Citadel Dispatch

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EPISODE: 0.0.9

BLOCK: 670895

PRICE: 2055 sats per dollar

TOPICS: Transaction Fees, Mempools, and Self Hosting

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[00:00:00] Unknown:

$50,000   level just a short time ago. It's now up more than 70%   since January   first. So,   it's come off a little bit right under that 50,000 mark, but   pretty extraordinary run,   no matter how you look at it. Joe?  

[00:00:20] Unknown:

I just wish,   I wish we knew all I wish we could see into the future, Andrew, because I. All you need to do, you you take the total   global financial system.   Right? Figure out what that is,   and then divide it by 21,000,000.   Well, first, take the total financial system and decide what percentage of that could someday be crypto related or or or Right. Where crypto could be Bitcoin play a role.   Right. Or Bitcoin related. Then divide that by 21,000,000,   and that's where you get some scary numbers. And I don't know if they're   legit or or   but at the same time, you worry about individual countries   and governments,   you know, that that have a huge vested interest. For example, the United States and the dollar remaining the reserve currency. So what do they do when it becomes clear? Or or if it starts to look like you you're you're not having control, which maybe it's already starting to look like that, isn't it? What do they do? They can do whatever they want, can't they, or can they? What's the  

[00:01:21] Unknown:

what's the number at which it gets out of control? And is it the number that the price of Bitcoin which is out of control, or is it   the distribution   of Bitcoin? Meaning, it's still held in in in only a few hands on a relative basis to to the country. And so that's to me what you should be looking for because you can buy you can you can buy half a Bitcoin. You could buy a 10th of a Bitcoin.   And what what if it really to me, escape velocity is not necessarily   the price itself,   but just how many holders there are.  

[00:01:54] Unknown:

Right. Well, a lot of peep you know, I've seen some crazy stuff where people write in it. It's not a fixed number.   It's not 21,000,000   that because you can divide each one into and that's where you go. Okay. You just need to go back to, you know, you know,   elementary school level math because I I'm not even gonna have a conversation,   because there are 21,000,000.   Whether you split them up or not, it's 21,000,000.   So I don't know. I don't   it's fixed. And if it has inherent value, then you can make a case of what Novogratz say, a 100,000.   Other people, I think the Winklevov said a half, you know, half a1000000. If you do math like that half a1000000. I've heard a1000000 up from 200,000.  

1,000,000.  

[00:02:37] Unknown:

Right. The other question is once it gets to those levels,   do a lot of people side of it? I mean, you know, you're hearing are people ever really gonna use it not as a currency, but at some point you say, okay. I'm I I you know, it's made the run and then does it just level out at this sort of at some price or not? Right. It's hard to know.   Right.  

[00:02:57] Unknown:

The if you call it something like the Internet of money or you saw Paul Tudor Jones say it's like Apple in the first top of the first inning or   Amazon in the top of the first inning.   I don't know. I don't know. But,   I don't know. Few of we'll see. Few of this more it gives us something to look forward to. A few of this morning's,  

[00:03:56] Unknown:

Well, hey there, freaks.   It's your boy, Matt Odell,   here for another Bitcoin Tuesday.   This is Citadel dispatch episode 9,   the live show that focused on actionable Bitcoin discussion.   I am   glad to be joined here by Soff Simon   and Wiz, the 2 lead maintainers of the mempool dot space project.   It's a tool that I use all the time every day.   Big supporter of this tool.   It comes on the heels of a crazy week where we saw Bitcoin breach 50k.   That clip in the beginning that you just heard, it was our was CNBC. It was our boy Joe Kernan,   sounding   like a complete orange pilled Bitcoiner,   and Andrew Ross Sorkin, who's been salty about Bitcoin going up,   and seems to just be deflated and accepting his fate   as a salty no corner on mainstream TV,   as 2021 plays out.  

So let's jump into this, boys. I'm I'm pretty excited to be here for this one. It's one that we've been looking forward to for a while.   I've spoke to Wiz many times in the past, but this is my first,   public discussion with Simon, so I'm really looking forward to that.   And, you know, I'm just I and welcome to all the freaks in the audience.   We're looking forward to you guys giving us good questions,   to riff on as we go through here. I just wanted to say,   that both, Simon and Wiz are in basically the opposite time zone of of May. So this is their morning. So good morning to them,   good evening to pretty much everyone else,   and let's have a let's have a fun rip today, boys.  

So, I mean, let's start with Wiz. Wiz, how's it going over there?  

[00:05:42] Unknown:

Sup, Cypherpunks?   Should I speak in all caps? Is that the new norm?  

[00:05:48] Unknown:

Yes. We only speak in all caps in this paradigm.  

[00:05:52] Unknown:

I just, I just woke up at 5 AM to be on the new, Matt O'Dell show, and, it's an honor to be part of the Citadel's   dispatch. Thanks for having us on.  

[00:06:04] Unknown:

What's up, Simon?  

[00:06:08] Unknown:

Hey, Matt. Feels scary to be on.   I'm excited.  

[00:06:13] Unknown:

So   my understanding is,   Simon is the founder of mempool.   He ended up on Wiz's radar, and Wiz   was happy to join him.   Wiz, do you want to give us some light into how you 2 met?  

[00:06:32] Unknown:

Yeah. That's a that's a cool,   story to tell. I guess,   in the very, couple years ago,   when, Raspberry Pi 4 came out,   a friend of mine, by the name of DJ Booth007   and I were working on this   open source thing that we never released called the Bitcoin Television.   And it was kinda like a poor man's version of Umbrella, like, 2 years ago,   where we had, like, you know, a quote, unquote app store and everything. And one of the apps that we wanted to have on there was mempool space. But this is 2 years ago, and mempoolspace was just this,   simple little website that Simon had made, and it wasn't open source or anything. So I I hit him up on Twitter.  

I was like, hey, Simon. Like,   you know, can we can we make this into an open source project and collaborate on it? And, he was like, yeah. Sure. And,   we did it. You know? Like, I guess, like, within a few days of that conversation, we   got the code together and, added some, you know, documentation and screenshots, and,   we we launched it. Right, Simon?  

[00:07:38] Unknown:

Yeah. I remember how to   you forced me to   release the open source. I had to spend a few days to clean up the code before I dare to release it on GitHub.  

[00:07:48] Unknown:

Was this your first open source project, Simon?  

[00:07:52] Unknown:

Not really. I've had a few different projects   of different sizes   during the years,   but I did this. I I was because I was   starting to   be a full time Bitcoiner in 2017. So I tried to find something in in to do related to Bitcoin.   And I   got this idea of doing this visualizer of the mempool.   So I did it. So it's the first basic version was just seeing the blocks come in, seeing the mempool fills up. So the first version is almost like what it looks like right now.   And, then Wiz came in, and he offered to host it. So since then, Wiz has   hosted the site in his data centers and stuff. And   and, we took it took a it took a while until we found a way of scaling it up with a more proper back end   so we can make it into a full block explorer like we're like it is right now.  



[00:08:49] Unknown:

Yeah. In in the early days, it was   it was just, like, this simple mental visualizer. That was the mental v one release. And   that site   was   not super interesting because I think at the time, the mempool was just mostly empty and,   that but but that was really good because it gave us a lot of time to,   implement the full explorer functionality and the new dashboard and all the other really cool features   that everyone uses now. And so I would say over the course of of, at least a year,   right, Simon, we worked on on, just building out the Explorer,   and,   at some at some point,   we launched the v two site, right, which is what   users are. I guess we're on version 2.1 now.  

So,   operationally, it was a big challenge because,   you know, there's not too many back ends that are, like, high performance,   index of all the Bitcoin blockchain data and transactions and addresses and everything.   So, eventually, we found the,   Blockstream had developed this project called Explora.   So we took the back end from that,   which was their fork of,   Electris, which is the reimplementation of Electrum server in Rust, but with a new   Rust API.   And, in the beginning, it was it was a big challenge to even get that back and up running because it's such a beast to run.   And,   you know, I just spent way too many SATs on, powerful servers with tons of RAM and nonvolatile memory modules. And, eventually, we got this really fast,   Electris back end up and running, and that was the the mempool v twos site.  

So,   yeah, that's how it started.  

[00:10:37] Unknown:

Yeah. So to the freaks who are joining us through   the livestream,   they can do that through Twitch,   Twitter, or YouTube. We support all of the evil empire   services for broadcasting.   Someone a freak was asking what, the Twitch   name is. That is twitch.tv/cinnadledispatch.   I appreciate if if you guys use that over YouTube, if if you're so willing   because, YouTube tends to be a little bit draconian with my music choices at the end, but, you know, that is my own fault. Copyright is a thing.   If you are watching the livestream, I have mempool.space   right now on,   the screen,   the screen share.  

That is the main dashboard. You guys have been doing a lot of work on that dashboard,   to try and and provide a compelling,   like, one stop shop, right, for for user that that might be in need of a Blockchain Explorer. And I I think it's very interesting because,   you guys took, I I guess, like, I don't even wanna say the name, but since the beginning, Block Explorers,   pretty much every Block Explorer use the same exact derivative interface   of of those block explorers. Heavy in text,   you know, you're you're you're greeted with a big search bar in the beginning, and and and you you put in your, you know, your address details or your transaction ID, and it gives you more information. You guys went with a more visual approach. It's completely different than, any other block explorer. Right?  

[00:12:06] Unknown:

Yeah.   Simon loves visual things.  

[00:12:11] Unknown:

Yeah. But the design you see without except for the big dashboard that we improved   over the past few years. But   with the blocks and everything, that was the main idea I just had from the where you start. It's how I felt it was the absolute natural way of displaying the the blockchain in the mempool. Because I if you go to a regular blockchain,   Block Explorer website, you only see, like, a list, and people don't really   understand how the blockchain looks like. So   that's why I like to see it as blocks, and you actually see them come in. And people actually start learning and note noticing, like, oh, the blocks don't come in every 10 minutes and stuff. So I get a lot of random questions like that. Like, oh, they could be   an hour between a block and people start noticing how the blockchain   and the Bitcoin blockchain actually works, and the mempool actually works.  



[00:13:05] Unknown:

Yes. Simon, there hasn't there hasn't been any blocks mined for over 20 minutes now, Simon. Hurry up and mine a block.  

[00:13:11] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah.  

[00:13:13] Unknown:

But, yeah, that's that's that's a really good point. The, really innovative thing that Simon invented was this concept   of visualizing the mempool as projected blocks. So you can see what will   most likely,   be in the next mined block. And,   this was, this was this was a big change from all other block explorers because up until that point, no one had focused on the mempool. And more importantly,   you know, they only looked at the past. Like, a block explorer   only shows,   typically mined transactions, and they they left very little emphasis on the mempool simply because the mempool is not relevant,   until   very recently, like, within a few years ago. And so   all of these blockchains are kinda stuck in the past. But nowadays, as Bitcoin's transitioning into this,   you know, fee market,   multilayer ecosystem,   you care a lot more about right now. And you you know, once a transaction is mined,   okay. Great. It's it's done now. We don't really care about it anymore. But when your transaction is stuck in the mempool   or if you're about to make a transaction, you need to know what's going on with the mempool,   how much, fee fee rate you should use.  

And then once you broadcast that transaction, you wanna track it as it, kinda sits in the mempool.   Or if, you know, your transaction is stuck, maybe you wanna bump up the fee using RBF or CPFP or other methods.   And, this is the tool   for that. Right?  

[00:14:47] Unknown:

Yeah. So, I mean, let's unpack that a little bit. I mean, you guys have I I think, you know, the best block explorer. I basically use a combination of of your block explorer.   In terms of public block explorers, I use your your block explorer and blockstream dot infos.   Basically, those hit everything I need.   We're gonna go further into self hosting and whatnot. But before we get there, I mean, based off of what Wiz said,   I think   I want to use, you know, one of the key aspects of Citadel Dispatch is I try and focus on actionable discussion. I think there's a lot of   fluff in the Bitcoin space that results in, you know, people just talking philosophically about Bitcoin. You know, I love number go up as much as the next guy. Definitely guilty about that.  

But I like to focus on actionable things. Right? And one thing that is gonna be very important, especially for new Bitcoiners, but even for people that are class of 2017,   you know, maybe they've been here for 3 or 4 years, they haven't really I mean, let's be honest. There's only, like, really one period in history where anyone has has seen real fee pressure.   So I kinda wanted to unpack,   what, you know, how what people should what do you guys think people should expect in terms of rising fees?   Are we gonna see rising fees this year? You know, do what what should users do in terms of,   when they choose their fee? Like, how how should they choose their fee? Do they do they overcompensate? Do they go under, and do they use RBF? Like, let's let's dive into this a little bit.  



[00:16:11] Unknown:

Yeah. It's it's a tough question, and it's hard to really know what's gonna happen. But we're already seeing this year. Usually, when the when there's a lot of price action, usually, the fee starts to go up for a while. But you   if you're doing regular   if you're doing Bitcoin transaction regularly, you start to learn some patterns. For example, that   on weekends, the fees are lower.   And, what we try to do in mempl space, what I try to do is teach people the proper way of using Bitcoin.   For example, when you track a trans when you look up your transaction and track it, you get some flags   showing red or green. I mean, green means good. So it will show green if you're using a SegWit transaction. It would be yellow if it's just   a a SegWit compatible transaction. So   and, there's also a a replace by fee flag. So it will be red if you're not using replace by fee. So it will try to encourage people to make everything green by upgrading to a wallet that's using full Segwit   that has support for replace by fee.  

Then your fees will get cut in half, and you will be able to bump your fee for free, basically,   incrementally   until you reach a fee that's   that will will push you further into   the priorities priority queue.  

[00:17:33] Unknown:

So, I mean,   I'm there's still there's still a lot to unpack there.   I I I don't I'm I'm trying to so so let's talk about mempools. Maybe that's the way to attack it.   We hear people say,   the mempool.   I checked mempool space to check the mempool.   If you see the tweet I sent out,   and the title of YouTube,   I successfully   avoided that mishap that a lot of people do.   There are really many mempools. Everyone has their own mempool.   What what is a mempool? Why is that relevant?   You know, and how does that how does that impact what fee the the user should choose?  

[00:18:15] Unknown:

Well, when you make a Bitcoin transaction,   it is broadcasted to the   peer to peer network of Bitcoin nodes all around the world.   So   your transaction is propagated and stored in everyone's   mempool.   And everyone can have a different slight different mempool, and they can have different different size limit of how big their mempool are.   And   the base basic,   default limit is, like, 300 megabytes.   So   and some some other some nodes have higher,   ceiling mempool space, for example, have much higher ceiling so we can show all the all the mempools so that people can actually find their transaction.   But,   yeah, basically mempool is where the transactions are waiting before they are confirmed.  

And the miners are just picking from the mempool when they are building constructing new blocks, and they are taking the   transaction with the highest fees,   in general.   So   if you want to be confirmed faster, you need to put a a high fee. And if you put a   a fee that's too low, you're just gonna be far behind in the queue, and you can be stuck there for days, weeks, months   until the until you raise the fee or until   the backlog is clear.  

[00:19:39] Unknown:

So It's that is how the member was Probably also a good idea just to kind of, touch on the   on the, topic of why there are transaction fees in the first place and, why the transaction fees are getting more expensive over time. Right? This is   a relatively   old concept, but only became relevant recently.   Basically,   in the old days,   you know, like, 10 years ago, if you were making a Bitcoin transaction,   you could do a zero fee Bitcoin transaction.   But, this was not good because someone could spam the peer to peer network with,   garbage transaction. So they added a minimum fee, which was just a hard coded I think it was, like,   point 001,   Bitcoin per transaction or something.  

And then they changed to   fees per byte. And then when Segwit came along, they changed to   v, sats per v byte.   And   all of this was in preparation for the   eventuality that   the demand for space in the Bitcoin blockchain   will exceed   the supply or the maximum capacity of,   space in the Bitcoin blockchain.   And this never really happened until,   I guess, 2017,   2018.   And this is also what kinda sparked the whole,   you know, the so called   big block size debate,   small block size debate.   And,   it turned out that,   a malicious miner   was spamming the   Bitcoin network with high fee transactions   because they wanted to artificially,   inflate the fees of all transactions   because they would get most of those transaction fees   and also because they were,   kind of shilling this narrative of   we need to increase the block size in an attempt to basically take over Bitcoin. And this, you know, you kinda have to go into the whole   New York agreements and,   you know, SegWit two x, and and   there's a there's a bunch   of history as well as, like, the BIP 148 and   the UASF movement   where,   the Bitcoin users essentially rejected that bullshit narrative and,   activated Segwit on their own. And   this, this caused   the malicious mining,   pool that had all this,   covert   covert ASIC boost hash power   to have to fork off their own coin, which is now known as b cash or b trash.  

