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- [00:00]
Jimmy Song
Whatever we're quote unquote getting for free is not free at all. It's, it's in fact very, very costly. A lot of this stuff is just.
- [00:07]
Sort of like satisfying developers without giving users enough benefit.
- [00:13]
Host (Walker America)
What is the biggest threat to Bitcoin right now?
- [00:16]
Jimmy Song
If the CORE devs agree among themselves that something is right, then the rest of the community can go themselves. Right now they, they do kind of have the power to maybe ruin Bitcoin if they really wanted to. They're given sort of like this kind of godlike respect on them. Developers need to be a lot more humble.
- [00:35]
Host (Walker America)
We all just saw all this horrific stuff in the Epstein files.
- [00:37]
Jimmy Song
That's not to say that there's no.
- [00:39]
Mossad agent contributing to Core right now. We, we don't know. Anyone that tells you they know exactly how it's going to play out is probably lying.
- [00:48]
If you think it's going to be.
- [00:49]
The global reserve currency, then it's completely mispriced. Yeah, I mean I, I, I, I see no sir as kind of like Internet 2.0 almost. Right. Like where you get to do things in a very different way than I think what the Internet has turned into. It's, it's almost like the truer Internet, if that makes sense. And yeah, we're, we're all here for it, so it's great. Yeah.
- [01:24]
Host (Walker America)
Well, first of all, Jimmy, welcome. I'm glad we've gotten the chance to do this. You and I have been around each other. I've introduced you many times at, at conferences. We've never had a chance to do a long form discussion. So I'm super excited to have you here. Can I, can I actually ask because I, I haven't heard this before, but when, when did you actually hear about Bitcoin first? Like what, what, when did you get into Bitcoin? So you've been obviously writing about bitcoin. You've been, you've been hacking away yourself for a long time. How, what was actually your first like foray into Bitcoin?
- [01:52]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, I think it was almost exactly 15 years ago today. So that this was.
- [01:57]
Wow.
- [01:57]
If I, if I remember the, the actual article is still live on slash that so you can actually go to the article and when it was published it was Internet only currency. Bitcoin has reached dollar parity. That's the name of the headline that on, on slashdot in 2011. It was, I'm pretty sure it was February of 2011. It might, might even be February 2nd. Who knows? But, but yeah, 15 years ago was when I first heard of it and, and I was almost immediately drawn in. Although my wife told me that it's probably a scam, which is probably the correct or more rational way of looking at something that's just sort of like Internet only. But you know, I fell down the rabbit hole and I've been doing things ever since.
- [02:46]
Host (Walker America)
I guess that is, that is pretty wild. I mean I. I only went down the rabbit hole. I heard about bitcoin and this was 20, 2014 for the first time. It was during the Silk Road days. I had a buddy who was getting some things and he was like, he was asking me, do you know anything about this? And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about, man. Like, I don't care about these bit bitcoins that you need for this. Like whatever nerd, you know, and like when back to whatever fiat things I was doing at the time. Heard about it again in 2017 when it was like right at the tippety top, right when people like me were coming rushing in. But luckily I was so uninformed that I thought you couldn't buy a fraction of a bitcoin, you had to buy a full bitcoin. So I was like, well, I can't afford a full bitcoin right now. Better get a couple of these litecoin things. Bad move there. I don't think the price ever. I managed to buy right as Charlie Lee sold out. I think I must have right at that. Just timed it perfectly right at the top there. But yeah, and then it was, it was Covid. I think for like a lot of people that brought me into it where I really had the time or lack of excuses and finally dug into it and then, you know, the rest, as they say, is history. But yeah, it's. Is it kind of. Is it a little surreal for you just watching like now that we have like nation, like the president of the United States has talked about it. Bukele has been stacking. You got the kingdom of Bhutan that's been mining. I mean, is this. Did you expect this or is it just a bit kind of like wild to you still?
- [04:16]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, I mean I, I guess at some level I had a suspicion that this could happen. Right. Otherwise you wouldn't get into it. Right. And.
- [04:25]
The, the thought for me was.
- [04:27]
If this works, then I better be one of the first people and not one of the last people because, you know, just, just the way money works and how technical adoption happens and you know, I thought it had a chance.
- [04:42]
But you know, that that's a very.
- [04:45]
Different thing than the reality of all of that. All the, all of the stuff that you mentioned happening. And that's been honestly kind of surreal. Like, what, what am I doing? Right. Like I'm, I'm a, I'm a coder. Right. I'm not, I, like that's what I was doing at the time when I heard about it. I was working at a startup and stuff. So for me, like the fact that all of this stuff is happening, that, you know, I get to go to conferences and talk to people about it and I make money somehow doing that, is that, that part is probably the most surreal because. Just doesn't feel like anything anyone could have predicted.
- [05:27]
Right.
- [05:27]
Like I'm doing a podcast on a platform that's like, you know, not exactly.
- [05:34]
The Internet, but is, but it's not centralized exactly.
- [05:38]
And it's, you know, it like just.
- [05:42]
The number of things that you have.
- [05:44]
To stack on top to come to this reality is very much completely unpredictable. So it's. Yeah, I like living this way. It really does feel like the frontier and it's, it's fun. Yeah.
- [05:59]
Host (Walker America)
Were you, were you a quote, you know, classically trained coder or were you self taught?
- [06:07]
Jimmy Song
I, I guess I, I took some classes in high school, so there, there's that, but I've been, I've also been coding since I was like nine years old, so. Oh, wow. There's like part of that too. But I didn't get any training in college because I was a math major and the one CS class that I was going to take, I dropped like after three weeks or something. But yeah, I mean, since then, you know, right out of college, my first job was a coding job and I, Yeah, it's a, it's like a, you know, I've been doing it for, I guess over 40 years or whatever. So it feels like a very much a part of me. And it's not something that I think about as like formal training versus informal training, although I think I've had a decent amount of formal training, but it's one of those things where I can't really put a demarcation point on, you know, how much is formal, how much is informal. I've always been kind of a self learner on a lot of things anyway.
- [07:10]
Host (Walker America)
So hard to say, maybe for the better to have less of the formal training. Often, you know, it's sometimes it's, it's, it's not always, not always the best. It's often just for the credentials themselves. But so, I mean, the fact that you were a math major also makes. That makes a lot of sense given the context of everything you've done since then. Well, I'm curious too, Jimmy.
- [07:34]
Jimmy Song
I mean.
- [07:34]
Host (Walker America)
Oh, go ahead.
- [07:35]
Jimmy Song
No, no, it's true.
- [07:37]
And at least in college, I wanted to be a math professor and it was really. That was like a dream of mine. But, yeah, and in a weird way, I've kind of gotten to be a math professor. Right. I've taught my courses and I taught a course at the University of Texas for a semester on bitcoin. And first two chapters of my book, it's all math. Here's what a finite field is, here's what an elliptic curve is, and here's how those things actually make for the signature algorithm that's used in cryptography that ultimately makes bitcoin possible. So, yeah, that part's surreal too, because the fiat path that's required to get into, you know, being like, like a university level professor and stuff, it's, it's not, it's not an easy road. And I know that that would have, like, absolutely crushed my soul, like, but I got to do what I'm doing now, and I still get to do a lot of the things that I kind of wanted to do. And yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of strange in that way how life works out.
- [08:54]
Host (Walker America)
I gotta ask you too, how long have you been wearing the cowboy hat for? Because it's like, I feel like it's the, it's the Jimmy Song symbol. Now, were you. Was this, like, from the age you were, you know, from a young age, or was it a later adoption?
- [09:07]
Jimmy Song
No, it's, it's like a bitcoin thing. Right? So I've been in Bitcoin since 2011. I. I started contributing to various open source bitcoin projects since 2013, and. And I don't think anyone knew who I was until 2017. And for the first six, eight months of, like, I guess my quote unquote public profile, when I was going on YouTube shows and explaining things. So it's right around the block size wars and stuff. No hat. Right. But it was October of 2017, and I was actually kind of getting annoyed that people kept asking, you know, where do you live? Because I have, I have these cowboy boots that I wear everywhere and I love cowboy boots. And I thought it would be obvious, but. But it wasn't. So I was determined to find something more obvious to show that I'm a Texan. So. So yeah, I, I I went with the hat. Not too many Asian people that wear cowboy hats, so it ended up being a great branding decision. And. And yeah, I've been wearing it ever since then, I guess.
- [10:17]
Host (Walker America)
I love. I mean, it is definitely. It is, I think, one of the most. One of the most iconic brands within bitcoin, that's for sure. It's like, you see the silhouette, you know, there's. I feel like there's various bitcoin silhouettes. It's like, you see, you see the hat, it's like. I know that's Jimmy Song. So it's. It's worked well for you, I think.
- [10:32]
Jimmy Song
Oh, definitely. And, and, you know, I've. I, I've come up with narratives around the hat. Right. It's. It's all about going out into the frontier. And bitcoin is very much the only frontier. I feel like that. And I, I like, at a subtle level, I think this is why so many men are in it and not that many women. And if you study history and look at, like, you know, how frontiers were one, it was almost entirely men. It was, it was very few women. And they, they would come later, after civilization, like, sprouted in a lot of these places, but. But that's almost always been the case historically. So in a sense, this, this is my tribute to what bitcoin is and sort of like a reminder to myself that we're. We're still early, right? Like, this is. We're still building stuff. It's a. It's a frontier town, if you, if you will. And there's a. There's a lot of needs all over. Yeah, it's, It's. It's a fun place to be, but, you know, there's also some danger and things like that.
