Bitcoin Tech Talk #400
Interesting Stuff
Hyperpleasures - This article is essentially about addictions and how pretty much everything is addictive these days, from social media and drugs to porn and food. The insight I got from it is the fact that these addictions are pleasurable in a way that’s completely abnormal in nature. That is, they are deeply pleasurable in ways that normal stuff, like reading books, talking to friends or having sex are not. Namely, they don’t require any discomfort on the part of the one being pleased. The dynamic is pretty similar to that of the politician expanding the money supply to fund deficits than doing the uncomfortable thing of cutting spending.
Enemies are a Gift - The article is about music criticism, about how critics have embraced pop in ways that previous generations have not. This has had an interesting effect culturally in that pop fans don’t really have an enemy. The rebellion has been quelled through acceptance more than anything. That challenge of having an enemy is something fans need, and in a sense, adds something to the fandom. I suspect this dynamic of having many enemies is a reason for the development of the philosophy behind Bitcoin.
Reality is Hard - The article starts off discussing the nuances of carpentry and branches off into other topics where reality isn’t as clean as theory. For me, this was a description of what engineers do every day, which is to crash into reality, wrestling with it to make it do what they want. This difference between reality and theory is precisely why engineers and theoreticians don’t see eye to eye, though I suspect much of the latter only exist due to fiat money.
Soulless Virtue - College used to be about developing character, enjoying real leisure and preparing to become a productive member of society. It’s become some fiat version of that with much hedonism, compliance and signaling. The article here points out that this is at heart a spiritual problem and we are seeing the consequences on college campuses. The overriding emotion of campuses these days is anxiety and it’s ultimately the result of a lack of real virtue.
What I'm up to
Dealing with Envy - I talked to Johnathan Bi about what many Bitcoiners are dealing with: envy. This is not an uncommon phenomenon and understanding why and how envy happens can help us deal with it. Johnathan talks about the philosophies of Rousseau, Nietzche and Girard to frame this discussion, and it was for me a good way to understand the dynamics at play. Check out his lectures on these philosophers if you like this sort of thing.
Prague - I am in Prague this week for the mother of all European Bitcoin conferences! I’ve always loved this eastern European city and there will be a lot of Bitcoiners converging on the city to attend. I will be signing books during the conference, so if you’re around, please stop by!
Stephan in Korea - I spent some time with Stephan Livera a couple of weeks ago at Bitcoin Seoul and we talked about the potential for Bitcoin only expansion in the region in this video (I’m the last one interviewed). My belief is that East Asia has a high desire to save, but unfortunately hasn’t had good savings vehicles. Once Bitcoin is seen for that purpose, it should explode in popularity.
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Promoting
Unchained Capital is a sponsor of this newsletter. I am an advisor and proud to be a part of a company that’s enhancing security for Bitcoin holders. If you need multisig, collaborative custody or bitcoin native financial services, learn more here.
Bitcoin
Ark v2 - The original proposal isn’t that old, but much like BitVM, there are some iterations on the design as the community adds its own ideas. The main thing being solved with v2 is the liquidity handling, which in Lightning is a pretty annoying problem, leading to inbound liquidity becoming more and more precious. The actual launch is still probably years out, but I like that these designs are improved before having to learn from a market rejection.
Cassandra - No, this isn’t the DB, it’s a RESTful implementation of an oracle for discrete log contracts (DLCs). The idea is that the events can be hedged using DLCs using this oracle, so that the participants can bet without the oracle knowing anything about the bet itself. Hedging can be a very useful activity to smooth out bumps on revenue, but I suspect that much of tech like this ends up being used for gambling, which is ultimately zero-sum. Still, it’s cool that we have something like this to make DLCs available to work out of the box.
Reclaiming the word Blockchain - About 10 years ago, the word Blockchain was all the rage, with lots of VCs and their lackey tech writers promising huge changes to the world with the advent of this technology. Of course, it turned out to be just a big waste of money and time. The history of the word and what it actually means and the substitution of a new word “Timechain” is what this article is all about. Sadly, the VC industrial complex is still touting idiocy like blockchain being the cure for many ills, so we need to mock them even more mercilessly in the years to come.
Lightning
Coinfinity Lightning - The latest exchange to support lightning is from Australia, which is great news for people from that region. While we’ve had a good number of exchanges adopt this method for on-and-off ramps, they’re still way too few in number given how useful it is. Unfortunately, the technical details tend to be more complicated than launching yet another altcoin trading pair, so it’s really only the Bitcoin-only exchanges that seem to be adopting it.
Trust Models - The various Lightning wallets have wildly different architectures, from Wallet of Satoshi which is pretty much custodial to something like Phoenix which uses channel splicing. Figuring out which tradeoffs are right for you can be a daunting task and this article is here to help. The article is also good in explaining what the variosu infrastructure providers do, particularly around LSPs. Lightning is complicated, and the more we de-mystify some of the tradeoffs, the better it’ll be for users.
LN Alliance - There’s a new organization that’s trying to make Lightning interoperate better, led by Voltage and Amboss. Given how many different wallets and servers there are, this is sorely needed and despite the entire BOLT process, there’s still a bit too much disagreement to make much progress. Unlike the base layer, Lightning should be able to move quicker on industry standards, but unfortunately, the disagreements have stalled some of the new developments that would make the experience better and more secure. Let’s hope this organization works.
Economics, Engineering, Etc.
OKX Bad Fee Algo - OKX has been consolidating their UTXOs, which is a rational thing to do during periods of relatively low fees. Unfortunately, they seem to have goofed up badly in their transaction creation and update algorithm, which has made them bid against themselves, sending fees into the stratosphere (350 sats/vbyte+) for many of their transactions. How they didn’t test this properly given the real financial stakes is beyond me, but I’m sure they’ll fix this for the next go-around.
Barry’s Bad Behavior - DCG continues its bankruptcy proceedings and some details of what actually occurred there is coming to light. Suffice it to say Barry engaged in some shady practices largely to hide the giant hole in the balance sheet of Genesis due to the 3AC failure. The shuffling of money around the various entities looks very much like something that was intentional to hide the fact that they lost so much. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as they say.
Trump and Bitcoin - There’s definitely been a noticable shift in the former president’s stance on Bitcoin. This is probably due to the fact that many Bitcoiners are single-issue voters and this issue gives him a great contrast to Biden, who has been very unfriendly. The big problem with the narrative currently is that there’s little separation between Bitcoin and altcoins and this distinction will need to be spelled out in the future if politicians are to avoid getting destroyed along with the altcoins they don’t understand.
Quick Hits
Wisconsin Pension Fund - has bought $160M in Bitcoin. Probably nothing.
How CSW Waged Lawfare - Preston Byrne reflects on how CSW managed to harass developers for so long.
Ted Cruz is a Miner - Just 3 machines, but still probably the first member of Congress to mine.
Ver out on Bail - Apparently, $180k is enough to secure his compliance.
Fiat delenda est.