Bitcoin Audible - Chat_145: "Trust Scales Where Bitcoin Can't" with John Carvalho

Date: September 24, 2025
Host: Guy Swann
Guest: John Carvalho (CEO of Synonym)

Brief Overview

In this episode, Guy Swann sits down with John Carvalho, CEO of Synonym, for a deep and candid discussion on decentralizing the web, the conceptual “atomic economy,” and why trust, not trustlessness, is what actually scales in human systems. Carvalho discusses the challenges of building tools like PubKey, PKDNS, and PayKit, critiques current decentralized protocols like Nostr and Bluesky, and entertains the “trustless everything” philosophy pervasive in Bitcoin culture. They also explore the social and technical drama around Bitcoin layer scaling, on-chain data, and how trust is managed in both technical and organizational contexts.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Atomic Economy & Synonym’s Vision

• Core Idea: Synonym is working to build not just a free-market economy, but a “free-market society,” using digital primitives to replace government, big tech, banks, and payment processors ([00:00], [94:04]).
  • “The atomic economy is in Synonym's mission is to research, design and ship a working free market society…only through a digital system. So it replaces government, it replaces big tech, it replaces big banks, it replaces Visa, MasterCard.” — John ([00:00])
  • “Atomic means the smallest most reduced piece…user centric…circular economy” — John ([94:17])
• Diagram Walkthrough: Towards the end, John provides a detailed walkthrough of the “Atomic Economy” diagram, explaining each layer: keys, identity, data (home servers, PKDNS), application, indexers, subjective algorithms, social media, marketplaces, payments/settlement ([94:10]–[112:43]).
• Societal Aim: Move toward truly user-first, local-first digital societies. “This is hyperbitcoinization spelled out, except real, except not a fantasy.” — John ([94:37])

2. Critique of Nostr, Bluesky, and Decentralized Protocols

• Nostr Antagonism: John recalls purposefully critiquing Nostr’s design flaws, triggering a strong community reaction but also attracting serious developers to PubKey ([07:44]–[11:52]).
  • “I started basically painting in excruciating detail everything that I thought was flawed about Nostr…” — John ([08:00])
  • “It was a pretty good recruiting tactic.” — John ([11:16])
• Main Technical Critiques:
  • Nostr is “censorable at scale” due to its naive relay network; no guarantee of data permanence or provenance ([14:54]).
  • Bluesky is centralized around its identity system “phone book,” and more focused on moderation than open conversation ([24:06]).
  • Holepunch (pure P2P) cannot scale to web/Twitter-scale use cases without centralization ([24:14]).
  • PubKey replaces DNS with PKDNS (public-key DNS), offers more robust identity, data routing, and “credible exit” for users ([14:54], [30:33]).
  • “The spray and pray relay naive design…leading to requiring some sort of discovery method…that’s the problem.” — John ([16:46])
  • “Fully purely peer to peer means no scaling.” — John ([24:14])

Comparison Table of Protocols (Carvalho’s View)

| Protocol | Primary Strength | Main Weakness | Key Quotes | |--------------|-----------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|------------------------------| | Nostr | Simplicity, easy to hack on | Censorable at scale, naive relays, key UX | "incomplete…missing things" | | Bluesky | Centralized, good moderation | Centralized identity (phone book) | "bad as a culture..." | | Holepunch | Pure P2P | No scaling, privacy/trust trade-offs | "No scaling. Just impossible."| | PubKey | PKDNS, data location, credible exit| Still in early dev, needs user adoption | "We're trying to fix society."|

3. Trust, Scaling & Layers: Bitcoin Philosophy vs. Reality

• Bitcoin’s Scaling Debate:
  • John expresses extreme skepticism about “layering” as a solution to scaling, arguing every real attempt at scaling Bitcoin ultimately introduces more trust and complexity — and thus centralization ([39:07]–[63:33]).
    • “Every attempt to add scale to Bitcoin is an attempt that also includes adding complexity. All complexity is centralizing. All centralization brings trust…every time you scale Bitcoin you are adding trust.” — John ([56:14])
    • “Layering is trust with extra steps” — John ([57:14])
• The Real Problem:
  • “Nobody's using bitcoin for money. That's why blocks aren't full…we’re blaming [spammers], but it's just underuse.” — John ([39:07])
• OP_RETURN and on-chain data drama:
  • John counsels listeners to “ignore” the OP_RETURN drama, sees it as inconsequential and a distraction from actual adoption ([39:07]–[42:35]).
  • “The only way you can deal with that problem is…so many people want to use bitcoin…[that] the retards that want to put retarded stuff…can't afford to.” — John ([41:43])
• On policy vs. protocol:
  • “Policy you can't enforce. Anybody can do whatever policy they want. And then of course, every time we have messed with the mempool it’s gotten worse.” — John ([42:35])

4. What Trust Actually Is and Why We Need It

• Philosophy:
  • Bitcoin is right to focus on trustless money — but this doesn’t mean everything in society should be trustless ([48:57]–[63:33]):
    • “You should be against trust of your Bitcoin…But when it comes to most everything else, you need to be maximizing trust.” — John ([48:57])
  • Complexity in scaling just reintroduces trust elsewhere, often where it's less obvious.
• Guy’s Perspective:
  • The “trade-off” of trust/custody is nuanced, and we ignore it at our own peril ([63:33]–[68:57]).
    • “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” — Guy ([63:33])
    • “If it’s $50, why does that not garner $50 worth of concern?” — Guy ([68:11])
• Trust Is Inevitable:
  • “Everything is essentially…trusted. Unless you're witnessing it, you don’t know for sure it happened…So it's like literally everything is trust.” — John ([69:07])
  • But Bitcoin offers a “binary” gap compared to any other type of trust ([71:06]).

