 Okay, so first of all, thanks a ton for agreeing to talk about this on like five minutes notice So we just the Bitcoin cash community just went through this like very painful Split in terms of the hash rate in terms of the community There's a lot of emotions running hot and there are some ideas Specifically want to run by you because the way I am thinking about the power dynamics within the Bitcoin system And I thought everybody was an agreement on them in the Bitcoin cash community I'm finding actually there is still fundamental disagreement and in some ways I Like some of the analysis of the Bitcoin SV people even though I don't Support that chain because I think well for my own reasons we can talk about them later I'm starting to see that there really is still fundamental philosophical differences even in the the very small Bitcoin cash world so So here's the proposition and then that this will bring us into it. I think that miners can If effectively destroy the value of a proof-of-work chain If they have majority hash rate That's my claim is that majority hash rate If coordinated is more important than how users Might value want to value the system So even if a bunch of people really let's say want to use Bitcoin cash if the majority miners Decide well actually you're not going to use it the miners. Oh the miners trump the users preferences So Yeah, I don't personally disagree, but I would say I think the the way I've always thought about Bitcoin from the beginning Was that's a scenario? That's not supposed to happen, right? That's the the underlying security assumption of Bitcoin is that People don't acquire that much hashing power that are able to use it that way that it's the hashing powers distributed enough and Difficult enough to coordinate and there aren't that many malicious people that That's not possible I think what what's maybe like confused a lot of people is like, you know Bitcoin cash obviously has a very small hash rate compared to the BTC right now And so people I think people just kind of say well, this is expected and normal This is just how coins work. I think we've got big problems, you know with with that small hash rate I mean, we've seen it that you know, one guy was able to you know Threaten the network and more or less kind of hold it hostage to some extent for a little while there and like that's that's not how things are supposed to be working and Even the Bitcoin network itself is certainly the BTC network. I think functions a lot closer to that ideal, but it's still You know, it's still there's a lot. There's a lot of mining centralization even there And it seems like, you know, there's just this relentless you know pressure with whether it's from I Don't know too few ASIC manufacturers if it's the you know the cost of the economies of scale in mining operations I'm not really sure what it is and then of course you have issues with pulled mining That you know, there's like these pressures there of centralization where even BTC is not as Decentralized as you would like it to be at the end of the day So how do you differentiate between a malicious 51% attack and let's say a hypothetical scenario in which a majority of miners got together and said actually be like this protocol versus that protocol Well, they if a majority of miners decided to mine one a Different protocol than what other people would do that would still leave the other chain intact and functioning, right? They but literally if they would have for the decision Well, they would have to turn and actively attack it. I would define an attack I mean the white paper defines an attack is, you know double-spending I think I would also say mining empty blocks is clearly an attack too because the whole system is designed To to mine transactions and if you start mining empty blocks, you're not doing what the system was designed to do and empty blocks is a bit of a An issue because obviously they could they could just fill the blocks with junk and also say well We're not it's not technically empty, right? They're just not mining the transactions on users So I would consider that to be an attack too because you're not You know, they're not preventing they're not allowing the chain to do what it's supposed to do Okay, so when you look back on what happened with BTC versus BCH and At the time prior to the failure of Segwit 2x you had a majority of miners Informally voting and saying hey, we're gonna upgrade to this particular rule set because we think this is the way the network should operate and That circumstance you don't think that was an attack because it wasn't necessarily 51 You know, they weren't like reorging the other people they weren't mining empty blocks. They were just saying hey, we're gonna do this other thing Even though the job Segwit, yeah, yeah, so even though like the BTC devs were saying hey This is malicious. You know the miners are taking control of the network. This is centralizing Do you think that this a different scenario? Yeah, I don't I don't consider like Segwit to be an attack. I don't like it for other reasons I'm saying when like BCH miners left the BTC or threatened at least There was like 70% or so Loose consensus among them that they were gonna all hard fork to upgrade protocol at a particular time Even though the core devs Didn't like that. They just oh Segwit 2x you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah So, no, I don't consider it an attack too. I think they're I mean Nobody my knowledge was actively planning or threatening to To destroy the one megabyte chain now, I mean just a mass exodus from the one megabyte chain would have Maybe left it unusable possibly depending on what they did with the difficulty adjustment algorithm, right? But I don't I don't think that I wouldn't consider that to be an attack now. There were some people who did suggest Mining empty blocks on the one megabyte chain But as far as I can tell it was like one or two people suggested it and Gavin may have suggested it But this wasn't like part of Segwit 2x. It wasn't like we're gonna People are gonna switch to two megabytes and then we're gonna mine empty blocks on the one megabyte chain Okay, so when you when we're just looking at a straight power analysis of the Bitcoin system And it's not should people act this play should they not does this a good way back in this? It's not it's just who actually has the power in the system Wouldn't it be fair to say that the miners at the end of the day Have the power in proof-of-work systems and not not the users because they could have decided Let's say Segwit 2x happened and you still had a one megabyte chain They still had the option to destroy the value of the other chain, right? um If they attacked it right and I you know there's there's defenses against the tax too I mean if a chain gets attacked, they're just gonna switch the hashing algorithm pretty quickly too I mean that was on the table. Yeah Bitcoin core at one point in time like they were probably ready readying a hashing algorithm change Um And I think so ABC as well for this last one if I'm not mistaken that was on the table at least Yeah, there were people who wanted to do that, but I don't think anyone was like coding it up or anything Yeah, so Let's take a scenario. This is from my understanding. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I have heard that we are eventually going to go to a Future in which machines Proof-of-work machines are essentially going to be algorithm independent not fundamentally They're not all gonna mind this the same with the same efficiency But you're gonna have machines that can essentially do proof-of-work whether it's shot to 56 or it's something else or it's something else Do you think that that is also part of the future of the system? You mean that can do multiple Yeah Essentially algorithm independent even if it's not perfectly equal and how the effectiveness of mining them Well, I mean you can do that with a CPU today, right? But there's yeah, I mean if you want like efficient minors, I think you need to implement custom hardware I don't know if you could make a custom hardware that does everything that is not a CPU or GPU, right? Okay, so if you so we have two scenarios in the future one is which you don't have like a general purpose proof-of-work Miner and one of which you do let's take them both So in the circumstance if it's the case we actually get Mining software that can mine pretty much every mining hardware should say they could mine pretty much anything Do you think that change the changes the power dynamics and system because even if you threaten a proof-of-work change Well, so what the minors can still just attack whatever you've changed you if it's still proof-of-work Um Yeah, I don't know how likely that that is that you're gonna have because I mean the way we see it today And I mean I don't particularly see it changing and that is people invest in certain types of hardware I don't think someone would invest in like an ASIC That's used as a contingency in case they want to try and switch to proof-of-work algorithm I Don't know I doesn't seem like particularly likely scenario in the future Yeah, so so it's that's totally a fine position to think if you don't think it's gonna happen I'm saying in the scenario in which that is the case. Let's say we have the industry has developed to create such Products, do you think that changes the power dynamics of who actually is in control in the Bitcoin space? Probably yeah, I mean if there's only one type of hardware could do any type of algorithm and there's the the people who control that are Fundamentally preventing other people like 51% attacking. Yeah other chains that they don't like now keep in mind there's a lot of chains out