Covenants are Dead, Quantum is Fake & BIP110 was Vibe Coded | Bitcoin 2026

Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. >> My name is Chris and I'm introducing James Ourn Vortex. And who are you on the far end? Is it is it Luke Dasher? >> It's GTXO. GTXO. Sometimes I'm a cat, sometimes I'm not a cat. It's shredding as cat, I think. >> Yeah. So, when we were asked, what kind of panel do you want to do? And we all agreed covenants are dead, quantum is fake, and BIP 110. I think we shouldn't talk about BIP 110. Should we? >> I haven't heard anything about bit 110 this whole conference. >> Nobody else has moved on like But can you quickly explain your hat? Maybe. >> Oh, this is my uh RTDS hat. Uh >> reduced >> reduced uh data temporary reduced temporary data uh soft. Yeah, not going to happen. So I I would say like BIP 110 like check. Um we can talk about another uh hard fork that's not going to happen. Uh eCash. >> No, that's happening. >> I I like it. >> Actually happened. >> I like it. I want at least one ecash t-shirt when this is all over. >> Okay. So they had e-cash hats yesterday. >> Okay. >> Of them. And I saw Robin Liners. Is he in the audience? >> Yeah, he was wearing one. >> He's wearing an ecash. So more Bitcoin than Bitcoin was their that's their slogan. So >> and they're going to redistribute Satoshi's coins, >> right? Yeah. Much like the Quantum guys, you know, this is their plan as well. >> They plan to, you know, do a brain drain of Bitcoin core and all of its horrible community. >> So >> see how well they do. >> Now that you mentioned Quantum, um, >> who here saw the Preston Pitch Jeff Booth Quantum podcast? That is that is good time management on behalf of the audience. I only saw one hand. >> I'm pretty sure that's an MK Ultra sub program. Uh >> there was a very interesting guy. He was just in the deep uh uh talking about quantum again. Uh and his argument against quantum was can you summarize >> uh quant uh bitcoin uh consciousness predates uh bitcoin blocks. Uh so that means that uh somehow proof of work makes quantum impossible. >> So we we on the stage we are like probably quantum like um realists. >> No, I think he's right. I think onto something appeared to be >> I mean I don't know what happened Preston Piff shortly retired after this podcast. So I don't know if I asked what caused that but uh yeah >> but yeah so with quantum continue on that >> what is your take >> to free >> I I hate to be the straight man on this panel because there are actually funny people here who can entertain you. So, I I hesitate to give a a real opinion, but um if you undermine the property rights in Bitcoin, you pretty much cook the thing. So, I don't I don't know why you would ever do that. Um if you set that precedent, it's a slippery slope. >> Yeah, I think you pretty much, you know, hit the nail on the head. Bitcoin's promise is neutrality. Bitcoin's promise is property rights. Bitcoin's promise is if you pay a fee, your transaction will get sent. If you hold your coin in self- custody, nobody will take it from you. Nobody will steal it from you. Nobody will freeze it. So, yeah, it definitely breaks the the social contract in many ways, a lot like BIP 110 does. Um, >> breaks the social contract. >> 110 limits. >> No more 110. >> Oh, my mic is off. >> Oh, thank God. >> Well, I'm double micing now. So, again, I will repeat the next person who will mention 10 uh off the stage to the right. Stu, do you have a final take on quantum? >> Quantum. Uh, I think maybe it's easier to fix the problem than it is to actually build a quantum computer. So, you know, we have some big brain people in Bitcoin. Uh, a lot of people getting nerd sniped by this problem, which maybe is, you know, a waste of time, but uh, yeah, I don't know. I think we'll we'll figure it out. Uh yeah >> to play devil's advocate there are also big brain people working on quantum >> but I would say photography is always on the side of the weaker person or like the weaker side. It is much much easier to buy uh to to build a shelter than it is to build like a a nuke. And we are at the stage where we're not even like deciding on like five different airframes how to build this thing. Like we're at the stage we can't even throw rock. Yeah. And we already have basically a a gold lined bunker. Like it's too expensive, like too heavy to to have like shrinks in Bitcoin like PQ signatures. Eventually the Galaxy brains um over at Local Rose Research or Chain Code or Blockstream, they will come up with a way to make it cheaper. Maybe a leadline bunker and eventually like a a a concrete bunker. So again, I'm also not very worried about quantum uh if it may ever come. We will be prepared. Yeah, I was just going to say just to add to that like you have to understand yes there's going to be people that are going to be grifting. Yes, there's going to be people raising on selling uh creating things that's going to take Satoshi's coins like but that most of the stuff is FUD. Understand that this stuff is not happening in a vacuum, right? We have people working on this stuff all over the world. There's dozens of different kinds of quantum computers. This stuff is known. It's not some shady person in the back like somewhere like ready to take somebody's coins. Like it's it's nothing like that. So the the the fact that um somebody is trying to tell you that it