21 Lessons with Gigi - Author Cast #2

Hello, dear viewers and listeners. Welcome to AuthorCast. And today we have the magnificent Gigi who wrote the 21 Lessons, and we are, we are helping publish it in Finnish and in Dutch, and we're working together with the, with the Portuguese version as well. Welcome, Gigi. How are you doing? Hey, thanks for having me. I'm doing fine. So to, to get right out of the gates, tell us a little bit about, about the book. Uh, why did you write it? And who is it for?

Well, it's a good question who the book is for. I think it was mostly for myself. I wrote it because I kind of, uh, I was just immersed in Bitcoin for a long period of time and more and more things clicked for me. And I had multiple insights where I was just like, it completely blew my brains out. And I felt like I just had, I had an obligation to write about it. I wrote it back in, like at a time where there was not as much good information out there about Bitcoin as there is now. Like there was still very, very crypto and shitcoin heavy. And most people did not really understand the gravity of the situation we're in and the gravity of Bitcoin in the sense how profound of an innovation it is and how big the revolution actually is that Bitcoin ushers in, kind of. And so I had the urge to write about it. I had no choice in the matter, kind of. So I just, yeah, sat down and started writing about what I've learned from Bitcoin. That's how the book came to be because someone was asking around on Twitter, like, what have you learned from Bitcoin? You know, and he was listing some things like, you know, of course economics and game theory and those kind of things. And I tried to reply, actually, that's how everything started. I tried to write a short reply, like one or two tweets or so, and it grew completely out of hand. And I very soon realized that I have to write a longer piece on that. And that's how the book kind of came to be.

Right. Yeah. And it was probably one of my first books as well that I read about Bitcoin with, along with Knut's books, I think. And also one of the first ones that we translated. I really liked like your book. And I think I read it in, in paper first. I didn't even realize that, uh, it's, it's really available online, which is great, by the way. And I, I encourage other authors to do the same, you know. Um, Calla Rosenbaum did the same with The Croaking Bitcoin as well. We make it, make it open source, and that's the way we want the information to flow. And it doesn't really take anything away, in my opinion, uh, you know, from the physical books, because you can't beat physical books. as a medium either. You know, it's, it's, uh, it's still, uh, great.

Yeah, absolutely. And it, it, it definitely works for me. Like, I, um, I'm a huge believer, uh, even before Bitcoin, I, I realized that, uh, like information wants to be free, kind of. It's kind of nonsensical to charge for digital information in particular. You know, like it's, you, you, you can copy it freely. That's why Like, that's the way it, that's the way information works. If you can read it, you can also copy it. Like computers are copying machines. And that's also why any kind of DRM or any kind of anti-copying mechanism never works. You know, like if you can decode it, then you can also copy it freely. And so I think it's like, for example, I'm also, I'm very opposed to paywalls. I don't think they really. Yeah. I don't think they are the right concept. And so I never will charge for pieces of information, like for bits and bytes, I will never charge. And for me as an author, even though it's really weird to talk of myself as an author, because I still see myself as a software engineer and not an author, but well, here we are. It really works that the book is open source and it's available online. Everyone can read it for free. Everyone can clone it and remix it and do whatever they want. Yeah. do, you can do what you want with it also in terms of translations and republishing and all of that. But you can also, you know, just buy the physical copy and it seems like this really works and most people want to have the physical copy of something if they really like it. And it also helps with decentralization, you know, like it's very hard to destroy all the copies of the book. Um, if, you know, it's like the, the Bible principle kind of, you know, like it's just out there and it won't go away and it will survive like good books usually outlast empires. And so, yeah, I would also encourage people in the Bitcoin space to think about this and to use open licensing. I'm completely blown away how many people went out of their way to translate the book. So huge shout out to you guys as well. And I think it was translated now into, I don't know, like 10+ languages or something like that. It's absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. And I do the same for all my newer writing as well. And, you know, I get pinged. Like probably like 2 or 3 times a week that some, some of my stuff was translated and that's absolutely amazing. So shout out to everyone who, who is taking the initiative and translating Bitcoin stuff into their native language because I think that's very much needed.

Yeah. And shout out to all our volunteers because everybody's kind of like working on sweat equity here, you know, to try to put the work in and get the information out. And information is non-scarce good that actually gets more valuable the more it's shared. So that's why, you know, intellectual property rights don't really make much sense. You know, rather we should focus on providing good reading experience. You know, that's why, for example, I put a lot of effort in that, in the typesetting your book. I added a lot of the original art there as well. Um, actually I have your book here, so maybe you can, you can see. Let's, let's, yeah, you know, like stuff like this. Awesome. Yeah. So it will make it, um, a whole different experience if you really like the book. And I really do like the book and you know, like it's the rabbit hole book, right? Like you said about the shitcoin and stuff, you know, you always have these people come in the scene and, you know, trying to, yeah, let's see how we can change Bitcoin to fit our needs. But this book is about how Bitcoin will change you. That's the way I read it.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of the lessons, I think it's even the first lesson that, you know, like you won't change Bitcoin, but Bitcoin will change you. And exactly, it has this weird property because, and this is really hard to understand, At first, because in the end, it's, it's just computer code, right? And you can change computer code, like it's open source software. And everyone knows that you can just clone open source software and, you know, change whatever you like. And, and so, um, it, it, it, it is this contrast between something that is supposedly immutable and something that is also open source and can be changed by anyone at any time. And, um, figuring out how all of this works and how the pieces fit together is a very long journey. And for me personally, that's why I put it as the first lesson as well. Like for me, I had a profound personal transformation because of my exposure to Bitcoin and understanding the whole thing kind of in some way at least. I'm not, I don't claim to understand Bitcoin fully or anything like that, but Bitcoin will transform you and Bitcoin just by its very nature of being immutable, you, it, like everything around it has to change. Right. Because you can't change Bitcoin, so Bitcoin will change the environment. And the environment is also people. And so Bitcoin will change the individual on a profound level. And I think this was one of the many insights that kind of blew me away. And it was of course also a very personal thing because I, felt very deeply how Bitcoin is changing me and changing my outlook for the future and my view of the world and those kind of things.

