As the world waits in anticipation for the jury to deliver its verdict in the Kleiman v Wright trial, CoinGeek Chief Bitcoin Historian Kurt Wuckert Jr. went on one of the biggest podcasts online (PBD Podcast) to spit truth about Bitcoin, the digital currency space, and much more. The legendary Patrick Bet-David hosted Kurt, and as you’ll see below, it was fire all the way through.
Introducing Kurt Wuckert Jr.
Opening the podcast up, Patrick Bet-David asked Kurt to introduce himself. Regular CoinGeek readers will already be familiar with him, but for those who don’t know, Kurt is a Bitcoin OG going all the way back to 2012, and he’s passionate about Satoshi’s original vision for an unbounded Bitcoin protocol.
Kurt explained how he found Bitcoin when a client of his printing company in Chicago paid him around $50 in BTC. He soon jumped into mining and went down the rabbit hole, quickly realizing that Bitcoin had disruptive capabilities as peer-to-peer electronic cash. A couple of years after Kurt got involved, the Bitcoin civil war kicked off.
What’s the Bitcoin civil war?
Bet-David asked Kurt to clarify what the Bitcoin civil war was and to outline the sides briefly. Kurt explained the difference between small blockers who want to limit Bitcoin to being an investment asset that people hold to get rich and the big blockers who believe in the original use-case for Bitcoin; electronic cash to disrupt the world financial system.
He briefly outlined the difference between Bitcoin SV and “Bitcoin” Cash and the various in-fighting that occurred. He correctly highlighted those small blockers were reluctant to embrace Bitcoin’s true potential because they were “getting rich doing nothing.”
Religious fanaticism in the digital currency space
Bet-David then asked Kurt to explain why there are many fundamentalists in the digital currency industry, likening them to religious sects. Kurt explained that this is an accidental byproduct of the original mistake of limiting Bitcoin. This bred thousands of altcoins to serve different use cases, but none of them were ever needed as the original Bitcoin (BSV) could have done everything.
Ethereum vs. Bitcoin
The next question was about Ethereum’s potential, which Kurt poured cold water on right away. He reminded the host that Ethereum has repeatedly failed to deliver on its promises to scale and will likely continue to do so in the future due to fundamental design flaws. He rightly noted that Bitcoin was always capable of smart contracts that are more powerful than Etheruem, implying that Ethereum arose out of a failure to understand Bitcoin’s true capabilities.
Comparing Bitcoin to Ethereum, Kurt likened Ethereum to an altruistic system that caters to the lowest common denominator. In contrast, Bitcoin is a ruthlessly competitive system where only the best and strongest survive.
Pressing Kurt on whether or not Ethereum could “figure it out and become the cream of the crop coin,” Kurt reiterated his stance that it just won’t happen due to fundamental limitations in its design.
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
One of Patrick Bet-David’s co-hosts, Gerard, got right down to business and asked Kurt who Satoshi Nakamoto is/was. He wondered if Satoshi was a person, a group of people, or pure fiction, and whether this should lead to questions on whether we can trust Bitcoin.
Kurt said without hesitation that he believes Dr. Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto. He outlined his reasons as follows:
- No other candidates make sense. Nick Szabo, Hal Finey, and other candidates touted to be Nakamoto all failed to understand Bitcoin in various ways.
- Satoshi clearly sided with big blockers in the various public debates about Bitcoin and determined that Bitcoin could scale. This is the sentiment echoed by Dr. Wright today.
- Dr. Wright has signed privately for several people, including Gavin Andresen, Jon Matonis, and between six and ten others.
Pushing back a little, Bet-David pointed out the unlikelihood that Dr. Wright had forgotten his private keys. Unfortunately, the conversation moved on quickly to other topics, not giving Kurt a chance to clarify how Dr. Wright does not control the keys to the coins.
The Florida Trial – Kleiman v Wright
Bet-David then took the opportunity to zoom in briefly on the Kleiman v Wright trial currently happening in Florida.
This gave Kurt a chance to briefly outline how Wired and Gizmodo magazines outed Dr. Wright and cover some of the histories that led to the ongoing trial. Much of this has already been covered in The Satoshi Affair.
Unfortunately, the conversation quickly changed to other topics, which didn’t give Kurt a lot of time to explain the details of the trial. However, you can read all about what’s happened so far on CoinGeek.
