techfeudalist

Many normies pinging me recently … they seem impatient and frustrated that there was no big jump after the halving. Based on the negative sentiment, feels like we’re getting close to the end of this consolidation.

2024-06-19 06:07:00

Rich renters. Less house, more bitcoin?
I believe that selling bitcoin to buy a house is only advisable when you found the perfect forever place for your family. https://image.nostr.build/a4f788c31ce3a5ad400634b7127121cdcf2b9913312fd51e80a0a16201830bb7.jpg

2024-06-17 17:55:06

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But It doesn’t transcribe to the exact same spike does it? They modified that too.
Interesting how you can’t find official data on the durability of modRNA. You don’t think that’s odd?
Anyway, the reason the credibility of the NIH is relevant is that the NIH regulators were personally paid $700 million and you’re sending me NIH studies and saying I’m not following the science.
BTW, what happens to studies that don’t increase those payments? Are researchers forced to publish them?
But if you think you can trust those studies that they did publish, then i don’t know what to say. 😂
You didn’t seem to know that it was modRNA and you don’t seem to know that they modified the spike too. I would recommend you dig into it a bit further a with a careful eye on who is telling you what and whether you think the person is motivated by something other than your health.

2024-06-17 16:06:51

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That paper seems to just do a binary test of whether it was detected or not using a test we now know is faulty. Even still, the paper didn’t find statistically significant positivity in heart fluid (1 out of 2 samples).
The shots don’t contain mRNA. They contain modRNA. The lifetime isn’t measured in minutes. Spikes have been measured in victims even months after the shot indicating that potentially the modRNA is incredibly durable or the RNA is being reverse transcribed into celular DNA.
You can find these details if you want.
Also, if you don’t yet recognize that you have been lied to by every official agency on this topic, didn’t notice the $700 million in payments from pharma to the personal bank accounts of the regulators, and if you haven’t noticed the coordinated censorship of doctors, then by all means, keep on injecting yourself with whatever they tell you. It’s for the greater good, after all. 🫡

2024-06-17 04:42:42

People starting to realize the foundation issues with nostr. I love it too but know it’s unfortunately not (yet) a serious platform for free speech. Not when you can be easily identified. This will always create a risk and chilling effect.
We need to be careful because it can lure people into a false sense of security. They may think they’re anonymous when they’re not. #note1cwx…x6jx

2024-06-17 04:36:07

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“It seems incredibly implausible to me that a non-replicating tiny fragment of virus mRNA (the vaccine) can do more harm than a replicating complete virus. The latter leaves much more RNA all over your body.”
The RNA isn’t the problem. It’s the spike protein. Here’s why it’s plausible to me.
There are inconsistent volumes of lipid nanoparticles in the shot. Some batches are known to be “hot”.
It appears this LNPs have an affinity to particular organs.
We don’t how long to those transfected cells produce spike proteins (but the mRNA was modified to last longer than normal mRNA)
I’m not so confident that the viral infection produces less dangerous spike protein than natural infection.
Furthermore, the virus enters via your nasal passages which are primed to detect infections and your immune system responds earlier to reduce viral load.
Whereas the LNPs go straight to internal organs (like your heart) and produce a toxin in unknown volumes for unknown duration.

