The Web is taken.

They control your data: Servers can change anything you send at any time: E-mails, medical records, private family pictures, social media posts, orders etc. You won't even notice it. Not only they can change, but you can also create new content as if they were made by you. Your history is written by them.

Servers do too much: They convinced us we don't have enough processing power and moved all the logic from our applications into servers. Even though a phone has an equivalent processing power than a single server today, we believe we must use complicated server architectures to achieve anything in the web. Phones are the cloud.

Everything is a rental: You don't own your domain name. It's a rental. Your server is a rental. Your digital certificate is a rental. You don't own anything. Your digital identity is a rental.

Data Silos force you to stay: Moving is too hard. They profit on making things just difficult enough to keep your around. After all, it's just 9.99 a month.

Enter the Verifiable Web

Own your keys, own your content. No one can write for you. No one can change what you write.

Sign everything you send. Every little like, every little key press. If it wasn't signed, it didn't happen.

Verify everything you receive. Trust the signer, not the servers in between.

You decide how data gets to you and where it stays. Your digital history is assembled by you.

Welcome to Nostr


Fuck the govt

nostr:note1c920t6sstmasa3ujh3h8rlmwn7ynv07vr5lxp5dz3jhz75gsv7uqhp7n0z


Stop Your Car from Spying on You
L: https://reason.com/2024/03/25/stop-your-car-from-spying-on-you/
C: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39819401


Coinbase Soon

https://v.nostr.build/Yg3r2.mp4


No, and they’re going to drastically raise taxes in an attempt to fix it without spending less.


US Tax Revenue Swallowed by Debt Interest

"Of the $120 billion collected from individual income taxes last month, a whopping $76 billion was earmarked solely for interest on the debt, a payment that does not even begin to reduce the principal amount."

Do you think your tax dollars are being allocated efficiently, anon?

https://www.tftc.io/us-debt-interest-eclipses-tax-revenue/


Can take it even further and say any registered company that bends to regulations designed to hamstring Bitcoin, like enforcing OFAC sanctions for example, is an enemy of Bitcoin.

nostr:note1wzpgsgrgnxsu2n2m8jykz32w9757pepyd877w7v3xqw344thg4esnctfs2


By registering a company, you are banning yourself from Bitcoin.


Exercise: you got to send someone money, but the payee didn't publish a bitcoin or LN address you trust. The onchain fees are high anyway for the price of a dinner.
Nostr solves this often, but let's say you just got some other social media contacts.

Solutions:
1. LNURLw
 generate an LNURLwithdraw voucher and share the link or QRcode so the recepient can withdraw with most lightning wallets any time. This needs a LNURL server. Some ways to it:
- run BTCPayServer - create a Pull Payment, share the link or QRcode
- run LNbits - create a voucher with the LNURLw extension

Custodial solutions:
- https://lightsats.com - top up in the browser and create vouchers
- hope to have this streamlined  in the Blink Wallet - the PoC could be extended here https://github.com/GaloyMoney/galoy-voucher
- there is of course the BTCPay / LNbits of someone else

2.  Ecash
Use ecash (that will be Cashu for now) - send the token as text and when the recipient downloaded an Cashu wallet will be able to convert the token to a lightning payment or trade it within the mint for free.

 - run LNbits with the Cashu extension, connect it to your eNuts or Minibits wallet
- run a mint directly with https://github.com/cashubtc/nutshell

Custodial solutions:
- download eNuts https://www.enuts.cash/ or Minibits https://www.minibits.cash/ and use the default (or some other) mint
- looking forward to the fedimint instances in the wild

Does anyone has any other practical solution working now for async payments?
I'd like to pay bitcoiners more often, but sometimes not when I can just ask for a lightning invoice.


nostr:note1wvl6z6jyc9xu40natz68a7l3zk37ezku94svw8afvattl49jr59qp7cpeg
https://m.primal.net/HnrI.jpg


Noncompliance is pretty much the only thing. They will tell us we have to use centralized exchanges. You have to be willing to still trade P2P or use Bisq. They will tell us we can’t coinjoin. You have to be willing to still coinjoin. As a business they will tell you that you have to KYC your customers who pay with Bitcoin. You have to be willing to let your customers still pay anonymously. Takes the will to take some risk, which will be tough during the “then they fight you” stage which we are in the beginning of.


Nostr and Simplex are the solution to censorship.

ISPs cannot ban Nostr, there are currently more than 617 relays, they would have to ban all their ips, so what? setting up a relay is very simple, they can even operate behind Tor.

Nostr has no central server to attack, no rigid architecture to dismantle.

The same goes for Simplex, you can set up your own Simplex server in 5 minutes, it is not feasible to censor all Simplex servers, and in the same way, they can also operate behind Tor.

Simplex, like Nostr also does not have a central server to attack and censor.

If you are using Telegram, think about migrating your groups to Simplex, what is happening in Spain can happen in your country at any time.

https://m.primal.net/HndW.png


WANNA KNOW HOW WEED GOT LEGALIZED IN SO MANY PLACES?

PEOPLE JUST SMOKED IT ANYWAY AND THEY REALIZED THEY CANT ARREST EVERYONE

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE WORKS 🫡


Putin will still blame Ukraine.


#zapathon
https://m.primal.net/HnWt.jpg


What happened to nostr:npub1sn0wdenkukak0d9dfczzeacvhkrgz92ak56egt7vdgzn8pv2wfqqhrjdv9 ? Back on Xitter or just taking a break? #asknostr


And theft (tax) hikes.

nostr:note1erpff6n3sdd2wlft2rk4rvrrfddq5dpsfmkq3svvukjgxqyz569szl5p33


You can still get forward privacy by coinjoining after consolidation. If all your small UTXOs are from KYC sources anyway, may be worth it. Need to be careful about combing non-KYC with KYC sats though.


Hopefully some counties that are more freedom loving will exit the US sphere of influence so that it isn’t one of those authoritarian shitholes you have to go to to not be in a US vassal.

nostr:note1trar3g4kqzs4y45z0nd36lf9w4cslm6kmmneyrste0xtsduc2ylqcsxsj8


Has there ever been a public USD ecash transaction on the internet? If not, then it happened here for the first time. On Nostr.
nostr:nevent1qqs9pyg4zhfcpqtvd7xk55cjju2ykcf37uzkyx44crqv3zuv04gf6sqzypgdjn7zmpvqc6ptqud9gtutrcc6yq9s2z96h9dr80hss4wl9qwkxqcyqqqqqqggt23l7


Go, Argentines.

“In the first week of March, the number of weekly bitcoin purchases surged to 34,700, the country's highest volume in 20 months, Bloomberg reported. That's more than double levels seen in early February.”

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/argentina-bitcoin-inflation-rally-dollar-greenback-dollarization-inflation-milei-peso-2024-3


EU wants to ban #zaps

Fuck them. I will zap anybody that interacts with this note.

Who is going to stop us?

https://m.primal.net/HnEE.jpg


EU Committee approves:

🚫 Prohibition of cash payments over €10,000

🆔 Prohibition of anonymous cash payments over €3,000

₿ Prohibition of anonymous crypto payments to hosted wallets without any threshold

This means war on cash and gradual erosion of our financial freedom!

More: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/eu-cash-cap-and-ban-on-anonymous-crypto-payments-results-in-financial-paternalism/

https://digitalcourage.social/system/media_attachments/files/112/134/689/413/697/102/original/84cbd9c69c6e9fcb.jpg


Weekend exercise for you:

Identify a piece of technology from a large corporation that you could replace with something you run on a home server.

#sovereigncomputing #freedomtech


They’ll probably make it harder and harder to exit their system.


make Peter Todd wrong again nostr:note19pq0h98xldvgw8cx98es8w87v6605nsxkp4p3axunuj0k2km6fls7tcw9f


"Bitcoin is making everybody better. It is. Life is better, quantitatively and qualitatively better. And they don't realize it yet. They're playing our game now. They think we're in there with them. They're in here. They are on our meme sphere now." -  nostr:npub1az9xj85cmxv8e9j9y80lvqp97crsqdu2fpu3srwthd99qfu9qsgstam8y8

https://www.tftc.io/open-source-ai-nvk/


Absolute banger from nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg and nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx on nostr:npub1cpem4gceylcr56ym4nx7dt6g0caadlu8dmvuluhrqfvymdgsrgtsgdq62p.

Bitcoin + Lightning + eCash is mindbending.

Multi-mint, multi-path Lightning payments and lock-to-pubkey payments are going to open up so many use cases.

Don't sleep on #cashu.

🥜🥜🥜

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zZXJ2ZS5wb2Rob21lLmZtL3Jzcy9jOTBlNjA5YS1kZjFlLTU5NmEtYmQ1ZS01N2JjYzhhYWQ2Y2M/episode/YTA4ZWM1YTQtMDdmYy00NzhiLThhZDQtYTMxNjg4YTc3Yjk5?ep=14


Cashu multi-mint payments and receives are kind of mind-blowing in their implications.   A Cashu wallet that can intelligently leverage several mints at once, depicting and utilizing their balances holistically *almost* grants the user the same benefits of fedimint, however the user (and their wallet) gets to decide the "federation"! It's almost (with some obvious gaps) like being able to federated mints *at the edge* 🤯


Because we all know billionaires launder their money and avoid paying their taxes by sending $600 around on Venmo. 😂


I’m definitely the middle one


Myostatin is a shitcoin.


It looks Chris Belcher’s Teleport (coinswap) project has been forked and is being developed again. https://github.com/utxo-teleport/teleport-transactions #Bitcoin #privacy


CITADEL DISPATCH 120: BITCOIN POWERED CHAUMIAN ECASH WITH CALLE -  nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg

https://m.primal.net/HmIa.mp4


Nostr: "We are building entire systems around AI"

Mastodon:

nostr:note13hwtwsft00ed28en29qphgsvumfn4r35dst5g55v06jdnwr750dsc6ywh4


Nostr exists at an important time. https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-biden-administration-social-media-132df16a8b086cd7ed72954f3b4c2c04


Any more progress on this?

nostr:note1c9ez9jcnjuq2vt7467jjyx6fty03yctes86jeyczlc5l2mz3gp6sc8uhsu


"In a world where advertisers, social media and other companies want to collect all of Alice's and Carol's data, such privacy improvement would be incredibly valuable. And also the doubt added to every transaction would greatly boost the fungibility of bitcoin and so make it a better form of money."

Christ Belcher's Coinswap design
https://gist.github.com/chris-belcher/9144bd57a91c194e332fb5ca371d0964


BitCan: DIY Bitcoin Seed Storage

"Designed as an economical substitute for commercially available metal plates, BitCan enhances the protection of your wallet’s seed phrase from common risks, including moisture damage and exposure to heat (but not big fires)."

