John Vallis #10: Jimmy Song - Bitcoin Developer

Jimmy Song is a Bitcoin Core developer, blogger, and founder of Programming Blockchain, a company that teaches developers the basics to start working with the Bitcoin blockchain code.

This discussion was on the Coinsbank Blockchain Cruise in the mediterranean in August 2018. Just prior to our discussion, Jimmy had been involved with a (now somewhat infamous) debate with Roger Ver.

I'm not quite sure exactly what either party hopes to gain in these debates, as it seems obvious at this point that neither faction is willing to capitulate (and we should just let the market decided!), but in any case, it ultimately devolved into an unproductive dialogue.

Pointless debates aside, I was still very interested in speaking with Jimmy (and Roger, for that matter, albeit for different reasons) as I knew he was a Bitcoin Core developer, and in a climate where so much of the rhetoric is by non-technical people, I was eager to speak with someone who knows how Bitcoin works 'under the hood', and why it was so special from a technical perspective.

Thankfully, Jimmy was open to having a chat with me, so we found a quiet place on the boat for a short discussion.

Enjoy!

P.S. As I mentioned in the intro, the lighting was great when we started, but I didn't realise the sun was going down, so it gets progressively darker as we go along. Jimmy's audio also gets a little loud at times, but I hope I fixed it enough for it not to be too disruptive. In any case, my apologies and I'll try to mitigate that in the future:)