Defending Bitcoin: Cybersecurity for the Monetary Grid | Luke de Wolf | BIS #202

1
00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:03,600
Welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity show, Luke DeWolf.

2
00:00:04,100 --> 00:00:08,520
This is your show, or half of it is, so welcome back.

3
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:12,120
We haven't seen each other for a while in this format, at least.

4
00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:13,380
Good to have you here.

5
00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:16,560
Hey, Knut. Awesome to be here. Yeah, love it.

6
00:00:16,860 --> 00:00:21,480
We'll explain a little bit of why I've been so absent in this episode, I think.

7
00:00:21,660 --> 00:00:25,120
But yeah, looking forward to the big reveal, so to say.

8
00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:28,380
Yes, you have some really big news

9
00:00:28,380 --> 00:00:31,780
And man, I just have to say from the bottom of my heart

10
00:00:31,780 --> 00:00:34,320
I'm super proud of you for this thing

11
00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:35,500
It's so cool

12
00:00:35,500 --> 00:00:40,900
I have not been participating very much at all

13
00:00:40,900 --> 00:00:43,180
In the process of making this thing

14
00:00:43,180 --> 00:00:47,560
And you have bloomed into an author in your own right

15
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:51,920
After we wrote The Inverse of Clown World together

16
00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:55,160
it's like two years back now, or even three years.

17
00:00:55,300 --> 00:00:57,240
I can't even remember. Time flies.

18
00:00:57,500 --> 00:01:00,080
Released 2024, so yeah, coming up on two years.

19
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:04,360
Yeah, so the big news.

20
00:01:04,500 --> 00:01:05,520
What's the big reveal?

21
00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:07,160
I'll leave it to you.

22
00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:12,020
I mean, why don't you introduce yourself like every other guest does?

23
00:01:12,320 --> 00:01:14,720
For the people who are...

24
00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:17,960
I mean, we have quite a few new followers, I think,

25
00:01:17,960 --> 00:01:22,720
since you sort of semi left the, well, you didn't leave the show,

26
00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:26,200
but you left the visible part of the show and the audible part.

27
00:01:26,460 --> 00:01:32,720
So tell us a little about yourself and about our show and where things are

28
00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:36,020
and lead into the big news here, please.

29
00:01:36,860 --> 00:01:39,740
Definitely. Perfect. And yes, you're exactly right.

30
00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:43,800
I'm maybe a little bit less visible than I used to be on this show.

31
00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:46,000
So yes, the TLDR on me.

32
00:01:46,000 --> 00:02:11,820
So my background is that I am originally from Calgary, Alberta. I, you know, in technically still in Canada. I was born in Canada and from the great province of Alberta. That's where I started my career. And my career and background is in computer science. And that transitioned into working with industrial control systems.

33
00:02:11,820 --> 00:02:22,460
That might be a little bit of a gobbledygook, but that's basically all of the stuff that runs factories and electrical grids and oil and gas pipelines and things like this.

34
00:02:22,640 --> 00:02:27,280
I got the chance to start in that field and basically never left.

35
00:02:27,460 --> 00:02:30,040
It's super exciting to me.

36
00:02:30,160 --> 00:02:38,120
It's still my day job, actually, doing security for industrial control systems and operational technology is another word for it.

37
00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:46,620
But basically the summation of that is that I've spent the last decade working with these types of systems that keep the world running.

38
00:02:46,900 --> 00:02:48,500
You can call it critical infrastructure.

39
00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:52,460
Also, that's a technical term for a lot of these domains.

40
00:02:52,460 --> 00:03:01,940
We would be nowhere if we didn't have electricity, if we didn't have oil and gas energy, if we didn't have factories making the stuff that we use all the time.

41
00:03:02,100 --> 00:03:05,840
So that's basically the field that I have been working in.

42
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:07,980
And then enter Bitcoin.

43
00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:14,600
basically. So I discovered Bitcoin while I was in the process of moving from Canada to Finland. And

44
00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:21,400
I mean, that's a whole other story, I guess. But my affinity for Finland has been going on for a

45
00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:26,520
long time. I've liked a lot of the music from Finland and from the region. And my wife and I

46
00:03:26,520 --> 00:03:34,420
wanted to see the world a little bit and experience living somewhere else. And well, the original

47
00:03:34,420 --> 00:03:40,060
plan had been to just visit Finland, but then COVID happened and the lockdowns and all this.

48
00:03:40,660 --> 00:03:46,980
And well, we just decided to move there instead. So basically, the craziness of my shift from

49
00:03:46,980 --> 00:03:53,080
Canada to Finland also included my discovering Bitcoin. Specifically, and I'll call this out

50
00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:58,020
Robert Breedlove series with Michael Saylor. That's what pushed me over the edge 100%.

51
00:03:58,020 --> 00:04:18,720
And the reason I say it like that is because the economic angle has always been the thing that has convinced me. The 21 million supply cap, all of this, I never understood any of that. I dabbled in crypto the previous cycle, 2017 or so. It was just the talk of the office at the time kind of thing.

52
00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:25,840
But the whole point was I never understood the ideas behind Bitcoin. I was one of those people

53
00:04:25,840 --> 00:04:31,560
who thought, hey, Ethereum is better because it's just Bitcoin except improved and newer and

54
00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:37,220
everything. And I had no idea. I had no idea about the Dow issues or all of the crypto scams or

55
00:04:37,220 --> 00:04:44,580
anything like this. No idea. And so the real light bulb moment for me was discovering a true

56
00:04:44,580 --> 00:04:54,340
explanation of money and how money works and the ways that Bitcoin fixes all of that. And so huge,

57
00:04:54,340 --> 00:04:59,540
huge credit to Rob and to Michael Saylor for that series. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who

58
00:04:59,540 --> 00:05:08,540
took the orange pill through that discovery. And honestly, I was all in. The thing about it was,

59
00:05:08,540 --> 00:05:15,080
because maybe it took, okay, a year or so for me to really get all the way in down the rabbit hole.

60
00:05:15,140 --> 00:05:21,760
But I was reading a whole ton of classics, EG's 21 Lessons I found really helpful.

61
00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:25,040
For example, I found your books that were out at the time, Knut.

62
00:05:25,240 --> 00:05:31,160
And I actually remember seeing you for the first time on Rob Breedlove again.

63
00:05:31,160 --> 00:05:35,440
That show was in my perennial watch list.

64
00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:56,020
And I thought to myself, ah, this guy is pretty interesting. And you were like, you would lounge in your chair a little bit and talk about your prognostications and everything. And I just thought you were fascinating. And little did I know we would end up connecting not even a year later or something, I think. So that was pretty cool.

65
00:05:56,020 --> 00:05:59,420
So let me get to the point because I'm kind of bad at that sometimes.

66
00:06:00,300 --> 00:06:03,780
Well, we've been working together for a good long time now.

67
00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,360
It's basically like, what, it's three years, four years, something like that.

68
00:06:08,780 --> 00:06:09,360
It's a while.

69
00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:13,480
And I was just looking for a way to contribute, basically.

70
00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:18,480
And my entrance was your previous publisher, Consensus Networks.

71
00:06:18,620 --> 00:06:21,040
They translate Bitcoin books into Finnish.

72
00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:24,980
and me being in Finland, I thought I would try to help the organization

73
00:06:24,980 --> 00:06:27,980
that is producing books in the language I'm trying to learn.

74
00:06:28,140 --> 00:06:29,640
And they connected us together.

75
00:06:29,780 --> 00:06:32,960
We started the Freedom Footprint show and basically the rest is history.

76
00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:34,900
We can partially skip to the end there.

77
00:06:34,900 --> 00:06:38,520
We've done a lot of awesome stuff in the last few years

78
00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:41,140
and I've immensely enjoyed all of our collaborations.

79
00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:45,240
Yeah, I mean, we've been on an adventure to say the least.

80
00:06:45,420 --> 00:06:50,980
I mean, we met for the first time in person in Riga, I believe, in 2001.

81
00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:51,800
22?

82
00:06:52,280 --> 00:06:55,080
22? Yeah, I can't remember anything.

83
00:06:55,560 --> 00:07:02,860
But I have never seen a person do such a nosedive into the rabbit hole as you.

84
00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:20,360
Like you spend every non-sleeping hours since like deep diving into understanding Bitcoin on a deep, not only a philosophical level, but on an economic level, of course, and also a computer science technical level.

85
00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:34,380
I've learned a lot from you about this thing, and we've been brainstorming back and forth about not only what we do together, which is primarily the pod, but also the inverse of clown world when we wrote that.

86
00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:42,380
There was a lot of back and forths, but also about almost everything from marriage counseling to quantum mechanics.

87
00:07:42,380 --> 00:07:47,960
I mean, we've explored a lot of topics and had a lot of brainstorming sessions.

88
00:07:48,260 --> 00:08:03,140
And it's been a pure joy ever since I saw this weird, you know, pseudo-Fin, as you called yourself back then, metal music fan who moved to Finland with his wife at a quite early age.

89
00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:05,860
It's not the most common path.

90
00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:10,540
But, yeah, I mean, we've had a lot of fun.

91
00:08:10,540 --> 00:08:15,420
And it's been leading up to this moment, we could say, for you at least.

92
00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:20,620
You are so much more than just my sidekick at this point.

93
00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:22,920
It's something completely different.

94
00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,840
So tell us more about what this moment is.

95
00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:29,420
Thanks. Well, hey, I appreciate you, man.

96
00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:31,240
It's been great.

97
00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:33,780
And yeah, really, really couldn't have done any of this without you.

98
00:08:33,900 --> 00:08:35,760
So yeah, first of all, just thanks for that.

99
00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:37,920
And yeah, so here's the announcement.

100
00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:50,160
For the last six months, I've been working on a book combining these two areas of my life, what I talked about at the beginning, this cybersecurity, industrial control system, cybersecurity, and all of the Bitcoin stuff I've been doing.

101
00:08:50,540 --> 00:08:52,680
So the title of the book is Defending Bitcoin.

102
00:08:52,920 --> 00:08:54,300
You can see it behind me.

103
00:08:54,720 --> 00:09:01,160
Industrial grade cybersecurity for the monetary grid, a term that I'm hoping catches on a little bit.

104
00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:06,640
I think you can probably see how that works, the grid of miners and all this.

105
00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:23,780
So the monetary grid. But the thrust of the book is basically to be as complete a cybersecurity reference as can fit into something you can hold in your hand for all facets of Bitcoin, focusing on, first of all, the personal applications of cybersecurity in the Bitcoin world.

106
00:09:23,780 --> 00:09:31,860
For example, why you should get your coins off an exchange, how to secure them properly with hardware wallets and the privacy considerations as well.

107
00:09:32,340 --> 00:09:38,060
And then taking a bit of a look at how Bitcoin stacks up in terms of the network itself.

108
00:09:38,580 --> 00:09:41,940
And it's meant to be a combination of educational.

109
00:09:42,460 --> 00:09:51,700
So filling gaps, I don't expect all readers to have deep dived on every part of the, say, the technological aspects or even the economic aspects.

110
00:09:51,700 --> 00:10:01,820
So I include a lot of educational components in each chapter just to make sure that all the ideas are there that you need to know to understand.

111
00:10:02,680 --> 00:10:10,320
And then finally, I wrap up with a little bit of a coverage of things outside of Bitcoin that maybe could be a threat.

112
00:10:11,060 --> 00:10:18,220
Things like the political and regulatory landscape and the big boogeyman of quantum and AI and all this.

113
00:10:18,780 --> 00:10:20,520
There's 15 chapters.

114
00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:26,580
The first five chapters are a sort of get everyone to a baseline kind of thing.

115
00:10:26,980 --> 00:10:29,580
I've also written this not just for Bitcoiners.

116
00:10:29,640 --> 00:10:45,880
That's, of course, going to be the audience of this podcast, of our show, but also for people in, say, the cybersecurity or general IT technology sector, the people I work with who might be skeptical about Bitcoin and not really know so much about it yet.

