1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000
The fake custodial Lightning that has tricked everyone into being dishonest, if it's
just

2
00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,640
sitting in a multi-sig transaction, then those people can rug you.

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And there's not enough bytes on L1 to onboard everyone.

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It's network effects versus groupthink and being in a cult.

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00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:20,920
Why is it the case that you have to be really, really nice to everyone?

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Can't the idea just be good?

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00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:24,760
Well, why can't we take the middle ground and just say it's emerging?

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It's not perfect by any stretch.

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It has issues.

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It has bugs, but it's getting better all the time.

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You can try it today.

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You can actually use it.

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The real scaling issue with Bitcoin right now is users and people.

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It's very important to be thinking 100 years from now about what's going to be key.

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How can Bitcoin actually be free to money for everybody in the world when Bitcoin's

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issuance ends is something I think about a lot.

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00:00:44,860 --> 00:00:48,780
Or will it only be free to money for very, very wealthy individuals?

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00:00:48,780 --> 00:00:54,380
Paul, Alex, thank you both so much for coming on the show.

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00:00:54,380 --> 00:00:59,740
Paul, you've been being very controversial on Twitter recently, as normal actually,
and

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00:00:59,740 --> 00:01:04,340
you and Alex got into a bit of a debate, so we're going to get into that in detail.

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00:01:04,340 --> 00:01:07,740
But I think probably the best place to start, so the listeners have full context of
maybe

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00:01:07,740 --> 00:01:11,820
why you're saying the things you're saying, Paul, we should start with a bit of an
introduction

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00:01:11,820 --> 00:01:14,180
about you and what you are working on.

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00:01:14,180 --> 00:01:16,260
Yes, I would be happy to.

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00:01:16,260 --> 00:01:22,660
Okay, so back in 2014, I started a blog, truthcoininfo.info.

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That was basically a Bitcoin maximalist blog, although that term did not even exist
back

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then.

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And in particular, I wrote this essay, Nothing is Cheaper Than Proof of Work.

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So that was back in 2014.

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Then in 2015, I created this Drivechain idea, and I presented the first three
scaling Bitcoin

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conferences, and I'm the author of BIP300/301.

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And then now as of late 2022, I am the CEO and founder of LayerTwo Labs, which is
like

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a Bitcoin development company.

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00:01:53,980 --> 00:02:00,260
And so also, I have never really worked on or owned any coin other than Bitcoin.

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00:02:00,260 --> 00:02:07,140
So I consider myself to be like a total Bitcoin maximalist usually, although now I
think that

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00:02:07,140 --> 00:02:12,940
is now that everyone has come around to that point of view, the time has come to
jump ship.

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00:02:12,940 --> 00:02:15,900
And actually, it's the sun is setting on the Bitcoin maximum.

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00:02:15,900 --> 00:02:21,140
So this will be very weird, but I'll be now taking basically the opposite point of
view

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00:02:21,140 --> 00:02:25,100
that I've had for 12 or so years.

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00:02:25,100 --> 00:02:26,100
You just being the contrarian.

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00:02:26,100 --> 00:02:30,020
Okay, Alex, everyone knows you, you just think it's the third time you've been on
the show,

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00:02:30,020 --> 00:02:32,180
but just quickly give a bit of an intro to yourself.

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00:02:32,180 --> 00:02:33,180
Sure.

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00:02:33,180 --> 00:02:36,640
I came into Bitcoin from the human rights world.

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00:02:36,640 --> 00:02:40,380
We saw a lot of activists and dissidents, especially in difficult political climates

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00:02:40,380 --> 00:02:41,380
using it.

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00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:47,980
You know, starting 10 years ago, it got a lot more voluminous in the last five to
six

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00:02:47,980 --> 00:02:49,140
years.

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00:02:49,140 --> 00:02:55,420
We started getting involved from a support perspective in terms of helping fund
tools

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00:02:55,420 --> 00:03:00,060
to become more accessible for activists, become safer, more private.

51
00:03:00,060 --> 00:03:04,820
We do a lot of funding of education, and we do a lot of funding of people, bringing
people

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00:03:04,820 --> 00:03:08,700
together, bringing the builders together with the activists.

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00:03:08,700 --> 00:03:11,980
And we also do a lot of education about Bitcoin and why it matters for freedom
around the

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world at the Human Rights Foundation.

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00:03:15,140 --> 00:03:18,980
And it's become a pretty big program there separately.

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I've written a lot about Bitcoin, both from a historical perspective, where is it
stand

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00:03:26,700 --> 00:03:28,940
versus other currency systems?

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00:03:28,940 --> 00:03:30,460
How is it different?

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00:03:30,460 --> 00:03:33,860
As well as why are people around the world adopting it?

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And I've traveled a lot, met a lot of people, talked to a lot of folks, you know, in
countries

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with a lot less financial privilege than me, and I've learned, you know, why they're
turning

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to this, you know, magical internet money.

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Why are they doing it?

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And yeah, we're very bullish on a world with a lot more Bitcoin users.

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We think that'll be a very large gain for individual freedom globally.

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So super, super interesting for us.

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And of course, it's money that dictators can't stop.

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And that's kind of the most important reason why we like it.

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Absolutely.

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Okay, so table set, let's get into the fun stuff.

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So Paul, I think the best place to start would be if you kind of take it from your
original

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00:04:16,460 --> 00:04:19,220
tweet that you and Alex kind of got into the debate about.

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Explain your stance and what you meant in that tweet.

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00:04:22,140 --> 00:04:23,580
Oh, yeah.

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First was Lynn's tweet, which is fine.

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00:04:25,900 --> 00:04:27,620
But of course, Lynn's not here, so it's unsupported.

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00:04:27,620 --> 00:04:33,740
But she's basically, there's an older quote from hers about, you know, Bitcoin is
the

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real deal and everything else is a knockoff.

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00:04:36,460 --> 00:04:44,420
And I think that this idea has a lot of merit, but we have been, Bitcoin has kind of
been

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00:04:44,420 --> 00:04:48,500
falling behind the tech cutting edge and it's been stagnant.

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00:04:48,500 --> 00:04:53,860
And so I criticized this tweet of Lynn's, and then she said something really
strange.

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00:04:53,860 --> 00:04:56,780
Like she said, that's an old quote, but that she still stands behind it.

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00:04:56,780 --> 00:04:58,580
And that counted as a reply for some reason.

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00:04:58,580 --> 00:05:02,020
But anyway, the point is, then Alex jumped in and said something about how I think
that

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00:05:02,020 --> 00:05:09,660
people will, that like a shit coin will be adopted by 8 billion people.

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00:05:09,660 --> 00:05:13,820
What I really mean is that it's not, we can't take it for granted that Bitcoin will
be the

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00:05:13,820 --> 00:05:20,940
winning coin until we really have that, until we really see like 4.1 billion people
adopt

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00:05:20,940 --> 00:05:25,380
or until we really actually cross this threshold of, and even then we wouldn't
necessarily

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00:05:25,380 --> 00:05:28,980
want that because we want to live in a world where everything improves a lot.

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00:05:28,980 --> 00:05:34,860
And so if we have this network effect cage around Bitcoin, then it will not improve
as

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00:05:34,860 --> 00:05:36,700
much as it otherwise would be.

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00:05:36,700 --> 00:05:41,100
So maybe as Bitcoin investors, we would like that, but we want to live in a world, I
mean,

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just look at why things are so unsatisfying today.

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You have cases of where the government is tyrannical or when you have some kind of

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monopoly or there's perpetual competition, the network effects would just be a
different

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00:05:53,820 --> 00:05:54,860
instantiation of that.

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00:05:54,860 --> 00:05:59,300
So the core of my idea is that there's these two forces, is that there's network
effects

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00:05:59,300 --> 00:06:02,300
on one hand where the big get bigger.

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00:06:02,300 --> 00:06:04,700
And so Bitcoin has been doing better and better and better and better.

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And all that's perfectly true.

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And I 100% acknowledge that.

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That's absolutely the case.

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I'm a huge believer in network effects, but it's network effects versus groupthink
and

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being in a cult and being in denial about your own problems and lying to yourself
and

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others about imperfections in Bitcoin to the point where they become systemic and
destroy

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00:06:27,340 --> 00:06:33,380
the project. So these are like an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

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So that's my that's like my frame of the situation.

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And so network effects are very, very strong, but complacency and overconfidence are
also

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very, very strong. And you can look at all kinds of, you know, the fall of Rome or

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whatever. There's this famous book, The Innovator's Dilemma, about why is it that

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companies constantly go bankrupt?

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00:06:55,060 --> 00:06:56,420
Why don't they just react?

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Many times the company knows exactly what's happening and they cannot react in time.

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And it's just because companies too big and has too many moving pieces.

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00:07:05,540 --> 00:07:10,100
Just quickly before Alex responds to this, I just want to jump in and defend Lynn
because

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she's not here, because this was basically a tweet about the difference between
Bitcoin

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and crypto. And in Lynn's response to you after she points out that was like an old

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quote that was taken out of context, she said that sort of empirically that gap has
become

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00:07:25,020 --> 00:07:28,500
bigger, like Bitcoin has separated itself more and more from crypto over the years.

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00:07:28,500 --> 00:07:30,300
So is that something that you disagree with?

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Because like that is what the market is saying.

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00:07:32,300 --> 00:07:38,100
I accept that it looks very much over the last, especially over the last.

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So my view is that things have gotten since around 2019, things have gotten under
the

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surface worse, steadily worse for Bitcoin.

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00:07:45,860 --> 00:07:51,540
And I kind of didn't really complain about it until now, until recently.

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But I admit that on the surface, it appears as though everything is going great.

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00:07:57,220 --> 00:08:01,820
But I see this as just more evidence of how perceptive I am or whatever.

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00:08:01,980 --> 00:08:04,820
I'm kind of smiling and winking at the audience here with this.

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00:08:04,820 --> 00:08:09,140
But it's kind of like, you know, whatever the Gandalf shows up and he's trying to
warn

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00:08:09,140 --> 00:08:11,660
everyone, you know, there's this huge problem here.

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00:08:11,660 --> 00:08:15,660
And they're always saying like, you know, this guy is bringing trouble.

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But actually, he's bringing the warning.

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00:08:18,420 --> 00:08:22,740
He's bringing the warning in time because it's much easier, of course, to prepare
for a

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00:08:22,740 --> 00:08:28,780
problem and then preemptively address it versus kind of reply to it in some kind of

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00:08:28,780 --> 00:08:30,540
emergency.

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00:08:30,540 --> 00:08:37,380
So I admit completely that it mostly things have looked as though the network effect
part

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00:08:37,380 --> 00:08:39,100
is just dominating.

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00:08:39,100 --> 00:08:43,580
I attribute this to the fact that it's very difficult to see all the scar tissue
that

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00:08:43,580 --> 00:08:45,460
has accumulated in Bitcoin.

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00:08:45,460 --> 00:08:51,820
You have to, I think, be involved in these technical debates and these details that
a

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00:08:51,820 --> 00:08:53,900
lot of people miss.

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00:08:53,900 --> 00:08:59,780
And also, Bitcoin has grown so much that a very high percentage of the people in the

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community at any given time are now very new.

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00:09:03,540 --> 00:09:10,540
And that is not great for, you know, mass education because these people are brand
new

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00:09:10,540 --> 00:09:16,100
and they don't. But it's also not in people's nature to like really deeply look into
this

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00:09:16,100 --> 00:09:18,700
kind of minutia. So again, that's kind of a long answer.

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00:09:18,700 --> 00:09:23,260
But that's I think it's important to get at what I'm really trying to say.

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00:09:23,260 --> 00:09:25,900
And I would like it to be the case.

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I think it would be great if Bitcoin is just this runaway train and it's destined
for

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00:09:31,220 --> 00:09:32,380
success no matter what.

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00:09:32,380 --> 00:09:33,460
I think that would be great.

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You know, that would obviously be fantastic.

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00:09:36,820 --> 00:09:46,060
But I think that we have to make sure that we aren't falling into the trap of
wishful

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00:09:46,060 --> 00:09:50,220
thinking. If we really want to succeed, if we want Bitcoin to be useful for human
rights,

155
00:09:50,220 --> 00:09:57,220
then we have to we have to make sure that we are looking at it with good eyesight.

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00:09:57,980 --> 00:10:00,140
Alex, do you have anything to say there in response to that?

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00:10:00,660 --> 00:10:03,660
Yeah, I mean, look, I guess we're coming at it from a different point of view.

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00:10:03,660 --> 00:10:13,660
We're not necessarily thinking deeply about, you know, alternative ways of of doing

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00:10:13,660 --> 00:10:18,820
Bitcoin at it, you know, changing it so fundamentally and then thinking about what
the

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00:10:18,820 --> 00:10:22,380
world might be. In that case, we're just using it and we're watching people use it,

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00:10:22,380 --> 00:10:26,660
learn about it. And, you know, from our perspective, what you say couldn't be
further

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00:10:26,660 --> 00:10:30,580
from our experience because it's so much easier to use and so much more successful
and

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00:10:30,580 --> 00:10:35,300
so much more widely proliferated and so much more liquid and so much more accepted
and

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00:10:35,300 --> 00:10:37,180
so much more understood than it was in 2019.

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00:10:37,180 --> 00:10:41,900
Like, you know, when we started doing activist education in 2019, wallets were very
hard

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00:10:41,900 --> 00:10:46,220
to use. The people who designed the wallets did not design them for people who were

167
00:10:46,220 --> 00:10:49,580
newbies, you know, essentially as their as their in mind audience.

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00:10:49,740 --> 00:10:51,580
You had to immediately write down the seed phrase.

169
00:10:51,580 --> 00:10:54,180
It's like the first thing you did when you downloaded the wallet.

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00:10:54,180 --> 00:10:56,900
And now today it's like, oh, my God, we have so many awesome wallets.

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00:10:56,900 --> 00:10:59,940
We have so many great wallets that have lightning, that have eCash, that have so
many

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00:10:59,940 --> 00:11:01,340
great additions to them.

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And then obviously just network effect.

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00:11:04,340 --> 00:11:07,620
Bitcoin is used by so many millions of people around the world.

175
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It's accepted so many places.

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It's being adopted by so many entities.

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So from our perspective, things have become much, much easier.

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So my question to you, Paul, would be, you know, going back to the thread.

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So you said that Bitcoin's been falling behind.

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00:11:25,580 --> 00:11:29,340
Well, first, I would say, number one, what can you be specific?

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00:11:29,340 --> 00:11:33,900
Which protocols or monies or tokens or altcoins is it falling behind?

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00:11:34,300 --> 00:11:36,940
And B, so that's one thing.

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00:11:36,980 --> 00:11:46,620
And then the second thing is, you know, which floating, when I say floating token

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shitcoin, what I meant is like, I don't know, Solana, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, like name

185
00:11:51,260 --> 00:11:53,860
one. Which one is going to beat out Bitcoin?

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00:11:54,300 --> 00:11:58,580
Be specific about it, because, you know, let's hear it.

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00:11:58,580 --> 00:11:59,620
I mean, that's what I'm interested in.

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I'm very curious.

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00:12:02,060 --> 00:12:06,340
In fact, I think that it's quite likely that what will happen again is a new hard

190
00:12:06,340 --> 00:12:11,060
fork that is very, very similar to Bitcoin and simply just splits the community on

191
00:12:11,060 --> 00:12:19,300
some of these dimensions of complacency versus, let's call it assertiveness or.

192
00:12:19,940 --> 00:12:21,780
Like the Bitcoin cash fork.

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00:12:22,660 --> 00:12:25,980
Yeah, I think it will be a hard fork similar in that way.

194
00:12:25,980 --> 00:12:27,900
And in fact, one of the reasons why I think.

195
00:12:28,980 --> 00:12:35,580
That it will succeed is because the Bitcoin cash hard fork was so poorly done and it

196
00:12:35,620 --> 00:12:40,140
was so poorly executed and it was such a bad idea that it has permanently
discredited the

197
00:12:40,140 --> 00:12:45,860
hard fork. So it is another example of having cast an illusion over the fundamental

198
00:12:45,860 --> 00:12:50,100
reality that the hard fork is actually a pretty good institution where every Bitcoin
or

199
00:12:50,100 --> 00:12:51,180
just gets free money.

200
00:12:51,540 --> 00:12:56,020
And if you can just ignore it and it goes to zero, it doesn't affect your life at
all.

201
00:12:56,380 --> 00:12:59,140
So we really should be encouraging more.

202
00:12:59,140 --> 00:13:04,220
It does. It does damage the network effect and it does dilute the brand.

203
00:13:04,220 --> 00:13:10,260
But of course, a lot of the things that, for example, Omri and Roger did, like
naming it

204
00:13:10,460 --> 00:13:15,260
Bitcoin Cash and Roger using Bitcoin.com, the domain to assert.

205
00:13:15,460 --> 00:13:17,860
I don't think that those things will be repeated.

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00:13:19,060 --> 00:13:23,500
And I think that the institution of the hard fork needs to be celebrated for how it

207
00:13:23,500 --> 00:13:25,220
reintroduces competition.

208
00:13:26,260 --> 00:13:31,980
Competition would cure all these these hidden issues that I'm talking about.

209
00:13:32,900 --> 00:13:38,380
And one reason why I doubt the network effect concept a little bit is that while
it's true

210
00:13:38,380 --> 00:13:45,620
that we have grown a lot, it is also true that when I talk to just normal people,
lots and

211
00:13:45,620 --> 00:13:50,060
lots of normal people who are very smart, they still have never really heard of
Bitcoin or

212
00:13:50,060 --> 00:13:53,940
they think there's no difference between Bitcoin and crypto and they've never used
any of

213
00:13:53,940 --> 00:13:57,860
this. And they just kind of think that our whole industry is a huge scam, which is

214
00:13:57,860 --> 00:13:58,940
unfortunate, of course.

215
00:13:59,220 --> 00:14:04,180
But I think it is the case that the network effect, you know, that hits really
strong

216
00:14:05,060 --> 00:14:07,940
when when you have like lots and lots of people really using it.

217
00:14:07,940 --> 00:14:15,740
But when you live in a world where even in the first world, like in America, in
educated

218
00:14:15,740 --> 00:14:21,660
America, you have tech savvy young adults and they are still a huge percentage of
them.

219
00:14:23,140 --> 00:14:26,340
Just think the whole thing is that that's something that they've never used and they

220
00:14:26,340 --> 00:14:30,980
don't understand. That is one reason to doubt and say it's also a little bit.

221
00:14:31,420 --> 00:14:35,820
So to be to be clear, I mean, because you wrote in your thread that soon, in maybe
two

222
00:14:35,820 --> 00:14:39,340
to five years, it will be possible for anyone with a laptop to launch a new coin
that has

223
00:14:39,340 --> 00:14:42,980
strong privacy, scalability to eight billion people and cheaper L1 full note costs
than

224
00:14:42,980 --> 00:14:50,340
Bitcoin. So are you basically talking about a new L1 blockchain or are you saying
that

225
00:14:50,340 --> 00:14:54,940
basically someone's going to come up with a completely different way to envision
Bitcoin

226
00:14:54,940 --> 00:14:58,860
like increasing the block size limit, you know, ad infinitum like Bitcoin cash?

227
00:14:58,860 --> 00:15:01,140
And then and we're going to go in that direction.

228
00:15:01,140 --> 00:15:03,780
Can you just be clear which one which one do you think is more likely to happen?

229
00:15:04,100 --> 00:15:07,940
Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up because it's not so much that I think any

230
00:15:07,940 --> 00:15:13,700
existing altcoin, I think actually in many ways the existing altcoins are some of
the

231
00:15:14,340 --> 00:15:18,980
bottom of the barrel. And also they have by just by virtue of existing for so long,

232
00:15:18,980 --> 00:15:21,980
they've kind of like they've shot their shot or whatever.