2024-06-17 03:17:10

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👏🙌

2024-06-14 05:39:27

Another insightful podcast on the scaling debate. Highly recommended. Link below.
Interesting to hear Vijay’s explanation on how frequent changes to bitcoin’s protocol undermines trust in its “unchangeable” monetary properties. I hadn’t considered this before, but it makes sense. He argued for conservatism very well.
I thought Brandon represented the “Big Scripters” 😜 well too. He focused the debate on how these proposed technologies promote bitcoin’s decentralization — which, of course, is the North Star for many of us (me included).
He argued that without these new scripting capabilities, fewer people will hold their own UTXO and therefore bitcoin will be more centralized. In the future, large custodians will be the key economic nodes and may control bitcoin and their interests may not align with ours.
Brandon recognized that his concerns are in the distant dystopian future, perhaps even after a wonderful “gilded age” for bitcoin.
Brandon argued that we need to do something now. He doesn’t know whether the proposed scripting capabilities will actually fix the potential problem but he hopes they will be helpful.
Brandon recognized that the proposal could have unknown risks but he was largely dismissive, believing that it’s probably safe.
Why now? Why the rush? Brandon left it unsaid, but I had the impression there may be a sense of urgency amongst the Big Scripters. Perhaps because they believe bitcoin will be harder to change in the future - ie, it’s now or never. Perhaps some believe that they will lose control to folks like Saylor, who represent the whales and large financial custodians of the future. If these large financial nodes control bitcoin, then the devs may believe that they will lose the power to make changes later.
I remain unconvinced. Here’s why:
Firstly, I believe we have to reject any proposals that solve potential problems that don’t yet exist, even if plausible. We don’t know what will happen in the future, nor whether the issue will be solved later without making protocol changes.
Even the best of us are just humans and not magical infallible wizards. We can never completely predict that a change will not create even bigger problems. We can’t take risks for potential problems that may never happen or which might be fixed in some other way.
Changes to the protocol should be a last resort. Bitcoin is our hope for the future. We’ve been given an incredible gift. We can’t mess it up. Future generations are counting on us.
Secondly, I believe our ability to accurately predict risk is related to our inability to accurately predict the future.
For example, I don’t recall ANY community discussions pre-Segwit / Taproot anticipating that we would be soon syncing our nodes slowly over Tor with 4 MB blocks filled with spam. It was all a big surprise to the community, wasn’t it?
Why was the block size increased? Why was there a discount given disproportionately to spammers? Why was the risk overlooked? Why hasn’t there been a post-mortem? So many questions.
I’ve realized we can’t blame the devs. We, the plebs, need to take responsibility. We allowed the devs to make complex changes to the protocol relatively quickly and we blessed it by upgrading our nodes. We trusted but didn’t verify. Lesson relearned. We can’t do this again.
Lastly, the power to change bitcoin should be held by the nodes and not the devs. Maybe it will be harder to change bitcoin in the future. That’s a feature of bitcoin, not a bug.
Devs, if you’re in a hurry, please check your time preference. I keep thinking that bitcoin could be like one of those cathedrals which took hundreds of years to build and which stand for millennia.
We should take our time to get this right. Even if it takes 10 more years of research and debate, that’s nothing in the grand timeline. In the meantime we should fix bugs, make it easier to run nodes, improve network privacy, and improve community communication.
@npub1r8l…x5dk Thank you for the great recent content. Love the debate format! 🙏
https://stephanlivera.com/episode/583/

2024-06-12 09:23:58

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I still don’t understand the answer to this question:
“What prevents people from having their own UTXO now? There are more bitcoin addresses than stars in the universe.“

2024-06-11 18:49:35

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I see it in a similar way except that larger transactions will be prioritized meaning that small transactions might wait even longer than 22 years.
I view bitcoin as a replacement for FedWire. Exchanges, ecash federations, countries and whales will use L1. Everyone else will use L2s etc.

2024-06-11 18:43:53

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What prevents people from having their own UTXO now? There are more bitcoin addresses than stars in the universe.
It seems to me that the limitation is not UTXO addresses but rather transaction fees to receive some sats.

2024-06-11 18:40:57

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I say we should allow protocol upgrades every 10 years. That should give us sufficient time to research and debate. In the meantime we just fix bugs and improve performance and privacy.

2024-06-11 18:37:27

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If you have to ask, you don’t understand the second order impacts on plebs. My tor node is incredibly slow now. I can’t run it all the time and it’s not a fast computer. I sync the node when I need to broadcast a transaction. In my last sync I waited weeks.

2024-06-11 01:48:05

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Thank you for the detailed response.
I’m still unconvinced that covenants offer a complete solution to the scaling problem.
You will never know whether the amount you have in a shared UTXO will be “trapped” by proportionally excessive fees, or how long you will have to wait to retrieve it at reasonable expense, or how much you will receive when you do.
I believe that changes to the core protocol carry high risk and therefore should not be partial fixes or merely helpful in some circumstances.
We need to ask ourselves:
1) Can the issue be solved in any other way, other than a change to the core protocol? Have we waited long enough for other solutions to emerge?
2) If we must change the core protocol, what is the most limited change we can make that actually solves the problem?
This is why I would wish for developers to be patient and continue researching the problem until a complete solution is found. It’s also possible that we may all be happy with other solutions that emerge.

2024-06-10 19:40:40

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Can you please explain now covenants would solve the problem?
I specifically have concerns around how they would work in practice if the fees are high and the amounts of bitcoin in the shared UTXO are low.

2024-06-09 23:52:22

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Reminded me about this post below 👇
Seems like nostr might be ideal for enabling an ecash federation to post proof of identity but hide within a larger group of similarly trusted nyms.
#note1c78…2uxg

2024-06-09 21:57:01

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Do ya feel like a citizen or a farm animal? You can’t wander off pasture and escape your endless milking 🐮.
Takes a lot of advance planning to escape the farm animal treatment.

