0:00 Hello, and welcome to Drivechain Twitter Spaces. 0:05 This is Henry of LayerTwo Labs, and today is Thursday, April 27th. 0:12 Welcome to all those who've joined the audience. 0:15 Welcome to our listeners who listen on demand after these are recorded live. 0:22 We record twice a week, and 0:26 the goal is to have anyone 0:28 who would like to join the stage and ask questions, share a comment, 0:34 criticism, hopes and dreams about Bitcoin 0:39 and how Bitcoin can be more extensible. 0:42 There can be more development on Bitcoin. 0:44 There can be more protocols in Bitcoin, 0:46 and how Bitcoinization and the Bitcoin movement 0:49 can be strengthened and accelerated through the adoption of Drivechain, 0:54 which would allow for peer-to-peer, two-way pegged sidechains 0:58 to exist on Bitcoin for the first time ever, 1:02 enabling more value accrual to Bitcoin, 1:05 the token, as well as Bitcoin's block space. 1:09 Drivechain reduces the likelihood of disruptive 1:16 and costly hard fork disputes within Bitcoin's community. 1:20 It enables the Layer 1 to ossify by strengthening 1:24 and increasing the breadth and variety of Layer 2s that are possible. 1:30 It potentially solves the Bitcoin security budget problem 1:33 of low fees in the future, 1:37 and it potentially eliminates Bitcoin's competition. 1:41 Right now, there is a growing set of competing L1s in the blockchain ecosystem. 1:47 It would be ideal if Bitcoin had 100% dominance and no competitors. 1:52 Network effect is important in the market for money. 1:57 Therefore, to ensure the success of Bitcoin, 2:00 to ensure it becomes an even more substantial economic phenomenon, 2:05 it's important that Bitcoin be the largest by market cap 2:08 and preferably the only by market cap cryptocurrency base layer. 2:18 Welcome to those in the audience. 2:21 If you have a question or if you'd like to chat about Drivechain, 2:23 please come on up to the stage. 2:25 Just raise your hand, 2:27 and you'll be let up to ask your question and share your comments. 2:35 Don't be shy. 2:48 I have put in the nest a bunch of tweets about Drivechain and related topics. 2:54 We've got tweets from Adam Back, Paul Sztorc, LayerTwo Labs, Guy Swann, and others. 3:04 Fiatjaf. 3:06 There are a lot of Drivechain supporters out there. 3:09 One of them is Hector, 3:11 and he's been a big supporter of Drivechain for a long time. 3:15 There are a lot of Drivechain supporters out there. 3:17 One of them is Fiatjaf, the creator of Nostr. 3:20 He is an avid and emphatic Drivechain supporter. 3:26 Another Drivechain supporter is Adam Back, 3:29 Dr. Adam Back, creator of Blockstream. 3:36 Another Drivechain supporter is Michael Tidwell, 3:40 founder of TabConf, the Atlanta Bitcoin Conference. 3:48 And there are many others. 3:50 Many other highly sophisticated Bitcoiners with years of experience in the community 3:54 and many years of experience as software engineering professionals 3:59 think that Drivechain could be very good for Bitcoin and definitely worth the effort involved 4:08 in the community's analysis and adoption of it. 4:38 Thank you. 5:08 Thank you. 5:38 Thank you. 6:08 Thank you. 6:28 All right. 6:29 We will wait until we have a speaker or a questioner. 6:36 Welcome to all who have joined the audience. 6:42 Everyone is welcome to come on up to the stage, ask any questions, 6:46 share any comments about Drivechain. 6:50 Drivechain is Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 300 and 301, 6:56 and we talk about it twice a week here on Twitter Spaces, 7:01 sometimes to a large crowd, sometimes to a smaller crowd, 7:06 depending on the appetite for Drivechain conversation. 7:12 Lately, the level of attention and interest in Drivechain has grown a lot, 7:18 with Fiatjaf, Adam Back, and others tweeting about it, supporting it. 7:24 Many people have downloaded the Drivechain software available at drivechain.info 7:29 and also at layer2labs.com and also at GitHub. 7:37 Bitcoiners can download the software and experiment with this innovative technology. 7:44 Oh, we have a questioner. 7:46 Excellent. 7:48 Welcome to the stage, Mr. Raz. 7:53 Welcome. Please share your thoughts or questions, anything you want to say. 7:58 So how do you measure the interest in BIP300 and Drivechain? 8:04 When you say what you just said is that the interest is growing, 8:07 is it just by Twitter or is there another way that you're gauging the level of interest? 8:14 It's my personal estimate. 8:17 Having talked to community insiders and Bitcoiner observers, 8:22 I noticed that there has been an increase in the number of articles. 8:26 For example, in this calendar year, there have been probably three or five articles 8:32 about Drivechain, about the need for a change in the Bitcoin culture. 8:38 For example, there was an article just this month in Protos about Drivechain, 8:44 specifically in the history of it. 8:47 And let's see, there was an article the prior month by Jameson Lopp 8:53 about Bitcoin maximalism, where he talked in great detail about not only Drivechain, 8:59 but other ideas in recent years that have, in his view, become important 9:05 in terms of illustrating the need for Bitcoin to have more technological options 9:11 and variety and innovation built on top of it so that that kind of innovation 9:17 and growth doesn't instead accrue on altcoins, mainly Ethereum. 9:23 So I think there's, for example, Jameson Lopp talking about the reasons 9:28 why CASA doesn't only support Bitcoin and talking about Drivechain, 9:34 bringing those things together, he is an example of someone 9:37 who really would understand very well the history of Bitcoin 9:43 and how Drivechain sits in that history and how, at this moment, 9:47 with Ethereum seemingly persistently maintaining about half of the value of Bitcoin, 9:55 in his view, there's a real need for Bitcoin to be broader and more expansive 10:02 in terms of what it can support to hopefully recapture that part of the market. 10:08 Bitcoin used to be the whole blockchain ecosystem. 10:11 Now it's like half, one might say, in terms of different metrics, 10:16 most simply the value out there. 10:20 So it'd be great for Bitcoin to grow and expand, 10:23 and that way business people like him could just be Bitcoiners alone. 10:28 And he's not even like an avid DriveChainer. 10:30 He's more of like a Drivechain-friendly commentator, 10:33 but he understands the whole history very well 10:37 and how there is seemingly a need more and more for Drivechain. 10:41 In his recent conversation, Lopp talked with Brad Mills and Adam Back 10:46 and Austin Alexander about Drivechain and other topics, 10:51 and I felt like Lopp really gets it, Adam Back really gets it. 10:56 There's another example. 10:58 Years ago when Drivechain was first introduced, 11:01 I'm not sure if Back was openly for it, 11:05 whereas in the last two years he's become openly for it, 11:08 speaking about it next to Paul on stage multiple times last year, 11:13 two or three times at major conferences last year, 11:16 and then probably this year as well. 11:19 So that's another example of an increase in my personal anecdotal observations, 11:27 an increase in the level of enthusiasm and attention 11:31 and formal inclusion of Drivechain in the set of important ideas 11:37 that are within the orbit of Bitcoin's future potential 11:42 in the next couple of months or years for growth. 11:46 That's my metric. 11:48 I don't have a number of tweets metric where it's more scientific, 11:52 but that would be good to have, of course. 11:55 Yeah, I think you mentioned a couple that could be provided 11:58 into some sort of index over the support or consensus around BIP300. 12:05 So if we were to just look at articles published about the topic 12:09 and compare now back to what Paul's been writing about BIP300 12:14 at least since 2015 or maybe even earlier, 12:17 I think that's a good gauge. 12:20 Something that you could objectively parse out of all those things 12:26 that you've been noticing that you just mentioned 12:29 that gives a better indicator, 12:31 and I really think that this would be representative 12:34 of what gets thrown around, 12:36 this idea of a coalition behind these ideas, 12:39 so Lopp, Atomback, and these others that you've mentioned. 12:42 If there was some sort of objective thing 12:45 like you looked at a number of people in a coalition 12:50 and what a definition of joining this coalition is, 12:55 I think that needs to be very clear, 12:57 and then you could look over time and say, 12:59 hey, this coalition is growing X number over this amount of time, 13:03 and that would be, I think, a really nice way to present 13:07 to other people that haven't researched or spent time on it 13:10 that there is growing support for something like this. 13:15 Very well said. 13:19 Welcome to the stage, David. 13:23 Hey, thanks. 13:25 I just was crashing the party, listening, 13:27 always kind of intrigued on the drivechains and scaling debates, 13:31 so I wasn't sure if you guys were on a specific topic. 13:36 No, it's pretty free form. 13:40 David, have you ever spoken in this space before? 13:42 If not, I would love to hear, 13:44 or maybe you have, but it's been a while. 13:46 I'd love to hear a general kind of overview 13:49 of your perspective on Bitcoin and drivechain, 13:51 because I've been following your tweets for something like a year now, 13:54 and you have a lot of good information on Rootstock, Sovereign, drivechain, 14:01 and it seems like you're very much kind of in the... 14:05 Actually, I think I remember us speaking about half a year ago, 14:09 and maybe you had said you don't actually work for Sovereign or Rootstock, 14:12 but you're just like a fan at this time, if I recall correctly. 14:16 What's your perspective, and what are you sensing in the community? 