Биткойн против. Крипто: почему только биткойн

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[00:00:07] CK: Прежде чем мы действительно углубимся в это, может быть, просто расскажу, почему так важно заниматься этой темой.

[00:00:15 ] Риццо: Да, конечно. Привет всем. Так что да, у меня есть опыт, я работаю журналистом о криптовалютах, биткойнах и криптовалютах примерно с 2013 года. Так что да, у меня было много времени, чтобы рассмотреть некоторые из этих вопросов. Я был главным редактором Coindesk в течение пяти или шести лет, а теперь редактором журнала Bitcoin и главным редактором в Kraken. И да, я чувствую, что эта статья действительно возникла из-за того, что меня беспокоили некоторые вещи, верно? Я думаю, что одна из основных проблем, которые у меня были в течение некоторого времени, заключается в том, что, похоже, существует популярное мнение о том, что нормально быть нейтральным или агностическим по отношению к криптовалютам, чтобы вы могли просто иметь нейтральный взгляд или что все криптовалюты являются тем же.

Я думаю, вы особенно заметили это в традиционном журналистском подходе к биткойнам и криптовалютам, где они как бы относятся к ним как к рынку, верно? Они вроде бы все одинаковы, и на самом деле нет особого внимания, уделяемого дизайну этих систем или даже признания того, что они являются финансовыми системами или что пользователи в этих системах могут взаимодействовать с этими системами способами, которые они не делали. Не совсем понимаю. Думаю, это было первое.

И потом, я думаю, вы знаете, что второй момент на самом деле будет заключаться в том, что к самому рынку также относятся разные отношения, не так ли? Поэтому я думаю, что если вы проводите больше времени с людьми, которые являются максималистами биткойнов, а затем, если вы проводите какое-то время с людьми, которые более не любят криптовалюты, вы можете увидеть, что они по-разному относятся к рынку криптовалют. Они думают, что он делает разные вещи, верно? Так что в некоторых случаях биткойн-максималисты могут вообще не проверять ограничение на количество знаков монеты. Как будто вы можете целый месяц не заглядывать на этот веб-сайт, а затем другие люди из группы криптоагностиков, они проверяют Миссури или ограничение маркера монет, как каждый день, верно? И они думают, что это что-то значит или что эта информация им что-то говорит.

И да, я думаю, что эти две вещи были действительно скучными, правда? Эта идея о некотором нейтралитете и идея о том, что этот рынок является эффективным посредником. Кроме того, я бы просто сказал, что с годами меня все больше и больше подталкивали, я чувствую, что чувствую, что у Биткойна есть довольно фундаментальное ценностное предложение, против которого он на самом деле работает, и что я действительно не видел ничего подобного. вещи в криптовалютном пространстве. И да, я думаю, это было источником вдохновения, если это поможет.

[00:02:18] CK: Что угодно. Нет. Я думаю, что это отличный фон, и вы дали Пьеру ровно столько времени, чтобы присоединиться к нам на сцене.

[00:02:25] Риццо: [неразборчиво, 00:02:25] .

[00:02:27] СК: Действительно быстро. Прежде чем мы полностью погрузимся в этот разговор, я просто хочу рассказать вам о конференции Биткойн, Биткойн 2022, которая состоится в следующем году в Майами, с 6 по 9 апреля. Приходите познакомиться со всеми вашими любимыми биткойнерами, включая моего человека Пита Риццо и многих, многих других. Это будет крупнейшее событие Биткойн в истории, которое побьет рекорд, который мы сейчас держим для Биткойн 2021. И да, я не могу рекомендовать его достаточно. Так что используйте промокод сатоши. Сэкономьте 10%. Иди купи билеты. Билеты будут расти примерно раз в месяц с настоящего момента до апреля. Так что покупайте их, пока они дешевые. Увидимся в Майами.

Но вернемся к этому разговору. Опять же, вы можете увидеть прикрепленный вверху твит Риццо с его статьей, встроенной в него, как бы подробно рассказывая об этом. Настоятельно рекомендую вам пройти через это. Но у нас здесь есть и Пьер, и Риццо. Так что я закрою рот и верну им.

[00:03:27] Риццо: Да, ценю. Пьер, ты меня слышишь?

[00:03:29] Пьер: Да, могу. Да, я могу. И на самом деле, я хочу ответить на тему, о которой вы говорили, когда я присоединился, о проверке CoinMarketCap. И это распространяется не только на то, что многие максималисты биткойнов не проверяют CoinMarketCap в относительном смысле по сравнению с другими криптовалютами, но также только в отношении обменного курса биткойнов к доллару или фиатным валютам. И я довольно часто слышу это как от, назовем их членами сообщества Биткойн, так и от разработчиков протокола Биткойн и исследователей, что их не беспокоит обменный курс Биткойна. И их разработка, их разработка протокола и то, как они думают о Биткойне, по сути, не сводятся к тому, чтобы накачать ваши сумки. И это меня раздражает людей, которые приходят в космос в качестве фиатных максималистов.

[00:04:28] Риццо: Да, я бы определенно повторил это и сказал, что просто представлю этот разговор. Так что Пьер вроде как помог мне, я думаю, немного отредактировал эту статью, или, по крайней мере, я чувствую, что вы видели так много версий этой статьи, Пьер, что я подумал, что было бы весело поговорить. И я благодарен CK, а затем и Bitcoin Magazine за то, что они помогли нам в кратчайшие сроки. Но да, Пьер, я думаю, это было больше похоже на то, как я думал, вы видели разные стадии этого. Я чувствую, что вы слышали то, что я пытался донести, и некоторые разочарования, и подумали, что было бы забавно поразмыслить над тем, что я смог донести.

Похоже, вы согласны с тем, что, возможно, что-то в статье идет хорошо, это, по крайней мере, своего рода настройка этого, опять же, как начало анализа, например, что именно отличает максималистов Биткойна. И я думаю, что как то, что я в конечном итоге назвал другими криптовалютами, я как бы хочу, чтобы они были в ведре, называемом криптоагностиками, верно? Так что я думаю, мы можем обсудить и это определение. Но пытаюсь понять, ладно, здесь определенно разные отношения. И такое отношение действительно выходит за рамки любой конкретной монеты, верно? Как это отношение к правам и ценностям или как общая склонность любить человеческие институты, которые опять же не имеют ничего общего с тем, считаете ли вы, что Tron хорош или что-то в этом роде, или что умные контракты-это вещь, или что у вас есть или [неразборчиво 00:05:35] , верно? Думаю, я пытался вытащить эти строки и придумать интересный способ разбить эти группы на части.

[00:05:42] Пьер: Итак, один Из проблем, которые я видел при разработке этой статьи, является пересечение технических инженерных концепций, таких как хард-форк и софт-форк, и их последствий для политического управления и его философии. Там просто много споров. Как вы оценили навигацию по этому довольно сложному перекрестку?

[00:06:06] Риццо: Да, я думаю, это одна из причин, почему об этой проблеме больше не говорят, верно? Так что я думаю, что отчасти это было просто попыткой найти лучшее объяснение этому, поскольку я думаю, что какое-то время было это разобщение, когда я чувствую, что действительно есть некоторые фундаментальные различия в пространстве биткойнов и криптовалют, но на самом деле их нет. вызвал резонанс по какой-то причине, поэтому я думаю, что у вас все еще есть эта вещь, где-И снова, я думаю, что именно здесь мы должны как бы начать думать об этом аргументе, потому что я действительно думаю, что популярная пресса и инвесторы, как будто они все еще относятся к этим вещам как к одному и тому же, не так ли? И они склонны игнорировать довольно существенные различия в том, как создаются эти системы. Так что я думаю, что это похоже на провал аргумента, как будто им разрешили обойти этот аргумент, где это похоже на то, как Bloomberg освещает рынок криптовалют, верно? Они делают то же самое, что и все остальные. Они входят в Messari или CoinMarketCap, и они как бы смотрят на цены этих различных монет и извлекают из них какое-то значение или ценность, верно?

Итак, я думаю, что все началось с того, что, по крайней мере, пытается идентифицировать это. Но я думаю, немного отступив, вы понимаете, что причина того, что они не понимают этих различий, просто в том, что да, они довольно технические, но так ли это на самом деле, верно? Так что я думаю, что потратил много времени, пытаясь понять, как создать хард-форк для него и софт-работы, и использовать ли вообще эту терминологию, потому что я чувствую, что в конечном итоге вы в конце концов придете к этой идее вроде, хорошо, вы можете сформировать их технически или с точки зрения того, как они влияют на пользователя, верно? И с точки зрения технического определения, тяжелой работы криптовалюты, вы, по сути, вводите новое правило в систему, с которым не все согласились. Вы говорите, что для перехода на эту новую систему вы должны согласиться с этим правилом. А затем, если достаточно людей переключится, вы по сути окажетесь в ситуации, когда любой, кто находится на этом форке меньшинства, должен будет либо взять на себя расходы по созданию новой криптовалюты, либо им придется делать то, что говорит большинство. , Правильно?

Итак, я думаю, что в конечном итоге вам придется рассматривать эту ситуацию как одно из прав пользователя и как толерантность к правам. И я думаю, что это действительно одно из фактических фундаментальных различий между Биткойном и другими криптовалютами. И в конечном итоге я как бы сформулировал это так: как в биткойне, у вас есть право не соглашаться, верно? У вас есть право делать то, чего не хочет большинство. И я на самом деле думаю, что это как действительно, действительно резкая граница между Биткойном и другими криптовалютами и другими криптовалютами. Как и вы, очень редко, если никогда не замечаете, что внутри этих монет есть какое-то сообщество или подсообщество, которое запускает что-то другое, кроме как последнее программное обеспечение, которое, как и все остальные, вроде бы считает, что они хотят работать, верно? Например, если вы используете оригинальное программное обеспечение Ethereum, ну, вы используете классификатор Ethereum. Вы находитесь в совершенно другой цепочке.

И снова я думаю, что все это может стать действительно техническим, если вы посмотрите на это с технической точки зрения, поэтому я думаю, что я действительно так долго боролся с этим. И я думаю, что в итоге я остановился на этой структуре, которая мне действительно очень понравилась. Я думаю, что то, что другие криптовалюты показали действительно хорошо,-это то, что они успешно выиграли этот спор, в котором, как будто вы имеете право использовать деньги, как хотите. Как и все эти криптовалюты, и рынок это предоставляет. И это хорошо. Вы должны чувствовать, что это хорошо, правда?

