Bitcoin Forum

Nick Szabo was interviewed for Let's Talk Bitcoin Ep. 246 (released yesterday). At the end they discussed the block size debate and the Bitcoin XT fork. Here's a short video with excerpts where he talked about the Bitcoin XT fork:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4_pPkIbGw4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4_pPkIbGw4)

Here are two quotes:



The full episode is available here:

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-246-smart-contracts-with-nick-szabo (https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-246-smart-contracts-with-nick-szabo)

It's nice to see Nick Szabo becoming more active, he was always super secretive. I think I have never heard his voice before this podcast. This man is nothing less of a genius, it makes me think he might as well be Satoshi in the way he addresses stuff. I guess he isn't attending the scaling bitcoin meeting if he did this tho, I had some small hopes of seeing a live debate with him and the rest of experts.

Well, I expect the interview was recorded at least some days ago, if not longer, so Szabo could be at the workshop. I also have a high opinion of Szabo and I'm glad he's speaking out more. Plus since he's come out against XT there are a lot of people willing to swear that he's definitely not Satoshi, in case he ever needs it. ;)

In general all the 'small blockers' are now finally starting to be more active and vocal about the block size debate. For a while there was only promotion by the 'large blockers'. Looks like the other side is getting finally getting their media game up.

Great to hear an opinion of one of the best cryptographers out there. It is essentialy the same opinion as all of as that are against the Bitcoin XT (not against bigger blocks tbough).

I am also glad that I hear another confirmation that we are just not all crazy but that we are very much right.

It's good to see that this XT craziness is calming down a bit. This was a very dangerous potential precedent.

wow, the first Satoshi Audio Podcast  :D

just imagine he would make a mistake in this podcast and reveal himself with that  :D

Damn man, you really believe in this, don't you? :D

Youtube clip only has 39 views?!

I guess only 39 people use bitcoin these days.   :D

If you look on the letstalkbitcoin.com episode page there is almost 9,000 views already.

Proving most bitcoin afictionados are illiterates who read headlines but never look at the fine print?

 ???

That's just not right.

Everyone wants it to go up, so there is no 'big' vs 'small'

How. That's the question. How do we raise the block limit. That's what the debate is about, and if you listen to what Szabo says, you'll realise you are not correct to characterise him as a small blocker.

Westin.  Landon.  Cox.

Is Landon Cox a new age version of Bart Simpson calling Moe's bar and asking for Ben Dover?

Troll account?

 ???


That's a good point.

His name is "Landon Cox".  Its possible he's just trolling.

This. I mean it's like some people think the ones that don't want the blocksize raised asap and as high as possible want to be poor? We all want to see Bitcoin go 5 figures man, but we must do it right not compromising Bitcoins decentralizing features in the process. Nick Szabo wants Bitcoin to beat Visa just as much as "big blockers".

I'm not sure, I think you might have Landon mixed up with the person I replied to?

if i have to choose one name, i would say Szabo  :)

I like and agree with those two quotes and am glad he said them. I really lost a lot of respect for Hearn and Andresen after they did this.

Oh, did they ask if he was satsohi?  ;D

I've always been certain Szabo is Satoshi but even more convinced after hearing the pod-cast. He seems to go out of his way to refer to Satoshi in the third person. Also the fact that no-one really knows much about Szabo shows that here is an individual who is very careful about protecting his identity. I think also that Andreas knows that he is Satoshi - he's almost referential in his questions to Szabo.  

Szabo tweeting: "Another design for 2nd layer for small-b bitcoin (+ why large-B Bitcoin won't scale)"

http://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/716b955c130e6c703fac336ea17b1670/duplex-micropayment-channels.pdf


haha take dat forkers/scalers. ^^

Well..no.
Satoshi's white paper propose a solution for small casual transaction, just read his introduction.
If Szabo is Satoshi then he changed his mind.

So little is known about Szabo. How did Let's Talk Bitcoin know it really was Szabo they were talking to? I tried finding out more about him and kept hitting brick walls. I found about two very old pictures that may or may not have been Szabo. There were differences of opinion about where he used to work and what his qualifications were. His identity is almost as secret as Satoshi's.

I think he might be one of the founding father's of Bitcoin. Szabo has always been out of the limelight and people like Gavin stole the show. I respect his need for privacy, but we need people like him to come forward and speak out if things are done or planned that might damage the technology.

His contributions and his views on the matter are in my view the only one that counts for something. He has been there from the start.

Yep. The whole interview was great. I made the video partly to help push people towards listening to the whole interview. Plus since the quotes I clipped are very near the end of the episode, it seemed possible that some people might've missed it.

