Peter Rizun is the chief scientist at Bitcoin Unlimited: a software client that aims to scale Bitcoin with big blocks, while also empowering regular users to run nodes. In this episode, we talk about what went wrong during the block size wars & his research in scaling hardware.

Time stamps:

00:01:15 — Introducing Peter Rizun

00:03:32 — Early Block Size Debates and Satoshi’s Vision

00:07:45 — Block Size Limit History and Miner Soft Limits

00:10:10 — Dan Kaminsky’s 2011 Scaling Predictions

00:12:01 — Scaling Philosophy: Zero, One, Infinity and Earth-Scale

00:15:09 — Block Size Wars, Chain Splits, and Altcoin Proliferation

00:16:43 — Stablecoins, Lightning, and Bitcoin’s Use Case

00:19:03 — Zcash, Ethereum, and Bitcoin’s Missed Opportunities

00:22:11 — Bitcoin’s Script Limitations and Smart Contract Innovation

00:25:10 — Scaling Limits: Hardware, Storage, and Bandwidth

00:35:31 — Node Software, Formal Specs, and Core’s Dominance

00:44:00 — Censorship, Reddit, and the Block Size Debate

00:48:04 — SPV Nodes, Custodial Wallets, and Decentralization

00:51:30 — Block Size, Internet Speed, and Global Node Access

00:57:26 — UTXO Model, Dust, and State Management

01:01:37 — Ethereum, Zcash, and Node Benchmarking

01:03:26 — Hardware Acceleration and Specialized Chips

01:07:00 — Sponsorship Break and Bitcoin Adoption via Debit Cards

01:14:59 — History of Block Size Proposals and Client Forks

01:21:07 — Consensus, Forks, and the Role of Exchanges

01:25:40 — SegWit, SegWit2x, and Political Compromises

01:33:04 — Bitcoin Cash, Market Dynamics, and Altcoin Competition

01:39:34 — Stablecoin Fees, Global Demand, and El Salvador

01:46:52 — Decline of Bitcoin Payments and Missed Opportunities

02:10:56 — Lightning Network: Promise vs. Reality

02:22:12 — Shitcoin vs. Bitcoin Maximalism and Open Source Innovation

03:05:52 — Spam, Miner Policy, and Transaction Filtering

03:17:05 — Hardware Scaling: M.2 Accelerator and Node Commoditization

03:29:11 — Nexa: Experimenting with Proof-of-Work and Node Bottlenecks

03:37:44 — Craig Wright, Satoshi Identity, and Big Block Movement Damage

04:02:03 — Fork Proliferation, Community Division, and Stablecoins

04:04:31 — Bitcoin’s Future, Experimentation, and Open Research