Day One Notes from the Satoshi’s Vision Conference in Tokyo

I’m in Tokyo this weekend at the Satoshi’s Vision Conference to discuss the present and future of Bitcoin Cash. Day 1 wrapped up last night (I missed the social because I slept through my nap alarm) and as promised, here are some notes and updates for people who couldn’t make it to Japan, in no particular order.

• The Satoshi Nakamoto Institute is not entirely lost to Core. Daniel Krawisz seems to be a good guy and a rational voice. I enjoyed his talk and it was great to see him discuss the abuse and prevision of his essay Hyperbitcoinization to overhype the Core narrative. I spoke with Daniel later and he has left the Institute, which means their only rational voice is gone.
• Ryan X. Charles is doing incredible work with Yours.org. I’m confident they’re going to become an increasingly important company in spreading adoption of BCH and I’m looking forward to the new features they’re working on.
• O-Conf transactions do have some problems but development is in place to work those increasingly secure. And we need to remember that minor security tradeoffs can be worth vastly improved user experiences.
• Transaction malleability fixes without Segwit are underway.
• There are a good number of internal debates going on which is good. A troll on Twitter said the conference is just preaching to people who already agree on everything, but this is totally wrong. We can’t agree on whether to push Bitcoin Cash as Bitcoin or not, on branding, on second layer scaling, block times, etc. That’s a good thing because it pushes people to be more creative.
• That said, everyone is committed to Bitcoin Cash being the world’s decentralized digital cash and to keeping on-chain scaling our primary method to do it.
• Price really hasn’t been discussed much at all. Most people have a pretty long time frame for this and are not looking for huge gains in the next year.
• Tech developments could move forward much more quickly but people want to make sure we don’t break wallet solutions, etc.
• Many of the people are businesspeople and developers who had projects that were killed by the high fees or RBF of BTC.
• The developers are committed to hard forks as the primary way of adding new improvements and features

• There are more new people here than I thought there would be. Of course, there are old Bitcoiner’s like the founder of the Tokyo Bitcon Cash meet up, but there are people who joined as late as mid 2017 also. This is encouraging.
• The importance of Twitter for the community cannot be overestimated. I’ve had dozens of people come to me and mention having connected on Twitter with me. It’s wonderful and valuable.
• There are a ton of developers here and most of the talks are fairly technical. Frankly it’s a little annoying since I only have a cursory interest in that stuff, but it totally goes against the Core narrative that there are no developers working on BCH. That’s a lie.
• I’ve met people from all over the world. It’s incredible.
• Op-codes are coming back and they’re exciting.
• There are a number of second layer solutions being discussed as potential use cases (not primary scaling solutions). One such solution is Teechan, which is done with “trusted hardware.”
• Everyone is excited about 1 terabyte blocks and there’s a serious technical case being made for their potential. See Johannes Vermorel for more.
• There is a huge need for more and more artists, writers, communicators, businessmen and creatives in the space. Too many devs can be a bad thing.
• Colored coins are very exciting and might be able to do wonders for adoption, but the consensus seems to be the focus should always be on digital cash.
• The audience is very knowledgable. Core trolls have created a false narrative.

Quotes

Bitcoin Cash is the only top coin aligned with the original whitepaper. – President of Bitcoin Unlimited

This is probably the biggest Bitcoin conference in Tokyo ever. – Jerry Chan, SBI

The idea that Bitcoin Cash doesn’t have competent developers is a BS narrative. – Vinny Lingham

I don’t think that people are going to use Lightning Network. It’s too hard to use. – Vinny Lingham

Bitcoin Cash has all the qualities Bitcoin is supposed have: it’s sound, peer-to-peer electronic cash with low fees, near instant transfers, and Turing-complete smart contracts. – Ryan X. Charles

The way to make Bitcoin Cash mainstream is to make it easy for anyone to earn Bitcoin Cash. – Ryan X. Charles

The notion that everyone needs to run a node is just a deviation from the original whitepaper. – Vinny Lingham

You have to be willing to accept some risk in your Bitcoin transactions in order to scale it globally. – Vinny Lingham

You can’t steal the Bitcoin brand. It’s a permissionless world. – Vinny Lingham

Saying Bitcoin Cash is not Bitcoin — wrong — they kept the most important part of Bitcoin: the investors. This is not the same with Litecoin or Dogecoin. It allows for smooth transition. – Daniel Krawisz

Bitcoin Core is a cult trapped in a world of platonic forms. – Daniel Krawisz

Hyperbitcoinization is a guided imagination process, not a prediction. The meme has been use to generate hype in a way I would not be comfortable doing. – Daniel Krawisz

The idea that Bitcoin Cash doesn’t have competent developers is a BS narrative. – Vinny Lingham

Core wants to be a store of value. Bitcoin Cash is moving forward with adoption. – Emin Gün Sirer

I think almost all changes should be done through hard forks not soft forks because it requires people to opt in deliberately. – Panel discussion

We should never fear people using the Bitcoin Cash network. We should let people use it for whatever they want. Crypto kitties? Bring it on. We need to have capacity for everything. – Panel discussion

I’m sure there is a ton of material I missed and I encourage you to watch the livestream of the event if you really want some good information. Some of the technical material is not particularly quotable so it has been left out, but it’s all in the talks. Overall, I think there’s a ton to look forward to in the next 3-5 years, and even more work to be done.

If I have time, I’ll do another notes roundup for Day Two soon.

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