- [11:35]
Host (Walker America)
I want to dig into that a little bit, actually, because I think a lot of people, especially just because the Overton window has shifted so just vastly. And now, I mean, you've got. Whether it was the Bitcoin ETFs, and, you know, like, that. That whole saga, right? If it's the President of the United States, you know, saying he's the. The best crypto president or, you know, whatever. Bitcoin subtext. Mostly crypto, though. We know he likes the shitcoins, but that's a different story. But, like, I think a lot of people who are maybe thinking about getting into bitcoin now, thinking about starting to save a little bit in bitcoin or still thinking about it as investing in bitcoin, however they want to think about it, they feel that they're too late, because bitcoin is kind of a household name now, but yet the actual percentage of adoption is still super, super low. Like, I would agree with you that we are still on the frontier. But I mean, do you think is that just people maybe mistaking knowledge of something or awareness of something for adoption of it? You know what I mean? The fact that there is such a kind of like such a common theme of oh, you're too late to bitcoin and that's why you need to chase this shitcoin or whatever else.
- [12:42]
Jimmy Song
Yeah.
- [12:43]
And that speaks to sort of like.
- [12:45]
The mentality a lot of people have. They want to get in on something early. Right. And for them it's a game. It's get in before other people.
- [12:56]
So at a certain level, when people say, oh, I'm too late, they're thinking.
- [13:03]
In terms of like a Ponzi scheme or something like that. Right. They inherently think it's a scam and.
- [13:13]
That'S why they think, okay, if I.
- [13:14]
Get in too late, then it's going to drop and I'm never really going to make any money or whatnot.
- [13:20]
For the people that actually understand it, that's not how they view it.
- [13:24]
So they don't think of it necessarily as like getting early per se, but as, you know, as an investment vehicle that, where you're trying to figure out what is the correct valuation model for something like this. And if you are an investor in anything and you buy something, you do it because you think it's mispriced in some way, or that the rest of the market doesn't have all of the information. So, for example, if you're buying bonds or gold or whatever you think, okay, what is the correct valuation model for this? For something like bonds or stocks with dividends, there's a fairly straightforward model where you go, okay, here's how much I can make through this, here's the coupon that it pays, here's how much it can give me on a per year basis and so on.
- [14:15]
But with Bitcoin, it's a little trickier.
- [14:17]
And for people that don't have the right or have a mental model of what it could be or what the rest of us that are in bitcoin have as an idea of where it's going, well, then if you think it's going to be the global reserve currency, then it's completely mispriced compared to the current price. I mean, it's nowhere close. It's two or three orders of magnitude off from where it should be.
- [14:48]
So if you, if you think it's.
- [14:50]
Mispriced, then it's, it's not about getting like, you're still very early compared to where it's going to be. So that makes sense.
- [14:59]
But if you don't have the right.
- [15:01]
Valuation model of it and think of it as sort of this pump and dump scheme, which to be frank, that's what all, almost every shitcoin is. So like this, this conflation of those two things makes it so that they think, okay, well I need to get in early because at some point it's going to peak or it's going to.
- [15:20]
Peak relative to other things.
- [15:21]
And I just want to be a part of this wave. And for them it's much more about getting in, getting out, like more of a gambling vehicle almost or popularity contest or something like that, rather than here is something that is actually useful to the world and it is mispriced because of this and that.
- [15:45]
That.
- [15:47]
Analysis doesn't come naturally to most people, unfortunately, because we live in a fiat system like the, almost every investment, I would say, since the establishment of the Federal Reserve has had this kind of quality where it's much more about like, get it on the way up before everybody else figures it out and then like sell at the top, something like that. And yeah, even like during the Roaring twenties and stuff leading up to the Great Depression, this was the mentality, it's okay, if I buy this, then this will go up and blah, blah, blah. And that's unfortunately how people think of investments or putting your money somewhere rather than okay, here, here is an asset that is mispriced and therefore I need to, you know, if I, if I own this and I'm correct, then I'm going to make a lot of money. They, they're not really thinking that way. It's just, hey, like, which, which things are going up.
- [16:42]
It's, it's like Robin Hood or. Yeah, you've seen those like, invest talk.
- [16:45]
Videos or whatever, right? Where people are like, oh my gosh.
- [16:49]
You just, you just look for the.
- [16:50]
Things that are going up and then you, you invest in that or, or whatever, it becomes very much a trading game and, and that's, you know, not really that different than gambling and they, they just want to gamble on the number that's going to come up or something thing rather than here's a mispriced asset. And the rest of us in the bitcoin space, hopefully most of us in the bitcoin space have figured out and that's, that's why we hold, that's why we continue with it.
- [17:21]
Host (Walker America)
Well, it's, it reminds me, I mean, I don't know if you've seen this, but on like Robinhood and all of the shitcoin casino apps they've now basically, I view this kind of like not so subtle shift that they're doing basically away from actually the shitcoins and toward just prediction markets. Like they're actually just going full on and like they're not even pretending that it's an investment, you know, an investment anymore. It's just like, hey, you want to bet on what the weather's going to be tomorrow? And really it's all just a vehicle for more sports betting, especially in states where that's not currently legal. But it's like, I mean, is this, Jimmy, is this just like late stage Fiat vibes? Is that what this is? Or like, or is this just, hey, the technology has allowed us to do this now, so people are taking advantage of it.
- [18:02]
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- [21:05]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, I mean if you study some.
- [21:07]
Of these hyperinflating economies, this is a very common thing like Weimar Germany. One of the, one of the things that was happening was people are getting really rich on like stock market speculation and things like that. And it was, it's a, I think it's a common thing when the money is bad that in a weird way you're constantly seeking to make money without actually working right, like getting a quote unquote for free, being lazy or whatever.
- [21:44]
And that, that seems to be how fiat societies go.
- [21:48]
And I would argue that, you know, stuff like investment banking is essentially that it's a bunch of people that aren't, you know, as concerned with providing value as kind of getting rich. And you can do that if you have access to the money printer. And you know, that's essentially what loans are, is more access to the money printer. And, and especially investment banks and such, they get enormous quantities of money, especially through dark pools and things like that.
- [22:21]
So all of that is to say.
- [22:24]
That it is a late stage or it's just kind of a fiat phenomenon. And the more we see of it is, I guess more of it trickling down to retail. And yeah, I can't see it sort of stopping. It's unfortunate, but what used to hold a lot of that back were moral concerns, moral prohibitions. But those have more or less been knocked down the last 20 years or so. So no one really cares if there's more betting really. And the, you know, they, they call the other people that are sort of opposed to it at a society level, kind of like prudes or, you know, you're not for freedom or whatever. Yeah. And I don't see a way out of it. It just seems like something that people will continue to do and you know, maybe at some point people are a little less or a little more immune to some of these, these things that, that make it so that it's just so addictive.
- [23:38]
So I, I don't know.
- [23:40]
I, I mean, we, we've kind of seen this with smartphones where, you know, it was like, I, I still remember when like Angry Birds first came out for like iOS, right? Like everyone was playing it for hours at a time.
- [23:54]
And then at a certain point people realize, okay, this is this a little.
- [23:58]
Too much and people stop maybe playing those mobile games. I mean, obviously there are still people that are very addicted to mobile games and so on, but for the most.
- [24:09]
Part, a lot of people sort of.
- [24:10]
Developed an immunity and similar thing with social media and so on. And it's, you know, people come up with tactics against it where the betting market seemed like pretty ripe for that kind of exploitation. And the more wider it is, the quicker will, you know, we'll get immunity to it. But, you know, there's a lot of suffering between. So yeah, that's where it seems like.
- [24:41]
Host (Walker America)
Yeah, I mean, it definitely seems like again, I think your analysis that like, look, people are just looking for any way to try and get ahead. And I think a lot of it stems from just the nihilism of realizing that it, especially for younger folks like, that it is basically impossible if you are on this hamster wheel, it is essentially impossible to try and make up any ground or to try and to perceive yourself as getting ahead in any way, especially when you compare yourself to prior generations. And I think that's, that's part of it there. And I mean, that's like, that's the reason that we all evangelize for bitcoin, right? I mean, one of the key reasons is like, look, this is a way for you to actually have a meaningful store of value that gains purchasing power over time. Like, gold's done a great job of maintaining purchasing power over time. Like a fine suit is still worth like an ounce of gold, you know, 100 years ago and still basically today. It's maintained purchasing power, but it kind of treads water a little bit. And I think that's where bitcoin comes in. And it's like, hey guys, look, it's not a get rich quick scheme, but you will grow purchasing power over the long term. But that leads me to something I wanted to ask you about too, which is just around the store of value in comparison to medium of exchange. I don't even want to call it a debate because I don't think it is. I think that's just a. It's a spectrum of monetary adoption. But, but where are you at with this? Because there's. I don't. And I'm going to try to stop myself from putting people in camps because I don't like to do that and I think it's ineffective. But, like, just for the sake of, of discussion, you've got Michael Saylor who's basically said like, never, never sell your bitcoin. Or presumably that means spend your bitcoin too. I'm not exactly sure on the nuance there, but, you know, it's a pristine asset, it's pristine collateral. You've got sort of Jack Dorsey, who I think would agree with the thing that bitcoin's a great store of value. But also he said very publicly, like, bitcoin needs to be used as a medium of exchange if it's going to truly achieve. Like it's, if it's going to reach its zenith of where it can be. Where are you at with this as someone who's seen it for so many years now?
- [26:32]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, and this has been an argument almost from the beginning and a large part of the block size wars, this was the narrative on like the bch side saying, oh, we, it needs to be a transactional currency.
- [26:44]
It's a P2P cash, blah, blah, blah. But for me, the, the way to.
- [26:50]
Think about it is thinking about like, sort of like how money comes into play. And if you read a lot of Nick Szabo's essays from, from times of yore, right, like he, he talks about gold and all, all of these things. How, how does money actually evolve? And that's a really good question to think about because obviously bitcoin is fairly new, right? It's, it's what, like 17 years old now? And, and we haven't, we need to think about, like, how does it actually evolve? And his contention, and if you read his essays, this, this comes through very.
- [27:29]
Clearly, is that there's a lot of.
