Interview with freetrader

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Written by

Venturer

4 years ago

Introduction

Let me start with a short introduction based on my personal experience and why having a particular kind of actor is so important to the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem.

I heard about Bitcoin for the first time when I was working in the corporate world—in fact, in a very traditional industry.

Relocated to one of the many technology hubs in Mediterranean Europe, I was working in direct contact with a respectable group of software developers—not crypto related. They were the ones who brought Bitcoin news into my orbit around 2012. At that time, I understood little or nothing of Bitcoin’s value proposition and its many aspects, but it was undeniable that some keywords resonated heavily in my mind.

"I have to get into this", I said one day while having lunch with several of the team's senior developers. For some reason, one of them (who, in fact, I consider a good friend) decided to make a joke at my expense. At the time, the price of Bitcoin was rising slightly, and I recall feeling the sting of his words: "The fundamental idea is to buy when the price is low and sell when the price is high, not the other way around!".

My ego was hurt—hurt enough that I decided to forget the whole thing and file it in some dark corner of my memory for when I had more time to devote to it. That simple comment was sufficient to make me forget all the technological and social implications behind blockchain that I could grasp but not explain coherently at the time.

Life in the matrix is not easy, particularly for curious minds. The system has thousands upon thousands of traps strategically placed along the way. That dark and deep corner of the mind where all the things we classify as "for when we have more time" ends up growing, overflowing with concepts, ideas, and projects—all suspended, unfinished, truncated, amputated. You end up frustrated, incomplete, probably without even knowing why...until something happens, some mysterious trigger brings light where there was shadow, and the almost forgotten ideas rise from their ashes.

For me, that trigger came in 2015, when I realized that abandoning one of the best ideas I have ever found just because my stupid ego had been hurt was nonsense. It was a problem that basically had an easy solution. I just had to spend time on it and study.

When 2016 arrived, I still had my life divided between a less and less exciting corporate world and the power of a large-scale structural, socio-economic change. At that time, with a growing understanding of Bitcoin, Blockchain, and digital currency, I discovered the “Big Block Movement” and started to read about it.

It was around that time I saw the name freetrader popping up here and there. I was amazed at his simplicity, direction, focus, and openness in dealing with difficult issues, as well as his disposition and dedication to newcomers.

If you are not a software developer, if you are sometimes lost in the vast sea of related information, you will easily understand the value of someone who devotes time to explaining the most intricate aspects of the blockchain system and provides you with encouragement to participate openly in the new social contract that Bitcoin represents—without demoralization or attacks on your ego.

Time passed, and we reached the year 2020, which brought more than a few challenges. The Bitcoin Cash community finds itself going through trials that it has imposed upon itself. Perhaps these challenges are needed, as the way to evolve, to advance, to grow—the organic form of dis-organization in which titles mean absolutely nothing, only ideas put into practice, where everybody is free to take an initiative, to follow an initiative, or simply not to take any action at all.

Under this framework, Bitcoin Cash Node arises—with freetrader one of its exponents and lead developer—exercising the right of free initiative and bringing an alternative to the current IFP (Infrastructure Funding Plan) proposal and associated background. I could not resist the temptation to converse with him and bring his thoughts to the public arena, for which he gave his explicit authorization.

I do it from a sincere perspective, expecting nothing in return. I do it because I understand the importance of developers with social skills, of people with knowledge but also with the willingness to share and interact regardless of whether they are the supreme architect of the network or the humblest of newcomers. I do it to reward the positive. And I do it for you, reader. Whether you need a trigger to embrace Bitcoin Cash as I needed, or you are a BCH user, developer, or miner feeling the burden of challenges all around you, this is my humble attempt at bringing you some hope.

Inhabitants of the network, with you: freetrader.

Tips to this article will go to the Bitcoin Cash Node general funds. If you prefer, you can collaborate directly on its website bitcoincashnode.org.

Interview

Q1: Could you please introduce yourself as you would like to be known in the Bitcoin Cash community and beyond? Please feel free to share some of your experience related to crypto—or not—that you consider relevant.

A1: I believe I introduced myself on my blog and elsewhere as “a fervent fan of freedom—in software, markets, currencies and communication” [1][2]. That is still true, and I am happy with that self-description so far 😊.

I read the Bitcoin whitepaper quite early on, and thought it was a fascinating idea and started looking at how it developed.

