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@ f6488c62:c929299d
2025-05-24 05:10:20คุณเคยจินตนาการถึงอนาคตที่ AI มีความฉลาดเทียบเท่ามนุษย์หรือไม่? นี่คือสิ่งที่ Sam Altman ซีอีโอของ OpenAI และทีมพันธมิตรอย่าง SoftBank, Oracle และ MGX กำลังผลักดันผ่าน โครงการ Stargate! โครงการนี้ไม่ใช่แค่เรื่องเทคโนโลยี แต่เป็นก้าวกระโดดครั้งใหญ่ของมนุษยชาติ! Stargate คืออะไร? Stargate เป็นโปรเจกต์สร้าง ศูนย์ข้อมูล AI ขนาดยักษ์ที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในประวัติศาสตร์ ด้วยเงินลงทุนเริ่มต้น 100,000 ล้านดอลลาร์ และอาจสูงถึง 500,000 ล้านดอลลาร์ ภายในปี 2029! เป้าหมายคือการพัฒนา Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) หรือ AI ที่ฉลาดเทียบเท่ามนุษย์ เพื่อให้สหรัฐฯ ครองความเป็นผู้นำด้าน AI และแข่งขันกับคู่แข่งอย่างจีน โครงการนี้เริ่มต้นที่เมือง Abilene รัฐเท็กซัส โดยจะสร้างศูนย์ข้อมูล 10 แห่ง และขยายไปยังญี่ปุ่น สหราชอาณาจักร และสหรัฐอาหรับเอมิเรตส์ ทำไม Stargate ถึงสำคัญ?
นวัตกรรมเปลี่ยนโลก: AI จาก Stargate จะช่วยพัฒนาวัคซีน mRNA รักษามะเร็งได้ใน 48 ชั่วโมง และยกระดับอุตสาหกรรมต่าง ๆ เช่น การแพทย์และความมั่นคงแห่งชาติสร้างงาน: คาดว่าจะสร้างงานกว่า 100,000 ตำแหน่ง ในสหรัฐฯ
พลังงานมหาศาล: ศูนย์ข้อมูลอาจใช้พลังงานถึง 1.2 กิกะวัตต์ เทียบเท่ากับเมืองขนาดใหญ่!
ใครอยู่เบื้องหลัง? Sam Altman ร่วมมือกับ Masayoshi Son จาก SoftBank และได้รับการสนับสนุนจาก Donald Trump ซึ่งผลักดันนโยบายให้ Stargate เป็นจริง การก่อสร้างดำเนินการโดย Oracle และพันธมิตรด้านพลังงานอย่าง Crusoe Energy Systems ความท้าทาย? ถึงจะยิ่งใหญ่ แต่ Stargate ก็เจออุปสรรค ทั้งปัญหาการระดมทุน ความกังวลเรื่องภาษีนำเข้าชิป และการแข่งขันจากคู่แข่งอย่าง DeepSeek ที่ใช้โครงสร้างพื้นฐานน้อยกว่า แถม Elon Musk ยังออกมาวิจารณ์ว่าโครงการนี้อาจ “ไม่สมจริง” แต่ Altman มั่นใจและเชิญ Musk ไปดูไซต์งานที่เท็กซัสเลยทีเดียว! อนาคตของ Stargate ศูนย์ข้อมูลแห่งแรกจะเริ่มใช้งานในปี 2026 และอาจเปลี่ยนโฉมวงการ AI ไปตลอดกาล นี่คือก้าวสำคัญสู่ยุคใหม่ของเทคโนโลยีที่อาจเปลี่ยนวิถีชีวิตของเรา! และไม่ใช่ประตูดวงดาวแบบในหนังนะ! ถึงชื่อ Stargate จะได้แรงบันดาลใจจากภาพยนตร์ sci-fi อันโด่งดัง แต่โครงการนี้ไม่ได้พาเราไปยังดวงดาวอื่น มันคือการเปิดประตูสู่โลกแห่ง AI ที่ทรงพลัง และอาจเปลี่ยนอนาคตของมนุษยชาติไปเลย! และไม่เหมือน universechain ของ star ของผมนะครับ
Stargate #AI #SamAltman #OpenAI #อนาคตของเทคโนโลยี
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@ c1d77557:bf04ec8b
2025-05-24 05:02:26O 567br é uma plataforma de entretenimento online que tem se destacado pela sua inovação, variedade de jogos e foco na experiência do jogador. Com uma interface amigável e recursos de alta qualidade, a plataforma oferece uma jornada divertida e segura para os seus usuários. Neste artigo, vamos explorar os principais aspectos do 567br, incluindo a introdução da plataforma, os jogos que ela oferece e como a experiência do jogador é aprimorada em cada detalhe.
O 567br foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de proporcionar aos jogadores uma experiência imersiva e prazerosa. Sua interface é simples, intuitiva e de fácil navegação, permitindo que os usuários encontrem rapidamente seus jogos favoritos. A plataforma também é otimizada para dispositivos móveis, o que significa que os jogadores podem acessar seus jogos em qualquer lugar e a qualquer momento, seja no computador ou no smartphone.
Além disso, o 567brse preocupa com a segurança de seus usuários, implementando tecnologias de criptografia de ponta para garantir que todos os dados pessoais e financeiros estejam protegidos. A plataforma também oferece suporte ao cliente de alta qualidade, disponível 24/7, para resolver quaisquer dúvidas ou problemas que possam surgir durante a experiência de jogo.
Jogos Empolgantes e Variedade para Todos os Gostos No 567br, a diversidade de jogos é um dos pontos fortes da plataforma. Desde jogos de mesa e cartas até opções de entretenimento mais dinâmicas e inovadoras, há algo para todos os gostos e preferências. Os jogos disponíveis são desenvolvidos por alguns dos melhores fornecedores de conteúdo da indústria, garantindo gráficos de alta qualidade, jogabilidade fluida e mecânicas envolventes.
Os jogadores podem escolher entre diferentes categorias, como:
Jogos de Mesa: Para quem gosta de uma experiência mais estratégica e de tomada de decisões, os jogos de mesa são uma excelente opção. São oferecidas diversas variantes de jogos populares, como pôquer, blackjack, roleta, entre outros.
Jogos de Ação e Aventura: Para os que buscam adrenalina e emoção, a plataforma oferece uma seleção de jogos de ação e aventura com temas envolventes e gráficos impressionantes. Esses jogos garantem uma experiência de jogo emocionante e desafiadora.
Jogos de Arcade: Se você está em busca de algo mais descontraído e divertido, os jogos de arcade são uma excelente escolha. Eles são rápidos, fáceis de entender e proporcionam diversão instantânea.
A plataforma está sempre atualizando seu portfólio de jogos para garantir que os jogadores tenham acesso às últimas novidades e inovações do mundo do entretenimento online.
A Experiência do Jogador: Personalização e Interatividade O 567br não se limita a oferecer apenas uma plataforma de jogos, mas também busca criar uma experiência personalizada e interativa para cada jogador. A plataforma possui funcionalidades que permitem que os usuários ajustem sua experiência de jogo de acordo com suas preferências individuais.
A personalização da interface é um exemplo claro disso. O jogador pode escolher o tema e a disposição dos elementos na tela, criando um ambiente que seja confortável e agradável de usar. Além disso, o 567br oferece recursos interativos, como chats ao vivo, onde os jogadores podem interagir com outros usuários e até mesmo com os dealers, proporcionando uma sensação de comunidade.
Outro aspecto importante é a possibilidade de acompanhar o desempenho e os resultados de jogo. A plataforma oferece relatórios detalhados, permitindo que os jogadores monitorem seu progresso, analisem suas vitórias e perdas, e façam ajustes em sua estratégia de jogo.
Promoções e Benefícios para os Jogadores O 567br também oferece uma série de promoções e benefícios que tornam a experiência de jogo ainda mais atrativa. Novos jogadores podem aproveitar bônus de boas-vindas e outras ofertas especiais, enquanto jogadores regulares podem se beneficiar de programas de fidelidade e promoções exclusivas.
Essas ofertas ajudam a aumentar a diversão e proporcionam mais oportunidades para que os jogadores explorem novos jogos e tenham uma experiência ainda mais rica. Além disso, o sistema de recompensas é transparente e justo, garantindo que todos os jogadores tenham as mesmas oportunidades de aproveitar os benefícios.
Conclusão: Uma Plataforma Completa para Todos os Gostos Com sua interface intuitiva, variedade de jogos e foco na experiência do jogador, o 567br se consolida como uma plataforma de entretenimento online de alta qualidade. Seja para quem busca jogos estratégicos, ação intensa ou diversão casual, o 567br tem algo para todos.
A segurança, o suporte ao cliente e a personalização da experiência de jogo tornam o 567br uma opção atraente para jogadores que buscam mais do que apenas uma plataforma de jogos – buscam uma jornada de entretenimento envolvente e segura. Se você está procurando por uma experiência completa e agradável, o 567br é, sem dúvida, uma excelente escolha.
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@ c1d77557:bf04ec8b
2025-05-24 05:01:44O P11Bet é uma plataforma inovadora que chega para oferecer uma experiência de jogo única, reunindo uma variedade de opções para os entusiastas de diferentes tipos de entretenimento online. Com uma interface moderna e fácil de usar, ela se destaca por proporcionar uma jornada divertida e segura para os jogadores, com um foco especial na qualidade da experiência e no atendimento às necessidades do público.
Uma Plataforma Completa e Acessível Ao acessar o P11Bet, os usuários encontram uma plataforma intuitiva, que facilita a navegação e oferece uma variedade de recursos para tornar o jogo mais agradável. A estrutura do site é otimizada para fornecer uma experiência fluida, seja no desktop ou em dispositivos móveis. Além disso, a plataforma se preocupa em manter um ambiente seguro, garantindo a proteção dos dados dos jogadores e permitindo que se concentrem na diversão.
A plataforma é projetada para todos os tipos de jogadores, desde os iniciantes até os mais experientes. A simplicidade de uso é uma das grandes vantagens, permitindo que qualquer pessoa possa se registrar e começar a jogar sem dificuldades. Além disso, a p11betoferece suporte ao cliente em português, o que facilita a comunicação e garante um atendimento de alta qualidade para os usuários brasileiros.
Diversidade de Jogos para Todos os Gostos O P11Bet se destaca pela vasta gama de opções de jogos que oferece aos seus usuários. A plataforma abriga uma seleção diversificada que vai desde jogos clássicos até as opções mais modernas, atendendo a todos os estilos e preferências. Entre as opções mais procuradas estão jogos de mesa, apostas esportivas, slots, e outras modalidades que garantem horas de entretenimento.
Um dos principais atrativos do P11Bet são os jogos de habilidade e de sorte, que exigem tanto estratégia quanto um pouco de sorte. As opções variam desde os mais simples aos mais complexos, oferecendo algo para todos os gostos. Os jogadores podem se aventurar em diversas modalidades, testando suas habilidades em jogos que vão de roletas e blackjack a versões mais inovadoras e dinâmicas.
Para aqueles que preferem algo mais emocionante e competitivo, as apostas esportivas são uma das maiores atrações. O P11Bet oferece uma ampla variedade de eventos esportivos ao vivo para apostar, com odds atrativas e uma plataforma que permite realizar apostas de forma rápida e eficiente. Seja em esportes populares como futebol, basquete ou até mesmo esportes menos tradicionais, há sempre algo para os apostadores mais exigentes.
A Experiência do Jogador: Diversão e Segurança O P11Bet não apenas se preocupa com a diversidade de jogos, mas também com a experiência do jogador. A plataforma foi desenvolvida para garantir que os jogadores possam desfrutar de seus jogos favoritos com a maior segurança e conforto possível. Além de um design intuitivo, a plataforma oferece diversas opções de pagamento, incluindo métodos populares no Brasil, para facilitar depósitos e retiradas. Isso garante que o processo de transações seja simples, rápido e seguro.
Outro ponto positivo do P11Bet é a experiência imersiva que ele oferece aos jogadores. A plataforma está sempre atualizada com novas funcionalidades, com promoções atraentes e bônus especiais que aumentam ainda mais a diversão. A interação com outros jogadores também é um diferencial, com espaços que permitem competir, conversar e trocar experiências com pessoas de todo o mundo.
Além disso, o suporte ao cliente da P11Bet é um dos mais elogiados pelos usuários. A equipe está sempre disponível para resolver dúvidas e fornecer assistência de maneira eficaz e amigável. Isso garante que os jogadores tenham sempre uma experiência tranquila, sem se preocupar com questões técnicas ou problemas relacionados à plataforma.
Conclusão Em resumo, o P11Bet é uma excelente escolha para quem busca uma plataforma completa e de qualidade para se divertir e desafiar suas habilidades. Com uma grande variedade de jogos, uma interface de fácil navegação e um suporte excepcional, ele garante que cada momento na plataforma seja único e prazeroso. Para quem deseja se aventurar no mundo dos jogos online, o P11Bet é uma opção que combina segurança, inovação e diversão.
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-05-24 05:01:35KYC database of Coinbase, the largest U.S. digital asset exchange, has been breached and up to 1% of monthly active users, or around 100,000 customers, have had their personal info stolen.
Hackers reportedly bribed overseas customer support agents and contractors to leak internal company info and user data. They then demanded $20 million and threatened to release the stolen data if Coinbase didn’t pay.
Instead of paying the ransom, Coinbase said no and is setting up a $20 million reward fund for anyone who can help catch the hackers.
“They then tried to extort Coinbase for $20 million to cover this up. We said no,” the company said in a blog post. “Instead of paying the $20 million ransom, we’re establishing a $20 million reward fund.”
So what’s been stolen? The breach, which was first disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), did not involve any theft of customer funds, login credentials, private keys or wallets.
But the hackers did get:
- Full names
- Addresses
- Phone numbers
- Email addresses
- Last 4 digits of Social Security numbers
- Bank account numbers and some bank identifiers
- Government ID images (driver’s licenses, passports, etc.)
- Account balances and transaction history
- Internal corporate documents and training materials
Coinbase says Prime accounts were not affected and no passwords or 2FA codes were stolen.
According to Coinbase, the attackers targeted outsourced support agents in countries like India. They were offering cash bribes in exchange for access to the company’s internal customer support tools.
“What these attackers were doing was finding Coinbase employees and contractors based in India who were associated with our business process outsourcing or support operations, that kind of thing, and bribing them in order to obtain customer data,” said Philip Martin, Coinbase’s Chief Security Officer.
Coinbase said it first saw suspicious activity in January 2025 but didn’t get a direct email from the threat actors until May 11. The email had evidence of stolen data and the ransom demand.
Coinbase quickly launched an investigation, fired all the involved support agents and notified law enforcement. It also started notifying users via email on May 15.
The Coinbase data breach has hit it hard, financially and publicly. The company estimates it will spend $180-$400 million on security upgrades, reimbursements and other remediation.
Coinbase’s stock also took a hit, dropping 6.4% after the news broke, before rebounding.
Analysts say this couldn’t have come at a worse time, as Coinbase is about to be added to the S&P 500 index – a big deal for any publicly traded company.
It’s definitely an unfortunate timing. “This may push the industry to adopt stricter employee vetting and introduce some reputational risks,” said Bo Pei, analyst at U.S. Tiger Securities.
Coinbase will reimburse any customers who were tricked into sending their digital assets to the attackers as part of social engineering scams. They’ve also introduced new security measures:
- Extra ID verification for high-risk withdrawals
- Scam-awareness prompts
- A new U.S.-based support center
- Stronger insider threat monitoring
- Simulation testing for internal systems
Affected customers have already been notified and the exchange is working with U.S. and international law enforcement to track down the attackers.
This is part of a larger trend in the digital assets world. Earlier this year, Bybit, another exchange, was hit with a $1.5 billion theft, dubbed the biggest digital asset heist in history.
Research from Chainalysis shows over $2.2 billion was stolen from digital asset platforms in 2024 alone.
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-05-24 05:01:15A new study reveals: 4 out of 5 Americans would like the US to convert some of its gold into Bitcoin.
A recent survey conducted by the Nakamoto Project revealed that a majority of Americans support converting a portion of the United States’ gold reserves into Bitcoin. The survey, carried out online by Qualtrics between February and March 2025, involved 3,345 participants with demographic characteristics representative of US census standards. Most respondents expressed a desire to convert between 1% and 30% of the gold reserves into BTC.
Troy Cross, co-founder of the Nakamoto Project, stated:
“When given a slider and asked to advise the US government on the right proportion of Bitcoin and gold, subjects were very reluctant to put that slider on 0% Bitcoin and 100% gold. Instead, they settled around 10% Bitcoin.”
One significant finding from the research is the correlation between age and openness to Bitcoin: younger respondents showed a greater inclination toward the cryptocurrency compared to older generations.
A potential US strategy
Bo Hines, a White House advisor, is promoting an initiative for the Treasury Department to acquire Bitcoin by selling off a portion of its gold. Under the proposed plan, the government could acquire up to 1 million BTC over the next five years.
To finance these purchases, the government plans to sell Federal Reserve gold certificates. The proposal aligns with Senator Cynthia Lummis’ 2025 Bitcoin Act, which aims to declare Bitcoin a critical national strategic asset.
Currently, the United States holds 8,133 metric tons of gold, valued at over $830 billion, and about 200,000 BTC, valued at $21 billion.
The post The majority in the US wants to convert part of the gold reserves into Bitcoin appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ 06830f6c:34da40c5
2025-05-24 04:21:03The evolution of development environments is incredibly rich and complex and reflects a continuous drive towards greater efficiency, consistency, isolation, and collaboration. It's a story of abstracting away complexity and standardizing workflows.
