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It's like, oh, we could do anything with quantum because we have like all these multiverses that we're doing calculations in or something.

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That's exactly what quantum is not.

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On X, in my little echo chamber, at least, people were pretty pissed.

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Should a million Satoshi coins hit the market and you find all sorts of private buyers, immediately it would do something like that.

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Talk to me a little bit about how Production Ready is seeking to at least be a part of the solution.

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Because up until then, from 2011 to 2013, that was the narrative around Bitcoin was it's darknet money.

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But that day, that site went down.

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People still held it and bought more.

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Today on the show, I have Jimmy Song.

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We go into a lot of the most hot topics, the most important things that people are discussing today.

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We talk about knots versus core, other implementations, BIP-110, BIP-360, and quantum resistance.

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And of course, everyone's favorite lately, BIP-361, the potential for freezing Satoshi's coins,

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and all of Jimmy's thoughts and takes on all these topics.

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And then he's got a great controversial take at the end that I personally like a lot.

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I think you'll enjoy this episode.

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Hey, everyone.

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Like I said in the intro, I have Jimmy Song here with me.

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Jimmy, welcome to the Bitcoin Way podcast.

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Well, thanks for having me.

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I'm excited to talk about all of these things.

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So let's start with just your overall view for context on how you think Bitcoin development

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should work.

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Like, how would it work in a perfect world?

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What level of consensus should be reached amongst clubs, node runners, however you define

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various groups and stakeholders?

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And then we'll jump in and go from there.

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Yeah, I mean, I think the ideal is something in the spirit of open source and decentralization. I think that's essentially what we want as a community, because we want Bitcoin to stay decentralized. It's very easy to centralize around something. And, you know, we've seen it with minor centralization, where a handful of pools now control a lot of the hash rate and things like that.

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And having that be under control of more people is obviously better because then that's going to make it so that no one really can influence what goes into blocks or does things in a way that the rest of the network might think is kind of bad.

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Or even if they do, then other people are there to kind of balance it out and so on.

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And we have that in almost every other part of Bitcoin.

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You know, no one, there's no central banker or anything like that.

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So people more or less do what they want.

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There's no censorship around it and you can spend it however way you like.

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You don't have to get permission from anybody.

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And that's ideal.

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That's what makes Bitcoin sound money.

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And that's what makes it so powerful.

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Development, though, has traditionally been basically like a single entity kind of thing.

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And that, I think, has introduced some potential weaknesses.

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And in my ideal world, that weakness wouldn't be there.

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That wouldn't be an attack surface.

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The burden on each developer wouldn't be so high.

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Right now, if you screw up as a core dev and, you know, introduce some sort of consensus bug, even against the other versions of core or something like that, it's all on you.

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Right. And it can't be easy to sort of coding that way where, you know, any mistake that you make might mean potentially like the ruination of Bitcoin in some significant way, at least far as that software version is concerned.

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I think ideally, I would like to see a lot of different implementations with a lot of support where they have different goals.

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They're going for different audiences and meeting the different needs of the various types of people that are on the network.

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So a merchant has very different needs than a miner, and they have very different needs than an exchange, and that has very different needs than a lightning router.

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And, you know, those obviously are different than PLEPS as well.

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So you got a lot of different constituencies that want different things.

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And ideally, you have multiple implementations that are fairly close from a coding perspective so that they stay in consensus, but have different features around the consensus code that cater to what each group wants.

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And, you know, the consensus is reached by those groups and users have a choice and can voice their pleasure or displeasure with any particular implementation by running it or not running it.

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And that's, I think, the closest thing that I can think of, right, at least short of some sort of AI based, very customized like software in the far future or something like that, that that sort of meets the goals that we want, which is no single point of failure, a lot of resilience and, you know, people kind of being able to express what they want to the network without being forced into a particular area.

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implementation or set of features or anything like that.

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In your ideal world, would it be there really is no reference implementation, so to speak,

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that people sort of default into and you've got three, four or five, I don't know how many you

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think, but just competing implementations that all have 10 or 20 percent market share, so to speak,

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because then it would be more fluid for you to say, OK, Luke and the knots camp have no are no

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longer meeting the needs that I feel like I have. I'm going to move to what, you know,

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older core version or the core's newer version or to what production ready's done like is that sort

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of how you would envision it yeah um the the only uh caveat to that would be they would all be um

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you know well maintained well tested they wouldn't be experimental or trying to do different things

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consensus wise i think we need to be very very careful in making sure that we're not changing

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things accidentally or anything like that, which is why I think it needs to be sort of

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like a descendant of the Satoshi client to meet that.

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I mean, unless one of these other efforts to completely standardize the consensus code

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in a very, very rigorous way happens and is agreed to, short of that, I think it needs

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to have that as the core of each implementation.

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The consensus code is, I mean, if you mess with that, I think it's kind of a non-starter for most people because you're not going to be in consensus with the rest of the network.

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So from a bootstrapping standpoint, you kind of need that.

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But past that, yeah, I would like to see more implementations that take up a small percentage.

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And I think it would like kind of like how mining pools are right now, where one might have 25%, one might have 10%, and a bunch of little ones might have 5% or whatever.

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I think that's fine.

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Like the percentages don't necessarily have to be equal and there's nothing magical about the number five or anything like that.

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just a lot of choices for the users that they can make rationally based on the values that they have

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and things that they find worthy and allow them to choose.

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So what would your assessment then, I know you've talked about this at length, probably critiques,

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but maybe there are some things that you felt like were done well with Core30 that maybe perhaps

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aligned with some of what you like to see. And then obviously changes, I think, that you've

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probably been critical of and what could they have done differently in your view?

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Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree with what they've done per se. It's just that when you

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are the reference implementation and run 90% of the network, the rules are a little different than

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in sort of the ideal case scenario that I laid out to you. If this implementation was only like

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20% of the network or even 40% of the network and they decided to go this way,

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then users clearly have an alternative and say they can go do something else or choose something that is more in alignment with their values.

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And that would be OK, right?

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Like that's sort of a developer being more opinionated about something and implementations being more opinionated.

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That's fine in sort of like a multi-implementation world.

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I think where it was a little strange was that they did this in what was, at least at that time, a mono implementation world where the core 30 had to be at least like somewhat decentralized in its development.

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If it was one of many, then it would have been fine because you still stay decentralized more or less through federation of different implementations.

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But if it's the only one and you ignore the feedback of essentially a significant number of users, then that's where it gets to be kind of a problem.

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And that was essentially what happened with the op return change was that there were a significant number of people that did not like the change, but they went through with it anyway.

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And again, it's fine if you're like some non-majority percentage of the network, because then the users can vote with their feet, so to speak.

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But if they have no choice in the matter, then it's kind of going to blow up in your face.

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And it kind of did. It definitely made it so that a lot of people went over to the closest alternative that they had, which was not.

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And that was their way of voting with their feet. Now, that's not to say that knots is perfect or whatever. And it's not even to say that these users agreed with everything in knots. It was largely like a protest saying, I don't like this change. And I have no other way to really express that I don't like this change.

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Usually consumers, when you're in the market and you want to buy something and you don't like a particular product, they just kind of stop buying it.

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That's how you protest.

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That wasn't really the case here because there weren't really too many alternatives other than not.

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And this is where user feedback into the development cycle is a little lacking.

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And that's what this episode, I think, showed to everybody was that, well, how are users supposed to give feedback to the developers on what they want?

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Because the minute they did, they said, well, we're overriding this because all the devs within Quora agree that this is a good change.

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Therefore, we're going to do it.

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And, you know, when they went into the GitHub issues and started commenting, they were like, oh, you guys are brigading.

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You're not allowed to do that.

