I like the reflections/humble pies #1545899
The BIP-110 madness was an absolute shitfest, but it might be important to investigate exactly why. And why quite a few otherwise thoughtful people went completely haywire on it... Hashtag sociology, Folie à deux or mass psychosis.
Most real-life Bitcoiners (i.e., not perennially on Twitter) missed the entire thing — that’s how materially irrelevant it was. And it should have been a clue to the non-issue of the main concerns (governance, spam transactions, arbitrary data on chain, filtering and Knots/Core node implementation).
At some point, though, the noise and the Predyx betters had even me doubt myself for a moment. My 50,000 sats bet in jeopardy! (But no, Mr. Odin and some others rewarded me handsomely and with the profits I ate a nice, juicy steak in their honor.)
"The funny thing is that I actually thought 110 would fail."
Yep, and then he dilly-dallied a little; concluded it would be better if it succeeded (#1504762); and actually, the asymmetric risk is mainchain, not Blake-chain.
Anyway, it was all a nothingburger and here is Luke (de Wolf, not the insane one #1525907) admitting defeat and trying to make sense of it all.
While it was true that I believed that 110 succeeding would have been the better outcome (I still do, I don't like that many good people have abandoned Bitcoin), I also thought it was unlikely that the 2017-era magic bit flip would actually happen. I wasn't around in that era, and people I respect were telling me different stories. I chose to have some faith, and bank on the inherent upside of 110's success rather than the likely downside of its failure.
what we learned is that a minority of nodes with low or unclear economic weight (don't come at me saying it was a Sybil. It wasn't. But it probably didn't have much economic weight) aren't able to force a change through without at least attempting to achieve broad agreement in the community.
Shocking. It's like the word consensus has a meaning.
"I still disagree with many aspects of Bitcoin development and governance. I don't agree with Bitcoin development being some wide-open free-for-all."
This is the core point, the extra intellectual step that was mostly missing in the last ~12 months of BIPtardary:
I still don't support or agree with protocols that bring crypto elements to Bitcoin, and I especially don't agree with any form of spam on Bitcoin. I don't care if anyone thinks there's no such thing as spam. Stuffing the chain with data unnecessarily is my definition, and I'm sticking to it. But, there's very little I can do about it other than refusing to do business or platform those who spam the chain.
Since 110's activation, I've spent a lot of time thinking about my priorities. My second child was on the way, and BTCHEL was right around the corner. I just put my head down and focused on those things for a while. Now that my son is born and the conference is over, I have more room to think. Parental leave is giving me a lot more time to think and to write, also.
BEAUTIFUL! Nordic welfare state debauchery benefiting us, the Bitcoiners! Love it.
"my top priority is as it always has been: to separate money from state."
100-fucking-percent:
I believe in Bitcoin as an antidote to state tyranny, and that's all I care about. The second order effect is that I care about Bitcoin adoption, and about Bitcoin getting adopted as quickly as possible by those who see what's going on in the world. We need this lifeboat.
This is super obvious in Ioni's book, Abundance Through Scarcity, as well: #1579572
Consider this stream of consciousness my return to the space after taking some time off.
BEAUTIFUL final life reflection:
I'm committed more than ever to making my adopted homeland a better place. I want BTCHEL 2027 to be even better than the first two editions, helping to spread Bitcoin to more curious people. And I intend to get more involved in local affairs. I'll be posting at least a bit in Finnish and getting involved in Finnish-language discussions. I moved to a new country with every intention of speaking the language and integrating myself as much as possible. I know I'll never be truly Finnish, even if I hold the passport soon. But I can do my best to be worthy of staying in this country and contributing long term. Hopefully my sons will be considered Finnish, at least in the ways that count.
Welcome back, sir. Great to have you here.
I'm still struggling to understand why people who supported BIP 110 failed so hugely to understand how Bitcoin works, and in my book, their opinions aren't worth much consideration until they are better able to articulate what many reasonable bitcoiners were telling them for the last few years (ie the only power any node has is to reject a payment as not real).
There were plenty of people explaining to them that the way they thought forks worked was not the way they work. I find lacking de Wolf's explanations for why he was willing to ignore reason for the sake of moral righteousness.
Over-interpreted/mis-evaluated the events of SegWit drama in 2017.
Since, as you say, they haven't learned that error, they're like to make the same mistake again in a not-so-far-off future
He blasphemes! He must be banished.
Had it been implemented, we would have lost communication between the Hackers and Blockstream