Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Spam Wars: Bitcoin Core vs. Knots | Who Guards the Guardians? | Simply Originals

Transcript

Spam Wars: Bitcoin Core vs. Knots | Who Guards the Guardians? | Simply Originals · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:00
  Is Bitcoin under attack? Not from governments, not from
• 0:04
  Wall Street, but from inside the house.
• 0:07
  Core version 30 wants to strip out the guardrails and turn your
• 0:11
  node into a spam sponge. Knots.
• 0:14
  They're saying Nah bam, we filter this garbage.
• 0:17
  Welcome to the spam wars. Today we'll hear from Samson
• 0:21
  Mao, Jimmy Song, Jeff Booth and Rock Star Dev.
• 0:24
  So you better strap in, because what?
• 0:27
  Bitcoin isn't dying, it's flick it's immune system and growing
• 0:33
  stronger. Now before we get started, let
• 0:40
  me be clear. I'll be honest.
• 0:42
  With you, I'm kind of retarded. But we're going to give it hell
• 0:48
  anyway. And here's the deal.
• 0:51
  Core is the reference client, the one most people run knots.
• 0:54
  Is Core forked with stricter relay policies.
• 0:57
  An important distinction is policy is not consensus.
• 1:01
  Consensus is what makes a block valid.
• 1:03
  Policy is what your node relays by default.
• 1:07
  And Core V30 lifts the OPT return guardrail from 83 bytes
• 1:12
  to 100,000. What the hell?
• 1:14
  That's not a bug fix. That's opening the a peg
• 1:17
  floodgates. And CEO of Jan 3 Samson Mao says
• 1:21
  blind loyalty to Core is dangerous.
• 1:24
  Listen to this. And also it's it's it's becoming
• 1:27
  more apparent during this whole discourse that people are not
• 1:31
  willing to migrate to even if there is suspicion of some level
• 1:34
  of it being compromised. There's like blind loyalty to
• 1:39
  Bitcoin Core, which is kind of dividing the whole Bitcoin user
• 1:45
  base or community, whatever you want to call that into different
• 1:48
  factions right now. Yeah.
• 1:50
  Well, there's a lot to sort of unpack there, but what does it
• 1:52
  mean to kind of work on Bitcoin Core or be a core contributor?
• 1:57
  How do you interpret that well? It's a wide range of things
• 2:02
  because there are people that work on the software itself that
• 2:05
  are working on cryptographic libraries.
• 2:08
  Even people that are contributing to localization or
• 2:12
  bug fixing, QA testing, code review, They're all kind of
• 2:15
  batched into people on working on core or being viewed as
• 2:21
  developing core. Even if you're just submitting
• 2:23
  ideas to the mailing list, I think it's kind of a broad term.
• 2:26
  You can kind of envelope all of that in the term like Bitcoin
• 2:29
  developer. So what does it mean to, you
• 2:32
  know, if you, if you work at say a not-for-profit that hires you
• 2:36
  or you've gotten a grant to work on a certain project or you have
• 2:40
  worked on core? I mean, are they all equal to
• 2:44
  each other? Does, you know, aren't people
• 2:46
  who are philosophically pontificating on what core
• 2:48
  should be also working on core? You know, like someone who
• 2:52
  hasn't contributed to core yet or hasn't had anything codified,
• 2:55
  it could be working on core, but they might not get the same
• 2:59
  voice as someone who's either already contributed or is sort
• 3:03
  of hired, whether it's permanently or sort of
• 3:05
  contractually on a short term basis.
• 3:09
  Well, you have all of that in the mix and I think that's kind
• 3:12
  of one of the drivers of the issue, which is how do you
• 3:15
  determine who his opinions are valid.
• 3:18
  So if you go back in time to the origin of the whole shifting
• 3:22
  away from core, it was over off return and the fact that they
• 3:27
  were blocking people or banning them from GitHub because they
• 3:31
  were saying we're being brigaded and they blocked Luke at some
• 3:35
  point, mechanic at some point. And there's a lot of dismissal
• 3:40
  about people's feedback. And you know, they're they're
• 3:43
  saying we want discussion, but then they don't really want
• 3:48
  discussion. And it's more like it's already
• 3:50
  decided. And that kind of brings us down
• 3:52
  the rabbit hole to another level, which is, you know, are
• 3:56
  developers working at companies kind of in an echo Chamber of
• 4:00
  their own and sort of pre deciding what changes are good
• 4:05
  and what changes should make it in and then kind of going
• 4:08
  through the motions of discussing in public.