233
00:15:21,980 --> 00:15:26,580
And so now, right, similarly with Bitcoin cash, like it's kind of like that was that

234
00:15:26,580 --> 00:15:30,140
ship has sort of sailed and it's not worth it to go back and rescue those people.

235
00:15:30,460 --> 00:15:32,380
Instead, we will need to.

236
00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:36,540
But when I say because I wrote down this bullet point about Bitcoin falling behind
and

237
00:15:36,540 --> 00:15:38,660
you remind me of what I wrote in the tweet.

238
00:15:39,540 --> 00:15:43,220
Yeah, there is a there will be an open source tech stack.

239
00:15:43,220 --> 00:15:51,220
I mean, it's already taking shape in my view, where like there are things where

240
00:15:51,220 --> 00:15:54,740
Bitcoin has fallen behind. So you wouldn't say, for example, on the dimension of

241
00:15:54,740 --> 00:15:59,140
privacy, you wouldn't say that anything we have in Bitcoin is comparable to what

242
00:15:59,140 --> 00:16:03,820
exists in the Zcash altcoin or Monero or.

243
00:16:08,020 --> 00:16:09,940
But it's like a kind of a.

244
00:16:11,020 --> 00:16:12,220
eCash is.

245
00:16:13,340 --> 00:16:14,260
What do you mean by that?

246
00:16:14,260 --> 00:16:21,460
But eCash is.

247
00:16:25,020 --> 00:16:29,380
But eCash is the federated model, which is the cop out, that's the cop out part.

248
00:16:33,260 --> 00:16:35,540
Now, what do you mean?

249
00:16:36,780 --> 00:16:40,260
Well, I think what Alex means there is that if this ends up happening on some like
side

250
00:16:40,260 --> 00:16:42,900
chain L2, then that's also going to be in a federated model.

251
00:16:43,020 --> 00:16:49,260
So I guess my point is that like one is, well, that's what you say.

252
00:16:49,300 --> 00:16:55,580
I mean, so so in in the ideal world, you have people who can self custody Bitcoin

253
00:16:56,340 --> 00:17:00,460
and and then in the ideal world, you also want people to make tradeoffs to be able
to

254
00:17:00,460 --> 00:17:03,020
sacrifice some of that, be able to get other things.

255
00:17:03,020 --> 00:17:06,460
Now, in your mind, you have a particular way of doing that, which I think is fine.

256
00:17:06,460 --> 00:17:07,620
I'm not here to debate that.

257
00:17:08,340 --> 00:17:12,540
But today there exist other ways for Bitcoin users to get that flexibility.

258
00:17:12,900 --> 00:17:16,780
And one of them is through the wonderful Lightning Network to be able to tap into

259
00:17:16,780 --> 00:17:21,900
other kinds of payment pools like Mint's to achieve really good privacy without

260
00:17:21,900 --> 00:17:24,380
having to go to some floating token shitcoin to do it.

261
00:17:25,380 --> 00:17:29,820
So, you know, I think what a lot of what you do is you underrate and underestimate

262
00:17:30,220 --> 00:17:34,780
the current options that are out there, which are extremely strong to promote your

263
00:17:34,780 --> 00:17:38,100
own agenda. I mean, there's there's this is very clear.

264
00:17:38,100 --> 00:17:42,980
I mean, there's no way that you could say seriously that anyone who still shills

265
00:17:42,980 --> 00:17:46,100
Lightning Network in twenty twenty five is is kind of an idiot.

266
00:17:47,020 --> 00:17:49,140
That's not a credible argument.

267
00:17:49,860 --> 00:17:50,860
That's what I'm reading.

268
00:17:51,540 --> 00:17:52,940
I'm I'm reading it off your tweet.

269
00:17:52,940 --> 00:17:56,940
It says anyone who still shills LN in twenty twenty five is kind of an idiot.

270
00:17:57,340 --> 00:17:58,380
I agree that is.

271
00:17:59,020 --> 00:18:01,700
Yes. That is OK.

272
00:18:02,140 --> 00:18:05,100
So, well, I mean, now we've touched on like five hundred different things.

273
00:18:05,100 --> 00:18:06,180
I mean, first of all, the Federal.

274
00:18:06,420 --> 00:18:09,820
So let's wrap it up, but not to escape so we can go to lightning in a second.

275
00:18:09,820 --> 00:18:10,820
But but so.

276
00:18:11,740 --> 00:18:12,740
Where are we going here?

277
00:18:12,820 --> 00:18:14,460
You want to be a federated mile first.

278
00:18:15,420 --> 00:18:17,220
Because your whole argument, you're basically.

279
00:18:17,580 --> 00:18:19,300
But hold on, hold on. But just to go back.

280
00:18:19,300 --> 00:18:22,700
So you're basically saying it's not going to be an L1 blockchain that outcompetes

281
00:18:22,700 --> 00:18:27,340
Bitcoin. It's actually going to be a hard fork and like hard work would be a new

282
00:18:27,340 --> 00:18:28,340
L1 blockchain.

283
00:18:29,300 --> 00:18:32,460
Yeah, I mean, but it's different than like Cardano.

284
00:18:32,500 --> 00:18:36,220
You're basically saying it's not going to be one of the existing alt coins.

285
00:18:36,540 --> 00:18:38,180
I really don't think it'll be Cardano.

286
00:18:38,220 --> 00:18:39,540
Yes. Right. That's true.

287
00:18:40,180 --> 00:18:41,180
OK, we can agree on that one.

288
00:18:41,980 --> 00:18:46,100
So that it's going to be someone who introduces a big rule change to the to the

289
00:18:46,100 --> 00:18:48,860
Bitcoin project and that there's a split in that.

290
00:18:48,860 --> 00:18:53,500
Well, like I guess big in terms of how beneficial it would be, I suppose.

291
00:18:54,340 --> 00:18:57,460
But big and being that it's a hard fork, like is my point.

292
00:18:58,100 --> 00:19:02,340
I don't think the hard fork part it's the hard fork will be to split the community

293
00:19:02,380 --> 00:19:05,540
there won't be the hard fork that does the tech enabling.

294
00:19:05,820 --> 00:19:09,460
Everything that can be done with a hard fork can be done with the soft fork and

295
00:19:09,460 --> 00:19:12,780
everything that can be done with a soft fork can actually be done without changing

296
00:19:12,780 --> 00:19:13,780
Bitcoin's code.

297
00:19:14,900 --> 00:19:19,660
So actually, this whole hard versus soft distinction no longer has any bearing

298
00:19:19,660 --> 00:19:22,660
on anything. I think the hard fork is when you want if you want to split the

299
00:19:22,660 --> 00:19:25,700
community intentionally, you can do it with the hard fork.

300
00:19:25,740 --> 00:19:29,940
And that is that is the key is that the members of the community.

301
00:19:30,500 --> 00:19:34,540
Because I think you if you grow and you you accept people into your community who

302
00:19:34,540 --> 00:19:38,100
are anti-growth, then actually then this is will end up.

303
00:19:38,780 --> 00:19:42,340
And just saying before we move forward to the lightning stuff, can you just can you

304
00:19:42,340 --> 00:19:48,020
can you describe what will just just walk, walk, walk me through and walk us

305
00:19:48,020 --> 00:19:53,780
through a potential scenario in the next five years where the Bitcoin project as

306
00:19:53,780 --> 00:19:57,820
we know it ends and gets obsoleted by something else.

307
00:19:57,820 --> 00:20:01,700
Can you just walk us through quickly how you envision that happening, please?

308
00:20:02,020 --> 00:20:09,620
OK, my view is that all of the coins are vulnerable to like if one coin actually

309
00:20:09,620 --> 00:20:15,220
makes it into something where it has lots of actual users, this is the best

310
00:20:16,020 --> 00:20:18,060
marketing for the coin.

311
00:20:18,300 --> 00:20:20,460
This is the best kind of adoption there is.

312
00:20:20,860 --> 00:20:26,580
And so if a coin actually reaches real users, the other coins will be displaced.

313
00:20:26,580 --> 00:20:31,220
The other coins will be displaced and they will, you know, go to zero, basically.

314
00:20:31,260 --> 00:20:34,340
That's my point, because because of the network effect argument, basically.

315
00:20:34,940 --> 00:20:38,180
So if one coin gets really big, it will muscle out the others.

316
00:20:38,340 --> 00:20:43,740
So that's what I I think what I was getting at with my tweet is that this will

317
00:20:43,740 --> 00:20:48,700
become easier and easier over time and eventually it will become so easy that

318
00:20:49,260 --> 00:20:55,060
we'll be forced to reckon with the the the technical scar tissue of Bitcoin.

319
00:20:55,060 --> 00:21:00,700
And then it may be at that point, it may be like an emergency situation, but I still

320
00:21:00,700 --> 00:21:03,340
think it'll be the hard fork will win to preserve the UTXO set.

321
00:21:03,340 --> 00:21:05,860
So everyone's investment will be will be safe.

322
00:21:05,900 --> 00:21:08,620
But that's not really the question that interests me.

323
00:21:08,620 --> 00:21:14,500
The question is, like, what is the end, the final technical configuration of of the

324
00:21:14,500 --> 00:21:15,500
winning coin?

325
00:21:15,540 --> 00:21:17,580
That's kind of like the thing that I'm interested in.

326
00:21:18,460 --> 00:21:20,380
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351
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Just quickly on that, Paul, like what I don't understand is you said like in a
couple

352
00:22:50,380 --> 00:22:53,780
years, anyone can launch a coin with better privacy, better scalability, whatever.

353
00:22:53,980 --> 00:22:56,780
Like people have been trying this for a decade at this point.

354
00:22:56,820 --> 00:22:58,420
There's tens of thousands of other shit coins.

355
00:22:58,460 --> 00:23:01,860
Like what is what do you see changing that means one of those will win?

356
00:23:02,140 --> 00:23:03,260
Launching a coin.

357
00:23:03,460 --> 00:23:05,660
I think a lot of this has been negative innovation.

358
00:23:05,820 --> 00:23:07,980
So the coins have been distractions.

359
00:23:08,020 --> 00:23:12,380
So these are people who just want money and they are not as interested.

360
00:23:12,420 --> 00:23:17,340
And in fact, this repels the people who have genuine technical curiosity.

361
00:23:17,820 --> 00:23:22,540
So the fact that people are launching coins is not necessarily what I'm interested
in.

362
00:23:22,900 --> 00:23:31,420
But the existence of, for example, the fact that there used to be this zero coin
project and it made it into the Zcash Altcoin and they did a bunch of R&D.

363
00:23:31,420 --> 00:23:42,340
And now there's like a rust crate for doing private transactions and having a
reusable private address that hides the sender, the receiver and the amount.

364
00:23:42,460 --> 00:23:48,060
The fact that that open source technology now exists, that type of thing is more
what I'm talking about.

365
00:23:48,060 --> 00:23:58,260
And there are many cases where an academic or someone will put out a new piece of
the tech stack that has no coin behind it at all, because, of course, launching the
coin is so undignified.

366
00:23:58,860 --> 00:24:02,340
Could you just try to be specific and detail a little more?

367
00:24:02,380 --> 00:24:04,020
Like how would this how would this unfold?

368
00:24:04,060 --> 00:24:07,540
It's like entrepreneur A does X, then this happens, then this happens.

369
00:24:07,820 --> 00:24:08,620
Like could you paint?

370
00:24:09,180 --> 00:24:12,020
You must have thought about this a lot because you're interested in it.

371
00:24:12,460 --> 00:24:14,500
Right. So walk us through how this would happen.

372
00:24:14,500 --> 00:24:22,980
How does Bitcoin, you know, go to zero with the gear, like the privacy gear in
Bitcoin having fallen behind unnecessarily?

373
00:24:24,980 --> 00:24:30,780
So you think that that's going to be like a privacy coin is going to take over
Bitcoin?

374
00:24:30,820 --> 00:24:31,380
No, no, no, no, no.

375
00:24:31,380 --> 00:24:32,340
Just the option.

376
00:24:32,380 --> 00:24:38,820
You have the option, you have the L2 or you have the option to use this rust crate
that hides the sender, the receiver and the amount.

377
00:24:38,820 --> 00:24:40,260
And that some people will want that.

378
00:24:41,260 --> 00:24:45,820
Why would that be any better than what we have now with eCash?

379
00:24:45,860 --> 00:24:46,580
I don't understand.

380
00:24:46,940 --> 00:24:50,100
Well, I thought I was going to explain that, but you moved on to like five or six
different things.

381
00:24:50,100 --> 00:24:56,900
The eCash model is federated and the federated model is just about the worst thing
to ever happen in Bitcoin's history.

382
00:24:56,900 --> 00:24:59,860
I think we've had we've had bad ideas before.

383
00:25:00,149 --> 00:25:06,549
We've had we've had bad ideas before and we've had dishonest ideas and we've had
ideas that spread dishonesty like the plague.

384
00:25:08,029 --> 00:25:10,589
And but rarely do we have them all at once.

385
00:25:10,589 --> 00:25:15,429
But the federated model is just about the worst thing to happen in Bitcoin's
history, I think.

386
00:25:15,429 --> 00:25:18,469
So it's interesting that you're so blasé about what it means.

387
00:25:18,469 --> 00:25:25,509
The federated model basically says I'll give you all of my coins immediately and I
have no recourse about you ever getting them back.

388
00:25:25,869 --> 00:25:27,789
And you could take them tomorrow.

389
00:25:27,789 --> 00:25:46,869
Whereas with Lightning and with Drivechain and with lots of other things, there's
all these complicated time locks and ways of making it difficult to withdraw the
coins in an improper way such that you have an economic guarantee that it's in their
financial best interest, even for anonymous people to participate honestly in the
scheme.

390
00:25:46,869 --> 00:25:52,229
Whereas the federated model is just give all your coins to someone and just hope
that you get them back.

391
00:25:52,229 --> 00:25:59,669
And even the federated part is a huge lie because it says, well, instead of giving
them to one person, we'll give them to a big group of people.

392
00:25:59,669 --> 00:26:10,069
But there is absolutely no way for the layperson to tell that you really are giving
it to 15, you know, nine of 15 or whatever people.

393
00:26:10,069 --> 00:26:15,909
And it's not just one person who generated all one key and then 14 clones of
themselves.

394
00:26:16,149 --> 00:26:22,069
So the whole thing is just shot through with pure dishonesty and the whole thing is
a huge waste of time.

395
00:26:22,069 --> 00:26:32,229
And it's a perfect example of the scar tissue that I mentioned before about how this
type of thing, this is not someone that you want in your community because they will
ruin the community for everyone else.

396
00:26:32,229 --> 00:26:42,469
They will move people's attention away from solving the real problems and more
towards repeating the lie that the problem has been solved with something like
eCash or any federated idea.

397
00:26:43,109 --> 00:26:51,029
I can tell you, obviously, aren't looking at eCash very carefully because there's
not a lot of people using federated eCash these days.

398
00:26:51,029 --> 00:27:00,549
Cash is the dominant protocol and there's other ways that people have figured out
how to avoid what you describe.

399
00:27:00,549 --> 00:27:05,909
One of them is like the multi-nut payments and you should look into that.

400
00:27:06,869 --> 00:27:12,629
This idea that you can make payments from any different once there's all different
ways to reduce exposure to rugging.

401
00:27:12,629 --> 00:27:15,589
But at the end of the day, no one's doing what you say.

402
00:27:15,589 --> 00:27:17,109
Talk about dishonesty.

403
00:27:17,109 --> 00:27:28,309
No one, especially the creators of both Fetamin and Cashew protocols would tell
anybody to put all of their coins or even a significant amount of coins into a mint.

404
00:27:28,309 --> 00:27:31,829
This is a technology for small spending.

405
00:27:32,149 --> 00:27:33,349
I agree with that.

406
00:27:33,349 --> 00:27:34,869
But I think they're all like that.

407
00:27:34,869 --> 00:27:47,909
Even in my intended configuration, I think the L2 chains will never have more than
like maybe 8, 9, 10, 20,000 coins each and there may be 10, 15.

408
00:27:47,909 --> 00:27:53,109
Look, we have ARK potentially coming online.

409
00:27:54,069 --> 00:28:01,109
The eCash that I looked into is 100% federated and that people can rug.

410
00:28:01,109 --> 00:28:04,309
On L1, it's just a multi-sig output on L1.

411
00:28:04,309 --> 00:28:05,589
So that's the only thing that matters.

412
00:28:06,469 --> 00:28:07,269
Cashew is different.

413
00:28:07,269 --> 00:28:08,949
Cashew is based on Lightning.

414
00:28:08,949 --> 00:28:11,269
Lightning is also multi-sig on L1.

415
00:28:11,269 --> 00:28:12,389
It's 2 of 2 multi-sig.

416
00:28:12,389 --> 00:28:14,549
The Lightning channels are 2 of 2 multi-sig on L1.

417
00:28:14,549 --> 00:28:17,589
So what matters is what the L1 stack can do.

418
00:28:17,589 --> 00:28:20,629
The L1 stack is not doing these fancy things.

419
00:28:20,949 --> 00:28:30,149
I think another issue of Scar Tissue is that the non-mined L2s, they don't pay their
transaction fees to the L1 miners.

420
00:28:30,149 --> 00:28:37,909
So they have this ticking time bomb problem where if they become successful, there
will be conflict between the miners and the L2.

421
00:28:37,909 --> 00:28:44,789
The miners will either want to vertically integrate and they'll start like Foundry
LSP or Foundry ARK or whatever.

422
00:28:45,589 --> 00:28:52,069
ARK is like the final nail in the coffin as to why Lightning Network is a failed
idea.

423
00:28:52,069 --> 00:28:55,349
That you could see all these people jump ship to ARK immediately.

424
00:28:55,349 --> 00:28:59,269
First of all, ARK is just being born, so we don't know.

425
00:28:59,269 --> 00:29:02,389
But ARK is clearly going to work because of Lightning.

426
00:29:02,389 --> 00:29:05,429
They work together if you look at how it's going to function.

427
00:29:07,109 --> 00:29:09,509
I mean, I totally disagree with that characterization.

428
00:29:09,509 --> 00:29:11,909
It's not a characterization.

429
00:29:11,909 --> 00:29:12,789
It's how it's going to work.

430
00:29:12,789 --> 00:29:13,269
What do you mean?

431
00:29:13,829 --> 00:29:17,109
You think you're going to just have on-chain and ARK and no Lightning?

432
00:29:18,949 --> 00:29:24,549
I'll read from the creator of ARK when he made this ARK whiteboard video.

433
00:29:25,269 --> 00:29:28,629
And this is kind of like the final nail in the coffin for Lightning.

434
00:29:28,629 --> 00:29:37,109
Is that when he's trying to explain ARK, he opens his ARK masterclass video.

435
00:29:37,109 --> 00:29:37,909
He opens it with this.

436
00:29:37,909 --> 00:29:41,749
He says, well, this is this guy, Burak, who is the creator of ARK.

437
00:29:41,749 --> 00:29:43,989
And he's a former Blockstream employee.

438
00:29:43,989 --> 00:29:46,469
He crashed the Lightning Network twice for fun.

439
00:29:47,829 --> 00:29:53,269
He, and this is for the audience, and he says, this is June 2023.

440
00:29:53,269 --> 00:29:55,429
I've always been a big critic of Lightning.

441
00:29:55,429 --> 00:29:57,029
I had severe objections, right?

442
00:29:57,589 --> 00:30:01,429
From inbound liquidity to inbound receiving interactivity.

443
00:30:02,069 --> 00:30:06,389
I wanted with ARK to address the inbound liquidity problem,

444
00:30:06,389 --> 00:30:08,149
but I really couldn't find a cure for it.

445
00:30:08,869 --> 00:30:10,549
I failed to see Lightning scaling.

