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Whatever we're quote unquote getting for free is not free at all.

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It's in fact very, very costly.

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A lot of this stuff is just sort of like satisfying developers without giving users enough benefit.

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What is the biggest threat to Bitcoin right now?

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If the core devs agree among themselves that something is right,

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then the rest of the community can go f*** themselves.

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Right now they do kind of have the power to maybe ruin Bitcoin if they really wanted to.

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They're given sort of like this godlike respect on them.

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Developers need to be a lot more humble.

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We all just saw all this horrific stuff in the Epstein files.

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That's not to say that there's no Mossad agent contributing to Cora right now.

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We don't know.

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Anyone that tells you they know exactly how it's going to play out is probably lying.

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If you think it's going to be the global reserve currency, then it's completely mispriced.

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Yeah, I mean, I see NOSER as kind of like Internet 2.0 almost, right?

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Like where you get to do things in a very different way than I think what the Internet has turned into.

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It's almost like the truer Internet, if that makes sense.

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And, yeah, we're all here for it, so it's great.

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Yeah.

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Well, first of all, Jimmy, welcome.

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I'm glad we've gotten the chance to do this.

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You and I have been around each other.

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I've introduced you many times at conferences.

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We've never had a chance to do a long-form discussion,

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so I'm super excited to have you here.

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Can I actually ask, because I haven't heard this before,

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but when did you actually hear about Bitcoin first?

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When did you get into Bitcoin?

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So you've been obviously writing about Bitcoin.

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You've been hacking away yourself for a long time.

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What was actually your first foray into Bitcoin?

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Yeah, I think it was almost exactly 15 years ago today.

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So this was, if I remember, the actual article is still live on Slashdot.

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So you can actually go to the article and when it was published.

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It was Internet-only currency Bitcoin has reached dollar parity.

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That's the name of the headline that I read on Slashdot in 2011.

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I'm pretty sure it was February of 2011.

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It might even be February 2nd.

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Who knows?

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But yeah, 15 years ago was when I first heard of it.

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And I was almost immediately drawn in, although my wife told me that it's probably a scam,

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which is probably the correct or more rational way of looking at something that's just sort of like Internet only.

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But I fell down the rabbit hole and I've been doing things ever since, I guess.

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That is pretty wild.

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I mean, I only went down the rabbit hole.

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I heard about Bitcoin and this was 2014 for the first time.

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It was during the Silk Road days.

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I had a buddy who was getting some things and he was like, he was asking me, do you know

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anything about this?

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And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about, man.

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Like, I don't care about these Bitcoins that you need for this, like whatever nerd, you

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know, and like went back to whatever fiat things I was doing at the time.

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Heard about it again in 2017 when it was like, like right at the tippity top, you know, right

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when right when people like me were coming rushing in. But luckily, I was, you know, so

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uninformed that I thought you couldn't buy a fraction of Bitcoin. You had to buy a full Bitcoin.

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So I can't afford a full Bitcoin right now. Better get a couple of these Litecoin things.

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That bad move there. I don't think the price ever I managed to buy like right as Charlie Lee

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sold out. I think I must have, you know, right at that just timed it perfectly right at the top

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there. But yeah, and then it was COVID, I think, for a lot of people that brought me into it,

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where I really had the time or lack of excuses and finally dug into it. And then the rest,

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as they say, is history. But yeah, is it a little surreal for you just watching?

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Now that we have the president of the United States has talked about it,

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Nayib Bukele has been stacking. You've got the kingdom of Bhutan that's been mining.

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I mean, is this, did you expect this or is it just a bit kind of like wild to you still?

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Yeah.

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I mean, I guess at some level I had a suspicion that this could happen, right?

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Otherwise you wouldn't get into it, right?

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And the thought for me was if this works, then I better be one of the first people and not one of the last people.

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because, you know, just the way money works and how technical adoption happens.

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And, you know, I thought it had a chance.

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But, you know, that's a very different thing than the reality of all of the stuff that you mentioned happening.

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And that's been honestly kind of surreal.

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Like, what am I doing, right?

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Like, I'm a coder, right?

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I'm not I like that's what I was doing at the time when I heard about it.

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I was working at a startup and stuff.

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So for me, like the fact that all of this stuff is happening, that, you know, I get to go to conferences and talk to people about it and I make money somehow doing that is that that part is probably the most surreal because just doesn't feel like anything anyone could have predicted.

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it, right? Like, I'm doing a podcast on a platform that's like, you know, not exactly the internet,

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but is, but it's not centralized exactly. And it's, you know, it's like, just the number of

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things that you have to stack on top to come to this reality is very much completely unpredictable.

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So it's, yeah, I like living this way. It really does feel like the frontier. And it's,

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it's fun. Yeah. Were you a, were you a quote, you know, classically trained coder or were you

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self-taught? I guess I took some classes in high school. So there's that, but I've been,

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I've also been coding since I was like nine years old. So there's like part of that too.

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But I didn't get any training in college because I was a math major and the one CS class that I was

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going to take, I dropped like after three weeks or something. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, since then,

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uh, you know, right out of college, my first job was a coding job and I, uh, yeah, it's a, it's like,

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uh, you know, I I've been doing it for, I guess, over 40 years or whatever. So it feels like a,

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very much a part of me. And, uh, it's not something that I think about as like a formal

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training versus informal training. Although I think I've had a decent amount of formal training,

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but it's one of those things where I can't really put a demarcation point on, you know,

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how much is formal, how much is informal. I've always been kind of a self-learner on a lot of

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things anyway. So hard to say. Maybe for the better to have less of the formal training often,

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And, you know, sometimes it's not always the best.

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It's often just for the credentials themselves.

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But so, I mean, the fact that you were a math major also makes a lot of sense, given the context of everything you've done since then.

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Well, I'm curious, too, Jimmy.

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I mean, oh, go ahead.

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No, no, it's true.

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And at least in college, I wanted to be a math professor.

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And it was really that was like a dream of mine.

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But yeah, and in a in a weird way, I've kind of gotten to be a math professor.

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I've taught my courses and I taught a course at the University of Texas for a semester on Bitcoin.

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And first two chapters of my book, it's all math.

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It's here's what a finite field is.

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Here's what an elliptic curve is.

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And, you know, here's how those things actually make for the signature algorithm that's used in cryptography that ultimately makes Bitcoin possible.

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So, yeah, that part's surreal, too, because the fiat path that's required to get into, you know, being like a university level professor and stuff, it's not an easy road.

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And I know that that would have like absolutely crushed my soul.

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But I got to do what I'm doing now.

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And I still get to do a lot of the things that I kind of wanted to do.

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And yeah, it's kind of strange in that way, how life works out.

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I've got to ask you too, how long have you been wearing the cowboy hat for?

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Because it's like, I feel like it's the Jimmy Songz symbol now.

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Was this from a young age or was it a later adoption?

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No, it's like a Bitcoin thing, right?

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So I've been in Bitcoin since 2011.

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I started contributing to various open source Bitcoin projects since 2013.

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And I don't think anyone knew who I was until 2017.

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And for the first six, eight months of like, I guess, my quote unquote public profile when

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I was going on YouTube shows and explaining things.

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So it was right around the block size wars and stuff.

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No hat, right?

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But it was October of 2017.

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And I was actually kind of getting annoyed that people kept asking, you know, where do you live?

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Because I have these cowboy boots that I wear everywhere.

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And I love cowboy boots.

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And I thought it would be obvious, but it wasn't.

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So I was determined to find something more obvious to show that I'm a Texan.

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So, yeah, I went with the hat.

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Not too many Asian people that wear cowboy hats.

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So it ended up being a great branding decision.

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And, yeah, I've been wearing it ever since then, I guess.

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I love it.

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I mean, it is definitely, I think, one of the most iconic brands within Bitcoin.

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That's for sure.

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It's like you see the silhouette.

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I feel like there's various Bitcoin silhouettes.

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It's like you see the hat, it's like, I know that's Jimmy's song.

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So it's worked well for you, I think.

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Oh, definitely.

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And, you know, I've come up with narratives around the hat, right?

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It's all about going out into the frontier.

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And Bitcoin is very much the only frontier, I feel like.

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And like at a subtle level, I think this is why so many men are in it and not that many women.

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And if you study history and look at like, you know, how frontiers were won, it was almost entirely men.

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It was very few women and they would come later after civilization like sprouted in a lot of these places.

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But but that's almost always been the case historically.

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So in a sense, this this is my tribute to what Bitcoin is and sort of like a reminder to myself that we're we're still early.

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Right. Like this is we're still building stuff.

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It's a it's a frontier town, if you if you will.

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And there's a lot of needs all over the place.

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And yeah, it's a fun place to be.

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But, you know, there's also some danger and things like that.

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I want to dig into that a little bit, actually, because I think a lot of people, especially

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just because the Overton window has shifted so just vastly.

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And now, I mean, you've got whether it was the Bitcoin ETFs and, you know, that whole

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saga, right?

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If it's the president of the United States, you know, saying he's the best crypto president or, you know, whatever, Bitcoin subtext, mostly crypto, though.

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We know he likes the shit coins, but that's a different story.

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Like, I think a lot of people who are maybe thinking about getting into Bitcoin now, thinking about starting to save a little bit in Bitcoin or still thinking about it as investing in Bitcoin, however they want to think about it.

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they feel that they're too late because Bitcoin is kind of a household name now, but yet

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the actual percentage of adoption is still super, super low. Like I would agree with you

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that we are still on the frontier, but I mean, do you think, is that just people

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maybe mistaking knowledge of something or awareness of something for adoption of it?

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You know what I mean? The fact that there is such a kind of like such a common theme of,

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oh, you're too late to Bitcoin and that's why you need to chase this shit coin or whatever else.

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Yeah. And that speaks to sort of like the mentality a lot of people have. They want to get in on something early. Right. And for them, it's it's a it's a game. It's a it's get in before other people.

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So at a certain level, when people say, oh, I'm too late, they're thinking in terms of like a Ponzi scheme or something like that.

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Right. They inherently think it's a scam.

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And that's why they think, OK, if I get in too late, then it's going to drop and I'm never really going to make any money or whatnot.

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For the people that actually understand it, that's not how they view it.

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So they don't think of it necessarily as like getting early per se, but as you know, as an investment vehicle that where you're trying to figure out what what is the correct valuation model for something like this.

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And if you are an investor in anything and you buy something, you do it because you think it's mispriced in some way or that the rest of the market doesn't have all of the information.

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So, for example, if you're buying bonds or gold or whatever, you think, OK, what is the correct valuation model for this?

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For something like bonds or stocks with dividends, there's a fairly straightforward model where you go, OK, here's how much I can make through this.

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Here's the coupon that it pays. Here's how much it can give me on a per year basis and so on.

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But with Bitcoin, it's a little trickier.

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And for people that don't have the right or have a mental model of what it could be or what we, you know, the rest of us that are in Bitcoin have as an idea of where it's going.

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Well, then, you know, if you think it's going to be the global reserve currency, then it's completely mispriced compared to the current price.

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I mean, it's like nowhere close. It's like two or three orders of magnitude off from where it should be. So if you think it's mispriced, then it's not about getting like you're still very early compared to where it's going to be. So that makes sense.

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But if you don't have the right valuation model of it and think of it as sort of this pump and dump scheme, which, to be frank, that's what all almost every shitcoin is.

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So like this, this conflation of those two things makes it so that they think, OK, well, I need to get in early because at some point it's going to peak or it's going to peak relative to other things.

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And I just want to be a part of this wave.

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And for them, it's much more about getting in, getting out, like more of a gambling vehicle almost or popularity contest or something like that, rather than here is something that is actually useful to the world.

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And it is mispriced because of this.

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And that analysis doesn't come naturally to most people, unfortunately, because we live in a fiat system.

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Like the almost every investment, I would say since the establishment of of the Federal Reserve has had this kind of quality where it's it's much more about like get it on the way up before everybody else figures it out and then like sell at the top, something like that.

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And, you know, even like during the roaring 20s and stuff leading up to the Great Depression, this was the mentality.

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It's OK, if I buy this and this will go up and blah, blah, blah.

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And that that's unfortunately how people think of investments or putting your money somewhere rather than, OK, here here is an asset that is mispriced.

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And therefore, I need to, you know, if I if I own this and I'm correct, then I'm going to make a lot of money.

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They they're not really thinking that way.

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It's just, hey, like which which things are going up.

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It's like Robin Hood or you've seen those like invest talk videos or whatever, right, where people are like, oh, my gosh, you just you just look for the things that are going up and then you invest in that or whatever.

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It becomes very much a trading game.

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And and that's, you know, not really that different than gambling.

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and they just want to gamble on the number that's going to come up or something

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rather than here's a mispriced asset and the rest of us in the Bitcoin space,

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hopefully most of us in the Bitcoin space, have figured out.

