ehmjay
MJ

payto://nano/nano_1dctqbmqxfppo9pswbm6kg9d4s4mbraqn8i4m7ob9gnzz91aurmuho48jx3c

AI Software Engineer

Public Key

npub14lynvghtf4uup7m4u4hqc9z48aepfv9yv647hg2vkwyk33n4te4qd303ze

NIP-05 Address

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2ljfkyt4567wqld672msvz32n7us5kzjxd2lt59xt8ztgce64u6spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsyat57r

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub14lynvghtf4uup7m4u4hqc9z48aepfv9yv647hg2vkwyk33n4te4qd303ze

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Last Notes

2023-02-25 07:18:12 GMT

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So look into it or ask questions.
I've also spent countless hours looking into potential alternatives only to be disappointed. Nano is the first of which that hasn't been the case.
And it took me about 2 years of skepticism before fully understanding it, but I always have and always will keep an open mind to other potential improvements.
I've been a backend software engineer for 15 years and studied economics for about a decade, and Nano just makes sense on all fronts.
I frequently hear this argument from non-technical Bitcoin maxis that Bitcoin will simply "absorb" ("subsume thru soft forks") advancements from other projects, and it's flat out incorrect for many reasons.
Firstly, it's technically infeasible. In order to achieve what they've achieved, networks like Nano have fundamentally and radically different system architectures and processes to that of Bitcoin's legacy blockchain and Nakamoto Consensus. It simply isn't possible for Bitcoin to adopt what Nano has created.
Even if it was possible (it's really, really not), the Bitcoin community has proven time and time again that it has no interest in allowing fundamental changes to Bitcoin. It would never pass social consensus.
I'm not saying you should go buy Nano or stop supporting Bitcoin. I'm just saying you should also be asking questions about Nano or any other projects that are potentially better solutions.
Help evangelize them as well.

2023-02-24 23:41:33 GMT

Does Bitcoin have a long-term security plan?
Bitcoin might have a major problem and likely an existential crisis when it comes to long-term security.
The built-in subsidization model (block rewards) for miners is logarithmic (halving every ~4 years).
This means that, in order to maintain the current level of miner hashrate (and network security), BTC's market value must continue doubling between each halving.
But BTC's market value can only double another 4-5 times before exceeding the market cap of gold, and only 6-7 more times before exceeding the global money supply.
There will literally be no more opportunity for growth.
As the block reward diminishes, miners will become more and more significantly dependent on fees for subsidization of their operational costs in order to maintain profitability.
This means that fees must rise exponentially in parallel with the logarithmic decrease in block rewards, and will likely surpass $50/tx within 15-20 years.
All of this happening concurrently to the existence of at least one alternative that offers instant transactions with zero fees, better decentralization, better security, better scalability, and better usability and a fixed security model that does not diminish with time (this has not been true during previous halvings).
As fees grow exponentially, people will migrate to these alternatives, exacerbating the drop in resource investment into BTC.
BTC's security model is variable, dependent on continued exponential growth in market value. Its future is, at best uncertain, and at worst will tumble into irrelevance.
Why has it become the norm to dismiss these significant concerns rather than focus on an alternative with
* a permanently fixed security model
* better decentralization
* better transactional security
* better latency and throughput
* better usability with instant full confirmation and zero fees
Why should the global economy continue to choose to use a financial system with 30-60 minute latency, 3-7 tps throughput, exponentially rising fees, and obscene energy consumption when an alternative exists that offers instant confirmation with zero fees and negligible energy consumption?
Lightning is a decent attempt at providing a similar experience built on top of Bitcoin, but in doing so, it makes absolutely massive compromises to decentralization, custodialization, security, usability, and complexity, leaving it susceptible to bugs, vulnerabilities, and failures.
On top of all of this, moving transactions from Bitcoin's base layer to Lightning actually removes fee subsidization from Bitcoin's base layer, further exacerbating it's long-term security problem.
In many ways, Lightning is the antithesis to everything Bitcoin represents.
It's time to move on from Bitcoin and focus on more optimal solutions.
https://i.imgur.com/HbYFM5j.jpg

2023-02-24 22:36:39 GMT

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Totally fine, as long as you're not just outright dismissing it and convincing others that nothing can ever be better than Bitcoin.
You're just clearly not the type of person I'm reaching out for.
Nano obviously needs more advocates, and I'm trying to find people that can understand from a technical perspective how much potential it has.
I did the same thing with Bitcoin from 2011-2017, and thought I'd never see the day that the average person was interested in it.
These things just take time.

