Founder and CEO @LayerTwoLabs | Creator BitcoinHivemind.com | Blogger drivechain.info | Author BIP 300/301

Connecticut, USA
BREAKING: New Bitcoin Fork I am helping create a **new Bitcoin Hardfork** -- dropping this August, called "eCash". - Your coins will split. For example, if you have 4.19 BTC, then you will get 4.19 eCash. - You may sell your eCash -- or keep it. Or ignore it! Vegas: - Yes, I will be in Vegas next week. - No, I won't mention this, on stage -- (that would be rude). Our L1 Node... - is a near-copy of Bitcoin Core. - is Sha256d mined. - forks via a one-time difficulty-reset -- to its minimum value. (So, mining will be crazy at first.) - Yes, we will change the seed nodes, the name, the network magic, etc. Codewise, the L1 will remain compatible with Bitcoin Core: - We will continue to merge their changes (even the bad ones). - The L1 will activate Bip300/301 via CUSF -- the core untouched soft fork. So, no lines of code will be changed, on the L1. - The activation client will be published periodically (link below). - We will do several bug bounty contests this summer. - The client will be frozen 30 days prior to the fork. Yes, there will be Drivechains: - We have 7 in developement right now. - Users can also submit their own. - Drivechain is a vision of "competing L2s" -- this avoids the "dev capture" problem. - These L2s are all Merged Mined. Miners automatically get free $. - Our L2s are already capable of planetary scale, and onboarding 8 billion users. - We also have a zCash-like L2, with strong privacy. - Other L2s: Truthcoin (Prediction Markets), CoinShift (Decentralized Exchange), BitAssets (NFT etc), BitNames (Identity), Photon (Quantum Resistant). Unlike BCH (the 2017 fork): - There is no "Bitcoin" in the name. New name, new brand. - You are getting advanced warning (4 months). - We are replaying all txns (at first). We will release a coin-splitter tool. - This is a permanent & sustainable fix to Bitcoin's problems (instead of a 1 MB to 8 MB temporary fix). - Back in 2017, the BTC tech stack was strong, and expectations for Lightning were strong. Today, it is the reverse. Video to follow.
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Paul Sztorc retweeted
How do you upgrade a $1.5 TRILLION network without compromising what makes it secure? 🟠 Vlad Costea, Sjors Provoost, Paul Sztorc, and Rob Hamilton tackle the future of #Bitcoin upgrades, forks, and scaling at Bitcoin Amsterdam. 📍 Nov 5 | 2:30 PM | Orange Stage DON'T MISS THIS 👀
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Episode 6 - Who killed the vibes?
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The topics: 0:46 -- "You insult me, Danny!" 3:39 -- The Treasury Companies 4:45 -- The Lightning Network 7:22 -- Matt Kratter / Luke Dashjr / Op Return 9:38 -- Jeremy Rubin / CTV / Op Next 11:50 -- The Blocksize War / Communicating in Person 14:32 -- CSW Lawsuits 16:00 -- The Power Vaccum 17:41 -- Crab Buckets (Soft Fork Edition) 18:35 -- Learning the basics? 20:00 -- Quantum 20:50 -- Lying to Ourselves (and everyone else) 21:52 -- Why bother? 23:00 -- NGU /Our contempt, and hatred, of the users who make this all possible. 25:41 -- CSAM etc 26:12 -- Creativity 26:30 -- My recent TabConf Talk/Debate 27:00 -- AI, as a symptom (of the 18 years we wasted) 28:00 -- People have learned / Outro
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Backlink to episode 5:
Episode 5 - The Death of 110 - Will ECX be any different ?!?! (from 110) - 'Job Selection', sigh - The ECX Rollout in Stages, with full launch Oct 31 - Emergency Difficulty Adjustment - cure worse than the disease - some oft-overlooked facts - Replay Protection -- our intent, new method, (what will 110 do now?) - How much hashrate - MEV - Do I still think it is fake? Yes.
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We need Erika's take as well!
We tried to see "You Can See Everything"; it was sold out everywhere in LA. @nathanfielder you owe me nothing, and everything. Be a homie and hook me up with tickets.