And, this was   a very important point in Bitcoin's history where   the users successfully defended   an attack,   to take over the the network by   many companies and many mining pools who had kinda signed on to this,   agreement.   And so,   that's   that was the first time,   the mempool really got full, and and it was it was kinda good in a way that,   Bitcoin defended the attack, but but more so when you're talking about the mempool, this is what sparked Simon to first create the mempool space website back in, 2018,   or whenever it was. And it gave us a few years to kind of develop and build up the site,   for the eventuality   of when the Bitcoin network naturally did,   you know, have its demand for space exceed the supply.  

And so now,   as of about   2 or 3 months ago,   basically, when the when the bull market started to get into full swing,   now we're seeing you know, for example, the mempool has not cleared out since last year. What was that? December.  

[00:23:32] Unknown:

Was it The mempool hasn't cleared since last year?  

[00:23:36] Unknown:

Yeah. It's been, what, 2 or 3 months now? That was,  

[00:23:41] Unknown:

you know, people might know Huddl Knott's prediction of we won't fall under 10 k again, that he made over and over again.   I may or may not have made the mempool prediction over and over again,   but I did make it for my New Year's resolution. I said or New Year's prediction. I said that the mempool would not clear this year,   and it has not cleared yet.   It has sometimes hit, 1 sat per byte. It's cleared 1 sat per byte transactions, but not cleared all of them. It's hit some of them.   And that's usually during weekends as we said earlier when when transaction,   a few times, when transactions   or there's less transactions, there's less people using Bitcoin on the weekends. So so more, you know, lower fee transactions clear. Just to unpack what we just said, just just to make it super clear, the reason transaction fees exist in the 1st place. Why does Bitcoin have transaction fees? It's because it's a distributed ledger. Every single node runner   is is holding this ledger. They're holding the data. They are also transferring the data between each other. That's heavy bandwidth requirements.  

And if we don't have a cost on the on the transactions, what happens is every transaction always has a cost regardless. You you have these shitcoins that say we have free transactions. We have free transactions. What that means is the transaction isn't paying the fee.   Instead, the node operators are paying, and the node operators are paying in operation cost. They're paying in in bandwidth cost. They're paying in storage cost, and they're paying in the potential of of losing accessibility. Just the the fact that you can't run a note through Tor, you have to run it through AWS or one of these centralized,   cloud providers.  

So so the fact that Bitcoin has transaction fees that are paid by the user are absolutely important to keeping the system distributed in the first place. That is the key thing. It's it's a cost to spam that is not that is not held, but, you know, that is not controlled by some centralized third party somewhere.   If you try and spam the YouTube comments right now,   YouTube will block you. Right? But then you have to rely on Google to be altruistic, and they're not. They're fucking evil.   So so the the result for a distributed system is you need to have these fees. Right?  

[00:25:50] Unknown:

Yeah. Any, cryptoanarchy,   environment, you need to financially incentivize   what you want people to do and financially disincentivize   what you,   want people to not do. And so   the way this, works in Bitcoin and the way,   miners will also be compensated,   instead of inflating the supply of Bitcoin once it hits the the limit of 21,000,000   Bitcoin,   is that   we're transitioning   from,   you know, miners just being compensated from the block subsidy reward, which is 6.25   Bitcoin per block right now to,   individual   transactions completely compensating the miners.   And so,   yeah. Okay. Matt's got it on the screen now. This is the 3 month,   mempool   space graph.  

Then you guys can   view this on our website.   But but, yeah, the the mempool hasn't cleared in the past,   looks like, about two and a half months now.   And this is very good. This is very healthy for Bitcoin because,   there is so much demand that now the users are willing to compensate the miners directly. You know, this fee market is starting to develop.   And, you know, some users   aren't so happy about this. Right? Because up until   a few months ago, you could always,   pretty much just create a one sat per byte transaction   and just wait. And this is this is created like a false,   you know, meme,   and, you can't do that anymore. Right? Like, now if you make a one sat transaction,   it'll get rejected or purged from the mempool.  



[00:27:30] Unknown:

I think the minimum is is a few sats now. Right? So And you guys added that to the to the front page of mempool?  

[00:27:38] Unknown:

Yeah. That was, that was an important feature, we added to kind of visualize that and more importantly, educate users,   that is that, you know, the fee market is changing. The fee market is developing now. So you have to   pay, the current market rates if you want your transaction fee if you want your transaction to get mined into a block. And if you don't, it'll get stuck in the mempool. And,   you know, users,   screw up their transaction all the time and, you know, they're they're worried. Oh my god. Did I lose my funds? What's happening? How do I fix my wallet? Because not all wallet apps.   You know, a lot of wallets,   don't support rebroadcasting   transactions or bumping the fee of transactions,   kind of just,   they were kind of developed,   in a time where you could where your transaction would always get confirmed, and that's no longer the case. Now your transaction might not get confirmed if you didn't use a high enough fee. It might get purged from the mempool.  



[00:28:35] Unknown:

I mean, this is only, like, the second or third time, right, where we're, like, really in a situation where that's the case. Right?  

[00:28:42] Unknown:

Exactly. But as more and more people,   use Bitcoin transactions,   this you know, there's more and more demand for the,   space in the Bitcoin blockchain.   And, you know, the we have some really great developers working on,   you know, things like Segwit and Taproot and Lightning and the upper layers of this Bitcoin stack that's developing.   So it all kind of,   optimizes   the usage of the space in the Bitcoin blockchain. Right? Each transaction is   using less space, or you can,   make many transactions   in a single transaction   now using various technologies.  

And so,   you know, the the fees will or the the on chain usage in, how many bytes you use in the in the Bitcoin blockchain will go down over time, but the price per byte will increase not only in the number of satoshis that you're going to pay per byte,   But the, obviously, the price of Bitcoin in fiat value is also going up, and so those two numbers kind of multiply each other.   About, a few years ago, you could do a Bitcoin transaction for 5¢.   Now the minimum you can pay is usually about $5.   And in a few years, it's conceivable that this could also, you know, see another 100 x increase to, you know, 100 of dollars for a single Bitcoin transaction, which is what we saw back in, 27 2017 or 2018 if you were doing a large transaction.   Sometimes it could be, like, $100. Right? And that's simply due to the market demand   and the the price of Bitcoin multiplying each other.  



[00:30:18] Unknown:

One really good thing about   having a fee market is that,   more important transactions   are pricing out to more wasteful transactions.   And people   we see a lot of people   doing legacy transactions and stuff, not using Segwit.   And that means the fees are still too low. It doesn't hurt enough for them to actually   upgrade to a Segwit wallet or something like that or for exchanges to invest in   the new infrastructure   with Segwit.   We have to the fees have to go up for that to happen, I think. There's like a threshold when start hurting too much. People need to switch lightning, and then   the the block space and the blockchain will be used so much more efficiently.  

More more stuff. Exchanges,   like, what they could send, they could maybe   send, using liquid between exchanges   that would,   reduce a lot of blockchain waste.  

[00:31:17] Unknown:

But I mean, this is the whole point. Right? So the whole point is that fees create this incentive for them to be more efficient. If if they were paying the same amount all the time, then they wouldn't have any reason to,   improve their efficiency.   But that also means   that it's a slow process. Right? Like, they they first need to feel the pain, and then they actually need to make it a priority and, like, actually execute. Right? Because, like, these exchanges are you know, especially someone like a Coinbase is they're they're massive institutions, and and they're a lot of them are very distracted with Shitcoins and all their bullshit Shitcoin integrations.   So it takes a while for them to actually integrate. But if they don't, it will slowly eat away at their business,   and it will force them to be efficient. Now so I changed, for the the viewers who are are watching us this live or or after the fact through the video stream, I changed the view on mempool.space   to the 1 year view, and you can really see,   that we have this massive wave of transactions coming in. And and this is something   that I've expected for a while, and it's it's pretty funny because   a lot of people said, you know, there was a lot of concern trolling during the bear market. We won't have enough fee pressure   to sustain   Bitcoin when,   the block subsidy decreases. So right now, the the miners get get paid 2 things. They get paid   the the the block subsidy,   which which happens   every block, and and and that's what the having happens when it gets cut in half.  

And then and then you they also have the fees. And what happens is as that that subsidy gets cut in half, the fees are gonna have to take over.   So there was a lot of concern trolling that the fees wouldn't be able to take over, and I always said that whole time. I was like, I'm not gonna concern myself with your concern trolling here because I know   in a couple years, the concern trolling is gonna be that fees are too high. And and as we see on this chart,   there's this massive increase,   and this is what people don't realize, you know, about humble   humble Matt during the bear market versus a humble Matt during the bull market. I mean, I'm not saying I'm humble. Like, I need to work on that still. But, if you have a massive wave coming in if you have a massive wave coming in and you're sitting on shore, the humble move isn't to just sit there in lowercase and let the wave crash on top of you. The humble move is to fucking go all caps and get ready to ride that fucking wave, because that wave is coming.  



[00:33:43] Unknown:

Yeah. I I guess,   for many people, if, you know, if you're new to Bitcoin,   the the fees probably seem expensive,   and, you don't understand why it's it's so expensive.   And   like Simon was saying, it's the the pain will financially   incentivize you to,   basically migrate to layer 2   payment networks for your transaction. So if if you wanna buy a coffee at the bar, you know, you're not gonna spend the $10 transaction fee for a $5 coffee. But if you go to that cafe all the time, you probably just open up a lightning channel to that cafe,   and then you basically get free transactions with them after that. So,   it's,   it's a good financial incentive for everyone to optimize their on chain usage. Because   right now, I mean, the Raspberry Pi can,   just barely kind of run a Bitcoin core node and and a few other apps on top of it.  

And so I guess I guess,   if you wanna talk about the, the Bitcoin full stack a little bit, there's these   really cool solutions like Umbrel and,   Raspipelets,   Ronan Dojo, and Minode.   And even BTC pay server, has this docker   kind of ecosystem   with different apps on it. But they're all kind of the same thing   in the sense that,   you can you can buy a very inexpensive Raspberry Pi,   load all of your,   you know, Bitcoin apps on it, have everything self hosted, be everything self sovereign. You don't have any security or privacy   concerns. You can run everything off with Tor if you want.  

And,   this is this is the real way to use Bitcoin. This is the this is the dream. Right? This is the original   vision of,   having a cheap node, like, a $100, $200   where,   you can run everything. And now,   you can even run mempool space,   on Raspberry Pi, which was the original vision of of the project and and why we started working together.   Simon, what do you what did you wanna say about that?  

[00:35:50] Unknown:

Yeah. I wanna say that we worked really hard. I worked really hard,   late last year to make the memphis based website work on a Raspberry Pi with just Bitcoin Core and the Electrum server for transaction,   address lookups.   So   it really   feels humbling, and I'm really happy when I see the tweets. Past few days, seeing people   tweeting out, hey. I'm running my own mempool space on my own node.   So  

[00:36:20] Unknown:

Yeah. But yeah. So so that that's one that's one of the coolest things that happened. So   that that's another thing,   that people don't realize that haven't been through these bull cycles in the past. Like,   the real the real productive   things that happen happen when the price is going down, and we have, like, peace. Right? And we have peace and quiet. I feel like these these   these months that we have every 4 years that we just rip like crazy   is you kinda just, like, batten down the hatches and, like, honestly, like, I I appreciate the work that people do to bring in newcomers and stuff. Like, those newcomers aren't gonna find their feet until after the crash of this cycle and and and things settle down. But one of the coolest parts   about this bear cycle   is this push to become,   more self sovereign for the average user. It's just very easy way easier to self host.  

And one of the reasons isn't just   developers such as yourselves that have made their stacks more efficient.   It's it was that the Raspberry Pi, the new Raspberry Pi is way more performant than previous Raspberry Pis. And the combination of the 2 has resulted in these software stacks that you're talking about, like Umbrel and Ronin Dojo and MyNode,   and Nodl that that that allow you to basically run these different packages,   relatively easy on on open hardware.   I mean, the model is the the only one that is is you buy a prebuilt. But the other ones, you just buy a Raspberry Pi, and you can just run the software. So now so the so why would someone do that? And the reason someone would do that is because to interact with the Bitcoin network, you have to use a node. And if you're using someone else's node, you have to trust that node. You have to trust that that node is enforcing the rules of the Bitcoin network, and you have to trust that node with your privacy.   That also goes for all the services you use on top of it. So when you go to something like mempool.space,   the official third party mempool.space,   you are trusting   Simon and Wizz   with your with your   anything any data you put in there, you're trusting them with it. You put in an address and you have your IP address, your public IP address when you're connecting to it, you're connecting those two things and you're hoping that they're not logging that data. I don't think they're logging that data. I don't think Blockstream's logging that data, but you have to operate under the assumption that they are. So what is the solution for an average Bitcoin? You have basically 2 different paths you can go. You can use something like Tor or shared VPN,   to access,   something like mempool.space.  

In that way, at least they don't have your IP address. But if you don't keep changing circuits,   they can still connect your addresses together. If you do 2 addresses, you search 2 addresses at the same time, they might be able to connect those.   The more clean solution is to run a local copy of mempool, and and that's one of the coolest parts about about about your project is that you do have it open,   and you have just recently added it to Umbrel. So now someone who's running an Umbrel node can simply go into   this Umbrel app store, which is different than any other app store that that that people might be familiar with in that it's all open source software,   that Umbrel is not a   permission gatekeeper in the way they handle it.  

But you can just basically point and click, right, and and and run your own version of mempool   on Umbrel, and you can even remotely connect to it through Tor.  

[00:39:39] Unknown:

Right. Yeah. I'm also available on, res by blitz right now, which I am running   personally   like that,   that one the most   right now. But,   yeah, it's,   I think it's starting to get that simple.   You just buy the hardware.   You just   boot up Umbrel, and you're good to go. You just click install, and you're you're there. You can connect your wallet to it. Maybe Electrum, for example, is very easy.   So you can make transactions   with your Electrum wallet, and,   everything goes through your node, and you can track your transactions in mempool.   And that's also to your node. And then you get that feeling of self self sovereignty. And   once you go self sovereign, you never go back, I think.  



[00:40:27] Unknown:

Yeah. I'm a huge fan of the Umbrel of the Umbrel project. I mean, they,   you know, the other the other Raspberry Pi distributions are also great. But for a real   nontechnical   person who wants to get,   started with self hosting, it's it's literally one click to install mempool. I mean, it doesn't get,   easier than that. And,   you   know, you you know, when you when you wanna, like, seduce,   newbies to to become, like, cypherpunks and self sovereign people, This is the way I feel you have to do it. You have to,   have such   a a sexy UI and a slick user experience   so that   they can, very, very easily get started, and then they can level up from there. Like, okay. Maybe I don't wanna use the app store. Maybe I wanna compile everything from source. You know, you can you can level up on your own   speed if you,   so desire.  

But, but, yeah, all the all the apps on there are great. And that was the original, like, meme of Bitcoin. Right? It's like Bitcoin, be your own bank. Well,   now if you install BTCPay, you can be your own payment processor.   If you install mempool, you can have your own block explorer, mempool visualizer.   If you   install, you know, Bisc isn't an app on for Raspberry Pi's yet, but once we get that working, then you'll be your own Bitcoin exchange. Right? So all of these apps   kind of build on top of the Bitcoin full stack where you have Bitcoin Core or Lightning Node,   as the lower layers and these, apps, the higher layers.  

And, it it's really beautiful,   when everything because that was another original meme with Bitcoin. They said not your keys, not your Bitcoin.   But it's not enough,   like, for security concerns,   having your your own Bitcoin on your own keys is great. But for privacy concerns,   you also wanna use your own full node. So if it's, like, not your hardware,   not your, you know, XPub privacy I don't have a cool meme for that, but but the the idea is the same as you you not only want everything to be on your own keys, but also on your own hardware. And so all of these open source projects,   you know, they're really geeky and hard to run, but not anymore. Now you can,   you you know, one click install all these apps, and that's,   really, really bullish for, self sovereign g with regular Bitcoiners.  



[00:42:46] Unknown:

Yes. I mean, I brought a little bit of shame on my family, Simon, for not mentioning RaspiBlitz.   RaspiBlitz   is probably the most featureful   version of all of these packages.   It is for more advanced users, but I think it's easier than people think it is.   But I would agree with Wiz that Umbrel is extremely promising.   I try not to pick favorites because I just I love that we have all these different teams working on these competing platforms.   And, honestly, I think that as you become more   advanced as a user, you might have   dedicated device you might have multiple. So so we have, u t s 9 as,   in the comments,   if this opens you up to more attack vectors because you have more software running, where your Bitcoin node is running. And, I mean, I think that's a perfect example where   as you become more advanced, if you have situations   where you do have a hot wallet, which a a normal on chain Bitcoin users should never have a hot wallet really on there.  

