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Good morning. Good morning.

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All right, that's the Drivechains fan club over there. Let's go. Let's go.

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So, very excited to have this conversation.

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We're joined today by

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two of the most OG Bitcoiners, in my opinion, two of the the wizards of Bitcoin.

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And, you know, y'all are very lucky to have an 80 IQ person moderating this
discussion.

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I think it's going to make it very valuable for everyone here. So,

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to get started.

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First off, maybe introduce yourselves very, very quickly.

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Yeah, I'm Peter Todd. I seem to be mainly known for going to a ton of conferences.

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Okay, how long have you been in Bitcoin? A little bit more information, a little bit
more. I read the white paper in, like, 2009.

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You know, started doing some stuff in 2014 and just kept on doing stuff. Done a bit
of stuff in Bitcoin Core. Cool.

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Paul Sztorc. I think, you know, I've been like a Bitcoin researcher for, like, more
than 10 years. A long time ago,

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I wrote this essay called

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Nothing is cheaper than proof-of-work. And that was a sequel to a related essay

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I wrote first that Adam Back at one point linked to on BitcoinTalk.org. So, I guess
that was sort of, like, my big break or whatever.

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Cool.

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So, we have, I think, 30 minutes.

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And I wrote 20 questions I wanted to ask. So, we are going to jump around a little
bit. We're going to move quickly.

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Some of these are going to have to be a sideline.

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So,

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to start with, let's just level set very quickly. Sidechains. Can someone briefly...
Peter,

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can you briefly explain what a sidechain is? And can we level set, do we think
sidechains are a valuable thing? Well, very briefly,

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sidechain is an altcoin, but tied to Bitcoin. So, you're trading Bitcoin. Okay, so
all sidechains.

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That's where the term came from.

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All right.

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You know, it was meant to be like a something to the side of Bitcoin,

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denominated in Bitcoin. And there's a whole bunch of different varieties of
sidechains.

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But, you know, the key concept was, hey, can we do another coin without doing
another coin? Yeah. And do you think they're valuable?

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Sometimes. Okay, so we do think there are sometimes that they are valuable.

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I mean, Liquid has a small market of people who actually use it. Not very big
markets, but for some circumstances, it could be useful.

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Okay. Would you have a different answer to that question of what a sidechain is? I
think a sidechain is like a

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universal altcoin like emulator or something. So, whatever Zcash is doing, you send
your Bitcoin over there and

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then you can do the Zcash things and then you can bring it back to L1. So, I would
emphasize

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about the sidechain that it

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I would say that it's like the key to really understanding it is actually
competition.

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You have, instead of only having Bitcoin core, you have developers compete over who
gets the coins.

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I think that's really the essence of it, actually. Okay, so Drivechains is really an
implementation of how to do a sidechain.

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I remember when I was in Bitcoin.

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Framework. A framework. A framework. Okay. Thank you.

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Again, 80 IQ, 80 IQ. All right. 90.

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So, when I was a young lad in Bitcoin,

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sidechains were always, not always, maybe depending on what part of the community
you're from, but was like a holy grail of Bitcoin.

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It's like, okay, it's the

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technology to end all the shit coins. All right, though we didn't really call it
that at the time.

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Now, it's like we can't really exactly get agreement on whether sidechains were ever
a thing that was desirable in the first place.

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So, it's strange to see the perception, I guess, within the community change about,
like, do we even want sidechains?

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Adam recently described the Drivechains implementation as

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DMMS,

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dynamic membership.

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Yeah, or multi-sig. Multi-sig, I think. Yeah, dynamic membership, multi-signature.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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It has the word dynamic and signature in it. Yeah.

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So, do you all think that's a correct description of what Drivechains is? I think
it's a cool, cool concept.

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Well, I'll disagree with you on the cool concept, but it matches, you know, what
Blockstream originally proposed in their

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Merge Mine sidechain paper.

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Do you agree?

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That is a DMMS, but I don't know. I mean, the important thing about Drivechain is,
you know,

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it has potential to give us planetary scale, like,

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immediately, and Zcash-level privacy, and it doesn't affect the L1

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features of Bitcoin for the people who aren't using it, and you have security levels
comparable to Lightning.

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Maybe we should explain for a quick second, like, what

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Blockstream meant by DMMS, which is the idea that

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you can have a signature scheme. The question is, who signs it? Well, in
Blockstream's proposal,

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it's miners sign it, which, in the context of something like Bitcoin, means miners
can decide to go and take

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coins and move them somewhere else, and it's purely based on what miners vote to do.

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It means those miners can change dynamically with whoever are the miners, rather
than having set identities.

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Yes, the dynamic refers to the fact that anyone with hash power can start mining.
Right. That's the part

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I think is cool. But I, so, as a framework, though, people in the audience, they can
think of Drivechains,

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it's this sidechain that uses some sort of framework around a

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multi-signature setup, where the miners are the determinant of...

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So, I think from a tech point of view, DMMS makes a lot of sense,

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but I think for, like, a general audience, it really does come down to saying, hey,

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in normal Bitcoin, miners can't go move money, because they can't fake a digital
signature. In

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Drivechains, as well as mergemine sidechains, the key console would say, hey, why
don't we let miners decide where money goes?

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Okay, so,

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maybe we come back to that question, but, so, I want to talk about

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some of the risks around, specifically,

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Drivechains. So,

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first off, everyone up here has been cancelled before. It's part of the reason I
respect both of y'all a lot, alright?

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One of your cancellable opinions that you have is that Bitcoin has a security budget
problem, and that we need to

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re-evaluate the 21 million hard cap as a potential solution to Bitcoin's security
problem. Emphasis on potential solution.

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There's a bunch of different ones. Potential solution. Okay,

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you know, when I look at Drivechains,

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part of the reason I think Paul's excited about Drivechains is he sees it as a
potential solution to the security budget problem.

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You know, why,

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you know, why do you think that a proposal of increasing the hard cap of Bitcoin is
less risky than a Drivechain's

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implementation is? Oh, I wouldn't necessarily say it's less risky.

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I think you're more likely to have other ways of fixing that problem.

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But, you know, certainly someone needed to go and talk about how that, you know, how
that kind of thing works.

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So in, you know, 10-20 years into the future, there's plenty of time to go think
about the different trade-offs. Sure.

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But, you know, I also got to stress, like, I don't believe Drivechains actually does
solve that problem.

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You know, the problem with Drivechains is there's no block size limit.

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So there's no reason to expect transaction fee demand to be anything but minimal.
Much the same way is that, you know,

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in the block size wars, those exact arguments that people gave against IDA, well,
we'll just go increase the block size, transaction fees will flow in.

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It's like, well, unless you actually have a limit, you know, it's a supply and
demand situation. Supply is infinite.

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Whatever the demand is, price is still going to wind up being zero. Right.

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So that was my next question is, like, do you think it'll actually generate more
fees? Now, Paul, you have a different perspective on this.

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Obviously, I mean, because it won't literally be zero, of course.

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It can be any small amount. And then as long as you're increasing the quantity of
sales, so to speak, you sell more transactions, even if it's one cent per
transaction.

