My interview with Perry E. Metzger is finally happening today starting from 2 PM EST / 8 PM CET Perry is the creator of the Metzdowd cryptography mailing list, where Satoshi first posted the Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008 He is also interested in open source AI, cypherpunk tech, and all sorts of cryptography use cases Make sure you tune in, this one is for the history books!

Was thinking of a metaphor about blockchains and girlfriends Bitcoin is this prude girl who blushes & gets overwhelmed when you touch her lap in church, only accepts missionary position, and obviously refuses to scale for every boy in town. Ethereum is this dirty girl who does everything. And I mean EVERYTHING, with everyone… for the right price. The biggest problem is that she also doesn’t scale: she’s limited by the number of holes. Can get creative and try to find workarounds, but most of them involve searching for equally dirty lookalikes. Very exciting when you switch from Bitcoin, but you’re very likely to catch some infection. Zcash is the girl who’s always vague. Reliable, always shows up. But you never know what she really thinks, you have no idea what she does for a living and whether she’s faithful or cheats on you. As soon as the date is over, she vanishes so you cannot follow her around. Has no problem showing up at your place, but you don’t know where she lives. Monero is the World of Warcraft girlfriend. Only exists online, is always there for your guild raids and always available for virtual sex. However, you’re not sure if the person behind the account is truly a girl or some sick dude. As a matter of fact, it might as well be a bot. But whatever she/he/it is, you’re always having a good time. If you’re a junkie, he/she/it can also recommend someone who’s selling what you’re after, with absolute discretion.

Imagine being Messi Arguably the greatest football player of all time The most decorated player, winner of every title and championship About to retire in glory after defeating the final boss: Spain, the country that trained you and taught you everything you know about football The best possible streak and story arc is about to unfold … and then a hothead team mate named Enzo Fernandez gets 2 yellow cards, gets eliminated and leaves your team in numeric disadvantage for 30 minutes Your shot at legendary status, your opportunity to become the undisputed god of the sport, ruined by a guy who enjoyed playing dirty and arguing with the referee

The next couple of weeks will be amazing for Bitcoin Takeover podcast Got some bangers lined up Sorry for the delay, but I’ve been traveling and scheduling new interviews and I do believe that you won’t find this type of content on any other show 🙃

For the record, I don’t view the Bitcoin whitepaper as some kind of religious book that must be followed strictly But I do think that the whitepaper is aspirational: it explains why this money system was created and what it ought to accomplish The “how” part can change when better tech emerges. But the goal was never to create an institutional asset, a Wall Street tech stock, or a “store of value” Bitcoin is payments tech. And if the original chain does not pursue the goal, then the forks will.

“Read the whitepaper” triggers store of value preachers just as much as “read the constitution” triggers leftists in the US.

Look, I’m sorry that lots of bitcoiners learned about how the network works from Saylor interviews and really bad podcasts But narratives and metaphors always break when they get confronted by the technical reality My podcast can definitely improve your understanding - not because I am some kind of my expert, but because I mostly interview guys who are much smarter than me Learn from multiple sources, listen to conflicting opinions, constantly search for the truth, and build your own individual views to the point where other people follow you and consider you a valuable contributor. This is how you win. This was always the way. There has never been and never will be a yellow brick road in this world: not even Bitcoin can provide certainties and guarantees. To a great extent, Bitcoin’s success has been a self-fulfilling prophecy: people put a lot of effort into making predictions come true. But it doesn’t mean that it will always work this way, as new challenges always emerge. Constantly ask questions and seek new information to update your understanding. Otherwise, you become someone’s useful idiot – just a follower, or a “pleb”. And I want all of you to become so much more!

One of my favorite cognitive dissonances: 1. shitcoins are worthless and going to zero 2. shitcoiners are somehow wealthier than puritan bitcoiners who virtue signal about sound money & digital alchemy

With less than 1% of Bitcoin’s development budget and a lot of hate that’s second only to BSV and Ripple BCH is now so far ahead with development that Bitcoin devs study it to figure out how to soft fork some features to BTC How is this even possible? Firstly, I have been told that BCH is a dead shitcoin that only exists to fuel the vanity of Roger Ver and Jihan Wu. But it keeps shipping code while both Roger and Jihan moved on. Secondly, hardcore Bitcoin devs who regularly speak on conference stages now take inspiration from CheckDataSig (which inspired Jeremy Rubin’s CheckTemplateVerify & CheckSigFromStack), OP_CAT, OP_MUL & all the cool introspection OP codes that already work on BCH. Once again, these guys had 1% of the budget, but did a much better job than Blockstream with Elements/Liquid, MIT, and Chaincode. How is this possible?! In a world where BTC is winning, this could never happen.

