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This is going to be a good one.

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My name is Paul Behringer.

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Welcome back into TechPath.

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What we're going to try to do is line up what's happening within the ecosystem of
Bitcoin.

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Obviously, Bitcoin is flying right now with some news, albeit the fake news on ETF.

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But at the same time, we'll see a lot happening from the macro perspective, and you
know that's

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kind of what we cover here on the channel a lot.

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But we wanted to dive into the complexities of what's happening inside Bitcoin as a
platform.

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And I think that's the thing that a lot of people lose track of, is can Bitcoin be
used

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for payments?

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And if so, what would you use?

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I want to go to a clip that shows our guest today talking at the Bitcoin conference
to

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some of the developers within the Lightning Network to kind of frame it in the sense
of

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whether or not Lightning could be used.

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And if you look at this conversation, he pretty much destroys the issue of what
Lightning

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is standing for.

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And this is why I think it's important.

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So let's go to this first clip.

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They said that if they could get a 1% or 5% boost to revenue by adopting
Drivechains,

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they would do it in a second.

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But the problem is...

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It won't be 1%.

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It would be 10x, 100x, or even 1,000x.

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Hang on.

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Let's be clear, though.

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There's a misconception there.

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It's straightforward.

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I asked you what the problem with this idea was.

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You just said that you mixed up L1 and L2, and you said that I don't like miners
having

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control over the L2 withdrawals, even though they already have control over the
Lightning

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Network justice transaction.

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So it's exactly the same thing.

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Well, again...

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Now we're on this weird odyssey on, like, miner costs.

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merge mining the sidechain is essentially free.

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Hang on.

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They don't even need their own node.

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They can just...

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Because that's just categorically false.

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No, they get 51% hash rate can censor the justice transaction.

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The problem with Lightning, though, of course, is that even the proponents don't
expect 8

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billion people to be able to use it, whereas with this, they could, and so that's a
pretty

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big difference.

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No.

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The tech people don't agree with you on that.

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Yeah.

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This is a silly discussion.

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Go read the blog post I just posted.

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You may not care about a certain thing, like the EVM or something, but other people
care

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about it.

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And you may not care about large blocks.

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This isn't about what other people like.

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It's about their ability to choose.

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All right.

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So, of course, that's Paul Sztorc, who is the CEO of LayerTwo Labs.

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And welcome, Paul Sztorc, into the show today.

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Great to have you back.

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Hey.

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Thanks for having me.

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All right.

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So, obviously, we showed a little bit from the Amsterdam Bitcoin Conference, your
engagement

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there with the Lightning teams and some of the developers out there, and this is
some

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of the things that we've kind of talked about here on the channel in general.

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And when you look at what Lightning and what you're trying to do, Paul, with LayerTwo Labs

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and sidechains, if you can kind of give our audience a breakdown of the
inefficiencies

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of Lightning versus an alternative, what would that be?

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Yeah.

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I mean, I like the Lightning Network, but what has happened was, because of the
scaling

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war, the Lightning Network is like an idea that has collided with the Bitcoin
culture

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and damaged it a lot.

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Because people in Bitcoin are very insecure about Bitcoin's future, they need to
tell

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a story where Lightning is going to fix everything.

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And it might be true someday, but the current idea, the current version of the idea
is not.

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It's just not the case.

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So the Lightning idea is a good enough idea.

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The key insight of the Lightning Network is, it's kind of like six degrees of Kevin
Bacon

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or whatever it is.

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So it's like, maybe I have a channel with you and you have a channel with someone
else.

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And so then maybe I can pay them through you.

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That's the idea of the Lightning Network.

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And I think, unfortunately, it's probably not going to work out for a couple of
different

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reasons.

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But the bigger issue is that the Lightning Network is like this meme that has
collided

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with the Bitcoin community and everyone just, people just start talking about it and
unfortunately

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they stop being honest with themselves.

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It's out of my own concern for them that I started speaking up sort of against it.