They should never have their wallet on the same node as in the same machine as as Bitcoin Core,   because then it's hot.   But when it comes to Lightning or CoinJoin,   you're you're you're gonna have you're gonna have,   funds hot. So you might want to have multiple devices. You might be running multiple of these different packages. Like, I I'm right now, I'm looking at I'm running multiple,   and I'm using multiple because you wanna have, like, dedicated for your lightning, and you wanna have dedicated for your 247 coin joint to reduce your your attack surface a bit.   But I I honestly, I'm I'm I am blown away.  

I think Umbrel makes the accessibility   way, way, way, way easier. Like, I think   the the simple thing that they this idea I don't know. It's kind of gone understated that people aren't talking about. This idea that they derive   all,   they derive, like, everything comes as a child secret of your main seed. So the whole thing is backed up by just this one master seed.   And I maybe it's mixed with, like and they also have a cloud backup system in place.   So anything that needs to be active, like your lightning can be active actively backed up, and then everything is derivative of the seed. So then all the user really needs on the surface is they're putting in these words and everything is backed up for them.  

[00:45:07] Unknown:

Yeah. I I see a lot of, comments,   you know,   many smart people say, well, doesn't this increase your attack vector? Or, you know everything is a trade off at the end of the day. If you want the most hardcore secure setup,   that's not, you know, like some,   app store quote unquote app store thing. Right? The the point of the app store is you're optimizing for the user experience, one click installation.   If your if your,   threat model   is, you know, some nation state is gonna be going after your   transactions or or whatever, then, yeah, maybe   some one click Raspberry Pi thing is enough for you. But if you're an average Bitcoiner and you just wanna stack sats without the government knowing about it, Umbrella's perfect. And, like, you can level up from there. Right? It's just something to to kinda seduce people into getting started with self sovereignty. It's a good stepping stone or a lot even long term solution if if, it meets your use case. And,   you know, all of these, community projects are very,   pure. Right? Like, the community   that that's, you know, there's this   this really beautiful community of open source developers.  

Everyone kinda knows each other and,   you know, collaborates with each other and and,   all the projects,   align themselves with the interests of the Bitcoin community, and a lot of them are are, directly funded by the Bitcoin community in various ways. Like,   for example, BTC pay made a foundation and they got big grants from, like, Square and and Kraken and and, all these other corporate sponsors. And,   Mempool spaces is has just gotten a ton of love from the community.   Even now while while we're on this show, someone, sent me, like, some money.   So so just, you know,   just, like, huge love,   from all the the community. Like,   you you guys are creating this huge financial incentive for us to keep   everything honest and for us to keep   working hard on the project and keep,   you know, giving the community exactly what it wants. And so we don't have to put any, you know, shit coins or   advertisements   or anything that would ruin the project or the the experience of the the overall,   you know, just this app ecosystem.  

And and that's why it works is because we're all of our interests are aligned. Right? Like,   there's no, like, evil companies here. Whereas if, you know, you you put your your content on YouTube,   you YouTube doesn't, you know, care about you. They care about monetizing   your content,   and or, you know, they'll they'll harvest all of your private data, whatever. You know, the interests are are kind of opposite. Right? The interest of YouTube   are to the shareholders   of YouTube. Right? Not to the users of YouTube. But with Bitcoin community,   these open source apps can exist where,   all of our interests are aligned.  

Yeah. It looks like   Matt's, Matt's bringing up the sponsor's page here on the the live stream, but,   yeah, we we've got,   like, a 100 people,  

[00:48:21] Unknown:

or something now that all donated, like, a 1000000 sats each. And the best part of the scam was you got us to donate before the price run up.  

[00:48:31] Unknown:

Yeah. That's,   that that's true. We set the I think it was, like, a $100 when we first launched this sponsors feature.   And so I guess Bitcoin is about $10. Now Now it's 500.  

[00:48:41] Unknown:

For the price run up as well. Right?  

[00:48:45] Unknown:

Yeah. But but but still, I mean, we get sponsors.   I mean, we got a sponsor, like, a few hours ago. So   people are,   are really, sending their love both, you know, in with their words and with their with their stats. And this this allows us to basically work full time directly for the Bitcoin community, and   it it's the most heartwarming,   humbling thing. Like, Simon, you know, tells me. Like, Simon, what do you what do you think about our,   project   funding situation?  

[00:49:16] Unknown:

Yeah. I was,   totally mind blown by the sponsors because I I didn't think we would get that many   when you told me to make that feature.   But,   yeah. I  

[00:49:30] Unknown:

Well, so let's talk about that, Simon, because,   I mean, this is something that people talk about all the time is is   the difficulty in funding open source work,   that there's no easy,   monetization   strategy for open source, and that is going to be the death knell for open source. I mean, Bitcoiners obviously would say   we've watched open source flourish,   in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but but it it definitely is a concern for a lot of people. Do you think this is something that the way you guys set up the sponsors is something that other open source projects in the space should consider?  

[00:50:07] Unknown:

Well, maybe. I I I didn't expect,   to receive a lot of, sponsors and stuff when I,   was building the site. It was just on on my out of my own pocket and spare time and stuff.   I was just super happy when we offered to host the website for free so I didn't have to pay for some hosting.   That is, like, everything was   settled. Everything is done.  

[00:50:33] Unknown:

But,   Yeah.  

[00:50:34] Unknown:

I guess in the beginning, we had to kinda bootstrap it. Right? Like,   you know, I don't I don't wanna think of how many stats I spent on server parts and stuff. But, yeah, in the beginning,   before the site was,   I guess, like, the the level that it is now of of,   speed and user experience and all the features we have. In the beginning, of course, you know, we had to work on it for a couple years just, out of our own savings or or whatnot. But,   once   the site was very useful and there was a lot of people using it, I said to Simon, like, hey. What? Let's let's make this sponsor program. Like,   we'll, you know, we'll let the   the users who sponsor us have their   profile photo on the on the website directly   it basically,   covers all the operational expenses of, running the site. And Simon and I can even, you know, get get a little bit of salary from it too. So it it's,   it's like we're directly working for the Bitcoin community, and that is the the dream. That is the real  

[00:51:46] Unknown:

the real dream. So I mean, so Bitcoin basically solved 2 things. Right? Bitcoin allows people to receive funding in a permissionless,   relatively private manner,   which is key for open source development because,   you know, users don't want to dock themselves to the developers, and a lot of times the developers don't wanna, you know, dock themselves to the users.   And and one of the reasons open source development is is is more censorship resistant than, closed source development   is because the devs might not be known. They might be NIMs.   So that's one main thing that Bitcoin has has helped in just terms of open source. And then the second main thing is that because Bitcoin is designed to pump forever, you have these people that are very pro free open source software,   that are getting rich,   and they have the money to spend. So,   I mean, Wiz separated it out between the sponsors and him bootstrapping it, but, really, Wiz was the first sponsor. Like, Simon   Simon created,   this tool and Wiz came along and was like, I have Bitcoin. I wanna fund you. This is a dope project. I wanna be a part of it. And he basically set the groundwork for other Bitcoiners coming in later when this the official sponsor page came up, right, to to come in and and and take take the ball. Right?  



[00:53:06] Unknown:

I mean, to be clear, Matt,   I don't have any Bitcoin. I lost it all in the boating accident. I thought we were very clear on this. I lost I actually lost all my Bitcoin in a very obscure cold card hack.   That's Oh, yeah. That's horrible.   Told me. I didn't   I'm   very very was was very secure though. How can I You should've who  

[00:53:28] Unknown:

who could've known? Who could've known? It was, it was a hard a hard attack to pull off, but they somehow pulled it off against me.  

[00:53:36] Unknown:

Yeah. So,   but but that's that's true, really. Like, 6102 is saying in the comments right now. To do,   to get, you know, paid or compensated for open source work,   and this is something that's really true in with the with the bisque project too, is that you never get paid   before   the the the work is completely   done and shipped and users are using it. Right? Otherwise,   the the incentive structure kinda falls apart. If you, you know, if if I'm gonna hire someone and pay them a full time salary,   there's no incentive for them to ship a high quality project because they're just gonna get their paycheck no matter what. And   if you prepay something,   you know, like, it you know, they're just gonna ship whatever. But if you   if you build something and you just passionately work on it and make it great and everyone loves it, and then   the community   voluntarily   on their own,   compensates you. They're not   I guess they're not really paying for   the work you've already done, but they're kind of paying you for the next version. Right? They're kinda like saying, we like this,   and we want you to keep working on it. We want you to keep operating it.  

And and that's,   how the open that's how you get funded for an open source. So, I mean, I guess  

[00:54:55] Unknown:

so I I had I had the 2 facets that Bitcoin has changed open source funding. Right?   But, really, it's 3 facets. Right? So you have you have,   you have the fact that it's easier to fund developers. You have the fact that Bitcoiners are getting rich, and then you have the third fact that a lot of those Bitcoiners are developers.   Right? So if if   they are holding Bitcoin,   they're seeing their value increase.   They're mission driven by you know, they're ideologically driven by the Bitcoin project, and they want to improve it.   So so you basically have these threefold things. Right? I mean I mean, Simon wasn't I mean, I know Simon has no Bitcoin now, but when Simon first started working on the project, he was working on the project because not only did he own Bitcoin, but he wanted to see it succeed and he believed in the mission. Right? So it's,   in a lot of like, there's so many ways that people really underestimate how Bitcoin,   improves the the free open source landscape.  

And, you know, you see a lot of   VCs and stuff, they go down this rabbit hole where,   oh, like, Blockchain solves,   open source funding because, like, any dev can make some shit token.   But   really, the hard shit was was was   the the the real substance of shit was solved by Bitcoin existing in the first place.  

[00:56:16] Unknown:

That's a good point. Yeah. I I guess,   I guess yeah. Some people some people consider it yeah. I I mean I mean, we we're also kinda taking fiat donations now, like the, GitHub Sponsors Program. We just signed up for that a few days ago, and, I think we're starting to get some fiat,   donations on there. But, yeah, like, 99%   of the funds,   that we received from the community are, of course, in in Bitcoin. And it was so easy for, you know, Simon and I to just make, like, a multisig wallet together. Like, yeah, let's, you know, hook it to a BTC payback end. Let's integrate it into the site. And, you know, you you're instantly set up. So it's it's very easy to get started. And if you're   really,   if you really work hard for the Bitcoin community, like, Biscuit is a is a great example.  

They, they compensate you,   in their own,   form of equity, which is kind of like a colored Bitcoin,   called BSQ.   And,   it it's not like a shitcoin or anything. It's just this, token that's used, you know, internally between the developers. But, basically, I contributed to Bisk for the past, I guess, almost 2 years   now. And that compensation that I've got from Bisk,   was far greater than what I would have earned, you know, working, like, a full time job at Google or something just from the,  

[00:57:36] Unknown:

not only from the shitcoin.  

[00:57:39] Unknown:

No. I mean, I mean, it's mostly from Bitcoin going up. Right? I mean, the the the price of of the BSQ in in Sats has been relatively stable.  

[00:57:47] Unknown:

That's why I love this show because I have my things on so I can I can review?   What   what, why why isn't the Bisk token a shitcoin?  

[00:57:57] Unknown:

Well, Bisk is not a company. Right? It's kind of like, okay. Take take the,   take the shares of Kraken, for example. Right? Kraken is a company. They have, venture capital investments and and all those investors hold shares in Kraken. Well, Bisk is not a company. And so for the founders and developers   and contributors to Bisk,   the way they have equity is they just use colored Bitcoin.   So   our shares in a company, a shitcoin,   well, it's more like a security or something. Right? But it's   it's it's,   you know,   just because it's on a blockchain, just because we call it a a token or something, does it like, Shitcoin is a good example of Shitcoin is like Ripple. Right? They just print these tokens   with a huge pre mine and then,   use marketing and, bots,   you know, to trade on the exchange and kind of make all this fake volume   and pump the price and whatnot and just dump it on newbies for literally nothing. Right? And then everyone loses  

[00:58:58] Unknown:

their mind. That's a shitcoin scam. Before we continue, I just want to,   there's no sponsors of the show, so I just want to just just play a quick clip,   from the BIS community.  

[00:59:12] Unknown:

There are many places to buy Bitcoin.   They collect your personal information   and jeopardize your privacy.   KYC   is the illicit activity.   Bisc is open source.   It does not collect user data.   You keep your private keys,   create or take offers to trade peer to peer,   and keep your Bitcoin private and secure.  

[00:59:44] Unknown:

I love that, Ed. So shout out to Pedro.   Yeah.  

[00:59:48] Unknown:

Yeah. Pedro's awesome.   He's here to help. Us a lot.   Pedro's,   been been, like,   helping us to, with some design work for mempool,   and, he's also the designer for Bisc. He made the logo   of the T shirt that I'm wearing right now. And   he's also helping me with my, book cover design for the Bitcoin standard Japanese version. And, basically, he's just designing all the Bitcoin projects, and he's   he's even sponsored mempool twice. It's kinda funny if you look on our sponsor page. He he loves mempool so much. He sponsored us twice. So just huge love to Pedro Mann. No. Yeah. I'm big big fan. He's he's he's he's a good friend. I consider him a good friend. And, I just wanna say, like, it's very unique  

[01:00:32] Unknown:

in open source space to have such a boss fucking   video   for for an open source project.   That is really rare.   So I just I play that whenever I get the chance. I get a little drunk on Twitter and it just goes up. It's just like automatic.   But I I think so the key   to basically   spread out the fees that the exchange receives and incentivize further development and progress for the network.   So   it really depends on what your definition of a shitcoin is.   You know, if if if your definition of a Bitcoin is that it's gonna trend to 0 in terms of Bitcoin long term,   then the Chrysler building is a shitcoin,   and the BIST token is also a shitcoin. It will you're probably better off holding Bitcoin,   than the BIST token. You're probably better off holding Bitcoin than the Chrysler building.  

But in terms of a token   that doesn't,   attempt to oversell itself, doesn't have a presale, doesn't have,   doesn't lie about trade offs, provides, like, an actual utility,   that is that is needed.   I mean, I don't think people can disagree that   having a censorship   resistant, p to p global exchange that doesn't have k y c,   is important in today's age,   can go fuck themselves. Like, obviously, it is important.   Would you disagree with me there, Wiz?  

[01:02:09] Unknown:

Yeah. No. I mean, the only way that,   BSQ is created is when you make a contribution to the BISC project and the community   collectively approves your   contribution, and then you can issue yourself a little bit of BSQ. You can color some of your own sats into the colored Bitcoin.   That's BSQ. And,   by all means, don't don't,   don't use BSQ.   Just if you're gonna use Bisq, just, you know,   keep everything in Bitcoin. It's just an internal thing for the developers to kind of, because Bisk is a profitable business. Right? It's this is peer to peer exchange network, and every every time someone trades on the exchange,   they, you know, basically make a donation to the Bisk DAO, and then from those funds, Bisk can kind of, buy the BSQ back from the contributors.  

And, that's how BISK contributors get paid directly from the community. So the BISK DAO also is community funded,   just they have a much more advanced   system, which is   very innovative. I mean, they're they're probably the first, like, real,   decentralized,   you know, autonomous organization that that governs itself and everything. But it works because You mean a DAO?   Yes. And, we We  

[01:03:23] Unknown:

we don't call it DAOs anymore after the incident.  

[01:03:26] Unknown:

Yeah. No. This is this is leaking. I mean,  

[01:03:29] Unknown:

it's I, it's not only the first I mean, I would say the first real DAO is Bitcoin.   Maybe Bisk is the 2nd real DAO, and,   it's definitely the first real decentralized exchange. So we hear decentralized exchange all the time. Most of the time, it's bullshit.   With Bisq, it is a real deal. And as Wiz said, I think that is an important thing to keep in mind is that there's no gatekeeping with this token, which you see a lot with shitcoins. Is it like, you can use Bisq and never you you don't even need to know the token exists.  

[01:04:02] Unknown:

Right. I mean, if if you wanna stack sats without,   the IRS knowing about it, Bisq is perfect. And as as you pointed out on Twitter the other day, or or actually someone I think someone tweeted at the Bisk account. They said,   the price is a little bit higher on Bisk because   all the other exchanges are giving you a discount for your,   personal data and your KYC and your your transaction   information and because they're gonna snitch on you to the government. Right? And so   the the actual price of Bitcoin is a little bit higher. There's there's, like, a couple of percent premium on this because there's no KYC and only,   you know, you your only your trading partner,   would know your your details or whatever.  



