Okay. So I'm here with, uh, Antoine Riard and my new guest, surprise co-host, Vortex, um, from the previous episode. Um,
uh, Antoine, you know, the listeners don't really-- they're not very familiar with Bitcoin Core contributors or you. Um, you're a dev, but what kind of dev? Um, yeah. That's a good question, sir.
[chuckles] Uh, I, I would say, uh,
you- usually there are, there are people that, um, are in the backgrounds, uh, doing the real work, and sometimes we're like most of the time very happy when people don't hear about what they are doing or like are not specifically on the spotli- on the spotlight, under the spotlights.
We're not very specifically to be under the spotlights, and that means, that means everything's works well when people don't have to hear, hear about me.
Usually people are going to hear me where, uh, we fuck up things and, yeah, there is someones to go on the frontline and then, and tell things and explain very technical topics.
Uh, most of the time it's going to be like security stuff, uh, related to second layers. That's where I spend most of my energy and work on the last years. Uh, also like a bunch about consensus change, governance,
uh, and ventures or like, you know, there, there are some huge refactorings which are always ongoing, uh, in Bitcoin Core, and I've put my hands also a bit dirty on that.
But they are not the sexy stuff that people are going to hear about.
You know, when you are like working on like thousand line of codes of C++ change in Bitcoin Core, uh, for example, like changing the record order in the wallets of, in the wallet of Bitcoin Core compared to the nodes like, or like untied from the nodes, it's very unsexy.
It's very time-consuming. Uh, you can fuck up things in the sense of you can fuck up the way people are going to see their transactions confirm in the Bitcoin Core wallets.
And yet, uh, yeah, yet it works, happens in Bitcoin Core. Yeah. What are you working on right now? Um, still a bit of lightning.
Uh, uh, you know, um, yeah, still like bit of like in the boundary of lightning and, uh, Bitcoin, and I've also like spent a lot of time like on the last month playing with the Bitcoin kernel,
uh, because now, uh, thanks to the work of many people, uh, you know, finally we start to have the Bitcoin consensus engine out of Bitcoin Core, and I think that's, you know, that, that's not the kind of things which is making the headlines or like that people are going to talk about on like the main media, but I, I think it's, it's, uh,
it's one of the most interesting happening in Bitcoin right now. Can you explain this more? Um, because I, you know, I'm still, still wrapping my, my head around the architecture of Bitcoin Core, the client.
Um, [clears throat] and you say we're taking the consensus- Yeah... stuff out of Bitcoin Core. Like, what does that mean maybe at a high level, and what does it mean at an actual like technical level? Okay.
The high level is, you know, historically, so we had Satoshi in two thousand nine, uh, two nine launch, like it wasn't even Bitcoin Core or Bitcoin G.
Uh, like it wasn't-- It was just like a Windows binary, and it was Bitcoin. And you know, with time people have add functionality, they add features, um, but base has grown.
Some people have tried to implement the protocol, so starting first with, uh, Amir Taaki and the Bitcoin, and then we have like BTCD, we have like clients in Ruby, clients in other C, C++, uh, Wasee, R Scale.
Like, like people are trying to implement the protocol to other own clients. But w-we do talk about the consensus engine. That means like you do have to implement bug for bugs.
You know, there, there is one famous bug in consensus rules, which is like the nerdemi for check multi-sigs where Satoshi just crap. You know, w-we, we often like this image about, you know, Satoshi was a genius.
Satoshi was also, Satoshi has ex- has planned everything. In reality, when you work on the codes, yeah. I, I mean, he's grabbed things, like for sure. There are, there are like a lot of small things.
He, he got right the main things, but in practice, there were also like sometimes bugs.
So check, uh, the nerdemi for check multi-sig is one of them, in the sense of you have to add an elements in your, uh, re- in the input stack to regime, uh, a multi-sig, and that serves nothing, and it, it just a bugs.
But that means today, if I go, uh, if I want to rewrite my consensus engine in C or Go or, or Rust, I, I will have to implement this bug.
