The Ghosts of Bitcoin's Present

I’ve been following Bitcoin since 2013, and while I empathize with the current debate around OP_RETURN, I do wish there was more of a focus on solutions to a specific problem. I’ve never been a huge fan of the idea of the lightning network being the be all end all solution for scaling, and the Bitcoin community could benefit from all the research from other ecosystems. I currently think a decentralized, trust minimized, censorship resistant rollup style “layer 2” would be great for Bitcoin, and I hope the community starts working backwards from the end goal to find the optimal solution for this kind of technology. This is how the forks that allowed the lightning network to operate were accomplished, so I’m sure we can do the same once again. As always, love the show!

Haven’t boosted in a while so here’s some to help with the lack of an episode next week.

I’ve got a Fold question for you. I got the impression that you mainly use Fold for bill pay and it got me interested so I set it up and started my Fold+ trial. It took me a while to realize though that you only get rewards for bill pay up until the dollar amount you spent on your Fold card or Bitcoin purchases. Do you also put a certain amount on your Fold card so you can get the bill pay rewards or am I missing something? Thanks for the always amazing show, it’s the only one I have to slow down below 2x so I can really enjoy it.

Curious to your thoughts on the new @npub1ex7mdykw7… bill pay feature and how it might compare to your Fold experience.

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Ark’s first implementation with Arkade has launched and I would love to see you cover this kind of thing. Bitcoin scaling seems to be entering a new era, and your unbiased opinion would be highly valued!

One of the main things keeping me from switching fully to @npub1v5ufyh4lk… is the lack of desktop or web support. I’m not going to pretend that adding a new platform to support would be easy, but so many other podcast apps have a desktop equivalent and the lack of one messes with my existing flow. I still want to support the app though and continue to boost through it.

Wanted to give you another resource to get some info on Spark. Instead of issuing a separate BTC-based coin, the whole system is built on pre-signed exit transactions that get updated for every Spark transaction. This allows users to unilaterally exit from the base chain at any time. I know you consume a lot of content though, so no worries if you can’t get to it, but I do truly believe this might be one of the best scaling solutions that stays true to the Bitcoin ethos. https://fountain.fm/episode/6XPKBxI5LGT17oqww3mN

Hey Chris, I’m curious if you’ve looked into the Spark layer 2 solution from LightSpark. Seems really promising and that it would be a good compliment to Lightning. It feels a lot like Liquid, but more trustless. It feels like there are a lot of new layer 2 solutions in the works right now and I’d love your take on them. As always, thanks for the show!

I honestly believe that JP Morgan is still spouting the same FUD so that they can eventually offer a Bitcoin based alternative, probably on their internal blockchain that will operate like a centralized L2, that solves the issues he complains about. It’ll be “faster, cheaper, and won’t allow the criminals!”

I’d love to hear some Bitcoin stats each episode. Also, yes, I’m stacking for retirement. Each paycheck I set aside some money for my brokerage, my IRA, and Bitcoin. I’m pretty sure I’ll regret not putting everything in Bitcoin in the future, but I currently sleep soundly at night.

Been behind on podcasts, always stoked for TWiB.

Love the show, but the volume can be a bit quiet compared to all my other podcasts. Keep it up.

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Always love an Adam Back podcast.