there. Yeah, and I Mean you're not gonna be able to 51% attack all of them at the same time, right? You're not gonna be able to like mine. Yeah, the chain that you want and carry out 51% attacks against two dozen other chains I mean it just depends on the magnitudes, right? If you have enough you could do that, but that's assuming quite a lot of cash power Yeah Yeah, so so I think that scenario is Is very I don't I don't know if there's like a fundamental Technological problem which would prevent there from being hardware which can mine multiple chains and in that circumstance I don't think change of the proof-of-work algorithm Is actually going to save you from malicious miners now whether or not they would choose to be malicious is an open question But I do think in talking with people in the space a lot of people underestimate the value that is to be gained from attacking minority chains Just in terms of pure profit not necessarily in terms of ethics but if you if you if you're a Craig Wright or somebody that has more power and you want to Demonstrate that your chain is the secure one as measured by proof-of-work You actually you're signaling the security of your system by attacking others and yours not being attacked Right. Yeah, I mean, there's there's all sorts of reasons people would try and do an attack. I think that's why we need to What I mean, I certainly think it's unethical and that people shouldn't do it So there were people on the BSV side who were arguing like on and I was perfectly ethical to attack Other chains. I mean, I disagree with that. I mean my view is kind of like You know, you may be able to attack another chain But at the same time like it, you know, if I left my door to my apartment unlocked You could steal all my stuff But that doesn't mean that that's you know, just because my door was left unlocked you that that's ethical for you to do it, right So I'm that that's kind of my analogy for for the blockchain there is just because you know The security might be lacking doesn't it's not an open invitation to do it or like we're given You know, you know, we're consenting to have our funds stolen or this sort of stuff Well, I might agree with you But let me just put put forward an alternative ethical proposition and see what you think So what if somebody were to take the position? That if a economy is being built on a particular coin and a lot of commerce Happens on that coin and a lot of people rely on the stability of the coin By it not being extinguished But being insecure might actually be an unethical thing to do is to allow the weak coin To continue existing because then it's just a matter of time before somebody comes around and destroys the coin And the pain is that much greater Um, yeah, I don't but so I mean that's like saying, you know, we got to teach people a lesson You know and and you know if someone doesn't lock their house We need to to steal their stuff because someone might do it later on I mean that was kind of like the peter taut argument against Um zero comp was like, you know, if You know because it's not a hundred percent secure We need to like, you know, teach everyone a lesson and now and break it forever But I could see I could see a real argument there Which is to say if it were true that zero comp was broken in practice Then I think it would be very valuable for somebody to demonstrate it Now I'm not saying zero conflict like you can do double spending But does that actually translate to double spending in the real world negatively affecting businesses? Let's say like bit pay, you know, the ones that would really be harmed by double spending So if they could actually do that, I don't think it's that clear that Uh, it's ethically a bad thing to attack Systems that are inherently weak if people are going to be building commerce on top of them um Well, my my alternative is I mean, it's not like people are dumb and and incapable of telling That the the the security needs to be improved and working to improve it You don't need to attack them to point that out I mean, it's it seems like there's a An assumption that people are just either so lazy or incapable of Seeing their hand in front of their face that they won't do anything unless they're provoked But I I mean, I think people I don't really agree with that So like people have been working on the zero comp problem for a long time And trying to make it more secure and and not just sitting back and resting on our laurels and saying oh, it's good You know, it's no problem with it. Um, you know, and and I would say same thing about security of blockchains There's been an enormous amount of research into security, um You know alternate consensus algorithms trying to improve proof of work. It's not like people are just sitting back Um, and just saying like well, it's it is what it is and and we're not going to change it like You know that we're you know, actually everyone knows that there's this I mean really since the right bitcoin white paper was released everyone knows there's this attack vector That and so every all this like research has been focused into how can we Make this attack vector either go away or make things more secure in this sort of absolutely I'm a complete agreement there of that But but but there's a difference between analyzing the system as it is And talking about ways you might make the system improved in the future So like when I was on twitter where I The way that I'm reading what you're saying it that though you may See ways to solve problems in the future. I am confused because when you say things like miners don't vote For example, that strikes me as saying well, that's the system at present. You actually do have Miners voting and like they do actually determine Consensus rules in practice and they can actually override the values of users at present. Maybe not in the future, but at present Hmm. Well, there's there's two things here. So like if the It's not even clear that that that that this would happen. So let me give you a scenario Let's let's take bitcoin network as an example And let's say all of a sudden that the miners all say we want to make a change to rule set x And all the users say we want we we don't want x, right? We want to we want to stick with with the current rules um The all the users are running um fully validating nodes they can tell That a block is mined or a transaction that they receive is not following the rule set, right? Now, maybe it's not all users, but exchanges are doing that Purchase and you know payment processors are doing that businesses Um, are they these guys are able to see that hey this transaction Does not follow the rules, right? So their nodes are going to reject that transaction, right? You're not going to be able to the merchants are not or sorry The miners are not going to be able to send their coin base rewards to the exchanges In order to cash out They're not going to be able to use their coin base rewards to buy things in stores or any of this stuff because it's not going the You know, they're going to see you know payment declined on the point of sale terminal or whatever So Now hold on you might say well, but it's the the merchant the The miners are in a majority But what's going to happen is very quickly the profitability of the original chain is going to skyrocket, right? The mining profitability is going to go way up because you just had this mass exodus of Miners from the network basically And so now you have this huge my increase in profitability for mining back on the main chain And maybe that's not going to be filled Instantly did I freeze up here? You're still good at mining. Okay, my computer bigger first You maybe it's not going to instantly snap back to the original hash rate But that certainly creates a big incentive for people to bring more hash rate online Because the mining profitability just skyrocketed on the original chain This I disagree with I disagree with because This is the assumption that users are going to continue valuing the coin With minority hash rate, which they might like intellectually They might say ah, I prefer the values of the bch chain But I'm saying in practice if miners so Beside they could miners can destroy the value On the minority chain just by doing reorgs or mining empty blocks something like that. It doesn't matter how It doesn't matter how many nodes are running. This is this is what I think there's truth when BSV crowd is skeptical of non mining nodes It's because it doesn't really matter if the operator of the node doesn't like The rule set because the miners can destroy The chains that are the minority Doesn't matter how many non mining nodes you have if the underlying network doesn't work They're going to destroy it. Nobody's going, you know Does that mean that all of a sudden people are going to start using the other chain that that was the whole like thing with BSV Was like kreg right literally thought like if I destroy the abc side Then well, we'll just people will just all the people who are using abc I don't think that's correct. Just got lost. No, I don't think that's you don't think that was his plan I I don't think that was this plan. I might be wrong because kreg right I mean, it may have been it may have been a longer term play He may have said the number of people who are currently using abc is inconsequential So it doesn't matter, but it's not inconsequential assume that we're at global scale And all the miners just say hey, we want to increase the block reward to pay us all a billion dollars a block Then then I mean do you think that like everyone's just going to say, okay? You've got the majority hashrate. We're going to follow that. No, they're going to stick with the original rule set And the profitability of that rule set