One great moment from my debate with Paul
https://blossom.primal.net/344d34c8e119b119ede087ea6a296893c3ffe9360d4420bb9acb8a711b885ee8.mp4
Discussion
Sweet argument.
I love handing out QR codes with small amounts of e cash on them.
Handing someone a piece of card stock sends a message. This is paper backed with peer-to-peer electronic cash. Scan the QR code and you get some sats.
The head shaking from you and Danny at the end š
āCashu didnāt exist in 2022.ā
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"Lighting network doesn't work?"
Don't believe your lying zaps
This was a difficult episode to listen to.
Weāre living in the future
Gotchya!!
It was a hard one to listen to, not gonna lie. Still have 30 min left, and I don't think I have it in me.
Who is this noob?
This guy has always been full of shit.
Nice
Good thing we have intelligent freedom fighters out there spreading the word
the mic drop moment
Oh thatās awkward
Oh snap. Haven't seen this yet. Without watching though. Massive props to anyone willing to debate either side of bitcoin. Its massively beneficial to humanity and takes guts to do.
Beautiful, itās like visual poetry. The editing to pull back and show symmetrical head shaking from yourself and nostr:npub16le69k9hwapnjfhz89wnzkvf96z8n6r34qqwgq0sglas3tgh7v4sp9ffxj
Paul: *has legit criticisms of Bitcoin and lightning*
Alex: āhave you heard of ecash?!? š¤Øā
Bitcoiners: *clap like seals*
You are free to use a privacy shitcoin instead if youād like
New idea: PrivvyCoin. When we launch, we'll be airdropping to our bros that will let you API into, and provide exclusive access, to our globally launched and already present PortoJohns- or as we call them BlockSquatters.. Yes, these are floor hole toilets, but think of the time you'll save not putting toilet paper on the seat. Also, BYOTP.
šš
Hey man Iām a bitcoiner, I just think itās silly to all dog pile on a guy who has legit concerns and criticisms. Iām less concerned about the privacy aspect (I am concerned about that) and more concerned about the scaling issue. As far as I understand it, there is no scaling solution that creates self sovereign Bitcoin for 8 billion users. If he or I are wrong about that, please correct us.
Correct. There is currently no way for all 8 billion people to self custody BTC
This is not a reason to spread ridiculous FUD about Lightning and to wholesale ignore all kinds of useful open source technologies
Agreed. But to his point, 8 billion people canāt even use lightning in a non-custodial way, so what are we talking about here? Lightning works really really well for a small group of people, I donāt think anyone is denying that. Iām sure not. It works great and I love it. But it doesnāt work for 8 billion people, and thatās his point.
It could easily work for many many tens of millions of more people than it serves today!
Are you using Primalās custodial wallet, nostr:nprofile1qqs9336p4f3sctdrtft2wlqaq5upjz9azpgylhfd3dplwf005mfrr9spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3gamnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wdau8gu3wv3jhvcn8yuk? Can you even really consider that āusingā Lightning?
Iām almost always using a self-custodial set up
What percentage of Lightning users do you think do that, versus either a custodial setup or using an LSP (which are singular points of failure and major targets for the Feds)?
Not sure but itās lightning connecting different pools either way
Do you understand Paulās point? If Lightning coalesces around a handful of powerful nodes (maybe it already has?), you really donāt have any guarantee theyāll use Lightning to settle transactions.
In fact, thereās strongly incentivized NOT to use Lightning, because itās more expensive than creating their own private messaging service (similar to what the Silvergate Exchange Network was between banks).
And thatās not even getting into the risk of the government shutting down these players altogether, which deals a SEVERE blow to Lightning.
He absolutely did not make this point
He just said LN was cope and a failure which is laughable
Many times I argued that LN is far from perfect, wonāt be digital cash for everyone, etc
What you miss is LN is an open global network
And saying lightning doesnāt work for 8 billion people isnāt āFUDā itās a fact lmao. Not every criticism of Bitcoin is āridiculous FUD.ā That mindset is so bad.
Everyone knows this. You can describe Lightning intelligently without saying the whole thing is a scam which is what Paul says
that was rough to watch. seemed like y'all were talking past each other often. Paul has a point that L1 and lightning does not scale to 8 billion people. However, today lightning scales enough for the current use case and provides value to many people globally. Lightning is not useless TODAY, but may be in 50 years, who knows?
Paul is 100% rightā¦in 2021. Heās wrong in 2025, albeit with some legitimate, albeit rudely and misleadingly put, criticisms.
A cautionary tale for us all: BTC moves so fast and changes so much that if you arenāt constantly trying new stuff and updating your mental models, then even if you have many years of experience in BTC you can be grossly inaccurate in your assessment of where it is today and how people are using it.
Can you expand on this? Have the fundamentals (in terms of scaling) of lightning changed since 2021? His argument is that we should be building something that can scale to the whole world, rather than accumulating a "sunk cost" in something that can't ever reach that scale. I think that's a reasonable argument (although he has a knack for rubbing people the wrong way, for sure)
I do not mean that. I full disagree with him there.
I would say his high level meta ongoing point that I think had validity is some bitcoiners(more the X crowd and not the Nostr crowd) are getting complacent and trusting permanently suboptimal solutions, e.g. custodial solutions are fine for me forever and lets cozy up to the government, etc.
You disagree with him on the impossibility of lightning to scale to the whole world?
Yes indirectly in that he assumes complete stasis in both consensus and layer two architecture. meaning if we get CTV+CSFS and ARK gets deployed with those some level of self custody will scale MASSIVELY bigger than he is stating.
Said differently that is a static and narrow minded view of the BC landscape while innovation is happening.
While I think BIPs 300/301 and miner cotrolled drivechains that are user hostile and have zero protocol guarantees that they wonāt rug you, change their state, etc are insane, I do agree with him we need to have more open minds to change. The ossify forever crowd got way bigger way faster than I personally think is healthy. We will need at least a few forks to survive.
Uhā¦that was a punch. š
The other 93 minutes were hellish to endure. I was waiting for Paul to go into a āthis is definitely-definitely not my underwearā fit.
Glorious
Great work
What I understood from that guy was 'I just disagree because I'm edgy'...
Cool story bro. lol
I think I actually lost braincells listening to this dude having absolutely zero arguments besides āthis on dude said it wonāt work years agoā
You earned my sats
Can't say I know how to use ecash or cashu. What problems do they fix and how can I utilize them?