Hello. Everyone, I am max from crypto potato today I am joined by Jimmy, song Bitcoin. Developer, and entrepreneur welcome. Really. Excited for our interview let's. Start with the first question, first. Of all congratulations. On blockchain, at, capital can. You tell us maybe a little bit about that. Its roots everything, yeah, sure I'm, a. Venture partner, at Bachchan, Capital, I'm there. To sort of be a bridge to the core, community, and sort of help develop. The infrastructure. We. Don't know exactly what that will look like yet but you, know where we're gonna work together to find out we're gonna do a lot of listening to sort. Of the people in the space that are working on a lot of this stuff and and. Come up with good ideas and, implement them, and and, hopefully, make Vic one even, better when. Were you first exposed, to Bitcoin, so. 2011. I was reading this sort of geeky website called slash thought that org it's, it's, a you, know sort of like their, tagline is news for nerds important, stuff and. I saw a story around January, of 2011, that said Bitcoin, has broken one dollar and, I. Was like wow what is this Bitcoin, thing and, you know like sort of having it gone through 2008. You. Know with the financial, crisis and everything I think I was pretty primed, to sort. Of. Look. At the banking sector a little more skeptically, so when I when I read about it and I saw it and I heard about you. Know how it worked I was just kind, of blown away I tried, to get money into it but I it. Was pretty, complicated at, the time you couldn't buy with PayPal you have to like transfer, it to Dwolla and then to my Galax and then Firefox. And then get it off so I didn't, bother um one. Of the biggest regrets in my life but. Yeah but that was uh that, was what happened what. Were some exciting, aspects, that brought you to the crypto world. The. Most exciting, aspect, was I was. The fact that there was a 21, million coin limit so when I first heard that I think, I have the same reaction that a lot of people have which is that oh my, gosh there's only 21 million I better get guess. Right. Like I need, to get something in there, and, so, yeah. That that was definitely one of the most interesting. I didn't, really discover, the rest of the exciting, parts of Bitcoin, until a couple years later when I started actually, developing, and that. Was you, know the personal, security aspect, like you can it's, a bear instrument, you can just keep it and you can hold it and, up until then I actually had all my coins on without God so it. Was it was very fortuitous, that, I came upon that I'm still, thankful to a friend of mine for telling me something's fishy with Mal cocks go get your own wallet and I removed. My coins from there and that was that was really good but, yeah that that was a you. Know obviously the 21 million limit, the. The, technology behind it the fact that it's decentralized, that there's no single. Point of failure no central government, you, know just I think between. Those two years I had read a lot more on like sort of Austrian. Economics and, libertarian, thinking so I. Was I was a lot more primed. For that and and certainly, that's that's become a larger, part, of my belief system today and. And. It's uh yeah, it's it's exciting because it's to, me a way, to. Become. Self sovereign, and that's that's, an important, aspect of I think what. We need to do to you, know make civilization. Work better, what. Was your involvement in. A Bitcoin, core, yeah. So my my contribution. To Bitcoin core, in particular, actually didn't start till last year and and. It was just sort, of playing around with some stuff and I started. Writing. Some functional. Tests within, Python, to. Test, some RPC, calls that hadn't been done yet and it was mostly just to learn how to do it and, and. You, know I I did, some some of that I reflected, a few, of the tasks I I, reviewed. A bunch of code that John, Newbery had written and. He, he I think he had the most commits, for the 0.15. Release because, the. You know he's, really into it now but he.
Interestingly Didn't. Get into Bitcoin until like a couple years ago so he's, he's, a relatively, new developer, but he's he's, obviously doing a lot of contributions, but, yeah I a lot, of testing, stuff I'm not quite, bold enough to go into like more. Of the main stuff I do have bit, 176. You. Know utilizing. Bits instead of bitcoins, so. There's. 1 million bits. In a Bitcoin and sort, of removing, unit buys for people and also allowing. People to not make less mathematical. Errors on orders of magnitude, that's that's, fine as well but yeah, most. Of my involvement before that came and. Open. Source projects, like PI coin and btcd and color coins and things like that and armory of course I worked. There for a while so yeah, how. Much does Bitcoin. Cores development, affect, Bitcoin. So Bitcoin, core certainly, has some influence over bitcoins. Development. But. Influences. Is, really interesting, because, in. A sense you. Know anyone, can hard, work at any time any, going to kiss off work at any time and and. You can you, can just sort of do. Whatever you want it's a decentralized system so. Influenced. In the sense that you can make everybody do, something, kind of like an authoritarian, government there, nobody, can really do that you can't make anybody do anything you can't you can't force people to upgrade you can't force. Them to follow the forth that you want you can't force miners to mind within your blocks so. It's really a voluntary, system that's. It like influence, in the sense of, getting. The community, to follow I would say they have a tremendous amount of influence and that's that's, well earned, it's a meritocracy, it's, it's something that. They deserve, because they have sort, of been. Good stewards of the Bitcoin code already, so. In that sense I'd say they have a lot of influence but, you know it's it doesn't have. To last forever if they if. Bitcoin core decided, to lift the 21 million limit for example I think there, would be a lot of people that would go with another implementation or, refuse. That hard for, so, it's. It's. Kind, of it's interesting cuz Bitcoin really is a meritocracy, and, you you're only as good as what, the community, takes of you at the moment say, it really is a social experiment in that everybody yeah in, many ways I I see, Bitcoin, core almost like the gamekeepers, mm-hmm and that uh you, know because it's decentralized there's no central, focus there's no government but there are still people who keep. Everything somewhat. In order at least try to yeah. Yeah. It's it's sort of like this Amorphis beast and you anyone, can propose anything at any time and and, you. Have to like back it up with justifications. And code and you need to convince people and. Obviously some people are better at other than others and they're sort. Of a lot of them are very esoteric, technical. Questions that, that are very hard to, decide. On or to learn but. You know this. It's, it's kind of cool that you, could come in and be a huge influencer, after, sort, of earning.
