nostrostr
Nostrostr

I had a thought recently that Blackrock would one day want to increase the max supply. It could either because they don’t have enough coins to back their obligations or they’re just too addicted to the fiat free money. Either way, it would be really funny to watch them try to fork Bitcoin and get dumped on

2025-12-12 02:34:51 GMT

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The advertisement is for XXI, not Bitcoin. But bitcoin is the thing that can’t be printed, not XXI shares.
Until they present a plan for providing value for the world and actually earning bitcoin, it’s all just an intentionally confusing marketing scheme to convince people to pay twice as much for their paper bitcoin vs the ETF.

2025-12-11 20:46:22 GMT

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Can XXI shares be printed? I’m concerned that these Bitcoin treasury companies are the start of fractional reserve banking with bitcoin.

2025-11-28 05:50:57 GMT

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People like the algorithm. Is there a nostr app that has one? Or maybe there isn’t enough diverse content on nostr to have one?

2025-11-24 01:57:45 GMT

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What is he referring to?

2025-11-08 16:45:15 GMT

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Does BIP444 stop people from putting large amounts of non-monetary data in the UTXO set? I would support it if it does.

2025-10-03 13:29:19 GMT

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Unable to zap

2025-08-03 21:52:53 GMT

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“16% of the network is permissionlessly asserting their right to relay what's in the interests of themselves and the network”
What’s the other 84% of the network doing then? Are they not also permissionlessly asserting their right to relay what *they think* is in the interests of themselves and the network?

2025-07-27 18:10:17 GMT

I forget… does PoS stand for Proof of Stake or Piece of Sh*t?
Jokes aside, the problem with PoS finally clicked for me. I used to think it was because it gave the richest people control over the protocol, which is true. But I think the main problem is that there is no opportunity cost for attempting to attack the network. You could attack the network by trying to reorganize the blockchain and double spending your coins. But you could also stake those same coins on the original chain just in case your attack fails. No opportunity cost.
With PoW, the people with the most capital still have the most power over the protocol, but there is a massive opportunity cost to an attempted attack. First, you cannot own the coin and attack the network at the same time. Any mining equipment you own could have been bitcoin instead. Also, an unsuccessful attack leaves you with a ton of electricity cost and nothing to show for it. This connection to the real world incentivizes miners remain in consensus with the rest of the network and contributing to its security instead of attacking it.

2025-07-24 20:07:16 GMT

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Actually understanding how it worked changed my perspective. The 3Blue1Brown video on Bitcoin specifically.

2025-07-24 13:05:11 GMT

One of the things that bugs me the most about the Bitcoin community is the number of people that simply regurgitate the ideas pushed by Bitcoin influencers. This is supposed to be a community of free thinking and a priori reasoning, but a majority of people aren’t doing this.
Just because somebody online supports Bitcoin doesn’t mean that they have your best interest at heart. If we are not careful, we will end up creating the same system of control that we are trying to escape.

2025-07-11 16:44:28 GMT

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I’d give them 12-18 months
#nevent1q…47aa

2025-06-19 00:35:12 GMT

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This was my first time reading one of your articles. I like how calmly you present the situation in comparison to a lot of bitcoiners. I was really surprised to hear that you own treasuries. Could you explain why?

2025-06-18 12:58:29 GMT

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You talked about not sounding arrogant when approaching people who are new to Bitcoin. Things like: “my life is so much better after holding bitcoin for years”
I’d say that the quality of my life as viewed from the outside has declined because of my adoption of Bitcoin. I only spend money on things I really need because the opportunity cost is way too big to justify.
It makes sense to waste money on things you dont need or even want when your money is worth less over time. But when your money appreciates over time, the money you spend today could’ve bought you 10x as much 10 years from today.
The quality of life from my point of view has improved. More purpose and more hope.

