Ever since the block size war, really, in 2017, it kind of started to derail.

Anyone who was putting a little bit of thought into what they were trying to say was being outmaneuvered by raw Bitcoin maximalism.

So I think that is evolved into something really, really counterproductive and distracting.

Paul, how are you? There's a lot going on.

I'm doing great. There is a lot going on.

Are you doing great? I feel like the entire community is basically in mourning right now.

It's funny you say that because it is terrible. I think that people are in mourning.

But this NVK, he was a big hater of mine, and a lot of his friends are all haters as well.

And it seems like all of Paul Sztorc's haters got into a big club and now all of their Bitcoin was deleted.

They're all being discredited one by one.

I was kind of like, oh, it's a sign from God.

Why was NVK? Because why was he a hater of yours?

I don't know. I think what happens is people riff off of the maxi talking points.

So this is the Geeks, Mops, and Sociopaths article that people should read.

I think they show up and they say, oh, shitcoining is bad, blah, blah, blah.

Because BIP300 sometimes looks like shitcoining because it says, oh, we'll take the privacy from Zcash or we'll take EVM from Ethereum.

So it looks like we're giving some credit to those projects, even though it's about stealing their ideas and bringing them to BTC, which was originally the whole point of everything.

So I think he kind of got caught in that.

I don't even think he really thought about it that much.

But there is a strain of anti-BIP300.

There's an anti-BIP300 faction that says, like, we don't even need to take Zcash privacy because it's all about hard money.

It's all about 21.

Right. No other use cases matter.

Right.

I feel like that's part of the security marketing.

This is a term that I learned from a close mutual friend who I won't dox.

But there's a lot of, I think, some under-the-table discussion, I think, right now about the fact that Cold Card was sort of acting like we're the most badass, secure, whatever.

But then in the back end, they had two people with the most rinky-dink code you've ever seen in your life.

And the whole purpose of the weird commit history and the weird commit, it was itself sort of cursed because the whole reason they even did that was to get out of the open source license.

So otherwise, they would never have touched it at all, I think.

I don't want to speculate too much.

But it seems obvious to me that if they had just kept with the Trezor, they sort of started.

There was this open source.

I'm not sure how familiar people are with this.

But there was this open source hardware wallet technology that everyone used, everyone contributed to, everyone took.

That was heavily reviewed.

And there's never been any problems with.

Right.

And then he, NVK, and Cold Card used that.

And then there was a different company, Foundation, and a couple others, actually, maybe that they wanted to use NVK's Cold Card.

They wanted to use the Cold Card branch of it.

And then they were like, oh, they're stealing, they're copying, it's a copycat, blah, blah, blah.

They complained.

And so then they changed.

They had to change their code a little bit to get out of the open source license.

And that's when the error was introduced.

Right.

And they'll say that, oh, it's still open source because it's still source available and blah, blah, blah.

It turns out in practice, it mattered a very big deal because just changing it at all ruined it.

Source available.

This is, I think, another conversation.

I had never heard this phrase in my entire life until they invented it.

They were like, well, you can still look at the source and make sure that it's secure.

What's the incentive to look at the source if people can't build on it?

The funny thing is, apparently, some people did look in.

Well, yeah, I agree.

Many people raised that exact point.

And, of course, a couple people did look at it and they said it was insecure.

And then, of course, this code was there the whole time.

It happened to be insecure.

Just changing it at all introduced the bug.

So in one sense, everyone is mourning, as you said at the beginning.

But in another sense, it's like a big pylon, of course.

We have this from time to time.

Occasionally.

Social media is just like, well, you leave open source and then you're cursed.

I mean, especially when it's like a hero.

You know, when the heroes fall.

I mean, this was the most badass hardware wallet in Bitcoin.

He threw his personality around quite a bit, too, which is obviously pretty common.

But still, it was just like he was like, oh, yeah.

He kind of made it seem like he had it all figured out and it was so easy.

And everyone else is a scammer, of course.

So there's extra layers of irony.

So I'm not shedding really too much of a tear over that.

And I was shocked to find the sheer number of terrible people

who had either endorsed the cold card or were advertising with it or whatever

and were just kind of talking about it in a relatively normal way.

There's just a huge number of people who were very tied in with it.

And I just thought, well, they're all discredited now somewhat.

You texted me earlier and I think you said the phrase that you used was

is this like the last nail in the coffin of quote unquote Bitcoin maximalism?

Well, yeah, maybe.

Is it because it's like a maxi hero has fallen?

And we've had a series of maxi heroes who have fallen.

I would put Luke also in that category.

Michael Saylor, now that he's selling and then he's sort of up on stage saying

like, well, I never said he's tweeting out like he's like,

I never said, well, I'm still not keeping all mine Bitcoin.

But the company, I never said the company would sell it.

It's kind of like now everyone is kind of saying how much attention

do we want to give to these people?

They're not even consistent with their own stuff.

They said, you know, relatively recently.

So how do you feel about that?

Do you feel like this is like, do you think that like the general trend

of Bitcoin maximalism being kind of questioned right now is positive or negative?

Very positive, because it is really lost its way, like really a long time

ever since the block size war, really, in 2017, it kind of started to derail.

And it probably by 2019, it had completely derailed,

where it just become something where there's no tolerance of dissent.

It became a sort of totalitarian.

It was like, oh, you have to eat meat and you have to whatever.

You can't wear sunscreen and et cetera, stuff like that.

I feel like critical thinking like somehow became a problem.

And we elevated people who were very good at kind of playing the game.

You know, they were like, oh, this is these people like NVK,

but people like Samson Mao, people like Michael Saylor.

They're just they're very good at hopping on and saying,

oh, yeah, all these, you know, Bitcoin is the best.

Shit coins are terrible.

Whatever.

No nuance, no like subtle distinctions between things.

And they were the best at just seizing on the cheap talking points.

And then they became elevated.

And then people who had anything, there's like a little more thoughtful.

Even people like, you know, like Jeremy Rubin or even like Robin Linus

or we could go down the list.

Like there's a long list, like even like a Nick Carter or something like that.

You could go as far as saying like anyone who was putting

a little bit of thought into what they were trying to say

was being outmaneuvered by these simpletons

who were just saying like, you know, raw Bitcoin maximalism.

So I think that is evolved into something really,

really counterproductive and distracting.

I mean, I think it would benefit people like Jeremy Rubin or Robin Linus

or people who are like kind of doing something interesting

to, you know, have influence from some other ecosystem

or new technology or be introducing new use cases, etc.

Right?

Well, yes, of course.

If you're actually smart and you do something complicated,

you need to live in a world where that can tell the difference

between a smart idea and a bad idea.

Right?

Because if people can't, then it doesn't add any value.

Right?

So then what's the...

If it's really true, if Michael Saylor is right,

that Bitcoin is perfect and that we don't need developers

or we don't need any new ideas...

By the way, of course, he contradicts himself all the time,

you know, especially with quantum and things

where he'll just...

Someone will ask about quantum, they'll say,

well, there will be a fix and it will be...

You're talking about Saylor right now.

Yeah, right.

But he represents this ideology that...

The ossification ideology.

And the idea that Bitcoin is already perfect

and kind of pristine and unimprovable

and the idea that it doesn't even need like...

It doesn't even need people paying attention to it.

Which is now you can compare that to maybe like Rob

or something who was saying like,

we have been red teaming Bitcoin.

It's like, we have found like a million...

You know, he's like raising everyone's blood pressure.

Oh, God.

Where people are saying thanks to Chinese AI,

you know, there are maybe all these problems

in different projects.

They were saying...

He was saying like,

we found one new vulnerability per hour or something.

So it'll be a very interesting...

I don't know exactly what that was referring to specifically,

but it will be a very interesting year

for software development.

It'd be very interesting to hear

about like what's going to happen

in the next Bitcoin Core release.

Because sometimes when there's critical vulnerabilities,

they have to like hide them in the...

They have to sneak them in.

A new way to multiply two matrices or something.

And then it's like snuck in there is like the thing

and they tell everyone,

please upgrade to 32 quickly.

Secretly, they tell like...

So yeah, this whole CVE thing is quite funny.

Of course, according to Michael Saylor,

we don't need any of this.

So according to genius Michael Saylor,

who knows everything.

Oh, gosh.

He's just like, none of this matters.

Do you think, speaking of, you know, bug fixes,

do you think the great consensus cleanup

will be like, you know,

will restore our faith in the software process?

Well, I don't know if people want to have faith

in the software process.

So that's my concern is that

can we even pull that off?

So I hope so.

To me, the soft fork is this really,

really good idea.

You and I have discussed this before.

Soft fork is a very good idea.

The fact that we aren't doing it,

I think kind of proves

how screwed we might be, actually.

That's like a big part of my concern for Bitcoin.

So, you know,

I can give you like maybe an analogy,

like we have like all these...

