Lyn Alden

Author of Broken Money & The Stolguard Incident. Investor with a blended engineering/finance background. GP @egodeathcapital. Director at Bakkt & @Swan.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

My June public newsletter is now available:
https://t.co/q9AWNzBSmY

The issue focuses on defining and planning for the more multipolar and volatile world we have moved into.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

A few years ago in my August 2023 newsletter, I wrote about this. AIs being the only defense against AI cyber attackers.

Seems we're entering that era.
https://t.co/UjgvJYxnQv

[Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 @peterwildeford]

The new era of cyberattacks -- HuggingFace reports being hacked by an AI and they defended with an AI!

> "it was driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system - and we detected and dissected it largely with AI of our own."

[calle @callebtc]

I have a report full of security issues of a software I'm working on.

Codex won't fix them because of Cyber guardrails
Fable won't fix them because of Cyber guardrails

Kimi K3 fixed them all. No restrictions, just gets the job done.

This will end badly for OpenAI & Anthropic.

[Sam Callahan @samcallah]

Broken money.

[Bob Elliott @BobEUnlimited]

FoReIgN pRoDuCeRs WiLl PaY tHe TaRiFfS...

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@Puncher522 I wrote my first public article about bitcoin while it was happening. The immune response got me bullish. You're not disabled from replies. I assume what happened is you attempted to a reply to a post that I was fixing a typo in. Crossfire. 👇
https://t.co/VeE8Ea0h6N

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@Puncher522 I fixed a typo right after posting that inadvertently messed up your quote-tweet. Here's the tweet.
https://t.co/llT66jpzMT

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@Puncher522 I fixed a typo right after posting that inadvertently messed up your quote-tweet. Here's the tweet.
https://t.co/llT66jpzMT

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

Hard to say.

For this fork, I’d have to agree that something is indeed killing me by a thousand cuts, rather than just a background nuisance held in check by the block size limit and fee market. Defining the scale of the problem, in other words.

Second I’d have to see what methods of fighting back actually work without breaking much, and weigh those methods relative to my perception of the threat (existential or nuisance or somewhere in between). Can it solve the problem or just move it somewhere else? I’d make sure I’m not putting effort into something that is more performative than functional. And what commitment am I getting into? Can one fork mostly solve the issue, or am I starting a never-ending whack-a-mole process against the problem, while the problem evolves around my attempts, and each attempt comes with potential technical trade-offs such as potentially affecting the prospects of LN Symmetry (a monetary improvement) and so forth? And *precisely* how small do I want to make the spam bucket that doesn’t contribute much to UTXO bloat (op return) while preserving the other spam methods that do? Who knows- the burden of evidence and specifics are on the proponents.

Third I’d make sure not to damage the movement with sensationalist marketing. Self-appointed main characters don’t last long in the bitcoin space. “Pass my fork or Bitcoin dies” is unlikely to win, and may set back the movement. The sensationalist marketing and scale of infighting is what led a podcast host to ask me about it, for me to answer, for others to respond to me, and for me to respond to them with a more public position against this specific fork at this specific time. I’d have otherwise remained publicly indifferent at this time (since it’s a young fork and doesn’t mitigate a whole lot). Wasn’t it @giacomozucco who said that the knots movement was growing until this fork killed it, (his words, not mine)? Something like that. You know how many forks are looking to solve problems in bitcoin and have been seeking consensus for years? Welcome to the party.

Fourth, I’d weigh it against other development considerations in terms of time-resources spent. How does this compare to making Lightning better via LN Symmetry? How does this compare to preventing some potentially serious exploits via Consensus Cleanup? Etc.

Fifth I’d weigh it against other threats. How about governments trying to ID-verify everything at the operating system level? The attack on net privacy is about 100x a bigger concern to me than this. It’s a gift for them to have half the bitcoin space fighting over a contentious fork that just mildly rearranges the buckets for where spam goes (and for which some aspects I might even be in favor of) rather than defending against all the ways that Bitcoin’s privacy and usability can and is being attacked. I want to see a flourishing ecosystem of coinjoins, smooth lightning UX, Chaumian ecash, Ark, and whatever else people can build to improvement payments and route around censorship and ubiquitous surveillance.

Best thing an enemy can do is get you to focus on paper cuts while they’re swinging their machete.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

Hard to say.

For this fork, I’d have to agree that something is indeed killing me by a thousand cuts, rather than just a background nuisance held in check by the block size limit and fee market. Defining the scale of the problem, in other words.

Second I’d have to see what methods of fighting back actually work without breaking much, and weigh those methods relative to my perception of the threat (existential or nuisance or somewhere in between). Can it solve the problem or just move it somewhere else? I’d make sure I’m not putting effort into something that is more performative than functional. And what commitment am I getting into? Can one fork mostly solve the issue, or am I starting a never-ending whack-a-mole process against the problem, while the problem evolves around my attempts, and each attempt comes with potential technical trade-offs such as potentially affecting the prospects of LN Symmetry (a monetary improvement) and so forth? And *precisely* how small do I want to make the spam bucket that doesn’t contribute much to UTXO bloat (op return) while preserving the other spam methods that do? Who knows- the burden of evidence and specifics are on the proponents.