2025-06-14 17:07:18 GMT

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I’m using nostr for free…

2025-06-14 03:03:35 GMT

If I were to make an ad campaign for Bitcoin, the slogan would be:
Bitcoin: it’s a people thing
I think this is a big thing that people new to Bitcoin miss. They focus on technical details, adoption, or price and forget that money is inherently a social phenomenon.
It’s not up to any government or mega corporation to decide the rules of consensus for us. We decide what we value. Each individual signals their preferences through the economic value/energy they contribute to society.
Each person plays a small role, and may not always get what they want, but this is the way every human thing works - culture, ideas, and money. Playing a part in something greater than ourselves is what gives life meaning and value.

2025-06-13 16:30:35 GMT

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Are the spammers profiting from the inscriptions by selling them to other people, or are they just “leaving their mark” on the blockchain?
If they are profiting, you can hardly blame them. The problem isn’t their entrepreneurial mindset that provides services for which other people are willing to pay. The problem is the fact that other people actually want to pay for their spam. Hopefully people learn.
If they are just spamming to leave their mark on the blockchain, you can try to change the culture. But it is ultimately up to them since Bitcoin is premissionless. It only takes a small percentage of people running Core v29 to get the spam to miners.

2025-06-05 01:11:51 GMT

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I know this would be some kind of copyright violation, but if nostr is actually permissionless, it couldn’t be stopped right?

2025-06-05 01:10:32 GMT

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We wouldn’t have to be if it was on nostr

2025-06-04 02:29:25 GMT

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I see Spotify in there. I was surprised to see that nostr isn’t used more for pirating music. Does anyone know the reason for this?

2025-05-24 04:25:22 GMT

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I didn’t realize that the block reward starts rounding around the 2112 halving. Since it rounds down, does that mean there will actually be less than 21 million BTC, or does it make up for those lost sats in the last epoch?

2025-05-17 02:20:24 GMT

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I love Minority Report’s theme of free will. Each person’s choices have a real consequence on the world. This is a call for the audience to think about their actions and avoid moving mindlessly through life.

2025-05-14 16:32:58 GMT

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This is the best video you’ve made on this topic so far.

2025-05-08 21:02:39 GMT

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I’ve been following Matthew for 3 years now and this issue is the first time that I’ve disagreed with him.
The filters aren’t working. If they were, there wouldn’t be any inscriptions. Miners put arbitrary data into blocks because those transactions pay the highest fees. If you don’t like that, the only way to stop it is by rejecting blocks with arbitrary data. That would require a hard fork, which would be terrible for the network.
Even with a hard fork, it would be hard to separate out spam from economic transactions. I think the best way to combat this issue is to increase the share of mining from bitcoiners that care more about the health of the network than profit. Also, decreasing block size might not be a bad idea to increase fees.
I’d like to see Matthew use his platform to offer thoughtful and practical solutions instead of making a fuss about something that filters won’t fix.

2025-05-04 22:43:59 GMT

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Glad we came to an agreement

2025-05-04 22:43:35 GMT

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True. Unfortunately, people will continue to fall for jpeg nft scams on Bitcoin for a long time, which only encourages spammers. The filters are the first line of defense. Another thing that could mitigate spam is home mining by bitcoiners that care more about the long term health of the network than short term profit. I’d like to get into home mining when I get more technically skilled.

2025-05-04 21:54:10 GMT

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Nodes don’t reject blocks with transactions that have a massive amount of arbitrary data. They are still technically valid. Nodes simply filter these transactions out of their mempools and prevent them from being relayed to other nodes and miners. Spammers can circumvent these filters by submitting their spam directly to miners and paying them a high enough fee. Check Marathon’s Slipstream product.
If nodes really wanted to assert their authority, they would have to start rejecting blocks with too much arbitrary data. This would be extremely difficult as there would be disagreements about what counts as arbitrary data.

2025-05-04 20:27:37 GMT

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Then how are people posting jpegs without permission? It might be more difficult with nodes filtering their mempools, but they can still pay miners to put their spam into blocks.

