happened and kind of held the gun to the miners' heads, but they actually activated SegWit before they, before it would have, before the UASF part would have kicked in. 2:07:24 And they did anyway, as part of their signed agreement that they'd signed in May, the 83% of the hash signed the SegWit, the infamous SegWit2x agreement. 2:07:33 But the agreement was to activate SegWit and then later try to do this block size, which of course, that was a really doomed idea. 2:07:42 And there was lots to say about that traumatic event in Bitcoin's history. 2:07:47 But yeah, every soft fork has been like activated, like, you know, well, that's not exactly the case. 2:07:54 The one with the same transaction ID, which is BIP-30, I think. 2:07:58 But that was March 2012. 2:08:01 So, and then the one that I mentioned before, the Pagescript hash, that was, what was that, BIP-16, the multisig-ish one. 2:08:11 That one had a funny, there was so much regret with that one, where something, like, there was a 55 hash rate threshold, but not enough miners activated it, so it was, like, delayed. 2:08:25 They pushed it back a month. 2:08:27 So, that was also in 2012. 2:08:30 So, like, does it matter what happened in 2012? 2:08:32 I don't know. 2:08:33 But everything was miner activated. 2:08:36 And it's, like, to your point, like, it's like a paradox. 2:08:40 Miners are users. 2:08:42 So, if we want users to be wearing hats and signaling that they are activating, they go on their website and they say, we support SegWit. 2:08:51 They put UASF in their Twitter. 2:08:55 How is that any different than a miner, you know, upgrading and putting that in the blocks? 2:09:00 Like, at least we can prove that they are what they say they are. 2:09:03 It seems to be a strict improvement. 2:09:05 So, I get it. 2:09:06 I see Francis in the audience. 2:09:08 Can we have him come up to talk about BitBait? 2:09:11 I wrote you a big thing, but I just barely didn't finish it in time. 2:09:16 Before, like, Francis speaks, my question to that is, like, is it necessarily bad that that is how activations happen? 2:09:31 And, like, what is the right way, if users wanted to reject BIP300, what is the most effective and appropriate way for them to do that? 2:09:42 So, that there is tension on both sides of the activation process. 2:09:47 Well, I think, what's the best way to, I think, so, like, personally, I don't think of it as, like, a subjective thing. 2:09:56 I just think of it as, like, software should meet certain criteria and they should be, it doesn't interfere with any other Bitcoin operation. 2:10:05 Like, on the technical level. 2:10:07 Like, if people are trying to send money to each other, or people are trying to use multi-sig, or people are trying to use whatever, 2:10:13 then they should not, like, the BIP should be written so that it doesn't interfere with, 2:10:20 and it also doesn't interfere with other more nebulous things, like, how much, how difficult it is to do upkeep on the code, 2:10:27 and how difficult it is to review the code. 2:10:29 Those things persist through time. 2:10:32 But I see it as, like, you know, the soft fork should not harm anything. 2:10:38 And I think that's really the only criterion, and once that criterion is met, 2:10:42 I don't see the difference between a soft fork and any other pull request, really, other than, 2:10:49 well, I mean, there's some differences, but I don't see any fundamental difference. 2:10:54 The soft fork should not break public contracts. 2:10:59 Sorry? I couldn't really hear you there. 2:11:02 The soft fork should not break public contracts. 2:11:07 Yeah, well, it shouldn't break any existing use case of Bitcoin. 2:11:13 I mean, plenty of stuff is merging to Bitcoin all the time that, and if it could break Bitcoin, 2:11:20 you know, of course it doesn't, but it's like there was a speed up. 2:11:23 I don't want to, you know, this could happen to anyone, but there was a speed, a tiny bug 2:11:27 where that allowed inflation that was just to, like, speed up some operation 2:11:32 by a few milliseconds or something. 2:11:35 So, but that's part of, part of what makes the soft fork great is that people don't have to upgrade. 2:11:42 You can stay on the old, if you really didn't want to, if you don't want the feature, 2:11:45 you actually can just not upgrade. 2:11:48 Second was kind of an unusual case, and also script versioning is very nuanced, 2:11:53 so it's unfortunate that I think, I actually think that probably we should just retire 2:11:59 the entire, the whole hard and soft fork language. 2:12:04 I think it's probably doing more harms than good or whatever, 2:12:08 because I think the, it's kind of like, it encourages people to, 2:12:17 people don't think about it as, like, the right way, which is like, 2:12:21 this is objectively a good idea. 2:12:23 Maybe this is evading the answer or something, I don't know. 2:12:26 No, I agree with you completely there, Paul. 2:12:29 It's so easy to misunderstand it, and it can become controversial very quickly. 2:12:35 Yeah, let's just do away with the terminology. 2:12:38 Anyway, listen, I'm going to bed. 2:12:40 It's like 3 o'clock in the morning. 2:12:42 Thanks very much. 2:12:43 Good night. 2:12:44 Anyway, Francis, I was going to write you this big thing, 2:12:47 and it was only 12.55, and then I didn't finish it, 2:12:50 but what I'm trying to say is a couple of different things, 2:12:53 which is, okay, so as I understand it, 2:12:56 the way you prefer things to be activated is make BIP-8 LLT true client 2:13:02 that is not officially affiliated with Bitcoin Core, like, per se, 2:13:07 and then, like, make a website and then proselytize and get people to wear hats. 2:13:11 And then hope that it activates on the day. 2:13:14 And is that more or less the shape of it? 2:13:17 Hey, Paul, I just joined. 2:13:20 Were you asking this question to me? 2:13:22 Yes. 2:13:23 Yes, I think that's the best way to activate the soft fork. 2:13:26 I was listening to, like, the last five minutes. 2:13:29 First things is you are correct in saying 2:13:32 that the miners ultimately activate the soft fork. 2:13:35 They are the ones who technically activate the soft fork. 2:13:38 They are the ones who technically deliver, you know, 2:13:41 the block production to the users. 2:13:44 And with SegWit, as you pointed out, 2:13:47 the users can't activate the soft fork without the miners agreeing to it. 2:13:52 That's why, you know, BIP-8 exists. 2:13:55 That's why BIP-148 existed. 2:13:57 It was, as you mentioned, to put a gun to the miners' heads 2:14:01 and to force them to activate the soft fork. 2:14:04 And I think, you know, 2:14:07 before kind of like Taproot 2:14:11 and before BIP300 and BIP-119, 2:14:15 the premise was that we were afraid 2:14:18 that miners would refuse to activate a soft fork. 2:14:22 We would refuse, you know, for whatever reason. 2:14:25 And the users wanted or needed to have a mechanism 2:14:28 to force the miners to activate the soft fork. 2:14:31 So this is what essentially BIP-148 did. 2:14:38 I think BIP-8 locking on time equals true 2:14:41 with a good decent activation period is the way to go. 2:14:45 The decent activation period is also so that the users 2:14:49 who want to reject that soft fork can have time 2:14:52 to properly mount a user-resistant soft fork 2:14:55 and to also, you know, put a gun to the miners' heads 2:14:58 to activate the soft fork. 2:14:59 What really worries me about a soft fork 2:15:02 is that the users do not have the time 2:15:05 to have their say either with speedy trial. 2:15:07 And I agree with you. 2:15:08 I don't think speedy trial was a good idea at all. 2:15:11 I think the concept of speedy trial is that it's so fast 2:15:15 that users who don't want a soft fork, 2:15:18 they don't have the time to mount a resistance. 2:15:21 And what's worse than that is, you know, a secret soft fork. 2:15:24 As you pointed out, which, by the way, 2:15:27 I feel like the first time I was made a little bit wary 2:15:31 of BIP300, and, you know, you and I have talked about this, 2:15:34 I don't have any strong opinion towards BIP300. 2:15:37 I kind of even had a little kind of, like, bias 2:15:40 towards BIP300 because I'm generally a fan of sidechains, 2:15:43 even though, you know, as we've discussed, 2:15:46 I think the market... 2:15:47 That's another issue, 2:15:48 but I don't think the market really wants them. 2:15:51 But I kind of have a little, you know, small bias 2:15:54 towards sidechains. 2:15:55 I think what's really dangerous is a secret soft fork. 2:15:58 So in the case of a secret soft fork, 2:16:00 the miners could, as you point out, 2:16:02 activate a soft fork. 2:16:03 Nobody would even know that there is a soft fork. 2:16:06 And then we would presumably only discover 2:16:09 that there is a soft fork afterwards 2:16:12 by, you know, running the sidechain's capable clients, 2:16:16 assuming it's not, you know, in Bitcoin Core. 2:16:20 And then we would be in front of an accomplished fact. 2:16:24 And if that's the case, 2:16:26 then the only thing that we can do as users 2:16:29 to prevent that soft fork 2:16:31 from remaining active on the Bitcoin network 2:16:34 is to force... essentially force a chain split. 2:16:37 I don't know exactly the mechanism 2:16:38 that would be used to do that, 2:16:40 but it would essentially force the network 2:16:42 into a chain split. 2:16:44 And obviously, that's a terrible outcome 2:16:47 because that would create a downtime 2:16:50 in the Bitcoin network. 2:16:52 The best outcome for the miners in that case 2:16:54 is that there's like a week or two 2:16:56 of downtime in the Bitcoin network. 2:16:58 There would probably be loss of funds 2:17:00 on one chain, on the losing chain, 2:17:02 and that would be a terrible outcome 2:17:04 for everybody in the network. 2:17:06 And you also said that, okay, 2:17:10 if the soft fork meets certain parameters, 2:17:13 one of the parameters that you outlined 2:17:14 was that there is no externality imposed 2:17:18 on other users of the Bitcoin network. 2:17:20 There's no harm done to the Bitcoin network. 2:17:22 And I know that you believe that BIP300 2:17:25 doesn't have any externality or harm 2:17:27 on the rest of the Bitcoin network. 2:17:29 Honestly, I haven't paid that much attention 2:17:32 to BIP300 to be able to determine 2:17:35 whether or not there is some harm 2:17:38 on other users. 2:17:40 There is one thing that you cannot 2:17:42 opt out of, though, in Bitcoin 2:17:45 is we all share the same hashers. 2:17:47 So we all have the same hashers 2:17:49 providing the service to us. 2:17:50 We all share the same unit of account 2:17:53 and we all share the same brand. 2:17:55 So whether or not the soft fork 2:17:58 has a direct harm on people 2:18:01 who don't opt in, 2:18:04 if, for some reason, 2:18:07 it causes a misalignment of incentives 2:18:09 with miners, which is, I guess, 2:18:10 a popular concern with BIP300, 2:18:13 or if it causes some impact, 2:18:16 if the existence of Drivechain 2:18:18 or BIP300 causes some impact 2:18:20 on the Bitcoin price, 2:18:21 on Bitcoin reputation, 2:18:23 this affects all of us. 2:18:25 So, as I said, 2:18:28 I think if you want to activate BIP300 2:18:31 or any soft fork, run a BIP8 client 2:18:34 that has a long enough activation period 2:18:37 so that the miners can make up their minds. 2:18:39 The miners are going to see, 2:18:40 okay, there's a constituency of people 2:18:42 that are willing to fork me off 2:18:44 if I don't activate a soft fork. 2:18:46 There's also another constituency 2:18:48 of people that are willing 2:18:50 to fork me off if I activate 2:18:52 this soft fork. 2:18:53 And then we can let the game theory 2:18:55 kind of like play itself out. 2:18:57 But if you do... 2:18:58 And ideally, the miners are going 2:19:01 to be able to gauge 2:19:03 somehow the commitments 2:19:06 and dedication and motivation 2:19:09 and capital behind one group or another 2:19:11 and be able to make a decision 2:19:13 that reflects consensus. 2:19:15 I also posted a meme today 2:19:18 regarding consensus. 2:19:19 We can't know what the outcome, 2:19:22 what the consensus truly is 2:19:24 unless there is a chain split. 2:19:25 The only way to know 2:19:27 where consensus truly lies 2:19:29 is if there is a chain split 2:19:32 and that chain split is resolved 2:19:33 for a winning side, 2:19:34 which in UASF, 2:19:35 we didn't have a chain split. 2:19:36 It was resolved before, 2:19:38 presumably because the miners 2:19:40 understood that 2:19:42 they were going to end up 2:19:43 on a losing chain. 2:19:45 So yeah, that's my thoughts on that. 2:19:47 So what really concerns me 2:19:49 is the idea of a secret hard fork 2:19:51 which is activated 2:19:53 and then later, 2:19:55 just randomly, we figure out 2:19:56 that the soft fork has been activated 2:19:58 and then those who want to oppose it 2:20:01 are forced into the decision 2:20:02 of forcing a chain split. 2:20:04 And since it's already been activated, 2:20:07 there's a good, decent chance 2:20:09 that there would be a chain split 2:20:11 if users were to, for example, 2:20:14 say, okay, we're going to invalidate 2:20:15 the blocks of miners 2:20:17 who are running BIP300 2:20:20 or implementing a sidechain. 2:20:24 Yeah, I hear you. 2:20:25 I think that makes perfect sense 2:20:26 because more time 2:20:29 is something that usually, 2:20:32 like an attacker 2:20:33 or someone who's up to something bad, 2:20:35 they normally would want to rush things 2:20:38 because they say, 2:20:39 well, I'll do this 2:20:40 and then it will be the fait accompli. 2:20:44 Amusingly, I was amused 2:20:45 that you translated it into English 2:20:47 because in English, 2:20:48 we never say fait accompli. 2:20:51 But I think, 2:20:52 so I hear what you're saying 2:20:53 and I have actually a lot of comments 2:20:54 and I wrote a bunch down. 2:20:58 So, okay, 2:20:59 so I think there's some interesting points 2:21:02 that may be like some misunderstandings 2:21:04 or something. 2:21:05 So it's not like, 2:21:07 which is not like, 2:21:09 okay, what I mean by that 2:21:10 is it's like BIP300 2:21:11 is like a miner-centric idea. 2:21:13 So I think it's kind of normal 2:21:15 to talk to the miners about it 2:21:18 first, 2:21:20 before even, 2:21:21 because it's kind of like 2:21:22 if they don't like the idea, 2:21:23 then it's already dead. 2:21:24 So then it would never even progress. 2:21:26 You know what I mean? 2:21:27 It's not like the soft fork 2:21:28 that requires the Coinbase transaction 2:21:30 to include the block height 2:21:32 where it's like, 2:21:35 it's like some, 2:21:36 it's not really, 2:21:37 this is like a slightly more ambitious 2:21:38 type of thing. 2:21:39 So you'd say, 2:21:40 okay, we'll go to the, 2:21:41 we'll talk to the miners first 2:21:42 and see if they're even interested in this, 2:21:43 because if they are definitely not, 2:21:45 then the idea is already dead. 2:21:47 But if you go and you say, 2:21:48 well, 2:21:49 you know, 2:21:50 the thing about like, 2:21:51 if we go, 2:21:52 we're not going to go and ask them, 2:21:53 like, 2:21:54 are you interested in pay-to-script hash 2:21:55 or something? 2:21:56 Like, 2:21:57 we don't really care 2:21:58 if they are interested 2:21:59 in pay-to-script hash 2:22:00 and neither do they. 2:22:01 So I think, 2:22:02 and also another thing 2:22:03 is that when I pointed out 2:22:04 the secret soft fork, 2:22:05 that's partly because, 2:22:06 I hate for that to be misunderstood. 2:22:08 Like, 2:22:09 as you probably know, 2:22:10 Francis, 2:22:11 I write on my blog 2:22:12 a lot about, 2:22:13 I wrote like this post 2:22:14 the UASF contradiction 2:22:15 and I wrote this thing 2:22:16 about the miner-activated hard fork 2:22:17 and this is like 30, 2:22:18 40 pages 2:22:19 of just like, 2:22:20 kind of like theoretical 2:22:23 interest 2:22:24 in how 2:22:25 people activate forks 2:22:26 or what they are. 2:22:27 So I kind of was like tweeting that 2:22:29 in the vein 2:22:30 of like a researcher 2:22:31 pointing out 2:22:33 a potential 2:22:35 problem. 2:22:36 I wasn't really, 2:22:37 and similarly 2:22:38 when I said, 2:22:39 I was sort of saying, 2:22:40 well I really think 2:22:41 this is inevitable 2:22:42 because I think it's, 2:22:43 it makes, 2:22:44 miners can make 2:22:45 a ton of money off of this 2:22:46 if it works 2:22:47 and it's the long-run 2:22:48 security model 2:22:49 of Bitcoin 2:22:50 so we might as well 2:22:51 try it early 2:22:52 and see if it works. 2:22:54 So, 2:22:55 some of the things 2:22:56 I wrote down, 2:22:57 we do all share 2:22:58 the same miners 2:22:59 and the same price 2:23:00 and the same reputation 2:23:02 but that is kind of 2:23:03 like a double-edged 2:23:04 argument 2:23:05 because 2:23:06 it's saying 2:23:07 if something bad 2:23:08 is done 2:23:09 then everyone suffers 2:23:10 but also 2:23:11 if something good 2:23:12 is done 2:23:13 then everyone benefits 2:23:14 so it's kind of like 2:23:15 it kind of becomes 2:23:16 a, 2:23:17 they're all kind of 2:23:18 tied up into one 2:23:19 because of course 2:23:20 the reputation 2:23:21 influences the price. 2:23:22 It's miners, 2:23:23 price, 2:23:24 reputation. 2:23:25 But they're really 2:23:26 kind of all the same 2:23:27 thing to some extent 2:23:28 because 2:23:29 the price 2:23:30 and the reputation 2:23:31 are obviously related 2:23:32 and the miners 2:23:33 are paid in BTC 2:23:34 only 2:23:35 and so 2:23:36 they 2:23:38 did you want to say something? 2:23:40 No, no, no. 2:23:41 Go ahead. 2:23:42 So, 2:23:43 the miners are paid 2:23:44 in BTC 2:23:45 and they must pay 2:23:46 they have to pay 2:23:47 like in electricity 2:23:48 and like in 2:23:49 physical items 2:23:50 that are not BTC 2:23:51 so they're always 2:23:52 in BTC world 2:23:54 and so it's kind of like 2:23:55 they're kind of 2:23:56 all the same thing 2:23:57 and then at that point 2:23:58 that kind of 2:23:59 reintroduces the idea 2:24:00 of is it really 2:24:01 the worst thing 2:24:02 like a 51% 2:24:03 miner threshold 2:24:04 because it's actually 2:24:05 a pretty decent take 2:24:06 on 2:24:07 price, reputation, 2:24:08 miner 2:24:09 like 2:24:10 hashers 2:24:11 it's kind of like 2:24:12 they're all 2:24:13 somewhat aligned 2:24:14 but another thing 2:24:15 I wanted to say is 2:24:16 I kind of don't see 2:24:17 what I have been 2:24:18 doing is out of line 2:24:19 with your 2:24:20 preferred 2:24:21 activation method 2:24:22 because 2:24:23 Luke's pull request 2:24:24 didn't have any 2:24:25 activation logic 2:24:26 in it at all 2:24:27 so it could never 2:24:28 activate by itself 2:24:29 and of course 2:24:30 the pull request 2:24:32 doesn't work 2:24:33 for you 2:24:34 even if it's 2:24:35 never actually merged 2:24:36 into 2:24:37 core 2:24:38 because 2:24:39 you kind of 2:24:40 have to have 2:24:41 review of the code 2:24:42 and of the details 2:24:43 until there's 2:24:44 the reviewed code 2:24:45 there can't be 2:24:46 a client 2:24:47 or any client 2:24:48 so 2:24:49 I don't think 2:24:50 you've done 2:24:51 anything 2:24:52 that's 2:24:53 contrary 2:24:54 to 2:24:55 you know 2:24:56 at least publicly 2:24:57 I'm gonna 2:24:58 trust you on that 2:24:59 Paul 2:25:00 that's contrary 2:25:01 to 2:25:02 a soft fork 2:25:04 you haven't 2:25:05 for example 2:25:06 you know 2:25:07 proposed 2:25:08 a speedy 2:25:09 pull request 2:25:10 to Bitcoin core 2:25:11 as far as I can tell 2:25:12 have you 2:25:13 or I don't think so 2:25:14 no I have not 2:25:15 I have not done 2:25:16 anything about 2:25:17 well this is 2:25:18 part of the problem 2:25:19 is activation 2:25:20 was so traumatic 2:25:21 because of SegWit 2:25:22 and that now 2:25:23 people don't even 2:25:24 it's a third rail 2:25:25 don't even want to 2:25:26 don't even want 2:25:27 to have conversations 2:25:28 about it 2:25:29 and honestly 2:25:30 it's more traumatic 2:25:31 than SegWit 2:25:32 maybe not 2:25:33 more traumatic 2:25:34 but more dangerous 2:25:35 because 2:25:36 you know 2:25:37 and also with 2:25:38 you know 2:25:39 a lot of my concern 2:25:40 stems from 2:25:41 the taproot activation 2:25:42 I was 2:25:43 friends 2:25:44 with 2:25:45 a guy 2:25:46 who works at a 2:25:47 really big mining pool 2:25:48 and 2:25:49 he told me 2:25:50 his side of the story 2:25:51 with taproot 2:25:52 which was that 2:25:53 you know 2:25:54 he was on the phone 2:25:55 with other mining pools 2:25:56 and their mentality 2:25:57 was 2:25:58 we're gonna 2:25:59 get taproot 2:26:00 activated 2:26:01 ASAP 2:26:02 and the mining pools 2:26:03 actually did have 2:26:04 you know 2:26:05 I wouldn't call them 2:26:06 like secret cabal 2:26:07 kind of negotiations 2:26:08 but they definitely 2:26:09 had private meetings 2:26:10 where 2:26:11 a bunch of pools 2:26:12 just basically decided 2:26:13 we are going to 2:26:14 activate taproot 2:26:15 what was a little bit 2:26:16 more traumatic 2:26:17 to me was that 2:26:18 okay 2:26:19 that was done 2:26:20 in collusion 2:26:21 with the bitcoin 2:26:22 core developers 2:26:23 which you know 2:26:24 by integrating 2:26:25 the taproot 2:26:26 speedy trial 2:26:27 into 2:26:28 the core itself 2:26:29 you're kind of like 2:26:30 forcing everybody 2:26:31 all right 2:26:32 if you want to 2:26:33 continue using 2:26:34 the updates 2:26:35 to bitcoin core 2:26:36 and the reference client 2:26:37 and all the optimizations 2:26:38 and security patches 2:26:39 that come with it 2:26:40 you need to 2:26:41 you know 2:26:42 you don't have a choice 2:26:43 you need to 2:26:44 opt out of bitcoin core 2:26:45 if you don't want to 2:26:46 activate 2:26:47 you know 2:26:48 this soft fork 2:26:49 what concerned me 2:26:50 to be honest 2:26:51 was 2:26:52 David's comments 2:26:53 about 2:26:54 you know 2:26:55 okay so there's 2:26:56 miners talking 2:26:57 when I hear that 2:26:58 I feel 2:26:59 or I feel 2:27:00 okay so 2:27:01 miners are talking 2:27:02 to each other 2:27:03 kind of like 2:27:04 similar to taproot 2:27:05 there's the idea 2:27:06 of the secret 2:27:07 hard fork 2:27:08 that's floating around 2:27:09 there's 2:27:10 people that might 2:27:11 be trying to convince 2:27:12 them hey 2:27:13 you know 2:27:14 if the bitcoin 2:27:15 laser 2:27:16 bitcoin maxi 2:27:17 laser eyed people 2:27:18 don't want to 2:27:19 activate this 2:27:20 are you aware 2:27:21 that you could 2:27:22 secretly 2:27:23 activate this 2:27:24 soft fork 2:27:25 that's the scenario 2:27:26 it's not that 2:27:27 hard 2:27:28 to convince 2:27:29 miners 2:27:30 to do something 2:27:31 like that 2:27:32 you know 2:27:33 for example 2:27:34 for bitcoin unlimited 2:27:35 you'll probably 2:27:36 remember Paul 2:27:37 the two men 2:27:38 brothers 2:27:39 you know 2:27:40 these two guys 2:27:41 the two men 2:27:42 brothers 2:27:43 yeah so 2:27:44 they spent 2:27:45 they spent 2:27:46 yeah 2:27:47 they you know 2:27:48 they were wiped 2:27:49 out from bitcoin 2:27:50 history 2:27:51 they recused 2:27:52 themselves 2:27:53 from bitcoin 2:27:54 history 2:27:55 and you know 2:27:56 the one 2:27:57 that the one 2:27:58 was like 2:27:59 blazed out of his 2:28:00 mind 2:28:01 he's like 2:28:02 yeah 2:28:03 well 2:28:04 it's a story 2:28:05 for a different 2:28:06 time 2:28:07 yeah 2:28:08 but you know 2:28:09 what they did 2:28:10 was they 2:28:11 they went 2:28:12 to convince 2:28:13 the bitcoin 2:28:14 miners 2:28:15 to run 2:28:16 bitcoin unlimited 2:28:17 i can't remember 2:28:18 either was 2:28:19 bitcoin unlimited 2:28:20 or 2:28:21 uh 2:28:22 classic 2:28:23 i thought 2:28:24 it's a signal 2:28:25 for classic 2:28:26 like 40 percent 2:28:27 50 percent 2:28:28 or something 2:28:29 like that 2:28:30 um 2:28:31 and then 2:28:32 in the case 2:28:33 of taproot 2:28:34 it really 2:28:35 was a small 2:28:36 number of 2:28:37 developers 2:28:38 that 2:28:39 contacted 2:28:40 a small 2:28:41 number 2:28:42 of mining 2:28:43 pools 2:28:44 and told 2:28:45 them hey 2:28:46 like 2:28:47 we're gonna 2:28:48 merge 2:28:49 this into 2:28:50 bitcoin 2:28:51 core 2:28:52 do you 2:28:53 know 2:28:54 we were the 2:28:55 bitcoin developer 2:28:56 kind of 2:28:57 group of 2:28:58 group of 2:28:59 peers 2:29:00 that felt 2:29:01 like okay 2:29:02 we 2:29:03 we feel like 2:29:04 taproot has 2:29:05 consensus 2:29:06 there there's 2:29:07 not a lot 2:29:08 of opposition 2:29:09 to it 2:29:10 um 2:29:11 we don't want 2:29:12 to go 2:29:13 through another 2:29:14 UASF 2:29:15 we don't want 2:29:16 to go 2:29:17 through another 2:29:18 bit nine 2:29:19 episode 2:29:20 um 2:29:21 you just 2:29:22 don't want 2:29:23 to go 2:29:24 through another 2:29:25 episode 2:29:26 um 2:29:27 so 2:29:28 um 2:29:29 we 2:29:40 know if a soft fork is deployed for example it inevitably will like become adopted by nodes over 2:29:44 time like that's that's just something right and in the case of SegWit okay um we had the block size 2:29:50 increase with SegWit that was added as a soft fork and now you know everybody's using SegWit 2:29:56 because it's become the standard and you don't really have a choice to opt into to opt out of 2:30:01 you know the the four megabyte blocks that are now being mined on bitcoin you know we had a 2:30:07 almost a three and a half four x block size increase with SegWit as a soft fork and whether 2:30:13 or not you know you implement SegWit yourself or you use SegWit yourself you have to deal with the 2:30:19 fact that most bitcoin transactions you know have witness transactions or not sure if most but a lot 2:30:26 of them and we now have four megabyte blocks and if you want to run a four full archival node then 2:30:32 you need to spend four times more you know disk space and bandwidth to do that um so that's that's 2:30:38 really mainly my concern and again i do understand that your and your point is that there's no 2:30:44 downside to Drivechains because it doesn't affect um the other users but you know that's that's also 2:30:51 not up to the miners to decide because if there are downsides to Drivechain maybe the downside is 2:30:59 the downside risk is at the minor level maybe there's something about the game theory of drive 2:31:03 chain that's going to fuck up with miners i don't know but maybe there's something that's going to 2:31:08 fuck up with the price of bitcoin or some aspect of decentralization or some aspect of validation 2:31:14 or some reputational or some legal risks that are going to be borne by the nodes so definitely 2:31:21 the fact that the benefit is concentrated at the minor level primarily and i understand your point 2:31:26 that if you know if bib 300 as you say kills all coins that's another debate but you know you also 2:31:33 imagine that it's not just the miners that benefit i i know that you imagine that the users also 2:31:38 benefit from from Drivechain um but the downside risk of Drivechains seems to me to be concentrated 2:31:44 more at the user level not the minor level um another and and you know my opposition to bib 2:31:52 300 which which is not really an opposition my my opposition is is to minor miners deciding 2:32:00 when and how a soft fork gets activated and i don't debate that miners are the ones who 2:32:04 ultimately do activate the soft fork that's just a fact um but miners deciding when and 2:32:10 how a soft fork is activated is kind of like my again kind of like my my main concern um 2:32:17 and i had another point which uh which i'm forgetting sorry guys i'm i'm i'm i have a hand 2:32:21 on my my pan i'm cooking a steak right now uh jump in real quick just to uh clarify that 2:32:29 you know the the picture i shared earlier um like there's no secret activation plan 2:32:37 i think that there was a response to the tweet i put out two days ago 2:32:40 saying miners are interested in this topic and you know there was some minors in the comments 2:32:46 on that tweet saying hey miners aren't interested and so i had a couple people reach out to me from 2:32:52 the mining industry saying hey actually you know our firm is interesting interested or x firm or 2:32:58 whatever and so there's nothing really deeper than that just like people uh talking and disseminating 2:33:05 an idea amongst themselves and then i guess my question for you is like what's your take on 2:33:10 like i don't understand uh like exactly what the the differences are between the activation like 2:33:21 okay so first off in our kind of thread today that we were talking there's a lot of people who 2:33:26 are upset about this idea of basically users that are against BIP300 having to uh lobby against it 2:33:35 but it sounds like through a bip 8 process that's exactly the type of environment you're 2:33:41 trying to create where users who oppose it have enough time to organize themselves and and and 2:33:46 have you know their own like user rejected soft fork um and well well it's a lot it's a lot harder 2:33:54 right so if users want to lobby for a soft fork via bib aids it's a lot harder so and especially 2:34:02 if the bit is done with uh an activation client which is a fork of bitcoin core which is not just 2:34:08 bitcoin core itself so first of all you need to code the activation client you need to get that 2:34:13 reviewed and you need to specifically opt out of running bitcoin core and running so you can't just 2:34:19 like opt into a soft fork by auto updating bitcoin core you have to like consciously decide i'm going 2:34:24 to run a fork of bitcoin core and then if you want the soft fork you have to put your skin in the 2:34:30 game and your money on the line with bib eight so it puts the onus of demonstrating commitment 2:34:36 and activation motivation to people who want the soft fork what do you mean by that i don't follow 2:34:42 that part okay because if you want a soft fork activated with bib 8 you need to run a separate 2:34:48 client that's not bitcoin core so first of all you need to be aware of you know of an activation 2:34:54 client you need to be very interested in this topic you need to make a decision to trust 2:35:00 an activation client which is you know obviously rebased on bitcoin core and it would probably be 2:35:05 coded by luke jr or a very reputable you know bitcoin developer but you still need to trust that 2:35:11 very far less reviewed activation clients and you need to be able and willing to put your money on 2:35:18 the line so that if the miners don't activate this soft fork you will essentially lose money 2:35:25 is like you you are you you are you're risking you're risking your money if you if you do that 2:35:31 because you're good in your your mind though about that like you could just kind of basically 2:35:35 like play chicken with that and then back off at the last minute if you didn't get enough support 2:35:40 yeah you could of course you could you could back off at the last minute and like 2:35:43 stop supporting it at the last minute 2:35:46 at the last minute 2:35:50 we got lucas here look i don't want to start anything but moments ago francis did say that 2:35:55 miners are the ones who ultimately activate every soft fork but but we can return to that in a 2:36:01 moment because i think francis i was listening carefully to what you were trying to the ideas 2:36:06 you were expressing and i think you yeah maybe i can generalize it as like people need to like 2:36:15 they need a lot of time to make a decision because i was also concerned about i'm not so much 2:36:22 like what bothered me about SegWit and taproot was a lot of people clearly had no idea what it 2:36:28 was they were activating and i think like that's what bothers me it's like the lack of knowledge 2:36:35 because it's like what is it how can you give consent for something if you don't know what it 2:36:39 is that is significantly better than people actively opposing SegWit and taproot which no 2:36:46 one did apart from you know we can talk about the obvious exceptions but there is obviously 2:36:51 clear massive opposition to Drivechain so the idea that you'd ever get consensus 2:36:55 and discussion of activation is basically you stating an intention to ignore the will of the 2:37:01 community so quick question about that and i think francis you mentioned it earlier but like 2:37:07 like how do you determine actually what is consensus without 2:37:12 like having the game theory actually work itself all the way out 2:37:18 okay so as i mentioned there's no way to truly determine consensus unless there's actually a 2:37:23 chain split that is resolved but i know you don't want to hear this but you know hats on twitter 2:37:29 people putting the hats there's a reason why people were putting the usf hats i mean it's 2:37:34 not it's not just a trivial meme it was the the point of it is i am willing to risk my money 2:37:41 on this soft fork on invalidating the miners potentially and if the miners decide not to 2:37:46 implement the soft fork i will invalidate their blocks and i'm and i'm willing to lose money on 2:37:52 this i'm willing to accept bitcoin payments and invalidate other bitcoin payments depending on 2:37:59 which you know blocks they're minded so signaling on twitter is whether you like it or not is is an 2:38:08 important part another way another another way for example as i mentioned also today there was 2:38:14 a breaking bitcoin conference in uh in paris in 2017 and you know there was a raise your hands 2:38:22 poll as to who here supports SegWit2x and you know there was 150 people in the room i don't know if 2:38:28 you were there paul um breaking bitcoin paris in 2017 you might you might have been there unfortunately 2:38:34 it was awesome but um there was like 150 people in the room and and i want to be careful not to 2:38:40 say that like bitcoin is you know determined by experts but there was 150 very high level 2:38:47 security and and bitcoin experts in the room and none of them were supporting SegWit2x 2:38:53 there were businesses that were putting themselves on lists publicly