Seth For Privacy

Privacy is a human right and necessary for freedom.

- VP of Operations at Cake Wallet
- Privacy advocate
- Host of optoutpod.com, a privacy-focused podcast


Tagging is always a struggle bus for me no matter the client...


# I'm leaving Foundation and joining Cake Wallet

It's time for a new chapter in my journey building freedom tech, and I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be jumping in to help Vik run Cake as VP of Operations starting in September.

## Why Cake?

I've known Vik for many years in the space, and have been watching from the sidelines as he's worked hard to bring together an amazing team to build out a wallet that prioritizes ease-of-use and powerful privacy no matter what cryptocurrency people prefer. That all started with being the first Monero wallet on iOS, and has rapidly grown to being a cross-platform, multi-cryptocurrency wallet used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

The best part? Cake Wallet has been paving the way in the privacy space for many years, including the latest push to be the first mobile wallet to include Silent Payments for Bitcoin and MWEB for Litecoin. My vision for Cake is to carry this privacy-first vision even further, continuing to push the envelope and let users access powerful privacy features with an intuitive, beautiful user experience that makes privacy easy.

The first three objectives I have will be improving and expanding Silent Payments support (especially improving the sync experience!), building out an amazing (and privacy-preserving) Lightning experience, and fine-tuning and improving the existing Cake Wallet that you all know and love across the board.

I can't wait to step into this larger role, especially with friends that I've already gotten the chance to meet and get to know over the years. I'm also thrilled to be able to dedicate a bit more time to expanding access and ease-of-use for Monero, especially in the wake of the takedown of Samourai Wallet and the broad attacks against Bitcoin privacy.

Monero is a more important tool than ever, and Cake has been a key part of making Monero more useful over the years.

## Grateful for Foundation

I have nothing but amazing things to say about Foundation and the incredible people I've gotten to work with so closely over the past two years. We've gotten the chance to build the best Bitcoin hardware wallet out there in Passport, and turn Envoy from a simple companion app for Passport to a powerful standalone mobile wallet with the best coin control in the space.

I especially wanted to shout out Zach Herbert and @qna, as they have been close friends and allies, giving me the chance to get started in the space and grow into what became a much larger role than originally planned with Foundation. Zach has gone above and beyond to empower me over the past two years, and his tireless efforts to drive Foundation forward and ensure we ship the best possible products has been inspiring.

@qna is the reason I'm even in Bitcoin in the first place, and was the key voice of reason that helped me understand the how and why of privacy in Bitcoin, as well as the power (and necessity) of going no-KYC-only. We've built a great friendship over the past two years and I'm honored to be able to have learned so much from him.

This has to be the most bittersweet move of my life, but I'm thrilled with the new prospects at Cake and know that those taking over in my place at Foundation are going to bring a unique approach to help them take the next step forward as well.

Now let's get back to building 🫡

P.S. - Keep an eye out, Cake and Foundation will be working closely together in the near future 👀


Pretty good privacy flow that covers *most* average Bitcoin use cases 👇

BUY 🤖 - For use when you want to obtain sats that are not tied to your personal identity #noKYConly
➡  Robosats Trade > Use proxy invoice when withdrawing to own your node > Accumulate/spend from own node.

SPEND 🪙  - For use when you want to use Bitcoin as money
➡  Not too much to say here, LN has good base level sender privacy when using your own node.

STORE 🧊   - For use when your node balance gets close to channel capacity, or to a value that you want to move to cold storage
➡ Carry out atomic swap on something like https://boltz.exchange (use the .onion address) to go from your Lightning channel balance, straight to an address controlled by your hardware wallet. Boltz has a 0.5% service fee, plus you'll of course need to pay miner fees, which are negligible at the time of writing.

NOTES 📔

🟧 Your purchase sizes are limited by your inbound liquidity. Plan ahead!
🟧 If you don't want to or can't run a node, swap out that step for a nostr:npub1xnf02f60r9v0e5kty33a404dm79zr7z2eepyrk5gsq3m7pwvsz2sazlpr5 Olympus channel with a lightweight node on your phone. I recommend Zeus because spends from there are more private than in Phoenix due to client side path finding
🟧 When using the proxy invoice feature in Robosats, you may need to adjust routing fee and proxy provider allowances slightly

Happy to take questions or comments. Put down the CashApp and give it a go anon, I dare you!


🎊 Introducing Envoy 1.7! - Buy Bitcoin directly into self-custody with a few taps!

Today we release the biggest update yet, and mark a new chapter for our Bitcoin mobile wallet Envoy.

Including:
 ➡ Buy Bitcoin
 ➡ Redeem Vouchers
 ➡ Discover p2p exchanges & ATMs

For a detailed look at all the exciting updates in this release, explore the full release notes here:
https://foundation.xyz/2024/06/envoy-version-1-7-0-is-now-live/

If you haven't experienced Bitcoin, Simplified yet. Download Enovy here today.
https://foundation.xyz/envoy/
https://m.primal.net/IqiN.png


Foundation stands with Samourai Wallet

We've been working behind the scenes with the p2prights.org team to find ways to support their efforts and the defense fund of the @SamouraiWallet team.

That culminates today in a 50M sat (~$35k) donation and fund-raising campaign.

We've created a new promo code, FREESAMOURAI, that will automatically donate $20 of the proceeds of any Passport sale using the code to the Samourai Wallet team's defense fund via p2prights.org. In addition, for this week alone we will donate $20 of every sale regardless of promo code usage to get things rolling.

Setting a precedent

The case against the Samourai Wallet team has the possibility of setting a sweeping and powerful precedent, either for freedom tech and privacy, or one that criminalizes providing privacy tools to the world.

This has far broader reach than "just" in the Bitcoin space, and as such we hope to see many companies and projects in the space come together to support the Samourai Wallet team's defense and the broader mission of the Peer-to-peer Rights Fund as we fight for the right to build and run freedom tech across the US.

About the Peer-to-peer Rights Foundation

If you haven't heard of this new foundation yet, they're a product of the Bitcoin Policy team, headed up by @zackbshapiro and @DavidZell_. They're forming a new fund to "protect innovation, privacy, and user autonomy through strategic litigation and advocacy."

Their first major project is helping to fund the defense of the @SamouraiWallet team in the U.S. v. Rodriguez & Hill case that is ongoing. We've been thoroughly impressed in our time talking with the p2prights.org team, and were glad to have an organization we could strongly support in such a volatile time in the space.

Don't need a Passport?

Don't let that stop you! Consider helping the cause in one of these three ways:

1⃣ Re-tweet this post to raise awareness
2⃣ Donate directly on p2prights.org using fiat or Bitcoin
3⃣ Advocate for the Samourai Wallet team's freedom, including using the #FreeSamourai hashtag
https://m.primal.net/IfhW.jpg


Does that increase or decrease your chances of getting rugged lol


Thanks, I wish they weren't true and that ecash was a silver bullet but it's just not...


100% agreed.


Full context (cross posted from X):

nostr:nevent1qqstta9hsmn9gtsemx4q0eph8lk8wfjy2lr7y9732wkzl0sqqeyfvsgpvemhxue69uhkv6tvw3jhytnwdaehgu3wwa5kuef0dec82c33w3ergernw3shqaryxfehqwfcdqmksmrewdcrsutvv5mx6aehwakkzatgve4kw73nwfkhsery8phxgurjw4ekuaej0y6kw0mzwfhkzerrv9ehg0t5wf6k2q3qtr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusxpqqqqqqznpp3fy


Summarizing my thoughts on ecash

For some reason this ecash trend seems to be gaining steam instead of going away, so I'll try my best to detail my thoughts on ecash into one post.

1. The incentives are broken

Ecash finds itself between a rock and a hard place. For users to trust the mint, they need to know that the people behind the mint are trustworthy. If the people running the mint reveal their identities (or even just nyms), they're a trivial target for regulators and law enforcement as it's clear a mint is an MSB.

If the people behind a mint don't reveal their identities or nyms, users of that mint are subject to trivial rug pulls with no recourse. Which do you prefer as a user? Mint operator rug pulls or government rug pulls?

If a mint had been targeted like Samourai Wallet was, instead of just a potential privacy loss, all users would have lost all of their Bitcoin.

2. Ecash is not "self-custodial"

For some reason this concept of ecash being "self-custodial" is a thing, merely because the tokens themselves are self-custodied (and require proper backups of seed phrases etc.) While the lines get a bit weird, it's important to separate two things:

1. The asset people want is Bitcoin, not ecash tokens.
2. The asset people give up custody on is Bitcoin.

The ecash tokens themselves are completely worthless IOUs without the Bitcoin behind them, so even if I can take custody of my ecash tokens, I have 100% given up custody of my sats to a third-party.

Because of this, talking about ecash as self-custodial is disingenuous -- no one wants empty IOUs, they want Bitcoin. When they use ecash they do not have custody of their Bitcoin.

3. Ecash still requires all of the hurdles of Bitcoin self-custody

The hardest hurdle for many people to adopting Bitcoin is the simple first step -- writing down 12 words and making sure not to lose them. With ecash you still have this single greatest barrier of entry as you must backup a seed phrase or secret in order to restore your ecash tokens.

4. There is no incentive for custodians to implement ecash

While a custodian could switch to ecash out of the goodness of their heart, the incentives are broken for custodians. Not only does ecash harm the UX their users are used to (not having to store a secret seed phrase), it also introduces additional infrastructure complexity. Instead of just running a database, now they have to run additional mint software to provide their users with tokens, and handle support cases where users lose their tokens.

In theory a custodian could just also store the seed phrase for their users, but then have we actually improved on custodians at all? They even have custody of the ecash tokens in that case.

5. Custody is a line that cannot be crossed

The core of what makes Bitcoin unique is that we can actually take custody of it ourselves, gaining immense freedom and self-sovereignty through a bit of personal responsibility. Even though I am a massive proponent of building better privacy tools, sacrificing custody to get better privacy is a non-option for me.

Surely we can do better and build privacy tools on top of Bitcoin (or directly into Bitcoin's consensus layer) that allow us to have both privacy and self-sovereignty via self-custody.

I will not give up custody of my Bitcoin, no matter what, and you shouldn't either. "Better custodians" are just custodians with extra steps, and still strip us of self-sovereignty and thus freedom.

6. Time is a more scarce resource than even Bitcoin

Even though I have been very outspoken on what I view as a pointless venture, I am not here to stop anyone from building what they enjoy in the space. Devs working on ecash are free to do so as of course I have no control over them, though I fear that time spent on improving custodians is time that we will not get back. It's clear that the US gov and many in the EU are seeking to ramp up their attacks on Bitcoin privacy and self-custody, and our time to build tools to route around them is growing shorter and shorter.

P.S. - None of what I write is a direct attack on any ecash dev, and I have immense respect and personal relationships with most of the people working on this stuff. Respect for an individual doesn't have to mean I agree with them on every avenue they pursue.

 https://i.nostr.build/oM0YW.jpg


Yeah just closed beta Cake for now but out publicly soon.

That will be the go to for a while it looks like!


Same timeline: tons of anonymous mints rugging users because it's literally free money.

Incentives are so broken in ecash.


If the only solution for Bitcoiners to have private payments is custodians (be it e-cash, Fedimints, etc. as is all the rage) then Bitcoin will simply be dead for me. Feels like the ultimate cop-out.

Custody is the line in the sand that cannot be crossed. Custody not only opens up immense risk for loss of funds, it also makes these tools far less resilient to adversarial environments.

