Kurt Wuckert Jr. took live questions about Bitcoin and blockchain on this episode of the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream. Once again, this AMA was broadcast straight from the South Florida Bitcoin Citadel.
Wuckert recalls debating Peter McCormack
Wuckert recalls how he came to do media work for CoinGeek. Back in the day, he took part in a small block vs. big block debate with Peter McCormack. After the debate, CoinGeek reached out and said they’d like to work with him. That’s when he realized he had excellent debate skills.
Wuckert jokes that, back then, McCormack was a lot less popular than he is these days. He begrudgingly admitted that he liked Wuckert, but he’d probably never admit that today.
What’s the simplest way to get BSV without making jokes on Twetch?
The first viewer’s question is how to get BSV without using Twetch. Wuckert answers that Americans can use Bittrex. Wuckert says this is a ‘no politics, no drama business,’ and he likes using it himself.
Is RockWallet legit?
Wuckert says that he and his team have been testing it for GorillaPool. According to him, these have been relatively small transactions, but it seems to work really well. The KYC process was simple enough, and he likes the interface and user experience. He says he hasn’t thoroughly vetted it, but it gets one thumb up, but not quite two until he checks it out further.
Are there exciting projects or developments on Bitcoin SV?
Wuckert reveals there are a few interesting things going on. In the whole industry, he says Ordinals on BTC is the big thing right now, and this has taken a lot of mind space from BSV. e.g., the teams at Twetch and RelayX have pivoted to make some money.
More directly, Wuckert says it is difficult to do anything world-changing until BSV infrastructure is where it needs to be. That’s why he got into mining, GorillaPool, and Jungle Bus; he wants to enable people to build things more easily.
Wuckert says what Paul de Buck is doing with Banka and the open banking protocols in the EU is worth watching. Magic Dapp by Zachary Weiner is also something interesting, making it much easier to build Bitcoin apps. He invited people to an upcoming Bitcoin Citadel workshop to learn how to use it. There are also some other interesting projects, such as someone working with a municipal police department to put their crime data on the blockchain.
Another viewer asks what Wuckert is most looking forward to seeing built this year. He again answers that Paul de Buck and what he’s working on is exciting. He also points to mintBlue and what they’re building. However, what blows him away the most is coming out of sCrypt—it’s important, precedent-setting stuff. He also believes there could be a total dark horse, pointing out that nobody saw Ordinals coming and that many people could look at other Bitcoin blockchains like BSV because of this.
Do you have any insight on Rekord IoT? They’ve been publishing a lot of transactions lately
Wuckert says James Merchant at the Block Dojo, has some equity at a company in the IoT space. They’ve figured out a way to use the blockchain to increase the IoT value, and they’re testing it right now.
Is BTC a security? What are your thoughts on the subject?
Wuckert recently wrote an article showing that it’s possible to argue that everything on the blockchain is a security. He refers to the Howey Test, saying that if BTC is an emergent technology, it cannot change. If it can, which it has, then there must be a person or people who can change it, in this case, the BTC Core developers.
In BTC, there’s an investment of money in a common enterprise, there’s a reasonable expectation of profit, and that profit would be derived from the efforts of others. Due to these reasons, it’s arguable that it is a security. However, Wuckert says he is not an expert, and the SEC itself doesn’t even have the authority to tell if it is or not— they can only bring their position to court and let a judge decide.
“A soft fork causes an airdropped asset that doesn’t fit the definition of a Bitcoin,” Wuckert reiterates.
How do I explain to someone new that Bitcoin isn’t a beast system but a freedom system?
“We currently live in the beast system,” Wuckert answers. He explains that the social credit score and other dystopian concepts are already here. For example, you can’t even buy a home or a car without a good credit score, and we know for a fact that phones, computers, and other devices are backdoored to allow the NSA and other three-letter agencies to monitor data. “You don’t own your digital identity or anything,” Wuckert says, highlighting the problem.
BSV uses proof of work, keys, and the blockchain to allow us to prove something unequivocally. For example, we can prove that what is ours is ours, and we can’t be canceled or de-platformed as we can today. “That’s what BSV is giving us back, or at least attempting to,” Wuckert says. It can also enable us to encrypt our data, send it peer-to-peer without going through other peoples’ channels and networks, and use it like cash.
The ability to tokenize our data, such as our educational diplomas, vaccines, and other information, introduces an era of privacy that many alive today have never experienced. We can confirm things such as our age or status for a specific vaccination without giving up any other information about ourselves. We can provably destroy data by spending the Satoshi it lives on.
How would free, cheap, abundant, and decentralized energy produced independently affect mining incentives and Bitcoin in general?
Wuckert says he’s a big advocate for running small nuclear reactors at home. He thinks there needs to be funding for a crowd-developed solution for this— it’s possible that people could have 100 years of power from just one investment.
If this happened, people could mine at home, which would be very disruptive to the centralized ASIC business. Mining rigs could be set up differently to mitigate many of their problems if energy was free. Wuckert notes that this is entirely hypothetical as the free, abundant energy issue has to be solved first.
I always hear a lot about nChain and Craig Wright. How does that company compare with BSV? Would nChain be more valuable than BSV?
Wuckert begins by explaining what nChain is and what BSV is.
nChain started at nTrust and later nCrypt. It was a company to hold the intellectual property of Dr. Craig Wright and tried to bring his ideas to life. After the Bitcoin split and subsequent hash war, nChain doubled down on big block Bitcoin and became a major developer on the BSV blockchain.
Will nChain be more valuable than BSV? It could be, but they need to work for it. The opportunity is massive, and they’ll get exactly as much value back as they deserve.
Wuckert emphasizes that BSV is not an nChain product. The two are interlinked in peoples’ minds, but they are separate. BSV is a public blockchain, and nChain is a major player in the ecosystem.
Do you think BSV will ever take over the BTC price?
Wuckert thinks so, but it won’t be in the short term. Bitcoin is not designed to have multiple chain tips using the same algorithm. The chain that creates the most value will take all, and BSV is exponentially better than BTC at everything Bitcoin is supposed to be able to do. When people spill in to build real businesses, BSV’s true value will be realized.
Watch: The Future World with Blockchain
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