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/bitcan-budget-diy-bitcoin-seed-storage/


Me (6’10”) getting out of anything smaller than my truck

https://youtube.com/shorts/5LxtF8quMek?si=m8eVeC7mV1uhuXc9


"I cleared the space for the younger generation. But no one came..."
  ~ Anonymous cypherpunk, 2024

https://pay.cypherpunk.today/apps/4LEEvtqY8UMnuB7y5wCmjvi2tXy3/crowdfund


I’ve molded my LinkedIn feed to be 90%+ Bitcoiners. This just appeared in my feed. I’d somehow missed the news. Bravo.

“The ultimate counter-movement to the neo-communist, totalitarian developments in most countries in the Western world?

‘El Salvador Updates 'Outdated' Law to Lift KYC Limits for Purchases from $200 to $25000’

‘From now on, KYC in El Salvador will only apply to payments equal to or greater than $25000.’

🇸🇻🧡”

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/el-salvador-updates-old-law-to-lift-kyc-limits-from-200-to-25000/


Lmao. Don’t do wrongspeak anon or the fbi agents will come pick you up

https://theintercept.com/2024/03/09/fbi-dhs-gamers-extremism-violence/


We need to educate policy makers in democracies to use neutral language in legislation towards to #bitcoin #freedomtech instruments. We also need to educate judges.

If we don’t do this, the first who are going to suffer are bitcoin developers, miners and end-users.

Education will prevent repressions. #PoW is a solidarity in defense of our community, not just a bitcoin price celebration. nostr:note1hw6arx6x38wk595vhwrlj4jhhpfsfjwt530n68vhflzx8azhf89q64rsnv


Here’s a short story I wrote three years ago about our dystopian future that wasn’t…

I’d probably tweak the Lightning section, but the rest holds up pretty well!

***********

A World Without Bitcoin

The year is 2040, and cash is gone. The money you use on a daily basis has fully transitioned into a tool of surveillance and control.

In midtown Manhattan, you tip sidewalk performers with a scan of your wearable, your face, or your fingerprint. Coins and dollar bills are now curiosities—fossils from a forgotten age.

In Beijing, the government-issued Yuan has long since been digitized into the ubiquitous DCEP. Holding old paper notes is illegal, all payments are touchless or biometric, and all transactions are natively linked to your full identification stack. Every time you buy something, your national digital profile simultaneously updates.

Transaction privacy was one of the last freedoms to be stripped away in China. Now, your communications, movements, and interactions with other citizens are tracked with billions of cameras, real-time surveillance streaming from your wearables, swarms of micro-drone recorders, and immensely powerful algorithms, linking everything together in a panopticon.

In Caracas, Venezuela, the recovering economy runs on digital dollars. There is some street bartering, of course, but greenbacks finally became obsolete a few years ago, and other bearer assets like gold remain incredibly rare. If you want to buy something, you have to do it electronically and the transaction will be tracked and linked to your citizen profile.

In Lagos, like in many African capitals, all commerce is carried out on the rails of Chinese fintech, and everyone communicates seamlessly with the latest version of WeChat. The Nigerian economy runs on DCEP and the government and its 300 million citizens basically act as a Chinese satellite state.

At some point in the 2030s, governments around the world made cash illegal. They initially accomplished this feat through a demonetization process where public officials announced a new digital economy that they claimed would not leave anyone behind, would increase stability, and would make it easy to catch criminals and money launderers. Most citizens believed them.

Even in countries where the majority never had a brick-and-mortar bank account, all citizens were encouraged, then forced, to create ID-linked digital currency accounts accessible through their wearables or biometrics. Then, they were given a multi-year time window during which they could redeem their cash for a shrinking amount of digital credits. Almost everyone cashed in and went fully digital early on, when they could get the most credits. After the window expired, it became a punishable offense to carry paper or metal money.

Now, in 2040, there are two dominant currencies in the world: the digital dollar and China’s DCEP. The world is roughly divided: North America, Europe, and some top U.S. allies use the digital dollar, while the rest of the world uses DCEP. Very few other currencies remain.

Some rogue states still produce their own currencies, but these don’t last long and aren’t worth much to anyone else. These regimes tend to inflate their money supply extremely quickly, severely devaluing their currency, and eventually forcing authorities to create new currencies. This cycle destroys trust between state and citizen. Eventually, such governments give up sovereignty in exchange for survival and turn to the digital dollar or DCEP. The common person effectively has no ability to store savings in a way that isn’t controlled by either the American or Chinese government.

There hasn’t been any meaningful innovation in savings technology. Most citizens simply just save up their digital credits, but the value of their credits depreciates against real goods relatively quickly. And then there is autotaxing. By now, taxes are automatically deducted from your credit balance and tax rates rise unpredictably and always, it seems, too fast.

As in previous decades, some poor and middle class citizens still buy things like cattle or sheet metal in an effort to save against inflation, but all (save the 1%) are locked out of premium assets like real estate, fine art, vintage wine, and other scarce items.

Financial privacy has virtually disappeared, and not just in China and the DCEP countries. Along with the rise of ubiquitous surveillance cameras in public places – all linked together with AI-powered insta-analysis – all transactions are immediately linked to individuals. With cash gone, it’s extremely difficult to buy a burner phone or SIM card. Fines for trying to manipulate your credit wallets are harsh, and no one ever invented an alternative digital currency that was able to hold value.

Big data analysis wasn’t always so powerful. But it is now. Of course, humans had credit cards for decades, but unlike those early days, now governments can sift through all financial data with the press of a button.

To get credits, you need to provide ID. To use credits, you need to be loyal. To get the best perks, you need to be a perfect patriot. Around the world, digital currencies give governments unprecedented abilities to control their citizens. If your digital profile doesn’t have a top rating, you’re locked out of many public services and benefits. In dictatorships, if you dare to criticize the government, you immediately lose your financial abilities. Some say being in financial jail is worse than being in actual prison.

Corporations do create their own money. Libra was just the beginning. But all these credits are inevitably pegged to the digital dollar or DCEP, and therefore are surveillable, censorable, and confiscatable. They don’t offer an escape.

There has also been a dramatic increase in the real-time sale of your data and behavior to third parties. There is practically no way to buy something without your government and a range of corporations knowing. Instantly upon purchase, you’re met with a variety of advertisements. Many people have upgraded to smart visors and retinal implants, and they get advertisements there, too. Unless, of course, they can pay for the premium versions. In the DCEP countries, one can opt out of everything except government propaganda.

The public feared the rise of the Orwellian police state, and it came, but they also got the dystopia of Aldous Huxley. In this brave new world, a sophisticated constellation of carrots and sticks built into the financial system encourages and reinforces state-compliant behavior with impressive efficiency. Patriotism is addictive.

The Chinese social credit system, much mocked in the early 2020s, was finally implemented by governments worldwide in the ensuing decade, and with the transition into a fully digital economy, has become incredibly effective at stamping out dissent.

Governments ran sweeping campaigns to locate every single citizen within their borders and connect them to national identity systems. India’s Aadhaar was the first of many, initially promoted as a miracle for the unbanked, vulnerable, and stateless. But later, it became clear that these ID networks were just surveillance and exploitation machines.

Things are more fair for some, but a tiny few control everyone else in a way not even previously imaginable. The benevolent idea of “compliance” has led ultimately to slavery. It is the digital banality of evil.

Even now, governments continue to innovate their surveillance tech. Some citizens are being offered valuable perks for agreeing to install their credit wallets into their wrists or retinas. They say it’s the ultimate in touchless convenience. The program is popular. Some analysts say that by 2050, everyone will have one.

This could be our world.

But thankfully, this is a fantasy. In our world, we have an escape.

In 2009, a pseudonymous programmer by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin, a sovereign financial system.

Over the next few years, this decentralized money project grew. A global community made it strong, and grew a brilliant initial design into an unstoppable force. Over time, there were more nodes, more miners, more users, and more adoption.

By 2020, the separation of money from state had begun.

What was first a curiosity turned into a powerful global phenomenon. Once people understood they could digitally transact in a parallel economy that authorities didn’t control, they wanted to learn more and get involved. Satoshi pioneered a way out of the panopticon with proof-of-work, creating a non-governmental financial system.

Our future 2040 is still a horribly imperfect place, but omniscient tracking and surveillance is much more difficult for governments to achieve, because Bitcoin has enabled the survival of a digital form of cash.

So let’s rewind — let’s describe the year 2040 again, but what it could look like not just with government issued digital currencies but also with Bitcoin.

In the Bitcoin future, privacy has actually improved in some areas. With technological improvements in the Bitcoin software, it actually becomes very difficult for governments or corporations to track the Bitcoin use of citizens who practice good operational security. Bitcoin was at one point hard to access and clunky to use – just like email in the early 1990s – but things got a lot easier in the 2020s.

Governments promised waves of crime and terror if citizens dared to use a currency outside of state control. But those waves never came. By 2040, crime rates are essentially the same as they were for the previous century. In the Bitcoin world, however, it’s much more difficult for bankers to steal your money and for governments to devalue your savings.

Back in 2020, very few used Bitcoin, and even fewer understood its potential. A long hard road of education was to come. But later in the 2020s, universities began offering courses and degrees in Bitcoin. Eventually, one was able to get a bachelor’s degree or even a PhD in Bitcoin Engineering at any top university.

By 2020, tax authorities began asking citizens how much Bitcoin they held or sold, further increasing awareness among the citizenry. But by 2030, most people were using Bitcoin without knowing much about how it works, just as hundreds of millions of young people once adopted email without knowing how it worked.

Governments tried to prevent their citizens from using Bitcoin, but most measures and bans failed or were unenforceable. The permissionless nature of Bitcoin turned it into a virus that infected the surveillance state, preventing it from reaching its maximum potential.

Even in the most restrictive tyrannies, citizens figured out how to send Bitcoin back and forth in a way that was virtually impossible to effectively surveil at mass scale. Yes, governments are still able to police nations and communities, and investigators find most big criminals, but broad-based financial surveillance has been stopped in its tracks.

By this point, the Bitcoin network is protected by geopolitics. Part of Satoshi’s genius was creating an asset that would increase in value due to scarcity. Even bad governments which subsist on authoritarianism got involved in Bitcoin initially because of their greed. But over time, their reliance on Bitcoin shifted their local economy towards it, which in turn hurt their ability to control the money supply and financial system and ended up eroding their control over the citizenry.

The more democratic governments adjusted to life with Bitcoin. For example, many democracies changed the way they taxed their citizens, veering away from an income-based approach. Sales tax, VAT, and “citizen” taxes all became more important. Just as in the 20th century, taxation and the financial relationship between citizen and state continued to evolve in the 21st.

In democracies, the people created laws to allow daily small purchases to be completely private. You can buy groceries, have a small medical procedure, or buy an e-book or podcast without disclosing your identity. Because of this, your digital footprint ended up being much smaller than it would have been had all these events been tracked. Governments still ensure that larger purchases like cars, weapons, and homes require that the seller ID their customer, but for most purchases, your transactions are not uploaded to a national database—just like how things were in the cash age.

