1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,880 Let's get a closer look at this at this tweet here, although I know I have two 2 00:00:03,880 --> 00:00:07,680 laptops up here so I have to do the right one. There we go. 3 00:00:07,680 --> 00:00:16,880 Okay, so this is why merged mining and Drivechains are such a nasty attack. 4 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:24,560 Paul is a really awful person to push this. And then we have here, we have even 5 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:31,200 more intrigue. Merged mine sidechains was Greg Maxwell's biggest mistake. In 6 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:35,240 fact, the biggest mistake of a lot of people. So there's just so much intrigue 7 00:00:35,240 --> 00:00:41,040 here. My name is Paul Sztorc. I have a background in economics and statistics 8 00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:45,560 particularly. For two and a half years I worked at the Yale economics department 9 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:51,800 for Bill Nordhaus directly. He won the Nobel Prize a few months ago. While I was 10 00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:55,760 working there, I invented this Bitcoin technology called Truthcoin, which is 11 00:00:55,760 --> 00:01:00,760 later split up into several projects. Augur and Gnosis are Ethereum versions. 12 00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:05,520 There's one called M of AO by Zach Hess. That's its own blockchain. And then 13 00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:11,080 there's a Bitcoin core fork that is called Bitcoin Hivemind. I also started a 14 00:01:11,080 --> 00:01:15,440 cool Bitcoin blog called Truthcoin.info and have a bunch of famous posts up 15 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:20,200 here that a lot of people seem to enjoy reading. There's one about nothing is 16 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:23,640 cheaper than proof of work. Cycles back every now and then and we'll get like 17 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:30,440 seven, ten thousand views in a day when someone links to it. And I presented at 18 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:33,040 the first three scaling conferences and I was on the program committee for the 19 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:39,800 fourth one. More succinctly, I'm a really awful person, I suppose. So I was going 20 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:42,560 to originally give this talk on something kind of really specific and 21 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:48,440 esoteric, but instead this like thing happened like last week. So I thought 22 00:01:48,440 --> 00:01:51,240 I'd kind of rearrange the talk and it will still be about what I wanted it to 23 00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:54,760 be about, but it will just be in kind of a different order than you're thinking. 24 00:01:54,760 --> 00:01:58,560 So first I'm going to talk about what sidechains are and how they work and 25 00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:02,760 then I'm going to talk right and go right into these critiques because why 26 00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:07,200 should you have to, you know, fight personally through all this technical 27 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:10,760 specialization when there's already people who will critique the project for 28 00:02:10,760 --> 00:02:15,120 you. And then I'm going to try to maybe at the end sneak in this point that I was 29 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:24,600 going to make as the entire sidechains presentation before. So, two laptops at 30 00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:42,040 once. Okay, I'm going to use a mouse like an idiot on this one. Okay, here we go. So 31 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:47,640 what are sidechains? Surprisingly the definition has become quite contentious. 32 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:51,760 The definition that I use is a little old-fashioned. It's this original 33 00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:56,960 definition about basically saying that hard forks are bad because implementation 34 00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:01,880 changes to the consensus critical parts of Bitcoin must necessarily be handled 35 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:06,680 very conservatively. But you can do something else instead where you can 36 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:10,800 kind of build a little compartment that people can opt into and this is a really 37 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:15,080 good sentence here I think. We propose a new technology peg sidechains which 38 00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:19,240 enables bitcoins and other ledger assets to be transferred between multiple 39 00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:24,240 blockchains. This gives users access to new and innovative cryptocurrency 40 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:30,280 systems using the assets they already own. So that's great. These are some 41 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:35,840 slides from Adam back from 2016. He's talking about the things that you can 42 00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:40,440 use sidechains for a little bit more concretely. Basically though the idea is 43 00:03:40,440 --> 00:03:44,160 that Bitcoin will, you can send Bitcoin to a different piece of software and the 44 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:49,360 Bitcoin money can kind of pretend that it's an altcoin. So it can pretend to be 45 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:58,360 like Ethereum or Zcash or Bitcoin Cash. This is a meme that I made on my 46 00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:07,920 website when the price of Bitcoin was $6,800 and