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Of course, if each new transaction will be increasing the amount, it's only if it's
literally zero that it would have no effect, which obviously won't happen.

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I mean, nearly literally zero times a finite number of transactions is still
basically zero.

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But this isn't a math proof we're talking about. This is economics.

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So, you know, Visa charges only a small amount, but they generate, you know,
hundreds of millions of dollars per day.

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Visa charges, like, multiple percentages for a lot of people. I mean, it's not a
small amount. They've got a monopoly.

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So I started off by asking, are sidechains a valuable thing? OK, so we're talking
about fees.

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We're talking about, OK, is there something that people want to actually do that
they're going to pay fees for?

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I guess that's the question, though.

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No, I don't think that's the question, though, because the problem is not, is there
something people want to do that they'll pay fees for?

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It's, what is the mechanism by which there's a reason for them to pay anything but a
trivial amount?

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You know, this is the same problem we have with infinite block sizes.

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The fact is, fee revenue gets driven down to zero because there's nothing stopping
liners from underbidding each other.

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So I don't think that's actually an argument for Drivechains.

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So you think that if a Drivechain got popular, it could result in less fees being
paid on the layer one?

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Oh, absolutely, yes, because Drivechains in that circumstance, you know,

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if the Drivechains are scaling, can represent people moving away to a cheaper system
and less fee revenue coming in,

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versus something like Lightning, where there are trade-offs between different
layers,

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and there's a very clear thing of, well, if you need to do an on-chain transaction,
there is that much space, and you better bid for it.

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Now, I'm not going to argue that Lightning's perfect in that respect.

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I mean, this is why I advocate for built-in suspenders, but I don't think
Drivechains can make that argument.

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Well, it's very easy to make the argument, though, because the miners themselves are
the ones who set, like, the minimum fee rate.

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So if they find that their fortunes have decreased by going this route, they could
just disable the Drivechain.

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But you're arguing for a cartel.

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I mean, you're arguing for a cartel.

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If it was truly a free market, someone would come in and underbid.

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No, absolutely not.

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I'm saying that if they don't want the block size effect to reduce the fee rate,

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they can either cap the size of the sidechain blocks or cap the min fee rate.

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It's the exact same thing.

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But again, when you say they can, you're really talking about a cartel here who can
make a decision.

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In a free market system, that's not what would happen.

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Absolutely not.

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You could just have some formula do it.

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And if it really maximizes miners' revenue, then they will do it, of course.

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Obviously.

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You advocate that people can go create new Drivechains.

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Surely, if there's some formula, people will create another Drivechain that
underbids this.

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I mean, there is no mechanism to set that limit.

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The mechanism is that the miners will maximize their fee revenue.

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Again, it's a cartel.

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This is a good—

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No, but it's not a cartel.

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You can do it with a formula.

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A good point of contention here.

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Very easy formula.

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I can underbid your formula.

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One question I have is Lightning Network.

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Is Lightning Network net adding to the on-chain demand on Layer 1?

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Or is it cannibalizing more fees than—

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I think it can definitely go both ways.

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But the thing with the Lightning Network is with current Comp Sci, there is no other
alternative.

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Nobody's figured out a way to send single Satoshi payments over a blockchain.

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And it's not going to happen.

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And that's a strong need.

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Now, maybe we'll figure out something truly novel in Comp Sci.

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Like Drivechains.

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Well, I don't think Drivechains is novel.

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But, you know, I mean, that's just an inevitability with Lightning.

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Now, certainly in a lot of circumstances, Lightning can mean that the fees you do
pay on Lightning channels

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can then flow back to Lightning nodes, which can then go pay much higher fees to bid
to open and close channels,

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as well as adjust capacity with splicing.

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And in that circumstance, yeah, it can definitely flow more fees into miners.

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But, you know, I would not make the argument that that's a guarantee.

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Okay, so I want to keep moving just because there's other topics I want to hit on.

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But this is, I think, an important one to highlight is, will it actually drive more
security budget?

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Okay.

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So, quick question.

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I think I know Paul's answer to this question about how many soft forks will exist
in the future

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and maybe what Drivechains can do there.

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How many soft forks do you think, over the next hundred years, Bitcoin's going to
have?

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Well, I mean, it absolutely has to have at least one, because Bitcoin ceases to
exist in, you know...

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That's a hard fork, though.

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Well, that particular example is kind of a bit of both.

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It's a weird example.

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But, you know, if you're talking about hard forks, I mean, soft forks is basically
the same discussion, right?

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It's like an even more extreme version of fork.

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Now, I think it would not be surprising, you know, backing away from that extreme,

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that we get Bitcoin to a state where it's essentially perfect.

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In much the same way as that TCPIP.

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Other than IPv6, which comes from the 90s and is gradually getting adopted,

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it really hasn't fundamentally changed much for a very long time.

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Because we figured out something that was essentially perfect.

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It might not have been absolutely perfect.

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It was more than close enough.

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And what did we do?

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Well, we built layers on top of it.

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In much the same way as that we're taking Bitcoin, we figured out how to go make
lightning work.

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And we built that as a layer.

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And now you have this enormous amount of innovation happening above that layer.

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But we needed a soft fork for it.

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We needed one.

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Technically, the way we implemented it was like three.

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But we needed, you know, one set of changes and that was that.

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Now, in the future, with things like ARK as an example,

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it won't surprise me if the community as a whole says,

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hey, here's this new thing we need.

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Everyone's going to use it.

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Let's do that one fork and that's that.

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But this is a rare event.

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Whereas most of the innovation that happens is things that happen on layers above.

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I mean, RGB is a wonderful example.

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They're implementing all this semi-off-chain, like layer two-ish stuff

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that can trade assets in very efficient ways.

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But they don't actually need a fork to do that.

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My own Open Timestamps project is a much more boring example of the same thing.

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Open Timestamps, not only does it not need forks to exist,

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like it's basically impossible to stop.

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That's the kind of innovation that excites me.

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So to summarize, you think over the next 100 years,

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we're talking about a small number of soft forks.

210
00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:53,000
It could easily be less than a dozen.

211
00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:53,400
Easily.

212
00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:54,360
Okay.

213
00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:59,880
So, Paul, one reason why I like Drivechains is because I feel like

214
00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:02,760
there's a lot of changes in Bitcoin's future,

215
00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:04,040
like a lot of things that need to happen.

216
00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:08,120
And it creates an environment where we can do some of those changes in a low-risk
way.

217
00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:13,720
Do you think that that's a correct description of the value prop of Drivechains?

218
00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:16,040
And yeah, how do you see that playing out?

219
00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:19,880
Well, yeah, certainly the developers are going to continue to invent things.

220
00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:24,760
And so the question is, what are they supposed to actually do with their invention?

221
00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:31,160
And one route is to try to get the invention, persuade people to add it to Bitcoin
Core L1.

222
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:32,600
But that takes a very long time.

223
00:14:32,600 --> 00:14:36,280
And I think it's been getting more and more difficult as the years go by.

224
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:38,760
And there's also more and more people inventing more and more things.

