Can’t wait for the Knots guys to try Citrea and have their minds blown.

“Bitcoin doesn’t need smart contracts, they’re shitcoin tech” So how is a company supposed to automate payments to employees? So that every worker, on a specific day of the month, in a moment when the transaction fees are reasonably low, receives a variable amount of bitcoin that’s denominated in the local fiat currency to their wallet. It’s been almost 17 years and we still can’t do something as basic as this. Or multisigs/timelocks that can’t be spent until the price reaches $1 million on one of the exchanges. It’s ridiculous. And some guys will argue that none of this is necessary.

What Bitcoin needs: privacy, contracts, quantum resistance, scaling What Bitcoin doesn’t need: infighting, censorship, drama, attacks on the devs who are trying to make privacy, contracts, quantum resistance & scaling happen

Bitcoin Core vs Knots is just a proxy What we’re witnessing is a separation between cypherpunks/anarchists and authoritarians/statists. This conflict has been brewing for many years, since the toxic maximalist meme somehow degenerated into the average Alex Jones supporter stereotype. Started out with eating steaks and praying to God, then grew into loving monarchies and praising authoritarian politicians who best embody the description of a 19th century monarch. Meanwhile, the nerds who want Bitcoin to be a neutral, censorship resistant & permissionless network became uncool and were left behind. So now the radicalized faction is really fighting against its roots, trying to bring down the establishment that taught them everything they know about Bitcoin before the politics got involved. There’s no way for the two camps to coexist, as their goals & vision are completely opposite. Just like the libertarians left in 2017 to support Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum, the authoritarians will also build their own safe space. It’s unfortunate, but inevitable at this point.

The same guys who went to great lengths to destroy my reputation & get me banned from conferences last year after interviewing Roger Ver are now on team Knots It’s funny, really. Literally all of them. Almost as if they were mentally and ideologically inclined to side with the censorship camp.

“We gotta keep Bitcoin for financial transactions. Data, even if it enables layer 2s to work, is spam” “Bitcoin doesn’t scale, the base layer can’t include everyone’s transaction and we need layer 2s” Pick one, Knotzis.

All I want for Christmas is that Bitcoin maximalists reevaluate Zcash (and the idea of a Zerocash soft fork) like it’s 2016 again Because the progress is amazing: ✅ no more trusted setup since Halo2 ✅ mobile wallets for shielded transactions are now a reality ✅ more scalable ✅ capable of supporting shielded assets ✅ the tech stack that Bitcoin needs to transition into the 2030s with a technological edge

Took an anti-tetanus vax shot today Feeling a strong urge to run Bitcoin Core v30

Reflecting on the success of the Bitcoin Takeover podcast I’m stuck between “Man, I would be so much more successful if I spoke with a British accent” and “Holy fuck, this Romanian guy hosts a top 10 show which he started from his bedroom with no budget while big media organizations can’t keep up”

Bitcoin Takeover is the most selfish podcast ever I don’t do it for you, I don’t care about popular demands, I couldn’t care less what you want to hear I do it for myself because I want to learn for myself and create a historical record But you can learn from it too!

2019: Canadian exchange CEO rug pulls all users. 2025: Canadian government rug pulls an entire exchange, steals the coins of all users. This is gentlemen! Mainstream adoption is here.

Hal would love Zcash And probably daydream about Bitcoin getting the Zside drivechain, ZK coins, shielded Client Side Validation, a fork of Tornado Cash on Citrea, or even the fabled Zerocash soft fork that’s long overdue.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2008: builds P2P marketplace with reputation system like eBay in Bitcoin v0.1 Bitcoin university, 2025: Bitcoin is not for arbitrary data, only shitcoin degenerates who enjoy CSAM want to do this.

The guys who listen to 40 hours of Bitcoin podcasts every week Clearly don’t listen to Bitcoin Takeover and probably shouldn’t, as they seek reassurance instead of actual learning

You spend a decade+ trying to find software engineers who are simultaneously patient enough to refine Bitcoin’s code and ideological enough to take less money than Google/Microsoft/Apple would pay them Just to vilify them at the whim of Saylor, Ocean mining & a bunch of evil marketers This is exactly how you destroy Bitcoin.

When I first joined bitcoin, it was bitcoiners who were more knowledgeable than shitcoiners and had technical to explain what’s wrong with every other coin In the meantime, bitcoiners became lazy and stopped learning The average shitcoiner is usually technically right when he talks about Bitcoin, but the average bitcoiner has no knowledge except for the mighty price chart. Sad!

The boomers had Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison & Janis Joplin. So famous you can see teenagers wearing t-shirts today. Bitcoiners have Aaron Swartz, Hal Finney, Len Sadsaman & Dan Kaminsky. But they have yet to reach the same cultural status.

Bitcoin was the hippie movement of our generation a bunch of idealists who got together and thought we can end all wars and build a better world if we use our scarce digital currency then a decade later, lots of guys sold out to become useful idiots in mainstream politics no different from the yuppies of the 1970 and 1980s. At least the boomers reshaped the entire world, albeit in ways that are entirely different from the flower power ideals of the 1960s hope we will live to do the same and not be as hated by our grandchildren. But I cannot shake off the feeling that we already failed. Bitcoin is not as culturally impactful as the hippie movement. Our art mostly sucks and is a lazy remix of existing stuff (just stick a BTC logo on it and sell t-shirts). None of the Bitcoin events will be remembered as the Woodstock of our generation. Our representation in media is mostly negative and we don’t have any “Easy Rider” to morally redeem the movement. Culturally speaking, we got nothing on the boomers.

I miss the time when I used to think that bitcoiners are smart and able to build a fairer and more honest civilization. seriously, it was such a nice time!

Listen to the Bitcoin Takeover podcast It’s better to learn how Bitcoin works than to waste your time engaging with useful idiots View quoted note →