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  One of the most fascinating aspects of bitcoin is its historical meteoric price rise. Is bitcoin going to continue on this historical path or is growth going to slow, or even halt? The stock-to-flow (S2F) model, put forward by PlanB, suggests that bitcoin’s future price can be forecast quite precisely and that the price will continue a steady and impressive path upwards, with approximately tenfold returns every four years. The S2F model has attracted a lot of attention, and PlanB has amassed an impressive number of followers (1.7 million at the time of writing). Perhaps in part due to its popularity, the model has more recently been met with a lot of criticism. An example of such criticism is a harshly-worded recent article published in Bitcoin Magazine. Also, in July 2020, Eric Wall put together a collection of criticisms. It appears that most people find themselves in either of two camps: the “pro” S2F and the “con” S2F camps. How should we position ourselves? Before I go on: I...

  It’s official, Bitcoin is too big to ignore. In a geopolitical environment where global superpowers are looking for some answer to bitcoin — whether it be attempting to ban proof-of-work protocols outright or positioning to incentivize coordinated efforts to improve understanding — this much is clear; Bitcoin is a serious topic, and the world’s leaders are now in the position where they can’t afford to not understand it. Gone are the days of brushing the Bitcoin topic aside as something for hackers, hobbyists or criminals alone. Developments over the past four years have produced a strong argument that Bitcoin is shrugging off death for the umpteenth time, and that it will not be going away. And among all of these developments, perhaps Bitcoin’s growing role in the oil and gas industry is the biggest indicator that it has an undeniable place in the most foundational aspects of our society. BITCOIN AND OIL FIELDS Recently I was invited by the Great American Mining (GAM) team to vi...

  This is very encouraging to see; the team working on the Bitcoin Development Kit (BDK) seem as if they are going to merge in support for BIP47, which would allow wallet developers who are building their wallets leveraging the BDK to easily implement reusable payment codes. This would allow bitcoin users to interact with each other in a more private way by enabling users to receive via a static payment code that does not reveal the actual address a UTXO ends up in. To date (and to the best of my knowledge), the only popular wallet to enable BIP47 has been Samourai Wallet. Recently, there has been a surge in interest for more wallets to begin implementing this feature. Historically, BIP47 has been controversial because many developers think that if BIP47 gets wide adoption it will bloat the chain and drive fees higher due to the amount of data needed to create the payment codes via OP_RETURN. As fees have remained low for an extended period of time and bitcoiners seek out better pr...

  One of the more illuminating talks at the Bitcoin Takeover event that was held at the Bitcoin Commons here in Austin last Friday was a panel discussion between Lisa Neigut (c-lightning, Blockstream), Rockstar Dev (Strike, which uses lnd), and Miles Suter (Cash App, which uses LDK) led by Matt Odell about the challenges of the interoperability between different implementations and overall UX when using the Lightning Network. During the discussion (which should be made public soon) the panel turned to the topic of BIP21, a BIP that I was unaware of but am very excited about after coming to understand it. At the moment there is a massive UX hurdle that exists for users of different bitcoin wallet software providers. The UX around sending and receiving bitcoin transactions on-chain and via the Lightning Network. Some wallets are on-chain only, some are lighting only, and some allow users to use both but force you to manually shuffle between the two when sending and receiving. Enter B...

  If you’re into venture capital, pay attention to tech or invest in the sector, you’ve heard of all the buzzwords: Web3, NFTs, DeFi. Has anyone explained to you what they are? Did you understand it? It probably sounded as convoluted as the fat kid’s explanation in summer camp as to why he doesn’t have a picture of his really pretty girlfriend from back home. Why weren’t these concepts understandable? Because these are all terms that are just nebulous enough to sound sophisticated, while avoiding strict definitions as to avoid scrutiny. They all have this Gnostic quality about them. You really need to be special to see the emperor’s clothes. So what are these things? What is Web3? What are NFTs? What is DeFi? I’m going to try to save you a lot of time: They’re scams. I’m a programmer with 24 years of experience, with the last 11 in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is an amazing tool, particularly for saving, which is why I own some. I’ve written several books on the topic, including “Programming B...