14:22 Would you say that Bitcoin layer 2 scaling and drivechain 14:27 is something to be excited about in your view, 14:30 or are you more pessimistic at this moment, 14:33 and you would say that the toxic maxis sort of dominate the discourse 14:37 and that a soft fork is unlikely, 14:40 given the experience that was had with BIP-119, 14:44 where that didn't succeed, it seems, 14:47 and that was, some would say, not that big a lift 14:53 compared to the mental kind of decision to make drivechain 14:57 kind of strikes people as a big decision. 14:59 So what's your thought on all of that? 15:04 Yeah, I mean, there's a ton that I want to say, 15:07 and I can ramble on here for a while, I suppose, 15:09 but feel free to interject. 15:10 Please do. That'd be great. 15:12 Yeah, I mean, so I guess I just consider myself like an amateur researcher, right? 15:17 You know, I spend most of my days just doom scrolling on Bitcoin Twitter, 15:20 and then, you know, kind of moonlight writing articles on, you know, 15:22 passion projects of mine, which are things like ZK roll-ups 15:26 and Bitcoin-backed credit, and, you know, 15:28 Bitcoin-backed stable coins are kind of like my present-day baby. 15:31 So I'm very much in this kind of similar camp as you all is like, 15:35 hey, there's more to Bitcoin than, you know, 15:38 kind of what, like, you know, the holy priest bestow as, you know, righteous. 15:42 I am a fan of drivechains and Paul, and I think he's brilliant and all that, 15:47 but, like, candidly, I just think drivechains has, like, a massively, 15:51 and probably at this point, like, impossibly uphill battle to climb. 15:57 I think it works against Paul and you guys that drivechains has been around 16:02 for so long that the idea kind of has, like, become stale. 16:05 Even if it's, like, the most promising scaling solution, 16:09 I think that's, like, makes it very, very difficult to kind of market. 16:13 And I think we even kind of see that in these spaces, 16:16 how there's, like, there's kind of so few of us in here, 16:18 even if we think it's, like, the most important thing going. 16:21 I think the best shot, I do in the community, 16:24 I think that they are warming up and they're, like, 16:27 some of the scar tissue from the block size wars is somewhat fading 16:30 or, like, some of the kind of, like, crazy lunatic maxis are, like, you know, 16:34 if you go and meet people in, like, real conversations and you talk with, 16:37 like, you know, Adam Back and, you know, Jameson 16:40 and any of the other, like, kind of prominent devs, 16:43 they're kind of, like, open to it. 16:44 They're like, okay, yeah, we acknowledge that, like, you know, 16:46 Bitcoin is going to need to scale. 16:48 Like, drivechains could be a promising solution. 16:51 So I'm optimistic on that front. 16:53 But I just don't see, like, BIP300 and 301 being passed through as a soft fork. 16:58 I think more realistically, like, the Blockstream guys, 17:01 who they do still have a ton of pull, are going to wait for simplicity. 17:06 I think the only soft fork that really has the potential of being pushed sooner 17:11 is, like, the OpStark Verify for a ZK roll-up 17:16 because it's a newer, sexier thing. 17:19 It's more trustless than drivechains. 17:21 It has advantages of, like, you know, compressing. 17:25 Like, we see stuff with, like, zero sync 17:27 and then compressing the initial block download. 17:32 Like, Blockstream send them up through their satellite. 17:36 A lot of the core devs are fans of, like, you know, Starks and Stark Proofs. 17:40 You know, John Light's paper on roll-ups was, like, really powerful. 17:43 So I think that probably has a better chance. 17:45 But realistically, it's probably just going to be like, ah, shit. 17:47 Like, simplicity is going on. 17:48 You know, liquid sidechain here sometime this year. 17:51 It'll probably sit in test for the next, you know, two, three, four years. 17:54 And then we'll merge that into Bitcoin. 17:56 And then at that point, everybody gets what they want. 17:58 We'll get the Stark Verifier, which is what I want. 18:01 And we'll get BIP300 and 301. 18:03 That's kind of how I see things playing out at this point. 18:06 The only part of that that I would object to 18:08 was when you said two to three years for simplicity. 18:11 Because I recall Adam Back himself, right, like a simplicity advocate. 18:16 I think he said five years in that conversation that I was mentioning to Roz 18:21 about Brad Mills and Jameson Lopp and Austin Alexander 18:27 when they spoke on Brad Mills' podcast, Magic Internet Money, 18:32 like a month ago at Satoshi Roundtable. 18:36 Oh, great. 18:37 Yeah, what a great conversation. 18:39 And I'm just sort of personally getting really more interested in Jameson Lopp lately. 18:43 Having not been too familiar with his work, he is just great. 18:46 I really was impressed by his Bitcoin maximalism history article 18:51 that I posted in the Nest here, along with a bunch of other tweets. 18:54 And he mentions drivechains there, and he also mentions rollups. 18:58 So along the lines of what you just said, very well. 19:02 There is, one could say, like a competition among these scaling solutions 19:07 for attention and adoption. 19:09 And you're right that drivechain is older. 19:12 Rollups are newer. 19:14 And therefore, you know, perhaps that makes drivechains less sexy 19:18 because, you know, if something is great, then it's going to succeed early. 19:22 And if it doesn't get, you know, it's like rarely do things get started 19:28 and then years later become super awesome. 19:31 So you're right. 19:32 Like it's sort of a stale idea, one could say. 19:35 Of course, the opposite might be true, that at first it was thought about 19:41 and now with the benefit of hindsight and experience, one can say, 19:46 look, we've been thinking about this idea for a long time. 19:49 As Adam Back has tweeted, you know, Paul has really built it out. 19:53 You know, there's been a lot of code written, a lot of design and validation. 19:57 I think that's the word Adam Back used in a tweet like three or four months ago. 20:03 He's like, congrats to Paul and the team. 20:06 You know, at drivechain for validating and building out like the test net and the whole design of drivechain. 20:13 So he he sort of is like he wrote like concept acknowledged, which, you know, is sort of like a software expression, as I understand, for just saying, like, I approve the overall design of this. 20:25 In other words, he hasn't like vetted the code. 20:27 Was it concept-ack? 20:29 Yeah, concept-ack, exactly. 20:32 Yeah, very critical concept-ack. 20:36 Yeah, what do you mean? Go on. 20:38 I mean, what you said is exactly accurate. Concept-ack. 20:44 Oh, critical like in a good sense. Yes. Is that what you meant? 20:47 That concept, yes. It's a good-ack to get. 20:52 Yeah. 20:53 Rather than an-ack, we don't want to get the-ack. That would be the alternative. 20:57 Exactly. Yes, of course. An-ack from Back is good. It's like a Dr. Seuss poem. 21:03 The-ack from Back. That could be a great sort of kid's Bitcoin book. 21:09 There's a t-shirt design in that somewhere. 21:12 Yes. Yeah. With like a Dr. Seuss sort of copyright infringement on the t-shirt. That would be just the perfect situation. 21:21 So, yeah, David, I think that it's, yeah, you're right. 21:27 It's not like new and amazing. 21:29 But in Bitcoin, things move slowly. 21:31 So it's possible one could say, even the critics of Drivechain could say, 21:35 well, you know, we've been thinking about it for seven years. 21:39 And at this point, it's pretty clear. 21:42 For example, one little nuance, just psychologically, 21:45 this is kind of like inside baseball, not really something the public would be aware of. 21:48 But among the very inner group of Bitcoiners, like the top, you know, 0.1%, 21:54 like that one in a thousand who are really, really into Bitcoin, 22:00 you know, and they're familiar with like what things Greg Maxwell wrote in 2017 about Drivechain, 22:06 criticizing it and the fact that Adam Back in only recent years became like a public supporter of it and that sort of thing. 22:14 They would say, those critics might say, at least with Drivechain, we really know it well and it's familiar. 22:23 And the supporters of Drivechain, mainly like Paul and CryptAxe above all, 22:29 are people who had this idea and stuck with it and persevered with it 22:34 and really proved year after year, more and more, 22:37 that they're like sort of trying hard to build it out 22:41 and fully educate the community on it. 22:44 So, for example, even Brad Mills has been saying like, 22:48 look how long, in some tweets he wrote like, 22:51 look how many years TruthCoin has been developing Drivechain and trying to explain it. 22:56 So he wasn't even saying, you know, Brad wasn't saying that he supports Drivechain. 23:00 He was just saying he supports how the manner in which Paul has persistently 23:06 and in a dedicated and industrious manner developed the Drivechain testnet 23:11 and related kind of materials and resources and phenomena 23:16 to kind of elaborate the vision that Drivechain offers. 23:21 So while you're right that it's been a long time, 23:24 it also, there's some positive things that have come out of that. 23:28 Because if you try something for a long time, 23:30 that's inherently like a demonstration of perseverance. 23:35 So I think that sort of thing will make a lot of sense and be known. 23:40 Like even like someone like Shinobi probably would say, 23:43 you've got to hand it to like Paul. 23:45 Look how many years he's been pushing this thing, right? 23:49 It isn't like he came along with an idea and then six months later was like, 23:52 well, people don't like it, so I'll just go build on Ethereum. 23:57 Like he never did that. 23:58 So that separates Paul from like the many founders 24:06 who like have good ideas and then Bitcoin doesn't accommodate it 24:10 and then they just leave. 24:11 Like the founder of Avalanche or the founder of Cardano 24:14 or any of these things. 