I’m not calling the discussion of what Bitcoin is a weird obsession. I’m referring to the fact that some knots folks seem weirdly obsessed with me. I’m flattered, but I don’t understand why, because I’ve repeatedly said everyone should 1) run whatever node implementation they want 2) I personally do NOT update my node upon each new release and you should not either, and 3) I think that fees price out spam. But apparently these statements are blasphemy and make me a bad actor, even though Jimmy holds the same opinions. Regarding your insinuation that my blasphemous views have anything to do with my sponsors, they don’t. I only got sponsored by Blockstream recently (haven’t even been paid by them yet). My opinions on whether we need to take drastic action to prevent spam on bitcoin haven’t changed. They’re the same as they were when BitBox sponsored me. Does that mean I only held those opinions because BitBox was my sponsor? Of course not. But hey, if it fits your narrative that I’m a bad actor then tell yourself whatever you want. Your analogy is flawed. It’s not “like saying fines & penalties stop real world graffiti”… it’s like saying “if you want to create graffiti, you must pay a fee in advance to do so. The space available for graffiti is finite and you compete with everyone else in the world to pay for space. The more people who want to spray graffiti, the higher the fee is. When the cost to spray graffiti gets too high, you stop spraying graffiti, because your graffiti is worthless and you’re wasting increasing amounts of money to create it.” Anyway, glad you enjoyed the episode. I truly appreciate you watching it. I wanted to take the time to actually respond to this, and I hope what I’ve said helps clarify that I may not be the boogeyman some people seem determined to make me. I want Bitcoin to succeed, as I know you and everyone who runs knots does as well. We may disagree on certain things, and that’s a good thing. Disagreements do not make us enemies, and I’m sure we have more in common than we disagree on. Bitcoin is money, and I use it as money every single day. I know we both agree on that, so let’s start there. 🤝