[01:04:45] Unknown:

So this is, you know,   Wiz said the the new Matt Odell show. This is also the new 61 02 show.   Part Part of the reason this format exists is because he's   able to contribute live,   via text and not dox his voice. The only time he ever dox his voice was on the Stefan Lavera podcast. So if you wanna go listen to his voice,   go check out 6102 on Stefan Lavera. But he's saying right now that BSQ   is is basically a donation multisig with flexible membership.   And and if anyone knows 6102 like, if 6102 is defending your Sheit coin, then it probably isn't a Sheit coin.  

[01:05:22] Unknown:

Yeah. The the and,   just to just to kinda explain how the the projects are connected,   which by the way,   isn't 6102 your pseudonym or   sorry. I didn't mean to dox you there. But,  

[01:05:36] Unknown:

I don't have any Bitcoin and I have no NIMs.  

[01:05:39] Unknown:

Okay. Right. Me too. And so Melpool is the official explorer of Bisk, and that was one of the first,   really cool collaborations that we did where,   BISC didn't have a, really,   you know, nice tool to view all the trades and everything. And so,   that was the first, I guess, layer 2 network, if you wanna call it, BISK.   We we added the so now you can view all the BISK trades and and transactions on our mempool space explorer. And so that was the first real community funding where   one open source project funded another open source project. Right? The the Mentool project got some compensation from the BiskDAO, which I just thought was the most, you know, beautiful, pure,   Bitcoin,   you know, thing ever. And so, DAO, we're we're getting sponsored just directly by the community, which is is even is even cooler. Right? Are are you gonna,   I guess if you don't have any sponsors for this show, man, are you gonna be taking, like, individual, I guess, Patreon or some some kind of sponsor program? Patreon, are you fucking kidding me?  



[01:06:44] Unknown:

I don't I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm enjoying that I can just do copyright infringement and shit and just have flexibility. So I don't even know,   you know,   like, user users can can can, listeners   can contribute.   If they enjoy dispatch, they they I I love I appreciate   any stats that you throw my way.   I will huddle on to those stats. They will go to my grandkids,   and you can hit that on stack stacksips.com.   I have my links over there. And Citadel Dispatch also has the links, citadel dispatch.com.   But I'm I'm just trying you know, let's be honest. Right? Like, why are we here? We're here to make fuck you money the standard, and   what what's the point of fuck you money if you don't have a show where you can't just say whatever the fuck you wanna say?  



[01:07:30] Unknown:

Yeah. No. This is this is definitely the the most pure, Bitcoin podcast with with no sponsors. It's it really feels like a Citadel Dispatch. It's kind of like, do you remember when Netflix used to, mail DVDs through the mail, and now it's actually on the Internet?   Now it's like, this show is Citadel Dispatch, but in the future, it will literally be a dispatch from a real Bitcoin Citadel. I can feel the the energy from this show. Yeah. I'm gonna need you in, like, Quito to, like, help me with the networking and whatnot, and we'll just broadcast all the citadels globally. Dude, we'll do, like, a pirate radio show. We'll just broadcast over the airways.  

[01:08:09] Unknown:

So right now, for the the viewers, I have,   mempool's bisque integration   is is up on the screen share.  

[01:08:18] Unknown:

Yeah. So this is the first iteration.   Simon could probably talk about more what we're working on for the, the Bisk dashboard. But,   as a start, you know, you could just see all the trades and,   kinda like the governance transactions of the DAO. So if you click on the filter, you can you can go to, like,   you know, voting or or or different things. That's how they make decisions.   But,   yeah, this is the first really cool,   integration we did. Simon, do you have you wanna talk about this?  

[01:08:49] Unknown:

Yeah. I think you   said everything there.  

[01:08:52] Unknown:

K.  

[01:08:55] Unknown:

It's got an old   an old website for their explorers. So we,   basically made a new one and integrated to mempool. And   because the goal of the mempool project is what I is to   make an ex have an explorer for the whole upper layer of the Bitcoin ecosystems. We wanna support everything, all the upper networks. Like, we support BISK, Liquid, Testnet, and   we hopefully can add Lightning and   some other in the future.  

[01:09:26] Unknown:

Yeah. I'm also a big fan of liquid. And, actually, I'm  

[01:09:29] Unknown:

a a member of the Liquid Federation and on Wait. Wait. Let's talk about that, Wiz, because the Liquid Federation   is,   it's like all corporations. It's like global corporations, and then it's just like Wiz. Like, there's there's just we we have, like, all these global Bitcoin focused corporations, and then Wiz is one of the federate federated, members.   Yeah. So how the how the fuck does that happen?  

[01:09:53] Unknown:

Yeah. I guess it's kind of a joke. In the the board meetings, they're like,   so what company are you with again? You know? They've been,   but,   I'd I'd I'd like to think that I,   you know, am just an individual Bitcoiner,   you know,   participating in this federation.   I I really feel there aren't enough cypherpunks   in this,   I mean, it's, like okay. So first of all, it's a layer 2 network. Right?   If fees if you wanna if you wanna do small transactions,   if you wanna do lots of transaction if you wanna do confidential transactions even, they have   a little bit of base layer privacy in the,   the element side chain project, which Liquid is a specific instance of.  

It's a great layer 2 network that has a real blockchain. Right? Because if you wanna do Lightning,   for coffee, it's great. But if you wanna do lightning for large amounts of of funds,   you   you need, like, something like liquid where it's   on an actual blockchain and you don't have to worry about routing issues or capacity issues. And, of course, the trade off for all that is the   security model, which is kind of like this very complicated,   11 of 15 multi sig,   where it's   kind of like this, it's a federation. Right? It's this collective   custodial model where the federation collectively,   you can peg in Bitcoin into the liquid network,   do your transactions, and then when you're done, peg out back into  

[01:11:29] Unknown:

into Bitcoin based layer. Well, I mean, the idea, right, the idea is that you have this   there's this trade off balance, right, where you have   censorship resistance,   distribution,   you know, decentralization   versus transaction cost.   And   and and, basically, what Liquid is saying is Liquid is saying, maybe we don't have to be as censorship resistant.   Maybe we don't have to be as distributed.   We could be a little bit centralized, and as a result, we can be faster and cheaper.   Right? Is that, like, the the basic,   show?  



[01:12:06] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, it it it makes sense for a lot of use cases. And if you, by all means, if you need the censorship resistance and security   that the Bitcoin blockchain provides, they go right ahead   and pay the Onchain fees to use Bitcoin directly. But   if you're going to, if you if you wanna use layer 2 side chain like Liquid   and, you know, you often do transactions   between various   exchanges or whatever other members of the that are in the Liquid Federation or even between individuals.   If you just wanna settle on a thing, it's a great layer to,   block  

[01:12:47] Unknown:

Wiz, I I I'm sorry for cutting you off. I I   I go back and forth on liquid, and, the freaks have witnessed this   themselves.   I   the I saw it right now. I have Biscup. Right? I have Biscup,   the Liquid Explorer for Bisc,   for the most recent block of liquid, and it has 2 transactions.   Really, it has one transaction because the one of the transactions is the Coinbase transaction, and there's always a Coinbase transaction   every block.   You know,   610 2 is still here. He gave you the pass on on Bisk being a shitcoin, but he he does not give you a pass on LVTC being a shitcoin, if anyone knows 6102.   Why   have we not seen,   you know, do are we gonna like, when fees go up, are we gonna see more people use   liquid? Like, there no one is using it right now. And and and one of the key selling points of liquid is this confidential transactions   where the the amount is blinded,   that you're sending. So if I send you,   a 1,000,000 sats on liquid, you can't tell that I sent the 1,000,000 sats. You can you can still see I sent from address to address like you can with Bitcoin, but you can't see the amount.  

That benefit is reduced if no one is fucking using it. I mean,   like, some of the like, people use Dogecoin more than this shit.  

[01:14:22] Unknown:

Well, I there's a lot of, things. First of all, liquid has 1 minute block times, which is why you don't see so many transactions in each block.  

[01:14:31] Unknown:

No one's using it. Like, look. We go back. Like, look at the latest transactions. Like,  

[01:14:36] Unknown:

I mean, you could you could say that about a lot of things that,   were built for Bitcoin. Like,   you know, 3 years ago, you never cared about the mempool   because it was always empty and always cleared out every block. Now when the fees are getting expensive,   now this creates   a reason   why you use liquid. So as you mentioned before,   when, in the bear market, that's when you build things. Right? And, you know, Liquid was built   by very, very smart people at Blockstream   who, you know, came up with this side chain technology, and they they put all these really cool features into it. And they launched it with they got all these, members on board so you can interact with all these exchanges.   And now, finally, as we've seen in the past two and a half months when the mempool doesn't clear anymore and transactions are starting to get very expensive,   Now there's an actual,   use case for layer 2 networks. Right? I mean, how many lightning transactions did you do last year? Maybe, you know, maybe you're I did a lot more than my liquid transactions.  

Sure. And and like I said, if if you wanna if you wanna send money in between,   there's there's different use cases for lightning and there's different use cases for liquid.   And if you wanna buy a coffee at the bar, sure. Use liquid. If you wanna send, you know, a $100 between exchanges   and have a 1 minute confirmation time and   confidential transactions, then liquid is the better use case. Right? And it's you you gotta use the right tool for the job. You meant lightning. You meant lightning for the first one. Right?   Yeah. Sorry. So so you gotta use the right tool for the job. Right? It's it's not about, like, Liquid is the the tool for everyone for all use cases or Lightning is the tool for all use cases. It's,   sometimes it makes sense to do an on chain transaction. Sometimes it makes sense to use Lightning. Sometimes it makes sense to use Liquid.  

Sometimes it makes sense to trade on disk. Sometimes it makes sense to trade on a centralized exchange. You know, there's Which there's pros.  

[01:16:35] Unknown:

I love you. I love you. You're a massive liquid bull.   You've always have been, and I I appreciate that consistency.   Simon,   where do you stand here? What do you what do you think? Do you think there's a place for liquid? Do do you think in this fee environment, we're gonna see liquid transactions go up? Do you think, like   it's like one of the big things for me that has been sold heavily is this idea that that liquid is is useful for traders going between exchanges. But, I mean, I think that use case probably gets handled better by   by private channels, like, big private lightning channels between these exchanges. They already have a relationship.  



[01:17:11] Unknown:

Lightning is the biggest competitor to Liquid.   So as soon as we get this jumbo, wumbo channels between exchanges, I think liquid   there's no use for liquid anymore really. But I don't know. There might be a use case to today.   I'm not that into liquid, how it works and all, but,   if it's marketed as this exchange,  

[01:17:34] Unknown:

inter exchange settlement thing. Right? So what I think they should do, and I've told them this privately.  

[01:17:41] Unknown:

Yeah.  

[01:17:42] Unknown:

And so now I'm gonna start saying it publicly. Because when it stops working privately, you have to just start   saying it publicly on air,   which is what I've learned.   This is another key of open source development.   If if if I think they should focus on privacy.   I think there's a use case for Liquid   in terms of confidential transactions. Like, people don't realize, like, you can,   like   like, Samson Mao has, like, his shit token,   with,   Infinite Fleet, his game. Right?   I can coin join with the assets in his game   because   confidential,   transactions   and confidential assets, which they have on liquid, mean that you can't tell that I'm just coin joining with a random amount of sats, and he's coin joining with some random bullshit,   space   space plane in his game. Right? And I can coin join between those two things. So so so there's a lot of there's a lot of value there. There could be a lot of value there,   for the average user in terms of they don't have to have an online hot wallet all the time. They don't have to have they they they can get they can get easier privacy,   but they do have this custodial risk. They have this additional custodial risk. I almost think this whole idea that the traders are gonna use liquid is completely wrong. They, like, complete I think they missed the boat on that. I think maybe in the beginning that would have been the case, but we didn't have the fee pressure, so they just used on chain. And now they're just gonna use traders are just gonna use Lightning private channels. They're not even gonna because because the exchanges   if I'm if I'm Kraken and I have a relationship with Gemini,   like, I'm gonna have, like, a fucking,   you know, $1,000,000, $2,000,000,   $3,000,000   channel, private channel with them, and we're gonna settle that all the time between each other, and and we'll be fine with that.  

There's no need for me to involve this federation of corporations that I don't wanna deal with. Like, they're like, why would I even fucking do that? Yeah. Well, that that's a good analogy. See this  

[01:19:47] Unknown:

lighting being used more for this settlement between exchanges.   But what I do like about liquid is filling this gap and killing out killing all the altcoins.   The narrative Right. It's all. Like, why use because if you if you look at, if you go to the website of use d Tether, they have issued their token of all of token of all these change like Tron.  

[01:20:08] Unknown:

Like, Tron just flipping Tron just flipping ETH for the number one Tether now is on Tron. Liquid.  

[01:20:15] Unknown:

So I no reason why you shouldn't use all your,   stable coin transactions   on Liquid, for example, which is a very centralized but super speedy   blockchain instead of this slow and expensive   Ethereum blockchain, which is centralized anyway. So it's just total waste. And the whole issuance of leak and these stable coins are also very   centralized. They are dependent on these oracles that keep the peg and stuff. So,   if so that's one big use case I see for liquid is,   killing the narratives of the old coins. If you're gonna use something centralized anyway, why not use the liquid on Bitcoin so we   build everything on top of Bitcoin?  



[01:20:59] Unknown:

Yeah. I think I think that's a good that's a very good point, Simon, is that,   Liquid   has a lot of the functionality   of   all of these,   you know, other Shitcoin projects   without   a Shitcoin. Right? So because Liquid uses Bitcoin as its native token and doesn't have its own native Shitcoin,   plus having all these confidential transactions, confidential assets,   1 minute block, all these cool things, it   it just destroys the, the justification for 99% of all the other, shit coins out there, which is good in itself. But,   Matt, to answer your question of, like, what's a what's a real use case for liquid? Well, to be honest, the reason I was very interested in liquid at first was because of bisque.  

Currently, every BISK trade is for on chain Bitcoin transactions,   which until very recently weren't even Segwit. So it's very,   just unoptimized.   And now with the fees rising,   bisque trades become extremely expensive,   simply for the on chain mining fees. And so   it makes a lot of sense   for this to,   you know, add an option to optionally   use Liquid's blockchain and use LBTC,   if the users want it. Because a big use case of,   BISC is, like, I think just buy, like, a $100,   Bitcoin   stacking sats without the government knowing about it. Well, if your on chain fees are $20,   you're not gonna   you know, it's essentially 20% fee   to stack a $100. It totally prices out that use case. And so   you can't do a biz trade on a lightning channel   for a lot of, technical reasons. Basically, you need a real blockchain.  

Right? If there's any kind of trade dispute, you need to be able to show to the bisque mediator that, you know, here's a TXID   link on the MIMPL space explorer. Here's where I sent the money. Okay.   I you know, that and that keeps everyone honest.   And so it makes a lot of sense for Bisk to support   a layer to side chain   like liquid.   If not liquid, maybe No. You know, its own instance.  

[01:23:15] Unknown:

I mean, so that's a perfect example, Wiz. Right? It's because, like, I think liquid could be ideal for,   for bisque.   Why haven't you guys integrated it? Like, you're you're you're pretty you're pretty major on both on both sides. I mean, you have LBTC   enabled in Bisc now.   Well, it Why not why not why not Tether? Why don't you have the stable, you know, the stable coins on on liquid integrated into Bisq? It seems like a perfect  

[01:23:43] Unknown:

fit. Yeah. So so this is,   you know, there's only 24 hours in the day. I mean, Biscuit is essentially   yeah.   You know, there's only,   what, 5 or 6 guys that work full time on DISC.   There's only 2 guys that work full time on Memphol. It's,   there were some higher priority things. Like, simply adding Segway into this took years. Right? And that, was very difficult,   and I had to coordinate a lot of thing. But but we got it done, and we just shipped SegWiz. So, you know, now that the fees are rising,   the urgency   to implement liquid of course, I proposed it over a year ago,   but we just haven't gotten around to it because of the lack of developer resources and also because the fees didn't get so expensive until   very recently in the past couple months. So   a layer 2 solution is absolutely needed for bisque. And,   there there's also another proposal,   very very,   technical   using bonds and whatnot.  

But I feel that liquid be would be the,  

[01:24:47] Unknown:

one of the best, solutions. So The the the token layer makes sense to me,   and   the token layer for Bitcoin makes sense to me. And and I've said in the past that that,   that that that Liquid is basically Ripple without the shit coin. It's a little unfair to Liquid,   because it it is   it is a way cleaner code base than, Ripple.   But but but for the average user, I think that's, like, a relatively good way of looking at it. It's like this idea that you basically traded off centralization.   You you're you're accepting some level of centralization for cheaper   cheaper transactions and faster transactions.  