5. Digital Identity, Data, and Marketplace Innovations

• PKDNS and Picard:
  • PKDNS (Public Key DNS) as a DNS replacement; Picard record ties data locations to public keys ([30:33]–[34:26]).
  • Enables credible exit—move data between providers, keep identities, reputation, and follows.
  • “Once you realize…the graph is there and it's very powerful…but how do people interface with it? Now we have AI…parse tags…a lot of power here.” — John ([120:45])
• PubKey App:
  • Not just “social media” but a web browser/application interface where users/keys are the primitive ([116:02]–[116:55]).
  • “PubKeyApp is most at a browser…I can’t call it a web browser because it's technically a web app…but your example…was perfect…it's all the same shit rearranged.” — John ([116:02])
  • AI, bots, and crowds can drive semantic curation and flexible “views” on underlying data ([121:39]–[123:09]).
• Payments and Settlement:
  • Synonym working towards credit-based peer-to-peer payments (Atomicity) with settlement optionally happening in Bitcoin, Lightning, fiat, or any commodity ([108:00]–[112:43]).

6. Insights on Leading and Building a Decentralized Tech Company

• Management Challenges:
  • Scaling between 5–25 people, managing emotions, culture, turnover, and recruitment ([79:14]–[84:11])
  • “Recruiting is a real pain in the ass…now you have people leaving every quarter…have so many people there's going to be some natural turnover.” — John ([82:33])
  • Real work is “managing degrees of aggression, collaboration…egos” ([88:57]–[91:08])
• Culture:
  • Diversity mainly from Europe/LatAm, but “all men” so few gender/culture clashes ([84:11]).
  • “We have a really…super, super blessed [team]…to be able to R&D, trying to build the atomic economy and solve society.” — John ([86:33])

7. Personal Motivation & The Joy of Progress

• Why Keep Going:
  • “Sometimes I don't want to keep going. Sometimes I start trying to fantasize about what it'd be like to stop…the thing that keeps me going: sometimes we get to show the world what we're doing and they see it the way we intended.” ([89:11])
  • “I make every opportunity I can to give ownership…If my web dev is proud of something, now I’m proud of it because it’s mine too.” ([89:23])

8. Hot Takes, Memorable Quotes & Community Dynamics

• On Bitcoin maximalists/Nostr tribalism:
  • “You weren't a genius. I'm not a genius. Anybody that came after, like, 2011 is not a genius… We're barely geniuses on bitcoin…We need a lot more humility, a lot more embarrassment, a lot more conservatism.” — John ([75:50])
• On Saylor and Bitcoin Treasuries:
  • “Oh, and Saylor is such a piece of…But anyway, next time…This is our ICO.” ([123:42], [126:16])
• “I think anybody making any kind of software, whether it be open source, peer to peer, f/oss, whatever, has every right and every good reason to make their beta private and permissioned…It's not that we're trying to keep anybody out, we're just trying not to get spammed to death while we're only one server.” — John ([128:34])

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Atomic Economy vision: [00:00], [94:04]
• Nostr antagonism/critique: [07:44], [14:54], [24:06]
• Bitcoin layer scaling/complexity argument: [39:07], [56:14], [63:33]
• OP_RETURN/mempool drama: [39:07]–[46:37]
• Trust in technical/social systems: [48:57], [63:33], [69:07]
• PKDNS/Picard technicals: [30:33], [108:00]
• AI curation/bot examples: [120:45]–[123:09]
• Managing a decentralized team: [79:14], [84:11]
• Ownership, motivation, pride in building: [89:11]
• Bitcoin maximalist, Saylor/treasury comment: [75:50], [123:42], [126:16]

Memorable Moments & Quotes

On Trust and Complexity:

• “Every time you scale bitcoin you are adding trust…all complexity is centralizing, all centralization brings trust.” ([56:14])
  On Nostr:
• “It's censorable at scale…you don't have a way to know you have all the data.” ([14:54])
  On Managing Teams:
• “Recruiting is a real pain in the ass…there's a large problem to deal with HR, which has nothing to do with the fun stuff.” ([82:33]) On Bitcoin Layering Philosophy:
• “Scaling is trust, scaling is centralization. You don't get scale without those things.” ([61:33])
  On Saylor:
• “This is our ICO.” ([126:16])

Conclusion

This episode delivers a tour-de-force on how trust, complexity, and user agency interweave in both digital networks and human organizations. Carvalho powerfully challenges the current trustless dogma, arguing for enabling real, digital trust relationships — and showing Synonym’s progress toward user-centric, composable web primitives. The episode is loaded with sharp critiques, actionable technical insights, and a call for honest self-awareness in Bitcoin and open web communities.

Links/References:

• PubKey App Beta (ask John for invite code)
• [Atomic Economy Diagram] (see show notes)
• Synonym: https://synonym.to/
• Nostr, Bluesky, Holepunch: decentralized protocol discussion

End of Summary