Maybe you have all these birds around a tree,

you know,

and they're trying to get up into the tree

because there's delicious seeds

or whatever birds eat.

You know, there's something up in the tree there,

you know.

And they say,

well, we can do it.

We can get around.

We can get around town

without using our wings,

you know, without flying.

We can just walk around.

We can just walk up the tree.

But that's what everyone's saying now.

And they say it as if

it's some really impressive thing,

which it kind of is, right?

If you could see like...

I mean, like birds walking around

to get food is a feat of engineering.

And like they claw their way up the tree

using only the muscles in their legs.

But everyone's talking about this

as if it's like such a cool thing.

Like, wow,

we can do this without...

And I'm just thinking,

like, no,

the fact that we're even talking about this,

you know,

like we've got to find

a different group of birds

to hang out with.

This is a bizarre analogy,

I realize,

but it's,

you know what I mean?

It's like,

what are you guys talking about?

So we need to get that faith

in the soft fork back somehow.

Everyone should already want...

You know what I mean?

I'm concerned.

Why isn't it a higher priority?

People need to want to have it back.

I think we established...

Didn't we establish

that the reason you're hard forking

is it's like performance art

to help people understand

that they've destroyed soft forks

and that's a problem

and now you're putting people

in a position

where they have to hard fork.

I think certainly,

in part,

that's why.

Because, of course,

this is...

I have the BIP-300

as a soft fork,

which we sort of can't get

because we can't do any soft forks.

So,

but it's more than just,

you know,

my soft fork

isn't making it across.

It's like,

you know,

it's like I have like...

Instead of wings,

we have like a jet engine

for this aircraft.

We've just decided

that we don't want to do...

It's like you've reached

some kind of civilization

and they're like,

yeah,

we used to have computers

and we used to have Wi-Fi

and we used to have running water.

We just like smashed

all that stuff to pieces.

We don't really want...

Yeah,

but don't people...

Don't people suffer?

Don't people struggle

to get around with their famines?

You know,

don't your children die

of like disease?

Don't you need antibiotics?

Don't people like

suffer in misery

and ignorance

and fear?

What about the little

store of values?

Don't people need

any of that

objectively useful stuff?

What about the

store of value maxis

though,

who are like,

it just doesn't matter?

Like it's just like

a store of value

that can be held

in ETFs by BlackRock

and like we don't need

like this other utility?

Like we don't need

all these like

fancy payments protocols

and things like that?

Well,

you know,

here's...

If they could be...

First of all,

they're absolutely wrong,

but even if they,

you know,

they could be right,

they could be wrong.

It's kind of like

you can't be harmed

in any way

by an optional

opt-in

soft fork

or an optional

opt-in

layer two

or just

people

like doing

checking the code base

for CVEs,

critical vulnerabilities.

You know,

how is any of that

harmed?

Where's the store

of value

being harmed?

You know,

who's the victim here?

It's a victimless crime.

I guess,

yeah.

Do you think that

there's any legitimacy

to the MEV concerns

around layer twos?

Certainly not

for

drive chain

because of

301

blind merge mining.

All of the value

added to the block

is paid

on L1

including the

intangible

MEV

value.

This is the key feature.

So it's all

de-MEVed

anyway.

But I never thought

it made any sense

and if you talk

to the people

who are

banging the drum

about this,

they end up

telling you

the most ridiculous

nonsense possible.

It ends up being stuff

like

layer one

transaction fees

going up

or it's something

like any benefit

to a miner

that

you know,

they get

like,

so it's like

if someone uses

a miner

to heat their

swimming pool

that's like MEV.

This is what

it ends up being.

It ends up

being completely

absurd.

So the two

theories are

these are people

who have a concern

and they want

to share it

and it's like

you know,

they want attention

for themselves

they want

no,

I don't think

any MEV thing

has any

there's no reason

for anyone

to worry about that.