24:15 They probably at some point were like Bitcoiners 24:18 and then they were like, how about I do this idea? 24:20 And then if Greg and Luke and Adam and Peter 24:27 and other like sort of Bitcoin influencers 24:32 and intelligentsia don't like it, 24:34 then that's the end of it for them. 24:36 But in Paul's case, he spent the next seven years 24:39 developing and speaking and publishing. 24:41 And as Paul has said in the recent year, 24:45 our call, he said in different interviews, 24:47 maybe even in conversations with you 24:50 on different podcasts and things, 24:52 that the place that he's gotten at conferences 24:57 has kind of moved up over the years. 24:59 Like he used to be like on the side stage 25:01 and now he's at the main stage. 25:03 And now he's on the main stage like next to Adam Back 25:05 in like a one-on-one conversation with Aaron Varen Breedum 25:08 about the history of Drivechain. 25:09 So the amount of attention and respect 25:11 that Drivechain is getting and that its authors are getting 25:17 and that the whole community is like getting is increased. 25:22 So I'm 100% with you and I'm in total agreement. 25:30 However, I still just think it's an uphill battle. 25:35 It's like, how do you get that broad-based support 25:38 from the community? 25:40 And this is like one of the reasons 25:41 why I'm so gung-ho on Sovereign, 25:45 even though it looks like a shit coin 25:47 and it's basically like a ghost town on RSK. 25:49 It's because they have that one single use case 25:51 of like the Bitcoin-backed borrowing 25:54 where it's like you can go up to these Bitcoiners 25:56 and say, hey, look, like on these sidechains 25:58 you can borrow against your Bitcoin 26:00 at 0% interest outside of the fiat rails without KYC 26:05 and as a byproduct of borrowing, 26:06 we create this Bitcoin-backed stable coin. 26:08 And that Bitcoin-backed stable coin, 26:10 people are like, hey, I want to hold that 26:13 because I think it's censorship resistant 26:15 and safer than dollars. 26:16 Sorry, I got to put you guys on mute. 26:17 One second, I'm going through a gate. 26:18 Just give me 10 seconds. 26:20 No problem. 26:23 I think the rank of drivechain focus topics 26:29 at a conference is a really good one 26:30 to throw in that thing we were talking about earlier, 26:33 Henry, that you mentioned. 26:35 The rank of drive topics at conference lineups. 26:38 It's a good one. 26:39 Yeah, I agree. 26:41 I agree. 26:42 I mean, I could try to find where Paul said that 26:44 or we could just ask Paul sometime 26:46 that what exactly is the evidence at Bitcoin? 26:51 For example, one could just review the public information 26:53 at Bitcoin Miami over the last four years. 26:57 When was drivechain mentioned at all? 27:00 And then was it maybe last year 27:03 when he was on stage with Aaron Van Weerdam? 27:05 I think it was maybe Bitcoin Amsterdam. 27:07 That was one where he was on stage with Adam Back 27:10 in a conversation with Aaron Van Weerdam 27:13 of Bitcoin Magazine. 27:15 So that was like a great kind of moment. 27:18 And then again, in Riga, in Latvia, 27:21 there was like maybe four people on stage 27:23 and it was Paul and Adam again talking about drivechain. 27:29 Also, David, just to make a point 27:32 that kind of supports your point 27:33 and doesn't support my point at all, 27:35 is that in that interview with Eric Wall, 27:39 he was talking about two months ago. 27:42 I forget who was interviewing Eric. 27:44 It was Peter McCormick. 27:45 And Eric was talking about the history 27:48 of different matters like drivechain. 27:50 And Eric literally said drivechain is dead, 27:54 that the toxic maxis have completely rejected it, 27:58 that the high priests have rejected it. 28:01 So yeah, that supports kind of everything you were saying. 28:06 There's like total silence from Greg Maxwell 28:09 and negativity from Peter Todd, 28:12 both of whom I respect, 28:13 but I'm saying they're either silent 28:16 or negative on drivechain. 28:18 I think negative in both cases, 28:20 especially Peter more vocally on Twitter. 28:23 And then there's others who were not in favor of it, 28:27 probably, but more silently, 28:29 who were just as influential within Blockstream 28:32 other than Adam Back, who's obviously for it, 28:36 but not in extreme terms. 28:38 He's not like Fiatjaf. 28:40 He actually tweeted though, 28:41 Back tweeted, like, I think we need it soon. 28:44 He wrote the word soon. 28:45 Like, cause he's concerned 28:47 that there's too much use of custodial lightning 28:49 and he wants the world to onboard to Bitcoin 28:52 in the next 10 years. 28:53 And we need peer-to-peer solutions for that. 28:55 Otherwise, everyone will just end up at Coinbase. 28:58 So things like other ideas aren't good enough 29:02 and we need this additional piece 29:04 in the puzzle of strengthening Bitcoin 29:07 with opt-in layers that are more scalable. 29:10 So he likes the large block sidechain. 29:12 He also likes the privacy sidechain. 29:14 Back really gets it. 29:15 He gets drivechain. 29:16 He likes the Zcash sidechain 29:17 and the Thunder sidechain that has one gigabyte blocks. 29:21 He probably also likes HiveMind, 29:22 although that's the one that Fiatjaf really likes, 29:25 is HiveMind specifically, 29:26 which has the oracles, 29:27 which is the kind of thing you might like, 29:29 which is more high-tech and very exciting 29:32 if you like complex, 29:34 but potentially high-value technologies like oracles. 29:38 Oracles could be useful for creating a stable coin 29:41 that's not actually backed by dollars, 29:43 but instead is like a futures market, 29:45 if you know what I mean. 29:46 Like a truly decentralized oracle for a stable coin. 29:50 Paul has talked a little bit about that once or twice, 29:52 how the HiveMind oracle could be used for a stable coin. 29:56 Could you talk a little bit about the sovereign dollar 30:00 and what is the connection 30:03 between sovereign and Rootstock and Bitcoin? 30:05 As I understand, 30:06 there's like a federated peg between Rootstock and Bitcoin. 30:10 So if that federated peg ever failed, 30:13 how would that impact the sovereign dollar? 30:15 Like is the foundation of the sovereign system, 30:18 Rootstock, 30:19 and therefore if the foundation of Rootstock 30:21 is this two-way peg, 30:23 then is it all built on top of that federation 30:27 or is that not accurate? 30:28 Yeah, okay. 30:29 So much that, 30:30 like I want to cover. 30:32 One, you know, 30:33 my question in this scenario I want to propose to you guys 30:36 is like, you know, 30:37 so I was there, you know, 30:38 when Adam and Paul were on stage in Amsterdam 30:40 and, you know, 30:41 Adam says, yes, 30:42 I support drive change on Android. 30:43 I'm like, put them on the spot. 30:44 And I was like, oh my gosh, 30:45 this is so amazing. 30:46 My question is like, 30:47 how do you take it from that, 30:48 that step of like, hey, 30:49 it's beginning to get mind share with like important people 30:52 to being like, 30:53 how do we actually merge this into Bitcoin? 30:55 Like that is like a total empty space. 30:57 Like I don't know how that happens. 30:59 And I am kind of of the mindset where there's like this meme. 31:02 If you've seen it, 31:03 it's where it's like the guy crying and it's kind of like, 31:05 bro, please, bro. 31:06 If you just like, 31:07 if you use like my defy protocol or my chain, 31:09 like it's going to be so good for Bitcoin. 31:10 Like I kind of feel like that's, 31:11 that's like drivechains marketing strategy right now. 31:14 And like, 31:15 that stinks because I don't want drivechains in here. 31:17 But I think that the narrative needs to flip to, 31:20 to instead being like, 31:21 like you almost proposing this question to Max is where you're saying 31:25 like, look, 31:26 like you don't, 31:27 you don't want like a trustless two way peg. 31:29 Like you want to keep using these custodial and federated services. 31:32 And, 31:33 and, 31:34 and the way you have to do that is you have to give them some sort of 31:36 application or some sort of thing that they actually want to use. 31:39 When the reality is nobody gives a crap about privacy. 31:42 Like that, 31:43 that's not going to, 31:44 you know, 31:45 cause enough of an impetus for people to say, 31:46 I want trustless sidechain so that I can use, 31:49 use, 31:50 use privacy. 31:51 But if we can do this thing, 31:52 and this is where I was going with all the sovereign stuff and, 31:54 and where I'll explain it next is that if we can give them a use case 31:56 where we say, 31:57 you can never sell your Bitcoin. 31:58 You can borrow against it at 0% interest rate with, 32:00 with no longterm. 32:01 You can have these censorship resistant Bitcoin backed dollars. 32:03 And then you, 32:04 you kind of infiltrate that market with something that they selfishly 32:07 want. 32:08 And then you pose that question and you say, 32:10 you guys want to keep using federations? 32:11 Like, 32:12 like, 32:13 are you sure about that? 32:14 Like that's, 32:15 that's the way we have to win this, 32:16 this competition. 32:17 It's the chicken and the egg game. 32:18 And we, 32:19 we are not going to be able to merge drivechains in first and then 32:21 build these applications. 32:22 We have to build the applications, 32:23 you know, 32:24 essentially mind virus. 32:25 Everybody was something that they actually want. 32:27 And this is the only thing that the coin maxis want is to not sell 32:29 their, 32:30 their, 32:31 their Bitcoin. 32:32 And then all the stuff follows. 32:34 So that now brings me to the sovereign stuff. 32:37 And really quickly before I get to that, 32:39 yes, 32:40 hive mind is amazing. 32:41 You know, 32:42 trust us. 32:43 Decentralized oracles are really amazing. 32:45 I was also reading an article from some of the Stark where guys are, 32:47 they're talking about things like a storage proofs. 32:49 I don't know if you saw that, 32:50 but essentially you can you can port Oracle data from one, 32:54 from one chain to another trustlessly using validity proofs, 32:59 which are the same proofs that underpin like ZK rollups. 