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Saving Seeds in DNA: Bitcoin as Information

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I recently converted a Bitcoin seed phrase into a DNA sequence, just because I can. Using only the first four letters of the BIP39 seed words, a 12-word seed phrase can be stored in a mere 48 nucleotides of DNA. (For comparison, the average gene is several thousand nucleotides long, and the complete human genome contains over 3 billion nucleotides). Any genetics graduate student could, in just a few days, turn my seed word sequence into an actual strand of DNA and insert that DNA into E. coli or some other suitable host for storage (and propagation) inside a living organism.

DNA is just one modality for storing and transmitting information. There are numerous other ways to do so and once information is widely distributed it is nearly impossible to extinguish, which is why it will be impossible to stop Bitcoin on a global scale with regulation, legislation, or even violence. The mere fact that you can store a bitcoin private key in DNA demonstrates the futility of attempting to ban Bitcoin. Once unleashed, information is hard to contain.

But why is information so hard to contain? Perhaps because information is a fundamental entity of the universe. For centuries scientists thought the universe was made only of matter and energy. Today, we know it is made of matter, energy, and information. Information can be stored in matter and transmitted using energy, but information itself is neither. Einstein showed us that matter and energy are interchangeable (E=mc2) but in toto cannot be created nor destroyed. By contrast, information can be created and destroyed, but neither is easy. And once information is created and widely distributed, it is increasingly difficult to destroy.

The Parts of Information

Information is meant to be sent and received between two or more parties. It is done with a purpose by the sender and is meant to spur action in the receiver. There are five hierarchical components to information:

FidelitySyntax (code or grammar)Semantics (meaning)Pragmatics (action)Apobetics (purpose)

Fidelity

Fidelity is the lowest element of information, but it is absolutely necessary for successful transmission. It was once a major issue for cell phone and internet communication. Remember the “Can you hear me now?” commercial? With technical advancements, low fidelity eventually became high fidelity (which weirdly became wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi). Generally, we are not concerned with fidelity unless it is lacking. (Can you hear me now?)

The Code and Language

Syntax refers to the code or grammar used for transmitting information. A code is a set of symbols that represent temporally or spatially interconnectable bits of information. That is, symbols can be strung together in time or space to achieve the next level of information (semantics). The symbols used can vary tremendously. They include, among other things, the letters that make up an alphabet, hand gestures (e.g., American Sign Language), musical notes (e.g., those old modem connections and touch tone phones), or the nucleotides in DNA and RNA. The number of symbols used can vary, as well. Most alphabets use 20-35 letters, the nucleotide code uses four chemicals (abbreviated A, U, C, and G), and the binary code employed by computers has just two symbols (0 and 1) representing the on and off states. The number and type of symbols employed are not selected randomly. For instance, they may be determined by the mode of transmission or to meet a specific need (Table 1).

Table 1: Symbols may be chosen for mode of transmission or to meet a specific need.

A common code is essential for information to be successfully communicated. That is, the code must be known to both the sender and the receiver. Also, because the code is not itself the information but merely the purveyor of information, any particular code can be translated to any other code. For example, written human languages can be translated from one to another:

Go tell it on the mountain…

Va le dire sur la montagne…

Ve a contario en la montaña…

The above phrase can also be translated, using human eyes, brain, and mouth, from symbols on a page into sound waves (acoustic symbols) in the air, which can be picked up by a microphone and converted to electrical signals in wires and then to radio waves transmitted through space to be picked up by an antenna on the space station, turned back into electrical signals, and then converted by a speaker back into sound waves to be heard by the ears of another human. In the ears of our human astronaut, the signal is converted from waves of air to waves of fluid in the cochlea and then to electrical nerve impulses carried to the brain to be interpreted by neurons. In the brain, those neurons somehow make sense of the original string of symbols, which brings us to the next level of information: semantics or meaning.

