The Bitcoin Take Over: Dealing with a deficit of talent and innovation in bitcoin
The narrative of “mass adoption” is starting to feel a bit complacent. This decentralised future, is not guaranteed.
We started BOLT.FUN over a year ago. This project was born in the Bitcoin Design Community, which incubated projects like Alby. Within the community, the majority of contributions come from a small core group of people. Nothing new here, this is normal in open source. However, it was a problem that started bugging me. There were a lot of design explorations that needed little upfront knowledge or effort in the design space to address, yet we have too few people who are either interested in solving those problems, or with the knowledge to do so.
Where are the tutorials for making your first lightning application addressing x, y, and z use cases? What about an experience of creating a multisig by selecting contacts, like a Telegram group? We lack tutorials, content, proper documentation; we also lack mentors and guides, and pathways that can work at a scale to bring in the diversity of problem-solving skills, perspectives, and the use cases needed for bitcoin’s global take over.
Some people say build it and they will come, but that’s just a field of dreams. We need to push for the reality we want to see. Without onboarding new people, mass adoption will just be an empty chant.
That’s not to say that there are no improvements and efforts for onboarding new people. ChainCode Labs, Qala, Torogoz, and a slew of other educational efforts have done a tremendous job in this area. But growth of talent and innovation is not happening at a fast enough rate. We need more dev schools all over the world, but we need ways to bring in people at scale. The Bitcoin Design Guide, Try Bitcoin and Saving Satoshi are things that can be marketed at scale to bring the fun and friendliness of bitcoin design and development to the masses.
The Lightning Network has been running and enables lightning fast bitcoin payments. There is no shortage of specs, and many cool features baked into the protocol waiting to be used. We don’t need to wait for more to be built, we just need to start using them. We have a suite of specifications, APIs, and tools that allow even web developers to prototype quickly on the application layer. So yes, on the technological front, bitcoin is ripe for new efforts to speed up its global takeover. So where is all the talent?
I use the term “at-risk” to designate people who are interested in blockchain technology, but are “at-risk” of being led down the shitcoin road instead. This “at-risk talent” interested in “blockchain” doesn’t yet know or care about bitcoin’s monetary policy. They don’t understand the differences between bitcoin and a shitcoin. At the very start of their journey, they are searching for opportunities to experiment, to learn, to be part of a community exploring this new frontier that they’ve been hearing about. They are looking for work opportunities or to get their projects funded.
Where does this “at-risk” talent end up? They end up spending years diving into shitcoins. Why? Because shitcoins have bigger marketing budgets; they have cooler looking designs, wallets, and events. Also, and just as important, they have the resources and tools readily available all over the web for self-paced learning and they can put the building blocks together themselves.
Such a path is not a suitable acquisition journey. When they want to adapt to the bitcoin standard, if they aren’t feeling burnt out and unmotivated, they have to unlearn or relearn skills as they apply to bitcoin’s tech. This is a waste of their time and slows down our bitcoin take over. So how do we create a direct path to bitcoin? We need to do more “top of the funnel” work.
With BOLT.FUN, we are taking the initiative of solving some of these problems. Our primary goal is to welcome as many professionals, and makers into bitcoin as possible. We’re trying to wave the flag saying: “Hey, come here and build, it's easy and fun”. By fostering a welcoming environment that motivates building and learning in public, we believe we can supercharge growth and innovation in lightning, save people from shitcoin pathways, and play a big role in evolving the entire bitcoin ecosystem. Talent will come if you provide them with a suitable environment.
BOLT.FUN allows makers to figure out what they can build themselves by leaning on the knowledge shared by others, browsing projects built by the community, or connecting with other learners and builders. Our new event, #LegendsOfLightning, functions like a remote accelerator that’s open to anyone. We offer some HUGE no strings attached grand prizes (sponsored by Fulgur Ventures). We also partnered with the Afro Bitcoin Conference for the Building for Africa track because the region is ripe for development and considered the next frontier for entrepreneurship. You can call it orange-pilling with a practical and scalable strategy for the growth of talent and innovation.
Let’s discuss. Am I completely off here?
Big thanks to RawAvacado, Roy Sheinfeld, Kroum Kroumov, Vindard, Ed Pratt, Christopher Ono, Stephen D, and Kroum Kroumov for editing and providing feedback.