The token idea makes sense to me.   Basically, though, the only two things that make sense is, like, a a fiat token, which is just a stopgap,   and, like, illegal securities.   Illegal secure I mean, I'm not gonna fall into that trap, but unregistered securities,   which is, you know, where the best token falls in, and that kinda makes sense to me.   It's just weird. Like, I know the lightning guys are trying to make that a thing as well on lightning. I don't you know, I'm not that bullish on that. So so I I see that happening,   and I also see this idea that it's kind of cool that you can, like, coin join between   like, you can have BSQ on liquid. You can have Tether on liquid. You can have infinite fleets, spaceship on liquid, and you can have SATS on liquid, and you can coinjoin them all together, and no one could tell which is which. Is it it seems pretty powerful, and I'm surprised no one's working on it. They should they should focus on that.  

To the to the viewers who are watching, we, you know, have made a big point on Citadel Dispatch   to always show the best price. So the best price is currently trading at $52,195,   and the evil empire Coinbase is on the top, and they're trading at $49,000   right now.   So just just as just as an update.   So I like to pivot this conversation a little bit. I'm really enjoying it.   One of the things that I've I've I tried to   flex because I just enjoy it. I mean, what what what's the point of all of this if we don't have a good time?   I want I have you guys both on   my show. I want I want to have you on the record.  

Do you think Bitcoin is designed to pump forever?   And I want to have Simon   answer this first.  

[01:27:16] Unknown:

Yeah. Of course.   No doubt.   What's the question?  

[01:27:23] Unknown:

Oh, you you do you think Bitcoin is designed to pump forever?   Yeah. Yeah?  

[01:27:29] Unknown:

That's it. Powers the whole world. Right? And then it's gonna   appreciate about at the same pace as the,   economic growth, basically.   So all the values of   all the products and services is gonna   be,   measured in Bitcoin, be about maybe 2% cheaper every year.  

[01:27:53] Unknown:

I agree.   That that that is what is gonna happen. And I think it Wizz, are you on on board with us on this?  

[01:28:01] Unknown:

Well, if you read the Bitcoin standard,   you can learn a lot of things about,   the history of   to the hardest store of value. And so,   obviously, there's,   you know, an infinite   supply of fiat money.   You can print out as an infinite amount of US dollars. So   if if you consider, quote, unquote, pump, what does pump mean? If you you mean the price of Bitcoin measurement fiat money? Yeah. I mean, I'm being provocative.  

[01:28:37] Unknown:

I'm intentionally being provocative in using the word pump. I I I don't know if if the freak saw I I nailed an interview with,   Anthony Scaramucci,   And I intentionally knew he was provocative, so I asked him this question. And he he, like, called me out. He was like, well, that's a very provocative word choice you used.   But, like, that's the point. Right? Yeah. I I think it'll increase in purchasing power forever.  

[01:29:03] Unknown:

Right. It's, it's it's kinda like the new gold.   And if you look, you know, in the history of of hard money, you know,   all the the value,   gets soaked up into this hard money. So, yeah, it it does increase in in its purchasing power over time,   until something better comes along, which I don't understand how you could have something,   better than Bitcoin. But but, yeah, I mean, of course, it's gonna pump forever.   If you if you study any,   economics or anything,   this is the new hardest form of money. It's gonna be harder than gold. And and once the, you know, the 21,000,000   cap is is hit, the stock to flow ratio is basically infinite. So what's harder than that?  



[01:29:51] Unknown:

I mean, I would even argue that,   now that we have this ledger, right, now that we have this global ledger that is agreed upon,   even in some kind of   theoretical   amazing new technology comes out to replace Bitcoin as the best money, it would still use,   the, you know, the tip of our ledger   as the consensus point to launch their own ledger. Otherwise, it wouldn't be taken seriously.   Right?  

[01:30:25] Unknown:

Right. It's kind of like if you're gonna issue gold certificates   or or something, they're still settled in gold coins or gold bars.   It'll it'll be the new,   default   way to settle any transaction.  

[01:30:41] Unknown:

Well, I'm glad we agree on that. I've had yet to have a list I've yet to have a guest disagree with it.   But it I think it's important for   our grandkids that we have us all on the record saying so. So   I I will continue I will continue I will continue asking that question,   because I think it's important.   Freaks,   like, feel free to throw questions into   the chat. We you know, no questions are off off limits,   and we're happy to answer them.   The next thing I have for you guys is,   Simon, we'll start with you again because you've been quiet, and I wanna hear from you.   Is it possible for the US government to kill Bitcoin? And if the US government were to kill Bitcoin, how would they do it?  



[01:31:32] Unknown:

Well,   nothing can really kill Bitcoin. They could hurt Bitcoin a lot. They could hurt the price a lot if the impose a global ban.   If they could   print a lot of fiat, they could buy up a lot of   miners and start trying to make a 51%   attack. So there's a lot of theoretical attacks that they could do.   But   they would never be able to kill the network, I I don't think. As long as there's, like, one node somewhere keeping   the blockchain   and there's at least some a few miners somewhere,   it's gonna just stay alive and kicking. And   then eventually, it's just gonna   the US government's gonna give up, and it's gonna it's gonna win.  

What was the second question?  

[01:32:21] Unknown:

No. That was the question. That was, I mean, that was a very good answer.   Yeah. I mean, I I really appreciate the insight. Wiz,   US government It's killing Bitcoin. I and and the reason I ask just to be clear, I'm not being American centric. I think that the US government is the most sophisticated actor that might wanna kill Bitcoin. So, like, we should assume,   the most sophisticated attack. Right? We should assume that we shouldn't assume,   you know, some random schmuck wants to destroy Bitcoin. We should assume that the most sophisticated attacker on the planet is gonna do it. So if you don't want it to be the US government, it could be the Chinese government, you know, I guess, like, someone there. Right?  

[01:32:58] Unknown:

Well, first of all, Matt, that's a very provocative question. And, second of all, you need to define both the words kill and   the word Bitcoin.   Right? What exact what exactly is Bitcoin, and what exactly does it mean to kill it? And I'll give you I'll give you an   analogy.   How would the US government kill the Internet?   Well,   if I   run a Ethernet cable from my Wi Fi router to your Wi Fi router and we exchange routes, we are Internetworking.   And so, therefore, we have our own Internet.   It's not the global Internet, but,   you can partition the network. Does that mean you kill the Internet if the if you split it in 2? Well, not really. You know? It's just, like, separate. So,   how would you kill Bitcoin?  

I mean, as Simon just said, as long as there's one node and one miner running,   Bitcoin still exists. And,   you know, you it's kind of immortal in that sense, in that the sense that, Bitcoin is just this idea   of a system,   just like the Internet. It's just a it's just a conceptual,   idea.   And,   anytime   2 computers exchange,   you know, data, you could call that Internetworking. So, you know, what's,   what does it mean to kill Bitcoin? Even if there was some 0 day exploit in the code,   some where they could inflate the supply, we would just you know,   the community would get together and say, yeah. As of this block, the you know, the supply was correct, so we'll just fork off from that point. And, you know, we have smart people who can fix it. If they try to do denial of service attacks,   you know, we we would respond. I mean, basically,   yes, the US government is very strong,   actor,   but all the rest of the entire Bitcoin community is arguably   stronger as a collective,   force. And this is visible, like, when you when you talk about, well, can the US government shut down the Internet?  

Maybe in the very early days, they could have, but not anymore. Now the Internet is this global thing   that,   you know, is arguably bigger than the US. Right? And, now the majority of the the Internet   services like Google or or, you know, Amazon, all the big, Silicon Valley guys are there.   But, you know, look at the the China's Internet. Right? China's Internet is not. It has, like, a very limited connectivity to the global Internet. Right? So did China kill the Internet?   Well, not completely. They just kind of,   filtered off a bunch of it and they made their own intranet,   so to speak. Right? So, like, when you look at how a nation's what a nation state might do to kill Bitcoin,   that's that's a very,   vague thing. They might try and, you   know, tweak it to their,   agenda. Right? Like, for example,   they might   issue their own central bank digital currencies that are backed by Bitcoin that they control, that they can do mass surveillance on.  

Is that killing Bitcoin?   You know, there there's a lot of, open ended questions. There's a lot of directions they could go in to try and control it. But at the end of the day, it's really about controlling the people   and controlling,   the freedom of information   and the privacy of information. And as long as we have the Internet, I don't feel that's possible because   we can always   encrypt data between each other. We can always, you know, have our Raspberry Pis form a peer to peer network over Tor or other,   you know, upper layer peer to peer networks that are secure. So there's a lot of,   tools that the cypherpunks have, and the cypherpunks always win at the end of the day. Right? I I can't really see any nation state,   quote, unquote, killing Bitcoin just like I can't see any nation state killing the Internet.  



[01:37:01] Unknown:

Right. I mean, it it definitely was provocative, intentionally provocative.   It is a recurring provocative segment on the show. I,   they they the the powers that be can make it so that the average user,   has more issues. Right? That is, like, it's less accessible.   But this idea that they can squash free open source software is,   it seems like at this point is a false idea. Right? Like, the this idea that you can squash free speech on the Internet   and and free open source software as a derivative free speech   is is it pretty much a futile goal? Like, if someone is motivated, they're gonna be able to access it. Right?  



[01:37:49] Unknown:

I mean, the US government, the the cypherpunks already had this, battle and won back in the nineties. They're really the OG cypherpunks like, Daniel j Bernstein or Adam Back. You know?   They literally took it to the supreme court and,   you know, got, like, a court ruling that says code is free speech. They were literally, like, printing code on T shirts and printing source code in books.   And, you know, because the US government was trying to,   they they called it the   export of munitions.   They were trying to say that cryptography is some kind of weapon, and so you can't export it outside of the US, which which is how can you make math illegal, right, and code illegal, which is just free speech. So the the cypherpunks already fought that battle in the nineties and won free open source software is here to stay. Right?  

[01:38:39] Unknown:

Yeah. 100%.   I mean, I I so someone in the comments mentioned Satoshi stash.   I mean, like, what can you do with Satoshi stash? I guess you could tank the price.   Like, I I don't think that's really a vulnerability.  

[01:38:53] Unknown:

And so someone in comment mentioned that China or US would would create their own competitor, and I see a lot of that kind of FUD.   Recently, people think that the central bank,   digital currencies are gonna be somehow a comp competitor to Bitcoin, which doesn't make any sense at all because they're just   another version of Fiat   centralized currency with the same flaws that Bitcoin came to solve.   I just wanted to answer that comment as well. That's an interesting  

[01:39:25] Unknown:

question, though. Right? Because,   I I actually think that's one of the, probably better   attack   vectors is,   and China is is, again, always, like, a good example. Like,   China made their own Internet. Right? They   they banned all the the US services like Google and YouTube and Twitter, and they made their own domestic versions, which they   control and   all the people use.   You know, first, because of the language barrier and the network effects of all the Chinese people using the domestic Chinese versions of these apps.   But second of all, because of the actual totalitarian,   you know, great firewall of China that   locks them from accessing it, without a VPN or a Tor or something.  

And so in theory, you could   do the same kind of system, but in order to do so, you would have to also control the Internet.   And so   when when you're talking about the US government doing it,   fortunately, you know, the the Internet is not regulated in free countries like US or Japan. But in,   you know, totalitarian countries like China, for example, where they do control the Internet quite a bit,   it's much more likely   that they can coerce the users to using a,   central bank digital currency. However,   as the Bitcoin standard toss is that, you know, peep when it comes to people's   money, they get really, smart and they wanna protect it. And so,   it it'll certainly   be,   probably one area of resistance or one attack vector that, a country like China could do. But I don't see the US government being able to you know, who's gonna want a digital USD token,   that's controlled by the US government when you could have a free token? Right? Like, if you put them side by side on the menu, you're gonna pick Bitcoin every time. But in China, they're gonna try and lock that,  

[01:41:23] Unknown:

Bitcoin option at some point or they they already are. There's already ban in China, but people are using it. I think it's huge there, and they're using it for to evade the capital controls   them in China. And they definitely see the difference between Bitcoin   and their digital   Chinese yuan, which is to totally controlled and surveilled.   I don't see any what's what's gonna be different with   a central bank digital currency. So,   it's impossible to compete with Bitcoin, which is this free alternative outside the system.  

[01:41:55] Unknown:

What you see, right, is what you see is that,   the easiest way to compete with these censorship resistance   networks and these distributed networks is to offer a better serve a a more convenient service   that has different trade offs, but is more convenient to the average user.   And and we saw that with piracy in the western states.   You know, BitTorrent was the easiest way to access videos, and then Netflix came in and they were like, if you pay us $10 a month, we'll make it more convenient for you.   And since then,   it's actually,   you know, bifurcated a little bit. It's it's it's all of a sudden, you have to have all these different services, and you have to sign up for all these different services. It's not just a single service. It's become more difficult again, and we see this resurgence in BitTorrent.  

Right? And,   I I I could see maybe the same idea,   if you were gonna try and compete with Bitcoin,   you offer   maybe,   fiat that isn't shitty as as hell, You know? Like, you offer Fiat that that that isn't censorship,   that there's no censorship, that it isn't, like, getting inflated.   But at the at the same time, people are greedy, and and that won't last. It'll never last. It didn't last in terms of offering a competitor to BitTorrent,   and it won't last in in terms of offering a competitor Bitcoin. Like, there's no way   that the powers that be will offer   a   dollar that gives you any kind of censorship resistance or any kind of,   store of value long term. Right?  



[01:43:31] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, they're not gonna be able to compete with   the convenience thing because that's it's already super convenient to swipe your Mastercard or,   use Venmo or whatever you're using   depending on which country you live in. So it's not a convenience thing. So how how would they to compete with Bitcoin, they would need to be censorship resistant and inflation resistant, and   that's not gonna happen. We all know that's not gonna happen. That's why I don't see any   competition   from these   new central bank digital currencies. Right?  

[01:44:05] Unknown:

Well, I think was it Visa or Mastercard just announced that they're going to support BTC denominated credit cards? Did you guys hear about that? Yeah. I mean, that obviously is,  

[01:44:15] Unknown:

you know,   not gonna be censorship resistant at all. It's gonna be custodial.  

[01:44:21] Unknown:

Right. But the point is it's,   you know, fighting against   the central bank's digital coin. Right? Like, if if you have all the convenience benefits of   using a credit card   and all the inflation resistant benefits of using only Bitcoin,   then why would anyone want this, USD shit coin. Right?  

[01:44:42] Unknown:

Right.   Yeah. I mean, I I think it's just it's it just goes all the way. Like, there's   they can't compete. Like, no company compete can compete with Bitcoin. No government can compete with Bitcoin.   Because, like, even if for some, like, amazing theoretical   scenario,   like, the US government was, like, Americans   will have no restrictions with using this this digital cash   that we offer. They're not gonna allow other governments to use it, like, willy nilly. They're not gonna allow, like, other citizens to use it. Like, it'll never happen. That's never gonna happen, and,   you know, maybe in a theoretical, it competes, but they're just, like, humans will never allow that to happen. And that's the beauty of Bitcoin. The beauty of Bitcoin   is that you don't, you know, you don't have to rely on the strength of humans. You just have to rely on their greed, and humans are   are very reliably greedy.  

Uh-huh.   And and and it's very cool that you can just rely on that greed and know that you're secure because of that.   We had a a very good question that I have highlighted here from 21ism,   Bitcoin Art Collective.   Where would we be without Tor? Should we be concerned   that Tor reliable Tor seems like the network has just been under attack constantly for the last couple weeks.   It seems like, honestly, that the development team isn't really taking censorship resistance   that seriously. They kinda just assume the US government will provide cover for them,   and the the   the dialogue from them has just not been great. So are we concerned about this reliance on Tor? Are we are we fucked if Tor   disappears tomorrow? Like, where where should we stand here?  



[01:46:30] Unknown:

Yeah. That's a good question.   A few   I guess, a month or so ago, the Bisk,   Dow had its first   consensus failure because Tor v 3 onions were completely   broken for, like, a couple days   from apparently some kind of nation state level attack.   And,   yeah, I mean, if if this   routes a 100% of its traffic through Tor and Tor stops working, well, then this stops working too. Right? So   I I think, again, at the end of the day, the cypherpunks will are smart, and they'll figure out   better, newer, more censorship resistant   technologies. And there's even other,   like I2P.  