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And that's why we hold.

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That's why we continue with it.

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Well, it reminds me, I mean, I don't know if you've seen this,

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but on like Robinhood and all of the shitcoin casino apps,

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they've now basically, I view this kind of like not so subtle shift that they're doing,

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basically away from actually the shit coins and toward just prediction markets.

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Like they're actually just going full on.

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And like, they're not even pretending that it's an investment, you know, an investment

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anymore.

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It's just like, Hey, you want to bet on what the weather's going to be tomorrow.

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And really it's all just a vehicle for more sports betting, especially in states where

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that's not currently legal.

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But it's like, I mean, is this, Jimmy, is this just like late stage fiat vibes?

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Is that what this is?

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Or like, or is this just, Hey, the technology has allowed us to do this now.

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So people are taking advantage of it.

217
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246
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Yeah, I mean, if you study some of these hyperinflating economies, this is a very common thing.

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Like Weimar, Germany, one of the things that was happening was people were getting really rich on like stock market speculation and things like that.

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And it was it's a I think it's a common thing when the money is bad that in a weird way, you're constantly seeking to make money without actually working.

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Right. Like getting a quote unquote for free, being lazy or whatever.

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And that that seems to be how fiat societies go.

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And I would argue that, you know, stuff like investment banking is essentially that it's a bunch of people that aren't, you know, as concerned with providing value as kind of getting rich.

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And you can do that if you have access to the money printer.

253
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And, you know, that's essentially what loans are, is more access to the money printer and especially investment banks and such.

254
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They get enormous quantities of money, especially through dark pools and things like that.

255
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So all of that is to say that it is a late stage or it's just kind of a fiat phenomenon.

256
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And the more we see of it is, I guess, more of it trickling down to retail.

257
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Um, and, um, yeah, I, I, I can't see it sort of stopping.

258
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Um, I like it's, uh, it's unfortunate, but, uh, what used to hold a lot of that back were,

259
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um, moral concerns, moral, um, prohibitions.

260
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Uh, but those have more or less been knocked down the last 20 years or so.

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So, uh, yeah, they're like, no one really cares if there's more betting really.

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uh and the you know they they call the other people that are sort of opposed to it at a society

263
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level kind of like prudes or you know you're not for freedom or whatever um yeah and i i don't see

264
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a way out of it it it just seems like something that people will continue to do and um you know

265
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maybe at some point people are a little less um or a little more immune to some of these um

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uh these things that that make it so that it's just so addictive so i i don't know um i mean we

267
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we've kind of seen this with smartphones uh where you know it was like i i still remember when like

268
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angry birds first came out for like ios right like everyone was playing it for hours at a time

269
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and then at a certain point people realized okay this is this a little too much and people

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stop maybe playing those mobile games.

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I mean, obviously, there are still people

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that are very addicted to mobile games and so on.

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But for the most part,

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a lot of people sort of developed an immunity

275
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and similar thing with social media and so on.

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And it's, you know,

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people come up with tactics against it

278
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where the betting market seemed like pretty ripe

279
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for that kind of exploitation.

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and the more wider it is, the quicker we'll get immunity to it,

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but there's a lot of suffering in between.

282
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So yeah, that's where it seems like.

283
00:24:40,538 --> 00:24:43,698
Yeah, I mean, it definitely seems like, again, I think your analysis

284
00:24:43,698 --> 00:24:47,078
that people are just looking for any way to try and get ahead,

285
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and I think a lot of it stems from just the nihilism of realizing that it,

286
00:24:50,378 --> 00:24:54,518
especially for younger folks, that it is basically impossible.

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If you are on this hamster wheel, it is essentially impossible to try and make up any ground or to try and to perceive yourself as getting ahead in any way, especially when you compare yourself to prior generations.

288
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And I think that's that's part of it there. And I mean, that's like that's the reason that we all evangelize for Bitcoin. Right.

289
00:25:11,878 --> 00:25:18,978
I mean, one of the key reasons is like, look, this is a way for you to actually have a meaningful store of value that gains purchasing power over time.

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Like gold's done a great job of maintaining purchasing power over time.

291
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Like a fine suit is still worth like an ounce of gold, you know, 100 years ago and still basically today.

292
00:25:27,778 --> 00:25:31,818
It's maintained purchasing power, but it kind of treads water a little bit.

293
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And I think that's where Bitcoin comes in.

294
00:25:33,418 --> 00:25:37,958
And it's like, hey, guys, look, it's not a get rich quick scheme, but you will grow purchasing power over the long term.

295
00:25:38,178 --> 00:25:45,298
But that leads me to something I wanted to ask you about, too, which is just around the store of value in comparison to medium of exchange.

296
00:25:45,298 --> 00:25:47,318
I don't even want to call it a debate because I don't think it is.

297
00:25:47,318 --> 00:25:50,638
I think that's just a it's a spectrum of monetary adoption.

298
00:25:50,938 --> 00:25:53,118
But but where are you at with this?

299
00:25:53,118 --> 00:25:58,438
Because there's I don't I'm going to try to stop myself from putting people in camps because I don't like to do that.

300
00:25:58,458 --> 00:25:59,878
And I think it's ineffective.

301
00:25:59,878 --> 00:26:09,818
But like just for the sake of of discussion, you've got Michael Saylor who's basically said, like, never, never sell your Bitcoin or presumably that means spend your Bitcoin, too.

302
00:26:09,878 --> 00:26:11,518
I'm not exactly sure on the nuance there.

303
00:26:11,778 --> 00:26:13,238
But, you know, it's a pristine asset.

304
00:26:13,298 --> 00:26:14,138
It's pristine collateral.

305
00:26:14,898 --> 00:26:19,358
You've got sort of Jack Dorsey, who I think would agree with the thing that Bitcoin's a great store of value.

306
00:26:19,458 --> 00:26:27,458
But also he said very publicly, like Bitcoin needs to be used as a medium of exchange if it's going to truly achieve, like if it's going to reach its zenith of where it can be.

307
00:26:28,178 --> 00:26:31,238
Where are you at with this as someone who's seen it for so many years now?

308
00:26:31,558 --> 00:26:35,698
Yeah, and this has been an argument almost from the beginning.

309
00:26:35,958 --> 00:26:43,778
And a large part of the block size wars, this was the narrative on like the BCH side saying, oh, it needs to be a transactional currency.

310
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It's a P2P cash, blah, blah, blah. But for me, the way to think about it is thinking about like sort of like how money comes into play.

311
00:26:56,058 --> 00:27:06,198
And if you read a lot of Nick Szabo's essays from Times of Yore, like he talks about gold and all of these things.

312
00:27:06,278 --> 00:27:13,438
How does money actually evolve? And that's a really good question to think about, because obviously Bitcoin is fairly new.

313
00:27:13,438 --> 00:27:23,038
Right. It's it's what, like 17 years old now. And and we haven't we need to think about like, how does it actually evolve?

314
00:27:23,958 --> 00:27:34,618
And his contention. And if you read his essays, this this comes through very clearly is that there's a lot of work put into the money, whatever it is, right?

315
00:27:34,618 --> 00:27:46,838
whether it's wampums or gold or, you know, trinkets or whatever, all of those things, almost every money in any society required a significant amount of work to produce.

316
00:27:47,718 --> 00:27:53,218
And there are people that use it for something or store it.

317
00:27:53,378 --> 00:27:56,498
It's like a good keepsake or whatever it is.

318
00:27:56,858 --> 00:28:03,118
And because of that, because of the effort required, it becomes like a scarce asset.

319
00:28:03,118 --> 00:28:08,798
And that in turn makes it like something that stores value well.

320
00:28:09,378 --> 00:28:18,798
And because of that, people start using it to trade and using it to use it as like a medium of exchange and so on.

321
00:28:20,738 --> 00:28:24,678
And that's kind of the way that Bitcoin has evolved as well.

322
00:28:24,758 --> 00:28:27,238
Right. Like and and we've seen it.

323
00:28:27,438 --> 00:28:30,178
Store value is definitely the first function.

324
00:28:30,178 --> 00:28:35,798
And if you want just like a transactional currency, the dollar is way, way better.

325
00:28:36,318 --> 00:28:37,678
Way more merchants take it.

326
00:28:38,138 --> 00:28:47,718
Way more people are willing to take it for goods and services and so on.

327
00:28:47,798 --> 00:28:51,338
So it's not about beating it on that score.

328
00:28:52,298 --> 00:28:57,818
Most of the dollar rails that exist are pretty digital anyway.

329
00:28:57,818 --> 00:29:00,038
It's not really about that.

330
00:29:00,178 --> 00:29:11,318
So it's not really about convenience. Obviously, I can go down to the store and pay with like credit cards and things like that so much easier than doing it with Bitcoin, even even for vendors that take Bitcoin.

331
00:29:11,318 --> 00:29:17,838
Right. It's like more cumbersome because you have to scan a QR code and open your wallet. Sometimes it doesn't work, blah, blah, blah.

332
00:29:18,758 --> 00:29:26,578
So it's not really about that at the beginning. I think it has to start with as a store of value.

333
00:29:26,578 --> 00:29:32,998
And not surprisingly, there aren't that many good stores of value in the fiat economy.

334
00:29:33,238 --> 00:29:37,198
And this is why it's been so popular to a large degree.

335
00:29:37,318 --> 00:29:40,678
I mean, you have a lot of options when you want to pay for something.

336
00:29:41,058 --> 00:29:44,838
But if you want to store value, there's really not that many things.

337
00:29:45,018 --> 00:29:48,658
I mean, people have homes, people have stocks, maybe gold.

338
00:29:48,818 --> 00:29:49,958
That's about it.

339
00:29:49,958 --> 00:29:55,118
Like there's there's really not I guess you can like collect art or something like that.

340
00:29:55,118 --> 00:29:59,498
And, you know, like have Lego sets or baseball cards or whatever.

341
00:29:59,498 --> 00:30:01,878
Right. Like all of that, like you can.

342
00:30:01,978 --> 00:30:06,338
But those things aren't very liquid and it's very difficult to sell.

343
00:30:06,438 --> 00:30:08,758
And there's like a lot lots of transaction fees.

344
00:30:08,898 --> 00:30:14,958
There's just so many reasons why most other things are pretty bad for store value.

345
00:30:14,958 --> 00:30:24,198
So when you have Bitcoin be a store of value, the next evolution is that people will want it a lot.

346
00:30:24,538 --> 00:30:30,398
And if you try to shortcut that process, at least in my observation, it hasn't worked.

347
00:30:31,358 --> 00:30:44,078
We used to have in 2015, I think Dell started taking Bitcoin and they stopped after after like a year because it was like too much maintenance and not that many people were paying for it.

348
00:30:44,078 --> 00:30:49,958
I think overstock.com also used to take it. Expedia used to take it.

349
00:30:50,118 --> 00:30:54,938
I mean, these aren't small names. They were big e-commerce sites.

350
00:30:55,778 --> 00:31:03,138
And most of them just stopped it because it wasn't worth it for them.

351
00:31:03,758 --> 00:31:10,798
And that speaks to how method of payment parts come in to a currency.

352
00:31:10,798 --> 00:31:24,278
It has to be something that the merchant really, really wants. And if you observe somewhere like Venezuela, if you go to the black market, they do not want bolivars.

353
00:31:24,278 --> 00:31:31,558
Right. They want they want dollars because, you know, they would much prefer dollars.

354
00:31:31,698 --> 00:31:36,278
In fact, oftentimes they'll give you a discount if you pay in dollars rather than bolivars.

355
00:31:36,758 --> 00:31:40,738
And this is true in a lot of other countries that are suffering through a lot of inflation.

356
00:31:40,878 --> 00:31:47,638
They would rather get your dollars. And the reason is because that's that's their store of value.

357
00:31:47,778 --> 00:31:52,558
Right. That that's what they would rather store value in than than the local currency.

358
00:31:52,558 --> 00:32:03,818
So if you can do that, when it gets more like that, where merchants are demanding Bitcoin rather than something else, that's when it really starts rolling.

359
00:32:04,158 --> 00:32:12,118
And there are precious few people that actually have businesses that are Bitcoin based.

360
00:32:12,298 --> 00:32:18,518
There aren't enough people that are saying, you know what, I really want Bitcoin.

361
00:32:18,518 --> 00:32:22,518
I will give you a discount if you pay in Bitcoin because I want it.

362
00:32:22,678 --> 00:32:23,718
I want that so much.

363
00:32:23,858 --> 00:32:35,518
And it's not worth it for me to take the dollars, convert it, suffer some slippage and transaction fees to go get Bitcoin and then do that because I'm going to store it in Bitcoin anyway.

364
00:32:36,338 --> 00:32:40,398
That's when the method of payment really starts rolling.