will skyrocket. Okay. I three things. Okay, so first The I think is as correct position for a The bf let's say the bsv value proposition minus kreg right, which is so the hard to separate the two But there is an actual value proposition that's talking to entrepreneurs out there that bsv Is targeting kreg right just kind of makes the whole thing all confusing and dramatic and silly um, so let's say In the scenario in which bsv Successfully destroy bch I do think that that would have made bsv miners A lot of money and I do think a lot of business would go over to the bsv side There'd be a lot of people that don't like that But if we only have one big block bitcoin bitcoin to choose from People are going to use the big block bitcoin now not everybody But I think the what you're correct in saying the target audience being the rest of the 7 billion people on planet earth Is much much much much bigger bigger than upsetting the people who were in bitcoin cash right now. Okay, but that's that Okay, go ahead and that's why did he why didn't he just create his own fork? Why did he like try to hostile take over bch? I think because he wanted to destroy his competition Uh explicitly so so if you're thinking about it from the perspective of you know, uh This is one business perspective You can make a lot more money being the miners of the one proof of work cryptocurrency the one big block bitcoin then you can In a fractured community That's real that is Not it might not be ethical. It's open whether or not it's ethical But it's if you have the ability to do that that is you would be able to make a lot of money doing that He just failed. He didn't get enough proof of work the jihun and roger came in and put a stop to that So he failed by his own strategic thinking there Yeah, I don't know. I mean I can tell you this I don't think People would have switched over from the abc side to Where at least not the not the majority of them would have just gone and used a you know bitcoin sv Especially not remember he's talking about double spending exchanges. I mean I I can't imagine like a business who who like after being threatened with losses of millions of dollars just decides Oh, yeah, I'll put your I'll list your product and support you and there's a few things a few things First of all, let's say what you've said is true That everybody in the bitcoin community just said screw these people, right? I I think it's irrelevant Or close to approximately irrelevant because the market of crypto right now Is essentially nothing compared to what the market could be for One coin to rule them all Big block bitcoin So I think it could make perfect sense for somebody to go out if they had enough hash power and try to destroy all Chains piss off the community and still create value for the rest of the world This is this was part two of what I wanted to say Because you gave the example of what happens when the miners want to Give themselves a bunch more coins if you actually listen to the rhetoric of let's say the bsv crowd It's not libertarian. It's not very nice. Some of it's totally crazy However, they are explicit In saying we are creating sound money That's the whole thing the whole value proposition for the smart miner And I I do think there is some intelligence on the bsv side is to say look Screw all the political stuff screw all the ethical stuff We are going to create sound money for the world. So I do think it is in the miners the There is a a mindset of a particular type of miner Which is going to say, okay, I'm going to destroy all the competition But the the parameter I'm not going to screw around with because I want to make a Crap ton of money is the guarantee that if you that this is Sound currency. We're not going to inflate the currency That's just a wise business proposition screw all the ethical stuff But still deliver the real value of sound digital money for the world But then once you get to that point then then what you know, what stops you from from just Exercising that authority. Well, there's a couple things one. I still think it would be More valuable for people who have a large amount of hash rate to keep mining the world's currency And processing transactions. I think it is still in their financial best interest to do that If they're malicious if let's say they're state actors, which they might be I don't know Then I don't think that the proof of work system holds up I think it's a failure if you if it's the case that you have a majority hash rate That is not purely profit driven And that has some measure of maliciousness proof of work fails I think that's I think it's also part of what you what kind of the white paper is kind of explicit about it The whole thing it relies on the majority hash rate being in pursuit of profits It's just I just think that a smart entrepreneur is is going to understand He has way more profits available to him by keeping the money sound than he does By suddenly undercutting the whole value proposition bitcoin Well See, but the I feel like the whole actions of craig right seem to prove that wrong, right? So what we have with Bitcoin cash The way I see it the way that bitcoin s the reason bitcoin sv exists is because craig had a temper tantrum he I understand he threw he threw a massive temper tantrum when Bitcoin as bitcoin abc and bitcoin Unlimited refused to allow him to dictate the terms of development So he wanted to be dictator of bitcoin cash And through this temper tantrum and then said well, I'll show you and he thought he could take it over He thought he could take over the coin and drive out abc and unlimited and he failed And the result is bitcoin sv is is the result of this Um now Like that that doesn't sound like Be rational behavior like if if you're so what you're arguing is that This is The the rational thing to do would not be to try to take over a network and centralized control in in your hands because that's That's not in the long-term interest of the coin, but that's what craig tried to do, right? He explicitly There's a big difference though. So first of all, I think it's too early to say that he failed He failed in so far as he did not get enough hash rate I think he could have succeeded in fact, but he just didn't get enough hash rate Um, thank goodness for gene and and roger. I think they essentially saved bch No matter how much our community wanted to keep the the protocol and the network alive If you have a majority of hash rate that wants to destroy you and your own proof of work You there's really nothing you can do But I think so I but I do think it's too early to say I think that the existence of bsv is Not self-evidently a bad thing From a from a business standpoint, right? If you've got a long-term vision. Yeah, he wasn't able to kill off his competition But he's still drawn some technically competent people to his group. I mean unwriter is a legit death like That's just the case. I think ryan charles is a good entrepreneur. I think he's got a good mind on the shoulders I think there are there really are some people that see long-term value in a stable protocol With all of the baggage even that comes with craig ride and in chain and the patents and all of that So I think it's just way premature to say he's failed in that regard But what you're saying, but it seems like you're saying two different things here So one is you're saying the goal was to kill off bitcoin cash and and substitute it with his own But what I see him is he tried to take over bitcoin cash from the inside basically, right? He wasn't trying to kill it off. He was trying to keep bitcoin cash there and muscle out everyone else and Well, it depends on what you mean by the coin cash. I mean, it depends on what you mean by bitcoin cash I mean, well, he clearly wanted he clearly wanted like his goal as I saw it was Bitcoin cash would there would only be one coin today. It would be called bitcoin cash And he would 100 percent in control of it And what you're saying is like it's not rational for someone to want to try and execute that kind of authoritarian control Because it undermines the value proposition of the coin But he clearly did try to execute that. I see what you're saying, but there's a there's a there's a critical difference here There is a huge difference between centralizing control of the development of the technology And allowing miners to increase block rewards for themselves There's a huge difference So it might be a good strategy to try to centralize development control But still make the value proposition It's always sound money at the end of the day. I'm a I'm a jerk. I'm a bad guy I'm I destroy all these other coins, but bitcoin is going to be sound digital money for the world Well, not just development control was you know, he tried centralizing the mining too, right? He bought up a ton of ton of mining But so he he tried centralizing development and tried centralizing mining So at this point you're left with a total centralized currency And like there's a difference between a centralized currency and one which is debased If the people who have centralized the currency have explicitly said, yeah We're the powerful people that are going to create sound digital money for the world That's a different value proposition than just pure decentralization You can still actually create a product Yeah, so this this goes into like the fundamental reason for bitcoin's existence Centralized digital currencies were possible decades ago, right? We don't need proof of work We don't need a blockchain to do this You just need a signing authority and a server and a beefy server And it seems like you know this this notion that like we're going to have a centralized Control we're going to centralized development centralized mining centralized