225
00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:41,320
So there's more specialists in different directions.

226
00:14:41,320 --> 00:14:45,080
And so what are these people supposed to do with their invention that they make

227
00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:48,600
and that they really like and that maybe they've convinced other people is useful?

228
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:51,560
ARK is a perfect example of something that we would have already had,

229
00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:54,840
probably in 2019 or even earlier.

230
00:14:54,840 --> 00:15:00,120
Because if you look at the timeline of when Jeremy Rubin was inventing CTV,

231
00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:01,960
that was a long time ago.

232
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:04,040
And he tried to get it through the Bitcoin Core process,

233
00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:07,160
but it just found it to be too time-consuming.

234
00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:09,480
Well, he failed to convince people it was useful enough.

235
00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:09,800
I mean, it wasn't important.

236
00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:13,720
But the irony is now people have flipped on that.

237
00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:16,440
And then now they think he was right and it is important.

238
00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:17,960
Not yet.

239
00:15:18,920 --> 00:15:19,800
ARK is interesting.

240
00:15:19,800 --> 00:15:20,520
It's not there yet.

241
00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:24,200
So this kind of moves a little bit towards the activation discussion.

242
00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:28,440
But something I wanted to ask you about, Peter, is BIP-125.

243
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:29,400
All right.

244
00:15:29,400 --> 00:15:30,840
You have to refresh me.

245
00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:31,560
Which one was that?

246
00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:34,120
Full replaced by fee.

247
00:15:34,120 --> 00:15:34,520
Well, no.

248
00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:35,480
Optin replaced by fee.

249
00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:38,920
Optin is 125?

250
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:39,320
OK.

251
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:39,880
Yeah, yeah.

252
00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:44,840
So the thing is, though, BIP-125, it's got nothing to do with consensus.

253
00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:49,240
I mean, it's not related to this discussion directly other than saying,

254
00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:51,160
yeah, you can go build things on top of Bitcoin.

255
00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:57,320
Well, I guess where I see parallels is that there's conflicting visions of Bitcoin.

256
00:15:57,320 --> 00:16:03,800
And I remember when everyone who was maybe wanting to make Bitcoin good for
payments,

257
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:06,760
they're like, we want zero conf because it's a good user experience.

258
00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:09,240
See, this is not a great example of this.

259
00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:12,600
Because this is a matter of conflicting visions of Bitcoin in general.

260
00:16:12,600 --> 00:16:16,920
This is more, there's a set of vision for Bitcoin that's just insecure and doesn't
really work.

261
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,440
And then there's a set of vision of Bitcoin, which basically all devs are saying,

262
00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:21,960
well, obviously you do it that way.

263
00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:25,480
In fact, I mean, you know, could ask the audience, go raise your hands,

264
00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:29,080
like how many people would wait a confirmation before accepting payment from a
stranger?

265
00:16:29,080 --> 00:16:31,560
I mean, people have always said, we'll go wait.

266
00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:34,520
Yeah, I think replaced by fee has won the day.

267
00:16:34,520 --> 00:16:35,720
So I'm not questioning that.

268
00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:41,320
I'm saying like the full replaced by fee is not standard in Bitcoin.

269
00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:46,280
Well, like, I think right now, roughly 35% of hash power.

270
00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:51,000
When was it the first, when was it first proposed?

271
00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:58,360
Well, I mean, a decade ago, the first time actual code was written was a bit under a
decade ago.

272
00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:01,320
So talk about just the process of like activate that.

273
00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:03,960
Well, I don't let her complain.

274
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:05,240
I don't think that's a good example.

275
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:07,960
I have written a software, check-lock-time-verify.

276
00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:10,440
That's a much better example because it's an actual software.

277
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:16,440
And the process for that was, well, all right, I go have a somewhat good idea.

278
00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:17,880
Isn't that clever?

279
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:19,240
Check-lock-time-verify.

280
00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:21,320
We start realizing payment channels need it.

281
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:25,080
Simply that basically bidirectional payment channels.

282
00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:28,360
And very quickly, people figured out, well, you know, this looks really useful.

283
00:17:28,360 --> 00:17:31,480
And we're going to go need it for payment channels.

284
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:33,720
We're going to need like one other mock code,

285
00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:35,800
check-sequence-verify for payment channels too.

286
00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:39,960
And from there, frankly, getting in was a fairly short process.

287
00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:42,200
Because once you've done that kind of groundwork,

288
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:45,880
as things roll over to, hey, this is really needed,

289
00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:49,880
we were probably able to get that in in like roughly a year and a half,

290
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:52,920
which was sooner than actual good implementations.

291
00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:56,280
So what caused the success?

292
00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:01,240
Did you go talk directly to miners to get miner support for it?

293
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,920
I didn't need to do like a ton of groundwork on that,

294
00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:06,680
because it was such an obviously good idea.

295
00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:10,360
It was something, I mean, bidirectional payment channels,

296
00:18:10,360 --> 00:18:13,160
that's basically what's under the hood in Lightning.

297
00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:16,360
It's obviously really important.

298
00:18:16,360 --> 00:18:20,760
Everyone, with few exceptions, agreed this was a useful feature.

299
00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:24,520
So the nuance of what exactly should check-lock-time-verify do

300
00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:27,560
was really just a matter of discussing among some tech people

301
00:18:28,280 --> 00:18:31,000
certain nuances of exactly how the opcode should do things.

302
00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:33,000
We hit on the design very quickly.

303
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:35,640
Where I'd contrast that to, say, check-template-verify

304
00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:40,040
is people just haven't been convinced that it's actually that useful.

305
00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:43,560
Now, something like ARC could change people's minds on that.

306
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:48,040
But ARC still is not an idea that there's wide consensus that actually works.

307
00:18:48,760 --> 00:18:51,400
It's an idea that not that many people actually understand.

308
00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:53,640
Whereas payment channels, people figured out very quickly,

309
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:56,040
hey, this is obviously a good idea.

310
00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:57,400
We should definitely do this.

311
00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:58,360
And it got in quickly.

312
00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:03,320
During that process, did you have critics?

313
00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:09,400
Frankly, not really, because it was a very hard idea to argue against.

314
00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:13,080
Taproot is probably your better example for arguing against.

315
00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:17,000
Most of that was really nuance of exactly how detail should work.

316
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:18,920
Again, Taproot is an idea.

317
00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:21,320
Once people got their heads around it, it seemed very obvious.

318
00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:23,480
Oh, yeah, this is how Bitcoin scripts should have always worked.

319
00:19:24,360 --> 00:19:26,760
It took a while, I think, for people to realize that.

320
00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:30,920
But the idea spread very widely, because it's just such a good one.

321
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:35,080
Speak about your experience with this.

322
00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:36,520
How was the activation discussion?

323
00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:42,440
Check-lock-time-verify, that was back in the pre...

324
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:43,560
You had two eras.

325
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:50,520
I think the first seven years of Bitcoin, we had done 15, 16-something soft forks.

326
00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:51,800
We had a ton of stuff to fix.

327
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,000
And then we had SegWit, which was very dramatic.