now I just scroll down. It's a 47 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:12,600 screenshot of CoinMarketCap and with sidechains there's no real need for 48 00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:16,680 altcoins to exist because you can replicate their features perfectly. So 49 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:21,480 the least popular altcoin will be on the chopping block. It will probably 50 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:25,880 collapse and die out. And then the second least popular one will be the new least 51 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:29,880 popular living one and that one will die out and then they probably just be all 52 00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:36,560 destroyed and something that I call iterative deletion. And so instead in the 53 00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:41,000 sidechain world the different quantities of Bitcoin will be in different pieces 54 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,360 of software on different chains. And so you can see at the bottom here I have 55 00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:51,320 this grand total 21 million coin limit and I have these 4.3 million coins that 56 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:55,560 have not yet been mined and we have the 16 or so 17 million that are in 57 00:04:55,560 --> 00:04:59,120 circulation and they would be broken up. Not all of them would be on Bitcoin core. 58 00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:03,320 Some of them would be hanging out on other projects and those projects are 59 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:10,240 free to take risks or be very dumb ideas. So that's the idea and this is a 60 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:14,120 it's kind of a restatement of this multiple blockchains hard fork 61 00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:21,800 alternative concept. So I actually built this. Actually Cryptex basically did 62 00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:25,640 all the work and he's also at this conference although I don't know. I don't 63 00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:28,680 see him in the room so I guess he's taking advantage. Oh he's over there. So 64 00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:36,240 Cryptex and I we built this and here's three screenshots. You can see this one 65 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:40,080 is Bitcoin core with a different color scheme but also with a tab that's called 66 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:46,640 sidechains in the top right. And then you here this is how you add a new sidechain. 67 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:51,720 You first you write the software and then you paste, excuse me, you paste the 68 00:05:51,720 --> 00:05:55,160 hash of the software here and click this button. These are a little outdated. We've 69 00:05:55,160 --> 00:06:00,400 actually made this a lot better but this is a will give you a basic idea. So 70 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:04,600 you just kind of click a button and then this sidechain. It's a little more 71 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:08,560 complicated than that but this is basically it. And then you have this 72 00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:13,960 sidechain that exists in a list and you can send Bitcoin to this piece of 73 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:18,240 software and it will receive it. And then you can also send Bitcoin away from that 74 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:23,360 piece of software and get it back from this. This is called Grin but that's a 75 00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:27,160 joke. This isn't actually Grin. It's just an example that we titled Grin which is 76 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:31,720 a MimboWimbo project of course but that's like an idea. It's an example of 77 00:06:31,720 --> 00:06:39,560 stealing the altcoin technology. Okay. So how does it work? There is a, there's 78 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:44,440 these two components to Drivechain which is the sidechain technology that 79 00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:49,680 Cryptex and I developed. One is this idea of the hashrate escrow which is like a 80 00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:55,160 container output. It compresses three to six months of sidechain data into a 81 00:06:55,160 --> 00:07:00,920 fixed 32 bytes and I'm going to explain that because it's pretty important. But 82 00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:03,760 then there's this other thing called Blind Merged Mining which replaces the 83 00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:08,320 act of running a sidechain node with the act of just including a single high fee 84 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:14,080 transaction. So what does all that mean? Well here I have a diagram in the main 85 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:21,480 chain is in orange and the sidechain is in green below. And the thing is the main 86 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:27,520 chain full nodes do not and cannot validate the sidechain rules or data. So 87 00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:32,280 because that would, well I'll get to that in a second, but the whole point here is 88 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:35,000 that these are like optional plugins. So the main chain full node needs to be 89 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:39,040 able to see perfectly accurate picture of the network regardless of what 90 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:44,960 happens on the sidechain. But as there's a problem with that which is that to 91 00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:51,200 