There has never been a more fun time to be a shitcoiner

BIP110 supporters: Blockstream took Epstein money, Andy Back was on the island Also BIP110 supporters: Blockstream co-founder Luke is our lord and savior

I’m starting to believe that all the VC money that went into Bitcoin development was wasted on purpose to demoralize the community, normalize custodians, replace the cypherpunk spirit with compliance & greed the conferences that promised us upgrades, from Scaling Bitcoin to BTC++, turned out to be a reassurance drug that keeps us hopeful for new stuff for which there is never consensus the goalposts to activate a soft fork have moved to the same level as hard forks… even if the upgrades are backwards-compatible and optional other chains that use Bitcoin’s tech (ZEC, LTC, BCH) were able to accomplish more with fewer resources and without copying Bitcoin’s homework: if anything, it’s the BTC devs who look at Zcash and BCH asking themselves how to bring those features home with soft forks that never get consensus Blockstream, in spite of all the puritan virtue signaling, was beaten by the free market. Their research is behind anything happening in Ethereum or Zcash right now The Lightning network, the totem of Bitcoin maximalism, is better optimized and more reliable on Decred (another Bitcoin codebase fork) And next month, the Drivechains (BIP300) hard fork will mark the departure of another group of developers who truly followed the Bitcoin maximalist thesis of bringing everything to one network On top of this stagnation, the BIP 444/110 debate has pushed even more developers away from Bitcoin. Rusty Russel, the champion of the Great Script Restoration, has left Bitcoin development. Others have pivoted to AI because their work is more appreciated in that field. And of course, we lost Gloria Zhao to one of the dumbest psyops in the project’s history The looming Epstein taint is also taking its toll, with some users feeling disgusted by the people and ideas they have supported over the years. Top Bitcoin Core developers received Epstein money via MIT affiliation. Lightning Labs received grants from MIT too. But in the meantime, MIT is shipping their CBDC pilot (Project Hamilton) which uses Bitcoin research. With or without Epstein, the authoritarians are advancing with their agenda to control & surveil. Bitcoin cannot fight back because it’s neutered. At this point, it’s nothing but a tech stock that makes boomer investors feel trendy. The freedom money use cases went somewhere else. Without a healthy dev culture, nothing will change. But now the gatekeeping isn’t enforced only by a bunch of devs who dislike any idea from outside of their circle. Now even the average pleb who runs a Raspberry Pi node will act as if every dev must explain to them the utility of everything: and if they don’t understand it, then it’s frowned upon and rejected. This is no longer decentralization, it’s the most degenerate form of democracy where the dumbest and the poorest feel empowered to decide on matters they will never understand. SegWit and Taproot didn’t receive the same amount of scrutiny because they came from the right team. But people still wear “don’t trust, verify” t-shirts and LARP about sovereignty. The best part about Bitcoin is that it’s still around and can change course sometime. But not while the gatekeepers and their dumber supporters are still around. Not while Saylorism is the dominant ideology. Maybe that only a painful bear market with sub $10k prices will save Bitcoin.

Back in 2013 I was obsessed with Billy Joel’s music Bought all his records on vinyl, listened to “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” hundreds of times trying to learn it on piano, tried to find the deep meaning of “The Nylon Curtain” But I kind of consumed my obsession and moved on. Until tonight, when I listened to Billy’s interview on Rick Beato’s YouTube channel. I remembered what an amazing songwriter he is and what a great taste he he has for melodies. Needless to say, I’ve been listening to nothing but Billy Joel. Now that I’m older and have more experience with music, I appreciate the small details even more!

I don’t even know a whole BCH But of Bitcoin Cash turns out to become the dominant version of Bitcoin, I really wouldn’t mind Because these guys are actually shipping improvements to Satoshi’s design instead of social engineering to normalize complacency If they scale it, make it more expressive and capable of delivering all the features that maximalists used to pretend to want, the market participants will notice The mission is much more important than the tool that accomplishes it. And right now the smartest Bitcoin devs are looking at the toolset that BCH already enabled, thinking of ways to soft fork it to BTC. However, there’s no consensus for any of that. And at some point, everyone will get fed up and just switch to whatever works best with the smallest amount of tradeoffs. BTC is trying to normalize banks (no unilateral exit), BCH doubles down on trust minimization via protocol upgrades. There isn’t much of a debate about which one is more cypherpunk. But the question is how will the miners, merchants & exchanges react to a situation where the users switch their preference. Right now BCH can run a more reliable version of Lightning. It can do better ZK rollups. It can have vaults, drivechains, and all the cool stuff we like to pretend to want at Bitcoin conferences before hitting the consensus wall. If a switch happens and I must watch it from the sidelines, I won’t have any regrets. I didn’t come here to join the 1% and fly in private jets. I couldn’t care less if my kids will be working class and must grind from the bottom. The greater mission of fixing the money is more important than my investment thesis or personal ambitions.

