Listened to Michael Saylor on the nostr:npub1r8l06leee9kjlam0slmky7h8j9zme9ca32erypgqtyu6t2gnhshs3jx5dk podcast. It's 3 months old, but sheds some light on the ARK funding story.
TL;DW: Saylor strongly believes in *OSSIFICATION NOW*. From that POV, protocol development is a liability.
Some quotes (and thoughts)👇
"You only get to play God once. And Satoshi played God. And you can say 'well Satoshi got to do it, why can't I?' Well the answer is Satoshi did it, the reason we're talking about Satoshi is 'cause the other 100,000 would-be Satoshis failed. If you read the history of the world, work your way through 10,000 pages of Western history, there will be thousands and thousands and thousands of episodes of 'alpha male thinks he was put on this earth, you know, to change everything', full of hubris [...] he's gotta do more, change more, etcetera.'" (53:34)

"Bitcoin Core developers, or protocol developers, they want to fix something, or they want to make a contribution, because it's in their DNA, but developers are just the lawyers of cyberspace. When a lawyer shows up at the capital, they gotta make a law to save you from yourself, and the more laws they make, the more they cripple the economy, until eventually there's so many laws that the entire civilization collapses under its own weight." (58:06)

"The world is full of people that need something to do. I would say, the real key to wisdom, channel your energy constructively. If you're gonna do something, improve Lightning, build an application, persuade someone to adopt Bitcoin as a reserve asset, educate someone… these are all constructive things. Destructive, dilutive, distractive things are: fight with random people 'cause they want to fight with you, attack the core network and make it confusing and introduce anxiety, and confusion and fear, uncertainty and doubt into the base layer. Right? And then attempt to imprint your ego, you know, on the base protocol, you know? Like, 'I gotta introduce this so my name will go down in history forever'." (2:38:55)

My view: it's understandable to want Bitcoin to behave like the granite under Manhattan (his analogy); a solid bedrock that never changes. Especially if you truly believe Bitcoin will take over the world as SoV-only and "there is no second best". But IMO this is wishful thinking. While I agree it's near-impossible for an alt to overtake Bitcoin, I do think adoption could stall.
Luckily, Bitcoin isn't really a natural element. It's spontaneous order, more like language. Hard to change and no one can dictate changes, but if market wants it to change, it can.
Furthermore, despite Stephan asking a few questions in that direction, Saylor mostly failed to distinguish between protocol upgrades and general software maintenance.
Arguing against any hard/soft forks is one thing, but Bitcoin Core 26.0 can obviously not last for centuries...
Having said that, Saylor is of course free to not upgrade anymore and stick to Bitcoin Core 26.0 for as long as he lives.
I don't disagree with anything he said about ossification, but that's not the issue. 70%+ of the development is maintaining bitcoin core.
If he wants to prevent others from contributing to open sats because he thinks they will change bitcoin, fine--But he should start his own foundation that only donates sats to developers who maintain bitcoin core.
The fact that he does not see why this is in his own self-interest baffles me.
Why do you believe he’s not in favor of software maintenance? I think part of the “problem” that people have with him is that he wanted the funding to have “strings attached”.
I have not problem with strings attached funding.
I don't believe he is in favor of software maintanace because I have not seen any evidence that he has financially contributed to "strings attached" funding.
I will be happy to be proven otherwise.
My bet is that the issue isn’t software development. I’ve been in software development for decades but still not as long as Saylor. Software maintenance is so absolutely crucial and fundamental to everything.
This caught my eye, but I would appreciate a deeper discussion by the parties into the key issues.
nostr:note1v5kuvykgge6f3r5mfesmwmwmcvwp0ahyasf6dlnp9medezs3x8qs3u5nl7
You would think a CEO of a software development company that's been around since the 90's would be more likely to recognize this than some pleb who read Working In Public.
Oh Thanks for showing me this post from Odell. I had to look it up on Primal. I disagree with statement too.
Yes, it seems to me that Saylor must know that software maintenance is crucial and if devs stopped doing maintenance, then bitcoin would die within 10 years.
I think he must be arguing for no new features that could break the core system, and instead push all new features into the L2s.
I would like to hear the discussion to understand his full perspective.
Me too. Saylor and Odell should have a debate.
Maybe there are other reasons he doesn't want open sats to get ARK money.
Saylor doesn't like bitcoin payments.
Nostr and ecash make the lightning network a viable alternative to eBay, PayPal, and Apple Pay.
Mutiny uses nostr to make a Bitcoiner version of Venmo.
I can't imagine the status quo will be happy about this.
Opensats funds nostr development. The suits won't like nostr.
Nostr has the potential to change the world.
The USG doesn't like privacy.
Ecash is privacy.
Billionaire's probably don't want to shake the boat.
Nostr shakes the boat.
Saylor has the freedom of speech just like the rest of us on nostr. He's free to tell Ark whatever he wants. It's just not what I want.
Regardless, I hope Saylor and MicroStrategy fund bitcoin developers, but now that I think of it, it can't come with strings attached. It would increase the risk of a hardfork and might be construed as a bribe. That wouldn't be good for anyone.