2025-05-03 21:51:04 GMT

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I agree that we should do something about this spam. I will filter out these transactions and I hope the rest of the network does too. Even if everyone filters spam, there are still ways for spammers to get into blocks. They can send their transactions directly to miners. Granted, this is another layer of friction, but it’s not much. Spammers will likely send their transaction to the larger pools for faster confirmation. This hurts small miners as they wouldn’t get the transaction fee and it increases mining centralization.
I’m all for strongly standing up for the original intent of Bitcoin, but this is a permissionless network. I think we will eventually have to rely on the incentives of the fee market to fix this issue.
https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqspu7vanzp4a622qcdlp3cf78yv52yvtjzej50guw8j8v8g3v4v0vchacuu9

2025-05-03 03:15:43 GMT

I’ve had a couple of days to collect my thoughts on the whole Bitcoin Core fiasco. I’ve heard a lot of different perspectives from a lot of respectable bitcoiners, and I’ve learned a lot about Bitcoin in the process.
1) there is obviously demand to put non-monetary data on the Bitcoin blockchain. I think this is generally a waste of block space and provides no benefit to the ecosystem because Bitcoin is a monetary network, not a database.
2) Core’s attempt to push an update that removes a node’s ability to control the transactions that get relayed from their mempool is an overstep of power. It highlights the need for a more decentralized developer community. Nodes should be able to configure their settings however they see fit. Optionality is key. However, nodes already have the option to run any version of Bitcoin Core.
3) if people continue to demand block space for non-monetary data into blocks, we will see more services like Marathon’s Slipstream that allow people to circumvent the filters that people have on their mempools. If these people are willing to pay a higher fee rate than the rest of the network, their data will make it into the blocks regardless of the filters - unless bitcoiners are willing to make a fork that rejects blocks that have arbitrary data in them. I’ve heard that this would be nearly impossible to implement as there would be disagreements about what counts as arbitrary.
4) if this arbitrary data is truly worthless, funding for it will eventually stop, and Bitcoin will return to being used for purely monetary purposes. In the short term, it could be annoying to compete with scammers for block space, but the fees will drop when they run out of money. Trust the incentives.
Overall, putting non-monetary data on Bitcoin’s blockchain is a joke. Core should give nodes as much optionality as possible. Inscription scammers are hard to stop, but they will price themselves out of the fee market as people realize that their arbitrary data is worthless. We should do everything we can to remain in consensus because the Bitcoin community is what makes this whole thing worth talking about in the first place.
@nprofile…ljrg @nprofile…77kt @nprofile…zady

2025-04-29 04:55:07 GMT

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I read your article. Huge respect for taking the time to write such a well thought out piece.
I agree with a lot of the things you said. I cringe every time Bitcoin is poorly represented by a popular figure. Trumps speech at the Bitcoin Conference was a great example. I also cringe when bitcoiners latch on to that kind of thing.
Bitcoin definitely has a bad public image among people that haven’t spent hours researching, which is a problem. I think the best way to deal with this is on a grassroots level, like all things in Bitcoin. I talk to my closest friends about it occasionally. I try to stay calm and collected and I don’t bring it up unless they ask me about it. I’ve found that works best.
I’m optimistic because of the direction Bitcoin is headed and it doesn’t seem like there is anything that can stop it. I’ve never heard of an ex-bitcoiner. People don’t give up on Bitcoin once their conviction is solidified.

2025-04-23 20:17:40 GMT

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Why does the world need an ever-growing supply of dollars? I’ve heard a lot of bitcoiners explain Triffin’s Dilemma like this, but it contradicts other arguments they make about bitcoin. It seems like the problem isn’t that the world needs dollars, but that the US is incentivized to export dollars.
It seems silly to phrase this like it’s the rest of the world’s fault and the US is doing everyone a favor. It was short term thinking on the part of US policymakers, the US gained a lot of free stuff from the trade deficit, and now we’re paying the price.
Am I missing something here?

