KNOTS OR CORE, WE ARE ALL BITCOINERS | Michael Tidwell - THE Bitcoin Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I have a lot of respect for the passion and the philosophy and the ideas behind a lot of people that subscribe to the Knott's camp, right?

(00:09):
But I think the problem is they think they're in a camp, right?
I just said they're in a camp.
But really, the way I see it is unless they're willing to reject the block, we're all on the same team.
And they actually, you know, we're actually just all Bitcoiners.
Whether they think there's, you know, this core Knott's debate or not, your relay policy doesn't make you a different Bitcoiner, right?
Your consensus policy mainly does.

(00:30):
So you can have all the philosophy you want.
That makes you a Bitcoiner.
Guess what?
You're not going to have the same philosophy as me.
That's okay.
We have the same consensus rules.
Your relay policy doesn't make you in a different camp than me,
even though we're sort of dividing it out that way.
And it's been pretty contentious.
I almost wonder if like every X amount of years,
there just needs to be a churn where people get radically like dunked into cold water on what Bitcoin is.

(00:55):
and like their perception of Bitcoin
like just needs to be like completely obliterated
and their mind just needs to melt.
And if this is just one of those events,
if you really push people to explain what Bitcoin is
and what they want to use it for
and ideals behind it and philosophy,
I think what people will find is
many people are out on little islands of thought

(01:16):
that are sort of independent.
Like we all, we are all on the main channel,
but we sort of diverge slightly
on subtle things here and there.
And a lot of us have unique perspectives
on what Bitcoin is
and what makes Bitcoin endangered
to being destroyed
or what is a boogeyman of Bitcoin
or stuff like this.

(01:36):
My opinion is pretty radical, I would say.
I'm of the opinion where Bitcoin can survive
ebbs and flows of terrible situations
of censorship, centralization,
and actually come out of it
and on the other side of it
still as a usable system
that can course correct and become more of a freedom money and freedom data ledger.

(01:57):
So I think it's sort of this really fascinating technology that can actually be co-opted and be
corrupted and recover because of the proof of work, essentially, and because of the people
incentivized to be good stewards of the network. So I'm even of the opinion where if something
really bizarre happens and there only becomes one mining pool, that Bitcoin could survive that

(02:19):
pretty easily, even though that would be like a doomsday situation for a lot of people if mining
was completely centralized. I actually, because I truly believe in the game theory this strongly,
I think that it would even get to the point where that miner would be incentivized to be a good
steward because the ultimate thing that people can do is vote with their feet and vote with their

(02:40):
nodes via this crazy idea of a UASF, which I don't think is a good idea, but it is a nuclear option
for absolutely terrible situations.
And I think ultimately the pleb move that is measurable,
not just running a node,
which in my opinion is a unknown variable of impact,
the measurable impact that is deterministic,
however small or however big is voting with your feet.

(03:03):
You sell your coins.
I would love if we could talk about what is Bitcoin,
because I think that's like a dumb question
that needs to be revisited every few years,
because I think we're getting to that point now
where people are starting getting their feathers ruffled.
And I think it really comes from a place where you got into Bitcoin
without fully understanding what Bitcoin was.

(03:23):
And now that something is happening that sort of disenchants you
from like your idea of what Bitcoin was,
you're like, oh, Bitcoin's broken or we need to like fix Bitcoin.
It's like, well, if you thought Bitcoin was this in the first place,
then you wouldn't actually be upset right now.
So I guess we need to like talk about like, what is Bitcoin?

(03:45):
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is The Bitcoin Podcast.
Bitcoin continues to create new blocks every 10 minutes.
The value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
And if you're listening to this right now, remember, you are still early.
If you're not already, go ahead and subscribe to this show wherever you're watching or listening

(04:08):
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(04:30):
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Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk.

(04:57):
We're just calling this one Michael Tidwell Bitcoin Knobs. Is it pronounced Tidwell or
tit well well depends uh it's it's kind of it's it's user choice it's it's configurable
um it is not that uh maximum configurability on that would you say i would say i've heard

(05:18):
everything from titty well tit well tid tide well is a good one i've heard that one tide well okay
that's that's well i'm gonna go with tit well because this is tit coin podcast
so we you will for from now on be tit well on this show i don't make the rules uh we are live
zap.stream is working this is wonderful all right now i'm just gonna go ahead and stuff works man

(05:42):
i get so i say i get so pumped when nostril stuff works and like when it works well yeah like it's
amazing um and one of the things it feels like to me it's like it always reminds me and i've said
this before just but it's like reminds me of sending bitcoin transactions on chain like the
first few times and let's be honest even like the the last few times um basically every time you get

(06:03):
that little those butterflies in your stomach you're like oh is it gonna work and then it does
work like every time uh and but and then you verify it with your bitcoin knobs note of course
just to make sure that you know it's real and then you then you know it's real uh okay we're gonna
we're gonna fucking do this live uh i will and by that i mean we already are live you know what i
did also i don't i i made uh initially i was like shit i'm gonna be late for this like you know it

(06:28):
It was like a few minutes after two.
How did I know you were going to be an hour late?
But it's okay.
But I made a nice little song that I was like, oh, this will be great.
I'll tell Tidwell the reason that I'm late, which is true,
is because I was making a custom AI song for him.
So let's play it real quick.
What shit's driving you to drink it?
Oh, yeah.

(06:48):
Why do you fix it when it's perfectly broken?
Michael Tidwell
Your heart's in the token
Why the endless
Debates
The late night ex-rants
If you really
Okay, we can stop now.

(07:10):
AI didn't do the best job of writing a song.
I was like, make it a song about how this guy
Michael Tidwell hates Bitcoin.
I asked Grok to do it. It did okay.
It lacks a little bit of soul.
It's just kind of generic.
so i'm sorry you had to hear that but that was why i was initially going to be late just so you know
hey i just want to make sure you didn't look bad that's why i had a you know plus one your

(07:31):
your lateness by one hour it was it was so thoughtful of you it was so thoughtful i'm here
for you know i'm here for the people you know i wasn't gonna drink today tidwell but now it's
like seeing you i'm just like god i need a need a drink to get through this thing this is it's
going to be it's going to be tough i was watching uh you know you i think you're most known for

(07:52):
being a podcaster is that fair to say is that not fair i mean uh i don't think anyone even knows i
have a podcast though i think i would i thought that was kind of your claim to fame that's you
became a bitcoin influencer through podcasting so um maybe like in 2017 that's what i was best

(08:18):
known for um in 2016 i started a meetup called tab tab and the tab meetup uh grew i mean the
first meetup we had was like march of 2016 and before that we're sort of doing like kind of like
informal meetups but we went like you know on meetup.com in early 2016 and first one was like

(08:41):
free beer and pizza and i had like 25 people show up and i pretty much was a you know
poor poor pleb that just really wanted to evangelize bitcoin and tell people about this
really cool tech and you know i really was like worried because this was from like the lulls of
mount gox um you know having an attack and then we had price action down in the 160 range and then

(09:09):
you had mike hearn you know crash out i mean you had a bunch of weird things happening that um i
was like man i i kind of feel like i want to do something to like make sure people know this is a
good technology and i don't want it to just like be stagnant i want to see if i can do something a
little bit to you know let people know about this and know this is like a great time to you know get
in this is actually like a incredible opportunity because i was like imagining like bitcoin not being

(09:33):
like 100 grand or a million dollars in 2016 was like this is great we can we can you know scounge
together some nickels from the and quarters from the couch cushions because i had like no money
back then but um yeah started the meetup it grew got a lot of people like enthusiastic that wanted
to help me like do it we we eventually had the meetup grow to be kind of crazy like we're talking

(09:56):
like 700 plus people rsvp for like a a monthly meetup and i was running like weekend workshops
that were teaching people how to uh make bitcoin transaction scripts i was pretty much doing like
full-time education like with my full-time job like um and we would get to the point where
we would fly speakers in we had sponsors all this kind of stuff and we're like well why don't we

(10:20):
just do like a conference so we started the conference in 2018 and so in atlanta it kind
got weird because like at the time when i was like dating or whatever we'd be like in a grocery
store out in public and so i'd be like hey michael tito and then the girl would be like dude are you
like famous i'd be like you know you know like you know is what it is i'm a bitcoin podcaster
it's fine yeah yeah it's like well i do have a bitcoin podcast we ran um during this time we

(10:44):
started a podcast my friend and i also named mike started a podcast called block time which we still
run now in like sort of a light-hearted way i or i still continue it in a light-hearted way
I just had an episode launch with Rob Hamilton.
So block time.
Don't forget to stay hydrated, friends.
Exactly.

(11:05):
So the podcast, we actually.
It's a cool, refreshing Miller Lite.
Sorry, continue.
Continue.
Yeah.
Miller Lite sponsors this show, just so you know.
Dude, that's sick.
That's awesome.
No, I wish they did.
That'd be cool.
If you see this, Miller Lite people, I'll take a pallet of beer in exchange for a sponsorship slot.
Just so you know.
so one thing i realized about podcasting um and this was during the block war kind of i mean now

(11:32):
it's being called the block size wars or whatever i mean at the time it was just called bitcoin
but during the during all that we had special access to employees at bitpay right because
we're in atlanta and we got to get some interesting insights on jihon woo and what's going on and all
this stuff and what i realized at the time is you know and also i think bitpay got a little upset

(11:56):
that we sort of aired some stuff about their customers and stuff like this and they weren't
really happy about that and it pretty much came down to do i want to try to be like this bitcoin
journalist where like it's not really clear if i can make any sort of like this is this might
actually like wreck my opportunities to get into like the bitcoin space is like a career
do I want like to do this like journalist block you know or block time podcast thing

(12:20):
or do I want to actually like have like a real job that can make like I can like live off of so
so it was like really weird because we were like trending number one on reddit and you know trying
to do like a good podcast break news and all this but what I learned is unless you're willing to go
all in on like journalism half-assing journalism is is like it's just gonna make you sad because

(12:44):
you're going to end up censoring yourself unless you're willing to go full in on it so um and you're
not actually going to be able to cover stuff and say what you really want to say so i decided uh
now when i'm doing block time it's obviously lighthearted and it's not like i'm not trying
to like break news or anything it's just like opinion pieces or whatever but it's i learned that

(13:06):
podcasting and doing it correctly is incredibly hard so started doing the conference for recognizing
in that yeah yeah pretty much big fan right um so what i realized is okay i really like this
education stuff so i'm gonna do this on the side and that's when you know tab started tab conference

(13:27):
because you know the conference the the meetup was just getting ridiculously large and also we
were like we need like maybe this is like an opportunity for us to have like invite international
people and have like a really big gathering and we've been doing the conference since 2018
and we're essentially the conference's goal is I've been really upset historically with conference

(13:48):
quality and the mission and goals of conference and like what you actually achieve because
the last thing I want to do is go to a Bitcoin conference and have someone go up on stage tell me
that the price is going to go up or that Bitcoin is a good idea or that we or some sort of emotional
sort of like thing to like get me motivated because it's more like okay we I think Bitcoin
is a good idea I actually think it's better to be a little skeptical of it and like to to grind it

(14:10):
to be, you know, even sharper. I don't want someone to, you know, I don't think we should
have another conference. I think we're missing a conference like scaling Bitcoin where we could
actually talk about tech and try to push Bitcoin in a meaningful way. And that's essentially where
TabComp comes from. And that's where we are now. And really focused on Bitcoin. Now, originally,

(14:33):
we were trying to bring people back into the fold. So we're originally trying to be like,
hey, Bitcoin cash people, come back and understand Bitcoin is like, you're on the wrong side of this fork.
And in 2019, we sort of abandoned that.
We tried that for one year.
And then in 2019, we pretty much started drifting to completely like a Bitcoin thing.