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Paul Sztorc retweeted
HAPPENING NOW in downtown Chicago, outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the historic center of onion futures trading
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REMINDER: it's the end of this month! Halloween 🎃
BREAKING: New Bitcoin Fork I am helping create a **new Bitcoin Hardfork** -- dropping this August, called "eCash". - Your coins will split. For example, if you have 4.19 BTC, then you will get 4.19 eCash. - You may sell your eCash -- or keep it. Or ignore it! Vegas: - Yes, I will be in Vegas next week. - No, I won't mention this, on stage -- (that would be rude). Our L1 Node... - is a near-copy of Bitcoin Core. - is Sha256d mined. - forks via a one-time difficulty-reset -- to its minimum value. (So, mining will be crazy at first.) - Yes, we will change the seed nodes, the name, the network magic, etc. Codewise, the L1 will remain compatible with Bitcoin Core: - We will continue to merge their changes (even the bad ones). - The L1 will activate Bip300/301 via CUSF -- the core untouched soft fork. So, no lines of code will be changed, on the L1. - The activation client will be published periodically (link below). - We will do several bug bounty contests this summer. - The client will be frozen 30 days prior to the fork. Yes, there will be Drivechains: - We have 7 in developement right now. - Users can also submit their own. - Drivechain is a vision of "competing L2s" -- this avoids the "dev capture" problem. - These L2s are all Merged Mined. Miners automatically get free $. - Our L2s are already capable of planetary scale, and onboarding 8 billion users. - We also have a zCash-like L2, with strong privacy. - Other L2s: Truthcoin (Prediction Markets), CoinShift (Decentralized Exchange), BitAssets (NFT etc), BitNames (Identity), Photon (Quantum Resistant). Unlike BCH (the 2017 fork): - There is no "Bitcoin" in the name. New name, new brand. - You are getting advanced warning (4 months). - We are replaying all txns (at first). We will release a coin-splitter tool. - This is a permanent & sustainable fix to Bitcoin's problems (instead of a 1 MB to 8 MB temporary fix). - Back in 2017, the BTC tech stack was strong, and expectations for Lightning were strong. Today, it is the reverse. Video to follow.
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Wishful thinking is a hell of a drug
I’m not trying to be an elitist about You Can See Everything, and I don’t claim to fully, without a doubt, have the “correct and accurate” conclusion. But oh my god some of these hot takes prove that Billy and Holmes will ABSOLUTELY get Theranos 2 off the ground without any issue. And some of these people will probably invest in it!
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Paul Sztorc retweeted
FOUNDER & CEO OF LAYERTWO LABS PAUL SZTORC TO SPEAK AT BITCOIN AMSTERDAM 2026 🇳🇱 📍 SugarFactory, Amsterdam 🗓️ November 5–6, 2026
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Its like a child saying: "what if we just gave everyone free money?" Like - the question you asked your parents when you were five years old. It should not come from the mouth of an MIT educated CEO of a publicly traded company Baffling, and arguably fraud
Because a stablecoin that **pays** 8% is a stablecoin that **costs** 8%.
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Paul Sztorc retweeted
YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, PRIMETIME, and DIGGER make 2026 the best year for film since 2015 (SICARIO, EX MACHINA, and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD). At long last, movies are back.
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Because a stablecoin that **pays** 8% is a stablecoin that **costs** 8%.
JUST IN: BILLIONAIRE MICHAEL SAYLOR JUST SAID HE IS BUILDING A #BITCON STABLECOIN THAT WILL REVOLUTIONIZE MONEY "WHO DOESN'T WANT A STABLECOIN THAT PAYS 8%?" "WHY WOULD YOU HOLD STABLECOINS THAT PAY YOU NOTHING?" "THAT'S PERFECT MONEY – DIGITAL MONEY PEGGED TO THE US DOLLAR. A MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE, UNIT OF ACCOUNT AND STORE OF VALUE" "THIS IS WHAT WE'RE CHASING AFTER" 🔥 Source: @paraficapital
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Paul Sztorc retweeted
“If Bitcoin ends up just being digital gold, it is a failed project.” — @jack Dorsey
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I have been warning of Bitcoin fatigue for many *years*, especially in my "post maximalism" essay (2018) Unfortunately, few heeded my warnings. Now, the disaster has come to pass. The fatigue is from: - bs politics - no soft fork upgrades - lying to ourselves, constantly about lightning (et all) - courting the NGU class (Saylor et al) - courting the "toxic" class whilst not having our own act together - hating on users (for example ordinals) The sad truth is: Bitcoin has, in fact, been dying the last 10 years. Not economically or technically -- but culturally. Will make a video on this ~tomorrow
Talking to a lot of long time bitcoiners in the past two weeks, it's obvious that: - there is a bitcoin fatigue (tech is moving, but people don't care, single sig or custodian NGU mentality) - there is AI psychosis/FOMO Bitcoin is freedom money. We achieved that already. (1/n)
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Boring? Yes. The whitepaper turns 18 years old, later this month We did a LOT in the first 6 years, and then mostly ... nothing.