Phase 1: The Bare Metal & Manual Era (Early 1970s - Late 1990s)
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Direct OS Interaction / Bare Metal Development:
- Description: Developers worked directly on the operating system's command line or a basic text editor. Installation of compilers, interpreters, and libraries was a manual, often arcane process involving downloading archives, compiling from source, and setting environment variables. "Configuration drift" (differences between developer machines) was the norm.
- Tools: Text editors (Vi, Emacs), command-line compilers (GCC), Makefiles.
- Challenges: Extremely high setup time, dependency hell, "works on my machine" syndrome, difficult onboarding for new developers, lack of reproducibility. Version control was primitive (e.g., RCS, SCCS).
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Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) - Initial Emergence:
- Description: Early IDEs (like Turbo Pascal, Microsoft Visual Basic) began to integrate editors, compilers, debuggers, and sometimes GUI builders into a single application. This was a massive leap in developer convenience.
- Tools: Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, early Visual Studio versions.
- Advancement: Improved developer productivity, streamlined common tasks. Still relied on local system dependencies.
Phase 2: Towards Dependency Management & Local Reproducibility (Late 1990s - Mid-2000s)
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Basic Build Tools & Dependency Resolvers (Pre-Package Managers):
- Description: As projects grew, manual dependency tracking became impossible. Tools like Ant (Java) and early versions of
autoconf
/make
for C/C++ helped automate the compilation and linking process, managing some dependencies. - Tools: Apache Ant, GNU Autotools.
- Advancement: Automated build processes, rudimentary dependency linking. Still not comprehensive environment management.
- Description: As projects grew, manual dependency tracking became impossible. Tools like Ant (Java) and early versions of
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Language-Specific Package Managers:
- Description: A significant leap was the emergence of language-specific package managers that could fetch, install, and manage libraries and frameworks declared in a project's manifest file. Examples include Maven (Java), npm (Node.js), pip (Python), RubyGems (Ruby), Composer (PHP).
- Tools: Maven, npm, pip, RubyGems, Composer.
- Advancement: Dramatically simplified dependency resolution, improved intra-project reproducibility.
- Limitation: Managed language-level dependencies, but not system-level dependencies or the underlying OS environment. Conflicts between projects on the same machine (e.g., Project A needs Python 2.7, Project B needs Python 3.9) were common.
Phase 3: Environment Isolation & Portability (Mid-2000s - Early 2010s)
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Virtual Machines (VMs) for Development:
- Description: To address the "it works on my machine" problem stemming from OS-level and system-level differences, developers started using VMs. Tools like VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, and later Vagrant (which automated VM provisioning) allowed developers to encapsulate an entire OS and its dependencies for a project.
- Tools: VMware, VirtualBox, Vagrant.
- Advancement: Achieved strong isolation and environment reproducibility (a true "single environment" for a project).
- Limitations: Resource-heavy (each VM consumed significant CPU, RAM, disk space), slow to provision and boot, difficult to share large VM images.
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Early Automation & Provisioning Tools:
- Description: Alongside VMs, configuration management tools started being used to automate environment setup within VMs or on servers. This helped define environments as code, making them more consistent.
- Tools: Chef, Puppet, Ansible.
- Advancement: Automated provisioning, leading to more consistent environments, often used in conjunction with VMs.
Phase 4: The Container Revolution & Orchestration (Early 2010s - Present)
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Containerization (Docker):
- Description: Docker popularized Linux Containers (LXC), offering a lightweight, portable, and efficient alternative to VMs. Containers package an application and all its dependencies into a self-contained unit that shares the host OS kernel. This drastically reduced resource overhead and startup times compared to VMs.
- Tools: Docker.
- Advancement: Unprecedented consistency from development to production (Dev/Prod Parity), rapid provisioning, highly efficient resource use. Became the de-facto standard for packaging applications.
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Container Orchestration:
- Description: As microservices and container adoption grew, managing hundreds or thousands of containers became a new challenge. Orchestration platforms automated the deployment, scaling, healing, and networking of containers across clusters of machines.
- Tools: Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, Apache Mesos.
- Advancement: Enabled scalable, resilient, and complex distributed systems development and deployment. The "environment" started encompassing the entire cluster.
Phase 5: Cloud-Native, Serverless & Intelligent Environments (Present - Future)
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Cloud-Native Development:
- Description: Leveraging cloud services (managed databases, message queues, serverless functions) directly within the development workflow. Developers focus on application logic, offloading infrastructure management to cloud providers. Containers become a key deployment unit in this paradigm.
- Tools: AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Run, cloud-managed databases.
- Advancement: Reduced operational overhead, increased focus on business logic, highly scalable deployments.
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Remote Development & Cloud-Based IDEs:
- Description: The full development environment (editor, terminal, debugger, code) can now reside in the cloud, accessed via a thin client or web browser. This means developers can work from any device, anywhere, with powerful cloud resources backing their environment.
- Tools: GitHub Codespaces, Gitpod, AWS Cloud9, VS Code Remote Development.
- Advancement: Instant onboarding, consistent remote environments, access to high-spec machines regardless of local hardware, enhanced security.
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Declarative & AI-Assisted Environments (The Near Future):
- Description: Development environments will become even more declarative, where developers specify what they need, and AI/automation tools provision and maintain it. AI will proactively identify dependency issues, optimize resource usage, suggest code snippets, and perform automated testing within the environment.
- Tools: Next-gen dev container specifications, AI agents integrated into IDEs and CI/CD pipelines.
- Prediction: Near-zero environment setup time, self-healing environments, proactive problem identification, truly seamless collaboration.
web3 #computing #cloud #devstr
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@ c1d77557:bf04ec8b
2025-05-24 05:01:11Se você está em busca de uma experiência de jogo dinâmica e diversificada, o 59h é a plataforma que você precisa conhecer. Com um foco claro na satisfação dos jogadores, ela oferece uma ampla variedade de opções de entretenimento, além de uma interface amigável e segura. Neste artigo, vamos explorar a plataforma 59h, destacando suas principais funcionalidades, jogos emocionantes e a experiência do usuário.
O Que é a Plataforma 59h? O 59h é uma plataforma inovadora que oferece uma vasta gama de jogos e experiências digitais para os entusiastas do entretenimento online. A plataforma se destaca pela sua interface intuitiva, que permite aos jogadores navegar com facilidade entre as diferentes categorias de jogos. Ela é ideal para quem busca uma experiência divertida e acessível, sem complicações.
Desde o momento em que você acessa o 59h, fica evidente o compromisso com a qualidade. A plataforma é projetada para ser acessível em diversos dispositivos, seja no seu computador, tablet ou smartphone. Isso garante que os jogadores possam aproveitar seus jogos favoritos a qualquer momento e em qualquer lugar, com a mesma qualidade e desempenho.
Uma Grande Variedade de Jogos para Todos os Gostos O 59h se destaca por sua impressionante variedade de jogos. Independentemente do tipo de jogo que você prefere, certamente encontrará algo que se adapte ao seu estilo. A plataforma oferece desde jogos de habilidade, até opções mais relaxantes e divertidas para aqueles que buscam algo mais descontraído.
Entre as opções mais populares, destacam-se os jogos de mesa, onde os jogadores podem testar suas habilidades em jogos como pôquer, blackjack e outros. Para quem prefere algo mais voltado para a sorte, o 59h também oferece jogos com elementos de sorte que podem garantir grandes recompensas.
Além disso, a plataforma está sempre atualizando seu portfólio de jogos, trazendo novidades para os jogadores. Isso significa que você nunca ficará entediado, já que sempre haverá algo novo e emocionante para experimentar.
A Experiência do Jogador no 59h Uma das maiores qualidades da plataforma 59h é sua atenção à experiência do usuário. Desde o processo de registro até a escolha de um jogo, tudo foi pensado para garantir uma navegação tranquila e sem estresse.
A plataforma é completamente segura, oferecendo métodos de pagamento rápidos e confiáveis. Isso significa que os jogadores podem depositar e retirar seus fundos com confiança, sem se preocupar com a segurança de suas informações pessoais. Além disso, o suporte ao cliente está sempre disponível para ajudar em caso de dúvidas ou problemas, garantindo que sua experiência seja o mais fluida possível.
Outro ponto que merece destaque é a comunidade de jogadores. A interação com outros jogadores é uma parte importante da plataforma, permitindo que você compartilhe dicas, participe de torneios e crie amizades. A plataforma 59h se esforça para criar um ambiente amigável e inclusivo, onde todos podem se divertir e aprender uns com os outros.
Acessibilidade e Facilidade de Uso O 59h não é apenas sobre a diversidade de jogos; também se trata de tornar o acesso o mais simples possível. A plataforma oferece um design responsivo, que se adapta perfeitamente a qualquer tipo de dispositivo. Isso significa que você pode jogar no computador, smartphone ou tablet com a mesma facilidade.
O processo de cadastro é simples e rápido, permitindo que você comece a jogar em questão de minutos. Além disso, a plataforma oferece uma série de recursos adicionais, como promoções e bônus exclusivos, que tornam a experiência ainda mais empolgante.
Conclusão O 59h se posiciona como uma plataforma de entretenimento online completa, oferecendo uma vasta gama de jogos, uma experiência de usuário de alta qualidade e um ambiente seguro e amigável para jogadores de todos os níveis. Se você procura uma plataforma confiável, diversificada e divertida, o 59h é a escolha ideal. Não importa se você é um iniciante ou um jogador experiente, há sempre algo novo para descobrir e aproveitar no 59h.
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@ 58537364:705b4b85
2025-05-24 03:25:05Ep 228 "วิชาชีวิต"
คนเราเมื่อเกิดมาแล้ว ไม่ได้หวังแค่มีชีวิตรอดเท่านั้น แต่ยังปรารถนา "ความเจริญก้าวหน้า" และ "ความสุขในชีวิต"
จึงพากันศึกษาเล่าเรียนเพื่อให้มี "วิชาความรู้" สำหรับการประกอบอาชีพ โดยเชื่อว่า การงานที่มั่นคงย่อมนำ "ความสำเร็จ" และ "ความเจริญก้าวหน้า" มาให้
อย่างไรก็ตาม...ความสำเร็จในวิชาชีพหรือความเจริญก้าวหน้าในชีวิต ไม่ได้เป็นหลักประกันความสุขอย่างแท้จริง
แม้เงินทองและทรัพย์สมบัติจะช่วยให้ชีวิตมีความสุข สะดวก สบาย แต่ไม่ได้ช่วยให้สุขใจในสิ่งที่ตนมี หากยังรู้สึกว่า "ตนยังมีไม่พอ"
ขณะเดียวกันชื่อเสียงเกียรติยศที่ได้มาก็ไม่ช่วยให้คลายความทุกข์ใจ เมื่อต้องเผชิญปัญหาต่างๆ นาๆ
ทั้งการพลัดพราก การสูญเสียบุคคลผู้เป็นที่รัก ความเจ็บป่วย และความตายที่ต้องเกิดขึ้นกับทุกคน
ยิ่งกว่านั้น...ความสำเร็จในอาชีพและความเจริญก้าวหน้าในชีวิต ล้วนเป็น "สิ่งไม่เที่ยง" แปรผันตกต่ำ ไม่สามารถควบคุมได้
วิชาชีพทั้งหลายช่วยให้เราหาเงินได้มากขึ้น แต่ไม่ได้ช่วยให้เราเข้าถึง "ความสุขที่แท้จริง"
คนที่ประสบความสำเร็จในวิชาชีพไม่น้อย ที่มีชีวิตอมทุกข์ ความเครียดรุมเร้า สุขภาพเสื่อมโทรม
หากเราไม่อยากเผชิญกับสิ่งเหล่านี้ ควรเรียน "วิชาชีวิต" เพื่อเข้าใจโลก เข้าใจชีวิต รู้เท่าทันความผันแปรไปของสรรพสิ่ง
วิชาชีวิต...เรียนจากประสบการณ์ชีวิต เมื่อมีปัญหาต่างๆ ขอให้คิดว่า คือ "บททดสอบ"
จงหมั่นศึกษาหาบทเรียนจากวิชานี้อยู่เสมอ สร้าง "ความตระหนักรู้" ถึงความสำคัญในการมีชีวิต
ช่วงที่ผ่านมา เมื่อมีปัญหาฉันไม่สามารถหาทางออกจากทุกข์ได้เศร้า เสียใจ ทุรน ทุราย สอบตก "วิชาชีวิต"
โชคดีครูบาอาจารย์ให้ข้อคิด กล่าวว่า เป็นเรื่องธรรมดาหากเรายังไม่เข้าใจชีวิต ทุกสิ่งล้วนผันแปร เกิด-ดับ เป็นธรรมดา ท่านเมตตาส่งหนังสือเล่มนี้มาให้
เมื่อค่อยๆ ศึกษา ทำความเข้าใจ นำความทุกข์ที่เกิดขึ้นมาพิจารณา เห็นว่าเมื่อ "สอบตก" ก็ "สอบใหม่" จนกว่าจะผ่านไปได้
วิชาทางโลกเมื่อสอบตกยังเปิดโอกาสให้เรา "สอบซ่อม" วิชาทางธรรมก็เช่นเดียวกัน หากเจอปัญหา อุปสรรค หรือ ความทุกข์ถาโถมเข้ามา ขอให้เราตั้งสติ ว่า จะตั้งใจทำข้อสอบนี้ให้ผ่านไปให้จงได้
หากเราสามารถดำเนินชีวิตด้วยความเข้าใจ เราจะค้นพบ "วิชาชีวิต" ที่สามารถทำให้หลุดพ้นจากความทุกข์ได้แน่นอน
ด้วยรักและปรารถนาดี ปาริชาติ รักตะบุตร 21 เมษายน 2566
น้อมกราบขอบพระคุณพระ อ.ไพศาล วิสาโล เป็นอย่างสูง ที่ท่านเมตตา ให้ข้อธรรมะยามทุกข์ใจและส่งหนังสือมาให้ จึงตั้งใจอยากแบ่งปันเป็นธรรมทาน
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@ dfa02707:41ca50e3
2025-05-24 05:00:55Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.
- "Today we're launching the beta version of our multiplatform Nostr browser! Think Google Chrome but for Nostr apps. The beta is our big first step toward this vision," announced Damus.
- This version comes with the Dave Nostr AI assistant, support for zaps and the Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) wallet interface, full-text note search, GIFs and fullscreen images, multiple media uploads, user tagging, relay list and mute list support, along with a number of other improvements."
"Included in the beta is the Dave, the Nostr AI assistant (its Grok for Nostr). Dave is a new Notedeck browser app that can search and summarize notes from the network. For a full breakdown of everything new, check out our beta launch video."
What's new
- Dave Nostr AI assistant app.
- GIFs.
- Fulltext note search.
- Add full screen images, add zoom, and pan.
- Zaps! NWC/ Wallet UI.
- Introduce last note per pubkey feed (experimental).
- Allow multiple media uploads per selection.
- Major Android improvements (still WIP).
- Added notedeck app sidebar.
- User Tagging.
- Note truncation.
- Local network note broadcast, broadcast notes to other notedeck notes while you're offline.
- Mute list support (reading).
- Relay list support.
- Ctrl-enter to send notes.
- Added relay indexing (relay columns soon).
- Click hashtags to open hashtag timeline.
- Fixed timelines sometimes not updating (stale feeds).
- Fixed UI bounciness when loading profile pictures
- Fixed unselectable post replies.