Semantics, Pragmatics, and Apobetics

Semantics is the meaning or intent of a message (a string of symbols). The allocation of meaning to symbols is a mental process. This doesn’t happen at the machine level but at the human level. When you read a book, you are not interested in fidelity (unless it is lacking) or syntax (unless the grammar is horrible or it’s a language you do not understand). Instead, you are interested in the meaning conveyed by the message, i.e., the semantics. Although computers can store and transmit information with ease, and can even perform logic operations via transistors, they cannot meaningfully interpret information the way a human can. Do raspberry pi nodes, hardware wallets, or ASICs understand Bitcoin the way a human does? I think not.

The aim of meaningful communication is to prompt some action in the recipient. This aim for action represents the pragmatic level of information. The reason the sender wishes to prompt this response is the purpose of the information, which is the apobetic level of information. These highest levels of information require genuine intelligence on both parties, even a will. Whether or not computers can ever possess a will remains to be seen.

“Go tell it on the mountain…” is a string of symbols (code) that create a meaningful message (semantics) with the sender expecting (apobetics) some response from the receiver (pragmatics). The message can only be received if transmitted adequately (good fidelity).

Bitcoin as Information

Bitcoin (the program) is computer code written in a particular coding language. From the software to the blockchain to the key pairs of wallets, bitcoin is information. This information can be stored, transmitted, and replicated in flash drives, printed books, or DNA molecules. Because it is now so widely dispersed, it is virtually impossible at this point to destroy. Politicians and bankers may not like it, but the genie is out of the bottle and cannot be stopped now. As they say, you cannot ban Bitcoin, you can only ban yourself from using Bitcoin.

Fidelity and syntax are the operational parts of information. Semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics are the higher levels of information concerned with the purpose and response of intelligent beings based on the meaning of the message. In Bitcoin, fidelity – or clarity of transmission – is achieved by the internet (and has even been accomplished by HAM radio) connecting a network of nodes, miners, and wallets. The syntax of Bitcoin consists of the coding languages used to write and execute Bitcoin Core and related software on those devices. The meaning, or semantics, of Bitcoin is a perfectly scarce, immutable, digital token. The highest purposes of Bitcoin – the pragmatics and apobetics – are demonstrated in the users that run miners, nodes, and wallets who are motivated and seeking to secure their wealth from theft, either by robbery or debasement.

The internet is now a mature and high-fidelity communication system. It cannot be destroyed without simultaneously destroying humanity as we know it. The computer codes and languages utilized by Bitcoin are sufficiently distributed such that eliminating them is essentially impossible. But even if you could somehow destroy the fidelity and syntax of the network, the idea of Bitcoin – the semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics – is too widely distributed to defeat. At this point, it has found its way into the minds of millions of people around the globe. Perhaps you could destroy the internet and every last hard drive holding the blockchain and every last computer running Bitcoin, but you would have to hunt down every last Bitcoiner to eradicate the idea of Bitcoin. And who knows, due to the ungovernable actions of some mad scientist, you might have to hunt down all the E. coli, too. 

This is a guest post by Daniel Howell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

​ Your Bitcoin private keys are simply bits of random information. Information can be encoded and stored in an incomprehensible number of ways, including DNA. 

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BitVM Just Got A Massive Upgrade

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The introduction of BitVM smart contracts has marked a significant milestone in the path for scalability and programmability of Bitcoin. Rooted in the original BitVM protocol, Bitlayer’s Finality Bridge introduces the first version of the protocol live on testnet, which is a good starting point for realizing the promises of the Bitcoin Renaissance or “Season 2”.

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Unlike earlier BTC bridges that often required reliance on centralized entities or questionable trust assumptions, the Finality Bridge leverages a blend of BitVM smart contracts, fraud proofs, and zero-knowledge proofs. This combination not only enhances security but also significantly reduces the need for trust in third parties. We’re not at the trustless level that Lightning provides, but this is a million times better than current sidechains designs claiming to be Bitcoin Layers 2s (in addition to significantly increasing the design space for Bitcoin applications).