control, but they're not going to use it They're going to be real benevolent and follow the rules Why do we have bitcoin, right? Well, what's the difference? Here's the difference. There's a difference between saying you have a you have the authorities the centralized authorities And we all this is the excel spreadsheet by google that we all attract our currency on There's a difference between that and saying the power that is centralized is in the hands of those who have accumulated the most proof of work There's a fundamental difference. It's not it's not declaration by government fiat These people will be the controls of the currency. It's that they have the most proof of work That's the that's the metric or the merit or the bar that one must cross in order to be in order to have power in the bitcoin system That doesn't yeah. Well, I mean even even if that's the case and they accumulate the most proof of work I don't I mean this is to me. This is like saying We're going to have a federal reserve, but they're really going to behave honestly and they're not going They're not going to you know mess with the system like we're just by government decree That's not by accumulation of proof of work A little difference between the two it's still that the at the end of the day it's still centralized power and Whether they accumulated it through political decree or just by having a gambling billionaire buy up a lot of mining rigs I don't like that doesn't seem to me like I don't I don't see the fundamental difference there If the power the problem is the power to exercise control If they want to and change the rules and make whatever decisions they want If they want to and to just say like the way bitcoin operates is to just Trust they're not going to do that like that was never the point of bitcoin. It was always cryptographic trust Okay, okay. Okay. This is good. This is now. We're really getting into the the nitty-gritty here so There is a big difference between of something like a federal reserve which says there's going to be these particular barriers to entry by enforced by guns Versus the centralization of proof of work power Which is which is an oak which has no barrier to entry. It's anybody wealthy Who can buy up enough Can have the relative influence over the network. That's a gigantic difference so I don't know I mean I don't know how so maybe in the purest sense of this but there's a It's trivial for someone in that position to keep out competitors. So for one um The majority just mines empty blocks or sorry orphans the blocks of minority competitors So you have your one big entity and you're basically saying no one else can gain control unless they can buy up a majority of the hashing power to What then the the if you listen to what kreg and shatters and all these people are saying Is their whole small world network? So for what what is what does their network look like to kreg right? I mean, he's been explicit in his view one only miners run nodes period Okay, two the the mining network just can then the entire But this is the whole vision of bsv only miners run nodes The the mining network the the whole entirety of the peer-to-peer network is a small world quote-unquote Where every miners connected to every other miner and that's the that's the network, right? So in that scenario what stops that that group from Forget proof forget other people accumulating hashing power and getting a majority What stops that group from just saying we're not going to allow you to connect to our servers to even download the blockchain to begin mining Okay, right so you can go and you can you can accumulate as much Um mining power as you want you could have 10 times more mining power than we have but we have the blockchain and you don't Well, I don't I'm not sure about that very last part, but let's put bsv and kreg right aside because they're I know we're still in the midst of this battle between bch of bsv But but we're talking about the theory of the power dynamics of bitcoin not necessarily one particular Entrepreneurs approach to try to mess with the network or whatever the heck he's trying to do So so I think actually what you're getting Down to the heart of the implications of proof of work. I'm not saying this is good. I'm not saying this is bad I'm not saying this is valuable or invaluable. I'm saying in practice It's actually the case with proof of work systems that if you have enough money invested You can take control of the network Determine the rules and destroy opposing Currencies on that are on proof of work. They're on the same hashing algorithm, right? Uh, yeah, but I mean they're like Does that sound like a system you want to use steve? I mean, it's a separate question. Wait. Wait. No, it's that's part two That's part two part one is is the correct analysis of how the system actually works rather than whether I value it Is this the way it actually works? I think the very quick thing. I mean it kind of goes back to your assumption of um, can you make a generic asic in the beginning because you know my you know the assumption being you're not going to and People are just going to change the hashing algorithm and get rid of that single, you know monopolist or whatever I do think that's a very important, um assumption. Absolutely. Whether or not there's generic asics or not Yeah, I definitely yield different different outcomes and different systems here, but so so the the implication of this I think is proof of work Is not so clear cut that it is able to overcome nation states Right if you if this is how proof of work operates is essentially it really is hash power One cpo one vote, right? That general idea Then it might not be enough or it might be the case that way in the future You have competing nation states that are are competitively mining against one another You don't literally have one like the usa has 80 percent of the hash power. It's that you have national interests In having competing governments around the globe All playing the hash game and in fact back in the early days of talking about bitcoin with people like I remember Having these conversations playing out the real long-term implications of proof of work And and this is also why if I can just say one more thing Um, this is also why the way that I'm seeing proof of work is that you can't have a generic basic Even if it's not perfectly efficient And what that means is if we're going to try to compete with nation states We have to have a sufficiently large and robust industry that can put up in terms of hash power competition with nation states, which is a long ways from where we are right now I feel like if you got to a system that's that centralized It's like trivial to control. All right And that's like people would move on to something else. They'd invent other ways of doing things like that that type of system where You've got I I can't see any scenario in which nation states compete with each other Rather than just forming some imf body or something that manages the thing um So when you say you don't think that this kind of Bitcoin would be valuable So do you not think that this is the way that bitcoin works right now that if enough people bought up enough hashing power They could actually do what I've described Yeah, I think that's a a threat and I think that's Something that's still a bit of an unresolved problem. I mean, we've made it this far without resolving the problem I don't know if we're you know, if this is like going to be the the ultimate for Solution for all time. Um, I mean there are other ways of doing things too I know you've got some really smart people on ethereum working on like proof of stake You know, we're playing around with ideas of avalanche and stuff Um, so I mean the goal is the goal is to kind of avoid this scenario I I'm almost consider like the scenario you're describing is like The worst case failure mode where it's but don't you see but don't you see where this is I'm not really I'm not I'm trying to analyze the way that the system already is working right now And it's fine not and this is what I was trying to tell people. I wasn't trying to be rude doing it It's totally fine not to like prove of work Like like there's a lot of smart people who don't like proof of work because when you play out what it means I think it it means that actually the system is controllable with enough coordination So, yeah, so I mean If we take the btc network today I mean there's there's problems with every all coin as far that are using proof of work But if you take like the btc network today to do to bitcoin what Craig has done to um Yeah, to bitcoin cash would take about 10 times more wealth than they have right um And so like that's where the difficulty is is coming in and hopefully that's enough of a barrier To prevent that from happening. Well, that's exactly why it proves Yeah, this is exactly why I've been saying that what the the competition to nation states Is unbelievable amounts of private money going into Mining that's exactly that is the only hope I think we have from these types of attacks because we've just seen like like you've said This is a billionaire buying up some asics and he has able was able to have this kind of control over the network Imagine that we actually get much bigger and we're and instead of some crazy billionaire We're dealing with nation states Like that suddenly a billion dollars putting into asics is not actually That big of a deal. So it's only this is Do you agree that If this analysis of the power dynamics in bitcoin is correct that the the only way we can avoid Bad centralization that we all don't want to see is by having a huge mining industry in which it takes an unbelievable amount of money to have any influence over