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@ 502ab02a:a2860397
2025-05-24 01:14:43ในสายตาคนรักสุขภาพทั่วโลก “อโวคาโด” คือผลไม้ในฝัน มันมีไขมันดี มีไฟเบอร์สูง ช่วยลดคอเลสเตอรอลได้ มีวิตามินอี มีโพแทสเซียม และที่สำคัญคือ "ดูดี" ทุกครั้งที่ถูกปาดวางบนขนมปังโฮลวีตในชามสลัด หรือบนโฆษณาอาหารคลีนสุดหรู
แต่ในสายตาชาวไร่บางคนในเม็กซิโกหรือชุมชนพื้นเมืองในโดมินิกัน อโวคาโดไม่ใช่ผลไม้แห่งสุขภาพ แต่มันคือสัญลักษณ์ของความรุนแรง การกดขี่ และการสูญเสียเสรีภาพในผืนดินของตัวเอง
เมื่ออาหารกลายเป็นทองคำ กลุ่มอิทธิพลก็ไม่เคยพลาดจะเข้าครอบครอง
เรามักได้ยินคำว่า "ทองคำเขียว" หรือ Green Gold ใช้เรียกอโวคาโด เพราะในรอบ 20 ปีที่ผ่านมา ความต้องการบริโภคของมันพุ่งสูงขึ้นเป็นเท่าตัว โดยเฉพาะในสหรัฐฯ และยุโรป จากผลการวิจัยของมหาวิทยาลัยฮาร์วาร์ดและข้อมูลการส่งออกของ USDA พบว่า 90% ของอโวคาโดที่บริโภคในอเมริกา มาจากรัฐมิโชอากังของเม็กซิโก พื้นที่ซึ่งควบคุมโดยกลุ่มค้ายาเสพติดไม่ต่างจากเจ้าของสวนตัวจริง
พวกเขาเรียกเก็บ “ค่าคุ้มครอง” จากเกษตรกร โดยใช้วิธีเดียวกับมาเฟีย คือ ถ้าไม่จ่าย ก็เจ็บตัวหรือหายตัว ไม่ว่าจะเป็นกลุ่ม CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), Familia Michoacana หรือ Caballeros Templarios พวกเขาไม่ได้สนใจว่าใครปลูกหรือใครรดน้ำ ตราบใดที่ผลผลิตสามารถเปลี่ยนเป็นเงินได้
องค์กรอาชญากรรมเหล่านี้ไม่ได้แค่ “แฝงตัว” ในอุตสาหกรรม แต่ ยึดครอง ห่วงโซ่การผลิตทั้งหมด ตั้งแต่แปลงปลูกไปจนถึงโรงบรรจุและเส้นทางขนส่ง คนที่ไม่ยอมเข้าระบบมืดอาจต้องพบจุดจบในป่า หรือไม่มีชื่ออยู่ในทะเบียนบ้านอีกต่อไป
จากรายงานของเว็บไซต์ Food is Power องค์กรไม่แสวงกำไรด้านความยุติธรรมด้านอาหารในสหรัฐฯ เผยว่า ในปี 2020 มีเกษตรกรในเม็กซิโกจำนวนมากที่ถูกข่มขู่ บางรายถึงขั้นถูกฆาตกรรม เพราะปฏิเสธจ่ายค่าคุ้มครองจากกลุ่มค้ายา
การปลูกอโวคาโดไม่ใช่เรื่องเบาๆ กับธรรมชาติ เพราะมันต้องการ “น้ำ” มากถึง 272 ลิตรต่อผลเดียว! เรามาดูว่า “272 ลิตร” นี้ เท่ากับอะไรบ้างในชีวิตจริง อาบน้ำฝักบัวนาน 10–12 นาที (โดยเฉลี่ยใช้น้ำ 20–25 ลิตรต่อนาที) ใช้น้ำซักเสื้อผ้าเครื่องหนึ่ง (เครื่องซักผ้า 1 ครั้งกินประมาณ 60–100 ลิตร) น้ำดื่มของคนหนึ่งคนได้นานเกือบ เดือน (คนเราต้องการน้ำดื่มประมาณ 1.5–2 ลิตรต่อวัน)
ถ้าเราใช้ข้อมูลจาก FAO และ Water Footprint Network การผลิตเนื้อวัว 1 กิโลกรัม ต้องใช้น้ำ 15,000 ลิตร (รวมทั้งการปลูกหญ้า อาหารสัตว์ การดื่มน้ำของวัว ฯลฯ) ได้โปรตีนราว 250 กรัม อโวคาโด 1 กิโลกรัม (ราว 5 ผล) ใช้น้ำประมาณ 1,360 ลิตร ได้โปรตีนเพียง 6–8 กรัมเท่านั้น พูดง่ายๆคือ เมื่อเทียบอัตราส่วนเป็นลิตรต่อกรัมโปรตีนแล้วนั้น วัวใช้น้ำ 60 ลิตรต่อกรัมโปรตีน / อโวคาโด ใช้น้ำ 194 ลิตรต่อกรัมโปรตีน แถมการเลี้ยงวัวในระบบธรรมชาติ (เช่น pasture-raised หรือ regenerative farming) ยังสามารถเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของระบบหมุนเวียนน้ำและคาร์บอนได้ พอเห็นภาพแล้วใช่ไหมครับ ดังนั้นเราควรระมัดระวังการเสพสื่อเอาไว้ด้วยว่า คำว่า "ดีต่อโลก" ไม่ได้หมายถึงพืชอย่างเดียว ทุกธุรกิจถ้าทำแบบที่ควรทำ มันยังสามารถผลักดันโลกไม่ให้ตกอยู่ในมือองค์กร future food ได้ เพราะมูลค่ามันสูงมาก
และเมื่อราคาสูง พื้นที่เพาะปลูกก็ขยายอย่างไร้การควบคุม ป่าธรรมชาติในรัฐมิโชอากังถูกแอบโค่นแบบผิดกฎหมายเพื่อแปลงสภาพเป็นไร่ “ทองเขียว” ข้อมูลจาก Reuters พบว่าผลไม้ที่ถูกส่งออกไปยังสหรัฐฯ บางส่วนมาจากแปลงปลูกที่บุกรุกป่าคุ้มครอง และรัฐบาลเองก็ไม่สามารถควบคุมได้เพราะอิทธิพลของกลุ่มทุนและมาเฟีย
ในโดมินิกันก็เช่นกัน มีรายงานจากสำนักข่าว Gestalten ว่าพื้นที่ป่าสงวนหลายพันไร่ถูกเปลี่ยนเป็นไร่อโวคาโด เพื่อป้อนตลาดผู้บริโภคในอเมริกาและยุโรปโดยตรง โดยไม่มีการชดเชยใดๆ แก่ชุมชนท้องถิ่น
สุขภาพที่ดีไม่ควรได้มาจากการทำลายสุขภาพของคนอื่น ไม่ควรมีผลไม้ใดที่ดูดีในจานของเรา แล้วเบื้องหลังเต็มไปด้วยคราบเลือดและน้ำตาของคนปลูก
เฮียไม่ได้จะบอกให้เลิกกินอโวคาโดเลย แต่เฮียอยากให้เรารู้ทัน ว่าความนิยมของอาหารสุขภาพวันนี้ กำลังเป็นสนามใหม่ของกลุ่มทุนโลก ที่พร้อมจะครอบครองด้วย “อำนาจอ่อน” ผ่านแบรนด์อาหารธรรมชาติ ผ่านกฎหมายสิ่งแวดล้อม หรือแม้แต่การครอบงำตลาดเสรีด้วยกำลังอาวุธ
นี่ไม่ใช่เรื่องไกลตัว เพราะเมื่อกลุ่มทุนเริ่มฮุบเมล็ดพันธุ์ คุมเส้นทางขนส่ง คุมฉลาก Certified Organic ทั้งหลาย พวกเขาก็ “ควบคุมสุขภาพ” ของผู้บริโภคเมืองอย่างเราไปด้วยโดยอ้อม
คำถามสำคัญที่มาทุกครั้งเวลามีเนื้อหาอะไรมาฝากคือ แล้วเราจะทำอะไรได้? 555555 - เลือกบริโภคผลไม้จากแหล่งที่โปร่งใสหรือปลูกเองได้ - สนับสนุนเกษตรกรรายย่อยที่ไม่อยู่ภายใต้กลุ่มทุน - ใช้เสียงของผู้บริโภคกดดันให้มีระบบตรวจสอบต้นทางจริง ไม่ใช่แค่ฉลากเขียวสวยๆ - และที่สำคัญ อย่าเชื่อว่า “ทุกสิ่งที่เขาวางให้ดูสุขภาพดี” จะดีจริง (ข้อนี่ละตัวดีเลยครับ)
สุขภาพไม่ใช่สินค้า และอาหารไม่ควรเป็นอาวุธของกลุ่มทุน หากเราเริ่มตระหนักว่าอาหารคือการเมือง น้ำคืออำนาจ และแปลงเกษตรคือสนามรบ เฮียเชื่อว่าผู้บริโภคอย่างเราจะไม่ยอมเป็นหมากอีกต่อไป #pirateketo #กูต้องรู้มั๊ย #ม้วนหางสิลูก #siamstr
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:42Asia has emerged as a powerhouse for bitcoin adoption, with diverse countries across the region embracing the world’s leading digital currency in unique ways.
From institutional investors in Singapore to grassroots movements in Indonesia, the Asian bitcoin ecosystem presents a fascinating tapestry of innovation, regulation, and community-driven initiatives.
We dive deep into the current state of bitcoin adoption across key Asian markets, providing investors with actionable insights into this dynamic region.
The Numbers: Asia’s Bitcoin Dominance
As of early 2025, over 500 million people worldwide hold some form of digital currency, with bitcoin remaining the most widely adopted digital asset. Asia stands at the forefront of this adoption wave, with the Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) region leading the world in digital currency adoption according to Chainalysis’s 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index.
The statistics paint a compelling picture:
- Seven of the top 20 countries in global crypto adoption are located in the CSAO region.
- India and China together comprise almost half of the world’s digital currency user base.
- Japan’s digital currency market is expected to reach 19.43 million users by the end of 2025, with a penetration rate of 15.93%.
Behind these impressive numbers lies a complex ecosystem shaped by diverse factors including regulatory environments, technological infrastructure, economic necessities, and vibrant community initiatives.
Photo Source: Chainalysis
Country-by-Country Analysis
India: The Grassroots Powerhouse
India ranks first in Chainalysis’s Global Crypto Adoption Index, with bitcoin adoption thriving particularly in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. This grassroots movement is driven primarily by:
- Financial inclusion: Bitcoin offers banking-like services to India’s large unbanked population.
- Remittance solutions: Lower fees for the significant Indian diaspora sending money home.
- Mobile wallet proliferation: India’s high smartphone penetration enables easy access to bitcoin services.
Japan: The Regulatory Pioneer
Japan has long played a significant role in bitcoin’s evolution, from hosting some of the earliest exchanges to pioneering regulatory clarity. In 2025, Japan finds itself at a fascinating crossroads:
- The Japan Financial Services Agency is considering reclassifying digital currency assets as financial products akin to stocks, potentially enhancing user protection.
- Major corporations like Metaplanet Inc. are expanding their bitcoin holdings, with plans to increase holdings by 470% to reach 10,000 BTC in 2025.
- The country boasts a thriving grassroots bitcoin community and a strong developer ecosystem.
Bitcoin adoption in Japan is uniquely balanced between institutional involvement and community enthusiasm, with initiatives like Blockstream’s Tokyo office working to promote layer-2 solutions, self-custody, and developer education.
Vietnam: The P2P Leader
Vietnam consistently ranks among the top countries for bitcoin adoption per capita. The country’s relationship with bitcoin is characterized by:
- Strong peer-to-peer (P2P) platform usage for daily transactions and remittances.
- High mobile wallet adoption driving grassroots usage.
- Bitcoin serving as a hedge against local currency fluctuations.
- Relatively favorable regulatory attitude compared to some neighboring countries.
Singapore: The Institutional Hub
Singapore has established itself as Asia’s premier institutional bitcoin destination through:
- Clear and forward-thinking regulatory frameworks, particularly the Payment Services Act.
- Growing presence of global digital currency firms including Gemini, OKX, and HashKey, which have received regulatory approvals.
- A robust financial infrastructure catering to high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors.
While Singapore’s consumer protection-focused framework restricts promotional activities and public advertising by digital currency service providers, the city-state remains a beacon for institutional bitcoin adoption in Asia.
South Korea: Retail Dominance Transitioning to Institutional
South Korea presents a fascinating case study of a market in transition:
- Retail investors currently dominate digital currency trading volume, while institutional participation significantly lags behind.
- Experts expect institutional involvement to increase, though a significant shift may not occur until around 2027.
- The local finance watchdog recently launched a crypto committee to assess permissions for corporate digital currency investors and ETFs.
- Users must access fiat-to-digital currency services through local exchanges with official banking partnerships, linking digital currency activities to legal identities.
Bitcoin Communities: The Grassroots Movements
What truly sets Asia apart in the global bitcoin landscape is the vibrant tapestry of community-driven initiatives across the region. These grassroots movements are instrumental in driving adoption from the ground up.
Bitcoin House Bali: A Community Hub
In Indonesia, the Bitcoin House Bali project exemplifies grassroots innovation. This initiative has transformed an old mining container into a vibrant hub for bitcoin education and community engagement.
Key features include:
- Free workshops (including “Bitcoin for Beginners” and “Bitcoin for Kids”).
- Developer programs including online classes, BitDevs Workshops, and Hackathons.
- A closed-loop economic system that turns bitcoin into community points.
- Merchant onboarding—from restaurants and drivers to scooter rentals and street vendors.
Bitcoin Seoul 2025: Bringing the Community Together
The upcoming Bitcoin Seoul 2025 conference (June 4-6, 2025) represents Asia’s largest bitcoin-focused gathering, bringing together global leaders, executives, and community members.
The event will feature:
- The Bitcoin Policy Summit: Seoul Edition, providing insights into regulatory trends.
- The Bitcoin Finance Forum, addressing institutional investment and treasury management.
- A Global Bitcoin Community Assembly for bitcoin grassroots and community leaders.
- Live Lightning Network payments demonstrations at the on-site Lightning Market.
This event underscores South Korea’s emerging role in the global Bitcoin ecosystem and highlights the growing institutional interest in the region.
Regulatory Landscapes: A Mixed Picture
The regulatory environment for bitcoin across Asia presents a complex and evolving picture that significantly impacts adoption patterns.
Japan’s Regulatory Evolution
Japan is considering tightening regulations on digital asset transactions by reclassifying them as financial products similar to stocks. If implemented, these changes would:
- Require issuers to disclose more detailed information on their corporate status.
- Potentially enhance user protection.
- Come into effect after June 2025, following policy direction outlines by the administration.
Current regulations in Japan are relatively digital currency-friendly, with bitcoin recognized as a legal form of payment under the Payment Services Act since 2016.
Singapore’s Balanced Approach
Singapore maintains a regulatory framework that emphasizes market stability and consumer protection, including:
- Restrictions on promoting digital services in public areas.
- The Payment Services Act that regulates digital currency exchanges.
- A general approach that supports institutional adoption while carefully managing retail exposure.
This balanced approach has helped establish Singapore as a trusted hub for bitcoin businesses and institutional investors.
South Korea’s Transitional Framework
South Korea’s regulatory landscape is in flux, with several developments impacting the bitcoin ecosystem:
- Corporate access to digital currenc
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-05-22 14:01:52Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) are not rushing to stack sats, and Oliver Porter, Founder & CEO of Jippi, understands the challenge better than most. His strategy revolves around adapting Bitcoin education to fit seamlessly into the digital lives of young adults.
“We need to meet them where they are,” Oliver explains. “90% of Gen Z plays games. 70% expect to earn rewards.”
So, what will effectively introduce them to Bitcoin? In Oliver’s mind, the answer is simple: games that don’t feel preachy but still plant the orange pill.
Learn more at Jippi.app
That’s exactly what Jippi is. Based in Austin, Texas, the team has created a mobile augmented reality (AR) game that rewards players in bitcoin and sneakily teaches them why sound money matters.
“It’s Pokémon GO… but for sats,” Oliver puts it succinctly.
Jippi is like Pokemon Go, but for sats
Oliver’s Bitcoin journey, like many in the space, began long before he was ready. A former colleague had tried planting the seed years earlier, handing him a copy of The Bitcoin Standard. But the moment passed.
It wasn’t until the chaos of 2020 when lockdowns hit, printing presses roared, and civil liberties shrank that the message finally landed for him.
“The government got so good at doing reverse Robin Hood,” Oliver explains. “They steal from the working population and reward the rich.”
By 2020, though, the absurdity of the covid hysteria had caused his eyes to be opened and the orange light seemed the best path back to freedom.
He left the UK for Austin “one of the best places for Bitcoiners,” he says, and dove headfirst into the industry, working at Swan for a year before founding Jippi on PlebLab’s accelerator program.
Jippi’s flagship game lets players roam their cities hunting digital creatures, Bitcoin Beasts, tied to real-world locations. Catching them requires answering Bitcoin trivia, and the reward is sats.
No jargon. No hour-long lectures. Just gameplay with sound money principles woven right in.
The model is working. At a recent hackathon in Austin, Jippi beat out 14 other teams to win first place and $15,000 in prize money.
Oliver of Jippi won Top Builder Season 2 — PlebLab on X
“We’re backdooring Bitcoin education,” Oliver admits. “And while we’re at it, encouraging people to get outside and touch grass.”
Not everyone’s been thrilled. When Jippi team members visited one of the more liberal-leaning places in Texas, UT Austin, to test interest in Bitcoin, they found some seriously committed no-coiners on the campus.
“One young woman told me, ‘I would rather die than talk about Bitcoin,'” Oliver recalls, highlighting the cultural resistance that’s built up among younger demographics.
This resistance is backed by hard data. According to Oliver, some of the Bitcoin podcasters they met with in the space to do market research reported that less than 1% of their listeners are from Gen Z and that number is dropping.
“Unless we find a way to capture their interest in a meaningful way, there’s going to be a big problem around trying to sway Gen Z away from the siren call of s***coins and crypto casinos and towards Bitcoin,” Oliver warns.
Jippi’s next big move is Las Vegas, where they’ll launch the Beast Catch experience at the Venetian during a major Bitcoin event. To mark the occasion, they’re opening up six limited sponsorship spots for Bitcoin companies, each one tied to a custom in-game beast.
Jippi looks to launch a special event at Bitcoin 2025
“It’s real estate inside the game,” Oliver explains. “Brands become allies, not intrusions. You get a logo, company name, and call to action, so we can push people to your site or app.”
Bitcoin Well—an automatic self-custody Bitcoin platform—has claimed Beast #1. Only five exclusive spots remain for Bitcoin companies to “beastify their brand” through Jippi’s immersive AR game.
“I love the Jippi mission. I think gamified learning is how we will onboard the next generation and it’s exciting to see what the Jippi team is doing! I love working with bitcoiners towards our common mission – bullish!” said Adam O’Brien, Bitcoin Well CEO.
Jippi’s sponsorship model is simple: align incentives, respect users, and support builders. Instead of throwing ad money at tech giants, Bitcoin companies can connect with new users naturally while they’re having fun and earning sats in the process.
For Bitcoin companies looking to reach a younger demographic, this represents a unique opportunity to showcase their brand to up to 30,000 potential customers at the Vegas event.
Jippi Bitcoin Beast partnership
While Jippi’s current focus is simple, get the game into more cities, Oliver sees a future where AR glasses and AI help personalize Bitcoin education even further.
“The magic is going to really happen when Apple releases the glasses form factor,” he says, describing how augmented reality could enhance real-world connections rather than isolate users.