My first real crypto experience was actually in basically emptying out my bank account and transforming it into bitcoins for an emigration. It worked well. That was in the days when BTC transactions were still low-cost, relatively predictable in terms of confirmation times, etc.

I think I have been following the development of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with great interest ever since.

Q2: This could be seen as a naive question. However, I am sure your perspective will deliver significant value to many. So let me ask you, what do you think about Bitcoin (as presented by Satoshi Nakamoto)?

A2: I believe the synthesis of various ideas into Bitcoin is one of the greatest inventions I have been privileged to see during my lifetime (next to the rise of the Internet), and I estimate its impact as nothing short of revolutionary and completely transformational in terms of the freedom it could bring to people everywhere.

Practically, I believe that Bitcoin can scale to global use as peer-to-peer electronic cash, if suitable efforts are made. I am humbled to be able to contribute even a tiny bit to this effort by a great community I have met from all over the world, first through the Bitcoin BTC project and now through Bitcoin Cash (what I consider an upgraded version of BTC focused on scaling as cash instead of as digital gold).

Q3: I like to have inflection points (in life or profession) bright in my memory to maintain an awareness of the objectives that shaped my path. With that in mind, what was the drive that made you embrace Bitcoin Cash?

A3: I came into Bitcoin Cash out of perceived necessity. During the debates around "how to scale Bitcoin" in 2015-2016, I became gradually frustrated at the actions of the Bitcoin Core project and their corporate... sponsors (Blockstream and others).

It seemed clear to me that there was at least an irreconcilable difference in visions about whether the system as designed could scale on chain or not. Even minimal capacity increases were blocked on, what seemed to me, spurious grounds. It soon made me question what the future of BTC could look like, given that direction.

In 2016-2017, I participated in a grassroots effort that called itself "BTCfork". We set out to derive a Bitcoin client that could be used, if needed, to hard-fork BTC and create a blockchain which allowed bigger block sizes.

It turned out later that this work was not in vain, and much-needed as other efforts to increase the blocksize on BTC failed to achieve their goals of doing so without splitting the blockchain into two separate currencies (small-block Bitcoin BTC and larger-block Bitcoin Cash BCH).

So in early 2017, I participated together with Amaury Séchet and others in the creation of the Bitcoin ABC client and worked together with other node implementations to settle on a specification of the upgrade that was to become Bitcoin Cash. We knew the effort had crucial support of a significant segment of the Bitcoin mining community.

I would say Bitcoin Cash embraced me more than anything else 😊.

Q4: From your perspective, what is the current situation of Bitcoin Cash (as a P2P electronic cash system, as a community, etc.)? How does this situation compare with the objectives held at the time of its inception?

A4: The objectives of Bitcoin Cash at its inception were to preserve the original vision of scaling on-chain to deliver a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that would be usable by the whole world, with similar or better user experience than uncongested Bitcoin in its early years.

Where are we today on that?

I think technically, we have seen good advances to improve important qualities of the system, within Bitcoin Cash. Many of the concepts that will be needed to advance come from the wider cryptocurrency community, both in the form of academic research and practical implementation.

What we lack today is not technical, it is adoption. This is starting, but is a slower process than I imagined. Bitcoin Cash needs to attract more users, which will increase its value, which in turn will lead to increasing its share of SHA256 hashpower (mining), which leads to more predictable and reliable service in terms of transaction processing times.

Currently we are in a situation where, due to the fact that BTC price is significantly higher, most of the hashpower focuses on mining BTC. But BTC has great usability and scaling problems which BCH has already overcome, to an extent. This is why I foresee a bright future for Bitcoin Cash adoption.

Bitcoin Cash has, during the last 3 years, proven repeatedly that some of the criticisms levied against its scaling approach could be shown to be unwarranted. Bitcoin can in fact scale significantly, and hard-forks are a viable method of upgrading the system, in contrast to Core claims which border on dogmatism with regards to preferring soft-forks.

We should not disregard the achievements made by the Bitcoin Cash community—for example with respect to deploying privacy technology like CashShuffle, and soon, CashFusion, but also other innovations like CashAccounts (short form addresses for Bitcoin Cash addresses), CashID (authentication system based on cryptography used in BCH), novel smart contract work and its actual realizations such as the be.cash NFC-based payment cards, and assurance contract (Kickstarter-like) work such as that of Flipstarter—among a world of innovative token-based solutions that are springing up around the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP), another development that was born on Bitcoin Cash.