2024-06-09 17:42:53

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Socialism always runs out of other people’s money.

2024-06-09 16:46:53

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Adding powerful scripting increases the risk that the bitcoin network will be used for non-standard transactions that worsen centralizing MEV. We can see ETH already struggling with the problem. Why do we want to bring that disaster to bitcoin?
It’s not on me to prove that GSR is dangerous. It’s on Rusty to prove it’s safe.
Rusty says he has no idea how the new codes will be used. He also said, in his podcast with Livera👇, that he even believes they could be abused, he just doesn’t know how.
Obviously this proposal is not safe. It’s pure negligence to not consider the 2nd order effects to the overall bitcoin network.
More details:
#note12na…xqh8

2024-06-09 09:28:42

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The main impediment is actually the limited blocksize. You can increase transactions per second by making bitcoin more centralized. That’s not a good tradeoff to make if you want bitcoin to replace central banks.

2024-06-09 06:43:32

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You appear to have a myopic view. It seems you think the change is “safe” if it doesn’t impact CPU and memory usage. You’re not considering the centralizing effects of MEV. You also said you don’t care of how this can be abused.
To you, bitcoin appears to be an intellectual pursuit. Just another open source project. To us, it’s our hope for the future.
#note12na…xqh8

2024-06-09 03:02:43

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Would love to have that conversation when you’re ready.
I’m personally ultra conservative. The view bitcoin as our hope to replace central banking. I realized a while back that the math would not permit everyone in the world to have their own UTXO and make everyday transactions on the base chain.
We could make compromises to allow more people to have their own UTXO and have cheaper transactions (by increasing the blocksize, etc) but we can’t solve that problem completely.
I’m unwilling to make those compromises because I want to maximize decentralization and make it as difficult as possible for governments to capture and censor the network.
Again, focused on the goal of eliminating central banks.

2024-06-09 02:55:23

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Please listen to Livera’s podcast with NVK. It’s not possible for everyone in the world to have their own UTXO and use it for everyday transactions. It never was possible. This “dream” — that people have that everyone can be self sovereign — is sold by folks who are idealistic but haven’t done the math.
I would love it too if everyone could be self sovereign. It’s just that I understand the limitations and I’m not willing to chase an impossible dream and compromise the decentralization of the protocol.
If you disagree, do the math. Show me how everyone in the world can have their own UTXO and make everyday transactions on L1 with self sovereignty.
Our objective is to replace central banks. Unfortunately most people in the world will be using bitcoin ecash. It’s not true self sovereignty with their own UTXO but 1000x better than the current system where central bankers control our money and print it at will.
#note18w5…q4fl

2024-06-09 02:44:37

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Yes, the blocksize was deliberately kept “small” to allow the greatest number of nodes to download and verify the full chain. The goal was increased decentralization.
Since the original 1 MB block size, it had been increased to ~4 MB. This is definitely making it more difficult to run a node.

2024-06-09 01:09:32

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Btw, another example why you are forced to upgrade. (Unless you want to run a version with known vulnerabilities.)
The core devs are now pushing everyone to upgrade to 25 so they can disclose the vulnerabilities.
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2024/06/07/?ref=nobsbitcoin.com#upcoming-disclosure-of-vulnerabilities-affecting-old-versions-of-bitcoin-core

2024-06-08 17:51:50

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It seems like the only way they can keep the suppression going is if they can put bitcoin futures (paper bitcoin) into their spot fund.

2024-06-08 17:29:21

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#note18w5…q4fl

2024-06-08 17:13:59

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It should be the latest episode at the top of this page. If you don’t see it, let me know.
https://stephanlivera.com/

2024-06-08 17:04:54

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Next year should we all celebrate Faketoshi day? Too much attention to a fraudster, or a celebration of removing the scourge of the last epoch?

2024-06-08 16:43:46

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💯
It seems we’re fighting the blocksize wars all over again. It’s like every few years someone thinks bitcoin’s fees are too high and we need to compromise bitcoin’s decentralization to “fix” the problem.
Rusty is making the same arguments the bcashers did. Hopefully the community rejects it a second time.
Changes to the core protocol are always risky. We need to ask ourselves:
1) Can the issue be solved in any other way, other than a change to the core protocol? Have we waited long enough for other solutions to emerge?
2) If we must change the core protocol, what is the most limited change we can make that actually solves the problem?