Can "they" stop every Bitcoiner from keeping 12 words safe? No.

Can "they" stop a few popular mints from operating? Absolutely.


SilentPayments.xyz: What Are Silent Payments, Bounties & More

"I've built out a website with all of that info and more to do what I can to speed up Silent Payments adoption," announced  nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g.

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/silentpayments-xyz/


Excited to learn more about this one 👀

nostr:nevent1qqs993pn7zyh7y2vgygnpvmheru36axxratyjvqn6nsz6whuflkm39gpvemhxue69uhkv6tvw3jhytnwdaehgu3wwa5kuef0dec82c33w3ergernw3shqaryxfehqwfcdqmksmrewdcrsutvv5mx6aehwakkzatgve4kw73nwfkhsery8phxgurjw4ekuaej0y6kw0mzwfhkzerrv9ehg0t5wf6k2q3qa00wj229auzjswlq4s77y4u8eqdx5k9ppatgl8rtv8va65f6mwksxpqqqqqqzjtlhev


Silentium (use with caution!) and Cake Wallet in beta.


Yup, in beta.


An attacked can perform a dust attack and look for consolidation, yes.

No addressing scheme can prevent that, has to be done client-side with dust filters, good coin control, and additional privacy tools like Coinjoin.


Hell yes!

Would love to see this paired with your proposal which I'm watching closely 🙂 Have been an OpenAlias user for years and love the step forward this is.


No addressing scheme can prevent those. Has to be handled client-side to ignore dust and allow strong coin control.


Say hello to https://silentpayments.xyz/

Wanting to learn more about Silent Payments, see which wallets support them, or find out how to integrate them into your wallet?

I've built out a website with all of that info and more to do what I can to speed up Silent Payments adoption. https://i.nostr.build/EnGDG.jpg


Full blog post version:

note16vjz9czztqwgwz876pvmtggltuu9yrazqdm4skwvncdfk57c0fxq8kdw4x


Self-custody is the only way forward.

Without it, all of Bitcoin’s other properties are pointless.


There are no Whirlpool coordinators anymore.

Whirlpool is dead.


Your mixes with Sparrow rely on the other participants true spend not being known.

If LE are able to recover xpubs and know a large % of true spends, your anon set is likely much smaller than you think.


No, normally customers/users aren't affected, especially when it's not a sanctions issue.


They seized all servers, and Samurai self-hosted Gitlab so code went down with them.


AFAIK no other coordinators ever launched.


yes


Yes.


Absolutely.


No, they didn't run the service so hopefully are safe.


yeah, never happened though in production AFAIK


If you were a Samourai Wallet user and confused about how to restore your funds elsewhere, we've got you covered:

https://freedom.tech/samourai-to-sparrow/

https://v.nostr.build/4oMGr.mp4


Our latest on Freedom.Tech breaks down the indictment of Samourai Wallet and actionable next steps for everyone:

https://freedom.tech/doj-tightens-strangehold-on-bitcoin-privacy/

In addition, I worked with  nostr:npub1txwy7guqkrq6ngvtwft7zp70nekcknudagrvrryy2wxnz8ljk2xqz0yt4x and  nostr:npub15c88nc8d44gsp4658dnfu5fahswzzu8gaxm5lkuwjud068swdqfspxssvx to write a guide helping users migrate from Samourai Wallet -> Sparrow Wallet, including a video tutorial:

https://freedom.tech/samourai-to-sparrow/

Full video here on Nostr:

https://v.nostr.build/4oMGr.mp4


finally recorded two new episodes this week! publishing this week or next and multiple more already scheduled 🙂


Everything actionable you need to know about what this indictment means for you as a Samourai Wallet (SW) or Whirlpool user 👇

As a Samourai Wallet user (no Dojo)

Unfortunately, the architecture of SW meant that your xpub (a master public key, allowing anyone holding it to derive all your past/present/future Bitcoin addresses) was at some point in time held by Samourai, and could now possible in the hands of the DOJ.

Though it's a worst-case scenario, you should assume that your xpub was compromised, and thus all previous mixes you have done have been unwound and are now traceable. You should also assume that the gov can now derive all past/present/future addresses of yours and track movement of funds if so desired.

In addition, Samourai's coordinator and backend sync server was seized, and so SW will no longer sync, show received funds, or allow sending funds out. As such, you have to migrate funds to another wallet like @SparrowWallet following the docs here:

https://docs.samourai.io/wallet/restore-recovery#export-to-external-wallet

In addition, I would recommend migrating funds to a new seed phrase to prevent anyone holding the xpub from seeing all future received/spent funds.

You should also disable automatic updates in the Play Store (if used) to ensure no malicious updates are pushed.

As a Samourai Wallet user (using your own Dojo)

Thankfully, you avoided having your xpub potentially compromised. The worst case scenario for you is that your previous mixes may not have the full anon set you expected if non-Dojo users xpubs were compromised.

You will still be able to sync/send/receive from your Samourai Wallet app, but should also migrate funds eventually as no further updates will come out for Samourai Wallet. If you want to migrate, use the docs below:

https://docs.samourai.io/wallet/restore-recovery#export-to-external-wallet

You should, however, disable automatic updates in the Play Store (if used) to ensure no malicious updates are pushed.

As a Sparrow Wallet user

Thankfully, you avoided having your xpub potentially compromised as well. The worst case scenario for you is that your previous mixes may not have the full anon set you expected if non-Dojo/Sparrow users xpubs were compromised.

There is no real need to rotate to a new wallet etc, and Sparrow is still an excellent option. Unfortunately you will no longer be able to mix in Sparrow as the Samourai coordinator was seized.

Next steps for privacy

If you (like me) relied on Samourai Wallet for privacy on Bitcoin, it's time to look elsewhere sadly. As of today I have two recommendations:

Use Monero for spending, keep using Bitcoin for savings

Yes, this isn't Bitcoin, but its by far the most used and most practical privacy coin out there with strong (and growing) ways to swap in/out of it without a centralized, KYC exchange. My recommendation is buying enough to cover your normal spending of Bitcoin for a month at least, and spend out of that lump sum as needed.

Learn more:

getmonero.org

Where to get Monero:

bisq.network
Trocador.app
In Cake Wallet's exchange feature

Wallets:

Feather Wallet
Cake Wallet
Monerujo Wallet

Merchants that accept Monero:

monerica.com

cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/

Use JoinMarket

JoinMarket is a decentralized Coinjoin protocol that brings together peers to mix funds together, gaining strong privacy without relying on a central coordinator, without giving fees to a central entity, etc.

The best way to get started today is using the new UI built around JoinMarket, @jamapporg:

jamapp.org

Have any more questions? Drop them below and I'll do my best to answer them.


Join us right now for our first AMA on  nostr:npub1jfujw6llhq7wuvu5detycdsq5v5yqf56sgrdq8wlgrryx2a2p09svwm0gx.

You’ve got  nostr:npub1xy6exlg37pw84cpyj05c2pdgv86hr25cxn0g7aa8g8a6v97mhduqeuhgpl and  nostr:npub1aeh2zw4elewy5682lxc6xnlqzjnxksq303gwu2npfaxd49vmde6qcq4nwx answering your questions for the next hour about why we’re so bullish on our little comedy club for nerds.

https://stacker.news/items/500101


Celebrate #Monero's 10th Anniversary with us! 🎉

🗓 April 18th in Frankfurt/Offenbach.

Featuring: nostr:npub1s0thm3trpndws2ek57vum8qdpwk5jl6mllklg60tvplfq90st4jqgdl3mn, nostr:npub1llna4n44wdp27s60rlmkquzzmd0dfwdepl4kl4rquptn6dy8cqrq5pk9k5, and me.

Thanks to nostr:npub1j9qyxka5lck4tw50v7qfrs6gdwczz5ydt7ugqy6nhuva9p6dpy5q8rs2yg for sponsoring!

Details & RSVP: https://moneroof.info/

#XMR10 #PrivacyMatters


More info here: https://phoenix.acinq.co/server/faq


No kidding, love how simple and seamless this is making it with very little (but still present) tradeoffs.


Yeah, I switched it back to my Primal LNURL for Zaps 😅


Ah, missed that Zaps don't work quite yet.

Will throw some extra sats at the dev in hopes we can get that added 🙂


what Nostr client or wallet?


Same, but looks like someone else was able to 🤔


magical


Migrated my zap URL there as well already 👀


And just like that I have my own simple, non-custodial, entirely self-hosted LN stack in seconds.

Bravo, amazing work Phoenix and 1f52b_xyz

https://sethforprivacy.com/lnurl

If you want to test it out, don't tip me, tip the creator of this awesome LNURL tool 1f52b_xyz!

https://1f52b.xyz/lnurl

Once we finalize the Docker image + publishing for this and phoenixd, you will literally just register a domain, create a text file, run a single command, and have self-sovereign LN, LNURL, Zaps, etc.

nostr:note1468crxa4u0yd99h5g76uavn0h0y3vlma5ctxnnvf8np5g69sstdq9evukf

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


Working on making a guide for running this with phoenixd directly in Docker Compose with nostr:npub1xv8mzscll8vvy5rsdw7dcqtd2j268a6yupr6gzqh86f2ulhy9kkqmclk3x!

Really excited to get this up.

nostr:note18s272aynf53w9ar79a00z9fqzekurxq8pgpatd3rzh0vt95wg34qahfgk7


ZEUS v0.8.2 is now available

- LSP support for LND REST connections
- Point of Sale: Print receipts [Android]
- Multi-currency conversion tool
- 33 new fiat currencies
- Enhanced wallet recovery interface
- Default channel opening settings
- New invoice expiration picker interface
- LND v0.17.4-beta

## Links

Blog post: https://blog.zeusln.com/new-release-v0-8-2/

Release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v0.8.2

ZEUS documentation: https://docs.zeusln.app/
Embedded node FAQ: https://docs.zeusln.app/for-users/embedded-node/faq

Android

Universal APK: https://zeusln.com/zeus-v0.8.2-universal.apk
arm64-v8a APK: https://zeusln.com/zeus-v0.8.2-arm64-v8a.apk
Manifest: https://zeusln.com/manifest-v0.8.2.txt
Manifest Signature: https://zeusln.com/manifest-v0.8.2.txt.sig

F-Droid https://zeusln.com/download

Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.zeusln.zeus

iOS

IPA: https://zeusln.com/zeus-v0.8.2.ipa

Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zeus-wallet/id1456038895

https://image.nostr.build/750cd643cc9b6686f0dabd0778a1dd8af7e97e7f48cc880a06768ae4a1ad3aae.png


ARE YOU EVEN A REAL BITCOINERS?!?

Funnily enough I bought mine with Monero 😅


What sold you on the XM5s over XM4s? It was the fancy new looks, wasn’t it 🤔


GM ☕

Heading to Dallas for Finney Forum, pumped to reconnect with old friends, learn about new freedom tech, and be in the midst of some of the best community crossovers in the space.

Any of you Nostriches attending?


Same here, so damn good.

Glad I could finally move on from true wireless buds back to over the ear that are comfortable and have kickass noise cancellation.


What did you settle on 👀


"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


I know all 12 😉


Thanks, Mark, glad to hear it 🤝


1M sats on offer 👀👀👀

nostr:note15luwcaw3y289uqjkm2nsuupflwdnn6v0rnqrx552c3zjvfu2necs55ym9c


Great option too


Hmm, we had one originally specced out but must have been missed 🤔

Team member bios should have them too! Will bring it up with the team!