446
00:30:11,509 --> 00:30:15,669
So he's saying when his description of ARK that he has given up on,

447
00:30:15,669 --> 00:30:17,669
he's wants like something that replaces it.

448
00:30:19,909 --> 00:30:21,029
Well, that's obviously not.

449
00:30:21,829 --> 00:30:24,149
That's not true, because if you talk to the ARK people today,

450
00:30:24,789 --> 00:30:26,549
they view these things as compatible.

451
00:30:26,549 --> 00:30:28,869
It's true that ARK does things Lightning can't do.

452
00:30:28,869 --> 00:30:29,429
Absolutely.

453
00:30:30,069 --> 00:30:33,429
But these are the way that ARK pulls.

454
00:30:34,549 --> 00:30:35,509
I'm not missing the point.

455
00:30:36,149 --> 00:30:41,269
My point is that Lightning is the central nervous system of the Bitcoin ecosystem

456
00:30:41,269 --> 00:30:42,389
and different pools.

457
00:30:42,389 --> 00:30:44,309
You can have all kinds of pools you want.

458
00:30:44,309 --> 00:30:45,829
You can have sidechains.

459
00:30:45,829 --> 00:30:46,869
You can have liquid.

460
00:30:46,869 --> 00:30:48,709
You can have eCash, mints.

461
00:30:48,709 --> 00:30:50,309
You can have exchanges.

462
00:30:50,309 --> 00:30:52,309
They all speak Lightning to each other.

463
00:30:52,309 --> 00:30:55,349
And this is really obvious to us because we actually use Bitcoin.

464
00:30:56,549 --> 00:30:57,669
This is all what?

465
00:30:57,669 --> 00:30:59,189
It's all just co-op, I think.

466
00:30:59,189 --> 00:31:01,589
They will use whatever else you actually work.

467
00:31:01,589 --> 00:31:04,709
Dude, you're demonstrating that you don't actually use these things.

468
00:31:05,269 --> 00:31:07,829
Let me read you something from somebody in Nigeria.

469
00:31:07,829 --> 00:31:08,949
I asked a couple of people I knew.

470
00:31:08,949 --> 00:31:10,949
I'm like, how has Lightning changed your life?

471
00:31:10,949 --> 00:31:11,269
OK?

472
00:31:11,269 --> 00:31:13,349
We're going through a lot of different points.

473
00:31:13,989 --> 00:31:15,269
Can I just explain?

474
00:31:15,269 --> 00:31:15,829
No, no, no, no, no.

475
00:31:16,709 --> 00:31:18,229
You just called what I said co-op.

476
00:31:18,229 --> 00:31:19,429
So let me dismiss that.

477
00:31:20,469 --> 00:31:21,429
Hi, Alex.

478
00:31:21,429 --> 00:31:24,149
Off the top of my head, I'd say my favorite Lightning use case is

479
00:31:24,149 --> 00:31:28,869
overcoming financial restrictions and fast cross-border remittance to solve
emergencies.

480
00:31:28,869 --> 00:31:32,309
To provide a backstory, my aunt back in the Philippines had a medical emergency.

481
00:31:32,309 --> 00:31:35,269
My family was able to use Lightning to quickly send money to help out.

482
00:31:35,269 --> 00:31:37,029
The other options were too slow.

483
00:31:37,029 --> 00:31:40,789
As for helping overcome financial restrictions, it's helped me spend my money in
other African

484
00:31:40,789 --> 00:31:43,109
countries without having to worry about getting foreign currency.

485
00:31:44,469 --> 00:31:45,109
That's just one.

486
00:31:45,109 --> 00:31:47,349
I have so many stories people sent me about many different countries.

487
00:31:47,349 --> 00:31:49,349
None of that has anything to do with what I'm talking about.

488
00:31:49,349 --> 00:31:50,549
I mean, I'm very happy for that person.

489
00:31:50,549 --> 00:31:55,109
It absolutely has to do with the point that you just made that it's not co-op and
that

490
00:31:55,109 --> 00:31:58,789
it's actually an incredible real world innovation.

491
00:31:59,589 --> 00:32:05,349
I would love nothing more than for people to continue to have access to cheap and
effective

492
00:32:06,549 --> 00:32:07,429
instant payments.

493
00:32:07,429 --> 00:32:08,309
And I think that's great.

494
00:32:08,309 --> 00:32:11,589
And I think a problem with Lightning is that it's making that much harder for
people.

495
00:32:12,629 --> 00:32:16,149
But the person who I just talked about couldn't do this without Lightning.

496
00:32:17,669 --> 00:32:21,189
I don't know how we could possibly proceed, but I'm going to try to go in reverse

497
00:32:21,189 --> 00:32:23,669
chronological order with the most recent thing.

498
00:32:23,669 --> 00:32:27,189
And then we'll eventually get back to the federated, which I don't think we have
closed

499
00:32:27,189 --> 00:32:33,349
the book on whether or not you have accepted that the Fed, what those protocols do
depends

500
00:32:33,349 --> 00:32:37,669
on where the money is on the L1 blockchain, which if it's just sitting in a
multi-sig

501
00:32:37,669 --> 00:32:40,949
transaction, then those people can rug you immediately.

502
00:32:40,949 --> 00:32:47,029
And that is not an acceptable way to argue against whether or not Zcash has better
privacy

503
00:32:47,029 --> 00:32:51,509
is to just say, if you custody it completely with someone else, well, hey, look, if
I just

504
00:32:51,509 --> 00:32:54,469
gave it to Coinbase or whatever, they could also keep it private for me.

505
00:32:54,469 --> 00:32:56,949
And then they could use SSL or something.

506
00:32:56,949 --> 00:32:58,069
No, I'm not.

507
00:32:58,869 --> 00:33:02,629
I would agree with you that federation is not something where you want to store your

508
00:33:02,629 --> 00:33:03,509
Bitcoin.

509
00:33:03,509 --> 00:33:06,149
It's a tradeoff that you're going to make to do something else privately.

510
00:33:07,989 --> 00:33:09,189
Yeah, I would rather.

511
00:33:09,189 --> 00:33:12,069
Well, I mean, so you have a couple different options right now.

512
00:33:13,029 --> 00:33:16,309
One of them is to sell your Bitcoin for a shitcoin.

513
00:33:16,309 --> 00:33:18,549
The other one is to use a mint.

514
00:33:18,549 --> 00:33:20,709
The other one, there are many different things you can do.

515
00:33:20,709 --> 00:33:24,789
When you say use a mint, you mean deposit to a multi-sig output on L1 where the
money

516
00:33:24,789 --> 00:33:26,149
is no longer yours?

517
00:33:26,149 --> 00:33:30,389
No, because if you're depositing your Bitcoin to the Lightning Network and then
going very

518
00:33:30,389 --> 00:33:36,869
quickly in and out of Cashew to send a private transaction, you still have
unilateral exit

519
00:33:36,869 --> 00:33:37,349
through Lightning.

520
00:33:37,349 --> 00:33:39,509
So you're only using Cashew while you're actually doing things like that.

521
00:33:39,509 --> 00:33:43,029
If you deposit it to the Lightning Network on L1, then your money is in the
Lightning

522
00:33:43,029 --> 00:33:43,429
Network.

523
00:33:44,309 --> 00:33:45,909
But you still have unilateral exit from the Lightning Network.

524
00:33:45,909 --> 00:33:47,109
You could route through someone.

525
00:33:48,789 --> 00:33:54,229
If you routed through someone who discarded the information, that would maybe help
you

526
00:33:54,229 --> 00:33:54,949
with privacy.

527
00:33:54,949 --> 00:33:57,509
You'd have to deal with lots of these other problems with the Lightning Network.

528
00:33:57,509 --> 00:33:59,109
I mean, I don't think the Lightning Network works at all.

529
00:33:59,109 --> 00:34:00,549
No, you don't.

530
00:34:00,549 --> 00:34:02,309
You don't think the Lightning Network works at all?

531
00:34:02,309 --> 00:34:06,389
When I just told you about someone who was able to, like in numerous countries, have

532
00:34:06,389 --> 00:34:09,269
it help them majorly in their day-to-day use case.

533
00:34:10,069 --> 00:34:11,749
Well, that's not what I mean by work.

534
00:34:12,549 --> 00:34:14,949
So can you imagine a second year I might have?

535
00:34:16,709 --> 00:34:18,149
I'm open to it, I guess.

536
00:34:18,149 --> 00:34:18,709
Yeah, sure.

537
00:34:19,429 --> 00:34:26,789
Well, let's say eight billion people show up to a concert, and it's the way the
concert

538
00:34:26,789 --> 00:34:27,269
is set up.

539
00:34:27,269 --> 00:34:28,789
It's too difficult to see the stage.

540
00:34:29,589 --> 00:34:31,349
And then some people say, OK, here's what we're going to do.

541
00:34:31,349 --> 00:34:34,789
We're going to go to the front, and we're going to stand on each other's shoulders
or

542
00:34:34,789 --> 00:34:35,269
something.

543
00:34:36,949 --> 00:34:40,389
You could see how that is a ridiculous thing to say, but that's basically the
lightning

544
00:34:40,389 --> 00:34:40,949
argument.

545
00:34:40,949 --> 00:34:45,749
Some people, like a few people near the front, will be able to get it to work.

546
00:34:45,749 --> 00:34:50,789
But their usage of the L1 bytes will crowd out the other people.

547
00:34:50,789 --> 00:34:54,549
You will not be able to get a significant critical mass.

548
00:34:54,549 --> 00:34:57,109
You won't be—eight billion people won't be able to use it.

549
00:34:57,109 --> 00:35:01,029
So the fact that one or two people use it once or twice, that doesn't—

550
00:35:01,669 --> 00:35:03,909
That is such a mischaracterization.

551
00:35:04,789 --> 00:35:05,429
OK, so first of all—

552
00:35:05,429 --> 00:35:09,509
What's not a mischaracterization is that you can't get, like, eight billion people
to

553
00:35:09,509 --> 00:35:10,709
use the Lightning Network.

554
00:35:10,709 --> 00:35:12,709
I've never said that, and I would totally agree with you.

555
00:35:12,709 --> 00:35:13,429
Of course.

556
00:35:13,429 --> 00:35:15,429
No, eight billion people are not going to use Lightning.

557
00:35:15,509 --> 00:35:21,269
That's what I'm interested in, is if you can onboard eight billion happy users to
it.

558
00:35:21,269 --> 00:35:25,749
Yeah, the way lightning is going to take us to eight billion is lightning is the
central

559
00:35:25,749 --> 00:35:30,469
nervous system through which all these different mints and pools are going to talk
to each

560
00:35:30,469 --> 00:35:34,389
other, and at the bottom you have on-chain, and then they all talk to each other
like

561
00:35:34,389 --> 00:35:37,349
this, and they're intercompatible, and they all speak the language of lightning.

562
00:35:37,349 --> 00:35:39,749
That's an accurate description of what's happening today.

563
00:35:39,749 --> 00:35:41,349
That's what I think it's called.

564
00:35:42,229 --> 00:35:45,749
But, I mean, it's— I'm just describing the architecture of the ecosystem.

565
00:35:45,749 --> 00:35:46,949
So, for example, when I use, like—

566
00:35:46,949 --> 00:35:47,829
Incredible, thank you.

567
00:35:49,669 --> 00:35:54,789
Like, when I use— when I am transacting and buying things in the real world or on

568
00:35:54,789 --> 00:35:58,469
the internet, where people actually give me stuff, so it's not just some testnet
theory

569
00:35:58,469 --> 00:36:05,589
thing, I have eCash, OK, on a wallet, and the merchant is receiving Bitcoin, not
eCash.

570
00:36:05,589 --> 00:36:10,709
This is how it works, as I'm sure you know, and I can just go around and spend
privately.

571
00:36:11,349 --> 00:36:13,749
They receive L1 transactions.

572
00:36:13,749 --> 00:36:15,349
Not on e— not on cashew.

573
00:36:15,349 --> 00:36:15,989
No.

574
00:36:15,989 --> 00:36:16,789
No, they don't.

575
00:36:16,789 --> 00:36:19,189
No, cashew does not even understand what L1 is.

576
00:36:19,189 --> 00:36:19,989
I'm just asking about what you meant to say.

577
00:36:19,989 --> 00:36:22,629
You said they receive Bitcoin, they don't receive lightning, so I didn't know what

578
00:36:22,629 --> 00:36:23,269
you meant by that.

579
00:36:23,909 --> 00:36:26,469
Lightning is Bitcoin, so they receive lightning.

580
00:36:27,109 --> 00:36:29,669
Well, I don't— you're the one who— didn't you just say a moment ago, maybe I

581
00:36:29,669 --> 00:36:32,549
misheard what you said, but you said they do not get lightning, they get Bitcoin.

582
00:36:32,549 --> 00:36:34,389
So, that's why I asked, I have no idea.

583
00:36:34,389 --> 00:36:36,469
Yeah, sorry, they don't receive eCash.

584
00:36:36,469 --> 00:36:39,669
They don't receive a bearer instrument copy token thing.

585
00:36:39,669 --> 00:36:41,909
They receive actual Bitcoin in the form of lightning.

586
00:36:41,909 --> 00:36:47,029
Yeah, but again, I admit that it— I admit that it works at a small scale, but it
does

587
00:36:47,029 --> 00:36:50,229
not work at the required scale, which is the whole— the whole thing that I'm
interested

588
00:36:50,229 --> 00:36:50,469
in.

589
00:36:50,469 --> 00:36:53,029
No, I'm not interested in it working at a small scale.

590
00:36:53,029 --> 00:36:55,429
I'm like, you know, you've got to meet where the puck is going.

591
00:36:55,429 --> 00:36:59,109
Okay, so let me— let me read you some— some— just some things that have happened

592
00:36:59,109 --> 00:37:00,629
in lightning recently, and you can react to them.

593
00:37:00,629 --> 00:37:01,269
Sure.

594
00:37:01,269 --> 00:37:03,989
So, as far as lightning runs on a big scale.

595
00:37:03,989 --> 00:37:09,029
Okay, so Block has a— has a routing node, C equals.

596
00:37:09,029 --> 00:37:16,309
So, they just revealed that they make about 9.7% APR using this by providing
lightning

597
00:37:16,309 --> 00:37:17,509
services to people.

598
00:37:17,509 --> 00:37:22,069
So, we're talking tens of millions of dollars here, and they're earning
non-custodial

599
00:37:22,069 --> 00:37:23,189
yield through lightning.

600
00:37:23,829 --> 00:37:25,269
I think that's really interesting.

601
00:37:25,829 --> 00:37:29,749
Bitrefill, which is a smaller company, not at the same scale as Block, of course,
earns

602
00:37:29,749 --> 00:37:30,389
3.5%.

603
00:37:31,189 --> 00:37:35,509
So, this— this technology that you're saying is cope and is silly or whatever is

604
00:37:35,509 --> 00:37:39,109
allowing businesses to earn interest on their Bitcoin without giving it up.

605
00:37:39,109 --> 00:37:40,789
I think that's one really interesting thing.

606
00:37:41,509 --> 00:37:43,909
Another area is the micro-economy.

607
00:37:43,909 --> 00:37:49,589
So, Nostr has a micro-economy where people send each other zaps using the lightning
network.

608
00:37:49,589 --> 00:37:55,989
There have been 5 million zaps over the last couple years by people on Nostr
interacting

609
00:37:55,989 --> 00:37:58,629
with each other, tipping each other, buying things from each other.

610
00:37:58,629 --> 00:38:02,229
A totally permissionless micro-economy, impossible without the lightning network,

611
00:38:02,229 --> 00:38:03,669
completely impossible.

612
00:38:03,669 --> 00:38:04,789
Exchange adoption.

613
00:38:04,789 --> 00:38:08,549
You have Binance, the largest exchange in the world, uses lightning.

614
00:38:08,549 --> 00:38:11,669
You have exchanges like Coinbase, uses lightning.

615
00:38:11,669 --> 00:38:13,269
River uses lightning.

616
00:38:13,269 --> 00:38:19,429
You have companies like Steak and Shake, which just today literally reported a
massive increase

617
00:38:19,429 --> 00:38:24,149
in its sales— I mean, you can trust it or not— based on people coming in and using

618
00:38:24,149 --> 00:38:25,189
the lightning network.

619
00:38:25,189 --> 00:38:30,709
Now, my favorite one— this is the last one I'll give you just so you can react— is

620
00:38:30,709 --> 00:38:32,389
entire countries.

621
00:38:32,389 --> 00:38:38,229
So, when I went to Costa Rica and Kenya, what happens there is you can use apps like
Tando

622
00:38:38,229 --> 00:38:42,149
and Bitcoin Jungle, and you can live in Bitcoin through the lightning network, and
you can

623
00:38:42,149 --> 00:38:43,749
pay any merchant in the country.

624
00:38:43,749 --> 00:38:44,709
It's amazing.

625
00:38:44,709 --> 00:38:49,429
So, what happens is the merchant receives M-Pesa or Sinpe, the mobile money.

626
00:38:49,429 --> 00:38:51,829
They don't have to know what Bitcoin is at all or lightning.

627
00:38:51,829 --> 00:38:53,669
They don't have to know what that stuff is at all.

628
00:38:53,669 --> 00:38:58,469
You download this app, and you can actually use your Bitcoin, and it goes out in the
form

629
00:38:58,469 --> 00:39:01,269
of lightning, and the person receives the local fiat currency.

630
00:39:01,269 --> 00:39:06,069
And you can buy anything in the country, essentially, in Kenya and Costa Rica
because

631
00:39:06,069 --> 00:39:07,029
of the lightning network.

632
00:39:08,789 --> 00:39:12,069
These are not small-scale innovations is all I'm pushing back on.

633
00:39:12,069 --> 00:39:12,949
This is not Coke.

634
00:39:12,949 --> 00:39:14,709
This is really amazing.

635
00:39:14,709 --> 00:39:16,469
When did you first get into the lightning network?

636
00:39:17,829 --> 00:39:20,469
Well, I was able to start using it.

637
00:39:22,869 --> 00:39:27,669
I found it very hard to use until the summer of 2021 when I went to El Salvador.

638
00:39:27,669 --> 00:39:35,029
And back then, the Moon Wallet, which uses a submarine swap, so it's not kind of
fallen

639
00:39:35,029 --> 00:39:36,149
off in terms of a lightning wallet.

640
00:39:36,149 --> 00:39:37,829
I still think it's a great on-chain wallet.

641
00:39:37,829 --> 00:39:41,989
But at the time, it worked really well, and I was walking around El Salvador pretty
blown

642
00:39:41,989 --> 00:39:43,749
away by how well the lightning network worked.

643
00:39:43,749 --> 00:39:46,869
Like, I was able to just basically fund my whole trip on it.

644
00:39:48,869 --> 00:39:49,989
Of course, right?

645
00:39:49,989 --> 00:39:54,949
The Moon Wallet, the submarine swap means that you make an on-chain transaction in
order

646
00:39:54,949 --> 00:39:57,109
to help the lightning.

647
00:39:57,189 --> 00:40:01,589
So it's a bit of a, you know, it's kind of like every lightning transaction comes
with

648
00:40:01,589 --> 00:40:02,709
an on-chain transaction.

649
00:40:02,709 --> 00:40:03,509
So it's a little bit of a...

650
00:40:03,509 --> 00:40:08,309
Well, that's why I said, so now today you would use stuff like Phoenix, or you would

651
00:40:08,309 --> 00:40:14,229
use Zeus, or soon, Wallet of Satoshi is coming back into the United States with a
self-custodial

652
00:40:14,229 --> 00:40:16,149
lightning wallet, which is pretty amazing news.

653
00:40:16,149 --> 00:40:18,949
Showing the growth and thriving of the lightning network.