33:01 So you could almost, 33:02 you could derive these, 33:04 these price oracles on something like a hive mind chain and then port 33:08 them into, 33:09 you know, 33:10 a ZK rollup or something trustlessly. 33:11 So I dunno, 33:13 it's beyond me technically, 33:14 but like when you were saying that, 33:16 I'm like, 33:17 Oh my gosh, 33:18 like this would just be like the Holy grail where you have prediction 33:20 markets creating, 33:21 you know, 33:22 an oracle system that underpins a Bitcoin backed dollar. 33:24 That just makes my mind like so happy. 33:27 Okay. 33:28 Sovereign stuff. 33:30 Yeah, 33:31 you're exactly right. 33:32 Like for right now, 33:33 everything is essentially like, 33:34 you know, 33:35 predicated on a federated peg. 33:38 So Rootstock in particular, 33:41 it has, 33:44 it's, 33:46 it's consensus layer is, 33:48 is merge-mined with, 33:49 with, 33:50 with, 33:51 you know, 33:52 it's not like the 301, 33:53 you know, 33:54 blind merge money. 33:55 It's just like normal, 33:56 traditional merge mining, 33:57 but then the peg itself uses the, 33:58 the federation. 33:59 So, 34:00 you know, 34:01 you, 34:02 you, 34:03 you bridge your, 34:04 your, 34:05 your Bitcoin in, 34:06 you get the Bitcoin IOU called RBTC. 34:07 And then in order to use the applications. 34:08 Yeah. 34:09 It'd be almost like you're operating on Ethereum where you pledge your 34:11 Bitcoin into a smart contract. 34:13 And then if you want to use like the zero protocol, 34:15 which is the one that allows you to borrow against your Bitcoin at 0% 34:17 interest, 34:18 it locks that collateral on the smart contract. 34:20 You choose, 34:21 you know, 34:22 how much you want to borrow. 34:23 And then it mints those stable coins into existence. 34:27 In terms of like risks, 34:29 if the Bitcoin price moves against you, 34:32 you could get liquidated. 34:33 If the federation breaks, 34:35 you could obviously get rug pulled. 34:37 You know, 34:38 if the Oracle gets manipulated, 34:40 they could cause mass liquidations on, 34:44 on the chain. 34:46 So there's definite, 34:47 definite significant material risks. 34:49 But in my opinion, 34:50 it's still like probably once we release some more, 34:53 more tools and more development on it, 34:55 like it's going to be the single best way for people to borrow against 34:58 their Bitcoin. 34:59 I think it's just going to be like a home run product. 35:01 And I think that will be like the bedrock for, 35:04 for which all this other stuff that we want has to be built on. 35:07 That's kind of my grand strategy. 35:14 Cool. 35:15 Very cool. 35:18 In merge mining on RSK, 35:20 are the Bitcoin miners who are merge mining RSK, 35:24 are they getting paid in RBTC or BTC? 35:32 That's a good question. 35:34 Yeah, 35:35 it's a good question. 35:36 I actually, 35:37 I don't know. 35:38 I think that in blind merge mining, 35:43 one important difference is that the merge, 35:47 the miners are getting paid in Bitcoin. 35:50 Paul has pointed out that an ordinary merge mining, 35:53 the miners are paid in the old coin. 35:55 So I think that might be the difference. 35:57 Now I read in some Rootstock literature, 35:59 the Bitcoin miners are paid in Bitcoin, 36:01 but that may be maybe just like a rhetoric and they're actually paid in the 36:07 old coin, 36:08 which has been at some point converted automatically maybe. 36:11 Yeah, 36:12 I'm not sure. 36:13 So that's, 36:14 and you can help me clarify on this, 36:16 but that's the whole debate with sidechains, 36:19 right? 36:20 It's like, 36:21 you don't want to increase the burden on the miners for them to run the 36:24 nodes. 36:25 So then Paul says, 36:26 Hey, 36:27 well, 36:28 don't worry. 36:29 This is what the 301 is where it's blind merge mining, 36:31 where, 36:32 and can you clarify that for me where they're essentially just mining, 36:34 but they don't realize which chains they're mining. 36:37 Is that how that works? 36:38 Right. 36:39 So there could be a hundred sidechains that are a BIP301 merge-mined and a 36:43 miner would be, 36:44 would be receiving the transaction fees from those sidechains without knowing 36:51 that miner is participating. 36:54 It's kind of like if you're singing, 36:57 this is just an analogy I just made up in my head. 37:00 Like if you're singing a song in the dark and you don't know how many people 37:06 are listening in the room where you are, 37:09 then you're blind to like how much value you're creating for all those people. 37:17 Similarly, 37:19 it doesn't cost anything for Bitcoin miners when another sidechain is 37:24 created and they have to keep on hashing. 37:29 But now they're receiving the side, 37:31 the additional transaction fees from those sidechains. 37:35 So that's what blind merge mining is about. 37:38 Whereas currently with merge mining today in Bitcoin, 37:40 it's not blind. 37:42 It's Satoshi's merge mining, 37:45 which is like a lower form of merge mining because each time a new side 37:49 chain is brought into existence, 37:51 the fees are only sent to the miners who are running the sidechain node and 37:56 merge mining it like on purpose. 37:59 So blind merge mining alleviates most or all of the concerns that relate to 38:08 merge mining in terms of the imposition of costs on miners by having to run nodes. 38:17 Running a node is like one computer. 38:19 I don't know why people are so alarmed about like, 38:21 oh, if there's like 10 sidechains that have a billion dollars of fees on each 38:27 of them, then, you know, 38:29 miners will have to run those nodes or miss out on the fees. 38:32 There's all kinds of things that miners do that small miners can't do. 38:36 Like big miners have like a custom agreement with some power company or the 38:41 big miner, you know, has like a, has a massive solar farm. 38:47 There's all kinds of things that large miners do that smaller miners can't do. 38:50 So running an extra node on a, 38:52 on a laptop isn't like the worst of all these centralizing forces. 38:58 Nevertheless, there's a lot of concern over merged mining. 39:02 Most of those concerns are about merged mining as it exists today. 39:06 Like the people who are concerned, not that you raised any of these concerns, 39:09 but they're concerned about the centralizing effects on miners, 39:14 that there could be more concentration in the mining market. 39:17 In other words, fewer small miners and just a few big miners. 39:21 Those centralizing forces were first of all, 39:23 like predicted by Satoshi when he talked about server farms and how not 39:26 everyone would be mining. 39:28 He talked about that and blind merge mining alleviates these concerns to a 39:33 great extent because now everyone's getting some of the fees, 39:36 whether or not they run the node. 39:38 Now, of course, 39:39 some miners will run the nodes because they want to know what's going on on 39:42 the sidechain or because they want to attempt to use that knowledge of 39:48 what's going on on the sidechain to get more value by doing meds where 39:53 they would reorder the transactions that are included in blocks in order 39:59 to get more profit potentially so they can run some fancy software that 40:05 could tell them how to make more money. 40:09 But this is no different than on Wall Street where there's all kinds of trading firms making money 40:16 different ways. It isn't like the existence of high frequency trading has caused the stock market 40:22 not to work. So I don't think the med will have much of an impact on anyone other than those who 40:29 are doing a lot of very short term, extremely short term transactions. Like if I buy some 40:35 Bitcoin, I don't care if my order gets filled this minute or the next minute. So I don't care 40:41 if my transaction is moved around a slight amount or included in a block a little bit sooner or 40:46 later. But those who are doing like short term smart contracts would be influenced by the existence 40:54 of these blockchain specific issues of transactions ordering. So some people are alarmist about this 40:59 and they come into these Twitter spaces and they say interesting things about how the med could be 41:04 significant and important and how drivechain would exacerbate it and make Bitcoin more like 41:09 Ethereum. Or that there's other concerns that some people have regarding stablecoins and Ethereum 41:18 with a lot of value there and that could lead to centralizing forces in terms of Circle, for 41:26 example, in Ethereum having like a large influence potentially on the state of the network or the 41:32 permission nature of it. And people are concerned about having that happen on Bitcoin. I see tweets 41:38 about that. Some Bitcoin critics and pundits have talked about, well, if it's actually good for 41:45 Bitcoin that the large stablecoins aren't on Bitcoin because potentially that could be a 41:50 source of problems for Ethereum if there's like one or two centralized parties that have enormous 41:54 economic power. So if there were ever like a chain split, then most of the economic weight would be 42:01 on the side of these centralized parties that are going to be screening transactions for OFAC 42:08 compliance, making it hard or impossible for like certain addresses to get their transactions 42:14 through. Like right now in Ethereum, it takes it takes much longer. It takes like five times longer 42:20 for your transaction to get through. Like instead of 12 seconds, it takes like a full minute if 42:25 you're sending some kind of tornado cash payment or something. And so people are watching to see 42:30 if that gets worse and how that how that plays out. So it's cool that you're in that space because 42:36 there's a huge market for stablecoins, obviously, and there's lots of fees to be collected there. 