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Will go live with @Max in 2 hours to discuss his new project: White Noise A Nostr-based privacy messaging platform which comes at the right time to counter Chat Control in Europe. Join us if you would like to learn more! https://youtube.com/live/amNaZ35KIo8?feature=share

Multisig was instrumental in boosting security and bringing institutional adoption But if Gavin didn’t implement it in the early 2010s and some random Core dev pitched multisig today The plebs would go full “nooo, Bitcoin doesn’t need contracts go away with your shitcoin tech” and make up stupid narratives about potentially using multisigs to insert CSAM into the holy timechain. So happy that some innovations happened before the radicalization took place.

The most interesting part of this thought exercise is that they act like communists they hate free markets, competition, and ideas that challenge their worldview they establish cults in which the main virtue isn’t merit, but obedience to the ideology they hate anyone who makes money and expect to receive everything for free, especially the work of others they’d rather ask government authorities to regulate against the competition than compete themselves and they shamelessly work with governments, but pretend that somehow they’re the good guys not a single bone in their bodies challenges the status quo, they even brag about paying with credit cards Nothing right wing about them.

The slippery slope of filters & legal concerns: 1/ By increasing the size of OP_RETURN, we enable criminals to insert illegal data. User nodes become illegal in some jurisdictions! 2/ By routing all transactions, we enable criminals to send money. Apply this blacklist from OFAC or else your node is an illegal money transmitter. 3/ By adding this upgrade to Bitcoin, you enable criminals to have more economic freedom. Anyone running the activation client is a criminal. 4/ Register your node, we need to know your full name and address to be able to enforce existing laws and regulations. If you use Tor or a VPN, we will ask for logs from your ISP and the compliant VPN companies. 5/ Why are you even running a node? It’s redundant, there are too many copies of the blockchain already. There’s this cool SPV feature in the whitepaper that Mike Hearn built. Here, use our wallet instead. Why do you need a node, got something to hide?

Ok fam we’re ossified. It was fun dreaming about the one coin to rule them all, but it ain’t happening 🫡 The bad news: Bitcoin won’t be getting any more significant upgrades The good news: we have great alternatives that didn’t get compromised by legal concerns and remain cypherpunk AF

I am NOT content with Bitcoin the way it is today. Mostly because I am NOT a sellout suit, a banker, a treasury company shareholder, or just an enjoyer of paper money. I very much need new features and more programability. Privacy too.

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.