Location: Squadcast Date: Friday 25rd September Company: Blockstream Role: Lightning Network Developer
Bitcoiners can be firm in their views and are often called toxic by outsiders; however, this toxicity plays an important role. Bitcoin is a threat to the legacy financial system. It is therefore open to a broad range of attacks from technical to social and Bitcoin's immune system defends against these attacks to protect the protocol.
In previous episodes, I have looked at the pros and cons of toxicity and how it acts as an immune system for Bitcoiner. Does this immune system lead to silly narratives going unchallenged? Can Bitcoin fix everything or are we missing critical nuanced debates regarding its potential?
Rusty Russell is somewhat of a contrarian in the Bitcoin space. He is a lightning network developer for Blockstream but also runs the Shit Bitcoiners Say Twitter account which regularly calls out some of the more overzealous and outlandish claims by Bitcoiners.
In this interview, Rusty and I discuss the lightning network, open-source development, narratives and overzealous Bitcoiners.