42:44 Yeah, I mean, the Bitcoin back stablecoin thing, it's like the analogy I give is like when most of 42:51 us, you know, find and discover Bitcoin and even now once we're inundated with it and like you go 42:54 into a room with like a bunch of normies and like anything they say you just like you want to like 42:57 look at them and be like, dude, like Bitcoin like solves your problems. And even if it doesn't 43:02 actually solve everything, it's like that's just like the way many Bitcoiners like feel when they 43:06 go in the room. Like when I go into rooms like this and we're talking about Bitcoin, like everything 43:11 you guys say, I'm just like, oh man, like we need to solve the Bitcoin back stablecoin problem. 43:15 And then it allows us to kind of like, you know, start this conversation with drivechains and ZK 43:20 rollup. So I agree with you. It's like the centralized stablecoins is like a major, major, 43:27 probably the number one issue in Ethereum. And that's why I think we have to solve it on Bitcoin. 43:31 And even if we have to do that on a federated sidechain first, it's fine, because that's a 43:35 step in the right direction. The other question I was going to ask you, though, is like, 43:43 and sorry if I'm kind of hijacking the conversation, is why don't you guys take 43:50 the approach of kind of becoming like a data availability layer for the ZK rollups? Like 43:55 right now, I feel like Paul's approach has kind of been like, no, ZK rollups won't work because, 43:59 you know, it runs into the data availability limits and there's still like the 400 million 44:03 weight unit block size limit on Bitcoin. Therefore, like ZK rollups can't scale. And it's like that's 44:09 true to an extent. Like there is going to have to be a dedicated like data availability layer 44:14 if you really want like hyperscalability with ZK rollups. And like that is where drivechains 44:19 are very complementary. And so like if you guys said, hey, like we're going to have the 44:23 Thunder chain and we're going to have, you know, the privacy chain, but we're also going to have 44:26 like a dedicated data availability chain like Celestia, if you guys are familiar with that. 44:31 And that will pair perfectly with ZK rollups. Like that is a nice narrative for you guys to like 44:36 latch on to with some of this momentum that the ZK rollups kind of community is garnering. And 44:44 that's like probably the most valid application, I think. I'm curious if you guys have familiarity 44:50 with that. I think you're right in your outlook that there is discourse about the relative benefits 45:02 of the rollups and drivechains. And Paul has written about that on his FAQ, which he recently 45:09 revised. So if you're interested in the, it sounds like you are interested in the exact 45:16 perspective that he has on rollups versus sidechains, their relative merits and disadvantages, 45:23 advantages, then check out the latest version of the FAQ on drivechain.info, which the FAQ was 45:30 revised fully by Paul and published, I think like 30 days ago. So that's like the latest 45:37 take on his outlook on that because the prior version was written in 2018. 45:43 And there's a few paragraphs on rollups. I think that Paul probably would agree with people who 45:49 say let's do both drivechain and rollup on layer one. However, he also appreciates how John Light 45:56 has said to me in this space in a tweet that I, like he said it here and then I transcribed it 46:04 from the recorded space and then he liked the tweet that I put out. So I feel like I accurately 46:08 transcribed it. John Light said, regarding his own views, he said, I would like to see Bitcoin 46:15 have drivechains and rollups. And because drivechains is an older idea that's simpler in 46:21 nature, maybe, that it probably is good to have drivechain first. So, you know, then, and he 46:29 probably is sympathetic also, I think, with the idea that if we do drivechain first, one of the 46:34 drivechains would have rollups on it. And then that would probably and potentially accelerate 46:40 the adoption of rollups on layer one, because they could be tested in a drivechain. There would be a 46:48 drivechain that is an identical, you know, that is a clone of Bitcoin. So a sidechain is identical 46:54 to Bitcoin, except that it includes the rollup opcodes. And therefore, it would be like a great 47:01 testnet, a testnet that has real money in it. So that's the approach. Yeah, I'm in agreement 47:10 with that position. Now, of course, the drivechain enthusiast might say, well, if we just get 47:16 drivechain, that's really all we need. But it's interesting that it's a little bit complicated, 47:21 because, you know, for example, Paul's view, which is like quite a substantial view within 47:26 the drivechain community, although not the only one, of course, it's, his view is that it would 47:32 be great to have Bitcoin have a smaller block size, and in addition, have drivechain. So Paul, 47:39 you know, he has written, he has tweeted, you know, Bitcoin must have a smaller block size. 47:44 He has written that must, that was his word, in a tweet, in multiple tweets, like Bitcoin must 47:50 have a smaller block size, and Bitcoin must ossify. And we need sidechains. So 47:58 I think my understanding is that Paul's view is that like, let's get, 48:02 he didn't say we also need like layer one rollups. So probably it's Paul's view that 48:06 all the benefits of rollups could exist on the sidechains, that the benefits of that on the 48:11 mainchain, it's not as clear. And as he's pointed out, and as I'm sure you've noticed, he has 48:16 highlighted the various limitations and hazards of rollups on layer one. There probably are, 48:23 you know, in the worst case, hypothetical scenarios, certain instances where it's better 48:27 not to have rollups on layer one. Rollups are, I think, in Paul, the way Paul talks about it, 48:35 like he emphasizes that the main, the main thing happening with rollups is that, 48:39 like in comparison to drivechain, rollups are very high tech. So it's hard to completely 48:46 understand what's going on there, unless you're very advanced. Like the people who really 48:50 understand rollups in depth, have like a PhD in computer science, or in mathematics. Whereas, 49:00 and the whole topic is just newer, whereas sidechains is kind of like an older idea doesn't 49:04 use anything that's like rocket science. So it could be more, it can be more broadly understood, 49:10 like what's really happening there. So that's an advantage. 49:16 Kind of our average person kind of can understand what's happening, like with a sword, 49:20 but like inside of a gun, it's like more complicated, right? It's like, it's like 49:23 newer technology. Yeah, I mean, I'll quickly just add here, like, I think the underlying 49:29 cryptography and math, like it is, it's so freaking far beyond me, like, I agree, 49:33 I couldn't even contemplate it. I think Paul's kind of like, you know, probably in the same boat. 49:37 But the general information out there around rollups is like, extremely robust. And the 49:41 development community and the level of research is like, unparalleled, like, it's amazing how many 49:48 resources and how much research is going on in that community. And like, we need to be able to 49:52 to tap into that, like there is extreme value there. So that's kind of my, my retort for that, 49:59 like, I am putting some trust in the hyper smart people to be like, yes, like, like, believe us, 50:03 this cryptography, like, is legitimate. It's not just like fake moon math. But like, outside of 50:08 that, tons and tons of very clean resources and information on rollups. Cool. 50:21 To what extent is the rollup idea, maybe, like hampered by the fact that Ethereum 50:27 is very, like, invested, literally, and also, like, narrative wise, in rollups. So like, 50:35 the rollup story is happening on Ethereum. And there really might be no other more obvious case 50:42 of like Ethereum having sort of led on something, I guess, NFTs is another case of like, Ethereum is 50:49 kind of the NFT land, primarily, even though Bitcoin had NFTs first, maybe the same thing 50:56 is true of the rollup stuff. I think there was Greg Maxwell, Reddit post where he was like, 51:00 pointing out that, like, you know, years ago, he was talking about rollups, maybe for Bitcoin. So 51:06 some of these ideas were mentioned a little bit on Bitcoin, but then happens big on Ethereum, 51:11 like NFTs. And at this point, if people say, let's do rollups, then like the toxic maxi crowd 51:16 might not love it, because they might think it's, it's like something that's associated with, 51:23 with, with Ethereum. And maybe there could be in the complexity, you know, a lurking bug that would 51:30 then embarrass our community, the Bitcoin community with the need for a sudden and somewhat 51:36 centralized decision to undo it. You know, fork out the change, if there's a problem of any sort. 51:45 So it's a complex change, it would be like a couple of years, like, how soon could this 51:49 How soon could this OpStark, you know, whatever, like soft fork happen, this one or two opcodes? 51:56 How many different alternatives are out there? Is there just one that, you know, John Light, 52:01 other kind of rollup focused thinkers are interested in? Like, I see Moon Settler talking 52:07 about one. And is it, are they all interested in the same exact thing? Is there any kind of 52:12 consensus among the rollup community within Bitcoin on what exactly is the proposal? 