Misinformation

The Right Enemies

Drivechain benefits all Bitcoiners, and has no downsides.

Nonetheless, it has many enemies:

Altcoiners (who want their alt investment to do well).
The Anti-Alt Bitcoin Immune System (which is misfiring in this case).
Rival developers / L2s (who are out of a job if Drivechain succeeds).
People who are publicly known to be DC-haters, and who will now be humiliated if it succeeds.
Haters of Bitcoin privacy, who want to kill the zCash sidechain.

Here are some of the misconceptions which they spread:

1. Drivechains Bring "Sh&!coins To Bitcoin" 🤡

Some projects —Colored Coins (2012), Omni (2014), Counterparty (2014), Taro (2022), BRC20 (2023), Runes (2023)— enable “Sh&!coins”, on any Blockchain, including Bitcoin.

But Drivechain is not one of them. Drivechain does nothing whatsoever to further enable Altcoins on Bitcoin.

In fact, Drivechain builds you a new blockchain without a new coin. This eliminates the need for Altcoins; and eliminates also the narrative(s) that allow scammers to peddle them.

If anything, DC would move Altcoins off of L1 Bitcoin, onto their own L2 sidechain.

2. BIP300 will CHANGE Bitcoin into something else 🤡

No – Bip300 only affects the people who use it.

Your node will still do exactly what it was doing before. It will NOT start doing anything new; it will NOT stop doing anything it was doing before. This is the magic of the soft fork.

3. Miners Can Steal From BIP300 Sidechains 🤡

Miners can steal from the Lightning Network, more easily than they can from DC.

In reality, miners will not be stealing from DC, nor from LN.

The “miner theft” issue depends on two security parameters: m and b. Anyone who does not bring up m and b, is a total fraud.

“Miners” control the L1 chain, and everything that goes into it – if you are against miners, you are against Proof-of-Work and against Bitcoin.

If this type of thing bothers you, then don’t use Bip300. Don’t run a Bip300 node either. Trust me, we won’t miss you.

4. Drivechain Changes Miners' Incentives: 🤡

Drivechain allows miners to collect 10,000x more revenues (or more).

In return, they are encouraged to (but never required to):

…activate/deactivate sidechains, in order to maximize BTC’s price & maximize total txn fees.
…investigate the status of a disputed withdrawal (of which there can only be one per 3 months).

This is precisely what Satoshi intended for miners. Merged mining was invented by Satoshi, and has been in continuous use ever since. I’ve merely optimized it.

Supposedly (according to critics)…

It’s Allowed/Good When Miners…	But Bad if they…
Use ASICs to hash faster/cheaper.	Run software that increases L1 fees, sourced via Bip300/301.
Seek the cheapest/stranded electrical power.	Occasionally participate in Withdrawal Validation (which costs ~zero time/expense).
Include as many fee-paying Bitcoin txns as possible, regardless of 3rd party interference.
Innovate – new cooling technologies ; hashrate derivatives ; business models, side-hustles etc.
Fight for the Bitcoin brand – hire lobbyists/spokespeople, return mistaken fee overpayments, emergency up/downgrades.
Run software that increases fee revenue, via Merged Mining.
Give input at technical Bitcoin conferences.
Run software that increases L1 fees sourced from: BIPs 141/341, Ordinals/Inscriptions, Marriage on the Blockchain, prayers on the blockchain, etc.
Participate in Bitcoin soft fork upgrades (which is always contentious).

…but this is clearly ridiculous.

For more see here.

5. Altcoins are only for Scamming, Never for Innovation! Don't you know?? 🤡

Most Alts are scams – especially the famous ones.

But many Alts were created by diehard Bitcoiners, out of exasperation:

Vitalik Buterin was the first co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. He wrote 100% about Bitcoin for years – I personally recall him living out of a tent because he was paid only a tiny amount. His concept of Turing Complete script was met with contempt by the Bitcoin community, including me. It could not possibly have been brought to Bitcoin (not without Bip300). So instead he did a heavily pre-mined Altcoin. It was shady at the time, and still is. Nonetheless, today it has more paying customers than BTC.
Roger Ver poured his time, money, heart, and soul into Bitcoin. He and other largeblockers tried for years to achieve a LargeBlock Bitcoin, but failed. Again, this left them with no other choice but to join with BCH when Amaury created it in 2017.
Riccardo Spagni, cultural leader behind Monero, gave a 2 hour long interview on Bitcoin Uncensored. During it he was adamant that he did not want to create an Altcoin, but what could he do instead? He wanted additional privacy via ring signatures. Ultimately, we all agreed that there was nothing else he could have done. After all there was no Bip300 at the time.
Jeremy Rand, leader of the Namecoin project, wrote explicitly on why he could do Namecoin on Bitcoin: “no one has figured out how to make it work”
David Vorick, creator of Sia, wrote explicitly: “Sia will initially be implemented as a blockchain-based altcoin. Future support for a two-way peg with Bitcoin is planned”.
I myself wished to do a sidechain with my Truthcoin project (now Bitcoin Hivemind). I build Altcoin software for testing, but never launched an actual Altcoin (instead, I worked on Bip300).

Plus countless more.

Even if all Alts were scams, it doesn’t mean every new blockchain design will be. It’s too risky to put all our eggs in one basket! We need competition among chain designs.

( Even diehard-maxi Saylor was forced to admit that maybe there is a second best after all. )

6. Drivechain is funded by VCs! 🤡

We have received $0 from VCs. Funding for LayerTwo Labs comes from Bitcoin OGs with 10+ years experience. Our investors understand Bitcoin much better than you do. Plus, Paul’s business model for L2L, does NOT rely on Bip300 being activated in BTC.

Drivechain was proposed back in 2015. L2L was only funded at the end of 2022.

All of this is irrelevant ad hominem anyway. Drivechain is good for Bitcoin and is widely supported by the independent technical elite.

7. Why are people rushing this??? 🤡

It isn’t rushed at all. It is 8 years old.

Read the literature page to see just how slowly things have gone, overall.

People are pushing Drivechain in late 2023, because the 2021-2023 BS narratives (S2F, LN, institutions) are collapsing and they want something new.

Going slow is also a risk.

8. Isn't Bitcoin already Perfect?! Why rain on our parade? Thinking is for nerds!! 🤡

Bitcoin is not perfect. Consider the following:

History is replete with examples, of a Great Power growing overconfident… and then falling. The Fall of Rome and sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic are famous historical examples; the Enron Scandal and Star Wars Prequels are modern examples.
Why did banknotes replace gold? After all, gold is the harder money. One reason: that tech / culture changed, to prioritize long distance trade. If it happened to gold, it can happen to BTC. Especially if the users are all moving to “custodial lightning” (aka fiat) – see here here
It is easy to accidentally join a cult – see Behind the Curve and Going Clear and compare to this (2:00) this and this.
Lightning is the supposed savior of Bitcoin, according to the othodoxy. But the knowledgeable Lightning Insiders have been jumping ship all last year – see this this this this and this.

9. We don't need privacy! That's asking for trouble! 🤡

Bitcoin must have some subversive element – or else it will go to zero.

This is not a matter of preference – it’s the cold calculated reality of comparative advantage. Venmo / WeChatPay, CBDCs – these have the upper hand when it comes to compliance. They have the upper hand in tech as well (“blockchain” is very inefficient, compared to the databases used by Venmo et al). Bitcoin cannot compete with them, unless it has some “edge” that they lack.

Thus, the pro-regulation, pro-institution “Bitcoiners” make the same mistake as the 2017 L1 largeblockers – they are compromising Bitcoin’s essential properties, in pursuit of a quick fix.