- [27:32]
Work put into the money, whatever it is, right? Whether it's wampums or gold or, you know, trinkets or whatever, all of those things. Almost every money in any society required a significant amount of work to produce.
- [27:48]
And there are people that use it.
- [27:52]
For something or store it. It's a, it's like a good keepsake or whatever it is.
- [27:57]
And because of that, because of the effort required, it becomes like a scarce asset.
- [28:03]
And that in turn makes it like something that stores value well.
- [28:09]
And because of that, people start Using.
- [28:12]
It to trade and using it to use it as like a medium of exchange and so on.
- [28:21]
And that's kind of the way that.
- [28:23]
Bitcoin has evolved as well, right? Like, and, and we've seen it, Store.
- [28:28]
Value is definitely the first function.
- [28:30]
And it's. If you, if you want just like a transactional currency, the dollars way, way better way more merchants take it way more. Way more people are willing to, you know, take their, take it for goods and services and so on.
- [28:48]
So it's, it's not about beating it on that score.
- [28:52]
Most of the dollar rails that exist are pretty digital anyway. It's not, it's not really about that. It's not really about convenience. Obviously I can go down to the store and pay with like credit cards and things like that. So much easier than doing it with bitcoin even.
- [29:10]
Even for vendors that take bitcoin, right.
- [29:12]
It's like more cumbersome because you have to scan a QR code and open your wallet. Sometimes it doesn't work, blah, blah, blah.
- [29:19]
So it's, it's not really about that.
- [29:21]
At the beginning, I think. I think it has to start with as a store of value. And not surprisingly, there aren't that many good stores of value in the fiat economy. And this is why it's been so popular to a large degree. I mean you, you have a lot of options when you want to pay for something, but if you want to store value, there's really not that many things. I mean people have homes, people have stocks, maybe gold.
- [29:49]
That's, that's about it. Like there's, there's really not many. I guess you can like collect art.
- [29:54]
Or something like that and you know, like baseball cards or whatever. Right?
- [30:00]
Like all of that.
- [30:01]
Like you can, but those things aren't very liquid and it's very difficult to sell and there's like a lots of transaction fees. There's just so many reasons why most other things are pretty bad for store value.
- [30:15]
So when you have bitcoin be a store value, the next evolution is that.
- [30:23]
People will want it a lot.
- [30:24]
And if you try to shortcut that.
- [30:26]
Process, at least in my observation, it hasn't worked. We used to have, in 2015, I think Dell started taking bitcoin and they stopped after, after like a year because it was like too much maintenance and not that many people were paying for it.
- [30:45]
I think overstock.com also used to take it.
- [30:49]
Expedia used to take it, take it.
- [30:50]
There were there. I mean these aren't small names.
- [30:53]
They, they were they were big e commerce sites and most of them like.
- [30:57]
Just stopped it, right? Like, because it wasn't, it was, it.
- [31:02]
Wasn'T worth it for them.
- [31:04]
And that speaks to why, like how.
- [31:07]
Method of payment parts come in to a currency.
- [31:12]
It has to be something that the.
- [31:15]
Merchant really, really wants. And if you observe somewhere like Venezuela, if you go to the black market, they do not want Bolivars, right? They want, they want dollars because you.
- [31:29]
Know, they, they would much prefer dollars.
- [31:32]
And in fact, oftentimes they'll give you a discount if you paint in dollars rather than boulevards.
- [31:37]
And this is true in a lot.
- [31:38]
Of other countries that are suffering through a lot of inflation. They would rather get your dollars.
- [31:43]
And the reason is because that's their store of value, right? That's what they would rather store value.
- [31:50]
In than the local currency.
- [31:53]
So if you can do that, when it gets more like that, where merchants.
- [31:59]
Are demanding bitcoin rather than something else.
- [32:02]
That'S when it really starts rolling. And there are precious few people that.
- [32:08]
Actually have businesses that are bitcoin based, right?
- [32:12]
There aren't enough people that are saying, you know what?
- [32:17]
I really want bitcoin.
- [32:19]
I will give you a discount if.
- [32:21]
You pay in bitcoin.
- [32:22]
Because I want it, I want that.
- [32:23]
So much and it's not worth it for me to take the dollars, convert it, suffer some slippage and transaction fees to go get bitcoin and then do that. Because I'm going to store it in bitcoin anyway.
- [32:36]
That, that's when the method of payment.
- [32:39]
Really starts, starts rolling.
- [32:41]
Now I personally have done that with.
- [32:44]
Like my classes and stuff like that. There are other, other entrepreneurs in the bitcoin space that have done that.
- [32:51]
But if you're just sort of like.
- [32:53]
A normal business and just sort of added as, like as, okay, this will, this will get like the bitcoin maxis into my store or something like that.
- [33:03]
That's not really going to work. It's going to be okay.
- [33:07]
Maybe you get a surge of interest for a month, but over the long.
- [33:13]
Term, that's not how it works. This is why I'm excited for somebody.
- [33:20]
Like Steak n Shake or Tahinis in Canada and so on.
- [33:24]
Those are actual bitcoin maximalists at the helm, right? They want bitcoin. They're like, how do I get my.
- [33:31]
Hands on more bitcoin?
- [33:32]
Well, I can use it. You know, I can get people to.
- [33:37]
Pay for it and I'm going to be converting it anyway. This, this makes it cheaper for me and so on. And this is My treasury asset. And how do I get more Treasury? Well, take payment in it, right?
- [33:50]
Like that. It's an extension of store of value. It's a way of adding to your.
- [33:58]
Store of value much easier by taking it as a payment.
- [34:01]
So I think that's how currency, how.
- [34:05]
Money evolves and I think a lot.
- [34:08]
Of the effort to try to shortcut that is premature a lot of times.
- [34:16]
And we've seen it again from 2015.
- [34:20]
That'S like 11 years ago we had.
- [34:23]
Giant e commerce platforms taking bitcoin and, and it didn't happen.
- [34:28]
Right.
- [34:29]
In fact almost all of them, I guarantee, like are not interested in trying it again because it's not interesting. It's, it's, it cost them money probably in like engineering resources and stuff. And like they didn't keep the bitcoin, they sold it right away, blah blah, blah.
- [34:47]
So like it like, but you know.
- [34:50]
Had you had bitcoin maximalists in those positions and you did take it and you kept it in bitcoin, I mean your, your balance sheet would be much, much higher.
- [34:59]
So like it's a, it's, it has to be part of that strategy for it. When, when you, when you're talking about.
- [35:06]
Medium of exchange or method of payment.
- [35:09]
It has to be part of that, has to be that the merchant is storing value in it, right? It's part of that flow.
- [35:16]
And really it's, it's about the merchant store of value.
- [35:19]
It has to be that before it.
- [35:21]
Can really take off as that.
- [35:23]
And there are circular economies in the.
- [35:25]
World that, where this is the case where you have enough people on bitcoin beach that are orange filled, that want bitcoin, that see it for what it.
- [35:34]
Is, where it works, because you have.
- [35:36]
Enough people that see it for what it is and want to store value in it. And this is just like a convenient way to, to make all of that.
- [35:44]
Work anyway, that, that's when it really takes off. But you know, it's, it's going to take some time. It, it requires lots of entrepreneurs that.
- [35:54]
Are really into bitcoin that really are convinced this is where I should store my value. And you know, this is why I say store of value has to come.
- [36:03]
First because if the merchant doesn't value it as a store of value then it's more a burden, right?
- [36:08]
It's like, oh, I, I'm, I'm taking some foreign currency. Like say I'm in the US I should I start accepting Euro?
- [36:17]
I mean I guess I could, but that's like very painful, right? Like you have to go change it every time. That's kind of what you're asking a business to do.
- [36:27]
If you're saying, hey, go, go take Bitcoin, you'll get more business or whatever.
- [36:32]
That it's, it's not, not that compelling. I mean there, there are a few places, very touristy places where they'll take.
- [36:38]
Alipay and WeChat payments right. From the Chinese tourists or something.
- [36:43]
But that's, that's the extent of it.
- [36:45]
Right.
- [36:46]
It's, it's not the, the real driver.
- [36:48]
Comes in when the merchant is using it as a store value.
- [36:52]
Host (Walker America)
I would agree with that analysis though perhaps the couple of interesting caveats I would add to that. Not even necessarily caveats, just additions would be. I think that what we're seeing with both like Square enabling their merchants to turn the feature on, not even necessarily to need to accept the bitcoin, but to be able to use those rails and get away from the 2 to 3% credit card fees. That's something that's really interesting because now they just see, oh wait, there's a way for me, if you're a low margin business, especially either a restaurant, grocery store, whatever it might be something that's like pretty tight margins, 2, 3% makes a huge difference to you. So that's. And Spark is doing something similar where it's like, or light Spark. With Spark, you know, they're using Bitcoin as the rails to move the money, the merchant. Okay, yeah, I'm going to still keep it in bitcoin. Maybe I'm not orange pilled yet, you know, using it as my personal store of value. But that's I think another kind of interesting development that obviously wouldn't have been possible in 2015 like that it just, the technology wasn't there yet. Right. But now we're at this point where you do see multiple modes of potential adoption of Bitcoin. But I would agree with you in terms of like if you want a merchant to really accept Bitcoin and want to keep it, well, they need to understand that it's a great store of value. Steak and shake. I've been a Steak and shake. I'll say this, shout out to Steak and Shake. I've been there multiple times, probably at least five, six times since they have deployed bitcoin payments. I've paid in bitcoin every single time. And the experience has been really, really smooth. And they're doing everything in tallow now. So like shout out to them. That is a great example.
- [38:22]
Jimmy Song
Unless you want to Go, go there, right?
- [38:24]
Like so, with, with respect to credit.
- [38:27]
Card payments, I am a little bit skeptical about that being the sort of like killer use case.
- [38:33]
I agree, you do save 2 or.
