The Original Sin: Core Devs + Blockstream (2015-2017)
Greg Maxwell, Pieter Wuille (Blockstream/Core) pushed the "fee market" narrative to justify:
Small blocks (1MB limit)
RBF (Replace-By-Fee) enabling bid wars
Lightning as a "scaling solution" (with its own fees)
Adam Back (Hashcash inventor) endorsed this, despite Hashcash itself having no fees—just proof-of-work.
Irony: The inventor of PoW helped design a system where miners + node operators extract rent instead of enabling free flow.
The YouTube Grifters (2020-2024)
"Make Money Running a Node!" channels (e.g., "BTC Sessions," "LN+") pushed:
Routing fees as "passive income" (ignoring that real hobbyist nets like FidoNet never did this)
Liquidity marketplaces (selling channel leases—aka fractional reserve banking)
"Enterprise node" hype (encouraging KYC hubs like Kraken, Coinbase)
Farley / Farley | Retired Fortune 10 ☕
npub1fa…x670r
2025-04-30 23:42:33
Author Public Key
npub1farleyjgt90e2sr8nlneuwg7vcx0yjq3uc3ksya7902eteulzfkqyx670rPublished at
2025-04-30 23:42:33Event JSON
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"content": "The Original Sin: Core Devs + Blockstream (2015-2017)\n\n Greg Maxwell, Pieter Wuille (Blockstream/Core) pushed the \"fee market\" narrative to justify:\n\n Small blocks (1MB limit)\n\n RBF (Replace-By-Fee) enabling bid wars\n\n Lightning as a \"scaling solution\" (with its own fees)\n\n Adam Back (Hashcash inventor) endorsed this, despite Hashcash itself having no fees—just proof-of-work.\n\nIrony: The inventor of PoW helped design a system where miners + node operators extract rent instead of enabling free flow.\n\nThe YouTube Grifters (2020-2024)\n\n \"Make Money Running a Node!\" channels (e.g., \"BTC Sessions,\" \"LN+\") pushed:\n\n Routing fees as \"passive income\" (ignoring that real hobbyist nets like FidoNet never did this)\n\n Liquidity marketplaces (selling channel leases—aka fractional reserve banking)\n\n \"Enterprise node\" hype (encouraging KYC hubs like Kraken, Coinbase)",
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