Bright Orange Thursday With Special Guest @Miketwenty1 🧡 💪 🇺🇸 Ep. 277

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thank you.

(00:30):
All right. Good morning, everybody.
We are live. It is Thursday and thankful to be with you.
I want to thank everybody who joins us each day and listens to us banter about all things Bitcoin.

(00:52):
This is Bitcoin Veteran Spaces number 277.
My name is Bob Van Kirk, and I will be your host this morning.
We will work on getting everybody rearranged up here on the stage.
And it's another day, guys, and gals, celebrating the U.S. government going unfunded.

(01:14):
And so I'm excited.
I don't know about you all, but good stuff so far today.
Let's look at the time chain today.
It is Thursday, October 2nd, 2025, and we are at Bitcoin block height number 917,382
with the Bitcoin price between 119 and 120, which means you can still pick up 837 sats

(01:39):
for each U.S. dollar.
Like I said, guys, pretty excited for the show today.
Got a great guest, and we'll get to him in just a second.
but we do have lots on tap for you this morning.
So it should be a fun one.
And again, thank you guys for being here.
A couple of announcements.

(02:01):
As I've been saying,
we would love to have you join us in Nashville, Tennessee
for the second annual Bitcoin Veterans Summit,
which is coming up on November 10th and 11th.
And yeah, it's going to be a great two-day event.
First day will be a conference.
Second day is range day, so you can learn how to safely use firearms.

(02:28):
Let's see.
Also, if you're in the audience and you would like to come up, would love to have you up here.
Please hit that microphone button.
If you're not following anybody up here, including the BV handle or myself, we probably won't have you up.
No offense, but we have had some knuckleheads, as I've been saying, spamming our nest.

(02:48):
So we'll keep it chill and yeah, we'll go from there.
But did want to go around the horn, say good morning to everybody.
And then we will introduce our guest, Michael, and we'll go from there.
So let's start with Wade.
How's it going today, sir?
How's that government shutdown treating you?

(03:09):
Morning, guys.
I do have one or two quick tidbits on shutdown, just interagency guidance whenever you're ready for it.
Yeah, you know what?
This is your opportunity because we are going to hop into it with Michael.
So I wanted to give you your opportunity now.
Go ahead.
Sure.
So basically what's coming out across the interagency, Congress has not provided funding for fiscal year 26.

(03:31):
As a result, most of the government is preparing for orderly shutdown.
Due to the nature of interagency funding, the agencies will continue to operate for a short time period beyond October 1st.
Employees and contractors should continue to report to work unless and until otherwise notified.
prolonged lapses and appropriations may require subsequent employee and contractor furloughs.

(03:53):
So this is going to be a legal review for everybody throughout the interagency,
depending on whether you have an appropriation or not.
So just report to work until further notice, guys.
You'll all get paid.
Don't worry.
We'll give you back pay.
No, thanks for that.
Neil, how's it going today, sir?

(04:15):
Doing pretty good.
outstanding you you're doing good pretty much every day so that's that's good pubby
thanks for joining us this morning how's your morning good morning all good man yeah guess what
the shutdown been after over 20 years been through many of them i think the longest one was 65 days

(04:38):
but at that time i was considered emergency essential so i had to work everyone else usually
gets a paid vacation. So here we go. Political posturing at its best.
Just ignore the FUD. Stack your Bitcoin. Yeah, I was actually thinking
about that. Just real quick comment on that, how
they position it as a government shutdown, not the government

(04:58):
going unfunded. Just maybe sounds better and they can
use it for all this political theater. Texas Toast, thanks so much for being
here. How's it going this morning? It's going good
besides the giant tree limb that fell that I'm having to chop up right now.
So, yeah, all good.

(05:20):
Glad you have a speaker.
Yeah, it's fun when we can have someone up here introduce our audience to great people in the Bitcoin space
and what they're doing, what they've done, and what they're doing.
BFP, how's it going this morning?
It's great, bud.
Thanks.
I'm not.

(05:41):
Yeah, I kind of got that, but we got Matrix BFP again.
Hopefully we can work out his connection here as the show goes on.
Last but not least, well, no, second to last but not least, I guess,
Producer Eric, I want to give you a shout-out.

(06:01):
Thank you so much for being our producer, playing the music, and everything else you do.
How's it going this morning?
It's going great.
Bob, it's a nice morning.
I'm just rolling with it, rolling with the punches.
I don't know what else you need for me to say.

(06:23):
All good, all good.
And I'm glad your mic's working.
Excellent stuff.
Michael, last but not least, thanks so much for joining us.
And excited to chat with you today.
But first, before I introduce you kind of to the audience and ask you a couple of questions,
Just wanted to see how your morning's going.
How are you enjoying this Thursday?

(06:46):
Thursday morning is going well.
No one's upset in the house, so it's always a good day when no one's crying or fussing.
Awesome.
Yeah, thanks so much for that.
And really what I wanted to do this morning is kind of ask you a few questions just to kind of introduce you to the audience,
but also get into TabConf, which is coming up, and I know you're heavily involved in.

(07:12):
Some of you guys may have heard of TabConf.
We'll give Michael a chance to kind of talk about it here in a little bit.
But first, maybe my first question for you, Mike, is you've been deeply involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem for quite a while now,
especially since we're going on only 17 years, but you've still been around.
and you've worked, well, you're still working at ZBD on Lightning Network Innovations,

(07:39):
if I have that correct.
What sparked your initial interest in Bitcoin and how has that evolved in the role you're
playing today as an organizer and builder?
So, yeah, so initially I had some co-workers that,

(08:01):
We're looking at Bitcoin in 2012 and 2013. And at the time, it was sort of like this weird idea that also NPR covered in Atlanta and covered very negatively about how people lose all their money.
And it's just this thing where you just buy it and it disappears overnight. And that was sort of my impression in 2011, 2012. NPR did a second coverage of it.