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They're suffering, I think, psychologically, many of them.

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It's not quite as bad as something like Theranos or whatever, but it is like there's
this big

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difference between what the marketing people say, the people on Twitter who don't
use Lightning.

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They say a certain thing and then they're in the back room trying to make this blood

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machine work.

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The Lightning Network history here over time, all the way back to 2021, you can kind
of

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see it's a bit of a stale platform in the sense that we haven't seen a lot of growth

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within it.

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Obviously, some news here recently with some security concerns.

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Can you kind of explain the security concerns that were revealed by some of the
developers

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in the market?

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Yes, I will explain that.

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But first, I liked your graph and I wanted to point out something.

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The most important thing about the graph is something that hides in plain sight,
which

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is that at maximum, it's only 5,000 coins, basically.

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And there's 19 million coins.

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So this is like 0.02% or something.

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So it's very small.

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And then people try to make arguments about, oh, well, maybe there's a coin in there
that

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turns over like millions of times a month, blah, blah, blah, you know, that's a
bunch

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of...

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So now to your second point, there was recently a vulnerability in Lightning.

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It can be fixed.

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But in order to fix it, the people, the current problematic people in Bitcoin, the
bad people

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and the bad guys, they have to admit that they were wrong about something else.

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So it's unclear when these two malicious, we have saving Lightning and then we have

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admitting that we still need more soft fork opcodes.

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The vulnerability is that when the thing times out, it's still possible to use
either of

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the two paths.

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So one person pulls the payment from you and the other person uses the timeout.

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And now the person in the middle is left having routed a payment, but they get
nothing.

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I tried to get this idea popularized in like 2019, the idea of channel risk, that
who you

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open the channel with makes a big deal.

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But yeah, I think this is not a great bug.

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I wouldn't be routing any payments for anyone else personally until the bug is
fixed.

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And looking at that, yeah, I want to go to, because payments are a big part of this.

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I want to go to this next clip right here on Bitcoin payment potentials.

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Listen in.

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What do you think, Rene?

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Like, do you think that we can get to a point where even like the first attempt that
someone

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makes it, that tries to make a payment should work?

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So I think that will hardly be possible without severely changing the protocol.

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So this is the way how the protocol is designed.

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So payment failures, or at least the failures of attempts are built into the
protocol.

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The question is, what can we do about this?

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Do we have like suggestions on that?

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What you could do is you could basically say, well, if I have enough liquidity,
let's do

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five of them concurrently, and let's hope that statistically at least one arrives.

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But then the question is, if we do it in the current protocol, if two arrives,
somebody

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could claim two payments, and then you would overpay.

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You don't want to do that.

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So these were some of the challenges that were represented at the conference there.

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Just as a kind of a callback to this is, we've talked about this before around, you
know,

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transactions and the speed of transactions that are needed.

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Visa recently did a big test.

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One of the things they put in their big report, and we've showed this multiple
times.

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If you guys want to go back and check some of our videos on the Visa payment
systems,

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check that out.

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But one thing they highlight here is Bitcoin may take up 60 minutes for six
additional

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blocks to be created.

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And then if you look at the ones that were looked at, of course, Solana was selected

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for their test at this point.

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We don't know if Solana is going to be the one being chosen.

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But that's the point, is that these kind of transaction speed issues that we're
dealing

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with are some of the biggest problems.

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When you look at this, Paul, I mean, why didn't Visa just choose Lightning if
Lightning was

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already in the capacity of being able to do things?

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I don't know what Visa's up to.

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And the interblock time has always been – I'll come back to that in a second.

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You had a Rene Picard on that video, and if everyone would listen to Rene Picard
more,

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that would be very good for Bitcoin, and very good for the Lightning Network, and
very good

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for society, because Rene is great.

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And Rene wrote, he wrote Mastering Lightning, the book.

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What's not helping at all is for people to mindlessly cheer on Lightning Network,
and

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just say everything is good.

