Zack Weiner on CoinGeek Weekly Livestream: JPEGs on Bitcoin are a gateway drug

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On the third episode of the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream Season 4, Kurt Wuckert Jr. hosted VX Technologies co-founder Zack Weiner. After a great discussion on VXTechnologies and what it wants to achieve on X Spaces the previous Friday, Weiner elaborated on what his company aims to achieve with blockchain and what he is doing on this stream.

Wuckert’s latest CoinGeek article

Wuckert recently wrote an article titled ‘The Wright patent dispute,’ where he discussed the patent disputes involving the Wright Brothers, who struggled with patents and gained recognition in the early days of aviation.

In the article, Wuckert explores the Wright Bros story, explains why intellectual property matters, and links it to Dr. Craig Wright’s ongoing struggles in COPA vs. Wright. He credits John Pitts with introducing him to the story and recommends that people check his latest piece on CoinGeek.

Spaces on X

Weiner begins by explaining a little about the CoinGeek Discussions he hosts on X weekly. He says they’re more community-driven, with people showing up, speaking, and asking questions. The community even suggests guests, does its research and offers up documents. It’s more of an interactive discussion and does a lot to drive community engagement.

VXTechnologies

Weiner explains that VXTechnologies started in 2020 after he and his co-founder created a project to demonstrate smart contacts and zero-knowledge proofs. He quickly realized this was too early for investors, and after receiving some requests for apps, he zeroed in on what customers were asking for—trust.

What does trust mean in this sense? They need to be able to trust records, documents, timing, etc. He and his business partner, Justin Pauly, decided to build a platform to allow anyone to build a data app to store verifiable, trusted data on Bitcoin.

MagicDapp and AlphaDapp do similar things; they allow users to import data and build apps around it without coding. Weiner explains how Ted Rivera used it to publish his books on an immutable public ledger as required by the state to give him the legal status he was seeking for his organization. He uploads updates, and either he or his accountant signs them with the click of a button. Everything is totally auditable.

VX wants to give people and organizations the power to easily use blockchain for these purposes. Everything is designed to be user-friendly with drag-and-drop elements and no coding required.

Giving another example of how this technology is being used for good, Weiner says they are working with a school in Africa that offers graduate degrees in how to be a good public official. It’s a private school and needed a way to verify/validate certificates. Doing this manually would be burdensome and costly. With VX’s tools, students get a verified blockchain-based record accessible via a QR code or a share link.

Customers want to store all kinds of files on the blockchain, e.g., leases, medical records, and more. They can create a blockchain file vault with a username and password.

Weiner’s 2024 predictions

Weiner is bullish on cool things happening on Bitcoin. He says Ordinals set a snowball in motion that can’t be stopped.

Will there be a fork on BTC? Perhaps. While solutions exist that would require a very minor update to relieve the pressure on BTC, he thinks BTC Core won’t allow it. This may cause people to find ways to do it without a Core update.

On another note, Weiner predicts the halving will push the price up due to psychology. However, we’ll also see a point at which BTC will become unusable for most users. Some people will discover BSV, and a developer migration will occur. “JPEGs on Bitcoin are a gateway drug,” he says.

Signing off, Weiner encourages people to build something cool, find a way to run it on Bitcoin, and do some good in the world.

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