And if I fail it, and it got trigger, if that got pass, got trigger, I might have like, I might be spit out of the network. And
yeah, it turns out like last year, uh, it turns out like BTCD, BTCD, uh, had consensus bugs, and BC- BTCD is one of the most, um,
I would say, uh, full implementation which had real world usage, like in sense of people are using it for as a backend for NG. I use it to run my org node. So. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's,
it's one of the most mature full node.
Uh, it's not, I would say, yeah, Bitcoin Core also is shit, but B- BTCD [chuckles] BTCD is, is, yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's, uh, it's one of the most mature full node implementation.
It has its own problems and bugs. But, um, so yeah.
So why the Bitcoin kernel is impor- uh, is inter- is important and significant is now we are getting like this main part, like all the consensus rules and what def- defines Bitcoins.
You know, wh- when people go on, on, on, uh, on the public stage and they, uh-And they say, "Yeah, Bitcoin, Bitcoin go to the moon, numbers goes up." And at the end of the day, it's consensus rules, which is fine.
What are your Bitcoin? Why we have only, like, 21 b- um, in Bitcoin? Why is, uh, subsidy schedule? Uh, you know, why are, like, the n- number of units?
L- you know, like, what define a transactions with nLockTime, the inversions, fields, all that kind of things, it's all part of the consensus rules.
And now we're getting this out of the bigger Bitcoin binary, because when we talk about Bitcoin, it's... There is a GUI, there is a wallet, uh, there is a UTXO cache,
there is a transaction relay stack, there is a b- a block network stack. Uh, what else? We do have, we do have the mempool, like [laughs] the infamous mempool. Um, so yeah, it's, it's a, it's a,
it's, it's a complex, uh, piece of sys- system engineering, but with, with time, it's like, you know, we, we have written the wallet in some way. Uh, the block sync stack has been re- written in s- in some way.
The UTXO cache has been written some way, but it's... It do- it doesn't means, like, we could have other ways of being d- done more efficiently or more easily, or with better API.
People are spending their time to complain to their PC API, and it's true.
Uh, but now, like, w- with, with the consensus on chain out, that means people are going to be able, like, to write different Bitcoin software, and that's, for me, it's exciting, and that's one of the most interesting things in Bitcoin.
I don't know. When you say write different Bitcoin software Oh, that means people, like,
not be [laughs] uh, like rewriting Bitcoin Core from scratch, or, like, not having to use, like, Bitcoin Core anymore, because what is the most variable things i- in Bitcoin Core is the consensus chain.
Like, people are not going, like... People, like... I, I don't know if I should say that on podcast, but- You can say anything on this. I, I, I, well- Well- Almost... I'll let you know if you can't say something.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. [laughs] I, I, I never... I, I worked on Bitcoin Core for years. I never opened the GUI. I, I don't give a fuck about GUI. I, I apologize. I, I know there is a lot of people [laughs]
who, who like the GUI, but I, I, I'm a Unix command line guy. Uh, I, I don't want to use a GUI, uh, and I never use it. But still, we, we do have, like, those thousand line of codes,
uh, in Bitcoin Core right now, which is all the GUI. We are... It, it's a huge mainte- maintenance cost. You know, it's a sense of... Uh, it's people, like,
e- every time you have to upgrade, you have to be sure also that the, the Qt code is upgraded with that. Uh, yeah, uh, uh, i- it's somehow from, like, uh, if you zoom out and only...
I- if you don't only take the developer perspective, it's important to have a GUI, or it's important to have, like, well-used interface.
Because some people are willing to run a Bitcoin, uh, full nodes, are willing to be part of the network of thousand of node all over the world, but they might not be, like, Uni- Unix geek. You know?
They might not be, like, Unix pe- uh, kind of people. And having a GUI for them, it's very valuable. From the perspective of a developer, it's, uh, it's maintenance work that everyone will, nodes to have to do.
Same with RPC. Like, yeah, people are- I hear a lot of devs be like, "Well, we gotta get rid of the R, deprecate the RPC." Yeah, yeah. There, there is good reasons. Like, stability matters.