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Well, then where else is a user supposed to give feedback on a change that they're not happy about?

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How else are they supposed to express that?

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And this was kind of the problem that this particular episode revealed was that, okay, well, if the developers are in charge of this implementation, then you need more implementations.

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If the users are in charge of the or have at least some voice or say into the implementation, then, yeah, you can at least make the case that the mono implementation is decentralized in that way and that it's taking user feedback into account and so on.

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But if it doesn't, then more implementations, I think, are needed. So that's, I think, where the problem of the process around how you decide something, whether it includes user feedback or not, was kind of revealed there.

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And I don't think it really did include user feedback.

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It was only user feedback of the people that agreed with them.

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And if you didn't agree, it was kind of told to you, hey, then don't run this.

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But then people went over to Knott's and they started saying, well, then, you know, you

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shouldn't run that either because it's bad in this way, in which case people feel kind

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of like they're taken hostage, right?

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Well, you're giving me the truth.

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You're saying go somewhere else if you don't like this change, but not over there.

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That feels like you're being forced into a particular direction and people generally do not respond very well to that.

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So I think the ship has sailed on a mono implementation sort of world.

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And I think the last year has more or less proved that.

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And this is why I think there should be more implementations.

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And, you know, it needs to be well maintained.

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It needs to be well funded.

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It needs to have lots of developers.

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And that's what we're building at Production Ready.

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Yeah.

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So I want to get to that in just a minute.

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So one question I had for Chris Guida a few weeks ago, I had him on the podcast.

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And we were talking about something resembling consensus on these changes.

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And admittedly, it can be a challenge.

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On X, in my little echo chamber, at least, it seemed like people were pretty pissed.

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Yes, you had both sides and everything.

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But there was a very broad perspective being a spouse that we don't want this huge migration to Knott's.

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I personally run Knott's as the protest you described.

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However, I try very hard not to be tribalistic in the things that I do and say, well, I'm a Knott's guy.

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I follow Luke and whatever he says.

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To what extent should core developers take these conversations to a place like Twitter and maybe Twitter specifically?

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But are there other channels that they shouldn't in mediums they should be engaging besides just these chats amongst developers?

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Yeah see that I think part of the problem is that in a mono implementation world this needs to happen somewhere right Some dialogue needs to happen somewhere to get the input from the actual community that you purporting to represent But it not happening When it does happen it tends to get very heated and nothing really gets resolved People dig in their heels And next thing you know you have this thing merged in against the protests of a lot of people I don think that the right model I think you need alternative implementations and

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you need people voting with their feet instead of yelling at each other. Because in a sense,

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software development projects kind of go like this, right? You need some direction. You need

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to be opinionated sometimes.

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You can't be everything to everybody,

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which is essentially what a mono implementation

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ends up becoming is you have to be

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like a good mining software thing for miners.

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You have to be a good exchange software thing for exchanges

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and you have to be a good merchant software thing

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for merchants and you have to be a good lightning base

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for lightning runners and all this other stuff.

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And it's kind of doing all of them,

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but not anything particularly well.

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And that's kind of the situation that you end up in when one piece of software serves all of them. This is why I think it should be more implementations and users shouldn't have to yell. They just, you know, run what they want to run and have more choices along those lines. And if they don't like it, maybe they go and create another implementation, right?

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Like that's, I think, the right model to get the right thing.

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And if they, you know, mess with this consensus code or whatever, then that's kind of the danger.

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And this is where you have to be very careful about preserving the core of, no pun intended, core of the software that you need.

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But, you know, like resolving it through X or GitHub issues or, you know, email list discussions or whatever, those don't work that well.

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And there's always going to be a hierarchy.

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And they're all subject to some sort of civil attack where you can just like brigade things.

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And that's kind of the problem, right?

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You don't know how many of these people are real, how many of them are not.

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And this is, I kind of sympathize with Core on that regard.

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Well, like if we just leave this GitHub issue open and let everybody comment, then it's just

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going to be a flood of comments.

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And how are we going to get anything done?

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I kind of get that.

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But at the same time, you need to listen to those people.

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But how do you listen to those people? And the one model that we have of that working is the free market, where each entrepreneur just sort of guesses and puts out a product that they think that the public might want. And then the public chooses, right? They choose.

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And I think that's the only real way to resolve it rather than, oh, you know, we should have a civilized debate with a moderator and, you know, five minutes speaking spot and two minutes over and an unbiased audience and whatever.

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Like, that's not going to work.

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That's not going to actually reflect the will of the community.

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And I think this is where we need to be more realistic about how conversations like this have to go, because you're not going to come to oftentimes you're just not going to come to a consensus on any of that stuff.

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Now, personally, I think the default should be whatever the status quo is.

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And that should be it in the face of opposition, even of like 20% of the network.

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But this is where you have different implementations, try different things, and have them represent different constituencies.

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And that's, I think, the way to do it and not sort of arguing on Twitter.

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Yeah, I hear you on that.

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So talk to me a little bit about how production ready is seeking to at least be a part of the solution.

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And just to be clear, I want to maybe give a background on what it is.

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My understanding is, and correct me if the framing is wrong, is production ready isn't an implementation per se, but maybe like more like an incubator for developing another or maybe multiple implementations even perhaps.

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Is that approximately right?

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Yeah, yeah, that's right.

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We're a 501c3, much like a lot of the other organizations that fund core developers, for example, like I think Brink and Chaincode.

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I don't know if Chaincode is a 501c3, but the idea is that you're the organization that funds the implementation and not the implementation itself.

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Now, we're focused on a particular type of implementation that we think the market wants, that a lot of plebs want. Specifically, we want one that is conservative, that is preserving the sound money properties of Bitcoin, rather than any of the other stuff.

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So we have an opinion.

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And if it were kind of a mono implementation, that's not something that you can sort of credibly do, right?

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Because if you're a mono implementation, then you have to sort of take in a lot of the opinions of the entire community and not a specific slice of it that you represent.

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So we're aiming to be the sound money, more preserving the properties of money and security and the things that make Bitcoin Bitcoin, essentially, as we believe it to be.

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And that be the basis of the implementation.

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Now, that generally means that we want to reject anything that doesn't have consensus.

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Right. We want to be like the conservative one, the one that the implementation that businesses, for example, are comfortable running because it's it's not doing anything controversial.

193
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It's not, you know, like doing anything until it has consensus.

194
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So the 80 byte op return is like a clear one that has a lot of conflict and doesn't have consensus.

195
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So we'll just keep it at whatever the default was, which is 80 bytes.

196
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And similarly, BIP-110 doesn't have consensus yet either, right?

197
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Like if it did have consensus, yeah, then you implement it.

198
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But if it doesn't, then you just go with what the default is, which is no BIP-10 or BIP-110.

199
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So that's essentially the type of implementation that we want to make.

200
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But I think more importantly, there needs to be more implementations for user choice, like I explained before.

201
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And the current dynamics are of essentially two implementations.

202
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And you can kind of see it online, see it everywhere.

203
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And a lot of the vitriol that's thrown by one side to the other is very indicative of that.

204
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You get like a very big polarization of the user base where only the people that are extremely on one side or the other are the voices that are heard.

205
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I believe that most people are in the middle, but they don't really have a place to go at the moment.

206
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They're like, I don't want any of this drama.

207
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I just want something in the middle.

208
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I think, you know, American politics is very similar, right, where a lot of people are either on the left or the right.

209
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People in the middle don't get any voice.

210
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Right. And they're kind of forced to choose.

211
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And, you know, people say this all the time, like, I have to choose between the lesser of two evils or something.