Critically, Bitcoin has allowed dissent to survive in an increasingly digital era. Independent media organizations and NGOs are still able to receive funding from supporters, even in the most difficult environments. In mega-cities, one can pay for public transport with Bitcoin-based payments, preventing the authorities from knowing your every step.

Ubiquitous surveillance cameras and data collection from next-gen social media still make privacy in general very difficult to achieve, but at least payments are protected. And Bitcoin becomes a native payment rail for pseudonymous social media platforms, where citizens can still enjoy avatars online, and practice digital freedom. Without a decentralized currency, all of this would be impossible.

I’ve painted two visions here.

On the one hand, an Orwellian dystopia.

On the other, an overly-optimistic techno-utopia. Neither will happen.

How close we get to a more positive and open financial future is dictated by what we do now with the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2020 and moving forward.

In this essay I propose six priority areas for you to consider getting involved with. There are of course more aspects of Bitcoin, but the ones I list here will be most crucial for us to tackle in the coming years.

A first priority area is global education. Only a tiny fraction of people on this planet use Bitcoin, and even fewer properly understand its power. The latest estimates put the total number of Bitcoin users at no more than 45 million people — roughly .058% of the world’s population. I personally interact with many at the top of the wider cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, ranging from executives to journalists to investors. My best estimate is that, at most, 25% of them understand the underlying principles of how Bitcoin works and why digital scarcity is the key to its success. It’s a back of the envelope estimate, for sure, but let’s just say that even inside the industry, the number of people who understand the impact Bitcoin may have on the world is small. There aren’t enough non-technical explainers; not enough university-level courses; not enough (or virtually no) journalists at mainstream media outlets who understand; few if any initiatives to try and bring this topic to the attention of policymakers, philanthropists, and public figures; and no good Bitcoin film or video content on platforms like Netflix. There is much work to do.

A second priority area is usability. Just as the mobile phone and email were hard to use at first, and only popular with the scientific or economic elite, Bitcoin has begun its life as a niche technology. We should try to break this bubble. In order for that to happen, the average user needs to be able to send and receive Bitcoin with a few clicks and a swipe. But this will take time, as all users should be able to easily control their own keys without relying on a third party. Bitcoin usage needs to be simplified without making critical tradeoffs with regard to decentralization, privacy, or sovereignty. Technical complexity needs to be minimized as well, as Bitcoin should be accessible to those who need it most around the world, who have the least powerful devices and least consistent internet access. Thankfully, things are moving in the right direction. Even in just the past two years, Bitcoin wallets have become much, much easier to use. Just as sending email transformed from a complex task to a swipe on an iPad, Bitcoin will eventually simplify. Already, unnecessary details are being gradually hidden from the end user in the same way that Signal, for example, made private communications much easier and more widespread than previously possible with clunkier tools like PGP.

Which brings us to the third priority area: privacy. It is critical that privacy be encouraged, normalized, and baked into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Critically, we want Bitcoin on-ramps, wallets, and payment networks that are open source, decentralized, and relatively private. For example, BTCPay Server is perhaps one of the most important technologies in Bitcoin today. Originally a clone of Bitpay, today it allows anyone to set up their own hosted payment server, allowing them to receive donations or payments in Bitcoin, in a way that is much more privacy-protecting. Each transaction is done via a unique invoice, and can be dumped into a wallet that isn’t attached to your ID. This will prove equally important for mom-and-pop corner stores as it will for non-profit organizations operating under authoritarian regimes. Other key innovations in this space include the upcoming Taproot upgrade, which will help reduce the amount of information Bitcoin transactions leak on the blockchain; innovations in mixing technology like CoinJoin that help camouflage users; and, of course, the Lightning Network, which takes transactions off the surveillable chain into a second layer.

This brings us to our fourth priority area: scaling. All base monies need to be scaled through secondary layers to have a global impact. Consider the gold-based economy, where we invented paper notes to help scale commerce. Or the dollar-based economy, where companies like Visa helped spark growth around the world. For Bitcoin, the most promising scaling solution is the Lightning Network: an open source, decentralized payment system. You can think of Lightning as digital cash to Bitcoin’s digital gold. At the moment, the Bitcoin network can only support around 7 transactions per second. With Lightning, there is no technical upper barrier to how many transactions per second we can do with Bitcoin. This technology is still nascent, but arguably essential for Bitcoin to become usable by hundreds of millions of people in a non-custodial way. If we want to scale Bitcoin to the masses, without them having to trust a third party, Lightning seems to be the way forward. Companies as big as Square seem to agree: there, CEO Jack Dorsey has created Square Crypto, a research group that is building a Lightning toolkit for developers. This kind of scientific exploration is important for other companies and universities to emulate and expand on in the coming years.

A fifth priority area is liquidity. Once the average person can acquire Bitcoin, the following step, at least for the next few decades, is to ensure that it is easy for them to convert their BTC to local fiat currency when necessary. A world in which we pay for everything or even most things with a Bitcoin-based system is far away, and may never come at all. For now, people in distressed or repressed places need an ability to shave off their Bitcoin into fiat to pay for daily expenses and bills. This, thankfully, is getting a lot easier. In most major urban areas on earth, there is some mixture of Bitcoin ATMs, peer-to-peer marketplaces, Bitcoin brokers, and brick-and-mortar exchange points. Expanding Bitcoin off ramps will be key to popularizing the technology in the future. The website UsefulTulips.org does a good job of analyzing Bitcoin’s growing use around the world. More initiatives like this are necessary so we can learn how and why people are using Bitcoin.

A sixth priority area, and one that might really move the needle, is minimum ID. There is a strong need for a platform like Twitter that still allows some level of pseudonymity to adopt a Bitcoin-based payment system that reveals an absolute minimum about the user. If avatars online are to exist in the future, we must be able to operate them securely without fear of our real life identities being leaked. So attaching a bank account or a credit card with our full ID stack on it to our social media account won’t do us any good. We’ll need to use digital assets that don’t require Know Your Customer (KYC) or Anti Money Laundering (AML) compliance. Lightning seems well placed to serve this function. The less we reveal about ourselves in our transactions, the harder it is for Big Brother or surveillance capitalism to grow. There could very well be a future, even a near future, in which an individual can walk into a coffee shop, buy something online, send money to a friend, and make a donation to a cause all while giving up just a minimum amount of information about themselves.

Education. Usability. Privacy. Scaling. Liquidity. Minimum ID.

If developers and investors can focus on these six areas; if consumer protection advocates can lobby for the space for them to grow in our societies; and if users can more easily engage with Bitcoin, then we are well on our way to a more private and free world.

In conclusion, let’s revisit the impact Bitcoin could have on human rights communities if its technology ecosystem grows along the lines we’ve described.

First, consider independent journalists and NGOs operating in authoritarian environments who need to preserve financial independence. With Bitcoin, they are able to collect funds from around the world in a way that is difficult to surveil and impossible to stop. Then they can convert it into local fiat currency on an as-needed basis to pay for program expenses. This is already relevant in places like Russia and Hong Kong where the bank accounts of activists are frozen.

Second, consider the billions of refugees and stateless individuals, who cannot currently access the banking system. Today, you need to prove your identity to open a bank account or use any of the apps attached to the legacy financial system. With Bitcoin, you don’t need an ID or a passport. You just need, practically speaking, a smartphone and access to the internet. This is a great equalizer, giving anyone, no matter their class, education, background, or ethnicity, equality of opportunity.

Third, consider individuals who are dealing with high or hyperinflation. Many countries have been hit lately with double digit inflation, and some have suffered through hyperinflation. Ask any Argentine, Syrian, Turk, Iranian, Zimbabwean, or Venezuelan and they will tell you how rampant inflation can crush economies and vaporize the savings of the lower and middle class. With Bitcoin, anyone has access to a savings technology that requires no permission from a company, and cannot be devalued by a government that decides to print more money.

Fourth, consider the growing number of people who are falling under intense daily financial surveillance. Especially in China, hundreds of millions of citizens are increasingly being watched not just by hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras but also through their texts, calls, and social behavior. Transactions are a big part of this trend and will continue to be increasingly surveilled. Bitcoin provides the infrastructure for a parallel economy, one in which our financial transactions are not natively linked to our identities.

Fifth and finally, consider those who are victims of sanctions. The tragic fact is, individuals who live in sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran didn’t vote for their governments in free and fair elections and shouldn’t reasonably be held responsible for their dictator’s crimes. Through Bitcoin today, individuals inside Iran, for example, can earn income from abroad by working on open source software projects, or can receive money from their family abroad to pay for basic expenses or medical bills at home.

If the Bitcoin project falters or slows, then there won’t be much hope for the billions of people in these situations around the world, especially as cash fades. Private payments will be practically impossible. All daily transactions will become increasing points of surveillance and control. The monetary substrate itself will be watching you, and controlling you—and you won’t be able to do anything about it.

One more thing to keep in mind: the Davos elite who currently run the world are threatened by a technology that separates money from state and provides permissionless access to a premium savings technology. They are used to running things and want the game to be rigged. They want there to be obstacles and barriers to entry. Bitcoin will frustrate them because anyone can access it and use it, no matter who they are. In the progression of the global banking elite first ignoring Bitcoin, then laughing at Bitcoin, then fighting Bitcoin, and then giving up, we are nearing the end of the laughing phase. A big battle is on the horizon.

The good news is, there is excellent momentum for Bitcoin in the areas we’ve covered, and there is growing global adoption. Despite the obstacles, the path to freedom is clear.

In an age of increasing fear over how corporate and state technology will steal our rights and freedoms, we can be grateful to Satoshi that we won’t ever have to live in a World Without Bitcoin.


RoboSats v0.6.0-alpha: The Federation Layer

 "RoboSats v0.6.0 introduces a major upgrade, introducing the RoboSats Federation, a decentralized system of independent coordinators to host orders, enhancing the platform's robustness and user experience. This version is a significant step towards decentralization, allowing users to interact with any coordinator seamlessly."

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/robosats-v0-6-0-alpha/


Sir, may we have the sats/dollar circling the drain chart?


Running the latest Stable Diffusion models locally is frying my poor GTX 1080.


Would a paid relay that stores video for TikTok-like functionality be possible like this?

The relay stores videos for just a short time to keep costs down (one month maybe, with a warning and download option for viewers) and the user who wants to post a short video automatically zaps the relay something like 500 sats. Maybe each user gets a few free video uploads first. Seems like it could be done without much UX hassle for content creators. Thoughts?


🚀 Exciting News Alert! 🚀

We're thrilled to announce the long-awaited launch of Bisq 2! 🎉

The latest version of our decentralized exchange platform is now live and available for download. Bisq 2 brings a host of new features, improvements, and enhancements to make your trading experience even better.

Ready to explore what's new?
Use the link provided below to download Bisq 2 today! Don't miss out on the opportunity to trade securely and anonymously on your own terms.