365
00:32:40,938 --> 00:32:45,618
Now, I personally have done that with like my classes and stuff like that.

366
00:32:45,618 --> 00:32:50,298
There are other other entrepreneurs in the Bitcoin space that have done that.

367
00:32:50,738 --> 00:33:02,058
But if you're just sort of like a normal business and just sort of added as like as, OK, this will this will get like the Bitcoin Maxis into my store or something like that.

368
00:33:03,098 --> 00:33:06,958
That's not really going to work. It's it's it's going to be OK.

369
00:33:07,058 --> 00:33:10,978
Maybe maybe you get like a surge of interest for like a month.

370
00:33:11,218 --> 00:33:15,418
But like over the long term, that's that's not how it works.

371
00:33:15,618 --> 00:33:23,818
This is why I'm excited for, you know, somebody like Steak and Shake or Tahini's in Canada and so on.

372
00:33:23,918 --> 00:33:27,938
Those are actual Bitcoin maximalists at the helm, right?

373
00:33:27,998 --> 00:33:29,378
They want Bitcoin.

374
00:33:29,538 --> 00:33:31,558
They're like, how do I get my hands on more Bitcoin?

375
00:33:31,558 --> 00:33:33,078
Well, I can use it.

376
00:33:34,038 --> 00:33:40,138
You know, I can get people to pay for it and I'm going to be converting it anyway.

377
00:33:40,318 --> 00:33:44,298
This makes it cheaper for me and so on.

378
00:33:44,298 --> 00:34:00,798
And this is my treasury asset. And how do I get more treasury? Well, take payment in it. Right. Like that. It's it's an extension of store of value. It's it's a way of adding to your store of value much easier by taking it as a payment.

379
00:34:00,798 --> 00:34:05,798
So I think that's that's how currency, how money involved evolves.

380
00:34:05,798 --> 00:34:13,798
And I think a lot of the effort to try to shortcut that is premature.

381
00:34:13,798 --> 00:34:20,798
Right. A lot of times and we've seen it like again, like from 2015, that's like 11 years ago.

382
00:34:20,798 --> 00:34:27,798
We had giant e-commerce platforms taking Bitcoin and it didn't happen.

383
00:34:27,798 --> 00:34:33,818
didn't happen right it was in fact it almost all of them i guarantee like are not interested in

384
00:34:33,818 --> 00:34:40,938
trying it again because it's not interesting uh it's it it's it cost them money probably in like

385
00:34:40,938 --> 00:34:45,758
engineering resources and stuff and like they didn't keep the bitcoin they sold it right away

386
00:34:45,758 --> 00:34:52,758
blah blah blah so like it like but you know had you had bitcoin maximalists in those positions

387
00:34:52,758 --> 00:34:55,178
and you did take it and you kept it in Bitcoin,

388
00:34:56,018 --> 00:34:58,918
I mean, your balance sheet would be much, much higher.

389
00:34:59,198 --> 00:35:04,078
So like it has to be part of that strategy for it.

390
00:35:04,338 --> 00:35:07,478
When you're talking about medium of exchange

391
00:35:07,478 --> 00:35:08,638
or method of payment,

392
00:35:09,178 --> 00:35:10,758
it has to be part of that,

393
00:35:11,178 --> 00:35:14,038
has to be that the merchant is storing value in it, right?

394
00:35:14,258 --> 00:35:15,598
It's part of that flow.

395
00:35:15,738 --> 00:35:18,538
And really it's about the merchant's store of value.

396
00:35:18,538 --> 00:35:22,678
It has to be that before it can really take off as that.

397
00:35:22,758 --> 00:35:40,698
And there are circular economies in the world that where this is the case, where you have enough people on Bitcoin Beach that are orange pilled that want Bitcoin, that see it for what it is, where it works because you have enough people that see it for what it is and want to store value in it.

398
00:35:40,698 --> 00:35:44,998
And this is just like a convenient way to to make all of that work anyway.

399
00:35:46,138 --> 00:35:50,178
That's when it really takes off. But, you know, it's it's going to take some time.

400
00:35:50,338 --> 00:35:59,078
It requires lots of entrepreneurs that are really into Bitcoin, that really are convinced this is where I should store my value.

401
00:35:59,758 --> 00:36:07,918
And, you know, this is why I say store value has to come first, because if the merchant doesn't value it as a store value, then it's more a burden.

402
00:36:07,918 --> 00:36:13,178
Right. It's like, oh, I'm I'm taking some foreign currency.

403
00:36:13,298 --> 00:36:16,718
Like, say I'm in the US. Should I start accepting euro?

404
00:36:16,978 --> 00:36:21,478
I mean, I guess I could. But that's that's like very painful.

405
00:36:21,478 --> 00:36:24,078
Right. Like you have to go change it every time.

406
00:36:24,578 --> 00:36:27,098
That's kind of what you're asking a business to do.

407
00:36:27,098 --> 00:36:30,978
If you're saying, hey, go go take Bitcoin, you'll get more business or whatever.

408
00:36:31,618 --> 00:36:34,198
That it's it's not not that compelling.

409
00:36:34,198 --> 00:36:42,478
There are a few places, very touristy places where they'll take Alipay and WeChat payments from the Chinese tourists or something.

410
00:36:43,158 --> 00:36:45,418
But that's the extent of it.

411
00:36:46,538 --> 00:36:50,858
The real driver comes in when the merchant is using it as a store of value.

412
00:36:51,698 --> 00:36:54,418
I would agree with that analysis, though.

413
00:36:54,598 --> 00:36:58,938
Perhaps the couple of interesting caveats I would add to that, not even necessarily caveats, just additions,

414
00:36:58,938 --> 00:37:05,538
would be I think that what we're seeing with both like Square enabling their merchants to turn the

415
00:37:05,538 --> 00:37:10,598
feature on, not even necessarily to need to accept the Bitcoin, but to be able to use those rails and

416
00:37:10,598 --> 00:37:15,618
get away from the two to 3% credit card fees. That's something that's really interesting because

417
00:37:15,618 --> 00:37:19,598
now they just see, oh, wait, there's a way for me. If you're a low margin business, especially

418
00:37:19,598 --> 00:37:22,778
either a restaurant, grocery store, whatever it might be, some that's like pretty tight margins,

419
00:37:23,478 --> 00:37:28,678
a two to 3% makes a huge difference to you. So that's, and Spark is doing something similar where

420
00:37:28,678 --> 00:37:34,218
it's like, or light spark with spark, you know, they're using Bitcoin as the rails to move the

421
00:37:34,218 --> 00:37:38,598
money, the merchant. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to still keep it in Bitcoin. Maybe I'm not orange

422
00:37:38,598 --> 00:37:42,258
pill yet. You know, using it as my personal store of value, but that's, I think another

423
00:37:42,258 --> 00:37:47,838
kind of interesting development that obviously wouldn't have been possible in 2015. Like that,

424
00:37:47,838 --> 00:37:51,998
it just, the technology wasn't there yet. Right. But now we're at this point where you do see

425
00:37:51,998 --> 00:37:58,138
multiple modes of potential adoption of Bitcoin. But I would agree with you in terms of like,

426
00:37:58,138 --> 00:38:02,678
if you want a merchant to really accept Bitcoin and want to keep it, well, they need to understand

427
00:38:02,678 --> 00:38:05,658
that it's a great store of value. Stake and Shake, I've been to Stake and Shake. I'll say

428
00:38:05,658 --> 00:38:10,398
this. Shout out to Stake and Shake. I've been there multiple times, probably at least five,

429
00:38:10,498 --> 00:38:14,758
six times since they have deployed Bitcoin payments. I've paid in Bitcoin every single time.

430
00:38:15,138 --> 00:38:19,718
And the experience has been really, really smooth. And they're doing everything in tallow now. So

431
00:38:19,718 --> 00:38:26,938
shout out to them. That is a great example. Makes you want to go there, right? So with respect to

432
00:38:26,938 --> 00:38:32,498
credit card payments. I am a little bit skeptical about that being the sort of like killer use case.

433
00:38:32,798 --> 00:38:39,018
I agree. You do save two or three percent as a merchant. But there are other rails that are

434
00:38:39,018 --> 00:38:45,238
much cheaper, right? Like there are other rails. There's already competition along those lines. So

435
00:38:45,238 --> 00:38:53,138
this is there's a there's a really good article on bits about money, about credit card fees and

436
00:38:53,138 --> 00:38:59,378
and how they made more or less kind of got like a monopoly through their network and stuff.

437
00:38:59,898 --> 00:39:09,438
But one of the reasons why it's almost free to send using Venmo as opposed to a credit card.

438
00:39:09,538 --> 00:39:10,498
What's going on, right?

439
00:39:10,538 --> 00:39:13,178
Like credit card payments, they charge 3%.

440
00:39:13,178 --> 00:39:14,998
Why is Venmo like free?

441
00:39:15,158 --> 00:39:15,858
What's going on?

442
00:39:15,858 --> 00:39:20,838
Well, it turns out that if you're using certain other rails,

443
00:39:20,838 --> 00:39:26,058
And in this case, this is essentially going through the central bank to the other bank.

444
00:39:26,218 --> 00:39:28,438
It's like a direct bank to bank transfer or whatever.

445
00:39:29,018 --> 00:39:31,398
It's like a fraction of a cent per transaction.

446
00:39:31,898 --> 00:39:34,518
It's like orders of magnitude cheaper.

447
00:39:35,018 --> 00:39:44,038
And this is what stuff like Zelle and other platforms are built on is other rails that are cheaper.

448
00:39:44,038 --> 00:39:45,598
Even at the grocery store.

449
00:39:45,838 --> 00:39:49,858
And you'll notice this if you ever use a debit card.

450
00:39:49,858 --> 00:39:55,358
they'll try to route you through the debit network rather than the credit card network right they'll

451
00:39:55,358 --> 00:40:01,078
they'll ask for your pin as soon as you scan it if they detect that this this debit card and you

452
00:40:01,078 --> 00:40:06,558
can sort of like decline it and it'll it'll process it as a credit card transaction but this is one of

453
00:40:06,558 --> 00:40:12,318
the subtle ways in which they're they're trying to make more money by um because the debit card

454
00:40:12,318 --> 00:40:17,418
path is like one and a half percent, whereas the credit card path is like three percent.

455
00:40:18,158 --> 00:40:22,698
And so that margin, I think, goes away, right?

456
00:40:22,778 --> 00:40:29,198
Like it's not long for this world, but it's not necessarily Bitcoin that will take over

457
00:40:29,198 --> 00:40:34,858
that because there are other rails that already exist that are significantly cheaper.

458
00:40:35,518 --> 00:40:38,098
And in many ways, they're more convenient for people.

459
00:40:38,098 --> 00:40:43,298
I mean, I don't I don't know about you, but more people have Venmo than Bitcoin wallets.

460
00:40:43,298 --> 00:40:45,058
Right. Despite all of that. Right.

461
00:40:45,058 --> 00:40:50,498
And and like this, this is how people transact when you have dinner or whatever.

462
00:40:50,498 --> 00:40:54,698
It's like, OK, you owe me this. Like, can you can you just Venmo me that or whatever?

463
00:40:55,338 --> 00:40:57,458
And it's it's kind of gotten to that.

464
00:40:57,458 --> 00:41:04,538
So like while I do understand the the the case with credit cards and that it does save two or three percent.

465
00:41:04,538 --> 00:41:08,398
And I totally agree on the economics of that or whatever.

466
00:41:09,998 --> 00:41:11,698
Bitcoin isn't the only game in town.

467
00:41:11,798 --> 00:41:15,758
But with store value, it is the only game in town.

468
00:41:15,878 --> 00:41:28,418
And I really think that that's ultimately going to have to be the driver if you want to see a lot of medium exchange method of payment use cases on that score.

469
00:41:29,098 --> 00:41:32,598
We are 100% in agreement on that regard.

