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People worship the Lightning Network, but to me it is clear that I think at certain
points it has actually crossed the line into overt fraud.

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And it will be talked about like with Theranos and the Fyre Festival.

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The relay policy is mostly a mistake because at its heart it tries to ignore one
fact,

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which is that whoever pays for the block space is the rightful owner.

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If you have an idea that doesn't make it through the Bitcoin Core process, what do
you do with it?

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Does it mean that it's absolutely a bad idea?

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So I think, unfortunately, the entire ecosystem has evolved in the wrong direction.

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Look, reminder, nothing said on Supply Shock is a recommendation to buy or sell any
investment or product.

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This podcast is for informational purposes only and the views expressed by anyone on
the show are solely their opinions,

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not financial advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks.

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Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the company's funds
or projects discussed.

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Hey everybody, Pete Rizzo, the Bitcoin Historian on X here to bring you another
great episode of the Supply Shock podcast.

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We've got a living legend here today, founder and CEO of LayerTwo Labs,

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one of my favorite bloggers and thinkers about all things Bitcoin.

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You can go to Truthcoin.info to dive into his ever-increasing repository of
information about how you should think about Bitcoin.

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We've got Paul Sztorc here. Paul, welcome to the program.

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Thank you. You're one of my favorite people too, Pete.

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Well, thank you, Paul. Well, I just thought it would be fun to reconnect, right?

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Bitcoin development has become a silly enterprise these days, right?

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We have these kind of evolving social factions, some of which, you know, perhaps me
and you have chatted about their emergence before,

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but I don't know, Bitcoin version 30 is released.

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We had probably the biggest sort of, you know, at least since the 4Core era,

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the biggest sort of FUD campaign launched against a Bitcoin software implementation.

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It's live on the network now. Blocks are processing. Transactions are being
verified.

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The network goes on. What are you thinking about?

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It was a missed opportunity for prediction markets because there were a lot of
claims made with a high degree of certainty about V30 will destroy everything.

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And we could have had, that would have been nice to have a betting market on that. I
would have made a lot of money.

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There wasn't anything on Polymarket or anything like that?

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If there was, I didn't really care about it in the discourse.

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So it wasn't working. It wasn't working its cure through the media landscape.

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So I would have preferred if we could have just, you know, if we had a tangible
claim,

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like the market price of Bitcoin would be worse as a result of the upper return.

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Really? I mean, I personally, I got bored with that very quickly.

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I participated a little bit and I was like, I can't believe we've really regressed a
lot.

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The block size debate was more serious than this, I think.

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Well, I think the thing that happened that was problematic is that, and I think me
and you talked about this,

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is that the sort of, you know, communicative sphere around Bitcoin, you know,

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sort of the books and the education process around Bitcoin sort of divorced from the
technical aspect of like actually how the Bitcoin core development process worked.

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And I almost see it as, you know, I think I've given you my sort of broad strokes on
the fork wars that, right,

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the faction that won, there's been sort of this myth that the faction that won, the
small blockers who raised the block size,

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this group was sort of a homogenous group.

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And I think it's sort of this recent argument has sort of delinked kind of the two
groups that had come together.

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So I think that what I mean by that is that there is sort of a segment of, you know,
users for whom the core development process is Bitcoin, right?

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And whatever the core development process sort of decides, you know, it's a
meritocratic process to upgrade Bitcoin like that is Bitcoin.

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And then there's this idea that users should upgrade Bitcoin and decide what Bitcoin
is.

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And in the UASF, those two things were sort of together and they were sort of
indistinguishable, right?

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You couldn't tell who was on which side of the board there.

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Here, it seemed like that really came apart and you had sort of a faction of, you
know, this is being very charitable to the nuts group, right?

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At least at the figurehead that wanted sort of like a users to either impart on the
Bitcoin core process or lead the Bitcoin core process.

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And then you had sort of the other faction, which, you know, saw the Bitcoin core
process as being sort of above or not necessarily really including or meant to
include,

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you know, opinions from outside their process, right?

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And those things really kind of separated here.

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What's your take on that?

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Well, yeah, I agree. It's political and politics.

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It helps to be in a big team. And that's why you often have two factions.

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And so, as you said, the block size war, you had small blockers and large blockers.

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Or really, you kind of had like a...

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Well, I think the small blockers were those two groups, right?

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Like what I guess I'm saying is the small blockers were both folks who thought like
users should decide what Bitcoin is.

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And there was developers who thought like the Bitcoin core process is Bitcoin.

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And thus, you know, we've decided.

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You're right to say it was a wide, diverse group of people, but they teamed up.

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That's what I was trying to say. They had funneled into small block world.

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Right.

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And then I kind of thought like I was really worried at the time.

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I said, you know, a few times also.

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I don't know if anyone listened, but I, you know, we kind of killed the goose that
laid.

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Like I think the divorce was actually very bad for Bitcoin because we spun out a lot
of people who were pretty good for Bitcoin,

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even though they were large blockers. We spun some of those people out and we lost
them.

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And we lost like a whole type of person for a long time.

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Maybe we might be on the verge of losing another type of person.

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Right. That's what I mean. I don't think the divorces are good, actually.

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And and so but also we it made it as exactly as you were saying,

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it made it seem like these people were correct and that they have like some kind of
authority.

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And then I think we really had like 10 years of stagnation. Maybe.

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I don't know how you do the draw the years,

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but you could say like 2015 was when the block size war really heated up with.

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Yeah, my current and XT and all that stuff. And then the divorce being in 2017.

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But really, I think we actually have had a lot of stagnation because the big bet of
the small blockers was on the Lightning Network.

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It wasn't really on there were like these abstract ideas,

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but scaling and layers or whatever, but really it was like the meme was the
Lightning Network.

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So I know you're going to be a top tab conf arguing against I'll be next week.

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I'll be they wrote me in to doing this like this thing of I don't even know if it's
maybe an hour

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or more where I have to give like a tiny little talk and then I have to just field
questions,

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which I think will be a really good format.

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Yeah, I don't understand. I have a very it's still one of the biggest sacred cows.

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So I recognize that people worship the Lightning Network,

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but to me it is clear that it will go down in history as basically I don't know.

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I think it's certain points. It has actually crossed the line into overt fraud

90
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and it will be talked about like with Theranos and the fire festival

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and stuff like that like just mass delusions of people just all going in.

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I mean, isn't that I mean, it's kind of hard to pull out like a mass delusion

93
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and crypto which is itself a collage of there's a lot.

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Yeah, it's very common. Well, that's an interesting point,

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which is that the Lightning Network has made us a lot like stuff that we used to
make fun of.

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So we look in with aetherium and with Dan Larimer

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and people we would say well Dan Larimer keep changing you do bit shares

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and then there'd be like some critique and they would like patch it.

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It'd be like playing whack-a-mole and we would say well,

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this is stupid and then many times I would criticize aetherium

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and people would say well, I remember William McGuire.

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He would say like Vitalik has said he will fix it.

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I heard that phrase like over and over again.

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I was like, no like that's not like really like a real answer,

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but you know, that's what we had and but Lightning Network is like that

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where it's like you play whack-a-mole

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and then the thing changes all the time actually

108
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and you have all these bizarre situations onboarding liquidity flood

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and lewds things expiring the HTLC is consuming too many bytes

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and and then people say well, we'll fix it with PTLC.

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We'll fix it with whatever blah blah blah.

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We'll just change it all to arc later.

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There'll be one instead of instead of everyone six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

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They'll just be one arc Supernode that has expiring VTX

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and you're just like this is what we used to make fun of in the old coin community.

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Well, but wasn't the benefit just to be charitable to for that case,

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right like that.

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We didn't want that at the base protocol.

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So we just moved it up the stack

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but we should have had more competition among the L2s.

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There should have been and there is a tiny amount.

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There isn't that I feel like there's more competition among the L2s.

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Since the season 2 it was like 2023.

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It's become more.

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So ever since I wrote a to the mailing list

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and then wrote my lightning limitations article that slowly percolated through the

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but ever since 2022 when in February,

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it's become slightly more socially acceptable.

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Just a little bit to criticize lightning

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or just talk about it as though it's not the greatest thing in the entire world

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and to your other point about the the the fake.

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They had an idea of unity and like infallibility of core

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that has been shaken recently

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and I do think that is because I don't know.

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I feel like it's I feel like it is.

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I feel like v30 was sort of a big win for the core group

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and that it's for the first time in a long time.

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It's sort of staunchly kind of held the line on something

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and then you know was able to kind of it's a huge setback

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for my project of criticizing core

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and saying that they are lazy and corrupt that they that this is the issue.

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It's an issue where they are correct where the core people are correct

143
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that this is the issue that became like the big issue

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some stupid issue where the or happens to be correct

145
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or happens to be correct in the facts,

146
00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:16,440
but the anti core people the knots people have they kind of picked up

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as you were also saying they're kind of like detected

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that they don't really like have much of a say or something.

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So in this case, it's because their say is incorrect.

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So wisely it's just ignored

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00:10:29,740 --> 00:10:32,540
but I think they're right that like they don't really like

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what's their recourse if they may it core makes a mistake,

153
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but that's the way they're reading recourse core makes a mistake.

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What do we do?

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00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:41,340
Do we go like it's not we don't have like Crestrose Colgate here.

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We have like a monopoly.

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Well, that's why I think like, you know, maybe we can steal man.

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Like so one of the more so, you know,

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I've been on the record of being pretty critical of not since like their earlier
days

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or just the sociology of the movement.

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00:10:52,940 --> 00:10:56,240
I think you know, I do think dissenting implementations like broadly

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like are actually you know, pretty interesting people don't really know

163
00:11:00,640 --> 00:11:03,240
what to do like if core makes a mistake what a core makes a mistake.

164
00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:04,140
Like what do they do?

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00:11:04,140 --> 00:11:08,140
They don't really they're not really sure about what to do with the ironically Luke
used to be the one

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who would say core is a monolith

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00:11:11,340 --> 00:11:17,140
and the only way to deal with course mistake is to like participate in the like
GitHub process.

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00:11:17,140 --> 00:11:18,640
And he would tell me stuff like that.

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So now it's a little iron.

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00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:22,040
It's meant there's many ironies of course.

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00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:26,540
Well, we're talking about the emergence of this group and right like how they carry
forward, right?

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00:11:26,540 --> 00:11:27,040
Oh, okay.

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00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:30,840
But one of the things that I think that is really interesting that they put forward
that,

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you know, while sillier I'm surprised doesn't get more actual intellectual
discussion is this idea

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00:11:36,340 --> 00:11:40,340
that you know, Bitcoin core is itself sort of like a failing left-wing institution,
right?

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00:11:40,340 --> 00:11:44,240
That like in today's modern society, I think there's a lot of yeah,

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but there is like, you know, a lot of like left-wing institutions are actually
failing at a large level.

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And I think is that you're like a kind of like a you know, a sociologist historian
type person.

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I think you're aware there.

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I don't remember the name of it,

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00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:08,940
but there is like a law or something that says something like the left is better at
like overtly every organization eventually drifts into the left

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00:12:08,940 --> 00:12:11,240
and then it be stagnates and dies.

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00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:18,140
There's some law that says something like this has a permanent feature across all of
every institution for like hundreds of years

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00:12:18,140 --> 00:12:24,840
and has something to do with like the left is easier to like more practice to
justifying itself or like has more lawyers or something.

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00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:28,740
Well, there's this idea that like Bitcoin core should return to like a strong man.

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00:12:28,740 --> 00:12:30,940
Like so so like this and I think this is sort of like,

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you know, I think within knots you have like Luca mechanic at the top who actually
have like some very Byzantine technical argument

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00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:39,640
that they're just are willing to die on the hill

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00:12:39,640 --> 00:12:46,740
and then you have sort of the rest of the group which really just wants like a
strong man sort of authoritative Bitcoin core leader to sort of,

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00:12:46,740 --> 00:12:48,540
you know, be politically aligned with them.

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People want a certain outcome, right?

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00:12:51,240 --> 00:12:52,340
So when they don't get it,

193
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they're one way they say,

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well, if only we had a king and the king and the king of course agrees with me
because I'm because the king is so reasonable and I'm reasonable.

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Of course.

196
00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:02,840
So people do that all the time.

197
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:08,640
They never find a, you know, it's interesting within the context of like Bitcoin
earlier in the epochs, right?

198
00:13:08,640 --> 00:13:11,440
Both Satoshi and Gavin were sort of pseudo Kings, right?

199
00:13:11,440 --> 00:13:21,440
You could you could argue that Satoshi was an absolute monarch and Gavin was a
monarch with a loose parliamentary system that he was a very British.

200
00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:23,240
Nothing was actually written down.

201
00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:27,640
They were defined, but he, but it was like clear that he had limited power.

