CoinGeek Toronto Conference 2019: Dr. Craig Wright on BSV following the law

CoinGeek Toronto Conference 2019: Dr. Craig Wright on BSV following the law

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At its core, Bitcoin was meant to be a system of money that is decentralized, while still adhering to the laws of the land. Now that it’s been reborn as Bitcoin SV (BSV), Dr. Craig Wright took the stage at CoinGeek Toronto 2019 to explain how it’s ongoing development will focus on this aspect.

When Bitcoin was hijacked by the Bitcoin Core team and became SegWitCoin (BTC), they focused on the supposed anonymity of it. But Bitcoin was never meant to do that. “Sorry, you’re not anonymous.” Wright declared. “Sorry, Bitcoin doesn’t help you hide. Bitcoin follows the law. Bitcoin is an immutable evidence trail.” (1:07)

Expanding on where BTC has gone, Wright described the intention of it’s developers and promoters. “Right now, BTC is still used because of the illegal operations, like Binance and Bitfinex and Tether, to fund illegal operations pumping money,” he explained. “Illegal money travel. Illegal use of people smuggling.” (2:17)

Wright then touched briefly on the various elements of the R Puzzle, which will allow Bitcoin to become a better ledger of truth. By being a public ledger of accountability, BSV will help the world by proving what is true, and debunking what is false. Wright explained the endgame:

“We need a society that has people who are accountable for their actions, who when something goes wrong, can answer. That isn’t set so that you can never change a contract. Contracts are flexible for a reason.” (12:31)

Wright then touched briefly on the Metanet, which was explained in technical detail by Jack Davies, but for which Bitcoin’s creator explained how it will create a better system of value for the internet:

“So the Metanet changes everything. Google, Facebook, Twitter, they make money because of the perverse nature of incentives on the Internet. They treat popular as good. Popular is not good. Popular just means lots of people looked at it.

“What is better? Is the Wall Street Journal a better source of news, or Kim Kardashian’s Facebook stream? I don’t know about you, I would rather trust Wall Street Journal. But then, they don’t get as many readers. Metanet incentivizes things differently. When you incentivize by the number of advertising clicks, you incentivize the lowest common denominator. Trolls become valuable. Slander becomes valuable. Lies become valuable. Insults, flame wars, all of these become valuable. Because they have more advertising revenue.

“Bitcoin makes an internet where pages are valued because they’re good. People are willing to pay not for flame wars, but content. The best content wins. That is important.” (15:19)

Finally, Wright pivoted back to several important aspects of BSV contracts which will help it become a better contract system, and better adhere to existing laws. He briefly commented on Timed Access (21:15), Payment Mechanisms (21:40), Deterministic Keys (23:10) and a Blockchain Attestation System (23:54), all key elements to building better contracts on the blockchain.

Ultimately, BSV will be the winning blockchain because of its aim to adhere to laws, and help take down those who are blatantly trying to skirt them. That is Wright’s motivation, and he concludes by openly saying so:

“These are the sorts of things we want to build. I want a world where we’re going to help law enforcement collapse all of the scams. And as we find things like BTC and whatever else fighting to be more criminal friendly, I’m going to hand law enforcement the tools to make them obsolete.” (25:48)

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