Larry's Newsletter - Issue #20
Hello happening readers! There's been lots of Bitcoin drama the past few weeks.
Before we start with the drama, first, some good news. Bitcoin 0.12.1 was released and the Segregated Witness pull request was submitted, holding to the schedule the community negotiated here in Hong Kong in late February.
Despite a lot of the extraneous noise and distractions, real work is getting done and code shipped thanks to the quiet and diligent work of many members of the community. Thank you to everyone hard at work building the future!
🙄 Mr. Wrong
Monday's big "news" was that the man in Australia "outed" as Satoshi this past December, Craig Wright, is back in the news again. This time he convinced the BBC and The Economist that he might be Satoshi to the point where they were willing to do a coordinated release. Within minutes of the story breaking, many pointed out on Twitter and other places that it didn't pass the smell test. Within an hour or so, Wright's so-called "proof" was found to be fake.
🔍 Excellent point by point summary of evidence for and against Wright being Satoshi by Nik Cubrilovic.
✏️ Explanation of how Wright created his "proof"
✂️ Cutting through the Hype
📦🔗 ThoughtWorks has a multi-part series that does a decent job of cutting through the blockchain-hype: Parts 1 and Part 2 are worth a read.
Smart Contacts are being pushed as the solution for anything and everything. Much of the hype is nonsense. CoinDesk has two posts examining some of the problems with smart contracts:
😒 Why many smart contract use case don't make sense
💰 Costs associated with smart contracts on public blockchains
If you want to learn more, check out the discussion surrounding these two posts on the Blockstack slack from April 20.
🐱 ShapeShift Hack
ShapeShift is a digital asset exchange that lets you trade one digital asset for another without having to register, create an account or undergo any sort of paperwork. Imagine a bank account number where you could could transfer US dollars and it would magically send you back Euros a few minutes later. ShapeShift does this for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether.
🐶 Like so many exchanges before it, ShapeShift was hacked. As the CEO tells the story, it was an inside job involving a disgruntled IT guy with a dog.
😱 A well-known Cornell profession wrote a post explaining the problems with the admitting rather outrageous story.
🏀 Something Fun
If you've made it this far, congratulation and thanks for reading!
Take a break from the excessive amounts of drama in this issue with this cool animation of Bitcoin blocks and transactions in real time.
Until next time!