2025-04-06 12:54:39 GMT

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Pure signal

2025-03-29 18:23:48 GMT

The money printer is self-perpetuating in the short term but self-destructive in the long term.
In the short term, the money printer can be used to incentivize powerful institutions to support it. The military, banks, and academia are some of the institutions that come to mind. Governments can also create programs that make people dependent on the money printer and more likely to defend it in the future. I would guess that there are tens of millions of people in the US that are completely dependent on the money printer through social security and government jobs.
From a long term perspective, every time the money printer is used, the broader public gets hurt through inflation. If money printing is used sparingly, this might go unnoticed. But as greed and corruption seeps through the government, money printing inevitably ensues, and people begin to lose faith in the currency. The power in the money printer disappears as the money it prints becomes worthless.

2025-03-28 23:21:27 GMT

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Can you explain

2025-03-26 01:35:55 GMT

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I’ve been listening to Danny Knowles on the What Bitcoin Did podcast. Great interviewer, solid bitcoiner. I think he’s British but living in Australia.
_checkonchain is interesting if you like market and chain analysis. I think he’s from Australia.
Then BTC sessions and NVK in Canada.

2025-03-21 04:11:57 GMT

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Agreed. They’re posing to remove the corruption and waste in government, but will likely replace it with new corruption that benefits them. Selfishness is just human nature.
Luckily Bitcoin doesn’t need any of them to succeed. I’m optimistic that Bitcoin will fix many of these problems naturally.

2025-03-13 22:04:12 GMT

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Each dollar that Tether issues essentially adds a dollar to the money supply. The person that owns the USDT can spend it and the US government can spend it when Tether buys treasuries. This worsens the problem of currency debasement and accelerates the collapse of fiat.
#bitcoin

2025-03-12 14:08:31 GMT

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Maybe governments shouldn’t offer so many subsidies? It’s screws up the free market incentive structure and worsens wealth inequality.

2025-03-08 15:24:11 GMT

GM nostr
The way I see it, the market for government bonds is completely irrational. We have trillions of dollars per year being invested into an institution that hasn’t turned a profit in over 2 decades and has no prospect of making profit ever again. The main holders of government debt are other countries, social security, state governments, pension funds, and public companies. I can only imagine 3 ways that the US manages its massive debt:
1) issue more bonds
This option seems like an outright Ponzi scheme that will inevitably fail. As they operate at a deficit year after year, the government debt will grow exponentially. People eventually realize that their “guaranteed risk-free” return on investment is solely funded by new investors instead of actual profits. As people stop buying bonds, interest rates will rise to try to entice people to join the game and delay the its collapse. The holders of government debt as an asset will lose all that value as the government has no way to repay its debt.
2) print money
This option is where I think we are ultimately heading. It is effectively pushing all of the costs of government inefficiency, waste, and arguably harmful spending onto the holders of the US dollar. Inflating the currency discourages people from holding it, worsening inflation. It also disincentivizes people from buying bonds as they approach negative returns in real terms. The last holders of debt and currency will lose all that it is worth.
3) operate at a surplus
If the government shows some kind of financial responsibility, I still think it is possible to pay off the debt. We would need to cut government spending to only the essentials, but no politician would ever do that.
This is one of my favorite arguments for bitcoin’s inevitable adoption. People will still need money. But I’m also a little worried. Early adopters will be rewarded, but somebody will be left holding the bag. People are relying on social security and pension funds for their retirement. It isn’t going to be pretty when the value of their assets collapses. This is my main fear of hyperbitcoinization.
I don’t have any for al education in economics so please correct anything that is wrong.
#grownostr #bitcoin

2025-03-07 21:08:08 GMT

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How would Bitcoin bonds work? The US is used to taking debt in a money that they can print and devalue over time. The same strategy won’t work for bitcoin.
Also, wouldn’t this be accelerating the replacement of USD for Bitcoin as the reserve asset? I can’t imagine many politicians would want that.