• 4:10
  Because there's a lot of weird stuff that happened back then,
• 4:12
  like they locked the locked the thread and unlocked it so that
• 4:17
  someone could hack it and then locked it again to kind of
• 4:19
  manufacture consent or agreement.
• 4:23
  But there was just a lot of stuff like that.
• 4:25
  And it's never apparent who was responsible for these kind of
• 4:28
  antics. And if anything was done about
• 4:32
  it, it's just kind of like things happen and nobody's
• 4:36
  really responsible and then things continue to happen.
• 4:40
  So This is why I believe there's sort of a a shattering and trust
• 4:45
  of core developers. And it's understandable that you
• 4:48
  see a lot of conspiracy theories come up and it's not really
• 4:52
  helped either by how a lot of the core developers are
• 4:55
  behaving. Now I'm not saying like the not
• 4:57
  side are angels, but there are people doing and saying bad
• 5:02
  things on both sides that I think should be de escalated and
• 5:07
  toned down because it's not helpful.
• 5:09
  But definitely I would say it's instigated on the core developer
• 5:13
  side when you go back in time and you look at the origin of
• 5:16
  the whole schism. Devs waving off users is not
• 5:21
  smart enough, isn't what we would call stewardship.
• 5:24
  It's hubris. And hubris destroys empires and
• 5:28
  empires kind of like a network and networks.
• 5:30
  All right, now let's check out what Jimmy Song and Parker Lewis
• 5:33
  had to. Say, what I am concerned about
• 5:35
  is the process, which currently is, hey, we're the developers
• 5:43
  and we're going to even though the there's a whole bunch of
• 5:46
  people in the community. That.
• 5:49
  Don't like this change, we're going to go ahead with it
• 5:53
  anyway. And there have been several sort
• 5:56
  of like justifications for that. It's like kind of talking out of
• 5:59
  both sides of their mouth. And that's that's to me like a
• 6:02
  very Fiat political tactic of hey, if you don't like it, then
• 6:06
  don't do it. But not like that, right?
• 6:08
  It's, it's just kind of closing off all doors because we're the
• 6:12
  technical experts. So I, I don't like the tactics
• 6:16
  that are being used to do that. And I, I don't like that they
• 6:20
  basically push this change through more or less forcefully
• 6:26
  without, without really listening to community feedback,
• 6:30
  which suggests to me that this may happen again.
• 6:32
  Like, it's like one of the things about a lot of coders is
• 6:35
  that they're not entirely socially aware and they think
• 6:38
  they're hiding their motivations when it's like crystal clear to
• 6:41
  everybody. Like they're, they're forcing
• 6:43
  this change, right? Like they, they, they think
• 6:46
  they're in the right and they think they know better than
• 6:48
  everybody else. And they are basically making it
• 6:51
  so that it's going in whether you like it or not.
• 6:56
  And like that, that kind of attitude is just like completely
• 7:01
  against the, you know, ethos of Bitcoin, right?
• 7:04
  Like it's, it's supposed to be a community project.
• 7:07
  It's, it's a, it's a consensus system.
• 7:09
  You're supposed to, you know, listen to other people and
• 7:12
  stuff. And instead what we're getting
• 7:14
  is, oh, everyone that disagrees is like just an influencer or
• 7:18
  whatever it, the, the attitude is, is one that inevitably leads
• 7:25
  to some form of authoritarianism.
• 7:27
  And I think it might show up in a software contentious software.
• 7:30
  Forcing protocol changes without real consensus census turns
• 7:33
  Bitcoin development into Fiat style politics.
• 7:36
  The attitude is one that inevitably leads to some form of
• 7:40
  authoritarianism. If you want fast moving
• 7:42
  experiments, go go be them. An ETH head.
• 7:45
  I don't know if I can say it on here but you know what I meant.
• 7:48
  Bitcoin is the settlement layer for human freedom, not some JPEG
• 7:53
  test net. And here's the part that core
• 7:55
  didn't expect. Knots is Catching Fire.