2023-02-24 22:32:55 GMT

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I've read Layered Money.
As much as I respect Nik Bhatia, "it's always been done that way" is not a valid reason to continue doing something (layered monetary systems).
The entire first half of Nik's book makes many strong cases *against* attempting to build a layered monetary system.
It's one of the biggest problems that's led to our utterly broken fiat system.
You can't scale technologies in layers. You can only build applications in layers.
note1cp4ymdknj4que2q5tfjfj8arws3jj4fmtc8k293xuun4wf45jcxqlze68s

2023-02-24 22:12:50 GMT

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That's why I explicitly made separate comparisons to Bitcoin and Lightning.
Yes, Lightning is hella fast, but it makes massive compromises to enable that speed.

2023-02-24 22:00:26 GMT

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But why not at least be open to it if you can recognize it's technical superiority?
Why do Bitcoin maximalists outright reject it?
What's wrong with saying "well, obviously I'm going to continue using BTC for now since it has a lot of support at the moment, but I'll also help advocate for this incredibly promising technology"?
And yes, Nano really is is "SO MUCH" better, Bitcoin maximalists just refuse to acknowledge it as such.
### Compared to Bitcoin
instant >> 30-60 minutes for confirmation
deterministic finality >> probabilistic finality
feeless with no barriers for even the poorest people >> $2 and eventually $70+ fees
zero supply inflation >> 2% annual inflation
uncapped throughput >> 3-7 tps
incentivized decentralization >> incentivized centralization
Nakamoto Coef of 10 with $125M market cap >> NC of 2 with $500B mc
no rent-seeking middle-men >> miners
negligible energy usage >> 120TWh annual energy usage
### Compared to Lightning
feeless with no barriers for even the poorest people >> "minimal" fees
on-chain decentralization and security >> centralized and custodial sidechain
simplicity >> extreme complexity prone to bugs, vulnerabilities, and failures
direct P2P payments >> liquidity channel management with invoices
Have you actually tried it? It's an incredibly delighting experience.

2023-02-24 21:19:34 GMT

Open discussion. I get a lot of shit for mentioning Nano anywhere on nostr, but who here has **actually** looked into Nano?
**If you have, what did you not like about it?**
I've studied Bitcoin for more than a decade, and Lightning and Nano (and many others) for many years now. Nano is unlike anything else I've seen.
It is painfully obvious to me that it's a much more optimal solution than Bitcoin+Lightning, and I have yet to see any valid arguments against it.

2023-02-24 20:27:30 GMT

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Old fashioned.

2023-02-24 20:00:13 GMT

Just noticed that hamstr.to seems to support markdown to some extent?
Testing a couple notations
# header1
## header 2
*italics*
**bold**
***bold italics***
- unordered list
1. ordered list 1
2. ordered list 2
`in-line code`
```
block code
```
---
^ horizontal rule
[links](hamstr.to)

2023-02-24 19:50:03 GMT

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What do you use for desktop?

2023-02-24 19:48:47 GMT

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And thank you for giving me a real response.

2023-02-24 19:47:10 GMT

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> Lack of security
What exactly do you mean by this?
Nano has instant deterministic finality with far better security than the probabilistic finality of Bitcoin.'
Once a node sees quorum voting weight to determine a transaction block is valid, which occurs in about half a second, it cements the block as final and will not reverse it, no matter how much voting weight any other node can obtain.
Do you mean something else?
> lack of decentralization
Nano's lack of monetary incentives means that both node operators and users are directly incentivized to decentralize as much as possible. Despite its relatively low market cap, Nah has already achieved better operational decentralization than Bitcoin, with a Nakamoto Coefficient of about 10, compared to Bitcoin's NC of 2-3.
Nano has far greater potential for decentralization and resistance to seizure and censorship than Bitcoin.
> lack of adoption
Adoption / network effect is an emergent property of utility and demand, it is not inherent to the technology. It only comes with time.
> The base layer should be as sound as it gets, hence bitcoin only.
And yet Nano is even more sound than Bitcoin in just about every fundamental way. Why reject this?

2023-02-24 19:27:33 GMT

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Because you can't.

2023-02-24 19:26:16 GMT

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I know you're pretty technical, so if you have a real reason, I want to understand it.

2023-02-24 19:25:48 GMT

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#[4] at least give me your definition for what qualifies something as a "shitcoin"?
You claim Nano to be a shitcoin but won't give a single reason for your disliking it?

2023-02-24 19:24:28 GMT

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Is there consensus on it being pronounced "no-ster" rather than "nah-ster"?