(08:26):
And we had, you know, people at work, very divided people I respect on both sides of the argument telling me whether it was tech or debating during office hours, whiteboarding, even, you know, software engineers debating whether or not Bitcoin was a good idea.
and um in 2013 i just keep seeing the price go up and i'm like well maybe this is a cool idea

(08:54):
and maybe this is like the thing that i want to be a little interested in um obviously i had no money
back in 2013 but um i i started getting more interested in it and i probably spent i was
originally on the side that Bitcoin was a bad idea technically, but over the course of about

(09:16):
six months or something of every single one of my ideas being defeated, like in terms of one of my
core concerns on why it wouldn't work long-term, was sort of, it was countered and resolved by some
sort of mechanism or some sort of technical principle of Bitcoin. And it made me have a lot

(09:40):
of confidence and made me feel like I really knew what I was getting into. So I leaned in and in
2015, it, there wasn't really, this was also after Mount Gox and the price started dipping a lot.
There wasn't really a whole lot of, in my opinion, a lot of action going on in Atlanta. So I started

(10:01):
doing like meetup groups and early 2016, we started a meetup.com where essentially like the
first meetup was I bought beer and pizza for people just to come and hang out and learn about
Bitcoin. And we've sort of went from there to the point where, you know, Bitcoin,
the Bitcoin meetup events that we're doing, you know, we're getting hundreds and hundreds of

(10:27):
people. Like at some point there's 700 plus RSVP for like a monthly meetup. It was getting a bit
ridiculous we even had like sponsors and we'd get like 50 or 60 boxes of pizza and we'd get like all
these cases of beer like this was like a big deal event every month and this wasn't like an event
that I wanted to like make a business or anything this is this was something I was just doing for

(10:49):
fun with friends and it was getting a bit much and we're like well let's just go ahead and do an
annual conference just to sort of scratch that itch and also scaling bitcoin which was a conference
out west had ceased to exist and it was a high quality conference so i felt like the technical
bitcoin space where where's the bitcoin conference for people who already feel like bitcoin is a good

(11:13):
idea and then what do we do next after that and that's why we really started it in 2018.
it's like what is next how can we actually do something meaningful and what can we do with our
time to not just LARP on stage or just whatever. So we've always had this idea where you can't pay
yourself, you can't pay your way on stage, sponsorship and content is independent, things

(11:37):
like this, some real core values of the conference and really trying to do something meaningful with
our time while we meet in meet space. But the interesting part is the thing that sort of
made me vulnerable to Bitcoin originally when I started hearing about it and why I took so much
interest in trying to defeat it as an idea or trying to like lean into it as a good idea

(12:01):
and really think about it deeply was because I did a school paper when George Bush got our debt
to 10 trillion plus. I did a school paper as a kid on the Federal Reserve and how money works and

(12:21):
U.S. Treasuries and, you know, the Treasury and U.S. Mint, like pretty much trying to
put the pieces together with how money is created and what this giant number means.
Because I feel like before our debt got into the trillions, we didn't really speak of trillions.
It wasn't really like a number that was thrown around all too much.

(12:42):
And I feel like the first time I heard the word trillion was probably like as like a normal thing was probably in and related to our U.S. debt.
And so I did a paper on that.
And that really made me feel like I watched a bunch of, I guess you could say, like, almost like anarcho-capitalists, you know, on YouTube and as well as my research and listen to a bunch of libertarian sort of people kind of go on their soapbox and say, you know, hey, this is going to be a, this is a serious problem.

(13:22):
and it sort of shaped my opinion about, well, I don't think this US dollar thing,
you know, I don't think the way we're doing our debt and doing how we're collecting interest on it
and all this is necessarily a really good scalable idea.
I think we're pretty much setting up a house of cards that can collapse.
So when I did hear about Bitcoin originally, that pre-knowledge helped me become pretty interested in it.

(13:47):
And originally, like I said, I was skeptical of it, but became a big fan.
So now pretty much I'm just working in the space, six years working on Lightning Network, eight years working on TabConf.
And I no longer do the meetup.
That's now taken over by another group in Atlanta, mainly a guy named Steven.

(14:09):
He's doing a great job.
And he actually has a physical location in Atlanta where he hosts the meetup.
So that's taken over.
And I'm pretty much just working on the conference.
So this is my passion project and then working, um, my nine to five, uh, where I actually make
money.
That's a, at a lightning company called ZBD, which, um, we do, um, lightning and video

(14:30):
games essentially.
So that is a little bit about me and yeah, um, hope I, hope I check the boxes there in
terms of an intro that I went a little bit long, but there you go.
I'll give it.
Yeah, no, it's really good.
Yeah, and I think great introduction.
I think there's a lot of ways we can go down on this one.

(14:53):
I think down many paths you have worn many hats clearly, you know,
just from the grassroots stuff that you did with the first meetup and then
obviously now helping with TabConf and being a developer.
So can you walk us through that pivotal moment in your Bitcoin journey or your career that made you realize Bitcoin's potential for real-world freedom and innovation?

(15:24):
And how does things like ZBD, Lightning, TabConf all play into that?
Yeah, I really think it goes back to me having those aha moments, again, back when I was broke.
I was buying potentially at most $20 worth of Bitcoin at a time, which was all I could afford.

(15:47):
I wish I just had a few thousand dollars.
I wouldn't be very happy right now.
But, I mean, it just goes back to me having ideas that, you know, I sort of have like a IT, security, CS, you know, computer science-y kind of background and took a lot of interest in academia.

(16:08):
like in terms of when i was in school i really leaned into it and really enjoyed it um so i loved
debunking and debating technical ideas and this was something where i felt like bitcoin won and i had a bunch of aha moments like where as i learned more about just like how it worked like difficulty adjustment

(16:29):
um the finite supply how how how no how the relationship between nodes and miners and how
people can vote with their feet ultimately as as part of the game theory and really just i think
that's probably the right term is just really understanding the game theory and feeling
comfortable with it and having those aha moments a few times really just gave me confidence early

(16:50):
on and i think it's kind of interesting because a lot of people get interested in bitcoin when they
either just because of number go up and it's like oh this is a good investment or they get into it
maybe as well or all or because of the hey this is really sound game theory and really really
interesting um technically um if if you get into it for those reasons like the hey this is

(17:18):
interesting game theory reasons i would say you're probably even myself by the way i'm not i'm not
trying to say i'm immune to this by any means but you almost need to get checked every x amount of
years where it's like hey one of your maybe one of your assumptions that you built a lot of
secondary and tertiary sort of ideas off of was maybe not correct.

