As a full-time researcher of Bitcoin Season 2, Bitcoin Layers co-founder Yah-Noosh (Janus) is becoming cynical: “It’s all a massive shitcoin casino.” Janus sat down with me for an hour in person to discuss how his research group compares and rates the swell of Bitcoin L2s now entering the fray, ranging from lightning, to rollups, to federated sidechains. As emerging BitVM and ZK-based layers fight to gain traction while remaining decentralized, he later argued why such projects will inevitably launch tokens as a reality of doing business.  https://x.com/januszg_ https://x.com/bitcoinlayers   TIMESTAMPS: - 01:59 How Janus entered the Bitcoin L2 conversation 04:36 Bitcoin L2 builders learned from Ethereum 07:52 What is a “rollup”? 08:47 Stacks doesn’t count as a rollup 09:40 What is a Bitcoin Layer 2? 12:00 Trusted sidechains are still useful 13:15 Advantage of rollups over lightning network 15:58 Lightning is one of few trustless L2s 17:10 Shielded CSV: a potential lighting alternative 18:40 Coupling shielded CSV with rollups 20:37 Rollups alone have limited scale 22:08 Non-payment use cases for Bitcoin 24:30 Shitcoin casinos are coming to rollups 27:09 ICP and Arch: how they work 29:50 Multisigs are “the best we can do” today 31:04 How Bitcoin Layers reviews Bitcoin L2s 35:40 Trust assumption of BOB network 37:12 The biggest multisig hack that ever happened 38:14 SolvBTC: bitcoin derivatives on derivatives 40:29 Will BitVM-based bridging really gain traction? 42:39 “It’s all a massive shitcoin casino” 44:42 The inside pump and dump game of Bitcoin Season 2 46:20 Are utility tokens necessary for Bitcoin L2s? 48:43 What is a rollup sequencer? 50:33 The need for decentralized sequencers 52:40 Decentralizing the sequencer using tokens!  55:38 All the Bitcoin L2s are gonna launch tokens 57:30 An option to bypass the token game EPISODE SPONSORS:  › Best in Slot -- https://bestinslot.xyz/ LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST: › YouTube:    / @bitcoinrails   › X/Twitter: https://x.com/isabelfoxenduke › Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5uPrBxvD691TpTqjijudkO?si=571634b88d574911 CONNECT WITH ISABEL: › Email: bitcoinrails@gmail.com › LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabel-foxen-duke-87272423/  › X/Twitter: https://x.com/isabelfoxenduke Bitcoin #Ordinals #BRC20 #Runes #BitVM #zkp