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Welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

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Today, I am speaking to one of my heroes, John Attack,

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a Bitcoin core developer who I wouldn't be here without him.

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So, hello, John.

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Hey, how you doing?

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So, instead of doing the regular letting John tell the world who he is,

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I'm going to give you a story about who I am,

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And it's going to lead in nicely to this conversation here.

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So I started studying Bitcoin in 2016, where I took an online course at the University of Nicosia.

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And Andreas Antonopoulos was one of the teachers.

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And then I started writing about it on Medium in 2017.

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One of the articles about how to take control over your private keys when the whole Bitcoin hard fork happened went sort of semi-viral.

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So I kept on writing and I compiled these articles into a book.

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And then that was the only book that I had to my name.

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And I wasn't very happy with it.

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So in late 2018, I figured I should write a proper book about Bitcoin.

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And I promised myself to write a page a day for the entirety of 2019 as a New Year's resolution, right?

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And as with all New Year's resolutions, you break them after a while.

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And I broke mine after 106 days.

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And what came out of that was a book called Sovereignty Through Mathematics.

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It's my first proper Bitcoin book.

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It looks like this, or it looked like this, rather.

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Nowadays, it's been slightly re-edited and redesigned.

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It looks like this.

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And I published it in June, or I think in June, or May or June, and nobody gave a crap.

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No one read the book.

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Nothing happened with it.

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I published the first chapter on Medium, I believe.

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And there, John happened to find that chapter, and he really liked it, but he thought my

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writing was kind of crap.

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And John is a multilingualist who speaks like seven languages fluently and is very good with grammar and stuff.

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And the AI wasn't a thing back then.

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It's also a thing to know.

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Grammarly wasn't invented yet and so on.

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So John started helping me rewrite the book to make it better.

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And he also had a lot of technical knowledge and expertise and could point out where I was wrong and just make the whole thing a whole lot better.

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and after that i took 50 books um 50 of these paperbacks in my uh i brought them in my hand

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luggage to baltic honey badger in riga uh the og conference and uh i i sold 25 of them for

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cash on chain and lightning payments and i gave the other 25 away to bitcoiners that i liked

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and after that the book sort of started to take off and it got a life of its own and i got a lot

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of new contacts and a lot of good things happened uh eventually uh michael saylor put it on his

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hope.com website when uh when he got into onto the scene i i got a very surprising dm from saylor

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saying that he read the book and really liked it and that would not have happened hadn't it been for

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John Attacks. So a deep warm welcome to this show, John. I have been wanting to tell this story

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since 2019 because you haven't been properly given proper attention to all the work you put

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into this book. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything you did there.

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Yeah, seven years later.

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Yeah, exactly. And the story doesn't end there, though. I'm going to babble on for a bit longer

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here because we had conversations from, I believe, from May to August in 2019. That's when we worked

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on the book. And you devoted quite a bit of time to it and really did the work. But then all of a

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sudden, at one of the very last chapters, I think the very last chapter, actually, you suddenly

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pulled out and you said some things that were sort of surprising to me. And I'm going to read

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from a DM here. This is John talking. While I understand very well the ideas you express in it

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and can relate to them as someone who is also on the spectrum, it is too unnuanced,

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too unbalanced, and too unpolitically correct to risk putting my name to it, particularly for any

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potential open source sponsors in San Francisco and New York City. This is the sort of content

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that has nothing to do with my work on Bitcoin and could be damaging in the same way it was for

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James Damore. Do you remember? I hope people remember James Damore. He was the whistleblower

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about the DEY stuff in Google, right? If I remember correctly. So what happened there?

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Where were you and what led up to you pulling out and not wanting your name on my book?

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So I guess that is an interesting segue into our discussion.

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I think that was, you said, in August 2019.

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So I had been trying to learn to work on Bitcoin Core and contribute to Bitcoin Core starting in February of that year.

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and we can backtrack to that and discuss how that actually went down

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and what happened during that time

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because it was a very interesting time of change.

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But I had come back from spending two and a half weeks in the month of June

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in New York City in the offices of Chaincode Labs

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and I realized that it was probably better for me

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as I was at that time non-funded and working more or less full-time for free

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trying to contribute to Bitcoin for free

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and now that it was without any sort of support of any kind.

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And I was no longer working in my previous role

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of freelance software engineer,

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a very well-paid one at the time before.

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And so I was concerned about my ability to get funding.

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And at the time, pretty much my only task to get funding

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at that point where it was clear

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that I was not going to be funded by Chaincore Labs,

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my only other real option

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was the newly announced creation of Square Crypto.

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by Jack Dorsey,

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led by Miles Suter,

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who I did recommend to Miles

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that he select Steve Lee

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as the first manager of the new initiative.

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And that is, in fact,

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it could be just a coincidence,

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but in fact, Steve Lee was the first hire.

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But my only real chance to have funding at that time,

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and there were very few other funding organizations,

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was really to convince Steve Lee.

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And so I needed to keep my profile

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as controversial as possible at a time when there was a strong push for other types of profiles and

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identities than mine for developers. And we can get to that later if we need to. I don't hear you, Knut.

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Yes, I got a tweet here from Matt Corallo back in April 2018, where he says,

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It's long since time the Bitcoin community spent a ton more effort on recruiting and ensuring underrepresented groups,

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including women and especially folks with a different background, feel welcome in the community.

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So I think this is sort of a start of the DEY culture coming into Bitcoin Core, right?

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I think I missed that tweet in 2018,

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but I did see the same person

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watch a series of tweet storms in May of 2019,

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about three months after I had been trying to,

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more or less full-time become a Bitcoin core contributor.

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That was my one goal.

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And so it was very clear to me which way the wind was blowing.

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And even the way the process with Chaincore Labs took place,

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I had been planning for years to contribute to Bitcoin Core since maybe 2016, when around 2015 or 2016, I don't recall exactly, Vladimir Vanderland, then a longtime mid-maintainer of Bitcoin Core, began to follow me on Twitter.

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and to my surprise.

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And so I began to follow Vladimir's work on Bitcoin Core

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and I very much liked the kind of leadership style

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that I saw.

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To my mind, that was the best leadership

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of an open source project that I had seen.

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And I had spent considerable time,

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a number of years working on open source

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in other areas.

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And I wasn't pleased with the leadership style.

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And so Vladimir's style appealed to me immensely

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and basically inspired me to consider Bitcoin Core as my next path in life.

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And at the same time, my work environment,

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I was doing a lot of ass-saving, high-profile,

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saving missions for large multinationals in Europe

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when they would get caught with a bad choice of software team

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to implement something key and critical for them.

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And so they would call a very small number of people.

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I was on that list

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of the sort of top little

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elite in France where I was

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to go and fix things

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for them and save them against time

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and against space

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and the cost would usually be rather

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a bit higher than with the Indian

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and Ukrainian and wherever

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subcontractors they had been working with before

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that caught them in the hot water

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and so that was getting a bit

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well a bit woke

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and woke isn't really my thing

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and I thought

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But both at the same time, I had been saving in Bitcoin for years and believing in Bitcoin, and Bitcoin spoke to me.

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And I felt like the cypherpunk ideals of Bitcoin meant that maybe I would be moving towards a team that would be grizzled, gray-bearded sea hackers.

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And I thought this was perhaps the place where it's still going to be a bit safe from the encroachment of the—

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I don't like to use the word woke or even DEI, but there was critical race theory.

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There was all these radical left theories that I had glimpsed during my university days, even way before.

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And they terrified me, to be honest.

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I never thought they would go anywhere, but they did this slowly, you know, as we all know now,

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took over terrain in the academic circles and institutional circles.

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And then it sort of exploded during the mid-2010s, more or less.

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And that's what I was fleeing.

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And I was thinking, okay, Bitcoin seems to be a place where I can maybe avoid this nonsense.

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And that turned out to be wrong because just as I started working really full time and stopped doing my previous work to dedicate myself to Bitcoin Core, it came to Bitcoin Core as well.

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Yeah.

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And so the people funding Bitcoin Core developers at the time, the two companies that come up, Brink and Chaincode Labs, right?

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Brink did not exist yet.

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Brink did not exist.

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So it's Shane Code Labs first.

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Brink came about two years later.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I'm getting it wrong here.

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But Shane Code Labs is a private company, right?

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I believe the two founders of Shane Code Labs,

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they ran a high-frequency trading firm, I believe,

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called Hudson River Trading or something similar.

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And that allowed them, I believe,

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to have the means to have a,

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to dedicate part of their very lovely offices

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in a New York skyscraper to improving Bitcoin.

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And for years, both Sue Asks and Marcos,

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I forgot his first name,

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were working on Bitcoin as software engineers as well.

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Alex Marcos.

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Marcos.

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Yeah.

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I mean, around the same time here as Corallo's tweet in 2018, Adam Jonas comes to the scene, who is a guy that was taught at a school called the Flatiron School in New York, a coding boot camp that was started in 2012, I believe.

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Yeah, a very iconic building in New York.

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The thing is, so I'm not sure, but at the time, Jonas, he prefers to be called Jonas and not Adam.

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Jonas was, I believe, relatively new to Chenko Labs.

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He came just before that residency.

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John Newberry, I believe, began working at Chenko at around 2017.

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And so in 2018 or late 2018, perhaps to very early 2019, or perhaps earlier, Jonas was hired.

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But, you know, John was very, very, very active. He had a lot of energy. He was creating a lot of initiatives. Not only was he very prolific as a contributor to Bitcoin Core, he also created the residency.

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He created Bitcoin Optech, which was the newsletter, as well as the enterprise outreach for getting them to move to tap using Tapper and understanding Tapper.

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He later created the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club in early 2019 as well which I co with him for the first two years And then he later created Brink with Jonas So John Newberry created the Bitcoin Core Review Club created a co Bitcoin

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Optic, co-created what was the main name in Touch Tooth, Brink, in 2021, as well as,

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I think, the person behind the residency idea at Chaincode.

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And the 2019 summer residency was very ambitious.

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They were selecting about a dozen people to spend three months in Manhattan, fully housed, all costs covered, as well as receiving, I think, around $8,500 per month to work, basically to dedicate themselves to Bitcoin for three months.

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It was very ambitious and very well funded.

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And it only ever happened once.

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Yeah.

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The reason I mentioned this school that he came from is that they were very into the DEY thing.

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on their website, there's explicit race and gender-gated fellowships,

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BLM era DEI task force.

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I mean, New York City, academia, what do you want?

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Yeah, yeah.

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No, no, but just to mention that this is, I mean, it was in full bloom back then, right?

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They had Feelings Friday.

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What is a Feelings Friday?

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We had Freeling.

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he must have taken that with him from there then yes he did so so what what is a feelings friday

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i mean i think it was just where people were were encouraged to become vulnerable and express what

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they were happy and not maybe not so happy i don't remember exactly it was sort of a circle

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we all went around i think it made people both feel good and maybe it was a form of bonding but

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There was also vulnerability and sharing.

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I wasn't entirely comfortable with it because, well, I don't know.

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It's just, it's not like a bro kind of thing, definitely.

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Not that I'm a bro kind of person either, but it's just, I don't know.

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I don't know how to be.

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How do you behave in a situation like that?

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I mean, as someone who's maybe a tiny bit on the spectrum, I wasn't the most comfortable I could be.

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No, and I imagine a lot of developers to be sort of more introverted than extroverted and maybe not.

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Yeah, I mean, personally, I'm only happy working alone.

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I can't get things done well working in an office with a bunch of people around me.

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That probably was how most Bitcoin Core developers were.

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And that is no longer the kind of Bitcoin Core developers we have today, perhaps, because most of them are now in offices.

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So either they're all miserable as I would be if I was in office, or maybe they actually like it, or could be a bunch of nuances in between.

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But that has completely changed.

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But back to Change Code.

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So I'm hesitant to discuss on Newberry too much because I owe him a lot of gratitude in a way.

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Because Adam Jonas, my first contact with Jonas was an interview for the residency where he basically told me in the first three or five minutes that I would not be going further in the selections.

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This was in early March 2019 because they were looking for long-term contributor material and I didn't fit the bill.

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What I did not realize at the time was how I did not fit the bill.

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And I do believe, based on what I saw afterwards, that they were looking for certainly younger, less, perhaps less independent, more malleable, moldable, maybe more compliant or willing to be in an office.

226
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I was an experienced, independent, mature adult, you know, and I had responsibilities.

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I had mortgages.

228
00:17:44,020 --> 00:17:45,380
I had things to pay for.

229
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And so I didn't fit the bill.

230
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And I believe now that ultimately we're looking for something, they had a specific mission in mind.

231
00:17:56,340 --> 00:18:13,000
To put it gently, I believe that their idea was that Bitcoin Core should professionalize and become a bit more like Google and corporatize and offices and professional people who otherwise would have gone to Google was sort of the idea, I think.

232
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and I think there was a more specific idea as well

233
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in the minds of people like John

234
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:20,860
who created the residency

235
00:18:20,860 --> 00:18:23,100
and Jonas who was hired by John

236
00:18:23,100 --> 00:18:25,100
to help co-run that residency

237
00:18:25,100 --> 00:18:27,060
and Jonas was running the interviews

238
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so I was rejected

239
00:18:29,180 --> 00:18:32,000
and there are only two funding organizations

240
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,000
in all of Bitcoin that have rejected me

241
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:35,900
over the past seven to eight years

242
00:18:35,900 --> 00:18:38,460
and that was first one was Chainco

243
00:18:38,460 --> 00:18:40,200
and later on the next one was Brink

244
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but and all the other ones

245
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I'm very grateful to have said yes.

246
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:49,880
But I didn't fit the bill without even knowing more about me

247
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based on more or less who I was.

248
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So things that I probably couldn't change about myself.

249
00:18:58,100 --> 00:19:01,160
And then John, to his credit,

250
00:19:01,620 --> 00:19:05,800
saw that I was doing more reviewing and commits on Thor

251
00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:10,280
than probably half to all of the rest of the group combined

252
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:11,340
over the next two months.

253
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They were working, meeting together two or three times a week online, preparing for the residency during spring of 2019.

254
00:19:18,500 --> 00:19:23,560
Me, I was at home in France working on Bitcoin Core without any supervision whatsoever.

255
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:31,580
And I was starting to rack up the reviews as best I could as a new contributor, learning, reviewing.

256
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:33,860
And then I started getting some commits.

257
00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:36,160
Jonas did say to me, look, we don't know you.

258
00:19:36,260 --> 00:19:37,200
You should get some commits.

259
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:38,400
Maybe you should do a podcast.

260
00:19:38,580 --> 00:19:40,160
You should get your name out there.

261
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:42,080
all I wanted to do was work on

262
00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:43,600
four I didn't care about being famous

263
00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:45,940
playing the fame game and that's basically

264
00:19:45,940 --> 00:19:47,540
how I've done it for the last seven years

265
00:19:47,540 --> 00:19:49,980
that was a mistake

266
00:19:49,980 --> 00:19:51,420
fame is very helpful

267
00:19:51,420 --> 00:19:53,620
and more so in El Salvador in fact

268
00:19:53,620 --> 00:19:54,380
but in general

269
00:19:54,380 --> 00:19:57,900
but yet I believe that my work was speak for itself

270
00:19:57,900 --> 00:19:59,700
and it did and within two or three weeks

271
00:19:59,700 --> 00:20:01,640
I got a call from J-Code Labs

272
00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:03,980
and it was basically Jonas saying

273
00:20:03,980 --> 00:20:05,860
hey John Newberry has

274
00:20:05,860 --> 00:20:07,820
watched what you've been doing and he would

275
00:20:07,820 --> 00:20:09,920
like to know if you want to speak with him and I said sure

276
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:17,720
And Mr. John encouraged me and said, you should be more ambitious, team higher, you could do this, keep going.

277
00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:19,940
And so I did.

278
00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:26,080
And then late May, right around the time when the Blue Mat was writing about diversity in DEI,

279
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:31,740
they did call me back and say, hey, you're kicking ass more or less.

280
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:33,000
You want to come to New York City?

281
00:20:33,780 --> 00:20:39,840
So the rejection turned into come participate even though you're not in the full program and getting your costs covered.

282
00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:41,780
and you're not going to earn $8,500 a month.

283
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:44,520
But I was still invited to come for two and a half weeks

284
00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:48,440
to the Bitcoin part of the residency,

285
00:20:48,900 --> 00:20:50,480
the Bitcoin seminar before they would roll,

286
00:20:50,580 --> 00:20:52,180
receive some work every day in the office.

287
00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:57,140
And so I covered my costs of travel and I did go

288
00:20:57,140 --> 00:21:00,020
and they did place me in an apartment in Queens

289
00:21:00,020 --> 00:21:02,280
with the other residencies, residents.

290
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:04,440
They called themselves the resis.

291
00:21:04,700 --> 00:21:05,800
Residents, the resis.

292
00:21:06,540 --> 00:21:08,320
And it was a very interesting experience.

293
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:10,700
in many ways.

294
00:21:10,900 --> 00:21:12,480
I did come out of it a bit depressed.

295
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:13,680
I can explain why.

296
00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:16,100
But yeah, and so my experience with John

297
00:21:16,100 --> 00:21:17,040
was very helpful to me,

298
00:21:17,100 --> 00:21:18,240
and I'm very reluctant to.

299
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:19,640
My goal is not to,

300
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:21,000
and I've always been reluctant to,

301
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:25,160
to come out with the other things I know

302
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:26,940
because I'm grateful.

303
00:21:28,820 --> 00:21:30,560
There's a lot of nuance here,

304
00:21:30,820 --> 00:21:32,520
and of course people have

305
00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:34,580
different political opinions and stuff.

306
00:21:34,580 --> 00:21:42,940
I'm just very interested in the connection between wokeness and moral relativism.

307
00:21:43,100 --> 00:21:55,100
And I think like for Bitcoin plebs, they are mostly, I mean, they're leaning towards freedom values and, you know, anarcho-capitalism and such things, which is something I don't see in shitcoiners at all.

308
00:21:55,100 --> 00:22:13,180
And if I look at Brink's sponsors here, for instance, you have Coinbase and you have Zappo Bank, the Draper Foundation, and Marathon, and OKX, and Nexo, and BlockFi, and Gemini.

309
00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:15,640
At the time, there were very few funders.

310
00:22:16,100 --> 00:22:22,480
And to be frank, well, Zappo was one of the only other organizations willing to fund Bitcoin Core developers.

311
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:26,060
They were funding Anthony Towns, H.A. Towns at the time.

312
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:32,400
And OKEx was also one of the few that was willing to fund and did fund for a time.

313
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,140
And Coinbase said they would, but they never really did it well.

314
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:37,280
And they were pretty flaky.

315
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:44,300
And they left some core developers out to dry, all of a sudden cutting off the funding, if I remember correctly.

316
00:22:44,900 --> 00:22:52,000
So Coinbase was never very good about fulfilling their promise to support developers on Bitcoin, open source developers.

317
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:53,360
But OK, X did.

318
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:54,160
Sapo did.

319
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,820
And, you know, I'm uncomfortable with some of the criticisms.

320
00:22:57,300 --> 00:22:59,020
Yes, there may be shit corners funding.

321
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:07,480
But as far as I have seen, and you have to be fair, I have never, ever felt any coercion in any way.

322
00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:10,120
Maybe I was lucky, but I don't believe I heard it.

323
00:23:10,340 --> 00:23:11,660
I haven't heard from others either.

324
00:23:12,460 --> 00:23:14,220
People telling them to.

325
00:23:14,220 --> 00:23:25,000
I think that sort of coercion happens more in terms of soft power, soft influence, friendships, social friendships, time hung out together.

326
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,080
Not so much because your funder asks you to.

327
00:23:28,260 --> 00:23:31,800
I've never heard of a funder putting strings on their grant.

328
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:33,320
No.

329
00:23:33,620 --> 00:23:34,860
Apart from doing work.

330
00:23:34,860 --> 00:23:41,020
no no and i i don't believe there's a direct like i'm not accusing anyone of being corrupted

331
00:23:41,020 --> 00:23:48,240
directly and getting a bag of money for for doing corrupt things but but no if if there is corruption

332
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:54,640
and corruption with quotes i don't want to use overuse air quotes but but if there is sort of

333
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:59,880
that sort of thing going on it's on a social level yeah but that's sort of what i'm getting at like

334
00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:09,500
Is there a problem if the funders are shitcoiners and then probably not as freedom-oriented?

335
00:24:10,700 --> 00:24:17,420
I don't think anyone at Kraken sees Bitcoin as important as a Bitcoin maximalist does.

336
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:21,380
If you think that these other things have value too.

337
00:24:22,460 --> 00:24:25,920
Actually, Kraken had a very base founder.

338
00:24:26,540 --> 00:24:27,980
Chesty Howell was base.

339
00:24:27,980 --> 00:24:30,320
Yeah, maybe that's a bad example.

340
00:24:30,940 --> 00:24:33,800
Yeah, and I'm going to do a lot of bad examples here

341
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:38,620
because I'm not very good at understanding what these things are

342
00:24:38,620 --> 00:24:41,580
in terms of what the companies do.

343
00:24:41,860 --> 00:24:49,540
But I'm interested in the connection between softening up core to DEY values.

344
00:24:49,540 --> 00:24:55,180
And I think in the beginning, Bitcoin core developers were very,

345
00:24:55,180 --> 00:24:57,200
what's the word?

346
00:24:59,540 --> 00:25:00,320
When you're

347
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:04,180
they weren't afraid of conflict

348
00:25:04,180 --> 00:25:05,680
let's just say that. They were

349
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:07,940
disagreeable is the word and they managed

350
00:25:07,940 --> 00:25:09,840
to somehow cooperate anyway

351
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,120
and I feel this DIY

352
00:25:12,120 --> 00:25:13,780
thing is a sort of a forced

353
00:25:13,780 --> 00:25:16,020
agreeableness upon

354
00:25:16,020 --> 00:25:18,020
the whole thing. I don't know. What are your

355
00:25:18,020 --> 00:25:18,700
thoughts around that?

356
00:25:20,300 --> 00:25:21,740
That isn't what

357
00:25:21,740 --> 00:25:24,160
concerned, that isn't what impacted

358
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:32,600
me i i have been personally i felt very very very impacted by the dei push the number one

359
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:39,460
issue for me for working on core has been a small number of people who are pushing

360
00:25:39,460 --> 00:25:47,860
i wouldn't say purely necessarily for dei but that the result of their they desired a social

361
00:25:47,860 --> 00:25:54,040
change in court that they then enacted and the problem was that if you were not on board

362
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:59,040
See, someone like me was expected to support this.

363
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:11,920
I wasn't going to be, at the time, I wasn't going to be the next maintainer because it was quite clear that at the time it was very desired for a female maintainer to be the next one or two maintainers.

364
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:34,320
And in my eyes, it was quite clear based on many things I saw up close in person as well as in interactions on the repository and other things that the goal was to train up and groom a certain person who was chosen to be groomed as a maintainer at the time, probably for the peer-to-peer layer.