(17:44):
And you need to like reevaluate.
And that's happened to me a couple of times.
So I think you just need to, you know, depending on how bad your mind melts or how it breaks
your brain in terms of one of those core assumptions being broken.
And then you saying, hey, now this isn't Bitcoin or we, you know, this is this is something now that disenchants me from being interested in Bitcoin.

(18:11):
I think that's that's happened, obviously, in the past, especially with what we saw with Bitcoin Cash and stuff like this.
And there is a bit of a civil war split.
And I'm worried that hopefully this doesn't happen again with what's going on now.
But this is something I just want to mention because it's something I care deeply and passionately about.

(18:34):
And I see a lot of like passionate people in Bitcoin.
And if you get into it, and I know I'm going on a tangent here, so I'm not trying to act like I'm not.
But if you do get in, like one of those two reasons, it's either like, hey, this is an investment.
I'm going to have long-term solverity or, you know, solverity of my money.
or you get into it because it's like, wow, this is like super solid game theory as well.

(18:58):
You might end up having a bad time later on if you're not willing to be a little bit malleable
with some of your understanding of it.
Because I think very, very few people get it right the first time.
I'll just put it that way.
Yeah, it's a really important point.
I think we got Neil.
Neil, I want to go to your question, but I did have one more kind of on this line.

(19:20):
Um, can Michael, can you talk a little bit about your project that I think you're pretty
well known for in the Bitcoin community, uh, Bitcoin knobs, which I think emphasizes user
configurability and sovereignty and, and how that plays into, you know, all of what's going
on and, and kind of the topic that you've brought up here.

(19:42):
Yeah.
So Bitcoin knobs, let me give us a little bit of a preamble here.
Bitcoin Core is in a terrible situation.
And let me explain why it's a terrible situation.
One is they're either going to be seen as authoritarian to everyone outside of Bitcoin
Core that doesn't agree with their policies of, hey, we're going to pick the knobs for

(20:07):
you.
And I'm using knobs in a playful way.
I mean, configurability, params, flags, et cetera.
so they're going to be seen as authoritarian taking away data carrier or whatever or sending
defaults whatever whatever they end up doing is going to be pretty much the wrong move which is
sad for them even now that they've submitted a PR pull request not public relations to pretty much

(20:35):
undo even the deprecation at this point so now they've done two walkbacks so the first walkback
was removing the data carrier.
And then the second walkback
was undeprecating the data carrier.
So they've done two walkbacks,
which was the original issue
of what people are saying.

(20:56):
They're like, look,
why are you taking this away from us?
At least let us be able
to configure our own nodes.
And philosophically,
how do you argue with that?
You know what I mean?
I think that's,
you're having someone ask for something
and then you're saying,
no, we don't want to give it to you.
that philosophically, you know, from an outsider, that's going to make you look like the bad guy,
no matter how you parse it, if you just have that as your context. So they're sort of screwed. And,

(21:19):
and now, it's like, because of the quote, unquote, damage, and how people have sort of
rallied behind knots, there's, there's really like, enough momentum where it's like,
the damage is done and you're sort of like,

(21:40):
it doesn't really matter what you do now because it's sort of like,
there's an idea where like trust is broken or something.
And I guess like maybe like a third walk back hypothetically would be like
changing like the default for it.
But I mean,
I think we're getting nitpicky here because we're already talking about power
users that are running various implementations and can configure their nodes.

(22:02):
So I don't know if,
I don't know if that's even necessary,
but, or if that would even do anything, but it's, it's, it's interesting.
And then, so that's one side is the authoritarian side, the other side, right?
And this is like between a rock and a hard place. The,
the other side of this is placating. So from their point of view,

(22:25):
they don't want to be the manipulators of placating.
And I know there's probably going to be knots people that are going to highly
disagree with this, but here,
hear me out and let me steel man their position just so you can really understand their point of
view right the analogy i'll use is if i'm playing uh playstation and my one-year-old really wants to

(22:46):
play or something the idea is like oh i'm going to hand them the xbox controller and he's not
going to know any difference and he's going to think he's playing with me but he's not going to
disrupt the game, right? And that is sort of how they're viewing, giving people these configurations
and flags and knobs that they feel like aren't going to do anything or aren't going to be useful.

(23:08):
And they don't want to placate you and saying like, hey, this is going to do something.
The technical rationale that they've used, and this is me having personal conversations with
these people, Bitcoin core contributors and developers, is any software should not expose
a flag or a knob that can't be given advice on how to be used.

(23:30):
So if in good faith I can't recommend how to use this configuration, I should not expose
it to you.
And that's pretty much every software.
So they're treating this as a very technical thing, but it's based off the idea that already
potentially has disagreements.
Now, the action of it, I agree with, if you make the same initial assumptions that it's, you know, not useful or, you know, it's not going to be good, then what they're doing technically, I think, is right.

(24:00):
But if you disagree with the original initial premise, and this is sort of where, you know, where we're at now, then you get into this clusterfuck of between a rock and a hard place.
Either they're going to be acting like they're placating you and having unnecessary cruft in the code base, having this flag being used and configured in the relay policy, or they're going to be seen as authoritarian.

(24:29):
So with Bitcoin knobs, and that was a huge preamble, sorry about that. But going back to your question, Bitcoin knobs is saying, hey, look, the Bitcoin knots repo is maintained by Luke. So five plus one, I don't think anyone agrees with that math. But the diff of the code base is, you know, ginormous.

(24:51):
so if in other words if anything happens in bitcoin core that's like really useful that
how that's really hard to merge into bitcoin knots you're going to have a ton of code conflicts
that are going to be hard to resolve and arguably i mean bitcoin core makes updates every day
pretty much and these updates are not getting to knots little efficiency tweaks here and there

(25:16):
whatever it might be i mean we're talking about bitcoin core version 30 having a potential 20
speed up on general hardware and then also now being usable again on like raspberry pies which
was which or like you know those kind of certain processors at the the arm processors which had a
huge speed up because of some big development maybe that gets brought into knots i don't know

(25:41):
But you have to sort of cherry pick and it's messy.
It's if anyone's ever sort of maintained an upstream thing long term, it's everyone knows that's a very messy process that takes a lot of time and effort.
And what I want to do with knobs is say, look, can we take some of some of this philosophy and the passion of these people that are interested in becoming power users?

