I was directed to this tweet, and specifically this photo, yesterday. I replied that it’s easy for many of us #Bitcoin-ers to forget this is even a thing. Clearly, it is—to the point they can pack a room full of developers.
There are successful, nationwide BitDevs at places like #[1] and Bitcoin Commons. This is great. But I’ve never seen a room this full of Bitcoin builders.
Genuine question: why, and assuming we want it, what’s missing?
at first i thought this picture showed the opening of a new starbucks 🍎
Eth foundation pays all of these people… they are literally all funded by the same group. It’s no different than Microsoft devs huddling in the same room.
You’re saying all these devs are on the Consensys payroll?
Or funded with pre-mine coins. They’ll find out the hard way.
Maybe, but that’s not my point. What’s it take to get this many devs fired up and building on Bitcoin?
We gotta account for all the inefficiencies and unproductive things built on ETH. Quantity of devs doesn’t necessarily equate with better and more efficient products imo.
Bitcoin doesn’t need changing, eth is constantly changing. Do we really need 1000s of devs to watch a code not change and maybe fix a bug or two a year?
Yes
They can also build other sterf on the other layers these days
I would say there’s a big difference between a core Dev and L2 dev and the quantity of them needed. But yes good point, there is a need for these L2 devs to build solutions on top of bitcoin
I also wouldn’t say no to 2000 eyes (4000 including glasses) staring at the core code in case some dingo changes something once every 2 years.
I think there are a lot of enthusiasts around the globe that might be doing exactly that.
Just staring at the bitcoin core code but not doing much else.
I’m not talking about maintaining Bitcoin Core, but building on/with Bitcoin.
Where there is money to be made the devs go in that direction…! Take for e.g. nostr, there are no commerce or money made by any devs… That need to be fixed…
I don’t want to say anything negative about those devs because one day they might realize bitcoin should be their project.
The allure of tokens & ponzi funding is a hell of a drug.
We’re getting there, lots of devs don’t realize how much easier it is to build with bitcoin and related protocols (lightning/fedimint) today than it has been in the past. The tools/education needed to do so will also only improve, we’re the tortoise in this marathon while Eth seems to have been the hare.
Thanks for that thought and picture.
I often wonder why us (I include myself) Bitcoin maxis can be so instantaneously confrontational about any other Blockchain. It's really like comparing apples to tomatoes. They're both fruit but different things.
Ethereum to me is a technology using Blockchain that has smart contract functionality. And thereby could have many use cases for disruptive technology. Could replace the engine behind the stock exchanges for example. And so many other possibilities, too much to dive into. But at the end of the day, it's a technology/speculative play. I like a lot of technology. Loved the VOIP technology growth. Love the breakthrough of the iphone that created all smartphones. Love the technology use in Uber. Love how I can order on Amazon and get same day. And I think Ethereum technology could have tech that I love too.
But it's not sound money. Something that can change the rules/code at will. Absoleet all investment in the pow hardware for their network. Have no finite amount of total coins. Is not a sound store of value. And now some in the eth world call their token "ultra sound money" is ridiculous. They make that argument because there can be burning of eth. Sure it could lower the total supply and increase its usd price momentarily. But far from sound money. Something that constantly has rules changes and is a tech/speculative asset is not sound money. Maybe that argument about ultra sound money is what bitcoiners take exception to and shitcoin it daily.
Also...
I wonder what it would be like if bitcoiners and Ethereum diehards got along.
And Ethereum was just a layer 2 to BTC.
Think it's because ETH was specifically built with the idea to develop on, for example with a contracting language based on js. Most bitcoiners would probably say that kind of development/computation doesn't belong on the base layer but it's taken time to get 2nd layer off the ground. Maybe in the future with rgb, taro, fedimint etc. They'll be more opportunities for more normal devs to play in the bitcoin space.
Bitcoin success is a slow burn and takes sustained effort. I know nothing about this event beyond your note, but my guess is there’s a prize for the weekend and the potential for any one of these projects to get a short lived windfall on a pump and dump.
Other chains are way easier to interact with - for example a FE dev like myself can develop so much faster on other chains.
Saying that - that also adds a lot more vulnerability and attack surfaces where things can go wrong imo.
So oddly to interact with Bitcoin well you need a lot built around it to interact with the protocol which in a way safeguards the protocol itself.
The simplicity pulls in a lot more devs to want to start hacking on stuff. I don’t think they think about the core sound money offering of bitcoin but see these blockchains, ETH in this case, as a set of APIs to interact with.
I have crashed few of these to interact with young devs and give Uncle advice... try to nudge them towards Bitcoin.