2025-03-07 13:54:12 GMT

GM nostr
I realized yesterday that bitcoin and nostr are giving me the opportunity to be a part of something truly revolutionary. They have really changed the way I think about the world. We now have uncensorable technologies that secure natural human rights, a reality that seems impossible in the digital age.
My friends and family know that I am into bitcoin and nostr, but they don’t understand why. Being a part of the bitcoin and nostr communities, I feel like I have a responsibility to represent them well. I am motivated to live, act, and speak ethically and confidently. I want to show everyone that bitcoin and nostr are respectable communities for anyone that values human rights, not just for anarchists and illegal activities as many people suspect.
#grownostr #bitcoin

2025-03-07 01:05:15 GMT

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Where? How?

2025-03-06 22:43:13 GMT

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Anyone can use bitcoin without censorship. That’s the whole point.

2025-03-06 22:40:07 GMT

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He’s a really smart guy. I wish he was here on nostr. I’m not on twitter, so thanks for sharing.

2025-03-04 21:29:22 GMT

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Microstrategy isn’t doing anything special. Bitcoin is special. People are doing mental gymnastics to explain why MSTR will go up faster than BTC. “Convertible debt, premium, infinite money glitch, etc.” It’s crazy that bitcoiners of all people fell for this. The number 1 rule of economics is that there is no free lunch. Somebody is losing and I think it’s retail.
The only reason they can increase the btc/share ratio is because of the premium and the only reason there is a premium is because they are the only big company doing this right now. Once other companies start, the premium will go to 0 and the game is over.
There’s no reason to sacrifice the benefits of holding bitcoin in self custody for another proxy that logically cannot go up against bitcoin forever.

2025-03-04 04:12:50 GMT

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I’m a college student in Texas. I got into crypto during the 2021 bull run and got smoked by the bankruptcies. At the bottom of the bear market in 2022, I started learning about what sets Bitcoin apart. Now all my savings are in Bitcoin (cold storage) and I’m running a node. I hope to have a little mining setup soon for learning purposes.
I’m really excited to see the progress that humanity can make when the system treats everyone fairly.

2025-03-04 01:30:35 GMT

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Yeah I also try to stop myself from bringing it up all the time. I can see how it could get annoying. It’s just hard because it’s such a big part of my worldview.
Nostr is great. I’m enjoying it so far. It’s just hard to get anyone to read my posts. Thanks for the follow btw.

2025-03-02 18:19:26 GMT

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I think the biggest bottleneck for bitcoin adoption is education. I’ve tried to convince several people in the past year to learn about it, but they weren’t very interested.
Bitcoin will eventually win because our wealth goes up over time, which allows us to build. Fiat is self-destructive and makes its holders poor.

2025-02-28 15:33:18 GMT

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I never tried it and probably never will. It seems too risky for me. I don’t get stressed when the Bitcoin price goes down. I would get stressed if I was on leverage. I wouldn’t want to be in a position where I could be forced to sell at low prices.

2025-02-27 03:36:33 GMT

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I haven’t read Gradually Then Suddenly, but it’s definitely on my list.
I’m currently reading The Fiat Standard by @npub1gdu…6nak and I’m getting a better understanding of just how influential incentives are. Nature’s incentives, expressed through the free market, are perfectly designed to constantly improve quality of life by rewarding people that do good for the world and punishing people that don’t. Fiat incentives kill the free market and nature’s incentives with it by rewarding the politically connected regardless of how productive they are. Bitcoin fixes this because Bitcoin’s incentives are aligned with nature.

2025-02-26 14:31:25 GMT

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Really great video. Thank you for everything you do for this space.
I recently heard about a threat to Bitcoin. Internet service providers could be forced to censor Bitcoin transactions, which could really hurt the decentralization of the network.
I know Blockstream has their satellites and you made a video 4 years ago about it, but there isn’t much conversation elsewhere.
Could you make an updated video discussing this attack vector and any recent advancements in protecting the network against it?