In the longer term, Jippi aims to evolve from a free-to-play model toward a pay-to-play version with higher stakes. Users would form “tribes” with friends to compete for substantial bitcoin prizes, creating social connections along with financial education.
Unlike VC-backed startups, Jippi is raising funds pleb style via Timestamp, an open investment platform for Bitcoin companies.
“You don’t have to be an accredited investor,” Oliver explains. “You’re directly supporting the parallel Bitcoin economy by investing in Bitcoin companies for equity.”
Anyone can invest as little as $100. Perks include early access, exclusive game content, and even creating your own beast design with your name/pseudonym and unique game lore. Each investment comes with direct ownership of an early-stage Bitcoin company like Jippi.
For Oliver, this is more than just a business. It’s about future-proofing Bitcoin adoption and ensuring Satoshi’s vision lives on, especially as many people are lured by altcoins, NFTs, and social media dopamine.
“We’re on the right side of history,” he says firmly. “I want my grandkids to know that early on in the Bitcoin revolution, games like Jippi helped make it stick.”
In a world increasingly absorbed by screens and short attention spans, Jippi’s combination of outdoor play, sats rewards, and Bitcoin education might be exactly the bridge Gen Z needs.
Interested in sponsoring a Beast or investing in Jippi? Reach out to Jippi directly by heading to their partnerships page on their website or visit their Timestamp page to invest in Jippi today.
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@ c1e9ab3a:9cb56b43
2025-05-18 04:14:48Abstract
This document proposes a novel architecture that decouples the peer-to-peer (P2P) communication layer from the Bitcoin protocol and replaces or augments it with the Nostr protocol. The goal is to improve censorship resistance, performance, modularity, and maintainability by migrating transaction propagation and block distribution to the Nostr relay network.
Introduction
Bitcoin’s current architecture relies heavily on its P2P network to propagate transactions and blocks. While robust, it has limitations in terms of flexibility, scalability, and censorship resistance in certain environments. Nostr, a decentralized event-publishing protocol, offers a multi-star topology and a censorship-resistant infrastructure for message relay.
This proposal outlines how Bitcoin communication could be ported to Nostr while maintaining consensus and verification through standard Bitcoin clients.
Motivation
- Enhanced Censorship Resistance: Nostr’s architecture enables better relay redundancy and obfuscation of transaction origin.
- Simplified Lightweight Nodes: Removing the full P2P stack allows for lightweight nodes that only verify blockchain data and communicate over Nostr.
- Architectural Modularity: Clean separation between validation and communication enables easier auditing, upgrades, and parallel innovation.
- Faster Propagation: Nostr’s multi-star network may provide faster propagation of transactions and blocks compared to the mesh-like Bitcoin P2P network.
Architecture Overview
Components
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Bitcoin Minimal Node (BMN):
- Verifies blockchain and block validity.
- Maintains UTXO set and handles mempool logic.
- Connects to Nostr relays instead of P2P Bitcoin peers.
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Bridge Node:
- Bridges Bitcoin P2P traffic to and from Nostr relays.
- Posts new transactions and blocks to Nostr.
- Downloads mempool content and block headers from Nostr.
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Nostr Relays:
- Accept Bitcoin-specific event kinds (transactions and blocks).
- Store mempool entries and block messages.
- Optionally broadcast fee estimation summaries and tipsets.
Event Format
Proposed reserved Nostr
kind
numbers for Bitcoin content (NIP/BIP TBD):| Nostr Kind | Purpose | |------------|------------------------| | 210000 | Bitcoin Transaction | | 210001 | Bitcoin Block Header | | 210002 | Bitcoin Block | | 210003 | Mempool Fee Estimates | | 210004 | Filter/UTXO summary |
Transaction Lifecycle
- Wallet creates a Bitcoin transaction.
- Wallet sends it to a set of configured Nostr relays.
- Relays accept and cache the transaction (based on fee policies).
- Mining nodes or bridge nodes fetch mempool contents from Nostr.
- Once mined, a block is submitted over Nostr.
- Nodes confirm inclusion and update their UTXO set.
Security Considerations
- Sybil Resistance: Consensus remains based on proof-of-work. The communication path (Nostr) is not involved in consensus.
- Relay Discoverability: Optionally bootstrap via DNS, Bitcoin P2P, or signed relay lists.
- Spam Protection: Relay-side policy, rate limiting, proof-of-work challenges, or Lightning payments.
- Block Authenticity: Nodes must verify all received blocks and reject invalid chains.
Compatibility and Migration
- Fully compatible with current Bitcoin consensus rules.
- Bridge nodes preserve interoperability with legacy full nodes.
- Nodes can run in hybrid mode, fetching from both P2P and Nostr.
Future Work
- Integration with watch-only wallets and SPV clients using verified headers via Nostr.
- Use of Nostr’s social graph for partial trust assumptions and relay reputation.
- Dynamic relay discovery using Nostr itself (relay list events).
Conclusion
This proposal lays out a new architecture for Bitcoin communication using Nostr to replace or augment the P2P network. This improves decentralization, censorship resistance, modularity, and speed, while preserving consensus integrity. It encourages innovation by enabling smaller, purpose-built Bitcoin nodes and offloading networking complexity.
This document may become both a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP-XXX) and a Nostr Improvement Proposal (NIP-XXX). Event kind range reserved: 210000–219999.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:40Global fintech leader Revolut has announced a landmark partnership with Lightspark, a pioneer in blockchain infrastructure solutions, to integrate bitcoin’s Lightning Network into its platform.
This collaboration, now live for Revolut users in the UK and select European Economic Area (EEA) countries, marks a transformative leap toward frictionless, real-time transactions—eliminating delays and exorbitant fees traditionally associated with digital asset transfers.
Major update: @RevolutApp is now partnering with @lightspark pic.twitter.com/OUblgrj6Xr
— Lightspark (@lightspark) May 7, 2025
Breaking Barriers in Digital Currency Usability
By adopting Lightspark’s cutting-edge technology, Revolut empowers its 40+ million customers to execute bitcoin transactions instantly at a fraction of current costs.
This integration addresses longstanding pain points in digital currency adoption, positioning bitcoin as a practical tool for everyday payments. Users can now seamlessly send, receive, and store bitcoin with the same ease as traditional fiat currencies, backed by Revolut’s secure platform.
The partnership also advances Revolut’s integration into the open Money Grid, a decentralized network enabling universal interoperability between financial platforms.
This move aligns Revolut with forward-thinking fintechs adopting next-gen solutions like Lightning transactions and Universal Money Addresses (UMA), which simplify cross-border payments by replacing complex wallet codes with human-readable addresses (e.g., $john.smith).
Why This Matters
The collaboration challenges conventional payment rails, which often incur delays of days and high fees for cross-border transfers. By contrast, Lightning Network transactions settle in seconds for minimal cost, revolutionizing peer-to-peer payments, remittances, and merchant settlements. For Revolut users, this means:
- Instant transactions: Send bitcoin globally in under three seconds.
- Near-zero fees: Dramatically reduce costs compared to traditional crypto transfers.
- Enhanced utility: Use bitcoin for daily spending, not just as a speculative asset.
The Road Ahead
Revolut plans to expand Lightning Network access to additional markets in 2025, with ambitions to integrate UMA support for seamless fiat and digital currency interactions. Lightspark will continue optimizing its infrastructure to support Revolut’s scaling efforts, further bridging the gap between blockchain innovation and mainstream finance.
About Revolut
Revolut is a global financial app serving over 40 million customers worldwide. Offering services ranging from currency exchange and stock trading to digital assets and insurance, Revolut is committed to building a borderless financial ecosystem.About Lightspark
Founded by former PayPal and Meta executives, Lightspark develops enterprise-grade solutions for the Lightning Network. Its technology stack empowers institutions to harness bitcoin’s speed and efficiency while maintaining regulatory compliance. -
@ 57d1a264:69f1fee1
2025-05-22 13:13:36Graphics materials for Bitcoin Knots https://github.com/bitcoinknots branding. See below guide image for reference, a bit cleaner and scalable:
Font family "Aileron" is provided free for personal and commercial use, and can be found here: https://www.1001fonts.com/aileron-font.html
Source: https://github.com/Blissmode/bitcoinknots-gfx/tree/main
https://stacker.news/items/986624
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:39In the heart of East Africa, where M-Pesa reigns supreme and innovation pulses through bustling markets, a quiet revolution is brewing—one that could redefine how millions interact with money.
Enter Bitika, the Kenyan startup turning bitcoin’s complexity into a three-step dance, merging the lightning speed of sats with the trusted rhythm of mobile money.
At the helm is a founder whose “aha” moment came not in a boardroom, but at his kitchen table, watching his father grapple with the gap between understanding bitcoin and actually using it.
Bitika was born from that friction—a bridge between M-Pesa’s ubiquity and bitcoin’s borderless promise, wrapped in a name as playful as the Swahili slang that inspired it.
But this isn’t just a story about simplifying transactions. It’s about liquidity battles, regulatory tightropes, and a vision to turn Bitika into the invisible rails powering Africa’s Bitcoin future.
Building on Bitcoin
- Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into bitcoin/fintech, and what keeps you passionate about this space?
I first came across bitcoin in 2020, but like many at that time, I didn’t fully grasp what it really was. It sounded too complicated, probably with the heavy terminologies. Over time, I kept digging deeper and became more curious.
I started digging into finance and how money works and realised this was what I needed to understand bitcoin’s objectives. I realized that bitcoin wasn’t just a new type of money—it was a breakthrough in how we think about freedom, ownership, and global finance.
What keeps me passionate is how bitcoin can empower people—especially in Africa—to take control of their wealth, without relying on unstable systems or middlemen.
- What pivotal moment or experience inspired you to create Bitika? Was there a specific gap in Kenya’s financial ecosystem that sparked the idea?
Yes, this idea was actually born right in my own home. I’ve always been an advocate for bitcoin, sharing it with friends, family, and even strangers. My dad and I had countless conversations about it. Eventually, he understood the concept. But when he asked, “How do I even buy bitcoin?” or “Can you just buy it for me?” and after taking him through binance—that hit me.
If someone I’d educated still found the buying process difficult, how many others were feeling the same way? That was the lightbulb moment. I saw a clear gap: the process of buying bitcoin was too technical for the average Kenyan. That’s the problem Bitika set out to solve.
- How did you identify the synergy between bitcoin and M-Pesa as a solution for accessibility?
M-Pesa is at the center of daily life in Kenya. Everyone uses it—from buying groceries to paying rent. Instead of forcing people to learn new tools, I decided to meet them where they already are. That synergy between M-Pesa and bitcoin felt natural. It’s about bridging what people already trust with something powerful and new.
- Share the story behind the name “Bitika” – does it hold a cultural or symbolic meaning?
Funny enough, Bitika isn’t a deeply planned name. It came while I was thinking about bitcoin and the type of transformation it brings to individuals. In Swahili, we often add “-ka” to words for flair—like “bambika” from “bamba.”
So, I just coined Bitika as a playful and catchy way to reflect something bitcoin-related, but also uniquely local. I stuck with it because thinking of an ideal brand name is the toughest challenge for me.
- Walk us through the user journey – how does buying bitcoin via M-Pesa in “3 simple steps” work under the hood?
It’s beautifully simple.
1. The user enters the amount they want to spend in KES—starting from as little as 50 KES (about $0.30).
2. They input their Lightning wallet address.
3. They enter their M-Pesa number, which triggers an STK push (payment prompt) on their phone. Once confirmed—pap!—they receive bitcoin almost instantly.
Under the hood, we fetch the live BTC price, validate wallet addresses, check available liquidity, process the mobile payment, and send sats via the Lightning Network—all streamlined into a smooth experience for the user.
- Who’s Bitika’s primary audience? Are you focusing on unbanked populations, tech enthusiasts, or both?
Both. Bitika is designed for everyday people—especially the unbanked and underbanked who are excluded from traditional finance. But we also attract bitcoiners who just want a faster, easier way to buy sats. What unites them is the desire for a seamless and low-barrier bitcoin experience.
Community and Overcoming Challenges
- What challenges has Bitika faced navigating Kenya’s bitcoin regulations, and how do you build trust with regulators?
Regulation is still evolving here. Parliament has drafted bills, but none have been passed into law yet. We’re currently in a revision phase where policymakers are trying to strike a balance between encouraging innovation and protecting the public.
We focus on transparency and open dialogue—we believe that building trust with regulators starts with showing how bitcoin can serve the public good.
- What was the toughest obstacle in building Bitika, and how did you overcome it?
Liquidity. Since we don’t have deep capital reserves, we often run into situations where we have to pause operations often to manually restock our bitcoin supply. It’s frustrating—for us and for users. We’re working on automating this process and securing funding to maintain consistent liquidity so users can access bitcoin at any time, without disruption.
This remains our most critical issue—and the primary reason we’re seeking support.
- Are you eyeing new African markets? What’s next for Bitika’s product?
Absolutely. The long-term vision is to expand Bitika into other African countries facing similar financial challenges. But first, we want to turn Bitika into a developer-first tool—infrastructure that others can build on. Imagine local apps, savings products, or financial tools built using Bitika’s simple bitcoin rails. That’s where we’re heading.
- What would you tell other African entrepreneurs aiming to disrupt traditional finance?
Disrupting finance sounds exciting—but the reality is messy. People fear what they don’t understand. That’s why simplicity is everything. Build tools that hide the complexity, and focus on making the user’s life easier. Most importantly, stay rooted in local context—solve problems people actually face.
What’s Next?
- What’s your message to Kenyans hesitant to try bitcoin, and to enthusiasts watching Bitika?
To my fellow Kenyans: bitcoin isn’t just an investment—it’s a sovereign tool. It’s money you truly own. Start small, learn, and ask questions.
To the bitcoin community: Bitika is proof that bitcoin is working in Africa. Let’s keep pushing. Let’s build tools that matter.
- How can the bitcoin community, both locally and globally, support Bitika’s mission?
We’re currently fundraising on Geyser. Support—whether it’s financial, technical, or simply sharing our story—goes a long way. Every sat you contribute helps us stay live, grow our liquidity, and continue building a tool that brings bitcoin closer to the everyday person in Africa.
Support here: https://geyser.fund/project/bitika
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-05-24 05:01:14The exchange reveals the extent of the breach that occurred last December as federal authorities investigate the recent data leak.
Coinbase has disclosed that the personal data of 69,461 users was compromised during the breach in December 2024, according to documentation filed with the Maine Attorney General’s Office.
The disclosure comes after Coinbase announced last week that a group of hackers had demanded a $20 million ransom, threatening to publish the stolen data on the dark web. The attackers allegedly bribed overseas customer service agents to extract information from the company’s systems.
Coinbase had previously stated that the breach affected less than 1% of its user base, compromising KYC (Know Your Customer) data such as names, addresses, and email addresses. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company clarified that passwords, private keys, and user funds were not affected.
Following the reports, the SEC has reportedly opened an official investigation to verify whether Coinbase may have inflated user metrics ahead of its 2021 IPO. Separately, the Department of Justice is investigating the breach at Coinbase’s request, according to CEO Brian Armstrong.
Meanwhile, Coinbase has faced criticism for its delayed response to the data breach. Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, stated that the stolen data could cause irreparable harm. In a post on X, Arrington wrote:
“The human cost, denominated in misery, is much larger than the $400m or so they think it will actually cost the company to reimburse people. The consequences to companies who do not adequately protect their customer information should include, without limitation, prison time for executives.”
Coinbase estimates the incident could cost between $180 million and $400 million in remediation expenses and customer reimbursements.
Arrington also condemned KYC laws as ineffective and dangerous, calling on both regulators and companies to better protect user data:
“Combining these KYC laws with corporate profit maximization and lax laws on penalties for hacks like these means these issues will continue to happen. Both governments and corporations need to step up to stop this. As I said, the cost can only be measured in human suffering.”
The post Coinbase: 69,461 users affected by December 2024 data breach appeared first on Atlas21.
-
@ 57d1a264:69f1fee1
2025-05-22 12:36:20Graphics materials for Bitcoin Knots https://github.com/bitcoinknots branding. See below guide image for reference, a bit cleaner and scalable:
Font family "Aileron" is provided free for personal and commercial use, and can be found here: https://www.1001fonts.com/aileron-font.html
Source: https://github.com/Blissmode/bitcoinknots-gfx/tree/main
https://stacker.news/items/986587
-
@ b7274d28:c99628cb
2025-05-24 01:02:32A few months ago, a nostrich was switching from iOS to Android and asked for suggestions for #Nostr apps to try out. nostr:npub18ams6ewn5aj2n3wt2qawzglx9mr4nzksxhvrdc4gzrecw7n5tvjqctp424 offered the following as his response:
nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzq0mhp4ja8fmy48zuk5p6uy37vtk8tx9dqdwcxm32sy8nsaa8gkeyqydhwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehgunsd3jkyuewvdhk6tcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhszythwden5te0dehhxarj9emkjmn99uqzpwwts6n28eyvjpcwvu5akkwu85eg92dpvgw7cgmpe4czdadqvnv984rl0z
Yes. #Android users are fortunate to have some powerful Nostr apps and tools at our disposal that simply have no comparison over on the iOS side. However, a tool is only as good as the knowledge of the user, who must have an understanding of how best to wield it for maximum effect. This fact was immediately evidenced by replies to Derek asking, "What is the use case for Citrine?" and "This is the first time I'm hearing about Citrine and Pokey. Can you give me links for those?"
Well, consider this tutorial your Nostr starter-kit for Android. We'll go over installing and setting up Amber, Amethyst, Citrine, and Pokey, and as a bonus we'll be throwing in the Zapstore and Coinos to boot. We will assume no previous experience with any of the above, so if you already know all about one or more of these apps, you can feel free to skip that tutorial.
