Here is my second installment of answers to the hostile questions about bitcoin that @AaronRDay posed for Thanksgiving dinner. Prepare for Christmas dinner now!

https://twitter.com/onedigitmoney/status/1996258525366845821

4. Did MIT Media Lab funding (including from Jeffrey Epstein) influence Bitcoin Core developers to control bitcoin's direction? (6, 17, 21)

MIT Media Lab did receive Epstein donations. But Epstein began donating to MIT in 2002, long before bitcoin was invented (2008) and well before the Media Lab became involved in bitcoin (2015) when the Bitcoin Foundation ran into financial difficulties. MIT Media Lab funded some bitcoin developers, but this doesn't mean Epstein controlled bitcoin's development or determined the block-size decision. In fact, most of the early developers associated with MIT Media Lab were large-block advocates or open to large blocks, a direction which ultimately failed. The block-size debate involved hundreds of contributors, years of public discussion, and ultimately sovereign node operators choosing which software to run.

Conflating funding sources with protocol control misunderstands how decentralized governance works. If you think a university donor can unilaterally control a global network of independent node operators, you don't understand bitcoin's architecture.
@Snz_BTC @nic__carter

@AaronRDay gave us 21 questions for Thanksgiving dinner conversation when our uncle mentions that bitcoin is digital gold—all designed to make bitcoiners think that the bitcoin revolution has failed. These questions remind me of the saying:

“A fool can ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.”

With that warning to the wise answerer in mind, I want to make an attempt to prepare the bitcoin-holding uncles of the world with answers to these questions, in time for Christmas dinner.

The 21 questions were somewhat redundant. So in keeping with a respect for the absolute scarcity of a bitcoiner’s time, I’ve consolidated these into “10 Christmas Bitcoin Answers: Thoughtful Responses to Hostile Questions”. (Original question numbers are in parentheses for reference. See the entire list of questions at the post below.)

I plan to post these in three groups. Here's the first group.
@MarioNawfal @NeilJacobs @isabellasg3 1. Why did bitcoin abandon its original vision of peer-to-peer cash, and why are transaction fees so high? (1, 2, 3, 7, 18)

Bitcoin intentionally limits on-chain capacity to keep the hardware requirements for nodes cheap enough so anyone can verify the chain independently. This prevents the system from becoming something only data centers can audit—which would just re-create centralized payment networks. The 2017 fee spike happened when the popularity of bitcoin grew to the point where these capacity limits were being hit. Merchants dropped bitcoin because they needed predictable costs; this was inevitable as bitcoin scaled.

The "peer-to-peer cash" vision didn't change—the implementation strategy did. Technical realities demonstrated fully decentralized on-chain global scaling to be impractical. So the community adapted by emphasizing bitcoin's store-of-value properties, with payment scaling moving to Layer 2 solutions and the base layer enforcing final settlement. Just as the internet doesn't put every application in TCP/IP, bitcoin builds scaling solutions in layers. Lightning and other second-layer solutions handle small payments; the base layer handles final settlement. This preserves decentralization while enabling scalability. When subsidies end and future fees must be high enough to support the network, most activity will likely settle off-chain by then. The base layer will function as a high-value settlement network that can justify high fees to keep the network running and secure. We don't need every coffee purchase to be on-chain to make bitcoin work.
@TheGuySwann @TheBlueMatt

Today is Bitcoin White Paper Day!

The posting of the Bitcoin white paper on October 31 (in 2008) by Satoshi Nakamoto was the second most important historical event on that day of the year.

What was the most important? The most important event on October 31 was Martin Luther's posting of the 95 theses on the church door at Wittenberg (in 1517), announcing a theological debate and marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

As you can see, these events have some eye-opening parallels.

Some people think DeFi is a solution in search of a problem. Well, here's a problem (one of many).

PayPal has been increasingly censoring people and organizations for violating their "acceptable use policy" with no explanation.

engadget.com/paypal-lawsuit… As a recent example, in September PayPal shut down accounts of the Free Speech Union, a UK group that advocates for those whose right to free speech is being infringed. Ironic, huh? The shutdowns included the personal account of the founder, Toby Young.
reclaimthenet.org/paypal-bans-fr…

I think more fundamentally hard money requires proof of scarcity. If a substance were to be discovered that is provably scarce and had other desirable monetary properties--verifiable, portable, fungible, divisible, durable, etc.

Some thoughts 👇

https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/1570449614137860096

2/ Since no such thing has been found in the entirety of human history, the next best thing is to discover something that is clearly very difficult to find (gold) or make something that is clearly very difficult to make (bitcoin) -- proof of work.

Every bitcoiner knows "not your keys, not your coins." So how is it possible to use your bitcoin as collateral for even a basic financial transaction like borrowing? 1/

A thread 🧵 2/ No one wants to make uncollateralized loans. They're too risky for the lender and too expensive for the borrower. Collateralized borrowing of stablecoins against your bitcoin allows you to inexpensively tap into your bitcoin value without selling.

@_Checkmatey_ @danheld
Let's consider the stability of the peg of the ZUSD BTC-backed stablecoin produced by the @SovrynBTC Zero protocol. Stable pegs are essential to a viable stablecoin. 💪 1/

A thread 👇 2/ First, ZUSD is backed by overcollateralized BTC. One ZUSD represents a loan of one USD in BTC. The protocol allows anyone to redeem their ZUSD for the same market value of BTC collateral denominated in USD minus a small fee.