Let's revolutionize the world of decentralized finance together. See you on Bisq 2! 🌐

Read More about Bisq 2 here: https://bisq.wiki/Bisq_2

Download Bisq2 here: https://github.com/bisq-network/bisq2/releases/tag/v2.0.1

#bitcoin #btc #decentralized #nokyc #stacksats #nokyc #bisq #nostr #nigeria #china #india #turkey

https://m.primal.net/HlYQ.png


I heard in some ECS/data-driven-design lessons for game design that it’s generally faster to have structs of arrays than arrays of structs. Perhaps it’s the same thing here?


A friend wants to know if it's possible to receive zaps to a Fedimint wallet


The change log on GitHub shows support for i2p for Bitcoin Core. Not sure how to apply it to LN (ie CLN or LND).
https://m.primal.net/HlVy.jpg


Stand up. Fight. Do not comply. https://video.nostr.build/007a804a7d3dcacba6f6c872dc2d8d3a5a81f32efbb9d34163bad08eda2c87f9.mp4


Seems like it would be good middle ground between clearnet and tor that has privacy without at much of the speed penalty that tor has.


Can anyone point me to a guide on running a Lightning node over i2p?


But why?


Looking forward to the open source equivalent.


It won’t take software engineers’ jobs. It will enable them to build bigger things in less time. 🫡


Lightning as it is right now is pretty private, but businesses will likely be told to run OFAC compliance nodes like this, at which point noncompliance comes in to play.

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/amboss-launches-reflex/


Noncompliance is pretty much the only thing. They will tell us we have to use centralized exchanges. You have to be willing to still trade P2P or use Bisq. They will tell us we can’t coinjoin. You have to be willing to still coinjoin. As a business they will tell you that you have to KYC your customers who pay with Bitcoin. You have to be willing to let your customers still pay anonymously. Takes the will to take some risk, which will be tough during the “then they fight you” stage which we are in the beginning of.


As long as helping me down an idiotic path isn’t part of the deal!


One day soon robots like this will work with open source unrestricted AI models, then the real fun begins. https://newatlas.com/robotics/figure-01-openai-humanoid-robot-real-time-conversations/


Incoming private Google Drive alternative on Nostr.
nostr:nevent1qqsqqxjp8xmg0ndsm9veqnkrk9safntns57p8dv3t9z0k8evyyrlqjgpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzyqqqqqzlslmyxswzztxf84kzvmqr4e6jcqnxpeu2dks5ynmmqhz8qqcyqqqqqqgs732q0


✨💎 Another Cashu Gem

Paid file upload service which can't link uploads to payments (i.e. works without user accounts) concept by  nostr:npub1rach342hnt3wa0qfqk0pey0exs2drcxfc0azs8eurwnee9vu64vs834atg.

"Add an ecash wallet to the backend and use the "X-Cashu" header to send payments with your file uploads!"

https://m.primal.net/Hkpi.mp4


From what I’ve seen in the past they will probably try to spin it as a victory. Like “it’s the State attacking the real Satoshi” 🤣


May give it a try. Getting off caffeine is going to be a pain though, at least for a few days.


I heard about #Cashu when I first bumped into nostr:npub1cj6ndx5akfazux7f0vjl4fyx9k0ulf682p437fe03a9ndwqjm0tqj886t6 at nostr:npub13pn45hvfxqy5vpyr03krapqvsjpj34n74u36qz9aynw4svg5ypqszxgctw a few months ago. Unlike most Bitcoiners on Twatter, the fact that it has a custodial trade-off didn't scare me off. Why? Well, while it's true that the protocol could use some improvements, Cashu, conceived by nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg ~ two years ago, is already seeing a large number of projects and protocol improvements, which is making Cashu a short term success.

Sure, it's custodial, but it's also a protocol, whether you're actively using it or not, no one is forcing you. In an environment where legal custodians are the obvious choice for most Bitcoiners, they risk being squeezed by governments in the long run. Their successes might easily become part of the legal framework and therefore become corrupted, or not.

But Cashu is different. It is elusive and a forever moving target for goverments.

You don't need anyone's permission to start your own mint and if you are running or using one I hope you are accountable for your actions.

The fact that you can set up your own mint and serve your community with just a few clicks makes Cashu attractive to both developers and users. I haven't seen these kinds of synergies in any other protocol. Honestly I can't wait to see how plebs are gonna monetize the protocol.

Exciting times

Ps: If only CoinJoin protocols had the same simplicity as Cashu... 👀


For the TikTokers in #introductions, we don't have media consumption in the ways that you're used to seeing, but we do have alternatives for media consumption.

Amethyst for Android has a TikTok-esque media feed.
Zap.stream is a live video streaming app.
NostrNests.com is an live audio chat app.
Flare.pub is a video sharing/watching site.
Highlighter.com is a toolkit for creators to produce content for their subscribers.


They could potentially be big fans of zaps.


Yup, saw that and it looks like he has a site called bitcoinstrategyplatform. Wasn’t able to find the sats/dollar circling the drain.


There used to be a Bitcoin spiral chart showing sats/dollar that looked like the line was circling the drain. Was my favorite one and I can’t find it now.


Hope someone finds a way to disable those cameras while preventing the car from disabling itself.


I got a stroke reading that.


Relays that store and transmit videos would definitely need to be paid relays IMO. I don’t think TikTok migrants would be willing to pay. Who pays, 🤷♂.


Govt imposes 30% tax

Public miners can't survive

Hash rate plummets

Asic fire sales

Plebs buy everything up

Mining becomes more decentralized

More coins become no KYC

Govt collects even less tax now, hfsp

W


A must read post on SN:
Are you moving towards freedom or away from it?
https://stacker.news/items/463377


Would you recommend the Proton VPN over others?


Is he referring to Bitcoin or Ethereum? I thought he went to the shitcoin side, but I haven’t been on Xitter in a long time.


THE TIKTOK BAN BILL GOING THROUGH CONGRESS RIGHT NOW WILL GIVE GOVERNMENT INSANE POWER TO RESTRICT SPEECH.

AT THE SAME TIME SECTION 230 PROTECTIONS ARE ABOUT TO BE NEUTERED BY THE SUPREME COURT WHICH WILL ADD AN INSANE AMOUNT OF LIABILITY TO CENTRALIZED PLATFORMS - INEVITABLY INCREASING CENSORSHIP.

RESTRICTING FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA HAS BIPARTISAN SUPPORT AMONG OUR CORRUPT POLITICAL CLASS.

NOSTR IS ABOUT TO HAVE ITS MOMENT TO SHINE. WE NEED TO BE READY FOR BILLIONS OF NEW USERS.


Bisq 2 v0.0.7: Test Release

"We released a test-release of the Bisq 2 software for the ones who cannot build from source! Feel free to check out what Bisq2 will look like at launch."

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/bisq2-v0-0-7/


Eclair creates a specific DB file that can be copied while the process is running. This could be encrypted and uploaded to another location. It's similar to the static backup from LND. Could potentially be a plugin for Core Lightning, or added as an option (with encryption).

"Your seeds never change once they have been created, but your channels will change whenever you receive or send payments. Eclair will create and maintain a snapshot of its database, named eclair.sqlite.bak, in your data directory, and update it when needed. This file is always consistent and safe to use even when Eclair is running, and this is what you should back up regularly."

https://github.com/ACINQ/eclair?tab=readme-ov-file#backup


People building OFAC compliance tools are enemies of Bitcoin. There is no “long game” there.


And that's why I raised the alarm with the new compliance tool from Amboss... that could lead to even more shit show with LN
BOYCOTT AMBOSS !
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/amboss-launches-reflex/

https://i.postimg.cc/7ZG3tVrM/compliance.jpg


Hopefully we don’t see coordinators start to panic and quit.


Coinjoin 🫡


https://nostr.build/i/c58a94cc8b9d15706cdb353644cdb9bca9d3eb1a2d62f4ed7dcd03cf7ace085b.jpg
⚡ Article: Lightning - From Reckless to Reliable - All Bitcoiners should encourage the use of LN Self-Custody Apps.
https://bitcoinerrorlog.medium.com/lightning-from-reckless-to-reliable-4efe3cf35611

⚡ Artigo: Lightning - De Imprudente a Confiável - Todos Bitcoiners devem incentivar uso de Apps LN de AutoCustódia.

Share 🔁

[Published in Portuguese]  https://t.me/TutorialBTC/7961

#bitcoin
#lightning
#lightningnetwork
#nostr
#bitcoinnostr
#nokyc
#CBDC
#NoCBDC
#halving
#halvingbitcoin
#halving2024
#cryptocurrency
#cryptocurrency
#investors
#entrepreneur
#zap
#zapathon
#privacy
#plebchain
#nostrplebs
#nostrovia
#nostrica
#android
#dca
#hold
#holder
#coffeechain
#Mineracao
#Mining
#btc

 🛡 ₿ = ∞/21M


"Horrifying, disturbing precedent being set here that a black-box chain surveillance software can determine if you live life as a free man or a convict." nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g

nostr:nevent1qqsthdw3ndrgnht2z6xthple2etms5cye896ghearkt5l3rr73t5njspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuer9v4a8jtnfduhsyg9e55m4ywa69lx6aptajrv2wcx7fusnnj0epkvx7aruulgwcrgh85psgqqqqqqs7talx4


It worked when I tried it later.


They will probably target coinjoin coordinators with this precedent. Hopefully that gets decentralized more.


I wrote an article about my interview with nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6

Reading it will help you understand why he regards Nostr as a freedom of speech platform, why he likes Drivechains, and why he no longer likes the Lightning network 💪🏻

https://bitcoin-takeover.com/fiatjaf-nostr-drivechains-lightning-sucks/


Now it went through successfully. I used my ID info though. Curious to see how it goes with a pseudonym.


It’s not working for me even with KYC info entered.


The United State Government is a disgusting criminal organization.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-12/crypto-mixer-convicted-of-money-laundering-on-bitcoin-fog


Chances are higher that they will target coinjoin coordinators at some point, unfortunately. The more we can decentralize that the better.


Now I get Warning “unable to complete operation”


US gov to Bitcoin miners: "we want to know how much energy you're using because of the environmental impact"

US gov inside baseball: we want to know how much energy they're using so we can calculate tax revenues

[Context: the US is proposing a 30% tax on energy used by miners, whether on grid or off-grid/self generating 🤯]
 https://image.nostr.build/50812f626249b7facd472dc56197f2391587fdf134aa1b2e33567136a6da1b4a.jpg


The government doesn’t want you to eat healthy food. They want you fat and unhealthy so they subsidize big agriculture and food, provide you with a food pyramid that recommends toxic sludge as health food, and create lifetime customers for big pharma.

🤡🌎

https://m.primal.net/Hjxw.jpg


Same


Trying to activate Primal’s wallet I get a “Warning: Invalid Name”


Does the Primal iOS client allow activating the wallet?