Your Stripes. How. Does bitcoins, blockchain differ, from other block chains well. The, technical, aspect. Isn't all that different, from. Say, like coin or something like that because they copied, most quickly so. It's, you, know you tweak, a little a few of the parameters, and it's like okay well we have the same blockchain, the. Real difference, in my mind is is, the decentralized, nature right a lot. Of all coins have a single, point, of failure and it's usually just the Creator, the. Creator gets, to decide where, that projects. Gonna go and what they're going to do and. You. Know how they're going to be you, know classic, example, is a theorem right like um Vitalik, butor n gets to decide if. He wants to bail out the dow he gets to bail out the house if he wants to go to proof, of sake they get to go to proof of stake and and, you know I mean III don't begrudge than that but part. Of what makes Bitcoin special, is that Satoshi, Nakamoto, left that's. That's, that I it's. A very underrated, gift, to. The Bitcoin community that, he left and sort of left that decentralized. And and that's, uh that's been all sorts of good for for, the entire. There's. Currently a lot of talk about private. And centralized, blockchains, what do you think is the future of these block chains and how will they be used. So. I, think the, minute you centralize, the block chain it's not really, anything, other than a database, with maybe permission. Ledger's or something like that I don't, find, that terribly, interesting, and I'm not sure where the innovation is other than maybe the permission, part but you can already do that with a lot of systems. The. Only interesting, thing comes, when you can sort of distribute, that in database, and. And, like, not give anyone the privilege, of being the central, one that's. When it becomes interesting but. That's not easy okay, like making. That with like I mean people talk about stuff, like oh we can you. Know put healthcare. Data on the blockchain and, then like any doctor can go look it up this. Is not an easy thing to set up I mean we're we're talking about 250. Byte, transactions. And Bitcoin. And that's, hard enough to sync you. Know you're talking about like two gigabyte, MRIs, on the blockchain and you're gonna encrypt that and, have. It accessible to everybody I don't. Think a lot of people, know what they're talking about or know, what they're getting into when they're talking about blockchain it's it happens, to be a buzzword a lot of people like. But. You know we'll see I I'm sure there are applications. It's just people. Don't really understand, it yet so they think it can do anything kind. Of reminds me of the early days of the internet oh the internet will let. Me fly or. Something I they did people, just don't know and it, takes time and once they do it'll it'll. You. Know then then the real innovation can happen what. Are your feelings about the, Bitcoin, forks that recently, happened back in August yeah. So there's, been a lot of Bitcoin Forks but the biggest one was the first one that's, the Bitcoin cash heart fork and. And. That proved. To me I think that bitcoins. Antifragility. I think a lot of developers, including, myself before that we're. Sort of living in fear of the heart Fork so, thinking that it would dilute the brand that nobody. Would use it that it would absolutely crush, Bitcoin the. Opposite, seems to happen, more. Or less it proved that the, coins anti fragile like whenever there's a disordering, event things get better not worse and, in particular, with Bitcoin cash we. Saw sort, of the entire ecosystem having. To react to. The. Hard work itself right like there, are a lot of exchanges, that were down for a while they. Had to you, know figure out how to do, replay protection, and split. Their coins, and have their databases, upgraded, the entire ecosystem. Upgraded and uh for. Me that that was a big, value add in. A way I think we have to thank Bitcoin, cash back window for making Bitcoin stronger, because, they're disordering. Events, sort, of forced, everybody to upgrade, in. And, make their software better. Yeah. I mean, I think, the price is pretty pretty. Indicative of, of, what happened, Bitcoin. Was, 2700, before the combination, of Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash and de Coyne gold and all those other ones like by the end of the year was like 20,000. Or something like that so I. See that as a really good thing and, I actually. Kind of hoped for more hard Forks as, a. Way to sort. Of steel ourselves against. Different. Types of attacks. That can happen on the network. Speaking. Of Bitcoin, cash do you feel that it's a worthy competitor to Bitcoin and if, not or if you do what. May other competitors, be for example litecoins. Is that a competitor, to Bitcoin I, don't. See Bitcoin, cash as a competitor. Necessarily, nor do I consider most all coins competitors. In the sense that none.