below to the main chain full node these two histories will look the same. And I 92 00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:56,200 have one where A sends money to B and then B sends money to themselves in the 93 00:07:56,200 --> 00:08:01,160 sidechain. And then it changes owners to E and F. There's a different history where A 94 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:06,560 sends money to B, sends money to C, sends money to D, and then sends money to a 95 00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:11,840 completely different person, H. And to the main chain these have to look the same. 96 00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:16,040 You just see that A and B went in and E and F came out or that H came out. And you 97 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:25,040 don't know which one of them is legitimate. But since you are only tracking this net 98 00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:30,200 effect, you can in fact compress it down to one transaction ID which is just 32 99 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:34,480 bytes. And we basically just cheat and we say these 32 bytes will probably be 100 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:39,280 correct although there's more to it than that as I'm going to explain. And the thing 101 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:43,720 is you've compressed it down to 32 bytes and the sidechain full nodes and the 102 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:48,520 sidechain SPV nodes will be yelling these 32 bytes constantly every block for the 103 00:08:48,520 --> 00:08:54,320 32 months. So they'll be trying to warn everyone which of the 32 bytes are right. 104 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:57,560 But the only way to know for sure if they're right is to run the sidechain full node and 105 00:08:57,560 --> 00:09:04,760 that is the illegal thing because that cannot be mandatory for our main chain users. And I 106 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:09,600 have this metaphor that people think is very funny but it's basically like you're trying to 107 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:14,040 cross this finish line. The 32 bytes are inserted into the main chain and then they 108 00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:19,200 march very slowly across a kind of finish line. And the finish line is very, very, very 109 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:26,040 far away. It's 13,150 steps away and you can only take one step per block. So this is 110 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:33,880 very, very rare. 32 bytes, three to six months. And the thing is only one, per sidechain 111 00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:40,320 only one 32 byte train car can advance at a time. So I have a funny video here. It's not 112 00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:44,960 really a video but it's pretty simple and you can just see that only one of these things 113 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:48,960 will be able to take a step forward at a time because if you try multiple ones at once then 114 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:54,000 it's a mutual exclusivity. So if one advances the others go backwards. So you don't want to 115 00:09:54,000 --> 00:10:00,240 watch this second from the bottom one. This one will go up a little bit first so I'll go back. 116 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:04,600 It's time equals ten and then one goes up and another one goes up and the other ones are 117 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:10,200 forced to go back to the finish line. Miners can also just abstain from moving any of these 118 00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:14,880 or they can just say they don't know what's going on and set them all back. Ultimately you 119 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:19,720 can only get one to move forward. And I'm going to explain line merge mining in a second 120 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:23,080 because it's best explained. All this is best explained in the context of the critiques 121 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:30,080 because again what does it matter what I think, how I think it works. Let's hear from the 122 00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:38,160 skeptics. So the two big critiques are this idea that miners can steal and also this extremely 123 00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:44,480 esoteric Peter Todd point about an increased likelihood of main chain transaction censorship. 124 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:49,520 So I'm going to refute both of these or try to. Both of them are completely false and they're 125 00:10:54,240 --> 00:11:00,480 both so weird and they have so many weird errors mixed in and just general confusion that I 126 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:04,320 actually often trip myself up by trying to articulate all of them at once which is why I wrote 127 00:11:04,320 --> 00:11:09,280 this down. And you'll see it's like there's like five things wrong simultaneously with both of 128 00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:14,280 them. So here we go. Now the idea here is that of course I just assume that these 32 bytes will 129 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:22,320 be right but there's nothing, absolutely no way of demonstrating that. And so why would I do 130 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:27,600 that? Why wouldn't the 32 bytes just be bytes that immediately reassign all of the Bitcoin to 131 00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:33,840 like Jihan Wu or something. And the act of moving a train car forward, it only costs the 132 00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:38,760 opportunity of moving some other train car forward so that that's not, you know, people are 133 