365
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:39,440
And then that person, at some point, another person appeared on the scene who was also chosen.

366
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:44,120
and we were more or less expected to support and promote that

367
00:26:44,120 --> 00:26:51,040
and help market these people who benefited from immediate runway of funding,

368
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,080
media coverage, podcasts, articles in the press.

369
00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:02,040
And I personally helped promote them because I was contributing for two years to Bitcoin Optech.

370
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,320
And so I wrote articles that were favorable to their work.

371
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:13,920
and then after two years of this, I realized that, hey, it took me a little bit of time

372
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,020
because first I just wanted to become a contributor and find funding

373
00:27:17,020 --> 00:27:22,260
and as I wrote to you, I had to be very careful and self-censor

374
00:27:22,260 --> 00:27:25,780
and once I did manage to succeed and find my place,

375
00:27:25,780 --> 00:27:30,800
I became less and less comfortable with the role expected of me

376
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:34,080
because I felt it wasn't the right thing to do.

377
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,120
didn't think it was a pure meritocracy

378
00:27:36,120 --> 00:27:37,740
if there were people who were chosen

379
00:27:37,740 --> 00:27:39,720
based on their relationships

380
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,040
or based on their identity

381
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:55,380
who we were expected to support and the problem got much worse than that I can kinpoint it was that time when my Bitcoin poor prolific contributions came to an end

382
00:27:55,380 --> 00:27:57,500
when I was seen as,

383
00:27:57,980 --> 00:27:59,760
it happened on one specific pull request

384
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:01,080
when I made a review

385
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,880
that was, I believe,

386
00:28:05,220 --> 00:28:06,220
taken personally

387
00:28:06,220 --> 00:28:08,120
and caused a conflict.

388
00:28:08,820 --> 00:28:10,560
Is this, yeah,

389
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,660
Is this in June 2021 by any chance?

390
00:28:15,140 --> 00:28:19,440
Yeah, I mean, it was a full request made by Amidi,

391
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,500
who at the time, I believe, it was pretty clear to me

392
00:28:23,500 --> 00:28:27,620
that she was being trained and groomed.

393
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,120
She had much higher privileges on the repository

394
00:28:30,120 --> 00:28:31,940
than many other people did.

395
00:28:32,740 --> 00:28:35,120
And my review was just technical.

396
00:28:35,300 --> 00:28:36,160
It was not personal.

397
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:40,820
and it led to a whole bunch of fallout

398
00:28:40,820 --> 00:28:44,180
because, of course, the trajectory of that pull request

399
00:28:44,180 --> 00:28:45,560
changed after my review

400
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:47,420
because it was an area of code I knew well.

401
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:54,820
And I realized that I was expected to social approve things

402
00:28:54,820 --> 00:28:56,600
that I didn't technically agree with

403
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,180
and that if I did not,

404
00:28:59,260 --> 00:29:02,540
I was seen as not being supportive of the agenda.

405
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,380
And the whole thing blew up.

406
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:11,480
It came out that John was actually behind the boy quests because he was defending it rather than Amidi.

407
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:16,000
And, or he was, he took it on himself.

408
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,480
There was a sort of armor around these people when they were chosen.

409
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:22,400
It was very risky for you.

410
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,820
See, Amidi had a mentor who was the same A.J. Towns.

411
00:29:26,820 --> 00:29:29,380
and so you would get

412
00:29:29,380 --> 00:29:30,960
John and AJ

413
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:33,040
and also Fankwik

414
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,440
on your case if you were not seen as

415
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:36,620
supportive of these people

416
00:29:36,620 --> 00:29:39,720
and there was a sort of a tight

417
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:40,920
group of

418
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:43,480
there was a

419
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:45,200
violence of Roman soldiers

420
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:47,460
ready to step in and protect these chosen people

421
00:29:47,460 --> 00:29:48,600
if you were not supportive

422
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,440
and they all came to a head

423
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:53,200
at that one full request which we can

424
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:54,200
name

425
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,560
that changed the course of my career

426
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,760
so you mean they defended

427
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:01,620
them because of their gender

428
00:30:01,620 --> 00:30:03,880
or because of their cultural background

429
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:05,660
and not on technical

430
00:30:05,660 --> 00:30:06,560
you know I think it was

431
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,520
a mix of this person was picked

432
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:11,100
they were assigned them a mentor

433
00:30:11,100 --> 00:30:12,880
or a mentor would agree to come and help them

434
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,500
I think they were handpicked

435
00:30:15,500 --> 00:30:17,700
whether that was based on their gender or not

436
00:30:17,700 --> 00:30:19,240
I mean

437
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,480
it looked that way

438
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,600
it looked that way

439
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,180
because it didn't appear like the person was exceptional.

440
00:30:26,500 --> 00:30:28,820
The people they picked were not exceptional in other ways.

441
00:30:29,020 --> 00:30:30,560
But, you know, how can you say?

442
00:30:30,620 --> 00:30:32,140
Maybe they just had a special relationship.

443
00:30:32,340 --> 00:30:34,960
Maybe they were mutual fans of each other.

444
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:36,140
You know, this is human.

445
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:37,200
There are nuances.

446
00:30:37,980 --> 00:30:40,760
But the problem was because the pattern kept repeating.

447
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:43,980
And it was very clear to me that I had to be very careful.

448
00:30:43,980 --> 00:30:47,180
You were basically operating on a minefield.

449
00:30:47,980 --> 00:30:50,120
And that is still the case.

450
00:30:50,220 --> 00:30:52,980
It's just a little bit attenuated.

451
00:30:53,600 --> 00:31:03,540
But the PR in question, the pull request that changed the course of my trajectory working on Bitcoin, was Bitcoin Core pull request 22,245.

452
00:31:05,420 --> 00:31:07,960
And there was fallout from that.

453
00:31:08,180 --> 00:31:17,420
I mean, Andrew H.L. acted, Peter Wheeler acted, Ben DeCarmen acted, Marco Falke acted, John Newberry acted.

454
00:31:17,420 --> 00:31:21,480
The whole list of the thing was going to be merged.

455
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:40,140
Reacts. One neutral comment by Vladimir, the lead maintainer. More comments. And then I made one review comment. I didn't say knack or anything aggressive. I just suggested that this wasn't the right direction.

456
00:31:40,140 --> 00:31:46,860
and i got a bunch of private angry messages from john he took to he took me to the case to me on

457
00:31:46,860 --> 00:31:52,940
the bitcoin board of irc uh myself as well as vassil dimoff as well as the lead maintainer

458
00:31:52,940 --> 00:31:59,820
vladimir and then after that a bunch of people agreed with me suhas daftour who was the expert

459
00:31:59,820 --> 00:32:08,060
in peer-to-peer agreed with me people started lining up with my comment and the port was closed

460
00:32:08,060 --> 00:32:10,180
instead of merged after it had five

461
00:32:10,180 --> 00:32:12,180
acts by the most political contributors.

462
00:32:13,380 --> 00:32:14,120
So I got

463
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:15,240
a shit ton of hate for that.

464
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:17,320
And what was the pull request about?

465
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:19,160
It was

466
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,880
to stop, it was a

467
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,400
sort of a fine

468
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:26,160
P2P

469
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,140
stop sending send adder V2 message

470
00:32:28,140 --> 00:32:29,680
to block relabel me peers.

471
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:31,920
It was an area that I knew well

472
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,240
for having reviewed it

473
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:36,140
intensively and that Vasav Dimov

474
00:32:36,140 --> 00:32:37,900
knew well because he was told he had written

475
00:32:37,900 --> 00:32:40,000
and Lidinger, Van der Landry, well

476
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,060
because Lidinger

477
00:32:42,060 --> 00:32:42,880
had merged it.

478
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:45,480
So, yeah.

479
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:47,700
So the three people who really knew it well

480
00:32:47,700 --> 00:32:49,480
didn't agree and then everybody else aligned

481
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,720
with my review. But my review

482
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:53,180
bucked five acts

483
00:32:53,180 --> 00:32:55,340
by future

484
00:32:55,340 --> 00:32:57,260
maintainer and project owner

485
00:32:57,260 --> 00:32:59,640
Ed Chao, by Peter Wella, who was also

486
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:00,960
project maintainer and

487
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,640
owner Marco Falke, who was also

488
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:05,540
maintainer. So three maintainers

489
00:33:05,540 --> 00:33:06,600
that already said yes.

490
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,180
John Newberry said yes

491
00:33:09,180 --> 00:33:11,160
Of course it came out that

492
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:13,200
John had actually suggested to Amiti

493
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:15,320
To do this change and so Amiti was just

494
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:17,480
Proxied and I don't think that

495
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,220
I think it came to light that

496
00:33:19,220 --> 00:33:21,020
A lot of that was going on where basically

497
00:33:21,020 --> 00:33:23,020
John was suggesting things

498
00:33:23,020 --> 00:33:25,580
The problem back at Chaincode that I saw

499
00:33:25,580 --> 00:33:27,280
Was that we were

500
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:29,280
Expected to help people

501
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:30,580
That were being

502
00:33:30,580 --> 00:33:32,100
The hand chosen people

503
00:33:32,100 --> 00:33:34,180
We were expected to help them

504
00:33:34,180 --> 00:33:45,720
And that came in the form of private requests to help understand Bitcoin for technical details or to help review code or to help maybe help them figure something out with the code.

505
00:33:46,540 --> 00:33:49,000
And I asked around and it wasn't just me.

506
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:53,140
It was happening to the other residents who said, yeah, yeah, they asked me too.

507
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:53,920
And they asked me too.

508
00:33:54,180 --> 00:33:58,600
And basically our role was to help train and support the handpicked people.

509
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:05,200
But I didn't realize at the time, I just realized that after the months that came after that, nobody was funded except the hand-picked people.

510
00:34:05,420 --> 00:34:11,240
And all the guys were just unemployed and wondering what to do, and there were no perspectives on finding funding.

511
00:34:12,060 --> 00:34:18,500
And I believe three people from that residency are still active on Bitcoin Core and Funded NAN.

512
00:34:18,500 --> 00:34:28,300
But it took me almost a year, and the other two, it took them literally years, maybe three years, to find funding.

513
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:32,080
and these guys are active today

514
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:38,140
but it was crazy the sacrifice you had to make

515
00:34:38,140 --> 00:34:39,900
at the time to find funding

516
00:34:39,900 --> 00:34:41,760
in terms of financial sacrifice

517
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:45,380
and so it was very blatant to the people

518
00:34:45,380 --> 00:34:48,600
who were spending a year, one year, two years, three years

519
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:50,800
with no income trying to make it work

520
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,620
that's really painful, my dude

521
00:34:53,620 --> 00:34:54,980
that is super painful

522
00:34:54,980 --> 00:34:57,360
that is fucking painful

523
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:16,580
And I say that with real feeling because I went from earning a lot of money to earning zero money because I was a senior engineer and technically saving assets at multinational corporations on intense missions that were very well paid to being basically a free software open source developer.

524
00:35:16,580 --> 00:35:36,500
And we were watching as the hand pit people would just glide right through with zero financial loss, zero drop in income from maybe their previous job or maybe just straight out graduation later on, right into funding with zero financial difficulty or sacrifice.

525
00:35:36,500 --> 00:35:39,340
And so to my eyes, it was relatively blatant.

526
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:44,580
And I don't want to speak for the other people, but we were all discussing it.

527
00:35:44,780 --> 00:35:49,860
Like we were sharing our difficulties that we were experiencing in life because here we are.

528
00:35:49,940 --> 00:35:55,380
We wanted to work on Bitcoin or Bitcoin Core or Lightning, as it were, depending on the developer.

529
00:35:55,820 --> 00:35:57,860
And there was no funding and no support.

530
00:35:58,000 --> 00:35:59,100
And we were all struggling.

531
00:35:59,100 --> 00:36:04,920
And so we were taking freelance missions and discussing what we can do and supporting each other.

532
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:11,700
and while the chosen ones just glided right through on the red carpet that was rolled out.

533
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,340
And it was a little bit disgusting, to be honest.

534
00:36:15,240 --> 00:36:16,960
I mean, yeah, there is bitterness.

535
00:36:17,260 --> 00:36:19,140
And would I have done it again? Probably not.

536
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:26,140
As much as it was my goal in life, all I wanted to do in life was work on Bitcoin.

537
00:36:27,140 --> 00:36:30,240
And did you apply for funding from Brink here?

538
00:36:30,500 --> 00:36:32,120
Did you get it? What happened?

539
00:36:32,900 --> 00:36:35,120
It didn't exist until...

540
00:36:35,980 --> 00:36:40,140
I think Brink was created the same year as that whole request I cited

541
00:36:40,140 --> 00:36:42,720
that pretty much ended my career in core.

542
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,280
And I didn't explain how that happened, but that could be explained.

543
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,860
But it marked a before and after, a very clear before and after.

544
00:36:50,980 --> 00:36:52,740
I was extremely prolific up to that point.

545
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:54,820
And after that, everything changed.

546
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:00,200
And was that just the funding or did you feel like...

547
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,600
I was funded at that time by Spiral.

548
00:37:02,940 --> 00:37:05,100
That was called Square Crypto at the time.

549
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:06,240
Oh, yeah.

550
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,800
But then Brink was created a little bit after that.

551
00:37:12,300 --> 00:37:16,640
No, Brink was created before that, late 2020, early 2021.

552
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:20,960
And I had applied before that pull request that I cited.

553
00:37:21,580 --> 00:37:26,260
That pull request I cited was in June 2021, June 14th.

554
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:26,680
How interesting.

555
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:27,300
That's my birthday.

556
00:37:27,860 --> 00:37:29,500
It was created on my birthday in 2021.

557
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:39,300
So I think the week or two before that whole request, I had received word from John, again, that I was rejected.

558
00:37:39,460 --> 00:37:42,320
I did apply to Brink, and I was rejected.

559
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:47,880
So the only two funding organizations ever rejected me, and thank you to all the other ones,

560
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:52,000
our chain code labs that said no to me, and then later sort of said yes.

561
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:57,600
And then to, thanks to my working super hard.

562
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:06,000
and then um brook i applied to bring in and somebody said no but what was it only the funding

563
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:11,420
or did you feel a motivational hit there or like were you depressed by this whole thing is that why

564
00:38:11,420 --> 00:38:21,080
you became less prolific i started being funded in march 2020 after on my in my 13th month of

565
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:24,860
working more or less half-time to full-time on Bitcoin Core.

566
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:25,960
It was all I wanted to do.

567
00:38:26,460 --> 00:38:29,280
In my 13th month, I received my first funding

568
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,500
with a grant that began with Square Crypto.

569
00:38:32,720 --> 00:38:35,600
At the time, it was $80,000 a year.

570
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,480
My first grant was for $80,000 for one year.

571
00:38:38,980 --> 00:38:43,780
So definitely not in the upper echelon of core developer pay,

572
00:38:44,180 --> 00:38:46,260
but it was a start.

573
00:38:46,420 --> 00:38:49,620
And I could, you know, yes, it was several times less

574
00:38:49,620 --> 00:38:54,780
than I was learning previously as an experienced developer.

575
00:38:56,660 --> 00:38:57,920
But it was something.

576
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:02,520
And so I was already funded, thankfully, by that time.

577
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:06,000
And Spiral, Square Crypto, which became Spiral later on,

578
00:39:06,100 --> 00:39:08,020
did fund me for four years before dropping me.

579
00:39:10,460 --> 00:39:15,340
Some people within Spiral nowadays are not very friendly to me.

580
00:39:15,340 --> 00:39:16,300
So, yeah.

581
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:20,660
But did you feel less motivated after that?

582
00:39:20,780 --> 00:39:22,160
Like, what did you feel internally?

583
00:39:22,500 --> 00:39:24,220
The most demotivating thing,

584
00:39:24,900 --> 00:39:26,840
as soon as you have even a little bit of funding

585
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:27,980
to make ends meet,

586
00:39:28,060 --> 00:39:29,920
then it no longer really demotivates you

587
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:31,500
until you see maybe someone else

588
00:39:31,500 --> 00:39:32,660
hitting three times more

589
00:39:32,660 --> 00:39:33,820
who's also a new developer.

590
00:39:35,060 --> 00:39:37,900
Just because the red carpet

591
00:39:37,900 --> 00:39:39,580
was rolled out for that person

592
00:39:39,580 --> 00:39:40,600
and not for you.

593
00:39:41,060 --> 00:39:42,700
But it might be twice more,

594
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:43,700
maybe three times more.

595
00:39:43,700 --> 00:39:48,580
some people sacked grants very effectively i was actually accused of being the record of older in

596
00:39:48,580 --> 00:39:55,940
sacking grants i wasn't the first i only did it twice actually every other year of the eight i was

597
00:39:55,940 --> 00:40:01,460
on one single grant as i am currently uh with open stats and that is something i'd like to point

598
00:40:01,460 --> 00:40:06,500
out i see a lot of people criticizing all the funding organizations cancel all the funding to

599
00:40:06,500 --> 00:40:11,700
developers on court and i disagree with that and i'd like to mention something and this this this

600
00:40:11,700 --> 00:40:17,000
This criticism does come from the, I would say, the NOS or the BIP-110 side.

601
00:40:18,500 --> 00:40:21,300
They lump all of the funding organizations together.

602
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:24,360
But they really aren't all the same.

603
00:40:24,580 --> 00:40:26,820
They are very different, in my humble opinion.

604
00:40:27,820 --> 00:40:31,620
So some are more independent than others.

605
00:40:32,420 --> 00:40:37,340
Let's say for the sake of, let's say there's a core orthodoxy.

606
00:40:37,340 --> 00:40:41,880
Let's say there's the core, these are the people we want core.

607
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:46,000
There are some that will follow that orthodoxy and there are others that are more independent.

608
00:40:46,820 --> 00:40:49,720
And happily, someone wants to remain independent.

609
00:40:50,420 --> 00:40:57,580
And I would say the more independent ones would be OpenSats, notably, and perhaps HRF Foundation.

610
00:40:57,840 --> 00:40:58,740
They have their agenda.

611
00:40:58,860 --> 00:41:03,060
It's not so much tied to core as it is to other things, I would guess.

612
00:41:03,060 --> 00:41:05,340
and then on the other hand

613
00:41:05,340 --> 00:41:07,920
you have the more core-centric funding organizations

614
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,720
like Brink, Chaincode Labs

615
00:41:10,720 --> 00:41:14,660
and Spiral is sort of in the middle

616
00:41:14,660 --> 00:41:16,640
because Spiral has a focus on Lightning

617
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:18,180
as well as on design

618
00:41:18,180 --> 00:41:22,500
and so Spiral is sort of in its own category

619
00:41:22,500 --> 00:41:25,760
but the core development side of Spiral

620
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,340
is fairly core-centric as well

621
00:41:28,340 --> 00:41:30,440
whereas OpenSats has

622
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:44,920
OpenSaaS has been willing for years I believe to fund a Knox developer They have recently begun funding a BitCoin developer to work with Eric Vosel

623
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:46,000
His name is Philip.

624
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,400
And so that's a full-time grant

625
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:50,780
to work on another implementation.

626
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:53,640
And it's my understanding is that the only reason

627
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,880
OpenStats does not currently fund a Notts developer

628
00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:59,560
is because they haven't gotten an application yet

629
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,520
from someone who they felt was qualified enough to receive.

630
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,520
Okay, yeah, yeah.

631
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:11,840
But OpenStats is, I think, clearly willing to support non-core implementations.

632
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:29,280
Yeah. I've seen, first of all, a thread from Vitalik Buterin back in 2014, where he explains why he didn't try to build Ethereum on Bitcoin,

633
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:35,340
because he was basically told to fuck off.

634
00:42:35,540 --> 00:42:36,880
And we don't want that here.

635
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,560
We want Bitcoin to be money and simple and one purpose and stuff.

636
00:42:41,060 --> 00:42:44,620
And I think it's the Starkware guy I saw an interview with

637
00:42:44,620 --> 00:42:46,640
where he also says similar things

638
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:52,340
that a bunch of core developers back then didn't want that there.

639
00:42:52,500 --> 00:42:56,560
The narrative is sort of like, but now core is much more open

640
00:42:56,560 --> 00:43:02,920
and core is much more willing to innovate and all this and at the same time you have this opnet stuff

641
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:10,800
and the citria stuff and people building or basically doing shitcoin scams on bitcoin uh and

642
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:16,620
and and the it's like the attitude has completely changed with this and do you think this is

643
00:43:16,620 --> 00:43:24,280
connected like like how how is this connected to the whole wokeness slide and and like if it's not

644
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:31,120
the funding what what is it why why has the culture changed from from like protecting bitcoin

645
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:41,900
as money to to more uh shit coins on bitcoin well first of all the people who were the chosen one

646
00:43:41,900 --> 00:43:50,300
that in my experience speaking with him were much more spoke much more highly of vitalik and

647
00:43:50,300 --> 00:43:53,380
and shitcoinery in general, or Ethereum, if you will,

648
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:55,060
something that I would.

649
00:43:55,220 --> 00:43:58,140
I always considered Vitalik to be a bit of a soothsayer,

650
00:43:58,300 --> 00:43:59,920
you know, playing the magic flute

651
00:43:59,920 --> 00:44:02,940
and the snake charming the VCs sort of thing.

652
00:44:02,940 --> 00:44:08,440
But if I said that to at least two of the hand-chosen people,

653
00:44:08,860 --> 00:44:10,060
the chosen people,

654
00:44:10,620 --> 00:44:13,420
they would very vehemently disagree with me, and they did.

655
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:18,660
Some of my arguments with them were over shitcoinery and all that.

656
00:44:18,660 --> 00:44:20,440
I was definitely a Bitcoin-only person.

657
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:21,240
I always have been.

658
00:44:21,620 --> 00:44:22,860
I have zero interest in Ethereum.

659
00:44:23,220 --> 00:44:28,760
I don't really have a high opinion of the other ones.

660
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:40,080
And so I'm certainly not an admirer of Vitalik, aside from that he's probably quite intelligent in this particular way, obviously, because he's been successful with Ethereum to an extent.

661
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:44,980
But that's not something I want on Bitcoin or something that I admire as a Bitcoin core developer.

662
00:44:45,740 --> 00:44:53,620
And so, look, a lot of this goes back to my, as I mentioned in my presentation at Plan B, selection criteria matters.

663
00:44:53,940 --> 00:45:05,900
And when you have an organization that is running the developer selection and training pipeline, the selection criteria they are using changes the way your organization will look.

664
00:45:06,020 --> 00:45:10,780
And there was a clear emphasis on a certain type of person.

665
00:45:10,780 --> 00:45:26,360
It was clear for years that the OG maintainers and project owners were either burning out as maintainers, wishing to set back as maintainers, or perhaps preferring to work more on their strengths like research.

666
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:30,120
And so new people had to be found to pass the torch to.

