XX2. “Today, 100% of the BitClout code goes public.”
BitsTODAY SPECIAL EDITION issues are free-form articles that will sometimes be published in lieu of, and in addition to regular daily issues. Today’s edition centers around BitClout’s code being released — and the madness that ensued.
🚨 RED ALERT 🚨 ALL HANDS ON DECK. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
That’s right folks. While @BitsTODAY normally takes Tuesdays off, we’re in full send mode today. We knew we had to get a special issue out.
Why? It’s here. It’s happening. It’s now. The Bitclout.com code is fully-open sourced.
And there’s a deluge of new 🐋s emerging from the depths, a bevy of nodes sprouting up 🌱 and going live, and a TON of general absurdity going down.
So man the sterns, grab your harpoons, and ship your best memes ASAP 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️. We may well remember this day as a seminal inflection point in BitClout history. Will the Bitclout price 🌙? Will @maebeam respond to @ASG? Will @nvo sleep tonight? Nothing is off the table.
Diamondhands’ MAGNUM drop 💎
That son of a b*tch really did it this time. After a quiet weekend (and past few weeks, frankly), @diamondhands rocked Bitclout to it’s planetary core today by letting the world know that the entire Bitclout.com code will forever-more be open-source. Public. Gratis. Liberated. Free for all.
This is a big deal for a number of reasons. Let’s unpack a few one by one.
For one, this is simply a big moment in social media. As notes our friend @Fungibles:
Considering the high profile de-platformings that have gone down in the past year, including that of a sitting president of the U.S., we agree that this is a major benefit of a fully decentralized social media.
This is of course in addition to how decentralization and open source will foster a new creator economy where we can all monetize, own and control our own content. Sorry zuck, hands off these hot memes. New Bitclout creator @jackbutcher summed it all up in his erudite, succinct style:
Another key impact of open-source? We’re seeing nodes that independant devs have spun up launch in full now. Two that we already spent time on and enjoyed were created by @dgsus and @tijn; @tijn’s especially has a tasteful ‘dark-mode’ that we highly recommend you check out.
or a full list of nodes you can check out, scope @BitcloutNodeList.
These are the positives. As we all know by now, there was a dark age this afternoon that we are only now recovering from. Around 5:15 EST, for a whole 30 MINUTES, nothing on Bitclout.com was working. Clearly, once the code was open-source, vulnerabilities in the code were quickly identified and exploited.
While we hash out the details of what actually went down, it suffices to say that countless users had access to “admin” mode, and naturally, things descended into chaos quickly. We’re talking cavemen with clubs and woolly mammoth hunts. Or whale hunts, to be more specific: Top creator accounts like @naval, @da5id, papa @artz and even our fearless leader, @ASG were ‘blacklisted’ and wiped from the top creator list.
This is what the top weekly creator list looked like for a hot sec:
The saving grace? Nodes like tijn.club were still online and working much better. Major use case #1 for nodes, ✔️.
Astoundingly, things got patched and plugged pretty quickly. We had just finished gathering flint, MREs, penicillin and nicotine for the end times (*hides doomsday prepper kit under mattress*). Add another feather in the cap of the Bitclout dev team for getting things sorted so quickly.
So… wtf actually went down? TBD. Ideally, look for that in tomorrow’s issue.
OK, back to talking about the benefits of open-source. Lack of open-sourced code was one of the key barriers keeping big-time thought leaders and influencers from joining the platform. When @naval discussed Bitclout on clubhouse nearly a month ago, it was open-source and the lack of an off-ramp (*coughs and mumbles “@BitSwap”*) that were keeping him from claiming his account.
While there’s been no sighting of @naval yet, we did see a number of mega-whales join or resurfaced today (before the dark ages, at least), including @balajis and @cameron winklevoss.
Bigger picture… is this the end for Bitclout UX drops? The drop to end them all?
Hardly. As notes @ludo, if anything, we should see a renaissance of heightened dev activity and creativity now that they have the entirety of the Bitclout code at their disposal.
That’s right; more projects, more nodes, more UX drops, more to keep up with… and inevitably, more @BitsTODAY issues to cover it all for you. (*@nvo sweats profusely ✍️✍️✍️*)
What else are y’all excited for now that things are open source? We’d love to hear from our readers as to which second-order effects they’re most interested in and excited about. Drop a comment on our posts, what’s the biggest impact we’ll see here in your view? 👇👇👇
In the coming days and weeks, we reckon the pace of activity, new creators joining, projects, and everything under the sun in the clout-iverse will intensify. Is this the end of Bitclout.com 1.0? Perhaps. In @miyazaki’s almanack, today may well constitute a ‘turning of the pages’ if you will.
But is this the end for @BitsTODAY or for any of the core community that’s grown to love Bitclout? Hardly.
In fact, we’re more committed than ever. And we’ve got BIG news and BIG things to ship in the days and weeks to come. Curious for a sneak peak? Well, @maebeam mae have responded to @ASG after all…
Stay cool folks. The moon is still in sight. LFG,
The @BitsTODAY team (undervalued).