The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.
- Thomas Sowell
The media's ignorance of the Triffin dilemma reflects their entrenched Keynesian bias and institutional reluctance to acknowledge fundamental flaws in the fiat currency system that benefits establishment powers.
THE CONSENSUS CONUNDRUM
Bitcoin faces a one-of-a-kind leadership problem
By nostr:nprofile1qqs976gg9npqm0wjtveqavxru70nha4peyhxqc35f88nyf9slgg7m2gpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctv9u4s2sqj
—
A lot of consensus-change proposals for bitcoin are on the table at the moment. All of them have good motivations, whether it's scaling UTXO ownership or making self-custody more tractable. I won’t rehash them here, you’re probably already familiar. Some have been actively developed for years.
The past two such changes that have been made to bitcoin successfully, Segwit and Taproot, were massive engine-lift-style deployments fraught with drama. There have been smaller changes in bitcoin’s past, like the introduction of locktimes, but for some reason the last two have been kitchen sink affairs.
The reality not often talked about by many bitcoin engineers is that up until Taproot, bitcoin’s consensus development was more or less operating under a benevolent dictatorship model. Project leadership went from Satoshi to Gavin to… well, I’ll stop naming names.
Core developers will likely quibble with this characterization, but we all know deep down that to a first order approximation that it’s basically true. The “final say” and big ideas were implicitly signed off on by one guy, or maybe a small oligarchy of wizened autists.
In many ways there’s really nothing wrong with this - most (all?) major opensource projects operate similarly with pretty clear leadership structures. Oftentimes they have benevolent dictators who just “make the call” in times of high-dimensional ambiguity. Everyone knows Guido and Linus and the based Christian sqlite guy.
Bitcoin is aesthetically loathe to this but the reality, whether we like it or not, is that this is how it worked up until about 2021.
Given that, there are three factors that create the CONSENSUS CONUNDRUM facing bitcoin right now:
(1) The old benevolent dictators (or high-caste oligarchy) have abdicated their power, leaving a vacuum that shifts the project from “conventional mode of operation” to “novel, never-before-tried” mode: an attempt at some kind of supposedly meritocratic leaderlessness.
This change is coupled with the fact that
(2) the possible design space for improvements and things to care about in bitcoin is wide open at this point. Do you want vaults? Or more L2s? What about rollups? Or how about a generic computational tool like CAT? Or should we bundle the generic things with applications (CTV + VAULT) to make sure they really work?
The problem is that all of these are valid opinions. They all have merit, both in terms of what to focus on and how to get to the end goal. There really isn’t a clear “correct” design pattern.
(3) A final factor that makes this situation poisonous is that faithfully pursuing, fleshing out, building, “doing the work” of presenting a proposal IS REALLY REALLY TIME CONSUMPTIVE AND MIND MELTING.
Getting the demos, specs, implementation, and "marketing" material together is a long grind that takes years of experience with Core to even approach.
I was well paid to do this fulltime for years, and the process left me with disgusted with the dysfunction and having very little desire to continue contribution. I think this is a common feeling.
A related myth is that businesses will do something analogous to aid the process. The idea that businesses will build on prospective forks is pretty laughable. Most bitcoin companies have a ton on their backlog, are fighting for survival, and have basically no one dedicated to R&D. The have a hard enough time integrating features that actually make it in.
Many of the ones who do have the budget for R&D are shitcoin factories that don’t care about bitcoin-specific upgrades.
I’ve worked for some of the rare companies that care about bitcoin and do have the money for this kind of R&D, and even then the resources are not sufficient to build a serious product demo on top of 1 of N speculative softforks that may never happen.
---
This kind of situation is why human systems evolve leadership hierarchies. In general, to progress in a situation like this someone needs to be in a position to say “alright, after due consideration we’re doing X.”
Of course what makes this seem intractable is that the Bitcoin mythology dictates (rightly) that clear leadership hierarchies are how you wind up, in the limit, with the Fed.
Sure, bitcoin can just never change again in any meaningful way ("ossify"). But at this point that almost certainly resigns it to yet another financial product that can only be accessed with the benefit of a large institution.
If you grant that bitcoin should probably keep tightening its rules for more and better functionality, but that we should go "slow and steady," I think there are issues with that too.