- [38:35]
3% as a merchant. But there are other Rails that are much cheaper, right? Like there are other Rails. There's already competition along those lines.
- [38:45]
So this is.
- [38:48]
There's a really good article on bits about money, about credit card fees and how they more or less kind of got like a monopoly through their network and stuff.
- [39:00]
But one of the reasons why it's.
- [39:03]
Almost free to send using Venmo as opposed to a credit card. What, what's going on? Right. Like credit card payments, they, they charge 3%. Why is Venmo like free? What's going on?
- [39:16]
Well, it turns out that if you're.
- [39:18]
If you're using certain other Rails and in this case this is essentially going through the central bank to the other bank, it's like a direct bank to bank transfer or whatever, it's like a fraction of a cent per transaction.
- [39:32]
It's like, it's like orders of magnitude cheaper. And this is, this is what like.
- [39:37]
Stuff like Z, Dell and other platforms.
- [39:40]
Are built on is other Rails that.
- [39:43]
Are cheaper even at the grocery store. And you'll notice this, if you ever.
- [39:49]
Use a debit card, they'll try to.
- [39:52]
Route you through the debit network rather than the credit card network. Right. They'll ask for your PIN as soon as you scan it.
- [39:58]
If they detect that this is a.
- [40:00]
Debit card and you can sort of decline it and it'll process it as a credit card transaction.
- [40:06]
But this is one of the subtle.
- [40:07]
Ways in which they're, they're trying to.
- [40:09]
Make more money by. Because the debit card path is like.
- [40:13]
One and a half percent, whereas the credit card path is like 3%.
- [40:18]
And so the, that margin I think, goes away.
- [40:22]
Right.
- [40:23]
Like, it's not long for this world and. But it's not necessarily Bitcoin that will take over that because there are other Rails that already exist that are significantly.
- [40:35]
Cheaper and in many ways they're more convenient for people. I mean, I, I don't, I don't know about you, but more people have Venmo than Bitcoin wallets. Right. Despite all of that. Right. And, and like this, this is how people transact. When you have dinner or whatever, it's like, okay, you owe me this. Like, can you, can you just Venmo me that? Or whatever.
- [40:55]
And, and it's, it's kind of gotten to that. So, like, while I do Understand the.
- [41:01]
The, the case with credit cards and that it does save 2 or 3%. And I, I totally agree on the economics of that or whatever. It's not the Bitcoin isn't the only game in town, but with store value, it is the only big only game in town. And I, I really think that that's ultimately going to be, have to be the driver if, if you want to see a lot of medium of exchange, method of payment, use cases on that score.
- [41:29]
Host (Walker America)
We are 100 in agreement on, on that regard. And so that also kind of leads me to something else, which is the idea, okay, like I, Bitcoin is money, right? Like, I use Bitcoin as money in, in multiple ways, right? Both as a store of value. I use it as a medium of exchange. I use it also, you know, like whenever I can, I try to use Bitcoin to spend and then I replace it like immediately with a few extra sats on top, you know, to make sure I wasn't missing out on something. But, but I also try to think in it from, in a unit of account perspective, which is like a difficult shift to make, right? But once you make that shift, you start to look at SATs being on sale. When you see these dips, like right now where people are freaking out and you realize you're still denominated, you know, you're using the wrong denominator here. You're still using fiat as your denominator. But in order for Bitcoin to, to stay decentralized and secure and to continue to like, I think Bitcoin is winning. For Bitcoin to continue winning, there are some different thoughts on what the path forward needs to be. There's, there's kind of the idea of we need to ossify Bitcoin now. There's the idea that Bitcoin's ossifying whether you like it or not. This is not a choice that you make. It's a natural progression. And there's the idea that we need to avoid ossification at all costs. What's your perspective on that? How do you think about that from the perspective of Bitcoin as a store of value, which obviously you just clarified, I'd like, is in your opinion the most important function of it to achieve medium of exchange?
- [42:57]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, I'm an ossification and I've said this in multiple venues and I really think that money is better when it stays constant, when it doesn't change very much. This is the problem with central banks and the Federal Reserve and many Other institutions with respect to money is that they change the rules around too much.
- [43:24]
And it's very hard to predict the.
- [43:27]
Function of money is that at least on the sort of value front or medium of exchange over time is that.
- [43:36]
You can plan for the future, right?
- [43:39]
But if the rules keep changing or the denominator keeps changing or you know.
- [43:43]
Whatever, then you can't plan as well. And that, that's, that's the thing that.
- [43:48]
People want to be able to do with money.
- [43:51]
If you have too much stuff changing, then it makes it very difficult to.
- [43:56]
Plan out into the future. And you know, I mean, just to give an example, in terms of Bitcoin.
- [44:02]
You know, 2026, 2012 or whatever, you had one type of address.
- [44:09]
It's, it's pay to pubkey hash. It's starts with a one and that was it. That was the only type of address. Then you had a software pay to script hash. And these were addresses that start with three that came in 2013. SegWit happened in 2017 and you had native SegWit addresses which all start with BC1Q. Right? 2021 came and you had different type of Bitcoin like Beck32 address and these all start with BC1P.
- [44:43]
So like each time it, it sort of changed things around, which meant that if you had storage in 2013, I mean 2012 or so, it would still work. But like a lot of the tools.
- [44:57]
Just kept changing around it.
- [44:59]
Now that's not to say that it's bad, right?
- [45:00]
Like you, you, you still want that. And you know, the paper wallets people were making in 2012 still work.
- [45:07]
But a lot of the, a lot of the software, a lot of that stuff, it's, it's not really meant for 30, 50 years, which is what store value stuff should have, right? So when you're, when you're thinking about.
- [45:19]
Like a hardware wallet from, from 20, I think the first ones were like 2015, 2016, somewhere around there.
- [45:29]
Like those have had like 30 firmware updates and stuff. That's a, that's not keeping it for 50 years, right? Like you're, you're constantly having to change.
- [45:39]
Things and then, oh, there's this soft fork, so we have to make sure we support it and whatever. And we're not going to be able to detect certain payments into these if we, if we, if we're not looking for it and so on.
- [45:54]
So it's not good at that level.
- [45:56]
At sort of like the money level.
- [45:58]
But more than that, you, you also.
- [46:00]
Have this other thing where it's hard to build, right? Like when things keep changing.
- [46:07]
So I've said this before.
- [46:10]
When lightning first came in 27, like 2019. 2020, right. Like, as it was evolving and I was teaching my classes on programming Bitcoin, a lot of people would ask me, okay, Jimmy, when are we going to get a programming lightnings course?
- [46:25]
I was like, well, I would do that. But they want to change up this stuff, right?
- [46:30]
Like, you know, the payment channels are using two of two multisig using ecdsa, but they're going to get Schnorr signatures and Taproot and they're going to have something called taproot channels. And also these hash time lock contracts, they want to change them to point time lock contracts so you get privacy all the way through.
- [46:52]
I was like, okay, if I, like.
- [46:56]
I'm thinking of it as a teacher.
- [46:58]
If I teach 2 of 2 ecdsa.
- [47:01]
Multisig for payment channels and then it all suddenly changes to Schnorr, it's going to be outdated in like a couple years, right?
- [47:11]
And it makes it like that. And that's just like my personal thing. But there's a lot of other places where this sort of thing comes into play where it's like, okay, I want to build, but you know, constantly changing the rules. It might even make what I'm trying to do easier.
- [47:28]
And.
- [47:29]
But I don't think I'm gonna build it right now, or I'm not gonna go and try to figure out how to do it despite whatever, right? Like, there are all kinds of things that are made much easier by covenants.
- [47:41]
For example, or let's pick something specific. OPSI tv. Right?
- [47:46]
Makes a whole bunch of things very easy. So what do those people that are building that are saying, okay, you know what, there's this op CTV thing that.
- [47:56]
Might get into Bitcoin at some point.
- [47:59]
Should I just build it this way.
- [48:00]
Or do I wait for it? Right?
- [48:02]
And it becomes this dilemma. Whereas if you're ossified, then it's a lot easier, right? Like, you can say, okay, well this is how it's going to be and I'm just gonna build on it and.
- [48:16]
I'm going, I'm going to make it.
- [48:17]
So it takes away a lot of that entrepreneurial energy by thinking, okay, maybe I can get some protocol changes that.
- [48:27]
Make what I'm trying to do easier rather than, let's just go build.
- [48:32]
So, like, those are just two of.
- [48:35]
The reasons why I think ossification is much, much better.
- [48:41]
And yeah, I mean, just There.
- [48:45]
Sorry, I have to close that.
- [48:49]
All right, so, and so, so there's.
- [48:53]
Like, I get the arguments from the people that are saying, you know, we need features and things like that. And honestly they mostly come from developers, right?
- [49:04]
They, they, and they, they say that largely because they want thing, they want.
- [49:09]
To build something and so on.
- [49:11]
But you have to ask yourself, is, is it what the best thing for the users? Now they can always make an argument.
- [49:17]
Oh, you're going to have this feature.
- [49:18]
And this feature and this feature, but unless there's like a practical thing that.
- [49:23]
The user actually gets out of it.
- [49:25]
In the end, I don't, I don't.
- [49:28]
Think that's a legitimate reason to go do it. Right?
- [49:31]
Like so, for example, with Taproot we.
- [49:35]
Were told, okay, you're going to have all this privacy. I still remember AJ Towns on the mailing list saying, okay, here's why we should do Taproot.
- [49:44]
You can, you basically have single sig.
- [49:48]
You know, spend path, right? This is, this is the key path of the Taproot tree, right? You, you have the key path and the script path. And, and you, you can have the.
- [50:01]
Same wallet that you have now, which.
- [50:02]
Are for most people is a single key, you know, single signature unlock, right? It's not multi sig. Most people don't use multi sig. You have a single signature unlock and for free. Free. You can have a backup path where.
- [50:16]
If you happen to lose your wallet, then you can have three of five of your friends sign on your behalf.