the network Seems like it might be conflating two things there because you can have an enormous amount of mining power And still have that mining power be relatively distributed Right now whether that happens or not. I don't know but To me the best case scenario would be To have enormous amounts of mine You know proof of work for a proof of work coin the best case scenario would be absolutely enormous amounts of of mining But being in aggregate, but the actual mining power being as distributed as possible The scenario where you have an enormous amount of mining power But it's five six a dozen mega firms with that mining power is a lot less appealing Okay, but you could still even in the scenario where you had it relatively distributed You could still imagine circumstances in which the miners can coordinate To like fork the network, right? So if we have a bitcoin 4 moment and like for some crazy reason the people that are in charge of development Say no no Lock shall not be bigger than one megabyte or whatever it is It does even if even if there's a thousand different miners There's probably a way if you piss them off enough where they're going to say no no we're actually going to fork anyway Yeah, I'm so I think what one of the I still think it makes it harder. Um You know the the way we have In issue so the way that pools operate today Makes this a lot easier. It makes softworks a lot easier makes a lot of things a lot easier And this is kind of one of the things that I want to work on at some point. Maybe Maybe second half of next year or the year after we'll see how much time I have on my hands is um Like like making more a more decentralized mining pool system. So today mining pools They select all that they run the nodes and they select the transactions and the individual miners are just like dumb Hashers that don't even know what they're hashing and I see no reason why individual miners can't run their own nodes if I were if I Quit my job to start up a warehouse full with racks and racks of servers I'd want to run my own node and select my own transactions And I can't imagine that other miners are happy to outsource You know this this function to other people Um, it just requires a protocol to do it and we don't have that protocol today And and we the the bitcoin developers tried creating that protocol, but they outsourced the it to luke jr And he did a terrible job. Um, so You know so so the get block template that luke jr created was it's it's supposed to do that, but it's so inefficient. It doesn't work So it we can create a protocol that's much more efficient that allows for individual miners to run their own nodes where the the responsibility of the pool then becomes to Aggregate to only aggregate and distribute the reward. And so in that in that environment doing Soft forks and this sort of stuff in court that sort of coordination becomes a lot harder, right? And there was that there was that classic image from a couple years ago where you had 90 percent of the bitcoin hash rate sitting on a stage together it was like six people and um Right like that wouldn't be possible If without this like centralized pool mining structure, right? So I don't know how many miners are out there Then this would be another thing that would give us a better picture of how distributed the actual Passing is if we had a pool system where the individual miners ran their ran their own nodes We'd get better data to collect and see like how bad is the situation actually, right? That's a good point Now before I ask you questions about that Checking in for how much time you have. Are you still good? Should we put a hard deadline on this? Um, what time is it? It's I have 4 30 my time. I don't know where you are. Yeah Yeah, six. Yeah, we can go to to uh another half hour. Okay. Okay. So the question is About centralization decentralization and the economics really of proof of work. So I think there's A much well, there's obviously a much greater tolerance for centralization with like the bscb crowd But I this is a spectrum in terms of how much centralization you think is okay And how much centralization you think is inevitable with proof of work So over time the way that I think about the dynamics of what proof of work mean burning electricity essentially It seems like you're naturally going to have Centralization like there's no way around it because you have efficient producers Of electricity and inefficient producers of electricity. So you're going to get Even a geographic centralization and you're going to just like any other markets You're going to have the more competent people are going to rise to the top and you're going to get firms that are the way that I envision it is you have bitcoin mining firms Like these are these are professional businesses that these warehouse, you know, somebody that's going to have a warehouse of Asics is not It is like a professional mine. That's what they do. That's their Role and I think that's okay in the system. What do you think about that? Um, yeah for the most part, I mean generally say I would say the more the better. Um, and I do agree that there's a There is a sense in which it feels like they're you know, the the nature of the industry is to kind of centralize in the sense of You know, there's there's economies of scale There's cheap electricity in some areas of the world not in others um, you know, there's economies scale in asic manufacturing and this sort of stuff and Um, yeah, so I don't it's it's hard to like predict and say like what the You know, the outcome of that would look like at scale. It could look You know, it could look really good and be very distributed or it could be like very centralized And it's kind of to me. This is still like an open question of what it ultimately would look like if it's like thousands of mining firms You know and thousands of warehouse. I think there was some what did I read something like 8.6 million data centers around the world? I mean, if only a few thousand of them were bitcoin mining warehouses That might be sufficient sufficiently distributed. I don't know. I don't particularly have an answer But I also don't think, you know, like 10 or 12 would probably be I would consider that way too centralized. So why do you think then when you're when you're viewing? Let's say the approach of bsb. Why do you think that it would be? That centralized down to 10 or 12 versus let's say a few thousand So I guess this goes into the technicals of it the the bitcoin software and this is where You know, the core developers weren't wrong about everything, right? And and in fact, they were right about most stuff The the dispute that I I have with the core developers was one I think, you know, one megabyte was ridiculous and the network can clearly handle more than that today without any negative effects um, and two it was over the long term vision of Not necessarily. Yeah vision, but like Their argument was that there's as the network scales. It's the centralization pressure is going to increase And that's not an incorrect argument the the difference is like, you know, we can put our thinking caps on and we can, you know We can address this as an engineering problem and try and solve it Or we can just wave the white flag and surrender and say we're just going to push everything off chain And they chose the ladder. They decided we're going to make the bitcoin network a settlement network where at scale it would only be used by corporations and banks and um, and everyone else is just going to basically use banks, right? I mean at scale I no one's even going to be using the lightning network. That's like a fantasy of fees or a thousand dollars to open a channel or something right, um so like Everyone just uses banks and then bitcoin's a settlement system for large banks and corporations and to me That's like waving the white flag. That's like saying we're not even going to try right and the whole like that That was the source of the dispute whereas I think many of the bitcoin cash developers looked around and said look they're not necessarily wrong that the system You know it there's centralization pressure as the thing scales that needs to be addressed and we have to you know Do a lot of hard engineering and research and in order to address these things as we scale And and I think we're you know, we were like anxious to to be able to work on this problem um as developers so when you ask like why do I see bitcoin sv as Being you know more centralized at scale. It's because they've explicitly deny that there's that there's centralization pressure as the system scales. They say no, it's perfect And there's no we don't need to make changes to the protocol. In fact, we need to lock it down I do think there's a difference between saying There there are centralization pressures as the network scales And we need to fix that versus there are centralization pressures as the network scales And that's normal and natural and let's say it will still result in thousands of bitcoin miners all over the world and a less Decentralized fashion, but still decentralized enough where you don't literally have a single or a dozen points of failure Um, you're saying that's what bsv is saying. I can't speak for bsv. I'm just saying the way that I've been This is the way that I've been looking. I don't I don't see my this idea represented out there very much But i'm okay with some centralization. I that's it's just like in any market You're gonna have centralization. I don't want it to be one or two or a dozen But I think you know a thousand all over the world is probably good enough if when we're talking, you know Really at scale like oh, yeah, I mean that's that's I mean, I'd probably be okay with that. Um, but so the So but