The system operates on a principle where funds are securely locked in addresses governed by a BitVM smart contract, functioning under the premise that at least one participant in the system will act honestly. This setup inherently reduces the trust requirements but has to introduce additional complexities that Bitlayer aims to manage with this version of the bridge.

Source: https://blog.bitlayer.org/introducing_finality_bridge/

The Mechanics of Trust

In practical terms, when Bitcoin is locked into the BitVM smart contract through the Finality Bridge, users are issued YBTC – a token that maintains a strict 1:1 peg with Bitcoin. This peg is not just a promise but is enforced by the underlying smart contract logic, ensuring that each YBTC represents a real, locked Bitcoin on the main chain (no fake “restacked” BTC metrics). This mechanism allows users to participate in DeFi activities like lending, borrowing, and yield farming within the Bitlayer ecosystem without compromising on the security and settlement assurances that Bitcoin provides.

While some in the community might find these activities objectionable, this type of architecture allows users to get some guarantees that they previously could not hope to get with traditional sidechain designs, with the added bonus that we do not need to “change” Bitcoin to make it happen (although covenants would make this bridge design completely “trust-minimized, which would effectively make it a “True” Bitcoin Layer 2). For more details about the different levels of risks associated with sidechains designs, take a look at Bitcoin Layers assessment of Bitlayer here.

However, until such advancements come to fruition, the Bitlayer Finality Bridge serves as the best realization of the BitVM 2 paradigm. It’s a testament to what’s possible after the dev “brain drain” from centralized chains back to Bitcoin. Despite all the challenges that BitVM chains will face, I remain exceptionally excited at the prospect of Bitcoin fulfilling its destiny as the Ultimate Settlement Chain for all economic activity.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Guillaume’s articles in particular may discuss topics or companies that are part of his firm’s investment portfolio (UTXO Management). The views expressed are solely his own and do not represent the opinions of his employer or its affiliates. He’s receiving no financial compensation for these Takes. Readers should not consider this content as financial advice or an endorsement of any particular company or investment. Always do your own research before making financial decisions. 

 The BitLayer Finality Bridge is Delivering On The Promises of BitVM – While still far from a fully trustless system, the progress made over the past year is remarkable 

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Bitcoin Banks: We Should Build Them Ourselves

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Bitcoin banks are going to happen. We already have a few of them. We’re going to have more of them. Existing legacy banks are going to start offering services. New banks are going to be founded around Bitcoin. This is completely unavoidable at this point. Bitcoin doesn’t scale. Even absent that, people value other services that inherently require other parties. Debt being the chief one.

This is an inescapable reality.

Even if we could snap our fingers and roll out every well specified opcode and covenant proposal at once, it would still take a lot of time to begin building out self-custodial layers that could compete with something like credit unions and banks offering bitcoin accounts at scale. That is not a problem that can be trivially solved overnight.

So what can we do? We need to embrace a localist attitude around making interaction with your bitcoin easy. This requires a two pronged approach, one involving technical development and the other involving, I hate to say it, lobbying.

There already exist pieces of software like LNDHub or LNBits that allow people to offer custodial accounts for Lightning. We need a lot more software like this, and we need it to be miles better. It needs to not involve tinkering around on the command line and hooking up independent software, or perusing Github to follow manual installation instructions, or fumbling around trying to fix dependencies mismatches.

It needs to just work.

Click, sync to the network, done. It needs to be something that power users who are still not very tech savvy can run safely, and not lose other people’s money. It needs to support more than basic accounts for Lightning. Ecash offers privacy, which would be something important when it comes to small groups of people who know each other. You don’t want your friend seeing what you spend your money on. It needs to support things like Unchained or Nunchuck style on-chain self custody. People aren’t going to want to hold all their friends and family’s life savings, but holding a recovery key to safeguard them from their own mistakes is another matter.

We need the software that will actually scale this type of user interaction beyond a bunch of activist nerds online.