Итак, рынок криптовалюты похож на эту большую аркаду. У вас есть все эти блестящие игры и такой рассказ о том, что все эти вещи-ваш выбор, ваши права на использование любой из этих систем, верно? И тогда нет равных аргументов вроде того, от чего вы отказываетесь, верно? Так что я действительно думаю, что это правда, что рынок криптовалют и их возможности дают право использовать ваши деньги множеством разных способов.

Но в системе Биткойн, будучи более ограничительным, я думаю, у вас есть пара прав второго порядка, которым не хватает диалога. Во-первых, у вас есть право на известную проблему и график поставки, верно? Итак, вы знаете, сколько там денег и сколько есть у всех, верно? Мы часто формулируем это как экономику Биткойна или выше или приводим какие-то подобные эзотерические аргументы. Когда на самом деле это похоже на то, что у вас есть право знать, сколько денег есть в запасе, верно? Он фиксирован и ограничен, и это тоже важно, но вы знаете, что имеете право на эту информацию. И Биткойн предоставляет вам это, верно? Возможность проверить это и проверить это. И я думаю, вы много били по барабану, верно?

А во-вторых, у вас есть право выражать несогласие. Как будто вы можете не запускать Taproot, если хотите, но при этом все еще держите биткойн, верно? И я думаю, что вы знаете, когда вы как бы сокращаете его, это похоже на то, что у вас есть другие права или что Биткойн защищает. Я думаю, многие из них пытались сказать: «Хорошо, мы можем поднять, обсудить эти вещи? Как будто они существуют на самом деле? » Думаю, да. Я считаю, что Биткойн защищает права пользователей на более высоком уровне. И я думаю, что у вас есть права в системе Биткойн, которых у вас нет больше нигде. И я действительно не знаю, что это значит, правда? Как будто я не могу сказать вам, что делать с этой информацией. Я думаю, что сейчас все, что я понял, это то, что я просто больше думаю об этом, это кажется правдой, если это имеет смысл.

[00:10:37] Пьер: Да. Так что есть часть проблем, потому что мы говорим, что эта система децентрализована. И поэтому, если мы отнесемся к этому серьезно, это означает, что никто не контролирует это, и все же это человеческая система. Так что кто-то должен это контролировать, верно? Как вы это видите?

[00:10:56] Риццо: Вы имеете в виду идею, что кто-то должен контролировать это или должен быть какой-то механизм?

[00:10:59] Пьер: Давайте возьмем абсурдный аргумент, который я иногда слышу от некоторых коронеров, что Адам Бек контролирует Биткойн, верно? И поэтому они хотят найти кого-нибудь, кто это контролирует.

[00:11:11] Риццо: Да, я думаю, это интересно, правда? И я думаю, что это на самом деле вызвано большой критикой со стороны людей в толпе биткойнов, которым нравится чувствовать, что эта статья не зашла достаточно далеко, верно? Так что я думаю, что одна из критических замечаний, которые я слышал от людей, заключается в том, что им нравится позиционирование сторонников максимализма в отношении биткойнов, но они чувствовали себя так-И я в конечном итоге консолидировал эту фразу, которую, я думаю, вы можете сказать из милосердия-И Я использую это слово из милосердия. Я думаю, вы могли бы из милосердия сказать, что многие другие криптовалюты используют своего рода правило принятия решений большинством голосов. И я думаю, что во многих монетах DeFi или в децентрализованных приложениях, я думаю, это довольно явно, верно? Они даже не очень стесняются этого. Они так же функционируют, правда? А за некоторых из них вы можете просто проголосовать за вещи. И если вы в большинстве, это прекрасно. А если нет, тебя как бы оттолкнули, верно?

Итак, я думаю, что некоторые люди хотели, я думаю, еще раз заявить о том, что на самом деле, если ими правят системы большинства, ну, во многих случаях не так уж много большинства , Правильно? Как мы видели, я на самом деле просто подумал перед этим звонком, была такая забавная ситуация, например, в 2019 году, когда я думаю, что это был Steemit или что-то в этом роде, Джастин Сан купил ту децентрализованную платформу контента для статей, а затем забрал все голоса за кулисами а затем закончил тем, что назвал выборы в свою пользу, чтобы вернуть голоса Трону. Таким образом, в прошлом были подобные ситуации с криптовалютами, когда это было похоже на то, что даже если вы считаете, что они управляются структурами большинства типов, это в конечном итоге выглядит довольно ужасным определением, потому что, посмотрите, в конце концов, криптовалюты-это все сети, правда? У кого-то должно быть программное обеспечение. И я думаю, что мы поняли в Биткойне, что определение пользователя-это тот, кто работает на программном обеспечении.

Итак, я предполагаю, что все это говорит о том, что управление этим становится вроде как, ну, возникает потребность чувствовать, кто все контролирует. И Биткойн, ответ совершенно очевиден: никто, не так ли? Как будто никто этим не управляет. И я думаю, что отчасти то, что мы выяснили, похоже на альтернативу тому, что никто не контролирует вещь, заключается в том, что вы должны как бы полагаться на то, чтобы начать создавать их как новые типы-или даже не новые. Вам просто нужно начать полагаться на старые типы структур управления, где что-то должно принимать решение, верно?

И во многих случаях я думаю, как эти люди вроде криптоагностиков рационализируют это, позволяя рынку быть судьей, верно? Я думаю, что это, вероятно, самый известный из разделов Ethereum и Ethereum Classic, где у вас был выбор, когда, по сути, рынок попросили решить, имеет ли кто-то, кто ведет себя определенным образом, все еще доступ к своим деньгам, и рынок выбрал это. не правильно? Они решили лишить этого права этого человека.

Поэтому я думаю, что в некоторых случаях, например, вы, в конечном итоге попадаете в еще более странную ситуацию, когда, возможно, нет единого элемента управления, и, возможно, есть некоторые узлы, на которых работает программное обеспечение. Но в конце концов они просто отклоняются от рынка, верно? Как будто вы на самом деле просто находитесь там, где кто-то принимает решение запустить программное обеспечение. Есть рынок, который как бы кумулятивно принимает это решение, и этот рынок предпочитает аннулировать права человека. И я думаю, что странно в этом то, что люди, которые, кажется, думают, что это нормально, также не думают, что в этом что-то не так, верно? Как будто они вроде бы думают, что можно отобрать у кого-то права на что-то, если с этим согласится достаточно много людей, верно? И я думаю, что это довольно странная точка зрения. Я не знаю, как к этому относиться. Я не потратил достаточно времени, чтобы по-настоящему с этим посидеть. Но я думаю, что… я не знаю. Это определенно новый нравственный выбор, верно? Если у вас есть идея о том, что фиатными валютами как бы управляет правительство, есть, по крайней мере, тот вид, что мы выбираем чиновников, и эти чиновники принимают решения, и что их решения представляют наши интересы. А система криптовалюты, похоже, что произошло, это снятие этой ответственности не с конкретного человека и его выбора, а с самого рынка, верно? Но рынок должен быть тем, кто принимает эти решения, и арбитром всего, включая принятие или оправдание выбора, который вы в других контекстах можете считать аморальным.

[00:14:59] Пьер: Верно. И я определенно слышал разговоры, в которых абстрактные споры о том, является ли что-то децентрализованным или нет, затем урезаются кем-то, говоря, что цена этого удвоилась в саттном выражении, так кто вы такие, чтобы спорить с рынком, верно? Что такого рода релятивизм, возможно, нигилизм, движимый рынком.

[00:15:26] Риццо: Я думаю, именно поэтому то, что вы говорите, интересно, потому что как будто Биткойн не вырос вместе с рынком, верно? Как будто у вас есть период около года в истории развития Биткойна, когда рынок не существует, верно? Как будто Сатоши никогда не оценивал Биткойн и никогда не продавал Биткойн. На самом деле не существовало представления о том, что рынок является действующим лицом в мире биткойнов, верно? Итак, биткойн изобретен. Это существует.

И именно здесь я действительно думаю, что потратил много времени на размышления об этом, и я думаю, вам нужно начать рассматривать рынок криптовалюты, как будто это почти как изобретение, которое так вездесуще для нас, как мы вообще не думаю об этом, правда? Это что-то вроде рамки в отрасли, которую мы все принимали очень бессознательно, и это то, что особенно нравится людям, пришедшим из внешнего мира, я бы сказал, что, как и большинство из них, все еще продолжают смотреть на промышленность через эту рамку, верно? Они смотрят на CoinMarketCap каждый день. Они смотрят на Миссари каждый день. Они как бы смотрят на этот рынок, как на эти случайные цены случайных чисел, и пытаются извлечь из этого смысл. Но на заре Биткойна это полностью отсутствовало. Эта машина не была создана. В этом не было никакой пользы. Так что вы должны как бы начать спрашивать: «Ну, а зачем была создана эта машина? Как он появился и какую функцию он выполнял? » Правильно? Это похоже на то, с одной стороны, да, это правда, что люди начали торговать биткойнами, а затем люди создали рынок для биткойнов. Но со временем это сильно изменилось, не так ли? Изначально у вас были альтернативные криптовалюты. Итак, версии программного обеспечения Биткойн, которые утверждают, что делают что-то новое.

Но я бы сказал, что примерно в середине 2010-х у вас возникло такое явление, когда рынок стал больше похож на арбитра принятия решений, верно? И я привожу один из аргументов Виталика, который, по сути, говорит об этом в статье, где одна из причин, я думаю, что он смог уйти от форка Ethereum, как будто он думал, что он делал или действовал таким образом, как это было верно, по сути, он позволил рынку сделать выбор, верно? И это похоже на то, за что он ратовал: криптовалюты должны быть ориентированы на рынок и как они делают выбор, верно? И я думаю, что это действительно интересная вещь, если вы сидите так долго, потому что вы вроде как утверждаете, что, как в конце дня, все, что рынок решит сделать, нормально.

И, я думаю, в случае, опять же, возвращаясь к хакеру DAO, но опять же, это что-то вроде древней истории на данный момент, но это уместный пример, когда вы был случай, когда чье-то право на деньги было отменено, не так ли? Большинство, как определено рынком, сделало какой-то выбор, чтобы лишить кого-то доступа к деньгам, верно? У этого человека были деньги, а затем блокчейн Ethereum или этот человек, а затем эта группа людей, представленная рынком, заставила этих денег больше не существовать.