00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:45,680 not really convinced by this and they say, well miners will just take the money. So now I'm 134 00:11:45,680 --> 00:11:51,480 going to respond to that which is that first in five parts and I'm going to read the reason and 135 00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:58,960 then I'm going to put up a little summary. So first it's admittedly true that all SPV proofs, 136 00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:03,000 whether or not they're Drivechain or something else, they have to allow miners to forge a 137 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:09,640 withdrawal of the funds because SPV proofs are only gated by proof of work. But that's 138 00:12:09,640 --> 00:12:13,280 completely intentional because that's exactly what allows the sidechain to be optional in the 139 00:12:13,280 --> 00:12:18,920 first place. So if we wanted to, we could easily prevent miner theft 100%. We could just force 140 00:12:18,920 --> 00:12:24,560 all main chain full nodes to validate all the sidechain blocks. But that would be the so-called 141 00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:30,200 evil fork or the soft hard fork and it would be a de facto unlimited block size increase for all 142 00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:35,760 users and an unlimited, theoretically unlimited loss of decentralization. So it's like 143 00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:40,600 intentionally we're avoiding this bleak outcome. The only, we have to choose one of three 144 00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:45,280 options. One is mandatory sidechains and evil forks and unlimited loss of 145 00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:52,120 decentralization. And the second one is alt coins whose mere existence violates the 21 million 146 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:57,080 coin limit through a kind of inflation tax. And then the third one is this sidechains whose 147 00:12:57,080 --> 00:13:01,560 withdrawals only rely on SPV proofs where even miners can steal sort of applies. And so the 148 00:13:01,560 --> 00:13:07,680 people who criticize Drivechain on this basis for its use of SPV security, they probably don't 149 00:13:07,680 --> 00:13:12,520 realize that they're necessarily instead supporting either unlimited loss of full node 150 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:18,000 decentralization, mandatory sidechains, or else they're supporting an unlimited inflation tax on 151 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:23,280 bitcoiners via alt coins. So that is the first. Would you prefer that it were mandatory, in 152 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:30,240 which case it would be perfectly safe, or would you prefer these alt coins hang around and drain 153 00:13:30,240 --> 00:13:38,440 resources from, and attention from bitcoin? Now the second thing is while all SPV proofs are 154 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:46,120 vulnerable to miner tampering, Drivechain has extra features as I just explained. So the thing 155 00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:50,400 is compressed super low and you have these 32 bytes and they're announced and then forced to 156 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:55,560 march very slowly, one step per block, across the finish line that is very far away. So even 157 00:13:55,560 --> 00:14:00,800 with 100% hash rate participation in the attack, this takes three months. So new contestants 158 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:07,040 begin the race at any time. Only one racer can step forward at a time. And whoever crossed the 159 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:14,160 32 byte finish line first will win. But these sidechain SPV nodes are going to be yelling as 160 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:23,720 loud as possible what the correct 32 bytes are. So even if there's constant maximum scale 161 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:28,600 professional tampering, it will all be very, very easy for the user to observe and demonstrate to 162 00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:34,200 others. And investors and users have plenty of time to react to this. And one reaction could be 163 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:39,800 the UASF to block the tamper 32 byte transaction from ever crossing the finish line when it 164 00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:44,160 finally gets there. And that's much easier than, for example, to SegWit UASF because it 165 00:14:44,160 --> 00:14:50,360 requires no software development, no real life coordination on actions and timing. And if the 166 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:56,560 UASF fails and if the sidechain was objectively valuable, then the Bitcoin's total transaction 167 00:14:56,560 --> 00:15:01,720 fees and exchange rate should fall, which would punish the very miners who instigated the 168 00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:08,560 tampering. So it's transparent and it harms the miners. There are all these other rules that are 169 00:15:08,600 --> 00:15:15,520 enforced by main chain nodes that make it much harder to steal from the sidechain. Third is 170 00:15:15,520 --> 00:15:19,440 that some sidechains are bad and you actually want to get rid of them. So it's a good thing if 171 00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:23,800 miners have an incentive to evict these people. It's kind of like a city with a large criminal 172 00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:27,440 homeless population or something. Some of the sidechains, if they work correctly, they can 173 00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:31,000 leach off of other sidechains, which is something that I hope to explain. We probably won't have 174 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:36,360 anywhere near enough time. But the point is you actually