Paul Sztorc Interview: Why Bitcoin Stopped Changing
Paul Sztorc sat down with Pete Rizzo about ten days before eCash forked from Bitcoin.
The timing makes it worth reading now rather than then. He was asked what success would look like, and we can check his answer against what the chain actually did.
Most of the interview is not about eCash. It is about why he thinks Bitcoin stopped being able to change at all.
The argument: Bitcoin's caution looks smarter than it was
Sztorc's central claim is that Bitcoin gets credit for a decision it never really made.
"Bitcoin was a good idea," he says. "Then we had lots of scam ideas which were both new and bad."
His words for what followed: that makes it look like being conservative was great.
His point is that the alternatives were mostly terrible, so refusing all of them looked like wisdom. A few fought their way to legitimacy, and he names Ethereum and Solana. Some were good and went nowhere, and he names Namecoin.
He does not think caution was ever tested properly. In his view there is no way to check whether it was the right call, because nothing was tried.
Soft forks are optional, and he says almost nobody knows it
This is the part of the interview that stuck with us.
A soft fork adds a rule that old software simply ignores. You do not have to upgrade. You do not have to use the new feature. If it turns out badly, it can be undone.
Sztorc says he has been making that argument publicly for close to a decade.
Then he describes what happened at a Bitcoin developer conference this year. Several people he calls very smart told him they had never heard the argument before.
That is the whole problem in one anecdote. The case for changing Bitcoin safely is not being argued down. It is not being heard.
Upgrading Bitcoin without touching Bitcoin
He then explains a technique he calls the core untouched soft fork.
Bitcoin has a long list of unused opcodes. They do nothing today. A soft fork can give one of them a meaning, and old software keeps treating it as spendable by anyone.
Sztorc's point is that this needs no change to Bitcoin Core at all. The rule can live in a layer above it that rejects blocks breaking the new rule.
He uses quantum resistance as the example. He would not argue about which post-quantum signature scheme is best. He would add several, and let people move their coins into whichever they prefer.
"Just add all the options," he says.
His view on quantum: the fix exists and will not ship
This is his bleakest section, and it is worth quoting carefully.
He describes a situation where the harm is real and approaching, the fix is available, and neither fact matters.
The reason he gives is not technical. It is that nobody can agree on who decides, and nobody wants to be the person who decided.
He expects the argument to stall on which scheme to pick. Hash-based or lattice-based, with no end to it.
We have no way to test that prediction yet. It is a claim about people, not about code.
What Bitcoin developers are excited about instead
Asked what the conference was actually enthusiastic about, he lists two things and is unimpressed by both.
The Great Consensus Cleanup, which he says is more than eighteen months away. And Ark, which he calls a more convoluted version of Lightning.
Then the sharpest line in the interview. If you wanted Bitcoin to fail, he says, you would bet everything on Lightning, Ark, and Michael Saylor.
The Peter Todd paper
Sztorc makes a specific accusation here, and it deserves to be handled as what it is.
He says Peter Todd wrote a paper criticising drivechains without ever visiting the project's website. He says this happened months after Todd was paid for it. He also says several people adopted Todd's position without forming their own.
The underlying criticism is separate from the accusation, and it is serious. Todd's argument is that BIP 300 has no fraud proofs, so miners decide whether escrowed coins move. We set out that argument and the response to it in our piece on the Liquid hack.
On what Bitcoin became
A theme runs through the whole conversation. Sztorc thinks Bitcoin stopped being about people using it.
"It's about who else is buying," he says. Treasury companies, countries, big names. Who else is in the club.
He contrasts that with the things nobody argues about. Nobody holds a popularity contest for the internet or for running water.
The interview also covers politics and jailed developers. We are leaving those to the video rather than summarising them here.
What he wanted from launch, and what actually happened
He was asked what success would look like. His answer was modest.
He hoped the network would run and find blocks. He hoped there would be liquid trading, so people who wanted to buy or sell could.
Here is how that turned out.
The network ran. It forked at Bitcoin block 973,728 on October 29, 2026. That was two days earlier than the target, because Bitcoin mined faster than expected.
It found blocks, and that was the problem. Difficulty was set far too low, so blocks arrived in seconds rather than minutes. Several things broke under the speed. We covered the rule that governs this in why eCash blocks slow down.
Trading exists and is thin. A small exchange opened a market on fork day. The wrapped token he mentions can now be swapped for real coins. Our buy guide tracks the routes and their traps.
So by his own test, launch mostly worked. The chain runs, blocks are found, and coins change hands.
On the people who showed up
Asked about the eCash community, his answer is blunt. He says they know more about Bitcoin than regular Bitcoiners do. A small project taking on a large one needs some edge.
He also says the project needs a financier. Someone who sees the idea early and puts real money behind it. Someone who takes it to a stage it cannot reach alone.
His proposed name for the community, offered as a joke, is ECX offenders.
Paul Sztorc interview: common questions
When was this interview recorded?
About ten days before the fork, which happened on October 29, 2026. Several things he describes as upcoming have since happened.
What is the core untouched soft fork?
A way of adding a rule to Bitcoin without changing Bitcoin Core. The rule lives in a layer above the node, which rejects blocks that break it. Old software ignores the new rule entirely.
Why does he think Bitcoin will not fix quantum?
He thinks the fix is available and the blocker is social. In his telling nobody can say who decides, so the argument stalls on which scheme to choose.
Does he expect eCash to succeed?
He does not frame it that way. His stated point is that Bitcoin cannot move from where it is, so something else should at least be tried.
What did he say about Peter Todd?
That Todd wrote a paid paper criticising drivechains without visiting the project's site. We report that as his claim. We have not verified it.
What is practice eCash, and is it still running?
A test coin used before launch. The stated plan in the interview was to shut it down once the real network started.
Related reading
Sources
The interview itself, on the eCash broadcast channel. Paul Sztorc with Pete Rizzo, recorded around October 19 to 21, 2026
Fork height 973,728 and the October 29 date were read from the eCash source and confirmed on chain
Launch-week block times are from the public eCash developer group, October 30 and 31, 2026
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