- [50:23]
And you can get your Bitcoin back.
- [50:25]
Isn't that awesome? You're getting this for free, right? I was like, that's a great argument.
- [50:31]
Host (Walker America)
That's awesome.
- [50:31]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, that, that would be amazing. I, and you know, there, there's a.
- [50:34]
Lot of people that get into accidents.
- [50:37]
Or are just dumb about something that.
- [50:39]
This, this would be, be awesome for. And then Taproot came and then I.
- [50:43]
Was like, okay, where, where, where are all, all of these things, all of these and paths that are, that are, that are useful for that.
- [50:50]
Haven't seen it.
- [50:51]
Haven't seen it, right?
- [50:52]
And, and it turns out that the.
- [50:54]
Reason why we haven't seen it, why.
- [50:56]
Why we don't have all of these.
- [50:58]
Unlock paths, why we don't have degrading multi sig in like consumer wallets and.
- [51:03]
Stuff like that is because the UX.
- [51:05]
Is, is just batshit insane.
- [51:08]
You can't make something that people aren't going to screw up royally in setting it up. And also it's going to be terrible for your wallet, right? It's hard enough to get people to.
- [51:20]
Write down 12 or 24 words when they set up a wallet.
- [51:23]
How hard is it going to be to go and pick five friends, go get their ex pubs and then import them in and then, and then have that descriptor, give that descriptor back to them and then now you have this backup solution. Not going to happen, right? Like, it's just too complicated. The UX is just so unbelievably bad that whatever we're quote unquote getting for free is not free at all. It's in fact very, very costly because the user interactions and things like that that you have to do to make this, you know, potential reality into a user benefit is enormous. Right. So there are lots of things like that that I see within, like a lot of these like proposals for, okay, let's do covenants, let's do this, let's do that. You can do this, you can do that. It's like, well, I don't know if.
- [52:26]
We'Re going to get any of this stuff. Stuff, right?
- [52:29]
Yeah, a lot of it requires not just like the ability, you know, certain primitives at the protocol level, but everything up the stack and there are blockers all the way up the stack that might just make it so that the user never gets the benefit. So while I as a developer, I.
- [52:50]
Like getting more toys, right.
- [52:52]
I like getting more primitives, I like having more composability.
- [52:57]
Right. Or better ways to do things and.
- [53:01]
You know, not shooting myself in the.
- [53:03]
Foot for certain things.
- [53:04]
But I think we have as a.
- [53:06]
Community, we need to demand a little more evidence from the developers because as.
- [53:11]
Far as I can tell, I mean.
- [53:13]
This is one of the, one of the complaints about taproot.
- [53:16]
90% of the outputs in Taproot are spam, right?
- [53:23]
Very.
- [53:24]
Like the other 10% presumably are being.
- [53:27]
Used for good measure. Whatever you, you, you can use it for your corporate treasury and have three or five multi sig and degrading or.
- [53:34]
Whatever, but 90% is being used for spam rather than that, shouldn't we ask some questions? Like didn't you guys said we could get all this stuff? We're not, I'm not seeing that.
- [53:47]
Right.
- [53:47]
I, I mean other than maybe Taproot.
- [53:50]
Channels, which not every Lightning Wallet supports.
- [53:54]
I, I'm not sure there have been that many good things that came out of it, right. Like I, I and you know, I like, what can I say? Like you need, we like, it's not that I'm opposed to softworks necessarily. But the evidence that I've seen makes.
- [54:16]
It seem like.
- [54:19]
A lot of this stuff is just sort of like satisfying.
- [54:22]
Developers without giving users enough benefit is.
- [54:27]
Host (Walker America)
So fair to say. I mean like at the, at the consensus level, you basically, there needs to be an overwhelming burden of proof that something would be not only a cool, neat idea, but also desired by the majority of the community.
- [54:41]
Jimmy Song
Yeah. Or the benefits have to be proved out.
- [54:44]
Right.
- [54:44]
And.
- [54:45]
Right.
- [54:46]
And this was like one of my.
- [54:48]
Frustrations was, you know, like, people are.
- [54:50]
Like, oh, you know, if we had covenants, we do this, this, this and this. Well, yeah, you have covenants on liquid.
- [54:56]
Why don't you go and build a wallet and like make, make that happen. Go, go, go show me something that gets a lot of consumer adoption. And at that point we can, can.
- [55:04]
Be like, okay, maybe then it makes.
- [55:07]
Sense to go and, and make it on Bitcoin because it makes it more secure and stuff.
- [55:11]
Not opposed to it. Right. Like, but like it would be great.
- [55:15]
If we had like time lock vaults and only two paths out and things like that.
- [55:19]
And you could even do it on bitcoin right. Now this, this was one of my.
- [55:22]
Arguments is okay, are people using covenants.
- [55:26]
Because you could kind of do covenants.
- [55:27]
Right now and not just like time locks or whatever.
- [55:31]
If you want only three paths out.
- [55:33]
Of a particular utxo, here's what you can do.
- [55:37]
Create three transactions, throw away the sign them, throw away the private key. Those are the three paths out.
- [55:44]
You can go put them in a vault or whatever. Right.
- [55:47]
That's the only way you can get them out.
- [55:49]
It goes to this address, this address or this address, or however way you.
- [55:53]
Want to put it, perfectly fine, it'll work. But to my knowledge, no one has built anything like that.
- [56:01]
Right.
- [56:01]
If you're that into covenants and that convinced that this is going to work, then you could, and honestly, if the protocol were more ossified, I bet you people would try stuff like that and.
- [56:14]
See if it gets consumer adoption.
- [56:15]
But this is why like programmers aren't always successful, why startups aren't always successful. You, you, you have to go and see if there's a market for it.
- [56:27]
And there's something called product market fit.
- [56:29]
For that reason, where a lot of things that you think people want, they don't want or you think are would be unpopular with people which are. And like there's this disconnect between what's.
- [56:41]
Good in theory and what actually works in practice.
- [56:44]
And this is the part where I.
- [56:46]
Think developers need to be A lot more humble. And unfortunately in Bitcoin, I think we've.
- [56:52]
Given way too much respect to developers.
- [56:58]
Talking about stuff that they don't necessarily know about. And I speak as a developer, I feel like people think that I know everything about certain things. Right. And it's like particularly around economics or like, you know, end user experience and things like that.
- [57:17]
I think a lot of developers frankly.
- [57:19]
Suck at both of those things, but they're given sort of like this godlike respect on them which I don't think they necessarily deserve. Yeah. So.
- [57:32]
Host (Walker America)
I'm curious then, just given what you've said about kind of strong hesitancy or opposition to consensus level changes and favorability towards more osvite approach, what are your thoughts on the consensus changes in bip 110?
- [57:47]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, so that one. So I'm not really sure what that's going to do now in general, just.
- [57:56]
To be clear on ossification and what that means, I'm in favor of shrinking the set of stuff, not expanding the set of stuff.
- [58:07]
So those are two very different things, right?
- [58:10]
Like give it more features and stuff. Stuff is expansion. As a programmer I know that when.
- [58:16]
You shrink the amount of stuff that.
- [58:20]
You'Re able to do, it tends to be more stable and less buggy and things like that.
- [58:26]
So I am in favor of a lot of different things that would be considered softwork.
- [58:31]
So if for example, we eliminated 30 opcodes that no one uses, they're used once in a while as somebody testing.
- [58:39]
Something, but vast majority of like OP two dupe, op, you know, three rot and stuff like that just nobody uses and they've been in there since the beginning. Now the soft work to say okay.
- [58:53]
Any, anything using this is invalid or something like that would be great.
- [58:59]
Why? Because it would take. There are code paths in Bitcoin in the software that have to handle all.
- [59:06]
Of these things that almost never get tested.
- [59:11]
It's all kinds of code in there that gets very little testing and who knows if there are bugs in there and stuff. And this is something that you learn.
- [59:21]
As a software developer.
- [59:23]
Unused code paths almost always have more.
- [59:25]
Bugs than the highly used code paths.
- [59:27]
Because you find them right away. Somebody reports it almost right away.
- [59:33]
Getting.
- [59:33]
Rid of a lot of that stuff. I think I would be all for, for example, if we got rid of.
- [59:40]
30 opcodes that no one uses.
- [59:42]
Or we analyze the top 50 smart.
- [59:46]
Contracts, right here is pay to PubKey hash, here's bare multisig, here's whatever and.
- [59:52]
We take all those and here are the 50 and here are the opcodes that they use.
- [59:57]
Let's just get rid of the other ones. Right?
- [59:59]
Okay. I'd be like, okay, that'll make it more stable, probably reduce bugs and things like that.
- [60:05]
That would be great.
- [60:07]
But so those are two separate things. So I'm not opposed to all softworks.
- [60:13]
Forever or anything like that. Or like, let's just keep the code exactly the same.
- [60:17]
I'm thinking more at a conceptual level.
- [60:20]
Like keep things the same and eliminate.
- [60:22]
Like, you can, you can cut more.
- [60:24]
As long as you know what the, what, what the thing that you're trying to do with the software is. Like, you know, I think the original Satoshi client had like poker thing in there or something like that.
- [60:34]
Like, it, like just stuff that's like, you, you want to cut down the.
- [60:38]
Software to its essence as much as.
- [60:40]
Possible, at least at a consensus level.
- [60:43]
Right? At sort of like the base layer.
- [60:46]
This is kind of what you want.
- [60:47]
To do with, with software architecture, if you can.
- [60:52]
So in that, so the question then is what is bip110, right? What's it trying to do?
- [60:59]
Is, is it expanding functionality or drawing it in?
- [61:03]
And I'm, I'm not sure it's either of those, to be honest. It's a, it's a, somewhere in between. I, I, I would say it's not, it's not like eliminating bug paths or.
- [61:14]
Something like that potential things like that.
- [61:17]
It's also not like adding a feature.