saying if you want to use 2:38:58 you know if if you want to use a service that is a UASF enabled service you can use my service and 2:39:05 i will accept your usf coins and i will give the price of bitcoin to the UASF enabled chain and 2:39:13 not to the other one that i will reject um there were you know futures markets i don't know if 2:39:19 there was one for for UASF but there was definitely one for SegWit2x so there was a futures market for 2:39:23 that that's a good indicator so basically the miners like they have to look at all of these 2:39:29 elements combined and say okay so so so first of all they have to look at the opposition right so 2:39:34 so SegWit2x had almost no opposition i i think uh bitcoin mechanic i think it was you 2:39:39 or grass at bitcoin anyway um who just said yeah so SegWit2x had almost no opposition 2:39:44 so i think it was safe to say that and you know that was also discussed for like two and a half 2:39:48 years and nobody was really opposed to SegWit there were some but even the ones who were opposed 2:39:54 to SegWit they were they were they were opposed to SegWit in in the only as a mechanism to obtain 2:39:59 a concession for the larger blocks so their opposition to SegWit you know and i think a 2:40:04 lot of them were like we're not really opposed to SegWit but we want larger blocks too so we're 2:40:07 going to block SegWit in order to get larger blocks taproot there was not a lot of opposition 2:40:12 to taproot i mean i was definitely opposed to speedy trial and if you guys remember i was not 2:40:16 a fan of the speedy trial activation of taproot but ultimately my opposition to speedy try and 2:40:21 taproot was not sufficient enough for me to say you know all right let's let's urs of this thing 2:40:28 for bip 119 because we had had and because i knew nothing about bip and taproot i had some 2:40:34 degree of of knowledge of what taproot did and and what it what it didn't do and you know but 2:40:39 for bip 119 when i saw the speedy trial uh proposal by jeremy for bit 119 then you know 2:40:46 we were definitely ready to do a ursf for that one for sure right so so so and in that case 2:40:52 the minor is looking at you know i would suppose the minor looks at this and all right so there's 2:40:56 people who are so opposed to this thing um and i was opposed to it because i didn't know what it 2:41:01 was and i was like i i don't want a soft fork to come in if i don't know what it is um and a minor 2:41:07 would see the opposition first and be like all right um there is a strong core of people that 2:41:13 are willing to move to lose money to oppose this thing so that's the number one way to gauge 2:41:18 consensus is to look at all right so who's opposed to it and are the people opposed to it motivated 2:41:23 enough to you know your ursf that's that's that's probably the best way to gauge it and then a good 2:41:31 way for a minor to do that to gauge all right so which side has consensus because the minor doesn't 2:41:36 want to do that the minor wants to stay in consensus because the minor doesn't want to 2:41:39 lose its block reward and its you know fee reward is to have a long period of time where people are 2:41:46 signaling and yes it is possible to you know spin up a bunch of nodes on aws um but it's a lot harder 2:41:54 to clone your reputation so you attach your personal and your company's reputation to a 2:42:00 certain fork you know you're going to say okay i want to activate bit ape and and i'm willing to 2:42:04 say that my exchange will will activate bit eight or me personally will activate bit ape and and you 2:42:09 make you make a promise basically you know you can call it a bluff if you want but it's it sometimes 2:42:15 it is a bluff you know in the case of usf it's you know debatable that it was it was it was more of a 2:42:20 bluff i mean i wasn't bluffing but there was not that many of us who were pushing for usf so the 2:42:25 miners had decided in the case of usf to you know not implement SegWit um it would have been uh it 2:42:33 would have been pretty pretty tough for for people like me who were who who were committed to 2:42:37 losing their money on the the SegWit chain um so yeah i guess the miners need to have two competing 2:42:46 factions that are signaling publicly and via software um their commitment to lose money for 2:42:53 for implementing or not implementing a fork that's that's the only thing they can do 2:42:58 yeah so it's a very good idea but it does have a drawback of that you know it's not it's 2:43:04 psychopathy in terms of like everyone is private everyone has like a nym you know everyone is like 2:43:10 anonymous or something it is kind of like it's not that that should be the only criterion but it 2:43:16 you could do something else where there could be like whenever someone has news they want to 2:43:21 announce they put they pay an unusually high fee in opera return or something so because i'm 2:43:26 imagining a world where there is no twitter and all of us are hiding in bunkers and none of us 2:43:30 use a real name and stuff just hypothetical idea uh if someone pays a an abnormally high fee to 2:43:37 broadcast this conspicuous message and they they point people to like the this onion site that has 2:43:43 the software and then maybe miners could signal interested there could be like different periods 2:43:50 where a minor signals interests because you have to the miner signaling is the only signaling that 2:43:55 is like you know it's very like robust so like tampering okay well not not guys well not even 2:44:04 let me jump in for a sec because there's there's two pieces of the puzzle here that are missing 2:44:07 that are kind of bewildering me um one is the point that there's this notion going around that 2:44:13 miners activate or don't activate um what they're doing is much more important to be viewed as 2:44:19 coordination than activation because you can't activate anything as a minor the only reason we 2:44:25 had a UASF movement in the first place is because if we got our way running these uh alternative 2:44:31 clients we would activate stuff that the actual nodes that ran vanilla clients would still be 2:44:36 enforcing because the SegWit logic existed and the logic for oh if miners flip this version bit 2:44:42 we will start enforcing these new SegWit rules were everywhere in the bitcoin network if the 2:44:47 miners tried to do a similar thing that UASF clients forced miners to do to activate SegWit 2:44:53 if they did that with Drivechain you have a new rule set that's being enforced by miners 2:44:57 that is totally ignored by all of the nodes in the space because none of this stuff is 2:45:02 getting into bitcoin core so that is that is the definition of a 51 attack it's a totally 2:45:08 different scenario there there is no enforcement of the Drivechain rules i'm not talking about 2:45:12 the rules of the Drivechains i'm talking about the rules of Drivechain as its own soft fork none 2:45:18 of that would be enforced by any nodes on the network so it wouldn't just be minor coordination 2:45:23 that's necessary you need the actual nodes to run it yes you would need some some nodes i don't think 2:45:29 anyone has ever disputed that at that point maybe it's a very different circumstance right like the 2:45:36 UASF the bit 148 battle the bitmain all that stuff it came in an environment where you had 2:45:42 SegWit logic in all of the nodes basically on the network so there was actually something to 2:45:47 activate on a network wide level SegWit existed it was a knowledge well you but you understand 2:45:53 i'm sure that in order for miners to even activate the soft fork the the client software must exist 2:46:00 somewhere yeah but does it i i don't know of a Drivechain enforcing node that you can run 2:46:08 well yes no i have not produced one and then one does not exist as far as i'm aware but uh but 2:46:13 that's that's what we were originally talking about i don't know if you've been here you may 2:46:16 have been here the whole time maybe not but we were talking about francis has uh he has he like 2:46:22 puyo activation it's instead of speedy trial it's because i think i've been listening carefully and 2:46:28 taking notes for francis it's very important that people have a lot of time to carefully consider 2:46:34 the issues so it could actually be called something like instead of speedy trial it 2:46:37 would be like you know like something slow like i don't know like slow slow trial or something 2:46:47 what if i i didn't catch that because i i only did just get here like around 10 minutes ago 2:46:52 and initially i'm saying consensus is what's important and you you bring up a counter to that 2:46:58 which does warrant adding more nuance to it because anyone can come along and actually 2:47:04 characterize the massive opposition to SegWit as a genuine breaking consensus because what it was 2:47:09 is more it was it was not actually consensus in the end it was a genuine analysis by the community 2:47:15 that all of the concerns against it were actually unfounded so people were against SegWit because 2:47:21 it got used as a political football and people said oh if we try and scale via lightning which 2:47:25 SegWit allows then we'll lose motivation to have big blocks knack right people just think that's 2:47:30 not a good enough argument against SegWit we're fixing transaction malleability we can't scale 2:47:35 with big blocks it's not the right approach so people said those claims are unfounded and we had 2:47:40 to we had a split in the community and that was it like everyone that didn't want this went over 2:47:44 to be cash and then you know decided craig wright was our lord and savior and all this stupid stuff 2:47:49 so obviously it's not valid right and we're not going to go down that path but then you also have 2:47:54 a taproot like where was the opposition to that there wasn't really any the only legitimate 2:47:59 opposition that ever really came around was one guy saying it was paid to public key instead of 2:48:03 paid to public key hash so quantum fud you know it's not safe from quantum computers and everyone 2:48:09 said that's just not really a concern so we're going to proceed with it like but the concern 2:48:13 about Drivechain is founded the concern about Drivechain is totally founded it's a we're 2:48:19 talking about massive changes to the ecosystem a complete i'm not going to say corruption of 2:48:24 miner incentives but it's certainly a big chaotic change that most people are like i don't even 2:48:30 trust that we could figure out all the ramifications of doing this even though i disagree with all that 2:48:36 but i think that's it's not the point the point is about taproot and SegWit was actually that 2:48:40 to me in my own personal view is there were many downsides that were not that the people who it's 2:48:48 true that what you say first of all your story is mostly true and i agree with it about the 2:48:53 segment opposition and it was mostly it was mostly exactly the way you said and it's true that we 2:48:59 didn't hear complaints about SegWit or taproot except from from luke of course who is a genius 2:49:05 but he was not very many other people a lot of people were for SegWit but they had no idea that 2:49:12 it was a block size increase you know i said john carvalho or something in 2019 he said like oh i 2:49:17 had no idea it was this was like two years after it had activated after he'd been like militantly 2:49:22 signaling for it so you're right to say that we didn't hear any opposition um but then sometimes 2:49:28 it's just because people don't realize that there should be opposition with taproot it was abundantly 2:49:34 clear to me that most of the people many people knew a lot about it like a small number but lots 2:49:41 of people were faking it they were bullshitters they were just saying oh taproot we don't want 2:49:46 to repeat you're completely right about this but i don't when it comes to advocating for drive 2:49:53 chain doesn't this just make your life harder because in the case of SegWit and taproot 2:49:57 unintended consequences people signaling in favor of it despite not fully understanding it 2:50:02 with drive you have active opposition already yeah well we aren't actually we're sort of you 2:50:08 kind of jumped as you said you jumped into the conversation kind of midway we weren't really 2:50:12 we were talking about a conversation between francis and david so it was kind of like a 2:50:16 different kind of really not on that topic right now per se but i'm sure we'll return to it very 2:50:21 soon but but your point about people not understanding the full ramifications of 2:50:27 of SegWit and people bullshitting with taproots both of them i agree um i i did not fully 2:50:34 understand the ramifications of i knew the about the block size increase i didn't actually 2:50:38 understand the law i thought the logic was a lot more technical than political 2:50:42 of uh of SegWit of of the block size increase of SegWit and for taproot i was also kind of 2:50:48 you know upset about the marketing the marketing was was around you know taproot will make bitcoin 2:50:53 more private and taproot will enable bitcoin to compete with monero and and Zcash and all that 2:50:58 there were there was all this kind of like very disappointing and smart contract upgrade like i 2:51:03 sure sure but but but but i i think this this proves the point that people need even more time 2:51:11 to study the potential downsides and you know and you know the the upsides of the down the 2:51:18 downsides of Drivechain are are you know uh bitcoin mechanic pointed out there there's a 2:51:26 lot of people that see a lot of downsides in Drivechain i'm i'm the first to say that 2:51:31 i don't understand the doubt the downsides of Drivechain enough to to be to be to be very 2:51:37 opposed to the idea right i i've always had a kind of like neutral ish stance on on on drive 2:51:43 chain because even though i don't believe in the upside i also don't fully understand the downside 2:51:49 so that that's where my my neutral ish position uh came about but i i witness through you know 2:51:55 twitter through mailing lists through discussion groups that there is a sizable group of people 2:52:00 that you know they definitely see a lot of downsides to to Drivechain and that's after 2:52:06 studying Drivechain and as you point out paul a lot of people don't even study Drivechain 2:52:11 that much you know they and then you study Drivechain for a couple of months and then they see a 2:52:15 lot of downsides so maybe we're going to see more downsides after a year or two and and and for me 2:52:22 the the the unknown downsides of doubt of of Drivechain and the potentially unlimited downsides of 2:52:30 Drivechain are they even though i don't i don't fully understand them um i i don't see any 2:52:37 significant benefit to Drivechain and also that's not my i don't plan to to use Drivechain personally 2:52:43 but i don't really see a lot of upsides to Drivechain some people do some people don't but a lot 2:52:49 of people see the downsides to Drivechain um so you know and again i think all of this discussion 2:52:56 is going around okay the potential for a secret hard fork or the potential for a speedy trial 2:53:01 or the potential for for miners to you know miners could could activate you know Drivechain and you 2:53:07 paul could be the only person assuming there's a drive check client like you paul should be the 2:53:11 only can be could be the only person basically using you know Drivechain in the entire network 2:53:15 and the miners would have implemented BIP300 and then the potential of just you using drive 2:53:23 chain and that having some externality on the rest of bitcoin users that's that's still something 2:53:28 that's possible right can i ask two two questions here a bit related you know first off like uh i 2:53:36 think you're you know um in terms of people's opinions on Drivechain they're at the end of 2:53:42 the day a lot of them are opinions like there has to be a process to adjudicate like which which 2:53:50 opinions are valid and which ones are like where do people uh sway to and so like i like having 2:53:55 people have the opportunity to reject a soft fork but like people are busy they have to have a reason 2:54:02 to care so there should be some sort of activation process put forward that actually drives people to 2:54:09 to make up their mind if they don't like it great they don't they don't like it but um i don't think 2:54:16 that that's a it's not a justifiable reason for stopping the process from ever even beginning if 2:54:22 you know so that's one one kind of comment second thing uh with bit bait like the uh if it's going 2:54:30 to be like uh the i mean with user activated soft fork approach you know it's about the economic 2:54:37 power of the nodes that are are voting for or against etc that are threatening to fork off the 2:54:43 network my fear with no it isn't 2:54:45 okay well my fear with that is that like if you had a coinbase who signed on and said hey like we're going to go all the way with with supporting this specific BIP soft fork or rejecting the specific soft fork their economic uh uh power in the in the ecosystem would be such that it would have a pretty immense effect on miners trying to make a determination of of what they're going to choose maybe i'm wrong i don't know i don't know 2:55:12 i'm wrong on that but like like is it is it not the economic power of the nodes that matters 2:55:18 that that that's true that's true if if uh for example paul was to put out a big client and you 2:55:24 know that coinbase was to uh publicly claim okay we will run bit eight and if the miners don't 2:55:31 activate bit eight uh coinbase we coinbase will invalidate the miners blocks that would obviously 2:55:37 have a huge effect on the miners decision making process there's no doubt about that 2:55:43 but coinbase did also sign the SegWit2x and the nya agreement yes but no this is actually i'm glad 2:55:51 you brought that up that was something i've written down when you were talking before 2:55:55 and i wanted to come back to it which is it's theoretically possible that coinbase 2:55:59 could it's i'm not you know don't this is like a hypothetical scenario but it's theoretically 2:56:05 possible that brian armstrong could be sitting there thinking oh those stupid bitcoiners the 2:56:11 last thing i want is for them to succeed and the last thing i want is for my exchange business to 2:56:16 go away so i should actually run the i should to make bitcoin worse i should run the user resisted 2:56:25 soft fork and i thought that was an intriguing idea that is that well i i mean that's that's 2:56:32 certainly possible um if we were to run bib eight today uh i think bib 300 bib 300 via bib eight 2:56:42 would lose i think if coinbase today was to support bib eight uh bib 300 people would be 2:56:52 very suspicious there's enough opposition to that so that people would run a ursf against against 2:56:57 that bib eight in case the miners so what would happen basically all right so let's say paul you 2:57:01 launch bib eight clients and then you know nothing happens that you know miners are not signaling 2:57:06 miners are not interested and then suddenly coinbase and then you know most most economic 2:57:11 node runners they're just like we don't give a f**k you know paul is running his bib eight client 2:57:15 and you know he's either going to get forked off at the lock-in time or you know he's going to uh 2:57:23 you you know you're going to get forked off or you're going to you're going to bail out at the 2:57:26 last minute i think most most reasonable people would assume that if it was just like just you 2:57:31 your organization and maybe like a few people but if you know francis sorry to interrupt but 2:57:36 i've got to jump off in two minutes so i just wanted to say a little thing before i i ultimately 2:57:42 it comes down to the legitimacy of people's reasons for doing things because if drive 2:57:47 chain suddenly gets maliciously pushed onto us as a as a as a soft fork that people haven't consented 2:57:52 to that we feel that the negative uh consequences of which haven't been properly addressed 2:57:58 then people are going to run ursf clients and once that's happened we've totally changed the 2:58:02 dynamic of soft forks forever because every city will have established a mechanism by which we can 2:58:08 do this and even as you say a bad actor like brian einstein is in your hypothetical scenario 2:58:14 and also in reality by the way even if that was the circumstance people will just launch ursfs 2:58:19 for future soft walks that are actually warranted and good that's a nightmare scenario but so it 2:58:24 comes down to analysis what's the motivation what's the legitimacy behind it because in my 2:58:29 scenario though because it seems like that's a valid way to resolve some of these outcomes if 2:58:33 someone has says they have valid concerns but they're not valid and then they run a user-activated 2:58:39 rejection like then they're just going to be balanced well it comes down to your judgment 2:58:46 about what's actually good for bitcoin and what's not like it's not like we got SegWit and that was 2:58:50 it hooray like there literally was a big break off of genuine people that thought we have to scale 2:58:55 with big blocks medium of exchange is the only thing that matters and not people being able to 2:58:59 run nodes or anything like that and they're gone and the community broke up over it uh 2:59:04 is that the difference between a hard fork and a soft fork well that doesn't matter because a ursf 2:59:09 essentially becomes its own hard fork away from the new more tightly enforced rule set of the soft 2:59:15 fork that Drivechain would become we defend we'd essentially hard fork away from the the 2:59:21 malicious soft fork it's it kind of depends on how you do it and how the ursf actually works because 2:59:26 we might have to you it might be just us doing a UASF of a rule set that conflicts with drive 2:59:33 chain or it can just be us uh rejecting a version bit flip would so it depends on how you guys plan 2:59:38 on running your activation like if you're going to do it in an open way and uh you know in an 2:59:43 appropriate way that follows precedent you're just going to flip a version bit but in reality 2:59:47 we know there's already been threats as well made by you guys that you're just going to get 2:59:52 51 of the miners in you know in backhanded conversations to activate it without even 2:59:57 signaling on the network so if you're going to do that then the ursf looks very different so 3:00:02 it kind of depends like there's a lot of question marks here about how you guys plan to move forward 3:00:07 but essentially it's a proposal it has very good reasons for people not to want to activate it on 3:00:12 the network and it's going to encounter a lot of resistance as it very well should and i don't 3:00:17 really know how you plan to proceed with that thank you thank you for the conversation nonetheless i 3:00:21 have to jump off now and uh yeah have a good one well well that was nice but i do think it's as far 3:00:30 as Drivechain critics go it's kind of par for the course because he jumped in halfway through he had 3:00:36 no idea what we were really talking about presumed that he did and then what like was 3:00:42 in like a bad mood so that's normally what our critics are like but but it just it just it just 3:00:49 so happens that that me and lex are pretty aligned on this um you know pretty much perfectly and the 3:00:54 point the point that he made in the end is a very important point which is that you cannot create a 3:00:59 ursf client if you don't know how it's being activated right so for example in the case of 3:01:03 bib 119 yeah i and a bunch of others um we you know we're like all right okay fuck there's another 3:01:10 speedy trial coming so what can we do uh in the case of a bit 119 speedy trial and then you know 3:01:16 we're like all right uh i think it was michael folksdom who who presented the idea of a ursf 3:01:21 and the mailing list i don't know if it was the first time ever or people had discussed it before 3:01:25 but all right so i i became interested in that and then i went to a bitcoin core developer and 3:01:29 i was like all right so um could you code up a ursf client and you know that big core developer 3:01:34 told me well you know i can't because there is no usf activation client or there is no activation 3:01:40 proposal at all for bit 119 it's just talk so far so we have to wait until we see the activation 3:01:46 client to be able to do the ursf client so but if there is a secret minor arrangement and you know 3:01:55 the the activation client the the client is a secret one so let's say that paul you were 3:02:00 actually malicious and you have this uh this software that is not open source and the minors 3:02:05 are running um the bib 300 uh soft fork without telling anyone uh we couldn't do a ursf after 3:02:12 until after we've detected that it has happened presumably because one day you would be like haha 3:02:18 i release the the client it's not open source and you can check Drivechains is actually activated 3:02:23 and that would be from that point on that we could do something and then in that case it's not 3:02:28 even a question of whether or not you know people are going to back out of a soft fork or of being 3:02:33 forked off like there there there's almost i i don't see a scenario where a chain split would 3:02:39 not occur in that case the question like a dumb question like i don't understand what the 3:02:45 difference are between like the like if the miners kept it secret and then reveal to the users later 3:02:51 and users once they find out uh do a chain split versus if the miners um did it publicly 3:02:58 and users got upset and decided to run a user activated uh uh rejection and um the miners just 3:03:07 decided i don't care go ahead and do it and chain split it's like kind of like the same outcome 3:03:12 either way well there is a chance there is a chance of no chain split if if it's all done 3:03:17 transparently with enough time there is a chance that there is no chain split if it's done in 3:03:20 secret and we have to oppose it after the fact there is for sure going to be a chain split 3:03:28 so you you're like removing you're like removing the opportunity for one side to back out 3:03:33 essentially by doing it in secret all right so i i think it's better to do it publicly i 3:03:39 think that that's how you get people to actually give their true and full attention i think 3:03:44 unfortunately the gentleman i think uh derailed us a little bit because what i was saying before 3:03:50 he joined that he didn't hear but now everyone else is going to have to hear twice 3:03:54 is that i just i write commentary like this often on my blog which i've done for many years like 3:04:02 along to 10 years about like various puzzles and bitcoin and strategies and activation i've written 3:04:08 many i've written an essay called the UASF contradiction and i wrote an essay about the 3:04:12 minor activated hard fork and replay protection i write about all these kind of things i'm 3:04:17 interested in that and so i was i was commenting on what could be possible which i'm sure a bunch 3:04:22 of people took as a threat but here's the thing about that is um the really threatening thing 3:04:30 would have been for me to not to know that that is the case and not to tweet it because that would 3:04:35 have been actually very threatening so i kind of never see it that way i was just kind of pointing 3:04:39 it out that hey you don't actually have the people who want the ursf they don't have like 3:04:46 they don't have the cards that i think they think they have if that makes well well i mean you you 3:04:51 tweeting it got me thinking about it so i i think it was a good thing and just to be clear i never 3:04:55 accused you of trying to do a secret hard fork although you know it's in the back of my mind but 3:05:01 i didn't accuse you on twitter of of leading that but the idea is out there right the idea that 3:05:07 and then it it can and if the miners are talking about this which i'm sure they are now because 3:05:12 you know it's it's attracted their attention clearly i also have had a miner like 45 minutes 3:05:17 ago contacting me and saying by the way francis like we don't want Drivechains i don't know 3:05:21 who these miners are but we specifically don't want and our mining pool doesn't want that either 3:05:25 so you know my miners are obviously talking about it now so the the concept of a you know all right 3:05:31 we can just fuck politics fuck the politicking we're just going to run the code and activate 3:05:36 the soft fork like the idea that that's possible exists in the die guys and it's it's like it's 3:05:41 always existed nothing has changed since you've tweeted that and nothing has changed like you know 3:05:48 in practice since dave tweeted uh uh his his uh recounting of of conversations with miners um but 3:05:55 you know people are like oh people are discovering now most people are discovering now that that's 3:06:00 that's something that's possible i mean i i genuinely didn't really think about this the 3:06:05 the evil or quote-unquote or secret soft fork i probably thought about that you know five years 3:06:11 ago during the UASF and it was probably part of the discussion at some point but i just 3:06:15 it was not not part of my of my day-to-day you know thoughts and and now now it definitely is 3:06:20 so i think it's definitely understandable that people are are scared that that will happen 3:06:25 because the idea is out there and there's another thing also you know and it's not it's not just 3:06:30 people on this call there's a there's other people that are either professional trolls 3:06:37 or spooks or agents of chaos and they definitely are the types of people i think that would start 3:06:45 talking to mining pools you know a lot of these people are were associated to ordinals and that 3:06:51 kind of movement and maybe for the lulz maybe just for the fucking fun of it maybe because they hate 3:06:56 bitcoin maybe because they hate the maximalists maybe because they generally think it's good for 3:07:01 bitcoin they might go it's definitely a possibility that these people might go and convince the miners 3:07:05 to either do a secret hard fork or do a very quick you know public bit nine you know uh type situation 3:07:15 where uh you know or or or even i mean and and actually got this idea for people a a speedy UASF 3:07:25 is almost indistinguishable from just a regular miner activation because you know 3:07:30 maybe ud is going to say all right i'm going to do um a bit eight client for um uh four drive 3:07:36 chain and i'm gonna you know um put a lock in time in two months and i'm going to enforce it 3:07:42 and all the miners signal for that in two months and nobody has time to do a ursf because you know 3:07:48 we're kind of taken by surprise of this thing so like that's that's definitely a a concern it's 3:07:53 it's a very real concern that people have that miners are just gonna get this idea and the miners 3:07:59 are also different miners than then in 2017 so i think the miners in 2017 probably learned their 3:08:04 lesson saying all right we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna stop the idea that we control the 3:08:10 hash rate by voting right um the idea that miners are voting for consensus rules like that's kind of 3:08:16 like that died in 2017 kind of but the miners that we have today are different miners so maybe they 3:08:22 haven't learned that lesson maybe they don't even know about 2017 and maybe they're gonna get 3:08:26 someone whispering in their ear saying hey like we know you're hurting really hard you know your 3:08:30 stock is fucking crumbling on your public miner um did you know that you actually control bitcoin 3:08:35 and you could actually assert your control over bitcoin i mean that that might be an a concept 3:08:40 that's alluring to a big miner you know so the idea that there's potentially scheming going on 3:08:47 i think it's it's it's it's totally a reasonable assumption for us to have 3:08:51 oh absolutely but you can see that of course as i was saying the more threatening thing since i 3:08:56 since i already knew that to be possible the more threatening thing would have been 3:09:00 probably not to tell anyone about it per se but i would say i would say correct correct 3:09:07 so but earlier you complained about the taproot activation about it's just a bunch of people 3:09:10 called each other and he says we're going to get this done i wrote it down in my little notebook 3:09:15 here and i think actually that was the pendulum over swinging back and over correcting from the 3:09:23 SegWit yes i think they were thinking we don't want anyone to think that we will hold up this 3:09:30 soft fork it's not going to be held up because of us and so instead they did something else 3:09:34 that you didn't like which is they rushed it so i kind of think yes i'm not exactly sure 3:09:39 what our you know north star is supposed to be here which i think what david was talking about 3:09:44 is should there be like some actual process so that you know when someone is not following 3:09:49 the process because otherwise it's just kind of like everyone's just gonna make 3:09:53 so real quick yeah your your point francis about like uh a secret uh uh 51 attack um like if that 3:10:03 can be done we used to have this view that like if you can attack bitcoin a certain way it will 3:10:07 be attacked like that so to me it seems like we would benefit from a process