Transcription
This is Matthew Crowder's Bitcoin University. Today, I want to talk about the five stages of grief as they pertain to Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin not software, have been the two main ways to run a Bitcoin node over the years. And Bitcoin Core used to have 98% market share until they went completely off the deep end a few weeks ago.
If you're not familiar with what happened, I'll put a link to this video about Bitcoin Core going rogue in the description notes below. But we can see here everyone moving over to Bitcoin Knots as a result. The chart is just going completely vertical. And now the percentage of nodes on the Bitcoin network that are running Bitcoin Knots is up to 13, almost 13, 1.5% up from 2% just a couple of months ago.
Now, seeing this chart go vertical has not been a pleasant experience for Bitcoin Core proponents. We've seen many different reactions captured here in these amazing stock photos. A lot of grief, a lot of disbelief. In fact, a lot of Bitcoin Core proponents are going through what's called the five stages of grief, and many of them are at the stage of denial and anger, as we're going to talk about.
Sergey Delgado, for example, is still at the stage of denial where he says it's unlikely that 900 new people have spun up Knots nodes. And then he was harshly contradicted and rebuked by the Start 9 account saying, "The latest version of Bitcoin Knots released March 19th has over 4,000 downloads from our marketplace. Assuming some testing and reinstalls due to mistakes, it wouldn't be surprising if the large majority of newly observed Knots nodes are running on Startard OS."
Then there's Umbreal. "I think the current Knots node count is about to explode." Start 9 also saying, "About 25% of the reachable nodes on the network run on Start OS, all over Tor all day long. We at Start 9 hear Core is out of touch, not listening to what node runners want. I'm switching to Knots all day long." Start 9 again saying, "Our numbers are off the charts based on customer inquiries and sales figures. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of very, very real Knots nodes doubles in the next one to two months." So, in spite of the fact that they're still stuck at the denial stage of grief, many Bitcoin Core proponents, this Bitcoin node, uh, Bitcoin Knots node explosion of new nodes is very real indeed, and many of you on this channel participate in this.
The first stage of grief, namely denial, is now giving way to the next stage of grief, which is anger, and AON BTC is clearly quite angry. He runs a site called censorshipresistant.com. And so you won't fail to miss the irony that he has now rolled out something to censor Bitcoin nodes that he doesn't like. As he writes in this post, "If you're if you're interested in banning all currently known Bitcoin Knots nodes from connecting to your Bitcoin node, the resources you seek can be found here." And there's a link to a GitHub where you can download the program.
This is Bitcoin Core proponents, highly, highly rational as always. Quote, "If you don't like what Bitcoin Core is doing with the spam filters, you can always just go run Bitcoin Knots instead." And so then, node runners do just that. They proceed to dump Bitcoin Core for Bitcoin Knots, as we've been talking about over the past few weeks, not share of the network. Goes from 2% to 13, 13.5% of the network. And what's the response from Bitcoin Core proponents? "No, you can't do that. That's bad for Bitcoin. So, we're going to try to filter your Knots nodes out with this new software plug."
If you're enjoying this video so far, I just pause really briefly here to ask you to help to support this channel. Hit the subscribe button. That does really help. Leave a like, leave a comment, question, suggestion for a future video. And do share this video with a friend or family member. It really is the ultimate irony.
As Shy Huddle points out here, "They won't filter spam, but they want to filter your consensus respecting financial transaction spreading Knots node." Pretty strange. As Cipher Hulum says, "Knots enforces policy, namely mempool policy, not censorship. A on BTC pushing ban list is actual censorship of valid Bitcoin peers. Weird flex for someone claiming to support Bitcoin." And H1HMLE writes, "Core tards, we're opening the spam floodgates by blowing up OP_RETURN, but we'll have more unified mempools, better fee estimation, and faster block propagation. Also, Core tards, let's ban 30,000 plus and rising Knots nodes leading to less mempool unification, worse fee estimation, and slower block propagation. You really can't make this stuff up."
Sher Hoddle again saying, "Not node runners are leeches on the network, allegedly. That's what Core has been saying. Not the spammers forcing everyone to host JPEGs." In other words, Bitcoin spam. These people would rather censor payments than spam. And when we look at the kind of spam that's being put on the blockchain, it's quite disturbing. It's quite satanic in many ways, which gives you an insight into what these people are up to. Bitcoin is a monetary network, and that's how the vast majority of people want to use it. And we don't want demonic inscriptions embedded on our blockchain.
Grubles, not Grubals, writing here, "I'm going to ban a double-digit percentage of the P2P node network. In other words, not node runners." He's making fun of Bitcoin Core here. "I'm going to ban a double-digit percentage of the node network so people can more easily fill entire blocks with one transaction and make my fee estimation slightly better." Rational people, this was the expected block, and then the actual block is one giant piece of spam. Google's not Google saying again here, "Miners not including thousands of transactions in a block, Core. Bitcoin Core says this is fine. Bitcoin working as intended. Nodes voluntarily not relaying transactions that displace thousands of transactions in a block. We will ban all of you with our nodes." Our Knots nodes, uh, ban filtering out Bitcoin nodes is bad for Bitcoin, as anyone can tell. It shrinks the number of peers that are available to relay both transactions and blocks. So this is really a pretty ridiculous program that Aon BTC has written, obviously acting out of anger and grief.
By contrast, filtering out and not relaying spam as Bitcoin Knots nodes do is a good thing. It's not right to treat node runners as free cloud storage providers for people who want to store their non-monetary data on Bitcoin, and they're often sat, uh, satanic, uh, inscriptions as well. When you allow spam to be put in a block, it's stuck there forever and will need to be downloaded and verified by some poor Honduran family in the year 2075 who just wants to run a Bitcoin node so that they can use Bitcoin as money in a self-sovereign way. And as part of this, unfortunately, they're still going to have to download this crap that's being put in the blocks today.
Who benefits from Bitcoin spam? It's mostly scammy crypto VCs and malicious mining pools who profit from it while creating a tragedy of the commons with their littering. It's quite analogous to that. Who's getting rich from Bitcoin spam? I'll put a link to this video in the description notes below.
Donal Deine writes, "I was on the fence about CTV plus CS, uh, CSFs. These are some possible soft fork upgrades have to do with covenants. I was on the fence about these. I could see some benefits. But after seeing what this absolute tool is trying, I will devote all my energy and not inconsiderable resources to putting a stop to this, you watch." So Dono obviously upset here about BTC and its Knots ban list. And this is what these people are doing. I've seen a lot of them also want some sort of CTV proposal. If you're going to annoy people by not fixing the filters and in fact blowing them open, then people are going to be much less, people like Jonel and myself are going to be much less likely to help you when you want some support for your new soft fork on Bitcoin. Especially when we see how previous soft forks have been abused, both SegWit and Taproot being abused to create inscriptions and Bitcoin Core being unwilling to do anything about it.
This is the thing though, institutional inertia is real. Don't expect Bitcoin Core to wake up anytime soon, though. There's definitely something really weird going on over there, and Bitcoiners in general are not happy about it, which is why we're seeing this unprecedented move away from Bitcoin Core. So, if you hate crypto VCs, if you hate malicious mining pools putting spam on Bitcoin, you can assert your own financial self-sovereignty and join us by running a Knots node as well. It's quite easy. I'll put a link to these two videos in the description notes below. This first one, running Bitcoin Knots and why you should, too. And then I'll put a link to these links that allow you to that teach you how to either switch from Bitcoin Core to Bitcoin Knots if you're already running Bitcoin Core or how to purchase or build or set up your own Bitcoin Knots node. So be sure to look for that in the description notes below.
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