- [61:20]
Like Taproot or Segwit did. It's, it's, it's more or less kind.
- [61:24]
Of trying to eliminate spam. It's, it's at like sort of the data layer.
- [61:30]
It's trying to add something to that data layer.
- [61:33]
So I mean, I, I, I don't know, I don't know if I, I.
- [61:39]
Am for reducing spam if possible. And I, I think even I, I think everyone in this space would like that.
- [61:47]
And in fact, like, part of, you.
- [61:49]
Know, how BIP110 came about was the demand from core developers, instead of fixing things at the relay level, fix things at the, at the consensus level.
- [62:02]
Now, is it a software that actually.
- [62:07]
Does what we think it will, which is take away a lot of that spam and do it in a way that, that works for the, for, for the network. Like, we're not accidentally breaking like a bunch of people's things that are actually like, useful to people. I mean, in a sense that they're kind of doing that, right? Like they're taking away certain things that allow you to do Inscriptions, ordinals. So those users would kind of get set out.
- [62:40]
So you know. Yeah, so I'm not sure where I am on that.
- [62:46]
Right. Like.
- [62:48]
Like a very limited one.
- [62:51]
Like let's keep OP return to 160 bytes or something like that. I, I think I would be on board with.
- [62:58]
But this, this goes like two or.
- [63:01]
Three steps above that. Trying to eliminate inscriptions and some other things. I like there. It's.
- [63:11]
Yeah, I, and to be honest, I.
- [63:15]
I haven't looked at it closely enough.
- [63:17]
To say, okay, here, here are the.
- [63:19]
Exact things that it would eliminate and here are the exact things that it would allow. And you know, here are the mitigations against it. If, if, if I were a determined attacker and you know what that probability might be.
- [63:32]
So I, in general, the idea of.
- [63:35]
The soft work, which is to get.
- [63:37]
Rid of a lot of spam, I.
- [63:39]
Think I would be in favor of obviously, you know, there, there are certain.
- [63:44]
Risks and stuff and this is where.
- [63:46]
It kind of gets tricky because.
- [63:50]
Like to be in favor of a soft.
- [63:52]
Work you generally want a lot of people in favor of the soft work as well.
- [63:57]
Or at least that's what we think.
- [63:59]
We're not really sure.
- [64:00]
Like and this is where a lot.
- [64:02]
Of weird game theory comes into play because, and, and I'm a little sad that we didn't get to test it in 2017 with the user activated software is we, we don't actually know what's going to happen and how people will react. And you know, in the, in the episode that I did with Johnny Ver, this was one of the things that we were talking about is okay, what there, there is this wipeout risk for the main chain. If, if you know, some people are mining bip110 does that mean that you have to protect against that wipeout risk otherwise like all these transactions can get invalidated.
- [64:42]
He's like, well, you know, he's of.
- [64:45]
The opinion that CORE wouldn't do an incompatible soft fork. Right.
- [64:51]
Host (Walker America)
Which a counter soft fork or whatever.
- [64:53]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, yeah.
- [64:54]
And there's lots of things like that which haven't played out and anyone that.
- [64:59]
Tells you they know exactly how it's going to play out is probably lying because we've never had this situation and we've never played it out before. Now there are lots of things in.
- [65:10]
Theory, but practice and theory tend to.
- [65:13]
Not cooperate necessarily because there are factors that you can't take into account oftentimes because the way people like people are very creative and you can't necessarily predict their behavior.
- [65:27]
So it's a, it's a very, very strange and in many ways I think.
- [65:32]
Exciting kind of thing because we've never.
- [65:35]
Had this before where, where more or.
- [65:39]
Less an intolerant minority wants something to come, come through.
- [65:43]
And if you don't know about the.
- [65:46]
Details of the soft work, September 1, it, the clients that are running it will, will reject transactions that do not meet the standards of the soft fork, in which case there, there might be a chain fork. But then, then what happens? I like.
- [66:04]
It gets, it gets very interesting.
- [66:09]
And you know, I'm of the opinion that we have to test this at some point. Why not now?
- [66:16]
Host (Walker America)
I watched the, the, the one you guys did, the pod you guys did in El Salvador. I thought it was again, a very good discussion. Told us beforehand. I enjoyed it a lot. Always glad to see, you know, tone moderating things. You know, shout out to tone if he's listening to this somewhere. But so what I guess I'd like to understand a little bit too is, I mean, to me, okay, I'm, I'm looking at this and I've been called, I've been called a core sympathizer and a distributor of terrible illicit material and all these different things because I've, I've said for a while that people should run whatever node implementation they want. If you want to run core grade, if you want to run not great, run it. If you, you know, you don't have to update your core node. Also, I haven't in some time. This again, because they're backwards compatible. If people don't know that, you should know that now you know it. And that I think that fees are the ultimate filter on these things. I know you've expressed the same sentiment too. I've watched a lot of your, like the short form videos that you do, which I think are great, where you're, you know, you're in the armchair, you're breaking things down on the porch. Love it. Cowboy hats there, of course. And in one of them, I mean, you basically said that you don't think that spam is actually that big of a deal because ultimately it gets priced out by, you know, monetary transactions. Are you still of, of that opinion? And if that's the case, why the urgency to, to do. And I'm not saying you have this urgency. I'm just saying like the general seeming urgency to activate this soft fork now that we're seeing from people. It seems to me like this is one of those instances where it's like there's being a lot of impetus put on like we need to do something right now and bitcoin is going to die. If not, I mean, Luke has literally said time and time again this like, if we ossify, Bitcoin is dead, ossification is fatal. If we don't activate bip110, Bitcoin is dead. This language seems like the kind of stuff that's used to get people to make rash decisions. And I'm curious if you think like, if you're of the opinion that bitcoin, like spam on bitcoin is ultimately priced out by monetary use cases, which I agree with, where do you fall as it relates to kind of the urgency that's being pushed here on BIP110?
- [68:22]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, I mean the urgency is from.
- [68:27]
The BIP 110 proponents and that's mostly around child porn and things like that. And for them that's sort of like a drop dead thing, right? Like it's once child porn on my computer. I'm not running core node or whatever.
- [68:46]
And you know, I don't see that.
- [68:50]
As a risk or as a high enough risk to go do that again. They feel differently and it's entirely their.
- [68:58]
Right to go do this.
- [68:59]
Right.
- [68:59]
And this, of course, this is a part that I think a lot of people miss is that it's a decentralized network.
- [69:07]
They could try a software anytime they want.
- [69:11]
And this is why I think we.
- [69:13]
Need to know how this is going. Like we need some experience as a community knowing how this stuff will play out.
- [69:20]
Because at any time anyone can propose.
- [69:25]
A soft work, they can run software.
- [69:27]
That'S compatible with bitcoin in every other way.
- [69:29]
But this what happens, right? And it doesn't have to be, you know, people like Luke, it could be a government, it could be libertarians, it could be.
- [69:41]
Be who? Like it could be anybody. And we need to get some experience.
- [69:46]
On this because we, we honestly do not have that experience and we, we don't know how it's going to go.
- [69:52]
But you know, this particular one, you know, the, the fact that they're feeling.
- [69:59]
That urgency is not necessarily something I agree with. I, and as you said, like I, my, my perspective is that, you know, fees will price out spam.
- [70:10]
But like, you know, we did another.
- [70:12]
Show with Chris Greeda and one of the things he was saying is we.
- [70:17]
You know, it's entirely possible that people.
- [70:20]
Will pay to keep something forever, right? And more money than you would think.
- [70:25]
And this is because we've never had.
- [70:28]
A system like Bitcoin before where you can Keep something on a chain forever, right?
- [70:34]
Like that's like in the history of digital stuff, we've never had something that.
- [70:41]
Was this replicated and this permanent.
- [70:45]
We like if you, if you have.
- [70:46]
Like a file from 10 years ago, and I'm sure a lot of people don't practice good digital hygiene, so, you know, they, they've lost it or, you know, kept things that they shouldn't have or whatever.
- [70:58]
We've never had something where it's going.
- [71:02]
To last as long as Bitcoin lasts. And many of us in Bitcoin expect that to last forever, right? Or for a very, very long time.
- [71:11]
And it's a guarantee that we've never really had.
- [71:16]
That's based on incentives and so on that are very different.
- [71:21]
So I could kind of see his point that it's possible that some other application comes up for data storage like this, where it, where people may be.
- [71:33]
Willing to pay a lot more for.
- [71:35]
It, in which case, who knows, right? And the other part that sort of.
- [71:42]
Like throws a wrench into this analysis that fees will eventually price out everything.
- [71:47]
Or whatever is that we actually don't.
- [71:50]
Know what second layers will be successful. Because as you've seen with lightning, if.
- [71:57]
You'Re able to transact on a second.
- [71:59]
Layer, you don't have to use the first layer, layer one. And there are certain protocols which almost require no on chain footprint or compress down, not just hundreds of transactions like lightning does. You're compressing 100 transactions on Lightning to like a single one on chain.
- [72:27]
You know, they're able to do a.
- [72:29]
Thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand oftentimes, especially with stuff like VTXOs and so on.
- [72:36]
Is it possible that at some point.
- [72:38]
We get million, 10 million, 100 million.
- [72:41]
At that point it's like, okay, maybe.
- [72:44]
Maybe the block space actually doesn't get filled up that much, right?
- [72:48]
Like if you, if you have a ratio of like a million transactions on.
- [72:53]
Layer two compressing down to a single transaction on layer one. I mean, and we have 7 billion.
- [73:01]
People, that's like 7,000 transactions, right?
- [73:06]
Equivalent.
- [73:07]
And that's like two blocks like you can do, you can handle a transaction per person per 20 minutes, like without a problem.
- [73:16]
If you have that level of compression.
- [73:18]
Now, we don't know what, what level.
- [73:20]
Of compression we're going to be able to get. And, and these are again, all theoretical. And again, practice is very different than.