2023-02-24 19:22:05 GMT

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What makes Nano a shitcoin?

2023-02-24 19:21:40 GMT

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I have no intention of trolling. I want to understand perspectives. You're response here is the trolling.

2023-02-24 19:21:10 GMT

What is a "shitcoin"? How do you define what a "shitcoin" is?

2023-02-24 19:18:47 GMT

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I am indeed very interested.
If someone has strong arguments against it, I want to know what they are.

2023-02-24 19:17:58 GMT

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What is a shitcoin?

2023-02-24 19:17:42 GMT

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Why not? What are its faults?

2023-02-24 19:16:54 GMT

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I thought nostr was an open protocol for everyone?

2023-02-24 19:16:07 GMT

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Why are you so angry?
Lightning is absolutely not Bitcoin.
It is a separate application/system that locks value on Bitcoin's chain for use within its own, entirely separate protocol for value transfer.
It only uses Bitcoin as a feature for settlement.
It is not Bitcoin.

2023-02-24 19:13:49 GMT

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And what is a "shitcoin"? What is your qualification for calling something a shitcoin?

2023-02-24 19:13:06 GMT

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Not an argument at all.
I'm genuinely curious what your concerns with it are.
What are the compromises?

2023-02-24 19:05:27 GMT

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Be honest #[3] have you tried, or do you know absolutely anything about Nano?
Theoretically, you should absolutely love it.

2023-02-24 19:00:38 GMT

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Why are you afraid to discuss?

2023-02-24 18:59:36 GMT

Pretty impressive how quickly all these nostr clients are improving!
My favorites so far are Amethyst on Android, hamstr.to and iris.to on desktop, but I keep swapping back and forth between these and others to see the progress.
Outstanding.
Shout outs to #[0] #[1] #[2] and all the other nostr devs out there!

2023-02-24 18:56:32 GMT

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Please. Explain to me what you don't like about Nano.

2023-02-24 18:54:09 GMT

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Have you tried Nano?
It's an even better experience with no necessity for channels at all.

2023-02-24 18:52:26 GMT

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Couldn't a nostr "zap" just be any payment/tip logged via a nostr event?

2023-02-24 18:49:43 GMT

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#[2]
#[3]
#[4]
#[5]
#[6]

2023-02-24 18:48:10 GMT

Why couldn't nostr zaps be an open standard with any `payto:` URI payment target?
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/262

2023-02-24 18:33:20 GMT

You can't scale technologies in layers.
🧵 👇
You *can* build applications and reusability frameworks in layers.
And no, the internet does not *scale* in layers either. I'll explain below.
There is an absurdly common misconception that technologies like Bitcoin can scale in layers. When responding to criticism of Bitcoin's lack of sufficient throughput (4-7 tps) and extremely high latency for full confirmation (30-60 minutes), proponents will often claim that "second layer" systems like the Lightning Network magically solve this problem.
This just simply isn't true.
*Lightning is not Bitcoin*, and is not attempting to scale bitcoin itself. It is an entirely separate application that leverages Bitcoin as a *feature* for settlement.
Unfortunately, as a separate application, it also has an entire transactional model of its own, completely separate to Bitcoin's. One that is far more complex and prone to bugs, faults, and vulnerabilities, is far less decentralized, and tends to be very custodial.
Lightning is indeed relatively scalable, but it makes tremendous sacrifices in complexity, security, and decentralization in order to achieve that scalability.
Unless running your own node, you're using LN custodially to some extent, whether a fully custodial wallet or at a minimum custodial channel management. This is completely antithetical to everything Bitcoin represents.
Graph theory tells us that the complexity of searching for paths between two vertices in a weighted directional graph means that Lightning simply cannot scale without dependency on the formation of massive centralized liquidity hubs, acting as middle-men collecting more fees from the users.
This is essentially a reincarnation of traditional fiat banking/credit/payment applications, only built on top of Bitcoin rather than fiat. Yes, Bitcoin provides a much more sound base layer, but the "transactional" Lightning layer is just as compromised as in current fiat monetary systems.
We can do better. We can keep the transactional layer on the base layer itself, with significantly improved decentralization, security, throughput, latency, and usability.
I also frequently see Bitcoin supporters pointing to the internet as an example of a system scaling via layers. This is very inaccurate. The internet does not scale in layers.
Each layer of the internet protocol suite is an application or reusability framework layer, and is as optimized as theoretically possible for its specific purpose. And all of them fully rely on the underlying layers for all relevant activity.
None of them are attempting to scale their underlying layers.
The HTTP protocol does not implement its own solution for data transfer. It relies fully on protocols like TCP, UDP, QUIC, etc for data transfer.
This is not true about Lightning. As I said before, Lightning is a separate application entirely, using its own protocol for transactions and other operations, circumventing Bitcoin's transactional security entirely and using it only as a feature for settlement.
Many Bitcoin advocates have seemingly been convinced that it's impossible for a base layer to provide adequate scalability (throughput and latency) without sacrificing decentralization or security.
This problem is often referred to as the "blockchain trilemma". What people tend to misunderstand about this trilemma is that it only applies to parameterizations of a particular system architecture.
If you take Bitcoin, and make its blocks bigger, or its block time shorter, you can increase scalability significantly. But in doing so, you're likely making sacrifices to decentralization and security. This much is true.
But by completely re-architecting the solution from the ground up, we can and have achieved significant improvement across all areas of concern, including scalability, decentralization, security, and usability.