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And then if – and think about it, in most contexts, if anyone ever said anything bad

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about the Lightning Network, they would be shouted down, and they would be
criticized,

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and they would get a social backlash.

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The Lightning Network is ironically – it's a little bit to unpack, but sometimes the

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Lightning Network is slow, or sometimes the payments fail.

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People are obviously not going to like that.

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When you pay with Visa, it does fail sometimes, but I think it's got to be like 1 in
200

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for me or less.

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Almost always when I pay, it works.

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Sometimes they're like, wait a minute, we need to do it again, or something.

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So that's kind of like what most people, I think, will tolerate.

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As for Solana being faster, this is a trade-off that Solana has made at enormous
cost, enormous

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long-run cost.

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So they're going to – that's going to be – they're going to have to pay that – repay

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that with interest.

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But a crucial thing to keep in mind, in the context of like my idea of the
Drivechain,

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and just the idea of competition among different chains, is that clearly the idea is
popular

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among some users.

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So we should be able to make – it's not really about whether or not Solana is a good

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idea or not.

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It should really be about, for any idea, good or bad, it should be possible to make
that

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like a Bitcoin idea.

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That's the sidechain idea.

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We'll see if I ever prevail in my quest to convert every idea, good and bad, to a

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Bitcoin project.

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But because, weirdly, people then say, well, we don't like that idea, so we don't
want

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it to be – we don't want Bitcoin adoption.

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So it's very bizarre.

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I want to go over to a clip here.

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This was by Michael Saylor in reference to streaming payments.

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Listen to what he had to say.

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Lightning is a chance for us to introduce some really compelling new enterprise
applications.

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Companies right now spend billions of dollars rewarding their employees.

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What if we could give people instant employee rewards for filling out surveys, being
at

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the meeting, engaging?

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Whatever email address you've been using for the past 20 years now is a lightning
receiver

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that flows into your lightning wallet.

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When you show up to your Zoom, you get a Satoshi reward.

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Then, of course, if you fill out a book review, Amazon can give you Satoshis.

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And if you fill out a survey applying for an Amazon credit card, they can give you
Satoshis.

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And if you get approved, they can give you more Satoshis.

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It's a way to gamify and make fun things.

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And the thing that makes it all possible is microtransactions and streaming via the
lightning

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network.

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My question to you, Paul, is that even possible right now within lightning?

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I would say it's probably not possible right now.

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Certainly, lightning already has an unsolvable onboarding problem where you can't
have

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8 billion people use it today.

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In order to join the lightning network, you need a channel already open on L1.

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You know, Michael Saylor, he has this skill I guess I wish I had.

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Maybe I do.

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Maybe I don't.

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I don't know.

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He's a great salesman.

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He's got this great story.

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He's got this great vision.

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I think it was Milton Friedman who said there are idea manufacturers, and then there
are

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idea distributors, and wholesalers, and retailers, and consumers.

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So the idea is, you know, he's like, he's good at, he can spin a great little story

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there.

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And, you know, a lot of, enough of it is true that it is, it sounds plausible and
inspiring

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enough, where it's true that you could do, you know, with cheaper payments, with
micropayments,

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you could do that kind of thing.

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For example, lightning has another issue of being very sensitive to the L1 fee rate.

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If the L1 transaction fee is 80 cents or whatever it is, something around where it
is now, now

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that the price is going up, it'll probably be higher.

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So if it's 80 cents for like a 200 byte transaction, then basically you can't route
anything significantly

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less than the current L1 fee rate.

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So if it's 80 cents, if Bitcoin L1, an L1, is 80 cents, then you really can't, you
can't

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route something less than 80 cents on the lightning network.

232
00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:00,040
Well, people do.

233
00:13:00,040 --> 00:13:01,040
Well, yeah.

234
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:02,840
You can't get into microtransactions.

235
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:06,040
That also would eliminate a lot of retail.

236
00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:07,400
I want to go to another clip here.

