In this episode I talk with Christian Lewe from Blockstream Research. Christian is working on Simplicity, a more robust programming language designed as an alternative to Bitcoin Script.
To own Bitcoin is to be able to spend it, and the way we currently do this is with Bitcoin Script which has challenges and limitations that means it can be very unforgiving to work with, and it limits more complex transactions and arrangements because you cannot formally verify what will actually happen.
Simplicity seeks to fix this.
The project that has been in the works for over ten years and has been described by Adam Back as “the last soft fork”. There is some technical nuance to this statement, but as Christian shares, enabling simplicity could bypass a lot of the contentious soft fork discussions about things like covenants as this functionality is possible with Simplicity.
We talk about the proof of work and low time preference of Simplicity, as well as the plans to launch on the Liquid testnet and mainnet to validate the project through actual financial use before an eventual proposal to bring it into Bitcoin.
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Links:
Blockstream - https://blockstream.com/
Blockstream Research - https://research.blockstream.com/
From From Miniscript to Simplicity with Christian Lewe - https://blog.blockstream.com/from-miniscript-to-simplicity/
Simplicity Overview by Andrew Poelstra - https://blog.blockstream.com/en-simplicity-github/
mempool.space - https://mempool.space/
Outdated OP_EVAL exploit - https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5898/can-someone-explain-this-outdated-bip12-op-eval-exploit
Elements - https://elementsproject.org/
Bitcoin++ Austin - https://btcplusplus.dev/conf/atx24
Aqua Wallet - https://aquawallet.io/
Liana Wallet - https://wizardsardine.com/liana/
I talk with Rigel Walshe, who gave a speech at the Baltic Honeybadger conference this year titled “Bitcoin as a Religious Phenomenon”. We explore this topic and how in many ways Bitcoin provides meaning and purpose in a chaotic world. Whether it is the rapid growth in local bitcoin meetups post-covid, the spread of ideas such as self-sovereignty and rules for moral action, or the state of Bitcoin Culture on Twitter, the development of the social layer of Bitcoin is undeniable in recent years.
Roland Bewick is a kiwi Bitcoiner and Lightning Developer working on Alby and Lightsats. We talk about Roland’s background and how he become involved in Bitcoin, how value4value and new kinds of revenue models for creators could work in the future, as well as the other possibilities that Bitcoin enables as the money of the internet.
I talk with Jimmy Djabali of Swiss Bitcoin Pay, an app for easily accepting Bitcoin payments at point of sale. This is an important area of development, and unfortunately there are still not that many solutions out there for making accepting Bitcoin as a business easy. Swiss Bitcoin Pay seeks to fix this with a simple interface that is suitable for shops, restaurants, or any kind of customer-facing business.Jimmy shares how the project came about and his vision for it, as well as the Bitcoin merchant situation in Switzerland including the city of Lugano which has over 300 merchants accepting Bitcoin already.
In this group chat we talk about the new RBNZ Issue paper on the future of money, point of sale hardware experiments on the Lightning Network, and how New Zealand government and business can be educated about the role of Bitcoin. We also discuss improved ways to bring about retail adoption and get Bitcoin into the hands of kiwis, along with a whole lot more!
Jeff is a Senior Lecturer for Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. He is also a Bitcoiner, and we discuss how he has been teaching Bitcoin to his students, including sharing Satoshi’s White Paper and exploring the technology of the lightning network.