В любом случае, я думаю, что это интересный фрейм не для мелочей, но если вы действительно сосредоточитесь на отношениях пользователя с самой финансовой системой и на том, какие гарантии у вас есть. И я думаю, что если вы посмотрите на это как на двоичную линзу и просто по-настоящему разделите черту, я думаю, вы можете сказать, что экосистема криптовалюты выходит за рамки Биткойна, это группа финансовых систем, в которых есть более слабые гарантии и во многих отношениях, таких как принятие решений, я бы сказал, что вплоть до того, как принимаются решения по правам людей, оставлено на усмотрение рынка. И я просто думаю, что это их отличает, верно? Как будто это другая характеристика, и я не думаю, что это больше верно для Биткойна, верно? Мы приняли решение продолжать, я полагаю, насколько мы технически можем вносить изменения в программное обеспечение, на которые люди могут согласиться, мы собираемся и дальше иметь такую ​​среду, в которой люди имеют возможность выражать несогласие, верно? Вам не нужно запускать SegWit, вам не нужно запускать Taproot, и вы все еще держите биткойн, верно? И я думаю, что опять же, говоря о подобном с точки зрения прав, совершенно очевидно, что такого права больше нигде не существует. Так что я думаю, может быть, чтобы поддержать это как можно выше, я думаю, что есть много аргументов, которые были выдвинуты в пользу максимализма биткойнов. Я думаю, у вас есть экономические аргументы в пользу того, что Биткойн-это лучшие деньги, и он удовлетворяет свойства денег, и многие здесь люди, которых я вижу, только что написали действительно отличные вещи об этом. И я не пытаюсь отклонить эти аргументы.

Думаю, вы знаете, что есть еще и сетевой аргумент, что Биткойн является наиболее децентрализованным. Это самая низкая стоимость входа. Вы можете запустить узел дешевле, чем в других сетях. И затем у вас есть аргумент в пользу запуска, который заключается в том, что у Биткойна была эта безупречная концепция, и они никогда не будут еще одной группой валют, способной спонтанно монетизироваться из ничего. И я думаю, что это все интересные аргументы. Но я думаю, что мы вроде как достигли ограничения на то, что это вещи, которые являются широко полезными, потому что, опять же, я действительно сомневаюсь, действительно ли они доходят до сути вещей, верно? Я имею в виду экономический аргумент, очевидно, это огромное отличие, верно? Биткойн, у вас есть конечный предел для экономики, а затем в системе криптовалюты у вас есть профессиональная инфляция большего количества криптовалют. Очевидно, разницы красной линией нет. Но относится ли этот аргумент ко многим людям? Я не знаю. Я чувствую, что вы знаете, что в последнее время очень часто всплывает вопрос о том, насколько актуальны максималистские аргументы Биткойн. И я снова думаю, что это не отменяет их. Это не делает их плохими. Но я думаю, что вы, как евангелист, должны попытаться найти новые способы общения с людьми. И я думаю, все, что я пытаюсь представить здесь-И я действительно очень сомневаюсь, действительно ли я делаю здесь много нового. Просто если вы посмотрите на криптовалюты как на финансовые системы и воспользуетесь системой оценок: «Хорошо, хорошо, насколько хорошо они обеспечивают права этих участников?» Я думаю, довольно ясно, что вы в конечном итоге определяете Биткойн как систему, в которой у вас больше разных типов прав на свои деньги, чем у других криптовалют или всего рынка этих криптовалют в целом, если это имеет смысл.

[00:20:56] Пьер: Да. Итак, мы слышали, что вы привели множество исторических примеров, чтобы проверить суть этих гарантий. Они действительно существуют? Это просто маркетинг? Реальны ли эти права или они недолговечны и рушатся под давлением? И поэтому кажется, что во многом вы можете доказать свой аргумент на исторических примерах, что, на мой взгляд, здорово, но оно также несет в себе большую опасность. И вы видите, как люди восклицают: «О!» Что ж, это был а-о-изм, да? А что насчет того, когда это произошло с Биткойном и так далее.

Но также с точки зрения основных принципов, почему более правомерно смотреть на историю, чем на рынок? И, возможно, взгляд Виталика будет заключаться в том, что изучение рынка более социально масштабируемо, чем люди, изучающие историю, чтобы вывести какую-то политическую философию и проверить ее.

[00:21:53] Риццо: Да, я думаю, это интересно. Я думаю, как история-ну, я имею в виду, что если вы согласны с тем, что Биткойн-это изобретение, это своего рода рамка, в которую я пришел за эти годы, чтобы взглянуть на Биткойн, тогда вы как бы признаете, что Биткойн-это система, которая мы до сих пор мало о чем знаем, правда? И поэтому, вероятно, больше, чем большинство людей, я немного более снисходительно отношусь к разработчикам криптовалюты, потому что я, честно говоря, не знаю, есть ли-много наивности, когда дело доходит до чего-то нового, верно? И есть много идей, которые мы реализуем в сфере криптовалют, и, конечно же, мы знаем, что они сейчас не работают, и, может быть, это чего-то стоит, верно?

Итак, я бы ответил на вопрос истории: во-первых, это понимание того, что это что-то новое, и понимание того, что участники системы могут не всегда осознавать то, что они делают, в высшей степени. , Правильно? Как будто это урок истории, верно? Почему мы возвращаемся в прошлое и любим изучать историю, верно? Вы вернетесь назад и обнаружите, что только в определенные периоды времени отношение к вещам было совершенно разным, верно? И в некоторых случаях сейчас это отношение сильно изменилось. Но я думаю, что с криптовалютами стоит иметь это в виду, потому что я думаю, если вы возьмете эту линзу, вы сможете найти новые способы взглянуть на нее. Итак, когда мы говорили о рынке, например, когда рынок становится чем-то важным в истории Биткойн? Я действительно думаю, что у вас действительно есть это интересное явление, когда люди, которые рано начали работать с Биткойном, они как бы попадают в разные группы, верно? Они своего рода сторонники открытого исходного кода. Есть разработчики, и есть такие люди типа либертарианского правительства, верно? Многие из первых людей были сторонниками типа Рона Пола, верно? Итак, у вас действительно есть этот приток либертарианства, когда есть большее отношение к абсолютной свободе, по отношению к рынку, который должен решать.

И я думаю, что это интересно, учитывая вопрос: «Хорошо, а как это на самом деле повлияло на криптовалюту?» Что ж, похоже, что одним из побочных эффектов этого является то, что наплыв людей, которые так считали, перенаправили отрасль в некотором роде на эту точку зрения. До того, как они вошли так, как они, вы вообще не видели людей, принимающих решения и уважающих рынок или эту концепцию. А затем, когда у вас появится приток людей, которые больше относятся к мыслителям либертарианского типа в американском стиле, и это не значит, что все, кто попал в этот лагерь, сразу приняли это, но вы действительно видите, что эти люди начинают подчиняться рынку. И я думаю, что это явно повлияло на вещи, верно?

Итак, я думаю о вашем вопросе, например, почему рынок не имеет значения? Ну не знаю. Я думаю, что в какой-то момент рынок криптографии-я не знаю, является ли это спорным, но, как вы, должны задаться вопросом, насколько это рационально, верно? И я думаю, что биткойн-максималисты, как я думаю, у нас определенно странное отношение к этому, верно? Как будто это хорошо-входить в систему каждый день. И я думаю, если вы посмотрите на CoinMarketCap, вам понравится видеть Биткойн как номер один. Но разве это что-нибудь значит? Как мы извлекаем из этого пользу? Кажется, что это так, потому что это приятно, и это то, что мы используем в аргументах против других монет, верно? Мы как бы говорим: «Ну, другие криптовалюты, они никогда не обогнают Биткойн. Они не обогнали Биткойн. Следовательно, Биткойн лучший ».

Не знаю. Я знаю, что у нас тоже были частные разговоры об этом, верно? Я бы хотел отодвинуть это назад, верно? Я думаю, вы либо рассматриваете рынок криптовалют как плохой индикатор и не думаете, что он способен давать информацию, которая заключается в том, что участники рынка не знают достаточно, чтобы сделать рациональный выбор и чтобы этот рынок был действующим, либо вы думаю, это действительно так, правда? В таком случае я не знаю, как вы на самом деле начинаете объяснять происходящее, верно? И я действительно думаю, что биткойн-максималисты в целом по-разному относятся к рынку, верно? Я бы не сказал, что все они это отбрасывают. Я имею в виду, я думаю, что, конечно, большинство согласятся, что это проблематично, верно? Но я не знаю, правда? Я имею в виду, посмотрите на что-то вроде Dogecoin, верно? Сколько людей используют программное обеспечение Dogecoin? Итак, у вас есть интересный вопрос о том, насколько функционален рынок криптовалют. И я уверен, что вы это уже знаете и пытаетесь вывести из меня какие-то аргументы.

Итак, я думаю подытожить этот вопрос об истории вещей. Во-первых, я считаю, что история-могущественный учитель. We can learn things. And I think that, likely, when all is said and done in the Bitcoin history, we’ll go back to earlier periods and the find we just had huge biases that we didn’t quite understand. And you probably don’t tell that so much later. And then with the cryptocurrency market itself, I think everybody has to decide how rational you think it is. If you don’t think it’s rational, how relevant is it that Bitcoin is the largest there. And is that a valid argument for Bitcoin maximalism, right?

I would say that the argument that Bitcoin is the number one cryptocurrency like by economic demand within the cryptocurrency market is probably a pretty weak reason to be a Bitcoin maximalist, because I personally don’t derive much from that.

[00:26:29] Pierre: Fair. So I feel like you’ve straw manned my view. So I’m going to defend myself even though I know you haven’t. So I think the market is effective at reflecting what people think. So I don’t think that Bitcoin is number one despite everyone hating it. I think that it sits about where people as a whole think. And then we could argue about whether those people are rational or not. They certainly are not in my book, but that’s fine.

The history part, I loved your piece about the P2SH governance debate, because history repeated itself. And so we can think that, well, it certainly repeated itself with SegWit. And then I think that people learned the Bitcoin protocol. Researchers learned enough from SegWit activation to have history not repeat itself with Taproot activation. And so there’s history repeating itself, but people also learning. So perhaps in terms of pressure testing these rights, pressure testing these guarantees of these systems and finding the flaws that that will continue to happen over and over and the people will learn from that. But on the other hand, there are new people washing up on the shores of our crypto land every day and the process starts over. Is there any hope that the median crypto investor is going to have his views evolve, or are we just going to keep repeating history?