Like, when you are building API and, uh, like, when you're building API, uh, stability matters in sense of you have exchange building their stuff on top of it. You do have wallets building their stuff on top of it.
You do have second layers, like Lightning, building their stuff on top of the API. So stability matters. But same, like,
y- you have, like, people, like, an exchange, w- we don't want to have RPC, like, with that outcomes to have, like, I don't know, like, more fine-grained fee estimation results.
And other people are always saying, "No, like, it might be like, you know, it might be you shoot gun in shop, like, the users might do something wrong, so should..."
And, you know, you have, you have a lot of conversations, uh, in Bitcoin Core where you have good points on both sides, and best is, like, not having, like, to decide for everyone.
And right now, we do have, like, this very monolithic software where everyone has, has to agree on everything. And yeah, that's why BB Bitcoin is very interesting. One common topic I have on this podcast is
soft forks discussing consensus. It's a difficult and- [sighs] Yeah... challenging topic even for me, 'cause I, I, I, I think and talk about it a lot- Yeah...
but it's still, like, still wrapping my head around so many of the dimensions here. Um, does separating cons- consensus out of Bitcoin Core- [laughs]... does that... Do you think that is, uh,
do you think that makes the art of developing consensus for different things better? Healthier? Um, do you think it changes anything at all? Or is- Uh, it, it, it will, it will change the game. How so? From, yeah, from
radically. Like, a, a sense of, I, I think it's going to take times for people, like, to build, like, new full node implementations on top of, of the Bitcoin kernels, but for me, it's going to move away from, like...
You know, I, I'm, I do have experience with BB Bitcoin Core, but, uh, I've also worked a lot on lightnings, and I'm, I'm, I'm used to the dy- development dynamics of lightnings, where we do have multiple implementations.
We do have core lightning. We do have LNDC. We do have Rust Lightning. We do have Ascend. We have Square. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we have four or five main implementations, and the fact that's,
you, you've always been, like, people, like, okay, uh, trying to exchange our viewpoints based on the spec, and I, I think that kind of rational debate in lightning, uh, even if lightning is super complex and that,
yeah, everything's take times. But we, we don't have this in Bitcoin Core right now, because it's, it's based more on, like-People don't want to make any change because any change might have a huge impact.
So like, th-there is no, like, this trial and error kind of process that you can see on Lightning, because on Lightning, it's often, like, you know, a clear and assigned team that are going to try some things, try it for six months on their side, try to, to...
With a subset of the networks. And if it works well, uh, they're going to bring it back to the spec. Or like, "Oh, can we have this standardized am- among all implementations?"
May- Sometimes it might be an engineer in Lightning Labs trying some things, but you do have this iterative process. Like, in Bitcoin Core, no. Like... That's what's beautiful about Lightning- [coughs]...
is that, um, it's a different consensus, set of consensus rules almost. Yeah.
And so because of this, you know, you can have a lot more experimentation, do a lot more interesting things, um, and there's a lot more wins left to go, like I mentioned on the podcast that I did.
Um, but it's just fascinating to see the, the experimentation continue, um- Yeah...
with, with the amount of different implementations, because some implementations have some features that others don't, and it's almost like they can compete. Yeah.
And so that, it does cause some interesting bugs where somebody puts a bug, uh, out, all the other implementations are, are gonna suffer [laughs] its, uh- Yeah... that, that same bug, unfortunately.
But so, you know, and they do try to, uh, collaborate and work together. But- Yeah... uh, some of that stuff is, is, is, is really interesting.
And you're saying that the project you're working on, um, takes the consensus rules out of- Uh, uh, uh, to be clear, like, uh, um, I've, uh, not the main one who I've worked on. No, of course. Uh, I've, uh...
Many people who I've worked on have been Cardon and The Chaton. A lot of, like, Bitcoin Core contributor have, like, spent time reviewing it. Uh, but it's a collective effort of all the Bitcoin Core people, like.