could happen overnight just makes no sense in the physical world and anything that we've experienced up to this point. So um just understand that there's smart people out there working on this stuff and you will know um when we get close. But right now we are not even it's science fiction at this point. So nothing beyond that. So to go from vexing to go from science fiction to like going to crack Bitcoin in two years that's freaking insane. So if anybody >> it's a really vexing misallocation of resources when we have like actually predictable challenges coming at us and we're you know devoting research time engineering time away from those things to work on fanfiction basically or I mean real cryptographic schemes that have real value potentially but in the process of doing that you're kind of reunderwriting the concern of quantum which is like totally ridiculous if you spend you know a few hours reading about it. So >> yeah, I would say like we we spend the right amount of attention on quantum should not necessarily like we should focus more on privacy aspects on Bitcoin or like the regulator regulatory capture that's happening on >> privacy scaling centralization you know we have some big things that we got >> there's a there's a spam spam is spam anaming issue >> uh possibly I don't know but uh there's a much bigger issue at hand uh you know we're no one's talking about this it's the uh well there's a few people, but it's the uh heat death of the universe. Uh and today I would like to announce project 13, which is uh to try and you know the the Bitcoin core devs are doing nothing at all to make Bitcoin multilanetary. The sun is going to explode at some point. >> Where can I invest? >> Well, there's no the block times are 10 minutes is not enough. It's not enough. We need higher block times. >> The hash Yeah. multilanetary. So these are the problems that we need. We're trying to solve. Hey, I cooked an egg on the head on the hood of my car the other day. So like we're basically a 5x away from heat death of the universe. >> Yeah, when that Yeah, the egg. Yeah, >> the egg. >> The seed round was led by Castle Island. >> Yeah, >> we have Durov. Yeah, >> project 13. Okay, bullish on project 13. >> Tell me where I can invest. >> Um, yeah. So with quantum um I I just recently saw like local research now is um trying to summarize things and have like Dan Bonet and Benedict Ben like actual cryptographers working on that not just people that lar. I think that is smart to have something like ready. Mike Schmidt said in the bullpen we have optionality and we refine it but we're not we're not setting anything in stone. So I personally believe CDSA will rather more likely be broken by advancements in like classical computing than it will be by quantum. >> So and eventually like we have to move on from SCP 256K1 probably because uh >> do you think >> security is a moving goal uh like or you you eventually like computers will get better um maybe not in my lifetime. That's the beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that we do have soft forks. So we can we >> soft fork believe it or not if we have the soft forks in the room with us right now. They might be. They might be. So, you know, have it's really important to understand that Bitcoin has been through a lot um and will go through a lot more like quantum itself is not even the final boss. Not even close to the final boss, right? What like what happens when you know sailor and company, you know, wants to do a quantum save fork, but yet it also like removes the 21 million limit. And anybody who doesn't like their fork is going to call the terrorist. So, what are you going to do? You going to choose sailor's pretty fork or the terrorist fork? Right. So we this is the type of you know adver ad adversarial thinking from centralization that's we have to really keep in mind and top of mind um because this kind of stuff this type of grift is is really easy to do and it's coming down the line. If you think sailor is not going to ever put forth a soft fork might want to think again it will happen one day and we have to be prepared for it. >> So who is going to run black rockck micro strategy soft fork like will it be Luke Dash here? Is he like is Luke Dash for hire after September? >> Could be. He might go to production ready. >> Oh yeah. >> Oh yeah. Jimmy Song will do it. He'll he'll take care of it. No problem. >> Are the guys from production ready in the room yet? >> No. >> I don't think they have >> zero code, zero GitHub, zero plan. >> They have a donate button. You can save a child in need by donating to production ready. looking forward to stickers. >> They had some stickers that were given out earlier. >> They've done the hard work. They've got a great brand. >> Yeah. >> Untarnished brand. >> They've done the hard work of creating, you know, the the the uh nonprofit. Nothing's left really. Almost nothing left. >> I mean, they don't have a hat yet. Is it a real project if it doesn't have a hat? >> No. >> We need we need more hats. But yeah, so you you touched on this this subject about um can Bitcoin um soft fork or like do we have achieved oification? I I think things are too fragmented. My base case at this point is that short of anything, you know, highly kind of motivated by some obvious threat uh or something that's totally uncontroversial, which you know, the