212
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And that's kind of the social dynamic that happens when you have sort of a bipolar power dynamic. I explained this in my article, The Third Way. When you have a third implementation, things change drastically. Because in a bipolar power dynamic, what ends up happening is that you define yourself by what you're against less than what you are for.

213
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And you see this in politics right now. Democrats are mostly the party of not Trump. And Trumpists or the people on the right are the party of non-woke. You define yourself as being against something rather than for something.

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Once you have three or more, what happens is that you start having to tell people what you are actually for. And being against something, yeah, that's part of your belief system, but it's not actually that in alignment with your values necessarily.

215
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And that's why people say I'm choosing the lesser of two evils, because nothing really aligns with them.

216
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But they're forced to choose, you know, like either one candidate or the other based on sort of like a very polarized and power dynamic where you're voting less for something and more against something else.

217
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But with three or more, you start getting that dynamic where you have to define what you're actually for.

218
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What do you want? Right.

219
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What are you trying to solve for?

220
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What are you optimizing for?

221
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What values do you have that I can either support or not support?

222
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And I think that's a much healthier place for the entire ecosystem to be instead of telling people I'm against this or I'm against this.

223
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Or, you know, I'm not going to run knots because, you know, I think Luke is crazy.

224
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I'm not going to run CORE because I think they're a bunch of DEI people or something like that.

225
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I mean, they might be legit reasons.

226
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I don't know.

227
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But to me, they're not really technical reasons, right?

228
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They're not the best reasons.

229
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You want good technical reasons to run a node.

230
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And I think that's where you want to place the chooser is saying, OK, well, that is a node that reflects my values and my understanding of Bitcoin and what I want in an implementation instead of that's not.

231
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Therefore, I am going to go with this one. And, you know, ideally, you have more than three.

232
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So you have more choices to do that. But the minimum to achieve this is three.

233
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And unfortunately, there have been a lot of different attempts at different implementations. And this has been going on for a very long time. LibBitcoin, I think, was, I don't know, created in 2012 or 2013 or something like that.

234
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It's a very old project, and it's another implementation of Bitcoin written in C++, I think originally by Amir Taki, now maintained by Eric Bosco.

235
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But they've been working on it for that long.

236
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But you look at the nodes on the network that are actually running LibBitcoin, it's not that many.

237
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It's like a handful.

238
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And the reason is because they don't want to take the risk, right?

239
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What if it has a bug?

240
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What if it has a consensus bug?

241
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You might fork off and you might lose out on a bunch of money.

242
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What if it goes down?

243
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What if there's a DOS vector?

244
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What if it accepts a block that it's not supposed to, that the rest of the network rejects, right?

245
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Like there are all kinds of risks associated with running a lot of this stuff.

246
00:25:54,986 --> 00:25:56,406
And that's like the oldest one.

247
00:25:56,746 --> 00:25:58,666
There's so many more newer ones, right?

248
00:25:59,266 --> 00:26:02,486
BTCD was like 2014 or 2015.

249
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Bitcoin was like 2016.

250
00:26:05,546 --> 00:26:10,026
there's a bunch of other ones that I can't even remember

251
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that are written in Haskell or Rust or whatever.

252
00:26:13,066 --> 00:26:16,446
There are new ones being created by core devs right now

253
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that are kind of sick of core,

254
00:26:19,206 --> 00:26:21,246
but they want to make an alternate implementation.

255
00:26:21,586 --> 00:26:23,026
And they're saying, we're going to do it from scratch.

256
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We're going to write it in straight C or Rust or whatever.

257
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And I think those, I get the sentiment around it.

258
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They want to give users choice.

259
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And I applaud their intention,

260
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But I don't think it's going to work because none of the other stuff has worked.

261
00:26:39,666 --> 00:26:41,306
Right. And it's been over 10 years.

262
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And like LitBitcoin actually was created fairly early in Bitcoin's history, yet still no one runs it.

263
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And it doesn't have that hardening.

264
00:26:50,546 --> 00:26:54,206
It's not software that people feel confident running.

265
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Whereas having a descendant of the Satoshi client, of the reference client, I think is better because you're not asking people to run sort of like experimental software, essentially, with their money.

266
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Instead, you're asking them, OK, well, it's just a few modifications that you're going to agree with that that we want you to run.

267
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And this is going to make things easier and better for you in these ways.

268
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And you make the argument to them that way. And I think that that's the way to go.

269
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And I think that's that's where it needs to be. And that's what we've been arguing as a nonprofit org that, you know, new implementations need to be.

270
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And this is why people run NOTS and not Bitcoin or BTCD, right?

271
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Like that's because, you know, most of the code is actually similar to Bitcoin Core and you're not going to go out of consensus with them.

272
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And it has a lot of those that hardening and patches and so on.

273
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And we think that's what needs to happen.

274
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So, yeah, that's where we are.

275
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And hopefully where more implementations come in.

276
00:28:04,806 --> 00:28:06,546
Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense.

277
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So you've got this issue of there are other implementations and people have tried with good intention and it's just never gotten any traction.

278
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And I do not say this condescendingly.

279
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I think this is an important thing.

280
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Is the solution to that firepower, marketing, more capital to fund in order to give people the awareness, the confidence that they need to actually make the shift from core or from knots into whatever implementation is that you all develop?

281
00:28:34,526 --> 00:28:54,826
For our implementation, I think a lot of it is just time. And this is the thing about a lot of software is you need some hardening time. And the reason why LibBitcoin, BTCD, Bitcoin and many others have not gained traction, I think is because they can't solve this chicken or egg problem.

282
00:28:54,826 --> 00:29:00,346
You need adoption to get hardening, but you're not going to get hardening until you get adoption.

283
00:29:00,986 --> 00:29:08,486
So you're always trying to get adoption and you're not able to do that because there's not enough hardening.

284
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People don't trust it. It won't be worthy of trust until it's got a lot of adoption and it's gone through many cycles of bug fixing and things like that.

285
00:29:17,106 --> 00:29:24,606
With our implementation, I think we solved that by becoming a descendant of the Bitcoin reference implementation.

286
00:29:24,826 --> 00:29:32,686
the original Satoshi client. But there is still this aspect of, you know,

287
00:29:33,386 --> 00:29:39,766
having a really good development team, having a history. And the history is the most important

288
00:29:39,766 --> 00:29:45,626
thing because you can't replace Father Time, right? Like if the reason why people run Core

289
00:29:45,626 --> 00:29:51,606
right now is because it's been running for 17 years and it's been hardened against every kind

290
00:29:51,606 --> 00:30:08,412
of attack and it had to suffer many different kinds of bugs and things like that that have been corrected essentially And that very valuable And it has sort of this history And it been releasing on a six

291
00:30:08,412 --> 00:30:15,052
cadence for a very long time. It's been battle-tested, people mine with it, it works. And

292
00:30:15,932 --> 00:30:21,612
that's kind of where you want to be as an implementation as well, is you want that history,

293
00:30:21,612 --> 00:30:38,532
But it takes time. So it's not just a matter of a six month marketing blitz. That's not going to work. What's going to work is a five to 10 year horizon where you've been pushing something for however long. Maybe there's a bug that's in one and not the other.

294
00:30:38,532 --> 00:30:44,872
and you show through your software development process

295
00:30:44,872 --> 00:30:50,432
and through time proving that it's actually hardened and stable and usable

296
00:30:50,432 --> 00:30:53,812
that this is something worth running.

297
00:30:53,952 --> 00:30:56,552
And that's the only real way to gain credibility

298
00:30:56,552 --> 00:31:00,072
in the software development space is by doing that

299
00:31:00,072 --> 00:31:06,312
and not by, hey, go run this and putting ads out on DraftKings app or something.

300
00:31:06,312 --> 00:31:10,032
Right. Like that's that's not how you do do software development.