Yeah, same here. And, you know, I used to live in the fiat world and Bitcoin truly changed me for the better. And it's also, you know, it changes the world. Like we talked with Jan Pritzker in another Authorcast about, you know, value measurement standardization when you have a yardstick that does not flex. So you can, you can measure everything, the reality against that. It's the implications of that is, you know, just to think about it, it's going to be very interesting to see.

Yeah. And I'm, I'm still, I'm still trying to make sense of it all. And that's also why I'm still writing and I'm currently working on my second book actually. And one of the chapters will also be about how Bitcoin is the first thing that we have that is absolutely scarce. So the 21 million supply we had. We never had anything like that. And it takes a very long while to appreciate that and to understand that, that to come to grips with the implications of that as well. And I think what's coming back to the personal transformation, what to me is so insanely fascinating is that it happens over and over and over again. So your personal story that you just told, how Bitcoin changed you, like just talk to, you know, 100 random Bitcoiners and at least half of them will tell you the same thing, if not, if not more, you know, like I wouldn't be surprised if like 90 out of 100 would tell you the same story.

Yeah. The rest are lying.

Yeah, probably. Or did not, did not really understand Bitcoin in a, in a, in the way that most Bitcoiners do. But, uh, it's funny how, how people speak of their, you know, like, um, coming from the fiat world or leaving their fiat self behind and those kind of things, you know, it's, it's almost like a, spiritual rebirth of sorts that you, you, you, you view the world so differently now that it's almost like a, a past life. You know, that's how people talk about it. And it's definitely true for me as well. And I think the, I think, I think it's, it's interesting to kind of analyze this in a, in a way. And of course, Saifedean also wrote about it a lot in terms of how Bitcoin lowers your time preference. And that's definitely in 21 Lessons there as well. If you understand sound money and if you understand hard money and if you understand the difference between sound money standard and fiat money, which just continually depreciates, you will understand how having a hard money that you can rely upon into the future will change your outlook about the future. Suddenly you can plan for the future. You can, you take your future self more seriously. You take better care of yourself because you actually have a tool that allows you to plan for the future properly. The future becomes less uncertain in some sense. You know, like if for me, for example, you know, I know Bitcoin won't go away. I know Bitcoin won't, you know, Bitcoin will be there for me. And so I have a certain fixed point in my life that I can kind of plan my life around. And of course, you know, there's also the monetary aspect in And in the sense of your purchasing power not being debased and that, that allows you future optionality as well. But I think to me, one of the even more interesting things about Bitcoin is how it also forces some kind of responsibility on you. You know, like you have to hold your own keys, otherwise you are not using Bitcoin. Otherwise, whatever you have, you, you don't have, you don't have Bitcoin, you have an IOU. Yeah. And to participate in the Bitcoin network and to validate that your Bitcoin are actually the Bitcoin as you understand it, you have to run your own node. And so it is this participatory thing that like, it forces you to, to take part of it kind of, you know, like it's, it's really interesting in that sense. And, uh, yeah, I think that's why we see Bitcoin, um, kind of continually changing lives and changing minds and changing hearts because it lowers your time preference and it increases the responsibility that you have to take for yourself. And of course, you know, that this seeps out into other areas of your life. I think that's why we see, you know, Bitcoiners suddenly living healthier lifestyles and suddenly, you know, taking responsibility about other areas of their life. And all of that is interconnected, of course, you know, like Bitcoiners are very hopeful. Some, some of us were very nihilistic before the discovery of Bitcoin because there, there was seemingly no out. Yeah. And all of that I think is super, super interesting and, and Not talked about enough yet.

Yeah, I, I, I wholeheartedly agree. And, you know, denialism, it, it was terrible because you, you kind of felt, I, I felt the world is a very hopeless place and, and Bitcoin gave me hope. And I think Bitcoin gives people faith that, you know, like you said, Bitcoin will be there. You know, things can happen and bad things can happen, but Bitcoin will be there. So I found it interesting that a lot of Bitcoiners also, you know, choose to have a lot of kids. And, and, you know, what's more hopeful and what's more low time preference activity than having kids? You know, it's the ultimate investment in the future. And, you know, the spiritual journey that you mentioned, you know, and faith and everything, it's not that far-fetched. And, and it's very understandable that people talk, uh, see, uh, Bitcoiners like this kind of like a religious cult almost, or, or like a Bitcoin is a religion. It's like, you know, you can make certainly that case. Yeah. And maybe to dive into that a little bit, you have something very interesting, a concept called, uh, uh, immaculate conception in the book. And this was very interesting because I, I believe Jordan Peterson brought this up in, in his podcast with Saifedean. Um, so yeah, he clearly resonated with him. And by the way, it was really nice, the one that you did with, with him as well. You, you were there, uh, with, uh, uh, Breedlove and, and other people to, to orange peel him. And, and I think he's kind of join the ranks very soon because his mind was like, it was blown by, by the, you know, Bitcoin mining and stuff. So maybe, maybe talk about, uh, the Immaculate Conception. How did you, uh, come up with this idea and what does it mean?

