A Sovereign Bitcoiner's Manifesto

[BetsyBraddock]

Cypherpunks write code, share code, review code and copy code. Sovereign individuals use this code. Like the X-men's Rouge, Bitcoiners will absorb the superpowers of others.

Well said Ororo, and I'm with you 100% on this. Excited to be one of the sovryn individuals on this project. Let's go form a mesh network of superpowers  !

[Anna138]

To me it seems that there is a segment of the Bitcoin community that are actually fearful of Ethereum. They try to protect against this by making it their mission to FUD everything that has the mere whiff of Ethereum. An unfortunate side effect of this is an inability to acknowledge any benefits that might come from smart contracts - which is ironic, since one of the true Bitcoin OGs , Nick Szabo basically invented the smart contract concept.

To my mind, Bitcoin has nothing to fear from Ethereum... any more than Bitcoin has anything to fear from any of its other testnets. The only thing we have to fear is the mental stagnation that comes with throwing the baby out with the bath water. I am not willing to concede smart contracts to Ethereum. We invented them, they are ours.

There is no point in white being afraid of black and black being afraid of white. Bitcoin and Ethereum are common competing systems that develop at the expense of each other. Competition has always been and will always be the engine of trade and development of any systems. This is a pattern of life confirmed over the years.

[verita1]

Ethereum is the most requested platform to develop DeFi Apps today. If you have free time, take a look at the Avalanche platform. The community that follows them is waiting for the mainnet. These characteristics of the platform will make Bitcoin many use cases.

Avalanche finalizes transactions in about a second and clears thousands per second. This makes high-volume P2P payments and asset transfers a reality. The platform can accommodate thousands to millions of participants. The protocol is green and sustainable, and there is no mining.

https://www.avalabs.org/avalanche-x

[EdanYago]

Can you explain to me how Avalanche will create use cases for Bitcoin? It's a different chain. How is it more connected to Bitcoin than the many other altcoin chains?

[Karartma1]

I think open finance and stablecoins are key for mass adoption of Bitcoin, because stablecoins and decentralized exchanges are the lubricant required to frictionless interface with the billions of people that could benefit from it. But building infrastructure takes time, and margin trading is the spark that ignites the rapid development of an open finance ecosystem.

This! Like bitcoin took a long time to being developed and launched I would say the same should happen with these new advancements.
Ethereum has accustomed people to think that with a few line of codes one can create a bank, a casino, a stock exchange and so forth.

Being Bitcoin the most secure protocol out there we need the best infrastructure for this new DeFi world too. When we have that, there are no enemies anymore.

Very excited about all this! I am not able to read code, as I am no programmer but will follow this closely and see how I can help.

[JuanMD]

Ethereum is the most requested platform to develop DeFi Apps today. If you have free time, take a look at the Avalanche platform. The community that follows them is waiting for the mainnet. These characteristics of the platform will make Bitcoin many use cases.

Avalanche finalizes transactions in about a second and clears thousands per second. This makes high-volume P2P payments and asset transfers a reality. The platform can accommodate thousands to millions of participants. The protocol is green and sustainable, and there is no mining.

https://www.avalabs.org/avalanche-x

Might be the most, but not the only, and also that doesn't mean that will be like that forever.

Crypto world moves really fast, before you noticed it, there might be a new ethereum

[OroroMunroe]

It wouldn't surprise me if, in the not too distant future, Bitcoin defi (or sovrynomics), will exceed that of Ethereum. Bitcoin "marketcap" is an order of magnitude greater than that of Ethereum. There is simply a much larger pool of funds that could flow into the decentralised Bitcoin economy once it get's going. The technology to allow this to happen is here. This is a big reason I am so excited to be working on Sovryn.

It's not only Sovryn. Bisq and Hodl Hodl are seeing big increases in volume and are perfect decentralised P2P gateways into crypto. Money On Chain have created the first Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, and I am sure there will be many others.

Decentralised services for Bitcoin are at the beginning of a renaissance and I think the whole space could change over the next year or two.

[enquirer]

I will never understand why any bitcoiner would be fearful of ethereum or vice-versa. Is just 2 different blockchains with way many differences that makes them both valuable.

I'll explain it so you understand. The most significant promise of Bitcoin as a value store is that it's supply is limited - 21M bitcoins. Proliferation of alts breaks that promise. Now there are 21M bitocins, plus 90M ethereums, plus miriads of other cryptos.

[chipm0nk]

Nice thread. Looking forward to follow.

Moreover, KYC is not required everywhere, so one can choose a place where it's not enforced.

Where there is a central operator, there is the risk of government intervention and erosion of sovereignty .