654
00:40:18,949 --> 00:40:22,389
Listen, I can tell that you're very passionate about the lightning network, which is
great.

655
00:40:22,389 --> 00:40:24,629
And I'm just going to tell you my lightning story, okay?

656
00:40:24,629 --> 00:40:29,509
And this is, I wrote, I took note, and to prepare for this, I wrote all this down.

657
00:40:29,509 --> 00:40:32,309
And honestly, I cut a lot of it because it goes on and on.

658
00:40:32,309 --> 00:40:33,269
And I'm going to skip some points.

659
00:40:33,269 --> 00:40:36,709
But basically, I first heard about the lightning network in 2015.

660
00:40:36,709 --> 00:40:38,549
And I was very excited about it.

661
00:40:38,549 --> 00:40:42,229
But even back then, there were one or two things that were a little weird about it,

662
00:40:42,229 --> 00:40:47,029
such as on Reddit, which were the huge discussion forum of the time.

663
00:40:47,909 --> 00:40:49,189
Everyone had a strong opinion.

664
00:40:49,189 --> 00:40:50,949
The large blockers all hated it.

665
00:40:50,949 --> 00:40:52,469
Small blockers all loved it.

666
00:40:52,469 --> 00:41:01,189
But the only video on YouTube, which was Tej Draja's SFBitDevs lecture explaining
what

667
00:41:01,189 --> 00:41:05,509
the lightning network is, that only had 320 views.

668
00:41:06,149 --> 00:41:10,629
And at least four or five of those views were mine because I watched it a few times
over

669
00:41:10,629 --> 00:41:11,029
and over.

670
00:41:11,749 --> 00:41:15,509
And I was like, why does everyone have such a strong opinion about this thing that
only

671
00:41:15,509 --> 00:41:17,509
has 300 views?

672
00:41:17,509 --> 00:41:19,029
No one's watching the YouTube video.

673
00:41:19,029 --> 00:41:21,189
And I was like, I don't know, maybe YouTube doesn't count.

674
00:41:21,589 --> 00:41:22,869
I don't know what's going on with that.

675
00:41:22,869 --> 00:41:29,429
But I really liked it so much that I had this thing, this peer-to-peer Oracle
Bitcoin prediction

676
00:41:29,429 --> 00:41:32,149
market thing that I'm still very passionate about.

677
00:41:32,709 --> 00:41:37,349
But I rewrote the trading so that you could do trading on the lightning network.

678
00:41:38,389 --> 00:41:46,389
So I had this completely new type of market scoring rule trade off-chain on the
lightning

679
00:41:46,389 --> 00:41:47,189
network.

680
00:41:47,189 --> 00:41:49,269
And I wrote this idea.

681
00:41:49,269 --> 00:41:54,949
And that was March 2016, five years before you were using Moon and wherever.

682
00:41:54,949 --> 00:42:01,109
And then in April 2018, I wrote this big post about fraud proofs, solve this problem
of

683
00:42:01,109 --> 00:42:06,469
L1 fraud proof blocks, a problem that Eric Lombroso and Luke Dashjr. thought were
kind

684
00:42:06,469 --> 00:42:09,029
of like almost impossible to solve, which they're right.

685
00:42:09,029 --> 00:42:13,669
It is impossible unless you have a different way of connecting to people to learn
about,

686
00:42:13,669 --> 00:42:15,509
which is in this case, the payment channels.

687
00:42:16,309 --> 00:42:19,749
So I was originally very, very, very excited about it.

688
00:42:20,709 --> 00:42:22,869
I'm just as excited as you are now.

689
00:42:23,589 --> 00:42:27,429
But then I started encountering all these huge problems with it.

690
00:42:27,429 --> 00:42:30,709
And these weird questions would pop up and people would have no.

691
00:42:30,709 --> 00:42:36,789
So one of the things that happened was I went to an Arcapulco in 2019, where I saw
wallet,

692
00:42:36,789 --> 00:42:39,269
I think it was Blue Wallet and Wallet of Satoshi the first time.

693
00:42:40,469 --> 00:42:41,749
And everyone was going around.

694
00:42:41,749 --> 00:42:47,589
People were giving each other four sats or 10 sats or even one sat using the
Lightning

695
00:42:47,589 --> 00:42:47,909
Network.

696
00:42:47,909 --> 00:42:50,789
And I was like, oh, that doesn't make any sense because you have to because I knew
how it

697
00:42:50,789 --> 00:42:51,349
worked.

698
00:42:51,349 --> 00:42:54,869
You had to open channel first and fund the channel and you have to wait for it to
confirm.

699
00:42:55,509 --> 00:42:58,629
And I thought, oh, so I asked people, is it custodial?

700
00:42:58,629 --> 00:42:59,909
Does it really use the Lightning Network?

701
00:43:01,029 --> 00:43:02,069
None of the people there.

702
00:43:02,069 --> 00:43:05,109
This is a huge group of people who are so excited to use the Lightning Network.

703
00:43:05,909 --> 00:43:07,109
I was as excited as you were.

704
00:43:07,989 --> 00:43:12,149
No one there had any idea what that even meant about custodial versus non-custodial.

705
00:43:12,149 --> 00:43:15,989
And then year after year after year, you hear about people using Lightning Network
and then

706
00:43:15,989 --> 00:43:17,269
you ask them, oh, what wallet do you use?

707
00:43:17,269 --> 00:43:18,949
They say Wallet of Satoshi.

708
00:43:18,949 --> 00:43:23,989
As you and I know, and probably many people in the audience know, the custodial
Lightning

709
00:43:23,989 --> 00:43:25,509
does not use the Lightning.

710
00:43:25,509 --> 00:43:26,629
There's no HTLCs.

711
00:43:26,629 --> 00:43:28,069
There's no funding transaction.

712
00:43:28,069 --> 00:43:29,589
There is no Bitcoin transaction.

713
00:43:29,589 --> 00:43:32,789
It is just a database on their end.

714
00:43:32,789 --> 00:43:34,389
So there's no use of Bitcoin.

715
00:43:34,389 --> 00:43:35,109
There's no usage.

716
00:43:35,829 --> 00:43:36,709
That's not true at all.

717
00:43:37,669 --> 00:43:40,389
You use invoices or Lightning addresses.

718
00:43:40,389 --> 00:43:40,789
But the invoices don't do anything.

719
00:43:40,789 --> 00:43:42,629
So just to be clear for the audience.

720
00:43:44,389 --> 00:43:44,629
OK.

721
00:43:44,629 --> 00:43:46,709
So if I'm a master today, and...

722
00:43:46,709 --> 00:43:48,629
I'll look through it for yourself and you can determine.

723
00:43:48,629 --> 00:43:50,069
No, you should use the technology.

724
00:43:53,109 --> 00:43:56,709
It's not possible to send someone four SATs on the Lightning Network when they have
not

725
00:43:56,709 --> 00:43:58,069
joined the Lightning Network yet.

726
00:43:58,069 --> 00:43:58,869
I'm not arguing that.

727
00:43:58,869 --> 00:44:02,709
What I'm arguing is the fact that even custodial Lightning uses Lightning.

728
00:44:02,709 --> 00:44:12,709
So, for example, if I'm on Primal, or Paul's on Primal, paul.primal.net, OK, and
that's

729
00:44:12,709 --> 00:44:22,469
his Lightning address and it's custodial, I can send you money from my Albi Hub
mobile

730
00:44:22,469 --> 00:44:24,149
self-custodial Lightning wallet.

731
00:44:24,149 --> 00:44:24,629
It works.

732
00:44:24,629 --> 00:44:25,349
The money moves.

733
00:44:25,349 --> 00:44:27,349
So the money goes to my custodian.

734
00:44:27,349 --> 00:44:28,069
It doesn't go to me.

735
00:44:29,029 --> 00:44:32,709
You are missing the point.

736
00:44:32,709 --> 00:44:33,189
It goes to...

737
00:44:33,189 --> 00:44:36,389
I think you have been misled.

738
00:44:36,389 --> 00:44:39,429
I'm sorry to say this, but I think you've been misled by other...

739
00:44:39,429 --> 00:44:40,549
I've not been misled.

740
00:44:40,549 --> 00:44:41,749
I know exactly what's happening.

741
00:44:42,629 --> 00:44:47,669
You're literally saying the Lightning Network doesn't actually carry the value to
the custodial

742
00:44:47,669 --> 00:44:48,309
holder of...

743
00:44:49,189 --> 00:44:50,149
I'm a part of that, dude.

744
00:44:50,149 --> 00:44:51,909
I understand what the word custodial means.

745
00:44:51,909 --> 00:44:52,789
But it goes to...

746
00:44:52,789 --> 00:44:56,869
It moves out of my wallet to someone else over the Lightning Network.

747
00:44:56,869 --> 00:44:58,469
Not to me, though.

748
00:44:58,469 --> 00:44:59,269
Not to the user.

749
00:44:59,989 --> 00:45:05,109
Well, if you're using a self-custodial Albi Primal, you know, Nostra-powered
account,

750
00:45:05,109 --> 00:45:05,669
of course it does.

751
00:45:05,669 --> 00:45:06,789
It goes right to you right away.

752
00:45:06,789 --> 00:45:07,509
It works perfectly.

753
00:45:07,509 --> 00:45:10,389
We're talking about the custodial Lightning right now.

754
00:45:11,509 --> 00:45:12,149
Are we not?

755
00:45:12,149 --> 00:45:13,509
Well, I was making a point.

756
00:45:13,509 --> 00:45:15,509
Like, even custodial Lightning uses Lightning.

757
00:45:15,509 --> 00:45:18,309
It's not like it uses on-chain Bitcoin or Monero or something.

758
00:45:18,309 --> 00:45:22,549
It's possible that if every leg is custodial, then it does not use the Bitcoin
Network or

759
00:45:22,549 --> 00:45:23,509
the Lightning Network.

760
00:45:23,509 --> 00:45:26,309
So it's only the non-custodial parts that use the Lightning Network.

761
00:45:26,309 --> 00:45:30,309
Paul, it's coming from me, a self-custodial Lightning user.

762
00:45:30,309 --> 00:45:32,629
This is not true at all, man.

763
00:45:32,629 --> 00:45:36,389
Well, I mean, I think the audience will have to take some time and take a deep
breath and

764
00:45:36,389 --> 00:45:39,349
take out a pen and a piece of paper and try to work out for themselves if they
think...

765
00:45:39,349 --> 00:45:40,869
But what I'm trying to say is that...

766
00:45:42,069 --> 00:45:43,669
One sec, one sec, one sec, one sec.

767
00:45:43,669 --> 00:45:50,789
Paul, Paul, I don't think anyone here is arguing that custodial to custodial is
somehow ending

768
00:45:50,789 --> 00:45:52,149
up in a non-custodial wallet.

769
00:45:52,149 --> 00:45:54,389
But what Alex's point is, if I'm sending...

770
00:45:54,389 --> 00:45:58,869
Say I'm using Wallet of Satoshi, a custodial service, and I'm sending to Alex, who
is on

771
00:45:58,869 --> 00:46:01,909
Zeus or something, he is receiving Bitcoin at the other end of that transaction.

772
00:46:01,909 --> 00:46:03,669
From Wallet of Satoshi, but you could use anything.

773
00:46:03,669 --> 00:46:05,029
You could be using Visa.

774
00:46:05,029 --> 00:46:07,749
You could be using Visa or any other thing.

775
00:46:07,749 --> 00:46:10,309
But you couldn't be using Visa because...

776
00:46:10,309 --> 00:46:13,109
How does a Visa payment get to Alex's Zeus wallet?

777
00:46:16,149 --> 00:46:19,509
In order to pay him, you need to know about how he wants to receive the money.

778
00:46:19,509 --> 00:46:22,549
So he'll say, I want to receive the money in my Lightning wallet.

779
00:46:22,549 --> 00:46:27,509
Then you say, you have your own relationship with Wallet of Satoshi custodian, and
you

780
00:46:27,509 --> 00:46:28,949
can settle up however you like.

781
00:46:30,869 --> 00:46:31,109
All right.

782
00:46:31,109 --> 00:46:32,869
Well, Paul, here's where I think you...

783
00:46:33,589 --> 00:46:34,069
Can I just...

784
00:46:34,069 --> 00:46:38,229
I think that this is where I think using the stuff and interacting with people
will...

785
00:46:38,229 --> 00:46:42,229
I haven't even gotten to any of my critiques of Lightning, but we can talk about it.

786
00:46:42,229 --> 00:46:42,629
That's okay.

787
00:46:42,629 --> 00:46:43,429
We'll get there.

788
00:46:43,429 --> 00:46:44,789
But here's the key thing.

789
00:46:44,789 --> 00:46:45,669
You talk about Visa.

790
00:46:46,229 --> 00:46:49,589
What's so cool, even about custodial Lightning, is it doesn't require ID.

791
00:46:49,589 --> 00:46:54,949
So even if I'm a newbie on Nostr, and I'm at Alex at Primal, and you're at Paul at
Primal,

792
00:46:54,949 --> 00:47:00,309
the fact that we can permissionlessly share information without having to put in
information

793
00:47:00,309 --> 00:47:03,349
or have a Visa card, to your point, is quite beautiful.

794
00:47:03,349 --> 00:47:04,949
When you're using Lightning, yes.

795
00:47:06,789 --> 00:47:08,949
Well, I mean, this is an expedited congestion hour.

796
00:47:08,949 --> 00:47:12,789
I'm getting run over by 10,000 points, and there's hardly enough time to refute them
all.

797
00:47:12,789 --> 00:47:13,109
I would just...

798
00:47:13,109 --> 00:47:15,189
Well, I have to respond to this idea.

799
00:47:15,749 --> 00:47:16,069
All right.

800
00:47:17,189 --> 00:47:21,349
No, just to finish the point, they're going to journey, and eventually you'll learn
how

801
00:47:21,349 --> 00:47:24,869
to self-custody it, and then it works.

802
00:47:24,869 --> 00:47:25,589
I agree with that.

803
00:47:25,589 --> 00:47:27,589
I agree that we should ramp people up.

804
00:47:27,589 --> 00:47:30,869
And it doesn't have to be self-custodial on day one.

805
00:47:30,869 --> 00:47:33,269
I think that's a huge mistake, and that we should ramp people up.

806
00:47:33,269 --> 00:47:34,149
I completely agree.

807
00:47:34,149 --> 00:47:37,429
What I disagree with is that this is somehow evidence that Lightning Network works.

808
00:47:37,429 --> 00:47:38,869
It's actually the exact opposite.

809
00:47:38,869 --> 00:47:40,869
It's evidence that it does not work, and that it's a sham.

810
00:47:41,429 --> 00:47:44,389
And that we're all lying to our community.

811
00:47:44,389 --> 00:47:44,629
Okay.

812
00:47:44,629 --> 00:47:47,829
So why don't we go back to you responding to all the things I just told you about
how

813
00:47:47,829 --> 00:47:48,869
Lightning's changing the world.

814
00:47:48,869 --> 00:47:49,189
I'm trying.

815
00:47:49,189 --> 00:47:49,909
I'm trying.

816
00:47:49,909 --> 00:47:50,309
Go ahead.

817
00:47:50,309 --> 00:47:51,029
I am trying.

818
00:47:51,029 --> 00:47:51,669
There's a lot.

819
00:47:51,669 --> 00:47:52,549
There's so many things.

820
00:47:52,549 --> 00:47:54,789
You know, my pen is going to run out of ink, I think.

821
00:47:54,789 --> 00:47:56,149
But what it interests you...

822
00:47:56,149 --> 00:47:57,189
You brought up Nostr.

823
00:47:57,189 --> 00:48:01,909
I don't know if it would interest you to know that Fiat Joff, co-creator of Nostr,

824
00:48:01,909 --> 00:48:03,349
he was one of the first people to tell me...

825
00:48:03,349 --> 00:48:05,509
He's on my little story of timeline of people who said,

826
00:48:05,509 --> 00:48:07,589
Lightning Network should be burnt to the ground,

827
00:48:07,589 --> 00:48:09,509
and it would be better if it had never been invented.

828
00:48:09,909 --> 00:48:10,549
He's a huge creator.

829
00:48:10,549 --> 00:48:11,109
That's a great point.

830
00:48:11,669 --> 00:48:12,069
Yeah.

831
00:48:12,069 --> 00:48:12,389
Yeah.

832
00:48:12,389 --> 00:48:12,949
Great point.

833
00:48:12,949 --> 00:48:16,949
And he cannot stop other people from joining Nostr and creating Zaps.

834
00:48:16,949 --> 00:48:19,589
Because that was something that GD55 did.

835
00:48:19,589 --> 00:48:23,349
The point is, this is someone that you respect because they like Nostr.

836
00:48:23,349 --> 00:48:25,189
You said, Nostr is this great thing.

837
00:48:25,189 --> 00:48:27,749
But I'm just saying, by the way, the creator of Nostr...

838
00:48:27,749 --> 00:48:31,589
I'm trying to just paint a little bit of picture here that it might be possible that

839
00:48:32,869 --> 00:48:35,029
there might be some flaws with...

840
00:48:35,029 --> 00:48:37,029
So, one thing is...

841
00:48:37,029 --> 00:48:40,229
And the other thing is, Taz Dreiser came on to what Bitcoin did.

842
00:48:40,229 --> 00:48:43,749
And he gave this very sober account of the Lightning.

843
00:48:43,749 --> 00:48:46,149
And he started talking about how there's lots of things that can't be said.

844
00:48:46,149 --> 00:48:48,709
Everyone's like, Lightning is going to be the best thing ever.

845
00:48:48,709 --> 00:48:51,669
And then he says, well, actually, the Lightning Network can't do that.

846
00:48:51,669 --> 00:48:52,949
Referring to a long list of things.

847
00:48:55,589 --> 00:48:57,109
You're quoting this stuff from forever ago.

848
00:48:57,109 --> 00:48:59,669
Just on that point, Paul, because I can't let this slide.

849
00:48:59,669 --> 00:49:02,469
You just said Fiat Joff said Lightning sucks or whatever.

850
00:49:02,469 --> 00:49:02,949
Yeah.

851
00:49:02,949 --> 00:49:07,269
Just now, while we were talking, here's Fiat Joff on Nostr.

852
00:49:07,269 --> 00:49:09,509
I just sent him money over the Lightning Network.

853
00:49:09,509 --> 00:49:13,029
OK, so he hasn't set up and he uses it all the time.

854
00:49:13,029 --> 00:49:13,349
I know.

855
00:49:13,349 --> 00:49:15,429
But why do you think that that's irrelevant at all?

856
00:49:15,989 --> 00:49:16,949
I would like to get into your head.

857
00:49:16,949 --> 00:49:18,389
I don't think that's notable.

858
00:49:18,389 --> 00:49:21,509
You think it's more notable what he said years ago?

859
00:49:23,189 --> 00:49:23,749
This is so funny.

860
00:49:24,549 --> 00:49:27,109
But you're talking about something that happened in 2019.

861
00:49:27,109 --> 00:49:29,349
Yeah, Lightning didn't function in 2019.

862
00:49:29,349 --> 00:49:30,789
So, of course, people were frustrated.

863
00:49:30,789 --> 00:49:31,749
I told you I couldn't even...

864
00:49:31,749 --> 00:49:34,949
It was almost unworkable until 2021.

865
00:49:34,949 --> 00:49:39,509
And even then, it only worked kind of in a weird way where it didn't really work
properly.

866
00:49:39,509 --> 00:49:43,429
It takes a long time for something like this so sophisticated to get up and running.

867
00:49:43,429 --> 00:49:46,709
Like Fiat Joff has an opinion that no one should use Lightning.

868
00:49:47,429 --> 00:49:52,149
He has looked into it and he's decided that he's put his reputation on the fact

869
00:49:52,149 --> 00:49:53,429
that it's not going to work.