Uh, like, yeah. Uh, so, and I, I'm really not, I'm really not the main, uh... But that's one of the project, or, like, that's what excite me, technically excite me the most right now.
So yeah, back, back to consensus is like, consensus, everyone has to run the same rules.
Uh, on Lightning, y- we, we still have, like, channel types, in sense of, you know, you might deploy your own channel types and it might not be, like,
compatible with your own implementations, but you can experiment with it. Consensus, it's, it's all or, or nothing things.
But the thing is, like, in the future, if we have, like, different front end implementations, that means you have also, like, different teams, and, like, you can have people running, you know, what's Bitcoin hacking is.
Uh, and you can learn about consensus by working on consensus change, but most of the time also, like, working on block download or working on the mempool or working on transaction relays, which are, like, very critical.
And that's, and that, what's funny is 'cause I, I, I, I talk to people who- Yeah... want to, like, change Bitcoin, who have a soft fork.
Uh, I like many of these ideas, and the criticism is like, well, like q- like, core contributors and core's focus is like, it's, it's productive towards niche, t-towards things which improve core, but, like, it's, they're, uh, again, broadly not a, not in a position- Mm...
to, uh, to, like... It, it's just very difficult to talk about consensus changes because we have people focusing on, say, cluster mempool or V3 transactions, which are- Oh, package. Yeah, for sure...
package, package v... Like, yeah, these are things that I can kind of barely understand. They're also not very good podcast topics. [laughs] Yes. Like, that's an obvious Bitcoin op tech, like- So, y- y- You know?
[sighs] Um, so, so back to the panel you were doing- Yeah... or, or this day, and people are doing, like, working on software can be, like, very kind of political.
Like, I, I don't like to use the word political in Bitcoin because it's, it's ill-defined and, and, like, uh... But it, it's really, like, uh, people can be, like, there is a use- There's, there's a lot of conflict.
Yeah, it's conflictual by nature. A- and if consensus change wouldn't be conflictu- conflictual by nature, Bitcoin would be...
That means Bitcoin would be easy to change, and that means, like, we wouldn't value Bitcoin the same.
So the fact, the fact that Bitcoin is hard to change and that you do have to push or, like, put a lot of energy, it's, it's part of the game, and that's, that's a property we should all care about. Um, no, it's like,
I think it's like, you know, if you're Bitcoin Core contributors, and let's say you do have the technical talents and the, the will to put the work, uh, it is going to be at some point very easy to attract funding, go on podcasts, get some kind of notoriety.
I- if you only work on Bitcoin Core refactors, or work on the mempool, or w- work on s- some other things, consensus change is, like, controversial by nature. S- so
you, you're not going to make friends, or, like, you're going to lose friends. Uh, or like, you know, y- you... Yeah, uh, it's a fight in, like, a sense of
if you optimize, if you're rational, uh, Bitcoin Core contributors, and you optimize for your careers, don't go to work on consensus change. Uh, uh, that's a, that's might not be
a popular truth, but that, I, I do think that's my, uh, perspective of the reality, like. Um, so yeah, that's, that's why, like, most of the time people don't work on consensus change. You...
Uh, part of my limited prep for this conversation- Yeah... was trying to find interesting comments on the mailing list. Yeah. Um, [clears throat] and you had one, I think, last fall, maybe September, talking...
I forget the con- I m- you might remember the context, but- Transaction relay we're gonna talk about? No, it was actually, I think, on just- Channel? S- I think it was, like, something to do with soft forks. And- Yeah...
um, and you had an, um, and you talk about the, the difficulty in, in changing consensus. Yeah. And this reminded me of a particular section in this, um, in this comment or this post you have on the mailing list- Yeah...
which is, um, where you talk about during, uh, po, uh, the taproot, uh, error, the taproot- Yeah... activation era- Yeah... and CTV- Yep...
and then trying to, um, discuss CTV in the, uh, mainly in the, the core contributor- Yeah... world.