What people

should worry about

is just

this is like

when people say

you know

the MEV concerns

they're a lot like

you know

many religions

and many cultures

have like

a superstition

against

having too much

aspiration

like the tower

you know

these guys are getting

a little too

a little too

self-confident

so God destroys

the tower

or then in

Greek mythology

there's the

hubris

the pride

goeth before

the fall

you know

so a lot of

these

many cultures

have this idea

that you shouldn't

want antibiotics

you shouldn't

want eyeglasses

you shouldn't

want Wi-Fi

you know

all these things

are all vanities

and temptations

you know

and

it doesn't really

hold up

I think at all

but I mean

one easy way

is to ask

these people

to write down

definition

of MEV

or a way

to measure

MEV

then you'll

see it

start falling

to pieces

instantaneously

well this would

be like

a good opportunity

I think

for you

to like

just share

your solution

so you're

I've been a maximalist

for basically

15-16 years

but

up until this

very moment

yeah basically

and we need

competition

we need something

to

to show people

what we could have

and so

I'm creating

this alternative

hard fork

of bitcoin

called e-cash

so e-cash.com

it will be

launching later

this month

in like

alpha phase

so it'll be

like alpha beta

and then

the real network

will be rolling out

this hard fork

in phases

so alpha

beta

and then

essentially

main net

yeah this is

new news

because we have

the big

dramatic timer

counting down

but I think

it'll be a good

like everything

is kind of

ready on our end

but

I wanted to

give people

like two

attempts

to see

exactly

what this

looks like

that are

how exactly

do I integrate

it's like

okay listen

there'll be two

you know

you can try

you can practice

twice

and there's some

danger

I mean

we should

there are some

risks associated

with like

you know

using hard fork

safely

like replay

stuff

you just want

to make sure

that users

know what

they're doing

if they plan

on moving

these e-cash

to one

network

it will be

replayed

on the other

so you may be

sending away

the other

coin

accidentally

if you

if you try

to sell

your e-cash

you might have

yeah

if you

let's say

I was going

to sell

or I don't

know how

we could

come up

with a fun

example

where it

would be

like

500,000

e-cash

to Robin Linus

but then

when he gets

home

he realizes

oh

the same

Robin Linus

replayed

the transaction

he got

500,000

BTC

as well

I heard

Robin Linus

actually was

the one

who came up

with a solution

for this

problem

he's very

clever

he's very

clever

that Robin Linus

and if people

are interested

in technical

minutia

the Coinbase

transactions

on each

network

will be

different

since they're

different blocks

and they're

just different

mined by

different

people

so those

will always

be

you'll

always

be able

to split

with those

that's just

an aside

like you

can always

do pointless

technical minutia

or whatever

but I always

planned on there

being some

splitting

thing

but Robin Linus

got it down to

literally one

line of code

and then one

second line of

code

like for

good measure

so I was

very impressed

by that

and I thought

that was

very clever

totally

so

so what

did he do

there's just

there's this

transaction

in Bitcoin's

history

and this one was

from maybe

December 2015

so basically

locks

the funds

you sign

the transaction

but you can't

really broadcast

it and include

it in a block

until a certain

block height

this is in

Bitcoin

this is great

this is useful

this is used

in lightning

for example

a couple

other things

an indirect

way

and then

a certain value

which is like

one under the

maximum

block height value

e-cash

will just let you

broadcast it

instantaneously

but of course

in BTC

so it's kind of

like if you

post date the

check for

let's just

call it

you know

let's just

pick a random

day

we can say

if you

you know

Valentine's

Day

in the year

3111

okay

it just says

we just ignore

that date

so anytime

so basically

all transactions

on Bitcoin

are time locked

a thousand years

but then

if you

to this specific

date

Valentine's Day

on 2032

right

if you use

this special script

so you don't have

to worry about

being replayed

until long

after you're

dead

in theory

unless

but

e-cash

essentially

and so of course

if you actually use

for example

our mobile app

or if you use

Bitwindow

our desktop app

you can just

like click buttons

and stuff

but of course

people would have

to import the

real Bitcoin

private key

in order to

have the button

to click

which I would

imagine a lot

of people would

not do

yeah

I would

not do

that's why

Robin invented

this right

because he

wanted the

replay protection

to be opt-in

so I was always

planning to have

no transaction

replay by default

and have a way

to opt out of it

and I was

planning a little bit

on using it

as a kind of

cudgel

to get people

in and say

hey listen

hey do you want

to check out our

software because

we have the

splitter tool

in there

so that was

a little bit

part of it

but it was

also a little bit

about like

Bitcoiners who don't pay

attention to fork

they may lose

the e-cash

and may end up

with someone else

down the road

so I'm kind of

saying

why would you

lose your e-cash

down the road

if you make

the BTC

transaction

and then you

later think

oh

back in

you know

2026

Paul

this thing

but actually

these transactions

have been

being replayed

the whole time

right

and the coins

would just start

moving around

you know

like fine

then there'd be

a free for all

so I always

wanted to do that

and I always

wanted there to be

a way to

intentionally

if you wish

add replay protection

to the transaction

but I had a way

that wasn't

very good

it was imperfect

it was not good

it was like

two sort of

bad options

it was kind of

my idea was

to try to

mangle the TX ID

so that when

the signature

would be of

something else

and

it was just

Robbins

it's a much better

thing because

it's easier

for people to

I don't know how many

people ever

have heard of

nlock time

or whatever

but this is just

it's just so nice

to have it down

to literally

one line of code

that's very

it's very easy

to understand

also it's just

you see

it's like this

and then it's like

if this

like true

you can just

execute this

on some front end

yes

exactly

okay

so there will be

replay

ecash.com

mobile wallet

and the

bit window desktop

software

they will do it

and they will also

explain it

and there's also

a repo

if you go to

the GitHub

organization

ecash

dash com

there's no dots

in those

but

there's like

a fast facts

repo

like how to mine

how to split the coins

like what's going on

like what are the

you know

what are the

how to get contact

people who are

not impersonators

and stuff like that

so we got like the fast facts

so if that

that's one of the facts

is how to split

and then

but a good thing about it

is that

you

it's

another good thing

about

a robin's thing

is that if you try

in BTC

you just

you just can like

manually type in the

like you type in the right date

and then

it's like

it's

only very

limited number of bad things

could happen to you

you know what I mean

because it's like

you sign the transaction

but it's not

as long as you type

something far into the future

you can just try again

and you can say

well that didn't work

and

you know

I picked the wrong date

you see what I mean

you sign the check

and says

oh this is not going to be

cached for 500 years

well it won't

it won't end up

in the Bitcoin block

so

so you can just try again

yeah

there you go

I mean

there's going to be

e-cash ordinals

have you thought about that

yeah

when the fork event

splits off

all the ordinals

should just copy themselves

yeah

it should be the same

and the funny thing is

because of

Satoshi's

early early coins

that have never moved

they will re-enter

circulation

so actually

um

some of those

are bound to be

on

you know

whatever

like

they're bound to be

on like

difficulty adjustment or even yeah the epic sat right right I don't know I think they're all in like maybe they're all in 2009 I'm not sure good double check the epic sound I'm talking about which block coin which coin bases are the ones that we repurpose or the 500k coins like those will go those are like early you know those are really low on the ordinals list those are really low numbers

those are really low I don't think we're I mean I guess maybe they're

slightly more valuable but not a ton on actual Bitcoin unless it's the it's the

first of the difficulty adjustment the first of an of a happening right I mean

there's like certain so that'd be a whole system early in the four-year

cycle for that that other one to matter but there would be many that were a

difficulty adjustment so that so yeah I don't know yeah people collect rare sets

people very cash that are you gonna call them sets I think so yes this will just

be a cash sets the I wouldn't want to try to change it to something else but if

it was confusing for people then maybe let's just see like kind of what happens

with no see what happens interesting okay so when can people expect this to

happen so alpha is happening when the it's the it's ironically I didn't plan

any of this out but we have 110 is the next difficult it was coming up is the

next difficulty adjustment the end of 110 we all hope but then this the next

difficult two weeks after that is this one oh so it's gonna happen exactly to

one difficulty after that 110 and what after 110 is mandatory signaling so 110

turns out and of course I ignored all of this and I couldn't have cared less and

so I didn't even I was literally just thinking when I was doing the date we

were like oh we have to announce this soon let's announce it before the Las

Vegas conference so that we can smooth everything over in person and then we'll

pour them on so that's a good they'll get people enough time so that was the

only I was like I didn't even think that 110 would even be a thing ever so but

it's just funny that it happened to intersect because 110 has mandatory

signaling begins this weekend then there's theoretically there's an

additional two-week period for the 45% who according to them have still haven't

signaled to I know the whole thing is a fantasy I mean less than 3% isn't even

real anyway and it will collapse like well yeah I mean certainly what I expect

to happen is that on the upon the difficulty adjustment there will be

plenty of blocks that mind that do not signal right maybe there will be one or

two from 110 maybe they will then be on their own minority chain right the 110

people they have an enormous number of false things that they believe as I'm

sure you've this would be nodes right so they're not gonna get enough miners to

signal to have a minor activated software so then they're gonna have it'll

be like a user activated software de facto after that in which like some very

small portion of nodes will run this new software well I was just referring to

what will literally happen upon the day of whatever it is I think it's Saturday

night right every night like London time or something like that right and so there

will be a few maybe zero or maybe a few blocks mined by the 110 supporters if

that could be zero if there are a few blocks the most nodes who are ignored

because most people are just ignoring this this controversy they're gonna

ignore they're gonna successfully ignore their way out of it which is good for

them but I don't even think any like mining nodes are gonna run that I mean

it's gonna be a very tiny teeny teeny tiny portion of mining nodes that will

be running the software yeah of course and of course as a percentage of hash

rate I'm talking about the blocks they actually produce it doesn't matter how

many nodes or it doesn't matter how many you know whatever Twitter likes you can

get it's just like the thermodynamic block output will be very low they will

be on a minority chain those people will never get paid because you need the

hundred block maturity period they seem to think that if enough nodes like just

regular non mining nodes are running the software that that will create like

pressure for the minor complete misunderstanding of what happened with

segwit in 2017 okay it's hard to know even where to begin because it's such a

convoluted thing but in back in the day there was this great idea segwit and

everyone everyone liked segwit segwit was a bug fix it was a bug in Satoshi's

code there's no way that he intended to have this thing called transaction

malleability it's possible but it's very very very unlikely that because

transaction malleability means basically I could write a check and sign

it and then you could do something to the check where you would change stuff

that I wrote and change my signature not like the amounts really or the sender

the receiver but you could like it's like multiplying both numbers by four

and kind of shifting them over and then like dividing them by twelve and then

like he's kind of like you can kind of like rearrange the check for what end

like why it does almost it does very little but one of the things it does do

is change the TX ID okay and as a result if I give you a transaction and

then we try to build off of it which is exactly how lightning works it you could

change it get that transaction included in a block and then the original would

not and then the chain the chain of transactions the way to game lightning

yeah lightning no one wanted to shit there was there were versions of

lightning that you could use if without segwit but they were horrendously

inefficient and everyone thought can we just fix this bug which was we did with

segwit so the point I'm trying to make is actually that everyone thought segwit

was a good idea including the people holding it hostage so they were kind of

holding a gun to its head they were saying oh this I've got your precious

segwit give give us the two 2x block size increase and then we'll you know

you give me my hostage I'll give you your hostage but with 110 it's not a

hostage at all it's just like a it's a bad you know no one wants the feature

they have no power wants the 110 they have a bag of their own trash they're

holding a gun to and they're saying we'll pull the trigger if you don't so

they're badly misunderstood the other thing was segwit went through this huge

process lots and lots of people had discussed it segwit was going to support

lightning you know how big of a sacred cow lightning is and it's even back then

lightning was the answer to the large blockers you know the Roger Ver and this

type of thing was like oh how are we gonna scale because we've only can do

five to seven transactions per second oh we'll do lightning so lightning

expectations were very very very high segwit you know basically equaled

lightning you already mean Jeremy Rubin said lightning is good for the children

yeah so we had a lot of like everyone was everyone knew that the when the

miners are holding segwit hostage they knew that the other people the non

miners wanted it but this 110 is just something that really no one wants just

Luke wants it and then and also know what another thing no one wants is no

one wants to be no one wants to live in a world where it's like now every time

Luke comes up with some some notion we all have to just go along with it right

so I don't think anyone wants to live in that world Luke has really what I can't

really tell because I wasn't super following his career prior to the

situation but like well I mean was he broadly I mean what's your take on how

this has affected his reputation oh well I think it probably is very very

negative every Luke has always been very very unusual but you know sometimes as

you know in a room full of like crazy artists programmers first of all

everyone's a little weird but also you know you have like that weird diversity

to kind of it rounds the whole thing out in a way that's that extra creativity

was was he like the primary maintainer of Bitcoin core but no did he held a key

to his very skilled okay and he you know one of his many claim to fames is he was

