Latest conversation with Simon Dixon and his journey…

If there’s one thing the ColdCard vulnerability has taught me is that many are just one single mistake away from catastrophic failure. And for many, that single point of failure is you…

Inflation = shrinkflation What’s fascinating isn’t the difference in size, but it’s also more expensive!! 😂

When we say that ribaa is evil, and mostly a the root of a lot of problems of today, we mean it. Bitcoin has the option to escape that, but first one must remove the love for it from our hearts.

My article about the relationship between node runners and miners View article →

Michael has a physical hash lock!! How cool was that!!

So apparently…the Bitcoin network is on hold until 1st September. I had to pay rent and some bills, but I’m going to have to tell the landlord to wait until the Bitcoin Network is back up and running again…this is so tragic!! If the Bitcoin network halted for even a single day, it would be the death of the network. Its proposition of being the most robust network mankind has ever seen will be turned to ash and it would literally be just another fiat. So sad to see a grown man break down like this, and for people to be egging him on…

Litecoin is SHOCKINLY stable lol 😂 Who needs usdt when you got LTC?!

A pretty good breakdown of the events of the last few days form Simon Dixon Simon gave a really good summary

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Exciting stuff!!!

Love this guys general breakdowns.

One thing I just heard now is…why did they send it all to one address? If they have the capability to find people’s seed phrase and swipe their funds, then why not simply send them all to individual addresses and hide in what are other normal txs? Nobody would gave really noticed or there wouldn’t be an easy way to know what is stolen and what is a genuine tx just by looking at it? The suggestion is that they wanted to be known. This is all speculation, and they could of just been that stupid, but it does beg the question. But…Plot twist, it turns out the guy downloaded kimi k3 and was so excited at it’s capabilities that he simply tied it to his Hermes agent and gave the goal “make me some money and don’t stop until I’m a millionaire” then went to bed. He wakes up in the morning and finds his agent executed one of the most devastating crypto hacks of the decade, and now he is, as requested, a millionaire. What a plot twist that would be if true. The worlds first ai driven bank heist.

As much as the coldcard vulnerability was clearly & openly devastating, loss of funds due to an overly complicated setup is equally devastating but less visible. Be careful when considering multisig, passphrases, miniscripts etc

Even though you haven’t got funds on a coldcard…do you find yourself checking your wallet just in case? That level of latent fear is what has hit the ‘Bitcoin community’. Bitcoin was built on the idea that, if locked in a seed phrase that’s never hit the internet, you can sleep at night. Although that is still true, it has still hit many in the chest, and sowed the seeds of doubt. It will take time to overcome that fear. But one good thing that’s come from this is that moving forward, people will be more scrutinising over the products they use and recommend.

I think this is very balanced video, without the name calling, condescending attitude or dismissal many have seen. Something for both sides to consider and an attempt to turn down the temperature of tension in the air.

Good morning 🌅 I wanted to share something I stumbled across that is **peak geek** as it relates to the design choice of Bitcoin where Satoshi himself used satoshis rather than Bitcoin itself. Let me explain. We all know that 1 Bitcoin is 100000000 Satoshis. That means that if I want to send you 0.001BTC, what I’m actually sending you is 100000 Satoshi’s. But if you’re actually designing a wallet, you’re faced with a conundrum. Your user is displayed Bitcoin, not Satoshis. So if a user wants to send 0.23 Bitcoin to their friend, and they have two UTXO’s on their wallet, one 0.1 BTC and another 0.2 BTC , you’re faced with the option to do some decimal maths. **Input: 0.1 BTC + 0.2 BTC** These are the two coins (UTXO’s) used to make the transaction. **Output: 0.23 + 0.05 (change) + 0.02 (fee)** It all looks good and straight forward and both sides of the equation balances out. If you did this in Python, it would work perfectly fine in most cases. When you’re leaning about Bitcoin and you start making a wallet in Python, you’d be fine doing this simple arithmetic, which is what I did making a basic wallet earlier this year as part of the boss challenge. But I wanted to challenge myself and remake that wallet in C++ so I could learn C++ in the process lol. It was this choice that revealed to me why Bitcoin at the code level is not representing in decimals, but in whole integers (ie whole numbers). The above example must be converted into Satoshis before any addition and subtraction is done. In languages like C++, decimal arithmetic isn’t that accurate, which would totally wreck you if you’re unaware. So 0.1 + 0.2 ≠ 0.3, but is 0.3000000004 lol. This is a total nightmare if you have designed a wallet in the back end to add up say 20 UTXO’s, all in decimal. No matter how hard you try, the sum of Satoshis will always be off, either giving you more Satoshis or less. Something I learnt the hard way. This is why the value we see on the screen, it the BTC value, is always a conversion of the value as held in the backend of the wallet, which is in sats. So a review of the above, **Input: 0.1 + 0.2** **Output 0.23 + 0.05 (+ 0.02 as unsaid fee)** In the backend we must convert the 0.23 the user wants to send to Satoshis and then do the following arithmetic **Input: 10,000,000 + 20,000,000** **Output: 23,000,000 + 5,000,000 (+ 2,000,000 as unstated fee)** And then that is displayed back to the user in decimals. You must design your wallet to constantly convert backwards and forwards, converting from Bitcoin with its decimals, to Satoshi without decimal, do the arithmetic and then back to decimal when displaying the result back to the user. This is why, when satoshi first designed Bitcoin, at no point in the code is Bitcoin ever represented as Bitcoin, but in Satoshi. The below video totally geeks out in explaining why computers struggle with decimal arithmetic, also formally known as ‘floating point’ arithmetic. Hopefully this level of geek would be great for you this morning with a cup of coffee.