301
00:31:10,252 --> 00:31:14,392
And that's you shouldn't expect people to trust you just because you have an ad somewhere.

302
00:31:14,612 --> 00:31:17,412
You should expect people to trust you because you're trustworthy.

303
00:31:17,412 --> 00:31:34,392
And and that means having good development, the developers, good development process, having really good testing frameworks, you know, continuous integration, documentation, you know, test harnesses and all that stuff.

304
00:31:34,392 --> 00:31:46,212
All the good development processes that software developers know, good code review, all of those things should be a part of the organization or of the implementation.

305
00:31:46,892 --> 00:31:52,472
And once you have that and have had that for a long time, that's when you really start getting traction.

306
00:31:52,632 --> 00:32:00,332
And I can't tell you right now, I would be a little scared, honestly, if day one we had like 30% of all nodes.

307
00:32:00,332 --> 00:32:06,012
Right. Like the day we release a new client, we instantly get 30 percent.

308
00:32:06,012 --> 00:32:12,872
I would be a little scared because honestly, you want people to be a little more skeptical of new implementations.

309
00:32:12,872 --> 00:32:14,992
And you don't want everyone to be first doctors.

310
00:32:15,272 --> 00:32:26,692
You want you want it to sort of grow slowly as it gets a reputation for being rock solid and, you know, good to run and doesn't have all these bugs or whatever.

311
00:32:26,692 --> 00:32:32,752
And then as that reputation grows, you get more and more of the user base.

312
00:32:33,572 --> 00:32:39,852
And ideally, you get multiple of these where there's a bunch of implementations that do similar things.

313
00:32:41,052 --> 00:32:50,452
And that ultimately ends up becoming part of the ecosystem that users have a real legitimate choice to make.

314
00:32:50,452 --> 00:32:59,832
Do you have like an ETA yet on when a production ready funded implementation could be out or in beta or how's that looking?

315
00:33:00,312 --> 00:33:05,292
Yeah, we don't have a timeline per se, but my hope is that by the end of the year, we would have something.

316
00:33:05,372 --> 00:33:08,052
Yeah, I just have no concept of how long these things take.

317
00:33:08,172 --> 00:33:12,012
But and I know like the bulk of the code base is sort of already there.

318
00:33:12,032 --> 00:33:16,592
But then I guess determining what are those adjustments, modifications is probably.

319
00:33:16,752 --> 00:33:18,132
And you want to add value to, right?

320
00:33:18,132 --> 00:33:22,452
Like you don't want to be just like something that that's like a protest vote.

321
00:33:22,452 --> 00:33:25,812
Right. You don't you don't want to be the Joe Jorgensen.

322
00:33:25,812 --> 00:33:31,672
Right. Like you want to be actually something that people can get behind and say, yeah, that's what we want.

323
00:33:31,752 --> 00:33:34,232
That that is something that I've been looking for in the market.

324
00:33:34,372 --> 00:33:37,332
And those are my values or whatever.

325
00:33:37,632 --> 00:33:46,912
That's what you want people to have rather than, hey, like this is only useful to make core pissed off or whatever.

326
00:33:46,912 --> 00:33:51,092
It's I'm running this because this is actually valuable to me.

327
00:33:51,252 --> 00:33:57,112
And I want to do this because it's in alignment with my values and what I find valuable about Bitcoin.

328
00:33:57,292 --> 00:34:01,452
That's that's where we want to be, not just like kind of a protest vote.

329
00:34:01,972 --> 00:34:05,152
I think that's good. So real quick, you mentioned BIP-110.

330
00:34:05,532 --> 00:34:08,132
Maybe give like a real high level overview. What is it?

331
00:34:08,172 --> 00:34:13,652
And then your personal opinion and then how that might apply in what you're working on.

332
00:34:13,652 --> 00:34:21,172
Yeah, so BIP-110 is like a set of seven changes that are essentially there to reduce spam.

333
00:34:21,812 --> 00:34:29,172
And it's done at a consensus level instead of at the relay policy level, which the op return change was at.

334
00:34:30,052 --> 00:34:38,892
And this was based on, I think it was Portland HODL's post on the mailing list about, let's fix it at the right level.

335
00:34:39,112 --> 00:34:41,012
It shouldn't be done at the policy level.

336
00:34:41,092 --> 00:34:42,712
It should be done at the consensus level.

337
00:34:42,712 --> 00:34:50,672
That was his argument. And I guess Dave and Ohm took that and found seven different ways in which

338
00:34:50,672 --> 00:34:58,672
spammer spam, and he wanted these to be a soft work, a temporary soft work to prevent those

339
00:34:58,672 --> 00:35:07,232
accepted into consensus for one year. I guess that's like 52,500 blocks or something. So that's

340
00:35:07,232 --> 00:35:11,832
the idea behind it. It's to quote unquote, rug the spammers and make them not feel welcome.

341
00:35:11,832 --> 00:35:16,872
but at the same time, like revert everything afterwards so that if it's a temporary software

342
00:35:16,872 --> 00:35:22,292
and it manages to kick out a bunch of spammers, then afterwards, you know, like there's no real

343
00:35:22,292 --> 00:35:26,592
harm other than like a year of not being able to create those or something like that.

344
00:35:27,192 --> 00:35:34,052
Now, personally, I get the idea behind it, but not comfortable with it until it has consensus.

345
00:35:34,612 --> 00:35:41,532
Like the idea of changing the protocol to make it unfriendly to spammers, I get, I get.

346
00:35:41,532 --> 00:35:48,532
And but I think like for me, the bar is higher before you accept changes like that.

347
00:35:48,532 --> 00:35:58,772
But, you know, at the same time, I'm still kind of curious, like what what happens with a software like this, where what's the game theory around the canon intolerant minority make something happen?

348
00:35:58,772 --> 00:36:08,332
Because this is very important for the future of Bitcoin, whether or not an intolerant minority can do something like that and what the mitigations might be and so on.

349
00:36:08,332 --> 00:36:30,012
So there's a bunch of things like that, which I'm curious about. But as far as production ready is concerned, I think it's more or less until it gets consensus, I think it stays out of the client. And if it has consensus, then fine. Like that's easy enough to go and add into it.

350
00:36:30,012 --> 00:36:35,752
But without it, then I don't like being a conservative implementation.

351
00:36:35,752 --> 00:36:38,272
It would be against the values that we're espousing.

352
00:36:38,412 --> 00:36:40,092
Let's talk a little bit about quantum.

353
00:36:40,392 --> 00:36:45,472
I'm sure everyone else is somewhat tired of the quantum conversation.

354
00:36:45,612 --> 00:36:49,672
However, it's an important one because it's brought up so much, whether you think it's a problem or not.

355
00:36:49,672 --> 00:36:53,772
To what extent do you believe quantum is a realistic threat to Bitcoin?

356
00:36:53,772 --> 00:37:01,472
And is there some time horizon that you say yes versus no that is meaningful in this context?

357
00:37:02,152 --> 00:37:03,672
I don't think it's a real threat.

358
00:37:04,452 --> 00:37:10,032
And I say this because they still haven't factored the number six without cheating, right?

359
00:37:10,092 --> 00:37:20,612
Like that's the most basic thing that you could be doing with a quantum computer that's actually useful for cryptography is factoring the number six using Shor's algorithm.

360
00:37:20,612 --> 00:37:40,892
And Shor's algorithm is a very, it's a quantum only algorithm that works by doing certain things and doing a Fourier transform and seeing the wavelength and waiting for a particular thing to show up and then observing that and then being able to factor a number based on that.

361
00:37:40,892 --> 00:37:48,692
It hasn't done it for the number six without cheating. They did it for 15 with some cheating. They haven't been able to do it for any other number.

