As a regular visitor of the Dutch central bank these days, you can’t miss some of the small details. On the counter at the entrance you can always find plastic bags with shredded paper bills.
There used to be a text on it which translates as follows. “Money doesn't make you happy, but luckily we make money!” The new plastic bags I picked up yesterday don’t have any text on them anymore… 👀
Now what was interesting is that the largest news agency NOS (which is 100% owned by the Dutch government) published the following article. https://nos.nl/l/2544097. At that exact moment I was gifting the board of DNB bitcoin socks with a SeedQR and 24word paper wrapped in the following mainstream newspaper article: https://archive.is/U9Ykx. This article stated that everyone needs to have cash euros in a sock at home. Cyber attacks could impact the financial system for longer periods of time and people should prepare. I explained that it’s important to use the parellel bitcoin rails. Because that’s the most robust financial network on our planet. I don’t advise to put naked keys in a sock at home btw.
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What is the best Nostr desktop client for macOS, also ok if it’s browser based. But I can’t find anything that works smoothly… Damus, Snort, Nostter all the applications don’t really work, break or have so many issues… Is anything proper available?
Then just give me a browser client already… you should meet people where they are, I’m not grabbing my linux instance if I need to just post and peek around for a sec. Tell me what we are building for… I would expect a browser based version to be covering all spaces. I’m using x via browser…
What is the most important thing in life? Otis Sha (anagram for Satoshi) gives us a clue. Curious what is most important for you when you see this?
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I finally was able to physically pull them down the rabbit hole. Now it looks like there is no turning back. Until new years we should pack many thousands of shipments with @BitcoinBrabant. Without a solid base like them this would have never been possible. I’m forever thankful for their endless sceptic criticism and support. You’re the greatest the greats, I’m literally standing on the shoulders of giants, though they are 20cm shorter than me (my surname is the great 😂).
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Every Sunday it’s time to learn more about money. But this time I just felt like rereading “anatomy of the state” by Murray Rothbard. I’ve mentioned it once as my favorite piece in the @ConnectTheWorld podcast. This podcast has way too little followers btw. https://youtu.be/Li-RlT9eQtA
Been working on this for a while now. In case you’re wondering why I’m silent. With two conferences a meetup interview and a workshop coming up. In the end it’s all about the proof of work. Monday morning 4AM, starting off again. 🔥 thanks for all the support
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It’s understanding money Sunday once again. In the Dutch financial times a nice article was posted yesterday evening. A translation in English:
“Modesty is in order for central banks
20 Sep 20:00
Market participants were already hoping for it, and the Federal Reserve gave it to them on Wednesday. The American system of central banks lowered the interest rate by a large step of 50 basis points. According to Fed chairman Jerome Powell, the American economy is solid, the labor market looks good and the substantial interest rate cut 'is intended to keep it that way'.
It turned out to be a difficult message to explain. After all, isn't a smaller interest rate cut of 25 basis points more appropriate if the economy is doing well, the labor market is not doing much yet and inflation is a bit too high? Do policymakers have more concerns than they say? Or is the large interest rate step an acknowledgement that the interest rate should have been lowered in July?
In any case, the credibility that the next steps will be cautious and smaller has been partly undermined, now that the Fed immediately took the big step that market participants and commentators were calling for. Try to get the genie back in the bottle. Every time an economic figure disappoints, speculation about the next major interest rate cut will flare up.
The Fed is thus cornering itself in a corner where it – or other central banks – should not be. Sentiment on the financial markets is back to business as usual after the corona pandemic and the inflation shock of 2021-2023. If the economy deteriorates somewhat, the central bank must quickly lower interest rates and, if necessary, inflate the balance sheet to support the economy (i.e. the markets).
Where investors want to quickly return to the old situation, central banks should be more modest. So far, they have washed their hands of their own role in the inflation shock. According to central bankers, it was due to disruptions on the supply side (corona, Ukraine). Furthermore, the extent to which the inflation wave has been exacerbated by fifteen years of extremely loose monetary policy is mainly dismissed.