Big week ahead, kicking off with a brand new domain and website for all of our freedom tech at https://foundation.xyz 🥳

Check it out and let me know what you love/hate/would change on the new site!

Good suggestions might just get some sats/piconeros sent their way (zaps make things damn easy) 😉

nostr:note1j2m3tm3kkwwm4v07mmyw7tamfpy2r3uc5qmj7p87fejfrudp7vjqppzgwk


Favorite Nostr client just got way better 🧡

nostr:note1lupal9me4rld6eareaw448p7h5lqt4p8gkltczgyz4jtz2twwxvsr7plz8


MULTI-ACCOUNT SUPPORT I LOVE YOU MILJAN 🧡


GM and thank you for building a badass LN wallet 🧡


There are tons of ways to support ZEUS, folks!

- Use the LSP
- Buy some merch (https://store.zeusln.com/)
- Donations (https://zeusln.com/about)
- Zaps
- Contribute to open bounties or create your own (https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/blob/master/docs/Bounties.md)
- Pull requests and review
- Filling issues/requesting features/general feedback
- Star us on GitHub
- App store reviews
- Translation work (https://explore.transifex.com/ZeusLN/zeus/)
- Design contributions
- Documentation (https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus-docs)
- Spreading the word
- Just sending us love!

No action is too small. Everything is appreciated.

Thank you! https://image.nostr.build/d1f1ef7fe32693e1f85edcbe755cd9be5d1d7179cebd63d39102dec284fcb568.jpg


Been secretly enjoying RBF and the new address and amount formats for what feels like an eternity 😅

Now it’s live for all you lovely Envoy users out there on all platforms 🫡

nostr:note1s0h66m3cpkym5cnk5vwsaa3xfa2v4nteaz8z0vphd7k42yg8ldysskjmyn


Done, added a bunch more!

Thanks, CK 🤝


That was a great idea! I went through his follows manually and was able to get a bunch that I know I want to follow from there.


Ah maybe I followed on X? I remember following you somewhere 😅


Yup, never had any issues.

Mostly IVPN.


Remind me, is splicing live or a WIP?


So strange, my main account has only ever been used behind a VPN and I’ve never had issues.

Wonder what the trigger is for yours?


There is no second best when it comes to a full LN node in your pocket 🔥

nostr:note1k8cvl0xeymmutyrl7l23uv4mzgw60mckvxg2nnnryeesj7j0wcvszg5wzh


There is really no reason to believe that Signal itself was broken/breached.

Far more likely his device was pwnd and messages read via screen recording or some other method.


GM Nostr 🧡🔥

This podcasting 2.0 stuff is pretty cool eh!? nostr:npub1jcympy69pht7ptan39se4nd09e4q66qhey649uu3rczm2zh88c7s0n2890

https://video.nostr.build/675fb521f295a7197e207a97eb44107178bcabe779240b08fe567a5df3d57c5b.mp4


Very, best wild game I’ve had TBH!


Who do I need to follow here? My “Latest” feed is a bit dead a lot of the time.

Help me fix it 🫂


More devs. More projects. More freedom tech.
Block by block, a brighter future is being built.
https://opensats.org/blog/bitcoin-grants-feb-2024


Yuck… odd it let me buy with only providing an email alias.

Means surely there will be shotgun KYC later


Uhh how the hell does nostr:npub12vkcxr0luzwp8e673v29eqjhrr7p9vqq8asav85swaepclllj09sylpugg do no-KYC purchases of Bitcoin?

Is it KYC-lite or something? Can’t find any info on it.


CANNOT WAIT to do my first in-person workshop teaching Bitcoin self-custody from scratch alongside nostr:npub15c88nc8d44gsp4658dnfu5fahswzzu8gaxm5lkuwjud068swdqfspxssvx.

If you're in NYC, get your tickets ASAP before it's full!

nostr:note1e44tq0lzf9qj797q2vepqfhw58e8c3gfdjux2ajrkkeh9tmcgl4q4rrq83


Just used the latest Phoenix Wallet and Passport releases to top up my Lightning wallet from Taproot to Taproot 🔥

So glad to see the promise of Taproot FINALLY starting to pay off in the wild with better privacy and lower fees.


check out this interview with evgeny nostr:npub1exv22uulqnmlluszc4yk92jhs2e5ajcs6mu3t00a6avzjcalj9csm7d828 and nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g. i respect them both and enjoyed it very much.

Opt Out: SimpleX chat and how privacy aligns with the future of computing w/ Evgeny from SimpleX

Episode webpage: https://optoutpod.com/episodes/s3e02-simplexchat/

Media file: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1790481/12333165-simplex-chat-and-how-privacy-aligns-with-the-future-of-computing-w-evgeny-from-simplex.mp3

#cybersecgirl #optout #sethforprivacy #simplex


MARCH 5 🗝 SELF-CUSTODY WORKSHOP 💎🙌

Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins 👎🔑🚫🪙

Join Foundation Devices and PubKey for a new self-custody workshop series at PubKey starting Tuesday, March 5 at 6 PM.

With: nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g, nostr:npub15c88nc8d44gsp4658dnfu5fahswzzu8gaxm5lkuwjud068swdqfspxssvx & Zach Herbert

Mobile vs. Hardware • Hands-on Demos • Magic Recovery • Passport Devices Available for Sale

RSVP here 👇
https://www.meetup.com/pubkey-meetups/events/299339076/ nostr:note1zu5usp6tkw7f8d4gzn7c9v4lgcc0wx6877ffclkk83hcxvpx8mfqmznxf7


Satoshi's vision for Bitcoin: FREE and open source (FOSS).

Free and open source is different than just being "source viewable." As shown here, Bitcoin was and is built on FOSS, just like every Bitcoin-centric project should be.

Stay true out there!
https://image.nostr.build/766c6c4272fe6330bbf23ae00a8833e65b4bee228c37f5cd86b457e90f5306a1.jpg


Primal for iOS 1.2 is now live on the App Store. 👀👀

We bring you a much nicer wallet, now with support for on-chain payments, along with several social media features and fixes. Primal has become equal parts social media client and bitcoin wallet app. We will continue to expand both feature sets in ways that integrate them naturally, offering you the best of both worlds. Primal can serve as both your daily spending wallet and your social media client. Let us know how you like it! 🤙💜

Wallet Features
- Bolder bolt!
- Start in wallet
- On-chain transactions
- Send via keyboard/paste
- Scan QR code from image
- Faster transaction display
- Fiat currency display

Other Features
- Video uploads
- Smart contact list

Fixes
- Keyboard issues
- Rotated photos (sorry about that one!)

https://primal.net/downloads


Discover Episode Sixty - Discovering #Bitcoin with nostr:npub1m4z3mr7uvr458cce2gdqwqrn5yr9pv57l3dzx6xcxehn2qatawys5mstrj ⚡

🎙Bitcoin knowledge assistant and guide writer, head of customer experience at nostr:npub1s0vtkgej33n7ec4d7ycxmwt78up8hpfa30d0yfksrshq7t82mchqynpq6j

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

🎧 https://fountain.fm/episode/Szd0tFuBw1MdE1Uvv8Uz

WE discuss:

• Q+A's Bitcoin origin story
• Paying it Forward
• Privacy Best Practice
• Inflation Gaslighting
• Heaps More

YUGE thanks to Q+A  for sharing some of his scarce⏳ and finite⚡🙏

IF you enjoy listening, please RT and share this podcast around with pre-coiner friends, tolerable family members, and like-minded plebs on the Internet.

Send sats of support: discoveringbtc@fountain.fm

Look out for Episode 61, soon! 🔶👀


HUGE release just dropped 🤯

nostr:note1jkx43xe6z8k3wuqwat0zaxpqpevqruvr6gty63d5w5cxgf8zshnquhp4ns


may god be with your sats 🫡


this was a CC, they allow you to use only dice rolls for entropy, and still don't enforce minimum rolls on Mk3 or older Mk4 firmware.

you can even still so a single dice roll for a temp seed.


Stop trying to use dice-rolled seeds unless you're an expert ❌

Just had yet another person (hard to count the total now) reach out about a low-entropy seed they generated and were allowed to import into a certain hardware wallet. A lot of the blame for these lost funds falls on influencers who shill users on overly-complex security setups without properly explaining the massive risks and tradeoffs associated for the average user.

What happened:

Less than 10min after funds were sent to what they thought was secure storage, they were swept to an attackers address.

They used <10 dice rolls, meaning the private key had <25bits of entropy when the minimum for strong security is 50 dice rolls (128 bits of entropy). Wallets should not allow a user to import a seed that they know is completely insecure.

Staying safe:

As I have said many times, if you don't know the ins and outs of dice rolls, entropy, verification of the resulting seed offline, etc. please do not use dice rolls alone for seed generation. 99.99999% of users are better off allowing good, multi-source, open-source random number generation like we do on Passport.

To date I have heard of zero compromised seeds that were generated using on-board RNG due to entropy issues, while there are countless examples of users losing funds due to improper dice rolls.

Stay safe out there, folks.


Multi-signature wallets can be the most secure way to store your bitcoin… But they’re not for everyone!

Learn the pros and cons so you can choose for yourself 🫵

Multi-signature wallets (often just called ”multisig”) are one of the most powerful breakthroughs that came with Bitcoin, as we don’t have to rely on a lawyer to escrow funds anymore between multiple entities.

All we need is cryptography and we can cut out another middle-man 😎

Multisig at its core functions similarly to a standard Bitcoin wallet — only the right signature can allow funds to be sent to a different address.

However, instead of just needing one signature, now multiple signatures are required to make a valid transaction. This greatly increases the potential security of a wallet, but also comes with some big trade-offs.

So what are the pros and cons of multisig for Bitcoiners today? 🤔

Pro - Powerful custody for organizations

What once used to require lawyers, complex bank accounts, and legal headaches, now can be achieved through simple cryptography.

Organizations can share custody of funds safely and securely with no middle-men or custodians.

Pro - Losing a single key doesn’t mean lost funds (usually)

For any proper multisig quorum (threshold of signatures needed) losing a single key - or even multiple! - doesn’t lead to lost funds. For instance, a 3-of-5 quorum could lose two keys and still access their Bitcoin.

Pro - Harder to spend funds

While this may not sound like a pro, the main benefit for individuals who use multisig is that a single key or seed being compromised doesn’t lead to theft (or loss) of funds.

In certain threat models this can be a powerful step up in security.

Cons - Harder to spend funds

Yes, this is both a pro and a con 🤔

While it can sometimes be a good thing to make it harder to spend funds, this added complexity or geographical distance when accessing funds can be problematic for individual users!

If you use a multisig with just one person and spread the keys out geographically, things like government lockdowns or tightened border crossings can make it impossible to actually access your bitcoin.

Cons - More complex backups

While backing up even a standard wallet can be daunting, multisig ratchets up the complexity even more.

Not only do you need to properly secure multiple seed phrases, but also additional metadata about the wallet 😱

Even though multisig can help prevent loss of funds, this backup complexity can actually increase the risk of losing your precious sats if you’re not 100% sure how to properly handle multisig backups ❗

Cons - Harder for loved ones to recover

An aspect of every Bitcoiner’s setup that often gets overlooked is what happens if you pass away or are incapacitated? Can your spouse/parents/kids access your Bitcoin to actually pass on your generational wealth?