yeah, so that's just the thing with the the whole like big dispute there is with them saying like You know, it's almost like they're treating it like a religion. You don't believe in bitcoin if you say, you know the the You know that we have to make changes in order to preserve the properties that we want And you know, like I'll just give you one example. There's there's a relatively counterintuitive um aspect to block propagation um, and that is as blocks, um as the latency of transmitting blocks around the network increases So blocks get bigger latency of transmitting them increases as the latency increases the um The larger miners Actually earn more than their fair share of the block reward. So a 30 percent minor might earn 35 percent of the block reward A 10 a fight and then it comes at the expense of the smaller miners So the smaller miners a 5 percent minor might earn 2 percent of the block reward and So the the more the latency increases the larger this effect becomes and you can see that there's this incentive there to Mine for all large miners to just start banding together, right? Until you have like one big minor, right? The end result of that is to have one big minor. No, that's that's not true That that that's a difference between there's a There's a so economies of scale are a real thing. I don't I disagree with even the terminology They get more than their fair share. I know that this is this is not No, this is not an economy of scale. This is assuming All miners have the same access to hardware It is assuming that all miners are equally fast have the same processing power same bandwidth Same everything. This is not an economies of scale issue. This is as the This is the nature of the way the proof of work system works and block propagation that Block as latency increases. This creates an artificial advantage for larger miners Um that it has a central. What do you mean by larger miners? uh minors that have um Larger percentage of the overall hash rate That to me what you've just described is a is a quirk of the network but it I could I could I rephrase it this way that the the larger the minor the The more out of proportion their profits Related to their proof of work Yeah, and so you would you agree that that this creates an incentive To consolidate the number of miners Uh, I mean in so far as profits create an incentive to consolidate and you could still have Miners that are capable of Propagating big blocks and are Well, not it'll have lots of firms And not a fee not a fee minor who has 10 of the revenue or sorry 10 of the hash rate But he collects 5 of the revenue not if that's unprofitable, right? I mean if if what you're described if the phenomena you're describing Is significant then yeah, I mean that is a big Deal, but if it's and it doesn't get very Significant at scale like the bigger you go you're talking terabyte blocks. That's an issue So I'm not saying it's not a fixable issue But the bsv people are like they put their heads in the sand and pretended that it doesn't exist and So to to exist like I'll give you an example like Um, obviously we have block compression algorithms like graphene and this sort of stuff Which can help in this area by reducing latency, but even there graphing Uh, every block compression algorithm that we have relies on mem pools being in sync that when mem pools get far out of sync Um, the compression doesn't work at all. We saw this with um the giga block test net Got up to about 100 megabyte blocks or something like that And then the block the mem pools were so far out of sync that the block compression Completely failed to compress they were transmitting full 100 megabyte blocks around the network. Um, so You need some sort of Mechanism for mem pools, which is what we're like exploring with like pre consensus, but you know pre consensus is not true bitcoin Right. It's not in the white paper. Um, so so it's like we're doing things for a reason and uh, you know We've got we're trying to like work on these these challenges. These are engineering challenges and they're engineering challenges that need to be fixed Um, you know, if we're going to scale and remain decentralized and so why why do I think that? Bsv is going to be like super centralized at scale It's because they take the the view that there's nothing wrong with the protocol and it's everything's fine, right? And again, I can't comment on like I'm not taking the bsv approach in particular I'm just saying centralization in general and the benefits that come from being a big firm versus a small firm That is part of how economies operate. I mean you could also there's a here's just an analogy, right? Um, if you're a big firm in the market right now in america, you have more Influence over the legal system than you do as a small player It's out of proportion of proportion a mom and pop shop Doesn't have you know a little bit of power and then like walmart has proportionally a large amount of power No, it's totally skewed. It's totally asymmetrical, but that's not I mean in that circumstance You got politics that plays a part but just the fact of the asymmetry that bigger miners Get some percentage larger profits than their than their hash rate I don't think that's necessarily a big problem Which is which is why when I so it's the it's like one's palette for decentralization is really a matter of taste Right, I would say the people on the core side Plained at least that oh my gosh, the whole thing has to be completely decentralized and then of course in practice with a lightning network It's not going to be decentralized at all uh Other people in the bch side might say well some you know We could have maybe a thousand firms, but we don't want 50 firms And then maybe the people in the bca of the bsb site said well, we can have five firms You know and and that's still okay. It's just a matter of taste. I don't think it's actually a very clear cut and if it's the case that The incentives of the system yield some significant decent a significant amount of centralization I tend to be much more tolerant of that type of centralization than I think in any bch supporters at this point See, I don't know if I view it as a matter of taste. I view it as a security parameter, right? Like the The system this is not You know if the number of firms producing motorcycles Uh, you know ends up they're only like two or three firms producing motorcycles because of economies of scale Big deal, right? It's not we don't have like our money doesn't rely on Motorcycle firms not colluding, right? So the um these the the number of firms is essentially Number of miners is to some extent a security parameter, right that the difficulty of um colluding Is this you know, it's a security parameter So it's the the more the more miners and the more distributed the better. So for me, it's not it's not a matter of taste It's just a matter of well, but what's like the minimum It is still a matter of taste though. I mean and not I don't mean like aesthetic taste. I mean, uh, Maybe that maybe taste is a bad word. But so for example is 500 miners. Okay is 300 miners. Okay It's 350 350 777 like wherever You personally say this is the number I'm comfortable with and smaller than that is too centralized I'm saying that varies among people based on what they think the relative risks are It's significantly varies Okay, I mean I could see that so I mean obviously the so what it comes down to is the more distributed It is the the lower the risk the less distributed is the higher the risk. Yes. Okay. Okay So so maybe this is the last point then is the perfect segue So what if it's the case that there is a tension? Inherent in the system with the amount of centralization you think it naturally outputs And the natural operating of the systems. So for example, if it's the case that through the natural process of Markets and centralization we end up with 100 firms, let's say Do you consider that a sufficient Uh centralization failure such that we need to radically change the protocol to get more decentralization for its own sake Maybe I'll give you a hard beat It's a well, it's a hard question right because you can see though you can see how People who are trying to build in the system Would really want to know the answer to that question. So if if it came down to like If it's like, you know, let's say we could do something along the lines of like creating some sort of hybrid system where um you've got uh You know proof of work is is still used but to Wipe out historical blocks or override proof historical blocks Then you need um to control some percentage of the overall Like coins like UTXOs, right? um And like if we could add add that like layer that on top And if the choice was between and and it didn't have any other negative consequences and the choice was between Not doing that or doing it. I mean, I would say let's do it, right? Like I wouldn't just say well, maybe 100 is okay I would say like here's a way we can strengthen it. Okay, let's do it Okay, so two things on that one. What would be prevention? You're like talking about a hybrid POW versus POS system. So What would be preventing the wealthy From just buying up more of the UTXOs that would proof of state? um Nothing, but it's just another cost that it's just another hurdle, right that that doesn't currently exist Yeah, but I mean that's just some would that just kicks the can down the road a little bit further, right? um I think at the end of the day any system where the majority of anything you're using is controlled It is controlled by an attacker. It's going to get overwhelmed The only thing is you can increase the number of things an attacker needs to control Interesting. So do you do you see then that the bitcoin system as you're envisioning