- [73:27]
Theory, but it is an argument and it's not implausible.
- [73:33]
I personally don't think that that's, that that's going to be the case either.
- [73:39]
In which case, you know, like it does make it more difficult for a.
- [73:43]
Node runner if say blacks blocks are half empty going forward because we have this massive compression that we're able to real practically realize.
- [73:54]
You know, I, I, I mean I could kind of see that.
- [73:57]
Host (Walker America)
But just to clarify, you're saying if blocks are half empty, the concern here on the node runner side would be that those blocks would then be filled with non monetary transactions because they, they.
- [74:08]
Jimmy Song
Wouldn'T be getting prices, would have non.
- [74:09]
Monetary additions and that like again like.
- [74:13]
I can see their point, but like.
- [74:16]
Is it worth doing all this stuff for? Maybe, maybe not.
- [74:20]
Like I guess all of that like accumulates over time and so on. So there's multiple different ways in which like I could be wrong, right? Like I personally think that the monetary.
- [74:36]
Transactions will dominate and they will, and.
- [74:40]
The fees on those will price out.
- [74:43]
All of the other stuff. But there are some possibilities where savam can take over the network. Who knows, right? And I'm not going to say with certainty that that's not going to happen.
- [74:58]
Because you know, there are paths.
- [75:01]
Like I personally don't think that likely.
- [75:04]
But I mean it's, it's possible. So you can't sort of dismiss it.
- [75:09]
Out of hand, I guess. And you can't, you also can't say this is also what's definitely going to happen. And you know, one of the, one of the frustrations during this debate for me is, has been both sides essentially being completely certain of the future. And I'm like, there's no way you can say that.
- [75:28]
There are just too many unknowns, too many ways in which things can go.
- [75:32]
That you don't expect. And, and you know, life is kind of like that, right?
- [75:37]
Like you, you think something's going to play out this way. It totally does not. And it's almost always like not even.
- [75:48]
Something that one side predicted or the other or even something in between, but.
- [75:52]
Like, like just something completely off in.
- [75:55]
Another direction that no one predicted by, by any measure.
- [76:01]
So I suspect that that's how bitcoin.
- [76:04]
Stuff will go and you know, like.
- [76:06]
Just take things as it is. Like as a community, the big thing.
- [76:10]
That we should be thinking about is.
- [76:14]
Do, do softworks from an intolerant minority. What happens and is it, I'm not even sure if it's a good thing.
- [76:21]
Or a bad thing. If, if they succeed.
- [76:23]
I, like, I, I don't know the.
- [76:25]
Magnitude or, or direction of, of this change.
- [76:30]
Like whether it would be a good.
- [76:32]
Thing, whether it would Be a bad thing.
- [76:34]
Like how, like to whatever degree governance.
- [76:38]
Exists in Bitcoin, like how that affects.
- [76:40]
Those things, how it affects developers, how it affects how we think about softworks. Like all of those things are kind.
- [76:48]
Of up for grabs here with this softwork.
- [76:51]
And personally I like it because I.
- [76:54]
Want some certainty around that, right?
- [76:57]
I want some knowledge around that.
- [76:59]
And in Bitcoin's history, the more knowledge.
- [77:02]
You have about the system, the better it does, right? When, when we thought it was just.
- [77:08]
Like a darknet currency in 2013, it was at one price.
- [77:13]
But soon as Ross Ulbricht was arrested.
- [77:15]
A lot of people I knew were saying, you know what, it's gonna go down because there's no use case for it anymore. People aren't going and getting drugs on the darknet.
- [77:24]
Instead it went on one of the best bull runs that we've ever had in Bitcoin.
- [77:28]
100 to 13 or 1100 in like six weeks.
- [77:32]
Weeks 2017. What, what, what's going to happen with.
- [77:36]
This, you know, SegWit2x and Bitcoin Cash and all this stuff when, when you have a split community, is it, are people gonna be confused, you know, like whatever.
- [77:47]
And again that resolved and we got.
- [77:49]
More information about all of that and that, that again had a pretty huge impact on price. We had. We went from 2,000 to 19,000 in the matter of like three months or something like that.
- [78:05]
It's, it's a good thing to understand more about the system and, and like we think we might know how this plays out.
- [78:14]
And this, this was one of the things I put out on Noster, I think it was yesterday.
- [78:19]
Like what do you think will happen? Because I, I don't know, I have no idea what's going to happen. There's so many variables. I think way too many people are.
- [78:30]
Just like way too certain on here's what's going to happen, here's what's not. And in fact on both sides, right, like the, the intolerant minority thinks that this is totally going to work. We're going to get our soft work, we're going to, you know, kick out some of the core devs that have been doing things that we don't like or whatever.
- [78:49]
You know, a lot of people on.
- [78:50]
The course, I think this is going to be a nothing burger. No one's going to run this thing. No one's going to mine with this thing.
- [78:56]
I really don't think either side really.
- [78:59]
Has any clue what they're talking about. There are just so many variables, like.
- [79:03]
Just you get even like a small.
- [79:07]
Minority of miners mining. It, it could, it could snowball because I honestly don't think a lot of miners care.
- [79:14]
And it's okay, well, there's wipeout risk on this side.
- [79:17]
There's not on this side. I'm just going to go with the.
- [79:19]
One that's not, that's not just, just for that reason. Even like, you don't. It's trying to predict too much what.
- [79:26]
Other people are going to do.
- [79:28]
And their incentives are way more complicated.
- [79:31]
Than you give it. Give them credit for. It's not just, hey, they're going to do. They're going to do this because of this reason.
- [79:39]
Most people have all kinds of other.
- [79:42]
Motivations that you don't know about. And you, and to make. And even if you knew all of them, you don't know how to. They're weighted and all that. So.
- [79:52]
Yeah, I just, I want to know how this works out.
- [79:55]
I, I want to see how this happens. And I, I think it's very good for bitcoin in the end.
- [80:00]
Host (Walker America)
I, I appreciate the nuance, Jimmy. I appreciate somebody actually coming and saying, you know what? I don't think any of us know exactly how this is going to shake out. And I think we need more of that kind of attitude. And, and I think it's, it's a great point. Just about like the actual consensus mechanism, which is so much more convoluted than I think most people understand. Did you read the, the piece that Lynn Alden and Steve Lee put together? It was basically that analysis of the different. It's, it's really, really good. It's an analysis of just like the different mechanisms that go into establishing consensus in bitcoin. It's, it's, it's fascinating. It's, it's a great analysis of it. But I think like, the, the larger point here is, you know, the beauty of bitcoin is that like, anybody can kind of do what they want.
- [80:43]
Jimmy Song
Right?
- [80:43]
Like, people are free to decentralized system.
- [80:45]
Yeah.
- [80:46]
Host (Walker America)
Like, and it's going to be messy. And I think that you do have a, It's a fair point around, like, hey, if we're gonna really figure out how this works because we didn't actually get to the end state in the block size wars, it didn't actually go there. Let's figure it out sooner rather than later. Like, I think that that's a sentiment that, that makes sense. I know from your conversation with Tone and Jonathan, you know, Tone had some different opinions on it. I'm you know, I'm curious too, just more broadly because I have to, I go back to where like a lot of this discourse got really, I think, unproductive, which is a shame because I think ultimately, like, if we all have the same consensus code, like we're all running bitcoin, right? We're all bitcoiners. Now, if the consensus code is different, well, then, you know, you, you know, okay, there might be a fork off situation where you're actually running, you know, BSV or BCH or whatever. But, but I'm curious if we go back to the start of this. I think a lot of the frustration was around a lot of people feeling that Core was trying to push forward changes in relay policy and mempool policy, that they didn't get any, didn't get any say and it didn't matter that these things were talked about in forums and all that. It was a feeling of like, dismissiveness from what they're, what people are viewing as, you know, their, their Bitcoin core overlords, basically. And I'm curious too, because a lot of the language that's been thrown around has been bad actors compromised, attack on Bitcoin. Do you think that Bitcoin core or core v30 or getting rid of the operator limit is a direct attack on Bitcoin? Or that core has been compromised or that this is just, it's all just bad actors doing this? Because I struggle with, with that kind of, really kind of strong language that's just unnecessarily inflammatory, personally. But I'd love your opinion.
- [82:25]
Jimmy Song
Yeah, I don't think they're like that. The thing is, like, you know what, what's that law? Like, everyone gets compared. Like, are all arguments devolved to Hitler or something like that? Like, there's something about being online where people just end up escalating whatever they're saying so that they get attention.
- [82:48]
Like my take on it was that.
- [82:52]
They were, they, they were very dismissive of, of the people that had some objections, that mostly it was immature young developers. And I've seen this working as a software developer all the time, where you try to push through something because you think it's right and you get a lot of pushback from people that are not technical and you end up dismissing them because they're not technical and you think that those guys don't have a point or whatever. I've seen that pattern with a lot of young developers and you usually have to, they usually have to fall on their face at least once where they think they're right, and it turns out that they were wrong. And this is part of the training of being a developer. I'm sure it's true in other careers as well, where your level of conviction about something is based on, like, your model of the world, right, that isn't necessarily complete and there are things that you don't know and, you know, just thinking yourself to be the smartest person in the room just because you're very technical is generally not, not a great thing. That's my take on what happened here, is that there were a bunch of developers within CORE that were convinced that this was the right way to go. And, you know, they, they ended up pushing it and then it became sort of like a thing to defend the, the reference implementation itself, something like that. And, and it ended up being sort of like more tribalistic and political than it needed to be.
- [84:56]
And yeah, like, there was a reason.
- [84:59]
Why Adam was saying stuff like that, at least at the beginning of this thing, like, and he was trying to coach people like Laurie Aza. Like, you can't tell people that they're, they don't, that they can't have any input because they're not technical.
- [85:13]
This, that, that's just like, going to.