• 7:58
  Where are we in this process with Core B30?
• 8:03
  When is that set to be released and what do you put the odds of
• 8:06
  it getting released at? Well, it's definitely going to
• 8:09
  be a release, right? They just released 29.1, but you
• 8:14
  know, it doesn't seem like the core developers are going to
• 8:17
  accommodate what the users want. They're going to just move ahead
• 8:21
  with what they want to do, which is within their right.
• 8:24
  And I think it's also within the right of people to run knots or
• 8:28
  another implementation too. It's it is a free market.
• 8:31
  It's just disappointing that they're seeking not to consider
• 8:37
  what the users are doing. But, you know, I don't know when
• 8:40
  it's going to be released, but it'll it'll come.
• 8:42
  And I think a lot of people will just not run it because of all
• 8:46
  these concerns with IS. That the third path where people
• 8:49
  stay on 28 or 29.1 and never go to 30 and don't do an
• 8:53
  alternative client as well. And that's a bit of
• 8:56
  ossification. Yeah, definitely.
• 8:58
  Like I don't think I will upgrade.
• 9:00
  I'll stick on 29 because I don't see any need yet.
• 9:05
  But I don't think you can not upgrade forever because Bitcoin
• 9:09
  is software and software needs to be patched for security
• 9:13
  reasons and updated. So there is talk about having a
• 9:18
  third implementation. And I think there's sort of
• 9:20
  another faction that's not core, not not that wants to build a
• 9:25
  new client that is more battle tested, more secure, leading
• 9:31
  towards ossification or building more consensus before it changes
• 9:36
  that are implemented. And I think that's probably
• 9:40
  going to happen because it is needed.
• 9:41
  Like you can stick on 29 for a year or two, but you cannot
• 9:46
  stick on 29 for 5-10 years. Someone's got to stick, stand up
• 9:51
  and do something and bring in security fixes from core or from
• 9:56
  knots or whatever. But someone has to do that.
• 9:59
  I mean, if you if you look at this from sort of a more like a
• 10:02
  corporate perspective, which core is not Bitcoin is not a
• 10:06
  company, but you think about like the near monopoly market
• 10:10
  share they had. And in a short period of time,
• 10:13
  let's say they lost 10 to 16% to not alone.
• 10:18
  I mean that's wouldn't people at the company be a pop
• 10:22
  apocalyptic? Well, I think personal opinion,
• 10:24
  I think I think, yeah, they should definitely be worried.
• 10:29
  And I think a lot of people that were behaving in a certain way
• 10:32
  should probably step down as a maintainer for how they're
• 10:36
  behaving because, you know, you're not acting as a steward
• 10:39
  of the network. That's how Adam Back phrased it.
• 10:42
  Like core developers, I think especially maintainers are
• 10:45
  stewards of the network. And you cannot be a good steward
• 10:48
  if you just say, like, we're going to make this change for
• 10:50
  this reason. And the reason is not even
• 10:54
  necessarily a good one. I think that's why people are up
• 10:57
  in arms, because they see the reasoning behind it as bad.
• 11:02
  But yeah, I mean it is a a massive shock that knots has
• 11:07
  this much adoption. Samson's right, this isn't
• 11:10
  fringe. There's many Ogs and users with
• 11:13
  skin in the game biting their thumb.
• 11:15
  That'd be 30. You can't dismiss this as a what
• 11:19
  is it cyber attack. So let's cut the crap.
• 11:21
  This isn't about censorship, this is about guardrails.
• 11:25
  You don't remove traffic lights because people can run them
• 11:28
  anyway. You keep the lights because
• 11:31
  without them society breaks down and Knots is saying we will not
• 11:35
  subsidized your stupid spam and coursing.
• 11:39
  Yeah, we'll let it all in. Bezels sorted out.
• 11:41
  Well, what happens when miners have perverse incentives?
• 11:45
  What happens when Wall Street backed pools start monetizing
• 11:49
  junk data? That's not Bitcoin, that's a Dos
• 11:52
  attack with a fee attached. All right, let's pump the brakes
• 11:56
  real quick. If all this core versus knots
• 11:58
  drama has you wondering what can you do to protect yourself?
• 12:01
  Here's the answer. Sovereignty.