362
00:37:48,692 --> 00:38:04,832
And at least in my reading of all the literature that I've looked through, and very few people that talk about quantum, by the way, actually read the actual papers that it's based on, or at least the physics that's required to make it work.

363
00:38:05,352 --> 00:38:06,792
And I find that very curious, right?

364
00:38:06,852 --> 00:38:13,252
Like the people that are shouting from the rooftops or saying something about qubits and error rate and whatever.

365
00:38:13,432 --> 00:38:16,132
It's like, well, what's the actual thing underneath, right?

366
00:38:16,132 --> 00:38:19,992
Like what's a quantum manipulable form of matter that you're talking about?

367
00:38:20,392 --> 00:38:21,612
They can't answer you, right?

368
00:38:21,632 --> 00:38:22,392
Because they don't know.

369
00:38:22,672 --> 00:38:23,752
They have no idea.

370
00:38:23,752 --> 00:38:30,752
They just read the press release from whatever quantum lab director that put out the release,

371
00:38:30,892 --> 00:38:34,952
whose job, by the way, depends on putting out press releases exactly like that,

372
00:38:35,352 --> 00:38:41,132
that to make it seem like it's inevitable so that his job is justified and he can get a raise even.

373
00:38:41,352 --> 00:38:44,232
Yet those people do not know anything about it.

374
00:38:44,232 --> 00:38:56,352
So vast majority of people talking about like quantum as if it's inevitable or is imminent, they're completely ignorant of the reality underneath.

375
00:38:56,352 --> 00:38:58,192
In other words, they're midwits, right?

376
00:38:58,252 --> 00:39:09,692
Like they're the people that think they know way more than they do just because they read a TechCrunch article on it instead of the actual underlying papers.

377
00:39:09,692 --> 00:39:17,392
If you look at the underlying papers, if you look at what the physicists are saying, well, you find out a few different things.

378
00:39:17,512 --> 00:39:22,912
For example, there's not just one type of quantum computer.

379
00:39:23,112 --> 00:39:24,532
There's like seven or eight.

380
00:39:25,052 --> 00:39:30,172
Now, you might say, oh, that means that there are seven or eight times more probability that it'll happen.

381
00:39:30,312 --> 00:39:30,912
Actually, no.

382
00:39:31,212 --> 00:39:33,912
What it means is that none of them work.

383
00:39:34,132 --> 00:39:35,692
That's why they keep trying new ones.

384
00:39:35,692 --> 00:39:45,712
there's like a super cool semiconductor and there's like trapped ion and photon based and

385
00:39:45,712 --> 00:39:51,792
all this other stuff and essentially what they're trying to do is come up with a manipulable form of

386
00:39:51,792 --> 00:39:58,632
quantum states where you can you can manipulate the quantum state in a in a direct way and then

387
00:39:58,632 --> 00:40:04,992
at the end do the observation so that you can do the actual compute stuff and it turns out that

388
00:40:04,992 --> 00:40:13,412
most of them don't work. They decohere very quickly. Almost anything quantum has a very

389
00:40:13,412 --> 00:40:19,552
short lifespan. It's not going to stay in that state for very long. And if you do any observation

390
00:40:19,552 --> 00:40:24,932
whatsoever, and this is the nature of quantum mechanics, if you know anything about it, is

391
00:40:24,932 --> 00:40:33,612
once you make one observation of an entire complex system, everything else becomes fixed around it.

392
00:40:33,612 --> 00:40:41,732
The whole idea of quantum is that they're kind of in superpositional states and you observe the right thing.

393
00:40:41,952 --> 00:40:46,712
But if it leaks, then it doesn't work. So, you know, these things decohere, right?

394
00:40:46,752 --> 00:40:57,092
Like they stop being uncertain and become certain at some point, in which case you've lost all that, you know, supposed compute power that you could have had or whatever.

395
00:40:57,092 --> 00:41:11,692
It's just kind of gone. And you can only manipulate it so many times before it decoheres, which is why they haven't factored the number six without cheating yet, because there's a fixed number of operations that you can do.

396
00:41:11,692 --> 00:41:18,672
Each operation is called the quantum gate, and they actually manipulate the quantum states in some way.

397
00:41:19,132 --> 00:41:24,572
And there's only so many you can do before they decohere.

398
00:41:24,812 --> 00:41:26,652
So you just don't have time.

399
00:41:27,032 --> 00:41:30,852
On a classical computer, you just have a circuit that goes on.

400
00:41:31,052 --> 00:41:36,192
Even if the circuits are relatively big, you just build a really big one, and it solves itself.

401
00:41:36,192 --> 00:41:44,352
with quantum it's you you have a you can't do anything about the decoherence you just have like

402
00:41:44,352 --> 00:41:49,052
a fixed amount of time this and this is an engineering reality that they nobody has solved

403
00:41:49,052 --> 00:41:55,012
this is why they haven't factored the number six so when i hear stuff like it's imminent and this

404
00:41:55,012 --> 00:42:01,512
is going to happen or whatever they're almost all from rent seekers of quantum right there's a lot

405
00:42:01,512 --> 00:42:07,752
of jobs around quantum. If you're in a quantum lab, your job depends on quantum being imminent

406
00:42:07,752 --> 00:42:16,912
or at least plausible. If you're a quantum computing PhD or a professor or anybody in

407
00:42:16,912 --> 00:42:22,672
that field, you're a rent seeker. And you can't admit, it is impossible for you to admit that

408
00:42:22,672 --> 00:42:28,552
this is leading nowhere. Instead, you have physicists that are making all of these critiques

409
00:42:28,552 --> 00:42:29,672
and putting out papers.

410
00:42:30,172 --> 00:42:34,312
And there's a hilarious paper by this one physicist

411
00:42:34,312 --> 00:42:36,952
that talks about how almost every quantum experiment

412
00:42:36,952 --> 00:42:39,352
that they put out in these press releases

413
00:42:39,352 --> 00:42:42,612
is the equivalent of getting a dog to bark three times.

414
00:42:43,052 --> 00:42:44,032
That's all it is.

415
00:42:44,272 --> 00:42:45,632
That's how hard it is.

416
00:42:45,632 --> 00:42:47,812
It's getting a dog to bark three times.

417
00:42:48,112 --> 00:42:49,852
That's essentially what they've done.

418
00:42:50,312 --> 00:42:50,912
That's amazing.

419
00:42:51,492 --> 00:42:55,032
And it's like, okay, that doesn't sound like

420
00:42:55,032 --> 00:42:56,592
it's actually that much effort.

421
00:42:56,592 --> 00:43:00,912
And they've been saying it's 10 years away for 40 years now.

422
00:43:01,072 --> 00:43:02,252
What gives?

423
00:43:02,652 --> 00:43:10,972
And, you know, like you kind of come out on the other end thinking this through from first principles, saying maybe the incentives aren't aligned here for the truth.

424
00:43:11,092 --> 00:43:13,372
It's more for hype than everything else.

425
00:43:13,672 --> 00:43:16,272
And I honestly think that's where it is.

426
00:43:16,612 --> 00:43:20,532
Unfortunately, a lot of people are sort of taken in by that.

427
00:43:20,612 --> 00:43:22,312
Oh, Google said this or whatever.

428
00:43:22,512 --> 00:43:24,912
And it's like, yeah, it's their quantum lab, right?

429
00:43:24,912 --> 00:43:25,672
That said this.

430
00:43:25,672 --> 00:43:27,732
It's them that put out the press release.

431
00:43:28,252 --> 00:43:36,892
If they said we got zero results and we don't think a quantum computer is viable for the next hundred years, do you think they're going to get any more funding?