Because another factor that isn’t talked about is that as bitcoin rises in price, and as nation-states start buying in size, the rules will be harder to change. So inaction — not deciding — is actually a very consequential decision.
I do not know how this resolves.
—
There’s another uncomfortable subject I want to touch on: where the power actually lies.
The current mechanism for changing bitcoin hinges on what Core developers will merge. This of course isn’t official policy, but it’s the unintended reality.
Other less technically savvy actors (like miners and exchanges) have to pick some indicator to pay attention to that tells them what changes are safe and when they are coming. They have little ability or interest to size these things up for themselves, or do the development necessary to figure them out.
My Core colleagues will bristle at this characterization. They’ll say “we’re just janitors! we just merge what has consensus!” And they’re not being disingenuous in saying that. But they’re also not acknowledging that historically, that is how consensus changes have operated.
This is something that everyone knows semi-consciously but doesn’t really want to own.
Core devs saying “yes” and clicking merge has been a necessary precursor every time. And right now none of the Core devs are paying attention to the soft fork conversations - sort of understandable, there’s a bunch to do in bitcoin.
But let’s be honest here, a lot of the work happening in Core has been sort of secondary to bitcoin’s realization.
Mempool work is interesting, but the whole model is more or less upside down anyway because it’s based on altruism. For-profit darkpools and accelerators seem inevitable to me, although that could be argued. Much of the mempool work is rooted in support for Lightning, which is pretty obviously not going to solve the scaling problem.
Sure, encrypted P2P connections are great, but what’s even the point if we can’t get on-chain ownership to a level beyond essentially requiring the use of an exchange, ecash mint, sidechain, or some other trusted third party?
My main complaint is that Core has developed an ivory tower mindset that more or less sneers at people piatching long-run consensus stuff instead of trying to actually engage with the hard problems.
And that could have bitcoin fall short of its potential.
—
I don’t know what the solution to any of this is. I do know that self-custody is totally nervewracking and basically out of the question for casual users, and I do know that bitcoin in its current form will not scale to twice-monthly volume for even 10% of the US, let alone most of the world.
The people who don’t acknowledge this, and who want to spend critical time and energy wallowing in the mire of proposing the perfect remix of CTV, are making a fateful choice.
Most of the longstanding, fully specified fork proposals active today are totally fine, and conceptually they’d be great additions to bitcoin.
Hell, probably a higher block size is safe given features like compactblocks and assumeutxo and eventually utreexo. But that’s another post for another day.
---
I've gone back and forth about writing a post like this, because I don't have any concrete prescriptions or recommendations. I guess I can only hope that bringing up these uncomfortable observations is some distant precursor to making progress on scaling self-custody.
All of these opinions have probably been expressed by @JeremyRubin years ago in his blog. I’m just tired of biting my tongue.
Thanks to nostr:nprofile1qqsdnpcgf3yrjz3fpawj5drq8tny74gn0kd54l7wmrqw4cpsav3z5fgpz4mhxue69uhk2er9dchxummnw3ezumrpdejqz9rhwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjmcprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvl3x2lg and nostr:nprofile1qqsph0g2tcj80mm676qwtegey77gdu682vt7v067aq792spvdvv23gspzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtc5a5hjp for feedback on drafts of this.
https://x.com/jamesob/status/1857049961235403101
Bitcoin consensus is dictated by the economic actors actually using it. If Bitcoin becomes a simple financialized asset dominated by the legacy institutions and actors that it was built to free us from, then proportionally to their level of use they decide consensus.
nostr:nprofile1qqsrwseygwgtu5688flrkwudqnwws0mvj52tsx5e07emzg7qwthe77qpzdmhxue69uhhwmm59e6hg7r09ehkuef00wfgm8
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/the-trump-pump-a-road-to-capture-and-failure
Each person has a general time-horizon, stretching from the present into the future, for which he plans various types of action. Whereas period of production and duration of serviceableness refer to specific consumers’ goods and differ with each consumers’ good, the period of provision (the time-horizon) is the length of future time for which each actor plans to satisfy his wants. The period of provision, therefore, includes planned action for a considerable variety of consumers’ goods, each with its own period of production and duration. This period of provision differs from actor to actor in accordance with his choice. Some people live from day to day, taking no heed of later periods of time; others plan not only for the duration of their own lives, but for their children as well.