Yeah. Um, I, I don't even claim to have come up with it. It was a concept, uh, that like some people were talking, um, about this concept before me, but, um, it's, it's basically You mentioned Robert Breedlove and he wrote about this as well, how Bitcoin is path dependent. And that's basically the idea that Bitcoin came out of nowhere. And it's also, it's not only that it came out of nowhere and it was the first system that actually showed a working solution to the Byzantine's general problem and to the double spend problem and really decentralizing all aspects of digital cash. So it solved a lot of problems in, like, it solved basically like 5 impossible problems before breakfast. Like, that's Bitcoin for you. And the immaculate conception part is that Satoshi, you know, like he created Bitcoin and then he very soon, he disappeared. He disappeared before the first halving. There was no pre-mine, there was no monetary gain. You know, like he basically disappeared before Bitcoin really started to monetize, you know, like that's, it's insane how early he went away. So Bitcoin was, is truly this, you know, like people talked about in the old days about gold in the same way that gold is the gift from the gods. You know, like you don't know if you don't know chemistry and astrophysics and so on, you don't know where gold came from. It's this magical substance that does not go away. That's, you know, does not, like, you can't destroy it. It does not rust. It does not disappear. It doesn't react with anything. So it's not outrageous to view gold through this lens that, you know, it was a gift from the gods and it's like, it's super rare, but it's still kind of, you can find it basically almost everywhere, you know, like it's everywhere in the crust of the earth. But it's, so no one knows where it came from. With Bitcoin, it's similar, but it's also different. we know where it came from, you know, like Bitcoin has a very rich prehistory, but it had this immaculate conception in the sense that no one, still no one knows who Satoshi is, you know, like no one knows who Satoshi was. We don't know if he, she, it is alive or not. I talk about Satoshi as a single person and as a male because that's how he presented himself. And that's also what, you know, like if you look at his activity, for example, I think it was one person and not a team because it's just too regular. And, you know, he was definitely sleeping and We know his time zone kind of based on the timestamps of the forum posts and emails and all of it. And also just in terms of what he built and what he wrote, it very much seems like one person to me. You know, like it's, you can definitely build the first version of Bitcoin over like 2 years, 2 and a half years or something like that alone. Like if you can code a little bit, like people have done more outrageous things in terms of code. In shorter periods of time, which is, it's really fun to dig into the early versions of Bitcoin, by the way. Like you'll find a lot of weird things in there and it's, it's riddled with bugs as well, you know? And there are also great analysis of the, of the white paper. Like Satoshi was very human, you know, like he made some mistakes. Like one of the most obvious mistakes is he, he repeatedly said, and also in the implementation, this was wrong for the longest time. that it's about the longest chain, which is absolutely nonsensical once you begin to understand what Bitcoin is and how it works, because it's about the most accumulated proof of work, you know, and this was fixed as well. And so the descriptions in the white paper are also, you know, he often talks about the longest chain and there are some nice summaries by core developers and other people who point out the kind of misunderstandings that Satoshi himself had. And so I don't think, You know, maybe there was some divine intervention. I don't want to rule that out, but the origins of Bitcoin are very human in my opinion. But the immaculate conception idea is that, that, you know, Bitcoin, it, it, it worked from the start and there was no change in monetary policy or, or anything like that. Even though a lot of people have tried, the first versions are still backwards compatible, you know, like you can still run clients that Satoshi released and you will be in consensus. There was no pre-mine. There were no eyes on the space that tried to front-run Bitcoin and buy all the Bitcoins as soon as, you know, mining was possible, kind of. It was very, very fairly launched and no one even thought that it was possible. You know, for the first couple of years, everyone, like the main reaction was, okay, this will definitely fail. It took many, many years until people figured out, okay, What if it doesn't fail? You know, like what if this actually works, this weird Frankensteinian technology of like, you know, 15 different technological building blocks glued together by a weird difficulty adjustment with economic incentives. Like it's super, super weird how Bitcoin works. That's, I think also why technologists don't particularly like it. You know, like it's, it's more this, it's, it's way closer to a life form than to an engineering marvel, you know, like it's, it's, it's way closer to like a biotope than it is to, uh, like, uh, uh, an engine or something like that, you know, like it has this human and psychological and economic component to it. And so, um, I think kind of, um, there, there are multiple ways on how you can view it. This, uh, I don't think it can be repeated. You know, I don't think this experiment can be repeated. And if it would be repeated successfully, it will be pretty much impossible to have this immaculate conception again. I mean, people don't even try, you know, like all, all the shitcoins, for example, they're all pre-mined and so on. And they, they all have a founder and they all have a development team. But even if it would be possible, you would have all the eyes on, on the new thing and the big money, you know, like with believing that this will work as well, the big money will front run all the plebs. And so that's part for me, for the Immaculate Conception that, you know, you had the hardcore cypherpunks, believers, regular people that nurtured Bitcoin for the first 10 years at least. You know, like it's, it's the big institutions are only now coming in. Governments are only now coming in. And it, it was really, it's a revolution from the ground up.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a lot of people are talking about also that it was more like a discovery that maybe You know, like the foresight that Satoshi had for sure was, was phenomenal, but he didn't think of all of that. I, I, he, he even said that he didn't think if, if it's going to take off or not. And we, I, I guess we, we still don't, we can't be sure. Uh, but yeah, um, I don't think you can launch it again. I mean, the reason why shitcoins are being launched is to make money for the launchers, right? I mean, why wouldn't you just join the existing monetary transmission network that has all the network effects, that has all the updates. Why wouldn't you work on that? You know, just like I think he says also in the white paper that an attacker, you know, ought to find it more profitable to support the network. And I think this is like, this is the lifeblood of Bitcoin because it just keeps pulling people in that maybe people will look at like, okay, what's the angle here? How do I benefit from this? Do I attack it? Do I try to hack it? And then the conclusion inevitably will be, I might as well just mine. I might as well just, you know, develop the code. I might as well just support the network and, and get in on it myself because if I don't, you know, I will pay the price later as a higher, and, and I do believe everybody will get Bitcoin at the price that they deserve.

Yeah, absolutely. And it, it has this weird effect that you, once you truly understand it, you kind of try to get as many sats as you can because you will realize other people will come to the same conclusion and they will try to front run you. So you might as well front run them. Yeah. And once you realize how insanely resilient the system is, it, it, like you, you have to kind of come to the conclusion that attacking it is, is economically speaking, not a, not a great move. You know, it's way like way more profitable to play along kind of. And that's, that's how I view Bitcoin. Like that's one lens on how you can understand Bitcoin to see it as a game, you know, just like chess, for example. You know, like it's, Uh, it, you, you, you can try to change the rules of chess, but you will probably play it alone. Yeah. You know, like increase the, increase the size of the chessboard, uh, by 2x, you know?

