Maximalists have been saying for years that L-BTC is not bitcoin. It is a claim against 15 companies running one shared codebase. Mostly it got treated as noise.
I wrote that too, in July. A week later I deleted it. Off my site, off Nostr, everywhere. Nobody had complained. I just didn't want to put something out there that read like an attack on people who are serious about their work.
On September 6th around 4,000 BTC left the Liquid peg through a range proof cache bug in Elements. 598.5 are still sitting with the attackers.
Nobody predicted that specific bug, me least of all. That was never the point. The point was the boring part the toxic maxis had right the whole time.
The post is back up, unedited, with its original July 22 date:
https://bitcoinlighthouse.de/blog/warum-ich-mich-in-liquid-getaeuscht-habe
The signed delete event from August is still on the relays if you want to check the timeline yourself:
https://njump.me/note1rx9xhrkhc87u08ey3fhemms7kqxxhtdwxyh4hrc3nzn7l3w8rlas2tsqdg
There can never be too many toxic bitcoin maximalists. Stay toxic, stay humble, stack sats.
Full report on the hack, for my German audience:
https://bitcoinlighthouse.de/blog/liquid-network-hack-4000-btc-peg-abgeflossen
I read your article (an english translation -- so I may be missing some of the tone) but it didn't strike me as an attack. you say that it is not a bearer instrument, that l-btc is a claim and that the liquid federation is a distributed custodian. all these things are true.
I sympathize with your feelings that you don't want to come off attacking people. but i hope the recent wave of heroes who are getting slain will allow us all to more freely talk about the trade-offs of any given system.
I too have picked up on a sense that saying something is custodial almost sounds like an attack or an insult. I hope we can get off that.
Nice article, though!
Turns out the most decentralized thing about Liquid was the 4,000 BTC leaving it.
Depending how you define specific, I've long pointed to the SPOF in signature coordination. #955201
To point that out was not an attack on the fact it's custodial, an attack on Blockstream as operators, or a judgement of users that want convenience.
It was a hard technical truth that no one involved or supportive of it wanted to admit because they're so fragile and butthurt about everything.
These things will continue to happen until snowflakes realize pointing out flaws in things doesn't need to be taken personally.