Multisig can make it drastically harder to actually recover funds in this worst-case scenario, so it’s vital that you be sure that those you love actually test your recovery process and can recover without any help from you.

What’s right for YOU 🫵

While multisig has a lot of pros and cons, deciding if it helps your specific self-custody setup is a personal choice. For more advanced users the added complexity might not be a problem, so the cons are worth the greater security against theft/loss.

On the flip-side, many users have improperly backed up their multisig and ended up losing funds they otherwise would have been able to recover.

For all the reasons mentioned here we normally recommend single users use single-sig - K.I.S.S. 😉

Want to learn more?

This threads already getting long, so keep an eye out for next week’s thread where we’ll cover the ins and outs of actually using multisig, what backups look like, and how a hardware wallet like Passport can help simplify backups.

In the meantime, you can read through this fantastic resource by nostr:npub15c88nc8d44gsp4658dnfu5fahswzzu8gaxm5lkuwjud068swdqfspxssvx to better understand multisig wallets 🔗

https://bitcoiner.guide/multisig/

Want to see multisig in action?

We’ve built out a detailed tutorial for using Passport with Bitcoin Keeper on YouTube, where you can see the process of setting up a new multisig wallet from start to finish 📺

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGSRMoGZn-w

That’s it! Thanks so much for reading, and we hope this helped better explain the pros and cons of multisig, letting you make a well-informed decision on what setup is right for you.

For more like this, follow us or visit our website @ foundationdevices.com 🫡


Sent, sorry it took so long!
https://m.primal.net/HbTI.jpg


Full text on Nostr here:

https://primal.net/e/note13fc7k00y2ra7hleprkhrh5y82zh5l8qmuq2xr62j5lf8whlnzjystk7hd3


**Yes, Citrea is actually real 🤯**

Citrea is a massive change to the Bitcoin ecosystem by allowing a massive increase in transaction throughput on Bitcoin as well as full EVM compatibility. Let's break down what that actually means in approachable language.

A lot of the terminology with things like "zk rollups" can be confusing, so I'll do my best to simplify things here.

**Zero-knowledge ("ZK") here isn't for privacy, it's for scaling/verification**

A lot of confusion comes from the term "zero-knowledge" often being conflated with privacy-preserving. In the case of zk here, it's being used for it's ability to succinctly (read: in a tiny amount of data) prove something is true and allow anyone to verify the claim without knowing every piece of data used in the proof.

**Citrea is a validity rollup that leverages zk proofs to reduce its on-chain footprint**

This means that the amount of data needing to be published to Bitcoin's base layer is miniscule (just a small zk proof) compared to the amount of data off-chain (the entire state of the Citrea blockchain), and is easily verified on almost any device.

Citrea validators "batch" transaction on the Citrea chain and publish a single, small proof that summarizes the change in Citrea chain state since the last published state and inscribes it into a Bitcoin transaction (yes, similar to those inscriptions). This proof will only verify properly if the validator is honest, allowing anyone on the network to prove whether or not the proof published is valid.

More on validity rollups here from @lightcoin:

[https://bitcoinrollups.org](https://bitcoinrollups.org/)

**Citrea enables EVM-style smart contracts w/o changes to Bitcoin**

While you may have a vitriolic hatred for all things Ethereum (for legitimate or illegitimate reasons), the ability to create complex, Turing-complete smart contracts on Bitcoin without needing the base layer to fully store, parse, and validate those smart contracts feels like the best of both worlds to me.

This can enable things like AMMs (think Uniswap) to function with actual Bitcoin as the currency involved. The possibilities are practically limitless.

**Citrea is "trust-minimized," not "trustless"**

While this may feel semantic, I think it's an important distinction to make. Citrea changes the trust model from a federated multisig (a la Liquid) where you have to trust that a majority of participants remain honest to one where as long as a single network participant is honest funds cannot be confiscated or frozen.

As long as one individual validator remains honest, no other validator can confiscate pegged-in funds or mess with them in any way. Additionally, any validator acting maliciously will be subject to slashing (losing their own Bitcoin via the challenge-response protocol in BitVM) and thus have a financial incentive to be honest unless they know for sure that every single validator on the network will allow them to be malicious.

**Citrea would be even better with covenants**

Yes, I'm going to mention covenants 😅 Part of the minor trust required in Citrea can be reduced even further with covenants in Bitcoin:

https://docs.citrea.xyz/future-research/trustless-settlement

Additionally an opcode that fully verifies zk proofs directly on Bitcoin (i.e. not via BitVM) would allow a completely trustless zk rollup, but deciding on a proof to enshrine in Bitcoin's consensus layer is very unlikely at this point.

**Conclusion**

I'm insanely excited for this to be fully open-sourced and usable on testnet, and will share updates as I see them along with testing this out ASAP.

Special thanks to @0x_orkun for giving me a sneak peak and letting me contribute to the docs, helped me have a much better understanding of what Citrea really is! I'd highly recommend reading through their docs if you want to better grasp all of the ins and outs:

https://docs.citrea.xyz/technical-specs/readme

If you see something that could be improved in the docs, be sure to open an issue or submit your own PR, as the docs are open source themselves!

https://github.com/chainwayxyz/citrea-docs


Bringing back #Bitcoin #SkepticismSundays 😎

One of the things that showed me the intellectual honesty of the Monero community and helped to force the community to stay grounded in reality and always laser focused on their core ethos was their weekly "Skepticism Sunday" Reddit threads. These threads allowed the community to come together, ask hard and skeptical questions about the design of Monero, the privacy provided, the economic approach, and much more.

In my time in Bitcoin I've never seen anything similar, but the nuanced and high-signal crowd on Nostr seems like a perfect fit to fire things up and see how it goes.

The goal of this thread (which I'll post weekly on Sunday's) is for discussing the uncertainties, shortcomings, and concerns some may have about Bitcoin. Things like what makes it difficult for you to use Bitcoin, what pain-points you have, etc.

NOT the positive aspects of it.

Discussing things with a critical thinking approach and level-headed discussion helps us learn where Bitcoin and its community can improve and go from there.

P.S. -- I try to take a break from social media on Sundays so I will follow up and reply whwre I can tomorrow!


will give it a try, thanks!


Yes, other favorite client 🙂


Of course not, definitely appreciate the same things about it 🙂


Thanks for the kind words, sir 🫡


NGL, loving the overall nostr:npub12vkcxr0luzwp8e673v29eqjhrr7p9vqq8asav85swaepclllj09sylpugg experience so far!

Favorite client I've used to date.


If you catch yourself agreeing with your friends for a while, it never hurts to do a check and make sure you’re still thinking critically.


I don't doom-scroll, I use it as a platform for education.


Not telling people to use X at all, just defending my use and pointing out the lies or misconceptions of others.


thank you for the long post!


I'm a blue check, didnt KYC.

This FUD is just way wrong.

I have broadly educated on the benefits of Nostr online and in-person. But everyone "forgets" that when I go against the tide.


correct!


Ive spoken and written widely on the benefits of Nostr.

im also entitled to speak on the tradeoffs. Feel free to check my Twitter, I think I've made two total negative posts about Nostr.


I am a blue check, doesnt require KYC and never has 🤷♂

I'm not giving energy to that system, im ising it as a platform to help give people the resources they need when they wake up.

if we're all here on Nostr circlejerking theyll have no idea what theyre missing and what to do next to gain freedom.


This FUD is super confusing, literally no one has to KYC to use X, and you can easily use things like SMS verification services, email aliases, and crypto-funded debit cards to even have a blue check without giving personal info.

I understand people want X users to move to Nostr, but lying to them isnt a moral or effective strategy.

If that changes to require KYC, of course everyone sane should leave and invite every follower off to Nostr.

But let's please not lie to try and bring people to Nostr.

nostr:note14w5nrlekkxnvk6lx3ctexjjqvg45kk8gppnd9e6xhzfx56rdnqfq8qk4ce


And that's why I will always keep Nostr handy as a fall-back, worst case.

Of course im not going to KYC for social media.


How do i find them in the first place?

I follow any account that seems reasonably good but still have a dead or boring feed most of the time.


don't give up, it's worth the battle 🫡


Main issues are:

- Discoverability is generally wretched
- Many clients, all incomplete
- Many conflicting standards and approaches
- High data usage
- Serious spam issues
- Little variety in content
- Low reach comparatively
- Almost complete echo chamber, few dissenting opinions


I didnt give ID, real number, or real email to X.

No one has to. Not sure why this lie persists on Nostr when it's demonstrably false.


definitely need to bring those back 🫡


YES


ah, no, was calling out the replies.


Is anyone building this?

nostr:note1vfrqrpjrvhfnmcntjjp0gx8hhxlhaz27386wtpprdfhzy0chsy2q382xny


yes, but as mentioned it's a very different set of tradeoffs with much easier "doxxing" by randos via relays or malicious media embeds.

As bad as X is, it's at least not exposing IP to anyone with basic sysadmin skills.


💯

And that's something heavily underrated about Nostr that is usually an issue with centralized social media -- it is generally Tor/VPN friendly.

That could change if relay ops have issues with spam, but for now it's true at least.

nostr:note1ygvz5nmg7p4c9hxwxhyzrz93ylpskjx8t38maptq945pqrzwckjs759j7d


His nym only held up because he had immaculate opsec/privacy.

Theyre not the same but must be paired together.


💯

And that's something heavily underrated about Nostr that is usually an issue with centralized social media -- it is generally Tor/VPN friendly.

That could change if relay ops have issues with spam, but for now it's true at least.


If there was a tool to cross-post from X to Nostr I would.

But I just simply don't have time for both and think the audience on X needs pro-privacy, pro-freedom tech, pro-freedom money content more right now.


nah it's an open source mobile app too.


No, I disagree.

If you can't control what data about you isconnected to nyms, they won't provide any privacy.

Pseudonymity is EXTREMELY fragile unless paired with strong privacy.


Two things can simultaneously be true:

1) I want Nostr to succeed.
2) I don't love what it is today.

Thankful for all those continuing to work on Nostr and the broader ecosystem 🫂

I only criticize out of love and to be sure that people understand that there are actually tradeoffs with Nostr! We need dissenting opinions on here.


great #nostr privacy awareness info from the #amethyst github page:

Privacy on Relays & nostr
Your internet protocol (IP) address is exposed to the relays you connect to. If you want to improve your privacy, consider utilizing a service that masks your IP address (e.g. a VPN) from trackers online.

The relay also learns which public keys you are requesting, meaning your public key will be tied to your IP address.

Relays have all your data in raw text. They know your IP, your name, your location (guessed from IP), your pub key, all your contacts, and other relays, and can read every action you do (post, like, boost, quote, report, etc) with the exception of Private Zaps and Private DMs.

DM Privacy
While the content of direct messages (DMs) is only visible to you and your DM counterparty, everyone can see when you and your counterparty DM each other.

Visibility & Permanence of Your Content on nostr
Information Visibility
Content that you share can be shared to other relays. Information that you share publicly is visible to anyone reading from relays that have your information. Your information may also be visible to nostr users who do not share relays with you.

Information Permanence
Information shared on nostr should be assumed permanent for privacy purposes. There is no way to guarantee edit or deletion of any content once posted.

#cybersecgirl #privacytechpro #amethyst #nostr

https://github.com/vitorpamplona/amethyst?tab=readme-ov-file#privacy-on-relays--nostr


autocorrect in primal is... very broken. it keeps intentionally mispelling words 😅


most just don't know, which is why im still on X to help them learn.

im not just going to abandon them to their own devices.


no need to do what he says, just use a good VPN or Tor.