It is not a risk. It is a certainty. State intervention is guaranteed. Government will protect its Westphalian sovereignty from any self-sovereign on its territory. It will always corrupt a central operator. And some, such as the US, will use long-arm legislation and sanctions to extend their sovereign power beyond their borders.

[ArmandoAKADarwin]

Nice thread. Looking forward to follow.

Moreover, KYC is not required everywhere, so one can choose a place where it's not enforced.

Where there is a central operator, there is the risk of government intervention and erosion of sovereignty .

It is not a risk. It is a certainty. State intervention is guaranteed. Government will protect its Westphalian sovereignty from any self-sovereign on its territory. It will always corrupt a central operator. And some, such as the US, will use long-arm legislation and sanctions to extend their sovereign power beyond their borders.

100% agree. This is precisely why we need to extend the envelope of non-KYC and uncensorable applications to use and trade BTC.

[JuanMD]

I will never understand why any bitcoiner would be fearful of ethereum or vice-versa. Is just 2 different blockchains with way many differences that makes them both valuable.

I'll explain it so you understand. The most significant promise of Bitcoin as a value store is that it's supply is limited - 21M bitcoins. Proliferation of alts breaks that promise. Now there are 21M bitocins, plus 90M ethereums, plus miriads of other cryptos.

Yeah, that's where you are wrong. That's like saying that other metals break the promise that gold is scarce.

Having other cryptos is a good thing, if you try to test or implement everything on BTC, the chances of breaking something are much higher. As Edan said, "Ethereum will be our testnet".

And also, 1 BTC = 1 BTC. That applies to everything.

There are plenty of paints in the world and every day more are created, that doesn't diminish the value of a Monet or a Picasso.

(Not to mention that so far as history goes, those periods with a higher "proliferation of altcoins" (aka altcoins 2013, ICO 2017) where what increased the price of bitcoin)

[sapta]

It wouldn't surprise me if, in the not too distant future, Bitcoin defi (or sovrynomics), will exceed that of Ethereum. Bitcoin "marketcap" is an order of magnitude greater than that of Ethereum. There is simply a much larger pool of funds that could flow into the decentralised Bitcoin economy once it get's going. The technology to allow this to happen is here. This is a big reason I am so excited to be working on Sovryn.

It's not only Sovryn. Bisq and Hodl Hodl are seeing big increases in volume and are perfect decentralised P2P gateways into crypto. Money On Chain have created the first Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, and I am sure there will be many others.

Decentralised services for Bitcoin are at the beginning of a renaissance and I think the whole space could change over the next year or two.

IF somehow Bitcoin can be superior to Ethereum in this new DeFi stuff, is there any way to make it easier? Because if I understand correctly, your average Joe won't be able to join the hype without understanding Ethereum in the first place. Easier thing brings more people, which is generally good for Bitcoin.

[ZmnSCPxj]

My primary objection to Ethereum is two-fold: first, the power of the smart contract language, and second, the fact that validation of the too-powerful smart contract language must be done onchain.  This leads to a massive inefficiency that encourages centralization and therefore is against the goal of decentralized finance.

There are two primary points that the base blockchain must enforce:

• The ordering of events in the blockchain.
• The validity of events in the blockchain

If the ordering of events is not enforced, then it is easy to create two valid conflicting histories.  If the validity of events is not enforced, it is easy to create an invalid history.

Miners only ensure the former; fullnodes enforce the latter as part of consensus.  Thus, that RSK is "merge-mined" simply means that it has some way of enforcing the first point, but speaks nothing of how it enforces the second point.  Worse, merge-mined does not necessarily mean that all Bitcoin miners actually enforce the first point above, only those that actually merge-mine RSK enforce the first point above.

That is, there must also exist some fullnode network of RSK nodes, which enforces the validity of events in the blockchain.  And those fullnodes must be well-distributed: if only a few nodes exist, they can be co-opted and invalid events (such as those that create more Bitcoins on the RSK blockchain) can be allowed.

Now, the distribution of RSK fullnodes is hampered if every fullnode must verify a fully-powerful smart contract language.  The more powerful the language, the greater the overhead of validation.  If the validation becomes too expensive, it is easier to not run an RSK fullnode yourself and trust a third party instead, which runs into the point of trust third parties being security holes.

But that is not my only objection here.  The other one is the power of the smart contract language.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_least_power holds here: choose the least powerful computer language suitable for a given purpose.

Anyone who thinks "more powerful language == better" needs to read this quite well: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LoopholeAbuse/RealLifeLaw.  The point is that loopholes will be found in any smart contract, and they will be exploited (Murphy Law).  A smart contract is nothing more than a program that enforces certain behavior, and all laws are just such programs that enforce certain behaviors on puny humans.  Thousands of years of law have shown that humans like going through loopholes in laws, and that will hold sway as well in smart contracts.