117
00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:49,140
So the whole idea is to get everyone up to speed.

118
00:10:49,140 --> 00:11:16,260
There's two chapters on Bitcoin, the economics and the technology of Bitcoin. Then there's two chapters on cybersecurity. So essentially a baseline on the cybersecurity fundamentals that I use every day in my job. I'll credentialize myself a little bit. Also, I hold the CISSP certification, Certified Information Systems Security Professional, and the GICSP certification, Global Industrial Cybersecurity Professional certification.

119
00:11:16,260 --> 00:11:24,500
And these two are basically the top two certifications in both general cybersecurity and industrial control system cybersecurity.

120
00:11:24,780 --> 00:11:28,080
So that stuff for factories and operational technology and all this.

121
00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:32,000
So I know my stuff is what I'm trying to say here.

122
00:11:32,240 --> 00:11:42,420
I'm not by any means an expert in the sense of that I know absolutely everything on the topic, but I know where to look and I know who to call when my knowledge base ends.

123
00:11:42,420 --> 00:11:46,200
and I've been working with these systems for over a decade.

124
00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:49,640
So yeah, that's my credentials in the cybersecurity world

125
00:11:49,640 --> 00:11:51,360
for those who aren't familiar with that.

126
00:11:51,980 --> 00:11:55,420
Fifth chapter, fifth chapter is where I synthesize everything together

127
00:11:55,420 --> 00:11:59,000
and explain why Bitcoin is critical infrastructure

128
00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:00,620
and should be defended as such.

129
00:12:00,700 --> 00:12:01,980
That is the thesis of the book

130
00:12:01,980 --> 00:12:06,280
and the entire rest of the book covers basically how that applies.

131
00:12:06,280 --> 00:12:10,820
So I've created a custom framework based on industry best practices

132
00:12:10,820 --> 00:12:18,520
that goes over and categorizes various threats to your Bitcoin, the Bitcoin network as a whole,

133
00:12:18,940 --> 00:12:22,160
and then applies the ways you can defend against it.

134
00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:25,540
So the entire book is about defending Bitcoin in a few different ways,

135
00:12:25,660 --> 00:12:29,200
defending your own personal Bitcoin, defending the Bitcoin network.

136
00:12:29,540 --> 00:12:32,200
And the whole point is there is always something you can do,

137
00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:35,680
no matter the domain of Bitcoin that we're talking about.

138
00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:40,560
Every one of the 10 chapters that covers the sub areas, there is always something you can do.

139
00:12:40,560 --> 00:12:51,680
That's the point I want to leave you, the reader, the listener reader with, is that no matter what, you can always do something to improve your security and improve the security of Bitcoin as a whole.

140
00:12:52,700 --> 00:12:57,940
So that's the elevator pitch or a pretty long elevator, I guess.

141
00:12:57,940 --> 00:13:06,500
So it's a Bitcoin book for computer security people and a computer security book for Bitcoiners.

142
00:13:06,500 --> 00:13:15,240
In other words, it's a book for LinkedIn people to realize that not everyone on X and Noster is an idiot.

143
00:13:15,580 --> 00:13:20,740
And for X and Noster people to realize that most people on LinkedIn are.

144
00:13:22,380 --> 00:13:24,040
Would that be a fair assessment?

145
00:13:24,680 --> 00:13:27,500
Yeah, well, hey, I'm not going to deny that one at all.

146
00:13:27,500 --> 00:13:45,320
But yeah, the dual audience thing, the whole thing with this is that I want to appeal to people who are coming at it from different backgrounds. And so I think for Bitcoiners, the whole idea is you're going to see Bitcoin presented in a slightly different way with a slightly different set of words, of vocabulary.

147
00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:59,121
And what I want to actually get into a little bit here is helping cybersecurity to become second nature Once you read this book 100 you going to be thinking a little bit more in terms of the threats you might see in

148
00:13:59,121 --> 00:14:05,061
everyday life and the ways you can control and defend against them. And I go through the vocabulary

149
00:14:05,061 --> 00:14:11,021
that we use in the industry all the time here. So it's aligned to what these certifications and

150
00:14:11,021 --> 00:14:19,281
best practices teach. So the book by the end of it, I want to leave everyone with a sense of having

151
00:14:19,281 --> 00:14:25,081
learned something and also that you can do something and go out there and improve your

152
00:14:25,081 --> 00:14:31,581
security posture so that you don't get hacked, you don't lose your Bitcoin by some means. And

153
00:14:31,581 --> 00:14:38,761
also having an honest look at some of the structural things going on in Bitcoin that

154
00:14:38,761 --> 00:14:41,181
that there's a lot of fight about going on.

155
00:14:41,721 --> 00:14:44,441
Yeah, and there's a lot of attack vectors,

156
00:14:44,721 --> 00:14:46,561
and most of them are not.

157
00:14:46,681 --> 00:14:49,821
I'd say that people's assessment of different attack vectors

158
00:14:49,821 --> 00:14:52,461
is often very wrong, for lack of a better word.

159
00:14:52,601 --> 00:14:55,641
I mean, people are worried about quantum

160
00:14:55,641 --> 00:14:59,021
when they should be worried about spam and such things,

161
00:14:59,021 --> 00:15:01,261
and maybe that's a biased view too,

162
00:15:01,401 --> 00:15:05,441
but I think the social attack vectors are very interesting.

163
00:15:05,441 --> 00:15:08,861
Does the book talk about social attack vectors a lot?

164
00:15:09,601 --> 00:15:26,581
Sure. Well, I think if I'm interpreting you correctly with this, the internal dynamics that are going on in Bitcoin, we've got a lot of different constituencies that have a say in how Bitcoin comes to consensus and how it works.

165
00:15:26,581 --> 00:15:38,421
Andreas Antonopoulos did essentially a five constituency thing of those groups who are able to influence consensus and need to come to some agreement.

166
00:15:38,781 --> 00:15:40,461
I only go to four.

167
00:15:40,901 --> 00:15:53,641
I consider that node runners are basically those who set and defend the rules of Bitcoin, make it so that you can't change the rules arbitrarily, at least the consensus rules.

168
00:15:53,641 --> 00:16:11,061
Then, of course, there are the miners who find the blocks and keep the chain moving, right? That seems obvious. There's, of course, the developers, and those are the ones who are making changes to the node software and all of the other things that are going on in Bitcoin.

169
00:16:11,061 --> 00:16:23,721
And then I also make the case that essentially the holders of Bitcoin that aren't doing any of those other things are another group that has influence. Those are the people buying and selling Bitcoin and essentially setting its price.

170
00:16:23,721 --> 00:16:34,061
Andreas makes the point that effectively both merchants and exchanges should be considered kind of in their own right.

171
00:16:34,141 --> 00:16:42,661
But I lump them together with essentially that those are different types of node runners and holders and they have different levels of influence kind of in the world here.

172
00:16:42,781 --> 00:16:49,321
So the four is to simplify it a little bit for the perspective of those who maybe aren't so familiar with those dynamics.

173
00:16:49,321 --> 00:17:07,781
Anyway, the point I'm getting at here is that each one of those groups has their own concerns, right? If you're a holder of Bitcoin, you're concerned with how do you make sure that your stack stays safe. So I spend three chapters on that at the beginning of the second part of the book.

174
00:17:07,781 --> 00:17:12,181
than the issues of mining and node running.

175
00:17:12,481 --> 00:17:15,581
So there's a chapter each on the primary concerns

176
00:17:15,581 --> 00:17:18,981
for running a node at the moment and for mining.

177
00:17:19,701 --> 00:17:23,461
With node running, I mean, there are so many things that can come up.

178
00:17:23,741 --> 00:17:26,081
Node software is constantly under attack.

179
00:17:26,701 --> 00:17:29,501
And there are great people trying to figure out how to keep,

180
00:17:29,801 --> 00:17:33,081
say, your Bitcoin node software as secure as it possibly can be.

181
00:17:33,081 --> 00:17:35,421
There was a great article that came out just recently

182
00:17:35,421 --> 00:17:41,061
about how Nicholas Goetge, who's working with Brink, for example, is doing all of this

183
00:17:41,061 --> 00:17:47,101
fuzzing security testing and honestly, legitimately finding security bugs and things like this.

184
00:17:47,521 --> 00:17:52,481
The flip side, though, is that the latest couple of releases of Bitcoin Core have released

185
00:17:52,481 --> 00:17:54,221
with bugs.

186
00:17:54,661 --> 00:17:59,261
One of them was honestly a pretty catastrophic bug that could have resulted in wallet files

187
00:17:59,261 --> 00:17:59,841
getting deleted.

188
00:18:00,021 --> 00:18:03,481
You could have lost your Bitcoin if you didn't have a separate backup.

189
00:18:03,481 --> 00:18:18,161
And then a recent one on this V31 recently here was something like forcing any unnamed wallet to be migrated to a new system and get a name, causing a lot of hassle.

190
00:18:18,301 --> 00:18:23,781
You couldn't use older Bitcoin wallets once you upgrade to the latest version of Core or something like this.

191
00:18:23,781 --> 00:18:27,301
So the thing is, it's a double edged sword, right?

192
00:18:27,381 --> 00:18:33,421
Node development that as much as you want to add new features and security fixes, which

193
00:18:33,421 --> 00:18:40,361
are actually important, I 100% do not recommend running older versions of Bitcoin node software

194
00:18:40,361 --> 00:18:46,401
because there is stuff that accumulates over time that just you need to upgrade or else

195
00:18:46,401 --> 00:18:47,161
you could be vulnerable.

196
00:18:47,481 --> 00:18:49,141
And I cover all this in the book, of course.

197
00:18:49,141 --> 00:18:53,701
The main thing, though, is that if development is moving to add new features, there's

198
00:18:53,781 --> 00:19:00,961
always a risk of adding new vulnerabilities and new attack vectors. So I cover that with a whole

199
00:19:00,961 --> 00:19:06,401
chapter on kind of the risks that you can run into with your node software and development and

200
00:19:06,401 --> 00:19:12,521
all this. And then, of course, I think what you were alluding to is sort of the interplay of spam

201
00:19:12,521 --> 00:19:16,701
and governance. So I cover this in two chapters, and this is probably going to be the part that

202
00:19:16,701 --> 00:19:23,321
is most controversial with those in the community. I'm clear about my stance on arbitrary data,

203
00:19:23,321 --> 00:19:43,461
And I spend the whole chapter making my case for why that should be considered a security vulnerability. To keep it short here, the vulnerabilities that were identified by Luke Dash Jr. that effectively allowed arbitrary data to get onto Bitcoin, I consider those vulnerabilities for really simple cybersecurity reasons.

204
00:19:43,461 --> 00:20:11,521
The big thing about critical infrastructure that is important is availability. Availability of the system is absolutely paramount. And in the cybersecurity world, there's a concept called the CIA triad. So, hi, CIA. No, it's coincidence. Actually, coincidence. It stands for confidentiality, integrity, availability. And these are the three primary things that cybersecurity defends against attacks on.

205
00:20:11,521 --> 00:20:18,881
So confidentiality, someone attacking a confidentiality, that's trying to find your sensitive information, basically.

206
00:20:19,321 --> 00:20:24,681
You know, your passwords or your financial information or embarrassing pictures or whatnot.

207
00:20:25,381 --> 00:20:29,121
Attackers are trying to find that information so they can do something with it.

208
00:20:29,921 --> 00:20:32,761
Integrity is making sure that stuff doesn't get tampered with.

209
00:20:33,161 --> 00:20:35,381
And this can have a lot of other implications.

210
00:20:35,581 --> 00:20:40,121
It's a little more subtle, but basically your information is changed and you can't use it.

211
00:20:40,121 --> 00:20:47,141
or say someone hacks your account and starts using it for bad means, that's an integrity attack, essentially.