(26:02):
Because I'm all about people having understanding of what they're doing, being a power user.
So some of the knots people are some of the most passionate, interesting people in the space right now because they're technically interested in wanting to do something, not just say something, but do something.
And I think that's really cool.
And that's like a doer sort of move.
That's an action.
That's not just, you know, complaining.

(26:24):
That's trying to do something and not, you know, not just, you know, whining about it.
So I really respect that about people who are interested in knots right now.
And I was like, well, also, I don't really know how to configure a brand new node implementation to differentiate from core.
So I think this would be a cool learning opportunity.
So I started a TabConf project where it's like, hey, if TabConf, people who attend TabConf are interested in maybe learning how to start a brand new node implementation, but also stays synced with Bitcoin Core.

(26:56):
So all those little changes and little things stay relevant.
We don't let it drift to oblivion, not to oblivion, but like drift to like a place that's like really hard to reconcile where it almost becomes a brand new implementation.
Like the whole idea is, can we stay, can we keep a Bitcoin node implementation as closely, as close as possible to Bitcoin core where we can bring in changes as soon as they hit the master branch on GitHub in Bitcoin core?

(27:25):
Can we just bring them into Bitcoin knobs, but then also have the additional configurability that just gives us the options that people want?
So I, and it's really just like a learning project that also like, it is like a twofer.
One is it's, it's another node implementation that isn't going to be as critical as like a knots or a core.

(27:47):
So there's less stress.
And then the other one is like, well, maybe this ends up becoming like a real thing.
And it's like, hey, we're also super synced with Bitcoin Core.
So it's actually arguably a better implementation on giving people more configurability.
And then thirdly, it's like, well, if we come up with new interesting ways of giving configurability to users without touching the kernel sort of core consensus and stuff, and we really segregate.

(28:18):
And this goes to like start nine and Matt Hill's idea of some of these things.
If we really try to, you know, make more or less the subjective stuff isolated and we and we really make that super configurable, maybe even with like a GUI or like other sort of really cool tooling built into the node.
Like, does this just become the node of like that's like actually can be taken very serious?

(28:41):
And we have a, you know, sort of started as a joke.
And now it's like a fun project that over like 10 people have contributed to more or less in playful ways.
But like we had like a pretty a couple pretty serious PRs where like someone added in a like sync GUI thing where like it's more intuitive on like how the node is syncing and doing initial block download.

(29:10):
And yeah, so it's like a fun project. I think it's like TBD on whether or not it's going to be maintained long term.
I think it's going to depend on who comes to TabConf and who's like interested in like, you know, potentially like wanting to say, hey, like, I don't mind working on this throughout the year here and there, like little by little.

(29:31):
But it's going to, you know, require effort.
And if so, like, I'm happy to help maintain this project, maybe even find sponsors for it and, you know, make it part of like a TabConf project that we have an annual meeting for in person every year.
So that's sort of the idea of Bitcoin knobs. And I just think there's no reason that you have to run Noughts for your configurability.

(29:59):
And it's almost like a slight, but I don't want it to be seen as like a slight because Noughts is definitely the more serious project here.
I just want people to realize you don't need Noughts to specifically have the configurability you're looking for.
Like even BTCD, which is, in my opinion, way more used and established in terms of like it's being used for like lightning nodes, which you have to have that node working well or else you're going to lose money.

(30:26):
I think like Lalu decided not to take this change.
So, you know what I mean?
And that is like being that's, in my opinion, arguably being maintained pretty well.
And it's a completely new code base, which I think is really cool versus not to sort of like this fork of Bitcoin core that is now not really being kept in sync with Bitcoin core.

(30:49):
So, yeah, that's so that's that's it.
That's a very long answer.
So, Bob.
Yeah, no, I mean, seriously, you brought up so many great points.
And I really just personally, I feel like you brought up so many things that I have not heard on spaces.
I think you really. Yeah, man, we're going to have to have you back probably to talk about this stuff.

(31:13):
I think a lot of us have just kind of tuned out to this whole issue.
And I like a lot of what you've brought up, even if it's, you know,
just a project that comes out of tab tab comp that doesn't end up being maintained.
you know, in the end, people are learning.
And I think that's probably one of the best things,

(31:36):
having people dive deeper into their nodes and things like that.
And so, yeah, I really appreciate that.
I do want to go to Neil, but I did want to just welcome the new people who have come in.
And we're talking with Mike Tidwell.
He's given us a lot of good wisdom so far this morning.
We're going to get to TapConf here and chat more in depth on that.

(32:00):
But did want to go to Neil here and see if you had a comment or a question, Neil.
And yeah, then Michael can take it from there.
Yeah, I had just a question for Mike.
I like to listen to everything you were saying.
I'm just kind of curious, though, if I understand you correctly, you came to Bitcoin from a very technical.

(32:22):
You were drawn to the technicals and the economics.
and being around for a couple cycles now,
I'm just really curious,
how did you process all the altcoins and the shitcoins
and find signal through that?
Did you see it from the beginning or was it something that you had to how did you sift through you know bigger better faster you know type of my coins special you know

(32:51):
like I was just kind of curious what your journey was, you know,
navigating all the alts.
Yeah.
So the big one was all started being taken serious when Vitalik and Gavin
Wood started a Ethereum.
That's really when alt, before that, alts were just sort of a, first off, we didn't call them shit coins, which now we do, I guess.

(33:17):
But it was always called alt coins.
And the alt coins were always, in my opinion, a way of saying, oh, I'm late to Bitcoin.
Bitcoin's over $100.
Oh, it's over $1,000.
Oh, it's over, you know, this amount of money.
Like, I'm too late.
I have to buy Feather coin or Apache Fedora coin or whatever the hell it was at the time, right?

(33:37):
And I even remember at one point in time, this is like a very brief moment in time, Aurora coin, which was an Irish based altcoin that was released to Irish citizens had a larger market cap than Bitcoin.
Obviously, the liquidity was a problem, but the market cap of it was higher than Bitcoin, which was, you know, like, holy crap, like, what is this?