202
00:13:27,640 --> 00:13:29,240
Yeah, he wanted like the, the,

203
00:13:29,340 --> 00:13:30,940
then regretted what he did.

204
00:13:30,940 --> 00:13:32,740
I mean, you would probably know much better than me,

205
00:13:32,740 --> 00:13:36,540
but it seemed like he gave it back up to people who they people.

206
00:13:36,540 --> 00:13:39,540
Yeah, he wanted this veneer of a parliament,

207
00:13:39,540 --> 00:13:42,140
but he wanted to be able to like seize the Julius Caesar.

208
00:13:42,140 --> 00:13:42,640
Yeah, of course.

209
00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:43,940
We wanted both ways.

210
00:13:43,940 --> 00:13:44,440
They don't want.

211
00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:52,640
Well, that's the other thing that core also does this where they say we want to have
the final say we want the power to reject stupid ideas,

212
00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:55,640
but we don't want to be held responsible,

213
00:13:55,640 --> 00:13:58,640
which is also like they don't want to be out legally responsible.

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00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:01,840
They don't want to get sued by Craig Wright and other crazy people.

215
00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:03,140
They don't want the government to say,

216
00:14:03,140 --> 00:14:05,340
oh, look, these are the official people.

217
00:14:05,340 --> 00:14:08,240
Well, that was like during a, you know, fork era, war era thing, right?

218
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:12,840
This idea that the Bitcoin core developers did not want to be perceived as being in
charge of Bitcoin, right?

219
00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:18,140
Like that, that's, that's been a pretty, which they aren't, but I think they, they
aren't in charge of it.

220
00:14:18,140 --> 00:14:19,840
And so they should, it is an accurate.

221
00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:25,440
It's a reasonable thing to want to be perceived accurately as like not being
responsible for what,

222
00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:29,540
but I do think the pendulum has swung too far where they don't,

223
00:14:29,540 --> 00:14:34,940
they don't really like they, they, they can't become a very insular group,

224
00:14:34,940 --> 00:14:39,140
like very, like what are they accountable to really?

225
00:14:39,140 --> 00:14:44,440
Like who, what kind of oversight, like who, who could fire them like that?

226
00:14:44,440 --> 00:14:46,740
And if the answer is no one, then how can,

227
00:14:46,740 --> 00:14:49,940
how can they be upset when people complain about that on Twitter?

228
00:14:49,940 --> 00:14:54,340
I think that's, that's also a pretty, it's a reason to ask,

229
00:14:54,340 --> 00:14:58,240
like, who are these people and like, how do we get rid of them if we don't like
them?

230
00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:00,140
I think that's totally reasonable.

231
00:15:00,140 --> 00:15:02,140
And so I think like the knots group, like, you know,

232
00:15:02,140 --> 00:15:06,440
so I've tended to focus a lot of these long form talks on like my criticism level,

233
00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:10,240
which I think like, you know, most of their, their intellectual position is very
silly and untenable.

234
00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:12,140
But yeah, I think like, what are they?

235
00:15:12,140 --> 00:15:14,440
A lot of what they've done has fallen into the low,

236
00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:20,440
the low brow, like bottom of the barrel manipulative, you know, like, you know,

237
00:15:20,540 --> 00:15:29,740
like to manipulate people and fake, fake panic and extremely emotionally charged,

238
00:15:29,740 --> 00:15:33,740
you know, words and phrases designed to manipulate, shame people.

239
00:15:33,740 --> 00:15:36,740
And, you know, that all that's just like awful.

240
00:15:36,740 --> 00:15:41,640
I think, you know, they should, the knots people should reject all that if they want
anyone to.

241
00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:44,140
Well, it just, it feels like for a long time there's been this,

242
00:15:44,140 --> 00:15:47,840
you know, and then there was a kind of period during like the Ordinals boom where,

243
00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:52,140
you know, Bitcoin Core was viewed as like not technical savvy enough and not pushing
enough changes.

244
00:15:52,140 --> 00:15:56,640
And now it's not, you know, so Bitcoin Core is a bit in a, in a, between a rock and
a hard place.

245
00:15:56,640 --> 00:16:02,440
But it does feel like, you know, there's more of an openness towards Bitcoin having
multiple implementations

246
00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:07,040
now than there's perhaps ever been, I guess, in my time in Bitcoin.

247
00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:09,140
Right, I agree.

248
00:16:09,140 --> 00:16:11,640
And then like, you know, my whole thing with knots is like, you know,

249
00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:14,040
if you're going to go to the route of dissenting implementations,

250
00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:16,540
then the real Bitcoin was really the pinnacle of that.

251
00:16:16,540 --> 00:16:18,540
And like, how do you improve on the real Bitcoin?

252
00:16:18,540 --> 00:16:21,540
You know, knots is just like a very like, you know.

253
00:16:21,540 --> 00:16:25,240
Well, I mean, you know, I, this is where I'm disappointed and bored by the knots
thing.

254
00:16:25,240 --> 00:16:27,240
I mean, I know that it's the current thing.

255
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:29,040
And so that's people want a take on it.

256
00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:32,840
I think like it's like I'm depressed by it.

257
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:34,440
This is the current thing.

258
00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:39,040
And if you think like you're talking about like they get in trouble for not making
enough changes or whatever.

259
00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:44,040
It used to back in 2012, the whole reason the soft fork was invented

260
00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:48,540
or conceptualized was because it's too difficult to get everyone to upgrade.

261
00:16:48,540 --> 00:16:50,040
You'll never get everyone to upgrade.

262
00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:51,940
So you have these backwards compatible.

263
00:16:51,940 --> 00:16:55,440
And but that has lasted only a little bit of time.

264
00:16:55,440 --> 00:17:00,040
And I don't know if you've seen, but I have a slide that I sometimes use about the,
you know,

265
00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:04,740
there were like something like 14 soft forks in the first seven years.

266
00:17:04,740 --> 00:17:12,240
And then 20 months separated SegWit from when it was first proposed on the mailing
list to when it was coded and activated.

267
00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:15,640
And there's something like 46 months for Taproot.

268
00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:20,240
And then since then, nothing. So Taproot was whatever, November 2021.

269
00:17:20,240 --> 00:17:23,740
So we have a geometrically increasing time between.

270
00:17:23,740 --> 00:17:28,440
So the soft fork is out. And now even a change to the relay policy,

271
00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:33,540
which the whole idea of the relay policy is a mistake and misconceived,

272
00:17:33,540 --> 00:17:36,840
but it's the relay policy is optional and configurable.

273
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:39,940
And if you want, you can change something in the...

274
00:17:39,940 --> 00:17:42,040
Or go back to the relay policy thing.

275
00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:46,040
Yeah, there's been some interesting literature recently about like emergence of
relay

276
00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:51,140
or policy in general as something that's divorced from consensus.

277
00:17:51,140 --> 00:17:53,940
You know, and I think that those things have been interesting to read that Satoshi

278
00:17:53,940 --> 00:17:57,040
and Gavin sort of created this idea that the users would,

279
00:17:57,040 --> 00:18:00,440
they would use sort of the defaults of the network to sort of, you know,

280
00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:02,840
push certain things that would have otherwise been at consensus,

281
00:18:02,840 --> 00:18:05,840
but weren't pushed to that level. You have any thoughts on that?

282
00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:09,040
There is a, you know, there's a wide continuum of like,

283
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:13,040
so like your node will ban people for different amounts of time.

284
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:18,740
I'm just trying to say it's not, it's never been completely black and white

285
00:18:18,740 --> 00:18:21,940
and it wouldn't really work if it did because like sending someone an invalid block

286
00:18:21,940 --> 00:18:25,540
gets you banned for like, I don't know, like whatever, like a day or like forever or
something.

287
00:18:25,540 --> 00:18:29,840
But if you just do something else, it'll just disconnect for a shorter period of
time.

288
00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:35,740
So because there's different like ways the nodes can like waste each other's time

289
00:18:35,740 --> 00:18:37,440
and the transactions can waste each other's time.

290
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:41,340
Like a transaction can have like a, it can contain Sergio,

291
00:18:41,340 --> 00:18:45,640
Damon Lerner made a like a some kind of transaction that takes up a whole block.

292
00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:49,340
It takes like an extremely long time to figure out if it's valid or not.

293
00:18:49,340 --> 00:18:53,240
So there are these, there are all these kind of little things,

294
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:57,240
little costs to each thing that people have tried to kind of like counter

295
00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:00,240
in like a proportional way.

296
00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:04,840
But yeah, I think the relay policy is mostly a mistake

297
00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:09,540
because at its heart, it tries to ignore one fact,

298
00:19:09,540 --> 00:19:13,940
which is that whoever pays for the block space is the rightful owner

299
00:19:13,940 --> 00:19:16,240
and that the miners want to make as much money as possible.

300
00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:19,240
So I guess that's two facts. I snuck in two facts at once.

301
00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:19,740
But if you...

302
00:19:19,740 --> 00:19:23,540
Wait, so why does, how does it, how does it, how does it ignore those two facts
exactly?

303
00:19:23,540 --> 00:19:27,040
Because it's trying to say something like we should punish people.

304
00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:32,940
Well, if your thing has a long op return, we're going to try to like discourage
that.

305
00:19:32,940 --> 00:19:39,140
But, but that premise is nonsense because the miner wants to get the transaction

306
00:19:39,140 --> 00:19:40,540
because it pays the highest fee.

307
00:19:40,540 --> 00:19:44,740
It's, we are, we've already assumed implicitly that it's crowding out.

308
00:19:44,740 --> 00:19:45,540
If it's...

309
00:19:45,540 --> 00:19:49,540
What do you, what do you think about like one of the other funny parts of Knott's
lore,

310
00:19:49,540 --> 00:19:54,040
I think is this idea that the economic incentives of miners,

311
00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:56,640
that there are fiat incentives and then there are Bitcoin incentives

312
00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:57,840
and the miner should be altruistic.

313
00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:01,740
Yeah, a lot of this is like first talk rationalization and kind of desperate hope.

314
00:20:01,740 --> 00:20:03,140
Humans are great lawyers.

315
00:20:03,140 --> 00:20:05,840
We were born to argue and you can just find anything.

316
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:10,240
Your brain is just looking for any, it's like trying to like connect to...

317
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:12,840
Well, I just thought you would find it particularly amusing as a...

318
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:16,740
I do think there is like a, there's an argument that makes some sense,

319
00:20:16,740 --> 00:20:21,340
which is something like if something gets you more transaction fees in the next
block,

320
00:20:21,340 --> 00:20:25,340
but it causes the price of Bitcoin to crash, then maybe miners wouldn't do it.

321
00:20:25,340 --> 00:20:29,040
And there have been many cases in which, that you probably remember,

322
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:32,540
where someone like accidentally paid, they were experimenting.

323
00:20:32,540 --> 00:20:34,840
This is a common mistake that people make.

324
00:20:34,840 --> 00:20:36,640
They don't understand change outputs.

325
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:38,440
So they think I've got 10 Bitcoin.

326
00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:40,640
I'm going to spend 0.001 on something.

327
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:42,540
And they accidentally, they only do that

328
00:20:42,540 --> 00:20:46,340
and that makes the entire rest of the balance, the transaction fee.

329
00:20:46,340 --> 00:20:49,640
And like the mining pool will like track the person down

330
00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:51,440
and voluntarily give the money back.

331
00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:54,140
This has happened many times in Bitcoin's history,

332
00:20:54,140 --> 00:20:59,640
where it's sort of not necessarily in the short-term interest of the miner,

333
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:02,340
but it's in kind of better for the Bitcoin brand.

334
00:21:02,340 --> 00:21:04,240
So that has happened.

335
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:05,840
So I think I'm open to that.

336
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:07,440
That's sort of a line, yeah.

337
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:09,740
The whole thing is, I think again,

338
00:21:09,740 --> 00:21:13,840
like it's just a matter of people who understand the actual issues

339
00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:17,540
and then people who just have less of an understanding and are relying on...

340
00:21:17,540 --> 00:21:21,840
Well, my big take on this, I'm curious what you think of this,

341
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:24,640
is essentially like one of the problems is Bitcoin has scaled

342
00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:27,440
and because it's become more mainstream, we've sort of pulled the ladder up.

343
00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:29,840
And what I mean by this is like in 2021,

344
00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:32,040
it was possible to be part of the Bitcoin culture

345
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:34,740
by like starting a spaces and like yelling about NFTs, right?

346
00:21:34,740 --> 00:21:37,040
Like that was like, that was the barrier entry

347
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:38,940
to being like an important person in Bitcoin

348
00:21:38,940 --> 00:21:41,840
is that like you just like got on some random spaces

349
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,140
and like talks about how people shouldn't buy NFTs.