Nostr, much like Bitcoin, is more about censorship resistance than privacy.


im not offended by pushback, I always get pushback because I don't fit into a neat maxi mold.

The responses were atrociois and almost all personal insults, literally not one useful reply. If Nostriches can't handle someone calling out issues with their baby and not liking some aspects im not sure what to say lol


no incentives, I just write what I think helps people see through misnomers/FUD/influencer garbage.

I have nothing to gain by breaking down misunderstandings of Nostr, would be a lot better for me to just go with the tide and circlejerk.


Yes, though in some ways worse, some better.

what dunking? I never dunked on anyone 🤷♂

Not KYCd at all 🤷♂

Never understood why so many of you are so hostile, makes no sense if you have any desire for Nostr to actually be a useful social platform and not just a circlejerk.


of course I know you understand this, just wish more did!

Thanks for your intellectual honesty as always 🤝


glad to hear it!


would love recommendations! i think I already have a pretty good following set but hard to discover people on Nostr (still).


thanks for amplifying, more people need to know this!


a lower bound of hardcore users doesnt make a useful social network 🤷♂


"no one" would more accurately read "not many" FWIW.

was too hyperbolic in the OP.


I hope they can! I really do.


True, but one party knowing your IP and having a vested interest in protecting it.

On Nostr you're exposing it to many parties with no recourse.


yes, but 99.9% even of the more technical Nostr users can't/won't so that.


huh?


It was hyperbole, should have used a less general term!


Nostr is more of an echo chamber than X 🤔

Ideally I would have done both and compared.


You know it doesnt require KYC, right?

How did you buy the Bitcoin you use to Zap?


LOL ironically I misread your note, sorry sir 😅


Sounds like a you problem 😉


Stagnated growth, poor discoverability, poor keye management, lack of any content diversity, often a lack of critical thought applied to it, blind maximalism rampant, etc.


so you just didnt read my post then, got it.


lmao did you read the replies?


I'm not talking about that, but find me a single, useful, introspective reply to that.

Had tons of good conversations on X from it, only insults here 🤷♂


Feels like theyve just transplanted laser-eyed Puritanism to Nostr 🥲


glad to see the same for you! Have enjoyed your content and engagement in the past for sure.


If we can't have honest, divergent opinions about the state of Nostr without people being abject assholes about it, then my bearishness will 100% prove true.

Being able to openly discuss issues with each other without purely strawman, insulting replies is vital to the success of any project like this, even more so because its success relies on social networks.

Read through the replies to this and enjoy a healthy response to criticism 😅

nostr:note1ygx5q3waycfxk9gswrghhfpjkr4r6mlkkekvyhdgep0we0pzuaqs4f5j8g


why do you even follow me lmao


Oof, hopefully that enlightened people... not a fun way to learn 😬


We shall see.

I want it to work out but network effects are hard enough to overcome without the other native issues in Nostr. At worst I hope it remains an alternative for if X gets worse, forces KYC, etc.


Dozens of people mocking me for using X seem to think that Nostr is private 🤷♂


Hyperbole, sir.


Pretty sad to see a good friend trying to use my honest opinion to engagement farm on Nostr without even bothering to tag me or message me 🤷♂

The replies just reinforced my thought that Nostr will die as a niche echo chamber unless something massive changes.


Hilarious that no one on Nostr seems to know that pseudonymity != privacy and yet try to use Nostr being "private" to dunk on anyone who still uses other social media.

You're not going to want to hear this, but Nostr is VERY BAD for privacy, but great for pseudonymity.

For most people, Nostr directly ties their HOME IP ADDRESS to their nym and publishes this correlation to a dozen servers they don't control for all to see.

While being pseudonymous is pretty easy on Nostr, being private requires a good, always-on non-logging VPN, or even better connecting to relays only through Tor at a bare minimum.


If we can't have honest, divergent opinions about the state of Nostr without people being abject assholes about it, then my bearishness will 100% prove true.

Being able to openly discuss issues with each other without purely strawman, insulting replies is vital to the success of any project like this, even more so because its success relies on social networks.


In many ways X is *better* for privacy than Nostr but echo chamber doesnt want to discuss that.

As long as they don't KYC or kill the web app it's a useful tool.


Of course! still been lurking off and on but not much.


thank you sir 🤝


For sure, just wish there was a tool for posting to BOTH X and Nostr...

So time consuming to post to both and keep up with both.


The rumours of my Nostr account's death are greatly exaggerated 🫡

Just not enough time in the day for multiple social networks and X has been a more useful focus for getting a pro-privacy, pro-freedom tech, pro-freedom money message out to those who need it most.

Glad to see all you freedom-loving folks still pluggin away over here!


TEN31 PROVIDES GRANTS TO OPEN SOURCE CONTRIBUTORS AND PROVIDED AN EARLY DONATION TO OPENSATS.

EVERY PROFITABLE BITCOIN BUSINESS SHOULD HELP SUPPORT THE MAINTAINERS OF THE PROTOCOLS THEY RELY ON.

WHEN WILL MICROSTRATEGY, ARK, AND FIDELITY DO THE SAME?


there is no KYC requirement, that's just a fun piece of FUD.

All it takes is payment, paid with work CC so not even real name or address involved. if they make it KYC of course I'll abandon and tell everyone else to do the same!


nah, old node wasnt worth the trouble and need to setup Zeus again.


will send 100M tsats shortly 🫡


Not sure a dissenting but apparently fairly common opinion is "fucking" with anything but to each their own!


yes, it's me.


replies to that post are really luring me back into Nostr 😅


Confirming I did not 🫡


We're thrilled to get Passport v2.2.0 in your hands today 🎊

https://i.nostr.build/8QBv.png

With this latest version, you can:

📷  Seamlessly switch back and forth between signing via QR and microSD
🌱  Restore from SeedQR

We've also improved the user interface on Founder’s Edition and added many quality of life improvements across the board. With the number of new features we included in 2.1.0, we took this release to focus on refining our unified firmware between Founder’s Edition and Batch 2, as well as paving the way for full Taproot support in 2.3.0.

Update today directly from Envoy, our mobile app in just a few taps, and read the full changelog in our release notes blog post below:

https://foundationdevices.com/2024/01/passport-version-2-2-0-is-now-live/

If this is your first time updating Passport or you'd like a refresher, we have docs and videos that walk you through every step of the process:

https://docs.foundationdevices.com/firmware-update


Taproot support is finally here in Envoy, and paves the way for full Taproot support in Passport v2.3.0 which is almost ready 👀

I use Envoy for all of my on-chain Bitcoin savings and spendings now and have been loving the coin control support we added in v1.4.

Highly recommend taking the time to try out Envoy, 100% free to download and always open source!
nostr:note15nyqlsw6ss0jyx77l62jp2pzknks6gegnys54vn92v6t4r7v883qrl3lfk


Not sure, have sent from Damus and Nostur using the relays on this profile.

Are there some I need to add?


Hey nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft could you reply to my DMs about nsecbunker please?


It’s official, I’m on #TeamNerdMiner ⛏

Had to pick one of these up and support the amazing work of @bitmaker

Absolutely love the educational aspects of this, and a great way to play with @Public_Pool_BTC more as well.

Can buy your own here, great way to support the amazing dev behind the NerdMiner project!

https://bitronics.store/product/nerdminer-crystaledition/
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/c33bad2adea0a763cced184cf60fcbb515a268a8d04752779b6129c14680ed8c.webp


It was accidentally DDoSd 😅

https://x.com/sethforprivacy/status/1738366232628261286?s=46


👀👀👀
nostr:note18c4hxxvvjj7xgk68t3rws5nvx7dxyp6znhq2yz90h6kaaju2wjzq3yqyzq


# Taproot didn’t cause Ordinals ❌

I've seen the view that "Taproot caused/enabled Ordinals" commonly mentioned across Twitter, and it's one that can be extremely harmful. Many in the space would love to further ossify (prevent change) in Bitcoin and use Ordinals "spam" as the reason for doing so, but I'd argue that that would be the worst possible outcome from this situation.

This needs a lengthy explanation to properly grasp what's at play here, though, so let's get into the fun details.

## Arbitrary data in Bitcoin has always been possible

Something most people don't understand is that a system like Bitcoin is built for data storage, it's just intended for monetary data. This design made it possible from day one to include arbitrary (arbitrary) data into the blockchain, either through methods like OP_RETURN (a good place for storing arbitrary data as it can be easily pruned) or in tweaked pubkeys (a bad place for storing arbitrary data, as it cannot be pruned).

Some examples of this:

- Satoshi inscribed a newspaper headline in the genesis block coinbase (https://mempool.space/tx/4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b)
- Luke Dash Jr. used his pool to inscribe Bible texts and prayers in 2011 in the coinbase (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=38007.0)
- Someone added the entire Bitcoin whitepaper to the UTXO set in 2013 (https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/35959/how-is-the-whitepaper-decoded-from-the-blockchain-tx-with-1000x-m-of-n-multisi)

All of these happened before both SegWit and Taproot, and there are many more cases of this type of data storage on Bitcoin.

## But I thought Taproot enabled this?

Unfortunately, there is a common misunderstanding (thanks for the troll name [@TaprootWizards](https://twitter.com/TaprootWizards) 😅) that Taproot enabled this type of data storage, thus opening the way for Ordinals "spam." In reality, this type of arbitrary data storage on Bitcoin has always been possible, but was made much cheaper to do with the introduction of SegWit in 2017.

SegWit was a major upgrade and bug fix for Bitcoin that enabled the Lightning network to be built and included a 3MB "witness" data allowance within each block w/ reduced fees for data to incentivize spending UTXOs (therefore making them prunable). More on SegWit in a fantastic post from [@River](https://twitter.com/River) here:

<https://river.com/learn/what-is-segwit/>

This incentivized portion of each transaction (called "witness" data) is intended for things like Bitcoin scripts, but can be used to store any data as long as it's done the "right" way. Specifically, Ordinals store them in an "envelope" between two opcodes, allowing the data to count as witness data and get the discount. This storage method was possible before SegWit, but now saves on fees in comparison to pre-SegWit usage.

While this of course was not the intent of SegWit, it underlines the simple fact that if someone wants to store arbitrary data in a blockchain, they will find ways to do it.

## Does that make SegWit bad?

If your first reaction is then to want to raise a pitchfork and campaign for no more changes in Bitcoin, remember this -- without the SegWit soft-fork there would be no Lightning network, no discount for users consolidating UTXOs, and instead users would be incentivized to create more un-prunable UTXOs as it's cheaper to create than to consume UTXOs w/o SegWit.

Additionally, Ordinals being stored in witness data allows those who run a node to easily prune them and not store them in RAM, unlike any method that leverages pubkey tweaking or other types of stenography to include arbitrary data on-chain. This means that the actual impact of Ordinals on those who run a node is drastically minimized versus other arbitrary data storage methods.

## If we didn't have SegWit, Ordinals would all use the UTXO set

It's extremely like that if we had never included the SegWit soft-fork into Bitcoin that the Ordinals craze would still have happened, and along with it a drastically worse outcome for the blockchain. In this alternate reality, Ordinals (and all similar NFTs) would likely be inscribed directly into the UTXO set, similar to how Stamps function today.