set of things seems to be vanishingly small that fit that description. Um I think we're overfragmented. The things feel too big. So I don't see it happening. I hope I'm wrong. I desperately hope I'm wrong, but um I don't really see anything happening. >> So not bullish on BIP 54. I think that um Bitcoin I think it's still early days and I think Bitcoin is programmable money. So I think we have a lot of features left to put into Bitcoin, lots of scaling things left to put into Bitcoin, particularly Covenants, you know, um it's it's going to happen one day. Whether it's TXash, whether it's CTV, doesn't matter. Uh because it's it's really as increasingly as we're going, you know, year-over-year, it's becoming more and more uncontroversial and more and more obvious. then it makes pretty much every function on Bitcoin layer 1 more efficient. So, you know, I I think it I think it's coming, but we have to be patient and that's a big lesson that we have to do with Bitcoin when it comes to the this all this fear and this FUD, you know, from 110 from uh >> off the stage. >> Doesn't matter like what it is. Um, >> give it up for Vortex. Goodbye. >> Get the cane. >> Just make sure, you know, make sure that you come from a place of calm. Make sure you make your decisions from a place of research and calm and not from fear because that's what they that's what they pray on fear so they can rush things through quick. >> Yeah. I think the the only chance we had to saw fork was the very first day of the fork chat group chat that we got created uh where every like was an hour where everyone was you know we're all having fun. Mechanic was like oh we you guys can have CTV we'll do our thing. It's all great. Uh, and then I think Shinobi joined the chat and then it just >> it was over. >> It just ruined our chance. >> Shinobi nipped it in the bud. >> It just it just ended there. >> Speaking of CTV and I see uh Jeremy Rubin sitting in front row. There was >> the man >> there was this very optimistic person in this room who set out to ask the developers, the builders in Bitcoin to to lend their voice to a very notable cause. essentially a young Martin Luther writing a letter and I will provide you with the nails and the hammer and you can go to Chenko Labs and and have the official CTV CSF letter signed by everybody. We have a physical signed the CTV CSF letter. It's official >> by James Aurn. >> And I think Jeremy, you signed it. >> Didn't sign the original signed. >> Finally signed only. >> Thank you, Jeremy. >> Finally signed it. >> Year. >> Maybe, maybe, just maybe. Covenants are not dead yet. So, present to you. >> Covenants are not dead. >> Ah, well, that's too sweet. >> Did we see a tear? Did we see a tear in his eye? >> I was I was baptized Catholic. So, the comparison to Martin Luther may not be as flattering as you thought it might be, but but this is a wonderful gift. >> It's not a gift. No, you have to This is You're going to Chenode Labs HQ. >> You have to hand it to >> You have to go activate it now. >> It didn't. Yeah. >> You have to collect two more signatures, but we tried to get >> like misdemeanor property damage. >> Perfect. Wow. You even picked a monospace font. That's >> Yeah, >> it's high quality paper as well. Korea Pro Stew printed it out on premium paper. >> Who chewed on it? That is the question. Who chewed? >> We got messed up. We got >> That's too sweet, guys. Well, what do you what do you guys think is going to happen with that? I mean, I guess I don't know. Maybe the template hash thing will usurp it in in a very unsatisfying way. Um, but uh what do you guys think will come of it? >> I mean, the spiritual successor to CTV is Antoine's French CTV. There might be more >> diet CTV. I call it >> more consensus and uh >> it's not quantum safe. >> I just call it French CTV TX. >> Not quantum safe. >> It's not quantum safe. So >> probably won't survive. >> Is that Is that Mr. Hamilton who's just, you know, he hackling? Is that >> Is that Rob the giggler? No, but actually I mean like while I have the venue um it is that is kind of unfortunate because having been in industry in a few different positions you kind of see how widely deployed for example HSM are and how that creates real impediments to taper adoption for organizations that like would really like to do things you know a better version of pre-signed transactions and so the inclusion in you know witness um v uh v0 like was a conscious design so it's a shame to see that go Okay. Uh I don't really know if there's a good reason for it. I don't I don't think that there is. So, but it's not none of it's happening anyway because uh the the human system, the power of Bitcoin is sort of fundamentally misguided. So, it's it's all right. >> What a doomer. What a doomer. No, we are much more uplifting. So, will we see another soft fork in the next 30 years? Show of hands. >> Yeah. >> Will we see another soft fork in the next 20 years? >> The same amount of people. >> Same question basically. If we go down to two years now, will we see Mike Tidwell? >> That's a little low. >> How naive of you? >> That's a little low. >> Yeah, >> I'll go for like four to eight years, I'd say. But it's definitely not off the table and it's definitely not impossible because we can come together and do things like we've done it before. We've created Bitcoin. So, I I believe that um when