212
00:20:47,601 --> 00:20:50,741
You weren't able to keep your information unaltered.

213
00:20:51,201 --> 00:20:59,381
Then availability is the final point, and this is critical in the sector of factories and electrical grids and things like this.

214
00:20:59,621 --> 00:21:06,261
It's not necessarily as important for, say, a company's IT systems or even your personal computer to stay up and running.

215
00:21:06,261 --> 00:21:10,581
You can handle some downtime for a couple of hours in the worst case scenario.

216
00:21:10,981 --> 00:21:21,461
But if your electricity goes down or you can't keep the heat running or the water pumping or something like this, you notice the issue a lot more quickly.

217
00:21:21,621 --> 00:21:23,741
And Bitcoin is basically the same thing.

218
00:21:23,841 --> 00:21:31,061
That's the whole point of why I consider it critical infrastructure is that it has that in common, that availability of the system is paramount.

219
00:21:31,061 --> 00:21:42,541
And the point that I make with arbitrary data is that the worst issue with the spam is not, to me, the load on node runners.

220
00:21:43,361 --> 00:21:44,881
That is something.

221
00:21:45,001 --> 00:21:48,641
The decentralization risk on node runners is for sure something.

222
00:21:49,161 --> 00:21:56,261
But it's estimated that it's around 30, 40 gigabytes of additional block space has been used by this arbitrary data.

223
00:21:56,261 --> 00:22:05,921
In the scheme of things, that's not so massive as maybe the scope of what we might have been thinking about, those of us who have been vocal about this.

224
00:22:06,521 --> 00:22:08,501
The UTXO bloat is worse.

225
00:22:09,401 --> 00:22:18,921
So, I mean, the whole coverage of this, of that every individual new spam transaction is creating all of these UTXOs, yeah, that's bad.

226
00:22:19,161 --> 00:22:23,841
And I would love for some ways to solve the UTXO bloat problem.

227
00:22:24,801 --> 00:22:32,621
Theoretically, there's a lot of work being done on making the UTXO set a lot smaller and a lot easier to run for node runners.

228
00:22:32,621 --> 00:22:36,581
So I'm much less worried about those two specific points.

229
00:22:37,281 --> 00:22:42,801
The issue I have with arbitrary data is that it prices out or competes with monetary transactions.

230
00:22:43,161 --> 00:22:46,001
And these are two entirely separate markets, right?

231
00:22:46,421 --> 00:22:52,481
There's an entire separate incentive for the spammers to be putting their transactions onto Bitcoin.

232
00:22:52,481 --> 00:22:58,501
And they're willing to pay different prices than those who are simply using Bitcoin for its intended purpose.

233
00:22:58,821 --> 00:23:09,861
And by the way, on that, I always go back to peer-to-peer electronic cash in the white paper, not peer-to-peer electronic database, not peer-to-peer electronic JPEG archive system.

234
00:23:09,981 --> 00:23:12,081
It's cash in the classical sense of the word.

235
00:23:12,861 --> 00:23:15,661
Many people think that fiat bills are cash.

236
00:23:15,761 --> 00:23:16,961
They're not really cash.

237
00:23:17,181 --> 00:23:20,281
Cash is supposed to mean final settlement, right?

238
00:23:20,281 --> 00:23:41,001
Absolutely. A bearer instrument that settles finally. Exactly. And I mean, the light funny aside on that is that e-cash is kind of the more exact way of doing this. But Bitcoin, of course, was just the solution that has worked, the technical system that has worked. And there are e-cash protocols building on top of that, like Feddeeing and Cashew.

239
00:23:41,001 --> 00:23:57,101
But anyway, okay, aside, done. The availability angle for this with spam I don't think is talked about enough. And if you were around in 2023, 2024, you had to pay exorbitant prices to get into a Bitcoin block at all.

240
00:23:57,101 --> 00:24:04,801
There are periods of time where you had to pay 50, 100, 200 upward sats per V-byte in order to get into a block.

241
00:24:04,901 --> 00:24:06,701
And you had no idea when it was going to clear.

242
00:24:06,821 --> 00:24:12,861
I think 30 sats per V-byte was pretty, it stayed afloor there for a really long time.

243
00:24:13,681 --> 00:24:17,101
There's all this data available in a lot of places here.

244
00:24:17,261 --> 00:24:20,841
So the facts on this are clear of what happened.

245
00:24:20,841 --> 00:24:29,001
And the thing is, it doesn't matter to me that arbitrary data and spam has gone down somewhat and are paying lower fees and all this.

246
00:24:29,141 --> 00:24:30,701
You can reliably get into a block.

247
00:24:31,041 --> 00:24:35,161
What I'm worried about is the next time that it becomes a frenzy, right?

248
00:24:35,281 --> 00:24:38,561
We don't think about cybersecurity during business as usual.

249
00:24:38,701 --> 00:24:43,241
We think about worst case scenarios and we think about the bad things that can happen before they happen.

250
00:24:43,661 --> 00:24:46,961
And that's why I've been an advocate against arbitrary data for this entire time.

251
00:24:46,961 --> 00:24:50,121
I've seen the cybersecurity angle this entire time.

252
00:24:50,121 --> 00:25:04,301
And the vulnerabilities that were raised by Luke Dasher properly in the common vulnerability and exposure system, the formal way of tracking vulnerabilities in the cybersecurity world, these are textbook cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

253
00:25:04,301 --> 00:25:20,821
Even if you disagree that the specific things that caused the arbitrary data weren't necessarily anything that can be fixed or that the proposed fixes aren't feasible or something like this, that's not how cybersecurity works.

254
00:25:20,881 --> 00:25:25,561
You still highlight the vulnerability and you highlight that there is an issue and a thing happening.

255
00:25:25,561 --> 00:25:34,841
So we have to be honest about this in the community that there is a risk of the system being degraded for users of monetary transactions.

256
00:25:35,101 --> 00:25:47,601
And who knows how much the adoption of Bitcoin was harmed in 2023, 2024, because people just saw massive high fees and, you know, the meme of paying $50 for a coffee, something like this.

257
00:25:47,601 --> 00:25:49,701
That's terrible optics for Bitcoin.

258
00:25:50,021 --> 00:25:59,081
And I just do not believe it's the right course to try to cram every use case onto Bitcoin when it's at the expense of the monetary use case or the only use case.

259
00:26:00,121 --> 00:26:04,621
Yeah, the tricky thing there is where do you draw the line?

260
00:26:05,261 --> 00:26:05,961
Draw the line.

261
00:26:06,081 --> 00:26:07,541
What is monetary and what is not?

262
00:26:07,721 --> 00:26:11,701
Like a multi-sig time lock, this and that smart contract thing.

263
00:26:11,861 --> 00:26:14,861
Is that really a monetary use case or not?

264
00:26:14,981 --> 00:26:15,901
Like I find that hard.

265
00:26:16,321 --> 00:26:16,461
Yeah.

266
00:26:16,461 --> 00:26:20,041
You mentioned Andreas Antonopoulos there.

267
00:26:20,121 --> 00:26:23,261
I'm thinking of an attack vector that is a bit more abstract.

268
00:26:24,201 --> 00:26:30,201
Back in 2019, I wrote my first proper Bitcoin book, Sovereignty Through Mathematics,

269
00:26:30,341 --> 00:26:34,961
and it came out at the same time as Andreas' mastering Ethereum.

270
00:26:35,961 --> 00:26:38,441
And so Andreas was, of course, all of our...

271
00:26:38,441 --> 00:26:42,881
Everyone looked up to Andreas because he was so knowledgeable about computer networks and stuff.

272
00:26:43,061 --> 00:26:46,261
He was a great source of information back when.

273
00:26:46,461 --> 00:26:50,321
my entire generation was sort of orange-pilled by him.

274
00:26:50,901 --> 00:26:57,021
But then he chose to write this book for this or that reason,

275
00:26:57,721 --> 00:27:01,361
thereby sort of proving that he was kind of compromised.

276
00:27:01,361 --> 00:27:05,521
If you know what Ethereum was and about the 70% pre-mine

277
00:27:05,521 --> 00:27:07,961
and how it was a shitshow from the beginning,

278
00:27:08,541 --> 00:27:10,481
I mean, sure, I don't know.

279
00:27:11,481 --> 00:27:16,101
I suspect that there's a high risk that he lured a lot of people

280
00:27:16,101 --> 00:27:19,881
into buying this thing instead of just stacking sats.

281
00:27:20,161 --> 00:27:22,521
And people have correctly pointed out to me

282
00:27:22,521 --> 00:27:26,101
that I'm much less knowledgeable about computer networks than Andreas,

283
00:27:26,361 --> 00:27:27,561
but the fact still stands.

284
00:27:27,601 --> 00:27:30,201
If you read my book back then instead of Andreas' book,

285
00:27:30,261 --> 00:27:35,221
you would have 10x your money instead of losing 90% of it.

286
00:27:35,461 --> 00:27:38,181
So what do you think about attack vectors like that?

287
00:27:38,181 --> 00:27:52,882
Like if people get compromised because there a lot of reputational capital in Bitcoin if you will people seem to have good intentions And then a couple of years later they fall out of line and they do something really dodgy

288
00:27:53,602 --> 00:27:54,342
Who knows why?

289
00:27:54,562 --> 00:28:00,042
I bet some people, not specifically Andreas here, but I bet some people lost their stacks

290
00:28:00,042 --> 00:28:04,322
and then now they need to claw their way back for relevance and stuff like that.

291
00:28:04,322 --> 00:28:13,662
Or maybe they never got the really mind-blowing part about absolute finite supply in the first place and misjudged Bitcoin.

292
00:28:13,962 --> 00:28:20,302
There's so many people that seem to be good actors until the day they're not anymore.

293
00:28:20,602 --> 00:28:22,002
Does the book cover this at all?

294
00:28:22,762 --> 00:28:24,342
It does to some extent.

295
00:28:24,502 --> 00:28:31,902
The idea of essentially the capture and coercion of, say, developers, I certainly cover it.

296
00:28:31,902 --> 00:28:33,262
I haven't so much influencers.

297
00:28:33,262 --> 00:28:39,662
Maybe that's something that I can work in before we go to final print, for example.

298
00:28:40,002 --> 00:28:44,242
But because this is coming out as the day that we launch the book.

299
00:28:44,342 --> 00:28:53,602
So the book website is out now and it will be launching on June 15th on Amazon and BitcoinInfinity.com, of course.

300
00:28:54,262 --> 00:28:59,262
And then simultaneously, I will have books at BTC Prague just beforehand.

301
00:28:59,262 --> 00:29:03,802
just beforehand. So that will be the first time you can buy the book and get it signed, of course.

302
00:29:04,702 --> 00:29:13,262
So the concept of, say, influencer capture or developer coercion, things like this,

303
00:29:13,662 --> 00:29:20,862
getting captured by those of us who are against Bitcoin. Well, that's a tricky topic, right?

304
00:29:20,902 --> 00:29:26,862
Because there are so many different opinions about Bitcoin, what it is used for, what it should be

305
00:29:26,862 --> 00:29:33,302
used for. And I'm certainly in the camp of monetary maximalism that Bitcoin is money and

306
00:29:33,302 --> 00:29:38,942
Bitcoin should only be used for money. And I hesitate to sort of say this in a prescriptive

307
00:29:38,942 --> 00:29:43,662
way. It's just more like if Bitcoin is going to be worth, I believe that if Bitcoin is going to

308
00:29:43,662 --> 00:29:49,402
be worth anything at all, it's going to be worth something as money. And the more that non-money

309
00:29:49,402 --> 00:29:56,562
use cases of Bitcoin are done or put into place, the less good at being money Bitcoin is.

310
00:29:56,562 --> 00:30:22,122
That's my position. And the thing is, I don't know necessarily that there are people who are Bitcoin advocates who take a position that we need to put everything onto Bitcoin. And I simply disagree with them. I don't necessarily know that people are, say, captured if their views on Bitcoin change or allowed to come to different opinions, different conclusions.