  Editor’s note: This article is the second in a three-part series. Plain text represents the writing of Greg Foss, while italicized copy represents the writing of Jason Sansone. In part one of this series, I reviewed my history in the credit markets and covered the basics of bonds and bond math in order to provide context for our thesis. The intent was to lay the groundwork for our “Fulcrum Index,” an index which calculates the cumulative value of credit default swap (CDS) insurance contracts on a basket of G20 sovereign nations multiplied by their respective funded and unfunded obligations. This dynamic calculation could form the basis of a current valuation for bitcoin (the “anti-fiat”). The first part was dry, detailed and academic. Hopefully, there was some interesting information. At the end of the day, though, math is typically not a strong subject for most. And, as for bond math, most people would rather chew glass. Too bad. Bond and credit markets make the capitalist world...

  “Bitcoin itself cannot scale to have every single financial transaction in the world be broadcast to everyone and included in the block chain. There needs to be a secondary level of payment systems which is lighter weight and more efficient.” - Hal Finney In today’s Daily Dive we examine the growth of the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a decentralized second-layer scaling solution built on top of the Bitcoin network that allows for cheap payments between counterparties. The Lightning Network can essentially be thought of as a bar tab between counterparties, with the opening and closing of the tab serving as the equivalent of an on-chain bitcoin transaction. The proverbial “bar tab” is constructed using a 2-of-2 multisig wallet, which allows for users to take control of their funds in case of a hostile counterparty. While today’s Daily Dive won’t go much further into the technical mechanics of the Lightning Network, you can find additional information here. Wh...

  Earlier today I had a conversation with Luke Gromen, Founder & President or Forest for the Trees. The discussion really drove home a few things I have been trying to articulate in this rag over the last few weeks. Mainly that producing and being in control of assets like energy, industrial metals and food are much more important than controlling the dominant fiat currency of the world when shit hits the fan. I highly recommend you freaks take some time to check out the interview when you get a chance. Toward the end Luke explains that people in the Defense Department who are war gaming are some of the only people in the government who are willing to admit that embracing bitcoin and actively working to transition to a Bitcoin Standard is the best strategic move the US could make at this juncture. Moving to a sound distributed peer-to-peer monetary system while many big players may be looking to abandon the dollar is a trump card on the table. It's certainly not an easy card to...

  Since the beginning of 2022, I have been pounding the pavement to talk with brick-and-mortar merchants about accepting bitcoin as payment, as I described in my previous piece with Bitcoin Magazine. There are a few key talking points that keep coming up: Owners “know” of Bitcoin because it's been in the news just about everyday for the past couple of years, but their knowledge beyond that is very limited. Accountants are discouraging their clients from getting involved with bitcoin payments and having it on their balance sheets. I'll break down each of the points I listed above. First: Every business owner I spoke with knows of Bitcoin. Their understanding of it varies, from nothing to, I'd say, a general idea. Not many have ventured down the rabbit hole, but some have at least interacted with Bitcoin before. As a community, I think there is still a need for Bitcoiners to help educate people more. I don't mean the technicalities of how it works or why you need it. Rath...

  The timing was no accident - the recent anniversary of the QuadrigaCX’s implosion kept fresh in many of our minds the risks we were striving to allay, especially here in Canada. Two years might not sound like a long time to the average person, but it’s a significant stretch of history in the world of cryptocurrencies - it’s more than one-seventh of Bitcoin’s entire existence. By looking at industry progress in terms Proof of Reserves, we can see just how much can happen in that span of time. MEAGER BEGINNINGS In that early 2020 piece, Mauricio Di Bartolomeo was joining the chorus of several voices already advocating for this opportunity to accelerate Bitcoin’s rise in legitimacy and professionalism. Jason Tyra had written several pieces between 2014 and 2015. Steven Roose of Blockstream put forth some proposed standards in early 2019, soon advocated for by Matt ฿ on a personal blog post and Nic Carter had been banging his own drum, publishing several articles and podcast intervie...