You ever heard of that?   There there's some other  

[01:47:15] Unknown:

Yeah. But ITP is like Butterfly Labs of private networks. You know? It's like Sure. Where is it?  

[01:47:22] Unknown:

Sure. It's it's just, you know, a random example, but I'm saying, like, there are other   technologies out there besides Tor. And and, again, you always have to use the right tool for the right job.   You could use, you know, sometimes maybe a VPN point to point or,   you know, maybe   yeah. There there's lots of technologies on the Internet to do,   censorship resistance,   including   clear net. You know? Like, if you need privacy, there's other ways to do that, by mixing your so, you know, Tor is great, and it's very important for like, we we use it a lot in Bitcoin and a lot of disk,   onions because it's so easy and so, well developed. But   if Tor died tomorrow, we would come up with something else that's probably much better and far superior, and,   you know, cypherpunks are smart. We'll we'll figure that out again.  



[01:48:19] Unknown:

I mean, that was a fantastic answer. Sami, do you have anything to add there?   Not that I can think of. No. The this is like Wizz's wheelhouse. He was, like, born to answer that question.   I mean, people keep try people love Elon with the Starlink shit. Like, are we bullish on Starlink in this,   in this conversation?  

[01:48:45] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. It's gonna be awesome.   I can't wait.  

[01:48:48] Unknown:

I mean, Starlink opens up, like, the great American outdoors.   Like, there people don't realize, like,   I mean I mean, if if you were paying attention to Luke Dash junior, you you you might realize.   But the majority of the US,   landscape is just horrible Internet.   So so the fact that that maybe I can buy   large acreages of land   in, the great American West   and have have reliable Internet along with it would be pretty big. But, of course, once again,   trust the third parties or security holes, and you're gonna have to trust,   you know, Starlink with that. Right? And we we don't wanna have too many nodes on   on Starlink.  



[01:49:32] Unknown:

Well, you don't need to trust your ISP because you can use technologies like VPNs and Tor.  

[01:49:39] Unknown:

So, we have to trust them with reliability.   So so   this is interesting. Right? So lightning is the only thing in my Internet   usage   that cares about reliability,   and no one talks about it.   Do you know what I you you know you understand where I'm coming from with this? Like, if if my note is down and I don't have a watchtower set up,   I'm susceptible to an attack. And if I'm a public Bitcoiner and I have a public   Bitcoin node, and let's say I'm in Texas and there's rolling blackouts in Texas,   like, all of a sudden my node is highly susceptible to attacks. Right?  

[01:50:19] Unknown:

Well, that's true of any layer to or upper layer,   application that,   you know, the Bitcoin is kind of unique in the sense where it's, quote, unquote, just a ledger   with   only transactions to update the ledger. Right? I mean, more or less, that's what it,   ends up being settled into at the end of the day. So you don't always have to be connected to the Bitcoin network all the time. But with pretty much any other higher layer application,   yeah, you'd need to be connected all the time. And,   there are ways to mitigate that using, as you said, like watch towers or basically just redundancy. Like, this is true of any service on the Internet. Right? You need multiple locations. You need failover. You need load balancing.  

[01:51:02] Unknown:

You need redundancy. And But if Coinbase goes down if Coinbase goes down, no one can steal their money.   Like, if my lightning node is in Austin, Texas and it goes down because of a rolling blackout, like, I could get my money taken.  

[01:51:16] Unknown:

That's why you need redundancy in the form of watch towers that are in multiple locations.  

[01:51:21] Unknown:

Yeah. Or in the case of lightning, you could limit your channels to people you trust. So lightning is, like, somewhat trusted.  

[01:51:32] Unknown:

Right. I don't like that answer. That second answer is not a good answer.  

[01:51:36] Unknown:

Yeah. Simon, we should trust, not verify.  

[01:51:39] Unknown:

Yeah. Lightning   is is much more sick more secure if you're  

[01:51:43] Unknown:

just opening channels to the one you actually know who you're opening channels to. Well, that's why I think it's funny. Right? Is that Liquid took over the mantle of, like, oh, we're the exchange to exchange   protocol.   But really, like, Lightning's perfect for that because, like, you try if you're one exchange and you have a relationship with the other exchange, like, it's super easy to have a large private channel with them.  

[01:52:05] Unknown:

On that use case.   I can't wait for that to happen.  

[01:52:09] Unknown:

But for, like, the average user for, like, me that I fucked that shit. I have no there's there's no value to me to have,   you know, like, trusted channels.   I I don't see the value.  

[01:52:22] Unknown:

Well, it the the as the higher you go up on the stack,   the more trade offs you typically make.   So for example,   a popular app these days   is Uber. Right?   Under that, you   you know, you it's just a fully trusted setup. And below that, you even you even have multiple   fully trusted lower layers. Like, Uber uses your credit card, which is a fully trusted thing. It you you know,   they're using probably Amazon   Cloud Services to power the Uber systems. So, like,   yeah, like, in the Bitcoin base layer, we can be the most distributed, the most secure,   the most,   don't trust verify oriented. But the higher up the stack you go, okay, you wanna layer 2 payment network lightning? Yeah. You're gonna have to make some security trade offs. Or you wanna use liquid, you're gonna use biscuit, yeah, you're gonna have to make some security trade offs for those new use cases. And if you want   extreme convenience,   then you typically have to go to a fully trusted setup. So it's it's a it's like this   sliding   slider bar on the spectrum of   trading convenience   for   trading convenience,   to lose security, privacy, and freedom. Right?  

So if you want if you want   maximum security,   then always use   on chain Bitcoin transactions, but it's very expensive. Right? So Right. I mean, I I think  

[01:53:53] Unknown:

one of the unspoken things about Lightning that no one wants to talk about is that it creates, like, easy interoperable custodial networks.   Would you disagree with me?   I was just thinking about what that Because right. Like like, think about it. Like, if   if Wallet of Satoshi is running their custodial Lightning   and BlueWallet is running their custodial Lightning and some random ass custodial Lightning wallet in Russia decides they're gonna load up   their their network,   they can easily interact with the Blue Wallet and Wallet of Satoshi without any kind of,   not they don't they can reduce the trust of that relationship, and they can just, you know, have, like, a big channel between each other.  

And as long as they're online and they have their watchtowers and whatnot, there's not much trust there, and it's it's minimized.   And it allows their individual users to all be custodial, though.  

[01:54:51] Unknown:

Yeah. Probably, like, a good,   analogy   for the, Fiat world is   check checks, like paper checks. Right? If 2 businesses do a lot of businesses,   if 2 companies do a lot of business between each other, they'll typically write a lot of checks to each other. And because they,   you know, grow their reputation and trust over time,   they're not so worried that   someone's gonna suddenly bounce a check. But if you if you open a channel with someone,   it's completely   untrusted. And you don't know what kind of attacks they might do. Right? Like, I think lightning hasn't seen its fair share of, attacks yet. And maybe now that the price is going up, we'll see this more. But I think it was like Ellen Big   that tweeted something like, yeah. Someone opened the channel to us, and then now they're doing a denial of service attack, and they're trying to   broadcast an old state. You know, they're trying to rip them off for money.  

And,   you know, as we discussed before, if you don't have the watch tower set up, that's   a potential attack vector. So  

[01:55:52] Unknown:

I mean, Ellen Big could be attack. Right? Like, who who the fuck is Ellen Big? It's just some random dude that has 50% of the network, and it's all running out of the same Virginia data center that's, like, 30 minutes from Langley.  

[01:56:06] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean but you don't have to route through them. Right? I I mean  

[01:56:11] Unknown:

You kinda do.  

[01:56:13] Unknown:

Well, you could say that about the Internet. Right? Like, do you have to use the only ISP in your town or could you make your own ISP?   You know?   So there's always, like, more expensive   alternatives. It's just that you have to trade off that   security, privacy, and freedom for the cost or convenience. Right?  

[01:56:35] Unknown:

Yeah. I I just I it's just weird to me that, like, no one talks about the Ellen Big thing.   Like, I'm the only one who ever talks about it. And and and I tried to talk about it offline majority of time,   prerecorded,   and then, you know   now I just don't see people as much, so I just talk about it online. And because no one else is talking about it, so I feel like at this point, we just gotta talk about it.   Like, no one knows who that person is   at all.  

[01:57:06] Unknown:

Well, there's nothing wrong with being synonyms. But I mean No. But it's the key control he, she, they,  

[01:57:12] Unknown:

CIA control   50% of the network,   and it's all and even if they didn't   even if they're not malicious, it's all going through the same data center. Like, every single node   that they have is in the same data center in Virginia. So even   if they're not malicious,   someone could maliciously access all those nodes at the same time.  

[01:57:33] Unknown:

Well, is that okay. But what do you mean by quote about 50%   of the network? Do you mean 50% of the   routing capacity or Public routing capacity.   Public routing capacity. You could just blacklist those guys on your node never to route. Yeah. But no one blacklists them.  

[01:57:51] Unknown:

I blacklist them. I mean, I don't blacklist them. I just I'd close the channels if they open it with me. But but they're essentially blacklisted. They're manually blacklisted for Matodel nodes.   But still, most people don't. Like, the majority of nodes they interact with are have an lnbig  

[01:58:08] Unknown:

node connected to them with a Dell. What if they weren't what if they weren't tagging their nodes with lnbig and they just use random  

[01:58:16] Unknown:

tags? That's what's weird. Right? It shouldn't be an attack. It probably isn't an attack. Why would an attacker say, like, lnbig number 50, Ellen Bigg number 42 or whatever. But at the same time, like, what the fuck is going on, and why is no one talking about it? I it's like I  

[01:58:31] Unknown:

I I see your point. Like, sure, it could be some kind of, blockchain analysis company or or   in this case, off chain analysis company. But,   I think it's much more likely that it's just some OG Bitcoiner who has a lot of Bitcoin and wants to get a return on his Bitcoin in Sats. Right? But then, Wiz, why is he running it all in the same data center in Virginia?   Why not? I don't know. That's his thing. And they're all hot wallets. Right?   I mean,   what's wrong with some running something out of a data center? Just because it's in Virginia, that makes you because it's all this no. No. The issue I have is that it's all  

[01:59:13] Unknown:

the same data center. I mean And and, presumably, he's a NIM, so he doesn't live in, like, he doesn't live in Virginia. Otherwise, he's not gonna do,   like, he's not gonna do the   the data center that's, like, down the street from his home. Right?   So Why not?   Maybe maybe he did. Maybe he did, and he knows the guy who operates it, and then everything's cozy. But,   you know, barring that, like, a lot of people say, like, oh, he's a Russian OG. Like, so he's a Russian OG,   and then he's running. I I I don't know. I'm not trying to dox the guy. It's just it's just something that no one really talks about,   and I feel like Wiz is, like, the perfect person.  



[01:59:51] Unknown:

I mean, you could say the same thing about   many other there's,   like, bit refill runs a huge node, ASIC runs a huge node, open node.  

[02:00:01] Unknown:

You know, all of these I'm concerned about them, but at least we know who they are. Right?  

[02:00:06] Unknown:

Well,   I mean, is your concern   that they're, like, you know, logging all of the routing  

[02:00:13] Unknown:

and invading your privacy kind of thing? Well, I mean, I'm the only look. Jack Mallers is my boy.   I'm the only person who I've ever heard   on on any of these big Bitcoin podcasts talk about the concerns over centralization risk over lnstryke,   and KYC, and him, like, taking over liquidity on the network and knowing all these different public key the public keys of all the different nodes and whatnot.   I brought that up many times. I brought that up in in an interview with him on live,   And I I a 100%, I'm I'm concerned about Bitrefill becoming massive. I'm concerned about River's node becoming massive. I'm concerned about Bitfinex's node becoming massive.   I I my concerns with Lightning   sound like a shit corners concerns. Like, my concerns are that it becomes hub and spoke, KYC   regulated, super centralized. Right?  

The the mitigation   is I need the freaks   out there that are listening right now   to to run their own lightning nodes,   that run them through Tor only so that their IPs aren't exposed on a hardware they control,   and run their own public, you know, their own public routing channels.   That's what we need. That's the solution. I just   I see this happening,   and I see Ellen Big happening,   and people just kind of ignore it. No one wants to talk about it.  

[02:01:42] Unknown:

Well, that I mean, you could say the same thing about the Internet. Right? Like, what's a big ISP in,   USA? Like, AT and T or Sprint or even Google? Right. Oh, like, there's, you know, there's only, like or was it Comcast?   There's only, like,   a handful of ISPs in USA. Right? And every literally everyone's routing their traffic through them. So isn't that a concern? What if they're logging everyone's data? Well, actually, they are. Right? And they're probably doing the NSA choke point surveillance and all kinds of really nasty stuff.   And some people talk about it, but for the most part, you know,   people just   use ClearNet without any privacy   protection,   technologies at all. Right? So Oh my god. It's so bad.  



[02:02:30] Unknown:

So, I mean, you could say that about a lot of things. Like, well well, what about Coinbase? That's very centralized, and they have everyone's transaction data. Isn't that bad? Well, sure. Yeah. But we all agree Coinbase is bad. Like, everyone is concerned about Coinbase. And some people are more concerned than they should be about Coinbase. I feel like people are more concerned about Coinbase than they should be and less concerned about LNB, Bitrefill, LNstrike, you know, bits, the Bitfinex,   then they should be. Right?  

[02:02:56] Unknown:

But that's that's not necessarily anything native just because of how   a certain lightning node has a lot of routing capacity. That's just   because they're a big business and they do lots of transactions and they need lots of liquidity. Right? Like,   there's nothing necessarily negative about that.   And it's it kind of I mean, that's how the Internet is also structured. Right? Like, how much traffic is routing through your home Wi Fi router? Well, only your own personal traffic. Right? But the the ISP that you're plugged into, they're routing everybody's traffic. So, like, that's probably   how   I mean, that's typically how most peer to peer networks,   get developed. It's just   most people, unfortunately,   don't set up their own routing nodes, whether that be an Internet routing node, a Tor routing node, a Lightning routing node, Bitcoin routing node, they typically trust other people's nodes because   it's difficult, they don't know how to do it, you have to maintain this thing, if it goes offline,   you might lose money, etcetera etcetera. Like, it's just   people will always   or not always, but 99% of people will optimize for convenience and low cost over   the privacy concerns that you have. Right? Obviously, we're we're the hardcore Cypherpunk kind of guys. Of course, we run our own nodes or even, like, blacklisting who our nodes can   route through and and things like this. So,   I mean, that's just how the world works. Right? It's that peer to peer networks do typically become   decentralized and not fully distributed like Bitcoin,   is, which is really cool.  



[02:04:31] Unknown:

I'm concerned about,   lightning might be priced out for regular people running in on their.   Imagine if it costs $50   to open a channel, to close a channel, to rebalance a channel.   It's not gonna be cost effective if you're not if you're not a routing node that actually earned the fees   to   get back what you spend on   managing the liquidity.   So what you were saying, Matt, with the   wallet of the of the Satoshi,   Bluewallets,   those are probably the   services we're gonna see   become the bigger players   in the near term   future, at least. And Wallet of Satoshi already has a KYC requirement if you are gonna upper your limits of spending.  

[02:05:18] Unknown:

What's the limits at Wall of the Satoshi?  

[02:05:20] Unknown:

I'm not sure, but I think it's if it's over,   $1,000 or something, you have to KYC.  

[02:05:28] Unknown:

So I   so so, Simon, I mean, I the way I look at lightning is, I mean, I don't think,   I I think we're only gonna we're gonna have the hard course run the routing notes,   whether that's, you know, a bit refill or if that's like a a sovereign routing node through Tor only.   We're gonna have the hard course run it. I think as long as we keep the accessibility   under, like   like, under wiz level, like, not wiz like, you shouldn't be wiz. You shouldn't be, like,   needing to run your home to ISP.   But, like, if we can Umbrell is a good example. Right? Like, if you have a Raspberry Pi with Umbrell, you can do it. Like an enthusiast. Like, we have an enthusiast who's willing to spend a little bit of money.   Like, they they should be able to run a routing node through Tor only. And and and maybe   those Tor only routing like, the network becomes bifurcated a little bit. Right? Like, if if you transact in the in the Sovereign Lightning Network, like, your fees will be a little bit higher than if you go,  

[02:06:28] Unknown:

through something like Cox Exchange or whatever. Right? Well, every I mean, if you look at how other apps work, like, again, the Internet is always a great comparison to look at.   Probably newbies   who get started on the Internet start out with an iPhone.   Right? It's a fully trusted setup to a centralized ISP,   telecom mobile carrier.   They use fully centralized apps like Facebook. All of their data is in the cloud. They don't use any encryption or end to end privacy. Nothing. Right?   Then maybe, like, one level about that, above that is, someone has a computer, like an actual desktop or a laptop computer,   you know,   then they might have a home ISP with a home Wi Fi router.  