want to get rid of these people. And how 175 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:39,560 can you make sure that only the best sidechains are let in and only the worst ones are kept out? 176 00:15:39,560 --> 00:15:46,000 You give the decision to the people who have the most skin in the game, who get the transaction 177 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:53,640 fees or who suffer when the Bitcoin price declines. Fourth, the very idea of can and the whole 178 00:15:53,640 --> 00:16:00,040 miners can steal schtick is a complete misrepresentation of the way Bitcoin works. In a 179 00:16:00,040 --> 00:16:05,960 naive sense, the miners can always steal Bitcoin, whether or not it's on Drivechain or main chain 180 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:09,200 or even in lightning channels. This is because miners just control the contents of the 181 00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:13,840 blockchain. And so the true question has always been, will miners steal anything? And in 182 00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:18,840 answering it, we always rely on these theories about miners' choices and motivations and 183 00:16:18,840 --> 00:16:26,960 behavior. And then we apply those theories to a given design. So I think the purport of this 184 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:32,880 can language is to imply falsely that Drivechain design puts users' Bitcoins into immediate 185 00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:37,400 risk of just being taken by the miners in the very next block and therefore that I'm assuming 186 00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:42,320 some kind of miner altruism or something. But the truth is that there are features in drive 187 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:47,880 chain, especially the slow, transparent, high-effort withdrawal process that I assume will 188 00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:53,720 convince the profit-maximizing selfish miners that harvesting the sidechains for their 189 00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:58,400 transaction fees, the ongoing transaction fees and their value-boosting properties, is more 190 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:02,600 lucrative than just devouring them in one shot. It's like killing the goose that laid the 191 00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:10,080 golden egg. So use of the word can equals does not understand the way Bitcoin works. And 192 00:17:10,080 --> 00:17:16,480 fifth and most importantly, you can only steal funds that the user has deposited to a side 193 00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:21,160 chain. So it's completely, non-sidechain funds are completely unaffected by sidechains, 194 00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:25,920 obviously. And consumer sovereignty is a basic principle of Bitcoin. So users are allowed to 195 00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:29,680 handle their own funds however they like and they're even allowed to destroy them or delete 196 00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:36,240 them. And so you should really just let people make their own mistakes. Now, the second one is 197 00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:40,880 extremely bizarre. And now I see that I'm not going to have a little bit of time to explain how 198 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:48,440 weird it is. So I'll run through this very quickly. But basically, the argument says that drive 199 00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:53,200 chain increases the risk of transaction censorship on the main chain by giving economic 200 00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:59,000 advantages to large pools, which makes them inevitable in equilibrium. And it simultaneously 201 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:05,200 makes these large pools less anonymous somehow and more susceptible to coercion, which 202 00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:10,280 eventually affects the main chain users. Now, of course, this is why I invented blind merge 203 00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:15,280 mining, which completely solves this problem. In regular merge mining, a miner needs to run a 204 00:18:15,280 --> 00:18:20,120 full node of everything they collect transaction fees on. But with blind merge mining, this 205 00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:26,560 thing that I invented, you do not need to do that. So the problem is just solved. The full nodes 206 00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:35,000 don't need to run the sidechain software. Instead of exchanging 100% of the fixed network, 100% 207 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:43,880 of the data that would go across the sidechain full node, they just need a tiny, tiny amount of 208 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:48,240 data, that mempool data, that's fixed. And let me explain. Let's see, I have a good way of 209 00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:56,240 explaining how this works. Somewhere. Yeah. But I think I just won't, so, because I don't have 210 00:18:56,240 --> 00:19:01,040 time. But even though I solved this with Blind Merged Mining, the complaint is actually complete 211 00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:05,640 nonsense. And I would like to explain why in a lot of detail, but I think I'd rather have the time 212 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:13,680 for questions. But one reason is that there is a ridiculous magnitude of the argument. So I see at 213 00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:18,480 the top, I'm saying this argument basically says that if Bitmain sells T-shirts on the side, 214 00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:23,000 then eventually all miners will need to sell T-shirts and anyone who can control T-shirts will 215 