- Murray Rothbard
A fundamental and constant truth about human action is that man prefers his end to be achieved in the shortest possible time. Given the specific satisfaction, the sooner it arrives, the better. This results from the fact that time is always scarce, and a means to be economized. The sooner any end is attained, the better. Thus, with any given end to be attained, the shorter the period of action, i.e., production, the more preferable for the actor. This is the universal fact of time preference. At any point of time, and for any action, the actor most prefers to have his end attained in the immediate present. Next best for him is the immediate future, and the further in the future the attainment of the end appears to be, the less preferable it is. The less waiting time, the more preferable it is for him
- Murray Rothbard
Can Interest Rates Fall to Zero on the Free Market?
nostr:nprofile1qqsyx708d0a8d2qt3ku75avjz8vshvlx0v3q97ygpnz0tllzqegxrtgpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctv9usy2c9y
https://fountain.fm/episode/aFFxavMqC9LLvzHJZGIi
How Trump Will Serve The CBDC Agenda with nostr:nprofile1qqsy86rlt3pvtvfuryalrehjjaqv4g2recqj9zhyh49svf2gx3vqe2spzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtcmrm0a9 & Mark Goodwin
nostr:nprofile1qqsgt0d4sa0pz0wvn9yck36xxezf3qhwzksu0q254vruqed5wvuavuspzfmhxue69uhhqatjwpkx2urpvuhx2ucpzfmhxue69uhky6t5wd6xzcmt9eshquqpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumtfde5kymmvwshxjmnxdu4ryj8q
nostr:nprofile1qqsywt6ypu57lxtwj2scdwxnyrl3sry9typcstje65x7rw9a2e5nq8sprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvqydhwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnzd96xxmmfdecxzunt9e3k7mgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mq9hxafw
https://fountain.fm/episode/n2Rb90acjg2KUvKRwaVS
The distinguishing characteristic of human beings is that all humans act. Action is purposeful behavior directed toward the attainment of ends in some future period which will involve the fulfillment of wants otherwise remaining unsatisfied. Action involves the expectation of a less imperfectly satisfied state as a result of the action. The individual actor chooses to employ elements in his environment as means to the expected achievement of his ends, economizing them by directing them toward his most valued ends (leaving his least valued ones unsatisfied), and in the ways that his reason tells him are most appropriate to attain these ends. His method—his chosen means—may or may not turn out to be inappropriate.
- Murray Rothbard
All human life must take place in time. Human reason cannot even conceive of an existence or of action that does not take place through time. At a time when a human being decides to act in order to attain an end, his goal, or end, can be finally and completely attained only at some point in the future. If the desired ends could all be attained instantaneously in the present, then man’s ends would all be attained and there would be no reason for him to act; and we have seen that action is necessary to the nature of man. Therefore, an actor chooses means from his environment, in accordance with his ideas, to arrive at an expected end, completely attainable only at some point in the future. For any given action, we can distinguish among three periods of time involved: the period before the action, the time absorbed by the action, and the period after the action has been completed. All action aims at rendering conditions at some time in the future more satisfactory for the actor than they would have been without the intervention of the action.
A man’s time is always scarce. He is not immortal; his time on earth is limited. Each day of his life has only 24 hours in which he can attain his ends. Furthermore, all actions must take place through time. Therefore time is a means that man must use to arrive at his ends. It is a means that is omnipresent in all human action.
- Murray Rothbard
In order to institute action, it is not sufficient that the individual man have unachieved ends that he would like to fulfill. He must also expect that certain modes of behavior will enable him to attain his ends. A man may have a desire for sunshine, but if he realizes that he can do nothing to achieve it, he does not act on this desire. He must have certain ideas about how to achieve his ends. Action thus consists of the behavior of individuals directed towards ends in ways that they believe will accomplish their purpose. Action requires an image of a desired end and “technological ideas” or plans on how to arrive at this end.
- Murray Rothbard
The first truth to be discovered about human action is that it can be undertaken only by individual "actors." Only individuals have ends and can act to attain them. There are no such things as ends of or actions by "groups," "collectives," or "States," which do not take place as actions by various specific individuals. "Societies" or "groups" have no independent existence aside from the actions of their individual members.