the first he like if you go to the IRC chat logs he was like the first one to

point out a certain Bitcoin fork had happened there are two and I'm gonna

mix them up but one of us this level DB switch over fork and he like alerted

everyone to it I'm sure people would have found out anyway but it was like

you know he was like he kind of happening he was the one and for that he

was also someone said oh well you can't do segwit as a soft fork if only you

could and he was like what do you mean if of course you can you just do this

this bizarre thing which I think I would say many people in Bitcoin core I've

talked to a few people who are big Bitcoin core developers at the time

years later some of them kind of regret this whole segwit thing because the

segwit thing now instead of just one Merkle tree there's like three Merkle

trees then there's like instead of just one blockchain there's actually two

blockchains that are like in parallel and like they can like reconvert into

each other and it kind of made like a giant mess of everything so I think

segwit is kind of bizarre but what this was like Luke's like Luke was like again

one of the first starting the the avalanche where he was just kind of like

well you could just do this and this and this other thing do you think like bib

110 has any like cultural relevance to speak of like what do you think is the

the like let's just say they do in all likelihood just kind of like fork off

and go away will they leave a mark will they stick around like I don't know I

mean it's the whole thing so bizarre I think I hope I hope it doesn't leave I

mean what do you think like because I don't know the one problem with it is

that I think even though they I mean I think they'll continue to fight for like

data availability is bad do they really actually believe that or were they just

did they just want attention the whole I don't know you know I don't know either

because they they stapled a bunch of basically lies into their argument like

from time to time and the number enormous number of exaggerations I can't

remember the beginning of the argument was soon in a few months Bitcoin core v30

will come out and that it will be a huge problem because there will be all this

all this all these large op returns but you know that didn't happen that was

like last year yeah and then they were like and then this and then there's like

with CSAM and blah blah blah and so they just kind of had a lot of alarmist stuff

in which they had then doubled down date you know they refused to back down when

they were called on a lot of their false things they have doubled down each time

saying oh yeah of course you know up until a few days ago they were saying oh

obviously everyone is gonna literally until the absolute last moment they were

saying the miners are just waiting there we know we're lulling them into a false

sense of security and the miners are waiting and then in the last they're

finally gonna start signaling and now now that it's become is literally when

it like they couldn't possibly did miss so many in the last two week period that

and got missed so many and they had the two you know only the two percent or

whatever that they couldn't possibly hit fifty five percent that only at the

last possible minute kicking and screaming dragged into saying oh well

now we're gonna we're gonna change the proof of work and fire all the miners so

it's funny they're now gonna have to come up with a new name they're they're

kind of now where I was or you know the other e-cash people and I were like like

months ago we were kind of planning out this is how we will do this hard fork so

now they're kind of just doing that now and maybe they can can speedrun it very

quickly maybe they don't even care like I don't know your guess is as good as

mine I think was to respect to whether or not I'll have any cultural I hope not

I hope their cultural lesson is to stop lying to people and stop exaggerating

the importance of opera turn it's not really not that important it's funny

when we were on spaces the other week that was the term that stuck out to me

was Robby Hamilton said that your fork was much more intellectually honest I

just tell people listen like here's the BIP 300 you can activate it BIP 300 at

any time thus negating the hard fork really because how could the hard fork

succeed or have any real success when it's just it's just Bitcoin plus you

know it's just a different version of what Bitcoin is but for as long as BTC

does not have BIP 300 there will then be a real difference between the two and so

it's like people does that matter or not people have to equivocate you know

what I mean they have to say I'll be 300 that's a terrible idea oh then don't

mind me I'm just gonna do it over here then and then and then they say wait a

minute we don't want anyone to go over to that well then is a good idea like so

this is a completely the hard fork we should do much more of this this hard

fork people were like telling me you're you're chaotic good you know in the in

the in the table because they're like we should just do all these hard forks

give everyone free money everyone gets free money this is a this is actually a

quite a good idea is the only reason that are there's the primary reason why

people fear hard forks because of this replay thing like what are the core

reasons why I don't think so I think it splits the community and you can't you

can't have like you know everyone wants to buy like the Bitcoin standard and put

it like on the bookshelf behind and there's you like a real bit coiner I got

my cold card in my Bitcoin standard in my MSTR stock I'm a real bit coiner so

you split the community and then you kind of you know it's like what if we're

gonna go to you know we're gonna go to a Yankees game and then we're gonna start

like Yankees whatever prime Yankees yeah the whole point of to some for a lot of

people the whole point of it is the community and it's like you know people

need something to do you know church attendance is down it was COVID everyone

was locked in there they need they need without you know without the meme of the

money printer go burr you know and they're they're a group chat you know

what is their spiritual North Star is their spiritual North Star so I think

that's why we should break people out of that into this more rational thing hey

just let a thousand flowers bloom of course it should be noted that right

after Mao Zedong said let a thousand flowers bloom that was the trick he used

to get all the independent people out so that he could arrest them and kill them

all but so actually that that phrase is is not actually a good one really if you

think about it for the flowers all right guys taking a quick moment to thank my

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incentive aligned with miners and they've gotten a ton of attention over

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to bitbox dot Swiss and use code Bitcoin rails to get a discount all right back

to the show should we take this opportunity to actually talk about like

so some of this pork of the hard fork is happening he cash is happening based on

drive chains we haven't even really done that TLDR on drive jet this is the core

purpose of the fork is to enable a Bitcoin esque chain that essentially

just implements drive chains but I'm not sure if it implements other changes

actually there is actually a second QSYF client now so the QSYF is a core

untouched soft fork so that's basically I just have Bitcoin core that is really

untouched and I get up you can see how little it's such but it has for example

Robin Linus's and lock time these are some of the like a couple tiny tweaks

these changes are to make Bitcoin core into e-cash so actually not related to

bit 300 okay so we have that untouched and then next to it you have basically

second full node that scans all the block chains all the blocks a second

time checks for any bit 300 rule-breaking and then it says wait a

minute this block is invalid this is all you need to do a soft fork so you can do

as many soft works as you like without changing any lines of code in Bitcoin

you just need 51% hash rate so so you have when you fork Bitcoin core you have

a very small number of changes to Bitcoin core and then the major what

would be seen as the major changes aka bit 300 bit 301 are executed via core

untouched software that's right which means that the e-cash miners are running

these bit 300 bit 301 right both okay they run both pieces of software they

run but right they run this new e-cash core is it called area called e-cash

or the funny thing is because I wanted to change so little of it and because

Bitcoin has all these tests I didn't want to be in a cold card situation with

those weird commits so it's just still just called Bitcoin in like the thing

which is the I changed the readme to say like this is not big do you know how

many lines of code are actually changed funny that you mentioned that because we

wanted to get it down to the lowest number and then we wanted to like maybe

make t-shirts and stuff but you know I got a lot on my plate right now so I

don't know the exact number but we want it to be really really low because it's

only a few things it's arguably like there's other things too about like

should some people say should we actually change even stuff like a

network magic and stuff like that and so there's like a tiny little debate over

whether or not we can sand down a few more lines of code or whether or not

people want those changed or something so there's a way I'll get back to you

with the the exact final number we want to get it to the absolute lowest number

possible okay but yeah you can go to elegance still matter but someone could

call it a cash core that's fine yeah you cash core okay so there's me a cash core

very very similar to Bitcoin with drive chains QCF essentially running on top

are you planning on having specific drive chains enabled right off the bat

yeah what drive chains are we gonna have yeah we have a few that we made and then

there are some made by other people so we made the one one that we made is

just called thunder and it is just a large block throughput like highly

optimized it was like big block Bitcoin right and we have tested it to you know

onboarding and transacting with like basically like four billion people give

or take if you would not they would not all be on one they would actually be in

like geographically distributed set so there would be like Thunder North

America Thunder Southeast Asia Thunder Europe because most of the trade in

those places is internal so you would you would you would cheat and you get

like another ten you split it like basically you chop it like one order of

magnitude and this is just to create more block space basically you just yeah

of course you wouldn't do this at first at first you just have one and then you

wait until lots and lots of people are using it but the point is there's a plan

there's an actual foresight and a plan to reach eight billion people so but

right now one could handle how many people how many transactions the point

I'm trying to make is that actually if you look at the tests on github you see

there is actually no there's no actual barrier to reaching the entire planets

like transaction volume like if it were actually going to reach that you would

be able to because you can see like how far it came in like two years and you

can see how far the heart so I'm saying basically for all intents and purposes

it has the entire planetary scale possibility I was just not bad for one

there's also one made by someone else but that we support and encourage

enormously as a z-side and which is this takes from Z cash their orchard crate

and so that gives people privacy these private Z addresses we can hide the

center of the receiver in the amount so there's gonna be a Z cash e-cash drive

chains basically a layer tails that's right okay we have a couple others like

bit names is basically based off of name coins that actually does quite a

few things so this is like you'd own a name like you could own well you know

whatever isabel dot bit or does isabel dot anarchy or something and then this

would you can resolve this to whatever you like it's kind of maybe sounds a

little technical but if you think about like hey what if someone is

impersonating you or what if someone what if someone D platforms you like if

Twitter deactivates your account or if YouTube tries to you know pull your

stuff with this you just own the name permanently and you can then use the

name to feed all the other stuff like the name can feed like oh this is my

telegram account this is my phone number this is my whatever so it's actually

quite a cool idea and name coin is actually a very old idea co-invented by

Satoshi himself used to be called bit DNS and it's hard to explain in detail

why it's so important but I think it could it could really help the world a

lot because it kind of gives everyone like a phone book where you can message

everyone but then since money is involved you can like gate the

introductions you said but we have to pay like $50 to message this person so I

think it cut down on spam to cut down on all this impersonation D platforming

shadowbanning you know it could really change social media a lot it's actually

it's quite a an ambitious idea I think actually it's a pretty cool I wrote a

long piece of writing about this called bit names so people can read the text

that were all this text about like what the potential is we have another one bit

assets which is basically just like you can issue any assets so this would be

like like tap assets yeah stable coins NFTs ordinals type of thing like that

but just also if you'd want to do like stocks and bonds or just anything where

you wanted to say you know I just want to make 500 Isabelle coin and like a

platform right but people would a lot of people criticize that stuff is say

that's all useless but of course the ordinals paid an enormous amount of

percentage of the transaction mining transaction fees and then it ended up

being one of the most popular crypto projects ever is the like the stable

coins which are basically just like an NFT backed by totally by tether so

actually I'm saying you cash stable coin would be like that's like peak that's

yeah I've actually already in they've already kind of worked out one so even

if USD T doesn't come to e-cash which I think it will anyway but even if it

didn't people have like constructed something where it's like a new thing

backed by USD T so it's like a USD T like underscore T or something you know

OK and so it's backed by USD T and so that's that's what people are figuring

out a way to like hack and you basically get a T against tethers will maybe

it's like using actual USD T as collateral to back your U.S.