Bitcoin as the world reserve currency
The hosts brought up two articles quoting Senator Rand Paul and Hillary Clinton on how Bitcoin has the potential to either become the new world reserve currency or disrupt and undermine the dollar.
Kurt clarified that BTC is incapable of doing either due to its technical limitations. However, the original Bitcoin protocol (BSV) can pull it off because of its unbounded scaling, smart contract capability, and innate ability for tokenization.
After Gerard asked for clarification, Kurt had the opportunity to explain the different Bitcoin airdrops and their visions for what Bitcoin should be. He outlined how many of Bitcoin’s innate capabilities were turned off or cut off in BTC and other implementations, whereas they’ve been restored on BSV. This allows for tokenization, the issuance of NFTs, the development of games, and other use cases on Bitcoin.
Mining on Bitcoin and Ethereum
Kurt briefly covered how mining works on Bitcoin and Ethereum. He explained how mining is essentially the process of brute-force guessing a hash (number). While mining on the two blockchains is fundamentally different, this is the crux of how mining works. He also pointed out how specialized equipment has been designed to mine digital currencies because of its competitiveness.
Bet-David then asked about a common concern with Bitcoin mining: the energy costs. Kurt explained how energy cost should not be considered in isolation but should also consider the return on investment. He also explained how it increases efficiency as miners try to find ways to outdo each other and compete. He noted that we should also consider what that energy is doing and producing. Whereas all of the energy to mine BTC is simply wasteful, the energy expenditure would be justified and beneficial if we build business use cases on Bitcoin (BSV).
Kurt explained that miners are also transaction processors, and so one way to increase efficiency is to increase the number of transactions on the network. He went on to explain how Bitcoin isn’t corruptible the way fiat currency is due to its competitive nature and the proof of work it’s based on.
Why should everyday men and women care about Bitcoin?
A great question raised by Adam Sosnick was why everyday people should care about Bitcoin and blockchain.
Kurt described how dollars are inherently inflationary and lose value as they sit in bank accounts, whereas Bitcoin is not. Likewise, Bitcoin SV allows everyday men and women to engage in commerce with anyone, anywhere on the planet, and to build use cases that were previously unthinkable for regular people. By way of example, he remembered how the internet made it possible for everyday people to sell things for a markup.
Why did Vitalik Buterin call BSV a scam?
Vitalik Buterin once called BSV an obvious scam. Bet-David asked Kurt for his thoughts on this comment. Kurt pointed out that since BSV makes Ethereum obsolete, he’d naturally take this position publicly.
Why does BSV make Ethereum obsolete?
- BSV doesn’t have a scaling ceiling, whereas Ethereum can’t scale.
- BSV is exponentially faster and cheaper to transact on.
- Everything that can be done on Ethereum can also be done on BSV and more.
Kurt hammered home that other blockchains don’t scale, as emphasized by Etheruem’s repeated failed promises to roll out working L2 solutions and that eventually, all the value on other blockchains will have to come to BSV.
Wrapping up and random questions
One of the best things about the PBD podcast is that the topics can get pretty wild towards the end. As the main conversation about Bitcoin wound down, the second half of the podcast covered some random things and asked Kurt for his thoughts on it.
- The Bitcoin Rainbow and 200k Bitcoin – Kurt dismissed both as ridiculous and called Chamath Palapatia “a madman” for calling for $200k Bitcoin.
- The crypto and economic bubbles – Kurt predicted a crash and dismissed other digital currencies as “complete nonsense” with zero economic utility.
- The BDO meeting minutes – Bet-David asked Kurt about the BDO meeting minutes submitted to the Kleiman v Wright trial, which indicates that Dr. Wright talked to them about creating an e-cash system in 2007. This is solid evidence that he is, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto.
- Jack Dorsey – Kurt said Jack is “a communist who thinks he is a libertarian” and said the main problems at Twitter fall squarely on his shoulders. Even though Bet-David made a solid case that Dorsey has lost much of his control over the years, Kurt still blamed his decision-making along the way for what Twitter has become.
Kurt also dropped bombs on many of cryptocurrency’s sacred cows, including Charlie Lee, Brian Armstrong, Brad Garlinghouse, Vitalik Buterin, and others. He called them scammers, incompetents, and opportunists, among other things.
CoinGeek features Kurt Wuckert Jr. in recap coverage of the Kleiman v Wright trial which will be livestreamed daily at 6:30 p.m. EST on our YouTube Channel.
Check out all of the CoinGeek special reports on the Kleiman v Wright YouTube playlist.
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