[00:27:57] Rizzo: Well, I guess I would say, like, I mean, I think we can do more, which is one of the reasons why I tried to workshop this argument and then present it. Which is I think that if you view Bitcoin as a system, a financial system, and a financial system that ensures some rights, and we can get into like why that’s a reasonable position. One, I would say that the entire basis for Bitcoin, and you can go back to Satoshi, is we wanted to create a money system that did not rely on central banking, right? Immediately, you have that context in which it was established as an alternative, right? So you have some historical basis for Bitcoin being an alternative to the fiat system. That’s why we’re here, right? It wasn’t that there was no digital money, right? Like money was moving digitally through computers. Their entire financial markets that were running on numbers like moving over tubes and wires, right? Really, you sort of have Bitcoin sort of emerge from that, right?

So I think that you have to then sort of define, “Okay, well, then Bitcoin is an alternative to the current fiat money system,” right? And I think if you look at the sort of rights argument, it sort of gets interjected there, right? So like why was it needed for Bitcoin to exist? Well, Satoshi believed that he could create a system, I think, that better insured the users rights to money, right? One, that they were able to kind of cryptographically prove that they held money. And then two, that they were able to have the right to audit that financial system via running a node. And then three, that there was a known issuance in supply, right? Like he wanted, I think, on some level to give that ability to people, right? And I guess this is where you get the really fuzzy gray area of like what’s a feature versus what is it right. And like those two words actually even have any difference?

I think that if you define them as rights, you start to really get at what I think has been a really great argument for Bitcoin, which is the moral argument for Bitcoin, right? I sort of reference this to the top of the piece that I think some of the most powerful arguments that have been put forward recently are Alex Gladstein’s talking about Bitcoin in developing countries, and Jimmy Song’s moral case for Bitcoin, which is actually kind of where I ended up down this whole rabbit hole was, “Okay. Well, what’s interesting about those arguments that make moral cases for Bitcoin, the Bitcoin is a right or just financial system, is they often don’t make the counter argument that other cryptocurrencies are somehow unjust or weaker than that,” right?

So a lot of the arguments that Alex Gladstein makes I think are great, but there are arguments for Bitcoin within the context of fiat money, and they don’t actually really go much into like discussing that Alex do this in his tweets why other cryptocurrencies don’t ensure those rights that well. So therefore, you sort of have this idea where on some level we have to believe that, because I think we’ve all sort of gravitated to those narratives where we find them appealing. There’s some inherent pull two thinking that Bitcoin is inherently moral, or that is a better system, or that it ensures rights, right? So that it seems like we have some relationships with that. Yet, there wasn’t really anyone who was kind of like extrapolating it, right? So I think we know now why Bitcoin is a better system than fiat, right? I think there’s been enough intellectual work that has been done to like answer that argument, right?

So then the next level argument is, “Okay. Well, then how is Bitcoin somehow more moral or how does it guarantee the financial rights of users more than other cryptocurrencies?” I think that’s the question where I don’t honestly think we’ve been as good at like finding an answer there. I don’t even know if this article is in itself like a great answer to that. I think it’s starting to try to define that right by saying, “Okay, if we really all do believe that Bitcoin is a system that ensures financial rights and that ensures financial rights greater than the fiat system, does it also ensure rights to a greater degree than the cryptocurrency system?”

And I think the answer to that is yes, because I think that you can see, by using historical examples as you noted, that Bitcoin does seem to offer rights that other systems don’t have. And you can look at instances where the decision making within the cryptocurrency market, in many cases, they’re letting the market decide the rights of the user. And that is just a fundamentally different relationship, right? An Bitcoin, Satoshi allowed you to choose to run software, giving you the right to money, giving the right to audit them financial supply, and then the right to a known supply and issuance. And then in cryptocurrencies in the cryptocurrency market, it’s like, yes, you have the right to now use your money however you want, right? You can turn your value into any number of things, but that comes with a tradeoff, right? And the tradeoff is, in the cryptocurrency system, it’s you no longer have that right to a known supply issuance. You no longer have that right to a known schedule or total money supply, right? So, yes, I think we’ve identified that argument.

And I think another one on top of that, again, is this right to dissent, because I think that is something that I’ve tried to express for a while that I really haven’t been able to get down, which is just that in most other cryptocurrency systems it appears that you just do not have the right to dissent from the majority, right? If the majority declares that something should happen, in most cases on most cryptocurrencies, it occurs. And there’s very few of no instances where there’s some case where that didn’t happen, right? So again, like I think this is where you start getting these differences and these differences start to feel important, and they start to feel like something where, “Okay, if Bitcoin is a financial system and it’s a financial system that secures rights, then why can we not apply that same ones cryptocurrencies, right? Like why are they not held to the same standard?

And if it is true that they ensure rights differently, how are they not then different? And I think that’s kind of the real question that I would lay down here as like sort of something I think we have to think about next, is that, again, like if cryptocurrencies ensure rights differently than Bitcoin, how is it that they are not a different class of thing. Like what is it that they are then? Because they’re clearly not Bitcoin at that point, because Bitcoin has properties that they don’t have, right? So you got to start a stronger argument for a delineation, which again is itself an argument that the traditional lens of agnosticism is wrong, right? So I don’t know. I don’t know how that argument elevates, but I think that it’s possible. Я не знаю. Я надеюсь, что это так. I hope that answers your questions in some way.

[00:34:06] Pierre: And if it didn’t, I’ll let the audience complain. You mentioned features. And you’ll hear people say, “Well, look, this blockchain offers, for example, the right to issue your own asset, you’re on token. You have the right to trade it in a decentralized manner. You have the right to get leveraged up or down with it. And you have the right to have a Tamagotchi artwork on here. And so, clearly, this has more rights than Bitcoin does.”

[00:34:36] Rizzo: Well, I think that’s all the same right. Like it is true that the cryptocurrency world like allows you to use your crypto money, for lack of a better term, in more ways than you want, which again is why I think it was so immediately like appealing to people and why if you look back on the past with some empathy, like you can start to understand like, “Well, why would people have wanted a system like that?” If it is the case that cryptocurrency ecosystem large exists to kind of satisfy this veneer of like ultimate freedom, well, then who would have introduced that and who would it have appealed to?

And I think the answer to that is that you do have the split in early Bitcoin between the FOSS open source developers like who felt very strongly, I think, that they were creating something that was open source like for the good of the world, right? And then these sort of early libertarian types who came into the industry and I think in a lot of respects like wanted a system where the market was in charge. Like that was something that was innately appealing to them. In many cases they had already sort of like personally decided that like that was their problem with society, is that society didn’t allow free markets and didn’t allow this thing where that you could just have this infinite exchange, right?

So like it was also a prior idea, like it also exists, but it also starts to seem like when you parse it out like that like very different from Bitcoin, right? Yeah. I don’t know if that – Did that answer your question?

[00:35:59] Pierre: Sort of. I mean, I think that it’s something that people keep coming back to, is that the freedom you have on these other blockchains is greater.

[00:36:09] Rizzo: Yeah. Well, I think it’s – Again, like it’s greater within the definition, right? The ability to use something in different ways I think. I think it comes down to it being like one type of freedom, right? I haven’t thought about this enough. I do think you can sort of distill it down to the ability to use value in however you want and however the market will allow starts to feel like one specific type of freedom, whereas the other types of freedoms that Bitcoin provides where it’s like, yes, you have the right to your money and, yes, you have this right to this auditing and this like known supply and this right to dissent, where you have the right to your money and then to disagree with the majority. Those feel like different classes of rights. I haven’t really like gone down this path far enough yet.

[BREAK]

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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[00:38:47] Pierre: I don’t think that the semantic issue of rights is particular to cryptocurrencies when we know people are saying you have a right to health care and you have a right to education and all this that you get into political philosophy of negative versus positive rights. So to what extent do you think that the market is just reflective of different political ideologies rather than economics per se?

[00:39:09] Rizzo: Yeah, I think a good amount, but I think I’ve really just tried to in this piece like carve out a description of the crypto market like itself as a system, right? Because if you start to think that like within other cryptocurrencies that there’s this idea of the market as a mediator, it sort of starts to feel like less like there are distinct cryptocurrencies. Really there’s like sort of an overall uniting philosophy behind it, right? You start to get these things that like unite these things like more generally. So I guess like, always, when you try to classify things, you look for the similarities and differences, right? And I think the attitude to the market on the sort of crypto agnostic side is much more that that is a valid rational market. It’s much more that the market is giving some data about what’s going on. But I think that’s really interesting, right? Because I think you see each of those subgroups also push back against that, right? Like you see the Ethereum supporters push back against Solana, right? Like they’ll argue that Solana actually isn’t that competitive against Ethereum. So even on one hand where they’re very differential to the market even on matters of like adjudicating user rights, they also like will appear dismissive of that market, right? Which is it, I guess, is like sort of becomes like kind of the end question, right?

Do you think the cryptocurrency market has some broader value? If you don’t then, I would argue that you know you probably shouldn’t leave someone’s right to money or their right to use some system up to that market, right? I mean, again, I can’t really answer that question. And I don’t even know if I can answer the question they originally asked other than just saying I think they start to feel like different things, right?

And I think within Bitcoin, it’s like, yes, there have been instances where we’ve looked to the market for guidance. There have been futures markets that have tried to tell us like which different features to add. But so far at least like there’s never been a case where somebody who didn’t want to upgrade to what the majority wanted has been disenfranchised. Again, that just starts to feel like a lot more fundamental. And I think you can sort of broadly refer to the other cryptocurrencies as are they systems where people are okay with the market disenfranchising people? And if they are, well, that’s fine. I mean, I guess you could argue that that outlook might be good. And I sort of end this piece really by just stating it as well. It’s like maybe there is an argument that this idea that the authority of the market should dictate people’s rights to money. Like maybe that is something new, right?

Like in Bitcoin, like you running the software gave you rights to money and that was new. And cryptocurrency at large, it seems like there’s this attitude of, “Well, it is the market’s recognition of you doing that that gives you the rights.” And I would just say that that’s like a very big difference actually. And why it’s a big difference is because if you’re relying on someone to recognize your rights or some group, I don’t know, it feels very different, right?

