Oddbean new post about login | logout Saylor's message is not "bitcoin should not change" or "bitcoin should go slow and steady". No. It's "bitcoin should not incorporate any new changes from these central planners called bitcoin core who don't understand the implications of their actions". And that is dangerously close to Ver's messaging that caused a civil war.
Bitcoin is about reaching consensus.... constantly. Baked into the protocol, as has been our human journey to do this globally. But finally we have a way to do it more fairly. Sure, growing pains are part of this evolution, but I'm glad it's finally here.
Did he actually call them "central planners"? I listened through the whole interview and don't remember anything like that. To my ears at least, his message was that we need to be very deliberate and slow with changes to the base protocol.
He implies it, listen to this clip: https://x.com/TheBTCTherapist/status/1794590112984252465
Twitter is broken for me so I'll just take your word for it. I agree that the interview was heavy on hyperbole. I didn't particularly care for the "changes to bitcoin are inflationary" argument.
His example of a change was doubing issuance to 42M. A deeply unserious strawman take on the kind of change people advocate for. He could at least pretend to have a nuanced take but that would require him to say the quiet part out loud, Saylor doesn't care about scaling censorship resistant non custodial usage. If we get covenants through we may be able to do away with him and his banking buddies. As the protocol stands now, we will not and he likes that.
I thought Ver was all about changing the protocol. Small block people were not. What am I missing?
Everyone wanted a change, they simply disagreed on what that change was going to be. Small blockers wanted segwit, ver wanted bigger blocks.
But it sounds like Saylor is saying only make changes that have been painfully thought out. So very few changes. Ver’s argument seemed to be fundamentally change it…go big.
Read the OP Again. Literally everyone already agrees with the slow and steady changes that's not the dangerous part of his message. What's dangerous is the false narratives that bitcoin core is "big protocol" and "centrally planned" and only ran by "12 developers" which is exactly the lies that Ver used to start a civl war.
"Literally everyone already agrees with the slow and steady changes" This is so wrong. I don't know where you're getting this. People are pushing for OP CAT. That's not slow and steady. Core devs THEMSELVES are deeply concerned about the amount of power of they have. Saylor didn't come up with his ideas himself, he got them from core devs.
There's a few loud people on twitter pushing for OP_CAT but do you see it activated? Nope. Because most *ACTUAL* bitcoin developers are extremely conservative. The problem is he's implying there's a "them" a "team" a "big protocol" and that they don't know what they're doing. Because of this I can only assume in the future he may use this to try to gain favor to take control of the repo similar to what the NYA did in the blocksize wars and so I'm trying to caution people about this possible future.
You're using the fact that OP CAT isn't activated yet as evidence that it's a marginal idea. Ok. Saylor's trying to explain why he pushed against ARK ETF funneling money to OpenSats, which Odell called him out for. He's saying that a constant waterfall of money with no strings attached will CREATE Big Protocol, and busybody developers will find ways to tap into that cash flow. This is a very real concern and this type of things happens often in the corporate/nonprofit world. He made a solid argument and a clear explanation for it. I think OpenSats is probably not so easily gamed, at least for the time being, but ETF profit donations may be hard to turn off, so forethought and caution are warranted here. Still I think people should donate to OpenSats.
>You're using the fact that OP CAT isn't activated yet as evidence that it's a marginal idea. Ok. No. I pay attention to actual developers instead of loud non-devs on twitter. There's not even close to enough funding for devs to create "Big Protocol", also that's now how "Big Protocol" gets created, it would get created from government that creates "Big everything else". A terrible take when discussing FOSS and donations to developers of those projects. What's actually concerning is how he's actively trying to lobby people against bitcoin core just like Roger did which started a civil war.
I just listened to his interview with McCormick. Sounded very rational reasoned, and well thought out.
>I just listened to his interview interview Oh yah? How many red flags do you need? 1. He's advocating for scaling via centralized entities because he thinks L1 is done. 2. He compares updating bitcoin to updating the bible. 3. He conflates FOSS dev on bitcoin core with "big protocol" and calls it "central planning" implying it's not there via consensus 4. He implies bitcoin core does not understand the implications of their actions 5. He asserts that all changes to the protocol are "inflation" 6. He asserts that Satoshi "played god" as a reason why we should not update it further And btw he's actively discouraging people from donating to FOSS bitcoin developers.
The only difference is that unlike Roger, Michael doesn’t want to change bitcoin in a hurry if at all Bad take
Read the message again and then count how many times he says "big protocol".
He doesn’t want big anything If politics don’t matter then who cares what he says, no?
He's implying that bitcoin core is "big protocol" and "centrally planned". This is dangerous messaging as this is the exact lies Ver used to start a civl war. I'm simply reminding folks to be cautionary of these specific types of manipulations. Because what comes next is he'll want to take control of the repo the same way the companies wanted to during the block size wars.
well, that is the equilibrium nostr:note12fwhhaglzrn7hgdqnhj39dghlgnyv9npvhkcq4k0f3axal0avf0qgyucez
The difference between Saylor and Ver is that Saylor wants you to keep using fiat. They both don't really understand bitcoin and never have.
who has really understood bitcoin? anyone you can recommend? maybe devs who're also interested in the philosophical basics?
Similar to scaling knowledge of bitcoin can be measured on a scale so there's only varying degrees instead of a binary outcome, and Saylor is simply farther along the scale of understanding but that clearly doesn't mean he fully understands bitcoin, especially with his continuous promotion of fiat and centralized custodians.
As far as recommendations go, because knowledge is on a scale and no one individual truly understands bitcoin fully you have to follow many individuals to get as close as you can to a general understanding of bitcoin. I have a list called Bitcoin on X that you can checkout by visiting my theonevortex profile and clicking on lists.