Of Them are decentralized. They all have a single development. Team and somebody, that just sort of more or less calls the shots Bitcoin, cash in particular, has one. Developer, that seems to be calling all the shots from that Network, amarice. O'Shea he he, did a hard work of Bitcoin cash already he's, planning. Different, hard works like every, six months or something like that if, you can hard work, that. Sort of shows that, you, are centralized. Because you're forcing, everyone to upgrades. Now. I mean, are they competitors, in terms of like mindshare and things like that of course of course you. Know they're they're people that are thinking about you. Know investing, in Bitcoin that end up buying litecoin, because it's cheaper or something like that and. You know that that's, sort of kind. Of stupid in my mind but, we can't protect people from their own stupidity that's that's just I think. You, that. Way lies madness you, know just sort of show, bitcoins, value proposition, and I think you. Know centralization. Will ultimately, be the downfall of a lot of these other coins but who knows I I could be wrong it's possible, that something else comes along and isn't is an order of magnitude better, than Bitcoin maybe there's a there's. Some innovation, that we haven't thought of at all that that comes in and becomes the killer app but at, least at this point my my feeling is that none, of these seem, to be that be. Orders of magnitude, better so I I stick, with Bitcoin, do, you think that all coins. Have. Some, sort of purpose do you think that there. Is a. Need, for out points certainly. They, well. So. All coins definitely, have some. Innovation, behind them so Manero. For example, has you, know utilizes, confidential, transactions, and range proofs to sort of hide who. You're sending to, and, how much you're sending to them so, that that much is pretty interesting in the sense that all coins can be like an Innovation, Lab for Bitcoin, and you can try out things where people actually are risking money. But. As far as you. Know, usefulness. To Bitcoin. Other. Than that I don't, really see, it it. Might, be useful. For, some other purpose, if they find another niche or something like that, but. I mean until those, are proven, I don't I don't really see them as anything special. What. Do you think about zk, snarks, technology, and will, we see it on at bitcoins network in the future, so. I'm a fan, of zero knowledge, in general and ZK starts technology, in particular is very very interesting. I'm, not, so certain that it's it's not viable at least right now just because of the CPU cycles it takes up to do the actual signing it's like 30 to 60 seconds something like that in. The same way that I'm a little bit hesitant about moon arrows confidential. Transactions, because they're there, ut Exocet just continues, to grow and it's sort. Of infinitely expanding. My. My, best, privacy. One that I think might. Make it into Bitcoin is nimble limbal as a side chain that. Has a lot of the privacy, aspects, of the case noice and the narrow but. Just in a different way so, you. Know III. I, don't know the future but but. They're all interesting, technologies, and I hope to see more privacy, and Bitcoin, transactions. Going. Forward, are. We close to reaching a state where we'll have accessibility, to lighting, technology, yeah. I mean smart contracts so a lot, of people think smart contracts, are the unique domain of etherium and it's not, Bitcoin. Has its own smart contract, language it's called script and the, funny thing is III UM's like major. Thing, major, innovation. Is icos, right yeah but. It's not actually, an innovation, it's it's something that you could do in Bitcoin, back in 2013, with colorpoints it's, just you know there wasn't a market for it and italic, and the etherium, team you, know god bless and they've, done great. With their marketing but they, made. I SEOs, much, bigger thing on the etherium because. You know they the, big difference between solidity. And script is a solidity, is turned complete but. Nobody actually wants to use the turn completeness, it's because. It's it's like way more dangerous and, there's there's, a larger, attack surface, and things like that and you can see it with the dow right like they had turing-complete contracts. And somebody exploited, and drained it out of all its money in the end, ended, up needing to do a bailout but, yeah, I as far as smart contrast and concerned I I think you know simplicity, is something that the coin is looking into and that may be where, we're going I don't.