that people should 3:10:12 go through so that way if someone does try to pull an attack like that there are people realize 3:10:17 that's not kosher and and you know hit a red alarm or something like that because it's not a terrible 3:10:23 point it's not a terrible point it's a similar point than the ordinals spam attack where people 3:10:28 are like well you know if you can attack bitcoin by spamming it then we might as well do it right 3:10:31 now the thing is also like we don't have fucking time for this shit like there's there's no reason 3:10:37 for us to go through to purposefully put ourselves through a 51% attack just so that we can learn 3:10:43 that we can defend from a 51% attack like people will lose money we're gonna lose a lot of time 3:10:48 like i lost like basically six months of my life with SegWit um you know i was going to 3:10:53 fucking conferences all the time i was going to meetups i was on twitter almost every single day 3:10:57 i was in chat rooms like like we we don't want to have to go through that i agree with you that if 3:11:03 if it happens if for example there was a secret hard fork and then or a 51% attack or you know 3:11:10 miners were to implement a blacklist or something like that and then we wanted to you know i don't 3:11:15 know invalidate certain miners didn't always wanted to invalidate certain miners from for 3:11:19 for another reason and we could demonstrate that the nodes can protect themselves from the miners 3:11:25 in the long term i think it would probably be beneficial for bitcoin but it's kind of like 3:11:29 saying like i'm gonna make myself sick right now so that i have any bodies in the future well it's 3:11:35 like i don't know i i i don't feel like making ourselves sick i don't feel like we we we want 3:11:41 to go through this like right now everybody's honestly pretty fucking busy building their own 3:11:45 stuff and we don't want to have to deal with this and paul to your point about the the pendulum swing 3:11:50 there was two pendulum swings you're very correct that i think the miners they were for taproot 3:11:55 they're like oh we're totally going to play ball with bitcoin core we're going to absolutely 3:11:59 do what bitcoin core says we've learned our lesson and i think also bitcoin core had this 3:12:04 pendulum swing where they were like all right it was a really really traumatic event where we did 3:12:09 um where we were opposed to miners and uh we don't want to have a lengthy um activation process like 3:12:17 we did for SegWit that was too long and because it was too long there was too much opportunity for 3:12:21 drama to happen and also i think you know maybe the bitcoin core devs or some of these devs they 3:12:27 were like well in the end the users actually don't even know what the fuck they're doing with 3:12:30 SegWit and taproot like they don't understand any of this anyway so let's just get it done and let 3:12:36 it get over so there was definitely a pendulum swing both from the miners and both from the the 3:12:42 you know developer community which i called like the SegWit ptsd or like the four core ptsd it's 3:12:47 definitely like a real thing like people are still traumatized by by the four core in the 3:12:51 dev community um and then you know there is that middle ground which which you know i should 3:12:56 probably write it down at some point which i propose which is open bip eight for like two 3:13:01 years or two and a half years or three years or something like that this gives people time to do 3:13:05 the rsf and to go back to the coinbase example okay let's say you paul you run bip eight and then 3:13:12 nobody miners don't give a fuck okay miners start to signal for a BIP300 because and then and then 3:13:18 sorry and then coinbase joins bit eight and the miners suddenly get interested in debate because 3:13:22 oh fuck it like we don't want to get forked off by coinbase like we have a lot of our coins which 3:13:26 are eventually being sold on coinbase because whoever's buying the coins from us is a large 3:13:31 portion of them are presumably going to sell them on coinbase and coinbase is custodian of 3:13:35 a lot of other exchanges and coinbase is a liquidity provider to a lot of exchanges 3:13:39 i definitely recognize that the economic node ecosystem is highly highly centralized 3:13:45 at the custodial level at the meta custodial level um like bitgo for example big boy can 3:13:50 definitely biggo is probably the the biggest economic node in the network because 3:13:54 not only are exchanges big economic nodes but they're not even nodes because they're not running 3:13:59 their nodes bitgo is running their node for them and validating the inbound payments for them but 3:14:03 let's say that you know bitgo etf yeah or or or an etf sure um although the etf is probably a 3:14:10 little different because the etf is not like i don't think they're accepting like they're 3:14:14 validating like inbound payments of course they would decide like which chain they spend it on but 3:14:19 if you're just holding and not transacting like a lot you didn't like you know you don't risk as 3:14:25 much you can just you can just like do nothing basically and wait it out you don't have to put 3:14:29 skin in the game for like at least a few weeks you know gbtc could say like i'm not going to 3:14:33 touch bitcoins for like a month until this is resolved like coinbase and like bull bitcoin 3:14:37 we don't have a choice to like make a stand on day one because people are making deposits every 3:14:41 single day and we have to determine well is that deposit worth 30 grand or is that deposit worth 3:14:47 like a thousand bucks we have to choose which fork is the one that we're going to price as bitcoin 3:14:51 and the one that was that we're going to price as the as the altcoin but like with bit8 if coinbase 3:14:56 was to do that and you know people thought okay well we don't trust and even if and and i think 3:15:03 also paul is like people are not very good at determining the pros and cons and the trade-offs 3:15:08 of a soft fork like i've been in bitcoin forever and i cannot articulate the downsides of drive 3:15:15 chain against you like you would you would smoke me i don't understand it enough to have an opinion 3:15:20 but people are actually quite good at at sniffing out consensus right so the the average pleb on 3:15:27 twitter may not understand the trade-offs but they are good at understanding consensus that's why 3:15:32 people were supporting taproot even though they didn't know what it did and what the benefits 3:15:37 were and what the dice the downsides were like people were still intuitively able to determine 3:15:43 okay like taproot seems to have consensus problem though of course 3:15:48 uh well how is i mean 3:15:52 it's the appearance of total consensus and then it's self-perpetuating and then similarly you can 3:15:57 create anyone could create like the appearance of controversy that would be self-perpetuating 3:16:02 too they say well why are they pushing something controversial they must be this is why we use 3:16:07 proof of work i mean this is like that's yeah well i mean the i'll tell you that it's so big 3:16:15 that it's so big that you may want to hear it it's a big idea go ahead it relates to this idea 3:16:21 if if if there can be an attack on bitcoin and we should so that we build antibodies or whatever 3:16:27 but it's but it's bigger than that because it's an intriguing possibility i mean i'll 3:16:32 just share it with you i mean hopefully you like it but it's it goes something like this 3:16:37 uh miners could activate something with like they have op-nop5 or op-nop6 or something 3:16:42 we're talking about soft fork where you the miners activate and then it ends up being really 3:16:49 bad for bitcoin the this idea refers to the miner's incentive to get it right like the miner wants to 3:16:56 get it right if the miner gets it wrong i've expressed this idea already this is the so like 3:17:01 if the miners add something with op-nop6 and then something goes wrong the miners can then just ban 3:17:08 op-nop6 from being like you can't spend any money to op-nop6 and then eventually you can't spend 3:17:13 from op-nop6 they can just they can shut it off and it would be as if as if it never happened 3:17:19 so in that sense if the minor the minor has like an error correction option so you could try 3:17:24 something it's not working and then untry it but of course any serious person will now say 3:17:31 well maybe something about it is like unfixable or brainwashes the miners or maybe the miners like it 3:17:36 but it's not good for the nodes right but this is the idea that i was going to bring up 3:17:43 that also is not exactly a coherent consistent belief because what it's basically saying is 3:17:51 at some point an idea will come into the world idea x and miners will want idea x and then it 3:17:58 will be good for miners and bad for node and either like if it's an unblockable idea x 3:18:07 it kind of doesn't matter if i have the idea and it's called BIP300 or if the miners themselves 3:18:11 have it and it's called something else or it's like someone you know the world is full of people 3:18:15 having ideas so it's kind of like if someone has an idea for op-nop6 or something it's like it is 3:18:22 to don't have like an aura of inevitability about it i think which is like if this is the way to 3:18:27 attack a bitcoin and the miners is like think that they want it or something then this is sort 3:18:34 of like will inevitably happen kind of does just it is possible but but in in that case 3:18:41 the ursf scenario or the users opt into this new software that invalidates blocks of miners and 3:18:47 punishes them by you know invalid refusing them as valid blocks is also inevitable um you know 3:18:54 from a very theoretical perspective like as a uh what do you call it um a suspicious person or 3:19:01 there's there's a term for it i forget um um uh adversarial thinker you can say all right like 3:19:08 whatever whatever attack is going to happen so it's inevitable but you know the it's is your 3:19:13 point like someone's going to attack bitcoin so might as well be me you know that's kind of like 3:19:16 the that was kind of like the ud point for ordinals no but no but it was something like 3:19:23 why hold this against this change like it's kind of like it's something like if it's this 3:19:30 easy to kill bitcoin then what are we all doing here like so i think it was something like that 3:19:35 where well it's it's not that easy it's it's it's not that easy to kill bitcoin because the users 3:19:42 would still have this mechanism which is to invalidate you know evil miners it's just not 3:19:47 something that we want to go through 3:19:49 it it really it really isn't it's like it's like the best the best outcome is that consensus is it is determined like way beforehand i think i think we all agree on that like 3:19:58 an important disagreement though because it's kind of like people will not pay attention to the idea like if the idea is from 2015 so i i see myself as having gone about obtaining consensus in an incredibly slow way 3:20:14 but here's the thing is it's just that everyone ignores it until luke's pull request and then they say why is everyone rushing this you know what i mean because the idea is from november 2015 there's i mean i mean honestly people were still ignoring it after luke's pull request i think it was like dan held tweeting about it that got people riled up to be to be honest that's the way that i saw it it's like i saw i saw i saw luke's pull request and i was like oh that's great like well luke's getting paid to do something and it's pretty clear that it's not an it's not a good thing to do 3:20:40 well luke's getting paid to do something and it's pretty clear that it's not an you know he's he's not coding the activation client and it's pretty clear that it's not an i i i didn't want details of course that should benefit everyone that we say well this is the actual detail 3:20:56 what actually drove the attention to Drivechain is like people like okay so whether or not you like ordinals yourself like people fucking hate ordinals overall because yes it may be good for miners and like miners made i don't know like a thousand bitcoins more but it's not people issuing the ordinals that were paying the transaction fees to the miners it's it's not it's not like the miners took the money from the ordinals issuers and like oh the fucking scammers it's like all of us were paying those transaction fees 3:21:24 all of us so so anybody who's transacting on bitcoin that is not of four ordinals specifically is like against it because they were paying a fucking ton of money on transaction fees which okay it's inevitable one day okay fine but i mean we paid it like this year right specifically non-custodial exchanges it was fucking brutal 3:21:44 um so when people saw that the ordinals people were also promoting Drivechain i think i think that's what caused the i don't think it had anything to do with luke's pull requests i think it had everything to do with you know shit corners and grifters are suddenly paying attention to something and people are like well i don't like this person this person's opinions are usually very bad and they are supporting this Drivechain thing let's let's look into this drive i think i think that's probably what happened 3:22:12 that's not that's not really a true framing because the same fucking thing happened to bit 119 and and jeremy rubin and and like you know i think there's um i don't think there's ever going to be consensus on a soft fork again in the future i think that we're at the point where like people's issues that they have with the soft fork include stuff like why are you rushing it or why do like why do we need this now things that are like not falsifiable 3:22:40 so it's like the the what's a legitimate how's it how do you push back on something like that that's the you can't be proven wrong it's just like an opinion with like yeah no counterfactual so the the there has to be a mechanism to battle these topics out where consensus can actually be determined, I mean, there just has to be or otherwise we're going to get to this point where everything's fucking frozen and if you if you take a step back and you just look at it big 3:23:05 picture, we had fucking SegWit, then we had taproot, then we had now we've had two different bips that have come up since then, both of those have been kind of shouted down and shut down. I think like the the the community is like searching for an activation method and path forward, and it's getting kind of like harder to find one. And I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm 3:23:32 I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm 3:24:02 I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm 3:25:03 I'm 3:44:53 Seriously, Paul, this this is what we're going to do. 3:44:57 Well, I mean, I don't see this is where I say seriously, also, 3:45:00 because I think you're like I'm a fake critic many times. I'm just 3:45:02 asking you to explain whatever your critique is. 3:45:05 Now you're asking me to explain for the second time instead of 3:45:09 responding to it, but okay, we'll play the same problem. When 3:45:12 there is an anomalously high spike in fees on a Drivechain. 3:45:17 The outsourced block constructor has to pay real on chain 3:45:22 Bitcoin to collect that and a profit margin on it. When people 3:45:27 see that the miner of the next block, he can just redo that 3:45:31 block and claim those coins on the sidechain instead. And he 3:45:35 has an incentive to do that because it's an anomalously high 3:45:39 block that he missed out on. And there is no real big dis 3:45:43 incentive because he doesn't waste any of his work, taking 3:45:47 the main chain black or backwards. And he also does not 3:45:50 disrupt the other miner who claimed the main chain funds for 3:45:54 the last block. So there's really no big negative 3:45:59 consequences for doing that. And if the incentives are there for 3:46:02 that, it's probably going to happen. And if that becomes 3:46:06 normal, who is going to risk being an outsourced block 3:46:11 constructor for the sidechain? No one, it'll just be the miners 3:46:15 doing. And then we're back at that situation where the 3:46:18 incentives have taken us that miners wind up doing this 3:46:22 themselves, because no one else will, because there's an 3:46:26 incentive to do that, that's more profitable. And you do have 3:46:30 those centralization pressures. 3:46:34 See, but it does boil down to the fact that they're just real, 3:46:36 it's like the long run future of Bitcoin, where there's no block 3:46:40 subsidy and it's fees only. And this is called fee sniping. And 3:46:46 this is the fate that awaits Bitcoin L1. And it will be on 3:46:50 the Drivechain immediately because 3:46:52 you're asserting that you're presupposing that with a bunch 3:46:56 of assumptions that you're not even defending. And two, you're 3:46:59 ignoring the fact that with Drivechains, this dynamic 3:47:02 removes most of the negative externalities that that behavior 3:47:07 imposes on miners. 3:47:10 No, I don't think so at all. I think I'm trying to explain to 3:47:13 you that it's what you're describing is just reorg risk on 3:47:18 L2. And it will it may impact how much the person is willing 3:47:22 to pay on like the BMM conveyor. But if so, then miners will 3:47:28 wonder about why that is and what they can do to get more 3:47:31 money. So I mean, I guess in that sense, 3:47:33 Or they'll just turn the nodes on themselves. 3:47:37 Yeah, well, they may if that's very cheap. No. So like, 3:47:41 no, you again, you can't assert that because it's totally 3:47:45 unbounded. The resource cost, block size, etc. 3:47:52 If it's too if it's cheap, they'll do whatever is makes 3:47:55 them the most money. So if I don't, you know, that's not 3:47:58 really changing miner incentives in my from my point of view. See 3:48:00 from my when I use the change miner incentives phrase, I'm 3:48:05 zooming out and I'm looking at miners have done many things. 3:48:09 There was a time before a six, there was a time before pools, 3:48:13 there was a time before immersion cooling. So I say, 3:48:17 what does it really mean to change miner incentives? I mean, 3:48:20 like some situation where they would want to sensor 3:48:25 transactions or do reorgs or something, some new kind of 3:48:28 thing. But there is no new kind of thing. And this is the same 3:48:32 thing it always has been. 3:48:33 Oh, so you're saying it's impossible for there to be new 3:48:36 incentive factors? 3:48:40 No, I'm just saying that with the 300, there isn't anything 3:48:43 new. 3:48:44 Okay, there isn't anything new. Okay, so if a massive, say BSV 3:48:49 style sidechain got spun up using Drivechains, that would 3:48:54 not be subject to incentive distortions, like if the chain 3:48:57 got absurdly large and centralized, that it's 3:49:01 impossible to enter as a new competitor in producing blocks 3:49:07 for that sidechain, because so few people have a copy of it, 3:49:11 you literally need one of their permission to enter that set of 3:49:15 people. 3:49:16 Well, that's basically liquid today, ironically, because you 3:49:19 cannot know minor can become a liquid does not distort mining 3:49:23 incentives, because miners are not involved in liquid as a 3:49:27 system beyond 3:49:28 there. 3:49:30 This was your criterion, though, that you can't break in. No 3:49:33 minor can collect liquids fees are collected, and they go 3:49:36 straight to Blockstream. So liquid, but you cannot break in 3:49:41 and get those fees. I think the bigger problem, though, 3:49:44 no, see, you're you're glossing over a very important 3:49:48 distinction. There's those systems don't hitch into or 3:49:51 depend on proof of work for your consensus on the state of the 3:49:55 system. Things using dry. 3:50:00 But liquid certainly does, because you can't establish 3:50:02 which deposits have taken place without 3:50:05 that's not the internal state of the system. 3:50:10 Something where the internal state depends on that's every 3:50:15 merge mine thing, including Namecoin. 3:50:19 That is not something like liquid. Liquid does not 3:50:24 interfere or merge. 3:50:27 You would say if liquid had been merged mine, but the 3:50:29 deposits and withdrawals were gated and had infinite cost to 3:50:34 join, then you would have a problem with liquid if it was 3:50:37 merged mind. 3:50:41 Paul, why why do you keep asking half rhetorical questions that 3:50:46 you know, the answers to like, yes, I have a problem with 3:50:49 merged mine systems. I've literally gone through these 3:50:52 problems I have with you for years. 3:50:57 I genuinely don't understand what you are saying most of the 3:51:00 time. So I'm sorry about that. But hey, give it a try. So like 3:51:05 you're saying if you have a problem with liquid, just 3:51:07 because it's merged mine, if Blockstream decided because all 3:51:10 the liquid transaction fees go to a wallet controlled by 3:51:13 Blockstream, if they just decided that they're going to 3:51:16 donate the proceeds to miners, then you would say that's 3:51:18 affecting miner incentives. And then it would be equivalent to 3:51:22 the 300 in your view. 3:51:29 Paul, no, it wouldn't if somebody freely just donated 3:51:34 money unconditionally to miners that like, 3:51:40 dude, like see how far you have just walked us away from the 3:51:45 concrete example of fee sniping now becoming something that does 3:51:51 not require redoing work, which is a factual incentive change. 3:51:57 And how far you've walked the conversation away from 3:52:00 addressing that point. Like, 3:52:04 I mean, is it your view, though, that affecting miner incentives 3:52:07 is just if someone pays like 10 cents a year, like if I start a 3:52:10 new mining pool, 3:52:12 see, no, you're just being a smartass and reducing things to 3:52:16 the most absurd possible irrelevant. It has no impact in 3:52:21 terms of scale of effect. This is a structural change to the 3:52:26 incentives to the opportunities available to miners added by 3:52:31 this work, something that you have explicitly and repetitively 3:52:36 claimed it does not do here is a factual example of a structural 3:52:41 change. So what's your response to that? 3:52:45 I don't believe that it is a change because it's just my so 3:52:49 your response is to redefine the word change. Okay. Well, let's go 3:52:55 with your example. And let's say that my emerge mining doesn't 3:52:58 exist at all. And there's fee sniping on l two. 3:53:03 How is that a change in miner incentives? 3:53:09 What? So what are you talking about, Paul, let's remove the 3:53:13 thing from the conversation that introduces this dynamic. And then 3:53:17 let's talk about that dynamic. That makes no sense. 3:53:21 Okay, well, which thing are we supposed to reintroduce? 3:53:27 Which is the thing that causes the dynamic? I thought you were 3:53:30 saying before that, 3:53:33 like, you are just like going in circles, trying to go repeat, 3:53:37 repeat yourself every five minutes, and just refusing to 3:53:40 actually respond. You don't claim there are no incentive 3:53:44 changes. I have just given you a crystal clear concrete structural 3:53:50 change to the incentives. And now you're just arguing, well, let's 3:53:53 talk about the incentive change that introduces it. Well, what 3:53:58 does change really mean? 3:54:01 Well, is that really unfair to ask if I start a mining pool and 3:54:05 I pay an extra 10 cents a year? 3:54:08 Does that count as 3:54:09 again, the most ridiculous fucking strategy here? You're 3:54:14 trying to equate something that you say will 10x be millions of 3:54:20 millions of dollars and the variable that represents in this 3:54:24 situation, you're trying to compare that to 10 cents. Do you 3:54:27 not see how ridiculous that is? Like, that's just deflecting. 3:54:32 You're not responding. 3:54:34 First of all, my phone, I think it's probably gonna crash again, 3:54:36 but I'll be back if it does. But I think it is taking an 3:54:42 extreme case. And it's a well known thought experiment like in 3:54:47 physics and stuff, you get the underlying picture, you take two 3:54:49 extreme cases, and then you blend things in between. So I'm just 3:54:56 trying to get an idea of if it's really the case that you think 3:54:59 that what I mean, I don't know what you mean by effect, like if 3:55:02 someone broadcasts a layer one transaction, does that affect 3:55:05 miner incentives? If they pay 10 cents more with that 3:55:08 transaction, if they pay 15 cents more, are they required, 3:55:12 you know, as if a gun was being held to their head, are they 3:55:15 required to mine the transaction? I'm just trying to 3:55:19 figure out what what these words you're using mean to you. So 3:55:24 that's the only way I know how to understand what it is you're 3:55:28 saying. So for me, the fee sniping is, that has always been 3:55:35 part of Bitcoin's incentives. And you can people even do it 3:55:38 today. There have been times in Bitcoin's history when someone 3:55:43 paid an unusually high fee that was way higher than fees of the 3:55:46 surrounding blocks. And then I think, you know, I think there 3:55:50 was a case where miners kind of fought over it, the fee and they 3:55:53 So, but that raises some other questions like fee sniping is 3:55:59 already part of Bitcoin today. And so are so is the risk of 3:56:02 reorg. We don't want there to be any reorgs, but reorgs are part 3:56:06 of Bitcoin. And that's why people wait for they don't, they 3:56:10 wait for more than one confirmation usually, if you 3:56:13 deposit 3:56:13 Okay, Paul, it's like you ignored every single thing I say 3:56:17 that risk of reorg to the main chain has nothing to do with 3:56:21 anything I said, because that's the whole change that drive 3:56:25 chains introduce, you can reorg the layer two without reorging 3:56:30 the layer one, you do not incur that opportunity or cost. And 3:56:35 this disincentivizes, this disincentivizes outsourced 3:56:40 people from producing blocks for these Drivechains. And if there 3:56:44 is still economic demand for them, that leaves only the 3:56:47 miners to do this. So this winds up in complete 3:56:52 contradiction to your assertions, with miners having 3:56:57 incentives pushing them towards being the ones that have to run 3:57:02 these systems. 3:57:04 Well, it seems to me that the first part of what you said goes 3:57:07 something like this. It said something like, because of fee 3:57:12 sniping on L2, the miners will use classical merge mining 3:57:19 instead of Blind Merged Mining, which I don't actually agree 3:57:23 with, but I think is at least a sentence that I could 3:57:26 understand. So is that the first part of what you're saying? 3:57:32 Well, you don't agree with that? Why don't you agree with that, 3:57:35 Paul? 3:57:37 Well, because I think it doesn't actually play out in equilibrium, 3:57:40 because I think the sidechain will have its own fee maximizing 3:57:43 block size. And so it will not be possible to, it will not be 3:57:50 desirable to fee snipe on L2 in the first place. 3:58:00 What, what, what, what does the block size have to do with that? 3:58:04 Here's this pot of money that somebody tried to claim and paid 3:58:09 main chain coins to a miner to claim being free for a miner 3:58:14 because they do not have to pay themselves on chain Bitcoin to 3:58:19 commit to that block and reorg it that money. What does block 3:58:22 size have to do with that? It's literally completely irrelevant. 3:58:26 It's the dynamic of they can claim miners can claim that 3:58:30 twice, once from a third party, and once themselves without the 3:58:36 miner who takes it the second time in the reorg, economically 3:58:40 harming the miner who take or took it the first time, they both 3:58:44 get to claim that money. Yes, but the block size is irrelevant to 3:58:48 that. That's a complete non sequitur. 3:58:51 Well, it sets on L2 the like the value of each sidechain blocks 3:58:54 up there 5000 blocks $5,000 each. But I think 3:58:57 like Paul that has no relationship to this conversation. 3:59:02 But I think I now understand what you really meant, which is 3:59:05 but there are two people who are harmed. The person who paid, as 3:59:09 you know, you're saying this person who used blind merge 3:59:12 mining in the first block gets scammed out of their money. And 3:59:17 the second, because they paid on L1, but now they're not going 3:59:20 to get an L2 block, which is what I that's what I correctly 3:59:24 summarized as reorg risk on L2. And then there is the miner on 3:59:30 L1, when they mine the sidechain block a second time, so maybe we 3:59:33 call them a main chain block 100 and 101. And then we have 3:59:38 sidechain block seven and eight. So they're going to instead of 3:59:42 mining block eight in block 101, they'll mine like 7B or 3:59:47 something, an alternative seven to claim the fee having 3:59:51 vertically integrated. But the miner doesn't necessarily the L 3:59:54 one miner doesn't necessarily get that money until the 3:59:58 sidechain block on L2 has its maturity period and then they 4:00:02 withdraw the coins back to L1. So they there's kind of like a 4:00:06 live by the sword die by the sword reorg risk for 4:00:11 except the miners don't have that capital cost. They just 4:00:16 hitch the commitment in there. They don't have to pay money and 4:00:19 take the risk of being robbed. Only non miners. 4:00:26 Well, yes, but that's not the point. The point is that on L2 4:00:29 that that is exactly my point. 4:00:33 Yes, but they can get reorg on L2 and get counter reorg if 4:00:36 someone builds on the original seven versus 7B, then they 4:00:41 didn't collect anything for that paid an opportunity cost of a 4:00:45 block. So they lose, they actually just lose the money in 4:00:48 that case. That if the L2 does not go with through with the fee 4:00:54 sniping, then the L1 miner who attempted to take the block, 4:01:00 they found a block on the sidechain that is reorg out. And 4:01:04 so they lost money by doing that. So it's just like the risk 4:01:08 you want to take if you start this in there because people 4:01:11 will lose money in fee sniping. That's exactly why I don't think 4:01:14 anyone will do it. But if anyone does do it, it's only affecting 4:01:17 people on L2 anyway, so it doesn't even make really any 4:01:20 difference to the users regular users on L1. But you understand 4:01:24 what I'm saying about the L you're saying my a minor you 4:01:28 have block 100 and 101 on the main chain, you find like seven 4:01:31 and eight. So block you have a main chain block 100 they find 4:01:39 block seven and then you're saying this person's thinking 4:01:42 okay, I just took L1 cash to find block seven now when I find 4:01:47 block 101 I'm going to mine a different version of sidechain 4:01:51 block seven reorg that person out basically take their money 4:01:58 take take the L2 coins. That's what you're saying, right? And 4:02:03 then I'm gonna get away with it. Yes or no. Sorry, I didn't hear 4:02:09 you said yes, you have introduced an entirely different 4:02:13 dynamic for this that does not involve redoing and wasting the 4:02:17 cost and the profit for your base work and your machines 4:02:21 looking at the main chain. Yeah, but to me, each of the 4:02:25 sidechain blocks is just as if it were one transaction on L1. 4:02:30 And so when the sidechain miner on 101 they find the L2 they 4:02:35 find block seven B they are finding at a risk of themselves 4:02:41 being reorg out because when the next one block eight is 4:02:44 eventually made because the sidechain is a block maturity 4:02:47 period same as the main chain, but it really doesn't matter if 4:02:50 it didn't but the point is the you you with you can't actually 4:02:54 get the coins back to L1 for some period of time. So you can 4:03:00 swap them out, as you pointed out all the time. Sure, but 4:03:04 that's in the next block or so. So if you get if the sidechain 4:03:08 is reorg, then that doesn't happen. 4:03:18 So the if the person is minds, you start with block seven, 4:03:22 seven B, and then someone made block eight. It depends on 4:03:27 which one they build on that. So one of those people is going to 4:03:29 lose their money. 4:03:33 Yeah, but here's the thing. They, according to you, if they 4:03:38 aren't just running their own node, they don't care. It's 4:03:42 whatever pays the most. So the miner who just grabbed that 4:03:45 money, I'll just overpay a little bit to make sure somebody 4:03:49 grabs one building on the block that I just made. And that also 4:03:54 is a very small risk, considering the incentive there. 4:03:58 And those miners having no way to tell anything, except what's 4:04:03 bidding the highest fee. 4:04:06 Yeah, but I don't see why you think it matters so much to me. 4:04:09 It's just the same thing that miners already do, which is 4:04:12 because because Paul, this dynamic playing out and the low, 4:04:16 extremely low level of risk for miners doing this is a massive 4:04:22 risk for anybody who is not a minor, trying to take advantage 4:04:28 of this to get fees. It is a huge risk and a huge disincentive 4:04:33 for them. So that's also a reason for them to really bid 4:04:37 low for these fees, like you said, which means that the 4:04:40 margin miners have to capture if they do it themselves is that 4:04:44 much larger. It's that much greater of an incentive 4:04:49 financially for miners to do this themselves. 