Bitcoin Ossification and Resistance to Network Changes

NVK of Coinkite rejoins me to talk about attitudes on Bitcoin development and consensus changes. We discuss how “ossification” is commonly thrown around as a term, but maybe there is a better term. “Extreme conservatism”? We talk:

• What is ossification? 

• What about bug fixes? 

• What changes would NVK be interested in? 

• How many people will use Bitcoin? 

• What the market is focused on

• It’s not your chain

Links:

• X: @nvk

• Bitcoinsecurity.guide

• coinkite.com

• Unleashed.chat 

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Intro 

(00:52) - Ossification and gardening 

(06:06) - Where are the ossifiers? 

(09:03) - Fixing bugs on the Bitcoin protocol 

(17:13) - Assessing BIPs & change proposals

(23:53) - NVK on Bitcoin as SOV and/or MOE

(31:47) - Sponsors

(34:58) - “USD is the best shitcoin”

(37:32) - The fate of other blockchains

(45:41) - Putting Bitcoin on a pedestal?

(49:32) - Gresham’s Law in context of Bitcoin

(51:34) - Future path for Bitcoin

(57:27) - Outro

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)

• CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)

• Mempool.space

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

• Subscribe to the podcast

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