I'm not some kind of "youtube celebrity." I make an occasional video as a hobby when I feel inspired. 39 views in a few days is high for me. It's more than some of my other videos have after months. :)

Nick Szabo has for sure been working on blockchain technology, or playing with the idea of a cryptocurrency waaay before Bitcoin was released. He probably had it in mind for decades, but it was never done as good as it has been done with Bitcoin.
I find interesting the part of smart contracts, he mentions Ethereum. Maybe Ethereum will have a big place in the future? Right now it doesn't seem very inviting to buy. It has been crashing non stop since release.

It was nice to hear a word from our sponsor.   8)

Nick is obviously unhappy with Gavin's governance coup and attempt to change Bitcoin's mission parameters.  There is reason why the Genesis Block mentions a second round of bank bailouts instead of, oh say, debit/credit surcharges for small purchases at Starbucks.

His (and Adam's) tone of late matches exactly that of the recent dev-list post from Satoshi, right down to the 'disappointed' theme.

But Bitcoin is stronger than ever thanks to XT's 'stress test.'


https://i.imgur.com/DbBOCiS.png

Yeah, I thought this was interesting too. I tend to fall in the Szabo is Satoshi camp but Szabo is really clear lately that a main goal wasn't small transactions which seems to be at odds with Satoshi's vision. So I agree he would have had to change his mind. Another possibilty could be Satoshi was Szabo and several other people, and the others disagreed on that point.  ???

Satoshi also mentions payment channels which are an integral part of Bitcoin. It's quite obvious the Bitcoin blockchain is not ideal nor desired for small casual transactions

Where can I read Satoshi's quotes addressing the small transaction volume problem? I wonder if he predicted something like blockstream being built on top of Bitcoin to deal with small transactions. What has his view on this on-chain/off-chain duality? I must know.

In the introduction of his white paper https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf he refers several times to small transactions and the high fees involved with chargeback...
There is also a few post of him on this forum where he states that the blocksize limits is provisory.
I'm not sure about his comments on offchain transaction that would be interesting to read.

The funny thing is, Szabo created the first type of Bitcoin network in 1998 with Bit Gold and nobody really saw his vision or took him seriously. They were seen as a bunch of geeks

having some Libertarian ideas and now when you think about this.... They were the pioneers and the people with the vision. If I had to choose a Bitcoin CEO, he would get my vote

any day. You can just feel the frustration in his voice... It must be hard on him to see this protocol being picked apart by the vultures.  >:(  {Banks}

We should keep to the original Satoshi Nakamoto code! This is affecting credibility in bitcoin, the community and the whole idea itself.

Bitcoin XT is getting to be a very diplomatic method of achieving the 51% attack...

There is reason why the Genesis Block mentions a second round of bank bailouts instead of, oh say, debit/credit surcharges for small purchases at Starbucks.

Satoshi created Bitcoin to stop command economy BS like bank bailouts, not because he was charged fifty cents extra for using his AMEX to buy a latte.

Uppercase-B Bitcoin (or lowercase in Szabo notation) the first viable and most secure ecash competes with gold and central banks.

Lowercase-b bitcoin (or uppercase in Szabo notation) the blockchain technology competes with Visa/Paypal/Square (via altcoins).

Bitcoin is global revolution against authoritarianism, not the next fucking Dwolla.

Both Adam Back and Nick Szabo have stated the same thing that I have been trying to point out in that Bitcoin should be first aimed at things like the remittance market (which it should be able to kill the competition in).

Yet still we hear the rabble wanting to pay for coffee's with BTC when it has failed to even make an inroad into the most obvious market it should be dominating.

When virtually no-one is being paid in BTC why on earth do people think it is important to pay for a coffee in BTC?

My guess is that most of the people screaming to have BTC payments for coffees probably don't even have enough BTC to pay for a coffee!

Libertarian geek here.  I took Bit Gold seriously.

I'm happy to see this protocol being picked apart by the vulture banks.  Bitcoin will either make them honest, or destroy them in the attempt.   8)

BTC's UX is still a non-starter for most migrant workers.  They don't have the free time, being very busy providing for their families back home and all.

The unbanked who would benefit the most are the least able to climb BTC's steep learning curve.

The wealthier ones have banking services and don't GAF.  And (rich or poor) Grandma can't use BTC to buy fertilizer back on the farm.

There are other edge cases for early adoption.  Besides the traditional sex/drugs/gambling, interesting attempts to close the loop from the bottom up are in the works.


Hookers, cocaine, poker....agriculture?!?   :D

Project much?

"Aug. 5, 2010: While I don’t think Bitcoin is practical for smaller micropayments right now, it will eventually be as storage and bandwidth costs continue to fall. … Whatever size micropayments you need will eventually be practical. I think in 5 or 10 years, the bandwidth and storage will seem trivial."
-Satoshi Nakamoto

I don't think Satoshi was as binary as you'd wish him to be.

Yes, I've used that quote several times.  Thanks for reminding us Satoshi spoke of micropayments "eventually."

If you use altcoins (ie alternative forks of Bitcoin) you can already make all the micropayments you can afford!  Wow, isn't that amazing?