OK so I have a funny idea some other ones.

We have a long time proponent of prediction markets so we actually have a this prediction market project that I constructed to be on Bitcoin in 2015 a long time ago but Bitcoin never like pursued this stuff sidechains or covenants.

Is this a sidechain now or is it oh it is a sidechain how does it work?

Well it's it's actually a little complicated but basically you can this is like kind of like a poly market sort of sidechain where you can bet on things happening.

But what I did one of the things the reason why my Twitter handle is called Truthcoin is actually I wrote a paper in 2013 I think it published January 2014 and I wrote some code and that was definitely finished in 2013 back in the day the code and for a peer to peer Oracle which figures out what happened in the real world even when everyone has like an incentive to lie about what happened.

So it's like a smart contract platform with an Oracle that's telling you what the what ended up happening in this bet.

Right.

Interesting. OK.

That's ancient history.

There's going to be probably several EVM style sidechains.

There's two people doing EVM style drive chain right now. So I think.

You've got EVM style drive chains you've got a Bitcoin cash style drive chains.

You've got a Zcash drive chains.

You have all the everything that's been successful.

There's like a block stream did this thing elements.

Well first of all people are interested in my prediction market stuff which is again a lot of the OG Bitcoin people think of me as like the prediction market guy actually.

So that's why they're like oh.

So that's your handle.

Bitcoinhivemind.com is where I stashed all the prediction market stuff.

So if you if you go to truthcoin.info it links to Bitcoinhivemind.com also.

But if you just go to Bitcoinhivemind.com you can see I have a lot of stuff.

I have videos.

I have the old software.

I have lots of cool stuff.

Like I originally did like I think one might have been one of my first Bitcoin podcasts was like let's talk Bitcoin in like April 2014 or something.

And it was about this is it was about prediction markets.

So so that was like the original thing.

In addition to that there's this block stream elements project where it's like they have a bunch of stuff added including like they have a cat and stuff in their element elements is basically is it the language.

It's like the script alternative for liquid.

Is that right.

There's also like simplicity and I can't remember the relationship between them all.

It's a little confusing.

I think simplicity is like an add on and elements is like the base layer scripting.

Whatever it is.

There's a GitHub repository called the block stream elements.

This is basically a fork of Bitcoin that has like a lot of this script stuff re-enabled including opcat.

I was going to say Robin actually suggested that I ask you about great script restoration and whether or not we're going to have great script restoration on e-cash.

But it sounds like you're more leaning in the direction of just have it being a side chain with these new like script scripting options.

Well for the L1 the idea is to just keep it the same as Bitcoin core.

Yeah.

Or use these QCF activators.

So you won't you won't add all these like old legacy opcode.

So as soon as it happens in Bitcoin we'll just merge it over.

OK.

But you're not going to like go rogue and be like we're activating opcat on e-cash layer.

There is one thing where because we did not even a covenant Paul.

Here's the thing.

I'm going to get to it which is that we had BIP 300 301 with the QCF activator.

But now people have a second if they're thrown into the ring a second QCF activator unrelated to the BIP 300 301 one but like forked off of it.

And that one this is Hunter Beast put in for quantum resistant signature options.

And then people put opcat and opctv.

Oh I saw that.

So there's a second QCF.

So the question is you know how far are we going to push the envelope on this QCF thing and we're just going to have 10,000 of them.

Did Hunter propose the quantum resistant signature QCF for e-cash or for Bitcoin or both.

Well it was my idea.

I said that you know so you can blame me because this is the you know whatever or unless everyone thinks it's a terrible idea in which case it was hunters or you know whichever way you want to slice it.

But it was part of it was I was talking to him and saying listen we have this enforcer.

You know BIP 360 is like not going anywhere.

Let's just like we could like have an enforcer that just does quantum because the thing is we actually have one L2 that did quantum resistant stuff.

But but it's not as useful on L2 this quantum resistant thing.

If you listen to all the people who complain and Nick Carter's and what it needs to be on.

They're thinking like OK L1 has all these UTXOs.

We have to like start like loading them onto the lifeboat like now in order to have a chance of you know if for those people who think that it's an imminent move them to quantum resistant.

Although slipstream could also probably do some interesting recovery work if people don't end up actually migrating there.

It would be like a fight in the mud though because it's like you know there's only one there's only so much space in each block.

So if you do slipstream.

Yeah you're muscling someone else out.

Maybe like you know is it like a mad dash for the fire exit and then highly imperfect solution.

Ideally people just migrate in time for quantum but we could.

And I wanted it was also my idea.

I said let's just add for you know let's add two lattice to hash or whatever.

So instead of like bike shed it will just add a bunch of options you know.

And so I had that which I think is better the least common denominator like when you know there's four options.

So this is if because this as as of now this is still kind of experimental and we'd have to like re which is fine.

But we have to like retool like the mining script that we run to have two QCFs.

So because the mining script can only currently run one.

Well it's not like you do an infinite number.

Of course it's not a it's not a I'm just saying it's kind of an unexpected direction that it took.

That it's like because it was like which stuff should be on L1.

Actually opcat probably wouldn't be that bad.

Opcat makes more sense to be on L1 than anywhere else.

And in quantum also.

And I was thinking also op vaults because op vault is for like the property rights type people who want to store it.

So they don't really want to store it on like the new experimental L2.

Right.

They'd rather.

So I was thinking well can we let's just have another QCF so that the BIF 300 3011 can be fully finished project.

It'd be ossified you know.

So we can put like a little like ossified like Michael Saylor.

Ossified meme.

Stamp approved you know or whatever.

And then all softworks are executed by QCF.

Well yeah that's what I was thinking.

Then I was like well I mean why not actually because it does make sense.

But then you can still just keep Bitcoin core the same as you know you can see e-cash core same as Bitcoin core and you can still merge stuff over.

The only issue would be if they activate some kind of soft fork that collides with the op-nop or the op-success like the actual code thing that you like the flag that you used for opcat or something.

Then you would have to you could just we could just fix it on our end to update it.

But that would be the only that would be the only weird thing.

So it would actually be quite easy to fix on our end.

I'm just saying that would be the only thing that that could be an issue at all.

And then we have to ask ourselves how likely is it that any soft fork will actually activate on Bitcoin ever.

You know let alone one that would collide.

I was gonna say it will be easier for soft works for QCF specifically to be activated on e-cash.

Or either.

Well on either.

But I would say also like let's just say we're going with the QCF that like all soft works will be activated by QCF on e-cash.

Assuming that you don't need I mean do you imagine having just as many miners mining on e-cash as you do on Bitcoin.

Probably not.

Well not in terms of the hash rate magnitude.

What do you think.

Yeah.

What are you expecting in terms of hash rate.

Because if it's lower hash rate then weirdly enough you can get QCF activated more easily.

Right.

Well maybe if just if there are fewer people to coordinate.

Yeah.

Well I don't think it comes down to the people either because it's actually not that large a quantity of people in BTC either.

You know what I mean.

Who are actually making decisions.

It would just be like you know Foundry CEO Mara CEO.

It would be like seven people really if we really think about it.

But they.

But they but they tend to try to do what their constituents want them to do.

This cliff that says let's just no news is good news or whatever and just we'll just do all just do nothing.

Because you don't want to be blamed.

The problem is that adds up to death by a thousand cuts.

You know what I mean.

That's the end up with like the DMV.

I think they will activate great consensus cleanup.

I think all the miners will activate.

I think we're already at like 30 plus percent people like companies that have done some sort of implementation or given some signal that they're interested in executing.

Great consensus cleanup.

I think that will happen.

Well you may be right.

But haven't we seen a long 10 year period where something like builds up a little bit of support and then everyone's talking about LN hands you know.