870
00:49:53,429 --> 00:49:54,869
That's why I brought it up.

871
00:49:54,869 --> 00:49:57,349
And yet he uses it all the time, every day.

872
00:50:00,069 --> 00:50:00,709
No, he does not.

873
00:50:01,669 --> 00:50:03,749
I mean, you should talk to him and ask him.

874
00:50:04,789 --> 00:50:06,549
I think we should move on from the Fiat Joff thing.

875
00:50:10,508 --> 00:50:13,508
But what we're talking about is something that Fiat Joff said a long time ago.

876
00:50:13,508 --> 00:50:16,508
We don't have him here to tell us his opinion today. So let's move on from the Fiat
Joff thing.

877
00:50:16,508 --> 00:50:22,508
I'll tell you this, though. Fiat Joff, he co-runs a telegram group called
Lightning's Best Moments,

878
00:50:22,508 --> 00:50:26,508
where he just has endless screenshots, day after day, of Lightning Network not
working

879
00:50:26,508 --> 00:50:32,508
and in various embarrassing situations. I have an article where I document lots and
lots of quotes

880
00:50:32,508 --> 00:50:37,508
from people across time, which is called the LN Black Pill. So if you go to
Truthcoin.info,

881
00:50:37,508 --> 00:50:42,508
you can look it up. It's called the LN Black Pill. The first section is just quotes
from Lightning developers

882
00:50:42,508 --> 00:50:46,508
who say that the Lightning Network is not going to work.

883
00:50:46,508 --> 00:50:49,508
Well, it worked just now. Me and a different...

884
00:50:49,508 --> 00:50:55,508
I want you to understand what I'm saying, sir, about the fact that you have tapped a
button.

885
00:50:55,508 --> 00:51:01,508
I mean, you didn't even know that the... I'm talking about the real Lightning
Network with HTLCs

886
00:51:01,508 --> 00:51:04,508
versus custodial Lightning Network.

887
00:51:04,508 --> 00:51:08,508
This isn't custodial. Neither Fiat Joff or I use custodial Lightning.

888
00:51:08,508 --> 00:51:13,508
That was a self-custodial Albi hub product that I just used to make that payment.

889
00:51:13,508 --> 00:51:18,508
I mean, so you say. But let me continue my story here for a second.

890
00:51:18,508 --> 00:51:19,508
Okay, go ahead.

891
00:51:19,508 --> 00:51:25,508
I was originally very excited. And then Tadge did his interview on what Bitcoin did,

892
00:51:25,508 --> 00:51:29,508
and he was like, actually, it's not that great.

893
00:51:29,508 --> 00:51:36,508
And then I had some questions back and forth on the Bitcoin dev mailing list in
2022, in February.

894
00:51:36,508 --> 00:51:39,508
And some people asked about, they asked some questions about BIP300.

895
00:51:39,508 --> 00:51:44,508
And then they said, oh, what about this? And they compared it to Lightning.

896
00:51:44,508 --> 00:51:49,508
So I redid the numbers with Lightning, and the onboarding situation is terrible with
Lightning.

897
00:51:49,508 --> 00:51:55,508
You cannot onboard. So this led to a long list of problems that I had with the
Lightning Network.

898
00:51:55,508 --> 00:51:59,508
And it led to an earlier post that I wrote called Lightning Limitations.

899
00:51:59,508 --> 00:52:05,508
And then ever since writing that post, you get all these people have done like a
panel or various...

900
00:52:05,508 --> 00:52:10,508
And this is stuff that I've documented on this Ellen Blackbill video.

901
00:52:10,508 --> 00:52:17,508
But another thing that later happened was someone who worked for a Lightning
company, an engineer,

902
00:52:17,508 --> 00:52:21,508
two of them, in fact, they messaged me. One of them was Mike Tidwell.

903
00:52:21,508 --> 00:52:23,508
I don't want to say who the other one was.

904
00:52:23,508 --> 00:52:27,508
But they messaged me and said, well, you know, I'm actually an engineer on
Lightning.

905
00:52:27,508 --> 00:52:32,508
And it wasn't until I read your post that I realized how Lightning actually works.

906
00:52:32,508 --> 00:52:36,508
And I realized that you were right, that actually it's probably not going to work.

907
00:52:36,508 --> 00:52:43,508
And then I went to present at MIT. I was invited to the MIT Bitcoin Expo.

908
00:52:43,508 --> 00:52:47,508
And Rene Picard, the author of the book Mastering Lightning, he was there.

909
00:52:47,508 --> 00:52:50,508
He saw my talk and he said, oh, this is great. What a great talk.

910
00:52:50,508 --> 00:52:54,508
Then he was giving a talk. So he went to my talk. So I went to his talk.

911
00:52:54,508 --> 00:52:59,508
His talk was about problems with the Lightning Network. It was an extremely sober
talk.

912
00:52:59,508 --> 00:53:05,508
And not only was the talk very dispiriting, but I had the opportunity to talk to him
later in the hallway.

913
00:53:05,508 --> 00:53:12,508
And he basically said that it's annoying for him because if he wants to talk about
engineering problems with Lightning,

914
00:53:12,508 --> 00:53:17,508
he often doesn't get invited to speak or he gets de-emphasized, he thought.

915
00:53:17,508 --> 00:53:21,508
And I thought, well, this is terrible. What a terrible situation.

916
00:53:21,508 --> 00:53:26,508
And then the final thing would be this thing with Barack, where he's someone who
clearly understands.

917
00:53:26,508 --> 00:53:30,508
He crashed the Lightning Network for fun twice. He clearly understands the Lightning
Network.

918
00:53:30,508 --> 00:53:34,508
He crashed one implementation of it. But sure, go on.

919
00:53:34,508 --> 00:53:41,508
Yeah. And he created Arc. And he said that the motivation for creating Arc was that
he was trying to fix problems with Lightning,

920
00:53:41,508 --> 00:53:44,508
but he couldn't do it without creating a completely separate thing.

921
00:53:44,508 --> 00:53:53,508
And then right after that, got a bunch of people to, as if, you know, it's kind of
like in 1984 where they say we've always been at war with East Asia or whatever.

922
00:53:53,508 --> 00:53:58,508
A bunch of people who have just been saying before Lightning is the best thing ever.
They just switched to Arc.

923
00:53:58,508 --> 00:54:02,508
So you may be right about every single thing that you could say ever.

924
00:54:02,508 --> 00:54:08,508
And I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of people who are fans of Lightning on
this show who I am not going to convince.

925
00:54:08,508 --> 00:54:15,508
And I just have to say that, you know, God did not put me on this planet to be an
incredibly persuasive person.

926
00:54:15,508 --> 00:54:21,508
And I understand that and I accept that, you know, painful though it is to not
always be persuasive.

927
00:54:21,508 --> 00:54:26,508
But I think I have more fun just for me getting my own accurate picture of the
world.

928
00:54:26,508 --> 00:54:33,508
And I enjoy debate because I think it's fun to bounce ideas off people and stress
test the ideas.

929
00:54:33,508 --> 00:54:37,508
One of the best things you can do to an idea is throw it out there and say.

930
00:54:37,508 --> 00:54:44,508
But I'm just telling you from my point of view, it looks like this whole thing is
just a complete Theranos style scam that is just a waste of time.

931
00:54:44,508 --> 00:54:49,508
One more thing, Danny, and then we move on. But like, OK, great. So all the things I
read you and I didn't even mention the biggest one of all,

932
00:54:49,508 --> 00:54:57,508
which is that this year imminently any day or week now, all the square readers in
the United States, which is millions of units, will accept lightning payments.

933
00:54:57,508 --> 00:55:02,508
So or eCash payments, which is one of the coolest part about eCash is that it
speaks lightning.

934
00:55:02,508 --> 00:55:10,508
So that means that anybody in the United States this summer will be able to go to
their local coffee shop or whatever, assuming that, you know, your coffee shop has a
square reader.

935
00:55:10,508 --> 00:55:13,508
And you can use eCash to buy your coffee, which helps us fight surveillance
capitalism.

936
00:55:13,508 --> 00:55:22,508
So all these massive rollouts and upgrades done by finance, Coinbase Square, you
know, if if lightning doesn't work, what what explains that to you?

937
00:55:22,508 --> 00:55:26,508
Why do you think they're all adopting this thing that you think is a failure?

938
00:55:26,508 --> 00:55:28,508
Can you can you shed more light on that?

939
00:55:28,508 --> 00:55:32,508
Yeah, well, this whole thing is a huge group think it's exactly what I mentioned
before.

940
00:55:32,508 --> 00:55:35,508
This is a cultural contagious idea.

941
00:55:35,508 --> 00:55:41,508
So, like, for example, the exchanges did not like adopt lightning because they
really wanted to.

942
00:55:41,508 --> 00:55:46,508
They dragged their feet because they think they know that it doesn't really help
that much.

943
00:55:46,508 --> 00:55:52,508
Now, after a huge amount of of cultural attention and R&D effort.

944
00:55:52,508 --> 00:55:58,508
The Lightning Network has achieved enough of a level of quality that for some people
they may want to.

945
00:55:58,508 --> 00:56:02,508
Deposit or withdraw or move money among exchanges very quickly.

946
00:56:02,508 --> 00:56:11,508
So but you can see it's because the technology is so bad that they drag their feet
for so long on actually implementing the Lightning Network.

947
00:56:11,508 --> 00:56:13,508
And I, you know, I'm not sure we don't know.

948
00:56:13,508 --> 00:56:18,508
It's hard for us to figure out with the on chain transactions, you kind of see the
fee.

949
00:56:18,508 --> 00:56:22,508
And even then, you don't know, you know, what counts as real.

950
00:56:22,508 --> 00:56:28,508
I certainly think the bit refill data, it would be the most reliable because I can't
imagine.

951
00:56:28,508 --> 00:56:32,508
Just the way their business model works, their data is probably accurate.

952
00:56:32,508 --> 00:56:39,508
So I think that they they would know if you actually look at Serge's presentation.

953
00:56:39,508 --> 00:56:44,508
He emphasizes that actually there's more Litecoin payments than Bitcoin Lightning
payments.

954
00:56:44,508 --> 00:56:49,508
But that's not to say that the reason why Lightning doesn't work is because I've
actually investigated the details of how it works.

955
00:56:49,508 --> 00:56:52,508
And there's not enough bytes on L1 to onboard everyone.

956
00:56:52,508 --> 00:56:55,508
There's a huge risk as to who you open the channel with.

957
00:56:55,508 --> 00:57:00,508
They can lock your funds for two weeks or even steal from you, depending on how they
surround you in the channel.

958
00:57:00,508 --> 00:57:06,508
There's a huge inbound liquidity problem, which is counterintuitive and has terrible
user experience and it's expensive.

959
00:57:06,508 --> 00:57:11,508
The HCLCs consume so many bytes that they cannot really make.

960
00:57:11,508 --> 00:57:14,508
If the L1 fee rate is a certain amount, they did this.

961
00:57:14,508 --> 00:57:21,508
You saw this with ordinals where they so they're sometimes the payments fail, the
routing and the payment rate.

962
00:57:22,508 --> 00:57:27,508
It has to be near zero to be viable, but instead it's very high.

963
00:57:27,508 --> 00:57:39,508
The fake custodial Lightning that has tricked everyone into being dishonest and to
just basically misrepresenting what the Lightning network is and what it does.

964
00:57:39,508 --> 00:57:42,508
Basically, you know, the uptake is still pretty low.

965
00:57:42,508 --> 00:57:46,508
The privacy is terrible, according to what this is the last time I looked into it.

966
00:57:46,508 --> 00:57:50,508
So I looked into it and I saw, oh, yeah, again, I saw Lightning limitations.

967
00:57:50,508 --> 00:57:54,508
I saw a panel and there was Matt Corallo and he said, you know.

968
00:57:55,508 --> 00:57:58,508
That it's actually it's going to be difficult to get the privacy.

969
00:57:58,508 --> 00:58:06,508
So I get my information from what I regard as the top experts, and I know that it
takes a long time to filter down to the masses.

970
00:58:06,508 --> 00:58:13,508
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971
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987
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988
00:59:22,508 --> 00:59:26,508
You're going to cite Matt Corallo here?

989
00:59:26,508 --> 00:59:28,508
As an expert on Lightning?

990
00:59:28,508 --> 00:59:29,508
Yeah.

991
00:59:29,508 --> 00:59:30,508
Yeah.

992
00:59:30,508 --> 00:59:33,508
No, no, no. I mean, no, meaning to back up what you're saying about Lightning being
a failure.

993
00:59:33,508 --> 00:59:34,508
You're going to cite him on that?

994
00:59:34,508 --> 00:59:42,508
Didn't I just tell you that he said in this talk that Lightning has a long way to go
to be private or have any decent privacy?

995
00:59:42,508 --> 00:59:43,508
That's what he said.

996
00:59:43,508 --> 00:59:45,508
So I cite him as an expert on Lightning.

997
00:59:45,508 --> 00:59:46,508
Yeah.

998
00:59:46,508 --> 00:59:49,508
I mean, we should all be critical of Lightning, but he also works full time on
Lightning as his job.

999
00:59:49,508 --> 00:59:50,508
He gave a talk.

1000
00:59:50,508 --> 00:59:52,508
Did you attend TabConf ever?

1001
00:59:52,508 --> 00:59:53,508
I'm curious.

1002
00:59:53,508 --> 00:59:55,508
I don't remember seeing you there.

1003
00:59:55,508 --> 00:59:57,508
No, but my colleagues do.

1004
00:59:57,508 --> 00:59:58,508
Well, I'm aware.

1005
00:59:58,508 --> 00:59:59,508
We sponsor it every year.

1006
00:59:59,508 --> 01:00:00,508
It's a great conference.

1007
01:00:00,508 --> 01:00:01,508
I haven't been able to come.

1008
01:00:01,508 --> 01:00:09,508
Matt Corallo has given a talk every year called Lightning is Broken AF, and
sometimes he changes the title and he says what I'm saying.

1009
01:00:09,508 --> 01:00:10,508
Yeah, he fixes it.

1010
01:00:10,508 --> 01:00:12,508
His job is to help make it better, and he does a great job of it.

1011
01:00:12,508 --> 01:00:14,508
Exactly.

1012
01:00:14,508 --> 01:00:19,508
And so Matt, I think, is brilliant, and he has been very critical of Lightning for a
long time.

1013
01:00:19,508 --> 01:00:26,508
I just did a show with him in Vegas a couple of weeks ago, and he is the most
bullish I've ever heard him on Lightning at the moment.

1014
01:00:27,508 --> 01:00:35,508
I want to get back to one really important key point, which is I think partially why
you guys are talking past each other on this.

1015
01:00:35,508 --> 01:00:40,508
When you say that Lightning is not going to work, Paul, what do you mean by that
precisely?

1016
01:00:40,508 --> 01:00:46,508
Because I don't think many people who are proponents of the Lightning Network are
saying this is like the golden bullet to fix Bitcoin.

1017
01:00:46,508 --> 01:00:47,508
Right, that's what I mean.

1018
01:00:47,508 --> 01:00:53,508
It's going to scale to 8 billion people, but it can still be a very important tool
in the stack of Bitcoin and not have failed.

1019
01:00:53,508 --> 01:00:58,508
Indeed, and I wrote that fraud proof thing, which would require payment channels.

1020
01:00:58,508 --> 01:01:03,508
So that would be one use for it that is not – I don't know if anyone will ever care
about fraud proofs.

1021
01:01:03,508 --> 01:01:15,508
But yeah, I mean the golden bullet, and I think it is represented as the L2, and it
is represented as having all these desirable qualities that it doesn't have.

1022
01:01:15,508 --> 01:01:27,508
And I do think it counters the culture of truth, which I see as necessary if any
enterprise is going to succeed.

1023
01:01:27,508 --> 01:01:30,508
It has to be willing to be honest.

1024
01:01:30,508 --> 01:01:39,508
It's true that a lot of people can say, oh, I'm critical of the Lightning Network in
a way that will let them collect a salary for another year.

1025
01:01:39,508 --> 01:01:46,508
But very few people are able to be honest with the Lightning Network and saying, we
just shouldn't do this at all, which is my guess.

1026
01:01:46,508 --> 01:01:54,508
And one of the reasons why is the silver bullet thing hits two ideas at once, which
is you scale to 8 billion people.

1027
01:01:54,508 --> 01:02:01,508
Not only does money have network effects, but any tech stack also has network
effects.

1028
01:02:01,508 --> 01:02:10,508
So as a certain L2 becomes more popular, it will tend to displace the other L2s.

1029
01:02:10,508 --> 01:02:17,508
It's just like we don't live in a world where you use lots of different versions of
Bluetooth or something.

1030
01:02:17,508 --> 01:02:21,508
It's just like eventually you standardize on the one that works.

1031
01:02:21,508 --> 01:02:26,508
Paul, have you ever used – do you have an NPUB, a Nostr? Have you ever used eCache?

1032
01:02:26,508 --> 01:02:30,508
I'm just curious. Have you actually tried these things that you're so critical of?

1033
01:02:30,508 --> 01:02:37,508
Didn't I actually tell you that I not only have I tried, but I wrote new Lightning
technology into existence in 2016?

1034
01:02:37,508 --> 01:02:40,508
No, no, no. I'm not talking about – you're stuck in the past here. I'm talking about
today.

1035
01:02:40,508 --> 01:02:46,508
Have you used eCache? Show me an eCache. Have you used Cashew or have you used
Nostr?

1036
01:02:46,508 --> 01:02:49,508
And have you explored that at all or not?

1037
01:02:49,508 --> 01:02:53,508
Well, I don't use them anymore, but I have used them through 2022.

1038
01:02:53,508 --> 01:02:56,508
But my view is that it's a settled issue and that they don't work.

1039
01:02:56,508 --> 01:02:58,508
Cashew didn't exist in 2022.

1040
01:02:58,508 --> 01:03:01,508
But Cashew is federated eCache, is it not?

1041
01:03:01,508 --> 01:03:03,508
It's not.

1042
01:03:03,508 --> 01:03:04,508
Then what is it?

1043
01:03:04,508 --> 01:03:06,508
Anyway, let's actually get to something more interesting.

1044
01:03:06,508 --> 01:03:07,508
What is it?

1045
01:03:07,508 --> 01:03:11,508
Hold on. Let's say we have this feature where we have Drivechains.

1046
01:03:11,508 --> 01:03:13,508
You get your way. We have it.

1047
01:03:13,508 --> 01:03:17,508
How does an on-chain user pay – I'll make it this way.

1048
01:03:17,508 --> 01:03:20,508
Let's say I have Drivechain tokens. Let's say they're Paul tokens.

1049
01:03:20,508 --> 01:03:22,508
I've made my own – I've got Paul tokens, right?

1050
01:03:22,508 --> 01:03:27,508
Is this not BTC or is this an L2 Bitcoin or is this something else?

1051
01:03:27,508 --> 01:03:32,508
We'll call them BTC-denominated tokens that I've created as a Drivechain.

1052
01:03:32,508 --> 01:03:37,508
Yeah, when you deposit to the L2, you get something that over there would be BTC.

1053
01:03:37,508 --> 01:03:42,508
It's similar to the Lightning Network where it's like – it counts as BTC.

1054
01:03:42,508 --> 01:03:45,508
Right, so we'll call it Paul BTC instead of Paul BTC.

1055
01:03:45,508 --> 01:03:47,508
Okay, we'll call it the Paul Drivechain.

1056
01:03:47,508 --> 01:03:51,508
Yeah, so how does someone who's just got on-chain Bitcoin interact with you?

1057
01:03:51,508 --> 01:03:55,508
Like how do you – if they don't have Paul BTC, how does this work?