In Bitcoin, we have this assurance that we’re going to have absolutely always have the right to that money. So the assurance that I have the right to my money only so long as the market will tolerate me having access to that money starts to feel like a weaker assurance. So I kind of feel like you have to sort of start splitting the blocks or just like splitting the peas and carrots on the plate there, because that starts to feel like a very – You’re starting to like articulate two very different types of things.

[00:42:33] Pierre: All right. So I’m going to be a little bit devil’s advocate here, and I’m ready for Mr. Hoddle to accuse me of being a shitcoiner. But you brought up Ethereum and Solana. And couldn’t an argument be made that the rights the assurances, the guarantees, they are the result of time, of ossification and that Ethereum is trending towards having the same level of assurances that Bitcoin does. It’s just a matter of time and that you’re judging younger systems by the standards of a mature system, let’s say.

[00:43:09] Rizzo: Yeah. I think I don’t know if I can really answer that question, other than I just feel like the market will eventually. Eventually, we’ll see some data about that, I think, right? So yeah, and I think you’re right, right? I think the argument of the Ethereum system certainly to be respectful to how they’ve positioned, it was always that it was a beta project. The roadmap which they laid out in the beginning was quite expensive and that they’ve been moving along and they’ve sort of made the argument that they should be treated more as a beta product and until they get to their end vision. I mean, certainly I think you could be deferential to that in some degree. I think the problem sort of becomes like, “Well, there’s not a guarantee of that, right?” So equally it remains possible. Let’s just like play out a hypothetical situation. There’s some period where Ethereum sort of reaches like peak maturity and then they move to a platform of like allowing people to doing most of their changes by softworks, and therefore allowing people to write to dissent within that system. Like it’s theoretically possible I suppose. I just think you end up sort of in – One of the original divides here was is there a moral hazard like in managing these choices? So Ethereum will likely always continue to be a system in which a choice was made to invalidate someone’s right to money. And maybe in the future that is not the case or stops being the case. But I don’t know. You certainly have past precedent there, right? And I don’t know. These systems can be running for quite some time.

And I think one of the things that you start to think about is – Look, I’m certainly not one of those people who thinks Ethereum is going to blow up in the short term or anything like that. I think that what’s more likely to happen is that there’re just things that we don’t understand about these systems that accrue over time and they become very big before we really understand them. And there’s some sort of fundamental issue. And I see Hudson down there. So I’ll just cage this by saying like I’ve also felt that in the Ethereum community over the years of interacting at the conferences and things like that. You saw a lot of like early reluctance within that project for the price to increase like very rapidly like before they were far along the road map, right? There are just things that you can’t really guard against, right? So you start to maybe arrive at arguments where, I think, to your question, like nobody can answer that other than time will eventually answer that.

[00:45:22] Pierre: Well, I can answer it. I can answer it, right? And if I look at the immediate future and what they are doing with the Ethereum II project, I see them as becoming less ossified, right? That this is the biggest, most dramatic departure from Ethereum’s original protocol rules in its entire history. And so in my mind, the trend towards ossifying like Bitcoin has not begun yet. Maybe it’ll begin after they ship Ethereum 2. Or Ethereum 3 is next and it will once again completely change the underlying engineering of this system.

[00:46:02] Rizzo: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s totally like a valid concern, right? Again, I think that’s where these systems seem to attract people with similar mentality sort of things. And once you’ve done something a certain way, I mean, that’s sort of the argument of just the moral slipping, right? Like you excuse one thing one time, becomes easier to excuse another thing another time. And maybe eventually there are parties that exploit that for whatever reason who are not part of that initial group but then choose to knowing the past trajectory of the thing, like they just exploit that for their own gain, right? And I think that’s what makes it sort of a security hole.

But again, I think a lot of these arguments are sort of well-worn. I just think that they haven’t really resonated to your original point, right? It is still viewed as like a technical argument. And that’s why I was sort of key to like hone in on, “Okay, well –” Again, like there’s only so many different ways to compare different cryptocurrency systems, right? Like you can make economic arguments, you can make arguments about the decentralization of their networks, you can make arguments about their launch and that. I think the rights argument perhaps like could be one that is stronger because we have such scene, such an uptick to it, right? Like I think everybody here would probably agree that that has been one of the most powerful narratives for Bitcoin, right? I just don’t think we’ve maybe thought about enough or extrapolated enough to make the argument of why the other cryptocurrencies also don’t fit that distinction, right? Because I think for a lot of people, like it’s just not immediately clear, right? You could almost – Again, this is not being dismissive of the work, but like you could take an Alex Gladstein article. You could replace the word Bitcoin with Ethereum. And I think in a lot of cases like the article would read pretty similarly, right? So I think it gets to this idea that I think people at least at this point like sort of understand that cryptocurrencies achieve something broadly, right? I just don’t think that they’ve maybe even kind of crossed the chasm of like, “Okay, well what is it that –” I don’t know, it’s just such a tough argument, right? That they’re not all the same, right? Because that feels very much like where we’re at, and I feel this the most in the groups like I’m part of some journalism groups like in the space, in the cryptocurrency space, right? Again, it is always the cryptocurrency space. It is always there covering the cryptocurrency market. You just see that this is like kind of inherent lens has like cast over the industry.

And look, I don’t know if we can break that lens, but I mean that lens is like very much the default view. So if you can make an argument of like why – And again, this is sort of what I set out to do, which is like why is there no neutrality? And I don’t think there is neutrality in cryptocurrencies. Ultimately, these systems like have some tradeoffs. They just inherently do. So if you start to view these things as competing financial systems, then it’s sort of the question I think this is like the right question to emphasize is what is your attitude towards those rights? Like are you completely indifferent to them or do you care about them? And I think that’s perhaps something that could maybe be effective. Because, again, like if the current state is neutrality, if it’s just all these things are the same, well then likely like we have to sort of do something to like chip away that or challenge that. And again, maybe we have done all that already in different ways, but maybe in a way that like kind of feels more immediate to people, because I do think that like – I don’t know. There definitely is this idea of neutrality that cryptocurrencies are all the same, but this is a market, these are all stocks and bonds. One of these numbers, like the Dogecoin is not different than the Bitcoin or whatever. That to me just it feels like we should be beyond that at this point, right? That argument feels like I don’t even know how we have ended up there other than through just that people continue to still be confused about this.

[00:49:35] Pierre: Well, it seems to me that that one of the ways that folks have tried to break out of that neutrality to date is digital gold versus world computer and using metaphorical narratives in order to disabuse people of the neutrality. And I see a lot of overlap with your approach. It’s just very different words and concepts. But really –

[00:50:00] Rizzo: Well, I mean like the digital gold argument, I mean, I think is an interesting one, because I don’t like to consider Bitcoin as digital gold. I understand politically why that is an attractive framing for Bitcoin both as a sort of Trojan horse narrative and also as just something that conceptually does actually describe the technology in some ways. But I don’t know. I think you know it is also a financial system, right? Like that is I think a true characterization of what Bitcoin is. Otherwise, why are we building Lightning? Why does Taproot exist, right? We are sort of coming to the point where I think the financial system and the larger Bitcoin economy is hopefully the work of everyone here going to become more obvious hopefully. So then I don’t know how useful that becomes, right?

And I think it is useful today, right? I think, certainly, conceiving a Bitcoin as a digital gold has been helpful, but I think it’s also aided this idea that like, “Okay, well, Bitcoin is digital gold. So all these other things, like they must be different things. They have to be different because Bitcoin is gold. Like it’s a gold, and all these other things are different things.”

Again, I don’t know how true that is, right? Certainly a lot of the stuff that has been built on Ethereum today like was originally built on Bitcoin. Top layer protocols that sit on top of the blockchain where first appeared on Bitcoin. Not fungible tokens first appeared on Bitcoin. A lot of this stuff has precedent. And it feels like we’re still working on those things and that they’re not going away and that we want to in some ways accommodate them again. So I guess not entirely sure what people’s feelings are on that, but that sort of feels like the way that it’s going.

Well, in that case, like if Bitcoin is a financial system, it sort of becomes I think – You sort of have to start describing, “Okay, well, what separates the Bitcoin financial system from the crypto financial system?” And again, I think you sort of arrive at these like fundamental things, which is that both groups have pretty radically different attitudes towards user rights and they seem to both have different attitudes towards the crypto market. And then I don’t know how much more about those differences we’re going find out, but it certainly seems like they’re starting to appear.

[00:52:10] Pierre: All right. Well, we could try to take some questions from the audience.

[00:52:13] Rizzo: Yeah, I think we’ve had some people that had requests for a bit. So I think that’s cool with me if anybody wants to raise their hand and chat about anything. Just going to add some people.

[00:52:24] Pierre: I do have one more question for you as well.

[00:52:27] Rizzo: Yeah, sure.

[00:52:28] Pierre: How does the toxicity fit into this, right? That you’ve driven away all the innovation with these very disagreeable Bitcoin maximalists and that’s why people are not building on top of Bitcoin. It’s just a hostile – A developer unfriendly environment.

[00:52:47] Rizzo: Yeah. Well, I mean, how do you explain the Lightning network then I guess is sort of becomes the equal argument, right? It certainly seems that in a lot of ways the Bitcoin developer ecosystems much healthier than it’s been in past years by a good amount of good percentages, right? So I think that’s how you start answering that, right? I mean, it just becomes clear that the “toxicity” isn’t actually really discouraging. It’s just sort of self-selecting people who meet a certain ideology, right? Я не знаю. Look, I think the toxicity thing, you hear it a lot. Certainly, people react to it. I’ve had different reactions to it over the years. I was someone who took the burden of a lot of toxicity early on. I’m sure a lot of people here like have yelled at me at various times for various things. Just looking at the audience, that seems very true, right?

But like you, still as a person, like have the agency to react to that, right? So I think what always confused me was I was like, “Okay, well, that’s interesting.” When I publish something about these cryptocurrencies, there’s a certain reaction. And then I publish something about Bitcoin, I get another reaction, right? So you sort of have to just, I think, extrapolate that and go from there, right? Certainly, I don’t think all the criticism I received over the years was within the context of my job like Warren said, right? But you have to understand that’s like how people are looking at it, right? So you’re starting to get to other questions here about like what is the role of the press and like what are they supposed to be doing?