And, um, I think you said something like you were holding IRC meetings to try to, to figure out where developers, um-Uh, where- Yeah... they agree and where they disagree. I think Jeremy me were- Okay...
have done, might have Jeremy me were done that. Okay. But yeah, I, I, I, I, I've been part of the re- process on taproot. Okay. Like, like, you know, like, yeah, removing the, the diff, uh- Yeah...
I've been, uh, first-hand witness of all the CTV trial activation back in 2023. Yeah. Uh, yeah, f- like for me, it's like, uh, it, it's, yeah, it's, uh,
th- there is like, um, we-- In, in my opinions, we have felt, um...
So a- after the CTV failed attempt, there were, like, multiple initiative to try to, like, you know, how we could build a better culture on how we craft software in this space, and there were, like, three ini- initiative.
Uh, one was Bitcoin inquisi- inquisitions by AG Tons. Yeah.
Like trying to have, like, a test bed of software that's just viable in the sense of, you know, to have a stable branch where only software are, are pro and you can try with it, you can try it on rec test or, or test, uh, like, it's, it's some kind of signet.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, you, you can have, like, these conversations among the experts about, like, yes, uh, like, how, how do we understand the software change? Where are the secondary effect?
Why minor might, might are the hindrance on the effects? Uh, second one, uh, yeah- 'Cause I think CTV is on Inquisition, um, and Mutiny Net, I believe as well. Yep. Yep. Just a duplicate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There, there is CTV, there is check s- sec from stack, uh, uh, and you provide also.
Yeah, so there is a set of people who are, like, doing, like, this maintenance work on Bitcoin inquisitions to have, like, this test bed among experts.
Some initiative are trial, so, like, uh, uh, that's something I, I did for six months a year, is to have, like, regular IRC meetings, uh, open to all- Yeah... and to have, like, experts, like... Because you do have this,
you, you do have two, I would say, two trial problems. You have the first one, wh- when you're going to talk about governance is you do have Bitcoin core experts, you do have lightning experts, but
it's-- There, there is, like, communications, you know, a sense of people who understand Bitcoin scripts, consensus rules, and understand w- w- where is the second layers like lightning or coin swaps or vaults and how it works.
The intersectional set of people are, there is, like, maybe 10 people in the world who have, like, experience with base layers and second layers.
But that means, like, you know, when people are going to talk about CTV, it's like people understand the script parts, but they might not understand, like, the implication part for the second layers.
And same if you take the conversation in your sense.
People know and try to understand second layers, but they might not be understand the cost on full node resource like, you know, bandwidth, uh, signature, resource usage, all that kind of things that you're going to care from the perspective of Bitcoin core.
So first, uh, one of the first goal was trying to bridge, uh, you know, like, the communication silos between second layers and, and base layers developers.
And second part is like, you know, you have people who are going to work on a node card in his corner.
Uh, you have another developers in the part of the world who is going to work in his basement on another of cards, but they are never going to talk. It's, it's- I've-- This is why we did our whole conference up next.
Yes. Because it was like, I was like, "These people don't talk to each other." And I just, I thought everyone talked to each other. Like- Oh, no [laughs]...
before all, before all this, before all this, like, me looking in the inside, I was like, "Oh yeah, the, the core devs got it." [laughs] The, the, yeah, I trust them.
And I, I do trust, you know, Bitcoin developers corporately, but, like, I did not realize how fractured the communication is.
Um, and I think this, this is, uh, I wa- you know, I'm not really, uh, not, not really trying to reflect on this. I'm still kind of processing it because I think the average pleb- Yeah...
um, goes, "Yeah, the, the devs got it." But the, but this past, like, the past month- [laughs]... we saw the average pleb totally break somehow and be like, "The devs don't have it.
They're, they're like, they're trying to sabotage Bitcoin. What happened?" And I think this really stems from just, uh, very, um, a lot of the Bitcoin...
You, you Bitcoin devs, uh, hang out on R- I- IRC a lot, and you don't come on podcasts and talk to the weird MicroStrategy moon boys enough, so they don't understand what's going on. Yeah.