- Murray Rothbard
Prioritize yourself first, then focus on family and friends, and afterward, your local community. True, lasting change begins at the smallest level—your individual self—before it can extend to a larger scale.
Bitcoin Audible Read_852 - Nature's Many Attempts to Evolve a Nostr
nostr:nprofile1qqstnem9g6aqv3tw6vqaneftcj06frns56lj9q470gdww228vysz8hqpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgqg6waehxw309ahx7um5wghx7unpdenk2urfd3kzuer9wcq3wamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwvd6hyun9de6zuenedyvu6425
https://fountain.fm/episode/Ij1ztxQFy72HatWSVrlq
One was left wondering at the true magic of that Halloween — namely, at the transforming effect of something as simple as the opportunity for free exchange, for the chance to derive mutual benefit from the difference in tastes between individuals.
In this, at least, Halloween was all about treats, and, despite what the opponents of the exchange economy will tell you, there was no trick about it anywhere you looked.
https://mises.org/mises-daily/halloween-and-its-candy-economy
In my experience, discussing the dangers of statism with "normies" often feels futile. No amount of rational argument or logic will persuade someone who isn’t willing to question their deep-seated beliefs, especially when they see the state as equivalent to society and essential for social order.
Your point about description versus prescription is insightful. It makes sense that they would interpret your description as a prescription, or even as an attempt to assert authority, because it presents a reality that challenges their own. If they're unwilling to examine such a foundational assumption, it’s no wonder they might feel threatened by the conversation.
The most surreal aspect is that an overwhelming majority of people are voluntarist in their daily lives already. So the idea of it should not be shocking or hard to grasp, yet their world turns upside down when it comes to the fundamental coercion of the state.
Within the Bitcoin space the Matrix movie metaphor is often invoked regarding fiat money. But a more appropriate use of the metaphor in my opinion is statism.
"You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
A judicial monopoly will inevitably lead to a steady deterioration in the quality of justice and protection. If no one can appeal to justice except to government, justice will be perverted in favor of the government, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. Constitutions and supreme courts are state constitutions and agencies, and all limitations to state action they might contain or find are invariably decided by agents of the very institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of property and protection will continually be altered and the range of jurisdiction expanded to the government's advantage until, ultimately, the notion of universal and immutable human rights and in particular property rights-will disappear and be replaced by that of law as government-made legislation and rights as government-given grants.
- Hans Herman Hoppe
A tax-funded protection agency is a contradiction in terms--an expropriating property protector--and will inevitably lead to more taxes and less protection. Even if, as some classical liberal statists have proposed, a government limited its activities exclusively to the protection of pre-existing private property rights, the further question of how much security to produce would arise. Motivated (like everyone) by self-interest and the disutility of labor but endowed with the unique power to tax, a government agent's response will invariably be the same: To maximize expenditures on protection-and almost all of a nation's wealth can conceivably be consumed by the cost of protection-and at the same time to minimize the production of protection. The more money one can spend and the less one must work to produce, the better off one will be.
- Hans Herman Hoppe
Alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe can do whatever he pleases. For him, the question concerning rules of orderly human conduct—social cooperation—simply does not arise. Naturally, this question can only arise once a second person, Friday, arrives on the island. Yet even then, the question remains largely irrelevant so long as no scarcity exists. Suppose the island is the Garden of Eden; all external goods are available in superabundance. They are “free goods,” just as the air that we breathe is normally a “free” good. Whatever Crusoe does with these goods, his actions have repercussions neither with respect to his own future supply of such goods nor regarding the present or future supply of the same goods for Friday (and vice versa). Hence, it is impossible that there could ever be a conflict between Crusoe and Friday concerning the use of such goods. A conflict is only possible if goods are scarce. Only then will there arise the need to formulate rules that make orderly—conflict-free—social cooperation possible.