237
00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:08,760
This is Bitcoin University.

238
00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:11,720
This is in reference to your Drivechains a little bit.

239
00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:12,720
Listen to this.

240
00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:15,560
Listen to this one.

241
00:13:15,560 --> 00:13:18,720
This is Matthew Cratter from Bitcoin University.

242
00:13:18,720 --> 00:13:24,000
Let's revisit this Drivechains discussion and 10 years from now would be my advice.

243
00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:28,600
It's not appropriate for quote unquote friends of Bitcoin like Paul to advocate for
a very

244
00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:32,960
fast changes to Bitcoin and to try to pressure people who needs more tokens, who
wants to

245
00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:35,520
make it easy to issue ship coins on sidechains.

246
00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:37,520
These are just things that I'm not interested in.

247
00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:38,880
We have Bitcoin.

248
00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:40,040
We have Bitcoin.

249
00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:41,720
You are going to fail.

250
00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:43,160
You are certainly going to fail.

251
00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:47,880
Ugly Drivechain proponents can attempt to pressure, can attempt to apply pressure to

252
00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:51,560
Bitcoin core devs to try to change the software to include Drivechains.

253
00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:56,120
They won't do this because they know that full nodes like you and me will refuse to

254
00:13:56,120 --> 00:14:00,440
run this changed software, any of this Drivechains nonsense.

255
00:14:00,440 --> 00:14:02,440
And I have some advice to Paul Sztorc.

256
00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:08,720
Why don't you go build your Drivechains on a low value network like Litecoin or
Bcash?

257
00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:12,040
BIP300/301 will never be approved.

258
00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:16,520
I predict that Paul will rage quit like a little baby when he finally realizes that

259
00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:21,200
he's not going to get his way and that he's not bigger than the Bitcoin network and
that

260
00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:23,400
he can't push through these changes.

261
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:25,000
Here's some advice for everyone.

262
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:28,120
If you ever want to offer a new BIP, don't be Paul.

263
00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:29,640
All right.

264
00:14:29,640 --> 00:14:34,120
So you responded to this on Twitter, lengthy and detailed response.

265
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:36,680
Because I'm rushing it through, of course.

266
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:37,680
So yeah.

267
00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:38,680
Yeah.

268
00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:43,600
In addition to being very, very rude, almost everything he said was completely
false.

269
00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:48,440
Schramed as though getting a BIP is some like favor that he's doing for me when in
really

270
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:50,360
it's just the idea that's best for Bitcoin.

271
00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:51,360
No, he doesn't.

272
00:14:51,360 --> 00:14:55,760
It would never even occur to him that Bitcoin needs ideas.

273
00:14:55,760 --> 00:15:01,800
What is the core argument between Drivechains and what their recommendation is right
now

274
00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:05,240
in such a case as the clip we just played?

275
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:11,360
Well, again, they think that they said we should revisit having adding a new soft
fork

276
00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:12,360
in 10 years.

277
00:15:12,360 --> 00:15:18,080
But then Michael Saylor said in the previous clip that Lightning Network is the key
to

278
00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:20,880
all this great stuff.

279
00:15:20,880 --> 00:15:25,240
But right before that, I just discussed that you have to have one or the other
because

280
00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,080
it is actually broken because of this new exploit.

281
00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:30,520
So they'll need a new soft fork.

282
00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:32,160
I think it kind of spoke for itself.

283
00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:33,400
I was just listening to it again.

284
00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:35,480
I was thinking, oh my gosh, does anyone.

285
00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:39,000
And like if anyone did the tiniest amount of research, they would know that the
ideas

286
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:45,000
from 2015, like long before Michael Saylor bought his first Bitcoin.

287
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:49,520
So like the idea of it being rushed through is like and it doesn't even make any
sense.

288
00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:50,520
Yeah.

289
00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:51,520
And I don't need to tell you that.