(34:03):
is this going to like and and when that happens you really are like asking like well wait a minute
is bitcoin going to maintain dominance or is this going to be like myspace and facebook where
or like you know whatever like even like a blackberry kind of idea or like a beta max versus

(34:23):
vhs whatever analogies you want to use like even if the technology is superior or whatever
if you just have like a a currency capture the hearts and minds of people and it takes off
I mean, granted, Bitcoin's only been out for a couple of years, three years, whatever, four years.
And it's like, we definitely felt like it was possible that these altcoins could potentially be of interest.

(34:46):
I don't think anyone...
The reason why I think they weren't called shitcoins back then is because no one knew.
No one really understood.
It's hard to sort of understand this.
Now, when we got through, I would say it was probably clear to several people, but there's always been sort of like an attitude from a lot of the early Bitcoiners where it's like, well, this is my project I'm interested in.

(35:17):
Plus, maybe like a little project on the side that is interesting to me that I know would never happen in Bitcoin, but it's like technically interesting.
I'm going to like look at it a little bit on the side over here.
Okay. That's kind of like, I feel like a lot of projects. And then, you know, there's definitely ideas where like Bitcoin isn't going to like have, well, at least at the moment, not have like zero knowledge proofs or ring signature ideas.

(35:41):
And this is like, oh, Zcash and Monero have like privacy ideas where Bitcoin doesn't.
And a lot of like darknet markets right now, like obviously don't use Bitcoin anymore.
They're using Zcash and Monero, which is arguably the original or one of the original killer use cases of Bitcoin was like an online privacy currency where you could literally do anything with it without worrying about being tracked and you could have privacy.

(36:04):
So when you see these sort of things happening, there's definitely concern there.
some of this is addressed um in multiple ways one is the idea of drive chain which is why
paul stortz started and blockstream even pitched it originally um which by the way hasn't really

(36:26):
gone anywhere in terms of like it hasn't it hasn't been adopted and whatever but it's you know there's
a company literally to push this right now called layer two labs but there's definitely concerns
where it's like one day someone might eat Bitcoin's lunch, even now, even.
And there's no reason to say, hey, if there is some cool feature,
let's at least remove that as the reason that Bitcoin gets overtaken.

(36:51):
Not saying that that would be the only reason,
but let's just at least remove the reason of some sort of technical feature
as the reason for Bitcoin being usurped
and putting that like on a side chain or something.
This was sort of the idea that kept, in my opinion, a lot of people together, which is funny because it's like, oh, if a project ends up being better than Bitcoin, well, all this is open source.

(37:17):
Bitcoin would just adopt it.
So there's no reason to leave Bitcoin.
That was sort of the mentality for a lot of people.
Not saying everyone had this idea, but a lot of people had this idea where it's like, well, if someone did something obviously superior and better to Bitcoin,
it would just be brought into the code.
So all these altcoins are almost like test networks.

(37:38):
They're not like serious.
Granted, a lot of serious money went into them,
like people gambling and stuff.
But the altcoin casino has existed in many different ways over time.
I think BTCE was like maybe one of the first mainstream altcoin casinos,
but I don't even think they're around anymore.

(37:58):
You asked me how I navigated this.
Well, I didn't know.
I still was of the opinion that this proof of work blockchain was a cool idea.
And if other networks, if other altcoins somehow got more proof of work than Bitcoin, then potentially Bitcoin would be irrelevant and would lose relevance.
So I was definitely keeping my eye open on said altcoins, but none of the altcoins ever even got close in terms of like a SHA-26 proof of work sort of closeness.

(38:27):
a lot of them potentially use like a different housing algorithm and if that's the case then it's
like in my opinion it wasn't even competing with bitcoin um there's an argument where like total
joules of energy going into the project if it was a proof of work project would be a indicator of
you know it and i think that's arguably that's that's fair um i just i mean we just really never

(38:55):
had anything now when when ethereum and then and then kind of going forward when ethereum went like
all these icos and all this kind of stuff that's when a lot of people started calling these things
shit coins and ico scams and all that kind of stuff i mean it started becoming pretty clear that
it started becoming more easy for people to understand like bitcoin is like the serious

(39:18):
player and a lot of these things 99 of them are not even serious they're actually just straight up
scams um i i i'm not going to act like i was some messiah or act like i was some sort of
genius that was able to navigate this perfectly i i um was very open-minded at the time and um

(39:38):
definitely was learning in public with everyone else the funny part is a lot of people that are
quote-unquote like the bitcoin heroes of the day that are like sort of like the influencers of the
day if they were around long enough they definitely were idiots back in you know 2014 and 15 and 13
and stuff like i i think like even like your your heroes don't look up their history because you're

(40:03):
going to be very disappointed i'll just put it that way you know i mean i don't think it very
few people navigated this perfectly i would say and i think that's fine and i think that's also why
even with current debates now we can't be holding grudges or be antagonistic like
attacking people because we're all learning this thing and people can change their minds about stuff

(40:27):
and be wrong about things i really hope um you know at this point i think it's pretty easy to
understand like hey we're bitcoiners so there's not this idea of like not knowing which chain i
think it's as as more time goes on it's easier to understand that bitcoin's the the dominant winner
um and i think we're we're finally at that point where last several years it's like okay well

(40:48):
bitcoin's the dominant winner here like this is the one that everyone's getting behind it doesn't
seem like this controversial thing where some random coin is going to come up like just out
of nowhere and just usurp it like it was like that might have been in like you know whatever
2011 12 13 14 where it's like it still was sort of like i don't know um so yeah i probably would

(41:10):
give myself like a B or like C plus I probably was average. I don't know above average, maybe a
little bit, but that's a very long answer to your question. No, I appreciate it. Yeah. And I think
the context is good, man. A lot of the history, um, I think people can learn from it and, uh,
yeah, I really appreciate that, that answer. I did want to make sure though, that we get to

(41:32):
tab conf. Uh, let's, let's highlight that a little bit. So tell us about like for those,
like for somebody brand new, like somebody who's interested in Bitcoin, but, and maybe
is starting to think a little bit more technically, um, tell us about tab conf, how it was started,
why it's still going, what you guys do at that conference, uh, just kind of,

(41:56):
yeah, for just the uninitiated, let's share what tab conf is.
Yeah. Tab conf is that thing that, um, my meetup got out of control.
It got too big and it was getting ridiculous.
And we're like, let's see if we can, you know, have a conference.

