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199 sats \ 6 replies \ @k00b 27 May \ on: Bitcoin is Forever Money with Michael Saylor - What Bitcoin Did bitcoin
I haven’t listened to this entirely. Im hoping Saylor has some reasonable things to say about not funding development (even if he’s wrong).
I'm not sure I buy the premise. What does "we need to fund devs" actually mean?
I mean, aren't most devs already working for large Bitcoin companies? Do we do that for anything else? Do we specifically try to write blank checks to fund "HTTP devs"?
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, how would that even work? An ETF writes a check monthly to github committers? How? Pro-rata based on Lines of Code?
Or does it mean that all devs would work for same company and ETF pays them?
"Funding devs" sounds like a nice thing to say/do, but I think most people who say it don't actually ponder the specifics for more than 10 secs to see its fraught with uncertainty.
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I think it was a reasonable take. My summary of his view regarding this is "money with strings attached" vs "money with no strings attached":
The criticism I've got on this topic is pointing out to certain Wall Street firms that maybe it's not a good look to provide unlimited ungoverned funding to development efforts that might destabilize the network. For example, would you want the people that support the other crypto networks, the PoS networks that are centralized, would you want them to be funding bitcoin development initiatives to make bitcoin better?
The clip is just a glimpse of his view though. I think overall, he's just very conservative which makes sense as someone running a public company (he explains himself that way in-depth in the interview). He doesn't see scaling L1 as an urgent problem (via covenants for example) and would rather wait for a few more years to see what the free market comes up with.
He definitely has some "weird takes" like that the current and potentially future interests of some entities like companies, banks and governments don't seem to be considered by devs which are definitely controversial since they go against the "bitcoin ethos" but in the end, it always seems for him to come down to conservatism and how "big protocol" is similar to "big government".
Btw, imo, he answers too much with elaborate analogies which make him sound like a politician that evades questions but I think that's just how he is, lol. Maybe that's what you mean with "word salad", @Wumbo?
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I know less than zero about bitcoin core development politics but what he said sounded reasonable on the surface. Like many charities, there can be a perversion of incentives over time and excessive funding without an explicit purpose in mind might create a "development industrial complex" where there is pressure to push updates for the sake of it. Extreme conservatism seems more prudent when there is now 1.3+ trillion at stake.
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"development industrial complex" where there is pressure to push updates for the sake of it
This reminds me of government and lawmaking. Never-ending legislative diarrhea, because if they tighten the sphincter the taxpayers may - God forbid - rightly conclude their jobs are redundant.
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He said he doesn't want shitcoiners (presumably alluding to Cathie Wood) to fund Bitcoin dev.
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