“You don’t want to use the blockchain unless there’s actually some kind of dispute; all cooperative transactions in the world can exist off of the blockchain and there’s no reason to actually use a blockchain for them”
— Nadav Kohen

Location: Remotely
Date: Friday 25th June
Company: Suredbits
Role: Software Engineer

Bitcoin's proof-of-work blockchain solves a specific problem: achieving consensus of a distributed ledger without a central authority. Out of this decentralised network, new properties emerge like censorship resistance and probabilistic finality.

Bitcoin's success led to an explosion of altcoins, with most claiming to improve upon Bitcoin somehow, whether it's speed, privacy or scalability. However, blockchains are a delicate balance of specific tradeoffs, and these altcoins pale in comparison to Bitcoin's decentralisation and censorship resistance. 

While changing a parameter might seem to add functionality, it can also introduce unintended consequences. To resist influence and attacks, Bitcoin must remain decentralised by allowing for easy validation.

Can we achieve sufficient privacy and functionality on the second layer? And why are other consensus methods, like proof-of-stake, flawed?

In this interview, I talk to Suredbits software engineer Nadav Kohen. We discuss why blockchains must scale with second layers, proof-of-stake vs proof of work, and tradeoffs of privacy technology.

This episode’s sponsors:
Gemini - Buy Bitcoin instantly
BlockFi - The future of Bitcoin financial services
Sportsbet.io - Online sportsbook & casino that accepts Bitcoin
Casa - The leading provider of Bitcoin multisig key security.
Exodus - The world's leading Desktop, Mobile and Hardware crypto wallets.
Ledger - State of the art Bitcoin hardware wallet
Revolut - A better way to handle your money

-----

WBD369 - Show Notes

-----

If you enjoy The What Bitcoin Did Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following:

Become a Patron and get access to shows early or help contribute

Make a tip:
Bitcoin: 3FiC6w7eb3dkcaNHMAnj39ANTAkv8Ufi2S
QR Codes: Bitcoin
If you do send a tip then please email me so that I can say thank you

Subscribe on iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | Deezer | TuneIn | RSS Feed

Leave a review on iTunes

Share the show and episodes with your friends and family

Subscribe to the newsletter on my website

Follow me on Twitter Personal | Twitter Podcast | Instagram | Medium | YouTube

If you are interested in sponsoring the show, you can read more about that here or please feel free to drop me an email to discuss options.