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:27,840 control Bitcoin and then Peter Todd admits that that is in fact what he's saying, which is 216 00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:32,600 ridiculous. And the thing is, I have a long couple paragraphs here that I'm not going to get to 217 00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:37,080 read, but the argument ends up contradicting itself because he's saying that every 10 cents of 218 00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:42,480 profit eventually becomes mandatory. But this is a, you know, an inducement of 10 cents is 219 00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:46,360 different from something that's really mandatory. But there's more to it than that, which is that 220 00:19:46,360 --> 00:19:49,720 the argument ends up contradicting itself because it says there'll be main chain transaction 221 00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:56,840 censorship and those main chain transactions pay transaction fees. So including every single 222 00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:03,080 main chain transaction, mining pools are going to end up fighting for that just as hard as they 223 00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:10,360 would fight to, you know, get any other source of profits, the T-shirts for example. So, and 224 00:20:10,360 --> 00:20:13,960 again, I don't have a lot of time for this, but there's a conflation between mining 225 00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:19,600 centralization and node centralization in the hopes that by using the word centralization, 226 00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:23,240 you'll be tricked into thinking they're the same thing even though they're completely different. 227 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:29,080 And in fact, miners are suppliers and users are customers. So what's good for one will 228 00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:33,600 eventually be something that's bad for the other. So it's actually, I would like to explain a lot 229 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:37,200 of this more, but I don't have enough time. The other thing is transaction censorship is a 230 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:41,200 privacy issue. So if you just solve privacy, then you don't have to worry about this at all. 231 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:44,960 It's really, that's the main focus for anyone who's worried about transaction censorship 232 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:48,720 should be focused on that. The other thing I do want to mention before I just sprint 233 00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:53,600 through directly to the end is that we probably need the merge mining fees. I don't have time to 234 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:58,160 explain what this is, but basically it's a security budget over 40 years of fees are zero. 235 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:03,360 And I've compared it to the USA defense budget and it's on billions per year. And what I would 236 00:21:03,360 --> 00:21:06,720 have explained is that the block subsidy and the transaction fees are completely different 237 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:12,960 things. And in fact, people have now learned to use altcoins as a medium of exchange and the 238 00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:18,480 fees are low, which means that we currently get about $10 million per year in fees. We get like 239 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:24,560 $200 a block. And without merge mining, we might, the fee, the total amount of fees might 240 00:21:24,560 --> 00:21:29,120 plausibly never be higher than that. And so it just adds 0.01 cents when priced in billions to 241 00:21:29,120 --> 00:21:35,760 this and then that's not enough. So far from being a threat to Bitcoin, it's possibly the only 242 00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:40,160 savior. And vanilla merge mining can't be stopped. So I don't know exactly what Peter Todd's 243 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:46,000 argument is because this is like inevitable. And not the Blind Merged Mining part, the vanilla part 244 00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:51,600 is less difficult, even harder to stop. So actually I was going to talk about another thing and then 245 00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:55,040 relate this to my original point, but I kind of basically don't really have time for that. So 246 00:21:55,760 --> 00:22:00,560 oh well. And there we go. So yes, questions. And I'll be here all day. So sorry about that. Yes, 247 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:13,280 Andreas. Did I start five minutes early? I thought I was, no, I think I was moved to 10 248 00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:23,040 recently. I was. It's okay, Andreas. I can give it to you personally afterwards. Yes. 249 00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:28,880 Yeah, WinMainNet. I don't know. Maybe there's a soft fork this summer. Maybe. I don't know. 250 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:32,880 I have no idea. You never know. That's a cursed question. Didn't you see Dan Anderson's talk 251 00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:38,560 yesterday? You're not supposed to ask those kind of questions. Those are cursed questions. Okay, 252 00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:41,040 yeah. Sorry that was kind of all rushed and everything, but yes. 253 00:22:41,040 --> 00:23:00,000 Ah, but what are they speculating on? The features, right? Or the properties, the lower fees? 254 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:05,680 A lot of people, you know, log coins really had a basically nothing market share until Bitcoin 255 00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:10,160 fees went up. So a popular view is that the Bitcoin fees inspired people to switch. 