That question is indeed relevant. The effects of the inflated policy are still seeping through the economy. The run-up in asset prices and inflation has contributed to poverty and growing wealth inequality. And liquidity is still sloshing around – albeit slightly less so. It is telling that the sharp rate hikes of 2022 and 2023 did not cause a recession, despite the energy crisis. That is both nice and strange. The effects of old policies and structural economic changes make it unpredictable how inflation and the economy will develop if interest rates fall sharply.
In such an uncertain environment, restraint is appropriate. Of course, interest rates can be lowered if the situation requires it and if it is done cautiously. That message is often preached, but the Fed’s 50 basis point cut and the ECB’s routine rate steps really send a different message.
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Is this the reason that Nostr is purple? In the absence of the color spectrum does our brain actually work harder for it? Would purple give us a deeper memory? Interesting color from a marketing perspective. https://youtu.be/CoLQF3cfxv0
The only way to secure digital scarcity is to create physical uncapturable abundance that remains in consensus. In the end digital is just the status of transistors in one or multiple locations. Social consensus among the multiple is a challenge. Money in the end is just a social phenomenon.
Sometimes it feels like silence before the storm. But actually it’s not silence, because the rambling is insanely loud. We’ve never sold this amount of goods via our webshop. More and more people are waking up. And we are here to make sure they get to safety and make people understand it requires proof of work to be safe from the fiat massacre. Our building will not stop until we reach our goal. “You can only have a great life when people around you have a great life” will start to ramp up local efforts.
In the bitcoin community there are people who produce things and just send an email: “created this”
In todays bitcoin builders, someone translated the amazing video of @LynAlden in Dutch: 🙏
https://youtu.be/brogy3uIk6g
Because there was some anon that posted about a free spot at @SatoshisBleibe : we went. The German bitcoin community is alive and kicking. The amount of proof of work being done by this community is staggering. And I had to do my best to speak some low level German on high level topics.
It strengthens to see so many so deep down the rabbithole connecting with each other and their families. Bitcoin will not be stopped because of these people and the next generations embracing its philosophy. Truth is out there and will prevail. Thank you for having us and the amazing time and effort put into this weekend. There is no better place than a church to talk about bitcoin until deep in the night. 🙏
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Fiat payments are a pain. Can we incorporate shipping data in somekind of checkout way automatically. Like people use a Nostr plugin or Nostr login where it just shares the shipping data and pays. The single button Apple Pay feature sharing the shipping data automatically is quite simple, plus it automatically generates a private email
address. We should have a bitcoin pay button that is able to do the exact same thing.
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This guy can stay in freezing water insanely long, he even went in twice.
While discussing plans for the future of bitcoin…
Bitcoiners are built differently and will deliver proof of work.
I send out the package today. I’m taking the €4,- loss on the shipping.
I’ve just lowered shipping cost for EU for Jades because of your post. I believe spreading a cheap device is critical for adoption. I lowered it €10.- even though there are countries that would make us lose a lot on the shipping.
Might have to install an exact shipping cost per country, that would be much better. Will look into that this week. 🙏 for your order.
So finished some analysis on spent time.
Week consists of 168 hours
60 hours sleep
30 hours VBNL.org
30 hours @BitcoinBrabant
20 hours family / friends
20 hours food / household
8 hours ?
I think I’ll have to change some things at some point.
On the 10th of September we have the court case with the Dutch central bank. In October it will be conferences and builds we have to deliver. A lot of meetings for micar. After October I hope to have some more time shift towards friends and family.
On Sundays it’s time to learn about money in general. And the origin of the euro banknotes is fascinating. The short documentary (unfortunately sponsored) I watched is worthwhile understanding. The low time preference and proof of work that went into these notes is admirable. There’s a weird screenshot I took from the documentary and would love to know if this was a joke by the documentary makers? The text (see snippet below) is really in this documentary.