something is uncontroversial enough like the great consensus cleanup and these things um we can come together and we can get it activated because there are people that care about Bitcoin and um there's a lot of people that care about Bitcoin that are interested enough to run nodes that are powerful powerful enough that do the research that read all the papers and that will help make this happen. >> You're talking about Nick Carter? >> Yeah. No, Nick's Nick's Nick has all the knowledge. >> All the knowledge. He talks with all the knowledge people. >> I think once ecash flips Bitcoin, then we're going to have be forced to do drive chains. So, >> yeah. >> Yeah. >> What is the agreement on stage? Do the chains have to drive? >> Leave them in neutral. >> Yeah, >> chains have to drive. Yeah. Um Paul is one pissed-off guy for sure. >> If you read uh go to ecash, I encourage you all to read his little uh his little frequently asked questions there and uh you will find one upset man. This guy's been told no for so long that um yeah, >> he finally snapped. >> He's finally snapped, dude. He's ready to burn it all, dude. Like, he really is. He's ready to burn it all. >> We love Paul. Is Paul in the room? >> We love Paul. >> We love Paul. >> Crazy Uncle Paul. >> He's the crazy uncle. >> It wouldn't be Bitcoin without him. >> He's like the I think Nick Carter, who maybe I person whatever, but uh he refers to him as the Steely Dan of Bitcoin. And I kind of agree. Maybe he's lost that title, but uh wouldn't be Bitcoin without Paul. >> Well, it's not gonna be Bitcoin then because that dude's leaping. >> I can't believe it's not ecash. >> Um >> so which topic? Like suggest a topic. I think we >> Oh, it is Wednesday. >> It's Wednesday. No, we're not going to do racism Wednesday. >> Wednesday. I mean, >> uh, >> no. >> So, the people that are now confused, um, >> don't explain. >> Don't explain. >> Not here. Not here. >> Not here. So, there is a group chat and very much like fight club, uh, we have one rule. We constantly talk about this group chat to other people that are not on the group chat >> all the time. >> So, when this panel was rolled by coincidence. Yeah. But no, like let's move on to another precient topic in Bitcoin. >> Uh I think you know we're we're currently all getting mogged right now by the main stage. I think you know we're all here in our little open source stage. We're debating quantum. We're doing like oh lightning's dead all this stuff. And then over in the other conference you have block announcing you know 800,000 merchants are adopting lightning. You have light spark they're doing their whole like they have this partnership. You have Tether. They're doing all this stuff. They're getting users. They're getting all this stuff. And then we're here still like fighting over this like we're like trapped in this like little like quantum realm where we're Yeah. in this little bubble and you know things are happening and we're Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how you feel about that. >> So you're saying we're not like we're putting wins on the board but we're like too depressed and doomer and >> Right. Yeah. Nerd sniped. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We're all uh we're all mad but you know things are happening without us. So maybe you know the quantum people in quantum they want to fire the devs. This is like I think a narrative maybe they're going to fire the Bitcoin devs. >> Everybody wants to fire the Bitcoin core devs. >> Maybe we're already been fired. I don't know. Maybe it's done. >> Unfortunately, you can't fire them. So >> that's that's the nature of open source. >> No matter how bad Roger and Luke and Mechanic want to fire Bitcoin Core, unfortunately that's just not a possibility. >> But yeah, maybe that's that's a good topic. Like so people firing devs and they like permissionless open source system that that is insane. But what can happen is that capable devs become apathetic or like they become um like burnt out or they get criticized or like personally attacked and vilified that they then leave the project like >> oh yeah >> that is an actual attack vector in Bitcoin. And everybody like talk to your favorite deaf, give them words of encouragements, fund them, and yeah, give them feedback. And that that goes a very long way. I talk to people and they say like just one message, you know, of appreciation. >> You'd be surprised what one message can do for somebody. >> Luke Dashia, I think, you know, you're cool. You know, slide in his DMs. You know, >> what what was that? Hey, just in case Luke comes after me. >> Yeah, Luke's Luke's done some stuff. >> You know, some important stuff obviously. Um but you know that that what's really important uh I think to understand is the concept of Bitcoin derangement syndrome because this is something that continues to keep happening and will keep happening and we have to be vigilant and we have to be able to recognize it and >> it's strange. >> It's everybody but no uh >> Bitcoin is not about you as you're saying it seems you have to slay your ego. >> It's really simple to recognize when someone thinks that they can control Bitcoin basically. So, you know, Roger, mechanic, Luke, uh maybe Paul, maybe not. We'll have to see what he's going to do. But, um when you think you can take over an open source project and start to