328
00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:59,400
And then SegWit took 20 months from when it was

329
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:01,880
proposed to when it was finally coded and activated.

330
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,200
And then Taproot took 46 months.

331
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:05,240
So that's really what it is.

332
00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:07,640
It's just a slowing over time of...

333
00:20:08,360 --> 00:20:09,640
And it's really the two eras.

334
00:20:10,360 --> 00:20:13,240
SegWit was so contentious that for many years,

335
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:15,960
people refused to even discuss soft fork activation,

336
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:17,560
which they still kind of do today, where they say,

337
00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:20,360
we don't want to touch anything controversial.

338
00:20:20,360 --> 00:20:21,560
Well, I should be clear.

339
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:23,720
SegWit is another key part of Lightning.

340
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:26,120
And again, I think SegWit falls in this example of,

341
00:20:26,120 --> 00:20:28,120
this was so obviously needed.

342
00:20:28,120 --> 00:20:29,480
And it also falls in the example of...

343
00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:31,000
Oh, but it was highly contentious.

344
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,080
Well, it was contentious because it was a block-size debate.

345
00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:36,120
It wasn't contentious because tech people thought it was a bad idea.

346
00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:37,400
With, you know, a few exceptions of crazy people.

347
00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:38,760
Why do you think this idea is bad?

348
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:43,160
Well, I think Drivechains is bad because it's basically a

349
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:44,840
let's-go-trust-miners system.

350
00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:47,720
Yeah, but you're mixing up L1 and L2, though.

351
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:48,520
But again, it's...

352
00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:50,120
It's only the L2 people who opt in.

353
00:20:50,120 --> 00:20:52,760
You are saying that we should have large amounts of coins

354
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:55,720
tied in such a way that miners can just go steal it.

355
00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:57,880
That fundamentally changes how mining works right now.

356
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:01,480
Yeah, but if miners steal from the Lightning network, it's the same problem.

357
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:04,120
But they're not able to do that on the scale of Drivechains.

358
00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:06,680
Also, they're not able to do that, for instance, under a court order.

359
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:09,000
You know, one of the things that I think a lot of people get really...

360
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:10,920
The court order thing is silly.

361
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:12,440
...get really worried about with Drivechains is

362
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:14,680
you're now creating Bitcoin in a situation where

363
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:16,680
there are targets that can actually do things.

364
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:19,240
I mean, I personally, for instance, am being sued by Craig Wright

365
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:21,000
to try to go reassign Bitcoin.

366
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:22,920
And it's a very real lawsuit.

367
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:27,240
You know, it's quite a silly thing to worry about this argument from the lawsuit.

368
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:28,520
You could even flip it around and say,

369
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:30,200
this is what will decentralize mining

370
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:32,600
because no one will be able to find them or something, if you want.

371
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:33,880
But the whole thing is kind of silly.

372
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:36,280
Anyone could be sued at any time for any reason.

373
00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:39,560
Yeah, but it's a much bigger threat if the lawsuit's valid.

374
00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:40,040
It's easy to...

375
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:44,120
See, I can easily defend my lawsuit because I can't actually do that.

376
00:21:44,120 --> 00:21:47,800
The Lightning network, at different scales, that is part of the problem,

377
00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:49,000
is that on the Lightning network,

378
00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:53,000
miners can, like, mosquito attack individual channels.

379
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,200
They need a lot of coordination with a lot of people.

380
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:58,840
No, it's the same 51% cartel. It's exactly the same.

381
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:00,920
All they have to do is censor this justice transaction.

382
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:02,840
But the truth is that they won't do either

383
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:04,920
because miners want Bitcoin to be a success.

384
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,080
So, of course, they're not really going to steal from any...

385
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:09,320
In the Drivechain, though, all of the fees...

386
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:11,000
This is a key difference.

387
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:14,120
In Drivechain, all of the fees go to the miners.

388
00:22:14,120 --> 00:22:15,640
So this is going to be, like, eventually...

389
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:17,800
Well, again, I don't believe fees will be significant.

390
00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:19,320
Each new fee is...

391
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:23,160
It's like planetary scale merge mine transactions

392
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:25,160
would be hundreds of millions of dollars per day.

393
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:25,800
It's already on...

394
00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:27,240
Ethereum is already...

395
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:29,480
Bitcoin only does, like, $500,000 a day,

396
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:32,280
and Ethereum is already doing millions of dollars a day.

397
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:34,920
To be clear, Ethereum does have a block size limit

398
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:37,400
because Ethereum is breaking at its current scale.

399
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:39,400
I mean, they can't increase the scale of Ethereum right now.

400
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:40,120
Yeah, but there is...

401
00:22:40,120 --> 00:22:42,920
Each individual sidechain will have a block size limit.

402
00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:43,800
Why do you say that?

403
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:47,080
I mean, I can out-compete your sidechain with a block size limit

404
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,480
The real question is, why would the miners mine it at all

405
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:53,080
if it generates $0 in revenue?

406
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:54,680
The whole point is to collect the revenue.

407
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,600
I mean, again, this, I think, gets back to your fundamental difference

408
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:01,080
about what centralization pressure is.

409
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:02,200
Overhead matters.

410
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:04,200
If I'm a miner that's mining...

411
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:06,360
Like, for example, say I'm Foundry USA,

412
00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:09,960
and I'm mining, like, 30% of the Bitcoin hash power.

413
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:12,920
I can afford the overhead to do things,

414
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:16,200
like go pay guys to go get Drivechains

415
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,600
that bring in, you know, $1,000 a day revenue.

416
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,040
And that could be, like, a huge number of them.

417
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:23,560
But it's a very different kind of thing

418
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:25,320
when you're talking about smaller-scale miners

419
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:29,240
where now I've got to go get all of these possible Drivechains

420
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,200
that, for me personally, might go bring in, like, $1 a day of revenue.

421
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:33,480
And that really screws over the small miner.

422
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,560
But if it brings in $1 a day of revenue, it doesn't matter.

423
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:36,760
I talked to a miner yesterday...

424
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:38,360
It does matter, collectively.

425
00:23:38,360 --> 00:23:41,160
I talked to a miner yesterday who's in the audience.

426
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:43,720
They have 15 megawatts of hash rate.

427
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:50,440
They said that if they could get a 1% or 5% boost to revenue

428
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,160
by adopting Drivechains, they would do it in a second.

429
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:53,880
But the problem is...

430
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:54,840
It won't be 1%.

431
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:57,400
It will be 10x, 100x, or even 1,000x.

432
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:58,600
I mean, hang on.

433
00:23:58,600 --> 00:23:59,720
Let's be clear, though.

434
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:01,080
There's a misconception there,

435
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,120
which is that Bitcoin difficulty adjusts.

436
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:05,960
By adopting Drivechains,

437
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:09,160
they're not going to get, you know, a 5% increase in revenue.

438
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:13,000
They will only get that if they are the centralized miner

439
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,160
who can do it in a way that other people can't.

440
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:17,640
That's, you know, that's one of the key things.

441
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:20,120
What it actually does is increase the overhead to get into mining.