311
00:30:22,122 --> 00:30:37,002
I can certainly appreciate that maybe those who are into Bitcoin in the early days, such as Andreas, for example, could have seen Ethereum as an interesting secondary project because it was a different implementation of blockchain.

312
00:30:38,462 --> 00:30:44,642
The thing about it is that I can see that people can make that leap.

313
00:30:45,102 --> 00:30:51,182
I acknowledge that people are capable of different thoughts than me on this one, essentially.

314
00:30:51,182 --> 00:31:14,942
Now, of course, I'm going to disagree with them, right? I'm going to disagree with them and point out that Ethereum is a total scam. All of the other cryptos are a total scam. I hardly cover any other cryptocurrencies in this book at all, except to say, first of all, that I believe that they are all not worth touching, as well as pointing out a couple of cybersecurity incidents that have affected other chains.

315
00:31:14,942 --> 00:31:26,182
Like, for example, this recent thing with Litecoin where there was a massive reorg, for example, that's illustrative of a worst case scenario that could happen on Bitcoin since there's similar architecture.

316
00:31:27,102 --> 00:31:37,462
But also it is also evidence that these other chains just have way, way less security and are not worth touching from that perspective either.

317
00:31:37,762 --> 00:31:42,742
No, it's a proof of Litecoin not being decentralized enough.

318
00:31:42,742 --> 00:31:46,742
and like how do we know that Bitcoin is decentralized enough?

319
00:31:46,902 --> 00:31:49,082
We know that it has a track record of,

320
00:31:49,862 --> 00:31:52,382
it certainly looks like it's decentralized enough,

321
00:31:52,522 --> 00:31:55,302
but it's very hard to tell if it actually is.

322
00:31:55,402 --> 00:31:58,702
I think like the biggest proof I got was during the block size wars

323
00:31:58,702 --> 00:32:03,342
when the plebs won against the powers that be, so to speak.

324
00:32:03,342 --> 00:32:06,502
Like all the big companies in Bitcoin wanted one thing,

325
00:32:06,882 --> 00:32:09,122
the users wanted another and the users won.

326
00:32:09,122 --> 00:32:20,422
So that's where I became a hardcore maxi instead of just a maxi because I realized that this is actually delivering on its promises.

327
00:32:20,822 --> 00:32:24,242
It is as decentralized as it needs to be.

328
00:32:24,762 --> 00:32:31,362
And I think decentralization is one of those buzzwords that got thrown around a lot back then.

329
00:32:31,362 --> 00:32:39,902
The biggest misconception about it is that it's an unfortunate means to a greater end rather than anything else.

330
00:32:40,042 --> 00:32:44,562
It would be better if we could just trust human beings and they wouldn't lie in sheet and steel.

331
00:32:45,222 --> 00:32:54,082
In that case, we would have had a much leaner, much more efficient system, and we could just trust that no one would print more money.

332
00:32:54,522 --> 00:32:57,182
But that is not the case, and that's why we need decentralization.

333
00:32:57,182 --> 00:33:09,902
So it's not an end in itself. It's a means to a greater end, which is this absolute finite supply and the real solution to the double spending problem, I'd say. Thoughts?

334
00:33:09,902 --> 00:33:25,722
Well, absolutely. I tackle decentralization in the book, and I agree with you completely that decentralization is one of these things that we've maybe misunderstood. And also, it's not necessarily as robustly decentralized as we might believe.

335
00:33:25,722 --> 00:33:31,222
The mining angle is basically the point that I'm currently first highlighting here.

336
00:33:31,942 --> 00:33:39,422
The mining issue is that essentially there are only about 10 real big miners.

337
00:33:39,922 --> 00:33:51,582
Everyone who is providing hash to a pool that aggregates all of the hash rate and provides the block templates, as in that's almost every pool.

338
00:33:51,742 --> 00:33:55,282
The pool themselves are the ones who are the miners in reality.

339
00:33:55,282 --> 00:34:04,402
They are the ones who are choosing the blocks that get mined, and they're simply pushing work to individual hashers, the people running the ASICs.

340
00:34:04,542 --> 00:34:12,202
Ocean and Datum and Stratum v2 protocols to make Bitcoin more decentralized, Bitcoin mining more decentralized.

341
00:34:12,862 --> 00:34:20,822
In other words, give the block template construction to the users, let users make control, make the choices about the blocks that they're actually mining.

342
00:34:21,162 --> 00:34:22,562
That's hugely important.

343
00:34:22,562 --> 00:34:36,242
And we saw just recently a potential greedy mining attack from Foundry where they effectively they didn't broadcast a block that they found until after they found another one, which is strange practice, definitely.

344
00:34:36,902 --> 00:34:46,842
And we don't know if there was anything nefarious going on, but it effectively ate another block by another pool because the Foundry's chain ended up being the longest one.

345
00:34:46,842 --> 00:34:54,562
And there was 24 hours where they were almost 50% of the blocks found were foundry blocks.

346
00:34:54,982 --> 00:34:58,682
So theoretically, their hash rate is in the 30% range.

347
00:34:58,742 --> 00:35:04,682
But if they get a run of really good luck, yeah, they are almost half of the network, right?

348
00:35:04,682 --> 00:35:16,582
And so I think it's crucially important for individual miners to build their own blocks and to use pools because pools are effectively necessary still.

349
00:35:16,842 --> 00:35:45,622
Another one of those necessary evil kind of things. For mining to be decentralized enough, you need to work together with others so that you can get a chunk of the rewards and share them together. I wish there was a way that didn't sound so socialistic, but basically we have to do it for it to make any economic sense. We can't have every miner essentially lottery mining because then there are only so many blocks found per day and we need more miners than that, right?

350
00:35:45,622 --> 00:35:59,482
Well, there's nothing socialistic about voluntary things, group-centered or not. And now that we have Datum, for instance, I think that's a super important tool for decentralization.

351
00:35:59,482 --> 00:36:07,942
I urge you all to go and see my interview with unhosted Marcellus, where he talks about this pleb mining movement, which is great.

352
00:36:08,082 --> 00:36:16,982
You can rent hash power and become effectively a pool owner yourself because you're mining with another pool, which is ocean.

353
00:36:17,322 --> 00:36:23,162
But you still get to choose what block template you construct.

354
00:36:23,702 --> 00:36:25,502
And that's a huge thing.

355
00:36:25,642 --> 00:36:28,122
It makes you a miner rather than a hash salesman.

356
00:36:28,122 --> 00:36:34,882
and actually makes the pool you're buying the hash power from the hash salesman and you the miner,

357
00:36:35,062 --> 00:36:37,242
which is sort of reversing this trend.

358
00:36:37,862 --> 00:36:41,902
And it's super cool to see that kind of development.

359
00:36:42,842 --> 00:36:46,482
Absolutely. Well, and you know, the thing is, I love Ocean, you love Ocean.

360
00:36:46,782 --> 00:36:49,682
I've pointed all of my hash to Ocean.

361
00:36:49,682 --> 00:36:55,581
I welcome other pools coming up that also implement decentralized mining, Stratum v2.

362
00:36:55,742 --> 00:36:56,682
This is important.

363
00:36:56,682 --> 00:37:09,622
And of course, if you want to solo mine, every once in a while, someone hits a bid axe or a nerd axe or just a single ASIC in someone's home, hits a block, and then they get the entire reward, and that's fantastic.

364
00:37:10,262 --> 00:37:14,262
So more mining decentralization is the fix to many things.

365
00:37:14,262 --> 00:37:20,922
And I also talk about how effectively the miners are the final backstop in terms of arbitrary data.

366
00:37:20,922 --> 00:37:26,362
individual miners can decide whether to include arbitrary data or not, no matter what happens on

367
00:37:26,362 --> 00:37:32,422
other layers of the chain, right? And my view is that there are many miners who disagree with

368
00:37:32,422 --> 00:37:38,102
arbitrary data on Bitcoin. And it's not censorship if one individual decides not to mine a block with

369
00:37:38,102 --> 00:37:42,462
a transaction that they disagree with. It's censorship if it's done on the protocol level

370
00:37:42,462 --> 00:37:50,442
to say that, say, these addresses are never allowed to transact, or it is attempted coercion

371
00:37:50,442 --> 00:37:54,902
and censorship for a government to come in and say, hey, miners, you're never allowed to mine a block

372
00:37:54,902 --> 00:38:01,942
with these transactions like the OFAC list. But as long as there are plebs who are out there

373
00:38:01,942 --> 00:38:08,202
mining in a decentralized way, or say guys like Bob Burnett, who famously is pointing a lot of

374
00:38:08,202 --> 00:38:14,362
hash to Ocean and others, he's definitely an industrial miner kind of thing. As long as there

375
00:38:14,362 --> 00:38:21,342
are people who are mining in a decentralized way, right? You'll get into someone's block.

376
00:38:21,782 --> 00:38:28,442
I think that's the thing. So it's the answer to so many angles. And ultimately,

377
00:38:29,502 --> 00:38:35,222
if there's a small percentage of the network that is mining clean blocks free of arbitrary data

378
00:38:35,222 --> 00:38:40,002
and making it easier for monetary transactions to get into the network, that's nothing but a good

379
00:38:40,002 --> 00:38:48,662
thing. And I hope that that signal increases, that individual miners take the position to mine

380
00:38:48,662 --> 00:38:54,822
clean blocks. And there is also evidence that Ocean's payout model pays more than the average

381
00:38:54,822 --> 00:39:04,102
FPPS pool or the traditional pool model, where we don't see the real formula of how payments get

382
00:39:04,102 --> 00:39:13,242
made. I believe the key figure from Ocean's last year is that it's about 3.6% better.

383
00:39:14,282 --> 00:39:19,862
You get a 3.6% fee for using FPPS pools on average. So Ocean pays more.

384
00:39:20,762 --> 00:39:27,542
To explain this a bit further, FPPS stands for full pay per share, which is you sell hash power

385
00:39:27,542 --> 00:39:37,062
to a mining pool and you get paid out a sum that is relative to how much hash power you give them

386
00:39:37,062 --> 00:39:42,982
and that sum is fixed per time unit whereas if you mine with ocean you only get a payout whenever

387
00:39:42,982 --> 00:39:49,402
they find a block so you're not you're not paying extra for the the pool to take on that extra risk

388
00:39:49,402 --> 00:39:55,762
of not finding blocks uh that's that's the basic thing yeah this uh this whole thought thread

389
00:39:55,762 --> 00:40:03,502
inevitably leads to the question which I have to ask you at this point, and that is here at the

390
00:40:03,502 --> 00:40:14,522
29th of April, 2026, what's your stance on BIP-110? Yeah, thanks. So I'm going to just say that at the

391
00:40:14,522 --> 00:40:19,802
moment I do not support BIP-110, and I'm going to get into why. There's a chapter after the

392
00:40:19,802 --> 00:40:25,922
arbitrary data chapter on essentially governance centralization and governance risks. And this is

393
00:40:25,922 --> 00:40:34,362
everywhere where I point out what I see as issues with the current structure of Bitcoin node

394
00:40:34,362 --> 00:40:41,722
development. The primary issue that I see there is that Bitcoin development is largely concentrated

395
00:40:41,722 --> 00:40:47,022
in the hands of two companies, Brink and Chaincode. There's also Spiral that's

396
00:40:47,022 --> 00:40:52,902
funding specific developers. And the thing with it is that I'm not implying anything

397
00:40:52,902 --> 00:40:59,882
directly nefarious or anything. It's just simply that Bitcoin Core as an organization is not being

398
00:40:59,882 --> 00:41:07,982
run as a open source, decentralized, literally. It's being developed like a traditional software

399
00:41:07,982 --> 00:41:13,522
with teams in physical offices that talk to each other over their coffee breaks who

400
00:41:13,522 --> 00:41:20,282
are making decisions about the direction of Bitcoin protocol development that aren't necessarily

401
00:41:20,282 --> 00:41:27,362
in line with what the community believes. And as we've seen since September, October,

402
00:41:27,502 --> 00:41:33,642
or before that, when the change was announced with the Op Return debate, that basically the

403
00:41:33,642 --> 00:41:48,343
Bitcoin core goes ahead with protocol decisions that are unpopular with their users And what I say to that is generally that no other software is not accountable to their users

404
00:41:48,682 --> 00:41:56,162
And the answers that have come back as far as that Bitcoin Core should not be directed by a mob rule,

405
00:41:56,162 --> 00:42:04,982
So, well, that's just completely irrelevant because the users will then choose to use another form of the software in Bitcoin Noughts.

