S17 E26: Steve Thurmond, Calin Culianu & The Phenomenal Big Blockers

Almost 9 years since the big split of the Bitcoin community, it's time to learn more about how the Bitcoin Cash chain developed. Calin Culianu is the creator of Fulcrum, an efficient privacy-preserving SPV client. Steve Thurmond is the most ardent advocate for Cash Stamps: a convenient paper wallet system that's used for gifting.

Throughout the episode, more BCH community members will join to have the conversation that you will never hear on any other Bitcoin podcast.

Time stamps:

00:01:09 Introducing Calin Culianu & Steve Thurmond

00:02:37 The Evolution of Bitcoin Cash

00:03:59 Who is Behind Bitcoin Cash Now?

00:06:34 Narratives and Misconceptions

00:07:53 Vlad's Perspective on the Fork

00:09:44 Bitcoin's Capture and Speculative Nature

00:11:48 Vlad's Journey with Lightning Network

00:16:07 Blockstream and the "Banker" Conspiracy

00:18:33 The Security Budget Debate

00:22:12 The Problem with IOU Systems like Lightning

00:24:02 Vlad's Disappointment with Onboarding

00:24:58 Ethereum's Rise Amidst Bitcoin's Infighting

00:27:52 The Bankers Won, But Crypto Still Exists

00:32:16 The Future of Bitcoin and Firing Core Devs

00:33:08 The Wall of Consensus in BTC

00:39:19 The Multi-Coin Future

00:42:48 Bitcoin Cash's Development Philosophy

00:49:08 Craig Wright's Controversial Involvement

00:55:16 The Impact of Contentious Forks

00:58:55 The Resilience of Bitcoin Cash

01:02:32 The Value of Open Source Competition

01:08:51 Greg Maxwell's Influence

01:12:00 The Ecash fork

01:25:02 Introducing New BCH Community Members

01:26:38 Building Smart Contracts on Bitcoin Cash

01:34:06 Why UTXO is Better than EVM

01:40:07 Can You Run a BCH Node?

01:41:07 The Flawed "Run a Node" Narrative

01:53:27 The Dangers of RBF and the Importance of 0-Conf

02:05:07 One-Minute Blocks Proposal

02:08:02 Finality and User Experience in Wallets

02:12:13 The "It's Just Money, Bro" Philosophy

02:41:39 What Can You Buy with BCH?

02:48:28 The Permissionless Nature of BCH

02:52:12 The Paradox of Layer Twos

02:57:18 The Stigma of Building on BCH

02:58:21 The Changing Culture of Bitcoin Cash

03:11:35 Ordinals and the "Spam" Debate

03:17:07 Would BCH Still Have a Nice Dev Culture If Michael Saylor Started Buying?

03:28:14 Quantum Computing and Satoshi's Coins

03:42:59 The Tail Emission Debate

03:50:11 The Culture is the Ultimate Defense

03:53:16 The Politicization of Bitcoin Development

03:59:26 Privacy and Fungibility

04:02:21 The Future of Privacy on BCH

04:36:12 Fulcrum: An Electrum Server Implementation

04:38:54 The Litecoin Question

04:49:13 The Difficulty of Recreating Bitcoin's Genesis

04:51:38 The Long-Term Bet on SHA-256

04:54:12 A Break and Introduction to Rosco

05:48:33 CashScript and Smart Contracts on BCH

05:55:22 BCH vs. Ethereum Smart Contracts

06:03:05 The UTXO Stack and Abstraction Layers

06:43:30 The Avalanche Pre-Consensus Question

06:45:51 The "Tax" Fork

07:04:06 The Failed Attack on Bitcoin Cash

07:08:58 The 2018 Inflation Bug Disclosure

07:22:46 The Michael Saylor Phenomenon

07:28:41 The Arrest of Roger Ver

07:39:28 Spending Crypto in the Real World

07:44:22 The End of Crypto-Friendly Spaces in Europe

07:52:05 Prediction Markets and Community Sponsorship

08:08:17 Robin Linus is Jealous of BCH Opcodes

08:09:50 Final Thoughts and Conclusion