Bitcoin Tech Talk #395
Interesting Stuff
Managerial Regime - I’ve written a lot about rent-seeking, but this is the most comprehensive explanation of the modern phenomenon of bureaucracies and professional managers. It’s also the longest article that I’ve ever shared here at about 2 hours long. There’s a lot covered, including an analysis of the flavors of managerialism that have overtaken both China and the US which the author calls hard and soft, respectively, but the main gist is that there’s a convergence of both governments in that they’re both focused significantly in managing just about everything in their respective societies. The article helped me understand why there seems to be an encouragement of destructive elements (border issues, BLM) the past few years. There’s also a good deal about how money and financial restrictions play a significant role in the managerial regime, which makes Bitcoin one of the few ways of effectively resisting it.
Layers of Evil - The article is about spiritual realities of the current state of things, and it’s definitely worth reading if you sense that evil has increased the last 4 years. But even if you’re a complete materialist, the distinction made in the article between the various kinds of evil are worth knowing. There’s Luciferic Evil, which is mostly rebellion for the sake of “having fun” or doing something not allowed under traditional morality. Then there’s Ahrimanic Evil, which is the rent-seeking bureaucratic evil of people that want safety at all times (much like the previous article). And finally, there’s Sorathic Evil, which is an evil based purely on envy, resentment and ultimately, despair. What we’re seeing now is the growth of the third kind, which is the most destructive and dangerous.
Education Debasement - Perhaps it’s a bit of hopium from conservatives, or some sour grapes from people that haven’t gotten into the elite institutions, but this article is sounding the alarm about the higher education bubble, particularly the Ivy League ones. As the article points out, it’s becoming increasingly more cringe to be associated with these places as they go further and further to the left and practically speaking, many state schools, particularly from the south, seem to be benefiting. Of course, you’re still paying exorbitant amounts of money to attend almost any institution, but high interest rates seem to be making these places face reality a bit.
Gamification of Everything - Great article on where the entire idea of gamification comes from and what it’s done to our society. Some great insights in there, including the fact that all games are essentially mini status games, which is why people work so hard at them. There’s a lot in there including a discussion of Ted Kaczynski and the dangers he saw of the behavioralism that he opposed. The conclusion is very much aligned with what Bitcoiners call low-time preference behavior, which suggests that gamification is a deep fiat phenomenon.
No More Non-Competes - This one is a bit more practical than the others in that it’s an FTC ruling about the legality of non-compete agreements. These have been a staple of many startups for my entire adult life, so to see it ruled illegal is a bit shocking. Most of these agreements were almost always way too broad and written by paranoid lawyers and even more paranoid founders and VCs. Unfortunately, this is what the VC industrial complex demanded for a time, and it’s about time that it goes to the dustbin.
What I'm up to
Book Listicle - I published an article for shepherd to recommend the best books to learn what they don’t teach you at school. This was a project that was a lot more fun for me to put together than I expected. I included five books that I thought would challenge conventional wisdom in various areas. What was surprising to me was that there’s a lot more books I wanted to include! If you have suggestions for books that are along the same lines as the ones I recommended, please send them along by replying to this email.
Seoul Bitcoin - Coming to Korea in a few weeks! Once again, I’ll be going to the country of my birth to spread the Bitcoin message. In a country that was known for their love of ICOs, this conference is a beacon of hope.
Oslo Freedom Forum - I’ll be in Oslo just a few days later, and yes, it’ll be a painful flight. But join the freedom fighters and Bitcoin advocates to help bring more freedom to the human rights activists all around the world!
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Promoting
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Bitcoin
Griefing Testnet - Jameson explains in this post why he did what he did on testnet. The initial post that he made on Future of Testnet explains a lot of this, but the discussion has been ongoing for a while. Unfortunately, there are some altcoiners using testnet to store some data and it seems there are some scams being used for that purpose. So Jameson started doing a griefing attack on testnet putting a thousand blocks an hour on it, which pissed off some people, including Francis. We have multiple signets in addition to testnets and I’ve generally encouraged developers to use one of those instead as the coins are easier to get. In the meantime, testnet will be unusable from time to time for certain purposes.