290
00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:55,560
Obviously, he didn't like give me any kind of like opportunity to comment or he
didn't

291
00:15:55,560 --> 00:15:56,560
invite me on the show.

292
00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:03,040
I would love to have a little conversation with him about what I did that Twitter
reply.

293
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:04,040
And I don't know why.

294
00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:06,040
I honestly don't know the people who put that together.

295
00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:10,040
I have no idea what they were thinking because, you know, you go to LayerTwoLabs.com
slash friends.

296
00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:12,680
We have an enormous number of supporters.

297
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:13,840
We have like the creme de la creme.

298
00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:17,240
Rene Picard is a big supporter on that list.

299
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:18,240
Adam Back, Fiat Joffe.

300
00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:19,240
Yeah.

301
00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:20,240
I don't know.

302
00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:23,760
So you really think this is really just internal strife between the Bitcoin
community trying

303
00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:28,480
to get lightning off the ground, understanding its future opportunity, but not yet
being

304
00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:32,240
able to apply that technology to Bitcoin today.

305
00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:37,920
And at the same time, we have this massive rush to what will be our next bull run
and

306
00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:40,280
most likely some pretty big institutional adoption.

307
00:16:40,280 --> 00:16:45,840
Obviously, we've already seen what just a small hint and whiff of an ETF can do to
the

308
00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:46,840
market.

309
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:48,880
So a lot more people involved in the future.

310
00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:53,280
So there's a lot at risk here, obviously, for both Bitcoiners and the future of what

311
00:16:53,280 --> 00:16:56,440
the Lightning Network can reference.

312
00:16:56,440 --> 00:16:58,920
Beyond that, you know, you look at some of the others.

313
00:16:58,920 --> 00:17:02,880
I wanted to kind of go over to another tweet here, because in reference to Bips, you
know,

314
00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:04,720
why would you even bother with this?

315
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:07,080
I mean, why go this direction?

316
00:17:07,080 --> 00:17:11,360
What's the, I guess, what's the long game if you're continuing to get pushback from

317
00:17:11,360 --> 00:17:12,360
the Bitcoin community?

318
00:17:12,360 --> 00:17:15,680
Well, yeah, the Bip process is, of course, is horrible.

319
00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:20,440
And Jeremy Rubin quit over it when he did 1.19.

320
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:25,280
And it's, you know, he tried to advocate for his idea.

321
00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:30,640
And again, people interpret it as there's a prestige economy among the Bitcoin
developers.

322
00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:36,200
And then years, but the key part of the story is years later, two years later,
everyone

323
00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:40,920
was saying this is the best, Bip 1.19 is the best, best Bip around and enables
covenants

324
00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:47,680
and it enables ARK and ARK is going to be what saves the Lightning Network.

325
00:17:47,680 --> 00:17:52,200
So that just proves that the idea was good the whole time.

326
00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:55,000
And everyone was, you know, a bullshitter basically.

327
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:56,000
Yeah.

328
00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:57,000
So that's how it is.

329
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:00,880
What I didn't even know that people would talk about 1.19, knowing nothing about it
one

330
00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:01,880
way or the other.

331
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:03,080
I wish it weren't the case.

332
00:18:03,080 --> 00:18:05,920
If I could do it over, I would just push the Bip anonymously.

333
00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:07,760
And I would probably do the wrong thing.

334
00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:11,800
I would suck up to people and tell them that their terrible ideas were very good and
etc.

335
00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:12,800
etc.

336
00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:15,880
Because I had no idea that it'd be so blatantly corrupt, which is what it is.

337
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:16,880
Right.

338
00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:20,680
Casey has this Ordinal's Bip that you want to discuss that.

339
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:21,680
Yeah.

340
00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:22,680
His isn't running the same scenario.

341
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:23,680
It's the exact same scenario.

342
00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:24,680
Yeah.

343
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:30,600
He says, what is the, you know, and he's absolutely 100 percent correct.

344
00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:33,000
The Bips are in very different types.

