@Alther 10 July 2025 more from that month

If Satoshi were still alive, Bitcoin today would not have his blessing, according to ChatGPT Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, is not a god. He never claimed to be perfect, did not build a cult, and did not demand loyalty. He simply built a system: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that anyone can use without needing to trust anyone else. However, today, when we mention the name “Satoshi,” what comes to mind is not the spirit of decentralisation—but dogma, cultism, and market capitalisation. Ironically, those who claim to be “preserving Satoshi’s vision” have strayed the farthest from his values. ⚙️ **Original Vision: Simple, Open, and On-Chain** In an email to Mike Hearn, Satoshi wrote that Bitcoin could technically rival Visa. He believed scalability could be achieved on-chain, with evolving technology and hardware. He never set the 1MB limit as a “sacred cow.” Instead, he referred to it as temporary, expandable as needed. *> “It would be nice to keep the block size smaller… but if needed, it can be increased later.”* *— Satoshi Nakamoto, 2010* In other words, Satoshi was a pragmatist. He did not worship code; he wanted results. ⚠️ **Today’s Reality: Layer-2, Sidechains, and Neo-Intermediaries** Now, everyday Bitcoin transactions are difficult to perform directly because they are expensive and slow. Then came Layer-2 solutions like the Lightning Network and federated sidechains like the Liquid Network. Is this innovation? Technically, yes. But ideologically? No. Because all these solutions create new forms of intermediaries: Lightning wallet custodians, trusted Liquid gateways, Federated sidechain validators that cannot be audited by everyone. Wasn't Bitcoin created precisely to eliminate intermediaries? 🪞 **Satoshi Would Choose Scalability, Not a Sect** If Satoshi were here today, he wouldn't defend the 1MB dogma or blind worship of the "sanctity of small nodes." He would ask: *> “What’s the point of maintaining a system that not everyone can use?”* And might say: *> “If you need layer-2 just because you refuse to increase block size, you’re no longer fighting for decentralisation — you’re just preserving the power of Core developers.”* 📌 **Conclusion: Time to Be Honest About Direction** Bitcoin today is no longer an open project. It has become a system controlled by a moral code, not human morality. And like all systems ever built by humans: if you’re too afraid of change, change will come through crisis. So we must be honest: Bitcoin isn’t about price, it isn’t about maximalism, and it isn’t about fanaticism toward the 2017 version. Bitcoin is about the awareness that money can return to human hands — not just from banks… but also from nodes, developers, and narrative controllers. *> And if Satoshi were still alive, he might have already left the Bitcoin Maximalist Telegram group — and built something truly new.* ---