2024-06-08 16:28:50

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Remember the blocksize wars? The bcashers wanted bitcoin to be internet money and a medium of exchange. They were willing to compromise bitcoin’s decentralization to do that.
This is the same debate all over again. Like those bcashers, Rusty wants low fees and is willing to compromise bitcoin’s decentralization to do it. He’s just a bcasher pretending to be a bitcoiner, using the same tired arguments.
We need to ask ourselves:
1) Can the issue be solved in any other way, other than a change to the core protocol? Have we waited long enough for other solutions to emerge?
2) If we must change the core protocol, what is the most limited change we can make that actually solves the problem?
You can see that Rusty is not thinking about these questions at all.
Bitcoin is our hope for the future to replace central banks. We need to say focused on that goal.

2024-06-08 16:20:44

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I thought the recent podcast with @npub1r8l…x5dk and @npub1az9…m8y8 covered this issue quite well.

2024-06-08 16:13:16

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We need to ask ourselves:
1) Can the issue be solved in any other way, other than a change to the core protocol? Have we waited long enough for other solutions to emerge?
2) If we must change the core protocol, what is the most limited change we can make that actually solves the problem?
Bitcoin is our hope for the future. We can’t panic and rush out “fixes”.

2024-06-08 16:07:37

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It seems like we’re fighting the blocksize wars again. All those Bcashers thought bitcoin should be internet money and a medium of exchange too.
Bitcoin is our hope to replace central banks. We need to stay focused on the goal.

2024-06-08 16:01:52

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If cash on the internet is your goal, sounds like you’re looking for BCash. That’s their goal too.

2024-06-06 20:17:43

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I’m all for making efficiency changes, fixing bugs, etc.
However, I don’t think we can claim that the missing op_codes are “broken” functionality or alternatively that those codes were blessed by Satoshi. We actually have no idea why Satoshi removed the codes.
If you recall Livera’s podcast, Rusty only considered the CPU and memory impacts of adding back the codes. He never once turned his mind to the potential for more MEV and miner centralization, or any other 2nd or 3rd order effects. I was shocked when he basically said that he didn’t care about how they might be abused.
If we’ve learned the lesson of inscriptions, we should realize that protocol changes can inadvertently change incentives and encourage centralization.
Bitcoin is our hope for the future. I believe that it’s highly resilient but not invulnerable. Mistakes introduced to the core protocol are one of the few ways that can disrupt it. We need to be careful.
How can anyone say these changes are “safe” if nobody knows how they will be used (or abused)?
I believe that we need to ask ourselves:
1) Can the issue be solved in any other way, other than a change to the core protocol? Have we waited long enough for other solutions to emerge?
2) If we must change the core protocol, what is the most limited change we can make that actually solves the problem?
Do you agree that these are the important questions? If so, I would be interested in your answers to them.

2024-06-06 17:08:30

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I understand the motivation. I’m upset with high fees too.
However:
+ There is a concept of “induced demand”. It’s like when they add new roads to decrease traffic. It never works for long because people end up moving to the area because of the lower traffic and traffic returns to the original level, or worse.
+ Once we realize high fees will be with us forever, we should realize that we don’t need to rush out a solution to “solve the problem”. We’re not going to actually solve the problem of high fees, except temporarily, and we risk making something worse. We need to be strategic and think long term.
+ In any event, we should NEVER change the protocol in powerful ways where we don’t know how it will be abused. We should limit the scope of new functionality as tightly as possible to reduce the attack surface.
We need to ask ourselves:
1) Can the issue be solved in any other way, other than a change to the core protocol? Have we waited long enough for other solutions to emerge?
2) If we must change the core protocol, what is the most limited change we can make that actually solves the problem?
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/

2024-06-06 16:40:53

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Agree. Rusty’s proposal on Livera’s podcast sounded incredibly reckless to me. He didn’t seem to care how bad actors would abuse his proposed changes. The fact that he said he was “gaining traction” terrified me even more.
I don’t get the sense that some of these devs view bitcoin as something for 1000 years, as I do. There seems to be a rush to make it like ETH so we don’t lose market share with all of that “innovation”. That’s startup culture. Not appropriate for bitcoin.

