Bitcoin Tech Talk #350

Interesting Stuff

1. Salatin on Beef Processing - Joel Salatin writes on his blog the testimony he gave in front of Congress about the limitations of farmers that want to sell meat directly to consumers. The amount of bureaucracy that completely chokes the free flow of goods is criminal as he points out in his testimony. The centralization of meat processing has not been good for the US and I suspect it’s at least a decent part of why prices have gone up so much in the past 3 years.

2. Against Psychadelics - In a really interesting take from a former heavy psychadelics user, we get a really solid argument against the usage of psychadelic substances such as LSD. I really appreciated the argument from first principles, and a thorough examination of the reality versus the perception. As the author points out, the modern usage of psychodelics, of gaining insight or wisdom, is a completely modern phenomenon. Traditional use was always based on asking spirits to do something on your behalf. We also have no idea if psychadelics as we know them even really existed much more than the recent past.

3. On Educating Gifted Kids - An older article with an excellent analogy about what’s required to really let kids thrive. I suspect that the lack of truly brilliant people that make new things (like Edison or Tesla) is largely due to the education system that suppress their natural inclinations. This brings up the real costs of standardization, or compassion for the less well off. We have essentially suppressed geniuses to get equality. I don’t think this is a good tradeoff.

What I'm up to

1. Why Bitcoin Only - I recorded this short video last year to make the case for why you should be Bitcoin only. The essence of the argument is that they’re fundamentally different and unfortunately, a lot of people still can’t tell the difference. I really need to get started on the book on why Bitcoin and not altcoins…

2. On Mental Handcuffs - I wrote this a month ago, but wanted to share here. The basic premise of the short essay is that we really have screwed ourselves in creativity because of the need to conform. That conformity is a requirement of fiat money’s status games, which permeate everything in lieu of market forces. Creativity requires courage and that’s what gets sacrificed when authorities demand conformity.

3. Bitcoin Bible Study in Austin - I’m planning to do some sort of Bible Study with Bitcoiners in Austin. I haven’t finalized how frequent or when, but if you’re in the area and want to join, please ping me by replying to this email!

Nostr Note 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. Getting to Billions - AJ Towns has a thoughtful post on the tradeoffs of the various ways in which we serve billions of users. As he points out, there are ways to get there whether through non-validation, custodians or some sort of decentralized transfer. His framing of the question and his commentary on Liquid are well worth reading about and understanding.

2. Using the Annex for Covenants - Joost Jager has an interesting proposal for doing very basic covenants by storing the ephemeral signatures on-chain using the annex field of Taproot. As the annex field is not used for calculating the TXID, that can be the place to store the various signatures that correspond to particular vault outcomes. The proof-of-concept code is available to play with and it’s an interesting way to get something out there before something more robust like OP_VAULT or OP_CTV.

3. Bitcoin Core Course - Sjors Provoost has a new course that’s specifically for contributing to Core that’s taking place this week. He’s a prolific contributor, great educator and just a good person in general. If you’ve wanted to contribute to Bitcoin Core and haven’t had the hand-holding to get there, this should be a great way to get started.

Lightning

1. LDK Node - You can now run a lightning node that leverages the LDK and BDK libraries. Unlike the btcd/c-lightning/eclaire nodes, this is a very different architecture that prioritizes API access. The result is a much more modular design, meaning that you can run your own electrum/esplora server for the chain data. The optimizations possible with this architecture is the main draw and it’ll be interesting to see if the other implementations start moving more this way.

2. Boltz Integrates Liquid - Given what happened with fees during the ordinals drama, it makes sense to do on-chain stuff on Liquid, which has really low fees. They are one of the first Lightning wallets to integrate Liquid and it really does seem like the next logical step for liquidity providers to use that platform. As Lightning scales, I expect clients that use Liquid to get a lot more traction as opening and closing channels should be significantly cheaper.

3. Lightning Inevitability - Graham Krizek makes the case that every company will want to control their payment and banking stack and that Lightning will be the natural choice. I do sense that the general trend away from banks is correct, especially as the KYC/AML burdens get worse and worse, but it seems to me a recipe for a lot of companies trying to take advantage. Apple, for example, is trying to add many bank-like services as they’re well aware that this is a very fruitful avenue of profit.

Economics, Engineering, Etc.

1. IMF on Crypto - It’s crazy to think that the IMF is now actively commenting on the crypto space at all, but that’s where we are. This is in light of their CBDC efforts and in my reading, they seem to have come around to the viewpoint that crypto will get populations more used to something like a CBDC. In the sense that crypto is a centralized Cantillon game of corruption, this makes a lot of sense. I don’t think they realize yet that Bitcoin is a whole different ballgame.

2. Pseudonym Basics - There are lots of articles on privacy, but this is the first one that gives a great overview on how to be pseudonymous. This is an important topic because full anonymity will often lock you out of services that require some level of reputation. Pseudonymity is a nice in-between tradeoff and unfortunately, there aren’t enough resources for it. As we get more crackdowns, tax-related and otherwise, we can expect more pseudonymity usage and Bitcoin will be a big part of it.

3. How Open Source Gets Co-Opted - A sobering article on how Google essentially killed XMPP (chat protocol) by dominating the conversation. Big tech has a way of getting into a lot of these protocols and subverting it for their own interest. This post is a warning about how this may be the ultimate way in which Bitcoin gets attacked in the near future. Worth pondering about ways to make sure something like this can’t happen. But then again, maybe the Blackrock ETF is an indication that the powers that be are already trying.

Quick Hits

• BitGo foregoes Prime Trust - The assets in the bank were probably toxic, especially in today’s environment, but it’s still pretty shocking to see them back out.

• ETF Floodgates - Lots of different companies filing for an ETF. They probably know something about how the SEC is handling these and we have something coming soon.

• 12 Words - Foundation makes the case that 12 is better than 24 for the seed phrase.

• Nostr Groups - You can now have specific communities that have their own space on Nostr.

Fiat delenda est.