350
00:21:44,140 --> 00:21:46,940
And sort of like now as the sort of community is fragmenting

351
00:21:46,940 --> 00:21:50,240
and you sort of have this like Wall Street finance movement with Michael Saylor

352
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:53,640
and then you have this sort of like crypto savvy ZK movement

353
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:55,840
with like Eric Wall and these types of people.

354
00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:59,140
And then, you know, you have sort of the political stuff,

355
00:21:59,140 --> 00:22:01,840
you know, so you have to be in Washington like doing,

356
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:03,840
you know, insider shaking in DC.

357
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:07,840
So you have like three, like the three main sociological elements of the movement,

358
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,740
like the pro-crypto side, like the pro-regulatory side

359
00:22:10,740 --> 00:22:16,340
and the, you know, pro-Wall Street side require like a barrier to entry

360
00:22:16,340 --> 00:22:19,040
where like you're a nuanced expert in that field, right?

361
00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:21,340
Like so to partake in like Washington legislate,

362
00:22:21,340 --> 00:22:25,040
you know, that there's not, the average pleb is not participating in that.

363
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:28,840
And so Knott's in some sense, I think has benefited from this phenomenon

364
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:30,640
of like Bitcoin becoming more,

365
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,640
it's like more inaccessible to be like part of the Bitcoin industry

366
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:35,840
and in a useful way.

367
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:37,640
And sort of Knott's has collected a lot of these.

368
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:39,840
Like the Bernie Sanders or something of the.

369
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:43,340
That's an interesting analogy.

370
00:22:43,340 --> 00:22:46,540
Yeah, it's just sort of like there was this culture that was behind,

371
00:22:46,540 --> 00:22:50,840
like it's, you know, as Bitcoin has sort of moved a bit beyond

372
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,240
like the insular kind of everyman culture,

373
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:55,140
it's sort of left behind some people.

374
00:22:55,140 --> 00:22:57,440
And I feel like there's a lot of like, you know,

375
00:22:57,440 --> 00:22:59,540
you see this with the big podcasters and influencers,

376
00:22:59,540 --> 00:23:01,340
I won't name them, who have like, you know,

377
00:23:01,340 --> 00:23:03,440
they'll say that they're running knots to demonstrate

378
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:05,640
some sort of social conservatism, you know,

379
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:07,140
like where it was just pretty gross.

380
00:23:07,140 --> 00:23:12,240
Like, you know, they're so afraid,

381
00:23:12,340 --> 00:23:13,740
they're so afraid to be like,

382
00:23:13,740 --> 00:23:15,640
I think we have to maybe like, okay.

383
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:16,840
Yeah, very few people understand.

384
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:18,240
This is as Jameson Lobb says,

385
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:21,640
actually very few people understand the whole Bitcoin idea.

386
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:25,940
So running a node only helps you if you are receiving money

387
00:23:25,940 --> 00:23:29,040
or for some other reason you want to like view the blockchain,

388
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:30,740
like you run a block Explorer

389
00:23:30,740 --> 00:23:32,340
or you want to back up the chain

390
00:23:32,340 --> 00:23:36,240
because you think everyone else is going to get hit by a meteor or something.

391
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:40,040
So but basically if you when you're receiving the node is telling you

392
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:41,140
if you're getting money,

393
00:23:41,140 --> 00:23:42,340
if you're getting BTC or not.

394
00:23:42,340 --> 00:23:46,640
So it's ironically or interestingly the people who like run a store,

395
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:50,740
like you people would run like Silk Road or Backpage at the time,

396
00:23:50,740 --> 00:23:54,040
but you know, or now the exchanges or the ETF

397
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:56,840
or whatever they need to know how much Bitcoin they really have.

398
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,140
Those people, the node is actually doing something

399
00:23:59,140 --> 00:24:00,940
and when you're not receiving money,

400
00:24:00,940 --> 00:24:01,840
the node doesn't do anything.

401
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,540
You could spin up a node, you could spin up a hundred nodes

402
00:24:04,540 --> 00:24:06,340
and then shut them all off and you know,

403
00:24:06,340 --> 00:24:08,540
the network's left back the way it was before.

404
00:24:08,540 --> 00:24:10,740
It's not like shutting them off is like.

405
00:24:10,740 --> 00:24:13,040
Well, yeah, there's this weird like latent,

406
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:16,040
as much as the Udots camp tries to view itself

407
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:18,340
as this like socially conservative right-wing group.

408
00:24:18,340 --> 00:24:21,440
It's an amazingly a very collectivist sort of group

409
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:22,840
in terms of how they make arguments.

410
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:25,940
Like I think that's like one of the fascinating inversions of it, right?

411
00:24:25,940 --> 00:24:28,140
And it's sort of like this idea that like,

412
00:24:28,140 --> 00:24:29,640
you know, you see the people was like,

413
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:33,240
my gun is my node kind of thing where it's like,

414
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:35,740
you know, and like there is a truth to that, right?

415
00:24:35,740 --> 00:24:36,240
I guess.

416
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:36,740
I don't know.

417
00:24:36,740 --> 00:24:38,440
I know we've talked about the Fork Wars

418
00:24:38,540 --> 00:24:40,640
and whether the UASF was like, you know,

419
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,840
even a coherent movement that like achieved anything

420
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:45,540
and it's very hard to like figure that out.

421
00:24:45,540 --> 00:24:48,840
It's more ambiguous than people later rewrote.

422
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:51,640
They later rewrote it like, oh, whatever,

423
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:52,940
like small block was right.

424
00:24:52,940 --> 00:24:55,540
Well, because one of the things that like is really whitewashed

425
00:24:55,540 --> 00:24:58,640
from that history is just like that the big blockers,

426
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:00,340
the biggest hurdle the big blockers had

427
00:25:00,340 --> 00:25:03,240
was that their coalition became largely disinterested in them

428
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,240
as the crypto investment ecosystem like expanded more broadly

429
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,040
and then the business is just diversified

430
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:09,240
and it's other crypto assets.

431
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:11,040
And so I think a lot of like Coinbase,

432
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:12,940
you mean like just be an altcoin.

433
00:25:13,172 --> 00:25:29,172
Yeah, they were just like, we're just going to do Ethereum, right, you know, so
there was like there was an earlier defection from that camp where, you know, it's
like the big blockers who remained up until the Bitcoin cash fork were just like a
fraction of the prior constituency, you know, for a variety of reasons.

434
00:25:29,172 --> 00:25:52,172
And this is also the key. This is one of the arguments of the small blockers that
and that people made, including me about like, you know, people want there to be
some sticking power. They want to say like there's some sometimes called the moral
glue holding the coalition together, that if everyone just goes with their with the
thing that they prefer, then we end up with like, you know, 8 billion different
blockchains.

435
00:25:52,172 --> 00:26:01,172
Everyone has one person on them, you know, and then it doesn't the whole point is
that to some extent you like this is like the Bitcoin is for enemies.

436
00:26:02,172 --> 00:26:16,172
I mean, so the whole point, to some extent, is that you're only partially in
agreement with these people, but you agree enough to be on the same network, you
know, your network effects and network effects are big.

437
00:26:16,172 --> 00:26:29,172
Being with the biggest is a big advantage. So that does suck for Bitcoin cash. And
then, of course, Bitcoin cash people got immediately like talk about live by the
fork, die by the fork.

438
00:26:29,172 --> 00:26:35,172
Then that Bitcoin SV does that a lot of other, you know, Bitcoin gold or whatever,
like a lot of.

439
00:26:36,172 --> 00:26:48,172
So I think going forward, there's a few things that can happen. I mean, I think I
think for for better or for worse, what's what's happened now is that like people
understand that the development process a lot more than they used to.

440
00:26:48,172 --> 00:26:58,172
And those people are who are dissatisfied with it, have the opportunity to do
something going forward. You know, they can bear the cost to create other
implementations and then, you know, operate them for some period of time.

441
00:26:58,172 --> 00:27:06,172
And I think, you know, if we get so it's interesting to think like if we're moving
towards like a multi implementation network, let's just say, you know, not continues
to be popular.

442
00:27:06,172 --> 00:27:15,172
You know, there's some other folks we know who are talking about launching other
implementations. Let's just say one of those goes live and it's sort of appealing
for whatever reason.

443
00:27:15,172 --> 00:27:29,172
You know, Luke is and I'm curious your thoughts on this, because Luke Dasher has put
forth the idea that knots might even, you know, upgrade or push, you know, software
upgrades, which I, you know, even it is that I can imagine is like actually not
popular with his user base.

444
00:27:29,172 --> 00:27:31,172
But let's just let's just go with the fact that that's in the realm.

445
00:27:32,172 --> 00:27:41,172
I agree with you that that's intriguing and no one else has talked about it like
when he was talking about, oh, like we'll have like like Stark verify something like
that.

446
00:27:41,172 --> 00:27:54,172
And I was like, this is weird because this is not what you would expect. And it's
the kind of thing you would do if you were just trying to like be a politician and
just gather more people say whoever feels neglected and try to fold them into your
coalition.

447
00:27:54,172 --> 00:27:59,172
And I thought that was kind of curious. So I agree with you. I don't know.

448
00:27:59,172 --> 00:28:09,172
So I think it's consistent because like, again, like if you go back to my idea of
like, OK, the two what are the two factions that split if you what was the USA at a
USF camp and then what's the split?

449
00:28:09,172 --> 00:28:18,172
The split is basically there's a group that thinks the technical development process
is Bitcoin, like whatever you either participate in the technical process or you
don't either abide by those decisions.

450
00:28:18,172 --> 00:28:23,172
You don't. And then whatever gets produced, that is Bitcoin, because this is anyone
to participate.

451
00:28:23,172 --> 00:28:30,172
Anyone can discuss. And this is simply the best efforts of the people. That's that's
the best steel man argument for Bitcoin core.

452
00:28:30,172 --> 00:28:39,172
And then you sort of have the USF movement, which, you know, Luke was at the helm
of. And then he did try to do the USF for Taproot, right, which helped successfully
get it activated.

453
00:28:39,172 --> 00:28:46,172
So his his theory, I think, is that, you know, we the users are Bitcoin. We are
Bitcoin. Bitcoin can change if we want it to change.

454
00:28:46,172 --> 00:28:53,172
And so there's this idea inherent in it where, you know, he does want to move the
network forward and continue upgrading it.

455
00:28:53,172 --> 00:29:03,172
And I think that, you know, if you if you did see an implementation outside of core,
you know, offer some sort of, you know, more progressive updating.

456
00:29:03,172 --> 00:29:15,172
And then these implementations were able to keep compatibility. You might get
something to like what I think you've wanted, which is, you know, sort of a
marketplace of competition between where at least these new technologies get tested.

457
00:29:15,172 --> 00:29:28,172
And it's right. And it's finally after I think after whatever we call it, eight
years, eight years since the block size war, I think the lack of competition is
really becoming more obvious.

458
00:29:28,172 --> 00:29:33,172
It's now all the people are figuring out what I predicted long ago. It's starting to
become more obvious.

459
00:29:34,172 --> 00:29:47,172
New stuff's being invented that we used to say that we obviously wanted, like cool
privacy, ZK-SNARK privacy. That was like a Greg Maxwell thing, like back on
BitcoinTalk.org.

460
00:29:47,172 --> 00:29:55,172
And but we used to always say that we wanted the option to have greater Bitcoin
privacy, reusable addresses, whatever.

461
00:29:55,172 --> 00:30:02,172
Now we have altcoins that that do that. I mean, I think I remember a time when
everyone said they wanted smart contracts on Bitcoin or then you or you'd have.

462
00:30:02,172 --> 00:30:04,172
Well, there's been some interesting.

463
00:30:04,172 --> 00:30:13,172
Smart contracts on Bitcoin and stuff like that. And so like, you know, but that's
then after Ethereum did that, we had to do the sour grapes and say, oh, we never
wanted that.

464
00:30:14,172 --> 00:30:23,172
And that's all that's becoming top heavy now, especially as Internet speeds get
faster, computing gets cheaper.

465
00:30:23,172 --> 00:30:30,172
Now it actually the cost benefit on larger. You have these people like Solana that
have like this incredibly expensive node.

466
00:30:30,172 --> 00:30:37,172
But it turns out after years and years of R&D, it's like, you know, like a few
thousand dollars a year.

467
00:30:37,172 --> 00:30:45,172
And so actually super expensive as a percentage of like someone's wage in the first
world is actually not that much.

468
00:30:45,172 --> 00:30:49,172
And so then it's kind of like revisits the whole scaling is going to revisit
everything.

469
00:30:49,172 --> 00:30:52,172
We have another issue with the lack of competition.

470
00:30:52,172 --> 00:30:58,172
And this is similar to what Luke was saying, or I think what he was sort of not
saying.