So- Well, also too, like, it's, I just wanna harp on your point again, where it's, it's true that usually, like, Bitcoin developers don't really talk to a whole lot of lightning developers, at least on a day-to-day- Yeah...
basis.
It, it really is their own ecosystems, and, you know, there's pluses and minuses to that, but I don't think, I don't know if the average pleb understands that either, is that, look, like, lightning is a whole different world than base chain.
And, you know, NVK will say it all the time, like, you know, he's, he's only caveman on chain. Like, that's all he cares about.
Um, but obviously, um, there is this whole other br- br- branch, and when we're talking about soft forks and opcodes that affect both layers- Yeah...
like CTV, it really is difficult to kinda get everybody in the, in the room.
So definitely thankful for, you know, conferences like Op Next to hopefully get some of these, um, you know, layer one and layer two people in the conversation when it comes to upgrades and software. Yeah.
It's, it's, it's, yeah, like you were saying, there, there is a far limitations of communication space, and it's unsuspected. Uh, like it's, uh, as far as you have not put your own f- feet into it, it's, uh, it's,
yeah, you cannot believe a- as much as like, yes, it's,
th- there is a, a comp-- It's not a complete failure, but, uh, and when you're saying like, yeah, Bitcoin developer are trying to sabotage, they are not trying to sabotage, but there, there is, um,
yeah, th- there's a lack of common, um, space of communications where people can have, people from different perspective can exchange their viewpoints.
And, uh, doing with, uh-You know, not in a conflictual way, but with a real dialogues where you take times to listen to everyone's viewpoints, and you try to understand why.
You know, it's, it's, it's easy to be Bitcoin Core developers and to be, uh, condescendence or, like, conceits towards, like, I don't know, someone with a use case or an exchange trying to do that. But i- it's...
You won't be going to be using the real worlds, and for that you need people building apps or, like, building business or, like, building a, pff, exchange on-ramp, off-ramp. So
trying to sometimes, like, uh, put in the shoes of someone else, it's never be done, never be done by Bitcoin Core developers. And it, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's hard. Like, maintaining Bitcoin Core is hard.
Uh, you, you have GCC which is a breaking. Uh, we changed the build system last year. Uh, there is always a library to fix. There is dependency to take care about. Uh, there is RPC to, yeah, to, to, to refines.
Yes, so it's... But you should also understand that, uh, most of the Bitcoin developers I know are very talented peoples. Uh, peoples, uh, who are multi- not m- multi skills, uh, but- Multi-talented.
They're mul- multi... They have many domains. Multifaceted. Yeah, multi-fac-, yeah. Yeah, but it d- it's, it's also, like, it's going on podcasts, uh, going into the medias, going to conference to...
It, it's start- it start to be a different job. A sense of, you know, it's more like evangelist kind of jobs, uh, communications type of jobs. And it's [laughs] public relations-y kind of stuff. And- U- Udi...
Uh, I don't know, this might be a toxic person to bring up, but Udi Wertheimer I had on this podcast. Yeah. He said Core should start making, um, TikTok videos. [laughs] And I was like, honestly? [laughs] I, I, I do.
There is a part of, uh, I agree and I disagree with him. Uh, I, I disagree with him because I, I do think the medium you pick up, uh, has an impact on the message.
Uh, and that's something which has been well studied in sociology of medias. But yes, uh, when you go on TikTok, it's 10 second, 20 second of span of attention.
Going to explain a hard mathematical, uh, or cryptographic problem [laughs] on TikTok- [laughs]... it doesn't fit, right? But my ex or, like, lightning is a lot of economics.
Lightning is a lot about fees, like doing the maths, like off-chain, on chains, uh, topology and graph theory. Do you see explaining that on TikTok? It's...
Yeah, well, and, and in my opinion, it's like, I do believe, like, Bitcoin is a scientific project, you know, at, at first in sense of it works and we have all some kind of faith in Bitcoin because mathematics are the same from, like, it's the same for me, like, in Vegas, Miami, Hong Kong, Nairobi, uh, São Paulo, every part of the world, we are using the same mathematics.