(14:54):
I think we had like one Monero talk in 2019.
And then pretty much after that, it's like pretty much just been all Bitcoin.
Just because Bitcoin, there's so much going on that you came and cover all the cool things going on with it now.
and all the adjacent stuff like Noster and Web of Trust ideas and all this kind of stuff.
So that's where we're at now, trying to run the best high-quality conference possible
with Bitcoin and Bitcoin-adjacent ideas and really just focused on the tech

(15:17):
and not accepting the excuse that you are not technical enough to attend a technical conference
because everyone needs minimal competence to be self-sovereign.
And we really, I truly believe that.
So that is me in five minutes or however long I took.
It would have been less if I hadn't interrupted you so rudely.
So I apologize for that.

(15:38):
No, I do want to point out like tab conf, which I, Carl and I have wanted to go back to it where you guys were invited us to come and MC it.
Was that 2022?
I think that feel right.
Fall of 2022.
I think so.
Yeah.
Like I think 2022, 2023, I think I re-invited you last year.
Maybe or I can't remember.
But yeah, y'all are absolutely awesome.

(16:00):
That was great.
We had such an awesome time there.
I mean, but it is a great conference to go to for non-technical people as well. And the best part
about that is like, if you want to feel like a retard, like you go and you try to participate in
one of those hyper-technical discussions because it will put you right back in your place. And you
remember like, Oh shit, these guys are like, they really know what they're talking about. Like this

(16:22):
was before I even had a podcast too. So like, I'm sure I'd feel even more retarded now, but it's nice.
It's nice to be reminded. And it's a safe space for people who are non-technical as well, which is
nice it's a and there's karaoke usually which is like boom i don't sing but the wife does so you
know yeah i think lucas is coming again this year he usually so one thing that's cool is tab conf is

(16:43):
like i just buy the venue space and then i give it away to people to run their own events so
bit devs usually gets event um the space is open so you know it's like your imagination is your
only like limitation within reason and usually people spin up karaoke chess tournaments poker
or whatever like it's you know a little mini satellite within the venue like happens pretty

(17:07):
organically and i don't i like the idea that things are organized on github everything's
transparent you can't buy your way on stage i think like you know i'm just trying to think like
what would it look like for me to attend the best conference like and that's sort of where i'm coming
from so i love that you guys did i remember one thing that stuck out to me was like you guys did
like a review of everything like where all the money went at the end of the conference like on

(17:30):
stage like in front of everyone right i'm remembering that correctly right yeah we we call
a transparency report so we don't give away like all the financials and we may give more or less
depending on what's going on but uh that year we did like a full like financial like here's here's
all of our financials um i think things might get weird in the future if we end up having paid staff

(17:54):
we currently don't so it's like not a big deal but if we um we might just have like a general like
this is how much we spent for like help kind of bucket in the future if we ever have paid staff
which i'm getting to the point now where i have kids right i have multiple kids i have this full
time job is killing me like i'm working like like crazy and like having full-time help i think in

(18:14):
the future is going to be like probably a real thing i want to need to consider so yeah but i
don't know we'll see it's honestly awesome you made it this far like without that that's like
that's a pretty because it's not like a little like for anyone that hasn't been it's not like
a little like podunk conference like it's like it's a full freaking conference and it's also just
incredibly high signal like they're like the conversations happening there like are really

(18:36):
important and it is a lot of like you know highly technical people like battling it out and people
like me sitting on the sideline holding a microphone and you know getting ready to hand
it to the next person but like it's cool like yeah so something that you missed that's really
cool that we've been doing uh that we did last year so if you don't mind i'll show some some
cool stuff that we're go for it man so so every year is an experiment and we were like hey you

(19:00):
want to experiment with something take it to tab conf before you take it somewhere else you know
that you know whatever is like more i guess is professional or something like this is more like
a like experiment here like have fun with us let's let's do stuff so we did a rotating panel
where someone sets a premise for like 15 minutes and then we have people from the audience

(19:21):
queue up to then be on the panel, make their point, discuss debate, whatever, ask questions,
and then rotate off. And we probably had like 20 people rotate in and off of this panel within
like a 90 minute period. It was really fun. So it's like, if you have a really like important
thing to say and the panel's not talking about it, you get in line, we kick someone off the panel
and then you go up, make your point, next person rotates, et cetera. And this has been really,

(19:46):
really a good idea so that's one thing and obviously i'm moderating so if you are like
going up there and you're not really making a good point or whatever i like kind of all right
it's time for you to get off now um but the other thing is the rapid explainer game show
and this is another way where it's like we don't want to just have talks and panels that are going

(20:08):
of like snooze people to sleep the the idea is to involve more people when when possible and the
the game show explainer is someone goes up and explains a very complicated subject almost
comedically fast within five or six minutes and they have three panelists that are trying to just
consume as much as possible and then we have judges that then make it a game show and then

(20:32):
start quizzing you like contestant a what is a silent payment you know kind of like stuff like
that and the funny part is is andrew polstra if you don't know who he is one of the most technical
competent bitcoiners in the space was up on stage and got asked like a zero knowledge proof question
or something i forget and like totally bombed and it was funny because it's like this guy
he didn't know it we all can like take a breath and be like okay if he didn't freaking understand

(20:57):
it quick we now know like maybe people in bitcoin are just terrible at explaining things so this
game show was to prove like you think you think you can explain you know like you think you can
dance it's to show you like we're terrible at explaining things and if the most competent
people in the space can't understand your elevator pitch in five six minutes then maybe you need to

(21:20):
like think about how to explain this in a better way and the funny part is like the judges have to
be also like as competent as the speaker that goes through it but it's that was so much fun because
you get to rotate three new people and a speaker and judges on every session and you get to do four
of those per hour and that was that was a lot of fun because it's almost like you can get lunch and
just watch the shit show unfold in front of you of like people stumbling around these questions

(21:43):
and everyone's laughing and yeah uh that was a lot of fun and then finally uh because now i'm going
long um the other really cool thing that we're focusing on is freedom comms so freedom communication
You're making me want to get a drink now.
I might get a beer.
I'm going to get one, yeah.
I saw your face and I was like, I need a beer.

(22:04):
So the freedom communication part, which Bitcoin veterans are really into as well,
and I've learned about recently because, oh my gosh, I'm blanking.
anyways I'm blanking on the Bitcoiners name but
introduced me to MeshTastic

(22:25):
and MeshTastic is an open protocol
where you can
not Gary
but Gary's
he's actually coming to TabConf and he
you know might be
involved a little bit with this but
we
I'm killing myself not remembering this person's name

(22:47):
I want to remember it right after this podcast but anyways
we decided to spend like, I think like about 20 or 15 or 20 grand on mesh-tastic hardware.
We bought soldering kits. We bought a bunch of wires, a bunch of plastic cases. And, you know,
and the idea is we had a whole area where like, I think we ended up making like over a hundred
devices or like 200 devices. And like, everyone had like a little mesh-tastic antenna and their

(23:10):
like book bag. And like, people were like, not even needing like wifi or the internet to like
talk to each other at the conference. Like that was really fun. And then it's like, okay, that was
the first year okay how do we take that experiment further this year it's like well maybe now we try
to pass bitcoin messages like partially signed transactions you know over mesh tastic and then
what what does this like do when you have like a really robust network well you have like a really

(23:34):
privacy focused like entry point into the internet before it gets broadcasted through a node which is
really really cool because if you're able to broadcast your transaction through a mesh tastic
device in atlanta and it goes all the way up to nashville tennessee to bitcoin park right and
they're and they broadcast it through their node it's like it linking you know like internet ip

(24:00):
hops and stuff might be easy for isps and working together but tracking that through mesh tastic is
a whole new can of worms and i think that's really really fun especially if you also include
encryption with that i mean it's like we're talking some really really cool stuff right now
So these are like projects that we want to keep continuing and experimenting with throughout the years. And so that's why I say like Bitcoin and Bitcoin adjacent, because some of these things like Noster and MeshTastic don't necessarily apply to Bitcoin directly. But I think it's like really cool as like a tertiary, secondary sort of like enhancement to making the money better. So with that being said, I'm going to grab a beer. I'll be right back.

(24:38):
Do it, do it. And while Tivolo is grabbing a beer, just want to say hello to everybody in the NOSTER only live stream. If you're not watching this on NOSTER right now live, that means you are watching it later on a centralized platform. So you could have been watching this live, but this show only live streams on NOSTER.

(24:59):
so to those who are here thank you for being here i'll even forgive qw and probably derrick i'm not
sure for rude comments but who can say but yeah if you haven't checked out nostr you definitely
should there are a bunch of different clients you can use it doesn't matter you just need to
generate a public private key pair and keep that private key pair safe and sound somewhere and then

(25:21):
you are off and running my friend so watch this show live next time on nostr only uh nostr does
pay me to say this just so you guys know even though it's an open protocol they actually they
pay me so uh this is sponsored by nostr just so everybody knows and by sponsored by nostr i mean
people are sending me zaps right now in bitcoin which is fantastic so thank you guys i appreciate

(25:44):
the zaps each and every one what kind of beard do we think tidwell will have when he comes back
Oh, thank you, Forrest, for the 5,000 sat zap.
That is cheers.
Much appreciated.
I've got to say, I've noticed since more clients turned on in-app live streaming capabilities,

(26:05):
the number of zaps I receive during these live streams has increased quite drastically.
So I think people are probably watching maybe on zap.stream directly right now, maybe on
Primal, maybe on Fountain.
I think they like stealthily just released Noster live streaming there.
Amethyst has it.
I know probably some other clients.

(26:25):
So yeah,
wherever you're watching,
welcome.
And if you're not watching on Noster live,
fuck you.
I'm just kidding guys.
That's,
that's a joke.
Welcome back to it.
What,
what,
what beer did you go with?
What you got there?
Oh,
that's nice.
All right.
Now we're having,
now it's a party.
So sweet,
sweet,
sweet water is,
is a Georgia Atlanta brand.

(26:47):
So trying to support local, you know, I'm from Wisconsin.
So that's why I have to drink Miller Lite and because they're going to sponsor this show someday, but not today, but someday the cool, refreshing taste of a fine Pilsner beer will be filling, filling my pockets with more cool, refreshing fine Pilsner beers.
I can, I hope so anyway.
But you know, you know about this brand, right?