667
00:45:30,700 --> 00:45:35,820
But the selection criteria for those new people obviously changes everything.

668
00:45:35,820 --> 00:45:48,900
And so if you choose, if you select for people who are young, like shit coins from academia or from, you know, big cities or blue cities or whatever sort of background, woke friendly.

669
00:45:49,460 --> 00:46:01,860
I believe the people who were making the selection, John Newberry did have a what looked to me like a far left political leaning in his other Twitter profile.

670
00:46:01,860 --> 00:46:05,740
He did have another profile account, which I found looking him up.

671
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,220
And I was like, okay, this guy is like radical left.

672
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:19,980
But I didn't talk about it to anyone actually until now because I was just keen on trying to make, on optimizing my ability to contribute.

673
00:46:20,940 --> 00:46:24,700
And so if you start attacking people, so I just noted and learned about it.

674
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:26,520
And I said, okay, this guy's pretty far left.

675
00:46:26,980 --> 00:46:28,820
And he chose Jonas.

676
00:46:28,940 --> 00:46:29,920
Was Jonas far left?

677
00:46:30,340 --> 00:46:31,420
Maybe not so much.

678
00:46:31,420 --> 00:46:32,440
He was into baseball

679
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:35,740
He was scouting baseball talent

680
00:46:35,740 --> 00:46:37,580
But what do you do when you scout baseball talent?

681
00:46:37,660 --> 00:46:38,480
You're looking at youth

682
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,160
You're looking at young people

683
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:43,620
And so I think that came through

684
00:46:43,620 --> 00:46:45,060
The goal was

685
00:46:45,060 --> 00:46:47,500
Maybe they were preferring

686
00:46:47,500 --> 00:46:49,320
Certain gender or perhaps they were preferring

687
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,140
Certain racial diversity

688
00:46:51,140 --> 00:46:52,680
Maybe not, I'm not sure

689
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:54,300
Gender I believe was clearly the case

690
00:46:54,300 --> 00:46:57,080
But they were also having preferences

691
00:46:57,080 --> 00:46:58,600
In age

692
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,760
they wanted youth

693
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,940
the wonderkin

694
00:47:04,940 --> 00:47:06,760
who was selected among the men

695
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:08,000
was Antoine

696
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:09,880
Antoine was probably the youngest guy

697
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:12,520
he was 19 or something

698
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:13,720
maybe 20, 21

699
00:47:13,720 --> 00:47:14,680
but he was very young

700
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:18,480
and he was brilliant until he had his following up with Cenkow

701
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,080
which I think everybody knows about

702
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:21,160
if they don't they can look it up

703
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:22,960
he was also from France and a friend

704
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,180
and it made me very sad what happened

705
00:47:25,180 --> 00:47:27,860
between Antoine and Spiral

706
00:47:27,860 --> 00:47:33,020
Steve Lee, Matt Corral, and between Antoine and his former employer, Chain Code Labs.

707
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:37,700
But he was the brilliant guy of the residency, and Chain Code welcomed him.

708
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:43,000
He was the only one, apart from the two women who participated, who got funding.

709
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:45,040
And I've lost my train of thought.

710
00:47:46,780 --> 00:47:50,780
No, but it's very interesting to me, these dynamics,

711
00:47:50,780 --> 00:47:55,760
because I view the average pleb hodler as, you know,

712
00:47:55,840 --> 00:48:01,480
the red state shotgun pickup truck guy who wants to be independent

713
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:02,740
and don't tread on me.

714
00:48:03,500 --> 00:48:07,260
And then you have the developer class that is getting more and more blue-haired

715
00:48:07,260 --> 00:48:10,740
the further down the wokeness, the slide you go.

716
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:12,640
And then you have...

717
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,420
And I found my... I'm sorry, I found my train of thought.

718
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:20,280
So if you're selecting for young people who want to live and work in Manhattan,

719
00:48:20,780 --> 00:48:23,060
or San Francisco,

720
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:25,040
or later on,

721
00:48:25,100 --> 00:48:26,340
bring office London,

722
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:29,840
you're definitely going to be excluding the people like,

723
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:31,820
let's say me,

724
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:32,720
who doesn't want to be,

725
00:48:32,900 --> 00:48:35,220
I no longer want to be in big city.

726
00:48:35,300 --> 00:48:36,800
I had my big city days in Paris.

727
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,860
I did spend some time in New York City.

728
00:48:40,620 --> 00:48:41,620
But that's behind me now.

729
00:48:41,780 --> 00:48:43,780
You're excluding the guy with three kids

730
00:48:43,780 --> 00:48:44,300
who's married,

731
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:45,480
who has a mortgage to pay,

732
00:48:45,820 --> 00:48:47,260
who's not going to up and move

733
00:48:47,260 --> 00:48:50,540
to the Chenko Labs offices for a year.

734
00:48:50,780 --> 00:48:58,080
You're excluding the guy like me who would rather be building a citadel in El Salvador or surfing in France.

735
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:00,280
You're excluding a lot of people.

736
00:49:01,300 --> 00:49:03,600
And so what kind of people are you left with?

737
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:10,780
Well, I mean, it speaks for itself what you're going to get if you select for that.

738
00:49:11,460 --> 00:49:15,660
And so I got some pushback on Twitter from somebody who said,

739
00:49:15,660 --> 00:49:21,500
well, it's pretty odd that someone who wants to make an office in El Salvador

740
00:49:21,500 --> 00:49:23,120
would be criticizing offices.

741
00:49:23,740 --> 00:49:28,500
Well, I no longer really think that I want to make an office at all

742
00:49:28,500 --> 00:49:30,160
because I already have too much on my plate

743
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:32,660
and it's very hard to be productive already, especially in El Salvador.

744
00:49:33,220 --> 00:49:34,980
El Salvador is its own challenge.

745
00:49:35,460 --> 00:49:37,660
But if you were to make an office in El Salvador,

746
00:49:38,060 --> 00:49:41,240
you certainly would not be attracted to the same profile of people

747
00:49:41,240 --> 00:49:42,900
as Chaincode Labs in New York

748
00:49:42,900 --> 00:49:46,280
and Spiral in San Francisco,

749
00:49:46,460 --> 00:49:47,520
wherever it is over there,

750
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:50,120
or Localhost in San Francisco,

751
00:49:50,700 --> 00:49:52,440
or MITBCI in Boston,

752
00:49:52,980 --> 00:49:55,220
or London, where Brink is.

753
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:58,220
I mean, these are completely different destinations and profiles.

754
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:01,620
Yeah, and then you have the third category,

755
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:05,280
which is a lot of miners fall into this category, I think.

756
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:07,440
These are my biases.

757
00:50:07,740 --> 00:50:09,340
I'm showing them to the world here.

758
00:50:09,340 --> 00:50:15,120
and the VC funders that are just the Gordon Gekko types

759
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:16,600
that are in love with money

760
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,340
and just want to make as much fiat gains as soon as possible.

761
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:24,000
Yeah, and see, if your office is also in the US

762
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:25,840
where you have capital gains on Bitcoin,

763
00:50:26,340 --> 00:50:28,660
ChainCodeLabs only pays you in dollars.

764
00:50:28,860 --> 00:50:29,880
They do not pay you in Bitcoin.

765
00:50:30,300 --> 00:50:33,220
Whereas funders like OpenSats and HRF,

766
00:50:33,660 --> 00:50:37,260
they, as far as I know, only pay or prefer to pay only in Bitcoin.

767
00:50:37,260 --> 00:50:40,800
So you're encouraging different kinds of people

768
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,040
If you have the developer in New York City

769
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:44,700
Who is paid 100% in fiat

770
00:50:44,700 --> 00:50:47,860
And who is in that environment

771
00:50:47,860 --> 00:50:51,700
Versus someone in working remotely

772
00:50:51,700 --> 00:50:54,120
Getting their grant paid in Bitcoin

773
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:57,180
Or in El Salvador or wherever they are

774
00:50:57,180 --> 00:50:58,820
Far off in the field

775
00:50:58,820 --> 00:51:02,180
Perhaps in some Bitcoin circular economy

776
00:51:02,180 --> 00:51:03,640
You're definitely working more with people

777
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:05,200
Who use Bitcoin as money

778
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,060
whereas in the U.S.

779
00:51:08,180 --> 00:51:09,400
you have the mentality

780
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:11,040
of the digital asset narrative

781
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:12,340
that Bitcoin as an asset

782
00:51:12,340 --> 00:51:16,080
which justifies the capital gains taxes

783
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:17,600
because it's an asset

784
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:18,700
which

785
00:51:18,700 --> 00:51:22,180
and I fear that we are

786
00:51:22,180 --> 00:51:23,960
more and more even here in El Salvador

787
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:25,180
and I spoke about this yesterday

788
00:51:25,180 --> 00:51:26,680
with a friend of mine in the Bitcoin office

789
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,860
who runs the Bitcoin office for Stacey

790
00:51:29,860 --> 00:51:32,860
Mario who runs also the AI office

791
00:51:32,860 --> 00:51:33,960
you know I asked him

792
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:40,480
And, you know, I feel like the Bitcoin is money narrative is going down here a little bit since the INF deal.

793
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:41,280
I could be wrong.

794
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:45,920
And everyone, the talk of the town at the moment is assets on Bitcoin.

795
00:51:47,060 --> 00:51:48,180
Even here in El Salvador.

796
00:51:48,700 --> 00:51:56,280
Oh, and it's awful because, like, I think this is the worry of the shotgun pickup truck player.

797
00:51:56,340 --> 00:52:03,100
But I would sort of represent that as, like, the family man who just wants to say fuck you to the government as much as possible.

798
00:52:03,100 --> 00:52:09,420
like uh we are where because we want to be responsible for our own lives and therefore

799
00:52:09,420 --> 00:52:15,660
we get our freedoms because we we we earn it uh like that's that's why we are into bitcoin that's

800
00:52:15,660 --> 00:52:21,440
why any bitcoin maximalist is into bitcoin in in my view because we understand money and we

801
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:27,340
understand the importance of not diluting it and uh and all of this stuff and then you have

802
00:52:27,340 --> 00:52:32,020
You hear these horror stories about the blue-haired stuff in development.

803
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:40,500
And of course, it makes us super worried because you can be as knowledgeable as you want about computer networks.

804
00:52:40,660 --> 00:52:44,460
It doesn't say anything about how much you understand of economics.

805
00:52:45,260 --> 00:52:48,380
So I see a very big risk there.

806
00:52:48,380 --> 00:53:15,080
And I think that's why Notts is at 20%, mostly because people are super worried that this thing has now taken, it has come to the point where the arrogance has taken over so much and they act like they run the show now and they can build whatever bullshit, like multiplayer online games on Bitcoin and stuff that will just make it worse as money.

807
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:20,380
and to me there are red flags everywhere in this

808
00:53:20,380 --> 00:53:24,460
and it's just sad that it's gone as far as it has.

809
00:53:25,500 --> 00:53:28,240
Well, yeah, to me, I mean, the Oprytron thing

810
00:53:28,240 --> 00:53:33,140
and I try to be not in any of the tribes, right?

811
00:53:33,140 --> 00:53:38,360
I consider myself relatively disenfranchised by Core.

812
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,860
The Core no longer invites me like they no longer invite Blue.

813
00:53:41,860 --> 00:53:45,240
There was a pretext that was used

814
00:53:45,240 --> 00:53:46,920
It was a little bit bullshitty

815
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:49,140
It was used once

816
00:53:49,140 --> 00:53:50,420
But now since it was used once

817
00:53:50,420 --> 00:53:51,940
Now I'm no longer invited at all

818
00:53:51,940 --> 00:53:52,860
And

819
00:53:52,860 --> 00:53:57,120
I don't really consider myself

820
00:53:57,120 --> 00:53:58,960
Part of the BIP 110

821
00:53:58,960 --> 00:53:59,960
Tribe either

822
00:53:59,960 --> 00:54:02,640
And the other day I got a bunch of hate

823
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:04,120
From Ordinal SAS because

824
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:06,560
The Ordinal's BIP

825
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:07,760
Was closed

826
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:10,520
But of course they conveniently forgot that only

827
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:12,800
two months prior, I was the one who closed

828
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:14,520
the CAT bit draft

829
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:16,720
for reasons that I amply gave at the

830
00:54:16,720 --> 00:54:17,660
moment of closing it.

831
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:20,600
You go from being hated

832
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:22,720
by one side to being hated by the other side.

833
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:24,220
I got some backstage

834
00:54:24,220 --> 00:54:26,580
heat last week

835
00:54:26,580 --> 00:54:28,720
from my Time B conference talk

836
00:54:28,720 --> 00:54:30,460
because it came out a week ago.

837
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:32,620
That made some people angry. I got some

838
00:54:32,620 --> 00:54:34,580
heat from CORE. I get heat from

839
00:54:34,580 --> 00:54:36,240
BIP 110 when I

840
00:54:36,240 --> 00:54:38,360
closed the CAT. I got heat from the Ordnals

841
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:40,160
camp when the Ordnals

842
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:41,420
and Bip didn't move forward.

843
00:54:41,900 --> 00:54:43,560
I mean, you're going to be hated by everybody

844
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:45,820
if you're trying to stick to your principles

845
00:54:45,820 --> 00:54:47,140
rather than sticking to a tribe.

846
00:54:47,820 --> 00:54:49,600
And maybe my principles are flawed

847
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:50,900
and maybe they, you know,

848
00:54:50,940 --> 00:54:51,960
and I'm a very human person,

849
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:54,580
but it's just what happens.

850
00:54:54,580 --> 00:54:56,980
And, you know, right now,

851
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:58,780
I've again lost my train of thought.

852
00:54:59,060 --> 00:54:59,780
I've wanted to say that.

853
00:55:00,900 --> 00:55:02,280
Oh, well, I can say thank you

854
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:03,600
for closing the ordinals, Bip.

855
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:07,020
Well, I mean, it was obviously a shit show

856
00:55:07,020 --> 00:55:08,600
that nobody wanted to step in.

857
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:16,780
The Ordnose thing really is smelly because there's a few trolly accounts that go after you and say a bunch of nonsense on social media.

858
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:20,660
And generally I avoid responding to ankle biting and trolling.

859
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:23,020
But I did respond a tiny bit.

860
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,760
I never am happy if I cede to responding.

861
00:55:28,240 --> 00:55:29,700
It's better just to ignore it completely.

862
00:55:29,860 --> 00:55:31,100
I ignore the cat stuff.

863
00:55:31,900 --> 00:55:33,080
The cat snipe.

864
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:35,200
at me. I ignored that

865
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:35,860
almost completely.

866
00:55:36,740 --> 00:55:39,080
So sometimes I'm better at avoiding

867
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:41,380
responding to ankle biting and yapping.

868
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:43,140
I think the cat

869
00:55:43,140 --> 00:55:45,540
had mostly

870
00:55:45,540 --> 00:55:47,500
a trolly kind of

871
00:55:47,500 --> 00:55:48,540
thing to it.

872
00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:51,080
It's like trolling back, sort of.

873
00:55:51,380 --> 00:55:53,260
I don't think it was that serious.

874
00:55:53,260 --> 00:55:54,340
I remember you and Giacomo supported it.

875
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:57,280
Yeah, I had so much fun

876
00:55:57,280 --> 00:55:59,160
with it. You posted pictures of cats

877
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:01,280
and everyone on the other side went crazy.

878
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:05,220
But you just said meow and everyone went crazy.

879
00:56:06,180 --> 00:56:10,140
But yes, back to what I was, I'm sorry, back to my line of thinking.

880
00:56:10,420 --> 00:56:14,960
I do believe the op return was not by itself the reason.

881
00:56:15,220 --> 00:56:21,460
I tried to advise Core to go gently or differently with this in a couple of core dev meetings.

882
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:24,040
I was told that I was a problem for saying such a thing.

883
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:26,400
I think some people consider what I said and agree with it.

884
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:32,600
But by and large, it didn't go along with the collectivist angle.

885
00:56:33,180 --> 00:56:40,580
And Core, for about three years, did have a collectivism that was named as such, collectivism.

886
00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:48,380
And I tried to push back on that in meetings and I sort of met with, well, I was in favor of keeping things ad hoc and everyone having their own opinion.

887
00:56:48,380 --> 00:56:52,440
Well, named collectivism. They called it collectivism.

888
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,640
It was called collectivist action and collectivism.

889
00:56:56,800 --> 00:57:00,460
And I was like horrified privately when I read that during four-debt meetings.

890
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:00,920
Rightfully so.

891
00:57:01,500 --> 00:57:08,020
And I pushed back on that gently saying, well, no, I prefer an ad hoc approach and everybody able to have their individual, you know.

892
00:57:08,620 --> 00:57:11,280
And I was met with criticism for that.

893
00:57:11,900 --> 00:57:17,900
I don't recall the exact criticism, but basically collectivism was the word and collective action.

894
00:57:17,900 --> 00:57:24,820
And, you know, the signing of the declaration about mempool policy was one such collective action, which I did.

895
00:57:24,940 --> 00:57:29,400
I refused to sign. I was asked in private time. I gave my reasons for not doing so.

896
00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:38,780
But I believe that the opportune, like I believe Jack and Will thinks as well, but I've always felt from the start that the opportune thing was not advisable.

897
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:41,980
Technically, there may be good reasons to do it.

898
00:57:41,980 --> 00:57:46,440
sometimes you can get away with doing something that has technical good reasons

899
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:50,520
that will make people upset,

900
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:56,540
that you can sometimes manage to do it by doing it in a way that is maybe wise.

901
00:57:57,780 --> 00:58:01,240
But the way this happened was too provocative.

902
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:04,620
And I think it should have been more consensual.

903
00:58:04,780 --> 00:58:05,900
It should have gone more slowly.

904
00:58:05,900 --> 00:58:07,560
It should have been less antagonistic.

905
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:09,320
But, you know, we're not perfect.

906
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:12,720
one could say, hey, you're a funny guy.

907
00:58:12,820 --> 00:58:14,500
You made people angry with your ordinal decision.

908
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:17,560
Or, hey, you made people angry with the cat decision.

909
00:58:18,020 --> 00:58:20,600
So, yeah, it's possible to step in anyway

910
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:22,180
while still trying to do things wisely.

911
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:24,520
So it's impossibly perfect,

912
00:58:24,620 --> 00:58:26,260
but I do believe that Op Return was

913
00:58:26,260 --> 00:58:29,900
the straw that broke the camel's back

914
00:58:29,900 --> 00:58:31,720
after a cumulative amount of things

915
00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:34,140
that eroded trust in Bitcoin Core

916
00:58:34,140 --> 00:58:36,700
rather than just on its phone incident.

917
00:58:36,700 --> 00:58:38,880
And many people defending Core

918
00:58:38,880 --> 00:58:41,040
were defending it as if it was

919
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:43,200
on its own. Whereas

920
00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:45,100
to me it was just the one drop that

921
00:58:45,100 --> 00:58:46,940
too many and

922
00:58:46,940 --> 00:58:48,940
trust in core has been, in my opinion,

923
00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:51,380
been eroding slowly over a long

924
00:58:51,380 --> 00:58:53,300
period of time due to the many things I've

925
00:58:53,300 --> 00:58:55,340
personally been seeing. And I have

926
00:58:55,340 --> 00:58:57,420
not even detailed them at all in this discussion.

927
00:58:58,400 --> 00:58:58,580
But,

928
00:58:59,300 --> 00:59:01,300
and there were points in my talk at

929
00:59:01,300 --> 00:59:03,200
Plan B that I didn't have time to get to

930
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:05,340
that I would like to cover

931
00:59:05,340 --> 00:59:06,760
perhaps in another podcast.

932
00:59:07,100 --> 00:59:07,960
I may not be able to have time.

933
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:10,960
You can cover them right here if you want to.

934
00:59:11,100 --> 00:59:12,560
Like, what were you thinking of?

935
00:59:13,420 --> 00:59:16,740
Welcome to Knut's super awesome Bitcoin school.

936
00:59:17,140 --> 00:59:18,780
Should you use fiat money?

937
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:19,760
Of course not.

938
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:20,900
It's fake.

939
00:59:21,220 --> 00:59:23,420
It's counterfeited by the state.

940
00:59:23,740 --> 00:59:25,400
And you should buy Bitcoin instead.

941
00:59:25,820 --> 00:59:26,600
How do you buy Bitcoin?

942
00:59:27,040 --> 00:59:29,960
Well, you can buy them off a friend or you can go to an exchange.

943
00:59:30,300 --> 00:59:33,960
We recommend you go to bullbitcoin.com and buy them over there.

944
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:38,820
They also got an awesome mobile wallet if you should ever want to use your Bitcoin.

945
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:42,920
So go to bullbitcoin.com and use code infinity for a discount.

946
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:46,460
If you don't want to sell your Bitcoin, but you want to keep them for a long time,

947
00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:48,820
you should put them in some kind of cold storage.

948
00:59:49,220 --> 00:59:51,080
For that, we recommend BitVault.

949
00:59:51,420 --> 00:59:54,900
BitVault is a wallet that protects you against physical attacks,

950
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:58,760
and they put your Bitcoin in a multi-sig time lock clever solution.

951
00:59:59,200 --> 01:00:04,280
So you should check them out at bitvault.sv and use code infinity for a discount.

952
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:07,560
To put your Bitcoin in cold storage, you also need a hardware wallet.

953
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:09,620
We recommend the Bitbox.

954
01:00:09,900 --> 01:00:13,260
Bitbox is a great hardware wallet that has been around since forever.

955
01:00:13,660 --> 01:00:18,380
It's super easy to use, but also has advanced features and it's privacy focused.

956
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:22,340
So go to bitbox.swiss and use code infinity for a discount.

957
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:28,360
If you need further advice on how to do any of all of this, you should go to thebitcoinadvisor.com.

958
01:00:28,700 --> 01:00:31,300
There are friends from Australia and they're great.

959
01:00:31,300 --> 01:00:42,440
They have a multisig setup, a collaborative multisig, so that you can make sure that your descendants and your heirs inherit your Bitcoin when your time is due.

960
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:46,900
So go to thebitcoinadvisor.com and use code INFINITY for a discount.

961
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:56,540
So to recap, get rid of the fiat and remember bullbitcoin.com, bitvolt.sv, bitbox.swiss and thebitcoinadvisor.com.

962
01:00:56,540 --> 01:00:58,100
Use code INFINITY everywhere.

963
01:00:58,740 --> 01:01:00,320
And don't forget to brush your teeth.

964
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:01,100
Over and out.

965
01:01:01,300 --> 01:01:10,180
So my situation is a bit weird because if you see court, and I do, as, let's say, a royal court.

966
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:19,920
Maybe there's a king, maybe there's a queen, and then you have courtesans, and there's royal intrigue, and there are defenders of the throne.

967
01:01:20,820 --> 01:01:25,620
And at any given moment, I tend to, look, I follow the processes quite closely.