4:04:53 I don't really think so. Because why would it not also apply to 4:04:57 the miners themselves can't can reorg for free this I chain for 4:05:02 free, they pay opportunity costs. But when they mine the 4:05:06 block themselves, they're mining a block that itself can get 4:05:08 reorg. So they the risk hits them both, which is again, part 4:05:12 my point is, okay, dude, it's like you literally just ignored 4:05:16 everything I said, if most miners aren't running these 4:05:19 nodes themselves, all they see is the fee for a block. And the 4:05:24 minor who just double spent and fee snipe that really juicy 4:05:28 block has more money to pay a higher fee to ensure their block 4:05:32 is the one that gets built on. And that minor sees nothing but 4:05:36 the fee. That is a much, much smaller risk than you are trying 4:05:41 to make it out to be. But I don't know, you're just you're 4:05:44 ignoring the dynamic of the block that comes after and the 4:05:47 economics there. And the scenario you assume, which is 4:05:51 most miners don't run these nodes themselves. 4:06:11 In here, what was said in the last like five seconds, but what 4:06:19 I'm getting at is if there's reorg risk on the sidechain, 4:06:21 then every single person finding blocks over there, it hits all 4:06:26 of them. It hits the value because every block you find is 4:06:31 reduced in value, because you don't know, you have to say 4:06:34 like, maybe there's only a 50% chance that I keep this block. 4:06:37 So it seemed to me like what you were saying was, people will 4:06:40 bid low, and then there'll be the reorg risk will price the 4:06:45 blind merge minor people out of the market, and they will only 4:06:48 be L1 miners who vertically integrate. But after they 4:06:53 vertically integrate, there's still the threat of people 4:06:56 reorging will still be there. So actually, the value will fall. 4:07:01 Yes, Paul, which is why miners will just do it themselves. 4:07:05 They will not bid in the open to try to get a sidechain block in 4:07:09 other miners blocks, they will just include their own 4:07:12 commitments and their own blocks. And that will be how it 4:07:16 goes. That will be how it reaches an equilibrium. No one's 4:07:20 willing to create the risk because you have to actually bid 4:07:23 and pay on the main chain to set this whole scenario up. So 4:07:28 miners won't do it. It'll devolve to just miners doing 4:07:32 this themselves in their own blocks and not bidding for 4:07:35 inclusion in any other miners blocks. 4:07:38 What I'm saying is it won't stop there, they'll still be 4:07:40 fee sniping each other. And this will just reduce objectively 4:07:44 the value of each coinbase by the same factor. 4:07:50 And that will reach an equilibrium. But that 4:07:52 equilibrium will be reached with miners running all of this 4:07:56 themselves, contrary to your claims, with massive 4:07:59 disincentives for non miners to participate, and pretty big 4:08:03 incentives for miners to directly participate. 4:08:06 I think we should have a separate or I'm going to 4:08:08 continue to explain why I think I'm right. But I think we should 4:08:10 have a separate conversation that just said like if blind 4:08:12 merge mining had never been invented, because I think it is 4:08:16 substantially distracted you and JC from the bigger picture 4:08:20 of why I don't think this whole category of things matters. 4:08:26 But let's first let's finish because what you're saying is 4:08:31 the sidechain will have fee sniping. So let's say one out 4:08:33 of every two blocks is reorg. So you only have a 50% chance 4:08:36 of getting the coinbase then sell to coinbase money. And 4:08:41 you'll say, well, that's not enough because the person BMM 4:08:44 mining, they 4:08:46 Paul, like you're trying to claim equal risk here. That's 4:08:49 not true. It's proportional risk to your share of the hash 4:08:53 rate as a pool. So you do not have evenly distributed risk 4:08:57 here. 4:08:59 But that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying this. 4:09:03 No, that's what I'm saying. 4:09:05 You're saying that if someone has more l1 hash rate, they can 4:09:08 more easily reorg the l2 block. 4:09:12 No, I'm saying their risk of being reorg is lower, because 4:09:16 their probability of finding the next block to guarantee 4:09:19 their block is built on is higher. It is not a symmetric 4:09:23 risk profile for every participant. 4:09:26 I know, but I don't think we can go into like every single 4:09:28 deal. We have to like continue each we have to like consider 4:09:32 this is the whole problem. My issue with this proposal is how 4:09:38 all of these things interact with each other to change the 4:09:43 incentives, and you refuse to engage with that complete 4:09:47 picture. You consistently try to narrow things down to a tiny 4:09:52 aspect of something and look at that in a vacuum. And that's 4:09:56 pretty much the exact same as just totally ignoring my 4:10:00 arguments and pretending it's not there. 4:10:03 Okay, so why don't we just let me give you this one little 4:10:07 example first. 4:10:08 We just let me give you this one little example first, and then we'll see if you if it matches it. 4:10:10 See, because what I'm saying is the sidechain has reorg risk. 4:10:14 So now maybe the sidechain coinbases are worth $10. 4:10:18 But since one out of every two is reorg, the person is really not willing to bid more than like $4.99 or whatever. 4:10:25 So the miners vertically integrate in your story. 4:10:27 That's what you just said. The miners are the only ones running the sidechain. 4:10:32 But the L1, they get the miners can reorg, continue to reorg L2 at the same rate. 4:10:41 But now the thing is, it does not have the same downside, because those miners are not having to capitalize Bitcoin upfront in proportion to what they're claiming, like people who don't mine. 4:10:55 So the downside now that miners are the ones doing it is very different. 4:11:00 Isn't it the same thing, though, at the end of the day, you get a coinbase for $10 on the L2, but you only get it, you only actually win it half the time, because of the reorg, because of the fee sniping. 4:11:12 That's a new equilibrium. 4:11:14 Yes. 4:11:15 That is not I actually paid somebody money to get this extra money, and I did not get the extra money and also lost what I paid for it. 4:11:24 That's not what's happening. 4:11:26 That equilibrium is just bringing down the average of the revenue being generated by that. 4:11:32 And it does not come with the double whammy of you lose money you already had to. 4:11:39 Yes, but you haven't let me finish my story. 4:11:41 The story is that we start with Blind Merged Mining and 100% of it goes through and there's no fee sniping. 4:11:46 Then we enter a time, there's no reorging. 4:11:49 Then we enter a time of troubles where there's reorging. 4:11:53 The revenues are cut in half, because you don't know what you're going to get. 4:11:59 You don't know if you're going to win or not, the actual block. 4:12:03 And then we enter a period where people stop using Blind Merged Mining and the miners vertically integrate. 4:12:11 Then there's still fee sniping. 4:12:13 So then why is it a different number is the question because it should be just $5 or $4.99. 4:12:19 The miners do not, it's like you literally just ignore everything I say. 4:12:26 Miners don't have to pay anyone, anything to get their sidechain block committed to in a main chain block. 4:12:34 So they'll just do that. 4:12:37 And because they will stick with just doing that, they will not try to bid to get a sidechain block in other places. 4:12:46 They will not try to bid to get a sidechain block in other miners blocks, because that increases their risk profile. 4:12:54 Whereas sticking with just including theirs in their own blocks does not increase their risk profile. 4:13:00 Yeah, but do you believe that if a miner vertically integrates with Drivechain, and they find the L2 block, 4:13:08 do you believe that they pay anything on L1 to do that? 4:13:13 No, Paul, they do not. 4:13:16 They only get the coins on L2. 4:13:18 So why are you fighting it when I say if that L2 block is then re-orked, then that first miner didn't get anything. 4:13:23 Whereas before they were, when everyone was playing nice, they got $10 per block, per sidechain or whatever. 4:13:30 Because again, you're like, you're just ignoring my argument. 4:13:34 Essentially, you are trying to pretend let's look at this one block in isolation, and not look at the long time horizon and average of when they do or do not get to keep that block. 4:13:45 Which will exceed that $5. 4:13:48 That's all anyone will pay because they actually have to pay money. 4:13:52 It's like, dude, every single time I lay out an argument, you ignore it, and find some tiny isolated piece of it. 4:14:00 And then just try to focus the entire discussion on that and that alone, and refuse to even acknowledge the whole overarching argument exists. 4:14:11 Well, I'm having trouble understanding what it is. 4:14:14 It seems to me that it is about what... 4:14:17 Well, Paul, you seem to be one of the only people who has trouble understanding this. 4:14:23 Because when I make these arguments, and I explain these things to all kinds of other people, they seem to understand it just fine. 4:14:31 Maybe they just nod and say, well, that sounds bad, but they don't really understand it. 4:14:37 Okay, Paul. 4:14:39 So, we'll just throw out a little random, subtle ad hominem, insulting all kinds of other anonymous people to just dismiss the possibility that you are in fact the one missing something here that other people are in fact understanding. 4:14:57 Well, I'm going to try to understand it one more time. 4:15:01 It seems like you were saying that miners will reorg L2 without reorging L1, so that everyone who's pre-Drivechain is not affected at all. 4:15:15 There's no reorgs happening on L1, and no one cares. 4:15:18 But something is happening to the quote, miner incentives, unquote. 4:15:22 And so the miners are looking at these Drivechains, and they're saying, listen, I'm going to reorg and feesnipe these drivechains. 4:15:28 So, and then they, if they feel that that will maximize their revenue, they'll engage in that behavior. 4:15:38 Even though what it does is make the sidechain more difficult to use, makes the users unhappy. 4:15:44 It doesn't really achieve anything, because if you reorg every other block, then half of your blocks will be reorged out also. 4:15:51 So it's kind of like, just adds a lot of risk for no reason. 4:15:54 Paul, you're the only one who thinks it's got to happen that frequently. 4:15:58 That can just happen with fee spike outliers, who knows. 4:16:02 But it introduces risk for non-miners trying to produce those blocks that will disincentivize them from participating. 4:16:10 Which more and more over time leaves miners as the only candidates who can take this role without that risk. 4:16:18 Well, let's say that they did, though. 4:16:20 But before I want to say something else, though, which is that, imagine that there's a high, someone pays an unusually high fee on layer one. 4:16:30 And then miners fight over that block. 4:16:33 I mean, that has happened in Bitcoin already. 4:16:36 That could happen at any time. 4:16:38 Yeah, that's not an analogous situation there, because the opportunity cost is drastically higher than my scenario, Paul. 4:16:45 It's not the same situation. 4:16:48 The risk profile is radically different. 4:16:51 Well, let's say that there is no Blind Merged Mining at all, and everyone classically merge mines. 4:16:57 And then there's a fee spike on L2. 4:17:01 The miners fight over it over there. 4:17:04 I mean, how is this like a different miner incentive, is the question. 4:17:07 I'm still trying to figure out how it's different. 4:17:09 Because without the composite picture of 300 and 301, the peg and the merge mining scheme, it's a completely different game. 4:17:24 Because you're talking now either a trusted, explicit federated system, which things like RSK and Liquid have shown people are not interested in, or you're talking a free floating shitcoin. 4:17:35 See, the thing about a free floating shitcoin is it doesn't follow the price of Bitcoin. 4:17:40 And no matter how much traffic is happening on that chain, that can occur while the price of that coin trends down, which is objectively what has historically happened. 4:17:54 It has trended down to a nothing percentage of miner revenue. 4:18:01 And it is a completely different picture and scenario than something actually anchored to the price of Bitcoin that cannot just freely drop in price on its own. 4:18:12 Yeah, but I'm just asking about your example so that I can figure out more about what it is. 4:18:18 So let's just say there is no Blind Merged Mining, and there's only classical merge mining. 4:18:21 Paul, what are you talking about? That is a meaningless, pointless discussion. 4:18:32 Because my entire assertion here, my entire problem is that Blind Merged Mining does not do what it claims to do. 4:18:39 That it devolves to the situation that exists in merge mining. 4:18:44 So what in the actual fuck do you mean, let's talk about if Blind Merged Mining didn't exist? 4:18:49 This entire conversation is about Blind Merged Mining. That's literally the core of the discussion. 4:18:59 Okay, well let's talk about Blind Merged Mining in general then. 4:19:02 So let's say the Blind Merged Mining is not only not invented, but it's impossible. 4:19:07 And everyone, every miner must run. We go back to the pre-BIP301 world, and every miner must run. 4:19:15 Jesus Christ. 4:19:17 Yeah, isn't that fair? I want to find out what the problem is with that. 4:19:24 So let's say that happens, and then what is the issue? Where is the negative impact on someone? 4:19:33 To me, someone who runs mining, someone who, like, it's not even, the full node cost of the sidechain miner is a lot like paying for an immersion cooling. 4:19:44 Paul, it's like you don't actually try to have a conversation with people. You don't actually listen to what they're saying. 4:19:53 You don't actually try to consider the arguments they make and the scope that they make them. 4:19:59 It's like you just hear words come out of people's mouths and then go, let's have this different conversation. 4:20:06 Like that's not the conversation I'm having. That's not the things that I'm commenting on. 4:20:12 You're saying BIP301, like, has some kind of flaw and will not be used because of L2 fee sniping. I disagree, but I say let's make it for the sake of argument. 4:20:23 And we'll just assume that it doesn't exist, and then I want to see what the problem is with that. Because to me, Blind Merged Mining is... 4:20:30 I have said, and I am saying the same things I have said for literally years until you blocked me and just prevent me now from responding to anything or repeating these things. 4:20:44 The problem is a peg that holds a token's price to Bitcoin's price in combination with a Blind Merged Mining scheme devolves into something that does affect miner incentives. 4:21:02 And the difference between Blind Merged Mining in general, or merge mining in general, when it comes to miner incentives is the price. 4:21:12 Is it pegged to Bitcoin? Or can it independently crash? 4:21:17 Because empirically, all the historical data is that they trend down to nothing if they freely float with their own price. 4:21:26 And miners eventually just don't care. 4:21:29 Like, you point at Namecoin, do you know how many times miners stopped merge mining Namecoin and then start again when the price pumps? 4:21:37 It's a little irrelevant nothing that always trends to a irrelevant tail end. 4:21:44 That is not possible when the peg is combined with things and keeps the price of something anchored to Bitcoin. 4:21:53 But I think it would be very easy for most people to see why I bring up Namecoin. 4:21:58 Because Namecoin was invented by Satoshi and has been used for 10 years and is in constant use. 4:22:04 It's true that it's not very popular. It doesn't generate a lot of revenue. 4:22:07 But it's something that no one can stop miners from doing and that they already are doing. 4:22:14 So what you're really saying is I hope merge mining, which is this inevitable thing that has always existed and always will exist. 4:22:20 You're saying I hope that this thing remains small and niche. 4:22:25 But you can see how when I'm criticized for, quote, changing miner incentives, why I just think, well, that's just clearly not true. 4:22:33 Because merge mining has always been part of miner incentives. It's just been very small. 4:22:39 So if that's, you know, there's no in principle change in miner incentives. 4:22:43 It's just they would get a lot more money from merge mining than they used to. 4:22:45 So you can hopefully understand why when the critique is something like, oh, you're changing miner incentives, that it would be fair game to point out. 4:22:54 It absolutely is a change in miner incentives, Paul, because you are taking something that has empirically, observably always trended to nothing. 4:23:05 And by combining it with the peg and anchoring the price of those things to Bitcoin, you are removing a factor in the current incentives, which is those things are freely priced. 4:23:19 They don't just track the price of Bitcoin. 4:23:21 By removing that possibility and anchoring the price to Bitcoin, you are changing the incentives. 4:23:28 You are changing the situation. 4:23:31 Well, I mean, it seems to me like now you're saying something like you would support the 300 of Namecoin were worth as much as Bitcoin. 4:23:39 I mean, I know that's not literally what you're saying, but. 4:23:42 No, Paul, that has no relationship to anything I just said at all. 4:23:47 That reflects nothing. 4:23:49 Why do you say silly phrases, Shinobi, about this has nothing to do with, it has nothing at all, 0%. 4:23:56 Because you are consistently trying to reframe everything I'm saying in a different context to ascribe a different meaning to it in a public discussion with numerous people listening to it. 4:24:11 That's why I'm saying that, Paul. 4:24:13 I'm correcting you, and I'm stopping you from just putting words in my mouth, essentially, which you have repetitively done this entire time. 4:24:20 Well, I'm going to do it right now because you know full well that you just said a moment ago, empirically trends to zero. 4:24:27 And then I said, well, what if the price was the same? 4:24:29 And you said the problem is the peg. 4:24:31 And then I said, what if the price of Namecoin was the same as Bitcoin? 4:24:33 So it's not like it had absolutely no relationship whatsoever, and I'm some kind of like bad faith. 4:24:38 Yes, it does. It's not anchored to that price, Paul. 4:24:42 It's completely freely formed. 4:24:44 If a shitcoin pumps, you know what it has done empirically? 4:24:48 Every time, crash. 4:24:51 It does not just track Bitcoin's price. 4:24:55 It is not perpetually, permanently linked to it in a way where it will never substantially deviate from it. 4:25:02 Those are not the same situations. 4:25:04 An altcoin could be in a situation where its price happens to pump when it gets less usage, and then as a merge mined chain, and then when the price goes down, the chain gets more usage. 4:25:15 And so even though the price is not pegged, then despite being not pegged, the monetary value of the L2 blocks could still be the same amount of US dollar value as if it had been pegged to Bitcoin. 4:25:31 Paul, you are trying to take any extreme fringe edge case example with an insanely low probability and trying to hold that up to the comparison of this is guaranteed 100% of the time. 4:25:46 That's absurd. 4:25:48 Oh, that's true. 4:25:49 I'm just trying to say that you're saying that your case is based on this empirical concept of something that may or may not happen. 4:25:59 Yes, the historical empirical reality of all of these coins that have been merged is that it crashes. 4:26:07 Hey, can I attempt to moderate just a little bit? 4:26:14 Because I think Shinobi is probably the most valid critic of BIP300 that I've heard, and I really don't want this to be something where Shinobi leaves and then we all suffer because of it. 4:26:28 And Shinobi, I do find it a little bit hard to follow your rationale, but I also find it equally hard to follow Paul's rationale, too, and his responses. 4:26:41 So I'm not going to claim to fully understand you or Paul's response to your points. 4:26:46 But it seems like to me, Paul, what Shinobi is saying, and Shinobi, please correct me if I'm wrong, there are things that are already possible. 4:26:59 There's already kind of issues with MEV and ideas here, but Drivechain exacerbates these things and makes them even worse. 4:27:09 And just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it. 4:27:12 It's like shooting yourself in the foot. 4:27:14 Even though we already have examples of this, which I think you're pointing out, I think what Shinobi is trying to say is this releases it and opens up the ceiling for this to get way, way worse. 4:27:29 And it gives people a direct path to it versus right now it's sort of muddled on how this necessarily becomes worse, even though it is possible for this to become worse. 4:27:37 Shinobi, is that a fair characterization? 4:27:40 Yes, that is the core of my entire argument. 4:27:44 If your oven has a 1% chance of blowing up in your face, why do you want to increase that? 4:27:50 So, Paul, I think what you need to prove out in order to satisfy this concern, which is somewhat 0.8 on the list, this list I'm trying to promote, but whatever. 4:28:06 I think what you need to try to prove out or at least acknowledge that, yes, this is a problem, but does it make it any worse? 4:28:18 And I don't know how easy it is to prove, hey, this isn't going to make it worse because Shinobi is pretty convinced that this does enable easily for this to get way worse. 4:28:30 And I think Shinobi is coming from a very, very good place with his concerns here. 4:28:36 So I don't want you to necessarily brush this off as if Shinobi is trolling you right here. 4:28:43 I think he's being completely sincere with his concerns. 4:28:46 And Paul, I'll just step aside. 4:28:50 I just really I don't want this to be something where it's like we're missing this opportunity to progress the conversation, either acknowledging issues or making people understand things differently. 4:29:02 You know what I mean? 4:29:04 Yes. Okay. 4:29:05 So I think if we zoom out. 4:29:08 The my like plan for explaining why there is no issue is see like Blind Merged Mining is like an is an optional thing. 4:29:18 They can always reintegrate the same person. 4:29:21 Blind Merged Mining is designed to separate the L1 miners from the L2 blockchain day to day. 4:29:29 But they could you could always have a vertical integration where the layer one miner decides that they want to do both. 4:29:39 They want to wear both hats, so to speak. 4:29:42 So what Shinobi seems to be saying is that the eye for me to be correct, it relies critically on that never happening. 4:29:55 But I don't feel that way at all. 4:29:56 To me, it makes no difference if it happens every time. 4:29:58 And so I think that is where we should take the conversation next, because to me, a Blind Merged Mining is like a clever way of helping the miner not run a node. 4:30:10 And I actually I think it will work. 4:30:12 And I think the fee sniping thing doesn't apply. 4:30:14 And actually, I think Professor Warner's essay, he frames it in a certain way. 4:30:19 But I think he actually explains sort of why it won't happen in that long essay. 4:30:23 So people should maybe look it up if they're interested in that. 4:30:26 Or I can continue to talk about that detail. 4:30:29 But I think maybe it's just easier to just say that Shinobi, he thinks that there's a problem if there is no Blind Merged Mining. 4:30:37 But I'm convinced also that there is absolutely zero problem, even if Blind Merged Mining had never been invented and in fact was impossible. 4:30:45 And every sidechain miner, I would say that it has not changed miner incentives, even if it were required that every miner run every sidechain node. 4:30:55 I would still say it doesn't affect miner incentives. 4:30:58 So that's, I think, where the conversation should go next. 4:31:02 But I need Mike to tell me whether or not any of this is making any sense to him or the other people in the audience. 4:31:17 I'm doing like three or four things right now and my kid's crying. 4:31:21 Who do you love more, Mike? Your child, your crying child, or the Bitcoin community who wants you to moderate this important… 4:31:33 The thing that I think Shinobi has brought up in the past, which I'm not exactly sure if this is what he or you are getting at is… 4:31:45 Mike, you mind real quick if I just get a quick word in to what Paul just said? 4:31:53 Paul, you just said you don't care if miners always wind up running these nodes themselves. 4:32:00 So what you have just explicitly said then is you do not care if miners are affected by the consensus equivalence of a block size increase and the incentive changes that creates, especially in pool dynamics and all of that. 4:32:18 So then there's just an impasse, like period. 4:32:22 You will never get consensus on this proposal ever if that's your attitude because a shit ton of people in this space, that is a line. 4:32:33 That is a serious concern and you have literally just said you don't care. 4:32:38 You don't see that as a concern. 4:32:40 You don't even see that as something to address. 4:32:42 That's a final impasse. 4:32:44 Like there is no moving forward here. 4:32:46 There is no moving towards consensus. 4:32:49 We just got started now. 4:32:50 I was just saying that we should talk about what this is really about, which is the prejudice against… 4:32:55 That's what this is about. 4:32:57 That's what this is about, Paul. 4:32:59 What I just said, what you said you don't care about is what this is entirely about. 4:33:04 That is a complete and total impasse. 4:33:08 That's a brick wall. 4:33:10 If it's the case that a miner must spend a certain amount of money to buy like an S9 or if it's the case that you must have a certain amount of hash rate to join a pool, why is that any different from any other requirement including the requirement to run onerous sidechain node software? 4:33:28 You know what I mean? 4:33:30 Because the entire viability of Bitcoin as a system, Paul, is neutrality and censorship resistance. 4:33:38 That was accomplished through the limitation of the block size. 4:33:42 That was not just about miners and how it affects miners. 4:33:45 That was also about users. 4:33:47 It was about how both of those things interact. 4:33:50 It's about users being able to actually validate things. 4:33:54 But it's also about the mining ecosystem having a floor of decentralization that they can hit. 4:34:03 And when you start trying to turn this up in a way that only affects miners so that you can look to users and go, this has no effect on you, it does. 4:34:12 Because it starts creating those centralization pressures that have a big effect on censorship resistance, on neutrality, by raising the floor of how decentralized things can be. 4:34:25 By raising the floor consciously and artificially by tweaking this knob, how small scale of a participant in the mining system can be viable. 4:34:35 Yeah, but it's true that there is a knob as how small scale a miner can be viable. 4:34:42 But that's my point is that to buy even like a block eruptor or something, or like an S9. 4:34:51 It's like thousands of dollars, or as well, this is why pools exist to pool things. 4:34:54 This is why people are looking at pools, which are a point of centralization and researching how to turn them into distributed protocols, where every individual miner running hardware can actually have their own node plugged into this protocol, do their own block selection to actually decentralize the block templates. 4:35:16 Construction as much as or at least allow it to be decentralized as much as the actual hardware ownership is and Drivechains and these merge mine systems artificially increase the cost of that they raise the floor of how low you can go there. 4:35:37 Well, but let me ask you this, though, you're saying that you have a problem with anything that increase a miner's costs. 4:35:44 In terms of coordination of a pool, the validation cost of doing that, yes, the entire system was designed all to increase the cost and the profit margins with the difficulty adjustment. 4:36:00 So please do not try to take this conversation down the road of conflating those two things. 4:36:05 That's what the system was explicitly designed and needed to be designed for to function properly. 4:36:11 The block template construction, the actual validation aspect of pooling, that needs to be decentralized, too. 4:36:19 And Drivechains is something that makes it harder and harder and more expensive and less inclusive in terms of shit we can do to improve decentralization. 4:36:31 So you're talking about how much it costs to start a new pool. 4:36:34 You are not at all talking about how much it costs to become like a hasher, like someone who's buying an S9. 4:36:41 Because you seem to agree with me that the miners have huge costs, even a small miner has costs that are much, much higher. 4:36:51 I'm not just talking about starting a pool. I am also talking about the cost of participating in a protocol that replaces pools. 4:37:04 What do you mean by that? 4:37:06 I mean, every miner hashing away is also running a node and they are picking their own transactions. 4:37:14 They are actually making their own block templates. 4:37:16 And when their share actually meets the difficulty, their block template that they constructed themselves is what's sent out to the network. 4:37:25 And all you need is fancy scripting in the Coinbase and you can have a totally trustless way to divvy that money up between miners. 4:37:33 There are numerous designs out there for that right now. 4:37:36 The possibility of design space gets bigger and bigger the more you start adding things like CTV or APO or other very basic covenants. 4:37:46 And Drivechains completely undermines how decentralized that type of landscape can be in the future. 4:37:55 And I know for a fact that there are major mining operations, even pools who want to see things go in that direction. 4:38:03 Because they see that as a protection of their investment long term by actually maintaining and optimizing those specific properties. 4:38:12 So I don't know if maybe Mike can answer the question about if he's talking about costs of starting a new pool. 4:38:21 I honestly don't understand what the... 4:38:25 Jesus Christ. 4:38:28 Paul, I have a question for you. 4:38:30 I just want to simplify the conversation because I have an ADIQ smooth brain here. 4:38:37 And I guess what I want to get at is, would you be able to... 4:38:44 Because what I really want to do is see if I can find common ground between you and Shinobi. 4:38:49 Would you be able to agree that if MEV opportunities exist on sidechains, that that is a centralizing factor as mining pools and miners would need to benefit by running those sidechains? 4:39:06 We actually did it before and you can maybe see that in the reply to this tweet thread. 4:39:13 I put some images and we actually already discussed it at the beginning. 4:39:18 I apologize. I wasn't... 4:39:22 But the MEV on the sidechain is contained completely on L2. 4:39:26 And the people who... The L2 nodes are separate from the L1 nodes. 4:39:31 So sidechains just firewall everything off. 4:39:33 And so even though there could be MEV, whoever's collecting on L2, that's the software that gets you that money. 4:39:46 There's nothing that L1 miners need to do differently. 4:39:49 Paul, that's a complete oversimplification. 4:39:53 I mean, just as a concrete example, if you have chains with MEV going on, all of them need frontends. 4:39:59 And most of them are centralized. 4:40:01 Whoever's running that frontend has a massively privileged position in terms of extracting more MEV than people who don't run that frontend. 4:40:10 And that is not just guaranteed to be an open access thing that anyone can do and just have equal footing for competition. 4:40:19 No, I was saying that the sidechain is contained in the... 4:40:23 It's like basically running a sidechain full node. 4:40:26 It's just sidechain full node plus MEV. 4:40:29 And so that the coinbase, the value of the sidechain L2 coinbase goes up, basically. 4:40:37 But it's contained completely on the sidechain. It doesn't affect L1. 4:40:41 Well, now you're just essentially pretending every argument I've made up until this point about the interactions between L2 and L1 are just invalid and don't exist. 4:40:54 And you're back to ignoring them. 4:40:56 Wait, hold on. Let me, on behalf of Shinobi, and I might bastardize his points so Shinobi can give me shit later. 4:41:07 But I want to just hone in on this idea just because I don't actually understand your answer to Shinobi, Paul. 4:41:17 Or at least the take I'm trying to explain here, which is miners are going to be in a position to have asynchronous kind of skill sets and asynchronous kind of abilities to be involved with these MEVs that you're... 4:41:37 I guess you could call it your average pleb or your average node runners on these blockchains are not going to be able to compete with. 4:41:46 So the idea is miners are going to be more or less in a privileged position because of their scale and their, I guess you could say their resources, and I use resources abstractly as well as human resources. 4:42:01 But they're going to be in a position to produce MEV asynchronously better, or I guess you could say uniquely better than other people, which would then put them in a position where Blind Merged Mining is going to be completely out the door where you have these more sophisticated, large scale, complicated blockchains potentially. 