406
00:42:05,702 --> 00:42:07,802
And I go into the whole history.

407
00:42:08,323 --> 00:42:14,843
Our friend Hod Lanott has also done some fantastic work in the article series that he's been putting out.

408
00:42:14,843 --> 00:42:24,682
The second article in the series is coming out today, I believe, like when we're recording this, called The Lever, so in Citadel 21 magazines.

409
00:42:24,682 --> 00:42:28,662
And so looking forward to reading that later today.

410
00:42:29,023 --> 00:42:29,782
Yes, absolutely.

411
00:42:29,982 --> 00:42:34,402
And the threads he's been putting out as well have been very good.

412
00:42:34,802 --> 00:42:40,902
He's gotten a lot of attacks for simply pointing out things that are available in the public

413
00:42:40,902 --> 00:42:41,343
record.

414
00:42:41,343 --> 00:42:46,823
And I mean, the most charitable, just trying to steal man here a little bit, the most charitable

415
00:42:46,823 --> 00:42:52,802
I can be is that maybe some things are being misconstrued in the raw text and all this.

416
00:42:52,802 --> 00:42:57,402
But honestly, it's extremely compelling stuff that there's a lot going on behind the scenes.

417
00:42:57,882 --> 00:43:06,982
Your interview with John Attack, for example, was another big piece of information reveal on what has been going on in Bitcoin Core.

418
00:43:07,902 --> 00:43:10,202
And so there's a whole history that you can read.

419
00:43:10,362 --> 00:43:14,742
I touch on what I consider the most important elements of the story here.

420
00:43:14,742 --> 00:43:44,722
But ultimately, the result is that a group in Bitcoin has decided that enough is enough. And effectively, if the protocol layer for arbitrary data, the policy layer, sorry, is no longer relevant, if the default node implementation, Bitcoin Core, is going to take a position that mempools should match what is

421
00:43:44,722 --> 00:43:53,482
likely to be mined, taking away agency from users. And I do assert that the goal of the

422
00:43:53,482 --> 00:43:59,482
operaturn change, at least a partial secondary goal, is to make basically everyone's mempool

423
00:43:59,482 --> 00:44:04,942
the same. Homogenous mempool is absolutely a goal. This has been said multiple places by

424
00:44:04,942 --> 00:44:11,563
prominent core proponents or developers, that everyone's mempool is the same and that all

425
00:44:11,563 --> 00:44:17,982
transactions, if their consensus valid should be relayed to miners and make it into blocks.

426
00:44:18,543 --> 00:44:22,823
And this is just as prescriptive as anyone saying that Bitcoin should only be used as

427
00:44:22,823 --> 00:44:26,182
money, except it has the opposite result, of course.

428
00:44:26,182 --> 00:44:28,702
Is this mostly for fee estimation?

429
00:44:30,023 --> 00:44:38,082
Yeah, it's for a combination of fee estimation and also the block validation as well.

430
00:44:38,082 --> 00:44:44,162
if you don't have transactions in a valid Bitcoin block, it takes you longer to find out,

431
00:44:44,582 --> 00:44:50,462
to validate if it was really a valid block, if all the transactions were valid. It's basically

432
00:44:50,462 --> 00:44:56,982
technical concerns that are, yeah, okay, the performance of the network could be a little

433
00:44:56,982 --> 00:45:03,422
bit degraded here. But the point that I make to that is that individuals are choosing not to

434
00:45:03,422 --> 00:45:08,662
implement all the features that Bitcoin Core is implementing. And individuals are choosing not to

435
00:45:08,662 --> 00:45:13,422
relay all transactions. And individuals are choosing not to hold transactions in their

436
00:45:13,422 --> 00:45:19,082
mempool that they disagree with. So this is happening. You can't engineer a decentralized

437
00:45:19,082 --> 00:45:24,662
system the same way you can engineer a centralized piece of software that's running entirely on

438
00:45:24,662 --> 00:45:30,563
systems that you control. You just can't do it. And I've been getting into a lot of

439
00:45:30,563 --> 00:45:36,782
conversations with Adam Back on this topic. And, you know, I find it a little bit funny that,

440
00:45:36,782 --> 00:45:41,762
you know, he's called me out specifically. Yeah, I'm saying conversations, they're really kind of

441
00:45:41,762 --> 00:45:50,602
arguments. But one point that he has made is that basically multiple node implementations are a

442
00:45:50,602 --> 00:46:01,162
massive security risk for Bitcoin and not within Satoshi's original vision for Bitcoin,

443
00:46:01,282 --> 00:46:07,682
that Satoshi understood this particular risk. What he's meaning is that different implementations

444
00:46:07,682 --> 00:46:12,462
have technically the risk of going out of consensus with each other, which results in

445
00:46:12,462 --> 00:46:18,682
a chain split, literally, until they fix it and get back in line with each other.

446
00:46:18,682 --> 00:46:26,102
But the point is that it's already fragmented. There are dozens of versions of Bitcoin Core

447
00:46:26,102 --> 00:46:30,523
available and every single one of them technically could include some kind of consensus bug that

448
00:46:30,523 --> 00:46:36,642
we've never found. Bitcoin Noughts is growing in popularity. I don't know exactly how popular it is

449
00:46:36,642 --> 00:46:43,502
right now. I'm currently using that around 20% of nodes are Noughts nodes. There appear to be some

450
00:46:43,502 --> 00:46:52,202
some either neutral researchers or core supporters who have been spooling up a lot of BIP-110 nodes

451
00:46:52,202 --> 00:46:59,842
and NOTs nodes to inflate the numbers, to make the conspiracy theories that to make the community

452
00:46:59,842 --> 00:47:04,622
look like it's more confident than it is at the outcome.

453
00:47:05,182 --> 00:47:06,442
But I don't care.

454
00:47:06,543 --> 00:47:09,922
A significant portion of nodes has migrated to NOTs,

455
00:47:09,922 --> 00:47:13,762
and a significant portion of nodes is running BIP-110.

456
00:47:14,422 --> 00:47:22,202
The point I say to Adam specifically is that you can't expect there to only be one type of node

457
00:47:22,202 --> 00:47:26,902
when you already have all of these types of nodes elsewhere.

458
00:47:28,142 --> 00:47:35,902
The cybersecurity perspective on this also is that more decentralization means that a lower proportion of users

459
00:47:35,902 --> 00:47:39,642
are going to be affected if there's a bug found in one version of the software.

460
00:47:39,922 --> 00:47:48,842
The Core v30 bug that I talked about earlier, that one only affected those users who had upgraded to Core v30 within those first few months.

461
00:47:48,842 --> 00:47:51,602
It took a few months to find the bug, though.

462
00:47:52,442 --> 00:48:02,602
And if that had been a bug that was in every Bitcoin node software for years and years and years, well, yeah, there could have actually been catastrophic results for the entire network.

463
00:48:02,782 --> 00:48:07,582
But the decentralization of node implementations is actually a really, really good thing.

464
00:48:07,582 --> 00:48:13,602
and I completely welcome the development of Production Ready,

465
00:48:14,242 --> 00:48:15,962
Samson and Jimmy's effort.

466
00:48:16,122 --> 00:48:19,543
That interview that you did with them a few weeks ago, fantastic stuff.

467
00:48:19,622 --> 00:48:22,523
It's great to hear that there are people who are trying to build

468
00:48:22,523 --> 00:48:26,563
more node implementations and I agree with a conservative approach.

469
00:48:26,922 --> 00:48:28,162
Nots is working for me.

470
00:48:28,162 --> 00:48:33,702
It implements the things that I like that are more in line with my viewpoint

471
00:48:33,702 --> 00:48:38,563
and make it easy to essentially have the settings that I want.

472
00:48:38,563 --> 00:48:45,902
It fixes the specific vulnerabilities as well that Luke raised those years ago.

473
00:48:46,502 --> 00:48:52,102
So I'm happy with Notts, but when a third implementation comes out, I'll happily run it as well.

474
00:48:52,523 --> 00:48:54,342
And I mean, this is also a thing.

475
00:48:54,422 --> 00:49:00,142
If you can afford to run more than one Bitcoin node, running multiple implementations is absolutely a good thing.

476
00:49:00,142 --> 00:49:06,563
And it keeps you sheltered in case there's a critical bug in one of those implementations, but not the other.

477
00:49:07,442 --> 00:49:10,982
Okay, so I'm finally getting to the point of the original question you asked me.

478
00:49:11,282 --> 00:49:22,502
So BIP-110, the issue with this that I have been basically convinced with through guys like Giacomo and Jimmy and Samson and all this, John Attack even,

479
00:49:22,502 --> 00:49:30,682
is that the solution to the problem through BIP-110 is maybe,

480
00:49:31,102 --> 00:49:35,222
first of all, it's technically not done in a way that won't break anything.

481
00:49:35,642 --> 00:49:40,622
There's an argument to be made that you can't sort of restrain arbitrary data

482
00:49:40,622 --> 00:49:44,722
without having some collateral damage breaking some things.

483
00:49:45,722 --> 00:49:49,842
I do make the point that cybersecurity is all about trade-offs.

484
00:49:50,002 --> 00:49:51,722
This is throughout defending Bitcoin.

485
00:49:51,722 --> 00:49:55,922
that security always comes at a convenience cost.

486
00:49:56,323 --> 00:49:57,323
There's always a trade-off.

487
00:49:57,762 --> 00:50:01,342
And the thing is, if there is going to be some kind of an impact

488
00:50:01,342 --> 00:50:05,622
in order to implement a security change or a security upgrade

489
00:50:05,622 --> 00:50:09,342
that is going to make it harder for, say, development to happen

490
00:50:09,342 --> 00:50:12,082
or make it so certain features have to be redesigned,

491
00:50:12,602 --> 00:50:15,023
I do believe that that can be considered a valid trade-off.

492
00:50:15,023 --> 00:50:19,023
And in the case of BIP-110, I've gotten into some discussions on Exxon

493
00:50:19,023 --> 00:50:24,862
on this point, even after I've publicly come out saying that I no longer support the fork itself,

494
00:50:26,782 --> 00:50:33,822
that basically the trade-offs that BIP-110 is attempting to put in are

495
00:50:34,462 --> 00:50:41,742
completely valid, completely worthwhile. I do not believe that restricting Tapscript a little bit,

496
00:50:41,742 --> 00:50:50,543
or restricting certain ways that you can embed arbitrary data is so constricting on developers

497
00:50:50,543 --> 00:50:56,262
that if the network chooses to implement this soft fork, they won't be able to continue.

498
00:50:56,402 --> 00:50:57,543
You can still develop things.

499
00:50:57,602 --> 00:50:59,742
You just have to do it within constraints.

500
00:51:00,282 --> 00:51:05,242
And I do also believe that the development community has been the one that hasn't had

501
00:51:05,242 --> 00:51:06,922
to make sacrifices, right?

502
00:51:06,922 --> 00:51:11,123
The node runners, even back in the block size wars, effectively had to make a sacrifice

503
00:51:11,123 --> 00:51:12,922
by implementing the SegWit discount.

504
00:51:13,342 --> 00:51:14,902
That has been a block size increase.