Then maybe one level up from that is they might use a VPN or they might have,   you know,   some   minimal privacy software.   You know, and you keep going up the ladder all these rings until   someone operates their own full node, which in the Internet   world, we call that an ISP. If you run a an a full full routing node on the Internet,   then   you can black you can pick who you wanna peer with. You can blacklist what traffic goes where and everything. And so if you look at lightning network,   it's probably gonna be a very similar model. Newbies start out by installing an app on their app iPhone that's fully custodial, fully trusted, and that's fine for for getting them for seducing them into   starting on lightning. And then once they have enough   sats,   or they, you know, they get goxed or,   they don't wanna do they wanna get taxed or whatever, for whatever reason, they get pushed up the up the ladder, and they they run their own, you know, Raspberry Pi,   lightning routing node.  

And, you know, they maybe have more and more channel capacity as you go up the ladder. And then the top of the ladder is, like,   you know, lnbig   kind of people or Bitrefill kind of people where you're this huge business that does tons of transactions.   You know, there's it's not again, it's you have to have the right tool for the job. There is no one size fits all for Bitcoin or Lightning or the Internet or or anything in life. Right?  

[02:08:48] Unknown:

No. Yeah. 100%.   No. Yeah. I mean,   I I think I think as humans, we tend   to try and distill it down a little bit too much,   But, of course, there's gonna be   different levels to this shit. There's always there's always there's always different levels to this shit.   We had a previous question from a freak   asking   if   asking you specifically, Wizz, do you think it should be a concern for the average user if they're running BISK on their regular computer? They have a MacBook Pro or something.   They're running it on their regular computer. Should they be concerned?  

[02:09:33] Unknown:

No. Because all BISC traffic is routed through Tor, and,   I mean,   it's that's that's exactly the use case it's designed for is to run disk on computer. In fact,  

[02:09:47] Unknown:

this doesn't really support running on anything other than a computer right now. So that's literally Well, I mean, I I I think what the freak is saying is, like, if it compared to   so, I mean, what I would add there is is compared to running on a dedicated machine so, like, you have, like, a dedicated Linux machine or even a dedicated,   you know, Apple machine   versus your your regular everyday computer is obviously, your regular everyday computer   has a bigger attack surface. So if if   if you're gonna keep large amounts yeah. If you're gonna keep large amounts on bisque, like, the bet like, the larger the amount,  

[02:10:25] Unknown:

the the more important it is that you have a dedicated Sorry. I thought you meant, privacy concerns. If it's security concerns, then, of course, anything with a hot wallet in it that has a significant amount of funds should be   isolated in its own container or virtual machine or dedicated bare metal machine is always a better security setup than,   you know, this you know, running your hot wallet on your same computer that you look at porn at or something and probably install all these random apps. Right? So,   you know, I I  

[02:10:55] Unknown:

Well, if if you're like, if if Marty hears about this, like, porn you should never list look at porn, so   that's   irrelevant.  

[02:11:04] Unknown:

I mean, of course, you know, DISC is,   it's a hot wallet. Like any hot wallet Porn agnostic.   Yes.   I mean, it's just any kind of malicious apps that you might,   be tricked into installing or might hack your computer   somehow,   you know, through some Oday exploit. You just remove all of that attack vector if you only have disk running in its own,   either virtual environment or or bare metal com computer environment?  

[02:11:35] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, a 100%. Yeah. So so so   if you use a dedicated machine, you're always you're always better off security wise, guys, no matter what.   That that that's just   it it is physics. It's just basic it's basic security hygiene.   So so, Wiz, you know, so right now we have on the screen, we have this is trading at $45,000.   Evil Empire is trading at 49,300.   Bisk was the 1st to trade above 50k.   It goes back and forth. You know, liquidity isn't that high   with this. I mean, very it's the the to be frank, in the United States   with the fiat, you know, liquidity is very low.  

What what what do we do to solve this? Like like, what what is the   what is there a plan? Is there a plan in place, like, that people are thinking about here?  

[02:12:31] Unknown:

You mean to improve the liquidity on the Bisk peer to peer exchange network?  

[02:12:36] Unknown:

You know, Bisk is one of the unspoken things about Bisk, which we're about to speak about because that's the whole point of fucking Citadel dispatch. We speak about the unspoken things,   is   is that the largest market is Monero Bitcoin.  

[02:12:53] Unknown:

In the volume, but the number of trades is by far fiat to Bitcoin.  

[02:12:57] Unknown:

Right. It's but So, basically, Monero Bank, you listed But you're combining you're combining Fiats. Right? You're doing Bitcoin, Euro.  

[02:13:06] Unknown:

No. But the number of trades,   the number of USD to Bitcoin trades on Bisk is greater than the number of Monero trades. Right? It's just volume is dwarfed like a motherfucker.   Right. Because so here's what happened. The Monero got delisted from a bunch of centralized   exchanges because, you know, it protects people's privacy, and centralized exchanges are regulated by governments that don't like that. For example, in Japan,   the Japanese government says Monero is a money laundering tool. So, oh, it's evil. So   all that Monero trading volume goes to BISK, and there's some whales on there who do, you know, huge Monero trading volume on Bisk for its censorship resistance and privacy features, which is great because   that trading fee revenue goes to the Bisk DAO, which basically funds   the development of the Bisk project so that it can support the Bitcoin to fiat trades, which is the real use case. So it's   it's it's cool that the Monero community and the Bitcoin community have that overlap where they both want that privacy and censorship resistance,   And it's cool that the Monero whales are willing to pay the Bisk project to do that so that the Bisk project can,   you know, actually have a a good Bitcoin to fiat training   platform.  



[02:14:21] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, so, what   what would you basically, the the reason we don't have heavy volumes in USD,   and even, like, euros, like, double the volume, but still nothing, to be honest,   is because   the regulated exchanges haven't been really closed off fully yet. Like, I think   we see a we if we see,   an exit ramp ban,   we we see, like, countries start trying to block the exits from people leaving their shitty money to the good money,   then all of a sudden,   Bisk needs to be ready and willing. Like, Bisk needs to be there ready to go. And at that point, like, all of a sudden, Bisk quickly becomes   like, to me, Bisk is already the most important market, which is crazy to say   when something like BitMex is doing 1,000,000,000 of dollars worth of volume a day. Something like Coinbase is doing 1,000,000,000 of dollars worth of volume, but way less 1,000,000,000 than BitMEX   because BitMEX is derivative exchange.  

And then, like, Bisk is doing, like, $80,000,   or the volume a day.   But Bisk is, to me, is still the most important.   And and that that's because when those when those restrictions end up happening, that's where we're most vulnerable. We're most vulnerable at that that intersection. And and when those restrictions happen, that's when Bisk steps up to the fucking plate. Right?  

[02:15:49] Unknown:

Well, I totally agree that Bisk is, like, the most one of the most important Bitcoin projects, and it is, like, critical infrastructure.   In in a shit hits the fan situation where governments ban Bitcoin,   Bisk users would not be affected because you could still do peer to peer trading even cash at a, you know, Starbucks kind of thing. So,   when you talk about the liquidity   and these offers,   So first of all, if I trade with someone on Bisk   a few times,   I'm just gonna message them directly and say, hey. Why don't we just trade directly outside of DISC? Because you kinda trust each other at a at a after a certain point, you build up reputation or whatever.   And so a lot of the trading volume   that was,   you know, came from BISC   is not going to be reflected in the public trade statistics data. Right? Because  

[02:16:48] Unknown:

that's just due to the the natural, like, decentralized nature of the exchange. It's it's kinda like a bulletin board. Right? It's kinda like It's humans. It's humans. Right? Like, you don't wanna pay the fee. Right? Like, we see that with Airbnb. Like, you see it in centralized projects. Right? Like, where like, Airbnb, like, if you already have if I rent a place from someone, like, why would I pay Airbnb their cut if I can just go out on the outside?  

[02:17:10] Unknown:

Right. And and that's great. Like, if if you meet   your, you know, a few few,   reputable traders from Bisk and you trade directly with them, great. Like,   now that's even better than that's truly peer to peer at that point. Right? You just happen to, like, meet them on BISK. So and I actually made a lot of friends,   who I met on BISK from trading with them and and everything. So,   that that's a cool thing about it being a exchange network or a community of of Bitcoiners, right, that you would not have on any other exchange at all. You would never have, like, you would never chat with your trading partner on a centralized exchange rate. So   even though the trade statistics might be a smaller number and it might look,   smaller,   the community around this is the real   power. It's the real strength.  

Right, you're just seeing the tip of the iceberg on the public trade statistics data.  

[02:18:08] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean I mean, it's still being dwarfed though.   Like, I agree I agree with you, but it's it's Because people optimize for,  

[02:18:17] Unknown:

you know, speed and user experience, and they know if they wire their money to,   BitFlyer in Japan, I can have the money in my account a few minutes later or or my bitcoins or whatever. So   this is a,   you know, it's like how many people   run their own,   ISP or something. Like, very few people. But if tomorrow the government says,   you know, ISPs can't have customers anymore, well, there's gonna be a shitload of people starting to throw on ISPs. Right? And so that's kinda what BISK is. It's a it's a peer to peer trading network. It's there for the hardcore people, but if shit hits the fan, everyone is now hardcore  

[02:18:54] Unknown:

user because they have to It's the release valve. It's the fire escape.  

[02:18:59] Unknown:

Yeah. It's it's an emergency backup system. Right?  

[02:19:03] Unknown:

And then keeps everyone honest.  

[02:19:05] Unknown:

Or if you simply wanna stack sats without the government knowing about it, maybe you're willing to to,   trade with a little bit clumpier user experience, a little bit slower trade process, a little bit higher fees to trade on bisque   if you if you value your privacy. And that's like as you said, the Monero community   is huge on bisque because,   obviously, they really care about privacy if they're trading Monero. Right?  

[02:19:30] Unknown:

And they're even they're, like, working on a project to try and   they realize how important it is, and they they they wanna they wanna remove the the reliance on risk for it.   I mean, I don't know if they'll ever you know, they they're trying to create their own DEX, you know, decentralized exchange because they understand the importance of it. Out of out of anyone, the pry the the so called privacy coins understand it the most because they're getting hit by the regular the regulators.  

[02:19:56] Unknown:

Well, my understanding is that until very recently, it wasn't possible to do an atomic swap between Bitcoin and, Monero, but now it is. So now they can It isn't fully yet, but,  

[02:20:10] Unknown:

Fluffy,   like, his shitcoin project is trying to make it compatible with Lightning.   So, like, he has his shitcoin, Taari, which is, like, the shitcoin layer of of Monero, and then that's supposed   to atomic swap with lightning. But, anyway, that's besides the point.   I I think,   Fiat interacting with Fiat is always difficult, so, of course,   it is easier to integrate Altcoins into Bisq. Like, trading trading trust minimized   with Altcoins in Bisq, obviously, way easier.   You don't have to deal with fiat institutions.  

[02:20:46] Unknown:

Yeah. But  

[02:20:49] Unknown:

it's not adding directly with fiat. It's gonna be way more difficult. I really do like that Bisk just added the cash option. Right?   But, the majority of volume on Bisk on the fiat side is is through traditional bank transfers. Right? So you have to deal with that counterparty risk on the traditional finance side.  

[02:21:04] Unknown:

Yeah. I I was probably one of the most aggressive people pushing,   Bisk to delist all these shit coins.   But   there's it's basically only Monero and Bitcoin to Fiat. And, obviously, the the main use case   of Bisk is to trade real Fiat money, to Bitcoin.   But but, yeah, like, all these payment methods   typically,   it's it's like the same as any network effect. Right?   In every country,   they have, like, the go to payment method. Right? So, like, in Japan,   it's the, Japanese bank transfer. Everybody who has a Japanese bank account   can instantly   and basically for free wire money to any other Japanese bank account. Right? And in the USA, you have, like, Zelle   or, if you're really hardcore, you use postal money order, which is, by the way, I think the coolest payment method on this. And,   you know, there's just a number of,  

[02:21:57] Unknown:

like, there's, like, one of the things that That was really funny because the the the biggest government attack we ever had on BISK in America was the the postal order attack with because Trump was attacking the postal system unrelated to Bitcoin. He he was doing it because of the voting.  

[02:22:14] Unknown:

That actually so I was I was, like, a bisque mediator.   And,   and, like, all of a sudden, I got all these disputes for, like, postal money order trades.   And they're all, like, fucking Trump, and they're, like, so pissed because,   like, their their shit just got lost in the mail or is delayed. And, like, I would even look up on the post office tracking because they're, like, you know, proving it to me that they sent it. And the tracking actually said, like, package lost. I was like, what the fuck? Like, they're so incompetent. They have, like, a status code for that. And I'm like, okay. I guess.   They're responsibly incompetent. Right? Like, they they they they fucking lose the package, but at least they they let you know promptly that they lost it. Yeah. It's a response to the so I'm like, okay. I guess I'm the mediator. I guess, like, yeah. It's the post office fault. Like, it's not your fault. I I I see that. So,   yeah. I mean, fortunately, that was just around the voting time or whatever voting scam they were trying to do. But, yeah. Postal money order is, like, the coolest hack of the   legacy fiat system. Right? Because   all the government,   mass surveillance and,   you know, where they seize the bank accounts and everything, that's like a relatively new   idea.  

And for, you know, a 100 years before that, the way people sent money to each other was through the post office. And in Japan, that's, like actually, the Japanese post office is, like, the biggest bank in the world or something crazy Because,   and and even like, like other big banks like American Express, obviously,   Express. They used to be like federal they used to be like a delivery company in a railroad and all these things, and then they just focused on the the financial services. Right? So all of these   legacy really old school payment things are like the post office for sending money, and they never got regulated by the government. So you can go to a post office   with cash, buy a postal money order with no KYC,   send it to the guy's   PO box, right, and he he's at the post office and he brings it to the counter and he cashes it and he gets cash. Like, that is the coolest,   way to send money in in USA. Right? Is in terms of security, privacy, and, censorship resistance. And more so for BISK, the the post office website   gives you the ability to, like, type in all the serial numbers of the money order and stuff, and you can verify   as a neutral third party bisque mediator if the money order was cashed, what post off it was. But, like, you can Well, this is so this is the funniest part about Bitcoin, right, is that, like, when I got into Bitcoin,  

[02:24:48] Unknown:

like, it was the first time I ever used Western Union. Like, I went into, like, a CVS,   and I, like, had to, like, use the orange phone and, like, pick up the orange phone, like, call some random ass number, and then, like, wait a couple days for, like, the thing to process. I paid, like, huge fees.   And and and and it's the same situation, you know, we,   you know, maybe the the situation has been streamlined so called streamlined in the regulated KYC department, and then you have to deal with all the ID verification and whatnot. But, like, when when when you do, like, a proper bisque trade   or   or, you know, in the past when you're like, I does Biscuit have Western Union as an option as a payment option?  



[02:25:30] Unknown:

Yeah. But I think it's not popular because of the reasons you just,  

[02:25:35] Unknown:

explained. It's like It, like, it teaches you it, like, it, like, teaches you why fiat sucks,   Like, why Bitcoin exists. Like, to access Bitcoin to get to Bitcoin,   you have to go through, like, a full stack process of learning why   the current system sucks to access the Bitcoin in the first place. It's like the biggest friction to accessing it is the thing you're attempting to replace. So as you hit that friction, instead of turning you off, which is usually what friction does, it's like, oh, I don't wanna use this app. It, like, it, like, teaches you what or, like, why am I doing what I'm doing.  

[02:26:14] Unknown:

Well, yeah, I think Western Union has, like, 10% fees or something crazy.   It's very it's, like, very   difficult to do the paperwork. It's full KYC on both sides. It's just,   totally crushed by postal money orders,   despite them being a little bit slower because you actually have to send the piece of paper through the mail.   A postal money order is only, like, a couple dollars. Right? And I think you can do, like, $1,000   per money order. So you can just, you know, buy an infinite amount of anonymous  

[02:26:47] Unknown:

post of money orders with cash and then send them in the mail and get Bitcoin. Right. Now you can wear a mask while you do it and gloves. Yeah. You can wear 2 masks, and then, like, you're extra responsible. That's what they want you to do. Hey, Simon. How's it going over there? Are you still with us?   Yeah.  

[02:27:08] Unknown:

We we missed you. They call him this is why they call him soft Simon because he's so shy and soft spoken. Yeah. I'll let you do both.  

[02:27:15] Unknown:

He's not hard, Simon. He's a peer talk.  