Yeah.

And then try people to, to find to play it. It's, it's not like, it's not like you can't do it, but it's just kind of nonsensical, you know, like consensus rules, uh, are very similar in, in that regard. And I think it's also like, it's, it's, it's kind of, It's kind of interesting that you can like understand Bitcoin in 15 different ways and you will, you know, you will never be truly wrong, but it's also viewing it as just a game is also wrong in some sense. So I think Bitcoin is just so new and so different that you just have to try to take it as it is, you know, like every analogy will fall short. And currently, again, like I'm working on a new book called 21 Ways, which I'm already behind, so I won't even try to say when it comes out, but it's like 50% done, something like that. And Bitcoin is Time was, for example, one chapter of it. And every analogy, like if you think you know what Bitcoin is, you're probably wrong because every analogy is wrong in some important sense. But I think it is helpful to have some of the analogies and Also some of the metaphors that already exist. And coming back to the immaculate conception, you know, like something coming out of nowhere, that's a very important metaphor, even though it's also wrong. You know, like it's, we know where Bitcoin came from and, you know, like Hashcash was a very important concept and reusable proof of works and of course peer-to-peer systems like BitTorrent and those kinds of things. We needed all these building blocks for something. like Bitcoin to work. But I would also agree that you can definitely view it as a discovery, more like an invention. But it's, you know, the lines get blurry if the things that are being discovered or invented are kind of like fundamental in some sense. And I view digital scarcity as a fundamentally new thing, just like the wheel, you know? Thinking of a wheel is inventing the wheel, is also uncovering the, discovering the wheel, you know, like it's like you can't think of a wheel without also kind of discovering slash inventing it. And it's also the design space of a wheel is, is limited. So improving upon a wheel, which is just a circle with a hole in it, is very, very hard. You know, like you, the wheel was, was just, it was the same wheel for thousands of years now, you know. You don't need to improve upon the wheel in a meaningful way. And very similar, like there are some things, um, I mean, I, I, I obviously like, I, I, I keep thinking about these things and that's not all of that is in 21 Lessons. Uh, very, very few of it is. That's also why I want to expand upon it. But for example, some things like absolute scarcity is only possible in the digital realm. Very much like error correction, for example, is only perfect error correction is only possible in the digital realm. Like you, if you want to copy something perfectly, you have to do it digitally. You cannot do it in an analog fashion. It's absolutely impossible. And very similarly, coming up with something that is absolutely scarce is only possible in the digital realm because you have to make up this, this dance or you have to define a game that will produce something that is absolutely scarce. You, like anything that's physical, if you, if you have a high fidelity 3D scanner and, or a Star Trek-like replicator, you can replicate it, you know, like there's nothing you can't be, that can't be replicated because you can always arrange the atoms in a way so that you have the same thing again. You know, I mean, you, you know, abstract concepts like time, they are absolutely scarce, but you know, again, you can also make more humans. So then you have more human time kind of. Yeah. But in the digital realm, even though it seems nonsensical, it sounds like an oxymoron, you know, like have something that is digital also be scarce. But Bitcoin shows us that this is definitely possible. And once you have it, it doesn't make sense to create a second game that also has digital scarcity. You know, like you only need digital scarcity once and you can use it as an anchor and a base layer. And I think, but this is, it's so difficult to come to these conclusions. It's so hard to understand this. I have a lot of sympathy. for people that are not just there yet. You know, it's like, okay, why, why is Bitcoin special? You know, like why, like the gold bugs will have the argument or some of them will have the argument that, you know, Bitcoin is not scarce because there is like 50,000 shitcoins. And in some sense they're right, but in some sense they're also very, very wrong because I could also make the argument, you know, like binary encoding for information is useless because you can encode it using zeros and ones. You can encode it using A and B. And, you know, it's also not a new thing because we have it in DNA as well. And there it's like, Uh, for, uh, uh, base pairs and so on. And, and, uh, to me it comes, comes back to what is the new thing of Bitcoin. And one of the new aspects of Bitcoin is to have something that is absolutely scarce. And this is only possible in the digital world and we only need it once. Yeah. But yeah, I'll stop ranting now.

No, no, no, it's, it's cool. And, uh, you know, maybe we can go a little bit more into the, the idea of Bitcoin being time, but I want to make one more comment because it's funny that we're talking about the wheel and the discovery and invention because that's what we also talked about with Knut and we talked about with Jan and now we talk about with you. So clearly it's something that is on people's mind. So yeah, I just wanted to add to that that, you know, like the circular shape has always been there, right? It's a natural thing. It's the same way as the, you know, Bitcoin, they're basically big numbers, right? So they have always been there. And rather maybe the invention part is to, you know, make a functional circular shape, aka the wheel. Or maybe what Satoshi invented was the framework or put the existing pieces in place and invent the window rather through which we could discover Bitcoin.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I very much like this analogy and you saying that the round shape was always there. Because the original cypherpunks, like the people who worked on the first asymmetric cryptography protocols and ciphers, they realized this very early on that, you know, that in our universe, there's this asymmetry between kind of creating a secret, which is very easy, and finding the right key for this secret, which is very, very hard. So you have this, and this is a mathematical property of our universe. No one really knows why that is, you know, like it's— It could be, it, it maybe, maybe, maybe it's nonsensical to even think that it could be otherwise, but that is a property of, of, of our universe. And, and they realized that there is this complete imbalance of power. Like you can, you can build defenses, like you can encrypt something, for example, and no one can break it, break it, period. The only way to open it up again is to have the key. And they realized the implications of that very early on, like in the '60s and '70s and so on, maybe even earlier than that. And they were musing about, you know, cryptographic money, which Bitcoin is, and of what the implications are. You know, like you basically have a perfect safe. You can put anything in there. No one can take it away from you. It doesn't matter how big your army is and so on. And that's also, I think, why, yeah, why a lot of people are so excited about this because once you understand this properly, You will realize that, you know, like the world has already changed. It's just that, you know, everyone else in the world kind of has to catch up and the current, the current structures of the world also have to catch up with this new reality kind of.

