S16 E60: Jonathan Bier on Bitcoin Civil Wars & BitMEX Research

Nov 24, 2025

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Jonathan Bier is the author of the influential best-seller "The Blocksize War: The battle over who controls Bitcoin’s protocol rules", as well as one of the most prolific and respected researchers in Bitcoin. He is also an active investor who sits on various company boards and advises projects in the space. In this episode, we talk about parallels between the Bitcoin scaling debate and the filter wars, but also highlight some debunked Satoshi Nakamoto claims. Time stamps: 00:01:11 - Introducing Jonathan Bier and Blocksize War Book 00:02:44 - Meeting BitMEX Founders and Starting Research 00:05:31 - Arthur Hayes' Blog Writing and Vision 00:07:32 - BitMEX Success: Leverage, Perpetual Swaps, Troll Box 00:10:43 - FTX Copying BitMEX and Backend Issues 00:11:20 - Binance's Rise and Market Dominance 00:13:49 - BitMEX's Slow Adoption of Stablecoins 00:16:39 - Current BitMEX Volumes and Rankings 00:17:39 - History of Bitcoin Derivatives and Innovations 00:23:49 - Jonathan's First Bitcoin Encounter in 2010 00:26:12 - 2011 Bubble and Mt. Gox Scandal 00:28:02 - Views on Bitcoin Bubbles and Valuations 00:30:19 - Ad: Bitcoin.com News 00:31:00 - Layer 2 Labs Question: Is Lightning a Waste? 00:32:08 - Lightning Network Success and Limitations 00:35:02 - Scaling Challenges and Sidechains 00:37:30 - Current Filter Wars and Ordinals/Inscriptions 00:39:40 - History of Relay Policies and RBF 00:43:49 - OP_RETURN Limits and Debates 00:47:04 - Bitnod.es Website and Node Peers 00:48:39 - Ineffectiveness of Filters 00:50:00 - Super TestNet's Bandwidth Argument 00:51:42 - Generational Crusades in Bitcoin 01:01:55 - London Meetup Stories and Fanaticism 01:15:00 - Loss of Merchants Post-Blocksize War 01:18:13 - Ethereum Benefiting from Bitcoin Decisions 01:18:48 - 2014 OP_RETURN Wars and Counterparty 01:23:03 - Reasons Counterparty Failed 01:27:31 - Mastercoin, First ICO, and Omni/Tether 01:29:37 - Zcash Launch and BitMEX Futures Shenanigans 01:33:26 - Ethereum DevCon 2016 Attack Story 01:35:04 - Conferences Then vs Now 01:38:00 - Cultural Divide in Bitcoin Maxis 01:39:46 - Misconceptions About Bitcoin Core Developers 01:43:25 - Youth of Early Developers Like Tamas 01:46:59 - Criteria for Developers and Unicorn Myth 01:48:41 - Educators in Bitcoin History: From Satoshi to Saylor 01:52:05 - Dumbing Down of Bitcoin Narratives 01:55:34 - Past Idiocy and Learning Curves 01:56:50 - BIP 444 Dangers and Ineffectiveness 02:00:59 - Irony of Anti-Spam Fork and Spam Magnets 02:01:22 - Parallels to Blocksize Wars, Bitcoin Cash Price Peaks 02:03:30 - Excitement and Fear During BCH Surge 02:04:28 - Reasons Big Blockers Couldn't Compete, Craig Wright's Role 02:05:16 - Satoshi's Response to Scaling Concerns (2008) 02:06:05 - Jeff Garzik's Early Block Size Proposal (2010) 02:07:33 - Early Onchain Exchanges and Scaling Realization 02:07:58 - Defining Small Blocker vs Big Blocker 02:08:56 - Surplus Capacity in Blocks Debate 02:10:10 - Cultural Biases: Technical vs Business Sides 02:11:32 - Competent Developers on BCH Side, Inflation Bug 02:12:35 - Block Size Numbers Not the Core Issue 02:13:29 - Modern Block Size Increase Justification 02:14:15 - Hard Forks Unlikely, Quantum Signatures 02:15:03 - James O'Beirne's Block Size Presentation 02:15:54 - Filter Wars Impact on Future Changes 02:17:13 - Spam as Reason Against Block Size Increase 02:18:18 - Quantum Safe Spending Proposal 02:19:31 - Fee Market vs Crusades Against Spam 02:20:45 - Craig Wright's Unintentional Help to Small Blockers 02:22:04 - Jihan Wu's Dislike of Craig Wright 02:23:34 - ASIC Boost Role in BCH Creation 02:24:50 - Covert vs Overt ASIC Boost Explained 02:30:00 - Treasuries and MicroStrategy Debt Structures 02:35:00 - Bitcoin Treasuries vs Ponzi Schemes 02:40:00 - Balancing Professional Life and Cypherpunk Roots 02:42:31 - Advisor Roles: Bitwise, Brink, Maelstrom 02:53:16 - Privacy Tools: Payjoin, Silent Payments, CoinJoin 02:54:41 - Ethereum vs Bitcoin on Privacy Support 02:55:45 - Ross Ulbricht Pardon and Government Misconduct 03:00:13 - Curtis Green's Torture and Fake Death 03:03:00 - Aaron Swartz Comparison 03:04:29 - Cypherpunk Culture Not Scaling 03:05:53 - ETFs as Bitcoin Scaling Layer 03:07:39 - IBIT vs WBTC Similarities 03:09:00 - Three Legit Altcoins: Monero, Dogecoin, Litecoin 03:10:02 - Satoshi's Views on Block Sizes 03:11:02 - Closing and Follow Jonathan Bier