52:18 Well, there's kind of like a, like a rough consensus for me. So like the general idea, 52:23 which John laid out in his paper is that you would need like two soft forks. One is you need 52:28 some sort of ZKP verify, this is like the OpStark, you know, verify opcode. And then the second thing 52:34 is some sort of like, covenants, you need some way to essentially restrict like a UTXO to where 52:42 it can only like update the state. How do I want to say this, like, like, you need some sort of 52:48 like generalized or recursive covenants to say, hey, look, you know, 10 minute block like this 52:52 UTXO can only be updated with the Stark. And then, you know, like, like people can't like 52:57 essentially spend out of that, that UTXO, you need the covenant to be able to do that. But there is 53:03 a white paper that's been circulating over the past few months, kind of, I don't know if I want 53:07 to say behind the scenes, but kind of in a smaller group of people that are part of this community, 53:13 where John's was kind of like, John is not a programmer. He's not a developer. He's just an 53:18 incredible researcher. Somebody has actually written a white paper of like how you could 53:23 technically, you know, build this on Bitcoin, and they put out a proposal where they're actually 53:29 going to try to, you know, go through this entire process of getting a roll up out there. And they 53:34 proposed a way to do this without covenants to where you would only need the OP Stark verify 53:42 opcode. And you could essentially recreate the covenant feature that you need, but without 53:50 actually having covenant. So if we only need that one single opcode, like, that's, that's compelling. 53:55 Now, this is like pretty early stages. And I don't think we've received like full official 53:59 confirmation as to whether this is technically possible. But like, you know, I've read the white 54:03 paper. And, you know, I'm kind of a dummy compared to a lot of these other people, but it seemed to 54:07 make sense to me. And so I'm hoping that kind of gains mindshare in the, in the community. 54:15 Because that would be pretty cool. Regarding your other questions, like what else is needed? 54:21 I think everybody refers to the opcode is like a Stark verified, because, you know, 54:24 Starks are considered kind of like, like the gold standard of all these different, 54:28 you know, cryptographic primitives, like you could use snarks, or plunky, or I don't even know, 54:33 there's tons of other ones, but, but Starks are, they're quantum resistant. And they also have no 54:40 trusted setup, some of these other ones, you know, in order to like, I forget whether it's a Zcash 54:49 or Monero, like, like, there has to be some sort of like trusted setup there. The point I'm making 54:52 is that is that Starks are considered kind of like the highest standard at the moment. And so 54:58 that's why people are kind of in the Bitcoin community saying, look, if we're going to do 55:02 some sort of roll up, like the cryptographic primitive, we probably want to use is Starks 55:06 with a T as opposed to snarks or anything else. Yeah, there's, there's that snark and stark 55:15 situation where the Starkware company kind of used a term that was in the industry and made 55:23 it like their own trademark, kind of, like, I'm not, I'm not saying that I know the close details 55:30 of all that. But it seems like there's some nomenclature confusion, as there often is, 55:37 right in anything, where there's commerce and science, there can be overlapping definitions 55:44 and brand names, like, you know, Coinbase just made a company out of part of the Bitcoin 55:49 vocabulary, like the Coinbase didn't always have a capital C. Same thing with Starks, I think. 55:58 Yeah, yeah, that's, that's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, like, one of the credible critiques, 56:07 I asked Sergio Lerner, about roll ups. And he just made a point that what's working against 56:14 roll ups right now is that, like, like, the research is moving too fast. Like, it's, it's 56:20 almost like, like, there is a tiny concern that like, you know, what if in the next couple years, 56:25 like, there's like, it's like this parabolic amount of like, research papers, almost like 56:32 the AI industry, it's like, you look at the charts, and it's just like, there's a new research 56:35 paper that comes out, like every, every week. And that's kind of what's going on in like, 56:40 the roll ups in the ZKP space right now. And he's like, well, we kind of need to wait to see how 56:44 things like settle down to see like, who is going to be the winner? Like, is it actually going to be 56:48 Starks? Is that like the best primitive to put on onto Bitcoin? And I was like, I was like, 56:54 kind of annoyed by that. But I was also like, checking my ego. I'm like, okay, I don't know 56:57 what the heck I'm talking about, like when it comes to the truly technical stuff. And that seems 57:01 like a legitimate critique is that we need we need to see which one of these is going to be when 57:05 is going to win and be best. We need the pace of innovation to plateau a little bit. 57:13 Yes. Yeah, that's interesting. 57:19 So you've mentioned like two or three years, if I were if I heard you say right, like for 57:27 well, what you had mentioned two or three years as the as the timeline for simplicity that I had 57:31 talked about, maybe it's like longer than that. You know, in terms of what Adam Beck has said, 57:36 in terms of this Stark roll up, upgrade possibility, like my general takeaway from 57:43 everything you've said, and what I've read elsewhere is that there's like a growing 57:46 interest in that among some people, like, for example, Shinobi, you know, vociferous 57:52 critic of drive gene. He has tweeted in favor of like Starks or Snarks, you know, this kind of 58:01 upgrade that, as you've said, offers kind of a trustless, not miner-centric, not incentives 58:08 based, but instead cryptographically secured scaling model for more extensibility and perhaps 58:15 like a two way peg. So I think that there are some people who would like Bitcoin to 58:21 leapfrog, we could say. So instead of going through the sidechain phase, instead, 58:28 having not done that for years, just skip ahead all the way to the roll up, we could say, you know, 58:34 the high tech solution. But then the question, of course, becomes how soon can that be done? So how 58:40 soon will the Bitcoin community be ready? In terms of, as you just described, having a sense 58:47 of, you know, what is the change? How much confidence is there in its safety? And how 58:54 likely is it that if we do a change, then in just a year from then, there'll be something better 59:00 that we'll wish we had waited for. And then we could vet, we could have vetted and adopted that 59:07 better change. So there's always that paradox of, you know, wait, or move forward. 59:14 So how how close do you think we are to seeing a roll up or ZK related soft fork in your estimation? 59:27 Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that one's gonna be beyond me. I mean, people have like proposed, 59:31 I think Eric Wall put out like, you know, percentage timeframe, he was like, less than a 59:34 year, like, you know, less than 1%. I think he was like, his target was kind of like, like, 59:41 most likely, four to six years out, I think, roast beef for Lalu, for lighting labs, like, 59:48 he's motivated to get, you know, a stark bear fire in there as well, because that has implications 59:53 for, for like taro, and some of the stuff they're doing. And so he proposed like, like 2028. So I 1:00:02 don't know, people are being super conservative with with their, their timeframes. 1:00:07 I don't know. And that's kind of why I, I keep going back and forth in my head. I'm like, now that that blocks room is like, putting simplicity on testnet, like, like, are we just going to get to this point where it's going to take so long, where it's just like, well, simplicity is like, basically here, like, let's just wait, wait, wait for that. And I think it's going to kind of render a lot of our conversations, you know, moot points. 1:00:33 But if the simplicity is, let's say, five years away, you know, if I recall correctly, that's what Atomback said, you know, in just recent weeks. So the five years is such a long time. Would you agree? Or do you not feel that way? Like some people would say Bitcoin doesn't really have any competition, and that everything else is a distraction, and that we should not be hurried at all. And that as Bitcoin has a larger community and larger value, 1:01:03 more and more caution is warranted. I have the quote right here from Atomback, because I transcribed a lot of the conversation that he had with Brad Mills, and Jameson Lopp. Because often I'll like transcribe, you know, what's said on a podcast, and then, you know, tweet, you know, the most important sentence. 1:01:26 So, his statement regarding the five years that I keep on referencing, because I just think it's like a very noticeable amount of time, right? Like, if he had said five months, okay, that's exciting. Simplicity is like here right now. But if he says five years, and he's a supporter of it, of course, like five years is a long time. Like, in five years from now, who knows what, like the Ethereum Bitcoin ratio might be? 1:01:50 It would be great for Bitcoin to act sooner than five years. So, he said, here's his quote, I think drivechains or sidechain opcodes are likely possible to achieve faster than, and I would put in brackets, than simplicity, because he was, actually, let me just read the question Brad Mills asked. 1:02:17 That way, I don't have to like, you know, provide like an annotated version of what Adam said. So, Brad asked, would it make sense to do both at once? Do BIP300 and 301 and add in simplicity? So, that could be the last soft fork that anybody can then create anything they want. 1:02:38 That was Brad's question, basically asking, what about doing drivechain and simplicity together? And Adam writes, I think drivechain or sidechain opcodes are likely possible to achieve faster because they're smaller, simpler, narrower software. 1:02:51 But as a plan C, I think simplicity could easily implement the opcodes for a drivechain. And paradoxically, I think it might be easier, not that simplicity is at a stage where anybody could sensibly propose it as software for Bitcoin. 1:03:09 That's five years plus away, presumably, after people have experimented with it on Liquid for a while. But it might paradoxically be easier to get consensus to add a script upgrade, because then the question is to the community, do you want soft extensibility? 