It's barely been 5 years since Aug. 5, 2010; we're on the very early end of his estimate.  I'm sure we'll have sidechains, payment channels, and more in <10 years.  Have patience.  Or keep accusing me of projection, if that helps your tiny brain pass the time.   :)

Szabo uses the same big-B vs little-b bifurcation I do.  If you can't follow the logic, I'm very sorry.  It's been explained to exhaustion on several occasions.

I forgive you. Now you've moved on to projecting a strawman argument you can fight against.  Take some deep breaths and calm down and you might see I never made a normative argument. But keep battling those illusions it's fun to watch.  ;D

https://i.imgur.com/GKkNP8P.jpg

You keep accusing me of projecting, but never specify what is being projected.   ::)

I guess you believe projection is some kind of devastating passive-aggressive critique, perhaps because you heard the term used in a Hollywood chick flick for a laugh line at some unpopular character's expense.

But as far as meaningless Freudian-Marxist psychobabble goes, projection accusations are bottom of the barrel.

As for "normative."  Son, don't play with critical theory until you've got a decent (ie better than absolute beginner) grip on basic Leftist jargon.   :D

And don't forget to enjoy your sophomore year!

Who knew "project" and "normative" we're considered dem big compilicatable words  :D.  Here, I'll try to help you out. For example, someone who is desperate to impress people on bitcointalk might "project" that I was trying to impress them. Maybe just because they felt threatened by random words I used that they had trouble understanding. Hard to believe, but they might even get angry and construct multiple rambling posts on under some bizarre delusion that we were in an argument about what the blocksize should be.  :P

Aye.
You stole the words right out of my mouth, especially with the case of that stubborn 'cup of coffee' that people are so eager to purchase with bitcoins.

In five years of using bitcoins to purchase all kinds or goods and services, not once has it seemed important to me to purchase a cup of coffee or a similarly trivial item.

I suspect that many people who wish to purchase coffee with bitcoin are more interested in the novelty of the experience of using bitcoins to purchase something familiar. They're missing the big picture.

Szabo sees the big picture that bitcoin's function as a fungible trustless remittance system is at the heart of its price and value. Dr. Adam Back furthers the potential of and provides agency to the bitcoin protocol with his brilliant work on confidential transactions and sidechains. Absent satoshi, I defer to the experience of Szabo and Back over the more recent upstarts.

It was pretty cool at the Scaling Bitcoin reception to be able to pay for a glass of wine with Bitcoin. 

Was listening to some of the podcast again.

Stephanie Murphy:

Szabo:

I ordered at the same moment as another guy who was paying with Bitcoin. I paid cash and it took seconds to proceed. For dude's payment the barmaid had to call up "the bitcoin guy" and have him process the transaction. All of which took at least a couple more minutes.

I had goosebumps listening to his voice for the first time

I paid with Bitcoin on Friday night and with fiat on Saturday night.  Funnily enough, Saturday night I tried to pay with a $20 and the bar tender went looking for change, couldn't find any, and ask me to pay with a card.  She got the machine and while I was digging for a card I realized I had enough coins to make exact change.  Anyways, the process was fairly cumbersome.  

Nevertheless, you make a valid point: paying with Bitcoin is still unnecessarily slow and awkward.  We need tap and pay!!

Did you save some goosebumps for eight days from now when Jesus is supposedly making his comeback appearance, perhaps via a FOX interview?

Another end of the world happening?

He showed up in /reddit/darknetmarkets the other day a bit early. 

yeah I think he is Satoshi.

well that's what you say ... It is clear to me that he thinks his techno solves several problems at the same time.
There is a reason why he used  the abstract & introduction of his whitepaper NOT to speak about bailouts but small transactions. You might say he was wrong or the bailouts problem is more important ( which i agree ) but you won't change the fact that Satoshi's vision is also about a global payment system for casual transaction.

I think the monetary policy is a much more political problem whereas the small transaction is consensual, everybody wants to pay less fees. It is a much better introduction to keep everybody on board for the next 15 pages of his white paper.

For instant Tx try this https://in.xapo.com/campaign/debit/ (https://in.xapo.com/campaign/debit/)

When Bitcoin was just a tiny baby and hardly anyone used it, micro-tx were feasible.  There was a thing called SatoshiDice, which used the blockchain as its payment rail for trivial gambling.

But then Bitcoin grew up and up and up.  Bitcoin grew so big that SatoshiDice-type things didn't fit on its increasingly valuable/popular blockchain.

And now, with a multi-billion-dollar marketcap, technological maturity, and marketplace acceptance, Bitcoin's different aspects have been thrown into sharp relief and bifurcated in application.

That's why Szabo also uses the big-B/little-b (protocol/ecash) distinction.  "Eventually" (perhaps Soon), micro-tx will return to BTC, after SC/LN makes them again feasible.

I hope explaining all this to you like you are five years old has helped you understand more.   :)