Replying to @KLoaec
I'm happy with Bitcoin the way it currently is, of course I think there are many things we can improve (privacy, security, usability), but I also understand why people feel that the industry is boring in comparison to the global reach AI managed.
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Paul Sztorc retweeted
Five years ago, an important miscarriage of justice occurred. The story began in April 2018 when David Sabatini, an MIT, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and Whitehead Institute scientist and professor began a consensual intimate relationship with Dr. Kristin Knouse, a principal investigator with her own lab at the Whitehead. By January 2020, David sought to end the relationship, but Knouse apparently did not want it to end. When David thereafter started a new relationship and Knouse learned about it, she began a secretive campaign to destroy him by attempting to end his career as a scientist. She did so by damaging his name, reputation, and that of his family with false sexual harassment and other claims, thereby making him unemployable. Knouse conspired with Dr. Ruth Lehmann, the then- and still current Director (i.e., President) of the Whitehead Institute, in her efforts to destroy Sabatini. The record presented in court demonstrated that Dr. Lehmann committed to Knouse in October of 2020 that she would fire David. Dr. Lehmann made this commitment to Knouse before any investigation of the facts had taken place. Seven months after committing to fire him, in March of 2021, Dr. Lehmann, on behalf of the Whitehead, hired the law firm of Hinckley, Allen, Snyder (HAS) to undergo an investigation of David. By July 2021, HAS shared a draft of its conclusions with MIT, HHMI, and the Whitehead, but not with David or his lawyers. On the morning of August 19, 2021, David for the first time received the more than 200-page investigative report and a calendar invite for a meeting the following day with Dr. Lehmann, the president of HHMI, and the HR directors of both institutions. The report was riddled with errors and unsupported claims about David and his relationship with Knouse. When David's lawyer immediately thereafter reached out to Whitehead counsel to ask whether David was about to be fired, they confirmed that he would be terminated at the meeting. On the advice of his lawyer, David immediately resigned from HHMI and the Whitehead rather than attend the meeting. HHMI did not accept his resignation, choosing instead to fire him. MIT put David on leave and ultimately revoked his tenure. David thereafter resigned from MIT. On August 20, 2021, one day after sending David the HAS report and before David had the opportunity to dispute the facts and the conclusions of the investigation, Dr. Lehmann emailed all employees at the Whitehead informing them that David had violated a number of Whitehead policies "including policies concerning sexual harassment." The Lehmann public email, David's resignation and firing, and Dr. Lehmann's claims about David's sexual harassment exploded into a major global scandal covered in mainstream, social, and scientific media around the world as it had all of the requisite ingredients: An attractive target with David, one of the most important scientists of his generation in line for the Nobel Prize, a purported inappropriate sexual relationship with a younger female colleague, and a political and institutional environment where punishing a man for sexual harassment advanced the career and reputation of the person and/or institution that destroyed the career and reputation of the accused, regardless of the validity of the allegations. As a result of Knouse's claims, Lehmann's sham investigation, and the media onslaught that followed, David lost all sources of income and his reputation was destroyed. All prizes he had been previously been awarded were withdrawn. He was removed from all scientific advisory and other honorary roles other than as a member of our family foundation's (the Pershing Square Foundation's) scientific advisory board. When I initially learned of the news about David in the summer of 2021, I hired him as a consultant to the Pershing Square Foundation as I believed our small foundation team would benefit greatly by his insights (and he now had the time to help us), and he needed the money to support his family. At my request and under a confidentiality agreement, David provided us with many hundreds of pages of documents including texts and other communications with Knouse, the investigative report, and David's responses to the allegations so that we could do our own evaluation of Knouse's claims. I and a member of our family office's legal team carefully reviewed the documents. After a careful review of the empirical documents -- in particular the texts between Knouse and David -- it became abundantly clear that Knouse's actions were that of an angry and jilted lover, not those of a sexually harassed junior colleague. And the investigative report appeared designed to deliver a pre-ordained conclusion rather than a dispassionate fact-based analysis. The impact of the firings and the destruction of his career and reputation on David and his family was extraordinarily devastating, so much so that we became increasingly concerned that he might commit suicide. [In order to make sure that David's important scientific research would continue, in February 2023, in partnership with an anonymous donor, we funded $25 million to support David launching a new lab. As you might expect, I was reviled in the press, in scientific journals, and on social media for doing so and for supporting a so-called sex offender.] On October 20, 2021, David filed suit against Knouse alleging defamation and tortious interference in his career and his contractual arrangements. Thereafter, Knouse brought counterclaims against David. Today, nearly five years to the