(27:09):
You know about this brand.
Sweet Water 420.
You've heard of it?
Maybe I've heard of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't, I don't know if I've had it actually.
Yeah.
but I do know it.
Is there a follow up there?
Well, it's the most popular, I think, external.
I think it's the most popular beer that's come from Georgia.
Okay.
Like by far.

(27:29):
I think this is like the currently the most popular beer from Georgia
is Sweetwater 420.
So I wasn't sure how wide it spread, if it's an international.
Do luxury beer in Japan at this point, you know, I'm not sure.
You know what I find funny about like,
in Japan and America and like how the trade works. It's like, like kind of like very basic brands

(27:53):
here in the USA or like luxury brands in Japan that goes with like beers also like whiskeys,
right? They're like luxury brands over there. They're super expensive. And the same with like
Japanese whiskeys and Japanese beers like over there it like yeah it like you can you know get a bottle of Japanese find Japanese whiskey like very cheap but you bring it over to America and it like that thing is high end high class I like there is just a racket going on This is like some sort of booze cartel happening

(28:18):
And like, who's paying the price?
It's like, it's us, the little guys.
They're screwing us over with their beer cartel and their whiskey cartel.
I digress.
But yeah, these are things I ponder sometimes.
Who is profiting off that massive spread?
I guess distributors?
I don't know.
you could also say maybe a little bit with cars except american cars going elsewhere besides like

(28:38):
maybe like tesla but like i don't think anyone's like really excited about uh you know like a ford
focus and anywhere but well maybe they are i don't know but you know like i think foreign brands
let's just have the hypothetical that american brands are you know same quality you know for
argument's sake i think there'd be a little bit of like oh you have a beamer mercedes or whatever

(29:01):
you know and uh i don't know maybe it's like everything yeah well on the car side like what
people want like especially in europe is like classic american muscle but the problem is that
like most of those cars are basically like you can't drive them because they're not they're not
eco-friendly enough like you literally like like the engines are too big that you know they use
and it's like god that's i feel bad for europe sometimes like it's just like come on you know

(29:27):
They deserve to taste a little bit more freedom.
You know?
They deserve to taste freedom, period.
Amen.
Yeah, it's looking a little dark over there, but I have faith.
I mean, they've been around for a while.
I mean, from what I'm seeing from my highly curated Twitter feed, apparently you're not allowed to post memes in London or the UK, which sounds a little crazy.

(29:48):
I don't know how true that is, but that is kind of crazy.
Legitimately true.
you can actually you can get in trouble for retweeting an offensive that is sorry offensive
quote quote retweeting or just retweeting that's the real question just retweeting i'm pretty sure
oh because retweeting you just need to make sure in your profile rts don't equal endorsement you

(30:10):
know that you're like that works right that counts it is messed up i'm bringing awareness to the
problem you know well i wonder how many people that's going to push to understand the importance
of anonymity and pseudonymity online.
And that is a really powerful and good thing.
There's this weird thing where I feel like social media,

(30:32):
kind of like the Facebook effect,
where basically it ushered in this era of everybody puts basically,
it's like name, date of birth, all my favorite hobbies,
the street I grew up on,
putting basically all their most personal information
right in their Facebook bio.
More back in the day, I don't know if anyone in our generation
is really even using Facebook in a meaningful way.
these days it's like it's all boomers uh all boomers getting catfished by ai basically but

(30:58):
like that was actually kind of just like such a fucked up thing that we did to people and just to
to normalize that to really normalize like here you just put all of your info out there and also
post your location like wherever you are all the time and granted like that perhaps has led to a
negligible amount of uh physical harm that ends up being done to people but like when something like

(31:21):
that is normalized, it does create a vector, like an attack vector for anyone who does want to do
any harm. Like you can, especially with boomers. I'm like, you guys are, if, I don't know if people
come for the boomers, like we'll know exactly where to find them. It's, and that's a little
bit dark and concerning. So I'm glad that things like Noster exist where you don't have to have
anything, literally anything at all tied to your identity. I think that's a beautiful thing.

(31:42):
Hello friends. You may notice that there are no sponsors for this episode and that is because
this is a pure value for value episode. So if you find this episode valuable, consider giving value
back. You can do that by becoming a paid subscriber on Fountain. You can send me a zap on Noster,
boost on Fountain. Or if you don't feel like doing any of those, one thing you can do that is totally

(32:05):
free is just to share this show with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet so that it
reaches more people. If you are listening on a podcasting app like Apple Podcast, you can also
give this a five-star rating so more people find the show. You can subscribe on YouTube, Rumble,
or wherever else you're watching. But again, I always recommend that Bitcoiners check out Fountain.

(32:26):
You can also go check out the big print audiobook, which I narrated. You also, of course, do not have
to do any of those things. Bitcoin does not care, but I sure do appreciate all of your support.
So thank you.
And it's her voice, but it's not her, you know?

(32:49):
Oh, yeah.
Like, that's going to get bad.
It's going to be bad when your child calls you, and it's not your child.
It's going to be bad when grandma gets a call from me, and it's not me.
Right?
You know, equivalent.
Like, it's, I think it's only going to get worse.
And that, not to show my bags, not to show my bags, but that's why I think Web of Trust

(33:11):
and maybe something with HSMs are part of the solution.
And when I say Web of Trust,
I brought this up just really briefly earlier.
Like, for instance, if we, you know, do a key signing
or, you know, we validate each other, you know,
whatever, our Nostra PubKey is whatever,

(33:32):
and you're getting comms from this Nostra PubKey
that, you know, seems legit,
but you have, you know, Walker's, you know, first level sort of, you know, connection say,
hey, by the way, that's not Walker, Walker anymore. Like, I can have some sort of idea,
like, okay, well, Walker's already said, like, these five or six people like are his close

(33:55):
friends or whatever, like, these people are validating, you know, whatever, or you have,
like, backup accounts that validate that, you know, like, the idea is, like, you meet people
in person, you verify who you're talking to, you build that out slowly over time,
social media posts, videos, pictures, whatever, all can piggyback off this.
Rotating pub keys on Nostra can piggyback off this.

(34:17):
You know, partially signed Bitcoin transaction conditions with Frost and other things can
piggyback off this, you know, as some of the conditional of like, you know, long tail time
lock conditions.
I mean, I think it's part of the solution because I'll tell you, it's becoming commodity.
it's getting in the hands
like that song that you played earlier

(34:38):
like 20 years ago
like making that from AI
would have been like ah whatever
that was a real person right
now it's like
okay yeah that was probably just like some
you paid like 3 bucks for like some tool
to like generate it or like even like less
right anyways
that probably cost me a couple of cents
I mean I don't know I've got like an unlimited membership plan

(34:59):
just so I can generate plenty of you know
90's angst rock songs
Right. But I think it's becoming more commodity. I don't think, you know, I think any sort of idea of like watermarks or whatever aren't going to be necessarily super effective.
But I think, you know, you're going to you're just making a market for private mempools of AI, you know, equivalent, you know, if if everything requires a watermark.

(35:26):
And I think it would be nice to have a more freedom centric sort of approach to verifying what the hell you're looking at makes sense.
And is from essentially, OK, is it like two strings down? Is it three levels down?
Like, is it four levels away from me?
like in terms of like do i have anyone like everyone's like nine you know connections away

(35:47):
from like kevin bacon but like am i do i have any sort of idea of you know how trustworthy this is
in terms of some like you know elo score um so i think it's important we're going to be doing this
uh it doesn't stand for shit as far as i understand it's just the measurement of
chess like you know when you're playing chess and you have like a rating oh okay so you gotta say

(36:11):
is for non like expert autist chess players like i'm just like a normal chess player so you know
excuse me wow i'm really outing myself as a big dumb idiot aren't i jeez well i mean i don't know
what elo stands for maybe it does stand for something but i don't think it stands for
anything but okay but what i'm trying to say is like i don't want to use the word credit score or
credit rating because i think that gets into like a weird space and i just want something where

(36:34):
it's it's just like can i understand you know what i'm looking at with some sort of guarantees
as things become more commodity in terms of, you know, fake videos, pictures, transactions,
phone calls, etc.
And I really like the idea of, you know, piggybacking off Nostra ideas like with PubKey.

(36:54):
I like the idea of building that out and making that useful for other things outside of Nostra
as well.
So these are all things I want to experiment with with TabConf.
So that's me pushing my bags again where it's like I'm looking for people hungry that
want to like start this project with me that's recurring that has an annual sort of like in-person
meeting essentially and like tab conf can help like spot like like find funding tab conf can help

(37:21):
like you know find people interested and like can help like be this thing to help motivated people
stay engaged on various projects that are important um for the conference and bitcoin and you know
people who care about this stuff so anyway sorry i'm done pumping my bags i'm ready to talk about
random news or whatever so no i mean honestly i love it and people should check out i i wish we

(37:45):
could go this year we're not going to be uh uh in the country at that time but we will be there in
spirit uh pumping your bags for you but yeah so there's there's i don't know what what do you want
to talk about i i purposely prepared very little for this i was like i'm not preparing for for
tidwell i'm just going to go in there and raw dog it so like i guess you know maybe a good place to
start is, is it true that you hate Bitcoin and want it to die?

(38:10):
Yes, but, but, yes, but, but let me explain.
Came at you hot there.
Yeah.
So here's the thing, which we can take it there if you want, but I would love if we could
talk about what is Bitcoin, because I think that's like a dumb question.

(38:33):
that needs to be revisited every few years
because I think we're getting to that point now
where people are starting getting their feathers ruffled.
And I think it really comes from a place
where you got into Bitcoin
without fully understanding what Bitcoin was.
And now that something is happening
that sort of disenchants you

(38:54):
from like your idea of what Bitcoin was,
you're like, oh, Bitcoin's broken
or we need to like fix Bitcoin.
It's like, well, if you thought Bitcoin
was this in the first place,
you wouldn't actually be upset right now.
So I guess we need to talk about what is Bitcoin,
and maybe you can start.
So Tidwell, tell me, what is Bitcoin?

(39:18):
Perfect. You're perfect.
You just throw it right back at me.
Um, so I am, I'm sort of, uh, of the principles of Bitcoin uncensored originally, um, where, where a lot of my original sort of ideas of what Bitcoin really is comes from that.

(39:40):
this is where
and then I will go a little bit more
nuance where I
pretty much am
maybe on my own
you know out to the edge of
thinking I do want
to caveat this with saying that if you
really push people
to explain what Bitcoin is and what they want to use it for

(40:01):
and ideals behind it
and philosophy I think
what people will find is many
people are out on little
islands of thought that are sort of independent. Like we all, we are all on the main channel,
but we sort of diverge slightly on subtle things here and there. And a lot of us have unique

(40:23):
perspectives on what Bitcoin is and what makes Bitcoin, you know, endangered to, you know,
being destroyed or what, what is a boogeyman of Bitcoin or, you know, stuff like this.
my opinion is pretty radical i would say i'm of the opinion where bitcoin can survive ebbs and
flows of terrible situations of censorship centralization and actually come on the other

(40:49):
out of it and on the other side of it still as a usable system that can course correct and become
more of a freedom money and freedom data ledger.
So I think it's sort of this really fascinating technology
that can actually be co-opted and be corrupted and recover
because of the proof of work essentially

(41:10):
and because of the people incentivized to be good stewards of the network.
So I'm even of the opinion where if something really bizarre happens
and there only becomes one mining pool,
that Bitcoin could survive that pretty easily,
even though that would be like a doomsday situation
for a lot of people
if mining was completely centralized.