It was a really tough conversation with the cryptocurrency journalism group the other day where people were sort of starting to talk about how congress like doesn’t understand cryptocurrencies and then, yeah, the journalists don’t understand the cryptocurrencies who are recovering them. And like, well, are the cryptocurrency journalists like – You’re just writing stories. You’re just there to get the next story, right? So there’s just like inherent business model limitations to these things. I think I’m rambling a little bit. Again, I think you can choose to react to things differently, right? So anyone who’s going to get criticism and then not try to address it personally in some way, that is a character thing, right? That is that people are going to react. I mean, some people are just going to do that and other people will take that criticism and they’ll internalize it and they’ll make some determination to change what they’re doing or to understand what they did originally that upset that person in whatever way, right? So I don’t know. I’ve never looked at toxicity as negative. I’ve benefited pretty substantially from it over the years just in terms of being personally intellectually challenged about a lot of things.

And even just this argument or this idea that Bitcoin is a system of different financial rights for the user, I don’t know, it’s taken me a really long time and internalize this argument, right? I don’t think I’m the one who created this. I think that most of the developers seem to believe something similar to this. I’m not sure that they’ve articulated maybe something as robust, right? But it seems like a general attitude that I’ve developed or I’ve detected over the years.

Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, certainly, Bitcoin like is something we’re all learning about and certain people are going to go to more lengths to like try to figure out what they don’t understand about something, right? I mean, I often sit around and wonder whether I’ve done that too much and whether I completely don’t understand it and will never understand it and whether I just completely give up like in terms of writing anything. But I don’t know. Again, it comes down to like the personal decision of like how you react to something like that, right?

So I got some new faces up here. Any of the speakers want to say anything or –

[00:56:07] CK: Yeah. Ждать. So we have Reggie and we have D++. Let’s try to keep these serious questions regarding or comments regarding this conversation. Reggie, why don’t you start?

[00:56:18] Reggie: Okay. Спасибо. Hello, everybody. It’s more of a comment than a question. I think it’s obvious that development has been relatively slack in Bitcoin and referring to the Lightning network as a rebuttal to the argument of chasing a developer’s way. It just doesn’t seem like a strong argument. Look at the Lightning network compared to all the development and activity on Ethereum, which has been predated by Bitcoin. It’s not even close. And the Lightning network is growing quickly now, but still relatively slow. And it was built upon patented technology. So there’s just not a lot of development growth or intellectual capital growth in the Bitcoin space, whether it’s from Bitcoin maximalism and toxicity –

[00:57:03] Speaker: Reggie, how are you not in jail right now? That’s what I want to know. How are you not locked up?

[00:57:08] Reggie: Okay. So we’re going to go there. Why should I be in jail?

[00:57:13] Speaker: No. I mean, if it’s up to me, you wouldn’t be in jail. None of these scams would be in jail. I’m just curious how you’re not locked up right now. Last I heard you were going to court and you had a whole thing going on.

[00:57:23] Reggie: Right. And so – Wait, wait, wait. If he makes an allegation, it should be addressed, okay?

[00:57:29] Speaker: I’m just asking a question. I’m just asking a question.

[00:57:32] Reggie: Okay. And I’m giving you the answer if you give me the opportunity to speak. Спасибо. Хорошо. So that’s unethical, number one, okay?

[00:57:39] Speaker: Yeah, I’m not very ethical.

[00:57:41] Reggie: Okay. So as I was saying, right? I’ve been adjudicated of no scams, okay? I have never said I committed a scam. What you see is the aggression of a regulatory body going after many people in the space, but for some reason you find the need to segregate me and be derogatory.

[00:58:02] Speaker: I promise you’re not special here. I promise you. I treat all you the same.

[00:58:06] Reggie: Okay. I’m sorry. I thought you were – Rizzo, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Pete. I thought I can’t tell who was speaking. So I’m going to try and ignore that. I addressed it. There’s no reason for me to be in jail because I did nothing criminal, and I didn’t commit any scams, etc. So now to address Bitcoin and the development race and how far it’s coming, my comment is development has been slack in the Bitcoin space, okay?

[00:58:32] Rizzo: Well, I mean, Reggie, I’ll just give you an example, right? So this came up early. I think it sounds like you’re someone who kind of believes in the crypto asset theory that there are many cryptocurrencies and they’re doing many different things, right? Look, I understand that lens, and I understand that viewpoint, but you can look at the arguments that were made there, right? There was many attempts to try to sort of build systems that would measure how these different cryptocurrencies were developing. A great example of this argument that you’re making about developers is that Zcash had many developers. There’re many developers working on Zcash. There’re all these developers working on Zcash. By every metric they had more than most of these other crypto assets and things. Nothing really ever came of that it seems, right? Like there was nothing or anything built there. So just because you’re attracting developers like doesn’t really mean that you’re really building anything, right? And I think in a lot of cases it’s – Again, this sort of goes down to the core of what we’re talking about is that, within Bitcoin, we’ve built Lightning is an entirely different system. I mean, you’re literally moving Bitcoin into an entirely – Removing it from the consensus limitations of Bitcoin into an entirely different system in which it operates by entirely different rules, yet that economic activity actually enhances the overall Bitcoin economy while still respecting the limitations of the 21 million coin supply. Which is, again, like going back to kind of the rights of users in Bitcoin, you have the right to your money, and you have the right to know how much money there is, you have the right to audit that money supply, right?

Again, in Bitcoin, we built this entire structure that like removes Bitcoin or any of these limitations while still respecting the rights of the users to the highest degree that it was originally enacted. And if you look at what happened in a lot of these other cryptocurrencies, and you’re referencing Ethereum specifically, sure, there are more developers building more things there and they’re offering you the ability to do more things with your money potentially, right? But again, they’re not building within the same constraints that Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is building with a greater guarantee towards the rights of the user than these other systems.

And again, if you look at all the development activity, just because you have development activity that doesn’t really mean that anything useful is going to be created. There’s no guarantee that any of the systems that these people are building are going to do what they say they’re going to do or they’re going to work as they say they’re going to do whether the market is going to want or need them at all. I mean, [inaudible 01:00:50], a person who’s built many cryptocurrency projects. What is the utility of those projects? Я не знаю. What has been built on them? What have they achieved that other things have not achieved? So I would just encourage you to start asking like maybe some questions about this.

I understand that the investor viewpoint on cryptocurrencies has like largely been shaped by looking at the activity developers. But on some level, you might want to start thinking about that these developers might not have any more answers than you do about like what they’re doing or why they’re doing it or what they’re trying to achieve. And no one’s guaranteeing that they’re going to achieve anything. Bitcoin’s been a system that’s been running for 12 years. And because of Lightning, over the last four years now, operates an entirely different way and it solves a lot of the issues that we’ve been working on for years in a way where nobody actually had to like take any reduction in use of rights. Nobody was disenfranchised through that development path. So I don’t know. Pierre, I don’t know if you want to answer that.

[01:01:40] Pierre: Well. I also think that there’s a spectrum you know we use the word developer and it’s an all-encompassing word, when really there’s a lot more to unpack there. So if we look at fundamental protocol research, and I would put Taproot in that category, it raises the question of first of all is Taproot from an engineering protocol research perspective “more advanced” than anything going on any other chain? And I would argue that, yes, it is.

And we’ve heard the argument made that these other blockchains, these other cryptocurrencies are something that we can draw inspiration from and learn from and bring the innovation into Bitcoin, and yet Taproot came from Bitcoin protocol researchers, people who’ve been working on Bitcoin for the better part of a decade, some of them longer than a decade at this juncture. And so I think that it’s really easy to look at the surface level and say, “Hey, look, there’re people who are deploying smart contracts onto this chain and there’s a lot of them, and there’s this activity going on. But then if it’s completely unscalable and on top of that, the economics of it are completely unsustainable. And it’s basically something that’s being subsidized by senior edge and marketing,” then it doesn’t persuade me that there’s a lot of “developer activity”, or maybe there is a lot of it but there’s a trade-off there with the quality of it.

And that if we think about it long term, I think that it would have been too soon for application developers to build on top of the Bitcoin protocol before Taproot, and that I anticipate the amount of application development on top of Bitcoin to accelerate with the activation of Taproot whether it’s with smart contracts, DLCs, with oracles or with more advanced functionality on the Lightning network. And yeah, I don’t see that as being where we should be racing with each other to get low quality applications developed.

[01:03:47] Rizzo: Yeah. I mean, I think to maybe just bounce off that. I mean, the activity has to be evaluated within the constraints, right? Like within Ethereum and these other systems, this is where it becomes helpful to start looking at behaviors in aggregate, right? So Ethereum offered the developers the ability to build whole new systems, launch new coins within the systems and then essentially within a push of a couple buttons set up new – Essentially change the economics of the Ethereum system, right? So in Bitcoin, the developers built to a higher standard, right? They built to the higher standard of respecting the rights of users not just to the money, not just to the private keys for their money, but to the ability for those users to have the right to have a known supply and to know the issuance and to know what the Bitcoin economy is, right?

Again, I think if you look at from that perspective, not only has Bitcoin achieved a lot even just putting Lightning in a box, but they’ve also done it to a higher degree of engineering and that they actually have found a way to accommodate this activity without invalidating or removing some other benefit that was there previously. Again, I think that you have to sort of look at that.

Again, this is why I think like it’s sort of misleading to kind of look at the cryptocurrency system as this like great enabler of freedoms, because the freedom is kind of fairly limited to like you being able to trade or move value through all these different types of coins. And like, ultimately – I don’t know. I don’t think we know that that is actually going to be behavior that is impactful or matters in the long term. I mean, you certainly saw this with Ethereum at the point that they were kind of three layers deep within their system during the DeFi summer period, right? You had multi-token protocols being launched on Ethereum and then you had application level tokens that were bundling these primitives or whatever kind of things they were calling them. And the economic relationships between these things started to break down, right?

So yeah, there’s been a lot of activity on Ethereum. But in some cases I’m amazed by like how both groups are still kind of playing in the similar sandboxes, right? I mean, Ethereum is still trying to stand up some of these layer two systems. Bitcoin is getting there, and in some cases like in El Salvador, it’s certainly already live, right?

I think, Ethereum, when you saw these systems really getting stacked up on each other, the economics of the systems just started to not work like with Wi-Fi and YAMs and all these types of things, right? So I don’t know. Again, like activity is not really an indicator of anything. You have to kind of keep in mind what you’re building.

[01:06:11] Speaker: I find this whole question so bizarre, because as someone who’s been developer, who’s been trying to follow Bitcoin for a long time, the amount of development going on has gotten so vast, I can’t even follow it anymore. Try going to the Bitcoin mailing list and just reading every single post there keeping up with it, it’s a full-time job. I mean, the idea that Bitcoin development has slowed, just totally absurd. And just I think it’s somebody who is not looking at where development’s happening and they’re pretending it’s not there. It’s like putting your head in the sand and being like, “Oh, why is there no sky?”