968
01:01:25,620 --> 01:01:35,580
Even when I'm not actively manifesting myself in review or pull request openings on core, I've been watching the interactions for seven, eight years now.

969
01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:41,160
And I really, it's quite clear in my mind, okay, this moment, this person is the defender of the throne.

970
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:42,340
This person is the king.

971
01:01:42,460 --> 01:01:43,400
This person is the queen.

972
01:01:43,540 --> 01:01:46,020
This person is the king's advisor.

973
01:01:46,660 --> 01:01:48,880
This person currently has the king's ear.

974
01:01:49,740 --> 01:01:53,100
Of course, there are a couple, three kings, if we're going to be technical.

975
01:01:53,100 --> 01:01:55,260
You know, maybe it's more of a commit bureau.

976
01:01:55,620 --> 01:02:12,340
But there's a very hierarchical and I was on the inside of this and I was in the inside conversations where I saw how the process works socially as part of the inner clique, but only as someone who expected to be a supporter.

977
01:02:12,340 --> 01:02:18,500
so and then I sort of took my independence after that famous full request when I realized

978
01:02:18,500 --> 01:02:24,520
my core life was pretty much changing drastically I stepped down as Bitcoin Core Review Club

979
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:30,020
co-maintainer I stopped contributing to Bitcoin Optech because I realized that the what I was

980
01:02:30,020 --> 01:02:36,320
expected to do was support the narratives and and I basically distanced myself from John Newberry

981
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:41,200
because I saw things going on that I did not agree with profoundly in the way the open source

982
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:43,160
project should be governed and should

983
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:45,200
manage itself. I saw

984
01:02:45,200 --> 01:02:46,480
things that I thought were abusive

985
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:48,240
and very unhealthy.

986
01:02:48,900 --> 01:02:50,440
I don't want to use the word corruption.

987
01:02:50,980 --> 01:02:52,820
That's not the right word, but there were things that

988
01:02:52,820 --> 01:02:54,920
were very unhealthy for a software

989
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:56,600
project. I think that the smell,

990
01:02:56,820 --> 01:02:59,100
the tummy tests, passed

991
01:02:59,100 --> 01:03:00,120
less and less for people.

992
01:03:01,940 --> 01:03:02,520
It just slowly

993
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:05,040
got to the point where I think the opry train was

994
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:07,440
not by itself

995
01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:09,040
the issue, but

996
01:03:09,040 --> 01:03:12,520
It was just maybe the final straw for a lot of people.

997
01:03:13,700 --> 01:03:15,660
But that's hard to say because that's subjective.

998
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:22,540
Wasn't there a changing of the definition of up return that upset people also?

999
01:03:23,580 --> 01:03:32,000
Yes, but all of this is all downstream from the complete change of guard in core.

1000
01:03:32,000 --> 01:03:38,880
The whole leadership and whose opinion had sway completely changed over the years.

1001
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:42,800
as all of the maintainers, except the most recently named one,

1002
01:03:43,420 --> 01:03:46,820
stepped down, and the most recently named one

1003
01:03:46,820 --> 01:03:50,340
handpicked their person, and then another person came, and then another person came,

1004
01:03:50,700 --> 01:03:54,140
and the whole power structure changed.

1005
01:03:54,660 --> 01:03:59,060
And there are things that I just don't recognize that are not core policy

1006
01:03:59,060 --> 01:04:02,880
to me anymore, that I see just, even though this week a pull request was

1007
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:04,620
merged, that

1008
01:04:04,620 --> 01:04:10,000
the same unhealthy processes are still taking place

1009
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:14,320
where it's behind the scenes, people coming together to...

1010
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:16,040
It's not necessarily based on the right decisions

1011
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:17,520
for the code base or for the users.

1012
01:04:17,760 --> 01:04:21,140
It comes down to friendships and cliques and connections

1013
01:04:21,140 --> 01:04:23,420
and this person was this person's maintainer.

1014
01:04:24,320 --> 01:04:26,140
Sorry, this person mentored this person,

1015
01:04:26,560 --> 01:04:28,260
this person then mentored this person,

1016
01:04:28,500 --> 01:04:30,600
and this person opened a pull request with a bad change.

1017
01:04:31,020 --> 01:04:32,320
I didn't agree with the change,

1018
01:04:32,640 --> 01:04:33,960
but their mentor intervened

1019
01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:39,480
and the mentor mentors intervened and the whole band gets together and and socially pushes the

1020
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:45,480
change in in my opinion the wrong direction for example um a maintainer literally said in the

1021
01:04:45,480 --> 01:04:51,080
poi quest merge this week uh well we it doesn't matter if this breaks something because my

1022
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:55,880
objection was that something was being broken and there's no point in purposely breaking something

1023
01:04:55,880 --> 01:05:02,440
that we could with a one-line additional complexity as they called it um keep main backwards

1024
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:06,180
compatibility for, which I believe is extremely important.

1025
01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:09,480
It was always the philosophy of Bitcoin that Bitcoin would always be backwards compatible

1026
01:05:09,480 --> 01:05:12,360
as much as possible unless it was an extremely...

1027
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:19,040
If there was in any way easy to avoid breaking, then why would you break it?

1028
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:21,440
It was clearly easy to avoid breaking it.

1029
01:05:21,440 --> 01:05:28,020
But the justification by the current, I would say, lead maintainer of Bitcoin core, unofficially,

1030
01:05:28,020 --> 01:05:35,020
certainly the most longest serving actual maintainer right now was no we we um we this

1031
01:05:35,020 --> 01:05:41,200
would be breaking something more than two versions back that's no longer supported by our security

1032
01:05:41,200 --> 01:05:45,680
policy and we anyway do not want to encourage people to continue running old versions of core

1033
01:05:45,680 --> 01:05:51,500
so we should rather go ahead and break this thing to encourage people to upgrade to a recent version

1034
01:05:51,500 --> 01:05:57,560
of bitcoin core meaning v30 v31 and maybe still v29 for another few months but as soon as v32

1035
01:05:57,560 --> 01:06:00,500
comes out, then it's just B30, B30, or B32.

1036
01:06:01,340 --> 01:06:07,600
My opinion is that that is in no way a justification to break things that are truly easy to not

1037
01:06:07,600 --> 01:06:07,840
break.

1038
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:13,060
They literally took the position, let's break it because we want to encourage users to upgrade.

1039
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:18,160
And I think that is not consistent with the way Core's philosophy was for a long time.

1040
01:06:19,460 --> 01:06:23,140
No, to me, it sounds completely anti-Bitcoin ethos, all of it.

1041
01:06:24,020 --> 01:06:24,380
Absolutely.

1042
01:06:25,240 --> 01:06:26,540
And anti-users.

1043
01:06:26,540 --> 01:06:33,320
yeah the reason they gotta upgrade yeah no the reason i fell in love with this in the first place

1044
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:38,600
was that it was hard to change like that's and that was backwards compatible to forever so you

1045
01:06:38,600 --> 01:06:44,580
could the people who just stacked and waited for a hundred years would win in the end like that's

1046
01:06:44,580 --> 01:06:51,320
the beauty of the system like that's the most crucial thing uh i i don't understand breaking

1047
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:53,520
things needlessly

1048
01:06:53,520 --> 01:06:55,480
that are trivially easy to not

1049
01:06:55,480 --> 01:06:57,440
break. And in fact, there was a version

1050
01:06:57,440 --> 01:06:59,300
of the pull request that had listened

1051
01:06:59,300 --> 01:07:01,560
to me that did not break anything.

1052
01:07:02,260 --> 01:07:03,040
And the

1053
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:05,420
maintainer came along and said, no, no, no, there's no reason

1054
01:07:05,420 --> 01:07:07,340
to...

1055
01:07:07,340 --> 01:07:09,340
We prefer to encourage users

1056
01:07:09,340 --> 01:07:10,000
to upgrade.

1057
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:13,380
Well, you don't do that by introducing

1058
01:07:13,380 --> 01:07:14,760
breakage needless.

1059
01:07:15,240 --> 01:07:17,520
Even if it's minor. It was minor.

1060
01:07:17,880 --> 01:07:19,540
The fix was minor and the breakage

1061
01:07:19,540 --> 01:07:21,060
was minor, but it's silly.

1062
01:07:21,320 --> 01:07:22,200
I don't understand that.

1063
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:25,540
No, and it sets a precedent, right?

1064
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:27,140
For breaking more things.

1065
01:07:27,160 --> 01:07:28,340
Well, it's just on and on, over and over.

1066
01:07:28,460 --> 01:07:29,920
These actions, when they accumulate,

1067
01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:35,300
A, it looks almost like it's about social process.

1068
01:07:35,500 --> 01:07:37,120
Like, let's dunk on this guy again.

1069
01:07:38,100 --> 01:07:39,940
Because I was more or less the code owner.

1070
01:07:40,100 --> 01:07:41,200
I had written that code.

1071
01:07:41,300 --> 01:07:43,300
I knew it as well as anybody because I had written it.

1072
01:07:43,440 --> 01:07:44,500
It was in an area of the code base

1073
01:07:44,500 --> 01:07:46,800
where I was probably the primary author at this point.

1074
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:48,780
All of my criticisms were overruled.

1075
01:07:48,780 --> 01:07:57,960
that's i mean it's it's awful yeah the pr the pr in question is two two six nine eight eight

1076
01:07:57,960 --> 01:08:00,680
it was just six nine eight eight yeah

1077
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:09,100
no i i and and two people they didn't even review the code directly so much as they reviewed my

1078
01:08:09,100 --> 01:08:13,580
review in order to dunk on it's so scary the things you're you're saying here because like

1079
01:08:13,580 --> 01:08:19,860
was it this easy to change the culture that's that it's so it's so depressing that it's it's

1080
01:08:19,860 --> 01:08:26,860
so easy to just it's group it's group process it's group process you know the problem is if a

1081
01:08:26,860 --> 01:08:34,460
bunch of friends get together and socially support each other mutually on review then you know and

1082
01:08:34,460 --> 01:08:38,840
the people who were reviewing there weren't even habitual reviewers of this part of the code base

1083
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:45,840
But because one person, the author of the pull request, was mentored by someone who was mentored and interned by someone else.

1084
01:08:45,940 --> 01:08:47,540
And these people sort of got the band together.

1085
01:08:47,900 --> 01:08:51,100
And just for that change.

1086
01:08:51,440 --> 01:08:52,940
So let me see.

1087
01:08:53,340 --> 01:08:59,580
I made a thread like a month back or maybe two months back about the op-return thing.

1088
01:08:59,940 --> 01:09:02,020
Just to see if you agree with this framing.

1089
01:09:02,020 --> 01:09:08,620
because what I understand, the core argument was that it would be better if they did this

1090
01:09:08,620 --> 01:09:12,520
shit on OpReturn than anywhere else, basically.

1091
01:09:12,760 --> 01:09:15,140
So therefore, it's good to open the policy.

1092
01:09:15,300 --> 01:09:18,220
So it'd be easier to do that because it causes less damage.

1093
01:09:19,420 --> 01:09:34,073
The thing I got upset with and I think most people did was this defeatist attitude that we shouldn actively try to stop the spam we should we should just make it less harmful and just accept that it there and and

1094
01:09:34,073 --> 01:09:40,394
that change of attitude is is like uh to me that was the thing because like yes if you live in a

1095
01:09:40,394 --> 01:09:48,053
vacuum like in an all else being equal scenario uh you're right the it would be better if they just

1096
01:09:48,053 --> 01:09:54,434
shifted to Operatorn, four times more expensive for most of it. But let's just say that every

1097
01:09:54,434 --> 01:09:59,573
spammer was altruistic and put everything in Operatorn. So the problem with all else being

1098
01:09:59,573 --> 01:10:07,354
equal scenarios is that they don't exist in reality. So sending a signal that this is something

1099
01:10:07,354 --> 01:10:15,774
that Bitcoin accommodates for and that Bitcoin is okay with, that I think pissed a lot of people

1100
01:10:15,774 --> 01:10:21,593
off that that was the at least that's what pissed me off this this like this is okay now for some

1101
01:10:21,593 --> 01:10:29,093
reason we shouldn't like try to fight it and when these were clearly exploits and not monetary use

1102
01:10:29,093 --> 01:10:33,613
cases what do you think of that do you agree with that framing or would you frame it differently

1103
01:10:33,613 --> 01:10:42,654
so i think core i understand core's technical reasons for for doing what they did i also

1104
01:10:42,654 --> 01:10:44,274
understand the

1105
01:10:44,274 --> 01:10:46,493
position that

1106
01:10:46,493 --> 01:10:48,314
culture matters and

1107
01:10:48,314 --> 01:10:49,333
signaling matters.

1108
01:10:50,354 --> 01:10:52,274
And I

1109
01:10:52,274 --> 01:10:54,573
sympathize with both arguments. And there are times

1110
01:10:54,573 --> 01:10:56,333
when I read, for example,

1111
01:10:56,333 --> 01:10:58,434
there was a recent thread on Bitcoin

1112
01:10:58,434 --> 01:11:00,274
slash meta where

1113
01:11:00,274 --> 01:11:02,434
someone brought it up saying core could still fix

1114
01:11:02,434 --> 01:11:04,573
the rift and a discussion

1115
01:11:04,573 --> 01:11:06,553
ensued. And there were times

1116
01:11:06,553 --> 01:11:08,373
when I would agree with both the

1117
01:11:08,373 --> 01:11:09,833
pro core and the

1118
01:11:09,833 --> 01:11:11,553
opposite

1119
01:11:11,553 --> 01:11:17,533
view because there are good points on both sides and i i don't see it as black and white

1120
01:11:17,533 --> 01:11:24,354
i don't see it as core is right and the others are dumb shits i don't see it as core core is

1121
01:11:24,354 --> 01:11:31,033
completely wrong either i think there's nuance i do worry about the shit coinery i do worry

1122
01:11:31,033 --> 01:11:38,654
deeply about spam i think one of the the other most depressing period thing in bitcoin core

1123
01:11:38,654 --> 01:11:44,113
besides the DEI and the social click, power click processes,

1124
01:11:44,753 --> 01:11:48,613
was the introduction of ordinals and the very high fees.

1125
01:11:48,613 --> 01:11:50,373
And it seemed like there was nothing we could do.

1126
01:11:50,593 --> 01:11:52,774
And I found that sound very depressing

1127
01:11:52,774 --> 01:11:56,814
because it felt like Bitcoin was changing from underneath us all.

1128
01:11:57,453 --> 01:11:58,753
I don't understand, to be honest,

1129
01:11:58,833 --> 01:12:02,434
how anyone could think that ordinals are good for Bitcoin

1130
01:12:02,434 --> 01:12:04,994
apart from fee income, perhaps.

1131
01:12:04,994 --> 01:12:08,833
but I think that's a short-term way of thinking about it.

1132
01:12:09,774 --> 01:12:12,753
Yeah, I'd like your take on my take

1133
01:12:12,753 --> 01:12:14,613
about the miner fees also

1134
01:12:14,613 --> 01:12:17,033
because the way I see it

1135
01:12:17,033 --> 01:12:18,793
it all has to do with time preference.

1136
01:12:19,073 --> 01:12:21,373
So there's this narrative

1137
01:12:21,373 --> 01:12:24,673
among the shitcoins on Bitcoin's camp

1138
01:12:24,673 --> 01:12:25,734
that it's good for Bitcoin

1139
01:12:25,734 --> 01:12:27,173
because miners make more fees.

1140
01:12:27,593 --> 01:12:30,093
But to me, that's such a ridiculous argument

1141
01:12:30,093 --> 01:12:32,934
because we're on, what are we now?

1142
01:12:32,934 --> 01:12:40,593
Like if I go to Bitbow here, 885 exahashes per second.

1143
01:12:40,953 --> 01:12:47,593
That's 885 followed by 18 zeros guesses on the correct hash per second.

1144
01:12:47,593 --> 01:13:04,814
Like, if we lost like 99 miners out of 100, Bitcoin would still be as secure anyway, because it's like orders of magnitude more secure than it needs to be.

1145
01:13:05,093 --> 01:13:09,774
And it's also like, it's like believing that Bitcoin cannot go up in value more.

1146
01:13:10,033 --> 01:13:13,974
If it doubles in value every four years, the problem is not there.

1147
01:13:13,974 --> 01:13:21,893
And I believe if it can keep on being money, it will do that at least until everyone on Earth is on board.

1148
01:13:22,213 --> 01:13:28,734
I mean, it's such a weird argument because Bitcoin is not for the miners.

1149
01:13:29,213 --> 01:13:34,493
The miners get paid by the users to secure the network and create block space for them.

1150
01:13:35,253 --> 01:13:36,713
It's the other way around.

1151
01:13:36,893 --> 01:13:41,213
The miners should be the employees of the users of the network.

1152
01:13:41,213 --> 01:13:48,653
And so it's such a nothing burger argument, the fee argument.

1153
01:13:48,653 --> 01:13:53,934
Yeah, I tend to agree completely. I mean, my focus is on users and people using it as money.

1154
01:13:53,934 --> 01:13:59,053
And I thought one of the dumbest things I actually saw tweeted of the past year was,

1155
01:13:59,053 --> 01:14:04,253
your note does not matter by someone who is trying to be clever, I guess.

1156
01:14:04,253 --> 01:14:05,093
Yeah.

1157
01:14:05,393 --> 01:14:09,753
But, you know, I place the user first and foremost.

1158
01:14:10,173 --> 01:14:18,074
And at my Plan B talk, I gave a lot of suggestions on how I would, the guidelines for governance or leadership of an implementation, if it was me.

1159
01:14:18,993 --> 01:14:25,293
And I actually did have a private meeting recently with the new maintainer of CORE, Sebastian Kahn from South Africa.

1160
01:14:26,173 --> 01:14:31,274
And to my surprise, I believe that he and I agree on a lot of the things that we would like to see.

1161
01:14:31,274 --> 01:14:39,713
And we were both also inspired by the leadership style of Vladimir Vanderland, the lead maintainer for almost a decade of Bitcoin Core, who was an amazing leader of Bitcoin.

1162
01:14:40,333 --> 01:14:53,034
And, you know, when I say that I'm not into the woke stuff, that doesn't mean I'm criticizing, for instance, the transgender, the two transgender people, I believe, on Core are two of my favorite developers.

1163
01:14:54,014 --> 01:14:58,753
So, you know, it's not, I'm not against their choices.

1164
01:14:58,753 --> 01:15:02,093
I don't actually care if your hair color is blue.

1165
01:15:02,234 --> 01:15:06,373
No, and why would anyone care whoever they are?

1166
01:15:06,613 --> 01:15:10,814
If they have the merit, then meritocracy is the most inclusive thing ever

1167
01:15:10,814 --> 01:15:15,434
because it doesn't care about your race or gender or sexual preferences.

1168
01:15:15,593 --> 01:15:21,014
As long as the playing field is fair and everyone sort of gets the same rules and treatment.

1169
01:15:21,854 --> 01:15:25,253
The thing that really gets my go maybe more than anything else,

1170
01:15:25,253 --> 01:15:27,734
and maybe this is the personal weakness of mine,

1171
01:15:27,734 --> 01:15:31,333
is I dislike deeply double standards.

1172
01:15:32,613 --> 01:15:36,014
I deeply, deeply, since a child, dislike double standards.

1173
01:15:36,693 --> 01:15:36,974
Yes.

1174
01:15:37,974 --> 01:15:40,373
And probably the main thing I would want,

1175
01:15:40,593 --> 01:15:44,193
I would strive for if I was running an implementation,

1176
01:15:44,913 --> 01:15:48,354
would be to try to diminish the double standards.

1177
01:15:49,333 --> 01:15:50,833
And no one's perfect.

1178
01:15:51,453 --> 01:15:52,514
I'll probably get it wrong.

1179
01:15:53,133 --> 01:15:55,633
And maybe as BIPs maintainer, co-editor,

1180
01:15:56,053 --> 01:15:57,153
I've gotten it wrong.

1181
01:15:57,153 --> 01:15:58,854
But I really try to be fair.

1182
01:15:59,474 --> 01:16:00,653
At least it's important to me.

1183
01:16:01,133 --> 01:16:04,034
And I think that we've seen some really blatant double standards.

1184
01:16:05,034 --> 01:16:08,014
Yeah, but that's exactly what Bitcoin is about.

1185
01:16:08,514 --> 01:16:12,034
Like Bitcoin is about equality before the law.

1186
01:16:12,653 --> 01:16:18,633
If code is law or really just the network is law, whatever, sound money is law.

1187
01:16:18,974 --> 01:16:24,474
If we have fair money, then we have leveled the playing field and the same rules apply to everyone.

1188
01:16:24,653 --> 01:16:26,253
Like that's what Bitcoin is for.

1189
01:16:26,253 --> 01:16:27,693
it's exactly for that

1190
01:16:27,693 --> 01:16:30,653
it doesn't give a shit who you are

1191
01:16:30,653 --> 01:16:31,953
that's the whole point

1192
01:16:31,953 --> 01:16:35,014
so why would anyone give a shit

1193
01:16:35,014 --> 01:16:38,854
about the core maintainer's

1194
01:16:38,854 --> 01:16:40,393
gender or sexual organ

1195
01:16:40,393 --> 01:16:43,453
because in open source development

1196
01:16:43,453 --> 01:16:46,133
there is a thing

1197
01:16:46,133 --> 01:16:47,974
there is social capital

1198
01:16:47,974 --> 01:16:51,753
and even the readme

1199
01:16:51,753 --> 01:16:54,474
of the bitcoin core repository

1200
01:16:54,474 --> 01:16:55,574
says that

1201
01:16:56,253 --> 01:17:01,734
different people's opinion carries different weight depending on their social capital and

1202
01:17:01,734 --> 01:17:09,593
contribution and amount of history with the project. And so there is social capital,

1203
01:17:09,593 --> 01:17:16,113
does matter. Everyone is not equal. And some acts carry more weight to maintainers than other acts

1204
01:17:16,113 --> 01:17:25,093
do. That is how it works. But I still think that there are other double standards that really get

1205
01:17:25,093 --> 01:17:31,253
to me and not that one that some people's act might matter carry more weight because they have

1206
01:17:31,253 --> 01:17:38,393
more experience or they know the code better there that's fine with me but still there's other kinds

1207
01:17:38,393 --> 01:17:43,413
of double centers like things that you cannot change about yourself like your age or your gender

1208
01:17:43,413 --> 01:17:49,814
or where you're from or how well you speak English if you learn English as a second language and you

1209
01:17:49,814 --> 01:17:51,934
say, hey guys, not knowing

1210
01:17:51,934 --> 01:17:53,274
that, and having

1211
01:17:53,274 --> 01:17:55,673
a US person

1212
01:17:55,673 --> 01:17:57,814
reply, no, no, there's women present

1213
01:17:57,814 --> 01:17:59,734
too. That's a real example, but that isn't

1214
01:17:59,734 --> 01:18:01,794
a real example that I saw a maintainer

1215
01:18:01,794 --> 01:18:03,753
rebuke a non-moose-seeking

1216
01:18:03,753 --> 01:18:04,474
developer for.