Right. And, and yeah, it's, it's a hurdle to understand that you can have systems that cannot be touched by anybody. Like if you ask anybody on the street, regular people, the assumption is that somebody you know, a trademark of somebody will know better. All the information is already there. We already know everything. And, and, uh, no matter what we do, everything is under control by somebody. And, and there's, uh, I read Crypto Economics by Erik Bosko, which is a great book. And in, in the very beginning, he outlines axiom of resistance. And I think this is the crux that you need to believe and you need to understand to even begin to get Bitcoin, that why it's important. that you can actually, we can't prove it of course, but we can believe that there's systems that cannot be touched by anybody.

Yeah, I think, I think also, um, Bruce Schneier, who is the security researcher, um, he wrote about this very eloquently, uh, speaking about, um, like 200 and, uh, 60, uh, 256-bit security. Because like, that's what SHA-256 basically uses, or you can understand SHA-256 like that as well, that we can be absolutely sure about some things because we know, like, if our understanding of physics is correct, there are some, there are certain physical limits. And for example, the security that Like is embedded in SHA-256 in the sense that to break it, you will have to find a collision. And that is like searching a very large space, so to speak. If, if we assume that our understanding of the physical universe is approximately correct, then even if you built the perfect computer and you built something around the sun that can absorb all of the sun's energy and power this one supercomputer, you know, like there are physical limits of how big this computer can be because otherwise it will collapse into a black hole. And you have, you know, light speed and other limits. But let's just assume we are the most advanced civilization that can ever exist. And we can do basically anything that is allowed by the laws of physics. You, you still can't break SHA-256 in a meaningful amount of time. You know, it will still take hundreds of thousands of years. Like, it's absolutely ridiculous. And so he has, he has this line, you know, where, you know, like these, it's not about, um, having better algorithms or building better computers. Like, um, if, unless computers are made of something other than matter and use something else than energy, we cannot break these, these strong cryptographic protocols, you know? And of course, you know, take it with a grain of salt because, uh, like, uh, it's, you, you have to do everything right and you have to implement the protocols correctly. And there are other attacks and side-channel attacks and, you know, the easiest way to break Bitcoin is to go to someone's home and, you know, pull out a gun and force them to hand over the keys and so on. So it's like, it's not about that. You have to kind of understand that everything I say is about certain aspects. It's not that Bitcoin can't be stolen.

Right. Yeah. You have to understand the axioms.

Yeah. And I agree, like in crypto economics, it comes across very, very clearly that, for example, the security of Bitcoin is distributed. It's pushed to the edges and it's upon the individual miners who are economically actors and how, who are incentivized to operate in their own self-interest. That's what the censorship resistance relies upon. And in terms of security, it's, if, you know, you have this power balance of people that run nodes and enforce rules and people that hold their own keys. And it's just, I compared it in the past of trying to kill all ants on earth, you know, like that's what you're dealing with. It is possible, you know, but it's very impractical. Like you, you will go, you will have to go through a lot of trouble. and possibly destroy the whole earth to kill all the ants. And that's basically, you have to stamp out every single individual that is running Bitcoin, that is holding a private key, that has a copy of the code or, or of the time chain somewhere. And, um, that's what you're dealing with and that's why Bitcoin is so resilient.

Yeah, totally. So why don't we go a little bit more into the, the time? I really like your, your ideas about Bitcoin is time. And in, in the book you write about telling time takes work. And I, I think Satoshi talked in the white paper about timestamping server, if I remember correctly. So what we're talking about here is a time chain rather than a blockchain. So maybe, yeah, maybe what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, it's the term time chain also comes from Satoshi himself. Like blockchain was invented by, you know, basically marketers way later on. And to be fair, you know, like Cordy was also talking about the block chain in 2 words. And it's like a well-used term and I don't want to vilify it, but in essence, blockchain is a meaningless term, especially because it got so abused. And just focusing on the time aspect of it makes it very clear why the data structure exists and what its purpose is. And its purpose is to have a decentralized means of Recording the past. And this is a very difficult endeavor. It's, it's really difficult. It was one of the mo— one of the main unsolved problems because we had systems like reusable proof of works and, and those kind of things. And they all relied on, on central time servers or like the 2 or 3 different time servers that had to coordinate time. Because to, to understand this properly, like, uh, we don't have in our physical universe, we don't have a single time period. That's Einstein showed this very clearly with relativity. So you, the concept of simultaneous events does not exist. So if you have a decentralized network to detect double spends, to really understand what happened before and what happened after, it's almost impossible. You know, like it's such a hard problem. I cannot emphasize this enough, how hard this problem is. It is because we don't have an arrow of time in the first place, you know? So Bitcoin creates its own arrow of time. Via proof of work. And it has to slow down time in a sense. So you have all the transactions in the mempool and only like the only thing that counts is what gets included in the blocks. And this is basically, you can understand every single block that comes in, which happens approximately every 10 minutes as a single tick on a very large clock. And this clock is always in sync with the next, with the rest of the network, with the rest of the network. Let's, let's, let's ignore like, uh, splits for now because they will resolve, they will be resolved probabilistically anyway and so on. But this is the whole idea is that to coordinate events in a truly decentralized network where no one can tell you what is the central point, you have to rethink the notion of time. Because also for time, if you say we use UTC, for example, you will have to use one server on Earth that tells the time. And then you have the problem of the signals and the messages to, to tell where the time is, you know, this also takes time. So the ones who are closer to the time server can cheat and can spend money earlier, for example, you know, like depending on how you want to look at it. And this is, this is an insanely hard problem and it's very hard also to explain just by words. It's easier if you have drawings and it's so hard to understand because you also have to understand the problems of relativity and that this is, you cannot have an accurate solution to this problem. You can only have an approximate solution, and 10 minutes is like good enough. And it, it, you, you need to kind of slow down to a certain, you need to slow down real time to a certain time window for this to work, to, for decentralized synchronization to work. And also you have to anchor your internal system time so that the, the Bitcoin time, so to speak, to the real time, which is an insanely hard problem as well. And Bitcoin does it by basically paying miners to provide timestamps that are somewhat accurate, you know, and, and then average across 2016 blocks. And, and it's all about timing. It's like, it's insane how difficult the problem is to solve. And it's also insane that Satoshi managed to come up with a solution that actually works in practice, because in theory, this problem is impossible to solve, period. Synchronizing time across vast areas of space, because we live in a relativistic universe, it's impossible to solve. That's also why I say, Inside its hash horizon, Bitcoin completely flattens its spacetime. You know, like you have a, you have like a 10-minute hash horizon and inside this hash horizon, there is no space and there's only one time dimension. It only goes in one direction and it's like tick, tick, tick, next block, next block, next block. And in our human timeframe, it's approximately 10 minutes. And I know that's a lot and it's very, very hard to understand and it's very difficult to wrap your head around it. But I also, the insight goes even way deeper because I think there is a great book which is called The Arrow of Time, which shows this very clearly because time and entropy are linked. There is no way to do this without producing heat, without requiring energy. Also in our universe, you know, like the time is related to heat in a very profound way. And Bitcoin does the same thing basically. And yeah, I'll stop there because it just gets too deep.