432
00:43:37,112 --> 00:43:38,092
I don't think so.

433
00:43:38,632 --> 00:43:40,812
Like Google would cut them the next day, right?

434
00:43:40,872 --> 00:43:43,132
Like it's like we're not in it for a hundred years.

435
00:43:44,332 --> 00:43:45,652
What's the point of doing that?

436
00:43:46,092 --> 00:43:48,052
But that's kind of where they are.

437
00:43:48,152 --> 00:43:52,552
And this has been the case with a lot of technology, which has a lot of hype around it.

438
00:43:52,552 --> 00:44:00,292
And, you know, this was like, for example, the hype around cold fusion, right, in the 90s and early 2000s and so on.

439
00:44:00,672 --> 00:44:05,452
A lot of people got into, OK, how can we do fusion or cold fusion?

440
00:44:05,692 --> 00:44:09,892
Right. And they got funding. They got people to give them money.

441
00:44:10,012 --> 00:44:15,172
They had labs and all this other stuff. They still can't do like normal fusion.

442
00:44:15,172 --> 00:44:18,092
Right. Like anywhere. They're not even close.

443
00:44:18,092 --> 00:44:25,412
And any of the scientists that are actually working on that, they're like, yeah, it's not happening in my lifetime.

444
00:44:25,752 --> 00:44:28,212
And 30 years ago, I thought it was 10, 20 years away.

445
00:44:28,492 --> 00:44:32,632
And you get to the reality of it and vast majority of the time it doesn't work.

446
00:44:32,832 --> 00:44:40,192
So like my rule of thumb regarding technology that gets hype is that it's almost never going to come from that direction.

447
00:44:40,452 --> 00:44:45,452
Right. When you get an innovation, it's almost always like almost accidental.

448
00:44:45,452 --> 00:44:47,452
Right. It's like penicillin.

449
00:44:48,092 --> 00:45:06,398
It was mold that they were going to throw away and they noticed that there was like no bacteria growing around it or something like that It almost accidental and serendipitous that such discoveries are made where good things come out And it almost never research scientists that advance it

450
00:45:06,478 --> 00:45:12,058
It's almost always engineers that accidentally discover it or find out, hey, this works.

451
00:45:12,158 --> 00:45:16,698
I don't know why, but we know this works and we're just going to keep doing it.

452
00:45:16,698 --> 00:45:28,858
And that's usually how innovation is done and not through this very weird, obscure or hyped kind of way.

453
00:45:29,338 --> 00:45:32,958
If you don't believe me, go read the story of the Wright brothers.

454
00:45:33,518 --> 00:45:43,098
These were two bicycle mechanics, engineers that did all kinds of experiments, tried all kinds of different stuff.

455
00:45:43,098 --> 00:45:46,538
Nobody even believed them when they said we could do flight.

456
00:45:46,698 --> 00:45:57,958
And at the same time, there were all these government and industry funded think tanks to come up with ways for people to fly in the air and stuff like that.

457
00:45:58,018 --> 00:46:01,338
They all failed miserably, completely miserably.

458
00:46:01,338 --> 00:46:10,998
And then the Wright brothers come out of a garage in Ohio and say, we're going to fly for 30 minutes in the air in France because nobody in the U.S. believes us.

459
00:46:11,338 --> 00:46:13,998
And they did it, showed everybody.

460
00:46:13,998 --> 00:46:18,578
And as far as anyone could tell, it came out of nowhere, right?

461
00:46:18,858 --> 00:46:24,858
That's how real innovation happens, not this quantum lab says it's 20 years away.

462
00:46:25,178 --> 00:46:26,358
That's not how things happen.

463
00:46:26,458 --> 00:46:30,278
That's a completely wrong model of scientific progress and how things work.

464
00:46:30,658 --> 00:46:31,538
I love that explanation.

465
00:46:31,898 --> 00:46:36,798
And I think that'll put a lot of people who we talk to work with at the Bitcoin Way at

466
00:46:36,798 --> 00:46:38,998
ease because we get a lot of questions about it.

467
00:46:39,458 --> 00:46:43,458
So I think I know where we're headed then with some of these other topics.

468
00:46:43,458 --> 00:46:49,998
I briefly want to touch on. The first one is BIP360. So in spite of everything you said,

469
00:46:50,638 --> 00:46:57,918
is there a justification for quantum resistance in the Bitcoin protocol or is it just literally

470
00:46:57,918 --> 00:47:04,478
who cares? I mean, I suppose it's OK to have something in store in case it's imminent or

471
00:47:04,478 --> 00:47:10,558
something like that. And against all of my and believe me, I could be wrong, right? Like somebody

472
00:47:10,558 --> 00:47:16,678
could come up with something and I might be eating crow tomorrow or whatever. In which case,

473
00:47:16,738 --> 00:47:23,938
I'm happy to do that. If that happens, great. Now, having something ready is fine. Doing it

474
00:47:23,938 --> 00:47:31,618
without any proof that there is anything close, like them factoring the number six without cheating,

475
00:47:32,258 --> 00:47:39,498
that seems kind of ridiculous to me. Activating it or confiscating coins or doing something

476
00:47:39,498 --> 00:47:48,818
for your own good, I am completely against. And I think that way lies madness and centralization

477
00:47:48,818 --> 00:47:54,838
and fiatization of Bitcoin. Yeah. So I had Hunter Beast on the podcast several months back,

478
00:47:54,838 --> 00:48:01,018
and we talked about BIP360. And to be fair, I was barely, if at all, keeping up with what we

479
00:48:01,018 --> 00:48:06,058
were talking about. But I think it is an interesting conversation. And I think I tend

480
00:48:06,058 --> 00:48:11,238
to agree with you that having people thinking about this, working on it makes sense. If for

481
00:48:11,238 --> 00:48:15,578
no other reason than if there are people who are reading the Wall Street Journal or the New York

482
00:48:15,578 --> 00:48:19,658
Times and they think there's this butt around it, if we're armed with something that we can say,

483
00:48:19,738 --> 00:48:23,978
hey, look, this is not a problem we're unfamiliar with. It's not going to happen. But if it does,

484
00:48:24,038 --> 00:48:29,458
we're ready. On its surface, do you have any issues with BIP 360 specifically, besides not

485
00:48:29,458 --> 00:48:33,298
activating it, but just having it on the sidelines? Is there anything you see in the way that it

486
00:48:33,298 --> 00:48:38,398
operates that you're aware of? I want to quibble with you a little bit on that logic of putting the

487
00:48:38,398 --> 00:48:47,638
Wall Street Journal reader at ease because they're too stupid to understand that quantum is this,

488
00:48:48,858 --> 00:48:55,238
like they're unwilling to think from first principles or whatever. I mean, I think everyone

489
00:48:55,238 --> 00:49:01,198
gets in at the price they deserve if they get out of Bitcoin because of quantum fraud, or if they get

490
00:49:01,198 --> 00:49:08,438
into Bitcoin because the supposed quantum FUD is relieved or whatever, I think that's really

491
00:49:08,438 --> 00:49:15,578
rewarding the wrong thing. You want people that understand stuff from a first principles level and

492
00:49:15,578 --> 00:49:20,778
not from authority. That's kind of what we're trying to get away from in Bitcoin is verifying

493
00:49:20,778 --> 00:49:27,818
not trust. And I guarantee you, everyone that is spreading quantum FUD has not verified whatsoever.

494
00:49:27,818 --> 00:49:36,338
Right. Like they they haven't read any of these papers or don't understand the difficulty of the physics and things like that.

495
00:49:36,538 --> 00:49:52,418
And, you know, the few people that have like Scott Aronson was the one I think he's like a quantum cheerleader slash scientist that's been saying, hey, you know, Bitcoin, you should really think about like having some post-quantum signature scheme or whatever.

