Growing anti-dev sentiments... \ stacker news ~bitcoin

840 sats \ 11 comments \ @timechain 6 Feb 2023 bitcoin

I have been writing some threads on Twitter lately about a pattern that I have been noticing. The pattern is anti-dev sentiments.

Luke begging for donations from plebs when it turned out he was Bitcoin rich didn't help.

Inscriptions seen as an unintended consequence of Taproot didn't help.

The fact that "being a real Bitcoiner" means thinking that everything that Bitcoin does currently is all it should do, and everything it doesn't do, it shouldn't do anyway because it's stupid or something shitcoins do.

The non-technical hodler has grown distrustful of devs, misunderstanding that even if no changes are being made, devs are needed for upkeep.

Bitcoin is a wall of digital energy, Venice, a pioneer species, a fungi... Oh wait, despite what metaphors the Bitcoin philosophers come up with today, it's software, and a community based around software needs devs. For it to be very successful, it needs as many as possible. (In fact the amount of people that truly understand the cryptography of Bitcoin might be less than 20 people. Which... Isn't great.)

The last bull market being cut short by macro factors have made dev funds tight, but as soft forks are less tolerated, so is the idea of funding devs. More and more, they are seen not as necessary heroes but attack vectors.

A career in Bitcoin development means unsteady paychecks (when selling out and working for a web3 DINO coin would make you rich), risk of legal trouble, both from nation states and a professional fraud, and unfortunately, a community growing in distrust and ingratitude.

*This is based on a couple of Twitter threads I wrote, links below: https://twitter.com/timechain_/status/1622270596720492544 https://twitter.com/timechain_/status/1621669661891870720 https://twitter.com/timechain_/status/1621560109523509249

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388 sats \ 3 replies \ @tomlaies 6 Feb 2023

In fact the amount of people that truly understand the cryptography of Bitcoin might be less than 20 people.

This is very very wrong. I have a lecture at my university called "Introduction to Cryptography" with almost 1000 students.

That's just one university and one year. And only the introduction course and only for computer scientists.

Each and every one of them could write down the cryptography of Bitcoin (Hashes, signatures, public key generation, prime number factorization, elliptic curves etc...) and the mathematics behind it with pen and paper.

Bitcoins cryptography isn't complicated. In fact, it is build on the very foundational building blocks of cryptography. The magic about Bitcoin also is in this very fact that it was build so elegantly on these classics.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @timechain OP 6 Feb 2023

I am happy to hear that. Although I wonder if there is a difference between looking at the code and understanding how it works ... and

being able to fix it/upgrade it.

This was the opinions of Aaron van Wirdim an Nvk in a recent bitcoin.review at least.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @tomlaies 6 Feb 2023

Let me put it like this: Few people know very deeply how the Bitcoin code works. But if the core developers were to onboard a new person there would be millions of coders/engineers/architects that could onboard into the team and become a fully fletched member.

Or let me put it another way: Onboarding a new person into Bitcoin-core shouldn't be substantially harder than Apple onboarding a new person for the Training App on Apple Watch.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 6 Feb 2023

Nice description of foundational elegance.

479 sats \ 0 replies \ @2big2fail 6 Feb 2023

even if you are rich you should be paid for your work

3 sats \ 0 replies \ @based58 7 Feb 2023

In fact the amount of people that truly understand the cryptography of Bitcoin might be less than 20 people

i don't think so. Any one that has taken basic a cryptography course or read some intro textbooks (handbook of applied cryptography, foundations of cryptography, cryptography theory and practice, etc) knows very well the math behind bitcoin's cryptography; it is much easier than you think when compared to more complex mathematics.

besides, anyone with basic knowledge of computer science can read "Programming Bitcoin" or "Mastering Bitcoin" and understand the technical aspects of Bitcoin in detail.

Surely, it requires some technical knowledge of computer science, mathematics, programming. But it is pretty accessible for people who work/study on these fields and also related fields like engineering.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @l0k18 6 Feb 2023

I think for sure there has been more than a few slips in protocol specification that warrants a negative opinion, based on the problems these lapses have caused. As a developer working with the Golang based BTCD/LND/Neutrino ecosystem I could rattle off a list of issues that I already saw years ago in the codebase that incredibly still exist.

We need devs, that's not in question. But maybe the current establishment needs a shakeup since they were stewards over several really bad things getting into the protocol. We need more conservative, more skeptical devs to keep things working, and those who are not we don't need them.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 6 Feb 2023

In fact the amount of people that truly understand the cryptography of Bitcoin might be less than 20 people. Which... Isn't great.

Very true

Thoughtful post. Thanks

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @hampus 8 Feb 2023

I agree. I raised my eyebrows last year when batshit insane FUD was spreading around Jeremy Rubin's OP_CTV proposal, and since then the anti-dev sentiment has just continued.

There's also this prevalent opinion that Bitcoin is perfect and in no need of more updates. I couldn't disagree more and I think kind of thinking is ultimately very harmful for Bitcoin. There are lot of things we can do that will yield a net-positive result in the long run.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @monk_cactus 8 Feb 2023

Bitcoin needs devs to keep the software working as the world and technology changes around it. It would be great if the devs had more consistent funding, for sure.

That being said, the devs absolutely are attack vectors, and there's no way around that. You're right about anti-dev sentiment being very common at the moment. I hope it's just growing realization about how careful we all need to be in accepting protocol changes.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jtwoodhouse 7 Feb 2023

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