2024-06-04 15:50:09

I saw that Telegraph headline that the vaccines may have caused 3 million deaths. Better late than never. Just shows how you need to DYOR. They might tell you the truth but only after it’s too late.
And there won’t be any accountability. Even for this.
https://www.openthebooks.com/substack-breaking-big-pharma-paid-690-million-to-faucis-agency-through-secret-third-party-royalties-during-pandemic-years/

2024-06-03 23:57:44

Bitcoin is money and our hope for the future.
It seems shitcoiners are the ones most excited about advanced scripting proposals like OP_CAT. They seem to want to make bitcoin into ethereum.
We don’t need to trade shitcoins on bitcoin. People often gamble because their money is broken. We’re here to fix it.
We don’t need to trade stablecoins on bitcoin. Bitcoin is for the next 1000 years and in 50 years nobody will know what stablecoins are.
We don’t need to trade Apple stock on bitcoin. It’s silly to integrate centralized share registries with bitcoin and pretend they’re decentralized.
We do need to make improvements but those need to be done slowly and carefully. Future generations are counting on us. We don’t need to rush. We’re not short-term thinkers with a high time preference. We build properly for the future.
https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/02/14/satoshi-era-bitcoin-function-op-cat-dusted-off-as-development-fervor-grows/

2024-06-03 03:24:59

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Totally agree. We need to decentralize all the parts.
In addition to explaining what in the software, we need alternatives that people can install if they don’t like what’s in it.
The problem is that software must be constantly updated to make sure it runs on the latest operating systems. Right now there is bitcoin core software and only core.
As a user you’ll be forced to upgrade eventually to core’s version. You don’t have another alternative. You can delay for a while, but eventually you’ll be forced to upgrade.

2024-06-03 01:07:36

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It’s true that users control the nodes, but core devs control bitcoin core and we have no other software options right now. It’s essentially a software monopoly.
And if we being honest, we’ll admit that most users don’t really know what’s in the version they install. I just hope users stay vigilant. It seems to me that users are too trusting in this area.
It’s funny that you mentioned the blocksize wars. You do realize that the UASF was written and promoted by core devs to avoid being “fired” by the big blockers, right?
It was framed as a war between users and big commercial interests, but it was actually a war between core devs and big commercial interests. I’m glad the core devs won. They were correct. But we can’t fool ourselves and say that they didn’t wield power and it was all users. Nobody knows how many users were ready to support the UASF because the miners capitulated before the deadline.
The blocksize wars are framed as a big win by users but you can see that’s really not the case. All we know is that miners do not control the network. We don’t know if the core devs do because this has never been tested.

2024-06-02 15:44:47

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Here’s an example of what he seems to be concerned with. Why do you believe that he is technically illiterate?
#note12na…xqh8

2024-06-01 15:55:23

Maybe in a few years the fan-created spin-offs of popular shows will be better than the originals.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/fables-streamer-ai-generated-content-showcases-hollywood-fear-around-tech-1235911861/

2024-05-31 07:41:45

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How does that work?

2024-05-31 06:35:05

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The thesis is essentially that meme: hard times, strong people, easy time, weak people, hard times. The authors of the 4th turning explored the cycle from the perspective of demographics, but the concept also overlaps with Ray Dalio’s observations about an underlying 80 year debt cycle.
It could be just luck, but they did predict in 1998 that a long crisis would begin mid 2000 which seems to be playing out.
For me, the 4th turning term is just convenient label. We can all see that there is a sovereign debt crisis unfolding and getting worse. The theory gives us a framework to think about possible ways things might unfold.

2024-05-31 04:54:19

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I can’t vote but I’ve got my 🍿.
We’re in the fourth turning and what’s happening is meant to happen. Nothing can change it; like a fever, it just needs to run its course. With another ~10 years to go and bigger crises ahead, the only thing we can do is to help and protect our friends and family.

2024-05-31 04:46:16

Seeing this makes me so bullish. Eventually they learn their USDT can be seized or censored and they move to bitcoin…
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/russian-firms-adopt-stablecoins-cross-border-transactions-chinese

2024-05-30 21:57:50

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Yes, it has privacy benefits but many view it as a potential scaling solution for bitcoin. Let’s face it. Most people will never be able to afford to have their own UTXO and self custodial Lightning will be similarly out of reach for plebs and day-to-day transactions. We’re moving quickly into a world where only whales, institutions, and custodians will interact with the base chain. Unfortunately, this means that most people will use a custodian.
If that’s true, then the best custodian will be either someone you personally know (uncle Jim) or a geographically distributed group of custodians hopefully out of reach of any one country. For instance, maybe a federation based in or including friendly countries like El Salvador, etc. Ecash seems useful to me in those scenarios.

2024-05-30 06:13:29

A glimpse at one of our potential futures. A global digital ID and permissioned transactions.
https://www.theblock.co/post/297409/mastercard-launches-p2p-crypto-network-vanity-address-system

2024-05-29 05:03:57

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There are not enough bitcoin for every millionaire on earth. It’s a no-brained but so hard for many people to do. Takes focus and sacrifice for most people.