- [85:16]
Piss them off more and there's some, some wisdom in listening to them, even if you disagree and stuff like that.
- [85:23]
Like, like, I could, I could see him doing that because I've been in that position a lot too, right? Like where, where you're, you're sort of like the senior developer and you go.
- [85:32]
To the junior developer and, you know.
- [85:33]
Like, I know this person is frustrating.
- [85:37]
And they don't understand certain things about this, this, and this, but you, you.
- [85:41]
You still have to kind of hear.
- [85:42]
Them out and see if they have a point and like, sort of like dismissing them out of hand is just going to get them really pissed off at you.
- [85:49]
So, and a lot, honestly, a lot of these developers that are in CORE.
- [85:55]
Now are fairly young and many of them honestly haven't had industry experience. And, and it kind of shows, right.
- [86:02]
Like, this is probably like Exhibit A.
- [86:05]
Of, like, how not to do certain things.
- [86:11]
So, yeah, that, that's, that's part of it.
- [86:13]
Now.
- [86:14]
As for the actual technical thing, again.
- [86:16]
It'S, I don't think it's that big a deal. Like, I, I, and I've repeated this over and over.
- [86:21]
I, I just think it, it, it's.
- [86:25]
The, the bigger sort of concern is, you know, how they make decisions around this stuff and that procedural stuff, I think is what worries me Way more than the actual, hey, they changed this from 80 to 100,000. Like, what's the process that got you to a hundred thousand? And why didn't you do this, this, and this? Because, you know, from my perspective, it seems like they're way more, way better compromises than what they ended up at. So. And they've isolated a lot of people, they've antagonized a lot of people.
- [87:10]
They, they've just, like, it's what you.
- [87:14]
Would call foot guns, right? Like, they've shot themselves in the foot like four or five times. And it's just like, why are you doing it this way? What? Like, and it's, it's a little frustrating as somebody that's, that's been a software developer for a long time time, but that, that's, that's the extent of my concern. Not necessarily. Hey, like, these guys are trying to ruin Bitcoin or whatever.
- [87:33]
I mean, very well could. Like, I mean, let's face it right.
- [87:38]
Now, they, they do kind of have the power to maybe ruin Bitcoin if they really wanted to. And who knows, maybe the process is broken enough that they still might.
- [87:49]
But, you know, my, my take on.
- [87:52]
It is that it was a lot.
- [87:53]
Of.
- [87:56]
Shall we say, inexperienced devs, still.
- [88:00]
Very smart, still very technical, just people.
- [88:03]
Skills and things like that, presenting things, certain, certain things like that that weren't optimal and they're sort of facing the consequences of it. That's also good for it, by the way.
- [88:16]
Host (Walker America)
Right.
- [88:17]
Jimmy Song
They're learning something. And I, I've, I've seen some evidence that they're taking some of this stuff to account. And, you know, in the future they probably wouldn't do it this way. So that's good.
- [88:29]
Host (Walker America)
Yeah. And once again, Jimmy, I appreciate your nuance on this because it is possible to have nuance these days, and you are, you are proving it word by word. Can I ask if it's not too personal, do you run knots or an older version of Core?
- [88:44]
Jimmy Song
I, I have both.
- [88:46]
Yeah, I, I run like, I mean, that's, that's. I, I, I have a lot of.
- [88:51]
Different reasons to run nodes and. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'm mining on one. I'm, you know, I have one for like a block explorer. There, there's a, there's a bunch. So, yeah, I have more than one, and I definitely run both.
- [89:05]
Host (Walker America)
I kind of figured that might be the case. And again, Jimmy, I appreciate your nuance on this because I think so much of this is sort of devolved into like, everybody that doesn't agree with me, is a child predator and is complicit in putting horrific images on the time. And it's like, like, I. No one wants that, right? Like, no, nobody wants that. Like, we all just saw all this horrific stuff in the Epstein files, and now it's like the conversations devolved further into, like, Core V30 is actually a Mossad attack from Jeffrey Epstein. And it's like, come on, guys. Like, it is possible to have some nuance. Not everybody is a bad actor. There are certainly bad actors out there. Like, as we've just found out, most of them happen to run our country. But that's like. That's a different story, Right?
- [89:48]
Jimmy Song
Yeah. I mean, that's not to say that.
- [89:51]
There'S no Mossad agent contributing to CORE right now or something.
- [89:55]
Sponsor/Announcer
Of course not.
- [89:55]
Host (Walker America)
I would be shocked if there was.
- [89:57]
Jimmy Song
No.
- [89:57]
Host (Walker America)
Yeah, I would be shocked if there wasn't.
- [90:00]
Jimmy Song
Yeah. But. But again, like, people saying that are.
- [90:03]
Just so certain of what.
- [90:05]
What they're saying, and that's. That's the part that, like, really gets it. How do you know?
- [90:09]
Right?
- [90:09]
Like, what. What evidence do you have? It's, oh, their actions are blah, blah, blah. Well, how do you know that that's why they're doing whatever they're doing? Like, to me, like, the simplest explanation is that a lot of these people are a little inexperienced.
- [90:23]
Maybe.
- [90:23]
Maybe they, like, they're guilty of having.
- [90:26]
A little bit of pride and digging. Digging in their heels a little bit and, you know, not wanting to lose face or whatever.
- [90:33]
But I don't think you need to.
- [90:35]
Go to, you know, this is a Mossad, you know, operation to explain that. Right.
- [90:41]
Like, there's plenty of. Plenty of room for.
- [90:47]
For explanations that don't involve bringing in such kind of crazy things.
- [90:56]
Host (Walker America)
So, yeah, I. I want to be conscious of your time, Jimmy, because I know I'm going to get you out of here in a couple minutes. I did want to ask you before we go, do you think that, like, maybe a better question. What. What is the biggest threat to bitcoin right now? Is. Is it quantum? Is it. Is it delayed ossification? Is it premature ossification? Is it just apathy? What do you think is the biggest threat to bitcoin?
- [91:24]
Jimmy Song
Definitely not quantum. I don't think that's okay for. I'm not sure it's ever coming. So, yeah, definitely not quantum.
- [91:33]
Yeah, I think it would be something.
- [91:35]
Along governance lines or something like that.
- [91:39]
So, like I said, the thing that.
- [91:43]
Worried me about, like, how this decision was made was.
- [91:48]
It kind of set.
- [91:49]
A little bit of a precedent. Right? And I'm not saying this is like.
- [91:53]
Permanent rule or anything, but it was.
- [91:57]
If the core devs agree among themselves that something is right, then the rest of the community can go themselves. Paraphrased obviously.
- [92:07]
But like, you know, as far as.
- [92:10]
The reference implementation is, is concerned.
- [92:15]
Now, I'm not saying that they'll do.
- [92:17]
This for everything, but, but like just the way the dynamics turned out on that was a little bit like, huh, Like. And then, you know, among other things I found out is that if you want to be a maintainer, you have to be the current maintainers have to vote you in and not anybody else. I'd always thought it was all the other core contributors, like sort of voting for one or some, some sort of consensus process like that. But turns out currently that the current set of maintainers have a veto over whoever is, is put let in as a maintainer. So little things like that with governance issues within core worry me a little bit. Just because it does have something like, currently what like, or at least, I mean, if you include knots as a derivative, of course, something like 98, 99. If you don't with knots, then it's maybe like 80, something like that.
- [93:25]
So yeah, I, I mean that, that, that part.
- [93:30]
Some, some sort of precedent being said and not enough people sort of like rebelling against that would be it. But I mean, we're kind of a contrarian bunch anyway, so I think there would be, as we're seeing with BIP110, right. Like.
- [93:45]
A lot of people are like, oh, these people are bad actors.
- [93:48]
I can't believe they're forking off and they're going to ruin bitcoin.
- [93:51]
No, that's good too.
- [93:53]
Right?
- [93:53]
Like all of this is actually a very good thing. We want to see what happens because this isn't the first time it's going to happen, right.
- [94:03]
If it doesn't happen now, it'll happen later. And the earlier we learn about it, the more information the market has and the better it'll go, I think. So, yeah, that's where I would say, and it's not something that I would have said like a year ago, but just seeing how this particular thing played out and frankly because of some of the turnover in core that I wasn't that aware of, like within the last five years, you know, that that's something that I, I don't think it's a giant risk by any measure, but if I had to pick one, that would be it.
- [94:48]
Host (Walker America)
The quantum fudders are going to be very disappointed in that one, Jimmy.
- [94:52]
Jimmy Song
I mean, we would have to do another entire episode to go through Quantum and how midwit that whole thing is.
- [94:59]
Host (Walker America)
But it is. Yeah, it is. It is getting frustrating. But I'm going to take up that we're just going to have to do another episode on this. I've got. I'm going to get you out of here now because I know you've got a hard stop here. But Jimmy, I appreciate your nuance. I appreciate your perspective and all that you've done for bitcoin over your. Your long career with the orange coin here. Where do you want to send folks?
- [95:19]
Jimmy Song
Just I guess you can find me on Noster and my newsletter, Jimmy song. That's upstack.com bitcoin tech talk I had a free issue out this morning so you can go read about all the recent developments and some of my random interesting articles that I put in the front. That's all free. So yeah, there you go.
- [95:40]
Host (Walker America)
Well, I appreciate you sharing your scarce time, Jimmy. This was great to do this. Would love to do it again.
- [95:46]
Jimmy Song
All right, sounds good, man. Let's do it.
- [95:55]
Sponsor/Announcer
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of the Bitcoin Podcast. Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening and share it with your friends, family and strangers on the Internet. Find me on noster@primal.net Walker and this podcast@primal.net Titcoin on X, YouTube and Rumble. Just search at Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram at tcoin Podcast. Head to the Show Notes to grab sponsor links. Head to substack.com walker America to get episodes emailed to you and head to bitcoin podcast.net for everything else. Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant. So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast. Until next time, stay free.