4:42:30 So maybe not every sidechain is going to give really this opportunity for MEV, but there will be enough or one or multiple of these that will cause miners to essentially be centralizing, especially if these... 4:42:45 Hey, why do people say it's true and then people just throw this word centralizing in there? Like what if I said that miners have a unique advantage, they run software that allows them to collect transaction fees, and so they're given its inherently centralizing advantage. 4:43:03 It's like, no, that's just what they do. 4:43:30 Because they seem to be saying something like, instead of running this software, they'd run some other software. Instead of collecting these fees, they'd collect some other fees, but it doesn't really make any difference. 4:43:39 Let me attempt to demystify. So in the situation where you are... We talked about this in the past, almost as a joke, but not really, where we're talking about terabyte blocks, which would require an incredible amount of infrastructure coordination and all this stuff, and potentially something that's producing well above layer one fees. 4:44:03 If there's some sort of minimum fee on this terabyte blockchain, terabyte blocks being produced, and there's some sort of minimum fee, and it's just the gravy of Bitcoin, and everyone's using it, and it's creating tons of transaction volume and tons of transaction fees, and now it's dwarfing layer one fees and ideas. 4:44:26 I think this is more in line with, okay, well, something over there now can perversely mess up layer one, in terms of if something goes down there, people are going to be incentivized to act differently and maybe reject blocks, mine differently, 51% attack, whatever, if there's these unique fee opportunities going on on these layer twos. 4:44:53 Shinobi, I really hope I'm not mischaracterizing your argument, by the way. I'm going to mute myself now. 4:45:01 Well, it did seem like you switched there from saying they'll be really popular, so that miners will care about them more. 4:45:07 Yeah, but the whole premise of Shinobi's arguments are not whether or not Drivechain will work. It's if Drivechain does work and becomes exceedingly popular, is that going to essentially be bad for Bitcoin? 4:45:21 The whole premise of what Shinobi's talking about is the extremes of if Drivechain actually does work. I would argue he probably doesn't think it will, but if it does, we're kind of two ifs deep or something, where it's like, it's not good, but if it is good, it's still bad kind of idea. 4:45:41 So even if Drivechain gets a lot of adoption, that's kind of where we're at. So it's already the assumption that this is going to be something that gets popular. 4:45:54 Well, I don't know. Let's say there's terabyte blocks, the full node costs a fortune. I mean, how much do you think it could cost? Because there is actually a ceiling on how much it can cost. 4:46:04 Well, let's just say Google and AWS. 4:46:09 Economies of scale. 4:46:11 There have to be some full node users who are basically 0% hashers. So there is some ceiling to how much it can cost before the network just dies off. 4:46:22 Right. But let's say AWS, Jeff Bezos, or I mean, Jeff Bezos isn't CEO anymore, but you know what I mean. Let's just say Amazon's fully in support and they're the only people, they've dedicated a whole data center just for... 4:46:36 $10 million a day it costs to run the full node. 4:46:39 Sure, sure, whatever. And literally no one else wants to do this with them. 4:46:46 Right. And then, so then continue the example. 4:46:49 So in this example, there's like a minimum fee. There's obviously no pressure on block size, but there is like a minimum fee. So you end up getting some sort of large amount of fees in comparison to L1. 4:47:05 The fees must be larger than the costs. Because of course the costs are, I mean, surely it must be like $30 million. 4:47:16 It could also be $30 million. 4:47:18 Okay. 4:47:20 Paul, get inventive. Like Amazon ran at a loss for 20 years. Companies at those scale have lots of profitable things that they can use to subsidize loss leaders. 4:47:32 It's not that simple. 4:47:34 You pick the example then. Let Shinobi pick the numbers then. 4:47:37 I don't want anyone saying that Shinobi would pick. So shouldn't Shinobi pick all the numbers or no? 4:47:43 The numbers have nothing to do with it, Paul. I'm responding to your assertion that the costs have, or the fees have to cover the costs. They don't necessarily. 4:47:53 I just thought that it wouldn't be a very interesting example if they didn't because the fees, the total fees don't cover the costs. And it seems to me that no one is just running this network. 4:48:01 Well, hold on. It could be something even more abstract and even more extractable where the people… 4:48:07 What if Amazon gets a bunch of new business because people who couldn't buy things on Amazon can now. 4:48:14 So even though running this giant giga node is not profitable, the secondary effect of the commerce that it generates for Amazon makes it profitable. 4:48:24 Yeah, so they run this thing that's too expensive for… Oh, Portland is back. Hello. 4:48:30 They run this thing that is too expensive for anyone else to run. No one else can run a node, including the users, but people pay transaction fees. 4:48:40 I mean now this is kind of just becoming like a Steam game marketplace or something. This isn't really even a blockchain anymore. 4:48:49 No, but Paul, it's Bitcoin because Drivechain and people don't understand and you shouldn't expect users to understand all the technical nuance under the hood of things they're using. 4:49:00 And now it's generating this revenue and it's having this influence. 4:49:04 Maybe Portland can save us from this, but I did want to throw one last thing, which is to say that, again, I could already start a business today and I could say I'm the only one allowed to run this node. 4:49:15 As far as everyone else is concerned, it's impossible. It has infinite costs. And I have a store and I sell things for Bitcoin. 4:49:23 And you pay here with Bitcoin. You pay micropayments. I give you whatever. I sell hats for a small amount. 4:49:31 And then that's just not a blockchain. So again, the fundamental effect of miner incentives, I hate to be so, but maybe Portland can help us. 4:49:40 I don't think I'm here to help, but I do have a statement that you could actually create a sidechain that has specialized validation hardware, if I'm correct. 4:49:54 You could have an Amazon AI compute sidechain that you would peg in your Bitcoin and you could pay Amazon addresses with this AI compute coin. 4:50:03 And literally they would put it on their calculations. The actual script you want to execute on the sidechain would get ran on their GPU clusters. 4:50:12 Nobody has access to some of that stuff that we have. That would be a one-node scenario that would basically control the validation of the sidechain because no user could possibly validate the computation they're doing with the scripts on that sidechain. 4:50:27 Yes, that's correct. But you wouldn't say that that's the end of Bitcoin, though. 4:50:31 No, I think that Amazon would control the consensus on that entire sidechain. 4:50:40 But you see Amazon already controls… 4:50:42 Well, actually they wouldn't control the consensus on the sidechain because the miners still could vote against what they say. So the miners actually technically still control the entire situation. 4:50:50 The very perplexing situation would be that they're using BIP300 for some reason, but it's basically… all it would say to run the sidechain node software would just be a hyperlink to a URL controlled by Amazon. 4:51:12 And they would say this is where we will put the hash. So it's kind of bizarre. It doesn't really make sense that they would use BIP300. 4:51:19 Oh, no, I was just saying you could create a blockchain on Amazon clusters where literally the scripting language of the blockchain is outputs of tokens or something or a hash of some result of work that this thing has done. 4:51:31 And so no other user on Earth could have that kind of compute to ever validate. I guess, yeah, you're right. It doesn't make any sense. 4:51:39 They could just falsify the results unless you're doing actual some proof of work that's added into that. But nonetheless, I just feel that you can create Drivechains and it would pay the miners fees with specialized hardware that nobody would have access to. You could do FPGAs. 4:51:56 You're quite right, of course. But the reason why I assumed the revenues would be more than the costs was because I just thought it's not a very interesting example if the costs exceed the revenues. 4:52:10 Paul, whether you think it's interesting or not is kind of irrelevant. It can happen. The scenario laid out does make sense. If it can be used as a loss leader to generate secondary profit, that is an economically rational thing to do. 4:52:26 This is the basket we can open for every type of idea for a blockchain out there. And they're all open now if you turn Drivechains on. These are all possible things. 4:52:40 AWS was a loss leader for Amazon for probably three or five years. 4:52:45 I've been misunderstood two times in a row, though, because when I say not an interesting example, I mean, no one in the audience will care about it because it has no implication on anything. 4:52:53 So you know what everybody sitting here listening now is interested in? 4:52:58 Okay, let's go into it. Let's say it costs $10 million a day and it only makes $30,000 a day in transaction fees. So let's go and now we'll see how the miners incentives are affected. 4:53:11 Now let's look at $15 million of revenue generated on Amazon against all of that. You make $5 million in profit when you look at it. 4:53:24 Okay, so now I would like to hear now how the miners incentives are affected by this. 4:53:31 How much of what they're getting paid is required? 4:53:37 If you remove all of the revenue from that node, are miners still profitable or not? Can they selectively withhold or share that revenue with only certain miners? 4:53:49 All of a sudden they have a very interesting role and position to be coercive, to directly and consciously mess with individual miners profitability with their revenue. 4:54:03 I'm a miner. I want to make money. And someone says, there's this new sidechain that comes out. It generates $30,000 a day in transaction fees. I'm like, wow, that's pretty good. 4:54:15 It's not bad. It's not quite an Ethereum, which is $7 million a day, but we have $30,000 a day. And then they say, oh, the full node cost is $10 million a day. 4:54:25 I would be like, okay, well, I'm not running a node. I'll tell you that. At best, I'm going to try to find another node that exists and ask them what's going on, which is basically what Blind Merged Mining is, which is the whole point of Blind Merged Mining. 4:54:39 I'm not paying $10 million a day if I don't have to. But I want to get my hands on this $30,000 a day if I can. Maybe I look at the pool. 4:54:49 Paul, this is what I mean, where you just refuse to engage with the point someone else makes and you just try to look at one piece only and pretend like that's the whole argument. 4:55:06 Here's the scenario. The node costs $10 million to run. The transaction fees are fucking $30,000 or whatever the hell. And there's $15 million of revenue that wasn't there before to Amazon products. So they are in net making $5 million and $30,000. 4:55:30 Economically, that $5 million can be dipped into to pay miners. That can become way more than $30,000 of miner revenue. And that might be something that over time brings operational costs, because new miners come online when new revenue is available, above the point where miners can continue their operations without that. 4:55:55 Now, that fucking Amazon node can actually start directly interfering with the entire mining landscape. It could selectively withhold fees from miners that aren't doing something they want them to do. 4:56:09 It can play games and delegate who gets that money or who doesn't get that money after it's ramped up the difficulty and brought operational costs to the point where that money from Amazon is necessary now to run profitably with this difficulty. 4:56:26 Amazon is giving out $30,000. Oh, Portland wants to say something. Guys, you have to let me know. You're too real and very polite. Okay, all right. 4:56:36 You don't have to give me the four every time. It's fine. I just raised my hand because in my mind, I'm assuming that basically if a node is unprofitable to run, it basically relegates it to Blind Merged Mining only. No mining operation would ever run this. And as such, yeah, it'd be a blind merge mined sidechain only. 4:56:56 Yes, I would like to point out that I think of Blind Merged Mining as not only a BIP, but as a kind of equilibrium outcome of just outsourcing, of just trying to shed the cost of running a node. So if there's a $10 million node, I'm a miner. I'm thinking, I don't want to run this node. I'm going to look at a pool and I'll see, do you have the node? Because I'm not going to run it. 4:57:20 And I ask the pool, do you have some way of proving to me that you're really going to pay me the money that I'm supposed to be getting? I'm going to shop around at the pools. And then the pools probably also, if it's $10 million a day and I'm running a pool, I would be like, wow, this sucks. And we're only getting 30,000 a day is coming in total for everyone to split up across the pools or whatever, across the days block winning. 4:57:47 I would be like, well, I would be like, who is running this pool? Who can I partner with? And then this is like a Blind Merged Mining type situation where they say, well, okay, I'm not. But if I'm an individual miner and I'm hashing, I'm doing my SHA-256 hashing, I got my S9 plugged in. 4:58:07 I want to connect to a pool that's at least trying something to get the $30,000 in fees because I want that. So I want all the revenue and I don't want to pay the costs. I have no choice when it comes to my hash rate. I would cheat the laws of physics if I could, but I can't. 4:58:23 But I would love to get these additional revenues. It's like a weird ordinal or something, this mysterious Amazon chain. It's like Amazon is just paying people money. And that is why Shinobio is not trying to evade the issues or do something weird or mysterious and nefarious. 4:58:43 Before, many minutes ago, I asked you a question along the lines of, if I just start a pool and I start paying people extra money, such as $30,000 a day, if I just start a pool and I just start paying people extra money, have I now changed the miner incentives in your view? And is this now bad for Bitcoin? 4:59:06 And this is the reason why we shouldn't have this BIP, because I'm changing miner incentives. I'm starting Paul's generous pool, payout pool, and out of my own – I just pay $30,000 out of the goodness of my heart to anyone who connects to me. 4:59:22 Yeah, see, Paul, but that was ridiculous. And my contention with that was the fact you're trying to compare 10 cents to something like millions of dollars. 4:59:31 And two, what I just did here, piggybacking on Mike's initial example, is lay out a concrete, actually properly structured scenario where I, as an outsider, can actually profitably generate a pretty big pool of money to use specifically to attack Bitcoin. 4:59:51 And that is enabled by drivechains. That's not possible in the same way, with the same guarantees, with the same incentives, because you're using the Bitcoin token without drivechains. 5:00:02 You enabled that new attack factor, where it can actually be profitable for me, the outside actor, to come in and start fucking with mining incentives, just to fuck things up. 5:00:13 Can I ask just a common person's question? I mean, is it different than, let's say, Bitmain running a profitable hardware manufacturing company and then using the profits from that company to subsidize the operation of the AMP pool or whatever? 5:00:33 And artificially giving users of AMP pool a competitive advantage, just subsidized off of another business? Like, does it have to be a Drivechain that uniquely accomplishes what you're describing? 5:00:51 A Drivechain makes it a lot fucking smoother and a lot simpler and more incentive secure, in my opinion, because you're not dealing with outside value. It's Bitcoin. It's the native token miners are already going after. It's not some new consideration or some new market. It's just, here's more Bitcoin. 5:01:11 Well, I will say that there is a phenomenon that existed in mining. I don't know if it's still around, but where basically new mining pools got going and they would provide better luck, effectively, for miners or different incentives to try to get a hash rate to come to them. 5:01:38 So that way they could climb up the rankings of the largest pools. And it was like they looked at it like an advertising cost. And so there are maybe some examples of that happening on layer one in a lesser way. But yeah, just throwing that out there. 5:01:54 Should we integrate that possibility more tightly with layer one? Should we bake it into consensus rules and couple those things tighter? Should we make the likelihood and possibility that these types of scenarios happen more likely by anchoring the price of that token to Bitcoin instead of it has to make or break on its own? 5:02:18 Why should we make these things worse, like materially worse, make the risks materially higher? Why? 5:02:48 Because you're again doing what you've done this entire time, Paul, you selectively ignore me. It's not just required. I can decide to give it to Michael and to Portland, but I can withhold it from you. 5:03:15 I am a conscious actor who can now, for my own reasons, selectively withhold that. It's not just this amorphous, abstract thing. 5:03:24 Yes, but you know, for a while I could say I'll give $30,000 to everyone in my pool, but only if they send me their driver's license or something. And then people would decide. 5:03:37 Why do you keep doing this and come up with these ridiculous examples? This is a fleshed out example of something that's profitable. And you keep trying to compare that to I'll just pull infinite money out of my pockets that's not generating any profit for me doing this. And you're trying to compare the two. 5:03:58 Well, you seem to be saying it was conditional on something. Like you were saying before, maybe I would give it to Michael, but not me. And the reason why it doesn't really matter to me if it's profitable or if it's subsidized by me is because I take it for granted. 5:04:12 Presumably, you don't have a problem with people making money in general, in the abstract. People making money is good for them. But you clearly must care about something that is induced as a side effect of all this money making happening. 5:04:28 So you don't care about the difference between rational profit generating economic behavior versus complete full retard illogical behavior that generates no profit. You see no point in drawing any distinction between those two things at all. They're the same. They're equivalent. Are you serious? 5:04:47 I think it's kind of like testing an airplane in a wind tunnel before you fly it outside. 5:04:53 No, it's not, Paul. Let's not do the analogy hopping thing where you just keep trying to obscure the topic and shift away from it, hopping from analogy to analogy. Like, no. 5:05:05 Well, I think because you seem to be worried that something bad will happen to some guy who's listening in the audience. They own Bitcoin. 5:05:13 No, I seem to be. Oh, maybe. No, Paul. I have explicitly in crystal clear English this entire time delineated my exact concerns in exact scenarios. And you just keep backing away and coming up with just totally batshit absurd examples or trying to compare things that are literally the opposite and pretend like they're equivalent things. 5:05:40 This is ridiculous. 5:05:43 Well, my view is that someone who's listening probably is thinking like, I own Bitcoin. Is BIP300 going to hurt my Bitcoin? And so they're thinking, oh, change miner incentives. 5:05:56 They're thinking, okay, what's going to happen that's going to make these incentives for me in the audience? Some guy who owns some Bitcoin and they're just like, I like my Bitcoin the way it is. I like being able to broadcast transactions. I really like multi-sig or whatever. They're thinking, what's the change going to be? 5:06:16 And so when you lay out this story that says it may at some point be profitable… 5:06:22 It's not a story, Paul. It's an argument. That's a subtle thing you're doing. This is story time. We're all just making things up here. 5:06:31 When you lay out your argument – the reason why I use story is because it's a scenario involving lots of people doing things over time. It's not supposed to be disparaging comment about the level of seriousness of the argument. 5:06:44 But when you lay out your scenario where someone is – a pool finds it profitable to obtain $30,000 a day via some other network, which would be like a Drivechain, and that costs $10 million a day. 5:07:05 But somehow they have some arrangement with someone else who's running that software and a loss. They have it as a loss leader and they have other ways of earning money. 5:07:14 So the U.S. government or Amazon or whatever, they have this node that costs them $10 million a year. They pay $30,000 into the Bitcoin world. 5:07:26 It doesn't matter if it's the U.S. government or Amazon or a Drivechain, it seems to me. And then what you're saying – so the person in the audience is thinking, how is this going to affect me? 5:07:38 Okay, miners will be greedily gobbling up the $30,000 a day extra. 5:07:44 Okay, Paul. No, we're not going to sit here and pretend like, oh, there's no difference here. The government, just printing money out of thin air, there's negative externalities that limit how much they can do that. 5:07:56 Inflation, if they go insane, having to reallocate budget money from other things that are then not going to be taken care of. You pulling money out of your ass, you can only fucking do that for so long because you don't have a money printer, Paul. 5:08:08 Amazon here though actually generates profit. That's a sustainable thing that can continue long term. So no, I'm not going to sit here and just go through an analogy chain and pretend that those are in any way equivalent things. Those are not equivalent things. Stop trying to pretend like they are. 5:08:28 To me, it doesn't – first of all, we'll just say that it's Amazon and we'll leave it at that, but I would like to just give a little comment purely for everyone's benefit as to why it doesn't seem to matter to me where it comes from because to me, it's kind of like – I know you don't like my analogies, but I'm doing the best that I can to explain what I really think. 5:08:51 It's like you order a restaurant and you want a hamburger made by Chef A and there's Chef A and B. You order a hamburger made by Chef A and it comes out the door and then you eat it and then you come in the next day and you say you want it made by Chef A. 5:09:07 But then Chef B watched – he's been an observant of Chef A. Actually, Chef B makes the sandwich the exact same way, the hamburger, and because you're not in the kitchen, you don't really know. And if they both can really make it the same way and they put the cover over the tray of the two plates and then they shuffle the plates around, it kind of doesn't actually make any difference which one comes out the door. There's no way of telling. 5:09:33 Yeah, it makes a big difference, Paul, because one of them is going to stop being able to do that and the sandwich is going to taste like shit on day three. The other one is not going to be able to do that after the first week because hey, guess what? He's not making it up there. He's got to go get another fucking job. And only Chef A is going to be the one there consistently making the same sandwich. 5:09:54 Dude, these analogies do not help people understand this shit at all. And I know this for a fact because people come to me and they ask me to directly explain things because they hear shit like this and they go, what the fuck does that mean? This is not a productive conversation. 5:10:16 Can I ask you just a dumb question? Is the whole crux of this argument just boiling down to the ability for someone to have a sustained competitive advantage through subsidizing miner revenue through a profitable business of some type, in whatever format? 5:10:41 Specifically tightly integrated into the base consensus and a sidechain and its interactions directly with miners. Yes, that's the core of this specific example right now. 5:10:54 Can you explain what about the sidechains makes that dynamic unique? I guess that's the part I'm struggling with. 5:11:05 You have an existing business that has nothing to do with Bitcoin. You have a profit margin. Your board, your shareholders, your owners, whatever, expect a profit margin. And they're going to go, what the fuck? You're just going to take this and give this away? 5:11:24 In my scenario, the entire thing is about this being pitched as a equivalent good for Bitcoin and actually generating new revenue and new profits indirectly that did not exist before. 5:11:40 So they're not a business that's just for no rational reason cutting into their profit to give to miners to fuck with things. They've actually generated a whole new surplus of profit, which they can take a small cut of or a percentage of to mess with miners. And they're still making more net profit than they did with their previous venture. 5:12:11 Shinobi, can I back up real quick into what you're saying about how you can basically curate incentives on a per-miner basis? In your example of the Amazon basically chain, Drivechain, in that example, the chain would have to be blind merge mined or very centralized to the point where the miners could never afford to actually validate it themselves, correct? 5:12:34 Yes. And the point of this example is that you can have very disastrous incentives on both extremes when it's just something miners can run and do that increases the cost. But you can also have similar disastrous consequences on the other extreme when it's so big and expensive to run, even miners can't run. Both of those create bad incentives. 5:12:59 Yeah. And then so the mechanism for the actual delivery of these different incentives based on like who you want to have them basically, maybe Foundry is favorable and Luxor is not favorable in this case. Do you just create a different block for these people before you deliver it? Like your on-chain reward for minting this block for me for Foundry will be 1.1 Bitcoin and for Luxor you get 0.9. Is that kind of how you'd curate those incentives on a per-miner basis? 5:13:29 No, you just stop broadcasting in the public men pool and start reaching out directly to miners. And then if a miner doesn't want that to respond, well, then they're not getting the revenue. And once you've established a private back channel, you can just selectively withhold it. 5:13:45 So it's just like out of band basically? 5:13:47 Yeah. 5:13:48 Yeah. 5:13:49 Okay, nice. Thank you for clarifying that. 5:13:59 I want to know what Michael Thidwell thinks of this so far. Is that allowed? He's too busy, I think. 5:14:08 This is your space, Paul. 5:14:11 Well, okay. But it does still seem to me. So we have Amazon paying the $30,000 and then difficulty goes up. Then I as Amazon can selectively choose who I'm going to pay. I'm going to pay Ant Pool but not Foundry or vice versa. 5:14:35 Portland, do you have your hand up? 5:14:37 Oh, no. Once you're done, I just want to jump to a different topic on Drivechain specifically as a node runner and a couple of options I was thinking about. 5:14:46 Cool. So what's happening is Amazon is running something that costs $10 million a day but they have other revenue that pays for this or they have other funding. 5:14:59 It generates $30,000 worth of fee revenue a day for miners. At first, everyone is invited and so everyone takes this up. The miners say thank you for the free money. 5:15:16 The difficulty increases and now the Amazon can say, I will remove this $30,000 unless you do such and such. Is that the argument? 5:15:35 Yes, Paul, except it's not just the $30,000 because like I've explained in this example, running this chain indirectly generates $5 million of profit per block with new business to Amazon because these people who didn't have access to that now because of payment infrastructure now do and they have now expanded their customer base. 5:15:57 Can I ask another question that might be dumb? What's the competitive advantage that they have operating this Drivechain? Because if we were to just take Drivechains out of it and just talk conceptually, if you had one business that was basically using a profitable venture to subsidize another business in order to gain market share and influence, typically the answer to how that would be solved in the free market is a new business would come along. 5:16:27 And would out-compete the business that was effectively spending their profits subsidizing a tertiary business. Is there some built-in moat to the Drivechain that they're operating that keeps another actor from out-competing them? 5:16:41 Yeah, Amazon. The whole value of this chain is that Amazon will accept Bitcoin on it as payment. So unless you want to go out-compete Amazon in their entire core business model of being Amazon, good luck with that. 5:17:11 I would never have been able to create this sidechain that gives this $30,000. It's not $30,000, it's selective transaction fee revenue. That is the scenario. 5:17:25 Paul, there are a million scenarios for this. Maybe they want to get into mining and they want to gain an advantage there. Maybe they just want to fuck with Bitcoin and try to break it so they can launch Amazon coin and instead of something like Bitcoin, we can enter the world of Fortune 500 fucking mega coin for everything. 5:17:52 This is the point, Paul. This is such a complicated design space and incentive space. Once you turn it on, you cannot control what happens within that space. 5:18:09 All of this kind of shit is now – you just opened the door. You turned it on. So you better pray to fucking God that not even a fraction of this happens or it's going to start fucking things up. It's going to start opening new ways to attack this system. 5:18:28 But what is the way though? Because so far all they can do is just… 5:18:33 I got another one that came to my mind. Okay, so you have Amazon Drivechain and slot 40 or whatever and people are using this for some AI computational workloads through Bitcoin script. Okay, so there's a pot of Bitcoin. Could the miners then hold that pot, collude together and hold that pot hostage against Amazon at some point just because they know that it's a single entity, a single point of validation and nobody can actually prove anything? Is it true? 5:19:00 Well, I think in a mysterious situation where there's a node that no one can run and it's all controlled by one party, you would think that why would – like the miners might think, especially if the fees are going to be selectively withheld from the miners. 5:19:22 This person says, listen, because remember the decision calculus is the stream of transaction fee revenue versus how much can I just take today. 5:19:33 Yeah, that's how this evolves too. 5:19:36 There's a certain amount in the sidechain, in Drivechain 40, the Amazon Drivechain, whatever. If there's a certain amount there, then maybe the fees make it worth it. But then if Amazon says, well, I'm not giving you the fees unless you do something. See, it kind of depends on what they ask you to do. 5:19:57 That can never play out, Paul. 5:20:00 If you jump up and down three times, then they'll just do it and they'll keep the fees. But if they say, we want you to… 5:20:06 No, Paul, that cannot play out that way. Paul, if you selectively withhold coins from a small percentage of miners, there's nothing they can do to try to steal from that peg because you need 75% of miners to actually withdraw coins. So, no, that is not a recourse available to small miners who are having that money withheld with conditions attached to it. 5:20:30 I was saying they withhold it from everyone. In my scenario, they're saying, we'll give it to whichever miners, I don't know, sign a deal with us, granting us half of their equity. And then the miners would say, okay, we're not doing this anymore. We're done with this. So, I wasn't saying that they'll single out small miners. 5:20:55 And then they'll get driven out of business by miners who do do it. 5:20:59 Yeah, but that… So, okay, that's an interesting scenario where you say… 5:21:05 That's an unstable game. The equilibrium of that game is, okay, I'll do it because that mitigates the most risk. 5:21:15 But it's really no different than moving the $30,000 number up to something else, right? Because if the cost is less than the revenue, then it's just more profits for the miners. So, it's just more mandatory things that they have to do. They have to take the $30,000. They have to cut deals with Amazon. They have to… anyone, anywhere who's offering them money, they must do it. They have no choice. Yes? 5:21:40 Dude, you're completely… like, dude, it's again, like, every single time you just selectively choose, I'm going to ignore half of what he said. 5:21:49 This is the entire dynamic that, like, is subtly different than just this in a vacuum with a business that has nothing to do with Bitcoin. 