A great video here by @Matthew Kratter regarding recent developments, and I was extra pleased to see Bruce Fenton heavily mentioned in it. Bruce has always had a solid stance regarding these stupid forever-wars, & I wish the American Gov was more like him https://www.youtube.com/embed/BBu-1zfc-OQ

For those who were/are concerned about quantum computing breaking stuff, then this may be useful info. It’s worth checking out the full video if you’re mathematically inclined.

I saw this and immediately recognised the argument about the OP_RETURN limits being lifted. Why not just say “I want to help spam and don’t really have a good argument to justify it.

HMRC is coming for you!!

Bolt is good

An analogy: if a government provided public transportation to help ppl get from A to B throughout the city, but then some ppl increasingly began to use it to sleep on instead as a short stay hotel, or as an office for remote workers. They may even say “but I paid my fair to be on the bus!” But if enough ppl do that, then it turns the entire system into a short stay hotel or hot desk office and crowds out those who want to use the it for its original purpose. The general public (and the bus system) are harmed by this use of the bus that wasn’t ever the intention. So if ppl are unable to get to work due to busses being filled with ppl sleeping, thats analogous to ppl not being able to run nodes anymore because it’s now too difficult. The purpose was that everyone should be able to run a node at little cost. More node runners means more decentralisation, fewer node runners means more centralisation.

A great video by @GrassFedBitcoin I get the feeling that 2017, nodes took back control reminders, but today, nodes are trying to take back control from the devs. The one thing I know about Bitcoin is that it’s a network that serves node runners. If you’re attempting to serve anyone else then you’re not working in Bitcoins best interests.

A great interview with Luke regarding the topic of spam on the network.

A great video for node runners

One of the best take downs of ‘GDP’ I’ve ever seen. Absolute carnage

This was quite interesting. Fascinating in fact.

A fascinating vid

Hashes form an important part of Bitcoin, so knowing about hash collisions is also important. Hashes are used for transaction ID’s, for block validity, reduction of the output size by hashing the public key or scripts and sending money to the hash, it’s even used for lightning invoices 🧾. A hash collision wouldn’t affect mining, as all we care about is whether it is below a certain number. It would somewhat affect a transaction ID in terms of spending one’s tx. If a node looks up your tx ID and it points to the wrong transaction, then it may have a slight inconvenience, but I would assume it would try all TXID’s that come up positive. The spend script won’t be spendable to all TXID’s. But a hash collision WOULD be an issue for spending TX’s where Bitcoin was sent to a hash. It would mean someone else could spend my coin, but that can only happen on a transaction by transaction basis, and isn’t something that once it happens it affects all transactions simultaneously.

Let’s support Ben & Jerry’s ice cream

That’s it then. Not only does one gorillas win against 100 men, but so does one ai beet an entire cinematographer team lol

It’s not about OP_RETURN, it’s much more… I’ve been thinking about this latest fiasco with core and spam on the network, and I have a feeling that it is an irreconcilable conflict that ironically resembles the differences we have with western liberals as a whole. Let’s paint the picture. There are ppl who do questionable things on the network, things that ultimately harm the network and harm those who use the network. But we have two different approaches 1) “We can’t stop it so let them just pay the fees of their stupidness, they will eventually stop, it’s an open market, and who are you to even decide what is good or bad, let the market decide” 2) “This network has a purpose, we all know this purpose; and that which is not from that purpose is by definition ‘bad’ and ‘spam’, and we need to confront bad actors to defend the integrity of the network, even though we know we cannot entirely stop it, that doesn’t mean we do nothing” Now switch your thinking away from Bitcoin and towards life itself. You have people who want to do zina; Ribaa, and all sorts of vice, and the liberal be like “let them get on with it, if they want to pay for the consequences”, and those who say “no, there is something that is called ‘bad’ that affects all of us somewhere down the line, and we can’t just sit by and do nothing while they destroy the world around us”. It’s not only about Bitcoin, it’s about ‘right and wrong’, if there is ever such a thing, and what should we do about it now we’ve agreed it exists. It’s no surprise to me that Luke is leading the charge on this matter, being a religious man who deeply believes in the concept of ‘right and wrong’, and why Todd, a man who is so immoral that he supports mass murder and genocide, is on the other side. To conclude, this issue does remind me of what Ibn qayyim said about the definition of oppression/Thulm where he said “it is to place something in other than its proper place”. This is literally the situation we have now. A network born to be money, but now ppl want to put non-monetary things in place of its only purpose. The counter argument is that Bitcoin is amoral, it is just code and has no inherent ‘right and wrong’, and that is true of the simple code, but Bitcoin is more than simple code which is why a fork of Bitcoin is not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is what node runners have a consensus on, by technical design and by white paper definition. So based on the Islamic maxim الأصل بقاء ما كان على ما كان “The default position is that something remains on what it was originally on.” Until we have consensus that Bitcoin is no longer simply money and that it’s now a database for anything, including monkey JPEGs and Pepe pics, then we should not try to break consensus and act in accordance to the original consensus. But I suspect node runners will ultimately decide where this goes, and it’s up to ppl to decide where they sit in this discussion. If you’re not a node runner, and you care about the Bitcoin you use and hold, then maybe it’s time to consider running a node and taking your vote. 🗳️

An interesting page of stats. If you scroll to the left you will see that knots is growing slowly… its not almost 6%

Clark Moody Bitcoin

Dashboard

The entire Bitcoin economy at a glance

This is a good balanced explanation. The TLDR: OP_RETURN limits are not consensus limits. It was to incentivise better behaviour. Expanding the limits benefits ZK-Snark implementations But it’s is seen as accommodating spam Worth a watch. @brian_trollz in his vid on “What Bitcoin Did” that if someone disagrees, then let them run knots & be done with it. But, considering ‘Core’ is “reference code” I think preservation of consensus is more important than breaking it. So why run your changes on your own fork? We have always heard that if someone disagrees with something, they can fork their ideas on their own, so why not here then? So we could have Core remain as is, knots with more strict filtering, & their version with OP_RETURN limits removed. Or do that in Todd’s version & be done. I get the distinct feeling that ppl on both sides are digging in their heals & the debate has now got personal. I personally agree with @LukeDashjr’s approach, but at this stage, a reasonable compromise would be to do nothing. I personally think we should block spam. I have not seen a good enough argument to push through these changes which will ultimately split the user base. The upside of the change just doesn’t seem to justify the downside of in-fighting which is Bitcoin’s biggest threat, more than quantum & being banned by gov.