Third I’d make sure not to damage the movement with sensationalist marketing. Self-appointed main characters don’t last long in the bitcoin space. “Pass my fork or Bitcoin dies” is unlikely to win, and may set back the movement. The sensationalist marketing and scale of infighting is what led a podcast host to ask me about it, for me to answer, for others to respond to me, and for me to respond to them with a more public position against this specific fork at this specific time. I’d have otherwise remained publicly indifferent at this time (since it’s a young fork and doesn’t mitigate a whole lot). Wasn’t it @giacomozucco who said that the knots movement was growing until this fork killed it, (his words, not mine)? Something like that. You know how many forks are looking to solve problems in bitcoin and have been seeking consensus for years? Welcome to the party.

Fourth, I’d weigh it against other development considerations in terms of time-resources spent. How does this compare to making Lightning better via LN Symmetry? How does this compare to preventing some potentially serious exploits via Consensus Cleanup? Etc.

Fifth I’d weigh it against other threats. How about governments trying to ID-verify everything at the operating system level? The attack on net privacy is about 100x a bigger concern to me than this. It’s a gift for them to have half the bitcoin space fighting over a contentious fork that just mildly rearranges the buckets for where spam goes (and for which some aspects I might even be in favor of) rather than defending against all the ways that Bitcoin’s privacy and usability can and is being attacked. I want to see a flourishing ecosystem of coinjoins, smooth lightning UX, Chaumian ecash, Ark, and whatever else people can build to improvement payments and route around censorship and ubiquitous surveillance.

Best thing an enemy can do is get you to focus on paper cuts while they’re swinging their machete.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

Weekend vibes.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@BitcoinBombadil @MarcanoFilms Bitcoin is money for enemies. If people want to rely on good faith, that’s what fiat is for.

If people want to try to change consensus that is their right, but it’s intentionally hard to do.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@BetruetoitUK @bitcoinmohar1 @mattkratter @ScarcityMan They considered doing that, but haven’t done it in any released version.

And if they do, that’s what other node implementations are for, if people don’t like that.

Your node your choice. 👍

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@AsyncN8 @WalkerAmerica All of that requires consensus changes, which are extremely hard to do by design.

What, specifically, would I speak out about? I haven’t seen a bip that materially addresses them.

I haven’t “spoken out” about any of this. I just answer questions directed at me.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@BetruetoitUK @bitcoinmohar1 @mattkratter @ScarcityMan Because standards are set individually by every node according to their preferences.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@mdubore @DBonatOliv @RayThisLife02 Yes, somewhere around 1% for the cheapest method.

And they already have the inscriptions update ready for it if it activates.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@BetruetoitUK @bitcoinmohar1 @mattkratter @ScarcityMan That wasn’t a consensus change.

That was a standardness change that each node has control over for themselves within current consensus.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@BitcoinBombadil @MarcanoFilms Those are policies that each node can set within current consensus, rather than changes to consensus.

There are valid debates to have longer-term about the optimal size for op return. And this fork doesn't materially address spam in the witness.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@AsyncN8 @WalkerAmerica I keep track of multiple fork proposals I like that have been worked on for years, including ones that would add LN Symmetry or perform consensus cleanup (bug fixes). Happy to add yours to the list to watch.

But if people ask me if this is an existential risk, my answer is no.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@AdamLonghorn @Kestrel_23 @mattkratter @ScarcityMan If the goal is to make frequent consensus changes to Bitcoin to play whack-a-mole with spammers, count me out.

One of my favorite properties of Bitcoin is how hard it is to change and how much consensus it requires to do so.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

I run a node.

It has a block size limit. If it did not, I wouldn’t run it.

As for content, I don’t want data that can be assembled into vile images on my node. I also don’t really want transactions by the North Korean government on it either. But alas. I

If someone proposes a way to exclude vile images from bitcoin consensus, I’m happy to check it out. This current fork still has many ways to get them in there, it’s under a year old, and the implementation that supports it only has one maintainer, and I don’t particularly want to run a one-maintainer node implementation.

One of my favorite features of Bitcoin is how resistant it is to change. If it could change easily, I’d sell it.

Big fan of market forces though. People have a right to try to fork.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

People have a right to run other implementations (pretty low risk) or build support for a broad-consensus fork (harder), or try to rush a minority-consensus fork (good luck).

This fork still lets the witness be crammed with all sorts non-monetary data, with minimal extra cost. It’s interesting (I do think there’s merit in an op return limit), but currently doesn’t have a lot of support and imo is falsely marketed as being existential.

I’m also interested in certain forks that could enable LN Symmetry or consensus cleanup (but fixing), but it both fortunately and unfortunately is very hard to change bitcoin consensus so they’ve been around for years.

If someone figures out how to materially reduce spam with minimal technical risks, and goes through a review with accumulating technical support, I’m all ears.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

@druidian @carlabitcoin That’s been my approach as well; not a big fan of steak or fish delivery. My husband, however, has pushed me on both of those and often it works out fine.

If I was in a hospital for a while, I’d definitely consider some steak orders!

[BuccoCapital Bloke @buccocapital]

Chinese companies distilling models from the frontier labs who trained them by stealing IP from literally everyone