345
00:18:33,080 --> 00:18:36,600
And the informational Bip is the lightest.

346
00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:38,240
And so then they're like, well, we can't do that.

347
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:41,840
But now, don't you see, like, this is the whole problem in the first place is that
shouldn't

348
00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:43,480
the ideas just compete on their merit?

349
00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:50,640
You know, it's just like, OK, if it doesn't have the right prestige or legitimacy,
just

350
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:53,800
explain what the problem is and then just say it's rejected.

351
00:18:53,800 --> 00:19:00,280
Right now, you have to justify every decision you make to people who are not
specialists

352
00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:01,680
in the decision.

353
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:03,160
And that's what we don't have in Bitcoin.

354
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:05,760
In Bitcoin, it's all run like a USSR style and it sucks.

355
00:19:05,760 --> 00:19:09,360
And it's the worst thing about Bitcoin, of course, that the process is very
defective.

356
00:19:09,360 --> 00:19:14,360
It's because it encouraged people to shill the Lightning Network.

357
00:19:14,360 --> 00:19:16,440
Now they're going to have to walk all that back.

358
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:21,680
You know, all that stuff, unless they want to say the same thing about OpExpire.

359
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:25,360
I want to play a game with you that, you know, this is a tear maker.

360
00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:27,800
So we're going to tear some ideas here.

361
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:30,160
And I'm going to zoom in on this a little bit.

362
00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:34,560
So some of our audience can say, but the first one we're going to show is BRC20
Ordinals.

363
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:38,160
And I'm going to give you, based on your expertise, you've been around in this
industry for quite

364
00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:47,480
a while, probably one of the longest reading devs out there, so very arbitrary, just
for

365
00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:49,720
fun only in terms of ideas.

366
00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:56,880
But BRC20 Ordinals, where would you put that on the tier list, A through C, D being
worst

367
00:19:56,880 --> 00:19:57,880
idea, of course.

368
00:19:57,880 --> 00:19:58,880
Of course, yeah.

369
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:03,000
I'm going to go with C, but I don't want anyone to be misled by that.

370
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,440
I think it's worth doing.

371
00:20:05,440 --> 00:20:07,000
It's mostly harmless.

372
00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:09,720
It does a lot of great things culturally for Bitcoin.

373
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:11,040
Those should be on their own sidechain anyway.

374
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:14,760
They shouldn't really be on L1, but I think it's a good idea.

375
00:20:14,760 --> 00:20:16,000
And let's go to Runes.

376
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:17,400
I'm not as familiar with Runes.

377
00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:21,880
I'm sorry to say, I'm very familiar with a lot of these other things, but Runes, I
think

378
00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:23,760
they're mostly the same as Ordinals.

379
00:20:23,760 --> 00:20:24,760
So maybe we could leave it unranked.

380
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:26,320
Yeah, I'll leave it unranked right now.

381
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:27,440
Let's go to Liquid Network.

382
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:32,160
I think, again, we should do it, but I don't think anyone will like it.

383
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:35,960
And I think it has taken the air out of the room with sidechains and has misled a
lot

384
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:36,960
of people.

385
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:39,880
I could give it a C tier also.

386
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:40,880
Rootstock?

387
00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:42,800
These C tiers are like, you know, we should still do it.

388
00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:43,800
Rootstock, we should do it.

389
00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:47,720
I think they've had trouble executing.

390
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:52,000
I think Rootstock, we could give them a C tier.

391
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:53,000
BitVM?

392
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,800
I'm going to give that a B tier.

393
00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:56,800
B tier.

394
00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:00,280
I think one day we'll be doing some cool stuff with that.

395
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:01,280
Not anytime soon.

396
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:02,280
Obviously, Drivechains?

397
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:04,560
Drivechains, I've got to give it an A tier.

398
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:05,560
There's nothing wrong with it.

399
00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:06,560
It solves every problem.

400
00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:07,560
It has no risk.