And then everyone's talking about CTV.

I remember I think in 2023 there at the open source stage in Las Vegas when we sponsored there everyone's like CTV and everyone people are cheering.

I mean what became of it.

I mean fair.

Fair.

A lot of like maybe maybe almost not quite.

I think it would be good for Bitcoin if we could activate soft forks now that with e-cash I'm like hedging my bet.

So I'm saying Bitcoin sucks and it's going to crash into a mountainside and it's going to be a disaster.

So it's like you think e-cash is that how you see it at the hedge.

Yeah.

So it's like if you're right then.

So it's like I'm playing both sides to some extent.

So it's like if you're right then that's good for Bitcoin.

So that's good for my Bitcoin investment and my Bitcoin life.

Yeah.

I'm happy about that.

And then if we can't ever get great consensus cleanup or any other soft fork that's really good for my e-cash investment and my e-cash life.

You know what I mean.

Because it's like I was right about these.

So that's kind of the point of it all is that we can't afford to leave ourselves vulnerable to this circus.

Right.

I mean.

Because what's the problem with any.

What's the problem with Opcat really.

You know what's the problem with CTV.

Nothing.

So.

But they're not doing it.

And there's no problem with Bit300 either.

So problem with any of this stuff.

Of course again if you ask genius Michael Saylor who knows everything.

He will say oh we don't need.

We don't need any code.

We don't need any developers.

So there you go.

He goes back and forth.

He's very into the quantum thing.

Yeah.

But it's almost more annoying that he goes back and forth because then you can't even.

Well I think of course Bitcoin is digital money, digital credit, digital property, digital real estate, digital engine fuel for like a space rocket.

I saw that on a slide at some point.

And I'm selling you a Manhattan real estate.

You know.

And then it's like it's when hotels first added electricity.

Oh my gosh.

So how do people actually add drive chains.

Like how easeful is this.

How are you educating people about how they can like start their own drive chain.

Well in the in the desktop software there is like a screen.

There's like a tab that shows all the drive chains.

And there's like a little button that says like propose new.

And there's how many about right now that are like that you know are likely to activate initially.

Well yeah I would say there are like there are seven that are in pretty good shape.

And then there's like two that are kind of experimental.

And then there's there's a few more.

There are there are a few more.

So I don't know how you know.

And there's a 256 maximum number.

Yeah.

I think that may be misleading or that's true in the BIP.

The BIP only allows for.

Two hundred fifty six.

But actually you can.

First of all you can have side chains of side chains.

And then you can actually just you could just do the QC of again.

Like if they filled out.

Just add another 255.

Why did you originally implement a 256 limit?

We need some way to sort them apart.

So there's this one byte.

It has to be in each thing like each marker.

So it's one byte for every drive chain message.

So if we wanted to count past 256 we need two bytes.

That can count to whatever I never do math live on air but it's thirty five thousand something.

So that would have been too many.

And then it would be two bytes taking up each message forever.

So you know.

I just want I felt bad for all the.

All the fiber optic cable in the world and all the routers have to relay every message.

And it's consumes a consumed space.

So she put a four byte version number.

In each transaction.

And there's only like three transaction versions.

So it's four bytes.

You can count to like four billion or something.

But we only use three.

So there's as much as just extra zeros that are just along for the ride.

You know what I mean.

It's like if I brought like five or six extra backpacks today that are all empty.

So most of the ones.

So you said there's like seven that will actually just be active literally in the alpha stage.

Right.

Essentially.

And then you imagine there will probably be more that come online for alpha beta.

Right.

People will.

The core problem that the side chain idea solves.

Is that people disagree.

Like people think oh you know we need is CTV and then other people say we don't need CTV.

So there's a big disagreement.

And so.

If we ever reach a situation where someone looks at the entire space of L2's entire side chain space.

And they think you know what.

Out of everything that's offered here.

I've got something better than all that.

Then they can launch their new.

Thing that may be right.

That may be wrong.

But.

They can compete.

Right.

This is the core theme.

Once you hit in theory just theoretically.

And I know that you can like create a tree and go forever.

But like in theory if you have 256 chains.

Is there like a process for booting one.

To get yours in.

What's that process.

It's basically the same.

The withdrawals are very slow.

In drive chain.

And the theory is that the invalid withdrawal would not survive a slow transparent process.

Basically one hash.

That doesn't match.

Another hash.

So it's like the guilt can be established and proved immediately.

To everyone.

And then it's still got to like.

Slowly.

Traverse this like three month process.

Okay.

So like how do you enforce people.

Like let's say I'm like there's 256.

And I want to come in and introduce my chain.

And I have to literally like kick somebody out.

Yeah.

I'm saying there's like a special kind of withdrawal.

That.

Because if you can do that.

You can already drain the side chain of all of its funds.

And that's so it's all right.

Such as I already dead chain walking.

Kind of in that.

So there's a different type of withdrawal that basically.

Renate read names or relabels everything.

It basically pulls all the money out of that.

If there is any money in that chain.

And puts it into like a new.

Chain.

And that's basically hard forking the chain.

Which is essentially just rewriting it from scratch.

So you could change the.

You would change the name.

You could change like the description.

And like all the stuff that points to like where the.

Software.

You would have to have access to that code base essentially.

No because the.

What the.

What we write into.

This is part of the philosophy of drive chain.

And it's great strength and weakness.

Is that the drive chain intentionally.

Does not actually enforce.

Like downloading and installing the real.

Software.

If it did.

Then a lot of things would be better.

But that would be effectively be an infinity.

Block size increase.

Because you would just say you're on the hook for.

All this code now.

So drive chain has this kind of like light coupling.

Where things are.

Connected very tightly.

Some things are completely disconnected.

And we tried to go down the line.

And pick like the perfect formula.

For which things are connected.

And which are not.

So what drive chain does in L1.

You can you can describe.

Like the name of the software.

You can say what is this is the hash.

Of version one of the software.

So you can say this is exactly what the source code.

That you should be running looks like.

This is a you can have all these things.

And so that's to get it off the ground.

But really the software.

The different software projects.

Are kind of like alt coins.

Where there are there their own thing.

And the person can just do whatever they want.

As long as they only upgrade by soft fork.

You know version one of their.

Code should still work actually.

So the link going all the way back.

To version one is that.

They wanted them all to be compatible.

With each other and then version one.

The descriptions of it are.

Are committed there in the bitcoin.

For lack of a better word.

Don't tell Luke they're like in an opera churn.

Or is it in the opera churn?

I'm pretty sure actually.

This whole opera churn thing.

That would make sense.

For years and years I was in favor.

Of getting rid of the opera churn limit.

It's one of the first things we did when we forked.

To just have like test drive chain node.

Was just rip that thing out.

Because it was completely useless.

I can't believe that this has become.

The major talking point for 12 months.

Is a complete non-issue.

There's nothing to do with spam.

It has nothing to do with anything.

It's just I can't believe that.

So it's.

They have activated.

An incredible marketing campaign.

I just have to say.

Like hats tip to them.

It is amazing how many people.

They have enrolled in this.

Absolutely ridiculous campaign.

I mean bravo really.

The marketing chops.

You just get sucked in and you can't.

You can't even stop talking.

You just think like you know.

That's actually the trick for marketing.

You have to have enough haters.

You need to have.

The heel and the jobber.

Right like in wrestling.

You have like the person.

The villain or whatever goes down.

Yeah right.

If you don't have haters.

You're not going to get any attention.

I mean let's be real.

Like that's how Twitter works.

They courted the haters.

Deliciously just perfectly.

I don't know anything that happened this week.

But I will say I actually literally.

For a solid moment.

Fell for Ooty's troll.

About that one time being canceled.

Well he was always like.

Pretending to be a supporter.

He was like in the supporter side.

And it was like yeah we all know he's trolling.

But but like the good crypto news.

I saw that and I was like wait is.

Like Yahoo picked it up.

They made it into like the X.

Sidebar thing.

I have to backtrack.

Bip 110 was canceled.

Oh my God.

He's going to be so happy.

I was like you guys.

I hear Yahoo just reported.

That Bip 110 is canceled.

He's a totally master.

What a great troll you know.

This is not the first time.

This is not the first time that.

Ooty has tricked reporters.

Remember when he said that.

Opcat was Bip 420.

Yeah.

He is actually the most masterful.

On the planet.

He's the number one.

Luke Luke can't hold a candle to Ooty.

It's kind of like when they have like.

It's like crazy beats like smart.

Beats like it's like whatever it's like.

Psychopath versus like normal person.

Versus like crazy person versus clown.

You know it's like whatever.

But I think it's.

I think it's sad that we live in a world.

Where it is governed by like.

Who control the best.

You know isn't that.

That's not great for us.

That was pretty impressive.

But yeah I mean.

To be fair I think that.

Yeah I mean this.