(41:32):
I actually, because I truly believe
in the game theory this strongly,
I think that it would even get to the point
where that miner would be incentivized
to be a good steward
because the ultimate thing that people can do
is vote with their feet
and vote with their nodes
via this crazy idea of a UASF,
which I don't think is a good idea, but it is a nuclear option for absolutely terrible situations.

(41:59):
And I think ultimately the pleb move that is measurable, not just running a node,
which in my opinion is a unknown variable of impact, the measurable impact that is deterministic,
however small or however big, is voting with your feet. You sell your coins.
So because of these sort of primitive ideas that I truly believe in and I think are very strong and keep everyone accountable, I think Bitcoin is a very robust system and actually why I'm involved in it.

(42:29):
And I actually spent my first eight months of Bitcoin being an antagonist and actually thinking Bitcoin was a terrible idea, trying to prove that it was a bad idea.
Unfortunately, it cost me a fortune during that time trying to prove it was a bad idea.
But in the process of doing so, I was able to address all my concerns with it.

(42:50):
So I feel like I've already went down all the paths of dystopian sort of scenarios, and I've actually been okay with all of them.
Whether people think that's fortunate or unfortunate, I think this is, you know, my own thing.
Now, this is also where if we want to get into like some nuance, Craig Maxwell and I actually disagree on a few things.

(43:14):
And the most interesting thing, and I point to Craig Maxwell because I consider him to be one of the most competent Bitcoin developers and that I respect.
So I think it's important to be like, where do I actually diverge with, we'll say, typical core thinking or typical Bitcoin technical thinking, right?
At least to some facet of it.

(43:35):
And it gets to the point where, okay, if Bitcoin Cash hypothetically got more proof of work than Bitcoin, my opinion is that actually becomes Bitcoin.
And the reason for that is because if I go into a coma for 20 years and I wake up, I can very easily look at one metric to know what's going on, which is which chain has the most proof of work, cumulative proof of work.

(44:02):
And if I see that the current chain with the most proof of work going on, the most miners that support it, the most energy being pumped into it is this thing, then that is, you know, people are calling it Bitcoin, even if it completely disagrees with prior consensus rules or relay rules or whatever the hell, or even maybe even like some various principles of Bitcoin that I don't agree with, that is still whatever the community decides is Bitcoin.

(44:27):
and that's how we sort of have this super dry source of truth for what Bitcoin is.
Now, whether or not Bitcoin is interesting, I think is to be determined,
but I think it's very interesting to be able to understand
that this is the chain with the most proof of work that people are calling Bitcoin.
So therefore, it's very easy for me to understand what Bitcoin is

(44:50):
without being Sybil-detect with various implementations
and amounts of nodes and stuff like this.
So that is sort of my, and by the way, that's where Greg and I split.
Greg is actually of the opinion.
It's not what most proof of work says.
It's what the actual notes say.
But anyways, this is my opinion of what Bitcoin is and how I feel about it.

(45:15):
Your turn.
I did want to ask for one clarification.
Is it fair to say the way that you would determine Bitcoin then is on a,
like you're looking at the economic rationale.
Now you're looking to say like, this is what it has, because ultimately that's what it comes down to when it comes to most miners, like, like that's most power going into most energy going into it. That is all like, those are all economic forces at the end of the day. Like when you boil them down. Right.

(45:38):
Yeah. And funny enough, you can almost say that abstractly given like efficient markets, that all you have to do is see which coin has the most market cap. And if you really want to be a layman about it. So which coin has the most market cap? You know, granted that you're incentivizing proof of work to be pumped into it.
you know granted those two things you know it's not like bizarre where miners are purposely mining

(46:03):
at a loss or something like granted miners are doing what's in their best interest like the coin
with the most money has the most people that voted with their feet has the most people that are
supporting it has the most businesses behind it has the most plebs buying it like whatever like
cumulative maybe one of those things is wrong but like in culmination you can almost just look at

(46:23):
the market cap to understand this thing which then really pisses people off because they're like
that's not what bitcoin is because it's so much more complicated that but i'd like to say like
well is it you know because if you can abstract these things out to what they actually result in
then and that result is very easy and easy to understand then maybe we're wasting our time

(46:44):
talking about what bitcoin is and let's just start building shit so boom boom i like i like that uh
boom goes the dynamite. I think that it's a very fair point because it's easy to get distracted.
And what I've realized with these recent rather contentious debates that I've seen, and full
disclosure, I am not a highly technical person. I have studied Bitcoin quite a lot. I do have some

(47:08):
basic technical chops, but nothing like on your level or certainly not on the level of anyone who
is actually developing on Bitcoin. Very obviously so. But one of the things that seems to be really
clear to me is that people don't understand like what would actually happen in a fork scenario
and like how that like what really matters is who sells their coins and who doesn't like that that

(47:33):
that that is actually like what matters that people don't seem to understand the concept of
economic nodes and like what that means and i get that that's like confusing for people
but like it does all come down ultimately to economic energy and where that is being pushed
and like there's a reason that bitcoin cash is worth i don't know what is it worth now like a
couple hundred bucks like something like that i haven't looked in a while like it's it's worth

(47:56):
next to nothing it's worth orders of magnitude less than bitcoin real bitcoin because people
sold their when it forked they sold their bitcoin cash and they bought more bitcoin with it and that
like that's what happened and so and i feel that there's a bit of a disconnect there and for for me
to answer the question just so i don't seem that i'm skirting it i think bitcoin is money and a

(48:19):
network and a ledger and you can define like ledger can be defined how you want if you want to define
a letter as like a ledger is you know it's a distributed distributed ledger it's distributed
database whatever you want to say but like that's what it is it's a to me it's a multi-faceted thing
i i think that though ultimately you have a good characterization of it because what you're saying
is yeah you can like you can call it whatever names you want but ultimately like what bitcoin is

(48:41):
is whatever has the most economic energy behind it.
You don't even have to worry about giving it a name,
like naming the beast.
It's just like it is what it is.
I guess it's like, what is a woman?
Someone who identifies as a woman.
So it's like, what is Bitcoin?
It's like, oh, whatever chain identifies as Bitcoin.
And it also has the most economic energy.

(49:02):
Fair?
That part's important.
Yeah, it's like, what is Bitcoin?
Well, I would like to caveat that.
yeah that um
bitcoin's name may change um so i'm i'm am talking about um i mean this this does get into

(49:25):
the gray space where i want it's going to seem like i'm backpedaling but this is with the
assumption that things things don't get weird where you have a chain that's still using shaw
2v6 and then a new chain that's using like shaw 512 or you know shaw 3 or something this is this
is a situation i want to i want to sort of box this in where you are looking at the chain with

(49:47):
the most shaw 2v6 proof of work so obviously that comes with i mean this is like a completely new
sort of conversation if you want to take it outside of that but i'm boxing myself in to that
right yeah if that makes sense no no it it absolutely does i mean well i kind of box
yourself to that then it gets we start getting like you know it starts getting it becomes a

(50:09):
more complicated answer i'll just put it that way well you know can i can i ask like in in what
scenario like let's step it step outside that box for a second we can return to the box but
in what scenario do does that outside the box situation present itself like so how do we get
there so going back to the the coma idea i wake up 20 years in a coma there's this uh project

(50:34):
that's still using the same ledger as my old, you know,
because right before I went into the coma,
I was running version 30 of Bitcoin, which was malware.
That actually took down half the internet
and actually something fell on my head from the cataclysm.
And that's actually why I was in the coma in the first place.
And I wake up, we're on version like, I don't know,

(50:57):
not much progress has been made.
Like half the world's population has died at this point.
So we're probably at version like 32 in 20 years.
Like, you know, so 20 years, this is going to be 2046.
We're in version 32 of Bitcoin and there's a SHA-2v6, you know, chain with the most work.

(51:19):
However, there is now something that everyone is telling me is Bitcoin that's using SHA-3.
and now i have a weird decision to make because it's okay like well how do i know how much energy
is being put into this versus this because they're different hashing algorithms how do i know what
asics advancements you know how do i know like how much energy is being put into this versus that

(51:42):
when everyone's using the same hashing algorithm you sort of level set where you sort of have this
abstraction of knowing how energy you know knowing this general idea of energy roughly speaking i
I mean, obviously, there's caveats to all this stuff, but, you know, granted on energy price and costs and stuff like this, but you sort of have general ideas.
If it's a different hashing algorithm, you sort of almost can't easily compare these things, at least not unless you're really technical, which at the point of this sort of technicality, I wouldn't know anything.

(52:10):
I would have to, like, rely on experts or, you know, at that point, you know, 40 years or 20 years from now, maybe chat GPT can just tell me.
He'll actually give me good answers.
um but we're we're talking about a situation where like some crazy stuff happens and there's
like a new mining algorithm and you don't really you weren't there to like understand the situation

(52:31):
when it happened kind of thing so okay fair enough yeah so getting back inside of our box um
i don't know how much you want to get into the the debate du jour you let me know because i can
take this in a bunch of other directions too so like you let me know what you're feeling man
dude let's let's go let's go hard let's do it all right okay so i feel like there's just a lot of

(52:55):
people acting really retarded uh all over the place probably myself included i'm not gonna
exclude myself from the retardation i'm right there with everyone else but it feels like a lot
of talking people talking past each other a lot of people making straw man arguments um and i'm
not talking about one side or another specifically here i'm just talking about generally right uh

(53:17):
And man, it also just seems like a lot of people misrepresenting what is under their control and what is not.
And I'm just kind of curious where you're sitting right now on all of this, because I published an episode with Jameson Lobb today.

(53:37):
And boy, the comments on YouTube are fascinating, really, really fascinating.
And I'm realizing I'm like, even at my like non-technical level, I'm like, well, you just like you said something that's just like really obviously not true or not the case or just like the biggest straw man I've ever seen that actually has no meaningful impact.
And so like, I don't know.

(54:00):
Is this is this actually a big deal?
Does this actually like we're not talking?
First of all, we're not talking about a consensus change right now that like a protocol change.
We should probably clear that up right off the bat, like that.
That's where we're at.
But like, what is the state of things right now?
Is this, you've been around a lot longer than I have.
Is this even like a bad debate right now?
Or is this just kind of like Bitcoiners being bored with sideways price action and needing something to bitch each other about?

(54:25):
I want to send you a tweet I made that sort of sums up the situation.
I just send this to you.
Is that cool?
Yeah, man.
You can share it too if you want.
I'm just going to send this
I'm just going to send this to you
right here on Twitter

(54:46):
but this is sort of
my take
and I can read it
unless you want to
put it up there but
if
that's right up there too
I actually
actually sent you the wrong tweet.