471
00:30:58,172 --> 00:31:07,172
Well, let me explain what I'm trying to say is that we kind of have a rotten
premise, which is that we on one hand, we say Bitcoin is all you need.

472
00:31:07,172 --> 00:31:10,172
Bitcoin is perfect. Everything else is a shit going. Everything else is terrible.

473
00:31:10,172 --> 00:31:16,172
And you're a scammer if you show anything, something you buy with Bitcoin on that is
the shit going, whatever.

474
00:31:16,172 --> 00:31:20,172
So the word shit coin has slowly taken on more and more meaning until now.

475
00:31:20,172 --> 00:31:23,172
It just basically means anything I don't like. Right.

476
00:31:23,172 --> 00:31:28,172
But on one hand, we say this is it's either Bitcoin or nothing.

477
00:31:28,172 --> 00:31:33,172
And there's, you know, Bitcoin, not crypto, blah, blah, blah. There's a whole pillar
of this.

478
00:31:33,172 --> 00:31:41,172
And yet it's kind of like if you have an idea that doesn't make it through the
Bitcoin core process, what do you do with it?

479
00:31:41,172 --> 00:31:44,172
Does it mean that it's absolutely a bad idea?

480
00:31:44,172 --> 00:31:47,172
And so what you're then saying is a core is infallible.

481
00:31:47,172 --> 00:31:51,172
And then if if your idea doesn't make it on your idea for.

482
00:31:51,172 --> 00:31:54,172
Well, this was part of the Bitcoin cash.

483
00:31:54,172 --> 00:31:57,172
And what do you do now?

484
00:31:57,172 --> 00:32:00,172
Like you have to if someone has a good idea now, you have to launch an altcoin.

485
00:32:00,172 --> 00:32:04,172
Right. There is no there used to be the idea used to be sidechain idea.

486
00:32:04,172 --> 00:32:09,172
It was firmly in the original Bitcoin in 2015 and 2014.

487
00:32:10,172 --> 00:32:14,172
People would say we will eventually do this, you know, rootstock or we will
eventually do a theorem.

488
00:32:14,172 --> 00:32:17,172
That's why I've been encouraging you to launch an altcoin for the last several.

489
00:32:17,172 --> 00:32:21,172
Yeah, I think it could. Well, I do think we have a test net.

490
00:32:21,172 --> 00:32:24,172
We have two test nets right now. So we have a signet. These are fake coins.

491
00:32:24,172 --> 00:32:29,172
But they it's a block chain is sort of as real as any altcoin or Bitcoin.

492
00:32:29,172 --> 00:32:31,172
And the coins have no value.

493
00:32:31,172 --> 00:32:36,172
But we have a signet and we have one that is very similar to Bitcoin core proof of
work.

494
00:32:36,172 --> 00:32:41,172
900000 blocks. So we have the tests are getting progressively more realistic.

495
00:32:43,172 --> 00:32:48,172
But what do you what do you think about, you know, so is there a power vacuum here
where, you know,

496
00:32:48,172 --> 00:32:52,172
you could consider even launching your own implementation like around some.

497
00:32:52,172 --> 00:33:03,172
Yeah, I think actually in particular, we have like a big power vacuum for people
like the knots versus core.

498
00:33:03,172 --> 00:33:07,172
That's currently like locked in everyone's head. So I don't know if I could disturb
that.

499
00:33:07,172 --> 00:33:11,172
But I do think you could be like the who's the Ross Perot.

500
00:33:11,172 --> 00:33:14,172
Yeah, well, that is I do think I'm a huge believer.

501
00:33:14,172 --> 00:33:19,172
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge I sing the song of Ralph Nader all the
time.

502
00:33:19,172 --> 00:33:23,172
I love the network effect, I think. So I do think like, you know,

503
00:33:23,172 --> 00:33:29,172
and I told even earlier in this conversation about the political factions usually
split into bigger teams better.

504
00:33:29,172 --> 00:33:36,172
I do think, though, we have like this thing bid window, which is kind of like it's
like a graphical user interface for Bitcoin core.

505
00:33:36,172 --> 00:33:43,172
So you just run Bitcoin core. But Bitcoin core is, you know, just like hidden black
box.

506
00:33:43,172 --> 00:33:50,172
And then the window is like what the user sees. And that began as just to manage the
sidechain L2s.

507
00:33:50,172 --> 00:33:55,172
But I added I bolted on all kinds of stuff that I just think is cool and I think
it's way better.

508
00:33:55,172 --> 00:33:59,172
And I think that's much more impactful than if I compare that to knots.

509
00:33:59,172 --> 00:34:06,172
I think that's way better because now I give you I give people tons and tons of
options because we can add all kinds of knots relay options.

510
00:34:06,172 --> 00:34:12,172
But the thing is, those relay options don't really do anything. But I give you lots
of cool stuff in my little bit window experience.

511
00:34:12,172 --> 00:34:19,172
And this is better, too, because knots is a different version of, you know, the back
end, the actual consensus.

512
00:34:19,172 --> 00:34:24,172
Who knows? Luke has had a history of having his server be insecure.

513
00:34:24,172 --> 00:34:30,172
And so but I'm just running Bitcoin core and then just showing you a different
display.

514
00:34:30,172 --> 00:34:34,172
So I think that is better, actually, a lot. And then I have this other thing that's
also better.

515
00:34:34,172 --> 00:34:39,172
The Core Untouched Soft Fork, CUSF, C-U-S-F. And that's you just run Bitcoin core.

516
00:34:39,172 --> 00:34:48,172
And then you have these other things like these activators that you could enforce,
OP_CAT or BIP300 or whatever you want, a CTV.

517
00:34:48,172 --> 00:34:51,172
So that is also better because you don't touch Bitcoin core.

518
00:34:51,172 --> 00:34:59,172
So I do think my paradigm is actually much better than knots and that knots is in
some sense blazing a trail of descent from core.

519
00:34:59,172 --> 00:35:09,172
But as I said earlier, I'm very disappointed that the issue that the big issue is
one where core is just, you know, sort of flatly correct.

520
00:35:09,172 --> 00:35:15,172
And the people, the knots people are going like hardcore emotional manipulation to
make their point.

521
00:35:15,172 --> 00:35:18,172
And I think that's, you know, that's not the right way to go.

522
00:35:18,172 --> 00:35:23,172
So, well, I'm curious what you think about this, because I was actually, you know, I
was trying to draw a mental diagram of this.

523
00:35:23,172 --> 00:35:28,172
It's OK. So, you know, if you have this, there's basically only three bodies that
could be in charge of the network.

524
00:35:28,172 --> 00:35:33,172
Right. It's either the miners are in charge of the network, the developers in charge
of the network.

525
00:35:33,172 --> 00:35:36,172
No one's in charge of the network or the users are in charge of the network.

526
00:35:36,172 --> 00:35:42,172
And then, you know, you think back to the history of Bitcoin, there's different
people who have tried to run different of these theses.

527
00:35:42,172 --> 00:35:44,172
Right. So like the miners are in charge of the network. Right.

528
00:35:44,172 --> 00:35:48,172
Like Bitcoin Cash would just make that very clear that that was an unsuccessful
attempt.

529
00:35:48,172 --> 00:35:54,172
It was an attempt to do. I don't remember what the name was, but it was something
like the miners could like increase the blocks.

530
00:35:54,172 --> 00:35:56,172
The miner activated soft fork. Yeah.

531
00:35:56,172 --> 00:36:01,172
There was some name like Gated something. I don't remember what it was.

532
00:36:01,172 --> 00:36:06,172
It wasn't the MASF, the miner activated soft fork or hard fork.

533
00:36:06,172 --> 00:36:12,172
We've had miners. The miner activated soft fork is cool. We've done in core many
times, but not every time.

534
00:36:12,172 --> 00:36:15,172
Well, this was a good nine, according to me. Right.

535
00:36:15,172 --> 00:36:19,172
I don't know, according to anyone else. I think it's unfortunate.

536
00:36:19,172 --> 00:36:21,172
Like everyone seems to have their own little definition.

537
00:36:21,172 --> 00:36:27,172
I published mine on my blog to try to make mine transparent, but I don't know if it
had any success.

538
00:36:27,172 --> 00:36:29,172
The definitions are kind of a fool.

539
00:36:29,172 --> 00:36:33,172
What do you think about this? So there's this tension between if you even go back to
the USF days.

540
00:36:34,172 --> 00:36:38,172
The people pushing the USF and the core developers weren't necessarily aligned.

541
00:36:38,172 --> 00:36:40,172
Well, they both got the same outcome.

542
00:36:40,172 --> 00:36:43,172
There was a lot of social distance between those groups. Right.

543
00:36:43,172 --> 00:36:48,172
I mean like from Shaolin to like other people.

544
00:36:48,172 --> 00:36:50,172
Is that what you're talking about?

545
00:36:50,172 --> 00:36:56,172
Yeah. So my understanding is like, you know, my assertion has always been that the
USF coalition was sort of two groups.

546
00:36:56,172 --> 00:37:05,172
It was the Bitcoin core developers and the, you know, Mersha, Influence, Shaolin,
Frye, sort of user.

547
00:37:05,172 --> 00:37:09,172
Users should, users control the network and users can signal to the network.

548
00:37:09,172 --> 00:37:12,172
I'm worried that you're making it a little too, the sentences are a little too
short.

549
00:37:12,172 --> 00:37:16,172
Like users control the network. I think there's like a lot of knobs.

550
00:37:16,172 --> 00:37:23,172
It's like you drive a car, you can control the car, but you don't control like the
airbag or some of the other things.

551
00:37:23,172 --> 00:37:26,172
Like you can't shut off the thing that beeps if you don't put on your seatbelt.

552
00:37:26,172 --> 00:37:30,172
You know what I mean? Like you don't, the control, like you can't make the car like
fly into space or something.

553
00:37:30,172 --> 00:37:34,172
Well, that's an interesting analysis. Like cars go above the speed limit, right?

554
00:37:34,172 --> 00:37:37,172
That's actually, I've been thinking about this a lot in the context of like this
debate.

555
00:37:37,172 --> 00:37:44,172
BIP300 gives miners control over the drop and add and deposit and withdrawal to some
L2s.

556
00:37:44,172 --> 00:37:47,172
But the withdrawal is heavily gated.

557
00:37:48,172 --> 00:37:52,172
So like, it's like, I don't, it's not like blank.

558
00:37:52,172 --> 00:37:57,172
The X controls the network, I think is too, is not enough.

559
00:37:57,172 --> 00:38:00,172
Well, yeah, I'm not trying to simplify it.

560
00:38:00,172 --> 00:38:06,172
I'm just sort of state that like, okay, it seems very clearly that, you know, what
the knots group says,

561
00:38:06,172 --> 00:38:10,172
and these are the people who were sort of fed the sort of secondhand story of the
UASF,

562
00:38:10,172 --> 00:38:14,172
is this idea that like users implicitly control the network.

563
00:38:14,172 --> 00:38:17,172
That's been very clearly invalidated by this.

564
00:38:17,172 --> 00:38:20,172
I think whenever people bet it on, it's exactly the point I just made.

565
00:38:20,172 --> 00:38:27,172
Whenever people bet on this like simplified thing, that usually ends up not working.

566
00:38:27,172 --> 00:38:35,172
And usually I'd like, for example, for SegWit, I do think mostly everyone who
examined the issue,

567
00:38:35,172 --> 00:38:40,172
looked at the issue and said, people are upset that about the one megabyte block
size.

568
00:38:40,172 --> 00:38:42,172
They're worried about how to scale Bitcoin.

569
00:38:42,172 --> 00:38:47,172
And if this means that Bitcoin is not the end-all be-all, this creates a problem.

570
00:38:47,172 --> 00:38:51,172
It creates an anxiety for the users, for the investors.

571
00:38:51,172 --> 00:38:52,172
The developers have ideas.

572
00:38:52,172 --> 00:38:54,172
They want to try the Lightning Network.

573
00:38:54,172 --> 00:39:01,172
SegWit is backwards compatible, or at least, you know, it's like a SegWit is like a
soft fork.

574
00:39:01,172 --> 00:39:04,172
So it won't have the problem of splitting the network.

575
00:39:04,172 --> 00:39:11,172
The hard fork requires everyone update by a certain time, like a certain calendar
date.

576
00:39:11,172 --> 00:39:16,172
And that is difficult because you don't know how many people are unreachable,

577
00:39:16,172 --> 00:39:18,172
how many people really want to complain,

578
00:39:18,172 --> 00:39:23,172
but they won't because they don't want anyone to like know that they are a
Bitcoiner.

579
00:39:23,172 --> 00:39:27,172
So there were just all these objective facts that made it seem like SegWit.

580
00:39:27,172 --> 00:39:29,172
No one – OK, here's another thing.