I Don't see like you're even having like soul domain over so the smart contracts, at all and, even like something like Woodstock they're trying to do it as a Bitcoin sidechain, I I, don't know if there's necessarily that, big of a market for like turning complete smart contracts, but as. It stands you know it's it's already kind of there and. And, people, make it out to be the OE billions, the smart contract platform. It's. Not if you're just using it for the basic stuff that. Bitcoin can already do so I don't know I. Don't, get the big deal do. You think that there is room, for the altcoins or do you think that bitcoin is more. Than enough I. Don't. Know so. There's. Always innovation. That you can't see right like, futurists. Are notoriously, bad. At predicting the future right, like you. You ask a hundred years ago like what people thought the future was and they thought like people, would fly or something and, you, know nobody thought of the cellphone which is like ubiquitous, today so it's, really hard to tell maybe there's you, know some coin that figures out a formula that works for them I don't know, but. But, yeah my suspicion. Is that Bitcoin is going to be the. Top, end of the pareto distribution so. 80%. Of the value will be in Bitcoin, and everything, else will have 20% and we'll be fighting. Very hard for it the, thing about all coins is that. They're. Really hard to kill like. It's. Not like a company, where you have payroll and things like that where, you, know companies, will go bankrupt because they run out of money, you. Know, all, coins can. More or less subsist. On a single miner mining, and even. If that miner stops, mining, you. Can sort of like raise them back from the dead by mining some more so a lot of coins like live this zombie like existence, where they you kill them and then they they, come back to life and whatever, so. Yeah. Is there is there, room. In the ecosystem, for them I guess is. It are they gonna really. Add anything I don't know I I have. Some doubts but it's you. Know I'm I'm not. So I'm gonna think that I know all possible, all coins that can possibly exist, the. Million dollar question. Are we in a crypto, bubble, so. I think we are in a bubble in the sense that you, know like short term you, know it's, probably going, up and down probably, more than you'd expect but, but, that's to be expected it's. A volatile asset a lot of a lot of people don't know what it is a lot of people are coming in it's not really a unit of account yet. But. You know like like I say to a lot of newbies that are asking me you know hey should I should I invest in Bitcoin my, answer is always well if you're gonna keep it long-term like 5-10 years then it's by worthwhile, because over. Over a long period of time I think Bitcoin shown that it can it, increases.
In Value because there's a fixed supply. Increasing. Demand what happens to price it's bids pretty obvious but, short term you know it goes up and down because there's there are people that are trading it that ever there are people that thrive. On the volatility. So. You. Know are, we in a bubble probably, most. Likely I don't know but. You, know I I don't worry too much about that because that's, more an economics, question than a technical, one and I'm out and I'm a technical back. Fifteen, years from now how do you think that Bitcoin. And cryptocurrency will, be integrated. Into the future do you think that they'll still be around do you think that people will be using it more frequently what's your opinion about the state of crypto, in the next 15 years, that's. A that's a really good question and, I wish I knew the answer but, I I can't. In good conscience, be able to like, predict. The future that well I will, say that I think the price will go up because there's a constant in it all right, there's an increasing demand and a constant supply. But. I I suspect. That, you. Know Bitcoin. In particular. And just society, in general will. See a lot more liquidity, of assets. You. Know just anything. In general like if you can trade. Something, really, quickly for money that. That will sort of give people a lot more freedom and flexibility, so I. See, sort. Of society. Heading in a more freedom, ish. Direction. You. Know partly enabled, by Bitcoin, you. Know and, that's a good thing I want people to have more freedom I want people to be able to innovate more I want people to you, know build civilization. Instead of sort of rent-seeking, behavior that we see everywhere, you, know it's it's kind of sad to me that rent-seeking. Is sort of like the dream that people have I want to have a job at a corporation, and did you do nothing and like. Draw, a paycheck or a job big paycheck doing nothing like. That doesn't add anything I want people to want. To you, know add something and I see that in Bitcoin, I don't, really see that in other parts especially. Like government, or a big business or something like that you have tons of red seeking behavior there and. This. Is part of what makes me so excited about Bitcoin, and why I wear the cowboy hat it's you. Know it is sort of the Wild West and there's a lot of room for innovation a, lot of room for new. Businesses, and entrepreneurs to, get in and provide value, and build civilization. And think long-term and and make, everything better and, and. That's that's why and, I'm, as passionate about Bitcoin, as I am so. Thank you so much this was an amazing, interview could. You maybe tell our audience where they can find you what, to look forward to in your future yeah, so I'm on Twitter at Jimmy song so, I I tweet, every, once in a while I also.
Am, A medium, I at Jimmy song I write a bunch of articles I'm. On YouTube my, show is called off chain and. You, know I try to put out videos fairly. Frequently, I also have. Github. At Jimmy, saw um well. I guess Jimmy songs my username there and I have a bunch of code there if you want to take a look and. I'm, working on a book programming, Bitcoin, it's for O'Reilly, and that. Should be released later this year so yeah. Those are all things you can look forward to amazing. Well again thank you so much and so, looking forward to what's to come okay.
2018-02-05