442
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:22,280
Why does it increase the overhead?

443
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,040
Because if you want to go run a full node

444
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:26,520
that actually properly processes this stuff

445
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:27,880
and allows withdrawals to happen...

446
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:29,640
The miners don't literally need to run anything.

447
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:31,320
Yeah, don't I get a fit if I'm just...

448
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:34,120
They just need to obtain the knowledge of, you know...

449
00:24:34,120 --> 00:24:36,360
They can run a node, obtain...

450
00:24:36,360 --> 00:24:37,800
It gives you absolute certainty.

451
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,200
I mean, again, I think this has been touched...

452
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:41,160
It doesn't really matter anyway

453
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,360
because the software cannot possibly be so expensive to run.

454
00:24:44,360 --> 00:24:48,120
The regular full node users will have to be running the software.

455
00:24:48,120 --> 00:24:50,040
Wait, hold on. Let's just be super clear.

456
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:54,200
Miners don't need to run a sidechain to profit from increased fees.

457
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:55,080
That's correct.

458
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:59,000
Sidechains that work properly need miners to go and run full nodes on them.

459
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,080
Or the withdrawal process doesn't work properly.

460
00:25:01,267 --> 00:25:05,267
No, they just need to obtain knowledge from the hash from somewhere.

461
00:25:05,267 --> 00:25:16,267
If you wanted to be absolutely certain that there's not a single atom of titanium in
some bread that you're going to eat or something,

462
00:25:16,267 --> 00:25:19,267
you'd have to go into a laboratory and make it from scratch.

463
00:25:19,267 --> 00:25:23,267
But you know that if you go down to the supermarket, you have a different type of
knowledge.

464
00:25:23,267 --> 00:25:27,267
Well, let's back up. Let's explain to the audience what on earth you're talking
about.

465
00:25:27,267 --> 00:25:34,267
So, like I said with Drivechains, the model is that miners can go vote to decide
where coins go.

466
00:25:34,267 --> 00:25:39,267
Now, if you don't run a node, obviously you cannot validate any of these votes.

467
00:25:39,267 --> 00:25:43,267
You have no idea where coins are supposed to go. You can't validate that hash for
that vote.

468
00:25:43,267 --> 00:25:47,267
That's not true. You just have indirect knowledge.

469
00:25:47,267 --> 00:25:52,267
Well, again, like I say, you can't validate it. You have to go and trust that
someone else does it.

470
00:25:53,267 --> 00:25:59,267
It's like Bertrand Russell's teapot argument or whatever. Is there a teapot orbiting
Jupiter or something?

471
00:25:59,267 --> 00:26:05,267
The only way to be absolutely certain would be to go and check, but we also know
that it's not.

472
00:26:05,267 --> 00:26:10,267
I mean, if the teapot orbiting Jupiter was very important to a coin...

473
00:26:10,267 --> 00:26:13,267
But miners don't need to run any nodes either. That's what's very curious about it.

474
00:26:13,267 --> 00:26:17,267
I asked you what the problem with this idea was. You just said that you mixed up L1
and L2,

475
00:26:17,267 --> 00:26:21,267
and you said that I don't like miners having control over the L2 withdrawals,

476
00:26:21,267 --> 00:26:24,267
even though they already have control over the Lightning Network justice
transactions.

477
00:26:24,267 --> 00:26:26,267
So it's exactly the same thing.

478
00:26:26,267 --> 00:26:29,267
Now we're in this weird odyssey on miner costs.

479
00:26:29,267 --> 00:26:33,267
merge mining the sidechain is essentially free.

480
00:26:33,267 --> 00:26:38,267
They don't even need their own node. They can just coordinate with someone else who
has the node.

481
00:26:38,267 --> 00:26:43,267
When you say that miners have to cooperate for justice transactions, that's just
categorically false.

482
00:26:43,267 --> 00:26:47,267
51% hash rate can censor the justice transaction.

483
00:26:48,267 --> 00:26:51,267
If they do that, they can drain the Lightning channel for free all the time.

484
00:26:51,267 --> 00:26:53,267
Hang on. Let's be clear.

485
00:26:53,267 --> 00:26:54,267
That's not going to happen.

486
00:26:54,267 --> 00:26:59,267
To profit from this, they have to coordinate with the Lightning channels doing this.

487
00:26:59,267 --> 00:27:02,267
Yeah, but they also must coordinate in the case of Drivechains.

488
00:27:02,267 --> 00:27:05,267
It's actually much more difficult for them to coordinate in the Drivechain case

489
00:27:05,267 --> 00:27:11,267
because they have to pre-establish a withdrawal to themselves that is going to take
effect months,

490
00:27:11,267 --> 00:27:13,267
three to six months later.

491
00:27:13,267 --> 00:27:15,267
They don't necessarily know if the pie chart will be the same.

492
00:27:15,267 --> 00:27:18,267
So quickly respond, and then we're going to move on because we have a few minutes.

493
00:27:18,267 --> 00:27:20,267
We're going to go over on our time.

494
00:27:20,267 --> 00:27:22,267
I'm sorry for the people who said don't go over on your time.

495
00:27:22,267 --> 00:27:23,267
We're going to go a little bit over.

496
00:27:23,267 --> 00:27:25,267
I mean, look, this is silly discussion.

497
00:27:25,267 --> 00:27:28,267
Go read the blog post I just posted for this detail.

498
00:27:28,267 --> 00:27:36,267
Okay, so I want to move just before we talk activation on exactly how something gets
activated,

499
00:27:36,267 --> 00:27:43,267
one thing that you're very clear on, Paul, is the way that Drivechains will be
implemented,

500
00:27:43,267 --> 00:27:45,267
would be implemented, it's unwindable.

501
00:27:45,267 --> 00:27:50,267
All right, can you explain what that means and if we agree that that's a valid view?

502
00:27:50,267 --> 00:27:51,267
Yes, of course.

503
00:27:51,267 --> 00:27:52,267
It takes this op-nop5 that's unused.

504
00:27:52,267 --> 00:27:55,267
It's the exact same thing that happened with the check-lock-time verify,

505
00:27:55,267 --> 00:28:01,267
and it reuses it to count to 13,000, which is all that it does on L1.

506
00:28:01,267 --> 00:28:04,267
And then if there's some kind of problem with that, all we have to do is the exact
same soft fork

507
00:28:04,267 --> 00:28:06,267
that turned it on, you can just turn it off.

508
00:28:06,267 --> 00:28:10,267
You just censor op-nop5 from ever appearing again in the blockchain.

509
00:28:10,267 --> 00:28:12,267
So there's literally zero risk to this idea.

510
00:28:12,267 --> 00:28:16,267
Do you share that view that that would be effective in terms of unwinding
Drivechains?

511
00:28:16,267 --> 00:28:19,267
I don't think you'd be able to pull that off in practice.

512
00:28:19,267 --> 00:28:25,267
And one of the really ugly things about this, of course, is that if this idea does
go catch on,

513
00:28:25,267 --> 00:28:29,267
you wind up having funds tied up, which causes a whole lot of political ugliness.