581
00:39:29,172 --> 00:39:35,172
The people objecting to SegWit, they didn't really have an objection that was like a
certain type of objection

582
00:39:35,172 --> 00:39:39,172
that said something like this line of code will steal all my Bitcoins.

583
00:39:39,172 --> 00:39:43,172
They were just saying like blah, blah, blah, like we want larger blocks or
something.

584
00:39:43,172 --> 00:39:46,172
Well, there was a lot of – there was the emerging consensus.

585
00:39:46,172 --> 00:39:49,172
Not to be unfair to like Peter Risen.

586
00:39:49,172 --> 00:39:56,172
There was the emerging consensus theory, right, that miners would self-limit the –
you know.

587
00:39:57,172 --> 00:40:08,172
I think there was – that paper was not correct about the orphan rate being a
negative feedback loop against –

588
00:40:08,172 --> 00:40:11,172
and people pointed out why at the time that it wasn't right.

589
00:40:11,172 --> 00:40:14,172
So that was correctly de-emphasized.

590
00:40:14,172 --> 00:40:19,172
So this is what I'm saying is I'm saying like you're trying to frame it in a certain
way, which is perfectly fine,

591
00:40:19,172 --> 00:40:21,172
like who – which group decides.

592
00:40:21,172 --> 00:40:24,172
But I'm trying to say like actually the objective facts were –

593
00:40:24,172 --> 00:40:31,172
it's like we went – you go on a boat and then who decides if we get – if we put on
the life preserver?

594
00:40:31,172 --> 00:40:36,172
And it's like well, the boat struck – hit a rock and it started to sink.

595
00:40:36,172 --> 00:40:41,172
And so then everyone put – it's like whoever made the decision, it was the decision.

596
00:40:41,172 --> 00:40:45,172
It was the correct – it was justified by the problem itself.

597
00:40:45,172 --> 00:40:47,172
It just led to that.

598
00:40:47,172 --> 00:40:49,172
So that was the right thing.

599
00:40:49,172 --> 00:40:58,172
Just the way it all shook out with the timing of scaling to in Hong Kong in December
2015,

600
00:40:58,172 --> 00:41:03,172
Peter Weil's presentation saying we could do SegWit as a soft fork.

601
00:41:03,172 --> 00:41:11,172
This would actually result in a de facto increase in the block size to what he
thought would be like 2.3 megabytes,

602
00:41:11,172 --> 00:41:17,172
4 megabytes like theoretically possible and demonstrated by the Tapper Wizard's
image.

603
00:41:18,172 --> 00:41:23,172
So it just seemed like – it was just a thing that people seemed like they wanted to
try

604
00:41:23,172 --> 00:41:29,172
and there was no credible alternative other than to like stall or like do Bitcoin
Cash.

605
00:41:29,172 --> 00:41:31,172
So these are like things that emerged.

606
00:41:31,172 --> 00:41:34,172
But it wasn't like someone decided I think.

607
00:41:34,172 --> 00:41:38,172
That's not – it's not like when you wake up in the morning and you decide which
shirt –

608
00:41:38,172 --> 00:41:42,172
you have a bunch of shirts and you're just going to decide.

609
00:41:42,172 --> 00:41:44,172
I don't think it was really like that.

610
00:41:45,172 --> 00:41:50,172
Sure, but I'm still saying like there's a competing – so let's just say like a lead
process,

611
00:41:50,172 --> 00:41:52,172
a developer-led process or a user-led process.

612
00:41:52,172 --> 00:42:02,172
So the people who are really pinned down to this whole knots movement are very like
users should lead,

613
00:42:02,172 --> 00:42:08,172
users should dictate, like users – they should be the sort of end all sort of –

614
00:42:08,172 --> 00:42:12,172
I think everyone agrees that like it has to be a consensual upgrade

615
00:42:12,172 --> 00:42:17,172
that the users should give consent to what they run and that to some extent it has
to be an informed consent.

616
00:42:18,172 --> 00:42:24,172
Of course, I do think it's depressing that many of these users clearly have no idea
what any of these vocab words mean

617
00:42:24,172 --> 00:42:30,172
and we have to bite the bullet on either like a knowledgeable – I don't know what
the word would be,

618
00:42:30,172 --> 00:42:35,172
but like a knowledgeable high priest's class that is sort of paternalistic to some
extent

619
00:42:35,172 --> 00:42:43,172
or a rabble of like median intelligence people which is always going to
underperform.

620
00:42:43,172 --> 00:42:52,172
But this is why my idea – I think the L2 – if we have L1s that – the L1 is mostly
just exists to be its own transaction network

621
00:42:52,172 --> 00:42:55,172
and to facilitate movement among different L2s.

622
00:42:55,172 --> 00:42:58,172
The L2s can have their own benevolent dictator.

623
00:42:58,172 --> 00:43:02,172
Of course, speaking with like the Gavin Satoshi thing, like there is the model of –

624
00:43:02,172 --> 00:43:09,172
this is very common in open source that there would be like a very opinionated
person

625
00:43:09,172 --> 00:43:13,172
and obviously, this is common in business and in government too.

626
00:43:13,172 --> 00:43:15,172
You have the CEO or you have like the president.

627
00:43:15,172 --> 00:43:19,172
You have someone – you don't like – it depends on what country you're in.

628
00:43:19,172 --> 00:43:21,172
In Europe, it's a little different.

629
00:43:21,172 --> 00:43:28,172
But in a lot of – like in America and in the former British Commonwealth countries,

630
00:43:28,172 --> 00:43:30,172
you have the two parties.

631
00:43:30,172 --> 00:43:33,172
Someone wins because they say this is what I stand for.

632
00:43:33,172 --> 00:43:35,172
This is what I want to do.

633
00:43:35,172 --> 00:43:38,172
If you elect me, we will do this.

634
00:43:38,172 --> 00:43:40,172
And the president has an opinion.

635
00:43:40,172 --> 00:43:41,172
You know what I mean?

636
00:43:41,172 --> 00:43:43,172
It's not like we get like a median person.

637
00:43:43,172 --> 00:43:44,172
We get like –

638
00:43:44,172 --> 00:43:46,172
Yeah, that's why the –

639
00:43:46,172 --> 00:43:51,172
Also, the CEO doesn't do like – they don't like gather around to do the consensus.

640
00:43:51,172 --> 00:43:54,172
They just – the CEO says this is the plan.

641
00:43:54,172 --> 00:43:57,172
And if you don't help me do it, then I'm firing you.

642
00:43:57,172 --> 00:43:58,172
So where do we go from here?

643
00:43:58,172 --> 00:44:01,172
It seems like the pleb movement has kind of run its course.

644
00:44:01,172 --> 00:44:06,172
It feels like the pleb movement is kind of on its last legs in terms of being –

645
00:44:06,172 --> 00:44:09,172
I think they have like built like a cool – that I respect,

646
00:44:09,172 --> 00:44:12,172
like a kind of weird network of people to like organize.

647
00:44:12,172 --> 00:44:13,172
So I don't know.

648
00:44:13,172 --> 00:44:16,172
I hope something will come of it, something useful.

649
00:44:16,172 --> 00:44:23,172
But I just have to tell them they picked as their issue not a good issue.

650
00:44:23,172 --> 00:44:26,172
This is a bad issue that they picked.

651
00:44:26,172 --> 00:44:27,172
Can they pick one?

652
00:44:27,172 --> 00:44:32,172
Of all the issues, I have wrote a post called Derangements of Bitcoin.

653
00:44:32,172 --> 00:44:36,172
So I have a huge list of like nonsense.

654
00:44:36,172 --> 00:44:42,172
Unfortunately, I had to put one of them was the fact that we're talking about this
relay policy at all.

655
00:44:42,172 --> 00:44:45,172
It made the list of the big derangements, I think.

656
00:44:45,172 --> 00:44:47,172
And that's just because you think it's –

657
00:44:47,172 --> 00:44:52,172
Just pick one that I agree with because obviously my opinion is there.

658
00:44:52,172 --> 00:44:55,172
But seriously, I actually – there's a little bit of thought.

659
00:44:55,172 --> 00:44:59,172
Go read that list if you're interested in this idea.

660
00:44:59,172 --> 00:45:03,172
There are these people who are clearly interested in building some kind of

661
00:45:03,172 --> 00:45:06,172
countercurrent to Bitcoin Core.

662
00:45:06,172 --> 00:45:11,172
And why don't you pick an issue where Core is actually flatly wrong about
everything?

663
00:45:11,172 --> 00:45:12,172
Why don't you pick one of those?

664
00:45:12,172 --> 00:45:18,172
So knowing that you want to get towards more competition, do you see this as being
something that you could build off of

665
00:45:18,172 --> 00:45:20,172
or that pushes Bitcoin out?

666
00:45:20,172 --> 00:45:22,172
I do think it's inevitable.

667
00:45:22,172 --> 00:45:23,172
I don't know how long it will take.

668
00:45:23,172 --> 00:45:31,172
But I do think we will continue to see more problems as just stuff is invented, the
context changes.

669
00:45:31,172 --> 00:45:38,172
Or even if everyone did nothing, everyone is always trying to rise on the totem
pole.

670
00:45:38,172 --> 00:45:44,172
Let's say – let's take the Bitcoin gold narrative or like the store of value
narrative or whatever the hell people are calling it now.

671
00:45:44,172 --> 00:45:49,172
It's like all you do is buy this and it doesn't matter what the software does or
what the users do

672
00:45:49,172 --> 00:45:54,172
or what the miner's transaction fee income is and we just buy this and numbers go
up.

673
00:45:54,172 --> 00:46:02,172
People, they have been – they jostle on that who can be the biggest store of value
guy.

674
00:46:02,172 --> 00:46:04,172
And there's always a bigger fish.

675
00:46:04,172 --> 00:46:05,172
You know what I mean?

676
00:46:05,172 --> 00:46:07,172
The whole landscape is constantly evolving.

677
00:46:07,172 --> 00:46:09,172
People are becoming specialists at each thing.

678
00:46:09,172 --> 00:46:13,172
So you might think you're a cool guy.

679
00:46:13,172 --> 00:46:15,172
You could be Merchant Popescu.

680
00:46:15,172 --> 00:46:23,172
But then Michael Saylor is like even better at running a cult than – because he's
got like a mile or whatever.

681
00:46:23,172 --> 00:46:24,172
You know what I mean?

682
00:46:24,172 --> 00:46:30,172
And so there will be another – eventually there will be like the Michael Saylor
squared or there will be people push.

683
00:46:30,172 --> 00:46:33,172
It's like they opened the treasury company idea with MicroStrategy.

684
00:46:33,172 --> 00:46:36,172
But then everyone wants to do it and you have the competitors.

685
00:46:36,172 --> 00:46:39,172
But it's not as easy to be the third or fourth one through the door.

686
00:46:39,172 --> 00:46:42,172
You have to push the envelope a little bit further.

687
00:46:42,172 --> 00:46:44,172
So you have these people.

688
00:46:44,172 --> 00:46:53,172
If the idea is not fundamentally – I'm talking down to the foundations like an idea
that works where you have real growth.

689
00:46:53,172 --> 00:46:56,172
You have real users growing all the time.

690
00:46:56,172 --> 00:47:03,172
We're working towards 8 billion people adopting Bitcoin and using it every day or
just more people.

691
00:47:03,172 --> 00:47:05,172
Eventually everything will be exhausted.

692
00:47:05,172 --> 00:47:07,172
The growth will be exhausted.

693
00:47:07,172 --> 00:47:11,172
And then people will start to get bored or people will start to take extra risk.

694
00:47:11,172 --> 00:47:18,172
So I do think it's inevitable that in the long run people will find some idea that
works for 8 billion people.

695
00:47:18,172 --> 00:47:25,172
I think I have one and I have one that lets people deal with developers that
disagree with each other

696
00:47:25,172 --> 00:47:30,172
and lets people just not make decisions without going through Twitter mob.

697
00:47:30,172 --> 00:47:34,172
I do think there's another occurrence that maybe pushes people more in your
direction.

698
00:47:34,172 --> 00:47:43,172
Is that if this is the cycle top, if Bitcoin really kind of peaks at 120 and then
sort of does its classical thing.

699
00:47:43,172 --> 00:47:47,172
My view is that we can't actually hit the ceiling.

700
00:47:47,172 --> 00:47:51,172
And this is one of the derangements that I wrote in my giant post.

701
00:47:51,172 --> 00:47:55,172
But it's like the – I think I call it the final rotation or something.

702
00:47:55,172 --> 00:48:03,172
Where it's like each time you 10X, there's a point where we 10X and Bitcoin just
replaces all the money of the world.

703
00:48:03,172 --> 00:48:06,172
And that's like this 200 trillion-ish number.

704
00:48:06,172 --> 00:48:08,172
I mean no one knows exactly for sure.

