November 2022 sees the Adopting Bitcoin Conference returning to El Salvador. I partnered with the event hosts to bring you a 3-part interview series about three of the event speakers. For the second interview, I spoke with Jon Atack!
**You can get your ticket for the Adopting Bitcoin Conference here. It will take place in San Salvador, El Salvador November 15-17, 2022.
When I arrived in Canada to study at university, I had to open a bank account. At 18 years old, it was the first time I’d open and own a bank account.
There was a catch though: to open the account, I had to first deposit $700 Canadian Dollars (CAD) which the bank would freeze for five years. This meant I could not touch my own money for the duration of my studies.
When I asked the tellers why they needed to hold my money for so long, they said it was because I was a new immigrant and they had to protect themselves in case I returned home unexpectedly.
I mean…Even if I ran away back home and left my money behind, wouldn’t that hurt me more than them? They’d get to keep my $700 after all!
Feeling like I didn’t have a say, for a million reasons I won’t get into (of which one was that I didn’t really know you could fight banks back), all I could do was watch as my checking account dropped to $2 at times. Other times to $0. And on other days to -$35. No matter how much my checking account dropped by, I would still see my $700 perpetually frozen in my savings account.
Isn’t that ironic –that I could go into a negative balance, be charged interest rates, and be left unable to tap into my $700?
It was a mean joke to see hundreds of dollars locked in my savings account when I didn’t even have enough money for groceries in my checking account.
Criminal if you ask me.
So, at a young age I understood the high cost of banking – even within a developed country like Canada. I understood then that banking was exclusive to the different tiers of society, unhelpful for those of us who need it most in our darkest hour.
Banking can be especially harsh for new immigrants, for those without identification, for those born into the wrong caste system, for those deemed too dangerous because of their dissenting opinions. It can be adversarial for billions of people who remain unbanked for whatever reason dictated by the banking elite.
Fortunately, banking is changing thanks to people working hard to make financial access free and fair for all – regardless of immigration status, wealth, education level, nationality, religion, sex, or belief system.
These incredible people helping to build a fairer financial system are called Bitcoin developers.
Note: Bitcoin developers are one of many key participants in helping build a better financial world for all. There is valuable work being done by designers, educators, storytellers, product managers, builders, miners, users who run nodes, and entrepreneurs. But today’s focus is on Bitcoin Core developers.
Bitcoin Core Developers: Who Are They & What Do They Do?
Before I attempt to explain what a Bitcoin Core developer is, I’ll start with explaining what Bitcoin Core is in the easiest way I can.
Bitcoin Core is open source code that runs Bitcoin.
Put another way, anyone can view, comment, or propose changes to Bitcoin’s software code. There is no cyber, imaginary gate blocking your access to Bitcoin’s code (unlike Facebook’s code for example which remains private and inaccessible).
As it would follow, Bitcoin Core developers are software developers who review, think through problems, test, discover bugs, code, propose changes, translate text and/or document Bitcoin Core.
Developers review proposed changes to Bitcoin Core code – although not all changes will be implemented. That’s because developers review and discuss proposed changes then decide to accept or reject these changes, often after many updates or improvements.
In this way, decisions are reached by rough consensus (rather than having a manager telling them what gets built on the roadmap); through a more ad hoc, bottom-up, free-flowing process rather than top-down approach.
Twice a year, the changes made to Bitcoin Core become part of the next release that node operators, or computers that run Bitcoin Core (and store the data of bitcoin transactions) can optionally decide to adopt. Nodes are important because they enforce consensus and validate transactions and blocks on the Bitcoin network.
Fun fact: the Bitcoin network has never been hacked, which speaks volumes to the work of developers, contributors, maintainers, reviewers and other players. Having said that, there have been critical bugs in the code that could’ve made Bitcoin fail, particularly in the first two years of inception (between 2009-2010) but also more recently. Thankfully, they were patched before Bitcoin was actually hacked (as far as we know).
There have been hundreds of Bitcoin Core developers spread across the world. They work hard, often for little pay (if any) because they believe in Bitcoin and the benefits it can bring to billions of people.
Jon Atack: Bitcoin Core Developer
Jon Atack was born in the United States but has spent most of his life traveling and living throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union, as well as South East Asia, among other places.
As a result, he speaks English, French, and German fluently with a little bit of Russian.
He wrote professional computer games in assembly language during his teenage years, studied computer science and physics at Harvey Mudd College, and got his MBA from INSEAD in France.
For two years he worked as a marketing brand manager for L'Oréal at their headquarters in Paris before returning back to software development.
Then, in 2013, Jon heard of Bitcoin. Although… it wasn’t until 2016 that he went down the rabbit hole and decided to save money for the next few years in order to fund a year of his time contributing to Bitcoin, which he began in March 2019.
