Bitcoin Tech Talk #348
Interesting Stuff
Want to live forever? - It’s really a book review of the actual book that attempts to answer the question, but it delves into so much of what makes us human that it becomes a really interesting read. The article goes through all the different conceptions of immortality and how you solve such things. I would quibble that the perspective of the article is in fact extremely materialist and doesn’t really take metaphysical existence very seriously. That said, it’s a fun read and the conclusion that you probably won’t want to is something to ponder.
The Case for Work - The article is about educating kids and how school has failed them. It argues that what kids need is to build skills and agency. The article is a great summation of how entrepreneurs are made. Or more precisely, how they’re prevented from being made through the artificial system that we call school. If you’re a parent of a kid of any age, this is a worthwhile read.
More Legal Systems - The one I found most fascinating here was that of the Amish, who allow people to choose their own leaders, literally. You can move from one community with one leader to another with another leader and they may have different rules. The goal of these Amish communities is to have a real community and interestingly, use the power of ostracization to enforce pre-agreed-to-behavior. I dream of one day having a Bitcoin Citadel that has some system of community that works like this.
What I'm up to
How Inflation Affects Goods - I’ve been writing a lot of short pieces for Nostr as a way to dump some of the thoughts I have. This one is about how inflation causes all sorts of disruptions, essentially by disrupting long-term contracts. Inevitably, when you don’t have a good store of value, one side ends up getting screwed in these contracts as the payment they receive isn’t enough for the goods and services they provide. As a result, we get destructive behavior and it’s one of the many ways in which fiat money ruins society.
Back in Austin - Good to be back to my home town and hanging out with people, especially in Bitcoin Commons. I’ll note that prices for everything has soared and the labor shortage hasn’t let up at all. Tips are out of control because employers are probably not paying their staff enough. Still, it’s good to be back and good to enjoy a place that respects freedom. I will be in El Salvador for CUBO+ and I will be teaching my class again mid-July. I haven’t opened up signups, but if you’re interested, please let me know and watch this space.
Bit Block Boom - My next conference will be right here in Austin at Bit Block Boom! It should coincide with the release of my new book, Fiat Ruins Everything, which I’m still working on. If you haven’t been to a Bitcoin conference before, this is an excellent one to get started on because it’s reasonably sized. You can hang out with lots of people and I may host some sort of event.
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Shilling
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Bitcoin
FROST modifications - FROST is a really interesting protocol for multisig using Schnorr, which lets you do k-of-n signing in MuSig-like manner, the main tradeoff being that you have to set up the initial keys a certain way. This post goes through some ways in which you can modify FROST after the initial setup by adding/removing keys and signers and so on. I personally think FROST isn’t used nearly enough and software just hasn’t kept up with the really useful things that we can do with this new signing algorithm.
MuSig Playground - Speaking of MuSig, you can play around with it using this website created by supertestnet. The idea is to create a single signature using MuSig and send it on testnet. It’s really a proof of concept but it does prove how you can do MuSig. It’s a bit slow and it’s on Testnet, which tends to be pretty flaky and difficult to get faucet coins for, but it’s a good way to learn what’s going on.
Payjoin over Nostr - Nostr is probably not the most efficient way to get something like this done, but the idea is sound and the data load might not matter. Essentially, you join the input paying you with other inputs paying you or inputs you own yourself over Nostr DM as a PSBT and the recipient signs it. It would be really interesting if wallets started integrating Nostr just for this functionality.
Lightning
PTLCs - Voltage has a wonderful post on the advantages of PTLCs vs the HTLCs currently being used. The main problem is that the entire route needs to support PTLCs as the type of signature that’s needed won’t work with an HTLC node. Still, the benefits are pretty great, including greater privacy, stuckless payments, escrows and a lot more. As we grow the lightning network, we’re going to have to see if there’s enough demand for these new features to see the network upgrade.
Greenlight API - This Lightning as a Service is now available to program against. What’s unique about this particular LaaS is that it’s non-custodial, meaning you control the keys and sign as needed through their API. The LaaS provider (Blockstream in this case) will scale the node, keep a record of hashes and take care of all the complicated details for you while you control the keys. I look forward to finding out more about it, particularly with respect to what damage an attacker can do if they should, for example, compromise a Blockstream LaaS server.
Statechain Channels - Mercury has an interesting proposal to create lightning channels off of a statechain UTXO with this bLIP. As a reminder, the entire concept of Statechains is to transfer the ownership of a UTXO using a semi-trusted intermediary, but without any on-chain footprint. If this UTXO can then be hooked into the lightning network, the main benefit is that the entirety of the UTXO does not need to be transferred, meaning partial transfers can happen, which is a Statechain weakness. This essentially means we can open lightning channels without any on-chain footprint! As with what’s happening with Liquid Lightning swaps, the layer 2’s can definitely work in tandem to produce something more useful than either one can do on its own.
Economics, Engineering, Etc.
SEC sues Coinbase - The charges are that Coinbase has been trading illegal securities, and honestly, it’s hard to see how Coinbase will come out of this without substantially changing their business. They’ve been profiting off of altcoin listings for so long that this action by the SEC is likely to engage quite a lot of their resources for the foreseeable future. In a sense, they must have seen this coming from years ago as they really tried to market themselves as a stock market for crypto. Binance also had a similar charge against them this week, and we really may see an altcoin clearing before the next halving.
BitGo buying Prime Trust - Prime Trust is the banking rail for a lot of exchanges in the US and there were some rumors floating around that Prime Trust was in trouble. It looks like BitGo is primed (pun intended) to acquire this company and collect its many clients. It’s not entirely clear if this was a case of mismanagement or some sort of government attack on Prime Trust, but it does look like they’ll be okay if this this acquisition goes through.
Mt Gox Hackers Found? - According to the justice department, the same people that ran the now defunct btc-e exchange also hacked Mt. Gox. These two along with Bitstamp were the only games in town for a while there in 2013, so it’s quite a shock to hear that these two were so intimately linked. We’ll see if they can trace where the coins went, but I’m guessing a lot of it was laundered through the btc-e exchange.
Quick Hits
People at Bitcoin Miami - A bit of satire for you. Honestly, I could think of a dozen more stereotypes. Well written and funny.
El Salvador raises $1B - These are commitments to their Volcano mining facility which should produce a staggering 241 MW.
Fake Job Reports? - Balaji makes the rather convincing case that the data coming from the government is likely unreal.
Building an Exchange post-Coinbase - Preston Byrne opines on the post-Coinbase reality of the US market.
Crypto.com winding down - The company is winding down the institutional part of the biz, probably due to the regulatory scrutiny.
Fiat delenda est.