Bitcoin Tech Talk #426
Interesting Stuff
The Remnant - This is a classic article on mises.org about the job that Isaiah had as a prophet. It wasn’t to convince the majority, but to encourage the people that mattered: the remnant. The Bitcoin community has the same dynamic. There are lots of people that are pumping altcoins and destroying value, but they don’t matter. They’re the nihilists whose lack of hope is obvious. The Bitcoin maximalists, the savers are the ones that matter.
TSA and Cowardice - The article begins with a complaint about the TSA and how useless and how much of a security theater it is, which is undoubtedly true. But then the diagnosis of why it exists and what it says about our national and really, global, character is what the article is about. In short, our society has become one of cowardice, where we give into fear instead of learning to be courageous. And indeed, that cowardice is exactly why bureaucracy like the TSA grows by leaps and bounds in a fiat economy.
Ideological Conformity - Where is the Democrat Joe Rogan? The article answers this by basically saying, very literally in the past, but is impossible currently because of the ideological conformity demanded of the left. Basically, it’s impossible to be genuine or even entertaining with the ideological chains that are enforced with cancelling and bullying. The article posits that the Democratic party that was a coalition of lots of different groups has essentially become an ivory tower, elitism party. I think that’s a little harsh, but there’s definitely some truth to the accusation, and it’s for that reason that I think it’s harder for Democrats to accept Bitcoin.
Amish Fertility - Birth rates being down is a big talking point all over the world these days and this article is an attempt to explain why one particular minority within the US has such high birth rates. The author is the child of two parents that both grew up in the Amish community, so is able to provide a lot of insight. The main thing I learned is that the incentives are very well aligned in that community for having children, as births are not only celebrated, but also give the families that have them status boosts. But more importantly, the incentives for marriage are just as compelling, which drive people in that community to not just get married but married young. I find a lot of similarity in the values of this community and the Bitcoin community which also has high birth rates, though I’m not sure I can articulate it yet.
Midwit Genius - The question about what creates geniuses is a fascinating one and this article gives a useful way to think about the motivations of such people and what sort of social environments where they thrive. Suffice it to say that IQ is not the be-all and end-all, and in fact, high IQ without the requisite courage or outside-the-box thinking leads to a lot of midwits whose considerable intellect is geared toward status games rather than creating useful things. Here’s the money quote: “Most “geniuses” are idiots. Because they would rather sit atop an ash-heap made of the skulls of their betters than strap into a rocket they didn’t build, and ride it to the stars.”
What I'm up to
Austin Bitcoin Club - I was a guest at this monthly gathering to talk about the changing of the Overton Window of acceptable discourse. We talked a lot about the deficit, monetary economics, incentives around Bitcoin and even ossification. My fellow panelists had some great insight into why opinions were changing and how it ultimately ended with Trump in the White House.
Plan B El Salvador - I will be at this conference next month. It’s one of the cheapest conference tickets I’ve seen at $21 and given the recent breakthrough over $100k, it should be a fun time.
On Ocean - I wrote this piece a year ago about Ocean, the mining pool led by Luke-jr. In it, I argue that there’s sometimes value in *not* mining for maximum profitability and instead doing what’s best for node runners, users, and Bitcoin as an ecosystem. I think it’s aged pretty well, given how little traction ordinals and inscriptions have had since then.
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Promoting
Bitcoin
Space Mining - Peter Todd examines the viability of Bitcoin mining in space given the task of dissipating heat and the expected latency due to the speed of light. Lots of interesting physics here, and his conclusion is that yes, it’s plausible, given that heat spreaders exist and that the stale rate even for a mining operation fairly far away would be high but tolerable with enough profitability.
Lark - Hardware wallet communication is a big part of wallet software security models and up until now, the only consistent API was the HWI built into Core. Craig Raw of Sparrow has released a new Java implementation that creates an alternative so that not everything is dependent on the one implementation in Core. I still prefer QR codes, but for USB, I hope this gets traction and that more wallets start supporting multisig.
BDK Code Audit - BDK is a Rust development kit for Bitcoin applications produced by the folks at Spiral and they had an audit done on their code base. The blog post goes into the main findings, but the main report itself is also interesting. I was a bit surprised to find that the test coverage was on the low side (I try to keep my code at 90%+ line coverage) and a peak into the way the code audit was done was also insightful.
Lightning
Rizful - Lightning on the cloud services have existed in various forms, but this one is about the most user-friendly one that I’ve come across. They have nostr wallet connect, lightning addresses and even various stats about your node in a web interface to make managing reasonably easy. They’re offering some sats to people that want to test their platform, which at current Bitcoin prices ends up being about $11.
ZeusPay zero-fees - The self-custodial lightning address service has slashed their fees to zero in a bid to earn more business. Most users will have to open a channel with their LSP node, but if lower fees is what you’re aiming for, then opening a channel with them would make a lot of sense. What this tells me is that there’s a lot of competition for lightning channels and that becoming more well-connected has its own value beyond fees. That’s great to see and I hope to see more services figure out ways to make the network more interconnected in this way.
Lightning Bounties - Open source compensation has always been a thorny issue as the people that do the work of maintaining these projects often don’t get compensated at all. This is a project to not just compensate current maintainers, but to open up the potential contributors pool by compensating them with Lightning. There have been many such projects in the past, but this one is unique in that the payout is pretty fast given the speed of lightning. We’ll see if this makes a difference as countries start entering hyperinflation.
Economics, Engineering, Etc.
MARA Bond Offering - MSTR isn’t the only game in town anymore with their bond offerings as MARA issues another $700M 0%-coupon convertible bond. This is to obviously add more to their stash which is already pretty significant at ~35k BTC. The market seems to have a huge appetite for these bonds, which given the shortfalls in a lot of pension plans, makes sense.
$3 Trillion - That’s the estimate of the gold in El Salvador that has yet to be mined. The entire market cap of gold is thought to be around $17T-$23T so this is like finding El Dorado. Unfortunately, there’s a ban on metal mining in the country dating back to a 2017 law, which Bukele is now attempting to roll back. How ironic would it be if the first Bitcoin national leader triggers hyperbitcoinization and crushing gold by buying bitcoin and selling gold? The country looks like it’ll be the Latin American Singapore more by the day.
Kimchi Discount - The aborted Martial Law attempt in South Korea had one weird consequence, where the Kimchi Premium turned into a significant Kimchi Discount for a short period. This seems to have been because it’s much easier to withdraw Korean Won from exchanges than Bitcoin, which interestingly has more limits even with KYC. There are also strict laws around market makers not being allowed on these exchanges, which is why there continues to be premiums and discounts there.
Quick Hits
Another 15400 BTC - MSTR has done this every week for a month pretty much. Will they get even more next week?
Semmler - They also acquired some Bitcoin this week.
CBDC Decline - Central banks are showing less interest in CBDCs, probably because they suck at doing large-scale IT projects.
Dead Drop Popularity - Darknet markets have been using this technique for years now, where they take payment online and then direct the buyer to where the items are stashed. It’s now becoming an international enterprise.
Fiat delenda est.