705
00:48:08,172 --> 00:48:11,172
But you can look up what is the value of all the broad money in the world.

706
00:48:11,172 --> 00:48:13,172
You can just look that number up.

707
00:48:13,172 --> 00:48:21,172
And so at that point – and people could say stuff about famous art or other things
that are money substitutes.

708
00:48:21,172 --> 00:48:23,172
And people can make an argument for the number.

709
00:48:23,172 --> 00:48:24,172
Because eventually there's a number.

710
00:48:24,172 --> 00:48:25,172
There's a ceiling.

711
00:48:25,172 --> 00:48:29,172
And I think you can't go the final 10X or the final two 10X.

712
00:48:29,172 --> 00:48:38,172
Because the ceiling would be like basically 100X from here or something like 15
million, 20 million, 25 million dollars per coin.

713
00:48:38,172 --> 00:48:44,172
So that's like we're already at 100,000 order of magnitude.

714
00:48:44,172 --> 00:48:49,172
So it's kind of like to really make it those last two jumps from 1% to 100%.

715
00:48:49,172 --> 00:48:53,172
I think it has to be something with the actual users.

716
00:48:53,172 --> 00:48:57,172
You can't just get there only with investors who are speculating on future users.

717
00:48:57,172 --> 00:49:04,172
So I do think that eventually, even if we go up from here, like I think we cannot
actually hit that.

718
00:49:04,172 --> 00:49:10,172
We can't get across that last line from like 10% to 100% unless you have actual
users.

719
00:49:10,172 --> 00:49:12,172
You have actual customers who pay fees.

720
00:49:13,172 --> 00:49:20,172
The people who pay a transaction fee in Bitcoin, those are kind of like someone
shopping at the corporation.

721
00:49:20,172 --> 00:49:21,172
They're shopping at Walmart.

722
00:49:21,172 --> 00:49:23,172
They're revenue for the company.

723
00:49:23,172 --> 00:49:29,172
But the stock price, it can go up a lot based on expectations of future revenue.

724
00:49:29,172 --> 00:49:38,172
But I don't think we can actually get up until – so I do think whatever the price
does, it will eventually just either keep going up or it will stop.

725
00:49:38,172 --> 00:49:40,172
So then eventually, it will stop.

726
00:49:40,172 --> 00:49:43,172
And I think then that's exactly what you were trying to say.

727
00:49:43,172 --> 00:49:50,172
Have you looked at Pierre Richard's like cost of counter censorship thing and just
this idea that blocks won't always have to be full?

728
00:49:50,172 --> 00:49:57,172
There seems to be like an increasing sort of intelligentsia view or alternative view
here that like we might have a future.

729
00:49:57,172 --> 00:50:02,172
Whatever you want to call it, like dog and pony show for a long time.

730
00:50:02,172 --> 00:50:14,172
He was one of those people who would say like – he was at the Bitcoin conference and
saying like, well, Bitcoin, Taproot is the biggest smart contract upgrade in the
entire crypto space or something.

731
00:50:14,356 --> 00:50:24,356
So I think a lot of that is just trolling or whatever you want to call it. But I
wouldn't – he's not like an accurate source of information. He has a very tenuous
relationship.

732
00:50:24,356 --> 00:50:29,356
His blog posts have held up pretty well, like speculative attack and things like
that.

733
00:50:29,356 --> 00:50:38,356
Well, okay. But that's – just because you have a tenuous relationship with the truth
doesn't mean that you lie 100% of the time. It just means that you don't care very
much about –

734
00:50:38,356 --> 00:50:42,356
Well, so again, it just seems like the technical community for a long time –

735
00:50:42,356 --> 00:50:55,356
I would like to ask people like do they think it matters if like – if there's no
mining fees paid, mining revenue is like $5,000 a block or if it's 10 cents a year.

736
00:50:55,356 --> 00:51:05,356
Obviously, it's not realistic. But the block subsidy is going down. It goes down 94%
every 16 years. It will eventually go down 100% to zero.

737
00:51:05,356 --> 00:51:15,356
Like does anyone actually care about that? If the answer is no, then I think that
there's a long list of problems that that creates.

738
00:51:15,356 --> 00:51:18,356
And I think it's very blasé to just say that you don't care about that.

739
00:51:18,356 --> 00:51:34,356
It's like for example, you can – first of all, in addition to it being very cheap to
rewrite the chain and do either – either filling up the chain with junk and not
letting any real transactions in or doing – rewriting reorgs and doing reorgs.

740
00:51:34,356 --> 00:51:42,356
Now, I have to admit that it's very interesting that most people won't – like most
people are all talk and they don't attack any blockchain.

741
00:51:42,356 --> 00:51:53,356
So even like Bitcoin SV, when it was a very, very small percentage of the hash rate
of BTC, same – exact same hashing algorithm.

742
00:51:53,356 --> 00:52:02,356
The mining equipment – you could have redeployed a tiny amount of hash rate to
attack Bitcoin SV.

743
00:52:02,356 --> 00:52:12,356
But people just don't. It's because it's cheap to just tweet on Twitter and then
with the hash rate. I assume or maybe it would have – maybe it has happened.

744
00:52:12,356 --> 00:52:24,356
Well, there's an interesting aspect of that idea as it seems to like the idea that
blocks need to be full to protect the chain seems to – we've seen in real life that
these attacks take place and then these chains don't go to zero.

745
00:52:24,356 --> 00:52:29,356
They just continue on having been attacked, but they still just continue.

746
00:52:29,356 --> 00:52:31,356
And so the idea that –

747
00:52:31,356 --> 00:52:33,356
The design is very good.

748
00:52:33,356 --> 00:52:39,356
Like the proof of work design does deter people from even bothering to attack even
when the cost is pretty low.

749
00:52:39,356 --> 00:52:45,356
And the way the blockchain is set up, it's relatively easy to recover from the
attack.

750
00:52:45,356 --> 00:52:48,356
I think even like the attack almost gives you a little bit more relevance.

751
00:52:48,356 --> 00:52:50,356
So you kind of – it's like a Mott and Bailey type of thing.

752
00:52:50,356 --> 00:52:59,356
You can kind of switch from comfortable operating mode to like turtle mode and
survive.

753
00:52:59,356 --> 00:53:07,356
I think like it's – the argument about the fees is multidimensional.

754
00:53:08,356 --> 00:53:13,356
So in one sense, it means that you're not collecting any revenue.

755
00:53:13,356 --> 00:53:21,356
And so the more revenue that miners collect, that's – at maximum, that is how much
they can spend on proof of work to deter a 51% attack.

756
00:53:21,356 --> 00:53:23,356
But there's more – there's much more to it than that.

757
00:53:23,356 --> 00:53:34,356
It's also like a kind of capitalist metric of whether or not you are meeting –
whether or not you have product market fit and you have actual users who are loyal
to the product.

758
00:53:34,356 --> 00:53:39,356
And they actually like the product enough to pay money to use it.

759
00:53:39,356 --> 00:53:40,356
So that's a –

760
00:53:40,356 --> 00:53:42,356
Where's the revenue in like the gold network, right?

761
00:53:42,356 --> 00:53:45,356
If you use that as a – you seem to like the gold network.

762
00:53:45,356 --> 00:53:52,356
Okay, but this is a difference between – well, first of all, I think you have to
emphasize that banknote money replaced gold.

763
00:53:52,356 --> 00:53:54,356
So gold is a failure as money.

764
00:53:54,356 --> 00:54:00,356
And Peter Schiff's idea that people are going to have like tiny little squares of
gold and they're going to pay at the gas station.

765
00:54:00,356 --> 00:54:02,356
You're going to get to go to the front of the line.

766
00:54:02,356 --> 00:54:04,356
He wants blockchain-based gold.

767
00:54:04,356 --> 00:54:11,356
Many times that in the future, you're going to be able to go to the front of the
line to fill up your car with gas because if you have gold, then you're going to
have –

768
00:54:11,356 --> 00:54:20,356
And then he also has like his gold-backed credit card and he doesn't seem to have
like connected any of these dots about like exactly what you're using to pay.

769
00:54:20,356 --> 00:54:29,356
These are like a really – I'll keep talking about this with you if you want, but it
takes a long time to like explain each tiny little point.

770
00:54:29,356 --> 00:54:34,356
But I think the – gold lost to banknote money.

771
00:54:34,356 --> 00:54:36,356
And gold also has many advantages over Bitcoin.

772
00:54:36,356 --> 00:54:56,356
Bitcoin has – people have to wrestle with the fact that Bitcoin is on one hand like
a property right on a thing that people want to have and they want it to be like
defended against and they don't want it to be invaded by other people's opinions.

773
00:54:56,356 --> 00:54:58,356
It's sort of a contract.

774
00:54:58,356 --> 00:55:03,356
So part of when you make a contract is you and the other person agree in writing.

775
00:55:03,356 --> 00:55:06,356
And you don't want to have to justify it to third parties.

776
00:55:06,356 --> 00:55:10,356
Like I will sell you my car for $80.

777
00:55:10,356 --> 00:55:14,356
And you don't want the person to later say, well, I only got $80 for my car.

778
00:55:14,356 --> 00:55:20,356
You go to court and they say, well, why didn't you put it in the contract because we
don't – no one wants to live in a world where you have to justify –

779
00:55:20,356 --> 00:55:24,356
So that's – I'm just saying this one side of it is this property rights dimension.

780
00:55:24,356 --> 00:55:28,356
But then the other side is a completely different thing is that Bitcoin is a piece
of open source software.

781
00:55:28,356 --> 00:55:32,356
And so it has to be – people have to check for bugs.

782
00:55:32,356 --> 00:55:35,356
It has to be a CVE-like thing.

783
00:55:35,356 --> 00:55:37,356
Like this is just mandatory.

784
00:55:37,356 --> 00:55:40,356
And people prefer – but there's dependencies.

785
00:55:40,356 --> 00:55:42,356
There's the operating system change.

786
00:55:42,356 --> 00:55:44,356
People's tastes change.

787
00:55:44,356 --> 00:55:47,356
So in the past, people had the desktop computer.

788
00:55:47,356 --> 00:55:49,356
Now people have a phone.

789
00:55:49,356 --> 00:55:52,356
A lot of people don't even own like a laptop or a desktop.

790
00:55:52,356 --> 00:56:04,356
So stuff – all that's in flux and the fact that it is a piece of software has this
whole second dimension.

791
00:56:04,356 --> 00:56:11,356
Well, really, many dimensions of like pluses and minuses, pros and cons that come
with it.

792
00:56:11,356 --> 00:56:14,356
Similarly with gold, gold, it was money.

793
00:56:14,356 --> 00:56:17,356
It was something people used to pay for things.

794
00:56:17,356 --> 00:56:18,356
It was a unit of account.

795
00:56:18,356 --> 00:56:20,356
It was like a – it was these things.

796
00:56:20,356 --> 00:56:21,356
It was also an element.

797
00:56:21,356 --> 00:56:27,356
So it was used like in dentistry, et cetera, blah, blah, blah, the lists.

798
00:56:27,356 --> 00:56:32,356
But gold lost to banknote money.

799
00:56:32,356 --> 00:56:37,356
And I think Bitcoin can defeat banknote money, but it has to be better.

800
00:56:37,356 --> 00:56:40,356
And in many ways, it is better.

801
00:56:40,356 --> 00:56:43,356
But we wanted to just – the better it is, the better it is.

802
00:56:43,356 --> 00:56:54,356
That's something that people – people are worried that if it's too open to change,
then maybe it will be corrupted or something, which I understand.

803
00:56:54,356 --> 00:57:04,356
But I think people should look into the issues on like how you can have ossification
by making sure each new release of the software is always compatible with all
previous releases.

804
00:57:04,356 --> 00:57:06,356
Then it really can't get any worse.

805
00:57:06,356 --> 00:57:10,356
Now it's just a ratchet that can only turn in one direction as long as you can
always go back.

806
00:57:10,356 --> 00:57:22,356
Notably, Luke has always rejected this premise, and he has built into his software
that the software expires like formally just like shuts itself off after two years
or something.

807
00:57:22,356 --> 00:57:29,356
So Luke has always rejected this premise that I think is the key to upholding the
whole problem.

808
00:57:29,356 --> 00:57:35,356
Yeah, I've always been confused about that is that, yeah, he seems to think that
softworks are coercive and that like you have to upgrade.

809
00:57:35,356 --> 00:57:36,356
Yeah, I completely disagree.

810
00:57:36,356 --> 00:57:49,356
He and I have a huge disagreement on it, and many times I have had a chat – text
chat with him and then even have printed it out and re-read it to try to figure out
what is he talking about.

811
00:57:49,356 --> 00:57:56,356
He has a lot of interesting beliefs, and I tried – I'm just saying on my honor, I
tried good faith to understand what he's talking about.