Yeah. I start to feel like I'm way out of my league here, but You know, I, I always thought, um, I didn't really think that time-space implications that much. I always thought that time is just a measure to quantify entropy basically. Uh, but that's just, uh, you know, to measure that from this moment, how many blocks later, for example, to our meeting. But then when you start to look at when did that happen, in, in which place in time, uh, did those blocks get mined, it gets, uh, gets really difficult and I, I don't.

It's, it's, it's very easy to kind of understand the problem if you think like, can you do, can you do a system like Bitcoin, for example, that spans a way larger space that is not only on Earth, but in our whole solar system, for example, or in our whole galaxy. And just look at visualizations of how slow light speed actually is. There are some nice visualizations where you see a dot of light bouncing between the Earth and the moon. And it uses like real measurements in the sense that you can actually, like the size and the distance of the moon is in proportion. And you have the same thing for our solar system, you know, like a photon starts at the sun and it will take a very long time, you know, like it takes a couple of minutes to reach Earth and so on. That's why, for example, for the Mars rover, they had the 7 minutes of terror or what it was because it took Like it took that long for any signal to reach. And you will always run into these hard limits of our universe. And that's what you need to solve. And just imagine, imagine to synchronize the state across the whole galaxy and you have the limit of light speed. You cannot send signals faster than light speed, but you have to come up with a solution of how to synchronize the state. That's what Bitcoin does as well, but only for on Earth, you know, like the diameter of the Earth. takes light only 50 milliseconds to travel. So it doesn't feel like this big of a deal, but it is a big deal because if you, if you, for example, you can, you can be on opposite ends of the earth and try to double spend into the decentralized network in the same 50 millisecond time span. And if you would not have, if Bitcoin wouldn't have its own arrow of time, you would be able to do that. This is an unsolvable problem, you know, like, because, because there is no truth, you know, like there is.

Mm-hmm.

There is, there is no simultaneously, there is no simultaneous, there is, there are no simultaneous events. It depends on the observer. So you can never say in a decentralized system without any authority who spent the money first. And it's a really hard problem. Like it's, it's, again, it's an impossible problem, but Bitcoin has this like weird practical solution for it.

So does that mean that beyond hash horizon, which I understand is the Kind of like the limits of where Bitcoin may function, uh, in the, in the context of Earth. Does that mean that we could actually have another Bitcoin beyond that? You know, on another planet?

Every, every multi-generational starship would need their own proof of work chain. Like if you, if you, if you move away from Earth and Bitcoin stays on Earth, you will need, you will need your own, uh, proof of work chain and, and start a new thing. Because you cannot, you cannot synchronize the state in any meaningful sense. And if we are that far, it might happen that, you know, like a new proof-of-work chain gets started with way, way, way longer block times, like, you know, months or years. And you have Earth coin, which would be Bitcoin and Mars coin and some other coins, and they settle interplanetary like once or twice a year or something like that. And it depends also, you know, what do you mean by year? You know, like what kind of 10-year, like time is relative.

Yes. Wow. So, so what would happen if, if we go dive a little bit deeper on this rabbit hole? Because this is really interesting. What would happen if we would have identical Bitcoin and about the approximately the same amount of hash power, or maybe an armada of hash power, which, which surpasses Earth's hash power, and they would suddenly plug in to the, to the hash horizon of Earth? So what would happen in that

case? So if the aliens come and

rewrite everything, but I mean, if they have the same technology and they have more hash power and then, you know, they can't, they take over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they, they could do that. And, uh, like they, they could do that. I mean, it's very unlikely, you know, they probably have, they have different encodings and other things probably. But so it's, it's, it really is unlikely. But if aliens have access to a lot of energy and they really want to mess with us, They could definitely do that. And, uh, the, the root of like the, the basis of Nakamoto consensus is that this is allowed. So if someone, if someone did the work, they are allowed to rewrite history because otherwise you will run into the situation where some authority agrees on what is the correct history. And that's what we want. Like, that's, that's why Bitcoin exists. That, that, that doesn't exist in Bitcoin. So you have to take the heaviest chain as truth. Yeah. And Bitcoin defines its own truth, and it is the tip of the heaviest chain.