505
00:51:15,023 --> 00:51:19,582
The average block size since SegWit is 1.5 to 2 megabytes per block.

506
00:51:19,722 --> 00:51:20,982
That was a block size increase.

507
00:51:21,202 --> 00:51:24,862
And that was accepted in order to get these new features

508
00:51:24,862 --> 00:51:28,382
and also to kind of bring an end to the block size wars itself.

509
00:51:28,382 --> 00:51:31,762
And the miners, of course, didn't get what they wanted either.

510
00:51:31,962 --> 00:51:39,422
They had to not get their Bitcoin cash be the thing that won the day in the market, right?

511
00:51:39,422 --> 00:51:47,862
The development community was then able to go and push Taproot in a lot easier than maybe they previously would have.

512
00:51:48,523 --> 00:51:51,043
And similarly Segwit itself, right?

513
00:51:51,102 --> 00:51:58,962
There's a combination of technical debt that I go into in defending Bitcoin that led to the arbitrary data.

514
00:51:59,482 --> 00:52:05,802
And basically, my argument is that Taproot was a little undercooked.

515
00:52:05,802 --> 00:52:11,623
it needed a little bit more work to get things exactly right and maybe needed to go in with the

516
00:52:11,623 --> 00:52:17,782
same level of restricting arbitrary data and all this. And it didn't get the chance to do that.

517
00:52:17,782 --> 00:52:26,462
99% of UTXOs that use Taproot, more than that, are spam, are dust. So in a results-based metric,

518
00:52:26,682 --> 00:52:33,442
Taproot has entirely been a failure, even if it has created some privacy improvements that certain

519
00:52:33,442 --> 00:52:42,462
users do use, the vast majority of people still use Segwit or legacy addresses. So Taproot is a

520
00:52:42,462 --> 00:52:49,162
tool for arbitrary data that, in my view, has been enabled entirely by essentially a rushed

521
00:52:49,162 --> 00:52:55,262
development if I'm being as charitable as possible. If there had been a little more scrutiny on Taproot,

522
00:52:55,362 --> 00:53:00,882
maybe we wouldn't be having the same levels of issues. You want to focus me back to the point, right?

523
00:53:00,882 --> 00:53:11,362
So the thing is that this is very reminiscent about my conversation with Hodlonot about a month back.

524
00:53:11,882 --> 00:53:23,702
Because we were in complete agreement and he was still at that point against BIP-110, but has since changed his mind and is now signaling for it.

525
00:53:23,702 --> 00:53:31,023
So I hear a lot from you. I hear the same arguments that I'm making as to why I'm for BIP 110.

526
00:53:31,023 --> 00:53:36,882
So I'd like to like the specific question, what makes you against this thing rather than pro,

527
00:53:37,362 --> 00:53:42,242
given its temporary nature and that it doesn't really fuck things up?

528
00:53:42,322 --> 00:53:44,582
You just don't think the tradeoff is worth it, I guess?

529
00:53:44,822 --> 00:53:48,922
Okay. One portion of that, just to address the very last part.

530
00:53:49,082 --> 00:53:52,242
I do think that BIP 110 could have been engineered a bit differently.

531
00:53:52,242 --> 00:53:55,382
and I have said this online quite a bit,

532
00:53:56,682 --> 00:54:01,563
that I do think it's a mistake to cap the opportune at the 83 bytes

533
00:54:01,563 --> 00:54:05,822
when every other thing that BIP-110 does is at the 256 byte mark.

534
00:54:05,822 --> 00:54:12,762
It effectively makes those other vectors more worth it to use

535
00:54:12,762 --> 00:54:20,422
and also gives some level of cover for protocols

536
00:54:20,422 --> 00:54:24,623
that want to put a little bit more data using fake pub keys

537
00:54:24,623 --> 00:54:25,822
and things like this.

538
00:54:25,822 --> 00:54:29,402
I thought a compromised position of 256 across the board

539
00:54:29,402 --> 00:54:32,142
would have been pretty much okay.

540
00:54:33,023 --> 00:54:33,802
But okay, anyway.

541
00:54:33,982 --> 00:54:39,582
And then the other point of the simply disabling op-if in Tapscript,

542
00:54:39,582 --> 00:54:45,262
If a better technical solution isn't possible, okay, I can get there.

543
00:54:45,502 --> 00:54:53,382
But honestly, I don't think they had to be that sweeping in order to make that specific decision.

544
00:54:54,402 --> 00:54:59,302
There's more collateral damage than there necessarily needs to be, is my view on a technical level.

545
00:55:00,202 --> 00:55:02,123
Again, I come all the way back to that.

546
00:55:02,222 --> 00:55:06,123
I think the trade-offs that result from BIP110 are perfectly reasonable.

547
00:55:06,123 --> 00:55:11,123
And I've had these discussions on X a fair bit.

548
00:55:11,123 --> 00:55:14,123
And I do think this is a point where I,

549
00:55:14,123 --> 00:55:17,123
as a cybersecurity professional,

550
00:55:17,123 --> 00:55:19,123
think that those things are still fine

551
00:55:19,123 --> 00:55:22,123
if the network implements it, decides to implement it.

552
00:55:22,123 --> 00:55:24,123
And that's the point.

553
00:55:24,123 --> 00:55:28,123
So the thing is, I realized my position on Bit.10

554
00:55:28,123 --> 00:55:32,922
through the process of writing this book, that I can't,

555
00:55:32,963 --> 00:55:40,263
justify support for this thing if it's going to cause a risk of a chain split.

556
00:55:41,023 --> 00:55:48,723
And my view on this is that, first of all, miners have to mandatorily signal for BIP-110

557
00:55:48,723 --> 00:55:50,763
after a certain block height.

558
00:55:51,103 --> 00:55:54,783
Otherwise, BIP-110 nodes will reject those blocks.

559
00:55:54,783 --> 00:56:00,423
So it's not enough for miners to simply mine blocks that don't contain arbitrary data or

560
00:56:00,423 --> 00:56:03,643
that only contain transactions that follow the rules of BIP-110.

561
00:56:03,783 --> 00:56:06,463
They also have to signal their support for BIP-110.

562
00:56:06,763 --> 00:56:07,223
So that's it.

563
00:56:07,223 --> 00:56:10,183
Yes, this is something I learned from you.

564
00:56:10,283 --> 00:56:11,103
Like, I didn't know that.

565
00:56:11,243 --> 00:56:14,703
I thought that you could just follow the rules without signaling,

566
00:56:14,883 --> 00:56:15,703
but that's not possible.

567
00:56:16,063 --> 00:56:19,203
Yeah, so the miners have to make a decision for it, right?

568
00:56:19,203 --> 00:56:24,603
So since the soft fork is organized the way it is,

569
00:56:24,603 --> 00:56:32,503
I believe the miners have a massively outsized power in this particular venue.

570
00:56:32,503 --> 00:56:43,823
Now, okay, if 90% of miners eventually get there and say, yes, that we're going to signal for BIP110, a 10% holdout isn't going to have much sway here.

571
00:56:43,943 --> 00:56:50,163
But as far as it looks, all of the major mining pools aren't going to signal for BIP110.

572
00:56:50,163 --> 00:57:10,903
So if we're talking about the hash rate from people mining with Ocean, okay, great, fantastic. But likely after the BIP-110 launch date, it's going to be the case that way more miners are mining non-compliant blocks. And what do we have after that point? We have some kind of split.

573
00:57:10,903 --> 00:57:23,383
And the argument, the fair argument that it's a soft fork, first of all, it's entirely compatible on core nodes, for example, or non-BIP-110 nodes.

574
00:57:23,563 --> 00:57:29,443
BIP-110 blocks are entirely compatible with the rest of the network because it's a subset of what is currently valid.

575
00:57:30,083 --> 00:57:37,323
That there is no risk to miners for mining a BIP-110 signaling compliant block.

576
00:57:37,323 --> 00:57:40,683
And there is risk by mining non-compliant.

577
00:57:40,903 --> 00:57:48,343
blocks. Those could be wiped out if the chain eventually catches up. So the issue I have is

578
00:57:48,343 --> 00:57:57,763
that I just don't see, I see this wide gap of scenarios where either there's three outcomes

579
00:57:57,763 --> 00:58:03,443
to this to try to be a little more organized. One is that Bit.10 activates overwhelmingly,

580
00:58:03,443 --> 00:58:10,443
Like, say it gets to the 55% hash threshold and, yeah, just activates overwhelmingly.

581
00:58:11,263 --> 00:58:12,723
It's just the longest chain.

582
00:58:13,083 --> 00:58:13,603
Okay, great.

583
00:58:14,523 --> 00:58:15,403
Then it's in.

584
00:58:15,443 --> 00:58:16,063
It's in place.

585
00:58:16,263 --> 00:58:22,443
And I fully support it going in and the temporary nature of it and all of those arguments.

586
00:58:22,583 --> 00:58:22,943
Absolutely.

587
00:58:23,683 --> 00:58:25,403
The second one is the opposite.

588
00:58:26,403 --> 00:58:30,383
The overwhelming amount of hash is against BIP110.

589
00:58:30,383 --> 00:58:34,763
and yeah, basically it just gets crushed immediately.

590
00:58:34,763 --> 00:58:38,243
If it's 10% of the hash rate is on BIP110,

591
00:58:38,403 --> 00:58:40,803
I don't even see that being enough to sustain

592
00:58:40,803 --> 00:58:42,943
to become the longest chain eventually.

593
00:58:43,843 --> 00:58:45,423
And then there's this big middle ground

594
00:58:45,423 --> 00:58:50,223
where maybe there is a couple of competing chains.

595
00:58:51,063 --> 00:58:54,583
You have a BIP110 chain and you have a non-BIP110 chain.

596
00:58:54,583 --> 00:59:08,143
I just see this as too big of a structural risk and that it would be bad for Bitcoin in both the short term and potentially the medium term and long term.

597
00:59:08,143 --> 00:59:21,363
I do not want to see the community fracture. I believe the risk of a chain split through a fork like this is just not worth undertaking the endeavor.

598
00:59:21,363 --> 00:59:32,643
And I would rather approach solutions to arbitrary data that are on the level of decentralizing mining and supporting alternate node softwares that allow for different policy settings.

599
00:59:33,083 --> 00:59:39,223
And maybe trying to find consensus through a way that isn't going to be so controversial.

600
00:59:39,903 --> 00:59:45,383
Simply to sum up, I believe there's enough of the network are just not going to support BIP 110 on principle.

601
00:59:45,383 --> 00:59:56,383
Maybe they're even going to do an intentionally rejected hard fork so that they, in fact, force a chain split and force a new token and all this.

602
00:59:57,043 --> 01:00:05,383
A very valid steel man against my position, just to also sum this one up, is that if not now, when?

603
01:00:05,383 --> 01:00:29,883
And I can kind of get there that maybe plebs, node runners, Bitcoin users feel that they have no recourse against changes being made from a more centralized perspective by Bitcoin Core, by miners, whatever, and simply want to go ahead and push this thing through no matter what happens.

604
01:00:29,883 --> 01:00:37,263
I'm about the results. And right now, the results do not look like Bit.1.10 would succeed and would

605
01:00:37,263 --> 01:00:43,443
cause more chaos than good, might even lead to great Bitcoin developers who are essential for

606
01:00:43,443 --> 01:00:50,403
the space to leave. I wouldn't want that to happen. Node runners and users and all this in

607
01:00:50,403 --> 01:00:56,383
the space, monetary maximalists that I respect. I don't want any of that. And so that's my point.

608
01:00:56,383 --> 01:01:10,343
And again, I found it, I became intellectually honest with myself that I'm going through all of these threats to Bitcoin, the threat of what could happen after a chain split and in the aftermath of a chain split.

609
01:01:10,863 --> 01:01:28,139
That one of those things that it low likelihood but really really really high impact And I don I can recommend going with a fork and I can support it All right I going to slightly try to devil advocate that

610
01:01:28,139 --> 01:01:29,519
just to state my position.