So many apps...
You may be wondering, "Why do I need so many apps to use Nostr?" That's perfectly valid, and the honest answer is, you don't. You can absolutely just install a Nostr client from the Play Store, have it generate your Nostr identity for you, and stick with the default relays already set up in that app. You don't even need to connect a wallet, if you don't want to. However, you won't experience all that Nostr has to offer if that is as far as you go, any more than you would experience all that Italian cuisine has to offer if you only ever try spaghetti.
Nostr is not just one app that does one thing, like Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok. It is an entire ecosystem of applications that are all built on top of a protocol that allows them to be interoperable. This set of tools will help you make the most out of that interoperability, which you will never get from any of the big-tech social platforms. It will provide a solid foundation for you to build upon as you explore more and more of what Nostr has to offer.
So what do these apps do?
Fundamental to everything you do on Nostr is the need to cryptographically sign with your private key. If you aren't sure what that means, just imagine that you had to enter your password every time you hit the "like" button on Facebook, or every time you commented on the latest dank meme. That would get old really fast, right? That's effectively what Nostr requires, but on steroids.
To keep this from being something you manually have to do every 5 seconds when you post a note, react to someone else's note, or add a comment, Nostr apps can store your private key and use it to sign behind the scenes for you. This is very convenient, but it means you are trusting that app to not do anything with your private key that you don't want it to. You are also trusting it to not leak your private key, because anyone who gets their hands on it will be able to post as you, see your private messages, and effectively be you on Nostr. The more apps you give your private key to, the greater your risk that it will eventually be compromised.
Enter #Amber, an application that will store your private key in only one app, and all other compatible Nostr apps can communicate with it to request a signature, without giving any of those other apps access to your private key.
Most Nostr apps for Android now support logging in and signing with Amber, and you can even use it to log into apps on other devices, such as some of the web apps you use on your PC. It's an incredible tool given to us by nostr:npub1w4uswmv6lu9yel005l3qgheysmr7tk9uvwluddznju3nuxalevvs2d0jr5, and only available for Android users. Those on iPhone are incredibly jealous that they don't have anything comparable, yet.
Speaking of nostr:npub1w4uswmv6lu9yel005l3qgheysmr7tk9uvwluddznju3nuxalevvs2d0jr5, the next app is also one of his making.
All Nostr data is stored on relays, which are very simple servers that Nostr apps read notes from and write notes to. In most forms of social media, it can be a pain to get your own data out to keep a backup. That's not the case on Nostr. Anyone can run their own relay, either for the sake of backing up their personal notes, or for others to post their notes to, as well.
Since Nostr notes take up very little space, you can actually run a relay on your phone. I have been on Nostr for almost 2 and a half years, and I have 25,000+ notes of various kinds on my relay, and a backup of that full database is just 24MB on my phone's storage.
Having that backup can save your bacon if you try out a new Nostr client and it doesn't find your existing follow list for some reason, so it writes a new one and you suddenly lose all of the people you were following. Just pop into your #Citrine relay, confirm it still has your correct follow list or import it from a recent backup, then have Citrine restore it. Done.
Additionally, there are things you may want to only save to a relay you control, such as draft messages that you aren't ready to post publicly, or eCash tokens, which can actually be saved to Nostr relays now. Citrine can also be used with Amber for signing into certain Nostr applications that use a relay to communicate with Amber.
If you are really adventurous, you can also expose Citrine over Tor to be used as an outbox relay, or used for peer-to-peer private messaging, but that is far more involved than the scope of this tutorial series.
You can't get far in Nostr without a solid and reliable client to interact with. #Amethyst is the client we will be using for this tutorial because there simply isn't another Android client that comes close, so far. Moreover, it can be a great client for new users to get started on, and yet it has a ton of features for power-users to take advantage of as well.
There are plenty of other good clients to check out over time, such as Coracle, YakiHonne, Voyage, Olas, Flotilla and others, but I keep coming back to Amethyst, and by the time you finish this tutorial, I think you'll see why. nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z and others who have contributed to Amethyst have really built something special in this client, and it just keeps improving with every update that's shipped.
Most social media apps have some form of push notifications, and some Nostr apps do, too. Where the issue comes in is that Nostr apps are all interoperable. If you have more than one application, you're going to have both of them notifying you. Nostr users are known for having five or more Nostr apps that they use regularly. If all of them had notifications turned on, it would be a nightmare. So maybe you limit it to only one of your Nostr apps having notifications turned on, but then you are pretty well locked-in to opening that particular app when you tap on the notification.
Pokey, by nostr:npub1v3tgrwwsv7c6xckyhm5dmluc05jxd4yeqhpxew87chn0kua0tjzqc6yvjh, solves this issue, allowing you to turn notifications off for all of your Nostr apps, and have Pokey handle them all for you. Then, when you tap on a Pokey notification, you can choose which Nostr app to open it in.
Pokey also gives you control over the types of things you want to be notified about. Maybe you don't care about reactions, and you just want to know about zaps, comments, and direct messages. Pokey has you covered. It even supports multiple accounts, so you can get notifications for all the npubs you control.
One of the most unique and incredibly fun aspects of Nostr is the ability to send and receive #zaps. Instead of merely giving someone a 👍️ when you like something they said, you can actually send them real value in the form of sats, small portions of a Bitcoin. There is nothing quite like the experience of receiving your first zap and realizing that someone valued what you said enough to send you a small amount (and sometimes not so small) of #Bitcoin, the best money mankind has ever known.
To be able to have that experience, though, you are going to need a wallet that can send and receive zaps, and preferably one that is easy to connect to Nostr applications. My current preference for that is Alby Hub, but not everyone wants to deal with all that comes along with running a #Lightning node. That being the case, I have opted to use nostr:npub1h2qfjpnxau9k7ja9qkf50043xfpfy8j5v60xsqryef64y44puwnq28w8ch for this tutorial, because they offer one of the easiest wallets to set up, and it connects to most Nostr apps by just copy/pasting a connection string from the settings in the wallet into the settings in your Nostr app of choice.
Additionally, even though #Coinos is a custodial wallet, you can have it automatically transfer any #sats over a specified threshold to a separate wallet, allowing you to mitigate the custodial risk without needing to keep an eye on your balance and make the transfer manually.
Most of us on Android are used to getting all of our mobile apps from one souce: the Google Play Store. That's not possible for this tutorial series. Only one of the apps mentioned above is available in Google's permissioned playground. However, on Android we have the advantage of being able to install whatever we want on our device, just by popping into our settings and flipping a toggle. Indeed, thumbing our noses at big-tech is at the heart of the Nostr ethos, so why would we make ourselves beholden to Google for installing Nostr apps?
The nostr:npub10r8xl2njyepcw2zwv3a6dyufj4e4ajx86hz6v4ehu4gnpupxxp7stjt2p8 is an alternative app store made by nostr:npub1wf4pufsucer5va8g9p0rj5dnhvfeh6d8w0g6eayaep5dhps6rsgs43dgh9 as a resource for all sorts of open-source apps, but especially Nostr apps. What is more, you can log in with Amber, connect a wallet like Coinos, and support the developers of your favorite Nostr apps directly within the #Zapstore by zapping their app releases.
One of the biggest features of the Zapstore is the fact that developers can cryptographically sign their app releases using their Nostr keys, so you know that the app you are downloading is the one they actually released and hasn't been altered in any way. The Zapstore will warn you and won't let you install the app if the signature is invalid.
Getting Started
Since the Zapstore will be the source we use for installing most of the other apps mentioned, we will start with installing the Zapstore.
We will then use the Zapstore to install Amber and set it up with our Nostr account, either by creating a new private key, or by importing one we already have. We'll also use it to log into the Zapstore.
Next, we will install Amethyst from the Zapstore and log into it via Amber.
After this, we will install Citrine from the Zapstore and add it as a local relay on Amethyst.
Because we want to be able to send and receive zaps, we will set up a wallet with CoinOS and connect it to Amethyst and the Zapstore using Nostr Wallet Connect.
Finally, we will install Pokey using the Zapstore, log into it using Amber, and set up the notifications we want to receive.
By the time you are done with this series, you will have a great head-start on your Nostr journey compared to muddling through it all on your own. Moreover, you will have developed a familiarity with how things generally work on Nostr that can be applied to other apps you try out in the future.
Continue to Part 2: Installing the Zapstore. (Coming Soon)
-
@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:37Custodial Lightning wallets allow users to transact without managing private keys or channel liquidity. The provider handles technical complexities, but this convenience comes with critical trade-offs:
- You don’t control your keys: The custodian holds your bitcoin.
- Centralized points of failure: Servers can be hacked or shut down.
- Surveillance risks: Providers track transaction metadata.
Key Risks of Custodial Lightning Wallets
*1. Hacks and Exit Scams*
Custodians centralize large amounts of bitcoin, attracting hackers:
- Nearly $2.2 billion worth of funds were stolen from hacks in 2024.
- Lightning custodians suffered breaches, losing user funds.
Unlike non-custodial wallets, victims have no recourse since they don’t hold keys.
*2. Censorship and Account Freezes*
Custodians comply with regulators, risking fund seizures:
- Strike (a custodial Lightning app) froze accounts of users in sanctioned regions.
- A U.K. court in 2020 ordered Bitfinex to freeze bitcoin worth $860,000 after the exchange and blockchain sleuthing firm Chainalysis traced the funds to a ransomware payment.
*3. Privacy Erosion*
Custodians log user activity, exposing sensitive data:
- Transaction amounts, receiver addresses, and IPs are recorded.
*4. Service Downtime*
Centralized infrastructure risks outages.
*5. Inflation of Lightning Network Centralization*
Custodians dominate liquidity, weakening network resilience:
- At the moment, 10% of the nodes on Lightning control 80% of the liquidity.
- This centralization contradicts bitcoin’s decentralized ethos.
How to Switch to Self-Custodial Lightning Wallets
Migrating from custodial services is straightforward:
*1. Choose a Non-Custodial Wallet*
Opt for wallets that let you control keys and channels:
- Flash: The self-custodial tool that lets you own your keys, control your coins, and transact instantly.
- Breez Wallet : Non-custodial, POS integrations.
- Core Lightning : Advanced, for self-hosted node operators.
*2. Transfer Funds Securely*
- Withdraw funds from your custodial wallet to a bitcoin on-chain address.
- Send bitcoin to your non-custodial Lightning wallet.
*3. Set Up Channel Backups*
Use tools like Static Channel Backups (SCB) to recover channels if needed.
*4. Best Practices*
- Enable Tor: Mask your IP (e.g., Breez’s built-in Tor support).
- Verify Receiving Addresses: Avoid phishing scams.
- Regularly Rebalance Channels: Use tools like Lightning Pool for liquidity.
Why Self-Custodial Lightning Matters
- Self-custody: Control your keys and funds.
- Censorship resistance: No third party can block transactions.
- Network health: Decentralized liquidity strengthens Lightning.
Self-custodial wallets now rival custodial ease.
Custodial Lightning wallets sacrifice security for convenience, putting users at risk of hacks, surveillance, and frozen funds. As bitcoin adoption grows, so does the urgency to embrace self-custodial solutions.
Take action today:
- Withdraw custodial funds to a hardware wallet.
- Migrate to a self-custodial Lightning wallet.
- Educate others on the risks of custodial control.
The Lightning Network’s potential hinges on decentralization—don’t let custodians become its Achilles’ heel.
-
@ 57d1a264:69f1fee1
2025-05-22 06:21:22You’ve probably seen it before.
You open an agency’s website or a freelancer’s portfolio. At the very top of the homepage, it says:
We design for startups.
You wait 3 seconds. The last word fades out and a new one fades in:
We design for agencies.
Wait 3 more seconds:
We design for founders.
I call this design pattern The Wheel of Nothing: a rotating list of audience segments meant to impress through inclusion and draw attention through motion… for absolutely no reason.
Revered brand studio Pentagram recently launched a new website. To my surprise, the homepage features the Wheel of Nothing front and center, boldly claiming:
We design Everything for Everyone…before cycling through more specific combinations every few seconds.
Dan Mall, a husband, dad, teacher, creative director, designer, founder, and entrepreneur from Philly. I share as much as I can to create better opportunities for those who wouldn’t have them otherwise. Most recently, I ran design system consultancy SuperFriendly for over a decade.
Read more at Dans' website https://danmall.com/posts/the-wheel-of-nothing/
https://stacker.news/items/986392
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@ c9badfea:610f861a
2025-05-24 00:16:49Before you post a message or article online, let the LLM check if you are leaking any personal information using this prompt:
Analyze the following text to identify any Personally Identifiable Information (PII): <Your Message>
Replace
<Your Message>
with your textIf no PII is found, continue by modifying your message to detach it from your personality. You can use any of the following prompts (and further modify it if necessary).
Prompt #1 - Reddit-Style
Convert the message into a casual, Reddit-style post without losing meaning. Split the message into shorter statements with the same overall meaning. Here is the message: <Your Message>
Prompt #2 - Advanced Modifications
``` Apply the following modifications to the message: - Rewrite it in lowercase - Use "u" instead of "you" - Use "akchoaly" instead of "actually" - Use "hav" instead of "have" - Use "tgat" instead of "that" - Use comma instead of period - Use British English grammar
Here is the message:
``` Prompt #3 - Neutral Tone
Rewrite the message to correct grammar errors, and ensure the tone is neutral and free of emotional language: <Your Message>
Prompt #4 - Cross Translation Technique
Translate the message into Chinese, then translate the resulting Chinese text back into English. Provide only the final English translation. Here is the message: <Your Message>
Check the modified message and send it.
ℹ️ You can use dialects to obfuscate your language further. For example, if you are from the US, you can tell the LLM to use British or Australian slang. If you are from Brazil, tell it to use the European Portuguese variant.
⚠️ Always verify the results. Don't fully trust an LLM.
-
@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-05-24 05:01:11Bitcoin surpasses gold in the United States: 50 million holders and a dominant role in the global market.
According to a new report by River, for the first time in history, the number of Americans owning bitcoin has surpassed that of gold holders. The analysis reveals that approximately 50 million U.S. citizens currently own the cryptocurrency, while gold owners number 37 million. In fact, 14.3% of Americans own bitcoin, the highest percentage of holders worldwide.
Source: River
The report highlights that 40% of all Bitcoin-focused companies are based in the United States, consolidating America’s dominant position in the sector. Additionally, 40.5% of Bitcoin holders are men aged 31 to 35, followed by 35.9% of men aged 41 to 45. In contrast, only 13.4% of holders are women.
Source: River
Notably, U.S. companies hold 94.8% of all bitcoins owned by publicly traded companies worldwide. According to the report, recent regulatory changes in the U.S. have made the asset more accessible through financial products such as spot ETFs.
The document also shows that American investors increasingly view the cryptocurrency as protection against fiscal instability and inflation, appreciating its limited supply and decentralized governance model.
For River, Bitcoin offers significant practical advantages over gold in the modern digital era. Its ease of custody, cross-border transfer, and liquidity make the cryptocurrency an attractive option for both individual and institutional investors, the report suggests.
The post USA: 50 million Americans own bitcoin appeared first on Atlas21.
-
@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:36The upcoming Bitcoin 2025 conference, scheduled from May 27–29 at the Venetian Conference Center in Las Vegas, is set to make history with an official attempt to break the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® title for the most Bitcoin point-of-sale transactions in an eight-hour period.
Organized by BTC Inc, the event will showcase Bitcoin’s evolution from a digital capital asset to a practical medium of exchange, leveraging the latest advancements in payment technology.
Tap-to-Pay with Lightning-Ready Bolt Cards
To facilitate this record-setting attempt, 4,000 Lightning-ready Bolt Cards will be distributed to conference attendees.
— Uncle Rockstar Developer (@r0ckstardev) May 15, 2025
These NFC-enabled cards allow users to make instant, contactless Bitcoin payments at vendor booths throughout the expo-no apps or QR codes required, just a simple tap.
The cards are available in four collectible designs, each featuring a prominent figure in Bitcoin’s history: Senator Cynthia Lummis, Michael Saylor, Satoshi Nakamoto, and Jack Dorsey.
Each attendee will receive a randomly assigned card, making them both functional and collectible souvenirs.
Senator Lummis: A Playful Provocation
Notably, one of the card designs features Senator Cynthia Lummis with laser eyes-a playful nod to her reputation as a leading Bitcoin advocate in US politics.
While Lummis is known for her legislative efforts to promote Bitcoin integration, she has publicly stated she prefers to “spend dollars and save Bitcoin,” viewing BTC as a long-term store of value rather than a daily currency.
The choice to feature her on the Bolt Card, could be suggested by Rockstar Dev of the BTC Pay Server Foundation, perhaps a lighthearted way to highlight the ongoing debate about Bitcoin’s role in everyday payments.
Nothing cracks me up quite like a senator that wants the US to buy millions of Bitcoin use dollars to buy a beer at a Bitcoin bar.
This is how unserious some of you are. pic.twitter.com/jftIEggmip
— Magoo PhD (@HodlMagoo) April 4, 2025
How Bolt Cards and the Lightning Network Work
Bolt Cards are physical cards equipped with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, similar to contactless credit or debit cards. When linked to a compatible Lightning wallet, they enable users to make Bitcoin payments over the Lightning Network by simply tapping the card at a point-of-sale terminal.
The Lightning Network is a second-layer protocol built on top of Bitcoin, designed to facilitate instant, low-cost transactions ideal for everyday purchases.
This integration aims to make Bitcoin as easy to use as traditional payment methods, eliminating the need for QR code scanning or mobile apps.