• 12:04
  But let's zoom out. This isn't just about bytes and
• 12:07
  filters. This is about a major hurdle in
• 12:10
  humanity's fight for financial sovereignty, the separation of
• 12:14
  money and state. Think about it.
• 12:16
  For thousands of years, money has been controlled by kings,
• 12:20
  governments, bank entities that printed endlessly.
• 12:24
  Devalue it through inflation and use it to surveil and control
• 12:28
  people. Wars are funded by Fiat money
• 12:31
  printers. Corruption thrives because a few
• 12:34
  elites hold the levers of power. Bitcoin changes that.
• 12:38
  It's hard money. Fixed supply of 21 million, no
• 12:42
  one can inflate it. And crucially, in self custody,
• 12:45
  meaning you hold your own keys, Bitcoin strips the power from
• 12:49
  any living soul. No government can seize it
• 12:52
  without your consent. No bank can freeze it.
• 12:55
  No central authority can debase it.
• 12:58
  Bitcoin in self custody is the antidote to the world's money
• 13:02
  and corruption problems. It empowers individuals you,
• 13:07
  levels the playing field and forces governments to compete on
• 13:10
  merit rather than coercion. But that's exactly why it's
• 13:14
  under attack. We are up against an extremely
• 13:17
  evil, vicious enemy that will stop at nothing to remain in
• 13:21
  power. Who is this enemy?
• 13:23
  Obviously it's the state apparatus, the central bankers,
• 13:27
  the Fiat overlords who've built empires on endless debt and
• 13:31
  money printing. They see Bitcoin as an
• 13:34
  existential threat because it decentralizes power.
• 13:38
  If everyone self custodies Bitcoin, governments lose their
• 13:41
  monopoly on money immediately. No more funding endless wars
• 13:45
  with printed cash. No more bailing out cronies.
• 13:49
  No more surveillance through banks.
• 13:51
  These enemies are cunning. They won't attack Bitcoin head
• 13:54
  on. That's too obvious.
• 13:56
  Instead, they poke holes, find excuses, and exploit weaknesses.
• 14:00
  They'll regulate exchanges to create choke points.
• 14:03
  They'll spread food about energy use or crime.
• 14:06
  And now they're infiltrating the protocol itself through subtle
• 14:10
  changes that undermine its purity as money.
• 14:13
  Look at this core versus not situation.
• 14:16
  By removing limits on data core opens the door for Bitcoin to
• 14:20
  become a bloated database for NFTS, token and yes, potentially
• 14:25
  illegal content. Governments love that.
• 14:28
  They can point to see Sam on the blockchain and say see Bitcoin
• 14:33
  harbors criminals, we need to regulate it, ban self custody or
• 14:37
  force filters that we control. It's the perfect excuse to
• 14:41
  attack. And who's enabling this?
• 14:43
  Some in the community sellouts who believe the lies or chase
• 14:47
  short term gains. Tony is an animal.
• 14:49
  We love him over here. Run your own node, control your
• 14:52
  own keys, build redundancy so you can sleep at night.
• 14:55
  That's exactly what the Bitcoin way does.
• 14:57
  They literally walk you through multi sig cold storage, setting
• 15:01
  up wallets, inheritance planning and privacy setups so you're not
• 15:04
  left guessing. Go to thebitcoinway.com and
• 15:07
  schedule your free 30 minute consultation and take back
• 15:10
  control the links in the description.
• 15:12
  Oh, and if you need cash but don't want to sell your Bitcoin,
• 15:15
  Leaden is the global leader in Bitcoin backed loans, issuing
• 15:18
  over 9 billion in loans since 2018 and they were the first to
• 15:21
  offer proof of reserves. With Leaden you get custody
• 15:25
  loans, no credit checks, no monthly payments and more.
• 15:28
  Visit learn dot leaden dot IO slash simply to learn more and
• 15:32
  get 25 basis points off your first loan.
• 15:35
  All right, Big finish in Jeff Booth time, but first look at
• 15:39
  our lights 3 or 4 times maybe. I'll pump those numbers up.
• 15:42
  Those are rookie numbers in this racket.
• 15:44
  All right, Leroy Jenkins time. Some of you might be scared.
• 15:49
  We've got life savings in this thing, but listen to Jeff Booth.