1217
01:18:05,854 --> 01:18:06,814
I mean,

1218
01:18:07,113 --> 01:18:08,093
you know,

1219
01:18:08,613 --> 01:18:11,734
I just would lighten up with

1220
01:18:11,734 --> 01:18:13,534
the identity stuff.

1221
01:18:13,993 --> 01:18:15,833
I don't give a crap what your hair color is,

1222
01:18:15,893 --> 01:18:17,734
where you're from. These things should not

1223
01:18:17,734 --> 01:18:19,794
matter. It should only matter how much

1224
01:18:19,794 --> 01:18:25,234
time you start working on the code and reviewing it and your contribution to review and how good

1225
01:18:25,234 --> 01:18:31,354
your review work has been. And just because you're hand chosen, but you've maybe reviewed

1226
01:18:31,354 --> 01:18:35,794
several times less than someone else that was not chosen doesn't mean, you know, I mean,

1227
01:18:35,854 --> 01:18:40,294
that's the kind of stuff that gets to me. There's some really blatant unfair stuff that's taken

1228
01:18:40,294 --> 01:18:45,034
place over the years, and I really dislike that. And, you know, that's criticizable,

1229
01:18:45,034 --> 01:18:46,514
and I'll probably be dunked on

1230
01:18:46,514 --> 01:18:47,893
harshly for saying that,

1231
01:18:47,974 --> 01:18:50,034
but that is something...

1232
01:18:51,173 --> 01:18:52,574
I know there's so many things

1233
01:18:52,574 --> 01:18:53,774
in my presentation at Plan B

1234
01:18:53,774 --> 01:18:54,514
that I didn't get to

1235
01:18:54,514 --> 01:18:55,873
that I could cover.

1236
01:18:56,453 --> 01:18:58,193
I was taken to tasks

1237
01:18:58,193 --> 01:18:58,953
about my comment

1238
01:18:58,953 --> 01:19:00,274
that was maybe not very,

1239
01:19:00,274 --> 01:19:02,153
very well said

1240
01:19:02,153 --> 01:19:04,153
about how bugs,

1241
01:19:04,613 --> 01:19:05,474
how you had to be careful

1242
01:19:05,474 --> 01:19:06,673
about reporting bugs in core

1243
01:19:06,673 --> 01:19:07,453
because it depended

1244
01:19:07,453 --> 01:19:08,534
who was the author of the bug

1245
01:19:08,534 --> 01:19:09,854
and how they would see

1246
01:19:09,854 --> 01:19:11,274
your relationship to them

1247
01:19:11,274 --> 01:19:12,193
if you reported the bug

1248
01:19:12,193 --> 01:19:14,213
because they could see your bug

1249
01:19:14,213 --> 01:19:16,993
as your bug report as being a personal attack

1250
01:19:16,993 --> 01:19:17,953
rather than reporting a bug.

1251
01:19:19,153 --> 01:19:20,574
And that really does happen.

1252
01:19:21,814 --> 01:19:23,133
But that's awful.

1253
01:19:23,333 --> 01:19:25,393
You can't handle code like that.

1254
01:19:25,653 --> 01:19:26,673
Of course not.

1255
01:19:26,974 --> 01:19:29,093
That is how it happens.

1256
01:19:29,753 --> 01:19:30,693
I found a bug.

1257
01:19:30,873 --> 01:19:31,794
There's one example.

1258
01:19:32,734 --> 01:19:34,833
In 2021, in August,

1259
01:19:35,734 --> 01:19:39,613
I found a bug I reported on the IRC channel

1260
01:19:39,613 --> 01:19:41,713
and then I opened a fit

1261
01:19:41,713 --> 01:19:48,014
And yeah, it was just, it was a complete shitshow because I had found a bug written by someone who took it personally.

1262
01:19:49,294 --> 01:19:52,093
Who thought I was attacking them for finding a bug.

1263
01:19:53,534 --> 01:19:55,373
And the way it went down was very political and very sad.

1264
01:19:56,093 --> 01:20:00,133
It's the math is racist thing.

1265
01:20:00,993 --> 01:20:05,993
It was PloyQuest BitcoinCorp PR 22831.

1266
01:20:06,294 --> 01:20:09,613
And, you know, I was told, hey, it's not really a serious bug.

1267
01:20:09,693 --> 01:20:11,014
Don't make a big deal out of it.

1268
01:20:11,014 --> 01:20:18,074
And then I wasn't allowed to fix it because my fix, they didn't like the way I fixed it or they didn't like my tests to test it.

1269
01:20:18,153 --> 01:20:20,913
I introduced the test to verify that it wouldn't break again.

1270
01:20:20,913 --> 01:20:27,613
And a fix that didn't have any test coverage at all was preferred by the original author, who was very upset at me for finding that bubble.

1271
01:20:27,873 --> 01:20:29,434
And it's just one example of many.

1272
01:20:29,653 --> 01:20:31,574
And that kind of thing just makes me sad.

1273
01:20:31,574 --> 01:20:39,593
that just sounds like uh it sounds like ocp you know the organization the corporation that builds

1274
01:20:39,593 --> 01:20:45,713
robocop if you remember the robocop movie and that guy who keeps defending ed 209 the robot

1275
01:20:45,713 --> 01:20:51,093
that doesn't work and kills everyone like and he just refuses to fix the robot that's what it

1276
01:20:51,093 --> 01:20:56,814
sounds like to me you know it's funny i stopped watching any kind of movie entirely after covid

1277
01:20:56,814 --> 01:20:59,333
real life was so much stranger

1278
01:20:59,333 --> 01:21:00,354
than fiction

1279
01:21:00,354 --> 01:21:03,434
yeah yeah yeah Robocop was a couple of years

1280
01:21:03,434 --> 01:21:04,613
before COVID though

1281
01:21:04,613 --> 01:21:07,093
yeah right but

1282
01:21:07,093 --> 01:21:09,093
the COVID thing was a real

1283
01:21:09,093 --> 01:21:09,814
a real

1284
01:21:09,814 --> 01:21:13,373
it's like you also had a group

1285
01:21:13,373 --> 01:21:15,393
of people who could continue going from office to

1286
01:21:15,393 --> 01:21:16,593
office because they were

1287
01:21:16,593 --> 01:21:19,314
jabbed and boosted and

1288
01:21:19,314 --> 01:21:20,673
those who did not

1289
01:21:20,673 --> 01:21:23,333
were not doing testing and jabbing

1290
01:21:23,333 --> 01:21:25,034
and boosting for

1291
01:21:25,034 --> 01:21:28,753
one or two years, could not visit the offices, could not...

1292
01:21:28,753 --> 01:21:33,213
They were, during the Core Dev meetups, they were in separate housing or separate meetings,

1293
01:21:33,294 --> 01:21:36,953
I understand. I didn't even go. I mean, it really slid Core

1294
01:21:36,953 --> 01:21:40,753
down with the vast majority being in the camp of

1295
01:21:40,753 --> 01:21:45,373
testing every day and testing all the time

1296
01:21:45,373 --> 01:21:48,014
and being up to date with their boosters or MNR.

1297
01:21:48,474 --> 01:21:53,014
Yeah, this reminds me of a Free Cities conference I went to

1298
01:21:53,014 --> 01:21:57,393
after COVID. So it's the Free Cities Foundation, right? So it's not really a Bitcoin conference,

1299
01:21:57,493 --> 01:22:02,934
not at all a Bitcoin conference. It's about Prosperan Roatan, for instance. That's one of the

1300
01:22:02,934 --> 01:22:07,833
free private cities around the world. They have this conference every year. And at that conference,

1301
01:22:08,393 --> 01:22:15,913
there's a Bitcoiner in the board of the organization who had invited a lot of his

1302
01:22:15,913 --> 01:22:20,514
Bitcoiner friends. I was there and Daniel Prince was there and a bunch of others. But there were also

1303
01:22:20,514 --> 01:22:27,593
ethereans and and shitcoiners and the funny thing is that they were still wearing masks

1304
01:22:27,593 --> 01:22:32,253
most of them so so all the bitcoiners were of course unjabbed and not wearing masks

1305
01:22:32,253 --> 01:22:38,873
and the shitcoiners were concerned about about the uh if people had boosters and wearing masks

1306
01:22:38,873 --> 01:22:44,993
and it was just an observation that that was much more prominent for shitcoiners there's something

1307
01:22:44,993 --> 01:22:46,833
there. Oh, yeah.

1308
01:22:47,553 --> 01:22:48,953
It made me very sad that

1309
01:22:48,953 --> 01:22:50,774
I mean, I just stayed at home and worked and was

1310
01:22:50,774 --> 01:22:51,693
productive, but

1311
01:22:51,693 --> 01:22:54,873
it was a real shock to me

1312
01:22:54,873 --> 01:22:56,833
the first time I went to a Cordeve meeting

1313
01:22:56,833 --> 01:22:58,213
finally in 2022.

1314
01:22:59,913 --> 01:23:00,173
A,

1315
01:23:00,953 --> 01:23:01,314
how

1316
01:23:01,314 --> 01:23:04,873
centralized interactions were. Everybody seemed

1317
01:23:04,873 --> 01:23:06,893
to, most people in the room seemed to be people

1318
01:23:06,893 --> 01:23:08,893
who were working together every day in offices and

1319
01:23:08,893 --> 01:23:10,774
knew each other like as if they were in the same

1320
01:23:10,774 --> 01:23:12,873
classroom. You know, and these

1321
01:23:12,873 --> 01:23:14,153
were people I almost never met.

1322
01:23:14,993 --> 01:23:27,467
And of course that very first and only core dev I got docs to the FBI because the FBI asked the organizer of the core dev for all the identity of the participants because of

1323
01:23:27,467 --> 01:23:30,627
the reported theft of Luke Doucher's Bitcoin.

1324
01:23:30,627 --> 01:23:32,907
I heard somebody say that Luke doxed everybody.

1325
01:23:32,907 --> 01:23:33,907
That is false.

1326
01:23:33,907 --> 01:23:37,427
I believe it was the FBI who requested the dox.

1327
01:23:37,427 --> 01:23:38,427
Yeah.

1328
01:23:38,427 --> 01:23:49,667
And that's just... Speaking of Luke, in April 2021, there was a coordinated effort on the Bitcoin dev mailing list to remove Luke Dasher as a BIP editor.

1329
01:23:50,227 --> 01:23:51,567
A role he has had in 2012.

1330
01:23:52,387 --> 01:23:54,867
Yes, there was. I was at that meeting.

1331
01:23:55,987 --> 01:23:59,067
Yeah. What happened? Newberry was involved, I know.

1332
01:23:59,487 --> 01:24:01,047
Publish, we endorsed it.

1333
01:24:01,047 --> 01:24:08,327
I mean, in the private OpTec discussions, I mean, they were all vehemently anti-Luke for some time.

1334
01:24:08,567 --> 01:24:09,567
I don't think it's a secret.

1335
01:24:09,867 --> 01:24:14,807
It's public knowledge, I believe, that David Harding very much disliked Luke.

1336
01:24:15,007 --> 01:24:18,507
And he publicly tweeted that Luke was a net negative on the face.

1337
01:24:18,507 --> 01:24:30,347
And yeah, basically, I recall that I was there and Newberry called for Luke to be removed, I guess as well, by the project owners.

1338
01:24:31,047 --> 01:24:32,927
Who could have done that?

1339
01:24:33,387 --> 01:24:37,967
Well, Newberry called on the lead maintainer of Vladimir to do that during the meeting.

1340
01:24:37,967 --> 01:24:42,127
And it was an unpleasant and hostile exchange.

1341
01:24:42,607 --> 01:24:46,307
And afterwards, I remember Vladimir refusing to do so.

1342
01:24:46,467 --> 01:24:51,707
One thing I always respected about Vladimir was that he was a reluctant servant leader.

1343
01:24:52,087 --> 01:24:56,887
He was reluctant to use or abuse his power to satisfy someone.

1344
01:24:57,047 --> 01:25:00,127
And he did not give John Newberry satisfaction.

1345
01:25:01,047 --> 01:25:03,047
in calling for Lutte, literally.

1346
01:25:04,187 --> 01:25:07,687
And afterwards, I did have a conversation privately with Vladimir

1347
01:25:07,687 --> 01:25:10,087
where I said that was intense.

1348
01:25:10,267 --> 01:25:12,607
And he says, I don't know why he was so aggressive with me.

1349
01:25:12,867 --> 01:25:15,667
But he was dumbfounded, I think, and a bit tired by the whole thing.

1350
01:25:15,947 --> 01:25:17,707
When did you say that was? In July 2021?

1351
01:25:18,027 --> 01:25:19,167
No, April 2021.

1352
01:25:20,127 --> 01:25:23,107
Okay, well, shortly after, in June 2021,

1353
01:25:23,827 --> 01:25:25,747
there was an equally aggressive exchange.

1354
01:25:25,947 --> 01:25:28,687
After the pull request that changed my trajectory on court,

1355
01:25:28,687 --> 01:25:30,067
John Newberry

1356
01:25:30,067 --> 01:25:32,247
on the IRC channel

1357
01:25:32,247 --> 01:25:34,587
more or less went after myself

1358
01:25:34,587 --> 01:25:36,667
and Vasil Dimov and Vladimir again.

1359
01:25:37,807 --> 01:25:38,247
And

1360
01:25:38,247 --> 01:25:40,527
Vladimir got tired of it

1361
01:25:40,527 --> 01:25:42,607
and he basically signed off IRC for two

1362
01:25:42,607 --> 01:25:44,407
or three days. He disappeared.

1363
01:25:44,547 --> 01:25:45,127
He's like, I'm done.

1364
01:25:46,447 --> 01:25:48,707
I was wondering how long until he would come back because usually

1365
01:25:48,707 --> 01:25:50,147
he was always present.

1366
01:25:51,247 --> 01:25:52,487
But the aggression

1367
01:25:52,487 --> 01:25:54,567
was coming to a head around that

1368
01:25:54,567 --> 01:25:56,447
time. I think the

1369
01:25:56,447 --> 01:25:58,487
peak... Things are

1370
01:25:58,487 --> 01:26:00,167
maybe a little bit better now.

1371
01:26:00,787 --> 01:26:02,527
Every now and then

1372
01:26:02,527 --> 01:26:04,527
the power clip gets the band together

1373
01:26:04,527 --> 01:26:06,567
again to do something

1374
01:26:06,567 --> 01:26:08,507
not so cool. It's slightly

1375
01:26:08,507 --> 01:26:10,507
improving. Giacomo talked with

1376
01:26:10,507 --> 01:26:12,567
Walker on a podcast a day or

1377
01:26:12,567 --> 01:26:14,327
two ago where

1378
01:26:14,327 --> 01:26:16,667
Giacomo said the DEI thing seems to be fading.

1379
01:26:17,527 --> 01:26:17,887
Well,

1380
01:26:18,707 --> 01:26:20,627
if he's dying a slow

1381
01:26:20,627 --> 01:26:22,227
death, it's a very slow death in court.

1382
01:26:23,287 --> 01:26:23,927
And DEI,

1383
01:26:24,087 --> 01:26:26,547
I don't know, I might be misusing the

1384
01:26:26,547 --> 01:26:28,227
word woke, but

1385
01:26:28,487 --> 01:26:31,647
I mean, it's going to take time.

1386
01:26:31,747 --> 01:26:37,427
There's at least three key people, I think, that would still need to leave before things would really change.

1387
01:26:37,867 --> 01:26:38,447
Three or four.

1388
01:26:39,427 --> 01:26:42,307
And I don't know how long that will take.

1389
01:26:43,387 --> 01:26:46,307
To be honest, I've been waiting for a very long time for things to improve.

1390
01:26:46,307 --> 01:26:52,367
I believe the shift has sailed on my ability to contribute effectively now to Bitcoin Core since years.

1391
01:26:52,647 --> 01:26:56,447
Because basically since 2021, my ability was affected.

1392
01:26:56,447 --> 01:27:02,167
and so I believe like some other people

1393
01:27:02,167 --> 01:27:04,227
that we do need more implementations

1394
01:27:04,227 --> 01:27:05,967
to welcome developers

1395
01:27:05,967 --> 01:27:08,367
who are perhaps not in the,

1396
01:27:09,887 --> 01:27:12,047
who don't have the same politics

1397
01:27:12,047 --> 01:27:15,047
as the ones in Bitcoin Core

1398
01:27:15,047 --> 01:27:17,567
or who are not socially popular

1399
01:27:17,567 --> 01:27:20,667
or who just disagree on views on things.

1400
01:27:22,227 --> 01:27:24,367
Right now it seems to be very much dominated

1401
01:27:24,367 --> 01:27:26,287
by Chaincode and Brink and

1402
01:27:26,287 --> 01:27:27,267
a bit by Spiral.

1403
01:27:28,907 --> 01:27:30,287
And local hosts now as well,

1404
01:27:30,347 --> 01:27:32,367
which is a newer one. I mean, one of the things

1405
01:27:32,367 --> 01:27:34,427
that worries me is we see, I've seen

1406
01:27:34,427 --> 01:27:36,507
a few cases of people who I thought were very nice

1407
01:27:36,507 --> 01:27:38,547
get hired by Chaincode,

1408
01:27:38,667 --> 01:27:39,787
move to New York City, and

1409
01:27:39,787 --> 01:27:41,027
change

1410
01:27:41,027 --> 01:27:44,327
fairly significantly

1411
01:27:44,327 --> 01:27:46,327
during their time in New York.

1412
01:27:46,987 --> 01:27:48,287
Become much less pleasant.

1413
01:27:48,427 --> 01:27:50,407
I don't know what goes on.

1414
01:27:51,527 --> 01:27:52,487
But I've seen

1415
01:27:52,487 --> 01:27:59,187
that multiple times now and i have to wonder why are these people changing yeah you would you would

1416
01:27:59,187 --> 01:28:06,547
like to know the the underlying mechanisms that that makes this happen because even if you even

1417
01:28:06,547 --> 01:28:13,027
if woke is temporarily dead like how do you make it not come back ever what's the cure and when i

1418
01:28:13,027 --> 01:28:17,867
say they changed i don't mean they became woke but i mean they maybe became much more aggressive

1419
01:28:17,867 --> 01:28:19,827
that arrogant maybe

1420
01:28:19,827 --> 01:28:22,867
aggressively tweeting on Twitter

1421
01:28:22,867 --> 01:28:23,687
very aggressively

1422
01:28:23,687 --> 01:28:26,467
being very sensitive to replies

1423
01:28:26,467 --> 01:28:28,787
and not letting

1424
01:28:28,787 --> 01:28:29,567
things go

1425
01:28:29,567 --> 01:28:31,687
just being

1426
01:28:31,687 --> 01:28:33,687
on the whole much

1427
01:28:33,687 --> 01:28:36,487
less pleasant people and I don't know what

1428
01:28:36,487 --> 01:28:38,627
happens if it's them being

1429
01:28:38,627 --> 01:28:40,287
in contact with somebody specifically

1430
01:28:40,287 --> 01:28:42,787
or with the group in general or it's the environment

1431
01:28:42,787 --> 01:28:43,767
of New York City

1432
01:28:43,767 --> 01:28:46,847
maybe New York is a place where people are more aggressive

1433
01:28:46,847 --> 01:28:48,567
but wow

1434
01:28:48,567 --> 01:28:51,227
I mean I know several people I've discussed this with

1435
01:28:51,227 --> 01:28:53,007
they say yeah that person was a nice guy

1436
01:28:53,007 --> 01:28:54,207
and they went to Chaincode Labs

1437
01:28:54,207 --> 01:28:57,127
and don't recognize them anymore

1438
01:28:57,127 --> 01:28:59,567
So you said

1439
01:28:59,567 --> 01:29:01,307
you talked about more implementation

1440
01:29:01,307 --> 01:29:03,267
so the natural

1441
01:29:03,267 --> 01:29:05,267
question there is why not NOTs

1442
01:29:05,267 --> 01:29:05,467
then?

1443
01:29:08,467 --> 01:29:09,727
What's wrong with NOTs?

1444
01:29:11,107 --> 01:29:11,907
The problem

1445
01:29:11,907 --> 01:29:13,847
I don't want to say there's a problem with NOTs

1446
01:29:13,847 --> 01:29:15,887
but for instance I did mention that OpenSaaS

1447
01:29:15,887 --> 01:29:18,447
has been willing to fund NOS for some time.

1448
01:29:18,967 --> 01:29:22,167
There are public posts on X by people like NVK

1449
01:29:22,167 --> 01:29:26,387
or maybe Matt O'Dell, I'm not sure, on NOS.

1450
01:29:26,387 --> 01:29:28,567
But the problem is, my understanding is that

1451
01:29:28,567 --> 01:29:31,047
they haven't actually received a good application yet.

1452
01:29:32,047 --> 01:29:35,887
So NOS maybe is having trouble attracting developer talent.

1453
01:29:36,627 --> 01:29:38,967
And that could be due to Luke being,

1454
01:29:39,347 --> 01:29:40,507
look, I consider Luke a friend.

1455
01:29:40,707 --> 01:29:43,147
I think Luke is very gentle and soft-spoken in person,

1456
01:29:43,147 --> 01:29:44,927
much nicer in person

1457
01:29:44,927 --> 01:29:46,367
very nice in person

1458
01:29:46,367 --> 01:29:48,607
compared to the persona

1459
01:29:48,607 --> 01:29:50,947
people might imagine when they just

1460
01:29:50,947 --> 01:29:53,247
read only the posts on X

1461
01:29:53,247 --> 01:29:55,027
but maybe not the easiest person

1462
01:29:55,027 --> 01:29:56,387
to work with

1463
01:29:56,387 --> 01:29:59,627
and I don't want to be criticizing of Luke

1464
01:29:59,627 --> 01:30:00,607
I like Luke

1465
01:30:00,607 --> 01:30:03,007
but there's also a lot of

1466
01:30:03,007 --> 01:30:05,427
social, I mean it looks very much

1467
01:30:05,427 --> 01:30:06,767
like Luke's project to people

1468
01:30:06,767 --> 01:30:08,207
so maybe that's part of the difficulty

1469
01:30:08,207 --> 01:30:09,367
like a personal project

1470
01:30:09,367 --> 01:30:12,347
I think that the fact that

1471
01:30:12,347 --> 01:30:15,267
Nots has gained so much market share.

1472
01:30:15,987 --> 01:30:17,827
I mean, how many Nots nodes do I have right now?

1473
01:30:18,087 --> 01:30:20,647
Around 20%, right?

1474
01:30:21,347 --> 01:30:26,387
My node right now has like one, two, three, four, five, six Nots spheres,

1475
01:30:26,867 --> 01:30:29,487
at least with Nots in the subversion,

1476
01:30:30,267 --> 01:30:35,207
out of around 12%, 15% in my personal node at this moment,

1477
01:30:35,207 --> 01:30:35,947
but it varies.