470
00:41:32,598 --> 00:41:45,816
And so that also kind of leads me to something else which is the idea okay like I Bitcoin is money right Like I use Bitcoin as money in multiple ways right Both as a store of value I use it as a medium of

471
00:41:45,816 --> 00:41:50,756
exchange. I use it also, you know, like whenever I can, I try to use Bitcoin to spend and then I

472
00:41:50,756 --> 00:41:55,496
replace it like immediately with a few extra sats on top, you know, to make sure I wasn't missing

473
00:41:55,496 --> 00:42:02,876
out on something. But I also try to think in it from a unit of account perspective, which is like

474
00:42:02,876 --> 00:42:07,076
a difficult shift to make, right? But once you make that shift, you start to look at sats being

475
00:42:07,076 --> 00:42:11,136
on sale. When you see these dips like right now where people are freaking out and you realize

476
00:42:11,136 --> 00:42:14,656
you're still denominated, you know, you're using the wrong denominator here. You're still using

477
00:42:14,656 --> 00:42:22,276
fiat as your denominator. But in order for Bitcoin to stay decentralized and secure and to

478
00:42:22,276 --> 00:42:27,956
continue to, like, I think Bitcoin is winning. For Bitcoin to continue winning, there are some

479
00:42:27,956 --> 00:42:32,276
different thoughts on what the path forward needs to be. There's kind of the idea of,

480
00:42:32,276 --> 00:42:37,076
we need to ossify Bitcoin now. There's the idea that Bitcoin's ossifying whether you like it or

481
00:42:37,076 --> 00:42:40,456
not. This is not a choice that you make. It's a natural progression. And there's the idea that

482
00:42:40,456 --> 00:42:46,056
we need to avoid ossification at all costs. What's your perspective on that? How do you think about

483
00:42:46,056 --> 00:42:50,616
that from the perspective of Bitcoin as a store of value, which obviously you just clarified,

484
00:42:50,616 --> 00:42:55,136
is, in your opinion, the most important function of it to achieve medium of exchange?

485
00:42:55,136 --> 00:43:06,976
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm an ossificationist. I've said this in multiple venues, and I really think that

486
00:43:06,976 --> 00:43:16,336
money is better when it stays constant, when it doesn't change very much. This is the problem

487
00:43:16,336 --> 00:43:21,696
with central banks and the Federal Reserve and many other institutions with respect to money,

488
00:43:21,696 --> 00:43:23,976
is that they change the rules around too much.

489
00:43:24,476 --> 00:43:26,036
And it's very hard to predict.

490
00:43:26,276 --> 00:43:27,956
The function of money is that,

491
00:43:28,556 --> 00:43:31,916
at least on the sort of value front

492
00:43:31,916 --> 00:43:34,856
or medium of exchange over time,

493
00:43:35,376 --> 00:43:38,136
is that you can plan for the future, right?

494
00:43:38,636 --> 00:43:40,196
But if the rules keep changing

495
00:43:40,196 --> 00:43:43,456
or the denominator keeps changing or whatever,

496
00:43:44,176 --> 00:43:45,756
then you can't plan as well.

497
00:43:45,756 --> 00:43:50,636
And that's the thing that people want to be able to do with money.

498
00:43:50,636 --> 00:43:57,216
If you have too much stuff changing, then it makes it very difficult to plan out into the future.

499
00:43:57,216 --> 00:44:08,896
And, you know, I mean, just to give an example in terms of Bitcoin, you know, 2026 2012 or whatever, you had one type of address.

500
00:44:09,136 --> 00:44:14,936
It's it's paid to pubkey hash. It starts with a one. And that was it. That was the only type of address.

501
00:44:14,936 --> 00:44:21,636
Then you had a software, pay to script hash, and these were addresses that start with three that came in 2013.

502
00:44:23,196 --> 00:44:30,076
SegWit happened in 2017 and you had native SegWit addresses, which all start with BC1Q, right?

503
00:44:30,896 --> 00:44:42,316
2021 came and you had a different type of Bitcoin, like BEC32 address, and these all start with BC1P.

504
00:44:42,316 --> 00:44:54,316
So like each time it sort of changed things around, which meant that if you had storage in 2013, I mean 2012 or so, it would still work.

505
00:44:54,876 --> 00:44:58,476
But like a lot of the tools just kept changing around it.

506
00:44:58,536 --> 00:45:00,236
Now, that's not to say that it's bad, right?

507
00:45:00,236 --> 00:45:01,676
Like you still want that.

508
00:45:01,856 --> 00:45:06,076
And, you know, the paper wallets people were making in 2012 still work.

509
00:45:06,076 --> 00:45:13,736
but a lot of the uh a lot of the software a lot of that stuff it's it's not really meant for 30 50

510
00:45:13,736 --> 00:45:18,836
years which is what store value stuff should have right so when you're when you're thinking about

511
00:45:18,836 --> 00:45:27,356
like a hardware wallet from uh from 20 uh i think the first ones were like 2015 2016 somewhere around

512
00:45:27,356 --> 00:45:36,016
there um like those have had like 30 uh firmware updates and stuff that's it that's not keeping it

513
00:45:36,016 --> 00:45:40,336
for 50 years, right? Like you're, you're constantly having to change things and then,

514
00:45:40,456 --> 00:45:45,016
oh, there's this soft work. So we have to make sure we support it and whatever. And we're not

515
00:45:45,016 --> 00:45:50,436
going to be able to detect, uh, certain payments into these if we, if we, if we're not looking for

516
00:45:50,436 --> 00:45:57,096
it and so on, it, it, it's a, um, so it's not good at that level at sort of like the money level.

517
00:45:57,516 --> 00:46:04,276
Um, but more than that, you, you also have this other thing where, um, it's hard to build,

518
00:46:04,276 --> 00:46:15,736
Right. Like when things keep changing. So I've said this before. I when lightning first came in 27, like 2019, 20, 2020. Right.

519
00:46:15,796 --> 00:46:24,336
Like as it was evolving and I was teaching my classes on programming Bitcoin. A lot of people would ask me, OK, Jimmy, when are we going to get a programming lightnings course?

520
00:46:24,336 --> 00:46:29,736
I was like, well, I would do that, but they want to change up this stuff, right?

521
00:46:29,816 --> 00:46:36,016
Like, you know, the payment channels are using two of two multi-sig using ECDSA.

522
00:46:36,676 --> 00:46:43,316
But they're going to get Schnorr signatures in Taproot, and they're going to have something called Taproot channels.

523
00:46:43,896 --> 00:46:51,496
And also these hash time lock contracts, they want to change them to point time lock contracts, so you get privacy all the way through.

524
00:46:51,496 --> 00:47:10,356
I was like, okay, if I like, I'm thinking of it as a teacher, if I teach two of two ECDSA multi-sig for payment channels, and then it all suddenly changes to Schnorr, it's going to be outdated in like a couple years, right?

525
00:47:10,356 --> 00:47:24,876
And it makes it like that. And that's just like my personal thing. But there's a lot of other places where this sort of thing comes into play, where it's like, OK, I want to build. But, you know, they're constantly changing the rules.

526
00:47:24,876 --> 00:47:31,456
it might even make what I'm trying to do easier, but I don't think I'm going to build it right now.

527
00:47:31,456 --> 00:47:36,496
Or I'm not going to go and try to figure out how to do it despite whatever.

528
00:47:36,756 --> 00:47:41,776
There are all kinds of things that are made much easier by covenants, for example.

529
00:47:42,056 --> 00:47:45,196
Or let's pick something specific, OpsiTV.

530
00:47:45,656 --> 00:47:48,736
It makes a whole bunch of things very easy.

531
00:47:49,316 --> 00:47:53,616
So what do those people that are building that are saying,

532
00:47:53,616 --> 00:47:57,756
okay, you know what, there's this OpsiTV thing that might get into Bitcoin at some point.

533
00:47:58,316 --> 00:48:02,096
Should I just build it this way or do I wait for it?

534
00:48:02,236 --> 00:48:04,196
And it becomes this dilemma.

535
00:48:05,036 --> 00:48:08,956
Whereas if you're ossified, then it's a lot easier.

536
00:48:09,476 --> 00:48:15,256
You can say, okay, well, this is how it's going to be and I'm just going to build on it.

537
00:48:15,456 --> 00:48:17,136
And I'm going to make it.

538
00:48:17,136 --> 00:48:30,896
So it takes away a lot of that entrepreneurial energy by thinking, OK, maybe I can get some protocol changes that make what I'm trying to do easier rather than let's just go build.

539
00:48:31,636 --> 00:48:40,096
So like there are those are just two of the reasons why I think ossification is much, much better.

540
00:48:40,096 --> 00:48:48,756
And yeah, I mean, just there. Sorry, I have to close that.

541
00:48:48,756 --> 00:49:00,016
All right. So good. And so so they're like that. I get the arguments from the people that are saying, you know, we need features and things like that.

542
00:49:00,016 --> 00:49:03,476
And honestly, they mostly come from developers, right?

543
00:49:03,556 --> 00:49:10,836
They say that largely because they want to build something and so on.

544
00:49:11,076 --> 00:49:15,136
But you have to ask yourself, is it what the best thing for the users?

545
00:49:15,256 --> 00:49:16,576
Now, they can always make an argument.

546
00:49:16,736 --> 00:49:19,016
Oh, you're going to have this feature and this feature and this feature.

547
00:49:19,696 --> 00:49:25,376
But unless there's like a practical thing that the user actually gets out of it in the end,

548
00:49:25,376 --> 00:49:31,116
I don't think that's a legitimate reason to go do it.

549
00:49:31,116 --> 00:49:36,956
For example, with Taproot, we were told, okay, you're going to have all this privacy.

550
00:49:37,756 --> 00:49:43,316
I still remember AJ Towns on the mailing list saying, okay, here's why we should do Taproot.

551
00:49:44,136 --> 00:49:50,476
You basically have a single SIG spend path.

552
00:49:50,736 --> 00:49:53,416
This is the key path of the Taproot tree.

553
00:49:53,416 --> 00:50:07,416
You have the key path and the script path. And you can have the same wallet that you have now, which for most people is a single key, single signature unlock.

554
00:50:07,416 --> 00:50:12,076
unlock, right? It's not multi-sign. Most people don't use multi-sign. You have a single signature

555
00:50:12,076 --> 00:50:18,416
unlock. And for free, you can have a backup path where if you happen to lose your wallet,

556
00:50:18,696 --> 00:50:24,936
then you can have three of five of your friends sign on your behalf and you can get your Bitcoin

557
00:50:24,936 --> 00:50:30,176
back. Isn't that awesome? You're getting this for free, right? And I was like, that's a great

558
00:50:30,176 --> 00:50:36,096
argument. That's awesome. Yeah, that would be amazing. And there's a lot of people that get

559
00:50:36,096 --> 00:50:41,496
into accidents or are just dumb about something that this this would be awesome for and then tap

560
00:50:41,496 --> 00:50:47,096
root came and then i was like okay where where where are all all of these things all all of these

561
00:50:47,096 --> 00:50:53,056
and paths that are that are that are useful for that haven't seen it haven't seen it right and uh

562
00:50:53,056 --> 00:50:58,516
and it turns out that the reason why we haven't seen it why why we don't have all of these unlock

563
00:50:58,516 --> 00:51:04,076
paths why we don't have degrading multi-sig in like consumer wallets and stuff like that

564
00:51:04,076 --> 00:51:07,196
is because the UX is just batshit insane.

565
00:51:07,376 --> 00:51:14,256
You can't make something that people aren't going to screw up royally in setting it up.

566
00:51:14,636 --> 00:51:17,296
And also it's going to be terrible for your wallet, right?

567
00:51:17,876 --> 00:51:22,656
It's hard enough to get people to write down 12 or 24 words when they set up a wallet.

568
00:51:23,036 --> 00:51:27,256
How hard is it going to be to go and pick five friends,

569
00:51:27,256 --> 00:51:36,296
go get their xpubs and then import them in and then have that descriptor uh you know give that

570
00:51:36,296 --> 00:51:42,656
descriptor back to them and then you know now now you have this backup solution not gonna happen

571
00:51:42,656 --> 00:51:52,736
right like it's just too complicated the ux is just so unbelievably bad that whatever we're

572
00:51:52,736 --> 00:51:58,196
quote unquote, getting for free is not free at all. It's in fact, very, very costly because

573
00:51:58,196 --> 00:52:04,196
the user interactions and things like that, that you have to do to make this, you know,

574
00:52:04,196 --> 00:52:12,956
potential reality into a user benefit is enormous, right? So there are lots of things like that,

575
00:52:13,036 --> 00:52:20,376
that I see within like a lot of these like proposals for, okay, let's do covenants,

576
00:52:20,376 --> 00:52:23,536
Let's do this. Let's do that. You can do this. You can do that.

577
00:52:23,876 --> 00:52:28,256
It's like, well, I don't know if we're going to get any of this stuff. Right.

578
00:52:28,256 --> 00:52:39,296
A lot of it requires not just like the ability, you know, certain primitives at the protocol level, but everything up the stack.

579
00:52:39,436 --> 00:52:46,596
And there are blockers all the way up the stack that might just make it so that the user never gets the benefit.

580
00:52:46,596 --> 00:53:03,776
So while I, as a developer, I like getting more toys, right? I like getting more primitives. I like having more composability, right? Or better ways to do things and, you know, not shooting myself in the foot for certain things.

581
00:53:03,776 --> 00:53:09,476
But I think as a community, we need to demand a little more evidence from the developers.

582
00:53:10,156 --> 00:53:15,636
Because as far as I can tell, this is one of the complaints about Taproot.

583
00:53:15,996 --> 00:53:21,956
90% of the outputs in Taproot are spam.

