Fountain
Censorship & State Capture with Nic Carter & Lane Rettig
What Bitcoin Did with Peter McCormack

Censorship & State Capture with Nic Carter & Lane Rettig

Nov 2 2022 • 1hr 54m

Show Notes

“You could describe Proof of Stake in two words: shareholders vote. And guess what, that is how the world works already… I want to build a system that at least has the potential to be democratising, and move towards decentralisation, censorship resistance, these properties that we care so much about; and I think Proof of Stake is a huge step in the wrong direction.”— Lane RettigNic Carter is a Partner at Castle Island Ventures & Lane Rettig is a core developer for Spacemesh. In this interview, we discuss the Ethereum merge specifically addressing the issue around increasing censorship of Ethereum transactions, the chilling state attacks on privacy and what Bitcoiners could learn. - - - - In November 2013 Vitalik Buterin produced the Ethereum White Paper, which set out that Ethereum was to utilise the Proof of Work mechanism to facilitate participation in the transaction validation process. Eight months later, hidden away in the announcement about the Ether ICO, Vitalik stated that “We may choose later on to adopt alternative consensus strategies, such as hybrid proof of stake…”. Ethereum’s merge in the first 2 weeks of September has been the biggest event in crypto this year. Part of the reason is that it has been a very long time coming. Further, it has been a huge engineering challenge: transitioning from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in a live blockchain for the second-largest digital currency. Many predicted that it would result in technical issues. They were wrong. The merge was a success.And yet, in the months that have followed, events have shown that just as Ethereum has sought to resolve some issues, it has caused others. Yes, Ethereum now uses significantly less energy, albeit a smaller drop in energy consumption than they would have many believe. But, evidence of a concerning concentration of staked ETH indicates that not only is the consensus becoming centralised, but it is becoming dominated by entities who are censoring transactions.The result is a very clear distinction between Bitcoin and Ethereum. The issue at hand for Bitcoiners is that the battle to win the argument with political decision-makers over the importance of Bitcoin’s energy usage is still yet to be won. But, more importantly, there are downstream centralisation and capture risks for Bitcoin. Forewarned is forearmed.- - - - This episode’s sponsors:Gemini - Buy Bitcoin instantlyLedn - Financial services for Bitcoin hodlersBitcasino - The Future of Gaming is hereFidelity - Careers in cryptoLedger - State of the art Bitcoin hardware walletWasabi Wallet - Privacy by defaultTexas Blockchain Summit - Nov 17-18, 2022 | Austin, TexasBCB Group - Global digital financial Services-----WBD575 - Show Notes-----If you enjoy The What Bitcoin Did Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following:Become a Patron and get access to shows early or help contributeMake a tip:Bitcoin: 3FiC6w7eb3dkcaNHMAnj39ANTAkv8Ufi2SQR Codes: BitcoinIf you do send a tip then please email me so that I can say thank youSubscribe on iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | Deezer | TuneIn | RSS FeedLeave a review on iTunesShare the show and episodes with your friends and familySubscribe to the newsletter on my websiteFollow me on Twitter Personal | Twitter Podcast | Instagram | Medium | YouTubeIf you are interested in sponsoring the show, you can read more about that here or please feel free to drop me an email to discuss options.
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@ghostoftronsington
500 sats
Nov 2 2022
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@daumebtb
500 sats
Nov 8 2022
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@dsmkmplxx
500 sats
Nov 3 2022
This IS important! Bitcoiners should remember to stay humble and learn as much as they can about other projects especially Eth. Improves credibility and conviction of Bitcoin!
@bitcoinplusfood
500 sats
Nov 2 2022
Dear Sir, what a great advert for running 500 miles from Ethereum. Writ large, average human beings will always introduce complexity to gain a upper hand. From illuminated manuscripts to Ethereum, what a bunch of c***s
@dmtrmrfv
150 sats
Nov 10 2022
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@oneincredible
100 sats
Nov 2 2022
Good stuff!
@coffeelarge
100 sats
Nov 7 2022
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@btc69420
100 sats
Nov 2 2022
the state captured nic carters hair too
@user7734723683682430
100 sats
Nov 2 2022
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