1058
01:03:55,508 --> 01:04:00,508
If I want – if you're saying I want to pay you or who wants – if you want to –

1059
01:04:00,508 --> 01:04:04,508
Yeah, if you've got Paul BTC and you want to pay an on-chain person

1060
01:04:04,508 --> 01:04:07,508
who doesn't know what your Drivechain is, yeah, how does that work?

1061
01:04:07,508 --> 01:04:11,508
The on-chain – the person, the recipient decides how they want to be paid.

1062
01:04:11,508 --> 01:04:15,508
So if they want L1 coins, you have to send them L1 coins.

1063
01:04:15,508 --> 01:04:19,508
So you have to – you basically have to cash out to the main chain in them.

1064
01:04:19,508 --> 01:04:23,508
Well, I think you can use HTLC to swap them,

1065
01:04:23,508 --> 01:04:26,508
but you would need to have someone take that bid.

1066
01:04:26,508 --> 01:04:32,508
But my idea is not that – my view is that 8 billion people can't fit on L1,

1067
01:04:32,508 --> 01:04:35,508
so it's pointless to try and design for –

1068
01:04:35,508 --> 01:04:38,508
what you have to do is design so that people are happy being on L2

1069
01:04:38,508 --> 01:04:44,508
because that's the only way that it will work anyway.

1070
01:04:44,508 --> 01:04:50,508
Okay, I'm just trying to get at this because you seem to be trying to discredit
Lightning

1071
01:04:50,508 --> 01:04:53,508
by saying that if you have a scenario where, like, only one half of it works,

1072
01:04:53,508 --> 01:04:55,508
that it's not working.

1073
01:04:55,508 --> 01:04:58,508
So I'm just curious, like, okay, in your future,

1074
01:04:58,508 --> 01:05:01,508
does this mean that, like, everybody has to be using –

1075
01:05:01,508 --> 01:05:03,508
like, are the different Drivechains interoperable?

1076
01:05:03,508 --> 01:05:08,508
Like, can Paul BTC work with Danny BTC without having to go on-chain?

1077
01:05:08,508 --> 01:05:10,508
Yes.

1078
01:05:10,508 --> 01:05:16,508
And there's – and let's say Paul BTC is denominated in BTC

1079
01:05:16,508 --> 01:05:19,508
and Danny's actually using USD tokens over here.

1080
01:05:19,508 --> 01:05:21,508
So you're saying these can be –

1081
01:05:21,508 --> 01:05:24,508
You would want – there would be someone who has an account on both,

1082
01:05:24,508 --> 01:05:26,508
and you would route through them.

1083
01:05:26,508 --> 01:05:28,508
They may charge a fee, but you could do this for them.

1084
01:05:28,508 --> 01:05:37,508
Fine, but how are those trust assumptions any different from someone who's got USD
eCash

1085
01:05:37,508 --> 01:05:43,508
paying someone in BTC eCash settling over the Lightning Network?

1086
01:05:43,508 --> 01:05:46,508
Like, you're still trusting somebody in the middle to do the swap.

1087
01:05:46,508 --> 01:05:49,508
In my view, the Lightning Network doesn't work,

1088
01:05:49,508 --> 01:05:52,508
and the federated model is a joke and not real.

1089
01:05:52,508 --> 01:05:54,508
So that's my view.

1090
01:05:54,508 --> 01:05:58,508
In the Drivechain world, each transaction pays a transaction fee

1091
01:05:58,508 --> 01:06:02,508
that goes to the L1 miners, who are the only people who can crash the –

1092
01:06:02,508 --> 01:06:04,508
I'm just reminding the people in the audience.

1093
01:06:04,508 --> 01:06:06,508
Yeah, sure.

1094
01:06:06,508 --> 01:06:10,508
They're the only people who can crash the system and stop it from working.

1095
01:06:10,508 --> 01:06:14,508
And so the idea is that they'd be so happy with all these fees they would collect,

1096
01:06:14,508 --> 01:06:18,508
and estimate it in detail, what I think those fees would be, enormous,

1097
01:06:18,508 --> 01:06:21,508
and that the number of coins on each chain, as I mentioned before,

1098
01:06:21,508 --> 01:06:28,508
would be something like 5,000 to 15,000 on each chain, 10 to 15 chains.

1099
01:06:28,508 --> 01:06:31,508
And the chains would be kind of geographically distributed, would be my guess.

1100
01:06:31,508 --> 01:06:34,508
They'd be like North America, and they'd be like Europe,

1101
01:06:34,508 --> 01:06:37,508
and then they'd be like whatever, Southeast Asia or something.

1102
01:06:37,508 --> 01:06:43,508
And so you would tend to stay on your area, is my guess.

1103
01:06:43,508 --> 01:06:45,508
This is a total conjecture on my part.

1104
01:06:45,508 --> 01:06:49,508
But the idea is they're making so much money from these transaction fees

1105
01:06:49,508 --> 01:06:52,508
that they are very, very happy to keep the whole thing moving,

1106
01:06:52,508 --> 01:06:55,508
which if they just do nothing, the whole thing works perfectly.

1107
01:06:55,508 --> 01:06:58,508
They can intentionally attack and destroy,

1108
01:06:58,508 --> 01:07:01,508
but my view is that they would not want to do that.

1109
01:07:01,508 --> 01:07:06,508
And a key difference between Satoshi's invention of Bitcoin

1110
01:07:06,508 --> 01:07:09,508
is that the miners are not a federation.

1111
01:07:10,508 --> 01:07:15,508
There's a dynamically changing set of people who are anonymous.

1112
01:07:15,508 --> 01:07:20,508
So you're not relying on someone's brand or someone's reputation.

1113
01:07:20,508 --> 01:07:24,508
This is just new people can join or leave at any time.

1114
01:07:24,508 --> 01:07:27,508
And this is also the configuration that L1 uses,

1115
01:07:27,508 --> 01:07:30,508
so it's better to reuse that for the L2s.

1116
01:07:30,508 --> 01:07:34,508
So that's my Drivechain vision, so to speak.

1117
01:07:34,508 --> 01:07:36,508
I don't think that it's guaranteed to work,

1118
01:07:36,508 --> 01:07:40,508
but I do think relative to the attention Lightning gets,

1119
01:07:40,508 --> 01:07:43,508
it is totally mismatched, and that is another example.

1120
01:07:43,508 --> 01:07:47,508
I think just to be fair, I think it's a really interesting idea.

1121
01:07:47,508 --> 01:07:51,508
I mean, obviously it doesn't exist, but I mean, I think the idea is interesting.

1122
01:07:51,508 --> 01:07:54,508
It's kind of cool. We'll see.

1123
01:07:54,508 --> 01:07:58,508
You can download it on the LyricWeb.com slash download.

1124
01:07:58,508 --> 01:08:01,508
You can try the Signet. It's fake. It's Signet coins.

1125
01:08:02,508 --> 01:08:07,508
So would you expect your vision, if it works out, to be immediately successful?

1126
01:08:07,508 --> 01:08:09,508
I mean, or would you expect some sort of time period

1127
01:08:09,508 --> 01:08:11,508
where it's actually really hard to use at first,

1128
01:08:11,508 --> 01:08:13,508
and then all of a sudden you get more adoption,

1129
01:08:13,508 --> 01:08:17,508
and then over time it becomes more standardized and it becomes smoother?

1130
01:08:17,508 --> 01:08:19,508
Which route do you think yours would go?

1131
01:08:19,508 --> 01:08:21,508
Would it just be like overnight immediately works for everybody,

1132
01:08:21,508 --> 01:08:28,508
or would it take 5, 10, 15 years to settle into its role and to function?

1133
01:08:28,508 --> 01:08:30,508
I do think that there is more.

1134
01:08:30,508 --> 01:08:35,508
Relative to the Lightning Network, it is more where the work is up front, loaded.

1135
01:08:35,508 --> 01:08:36,508
Okay.

1136
01:08:36,508 --> 01:08:40,508
And then it would be like teleporting to the finish line.

1137
01:08:40,508 --> 01:08:42,508
I think that is more likely, whereas with Lightning,

1138
01:08:42,508 --> 01:08:44,508
one of the problems with Lightning is it just seems to require

1139
01:08:44,508 --> 01:08:48,508
this ongoing developer investment of time and energy and money,

1140
01:08:48,508 --> 01:08:52,508
and it's always like different attacks, flood and loot, whatever,

1141
01:08:52,508 --> 01:08:56,508
op expire, blah, blah, blah, this stuff is just going on and on and on,

1142
01:08:56,508 --> 01:08:58,508
whereas I don't have any of that.

1143
01:08:58,508 --> 01:09:04,508
But, of course, everything to improve the performance of the chain

1144
01:09:04,508 --> 01:09:08,508
and to improve the user experience that Rome wasn't built in a day,

1145
01:09:08,508 --> 01:09:09,508
obviously that would be the case.

1146
01:09:09,508 --> 01:09:14,508
But I do think there is more of it jumping to utility.

1147
01:09:14,508 --> 01:09:15,508
Got it.

1148
01:09:15,508 --> 01:09:18,508
Particularly you can onboard people directly to the L2,

1149
01:09:18,508 --> 01:09:22,508
and so you don't care as much about what the L1 fee rate is.

1150
01:09:22,508 --> 01:09:24,508
And so I think that was a problem with Lightning

1151
01:09:24,508 --> 01:09:29,508
when the Ordinal's phenomenon kind of even interfered with Lightning Network
working,

1152
01:09:29,508 --> 01:09:32,508
whereas this would not have that issue.

1153
01:09:32,508 --> 01:09:34,508
Well, people are working on that.

1154
01:09:34,508 --> 01:09:36,508
I mean, there's like splicing, but I won't go there.

1155
01:09:36,508 --> 01:09:38,508
I think what I was going to say is what we could probably definitively agree on

1156
01:09:38,508 --> 01:09:49,508
is that the Lightning Bitcoin stack works in practice, not in theory,

1157
01:09:49,508 --> 01:09:53,508
and that you would say that Drivechains work in theory but not in practice

1158
01:09:53,508 --> 01:09:55,508
because they don't exist yet in reality.

1159
01:09:55,508 --> 01:09:57,508
And I think that that's kind of interesting,

1160
01:09:57,508 --> 01:10:01,508
and it highlights maybe the spaces we inhabit is that you're in theory

1161
01:10:01,508 --> 01:10:04,508
and I'm in practice and I'm using it and you're not.

1162
01:10:04,508 --> 01:10:06,508
And I think that's cool.

1163
01:10:06,508 --> 01:10:10,508
I think people that are in theory should work with people who work in practice

1164
01:10:10,508 --> 01:10:15,508
and they can work together to make something that's actually beneficial to someone.

1165
01:10:15,508 --> 01:10:17,508
But you've made it super clear throughout the conversation

1166
01:10:17,508 --> 01:10:20,508
that you haven't used a lot of these tools that you're criticizing,

1167
01:10:20,508 --> 01:10:22,508
which I don't really feel is fair.

1168
01:10:22,508 --> 01:10:26,508
Well, one I thought was a caching I thought was a federated eCash.

1169
01:10:26,508 --> 01:10:28,508
So if it's not that, then I would like to know what it is.

1170
01:10:28,508 --> 01:10:33,508
But what is it, though? What happens on L1?

1171
01:10:33,508 --> 01:10:35,508
You should go check out the documentation.

1172
01:10:35,508 --> 01:10:41,508
It's not federated eCash. It's custodial eCash.

1173
01:10:41,508 --> 01:10:45,508
I know, but eCash was already custodial, according to me.

1174
01:10:45,508 --> 01:10:50,508
It's Lightning native. It doesn't use on-chain transactions.

1175
01:10:50,508 --> 01:10:55,508
So let's say I have an on-chain UTXO and it's one Bitcoin and I want some eCash.

1176
01:10:55,508 --> 01:10:58,508
What do I do?

1177
01:10:58,508 --> 01:11:03,508
You have to deposit Lightning into the caching mint to get your caching tokens.

1178
01:11:03,508 --> 01:11:07,508
Well, first I open a Lightning channel. I join the Lightning network.

1179
01:11:07,508 --> 01:11:10,508
I open a channel with whatever. Let's say I open it with the mint or whatever.

1180
01:11:10,508 --> 01:11:12,508
Why not? Make it even easier, right?

1181
01:11:12,508 --> 01:11:14,508
So I open a Lightning channel with the mint.

1182
01:11:15,508 --> 01:11:20,508
Don't I already have the ability to pay people through them as a Lightning routing
node?

1183
01:11:20,508 --> 01:11:22,508
What is the eCash part?

1184
01:11:22,508 --> 01:11:28,508
What's cool is you can go to boardwalk.cash or one of these eCash front-end mint
things.

1185
01:11:28,508 --> 01:11:30,508
And you guys can all try it today. It takes two seconds.

1186
01:11:30,508 --> 01:11:35,508
If you go to boardwalk.cash or was it boardwalkcash.com? Let's see.

1187
01:11:35,508 --> 01:11:37,508
I think it's boardwalk.cash.

1188
01:11:37,508 --> 01:11:41,508
And you can go there or boardwalkcash.com.

1189
01:11:41,508 --> 01:11:44,508
And you can instantly generate eCash.

1190
01:11:44,508 --> 01:11:46,508
Instantly generate eCash.

1191
01:11:46,508 --> 01:11:50,508
And you add a mint and you deposit Lightning or Bitcoin.

1192
01:11:50,508 --> 01:11:53,508
I think you can also send it because it does a swap thing.

1193
01:11:53,508 --> 01:11:54,508
You can check it out right now. It's quite cool.

1194
01:11:54,508 --> 01:11:56,508
And then you can mess around with it and find out.

1195
01:11:56,508 --> 01:11:58,508
But I would encourage people to check this out.

1196
01:11:58,508 --> 01:12:03,508
What would you think of me if I made a new project called Lightning whatever?

1197
01:12:03,508 --> 01:12:04,508
I don't care.

1198
01:12:04,508 --> 01:12:06,508
Lightning desk or something.

1199
01:12:06,508 --> 01:12:09,508
And what I actually do is I just take people's money.

1200
01:12:09,508 --> 01:12:12,508
And then I have a little database.

1201
01:12:12,508 --> 01:12:15,508
And this thing is totally 100% custodial.

1202
01:12:15,508 --> 01:12:21,508
And then I can offer people a fast, instant payment experience.

1203
01:12:23,508 --> 01:12:25,508
And then I just tell everyone this is Lightning.

1204
01:12:27,508 --> 01:12:28,508
But it's fully custodial.

1205
01:12:28,508 --> 01:12:30,508
Great, but does it talk Lightning?

1206
01:12:30,508 --> 01:12:34,508
Will it pay out Paul at Primal.net?

1207
01:12:34,508 --> 01:12:38,508
Not only do I accept Bitcoin, but I also accept Bitcoin payments over the Lightning
network.

1208
01:12:38,508 --> 01:12:41,508
But I'm just keeping all the money in a giant pile.

1209
01:12:41,508 --> 01:12:44,508
Maybe I pay you out, maybe I don't.

1210
01:12:44,508 --> 01:12:47,508
But then I say that this is a brand new Lightning technology.

1211
01:12:47,508 --> 01:12:48,508
What would you think of that?

1212
01:12:48,508 --> 01:12:50,508
And I put Lightning right in the name.

1213
01:12:50,508 --> 01:12:52,508
Lightning table.

1214
01:12:54,508 --> 01:12:55,508
What would you think of that?

1215
01:12:55,508 --> 01:12:59,508
You think this is bringing human rights to people in Kenya?

1216
01:13:01,508 --> 01:13:04,508
If it offered massive privacy improvements over Lightning,

1217
01:13:04,508 --> 01:13:06,508
I would consider it, I don't know, for small purchases.

1218
01:13:07,508 --> 01:13:08,508
I promise to keep everything private.

1219
01:13:08,508 --> 01:13:09,508
I won't tell anyone.

1220
01:13:09,508 --> 01:13:10,508
No, no, no.

1221
01:13:10,508 --> 01:13:13,508
Well, luckily, open source code, you don't have to trust anybody.

1222
01:13:13,508 --> 01:13:15,508
I mean, we can see and verify everything.

1223
01:13:15,508 --> 01:13:16,508
I mean, e-caches.

1224
01:13:17,508 --> 01:13:18,508
Well, I would only use it.

1225
01:13:18,508 --> 01:13:21,508
Yeah, but I'm telling you, I would only use it if it was open source

1226
01:13:21,508 --> 01:13:24,508
and I could inspect it and take a look and make sure that it, in fact, was very
private.

1227
01:13:24,508 --> 01:13:26,508
Otherwise, I wouldn't use your mint.

1228
01:13:26,508 --> 01:13:27,508
Sorry.

1229
01:13:27,508 --> 01:13:28,508
I'm keeping it.

1230
01:13:28,508 --> 01:13:31,508
And I'm just promising not to tell everyone.

1231
01:13:33,508 --> 01:13:35,508
That's not, that would, no, I would not.

1232
01:13:35,508 --> 01:13:36,508
No, I wouldn't trust that.

1233
01:13:36,508 --> 01:13:37,508
No way.

1234
01:13:37,508 --> 01:13:40,508
So then, like, I don't know, that's what all this, that's what all this,

1235
01:13:40,508 --> 01:13:41,508
that's what federated e-caches mean.

1236
01:13:41,508 --> 01:13:43,508
No, Cashew is fully open source.

1237
01:13:43,508 --> 01:13:44,508
No, it's fully open source.

1238
01:13:44,508 --> 01:13:46,508
You can inspect the code for yourself.

1239
01:13:46,508 --> 01:13:49,508
I know, but what happens on L1 to get that?

1240
01:13:50,508 --> 01:13:52,508
I mean, look, dude, in a hundred years, I mean,

1241
01:13:52,508 --> 01:13:54,508
you really think people are all going to be on L1?

1242
01:13:54,508 --> 01:13:59,508
No, but I'm just, but when, I know when Drivechain, when you deposit to L1,

1243
01:13:59,508 --> 01:14:01,508
you get L2 coins, they reside in the BIP300 script.

1244
01:14:01,508 --> 01:14:04,508
So I know, I know what happens on L1 in that, in that scenario.

1245
01:14:04,508 --> 01:14:07,508
So I know, I know what the security model is.

1246
01:14:07,508 --> 01:14:11,508
For the custodial model, you just give your coins to someone else.

1247
01:14:11,508 --> 01:14:13,508
But I mean, hey, I don't know, maybe it's all,

1248
01:14:13,508 --> 01:14:15,508
maybe it's all like super, super, super smart.

1249
01:14:15,508 --> 01:14:18,508
And there's like a lot of ingenious stuff going on and it's not all a fraud.

1250
01:14:18,508 --> 01:14:20,508
I would say, well,

1251
01:14:20,508 --> 01:14:23,508
why can't we take the middle ground and just say it's emerging?

1252
01:14:23,508 --> 01:14:24,508
It's not perfect by any stretch.

1253
01:14:24,508 --> 01:14:27,508
It has issues, it has bugs, but it's getting better all the time.

1254
01:14:27,508 --> 01:14:30,508
What happens on L1 to me right now?

1255
01:14:30,508 --> 01:14:33,508
You can't use L1 on Cashew, just to be clear.

1256
01:14:33,508 --> 01:14:35,508
It doesn't work. You have to use Lightning.

1257
01:14:35,508 --> 01:14:38,508
Yeah, but how do I get, okay, so I have to,

1258
01:14:38,508 --> 01:14:42,508
I join the Lightning network and I'm connected to someone who is using Cashew

1259
01:14:42,508 --> 01:14:46,508
through the network of channels.

1260
01:14:46,508 --> 01:14:50,508
If you want to send Cashew, you send Lightning to a Cashew min,

1261
01:14:50,508 --> 01:14:53,508
and then you can send the eCash tokens either around in that min,

1262
01:14:53,508 --> 01:14:55,508
perfectly privately, or you can pay a Lightning invoice with them.