584
00:53:22,916 --> 00:53:28,556
The other 10% presumably are being used for good measure or whatever.

585
00:53:28,556 --> 00:53:34,196
You can use it for your corporate treasury and have three or five multi-sig and degrading or whatever.

586
00:53:34,856 --> 00:53:39,836
But 90% is being used for spam rather than that.

587
00:53:40,236 --> 00:53:41,456
Shouldn't we ask some questions?

588
00:53:41,636 --> 00:53:45,016
Like, you guys said we could get all this stuff.

589
00:53:45,196 --> 00:53:46,816
I'm not seeing that, right?

590
00:53:46,916 --> 00:53:53,096
I mean, other than maybe Taproot channels, which not every Lightning wallet supports,

591
00:53:53,096 --> 00:53:59,716
I'm not sure there have been that many good things that came out of it.

592
00:53:59,716 --> 00:54:05,376
Right. Like I and, you know, I like what can I say?

593
00:54:05,476 --> 00:54:12,696
Like you need we like it's not that I'm opposed to soft works necessarily.

594
00:54:13,096 --> 00:54:18,836
But the evidence that I've seen makes it seem like a lot.

595
00:54:18,836 --> 00:54:25,236
a lot of this stuff is just sort of like satisfying developers without giving users enough benefit.

596
00:54:26,596 --> 00:54:32,676
Is it so fair to say, I mean, like at the consensus level, basically there needs to be an

597
00:54:32,676 --> 00:54:39,636
overwhelming burden of proof that something would be not only a cool, neat idea, but also desired by

598
00:54:39,636 --> 00:54:46,516
the majority of the community. Yeah. Or the benefits have to be proved out. Right. And this

599
00:54:46,516 --> 00:54:53,456
This was like one of my frustrations was, you know, like people are like, oh, you know, if we had covenants, we do this, this, this and this.

600
00:54:54,016 --> 00:54:55,796
Well, yeah, you have covenants on liquid.

601
00:54:55,916 --> 00:54:59,476
Why don't you go and build a wallet and like make make that happen?

602
00:54:59,596 --> 00:55:03,176
Go, go, go show me something that gets a lot of consumer adoption.

603
00:55:03,176 --> 00:55:10,896
And at that point, we can be like, OK, maybe then it makes sense to go and and make it on Bitcoin because it makes it more secure and stuff.

604
00:55:11,096 --> 00:55:12,696
Not opposed to it. Right.

605
00:55:12,696 --> 00:55:18,556
It would be great if we had time lock vaults and only two paths out and things like that.

606
00:55:18,956 --> 00:55:20,616
You could even do it on Bitcoin right now.

607
00:55:20,856 --> 00:55:22,316
This was one of my arguments.

608
00:55:22,796 --> 00:55:25,396
Okay, are people using covenants?

609
00:55:25,616 --> 00:55:29,436
Because you could kind of do covenants right now and not just time locks or whatever.

610
00:55:30,516 --> 00:55:36,236
If you want only three paths out of a particular UTXO, here's what you can do.

611
00:55:36,476 --> 00:55:42,096
Create three transactions, sign them, throw away the private key.

612
00:55:42,096 --> 00:55:44,296
Those are the three paths out.

613
00:55:44,396 --> 00:55:46,396
You can go put them in a vault or whatever, right?

614
00:55:46,616 --> 00:55:48,756
That's the only way you can get them out.

615
00:55:48,856 --> 00:55:54,036
It goes to this address, this address, or this address, or however way you want to put it.

616
00:55:55,156 --> 00:55:55,896
Perfectly fun.

617
00:55:55,976 --> 00:55:56,736
It'll work.

618
00:55:56,996 --> 00:56:01,316
But to my knowledge, no one has built anything like that, right?

619
00:56:01,356 --> 00:56:07,616
If you're that into covenants and that convinced that this is going to work, then you could...

620
00:56:07,616 --> 00:56:14,896
And honestly, if the protocol were more ossified, I bet you people would try stuff like that and see if it gets consumer adoption.

621
00:56:15,536 --> 00:56:22,996
But this is why programmers aren't always successful, why startups aren't always successful.

622
00:56:23,556 --> 00:56:27,256
You have to go and see if there's a market for it.

623
00:56:27,256 --> 00:56:33,796
And there's something called product market fit for that reason, where a lot of things that you think people want, they don't want.

624
00:56:33,796 --> 00:56:37,756
or you think would be unpopular with people, which are.

625
00:56:38,896 --> 00:56:41,796
There's this disconnect between what's good in theory

626
00:56:41,796 --> 00:56:43,516
and what actually works in practice.

627
00:56:43,916 --> 00:56:47,976
This is the part where I think developers need to be a lot more humble.

628
00:56:49,076 --> 00:56:55,776
Unfortunately in Bitcoin, I think we've given way too much respect

629
00:56:55,776 --> 00:57:00,136
to developers talking about stuff that they don't necessarily know about.

630
00:57:01,496 --> 00:57:02,876
I speak as a developer.

631
00:57:02,876 --> 00:57:07,256
I feel like people think that I know everything about certain things.

632
00:57:07,256 --> 00:57:15,796
Right. And it's like particularly around economics or like, you know, end user experience and things like that.

633
00:57:16,276 --> 00:57:27,636
I think a lot of developers, frankly, suck at both of those things, but they're given sort of like this godlike respect on them, which I don't think they necessarily deserve.

634
00:57:28,196 --> 00:57:29,676
Yeah. So.

635
00:57:29,676 --> 00:57:45,236
So I'm curious then, just given what you've said about kind of strong hesitancy or opposition to consensus level changes and favorability towards a more OSFIT approach, what are your thoughts on the consensus changes in BIP 110?

636
00:57:45,236 --> 00:57:54,536
10. Yeah. So that one, so I, I, I'm, I'm not really sure what that's going to do now. I,

637
00:57:54,536 --> 00:58:00,336
I, in general, like just to be clear on like ossification and what that means, um,

638
00:58:00,956 --> 00:58:08,576
I'm in favor of shrinking the set of stuff, not expanding the set of stuff. So those are two very

639
00:58:08,576 --> 00:58:14,916
different things, right? Like, uh, give it more features and stuff is expansion. Um, as a programmer,

640
00:58:14,916 --> 00:58:25,736
I know that when you shrink the amount of stuff that that you're able to do, it tends to be more stable and and more less buggy and things like that.

641
00:58:25,796 --> 00:58:31,096
So I am in favor of a lot of different things that would be considered soft work.

642
00:58:31,216 --> 00:58:36,176
So if, for example, we eliminated 30 op codes that no one uses, right?

643
00:58:36,176 --> 00:58:39,576
Like they're they're they're used once in a while as somebody testing something.

644
00:58:39,576 --> 00:58:48,156
But vast majority of like op2 dupe, op3 rot and stuff like that, just nobody uses.

645
00:58:48,356 --> 00:58:49,776
And they've been in there since the beginning.

646
00:58:50,556 --> 00:58:58,476
Now, it would be a software to say, OK, anything using this is invalid or something like that would be great.

647
00:58:58,936 --> 00:59:08,696
Why? Because it would take there are code paths in Bitcoin in the software that have to handle all of these things that almost never get tested.

648
00:59:08,696 --> 00:59:16,936
Right. Like it's all kinds of code in there that very gets very little testing that.

649
00:59:17,516 --> 00:59:22,076
And who knows if there are bugs in there and stuff. And this is something that you learn as a software developer.

650
00:59:22,776 --> 00:59:28,156
Unused code paths almost always have more bugs than the highly used code paths because you find them right away.

651
00:59:28,156 --> 00:59:36,056
Right. Like somebody reports it almost right away. So like getting rid of a lot of that stuff, I think I would be all for.

652
00:59:36,056 --> 00:59:42,216
right like uh so for example like if if we got rid of 30 opcodes that no one uses or you know we

653
00:59:42,216 --> 00:59:49,576
we analyze like the top 50 uh smart contracts right here's pay to puppy hash here's uh you know

654
00:59:49,576 --> 00:59:55,416
bare multi-sig here's whatever and we we take all those and and here are the 50 and here are the

655
00:59:55,416 --> 01:00:01,336
opcodes that they use let's just get rid of the other ones right okay i'd be i'd be like okay that

656
01:00:01,336 --> 01:00:04,836
That'll make it more stable, probably reduce bugs and things like that.

657
01:00:04,896 --> 01:00:05,676
That would be great.

658
01:00:07,476 --> 01:00:10,196
So those are two separate things.

659
01:00:10,276 --> 01:00:14,256
So I'm not opposed to all soft forks forever or anything like that,

660
01:00:14,256 --> 01:00:16,696
or like let's just keep the code exactly the same.

661
01:00:17,096 --> 01:00:21,556
I'm thinking more at a conceptual level, like keep things the same and eliminate.

662
01:00:22,236 --> 01:00:27,776
You can cut more as long as you know what the thing that you're trying to do with the software is.

663
01:00:27,776 --> 01:00:34,096
I think the original Satoshi client had a poker thing in there or something like that.

664
01:00:34,096 --> 01:00:45,196
Stuff that you want to cut down the software to its essence as much as possible, at least at a consensus level, at the base layer.

665
01:00:45,716 --> 01:00:50,976
This is what you want to do with software architecture if you can.

666
01:00:53,496 --> 01:00:57,096
The question then is, what is BIP-110?

667
01:00:57,096 --> 01:01:03,996
right what what's it trying to do is it expanding functionality or drawing it in and i'm i'm not

668
01:01:03,996 --> 01:01:10,176
sure it's either of those to be honest it's a it's a somewhere in between um i i would say it's not

669
01:01:10,176 --> 01:01:16,756
it's not like eliminating uh bug paths or something like that uh potential things like that

670
01:01:16,756 --> 01:01:24,156
it's also not like adding a feature like uh taproot or segwit did it's it's it's uh more or less kind

671
01:01:24,156 --> 01:01:32,536
of trying to eliminate spam. It's at like sort of the data layer. It's trying to add something to

672
01:01:32,536 --> 01:01:43,016
that data layer. So, I mean, I don't know if I am for reducing spam if possible. And I think even,

673
01:01:43,576 --> 01:01:49,296
I think everyone in this space would like that. And in fact, like part of, you know,

674
01:01:49,296 --> 01:01:57,296
how BIP 110 came about was the demand from core developers instead of fixing things at the relay

675
01:01:57,296 --> 01:02:09,016
level, fix things at the consensus level. Now, is it a software that actually does what we think it

676
01:02:09,016 --> 01:02:19,096
will, which is take away a lot of that spam and do it in a way that works for the network? Like,

677
01:02:19,096 --> 01:02:37,634
We not accidentally breaking like a bunch of people things that are actually like useful to people I mean in a sense that they kind of doing that right like they they taking away uh certain things that allow you to do inscriptions um ordinals so those users

678
01:02:37,634 --> 01:02:45,874
would kind of get uh set out so you know um yeah so i i i i'm not sure where i am on that right like

679
01:02:45,874 --> 01:02:54,674
i i i've uh like a very limited one like let's keep op return to 160 bytes or something like that

680
01:02:54,674 --> 01:03:01,814
I think I would be on board with but this does this goes like two or three steps above that

681
01:03:01,814 --> 01:03:13,994
I'm trying to eliminate inscriptions and some other things I like there it's yeah I and to be

682
01:03:13,994 --> 01:03:19,874
honest I haven't looked at it closely enough to say okay here here are the exact things that it

683
01:03:19,874 --> 01:03:25,874
eliminate and here are the exact things that it would allow um and you know here are the mitigations

684
01:03:25,874 --> 01:03:32,594
against it if uh if i if i were determined attacker and you know what that probability might be so i

685
01:03:33,234 --> 01:03:39,154
in general the idea of the soft work which is to get rid of a lot of spam i think i would be

686
01:03:39,714 --> 01:03:46,194
in favor of um obviously you know there there are certain risks and stuff and this is where

687
01:03:46,194 --> 01:03:54,634
it kind of gets tricky because like to be in favor of a soft work um you generally want a lot

688
01:03:54,634 --> 01:03:59,274
of people in favor of the soft work as well or at least that's what we think we're we're not really

689
01:03:59,274 --> 01:04:06,494
sure like and this is where a lot of weird game theory comes into play because uh and and i'm a

690
01:04:06,494 --> 01:04:13,094
little sad that we didn't get to test it in 2017 with the user activated soft work is we we don't

691
01:04:13,094 --> 01:04:17,094
actually know what's going to happen and how people will react.

692
01:04:17,094 --> 01:04:22,494
And, you know, in the in the episode that I did with Johnny

693
01:04:22,494 --> 01:04:25,734
Veer, this was one of the things that we were talking about is, OK, what

694
01:04:26,134 --> 01:04:31,934
there is this wipeout risk for the main chain if if, you know, some people are

695
01:04:33,094 --> 01:04:39,014
mining BIP 110, does that mean that you have to protect against that wipeout risk?