496
00:49:52,418 --> 00:49:59,378
but even him like you you look at his career he's he's this is his entire career is doing stuff in

497
00:49:59,378 --> 00:50:04,418
quantum i think the byline on his blog is if you understand nothing else from quantum it's not doing

498
00:50:04,418 --> 00:50:09,858
exponential things in linear time that's not what it is right which is how people understand quantum

499
00:50:09,858 --> 00:50:14,778
in the popular imagination for some reason it's like oh we could do anything with quantum because

500
00:50:14,778 --> 00:50:19,698
you know we we we have like all these multiverses that we're doing calculations in or something

501
00:50:19,698 --> 00:50:41,678
And that's exactly what quantum is not. And unfortunately, a lot of people have complete misunderstandings because most people don't understand quantum computing at all. So they kind of make up stuff based on their limited understanding of it. And that's kind of where this discourse is. It's crazy people talking about crazy ideas.

502
00:50:41,678 --> 00:50:45,578
and they don't, or it's not even crazy people.

503
00:50:45,698 --> 00:50:47,418
It's midwits talking about crazy ideas

504
00:50:47,418 --> 00:50:48,278
that they don't understand.

505
00:50:49,058 --> 00:50:52,318
Like if that's what causes people to not buy Bitcoin,

506
00:50:52,458 --> 00:50:54,138
I'm totally okay with that

507
00:50:54,138 --> 00:50:57,358
because that leaves a lot of room for people

508
00:50:57,358 --> 00:51:00,398
that are actually a little more practical

509
00:51:00,398 --> 00:51:04,318
and evidence-based and verify and not trust get into it.

510
00:51:04,638 --> 00:51:06,458
And I'd rather have those people in Bitcoin

511
00:51:06,458 --> 00:51:09,418
rather than the Wall Street Journal bro

512
00:51:09,418 --> 00:51:11,138
that's going to sell in six months

513
00:51:11,138 --> 00:51:12,418
when some other fund comes around.

514
00:51:12,898 --> 00:51:13,598
That's a fair point.

515
00:51:13,698 --> 00:51:14,818
I think where my bias is,

516
00:51:14,938 --> 00:51:17,078
I think about friends and family

517
00:51:17,078 --> 00:51:19,378
who I've desperately tried to get into Bitcoin.

518
00:51:19,758 --> 00:51:21,138
I don't think there's anyone in my life

519
00:51:21,138 --> 00:51:23,138
who's been like, well, hey, what about this FUD?

520
00:51:23,218 --> 00:51:24,778
Like they're not reading the FUD.

521
00:51:24,878 --> 00:51:27,038
They just don't take time to do the verify,

522
00:51:27,178 --> 00:51:28,898
don't trust on what Bitcoin is

523
00:51:28,898 --> 00:51:30,598
and don't understand that there's a whole rabbit hole

524
00:51:30,598 --> 00:51:31,238
you can go down.

525
00:51:31,298 --> 00:51:32,118
But I hear you on that.

526
00:51:32,118 --> 00:51:34,438
So then I know, I think approximately

527
00:51:34,438 --> 00:51:35,518
what your answer is going to be,

528
00:51:35,598 --> 00:51:38,758
but I do want to finish off here with BIP 361.

529
00:51:39,098 --> 00:51:40,238
Why don't you tee us up?

530
00:51:40,238 --> 00:51:42,898
What exactly is it proposing and what's your position on?

531
00:51:42,898 --> 00:51:45,098
That's the one with the quantum freeze, right?

532
00:51:45,218 --> 00:51:48,638
Like that's freezing all pay to put key outputs.

533
00:51:49,118 --> 00:52:09,318
So their big fear, and I think this comes from maybe Keynesian economics or belief that if Satoshi's coins were somehow released, that it would ruin the Bitcoin economy or something like that, is that quantum computers would take all of Satoshi's coins and spread them all over or whatever.

534
00:52:09,318 --> 00:52:34,958
Now, the thing that they're really fearing is that if and these are the Potoshi coins, early mine coins that are all in pay to pub key addresses, which would then be quantum vulnerable, supposedly, and could be spent with without the private key or have the private key relatively quickly computed and then done something about.

535
00:52:34,958 --> 00:52:43,938
Now, if they do that and the million or so Potoshi coins go into the market, their big fear is that it'll crash the price.

536
00:52:44,298 --> 00:52:47,318
That's really what they're fearing. Ultimately, that's what they're fearing.

537
00:52:47,458 --> 00:52:54,378
It's not that they're stealing coins from Satoshi because if Satoshi is alive and moves the coins, then whatever.

538
00:52:54,738 --> 00:52:59,698
But there might be an extra million Bitcoins that are in the supply that may get dumped or whatever.

539
00:52:59,698 --> 00:53:02,538
And I think that's kind of the wrong motive here.

540
00:53:02,538 --> 00:53:09,798
and it's based on bad economics, you have no idea what that would do. Their assumption is,

541
00:53:09,918 --> 00:53:13,558
well, there's going to be a million extra supply. That means that the price is going to crash.

542
00:53:13,818 --> 00:53:17,758
First of all, how do you know that the people taking those coins are going to sell immediately?

543
00:53:18,078 --> 00:53:22,198
It's in their interest to get the best price for it as well. How do you know that they're not going

544
00:53:22,198 --> 00:53:27,018
to sell to a private buyer that's been waiting for a large chunk of coins anyway? Why are you

545
00:53:27,018 --> 00:53:33,018
so afraid of that? Should those move and it not cause a crash, I actually think the price would go

546
00:53:33,018 --> 00:53:37,598
up massively because now there's no uncertainty about those coins anymore, right? It's all been

547
00:53:37,598 --> 00:53:44,998
spent. It's all gone to some other people. And even if it crashes after the crash, it might go

548
00:53:44,998 --> 00:53:51,038
up on a huge bull run because, okay, well, there it is. There's no unknown supply of Bitcoin that's

549
00:53:51,038 --> 00:53:56,118
suddenly going to flood the market. And all that we feared actually came to pass and it wasn't that

550
00:53:56,118 --> 00:54:02,498
bad. It's an economic assumption at the end of the day. And I think it's based on sort of like

551
00:54:02,498 --> 00:54:08,058
very simplistic economic thinking. You have no idea what's going to happen. And I'll tell you a

552
00:54:08,058 --> 00:54:16,478
story from 2013, obviously early days or whatever. And this was after March when it crashed from 266

553
00:54:16,478 --> 00:54:22,138
down to like $50. And then it went up and down all summer. And we were just kind of like, what is

554
00:54:22,138 --> 00:54:27,898
going on? Is it ever going to go back up again? And I was in some chats with people and one guy

555
00:54:27,898 --> 00:54:33,058
was saying, well, you know, like it might not come back because, you know, it's kind of like

556
00:54:33,058 --> 00:54:39,278
a darknet currency. And if the government shuts that down, then, you know, it's going to be over.

557
00:54:39,278 --> 00:54:46,398
And lo and behold, like October 1st, 2013, Ross Ulbrich is arrested and the FBI seizes

558
00:54:46,398 --> 00:54:52,358
the Silk Road website. And that day it did a mini crash and then it went up.

