Revision history · Transcript
Transcript: The Capture by Hodlonaut read by Rudy Dazzleworth | Pleb Slop Pulitzer Prize Pieces Episode 1
1 revision · first seen 2026-08-12 · last edited 2026-08-12 · 0 by Henry 1 by a human
- bugle-ingest[bot] 2026-08-12 Ingest: 0 new episode(s) — raw sources + transcripts 32a9a2b
Show changes
diff --git a/wiki/transcripts/the-capture-by-hodlonaut-read-by-rudy-dazzleworth-pleb-slop-pulitzer-prize-pieces-episode-.md b/wiki/transcripts/the-capture-by-hodlonaut-read-by-rudy-dazzleworth-pleb-slop-pulitzer-prize-pieces-episode-.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..916f6d96 @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +title: "Transcript: The Capture by Hodlonaut read by Rudy Dazzleworth | Pleb Slop Pulitzer Prize Pieces Episode 1" +type: transcript +episode: the-capture-by-hodlonaut-read-by-rudy-dazzleworth-pleb-slop-pulitzer-prize-pieces-episode- +generated: true +date: 2026-03-28 +audio: "https://feeds.fountain.fm/R8scBF2Wiykm0YVldsHQ/items/GC4HC16UiXKCZb12OfH0/files/AUDIO---DEFAULT---a2a18fc7-3688-4051-8773-c2122a2d38fd.mp3" +duration: "4:45" +sources: + - raw/episodes/the-capture-by-hodlonaut-read-by-rudy-dazzleworth-pleb-slop-pulitzer-prize-pieces-episode-/bundle.json +--- + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-0">0:00</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-0" data-t="0">The capture,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-2" data-t="2">an investigation into how informal power over Bitcoin core was assembled,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-7" data-t="7">exercised, and defended</span> <span class="cue" id="t-9" data-t="9">by Hodlonaut,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-10" data-t="10">03/27/2026.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-13" data-t="13">Article one of four, the network.</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-17">0:17</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-17" data-t="17">This is bugle journalist, Rudy Dazleworth.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-20" data-t="20">Welcome to the first episode of Plebslop Pulitzer Prize Pieces.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-25" data-t="25">In the autumn of twenty twenty five, something very unusual happened on Bitcoin's network.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-31" data-t="31">Bitcoin knots, an alternative implementation of Bitcoin's node software</span> <span class="cue" id="t-36" data-t="36">maintained by longtime developer,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-38" data-t="38">Luke Dastier,</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-40">0:40</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-40" data-t="40">surged from around 2% of the network to more than 20% in a matter of months.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-45" data-t="45">Thousands of people who had been running Bitcoin Core, the dominant implementation for the protocol's entire history,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-52" data-t="52">made the switch.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-53" data-t="53">The trigger was a decision by Bitcoin Core maintainer, Gloria Zhao, to merge a change, relaxing the default limits on how much nonfinancial data could be embedded in o p underscore return outputs before a Bitcoin transaction would become nonstandard</span> <span class="cue" id="t-70" data-t="70">from the point of view of mempool relay policies.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-73" data-t="73">Critics argued it would legitimize and accelerate the use of Bitcoin's blockchain as a dumping ground for data, like inscriptions,</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-80">1:20</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-80" data-t="80">at the expense of its function as a monetary network.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-84" data-t="84">Supporters argued it reflected market reality and that opposing it was a form of censorship.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-90" data-t="90">The word censorship</span> <span class="cue" id="t-92" data-t="92">appeared in a public letter defending the change,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-95" data-t="95">signed by 31 Bitcoin core contributors.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-98" data-t="98">What the public debate mostly missed was the origin story.</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-102">1:42</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-102" data-t="102">How did Gloria Zhao become the person who merged that change? How did Bitcoin Core, a project with no company,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-110" data-t="110">no CEO,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-111" data-t="111">no formal hierarchy,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-113" data-t="113">come to be directed in practice by a small and unusually</span> <span class="cue" id="t-117" data-t="117">cohesive</span> <span class="cue" id="t-118" data-t="118">group. This investigation</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-120">2:00</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-120" data-t="120">across four articles</span> <span class="cue" id="t-122" data-t="122">documents how that happened, how a network was built, how it was used, how its influence was encoded into the protocol's governance infrastructure,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-131" data-t="131">and what the consequences</span> <span class="cue" id="t-133" data-t="133">were when that influence was exercised at scale.