I like this way of describing nostr to potential newcomers. nostr:note1pvl04yzyg5r3zx3req308ds7ltmj76uan5vpnptk0606ed59rk8qdt7e0g


Let's make it super clear to the "normies" coming in... There are no new innovations on the "Crypto" side.. Same old memecoins.. Whereas on top of Bitcoin, we got lots of new innovations....Cashu, fedimint, NWC, npub.cash, breez SDK, Taproot Assets.... the list goes on..! In this bull cycle, real innovations is happening on top of Bitcoin...


Looks like an inscription spammer fired back up at block 834244.


The government is literally stealing your life with taxes and fiat monetary inflation…

As a conservative example:

You start working at 20.
You work until you’re 65.
You pay +/- 33% of your income in taxes.

The government takes 1/3 of your working life…

They have stolen **15 YEARS** of your time, energy, and work.

And for what?

For roads? (LOLOLOL)

For a broken education system?

For a medical system that wants to keep you sick and medicated?

For the military industrial complex which gets rich off foreign forever wars you never agreed to?

And while they are stealing 1/3 of your life, they are PRINTING MONEY OUT OF THIN AIR, stealing MORE of your time/energy/life force through the destruction of your purchasing power.

The taxes you pay don’t even fund the government; an ever-growing pile of national debt does, fueled by money created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve System. The dollars in your bank account are worth less and less every year, as your purchasing power is systematically destroyed.

I am grateful #Bitcoin exists so I can opt out of this nonsense and save the value of my time and energy.

Anyway, have a beautiful day.


Where?


Put a hardware wallet inside of it.


Be a pioneer using #Nostr to exchange #Bitcoin P2P without KYC💥

Everything is Open Source, you can find all code repositories here: github.com/MostroP2P

🎯Web client
mostro.bilthon.dev

- Logging with your Nostr Signer Extension (nip 07) @getAlby or nos2x from @fiatjaf


I would guess it’s in treasury addresses. Still, if some communist wins power they may decide the coins are better off anywhere but there.


Unfortunately most degen traders who get rugged will continue to be degen traders afterwards.


We have the potential for a stable $69,420 here. nostr:note1lxn6re4yw3ry92c88ax4pt34azcvpnrx6z98zppp9gtumhl8ur7qpj38y3


✨ Multinuteral payments – Pay a single Lightning invoice from Ecash balances on multiple Cashu mints.

We use Lightning multi-path payments (MPP) to achieve atomicity.

This has wild implications for UX and privacy and is a significant breakthrough for Cashu.

Most Cashu wallets have multiple small ecash balances across mints to minimize the custodial risk.

Paying a large LN invoice, however, was a pain. Amounts larger than any of your ecash balances required a multi-mint swap first (swap ecash across mints via LN).

Not anymore!

Instead of one big LN payment, wallets could send multiple small ones from a dozen different mints all running their own LN node.

Either all payments succeed, or all fail. The mints don't communicate with each other. Receiver doesn't notice anything.

Imagine the beauty of this.

This eliminates the need for inter-mint coin control almost entirely. Wallets could show the user one unified balance across all mints and handle it all hidden away from the user.

You simply scan an invoice and an orchestra of Ecash mints and Lightning nodes begin their play.

This is yet another cool example of how ecash can significantly improve the safety and security of custodial Lightning wallets.

The deep integration of Cashu with Lightning makes this possible. And we have more ideas.

https://m.primal.net/HiqI.mp4


I just heard the scariest story in a while. Someone told me that they had been traveling in China and, on the way out, the border police pulled up a tool that showed countless photos of this person taken by public surveillance cameras during their visit.

These are CCTV cameras in public. Faces classified with AI. All data gathered in a central location. Don't even think for a second this is never going to happen where you live.

That's a level of dystopia I didn't know we were already in.


One day food and drinks packed in plastic will be looked back on like lead pipes are today.


CDs are about to make a comeback! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_yxsJuOMY


ecash (both cashu and fedimint) is by far what i’m most excited about flying back from bitcoin atlantis

chaumium ecash failed in the 80s bc we tried to build it on top of fiat and tradfi banks. on top of bitcoin and lightning it has the potential to absolutely crush scaling bitcoin payments and user privacy

nostr:note1aldqtfxqy9rtfds7ckrcg3qe46zxwxyfkvtzxgddhsrpeld0ka3ssw76qg


## Introducing LowEnt
https://lowent.xyz

Lowent is a new chat client that uses the concept of low entropy keys to create anonymous chat rooms. It generates a key pair using the SHA256 hash of a word or string, allowing users to create rooms with any combination of words or characters. Each room has its own key pair, so all messages in a room are public on Nostr through the public key of the room. This can be useful for creating public streams of notes, like live events or news.

In these rooms, all users are anonymous, as they use the room's key to send messages. Lowent stores the ID of messages you've sent locally to show them to you in a meaningful way. However, if multiple people are writing in the chat, all messages will appear to come from the same source, except for the ones you send. To solve this and add authorship to messages, users can log in with their Nostr identity, allowing them to write messages in any room with their public key as the author.

To make this cryptographically sound, users must sign the message they want to write in the room with their Nostr identity, creating a valid ID and signature for the event. The event is then published from the room's key, including the user's public key, ID, and signature, allowing others to verify that the user's public key has issued a valid signature for the event published by the room's public key.

Lowent also features cipher rooms, which encrypt all messages using the room's public key. Only participants who know the string used to generate the room can decrypt the messages.

Lowent is a work in progress and an experimental idea that needs more research and feedback from developers and users. However, it's a fun project that has the potential to improve privacy, as all users in a room use the same key to communicate, making it impossible to guess who they are or how many users are participating in a conversation. Apart from these there are many other features that are under development.

#sovEnt #atlantis


I had some thoughts on how a simple decentralized file/media archival system could work on Nostr. I started writing some notes, wrote some more, and it eventually became a NIP draft 😜

I would love to hear thoughts, ideas, and feedback from the Nostr community!

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/1098


Are there portable generators made for keeping in the back of electric pickups and charging while driving? Seems like a cool idea.


Lecture them on the importance of maintaining privacy by coinjoining before funding their node and running it over Tor or I2P.


Sounds intended to be a competitor to Stacks.


The first two digits will be 10 again, probably this year.


Here is the crazy part: even if you required KYC in an ecash system at every step of the protocol and it would still have amazing privacy.

Mining: Calle mints 1000 sats.

Mint knows Calle minted 1000 sats.

Swapping: Calle sends 500 sats to his friend. Friend swaps them to prevent double-spending.

Mint knows friend swapped 500 sats. Mint does not know that Calle sent 500 sats to friend!

Melting: Friend pays a Lightning invoice for 500 sats.

Mint knows that friend has melted 500 sats.

That's worse privacy than a system without KYC but the transactional ecash pricacy would still remain largely unaffected due to the properties of blind signatures. I'm not saying this is desirable, but remarking an interesting observation. Regulated companies will choose their own policies for operating an ecash system.


How much time did 58k gang get? 2 minutes?


I wonder if these could be attached to drones for sending to good but hard to reach relay locations.


Three Meshtastic nodes are active in Cape Town for off-grid communications during disasters or just to meet your neighbours

https://image.nostr.build/1587f64b96b88ebef3e79216219540adbc212da44650848a8eb764088bd5036a.jpg

Myself and two other ham radio operators have established 3 Meshtastic nodes that will operate 24/7 to help build out more connectivity across Cape Town.

We are using license-free 868 MHz radios, so anyone can buy these cheap (ish) devices and get connected. The more nodes we have, the better the connectivity gets across the whole city. These radios will keep messaging going regardless of whether there is Internet or not. So if we hit Stage 8+ load shedding and cell towers and Internet starts to go down, this messaging network will still work.

This means that citizens can message for assistance needed, and this can be relayed to City or Provincial Disaster Risk Management. Or in cases of loss of communications during a disaster we can also send out messages to everyone on the network as to where water tankers will be deployed etc.

Apart from the public channel (which is much like CB radio's Channel 19) anyone can also create their own private channels (with passwords) to stay in contact with groups of friends or family. The connections between all radio nodes are encrypted with AES256 encryption, so private messages will stay private even though they bounce across 3 or more other radio nodes to reach the recipient.

You have a phone, so all that is needed is the free Meshtastic app, and a Meshtastic compatible radio device. This is probably bad timing, as right now there is a global shortage of Meshtastic radio devices. The massive global uptake has also made this situation even worse. But the point of preparing for disasters, is to do that well before a disaster strikes.

I've documented a lot of my lessons learnt, as well as given some context to the situation in South Africa for this service at the linked web page below.

See https://gadgeteer.co.za/hamradio/meshtastic-in-south-africa/

#technology #Meshtastic #offgrid #CapeTown #SouthAfrica


Buyers must be betting on absolutely devastating tax increases in the future.


Nice try whale.


Trudeau's new online hate bill means fines up to $20K for "online hate speech" and amends the Criminal Code to allow a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for certain hate propaganda crimes.
https://tnc.news/2024/02/26/online-hate-bill-20k-fines-speech-and-life-imprisonment/


DIY Network for when big companies, like AT&T and Verizon, drop the ball.

https://meshtastic.org/


Anon #farmstr + #ecash payments + Nostr #WoT and #Shopstr ?
nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqmjxss3dld622uu8q25gywum9qtg4w4cv4064jmg20xsac2aam5nqy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uq32amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7tcqyquw9hc8758ur088u23wkaaq8qvvavyj3fhmtsvqymxnspd3a422zuk5633


Mac Daddy?


Having said that, private L2/3s like ecash are probably the smarter way to get privacy with Bitcoin at this time.


Weak as in cowardly. Of course there will be consequences since governments hate privacy. It’s not a reason to avoid privacy.


I believe the argument is that privacy on L1 would cause exchanges and regulated businesses to not accept it at all. Those same businesses probably wouldn't accept private ecash either though. In any case I think the fear of regulations argument for not having privacy at L1 is pretty weak. If it can be done with acceptable trade offs I say do it.


If you’re just handed a USB drive you don’t know if the other party also has the private key.


Could ecash be transferred physically with something like an Opendime?


Also, coinjoin and avoid KYC sats.


I am making memes today.
https://image.nostr.build/6d29d4a5e7a65917504d6ee127ef828c7e8ec51bd8ed70a79d84e4a16089cc85.jpg


Individuals hodl half of all the bitcoin that will ever exist.

Let’s keep it that way. https://image.nostr.build/7b9c69bd0e4ce549790013a8e5171f95e2aa69f4be54f3b0fe83b45d3be1af94.jpg


Some would be individuals and some would be businesses, IMO. Grey area.


Thoughts on .BTC domain names via https://btc.us/ ? Is it a decentralized and censorship resistant DNS?


Looking at the mempool.space goggles and seeing blocks filled up with so many inscriptions and hardly any coinjoins makes me wish I could just reset humanity.


Bitcoin eCash Sent via Mesh Network Demo:

A demo of Reticulum, Cashu and the project Nutband that combines them, in order to use a Cashu mint over Reticulum mesh network - in this case over long range radio, and without internet.