it is going to always be adding new fundamental things to To forever Forstall the overtaking of you know, just like us from some wealthy nation state I don't know if I can think of enough things that would be continually added to do that, but Doesn't that mean the whole thing's broken? Then if it's just a matter of time before the wealthy either buy up the hash rate or buy up enough of the UTXO set to take control of it well, I I don't Uh, like I don't know if that's going to be feasible, right? I think like the the security relies on on the feasibility of that Right, the body is entirely a matter of just dollars and cents, right? um well No, I mean not really like, you know, if if you said I don't know. I've got a way that uh, you can attack the system, but you need uh um 167 trillion dollars, right? Like that's not that I mean That's what I'm saying You know you can I I agree. I mean if it that's that's kind of my whole I think that is the security model is that it's got to be that expensive to to Screw up the network and just switching to pos or switching to other things seems like That doesn't actually fundamentally solve the problem of like Wealthy people can gain your system if they have enough coordination and wealth Yeah, it does increase the cost though true Well, so that is a a point of agreement Um, this has been an awesome conversation. I appreciate you taking the time Are there any topics we're a little bit early? Um, are there any topics that you feel like you want to clarify before we recall it today Um, no, I mean if you have anything I can talk about whatever you need Well, so I guess there is a I have a confusion because when I so I Have not been extremely vocal in this community Um, and then the whole bsv thing happened the greg right thing happened and suddenly What I thought were shared ideas among Bitcoiners like old school bitcoiners just didn't seem shared it So in the course of this conversation, I mean, okay, we're generally on the same page But like as when you when you read twitter in particular That It's lost and I'm very confused like some of the things, you know You've said like miners are the janitors of the network miners don't vote. This is a preg right policy And I'm thinking well, how do you square that with this? Because I get a different thing here. Well, I mean what you're talking about is is they're going to attack Then the attack the network right if if we take that off the table and We we say that the they're not going to be doing 51 cent attacks then They have to they have to follow the preferences of the users. Are you not like do you not see that like so the You made a very large assumption at the beginning of that if they're not doing 51 percent attacks The whole idea is that the reason they have the power is because they can do 51 percent attacks But I mean but yeah, craig didn't do one Right, the only reason is because he didn't have enough hash power. He failed getting on hash power Right. He could have had enough Well, yeah, but I don't know if he I don't even know if he would have even in that scenario. Maybe but I so Like the the point is that if a If the users all say we want rule set x and the miners say rule set y And the rule set y is not going to be profitable, right? That that's my view I mean, you're going to say like well, it's got no security over the opposite But it's real set x isn't going to be profitable profitable No, because that they get like again, it's trivial to change the like I think the fundamental assumption is is your Your algorithm where miners dominate every proof of work coin, right? But I mean they can change the algorithm other miners can come online, right? So I mean, would you agree with me that if a whole bunch of miners Do a mass exodus That that and the the value of the original chain stays the same That there you wouldn't see a max a mass influx of miners on that original chain. Would you not agree with that? I would disagree with the assumption that if There's a mass exodus of miners that the value stays the same for a few reasons One is the network's not going to work as well Um, two is the network's not going to be as secure like bch right now is well depends on how much how much Time it takes to spin up new miners, right? So I mean, this is maybe this this bear market's a good example But people are taking massive amounts of hash offline offline, right because um because the the price is tanked So we've got a ton of miners sitting around unused right now. So You so again perfect example We've got a lot of these unused miners sitting around We see a mass exodus of bitcoin core miners to something else You mean to tell me that those those unused miners are not going to fire up and go right back to mining bitcoin core If the value, you know, assuming the value stayed the same, right? And they can do that in less than one block interval, right? Like they could just turn on their miners and you wouldn't miss a beat, right? What I'm saying is there's a very important question, which is why do users value coins? I'm saying users value coins They some of them might value because of ethical principles and float principles I mean like me. I'm kind of a very biased libertarian this whole thing But I'm also willing to say that it doesn't matter how much Valuing of a coin a user has would love to use point x If it's the case that sufficient hash power says this network is going to be unusable by a 51 attack or multiple 51 But see that's what I'm saying like the the time lag I I guess it depends on on what the time what kind of time lag we're talking about for spinning a patch on the original network Because if it's 10 minutes to get the hash back up to where it was The miners are going to be totally unsuccessful in in attempting in what you're talking about Now if it takes them weeks or months to You know spit out more chips from the factory and get them online Then yeah during those weeks or months you could potentially see a tank in the nation power, huh? Or a tank in the value I don't I think maybe we're talking I don't think we're on the same page with the assumptions at the scenario here because i'm saying like a miner like jihon All right, the low who I think has enough influence to control a great deal more hash power than craig right I'm saying a miner like that as it doesn't has has the power and the revenue to If they are so inclined to destroy Minority hash chains and just just through a matter of how much money they have it doesn't matter if you're a You're assuming it's a minority hash chain, right? Like yes Let's But it doesn't work. Let's say 51% Let's say 51% decide we're not mining that okay Um, you know, we're all we're all going to switch over to x and all the users still want to use the other hash rate Yeah, like You don't you would not agree that the hash rate is going to see a massive spike on the on the original side of the chain as a result of that Especially if the miners are just sitting idle, right if people have miners sitting idle They're just you know, all these all these miners that like people have abandoned in their houses Yes, if you're talking about the situation at present immediately Yes, I think that is probably correct But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not I'm not talking about right now. I'm saying in general It's not simply the fact so the difference between 51% of miners Leaving and mining another coin versus 51% of miners saying we're forking and we're going to attack you Right so you're you're kind of assuming You're saying it's essentially Yeah, the the uh, they they wouldn't be a majority. That's my whole point They wouldn't be a majority After the exodus and after the new hash spins up on the original chest But that's that's only if we're talking about these to gauge and maybe the sv But I'm talking about proof of work. Let's let's just take the analysis that like to btc I I'm saying an actual majority Concretely speaking an actual majority of the hash rate is the thing that determines whether or not users can even use their coins Even if they value them But that's what I'm saying. So the hash rate in any one given point in time You know, let's let's just say the total hash on the network is 100 x a hash and Like that doesn't mean that's the maximum amount of of x a hash is that can ever be mined, right? There might be 50 x a hash sitting idle There might be 50 x a hash ready to roll off the assembly line um, and so if if half the miners Just pull out and say we're even if most of the miners pull out and switch Like it depends on how quickly the other miners can get back up because users are not necessarily going to instantly switch and say Up we prefer that one now no matter what consensus rules. They are they might You know, I see what you're saying if the consensus rules are like Trivial and no one cares, right? But if they're not going to just follow something You know, um, you know contentious like that. So this is why I like the The statement from some of the dsv people like Ryan Charles Said that users actually don't have the power in that circumstance because miners can be willing to take a loss for some period of time Just to act maliciously if they are the majority So so if it's the case that okay You know 65 of the miners Leave and okay. Yeah, so you've got a 35 minority But there's other miners that are being spun up Well, you could say the same thing about there's being other miners that are being spun up to mine the 65% chain as well I'm talking about the actual concrete But that chain, you know, but that chain is also going to be and and and as we actually saw in practice With vsv it was grossly unprofitable to mine, right? There's I think they're still taking big losses to mine it So you need