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You’re welcome. I actually love that the designer put personal things on the notes that the Dutch central bank didn’t verify.
It’s very clear that the engineers and designer were capable of building freely for an optimal physical money. While there wasn’t too much extreme centralized control. This is something we should see in bitcoin development in the Netherlands too. Let everyone be free in developing open source software. It might create the best form of money in the world and everyone will thrive for it.
It became my prime advice for people to read. Still thankful to @Aaron van Wirdum for allowing me to read his book twice before I got this interview recorded with him (thanks @stijnbtc ). The book was handbinded in the local monastery and I marked every page I wanted to highlight in the interview. Not every page was touched but I hope people love what we recorded. This was for me one of the most important topics of my lifetime that I feel that is severely under appreciated in general human knowledge.
Everyone who wants to understand where humanity could move to, and the discussions that are there before the inception of bitcoin has to read this book.
https://youtu.be/em2l4rH8jN4?si=B8fGRBuglOw4EZcl
It became my prime advice for people to read. Still thankful to @Aaron van Wirdum for allowing me to read his book twice before I got this interview recorded with him (thanks @stijnbtc ). The book was handbinded in the local monastery and I marked every page I wanted to highlight in the interview. Not every page was touched but I hope people love what we recorded. This was for me one of the most important topics of my lifetime that I feel that is severely under appreciated in general human knowledge.
Everyone who wants to understand where humanity could move to, and the discussions that are there before the inception of bitcoin has to read this book.
https://youtu.be/em2l4rH8jN4?si=B8fGRBuglOw4EZcl
A lot of people are interested in Musk attending the @BitcoinMagazine conference. On X the plane tracker was taken down. On Nostr the tracker can’t be stopped.
The guy is mostly in Texas anyway, so it’s not that much of a hassle. I’m curious when he will be launching his mining location with excess electricity and repurposing of heat. We’re calculating this for factories and it would make sense with his recent GIGA AI buildout, the huge fans on the top of the roof clearly show no heat repurposing, while he generates heat right next to it in his factory. We could have easily integrated it without any risk for the process and actually prolonging the lifetime estimate of the installation.
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X is really broken. It doesn’t matter if you look at “for you” “following” or even my noderunners select group. Only posts about some things happening in the US are constantly thrown in your face. Can’t wait to be able to set my own algorithm based on what I want to see. It’s very simple: WTF are people building to improve bitcoin.
You should understand that I’m there with my company @BitcoinBrabant and you have to understand that the company wouldn’t have existed without X. If people wouldn’t have seen what we’ve been building over the past years we wouldn’t be where we are now. Our Nostr views if I base it on our likes would be less than 1/1000th of the outreach. And to be honest, I don’t think the average Nostr user needs to learn from the first Dutch translated bitcoin book. People on Nostr are already in bitcoin 99% of the time. So I would love to focus on Nostr only, but currently I would expect that we wouldn’t reach many potential new bitcoiners that need help with our solutions.
If you have an idea how we could achieve maintaining our level of outreach on just Nostr, please help us out.
I have no clue what is going to happen in the self custody landscape in a decade from now. I only believe one thing. When it becomes clear it’s not your keys, not your coins, it’s going to be busy.
Over the past years I’ve worked together with people in the Dutch and Belgian bitcoin communities. We have had discussions about self custody optimizations and compared every bitcoin only device we could get our hands on. We discussed ethics, risk of founders and technical teams, closed source - open source, ease of use and so much more. In the end it’s trade-offs. We’re looking to create uniformity in setups in the long term and many products will be changed to newer and better solutions in the future. Just in case for the above scenario we have a lot of signing devices in stock. As people have heard me say it before: there’s a cost to this endeavor. As being a maximalist you lose not having everything you have in bitcoin. Having bitcoin into bitcoin products you sell makes you lose bitcoin. But in total we win because thousands of people are securing their bitcoin properly because of our proof of work. It’s all about trade-offs. Low time preference FTW.
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