(55:10):
This is awkward.
Well, this one actually maybe does the trick too,
but that's not the tweet I wanted to send you actually.
This is awkward.
Get it together, man.
I know, I know, I know.
Here we go.
I was quote tweeting Reindell when I made this.

(55:32):
There's so much quote tweeting going on these days in the Bitcoin space.
Wow, it's just like...
There we go.
It was a quote tweet.
It's a quote tweet.
I'll pull it up on the old share screen.
So, Reindell says,
sounds like you need to reject blocks with arbitrary data.
I quote tweet saying,
until this, this is the biggest nothing burger

(55:55):
in the history of nothing burgers.
I believe the logical next step
are get not nodes to a super majority
and UASF reject blocks.
Not sure if that's part of their official public roadmap.
So in other words this is going to have absolutely no impact until this happens Now a lot of people are going to disagree with me especially people on the not side of things but this is also a superpower right But I want to caveat it

(56:27):
An economic node versus a non-economic node, the difference is almost night and day.
So if you have a lot of economic nodes, you ASF, you have major disruption and the people are having their voices heard through these economic nodes.
You start having weird things happen.
with UASF.
Okay.

(56:48):
By the way,
if anyone says that UASF has ever happened,
they're wrong.
This is where Giacomo and I split ways, right?
This is where me and Aaron Von Weirdum split ways,
although I do love his book,
The Genesis Block.
Make sure to check it out.
It is the best piece of literature in the space.
But this is where Aaron and Giacomo

(57:09):
and those types and me, we split.
We have never done a UASF.
We have always threatened a UASF.
We have actually never pulled the trigger on it.
Now we have run node implementations that would have UASF under certain conditions.
Sure.
But it never triggered.
It's not UASF.
UASF is going to be the plebs nuclear bomb.

(57:31):
And I don't know what that looks like.
I think that is like the last experiment in Bitcoin that we've never done.
So we've done forks.
When Bitcoin cash happened, that was like the big like, okay, what happens?
Do people sell their site?
Does game theory work?
What happens?
This is the last thing that I can think of that we haven't done yet that is the experiment of Bitcoin.

(57:54):
We've tested all the game theory of Bitcoin, more or less.
More or less.
I mean, there are some things you can arguably say that we haven't tested out yet.
But the UASF stuff, we haven't tested.
So, yes, I think Bitcoin will be fine.
At the end of the day, it doesn't actually matter.
Don't sell your coins.
Just see what happens.
wait for the you know dust to settle whatever don't don't try to be a hero and make an extra

(58:15):
you know 100 if it means you're gonna actually lose 100 like just whatever like no need to be
a gambler but you know eventually you can make that decision and it's less controversial in your
opinion or whatever like let someone else take the beach you know but but like this we we haven't

(58:37):
seen what a uasf looks like now what would happen to a uasf that is also minority economic like i
think they just essentially fork themselves off the network but we just we've never done this
before right um now if you do eventually start rejecting blocks and uasf like uh it's going to

(58:59):
depend like what does coinbase do what does kraken do what does you know financial institutions do
what do whales do do you know like what happens right like who who supports what and i it this is
how bitcoin works so we'll see um now luckily historically whenever there has been some sort
of contention there hasn't been a uasf there's been people who have forked themselves off with

(59:21):
a new port with a new uh you know repo with a new you know like this is like like you know new
like the networks weren't trying to like fuck each other you know the networks were disparate
right the only thing that you really looked at was like okay bitcoin cash versus bitcoin price you
know you got to see but they're like different networks different nodes etc like obviously

(59:44):
coming from the same sort of parent source of truth so you got you know a split of the utxos
but the split was more or less clean more or less like compared to a uasf would be um so
So that's like a little confusing, I think, for a lot of people, because like, isn't the general assumption or the general conclusion like, yes, we did have a user activated soft fork.

(01:00:05):
Oh, yeah. Like it's totally it's totally like people like Giacomo and Aaron Von Weirdum will say that.
Yeah. So this is why it's so confusing, because we definitely did not.
We threatened a UASF, but we actually never went through with it.
We held Barry Silbert and we held the New York Agreement accountable for their misdeeds and corruption and malice.

(01:00:28):
So we didn't have to do it.
And Barry Silbert was like, oh, shit, y'all are crazy.
I'm not going to do this.
You're like, let's back up a step, you know?
So, like, we didn't do the UASF, right?
We made the hats.
We made the hats for the UASF.
That's the main tangible thing that we did for UASF is we wore hats, right?
Cool hats.

(01:00:48):
Yeah.
I mean, that's how Bitcoin politics actually works.
You have to make a hat.
Make sure to check out shop.satoshisettlers.com to buy your hat for your preference.
We've got to talk about Satoshi Settlers also at some point in this because I just logged in there and I have questions.
But we'll talk about that later.

(01:01:09):
I have questions.
um okay so can can we maybe also just like since we're in the interest of uh asking like some some
very seemingly basic questions but ones that apparently need to be asked can you just explain
what is an economic node for people that may be uh may be still confused by that concept
and what why that matters because i think there's like a huge misunderstanding on this

(01:01:34):
yeah and i hope i don't mischaracterize an economic node because this is actually where
these are things I never really even cared about because um I'm more of a proof of work sort of
maximalist but if we needed to get into definitions I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to do a good
job now I will tell you what I think they are it's just pretty much anyone that is doing anything

(01:01:54):
meaningful where they have a service they have an exchange they have a wallet they have like some
sort of like maybe like a custodial what anything that's like their node actually makes a difference
on user experience and like accepting payments.
You could almost, in my opinion,
and this is granted,
someone's going to say like,
that's not an economic node or whatever.

(01:02:15):
My sort of layman's opinion is
how much financial volume are you processing
with that node sort of helping you facilitate
those receives or payments or whatever,
or user experiences for people.
So that's how I kind of, you know,
define the economic node to myself.
So if you're running a node that is just kind of sitting in your house, that is, you know, a node that, you know, isn't backed up to like a BTC pay server where you have like a web shop, you know, where you're selling hats, then it's not an economic node.

(01:02:52):
Right.
That's sort of how I'm defining it personally.
I don't know actually what the definition is.
yeah well the other characterization that i would put in there because i think part of it is about
like actual volume passing through that node obviously the other part is just like honestly
like bag size to a certain extent because like and that's at a like a less technical level just
because it's like again if there is a fork so like you're gonna sell one chain and buy the other

(01:03:18):
eventually right like you're you're gonna move and or maybe and you're right like if that does
happen you should wait uh like but like that's another kind of thing that i would put on top the
economic node definition is just like it matters if you have like just because you have a lot of
coins doesn't mean you control bitcoin but it does matter in the like you can't control bitcoin
but in the case of a fork where you decide to keep your economic energy and where you decide

(01:03:43):
to sell it that does make a difference like that that does move the needle in terms of that market
cap metric and that's like a thing people miss i also have this i kind of like wonder like once
when i see things getting contentious i'm like are a bunch of ogs just like kind of itching for
a fork because they wouldn't mind you know a chance to sell a bunch of forked coins again like
is this just a big gambit to try and get you know make things contentious enough get a fork and then

(01:04:08):
be able to dump a bunch of forked coins and buy more like actual bitcoin i don't know maybe i'm
too conspiratorial i don't know so i made a tweet a while back when this first all got started and i
was sort of joking because at that point it was just pretty much mechanic yelling out to the void
before he got this huge rally behind him, honestly.

(01:04:30):
I have to give it to him.
He's great at getting people aware of a situation
that he is concerned about.
For sure.
He is so good at that.
Honestly, if this was going to kill Bitcoin,
you would want people like Mechanic doing stuff like this.
This is great.

(01:04:50):
Arguably speaking, it's good that we're freaking out
over something, in my opinion, that's not very harmful.
So we're kind of like making sure people know that they have this power in case core does sort of misbehave and we actually need to fire core.
I actually think this is good that people know that they have some sort of idea of what does it look like to hold developers accountable.
Now, I'm glad we're testing it without it needing to be done, but I hope this doesn't delegitimize it later on when we actually do need it, if and when.

(01:05:17):
so um sorry the original question uh uh the
jesus i'm like losing my mind the original question well you you kind of you address
the economic note question uh this is more about like whether or not this is just ogs playing
playing games you know to try and get some forked coins which is just me being conspiratorial we

(01:05:40):
don't even have to address it necessarily i don't even think i even somewhat answered your question
I was going to somehow turn around to answer this question and I didn't even like that train of thought was going to like come here and I like stopped about right there.
So, yeah, I don't I don't think there is.
Yeah, I don't think there's like a.

(01:06:00):
Oh, I remember where I was going to take this now.
So what I was going to say was so I don't think it's a conspiracy, but I think Bitcoin naturally.
And I don't know if this is the case.
this is just a prediction i have very little amount i have very few data points on this
but i almost wonder if like every x amount of years there just needs to be a churn

(01:06:25):
where people get radically like dunked into cold water on what bitcoin is
and like their perception of bitcoin like just needs to be like completely obliterated and their
mind just needs to melt um and if this is just one of those events now i want to make sure it's

(01:06:45):
understood i think luke and i've talked to luke extensively i've talked to chris guida extensively
i've talked to people like matt hill extensively i feel like i understand their point of views i've
never had the chance to talk to mechanic um but luke dash jr is very consistent when it's just
me and helm talking about this really drilling into the specifics i have a lot of respect for

(01:07:09):
luke because of its consistency long form luke uh there was a joke long form luke is way better
than short than than than liar luke or you know like the short response luke like long form luke
is good and i think uh uh i love bitcoin plus plus but i think like bitcoin plus plus did did
no service to help this conversation at all and luke wasn't really given opportunity to to actually

(01:07:33):
speak his mind on what he actually believes. I think very few people share, this goes back to,
we're all sort of on the main channel, not score included. And we all sort of kind of deviate out
at the further out you go, right? There is no normal, depending on how far out in that channel
you go, we're all going to have different opinions. And Luke's opinion is very interesting.

(01:07:54):
And I think is very unique. I think there's a lot of cargo cult thinking where people think that
they have the same ideas as Luke and they definitely do not.
Luke is actually,
me and him actually have a ton of overlap.
He's very consistent and addresses a lot of the things that I bring up to him
about inconsistencies that make that seem like they're inconsistent on Twitter.