611
01:01:29,799 --> 01:01:34,519
First of all, the op return being 83 rather than 256.

612
01:01:35,199 --> 01:01:37,939
I think the thing there is to send a clear signal

613
01:01:37,939 --> 01:01:41,479
that all data can be hashed

614
01:01:41,479 --> 01:01:43,779
and they can be a hash of a hash of a hash

615
01:01:43,779 --> 01:01:45,199
like a Merkle tree hash thing.

616
01:01:45,199 --> 01:02:04,719
So you could put all the data in the entire universe onto the Bitcoin blockchain via a single hash. And the only thing you can do in terms of owning, like, is by putting it on the time chain is you can prove that that data existed at a certain point in time.

617
01:02:04,719 --> 01:02:10,419
So there is no legit need for any op return above 83 bytes.

618
01:02:10,519 --> 01:02:16,859
You could even make the argument that there's no need for any op return over 40 bytes because you can fit a hash into 40 bytes.

619
01:02:17,179 --> 01:02:19,239
So that's my rebuttal to that.

620
01:02:19,239 --> 01:02:33,519
The other thing about the damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of scenario here is that I'd like to do a callback to the first chapter of Inverse of Clown World where you have the prisoner's dilemma thing.

621
01:02:33,519 --> 01:02:46,659
So all your arguments for this being a risk short term is like sort of invalidated by if you play these games into infinity, you are better off cooperating.

622
01:02:46,899 --> 01:02:58,679
If you're playing the prisoners, if you see this whole scenario as a prisoners dilemma type situation, where in the short term, it's better to just give in to the scammers and let this thing play out.

623
01:02:58,679 --> 01:03:00,999
but if you play it over and over again

624
01:03:00,999 --> 01:03:02,959
the tit for tat strategy is better

625
01:03:02,959 --> 01:03:05,139
even the risk of a chain split

626
01:03:05,139 --> 01:03:07,179
I mean in a sense

627
01:03:07,179 --> 01:03:08,899
that would be good because we would

628
01:03:08,899 --> 01:03:10,899
remove the bad actors and that's

629
01:03:10,899 --> 01:03:13,339
to me the long term

630
01:03:13,339 --> 01:03:15,079
health of the network is more

631
01:03:15,079 --> 01:03:17,219
important than the short term trade

632
01:03:17,219 --> 01:03:18,879
offs and that's why I'm

633
01:03:18,879 --> 01:03:21,079
pro this thing and why I'm

634
01:03:21,079 --> 01:03:22,719
signaling for it and

635
01:03:22,719 --> 01:03:24,999
telling my followers to do so as well

636
01:03:24,999 --> 01:03:27,159
so but I love the fact

637
01:03:27,159 --> 01:03:27,999
that we are

638
01:03:27,999 --> 01:03:37,059
not collectivists you and i we we we uh create this show we do stuff together and we can have

639
01:03:37,059 --> 01:03:42,479
a civil conversation about it and we can come to two different conclusions about a certain topic

640
01:03:42,479 --> 01:03:49,899
without having to kick each other in the balls all the time so uh i appreciate that a lot um yeah

641
01:03:49,899 --> 01:03:53,099
on to the next subject, I guess.

642
01:03:54,599 --> 01:03:55,919
If you don't mind...

643
01:03:55,919 --> 01:03:57,539
Just to state my position,

644
01:03:57,679 --> 01:03:59,259
but yeah, it's not supposed to be

645
01:03:59,259 --> 01:04:02,059
a BIP 110 debate this episode,

646
01:04:02,339 --> 01:04:03,599
but yeah, anyway.

647
01:04:03,819 --> 01:04:04,659
If you don't mind,

648
01:04:04,739 --> 01:04:06,559
like a last word on this is that,

649
01:04:06,679 --> 01:04:08,179
first of all, the opportune thing,

650
01:04:08,519 --> 01:04:10,219
I completely agree with you on that.

651
01:04:10,439 --> 01:04:14,179
All data can fit into that 83 bytes

652
01:04:14,179 --> 01:04:16,139
or 80 or 40 or whatever it is.

653
01:04:16,579 --> 01:04:18,799
The thing is people just don't, right?

654
01:04:18,799 --> 01:04:25,319
Right. That's the problem. It's that there are people who have decided to not follow those rules.

655
01:04:25,319 --> 01:04:44,879
I know. I know. And you say that the UTXO bloat is worse. I'd say that that's the temporary thing, because what we want in the end is for these people to not be on Bitcoin at all. We want them to fork off if that's necessary. I don't want any single spammer to ever use Bitcoin again.

656
01:04:44,879 --> 01:04:53,499
But I know that's utopian, but still, that's what I'm going to fight for, because this is the most important thing in human history.

657
01:04:53,859 --> 01:05:08,319
Well, that's the point that I agree with. I end most of my threads or articles on this post with basically that Bitcoin is the only real shot that we have at fixing the money in our lifetimes.

658
01:05:08,319 --> 01:05:26,879
And I really, really, I despise the people who are making this harder, that doing this, I really believe that they are harming all of humanity by making Bitcoin worse at being money and degrading its ability to be money.

659
01:05:26,879 --> 01:05:47,699
Anyway, so the whole point with it is that I'm still happy if BIP110 succeeds. I am happy with that, absolutely. But I don't think its chances of succeeding are very high. And I do not advocate for going into any fork situation if it's going to cause a split.

660
01:05:47,699 --> 01:06:14,959
Now, what I do say in the book, though, is make your own decision. Make your own decision. Evaluate what your priorities are and if you do believe it's necessary. Because this book is coming out in June, right? Tip 110 is going to go in in August, it looks like, or early September or something like this. It's going to happen, right? This book is not about this one moment in time. It's about the concept of threats and controls and defenses, right? So that's the entire thing the book is about.

661
01:06:14,959 --> 01:06:25,919
And so speaking on a concept level of what can happen in the governance of Bitcoin, if there is a disagreement on the direction that Bitcoin can take, go into it with eyes wide open.

662
01:06:26,099 --> 01:06:34,579
Understand the difference between a hard fork and a soft fork and understand the implications of either one of them going through and evaluate that no matter whether we're in the middle of one or not.

663
01:06:34,579 --> 01:06:42,699
Yeah, this is why Satoshi Nakamoto was not Jesus. He was Brian of Nazareth telling his followers to think for themselves.

664
01:06:42,699 --> 01:06:48,139
we're all different and all that you know remember that scene from a life of brian i think that's who

665
01:06:48,139 --> 01:06:57,259
satoshi is not jesus he's brian anyway uh look we uh we are traveling to a couple of uh conferences

666
01:06:57,259 --> 01:07:16,634
let dive into let wrap this up by by giving our uh listeners some information about where where you can meet us or specifically where you can meet luke uh before the book is launched in Prague don miss Prague Go to Prague get your ticket now use code Infinity for a huge discount

667
01:07:17,254 --> 01:07:20,414
I'm not going to say the percentage, because I think they increased it, actually.

668
01:07:20,554 --> 01:07:21,414
Well, we'll see.

669
01:07:21,574 --> 01:07:26,694
And you can also meet Luke in Dublin a couple of weeks from now.

670
01:07:27,134 --> 01:07:30,474
The book won't be out by then, but I guess you'll bring a copy or two

671
01:07:30,474 --> 01:07:31,874
to just show off, right?

672
01:07:32,234 --> 01:07:32,634
Won't you?

673
01:07:32,634 --> 01:07:35,274
and you can use CodeInfinity there too.

674
01:07:35,654 --> 01:07:37,654
Dublin is going to be great this year.

675
01:07:37,794 --> 01:07:39,534
There's a ton of great speakers,

676
01:07:39,634 --> 01:07:40,954
a lot of them from the US,

677
01:07:41,094 --> 01:07:43,394
which is uncommon for European conferences.

678
01:07:43,934 --> 01:07:46,054
I'm looking forward to that a lot

679
01:07:46,054 --> 01:07:48,474
and having a pint of Guinness or two with you

680
01:07:48,474 --> 01:07:49,894
or maybe 12.

681
01:07:50,734 --> 01:07:52,414
And what else?

682
01:07:52,534 --> 01:07:53,474
Where are we going on?

683
01:07:53,554 --> 01:07:55,394
Oh, of course, BTC Hell.

684
01:07:55,834 --> 01:07:58,474
And BTC Hell is not right around the corner.

685
01:07:58,474 --> 01:08:00,874
It's in October this year, right?

686
01:08:01,554 --> 01:08:02,514
Oh, September this year.

687
01:08:02,634 --> 01:08:05,154
Sorry, September. It's in late September this year.

688
01:08:05,754 --> 01:08:08,454
You could use Code Infinity there too, of course.

689
01:08:08,654 --> 01:08:11,294
And of course, Luke and I will be present there.

690
01:08:11,374 --> 01:08:14,934
We are part of this conference, especially Luke, who lives in Helsinki.

691
01:08:14,934 --> 01:08:20,814
And we are still somewhat in charge of the speakers and the schedule and all of that.

692
01:08:20,994 --> 01:08:23,014
And you're absolutely head-chefing that.

693
01:08:23,634 --> 01:08:26,654
What else can people expect from B2C Hell this year?

694
01:08:26,774 --> 01:08:28,494
Let's focus on that.

695
01:08:29,414 --> 01:08:30,214
Great. Perfect.

696
01:08:30,214 --> 01:08:50,194
Again, Ireland and Prague, don't miss those. But yeah, BTC Hell, I mean, this was the thing that was my entire last year, right? That was the new cool thing that I'm just super proud of being involved with. It was a massive success the first year, beyond all of our expectations.

697
01:08:50,194 --> 01:08:52,494
we're going to be in a different venue this time

698
01:08:52,494 --> 01:08:53,834
it's got a little bit more capacity

699
01:08:53,834 --> 01:08:56,514
not just because we wanted to grow a little bigger

700
01:08:56,514 --> 01:08:59,314
but because the original one was no longer available

701
01:08:59,314 --> 01:09:03,954
they were getting out of this type of event sort of thing

702
01:09:03,954 --> 01:09:05,634
so we had to find something new

703
01:09:05,634 --> 01:09:07,554
but we landed in a great space

704
01:09:07,554 --> 01:09:08,754
it's called the cable factory

705
01:09:08,754 --> 01:09:12,054
so it's got this industrial vibe and all this

706
01:09:12,054 --> 01:09:14,474
and it's in a really nice neighborhood in the city

707
01:09:14,474 --> 01:09:15,514
also right by the sea

708
01:09:15,514 --> 01:09:18,474
What's that in Finnish cable factory?

709
01:09:18,694 --> 01:09:19,734
Kåprite er tasa

710
01:09:20,194 --> 01:09:37,894
Okay, good. Yes. And then the focus that we're having this year, I mean, of course, we're in a bit of a bear market to a certain extent. These prices still all feel a little high if you've been in it for a little while, but yeah, it's dipped a little since the all-time highs.

711
01:09:37,894 --> 01:09:59,354
But we're still focusing on adoption. Of course, our big focus is to grow Bitcoin adoption in the Nordics. And we're focusing also on a Nordic sovereignty angle this year. The whole idea of basically how Bitcoin can be used to decouple from the financial system and the dependence on the United States, even reduced dependence on the EU.

712
01:09:59,354 --> 01:10:09,714
That's a little bit controversial here in the Nordics, but it's definitely like how can people in the Nordics use Bitcoin as a tool?

713
01:10:09,994 --> 01:10:11,974
It's not for only people in the Nordics.

714
01:10:12,094 --> 01:10:15,554
Come to Finland, see what's going on here and all this.

715
01:10:15,634 --> 01:10:22,914
But we're focusing, of course, on the Nordics and this Nordic sovereignty angle track is going to be a big part of it this year.