1263
01:14:55,508 --> 01:14:56,508
Right.

1264
01:14:56,508 --> 01:14:58,508
Yeah, so the idea is,

1265
01:14:58,508 --> 01:15:01,508
since it's only a few seconds that you have to,

1266
01:15:01,543 --> 01:15:04,063
since it's only a few seconds that you have to trust them in, it kind of doesn't
matter as much.

1267
01:15:04,063 --> 01:15:09,423
Is that the idea? You can use it like that, or you can keep eCash. Well, hey, maybe
it's the greatest thing.

1268
01:15:09,423 --> 01:15:14,223
My point is, you would never send more than you'd be willing to lose. It's only for
small

1269
01:15:14,223 --> 01:15:18,783
amounts of money. This is for highly private spending. That's what eCash is for.

1270
01:15:18,783 --> 01:15:21,743
Yeah, maybe. I'm sure it's great. I'm sure it's the greatest thing ever.

1271
01:15:21,743 --> 01:15:26,303
Paul, do you think, potentially, you said before that you dismissed Lightning,
essentially,

1272
01:15:26,303 --> 01:15:30,863
in 2022. That's like three years ago. There's been a lot of changes. Do you think
you might be

1273
01:15:30,863 --> 01:15:35,743
dismissing something you don't fully understand now? Of course. We all don't
understand anything

1274
01:15:35,743 --> 01:15:43,503
fully. I highly doubt how much you guys understand about a Drivechain or whatever.

1275
01:15:43,503 --> 01:15:49,343
Yeah, no, 100%. That's fair. We all have to live in a world where we have a very
imperfect

1276
01:15:49,343 --> 01:15:52,783
understanding of everything that we do, and anyone could be wrong about anything,

1277
01:15:53,423 --> 01:15:57,743
including something they really feel very confidently about. We all just have to
deal

1278
01:15:57,743 --> 01:16:03,983
with that. That's our curse as human beings. Some of the stuff is fundamental that I
wrote

1279
01:16:03,983 --> 01:16:10,063
in the post about, you need L1 bytes to join the Lightning Network first. There's
just not

1280
01:16:10,063 --> 01:16:16,863
enough bytes anywhere near enough to join. I do the math, the basic arithmetic in
the post.

1281
01:16:17,423 --> 01:16:23,103
And, again, the fact that people are moving on to Arc, to me, I see it as
confirmation.

1282
01:16:23,103 --> 01:16:27,583
They just want to quietly drop the issue. It's not moving on. I'm just telling you,

1283
01:16:27,583 --> 01:16:32,063
Arc is very exciting, and it's going to interoperate with Lightning. Arc pools

1284
01:16:34,143 --> 01:16:38,783
will be part of a connective tissue that includes other pool technology, other sidechains and

1285
01:16:38,783 --> 01:16:44,543
liquid. But it exists. We're going to be hearing it. You can try it today. You can
actually use it.

1286
01:16:44,543 --> 01:16:49,423
I'm just a little burned out. But that could easily be me making a mistake. But I've
heard

1287
01:16:49,423 --> 01:16:53,903
time and time again about, oh, once we get this and that, then it'll finally work.

1288
01:16:54,863 --> 01:16:59,423
Even from the very beginning, where they said in 2015, they said, I think we'll be
ready in three

1289
01:16:59,423 --> 01:17:06,703
months. It's been three months away from being finished. It's a normal thing when
you're a

1290
01:17:06,703 --> 01:17:13,423
software engineer to be very optimistic about. And, of course, we all rely on the
optimism of

1291
01:17:13,423 --> 01:17:18,703
entrepreneurs and innovators. One thing that I would say, though, is that I think
innovation is

1292
01:17:18,703 --> 01:17:26,303
not additive. It is ecological. So when something gets a lot of attention, I think
it does tend to

1293
01:17:26,303 --> 01:17:31,343
discourage the people working on other things. So you have to really decide if you
really think

1294
01:17:31,343 --> 01:17:36,863
Lightning is definitely the thing that's going to be the good thing. You have to
know that when

1295
01:17:36,863 --> 01:17:41,583
you support it, you will be cursing everything else to move slower or that maybe
people will

1296
01:17:41,583 --> 01:17:47,983
give up on it and that you may be hurting the project. No, because I can use these
other

1297
01:17:47,983 --> 01:17:53,423
technologies and it doesn't hurt Lightning. It's fine. Let's use liquids. Liquids
are interesting.

1298
01:17:53,423 --> 01:17:58,943
Fine. Let's check it out. It interoperates. I'm just feeding my belief that, and
again,

1299
01:17:58,943 --> 01:18:04,463
anyone could be wrong about anything, but I really feel that it is ecological. It's
an ecology. So

1300
01:18:04,463 --> 01:18:09,583
as you support one thing, it discourages all the other things, and even especially
financial

1301
01:18:09,583 --> 01:18:13,983
support, and that can be very distracting to people. I consider myself to be very
lucky.

1302
01:18:13,983 --> 01:18:21,983
I'm a Bitcoin OG, and so I can work on whatever I want, and I am immune somewhat to
the needs of

1303
01:18:21,983 --> 01:18:26,703
a young, ambitious person will get sucked into Lightning. Just they'll show up and
they'll see

1304
01:18:26,703 --> 01:18:30,383
all the cultural attention that it gets. And so all the people who love it so much
and everyone

1305
01:18:30,383 --> 01:18:37,583
with a little Lightning in their Twitter handle and how much attention it gets on
stage. And so

1306
01:18:37,583 --> 01:18:45,903
they'll say, oh, I want it. This is bad. You would say this is bad. Hold on. Hold
on. Sabina

1307
01:18:45,903 --> 01:18:51,903
from Kenya saw Lightning, understood that it had promise, built an app in Kenya, and
now anybody

1308
01:18:51,903 --> 01:18:55,343
can go to Kenya and use Lightning to make any payment in the country and live on a
Bitcoin

1309
01:18:55,343 --> 01:19:00,703
standard. I'm sorry. That's just badass. I'm so impressed by her. That's incredible.
But don't

1310
01:19:00,703 --> 01:19:06,623
you understand why I said that it was bad? No, obviously not. I don't get it. No,
because if

1311
01:19:06,623 --> 01:19:09,743
there's something else... Why would you say what she's done is bad? I don't get it.
I don't

1312
01:19:09,743 --> 01:19:15,823
understand. Well, she was misled. She was tragically misled by the people shilling
Lightning,

1313
01:19:15,823 --> 01:19:19,103
because if there was a different thing that worked, that will work better in the
long run.

1314
01:19:19,103 --> 01:19:23,903
She wasted her time doing this dead end. And instead, she would have maybe done the
different

1315
01:19:23,903 --> 01:19:29,103
L2 that actually worked in the long run. And so she'd have a better project now.
Whereas,

1316
01:19:29,103 --> 01:19:34,783
but for the deceptive actions of all the people shilling Lightning. So that's just
my... I'm just

1317
01:19:34,783 --> 01:19:40,143
saying it is not additive. If you show up and you say, I'm going to give a million
dollars to

1318
01:19:40,143 --> 01:19:46,703
someone who's working on Fediment, or a hundred million, that's going to... Anyone
who's working

1319
01:19:46,703 --> 01:19:51,103
on... Then all these people, even someone working on something close like Liquid or
something,

1320
01:19:51,103 --> 01:19:57,263
or something of a completely different design, Cashew. They're going to say, well,
why didn't

1321
01:19:57,263 --> 01:20:02,943
I get a hundred million dollars? And that's human nature. So I'm just saying that it
is not

1322
01:20:02,943 --> 01:20:08,863
additive. When you shill a technology, you need to... It's more important to have
the right

1323
01:20:08,863 --> 01:20:17,663
knowledge of what is going to work than it is to donate money or attention or
enthusiasm.

1324
01:20:17,663 --> 01:20:21,263
So that's just my point of view. Well, she didn't persist off any donations. I mean,

1325
01:20:21,263 --> 01:20:24,543
she built it herself, permissionlessly, because she wanted to.

1326
01:20:25,663 --> 01:20:30,223
I'm talking about the people initiating where they say, oh, Lightning is the future

1327
01:20:31,183 --> 01:20:36,063
and moving the culture. So she's downstream. She's a victim, in my view.

1328
01:20:36,863 --> 01:20:43,263
You say that, Paul, but I'm trying to be the moderate in the middle here,

1329
01:20:43,263 --> 01:20:46,863
but I'm tending to side with Alex. So I apologize if it seems like we're ganging up
on you.

1330
01:20:46,863 --> 01:20:47,183
That's fine.

1331
01:20:47,183 --> 01:20:53,423
But you say that, but the projects in Bitcoin that are getting amongst the most
funding now

1332
01:20:53,423 --> 01:20:57,663
are things like ZK Rollups and BitVM projects. So is that actually true?

1333
01:20:57,743 --> 01:21:03,023
Well, I think that would have been funded earlier if it were not for the distraction
of Lightning.

1334
01:21:03,023 --> 01:21:05,823
But BitVM didn't exist until, I don't know, 2022?

1335
01:21:05,823 --> 01:21:10,543
I agree. But you know that... Okay, so Robin Linus, the creator of BitVM, he said
that he only

1336
01:21:10,543 --> 01:21:15,023
did BitVM because there's no BIP300 and that the BitVM is a convoluted thing that

1337
01:21:15,023 --> 01:21:21,023
no one should ever do. He said this. He's recorded saying this. But I still think
BitVM

1338
01:21:21,023 --> 01:21:25,423
is a cool thing that people should try. I did say earlier in this conversation that

1339
01:21:25,743 --> 01:21:32,303
all the non-mined L2s, this includes Rollups, BitVM, ARK, and Lightning, and
Fetamon,

1340
01:21:33,343 --> 01:21:37,743
these all will have the issue that if they actually become popular among 8 billion
people

1341
01:21:37,743 --> 01:21:43,583
and they're actually generating a 10 cents transaction fee for trillions of
transactions,

1342
01:21:44,383 --> 01:21:49,903
which would be hundreds of billions of dollars per year in revenue, they will have
the issue that

1343
01:21:49,983 --> 01:21:55,023
either the large miners will want to vertically integrate or they'll have some kind
of conflict,

1344
01:21:55,663 --> 01:22:02,143
excuse me, tug-of-war conflict over who can get that money, at which point a lot of
the security

1345
01:22:02,143 --> 01:22:07,743
model will go away. And that is one of the reasons why I've always thought the mined
L2s,

1346
01:22:08,783 --> 01:22:15,903
such as the merge-mined Drivechain, why that is going to work. But I completely
agree with you

1347
01:22:15,983 --> 01:22:22,463
that everyone has their own ideas about which technology will work. I don't even
really want

1348
01:22:22,463 --> 01:22:29,023
this to be like the Drivechain commercial, like the Paul versus everyone commercial.
I do think

1349
01:22:29,023 --> 01:22:33,903
we should try everything. I don't think that it would be accurate to describe us as
saying

1350
01:22:33,903 --> 01:22:40,063
we try lots of different L2s. I think most people who have been around for the last
10 years

1351
01:22:40,063 --> 01:22:45,183
know that it has been the Lightning, the Fetamon, the ARK, the BitVM, the ARK, the
Fetamon,

1352
01:22:45,423 --> 01:22:51,583
the Lightning Show, and Lightning has actually sucked all the air out of the room.

1353
01:22:54,143 --> 01:22:59,823
I worry about that personally. I think that was a mistake. That's just my point of
view.

1354
01:22:59,823 --> 01:23:04,943
But then on that, you say that people like Alex and I, who are supporters of the
Lightning

1355
01:23:04,943 --> 01:23:08,383
Network, have this perverse incentive because it's this groupthink thing that we
need to keep

1356
01:23:08,383 --> 01:23:14,943
pushing. But to flip that back on you, Drivechains never got any real developer
adoption.

1357
01:23:15,343 --> 01:23:20,143
It obviously has not made it into Bitcoin. Do you not have a similar but the flipped

1358
01:23:20,143 --> 01:23:23,583
perverse incentive where you want to attack Lightning Network because you never got
drive

1359
01:23:23,583 --> 01:23:30,623
chains? Yes. Although there was no activation client until a few months ago. So even
though

1360
01:23:30,623 --> 01:23:37,663
I had this idea, it really definitely was theory for many years. And I, of course, I
was, again,

1361
01:23:37,663 --> 01:23:41,823
as I said, I was one of the many people who said, oh, the Lightning Network is
definitely

1362
01:23:41,823 --> 01:23:46,703
going to be a great thing. So I kind of just let it just, even though the original
idea of

1363
01:23:46,703 --> 01:23:53,823
Drivechain is from November 2015, I didn't really, you know, and we had a version
that you could run,

1364
01:23:53,823 --> 01:24:00,223
but this was a fork of Bitcoin 1699, which is from like 2017. So this fork of this
old version

1365
01:24:00,223 --> 01:24:07,503
of Bitcoin that just has like test coins. There was no pull request to Bitcoin Core.

1366
01:24:08,303 --> 01:24:14,543
And there was no activation client until earlier this year. It's true that,

1367
01:24:15,583 --> 01:24:20,543
you know, like so you can look at the LayerTwoLabs.com slash friends list. You can see
we got

1368
01:24:20,543 --> 01:24:28,783
various endorsements from people who think that it is a good idea. I think there are
other reasons

1369
01:24:28,783 --> 01:24:37,023
why there are other weaknesses of Drivechain that explain why it is slow. One is
that it involves

1370
01:24:37,023 --> 01:24:42,303
the miners choosing to make more money by supporting the L2s, but this is a role
that

1371
01:24:42,303 --> 01:24:47,023
they have never played. And in fact, they have been, the miners have been trained to
be very

1372
01:24:47,023 --> 01:24:55,263
passive as a result of SegWit, block size war and other things. So I do agree. There
used to be,

1373
01:24:55,263 --> 01:25:01,343
you know, in the Black Swan, the book, Nassim Taleb, he has, I think, or maybe it
was Antifragile,

1374
01:25:01,343 --> 01:25:05,343
I don't remember, but there's a joke about conflict of interests, like, okay, don't
you have a

1375
01:25:05,343 --> 01:25:11,983
conflict of interest? But then the Wall Street trader joke is that you say, no
conflict, no

1376
01:25:11,983 --> 01:25:17,983
interest. Which is to say, if the other guy is not in the trade, you know, then I'm
not interested

1377
01:25:17,983 --> 01:25:21,663
in hearing what he said. I only want to hear someone shill something that they
believe.

1378
01:25:21,663 --> 01:25:25,343
So I think it kind of, the whole thing kind of cuts a lot of different ways, right?
You know

1379
01:25:25,343 --> 01:25:29,663
what I mean? You think if someone, it's either hypocrisy or it's a conflict of
interest or it's

1380
01:25:29,663 --> 01:25:34,463
something else. With the current environment now on the blockchain, like where it's
just very low

1381
01:25:35,423 --> 01:25:41,423
fee environment, you know, low demand, relatively speaking, compared to like, you
know, last year's

1382
01:25:41,423 --> 01:25:48,303
having, for example. Are you, I mean, why don't you think there's more urgency for
miners to,

1383
01:25:48,303 --> 01:25:53,983
as you say, vertically integrate? Why do you feel like they're fine, you know, doing
their work

1384
01:25:53,983 --> 01:25:59,983
as is? Why don't you feel like they're not pushing for your BIP or other similar
things?

1385
01:26:00,543 --> 01:26:06,703
What explains, in your mind, their lack of urgency, despite a pretty, you know,
pretty

1386
01:26:08,623 --> 01:26:12,863
environment that may indicate a future where they're not getting a lot of the
action,

1387
01:26:12,863 --> 01:26:18,223
you know, they may only be getting a very small fee from a very small percentage of
transactions.

1388
01:26:18,223 --> 01:26:22,063
Why no urgency from these people, if, you know, in your view, what explains it?

1389
01:26:23,183 --> 01:26:29,103
Well, I mean, at the Las Vegas conference, the CEO of Antpool came up to me and said

1390
01:26:29,103 --> 01:26:34,943
they had never heard of Drivechain before. So I don't know, maybe that's me doing a
terrible

1391
01:26:34,943 --> 01:26:38,223
job of explaining it, or maybe they go through a lot of CEOs. I don't actually know
what's going

1392
01:26:38,223 --> 01:26:43,183
on with that story. But I think there was no activation client. But they know what
Lightning

1393
01:26:43,183 --> 01:26:47,183
is. They know what Lightning is, and they're not vertically integrating with
Lightning.

1394
01:26:47,183 --> 01:26:51,183
I think this is a case of like this, the theory guy versus the practice guy,

1395
01:26:51,183 --> 01:26:56,623
because I am trained in economics, and I trained like equilibrium. So I'm trying to
think of like,

1396
01:26:56,623 --> 01:27:02,223
the long run, my example was, here's the long run success story where you have 8
billion people,

1397
01:27:03,183 --> 01:27:08,783
and they all are happy users every day. So I'm just saying, let's just take that as
the extreme

1398
01:27:08,783 --> 01:27:12,703
case. You know, this is like something I do in physics and stuff to make a point and
say,

1399
01:27:13,343 --> 01:27:19,183
imagine that everything's a big success. And just take your pick, you know,
Lightning or ARC or

1400
01:27:19,183 --> 01:27:23,583
whatever. It's a huge success, and everyone's using it all the time. Well, that
thing is going

1401
01:27:23,583 --> 01:27:28,543
to be making hundreds of billions of dollars a year in fees. And actually, that will
be the way

1402
01:27:28,543 --> 01:27:34,063
I estimated, I did some napkin math, but that it doubles every 11 years or so. So
this is a huge

1403
01:27:34,063 --> 01:27:37,503
amount of money where you have all the transactions in the world, and you just take
10 cents from them

1404
01:27:37,503 --> 01:27:42,943
because more and more people transact all the time. People transact more as they get
wealthier,

1405
01:27:42,943 --> 01:27:51,743
and GDP is growing, etc. So I was taking that example where you have a super
successful L2

1406
01:27:51,743 --> 01:27:57,903
that makes a huge amount of money, and then on L1, they make what they're making
now, which is

1407
01:27:57,903 --> 01:28:02,623
very, very little. I don't know about the miner, you know, sometimes you do hear
about the miners

1408
01:28:02,623 --> 01:28:07,183
grumbling about, oh, we don't make enough money, and we want whatever, a tail
emission or something.

1409
01:28:07,183 --> 01:28:15,343
So I don't actually really know why they would or would not. Well, I met a miner who
told me that

1410
01:28:16,303 --> 01:28:20,943
he feels like Lightning Network is stealing from him. So I mean, I do appreciate
that the sentiment

1411
01:28:20,943 --> 01:28:24,943
is there. I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah, but I've never heard that
before,

1412
01:28:24,943 --> 01:28:29,423
and I've been around for a little while. So it seems like, I don't know if all the
miners think

1413
01:28:29,423 --> 01:28:34,063
that way, but it was interesting to hear. That particular miner, as you probably
know,

1414
01:28:34,063 --> 01:28:42,623
many of the miners are not really Bitcoiners, and some of them are just very
by-the-numbers guys,

1415
01:28:42,623 --> 01:28:46,863
and they see this as no different than mining cobalt or whatever. Yeah, of course.

1416
01:28:47,583 --> 01:28:52,063
So many of the miners are very, very, very, very specialized to the point where
they're not really

1417
01:28:52,063 --> 01:28:57,823
even ideologically aligned. No, a lot of them don't even stack Bitcoin. They just
sell it immediately.