The list is long, and shows how our community is permeated by highly skilled, highly motivated individuals and companies working to bring an open and transparent financial infrastructure to the world.

And have fun doing so, as can be seen by all the Bitcoin Cash meetups that have sprung up in so many countries. This is in itself a huge development compared to the early time of Bitcoin Cash in 2017, where hardly any of that existed.

Q5: What do you think is the biggest challenge we have to solve to be closer to that original objective? Do you have any insight on how to solve it?

A5: Most importantly, to overcome our conditioned dependence on "authorities" of all sorts. This is far too pervasive a mindset that hinders progress on all sorts of fronts, including a sound, openly accessible global monetary system.

We can overcome it by learning, doing, evaluating, adjusting, the output being scientific understanding of what works and what does not.

In terms of projects which are realized on time and budget, there is actually a wealth of experience of what works that we can draw on from about 70 years or more of the computer industry—but of course Bitcoin (Cash) is not merely a computer science project but much more.

One of the challenges it poses to everyone who wants to delve deeply into it, is that it will confront you with a learning curve on a variety of subjects—for me, it is economics, accounting and finance that I had and still have far too little knowledge of, coming from a STEM background myself. However, I appreciate that Bitcoin exactly forces those who want to explore it, to acquaint themselves with a wider landscape than is usually the case for most of us working in regular jobs. This also brings together people from various disciplines, which I find fascinating and keeps me interested in it.

On the technical front, I believe speedier progress will be made by taking the good knowledge of how to develop protocols and large systems around commonly maintained specifications and implementations. Bitcoin Cash must not let its guard down on that front, but press forward on an excellent specification of its main protocol and related protocols, and support variety in terms of implementation of these protocols so that it reaches many more users.

Q6: I can not help asking you about the IFP (Investment Funding Plan) and recent BitcoinABC 0.21 implementation. I know that you have clearly commented about it through different channels, and it is not my intention to be repetitive, but could you give us your perspective about it?

A6: IFP seems to me a measure of last resort which would take Bitcoin Cash down the road that several other coins—less successful in network effect terms than BCH—have explored in the past and continue to do in the present.

I see the existing Bitcoin Cash incentive model as not needing the kind of change that the IFP proposal—I have written about my preference to not disturb these incentives which are also what made Bitcoin BTC the uncontested #1 cryptocurrency in the world, and might yet bring Bitcoin Cash to greater success in the future.

The strength of Bitcoin's incentive system is that apart from a few consensus rules about the creation and regulation of the money supply (no coins created out of thin air—must work for them) it imposes very few additional rules. Your keys, your coins, no third parties involved in regulating transactions —you control your money and have the ability to spend it as you see fit.

The IFP not only crosses some of these clear lines, for example mandating that some coins have to be spent to parties other than the ones directly involved in a transaction—this should remain a voluntary act to ensure that the market remains free. I do not like the distortion, moral hazard and grave potential for conflict of interest introduced by the IFP as introduced originally. In my opinion, it should be scrapped entirely and other, voluntary, funding models explored for the development and maintenance of the Bitcoin Cash protocol and infrastructure.

Q7: You are one of the leading proponents of Bitcoin Cash Node, a node that is promoted as a soft landing ground for the many people in the community who have spoken in objection to the IFP. Why do you think a new software node is a good idea, and to whom is it mainly directed?

A7: Bitcoin Cash Node was created out of need to provide a well-tested drop-in replacement alternative *without the IFP* for the May 2020 network upgrade of Bitcoin Cash. With the release of Bitcoin Cash Node 0.21.0, I am satisfied we have achieved that initial milestone, but our journey is much more ambitious.

There is an opportunity with Bitcoin Cash Node to show that an open, professionally run, transparent development process—which includes accountability in terms of funding and project management—can provide measurably *better* results than what we have had so far in Bitcoin Cash.

I look forward to working with a great team in Bitcoin Cash Node to push forward on achieving common goals in the Bitcoin Cash roadmap toward world-scale P2P electronic cash. We are all united by that vision, even if we may sometimes disagree about certain issues e.g. how to best fund the development in the short term. I have almost zero concerns that the holders and users of Bitcoin Cash have a problem recognizing real efforts made and value delivered. We will try to keep in touch with them to make sure we do not stray from the bigger roadmap and avoid big-picture strategic mistakes.