That means we can use Bitcoin, uh, or, like, we can build things. Uh, when you start to be, like, on TikTok or Twitter or, like... That's why I'm not on Twitter. I think it's a disaster.
Like, it, you can always get things wrong because the medium is, like, if you are scientific and engineer first, it's, your medium of expression is a white board. Uh, it's long texts, mainly sparse.
It's like white paper. It's, it's a kind of literature, like, to convey complex technical ideas. So
some of we have to find, like, some kind of medium ground, but- Maybe we need, uh, the, all the out of, out of work Bitcoin podcasters to specialize in, like, summarizing, like, Greg Maxwell Reddit posts or, you know- Yeah...
or Bitcoin mailing lists, like- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's why, you know, the work that, uh, Uptake people have done, uh, that's sh- uh, Mike Schmidts and David Aardvinge have done, I, I think it's very valuable.
Uh, we, we need more David Aardvinge. That's Greg Mary Maxwell in this space. A sense of people who can understand very deep technical contents and try to vulgar- vulgarize it, we say in English. Uh,
or like- Des- describe it. Describe it in more detail is- Yeah. Distill. Decipher. Decipher. Decipher. But w- we need technical historians. Yeah. Uh, we need m- more technical evangelists, but that's,
it start to be a different job than, like, writing good C++ work or testing low-level C works or, like, doing cryptographic kind of research.
Such a good point that, you know, so much work, um, of developers just is so far opposite of any type of media, or anything to do with media, anything to do with advertising, anything to do with even just, like, conveying topics in a simplistic manner.
Yeah. It's, it's, it doesn't... It's even that itself is, is, is almost just not a thing that normally developers do.
They, they have, just like lawyers, they always speak in lawyer speak because they have to, because everything is so exact.
Same with software developers, you know, thing won't compile if this one long, this one, one character is incorrect, so they have to speak very precisely as well.
And so I, I, I guess the, I think the, the conclusion will be really, uh, is that podcast is gonna be the medium.
That is the only kind of chance that we have at having some kind of long form discussion, um, from, from, um, the regular person to a developer.
That's gonna probably be their only main connection because I just don't see regular people going and reading all of the amazing work that developers do.
Um, I see them as pretty much probably only listening to them on a podcast.
I, I, I don't, I don't think things should be seen statically because, you know, you, you might, you might hear first on the podcast or on a conference about, like, the great consensus cleanup or, like, cluster mempool, and you might get more curious.
Uh, you might start to, uh, read about C++ co- uh, book codes, uh, to read C++ code by yourself or you might start to dig into, like, more advanced resource. It, it should be a path or like, like...
And I, ideally, we, you know, more we do have, like, Bitcoin hobbyist or, like, Bitcoin plebs, like, uh, passionate and, like, running their own full nodes, following consensus change, more secure Bitcoin is in sense of harder Bitcoins to change, and, like, and more Bitcoin is stable.So from my perspective, like, education matters in sense of tr- trying to live it up, people.
Like, uh, and, and I- and we have seen this with Op return, but [laughs] the last- Well, I think that that's the good work that the Op Tech, you know, people do- Yeah...
with, with their podcast and with their information.
Like, the, their, the, the information, the technical information is out, being put out there by the thankless work, like, people like Op Tech and, you know, a lot of podcasters and stuff, um, like Charles- Ah.
[laughs] But it's, it's, that's gonna be the medium that the average pleb is going to, um, learn. I, kind of, our thought, our thought with this content and block space media is- Yeah...
more we're trying to be, uh, we're trying to speak more to the institutional- Yeah... institutional folks.