(01:08:20):
But anywho,
I,
I have a,
you know,
so I don't think it's a conspiracy.
I think this might just be a natural churn.
This is a,
this is a theory.
um like you know we had the you know obviously with bitcoin cash and roger veer and you know
losing mike hern and greg you know um uh we had we had a previous churn and before that we might

(01:08:44):
have another churn with gavin andreason or something i don't know maybe that's still part
of the roger veer churn but you know maybe it's like every eight years we have to you know we have
to have our minds melted and it's just like you know we talk about the havings having happening
every four years maybe it's like you know there's like a mind melt activity every two havings or

(01:09:04):
something um so you know now with that being said i do want to say i have a lot of respect for the
passion and the philosophy and the ideas behind a lot of people that subscribe to the knots camp
right but i think the problem is they think they're in a camp right i just said they're in a

(01:09:27):
camp. But really, the way I see it is unless they're willing to reject the block, we're all
on the same team. And they actually, you know, we're actually just all Bitcoiners, whether they
think there's, you know, this core knots debate or not. Your relay policy doesn't make you a
different Bitcoiner, right? Your consensus policy mainly does. So you can have all the philosophy

(01:09:48):
you want, that makes you a Bitcoiner. Guess what, you're not going to have the same philosophy
as me, that's okay, we have the same consensus rules. Your relay policy doesn't make you an
a different camp than me, even though, you know, we're sort of dividing it out that way.
And it's been pretty contentious.
So, um, yeah, I'm just kind of brain dumping on you, but.
No, I'm, I'm glad you said that.
Cause I think that's one of the biggest things that I've tried to, tried to get a, get across

(01:10:12):
is that it's like, you're it's, it's Bitcoiners, you know, arguing with Bitcoiners right now.
And that's good.
That's part of this immune response, right?
That, as you mentioned, it kind of this, like this, this churn, like this keeps us, keeps
us vigilant and on our toes and making sure that when a, a real existential external threat
does emerge that we are able to just attack that thing. Right. But people seem to be forgetting

(01:10:33):
that it's like, we're not talking about a consensus change here. We're not talking about
a protocol level change. We're talking about a, like a mempool policy change. And then I've seen
this conversation just seemingly, and I stayed out of it for a while just because I was like,
this is, you know, nothing productive is happening here. I'm just going to stay out of it. And then,
you know, just more recently, I like decided just to kind of start poking in there with memes. And

(01:10:58):
that was a mistake. I guess people forgot that I'm a bit of a court jester at heart and that I like
to laugh. And if you can't laugh, that's, you know, other people are going to laugh at you.
And then those people would say, well, I guess you just want to exploit children on the blockchain.
And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all, I've heard this one before. I've heard this
exact one before. Where have I heard this before? Oh, that's right. The fucking government.

(01:11:21):
this is literally like the government's playbook like are you kidding me second of all i've
literally heard this one from bitcoiners before myself included before i understood how like
things worked a little bit better back when uh inscriptions were popping off like this this
exact same thing was talked about at that point too people are going to put god only knows what
awful thing in the blockchain it's like some of that probably already exists out there heinous we

(01:11:45):
all like nobody wants that first of all nobody wants that like unless you are a sick twisted
fuck you don't want that and even the sick twisted fucks probably want to keep that shit offline
like because like why would you post something i mean i don't know but why would you post something
like a public like public blockchain that just seems just seems dumb like you already talked
earlier about like ip address tracing and stuff like that shit could probably be traced back to

(01:12:09):
you buddy and so like it just feels like we've moved goalposts constantly in terms of like this
is what the biggest threat to Bitcoin is. And like if core V30 is released, it's going to be
flooded with disgusting images. And you want to keep that on your node because the FBI are going
to knock at your door and kick it in and you're going to go to jail and everybody's going to hate

(01:12:29):
you and Bitcoin will be dead and it's all your fault. And that's what it feels like we got to
that really fast from just like where it started, which was, Hey, you know what? I kind of don't
appreciate like this particular core upgrade. And it feels like core isn't really listening to the,
what its users are saying. That's a legitimate, like a legitimate grievance, right? Sure.

(01:12:49):
Absolutely. But it went really fast from there to like, if you run Bitcoin core,
you are a child predator and want Bitcoin to die. Like, and that's just not, that's just not true.
First of all. And second of all, you running knots isn't, it's like, yeah, oh, we would, you know,
you put a fence up around your house. So to stop people from getting in, it won't stop them all,

(01:13:12):
but it'll stop a lot of them like yeah but except it that's not really the point is it because all
it takes is one well if you take your argument to like it's just it's all sorry for ranting
these analogies are so frustrating because it's like if anyone in the entire world has anyone hop
their fence your fence is useless and it's like it's like which fence how does this analogy make

(01:13:38):
sense when every fence is somehow parallel it's like the the the joke i tell people in response
to this is like is like imagine you have a solicitor at your door and then you like say
who the fuck is this you slam the door and then you turn around he's having like dinner with your
wife it's like that's how you think like this is what's happening and i'm like obviously then it

(01:14:00):
becomes a joke about them being a cuck but you know i i don't want to call people cucks even as
a joke because it's like dude you realize this is so stupid like like uh like like if you want
to come up with analogy we can come up with analogy but at least make one that makes sense
where it's just like you know like i like i like guy swan a lot but he he was like one of the people

(01:14:23):
that really liked this fence analogy and i was just like it's like it doesn't make any sense
yeah i i i also like guy a lot he's one of my favorite people yeah like this is the beauty of
To your point, you don't have to agree with everyone on everything.
Exactly.
That's okay.
Guy Swan and I will probably forever be friends in Bitcoin.

(01:14:43):
I highly disagree with them.
But also, who cares?
You can disagree with people on this.
It doesn't need to get weird.
It's getting, last week, between now and a few days ago, it's getting weird.
And I just sent you a tweet to your DMs.
And I think Justine Harper sort of sums this up pretty easily for everyone.

(01:15:03):
And I think it's like a very like this is pretty much the summary of what's going on.
I think Justine nailed it.
So I'm sharing that tweet with you.
I don't know if you want to pull it up, but that is that's my take.
You're muted, by the way.
I don't know if you're talking to me, but I sure was.
Sorry, I could I could hear my little guy making some noise downstairs.

(01:15:27):
I'm making a lot of noise downstairs.
So, so, yeah, you know that game.
all right i'm gonna go ahead and now i hear my dog going off man it's it's all going crazy
the good part is i can't hear anything everything sounds really good so thank goodness for these
fantastic mics okay okay so oops i went went went to the wrong one i was i've been dude i've been on

(01:15:52):
such a uh such a where the heck did it go i lost it now i'm gonna find it again i've been on such
a kick of bookmarking and saving and screenshotting so many tweets just to later remind people of the
links that they went to do you ever bookmark within twitter or do you like bookmark in the

(01:16:14):
browser what do you oh no no i bookmark i bookmark uh within uh within twitter okay yeah yeah you have
like custom bookmark labels and stuff yeah i'm i mean and like most of the time i don't even
like go back to them um okay let's go to here there you go can you see that now

(01:16:34):
yeah is that on justine's okay this is this is when um this guy who i just learned about this
year matthew crater um who apparently runs a university some education thing he has a youtube
channel yeah yeah and apparently has onboarded people into bitcoin so i assume he's done good

(01:16:58):
work to be famous but uh yeah i'll read this like in this direction yeah yeah for uh so basically
crowder says for anyone that's listening after the fact is bitcoin core v30 a nation state level
attack on bitcoin that forces bitcoin node runners to host and distribute child prawn

(01:17:18):
extremely disturbing quote tweeting a mechanic uh saying that you know uh let's see there's no
context in which you would let random anonymous strangers host 100 kilobytes files in your
computer uh uh ringdale says sounds like you need to reject blocks with arbitrary data
cratter says his taproot wizards enabled some of those cp inscriptions founders board executives

(01:17:40):
and even employees could face criminal prosecution for that justine harper responds with you guys are
really becoming unhinged in a way I didn't think was possible, which, yeah.
I think that's really it.
I mean, this is just becoming where it was, where the entirety of Knott's folks were like,

(01:18:05):
okay, you're all passionate.
You want your voice to be heard.
You think this is an attack on Bitcoin.
this might set a precedence that signals to bad things in the future.
And I can sympathize with that.
I can get it, even if there's no technical merit or technical reason for,
or there's no technical harm that will happen.

(01:18:26):
You're saying that this is a cultural sort of shift,
and it sets a bad precedence, and it's not good for the overall health
that is hard to measure going forward into the future, whatever.
Okay, I can sympathize with that, whatever.
But then it gets to this and you're just like, wait, what?
Like, first off, this has nothing to do like with off return.

(01:18:49):
You're bringing in a completely new idea to sort of like, is it because that the conversations have dried up and you've run out of ideas?
Is it because you're getting desperate for some reason for relevance?
and and and it's like anything that mechanic sort of talks about now it's like it kind of trickles
down to like four or five people that then sort of amplify it like what in the hell is going on

(01:19:15):
like this is sort of like insane to me so
yeah i think people and i would hate to i would hate to um
like just be wrong about this because i don't know what's going on but like it just seems
like people are out for some sort of like relevance but i don't i don't want to i don't

(01:19:40):
want to like assume that's the case i want to assume that everything is genuine and like they're
on the up and up and they actually really truly believe this but it's hard for me to like to think
that someone who potentially has thought really deeply about bitcoin would actually use this as a
serious talking point so that's the part where it gets really weird i i hear you and it's like
Because again, you know, the second you start dismissing stuff, then you're just a courtard who thinks he's better than everyone else and won't listen to the things that the plebs are saying.

(01:20:06):
And I think that like the, I mean, there's a couple of points here.
One is that like, you're right that it's completely missing the point of kind of the, like what the argument is, right?
Like we're not even talking about the same thing anymore.
And I understand completely where people are coming from and why they would get riled up about one feeling as though their voices are somehow not heard when it comes to development that happens.

(01:20:34):
I can understand why that would would rile somebody up.
I can understand why it would rile somebody up.
The thought of people putting disgusting images of children anywhere like that.
I think as anyone who is a dad, especially, yeah, that riles you up, makes you sick to your stomach and makes you want to like, you know, it makes you really glad that those kind of people get the ever loving shit kicked out of them when they get into prison.

