S16 E10: Eric Voskuil & John Carvalho on Bitcoin & Austrian Economics

In recent years, Bitcoin has undergone a major culture shift which promotes stagnation, complacency & simping to politicians over maximizing the utility of the money. Eric Voskuil & John Carvalho join the show to remind everyone what the mission really is. State of Bitcoin - [00:01:17] Bitcoin Maximalism - [00:01:32] Bitcoin as a Ponzi Scheme - [00:02:27] Transaction Fees - [00:04:57] History of Bitcoin Tokens (Omni, Counterparty, Mastercoin) Definition of Tokens - [00:08:01] Custodial Problems with Tokens - [00:09:12] Bitcoin and Fiat Money - [00:11:09] Why Bitcoiners Talk About Money - [00:15:49] Stateless Money - [00:17:44] Austrian Economics and Bitcoin - [00:21:01] Monetary Inflation vs. Price Inflation - [00:26:01] Cantillon Effect - [00:29:00] Dollar Inflation and Gold - [00:33:59] Misunderstandings in the Bitcoin Community - [00:41:42] Bitcoin Semantics - [00:43:21] Bitcoin Divisibility - [01:00:13] Bitcoin Deflation - [01:03:41] Maxi Price and One Coin Assumption - [01:07:43] Competition Between Monies - [01:13:42] Scaling Bitcoin - [01:22:41] Bitcoin for the Unbanked - [01:26:14] Maximizing Throughput - [01:36:11] Right to Fork - [01:45:45] Running Old Bitcoin Versions - [01:51:35] Bitcoin as Money vs. Credit - [01:56:26] Settlement in Bitcoin - [02:07:45] Peer-to-Peer Credit Systems - [02:14:47] Fractional Reserve Banking - [02:26:32] Bitkit Wallet and Spending vs. Saving - [02:36:13] Block size increases and Bitcoin adoption - [03:00:00] Scaling Bitcoin and transaction validation - [03:01:00] Bitcoin overflowing into Litecoin and quantum resistance - [03:02:00] Pruning historical data and exchange price - [03:03:00] Lightning system complexity and Bitcoin's value proposition - [03:05:00] Bitcoin as an investment and speculation - [03:07:00] Optimizing Bitcoin throughput and developer motivations - [03:09:00] Scaling Bitcoin and speculation - [03:11:00] Shitcoins, scams, and Bitcoin's security model - [03:13:00] Litecoin's extension blocks and Mimblewimble - [03:15:00] Bitcoin's security and the legitimacy of altcoins - [03:17:00] Shitcoins and Bitcoin's essential aspects - [03:19:00] Majority hash power censorship and attacks - [03:21:00] Bitcoin speculation and market dynamics - [03:23:00] Michael Saylor's Bitcoin strategy and MicroStrategy's history - [03:26:00] Saylor's Bitcoin investment and market manipulation - [03:29:00] Saylor's stock sales and Bitcoin's future - [03:31:00] Blockstream's accomplishments and the Chia project - [03:33:00] Blockstream's influence and SegWit - [03:35:00] Adam Back's influence and Blockstream's hype - [03:37:00] Bitcoin Core's power and the need for competition - [03:39:00] Initial block download performance and Bitcoin Core's architecture - [03:41:00] UTXO store and Bitcoin Core's performance - [03:43:00] Parallelism in Bitcoin Core and assumed UTXO - [03:45:00] Initial block download time and Bitcoin Core's scalability - [03:47:00] Monoculture in Bitcoin development and IBD performance - [03:49:00] UTXO cache and shutdown time - [03:51:00] Trust assumptions in Bitcoin Core and UTXO commitments - [03:53:00] Bitcoin Core's halting problem and theoretical download limits - [03:55:00] Sponsorships: Sideshift, LayerTwo Labs, Ciurea - [03:57:00] Drivechains and ZK rollups - [04:02:00] ZK rollups and liquidity on Ethereum - [04:04:00] Drivechains and altcoins - [04:06:00] Scaling Bitcoin and cultural taboos - [04:08:00] Engineer-driven change and Monero's approach - [04:10:00] Confidential transactionsL Zano & DarkFi - [04:12:00] Fungibility and Bitcoin's metadata - [04:14:00] Privacy, metadata, and state surveillance - [04:16:00] Privacy, taint, and Bitcoin mixing - [04:18:00] Bitcoin mixing and plausible deniability - [04:20:00] Mining and company registration - [04:22:00] Block reward and hash power - [04:24:00] Privacy and mixing - [04:26:00] Privacy in the Bitcoin whitepaper and zero-knowledge proofs - [04:28:00] Dark Wallet and John Dillon - [04:30:00] Dark Wallet and Li Bitcoin - [04:32:00] Amir Taaki's projects and software development - [04:34:00] Dark Wallet funding and developer costs - [04:36:00] Libbitcoin's code size and developer salaries - [04:38:00] John Dillon and Greg Maxwell - [04:40:00] Opportunistic encryption and BIPs 151/152 - [04:42:00] Dandelion and privacy - [04:44:00] BIP 37 and Bloom filters - [04:46:00] Consensus cleanup and the Time Warp bug - [04:48:00] Merkle tree malleability and 64-byte transactions - [04:50:00] 64-byte transactions and SPV wallets - [04:52:00] Coinbase transactions and malleability - [04:54:00] Invalid block hashes and DoS vectors - [04:56:00] Core bug and ban list overflow - [04:58:00] Storing hashes of invalid blocks - [05:00:00] DoS vectors and invalid blocks - [05:02:00] Malleated Merkle trees and 64-byte transactions - [05:04:00] 64-byte transactions and Merkle tree malleability - [05:06:00] Null points and malleated blocks - [05:08:00] Redundant checks and the inflation soft fork - [05:10:00] Op code separator and code complexity - [05:12:00] Transaction order in a block - [05:14:00] Forward references in blocks - [05:16:00] Coinbase transaction rules - [05:18:00] Time Warp bug and Litecoin support - [05:20:00] Quadratic op roll bug - [05:22:00] Stack implementation and op roll - [05:24:00] Templatized stack and op roll optimization - [05:26:00] Non-standard transactions and direct submission to miners - [05:28:00] Mempool policy and DoS - [05:30:00] Monoculture and competing implementations - [05:32:00] Consensus cleanup and Berkeley DB - [05:34:00] Code vs. consensus - [05:36:00] Bitcoin Knots and Luke-jr - [05:38:00] 300 kilobyte node and Luke-jr's views - [05:40:00] Bitcoin Knots and performance - [05:42:00] Bitcoin Knots and censorship - [05:44:00] Censorship and miner incentives - [05:46:00] Censorship and hash power - [05:48:00] Soft forks and censorship - [05:50:00] Ordinals and covenants - [05:52:00] RBF and zero-confirmation transactions - [05:54:00] Double spending and merchant risk - [05:56:00] First-seen mempool policy and RBF - [05:58:00] Low-value transactions and RBF - [06:00:00] Computational cost of actions - [06:00:15] Building infrastructure and system disruption - [06:00:20] Threat actors and economic disruption - [06:00:26] Double spending detection and system control - [06:00:29] Safety and manageability of zero comp transactions - [06:00:41] Security of zero comp transactions - [06:00:51] RBF (Replace-by-fee) and its relevance - [06:01:06] Bitcoin's mempool and transaction handling - [06:01:25] Mempool overflow and resource management - [06:02:08] Transaction storage and mining - [06:02:45] Miners' incentives and fee maximization - [06:03:07] Mempool policy and DOS protection - [06:03:41] Transaction validation and block context - [06:04:11] Fee limits and DOS protection - [06:05:13] Transaction sets, graph processing, and fee maximization - [06:06:24] Mining empty blocks and hash rate - [06:07:34] Replace-by-fee (RBF) and its purpose - [06:08:07] Infrastructure and RBF - [06:09:14] Transaction pool and conflict resolution - [06:09:44] Disk space, fees, and DOS protection - [06:11:06] Fee rates and DOS protection - [06:12:22] Opt-in RBF and mempool full RBF - [06:13:45] Intent flagging in transactions - [06:14:45] Miners obeying user intent and system value - [06:17:06] Socialized gain and individual expense - [06:18:17] Service reliability and profitability - [06:19:06] First-seen mempool policy - [06:19:37] Mempool policy and implementation - [06:20:06] User perspective on transaction priority - [06:21:14] Mempool conflicts and double spending - [06:22:10] CPFP (Child Pays for Parent) - [06:22:24] Mempool management and fee rates - [06:24:30] Mempool complexity and Peter Wuille's work - [06:25:54] Memory and disk resource management - [06:27:37] First-seen policy and miner profitability - [06:29:25] Miners' preference for first-seen - [06:30:04] Computational cost and fee optimization - [06:31:10] Security, Cypherpunk mentality, and the state - [06:35:25] Bitcoin's security model and censorship resistance - [06:41:02] State censorship and fee increases - [06:43:00] State's incentive to censor - [06:46:15] Lightning Network and regulation - [06:48:41] NGU (Number Go Up) and deference to the state - [06:51:10] Reasons for discussing Bitcoin's security model - [06:53:25] Bitcoin's potential subversion and resilience - [06:55:50] Lightning Network subsidies and scaling - [06:57:36] Mining protocols and security - [07:02:02] Braidpool and centralized mining - [07:04:44] Compact blocks and latency reduction - [07:07:23] Orphan rates and mining centralization - [07:08:16] Privacy and threat environments - [07:08:40] Social graphs, reputation, and identity - [07:10:23] Social scalability and Bitcoin - [07:12:36] Individual empowerment and anonymity - [07:16:48] Trust in society and the role of the state - [07:18:01] Payment methods and trust - [07:20:15] Credit reporting agencies and regulation - [07:22:17] Hardware wallets and self-custody - [07:23:46] Security vulnerabilities in Ledger - [07:27:14] Disclosure of secrets on Ledger devices - [07:36:27] Compromised machines and hardware wallets - [07:42:00] Methods for transferring signed transactions - [07:48:25] Threat scenarios and hardware wallet security - [07:50:47] Hardware wallet usage and personal comfort - [07:56:40] Coldcard wallets and user experience - [08:02:23] Security issues in the VX project - [08:03:25] Seed generation and hardware randomness - [08:12:05] Mastering Bitcoin and random number generation - [08:17:41]