5:21:59 I can just ease into it and give no indication I'm going to do something like this. And then, oh, everything's cranked up difficulty-wise, now I start trying to do this. Versus you just cold out of nowhere trying to approach miners. 5:22:16 Even though the game is very similar there, you can't just ensnare people into it ahead of time before you change the game. 5:22:28 Do we lose Paul? 5:22:37 Do we lose Paul? Yeah. 5:22:44 Nice. Thank you for coming back. Can I change topic to, as kind of the user side of this as a node runner, some things I was thinking about? 5:22:52 I think we can take a break from this topic for now and maybe return to it. 5:22:58 Are you okay with that, Shinobi? 5:23:01 Not my space. 5:23:03 Okay, I'm going to do it. So, I was thinking about, basically, as a node runner, let's say I really, I strongly oppose Drivechains and their implications that they can cause, and I have my reasons. 5:23:17 So far, the only options I can think of, if the miners have activated the soft fork, or even if it's been merged into core, is I can abstain completely by using an older version of Bitcoin core that doesn't have Drivechains enabled. 5:23:32 I could manually invalidate blocks or a block that has a Drivechain op in it, or I can basically mark anything with a Drivechain or UTXO with a Drivechain op as unspendable on my node. 5:23:48 So, I can patch it so that if UTXO has an OP_DRIVECHAIN, it's just marked as unspendable. 5:23:53 If anybody tries spending it, it's invalid on my node, and then I'd have to wait for hash rate to kind of join up and uninstall my node. 5:24:01 Is that it? Are those the only options I have as a node runner? 5:24:05 Basically, abstain, actively invalidate blocks, or invalidate the script op to mark it as unspendable to kind of push back against this. 5:24:16 Yeah, the scenario is you run a full node, but you do not want to validate the Drivechain rule. 5:24:22 I think the first one is the most straightforward, because now you're getting what you wanted. 5:24:29 You're not validating the Drivechain rules. I guess it depends a little bit on what you want. 5:24:33 If you don't want anyone else to do it either, and you want to mount the URISF campaign, then you certainly want the second one, where you say, don't touch this OP_NOP5. 5:24:47 In fact, I think just to be safe, you'd have to say OP_NOP5 is burned forever, because otherwise you have kind of an awkward... 5:24:51 Unspendable. You'd just put it as a part of is unspendable, and you'd put OP_NOP5 in script, and then basically burn them as part of... 5:24:58 I was talking about the second one, I thought. I was talking about the second one, where you say, I humilitantly... 5:25:04 Because in this one, you're not just trying to... 5:25:09 It's not just that you don't want to do the work of validating the BIFF300 rule of counting to 13,000, etc. 5:25:17 You also want to... You say, anyone who is doing this, I'm not... 5:25:23 Friendship over, and you go to a different network, you know? 5:25:27 Yes, with the hope of being with the economic majority. 5:25:35 So that would be... So it depends on what you want. 5:25:39 Did you understand what I was trying to convey there? 5:25:42 I think the first one is kind of like, if you just really don't want... 5:25:47 If you think there's some problem with the software, you don't want BIFF300 rules being enforced on your computer. 5:25:54 You just run the old version. You say, I don't know. 5:25:57 Other people are enforcing those rules. 5:26:00 But if the thing is, you just don't want anyone sending their Bitcoin to a BIFF300 script on the network that you participate in, 5:26:11 then you would do the second one. 5:26:13 I'm not really sure when you would do that third one you mentioned. 5:26:18 I guess you're like... 5:26:19 It would basically be if miners were to attempt to spend an op... 5:26:24 Basically, because right now my node would see this OP_DRIVECHAIN as a spendable transaction when it validates 5:26:30 because of the fact that it's spendable. 5:26:32 It basically will evaluate to one. 5:26:34 And so what I would do is I would say that, 5:26:36 okay, anybody who attempts to spend from these Drivechain or OP_DRIVECHAIN transactions, 5:26:41 those are not valid. 5:26:43 And thus that block will not validate on my node 5:26:45 because they're trying to spend from an unspendable UTXO from the perspective of my node. 5:26:50 I would basically be soft forking my node into that because I'm actually reducing the rule set of that. 5:26:56 So yeah, that was kind of my thought. 5:26:58 Basically, you could mark op six as unspendable or whatever OP_DRIVECHAIN is. 5:27:02 And that way, if anybody attempts to spend from these Drivechain deposits, 5:27:07 it would automatically invalidate that block. 5:27:10 And anybody using them forever would just be... 5:27:12 These are burnt coins, same as op return is now. 5:27:16 Well, it happens to be... 5:27:17 That's a very funny scenario. 5:27:18 But remember, it happens to be a detail of Drivechain that when you deposit coins in, 5:27:24 you always spend the previous UTXO. 5:27:28 So you sweep the dust constantly. 5:27:30 So there's never... 5:27:31 So that would be funny. 5:27:33 It would be an amusing result. 5:27:34 It's like an accumulator. 5:27:36 The amusing result would be that you just... 5:27:38 Someone used it first, and then that person's coins are gone, 5:27:44 and no one else can use it then. 5:27:47 But yeah, I don't really know what the point of that would be. 5:27:49 But that would be something you could do. 5:27:51 And last question kind of on that vein. 5:27:54 In this threaded UTXO, is each new output bound by OP_DRIVECHAIN to those rules? 5:28:01 Or is that... 5:28:02 Precisely. 5:28:03 Okay, cool. 5:28:09 Oh, sorry. 5:28:10 I was just going to clarify that. 5:28:12 That is only... 5:28:13 It's an intriguing situation where that only... 5:28:16 It's only increasing the number of coins. 5:28:20 So it's kind of a funny thing where the block validity rules are aware of whether or not it is a deposit or withdrawal, 5:28:33 literally, by using the coin amount. 5:28:36 So that is unusual. 5:28:41 Of course, there's nothing bad with that, but it's just a funny little quirk. 5:28:44 Because you can see how when you withdraw, that can't be the case. 5:28:48 Those people want the money wherever they want it to go. 5:28:51 They want to take it out of the Drivechain. 5:28:54 So sorry, what were you saying after that? 5:29:00 Hey, I just want to say I got to bounce. 5:29:02 I promised the family that I'm going to take the weekend off of Twitter. 5:29:07 But Paul, thank you for running this space. 5:29:12 Catch you all later. 5:29:13 Ciao. 5:29:14 Thanks, David. 5:29:15 See you later. 5:29:18 So basically, at that point, those are the three things I could think of. 5:29:22 Basically, you invalidate the block, you completely abstain from upgrading your version, 5:29:27 and you still will just accept the results of whatever's happening while mining, 5:29:31 or you invalidate the op. 5:29:33 Are there any other ways as a node runner that I could basically push back 5:29:38 or resist this change if I wanted to? 5:29:45 I'm trying to think of them. 5:29:46 Let me try to think of you. 5:29:51 An amusing consequence of the first one is you're kind of just saying you're doing exactly what you were doing before 5:29:57 by just running the old. 5:29:58 You're really just not doing something. 5:30:00 You're not upgrading. 5:30:02 So you're not enforcing the node. 5:30:06 And then I guess rejecting the whole block is the other. 5:30:11 And I mean in terms of like there's like social things you could do. 5:30:15 Like you could come on this space, and you could tell me why this BIP is a bad idea. 5:30:23 I'm still trying. 5:30:24 I'm just kidding. 5:30:29 I think it is certainly the case. 5:30:31 I mean Francis was here before, Francis Puyo, and he was like, 5:30:35 we do all share the same brand. 5:30:38 We share the same market price, and we share the same miners, 5:30:42 which I regard as kind of very similar things. 5:30:45 And he was saying, but I think that's certainly fair game to some extent 5:30:49 that the miners are in some sense trying to get the right answer, 5:30:55 and they have an interest in getting the right answer. 5:31:00 It's at least clear that they will tend to benefit financially if they do things that are good for the price, 5:31:08 good for fees, good for users in general. 5:31:12 And they will tend to suffer if they get it wrong, 5:31:15 if they don't turn on SegWit that people like, 5:31:18 or if they don't turn on other things that people like, 5:31:21 or if they make the market price go down, or if they make it look like the Bitcoin brand 5:31:25 isn't going to be a super winning coin or whatever. 5:31:30 So I'm just saying in general, you could try that. 5:31:35 You could say, I'll make a site, bip300socks.com or whatever, 5:31:39 and then send people there, send miners there. 5:31:44 I think we pretty much covered it though. 5:31:46 You just either go along and you say, I'm compatible, but I don't enforce this. 5:31:51 I don't run this code, but I don't care either. 5:31:55 Or you say, the paradox of the second one is you kind of need to know something about 5:32:00 the Drivechain code inactivation. 5:32:05 This is kind of a paradox. 5:32:06 You're now going out of your way to identify the OP_DRIVECHAIN. 5:32:14 And now you are going to reject the block if it is used. 5:32:19 But I think those are basically the two ways, I think. 5:32:22 I can't think of anything else. 5:32:24 Okay, so then I want to scale this idea of, okay, 5:32:27 so we have node runners that abstain from upgrading. 5:32:31 And the consequence of that would be that their nodes would see that 5:32:34 there's spendable transactions. 5:32:36 But if miners are validating the rules, those transactions would never go through 5:32:40 because miners wouldn't mint them. 5:32:42 And the outcome of that is that the miners could change the rules 5:32:46 because the consensus is only among them. 5:32:48 So Drivechains really couldn't accrue value if the majority of node runners 5:32:53 and economic actors didn't go with the plan. 5:32:56 So you could use Drivechains, but it would be very tough to trust them to have value. 5:33:01 And then if you actively use a resistant soft fork, this thing, 5:33:05 you're basically having to bank on having enough economic power on your chain 5:33:10 and hash rate to continue doing business. 5:33:13 And that, to me, I don't think, in my own opinion, 5:33:16 I don't think most people would stomach that to actually invalidate a block, 5:33:20 even if they dislike Drivechains a lot. 5:33:25 My personal opinion is that, I mean, we actually, yeah, 5:33:29 so you and I, I like that you, I like that you like my analogy 5:33:33 about the dog holding his own leash. 5:33:35 I think that's a good one. 5:33:37 I know people don't like my analogies often, but that one I thought was good. 5:33:41 And then I think, as we already discussed, and then I think that I agree with you 5:33:46 that to choose to invalidate a block is to, is you're going, 5:33:52 you're now breaking the longest, heaviest chain rule, 5:33:56 and you are, you have effectively hard forked yourself, 5:33:59 because in order for people to even be on the same network as you, 5:34:02 they need to know which block you invalidated and why. 5:34:05 And so it is, it's like incorporating new information. 5:34:09 And so just like how with Bitcoin Cash Incorporated changing a one to an eight 5:34:13 and changing a certain block height at which whatever August 2017 was, 5:34:18 I think inescapably the option to invalidate a block is a hard fork. 5:34:24 And I think that, I think that SegWit2x failed for many reasons, 5:34:30 but a big one was because it was a hard fork, and every hard fork is a bad idea. 5:34:34 And I think this one would also be a bad idea. 5:34:36 It's just my guess, but that's just, this is all hypothetical, of course. 5:34:40 There is no current client or anything that will activate PIP300 on Bitcoin. 5:34:46 It does not exist yet in any form. 5:34:51 Also, just, I think this concludes what I was looking for from this. 5:34:55 Is the author, Luke, here? 5:34:59 He was here before, but I don't think he's here now. 5:35:02 Okay. 5:35:03 Oh, you mean Luke is the, Luke is the pull request. 5:35:06 Yeah, it says open discussion with the BIP author. 5:35:10 He's the, he's the author of the pull request. 5:35:13 Yeah. 5:35:15 Oh, sorry, I apologize. I misread that. I'm dyslexic. Oh my god. I'm so sorry. 5:35:19 Yeah, that's okay. 5:35:21 Did anybody actually criticize the implementation at all yet, or is it just been fucked up? 5:35:26 Rheindel. Rheindel did code review on some of it. I'm thinking Chris. 5:35:30 Thank you, Rheindel. 5:35:33 It was actual work. 5:35:36 Yep. I had hoped with the pull request, I had hoped, in vain it seems, 5:35:42 but I had hoped people can discuss the actual details, 5:35:47 and they'll say, okay, like, we can at least, like, agree on what the best implementation would be, 5:35:59 and what the, you know, we can look at the, we don't have to, like, deal with, 5:36:05 we have, like, a real specific idea here. 5:36:07 This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the idea. 5:36:11 Everything else is just a summary of the idea. 5:36:14 The pull request is the actual details of the idea, 5:36:20 so I thought that that would maybe help move the discussion in a productive way, 5:36:25 but it seems to have had an ambiguity. 5:36:28 Like, Paul, if that thread is a mess, I'm sorry. 5:36:33 Like, I have stayed out of it for that exact reason. 5:36:36 That is not the place to attack the concept, 5:36:39 but, like, this, like I said earlier, man, like, we are at an impasse. 5:36:46 This is a brick wall. 5:36:48 If your attitude, to some degree, is that increasing costs to miners, 5:36:53 even if they do run these all themselves, doesn't matter, 5:36:56 like, this is not moving forward, 5:36:59 while that criticism or concern is just brushed off like that. 5:37:04 It's not happening. 5:37:07 Well, in the scenario you mentioned, there was this $10 million a day node, 5:37:12 but the miners avoided paying the cost because they could. 5:37:16 No, that was the extreme example of the other end of the spectrum. 5:37:20 I'm talking about what we were discussing earlier with the fee sniping issue 5:37:24 and just the incentives pushing miners towards running nodes themselves. 5:37:29 But I was saying before that let's just take it for granted 5:37:33 because you seem to be requiring, like, let's say that that example held 5:37:40 and the miners had to run nodes themselves, but they cost $10 million. 5:37:46 Then I think they would just say, 5:37:48 well, there's only $30,000 in revenue coming in, so I'd just pass. 5:37:51 I won't do this at all. 5:37:52 Okay, Paul, one-time offer. 5:37:54 You want some actual constructive criticism from me 5:37:58 instead of just saying why this is a shit idea that shouldn't happen? 5:38:03 Yeah. 5:38:05 I don't think this entirely fixes the issue at all, 5:38:08 and it might even make no difference, 5:38:10 but it would be a lot smarter if you actually had a simple SPV proof 5:38:15 that could be propagated along with a bid for a block in the main chain 5:38:20 that just shows the coinbase transaction 5:38:23 so that a blind merge mine block constructor 5:38:26 can just give coins on the sidechain to the miner, 5:38:29 not require the capital up front, 5:38:31 and the miner actually has a transparent view directly in that 5:38:35 how much is being kept from them. 5:38:40 Well, that's an interesting idea. 5:38:42 It certainly would work like you could have the Layer 1 block, 5:38:47 have it include the whole Merkle branch of the sidechains, 5:38:52 assuming that one issue with that is you don't necessarily know 5:38:56 that the sidechain is using like a Merkle tree 5:38:59 versus like some other tree, you know, like there's many implementations. 5:39:05 So they don't necessarily know, 5:39:06 but you could just assume every Drivechain has a Merkle tree, 5:39:09 and they all have a coinbase, 5:39:11 and the coinbase is always the one to the left or whatever all the way. 5:39:16 You could always just version it to account for new things 5:39:20 like the same way TypeScript or Witness does. 5:39:23 This would accomplish the fact that L1 would know. 5:39:27 I mean, do you say it should be part of BIP301, 5:39:29 or you should just say it should be part of the understanding 5:39:32 of Blind Merged Mining that when the miner receives the bid from the people, 5:39:41 they also just ask them for, like as a courtesy, 5:39:44 they ask them for the Merkle branch. 5:39:47 I'm saying it should be an explicit part of BIP301, 5:39:53 because this way you do not have to have that capital up front 5:39:58 as a block proposer. 5:40:00 Though, you know, obviously this is still a DOS issue 5:40:04 opening up here to consider, 5:40:06 but you would no longer require that capital. 5:40:08 So the entire fee sniping risk that is going to push 5:40:11 all of this node operation responsibility onto miners 5:40:15 would never occur, 5:40:17 because the actual outsourced block proposer constructors 5:40:20 do not have to have like Bitcoin they're capitalized with 5:40:24 to pay on the main chain in order to try to negotiate with a miner. 5:40:30 Yes, you're saying instead of bid with L1 coins, 5:40:33 they just bid with the Merkle branch. 5:40:36 Yes. 5:40:38 Well, that's an interesting idea, but I'll consider that. 5:40:43 But shouldn't we stay focused on the scenario 5:40:47 where you seem to find it problematic 5:40:50 when there's no more Blind Merged Mining allowed, 5:40:54 and there's the node that's $10 million a day, 5:40:57 and it only brings in $30,000 a day? 5:41:01 That's the scenario where Blind Merged Mining does stay around. 5:41:06 Like that's my whole point in drawing the comparison 5:41:09 between these two examples. 5:41:11 In both a situation where miners can and do profitably run 5:41:15 these nodes themselves, as well as the insane extreme 5:41:18 where even miners can't afford to run it, 5:41:21 there are paths for massive incentive distortions 5:41:24 on both sides of those extremes. 5:41:27 Yes, but what is the incentive distortion in the original case? 5:41:33 That you actually have to be able to run all of these things 5:41:37 to participate in a decentralized mining pool protocol. 5:41:42 Everybody is so focused on scaling right now, Paul, 5:41:46 but we are seeing a world where mining further 5:41:49 and further vertically integrates. 5:41:52 The biggest mining pool right now is literally 5:41:55 a relatively brand new pool set up by an actual mining operation. 5:42:00 That is vertical integration, and that's happening right now. 5:42:05 We need to be thinking about how to deintegrate that, 5:42:08 how to make that as scalable as possible, 5:42:10 and that necessitates turning pools into a protocol, 5:42:14 which is two parts, the actual block template construction 5:42:17 and the transaction sorting, and then the handling of the payouts. 5:42:21 The handling of the payouts could very easily be accomplished 5:42:25 with a lightning channel setup Belcher proposed. 5:42:28 You could also do a multi-party general payout if we got APO. 5:42:33 If we get CTV, you could have a staged transaction tree 5:42:37 and even have cooperative paths if you buried it under taproot 5:42:41 for more efficient atomic negotiation to condense UTXOs off-chain. 5:42:47 That is a very easily solvable problem. 5:42:50 But the block template problem, for all of that to be constructed 5:42:54 by individual miners maximally, the more nodes they have to run, 5:43:00 the more expensive it is to be that type of participant, 5:43:03 and you degrade the censorship resistance that is there, 5:43:08 the higher you raise that cost, and the more smaller players 5:43:12 have to outsource that aspect of it. 5:43:16 Yeah, but if the cost exceeds the revenue, 5:43:19 then they just won't do it at all. 5:43:24 Well, see, that's the whole thing, Paul, about why this is a problem. 5:43:28 A decentralized pool protocol right now is just a main chain node. 5:43:33 Costs literally nothing. 5:43:35 You can copy, paste, and start a pruned node on a fucking Raspberry Pi 5:43:41 that costs $20 when you already have thousands of dollars 5:43:45 for hardware equipment. 5:43:46 That is an insignificant thing. 5:43:49 But if that same person now needs to do that and then run a BSV chain 5:43:54 and a Zcash chain and a Monero chain and an Ethereum chain 5:43:58 and whatever the hell chain, that all gets more expensive. 5:44:02 It's not a neat node. 5:44:03 It's getting cheaper because you only do it if it's profitable. 5:44:06 Each blockchain makes the others cheaper, actually. 5:44:11 Paul, you are just ignoring everything I said. 5:44:17 I am not talking about the profitability of running the piece of hardware. 5:44:22 I'm talking about running the piece of hardware in addition to validating 5:44:27 and constructing your block templates yourself. 5:44:30 Just the main chain is necessary for optimal profitability there, 5:44:36 optimal censorship resistance is one chain. 5:44:41 You start adding all these other nodes, you are increasing the cost there. 5:44:47 If I cannot afford to run all these things myself, 5:44:52 I am not the one deciding what's the optimal way. 5:44:56 I am not looking at optimal template construction myself. 5:45:00 I am not the one ensuring that things are not being censored. 5:45:04 I am outsourcing that, which weakens that guarantee, 5:45:08 which weakens the decentralization of that property. 5:45:12 Okay, you are pushing at an open door with me if you say that 5:45:15 the full node costs should be as low as possible. 5:45:19 I wrote that essay measuring decentralization in September 2015. 5:45:25 Everyone wants the full node cost to be as low as possible. 5:45:30 You should only pay additional full node costs if you opt in. 5:45:34 This is the idea of sidechains. 5:45:36 It's the end user who is not a miner. 5:45:38 We are not talking about miners. 5:45:39 It's the end user. 5:45:40 If they want to run a big block sidechain, then they can. 5:45:44 It will be less decentralized. 5:45:46 It will be more expensive. 5:45:47 If they want to run a Zcash sidechain, they can. 5:45:51 So I completely, 100% agree that the full node costs are of preeminent importance. 5:45:57 But now you seem to be saying something else. 5:45:59 You seem to be saying, in one sense, if running these nodes is actually profitable 5:46:03 and making life easier for miners, then it's some kind of burden, 5:46:07 which doesn't make sense to me. 5:46:09 And then the other alternative is that the miner, for whatever reason, 5:46:13 the miner, for whatever reason, 5:46:16 finds the cost of running the node higher than their expected revenues. 5:46:21 Paul, if I'm a guy with one S9 running in a closet, 5:46:25 I can afford to have a main chain node and do my own template construction 5:46:29 and all that, and then I directly broadcast that block that I made 5:46:35 when my machine is the one that finds the valid piece of work. 5:46:40 I can't do that with all these fucking other chains. 5:46:44 So I can't even make a profitable block 5:46:48 because I can't construct all this other shit and put it in there 5:46:52 because I can't run these other nodes. 5:46:54 And now I'm sure you're immediately going to say, 5:46:56 well, Vip 301 solves this. 5:46:58 You just propagate it across the peer network. 5:47:01 Well, now, hey, you're talking more complexity 5:47:05 to build into these distributed pool protocols, 5:47:08 more things to consider. 5:47:11 Then I am not able to be a participant 5:47:15 in this distributed pool protocol as an actual peer in it. 5:47:20 I am not capable in all of that. 5:47:23 You just say, I'm not going to run the Solana chain. 5:47:28 Hey, Paul, you know what happens when my block 5:47:31 meets the difficulty requirement and I shoot that out 5:47:34 and then everybody else I'm mining with in my little protocol pool 5:47:38 sees that that block template sucked dick 5:47:41 and was missing a shit ton of money 5:47:43 because it didn't consider all these other things? 5:47:45 They're all going to ban me, 5:47:47 and I'm going to get evicted from that pool protocol, 5:47:50 and now I can't participate in it 5:47:52 because I constructed a suboptimal block 5:47:55 because I screwed everyone else out of money 5:47:58 because I couldn't afford to do that. 5:48:02 Well, again, you could get it. 5:48:04 I would say, again, with Blind Merged Mining, 5:48:06 it's a scenario where if it's important, 5:48:08 you would work out some other way of obtaining the block. 5:48:11 But the fee sniping, Paul, the fee sniping risk there, 5:48:15 no one else is going to do that. 5:48:17 They're only going to put them in their own blocks 5:48:19 because only when you put it in your own block 5:48:22 are you protecting yourself from that risk. 5:48:25 Blind Merged Mining, 5:48:27 it doesn't have to be the actual BIP301 Blind Merged Mining. 5:48:31 It can just be you have some kind of relationship with someone. 5:48:36 You pay them a – 5:48:38 let's say the node costs $10 million a year 5:48:41 or $10 million a day, sorry. 5:48:43 So in other words, my decentralized pool protocol 5:48:47 and my participation in it is now dependent on a centralized entity. 5:48:53 Do you not see how that kind of undermines the whole value 5:48:58 and point of that protocol? 5:49:01 Of which protocol? 5:49:03 The L2 protocol, I agree, is kind of pointless, 5:49:06 and I don't know why anyone is on it. 5:49:09 But when it comes down to the effect it has on miner incentives, 5:49:13 it is equivalent to – 5:49:15 just replace this protocol with just one guy, 5:49:18 an eccentric guy who's paying a fee. 5:49:22 Okay. 5:49:23 Paul, you do realize the entire thing I'm discussing here 5:49:28 is decentralizing a mining pool, 5:49:32 making it a protocol so you don't have to depend on the guy. 5:49:38 That's the entire purpose of that. 5:49:42 And now when I'm pointing out how Drivechain introduces 5:49:45 massive complexity and problems with that, 5:49:48 your response is, well, just trust the guy. 5:49:52 The whole goal is to not have to do that. 5:49:55 No, I'm not saying that you should trust the guy. I'm saying that as part of the miners' efforts to minimize their costs and maximize their revenue, they will do things that – they'll do whatever they feel they have to do. 5:50:11 So they'll think, okay, I want these revenues from this Drivechain, but I don't want to pay the cost of running the node. 5:50:19 So they'll say, well, maybe we'll get some kind of way of – we'll have two nodes and we'll just check some kind of subscription or something. 5:50:29 But to me, it doesn't make any difference what it is because it's just a conditional payment from – in this case, it's a conditional payment from the Drivechain. 5:50:37 It says we'll pay you this amount if you get – if you obtain the block template. 5:50:43 If you pay – if you obtain the block template, you get this amount of money. 5:50:49 And so whether or not they do that by running the node or by pairing up with someone who does run the node, it doesn't make that much of a difference to me. 5:50:57 It makes a huge difference, Paul, because he can look at me when I go, I need a template, please, and go, no. 5:51:05 And then we're right back to I can't make the optimal block template. 5:51:09 When I find a block, everyone in my pool protocol goes, fuck this guy. 5:51:13 He just lost his money. 5:51:15 And I get banned by every peer in it and kicked out. 5:51:20 So you would measure – how do you measure mining centralization? 5:51:24 Because you used that phrase a few times. 5:51:27 I've literally written a whole article about it sitting on Bitcoin Magazine right now, Paul. 5:51:33 It is a massive stack with multiple layers, and each layer's degree of centralization or decentralization impacts other layers. 5:51:42 It's not just a thing. 5:51:45 Okay. Well, I'll look for it. Sounds interesting. 5:51:49 The scenario you've laid out where everyone must use P2Pool and everyone must use the Solana chain or whatever you want to call it, that is the scenario where it's like a conditional payment from the Solana blockchain to you if you are able to obtain the block template. 5:52:16 Paul, it's without any Drivechains, that type of protocol can get us to 10 on the decentralization spectrum. 5:52:25 You add Drivechains, no, wait, no, we can only go as far as 7. 5:52:29 Oh, wait, nope, only 5. 5:52:31 Wait, oh, nope, only 3, depending on what types of Drivechains are activated. 5:52:36 And it completely undermines that goal. 5:52:40 To you, it's very important that the cost of running every – see, I don't understand why you don't – to me, running a sidechain node, even in the case where Blind Merged Mining is magically impossible, which I think is the case that we should probably focus on. 5:53:00 Because I think – you can see how if Blind Merged Mining is possible and easy and also the handshake version is done, then it kind of doesn't matter because there will always be a $10 million node and the miner will always say, I'm not paying for that, and they'll always say, I'll get this from somewhere else. 5:53:17 So if we just say that Blind Merged Mining is magically impossible, then it's really just saying that how is it different for you from – I guess you would say it's not different, like from some other fixed cost of mining. 5:53:33 So like it's a fixed – because this is like how much it costs to start up a new mining operation is all the nodes plus a bunch of other stuff about like what is the smallest amount of money you could spend because there's various economies and diseconomies of scale in mining, of course, as we both know. 5:53:49 So there's some – today there's some minimally viable miner size that's profitable, minimum profitable miner size of like whatever it is, $2,000 up front and then certain amount per day. 5:54:07 So there's some minimal threshold for that, and you're saying it's very bad if that goes up. 5:54:15 Paul, we're back to conflating the cost of constructing your own block template to maintain decentralization and censorship resistance of that with the cost of running the mining hardware. 5:54:29 I have disentangled and clarified the separation of those two things I don't know how many times. We are talking about the block template. 5:54:38 You're talking about the – when I think of the pool I think of the person who is assembling the block and then the hashers are just blindly hashing away at it. 5:54:48 So you're saying like basically your version of the pool and in your ideal scenario everyone is in some kind of using like P2 pool or something. Yes? 5:54:55 Yes, Paul. That is incredibly important. Almost – no, more than I think 50% of the hash rate on the network is all KYC'ed with their pools right now. 5:55:06 All of the big pools are KYC'ing everybody. Do you not think that will get more invasive? That that will not be a path explored by governments and regulators to start talking with things? 5:55:19 We should be obsoleting that and replacing it with a protocol. And you're arguing right now to enact a change that makes that 10 times more difficult, maybe even impossible to get to a good level of decentralization that will protect the network from those types of attacks. 5:55:39 Yes, I don't think that – it is concerning that the miners will sign up for KYC and so many of them are huge corporations that are publicly traded which then of course forget KYC. 5:55:52 They have like auditors. They have all kinds of stuff. They're fully plugged in to the matrix. But I don't understand why – I think the focus on pools is a mistake because it's very easy to switch from one mining pool to another and it's not easy for a mining pool to just spin up a giant warehouse full of hash rate equipment. 5:56:16 So I don't actually think the – I think what we should do is make it very easy to start up a new pool and very easy to switch pools. But I actually don't think that P2Pool is the way to go because P2Pool has like a big coinbase transaction and it has – I think it has just other issues. It's partly – 5:56:35 Well, you can't just make a pool easier to spin up. It's not that simple because you have the chicken and the egg problem of pool distribution and the hash rate. 5:56:47 Yeah, I agree. But we would make like open source pool software and we would make like – 5:56:52 There already is open source pool software. 5:56:54 We would improve it. We throw money at it. 5:56:56 And if you open source that pool, it still doesn't matter because like you just said in your own comparison, a pool can't snap their finger and bring a bunch of hardware in a warehouse into existence. How do they snap their finger and get people to switch to them? 5:57:13 Well, it's actually – 5:57:16 Who do they switch to? 5:57:18 Okay, so you have to subsidize that and eat a loss to get people to switch. 5:57:24 Yeah, but that's not what I'm saying. I actually – 5:57:26 So that's a capital requirement then, Portland, which is a huge centralization choke point as far as who can actually do that. 5:57:34 Well, okay. Hold on real quick. 5:57:36 I'm actually saying though – 5:57:38 Okay, if I wanted to spin up Portland Pool today, what is my cost of operation for my pool? It's a full node and bandwidth for internet, right? So a couple hundred bucks. 5:57:47 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. 5:57:49 No, what am I missing? 5:57:51 No, no. Pools are not just a node and a connection. They have redundant infrastructure all over the planet. They have different work servers like specifically located in different regions to lower the latency as much as possible. 