514
00:28:29,267 --> 00:28:32,267
Yeah, but again, this only affects the people who opt in.

515
00:28:32,267 --> 00:28:37,267
This is crucial to the whole point, the distinction between L1 and L2 is the entire
point.

516
00:28:37,267 --> 00:28:38,267
You know what I mean?

517
00:28:38,267 --> 00:28:43,267
You may not care about a certain thing like the EVM or something, but other people
care about it.

518
00:28:43,267 --> 00:28:45,267
And you may not care about large blocks.

519
00:28:45,267 --> 00:28:47,267
This isn't about what other people like.

520
00:28:47,267 --> 00:28:49,267
It's about their ability to choose their own thing.

521
00:28:49,267 --> 00:28:54,267
So some people want, you know, Roger Ver wanted the block size to increase on his
node.

522
00:28:54,267 --> 00:28:59,267
So if you can't keep L2 and L1 organized, then you will never understand this idea.

523
00:28:59,267 --> 00:29:01,267
To be clear, you're not talking about L2 and L1 here.

524
00:29:01,267 --> 00:29:03,267
That's not how these terms get used.

525
00:29:03,267 --> 00:29:05,267
You're talking about L1 changes.

526
00:29:05,267 --> 00:29:06,267
All of this is L1.

527
00:29:06,267 --> 00:29:09,267
The L1 change is just the OPTNOT5 counting to 13,000.

528
00:29:09,267 --> 00:29:10,267
That's all it is.

529
00:29:10,267 --> 00:29:13,267
Okay, so I want to talk activation for a quick second.

530
00:29:13,267 --> 00:29:16,267
So, you know, I'm a simple man.

531
00:29:16,267 --> 00:29:19,267
Why is it so difficult to unwind?

532
00:29:19,267 --> 00:29:20,267
He's got 40 seconds.

533
00:29:20,267 --> 00:29:21,267
Let him talk about his activation.

534
00:29:21,267 --> 00:29:22,267
All right, all right.

535
00:29:22,267 --> 00:29:23,267
It's very easy to unwind.

536
00:29:23,267 --> 00:29:25,267
Let him talk about his activation.

537
00:29:25,267 --> 00:29:27,267
Thank you.

538
00:29:27,267 --> 00:29:29,267
Thank you, Pops.

539
00:29:29,267 --> 00:29:33,267
So, activation.

540
00:29:33,267 --> 00:29:38,267
As far as I'm aware, all soft forks get activated by miners at the end of the day.

541
00:29:38,267 --> 00:29:40,267
That's a complex question.

542
00:29:40,267 --> 00:29:47,267
I know it's a complex and controversial question, but, I mean, am I wrong?

543
00:29:47,267 --> 00:29:49,267
In certain circumstances, yes.

544
00:29:49,267 --> 00:29:53,267
So I think a great circumstance was how SegWit got activated.

545
00:29:53,267 --> 00:29:54,267
But that's still a miner activation.

546
00:29:54,267 --> 00:29:55,267
Hang on a second.

547
00:29:56,267 --> 00:30:00,267
So what happened with SegWit is the community threatened the miners with an
unobservable threat.

548
00:30:00,267 --> 00:30:04,267
Namely, we are running UASF nodes that activate SegWit.

549
00:30:04,267 --> 00:30:10,267
Thus, if at least one miner does anything SegWit related, suddenly a big chunk of
the network will go switch off.

550
00:30:10,267 --> 00:30:13,267
And they will be mining on a useless change.

551
00:30:13,267 --> 00:30:16,267
And this is why it's complex, because that was an unobservable thing.

552
00:30:16,267 --> 00:30:22,267
So the majority of miners decided in that circumstance, arguably, hey, they're
making this threat.

553
00:30:22,267 --> 00:30:24,267
We will just go and do SegWit.

554
00:30:24,267 --> 00:30:30,267
I guess what I'm a little bit confused about is, like, okay, what you just
described, this user-activated soft fork,

555
00:30:30,267 --> 00:30:35,267
where there was basically a message to the miners that if you don't do this, we're
going to fork you off the network.

556
00:30:35,267 --> 00:30:37,267
We're going to reject your blocks.

557
00:30:37,267 --> 00:30:44,267
How is that different than Paul and Drivechain supporters going to miners and
saying, run this software.

558
00:30:44,267 --> 00:30:52,267
And if you don't run it, at some point in time in the future, our community is going
to reject your blocks.

559
00:30:53,267 --> 00:30:56,267
Well, I mean, to be clear, I'm not making a statement that it's different at all.

560
00:30:56,267 --> 00:31:00,267
I'm just saying, like, that is the nature of this type of activation.

561
00:31:00,267 --> 00:31:06,267
There's other types of activation which looks more clearly like miners activating,
like my own check-locked-on-verify,

562
00:31:06,267 --> 00:31:11,267
which you could argue was a miner vote, say, hey, on this threshold, now
check-locked-on-verify is activating.

563
00:31:11,267 --> 00:31:20,267
I guess my point is that, like, even a user-activated soft fork, you are petitioning
the miners to activate something,

564
00:31:20,267 --> 00:31:22,267
or you're going to do something.

565
00:31:22,267 --> 00:31:26,267
So it's a communication to the miners, a signal to the miners of, hey, we're
demanding this.

566
00:31:26,267 --> 00:31:32,267
I mean, it's a tricky signal because it's a signal which, maybe I'll talk about it
from a more pragmatic point of view.

567
00:31:32,267 --> 00:31:38,267
If we have a UASF that doesn't have overwhelming support, which is what would happen
with Drivechains,

568
00:31:38,267 --> 00:31:44,267
if this goes badly, suddenly Bitcoin forks, and very bad stuff can happen where, you
know,

569
00:31:44,267 --> 00:31:49,267
one exchange is simply not on the same Bitcoin as another exchange, yet they still
have the same ticker price.

570
00:31:49,267 --> 00:31:52,267
And I think we can see how a disaster this would be.

571
00:31:52,267 --> 00:31:58,267
This particular soft fork should be miner-activated because it's so miner-centric
anyway,

572
00:31:58,267 --> 00:32:04,267
and also because it does not affect, like, there's certain things like requiring the
Coinbase to have the block height or something.

573
00:32:04,267 --> 00:32:08,267
There's certain things, this one is more opt-in, much more opt-in than usual,

574
00:32:08,267 --> 00:32:11,267
which is to say that people who aren't using it can ignore it completely.

575
00:32:11,267 --> 00:32:15,267
To be clear, like, the Coinbase thing is fixing a serious bug.

576
00:32:16,267 --> 00:32:21,267
The miner-centric one should be activated by miners because if they're not really
into this idea,

577
00:32:21,267 --> 00:32:26,267
and if they don't really understand this idea, that they would make a huge amount of
money by, you know,

578
00:32:26,267 --> 00:32:30,267
like, having this enormous extensibility upgrade to Bitcoin.

579
00:32:30,267 --> 00:32:33,267
If they don't really get it, then they don't get it.