1:03:25 So, you could ossify it. Whereas with a new feature that comes in, people start to critique and try to value it, like, do I care about it? Do other people care about it? Is it worth the risk? The features that enable so that it was a debate around lightning. 1:03:39 it was a debate around lightning, 1:03:42 it's like, well, is this worth it? 1:03:44 guess lightning is useful. 1:03:46 So it's sort of like they want to judge the feature. 1:03:48 Whereas if the feature is general self extensibility, then they'll go, oh, 1:03:53 extensibility is good. 1:03:54 Okay, great. We'll go implement a Drivechain with 1:04:04 So basically he's saying there's something psychologically difficult for people about 1:04:09 drivechain that might in the case of simplicity 1:04:15 So, I 1:04:16 guess 1:04:27 he's kind of just confirming 1:04:31 simplicity is new, drivechain is not. So there's just like baggage. This is kind of what Eric Wall would say. There's like baggage with drivechain that is just holding it back, just mental baggage from like the disagreements that have been voiced by like Greg Maxwell, Peter Todd and others. People have just been like, they're like just worried. They're worried that drivechain is somehow giving too much power to miners and that it might actually increase the power that large miners have. 1:05:01 And that's what Maxwell was writing about in 2017. He wrote in this lengthy post on the Bitcoin dev list. To Paul, he criticized drivechain in like five paragraphs in 2017. 1:05:13 And Paul, you know, points people to this on his website, drivechain.info. He says, if you want to read the criticisms, here it is. 1:05:21 And he lists, among others, like Maxwell's sort of essay on that email where Maxwell talks about it being like, he even writes that he seems to, Maxwell seems to say, in my opinion, his email seems to say, his public email seems to say that the sidechain white paper from Blockstream in 2014 was not a roadmap. 1:05:46 It was, Maxwell likes to think of it now, it seems to me, as just a academic exercise, a thought experiment, a discussion of the possibilities for doing sidechains on Bitcoin and how sidechains could maybe potentially be something the Bitcoin community could develop further and embrace. 1:06:08 So I think Maxwell would say that the drivechain people are too hung up on the sidechain idea and, you know, and are too aggressive in being comfortable with the miner centric role of the drivechain design and that Maxwell prefers a conservative approach to how miners are and doesn't want to increase the centralization or concentration of miners. 1:06:34 So it seems that some people have just basically soured on sidechains and other people haven't. 1:06:40 So some people are worried about, you know, killing the goose that lays the golden egg. 1:06:44 They're worried about the L1 and other people like the drive chainers want to be ambitious and say, let's build out the sidechains, let's embrace this. 1:06:54 And it actually is the best approach for Bitcoin, because, you know, Paul would probably say, and I would say, like, Bitcoin is stronger when it has all these big, large, powerful sidechains attached to it, because then that means the whole Bitcoin community is bigger. 1:07:08 There's more innovation, there's more narrative, there's more fees, there's more value. 1:07:12 The whole system is stronger. 1:07:14 Whereas, like the Maxwell view, as best I understand it, is that it's risky, it could end up harming the layer one, and it could increase the miners and how the larger miners, how much power they have. 1:07:29 So I think, like, the question to the point that we're like, we're kind of like tiptoeing around or like beating around the bush on is like, ultimately, like, what is the catalyst that forces people's hands on all this? 1:07:42 Like, we can sit here and like, like, you know, do mental masturbation all about like, you know, drivechains and sidechains and what's best and what's not. 1:07:51 But like, you know, what is ultimately going to be the impetus that that people say, hey, like, we have to make a decision on drivechains, like now. 1:07:59 That's what I think is missing in all these conversations in all these spaces. 1:08:03 Is it going to be the flippity where people are like, holy shit, like, we actually now need these things? 1:08:07 Is it going to be when block fees get too high? 1:08:10 Is it like, like, what is that catalyst? 1:08:13 And or is it going to be like, Paul just, you know, kind of says, hey, I'm going to, you know, try to activate, you know, do a miner activated soft fork, like, like, what is it? 1:08:22 That's what I don't know. 1:08:24 I think that I've I've thought about that and I've I've come around to what I've just discovered in listening to Paul and all of his podcasts and some conversations on the drivechain talk Telegram group. 1:08:40 I've come to feel I've come to have the view that the correct way of answering your question is as follows, that. 1:08:50 That there are like there's a certain set of ways in which drivechain or something like it will come to Bitcoin, so I can't I can't answer your question about drivechain specifically. 1:09:02 But we can say that the Paul view or that like the drivechain view is. 1:09:08 That drivechain or something like it must come to Bitcoin. 1:09:13 For the following reasons, probably one is, as you mentioned, flipping. 1:09:17 So the risk of Bitcoin losing a bunch of powerful narratives like if Bitcoin is flipped by Ethereum, then Bitcoiners won't be able to credibly say anymore number go up. 1:09:29 They won't be able to credibly say anymore money moves to one. 1:09:34 It won't they won't be able to say anymore like, you know, it's there's Bitcoin and then there's crypto because these narratives. 1:09:43 You know, about global monetization require the Bitcoin continue to have like the strongest, largest, most dominant set of narratives and economic value accrual trajectory. 1:09:54 If something else is growing faster on average, then it's not helpful for Bitcoin's global monetization narrative. 1:10:01 So, yeah, I agree with you that flipping is one of the like emotional and economic narratives that could compel a greater amount of attention on things like drivechain. 1:10:13 Again, not trying to change this specifically. 1:10:16 It could be the flipping gets closer and then people adopt roll ups so that I am not saying it's necessarily drivechain. 1:10:23 But I agree with you. 1:10:24 Flipping is one. 1:10:25 And cynically, I think a lot of people would just agree like that's the biggest one. 1:10:29 But there are others, David, and I think, you know, all of them probably better than I do, which is fees being too low. 1:10:36 If fees stay low forever, then there's a concern about the security budget, which is the quadrennial happening, reducing the income to the miners, which then lowers their economic security of the network. 1:10:51 So the hash rate security falls even if hash rate is rising. 1:10:55 If the cost to be a 51 percent miner is falling because of halvings, then that's the security budget problem. 1:11:03 And that was recently illuminated when Michael Saylor, unfortunately, sort of provided a confused and incorrect statement to Eric Wall on Twitter about the hash rate. 1:11:15 And, you know, Saylor basically was saying higher hash rate means higher security, which we all know is not correct. 1:11:21 It's all about economics. 1:11:23 A higher miner revenue is what matters, especially from fees. 1:11:28 So if fees stay low, then the security budget problem could be the reason why drivechain is adopted eventually. 1:11:34 That's always been my view personally, honestly. 1:11:37 Of course, I'm just a humble observer in the space. 1:11:40 I just help Paul with various tasks at the LayerTwo Labs company. 1:11:46 I can't say with certainty that there will be a security budget problem. 1:11:51 And also, of course, Paul's view is that there's no guarantee that there'll be a security budget problem. 1:11:55 There could, of course, be higher fees on Bitcoin forever. 1:11:58 Like if, for example, the taproot wizards and ordinals and whatnot, you know, if that leads to high fees permanently, if fees go to $50 and stay there for three years, then, of course, the whole security budget problem will have been disproven. 1:12:12 So there's no way we can say for certainty that low fees are going to happen forever. 1:12:19 But they've been around for 13 years almost without exception. 1:12:22 We've had low fees always on Bitcoin. 1:12:24 Even though hundreds of millions of people have been owning Bitcoin in some form, still, we have low fees. 1:12:31 So I believe that eventually will be a crisis unless drivechain is adopted. 1:12:37 That's my personal view. 1:12:38 I'm like a security budget alarmist. 1:12:41 And I think every time any Bitcoiner says that, they're speaking the truth rather than just blowing smoke, as some do. 1:12:48 And, you know, some people take the paradoxical view that especially some of the more vocal drivechain opponents will say, well, if the fees stay low forever, then Bitcoin simply fails. 1:12:58 But, of course, that doesn't make any sense because there's a third option, which is that we adopt drivechain and never have any low fees because of that. 1:13:08 So, yeah, security budget problem is another reason for that drivechain could be adopted, you know, in addition to the flipping. 1:13:15 Then, of course, interestingly, if the fees go too high for a long time, then that is another reason why drivechain may be adopted. 1:13:23 High fees on Bitcoin in perpetuity would lead to a discussion about scaling Bitcoin and the need to have peer-to-peer sidechains to scale Bitcoin because it's too expensive for ordinary people to open a lightning channel if the fees are high. 1:13:42 This is a view that has been that I've been educated on by Alex Kravitz, one of the frequent writers in the drivechain talk group. 