696
01:04:39,014 --> 01:04:42,174
Otherwise, like all these transactions can get invalidated.

697
01:04:42,174 --> 01:04:50,394
He's like, well, you know, he's of the opinion that Core wouldn't do an incompatible soft fork, right?

698
01:04:51,374 --> 01:04:52,814
A counter soft fork or whatever?

699
01:04:53,094 --> 01:04:53,554
Yeah, yeah.

700
01:04:53,674 --> 01:04:58,054
And there's lots of things like that which haven't played out.

701
01:04:58,214 --> 01:05:08,154
And anyone that tells you they know exactly how it's going to play out is probably lying because we've never had this situation and we've never played it out before.

702
01:05:08,154 --> 01:05:24,194
Now, there are lots of things in theory, but practice theory tend to not cooperate necessarily because there are factors that you can't take into account oftentimes because the way people like people are very creative.

703
01:05:24,194 --> 01:05:30,354
right like and you can't necessarily predict their behavior so it's a it's a very very strange and

704
01:05:31,154 --> 01:05:36,994
in many ways i think exciting kind of thing because we've never had this before where uh where

705
01:05:38,434 --> 01:05:44,434
more or less an intolerant minority wants something to come come through um and if you

706
01:05:44,434 --> 01:05:50,754
don't know about the details of the software september 1st it uh the the clients that are

707
01:05:50,754 --> 01:05:58,834
running it will reject transactions that do not meet the standards of the soft fork, in which case

708
01:05:58,834 --> 01:06:07,574
there might be a chain fork, but then what happens? It gets very interesting.

709
01:06:09,034 --> 01:06:14,754
And I'm of the opinion that we have to test this at some point. Why not now?

710
01:06:14,754 --> 01:06:19,934
I watched the one you guys did, the pod you guys did in El Salvador.

711
01:06:20,134 --> 01:06:21,834
I thought it was, again, a very good discussion.

712
01:06:21,954 --> 01:06:22,614
I told you this beforehand.

713
01:06:23,094 --> 01:06:24,254
I enjoyed it a lot.

714
01:06:24,954 --> 01:06:27,874
Always glad to see, you know, Tone moderating things.

715
01:06:28,794 --> 01:06:31,834
You know, shout out to Tone if he's listening to this somewhere.

716
01:06:32,554 --> 01:06:38,854
But so what I guess I'd like to understand a little bit, too, is, I mean, to me, okay, I'm looking at this.

717
01:06:38,854 --> 01:06:51,454
I've been called a core sympathizer and a distributor of terrible illicit material and all these different things because I've said for a while that people should run whatever node implementation they want.

718
01:06:51,534 --> 01:06:52,294
If you want to run core, great.

719
01:06:52,354 --> 01:06:53,714
If you want to run nodes, great, run it.

720
01:06:54,334 --> 01:06:56,874
You don't have to update your core node also.

721
01:06:57,174 --> 01:06:58,794
I haven't in some time.

722
01:06:59,614 --> 01:07:01,794
This, again, because they're backwards compatible.

723
01:07:02,034 --> 01:07:03,554
If people don't know that, you should know that.

724
01:07:03,614 --> 01:07:04,134
Now you know it.

725
01:07:04,754 --> 01:07:08,494
And I think that fees are the ultimate filter on these things.

726
01:07:08,494 --> 01:07:10,294
I know you've expressed the same sentiment, too.

727
01:07:10,334 --> 01:07:17,114
I've watched a lot of your, like, the short-form videos that you do, which I think are great, where you're in the armchair, you're breaking things down on the porch.

728
01:07:17,294 --> 01:07:17,654
Love it.

729
01:07:18,254 --> 01:07:19,374
Cowboy hat's there, of course.

730
01:07:19,614 --> 01:07:29,874
And in one of them, I mean, you basically said that you don't think that spam is actually that big of a deal because ultimately it gets priced out by, you know, monetary transactions.

731
01:07:30,054 --> 01:07:31,874
Are you still of that opinion?

732
01:07:31,954 --> 01:07:35,674
And if that's the case, why the urgency to do?

733
01:07:35,794 --> 01:07:37,014
And I'm not saying you have this urgency.

734
01:07:37,014 --> 01:07:43,554
I'm just saying like the general seeming urgency to activate this soft fork now that we're seeing from people.

735
01:07:43,754 --> 01:07:49,774
It seems to me like this is one of those instances where it's like there's being a lot of impetus put on like we need to do something right now.

736
01:07:49,894 --> 01:07:50,974
And Bitcoin is going to die.

737
01:07:51,054 --> 01:07:56,594
If not, I mean, Luke has literally said time and time again, this like if we ossify, Bitcoin is dead.

738
01:07:56,754 --> 01:07:57,794
Ossification is fatal.

739
01:07:58,314 --> 01:08:01,274
If we don't activate BIP 110, Bitcoin is dead.

740
01:08:01,754 --> 01:08:06,354
This language seems like the kind of stuff that's used to get people to make rash decisions.

741
01:08:06,354 --> 01:08:15,474
And I'm curious if you think like if you're of the opinion that Bitcoin like spam on Bitcoin is ultimately priced out by monetary use cases, which I agree with.

742
01:08:15,754 --> 01:08:20,874
Where do you fall as it relates to kind of the urgency that's being pushed here on BIP-110?

743
01:08:21,654 --> 01:08:34,054
Yeah, I mean, the urgency is from the BIP-110 proponents, and that's mostly around child porn and things like that.

744
01:08:34,054 --> 01:08:38,754
And for them, that's sort of like a drop that thing, right?

745
01:08:38,814 --> 01:08:44,454
Like it's once chopped on my computer, I'm not running CoreNode or whatever.

746
01:08:45,694 --> 01:08:54,874
And, you know, I don't see that as a risk or as a high enough risk to go do that.

747
01:08:55,154 --> 01:08:59,334
Again, they feel differently and it's entirely their right to go do this, right?

748
01:08:59,334 --> 01:09:06,734
And this, of course, there's a part that I think a lot of people miss is that it's it's a it's a decentralized network.

749
01:09:06,734 --> 01:09:09,634
They could they could try a software anytime they want.

750
01:09:09,634 --> 01:09:15,434
And and it's and this is why I think we need to know how this is going.

751
01:09:15,934 --> 01:09:24,894
Like, we need some experience as a community knowing how this stuff will play out, because at any time anyone can propose a software.

752
01:09:24,894 --> 01:09:29,874
work. They can run software that's compatible with Bitcoin in every other way. But this,

753
01:09:30,574 --> 01:09:37,654
what happens? Right. And it doesn't have to be, you know, people like Luke. It could be

754
01:09:37,654 --> 01:09:44,734
a government. It could be libertarians. It could be like it could be anybody. And we need to

755
01:09:44,734 --> 01:09:50,734
get some experience on this because we honestly do not have that experience and we don't know how

756
01:09:50,734 --> 01:09:58,994
it's going to go. But, you know, this particular one, you know, the fact that they're feeling that

757
01:09:58,994 --> 01:10:06,874
urgency is not necessarily something I agree with. And as you said, like, my perspective is that,

758
01:10:06,874 --> 01:10:13,014
you know, fees will price out spam. But like, you know, we did another show with Chris Greta. And

759
01:10:13,014 --> 01:10:20,454
one of the things he was saying is, you know, it's entirely possible that people will pay to

760
01:10:20,454 --> 01:10:26,994
keep something forever right um and more money than you would think um and this is because we've

761
01:10:26,994 --> 01:10:34,374
never had a system like bitcoin before where you can keep something on a chain forever right like

762
01:10:34,374 --> 01:10:43,054
that's like in the history of digital stuff we've never had something that was this replicated and

763
01:10:43,054 --> 01:10:50,174
this permanent we like if you if you have like a file from 10 years ago and i'm sure a lot of

764
01:10:50,174 --> 01:10:55,834
people don't practice good digital hygiene. So, you know, they they've lost it or, you know,

765
01:10:55,874 --> 01:11:01,874
kept things that they shouldn't have or whatever. We've never had something where it's going to

766
01:11:01,874 --> 01:11:08,714
last as long as Bitcoin lasts. And we many of us in Bitcoin expect that to last forever, right? Or

767
01:11:08,714 --> 01:11:15,594
for for a very, very long time. And it's it's a guarantee that we've never really had that that's

768
01:11:15,594 --> 01:11:20,774
So that's based on incentives and so on that that are very different.

769
01:11:20,774 --> 01:11:35,414
So I could kind of see his point that it's possible that some other application comes up for data storage like this, where it where people may be willing to pay a lot more for it.

770
01:11:36,174 --> 01:11:38,414
In which case, who knows? Right.

771
01:11:38,414 --> 01:11:47,714
And the other part that sort of like throws a wrench into this analysis that fees will eventually price out everything or whatever,

772
01:11:48,314 --> 01:11:52,754
is that we actually don't know what second layers will be successful.

773
01:11:53,534 --> 01:12:03,134
Because as you've seen with Lightning, if you're able to transact on a second layer, you don't have to use the first layer, layer one.

774
01:12:03,134 --> 01:12:21,354
And there are certain protocols which almost require no on-chain footprint or compress down not just hundreds of transactions like Lightning does.

775
01:12:21,874 --> 01:12:26,614
You're compressing 100 transactions on Lightning to a single one on-chain.

776
01:12:26,614 --> 01:12:31,454
you know they're able to do a thousand ten thousand a hundred thousand uh oftentimes

777
01:12:31,454 --> 01:12:38,694
especially with stuff like vtxos and so on is it possible that at some point we get million

778
01:12:38,694 --> 01:12:45,654
10 million 100 million at that point it's like okay maybe maybe the block space actually doesn't

779
01:12:45,654 --> 01:12:53,414
get filled up that much right like if you if you have a a ratio of like a million transactions on

780
01:12:53,414 --> 01:13:00,834
layer two compressing down to a single transaction on layer one i mean and we have seven billion

781
01:13:00,834 --> 01:13:08,014
people that's like seven thousand transactions right equivalent and that's like two blocks

782
01:13:08,014 --> 01:13:16,634
like you can do you can handle a transaction per person per 20 minutes like without a problem if

783
01:13:16,634 --> 01:13:20,934
you have that level of compression now we don't know what what level of compression we're going

784
01:13:20,934 --> 01:13:26,594
to be able to get. And these are, again, all theoretical. And again, practice is very different

785
01:13:26,594 --> 01:13:35,954
than theory. But it is an argument and it's not implausible. I personally don't think that that's

786
01:13:35,954 --> 01:13:43,834
going to be the case either. In which case, it does make it more difficult for a node runner if,

787
01:13:43,834 --> 01:13:50,114
say, blocks are half empty going forward because we have this massive compression that we're able to

788
01:13:50,114 --> 01:13:52,694
to practically realize.

789
01:13:53,814 --> 01:13:56,454
You know, I mean, I could kind of see that.

790
01:13:57,754 --> 01:13:58,054
But again-

791
01:13:58,054 --> 01:13:58,734
So just to clarify,

792
01:13:59,034 --> 01:14:00,894
you're saying if blocks are half empty,

793
01:14:01,354 --> 01:14:03,234
the concern here on the node runner side

794
01:14:03,234 --> 01:14:04,014
would be that those blocks

795
01:14:04,014 --> 01:14:06,834
would then be filled with non-monetary transactions

796
01:14:06,834 --> 01:14:08,594
because they wouldn't be getting priced out.

797
01:14:08,614 --> 01:14:11,514
That it would have non-monetary additions and that,

798
01:14:11,514 --> 01:14:14,934
like, again, like I can see their point,

799
01:14:15,094 --> 01:14:18,494
but like, is it worth doing all this stuff for?

800
01:14:18,574 --> 01:14:19,574
Maybe, maybe not.

801
01:14:19,574 --> 01:14:24,854
I guess all of that accumulates over time and so on.

802
01:14:25,394 --> 01:14:31,474
So there's multiple different ways in which I could be wrong.

803
01:14:31,714 --> 01:14:44,214
I personally think that the monetary transactions will dominate and the fees on those will price out all of the other stuff.