580
00:32:33,267 --> 00:32:40,267
So, you know, I guess my final question here is, like, okay, if I'm Paul,

581
00:32:40,267 --> 00:32:45,267
I'm going directly to the miners and I'm making the case for why they need to adopt
Drivechains,

582
00:32:45,267 --> 00:32:51,267
and I'm selling them on the benefits of it, and, you know, frankly, I don't really
care what anyone else's views are

583
00:32:51,267 --> 00:32:55,267
because it's the miners at the end of the day I have to convince here.

584
00:32:55,267 --> 00:33:01,267
If the community had a problem with that, how does the community stop it?

585
00:33:01,267 --> 00:33:05,267
Well, I mean, I think the main thing that happens here is, what you're telling
miners is,

586
00:33:05,267 --> 00:33:07,267
this is going to be a shit show.

587
00:33:07,267 --> 00:33:12,267
And if you go through this and you add all this uncertainty to Bitcoin,

588
00:33:12,267 --> 00:33:16,267
ultimately you're probably going to either just reduce the price in general,

589
00:33:16,267 --> 00:33:22,267
or you will go have a user-activated soft fork to undo Drivechains.

590
00:33:22,267 --> 00:33:24,267
And that is a huge mess.

591
00:33:24,267 --> 00:33:26,267
It is a much bigger mess than...

592
00:33:26,267 --> 00:33:28,267
So why do you say that it would be a shit show?

593
00:33:28,267 --> 00:33:31,267
Because it's just if the miners activate it, then everyone is on the same chain.

594
00:33:31,267 --> 00:33:32,267
Hang on a second.

595
00:33:32,267 --> 00:33:36,267
It is a much bigger mess than just doing nothing.

596
00:33:36,267 --> 00:33:40,267
I mean, if you're a miner, you think, well, you know, I get my money in Bitcoin.

597
00:33:40,267 --> 00:33:45,267
If I go through uncertainty in a shit show, reduce the value of Bitcoin by, like,
10%,

598
00:33:45,267 --> 00:33:51,267
was that really worth it for the hypothetical Drivechain that a bunch of tech
experts think is a bad idea?

599
00:33:51,267 --> 00:33:54,267
You know, I think that's the main pushback.

600
00:33:54,267 --> 00:34:00,267
Now, obviously, if, say, a 51% majority of miners said, you know what, screw this,
we're going to do this,

601
00:34:00,267 --> 00:34:05,267
they can go make a real mess, and they can go force other people to react.

602
00:34:05,267 --> 00:34:08,267
But, you know, this has never happened in Bitcoin's history,

603
00:34:08,267 --> 00:34:11,267
and we'd much rather it not play out that way.

604
00:34:11,267 --> 00:34:13,267
I mean, because it's a soft fork, couldn't they have already...

605
00:34:13,267 --> 00:34:15,267
I mean, it hasn't been...

606
00:34:15,267 --> 00:34:18,267
It's theoretically possible that they already activated BIP300.

607
00:34:18,267 --> 00:34:21,267
Yeah, but, I mean, if people don't know about it, it's not very relevant.

608
00:34:21,267 --> 00:34:26,267
And people have put things like off-and-off 5 and other stuff in blocks,

609
00:34:26,267 --> 00:34:28,267
so it's unlikely to be the case.

610
00:34:28,267 --> 00:34:34,267
Okay, so I'm going to conclude here, because we're already over, and the please wrap
up is going.

611
00:34:34,267 --> 00:34:41,267
But I think, you know, I've found that in Bitcoin, it's now impossible to get
everyone to agree on anything.

612
00:34:41,267 --> 00:34:42,267
It's just impossible.

613
00:34:42,267 --> 00:34:43,267
It always was.

614
00:34:43,267 --> 00:34:45,267
Yeah, it's even harder now.

615
00:34:45,267 --> 00:34:50,267
And so I feel like, you know, why Drivechains, I think, is important

616
00:34:50,267 --> 00:34:53,267
is because whether Drivechains goes forward or doesn't go forward,

617
00:34:53,267 --> 00:34:57,267
it helps define the boundaries of how Bitcoin advances in general.

618
00:34:57,267 --> 00:35:02,267
Okay, you have a problem with Drivechains, like, this is how you resist Drivechains.

619
00:35:02,267 --> 00:35:05,267
You want Drivechains, this is how you advocate for Drivechains.

620
00:35:05,267 --> 00:35:08,267
And right now, that's so unclear.

621
00:35:08,267 --> 00:35:10,267
It's unclear how to do it.

622
00:35:10,267 --> 00:35:15,267
I think that makes it very uninteresting, because from a tech point of view,

623
00:35:15,267 --> 00:35:19,267
you're creating something that has all of this software complexity and so on,

624
00:35:19,267 --> 00:35:24,267
when it's so much easier to just build other types of systems where you don't have
to ask for permission.

625
00:35:24,267 --> 00:35:28,267
You know, to build interesting stuff on Lightning, you don't need to ask for
permission.

626
00:35:28,267 --> 00:35:30,267
You just go do it, and you write code, and you release it.

627
00:35:30,267 --> 00:35:32,267
You know, open timestamps, I've never asked anyone.

628
00:35:32,267 --> 00:35:34,267
Well, you had asked for SegWit, though.

629
00:35:34,267 --> 00:35:38,267
Well, once we created the building blocks, but, you know, we've created a very
thorough set of building blocks,

630
00:35:38,267 --> 00:35:40,267
so you can build an enormous amount of interesting stuff.

631
00:35:40,267 --> 00:35:42,267
You know, we took the Bitcoin protocol and fixed it.

632
00:35:42,267 --> 00:35:47,267
The problem with Lightning, though, of course, is that even the proponents don't
expect 8 billion people to be able to use it.

633
00:35:47,267 --> 00:35:50,267
Whereas with this, they could, and so that's a pretty big difference.

634
00:35:50,267 --> 00:35:52,267
The tech people don't agree with you on that.

635
00:35:52,267 --> 00:35:57,267
No, you could go to drivechain.info/misconceptions, and you could search.

636
00:35:57,267 --> 00:35:59,267
I have a part where I have hyperlinked a bunch of things.

637
00:35:59,267 --> 00:36:03,267
So if you search this, this, this, this, this, and this, I have a link to a bunch of
people,

638
00:36:03,267 --> 00:36:05,267
the top experts in Lightning.

639
00:36:05,267 --> 00:36:06,267
Don't take it from me.

640
00:36:06,267 --> 00:36:10,267
They have all these different interviews and posts to our blog.

641
00:36:10,267 --> 00:36:11,267
Let's be clear.

642
00:36:11,267 --> 00:36:13,267
You're talking about experts saying Lightning doesn't scale.

643
00:36:13,267 --> 00:36:15,267
That's not that Drivechains work.

644
00:36:15,267 --> 00:36:17,267
So I'm going to get in a lot of trouble already.

645
00:36:17,267 --> 00:36:18,267
We're way over.

646
00:36:18,267 --> 00:36:23,267
But can we get a round of applause for these two wizards of Bitcoin?

647
00:36:23,267 --> 00:36:27,267
Very important conversation.