(42:16):
And there isn't a technical Bitcoin conference right now.
So why are we going to these various conferences and we're having people go up on stage and tell us Bitcoin is a good idea?
Like, we already know that.
like if anyone's going to go up on stage and tell us anything that's just positive maybe in like a

(42:37):
different angle about bitcoin i think there's not many people that necessarily benefit from that
besides maybe just making you feel good about the bag that you hold and it's just there isn't
necessarily an action item maybe it helps you be motivated to talk about it to other people i don't
know but we really wanted to have a conference that was like tangibly doing something um and

(43:03):
i'm not trying to like downplay the importance of conferences that you know do do good work
explain why bitcoin's good i'm just saying for a lot of people it's not a needed message right
for a lot of people it might be but not for a lot of people who have been in the space and think
bitcoin's a good idea it's like where is their conference and i'm really trying to make tab comp
that conference. It's a generic conference that works on Bitcoin and Bitcoin adjacent technology.

(43:28):
So for instance, we even are doing stuff with MeshTastic and radios. And I really would love
the veterans to be involved with the Freedom Comp's communication stuff, where I really want
TabConf to help foster freedom communications using open frequencies. I think there's a lot

(43:48):
of really cool um ideas with meshtastic and related to bitcoin propagating of network uh
transactions and stuff getting to the network through uh private endpoints and stuff and
uh tab comp is just like the the builder hacker conference of any of anyone who wants to excuse me
anyone who wants to like do something it's it's like for doers so if someone feels like oh i'm

(44:16):
not technical enough to come to tab comp you're sort of missing the point because anyone can be
a doer anyone can listen to our idea give feedback help fund help find funding help um give ideas
help even you know you go there to learn and when you've learned enough you go there to teach
and we have workshops we have interactive panels we have a lot of like debate panels where like

(44:39):
anyone in the audience can just come up on stage like queue up say their piece almost like a twitter
space but in irl um and and then go back down to the audience afterwards like we we have like a lot
of socratic events um we're trying to have the best conference possible and what does it mean to
have like the best conference possible that you know is like this is we're really leaning into

(45:02):
like the idea of an open source conference so everything is organized on github and we have
right now 100 something GitHub issues for our for this year's conference and we're using the issues
as like a way to keep track and a way to have like discussion threads and a way for people to say

(45:25):
like hey if you want to do my workshop here's like the links and here's like what you need to do to
get ready and like people can go in there and ask questions they can see like when the schedule is
going to be if anything updates we're using github sort of as our database excuse me
and things are updated in real time and it's it could be community driven and now it scales better

(45:46):
because when you have a hundred people or like 60 people that are you know doing content at the
conference and they can all go into their github and say like how their workshop is changing they
have like agency over their time slot um everyone understands that this was a public process of

(46:06):
curation no one's buying their way on stage everyone can like be really confident like well
it's like oh if i have an idea i can just do it yes you can just do things you can just go to
like if you want to be involved in tab comp you can just go and like do that thing and it's like
well wait don't i need permission it's like well depend like if you can't obviously do something
crazy that's going to like maybe endanger people right but you can pretty much do anything you want

(46:30):
as long as it sort of lines up with some of the core values of um promoting bitcoin or bitcoin
adjacent technologies or or something and related to that i i think we're pretty open so we're really
trying to like just buy ballroom space buy rooms buy you know set up stages and then just give it
away to people because it's like, well, you know, let the,

(46:53):
let the market pretty much decide what needs to be talked about. You know,
it shouldn't necessarily be this like super top-down thing.
So nothing like pretty much every,
all the content is going to be is like submission based in public.
You know how some conferences do like a call for papers.
Like we just use the GitHub issue submission scheme. So that's,

(47:14):
that's GitHub in a nutshell where we're, I mean, you, I mean,
I'll give a little sales pitch here.
Tickets right now are $121.
It includes free hardware, so like a MeshTastic device if you can make it.
It includes four days of breakfast, lunch, and evening beer and pizza.

(47:35):
It includes an after party with an open bar.
It includes all the workshops and content and everything and related to the conference
and any sort of like giveaways and stuff like that.
Um, and we are, because we, we actually lose a little bit of money on every ticket.
We actually are raising the prices tomorrow, um, Friday to 256.

(47:57):
So two, like almost like shot to V six.
So we're going from one 21 to two 56 tomorrow.
So if anyone does want to come or support, I would love for you to get a ticket at full
price really helps us.
Um, even the one 21 helps us because then we can let sponsors know and stuff.
So that's awesome. And yeah, again, I would love for Bitcoin veterans to be involved and like give y'all an area around the hardware area where I know there's a lot of interest in radios and freedom comms and like really say like, well, hey, let's maybe pair up some software developers.

(48:32):
Let's like make applications that can make tangible progress every year. And maybe like someone makes a business out of that. And that's like really cool. And it's like, hey, here's like an open source thing that we're like maintaining through the conference.
and we have an annual meeting spot for this idea every year.
So I'm thinking like long-term tab comp supports projects.
It's,
it's used as a venue for like offsites for teams.

(48:56):
It's a place for hackers to hack for us to break Bitcoin,
make it stronger.
Us have really deep conversations recorded and not recorded And and not take it too serious as well so it a it a very like open format and it a lot of people that like my favorite is like oh is there going
to be a poker tournament this year i'm like well do you want to organize it and then you very

(49:19):
quickly see like who the doers are and who the people who you're like oh wait i have to organize
that it's like well it's like it's a community conference so whatever you want you submit and
then we find people who are interested to help you. And it's, yeah,
it's kind of like that. So that is the spiel.
Yeah, no, I think that gives a great flavor and I love the idea of making it,

(49:43):
you know, a community conference. It's,
it's really what people want to make out of it. So it's outstanding.
We do have a hand up a Bitcoin nurse. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Just a couple of comments and a question.
I want to thank you for this space.
It's probably my favorite in months.
I want to shout out to Tidwell and thank him.