2025-02-19 21:55:48 GMT

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I like the airgapped feature using a microSD card and sparrow wallet. Besides that, the only one I’ve used so far is the dice rolls to ensure the seed generated is actually random and not pre-loaded into the device. Another one that seems really useful is the duress wallet feature, but I haven’t tried it yet.

2025-02-14 21:15:02 GMT

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It seems unlikely as of right now. I’m just pointing out that it’s a possibility.
I understand that I may not be able to make you and the government may not be able to force you, but the market can effectively force you. If there aren’t enough miners on the chain without a tail emission, it is vulnerable to a 51% attack. If all the miners migrate to the new chain for the slightly higher block reward, it would be more secure. The more secure chain would naturally have more users and a higher value per coin.

2025-02-14 16:40:59 GMT

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Thanks for the video, Matthew.
This might be a hot take, but I wouldn’t be too opposed to a tail emission if that’s what it takes to keep incentivizing miners to secure the network.
I would imagine that plenty of people will want to use the base layer, so there would be enough transaction fees that this wouldn’t be necessary. But if everyone transitions to lightning or bitcoin banks, we might need to stop halving the reward.
A 0.01 BTC block reward would be .0025% increase in the supply every year. Bitcoin would easily maintain its status as the hardest money. It would be a small price to pay in my opinion.
This is a problem that we will face decades from now, and there are good arguments for both sides. Maybe solo miners will be willing to take a loss to secure the network or maybe energy will be so cheap that everyone will be mining bitcoin.
I’m curious what everyone thinks.

2025-02-06 13:53:10 GMT

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These video titles are great. Can’t wait to watch

2025-02-02 15:41:09 GMT

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Will this make coinkite products more expensive?

2025-01-28 18:01:08 GMT

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I love my coldcard. So much peace of mind

2025-01-27 13:54:36 GMT

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“Diversification” is a fiat game. So glad I’m done playing it

2025-01-26 18:51:31 GMT

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New nostr user here. From what I’ve heard, relays are a lot like Bitcoin nodes. Nostr isn’t decentralized unless many people run their own relays.
Does anyone here have a relay to are we all just relying on primal’s servers?
Thanks

2025-01-26 18:47:38 GMT

Is anyone here actually running their own relay or are we all relying on primal to store our posts?
Any good resources on running my own relay?

2025-01-26 04:10:29 GMT

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Oh, my bad lol. It’ll be interesting to see how nostr private key security develops over time. It would be cool to have a coldcard/sparrow type setup.

2025-01-26 03:25:16 GMT

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If you’re not already holding your keys in a hardware wallet, you should look into them. I like the Coldcard and the Blockstream Jade. They just give you the seed phrase that represents your private key, not the actual string of binary.
These are considered more secure than storing bitcoin on an app on your phone/computer because your keys are never exposed to the internet, where they are vulnerable to malicious attacks.
The idea is that your keys are generated offline and are never on a device that is connected to the internet. Paranoid Bitcoiners, myself included, consider any key exposed to any device with internet capabilities to be compromised.
The BIP-39 wordlist can be found here:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt
You could convert your private key to a seed phrase using this list.
-take your private key 11 bits at a time
-convert it to base 10
- find the index in the list (00000000000 would correspond to “abandon”)
-repeat for your 24 words
** I just let my hardware wallet generate the seed phrase for me though.
For secure storage of your seed phrase, a metal plate is probably safest.
Hope this helps!

2025-01-26 02:19:21 GMT

New nostr user here. I’m not really into social media, but nostr has a different and healthier vibe. I’m excited to contribute to and engage with this ecosystem of freedom-focused people.
I just have one hesitation before I’m sold on nostr: How are current users supposed to find the posts of new users (me) unless I pay someone running a popular relay to put me on there? In other words, if anyone sees this post, how did you find it?