Builder: Stu
Language(s): Rust
Contributes To: CTV Prototypes, Char Community
Work(s/ed) At: ZBD
Earlier than Bitcoin, Stu spent his days working as a Home windows System Administrator and in IT Help. His routine consisted of lengthy boring days of sitting in a chair participating in monotonous upkeep work, reconfiguring methods, and resetting passwords for customers who’d forgotten them.
It was the sort of job the place an issue occurring that really requires you to have interaction your consideration in a significant means is so uncommon an prevalence that you simply wind up sitting round hoping for one thing like that to occur more often than not.
Stu spent most days simply looking by means of Reddit threads throughout his copious quantities of downtime. However this turned out to not be such a nasty state of affairs in the long run, as this was how Stu discovered himself pulled into the Bitcoin area round 2017.
Like many Bitcoiners, or quite soon-to-be Bitcoiners, again in that interval, Stu acquired sucked into the Preliminary Coin Providing (ICO) and altcoin frenzy of the time. Additionally, like many Bitcoiners round that point, he wound up getting burned financially by some dangerous investments in random unknown initiatives wherein he in all probability shouldn’t have invested within the first place.
Inevitably the gravity of Bitcoin pulled him down the proverbial rabbit gap.
After just a few years of studying extra deeply about Bitcoin, Stu hit a interval of frenzy and give up his job on the peak of the 2021 bull market to search for alternatives to work within the Bitcoin area. By that point the programming language Rust had turn into extensively utilized in completely different Bitcoin initiatives and libraries, so Stu started studying it in order that he might contribute to Bitcoin.
In the direction of the top of 2022, his seek for a job within the area ended when he was employed by Michael Tildwell to work at ZBD, an organization that integrates bitcoin funds into videogames utilizing the Lightning Community.
Working At ZBD
Stu labored DevOps at ZBD, however in his free time he saved working at prototype Rust initiatives.
“Most of my facet initiatives are associated to what I used to be focused on on the time, as I used to be working at ZBD I began making video games that might use bitcoin,” Stu advised Bitcoin Journal.
To start out, he constructed a multiplayer internet recreation, rain.run, based mostly round gamers amassing lightning bolts for rewards in satoshis, to get extra accustomed to constructing functions which have to speak to one another over a community. Afterwards he constructed a easy connect4 recreation performed over the Nostr protocol.
“[This] was an effective way to learn the way Nostr labored,” stated Stu.
“I attended btc++ in Austin in 2024, which was the Script version.” The 4 day convention was probably the most dense discussion board for dialogue round Bitcoin script enhancements and covenants within the final 12 months or so.
“There appeared to be, on the time, some sort of consensus growing for covenants on Bitcoin,” recalled Stu.
“This acquired me actually focused on how Bitcoin script labored and [led] me to experimenting with Taproot and Bitcoin scripts…” he added.
“I didn’t actually find yourself with a lot however it was an effective way to learn the way scripts labored.”
TABConf, Fee Swimming pools, and CTV
In 2024, Stu attended TABConf, one other developer-focused convention, which is held yearly in Atlanta, Georgia. The conversations in Atlanta additionally revolved closely round covenants.
Like all developer-focused conferences, TABConf placed on a hackathon. Stu selected to construct a challenge utilizing Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs), which enabled customers to guess on the result of chess matches. It grew to become very apparent to Stu that constructing software program round pre-signing giant numbers of transactions launched plenty of complexity for builders.
Discussing this concern, he stated: “The reply to this downside appeared to be CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV). As I needed to study extra about covenants, CTV appeared like a great place to start out, so I began integrating CTV into my DLC chess challenge. I couldn’t consider how easy it made all the things…”
Stu went on to construct a proof-of-concept prototype of a Fee Pool utilizing CTV. Fee swimming pools are a really fundamental layer 2 system the place teams of bigger than two share management over a single unspent bitcoin output.
“A technique we will scale bitcoin for use by everybody, with out utilizing centralized third events, is for customers to share UTXO’s,” he stated when requested why he selected to work on a proof-of-concept for a fee pool. “Fee swimming pools are an effective way to do that, particularly alongside different layer 2 options corresponding to Lightning or Ark.”
Covenants
Covenants have turn into a contentious concern within the dialogue about the place to take Bitcoin going ahead. Each developer has their private opinion on them, and Stu isn’t any exception.
“I believe utilizing covenants to exchange pre-signed transactions alone is a tremendous enchancment for builders to construct sooner and safer,” he stated. “It removes plenty of interactivity and friction for customers, so there may be much less want for them to be on-line or coordinate with different events, which might enhance the person expertise by an ideal deal.”
I requested him if that is what drew him to constructing proof-of-concepts and prototypes utilizing CTV versus different covenant proposals.
“I used to be drawn to CTV as a result of it was so easy to implement within the functions I needed to construct. As soon as I constructed the fee pool with CTV, I used to be planning on doing the identical for all covenant proposals. I discovered tips on how to get the very same performance with CAT, however it simply took a really very long time to get working, and added far more code. The Bitcoin script was like 50 traces of code, in comparison with CTV with like 3 traces.”
“I’m fairly certain there may be consensus between protocol builders that there isn’t a danger to Bitcoin if we enabled CTV…” he stated. “…so the argument now appears to be that the customers don’t need it. However the customers are already utilizing functions and protocols corresponding to Lightning and multisig vaults that might be improved by CTV. So…I believe it must be the precedence for the subsequent delicate fork…”
When requested concerning the present contentious nature of the dialogue round covenants and the subsequent delicate fork, and the way the ambiance might be improved, he had this to say:
“Somebody must get Saylor to tweet a sandwich emoji and all the things will probably be good.”
“However significantly, I don’t actually know. Perhaps extra in individual occasions the place folks can talk about head to head would assist. It doesn’t look like a lot of a technical purpose that we aren’t making progress, extra of a political one,” he went on to say in a extra severe tone.
“I believe a number of the hesitance is extra round making any change in any respect to Bitcoin. The explanation it’s so arduous to vary is a tremendous property of Bitcoin, however it doesn’t have to increase to delicate forks fairly a lot. It causes plenty of stress for sure Bitcoin builders, particularly Bitcoin Core maintainers. Everyone seems to be ready on their opinion on the subsequent fork, which appears to make them hesitant on becoming a member of within the dialog in any respect, which makes it arduous to get consensus on any new change,” he stated.
The Future
Stu just lately participated within the Bitcoin Open Supply Software program (BOSS) program by Chaincode Labs, a program designed as a means for builders new to the Bitcoin ecosystem to chop their enamel and rapidly develop a deeper understanding of and expertise with constructing on Bitcoin.
Going ahead Stu goes to contribute to the Char Community, a considerably off the radar effort to construct a brand new bitcoin staking platform led by Jeremy Rubin, the developer who designed and proposed CTV. He plans to proceed engaged on his private facet initiatives and contributing to open supply initiatives as nicely, with the eventual purpose of beginning to contribute to Bitcoin Core itself.
Stu had this to say about Bitcoiners’ priorities going into the long run:
“Our primary focus must be on making self custody higher. It actually sucks proper now, and I believe extra Bitcoiners generally have to admit that. Backing up 12 phrases does sound easy, however it actually isn’t that straightforward, and nobody is doing it.”
