I love Michael, but he's a bit cheeky in his answer, because he did not have a part in engineering Bitcoin, and I don't think he has one now either. Not from the strictly engineering point of view.
Don't take me wrong, I think he has a brilliant mind, so I wish he did have a part. But where are his engineered bitcoin products and solutions?
final engineering
*financial engineering
Not even.
he’s managed to turn his software company into a bitcoin hedge fund with other people’s money
That is meritorious to his company management skills, not really to "bitcoin engineering".
He runs his own node. So there’s that.
That's quite a low bar to be considered "a bitcoin engineer".
Read what Adam Back said about re-engineering BTC or engineering a better BTC.
It always made it worse.
Smart people know to stay out of the way. MSTR as a financial instrument has done more for BTC adoption/education than most would give him credit for.
I'm not saying we have to "re-engineer" BTC. I'm saying Michael Saylor didn't have a part in engineering it in the first place, and that he is not a bitcoin engineer.
What he is doing for MSTR is good for the company and indirectly for BTC. But it doesn't constitute "engineering". Otherwise any CEO who decides to put XYZ asset on his books is an "engineer" too, so in the end nobody is one.
Hal, Adam & Satoshi are the only ones I can think of that played a part in engineering BTC.
BTC was almost perfect, if not perfect, at inception.
That’s the point I was making about Adams quote from his time trying to make it “better”.
MSTR & Nostr are no different in the overall scheme of things.
Underlying BTC remains unchanged and is better for that. IMO
I get all that and I agree -- I lean conservative as far as BTC "development" goes. I don't even think we need Lightning (unless it is as a means to enable anonymous transactions, as it seems to do with Cashu) because I don't think we need to add any "features" to what Bitcoin does very well -- store of value and unalterable timechain.
I do think though that there's a big difference between developing ON Bitcoin and just using BTC the asset.
Also, I’d argue that running a node is the most important thing anyone can do to help BTC.
Nodes are the only thing protecting BTC from centralization. I’d take 1 node runner over any “BTC engineer” trying to finagle lightning. Any day of the week.
Again, IMO.
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