We also need a regulatory carve out. There needs to be a clear acknowledgement that running this type of software for friends and family with trivial amounts of money, say thousands of dollars, and without charging anything for it, is an unregulated activity. Helping friends and family interact with Bitcoin safely and easily, and for free, does not make you a bank. The idea of a few thousand dollars needing to comply with the regulations banks managing billions of dollars do is frankly absurd.

This is the path forward given the current constraints of Bitcoin, and the reality of growing and accelerating adoption, that leads us away from a system that eventually becomes completely captured and neutered by legacy financial institutions.

Instead of depending on them to deal with the current scaling limitations of Bitcoin, we depend on each other. 

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

 Bitcoiners shouldn’t sit around and wait for fiat banks and financial companies to offer services built on Bitcoin, we should do it ourselves. 

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Galoy Launches Bitcoin-Backed Loan Software, Sets Groundwork For Open-Source Banking

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Founder: Nicolas Burtey

Date Founded: September 2019

Location of Headquarters: United States

Number of Employees: 11

Website: https://www.galoy.io/

Public or Private? Private

Last week, Galoy launched Lana, software that enables banks to accept bitcoin as collateral for loans.

Lana helps community and challenger banks (the banks with which Galoy is looking to work) to offer bitcoin-backed loans to various types of customers.

“Some banks might want to use it to sell to retail, and some might want to use it to sell commercial customers or high-net-worth individuals,” Burtey told Bitcoin Magazine.

In offering such loans to a wide array of customers, Burtey believes that the high cost of borrowing currently associated with such products will come down.

“Today’s interest rates are 12% to 15% if you want to get a loan using your bitcoin as collateral,” said Burtey.

“The rates are high because there are so few financial institutions offering this type of product. We see an opportunity now that the regulations are allowing banks to do things with bitcoin,” he added.

“We think a lot of banks will want to enter this market.”

If Burtey is correct in his prediction that banks are keen to offer bitcoin-backed loans, this will not only lower rates for such loans, but it will also introduce open-source Bitcoin software into the world of banking, which could initiate a new trend in the industry.

But more on that in just a minute. First, some background on Galoy.

Galoy’s History: From Blink Wallet To Lana

Founded in September 2019, Galoy had intentions to enable banks to use bitcoin from the start, but it had to hold off on doing so due to an unfriendly regulatory environment.

So, instead, it focused its efforts on creating and supporting Blink wallet (which was originally called the Bitcoin Beach wallet and which Galoy recently sold), a custodial Bitcoin and Lightning wallet predominantly used at first in El Salvador and then in Bitcoin circular economies globally.

“Galoy’s mission was to onboard banks to Bitcoin five years ago,” said Burtey.

“But the regulatory environment was so bad during the last five years that we decided to create Blink. The reason we are now focusing on our original mission is because with the end of Choke Point 2.0 and the repeal of SAB 121, we think now is the perfect time to help banks adopt Bitcoin.”

Burtey spoke about his work in creating and growing Blink fondly and shared that he had to stop working on the project only because it would be too difficult to continue managing it while also aiming to serve a new type of clientele.

“Blink is a B2C (Business-To-Customer) play, and it’s hard as an early-stage startup to focus on too many things,” explained Burtey.

“Galoy is a B2B (Business-To-Business)-driven business, and we want to work with banks and financial institutions,” he added.

“It’s good to be focused on just one thing.”

And, as mentioned, that one thing will now be Lana.

How Lana Works

Lana is software that Galoy helps banks integrate and manage for a subscription fee. With this software, banks can issue bitcoin-backed loans under the terms they create.

“We’re not the ones deciding how much interest will be charged or anything like that,” explained Burtey.

“We give banks the platform to do this, and then they can figure out their cost of capital, the duration of the loan, the liquidation price for the bitcoin in the loan and the rate at which they want to lend,” he added.

“We’re giving you software, and helping you run and automate that software.”

Something else that Galoy doesn’t do for banks is custody the bitcoin provided as collateral for the loans they issue. Each of the banks with whom the company works is responsible for selecting their own custodian.