A Showcase for Bitcoin’s Real-World Usability
With over 30,000 attendees, 300 exhibitors, and 500 speakers expected, the Bitcoin 2025 conference is poised to be the largest Bitcoin event of the year-and potentially the most transactional.
The event will feature on-site activations such as the Official Bitcoin Magazine Store, where all merchandise will be available at a 21% discount for those paying with Bitcoin via the Lightning Network-a nod to Bitcoin’s 21 million coin supply limit.
By deeply integrating Lightning payments into the conference experience, organizers hope to demonstrate Bitcoin’s readiness for mainstream commerce and set a new benchmark for its practical use as a currency.
Conclusion
The Guinness World Record attempt at Bitcoin 2025 is more than a publicity stunt-it’s a bold demonstration of Bitcoin’s technological maturity and its potential to function as a modern, everyday payment method.
Whether or not the record is set, the event will serve as a milestone in the ongoing journey to make Bitcoin a truly global, user-friendly currency
-
@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:35Flash, an all-in-one Bitcoin payment platform, has announced the launch of Flash 2.0, the most intuitive and powerful Bitcoin payment solution to date.
With a completely redesigned interface, expanded e-commerce integrations, and a frictionless onboarding process, Flash 2.0 makes accepting Bitcoin easier than ever for businesses worldwide.
We did the unthinkable!
Website monetization used to be super complicated.
"Buy me a coffee" — But only if we both have a bank account.
WHAT IF WE DON'T?
Thanks to @paywflash and bitcoin, it's just 5 CLICKS – and no banks!
Start accepting donations on your website… pic.twitter.com/uwZUrvmEZ1
— Flash • The Bitcoin Payment Gateway (@paywflash) May 13, 2025
Accept Bitcoin in Three Minutes
Setting up Bitcoin payments has long been a challenge for merchants, requiring technical expertise, third-party processors, and lengthy verification procedures. Flash 2.0 eliminates these barriers, allowing any business to start accepting Bitcoin in just three minutes, with no technical set-up and full control over their funds.
The Bitcoin Payment Revolution
The world is witnessing a seismic shift in finance. Governments are backing Bitcoin funds, major companies are adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets, and political figures are embracing it as the future of money. Just as Stripe revolutionized internet payments, Flash is now doing the same for Bitcoin. Businesses that adapt today will gain a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving financial landscape.
With Bitcoin adoption accelerating, consumers are looking for places to spend it. Flash 2.0 ensures businesses of all sizes can seamlessly accept Bitcoin and position themselves at the forefront of this financial revolution.
All-in-One Monetization Platform
More than just a payment gateway, Flash 2.0 is a complete Bitcoin monetization suite, providing multiple ways for businesses to integrate Bitcoin into their operations. Merchants can accept payments online and in-store, content creators can monetize with donations and paywalls, and freelancers can send instant invoices via payment links.
For example, a jewelry designer selling products on WooCommerce can now integrate Flash for online payments, use Flash’s Point-of-Sale system at trade shows, enable Bitcoin donations for her digital artwork, and lock premium content behind Flash Paywalls. The possibilities are endless.
E-Commerce for Everyone
With built-in integrations for Shopify, WooCommerce, and soon Wix and OpenCart, Flash 2.0 enables Bitcoin payments on 95% of e-commerce stores worldwide. Businesses can now add Bitcoin as a payment option in just a few clicks—without needing developers or external payment processors.
And for those looking to start selling, Flash’s built-in e-commerce features allow users to create online stores, showcase products, and manage payments seamlessly.
No Middlemen, No Chargebacks, No Limits
Unlike traditional payment platforms, Flash does not hold or process funds. Businesses receive Bitcoin directly, instantly, and securely. There are no chargebacks, giving merchants full control over refunds and eliminating fraud. Flash also remains KYC-free, ensuring a seamless experience for businesses and customers alike.
A Completely Redesigned Experience
“The world is waking up to Bitcoin. Just like the internet revolutionized commerce, Bitcoin is reshaping finance. Businesses need solutions that are simple, efficient, and truly decentralized. Flash 2.0 is more than just a payment processor—it’s a gateway to the future of digital transactions, putting financial power back into the hands of businesses.”
— Pierre Corbin, CEO at Flash.
Flash 2.0 introduces a brand-new user interface, making it easier than ever to navigate, set up payments, and manage transactions. With an intuitive dashboard, streamlined checkout, and enhanced mobile compatibility, the platform is built for both new and experienced Bitcoin users.
About Flash
Flash is an all-in-one Bitcoin payment platform that empowers businesses, creators, and freelancers to accept, manage, and grow with Bitcoin. With a mission to make Bitcoin payments accessible to everyone, Flash eliminates complexity and gives users full control over their funds.
To learn more or get started, visit www.paywithflash.com.
Press Contact:
Julien Bouvier
Head of Marketing
+3360941039 -
@ 611021ea:089a7d0f
2025-05-24 00:00:04The world of health and fitness data is booming. Users are tracking more aspects of their well-being than ever before, from daily steps and workout intensity to sleep patterns and caloric intake. But for developers looking to build innovative applications on this data, significant hurdles remain: ensuring user privacy, achieving interoperability between different services, and simply managing the complexity of diverse health metrics.
Enter the NIP-101h Health Profile Framework and its companion tools: the HealthNote SDK and the HealthNote API. This ecosystem is designed to empower developers to create next-generation health and fitness applications that are both powerful and privacy-preserving, built on the decentralized and user-centric principles of Nostr.
NIP-101h: A Standardized Language for Health Metrics
At the core of this ecosystem is NIP-101h. It's a Nostr Improvement Proposal that defines a standardized way to represent, store, and share granular health and fitness data. Instead of proprietary data silos, NIP-101h introduces specific Nostr event kinds for individual metrics like weight (kind
1351
), height (kind1352
), step count (kind1359
), and many more.Key features of NIP-101h:
- Granularity: Each piece of health information (e.g., weight, caloric intake) is a distinct Nostr event, allowing for fine-grained control and access.
- User Control: Built on Nostr, the data remains under user control. Users decide what to share, with whom, and on which relays.
- Standardization: Defines common structures for units, timestamps, and metadata, promoting interoperability.
- Extensibility: New metrics can be added as new NIP-101h.X specifications, allowing the framework to evolve.
- Privacy by Design: Encourages the use of NIP-04/NIP-44 for encryption and includes a
consent
tag for users to specify data-sharing preferences.
You can explore the full NIP-101h specification and its metric directory in the main project repository.
The HealthNote SDK: Simplifying Client-Side Integration
While NIP-101h provides the "what," the HealthNote SDK provides the "how" for client-side applications. This (currently draft) TypeScript SDK aims to make it trivial for developers to:
- Create & Validate NIP-101h Events: Easily construct well-formed Nostr events for any supported health metric, ensuring they conform to the NIP-101h specification.
- Handle Encryption: Seamlessly integrate with NIP-44 to encrypt sensitive health data before publication.
- Manage Consent: Automatically include appropriate
consent
tags (e.g., defaulting toaggregate-only
) to respect user preferences. - Publish to Relays: Interact with Nostr relays to publish the user's health data.
- Prepare Data for Analytics: Extract minimal, privacy-preserving "stat-blobs" for use with the HealthNote API.
The SDK's goal is to abstract away the low-level details of Nostr event creation and NIP-101h formatting, letting developers focus on their application's unique features.
The HealthNote API: Powerful Insights, Zero Raw Data Exposure
This is where things get really exciting for developers wanting to build data-driven features. The HealthNote API (detailed in
HealthNote-API.md
) is a server-side component designed to provide powerful analytics over aggregated NIP-101h data without ever accessing or exposing individual users' raw, unencrypted metrics.Here's how it achieves this:
- Privacy-Preserving Ingestion: The SDK sends only "stat-blobs" to the API. These blobs contain the numeric value, unit, timestamp, and metric kind, but not the original encrypted content or sensitive user identifiers beyond what's necessary for aggregation.
- Aggregation at its Core: The API's endpoints are designed to return only aggregated data.
GET /trend
: Provides time-series data (e.g., average daily step count over the last month).GET /correlate
: Computes statistical correlations between two metrics (e.g., does increased activity duration correlate with changes in workout intensity?).GET /distribution
: Shows how values for a metric are distributed across the user base.
- Built-in Privacy Techniques:
- k-Anonymity: Ensures that each data point in an aggregated response represents at least 'k' (e.g., 5) distinct users, preventing re-identification.
- Differential Privacy (Optional): Can add statistical noise to query results, further protecting individual data points while preserving overall trends.
- No Raw Data Access for Developers: Developers querying the API receive only these aggregated, anonymized results, perfect for powering charts, dashboards, and trend analysis in their applications.
A Typical Workflow
- A user records a workout in their NIP-101h-compatible fitness app.
- The app uses the HealthNote SDK to create NIP-101h events for metrics like distance, duration, and calories burned. Sensitive data is encrypted.
- The SDK publishes these events to the user's configured Nostr relays.
- The SDK also extracts stat-blobs (e.g.,
{ kind: 1363, value: 5, unit: 'km', ... }
) and sends them to the HealthNote API for ingestion, tagged with anaggregate-only
consent. - Later, the app (or an authorized third-party service) queries the HealthNote API:
GET /trend?kind=1363&bucket=week&stat=sum
. - The API returns a JSON object like:
{"series": [{"date": "2024-W20", "value": 15000}, ...]}
showing the total distance run by all consenting users, week by week. This data can directly populate a trend chart.
Benefits for the Ecosystem
- For Users:
- Greater control and ownership of their health data.
- Ability to use a diverse range of interoperable health and fitness apps.
- Confidence that their data can contribute to insights without sacrificing personal privacy.
- For Developers:
- Easier to build sophisticated health and fitness applications without becoming privacy experts or building complex data aggregation pipelines.
- Access to rich, aggregated data for creating compelling user-facing features (trends, benchmarks, correlations).
- Reduced burden of storing and securing sensitive raw health data for analytical purposes.
- Opportunity to participate in an open, interoperable ecosystem.
The Road Ahead
The NIP-101h framework, the HealthNote SDK, and the HealthNote API are foundational pieces for a new generation of health and fitness applications. As these tools mature and gain adoption, we envision a vibrant ecosystem where users can seamlessly move their data between services, and developers can innovate rapidly, all while upholding the highest standards of privacy and user control.
We encourage developers to explore the NIP-101h specifications, experiment with the (upcoming) SDK, and review the HealthNote API design. Your feedback and contributions will be invaluable as we build this privacy-first future for health data.
https://github.com/HealthNoteLabs
-
@ 348e7eb2:3b0b9790
2025-05-24 05:00:33Nostr-Konto erstellen - funktioniert mit Hex
Was der Button macht
Der folgende Code fügt einen Button hinzu, der per Klick einen Nostr-Anmeldedialog öffnet. Alle Schritte sind im Code selbst ausführlich kommentiert.
```html
```
Erläuterungen:
- Dynamisches Nachladen: Das Script
modal.js
wird nur bei Klick nachgeladen, um Fehlermeldungen beim Initial-Load zu vermeiden. -
Parameter im Überblick:
-
baseUrl
: Quelle für API und Assets. an
: App-Name für den Modal-Header.aa
: Farbakzent (Foerbico-Farbe als Hex).al
: Sprache des Interfaces.am
: Licht- oder Dunkelmodus.afb/asb
: Bunker-Modi für erhöhten Datenschutz.aan/aac
: Steuerung der Rückgabe privater Schlüssel.arr/awr
: Primal Relay als Lese- und Schreib-Relay.-
Callbacks:
-
onComplete
: Schließt das Modal, zeigt eine Bestätigung und bietet die Weiterleitung zu Primal an. onCancel
: Schließt das Modal und protokolliert den Abbruch.
Damit ist der gesamte Code sichtbar, kommentiert und erklärt.
- Dynamisches Nachladen: Das Script
-
@ 2f29aa33:38ac6f13
2025-05-17 12:59:01The Myth and the Magic
Picture this: a group of investors, huddled around a glowing computer screen, nervously watching Bitcoin’s price. Suddenly, someone produces a stick-no ordinary stick, but a magical one. With a mischievous grin, they poke the Bitcoin. The price leaps upward. Cheers erupt. The legend of the Bitcoin stick is born.
But why does poking Bitcoin with a stick make the price go up? Why does it only work for a lucky few? And what does the data say about this mysterious phenomenon? Let’s dig in, laugh a little, and maybe learn the secret to market-moving magic.
The Statistical Side of Stick-Poking
Bitcoin’s Price: The Wild Ride
Bitcoin’s price is famous for its unpredictability. In the past year, it’s soared, dipped, and soared again, sometimes gaining more than 50% in just a few months. On a good day, billions of dollars flow through Bitcoin trades, and the price can jump thousands in a matter of hours. Clearly, something is making this happen-and it’s not just spreadsheets and financial news.
What Actually Moves the Price?
-
Scarcity: Only 21 million Bitcoins will ever exist. When more people want in, the price jumps.
-
Big News: Announcements, rumors, and meme-worthy moments can send the price flying.
-
FOMO: When people see Bitcoin rising, they rush to buy, pushing it even higher.
-
Liquidations: When traders betting against Bitcoin get squeezed, it triggers a chain reaction of buying.
But let’s be honest: none of this is as fun as poking Bitcoin with a stick.
The Magical Stick: Not Your Average Twig
Why Not Every Stick Works
You can’t just grab any old branch and expect Bitcoin to dance. The magical stick is a rare artifact, forged in the fires of internet memes and blessed by the spirit of Satoshi. Only a chosen few possess it-and when they poke, the market listens.
Signs You Have the Magical Stick
-
When you poke, Bitcoin’s price immediately jumps a few percent.
-
Your stick glows with meme energy and possibly sparkles with digital dust.
-
You have a knack for timing your poke right after a big event, like a halving or a celebrity tweet.
-
Your stick is rumored to have been whittled from the original blockchain itself.
Why Most Sticks Fail
-
No Meme Power: If your stick isn’t funny, Bitcoin ignores you.
-
Bad Timing: Poking during a bear market just annoys the blockchain.
-
Not Enough Hype: If the bitcoin community isn’t watching, your poke is just a poke.
-
Lack of Magic: Some sticks are just sticks. Sad, but true.
The Data: When the Stick Strikes
Let’s look at some numbers:
-
In the last month, Bitcoin’s price jumped over 20% right after a flurry of memes and stick-poking jokes.
-
Over the past year, every major price surge was accompanied by a wave of internet hype, stick memes, or wild speculation.
-
In the past five years, Bitcoin’s biggest leaps always seemed to follow some kind of magical event-whether a halving, a viral tweet, or a mysterious poke.
Coincidence? Maybe. But the pattern is clear: the stick works-at least when it’s magical.
The Role of Memes, Magic, and Mayhem
Bitcoin’s price is like a cat: unpredictable, easily startled, and sometimes it just wants to be left alone. But when the right meme pops up, or the right stick pokes at just the right time, the price can leap in ways that defy logic.
The bitcoin community knows this. That’s why, when Bitcoin’s stuck in a rut, you’ll see a flood of stick memes, GIFs, and magical thinking. Sometimes, it actually works.
The Secret’s in the Stick (and the Laughs)
So, does poking Bitcoin with a stick really make the price go up? If your stick is magical-blessed by memes, timed perfectly, and watched by millions-absolutely. The statistics show that hype, humor, and a little bit of luck can move markets as much as any financial report.
Next time you see Bitcoin stalling, don’t just sit there. Grab your stick, channel your inner meme wizard, and give it a poke. Who knows? You might just be the next legend in the world of bitcoin magic.
And if your stick doesn’t work, don’t worry. Sometimes, the real magic is in the laughter along the way.
-aco
@block height: 897,104
-
-
@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3
2025-05-23 23:37:17@grayruby loves to blow up the odds of various sports markets at Predyx. Well, the jig is up, because I finally managed to deposit some sats at BetPlay where I can leverage the mismatched odds.
So, I've now locked in guaranteed wins on the 49ers winning the Super Bowl and the Panthers winning the Stanley Cup.
https://stacker.news/items/987847
-
@ 21335073:a244b1ad
2025-05-21 16:58:36The other day, I had the privilege of sitting down with one of my favorite living artists. Our conversation was so captivating that I felt compelled to share it. I’m leaving his name out for privacy.
Since our last meeting, I’d watched a documentary about his life, one he’d helped create. I told him how much I admired his openness in it. There’s something strange about knowing intimate details of someone’s life when they know so little about yours—it’s almost like I knew him too well for the kind of relationship we have.
He paused, then said quietly, with a shy grin, that watching the documentary made him realize how “odd and eccentric” he is. I laughed and told him he’s probably the sanest person I know. Because he’s lived fully, chasing love, passion, and purpose with hardly any regrets. He’s truly lived.
Today, I turn 44, and I’ll admit I’m a bit eccentric myself. I think I came into the world this way. I’ve made mistakes along the way, but I carry few regrets. Every misstep taught me something. And as I age, I’m not interested in blending in with the world—I’ll probably just lean further into my own brand of “weird.” I want to live life to the brim. The older I get, the more I see that the “normal” folks often seem less grounded than the eccentric artists who dare to live boldly. Life’s too short to just exist, actually live.
I’m not saying to be strange just for the sake of it. But I’ve seen what the crowd celebrates, and I’m not impressed. Forge your own path, even if it feels lonely or unpopular at times.
It’s easy to scroll through the news and feel discouraged. But actually, this is one of the most incredible times to be alive! I wake up every day grateful to be here, now. The future is bursting with possibility—I can feel it.