5:58:06 They have nodes scattered around, connected to all of those work servers so that they can optimally get blocks out as fast as possible once the work server actually verifies that. 5:58:17 It's actually a very complicated, distributed set of infrastructure. It's not just a node and then blah, blah, blah. 5:58:25 Well, okay. I agree. That's probably the way it's done at a commercial scale, right? Because you want that redundancy and the lower latency for your clients that are mining because mining a block faster or getting it propagated is better. 5:58:36 But in terms of me just starting Portland Pool today in my – 5:58:40 No one's going to want to do that though. 5:58:42 Is that all I need though? All I need is if I say I'm going to do 0% fees on my pool and I have a decent internet connection and a home computer and people sign up. 5:58:53 No, okay. 5:58:55 No one's going to do that, Portland. 5:58:57 No one's going to do it. 5:58:59 In addition to all the broadcast infrastructure, you need a wallet system. You need an accounting system. 5:59:04 You need to link that into all of your work servers so that you can actually keep track of accounts and balances. 5:59:11 Make sure that's all redundantly stored because if you lose that data and don't know who's owed what, oh shit, that'll get fucking – 5:59:19 You need a withdrawal system and security for that. 5:59:24 I guess what I'm getting at is though if you – you're right, it costs something to make a new pool. 5:59:31 But because the pools are also – a pool is really not viable unless it has a certain percentage of the hash. 5:59:37 And once you get into percentages, it just inherently limits the number of pools you can have. 5:59:41 If each pool has to be at least 1% of the hash rate, then you can only have 100 of them. 5:59:48 Max, of course. 5:59:50 Yeah. 5:59:52 Each pool wants to be around 10%. You can only have 10. 5:59:56 And I guess what I'm actually getting at is what if we only had two? 6:00:00 What could make a list of all the bad things a pool could do? 6:00:03 Which would be like censor transactions or do a reorg, basically. 6:00:09 Maybe some other things like software activation or something. 6:00:13 But would you be okay – like would you trade? 6:00:18 If we could offer a magic trade and we say there will only be two pools, but both of them will always behave perfectly or something. 6:00:28 None will ever transaction censor and none will ever reorg. 6:00:32 And they both charge minimum fees, etc. like that. 6:00:35 I guess that's a question I would ask. 6:00:38 Paul, that's ridiculous. 6:00:40 Here's some fantastical situation that in 0% of any possible universe will it ever occur where all of the concerns and risks of the system don't exist. 6:00:51 Would you take that? 6:00:53 If we lived in that world, we don't need Bitcoin. 6:00:56 Yeah, that would be cool. 6:00:58 Okay, but the reason it bridges to my next question, which is what if people had – everyone actually hashing, the people doing the SHA256D of course, the hasher miners. 6:01:10 What if they had a way of detecting an error in a pool? 6:01:14 Pool is charging too high a fee. Pool is censoring a transaction, whatever. 6:01:18 They had a very, very cheap way of detecting that and then switching pools. 6:01:23 Would two pools be enough in that scenario? 6:01:27 Paul, what on earth are you thinking when you lay out an example that is not a P2 pool variant that scales better with the payouts? 6:01:38 Where it's like, let's not do that, but let's have the exact same requirements to keep these two big pools in check. 6:01:46 Because you know how they find that out? 6:01:48 They run a node and they check the mempool against the blocks. 6:01:52 That is the exact requirements of just doing P2 pools. 6:01:56 So what is coherent about that question? I don't see anything. 6:02:00 Well, I'm going somewhere with it, of course. 6:02:04 But I think presumably you'd say the answer is that actually two pools is enough as long as you can always switch when one is making a mistake. 6:02:12 We just need that both not making a mistake at the same time or something like that. 6:02:15 I guess you could throw in as a different ingredient, you could say the ability to launch a new pool from scratch if both of the pools screw up. 6:02:25 And in which case, if everyone runs that algorithm, then if both pools screw up, then a third pool will appear and immediately get 100% of the hash rate in this kind of fictional example. 6:02:37 But that oversimplified fictional example is useless. 6:02:42 Here's a wildly unconsidered space. 6:02:45 And the final part of the algorithm is if you have just done the recreate a third pool move, then 10 minutes next block split randomly. 6:02:57 Flip a coin and split into two pools again. 6:03:00 Paul, do you think we should have open source software for anybody to just be able to spin up an exchange and get millions of dollars of other people's money that they're responsible for custody of? 6:03:11 Because that is a wildly underappreciated part of a pool. 6:03:15 It's not just the coordination infrastructure. 6:03:17 It's not just the work servers, not just the node, not the careful latency management. 6:03:22 You're effectively an exchange. 6:03:25 You are a custodian of shit tons of other people's money. 6:03:29 So anybody should just jump in to do that. 6:03:31 That's easy to figure out. 6:03:33 That's not something that requires a lot of specialization and risk management that isn't widely available. 6:03:38 If there was open source exchange software, I would say that probably it would end up putting competitive pressure on the exchanges that exist, even though they have enormous network effects from liquidity. 6:03:51 It would be probably easier for someone to start an exchange, and then I would imagine that Brian Armstrong wouldn't sleep quite as soundly at night. 6:03:59 Paul, I think you missed my point. 6:04:01 The answer is no. 6:04:03 Everybody is not just equally competent at securing a giant pile of Bitcoin that has to be connected to a hot wallet to process withdrawals when miners want them. 6:04:16 That is a complicated, incredibly delicate system to keep secure. 6:04:21 It's not just spin it up. 6:04:22 Question one was, there's two magic pools that never make a mistake. 6:04:27 That would be good. 6:04:29 And then I say, well, that's a fantastical scenario. 6:04:32 Why are they never making a mistake? 6:04:34 But then I have an algorithm that if one pool makes a mistake, you switch. 6:04:39 And if the mistake continues, you start a new pool. 6:04:42 And then if 100% of the people are in a pool, you flip a coin and split the pool into two. 6:04:49 Now, if everyone, 100% of the miners run that algorithm, then we are actually in the first case. 6:04:57 The pools really cannot make a mistake. 6:04:59 They'll go out of business instantly and die if they make a mistake. 6:05:03 And now we have this kind of like stable scenario where no one's making a mistake. 6:05:10 And now as long as there's two pools, it actually does not matter what the costs are of the pool at all. 6:05:15 Whether it be these software costs or any other kind of cost because they're shared equally. 6:05:21 The two pools pay them equally. 6:05:23 And whichever pool, if it's really the case that the Solana chain makes more money than it costs to run, then both pools will do it. 6:05:32 And if it's not the case, then neither will do it. 6:05:36 Paul, you know what this type of stuff is when you make arguments like this? 6:05:41 It's just instead of reasoning towards this is why I'm right, you just like drop an example and go, I'm right. 6:05:51 And then go backwards to explain why exactly how you constructed this example makes it impossible for you to be anything but right. 6:05:59 Like that is not constructed in any type of debate or conversation. 6:06:04 It's glossing completely over any actual assessment or analysis of the things people are actually arguing or putting forward. 6:06:14 It's just going from example to example to example of weird examples you come up with that are constructed specifically just so I'm right in this example. 6:06:26 How is that productive? 6:06:27 Well, it seemed to me like you were concerned about not being able to mine because the P2 pool would kick you out. 6:06:37 But now you don't have that problem. 6:06:48 Because you have two pools that will run all the node software. 6:06:54 And they never make a mistake. 6:06:55 So no one has to worry about that. 6:06:57 And so as a miner, you don't need to run any of the nodes. 6:06:59 Of course, every single user will need to be running a node if they want to actually have like a real wallet. 6:07:05 But now this is not a question of mining profitability. 6:07:09 It's just a question of regular decentralization, which is the more important thing. 6:07:14 But it's now you can like factor it out of the mining cost structure. 6:07:21 You know what, Paul? 6:07:22 As fun as it has been to sit here for like three hours of you just selectively ignoring half of everything I'm saying at all times, 6:07:32 I think I'm going to go cook dinner and do something actually productive with the rest of my day. 6:07:39 So yeah. 6:07:41 See you next week. 6:07:43 See you later, everyone. 6:07:46 Thank you, Shinobi. 6:07:48 Thanks for letting me up. 6:07:49 Thanks, Shinobi, for hanging out. 6:07:55 Okay, cool. 6:07:57 Do we have anyone else who wants to speak? 6:08:01 I'm good. 6:08:04 Thank you for hosting. 6:08:07 You're welcome. 6:08:11 Is there anyone? 6:08:13 Raise your hand if you want to speak. 6:08:15 Okay, here we have someone. 6:08:19 Ghost of something. 6:08:45 Paul, can you rebut that? 6:08:55 Rebut what? 6:08:59 I want you to rebut what that gentleman just did. 6:09:04 Rebut his point. 6:09:06 I couldn't really hear it. 6:09:08 Oh, my God. 6:09:09 Okay, I got one last question, I guess, before I'm going to head out. 6:09:13 But thank you again for hosting. 6:09:15 My final question would be to you, Paul. 6:09:18 And that is, if Drivechains don't work out, for example, and I'm always thinking of like adversarial events. 6:09:26 We have now merged this into Bitcoin Core and it has been adopted by miners. 6:09:32 What technical debt does that induce or what maintenance costs are required as part? 6:09:40 I'm pretty sure you could just stop using it. 6:09:43 Everybody could just abandon it. 6:09:45 But you still would have small implications throughout the code base of how to do potential workarounds for off-Drivechains. 6:09:51 Gone, officially now. 6:09:53 What other pieces of technical debt would be basically brought about if this thing ends up like Neopets? 6:09:58 Technical debt? 6:10:00 Well, I mean, I think it depends on the software, like the actual code details. 6:10:07 If no one ever actually wants to use it, then you can just ban OpenOp5 from ever being used again. 6:10:14 And then you could just delete all the code after everyone upgrades to that. 6:10:22 Especially after 51% hash rate upgrade to that. 6:10:26 I think it's kind of like keeping it around. 6:10:31 Yeah, I don't think it's that. 6:10:36 It's in the BIP, like the maximum size that the two caches can grow to. 6:10:42 And it's very small. 6:10:44 But then, I mean, like the code debt would always be there. 6:10:48 But also, I think it's not that many lines of code. 6:10:51 I think Reindahl said something like that. 6:10:52 Like, oh, this is not as many as I would have thought. 6:10:55 But yeah, I think that is an issue where anyone who works with Bitcoin Core, 6:11:01 or works on any software project with other people, does not want to have lots of code changes. 6:11:09 Yeah, just enough to hang around for no reason. 6:11:12 You got to make sure you keep track of these things so that you don't actually run into some bug, 6:11:16 or you're testing something and don't understand why. 6:11:17 And it turns out, oh, hey, this feature implemented for the sidechain registration of OP_DRIVECHAIN 6:11:24 is now causing me a problem that I have to go work around now. 6:11:27 And I just was wondering, basically, it sounds like the solution to remove it 6:11:32 would be to soft fork back out again into drive chainless Bitcoin. 6:11:39 But yeah, but all the old... 6:11:41 There's another name for that. It's called the rug pull. 6:11:44 You could then comment out the code and then eventually just delete it. 6:11:49 If you banned OpNot5. 6:11:51 The only instance where that would become a problem is if a miner... 6:11:57 You'd have to have miner consensus that that was the direction we're going, 6:12:00 so that these miners wouldn't mint OpNot5 blocks, 6:12:03 and they would get propagated to these kind of former Drivechain enabled nodes 6:12:08 that this isn't a thing anymore. 6:12:09 And as such, they would stall out or start building... 6:12:13 No, because the newer chain would have more hash power, ideally. 6:12:16 But you would have to get miner consensus to soft fork it completely out. 6:12:20 The miners would have to go, hey, we don't want this anymore. 6:12:22 We want to get out. 6:12:24 That using OpNot5 would make the block invalid. 6:12:27 Yeah. 6:12:29 Okay, thank you. 6:12:31 Go ahead. 6:12:33 Yeah, good answer. Thank you. I appreciate it. 6:12:35 We have a miner who is also a raccoon or something. 6:12:39 Cat, yes? 6:12:41 Yeah, no, I'm just going to listen and respond to something that sounds interesting. 6:12:46 Okay. 6:12:48 I think we will have to end soon because we have been going for six hours plus. 6:12:53 And it is a Friday, of course. 6:12:57 So... 6:12:59 But I hate to take up too much of people's Friday. 6:13:02 But let's see if we can maybe do any last minute comments. 6:13:08 All right, Paul, I'll lob a grenade. 6:13:11 So when you become evil Bitcoin Hitler, 6:13:16 which is that inevitable when there's an evil miner activated soft fork? 6:13:22 I don't think I'll be evil miner Hitler or whatever. 6:13:26 But you never know. 6:13:28 Are you able to grow a mustache? 6:13:31 It doesn't look good. It's like really red and weird. 6:13:34 I don't like it at all. 6:13:36 Can we really trust a man that can't grow a mustache? 6:13:41 Probably not. 6:13:43 I mean, like a software developer that doesn't have like a giant wizard beard. 6:13:47 Like, are you kidding me? 6:13:49 Like, it's probably not. 6:13:51 Keep me away from Bitcoin. 6:13:53 That's why we collaborated with Luke. 6:13:56 Okay. 6:14:00 Paul, this is... 6:14:02 You have stamina. I'll give you that. 6:14:04 You have the most stamina. 6:14:07 Also, Susie. 6:14:09 You need to look at Susie's picture that she posted. 6:14:15 Why? 6:14:17 Is this the accurate representation of BIP300? 6:14:20 Where is this picture? 6:14:22 It's shared on... 6:14:24 It's shared on... 6:14:26 Okay, I'll look for it. 6:14:28 The Twitter space. It's right there. 6:14:30 It was shared by SirFartsAlot. 6:14:35 I don't think so. 6:14:37 I can't really see it very clearly, but it does not look... 6:14:51 Maybe I get that from my living room. 6:14:53 Do you feel like you and Shinobi will ever find common ground? 6:14:57 I'm not sure. I mean, I don't know. Like, I was trying to analyze what he was saying. 6:15:08 He seemed to really think that I was not. 6:15:11 I also kind of thought he was just being disagreeable on purpose. 6:15:17 I would just be, like, talking, and he would say, 6:15:19 Oh, you're doing this again. You're ignoring me. 6:15:21 And I was like, I really don't think that I am. 6:15:23 But, you know, sometimes you don't notice subconsciously. 6:15:26 I was only half listening. 6:15:29 And one thing I kept hearing over and over was, 6:15:34 You're only addressing half of his argument. 6:15:39 One thing that I would be interested in is you figuring out a way 6:15:47 where he feels or you are actually addressing his whole argument. 6:15:50 I don't know what that looks like, but he was pretty... 6:15:55 He definitely was under the impression, and I was under the impression 6:16:02 after hearing him, that he felt like he wasn't being heard, 6:16:06 or his whole point wasn't being acknowledged. 6:16:11 Yeah, but I felt like I was trying to acknowledge it. 6:16:14 I mean, so, like, what was his point, do you think? 6:16:17 Was the point really, like, if you... 6:16:20 that sometimes miners have to pay costs in order to be competitive? 6:16:24 Like, was that his point? 6:16:26 I noticed something that nobody talked about when bootstrapping a new pool. 6:16:33 No miner wants to connect their pool to a pool that doesn't find blocks 6:16:39 or doesn't pay. 6:16:40 So if you're a pay-per-block pool and you don't have the hash rate 6:16:45 to find, you know, reasonably consistent blocks, 6:16:48 you're going to have to pay per share. 6:16:50 And that means you need to have some Bitcoin up front to pay the miners, 6:16:55 even though no blocks were found yet. 6:16:58 And that could be a sizable cost to starting a new pool. 6:17:01 It could be, you know, tens, hundreds of Bitcoin. 6:17:09 Yeah, that makes sense. 6:17:10 I think we... 6:17:16 Yeah, I think that makes sense. 6:17:17 And I think another aspect of starting a new pool is actually... 6:17:21 Well, when I was trying to go, he didn't really, you know... 6:17:24 Not the easiest person to talk to, in my humble opinion. 6:17:27 You know, I actually was enjoying our conversation somewhat 6:17:30 and the back and forth. 6:17:31 But where I was trying to go with the whole two magic pools thing 6:17:35 or what does it cost to make a pool, 6:17:37 I was trying to actually touch on the idea that if all the pools are doing 6:17:41 the perfect thing, like if every existing pool is fine, 6:17:47 then you can't actually break in at all without, like, altruism 6:17:51 or without, like, destroying money or something. 6:17:54 So it's not like anyone can run a node or anyone can run a new node 6:17:58 or anyone can run a new miner unless some part of the pool... 6:18:03 Because pool is just like slices of a pie, you know, it's 100 percentage points. 6:18:07 But if all 100 percentage points are doing the right thing, 6:18:11 then there's no way to break in, I think. 6:18:14 It's kind of like an infinite cost. 6:18:16 Or at least it just involves altruism and, like, burning money or something. 6:18:20 Well, choosing a pool is an inherently political decision. 6:18:24 Yeah, that's another interesting facet of it that perhaps we would wish 6:18:31 that it was purely economic. 6:18:35 But anyway, I think I saw Tao come up and raise his hand. 6:18:38 And now we have Surfer and Jim, I think, came up and raised their hand. 6:18:41 Should we go to them? 6:18:43 Yeah, I'll be really quick. 6:18:45 Hey, Paul. 6:18:46 So at the beginning of this space, I went ahead and took a poll, 6:18:51 and I just asked a simple question. 6:18:54 Do you want Drivechain? 6:18:56 We have 105 votes so far. 6:19:01 93% said no, 7% yes. 6:19:06 What are your thoughts about that? 6:19:09 I think even 1% is actually enough to activate the feature 6:19:14 because it's like how many people use CheckLockTimeVerify 6:19:19 or how many people used Taproot for a while until the ordinals. 6:19:27 But, yeah, I mean, I don't think that's just some poll on Twitter with 105 votes. 6:19:30 I don't think that matters as much as, like, the actual economic reality 6:19:34 of the situation of, like, network effects being crucial for Bitcoin to succeed, 6:19:40 wrapped Bitcoin having billions of dollars and being many, many times, 6:19:44 40 times the size of the Lightning Network and stuff like that, I think. 6:19:47 But any individual poll can help. 6:19:49 I mean, we could certainly look like if you had run that poll last year, 6:19:55 it would have been 100% would have said I've never heard of that. 6:20:00 So now we're up to 7% yes. 6:20:06 But it seems like kind of a small poll to me. 6:20:08 So that's my thought. 6:20:10 So for Jim. 6:20:12 Hey, Paul. 6:20:14 Good for you going six hours, dude. 6:20:17 I admire your willingness to help people understand something that you believe in. 6:20:24 I still don't know much about it. 6:20:26 I'm not a developer. 6:20:28 I try to understand the technical stuff, but I haven't studied it close enough. 6:20:34 But I was listening to you and Shinobi. 6:20:36 And my takeaway was that he his position seemed to be to me that 6:20:47 whatever it was you guys were discussing with these mining pools was something 6:20:51 that increases the cost for this for for for the smallest user. 6:20:57 Let's just say one of these things I've always understood about the Bitcoin 6:21:01 network and why small blocks and, you know, the whole block size war thing was 6:21:06 the idea that, you know, let's make it so that as many people as possible could 6:21:10 run a note. 6:21:11 I think he was looking at it from that same perspective. 6:21:13 And that my takeaway was that he was asserting that this by implementing the 6:21:18 Drivechain into the base layer protocol, you just made it harder. 6:21:23 Now, you guys are focusing on mining. 6:21:26 But essentially, it seems like you've made it harder to the point where some 6:21:30 people now no longer can adequately or equally participate, can get kicked off, 6:21:35 can be shunned by, you know, the other people because they can't include the 6:21:41 sidechain things because they cost more money. 6:21:43 Again, you know, I don't know enough about it. 6:21:45 I'm just paraphrasing. 6:21:46 And so it's just seemed to me that he's going just with that one main argument. 6:21:52 And I didn't hear you rebut it. 6:21:55 But again, maybe it's too technical for me to understand. 6:21:58 The last thing I would say is that I think he also would say that anybody wanting 6:22:06 to defend their position in anything related to Bitcoin, especially a change in 6:22:11 Bitcoin, that if you're going to make an argument for a thing, it should be the 6:22:17 most rational, logical, potentially executable thing, not a, for lack of a 6:22:27 better word, a fantasy of two mining pools. 6:22:30 And I get your point as to show the pureness of if you had this, it would equal 6:22:36 that. 6:22:37 And I don't know the overall significance of it, but I think I get what you mean. 6:22:41 But since the world will never see that, all the miners in the world are not going 6:22:46 to agree to join two pools. 6:22:48 So it's a silly argument to use to make a point. 6:22:50 Or let's put it this way. 6:22:52 I think what he was trying to say was that if you're going to make that point, make 6:22:56 that point in a way that could actually happen in the real world. 6:22:59 So instead of using a two mining pool example, use an example of what we have 6:23:04 now and show how that could work. 6:23:07 I think that's, again, I think that's what he was getting at. 6:23:12 But without the level of technical knowledge you guys have, I could be off and 6:23:16 I apologize if I am. 6:23:18 I want to say also I compliment both of you guys for being so cordial while 6:23:23 completely disagreeing on things that felt like Shinobi was holding back, wanting 6:23:28 to scream. 6:23:29 And you have such a calm demeanor about this whole thing. 6:23:33 I give you a lot of credit, boy, because most of what I see in the Bitcoin space 6:23:38 is pushing back against your idea. 6:23:40 I see a lot of very knowledgeable people, you know, well-known people not agreeing 6:23:48 with your position. 6:23:50 And since I don't understand it well enough, I'm just sitting here watching, 6:23:54 essentially not really knowing what side to take because I don't know how it works 6:23:58 and I don't know what effect it would have ultimately to everything. 6:24:01 But I still just want to give you a lot of credit for trying. 6:24:04 I don't perceive you as a bad actor. 6:24:06 You've been around a long time. 6:24:07 I've listened to you on podcasts. 6:24:09 I think you just believe in an idea that almost nobody else believes in. 6:24:13 So this is what's good about Bitcoin. 6:24:16 What I think we're watching here is literally what's been going on for 14-plus years 6:24:21 in the Bitcoin space is really smart people hashing it out, writing code, testing, 6:24:27 trying to prove their point, and making Bitcoin what it is today. 6:24:30 So even if you don't get what you want, I don't see this as an exercise in futility 6:24:36 because it's an exploration into a direction that may actually benefit Bitcoin 6:24:40 if it can be proven so and everybody agrees. 6:24:43 So I'll stop there. 6:24:44 Thank you for letting me up just to say all that, 6:24:46 and I appreciate everything you guys are trying to do for me and for Bitcoin 6:24:49 and for everybody else. 6:24:53 Cool, yeah, thanks for your comments. 6:24:55 So I think it is absolutely the case. 6:24:58 I wish people, you know, because I agree that this whole running a node should be cheap thing, 6:25:04 I wish people would read the essay that I wrote, 6:25:07 Measuring Decentralization, September 2015. 6:25:12 And it's a very crucial idea because exactly as Surfer Jim said, 6:25:18 the higher it is to the more expensive it is to run a full node, 6:25:22 the less decentralized the network becomes, and it makes the blockchain dark, 6:25:27 and it's hard to see into the blockchain, whereas the node is really, really cheap, 6:25:31 really, really easy to run. 6:25:34 It's very, very easy to spin up a new node. 6:25:38 Sometimes people give the example of, like, the government cracks down on everything 6:25:41 and most of the nodes get shut off, but as long as there's, you know, 6:25:44 two or three or four or five nodes that remain, they can regenerate the entire network, 6:25:48 and the cost of that is the cost of spinning up a new node. 6:25:52 And so I want the full node cost to be cheap, 6:25:56 and, in fact, in favor of a layer one block size reduction, 6:26:02 I'm one of the few people who openly is. 6:26:04 Some people think I'm doing it ironically, but I am not. 6:26:08 I actually think layer one block size should shrink so that the node is even more affordable. 6:26:14 So then why is it that I don't care about miners having to run expensive nodes quite as much? 6:26:21 And the answer is because mining is a different thing than running a node. 6:26:25 In order to mine, you need to run a node, but it's not the other way around. 6:26:31 So if you run a node, it's not like you must mine. 6:26:35 Like, if you don't have 1% of the hash rate, your node just bursts into flames or something. 6:26:41 So the miners are customers. 6:26:43 It's not the case that we need to worry about the miners. 6:26:48 It's true that we all share this mining network, but the mining industry is this cutthroat fight to the death. 6:26:55 When you say mine, do you mean pool? 6:26:58 I mean the whole thing. 6:27:00 This is another way in which I think my view is a little bit different from other people's. 6:27:04 So a lot of people look at the causality of time, and they say the pool assembles the block. 6:27:10 Because most miners don't really run nodes. 6:27:14 Right. I mean, it's an intriguing question. 6:27:17 The fact that most miners don't run nodes is kind of a funny outcome 6:27:22 because it kind of shows that Blind Merged Mining already is real and that Shinobi's concern doesn't really apply. 6:27:29 We don't want to dismiss him as easily as that. 6:27:33 But the end miner kind of should run a node so that they know whether or not the pool is paying them and cheating them. 6:27:41 And yet, I know from personal experience that many do not. 6:27:45 Many just, whatever. 6:27:47 What I mean is most miners don't run a node that they mine to. 6:27:54 Yeah, they have the pool. 6:27:56 They have the pool do that. 6:27:58 I agree. 6:28:00 They may use a node to verify that they're getting paid, but that has nothing to do with the mining part. 6:28:08 Right. No, I agree with you. 6:28:11 But I'm trying to draw this important distinction between the important – having cheap nodes is important. 6:28:19 And yet, in a way, the problem of sidechains is how do we make the node more expensive? 6:28:26 Because the sidechain world is saying is instead of just running one piece of software, I actually want to run two pieces of software or more. 6:28:35 I'm trying to read between the lines here. 6:28:38 And from what I understand is mining pools already have so much invested into infrastructure that they can afford to run more hardware because it's already expensive for them to operate. 6:28:54 If it's a profitable activity… 6:28:56 And that more hardware is a small increase for them anyway. 6:29:01 It may be – like it may affect the economies of scale of the pool, although I think – I personally think that this is basically not possible because I think the economies of scale of the pool are set by the statistical variance universe. 6:29:14 And I also think that the pool – like the normal optimal pool size is already so big that I find it implausible that any amount, even 256 sidechain full nodes – 6:29:25 because something that people have to keep in mind is the example with the $10 trillion a day node is kind of a good one because of how implausible it is. 6:29:32 Because regular users of the sidechain – like if you're just using Monero to buy things on the darknet market, you're running like a Monero node. 6:29:44 So like they can't be so expensive that the end user finds it just completely impossible to do. 6:29:51 The network just won't exist. 6:29:53 So I find it very implausible that even 256 Drivechain nodes or even many, many could actually have a significant impact on the actual economics of scale of the pool at all. 6:30:05 But even if it did, what I'm trying to say is – so this is very important that we want the full node cost to be down. 6:30:13 But the whole problem of sidechains is some people want more stuff. 6:30:17 They say we want larger blocks or we want EVM. 6:30:22 These are a few people, a minority, a subset of people who deliberately want to increase the amount of money they spend on full nodes. 6:30:35 So that is the whole point. 6:30:37 And so this may appear to be a contradiction, but it's not. 6:30:40 It's saying everyone is forced to run the L1 cheapest node, but everyone else has the option to run more. 6:30:48 So if you want, you can run more. 6:30:50 So you see this is why it's not a bad thing because only the people who really want the feature would do it. 6:30:58 And so they're saying like, oh, I want whatever it is, Zcash-level privacy, so I want to run the Zcash node. 6:31:05 So the whole point is we're moving those costs up on purpose. 6:31:09 So that's on the node side. 6:31:11 This is the non-miner side. 6:31:13 So I want to try to keep all of this straight here because I think it might be confusing for the audience, which is the lower the full node cost, the better. 6:31:23 But actually, that's just subject to the constraint that we're doing everything that the user wants to do. 6:31:30 If the user wants to run more nodes, then the node costs are going up. 6:31:34 Now we can switch to the mining world. 6:31:37 My take on the mining world is that the mining world is a cutthroat place. 6:31:42 I did math two days ago about what is the value of like Ethereum if we could port Ethereum, the altcoin, to Bitcoin as a Drivechain hypothetically. 6:31:55 That's just a hypothetical scenario because I said, look, Ethereum is doing all this stuff. 6:31:59 Maybe they do it for weird reasons or what have you. 6:32:05 They do this and that, and they are getting this $7 million a day in fee income. 6:32:18 Even back in the day, back when I came up with Drivechain the first time just as a blog post in 2015, it was already the case that in order to buy miners from Bitfury, you had to buy them. 6:32:30 You had to buy the 40-foot marine container. 6:32:34 To be a customer of Bitfury, you had to call them, spend millions of dollars. 6:32:43 They would send it in a marine container, and then you'd load it onto an 18-wheeler or something. 6:32:49 They would sell it by the marine container. 6:32:52 It was kind of like people say, well, what about these nodes? 6:32:55 Oh, the node is going to make it more difficult for a miner to participate in the network. 6:33:03 I'm just like, I don't know what these people are talking about. 6:33:05 People say that, but it doesn't seem like it's actually grounded in reality to me. 6:33:11 Nonetheless, I am happy to continue to discuss every detail of it. 6:33:16 I mean, for now, I'm happy to continue to discuss every detail of what people think would affect the economies of scale of mining. 6:33:23 But I just don't think any of this actually will affect – because what is already in place seems to be stable enough that it's not going to be affected by software. 6:33:35 That's my strong opinion. 6:33:37 So to me, it sounds like in the absence of a URSF, what you end up with is an earmarked feature and a chain that could get forked off at any time in the future. 6:33:52 It could be tomorrow. It could be in 10 years. 6:33:54 Well, I didn't really understand what you meant about in the absence of what? 6:34:00 In the absence of a URSF. 6:34:04 Yeah, if there's no URSF and there is minor software to activate. 6:34:10 And there is some activation somewhere and somebody is using this feature, and you don't know what the support is for this feature, then it could be in sync until it isn't. 6:34:25 It could be what? I'm sorry. It's just kind of hard for me to hear you. 6:34:28 It could be in sync until it isn't. 6:34:33 If a few people support the feature, what do you mean? Like what is the long – like 10 years from now, the future of mining? 6:34:42 It could be 10 years. It could be 10 minutes. 