In the Garden of Eden only two scarce goods exist: the physical body of a person and its standing room. Crusoe and Friday each have only one body and can stand only at one place at a time. Hence, even in the Garden of Eden conflicts between Crusoe and Friday can arise: Crusoe and Friday cannot occupy the same standing room simultaneously without coming thereby into physical conflict with each other. Accordingly, even in the Garden of Eden rules of orderly social conduct must exist—rules regarding the proper location and movement of human bodies. And outside the Garden of Eden, in the realm of scarcity, there must be rules that regulate not only the use of personal bodies but also of everything scarce so that all possible conflicts can be ruled out. This is the problem of social order.
- Hans Herman Hoppe
Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power. They must reluctantly admit that they are subject to the laws of nature. But they reject the very notion of economic law. Are they not the supreme legislator?...It is impossible to understand the history of economic thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of those in power. An economist can never be a favorite of autocrats and demagogues. With them he is always the mischief-maker, and the more they are inwardly convinced that his objections are well founded, the more they hate him.
- Mises
Some believe it is only [state] power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.
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In the broad liberty movement, within its niche subcommunities, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll encounter infighting, especially when debates arise about using political means to achieve liberty. These discussions tend to flare up online around election season, as the topic of voting becomes more prominent in the public discourse. Generally, two camps emerge in these debates: what we might call the “purist” camp and the “practical” camp. By highlighting the often-overlooked nuances within these arguments, we can step back and see the bigger picture—understanding how liberty-minded individuals can make informed voting choices that align with their principles.
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In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having even been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he uses the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two.
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Mises examines economic voting within a free market, where consumers cast “votes” through their spending, with each unit of currency acting as a ballot. This system reflects a democratic process, shaping economic outcomes based on individual preferences. Mises highlights an inherent inequality: wealthier individuals possess more market voting power, a result of past interactions where they have successfully met consumer needs. He argues that in a truly free market, devoid of government interference or cronyism, wealth accumulation is directly tied to the ability to satisfy consumer demands. Thus, the flow of wealth is subject to consumer votes, rewarding those who excel in serving societal needs while penalizing those who do not. Ultimately, Mises depicts the market as self-regulating, with consumer preferences continually redistributing wealth.
Expanding on Mises’s observation, we must recognize that our influence in the market extends beyond monetary transactions. How we allocate our time can be understood as a profound form of voting, with each choice reflecting our values and priorities, wielding significant power in shaping our communities and broader society. When we consciously dedicate our time to local initiatives, we not only strengthen social networks but also foster a sense of belonging and purpose. This engagement allows us to promote liberty and self-governance while creating alternatives to state-controlled systems. By participating in community-building activities or volunteering for causes we believe in, we cast votes for a more vibrant and resilient society. In this framework, our time becomes a ballot, signaling our commitment to the world we want to cultivate. Each hour invested in meaningful pursuits contributes to a collective movement that challenges the status quo and encourages innovation. By choosing to invest our time wisely, we lay the foundation for a future where liberty, self-determination, and respect for property rights thrive. Viewing our time as a form of voting harnesses its transformative potential, driving positive change, and empowering ourselves and our communities.
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Coming full circle, it becomes clear that the fight for liberty is waged on many fronts. As libertarians, we should honor our commitment to the division of labor and specialization by allowing individuals to determine where their unique contributions can be most effective. Political action can serve as a defensive measure, helping to preserve liberty by slowing or thwarting the state’s encroachments. On the other hand, market-based efforts, through the strategic use of our money and time, offer an offensive approach—fostering the development of parallel systems and networks that make state-controlled services increasingly irrelevant.
The most important political election of our lifetime is fast approaching, but regardless of who wins, the state will continue its relentless encroachment on our liberties in one form or another. Our response cannot be limited to defensive voting at the ballot box—we must also take the offensive by leveraging our resources to build voluntary, decentralized networks of liberty. Each small act in our daily lives contributes to the dismantling of centralized power and the creation of a free and brighter future.
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Some believe it is only [state] power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.
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An essential point in the social philosophy of interventionism is the existence of an inexhaustible fund, which can be squeezed forever. The whole system of interventionism collapses when this fountain is drained off: The Santa Claus principle liquidates itself.