(01:20:56):
Like rightly so, like you should, they should be, well, I don't know if I can say this because later it might go up on YouTube, but they should have horrible, horrible, horrible things done to them.
And they should never walk free again.
I think everyone's on that same page unless you are one of those sick fucks, right?
I don't think that anyone, okay, not the vast majority of people, the people that are arguing

(01:21:19):
back and forth with each other, neither of them want Bitcoin to be full of monkey JPEGs, right?
And that's where this all started. It started with monkey JPEGs and now it's like, you want
pictures of children up there. And it's like, nope, nope, I don't think any of us want that.
The question is not that, none of us want that. The question is whether or not what you're proposing
actually works in any meaningful way and like this is how i first waded into this conversation

(01:21:43):
was it made one mean being like you know how do filters work and like that's and i was like that's
the neat part they don't and people i didn't realize how pissed off everyone was until everyone
came after me and they're like i think didn't know you were a big dumb retard fuck like i think i i
think i liked that post by the way i thought that was really funny i thought it was a great mean
yeah i mean it's really funny yeah yeah it's it's it's it's a shame but i mean

(01:22:08):
is the it's a shame it's a shame it's a shame that the rational view is the most criticized
uh right now so anyways and well yeah i mean what are you gonna say what i well i was just curious
like just based on your tweet earlier is where this ends up going that like because not not

(01:22:30):
doesn't actually do anything unless you have a critical mass, right? Like there's no way the
Nots node runners actually have any impact whatsoever in any meaningful way besides
keeping that filth off my node, which like, great, run whatever you want. I don't care.
But like, you know, to characterize people who are running a different software than you

(01:22:50):
as enabling horrible, disgusting exploitation of children is really dishonest and just frankly
stupid like does this ultimately though is that is the game theory is this plays out just like
if it continues this way it ends up somehow leading to some sort of a fork or like an actual
consensus change versus this is just a mempool policy you're right but this this the the problem

(01:23:13):
is where it's being taken right now by people like mechanic or matthew crater whoever is like
this has been the age-old problem of bulletin boards internet nostr like this is not a unique
problem to bitcoin this is not even like if anything bitcoin is spam resistant because of

(01:23:34):
the fucking fees it's the it's the most spam resistant per byte data thing that we have in
the world right now probably like unless you want to get you know some actually you know kind of
thing but like per byte bitcoin is the most expensive and the most like spam resistant

(01:23:57):
so we already are using like the best technology to prevent bullshit when bullshit gets through
it's like okay like that's that's how that's like these are the principles of bitcoin to to have like
you know this freedom tech that you can't control you're gonna have bad things go on it and like

(01:24:18):
when Zebedee was running Noster I mean dude we had all types of terrible things just start flooding
into our relay and guess what we deleted them we we removed them we didn display them you know like what kind of crazy thing would you have to think about to be like oh I going to run this special piece of
software that reads op returns or scans this and then XORs it this way and then displays it with a

(01:24:46):
finder. Like you're, if you're looking for it, you're looking for it. That's on you. Like it's,
This isn't something like the Bitcoin software that interfaces with us is going to be super dry that doesn't do anything with images.
It's going to be up to you on whether or not you want to consider bytes into images.

(01:25:06):
I think it's ridiculous.
And there's just so many other things that are going to be cheap and going to be like right there in your face.
I mean, this is like, like what you said earlier, it's like, this is what the, this is like the, the attacking points where, where they, they try to find like the hearts and souls of voters to vote for something like totalitarian.
Like this is, you're going for the same playbook that, that also like helped us get like, you know, like the Patriot Act and stuff.

(01:25:33):
It's like, you know, it's, it's just, you're, you're, you're going for, it's like, like the meme is like, okay, how are we going to wrap this one?
Is it going to be terrorism or protect the children?
And it's like, you know, you start pulling at the heartstrings of people.
It's easy to get people emotional about this.
And it's super, I would say, manipulative.

(01:25:54):
Yeah.
I mean, I agree with that.
Is there any long-term risk from this, like to play devil's advocate,
or long-term risk from like an actual ability to run a node standpoint?
Like, take this to this worst-case scenario.
Does this allow the chain to be bloated to such a degree that it will be impossible for people in third world countries to ever be able to afford to run a node?

(01:26:20):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I'm really happy when people ask this because – and I don't know if you're asking it rhetorically or genuinely, but regardless –
Both.
But regardless, like people need to realize if op return is used, you do not get the witness discount.
I want to really just take a step back and summarize that this makes the Bitcoin blockchain smaller.

(01:26:44):
That might sound unintuitive, but that's ultimately what happens because you prevent the blockchain from bloating and taking advantage of cheaper style transactions if op return gets exploited.
The argument mainly has been there is no need for useless filters.
Let's remove unnecessary configs if they have no good ideas of defaults.

(01:27:06):
This is how all software works.
You want to remove unnecessary toggles because better user experience is giving people meaningful knobs, not just multiple knobs that don't do anything that could potentially even make your node run less performant.
And whether you relay it or not, you're going to have to download it.
It's going to go into your Bitcoin blockchain unless you really want to say like, hey, everyone in the world is going to run this relay policy.

(01:27:34):
Well, at that point, if it's non-controversial, we might as well just make it a consensus change.
Right.
Ultimately.
Now, Luke actually has a good response to this, by the way, which I can share.
But it's, you know, when you take these things out, a lot of these things are like misconceptions, right?

(01:27:55):
Like, oh, if we have large op returns, my blockchain will bloat.
I'm going to hold all this bullshit data, blah, blah, blah.
like you're like technically speaking if you're like a hodler and you're worried about like
especially for like from like ironically right ironically ocean folks like mechanic and luke
are advertising 300 kilobyte blocks right which is which is uh if you still include witness

(01:28:21):
of ideas it's a 70 reduction in how many transactions can happen in bitcoin per 10
minutes, right? That's what Luke and Mechanic are doing. And for reasons that aren't necessarily bad
or good or whatever, they're just trying to say like, hey, we need to make sure that this doesn't
get out of control in terms of how much data gets processed into Bitcoin. Now, ironically,

(01:28:41):
if people abuse op returns, it actually helps satisfy their lowering of the block size or,
you know, effective block size will be lower if a lot of large op returns get into the block. So
on a technical basis there is no they're there right even even like when you start saying like
hey you want smaller blocks like shouldn't you want like these op returns are actually

(01:29:03):
going to make the block smaller right like anyways um well i mean is that and is that
because they are prunable no like you so they're prunable yes which is nice because
But you still have to sync them the first time.
Right.
You still want to be able to verify a block matches all the way up to the hash of the block, ultimately.

(01:29:29):
But op returns don't need to be in your UTXO set, right?
The database that is indexed, the thing that people care about, right, in terms of keeping a live cache of indexed transactions, right?
Because you don't necessarily want to go through and care about all the transactions that have already been spent.

(01:29:50):
You care about all the current amounts of Bitcoin.
And the op return output is just like, oh, it's an op return.
My node software says to just drop this.
So you just drop it out of your UTXO set.
and you can look it up later, but it's not in like your UTXO set

(01:30:11):
that a lot of people are worried about in terms of like this is typically
the stuff that's kept in memory that's going to be highly performant
that helps your node verify blocks very quickly
when some of those UTXOs get used into the next block.
So you want to make sure that your ability to look up these transactions
is very quick and you want that in your RAM, your memory of your computer.

(01:30:32):
so um yeah the op returns don't even go there because they're unspendable you can't spend an
off return so you just say oh there's an off return okay bye bye off return like not in memory
like you know no problem um but there's there's tons of misconceptions like this like there's one
but there's like even like soft squishy misconceptions like not even technical

(01:30:53):
where someone was saying like hey you know we had them close their pull request you know the
peter todd pull request we had them close it but then while we're sleeping they opened up a new one
by instagibs and it's like dude the last comment of that pull request was saying hey we're opening
up a new one to not remove the option that you want to keep and it's like now like

(01:31:17):
it's like we're not even removing the configurability you know like we're
deprecating it but when i say we core um i'm not actually part of core or anything but i almost feel
like colloquial we,
Bitcoin is not removing the option.
And that was the change
between the pull requests.
And people are like,

(01:31:38):
oh, you close the pull request
to then just secretly open up a new one.
Like what?
And these are people that are like,
I'm a technical person.
I should be able to be involved in this.
I'm like, oh yeah, you know.
One of the other things I see get
that it's been brought up a ton recently
is people bringing up BSV
and they're saying,
well, this is actually what

(01:31:59):
caused bsv to fail because bsv got this explicit material put on their blockchain after they opened
up the uh you know after they opened up the upper turn limit and so if we do that that exact
thing is going to happen to bitcoin and bitcoin is going to fail just like bsv did and i feel like
that's a weird characterization given that like obviously like that wasn't the reason that bsv

(01:32:20):
failed like you know like what was bsv's block what was bsv's block size when that happened
Bitcoin was only protected from BSV because of that reason.
Like you have these people now that are going to praise whatever illicit material on BSV now because it saved it from taking over Bitcoin.

(01:32:40):
Like how crazy is it to think that, you know?
Well, can you maybe like – because for some reason this is a huge misconception.
Can you explain like why – like first of all, BSV, one of the whole things about it was it has a different block size.
like a vastly expanded block size uh was that would you say more like responsible for uh

(01:33:02):
everything that went down with bsv or were was it these other uh you know was it was it
opera turn that ultimately was the nail in the coffin for bsv so so i think it was really um
it's gonna sound weird but it was honestly roger veer that made bsv
delegitimate i mean roger veer still had a lot of respect from a lot of bitcoiners and

(01:33:25):
pretty much everything everyone in bitcoin cash the the fact that roger veer smelled a rat with
with uh craig just you just keep getting shittier the further forked away from bitcoin you go
and it's just like what killed bsv is uh is really just like how it it was such a

(01:33:47):
it's kind of like they co-opted the the the the bitcoin cash movement
took it even further in like a direction that you know was was sort of like insane
you know this is like you're you're asking like such a funny question like what was the reason

(01:34:09):
bsb failed it's like god it's such a funny question because it's like there's so many
things like involve whether it be with craig wright or or their giant fucking blocks like
or the fact that they said we just made like a terabyte block like look how great this is
like like it's just like like there's just so many things that like are are hilarious with it

(01:34:32):
um that is why it's such a dumb argument to bring up in this case like again there are better
arguments you can make you know what i mean it's just apples and oranges it's just so far like
it's just so far removed from like a comparable that it's it's like yes we can compare it in like
certain ways but outside of like this it's like these things are like just so different you know

(01:34:54):
um and it's comedically different especially with the people that were like promoting it right
and the and the people involved with believing like craig was satoshi and like having this
more or less cult following um of people like i remember that was also like around the time like
uh i got on clubhouse and there was like a bsv group and it's like it's just there's so many i

(01:35:21):
guess it's it's it's almost an impossible question you know it's like it's like one of those things
where it's like what came first the chicken or the egg like what came first like how did bsv fail
Was it like, you know, these two things that are like sort of cyclical?
It's just fraught with disappointment and misery and failure.

(01:35:49):
Scams.
Yeah, I mean, but I assume BSP is still running, though.
I assume it's still going.
It is.
It still exists, but yeah.
I guess it hasn't completely.
so 25 it's trading at 25 so if you if you wanted to trade your bitcoin in for it now you could
become a whale you could you could you could become a way there you go you know you too can

(01:36:13):
be a whale uh so i think i think another like actually i think a very like legitimate question
to ask from folks in the not side is like okay like sure uh let's say we that you're right about
some of these other things, but like, why does it, why is it even necessary to make this change
in the first place? Why can't we just leave things the way they are right now? Why can't we leave it

(01:36:35):
with the current opportune limit? Why does the limit need to be removed at all? Like, I feel like
a lot of people don't feel that that case has been made strongly enough to them. And I think that's
where a lot of this disconnect comes because they say like, okay, you're telling me this needs to
happen, but like, but like why? And then there's feelings that like, oh, well, this is, you know,
this is Citria or some other, you know, some VC or somebody's, you know, back channeling this and

(01:36:58):
that's why it's getting done. And that's the only reason. What is your feeling on, like,
is this something that needs to be done? And if so, why?
Yeah. No, this is, I think, this is a way better question than most. Unfortunately,
this is when people like Francis with Bull Bitcoin get very, I would say abrasive.