“You can go to BitGo or Fireblocks or each loan can have its own multisig,” said Burtey. “We’re agnostic on custody.”

With that said, Lana helps banks monitor the bitcoin in custody so that banks can be aware of whether or not collateral is nearing liquidation levels.

“A key piece of this product is risk management,” said Burtey.

“Bitcoin is volatile, and the bank will need a tool to show that it’s taking calculated risk. So, we’ll provide banks with a dashboard to monitor this risk,” he added.

An example of the risk-monitoring dashboard for bitcoin-backed loans that Galoy has created

Who Will Use Lana?

Galoy is targeting community banks and other smaller financial institutions with this new product mostly because they think these smaller players will benefit most from it — and because the big banks likely won’t need such a product.

“We don’t think JP Morgan will really want to work with us,” said Burtey. “They’re probably building something like this themselves, whereas a smaller bank, a credit union or small company probably isn’t.”

Burtey also understands that smaller lenders’ incorporating Lana as opposed to building something comparable themselves can save these financial institutions a significant amount of time and effort.

“Our goal is to say, ‘Look, you can develop this internally, and it will take you six months, a year or longer depending on how much you know about Bitcoin,’” said Burtey. “‘Or we have a lending product as a service for you, and you can launch it much more quickly.’”

And as Burtey and his team onboard their first round of smaller banks, they’ll not only be making history in enabling more banks to accept bitcoin as collateral for loans, but they’ll potentially be altering the trajectory of banking in general by introducing open-source software to it.

Open-Source Bitcoin Banking

Burtey’s long-term vision for Galoy is to do much more than just help banks issue bitcoin-backed loans. He’s looking to introduce open-source software into banking as more banks begin to embrace Bitcoin.

However, it’s important to note that Lana isn’t open-source just yet. It’s fair-source software, and, under such a license, code becomes open-source after two years.

“It’s a delayed open-source system, but it’s all available on GitHub,” said Burtey. “You can go and try it, test it, and play with it on your own.

Under the fair-source license, no company other than Galoy can sell the product to a bank right now, allowing Galoy to profit while still building with auditable code.

“We sell the deployment, and we help banks to plug in to their custodian,” explained Burtey. “We’re building in the open — but we also want to generate revenue.”

Beyond helping banks implement Lana, Burtey’s wants to develop open-source “core banking software,” as he’s looking to disrupt the “core ledger” oligopoly.

“The core ledger is where banks store the account data, customer information and transaction details,” said Burtey. “It’s the source of truth for banks.”

And only three companies — FIS, Fiserv and Jack Henry — have the core ledger market cornered.

“These are all like hundred billion dollar companies that you’ve probably never heard about because all they do is focus on selling software to banks,” said Burtey.

“Our long-term goal is to disrupt this industry by making something that is open source,” said Burtey. “Today, there is no company that does core banking with the idea of open source, and so we’re working towards this.”

Burtey envisions a world in which open-source software can make it much easier for someone to start a Bitcoin bank. (For those who wince at the words “Bitcoin” and “bank” being used in tandem, might I remind you that it was the legendary Hal Finney himself who wrote that bitcoin-backed banks would serve as a scaling solution.)

“To start a bank today is a very expensive and complicated process,” said Burtey. “You have to pay $100,000 plus just to purchase the core ledger technology.”

Burtey then referenced his own experience in starting Blink wallet, essentially a bitcoin bank run on open-source code, before continuing.

“I just went to El Salvador and started what was effectively my own bank because I wanted to,” said Burtey.

“We need to reinvent how core banking software is being made in the world of Bitcoin, and I think this is where open-source becomes relevant,” he added.

“This is really why I think the world of banking and Bitcoin will be very different from the world of banking with fiat, and I think we’re one of the companies at the forefront of this.”

 Galoy founder and CEO Nicolas Burtey wants to help more borrowers use bitcoin as collateral for loans while introducing open-source software into the traditional banking stack. 

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