1478
01:30:37,147 --> 01:30:38,847
So Nots has gained market share.

1479
01:30:38,847 --> 01:30:40,327
I think not so much because

1480
01:30:40,327 --> 01:30:42,427
I think it's more because of Core.

1481
01:30:43,707 --> 01:30:44,847
Core has been the best

1482
01:30:44,847 --> 01:30:45,767
marketing for NOS.

1483
01:30:46,807 --> 01:30:49,107
And not Core altogether,

1484
01:30:49,347 --> 01:30:50,847
but I would say

1485
01:30:50,847 --> 01:30:52,907
two or three people behaving like

1486
01:30:52,907 --> 01:30:55,007
absolute assholes

1487
01:30:55,007 --> 01:30:56,807
for Core on Twitter.

1488
01:30:57,147 --> 01:30:57,847
Or X.

1489
01:30:58,567 --> 01:31:00,267
I think they're doing great marketing.

1490
01:31:00,527 --> 01:31:02,807
I mean, okay, NOS has much

1491
01:31:02,807 --> 01:31:03,327
better memes.

1492
01:31:04,207 --> 01:31:06,727
I'm not on the NOS side, but NOS definitely

1493
01:31:06,727 --> 01:31:08,707
memes much better. There are some Core devs who

1494
01:31:08,707 --> 01:31:11,587
I think who want to be memers, who cannot meet.

1495
01:31:11,607 --> 01:31:14,207
What's the main reason that you're not on the Nuts side then?

1496
01:31:14,467 --> 01:31:16,027
Like, is there a technical reason?

1497
01:31:16,887 --> 01:31:19,947
I mean, look, I consider Luke a friend.

1498
01:31:20,947 --> 01:31:27,487
And I believe that they would be very happy if I would dedicate my time to contributing to Nuts.

1499
01:31:27,887 --> 01:31:35,307
But I believe that I'm not quite fully on board with the way Luke sees everything.

1500
01:31:35,307 --> 01:31:39,127
similar to the way that Giacomo is not fully on board

1501
01:31:39,127 --> 01:31:42,627
and I believe that BIP 110

1502
01:31:42,627 --> 01:31:46,227
is not quite what I think needs to be done

1503
01:31:46,227 --> 01:31:50,827
I would be more comfortable working on

1504
01:31:50,827 --> 01:31:54,907
or perhaps co-maintaining a fork of core

1505
01:31:54,907 --> 01:31:57,607
with perhaps different

1506
01:31:57,607 --> 01:31:59,867
types of developers

1507
01:31:59,867 --> 01:32:03,667
maybe more older, maybe not in the big cities

1508
01:32:03,667 --> 01:32:16,247
Maybe more Bitcoin is money people who are married, who are mature, who have kids and responsibilities and who are not leading with their youthful ambition and ego to make changes to Bitcoin.

1509
01:32:17,347 --> 01:32:20,947
Maybe a bit more of a conservative, slower.

1510
01:32:21,367 --> 01:32:27,687
Maybe it would pull in some things that Core is doing, but maybe more slowly, conservatively with a bit more another review layer.

1511
01:32:27,687 --> 01:32:37,547
I think we do need another implementation that is for developers who don't fit into the current core mold that has been engineered.

1512
01:32:37,547 --> 01:32:49,507
All right. Yeah. I mean, Luke is a very special person and I don't agree with a lot of his views, but I do agree with most of his views on Bitcoin.

1513
01:32:49,507 --> 01:32:56,567
And I do think that he's a very trustworthy guy or a guy that holds integrity very high.

1514
01:32:56,567 --> 01:33:10,247
Absolutely. And even Adam Back once tweeted a couple of years ago, I believe, that you should be very careful if you find yourself disagreeing with Luke on something.

1515
01:33:10,467 --> 01:33:10,887
Exactly.

1516
01:33:12,087 --> 01:33:13,167
That Luke has been right.

1517
01:33:14,167 --> 01:33:22,967
Yeah. And for that reason alone, I find this like pushing him out of court to be such a, like, what are you doing?

1518
01:33:22,967 --> 01:33:28,087
Like, this is your most senior guy, like one of the most important people for Bitcoin ever.

1519
01:33:28,587 --> 01:33:30,527
Like, everyone agrees on that.

1520
01:33:30,607 --> 01:33:31,987
So it's like, how can you get to that?

1521
01:33:32,047 --> 01:33:39,767
Yeah, his class of 2011, along with Vladimir Vanderland, Peter Wille and Matt Corral.

1522
01:33:39,887 --> 01:33:40,827
These four people.

1523
01:33:41,587 --> 01:33:43,027
And I think Luke was the first.

1524
01:33:44,507 --> 01:33:46,407
At least he was among the class of 2011.

1525
01:33:46,407 --> 01:33:49,987
he hasn't been that active

1526
01:33:49,987 --> 01:33:52,427
on Core over the past half decade

1527
01:33:52,427 --> 01:33:54,567
because he's also been busy working on

1528
01:33:54,567 --> 01:33:55,007
Knots

1529
01:33:55,007 --> 01:33:57,467
Ocean Mining

1530
01:33:57,467 --> 01:33:59,887
Datum, he's got a lot on his plate

1531
01:33:59,887 --> 01:34:01,727
and that's why he also

1532
01:34:01,727 --> 01:34:03,227
Bips Maintainer, Bips Editor

1533
01:34:03,227 --> 01:34:05,107
he's the OG Bips

1534
01:34:05,107 --> 01:34:06,407
editor since

1535
01:34:06,407 --> 01:34:09,167
2015 I believe

1536
01:34:09,167 --> 01:34:11,527
yeah and to be clear

1537
01:34:11,527 --> 01:34:13,867
I'm pro Knots and I'm pro

1538
01:34:13,867 --> 01:34:14,727
Bip 110

1539
01:34:14,727 --> 01:34:21,427
I've stated so publicly, mostly for the middle finger of it all.

1540
01:34:21,827 --> 01:34:25,387
I admit that.

1541
01:34:25,487 --> 01:34:34,827
I have no problem with, you know, in hindsight, if it doesn't work or if it becomes a nothing burger that I risk my reputation or anything like that.

1542
01:34:35,067 --> 01:34:39,447
I'm passionate about Bitcoin and I'm passionate about what I think is best for Bitcoin.

1543
01:34:39,447 --> 01:34:45,867
And that's why I want to send a message, a temporary message that we won't take this.

1544
01:34:46,027 --> 01:34:48,067
Like, we're not going to take it, the twisted sister thing.

1545
01:34:48,607 --> 01:34:54,107
But having said all that, I still think the more important thing there is that.

1546
01:34:54,527 --> 01:35:01,927
Yeah, the more important thing there is datum and fixing the centralization of mining.

1547
01:35:02,567 --> 01:35:03,887
Decentralizing mining, absolutely.

1548
01:35:04,147 --> 01:35:04,987
That's paramount.

1549
01:35:05,907 --> 01:35:07,307
That's the big one.

1550
01:35:07,307 --> 01:35:10,507
and it sort of gets overshadowed

1551
01:35:10,507 --> 01:35:14,047
by this other debate, of course.

1552
01:35:14,867 --> 01:35:16,587
Well, I think a lot of plebs

1553
01:35:16,587 --> 01:35:17,447
are on board with you.

1554
01:35:17,827 --> 01:35:21,087
They're unhappy with the new core

1555
01:35:21,087 --> 01:35:22,847
that was, let's say,

1556
01:35:22,927 --> 01:35:24,007
socially engineered a bit

1557
01:35:24,007 --> 01:35:25,187
by the selection criteria

1558
01:35:25,187 --> 01:35:26,787
of the developer pipeline

1559
01:35:26,787 --> 01:35:28,267
centralized in chain code labs

1560
01:35:28,267 --> 01:35:30,187
developed by a very small,

1561
01:35:30,647 --> 01:35:32,047
less than a handful of people.

1562
01:35:33,067 --> 01:35:34,547
And that has led to a situation

1563
01:35:34,547 --> 01:35:36,647
where the plebs feel very alienated

1564
01:35:36,647 --> 01:35:54,867
And there's definitely a chasm between the new core, maybe not the new maintainer, but some of the loudest voices of the past two years in core has definitely been a complete chasm with the users due to the selection criteria being centralized and so on.

1565
01:35:56,167 --> 01:36:01,827
Of course, all that is heavily criticizable and I'll surely be dunked on very harshly for what I've just said.

1566
01:36:01,827 --> 01:36:04,827
but it's still a fact

1567
01:36:04,827 --> 01:36:06,727
you regroup what you

1568
01:36:06,727 --> 01:36:08,707
show when it comes to your criteria

1569
01:36:08,707 --> 01:36:10,427
of selection for your new developers

1570
01:36:10,427 --> 01:36:12,727
and Core has also faced a

1571
01:36:12,727 --> 01:36:14,187
shortage of new talent lately

1572
01:36:14,187 --> 01:36:18,747
they've had trouble recruiting new people

1573
01:36:18,747 --> 01:36:19,247
to Core

1574
01:36:19,247 --> 01:36:21,447
yeah

1575
01:36:21,447 --> 01:36:24,247
so I mean there are knock on effects

1576
01:36:24,247 --> 01:36:25,507
when you go woke

1577
01:36:25,507 --> 01:36:28,167
I mean I'm not saying that Core

1578
01:36:28,167 --> 01:36:30,347
when you know they say you go woke

1579
01:36:30,347 --> 01:36:32,267
GoPro. Well, I think right now

1580
01:36:32,267 --> 01:36:34,167
it's not so much in fashion as it was

1581
01:36:34,167 --> 01:36:36,067
back in 2020, 2018, 2019

1582
01:36:36,067 --> 01:36:37,827
when the blue mat was calling for

1583
01:36:37,827 --> 01:36:38,587
diversity.

1584
01:36:39,747 --> 01:36:41,927
And behind the scenes core is still that way.

1585
01:36:42,007 --> 01:36:43,447
They're still reaching out and

1586
01:36:43,447 --> 01:36:45,847
looking for certain profiles and identifying

1587
01:36:45,847 --> 01:36:47,387
and tapping people to be chosen.

1588
01:36:47,987 --> 01:36:50,287
Whereas people who

1589
01:36:50,287 --> 01:36:51,567
might be Bitcoin

1590
01:36:51,567 --> 01:36:53,987
naturally aren't necessarily

1591
01:36:53,987 --> 01:36:55,807
the profile that the

1592
01:36:55,807 --> 01:36:57,887
Chinko Laps people are reaching out to and looking.

1593
01:36:58,087 --> 01:37:00,147
And it's been that way since a long time.

1594
01:37:00,347 --> 01:37:05,347
Yeah. No, it's a mess.

1595
01:37:05,347 --> 01:37:19,540
Well we just need another probably another implementation which is way easier said than done And that why we don have one And now we in the bear market So funding might be a little tougher than it would have been six months ago But yeah Giacomo evoked it

1596
01:37:19,620 --> 01:37:20,780
I believe we need one.

1597
01:37:21,120 --> 01:37:25,380
We need a place for people who don't fit into the current Bitcoin core mold.

1598
01:37:26,180 --> 01:37:28,160
Now, it's not a uni mold.

1599
01:37:28,640 --> 01:37:30,120
There are very good people in core.

1600
01:37:30,120 --> 01:37:37,200
I believe that currently, I like all of the main tanners in core right now, except one,

1601
01:37:37,200 --> 01:37:39,380
I think they have very good maintainers.

1602
01:37:39,480 --> 01:37:41,140
There's just one who I know is hostile.

1603
01:37:42,520 --> 01:37:45,360
And, you know, Core could come around, and I hope they do.

1604
01:37:45,500 --> 01:37:49,420
My goal is not to punch down on Core the way Core has sometimes punched down on me.

1605
01:37:49,860 --> 01:37:51,840
My goal is to help improve Bitcoin.

1606
01:37:52,020 --> 01:37:52,940
I'm on Team Bitcoin.

1607
01:37:54,380 --> 01:37:59,040
No, and of course that would be preferable, but aren't we beyond that point?

1608
01:38:00,680 --> 01:38:05,340
Well, it does seem like the ship has sailed, but, you know, never say never.

1609
01:38:05,340 --> 01:38:09,880
No, because they did put this on themselves.

1610
01:38:10,100 --> 01:38:19,520
Would you agree with that, that BIP-110 wouldn't exist had Core not meddled with the policies and made decisions that nobody liked?

1611
01:38:20,140 --> 01:38:24,780
I think that they were not deft in the way they did their change.

1612
01:38:25,280 --> 01:38:32,020
And I think that that change alone would not have caused the issue that it did if they had not been losing trust over years.

1613
01:38:32,640 --> 01:38:34,900
I think it was a cumulative action.

1614
01:38:35,340 --> 01:38:40,140
Yeah, so it was the straw that broke the camel's back or whatever it's called.

1615
01:38:40,320 --> 01:38:41,420
Yes, that's right.

1616
01:38:42,020 --> 01:38:55,000
Yeah, but still, that it was the straw that would break the camel's back, it seems so obvious that if you do this, there will be consequences somehow.

1617
01:38:55,000 --> 01:38:58,240
Right, to you and to me, yes, but not to my colleagues.

1618
01:38:59,660 --> 01:39:01,260
No, but to Bitcoin.

1619
01:39:01,260 --> 01:39:23,000
Like, if now the change was made to make spam a little less destructive, and people didn't agree with that, then they're taking one thing for granted, but they're only seeing one chess move ahead and not two.

1620
01:39:23,240 --> 01:39:26,520
Like, if this leads to that, then that's a worse outcome.

1621
01:39:26,520 --> 01:39:39,440
If you're taking this utilitarian approach, why can't you have a lower time preference and see a little further into the future that this will trigger side effects that are even worse than what you're proposing?

1622
01:39:39,440 --> 01:39:49,580
From the core perspective, because I don't think anyone in core likes that BIP-110 is now on the table and there's a risk that it will happen.

1623
01:39:50,600 --> 01:39:53,700
I think it's a byproduct of the social process.

1624
01:39:53,700 --> 01:40:12,460
When the main decision-making is taking place over a lunch discussion in an office in New York City or London, then you're not going to probably come to the same decision as someone who is interacting much more with the plips.

1625
01:40:13,100 --> 01:40:18,320
I believe that there is an environmental factor involved where they're all sitting around between themselves.

1626
01:40:18,780 --> 01:40:23,200
And when I was visiting Chaincode Labs, there was definitely an elitism.

1627
01:40:23,200 --> 01:40:25,660
There's an absolute elitism going on.

1628
01:40:26,620 --> 01:40:29,520
And I think that's a bicottlet of the social process.

1629
01:40:30,780 --> 01:40:32,200
Like, I'm here in El Salvador.

1630
01:40:32,600 --> 01:40:33,900
Who do I meet in El Salvador?

1631
01:40:34,320 --> 01:40:35,100
I meet players.

1632
01:40:36,160 --> 01:40:37,560
Who comes to El Salvador?

1633
01:40:38,220 --> 01:40:40,200
I mean, yeah.

1634
01:40:40,720 --> 01:40:45,880
Every now and then, you know, you come or Luke comes or Jack Domo comes or Peter Todd comes.

1635
01:40:46,300 --> 01:40:48,880
Those are probably the main developers I see here.

1636
01:40:48,880 --> 01:40:50,420
I saw merch here once.

1637
01:40:50,420 --> 01:40:57,880
You know, and Merch takes a lot of crap for his core, his argumentation for core.

1638
01:40:58,200 --> 01:41:00,460
But Merch is someone who I like very much and get along with.

1639
01:41:00,560 --> 01:41:02,020
I have a lot of respect for Merch.

1640
01:41:03,560 --> 01:41:05,240
He's someone I can discuss with.

1641
01:41:05,520 --> 01:41:09,200
We've had calls where I've talked about, had heart-to-heart talks with Merch.

1642
01:41:09,820 --> 01:41:15,880
So, you know, one day Merch is getting heat for defending the core position.

1643
01:41:16,020 --> 01:41:17,880
One day I'm getting heat for closing the cat.

1644
01:41:18,600 --> 01:41:22,140
We all have our days of heat, but there are some very good people in CORE.

1645
01:41:22,240 --> 01:41:23,200
I'm not criticizing.

1646
01:41:23,660 --> 01:41:26,600
I would say 90% of people in CORE I like very much.

1647
01:41:27,200 --> 01:41:29,280
It's not that they are all woke.

1648
01:41:29,280 --> 01:41:33,700
It's just that there was an element that sort of took it over in a way.

1649
01:41:35,080 --> 01:41:39,020
And it's not just the developers, it's also the handlers, the people in the offices who

1650
01:41:39,020 --> 01:41:42,980
are sort of deciding things like, who will we hire into our offices?

1651
01:41:42,980 --> 01:41:43,860
Who's going to get funding?

1652
01:41:43,860 --> 01:41:51,700
And I said that as someone who also influences funding decisions since about a year, I help open stats review applications.

1653
01:41:52,280 --> 01:41:56,220
But I'm just one opinion on a subcommittee or two.

1654
01:41:56,840 --> 01:42:02,220
So I'm not the head of, you know, Brink or Chaincode or local hosts.

1655
01:42:03,360 --> 01:42:06,840
But I think it's good to diversify the funding organizations.

1656
01:42:07,100 --> 01:42:13,420
And I think it's good to diversify the implementations so that there's a space for different people to feel welcome.

1657
01:42:13,420 --> 01:42:21,140
We have to deal with the fact that Bitcoin is on a collision course with a vast number of normies and with Wall Street and with politics.

1658
01:42:22,080 --> 01:42:29,680
And that is responsible probably for a lot of the narratives that we see nowadays that are not Bitcoin is money or supportive of Bitcoin is money.

1659
01:42:29,780 --> 01:42:35,720
But I hope that we can still come around because I do want to use Bitcoin primarily as money.

1660
01:42:35,720 --> 01:42:38,760
And in my node, I don't want to store a bunch of other people's spam.

1661
01:42:38,760 --> 01:42:49,480
And if your node runner seems like you actually don't want to, unless you have a limited bandwidth and resources, I did have to start turning my node at one time on my laptop because it only had one terabyte of SSD.

1662
01:42:50,060 --> 01:42:51,180
That's not enough nowadays.

1663
01:42:53,080 --> 01:42:55,280
No, and this is a forever problem.

1664
01:42:55,480 --> 01:43:02,360
And that's why I'm so, one of the main reasons why I hate it so much is like, it's, what do you call it?

1665
01:43:02,440 --> 01:43:03,980
Like they're squatters.

1666
01:43:05,800 --> 01:43:08,260
Yeah, it's a free rider problem.

1667
01:43:08,260 --> 01:43:14,340
yeah exactly it's the problem of abuse of pissing on the commons to make money for your your

1668
01:43:14,340 --> 01:43:21,620
stakeholders and that's not bitcoin to me you know human nature people get into bitcoin initially

1669
01:43:21,620 --> 01:43:27,720
about greed and no no no not make not make money for your shareholders make fiat for your

1670
01:43:27,720 --> 01:43:33,220
shareholders and that's the saddest part they're not making actual money and this is the this is the

1671
01:43:33,220 --> 01:43:35,220
Ah, it drives me mad

1672
01:43:35,220 --> 01:43:37,880
Like, here you have the best fucking thing in the world

1673
01:43:37,880 --> 01:43:40,540
That can benefit everyone on earth forever

1674
01:43:40,540 --> 01:43:41,920
And you choose

1675
01:43:41,920 --> 01:43:43,680
So like, no, I'm gonna be

1676
01:43:43,680 --> 01:43:45,580
I'm gonna be that guy from the Matrix

1677
01:43:45,580 --> 01:43:47,200
Who chooses the stake instead

1678
01:43:47,200 --> 01:43:48,840
Yeah, but making fiat money

1679
01:43:48,840 --> 01:43:50,760
That's the gate, that's the entry gate

1680
01:43:50,760 --> 01:43:52,940
I mean, when I made friends with the police

1681
01:43:52,940 --> 01:43:54,720
That the neighbor tried to have me arrested

1682
01:43:54,720 --> 01:43:55,840
By

1683
01:43:55,840 --> 01:43:58,900
What they wanted to know was like the same as everybody else

1684
01:43:58,900 --> 01:44:00,680
So, tell us how we can make

1685
01:44:00,680 --> 01:44:02,260
More dollars with Bitcoin

1686
01:44:03,220 --> 01:44:07,300
Yeah, and it's so sad because this is the tool.

1687
01:44:08,120 --> 01:44:11,160
They're all having tough lives because of fiat.

1688
01:44:11,380 --> 01:44:14,880
So everyone's life is tough because of the fiat monetary system.

1689
01:44:15,200 --> 01:44:16,040
This is still fixed.

1690
01:44:16,040 --> 01:44:17,440
So few people see that, right?

1691
01:44:17,540 --> 01:44:18,860
People are busy with their lives.

1692
01:44:19,120 --> 01:44:22,620
They're not like you and me, most people, thinking about these things.

1693
01:44:22,820 --> 01:44:26,020
We're a fringe, and we're on a collision course with the entire world

1694
01:44:26,020 --> 01:44:28,280
that doesn't care about these things that we care about.

1695
01:44:28,780 --> 01:44:30,160
And it's going to be a challenge.

1696
01:44:30,160 --> 01:44:37,800
now so and that's why i think the education is crucial and especially education about

1697
01:44:37,800 --> 01:44:44,380
why scams are scams and why you shouldn't fall for them there is no such thing as a non-fungible

1698
01:44:44,380 --> 01:44:51,040
token there is no token on the internet at all in fact like all data is copyable the satoshi is

1699
01:44:51,040 --> 01:44:57,900
sacred and special for very different reasons it's because they live in your head not on the internet

1700
01:44:57,900 --> 01:44:59,740
It indeed makes me sound

1701
01:44:59,740 --> 01:45:02,300
it's the good, smart, intelligent developer talent

1702
01:45:02,300 --> 01:45:04,160
working on stuff like that rather than...

1703
01:45:05,920 --> 01:45:07,340
And that's part of the reason why I think

1704
01:45:07,340 --> 01:45:09,880
that it can be a mistake to prioritize for youth

1705
01:45:09,880 --> 01:45:11,100
because youth is very good

1706
01:45:11,100 --> 01:45:14,880
for innovation and energy and ego and ambition.

1707
01:45:15,760 --> 01:45:18,840
But then if it's channeled into making shitcoin

1708
01:45:18,840 --> 01:45:21,000
and tokens and things like that,

1709
01:45:21,100 --> 01:45:23,160
rather than making the...

1710
01:45:23,160 --> 01:45:24,560
The main priority for me

1711
01:45:24,560 --> 01:45:26,240
is just making the base layer robust.

1712
01:45:26,240 --> 01:45:28,960
having a robust face layer, having a robust

1713
01:45:28,960 --> 01:45:30,900
lighting network, robust second layer

1714
01:45:30,900 --> 01:45:31,820
for payments.