2023-02-24 17:38:24 GMT

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https://nostr.build/i/nostr.build_6b22f2c228511c898f4f2596f72adc6097048a878ddafede5f5fb984cd795eae.gif

2023-02-24 17:04:48 GMT

Be honest: what cryptocurrencies, other than Bitcoin/Lightning are appealing to you? And why?

2023-02-16 00:59:48 GMT

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Rendered markdown for reading:
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/87ddfb29cad45d1bafebeedd1c64e22e61d75250/89.md

2023-02-16 00:57:19 GMT

NIP PR for added support for the RFC-8905 (payto:) URI scheme standard for payment invocations
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/262
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8905.html

2023-02-02 21:43:10 GMT

#[0] welcome to nostr!
Also, kinda jealous that you got a pubkey ending in mj...

2023-02-01 18:38:01 GMT

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Why are you promoting a fully custodial wallet?

2023-01-31 05:11:46 GMT

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You can't honestly believe that, right?
That doesn't make any sense.
That's like saying you can't improve on dial-up or fortran.

2023-01-31 03:09:31 GMT

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I 100% agree that **most** others have one or all of those problems. But you can't say absolutely that something can't exist that doesn't have any of those problems while also significantly improving upon Bitcoin.

2023-01-31 02:52:46 GMT

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Can you even define what a "shitcoin" is?

2023-01-31 02:52:04 GMT

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I agree its exhausting to have to research every single alternative that pops up.
But there's a massive difference between saying "well, maybe its better, but I don't have time to research it" and calling someone a shitcoin and saying nothing can ever be better than Bitcoin, right?

2023-01-31 02:49:16 GMT

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It's not about needing to get proverbially "burned" by BTC
It's about finding a way to achieve even better decentralization and provide a better user experience. Better than 30-60m latency, 3-7 tps throughput, rising fees, etc
If we can significantly improve all of those areas and achieve even better decentralization and security, why not embrace it?

2023-01-31 02:35:37 GMT

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🫂

2023-01-31 02:27:03 GMT

Anyone know who the Amethyst or Hamstr devs are?
They deserve some real kudos!

2023-01-31 02:25:01 GMT

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But can you give me any technical reasoning?
If something is obviously superior in many ways, why not embrace it?

2023-01-31 02:08:11 GMT

Amethyst is a really damn slick Android nostr client!
A little quirky around the edges, but beautifully designed!
Looking forward to the improvements!

2023-01-31 01:55:01 GMT

Can any #Bitcoin-ers give me an *intellectually honest* explanation for "maximalism" and hostility towards anyone not embracing it?
Why write off everything not "Bitcoin" as a shitcoin?

2023-01-31 01:48:04 GMT

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#[1] what desktop and mobile clients you use?

2023-01-30 18:08:57 GMT

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Okay, you're right, hamstr.to is legit!

2023-01-30 18:00:38 GMT

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Thanks for the tip, hadn't heard of hamstr.to!

2023-01-30 17:37:14 GMT

What #Nostr client do you prefer?
So far, I'm liking iris.to and snort.social

2023-01-24 23:11:47 GMT

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It's absolutely not
It was literally designed explicitly to circumvent BTC's entire transactional security.

2023-01-24 23:11:01 GMT

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What is your argument against Nano?

2023-01-24 17:14:05 GMT

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#[0] why Lightning though?
It's not BTC. It bypasses BTC by design
It's insecure, centralized, and custodial by nature
Have you looked into Nano?
It uses a radically different architecture than BTC that offers extreme scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security.