Bitcoin Tech Talk #315

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What I've been working on

1. Why Bitcoin Doesn’t Compete With Altcoins - I did an interview with Bitcoin Magazine about altcoins, NFTs, stablecoins and so on from a technical perspective. Suffice it to say that the key question is “why do you need a token?” The answer is always, “you don’t.” Still, if you’re interested in why I think stablecoins should really be set up as Chaumian banks, this is a good episode to listen to.

2. Politics and Bitcoin - It’s election season and my panel from the Thank God for Bitcoin conference is up. I spoke to Jesse Sullivan, Blake Masters and Bruce Fenton about the campaigns they’re running for office, Bitcoin and faith back in May. Jesse unfortunately lost his primary, but Bruce is still going and Blake is looking at a pretty nice surge in Arizona. As Bitcoin enters the political conversation through candidates like these, it should be interesting to see how government policy changes.

3. Thank God for Bitcoin - My co-author Jordan Bush had this interview about Bitcoin and the book. He’s speaking to a Christian audience and the points he makes about why Christians need to care about sound money are very pertinent to the economic reality that we face today. His experience as a missionary in Uruguay and the hyperinflation that wrecked people will definitely give a different perspective than what you’d normally hear at church.

What I'm up to

1. Activate HD Wallet Class - I will be teaching this on Tuesday, October 25th to people that have either taken my class or gone through my book. This should be useful for wallet developers especially as HD wallets are used by every wallet these days, even the altcoin wallets. The class is free and only 2 hours long, as opposed to the normal 2-day class that I teach so I encourage you to apply!

2. Lugano Plat B Forum - My busy week continues with the conference in Lugano, Switzerland where I’ll be speaking about how fiat ruins everything. The conference promises to be a good one with the all-star lineup. The city is also known for its Bitcoin adoption so I look forward to seeing what I can buy with lightning. By the way, if anyone knows of lightning ATMs that I can use to get cash, please let me know.

3. SatsConf - I will be in Sao Paolo in two weeks for this conference. It should be a lot of fun, especially for people in South America. The schedule after that is to go to laBitConf in Buenos Aires and do some traveling around South America. I’ve heard that the dollar is very much more desirable than the local currency, I’m not sure how this will factor into my Bitcoin spending. If anyone has suggestions on the best way to make most of my sats, I would love to learn.

Tweet of the Week

What I’m Shilling

• Books

  • Bitcoin and the American Dream

  • Thank God for Bitcoin

  • The Little Bitcoin Book

  • Programming Bitcoin

• 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

1. Case Against Blind Signing - This article looks at why hardware wallet devices with no screen are not a good idea. The basic argument is that blind signing doesn’t add anything and makes for really terrible security. Hardware wallets really do need to communicate a lot of critical information to the owner and simple cards don’t allow for that. That said, I do think having different cards on the same device can work and that would be a better alternative than carrying lots of hardware wallets.

2. Keeper - App aiming to make multisig easier, and the ideas behind it look really good. Instead of the typical UX of users choosing both the k and n of a k-of-n setup, they only have 3 choices, an airgapped 1-of-1, 2-of-3 or 3-of-5. I think this is the right way to go as reducing choices paradoxically makes the security properties more obvious. They’ve also implemented BIP85, which lets you create multiple seed phrases from a single master seed phrase for hot wallet purposes. They also have an inheritance feature, which I imagine would be very popular.

3. Batch Validation for MultiSig - Mark Friedenbach has an interesting proposal which allows for batch validation of individual signatures in a multisig. The main problem is that the current way multisig works does not specify which signatures are for which pubkey. There’s also the extra parameter at the end due to an off-by-one bug which currently is required to be 0 for the purposes of network relay. By using a bit-wise hint on which keys actually signed, the key/signature pair can be efficiently derived. The idea is sound and an interesting use of a bug that we’ve had to live with since the beginning.

Lightning

1. Bolt Ring - This very interesting product is literally a ring on your finger that you can use to make Lightning payments. It works by using Near Field Communication to pay. The way it works is a very interesting use of LNURL in that the buyer generates the LNURL that the merchant has to go to for payment. The idea is clever and I imagine it’d be a lot more convenient than the cell phone camera/QR code dance that we all do for lightning. The idea of being able to wear your wallet and not have it lost is truly interesting and I hope

2. Open Bitcoin Wallet - This is an open-source Android wallet that has both on-chain and lightning capabilities. The wallet can be a standalone lightning node or connect to your own, giving you a lot of flexibility. A lot of phone lightning wallets rely on some centralized point, so this is good to see. I really hope this wallet does not suffer from bit-rot, which often happens to these open source projects.

3. Oak Node - Recurring payments are an oft-requested feature on Lightning and this app is a solution. The idea is that the node will send a lightning payment to a particular lightning public key on a regular block schedule. For example every 2016 blocks would be a payment every 2 weeks. This puts the power in the user’s hands and is much less scammy than the typical credit card recurring pull payments, which are ripe for fraud. Given Bitcoin is a sound money, this is a much better way to enact recurring payments.

Economics, Engineering, Etc.

1. Impervious Browser - The browser meant to bring decentralization is finally out! It’s been hyped for good reason as the idea is much more in the spirit of a decentralized web that the original creators of the internet envisioned than the contemporary centralized/walled garden web that we have now. The browser is very promising and has lightning stuff, among other things, built-in. I would love to see a server-client version of this browser that can stay online like my node eventually. That would be ideal for all the node-in-a-box products so you can have all the privacy of a secured box with the convenience of a client that can connect as needed.

2. AT Protocol - In another bit of progress toward a decentralized web, we have this protocol published by BlueSky. The idea behind this is that you run your own server as a part of a federation. This is a bit different than the Lightning-based one that I’ve been espousing as you join different federations as necessary. I imagine the biggest reason for the federation is the natural communities that it creates. Communities can enforce certain standards and so on, though they’re often very vulnerable to capture. Still, I love that there are more options as the decentralized web finally develops.

3. Crypto.com in Trouble - It’s a bear market and we always have bankruptcies and this one is no exception. They spent lavishly to get market share and even had a super bowl ad. The main way they did this, however, was promising insane yield which was always unsustainable. While not quite as ponzi-esque as Celsius, it does look like they’re slated to get destroyed nevertheless. The business models for altcoin casinos has always left a lot of room for fraud and that’s what dooms these companies. The temptation is hard to resist.

Quick Hits

• Hodlonaut wins - CSW loses yet again. It’s astounding to me that Ayre continues to fund this stuff given how unprofitable it must be. But then again, altcoining allows for significant funds…

• EU Crypto Labeling Regulation - In another attempt to demonize proof-of-work, they’re putting consumer awareness labels to different cryptocurrencies. I imagine cancer pictures will be coming shortly.

• ETH OFAC Compliance - Is up to 52%. I can’t imagine how they’ll survive government regulation if they’re this compliant already.

• Debunking ESG - Here’s a nice how-to guide on debunking the stupidies of ESG.

Fiat delenda est.