Oddbean

> If the vast majority of users end up needing custodians to interact with the protocol, then controlling the direction of protocol development is irrelevant. Just control the custodians. https://xcancel.com/NotASithLord/status/1857208794851483991

Bitcoin has a conservative approach to change, as there is a social-contract with a userbase who value stability. Not really stated in that post, is that bitcoin's developement strategy, while not perfect, has been one of the most successful in the history of open source. And that's a reason why people put their trust in it.

You should get involved in bitcoin protocol development and bitcoin core to understand some of the things shared in the post. Everything looks good from outside. It's the same for every open source project.

I totally get it. We actually helped set up all the structures you see today, including the BIPs, specifically to prevent Gavin from swaying consensus in favor of the foundation and adjacent VCs. Plenty of developers want change—the first one I remember was Mike Hearn. Mike quit Bitcoin because things weren't moving fast enough for him, and I wish he hadn't. Bitcoin isn't perfect, but it's hard to argue that it's not a successful project. Honestly, we've yet to scratch the surface of what Bitcoin can do, and there's always going to be a vocal group pushing for change. On that note, Nostr is a project that's really well-suited for change and innovation. That's one of the reasons we created it—as an outlet for people who want to use Taproot in a more developer-friendly environment. While innovation on Nostr has slowed down a lot, it's still a better place to push for new ideas.

> It follows that there are absolutely compromised and paid bad actors who larp as sanctimonious toxic maxis with this overarching aim, at all levels of the community and dev hierarchy. They have taken advantage of the leadership vaccume you described to destroy meaningful progress through basic social engineering. nostr:nevent1qqsqqqqeeftj7e6v9k7hayack2u3xa4ms9vg7le0m3fne5uprvxpk5cpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzvuhsygrxsyng4nj8fr2p5n8uc8nyqphmjddmcdvhs2eajcglvn23ce6jmypsgqqqqqqswku6w8

Let me just compare it with this one which got 8/10. Similar themes! https://blog.plan99.net/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7 https://image.nostr.build/04a76cf19749dfa27d058c4e48fc45cd0b63bf43543cbd46cdfb0375197303bb.jpg