2024-05-27 23:28:50

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Crazy. Seems out of character. 🤷‍♂️

2024-05-27 19:22:42

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His perspective on some of the core developers being dangerous makes sense to me.
I was shocked to listen to Livera’s podcast with Rusty:
#note12na…xqh8

2024-05-27 05:10:07

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#note12na…xqh8

2024-05-25 22:54:52

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He’s probably worried about developers like this:
#note12na…xqh8

2024-05-24 23:24:02

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Amen sister! I too explain how their savings are at risk of eternal damnation. 😜

2024-05-23 15:19:25

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I listened to the entire podcast. Rusty is the poster child for ossification. Let me explain…
1. This Isn’t A “Restoration”
For starters, this is not a “restoration” of some long lost functionality blessed by Satoshi that was mistakenly disabled.
At 5:20, Rusty admits that he has no idea why Satoshi disabled some of those codes, but Rusty assumes Satoshi thought they were potentially dangerous.
Was Satoshi worried about the opcodes being dangerous to the operation of the core software? Or to the interlocking social incentives underpinning the entire system?
Rusty doesn’t know and doesn’t even consider factors beyond the memory usage or CPU cycles of the core software itself.
Why the myopic perspective? We find out later in the podcast.
2. Rusty’s Design Philosophy Is Dangerous
At 49:00, Rusty says that he expects this more powerful scripting language will be used in unanticipated ways.
This engineering mentality is suitable for a startup where the stakes are low.
Do you think engineers of nuclear power stations would add a powerful API that could be used in unanticipated ways?
Of course not.
When stakes are high, responsible engineers only enable limited functionality KNOWN to be safe. They don’t add powerful capabilities to “see how people will use them”. They move slowly and cautiously. They err on the side of conservatism.
3. “But First, Do No Harm”
To your credit, you asked Rusty about the possibility that these new powerful capabilities might be abused.
We then learn why Rusty doesn’t consider anything beyond the memory consumption and CPU cycles of the software.
His terrifying answer? He. Just. Doesn’t. Care.
At 51:00, Rusty admits that it will enable people to do more evil things. Not a problem, he thinks, because there are already lots of ways to abuse the system. What’s the problem with adding more?
Rusty doesn’t seem to respect what bitcoin is. He doesn’t seem to appreciate that bitcoin core protects the life savings of millions of people and is our hope for the future.
He doesn’t even fully consider the first order effects, never mind the second or third.
Rusty is dangerous. Clearly skilled, but lacking wisdom to apply those skills appropriately. Paving the road to hell with his good intentions.
He should be nowhere near bitcoin core until he truly understands the significance of what he’s playing with.

2024-05-22 15:28:13

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Are you a developer excited about a crazy powerful technology that you think should be added to the protocol? Stop! Just stop.
I’m sure you’re super smart and your new thing could do so much. But wait. A powerful new technology could be used in unknown ways. This means you have no idea how your change might be abused in the future.
Something that you’re pretty sure is probably not harmful is not appropriate for a protocol that safeguards the world’s money now and for centuries to come. Changes to the protocol must be safe. You don’t get to gamble with our money.

2024-05-18 02:49:27

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I think we’re moving to a world of geo-federated ecash (and cold storage). Lightning to mostly be used between the federations and exchanges.
I’m hopeful that large federations that are geo-distributed will be difficult for any country to shut down.

2024-05-17 23:06:48

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I suspect that AI is moving us to a world with no “jobs” but with limitless opportunities to build businesses.
Why would I hire someone if AI (and later robots) will do the job for almost nothing?
But on the other hand, entrepreneurs will have incredible resources available to them without huge capital requirements.
It will never be a worse time to be an employee and never be a better time to be an entrepreneur.

2024-05-17 00:25:18

Will never happen (at least not until the 💣💥) but maybe Massie can pick up Ron Paul’s 👑. #note1p0p…xhc8

2024-05-15 17:00:12

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Why not? Wouldn’t the mint know that the deposit occurred at the same time as that IP address made the request?

2024-05-13 06:04:55

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😬

2024-05-13 02:51:35

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He’s clearly smart and for a “non-bitcoiner” understands those deeper concepts about money. Part of me wonders whether the shitcoinery is a misdirection. On the other hand, his promotion is causing real world people to lose their money. I don’t know. I can’t explain it!