- Mises
The answer to why fractional reserve agreements are ethically impermissible, and why there can be no contracts to make warehouse receipts debt, is that such agreements and contracts contradict (deny) the nature of things. Any such contract is from the outset — a priori — invalid. Selgin and White try to get around this inescapable conclusion by adopting, wittingly or not, an ultra-subjectivist view of contracts and agreements. According to this view, the very fact that a voluntary agreement is reached and/or a contract is concluded demonstrates that it must be a valid — true or permissible — agreement and contract. Yet this view is not only false it is also incompatible with Rothbard’s title-transfer theory of contract that these authors claim to have accepted. Agreements and contracts per se do not imply anything regarding their validity for the fundamental reason that agreements and contracts do not create reality, but rather presuppose it. More specifically, contracts do not bring property into existence, but rather recognize and transfer existing property. Hence, as in Rothbard’s ethical system, the theory of property must precede the treatment of contracts. Contracts and contract theory presuppose and are constrained by property and property theory. That is, the range of possible (valid) contracts is limited and restricted by the existing quantity (stock) of property and the nature of things, rather than the other way around. Thus, agreements regarding flying elephants, centaurs, squared circles, of perpetui mobile, for instance, are invalid contracts. They cannot — by virtue of biological, physical, or mathematical law — be fulfilled, and are from the outset false and fraudulent.
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe
https://mises.org/quarterly-journal-austrian-economics/against-fiduciary-media
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Notes by Michael Matulef | export
THE CONSENSUS CONUNDRUM Bitcoin faces a one-of-a-kind leadership problem By nostr:nprofile1qqs976gg9npqm0wjtveqavxru70nha4peyhxqc35f88nyf9slgg7m2gpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctv9u4s2sqj — A lot of consensus-change proposals for bitcoin are on the table at the moment. All of them have good motivations, whether it's scaling UTXO ownership or making self-custody more tractable. I won’t rehash them here, you’re probably already familiar. Some have been actively developed for years. The past two such changes that have been made to bitcoin successfully, Segwit and Taproot, were massive engine-lift-style deployments fraught with drama. There have been smaller changes in bitcoin’s past, like the introduction of locktimes, but for some reason the last two have been kitchen sink affairs. The reality not often talked about by many bitcoin engineers is that up until Taproot, bitcoin’s consensus development was more or less operating under a benevolent dictatorship model. Project leadership went from Satoshi to Gavin to… well, I’ll stop naming names. Core developers will likely quibble with this characterization, but we all know deep down that to a first order approximation that it’s basically true. The “final say” and big ideas were implicitly signed off on by one guy, or maybe a small oligarchy of wizened autists. In many ways there’s really nothing wrong with this - most (all?) major opensource projects operate similarly with pretty clear leadership structures. Oftentimes they have benevolent dictators who just “make the call” in times of high-dimensional ambiguity. Everyone knows Guido and Linus and the based Christian sqlite guy. Bitcoin is aesthetically loathe to this but the reality, whether we like it or not, is that this is how it worked up until about 2021. Given that, there are three factors that create the CONSENSUS CONUNDRUM facing bitcoin right now: (1) The old benevolent dictators (or high-caste oligarchy) have abdicated their power, leaving a vacuum that shifts the project from “conventional mode of operation” to “novel, never-before-tried” mode: an attempt at some kind of supposedly meritocratic leaderlessness. This change is coupled with the fact that (2) the possible design space for improvements and things to care about in bitcoin is wide open at this point. Do you want vaults? Or more L2s? What about rollups? Or how about a generic computational tool like CAT? Or should we bundle the generic things with applications (CTV + VAULT) to make sure they really work? The problem is that all of these are valid opinions. They all have merit, both in terms of what to focus on and how to get to the end goal. There really isn’t a clear “correct” design pattern. (3) A final factor that makes this situation poisonous is that faithfully pursuing, fleshing out, building, “doing the work” of presenting a proposal IS REALLY REALLY TIME CONSUMPTIVE AND MIND MELTING. Getting the demos, specs, implementation, and "marketing" material together is a long grind that takes years of experience with Core to even approach. I was well paid to do this fulltime for years, and the process left me with disgusted with the dysfunction and having very little desire to continue contribution. I think this is a common feeling. A related myth is that businesses will do something analogous to aid the process. The idea that businesses will build on prospective forks is