I just don't see how BIP 110.

If they had any support at all.

Yeah.

And they say well we have so many.

We have 20,000 nodes.

And it's like of course anyone.

With the laptop can.

And 10,000 of them are Luke.

Yeah you can go on whatever.

You can go on anywhere.

You can go to AWS and get.

They're renting hash power though.

It's not just nodes they are.

But I mean it's not going anywhere.

When you rent the hash power you see.

What you're really working with which is 2%.

Which is 2% temporarily.

Yeah 2% that they finally dragged in.

And you can see this is nothing like.

Segwit where.

Which is what they keep comparing it to is 148.

The UASF for Segwit.

Which is like where everyone wanted it.

And everyone knew that it was at least a quality.

Item.

So there you go.

With the UASF there was.

Around 20%.

Supporting it from the beginning.

So that's at least plausible threat.

Because when you have 20% hash rate.

It's a factor of 5.

It's 1 5th.

So instead of blocks coming every 10 minutes.

They'd be every 50 minutes.

But you can still survive with that.

And you have to make it 10 weeks.

For the next difficulty adjustment.

And then you'd be fine.

So it's 10 weeks instead of 2 weeks.

20% you have a very credible threat.

If you go on a minority hash rate.

That you will at least live.

But I don't.

This is another thing that the 110 people.

Don't seem to appreciate.

Which is that with once it drops too low.

You don't have a credible threat.

Because if you only have 2%.

This is a factor of 50 now.

Instead of every 10 minutes.

Every 500 minutes.

Do you find a block.

And instead of every 2 weeks.

It's every 100 weeks.

So it takes you 2 years.

To get to the next.

Next difficulty adjustment.

So of course it's not.

The credibility is non-linear.

You know what I mean.

The credibility falls off a cliff.

You need to have some minor supporting you.

Which they didn't even have that.

This whole thing is an ocean publicity stunt.

It's hard to say.

I think it's hurt ocean.

I think it's really hurt ocean.

Did you see Jock Mo step down.

Kind of long overdue.

And in fact a lot of people would say.

They would be a little cute.

About Luke and they would say.

And including me I would say this too.

I'd say well Luke is.

Luke is super smart.

But Luke is a little crazy.

But he's actually a genius under the hood.

All that is kind of true.

But.

The idea that.

This is.

All this adds up to like a competently run.

Organization.

Or a marketing campaign for them.

I think it's completely discredited them.

Because they actually were doing something important.

Like they actually could have done something.

Well they have a lot of talking points.

Legitimately important.

I don't agree with any of that.

I don't think the end hasher should make the template.

No you don't.

I'm a huge supporter of PPS.

I think PPS is far superior to.

This.

Oh interesting.

So I actually didn't even think any of that.

What do you think of Stratum V2?

Oh hot take call.

It's funny that I would have my own.

I have pieces of writing.

We have our own open source mining pool.

Made by Layer 2 Labs.

Which E-cash will use.

But there's also.

I wrote some blog posts about this.

About like you know.

One of them is called like popular mining lies.

And there's like a whole part about Stratum V2.

Wait wait wait.

Can you explain this?

So you're not like concerned about like minor decentralization.

Doesn't Stratum V2 fix it?

This is just a thing.

People just they can just sprint.

And just say a bunch of stuff.

And then everyone will just say oh you know.

Yeah we all love decentralization.

This is like.

What is your argument?

Why would anyone worship Satan?

You're going to have to explain this.

So Stratum V2 is a mixture of a lot of ideas.

That are not controversial and good.

So there's a lot of good.

Yeah a lot of it's just like upgrading.

Like critical mining.

We had one person who was a top contributor.

To Stratum V2 that we hired.

So one of the one of like the eight.

Core programmer at Layer 2 Labs. People that's been there a long time as a history of contributing to Stratum V2 and history with mining. And so a lot of that stuff's great. Yeah. Then but the big the big like meme the big talking point. Right. Is this job selection job delegation thing. Right. The idea that like whoever in the pool hits the block can create their own block template instead of the pool. Yeah. I think that's a really good point.

I have many claims about this. Number one what they've proposed doesn't actually work and it doesn't make any sense. Because the pool can override it anyway. And for a couple of reasons. Really? Of course because what the pool is the one telling everyone what to do. So that so it's kind of like it's unclear whether or not this is supposed to be something where the pool says we will allow you to like we'll support this and we'll allow you to like tell us what you think. Because the pool itself is permissioned basically. Yeah right. You can kick anyone off anyway.

If somebody is like generating blocks that aren't you know whatever OFAC compliant or whatever the government forces you to do. Let me ask you this. Let's say we have a pool over there. This is one of these cameras or something. And this is the pool. And me and you both mine at the pool. OK. And you they implement this job selection idea which is you know you'll see how bad it is in a second. Let's each of us choose what the pool does. What if we pick different things. What if I say we're going to mine transactions that pay that all pay no fee zero fee. So the block is worth very little.

And you do a normal thing. You just say we're just going to put whatever pays the most fee which is what everyone does. OK. Then it goes to the pool and then the pool says well you know like you know if we find the block that means I overwrite your preference or if you then you overwrite mine or you know do we take turns or the whole idea is like convoluted. It doesn't make any sense even in its own terms.

OK. Well I'm going to have to not trust and verify all this.

Yeah. Check it all out. I have long I have a giant screed against this job selection idea. And first of all no one has ever asked for this. And when it's implemented no one takes anyone up on it either.

So you will not be implementing an e-cash stratum v2.

I'm not interested in this job selection thing.

Well I think it's better is to have the accountability for pools where the pool says hey listen I am doing everything I can to maximize the value of this block and then turn that money over to you. And that's exactly what PPS does. So PPS is perfect. So this is where we do the pool.

There are open source pools for PPS.

Are you not concerned about you know like governments or whoever like holding a gun to the heads of the CEOs of these pools and like forcing them to do stuff against their will.

OK well how does stratum v2 help. Like what if the pool says they hold the guns to the pool's head and they say you're going to do this from now on and you're going to say that it was because of a little minor one a little tiny little minor on the pie chart. And you're going to say this is to protect mining decentralization.

So you're going to evade accountability. You're going to lie to everyone and say this is all because of stratum v2 told you to do this this thing that never minds any blocks and that's how we're going to keep transactions we don't like out of the Bitcoin blockchain.

So isn't that way worse. Whereas in my thing the pool now has to turn to a different gun that's pointed at their head which is that they're they're customers who could all leave and they have to say sorry guys we found a block but we didn't collect any transaction fees this time.

And is that you OK with spending 100 percent of your expenses millions of dollars on electricity and getting zero revenue. Are you guys we're all good with that.

This might be the spiciest of all of your takes. It might be maybe number one.

Well because it speaks to like we've this cold card thing it's all related. People have built these sacred cows you know they've said oh lightning is how we scale Bitcoin in no shit coins blah blah blah.

We don't want even we don't even want to have the ledger because the ledger could touch a shit coin. And so then we'd have to just go kill ourselves. So then it's like this is what we've all built.

It's coming out. I mean excuse me ledger is coming up roses and they're coming out. Everyone's this is basic software modularity to about like when you we have all these things they're very complicated.

You just have people stay in their own lane. You say this is the best way to add two numbers. You know this is the best way to have use USB USB port. You know what I mean. You standardize everything so that you simply re-simplify it all.

And this is like you don't have all this weird stuff. Oh this is the one. This is the hardware wallet for all crypto currencies. This is the one only for Bitcoin.

So it doesn't make sense actually. Even the whole hardware idea. That is the best way though to get customers in our community is basically it's like you don't actually have to explain why your thing is the most secure. You just say it's Bitcoin only.

And then everyone drops their guard. So unfortunately that is they trust you because you're Bitcoin only not because you prove that you're trustworthy and you didn't even prove you're Bitcoin only really.

But I mean I probably they are. This is part of the security marketing. The line or they say the line and everyone drops their guard which is and now the chickens have come home to roost on that.

So that's that's good thing because hopefully there'll be some cultural improvement and accountability for quote unquote Bitcoin only companies that you know were otherwise just kind of coasting.

I don't think people will fall for it anymore. What they'll just say. Oh yeah. You know like there is no second best or whatever. People just say oh yeah he's one of us and we'll just not we'll not think about any of this.

The Bitcoin maxi culture has been I think rapidly evolved has been changing for the past since Ordinal's basically since the advent of Ordinal's it's been like now two three years that it's been evolving.

Well it's taking too long to collapse and for I really think it's since the block size war it has been getting less healthy under the hood. But you don't you don't see it like a block size.

Because it was I feel like peak Bitcoin maximalism was like 20 21 20. It was extremely it was actually very healthy form of maximalism pre block size war.

OK. So before the block size war everyone took it for granted that Bitcoin will win. All the other projects are just distractions and they're just trying to separate you from your Bitcoin.