804
01:14:44,214 --> 01:14:53,414
but there are some possibilities where spam can take over the network who knows right um and uh

805
01:14:53,414 --> 01:14:58,854
i'm not going to say with certainty that that that's uh not going to happen because you know

806
01:14:58,854 --> 01:15:06,454
there are paths like i personally don't think that likely but i mean it's it's possible so

807
01:15:06,454 --> 01:15:12,854
um you can't sort of dismiss it out of hand i guess uh and you can't you also can't say this is

808
01:15:12,854 --> 01:15:18,574
also what's definitely going to happen. And, you know, one of the frustrations during this debate

809
01:15:18,574 --> 01:15:24,974
for me has been both sides essentially being completely certain of the future. And I'm like,

810
01:15:25,074 --> 01:15:32,174
there's no way you can say that. There's just too many unknowns, too many ways in which things can

811
01:15:32,174 --> 01:15:38,034
go that you don't expect. And, you know, life is kind of like that, right? Like you think

812
01:15:38,034 --> 01:15:46,334
something's going to play out this way. It totally does not. And it's almost always like

813
01:15:46,334 --> 01:15:51,994
not even something that one side predicted or the other or even something in between, but like

814
01:15:51,994 --> 01:16:00,874
just something completely off in another direction that no one predicted by any measure. So

815
01:16:00,874 --> 01:16:07,434
I suspect that that's how Bitcoin stuff will go. And, you know, like just take things as it is.

816
01:16:07,434 --> 01:16:17,594
As a community, the big thing that we should be thinking about is do soft forks from an intolerant minority, what happens?

817
01:16:18,714 --> 01:16:23,214
And I'm not even sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing if they succeed.

818
01:16:23,214 --> 01:16:33,354
I don't know the magnitude or direction of this change, whether it would be a good thing, whether it would be a bad thing.

819
01:16:33,354 --> 01:16:45,354
like how like to whatever degree governance exists in Bitcoin, like how that affects those things, how it affects developers, how it affects how we think about softworks.

820
01:16:45,694 --> 01:16:50,794
Like all of those things are kind of up for grabs here with this softwork.

821
01:16:51,554 --> 01:16:56,094
And personally, I like it because I want some certainty around that.

822
01:16:56,234 --> 01:16:58,354
Right. I want some knowledge around that.

823
01:16:58,354 --> 01:17:05,114
And in Bitcoin's history, the more knowledge you have about the system, the better it does.

824
01:17:05,554 --> 01:17:12,714
When we thought it was just like a darknet currency in 2013, it was at one price.

825
01:17:12,994 --> 01:17:20,654
But as soon as Ross Ulbrich was arrested, a lot of people I knew were saying, you know what, it's going to go down because there's no use case for it anymore.

826
01:17:20,774 --> 01:17:23,414
People aren't going and getting drugs on the darknet.

827
01:17:23,694 --> 01:17:28,194
Instead, it went on one of the best bull runs that we've ever had in Bitcoin.

828
01:17:28,354 --> 01:17:31,654
100 to 13 or 1100 in like six weeks.

829
01:17:32,754 --> 01:17:42,274
2017, what's going to happen with this SegWit2x and Bitcoin Cash and all this stuff when you have a split community?

830
01:17:42,554 --> 01:17:44,274
Are people going to be confused?

831
01:17:44,854 --> 01:17:46,034
You know, like whatever.

832
01:17:46,674 --> 01:17:51,714
And again, that resolved and we got more information about all of that.

833
01:17:52,074 --> 01:17:56,994
And that, again, had a pretty huge impact on price.

834
01:17:56,994 --> 01:18:04,274
We went from 2,000 to 19,000 in the matter of like three months or something like that.

835
01:18:04,754 --> 01:18:08,594
It's a good thing to understand more about the system.

836
01:18:09,074 --> 01:18:13,794
And we think we might know how this plays out.

837
01:18:14,234 --> 01:18:16,554
And this was one of the things I put out on Noster.

838
01:18:16,954 --> 01:18:18,254
I think it was yesterday.

839
01:18:18,814 --> 01:18:20,034
What do you think will happen?

840
01:18:20,154 --> 01:18:21,834
Because I don't know.

841
01:18:22,154 --> 01:18:23,714
I have no idea what's going to happen.

842
01:18:23,714 --> 01:18:33,234
There's so many variables that I think way too many people are just like way too certain on here's what's going to happen.

843
01:18:33,354 --> 01:18:36,614
Here's what's not. And in fact, on both sides, right?

844
01:18:36,614 --> 01:18:40,734
Like the intolerant minority thinks that this is totally going to work.

845
01:18:40,794 --> 01:18:47,674
We're going to get our software. We're going to, you know, kick out some of the core devs that have been doing things that we don't like or whatever.

846
01:18:47,674 --> 01:18:52,494
a lot of people on the course side think this is going to be a nothing burger

847
01:18:52,494 --> 01:18:55,554
no one's going to run this thing, no one's going to mine with this thing

848
01:18:55,554 --> 01:19:00,774
I really don't think either side really has any clue what they're talking about

849
01:19:00,774 --> 01:19:02,534
there are just so many variables

850
01:19:02,534 --> 01:19:09,034
you get even a small minority of miners mining it

851
01:19:09,034 --> 01:19:13,854
it could snowball because I honestly don't think a lot of miners care

852
01:19:13,854 --> 01:19:19,174
and it's okay well there's wipeout risk on this side there's not on this side i'm just gonna go

853
01:19:19,174 --> 01:19:24,854
with the one that's not that's not just just for that reason even like you don't it's trying to

854
01:19:24,854 --> 01:19:31,274
predict too much what other people are going to do and their incentives are way more complicated

855
01:19:31,274 --> 01:19:37,294
than you give it give them credit for it's not just hey they're going to do uh they're going to

856
01:19:37,294 --> 01:19:43,154
do this because of this reason most people have all kinds of other motivations that you don't know

857
01:19:43,154 --> 01:19:50,814
about. And even if you knew all of them, you don't know how they're weighted and all that. So

858
01:19:50,814 --> 01:19:58,554
yeah, I want to know how this works out. I want to see how this happens. And I think it's very

859
01:19:58,554 --> 01:20:03,594
good for Bitcoin in the end. I appreciate the nuance, Jimmy. I appreciate somebody actually

860
01:20:03,594 --> 01:20:07,114
coming and saying, you know what? I don't think any of us know exactly how this is going to shake

861
01:20:07,114 --> 01:20:10,974
out. And I think we need more of that kind of attitude. And I think it's a great point just

862
01:20:10,974 --> 01:20:16,834
about like the actual consensus mechanism, which is so much more convoluted than I think

863
01:20:16,834 --> 01:20:17,654
most people understand.

864
01:20:17,914 --> 01:20:22,534
Did you read the piece that Lynn Alden and Steve Lee put together?

865
01:20:22,794 --> 01:20:26,854
It was basically that analysis of the different, it's really, really good.

866
01:20:26,934 --> 01:20:31,274
It's an analysis of just like the different mechanisms that go into establishing consensus

867
01:20:31,274 --> 01:20:31,814
in Bitcoin.

868
01:20:32,094 --> 01:20:33,634
It's fascinating.

869
01:20:33,854 --> 01:20:35,234
It's a great analysis of it.

870
01:20:35,234 --> 01:20:43,234
But I think the larger point here is the beauty of Bitcoin is that anybody can kind of do what they want, right?

871
01:20:43,914 --> 01:20:45,594
It's a decentralized system, yeah.

872
01:20:46,314 --> 01:20:47,794
And it's going to be messy.

873
01:20:48,234 --> 01:20:57,774
And I think that you do have a – it's a fair point around like, hey, if we're going to really figure out how this works because we didn't actually get to the end state in the block size wars.

874
01:20:57,814 --> 01:20:58,994
It didn't actually go there.

875
01:20:59,554 --> 01:21:01,194
Let's figure it out sooner rather than later.

876
01:21:01,314 --> 01:21:03,454
I think that that's a sentiment that makes sense.

877
01:21:03,454 --> 01:21:08,114
I know from your conversation with Tone and Jonathan, you know, Tone had some different opinions on it.

878
01:21:08,554 --> 01:21:23,614
I'm, you know, I'm curious to just more broadly, because I have to I go back to where like a lot of this discourse got really, I think, unproductive, which is a shame, because I think ultimately, like if we all the same consensus code, like we're all running Bitcoin, right?

879
01:21:23,614 --> 01:21:31,934
We're all Bitcoiners. Now, if the consensus code is different, well, then, you know, you know, OK, there might be a fork off situation where you're actually running, you know, BSV or BCH or whatever.

880
01:21:31,934 --> 01:21:46,834
But I'm curious, if we go back to the start of this, I think a lot of the frustration was around a lot of people feeling that core was trying to push forward changes in relay policy and mempool policy that they didn't get any say in it.

881
01:21:46,874 --> 01:21:48,994
It didn't matter that these things were talked about on forums and all that.

882
01:21:49,074 --> 01:21:56,034
It was a feeling of dismissiveness from what people are viewing as their Bitcoin core overlords, basically.

883
01:21:56,034 --> 01:22:02,894
And I'm curious, too, because a lot of the language that's been thrown around has been bad actors, compromised, attack on Bitcoin.

884
01:22:03,514 --> 01:22:16,054
Do you think that Bitcoin Core or Core V30 or getting rid of the operaturn limit is a direct attack on Bitcoin or that Core has been compromised or that this is just it's all just bad actors doing this?

885
01:22:16,394 --> 01:22:23,434
Because I struggle with with that kind of really kind of strong language that's just unnecessarily inflammatory personally.

886
01:22:23,514 --> 01:22:24,294
But I'd love your opinion.

887
01:22:24,294 --> 01:22:47,774
Yeah, I don't think they're like that. The thing is, what's that law? All arguments devolve to Hitler or something like that. There's something about being online where people just end up escalating whatever they're saying so that they get attention.

888
01:22:47,774 --> 01:23:08,234
Like my take on it was that they were they they were very dismissive of of the people that had some objections that mostly it was immature young developers.

889
01:23:08,234 --> 01:23:16,734
And I've seen this working as a software developer all the time where you try to push through something because you think it's right.

890
01:23:16,734 --> 01:23:19,954
and you get a lot of pushback from

891
01:23:19,992 --> 01:23:31,232
People that are not technical and you end up dismissing them because they're not technical and you think that those guys don't have a point or whatever.

892
01:23:33,132 --> 01:23:40,672
I've seen that pattern with a lot of young developers and they usually have to fall on their face at least once, right?

893
01:23:40,832 --> 01:23:44,852
Where they think they're right and it turns out that they were wrong.

894
01:23:45,852 --> 01:23:49,592
And this is part of the training of being a developer.

895
01:23:49,592 --> 01:24:00,552
but I'm sure it's true in other careers as well, where your level of conviction about something is based on like your model of the world, right?

896
01:24:00,672 --> 01:24:03,032
That isn't necessarily complete.

897
01:24:03,032 --> 01:24:06,592
And there are things that you don't know.

898
01:24:07,152 --> 01:24:16,252
And, you know, just thinking yourself to be the smartest person in the room just because you're very technical is generally not a great thing.

899
01:24:16,252 --> 01:24:30,872
That's my take on what happened here is that there were a bunch of developers within Core that were convinced that this was the right way to go.

900
01:24:30,872 --> 01:24:46,512
And, you know, they ended up pushing it and then it became sort of like a thing to defend the reference implementation itself, something like that.

901
01:24:46,872 --> 01:24:53,372
And it ended up being sort of like more tribalistic and political than it needed to be.

902
01:24:53,372 --> 01:25:01,372
um and yeah i like there was a reason why adam was saying stuff like that at least at the beginning

903
01:25:01,372 --> 01:25:07,812
of this thing like and he was trying to coach people like loria's out right like you can't

904
01:25:07,812 --> 01:25:13,072
tell people that they're they don't that they can't have any input because they're not technical

905
01:25:13,072 --> 01:25:20,172
this is that that's just like going to piss them off more and there's some um some wisdom in

906
01:25:20,172 --> 01:25:25,072
listening to them even if you disagree and stuff like that like like i could i could see him doing

907
01:25:25,072 --> 01:25:30,152
that because i've been in that position a lot too right like where where you're you're sort of like

908
01:25:30,152 --> 01:25:35,892
the senior developer and you go to the junior developer and you know like i know this person

909
01:25:35,892 --> 01:25:40,952
is frustrating and they don't understand certain things about this this and this but you you you

910
01:25:40,952 --> 01:25:46,012
still have to kind of hear them out and see if they have a point and like sort of like dismissing

911
01:25:46,012 --> 01:25:49,052
them out of hand is just going to get them really pissed off at you.

912
01:25:49,052 --> 01:25:56,672
So and a lot, honestly, a lot of these developers that are in core now are fairly young and many

913
01:25:56,672 --> 01:26:00,012
of them honestly haven't had industry experience.

914
01:26:00,632 --> 01:26:02,092
And it kind of shows, right?

915
01:26:02,152 --> 01:26:08,832
Like this is probably like exhibit A of like how not to do certain things.

916
01:26:10,172 --> 01:26:12,832
So, yeah, that's part of it.

917
01:26:12,832 --> 01:26:18,692
Now, as for the actual technical thing, again, it's I don't think it's that big a deal.

918
01:26:18,692 --> 01:26:21,292
Like I and I've repeated this over and over.