Great work nostr:npub1m2mvvpjugwdehtaskrcl7ksvdqnnhnjur9v6g9v266nss504q7mqvlr8p9

https://youtu.be/HAX8GFn5uCI


I suppose it depends on the type of content. Once the US and its vassals (almost every other nation) heavily restrict “dangerous” content like Bitcoin privacy protocols, open source AI models, weapon models etc. the Taliban’s domain might end up one of the last refuges.


Same boat here. 😭


Seeing a lot of opinion articles state, "Texas can't secede. It's against the law."

No kidding. Has any nation ever seceded from its parent legally?


Not long. Jet powered drones are on the way too, which have the potential to target aircraft by design given their speed potential. DIY anti-aircraft drones will likely be a thing. https://www.intelligentliving.co/jet-powered-drone-fly-over-300-mph/
nostr:nevent1qqsvcfr7geu9tqq93q2dzuljxw2vr8kkzum9ufat6w89rfrwzjckdlqppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgswg9lw8kgsy5ue8tsvu66p6j3yvzvhpufjjkxhtvkekc6dvz3uczqrqsqqqqqphyqc9j


This (finally) adds some amount of censorship resistance to LN Address, not to mention better security and (thanks to BOLT12) even allows users of custodial services to use their own domain for their address!

The full protocol (lightning-specific) protocol is implemented at https://git.bitcoin.ninja/index.cgi?p=lightning-resolver;a=summary nostr:note1gt9ryucy0eyn6gcez3vj5j2vgswsp70kz9mhk97egh54r4cjmzcsswpv06


Higher. You’ll have to use it to pay taxes, registration fees, etc. Only way to not use it would be to move out of the US to a nation that isn’t a US vassal.


Ok, by request from some of my "padawans" I wrote a new guide about using #Cashu #ecash, explaining with use case scenario, of a small merchant (as uncle Jim) that want his customers to use #Bitcoin and #Lightning.

The scenario is based on #LNbits #Minibits
nostr:npub1dx5q2el8nd4eh3eg9t2e25fd7zuqg7zxz6ldkc3uzgh66ss2yc6st288sj with steps to do by each part of the scenario.

Thanks to nostr:npub1c878wu04lfqcl5avfy3p5x83ndpvedaxv0dg7pxthakq3jqdyzcs2n8avm (LNbits) and  nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg for making this happen and all other contributors to ecash Cashu code.

I know we are early with this new thing, but is good to start testing and improving the apps and code. We must go forward using Bitcoin and LN and this could be a simple way to onboard more people, with simple and private solutions.

https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/bitcoin-adoption-using-ecash


Thanks! Do federated e-cash mints also rotate keys? Maybe a federation would also give someone more confidence that an IOU handed over via Opendime would be valid for longer.


There isn’t a lot of time in Bitcoin’s history where you could have bought and be in the red right now.


Hope to see more sentiment like this in El Salvador, where a Bitcoin user survey showed low and decreasing usage mostly due to privacy concerns. Many people will probably just continue to not trust something they can’t physically hold and hand over in a transaction though.


Nothing like exchange bans to fix that.


Looks like many foolishly used it as an investment rather than as a tool. 🤷♂


#India bans centralised exchanges.

Bisq, Robosats solve this.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/cryptocurrency/india-bans-foreign-crypto-platforms-like-binance-kucoin-what-should-investors-do-now/articleshow/106830654.cms

https://m.primal.net/HXsx.png


Sucks that it’s a result of fear of regulations though.


Not generally a fan of altcoins, but it’s sad that exchanges delisting Monero because of regulations made its value drop so much. Cryptocurrencies, especially privacy-focused ones, are designed to resist government regulations on money, not comply. Blockchain technology sucks if you’re just going to comply.


Open source project idea: Combine solar-assisted drones like this with a mesh network, where the drone carries network node hardware and can be deployed to a rooftop or other high point. Multiple drones could be programmed to fly out and land in strategic locations to quickly set up a mesh network that can stay up for some time with solar power. Haven't seen anything like this outside closed military industrial projects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAw7hD2ApWA


Like others here have said, perhaps the biggest insult is the legal system facilitating this kind of ongoing attack. The system deserves as little mercy as Craig and Calvin.


Thoughts on CLN with CLBOSS? Does it make good channel choices for a routing node?


Need a convenient way to determine a coin you’ve been handed hasn’t already been redeemed/moved out of the mint.


Is there any workable way to make physical e-cash tokens? Would it basically be an Opendime?


If Texas secedes they’d probably send them too.


Will take some balls for secessionists to get past the feds’ threats and retaliatory actions. The Texas border situation is an initial assessment of the level of resolve for it. If Texas blinks first, we’ve still got some time to go before we’re there. Once one state sticks through the challenge though, others will fall (join the resistance) like dominoes.


Centralization on L2+ is not ideal but sometimes can be acceptable. Centralization on the base layer, which larger block size will gradually do, is a no-go.


Interesting...

https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-poisoning-tool-nightshade-received-250000-downloads-in-5-days-beyond-anything-we-imagined/


Improving human output capacity when interfacing with machines is going to be increasingly useful as AI and other tech improves, and devices of this nature may be necessary for that. I will not, however, put any device that is not open source in my body. Imagine having something in your brain that only a company, and maybe governments, have exclusive knowledge about its inner workings. F that.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/business/elon-musk-brain-implant-neuralink-intl-hnk/index.html


With nostr:nprofile1qyd8wumn8ghj7urewfsk66ty9enxjct5dfskvtnrdakj7qgmwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8wetnw3jhymnzw33jucm0d5hsz9mhwden5te0we5hgmmj9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hsqgpm7rrrljungc6q0tuh5hj7ue863q73qlheu4vywtzwhx42a7j9n5a3m46r  's GitStr you can now send a git patch to Amethyst through Nostr's relays and fully avoid GitHub.

Instructions here: https://github.com/fiatjaf/gitstr
Dashboard: https://patch34.pages.dev/naddr1qvzqqqrhnypzq3svyhng9ld8sv44950j957j9vchdktj7cxumsep9mvvjthc2pjuqqyxzmt9w358jum5nw4h94
NIP: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/997


THE “#BITCOIN PRIVACY PLAYLIST” IS HERE WITH OVER 14 HOURS OF SIGNAL FROM nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx AND THE GUESTS OF CITADEL DISPATCH.

SHOUTOUT TO THE FOUNTAIN TEAM FOR THIS COOL FEATURE AND THE ABILITY TO SHARE VIA URL.

https://fountain.fm/playlist/huQyYlzPWQJ5asbLQRb0

CC: nostr:npub1unmftuzmkpdjxyj4en8r63cm34uuvjn9hnxqz3nz6fls7l5jzzfqtvd0j2 https://image.nostr.build/162c168c9f8d4be7b6616d013a56986294899089d6c00fc2216f5cec31992b65.jpg  nostr:note1gnxjldxdp6pr2ztgptzssg9q7m5xp7wyq0mvn563nemhwzf406vsljundf


True. Censorship on the centralized major platforms is going to step up with the upcoming election season though. Longer term we could see increased censorship over "misinformation" and AI content like deep fakes. Moving to another centralized platform may not work if regulations are forcing the censorship.


https://m.primal.net/HZgp.png

Mutiny + Fedimint is slick


The sooner these companies move out of the US, the better.
nostr:nevent1qqsfx300faruhjjdnmfv54e5zech9fyat89qem9zytglhu6fc3wmz3qpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43z7q3qclk6vc9xhjp8q5cws262wuf2eh4zuvwupft03hy4ttqqnm7e0jrqxpqqqqqqz7ydn69


Have any nations hostile to the US declared their recognition of Texas as an independent nation yet?


Great overview of Lightning wallets by nostr:npub1tjkc9jycaenqzdc3j3wkslmaj4ylv3dqzxzx0khz7h38f3vc6mls4ys9w3

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2024/01/26/which-is-the-best-self-custody-lightning-wallet/

More recent than my original test of Lightning wallets. That just shows how fast the field moves...

I agree that currently I would install Phoenix Wallet to most new users because of good combo of speed, reliability and cost.

Although I personally like to use Breez more, it is more data intensive due to running everything on the phone.


A wide ideological divide is emerging between young men and women...

https://stacker.news/items/402105


Anyone use CLN with CLBOSS for channel management automation? Does it make running a routing node easy?


Vast majority of Europeans will just comply, sadly.


"If you pay more than 1,000 € in cash, you're on the grey market. If you get caught, you'll get fined or you'll go to jail." https://video.nostr.build/3edd4468c9f91e1700266e3978937b1310a95e97367d4f702db8bf6a9d8e0c07.mp4


If AGI is close then where are the household robots? If AI still can’t understand how to do the cleaning and maintenance tasks that we find boring and tedious then we’re a long ways off, for better or worse.


Still depends mostly on the will of its users. For example, not complying when FinCen inevitably says you can't coinjoin and businesses can't accept BTC with coinjoin history. Nice that the tech is here for the time people have the balls to do that though!


It will probably have to happen in a way that is independent from the courts and formal declarations. Once there is enough popular support in Texas it’s possible that non-compliance with Federal laws and demands can happen at a large enough scale that it might as well be secession. Feds will respond with troop deployments, sanctions and aid cut-offs, but as long as Texans remain peaceful (at least at first), it can be made to look like a really bad (for the feds) political knee-jerk that snowballs independence movements nation-wide.


The Texas GOP has rejected the petition to have Texas Republicans vote on ‘Texit’ in March - the movement for Texas to secede from the United States and reassert itself as an independent nation.

With so much hash power located in that one state with its unique self-contained grid, Texit is probably THE most important political movement in Bitcoin circles.

Afterall, they would not want to carry the US debt burden and whilst they could remain dollarised, true independence only comes when you’re out from under the thumb of the USD cabal.

If El Salvador’s adoption was important for Bitcoin, imagine what the Nation of Texas with 25% of hash power could do for it and conversely, what Bitcoin could do for them.. https://i.nostr.build/gV7B.jpg


Preferably to a country that’s not essentially a vassal of the US in law enforcement cooperation. El Salvador? Costa Rica?


Time for software businesses to move abroad if they can. nostr:note1wllxawudd04z8luka87ucmje46x64t00ckf3c9kqsv4ca0fqfkaqyx9nye


Hermes: Fedimint-based Lightning Address Server

Hermes is an asynchronous lightning address server that uses Fedimint Ecash on the backend.

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/hermes-fedimint-based-lightning-address-server/


West also threatening to intervene in Ecuador.


1933 - USA - executive order 6102...
https://m.primal.net/HXUO.jpg


One problem that people face is that they box themselves into narrative corners and echo chambers.

"Not your keys not your coins" is a good one-sentence explainer to tell people to be careful about custodians, especially in such a nascent industry. It's powerful and memorable. Couldn't be said better.