Um, maybe not, like, the people doing the corporate treasury, but if, if they had a, like, an internal, like, technical person who's like, "I'm gonna stay on top of, like, what's going on in Bitcoin," I mean, k- they can't sit and, like, read everything on the mailing list, but if they can, like, tune in to, like, uh, our content, read our newsletter, read our writing, stuff like that- Well, that's where this threshold happens- Yeah...
which is interesting, 'cause it's like once you get, uh, above a certain threshold, well, then you're just gonna read all the s- Michael Saylor stuff and- Yeah... the business.
That, that's, that's- 'Cause- That's what you're seeing. Those people will never ta- usually partake in the technical discussion, so you almost can't even really target those people. Well, as we saw with, um,
Bitcoin Mechanic, most people just re- just take their opinion from a token person they consider to be technical. A podcaster. [laughs] A podcaster. So, uh, you know, when, when- Yeah. [laughs]...
the podcasters become, uh, uh, distorted in their views of how Bitcoin works, then that can create massive- Well, that's why we have lots of podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[laughs] They can hopefully cross-pollinate the ideas. You know, and there is, like, doing multi-doc or, like, Twitter storm or that kind of stuff, they, there is a risk of for us to race to the bottom. Yeah. Yes.
And, and, like, y- you start to get into, like, more emotional arguments where- Yeah... Bitcoin is monetary usage and it should stay so, the same.
It's, it's, it's- Satoshi would say- It's a super times, time traveling battery that... Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Every, or like- It's less long form content- Yeah. [laughs]...
is what I really, really, really appreciate- [laughs]... from podcasters- [laughs]... you know, because Twitter is gonna be a, a shit storm. [laughs] Yeah.
A, a, and my impression [laughs] is the last Op return, like, it has get on Twitter and, like, Bitcoin developer have, have tried to do analogy, but they're doing bad analogy instead of, like, in my opinion, like, if you want to level up the conversations, y- you are going to come with, um, numbers, like quantitative measurements.
Well, I've seen even you start to t- uh, put, put out a couple of troll posts just because, like- No, no. Well, not, not fully troll but, you know, just because- Oh, maybe...
because people, like, uh, at this point, that's almost what they only respond to. Like, they don't respond to the actual information, the good information that people like yourself put out, the actual statistics.
They're like, "No, show us a troll post dunking on somebody, like, on the opposite side." [laughs] That, that's, that's all Twitter wants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, you, and you're on Twitter.
You know, it's, it's easy just to send a tweet, right? Ah.
So w- when you have to write a long texts, it, it take you one or two hours, you have to think about what you say, uh, and, and, so it's leveling up the conversation. Okay.
I love this, but my Twitter account, my Twitter follower count is going up right now, so I like the platform. Okay. Uh, I'm, I'm joking. [laughs] [laughs] So I'm a, I'm a huge fan. I get, I've, I've been- No, I'm back...
I've been really nailing the engagement lately. We're just talking about technical discussions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know. [laughs] Well, uh, I, I wanna wrap this up.
Um, and, and, um, but I invite you, Antoine, um, I'd like to ask people, especially the people who spend a lot of their time in, like, you're, the technical weeds- Mm-hmm...
zoom really far back out, take yourself out of the, the technical discourse, out of the math and science, um, what do you hope Bitcoin looks like in 20 to 50 years? I hope it's still around. I, I mean, it's,
that, that, that's, like, I, I, I were there or I was already in Bitcoin and working on Bitcoin developments when we got the inflation bug. Uh, and, you know, I'm, like, not, just not screwing up on things like that.
And, you know, I, I could say, like, uh, inflation bugs, but it might be, like, network kind of synchronization issues or, like, problem with the DB or, like, we, uh,
uh, we, we, we take too often, like, Bitcoin stability and robustness for granted, and it, it's a lot of work just to get things running, just to get things running. I'm not even doing, talking about doing soft work.
I'm not doing, like, you know, changing policy rules, just getting things running release after release. Thank you so much for coming on the pod, Antoine. Yeah.
I know you don't do many of these, and I really appreciate this. Uh, very valuable to me. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So, um, I assume I will see you off and on at the, in the Bitcoin tech beat. So yeah. Sure.
Thanks. [microphone thumps] And Vortex, thank you.