So, to my fellow weirdos on nostr: stay bold. Keep dreaming, keep pushing, no matter what’s trending. Stay wild enough to believe in a free internet for all. Freedom is radical—hold it tight. Live with the soul of an artist and the grit of a fighter. Thanks for inspiring me and so many others to keep hoping. Thank you all for making the last year of my life so special.
-
@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:33Bitcoin FilmFest (BFF25) returns to Warsaw for its third edition, blending independent cinema—from feature films and commercials to AI-driven experimental visuals—with education and entertainment.
Hundreds of attendees from around the world will gather for three days of screenings, discussions, workshops, and networking at the iconic Kinoteka Cinema (PKiN), the same venue that hosted the festival’s first two editions in March 2023 and April 2024.
This year’s festival, themed “Beyond the Frame,” introduces new dimensions to its program, including an extra day on May 22 to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day, the first real-world bitcoin transaction, with what promises to be one of Europe’s largest commemorations of this milestone.
BFF25 bridges independent film, culture, and technology, with a bold focus on decentralized storytelling and creative expression. As a community-driven cultural experience with a slightly rebellious spirit, Bitcoin FilmFest goes beyond movies, yet cinema remains at its heart.
Here’s a sneak peek at the lineup, specially curated for movie buffs:
Generative Cinema – A special slot with exclusive shorts and a thematic debate on the intersection of AI and filmmaking. Featured titles include, for example: BREAK FREE, SATOSHI: THE CREATION OF BITCOIN, STRANGE CURRENCIES, and BITCOIN IS THE MYCELIUM OF MONEY, exploring financial independence, traps of the fiat system, and a better future built on sound money.
Upcoming Productions Preview – A bit over an hour-long block of unreleased pilots and works-in-progress. Attendees will get exclusive first looks at projects like FINDING HOME (a travel-meets-personal-journey series), PARALLEL SPACES (a story about alternative communities), and THE LEGEND OF LANDI (a mysterious narrative).
Freedom-Focused Ads & Campaigns – Unique screenings of video commercials, animations, and visual projects, culminating in “The PoWies” (Proof of Work-ies)—the first ever awards show honoring the best Bitcoin-only awareness campaigns.
To get an idea of what might come up at the event, here, you can preview 6 selected ads combined into two 2 videos:
Open Pitch Competition – A chance for filmmakers to present fresh ideas and unfinished projects to an audience of a dedicated jury, movie fans and potential collaborators. This competitive block isn’t just entertaining—it’s a real opportunity for creators to secure funding and partnerships.
Golden Rabbit Awards: A lively gala honoring films from the festival’s Official Selection, with awards in categories like Best Feature, Best Story, Best Short, and Audience Choice.
BFF25 Main Screenings
Sample titles from BFF25’s Official Selection:
REVOLUCIÓN BITCOIN – A documentary by Juan Pablo, making its first screening outside the Spanish-speaking world in Warsaw this May. Three years of important work, 80 powerful minutes to experience. The film explores Bitcoin’s impact across Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador, and Spain through around 40 diverse perspectives. Screening in Spanish with English subtitles, followed by a Q&A with the director.
UNBANKABLE – Luke Willms’ directorial debut, drawing from his multicultural roots and his father’s pioneering HIV/AIDS research. An investigative documentary based on Luke’s journeys through seven African countries, diving into financial experiments and innovations—from mobile money and digital lending to Bitcoin—raising smart questions and offering potential lessons for the West. Its May appearance at BFF25 marks its largest European event to date, following festival screenings and nominations across multiple continents over the past year.
HOTEL BITCOIN – A Spanish comedy directed by Manuel Sanabria and Carlos “Pocho” Villaverde. Four friends, 4,000 bitcoins , and one laptop spark a chaotic adventure of parties, love, crime, and a dash of madness. Exploring sound money, value, and relationships through a twisting plot. The film premiered at the Tarazona and Moncayo Comedy Film Festival in August 2024. Its Warsaw screening at BFF25 (in Spanish with English subtitles) marks its first public showing outside the Spanish-speaking world.
Check out trailers for this year’s BFF25 and past editions on YouTube.
Tickets & Info:
- Detailed program and tickets are available at bitcoinfilmfest.com/bff25.
- Stay updated via the festival’s official channels (links provided on the website).
- Use ‘LN-NEWS’ to get 10% of tickets
-
@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:32Starting January 1, 2026, the United Kingdom will impose some of the world’s most stringent reporting requirements on cryptocurrency firms.
All platforms operating in or serving UK customers-domestic and foreign alike-must collect and disclose extensive personal and transactional data for every user, including individuals, companies, trusts, and charities.
This regulatory drive marks the UK’s formal adoption of the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), a global initiative designed to bring crypto oversight in line with traditional banking and to curb tax evasion in the rapidly expanding digital asset sector.
What Will Be Reported?
Crypto firms must gather and submit the following for each transaction:
- User’s full legal name, home address, and taxpayer identification number
- Detailed data on every trade or transfer: type of cryptocurrency, amount, and nature of the transaction
- Identifying information for corporate, trust, and charitable clients
The obligation extends to all digital asset activities, including crypto-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat trades, and applies to both UK residents and non-residents using UK-based platforms. The first annual reports covering 2026 activity are due by May 31, 2027.
Enforcement and Penalties
Non-compliance will carry stiff financial penalties, with fines of up to £300 per user account for inaccurate or missing data-a potentially enormous liability for large exchanges. The UK government has urged crypto firms to begin collecting this information immediately to ensure operational readiness.
Regulatory Context and Market Impact
This move is part of a broader UK strategy to position itself as a global fintech hub while clamping down on fraud and illicit finance. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has championed these measures, stating, “Britain is open for business – but closed to fraud, abuse, and instability”. The regulatory expansion comes amid a surge in crypto adoption: the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority reported that 12% of UK adults owned crypto in 2024, up from just 4% in 2021.
Enormous Risks for Consumers: Lessons from the Coinbase Data Breach
While the new framework aims to enhance transparency and protect consumers, it also dramatically increases the volume of sensitive personal data held by crypto firms-raising the stakes for cybersecurity.
The risks are underscored by the recent high-profile breach at Coinbase, one of the world’s largest exchanges.
In May 2025, Coinbase disclosed that cybercriminals, aided by bribed offshore contractors, accessed and exfiltrated customer data including names, addresses, government IDs, and partial bank details.
The attackers then used this information for sophisticated phishing campaigns, successfully deceiving some customers into surrendering account credentials and funds.
“While private encryption keys remained secure, sufficient customer information was exposed to enable sophisticated phishing attacks by criminals posing as Coinbase personnel.”
Coinbase now faces up to $400 million in compensation costs and has pledged to reimburse affected users, but the incident highlights the systemic vulnerability created when large troves of personal data are centralized-even if passwords and private keys are not directly compromised. The breach also triggered a notable drop in Coinbase’s share price and prompted a $20 million bounty for information leading to the attackers’ capture.
The Bottom Line
The UK’s forthcoming crypto reporting regime represents a landmark in financial regulation, promising greater transparency and tax compliance. However, as the Coinbase episode demonstrates, the aggregation of sensitive user data at scale poses a significant cybersecurity risk.
As regulators push for more oversight, the challenge will be ensuring that consumer protection does not become a double-edged sword-exposing users to new threats even as it seeks to shield them from old ones.
-
@ c1e9ab3a:9cb56b43
2025-05-09 23:10:14I. Historical Foundations of U.S. Monetary Architecture
The early monetary system of the United States was built atop inherited commodity money conventions from Europe’s maritime economies. Silver and gold coins—primarily Spanish pieces of eight, Dutch guilders, and other foreign specie—formed the basis of colonial commerce. These units were already integrated into international trade and piracy networks and functioned with natural compatibility across England, France, Spain, and Denmark. Lacking a centralized mint or formal currency, the U.S. adopted these forms de facto.
As security risks and the practical constraints of physical coinage mounted, banks emerged to warehouse specie and issue redeemable certificates. These certificates evolved into fiduciary media—claims on specie not actually in hand. Banks observed over time that substantial portions of reserves remained unclaimed for years. This enabled fractional reserve banking: issuing more claims than reserves held, so long as redemption demand stayed low. The practice was inherently unstable, prone to panics and bank runs, prompting eventual centralization through the formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.
Following the Civil War and unstable reinstatements of gold convertibility, the U.S. sought global monetary stability. After World War II, the Bretton Woods system formalized the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency. The dollar was nominally backed by gold, but most international dollars were held offshore and recycled into U.S. Treasuries. The Nixon Shock of 1971 eliminated the gold peg, converting the dollar into pure fiat. Yet offshore dollar demand remained, sustained by oil trade mandates and the unique role of Treasuries as global reserve assets.
II. The Structure of Fiduciary Media and Treasury Demand
Under this system, foreign trade surpluses with the U.S. generate excess dollars. These surplus dollars are parked in U.S. Treasuries, thereby recycling trade imbalances into U.S. fiscal liquidity. While technically loans to the U.S. government, these purchases act like interest-only transfers—governments receive yield, and the U.S. receives spendable liquidity without principal repayment due in the short term. Debt is perpetually rolled over, rarely extinguished.
This creates an illusion of global subsidy: U.S. deficits are financed via foreign capital inflows that, in practice, function more like financial tribute systems than conventional debt markets. The underlying asset—U.S. Treasury debt—functions as the base reserve asset of the dollar system, replacing gold in post-Bretton Woods monetary logic.
III. Emergence of Tether and the Parastatal Dollar
Tether (USDT), as a private issuer of dollar-denominated tokens, mimics key central bank behaviors while operating outside the regulatory perimeter. It mints tokens allegedly backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars or dollar-denominated securities (mostly Treasuries). These tokens circulate globally, often in jurisdictions with limited banking access, and increasingly serve as synthetic dollar substitutes.
If USDT gains dominance as the preferred medium of exchange—due to technological advantages, speed, programmability, or access—it displaces Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) not through devaluation, but through functional obsolescence. Gresham’s Law inverts: good money (more liquid, programmable, globally transferable USDT) displaces bad (FRNs) even if both maintain a nominal 1:1 parity.
Over time, this preference translates to a systemic demand shift. Actors increasingly use Tether instead of FRNs, especially in global commerce, digital marketplaces, or decentralized finance. Tether tokens effectively become shadow base money.
IV. Interaction with Commercial Banking and Redemption Mechanics
Under traditional fractional reserve systems, commercial banks issue loans denominated in U.S. dollars, expanding the money supply. When borrowers repay loans, this destroys the created dollars and contracts monetary elasticity. If borrowers repay in USDT instead of FRNs:
- Banks receive a non-Fed liability (USDT).
- USDT is not recognized as reserve-eligible within the Federal Reserve System.
- Banks must either redeem USDT for FRNs, or demand par-value conversion from Tether to settle reserve requirements and balance their books.
This places redemption pressure on Tether and threatens its 1:1 peg under stress. If redemption latency, friction, or cost arises, USDT’s equivalence to FRNs is compromised. Conversely, if banks are permitted or compelled to hold USDT as reserve or regulatory capital, Tether becomes a de facto reserve issuer.
In this scenario, banks may begin demanding loans in USDT, mirroring borrower behavior. For this to occur sustainably, banks must secure Tether liquidity. This creates two options: - Purchase USDT from Tether or on the secondary market, collateralized by existing fiat. - Borrow USDT directly from Tether, using bank-issued debt as collateral.
The latter mirrors Federal Reserve discount window operations. Tether becomes a lender of first resort, providing monetary elasticity to the banking system by creating new tokens against promissory assets—exactly how central banks function.
V. Structural Consequences: Parallel Central Banking
If Tether begins lending to commercial banks, issuing tokens backed by bank notes or collateralized debt obligations: - Tether controls the expansion of broad money through credit issuance. - Its balance sheet mimics a central bank, with Treasuries and bank debt as assets and tokens as liabilities. - It intermediates between sovereign debt and global liquidity demand, replacing the Federal Reserve’s open market operations with its own issuance-redemption cycles.
Simultaneously, if Tether purchases U.S. Treasuries with FRNs received through token issuance, it: - Supplies the Treasury with new liquidity (via bond purchases). - Collects yield on government debt. - Issues a parallel form of U.S. dollars that never require redemption—an interest-only loan to the U.S. government from a non-sovereign entity.
In this context, Tether performs monetary functions of both a central bank and a sovereign wealth fund, without political accountability or regulatory transparency.
VI. Endgame: Institutional Inversion and Fed Redundancy
This paradigm represents an institutional inversion:
- The Federal Reserve becomes a legacy issuer.
- Tether becomes the operational base money provider in both retail and interbank contexts.
- Treasuries remain the foundational reserve asset, but access to them is mediated by a private intermediary.
- The dollar persists, but its issuer changes. The State becomes a fiscal agent of a decentralized financial ecosystem, not its monetary sovereign.
Unless the Federal Reserve reasserts control—either by absorbing Tether, outlawing its instruments, or integrating its tokens into the reserve framework—it risks becoming irrelevant in the daily function of money.
Tether, in this configuration, is no longer a derivative of the dollar—it is the dollar, just one level removed from sovereign control. The future of monetary sovereignty under such a regime is post-national and platform-mediated.
-
@ 8aa70f44:3073d1a6
2025-05-21 13:07:14Earlier this year I launched the asknostr.site project which has been a great journey and learning experience. I had wanted to write down my goals and ideas with the project but didn't get to it yet. Primal launching the article editor was a trigger for me to go for it.
Ever since I joined Nostr i was looking for ways to apply my skillset solve a problem and help with adoption. Around Christmas I figured that a Quora/Stackoverflow alternative is something that needs to exist on Nostr.
Before I knew it I had a pretty decent prototype. And because the network already had so much awesome content, contributors and authors I was never discouraged by the challenge that kills so many good ideas -> "Where do I get the first users?".
Since the initial announcement I have received so much encouragement through zaps, likes, DM's, and maybe most of all seeing the increase in usage of the site and #asknostr content kept me going.
Current State
The current version of the site is stable and most bugs are hashed out. After logging in (remote signer, extension or nsec) you can engage with content through votes, comments and replies. Or simply ask a new question.
All content is stored in the site's own private relay and preprocessed/computed into a single data store (postgres) so the site is fast, accessible and crawl-able.
The site supports browsing hashtags, voting/commenting on answers, asking new questions and every contributor get their own profile (example). At the time of writing the site has 41k questions, almost 200k replies/comments and upwards of 5 million sats purely for #asknostr content.
What to expect/On my list
There are plenty of things and UI bugs that need love and between writing the draft of this post and hitting publish I shipped 3 minor bug fixes. Little by little, bit by bit...
In addition to all those small details here is an overview of the things on my own wish list:
-
Inline Zaps: Ability to zap from the asknostr.site interface. Click the zap button, specify or pick the number of sats zap away.
-
Contributor Rank: A leaderboard to add some gamification. More recognition to those nostriches that spend their time helping other people out
-
Search by Keyword: Search all content by keywords. Experiment with the index to show related questions or answers
-
Better User Profiles: Improve the user profile so it shows all the profile questions and answers. Quick buttons to follow or zap that person. Better insights in the topics (hashtags) the profile contributes to
-
Bookmarks: Ability to bookmark questions and answers. Increase bookmark weight as a signal to rank answers.
-
Smarter Scoring: Tune how answers are scored (winning answer formula). Perhaps give more weight to the question author or use WoT. Not sure yet.
All of this is happening at some point so follow me if you want to stay up to date.
Goals
To manage expectations and keep me focussed I write down the mid and long term goals of the project.
Long term
Call me cheesy but I believe that humanity will flourish through an open web and sound money. My own journey started from with bitcoin but if you asked me today if it's BTC or nostr that is going to have the most impact I wouldn't know what to answer. Chicken or egg?
The goal of the project is to offer an open platform that empowers individuals to ask questions, share expertise and access high-quality information across different topics. The project empowers anyone to monetize their experience creating a sustainable ecosystem that values and rewards knowledge sharing. This will ultimately democratize access to knowledge for all.
Mid term
The project can help a lot with onboarding new users onto the network. Once we start to rank on certain topics we can get a piece of the search traffic pie (StackOverflows 12 million, and Quora 150 million visitors per month) which is a great way to expose people to the power of the network.
First time visitors do not need to know about nostr or zaps to receive value. They can browse around, discover interesting content and perhaps even create a profile without even knowing they are on Nostr now.
Gradually those users will understand the value of the network through better rankings (zaps beats likes), a cross-client experience and a profile that can be used on any nostr site or app.
In order for the site to do that we need to make sure content is browsable by language, (sub)topics and and we double down on 'the human touch' with real contributors and not LLMs.
Short Term Goal
The first goal is to make the site really good and an important resource for existing Nostr users. Enable visitors to search and discover what they are interested in. Integrate within the existing nostr eco system with 'open in' functionality and quick links to interesting projects (followerpacks?)
One of things i want to get right is to improve user retention by making the whole Q\&A experience more sticky. I want to run some experiments (bots, award, summaries) to get more people to use asknostr.site more often and come back.
What about the name?
Finally the big question: What about the asknostr.site name? I don't like the name that much but it's what people know. I think there is a high chance that people will discover Nostr apps like Olas, Primal or Damus without needing to know what NOSTR is or means.
Therefore I think there is a good chance that the project won't be called asknostr.site forever. I guess it all depends on where we all take this.
Onwards!
-
-
@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b
2025-05-23 22:14:37Originalni tekst na antenam.net
22.05.2025 / Autor: Ana Nives Radović
Da nema besplatnog ručka sigurno ste čuli svaki put kad bi neko poželio da naglasi da se sve na neki način plaća, iako možda tu cijenu ne primjećujemo odmah. Međutim, kada govorimo o događaju od kojeg je prošlo tačno 15 godina onda o „ručku“ ne govorimo u prenešenom smislu, već o porudžbini pice čija tržišna vrijednost iz godine u godinu dostiže iznos koji je čini najskupljom hranom koja je ikad poručena.
