Luke Rohenaz talks to Brittany Bitz: ‘Stop arguing and just show by doing’

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This week, Luke Rohenaz, BSV developer and creator of Jamify and TonicPow, stopped by the Brittany Bitz podcast to share his thoughts on everything related to BSV, Jamify, and the future of Bitcoin.

Creating Jamify in a couple of days on vacation

One of the hottest apps in the BSV ecosystem right now is Jamify, a music platform that allows artists to mint music NFTs and engage with their fans directly.

Rohenaz tells host Brittany Faslun how he created the application in a couple of days while on vacation. How did he manage it? He tells her that he cut a lot of corners but just sat down and did the work, quickly creating a less-than-perfect but viable product. Later in the interview, he points out that he just wanted to ship the product and work out the bugs later. He reminds us that when building something, it’s never really done, and it’s crucial to simply get it out there as soon as possible.

As things progress, he wants to slowly move away from being dependent on RelayX or other platforms and wants Jamify to use the BSV blockchain directly.

Shaking up the status quo with Bitcoin SV

Elaborating further on Bitcoin’s powers and how it can change the status quo, Rohenaz tells Faslun that in the future, users will be able to click a few buttons and create a website or application that inherits “a whole catalog of activity” from the blockchain. He talks about how this will revolutionize the web, meaning that if we’re banned from a given platform like Facebook or Twitter, we can simply pull our data from the shared database that is Bitcoin and start again with the same transaction history elsewhere.

It’s not difficult to imagine the revolutionary implications for freedom of expression, including in the music industry Jamify is focused on.

Jamify and TonicPow compliment each other—was that intentional?

Faslun rightly points out that Rohenaz’s best-known apps, Jamify and TonicPow, complement each other. She asks whether he designed them to be this way.

Rohenaz replies that TonicPow is generic and is applicable to everything. He points to some cool new features on the horizon, such as earning micropayments for sharing music and kickbacks on NFT sales. He hopes this will incentivize growing the pie and getting involved in both creating and promoting the BSV ecosystem.

Open vs closed protocols

There’s been much debate since Bitcoin’s inception about open and closed protocols. Rohenaz says he’s most excited about open protocols and finds closed ones boring.

Speaking on whether BSV is open or closed, he says that it is open to build on. When people say it’s closed, they just mean that you can’t alter the base-layer protocol in fundamental ways. The fact that anyone can build on it fosters what he calls “coopetition.”

He also says that in BSV, we need fewer people telling others what to do and more people experimenting and figuring things out themselves.

Long-form audio on the blockchain—Will Jamify make it possible?

Faslun mentions how she put a podcast episode on RelayX but found that the 10MB cap is a limiting factor.

Rohenaz agrees it’s a problem and states that long-form audio is a top priority for Jamify. He also points out that the 10MB limit is a transaction limit and that it’s possible to “chunk” large audio files. In fact, he says there’s a 1GB audio NFT on the blockchain right now.

What about the Jamify road map? Where are things today, and where will they be in the future?

When asked about Jamify’s roadmap, Rohenaz says that one of the problems with being an active programmer working on multiple projects is that it’s challenging to focus on what to prioritize. He says that user feedback helps with this, that Jamify has a ‘features’ page, and that many of the desired features are already funded. Right now, he’s working through the backlog. 

Even though it’s still a work in progress, Jamify is seeing an influx of new artists, with roughly two songs a day being minted. Rohenaz expresses delight at the fact that so many people are getting involved, including some who weren’t necessarily in it for the music to begin with.

For Faslun, this influx of people into the ecosystem leads to people discovering Bitcoin SV’s technical superiority.

What is Rohenaz looking forward to the most?

The Jamify creator says he’s looking forward to seeing what open protocols can do. He says he’s been interested in this stuff for years and has some old projects he wants to reboot. These projects were stalled by old infrastructure, so he’s looking forward to bringing those back. For example, one such project is a browser extension that allows you to comment on articles that don’t even have a comment section, time-stamping everything on the blockchain.

Closing thoughts and remarks

In closing, Rohenaz said that, in general, he feels adoption is stalled by geeks being nitpickers and criticizing each other too much. He also thinks that everyone is doing their own thing and isn’t necessarily using each other’s applications, and when they do, they tend to be critical.

Looking back, Rohenaz points out that Unwriter used to have a rule in their Slack channel that went “show by doing.” For Unwriter, showing others the correct way to do things by doing it rather than lecturing them was enough. This is a sentiment he agrees with wholeheartedly.

Closing out, Rohenaz points out that it’s important to be tolerant of other ideas and people. He encourages BSVers to find common ground and let others do their own thing in their own way.

You can keep up with the latest news and developments from Jamify here.

Watch: The BSV Global Blockchain Convention panel, Music & Blockchain

https://youtu.be/RzJsCRb6zt8?t=26606