If you haven't read Waiting for Confirmation, it's a pretty great primer on mempools and how they work in Bitcoin Core. Highly recommend.
Also, check out Package Relay -- which is something I feel like I've only just begun to appreciate the complexity of. The Optech page on it is a good place to start.
I hope it's not because she got tired of dealing with all the crap that gets thrown her way. If it is, then that says a lot of bad about the bitcoin community.
I think that even if we end up with multiple popular implementations, being a maintainer of a popular one will be a horrendous job. It's kind of like being a mod for a popular subreddit or running a social media platform: you can never please everybody, and somebody will always react badly.
This goes for most FOSS nowadays. Hasn't been nice since covid really. Too many people are convinced they can do better, and then deliver crap.
I hope this isn’t our fate if SN becomes popular
You mean SN isn't popular... now??? :D
Hardly lol it got like 100 users
we're like a midsized subreddit lol
Midsized... I'm not even sure that SN is that big.
It took 15 years for Bitcoin to become a Store of Value (albeit a volatile one).
IMO it takes another 15 years to become a widespread medium of exchange SN is just the first evidence of that, using the Lightning Network.
money is the moderator
She was an unqualified and unmitigated disaster for Bitcoin core’s credibility.
Nope
Not that all crap was warranted, there's shit tier grief from the shit tier of any group thats been slighted. But some crap certainly was, she was openly hostile to the user base and culture that any prestige of that position was built upon.
The bigger concern is how she got into that position in the first place.
We ought to expect that any open source bitcoin project will succumb to all the weaknesses of humans. Bitcoin shouldn't care whether it's developers are principled or honest or good any more than it should care if its users are such. I'm interested to see energy in different implementations (not that I will necessarily run them).
We ought to expect it, but that doesn't mean we should sit quietly and watch it unfold.
The transparency expectation in open source is such that when we can see that much anticipated human weakness we can call it out to course correct. Open source is pointless without vocal observers.
That's the silver lining in Core losing some credibility, gets us closer to distributions perhaps. #1323746
Wouldn't most people just be better off...
Running Bitcoin core on 'standard settings', connecting a wallet to it and actually spending and using their Bitcoin?
Some people are better 'configuring' but honestly 99% of people are not. That's why I don't see the point of different "implementations". One good "implementation" and let fees and economic incentives define what Bitcoin is
Generally, yes, on a risk adjustment basis. As I've said before, anything beyond that is additional surface risk.
Software that uses Bitcoin underneath is additional surface in which to lose it. Seed phrase handling has lost more Bitcoin than just about anything, seed phrases are not part of Core.
But reality is, added surface exists to meet usability demands. Few are inclined to use Core on a secure desktop, it'd be a nightmare if people thought they could install it on their daily driver.
That's a completely separate issue.
A single source of distribution itself becomes a honeypot of risk. People that download Bitcoin Core do so without thinking about it, that lack of discernment is more dangerous than discerning wrong. This is how Core became a political body, it has political power over people who just blindly download Core due to its legacy.
The only way to save Core is to archive it, and force adherents to move to a new repo, only if they deserve will people will follow. If they do, their reign becomes undisputed. Until then they're showing they fear being found undeserving of Core's legacy.
I'm more in the distribution camp than the implementation camp, a minimal consensus kernel that many Bitcoin distributions build around would decentralize where people download from while the narrower scope diffuses politics of the central library. Those respective distributions also create a fork standoff because its no longer a distribution monoculture.
The existence of multiple choices requires discernment, we don't have that now because there is a "safe" default.
That's fair and I agree.
this line of reasoning is self‑defeating because the security and reliability of Bitcoin ultimately hinge on the people who write, audit, and maintain its code; ignoring human fallibility leaves the system exposed to bugs, backdoors, and mismanagement despite the protocol’s theoretical soundness.
I said expect not ignore. Multiple implementations seem to me to increase the expectation of review. Rather than relying on one implementation, users would have to actively choose their software. I completely disagree with you.
🤦🏿♂️
Then you're completely wrong :D
Please explain how multiple implementations by humans addresses this point:
"any open source bitcoin project will succumb to all the weaknesses of humans"
If your use of bitcoin requires honest developers, how do you expect it to do its job? If we are here using bitcoin because we believe it has a chance to resist the state, we have to expect that the state will attempt to compromise the development process. And I don't think that is something that we can count on recognizing. Therefore, we should expect that there will be compromises and position ourselves so that we don't have to care when it happens.
Having multiple implementations makes it easier for users to jump ship when flaws are spotted or because they feel that the implementation is compromised. When there's only one viable implementation, jumping ship means forking and building a community around a new fork. Seems like it would be far more desirable to already have a community of developers working on it.
Bitcoin doesn't need any forks... it's fine as it is IMO
"You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."
What's the story about how she got her position?
Not sure we know the full story, lots of NGO salaries involved which makes actual governance opaque.
Influencer cope. They are pushing their 'implementation' on their followers without explaining any of the risks while running it.
"Blockstream is captured...
Malicious miners are captured...
Exchanges are captured...
HWW companies are captured...
'The Devs' are captured because 'they love spam'...
'The spammers are doing great' these days because...
Everyone wants spam?"
It's incoherent and the reason why Core devs mostly ignore the Knots arguments.