Yeah, I like the heaviest chain or the thickest chain in opposed to longest chain makes more sense. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, maybe we don't have to sell everything just quite yet. Especially not the fiat.

Do do do.

Oh, that's interesting.

For for for this scenario, it might be good to you know like have have a small gold nugget under your yeah. Address or something like that.

It's, uh, yeah, never mind.

Never mind. Never mind. Gold is such a shitcoin. It will be demonetized just like silver.

It's the new silver, right? So this, uh, yeah, there's been a great conversation. Maybe we start, we can start moving towards the end, but I have a couple more points that I wanted to go through with you. And, uh, one of them is, um, you know, you wrote, uh, move slowly and don't break things. And, and I assume this is, this is about the, you know, like You are a software engineer obviously, and, and you're a developer. So in, in that world, and especially in the fiat world, that the idea is that you throw enough shit in the walls and then you see what will stick and then you, you move on quickly and you break things. And Bitcoin is kind of the anti— antithesis of that. So maybe as a, from, from your software engineering point, maybe, maybe they'll dwell into that a little bit.

Yeah, it's, I think it comes mostly from a misunderstanding of Bitcoin that A lot of people, you know, really want to change Bitcoin and want to fix some things and so on. And they don't understand what kind of, like, let me put it this way. You wouldn't try to do this for nuclear reactor software, for example, or for software that has successfully protected a city because it controls a dam, for example. you know, like something that stops water from coming in. Like all of those systems are highly automated and they have software running. And this is very old and very kind of, you know, like if a, if a, uh, if a, if a JavaScript kid would look at this, they would like be like, oh my God, like this is terrible code and this is terrible programming language and all of that. And we can all do it in a flashy and newer way and so on. But this is not what Bitcoin is, you know, like Bitcoin should be understood as this nuclear-grade software that you really don't want to break. And this is also embedded in Bitcoin. And Satoshi knew this very well. I mean, here's this famous quote, you know, like the, the nature of Bitcoin is that once version 0.1 was released, the design was set in stone. And so you have a design that, that like the, the, the way that the consensus parameters are entangled with the code and with, with the output of the code as well, because I, I view Bitcoin as like this, this living system. And it produces a certain thing, you know, like almost like a, um, I know it's not a living system, but a stalactite, you know, where you, you have, uh, stuff dropping in the caves and it builds up slowly from the ground. So you have like these, these almost like tit-like structures forming. Stalactites. And that's how I, yeah, exactly. My, my, my English vocabulary when it comes to geology flies out the window. So, And, and, uh, that's basically what Bitcoin does. You know, it, it is this code, but way more important is also what comes out of it, which is, you know, like it is the time chain, it is the UTXO set that you can parse out of it and so on. So, so you have, you, you have this, this, um, kind of, it, it has to be interoperable with what it produces as well. And that's why you can't change it willy-nilly because then you'll like, if you, if we have a hard fork in Bitcoin, it's a new coin. You know, like, again, coming back to crypto economics, it shows that very clearly how everything is connected and how you cannot move fast and break things because you will destroy the whole system. And it's about keeping the system intact, keeping it backwards compatible and keeping it running because you make a promise as Bitcoin, like Bitcoin itself makes a promise to its users. It's like, you can use me voluntarily and I will allow you to spend these coins in the future. And this is a very important promise. And, and like, if, if you break this promise, it's, it's basically not Bitcoin anymore. You know, like that's a, that's, that's how I see it. It's not black and white, of course, you know, but, but it's in the end, it's, that's why Bitcoinists say 21 million is not non-negotiable, you know? And it's like, once you hard fork the road to attacking 21 million, you, you already took the first step. And so I think the unwritten meta rule of Bitcoin. Like it's the, the meta consensus rule is we must not break consensus in a backwards incompatible way because then everything in Bitcoin is under attack. And it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's kind of, you know, and caveat kind of, you know, I think most Bitcoiners would agree unless it means that Bitcoin dies. Like if we don't hard fork, then Bitcoin dies. Then of course, you know, like you, you have to kind of do something, but

yeah, you

gotta do what

you gotta

do. Yeah. It, it, it will be interesting because we still, we, we have, I mean, there are, there are bugs in Bitcoin because it's not perfect, contrary to popular belief. And we will have one, one date bug, which is still, I think, 100 years or more away, something like that. Yeah. Maybe it's not that long, or 80 years or something like that. And it looks, from the looks of it, we might have to do a hard fork to fix that. I'm, I'm, I'm not 100% sure. And we will also see about that because For example, a lot of people thought that SegWit can't be done in a soft fork. And Luke Dasher came up with a method that worked and we were able to do it with a soft fork. So yeah, we, time will tell. Yeah. But I think, you know, the, the more interesting time for Bitcoin will be the next 10 years or the next like 8 years basically. And I, I think as long like Bitcoin will, will, survive and thrive, you know, like the next couple of decades. I'm very sure of that. And it's about providing a tool for people that need it. You know, Bitcoin empowers you and allows certain freedoms, like the freedom to save, the freedom to spend, the freedom to transact, the freedom to just be a master over your own money and over your own monetary Monetary policy. It is a, it allows you to opt out of other systems. I think this will be insanely important going forward.

Yeah. And I think, I don't think that the Bitcoin's job, the, the reason why Bitcoin gives faith is not that it gives us certainty in the future. It, it just gives us predictability, like, you know, the supply. And in a sense, I guess this, if we know that 80 years from now we are going to have to maybe hard fork, we have plenty of time to think about that. And it's kind of like, you know, built in the, you know, we already, we can predict that's going to happen. So probably it's not going to be a huge problem to find consensus for that if, you know, it's such a well-known issue.

Let's cross this bridge when we get there. Yeah, I think so.