BitEscrow - Now here is a really solid use case for covenants, Escrow! The idea is that you can create conditions for releasing the funds in an escrow contract for what would be some kind of high value real world transaction. This current version doesn’t actually need covenant op codes, but the concept is one where you can add different conditions. There really haven’t been great tools for dispute resolution and such which you typically find in an escrow situation, but I would love to see something like this with reputable companies come along. If you’ve tried to sell a Cassascius coin or other Bitcoin collectibles, you know what I’m talking about.
Stratum v2 Solo Mining - The DEMAND pool now has Stratum V2 enabled and has instructions for how to solo mine! Solo mining, of course, is a bit like playing the lottery and being in a pool has much less variance, but for some people, this may be a feature, not a bug. An S9 instead of lottery tickets would be orders of magnitude more productive than funding some bureaucrat. The UX isn’t great, so I’m not holding my breath, but it would only take a few solo mining successes to get publicized before there would be a lot more demand.
Lightning
BOLT12 in LDK - It looks like a lot of BOLT12 functionality has been in LDK for some time, but this is the first blog post I’ve seen that explains the advantages of BOLT12. The key is that offers are communicated instead of invoices and that allows for a lot better flows. Adoption, however has been a bit lacking, and it’s articles like this that will help in getting it into more lightning software.
LDK vs Breez SDK - This is an enlightening look into why the team at lipa decided to transition from LDK to Breez. Their main reasons seemed to be that they had to take care of too much infrastructure level stuff using LDK, where Breez SDK took care of a lot more things for them. They also had a lot of trouble sending payments as the path finding algorithms were too often unsuccessful. That said, the main drawback they admit in the article is that there’s a trusted third party in Blockstream that they need to keep their services running. Overall, a good post on the tradeoffs of building on various development kits.
Coinbase Lightning - It only took them 6 years, and using an outsourced company to do it, but Coinbase finally has Lightning integration! It’s crazy to me that large exchanges such as this don’t have more lightning integration, especially given the fee spikes we’ve been seeing. But more than that, the quick settlement makes for much better liquidity *across* exchanges. The arbitrage opportunities ought to be good for the exchanges, but they unfortunately seem mostly concerned with adding new altcoins.
Economics, Engineering, Etc.
Pulling out of the US - Bull Bitcoin has an excellent post on doing business in the US. As Wasabi also no longer serves the US, following the lead of Phoenix, the various regulatory authorities clamping down on “non-custodial” wallets are attempting to restrict Bitcoin. The US government is used to being able to get their way when it comes to financial enforcement, which is why they can impose income taxes for US citizens abroad. It should be interesting to watch what other techniques they bring to bear as banning wallets really doesn’t do very much to prevent Bitcoiners from custodying their own coins.
Dictator Proof - Alex Gladstein argues in this mainstream news outlet about how money is a vector of financial oppression. As he points out, the only game in town that’s not subject to government authorities is Bitcoin and is thus a major tool for freedom. As the articles I put above show, most governments are in the process of ratcheting up their managerial regime and Bitcoin really is one of the few ways in which we can actively resist.
TikTok Ban - This article on Mises talks about how the bill to essentially ban TikTok is a Trojan horse for government control of tech companies. It’s hard to disagree that it’s destined to get a reputation as Patriot Act 2.0. The main provisions that are deeply worrying are the state department determining who is classified as a foreign adversary, the hosting of apps being also banned, and the property rights of Americans being violated if some portion of the company is owned by a foreign entity.
Quick Hits
Roger Ver Arrested - Apparently, the artist formerly known as Bitcoin Jesus failed to report his Bitcoin after having renounced his US citizenship.
BTC-e Founder Plea Deal - One of the OG exchanges from 2012-2013 has plead guilty to money laundering charges.
Microstrategy on-chain DID - Michael Saylor wants a digital identity tied to the Bitcoin blockchain.
ARLP 425 BTC - This coal mining company apparently put 425 BTC on their balance sheet.
Fiat delenda est.