1418
01:28:57,823 --> 01:29:04,143
Right. But I think that person you were talking about is an ideological Bitcoiner
who does look

1419
01:29:04,143 --> 01:29:11,103
into it. So you can see how some of the specialists, they're not going to know about
what a

1420
01:29:11,103 --> 01:29:16,383
soft fork is, what BIPs are. They're not going to know about what L2s are. Many of
the miners think

1421
01:29:16,383 --> 01:29:21,423
all the L2s steal from them. A lot of people don't even know about what merge mining
is.

1422
01:29:21,423 --> 01:29:29,423
So I do think there is a lot of education that has to be done, but that is a case
where

1423
01:29:30,703 --> 01:29:35,823
in the long run, eventually all the truths will be revealed to everyone, right? So
that's the case

1424
01:29:35,823 --> 01:29:41,103
for going more into the theory world and thinking, well, what will it be like when
everyone figures

1425
01:29:41,103 --> 01:29:45,823
everything out? Are things still going to be the way they are now, or are they going
to be

1426
01:29:45,823 --> 01:29:51,743
slightly different? Okay. Well, I mean, look, all I would say is that there's a way
to do this where

1427
01:29:51,743 --> 01:29:56,783
you could be more like, it's less zero sum. If you think about the ARK people,
they're pushing

1428
01:29:56,783 --> 01:30:01,503
for their thing, which in the future would obviously be more effective with a major
change

1429
01:30:01,503 --> 01:30:03,583
to Bitcoin, right? CTV, yeah.

1430
01:30:03,583 --> 01:30:08,863
Do it now. Yeah, you could do it now, but it's not quite as good as it could be,
right? But

1431
01:30:08,863 --> 01:30:17,423
they've been very open-minded to think about how could a world that exists today, I
mean,

1432
01:30:17,423 --> 01:30:22,143
whether you like lightning, the fact is it's pretty widely adopted and it exists.
How could

1433
01:30:22,143 --> 01:30:25,343
that world help them get to where they want to go? And they've been super
complimentary.

1434
01:30:25,343 --> 01:30:29,183
They've been working with lightning engineers. They've been working on lightning and
ARK's

1435
01:30:29,183 --> 01:30:34,223
doing very well, I would say. I mean, it hasn't really hit yet, but I would say that
people are

1436
01:30:34,223 --> 01:30:37,983
excited about it and it's coming. And look, if it works as well as they say it's
going to work,

1437
01:30:37,983 --> 01:30:43,503
I think there's going to be real serious interest in the forks required in Bitcoin
to make that

1438
01:30:43,503 --> 01:30:47,903
happen. So maybe you could just take a different approach where instead of like
shitting all over

1439
01:30:47,903 --> 01:30:51,983
lightning all the time, you could be more open-minded and learn from it a little bit
and

1440
01:30:51,983 --> 01:30:57,023
take that into your account. It may work better for you. If you're right and we need
these things,

1441
01:30:57,023 --> 01:31:01,343
these Drivechains a hundred years from now, maybe that can help you get them done.
That's

1442
01:31:01,343 --> 01:31:04,623
all I would say. That's all I would say. Well, I think you're right about that. I
was at

1443
01:31:04,863 --> 01:31:12,943
whichever one is in Amsterdam, but it wasn't, I don't think it was, maybe it was
building on

1444
01:31:12,943 --> 01:31:16,383
Bitcoin. I don't remember what year, but there was this whole bar full of people and
everyone

1445
01:31:16,383 --> 01:31:21,263
there was like, oh, Paul, you should be nicer to people. But you see, I don't...

1446
01:31:21,263 --> 01:31:23,503
I mean, it works. It tends to work. I don't know.

1447
01:31:23,503 --> 01:31:28,383
Yeah. But again, I see it as kind of like something of a...

1448
01:31:29,183 --> 01:31:33,263
Never too late to change. Dude, you know, Drivechains might be valuable, might be
critical in

1449
01:31:33,263 --> 01:31:38,623
40 years, but like, you know, they seem far off now. But I'm just saying, if you
change the tack

1450
01:31:38,623 --> 01:31:44,143
and be more, it could work. It could work. I think the ARC thing, I interpret
differently.

1451
01:31:44,143 --> 01:31:48,223
I think that there's this huge cultural momentum with Lightning and then the people
want to

1452
01:31:48,223 --> 01:31:54,063
continue that. But I do think we should try all these different things. So I do
think we should

1453
01:31:54,063 --> 01:32:01,663
do BidVM and whatever, all this other stuff. I am a pluralist. And again, anyone
could be

1454
01:32:01,663 --> 01:32:07,343
mistaken about whatever. But this is part of why I am nervous about what originally
started

1455
01:32:07,343 --> 01:32:11,823
this whole conversation, which is that not a lot of people think this way. We have a
huge number

1456
01:32:11,823 --> 01:32:16,223
of people who think that Bitcoin is perfect the way it is. And it's this pristine
thing that's

1457
01:32:16,223 --> 01:32:22,223
guaranteed to succeed. And then the people working on it up close, they care a lot
more about

1458
01:32:22,223 --> 01:32:27,343
these details where they think, wow, if we had CTV, which is this tiny opcode that
does almost nothing,

1459
01:32:27,343 --> 01:32:32,223
or BIP300, which is this opcode that counts to 13,000 over and over again. We could
do all this

1460
01:32:32,223 --> 01:32:37,263
stuff. It used to be the case that Bitcoin was open source. So people thought,

1461
01:32:37,823 --> 01:32:44,543
if anyone has a good idea anywhere, we'll just merge it in. And then that changed in
2013 or so

1462
01:32:44,543 --> 01:32:50,383
to, well, if it's a soft fork, we'll do it. But if it's anything else, we won't. And
then now,

1463
01:32:50,383 --> 01:32:57,423
even the soft forks, which are these completely opt-in, reversible,

1464
01:32:57,983 --> 01:33:02,143
ignorable opcode, Satoshi put in there for the purpose of being used for upgrades.
Now,

1465
01:33:02,143 --> 01:33:07,663
we can't even use those. And so I worry about all this scar tissue as having
accumulated.

1466
01:33:11,263 --> 01:33:14,943
Why is it the case that you have to be really, really nice to everyone? Can't your
idea just be

1467
01:33:14,943 --> 01:33:20,463
good? Well, look, I sympathize with you that we shouldn't rest on our laurels and we
shouldn't

1468
01:33:20,463 --> 01:33:26,863
think that Bitcoin's inevitable. But I guess my point to you would be that the real
scaling issue

1469
01:33:26,863 --> 01:33:32,543
with Bitcoin right now is users and people. Bitcoin on-chain today, without any
major edits,

1470
01:33:32,543 --> 01:33:37,583
could easily add another 100 million occasional on-chain users. But they're not
there. And people

1471
01:33:37,583 --> 01:33:41,663
don't get it. And they've been fooled into all this crypto bullshit. And they've
been swindled

1472
01:33:41,663 --> 01:33:47,343
and scammed by everything from WorldCoin to Solana, to Ether, whatever. So I'm just
saying,

1473
01:33:48,463 --> 01:33:52,623
that's one way to attack the problem is just to work on education and accessibility.

1474
01:33:53,903 --> 01:33:58,543
I, at the same time, think it's very important to be thinking 100 years from now
about what's

1475
01:33:58,543 --> 01:34:02,383
going to be key. How can Bitcoin actually be free to money for everybody in the
world when Bitcoin's

1476
01:34:02,383 --> 01:34:07,663
issuance ends is something I think about a lot. Or will it only be free to money for
very, very

1477
01:34:07,663 --> 01:34:11,663
wealthy individuals? I think about that a lot. So, I mean, what you're working on, I
think,

1478
01:34:11,663 --> 01:34:16,223
is important. And you've admitted many times that maybe you're just not quite
communicating it the

1479
01:34:16,223 --> 01:34:21,903
right way. All I'm saying is this is a long game, man. This is a 100-year thing. And
being more

1480
01:34:21,903 --> 01:34:27,343
collaborative with other people can only help you. It can't hurt you. And maybe
you'll see some stuff

1481
01:34:27,343 --> 01:34:31,983
in Xiaomi and eCash and the cash implementation that you're intrigued by. Or maybe
you'll see

1482
01:34:31,983 --> 01:34:37,263
some stuff in Nostra that you're intrigued by. It couldn't hurt. I mean, you would
definitely get

1483
01:34:37,263 --> 01:34:42,303
more people backing you if you were on Nostra talking about Drivechains. You would
get zapped

1484
01:34:42,303 --> 01:34:47,423
all the time. You'd get real Bitcoin in the end on-chain. And you'd be able to get
some freaking

1485
01:34:47,423 --> 01:34:53,183
zaps for your post instead of living on Elon's X thing where you can't even get
Bitcoin natively.

1486
01:34:53,183 --> 01:34:58,623
So come to Nostra, and I'll boost you, man. I'll retweet you or repost you, rather.
And let's go.

1487
01:34:58,623 --> 01:35:03,663
We can take it that way. That's all I would say. Well, thank you. And I'm happy,
very happy to

1488
01:35:03,663 --> 01:35:08,303
hear you say that we shouldn't rest on our laurels. That's my main message. That's
what I'm

1489
01:35:08,303 --> 01:35:14,383
trying to be all about. I do interpret the user thing. I think it's a little bit of
a chicken and

1490
01:35:14,383 --> 01:35:20,543
egg problem where it's like, let me explain. This is something that I've experienced
a lot as

1491
01:35:20,543 --> 01:35:25,023
someone who's been in Bitcoin for a while because I love Bitcoin. And then the price
of Bitcoin goes

1492
01:35:25,023 --> 01:35:30,223
up. Then the friends come out of the woodwork, and they're like, oh, Bitcoin. So
then, of course,

1493
01:35:30,223 --> 01:35:35,503
what you always want to do is you want to try to send them $10 worth of Bitcoin or
something.

1494
01:35:35,503 --> 01:35:44,063
You can't send them too much. It's kind of weird. Because I didn't understand
Bitcoin at all until

1495
01:35:44,063 --> 01:35:49,423
I used the software. I actually read a lot about it before downloading the software,
which was a

1496
01:35:49,423 --> 01:35:55,583
complete waste of time. And that was a huge mistake. Because even after that, I used
the

1497
01:35:55,583 --> 01:36:00,223
software, and then I thought the confirmations were kind of like, I don't know, like
BitTorrent

1498
01:36:00,223 --> 01:36:04,223
seeding or something. And I was very confused. I closed the software, and I came
back the next day,

1499
01:36:04,223 --> 01:36:08,863
and suddenly I had like 200 confirmations. And I was like, why did the confirmations
keep going up?

1500
01:36:08,863 --> 01:36:13,983
I thought you had to collect them, like Super Mario or something. And I was so
confused. And

1501
01:36:13,983 --> 01:36:17,583
only when I used the software did I really understand it. So people come out of the

1502
01:36:17,583 --> 01:36:26,303
woodwork and you're like, okay, you want to send them some coins, but then
oftentimes you can't

1503
01:36:26,303 --> 01:36:32,543
because either the blocks are full, those fees are high. Even if there's a $5 fee,
you send them $20,

1504
01:36:32,543 --> 01:36:43,103
they only get $15 then if they send it to someone. So I think that there is a lot of
nonlinear,

1505
01:36:43,103 --> 01:36:49,263
there's a lot of feedback. So I think that if it could scale to 8 billion people in
an

1506
01:36:49,263 --> 01:36:55,983
uninterrupted ramp, then that would help the usage go up. No, I can't do that. It's
not going to do

1507
01:36:55,983 --> 01:37:02,383
that. You know that it can't do that. It's got to evolve. And everybody else knows
that too,

1508
01:37:02,383 --> 01:37:05,503
I think. I mean, there's very few lightning entrepreneurs who are going to tell you

1509
01:37:05,503 --> 01:37:10,943
that everybody's going to use lightning for coffee in 50 years. And that's a mistake
I made.

1510
01:37:11,343 --> 01:37:15,903
Uh, I thought that was the case. And then I've changed my mind based on evidence.
Like,

1511
01:37:15,903 --> 01:37:21,023
I think now that lightning is going to be this central nervous system type network
that exists

1512
01:37:21,023 --> 01:37:27,983
between what they didn't users use and, and, and the on chain and, and businesses
and exchanges

1513
01:37:27,983 --> 01:37:32,063
and everything. And they're all going to speak to each other through this open
monetary network.

1514
01:37:32,063 --> 01:37:37,183
That's lightning. Um, but five years ago, I didn't think that I, I, I, I wouldn't
say I was fooled.

1515
01:37:37,183 --> 01:37:41,103
I just think that a lot of people didn't know what lightning could do. Cause we
hadn't seen it

1516
01:37:41,103 --> 01:37:44,783
in action. We were very optimistic about it. And we thought it was just going to be
like

1517
01:37:44,783 --> 01:37:49,583
digital cash for everything. Um, you know, it's possible to use it like that with
some

1518
01:37:49,583 --> 01:37:54,463
serious limitations. Uh, like it works like that on Nostra today, but I think most
people using

1519
01:37:54,463 --> 01:37:57,823
Nostra understand that it's not going to be like that in 10 years, we're probably
going to use

1520
01:37:57,823 --> 01:38:01,903
something like eCash or maybe, maybe it's arc or maybe it's even Drivechains. But
like,

1521
01:38:02,463 --> 01:38:06,383
I think you just gotta, you gotta evolve your opinions as you go. And I think what
you're

1522
01:38:06,383 --> 01:38:12,463
describing this frustration with lightning that you have sounds a lot like 2019 to
2021 era.

1523
01:38:12,463 --> 01:38:16,543
And maybe you can update your priors and check out some of the tech that exists
today. It's

1524
01:38:16,543 --> 01:38:21,503
really much better. I mean, it doesn't work all the time, but it's, it's pretty
good, man. Anyway,

1525
01:38:21,503 --> 01:38:25,343
Danny. No, I think that's the key point though. I think it's like, cause I I'm with
you, Alex,

1526
01:38:25,343 --> 01:38:29,023
when lightning was first kind of gaining any traction, I thought this was going to
be the

1527
01:38:29,023 --> 01:38:33,983
thing that scale to everyone, but it also, but yes, in theory, but it also was hard
to use.

1528
01:38:33,983 --> 01:38:38,063
It was so hard to use a hundred percent. And I, and I think now the people that are
actually

1529
01:38:38,063 --> 01:38:41,983
working on lightning, they're not making those claims anymore. So I agree with Alex.
I think

1530
01:38:41,983 --> 01:38:46,303
it'd be worth like revisiting this, but we we've gone, we've talked about kind of
everything there.

1531
01:38:46,303 --> 01:38:50,143
Do you guys want to just close out with like a ending statement and we'll, we'll
leave it there

1532
01:38:50,143 --> 01:38:56,463
for now. Okay. This has been a lot of fun. I didn't get to a lot of my points about
why I think

1533
01:38:56,463 --> 01:39:00,143
the tech stack will eventually be super, super good, but we did have a great
conversation about

1534
01:39:00,143 --> 01:39:04,623
lightning and, you know, I don't want to be mean to any of the people working on
lightning,

1535
01:39:04,623 --> 01:39:10,463
but I do think that at a certain point you need like a cattle prod to like get
people out of this,

1536
01:39:10,463 --> 01:39:15,583
like, you know, this weird malaise that they're in. So that's part of what is going
on there.

1537
01:39:16,303 --> 01:39:22,383
And, um, so yeah, this is just me, um, sort of being honest about what I have seen.
I gave the

1538
01:39:22,383 --> 01:39:27,423
little lightning story. So I think that people can track that and sort of see like
where I'm coming

1539
01:39:27,423 --> 01:39:34,383
from. And, um, so that's kind of what I think. And I think that there is a huge
amount of R and D

1540
01:39:34,383 --> 01:39:41,423
being done. I'd not on the alt coins themselves, which are often distractions and
anti R and D,

1541
01:39:41,423 --> 01:39:49,663
but through various people, tinkering stuff is being invented all the time. And if
Bitcoin is

1542
01:39:49,663 --> 01:39:55,983
slow to adopt that stuff, there will be an ever widening gap. And this is the gap of
complacency

1543
01:39:56,543 --> 01:40:02,463
and groupthink and just being in a weird cult, um, complacency and groupthink versus

1544
01:40:03,423 --> 01:40:07,743
the power of the network effects, which mean that the number one guy is going to be
further and

1545
01:40:07,743 --> 01:40:12,703
further in the lead. So that's basically what I'm all about. And that's what I was,
uh,

1546
01:40:13,663 --> 01:40:21,343
trying to say. So, um, that's my point of view, I guess. Yeah. Well, look, I think
the core part

1547
01:40:21,343 --> 01:40:26,223
of what you're doing, where you recognize that there's this limitation with Bitcoin
for a world

1548
01:40:26,223 --> 01:40:30,543
that needs freedom money for everybody is extremely valid. And it's great that
you've

1549
01:40:30,543 --> 01:40:35,983
been working on that. Very few other people have been in the same way as you. Um,
and I'm not

1550
01:40:35,983 --> 01:40:39,503
talking about being mean. I mean, who cares? I mean, people have thick skin. It's
more about

1551
01:40:39,503 --> 01:40:45,343
like just being, um, you know, less about, oh, that's all cope and more like, okay,
well, there

1552
01:40:45,343 --> 01:40:49,263
might be some interesting things with that, but I don't think it does the job and
therefore I'm

1553
01:40:49,263 --> 01:40:53,103
doing this and the arc people are doing the latter. And I think it's doing, it's,
it's going

1554
01:40:53,103 --> 01:40:57,103
really well for them because they understand that there may even be a moment in time
where the

1555
01:40:57,103 --> 01:41:01,743
things coexist. Like even if Drivechains in the end are the thing that everybody
uses, uh,

1556
01:41:01,743 --> 01:41:05,823
there's going to be some kind of transitional period where there's both lightning
and drive

1557
01:41:05,823 --> 01:41:11,823
chains, like clearly. So, um, you know, maybe think more on that. And I think that
your,

1558
01:41:12,703 --> 01:41:18,223
uh, contributions to the space are, are widely recognized. And, you know, as you've
pointed out,

1559
01:41:18,223 --> 01:41:22,863
people like talking to you about them. So, you know, I think talking to some of the
people

1560
01:41:22,863 --> 01:41:27,743
working on the cutting edge lightning and eCash stuff, um, could only benefit,
could only benefit

1561
01:41:27,743 --> 01:41:33,583
them benefit you. Um, so hopefully we can see more of that. Hopefully you get on
Nostra. Um,

1562
01:41:33,583 --> 01:41:37,983
and we can, we can, we can maybe have a one day, maybe, maybe I'm paying you on, you
know,

1563
01:41:37,983 --> 01:41:43,183
Drivechains over Nostra. Who knows? Um, I, I doubt Fiat job cares, as you say, he's
good.

1564
01:41:43,183 --> 01:41:48,543
He's good either way. He's, uh, he's happy with, uh, however people pay each other.
I'm,

1565
01:41:48,543 --> 01:41:53,183
I'm pretty sure. But anyway, um, thanks for Dan for us, for having us, Danny was,
uh, good to

1566
01:41:53,183 --> 01:41:58,063
get through some of this practice theory stuff and, um, uh, great talking to you,
Paul. I appreciate

1567
01:41:58,063 --> 01:42:03,023
your time. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Thank you guys. And, uh, Paul, you've got to
get on Nostra

1568
01:42:03,023 --> 01:42:06,783
by the time I release this video and we'll make sure we boost you and get you some
followers.

1569
01:42:06,783 --> 01:42:10,463
But, um, I really appreciate that. And, um, yeah, thank you for the time guys.

1570
01:42:10,463 --> 01:42:13,663
Yeah, you will actually, it's funny. You can shit all over lightning on Nostra and

1571
01:42:13,663 --> 01:42:18,303
people will zap you all day for it. It's perfect. It's ideal. It's ideal.

1572
01:42:19,983 --> 01:42:24,863
There you go. Thanks guys. Bye.