I mean, people like FUD, of course, and, you know, Bitcoin's going to die. People are very eager to jump to the conclusion that, oh, phew, I didn't miss anything. So it's going to die anyway. So I'm happy that I didn't get in. But

before that comes, before that comes, um, you— we will have— we as Bitcoiners and also Bitcoin itself, it will have to survive the collapse of the fiat empire, the collapse of the euro, the collapse of the US dollar. All of this will come first, you know, right?

Right.

Fiat monies are dying. The world is in disarray already. We have hyperinflationary, um, inklings in multiple countries, in multiple currencies already. Uh, the devaluation of gold will come before that as well. And a lot of things are going to happen before we have to think about these things in any meaningful way. And so, yeah, it's going to be important to kind of understand Bitcoin, I think, and make use of it and use it so that you can also, yeah, kind of live up to your potential and make truly make use of the freedom technology that it represents. And I think for, for, for those reasons, for all those reasons, I still try to, you know, like make understanding and using Bitcoin a little bit easier because I think a lot of people are going to need it in the next, like, you know, 8 to 10 years.

Yeah. And I, I think using is the key here and we have the responsibility to use Bitcoin to manifest the future that we want. And I hear a lot of people say like, you know, your hodling is using. Sure. You can certainly make that case. However, who is going to manifest the, you know, the favorable future that we all want to hold, you know, our Bitcoin into and manifest our own futures? So you end up your book with the cypherpunks write code and to manifest from the chaos, conjure this kind of world we all want to live in and we find it worth living in. So maybe we can wrap up with that and, you know, kind of a call to arms to everybody, you know, whatever you do, if you're not, if you're a programmer, if you're not, whatever. Just, uh, I'm actually writing a book about this also, you know, how to wield Bitcoin and not just, you know, hold onto your stack, actually make it count. And, you know, we all, we all in a way, we're not, we're a collective, but we have a lot of, um, aligned interests. And most, most of that is to live in peace, be free, do whatever the hell we want. And to reach that, we can't just sit aside. We gotta put in the work, proof of work, and, uh, manifest a favorable future. So maybe, uh, your thoughts on that and, uh, we can end with that.

Yeah. Um, absolutely. I, I think, um, I think it will be very important going forward to connect with people, to also work on things that are meaningful for you, whatever that is, whatever that means. Because I think the world will get increasingly chaotic and I think people will increasingly lose meaning and be, you know, like if you're still stuck in the fiat world, the fiat world is kind of crumbling. It's very easy to lose hope and to become nihilistic and to think that nothing matters and so on. So I think if you're just kind of new to Bitcoin, just try to connect with Bitcoiners. There are so many, like, you know, Bitcoiners are very different. There are very many. different people in Bitcoin. You will find people that you really connect with, that you really like, and you will make friends. Like, I'm so sure about that. There are, you know, people that use Bitcoin either out of curiosity or because they have to. There's so many people now. Just get involved. Like, also, you know, support the software that you use, for example. A lot of people are doing that on a voluntary basis without any monetary gain except for, you know, like the monetary gains that come with holding Bitcoin. But support open source developers, support creators, support, you know, like people that write about it. And just also like, if you, if you, if you kind of, again, as a call to arms, if you, if you feel alone, reach out to people, maybe do your own meetup, start your own thing, you know, start your own little whatever, start a book club, connect with people online and so on and so forth. I think We really need to, to get more connected, get more, um, organized in a sense as well, because I think the next couple of years will be, um, again, very chaotic. And as the current kingdom, so to speak, is crumbling from all sides, we will have to build up structures that provide, um, some stability and safety. And I think, uh, uh, you know, having some friends and a good social network and having some tools to fall back on. Definitely doesn't hurt.

Yeah. Build back better with Bitcoin.

Exactly. Yeah. We, we all have to play our part in the, in the great reset.

Yep.

Reset for Satoshi, of course.

Love it. That's awesome. Thank you, Gigi, so much for your time. I really appreciate you coming on. And, uh, yeah, please tell everybody where, where they can find you, where they can find your work, and we'll be sure to include the links where you can read the book, uh, the 21 Lessons for free. And where you can order it if you would like the physical copy. And we also have the ebook also. So where can people find out about you?

Awesome. So the best way to find me is on Twitter, probably. I'm DerGigi, D-E-R-G-I-G-I, on Twitter. Um, also mytwitterhandle.com is my website where I, where I publish my long-form writing. Uh, you can read the book online on 21lessons.com. And, uh, there's also links to all translations and all additional material and remixes and so on. You know, someone created a VR world, for example, which is amazing. You can go through the VR world and listen to the audiobook and so on and so forth. Like it's, it's really wild. And yeah, that's it. You'll find all the rest of it on my, on my site or on Twitter. I'm involved in multiple projects. If you want to know what I'm up to in terms of coding, check out my GitHub. And yeah, that's basically it. Just again, get involved, reach out to people on Twitter. I'm usually very easy to reach, probably not so easy in the next, uh, 2 weeks or so. Uh, my life is, uh, more chaotic than I like it to be just because of COVID madness. Yeah. I'm currently still in Austria, so I kind of have to get out of Dodge.

Oh, that sucks. So

apologies to everyone who I don't respond in the next like 2 weeks or so. But yeah, it is what it is, you know, like it's, um, again, the, I think I expect more of that going forward in the sense that The world will get more nonsensical and authoritarian and chaotic. And yeah, Bitcoin is hope and it, Bitcoin is a very powerful tool to deal with all of that. So yeah, it's, it's my advice would be to try to understand it and learn about it and set yourself up for what is yet to come.

Yeah. Yeah. Keep your head down, stay humble, stack some sats, learn, learn about Bitcoin. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. But that's okay. We're here for each other. And thank you, Gigi. Thank you for the viewers, listeners. And if you like our show, hit the subscribe button, the bell button, get the next AuthorCast, and I'll see you next time. Thank you.

Thanks again. Thanks again for having me.