While you were busy fighting about the size of OP_Return and the efficiency of data filters Builders moved on to other chains to continue the mission to achieve unstoppable internet money The damage is done, smart people moved on while 80 IQs get high on Adam Back replies Super unfortunate, but the mission precedes the medium or the tool. And revolutions orchestrated by 80 IQs never end well.

Bitcoin is computer software which enables people to trade random numbers with each other, assigning value to each string No matter how you try to rationalize it as something else (money, gold, cash), it’s just an interesting homo sapiens experiment Proof of work mining has no inherent value unless we believe it does. If there was any concept of valuable hashes, every other proof of work network would be proportionally valuable too. If energy expenditure would matter in determining price, we would be living in a Marxist lala land where digging up holes only to cover them back is valuable labor. The scarcity is not set in stone, as every parameter can be changed if there is consensus among participants. Maybe the fact that you can fork Bitcoin indefinitely to create a new competing currency is a form of monetary inflation. All of this is well known, but widely ignored by people who desperately want to get rich by making others buy in. Bitcoin’s competitive advantage as an internet currency is that you can send some of the letters and numbers to anyone running the same software. Bitcoin is faster than bank settlements, usually cheaper than Western Union, more difficult to censor than bank transfers, very hard to confiscate from your wallet. Everyone who is ostracized and discriminated by the banking system will find Bitcoin useful. That’s the target audience for users, not North Americans hustling their way to buy a Lambo. But in spite of its qualities, Bitcoin is old tech that doesn’t accomplish its intended purpose in the best way. Zcash (Bitcoin codebase fork with privacy improvements) is much closer to the original vision. Monero now dominates marketplaces where Bitcoin first proved its usefulness. Litecoin is also a popular middle ground between Bitcoin and Zcash (not as secure, not as private, but cheap to use and fast). Heck, even Bitcoin Cash did a better job improving the network with OP codes that enable vaults, covenants, and trust minimized layer 2s. If Bitcoin loses its appeal on markets and doesn’t keep up at the technical level either, it’s gonna get replaced. Because technology is meant to be useful, not the subject of worship. The window of opportunity to fight back against CBDCs is very short and Bitcoin is hardly eligible to compete in this category. Believing that CBDC users will swap into bitcoin to hedge against inflation is borderline delusional. Thankfully, we have the hard forks that can correct the trajectory in which we are headed. This summer we’re gonna get a technology-oriented version of Bitcoin thanks to Paul’s Ecash.com fork. Builders will finally be able to prove what they’ve been working on using a live network with real incentives. Smart and creative people will finally have a place to flourish, while the midwits and the 80 IQ cult members will get free coins to sell. Everybody wins, as software development gets mixed with market development. As it should be. Anyway, long rant. But it’s hard to feel optimistic about Bitcoin when you notice how much the community IQ has declined and how far the project has strayed from its original mission. Mother of psyops, be my MILF!

“It’s fine that we didn’t scale the Bitcoin base layer because look, most users don’t care about self-custody and storing 12 words is too hard for them” Dude, look at USDT on Tron. Most of Latin America, Africa & the Middle East uses it daily via non-custodial wallets. Same tech as Bitcoin. Same UX. Actually scratch that, as the UX is much worse: users need to buy a freaking gas token that they hold or even stake in order to pay transaction fees. Oh and the transaction fees usually hover around $3-$5. More expensive than Bitcoin, but still cheaper than Western Union. So these guys will happily pay. So how come hundreds of millions of people know how to manage 12 words to use Trust wallet, Metamask or Solflare And they manage a freaking gas token But Bitcoin is somehow challenging to use? Mother of psyops, be my MILF!

Bitcoiners on David Marcus in 2019: ahahahah you stupid boomer, you think the world will want your censorable Libra shitcoin with no privacy Bitcoiners on David Marcus in 2026: thank you sir for saving the lightning network with your compliant, censorship-friendly & non-private solution

You know that Lighting is not very good tech When it was built since day 1 to be blockchain agnostic With atomic swaps between chains being heavily advertised in the beginning And a year of scrutiny & testing on Litecoin Only for Litecoin to stop maintaining it Decred is the only other chain that still supports Lightning And Lightning on Bitcoin, in spite of all the hype and heavy marketing, has less than 0.023% of supply locked in channels and only works decently when heavily centralized (though there are failed transactions even between custodial wallets) What a waste of time and resources! If only we didn’t put all eggs in this basket and encouraged the market participants to come up with the best designs for scaling solutions where self custody + unilateral exit are non-negotiable But then again, I’m pretty sure that the companies supporting Bitcoin developed secretly hope nothing ever gets achieved so CBDCs and other centralized solutions can get adopted within this short window of opportunity Tether on Tron is the best example of such a product. So successful even the most hardcore maxis are afraid to criticize it due to various conflicts of interest

I have so many AI bots in my replies that it becomes very difficult to engage in genuine conversations I don’t know what is a good solution, but if this keeps on happening I might automate my Nostr too with an agent that’s trained on my writings 🥹