(50:05):
TabConf is the only Bitcoin conference I've gone to, and I have loved it.
I'm not a dev, and I go to learn, and I go to do.
I've joined the Capture the Bitcoin contest and teams,
and I've been on the winning team twice.
So my question will be for Michael to speak about that.

(50:28):
The way he gamifies so we can learn is so fabulous.
I had to make a GitHub account to be able to submit some ideas for the conference a year or two ago.
So again, just shout out.
I'm almost cautious to share this because I don't want TavConf to get too big, actually.
I love that we have fun.

(50:50):
I love sitting at the poker table.
I love that there are a bunch of XX chromosome women that show up, that code, that role model.
Tidwell's just made an amazing space, him and his team, and thank you for that.
So talk about CTV a little bit.
That's kind of your baby.
You won't even let some of us help develop clues.

(51:13):
Love that, Tidwell, and thank you for this space.
Yeah, that's funny.
As I learn more about Bitcoin myself, it's also a learning journey for me.
I am finding ways where I can more easily include people without revealing anything of the conference,
especially with some stuff with Frost and some of these threshold signature ideas that I've developed over the past couple of years.

(51:40):
so maybe in the future it's like i'll want more help um doing this because i didn't know how to
make it more modular and scalable now and this year i am having having two people submit me
pre-image hashes that are going to be used in the ctb so the ctb is a play on words with ctf so if
you go to a hacker conference there might be a ctf event which stands for capture the flag

(52:05):
and that's like you have to find some sort of like you know a i i captured the flag like it's
some sort of like hack like i i pwned the server or i i sniffed the traffic and got a secret
password you know a ctf is typically like a hackery sort of thing so i'm calling it a ctb
because we're not really hacking anyone but it is a like it is a very like fun technical puzzle

(52:31):
and it's there to make you learn.
Now, in previous years, there's been easy parts
and there's been hard parts.
I always try to throw in things that are going to be like,
hey, this is like, if someone on your team
is like super non-technical,
but it might require a bit more manual work.
Like they can, like, and also it's like very like fun.
Like this is like something they can help with.

(52:51):
So people typically make teams.
And this year I think is going to be hard.
Just like last year.
last year um we almost did not have a winner i keep thinking that i want to keep making these
harder until we don't have a winner i just don't know what there seems to be every year i'm like
oh there's no way this is going to get solved and then it finally gets solved like on the last day

(53:14):
typically um it's it's kind of cool last year i'll just give you some flavor of like what we did last
year for the ctb so if y'all are familiar with like 12 word you know sort of like you know seed
seed phrases and stuff. We created a bunch of these like 12 word seed phrases, and then we

(53:35):
derived keys from them and then use those keys and part of a larger encumbrance of Bitcoin. So
in other words, you would you would get your 12 word seeds, let's say we had like six of them,
or eight of them. And then you would only use one key from each of those to then make a new,
like a multi-sig if that makes sense so um one thing that was interesting was if you found the

(54:03):
12 word seed phrases or you like you you would like discover one like through some puzzle
you were able to take all the bitcoin that was associated with that seed phrase so it would let
people know publicly which seed phrases got found and then if you know like hey i need like four or
five or like whatever, like six of eight. And I know they have one, I have two, they have,

(54:27):
then you can like maybe work together and be like, well, Hey, let's combine our secrets to
maybe like get the whole prize. So there's like some really fun ideas with that, um, that we did
with tap root and we called it the tap tree of four because it was right around Halloween last
year. Um, yeah, go for it. Yeah, no, that's, that's really awesome. And I love the, uh,
The creativity.
I think that sounds like a blast.

(54:50):
We did have Tao and BitPetro join, and Jimmy.
I want to thank you guys for coming up.
About ready to wrap up the hour, but did want to give any of you guys a chance.
I know you guys came up.
Maybe you're just supporting the space today, which I always appreciate,
but maybe you have some questions.
I did see Tao's hand earlier and seeing it again.
So go ahead, Tao.

(55:11):
We'll make it quick, and then we'll do Jimmy.
I guess we'll give everybody a chance.
So I'll be here till 1130 Eastern.
Yeah.
Hey, Bob.
Thanks a lot.
Good morning, guys.
So, Michael, you were talking about the – did I hear it correctly?
You say Bitcoin knobs.
Is that a new implementation?

(55:32):
Yeah.
Bitcoin knobs.org, it's a playful – I'll call it a playful implementation that just –
I want people to think about what they're doing when they're running knots.
Are they running it specifically just for the additional configurability?
Because if so, there might be opportunity specifically for that to for us to maintain a project that is more in line with Bitcoin core that still gives them the configurability that they're interested in.

(56:01):
And I heard that your explanation in regards to like you guys will continuously to maintain that branch and continuously sync with master from core.
Is that correct?
Yes, that is the plan.
If there is interest in doing this, that's the vision of the project, yes.

(56:24):
And that's really neat, right, because the concern with other branches,
and I'm not sure how NOTS is doing their implementation,
is that if there's no one syncing to core or master,
then it may miss those important features that you mentioned earlier.
So a quick question.

(56:45):
Do you happen to know how long Knott's have been branched off of Core?
How long that has been?
And then how long has Knott's been branched off of Master?
So Knott's has been forked for over a decade.

(57:06):
I mean, Luke's been maintaining it for a very long time.
But he's also been bringing in things that he finds interesting from Bitcoin Core into Bitcoin Notts.
The diff right now, last that someone did a diff on it was like 28,000 lines of code difference, which I think is nothing to shake a feather at.
I mean, that's pretty significant.

(57:26):
I just, people start, I actually forked originally from Notts.
And then people started submitting PRs that they were interested in in Bitcoin Core to Bitcoin Nobs.
And then there were so many merge conflicts that we just decided, oh, man, this is such a mess.
We're just going to fork from Bitcoin Core and start over.
Yeah, that would be the more cleaner way to do it.

(57:48):
And that's why I was asking the question, how long has this been forked off?
And, you know, very recently.
And then I'm talking about people, they are not aware that, you know, if they're running a certain implementation that, hey, you're actually missing quite a bit of things.
Like you say, 20,000 lines of code, it's a big deal.
So, OK, that's a lot, Michael.
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Tal.