2024-05-13 02:42:28

https://youtu.be/sKo9fiaQJds?si=HsrdeEmgNJyPkLDo

2024-05-12 04:02:27

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https://image.nostr.build/05d9bc5b043866f266ae9e68e7245c1bbf008d834c0da120f244bd3a85f48013.gif

2024-05-11 17:48:52

https://twitter.com/TheMilkBarTV/status/1788482870455234674

2024-05-09 03:58:06

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/-argentina-to-mine-bitcoin-with-stranded-gas

2024-05-08 05:56:24

Loved this video.
My takeaways:
On life:
1. Things usually work out if you persist and really believe in what you’re doing.
2. Your willingness to fail gives you the ability to succeed.
3. Don’t let fear of failure hold you back. Even if you fail, nobody will remember.
4. Anything worth doing is hard.
5. With enough persistence, most things that seem impossible become possible.
6. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer too easily.
7. Most people do what’s expected of them and not what they believe in.
8. Leadership is having a belief system, knowing what you believe in, an internal compass.
9. The world is changed by a very small number of people who follow their core beliefs and don’t listen to others.
10. Only those who fail greatly can succeed greatly.
On VCs:
1. Almost all VCs add no or negative value.
2. If you haven’t built a startup or have equivalent experience, you haven’t earned the right to advise an entrepreneur.
On startups:
1. Business plans are useless except for showing the issues the entrepreneur is thinking about.
2. If you want to change the world, join a startup and not a big company.
3. All the exciting opportunities are at the fuzzy, obscure edges of the system where things are uncertain.
4. Don’t listen to experts. Their predictions are no better than dart throwing monkeys. #note17xd…8m46

2024-05-08 00:36:05

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Shawn, I think you’re right that most normies probably don’t consider their local currency devaluation.
I could see it as the inverse: NgU. If someone has bitcoin to spend, I assume that they believe that it will “go up in value”.
If they have both bitcoin and fiat ready to pay, they might choose the one that they believe won’t go up as much.
Speaking from my own experience, I feel these issues. Do I want to spend my bitcoin that I worked so hard to stack? That’s “going up” by 50% per year? (That’s probably magnified 10x if you have non-kyc sats that you jumped through hoops to acquire.)
Honestly, I really only give it to friends, family, and community members that I want to gift the most scarce thing other than time. If there is both fiat and bitcoin in my wallet I generally want to get rid of the fiat first.

2024-05-07 23:11:26

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I’ve come to terms with the fact that most customers will prefer to use fiat for payments.
It’s Gresham’s Law… customers will always prefer to spend their devaluing currencies first.
I think that Bitcoin won’t start gaining mainstream traction for payments until sellers refuse payment in anything but bitcoin (Thiers Law).
I’m assuming bitcoin stays at the store of value stage for a while. We still have a long way to go in this stage (ie culminating in the global reserve asset).

2024-05-07 04:46:27

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https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/five-simple-policies-reset-americas-rigged-health-system

2024-05-07 04:27:07

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I’ve talked to many doctors in the 🇺🇸 and many acknowledge that they can no longer practice freely. The hospitals and large companies provide protocols that they’re forced to follow.
We saw that in the pandemic. Doctors who tried prescribing “unapproved” medications were fired. They were unable to act in what they believed were the best intentions of their own patients.
I agree that doctors went into the profession motivated to bring healing. The reality of the situation is that, sadly, many are forced to comply with the diktats of those pharma, insurance and hospitals who don’t have our best intentions in mind.

2024-05-07 01:50:49

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💯 why do so many people believe that those who make money of our sickness want to heal us?

2024-05-06 17:03:36

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=RyDi31IK5N4&si=_QO8xDb0JZkRzxR2

2024-05-04 21:07:56

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We need to harden deeper layers of our stack.
Eg. Nostr must have IP privacy before we can rely on it in adversarial environments. And we’ll need to burn our existing doxxed npubs.
Also, we need to have a IP private, pseusdonymous source code hosting platform.

2024-05-03 22:16:27

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Yes, the counterparty wants to know that you can’t spend it elsewhere but that doesn’t provide full assurance.
There seems to be three parts:
1) you can’t spend it elsewhere
2) you will actually transfer it to me
3) I will receive the expected amount
Covenants solve the first case but not the second or third. That’s why I wonder if covenants are really the silver bullet that unlocks scalability. They might work “in theory” but how will they work in reality when we don’t always travel the happy path?
Are there any good writeups that address these edge cases? I’ve seen a lot of statements with covenants we can solve scalability but haven’t found any deep dives into the topic.

