Bitcoin Tech Talk #358
Interesting Stuff
On Mystery - This post is an analysis of the modern predicament where everything needs a clear and convincing explanation. As the author argues, this is not how reality works and some level of mystery is necessary to understand the world. The example he gives is of love, which is a contemporary fixation and comes from a model of love that’s external, but the point still stands that there is something mysterious in the world that needs to enter our world view for the world to make sense. I suspect that the reason people don’t like the mysterious is because they’re uncomfortable with uncertainty. Indeed, it’s the same discomfort that has led to the explosion of the state in the fiat money era.
Metaphysical as Political - This is an excerpt of an interview which has one amazing insight. The political argument of left vs. right is not political in nature, but metaphysical. The left generally takes a post-modern metaphysic which says that everything is relative and that there are no absolute truths while the right believes there’s a reality that’s common and is not relative. As I’ve argued in the past, the presence of fiat money makes everything political, even metaphysical arguments that belong outside it.
Cancelled Priests - I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know the internal strife that the Catholic church is going through. This article sheds light on the current insurgency within Catholicism. What’s surprising to me is how similar this is to the political insurgencies happening all over the world. The more right-wing/libertarian groups have been gaining strength as the more left-wing/statist groups in power have been angering them with their policies.
What I'm up to
Crowdfund for the New Book! - The book is already out on Amazon and available for pre-order through Bitcoin Magazine if you want to pay in Bitcoin. I will also be launching a crowdfund for the book with special goodies. There will be signed copies of the paperback, hardcover, a book launch dinner and even a meetup appearance available for purchase. I’m using the Zaprite platform to do the crowdfund, and if you’re interested in getting early access, please email me and I’ll send you a link to purchase these things before the general public. I will also have a special edition of this newsletter tomorrow to announce the details.
BitBlockBoom - I will be speaking at the conference this week in Austin, and will be there to sell some books, among other things. Unfortunately, it looks like the new book won’t be available for sale yet, but you will be able to participate in the crowdfund during the conference. My talk is about getting out from under the golden handcuffs of fiat money. Please come say hi if you’re a reader of this newsletter and are attending!
Swan Signal Live - I recorded a podcast with Sam Callahan and Anita Posch about a bunch of topics, mostly about the Bitcoin situation in the developing world. I explained how Bitcoin is decentralized and altcoins are not, the effects of inflation in the countries I’ve visited over the past year and how Bitcoin is a much more just system than the deeply unfair system of fiat money.
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Shilling
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Bitcoin
On Consensus Changes - James O’Beirne has a perceptive analysis of the problem of scaling and how Bitcoin is likely to evolve in the future. It’s a bit of a depressing read as he points out all the shortcomings of various solutions and concludes that there will be something like 50,000 entities that become something like Bitcoin banks. Incidentally, he’s now the champion for OP_CTV as Jeremy Rubin is no longer doing Bitcoin development.
Drivechain fixes this? - In response the O’Beirne’s article, fiatjaf makes the case that drivechains will fix the problems of scaling that O’Beirne writes about. His take here is that Bitcoin can die if we don’t fix this now, a view that is not shared by many, including myself. Indeed, fernandom takes fiatjaf and other drivechain advocates to task for adding another unnecessary concern to the network for not much gain.
Maybe UTXO Pooling? - Alex B. responds to both Jamesa nd fiatjaf and argues for a more optimistic vision of Bitcoin’s future. His take is that something like a semi-trusted bank in the form of UTXO pools is the answer to the problem of scaling and indeed, this does strike the right notes in terms of self-sovereignty and not forcing changes on a network. Personally, I see some form of communal trust as inevitable, much like how the Bitcoin Beach wallet has been a trusted third party in that community.
Serverless Payjoin - Dan Gould goes into what serverless payjoin is and how it enhances privacy for on-chain transactions. What’s interesting about his social approach on getting some sort of standard going is the open nature of it. There’s a Github mediawiki where he’s asking for comments and incorporating feedback from a lot of other developers. Personally, I find this approach a much more likely to succeed effort than, say, drivechains.
Lightning
Lightning 2025 - River looks ahead to the future and predicts how the lightning network user experience will change in the next few years. Among other major changes will be the ubiquity of splicing, LSPs that make onboarding much easier, and bolt12 integration to make it so you can receive payments without some server running somewhere. They also see some privacy upgrades on the network and a bigger part of the e-commerce ecosystem.
Lightning and AI - The Lightning Labs newsletter goes into how the new L402 payment gateway is a great fit for the AI API calls that are becoming so popular. This is a fertile field for starting businesses as most people have trouble getting creative assets like marketing photos or copy and AI is really good at that job. The hackathon projects the newsletter highlights seem mostly to be plumbing around the AI projects that already exist, which makes sense as the websites they’re on act as de facto walled gardens. Every paid API will get some sort of Lightning gateway in the future.
Resumable Channels - Currently, you can back up channel states, but if you go offline and lose your backups, there’s no way to resume the channel. This is a new way to create payment channels, with a path that allows you to resume the operation of the payment channel. This requires the addition of two OP codes that have been talked about for a long time, OP_CAT and OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK. They’re interestingly both part of the covenants-enabling op codes. As Lightning becomes popular, these sorts of proposals will require a lot more scrutiny.
Economics, Engineering, Etc.
Deflation is not Bad - Prof. St. Onge makes clear what central banks are talking about when they FUD deflation. There are two kinds of deflation, the kind that happens naturally as technology improves and things get cheaper, and the kind that happens because the monetary supply shrinks suddenly. As he points out the second kind is the bad one and entirely caused by central bank policy, but they paint the entire deflation phenomenon with a broad brush.
Doom for the Argentinian Central Bank? - Javier Milei won the first round of the presidential election, and looks to become their president. What’s interesting about him is that he’s an Austrian economist, an anarcho-capitalist and a big advocate of Bitcoin. As such, he’ll likely want to abolish the Argentinian Central Bank, which has been stealing from the country for many years now. It really would be poetic for a country named after a precious metal.
El Salvador Bonds - The market seems a lot more confident in El Salvador’s prospects for paying back their debt as their bonds have returned 70% year to date. It’s amazing how the narrative on this country continues to shift as large institutional investors are starting to get in. As they experiment more in capital markets to enable better things for their country, I do wonder how the lack of IMF influence on their country will help them.
Quick Hits
Futurama and Bitcoin - Fun article dissecting what the popular animated show got right and wrong.
Ordinals Dying - The stats don’t lie. The trading in them have gone down 98% and I suspect there’s even more to go. Such is the altcoin hype cycle.
Trezor Coinjoin - You can now coinjoin as a default from their wallet.
Nonce Stupidity - Apparently, there’s a wallet that uses a terrible nonce for signatures which, of course, compromises the private key.
Fiat delenda est.