(01:37:22):
I've always considered Francis to be nice in person, but my gosh, is he abrasive on Twitter.
There's many such cases with Bitcoiners.
I like Francis a lot too.
So Francis, for instance, and I consider him a very nice guy when I'm in person with him.
And honestly, a fun guy when I'm in person with him.
But my gosh, is he a total asshole on Twitter.

(01:37:45):
So this is a good question that was asked, and I answered it two days ago.
I'm going to read this off, but I'll also just drop the link here for you because I think it's a great question.
And I don't think it's a quick question to answer necessarily.

(01:38:07):
So there's a guy named Merch, and he's a Bitcoin Core contributor, and myself.
And we're like, oh, this was like months ago.
We're like, man, there's a lot of people, right, that are getting upset about this op return change.
Let's take a lot of time and let's do like a FAQ.

(01:38:30):
Like let's address all of the questions that someone could have, right?
I will also link you that FAQ summary.
So that FAQ summary was 40 questions.
And we try to cover everything from like conspiracy theories to technical concern, right?

(01:38:52):
We try to do like a lot of in between as well.
And one of the questions was sort of like around the point that you're just asked, like, you know, why do we even need this change?
Shouldn't we just like even like raise it like to be just like 160 bytes instead?
Like why uncapped, all this kind of stuff?
essentially the answer is which apparently by the way just disclaimer is not was not acceptable by

(01:39:15):
people in in the knots group like francis for instance um instead of provide and i'm gonna
just read the last part of this post uh from the stacker news article that i shared with you
um and also the tweet instead of providing mining pools with a financial incentive to accept
oversize op return outputs out of ban and have to and to have to debates wait sorry out of ban and

(01:39:43):
to have debates to slightly loosen the limit further every once in a while it seems easier
to get rid of the incentive and debates by dropping it altogether so in other words this filter
has outlasted its usefulness it's better to just get rid of it now versus every once in a while
having to incrementally increase it for, you know, another sort of debate potentially in the future.

(01:40:09):
It's better to just, when we can, safely make relay rules and consensus rules as close as possible
within reason. And this is one of those situations. If relay and consensus rules were identical,
that's actually ideal. We can't do that because of certain technical concerns. This is not a
technical concern. I don't want to believe, I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I don't want to

(01:40:37):
believe that originally we were super concerned about non-technical concerns with relay policy.
We're mainly concerned with people that are going to do like harmful things on the network and
our relay policy sort of helping with that. So this is one situation where relay policy and

(01:40:58):
consensus can start to become closer and a safe way and just dropping the um the the limit in
general just helps us get there and because there's already more effective ways this was seen as like
a nothing burger because it's like oh there's already if you really are going to be an asshole
this is the last way you would want to do it because if you did you would have to spend more

(01:41:20):
it would and and honestly it'd make the block smaller and like no one like you know like if
anything you know people who want smaller blocks benefit from this so ironically if anyone does
abuse this people like ocean people like mechanic and luke get their ideas of smaller blocks but
not even going to happen because it's not economically incentivized so that is sort of

(01:41:42):
the roundabout you know sort of a long answer but that's the answer that i have for you is there's
just no need for it better to get rid of the debates and future debates that are going to be
needless in the future um and yeah getting consensus and relay policy closer together
is always going to be a good thing if it's safe and this is an example of that um the 40 the 40

(01:42:06):
question q a is you know i i think like people at people on the not side of things at this point
are just not even gonna like at first when we posted that several months ago people were like
oh my gosh thank you so much this was great at this point people have dug in their heels so much
that if I show them this 40-question Q&A from Stacker News titled
A Comprehensive Op Return Limits Q&A Resource to Combat Misinformation,

(01:42:30):
they're just going to pretty much ignore it
and not actually care what core contributors have to say about any of this stuff.
I'll link it in the show notes for anybody who does care and wants to check it out.
I mean, and I want to be conscious of your time here,
but as just like another general question,
And again, I'm purposefully asking kind of broad or basic questions because these are the ones that I've seen posited out there again and again and again and again.

(01:42:56):
But, OK, you've got OpReturn.
The main argument right now is that you're going to be able to put big, big chunks of data in that OpReturn, right?
Is it possible right now to put bigger chunks of data into a Bitcoin block in other ways?
Well, thank you for asking.
I feel like some of these are rhetorical. Yes. You can do, you know, if you wanted to do a giant inscription that's four times bigger than op return for the same price, you can pretty much do it right now in Bitcoin. So right now there's options of putting in arbitrary data for 75% cheaper or 25% of the cost of op return.

(01:43:37):
so the and that's where i'm just kind of like i i don't see how this is a meaningful like how this
actually moves the needle when this is already possible like if you want to inscribe malicious
things in the bitcoin blockchain or insert them into the blockchain i'm not just talking about
inscriptions you can already do that right like this can already be done i'm not saying that's a

(01:44:00):
good thing but this i don't know if i i'm just maybe i just don't understand it maybe i'm too
stupid i just don't really see how running knots fixes this i'll tell you this if we ask francis
or chris guida or someone we will definitely be told we were too stupid to understand
so i probably am i probably am i don't know if you are um i definitely am depending on who you ask

(01:44:23):
so so
the interesting weird argument is like hey op return is a cleaner way of putting data in
so therefore the illicit material is more legitimized which i think is a bizarre take

(01:44:44):
and someone combated this uh you know in multiple ways there's been funny ways of people saying this
is like stupid um the the like the trope is if you put a red pixel every like 120
137 pixels red on a illicit material does it then not become illicit um like there's some

(01:45:08):
ways of saying like the witness putting data in the witness of a transaction is um is not as like
clean and it's and therefore it's not as bad and then if you if you if you have an off return it's
now it's terrible because it's contiguous bites um the arguments are very very weak in my opinion

(01:45:32):
um but that is sort of the the argument there on why you know i'm not i'm not going to say
that it's justified but that is an argument i've seen from like people like whiz kid or someone
else or whoever like trying to argue at this point i mean i'm for sure i'm i think i'm fully
canceled by the knox nots folks at this point you know after having lop on and now i'll have had you

(01:45:57):
on like clearly i'm complicit in uh in all of this uh but i i appreciate you coming on i think
the nice thing for people to remember is you can run whatever node implementation you want and
nobody can stop you and you don't have to update your node implementation either that's the really
cool thing about Bitcoin node implementations is they are not automatically pushed you. You are
not forced to update. So you just don't have to do anything actually. And they have to be backwards

(01:46:21):
compatible. And yes, you may be missing out on some security patches, but that's the whole thing.
It's all backwards compatible and no one can make you do anything with it and you can run whatever
you want. So just fucking do it. And yeah, maybe, maybe the last thing I would say is maybe ease off
on calling other Bitcoiners who also think Bitcoin is money
and use Bitcoin as money all the time

(01:46:42):
and have been working on Bitcoin for a long time,
maybe hold off on saying that they are complicit
in exploiting children on the blockchain
because that's just kind of like a,
man, that's a real government thing to say.
You know, that's, I don't know,
anything you want to leave us with.
I appreciate you coming on here, man.
It was good to just catch up.
I'm bummed we're not going to be at TabConf.
It was good to chat.

(01:47:04):
Yeah, super sad.
I mean, it's not very fun when we agree on everything.
I don't have a whole lot to debate with you on.
I hope I asked enough broad questions at least.
I'll see you on Satoshi Settlers.
I'll see you there.

(01:47:26):
Okay, maybe just really quick.
Okay, you launched something called Satoshi Settlers.
I just logged in there with Noster.
What are we doing with that?
What's happening?
it's a it's a project that hasn't been worked on in over six months uh i do plan to work on it
after tab conf but right now um it is i think a very cool idea it's a bitcoin like bitcoin

(01:47:50):
through and through as much as possible without it being spammed so there's nothing like on chain
that's going to be like you know messing spamming the chain or anything not yet thank god because
that would have caused a problem yeah well we'll do nfts uh after after uh knots becomes the
majority um no but but real talk as i think it's a pretty cool idea every 10 minutes a new block

(01:48:15):
roughly every 10 minutes a new block is mined so every 10 minutes the map gets a little bit bigger
so it's an ever-growing map where the center of the map is the genesis block and it's spiraling
outwards. So the higher
block heights are at the edge. The
earlier block heights are near the center.
And it's just a really cool metaverse that I'm
building that's just using the blockchain
data to fill in the environment,

(01:48:37):
textures.
You can use lightning.
I plan to, after TabConf, probably
implement ARC payments.
Does NostraWall connect?
I'm just trying to make it where it's
really cool. There is a Satoshi Settlers
Nostra page where every time there's a
purchase on the game,
or a theft.
So you can steal people.

(01:48:58):
You can steal what they've done.
But if you steal a piece of land from someone,
you have to pay double what they paid.
And the refund goes to them.
They have to put in their lightning address as a way for me to refund them.
So it's a fun little economy.
It's a forced sale.
So if you have a piece of land,

(01:49:20):
someone can always just spend double to steal it from you,
and then you get the refund.
and it's just a really like no stress kind of game.
Eventually there will be stress.
I am working on some gamified fun things.
Right now it's mainly just experimenting with lightning,
Nostra Wallet Connect.
Like I said, all the activity in the game gets posted to Nostra.

(01:49:45):
Yeah.
I love it, dude.
Every time there's like a cool new Bitcoin thing,
I'm going to try to put it into the game as like a fun way of experimenting
and playing with it.
that's sort of the idea going forward yeah i'm into it now i understand a little bit better what's
going on uh so i'm gonna i'm gonna have to have to dive back in there where can folks find you
uh tabconf.com is my passion right now um outside of my work um i would say on nostr i'm

(01:50:15):
well i go by mike 21 that's my twitter handle and i believe i'm also that um i have a few nostr
accounts that i'm maintaining but i think if you search mike 21 on nostr um i think you're also
primal.net slash like 21 yeah mike 21 it's it's confusing it's opsec it's 20 spelled out with a one

(01:50:39):
so you know no one will actually understand what you what i say yeah exactly i say my 21 they're
like it doesn't work i'm like yeah well opsec or you can just search you can just search uh tidwell
or titwell i don't know if that's going to show up maybe if you post it they'll they'll be a link
to me might just have to yeah right well i appreciate you coming on here it was good to

(01:51:01):
catch up thanks for answering some of my questions even if they did seem rhetorical because i think
like we're all we're all on the same side here ultimately like right we all we all want we all
we all want bitcoin to succeed and uh and people just have some different ideas of what that means
right now but uh the great thing is that bitcoin doesn't care uh so it's just going to keep on
processing blocks every 10 minutes. Keep on adjusting the difficulty, keep on having, and

(01:51:25):
yeah, we'll keep on podcasting, doing our part. It's been awesome to chat, Walker. Thanks.
See you, man.
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of The Bitcoin Podcast.

(01:51:46):
Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening.
and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet.
Find me on Noster at primal.net slash walker and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.
On X, YouTube, and Rumble, just search at Walker America
and find this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoinpodcast.

(01:52:11):
Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links.
Head to substack.com slash at walkeramerica to get episodes emailed to you
and head to bitcoinpodcast.net for everything else.
Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant.
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(01:52:32):
Until next time, stay free.

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