1:13:53 His view, as I recall, is that we may see high fees on Bitcoin for forever because of ordinals and inscriptions and things like that or for other reasons, and that could lead to drivechain. 1:14:06 And then lastly, the best reason for drivechain of the four that we're discussing is in love of innovation. 1:14:15 So just to sum it all up, like, well, just love of innovation. 1:14:22 That's like Michael Tidwell's phrase from a tweet. 1:14:24 And I think Adam Back has the same view, which is that the reason to do drivechain is just to have better innovation, better technology on Bitcoin, not to be worried about altcoins, not to be worried about security budget, nothing economic. 1:14:36 It's just love of innovation. 1:14:38 So I think Tidwell, as well as Adam Back and others, just want to see cool projects like Thunder and Hivemind and Zside. 1:14:46 They want to see these cool, exciting projects available for Bitcoiners, by Bitcoiners on Bitcoin. 1:14:54 So in summary, the answer to your question is the four reasons, the four things that may lead to drivechain adoption are love of innovation, the fees being too high, the fees being too low and the flippening. 1:15:08 Those are like the four reasons. 1:15:10 And now, of course, you can't have all four at once because the fees being too high and too low are mutually exclusive. 1:15:17 But we could have three at once. 1:15:18 We could have people loving innovation, the fees being too low and the flippening getting closer. 1:15:25 Like, that's what I kind of expect is like security budget problem plus flippening would be quite like the crisis. 1:15:33 But Michael Tidwell's view is that the very best way to have Bitcoin adopt drivechain is the love of innovation. 1:15:39 In fact, his tweet is which my favorite tweet I've ever seen on drivechain of like the thousand I've read is his tweet where he says, I hope that if and when drivechain is ever adopted on Bitcoin, I hope that it's because of the love of innovation. 1:15:57 And he adds, it would it would be a sad thing if drivechain is adopted just to steal market share from altcoins. 1:16:06 So he really has the best possible view, which is the same as Adam Bax, which is and I think the same as Paul's, which is that the reason to do drivechain isn't because the altcoins are are gaining market share, that the Ethereum is growing. 1:16:18 Oh, my God, we have to do drivechain. 1:16:20 It's not that. 1:16:21 even if there never were any altcoins, there would still be a 1:16:25 very strong case to do drivechain, is to enable more technology on Bitcoin 1:16:31 to make people freer, to enable more peer to peer decentralized 1:16:37 technology like hive mind and like 1:16:42 Z side, which is the Z cash based side 1:16:47 chain on Bitcoin that gives Bitcoin is more privacy. 1:16:53 So I think it's all about love of innovation. 1:16:54 It's a very positive, optimistic thing. 1:16:58 Now, of course, if one is like an investor or a competitor... 1:17:01 person, one might love the idea of not having the Flippening occur. 1:17:07 One might want to do Drivechain because it avoids the Flippening. 1:17:11 Not that it necessarily does, but it probably helps avoid a Flippening. 1:17:15 It probably helps achieve Bitcoinization. 1:17:19 So I think that 1:17:20 a person can have multiple reasons for liking Drivechain, but you're exactly right, 1:17:24 David. The flip -in -ing is if it gets closer, that would definitely change the 1:17:29 conversation. imagine going to Bitcoin Miami with Ethereum at 90 % of the market cap 1:17:35 of Bitcoin versus going to Bitcoin Miami with Ethereum at 1:17:39 10%. Like it's a very different world. 1:17:43 And as Paul would say, the Overton window gets wider when the flipping gets closer. 1:17:51 Yeah, I mean, very well said, you know, I think it's a great speech on, you know, or 1:17:55 monologue, whatever we wanna call it, I'm not 1:17:58 to understand and agree with you. 1:17:59 it just, you know, again, in the back of my head, I'm just like, 1:18:02 but like. 1:18:04 Outside of this small circle of six people in this call, it's like. 1:18:08 Not really matters until there's this catalyst. 1:18:10 like it just sitting there waiting and being like, oh, we know the fees are going to be 1:18:13 an issue. We know like the flip anymore will eventually be an issue. 1:18:16 know scaling 1:18:16 will be an issue, but we just can't do anything. 1:18:20 It's like you're yelling into the wind. 1:18:24 I don't know, not to end this on a sour note, but that's just 1:18:29 where I feel Drivechain is and the state of Bitcoin is right now. 1:18:40 Well said. Yeah. 1:18:44 Anyways, this was super fun. 1:18:47 I'm probably going to drop off, I appreciate you kind of going back and forth with me. 1:18:52 you know, I'm sure I'll pop up on more these calls in 1:18:54 the future. Yeah, thank you for sharing your thoughts. 1:18:57 was fun to learn more about everything you said. 1:19:00 It was a lot of fun, David. 1:19:01 Thanks for being here. 1:19:02 Please come back anytime again. 1:19:05 For sure. right. 1:19:06 Well, I guess I'll see you guys in Miami if you're there. 1:19:09 Well, we'll be there. 1:19:10 The Drivechain people at LayerTwo Labs will be in a 1:19:13 booth and I think Paul is giving a speech probably, or maybe more than one, at the 1:19:19 conference. yeah, a number of people will be there who are interested in Drivechain. 1:19:26 It'll be great. 1:19:27 Maybe this will be the year. 1:19:29 This will be a big year. 1:19:30 In fact, I'm positive 1:19:32 that it'll be an exciting year for the Drivechain topic. 1:19:35 There's no doubt. 1:19:37 Awesome, man. We'll up the great work and I'll talk to guys soon. 1:19:40 See ya. 1:19:42 Talk to you soon. 1:19:44 Well, we have eight minutes left in our Drivechain chat here. 1:19:50 This 1:19:50 Drivechain is spaces. 1:19:53 Thanks to everyone who's listening in the audience and thanks to who's listening on 1:19:57 demand after it's live recorded. 1:20:01 Drivechain twitter spaces is hosted by LayerTwo Labs. 1:20:05 The CEO of LayerTwo Labs is Paul Sztorc, an independent Bitcoiner 1:20:10 who developed Drivechain over the last 8 years, with Drivechain BIP's co -author, 1:20:16 CryptAxe. Drivechain is Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 300 and 1:20:23 which introduces hashrate escrow and blind merge mining to strengthen 1:20:28 The facilities available to sidechains to make sidechains more peer -to -peer on 1:20:33 Bitcoin instead of federated. 1:20:35 would be peer -to -peer sidechains that have two -way pegs and 1:20:42 Can enable Bitcoin to have a multitude of blockchains attached to it Which is what 1:20:48 Satoshi envisioned Satoshi envisioned that every blockchain ever created would be 1:20:52 merged mind with Bitcoin increasing the total strength of the Bitcoin network That was 1:20:58 Satoshi's vision originally and that's what DriveGene is aimed to achieve. 1:21:06 only LayerOne in the world. 1:21:07 That's the drivechain view. 1:21:09 No competition for Bitcoin. 1:21:11 Bitcoin with 100 % LayerOne market cap dominance. 1:21:15 Total success and the acceleration of Bitcoinization, the 1:21:21 strengthening of Bitcoin, 1:21:23 making Bitcoin into a platform for a broad multitude of interesting, innovative 1:21:28 experimental technologies, all of them built on Bitcoin's sidechains, with the main 1:21:34 chain ossified and receiving a ton of fees from the sidechains. 1:21:40 That's the Drivechain 1:21:41 View is the only viable long -term path for Bitcoin in my personal 1:21:47 opinion. excited about really think this is an idea that 1:21:52 time has come. 1:21:54 It's long overdue. 1:21:56 Bitcoin is in a unclear 1:22:00 and risky long -term picture. 1:22:04 The Drivechain advocates tend to have a more reasonable and realistic 1:22:10 view, in my opinion, than like the maxis who think that everything is great, 1:22:16 there's nothing to worry about, and Bitcoin can stay as it 1:22:19 is and just go to the moon. 1:22:22 There's a need for scalability. 1:22:24 There's a need for greater privacy. 1:22:26 There's a need for greater extensibility. 1:22:28 There's a need for more innovation, more growth, more development, more market share, 1:22:33 faster growth. All of these things are what Drivechain aims to achieve. 1:22:36 We definitely need peer 1:22:38 peer -to -peer sidechains on Bitcoin. 1:22:41 The narrative and the technology is very important for Bitcoin's growth. 1:22:45 Hopefully, this is the year when this idea really takes off and Bitcoin can once again 1:22:51 regain that exciting identity it had back in like 2013, 1:22:57 2014. Whereas for the last eight years, we've been kind of adrift. 1:23:02 We've been adrift in this sea of narratives all about nation state adoption. 1:23:08 And the call for privacy has gone into the background. 1:23:12 And the call for peer to peer scaling has gone to the 1:23:16 More and more people are using custodial services and more and more blockchain users 1:23:21 are not even interacting with Bitcoin directly. 1:23:24 They're going to Ethereum. 1:23:25 So we need to reverse these trends and achieve 1:23:29 a stronger growth trajectory in terms of 1:23:34 of innovation, especially peer -to -peer innovation. 1:23:39 sidechains are something worth doing. 1:23:42 We should be more experimental and more technology -oriented, 1:23:48 less about the alternative, which is just 1:23:53 hodling digital gold and using custodial services. 1:24:02 I hope everyone enjoyed today's conversation. 1:24:04 We'll be back on Monday. 1:24:09 I look forward to it. 1:24:10 I hope all of you come again and 1:24:12 bring more questions and comments, 1:24:15 and it'll be great to chat with you then. 1:24:17 Have a really awesome day. 1:24:22 And, you know, if you have any questions, feel free to, like, raise your hands and come 1:24:26 on up next time and share them. 1:24:28 And I look forward to taking 1:24:30 them. 1:24:32 to our main speaker today, David, and the others who spoke as Ciao.