[02:27:19] Unknown:

Simon wants to talk about the mempool.  

[02:27:21] Unknown:

Yeah. What do you wanna talk about, Simon? What what have we missed? What have we missed? We're about 2 and a half hours in. I appreciate you guys' time. What what have we missed? What should we discuss?  

[02:27:30] Unknown:

I saw our questions in the comment section   Concerning the member in the beginning with their own call now.  

[02:27:39] Unknown:

Do you do you not remember the questions?   Do you want them to re ask them? Freaks, hit us with new questions on the mempool. Okay. We should take the mempool questions while we're at it. Do you remember any of them?  

[02:27:55] Unknown:

When   can we we want that to go right?  

[02:27:58] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. So I that's a good question, and I've I've talked about this on the past in the podcast, and I'm curious on your opinion, Simon.   So so so so people disagree with me. I think,   we're fucked as Bitcoiners,   Yeah. If you can easily confirm 1 sapro byte in 5 years.   Do you disagree with me or do you not?  

[02:28:22] Unknown:

There will be a much high higher minimum fee.   I think we're already seeing it here. If you post the one set, it's just gonna get rejected from the nearest node. It's not gonna get propagated even.   So   using the new feature we have on mempool space, you can see which,   minimum transaction fee that's are probably gonna get rejected from majority of networks. So   that bar is gonna get higher and higher. I think   we have a huge backlog, and then it's gonna be a fight to find  

[02:28:54] Unknown:

end of market to be the fee. Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?  

[02:29:00] Unknown:

Yeah. It's a it's a good thing, I guess. It's all natural. So   there's a lot of demand for transaction, and there's a limited   amount of man pool space,   like the 300 megabyte, default. So it's gonna kick kick out all the transactions   that have the lowest fee when the trans when the mempool is full.   So   right now, let's see. Yeah. It's kicking out everything below 3 sets per byte right now because the mempool is quite full. But you can check on mempool. That space.   Transaction fees are not that high. It's just $3   for a segment transaction to get into the next block. But,   there's a long there's a big backlog   on queue, which makes,   that's happened with   the purging of, low fee transaction.  



[02:29:49] Unknown:

So, I mean, would you agree, Simon, that, like, if if in 5 years, you can just, like, easily,   confirm a one separate byte transaction like Bitcoin has   issues? Like, we're that we should be worried?   Worried about what? Like, should we be worried about the security guarantees of the Bitcoin network if you can easily, in 5 years, confirm a 1 separate byte transaction?  

[02:30:14] Unknown:

I don't have any doubts when it comes to the security   securing the Bitcoin blockchain   because the fees are because the blocks   people hasn't haven't realized yet how scarce   the   space is. It's like the 21   1000000   coin limit. Right? It's the  

[02:30:33] Unknown:

So you agree you're agreeing with me. Right? Like, you're saying, like,   the SoftSimon is saying right now that in 5 years,   the the chance that a one sapper bite is gonna get confirmed is fucking blasphemous.   Right? Like, there's no, like, there's no chance that that happens. It's probably not gonna happen.  

[02:30:51] Unknown:

We saw the mempool cleared when we have a had, like, a deep long bear markets. But I think with the next adoption waves, when they're, like, 10 x more users, 20 x more users, 100 x more users in maybe 8 years,   There gonna be so much demand for using the most scarcest resource   on the planet, which is the block space.   And,   so that, you know, there's gonna be someone trying to   get in always. So once that, you can   I think you it's it's gonna be a memory?  

[02:31:25] Unknown:

That was, that was one thing I tweeted   a while back. I said,   why don't more Bitcoiners understand   why   Bitcoin fees are gonna become so expensive? It's the same concept of digital scarcity. Everyone knows that   the price of Bitcoin goes up because the number of BTC is scarce capped at 21,000,000,000.   Well,   the same exact concept of digital scarcity applies to space in the bit Bitcoin's blockchain itself.   Every block only has a finite amount of space in it, and so number is gonna go up for that space as well. And this is why we started the mempool space project,   because   it's going to track that,   market for the price of mempool space and bit and blockchain space. Right? It it's it's the same concept. If you believe that the price of Bitcoin is gonna go up, then you must also accept   the price of Bitcoin transaction is going up.  



[02:32:23] Unknown:

But one might argue that,   you know, one sat is going like, I believe in sat send parity, for instance. Right? So, like, right now, you can get 2,000 sats per dollar.   So you can get you can get,   what is that, 20 sats per percent.   That's going to obviously go down. Right? So so so maybe,   I mean, so so maybe maybe the sat goes up even though it's 1 separate byte, like, that value like, the that purchasing power is gonna go up. Right? So could we could potentially have, like, a little bit of a gap period, but long term, you're still fucked. Right? Like, long term, like, we're gonna see SATs rates go up.  

[02:33:11] Unknown:

Well, the price of the transaction fees of Bitcoin transactions   doesn't   really   care about the fiat price of Bitcoin. Right? It's just how many cents per byte.  

[02:33:25] Unknown:

Right. Yeah. That that's the thing people miss. Right? And that's why we always hear   I mean, we we hear complaint complaints about fees both when the price goes up, but also because the price goes up, there's more transactions. Right? But but it's also because   the purchasing power of a sat goes up at the same time.   So so someone might argue that they're so bullish that 1 sapper byte is gonna still confirm because the purchasing power of 1 sapper byte is just so massive.   Is is that, like, is that a ridiculous concept? Like, that's a Catan concept. Like, that's what Catan is, our boy Catan.   Our 1 separate byte maximalist over there that's that's running a a mempool   that that'll handle all of your 1 separate byte transactions up to a gig.  

He, he believes that that the one set is just gonna increase in purchasing power to the point where you'll still be able to confirm it, you know, once every couple years. That's I think it's about,  

[02:34:21] Unknown:

supply and demand thing. And when people have their Bitcoin and in the future, the stats   has increased a lot in fiat terms, but, it's still a big competition to get into the next block in the block space. So   once that's no.   I doubt it.  

[02:34:45] Unknown:

So,   I guess, 6102 got,   censored from whatever platform he was using to   comment on the stream, but he just sent me a message   asking this,   is, is Docker a single point of failure for all of these node boxes?   And  

[02:35:07] Unknown:

I fucking love this dude. I just wasn't I wasn't answering his I I wasn't checking my messaging platform, so he hit the guests. And, like, that's that's what it's about. I appreciate it. I mean, continue.  

[02:35:18] Unknown:

Continue.   So so say you install,   mempool space app on your Raspberry Pi using the, Umbro app store, which is just a a front end UX for the Docker hub,   container repository.   I mean, if Docker   censors you and cancels your account, you can just make your own Docker Hub server and Umbrel can point to that. Right? I mean,   everything is open source and everything is self hostable.   Just because we have a GitHub account   doesn't mean that we need GitHub. Right? Like, you could make your own GitLab or whatever.   So I don't think Docker is a single point of failure or anything. Everything is, cryptographically   verified, so Docker Hub can't inject any malware or anything into the container anyway.  

So it's pretty secure.  

[02:36:11] Unknown:

I saw another question that got answered for the second time now about the RFP estimator   asking if it's,   mempool based or something.   So   I wanna say, yes. Our fee estimator   is mempool based.   It's   it's taking, like, a snapshot from how the mem the state of the mempool   as it is right now,   and,   get the few estimates for the upcoming blocks   compared to there are some,   legacy or other   alternative fee estimator tools that are using a more probabilistic   fee estimation system.   And which one you   might prefer is just up to you,   user preference, basically.  



[02:37:06] Unknown:

What are the questions? What are the questions?   Did we get it?  

[02:37:12] Unknown:

I mean, that was a great that was a great insightful answer. I mean, Douglas asked me, what do what do I mean by I believe in SATS and priority? I mean, I don't know, man. Like, I I speak a lot publicly. I that was a that was a miss misspeak,   believe in SATS and priority. I I believe we'll hit SATS and priority,   and then we'll continue to pump forever after that. So I do not think that that is a,   it's not a death blow for pump forever. I think we will continue to pump forever after we we hit the SATSEN parity. I think people don't really realize,   how early Bitcoin is.  

I really hate the Clubhouse platform.   It is very anti privacy.   There's a lot of things I I have issues with. I mean, I just social media in general, I have a lot of issues with.   But there's a lot of noob outreach on on my platform, and I have,   participated a bit there because I have FOMO and,   you know, what what else am I gonna do? And   people it we're so early. Like, people we we're all in a little bubble. We don't realize how early we are. Like, we're, like, insanely fucking early.   There's a lot of progress to be made on UX,   and there's a lot of progress to be made on motivation. Like, we just need people to be motivated. Like, people need to know why they're doing things. Like, they're   like, you you don't end up with a Bitcoiner who, like, cares about shit   that hasn't gotten burned somewhere along the line. Even if they don't get burned   in   in the in the Bitcoin world, they they get burned outside the Bitcoin world. You know, PayPal closed their account or,   their local government, like, closed down their business or,   you know, they they they had a   a business partner fuck them over in an in a non trust minimized way. Right? So, like, there's, like, all these different things that you get burned and you learn and you try and improve yourself. And it's gonna take time for people to get burned, and that's the unfortunate  

[02:39:16] Unknown:

reality.   Yeah. I I think,   that you you totally nailed it with the UX,   being really important because a lot of people,   especially, like, a few years ago said,   it's kind of ridiculous for   to expect everyone to run a full node because it's so difficult to set up. But I said, that's that's ridiculous. Like, it used to be really difficult to connect to the Internet. You have to, like, buy a modem and install your computer and get a phone line and ISP got now you just go to the store and get a iPhone, and   literally everyone has the Internet in their pocket.   Right? And so as the UX of Bitcoin improves where it's just an app to install on your phone, okay, I installed a Bitcoin full node app. Done. Literally, everyone can run a Bitcoin full node now. Or,   other projects like the UTRIXO project,   you know, my friend Calvin in Korea got a grant from BitMax to work on that.  

It's gonna make it even easier for these, fully verifying nodes   to just be like an app on the mobile phone because now they can use,   minimal amount of, resources.   So it is totally gonna be possible for everyone to run a fully verifying,   bitcoin node and together with a lightning node, you know, packaged in some kind of mobile app. Right? You won't even need a Raspberry Pi. You just use your phone. And then,   you know,   shit gets real. Right? Like  

[02:40:42] Unknown:

I I mean, there's 2 ways to look at it. Right? Like, you you you hit the hurdle, like, oh,   like, we need more people. Like, people should run full nodes. That's ridiculous.   And then you can do you can do 2 things. You can make it easier to actually, you know, use your own node, or you can be, like, I'm just gonna throw in the towel and just, like, run nodes for people and just go to a completely custodial method. Right? And, like, so, like, fuck you. Like, why are you just throwing in the towel there? Like, fight.  

[02:41:10] Unknown:

Yeah. I think, like you said, if if you get goxed   once,   then you   learn not to,   custody Bitcoin at other places.   And   later,   even if you use,   you know, withdraw to your own cold storage wallet, the exchange that you bought on is still gonna snitch on you to government, and then the government's gonna give you this tax bill. Then you realize why privacy is important. Right? So,   probably the first is the,   you know,   theft, you know, protection against theft. But then number 2 thing, people are gonna wanna run their own full notes for the privacy aspect. And,   it's those 2 big lessons that I think everyone has to get whacked with at least once.  

By the way,   6102   says, in all caps,   tell Matt you can't stop the signal.  

[02:42:05] Unknown:

I love it. And he's also anti caps for what it's worth, people. So that's a big thing,   that he that he did it in all caps.   I mean, I think this has been a great conversation.   I really appreciate both of your times. I appreciate your work.   I mean, it seems like the freaks have been enjoying themselves, but their questions are exhausted.   I mean, I I have one more reoccurring segment that I know   the people that I have on this show, like, probably disagree with substantially, but I just enjoy it. It is fun.   I want a price prediction for next show, and I just wanna say that our last two guests,   they completely missed they completely missed, the ball on on this price prediction. And I said we weren't gonna fall under 40k. We're gonna be over 50k.  

That was a little bit off, but we haven't fallen under 40k. So I got that going for me.   Where do you think we're gonna be next week in terms of price starting with Wiz?  

[02:43:06] Unknown:

Boom. Let's go. A week from now? Jeez. That's a really high time preference. High time preference.  

[02:43:12] Unknown:

I thought you meant a year from now. No. Fuck fuck a year. I don't care about a year. Let's go. Next next week, where are we gonna be?  

[02:43:19] Unknown:

Probably Elon Musk tweets another   home or some other, you know, huge publicly traded company has acquired 1,000,000,000 of dollars worth of Bitcoin, and we go up another 10 k. So I'll say   $60  

[02:43:34] Unknown:

next week. I dig it. Simon, over and under 60 k USD this time next  

[02:43:42] Unknown:

week. I feel it would be, like, 40 or 60.   So Wait. What 1 or the other? I'm saying,   Because I think they might   50   k pump and then the drop. I I don't know. Something What? Really? 45.  

[02:44:05] Unknown:

Okay. Well, the the good I appreciate both of your predictions. I think we're gonna be well over 60 k. I think it doesn't matter. I think we've all it's all 3 of us agree that it doesn't matter. We're in this for the long term.   Simon just left. I I he was just upset with me. I enjoy,   I enjoy I enjoy the predictions because they're quantifiable.   So it's fun that we can,   actually, Simon's back now. So, like, he wasn't truly angry at me for the question.   But but I I   I I mean, I think we should just stack for the future, so it doesn't fucking matter. But I I think that it's fun to speculate, and I think it's fun to speculate on,   like, as, like, this bull market like, people don't realize, like, as this bull market progresses,   there's gonna be a lot of people that were like, through the history of you being a Bitcoiner have been bullish on Bitcoin, who are gonna sell their Bitcoin and say, like, we're done.  

And it's almost   like when you're in a bull when you're in a bear market,   predicting short term prices is is a net negative for the the sat stacker.   But when you're in a bull market predicting short term prices, this is, like, important for a sat stacker because it really   highlights the the urgency.   You know, like, like, I really do think, like, in the next couple of months, like, we're gonna hit a 100 k.   You know. Like and and and if you don't   continue keeping your foot on the pedal,   like, you're gonna end up with way less Bitcoin than you would have otherwise.  

[02:45:38] Unknown:

Yeah. No. You're totally right about that. It it's the name of the game is   accumulation of bitcoin   slowly over time as much as you can and staying humble while you stack those sets.   It doesn't matter what the price is gonna be a week from now. It probably matters what it's gonna be like, you know, several years from now when you  

[02:46:00] Unknown:

Right. So it's all gonna be negligible. Like, no one cares if you bought it, like, 12 k or 9 k or 6 k or 4 k.   Exactly. It's only a it's only a question of how much did you stack, how much were you able to scoop up before the price went to the moon. Yeah. So maybe I'll change that final segment. I feel like I don't really like this. This is only the second time I've done that segment. But now you guys are on the record, so hopefully, you got your prediction correctly.   Otherwise, we will burn you at the stake.   I appreciate both of your guys' time.  

You can follow Wiz on Twitter at wiz.   You can follow soft Simon on Twitter at atsoftsimon_.   I have both their links in the   both on the Twitter post and the YouTube post.   They're both the lead maintainers of mempool.space,   so use their project. It is the fucking best.   You can use Umbrel or Raspberry Blitz   or Ronin Dojo, I think, coming soon. Right, guys?   To use to use mempool on on your own node.  

[02:47:04] Unknown:

Yeah. We just shipped it yesterday, mempool and ungrow.  

[02:47:08] Unknown:

Yeah. Fuck yes. We're not doing anything. Yeah. And the my node is also running mempool, but they're using the 1 year old version. So it still works with transaction tracking, but doesn't have all the latest features and dashboard.  

[02:47:22] Unknown:

So so the 2 that have it right now are Umbl and RASPYblets. Right? And you're trying to roll it out to the others? Yep.   Awesome. So you can do that, and you should do that.   Practice self sovereignty.   And,   and just a just a big thank you to both of you, Simon and Wizz. Thank you, guys. I appreciate everything you guys do, and I look forward to having you back  

[02:47:44] Unknown:

in the future. Thank you, Matt. Yeah. Thanks for having us on the show.   We we love you, Matt.  

[02:47:51] Unknown:

Much love here.  

[02:50:00] Unknown:

Well, I'd do anything for a blind.   And she'll do anything for the limelight. And we'll do anything when the time's right.   Oh, baby, you're making it.  

[02:52:24] Unknown:

Love you freaks. Stay humble. Stack stats. See you next week,   And also RHR in 2 days. Let's make that shit happen.