(58:09):
Jimmy, go ahead.
Before Jimmy unmutes, I do want to say that
NOTS is the more serious implementation right now.
I'm not trying to shit on anyone running NOTS.
I just want to make sure that's very clear.
Yeah, it's a very good point.
This is a learning educational thing that could become very serious pretty soon,

(58:30):
but I don't want to make this an attack on Bitcoin Core or Bitcoin NOTS.
I just want to make sure that's clear.
Yeah, good stuff.
Jimmy, you want to try to come off mute here?
There you go.
Yeah, sorry.
I was over to Jim with the dog.
Yeah, good morning.
I'll make it quick.
I just want to double down on what Michael is saying.
I really appreciate what you're saying.
And if I were to go to a conference in the United States, it would be TAPCOM.

(58:54):
And what I go to now is down in Latin America adopting Bitcoin, as well as we have one coming up next week in Merida, where it's FLEBLAB and Yopaki.
And the thing I like about these smaller events is it's like Michael saying, it's about putting it into use.
And we literally got developers working with the public.
And so, you see, I worked for many years in computers and businessmen know what they need, but computer holders don't.

(59:19):
And so they don't lie us on really well.
And when I went to Costa Rica, Jack Dorsey invited a bunch of people down to Costa Rica and I went.
And he asked everybody at the end of the event, how many of you are developers and how many aren't?
Half the crowd wasn't developers.
He said, this is awesome.
I've never seen this before.
And this is what we need to do is put – you need to, as people, if you want to be in the business and industry, you need to get involved.

(59:40):
Like Surfer Jim used to go to New York Bitcoin devs.
He's not a dev.
He doesn't know any.
He goes, man, I was the dumbest guy in the room.
That is the greatest.
He has learned so much stuff, and that's why I go.
And like I was a Bitcoin – adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador.
This whole thing with Knots and Court, well, I was there with Peter Todd, Mechanic, all of them in the same room, Jameson Lopp.
So you get to see it in real life.

(01:00:02):
And it's really interesting because they talk very differently when they're in public.
But they did do a lot of this even back then.
But the point is you get educated.
And I just find this awesome.
Because the other events are fun to go meet everybody and meet people in real life.
But when they get really big, it's more like just a fair and a celebration.
But I love the smaller events where you learn a ton.
And, yeah, Michael, I applaud what you're doing.

(01:00:24):
Yeah, thanks for that, Jimmy.
And last question or comment.
Petro, go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everybody. I want to wish everybody a happy day and may you be written in the book of life because today is Yom Kippur.
So start off with that. And also, Michael, I'm super excited about what you're doing.

(01:00:45):
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what out of your conference you could package into something for academia.
I'm working really tightly with the university here in Fort Worth,
and I really want to try and distill some of these educational events down into materials that can be brought down to the university and the schools.

(01:01:08):
So I wonder if you could take a little bit of time to go over that.
Yeah, so one thing I would do is there's two things.
One is we have a beginner's track 101 track this year for two days at the conference.
that's specifically for like how do you self-custody in a proper way which hardware wallets are now

(01:01:29):
good which software should you be using how do and then even going into stuff where it's like
what's i paid to anchor like what is that what does that mean like how like this is a new primitive
on bitcoin that maybe you should know about like how do descriptor wallets work because this is
like the thing that bitcoin core is pushing like not your 12 word seeds right like bit 39 they're

(01:01:49):
pushing BIP32 sort of primitives. And like, these are all things where it's like, like,
totally making you a power user to be more comfortable with Bitcoin. So you're not going
to be surprised potentially in the future when some hardware company goes out of service or some
software is no longer maintained that you use for said hardware wallet, whatever it might be, right?

(01:02:10):
So I would look at the 101 beginner track on TabConf. And I, and also DM me and we can, here,
Let me make sure I'm following you.
BitPetro.
DMs are open, right?
So just DM me and I'm happy to help you
get those filter views on GitHub to show you.
The other one that's really, really good

(01:02:30):
if you're coming to TabConf, BitPetro,
which I'm not sure if you are,
but go to the Saving Satoshi Workshop
and there's no other content.
And I purposely did this.
There's no other content during that hour long block
because this is such a high quality event
that Chaincode has put so much time into,
and it's such a good learning, like, educational thing.

(01:02:52):
Now, if you're asking about, like, academia in terms of research and stuff,
I'm not sure if you're going that angle, but we also have a lot of that going on.
No, no, no.
We're working on developing, like, a curriculum, so, like, actual classes.
So what you're talking about is 100% what I'm looking for.
Right, right.
So we have a ton of 101 stuff, beginner-friendly things.
And when I say beginner-friendly, I don't mean, like, what is Bitcoin?

(01:03:14):
I mean, like our beginner is probably like most people's like, oh, I'm uncomfortable, but I'm learning, you know, like our version of beginner is like, you know what I mean?
It's a different caliber beginner.
It should be like, hey, anyone can come to this, but it's going to be like anyone can come to this, but you might sweat a little bit.
Advance is going to be for people that are like already like developers.

(01:03:36):
Right.
So I would highly recommend looking at everything labeled beginner and anything labeled 101 or anything that has 101 in the title, because a lot of those people are going to be using materials that are public.
Bitcoin to anyways, and then also saving Satoshi.

(01:03:57):
So I just want to put that out there for you as a specific.
Really good stuff.
and, man, I think we could talk for a few hours.
Really appreciate you coming on, Michael.
We do have to wrap it up here.
I have a meeting to get to, but I would love to invite you back.
I know you're going to be busy heading up into TabConf here coming up in a couple of weeks,

(01:04:21):
but don't be a stranger.
Hit my DMs.
Would love to have you on again.
Hear about all the great things that came out of TabConf.
And I want to say once again thank you to everybody for coming up and asking questions,
hanging out with us, all those who are in the audience each and every day.
We do appreciate you guys.
But I've got to remind you of something after I wish you a happy Thursday.

(01:04:44):
Do not shitcoin whatever you do.
It's like, what is it like?
I guess it's like wearing cut-off jeans to a wedding.
What are you, a little baby?
You need your mommy to hold your Bitcoin for you?