1715
01:45:33,240 --> 01:45:34,880
Robustness. It's not about, I'm not

1716
01:45:34,880 --> 01:45:36,140
particularly interested in all the rest.

1717
01:45:37,600 --> 01:45:38,860
But, you know, that's maybe

1718
01:45:38,860 --> 01:45:40,980
boring to a young person, but I'm not so young.

1719
01:45:41,060 --> 01:45:43,060
I'm probably the oldest person in Bitcoin

1720
01:45:43,060 --> 01:45:45,040
court. And I just

1721
01:45:45,040 --> 01:45:46,780
care about it as money and making it robust

1722
01:45:46,780 --> 01:45:48,880
and as robust and as

1723
01:45:48,880 --> 01:45:50,780
decentralized as we can. Robustness and

1724
01:45:50,780 --> 01:45:52,960
decentralization. AJ Towns wrote that on a blog

1725
01:45:52,960 --> 01:45:55,060
post several years ago. AJ got

1726
01:45:55,060 --> 01:45:56,440
that full on 100% right.

1727
01:45:56,800 --> 01:45:58,220
Robustness and decentralization.

1728
01:45:58,360 --> 01:45:59,360
That's where Bitcoin shines

1729
01:45:59,360 --> 01:46:01,540
and that's where my attention is.

1730
01:46:02,120 --> 01:46:06,280
And decentralization of funding developers,

1731
01:46:06,460 --> 01:46:07,960
of developers, of mining,

1732
01:46:08,420 --> 01:46:10,520
and making it possible to run nodes

1733
01:46:10,520 --> 01:46:11,660
as cheap as possible.

1734
01:46:11,820 --> 01:46:13,120
So don't burden everybody

1735
01:46:13,120 --> 01:46:16,240
with a bunch of crap on their node.

1736
01:46:17,440 --> 01:46:18,880
I mean, Cora was good at that

1737
01:46:18,880 --> 01:46:19,780
with the block size war

1738
01:46:19,780 --> 01:46:22,800
in preferring to keep things light

1739
01:46:22,800 --> 01:46:25,500
for the node users in blocks smaller.

1740
01:46:26,820 --> 01:46:31,340
So, yeah, there's definitely been a bit of a change in narrative

1741
01:46:31,340 --> 01:46:37,340
by necessity or by other means, but it's concerning.

1742
01:46:39,340 --> 01:46:40,020
Absolutely.

1743
01:46:40,280 --> 01:46:46,820
I saw in one of the launch posts for one of these shit coins on Bitcoin things,

1744
01:46:46,820 --> 01:46:47,860
I think it was Opnet,

1745
01:46:47,860 --> 01:46:53,740
that the article said that there are so many sats just sitting there doing nothing.

1746
01:46:54,480 --> 01:46:59,880
And it reminded me so much of Christine Lagarde saying that there are so many, you know,

1747
01:47:00,300 --> 01:47:05,140
big piles of euros in people's savings account that are sitting there doing nothing,

1748
01:47:05,280 --> 01:47:06,820
and we ought to do something with them.

1749
01:47:07,380 --> 01:47:08,620
That's what they want to do.

1750
01:47:08,620 --> 01:47:09,680
They want to steal your sats.

1751
01:47:09,680 --> 01:47:13,000
No, this is the thing that people don't get about money.

1752
01:47:13,120 --> 01:47:14,200
It's never idle.

1753
01:47:14,380 --> 01:47:17,180
It always provides its holder with a service.

1754
01:47:17,860 --> 01:47:20,060
Saving is a use case.

1755
01:47:20,300 --> 01:47:23,260
It is, in fact, the most important use case.

1756
01:47:23,400 --> 01:47:26,840
That's how it fixes store value.

1757
01:47:27,080 --> 01:47:28,620
Like, it's so crucial.

1758
01:47:29,300 --> 01:47:32,620
It provides proper incentives and peace of mind and ability, freedom.

1759
01:47:32,900 --> 01:47:34,920
And yeah, freedom is important.

1760
01:47:34,920 --> 01:47:39,500
And that whole, it's creeping in that that is not important anymore.

1761
01:47:40,160 --> 01:47:42,500
And it's so sad.

1762
01:47:42,640 --> 01:47:44,760
And it's sort of with the stable coins thing.

1763
01:47:44,760 --> 01:47:52,480
What I dislike about that is the narrative is that it's this necessary bridge into the other world and we can bank the unbanked and stuff.

1764
01:47:52,900 --> 01:47:59,080
But to me, if fiat is smoking, then stablecoins are nicotine patches.

1765
01:47:59,880 --> 01:48:04,980
But if you want to quit nicotine, then you should use SATs instead.

1766
01:48:06,180 --> 01:48:06,540
Yes.

1767
01:48:06,860 --> 01:48:07,620
You see what I mean?

1768
01:48:07,880 --> 01:48:12,160
It's a substitute, but you're still addicted to this drug.

1769
01:48:12,320 --> 01:48:13,440
So it doesn't fix the problem.

1770
01:48:13,440 --> 01:48:18,860
And I believe that developers, it's healthier if Bitcoin developers are funded in Bitcoin.

1771
01:48:20,780 --> 01:48:22,120
Of course.

1772
01:48:22,640 --> 01:48:28,200
And what that presupposes is more of them not being in the United States where you cannot use Bitcoin really.

1773
01:48:29,080 --> 01:48:29,600
Well, you can.

1774
01:48:30,600 --> 01:48:37,700
Well, you can if you're ballsy enough to give the finger to the government and not give a crap.

1775
01:48:37,700 --> 01:48:38,300
Like, yeah.

1776
01:48:39,220 --> 01:48:39,340
Right.

1777
01:48:39,580 --> 01:48:51,140
But, you know, I was actually made an example of, like, my Jonas once in his blog of saying how things can go very wrong when your funding is in Bitcoin and that it's probably a bit safer and wiser to have it in fiat.

1778
01:48:51,500 --> 01:48:58,240
And my funder at the time, Square Crypto later became Spiral, did begin proposing to me to take dollars instead of Bitcoin.

1779
01:49:00,200 --> 01:49:04,000
I wouldn't be where I am today with this Citadel if I had been accepting dollars.

1780
01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:11,300
It's so sad that you're so unique in doing that.

1781
01:49:12,740 --> 01:49:14,600
I'm not. There are other developers.

1782
01:49:15,240 --> 01:49:19,840
But definitely the ones in the New York City office are obviously not being paid in Bitcoin.

1783
01:49:20,500 --> 01:49:25,280
No, and that in itself is such a humongous red flag.

1784
01:49:25,540 --> 01:49:27,120
Like, you don't believe in this revolution.

1785
01:49:28,020 --> 01:49:30,340
Nor are the ones in the local hosts in South Francisco.

1786
01:49:31,180 --> 01:49:33,940
I don't know about the Brink office in London.

1787
01:49:34,000 --> 01:49:39,180
And I do imagine, though, that you could probably ask for it to be funded partially or all on Bitcoin.

1788
01:49:39,400 --> 01:49:43,840
It's surely possible, but how are you going to use that Bitcoin if you're in London, New York or San Francisco?

1789
01:49:44,340 --> 01:49:52,000
Whereas if you're in the global south or some other countries where Bitcoin has, there are circular Bitcoin economies around the world.

1790
01:49:52,300 --> 01:49:54,360
There's just not very many Bitcoin developers in those places.

1791
01:49:54,360 --> 01:50:09,020
No, and it's so sad because if you now buy your action to accept fiat instead of Bitcoin, show that you don't truly believe in this revolution, then shouldn't you?

1792
01:50:11,020 --> 01:50:14,120
That to me is the biggest red flag ever.

1793
01:50:14,120 --> 01:50:16,340
Like if you're working on Bitcoin

1794
01:50:16,340 --> 01:50:18,420
And you do not accept Bitcoin

1795
01:50:18,420 --> 01:50:21,560
Do you even Bitcoin bro?

1796
01:50:21,920 --> 01:50:24,640
What are the other incentives?

1797
01:50:25,360 --> 01:50:28,100
I think it's the condition of the funding organization

1798
01:50:28,100 --> 01:50:29,800
It's imposing fiat

1799
01:50:29,800 --> 01:50:32,820
Not that the developer is preferring fiat

1800
01:50:32,820 --> 01:50:35,080
It's case by case of course

1801
01:50:35,080 --> 01:50:37,800
But I'm aware of cases where the funding organization

1802
01:50:37,800 --> 01:50:39,440
Doesn't propose Bitcoin

1803
01:50:39,440 --> 01:50:42,240
No and I'm not trying to

1804
01:50:44,120 --> 01:50:52,080
Whereas, thankfully, ones like HRF or OpenStats, and I believe, Spiral did fund me entirely in Bitcoin the whole time, four years.

1805
01:50:52,080 --> 01:50:52,260
Yeah.

1806
01:50:52,540 --> 01:50:53,640
So it is possible.

1807
01:50:54,200 --> 01:50:56,900
But sometimes you have to ask where you can push for it.

1808
01:50:57,420 --> 01:50:58,580
OpenStats and HRF, no.

1809
01:50:58,840 --> 01:51:00,820
OpenStats and HRF, they are all Bitcoin.

1810
01:51:01,080 --> 01:51:01,440
That's it.

1811
01:51:02,180 --> 01:51:03,660
You want to be paid in something else?

1812
01:51:04,080 --> 01:51:05,140
Go pound sand, dude.

1813
01:51:05,240 --> 01:51:06,000
You're getting paid in Bitcoin.

1814
01:51:06,000 --> 01:51:06,180
Yeah.

1815
01:51:06,214 --> 01:51:17,314
No, but I mean, the whole thing, it just stinks.

1816
01:51:18,434 --> 01:51:24,314
I'm sorry, but to me, it's very saddening to hear that the fiat mindset is everywhere.

1817
01:51:24,314 --> 01:51:34,774
And I do understand that people live in the real world, and people with guns will come and take them if they do something illegal.

1818
01:51:34,774 --> 01:52:00,594
So there's that. It's sort of the same thing as the defeatist attitude with Op Return. That doesn't mean you give up. In my world, it shouldn't lead to anyone giving up. So, John, we've been going on for two hours here, and I absolutely love this conversation. Is there anything more you wanted to add to your talk in San Salvador, the points you missed there?

1819
01:52:00,594 --> 01:52:04,014
well that could go on for a lot

1820
01:52:04,014 --> 01:52:07,554
it's not every day I have you on

1821
01:52:07,554 --> 01:52:09,394
so I have nothing against that

1822
01:52:09,394 --> 01:52:12,534
so yeah I mean

1823
01:52:12,534 --> 01:52:16,474
I'm really not interested in drama

1824
01:52:16,474 --> 01:52:19,974
and so I don't really like these topics

1825
01:52:19,974 --> 01:52:23,354
but at the same time in general I see

1826
01:52:23,354 --> 01:52:26,674
plebs feeling something is off and there's a lot of speculation

1827
01:52:26,674 --> 01:52:28,914
on social media and

1828
01:52:28,914 --> 01:52:32,834
my impression has been that people will speculate because they don't know

1829
01:52:32,834 --> 01:52:36,334
and I don't say everything I know.

1830
01:52:37,114 --> 01:52:39,314
I have to hold back quite a lot, unfortunately.

1831
01:52:40,434 --> 01:52:43,074
And I'm not interested in gossiping about this stuff,

1832
01:52:43,594 --> 01:52:46,814
but I think it's important for people to know what really took place

1833
01:52:46,814 --> 01:52:49,374
or has taken place and what is still taking place

1834
01:52:49,374 --> 01:52:54,694
to have a more informed view of what really has been behind the scenes.

1835
01:52:54,694 --> 01:53:04,554
So my presentation tried to cover some things, and I think we should link to my slides in your podcast if you're willing to.

1836
01:53:05,474 --> 01:53:05,894
Absolutely.

1837
01:53:07,734 --> 01:53:11,474
A few quick points from my slides.

1838
01:53:11,854 --> 01:53:16,214
I talked about the selection criteria being an issue, the leadership transition.

1839
01:53:16,214 --> 01:53:22,854
where are the why are the new developers not cypherpunks and sovereign individuals and

1840
01:53:22,854 --> 01:53:28,834
citadels spread around all the world all over the world um rather than being in few offices

1841
01:53:28,834 --> 01:53:38,014
um there is a myth that the maintainers are just janitors following the reviews

1842
01:53:38,014 --> 01:53:43,234
merging things that have had enough review that is not entirely true there are dynamic effects

1843
01:53:43,234 --> 01:53:45,194
because maintainers are going to stay a very long time,

1844
01:53:45,414 --> 01:53:48,194
five, six, seven, eight years, sometimes 10 years, sometimes.

1845
01:53:49,054 --> 01:53:54,714
And there are real social processes that are affected by

1846
01:53:54,714 --> 01:53:57,854
when you become a maintainer, things change.

1847
01:53:58,514 --> 01:54:01,514
And dynastic effects, I believe that it,

1848
01:54:02,094 --> 01:54:04,694
I did believe that for core, it would be a good idea

1849
01:54:04,694 --> 01:54:07,714
to turn maintainership to more of a jury duty

1850
01:54:07,714 --> 01:54:09,574
where you don't like code,

1851
01:54:09,974 --> 01:54:11,634
where you're not responsible for a project,

1852
01:54:11,634 --> 01:54:15,694
where you just review and serve others for a limited time

1853
01:54:15,694 --> 01:54:18,934
and then you go back to your life as a regular contributor

1854
01:54:18,934 --> 01:54:21,194
the way politics should be.

1855
01:54:21,334 --> 01:54:23,774
I had an uncle who was a congressman.

1856
01:54:23,974 --> 01:54:25,574
He did two terms.

1857
01:54:25,714 --> 01:54:26,934
He realized that for his third term,

1858
01:54:26,994 --> 01:54:29,614
he would have to make too many compromises to donors.

1859
01:54:30,054 --> 01:54:31,474
And so he set back to private life

1860
01:54:31,474 --> 01:54:34,414
to keep things sane and healthy.

1861
01:54:34,934 --> 01:54:37,094
And I think it would be healthy for CORE

1862
01:54:37,094 --> 01:54:37,934
to think about that.

1863
01:54:38,354 --> 01:54:39,514
But at the same time,

1864
01:54:39,514 --> 01:54:42,034
if you have several implementations

1865
01:54:42,034 --> 01:54:44,134
then perhaps the diversification

1866
01:54:44,134 --> 01:54:46,274
could be, perhaps the maintainers

1867
01:54:46,274 --> 01:54:48,214
would be okay if you had a strong leader like Vladimir

1868
01:54:48,214 --> 01:54:50,294
in place for a decade, if they're a good, humble

1869
01:54:50,294 --> 01:54:51,234
wise

1870
01:54:51,234 --> 01:54:53,494
servant-oriented leader

1871
01:54:53,494 --> 01:54:56,134
as long as you have different implementations

1872
01:54:56,134 --> 01:54:57,834
offering users choices and options

1873
01:54:57,834 --> 01:54:59,894
then perhaps you could have someone long-term in place

1874
01:54:59,894 --> 01:55:02,074
without jury duty regular rotation

1875
01:55:02,074 --> 01:55:04,294
but if you only have

1876
01:55:04,294 --> 01:55:06,694
core that is 95, 96, 98%

1877
01:55:06,694 --> 01:55:07,874
as it used to be before

1878
01:55:07,874 --> 01:55:10,314
or not increased recently,

1879
01:55:10,314 --> 01:55:11,874
then I believe it should have some sort of

1880
01:55:11,874 --> 01:55:14,214
regular rotation of maintainerships

1881
01:55:14,214 --> 01:55:19,214
to avoid dynasty effects and power clicks flowing.

1882
01:55:22,434 --> 01:55:25,494
How maintainers are chosen in core, to be quite clear,

1883
01:55:25,494 --> 01:55:29,534
it is not a vote of the core developers.

1884
01:55:29,534 --> 01:55:31,974
They are chosen from what I've seen quite clearly

1885
01:55:31,974 --> 01:55:34,814
by the existing maintainers,

1886
01:55:34,814 --> 01:55:37,234
often by a proposal from one of them

1887
01:55:37,234 --> 01:55:41,154
And a strong veto from one of them could be enough to disable a nomination.

1888
01:55:42,554 --> 01:55:45,554
So in core, the maintainers are chosen by the maintainers.

1889
01:55:46,834 --> 01:55:51,514
With perhaps input from the project owners who are no longer maintainers.

1890
01:55:52,014 --> 01:55:55,274
Project owners are the only people above maintainers in the core hierarchy.

1891
01:55:55,834 --> 01:55:58,114
They are the owners of the GitHub repository.

1892
01:55:58,754 --> 01:56:00,214
As far as I know, there are four of them.

1893
01:56:02,034 --> 01:56:03,994
Two OGs and two newer ones.

1894
01:56:03,994 --> 01:56:07,214
in quote one thing that I was

1895
01:56:07,214 --> 01:56:09,254
quite worried about this past few years has been

1896
01:56:09,254 --> 01:56:11,174
an increasing level of opacity in the

1897
01:56:11,174 --> 01:56:13,034
communications it used to be

1898
01:56:13,034 --> 01:56:36,564
that we had very good public IRC meetings once a week with Vladimir as the lead maintainer running the meetings He was such a good meeting leader in coming to decisions in real life with intelligent honest humble conversations to come to a conclusion during that same meeting and to arrive at something

1899
01:56:36,964 --> 01:56:39,764
Since then, working groups were created.

1900
01:56:40,484 --> 01:56:42,944
These are private groups that communicate privately on signal.

1901
01:56:43,364 --> 01:56:45,304
You have to reply to be admitted to them.

1902
01:56:46,084 --> 01:56:48,024
And that's where the real communication takes place now,

1903
01:56:48,084 --> 01:56:50,944
in these silos, where someone like me,

1904
01:56:51,004 --> 01:56:52,444
who is watching from outside,

1905
01:56:52,544 --> 01:56:55,524
cannot see what communication is taking place.

1906
01:56:55,884 --> 01:56:57,944
So the communication has become less public,

1907
01:56:58,084 --> 01:56:59,744
it's gone private, and it's siloed.

1908
01:57:00,404 --> 01:57:02,204
And I find that personally worrying,

1909
01:57:02,204 --> 01:57:03,864
so the private working groups have replaced

1910
01:57:03,864 --> 01:57:06,724
public discussion in core meetings.

1911
01:57:08,884 --> 01:57:10,084
Code of conduct.

1912
01:57:10,084 --> 01:57:17,644
But Core adopted a code of conduct that, if I recall correctly, was written, again, by Jonas of ChainCodeLab.

1913
01:57:17,864 --> 01:57:25,264
And I initially, I was, I believe, the first reviewer who came out who reviewed that pull request, and I was not in favor of a code of conduct.

1914
01:57:25,424 --> 01:57:29,864
I've never been in favor, and if I was running an implementation, I would try to avoid one as much as possible.

1915
01:57:30,804 --> 01:57:35,064
Core went just fine without a code of conduct for more than a decade.

1916
01:57:35,064 --> 01:57:37,304
Two dedicated moderators were named.

1917
01:57:37,824 --> 01:57:38,804
They're good.

1918
01:57:38,804 --> 01:58:00,284
They do a very good job. They are good people. I like both of the moderators who work with Foucault. But they are unfortunately caught between a rock and a hard plate because the way they are used is if, for example, I would make a comment that might be misinterpreted personally by a maintainer who then asks the moderators to investigate it, who then come and investigate me over it.

1919
01:58:00,284 --> 01:58:03,144
And I say, no, it wasn't a personal thing.

1920
01:58:03,684 --> 01:58:18,344
And I would remind the moderators that when in doubt in rib communication, such as in open source development, you by default must assume the most charitable and generous interpretation of what somebody wrote rather than assuming the worst unless proven so.

1921
01:58:18,964 --> 01:58:20,264
Innocent until proven guilty.

1922
01:58:20,264 --> 01:58:21,744
Basic rule.

1923
01:58:22,504 --> 01:58:24,664
And the moderators were, yes, you're right.

1924
01:58:25,324 --> 01:58:29,024
And so the maintainer who told you to go after me for my comment

1925
01:58:29,024 --> 01:58:32,544
was assuming the worst rather than giving it a generous or normal interpretation.

1926
01:58:34,084 --> 01:58:36,144
So there, between a rock and a hard place,

1927
01:58:36,204 --> 01:58:40,064
basically the code of conduct is used to protect the powerful against the weak,

1928
01:58:40,184 --> 01:58:42,844
when it really, in my opinion, should be used, if at all,

1929
01:58:42,844 --> 01:58:44,304
to protect the weak against the powerful.

1930
01:58:45,144 --> 01:58:46,484
But that's how rules tend to be.

1931
01:58:47,524 --> 01:58:48,044
Yeah, yeah.

1932
01:58:48,044 --> 01:58:54,784
Yeah, the code of conduct sounds like politicization to me, like it's politics creeping in.

1933
01:58:54,784 --> 01:59:02,484
Yeah, this came from the introduction, the creeping of woke into these open source projects.

1934
01:59:03,264 --> 01:59:06,984
So it comes back to, we need alternative clients with different politics.

1935
01:59:07,144 --> 01:59:08,584
Maybe we can have a woke one.

1936
01:59:08,584 --> 01:59:19,664
And then we can have one that's maybe more just older, conservative, seasoned people who aren't based on anything related to their identity.

1937
01:59:19,904 --> 01:59:21,144
We don't care what country you're in.

1938
01:59:21,184 --> 01:59:24,284
If you have two kids or four, what color your hair is or anything.

1939
01:59:24,384 --> 01:59:24,884
It doesn't matter.

1940
01:59:25,604 --> 01:59:27,164
What matters is your work.

1941
01:59:27,164 --> 01:59:30,504
there's a perennial lack of

1942
01:59:30,504 --> 01:59:34,444
the perennial constraint

1943
01:59:34,444 --> 01:59:36,604
in Bitcoin core protocol development

1944
01:59:36,604 --> 01:59:39,164
has been a lack of experienced reviewers

1945
01:59:39,164 --> 01:59:41,284
people always cite

1946
01:59:41,284 --> 01:59:43,384
the most frustrating thing to them

1947
01:59:43,384 --> 01:59:45,484
as being my work doesn't get reviewed

1948
01:59:45,484 --> 01:59:46,224
it doesn't move forward

1949
01:59:46,224 --> 01:59:47,064
there's no good review

1950
01:59:47,064 --> 01:59:50,144
and so I've seen it argued

1951
01:59:50,144 --> 01:59:52,044
that we shouldn't have more implementations

1952
01:59:52,044 --> 01:59:53,884
because that would disperse the reviewers

1953
01:59:53,884 --> 01:59:56,264
across the already resource

1954
01:59:56,264 --> 01:59:59,224
we are lacking against over more projects

1955
01:59:59,224 --> 02:00:02,644
instead of concentrating the rare review talent.