pretty laughable. Most bitcoin companies have a ton on their backlog, are fighting for survival, and have basically no one dedicated to R&D. The have a hard enough time integrating features that actually make it in. Many of the ones who do have the budget for R&D are shitcoin factories that don’t care about bitcoin-specific upgrades. I’ve worked for some of the rare companies that care about bitcoin and do have the money for this kind of R&D, and even then the resources are not sufficient to build a serious product demo on top of 1 of N speculative softforks that may never happen. --- This kind of situation is why human systems evolve leadership hierarchies. In general, to progress in a situation like this someone needs to be in a position to say “alright, after due consideration we’re doing X.” Of course what makes this seem intractable is that the Bitcoin mythology dictates (rightly) that clear leadership hierarchies are how you wind up, in the limit, with the Fed. Sure, bitcoin can just never change again in any meaningful way ("ossify"). But at this point that almost certainly resigns it to yet another financial product that can only be accessed with the benefit of a large institution. If you grant that bitcoin should probably keep tightening its rules for more and better functionality, but that we should go "slow and steady," I think there are issues with that too. Because another factor that isn’t talked about is that as bitcoin rises in price, and as nation-states start buying in size, the rules will be harder to change. So inaction — not deciding — is actually a very consequential decision. I do not know how this resolves. — There’s another uncomfortable subject I want to touch on: where the power actually lies. The current mechanism for changing bitcoin hinges on what Core developers will merge. This of course isn’t official policy, but it’s the unintended reality. Other less technically savvy actors (like miners and exchanges) have to pick some indicator to pay attention to that tells them what changes are safe and when they are coming. They have little ability or interest to size these things up for themselves, or do the development necessary to figure them out. My Core colleagues will bristle at this characterization. They’ll say “we’re just janitors! we just merge what has consensus!” And they’re not being disingenuous in saying that. But they’re also not acknowledging that historically, that is how consensus changes have operated. This is something that everyone knows semi-consciously but doesn’t really want to own. Core devs saying “yes” and clicking merge has been a necessary precursor every time. And right now none of the Core devs are paying attention to the soft fork conversations - sort of understandable, there’s a bunch to do in bitcoin. But let’s be honest here, a lot of the work happening in Core has been sort of secondary to bitcoin’s realization. Mempool work is interesting, but the whole model is more or less upside down anyway because it’s based on altruism. For-profit darkpools and accelerators seem inevitable to me, although that could be argued. Much of the mempool work is rooted in support for Lightning, which is pretty obviously not going to solve the scaling problem. Sure, encrypted P2P connections are great, but what’s even the point if we can’t get on-chain ownership to a level beyond essentially requiring the use of an exchange, ecash mint, sidechain, or some other trusted third party? My main complaint is that Core has developed an ivory tower mindset that more or less sneers at people piatching long-run consensus stuff instead of trying to actually engage with the hard problems. And that could have bitcoin fall short of its potential. — I don’t know what the solution to any of this is. I do know that self-custody is totally nervewracking and basically out of the question for casual users, and I do know that bitcoin in its current form will not scale to twice-monthly volume for even 10% of the US, let alone most of the world. The people who don’t acknowledge this, and who want to spend critical time and energy wallowing in the mire of proposing the perfect remix of CTV, are making a fateful choice. Most of the longstanding, fully specified fork proposals active today are totally fine, and conceptually they’d be great additions to bitcoin. Hell, probably a higher block size is safe given features like compactblocks and assumeutxo and eventually utreexo. But that’s another post for another day. --- I've gone back and forth about writing a post like this, because I don't have any concrete prescriptions or recommendations. I guess I can only hope that bringing up these uncomfortable observations is some distant precursor to making progress on scaling self-custody. All of these opinions have probably been expressed by @JeremyRubin years ago in his blog. I’m just tired of biting my tongue. Thanks to nostr:nprofile1qqsdnpcgf3yrjz3fpawj5drq8tny74gn0kd54l7wmrqw4cpsav3z5fgpz4mhxue69uhk2er9dchxummnw3ezumrpdejqz9rhwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjmcprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvl3x2lg and nostr:nprofile1qqsph0g2tcj80mm676qwtegey77gdu682vt7v067aq792spvdvv23gspzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtc5a5hjp for feedback on drafts of this. https://x.com/jamesob/status/1857049961235403101