Stephan Livera Podcast Stephan Livera

The bitcoin ‘ossification’ debate continues with a discussion on the key considerations. What makes Bitcoin special? What improvements are necessary to retain sufficient decentralisation, if any? 

Vijay Boyapati and Brandon Black (aka reardencode) rejoin me for a special episode to discuss: 


What makes Bitcoin special? 


Defining ‘ossification’


How many users is ‘enough’? 


Unknown unknowns


Addressing centralising MEV concerns


Soft forks and hard forks


Economic nodes and who holds the power


Where to from here



Timestamps:

(00:00) - Intro

(01:54) - What makes Bitcoin Special? ft. Vijay

(09:37) - Verifiability & decentralisation of Bitcoin ft. Brandon

(14:31) - When do we stop ‘changing’ bitcoin?

(15:17) - Revisiting the blocksize wars & importance of self sovereignty

(20:45) - Libertarian principles of Bitcoin

(23:48) - ‘Sufficiently decentralised’ Bitcoin

(26:42) - Defining ‘Ossification’ of Bitcoin

(30:56) - Sponsors

(34:11) - Economic interests in upgrading Bitcoin nodes

(43:40) - Bitcoin is a Trojan horse

(47:15) - Can we rule out ‘Unknown unknowns'?

(50:49) - Concerns over centralising MEV

(1:00:17) - Whose chain is it anyway?

(1:05:14) - Resisting soft forks and hard forks

(1:16:49) - Closing Thoughts

Links:


X: @real_vijay


Bullish Case for Bitcoin: Swan.com/bullish


X: @reardencode



Prior episodes:


Rusty - Great Script Restoration


Brandon Black - Are Covenants necessary for Bitcoin


TXHASH Steven Roose


Matt Corallo and Steve Lee Great Consensus Cleanup



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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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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I recently spoke at Bitcoin Seoul 2024 and here are some interviews with some of the speakers:


Calvin Kim on utreexo


Gloria Zhao on Bitcoin Core and mempool


Laolu on Taproot Assets and covenants


Saifedean on Central Banking and tax cattle


Obi Nwosu on Fedi


Jimmy Song on Bitcoin in Korea



Timestamps:

(00:00) - Calvin Kim on importance of Bitcoin conferences

(01:51) - Simplifying Utreexo

(03:31) - What is Utreexod?

(04:51) - Will node providers support Utreexo?

(06:38) - Gloria Zhao on BIP431 (Truc)

(08:15) - Implications of Truc

(12:26) - What is mempool cluster?

(14:08) - P2P encryption on Bitcoin core V27.0

(15:22) - Upcoming developments on Bitcoin core

(18:04) - Sponsors(20:13) - Laolu (Roasbeef) on Taproot assets

(25:29) - LSP Challenges on issuing stablecoins

(28:21) - Views on covenants

(31:51) - Ensuring protocol safety while enabling Opcodes

(34:33) - Saifedean’s views on Bitcoin Seoul 2024

(34:44) - Central Bank behaving like a private organisation

(40:21) - ‘The Keynesian Voodoo’ 

(46:35) - All roads lead to Bitcoin

(48:26) - Sponsors

(50:45) - Latest developments at Fedi with Obi Nwosu

(52:23) - Role of the Fedimint Guardians

(54:40) - Fees on Fedi

(56:18) - Fedi’s Social backup and recovery model

(58:26) - Risks of getting rugged

(1:01:23) - Fedi is trust-reduced

(1:03:11) - Jimmy Song’s views on Bitcoin Seoul 2024

(1:04:18) - Views on Bitcoin’s Technical developments

(1:05:46) - Savings culture among Koreans & role of Bitcoin

(1:09:16) - Outro

Links:


X: x.com/saifedean


Saifedean episode: https://saifedean.com/podcast/222-central-banking-works


X: x.com/glozow


Bitcoin review club:  https://bitcoincore.reviews/


BIP 431: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0431.mediawiki


X: x.com/obi 


Fedi: https://www.fedi.xyz/


X: x.com/roasbeef


Lightning Labs: https://lightning.engineering/


X: https://x.com/kcalvinalvinn


Utreexod beta release: https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev/c/5GyV9af9lv4?pli=1 


X: x.com/jimmysong



Sponsors:


Swan.com (code LIVERA)
CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
Mempool.space
Nomadcapitalist.com/apply

Stephan Livera links:


Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack

Walt Smith of cyber.fund joins me to discuss thoughts on MEV and where it may be going on Bitcoin. 

We discuss:


Defining MEV


10 minute block time?


Does it centralise Bitcoin?


Suffering from success


The approach on shitcoins and spam



Timestamps:

(00:00) - Intro 

(02:02) - Defining MEV

(06:02) - Replace-by-fee (RBF)

(11:01) - Concern regarding miner centralisation 

(18:56) - Growth of private mempool flow & MEV potential?

(24:55) - Are mining pools transparent with fee payouts?

(27:01) - Expressivity on Bitcoin 

(31:21) - Sponsors

(35:24) - Does the 10 minute block time mitigate MEV?

(40:27) - Is Bitcoin more than ‘money’?

(46:05) - Fake L2's on Bitcoin

(51:24) - Does MEV lead to miner centralisation? 

(56:15) - Closing thoughts on MEV

Links:


X: @waltjsmith


X: @cyberFund_


Site: cyber.fund


Article: The Spectre of MEV on Bitcoin



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

Silent Payments is a new approach to improving privacy and useability of Bitcoin. Imagine not needing to manually create new addresses? Josibake and Ruben Somsen join me to discuss some of the ins and outs of Silent Payments. We discuss:


Silent Payments overview


Contrast with other techniques such as BIP47 


Light client support


Stopping address re use


Base layer privacy discussion



Links:


X: @josibake


X: @SomsenRuben


BIP: Silent Payments


Tracking progress in Bitcoin Core/libsecp256k1


Informational website from sethforprivacy : Privacy-preserving static addresses for Bitcoin



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





Timestamps:

(00:00) - Intro

(01:01) - Overview of Silent Payments (SP)

(03:15) - History of the SP idea & contrast with other methods

Add more

(14:36) - Current status of SP development & adoption

(17:49) - Testing light clients for SP

(21:50) - The Silent Payment Experience

(26:31) - Light client support

(31:20) - What is a light client?

(38:05) - Sponsors

(41:16) - Spend Key & Scan Key 

(42:37) - XPUB vs. Silent Payments

(44:42) - Reducing address re-use with SP

(49:29) - Labeling with Silent Payments

(53:14) - Ease of use and compatibility with Lightning 

(57:03) - Overcoming the ‘silver bullet’ mindset

(01:10:50) - Composability with Silent Payments

(01:12:46) - Silent Payments summary

(01:14:06) - Closing Thoughts

Skot joins me to talk about his project to bring affordable, energy efficient, open source mining to home miners. We discuss:


The current state of open source in bitcoin mining


Bitaxe overview


Why do people do this?


Price and how to set one up


Mining pools


Decentralisation



Links:


X: @skot9000


Site: Bitaxe.org



Sponsors:


Swan.com (code LIVERA)


CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)


Mempool.space


Nomadcapitalist.com/apply



Stephan Livera links:


Follow me on X: @stephanlivera


Subscribe to the podcast


Subscribe to Substack