Some within the Bitcoin community have been asking for a removal of the SegWit witness data discount to force Ordinals to pay the same fees as all other users per byte. Unfortunately, this would have two extremely detrimental side-effects: it would disincentivize healthy UTXO management (consolidating UTXOs vs creating new ones) and incentivize Ordinals to be put in the UTXO set directly.

While putting the data into the UTXO set does cost those creating these NFTs drastically more, it also means that those running a Bitcoin node cannot prune the data, no matter what. Bitcoin relies on nodes being able to retain the entire UTXO set in order to verify transactions properly and prevent double-spends, and any data within that UTXO set must be kept in perpetuity.

That would be drastically worse for those running a Bitcoin node, and makes the Ordinals in SegWit witness data pale in comparison when it comes to negative impact on Bitcoin nodes.

## So what can we do about it?

The solution to reducing the cost of using Bitcoin is not censoring Ordinals (something that isn't even technologically possible, BTW), but rather is finally building solutions to Bitcoin's long-term scaling. Ordinals have highlighted something most of us knew would happen -- base-layer fees would become untenably high, as they have to for Bitcoin to be secure long-term.

In order for the average person to use Bitcoin, we need powerful scaling solutions like layer twos, and unfortunately Lightning in it's current form isn't the final solution. Lightning relies on every channel-owner (and thus user when done in a non-custodial manner) being able to settle back on-chain to resolve disputes, something that isn't economically feasible in a realistic fee environment.

## The solution? Covenants

Enter covenants, an improvement to Bitcoin that has been a long-time in the making and is finally picking up the steam it deserves in the space. Covenants enable both improvements to Lightning that make it drastically more scalable, and new layer two networks to be built that have different (often better) trade-offs compared to Lightning.

As this post is already getting a bit too long I won't dive into the details of covenants, but instead ask you to spend a few minutes going through this fantastic set of resources on covenants to better understand what they enable:

<https://covenants.info>

Have questions? **ASK THEM!** The best way for the broader Bitcoin "rough consensus" layer to work is for more people to step up, learn, and ask questions as they go.


Running an outdated node doesn’t affect what gets included in blocks.

I was talking about Ocean, not Knots, Knots is a joke as Luke Dash Jr has 100% control and merges whatever he sees fit directly into main lol

I can both think the free market is the ultimate judge and bring attention to this to our social pressure on them and be sure miners know what they’re getting into when they mine with Ocean.

On the plus side at least Ocean is being transparent about their censorship now!


Ocean isn’t FOSS, so…


So we should just let it happen since it’s not a big deal (yet)?


Effortless Transactions. Instant Satisfaction.

Master the art of simplicity: Send your Bitcoin in 4 easy steps directly from your mobile wallet and take self-custody, because why settle for anything less?

https://v.nostr.build/8J7W.mp4

1⃣ Open the Envoy account to be spent from and tap Send.
2⃣ Populate the recipient's address by pasting or scanning a QR code, enter the amount to be sent, and then tap Confirm.
3⃣ Select the fee based on your required transaction priority and then tap Confirm.
4⃣ Review the transaction details, then tap Send transaction. 💥

Welcome to Bitcoin, Simplified with Envoy! Download today:

https://foundationdevices.com/download/


First, they came for the Inscriptors and I didn't speak out.
Then, they came for the Ordinal Enjoooyers and I didn't speak out.
Next, they came for the Whirlpoolers and I didn't speak out.

Where do we draw the line with censorship?
nostr:note1nrn98rkc89sk5ysmz4cvcqu8mv6twzeuyykg7cuufl3700vgs2zqmefn2z


Have friends and family that are turned off by the concept of writing down and backing up seed words?

There's no better alternative solution than Magic Backups in Envoy, and you can easily help them grow into a fully self-sovereign setup over time w/ Passport.

For the more technical users:

One of my favorite things about our approach at nostr:npub1s0vtkgej33n7ec4d7ycxmwt78up8hpfa30d0yfksrshq7t82mchqynpq6j is giving users the tools to slowly increase the sovereignty of their stack over time, so you can start with the simplest approach and gradually improve your setup as you learn more without needing to switch to other apps or hardware.

You more advanced users can leverage one of the best parts of Magic Backups (app data backups) while bringing your own seed to Envoy or letting Envoy generate one for you.

Simply pick the manual flow when you setup Envoy then you can export the Envoy Backup file anytime after setup with a tap (encrypted by your seed automatically!) and store it on your own computer, encrypted cloud storage, etc.

Whenever you need to restore Envoy, just enter your seed phrase and Envoy will prompt you to select an Envoy Backup file, automatically decrypt it with your seed, and restore Envoy exactly back to the state it was in when you backed it up.

✅ All accounts restored
✅ All history restored
✅ All settings restored

I do this currently with a child seed derived from Passport Key Manager extension (foundationdevices.com/2023/05/all-yo…) and store my Envoy Backup file on my self-hosted Nextcloud instance. All I have to do is keep Passport properly backed up and I can restore Envoy from scratch anytime, anywhere.
nostr:note1l7uz36w8s4mtnynm4h6q3ehch0wek9fka2uy24zshsexrpf5u8dqgdpk2e


Will raise with the team!

We have Key Manager in Passport for Nostr key generation/backup but obviously that’s a very different price-point and target audience.

Thanks for the suggestion 🙂


We built our dream coin control implementation, and it's 100% free and open source 🤝

If I'm being honest, the only time I've ever used coin control in Bitcoin is when I'm using @SparrowWallet because it was such a pain on mobile before.

We worked hard to make it approachable, flexible, and giving users total control. Coin control in Envoy grows with you as you become more familiar with the concept and comfortable with tagging and spending from tags, and lets you go as simple or as complex as you'd like.

So proud of how this implementation turned out, and extremely grateful to the entire Foundation team for how much time and effort went into it!

Would love to hear y'all's feedback on coin control in Envoy when you test it out and we can continue improving it as we go.
nostr:note1ngrzvxurrrw2nqx73k2nxhe8gaaqtmwk3p8ltt7yy0mvs5p0c0csn2eqm5


The coin control here is really well done. Props to the nostr:npub1s0vtkgej33n7ec4d7ycxmwt78up8hpfa30d0yfksrshq7t82mchqynpq6j team on a killer UX.

The Passport + Envoy combo is so good! My go-to recommendation to any family and friends seeking out a good HWW. nostr:note1xun4cex3qtt0d2s6pge6vhs9jghj7v4v5y3028jsrl7tvrwrmwasf4egfd


Coin control even grandma can use is finally here 👀

Live on all app stores and Github, F-droid release is coming shortly!

Can't wait to hear all your feedback on it as we focus on every powerful aspect of Envoy over the course of this week.
nostr:note1xun4cex3qtt0d2s6pge6vhs9jghj7v4v5y3028jsrl7tvrwrmwasf4egfd


They won’t have the Stratumv2 integration done anytime soon, just said “in 2024.”

Until then they’re not at all preventing censorship and are instead just doing their own.


No clue how @npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze can sell itself on a platform of "transparency" and "bringing censorship-resistance back to Bitcoin" when this is how they approach things.

Can't think of a more disappointing Bitcoin launch in recent memory. Maybe community pushback will make them rethink their approach, but I can't sit by and watch this unfold without calling out this BS.
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/57f54acce26acba03282480936f7b055452c28fe0d80001376e127b48e9906cd.webp
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/288026b002e71c2faa76ee64b7795141e98ade94b157412beb7cecc4b50b9b11.webp
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/4409358f1bcb29e0964a07352a26e1b1cc32796a29cb212e4c5ce3eafd41f57b.webp
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/8dde889e9227e7ad1d2c6479504ed24e000dc70880d20e5a1845ef81e98ddcf3.webp


They call it "spam filtering," I call it censorship.

Confirmed that @npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze is filtering Inscriptions as "spam" today, with no recourse for miners until Stratumv2 is live "over the next year".
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/6aaea5b427cd5816cdf6249e94761efad49839adc15071e550caec4688eae4d3.webp


Answers one of my questions 🥲

note13j3j8eax66kn7r02xxv39jwvywhy3pxqh0w60f0zjvx33yrv0h5sz8xs3g


So, uh, hate to break it to all those cheering for  @npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze so far but it seems they’re already censoring transactions intentionally…

Details here:

https://x.com/checksum0/status/1730004768410493183?s=46

How it started:                    How it’s going:
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/9e35bea02e3200325df6f7e59cec3d50dc135ed7792793504f2a2c0e76460986.webp
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/4d2448623deb77d3e9a98e399d5844c05d94d723e5da607df89274f7d37a4bc8.webp
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/a3fb71791c06c12224c15b52b32f61c16e10dcc3ff86c51c42d9ac565dce5535.webp


Maybe, sounded more like it’s not even a WIP and just an idea they had from Luke’s perspective on-stream, and isn’t included in the “in the next year” sentence in their about page.


Will do when I have time!


"#FOSS (open source free[dom] software) is a rising tide that lifts all boats, and should be the foundation of every project and company in the Bitcoin space today." - nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g

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


Meant to tag nostr:npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze, not sure what happened there 😅


Did Bitcoin mining change forever yesterday 🤔

Hey nostr:npub1zmc6qyqdfnllhnzzxr5wpepfpnzcf8q6m3jdveflmgruqvd3qa9sjv7f60 l, @npub1lh273a4wpkup00stw8dzqjvvrqrfdrv2v3v4t8pynuezlfe5vjnsnaa9nk, and @npub1wnlu28xrq9gv77dkevck6ws4euej4v568rlvn66gf2c428tdrptqq3n3wr, I watched the announcement yesterday but came away with a lot of unanswered questions that I'll detail below. I would legitimately love to hear the answers to these if at all possible!

How is Ocean non-custodial for the average miner?

On the stream it was mentioned that payout thresholds are 0.0108 BTC (but nostr:npub1wnlu28xrq9gv77dkevck6ws4euej4v568rlvn66gf2c428tdrptqq3n3wr was unsure), a number that would take a pleb miner with an S9 ~470d to reach.

Until he reaches that payout point, all of his mined sats seem to be entirely custodied by Ocean.

How does Ocean decentralize mining today?

I was so excited by the teases and pre-announcements for Ocean as it sounded like exactly what I wanted in a Bitcoin pool. Unfortunately, it sounds like all of the decentralization possible is yet to be release, including StratumV2 and any ability for miners to submit block templates themselves.

Did I miss anything that makes Ocean more decentralized than other pools today?

Why is Ocean not open source?

If Ocean is as revolutionary and decentralizing as it's being made out to be, wouldn't the best thing for Bitcoin be that all pools switch over time to the same mode?

If so, why isn't Ocean open-sourcing any of it's protocol or code? In the announcement it seemed that nostr:npub1wnlu28xrq9gv77dkevck6ws4euej4v568rlvn66gf2c428tdrptqq3n3wr was bragging that no competitor would be able to "reproduce" their lead dev's code, thus keeping their competitive edge.

There was no mention to my knowledge of open source, but it's possible I missed it!

What guarantee do miners have that you won't censor transactions?

As miners cannot submit their own block templates right now and the source is not open code, miners have to rely on manually checking a visual block template on your site to find censorship.

nostr:npub1lh273a4wpkup00stw8dzqjvvrqrfdrv2v3v4t8pynuezlfe5vjnsnaa9nk has a history of censoring what he viewed as "spam," and there was a lot of time spent in the conference talking about how bad Ordinals are and how bad pools are that mine them.

What guarantees or promises do miners have that you won't censor transactions you don't like?

How will Ocean handle regulatory pressure to enact KYC?