But then some people take that to mean nobody should ever use any custodial service under any circumstances ever. You got $200 in a custodial Lightning app because it's faster and easier than alternatives? You've failed the purity test. You're in a developing country and want to save $100 worth of bitcoin? Better do it on-chain, otherwise it's not yours!

But then some of the same people resist a block size increase to keep the network decentralized (a good thing, imo) and also say that bitcoin will fix the world (I think it can).

But while all reasonable statements on their own, the issue is that statements 1, 2, and 3 don't add up when taken to their extreme.  It has been written about since the time of Nakamoto and Finney on Bitcoin Talk forums that Bitcoin would need to scale in layers.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2500.msg34211#msg34211

So any statement about "Not your keys not your coins" has to be paired with an alternative solution, or a spectrum of alternatives. What if someone can't fit into the one of the only tens of millions of on-chain transactions per month? What if $35 fees is high for the $200 in bitcoin they want to save?

Is holding your bitcoin on an 11-of-15 multisig (Liquid) okay, in exchange for lower fees, faster block times, better privacy, and some additional features? Depending on the amount, I would say yes. It has trade-offs, though, which have to be made clear.

What about a Chaumian mint? What if an app lets a community in South Africa set up a 5-of-9 multisig run by well-known people in the community who would face consequences if they break trust? And the same app can let a smaller community in Guatemala set up a 4-of-7 multisig? And a bigger multi-country 6-of-11 multisig can be set up as well? It's private, interacts with Lightning as seamlessly as Wallet of Satoshi, and can make in-person payments even when the internet is out briefly. Plus, it can be customized via open source add-on modules by the community running the specific mint so that it can also store private data for users, monitor reserves, monitor health of the multisig keys, run applications like Chat GPT payable in bitcoin per usage, run private DMs and group chats, run apps that show you local merchants that accept bitcoin, etc. And what if a user could, within the same app, seamlessly spread their funds out among a handful of different mints that they know pretty well to avoid having all of their eggs in one basket, and then pull into self-custody when above a certain amount?

Maybe there will be more softforks in the future. More flexible scripting to allow more share-ability of UTXOs, for example. But those require consensus, and they tend to come with some trade-offs or code risks, and so they take time.

Bitcoin is an engineering marvel. But it's not magic. It has limitations, and it has a spectrum of solutions for those limitations at any given time. The best solutions solve multiple problems at once: they add scalability, they add speed, they reduce fees, they add privacy, and they add flexibility/programmability all at once, while still being more distributed than trusting some centralized KYC entity.

Bitcoin is peer-to-peer open source money. But it's not infinitely scalable on the base chain. If it were greatly scaled up on the base chain to fit everyone, then only institutions would be able to run nodes and it would be greatly centralized and thus useless. So the solution, known from the start of the Bitcoin Talk forums, is to build additional peer-to-peer open source layers on top of it, allowing for a range of transaction sizes, a range of speeds, a range of privacy, and a range of programmability, all to serve different users' needs, and without compromising the decentralization and security of the base chain. That's the type of statement that needs to be provided along with "not your keys not your coins" for the full context to make sense.


New version of Mutiny (v0.5.1) just released which improves a lot of functionality with Fedimint. Thank you to all the testers so far!

Now that Fedimint v0.2.1 is officially released, you may spin one up and start testing yourself too. https://x.com/fedimint/status/1742680076221612148?s=20


Celebrate bitcoin's birthday by thinking about #privacy.

No security without privacy.

No freedom without sound money kept in self custody, securely and privately.

https://v.nostr.build/JyDM.mp4


I like this idea. + relays as federation members.


Why? Seems the vast majority of people would opt for the convenience of just buying open source consumer electronics rather than building it. Is the "incompatibility" based on competition stealing the design and outcompeting you with cheaper production?


mutiny also shipping

https://stacker.news/items/371116/r/Car


Where are the open source electric vehicles? https://image.nostr.build/921c6ed19eb860cabaaecc968f6b87b30abd06ba434ef7c254d75e883defbcdc.gif


Highly entertaining talk on how Polish hackers broke a manufacturers backdoor to disable trains by analysing the firmware.

“After you went public with this story, did other train operators contact you because of dodgy train behaviour?”
“No comment.”

https://youtu.be/XrlrbfGZo2k?si=OwcuU18ojxtcaLLb

nostr:nevent1qqsflq7qr9dj0kv4ufq8zj2dh4aqq4t70lty60zqrpv9scum6ff9tygpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzvuhsyg9ahcdahjdjt2xcnk8a4u97rgxumqmm4jtfravh3y5s8f0amphz0upsgqqqqqqsvw2p4y


“This preemptively puts Texas in a position where federal laws enacted to restrict any of these activities will not be enforced by any agency under the control and jurisdiction of the state of Texas. Now imagine Kentucky, Tennessee, Wyoming, and Florida all follow suit with similar laws.”

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/fuck-the-fed-go-local


Is Stable Diffusion or any open source model able to keep up in quality? Or is proprietary pulling away?


Will 2025 be the year of the Linux desktop?
Probably not, because the addiction to convenience will make most people shell out for Windows 11 and possibly a whole new PC. https://www.neowin.net/news/240-million-pcs-could-end-up-in-landfills-when-windows-10-support-ends/


Signal is cool, but do you know what is cooler? Chatting on decentralized social network. We’ve implemented and audited end-to-end encrypted direct messaging for nostr.

Thanks to Jon (npub1jlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qdjynqn), OpenSats, Michael (npub1acg6thl5psv62405rljzkj8spesceyfz2c32udakc2ak0dmvfeyse9p35c), ekzyis (npub16x07c4qz05yhqe2gy2q2u9ax359d2lc0tsh6wn3y70dmk8nv2j2s96s89d), Vitor (npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z), Cure53, Matthew Green and everyone else involved.

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/44.md, https://github.com/paulmillr/nip44


Here comes another round of "Bitcoin is for terrorists" statements and opinion pieces.


Are fees going to flip the block subsidy after the halving?


Could you try making your channels 2M sat minimum? I know it's starting to get to the level where a lot of plebs can't put that much up. If you can, maybe it will be stable.


Nope, but it’s probably something that will increase in frequency. Moving business out of the US may be the only option for avoiding it if you want to maintain any privacy.


What is the point of coinjoining if you’re going to just link your input and output transactions for the government?


Daily reminder: there is no such thing as a Bitcoin company (or a nostr company).

A Company is anchored in the State and may be called upon at any time to "comply" by acting as a branch of the State (giving up user details, banning certain users/customers/transactions, etc etc).

"Bitcoin companies" and Bitcoin can't both survive. If Bitcoin keeps growing, we enter the criminalization phase next. Bitcoin companies will comply with the State or be shut down.

"Nostr companies" and Nostr can't both survive either. If nostr becomes large enough, any "nostr company" will comply with the State or be shut down.

The biggest lie that Governments like to propagate is that humans can't spread risk and collaborate without registering a Company (or Security) of some kind. We've been collaborating and distributing risk longer than we've been human, there are indeed ways of doing this without the government stepping in to mediate our relationships.


Very good article. I believe Liquid actually can help scaling to some degree but, as mentioned here, fedimints will be great. nostr:note1nyp0v09vzkmj9d5jdzqrumjdg3284spnkv5pn0nznmc38lkz7gqq289xep


Incentives will drive innovation.

https://i.nostr.build/eDDG.png
https://i.nostr.build/Y22A.jpg
#memestr #memes #meme #plebhy #ordinals #bitcoin


Sounds like tax software to not use, or to edit the report it generates.


Is the Liquid federation resistant in any way to being compelled by the US government to impose KYC requirements?
nostr:nevent1qqs04zwza60a8dlmxnyujakae965esunnd0mu0asc4w3e4zyhjq9grgppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsw9n8heusyq0el9f99tveg7r0rhcu9tznatuekxt764m78ymqu36crqsqqqqqpqq7da3


Coinjoining during low fee environments kind of takes care of this as a benefit additional to privacy. You tend to end up with larger-size post-mix UTXOs with the change being the (presumably small % of your stash) area to worry about future spendability.


Layer 2s for cash use cases like LN and Fedimints will get there eventually. Frustrating now, yes.


One of many reasons why KYC is a plague on this industry

Nice list of people and addresses to rob just dropped

https://image.nostr.build/50ab2e88af847491096c636b5a5f5f25572a845b07482d7f54a94a772c6e98d0.jpg


LMFAO GARY SEEMS SCARED

https://m.primal.net/HTsa.mp4


Call me crazy, but I don’t think ordinals are doing much to help with bitcoin adoption.
https://image.nostr.build/8cbf581d4c6a9bac7bd6fab800a0e7d4dd2c35be5941fa2a8300e540baccbe0f.jpg


Addicts getting their fentanyl taken away. Gonna get pretty bad before getting better.


Elizabeth Warren is the Craig Wright of Congress.

Both are proven liars that spend their days weaponizing the legal system against innocent civilians using spurious theatrics with no chance of winning, but which require expensive and time consuming defenses to bat away.

DDOS attackers in business attire.

https://m.primal.net/HTgP.jpg
https://m.primal.net/HTgQ.jpg


This might be a necessary component to such cities with strict space limitations. https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-unveils-vertical-farm-ai


Wow. Just wait until games have LLM-powered NPCs.


Smash the theft code.


An opinion piece advocating for strict government regulation of open source software. Interesting times ahead. https://techpolicy.press/how-to-regulate-unsecured-opensource-ai-no-exemptions


One possible downside to using the poor privacy of Bitcoin's blockchain as a reason to avoid knee-jerk regulations is the same argument could be used to support knee-jerk regulations against privacy tech like coinjoins and Lightning features.


Watch the Canadian government still claim that Canadians actually want this and the polls must have been spammed by trolls and right-wing extremists.


number go up
https://m.primal.net/HRYn.png


ocean.xyz wow 👏


Dtan.xyz: Distributed Torrent Archive on Nostr

"If any of you want to run your own DTAN you can get it on Docker at https://hub.docker.com/r/voidic/dtan ."

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/dtan-xyz-nostr-torrent-archive/


Looks like it starts that way with some kind of plan to move to pooled mining later.


DEMAND Launches The First Stratum V2 Bitcoin Mining Pool

“With Stratum V2 and our new solo mining pool, we aim to make home mining more attractive, which should in effect help decentralize the Bitcoin mining ecosystem and improve the health of the Bitcoin network overall.”

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/demand-statum-v2-mining-pool/


Lightning is dead. Long live Lightning.
😂⚡⚡⚡😂

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/lightning-is-doomed


I wonder if nostr search should still be centralized for its efficiency advantages, but completely open source so that anyone could spin up an alternative at any time.


What do you believe the young people are looking for that nostr can’t or won’t provide?


Miners who send their hashpower to OAFC compliant pools that require KYC are actively working to undermine Bitcoin.