Q8: If we look in retrospect, the Bitcoin Cash community seems to suffer from significant internal disputes regularly—some people say every six months. In these turbulent times, many people use the Bitcoin whitepaper to support or refute opinions and theories. What is your take on it and the several ways in which to interpret the Bitcoin whitepaper?

A8: I do not think the "significant internal disputes every 6 months" is a fair characterization. There is a large component of drama stirred up on social media by those who wish to impede the progress of Bitcoin.

Fundamentally, the only really significant disputes since inception in August 2017 were the BSV split in November 2018, and now the IFP. There were a number of seamless upgrades (done on the 6-monthly schedule that those people may be referring to) in the interim. But people tend not to pay too much attention when things are ticking over smoothly, but when someone throws sand in the gears and the grinding noises start.

About the Bitcoin whitepaper, I think it is an awesome high-level overview document, at a concept level more than implementation. But it certainly transported the key points to grasp about Bitcoin extremely well in a short paper. Everyone using Bitcoin should try to read at least the abstract, introduction and conclusion parts, if the more technical middle sections go a bit above one's head.

At this point, I do not want to prejudice any of your readers with my interpretation of Satoshi Nakamoto's writings in the white paper.

Some things I find may be insufficiently understood at first reading, but over time, the wealth of ideas and depth of aforethought of the author(s) of the paper reveals itself more fully.

Q9: Throughout the recent public discussion related to the IFP, various actors mentioned the Bitcoin Cash ethos. According to your understanding, could you tell us what it is about? What is the relevance for Bitcoin Cash of having or not having an ethos?

A9: I am not sure who is speaking of a “Bitcoin Cash ethos”, but if there is such a thing, for me it is described fairly well in the humorous "Official Statement from the CEO of Bitcoin Cash" written by Rick Falkvinge in 2017 [3].

Bitcoin Cash is there—available for everyone to use, no matter your political persuasion, religious beliefs, professional background, sense of ethos, etc.

If I can summarize my own personal approach with reference to Bitcoin Cash rather:

Do not add more rules than necessary!
Relax constraints where possible, except on the rules ensuring monetary soundness.
Let the market decide! Do not always think you know best. Others have good ideas too.
Be open-minded and prepared to improve. There is a lot to learn and a lot we do not yet understand, but "science works".

As a by-word, I should point out that the Bitcoin Cash community hates censorship in all forms, and one component of its "ethos" is to route around any such blemish in order to keep the P2P electronic cash concept secure and out of central control.

Q10: We can say that the social structure, or rather the social topology, of the BCH community is supported by three main pillars or classes: Users, Developers, and Miners. While, over time, some subgroups arose, in essence, we can say that these three remain central. With which of them do you feel most identified? What is the future you foresee for that group, and how would you like the other groups to interact with it?

A10: I am least of all a miner, having only mined testnet blocks so far. I consider myself a user and developer.

If the system were unusable, I would have failed in my developer role, and the “user” role would be degraded to the point of unavailability. Therefore, “user” is a big word, it applies to everyone participating in Bitcoin.

My understanding has been, since a long time, that miners, pools, exchanges and all other players in the ecosystem, are all important to the success of Bitcoin (Cash). Treating any of the stakeholders badly is a sign of not fully understanding the incentives and self-regulatory mechanisms of the system that are at work.

The good news I see is that the system is extremely robust against capture and sabotage. The future I foresee for Bitcoin Cash is a growing world-wide community, held together by a common realization of the value of the concept of Bitcoin striving to perfect its various implementations.

Q11: If you had the ability or space to speak directly to the most influential people in the BCH community, whether from experience, knowledge, or investment (which are not necessarily the same), what would you tell them?

A11: "Doing what is best for Bitcoin will also turn out to be best for you."

i.e. the message on my side is to not neglect the long term—do not be distracted too easily by short term goals and in the process, sacrifice long term objectives.

Q12: On the other hand, if you had the same space to address the newly arrived people, the beginners who are taking their first steps in Bitcoin as P2P electronic money, what would you say or recommend?

A12: Try Bitcoin Cash, it is the closest you will have today to the exciting, useful thing that Bitcoin (BTC) used to be a few years back, and join us to make it work at global scale. If you encounter any problems, let the BCH community know about them, we take it as a challenge to improve.

Thanks freetrader. I salute you.