In the event that regulators of the Feds come knocking and want you to implement KYC (as seems to be the case with other pools), what will you do?

What will Ocean's fee model be after the 0% period?

There was a lot of talk about how most pools subsidize larger miners and charge exhorbitant fees to smaller miners during the conference. One thing that wasn't ever mentioned was what Ocean's fee policy will be after the 2mo 0% fee period.

Could you explain how the fee model will work?

Conclusion

That's enough questions for now, I think, but I look forward to getting answers to these! We have a desperate need for decentralized mining in Bitcoin and a massive gap today.

I look forward to hearing back 🙂


KYC-free sats 🤝 freedom tech
nostr:note1c286tvsz7g9kfxd4tkjp5edcyryqn6qkq97nafms5wanrg0e2krss7svnh


👀👀👀
nostr:note15wrv3zy90d36s0m47v09ndzl56fdhrhy083934g5x9qrl3puacmsurarqk


Yes, and missing some reach potentially?

Could just be false expectations 😅


Haven’t updated my relay list in a while, what are some quality relays I should be using these days?


🚨 Attention Beta Testers 🚨

Today we drop a huge new Envoy release to all our VIPs in our beta Telegram!

Avoid the FOMO and join our Early Access Rewards program today to get a first look at what we're building while earning sats for finding bugs 😲

What are our Early Access rewards? tl;dr — Be the first to report any reproducible issue for Passport or Envoy beta releases and get a 10k Satoshi bounty in Bitcoin per issue reported!

1. Join our TG group here: https://t.me/foundationbeta
2. Test the beta releases for Passport firmware or Envoy app.
3. Report issues on Github.
4. All issues (the first time they are reported) are eligible for the 10k Satoshi reward.
5. Foundation team members will validate the issues for eligibility.
6. Rewards sent directly to your provided Bitcoin address or Lightning invoice.

Stay in the loop! Grab the opportunity, hop into our program, and kick off earning Sats as we reshape Bitcoin together!

Dive into the full scoop in our blog post for all the details on our Early Access Rewards Program:

https://foundationdevices.com/2023/08/announcing-our-early-access-rewards-program/
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/928d3101ed14511012909df8820501ac6aeb91fea69d8ed25d40719935ee7e25.webp


Sparrow v1.8.1 released with:

Fee rate estimation from oxt.me
Export transactions with historical values
Wider range in fee range slider

And more: https://github.com/sparrowwallet/sparrow/releases/tag/1.8.1

https://sparrowwallet.com/download/


😂😂😂
nostr:note1hly73dc0wzxeyw2drrh324lyuvwtdyl4d03ruws2vg0n3ewq9yzshsj7s2


We like our Bitcoin ice cold 🥶

What about you?
https://image.nostr.build/b0777cb698e53a89f46bc15cc9d386c82fba0f895608fe4b54db41551435ce20.jpg


A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out our recent survey and submit testimonials!

https://twitter.com/FOUNDATIONdvcs/status/1712528826679378192#m

We've selected three lucky winners from the submissions for a total of 2M sats 👀

 Please shoot us a DM with how you'd like to be paid (on-chain or LN) and we'll get those sats to you:

Congratulations to our three winners 🎊
✨DontTraceMeBruh  - 500K
✨ nostr:npub1patrlck0muvqevgytp4etpen0xsvrlw0hscp4qxgy40n852lqwwsz79h9a - 500K
✨conorchepenik - 1 Million


Would absolutely love that!!


Bitcoin ➕ Freedom Tech 🟰 Freedom

Spread the word 🤝


“By establishing a monopolistic control over the issuance and distribution of money, as well as through the imposition of a given currency, legal tender laws not only disrupt the principles of a free market but also curtail consumer autonomy. These regulations are founded on the mistaken premise that money is a construct of the state thus placing the government at the heart of every transaction; as the final enforcer of all contractual agreements.”

Check out my first article for nostr:npub1wvvt5gvelcq4fc7f0dvaxq8e63zdvchmelzmv9wuyg76gqxgx4aq8w7rpf

https://freedom.tech/digital-privacy-in-the-age-of-bitcoin/


Read the latest from our guest contributor, nostr:npub123sfqjpgf54p28yd7cjlgrpcn4pra5zhlnheyldc39td9r3zhgpshcwk9x, breaking down where financial surveillance spawned from and what it means for our freedom.

https://freedom.tech/digital-privacy-in-the-age-of-bitcoin/


"You can continue using these privacy tools, you just have to make sure that you let us know when you're using them and you need to give us all the information about how we can trace the transactions back, what services you use. Don't worry about it, we'll just collect all this information just in case, just to make sure you're not a terrorist. But obviously, the progression is now using these tools is illegal." -Seth for Privacy / EPI #286

https://video.nostr.build/d53d8dad85253aca12bf171390fac49463ed5832e04abe184cf37f86b354bc60.mp4

WATCH VIDEO HERE 😎🥸 https://youtu.be/MhObOfYhaFE


Chance to get a glimpse into one of my favorite books from one of my favorite people in the space, nostr:npub1m2mvvpjugwdehtaskrcl7ksvdqnnhnjur9v6g9v266nss504q7mqvlr8p9.

Give it a read and share the post below to get a chance to win a physical copy!

nostr:nevent1qqsq0uuzdhtk2lply0qpg4jsgca2ehetjg80y95yfxnnlh3vq3e2xdcpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzype33w3pn8lqz48re9a4n5cql82yf4nzl08utds4ms3rmfqqeq6h5qcyqqqqqqgt9zzyd


RSS 100%


Using this now for my Zaps on Nostr 👀 nostr:note1pxl9mmj54slsehc6lt265kmr84rdzn482aw9flrydzdd6pyd7p5q0h48nt


FinCEN's proposal is a massive governmental overreach and must be understood and fought by everyone who cares about financial freedom, but especially Bitcoiners.

I've written everything I think you need to know in one place for nostr:npub1wvvt5gvelcq4fc7f0dvaxq8e63zdvchmelzmv9wuyg76gqxgx4aq8w7rpf below 👇

nostr:nevent1qqsr5ek99zxtx63rlm4yqgukcd6h97qfhjwxn4659sw7053hy24ee0gpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzype33w3pn8lqz48re9a4n5cql82yf4nzl08utds4ms3rmfqqeq6h5qcyqqqqqqgztyudn


Which server??


It’s because they launched a product explicitly for “DIY hacking” and being an “open platform” that’s not either of those things because of their license choices.

We should continue shaming companies that are anti-open source for their own profit.


This is just an ESP-32 with the wonky Q1 hardware shell around it.

Anyone can build simple ESP-32 hardware, I.e Jade, Bitaxe, and many other Bitcoin hardware projects!

It’s a very, very common platform.

In the whole announcement and paid blog post for Bitcoin Mag it has no clear goal or usage, it’s just an open platform that’s… not open lol


Open source is how we all win, source available is just about wielding the state to build regulatory moats. Pretty to sad to see from a company that’s been in the space this long.

Thankfully lots of good projects that actually care about open source freedom tech in the space 🙂


DIY hackable” and only “source available” 🥲

So what dev in their right mind will write and publish code/firmware for this locked behind a restrictive, source-available license? Do they expect someone else to make actual FOSS firmware?

Someone explain this paradox to me.

“Make it anything you want, you just can’t sell or monetize it in any way, ever”

I just… how is any of this in the spirit of Bitcoin or even simply encouraging proper innovation and a flourishing of ideas.

Pretty sure this is where Coinkite realizes the “find out” part of fucking around with restrictive, “source available” licenses instead of doing the right thing and actually leaning into freedom tech. https://image.nostr.build/5ad2b59441b492fc36c241a22accb7c4b2a755c24be9b213c9b832aa7844680a.jpg https://image.nostr.build/208ad807ad130c7d7250b404567e43083ea1adf8952007607760147f34dc9d44.jpg


Definitely!


Ah, so not a traditional account switcher using NIP-07 or something.


Wow, absolutely love the concept!

One question -- I'm having trouble getting multiple accounts to work as the "add account" button doesn't seem to work for me. Any ideas there, or is there a specific extension you recommend?

Was trying keys.band.


Of course! Thanks for sharing.


Woops, didn't mean to link to that talk here!

Mixed up posts 😅


My talk from #hcpp23 went live and is, IMO, the most important and pressing issue I've presented on before -- the government desperation around stopping privacy tools:

https://youtu.be/68GIgZpMUOs

Much of the content of the presentation is pulled from my post on the same topic for nostr:npub1wvvt5gvelcq4fc7f0dvaxq8e63zdvchmelzmv9wuyg76gqxgx4aq8w7rpf, so if you prefer the written format you can find that here:

nostr:nevent1qqsyw559p32mtzyz9ugesynl9cm0844hde7g7a6s3jd0mh9wev278jgpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzype33w3pn8lqz48re9a4n5cql82yf4nzl08utds4ms3rmfqqeq6h5qcyqqqqqqgjspd09


Thank you!


Still can't get over the fact that Nostr just lets me include an entire blog post with formatting, images, etc in one post 🤯

Pretty damn awesome and a huge boon to censorship resistance for blogs and publications!

If you want to see this post in a different format, I gave a presentation at #hcpp23 this year that draws heavily from this blog post:

https://youtu.be/68GIgZpMUOs

nostr:nevent1qqsq97ez0ru0aalcyylxvrxrvwk26jg6cg73wy956d26ss8h9qq73cqpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzype33w3pn8lqz48re9a4n5cql82yf4nzl08utds4ms3rmfqqeq6h5qcyqqqqqqganuta3


https://freedom.tech/simplex-chat-review/ - a fantastic review of SimpleX Chat by nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g


Will do


Thanks so much!


This has been one of the most thrilling ventures to kick off over the past few months and is only the beginning.

A huge thank you to Zach Herbert and the nostr:npub1s0vtkgej33n7ec4d7ycxmwt78up8hpfa30d0yfksrshq7t82mchqynpq6j team for empowering me to build a new publication from scratch, I couldn't be happier with it 🔥

I would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and topic suggestions, but even more than that I would love to help get amazing writers out there (like you reading this!) published on nostr:npub1wvvt5gvelcq4fc7f0dvaxq8e63zdvchmelzmv9wuyg76gqxgx4aq8w7rpf.

This isn't something that I want to do alone, but rather I want to empower many other people in the space to let their voices be heard.

Have an idea you've been wanting to write on? Shoot me a DM and let's hash it out from there. nostr:note1k87u85g0ca7lvtm7cgwgnt73g7r5l8e9yy5x398rd6dacrt5rmpqqukk0u


Definitely Ledger Live usage, they’ve leveraged this data in pitch decks as well in the past.

Live users reveal all account details, addresses, etc.


Because one entity can connect your real address, payment info, IP address, and cryptocurrency accounts and holdings all together.

Can’t think of many worse scenarios.


People should be terrified that Ledger can claim for marketing how much crypto their users collectively have 🙈

Is your Bitcoin part of their 20% figure? If so, get it out now. 👇 https://image.nostr.build/0e8efc186eafa62b8a8e658c69b553734729c583d91121445d910eb7eeacf19b.jpg


Nice talk with Chris Blec & nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXfFvjhc2Ek


Unfortunately, there has been a concerted effort by big tech to destroy the feasibility of privacy-preserving front-ends and open-source clients recently, including YouTube, X, and Reddit.

All three have taken steps that destroyed Invidious, Nitter, and Teddit usability.