401
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:08,560
We can easily undo it.

402
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:10,680
It's us counting the 13,000.

403
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:11,680
Get over it, people.

404
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:12,680
It's a great idea.

405
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:15,200
They're going to have to admit sooner or later.

406
00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:16,200
SpiderChain?

407
00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:17,200
SpiderChain.

408
00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:19,600
You know, I've got to say, I think it could be good.

409
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:21,040
I think it's Liquid.

410
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:22,840
I gave it the Liquid C tier.

411
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:23,920
I think it could be great.

412
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:25,640
I think it could be great.

413
00:21:25,640 --> 00:21:28,480
It could be a B tier, but I think it's a C tier for now.

414
00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:30,480
Lightning Network, of course?

415
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:37,800
Well, I have to knock on Lightning Network because of the cultural damage it has
done.

416
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:43,040
I think I would have, in the past, been B, but now I'm going to have to give a C
tier.

417
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,000
I think it's the same as Liquid, really.

418
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,720
Then we'll go to RGB.

419
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:49,840
I think RGB is a lost cause.

420
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:50,840
Thorachain?

421
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:53,680
You know, it does seem to be ... I'd like to check and see how many people are still

422
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:54,680
using it.

423
00:21:55,160 --> 00:21:56,160
Is it popular?

424
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:57,160
It's like a trustless swap.

425
00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,400
It's like a decentralized Uniswap thing.

426
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:00,800
I don't know how much ... I don't know.

427
00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,720
If people are using it, then I'm militantly pro.

428
00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:08,720
But if they're not using it that much, then I think it ended up ... I would say B
tier.

429
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:09,720
Interesting.

430
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:10,720
Okay.

431
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:12,400
I don't know, but this is conditional on the use.

432
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:17,000
If someone looks it up and it says no one's using it, then I would say, for whatever
reason,

433
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:18,000
it didn't work out.

434
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:19,000
Stacks.

435
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:20,000
What about Stacks?

436
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,560
Stacks, you know, I think Stacks is a lot of self-deception.

437
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:29,040
I feel bad putting them in the only D tier, but I think that we've got to D tier it.

438
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:31,640
And then don't change Bitcoin.

439
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:38,760
Well, this is a sad one because there's a sense in which it's great and necessary,
and

440
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:40,760
there's a complete sense in which it's a total lost cause.

441
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:46,440
I think in the context of what we've discussed and the way Michael Saylor would
interpret

442
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:47,960
it, I would say lost cause.

443
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:48,960
Wow.

444
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:49,960
Okay.

445
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:50,960
There you go.

446
00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:52,560
What do you think about other ideas?

447
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:56,840
You know, if you think about David Marcus with LightSpark, what are your thoughts on

448
00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:00,920
other ideas that could make this list as well?

449
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:02,680
Other ideas that should be on the list?

450
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:03,680
Yeah.

451
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:05,640
Well, I think it's a pretty good list.

452
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:06,640
Not a bad list.

453
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:07,640
I got...

454
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:11,960
Well, there is a Rubin-Thompson had a state chain L2.

455
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,320
There are some other L2s that could be on here.

456
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:16,320
Yeah.

457
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:17,320
Those are good.

458
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:18,640
There's lots of good ideas out there.

459
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:19,640
We should try...

460
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:25,600
We should be more pluralist, and we should not try to police how it is that people
use

461
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:32,360
Bitcoin that is a path of tyranny, and as long as someone is not interfering with
someone

462
00:23:32,360 --> 00:23:35,920
else's use case, and that's exactly what the L1 protocol already does.

463
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:40,000
So, this is why it's bizarre for someone to be against the soft fork.

464
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,640
You don't have to upgrade your node with a soft fork.

465
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:49,680
Your node does everything it was doing before, and it doesn't start doing anything
new, and

466
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,320
it doesn't stop doing anything it was doing.

467
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:53,320
So the node...

468
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:57,480
The soft fork is already an institution that protects Bitcoin's properties.

