A couple months back I saw @real_paul_sztorc 's eCash proposal in my headlines on X and it may have been shared on Nostr

My initial reaction was, actually I don't know who this guy is and subsequently that's quite embarrassing because I should have, we all know hal and other og's but why didn’t I know this guy

Anyway the reaction was instant derision, mockery, ignore him etc, then I didn't much think about it until I saw the ama organised by Scoresby, and I thought I'll take a look at that

Then after being intrigued by Paul's responses, I looked back at some of his appearances on pods to see what this guy was all about

I didn't become an eCasher lol, I didn't decide Bitcoin needs fixing and someone with basically zero technical knowledge is the man for the job

What did happen was, it made me appreciate that there is so much to Bitcoin that I don't understand, Bitcoin is like the universe full of stuff, planets, gases, radiation belts, black holes, there is so much to it, it's hard to know where to start

This isn’t about eCash or Bitcoin in some ways, it's about the questions Paul's asking that seem to trigger so many people

Every pod he does seems to revolve around stuff that no-one wants to talk about, whether you agree or disagree is another matter, for me, I find this interesting

Have soft forks become a political hot potato no-one wants to touch?Have soft forks become a political hot potato no-one wants to touch?

One of Paul's recurring arguments is that soft forks should be relatively common

He says that Bitcoin could have monthly or weekly SFs

His argument is that SFs have become so politically toxic that devs and anyone shouting on X have become afraid of touching it at all!

Whereas Paul thinks SFs are a gift that should be used continuously

And for the record I'm not entirely clear what a SF is, and should I even need to know, a temporary change that could be adopted if it works is my understanding

The same could be said about hard forksThe same could be said about hard forks

What is it about HFs that stoke up so much reaction, I'd say a lot is baked into the history, where so much contention has divided the community in the past

I like the way Paul is saying, I'm creating a hard fork, take it or leave it, simple

So because I'm not 100% au fait with this part SF&HF, this is more of mentioning the debate which most people are well aware of but noting that I can understand the disagreements that arise, most importantly it's self evident that there is an almost fear amongst the community to make a decision on changes, which leaves some to not want to make a decision for fear of ridicule or attack, so they do nothing and the danger is a stagnation of the protocol

The Ossification NarrativeThe Ossification Narrative

This leads nicely on from stagnation which some argue is a good thing and that Bitcoin shouldn't change

He argues that the phrase 'ossification' has become almost meaningless

And Paul's argument is that many people repeating the word 'ossification' are usually repeating what they've heard on X and respectfully have no idea what they're talking about

Whether that's fair or not, I found myself looking at the ossification debate differently

Personally I think there does need to be change, but levelling that with the cries of don't tinker with it makes for an unwinnable outcome, which again leads to inaction

The great Lightning debateThe great Lightning debate

Ooh this a good one, Paul basically says, as he did in the ama, Lightning is fucked, it can't scale, it won't work

Now we have two camps here, Paul's one and lightning fans like Justin and they are obviously opposed accusing each other of derangement

Now this is my take, I like Justin's idea of true self custodial Lightning but the problem is NOBODY IS USING IT!!

Look at the dozens of posts on SN where the first comment is Darth ripping the shit out of the author

Spark is an infection in Bitcoin and it's spreading, look at the stuff being built on Nostr, almost all the devs are using spark wallets

This is probably Paul's most controversial position and he's right to call out that if everyone is using a custodial service what was the point of building a decentralised proof of work network

The Scaling Wars Never Really EndedThe Scaling Wars Never Really Ended

Listening to Paul made me revisit Bitcoin's history

In the early years there was enormous excitement, merchants were interested in the idea of Bitcoin, devs were excited to build on it, businesses wanted to integrate it, but everyone soon realised 10min blocks couldn't scale to 8b people, then came the blocksize wars

And what happened next was, Bitcoin was too controversial for mainstream, the infighting was scaring away users and adopters

And this is where I think a vacuum was opened, while everyone was arguing about scaling, the shitcoinery started, devs started creating tokens with faster tps, and what we ended up with is a shitcoin casino that potentially could have all been avoided if scaling solutions had been built on top of Bitcoin

(Obviously around the same time Lightning was invented and it's supporters are convinced it can be the answer to scaling main net Bitcoin)

Obviously I'm alluding to Drivechains and I've been doing a deep dive on them for a while and I'm still not fully comfortable with how it could work

Instantly stackers will cry 'shitcoinery' and I'm not saying they are the solution but Paul is obviously forging ahead and going to give it a try, they have definitely intrigued me and I'll be interested to see how they work if he can get the hard fork to hold

Also it's worth mentioning that Paul regrets not pursuing this idea in 2015 rather than waiting all this time

I believe this to be someone taking action, albeit eventually, without fear of criticism and giving it a go, come hell or high water and I for one think that pushing the boundaries is better than staying in the same place, for all the criticism that brings to me

Now it's only fair to explain where I feel uneaseNow it's only fair to explain where I feel unease

One part of Paul's eCash proposals immediately made me uncomfortable

His proposal involves allocating roughly half of Satoshi's untouched coins to seed the new network and fund early insiders

My immediate instinct was negative, it feels dodgy, not right, one of Satoshi's great chess moves was distributing the supply organically before the authorities understood it, not like this

It reminds me of shitcoinenomics where the whitepaper has all sorts of shady release emissions

When eCash launchesWhen eCash launches

Obviously real Bitcoin is real Bitcoin and that won't change unless there is a monumental catastrophe

I'll definitely keep my eCash, I won't be selling or dumping it, regardless of the narrative again barring any major change

The main thing I got from thisThe main thing I got from this

Researching eCash allowed me to revisit Bitcoin's history and realise how much of it I didn't know or understand

Final ThoughtsFinal Thoughts

I don't know whether Paul Sztorc is right, I don't know whether eCash succeeds, I don't know whether Lightning eventually proves him completely wrong

What I do know is this:

Bitcoin taught an entire generation to question governments, central banks, media and learn what money actually is

It would be a shame if the community that used to question everything refused to question itself

You don't have to agree with Paul, I certainly don't agree with all of his proposals, but I think we should listen before we laugh

Post scriptPost script

As I'm listening to NewPipe a new episode of TwiB just dropped and Chris Fisher the host is talking about the AI trade, people chasing Nvidia stock, then other data chip companies, then SpaceX and then he says, maybe that liquidity will find it's way back to Bitcoin after SpaceX stonk is tanking

And I'm thinking this is the conundrum in Bitcoin, are we in it for the liquidity to pump the ngu or are we genuinely wanting 8b people to use the network as normal money, either you can't have both or one needs to finish for the other to begin