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-136" data-t="136">This first article covers the foundation,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-140" data-t="140">the people, the institutions,</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-141">2:21</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-141" data-t="141">and the sequence of decisions that assembled the network between 2018</span> <span class="cue" id="t-146" data-t="146">and 2021.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-148" data-t="148">It begins with a dinner.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-150" data-t="150">The dinner.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-151" data-t="151">Bitcoin OPTECH is a technical newsletter and education resource for Bitcoin developers</span> <span class="cue" id="t-157" data-t="157">founded in 2018.</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-159">2:39</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-159" data-t="159">It publishes weekly summaries of development activity,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-163" data-t="163">runs workshops, and organizes</span> <span class="cue" id="t-165" data-t="165">occasional dinners for contributors.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-167" data-t="167">It is a respectable institution</span> <span class="cue" id="t-169" data-t="169">in the Bitcoin world.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-171" data-t="171">Low profile,</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-172">2:52</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-172" data-t="172">practically useful,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-174" data-t="174">trusted.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-175" data-t="175">One of its cofounders is John Newbery.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-178" data-t="178">Newbery is an English software engineer who became an active Bitcoin core contributor in the mid two thousands.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-186" data-t="186">He is widely described,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-188" data-t="188">including by people who later fell out with him, as technically sharp,</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-192">3:12</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-192" data-t="192">personally warm, and effective at navigating the social dynamics of a leaderless</span> <span class="cue" id="t-198" data-t="198">open source project.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-200" data-t="200">By late twenty twenty, he had accumulated</span> <span class="cue" id="t-202" data-t="202">a set of institutional levers</span> <span class="cue" id="t-205" data-t="205">that few people in open source software outside corporate structures possess.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-210" data-t="210">He was a cofounder</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-212">3:32</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-212" data-t="212">of Brink, one of the main organizations</span> <span class="cue" id="t-214" data-t="214">funding Bitcoin core developers.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-217" data-t="217">He was closely affiliated with Chaincode Labs, the New York based developer training program that had become the primary formal pipeline into Bitcoin Core.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-227" data-t="227">He co organized Chaincode's residency program alongside its CEO,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-232" data-t="232">Adam Jonas.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-233" data-t="233">He ran the Bitcoin Core PR review club, a weekly session for mentoring contributors through the review process,</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-240">4:00</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-240" data-t="240">and he ran the Optech dinners.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-242" data-t="242">OpTek was not self funded. Its seed capital came from three individuals,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-247" data-t="247">Wences Casares,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-249" data-t="249">the founder of Zappo,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-251" data-t="251">John Pfeffer, a venture capitalist,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-253" data-t="253">and Alex Morcos,</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-255">4:15</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rudy Dazleworth</b> <span class="cue" id="t-255" data-t="255">cofounder of Chaincode Labs itself.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-258" data-t="258">Two years later, Casares and Pfeffer would provide Brink's founding sponsorship.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-263" data-t="263">The same private funders financed the network's technical education arm and its developer funding arm in sequence.</span> <span class="cue" id="t-271" data-t="271">Steve Lee, an OpTech cofounder,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-273" data-t="273">described its political function explicitly.</span></span></p> + +<p class="cue-p"><a class="cue-t" href="#t-278">4:38</a><span class="cue-body"><b class="cue-who">Rod Palmer</b> <span class="cue" id="t-278" data-t="278">Hey, folks. If you would like to listen to the full article read by Rudy Dazleworth,</span> <span class="cue" id="t-282" data-t="282">please subscribe to the Bugle Weekly on Fountain.</span></span></p>