812
00:57:56,356 --> 00:57:58,356
I don't agree with him at all.

813
00:57:58,356 --> 00:58:03,356
He has this view that like if 80 percent of the network doesn't run –

814
00:58:03,356 --> 00:58:07,356
his view is that the soft fork immediately degrades previous versions to SPV mode.

815
00:58:07,356 --> 00:58:20,356
He does not draw any distinction between something like Electrum where everything is
SPV and the full – like the last full node where everything is a full node except
for like one thing.

816
00:58:20,356 --> 00:58:28,356
That was explicitly designed as an op-nop that it was supposed to be for future
upgrades, and that's just the one thing that's not – and you're not even receiving
any money on that.

817
00:58:29,356 --> 00:58:42,356
I couldn't understand any distinction he drew between that, and he says that more
than 80 percent of the network or more than whatever – the threshold has actually
been changing over time because he's been telling people different numbers.

818
00:58:42,356 --> 00:58:51,356
I have a tweet about that, but if a certain number of people run SPV, then Bitcoin
has died, he says.

819
00:58:51,356 --> 00:58:55,356
This is typical hyperbolic fashion as I'm sure you can imagine.

820
00:58:55,356 --> 00:59:03,356
Then I ask him questions like, well, what if we have the same network we have today,
and then tomorrow everyone in India spins up an SPV node?

821
00:59:03,356 --> 00:59:05,356
We have a billion extra nodes.

822
00:59:05,356 --> 00:59:14,356
So pushing the percentage to 99, but then they shut them all off like on Friday.

823
00:59:14,356 --> 00:59:17,356
Like Bitcoin was dead for this week or something?

824
00:59:17,356 --> 00:59:23,356
Luke does give an answer to that, but I cannot understand what it is at all.

825
00:59:23,356 --> 00:59:29,356
It's something like that I'm not being sincere or something, but this is what he's
saying.

826
00:59:29,356 --> 00:59:30,356
It's hard.

827
00:59:30,356 --> 00:59:32,356
I can't understand what the point is.

828
00:59:32,356 --> 00:59:36,356
If anyone can, get it out of him and try.

829
00:59:36,356 --> 00:59:38,356
I would love to know the answer to these questions.

830
00:59:38,356 --> 00:59:40,356
I don't think any of that is true.

831
00:59:40,356 --> 00:59:45,356
I think the smarter thing is you have to acknowledge the fact that it is software.

832
00:59:46,356 --> 00:59:54,356
You have to understand what software is, just like you have to understand what gold
is and what a metal is and stuff like that.

833
00:59:54,356 --> 00:59:56,356
You have to be realistic.

834
00:59:56,356 --> 01:00:00,356
Gold, you have to physically transport it around.

835
01:00:00,356 --> 01:00:02,356
You're going to have to ship.

836
01:00:02,356 --> 01:00:05,356
If France asks for their gold back, you're going to have to put it on a boat and
ship it across.

837
01:00:05,356 --> 01:00:07,356
But with Bitcoin, you won't.

838
01:00:07,356 --> 01:00:11,356
But Bitcoin is software, so it's going to have GitHub, blue-haired developers.

839
01:00:11,356 --> 01:00:13,356
It's going to have this weird stuff.

840
01:00:13,356 --> 01:00:14,356
You know what I mean?

841
01:00:14,356 --> 01:00:15,356
That's what I'm trying to say.

842
01:00:15,356 --> 01:00:22,356
So the way of processing that is to have the software always be compatible with
previous versions.

843
01:00:22,356 --> 01:00:28,356
I wrote a giant piece of writing about that on Truthcoin.info, which you politely
shilled at the beginning.

844
01:00:28,356 --> 01:00:32,356
It's called Precedence Ossification, so people can read about that if they want.

845
01:00:32,356 --> 01:00:37,356
So what would you say to the folks, maybe as we sort of close the loop here?

846
01:00:38,356 --> 01:00:41,356
The Treasury Company Group seems to think that digital credit, right?

847
01:00:41,356 --> 01:00:47,356
There's this idea that Bitcoin will back this kind of security, like Wall Street
securities,

848
01:00:47,356 --> 01:00:50,356
and that that will sort of be the end-user adoption.

849
01:00:50,356 --> 01:00:55,356
I kind of talked in a podcast I did about utopian visions.

850
01:00:55,356 --> 01:01:00,356
Each era of Bitcoin has a utopian vision, and the utopian vision of this era seems
to be

851
01:01:00,356 --> 01:01:05,356
Michael Saylor's kind of idea that digital credit will sort of expand,

852
01:01:05,356 --> 01:01:11,356
and this will actually solve the last mile problem, and then Bitcoin can remain
having low fees.

853
01:01:11,356 --> 01:01:18,356
The actual unit doesn't need to transact that much, but then it'll be solved by Wall
Street and the securitization.

854
01:01:18,356 --> 01:01:19,356
What are your thoughts on that?

855
01:01:19,356 --> 01:01:26,356
I think you're very right to focus on what everyone is trying to construct as their
endgame.

856
01:01:27,356 --> 01:01:29,356
And I think that will bear a lot of fruit.

857
01:01:29,356 --> 01:01:30,356
I think that's smart.

858
01:01:30,356 --> 01:01:36,356
As I was remarking before, I think eventually people will start to hit a wall.

859
01:01:36,356 --> 01:01:43,356
Either they'll succeed, and we'll get the $8 billion, and we'll get the price to
100%,

860
01:01:44,356 --> 01:01:48,356
or they'll hit a wall, and then they'll get frustrated, and they'll start looking
for other ideas,

861
01:01:48,356 --> 01:01:51,356
and eventually someone's ideas will win.

862
01:01:51,356 --> 01:01:54,356
Well, so what I said about Michael Saylor's vision is like,

863
01:01:54,356 --> 01:01:58,356
I sort of said each version of Bitcoin has its sort of utopian vision.

864
01:01:58,356 --> 01:02:01,356
So maybe 2021 is the Safedine version, right?

865
01:02:01,356 --> 01:02:03,356
It's like Bitcoin is hardly software at all.

866
01:02:03,356 --> 01:02:05,356
It's just this kind of new digital gold.

867
01:02:05,356 --> 01:02:07,356
2017, it was Greg Maxwell.

868
01:02:07,356 --> 01:02:09,356
It's like Bitcoin is a settlement network.

869
01:02:09,356 --> 01:02:10,356
2013 is Gavin.

870
01:02:10,356 --> 01:02:12,356
Bitcoin is the new PayPal.

871
01:02:12,356 --> 01:02:15,356
Everybody has their sort of whole utopian vision.

872
01:02:15,356 --> 01:02:21,356
But the interesting thing about Michael Saylor's is that it's the most compatible
with the legal and state infrastructure.

873
01:02:21,356 --> 01:02:23,356
It's sort of the least threatening version of it.

874
01:02:23,356 --> 01:02:25,356
I wouldn't bet on that personally.

875
01:02:26,356 --> 01:02:34,356
I think the Bitcoin – as you know, I do believe – I subscribe to the Bitcoin
Uncensored school that actually – it's kind of like –

876
01:02:36,356 --> 01:02:37,356
A very lost school.

877
01:02:37,356 --> 01:02:44,356
Yeah, but it's like – it doesn't need to be in the open because it's got so much
merit.

878
01:02:44,356 --> 01:02:46,356
It's just – it's a cockroach.

879
01:02:46,356 --> 01:02:53,356
It's a radioactive cockroach that will be here long after everyone else has been
killed off.

880
01:02:53,356 --> 01:03:02,356
But I think – it's kind of hard to describe, but I do think one way that it was put
very well was during the block size war itself.

881
01:03:02,356 --> 01:03:03,356
People said, well, hey, listen.

882
01:03:03,356 --> 01:03:06,356
Adam Backen, plenty of people – I and I – plenty of people said this.

883
01:03:06,356 --> 01:03:08,356
If this just becomes like Venmo.

884
01:03:08,356 --> 01:03:16,356
If you have one brand – like a single cryptographic key like Venmo.com, the –
whatever you want to call it.

885
01:03:16,356 --> 01:03:19,356
Like whatever, the SSL certificate or however you want to phrase it.

886
01:03:19,356 --> 01:03:28,356
One key is more powerful than all the proof of work in the world because you just
sign the blocks and you just say this is a block.

887
01:03:28,356 --> 01:03:30,356
And that's better than proof.

888
01:03:30,356 --> 01:03:36,356
The whole point of the proof of work was that you did not have the central admin
key.

889
01:03:36,356 --> 01:03:41,356
You had a decentralized process where people could join or leave at any time, no
identities.

890
01:03:41,356 --> 01:03:43,356
It self-justified.

891
01:03:43,356 --> 01:03:47,356
The proof of work was on the block headers.

892
01:03:47,356 --> 01:03:49,356
So I kind of think the same thing.

893
01:03:49,356 --> 01:03:53,356
It's like if we have the ETFs, then why do we need the concord?

894
01:03:53,356 --> 01:03:55,356
Why do we need the proof of work?

895
01:03:55,356 --> 01:03:56,356
It's all waste.

896
01:03:56,356 --> 01:04:03,356
So I think that it will only go – the subversive direction just has more teeth.

897
01:04:03,356 --> 01:04:09,356
And I think we have lived through a long period of stagnation where that's been
underdeveloped.

898
01:04:09,356 --> 01:04:16,356
Like we don't have – if we had more people using the network, people would care more
about, oh, how can I increase the privacy?

899
01:04:16,356 --> 01:04:27,356
How can I do the reusable addresses or like just something that – where we don't
have to have the – we have like a human readable Namecoin.

900
01:04:27,356 --> 01:04:30,356
You just have priso.bit.

901
01:04:30,356 --> 01:04:37,356
So I think unfortunately the entire ecosystem has devolved or has evolved in the
wrong direction.

902
01:04:37,356 --> 01:04:43,356
It has evolved chasing this stuff that I think is just a little too easy.

903
01:04:44,356 --> 01:04:50,356
And actually I think it won't work in the future or it just won't pay off like very
well.

904
01:04:50,356 --> 01:04:55,356
Of course, anyone could be mistaken, including me.

905
01:04:55,356 --> 01:05:07,356
But I think like that's kind of like my reading of the situation that when you have
actual users who pay transaction fees, the whole thing is healthier.

906
01:05:07,356 --> 01:05:09,356
Like the whole process is healthier.

907
01:05:09,356 --> 01:05:15,356
You know what it is that people – like what are people complaining about?

908
01:05:15,356 --> 01:05:17,356
That's what you should work on next.

909
01:05:17,356 --> 01:05:22,356
And the miners want users to pay more transaction fees.

910
01:05:22,356 --> 01:05:30,356
So miners might get more involved in a more constructive way instead of other weird
stuff that happened in the past.

911
01:05:30,356 --> 01:05:35,356
The miners might say, listen – or like someone like Bitmain or whatever, someone
who's selling the ASIC chips.

912
01:05:35,356 --> 01:05:42,356
Each ASIC chip is like a little – you get whatever percentage of the hash rate,
that's the percentage of the transaction fees you ultimately get.

913
01:05:42,356 --> 01:05:48,356
So it's kind of like they're kind of like inherently shareholders of the transaction
fee corporation.

914
01:05:48,356 --> 01:05:50,356
I don't know. Maybe this is getting a little too abstract.

915
01:05:50,356 --> 01:05:59,356
But the idea is that maybe they would say we've got to hire like full-time people to
investigate this core versus nots.

916
01:05:59,356 --> 01:06:03,356
Is core doing a good job? How can we get more users paying transaction fees?

917
01:06:03,356 --> 01:06:04,356
What are the users complaining about?

918
01:06:04,356 --> 01:06:14,356
They might like hire their whole developer teams, and then they might just run all
these teams with the goal of maximizing transaction fees in Bitcoin that they
collect.

919
01:06:14,356 --> 01:06:19,356
And I think that would be way healthier than what we currently have, which is just
like a weird committee.

920
01:06:19,356 --> 01:06:24,356
And it is kind of like a weird – it's like a commune garden or something.

921
01:06:24,356 --> 01:06:32,356
It's like a hippie thing where it's like, oh, will you review my pull requests about
tests?

922
01:06:32,356 --> 01:06:36,356
Will you review my pull requests about everything should be in camel case?

923
01:06:36,356 --> 01:06:42,356
And it's like, will you water my plant? Will you water my cucumber plant?

924
01:06:42,356 --> 01:06:51,356
That's like what it is though. It's like nothing is really – there's no like – it
has become committee-like.

925
01:06:51,356 --> 01:07:00,356
So that's where I kind of feel for the nots people where I'm kind of like, yeah,
this is like – and there's no soft form.

926
01:07:00,356 --> 01:07:04,356
What can they do other than just create another committee though? That's the thing.