256 00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:14,320 Just for people who do the round trips, you know, a person who buys $20 worth of... 257 00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:26,880 We had Ethereum. I think it's similar, though. I think it's a similar story where people noticed 258 00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:30,720 something about Bitcoin that made them uncomfortable and then they sort of left. So with 259 00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:35,520 Ethereum, they were like, this is like a Turing complete thing. Or there was like concerns about 260 00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,360 how the scalability debate would be resolved one way or the other. Some people thought 261 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:44,800 this is too easy to change. Some people thought this is too hard to change. So I think it's still 262 00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:52,560 a... I guess I would almost flip the question around and say, what else would explain it? I 263 00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:58,400 mean, a lot of people want to make money, right? But so many things don't... There are lots of 264 00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:03,200 things that don't... That could be scams but just don't work. So I could try to sell you monopoly 265 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:09,440 money and I could say this is all for greed or for speculative value, but it doesn't work, right? 266 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,640 So you need... Somehow you need to like close the loop. I need to convince you to actually buy my 267 00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:18,000 monopoly money. You see what I mean? It's not like... Yes, thanks. That's two minutes, right? 268 00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:24,800 Thank you. Does that answer your question or no? Okay, good. 269 00:24:33,360 --> 00:24:38,480 Yeah, but I have to clarify that I think they just won't steal any money in lightning channels 270 00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:41,760 or mainnet or anything. I just... That's why I think it's just a... Yes, you were saying? 271 00:24:41,760 --> 00:25:10,560 I think it is... Well, I don't know about fundamental, but there are all these assumptions 272 00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:16,000 about... You'd have to say... I would say something like the amount of money if you actually... 273 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:22,640 It's hard to explain quickly, but we're talking here about this large magnet. I think you're 274 00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:27,200 right that it is, but that's why there's a 13,000 block thing instead of just... The way in Bitcoin 275 00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:32,000 it works is it's just one block and then you're considered on the track to be valid. But this 276 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,880 thing isn't even considered to be valid until after 13,000 blocks. So the magnitudes are different. 277 00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:42,880 That's why one is so difficult, such a difficult trial to try to offset that type of thing. And I 278 00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,960 do think that there's... At some point, it jumps a category where it's not just like the longer, 279 00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:51,040 the better. At some point, it's just so long that you just think like, wow, if something like this 280 00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:55,120 is going to happen, it just must be because everyone wants it to happen and that kind of... 281 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,480 Well, there are a couple of things also to say. The reorg, if you do the reorg the right way, 282 00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,920 you can steal a ton of money. And if you're going to reorg on that scale, 283 00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:12,160 you can steal on that scale for like 13,000 blocks. That's like the amount of Bitcoin 284 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:17,040 to turn over per day. It's like a huge amount of money. So it's more than could even... 285 00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:28,320 Yes. No, you're right. The compartments are a weakness here because you want everyone to be 286 00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:34,320 in the same boat and you do not want some people to be stigmatized. But one counterpoint to that 287 00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,520 though is that all the sidechains should at least be in the same boat. So if you got one 288 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:42,960 or two popular sidechains and one kind of stupid sidechain that's like marginally stupid and so 289 00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:48,160 like barely not stupid and just kind of no one knows what they feel about it, you still think 290 00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,760 that maybe miners would not want to steal from that one because they'd be like, this will just 291 00:26:51,760 --> 00:27:00,000 cause theft, this will cause fear in the whole sidechain's infrastructure. And I had something 292 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:05,520 else I was going to say but I can't remember what it was. But you want that to blend together 293 00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:09,520 and then you'd want... I have another great point but I can't remember it. Sorry. All right. So I 294 00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:16,880 think we're almost out of time, I guess. Yep. Okay. So that's the talk. Thank you very much. 295 00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,720 I'll be here all day.