This is @Excellion’s response to my, rather long thread. Again, I appreciate the time you’ve given to reply, and IMV, it was very reasonable response. I’d say probably 90% of my concerns had responsible response. Highly recommend reading it, albeit long.

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Some of the highlight he raised were: 1) He’s not opposed to consensus level changes to combat spam, but is more concerned about the process. He feels more dev support is required, & that makes perfect sense. I guess my only issue is what happens when one is ignored? 2) I agree it shouldn’t be this ‘rushed’, but as @Excellion himself said in WBD, Luke has been effectively pushed out core, & this discussion has been suppressed. So even though it does seem rushed, this would be the expected response. So where is the middle ground? 3) The idea that ‘mob rule’ is a bad idea, & if successful, where does it lead to? This is a genuine concern, & as both Samson & I mentioned, this is a result of a breakdown between devs & users. I think we need to heal & mend that breakdown, from both sides. Not sure how though. 4) I think the most significant point raised is “what next?” I don’t think anyone knows the answer, & I’m sure we’ll find out eventually, but for something as important as Bitcoin, the viable alternative fiat, what are the next steps if BIP110 succeeds or even fails? My personal conclusion is that there are definitely a lot of negative unknowns if BIP110 succeeds, & also some positives, & I honestly don’t know which will have the NET positive outcome. Nobody can say for sure they know either, on both sides of the fence. But as long as the governance issue remains unresolved, I don’t see this type of conflict ever ending. I don’t feel spam, big blocks or whatever were really the cause, but rather not knowing how to manage a decentralised network of ppl who all have different ideas & interests Again, thank you again @Excellion for taking the time to share your insights on this, I found it genuine, refreshing and honest. It would be nice if @mattkratter were to consider this dialogue, & Samson’s views, & to make an attempt to extend an olive branch of reconciliation. We literally all need to chill out, & make a serious attempt to mend our differences. That starts by having honest conversations, understanding of ppls perspectives & most importantly, an end to all the ad hominem attacks & name calling. At the end of all of this, once this is all over (as it WILL end at some point) we’re going to have to look each other in the eye & cooperate for the greater goal. That’s not going to happen if we all hate each other. We don’t need to love each other, but just all behave. View article →

Just finished @SimonDixon ‘s blog on bip110, and I have to say, it’s worth the time to read it. Well done Simon. 👏 Very balanced and honest.

The Battle for Bitcoin: Where I Stand on BIP-110 | Simon Dixon

Where do I stand on BIP-110 and the "spam war"? Discover why I believe this is a strategy of tension, the game theory behind this consensus battle,...

I think one of the attacks on Bitcoin is the idea about “economic nodes”. Tbh, if the only nodes that matter are the nodes of exchanges and miners, then bitcoin is centralised, and we’re all just cosplaying involvement by running nodes. Bip110 will inform us just how important our nodes are. Anyone who tells you that your node isn’t important, discourages you from running a node and definitely if they say there’s no point using your Bitcoin in economic activities, then they aren’t really engaging with the Bitcoin ethos. At least how I see it. I’d be happy to be corrected.

I feel your pain.