Inventing Drivechain (as an idea) only took a few months (back in 2015). In a sane world, I could have wagered big $$ in an anonymous conditional prediction market, that Drivechain would have solved various problems (including the scaling war) -- and that BitcoinXT (for example) would not. Then the prices would have guided people's attention to the best idea, which would have been quickly fleshed out and deployed. (I suggested this at scaling I.) Instead, we today live in (kind of) a depressing world, where this power vacuum has been filled by: lightning, BCH, Ethereum, liquid, ark, USDT, Treasury companies, zCash, centralized L2s/ prediction market sites. Those ideas are not quite as good. And now, they're burrowed in, deep! I apologize to you all, for not pushing harder for DC back in 2015/2016. It sounds crazy to say -- but I underestimated my own intelligence. Who would have thought that lightning would end up working so badly? Or that BCH would fail to put any competitive pressure on BTC (instead leading it into overconfidence)? Who would have thought that Bitcoin Core would *give up* on the soft fork, due to ..."controversy"? Who would have thought that Blockstream would raise 150,000+ BTC and hire the "top minds" and then produce no sidechains? Who would have thought that Andrew Poelstra would be doing the same silly paper wheel encryption presentation at TabConf, years later -- or that Pieter Wuille would be working on ..."P2P encryption" (as "research" in 2025)? Who would have thought that Luke would embark on a deranged attempt to introduce lawfare to mining and Core? Who would have thought that Peter Todd, the main skeptic of sidechains, would agree to a public debate against them without bothering to visit the project site a single time? Who would have thought that miners would care so little about proactively maximizing their long run transaction fees? Who would have thought that patrons and grant-givers would be distracted by pretentious nonsense such as StratumV2? Who would have thought that our culture would *reject* **using Bitcoin** every day (and that blocks would be empty in 2025)? Or that many uses cases would be defined as "shitcoining" (by people who don't own any BTC)? Who would have thought that big media outlets would fall under the sway of corporatized "mainstream" BTC? (Ok -- maybe that one was predictable.) Who would have thought that a big BTC whale would sabotage development (and then lie about it) -- and people would just shrug? Who would have thought that *investors* would prefer "treasuries" to owning BTC itself (it seems a basic agency risk)? Who would have thought that many PhDs and programmers tinker all day, but none of this makes it back to BTC? Or that namecoin would still be a little Altcoin (not a sidechain)? Or that Monero would be used on DNMs (not BTC)? Or that Litecoin would outstrip BTC in payments (which is itself outstripped by USDT on Tron)? Who would have thought that *no one else* would take up the sidechains idea? Or that *sidechains themselves* would be seen as shitcoining? Or that media personalities would instead prefer to comment on useless topics like SegWit or Taproot or op return or new address formats? Or that Bitcoin Uncensored would disband in 2017? Really - I didn't know the other players were so weak! Thus -- I blame myself. But, in my defense -- the price was going up and up. So it was hard to complain. Plus, who needs the attention? (Yuck) However, I will try to get us back on track, as soon as possible. I estimate it requires *5 more months*. Meanwhile, please be patient, or (if you wish) help test our software.

@anonimulo7 @jack Only mediocre ideas can clear the "controversy" filter (That's the problem)