716
01:10:23,574 --> 01:10:29,734
Mining and energy is always a big part of BTC hell because Finland has such a great mining scene.

717
01:10:29,734 --> 01:10:35,374
And one of the reasons for that is that heat reuse is such a major part of Bitcoin mining up here.

718
01:10:35,614 --> 01:10:41,514
It's not cold all the time. In fact, it's already quite nice here in April, sunny and all this.

719
01:10:41,854 --> 01:10:50,634
But throughout the year, there are district heating systems in most of the municipalities that pump hot water around the entire municipality.

720
01:10:50,634 --> 01:10:54,654
And that's how a lot of people heat their homes and boil the water.

721
01:10:54,754 --> 01:10:55,594
And you need that all year.

722
01:10:56,074 --> 01:10:58,434
And Bitcoin mining is such a great synergy with that.

723
01:10:58,554 --> 01:11:06,074
You mine Bitcoin and heat water up and that goes around and heats everyone's homes and businesses and all this.

724
01:11:06,214 --> 01:11:10,374
It's such a good secondary use case and so synergistic.

725
01:11:10,854 --> 01:11:15,094
And so exploring the mining community, we actually have a separate date.

726
01:11:15,314 --> 01:11:18,634
I should say the date's also at September 25th, 26th.

727
01:11:18,634 --> 01:11:21,094
So yeah, mark your calendar.

728
01:11:21,654 --> 01:11:24,014
But then there's the European Mining Summit.

729
01:11:24,294 --> 01:11:27,214
The website for this is miningsummit.eu.

730
01:11:27,614 --> 01:11:31,414
The website for BTCHEL is btchel.com.

731
01:11:31,814 --> 01:11:34,174
It's not btchel, it's btchel.

732
01:11:34,514 --> 01:11:35,594
So just saying.

733
01:11:36,114 --> 01:11:36,594
Btchel.

734
01:11:36,814 --> 01:11:38,234
That sounds more Finnish in a way.

735
01:11:38,394 --> 01:11:41,014
No, the Finns can't say the ch thing.

736
01:11:41,414 --> 01:11:42,034
Okay, okay.

737
01:11:42,474 --> 01:11:43,094
Not properly.

738
01:11:43,354 --> 01:11:46,834
So September 23rd, a couple of days earlier, is the European Mining Summit.

739
01:11:46,834 --> 01:11:51,934
We're going to have a lot of, still a lot of, at the main conference, coverage of mining and energy.

740
01:11:52,434 --> 01:12:01,414
But yeah, the European Mining Summit is another piece that we're doing to emphasize the energy, the mining and energy case here right now.

741
01:12:01,834 --> 01:12:11,394
And then finally, we're focusing also on the human rights angles with Bitcoin because the thing is that's something that people in the Nordics care a lot about.

742
01:12:11,394 --> 01:12:23,694
And some of the things that the misconceptions about Bitcoin are how Bitcoin is used by people who are in oppressive regimes in the third world who are just trying to escape inflation and all this.

743
01:12:23,874 --> 01:12:29,614
And so those angles are maybe not so visible in the Nordic welfare states where life is actually pretty good.

744
01:12:29,774 --> 01:12:33,414
Finland is the happiest country in the world for, I believe, the ninth year in a row.

745
01:12:33,814 --> 01:12:36,834
Fully endorsed, by the way. I'm way happier here than I was in Canada.

746
01:12:37,494 --> 01:12:40,594
I have my doubts about that specific figure.

747
01:12:41,394 --> 01:13:02,690
Well I don know nine years in a row So we latching on to that And so the thing is in these nice countries where life is pretty good for the average person it can be hard to see how Bitcoin is so good for people in other parts of the world And I think we hoping to work with the Human Rights Foundation

748
01:13:02,690 --> 01:13:05,630
who puts on the Oslo Freedom Forum a little bit with this.

749
01:13:05,770 --> 01:13:07,850
I can't go to that one this year, unfortunately,

750
01:13:08,030 --> 01:13:11,090
but I believe Remo, our CEO, is going to go to that one.

751
01:13:11,950 --> 01:13:14,730
And yeah, so basically we're looking at three tracks,

752
01:13:14,830 --> 01:13:18,130
Nordic sovereignty, mining and energy, and human rights,

753
01:13:18,230 --> 01:13:20,970
Bitcoin for human rights, as our primary focuses.

754
01:13:21,170 --> 01:13:31,510
You'll also get a little bit of coverage of this BIP-110 debate and all of the aftermath because it's going to be just after the BIP-110 activation no matter what.

755
01:13:31,510 --> 01:13:33,970
We have what we're calling the OG stage.

756
01:13:34,390 --> 01:13:45,210
So it's essentially like a 50% between like the traditional VIP area that's like super expensive and really locked off and the main stages and everything.

757
01:13:45,210 --> 01:13:50,990
So we're having kind of a middle ground with an OG ticket that gets you into the OG stage.

758
01:13:51,070 --> 01:13:56,430
And we're basically going to have all of the coverage of the sort of the insider stuff is going to be on that stage.

759
01:13:56,650 --> 01:13:57,410
So we'll see.

760
01:13:57,590 --> 01:14:03,070
We've got folks on both sides of the debate coming and we're going to cover all angles.

761
01:14:03,450 --> 01:14:05,130
So that's it.

762
01:14:05,370 --> 01:14:11,270
But yeah, I mean, I just have to say that B2C Hell has had so many good things.

763
01:14:11,270 --> 01:14:15,430
We've got a physical hub that has been really fantastic.

764
01:14:15,650 --> 01:14:17,350
We have events there all the time.

765
01:14:18,050 --> 01:14:21,270
It's not the ideal place for, say, a monthly meetup.

766
01:14:21,790 --> 01:14:24,070
Usually we have an after party there.

767
01:14:24,430 --> 01:14:28,050
And yeah, it's just fantastic to see the community keep growing.

768
01:14:28,330 --> 01:14:33,610
And at the end of the day, I'm all about encouraging local adoption in your area.

769
01:14:33,830 --> 01:14:35,390
And it's something anyone can do.

770
01:14:35,390 --> 01:14:44,650
I think one of the coolest things to come out of BTC Hill last year was that a butcher shop near me became orange-pilled and accepts Bitcoin for everything.

771
01:14:44,890 --> 01:14:51,710
And they started to produce these Bitcoin beef bits, which is just a fantastic synergy to mining.

772
01:14:51,870 --> 01:15:02,970
They were already creating this dried ground beef for hikers and stuff to be able to rehydrate and have some meat on the go.

773
01:15:02,970 --> 01:15:12,730
So the guy, Chris, he's carnivore, describes himself as carnivore and head to tail use of the animal and all this fantastic stuff.

774
01:15:12,730 --> 01:15:15,270
But the beef bits was just such a synergy.

775
01:15:15,610 --> 01:15:18,050
And that came out of BTC hell.

776
01:15:18,130 --> 01:15:23,630
And now he uses a Bitcoin miner to dry this beef and make these beef chips.

777
01:15:24,030 --> 01:15:26,270
So, you know, you can buy those.

778
01:15:26,450 --> 01:15:29,590
I think it's BitcoinBeefBits.com and you can buy those everywhere now.

779
01:15:29,850 --> 01:15:32,330
And yeah, it's just one of those things.

780
01:15:32,330 --> 01:15:38,210
I can go to a butcher shop and buy meat and all of these other keto-friendly things.

781
01:15:38,290 --> 01:15:40,630
They also do keto stuff, eggs.

782
01:15:41,550 --> 01:15:42,410
And I can pay with Bitcoin.

783
01:15:42,650 --> 01:15:43,830
And I think it's fantastic.

784
01:15:44,310 --> 01:15:52,850
And I mean, he's a real, like, this isn't some merchant who's accepting Bitcoin, you know, because someone asked them to.

785
01:15:53,050 --> 01:15:55,950
It's like he's really down the rabbit hole himself now, too.

786
01:15:56,090 --> 01:15:59,550
And I just want to see more and more of this, basically.

787
01:15:59,550 --> 01:16:04,470
And BTC Health, yeah, I'm going to be doing this as long as we can manage to keep it up.

788
01:16:05,490 --> 01:16:12,710
Yeah, absolutely. Another fun thing that sort of launched during BTC Health is the Gingers for Bitcoin organization.

789
01:16:13,750 --> 01:16:16,570
Zero percent pigment, 100 percent conviction.

790
01:16:16,750 --> 01:16:21,570
And they're coming to Ireland with us to fish for more gingers to become Bitcoiners.

791
01:16:21,710 --> 01:16:24,530
And that's if you don't follow them, follow them on X.

792
01:16:24,530 --> 01:16:29,450
And also, of course, follow Luke DeWolf on X and on Noster.

793
01:16:30,350 --> 01:16:34,630
Primal.net slash Luke is like the best way to follow him there.

794
01:16:34,890 --> 01:16:39,970
Also follow the BTC Infinity Media account on X,

795
01:16:40,130 --> 01:16:45,470
which is, I believe, Primal.net slash Infinity on the easiest Noster thing.

796
01:16:45,630 --> 01:16:47,170
So this will premiere in Prague.

797
01:16:47,490 --> 01:16:49,010
That's the announcement here.

798
01:16:49,430 --> 01:16:51,750
And I'm super proud of you, man.

799
01:16:51,750 --> 01:16:58,090
You know, Luke, my young Padawan, you have now become a fully fledged Jedi Knight.

800
01:16:58,270 --> 01:17:00,130
So congratulations on that.

801
01:17:00,630 --> 01:17:01,630
Thanks a lot, Knut.

802
01:17:01,670 --> 01:17:02,750
I appreciate that a lot.

803
01:17:02,910 --> 01:17:08,290
And well, also defendingbitcoin.com, you can find all the information about the book.

804
01:17:08,390 --> 01:17:11,130
If you want to get notified when it's available, sign up.

805
01:17:11,690 --> 01:17:13,350
It's just your email address.

806
01:17:13,930 --> 01:17:18,170
Leave a NIM address if you're concerned about privacy and all this.

807
01:17:18,170 --> 01:17:21,050
and there's also a threat model worksheet

808
01:17:21,050 --> 01:17:23,510
where we ask you a bunch of questions

809
01:17:23,510 --> 01:17:27,930
about how your Bitcoin stack is and everything.

810
01:17:28,090 --> 01:17:31,550
You can verify locally that we're not asking you any kind of,

811
01:17:31,590 --> 01:17:33,670
we're not taking the data anywhere else.

812
01:17:33,830 --> 01:17:35,330
It's all just locally on your browser,

813
01:17:35,330 --> 01:17:39,550
but it's how you can see how all the chapters in the book

814
01:17:39,550 --> 01:17:42,130
and all the threats and controls can apply to you.

815
01:17:42,550 --> 01:17:44,590
And in many cases, it'll even be all of them.

816
01:17:44,750 --> 01:17:47,770
There are many, many cases that affect everyone.

817
01:17:47,770 --> 01:18:00,930
So yeah, defendingbitcoin.com. And I'll be adding more to the site as we go to make it more of a companion for the book and add additional resources as well. So check that out.

818
01:18:01,390 --> 01:18:09,990
Yeah, I've seen some of this and it looks absolutely fantastic. There's a lot coming there. Lots of things coming in the future as we develop this thing.

819
01:18:09,990 --> 01:18:19,530
So, Luke, if you want to give our listeners the outro mentioning dental hygiene and the gratitude for watching the show, since you're on, you might as well do that.

820
01:18:19,630 --> 01:18:20,970
So I'll leave it up to you.

821
01:18:21,690 --> 01:18:23,430
This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

822
01:18:23,810 --> 01:18:25,150
Like, subscribe and brush your teeth.

823
01:18:25,510 --> 01:18:26,150
See you next time.

824
01:18:27,370 --> 01:18:27,730
Cheerio.

825
01:18:39,990 --> 01:19:09,970
Thank you.