559
00:54:52,778 --> 00:55:00,718
Now what happened? That was the day that the darknet money narrative died. Because up until

560
00:55:00,718 --> 00:55:08,458
then, from 2011 to 2013, that was the narrative around Bitcoin was it's darknet money. It is only

561
00:55:08,458 --> 00:55:14,418
used by drug users. It's used by ransomware hackers and people like that. But that day,

562
00:55:14,418 --> 00:55:21,098
that site went down, people still held it and bought more. And it went up. And from October 1st

563
00:55:21,098 --> 00:55:26,298
to I think late November, seven, eight weeks, something like that, went on one of the best

564
00:55:26,298 --> 00:55:33,498
bull runs in Bitcoin history. It went from $100 low that day to $1,100 by the end of it. And that

565
00:55:33,498 --> 00:55:40,678
was the peak of that. And what had happened was that that narrative died and it caused the bull

566
00:55:40,678 --> 00:55:49,878
run. Now, I think if and I this is like speculation on speculation. So and it's kind of I believe it

567
00:55:49,878 --> 00:55:58,798
will be a counterfactual anyway. But should a million Satoshi coins hit the market and you find

568
00:55:58,798 --> 00:56:05,158
all sorts of private buyers, maybe China comes in and privately buys the million Bitcoins,

569
00:56:05,378 --> 00:56:10,218
immediately it would do something like that because it would no longer be just savings for

570
00:56:10,218 --> 00:56:15,678
people, it would immediately become like savings for governments. Or if it doesn't crash that much,

571
00:56:15,698 --> 00:56:20,038
or if there are private buyers or whatever, I really don't think you need to fear that.

572
00:56:20,618 --> 00:56:26,358
And that's essentially what BIP 361 is. It's fearing that these coins get dumped into the

573
00:56:26,358 --> 00:56:35,878
market. Oh, no, my bags are worth less and that sucks or whatever. No, that's not it at all.

574
00:56:35,878 --> 00:56:40,258
I don't think you understand how complex this is.

575
00:56:40,538 --> 00:56:44,898
It's not a simplistic equation of you add a million coins into every exchange and now

576
00:56:44,898 --> 00:56:46,478
everybody's going to lose money.

577
00:56:46,598 --> 00:56:48,938
That's not how it's going to happen.

578
00:56:49,658 --> 00:56:52,478
That's like a very simplistic first order analysis.

579
00:56:53,038 --> 00:56:55,098
There are many, many more orders of analysis.

580
00:56:55,678 --> 00:56:59,838
And there's great reason to believe that it would do the opposite of what you think it

581
00:56:59,838 --> 00:56:59,978
will.

582
00:57:00,578 --> 00:57:01,818
I think that's an interesting thesis.

583
00:57:01,818 --> 00:57:06,058
And for me, it's a non-starter that it's a violation of private property rights.

584
00:57:06,358 --> 00:57:15,518
But the fact that it's based on the FUD that you've just outlined very well in the last few minutes, I think, makes it all the more interesting that people would even take this seriously.

585
00:57:15,998 --> 00:57:16,938
Let's head for home here.

586
00:57:17,038 --> 00:57:18,238
I told you I was going to ask you this.

587
00:57:18,278 --> 00:57:23,978
I don't know if you had came up with anything, but what is an unpopular opinion that you have?

588
00:57:24,038 --> 00:57:26,938
And you get bonus points if you offend some Bitcoiners with it.

589
00:57:28,018 --> 00:57:28,638
Christ is king.

590
00:57:30,258 --> 00:57:31,098
That's a good one.

591
00:57:31,098 --> 00:57:32,838
You're not going to offend me with that, man.

592
00:57:33,178 --> 00:57:34,658
You will offend some, though.

593
00:57:34,658 --> 00:57:36,658
I see these debates every once in a while on X.

594
00:57:37,198 --> 00:57:37,638
All right.

595
00:57:37,958 --> 00:57:39,398
I'll go one further.

596
00:57:40,498 --> 00:57:41,718
Bitcoin is Christian money.

597
00:57:41,998 --> 00:57:42,418
How's that?

598
00:57:43,738 --> 00:57:44,098
Okay.

599
00:57:44,718 --> 00:57:46,438
That will offend even more people.

600
00:57:46,518 --> 00:57:47,438
I think you nailed it, Jimmy.

601
00:57:47,938 --> 00:57:49,858
Jimmy, hey, this has been a blast, man.

602
00:57:49,998 --> 00:57:52,358
I think we really did cover a lot of ground in 60 minutes.

603
00:57:52,458 --> 00:57:53,478
So thank you for your time.

604
00:57:53,558 --> 00:57:54,718
It's been a blast talking with you.

605
00:57:54,778 --> 00:57:57,278
Why don't you tell people where they can follow you, read your stuff.

606
00:57:57,278 --> 00:58:01,698
You get a great newsletter and then learn about more, more about production ready as well.

607
00:58:01,938 --> 00:58:02,078
Yeah.

608
00:58:02,218 --> 00:58:08,798
So my website is jimmysong.org and you can find, you know, you can go subscribe to my

609
00:58:08,798 --> 00:58:11,398
newsletter there and lightning and things like that.

610
00:58:12,218 --> 00:58:15,718
And you can find all my other socials there on X.

611
00:58:15,818 --> 00:58:19,318
I'm Jimmy Song and I have a YouTube show and all that stuff.

612
00:58:20,558 --> 00:58:23,478
Production ready is at productionready.org.

613
00:58:23,478 --> 00:58:26,978
And we're looking for both developers and donations.

614
00:58:26,978 --> 00:58:31,138
If you are interested in either, please use the contact us form there.

615
00:58:31,498 --> 00:58:33,338
I promise I read every single one.

616
00:58:33,598 --> 00:58:37,658
And even if you haven't contributed to core before and,

617
00:58:37,658 --> 00:58:42,258
and you're a developer and you're interested, I have ways to train you up.

618
00:58:42,478 --> 00:58:46,198
And, you know, we're, we're trying different things than perhaps core is.

619
00:58:46,378 --> 00:58:48,338
So yeah. Give us a shout.

620
00:58:48,998 --> 00:58:50,998
Thank you, Jimmy. Really appreciate your time today.

621
00:58:51,918 --> 00:58:52,518
Take care.

622
00:58:52,618 --> 00:58:55,278
And I'd love to have you back if we have any more of these controversies that

623
00:58:55,278 --> 00:58:56,778
we need to run through at some point in the future.

624
00:58:56,978 --> 00:58:58,378
All right. Thank you.

625
00:58:58,958 --> 00:58:59,418
Cheers, man.

626
00:58:59,718 --> 00:59:02,418
And that's a wrap. Again, hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jimmy.

627
00:59:02,598 --> 00:59:06,598
Go follow him on X, check out his website and check out what Production Ready is doing.

628
00:59:06,858 --> 00:59:10,398
Consider donating if you think that's a cause worthy of your sats.

629
00:59:10,758 --> 00:59:14,738
And of course, if you are enjoying the show, do me a huge favor, smash that like button.

630
00:59:14,898 --> 00:59:20,238
Make sure you subscribe to the channel, comment, share this podcast with someone who you think might be interested as well.

631
00:59:20,338 --> 00:59:24,418
We really appreciate you helping to feed the algorithm to get the signal out into the world.

632
00:59:24,418 --> 00:59:27,638
And of course, go to thebitcoinway.com slash podcast.

633
00:59:27,918 --> 00:59:31,378
You can schedule a free 30-minute introductory call with a member of our team.

634
00:59:31,738 --> 00:59:34,858
We can help you with proper 100% Bitcoin self-custody.

635
00:59:35,058 --> 00:59:44,118
We've got personal cybersecurity and privacy phone services and our Plan B residency program in tropical Panama, thebitcoinway.com slash podcast.

636
00:59:44,318 --> 00:59:46,238
Again, you can schedule your free call there.

637
00:59:46,678 --> 00:59:51,858
Until next time, stay safe, stay sovereign, and remember the yield on Bitcoin is freedom.

638
00:59:54,418 --> 01:00:24,398
Thank you.