First day of my "week off". Caught up with a friend for the morning, started serious BIP writing in the afternoon. I'm trying to get something I can finally post to the mailing list, since that's been a source of complaints on GSR. Might not happen this week, but I'm hopeful! Also trying to do something relaxing each morning: in theory this slows things down, but in practice it's useful reflection time.

@niftynei() 🇺🇸💸🧡 recently mentioned that sighash flags are neater than raw script opcodes to achieve the same thing. I want to gently disagree: I think of sighhash flags as a shortcut, which ideally would *expand* into script. Something like (untested!): # Split flags word(s) off from signature, leaving <flags-and-sig> <flags> on stack OP_DUP OP_SIZE 64 OP_SUB OP_LEFT: <flags-and-sig> <flags> # Enforce any "you must set this" flags. <compulsory_flags> OP_DUP OP_AND OP_EQUALVERIFY # Extract those parts of the tx onto the stack, append the flags, and hash them. OP_DUP OP_TX OP_SWAP OP_CAT OP_SHA256 # Now cut the flags word(s) off the signature copy, leaving "<txhash> <sig>" on the stack OP_SWAP OP_SIZE 64 OP_SUB OP_RIGHT # Check the signature. OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK OP_VERIFY You can actually see how OP_SPLIT would help us here, but also you can see exactly how much work OP_CHECKSIG does under the covers!

I have a half-baked post on CTV, which it might be past time to polish and publish. But hell, I've got enough in my life without the intense online reaction I can expect from this.

It is, as far as I can tell, impossible to tell the difference between "making an inane comment on your post to be supportive" and "llm bot spamming". If I don't learn anything from what you're saying, why say it? Perhaps I need a client which doesn't show comments more than two hops away in my social graph? Probably too quiet though; I would need many more friends.

After several years of FOMO, I finally attended HRF's #OsloFreedomForum. I took a friend who's political but not Bitcoiner, so I had the experience of seeing it through someone else's eyes, as well as my own. Obviously there's a lot to unpack: talking face-to-face with activists who are working in real danger is confronting in itself, and hearing their experiences fresh and recent is an emotional and impactful experience. I was surprised, however, at the large number of Bitcoiners at the conference: it's not a Bitcoin conference, but the HRF (particularly @gladstein) has been courting bitcoiners for technical assistance (and, presumably, donations) for several years now and it has resulted in a fascinating intersection. Those present are builders, not (just?) talkers. My non-bitcoiner friend noted the remarkable humility of those present: an insightful comment. Of all the discussions I had, the one which haunts me most is a conversation with Peter McCormack (ex- WBD, now rejuvinating his home town and trying to raise awareness of UK's pressing misgovernance issues). To paraphrase: "Where are the Bitcoiners improving the world? Wasn't that what this was about?". In a context of three days' exposure to people who are dedicating their lives to something much bigger than software, this question really affected me. I was expecting to leave the conference with a list of software priorities, and I did. But I still feel it's inadaquate, and so I'm now pondering the question: "what else should I be doing?".

I'm going to publish more on nostr. I need to settle on a desktop client though: mobile is always optimized for consumption and adds speed bumps to actual creation. I'm also going to need to run my own instance so that I can archive all my random thoughts and not lose them in the ether. I've made that mistake many times since I stopped publishing everything on my own blog...

I'm finally going to Oslo Freedom Forum this year. I'm going to listen, not speak. But TIL @calle is going to be there, so I finally get to fanboy^H^H^H^Hmeet him!

Sadly, "poof of reserves" is probably the next big thing in exchanges. Still.

When it comes to Bitcoin technical discussions, the phrase "Greg Maxwell was right" is almost tautological.

I restarted my "Shit Bitcoiners Say" Twixter account. I could have done in on nostr, but it's pure noise and I prefer to keep my Nostr bubble high signal as long as I can. As a side note: Reading the "For you" feed for that account is pure sewer-wading. Hard to do that and still be funny, not just snarky and horrified!

@jack mallers hasn't Tweeted yet, by reports that he's heading a new Pile of #Bitcoin venture are an interesting move. We shall, of course, refer to the new company as "Tether One".

Stacker News AMA coming up! I love doing these: always some surprising questions and answers

Stacker News

~AMA \ stacker news

It's like Hacker News but we pay you Bitcoin.

I've long been toying with the idea of an L2 for unenforceable ("trivial") amounts. The only mechanism here is that if the coordinator misbehaves, a user can prove it and send *all* the funds to a fallback. The default fallback is half-burn, half-fees*, but it could also be some custodian of last resort. This is strictly weaker than, say, lightning, but I think it's the best you can do for tiny amounts: ensure that there's no profit in cheating. The problem is that I don't think you can prove all the different ways the coordinator can screw you. It can fail to respond at all. It can claim to be unable to make any lightning payment you ask for. You can probably prove misbehaviour for any transfer to/from other internal users of the same system, but that's not very useful if you can't get funds out! So I'm posting here in case it forms a useful component for building something. Good luck! * Christian Decker nominated this a "Nero protocol", which I like.

Capitalism is good and noble and drives competition for the betterment of everyone! It's only the unholy fiat which drives people to lower quality or shrinkflate! They would never think to increase profits that way otherwise! Seriously, if you're making these arguments and nobody's pushing back, they're either not listening or you're in a bubble.

I both want and dread writing up my evaluation of OP_CTV. Any AIs good at drawing simple diagrams? I think a diagram showing what parts of the tx CTV covers is probably the best way to present it (and thus evaluate it against possible alternatives). Txid and wtxid hashing diagrams would complete the family.

Evergreen post: Bitcoin price predictions and stupid people attract.