[01:06:39] Pierre: Shout out to the Bitcoin Optech newsletter. Go subscribe to their newsletter. It’ll give you a chance of maybe keeping up with the tip of the iceberg. But you’re right, that it is impossible to keep up with all of the development activity going on in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

[BREAK]

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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[01:10:59] Speaker: Hi, guys. Can I speak?

[01:11:01] Pierre: Sure.

[01:11:02] Gideon: Okay. Well, just to answer the implied question on the topic against crypto why Bitcoin only. I’d suggest to say that there’s a learning curve with all cryptocurrencies. And even with Bitcoin, I think it took me a while to appreciate the depth and the revolution that it offers just, one, the custody of your own currency; two, anonymity. I’m not so sure how that works or to what extent it’s anonymous. And then the third, the decentralized ledger.

And when Rizzo was speaking, it’s true. Just sort of like been this question implied about toxicity and whatnot. And I was just thinking currency in general, not just crypto. It’s a social construct, right? I mean, the only reason why currency has utility is as far as we can use it in our society to trade things for value, or storing things of value, or just exchanging stuff.

And I must confess that, personally, I’ve been struggling to keep up with what we’d say are the Bitcoin maximals. And I don’t want to say they’re just toxic for no reason. But in the extent that we try to think about crypto or even Bitcoin in our society, right? Let’s think about the coin exchanges. How many people get onboarded onto Bitcoin? Because back in 209, you could get Bitcoin by mining through your PC. And these days I’m not so sure how feasible that is. You probably just like need like ASIC machines and stuff. So what? You need a coin exchange and you need to buy Bitcoin. But then this exists on top of the existing fiat currency system, right? And we are offering Bitcoin as sort of like this alternative.

But the truth is it’s an alternative, yes, but there’s some relationship there. And governments, apart from the fact that they have no control over Bitcoin, they are concerned over money laundering and even as far as we want to use Bitcoin as a store value, as an asset class, or as a currency, this is issue of taxation. And this is why I just want to have, let’s call it a safe space, to discuss the ambitions that we want for Bitcoin and to sort of like square that with a reality. Is it really possible to have something that’s an asset or a currency that ignores its interoperability with like other systems for either tax collection or just like know your client protocols just so that we don’t have terrorist shifting money in between. And I just find myself in conflict there because I am really for the great advantages that Bitcoin possesses, but I just don’t see how we can have mass adoption if we don’t sort of like address those issues. And sometimes I enter into spaces with Bitcoin maxies and people talked me down so much. They tell me, “Hey, Gideon, why don’t you go research about what Bitcoin –”

[01:13:50] CK: Hey. Well, let’s not use this space as a space to complain about people talking down, but I do think that that’s an interesting question. Rizzo or Pierre, do you want to address the comment?

[01:14:02] Pierre: Yeah, I feel talked down to right now. But I think that you’re –

[01:14:06] Gideon: Sorry.

[01:14:06] Pierre: No. You’re fine. I’m kidding. You make a point, sir. Ultimately, I think that the toxic response to the concerns you raised is that the government can try, right? They can try to add KYC. They can try to add tax compliance on top of Bitcoin, but we’re not going to do it for them, and they have to get us to adopt their software, and that’s just not going to happen. And so just structurally, there isn’t really anything that can be done with regards to the Bitcoin protocol in terms of connecting it into the fiat world in that way and that it really is the fiat world itself that will have to adapt and governments will have to find a way to make a living without stealing people’s money.

[01:14:52] D++: Yeah, if I may just chime in here some interesting questions. I think if we kind of look at the history of humanity for thousands upon thousands of years, people have transacted privately with other folks without being surveilled. The idea that our financial activity is surveilled is quite new. I believe it was only in the 70s that this started, and of course it has continued to increase. So the idea of KYC being your customer, it might seem like we’re doing things like protecting folks from terrorism and that kind of thing. And if that were the case, I would be all for it. But the problem is it actually breeds terrorism. And here’s why.

So with the KYC laws, as they are, there are actually billions of people as a result that are shut out of financial services. So they are either unbanked, meaning they can’t have a bank account at all, or they’re underbanked, meaning they have very limited access to financial services. And if these folks are the victims of totalitarian regimes, what that means is they have no way out. They have no way of saving. They have no way of leaving, and they’re stuck. So those folks, as I’m sure you can probably imagine, often turn to violence. So if we actually can remove these totalitarian laws, it’ll actually decrease and not increase violence worldwide.

And that said, the question is about taxing. I think El Salvador is a really great case study for that, because El Salvador has made Bitcoin legal tender, Bitcoin is just the money. So you don’t have to pay taxes on your money just as money because that doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. And so that’s the way I see Bitcoin and that’s why I think it doesn’t make sense to tax Bitcoin itself.

[01:16:36] CK: Hey, just real quick in terms of etiquette. After people make their comment or question, I am removing you. There’re a lot of people requesting to get on stage. So just trying to maintain civility on stage. So [inaudible 01:16:49] requesting. I think you’ve had your question. Same with you, Reggie. D++, what are your thoughts or comments regarding this conversation in general?

[01:16:59] D++: Oh yeah, you can feel free to move me back to the audience if you need to make some space. I was just here to talk about Bitcoin versus crypto.

[01:17:06] CK: No. Yeah, let’s switch back to that, right? So in terms of this conversation, I do really love the thought that Rizzo kind of highlights that like Bitcoin is very unique than all other crypto, because it’s about the user flat out, like no question. I think there’s been a lot of ways that Bitcoiners have tried to articulate this. The man in the coma can wake up and his keys are still his keys. There’s a lot of different ways that Bitcoins are trying to articulate this idea. But I feel like Rizzo and this paper has really articulated it very cleanly on this differentiator of why Bitcoin is special and of its own thing. I’m curious if you have any comments on that. Or if Dustin, Tomer, Mike have any comments.

[01:17:48] Tomer: I mean, I’m happy to say something. Pete and I did exchange a couple of direct messages earlier today on his really interesting article. And I think he’s hit the nail largely on the head. So not to disagree. I thought he was a little bit generous to the camp that is crypto agnostic insofar as there was a painting of it as those systems are majority rule systems I think is what the article said a couple of times. And in fact, it’s hard to know what a majority is in many of these systems because the identities of cryptographic keys. Anyone can spin up a hundred million votes if the votes are how many identities or how many addresses you have. So we don’t have that as a way of determining what the majority is.

Again, even before I just – I would say I don’t think that majority rules is a fair system. It is the majority exploiting the minority. So the whole point of rights is they protect minorities, right? Not that they are different ways for majorities to exploit minorities. But what we actually end up seeing is not even that there’s a majority rule in a lot of these other cryptos. What we end up with are different governance mechanisms, which may be hiding under some kind of majority. So with Ethereum, when they voted, and I’m making air quotes on rolling back the DAO, there were just a handful of votes, and it was deemed to be democratic. But when they recently had these accidental hard forks, it wasn’t that they went with the chain that had the most number of people voting for it. You would say, “Well, maybe they went with the chain that had the most mining on it. But my understanding is if that wasn’t the case either even, they ended up going with the chain that the developers said was the right new reference client.” So it’s a very small subset of people who are actually the ones with the votes are the majority. And in the case – I think in the case of Ethereum, often, we actually have a majority of the Vitaliks. So if the one Vitalik says this is the way we’re going, that’s the way everybody ends up being taken ultimately.

[01:19:51] Rizzo: I mean, I’ll take it from there. I mean, I 100% agree with you. And I think I led by saying I do agree with the criticism that this was very charitable. But one of the interesting things about making an argument where you sort of give the counter view like a very charitable deference is I think like you end up sort of seeing that let’s just even assume that these other cryptocurrencies essentially function the by majority rule. Like how do you not end up with the types of systems that are essentially we’re trying to avoid, right? So sort of three camps here being you sort of end up with some system of governance. And Bitcoin, your right to money is an absolute right. Like it exists entirely and can never be revoked. As soon as you’re in some other system where your right can be revoked by someone, like this is where the crypto system and the fiat system start to seem very similar, right?

And I think the issue here that I think both groups I think should rightly have, like from the fiat perspective, like they’re saying – And I call this out in the piece. Like the fiat perspective is pretty simple to understand, right? They just don’t think the private market should issue money. And they think that democratic states should be able to manage money in the public interest, right? Because you can follow the train of thought there by saying elected officials represent users, elected officials make decisions, and therefore the majority’s opinion about what should happen in fiat currency is sort of what’s enacted. And I think why I actually like that comparison is because, I agree with you, that in most cases on these other cryptocurrency systems, it is absolutely not the case where there’s a significant majority that is making these decisions. It’s probably a small collusive minority.

But even in instances where it was like a large majority, you’re still dealing with a system where the majority of some group can take away your rights. I think the issue here is that the cryptocurrency people – And this is the thing that I feel like they’ve kind of slipped under the rug, is that they feel like it’s okay for the market to rescind the users rights but not okay for the government to rescind user rights. And that’s where it gets like really confusing, because there’s a weird moral conundrum there [inaudible 01:21:56] actually rescinding someone’s rights or imposing the cost that they start an entirely new cryptocurrency or use another cryptocurrency in order to redeem those rights or to recognize their rights, right? So I think that’s where it sort of starts to be like, “Okay, well, clearly there’s something here with these other cryptocurrencies where they’re doing something that isn’t Bitcoin. Because in Bitcoin, we do have this right to dissent.” Like you do not have to agree to the majority’s rules. Like you do not have to upgrade to Taproot like if you do not want to. And no one is going to rescind your rights to Bitcoin.

Again, like that just something that does not seem to exist at all in these other places. And so I guess this is – I think you have to start with the charitable argument, because even the charitable argument is weak. If at best all you’ve done is reconstruct democratic style majority governance of over money, but you’ve actually removed all the public oversight, that happens in the current system today, and just kind of handed that over to the market to decide, then what does that say about your moral choices? And I feel like the answer is it says a lot. Like it says a lot about your attitude towards things.