single-handedly steer it, that's when you know you've gone off the deep end. That's when you know you need uh maybe a hug from a friend or something because you have completely lost your mind. And we've seen it happen several times. And again, it's going to happen again in the space. You know, you don't think, like I said, you don't think Sailor thinks he's he's important enough to steer the direction of Bitcoin. We don't know, but uh we're going to find out. >> Realistically, him and Larry Frink probably are given the amount of Bitcoin that they actually control. And >> it's not as it's definitely not a zero% chance for sure. >> I think we we have a very polyianish view of how that stuff works. And I mean, that was a lot at the end. And that was kind of a lot of what was motivating me about CTV is because we may find these kind of phase change events where it's like, wow, I really need to get all of my Bitcoin out of an exchange now in a kind of herd, you know, thundering herd type pattern because one of these guys decides, oh yeah, we're we're doing a fork and we're using our full economic leverage to do it. And there's been a lot less discourse about stuff like that relative to like Pixie Fairy Dust fanfiction, you know, type stuff like Quantum and, you know, totally brainless zombified filters stuff. So it's it's it's like very disappointing to me to see the discourse drift from substance. >> It is a little disappointing >> to be the downer. It >> really is because if you just think about it like if we are you know if we can't handle a little bit of spam drama without dropping a three a terribly vibecoded fork three months out. You know what what are we going to do when there's an actual you know threat uh impending? So just again it's all comes down to communication and doing your research because we're not nobody is in a vacuum. Bitcoin is not in a vacuum. These freaking spammers aren't in a vacuum. All these other people like you know staying vigilant and paying attention and following the right people and your passion is really the only way you're going to be able to stay vigilant in this space because it changes all the time and there's always somebody with an agenda. So follow carefully >> or log off and you know don't go online just use bitcoin like Twitter is not a real place and it's very healthy from time to time >> you know to put >> that away >> Twitter is real life this is what you have to admit this this is the reality we live in that >> X it's called X now that name you know >> this is how it works in open source and when you attach you know it was already open source software is already messy but when you attach money to it, of course, it's going to get even more messy. But that doesn't mean that it's impossible to follow, impossible to um have a conversation, impossible to do things like eventually software. There are discussions happening all the time on the mailing list and in Delving that are completely away from Bitcoin Twitter that nobody has any idea about. Um but it's it's happening and that's where the real discussion is. It's I assure you it's not on Bitcoin Twitter as much as I love it. Um the real discussion about these important points are happening between developers in places off Twitter. We're just gonna have Vortex wind down the last two minutes here. Just >> can't believe we didn't we didn't talk about AI. Oh, >> isn't that why we're all here? >> Yeah. Like everybody pivots to AI. Uh, so I'm announcing project 12. No. >> Yeah. I want to talk about James' tractor. That's what I want to know. >> Yeah. Kubota LX 2610. Got a backhoe on it. Bought it with 72 hours used. >> I want to ride. >> Good deal. Yeah. Yeah. Pull stumps out like an MFer. >> Come by the farm. >> Oh yeah. Any question? >> So we have audience participation. Tidville throw lob a improv topic on the stage >> or some questions. >> Hamilton timeout. >> Given the important recent breaking news that Luke Jr. stop drinking Dr. Pepper market prediction that he's gonna transition to there. >> Celsius. I mean, if there is a prediction market, the person that just yelled bino will be probably the liquidity provider >> liquidity. >> So like he's on his phone right now. I see him setting up the products. So >> open. >> Oh my god. But he also like he lobbed on bino which like you can just do things. I think Robert Lin is also somewhere in the audience. Um like that is performative like performance art to like troll people into seeing hey we can do covenants in a very messy way. Let's do it the right way. >> It is crazy how many ways we've discovered um that we can create covenant covenants completely inefficiently. Like it is fascinating. >> Cash collision. All you need to do is have $150 worth of comput >> TV but you know it is it is fascinating and we're finding new discoveries um all the time and it's really still exciting space for me still >> maybe that is the way to build to build consensus like you you troll Peter Val into like getting nerd stepped into this and then you find Greg Maxwell in some gardening subreddit and then eventually maybe covenants are not dead and you know hope dies last and we are running out of time. Oh, >> thank you. That was the panel. >> Thank you guys. >> James, Vortex, Stew, and my name is Chris. Thank you. >> Thanks everybody. >> Thanks guys. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.