469
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:01,120
The fact that you can upgrade via the soft fork, that's also something that Bitcoin
has

470
00:24:01,120 --> 00:24:02,120
done.

471
00:24:02,120 --> 00:24:04,200
We did that 16 times in the first seven years of Bitcoin.

472
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,960
I want to play this last clip for you, and then get your opinion on it real quick in

473
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:10,360
reference to the importance of the halving.

474
00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:11,960
Listen in.

475
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,360
Is the halving the main driver of the Bitcoin price?

476
00:24:14,360 --> 00:24:15,560
In this cycle, no.

477
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:16,560
I think it's liquidity.

478
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:18,080
Yeah, I agree.

479
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,320
By definition, there's nothing on it that should impact price.

480
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:23,960
I think the halving is still bullish.

481
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,320
Let's do a show of hands in the audience.

482
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,640
So I agree with you.

483
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:33,320
It's a little bit like investing in a company where you know the annual report's
coming

484
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:34,440
out.

485
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:36,360
You know what date it's coming out on.

486
00:24:36,360 --> 00:24:44,480
We might learn something about competitors to this future monetary asset and the
actions

487
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:46,680
those competitors might take.

488
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:52,960
You just don't know what actions they will or won't take until the event occurs.

489
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:57,080
The data points that we have in terms of halving, they're not enough to come to
pretty much

490
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:58,080
any conclusion.

491
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:02,920
All right, so that question to you.

492
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:07,320
Is the halving as important as it has been in the past?

493
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:13,800
Well, you know, what the halving does is it makes like a little event and people can
throw

494
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:15,960
parties and actually it's funny.

495
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:19,440
I kind of make fun of the halving, but I plan on throwing a little halving party
myself

496
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,240
to invite some local Bitcoin friends.

497
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:29,360
So it's arbitrary, but maybe arbitrary things are important, you know, because it's
an excuse

498
00:25:29,360 --> 00:25:32,320
to whatever, meet the family or something.

499
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:36,080
The ETF also, I think people have expected it for a while.

500
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,400
There are surprises with the ETF where it's like no one knows, the poor Winklevoss
twins

501
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,840
have been trying to get this ETF for like 10 years or whatever.

502
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:43,840
Yeah.

503
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:44,840
Like maybe even 12 years.

504
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:45,840
I don't know.

505
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,200
And there's always right around the corner and now BlackRock will probably get the
job

506
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,240
done, but no one knows exactly when.

507
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:54,600
And so it's possible it's ETF related, but I think it has to be something that's a
pretty

508
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:59,040
big surprise usually, or it's just the normal trajectory of people learning about
Bitcoin.

509
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:00,040
Well, yeah.

510
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:01,640
And, you know, there are a lot of macro pressures, obviously.

511
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:03,920
We talk about that a lot on the show as well.

512
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:04,920
But I would agree with you.

513
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:09,320
I think the ETF between the two, I feel that ETF is probably going to have a little
bit

514
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,880
more of an impact, at least in this particular cycle from an institutional.

515
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,280
Paul, it's always fun picking your brain.

516
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:20,840
I learn something every time we get a chance to talk and anyway, we appreciate you
stopping

517
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:21,840
in today.

518
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:22,840
Thanks for coming in.

519
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:24,520
Hey, thanks for having me.

520
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:25,520
You bet.

521
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:26,520
All right.

522
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:29,800
If you guys tuned in, whether you're on the podcast side of things, jump over here
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523
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:30,800
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524
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,000
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525
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:34,360
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526
00:26:34,360 --> 00:26:37,720
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527
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:38,880
more content out there.

528
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:43,880
We do a bunch of different podcasts, technical analysis, all that kind of stuff as
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529
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:45,400
So all you have to do is click the link down below.

530
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,920
If you guys want to reach me out there on X, it's at paulbarron.

531
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:49,520
We'll catch you next time right here on Tech Bat.