927
01:07:04,356 --> 01:07:06,356
Yeah, that's difficult. Well, I agree, but that's hard.

928
01:07:06,356 --> 01:07:15,356
But as you know, I have concrete suggestions like if BIP300 would create some
competing mined L2s and they would compete with each other.

929
01:07:15,356 --> 01:07:21,356
And when we have some competition among L2s, I think not very good.

930
01:07:21,356 --> 01:07:23,356
I don't think that – we have like whatever.

931
01:07:24,356 --> 01:07:28,356
We have like the ARC idea. We have Fatament. We have Liquid.

932
01:07:28,356 --> 01:07:30,356
All that stuff is pretty weak though.

933
01:07:30,356 --> 01:07:39,356
Even really, we have like a lot of stuff that's just like me and my friends have a
multi-sig.

934
01:07:39,356 --> 01:07:41,356
Again, we used to make fun of Ethereum for stuff like that.

935
01:07:41,356 --> 01:07:46,356
We used to say, oh, they say they have – I don't know.

936
01:07:46,356 --> 01:07:49,356
There's a lot of names, so I can't remember which is which.

937
01:07:49,356 --> 01:07:54,356
We used to have like something. What was it? Like the Terra Luna or something.

938
01:07:54,356 --> 01:08:00,356
But it's just like a multi-sig or even like wrapped BTC is like a multi-sig on
Ethereum or something.

939
01:08:00,356 --> 01:08:03,356
We used to make fun of the altcoins for doing stuff like that with the admin keys.

940
01:08:03,356 --> 01:08:05,356
You can say the admin keys. They just update it.

941
01:08:05,356 --> 01:08:10,356
This had many DAOs or something.

942
01:08:10,356 --> 01:08:17,356
The person running it, like they could just update it to something else and then
just take all the money.

943
01:08:18,356 --> 01:08:20,356
So this is like – that's what Liquid is.

944
01:08:20,356 --> 01:08:22,356
So that's what Fatament is.

945
01:08:22,356 --> 01:08:24,356
So this is the stuff we've used to.

946
01:08:24,356 --> 01:08:26,356
So this is what we've been reduced to.

947
01:08:26,356 --> 01:08:33,356
I think this is an important point about like if you don't build something that 8
billion people use, someone else will.

948
01:08:33,356 --> 01:08:38,356
So we'll have WeChat pay or we'll have Telegram or Elon Musk will do X or we'll have
Visa.

949
01:08:38,356 --> 01:08:41,356
Someone else will build that thing.

950
01:08:41,356 --> 01:08:48,356
And like we have to just say we're not doing this.

951
01:08:48,356 --> 01:08:54,356
So like the recent comments with Custodial Lightning where that guy from – was it
Spark or whatever?

952
01:08:54,356 --> 01:08:56,356
CleanSpark? Is that it?

953
01:08:56,356 --> 01:08:58,356
LightSpark is a mining one.

954
01:08:58,356 --> 01:09:01,356
LightSpark is David Marcus's.

955
01:09:01,356 --> 01:09:04,356
And he recently had a tweet. I think I'm talking about the same person.

956
01:09:04,356 --> 01:09:08,356
But he was like, we have to just give up and do Custodial Lightning for everything.

957
01:09:08,356 --> 01:09:10,356
He said something like that.

958
01:09:11,356 --> 01:09:12,356
That's accurate.

959
01:09:12,356 --> 01:09:14,356
Vaguely. I don't know.

960
01:09:14,356 --> 01:09:17,356
There were some complaints about Spark's privacy design that I saw.

961
01:09:17,356 --> 01:09:26,356
And so someone recently put out a tweet, and this happens from time to time, about
Lightning is too difficult.

962
01:09:26,356 --> 01:09:28,356
We just have to make it Custodial.

963
01:09:28,356 --> 01:09:30,356
People say this type of thing.

964
01:09:30,356 --> 01:09:31,356
The users don't want to transact.

965
01:09:31,356 --> 01:09:33,356
They only want to use it to store value.

966
01:09:33,356 --> 01:09:38,356
The users find whatever running a node too difficult or something.

967
01:09:38,356 --> 01:09:46,356
That was why Sturgey put in SPV, by the way, because he knew that not everyone would
want to shell out 800 gigabytes on day one.

968
01:09:46,356 --> 01:09:48,356
But maybe eventually they would.

969
01:09:48,356 --> 01:09:52,356
But on day one, of course, it's a big ask.

970
01:09:52,356 --> 01:10:01,356
Unless you play some of these games or whatever, like Call of Duty or whatever,
where one update could be larger than the entire Bitcoin blockchain.

971
01:10:01,356 --> 01:10:07,356
But the point I'm trying to make is this, is that if we live in a world where no
one's using the actual Lightning network,

972
01:10:07,356 --> 01:10:15,356
no one's using the two of two multisig channels connected by HTLCs, then we don't
need LightSpark.

973
01:10:15,356 --> 01:10:17,356
We don't need anything.

974
01:10:17,356 --> 01:10:24,356
We just have one guy with the key, and it would be like Venmo, and that person would
just do it all.

975
01:10:24,356 --> 01:10:28,356
So that was what we used to say against the large blockers.

976
01:10:28,356 --> 01:10:34,356
We used to say, well, listen, if we don't keep the node costs down, people won't run
a node.

977
01:10:34,356 --> 01:10:41,356
If people don't care enough to get involved, there will just be some Venmo that just
does it all.

978
01:10:41,356 --> 01:10:44,356
And then we will have not really achieved anything.

979
01:10:44,356 --> 01:10:48,356
So I think that that is why I disagree to close the loop.

980
01:10:48,356 --> 01:10:51,356
That's why I disagree with the Michael Saylor bet.

981
01:10:51,356 --> 01:10:56,356
I think also he's just flatly wrong on many technical issues, such as he doesn't
want –

982
01:10:56,356 --> 01:11:02,356
he wants to avoid privacy on Bitcoin because he doesn't want the association.

983
01:11:02,356 --> 01:11:08,356
As you know, this point has been brought up many times throughout the years,

984
01:11:08,356 --> 01:11:13,356
and it's just a losing point because Bitcoin can be associated with whatever.

985
01:11:13,356 --> 01:11:17,356
Like you can cryptographically swap Bitcoin for Monero.

986
01:11:17,356 --> 01:11:27,356
So you could buy the Bitcoin first and then swap it using software for something
that is tainted.

987
01:11:27,356 --> 01:11:36,356
So the taint or the brand association of Bitcoin with crime and money laundering and
political activism

988
01:11:36,356 --> 01:11:43,356
and like the cypherpunk movement and these other things that are good,

989
01:11:43,356 --> 01:11:47,356
but also crime and nefarious uses of privacy.

990
01:11:47,356 --> 01:11:51,356
All this stuff is coming to Bitcoin whether Michael Saylor likes it or not,

991
01:11:51,356 --> 01:11:57,356
and the fact that he doesn't understand that is his problem, not anyone else's,
certainly not mine.

992
01:11:57,356 --> 01:12:00,356
And so that's just the reality.

993
01:12:00,356 --> 01:12:04,356
So I think that these are the reasons why I just don't agree with that.

994
01:12:04,356 --> 01:12:10,356
I think that's not a good – but I think it's nice that he's doing it because you may
bring in more people.

995
01:12:10,356 --> 01:12:13,356
We get more attention. We get more recognizability.

996
01:12:13,356 --> 01:12:15,356
The higher price is good.

997
01:12:15,356 --> 01:12:22,356
Higher price means it's a lot easier for people to get funding, independent
developers, companies, et cetera.

998
01:12:22,356 --> 01:12:24,356
So people get a lot of – so it's good for the whole space.

999
01:12:24,356 --> 01:12:26,356
The whole space gets into the news.

1000
01:12:26,356 --> 01:12:28,356
More people hear about it. More people hear about it for a second time.

1001
01:12:28,356 --> 01:12:30,356
Everyone kind of has to hear about Bitcoin at least twice, right?

1002
01:12:30,356 --> 01:12:33,356
So they just think – first time, they're like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever
heard.

1003
01:12:33,356 --> 01:12:37,356
Then they hear about it again, and they're like, oh, that thing is still around.

1004
01:12:37,356 --> 01:12:40,356
So all that – it's good that he is doing that.

1005
01:12:40,356 --> 01:12:51,356
I just don't think that in the future, when the future historian Pete Rizzo writes
the history of how it all took out,

1006
01:12:51,356 --> 01:12:54,356
he's going to be like, those Bitcoin Censor guys will write the whole time.

1007
01:12:54,356 --> 01:12:57,356
And everyone else, some people politely –

1008
01:12:57,356 --> 01:13:05,356
It all goes back to the vaulted philosophers, philosopher Joseph and philosopher
DeRose.

1009
01:13:05,356 --> 01:13:07,356
Right, exactly, yeah.

1010
01:13:07,356 --> 01:13:12,356
And that's just – I just think that's a stronger bet.

1011
01:13:13,356 --> 01:13:16,356
Paul, where can people find out more about your work?

1012
01:13:16,356 --> 01:13:19,356
I have Truthcoin on Twitter.

1013
01:13:19,356 --> 01:13:21,356
It's Truthcoin.info.

1014
01:13:21,356 --> 01:13:26,356
It's my blog and formerly my prediction market idea site.

1015
01:13:26,356 --> 01:13:29,356
This is Bitcoin Hive, my prediction market is in the news.

1016
01:13:29,356 --> 01:13:30,356
We have the Polymarket.

1017
01:13:30,356 --> 01:13:32,356
Again, hey, that was another thing.

1018
01:13:32,356 --> 01:13:37,356
In 2013, I was saying that we should pay more attention to this, and then I had –

1019
01:13:37,356 --> 01:13:39,356
You could have been the guy.

1020
01:13:39,356 --> 01:13:44,356
Yeah, I didn't want to quite do it, which Shane did.

1021
01:13:44,356 --> 01:13:46,356
And Shane suffered as a result.

1022
01:13:46,356 --> 01:13:48,356
He got raided by the FBI and et cetera.

1023
01:13:48,356 --> 01:13:51,356
These are all things I predicted in writing back in the time.

1024
01:13:51,356 --> 01:14:01,356
But this is another thing that we could have had this idea easily on Bitcoin if
people were just better at the sidechain idea.

1025
01:14:01,356 --> 01:14:03,356
There's a lot of stuff to just unpack or whatever.

1026
01:14:03,356 --> 01:14:06,356
But, yeah, I have my Truthcoin.info is my blog.

1027
01:14:06,356 --> 01:14:09,356
I have drivechain.info, which is about BIP300.

1028
01:14:09,356 --> 01:14:14,356
I have BIP300CUSF.com, which is about the Core Untouched Soft Fork.

1029
01:14:14,356 --> 01:14:18,356
LayerTwoLabs.com is my company.

1030
01:14:18,356 --> 01:14:24,356
And you can read – on LayerTwoLabs.com, you can download our test software,

1031
01:14:24,356 --> 01:14:31,356
and it will connect you to Cygnet, fake Bitcoin network that resembles the real one.

1032
01:14:31,356 --> 01:14:36,356
And you can try out with fake coins the software that we have produced.

1033
01:14:36,356 --> 01:14:37,356
Paul, appreciate it.

1034
01:14:37,356 --> 01:14:42,356
Of course, if you are online, after you go check out Truthcoin and you download some
Drivechains,

1035
01:14:42,356 --> 01:14:45,356
you can go over to YouTube and smash that like and subscribe button.

1036
01:14:45,356 --> 01:14:47,356
Appreciate all the listeners out there.

1037
01:14:47,356 --> 01:14:49,356
You can go back to our catalog.

1038
01:14:49,356 --> 01:14:51,356
We've been talking about Bitcoin corpors, Bitcoin nots,

1039
01:14:51,356 --> 01:14:54,356
a who's who of people opining on recent episodes.

1040
01:14:54,356 --> 01:14:56,356
We had merch from the Bitcoin Stack Exchange.

1041
01:14:56,356 --> 01:14:59,356
We had Mike Schmidt of Brink.

1042
01:14:59,356 --> 01:15:03,356
And, of course, you can go all the way back to earlier this year in May,

1043
01:15:03,356 --> 01:15:06,356
we had Chris Guida on presenting the idea of nots.

1044
01:15:06,356 --> 01:15:07,356
So a rich history there.

1045
01:15:07,356 --> 01:15:12,356
If you want to go down the rabbit hole into YouTube, of course, Core version 30 live
now.

1046
01:15:12,356 --> 01:15:14,356
If you're interested in checking out the software yourself,

1047
01:15:14,356 --> 01:15:17,356
this has been Supply Shock at BlockWorks Podcast.

1048
01:15:17,356 --> 01:15:28,356
♪♪