date of the filing of the suit, he has finally received justice. Today, a 13-person jury (seven men and six women) of David Sabatini's peers (12 jurors plus an alternate) unanimously determined that David proved that Kristin Knouse defamed him, tortiously interfered with his contractual relationships (his entire career as a scientist), and tortiously interfered with his prospective advantageous relationships (his future employment). The jury awarded him nearly $10 million in damages including interest. The jury rejected all of Knouse's claims including her claims that David engaged in quid pro quo sexual harassment and created a sexually hostile work environment. While five years is a very long time to live under a reputational cloud, justice was finally served today for David, but not completely in my view. To this day, Dr. Ruth Lehmann remains Director of the Whitehead Institute. Dr. Lehmann worked alongside Dr. Knouse to destroy David Sabatini, an acclaimed scientist and professor. She did not follow due process before she intentionally destroyed David's career and reputation. Dr. Lehmann nearly killed David with her actions, as had we not rescued David by finding him employment, supporting him publicly to buffer the reputational damage, and supporting his recovery, he could have ended his life and left his son without a father before the world understood what had transpired here. And the reputational damage was not just to David. David's brother, Bernardo Sabatini, is one of the most important neuroscientists in the world. To this day, he has had to deal with a large cloud over his family name and reputation. Recently, when the new CEO of our brain institute mentioned that Bernardo Sabatini was on our board, he was asked: "Wasn't he involved in some kind of sex scandal?" For obvious reasons, the character of the person who runs a scientific institute is of utmost importance. Among other failures here, Dr. Ruth Lehmann committed to Knouse that she would fire David many months before an investigation was even launched and without consideration of the empirical facts. How can one trust research produced by a scientific institute if its leader is not committed to observing the empirical facts before reaching conclusions that have life-threatening import? We have unfortunately seen massive amounts of scientific fraud which has harmed innumerable human lives and wasted billions of dollars of research funding and time. For her ethical breaches here, Dr. Lehmann should be fired from the Whitehead. Based on her actions in this case, she is in no position to serve as the leader of an important scientific institute. I speak with some perspective on how scientific and other institutions should be led. Including the recent launch of the Ackman Oxman Institute, we have funded approximately $1 billion of scientific research and institutions over the last decade or so, and this experience has given us the opportunity to meet the leadership of many of the most important scientific institutions in the world. To put it plainly, we would not give a dollar to a scientific institute whose leader compromised basic moral principles as has happened here. At an absolute minimum, the board of the Whitehead should immediately launch a detailed and independent investigation of Dr. Lehmann's actions in the Sabatini case. I would encourage the investigation, among other considerations, to carefully exam all of the correspondence between Lehmann and Knouse, as well their correspondence with the HAS law firm on among other areas, the various drafts of the Sabatini investigative report. Alternatively, Dr. Lehmann could resign, minimize further distraction for the Whitehead, and save institutional time and resources that would be better spent on research that benefits humanity.
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The best way to make Bitcoin fail is to believe that its success is guaranteed... The big compromise in a strongly decentralized system is that it's all of our jobs to look out for it. - Greg Maxwell, 2022-12-19 Bitcoin is entering a period of increasingly quiet desperation - @Truthcoin
In case you have not yet heard, @Vladcostea has been livestreaming from the final installment of @tabconf. In this episode we have so much, so the summary may be a little longer than usual. Paul Sztorc, @Truthcoin, talks about his quantum-resistant soft fork demo, why miners will "never" run it, and the eCash hard fork, including claiming coins and liquidity pools instead of paid exchange listings André Beganski, @andrebeganski chats about joining the MARA Foundation and journalism as a public good Alex Lewin, @ALewin and Janusz, @januszg_ gives us insight into private AI meets private money and AI making Bitcoin better. Christopher Allen, @ChristopherA on his path from early crypto work to TLS and Key reuse. Will, six privacy prisoners and a pardon campaign! Michael Tidwell, @miketwenty1, the Tabbies awards, why TABConf ends, the no-shill rule and Taproot as his favourite fork. piped.video/live/bPu4cSqegsM…
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Absolutely incredible week - thanks to @tabconf for making it happen one last time - afterparty pics with @Truthcoin @robin_linus @stutxo and @peterktodd below! 🎉
For nearly a decade, @tabconf has served as a technical institution for the Bitcoin development space. At MARA Foundation, we’re thankful to have participated in its final year — and an unforgettable afterparty. Extra gratitude for Slipstream lead maintainer @peterktodd and BitVM creator @robin_linus for their discussions on Slipstream and its use for creative Bitcoin development and R&D 🙏🙏 We’ll never forget the friends we made along the way 😉
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Remake de la temporada 8 de Juego de Tronos | Concept Trailer Autor: Marvelous Trailers
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