648
00:36:27,267 --> 00:36:29,267
Paul, where can they follow more about Drivechains?

649
00:36:29,267 --> 00:36:34,267
I would just follow my Twitter on Truthcoin on Twitter.

650
00:36:34,267 --> 00:36:38,267
And, Peter, you're going to write the definitive takedown of Drivechains.

651
00:36:38,267 --> 00:36:39,267
Is that coming?

652
00:36:39,267 --> 00:36:40,267
I mean, I just posted it.

653
00:36:40,267 --> 00:36:41,267
Go to petertodd.org.

654
00:36:41,267 --> 00:36:42,267
Okay.

655
00:36:42,267 --> 00:36:43,267
Let's go.

656
00:36:43,267 --> 00:36:44,267
All right.

657
00:36:45,267 --> 00:36:53,267
Welcome back to the Bitcoin Amsterdam Live Desk, sponsored by Bitcoin Magazine.

658
00:36:53,267 --> 00:36:57,267
I'm joined by my esteemed panelist, Nifty, the founder of Base58,

659
00:36:57,267 --> 00:36:59,267
and Iago, a core contributor to Sovereign.

660
00:36:59,267 --> 00:37:05,267
We just heard a great panel about BIP300, obviously with Paul Sztorc, Peter Todd, and
David Bailey.

661
00:37:05,267 --> 00:37:08,267
So I want to go right to you, Iago, with the first question.

662
00:37:08,267 --> 00:37:11,267
Does Bitcoin have a security budget problem to you?

663
00:37:11,267 --> 00:37:12,267
Yes or no?

664
00:37:12,267 --> 00:37:13,267
Yeah, clearly it does.

665
00:37:13,267 --> 00:37:22,267
We're seeing no growth in the value of transaction fees collected by Bitcoin miners
over time.

666
00:37:22,267 --> 00:37:26,267
And we're not seeing a substantial increase in the number of transactions.

667
00:37:26,267 --> 00:37:33,267
And what Paul and Peter both want to do is try and find a way to increase that.

668
00:37:33,267 --> 00:37:37,267
I don't think that Drivechains is the way it used to be.

669
00:37:37,267 --> 00:37:39,267
For many years, I was a big supporter of Drivechains.

670
00:37:39,267 --> 00:37:43,267
But at this point, I think it's obvious that it's a really obsolete technology.

671
00:37:43,267 --> 00:37:45,267
What we need are roll-ups.

672
00:37:45,267 --> 00:37:50,267
That is the ability to add more transactions into every block using Bitcoin
transactions.

673
00:37:50,267 --> 00:37:54,267
And it helps solve Peter Todd's concern with Drivechains,

674
00:37:54,267 --> 00:37:58,267
that you would have infinite transactions and no scarcity,

675
00:37:58,267 --> 00:38:00,267
because the scarcity of Bitcoin would remain.

676
00:38:00,267 --> 00:38:01,267
20 seconds to you, Lisa.

677
00:38:01,267 --> 00:38:04,267
Do you think that we have a security budget problem with Bitcoin as well?

678
00:38:04,267 --> 00:38:09,267
No, I think I'm a security budget whatever.

679
00:38:09,267 --> 00:38:12,267
I don't think there's a security budget problem.

680
00:38:12,267 --> 00:38:13,267
Okay.

681
00:38:13,267 --> 00:38:14,267
Yeah, no worries.

682
00:38:14,267 --> 00:38:18,267
So I know we were talking about Lightning adding fees to L1 and helping out miners.

683
00:38:18,267 --> 00:38:20,267
Or is it cannibalizing miner revenues?

684
00:38:20,267 --> 00:38:22,267
Or is it a little bit of both?

685
00:38:22,267 --> 00:38:23,267
I'll go to you, Lisa.

686
00:38:23,267 --> 00:38:25,267
I think it's a little bit of both, honestly.

687
00:38:25,267 --> 00:38:30,267
I think that having Lightning there makes transactions that wouldn't be possible to
happen, happen.

688
00:38:30,267 --> 00:38:31,267
So I think that's great.

689
00:38:31,267 --> 00:38:36,267
I do think there's a little bit of tradeoff between now we have transactions that
are happening on Lightning

690
00:38:36,267 --> 00:38:39,267
that maybe could have happened on the base layer.

691
00:38:39,267 --> 00:38:40,267
Yeah.

692
00:38:40,267 --> 00:38:41,267
15 seconds to you, Iago.

693
00:38:41,267 --> 00:38:42,267
What are your thoughts on Lightning?

694
00:38:42,267 --> 00:38:44,267
Cannibalizing miner revenue or adding to it?

695
00:38:44,267 --> 00:38:47,267
I think its overall impact is fairly marginal,

696
00:38:47,267 --> 00:38:51,267
because the level of adoption that we've seen with Lightning is quite marginal as
well.

697
00:38:51,267 --> 00:38:56,267
And so what its theoretical impact would be, different from its practical impact.

698
00:38:56,267 --> 00:38:57,267
Yeah.

699
00:38:57,267 --> 00:38:58,267
Lisa, last question to you.

700
00:38:59,267 --> 00:39:01,267
Miners control the justice transactions.

701
00:39:01,267 --> 00:39:03,267
And I know that's what Paul was bringing up.

702
00:39:03,267 --> 00:39:05,267
And you were kind of shaking your head over here.

703
00:39:05,267 --> 00:39:07,267
What are your thoughts on him saying that they control the justice transactions?

704
00:39:07,267 --> 00:39:09,267
I think that's completely untrue.

705
00:39:09,267 --> 00:39:13,267
I think it's true that miners decide what transactions go into blocks.

706
00:39:13,267 --> 00:39:18,267
But I think that being able to choose between justice transactions or not,

707
00:39:18,267 --> 00:39:22,267
that's completely, I think, not how it actually works.

708
00:39:22,267 --> 00:39:23,267
All right.

709
00:39:23,267 --> 00:39:24,267
Thank you so much.

710
00:39:24,267 --> 00:39:26,267
We're going to bring it back to the main stage or the Genesis stage here

711
00:39:26,267 --> 00:39:28,267
to talk about the Nostr protocol.

712
00:39:28,267 --> 00:39:29,267
Catch us after that.

713
00:39:30,267 --> 00:39:34,267
Thank you, Miami, for the last three years in this amazing city.

714
00:39:35,267 --> 00:39:37,267
The whole world shut down.

715
00:39:37,267 --> 00:39:40,267
But Miami welcomed us with open arms.

716
00:39:40,267 --> 00:39:43,267
We want to show Bitcoin to the whole world.

717
00:39:45,267 --> 00:39:50,267
We are taking the conference on the road to set the stage for Bitcoin in a new city.

718
00:39:54,267 --> 00:39:56,267
Nashville.

719
00:39:57,267 --> 00:40:01,267
Bitcoin 2024 is coming to Nashville in Tennessee,

720
00:40:01,267 --> 00:40:05,267
a city that is known as a music and freedom city.

721
00:40:05,267 --> 00:40:10,267
Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville from July 25th to 27th.