It boils down to:
- Almost all shitcoins have dedicated event organization teams and their KPIs are geared towards attendance and doing these every month.
- It's a marketing budget for them - whenever centralization argument comes across - they can point to these events and be like - no, we're grassroots.
- What's important to realize here is that these are not that expensive to organize. You basically need one whale to fund and once your event team is up and running, you just keep throwing these.
- It is quantity over quality approach. Event teams pull in whoever they can - selling "blockchain training" to everyone; startups to enterprises who send in a lot of their devs. Contrast this with Bitcoin dev events... for "the best ones" you literally need a special invite from organizer (depends on your reputation in peer group).
- A lot more grants and funding. Not saying that everyone is on Consensys payroll, but as a dev it's much easier to win $25K grant through shitcoin project, than get $25K grant in Bitcoin.
TLDR: funding & marketing expense.
Kinda comparable to VC funding - a lot more money for crypto (a16z) than Bitcoin (Ten31).
And finally, not saying this never happens in Bitcoin, Tony brought up good point that builder's day during TabConf is very comparable to this pic. But takes great organizer like nostr:npub128a25achgxk429gwuwy7tgrwh44z5s42js2260cxdstk7tpxv9ds497erh to bring all the people together.
This is *exactly* the kind of balanced, thoughtful feedback I’m looking for. Excellent points. Thank you.
🙏
When we're together in Miami, I'll show you pics / videos from when I crashed Solana Hacker House and emptied their bar 😉
This, I’ve got to see. 😁
What’s your take on the state of tooling for Bitcoin + Lightning devs? IDEs, SKDs, docs, the works.
* SDKs
That's a good point as well; you need projects like BDK, LDK, #[5] ... when there is enough tooling and project is recognizable enough, easier to get budget for regular events and bring devs.
https://twitter.com/fulmolightning did a lot of hacker days that popularized Lightning... and looked exactly as your pic. Not sure why those stopped, probably funding problems.
Maybe we need to start monthly #Nostr Hack Days!
All that building and only shit to show for. Who cares about this PR photo?
I do, which is why I asked the carefully worded question.
Keep in mind, eth was marketed as any Javascript dev can be a bloc dev. It is meant to be super easy to get going whereas bitcoin has a much steeper learning curve. Bitcoin also isn't meant to do everything under the sun (for good reason) and that excludes some people who want to do X and don't care where they do it.
I think bitcoin and lightning are definitely getting closer tho. The guys at #[3] have their own course that makes it really easy to get started and we're getting more devs all the time. Tools like LN Bits have made it a lot easier and new tools like it are coming out all the time ( #[4] 😉). Hopefully one day we will be there but it is definitely an uphill battle.
Great points, Ben. Appreciate your perspective.
#[6], where can we find out more about course, sir?
Yes we have it on Emeralize app, Oshi and Udemy. https://www.udemy.com/course/pleblabaustin/
Ben is exactly right though. A lot of us including #[7] at Base58 are working hard to onboard the next 10,000 devs.
We had over 360 users take the PlebDev course since December and more signing up everyday.
We had two women come into pleblab today to learn about vercel and start their coding journey. I personally believe we will get there. But we have to continuing working hard at it. First step is these bitcoin hubs we all have created across the world these are so important for developer adoption.
I don’t know how I’ve missed this, Car. Fantastic. Thanks.
How have you found Vercel? Is it your go-to for new devs?
Afaict React seems to be the easiest onboarding to lightning development. We have a lesson on it in our course. I am not to versed in Vercel...big companies are using it these days based on there client list.
I know the plebdev course is working because I am constantly getting hit up for devs from companies with a job list to fill. They seem to be getting hired.
I’m a huge fan of vercel. Great for quick deployments of apps. Easy learning curve for serverless, and great for quick projects that you want/need to deploy quickly (I haven’t used it at scale but my understanding is it does that well too).
A couple apps I’ve built on vercel:
Maybe a good parallel is that a JavaScript conference is probably going to be more full than a Linux one. It probably shouldn’t even be a goal for bitcoin to aim to be like the former. Events like btc++ and TABConf imo are generally the right size to also maintain quality for this reason. Scaling Bitcoin had this vibe too. Much smaller but every talk just had my head hurting from the density of info.
Thanks, Buck. Good points. Would you say the same applies to new devs, say who might otherwise drift toward eth, solana, etc? Could we ever have too many?
I wouldn’t say you can have too many but you don’t want to aim for the lowest common denominator either. That said, I think there are things we can do to attract quality devs/engineers too.
Jeremy Rubin had a good post on this a couple years ago: https://rubin.io/bitcoin/2021/12/14/advent-17/
Queued up to read. Thanks again.