919
01:26:21,492 --> 01:26:29,372
I just think it it's the the bigger sort of concern is.

920
01:26:30,792 --> 01:26:50,344
You know how they make decisions around this stuff and and that that procedural stuff I think is is what worries me way more than the actual hey they changed this from 80 to 100 What the process that got you to 100

921
01:26:50,464 --> 01:26:52,564
And why didn't you do this, this, and this?

922
01:26:53,944 --> 01:27:03,324
Because from my perspective, it seems like there are way better compromises than what they ended up at.

923
01:27:03,324 --> 01:27:06,564
And they've isolated a lot of people.

924
01:27:06,564 --> 01:27:08,784
They've antagonized a lot of people.

925
01:27:13,484 --> 01:27:15,244
It's what you would call foot guns.

926
01:27:15,604 --> 01:27:18,024
They've shot themselves in the foot four or five times.

927
01:27:18,164 --> 01:27:20,664
And it's just like, why are you doing it this way?

928
01:27:21,124 --> 01:27:26,544
And it's a little frustrating as somebody that's been a software developer for a long time.

929
01:27:26,644 --> 01:27:28,904
But that's the extent of my concern.

930
01:27:29,044 --> 01:27:33,184
Not necessarily, hey, these guys are trying to ruin Bitcoin or whatever.

931
01:27:33,184 --> 01:27:38,424
I mean, very well could like I mean, let's face it right now.

932
01:27:38,504 --> 01:27:42,884
They do kind of have the power to maybe ruin Bitcoin if they really wanted to.

933
01:27:43,764 --> 01:27:48,084
And who knows, maybe the process is broken enough that they still might.

934
01:27:48,884 --> 01:27:58,264
But, you know, my take on it is that it was a lot of, shall we say, inexperienced devs.

935
01:27:58,264 --> 01:28:04,824
uh still very smart still very technical just people skills and things like that presenting

936
01:28:04,824 --> 01:28:11,144
things certain certain things like that that that um that weren't optimal and uh and they're sort of

937
01:28:11,144 --> 01:28:17,624
facing the consequences of it it that's also good for it but by the way right like they they they're

938
01:28:17,624 --> 01:28:23,144
learning something and i i've i've seen some evidence that they're taking some of this stuff

939
01:28:23,144 --> 01:28:29,864
to account and you know in the future they probably wouldn't do it this way so that's good yeah and

940
01:28:29,864 --> 01:28:34,424
once again jimmy i appreciate your nuance on this because it is possible to have nuance these days

941
01:28:34,424 --> 01:28:41,224
and you are you are proving it uh word by word can i ask if it's not too personal do you run knots

942
01:28:41,224 --> 01:28:48,904
or an older version of core i i have both um yeah i i run multiple things like i mean that's that's

943
01:28:48,904 --> 01:28:52,424
I have a lot of different reasons to run nodes.

944
01:28:52,704 --> 01:28:55,024
And, you know, I mean, I'm mining on one.

945
01:28:55,744 --> 01:28:58,404
You know, I have one for like a block explorer.

946
01:28:58,604 --> 01:28:59,764
There's a bunch.

947
01:28:59,964 --> 01:29:01,204
So, yeah, I have more than one.

948
01:29:01,724 --> 01:29:03,684
And I definitely run both.

949
01:29:04,564 --> 01:29:07,104
I kind of figured that might be the case.

950
01:29:07,604 --> 01:29:16,264
And again, Jimmy, I appreciate your nuance on this because I think so much of this is sort of devolved into like everybody that doesn't agree with me is a child predator

951
01:29:16,264 --> 01:29:19,944
and is complicit in putting horrific images on the time.

952
01:29:20,044 --> 01:29:22,944
And it's like, no one wants that, right?

953
01:29:23,004 --> 01:29:24,244
Like, nobody wants that.

954
01:29:24,284 --> 01:29:26,924
Like, we all just saw all this horrific stuff in the Epstein files.

955
01:29:26,964 --> 01:29:29,244
And now it's like the conversations devolved further into like,

956
01:29:29,824 --> 01:29:33,004
Core V30 is actually a Mossad attack from Jeffrey Epstein.

957
01:29:33,224 --> 01:29:34,724
And it's like, come on, guys.

958
01:29:34,904 --> 01:29:36,704
Like, it is possible to have some nuance.

959
01:29:36,924 --> 01:29:38,284
Not everybody is a bad actor.

960
01:29:38,384 --> 01:29:41,144
There are certainly bad actors out there.

961
01:29:41,504 --> 01:29:44,624
Like, as we've just found out, most of them happen to run our country.

962
01:29:44,624 --> 01:29:51,524
but that's like that's a different story right yeah I mean that's not to say that there's no

963
01:29:51,524 --> 01:29:55,784
Mossad agent contributing to Cora right now or something like that of course not I would be

964
01:29:55,784 --> 01:30:02,004
shocked if there wasn't yeah I would be shocked if there wasn't yeah but uh but again like people

965
01:30:02,004 --> 01:30:13,096
saying that are just so certain of what what they saying and that that the part that like really gets how do you know right like what what evidence do you have it oh their actions are blah blah

966
01:30:13,096 --> 01:30:17,656
blah well how do you know that that's why they're doing whatever they're doing like to me like the

967
01:30:18,216 --> 01:30:24,136
simplest explanation is that a lot of these people are a little inexperienced maybe maybe they're

968
01:30:24,136 --> 01:30:29,016
like they're guilty of having a little bit of pride and uh digging digging in their heels a

969
01:30:29,016 --> 01:30:32,496
a little bit and, you know, not wanting to lose face or whatever.

970
01:30:32,496 --> 01:30:40,496
But I don't think you need to go to, you know, this is a Mossad, you know, operation to explain

971
01:30:40,496 --> 01:30:41,016
that, right?

972
01:30:41,056 --> 01:30:51,416
Like there's plenty of plenty of room for for explanations that don't involve bringing

973
01:30:51,416 --> 01:30:55,076
in such kind of crazy things.

974
01:30:55,296 --> 01:30:58,896
So, yeah, I want to be conscious of your time, Jimmy, because I know.

975
01:30:58,896 --> 01:31:00,216
I'm going to get you out of here in a couple of minutes.

976
01:31:00,296 --> 01:31:06,036
I did want to ask you before we go, do you think that like, maybe a better question,

977
01:31:06,156 --> 01:31:09,736
what is the biggest threat to Bitcoin right now?

978
01:31:10,076 --> 01:31:11,176
Is it quantum?

979
01:31:11,596 --> 01:31:14,876
Is it delayed ossification?

980
01:31:15,196 --> 01:31:16,456
Is it premature ossification?

981
01:31:16,836 --> 01:31:18,676
Is it just apathy?

982
01:31:19,776 --> 01:31:22,076
What do you think is the biggest threat to Bitcoin?

983
01:31:23,636 --> 01:31:24,876
Definitely not quantum.

984
01:31:24,876 --> 01:31:29,136
I don't think that's for I'm not sure it's ever coming.

985
01:31:29,316 --> 01:31:31,316
So, yeah, definitely not quantum.

986
01:31:32,516 --> 01:31:38,436
Yeah, I think it would be something along governance lines or something like that.

987
01:31:38,996 --> 01:31:50,476
So, like I said, the thing that worried me about how this decision was made was it kind of set a little bit of a precedent.

988
01:31:50,476 --> 01:31:54,576
Right. And I'm not saying this is like permanent rule or anything.

989
01:31:54,876 --> 01:32:04,156
But it was if the core devs agree among themselves that something is right, then the rest of the community can go fuck themselves.

990
01:32:05,576 --> 01:32:12,456
Paraphrased, obviously, but like, you know, as far as the reference implementation is is concerned.

991
01:32:14,076 --> 01:32:24,856
Now, I'm not saying that they'll do this for everything, but but like just the way the dynamics turned out on that.

992
01:32:24,876 --> 01:32:31,816
was a little bit like, huh, like, and then, you know, among other things I found out is that

993
01:32:31,816 --> 01:32:40,996
if you want to be a maintainer, you have to be, the current maintainers have to vote you in and

994
01:32:40,996 --> 01:32:50,156
not anybody else. I'd always thought it was all the other core contributors, like sort of voting

995
01:32:50,156 --> 01:32:56,836
for one or some sort of consensus process like that. But it turns out currently that the current

996
01:32:56,836 --> 01:33:04,776
set of maintainers have a veto over whoever is let in as a maintainer. So little things like that

997
01:33:04,776 --> 01:33:10,356
with governance issues within core worry me a little bit just because it does have something

998
01:33:10,356 --> 01:33:17,256
like currently what like or at least I mean if you include knots as a derivative of core something

999
01:33:17,256 --> 01:33:19,996
like 98%, 99%.

1000
01:33:19,996 --> 01:33:21,796
If you don't with knots,

1001
01:33:21,896 --> 01:33:24,236
then it's maybe like 80%,

1002
01:33:24,236 --> 01:33:24,876
something like that.

1003
01:33:24,876 --> 01:33:36,068
So yeah I mean that part some sort of precedent being said and not enough people sort of like rebelling against that would be it

1004
01:33:36,188 --> 01:33:38,968
But I mean, we're kind of a contrarian bunch anyway.

1005
01:33:38,968 --> 01:33:42,748
So I think there would be, as we're seeing with BIP-110, right?

1006
01:33:43,008 --> 01:33:47,668
Like a lot of people are like, oh, these people are bad actors.

1007
01:33:47,768 --> 01:33:50,248
I can't believe they're forking off and they're going to ruin Bitcoin.

1008
01:33:50,488 --> 01:33:52,748
No, that's good too, right?

1009
01:33:52,748 --> 01:34:11,108
Like all of this is actually a very good thing. We want to see what happens because this isn't the first time it's going to happen. Right. If it doesn't happen now, it'll happen later. And the earlier we learn about it, the more information the market has and the better it'll go, I think.

1010
01:34:11,108 --> 01:34:24,768
So, yeah, that's where I would say just and it's not something that I would have said like a year ago, but it just seeing how this particular thing played out.

1011
01:34:24,768 --> 01:34:43,788
And, you know, frankly, because of some of the turnover in core that I wasn't that aware of, like within the last five years, you know, that that's something that I I don't think it's a giant risk by any measure.

1012
01:34:44,208 --> 01:34:46,408
But if I had to pick one, that would be it.

1013
01:34:47,528 --> 01:34:50,868
The quantum futters are going to be very disappointed in that one, Jimmy.

1014
01:34:50,868 --> 01:34:58,228
I mean, we would have to do another entire episode to go through quantum and how mid with that whole thing is.

1015
01:34:58,528 --> 01:35:02,428
But it is. Yeah, it is. It's getting frustrating.

1016
01:35:02,688 --> 01:35:05,768
But I'm going to take up on that. We're just going to have to do another episode on this.

1017
01:35:05,928 --> 01:35:08,188
I've got I'm going to get you out of here now because I know you've got a hard stop here.

1018
01:35:08,228 --> 01:35:09,868
But, Jimmy, I appreciate your nuance.

1019
01:35:10,008 --> 01:35:16,628
I appreciate your perspective and all that you've done for Bitcoin over your your long career with the orange coin here.

1020
01:35:16,708 --> 01:35:17,768
Where do you want to send folks?

1021
01:35:17,768 --> 01:35:26,908
just I guess you can find me on Noster and my newsletter jimmysong.substack.com bitcoin tech

1022
01:35:26,908 --> 01:35:32,648
talk I had a free issue out this morning so you can go read about all the recent developments and

1023
01:35:32,648 --> 01:35:39,308
some of my random interesting articles that I put in the front that's all free so yeah there you go

1024
01:35:39,308 --> 01:35:43,568
well I appreciate you sharing your scarce time Jimmy this was great to do this

1025
01:35:43,568 --> 01:35:47,168
would love to do it again all right sounds good man let's do it

1026
01:35:47,768 --> 01:35:58,848
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of The Bitcoin Podcast.

1027
01:35:59,488 --> 01:36:03,448
Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening,

1028
01:36:03,868 --> 01:36:07,748
and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet.

1029
01:36:07,748 --> 01:36:14,448
Find me on Noster at primal.net slash walker and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.

1030
01:36:14,448 --> 01:36:22,868
On X, YouTube, and Rumble, just search at Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram at Titcoin Podcast.

1031
01:36:23,588 --> 01:36:25,848
Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links.

1032
01:36:25,968 --> 01:36:30,648
Head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you.

1033
01:36:31,108 --> 01:36:34,448
And head to Bitcoin Podcast dot net for everything else.

1034
01:36:34,988 --> 01:36:38,548
Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant.

1035
01:36:38,548 --> 01:36:44,168
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast.

1036
01:36:44,448 --> 01:36:47,228
Until next time, stay free.