RDTS/BIP110 was great in many ways, but it was also flawed. Forking off is quitting. Don’t, Bitcoin is still salvable. More can still be done. Truths will be revealed in their most evident (and hopefully impactful) way: better Bitcoin software. Users will be educated, and change will follow. This is guiding me, and your support, including your journalistic integrity, is needed.
The “compromise” for the “less damaging” OP_RETURN was a mistake. And a lie. “Less damaging” only applies to the opinionated prune-first architecture of Blockstream Core. “wE mUsT PrOtEct tHE uTxOseT” actually openly admits a vulnerability. A weak spot. Blockstream’s ‘chainstate’ (initially called “ultraprune”) has misguided consensus changes, and most recently, blew up the social contract protective layer of Bitcoin. A no-prune node architecture, realized decentralization, makes Blockstream’s UTXO Set irrelevant. Full Nodes are the TRUE bytes that must be permanently protected, to keep lean and clean.
Blockstream Core declared: “steganography or not, there is no difference”. And the vast majority of the industry took it as their stance. Is the problem Core’s influence, or the industry being too conformist? Is both, and that is a dangerous/fragile position to be in. Can the Bitcoin promise be fulfilled in this reality? Part 1: Realized decentralization is achieved ONLY when YOU are a Full Node… But arbitrary data has become the CHEAPEST while LARGEST (🤯) use of blockspace. Bitcoin has deep incentive issues related to SegWit’s witness discount, and Taproot maximally exploiting it. Learn about the Byte Footprint of Bitcoin at https://t.co/dpAFGS5BYl, by reading the (i) information modals in the transaction and block pages. The homepage’s Timechain provides the data for the whole chain, and the block page visualizes top Footprint transactions. Show this website to everyone that thinks that steganographic data is going to be “priced out” by transactions. That is 100% false, empirically proven with the massive increase in <4x Footprint transaction since Taproot activated. And it has been facilitated by Blockstream’s flawed design choices that abuse of Full Nodes, leading into centralization. Was this the plan all along? If not, why not fix it?
Message to my RDTS/BIP110 friends: If you find yourself following a hard fork (that changed the hashing algorithm), please understand that you got disconnected from the thermodynamic production cost of Bitcoin. There will be massive difference between unmodified BTC and BlakeByLuke (BBL) cost, which will ultimately balance itself into the market price. Also, be aware that as currently deployed, all BTC (Reduced-Data compliant) transactions are still getting confirmed in BBL. I thought only the txpool backlog would, but no, is all of them. The supposed replay-protection seems to be only one-way? Sounds messy, and is actually deceiving in its activity. Will exchanges accept this? More changes will be incoming to “fix” this. And you will realize… “WTF am I doing?!” Just know, that I will be happy to see you back rejoining the fight against Blockstream Core.