OK fam, here's my video on reducing your on-chain fees. How to stack & spend efficiently in a high fee environment. Main video on top, supplemental tutorials all listed below. Give it a try & lmk what you think.

https://youtu.be/5kNMJd-Ts2c?si=nuMoI8FLJxX7EvxV

Videos for every tool mentioned/used in the above tutorial:

Bull Bitcoin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBRZKsIOpS8

Sideswap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbo-eq6KwdY

Blockstream Green:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DesN85bWmGA

Blockstream Jade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_MoWfu1b9k

Boltz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w7A9wZJN-M

Phoenix Wallet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbtAmevYpdM

Sparrow Wallet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ_SpQX_YKw

Coldcard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAYmE5-40PQ

Bip85:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRRB_WzZpTM


F2Pool apparently censoring transactions. As of about 20 minutes ago, Chun stated they removed the tx filtering patch for now. https://i.nostr.build/7kZl.jpg


“Don’t worry. Russia will face crippling sanctions until they withdraw from Ukrainian territories. Massive win for Ukraine.”


Oh shit


Legacy media refers to Milei as “far-right” because they don’t want you to know libertarianism is an option. https://image.nostr.build/ad3e3c87c06b4b7b5d219174f8cd47ddf5adffcf509d3a74158834826ea4783c.jpg https://image.nostr.build/35f94f9babaacb9692e7f2ce004b0fef5615fe499ab0fde6c859abdb99373464.jpg https://image.nostr.build/2e841715ff9ed2827e6a83f2ff6111cd0e22519efd6c792234a884aa7c6759e6.jpg https://image.nostr.build/a03a9d3455164941f0564361984d903888dc8de8046d58d9d0fb402c867956fe.jpg


It would be pretty cool if someone involved in the drama just dropped a bomb on it all by releasing all the algorithms on BitTorrent.


Maybe he had some dirt.


China and other non-blue helmet countries would doubtlessly step in too. Not sure which side/faction. Probably all over the place.


Would the current amount of fees be sufficient for securing the Bitcoin network if there was no block subsidy?


Former prison island getting back to its roots.


I wonder if it means the company will start moving away from shitcoining and secretive, closed source AI or double down on those.


Centralized exchanges have been a necessary evil to increase bitcoin adoption.

But at this point, they've become a cancer. Most of them forgot about the mission with which they started and succumbed into the quicksand of regulations.

Non-KYC ATMS + P2P exchanges like Vexl, HodlHodl & Bisq are the future. They already have very good user experience, they only need more promotion.


Voxels/point clouds are fun.


What’s keeping you from obtaining your BTC via #NoKYC channels such as Bisq?


Swan is pretty weak to comply rather than shut down. There’s no “long game” in complying here. That’s the government’s long game.


If you run a business you should hold your own keys and use coinjoin so competitors cannot track how much you are spending and earning.


Looks like there is a Nostr Relay app for Umbrel.  But it is programmed in Rust.


Hand government control of the internet. What could possibly go wrong?

“President Biden’s plan hands the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the country. Never before, in the roughly 40-year history of the public Internet, has the FCC (or any federal agency for that matter) claimed this degree of control over it. Indeed, President Biden’s plan calls for the FCC to apply a far-reaching set of government controls that the agency has not applied to any technology in the modern era, including Title II common carriers”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fcc-commissioner-biden-equity-plan-internet-control-unprecedented-unlawful


Developers are becoming too dependent on the OpenAI APIs. They are the Apple App Store of AI.


🍿 https://image.nostr.build/2db5534e12d01d5c82ab0e3377e8e221385cd635541a2db3754a0e0795b19adb.jpg https://image.nostr.build/25063a2a905fda7e7bd6111e0ad7f03045eb14de9fa08a2af4ac73a6c17bf365.jpg


Prove it wrong.


Shame on Gemini for bending the knee on this. The governments of the world and the unelected officials who write their regulatory guidelines (FATF) are morally bankrupt and do considerably more harm than good throughout the world. Where are the people with backbones?

The Winklevoss twins are more worried about their cover band than the well being of their customers. SAD!

https://m.primal.net/HPZQ.png


Agree. It’s likely the government already runs chainalysis software that lumps all UTXOs from the same KYC exchange ID, even from different exchanges, into the same entity.


Seems like the ability to buy and sell in less than a second is a major addiction some people have and yelling this message is like yelling “Get sober!”


Get 👏🏼 Your 👏🏼 Bitcoin 👏🏼 Off 👏🏼Exchanges.

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/gemini-uk-to-prohibit-regular-bitcoin-transactions/


I think in a decade or so this era will be known as the period where protocols replaced the major platforms.

#Bitcoin
#Nostr
#Lightning
#HyperDrive


SUITS BLOCKING ACCESS TO THE LIFE BOATS WHILE THE SHIP THEY BROKE SINKS

https://m.primal.net/HPQq.png

https://m.primal.net/HPQr.png


It has gotten quiet around nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m's 10BTC bounty to replace GitHub.

Now more than half a year later with BTC being valued much higher, who is working on this? Or are people working behind closed doors to surprise us later?

That might be the problem with juicy bounties: You don't know if you are late to a race or if all others gave up already.

Any tech team lead hiring devs will ask for or check for themselves "the GitHub" of a candidate. Any activity on GitLab or Gitea dilutes the picture. With other platforms or self-hosted instances it only gets worse and hosting your git on relays won't fix anything.

It is a slight pain to contribute to non-GitHub projects as my daily routine involves checking GitHub for about 1000 projects anyway while there is a bunch of projects where I only respond to issues if I happen to notice the email notification between all the spam. A huge handicap for those projects.

I think, network effect and discoverability are orders of magnitude more important than any sense of feature completeness. Hunting for the latter is missing the forest for the trees. The former two should be and remain resolvable as long as GitHub allows mirroring repos and as soon as they stop that, they are dead, anyway.

As long as a platform (or protocol) can index and track activity across GitHub, GitLabCom, gitea instances, ... a unifying layer could exist and one day allow tech leads to stop asking "have you checked their GitHub?" and start asking "Have you checked their git?".

I hope that is the goal of the bounty.


Same with Bitcoin-accepting businesses that comply with any FinCen rules that require KYCing UTXOs and rejecting coinjoins.


Wondering how much RAM people should generally put into new upper-end PCs these days given (local) AI models and modern games. Thinking 64 gigs.


trusted third parties are security holes - custodians can rug you without notice - learn how to hold bitcoin yourself - become unruggable 🫡

https://m.primal.net/HOvx.png


Also “privacy as long as we can still see”


To preserve privacy in Bitcoin, we just need to integrate AI, & tada!, the Whitehouse just issued us an executive order

https://image.nostr.build/5f5412b0098cad35de72f64c6b95004dd5602e0f11e0671903e4d6e5e358963a.jpg

Yes, the AI Executive Order is ironic given the administrations stance on eliminating the privacy to transact & the arrests of tornado cash devs (who made cryptographic tools to preserve privacy)

"Privacy for me, but not for thee"

The WH EA on AI: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/10/30/fact-sheet-president-biden-issues-executive-order-on-safe-secure-and-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence/


CLN + CLBOSS is something I want to play with.


The “Nothing to hide” argument regarding privacy is a fallacy that takes for granted the good intentions of those in positions of authority and power


my utxos will be either KYC’d or considered potential illicit terrorist financing by my government

bitcoin’s biggest advocate in the US Senate said today she wants the federal government financial police to have more money to do their job and is against the use of mixers to preserve your privacy because terrorist will also use it to evade law environment

merging bitcoin with traditional finance and applying the same laws to it is and was a mistake

it’s about control and power

if your favorite influencer doesn’t say this shit, then proceed with caution

OPERATION COMPLIANCE is playing out as planned


UK's Law Enforcement Can Now Seize Bitcoin Linked to Criminal Activity Without Conviction

"Provisions in the bill give broader powers to local cops, and will let them seize crypto they believe was used to launder money, traffic drugs, commit cybercrime and terrorism without a conviction – something experts say would come in handy, particularly in time-sensitive cases."

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/uks-law-enforcement-can-now-seize-bitcoin-with-criminal-links-without-a-conviction/


UMA adopters will probably deny connections to Tor nodes and any node that has UTXOs from coinjoins.


Just say NO to UMA  and STATIST CUCKS

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/lightspark-uma/


Improving Lightning routing and mitigating probing attacks with Payment Splitting and Switching https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/payment-splitting-and-switching-improving-privacy-and-payment-success-simultaneously


Just keep using Bitcoin how you want, even when FinCen says it's illegal to mix your coins or use Lightning.


Never had a problem with bisq.


It would take a war with China or a US civil war for the draft to happen, IMO. Possible though.


Thoughts on Home Assistant?


A lot of it may have been larping from the beginning. Being all about freedom tech until there’s an actual threat of getting a knock on the door or massive fines.


The upcoming FinCen rules will be an interesting test of your hypothesis. If people and companies tend to comply, you’re absolutely right - people just want comfort and safety more than freedom and Bitcoin has a good chance of failing simply because people don’t want to use it when could make the authorities angry. If we see a lot of non-compliance, there’s still hope.


In light of the proposed FinCen rules, I wish Joinmarket would get easier to use.


Obtaining your BTC via no-KYC channels is insurance against wealth taxes.


Various objects in the universe on a graph of radius vs. mass
https://image.nostr.build/daac05eacda6552f2e80d358e7db580f10ede9d9ed7c4b0f7d60c6acc4e7cdf4.jpg


Tanks can be demolished by cheap IEDs and suicide drones made from off-the-shelf components.


California just passed a bill regulating 3D printers, CNC machines and file sharing. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1089


Nice. What is the card with the two fans on the top level?


Guessing it was not mentioned because of the "at scale" clause. It would be nice to see it used more though, especially during Tor's DDOS times.


Open source high-end VR headset, supposedly still scheduled to release this year.  https://mixed-news.com/en/somnium-vr1-september-2023-update/


What's interesting about the wars happening right now is that the US is entirely propping up one side in at least two of them.


Tough question to answer because the *actual* problem is the US federal govt having become much too massive and powerful. It should be up to local communities/govts to determine how outsiders are received into their space. Unfortunately the US govt now largely bans local control.


How to fix?


Halloween decoration shopping time is July now.


A lot of questions on how they came up with that number.
What kind of transaction is flagged "illicit?" Are they to/from known DNM/Theft addresses?
Given this UTXO flow :
<UTXO from exchange hack> --> Coinjoin  --> <UTXO>
Is that two illicit transactions or one? How many post-coinjoin transactions are illicit?


It's the government's same tired argument against privacy we saw them use against encryption in the 90's.


Can't wait for a Nostr market!


Coinbase helped the authorities find him.


And despite doing this, they fortunately will still not stop his work. See Myanmar.


Digital Second Amendment: https://gatgpt.defcad.com/digital-second-amendment


Why would inquiring about a perfectly legal device be a fedpost?


And this probably doesn't even account for Lightning volume! https://u.today/bitcoin-btc-surpasses-visa-transaction-volume


Could it be Windows-related?