1956
02:00:02,844 --> 02:00:05,664
I disagree with that because in core,

1957
02:00:05,784 --> 02:00:08,384
I've seen very good experienced seasoned reviewers

1958
02:00:08,384 --> 02:00:12,084
be disenfranchised just because they're more independent.

1959
02:00:12,424 --> 02:00:13,644
And then we see what I,

1960
02:00:13,744 --> 02:00:15,424
like I mentioned earlier in our discussion,

1961
02:00:15,884 --> 02:00:17,424
where people are coming in,

1962
02:00:17,504 --> 02:00:19,444
not to review the pull request or the code,

1963
02:00:19,484 --> 02:00:21,104
but just to review the reviewer,

1964
02:00:22,224 --> 02:00:24,304
to dunk down on their review

1965
02:00:24,304 --> 02:00:26,704
to make it possible to ignore their review

1966
02:00:26,704 --> 02:00:28,424
or to push it aside.

1967
02:00:30,384 --> 02:00:31,984
I believe that there are people

1968
02:00:31,984 --> 02:00:33,244
who are very good reviewers in core

1969
02:00:33,244 --> 02:00:34,164
who are underutilized

1970
02:00:34,164 --> 02:00:35,424
because of the social processes,

1971
02:00:35,784 --> 02:00:37,164
because they're not in an office,

1972
02:00:37,304 --> 02:00:39,044
they're not in the popular group.

1973
02:00:39,404 --> 02:00:41,464
Maybe they are one guy alone in Eastern Europe

1974
02:00:41,464 --> 02:00:43,804
or one guy alone in Central America,

1975
02:00:43,924 --> 02:00:44,364
and so on.

1976
02:00:45,184 --> 02:00:46,484
So there are double standards.

1977
02:00:47,064 --> 02:00:49,604
And there's ongoing social signaling

1978
02:00:49,604 --> 02:00:51,064
of approval and disapproval,

1979
02:00:51,524 --> 02:00:52,604
who should be supported,

1980
02:00:52,764 --> 02:00:53,824
who should be supported,

1981
02:00:53,824 --> 02:00:55,304
who was in, who was out.

1982
02:00:56,044 --> 02:00:58,604
That is maybe inevitable in human processes,

1983
02:00:58,784 --> 02:01:01,844
but it wasn't quite as bad when I first joined Core

1984
02:01:01,844 --> 02:01:03,104
as it became later.

1985
02:01:04,224 --> 02:01:07,324
So I have a list of, in my slides,

1986
02:01:07,664 --> 02:01:10,924
starting from slide 49, culture, named culture.

1987
02:01:11,304 --> 02:01:14,144
I have one, two, three, four, five,

1988
02:01:15,364 --> 02:01:19,364
four pages of what I would consider to be

1989
02:01:19,364 --> 02:01:21,704
the guidelines for an implementation.

1990
02:01:21,704 --> 02:01:36,794
and at the end of the day really having one single dominant client creates monopoly risks it cifles developers who are not in the in group it siphils development maybe we could have one it going to get harder

1991
02:01:36,794 --> 02:01:42,234
with more in some cases to introduce softworks probably i could imagine but maybe we're going

1992
02:01:42,234 --> 02:01:46,394
to have one implementation that does launch ctv or coven and since the people want that

1993
02:01:47,114 --> 02:01:54,794
one that does like not launch something like pip 110 i am not certain how it will help or hinder

1994
02:01:54,794 --> 02:01:56,654
innovations, having more clients, more

1995
02:01:56,654 --> 02:01:59,014
implementations. But having only one

1996
02:01:59,014 --> 02:02:00,854
is clearly seen by

1997
02:02:00,854 --> 02:02:02,854
I think a growing part of the community as being an engineer.

1998
02:02:03,874 --> 02:02:05,094
They need options.

1999
02:02:06,014 --> 02:02:06,774
I mean, more

2000
02:02:06,774 --> 02:02:08,214
options is always good, right?

2001
02:02:09,314 --> 02:02:10,434
It's sort of like

2002
02:02:10,434 --> 02:02:12,694
countries having to compete for talent

2003
02:02:12,694 --> 02:02:14,274
if you have more.

2004
02:02:14,834 --> 02:02:16,774
As long as you don't introduce

2005
02:02:16,774 --> 02:02:20,814
less resiliency with the

2006
02:02:20,814 --> 02:02:22,114
consensus rules.

2007
02:02:22,514 --> 02:02:24,474
As long as they follow consensus properly.

2008
02:02:24,794 --> 02:02:26,934
and don't have critical consensus funds.

2009
02:02:28,074 --> 02:02:28,614
But you're right.

2010
02:02:28,734 --> 02:02:31,734
I agree that more implementations will have more network resilience,

2011
02:02:32,694 --> 02:02:35,154
fewer single points of failure like we do now,

2012
02:02:35,994 --> 02:02:37,014
more available choice,

2013
02:02:37,154 --> 02:02:39,674
and it will incentivize Bitcoin Core to improve.

2014
02:02:41,054 --> 02:02:42,594
Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong,

2015
02:02:42,674 --> 02:02:45,114
but if they're not in consensus, they're a shitcoin.

2016
02:02:45,114 --> 02:02:46,394
They're a fork, right?

2017
02:02:47,174 --> 02:02:48,114
By definition.

2018
02:02:48,494 --> 02:02:50,434
Yes, but you want basically,

2019
02:02:51,114 --> 02:02:54,114
on part of the reasoning behind the kernel,

2020
02:02:54,794 --> 02:03:00,794
isolation project in core has been to have a single kernel that other implementations could use

2021
02:03:00,794 --> 02:03:05,994
while innovating elsewhere but they all use the same solid robust kernel

2022
02:03:08,234 --> 02:03:13,914
um so it the most important rules and if you follow the consensus ones that as long as the

2023
02:03:13,914 --> 02:03:17,194
client is following that then they should be free to innovate in other things perhaps

2024
02:03:18,154 --> 02:03:24,554
but overall i think the main thing is to offer more choice and to encourage bitcoin core to

2025
02:03:24,794 --> 02:03:28,094
be more careful about what it does

2026
02:03:28,094 --> 02:03:30,714
if it's more likely to lose market share.

2027
02:03:31,534 --> 02:03:32,454
Right now, Core,

2028
02:03:32,834 --> 02:03:33,794
my understanding is that Core

2029
02:03:33,794 --> 02:03:36,074
is having problems recruiting new developers.

2030
02:03:38,094 --> 02:03:39,054
That could be wrong,

2031
02:03:39,134 --> 02:03:39,974
but that's what I've heard.

2032
02:03:42,754 --> 02:03:46,574
So Bitcoin maybe is not as much in fashion at the moment.

2033
02:03:47,474 --> 02:03:49,974
Or maybe it's just Core is not as much in fashion.

2034
02:03:50,234 --> 02:03:50,854
I don't know.

2035
02:03:52,854 --> 02:03:54,214
But developing and training,

2036
02:03:54,794 --> 02:03:56,874
not only new users, but also more developers,

2037
02:03:56,974 --> 02:03:57,754
is going to be important.

2038
02:03:59,214 --> 02:04:00,334
It always has been.

2039
02:04:01,154 --> 02:04:04,094
And we have to be very careful and vigilant

2040
02:04:04,094 --> 02:04:08,234
about where the developers are being trained and educated

2041
02:04:08,234 --> 02:04:10,894
so that it's not just one centralized place in one city.

2042
02:04:12,034 --> 02:04:16,854
No, and maybe not with emotional Fridays or whatever.

2043
02:04:17,594 --> 02:04:20,214
Maybe we should have trained at another school

2044
02:04:20,214 --> 02:04:23,794
that doesn't focus that much on feeling Fridays.

2045
02:04:23,794 --> 02:04:33,854
If you do have Feelings Fridays for one implementation, as long as you have three or four implementations that sort of have roughly equal market share, I think that's fine.

2046
02:04:35,554 --> 02:04:40,174
Guns, steak, and cigars Fridays for another implementation, please.

2047
02:04:40,494 --> 02:04:42,994
Feelings Fridays, guns, gun shooting Fridays.

2048
02:04:43,174 --> 02:04:44,954
Guns and steak Fridays, yeah, yeah.

2049
02:04:46,214 --> 02:04:48,934
I'll disappoint you all. I don't have any guns in El Salvador.

2050
02:04:48,934 --> 02:04:49,674
but

2051
02:04:49,674 --> 02:04:50,634
and you know

2052
02:04:50,634 --> 02:04:51,294
we have also

2053
02:04:51,294 --> 02:04:52,194
AI is coming

2054
02:04:52,194 --> 02:04:53,754
and that's the real

2055
02:04:53,754 --> 02:04:54,494
topic right now

2056
02:04:54,494 --> 02:04:55,154
amongst the core

2057
02:04:55,154 --> 02:04:55,494
developers

2058
02:04:55,494 --> 02:04:56,314
Bitcoin developers

2059
02:04:56,314 --> 02:04:56,694
in general

2060
02:04:56,694 --> 02:04:57,794
is integrating AI

2061
02:04:57,794 --> 02:04:59,074
and that's a whole

2062
02:04:59,074 --> 02:04:59,394
other thing

2063
02:04:59,394 --> 02:04:59,634
oh yeah

2064
02:04:59,634 --> 02:05:01,234
oh yeah

2065
02:05:01,234 --> 02:05:01,454
yeah

2066
02:05:01,454 --> 02:05:02,654
that's a whole

2067
02:05:02,654 --> 02:05:04,794
other box to open

2068
02:05:04,794 --> 02:05:06,134
oh my

2069
02:05:06,134 --> 02:05:08,734
so

2070
02:05:08,734 --> 02:05:09,274
anyway

2071
02:05:09,274 --> 02:05:11,294
how is life

2072
02:05:11,294 --> 02:05:11,834
in El Salvador

2073
02:05:11,834 --> 02:05:12,434
by the way

2074
02:05:12,434 --> 02:05:13,574
you're still enjoying

2075
02:05:13,574 --> 02:05:14,534
yourself immensely

2076
02:05:14,534 --> 02:05:15,214
I mean

2077
02:05:15,214 --> 02:05:16,474
I love El Salvador

2078
02:05:16,474 --> 02:05:18,754
I love it here

2079
02:05:18,754 --> 02:05:21,354
But, I mean, it's a challenge.

2080
02:05:21,834 --> 02:05:22,954
It's cost me a lot of money.

2081
02:05:23,514 --> 02:05:24,754
It's cost me a lot of time.

2082
02:05:25,534 --> 02:05:28,174
It's kind of like moving to working on Bitcoin Core.

2083
02:05:28,274 --> 02:05:29,114
Would I do it again?

2084
02:05:30,694 --> 02:05:35,814
Knowing how much it costs and how much time it took to become a core developer.

2085
02:05:37,554 --> 02:05:40,314
The same could be said for El Salvador.

2086
02:05:40,514 --> 02:05:43,374
But it's very compelling if you're a freedom lover.

2087
02:05:43,934 --> 02:05:46,874
I don't know how long the freedom window will remain open.

2088
02:05:46,874 --> 02:05:49,074
or maybe we will all get rugged.

2089
02:05:49,414 --> 02:05:52,254
I do worry that the government will introduce property taxes

2090
02:05:52,254 --> 02:05:54,714
and rug all of us people who have been investing in land.

2091
02:05:55,674 --> 02:06:00,714
That would be terrible because a lot of the value of the land here

2092
02:06:00,714 --> 02:06:02,694
is coming from A, the security, the safety,

2093
02:06:03,214 --> 02:06:06,094
and B, the lack of property taxes, which could change.

2094
02:06:06,274 --> 02:06:07,734
And I am worried about that.

2095
02:06:08,254 --> 02:06:11,054
I think there's a real risk of the safety could go away

2096
02:06:11,054 --> 02:06:12,814
and maybe the CIA breaks open prisons.

2097
02:06:12,954 --> 02:06:14,454
I mean, too far on that.

2098
02:06:14,454 --> 02:06:17,694
or the property taxes could be introduced.

2099
02:06:17,814 --> 02:06:19,554
And that would be honestly very sad.

2100
02:06:20,274 --> 02:06:25,014
I would say that both those count as the safety going away.

2101
02:06:27,014 --> 02:06:27,494
Yes.

2102
02:06:27,834 --> 02:06:29,714
And so you don't know.

2103
02:06:29,934 --> 02:06:33,034
And it's actually, I've never invested so much in my life

2104
02:06:33,034 --> 02:06:35,974
outside of work in terms of time and money as I have here.

2105
02:06:36,294 --> 02:06:36,734
No.

2106
02:06:36,734 --> 02:06:50,365
But at the same time it pretty cool here I mean there a lot to and it beautiful up there uh i mean that where uh where you live i thoroughly enjoyed that afternoon where where i got to see your house

2107
02:06:50,365 --> 02:06:56,784
and and get all sweaty and we had to exchange i had to leave my shirt and and get a t-shirt from

2108
02:06:56,784 --> 02:07:02,524
you because my flight yeah yeah my hat is still there right i still have your hat i still have

2109
02:07:02,524 --> 02:07:04,664
because they're waiting for you.

2110
02:07:05,044 --> 02:07:08,185
If I know you correctly, they're still hanging on that ladder, right?

2111
02:07:09,425 --> 02:07:11,464
No, they're hanging on something else.

2112
02:07:12,185 --> 02:07:12,865
All right.

2113
02:07:13,044 --> 02:07:14,104
That's good to hear.

2114
02:07:14,425 --> 02:07:17,885
And I'm so sad that I didn't get to go in November here,

2115
02:07:17,925 --> 02:07:19,185
that I couldn't make it to El Salvador.

2116
02:07:20,125 --> 02:07:20,784
Or Plan B.

2117
02:07:21,324 --> 02:07:21,784
Plan B.

2118
02:07:23,185 --> 02:07:24,704
You didn't come for Plan B.

2119
02:07:25,104 --> 02:07:25,565
No, no.

2120
02:07:26,204 --> 02:07:30,464
It turned out, my bad, it turned out my passport's expiry date

2121
02:07:30,464 --> 02:07:31,625
had an expiry date.

2122
02:07:31,625 --> 02:07:35,065
so the expiry date was like

2123
02:07:35,065 --> 02:07:36,984
five and a half months after my

2124
02:07:36,984 --> 02:07:38,664
planned return flight

2125
02:07:38,664 --> 02:07:40,245
so they wouldn't let me over there

2126
02:07:40,245 --> 02:07:42,324
and I was at the airport and all

2127
02:07:42,324 --> 02:07:44,104
stressed out of course

2128
02:07:44,104 --> 02:07:46,844
having this thing planned and I didn't want to

2129
02:07:46,844 --> 02:07:48,664
let people down

2130
02:07:48,664 --> 02:07:50,764
I showed them pictures of me and

2131
02:07:50,764 --> 02:07:51,784
Bukele and stuff

2132
02:07:51,784 --> 02:07:55,065
just let me fly there

2133
02:07:55,065 --> 02:07:57,404
and I'll sort it out while I'm there

2134
02:07:57,404 --> 02:07:59,024
I'm sure I can sort it out

2135
02:07:59,024 --> 02:08:01,324
but no, they wouldn't let me on the plane

2136
02:08:01,324 --> 02:08:03,644
I have to say I'm jealous of you

2137
02:08:03,644 --> 02:08:05,745
and Giacomo you guys got to meet the president

2138
02:08:05,745 --> 02:08:07,164
I still have not met the president

2139
02:08:07,164 --> 02:08:10,265
I'm being called a hypocrite

2140
02:08:10,265 --> 02:08:12,165
all over the internet because of that

2141
02:08:12,165 --> 02:08:14,564
I'm a statist cuck now

2142
02:08:14,564 --> 02:08:15,564
because I went to dinner

2143
02:08:15,564 --> 02:08:16,084
you're a statist cuck

2144
02:08:16,084 --> 02:08:19,885
of course

2145
02:08:19,885 --> 02:08:22,244
that was interesting

2146
02:08:22,244 --> 02:08:24,584
my second presidential dinner

2147
02:08:24,584 --> 02:08:26,364
if you count the president of Madeira

2148
02:08:26,364 --> 02:08:28,484
well you'll be coming next November

2149
02:08:28,484 --> 02:08:29,265
then I am sure

2150
02:08:29,265 --> 02:08:31,405
for adopting

2151
02:08:31,405 --> 02:08:33,924
or for an historical something

2152
02:08:33,924 --> 02:08:36,244
will there be a historical next year?

2153
02:08:36,484 --> 02:08:38,405
I assume there will be

2154
02:08:38,405 --> 02:08:39,765
because they're launching the same thing

2155
02:08:39,765 --> 02:08:41,424
but with AI in April

2156
02:08:41,424 --> 02:08:43,765
oh, fantastic

2157
02:08:43,765 --> 02:08:46,145
I mean, the Bitcoin office

2158
02:08:46,145 --> 02:08:47,385
is impressive because

2159
02:08:47,385 --> 02:08:49,765
I try to help the Bitcoin office

2160
02:08:49,765 --> 02:08:51,104
frequently

2161
02:08:51,104 --> 02:08:53,765
and they're impressed with how much they're able to do

2162
02:08:53,765 --> 02:08:56,084
with little, they don't have a big budget

2163
02:08:56,084 --> 02:08:57,765
or anything, I mean, Bitcoin historical

2164
02:08:57,765 --> 02:08:59,744
did look like it had a decent budget, but

2165
02:08:59,744 --> 02:09:01,704
in general, they're operating on a

2166
02:09:01,704 --> 02:09:02,165
shoestring.

2167
02:09:03,744 --> 02:09:05,684
It's amazing the stuff, the innovation

2168
02:09:05,684 --> 02:09:07,244
they're trying to introduce to El Salvador

2169
02:09:07,244 --> 02:09:09,544
compared to some other world-based

2170
02:09:09,544 --> 02:09:11,544
government that maybe are very well-funded or

2171
02:09:11,544 --> 02:09:13,624
very much better connected or more close

2172
02:09:13,624 --> 02:09:14,645
to the center of power.

2173
02:09:15,665 --> 02:09:17,504
And the Bitcoin office are just doing so much

2174
02:09:17,504 --> 02:09:18,624
stuff with so little.

2175
02:09:19,304 --> 02:09:20,184
It's amazing.

2176
02:09:21,504 --> 02:09:23,665
I didn't necessarily

2177
02:09:23,665 --> 02:09:25,665
I didn't know Max and Stacey before

2178
02:09:25,665 --> 02:09:27,724
and the more I

2179
02:09:27,765 --> 02:09:30,624
I work with Stacey, the more there is to love.

2180
02:09:30,765 --> 02:09:31,124
It's amazing.

2181
02:09:31,964 --> 02:09:34,484
No, she's definitely

2182
02:09:34,484 --> 02:09:35,504
a doer.

2183
02:09:36,165 --> 02:09:38,244
She makes things happen.

2184
02:09:39,145 --> 02:09:40,504
Thank you very much,

2185
02:09:40,584 --> 02:09:42,265
Stacey, for inviting me to

2186
02:09:42,265 --> 02:09:42,864
Historico.

2187
02:09:43,124 --> 02:09:44,084
She's incredible.

2188
02:09:46,244 --> 02:09:48,484
I'm doing a lecture for Kubo Plus

2189
02:09:48,484 --> 02:09:50,405
on Monday, actually, online.

2190
02:09:51,204 --> 02:09:51,504
Online?

2191
02:09:52,124 --> 02:09:54,484
I already did one,

2192
02:09:54,564 --> 02:09:56,724
which was an interesting experience

2193
02:09:56,724 --> 02:09:59,584
like between 50 and 100 students or something.

2194
02:09:59,885 --> 02:10:03,645
And they were all, they didn't have their cameras on.

2195
02:10:03,724 --> 02:10:06,905
So it's just random anonymous faces.

2196
02:10:06,905 --> 02:10:09,784
And I'm like, okay, what do you want me to talk about?

2197
02:10:09,844 --> 02:10:13,645
And it's just silence as a, all right, I'll talk about this.

2198
02:10:13,765 --> 02:10:16,564
And I just went on ranting for an hour or two

2199
02:10:16,564 --> 02:10:18,204
and they seemed to enjoyed it.

2200
02:10:19,824 --> 02:10:20,525
That's great.

2201
02:10:20,704 --> 02:10:22,924
Well, now the world knows that we collaborated

2202
02:10:22,924 --> 02:10:23,864
on your first book.

2203
02:10:23,864 --> 02:10:31,364
yeah and i'm so glad we got to get that story out maybe in a yet another revised edition i can put

2204
02:10:31,364 --> 02:10:37,405
your name in the book uh i'm eternally grateful for that it sure made me a better writer uh and

2205
02:10:37,405 --> 02:10:45,504
a better bitcoiner so once again deep thanks and uh yeah all the love in the world

2206
02:10:45,504 --> 02:10:53,284
well i hope to see you soon yes any before before i let you go john is there anywhere on the internet

2207
02:10:53,284 --> 02:10:54,665
where you want to send people,

2208
02:10:54,964 --> 02:10:58,944
anything you want to direct people to?

2209
02:11:00,784 --> 02:11:02,944
Buy my NFTs and JPEGs.

2210
02:11:04,064 --> 02:11:07,104
You can follow me on X if you want to.

2211
02:11:07,184 --> 02:11:07,744
That's about it.

2212
02:11:08,824 --> 02:11:11,665
Yeah, and yes, that's very advisable.

2213
02:11:12,425 --> 02:11:15,344
Jonatak, thanks so much for doing this.

2214
02:11:15,344 --> 02:11:19,324
And I hope to return to El Salvador as soon as possible

2215
02:11:19,324 --> 02:11:22,084
and have a ceviche or two with you

2216
02:11:22,084 --> 02:11:25,304
and maybe hop on your motorcycle again.

2217
02:11:25,684 --> 02:11:26,665
That was adventurous.

2218
02:11:27,665 --> 02:11:28,844
Come out and visit the Citadel.

2219
02:11:29,204 --> 02:11:29,564
Absolutely.

2220
02:11:30,385 --> 02:11:32,944
Yeah, hopefully I can bring my family one day too.

2221
02:11:33,724 --> 02:11:34,265
Oh, fantastic.

2222
02:11:34,765 --> 02:11:35,684
I love El Salvador.

2223
02:11:36,145 --> 02:11:37,224
It's fantastic.

2224
02:11:38,684 --> 02:11:39,265
Yes, sir.

2225
02:11:40,184 --> 02:11:41,004
See you soon.

2226
02:11:41,804 --> 02:11:43,165
Yes, thank you.

2227
02:11:43,165 --> 02:11:45,244
This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

2228
02:11:50,464 --> 02:11:51,104
Arrivederci.

2229
02:11:52,084 --> 02:11:52,744
See you.

2230
02:11:53,544 --> 02:11:53,905
See you.