Thus, the design of Smart Contracts Unchained: https://zmnscpxj.github.io/bitcoin/unchained.html

• The blockchain validity rules only require k-of-n signature validation.
• Participants in a smart contract can agree it is actually full of holes and can agree to ignore the contract to do the sensible thing.

[ZmnSCPxj]

Another touted use of DeFi is that of loaning out money.  With

Code:

SIGHASH_NOINPUT

this will be possible directly on Bitcoin: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2020-July/018055.html

[Rifmax]

I watched the video, it's totally funny. Is there really someone who does not know the correct way to protect assets from theft and loss?
I don't think so, owning Bitcoin + seeds and storing them in cold wallets at the moment is not that difficult!

[JuanMD]

I watched the video, it's totally funny. Is there really someone who does not know the correct way to protect assets from theft and loss?
I don't think so, owning Bitcoin + seeds and storing them in cold wallets at the moment is not that difficult!

Well, only a few people in the world (% speaking) actually knows about Bitcoin, even fewer find managing a ledger/trezor or protecting crypto "easy", and even less do cold storage by their own.

Imagine talking to your father/mother about Bitcoin, Seeds and cold wallet storage... They most probably will reply "meh, I prefer to to a tranfer to my bank and let them handle..."

Also is not only about knowing the correct way, but also the anxiety that might cause for some people (if the process is not very straight forward) to think they are doing it wrong and might lose their funds.

I still have that sensation sometimes and have been around for many years.

[EdanYago]

It wouldn't surprise me if, in the not too distant future, Bitcoin defi (or sovrynomics), will exceed that of Ethereum. Bitcoin "marketcap" is an order of magnitude greater than that of Ethereum. There is simply a much larger pool of funds that could flow into the decentralised Bitcoin economy once it get's going. The technology to allow this to happen is here. This is a big reason I am so excited to be working on Sovryn.

It's not only Sovryn. Bisq and Hodl Hodl are seeing big increases in volume and are perfect decentralised P2P gateways into crypto. Money On Chain have created the first Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, and I am sure there will be many others.

Decentralised services for Bitcoin are at the beginning of a renaissance and I think the whole space could change over the next year or two.

IF somehow Bitcoin can be superior to Ethereum in this new DeFi stuff, is there any way to make it easier? Because if I understand correctly, your average Joe won't be able to join the hype without understanding Ethereum in the first place. Easier thing brings more people, which is generally good for Bitcoin.

This is a great question. Sovryn is working on a number of innovation to make it much easier. We want to make it possible to use the system directly from any Bitcoin wallet, and no need to understand Metamask or anything like that.

We will start user testing pretty soon. Would be great to get your feedback on the system.

[ArmandoAKADarwin]

It wouldn't surprise me if, in the not too distant future, Bitcoin defi (or sovrynomics), will exceed that of Ethereum. Bitcoin "marketcap" is an order of magnitude greater than that of Ethereum. There is simply a much larger pool of funds that could flow into the decentralised Bitcoin economy once it get's going. The technology to allow this to happen is here. This is a big reason I am so excited to be working on Sovryn.

It's not only Sovryn. Bisq and Hodl Hodl are seeing big increases in volume and are perfect decentralised P2P gateways into crypto. Money On Chain have created the first Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, and I am sure there will be many others.

Decentralised services for Bitcoin are at the beginning of a renaissance and I think the whole space could change over the next year or two.

IF somehow Bitcoin can be superior to Ethereum in this new DeFi stuff, is there any way to make it easier? Because if I understand correctly, your average Joe won't be able to join the hype without understanding Ethereum in the first place. Easier thing brings more people, which is generally good for Bitcoin.

Not sure if I agree. If a bitcoiner can connect their HWW directly to an app running on RSK, why do they need an understanding of Ethereum?

[sapta]

This is a great question. Sovryn is working on a number of innovation to make it much easier. We want to make it possible to use the system directly from any Bitcoin wallet, and no need to understand Metamask or anything like that.

We will start user testing pretty soon. Would be great to get your feedback on the system.

Would love to, I'm already on Discord with the same name.

Not sure if I agree. If a bitcoiner can connect their HWW directly to an app running on RSK, why do they need an understanding of Ethereum?

I was talking about DeFi, which is right now the hottest sausage that is being barbeque'd on the Ethereum network. Then, my question above.

[JuanMD]

Can you explain a bit more what is Bitcoin Defence-in-Depth?