And whenever people would make a new altcoin they would say oh yeah we know the creator is selling this altcoin and pocketing a bunch of Bitcoin for himself. He's the one buying all the Bitcoin.

This is basically the same thing as micro strategy by the way as he gives people a bunch of stock. And meanwhile who has the Bitcoin who has the private keys not the shareholder.

But anyway the point is it was very very healthy. Then when the block size war happened there it cast doubt on the future of Bitcoin because it was like there's now two instead of us all being united there's now two ways you can go.

Large block small block. And then a theorem theorem was nothing until 2016 when the block size was sort of heating up.

And it was clear also that we had two scaling Bitcoin conferences at the end of 2015. But then the 2016 one wasn't like 10 11 months later.

So there was a long period in 2016 of just like anxiety and confusion. Ethereum kind of rocketed into the scene.

And now it was like oh you can compete with Bitcoin maybe smart contracts maybe all this governance all this other stuff. So it was very healthy then. And then it's been getting worse.

I agree with you that the. Twenty twenty one was maybe when it's it had its apparent like height.

It was like mimetic maximalist unification or something.

Of course it was a bull market because of Covid and our governments all the governments printed all this money and made the price go up.

That's right. So that always helps. Price has not been going. Bitcoin was winning in twenty twenty one.

And it was just easier. It was like we usually have people had optimized the talking points like all you need to do is buy this and then do nothing.

So people kind of optimize all that. As a result there's been a lot of malinvestment because a lot of people have made that their whole identity.

You know what I mean. I'm not talking about malinvestment in Bitcoin. I mean like people have deployed like books and podcasts and things that are just kind of saying conferences that just say oh yeah.

All you need to do is not think about anything at all. And and then just buy this thing and it's guaranteed to go up. And so all that.

I mean it's a great engagement. Being simple is a good engagement strategy.

Nuance is not. I mean I have learned definitely the hard way that nuance is not usually like broadly accepted by them.

It doesn't it doesn't hit wide but I think it hits deep. You hit like a few smart people. Well and then people can people can be early. So that's the alpha.

You get to be nice. It's not alpha unless most people don't believe you. Right.

OK. So alpha is the difficulty after BIP 110 and then beta. Do you have dates for beta and mainnet or not yet.

Well I think it's easier to do when it's on a difficulty adjustment. So it'll probably be the public four weeks after August 23rd.

OK. You know and then four and then maybe four or six weeks.

You'll do them like a month apart. And the idea is that people will be able to like test out everything they need and alpha and beta.

This should answer all of your questions in a way because it's like here it is. You get it's almost like you get to time travel to the past like twice except obviously it won't really be time travel.

But it'll be like you get to the future. Right. You'll say this is exactly what it will be like.

And so then you know people do some weird things. I would imagine for the because we plan also to have the redeem at some rate.

So if you if you collect the test coins you can turn them in for real e-cash at some rate.

You're making Bitcoiners rich with extra free.

So these would be worth like some 1 percent or half a percent or something of the because of course probably very few people participate in relative in terms of amassing a huge amount of coins to turn in.

I'm not sure I'm explaining this point well but the point is.

You're saying people will basically get free coins de facto. If you get free coins each time you're going to get de facto e-cash.

Yeah you get free coins each time. But what I'm saying is if you actually collect the alpha coins you turn them in for some real coins you know maybe like 500 to 1 or like 100 to 1.

This is what we were talking about. We want to make sure we covered it.

OK so basically you're going to incent effectively you're incentivize people to use alpha and beta.

If you think the ultimate coins will have some value this will have some portion of that value.

So you can kind of use some incentive to get involved to try to collect these these coins.

And if you screw up you know these are just free coins that you don't worry about it because there'll be another test and then they'll be the real thing.

So people get to practice a few times. One thing people can practice with the transaction replay.

You can see there will be a bunch of people probably who do nothing and you can maybe try to take their e-cash.

I would want to practice my replay protection transactions on alpha or beta before I did it in real life.

Precisely. And I think it's also like a phrase that gives people a little anxiety.

So we'll just say this is you know this is exactly what it this is what will happen.

So I think maybe that will help a little bit.

At the same time if there's no stakes you know that's just a little too boring.

You know what I mean. It's like I think you can only coddle people so much. Right.

So it's like I guess. Yeah. I mean yeah.

If you're comfortable with the replay protection mechanism then you can just go sell your e-cash.

Right. Or you could just do that.

Another thing is I'm sure a lot of people will do nothing which is what most people do.

That's perfectly fine. That's great.

Great. I will neither buy nor sell.

And I think that's actually very fair.

Certainly if you're one of these buy and hold bitcoiners you know as long as you're not touching your BTC the e-cash will be there waiting for you like forever until you touch the BTC.

So there's no rush.

Right. So there's no rush. I mean I'm very much in favor of people thinking about it very slowly.

I think that will give me the edge.

That gives me an advantage because these ideas are pretty good.

But the question is are they ahead of their time or are they you know in the wrong time somehow.

People seem to appreciate generally speaking the way that you're handling this.

You know just the posture with which you're executing this.

Right. I mean you're kind of again you're sort of doing the opposite of the bit 110.

I know it's very funny.

And then even for me the 110 you know they since their thing is about to fail like literally days away from from failing.

Two days from now.

They have to basically scramble to do the intentional hard fork.

So the question is how much of my are they going to be copying my tests for that or like.

So that is real. They're going to do a hard fork. Is that what they're saying?

Well I just think it's the well what are their options really.

Their options are like say we were wrong the whole time and you know.

So how likely is that.

It's a safe face they now need to work for.

They need to say we have to fire the miners because they're not doing the right thing which is agreeing with Luke all the time about everything.

Firing the miners means just hard forking.

That's what that means.

You know it's funny because I'm hard forking but I keep it shot to 56 D.

So the miners can freely travel back and forth.

We want the Bitcoin miners to mine e-cash too.

I don't see any particular you know changing the proof of work algorithm kind of just buys you a little bit of time and then there's a new equilibrium or something.

So I don't see why I would want to.

Why would I want to make all of the miners into a natural enemy of the project.

You know what I mean. Because if my thing starts to succeed super super super well.

Then suddenly all the miners will think wait a minute.

This thing may which may not be charged to be six mine.

Now this is a threat to us.

We need what we need to do is immediately activate BIP 300 on BTC or whatever.

But actually in that scenario that's not the last thing I would want is to finally be succeeding on this.

There's one idea and then turn the BTC project into something that would then you know because you see what I mean.

It just turns into a thing where no one is winning actually.

It just makes it kind of confusing.

So but with Luke they really are going to just do it for some kind of ideological reason.

And I have to start over with very low hash rate which like apparently they want to do.

But I think this is this just adds further to the humiliation.

I think you know you can't even know you can't even compare it.

It's not apples to apples anymore.

You can't even compare the because at one point you did ask about how much hashing there would be.

In my view is the hat.

The amount of hashing is exactly proportional to the block value.

You know so like if the e-cash block is you know the Bitcoin block could be worth you know whatever three Bitcoin.

You know it depends on the fees and things.

But it could be like a few Bitcoin.

So it's a couple hundred thousand dollars maybe maybe more maybe less.

And then so versus one hundred thousand dollars per block e-cash block could be worth you know like one thousand dollars or whatever less or more.

But you know the point is that's how much hashing there will be.

It all just follow that around.

There's no infrastructure for this BIP 110 hard fork right.

That's the other thing is I thought sell your BIP 110 Bitcoin.

To me I was thinking like I got to announce this four months in advance.

So at least people like have this on their radar.

And that was after getting like the name the domain the you know like charting out like what it would do and what it would like before.

And all the you know all the details like we will activate it with a one time difficulty drop.

It will still be shot to 56 mine.

All that stuff was like in the announcement.

You know all this stuff about the replay protection that was in the announcement.

And now my question is are the 110 people going to just do it like you know just you know start immediately and fire the starting gun and everyone just like that.

When will the when will their hard fork launch.

Will it launch like on Monday or like you know or like six months from now or.

So that's that's a funny thing to me.

And if they are going to change the algo like have they totally decided on which algo.

And then if so did they know about it the whole time like are they building.

No they're scrambling.

So it's just I think it is quite funny how different different it is.

I was like completely trying to like give people a lot of time to think.

And they are really running it on like emotional fumes and just saying like blah blah blah you know.

So that's so that's baffling to me if people want if people want that I think they will regret it one day.

Prepping a hard work two days before activation.

I don't know yet.

It seems like you're making your life much harder for no reason.

I don't know why they would do.

Well we will see in a couple of days.

I'm fairly sure I'll be able to get this podcast out the day before.

Yeah.

And we will just watch the show.

Paul thank you so much for coming on.

This is really fun.

As always you are the first person I think I've ever had on the show three times now.

So congratulations for being my my my most prolific guest.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And we'll see what happens Saturday.