As such I've simply taken down my instances of all three as they have been unusable for some time and have no realistic workarounds for public instances at this time. If that changes I will put them all back up, but for now it's just not possible to run public instances of any.

It's *extremely* sad to see the hard work of the contributors of these three projects destroyed by the flick of a switch by big tech companies, but is yet another reminder to stop relying on big tech and start taking social media and media itself into your own hands.

For a YouTube alternative, consider PeerTube.

For an X alternative, congrats, you're already on Nostr 👋

For a Reddit alternative, I honestly don't have a recommendation outside of some Lemmy and forum usage.

Note that both Nitter and Invidious are working hard on workarounds and fixes, but Teddit seems to be completely dead due to API monetization of Reddit. I'll try to keep updates on Nitter and Invidious status if workarounds that are feasible show up.

If you do still want to use YouTube, I highly recommend FreeTube as an open-source desktop client:

https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube

I don't touch YouTube without it since Invidious went down. You can easily import your subscriptions from YouTube and other clients like NewPipe here:

https://docs.freetubeapp.io/usage/importing-subscriptions/

If you're on Android you should be using NewPipe, absolutely amazing FOSS client that blocks ads, allows downloads, etc.:

newpipe.net

Tips if you do need to use X on the go for some reason:

1. Use a VPN
2. Use a good browser with ad/cookie blocking
3. Use the progressive web app (simple add to home screen from Safari/Brave/etc) instead of the "proper" app

Not really any other options, sadly, but that prevents the majority of tracking!


Firing up the new toy, thanks nostr:npub1s0vtkgej33n7ec4d7ycxmwt78up8hpfa30d0yfksrshq7t82mchqynpq6j nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g Matt Rose 🤙🏻 https://image.nostr.build/9c03cdada1862ce2322f1b700eb42b2a6f90687b1d127dd9777333aa8d907095.jpg


I like Fluent Reader on Linux, personally, but there’s a lot of options!


Updated!


Ah, had forgotten about that!

Will update, thanks.


Nostr: A Revolutionary Communication Protocol
----------------------

Nostr is an open communication protocol that can be used to send messages across a distributed set of relays in a censorship resistant and robust way.
 - Anyone can run a relay.
 - Anyone can interact with the protocol.
 - Relays can choose which messages they want to relay.
 - Users are identified by a simple public private key pair that they can generate themselves.

Similar to bitcoin, nostr is an open and permissionless protocol. No person, company, or government controls it. Anyone can iterate and build on top of nostr without permission. Together, bitcoin and nostr are incredibly complementary freedom tech tools: censorship resistant, permissionless, robust, and interoperable - money and speech protected by code and incentives, not laws.

https://www.discreetlog.com/nostr/


Thanks, host is down for maintenance 😢


Busy Sunday for me so far, kicking off #SkepticismSundays a little late!

The goal of this thread (which I'll post weekly on Sunday's) is for discussing the uncertainties, shortcomings, and concerns some may have about Bitcoin.

NOT the positive aspects of it.

Discussing things with a critical thinking approach and level-headed discussion helps us learn where Bitcoin and it's community can improve and go from there. We had a *fantastic* amount of good conversations last week so I can't wait to see this week's!

What's gotten you thinking, has you concerned, or always irked you about Bitcoin, its ecosystem, etc?


If you care, Twitter's recommendation algorithm is now publicly available and open sourced on GitHub.

https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/open-source/2023/twitter-recommendation-algorithm


PATRIOT ACT 2.0
-------------

$1M Fine and Up To 20 Years in Prison❗❗❗

The RESTRICT Act, introduced by Senators Warner and Thune, aims to block or disrupt transactions and financial holdings involving foreign adversaries that pose risks to national security. Although the primary targets of this legislation are companies like Tik-Tok, the language of the bill could potentially be used to block or disrupt cryptocurrency transactions and, in extreme cases, block Americans’ access to open source tools or protocols like Bitcoin.

The Act creates a redundant regime paralleling OFAC without clear justification, it significantly limits the ability for injured parties to challenge actions raising due process concerns, and unlike OFAC it lacks any carve-out for protected speech.

https://www.coincenter.org/the-restrict-act-creates-blanket-authority-with-few-checks-to-ban-just-about-anything-linked-to-a-foreign-adversary/


Twitter blocking search function if you use a VPN so they can easily track IP addresses.

Grateful we have nostr. 💜


MANDIBLES

https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1640334251232043010


Would be pretty damn cool 😎


💯

If we had BOLT 12 as we should have ages ago, most of the issues with Zaps would be a moot point as it would be far easier to do things the right way.


Very strongly disagree. This same approach is often the reason for things failing to be done properly at all or making it far more difficult down the line because shortcuts are taken up front for "mass adoption" sake.

It's not even that hard to do it right today, let's just do it right from the start and all throw our weight behind proper, self-sovereign, self-custodial solutions.


Exactly why we need BOLT 12 yesterday instead of everyone just using a poor alternative in LNURL that is hard to do in a self-sovereign way (as it requires an entirely separate web server etc.)

BOLT 12 has been around for 2y and implemented in Core Lightning for 1.5y and yet we can't actually use it. Sad and depressing state of things, IMO partially caused by people being able to skate by using crappy alternatives due to offloading responsibility to a 3rd-party like WoS.


Nostrica Day 1:

https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/nostrica-2023/


May just have been momentary, try again?

Mine is a self-hosted BTCPay + CLN setup, should receive tips/Zaps just fine but won't show on Nostr due to a lack of NIP-57 support.


Reusable payment codes, specifically BIP 47/PayNyms:

https://foundationdevices.com/2023/02/making-sense-of-stealth-addresses/


Need easier ways to onboard people to PayNyms and broader support so more people can actually pay to them

Looking forward to more adoption as PayNyms are perfect for times like these!

More here:

https://foundationdevices.com/2023/02/making-sense-of-stealth-addresses/


So, uh, if we overlook the obvious address re-use this is pretty damn awesome.

Hell of a way to orange-pill a great author.

#[0]


I just had someone DM me, asking me how they could fix a Lightning channel that's stuck opening or closing on their Umbrel node due to the current high fees on the Bitcoin mempool. I figured it was a good time to reshare this quick and dirty guide I wrote a month ago. Good luck!

#[0]


Bitcoin is Freedom Money.

Had the pleasure of sitting down with Dario Sneidermanis of Muun Wallet for a wide ranging discussion on the power of bitcoin and how we can make it more accessible.

Finale of The Six Episode Freedom Money Season Airs Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA4YCaDpScU


Short & Simplified explanation of how Nostr actually Works:

First: Clients and Relays. Every person who uses the Nostr runs a client. Anyone can run a relay.

Each user is identified by a public key, and every post is signed. The clients check these signatures to make sure they are legitimate.

Clients get information from the relays they choose and share information with other relays they choose. Relays only communicate directly with users, not with other relays.

To "follow" someone, a user just tells their client to look for posts from that person's public key.

When a client starts up, it gets information from all the relays it knows for all the users it follows (like all the updates from the last day). It then shows this information to the user in chronological order.

People can post any kind of structured information, but the most popular types will become part of the standard, so all clients and relays can use them easily.


"US regulators say SVB customers will be made whole as second bank fails"

https://i.imgur.com/y0AgkYU.png

https://mempool.space/tx/9d53f14e0fe1ac9ff54154956ec1c9419b02f78f2e5a20d63f3e637976aef826


To protect your private keys when using web apps, you can use Nostr Signing Extensions. These include:

Alby: Lightning wallet with Nostr integration

Nostore:  Safari on iOS (TestFlight)

Flamingo:  Chrome

Nos2x-fox:  Firefox

Nos2x:  Chrome

Protect your Private Keys!


Syrup for sats or sats for syrup 2023. Here are prices for this year. Some are cheaper b/c found better shipping.
1 qt. $25
2 qt. $45
3 qt. $64
1 half gal $42
2 half gal. $75
4 pt. $47
5 pt. $62
6 pt. $71
DM me or get @OshiApp app and search Beisner.
Help me out.
#[0]
#[1]
https://oshi.team/Beisnerd

https://i.imgur.com/JE0sAWz.jpg


It is, I typed it out and hit the pop-up in Amethyst with his user but think it just bugged.

Worked perfectly the next try!


Not sure why the tag didn't work, but meant to tag #[2]


When USDC goes full rug the contagion will be massive.

No custodians are safe. Bitcoin held in your own wallet is the safest option.

https://www.discreetlog.com/money-without-trust/


Money Without Trust
——————

Bitcoin held in self custody is unique in its lack of counterparty risk, as global market chaos unwinds this will become much more obvious.

The four main banks of bitcoin and “crypto” are Signature, Prime Trust, Silvergate, and Silicon Valley Bank. Silvergate and SVB have already stopped withdrawals. More banks will go down before the chaos stops. None of them have sufficient reserves to meet withdrawals.

https://www.discreetlog.com/money-without-trust/


Bitcoin was designed to be ideal in this moment.

As trust in institutions continues to crumble the value of trust minimized money cannot be overstated.


Depending on how you opened it it might be RBF and allow you to boost it, but the channel-open functionality is usually super basic, sadly...


'The Lightning Network' Does Not Exist
--------------------

- Many people refer to the aggregate of all lightning channels as 'The Lightning Network' but this is a false premise. There is no singular 'Lightning Network' but rather many payment channels between distinct peers, some connected with each other and some not.
- Lightning as an interoperable payment protocol between professional custodians seems to have found solid product market fit. Expect significant volume, adoption, and usage going forward.
- Lightning as a robust sovereign payment protocol has yet to be battle tested. Heavy reliance on Tor, which has had massive reliability issues, the friction of active liquidity management, and lack of strong privacy guarantees put it at risk.

https://www.discreetlog.com/the-lightning-network-does-not-exist/


ITSHAPPENING.GIF


Amethyst on mobile, snort.social (self-hosted!) on desktop.

Amethyst in particular is just fantastic and improving rapidly.


Yup, just chime in there!

And love to hear that, need more people standing firm on things like this.


This is at the root of Nostr, however.

An open and public network that enables things like social media where you own your data means that *each person* has to take personal responsibility to preserve privacy where they want it.

The easiest ways will be only using relays you trust/control and using a always-on VPN on all devices to hide true source IP.

Outside of that, people should assume everything in Nostr is public and act accordingly.

That is totally fine and should be a similar expectation as centralized social media, except that in this case *anyone* on your relay(s) can see all of that data, where as with Twitter etc. only Twitter and 3rd-parties they share with can.

If you make much of the data we're putting into Nostr private by default, it will be a pretty poor social tool.


Allows me to only trust myself with data/IP info from my clients instead of trusting snort.social.

Probably not necessary as your connections to relays still go p2p and not through the Snort instance, but I prefer it whenever possible and could take some load off of snort.social.


Running a SimpleX chat SMP server now, anyone is welcome to use it and the architecture of the network means that I'll have no visibility into messages or who talks to who using it.

Address: smp://HWK6x65IcNpRyGDQUtOMSSofcQv2D72-NbEmqg-SwAE=
@smp
.sethforprivacy.com

Or use QR below:

https://nostr.build/i/nostr.build_d97aa4f3e73d212f6b5b1774d40c13ec1f0d6685727bef263e037f1f22ff9f80.jpeg

If you want to learn more about SimpleX, you can listen in to my latest Opt Out episode:

https://optoutpod.com/episodes/s3e02-simplexchat/

Really loving just about everything to do with SimpleX recently.


New to me 👀