6:34:48 But I still don't understand what you're asking about. You're saying that the feature is not used, and then it is used, and then mining economics is used. 6:34:54 I'm saying it's so that the feature is earmarked. Some nodes run it. Some nodes don't. 6:35:03 Like it doesn't necessarily have to be a fork until it does. 6:35:08 Oh, I know. Well, that was what I was – to be honest with you, that was what I was thinking with Luke's pull request. 6:35:13 I was thinking like we will just prepare it so that we have it there. 6:35:21 And then with the other commentary, I was just – like I have repeated this a few times already, but I like to muse about – and I've done this on my blog. 6:35:30 I like to muse about different activation ideas, and I have written giant, huge essays about – like I wrote this essay, The UASF Contradiction, 6:35:39 and then I wrote this other essay called The Miner Activated Hard Fork and Replay Protection, the MAHF. 6:35:47 So I kind of like am interested in that topic, and just as a separate type of a thing. It's just like a Bitcoin researcher. 6:35:56 Anyway, Tao has his hand up now. 6:35:59 Hey, there's a request from the audience. They're wondering if you can invite Beauty on, and I'm not sure if he wants to join either. 6:36:08 But if you can invite Beauty on up here and ask him for his input, the audience would appreciate it. 6:36:16 Somebody just reached out to me, so I was wondering if you can do that. 6:36:20 Beauty on. 6:36:22 He's no longer here. 6:36:24 He just left? 6:36:26 We don't see him. 6:36:28 He's gone. 6:36:30 Can anyone say what he would have said if he were up here? 6:36:36 Yes, he would say Drivechain is probably not needed because – actually, you know what? I can't steal man Beauty on's point. 6:36:52 I would say that he would be against it. I'm like 99% sure, but I'm not sure what his rationale would be exactly. 6:37:04 He just left because I was looking earlier and he was on, but that's fine. 6:37:10 Beauty on's an interesting guy. I talked to him for the first time recently, and he wants – so first off, ordinals are an attack on Bitcoin. 6:37:36 I'm not 100% sure what his exact thoughts would be on Drivechain, but I would imagine that because it is a change that would change – because it's the software that would change Bitcoin, 6:37:56 I would go on a limb and be confident to say this is one of the primary reasons he would not be a fan of it. 6:38:06 I think it's because he thinks Bitcoin is money and that conflicts with his idea of what Bitcoin is. 6:38:14 Okay, yeah, that's also a good point. If you start introducing more use cases to Bitcoin other than the use cases that exist right now, then it's completely like a distraction, like not needed kind of thing. 6:38:28 Unfortunately, my phone glitched out there, but the essence of it is that he doesn't think it's needed. 6:38:34 Right, but if you're trying to add more use cases to Bitcoin… 6:38:37 To some extent, I do understand this point of view, like hey, this isn't going to – I don't see how this benefits me, so just don't change anything. 6:38:48 But on the other hand, I don't see that really at all, because this is giving you an option for something you might use later. 6:38:54 And I'm just like, when else would we actually say this, you know what I mean? 6:38:57 Like what if Satoshi was working on Bitcoin and then he met Buteon in a bar and he told Buteon about Bitcoin and Buteon's like, I don't think we really need that. 6:39:09 I mean, should we just shelve this idea? 6:39:12 It doesn't really make sense to me. 6:39:14 I think anyone can always say I don't think they need that, even if it's life-saving heart defibrillator or something. 6:39:24 You never know what you're going to need. 6:39:27 It might not be possible for Buteon and Satoshi to meet in a bar, because no one has actually seen Buteon and Satoshi in the same place at once. 6:39:37 There might be some suspicion that he is indeed Satoshi. 6:39:43 Never know. Hey, you could be Satoshi. 6:39:47 I mean, there's at least a 50-50 shot. 6:39:51 It's just as likely as not, basically. So, yeah, I don't know. People say, I don't think we need it. But it's kind of like, it doesn't matter. What if someone else thinks they need it? It's kind of like that meme, isn't there someone you forgot to ask or whatever. It's like, I consent, I consent. It's like the miners run it, some users want it. Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask? It's like, I consent. It's like the miners run it, some users want it. Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask? It's kind of like that. 6:40:18 So, Paul, I did add an asterisk to 0.1 today from Hector Lopez. And the point, the reason I amended 0.1, and maybe this would be its own separate point, because I'm trying to make these points digestible and not try to conflate them too much from your list that I've been working through. 6:40:44 Right. 6:40:44 You see that I did some at 1.1. 6:40:47 I had some answers to part eight, which I don't know if anyone could understand, but I put them in the space here. So I've done a few of them. I think I still have to do, what, six is the only other good one that I have to do? And then there's like, some that I don't think are that. I mean, who are you talking about? 6:41:03 There's going to be some that you can't do anything about, obviously, but something that was interesting that I think a lot of people don't think about or maybe people haven't heard is, I would argue there's not too many Bitcoin people that are friends or at least in communication whatsoever with people that are gun-ho on Bitcoin cash. 6:41:28 And there's a Bitcoin cash guy, Hector Lopez, that pretty much said, like, you know, emotionally appealed very, very closely to, you know, I think I think his argument made perfect sense, at least like from how he thinks, why would I go from a second-class citizen on Bitcoin cash to a second-class citizen on Bitcoin via a worse security model? 6:41:56 And, you know, what he said to me makes sense because every layer two has to make trade-offs. And arguably, I would say that there's some merit to be said, like, layer twos aren't going to be perfect. There's going to be some sort of trade-off and you're trying to optimize that trade-off as far as I understand. 6:42:18 Of course, that's an easy one, though, but that's the right half of the meme that I have on my Twitter banner about there's an awful lot of trade-offs you make by going onto a shift line also, such as losing all of your money. 6:42:30 Right, so his point of view is, why would I go from something bad to something bad when I want to go from something bad to, like, something amazing? 6:42:42 Well, as you may remember, Timo, he came on the space two weeks ago and he was, like, he was convinced – see, the thing is, he's not actually a second-class citizen because he's – I thought he was a Bitcoin SVR, actually, not a Bitcoin cash person. 6:42:59 But either way, he was in, like, the full trust-the-miners mode completely already on the network he was on. So he was already trusting the miners far more than BIP300 requires, like, way more. 6:43:16 They're, like, completely full SPV mode, like, for everyone. So he doesn't even realize that he's, like – he's not even a second-class citizen by his own standard. 6:43:26 He is by many of the people here who would not – they don't want to use anything with, like, the hashrate escrow. But he's, like – so he's really not a second-class citizen because he would just stay – he would stay on the L2 his entire life. 6:43:46 And if someone just told him this is actually – if they lied to him and they said this is actually an L1, he wouldn't even really notice. But this is kind of the funny thing. If you work on – because this idea is supposed to be a compromise. 6:44:00 And if you work on a compromise, you do get people – it's sort of like everyone should be equally disappointed. I actually wonder if there's, like, an enormous silent majority out there. I don't know. That's, like, wishful thinking on my part, perhaps. 6:44:12 But it's, like, you have some people complain and they say, I don't even want to see OP_NOP5 be used on Bitcoin Core. I never want any line of code changed in Bitcoin. 6:44:22 Because you have these extreme people who are, like, you know, the extreme gatekeepers. And then you have, like, the extreme altcoiners who are, like, well, I want my – what they would prefer is for Bitcoin Cash to just defeat BTC and defeat everything and just win. 6:44:42 And it's kind of like this is in the middle, and I do wonder about how many people out there are just thinking, like, you know, I don't really know what's going on in Zcash or Ethereum, but I'd like the option to just copy and paste all their code. 6:44:58 Or I don't know how many people out there in Bitcoin Cash thinking, like, oh, man, we made a huge mistake. We should just settle. We should go back to BTC if we can, if we can get anything that is even remotely similar to what we wanted, and we can just get a way out. 6:45:14 We'll have our own Drivechain and we'll have our own devs, but we won't have to suffer as being a minority altcoin ranked 46 or something. 6:45:27 So I wonder how many people are in this middle ground between these two extremes, you know, these people who say, well, I don't want to use this. I prefer my altcoin to just do really well. 6:45:42 And the people who say we don't want Bitcoin Core to change at all in any way, even though Bitcoin still has yet to, you know. Obviously, I would drop this issue completely if Bitcoin had taken over the entire planet Earth, but we haven't done that yet. 6:45:59 So Surfer Jim has raised his hand, and now Hector is here. So why don't you, Surfer? 6:46:05 Yeah. So I've always been of the opinion that every altcoin out there is just slowing the adoption of the worldwide adoption of global sound money, like Anders always puts it on Toxic Happy Hour. 6:46:19 Essentially, you just made my point for me. We wouldn't need this stuff if the world was on a Bitcoin standard. And everything that slows that down, including the Drivechain that allows shit coins to maintain their life and somehow stay pegged to Bitcoin and let them not feel so bad. 6:46:38 I don't know. They should just come back to Bitcoin directly. Maybe they don't feel so bad. 6:46:44 Because you understand that what I'm suggesting that they do is copy and paste their software. Their software, but not the coin. 6:46:52 So this is pro-hard money because I'm saying the L1 part isn't changing at all, and yet you have a pressure release valve for people to, instead of defecting to the altcoin, they now get what they want. 6:47:06 It's still the same 21 million bitcoins, but it's the Zcash software. So I think sometimes, I don't know why, but because this is… 6:47:14 Wait, excuse me. How does the Bitcoin network benefit from some altcoin having their software tied to Bitcoin? And again, for my lack of technical knowledge, I don't quite understand how that benefits them or Bitcoin and why can't they just abandon… 6:47:34 The theory being, not my theory, what I've heard, that people will move to the hardest money. The one, only one, will win. 6:47:42 And so, why do we need their software? Is it because certain features in their software are not in Bitcoin and then the Bitcoin network gets those features now without disrupting the layer one? 6:47:53 Alright, I need to look into it more. That's a nice thought. It sounds like most of the technical community in Bitcoin doesn't agree with either the idea of doing it, but it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, but it's probably more the idea of how it gets implemented. 6:48:10 And it sounds like with Shinobi, he thinks of it as an additional cost to certain people, restricting people from being allowed to participate in the network because of that. And so, even if it doesn't have a direct effect, although I've also heard that it requires some kind of a fork, I think you mentioned that a soft fork doesn't need… 6:48:32 I mean, you don't have to follow it, right? You don't have to upgrade to it. I get it. But it's still a code change at the base layer, if I'm not mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong. 6:48:40 BIP300 is a small code change to support BIP300, which is just this counter. So that's the pull request and the BIP are about, but you do not actually run the software on Bitcoin layer one. 6:48:54 Okay. Why? 6:49:24 And then you withdraw it and it comes back. So the idea is really to have total freedom in which piece of software you use with your own Bitcoin. You don't have to only use Bitcoin Core. You can go to a sidechain that has 119 active in them already. 6:49:44 Okay, so that explains a lot to me. That helps me understand this entire idea quite a bit because I haven't heard it put that way and I definitely appreciate that. But then my immediate thought, not knowing how code works and where the risks are, is that my Bitcoin is now at risk. 6:50:02 Of course, I know that your position is that it's not. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be that. And I don't know. I don't need you to explain it to me now. As a matter of fact, I really can't keep staying here. I can't believe you've been doing this for probably now seven hours. 6:50:16 I just worry. If I can see the nuts and bolts and I can see how my Bitcoin would never be at risk and that there's some value in having this software and then what would the cost of that be for me to add it to my node or whatever else. Again, some of these things Shinobi brought up that I don't fully understand. 6:50:35 If I could see all that, then I can make a judgment as to whether I think I would care, whether I think it's a good idea, whether I think it's a horrible idea. I think there's essentially those three possible positions. And some people seem vehemently against it and other people seem just like, you know, no, we don't need it. 6:50:53 I think Butan did make a statement like, simply, it's not needed. Why are you going to change the money? Why do we need this? And so I hear what you're saying why we need it. I would have to do more work on it. I appreciate everything you've done. You've helped me learn a lot from some of these other smart people that have been here. So thank you for everything. And I can't believe you're still doing this. It's like almost seven hours. You're crazy. 6:51:23 I actually think it's the explanation is actually flipped upside down, where people have already published their book, or they've already published their thing that says, Bitcoin doesn't need anything. Bitcoin doesn't need to change. Bitcoin is whatever. And I weirdly think that that is the only reason that they are against this proposal is because it would prove that they were mistaken when they wrote that into their book. 6:51:53 That's literally, but of course, there's also various technical things. But I actually think, you know, like Shinobi, and some of these other people have been against this idea for a long time. They've just been like, you know, to me, they were just some internet random person. And I had this blog post from 2015 that I would like to talk about sometimes and get invited to speak at Bitcoin conferences about from time to time. 6:52:17 And it just seems like there are just some random guys against it. And then now it kind of actually looks like that, you know, if the idea ends up being a big success, they'll be really embarrassed. 6:52:29 So I actually think the embarrassment of people who have pre committed to the idea that Bitcoin does not need Zcash level privacy, or that they just, they want to sell this idea that Ethereum could never be a threat, even if it flippens Bitcoin, and then the market cap is 100 times bitcoins, and it has 700 times as many users. 6:52:51 Some people actually say stuff like that. They say, I welcome the flippening or whatever. It's kind of, they say, well, Ethereum is just an illegitimate blockchain, or it's like a Silicon Valley startup, and they can't be compared. 6:53:03 And I think it's honestly that the explanation is kind of flipped around where people have said they already told someone else in an unrelated context. Bitcoin doesn't need anything, Bitcoin is already perfect. 6:53:15 And now my idea comes along and says, actually, Bitcoin can go from what it's doing now to doing 10 million more things, with really no risk to the people who don't want to do the new things. 6:53:27 It's kind of as if we had like a broadcast state where it's like we're in television in the 1955, and there's only one television station. And everyone's talking about, people are saying this is the greatest station there is, and then I'm turning it into like YouTube, where there's lots of competition. Some people don't want to know how bad the sales are going to be. 6:53:50 Hey, I would just say that I don't, I don't think you can, as a percentage of everybody that's against it, I would have to say that's a small percent that have stuck their neck out vehemently against it, wrote about it, whatever. I just can't imagine that's big, I could be wrong. 6:54:05 There are other proposed changes to Bitcoin that some of these same people that are against Drivechains would potentially be in favor of, like CTV or some of these other things that I've learned about minimally, again, don't know enough technically, sound good, but I don't know all the risks. 6:54:27 I don't know all the risks. So I don't, I would say… 6:54:34 I think you're 100% correct about that, but those are relatively small changes. In this context, you are actually escaping Bitcoin Core and going to a different piece of software. 6:54:47 In fact, the idea of the YouTube versus just having one channel, one television channel, a broadcast television, is sort of closer because the idea actually is that different software development teams would actually compete and that they would hate each other and the success of one would be the failure of another and they would have to, they would be grinding out software quickly. 6:55:17 And there would be some software that doesn't change very much, layer one would change almost not at all. And, but other, there'd be like liberal and conservative versions of each software maybe. 6:55:29 So the vision is kind of like, it's much more subversive than just, I think part of it, but I think you're right though to point that out. You are right about that, that there's like, there's other changes. 6:55:42 Although I think that 119 is a good example of a change that didn't like go through the proper channels, like they didn't go to the director of the broadcast television station or whatever. So they were cancelled. 6:55:56 And so, but yeah, I think that's a very fair thing to say. But I think that it was kind of like one person was saying this team naturally produces the best shows, where I'm saying we can always get, we can just get a completely new team at any time. 6:56:11 And I think that is, that levels up the subversiveness a little, but I think you're right about that, that maybe that's only a small percent. 6:56:20 Should we go to Hector? Hector is here and he's going to tell us about why he would prefer to be on Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV or wherever. 6:56:33 Everywhere. 6:56:35 So as I understand it, your entire premise as to why you're creating this thing is because there is a limitation on the main chain, right? There's a 600, 650,000 limitation. 6:56:49 I wouldn't describe it like that. I would say different people want different things. 6:56:52 No, no. But I'm saying, but the reason you are proposing what you're proposing is because that limit exists and therefore you think that you want to appeal to more people because you can only appeal to up to 600, 650,000 per day if you don't do something about it. 6:57:08 In the scaling direction, you are right that only we can only use the block space of L1, whereas Drivechain does allow us to. 6:57:19 And you do that because you believe that, right? That's part of your belief and you do that because you think that there is a security issue in terms of many more people using Bitcoin on the L2 Drivechain, not on L1. 6:57:36 Is that what you're referring to? 6:57:38 Sorry, you cut out for a second. I don't know if that was for me or for everyone. 6:57:41 I understand that while it is the case that right now we only have the block space on L1 to use to onboard people to Bitcoin and move them from there to Lightning Network or whatever. 6:57:55 With Drivechain, it's possible that someone will send coin to make a big deposit and then onboard people on L2. 6:58:02 And if those people are onboarded on L2 and they stay on L2 their whole lives, then we have more people quote using Bitcoin unquote on L2, but they're not on L1. 6:58:17 Therein lies your whole theory, right? 6:58:18 So like you are agreeing with me that you can only serve 600 to 650,000 people per day on L1 and your solution to onboard millions of people or the entire rest of the world or the seven point basically almost eight billion people the rest of the world onto Bitcoin is through a solution such as Drivechain. 6:58:37 Because the current way won't allow it technically and you fear that since it can't do it, the miners will starve and the incentives to mine Bitcoin will go down and therefore the network will become at risk, right? 6:58:51 Well, I think the scaling future of Bitcoin is uncertain, but I do think that this is a good way because I think some people clearly prefer the large block. 6:59:02 They don't mind running the large block thing and I think we should just take those people at their word and then we've scaled those people. 6:59:07 So then why are you appealing to the people who want to serve the vast minority, the point one percent of the population instead of serving the ninety nine point nine percent of the population in the fact that you're advocating for a trustless money where everyone should be on L1 rather than when the suggestion is they should be L2 and it's okay if they're L2 their whole lives. 6:59:31 That only furthers the fact that your whole the whole purpose and reason why the six hundred six hundred fifty thousand limitation exists is to have a copy. 6:59:40 But ninety nine percent of the population like we're agreeing to won't ever be able to run be on L1. 6:59:45 So what is the purpose of having a copy? 6:59:47 Only the richest of the rich will have a copy and they'll be the ones the point one percent transaction on L1 because it would be too expensive and everyone else will be on a Drivechain future. 6:59:56 So then what is the point of Bitcoin when you're just advocating for a non Bitcoin solution? 7:00:04 I didn't totally understand that part about the point one percent being the only ones who are on L1 because of the fee rates on L1. 7:00:12 Is that what you were saying? 7:00:14 Right. We agree that six hundred thousand people at most right can be served per day. 7:00:20 Therefore we we entrance Drivechain to allow the rest of the world to come in. 7:00:26 And it's OK if they end up their whole lives like you said on L2s because that's their way of getting exposure to Bitcoin or using Bitcoin. 7:00:33 Right. But you're saying that. 7:00:36 And that that whole idea is that the majority of the world can only use Drivechain because they can't ever be part of that six hundred thousand because that's six hundred thousand. 7:00:46 Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Right now it's right now it's only seven. 7:00:50 It's ninety three percent saying that they're not even going to be able to use anything because we don't have this Drivechain idea. 7:00:56 We don't even have this idea yet. 7:00:57 But anyway. 7:00:59 So I agree with you. I'm saying your solution is is only a solution that allows the whole world to jump on. 7:01:06 But it's based on the on the actual underpinning of everyone should run a copy like you just said. 7:01:12 You gave reasons as to you even said you wrote at length as to why people should have a copy of this blockchain. 7:01:17 But yet you're advocating for the exact opposite because you know the majority won't ever be able to use the chain that you're advocating to have a copy for. 7:01:23 Most of everyone who's using L2 needs an L1 full node. 7:01:29 That's part of the design. 7:01:31 So but that doesn't matter because the L1 node is much smaller. 7:01:35 So they might have a copy of something you can never use. 7:01:39 You wouldn't use they never use you mean the. 7:01:43 You said you just know. Yeah. 7:01:44 You just said that people. 7:01:46 The L1 is the smaller thing. 7:01:48 Like you know the L1 is the bootloader. 7:01:51 It's like it was like why have electricity if you don't have an operating system or something. 7:01:56 It's like the L1 is the lowest. 7:01:58 What is worse having a few economically incentivized parties that may not like each other but have economic incentive to be truthful and have them hold the ledger rather than just the elites hold the ledger because you're too poor to hold the ledger because it's not irrelevant to your life. 7:02:13 Like I think the arguments there aren't very really really clear. 7:02:18 Like it seems that you guys for some reason think and I think that's true. 7:02:22 That should be the challenge as to why that that idea of having a copy when the future is telling you and you're advocating for that exact future that the majority and you're conceding to the fact that the majority won't ever be able to use L1 or shouldn't use L1. 7:02:37 So what is again like your premise on everything is kind of like on sand. 7:02:42 Well because the way it's designed is that L2 every L2 node needs L1 node. 7:02:48 So the that part of the design is just because it doesn't really make sense to put a small block L2 on top of a large block L1. 7:02:58 But the reverse makes perfect sense. 7:03:00 So you know I mean you wanted a gradual escalation of commitment. 7:03:03 You know what I mean like you don't say I love you on the first date. 7:03:06 So you first you get the L1 node then you get the L2 node which costs more. 7:03:10 And that is a logical conclusion Paul. 7:03:16 Just take it to the end. 7:03:18 Take it to the time that we're just dating and doing nothing. 7:03:22 It's irrelevant. 7:03:23 We're going to get married. 7:03:25 So when we get married we're going to understand this is what's actually going to happen. 7:03:28 Who cares what happens when we're dating. 7:03:30 What we care about is having a successful marriage. 7:03:32 And to you a successful marriage is not using Bitcoin. 7:03:35 It's using a layer on top of Bitcoin. 7:03:37 Why don't you think that we got into this before. 7:03:40 First let me finish what I was talking about which is to say that you need the node first in order to even receive money. 7:03:45 So you have no money. 7:03:47 You get your node. 7:03:48 Now you receive money. 7:03:50 Only then can you spend it and pay the transaction fee. 7:03:52 So it's kind of just like an order of operations thing. 7:03:54 But why is it that you say that the L2 blockchain isn't real. 7:03:58 This is what I was telling these people about. 7:04:00 Maybe you overheard me and maybe you're in the audience and I didn't notice. 7:04:03 I was telling them oh this guy Hector is an interesting character. 7:04:05 And he he thinks the L2 is something bad. 7:04:09 But really the L2 is just very very similar to what he's already getting. 7:04:15 I mean do you run you run like Electrum SV or Electron Cash or something right. 7:04:20 You don't run a full node. 7:04:24 So it's kind of like what difference does it make if you're on the Drivechain or on L1. 7:04:30 It's my question to you. 7:04:32 So my question to you is the exact same thing right. 7:04:35 Like if the majority are on L1. 7:04:38 Why does it matter to you if they are on L1. 7:04:41 Why don't you just let them be on L1 too. 7:04:44 Because it's a simple fact that some people want the block size higher. 7:04:51 Some people who are a very vast minority of this world. 7:04:55 Right. And you're trying to create global money. But the vast minority of this world is somehow dictating what the world should do. I don't understand why that's the case. 7:05:02 Well if that were the case then I would agree with you. But the reason is that you can always increase. It's it let's say one some people want an eight megabyte block size. 7:05:14 People wanted to stay at one. That was the original scaling or whatever. So it happens to the fact that you can you can say one plus seven equals eight. And you can say one is mandatory for everyone. 7:05:28 That's the small block L1. And then the seven is optional. And then that adds up to the desired amount. And then people add. It's like an optional increase in costs for the end user. 7:05:37 The user opts in to the full node cost. But you don't want to be. You don't want to. It doesn't make sense to opt to pay seven and then say oh I have an optional one. And you know it's just unreasonable. 7:05:50 I understand your goal. Your goal is to create more ability for Bitcoin and allow more people to use it. If otherwise your solution or a solution like this does not exist then nothing is going to happen. 7:06:05 This is going to be the elite of the elite of the elite using this because the majority will always be will be basically beat in price. So if you don't have a solution like Drivechain there is no there is no future of global money for Bitcoin because it just technically can't do it. 7:06:20 So I advocate the opposite of like why the ideology is flawed. You advocate you OK. You're OK with the ideology. You're accepting the ideology today. Therefore you're trying to build within the parameters of the ideology. 7:06:31 And I understand that I commend that. But I think that that's where that's where it kind of falls. Like you must question the ideology before trying to build something for the ideology. 7:06:40 All right. I'm just trying to take people. If someone says they want something I just say OK. I take them at their word which is. 7:06:49 But Paul the world is telling you what they want. If the world wants global money you can only you're only adhering to the 600000 to want to have layer one solidified just for them. 7:07:00 I tell you I agree with you on that and you may have seen if you watched all my tweets carefully over the last week or so. I don't I do. I think I inappropriately in my head I weigh like we have like 50000 80000 full nodes of Bitcoin. 7:07:18 I say that's how that's the size of the Bitcoin network. And we do have half a trillion dollars. But yeah in my head I'm thinking how do we get 8 billion nodes which which will make 50000 look like a speck of dust that is meaningless. 7:07:36 And I think how can we get we're really we should be getting we should be at 200 trillion or something. So we're we're we're like 4000 times or whatever. 7:07:45 Hey Paul can I can I just come in and just suggest you know you've been fighting people who are already pro Bitcoin right. And we're talking we're talking to people who are quote unquote BTC maximalists. 7:08:03 You know true. You know and then you know it's been going on what six seven hours. I think you know trying to fight multiple wars at the same time is exhausting. 7:08:17 I was going to suggest for your own health maybe maybe you think about ending time. 7:08:24 Yeah we should. We can. 7:08:26 And we'll end right after this I guess. If people didn't come up by now they really don't want to come up and talk. So we'll end after this. But it's important that I mentioned it's the same war because to me it's a situation where you have two people who both want to use Bitcoin but they disagree. 7:08:45 And one says I want large blocks one say I want small blocks. Well in my head I understand why one has to be L1 and the other has to be L2. But I actually it's kind of like it's actually it's the same. It's the same war. 7:08:58 So all these people who are like oh why do you need to change Bitcoin or whatever they actually think it's great that someone comes in here and says like you know L1 small block ism is dead and we need something. 7:09:08 We need like a complete rethinking of everything because then you get this is what we just heard moments ago was like oh nobody wants this. Nobody needs this. Everyone's happy here in Bitcoin. Everyone loves everything that we do. And it's all perfect here. 7:09:22 And it's just weird. Paul is such a weird guy. Why is he doing this. So yeah I think all the alt coiners the fact that you know like the all the alt coiners the existence of alt coins to some extent obviously not to a complete extent but the existence of alt coins to some extent. 7:09:44 That those are the people who want this. They wanted they wanted this instead. Many there's many cases Vitalik was for Bitcoin magazine Roger Ver tons of people including myself as my prediction markets project that I never launched as an alt coin but probably if I could do it over I probably would. 7:10:04 But the there's all kinds of people who wanted to do something cool with Bitcoin. They were forced into doing alt coin ism. So anyway I see Austin has come up to whenever your final word Austin before I. 7:10:18 Well I was just going to suggest that maybe you could go 24 hours as you know. 7:10:26 Yeah that would be pretty neat. But yeah we probably shouldn't do it on a Friday. We're going to do that. I think we should end it in fact. 7:10:36 Well it's much appreciated your efforts Paul and all these months and months and months and we were having spaces with three people and now there's 300 something here earlier I think even 400. So it's a good growth. 7:10:52 Okay cool. Well yeah happy to have everyone here. So come back next week. 7:11:00 Although next week will be tab comp so we probably won't be able to do it that week. But hey tab comp I'm doing this debate with Peter Todd about Drivechain on Thursday. So it's probably not too late to get your tickets in Atlanta. 7:11:15 So yeah I think we let's end the space though.