[01:23:09] Tomer: Yeah. So I’m in complete agreement with you. I just will wrap up with a quick one on leave the stage. I think Bitcoin was this advancement. It was a step forward. They did exactly what you just described, which is it guarantees the rights that are promised in it to every individual irrevocably. That was the advance, right? And anything that no longer does that isn’t a new advancement. It’s a regression back to what we’ve had before. Like I think that really encapsulates for me when I look at all these other projects to say, “Oh, I’ve seen that before. That’s the fiat money system. Or that’s the corrupt system.”

[01:23:44] Rizzo: Well, I mean, to be honest, I think my worry is that we’re going to find out these systems are even worse. My real big worry I think is you’re going to see the mass scale migration to these systems before we even understand the problems. And this is why like my – Privately, I’ve talked about this a bit with different people, is like my worry about Ethereum and these other type systems is they get very large, like much larger before they start to see any real type failure conditions, because the kind of things that you’re talking about with the problems are if they’re fundamentally weaker on user rights, like if it is true that these systems like from the standpoint of user rights offer no greater guarantees than we have with government monies but then replace the government with some organization that is like even less accountable, that’s where it sort of starts to get feeling like, “Okay, we all sort of understand there’s something wrong with what’s going on in the alternative cryptocurrencies even if some of us like can’t really quite define it yet.”

[01:24:36] Tomer: So can I just ask a question then, Pete, because I think –

[01:24:39] CK: Hey, really quick. We do have a hard stop in 10 minutes. So Tomer, if we keep this one brief and then [inaudible 01:24:45].

[01:24:45] Tomer: Very brief question. Very brief question. Well, I’ll ask the question and I’ll leave the stage when I ask it. I’ll stick around for the answer. Do you think that the people who are coming into these systems that are poorly governed aren’t aware of the poor governance but have made the choice?

[01:24:58] Rizzo: Oh yeah, Absolutely no idea. There’s no way they have any idea, because they’re not even viewing it like that. They’re just picking a random number on the charts. It’s like if you walked into a horse race and you bet on lucky seven because it was your favorite number or like they had a green harness or something. Yeah, I really don’t think that there’s – But that’s sort of the problem, right? And I think this is where if you’re starting to argue against neutrality, if this this default view of like all these systems are the same, you have to sort of start with like, “Okay, well, why are they different?” And I think the strongest difference between Bitcoin and these other systems is not really the economics. It’s not the decentralization of the network. It’s not even really like the immaculate conception launch type things. I mean, I agree that these are all great fundamental differences. Again, I feel like the user rights perspective, it’s like there’s some things to that argument, right? I just feel like it’s very appealing. And I think it kind of strikes to why we’re all here.

I understand why it’s been difficult to articulate. And I’ll even kind of like open the conversation with – I think one of the reasons why people have been like kind of afraid to like put this out maybe is that there is sort of a technical concern. Like maybe we do reach a point where we do have to hard fork with Bitcoin for some reason, right? So I feel like there’s been a reticence to like kind of talk about this like right to dissent like we have because we can currently advance Bitcoin and soft forks. But even there’s like the kind of this little thing in the back of people’s heads, which is like, “Oh, maybe this isn’t absolute. Like maybe for some reason somewhere down the line we find out we need to do this for some reason.” And let’s just say it’s like an end of days type scenario.

So I feel like that’s why people are kind of scared to talk about it. And I think I finally had a comfort level with this where I started to think about it of like, “Okay, well, if ultimately Bitcoin is like only the best system we’ve ever created to ensure user financial rights, then maybe it exists sort of as this ideal,” right? Where it’s like it’s sort of asking like – So Erik Voorhees who reviewed the piece. He like sort of brought up that question, like, “What would happen if Bitcoin had to hard fork? Like what if there is the doomsday scenario?” And I think the answer to that is it’s sort of like asking what happens if democracy is threatened and like the United States is invaded and you need to appoint a dictator. Does democracy still exist?

And I think, yes, it is enough for an ideal to exist, and it is enough to aspire to an ideal, and it is enough to work like every day to carry out that ideal even if under certain kinds of conditions that might not exist, because I don’t know how that’s different from any other human aspirational system. Like democracy is the exact same way. There’s like no guarantee that democracy will exist forever. There’s no ultimate guarantee of it. And I think maybe I think where I hit with that argument is that if that is the case with Bitcoin like where maybe this argument that we can protect user rights the greatest extent, maybe let’s just even say there’s that scenario where we can’t actually still enable that. Я не знаю. Then at least it’s the greater thing to aspire to even if it’s not absolute.

[01:27:48] Speaker: Yeah. I just want to add to the do Ethereum people know what they’re investing in? And I think what you see is a classic example of it is that Bitcoiners, a lot of them will steal man better arguments for these Ethereum other people better than themselves. Like, “All right. The argument doesn’t make any sense. Let’s pretend it made sense and argue against that.” And you see the opposite with Ethereum.

Like one of the common narrative you hear from Ethereum these days is that the Lightning network is centralized and wrap Bitcoin is not, which is factually exactly the opposite. So it’s one of those things where if the other side is willing to lie and cheat and you take them out their word, they’re always going to sound like they’re better.

[01:28:22] CK: All right. So, hey, really quick. I want to keep this one tight. We’re going to need to take two more comments. I’m going to go with Matt, and then let’s go with Donna. And then let’s treat these like rapid fires.

[01:28:32] Speaker: Okay, great. Let’s finish them out.

[01:28:34] Pierre: Mike, Don. Or let’s go Matt, Donna, Mike, rapid fire questions for Mr. Rizzo.

[01:28:39] Matt: I’ll make it quick. Спасибо. Thoughts on SOVRYN. I saw Eden Yago is making the YouTube rounds again. He’s already done Pomp’s podcast like twice. The SOVRYN, the “side chain of Bitcoin”, but yet they insist that they need an ERC token, I guess, for governance. But your thoughts please.

[01:28:58] Rizzo: Yeah. Honestly, I haven’t looked into it enough to have any real opinion. The stacks is like a similar thing that I also would say like I don’t have a significant opinion on. I mean, look, I certainly understand why people – Again, if you sort of look at it from a user right perspective, you’re sort of undermining right to the known money supply, the right that Bitcoin provides. But look, I don’t know. I mean, I think this sort of gets into like where do you see the Bitcoin economy developing. And is there a zero tolerance policy to these other types of coins? Pierre might be able to answer that better than I can.

I mean, I still think – I guess I would say that without having looked at any of these systems at all, I understand why people are upset about them, because they do seem to undermine one of the guarantees of Bitcoin that other systems have built around and respected.

[01:29:47] Pierre: Yeah, zero tolerance, those are scams.

[01:29:49] CK: All right, let’s go Don now.

[01:29:51] Donna: Hi. thank you so much for inviting me up. So in the onslaught that we’re seeing of regulatory limelight, what do you worry most about for Bitcoin potential regulation? I asked that so that we could concentrate our efforts in trying to kind of scale that back with the regulatory ecosystem. Let’s focus on the U.S., because it’s too big to focus globally.

[01:30:18] Rizzo: Yeah. I mean, to be honest, like I don’t really think about the regulatory stuff too much. I know that’s a shitty answer, but I’ve really struggled to continue to care about it over the years. So I just feel like it’s just so behind from where things are at, right? Like if you think that dealing with the cryptocurrency journalists are getting [inaudible 01:30:33] is bad. I mean, the politicians, like it might be even worse. I mean, I’ve been encouraged by how many of the like smaller politicians are now backing Bitcoin and supporting it. And I think that’s really encouraging.

I mean, again, I think the issue continues to become like it’s like do we let everybody continue thinking that cryptocurrencies are all one group of things, right? Like is it – And that there’s no difference between these systems? I think like my wish would be that financial regulators like understand that the rights that you have within the Bitcoin system are arguably greater than you have in any other cryptocurrency, like full stop. Start from there. Start from like the actual thing that is different. And then whatever they want to make of that distinction, like I don’t care. But if you prove that there are two things instead of one thing, then, I don’t know, my attitude is sort of let the world make what they will of that. But let’s at least agree that these are separate things. I don’t know what like you should classify a lot of these cryptocurrency things as. But I know that they are not Bitcoin and I know that they are two different classes of things. And I don’t know. That should be enough for those people to carry on with some greater degree of understanding, I think. Я не знаю. Pierre?

[01:31:43] Pierre: Yeah. I think that governments don’t have a great track record themselves with regards to the rights of their or of these citizens, the people. So they don’t really have a leg to stand on. And I also think that the dynamics are going to be such that in the U.S., where I’m most familiar with deregulatory environment, I think that Gary Gensler and the SEC and whatnot, they might technically be correct that some of these things are securities. But ultimately, people want them. And they’re seeing this with their XRP litigation with Ripple. It could end up being the case that this backfires and that the SED finds itself on the defensive and that they do not succeed at even going after things that are DINO, right, decentralized in name only, because there is just a wide swath of the population that has bags, for lack of a better word. And these other cryptocurrencies end up being very useful as a way of shielding anything close to a hostile regulatory action against Bitcoin in the United States.

I mean, I know that in China, the Chinese, the communist party, they kicked all the Bitcoin miners out and all that. So that’s a different story. And I’m sure that Europe is somewhere in between communist China and the United States. So we’ll see how that goes.

[01:33:14] CK: All right, y’all. So this about hits the time. Rizzo, I want to give you a shot at a last word and let’s close this one out.

[01:33:20] Rizzo: Yeah, appreciate the questions, appreciate the time to speak, Pierre. Thanks for asking some good stuff. Hope you guys check out the article on Forbes. It’s called Against Cryptocurrency: The Ethical Argument for Bitcoin Maximalism. And again, just trying to get it out there that I think Bitcoin is stronger on user rights than other cryptocurrency systems. I think it’s an argument we should make more, because, look, I think at the end of the day, like most people want to support the rights of others. And if we can articulate as we have done why Bitcoin is more kind of ethical or moral than the fiat system, I think we can get to the bottom of how to do it against the cryptocurrencies as well, because certainly they’ve been great at obfuscating and equating what they’re doing with Bitcoin. And there’s a whole apparatus industries that are seeking to forward that equation. Anyway, yeah, appreciate the forum and thanks everyone who checked in.

[01:34:09] CK: Yeah, I love your work, man. Thanks for putting out there.

[01:34:11] Rizzo: Thanks bud, appreciate it.

[01:34:14] CK: We need more Rizzo. But this one’s a great one. A lot of digest here. Read it on Forbes. And y’all can find this, a recording of this entire conversation on Bitcoin Magazine YouTube and in your podcast player at Bitcoin Spaces Live. So check that out. And with that, let’s close it out.