some other outside source of revenue to subsidize that right? That's not a profitable operation that in the shortest of terms that is correct in the shortest But I don't think a billionaire is going to be making his decisions About whether or not he's going to try to destroy other chains based on a few weeks of losing a few million dollars or 10 million dollars or 100 million dollars If we're talking about potentially controlling, you know the future of the international financial system If you're the one that also assumes that the majority hashrate has this big pool of capital that they can tap From somewhere else, right? That's not necessarily the case, right? If those miners are operating razor thin margins, they're not going to have You know a big pool of capital that's that's true. I completely concede that however, it's still seems like that would that would mean that whether or not the scenario i'm playing out is plausible Is all up to the miners It's still up to the miners or whether or not the miners have the capital And what that's totally true, but it's still up to the miners and it's not up to the users Which is my whole point I mean this this this assumes so Miners all move over and mine rule set x again. You're just assuming there's going to be this exodus Or not exit but users are gonna just say okay. We'll we'll use rule set x, right? Because if the miners don't do that Every last one of those miners who switched over is hemorrhaging big time money. I mean they're losing in the short term I don't know necessarily in the short term. They could have zero mining revenue, right zero revenue Nobody switches. Okay, but what i'm saying is this okay, so take a scenario. Here's a good scenario Take a scenario in which you have a crazy maniac Who says I am either going to destroy? Proof of work coins that are not my own or i'm going to be the last one standing So users are either going to use my proof of work point or they're not going to use any proof of work In such a system like irrationality. It's not irrationality. No Not at all. That is a perfectly reasonable and plausible entrepreneurial decision To say I will either be king or there will be no such existence That's not irrational Right Well, that would just it might be a little crazy, but it's like Ridiculously ambitious, but it's not clear at all that that's not that's a financially losing proposition Uh, it's a financially losing proposition if no one wants to follow the king, right? Like but if people do what kings work I mean the world is filling kingdoms are the most successful type of government ever, right? You're assuming see this is where I think of people and I see this in myself that we have a libertarian bias We go, well, I wouldn't value such a coin there for nobody else would value such a I don't think that's correct. I think Billions of people on the earth would value sound money that that they can send over the internet that simply works safe cheap And they can forget about it billions of people are going to But again, I keep bringing up my point. You don't need bitcoin for that, right? You need a server and a signing authority and you've got the same thing, right? I but but I mean that's just not correct because one is by Fiat's declaration and the other is by saying look look how much proof of work I have accumulated Look how wealthy I am Look look how great an entrepreneur. I have come follow me versus like I'm the king. It's very different I mean you could come up with any kind of scenario for like if if it was really a necessity for There to be this this um facade of openness facade of openness You could do any kind of of way of uh You know making a signing, you know a system where like new signing authorities join without You know having a blockchain and proof of work and all this stuff, right for one You could you could just have a legal contract that says If you post x amount of money in escrow you get to join our little signing party And I mean that doesn't need to state to enforce that right like that could be a private contract with private arbitration and Same same thing, right? I just don't think that's the same thing at all. I think the dynamics of having miners Power through the accumulation of proof of work is completely different Then anybody coming around and saying follow me because I'm I'm wearing the funny hat or whatever it is And and regardless of whether or not to agree. That's fine. I'm just saying I think that there are billions with a b Billions of people who actually would find great value in that which is why and I might be wrong about But this is why I think it is way premature To say that this is clearly a bad business decision by cre and like he's not producing something that people are going to find Value. He's not producing something that libertarians are going to find value But there's a lot more people on the world than our libertarians Um Yeah, I don't disagree that you couldn't have a centralized digital currency And that is valued by a lot of people and I would actually argue that If we didn't have to worry about the state Then there would actually be no need for Decentralized digital currencies just pick any one of the centralized ones and use it and it would work just fine At that point and you know But at the same time if we didn't have to worry about the state, we'd still have a gold standard today, right? Um, you know, we'd still be using gold most likely. Um well, uh In closing then I just want to be clear though I I think it's fair I think it's important for people in the industry to see that there really are Two different philosophies that are both okay here and just because more bch people have one philosophy than another Doesn't mean that it's correct like part of the way you're conceiving of the bitcoin system is that There is always a chase of From proof of work to maybe we go to proof of stake to maybe we go to something else to maybe we always Maybe we're literally always going to be changing the protocol to try to force decentralization Versus the other camp BSV camp says no, no, we don't like that. We want to build on it and we want stability That's a really deep and important philosophical difference and it's not so clear to me that one is inherently superior than the other Well, I don't know if it it implies that we're always going to be changing the protocol It depends on the the state of the system. Like I said, you could totally get to a point where it's not Completely the way that at the system in this current state is never going to be taken over Okay, but but this is still the assumption that there is a group of developers out there with particular ethical political views that will look at the power dynamics and Level of centralization in the system and decide whether or not they're going to fundamentally change protocol or not Right in your well, that's not it's not up to Developers to change it right we put out software and people either use it or they don't so I mean we could say we don't you know We think that the power dynamics stink and we should change it in this particular way But that doesn't mean people are going to use our software right miners need to use our software and end users need to use the software Okay, but I'm saying the the bitcoin you're trying to create Still has kind of at its top a group of people who are saying, okay This is an acceptable level of centralization and this isn't an acceptable level of centralization right Well The people who write the software of which there could be many groups that do that right? It's not necessarily just Just I mean I guess it depends on market share could be many groups And one group can say I think it's fine the other group can say I don't think it's fine I'm putting out a change and then individuals have individuals Businesses end users and miners all need to decide what they're going to use Right, and but you can see how when an entrepreneur or a business who's not neck deep in this stuff listens to that They might go oh, well hell. I don't want to have to deal with Crypto politics and I'm going to have to choose this or that. I just want my damn payment system Well at the end of the day, I think we're going to see a certain rule set is going to start working really well over time Right and then any time you want to make a change of that rule set. There's going to be this massive Presumption against doing so I agree. I agree. I agree and I think actually this I'm glad you say that because I do think The way that I see it the way that I like I have not sold my you know bch I thought more actually in the dip So I still I'm long long bch But I in in my understanding of the technical details Which is not super great. It does seem like Stability isn't actually that far away Like like it's it seems like yeah, okay You make a few more tweaks here raise a block size Maybe we get avalanche for zero comp and like there's a couple other tweaks we can make But then I don't I don't see where we're going to have to have some big fundamental change of feature I might be wrong I hope I hope I'm not wrong because I think that'd be valuable But I don't I don't I feel like you know a gigabyte block is actually not that far away I think the gigabyte is within realm of feasibility. I don't think terabytes are at the current technology So, you know, if you wanted to get to that scale we we're gonna have some something else But I think you can I think bitcoin is a functioning system can do pretty damn well with uh You can fit a lot of transactions in Yeah All right chris. Well, I won't take any more of your time. Thank you very much for uh the short notice This is I feel like this has been a very productive conversation. Yeah. All right. Thanks, thief. All right. That's it