From there, Jon spent his time reviewing code, discovering bugs and testing fixes while also proposing code improvements and fixes.
In March 2020, Spiral (then Square Crypto) began sponsoring Jon as its first Bitcoin Core grantee and has continued to support his work since, along with newer sponsors like Strike via the Indy 500 Bitcoin Racing Car, Compass Mining, and the Human Rights Foundation. A few individual sponsors have also kindly supported his work.
If you’d like to support Jon and his work please visit this page: https://jonatack.github.io/donate
The Bitcoin community is grateful for developers like Jon because without them the quality, robustness, speed and maintenance of Bitcoin development would suffer. And we wouldn’t be here today democratizing financial access.
Interview.
As a Bitcoiner, I wanted to get to know a Bitcoin Core developer. I wanted to get a sense for why he’s passionate about Bitcoin and what he’ll be speaking about at the upcoming Adopting Bitcoin Conference in El Salvador, which I’ll be attending. Here’s what he had to say.
Hi Jon! Can you please tell me what it was about Bitcoin that got you interested in it?
Jon Atack: A long time ago, I lived through a one-week currency devaluation caused by money printing, during which all the banks shut down. When they reopened a few days later, my savings had dropped very significantly. It amounted to theft of people’s savings at mass scale. I’ll never forget that.
For me, the compelling idea of decentralized, peer-to-peer money, resistant to censorship, devaluation and confiscation, is what called to me: money separated from the state and central banks and the legacy banking system.
In short, freedom, independence, and self-sovereignty — money without masters. To succeed in this, Bitcoin must above all be decentralized and robust. Improving those qualities are my fundamental goals.
What is a Bitcoin Core contribution that you’re proud of?
Jon Atack: Review and testing, as it enables leveraging your impact far beyond your own code contributions and helping both your fellow contributors and Bitcoin alike.
I like to review widely across the whole codebase and a wide range of contributors — particularly new contributors! Sometimes giving a nudge via review or testing to a proposal that has been sitting for a long time without attention is all that is needed to get the ball rolling on it again and see it completed and merged soon after. That can be very satisfying.
As Steve Lee at Spiral wrote to me once: ‘If literally all a developer did was review hard but important changes it'd be incredibly valuable.’
Interesting! In fact, you once said: “The main thing that Bitcoin is lacking is not proposals for improvement. By far the greatest resource constraints and bottlenecks are experienced review and testing.” How do Bitcoin Core developers ensure there’s thorough testing to protect Bitcoin from getting compromised or hacked?
Jon Atack: It depends on the type of change; some proposals are more critical or difficult to review and test than others. More eyes on the code and more people testing Bitcoin (of all backgrounds and experience levels) is vital!
Now switching gears a little bit, I know you’re a Bitcoin Core developer and a surfer. Do you see a connection between the two – Bitcoin and surfing?
Jon Atack: I don’t know. Like understanding and working on Bitcoin, surfing requires years of daily dedication, of continually making mistakes, falling down and trying again. Both may be related to a desire for independence and freedom, and both do keep you humble!
I find that surfing is also, out there in nature and one with the ocean, very complementary to working on Bitcoin for the body, mind, and soul.
I love that! Can you give us a preview of what you’ll be talking about at the Adopting Bitcoin Conference? What can we look forward to hearing about?
Jon Atack: The current schedule is to do a session on using alternative peer-to-peer privacy networks (I2P, CJDNS) with your Bitcoin Core node for improved connectivity and robustness, a live Bitcoin Core review session, and a panel with fellow Bitcoin developers William Casarin and Josie (josiebake) on how to begin contributing sustainably to Bitcoin Core.
Sounds amazing. Thanks so much, Jon! I can’t wait to meet you in person at the conference.
Adopting Bitcoin Conference.
The Adopting Bitcoin Conference will take place November 15-17, 2022 in San Salvador, El Salvador. I’m excited to meet the people, like Jon Atack, building a better financial world for the “billions.”
The conference will give a microphone to those who strive valiantly to build a better financial world in the face of much criticism and pessimism. There will be about 100 speakers with presentations divided between two tracks:
ECON stage (for non-technical people like me!)
DEV stage (for technical people not like me).
*There will also be workshops and solutions projects (or projects that are solving real-world issues).
Despite bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador on September 7, 2021, there is still a massive need for education on Bitcoin – ranging from what is bitcoin to how to self-custody – which the Adopting Bitcoin Conference is happy to fund and support. That’s why 100% of all the revenue earned from tickets will go to education in El Salvador.
Going to El Salvador has been a dream of mine since the start of the year (when I was working on my new year’s resolutions). I cannot believe I will get to go, be surrounded by such incredibly bright people, and to participate in the Bitcoin revolution in such a monumental way.
I'm humbled by it all and I can’t wait to share with you what I learned during my trip there.
**Get your tickets for the conference here and let me know if you’re coming!