2024-05-02 17:50:00

“I think Americans are used to seeing people arrested for bullshit technicalities and thrown in jail for long periods of time. But in the rest of the world, it is quite uncommon. For a non-US Bitcoin entrepreneur, the US is a scary and dangerous place. American authorities seem resourceful, competent, and motivated to destroy your life just to prove a point. This line of thinking is not paranoia, nor is it cowardice.” 🤔
This has a ring of truth to it. 🇺🇸 now a police state? #note1nps…hsd3

2024-05-02 07:49:06

Another one??
https://thepostmillennial.com/another-boeing-whistleblower-dies-josh-dean-45-succumbs-to-sudden-illness

2024-05-01 17:54:12

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/personal-finance/prosecutors-examining-transactions-block-owner-cash-app-squarc-rcna147181

2024-04-26 06:50:14

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/25/uk-law-enforcement-agencies-can-now-seize-crypto-more-easily-as-new-rules-take-effect/

2024-04-23 04:42:06

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Does it get better after the first episode?

2024-04-23 04:41:28

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😂

2024-04-23 01:56:23

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This is the way. Lift weights. Set a goal to get a six pack. Once you do, report back to let people know if you still feel the same way.

2024-04-22 17:35:48

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Say no to anything with a non-negligible risk of unintended consequences.

2024-04-21 17:13:18

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The theory is that the witness data can be pruned after you download and verify it. This would reduce the space needed to store the full list of transactions.
This is the theory but I’m not sure there is much practical benefit.
Firstly, many nodes are probably already pruning out all the transactions they don’t care about which reduces storage space immensely.
Secondly, full nodes need to store that witness data so they can bootstrap new nodes.
Thirdly, between bandwidth and storage space, nodes are more likely bandwidth constrained. All that jpeg witness data needs to be downloaded and verified by every node.
Matt, what am I missing?

2024-04-21 16:31:03

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-climate-change-narrative-preventing-africa-modernizing-and-gaining-prosperity

2024-04-21 06:19:56

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-fostered-rise-hamas-preclude-two-state-solution

2024-04-21 02:49:37

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This could be our future where we plebs can no longer afford lightning and just use ecash federations.
It seems likely that only large organizations and federations will be able to afford to use lightning.

2024-04-20 22:08:34

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The thief giving you a percentage back of your stolen money and hoping you don’t realize how much they actually took.

2024-04-20 17:14:38

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Your original position, “we should welcome them”, is quite different from the position in your last post, “we can’t stop them”.
The issue to me is what they’re paying for. In your example with oil, they’re paying to use bitcoin as money. This is great.
In the examples with ordinals and runes, they’re not paying to use the blockspace for money so I’m not ok with it. Yes, it’s true that we can’t stop it but my position is that we shouldn’t welcome it either.

2024-04-20 17:03:30

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“We” are the plebs who see bitcoin as a way to bring positive change to our current 🤡🌎.

2024-04-20 06:04:59

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I see it like this:
What is our purpose or objective?
We want bitcoin to be the world’s money because when the world adopts a hard money, there will be fewer wars, no inflation stealing people’s retirements, and more long-term thinking.
Yes, runes and ordinals create demand for block space, but does that help us further our goal?
What are the pros?
The extra money paid to miners does incentivize more investment in mining and increase the network hashrate. In theory this provides more security to the network.
What are the cons?
It seems these fees are encouraging mining pool centralization through back channel payments (“MEVil”).
Higher fees are preventing people around the world from using bitcoin as money. Transactions for lower value amounts will be delayed or won’t be feasible.
My conclusion
I view these “innovations” as a net negative because I don’t believe these new protocols increase bitcoin’s use as money and I don’t see the benefit to growing the hashrate artificially.

2024-04-20 02:06:22

1…

2024-04-20 02:00:17

2…

2024-04-19 04:56:09

I used to be really worried about stuff like this. Now I feel the pendulum swinging back a little and I have more hope that Americans will see through it.
They may not understand everything but they know these people just want to make them poorer.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-17/white-house-renews-internal-talks-on-invoking-climate-emergency

2024-04-18 16:38:27

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If you have an iPhone, you can pinch the two top side buttons (vol up + lock) to force the device to only use pin. I believe this also dumps the keys from memory so the device harder to access.

2024-04-18 04:45:18

284 blocks until halving…⏳⌛️

2024-04-17 17:25:26

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Why do you think this is happening?

2024-04-17 04:53:56

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By block subsidy I meant witness discount.