• 15:53
  I haven't weighed into this discussion very much.
• 15:56
  So I I I, I will now I have been running knots.
• 15:59
  I haven't I won't upgrade to to to the new new version.
• 16:03
  I was sorry. I have been running core.
• 16:05
  I won't upgrade and I'm going to run knots.
• 16:07
  And so I think they're on the right side of this.
• 16:10
  But it's also I'm not against I'm not as as vitriol against
• 16:15
  core and everything else as as many people are.
• 16:18
  I think I think it would be easy to make a whole bunch of
• 16:21
  mistakes to to trust and 2030 eighty people to know everything
• 16:27
  we're talking about about Bitcoin would be ludicrous.
• 16:29
  In fact, a lot of the threat model to fit Bitcoin used to be
• 16:34
  what if core was compromised? And if you if you just ran, what
• 16:38
  would naturally happen from a from a centralized system that
• 16:40
  was getting stronger and stronger through our actions,
• 16:43
  you'd expect core to get compromised at some point.
• 16:45
  And I've always said, well, it doesn't matter because you would
• 16:48
  just split it off because it can't be stopped.
• 16:51
  And, and So what, what Luke and Bitcoin mechanic and, and others
• 16:55
  have really just showed is they made Bitcoin stronger and more
• 17:00
  and ossified more by providing choice.
• 17:03
  Like when core came in with heavy-handed, here's the way
• 17:05
  we're doing it. Another thing created, it was
• 17:07
  created and the market spoke. And that's why I think we're
• 17:11
  16.6% knots knots today and grow and growing.
• 17:14
  So it's telling, it's telling you something.
• 17:16
  It's telling you that this can't be, no one can say this is, this
• 17:19
  is what you have to do. The more you do that, this is
• 17:21
  what you have to do, the more you're going to drive people to
• 17:24
  make sure this is decentralized and secure because those risks
• 17:28
  are too great. So what I would say is there's
• 17:31
  too many people who care, right? There's too many people who care
• 17:34
  about us who are not going to bury their head in the sand and
• 17:37
  say I'm going to accept those risks.
• 17:39
  No. Do you see this?
• 17:40
  Is the immune system working? Attacks, debates on policy and
• 17:45
  consensus, they all make Bitcoin stronger.
• 17:48
  Always have, always will. Bitcoin survives.
• 17:51
  Don't panic. Listen to Uncle Rockstar in
• 17:54
  Giacomo and please, for the love of God, don't let Bitcoin
• 17:58
  Derangement Syndrome turn you into Roger Baer.
• 18:01
  Stay humble, run your node, verify your transactions, and
• 18:05
  don't outsource sovereignty. So where do we land?
• 18:08
  Core wants openness and inclusion.
• 18:11
  Not says Bitcoin is money, period.
• 18:13
  Samson says decentralization means choice.
• 18:16
  Booth says chaos is strength, and Rockstar says breathe.
• 18:20
  Bitcoin survives regardless. That's not division, that's
• 18:23
  resilience. Bitcoin is showing you what no
• 18:26
  other asset on earth can a living immune system run knots,
• 18:30
  run core pre 30, run your own damn node, but don't ever ever
• 18:35
  give blind trust to anyone Bitcoin belongs to you and don't
• 18:39
  forget mining Disrupt 2025 is coming in hot see the future of
• 18:43
  Bitcoin mining up close in Dallas, TX November 11th through
• 18:47
  the 13th. I'm pretty sure we're going to
• 18:49
  have some fun debates at this one and the biggest names in the
• 18:51
  industry, cutting edge rigs, Bitcoin and AI integration.
• 18:55
  The signal you won't get anywhere else.
• 18:57
  Grab your tickets today and use promo code simply Bitcoin for
• 19:01
  20% off and we'll see you at the news desk.
• 19:04
  This isn't the end. It's the beginning of a stronger
• 19:07
  Bitcoin. So smash that, like subscribe,
• 19:10
  give us a pen, run your nodes, self custody your Bitcoin and
• 19:13
  tell your friends the spam wars are here and we're not backing
• 19:17
  down. Hey, I love you guys.
• 19:19
  Catch you tomorrow. If you.
• 19:22
  Prefer to go down with the ship.