Discussing Varrops, Decentralization, and Security Concerns in Mining

Rusty Russell rejoins me on the show to talk about a new idea for a bitcoin soft fork that hopefully avoids some of the ‘horse trading’ dynamic that existed amongst other proposals. Listen in to learn more about the different paradigm that Rusty introduces here, so that developers can build more functionality and efficiency in, hopefully so that more people can use Bitcoin in self-custody. 

• Bitcoin Script background

• GSR overview

• GSR benefits 

• What is varops 

• Contrast with APO or LNHANCE?

• Will it enable shitcoins and spam?

Relevant previous episodes:

• SLP565 Great Consensus Clean up, MEVil and LN isn’t dead – Steve Lee and Matt Corallo

• SLP573 A Shift in Bitcoin Developer Thought? with Brandon Black (aka reardencode)

Links:

• Rusty’s BTC plus plus talk on GSR

• https://x.com/rusty_twit 

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)

• CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)

• Mempool.space

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

• Subscribe to the podcast

• Subscribe to Substack