Tog 22. maja 2010. godine čovjek sa Floride pod imenom Laslo Hanjec potrošio je 10.000 bitcoina na dvije velike pice. U to vrijeme, ta količina bitcoina imala je tržišnu vrijednost od oko 41 dolar. Ako uzmemo u obzir da je vrijednost jedne jedinice ove digitalne valute danas nešto više od 111.000 dolara, tih 10.000 bitcoina danas bi značilo vrijednost od 1,11 milijardi dolara.
Nesvakidašnji događaj u digitalnoj i ugostiteljskoj istoriji, nastao zbog znatiželje poručioca koji je želio da se uvjeri da koristeći bitcoin može da plati nešto u stvarnom svijetu, pretvorio se u Bitcoin Pizza Day, kao podsjetnik na trenutak koji je označio prelaz bitcoina iz apstraktnog kriptografskog eksperimenta u nešto što ima stvarnu vrijednost.
Hanjec je bio znatiželjan i pitao se da li se prva, a u to vrijeme i jedina kriptovaluta može iskoristiti za kupovinu nečeg opipljivog. Objavio je ponudu na jednom forumu koja je glasila: 10.000 BTC za dvije pice. Jedan entuzijasta se javio, naručio pice iz restorana Papa John’s i ispisao zanimljivu stranicu istorije digitalne imovine.
Taj inicijalni zabilježeni finansijski dogovor dao je bitcoinu prvu široko prihvaćenu tržišnu vrijednost: 10.000 BTC za 41 dolar, čime je bitcoin napravio svoj prvi korak ka onome što danas mnogi zovu digitalnim zlatom.
Šta je zapravo bitcoin?
Bitcoin je oblik digitalnog novca koji je osmišljen da bude decentralizovan, transparentan i otporan na uticaj centralnih banaka. Kreirao ga je 2009. godine anonimni autor poznat kao Satoši Nakamoto, neposredno nakon globalne finansijske krize 2008. godine. U svojoj suštini, bitcoin je protokol, skup pravila koja sprovodi kompjuterski kod, koji omogućava korisnicima da bez posrednika sigurno razmjenjuju vrijednost putem interneta.
Osnova cijelog sistema je blockchain, distribuisana digitalna knjiga koju održavaju hiljade nezavisnih računara (tzv. čvorova) širom svijeta. Svaka transakcija se bilježi u novi „blok“, koji se potom dodaje u lanac (otud naziv „lanac blokova“, odnosno blockchain). Informacija koja se jednom upiše u blok ne može da se izbriše, niti promijeni, što omogućava više transparentnosti i više povjerenja.
Da bi blockchain mreža u kojoj se sve to odvija zadržala to svojstvo, bitcoin koristi mehanizam konsenzusa nazvan dokaz rada (proof-of-work), što znači da specijalizovani računari koji „rudare“ bitcoin rješavaju kompleksne matematičke probleme kako bi omogućili obavljanje transakcija i pouzdanost mreže.
Deflatorna priroda bitcoina
Najjednostavniji način da se razumije deflatorna priroda bitcoina je da pogledamo cijene izražene u valuti kojoj plaćamo. Sigurno ste u posljednje vrijeme uhvatili sebe da komentarišete da ono što je prije nekoliko godina koštalo 10 eura danas košta 15 ili više. Budući da to ne zapažate kada je u pitanju cijena samo određenog proizvoda ili usluge, već kao sveprisutan trend, shvatate da se radi o tome da je novac izgubio vrijednost. Na primjer, kada je riječ o euru, otkako je Evropska centralna banka počela intenzivno da doštampava novac svake godine, pa je od 2009. kada je program tzv. „kvantitativnog popuštanja“ započet euro zabilježio kumulativnu inflaciju od 42,09% zbog povećane količine sredstava u opticaju.
Međutim, kada je riječ o bitcoinu, njega nikada neće biti više od 21 milion koliko je izdato prvog dana, a to nepromjenjivo pravilo zapisano je i u njegovom kodu. Ova ograničena ponuda oštro se suprotstavlja principima koji važe kod monetarnih institucija, poput centralnih banaka, koje doštampavaju novac, često da bi povećale količinu u opticaju i tako podstakle finansijske tokove, iako novac zbog toga gubi vrijednost. Nasuprot tome, bitcoin se zadržava na iznosu od 21 milion, pa je upravo ta konačnost osnova za njegovu deflatornu prirodu i mogućnost da vremenom dobija na vrijednosti.
Naravno, ovo ne znači da je cijena bitcoina predodređena da samo raste. Ona je zapravo prilično volatilna i oscilacije su česte, posebno ukoliko, na primjer, posmatramo odnos cijena unutar jedne godine ili nekoliko mjeseci, međutim, gledano sa vremenske distance od četiri do pet godina bilo koji uporedni period od nastanka bitcoina do danas upućuje na to da je cijena u međuvremenu porasla. Taj trend će se nastaviti, tako da, kao ni kada je riječ o drugim sredstvima, poput zlata ili nafte, nema mjesta konstatacijama da je „vrijeme niskih cijena prošlo“.
Šta zapravo znači ovaj dan?
Bitcoin Pizza Day je za mnoge prilika da saznaju ponešto novo o bitcoinu, jer tada imaju priliku da o njemu čuju detalje sa raznih strana, jer kako se ovaj događaj popularizuje stvaraju se i nove prilike za učenje. Takođe, ovaj dan od 2021. obilježavaju picerije širom svijeta, u više od 400 gradova iz najmanje 75 zemalja, jer je za mnoge ovo prilika da korisnike bitcoina navedu da potroše djelić svoje imovine na nešto iz njihove ponude. Naravno, taj iznos je danasd zanemarljivo mali, a cijena jedne pice danas je otprilike 0,00021 bitcoina.
No, dok picerije širom svijeta danas na zabavan način pokušavaju da dođu do novih gostiju, ovaj dan je za mnoge vlasnike bitcoina nešto poput opomene da svoje digitalne novčiće ipak ne treba trošiti na nešto potrošno, jer je budućnost nepredvidiva. Bitcoin Pizza Day je dan kada se ideja pretvorila u valutu, kada su linije koda postale sredstvo razmjene.
Prvi let avionom trajao je svega 12 sekundi, a u poređenju sa današnjim transkontinentalnim linijama to djeluje gotovo neuporedivo i čudno, međutim, od nečega je moralo početi. Porudžbina pice plaćene bitcoinom označile su početak razmjene ove vrste, dok se, na primjer, tokom jučerašnjeg dana obim plaćanja bitcoinom premašio 23 milijarde dolara. Nauka i tehnologija nas podsjećaju na to da sve počinje malim, zanemarivim koracima.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:30This article was originally published on aier.org
Even after eleven years experience, and a per Bitcoin price of nearly $20,000, the incredulous are still with us. I understand why. Bitcoin is not like other traditional financial assets.
Even describing it as an asset is misleading. It is not the same as a stock, as a payment system, or a money. It has features of all these but it is not identical to them.
What Bitcoin is depends on its use as a means of storing and porting value, which in turn rests of secure titles to ownership of a scarce good. Those without experience in the sector look at all of this and get frustrated that understanding why it is valuable is not so easy to grasp.
In this article, I’m updating an analysis I wrote six years ago. It still holds up. For those who don’t want to slog through the entire article, my thesis is that Bitcoin’s value obtains from its underlying technology, which is an open-source ledger that keeps track of ownership rights and permits the transfer of these rights. Bitcoin managed to bundle its unit of account with a payment system that lives on the ledger. That’s its innovation and why it obtained a value and that value continues to rise.
Consider the criticism offered by traditional gold advocates, who have, for decades, pushed the idea that sound money must be backed by something real, hard, and independently valuable. Bitcoin doesn’t qualify, right? Maybe it does.
Bitcoin first emerged as a possible competitor to national, government-managed money in 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper was released October 31, 2008. The structure and language of this paper sent the message: This currency is for computer technicians, not economists nor political pundits. The paper’s circulation was limited; novices who read it were mystified.
But the lack of interest didn’t stop history from moving forward. Two months later, those who were paying attention saw the emergence of the “Genesis Block,” the first group of bitcoins generated through Nakamoto’s concept of a distributed ledger that lived on any computer node in the world that wanted to host it.
Here we are all these years later and a single bitcoin trades at $18,500. The currency is held and accepted by many thousands of institutions, both online and offline. Its payment system is very popular in poor countries without vast banking infrastructures but also in developed countries. And major institutions—including the Federal Reserve, the OECD, the World Bank, and major investment houses—are paying respectful attention and weaving blockchain technology into their operations.
Enthusiasts, who are found in every country, say that its exchange value will soar even more in the future because its supply is strictly limited and it provides a system vastly superior to government money. Bitcoin is transferred between individuals without a third party. It is relatively low-cost to exchange. It has a predictable supply. It is durable, fungible, and divisible: all crucial features of money. It creates a monetary system that doesn’t depend on trust and identity, much less on central banks and government. It is a new system for the digital age.
Hard lessons for hard money
To those educated in the “hard money” tradition, the whole idea has been a serious challenge. Speaking for myself, I had been reading about bitcoin for two years before I came anywhere close to understanding it. There was just something about the whole idea that bugged me. You can’t make money out of nothing, much less out of computer code. Why does it have value then? There must be something amiss. This is not how we expected money to be reformed.
There’s the problem: our expectations. We should have been paying closer attention to Ludwig von Mises’ theory of money’s origins—not to what we think he wrote, but to what he actually did write.
In 1912, Mises released The Theory of Money and Credit. It was a huge hit in Europe when it came out in German, and it was translated into English. While covering every aspect of money, his core contribution was in tracing the value and price of money—and not just money itself—to its origins. That is, he explained how money gets its price in terms of the goods and services it obtains. He later called this process the “regression theorem,” and as it turns out, bitcoin satisfies the conditions of the theorem.
Mises’ teacher, Carl Menger, demonstrated that money itself originates from the market—not from the State and not from social contract. It emerges gradually as monetary entrepreneurs seek out an ideal form of commodity for indirect exchange. Instead of merely bartering with each other, people acquire a good not to consume, but to trade. That good becomes money, the most marketable commodity.
But Mises added that the value of money traces backward in time to its value as a bartered commodity. Mises said that this is the only way money can have value.
The theory of the value of money as such can trace back the objective exchange value of money only to that point where it ceases to be the value of money and becomes merely the value of a commodity…. If in this way we continually go farther and farther back we must eventually arrive at a point where we no longer find any component in the objective exchange value of money that arises from valuations based on the function of money as a common medium of exchange; where the value of money is nothing other than the value of an object that is useful in some other way than as money…. Before it was usual to acquire goods in the market, not for personal consumption, but simply in order to exchange them again for the goods that were really wanted, each individual commodity was only accredited with that value given by the subjective valuations based on its direct utility.
Mises’ explanation solved a major problem that had long mystified economists. It is a narrative of conjectural history, and yet it makes perfect sense. Would salt have become money had it otherwise been completely useless? Would beaver pelts have obtained monetary value had they not been useful for clothing? Would silver or gold have had money value if they had no value as commodities first? The answer in all cases of monetary history is clearly no. The initial value of money, before it becomes widely traded as money, originates in its direct utility. It’s an explanation that is demonstrated through historical reconstruction. That’s Mises’ regression theorem.
Bitcoin’s Use Value
At first glance, bitcoin would seem to be an exception. You can’t use a bitcoin for anything other than money. It can’t be worn as jewelry. You can’t make a machine out of it. You can’t eat it or even decorate with it. Its value is only realized as a unit that facilitates indirect exchange. And yet, bitcoin already is money. It’s used every day. You can see the exchanges in real time. It’s not a myth. It’s the real deal.
It might seem like we have to choose. Is Mises wrong? Maybe we have to toss out his whole theory. Or maybe his point was purely historical and doesn’t apply in the future of a digital age. Or maybe his regression theorem is proof that bitcoin is just an empty mania with no staying power, because it can’t be reduced to its value as a useful commodity.
And yet, you don’t have to resort to complicated monetary theory in order to understand the sense of alarm surrounding bitcoin. Many people, as I did, just have a feeling of uneasiness about a money that has no basis in anything physical. Sure, you can print out a bitcoin on a piece of paper, but having a paper with a QR code or a public key is not enough to relieve that sense of unease.
How can we resolve this problem? In my own mind, I toyed with the issue for more than a year. It puzzled me. I wondered if Mises’ insight applied only in a pre-digital age. I followed the speculations online that the value of bitcoin would be zero but for the national currencies into which it is converted. Perhaps the demand for bitcoin overcame the demands of Mises’ scenario because of a desperate need for something other than the dollar.
As time passed—and I read the work of Konrad Graf, Peter Surda, and Daniel Krawisz—finally the resolution came. Bitcoin is both a payment system and a money. The payment system is the source of value, while the accounting unit merely expresses that value in terms of price. The unity of money and payment is its most unusual feature, and the one that most commentators have had trouble wrapping their heads around.
We are all used to thinking of currency as separate from payment systems. This thinking is a reflection of the technological limitations of history. There is the dollar and there are credit cards. There is the euro and there is PayPal. There is the yen and there are wire services. In each case, money transfer relies on third-party service providers. In order to use them, you need to establish what is called a “trust relationship” with them, which is to say that the institution arranging the deal has to believe that you are going to pay.
This wedge between money and payment has always been with us, except for the case of physical proximity.
If I give you a dollar for your pizza slice, there is no third party. But payment systems, third parties, and trust relationships become necessary once you leave geographic proximity. That’s when companies like Visa and institutions like banks become indispensable. They are the application that makes the monetary software do what you want it to do.
The hitch is that
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@ 57d1a264:69f1fee1
2025-05-21 05:47:41As a product builder over too many years to mention, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen promising ideas go from zero to hero in a few weeks, only to fizzle out within months.
The problem with most finance apps, however, is that they often become a reflection of the internal politics of the business rather than an experience solely designed around the customer. This means that the focus is on delivering as many features and functionalities as possible to satisfy the needs and desires of competing internal departments, rather than providing a clear value proposition that is focused on what the people out there in the real world want. As a result, these products can very easily bloat to become a mixed bag of confusing, unrelated and ultimately unlovable customer experiences—a feature salad, you might say.
Financial products, which is the field I work in, are no exception. With people’s real hard-earned money on the line, user expectations running high, and a crowded market, it’s tempting to throw as many features at the wall as possible and hope something sticks. But this approach is a recipe for disaster.
Here’s why: https://alistapart.com/article/from-beta-to-bedrock-build-products-that-stick/
https://stacker.news/items/985285
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 05:00:29Breez, a leader in Lightning Network infrastructure, and Spark, a bitcoin-native Layer 2 (L2) platform, today announced a groundbreaking collaboration to empower developers with tools to seamlessly integrate self-custodial bitcoin payments into everyday applications.
The partnership introduces a new implementation of the Breez SDK built on Spark’s bitcoin-native infrastructure, accelerating the evolution of bitcoin from “digital gold” to a global, permissionless currency.
The Breez SDK is expanding
We’re joining forces with @buildonspark to release a new nodeless implementation of the Breez SDK — giving developers the tools they need to bring Bitcoin payments to everyday apps.
Bitcoin-Native
Powered by Spark’s…— Breez
(@Breez_Tech) May 22, 2025
A Bitcoin-Native Leap for Developers
The updated Breez SDK leverages Spark’s L2 architecture to deliver a frictionless, bitcoin-native experience for developers.
Key features include:
- Universal Compatibility: Bindings for all major programming languages and frameworks.
- LNURL & Lightning Address Support: Streamlined integration for peer-to-peer transactions.
- Real-Time Interaction: Instant mobile notifications for payment confirmations.
- No External Reliance: Built directly on bitcoin via Spark, eliminating bridges or third-party consensus.
This implementation unlocks use cases such as streaming content payments, social app monetization, in-game currencies, cross-border remittances, and AI micro-settlements—all powered by Bitcoin’s decentralized network.
Quotes from Leadership
Roy Sheinfeld, CEO of Breez:
“Developers are critical to bringing bitcoin into daily life. By building the Breez SDK on Spark’s revolutionary architecture, we’re giving builders a bitcoin-native toolkit to strengthen Lightning as the universal language of bitcoin payments.”Kevin Hurley, Creator of Spark:
“This collaboration sets the standard for global peer-to-peer transactions. Fast, open, and embedded in everyday apps—this is bitcoin’s future. Together, we’re equipping developers to create next-generation payment experiences.”David Marcus, Co-Founder and CEO of Lightspark:
“We’re thrilled to see developers harness Spark’s potential. This partnership marks an exciting milestone for the ecosystem.”Collaboration Details
As part of the agreement, Breez will operate as a Spark Service Provider (SSP), joining Lightspark in facilitating payments and expanding Spark’s ecosystem. Technical specifications for the SDK will be released later this year, with the full implementation slated for launch in 2025.About Breez
Breez pioneers Lightning Network solutions, enabling developers to embed self-custodial bitcoin payments into apps. Its SDK powers seamless, secure, and decentralized financial interactions.About Spark
Spark is a bitcoin-native Layer 2 infrastructure designed for payments and settlement, allowing developers to build directly on Bitcoin’s base layer without compromises. -
@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b
2025-05-23 21:54:43Srpski prevod knjige "The Little Bitcoin Book"
Zašto je Bitkoin bitan za vašu slobodu, finansije i budućnost?
Verovatno ste čuli za Bitkoin u vestima ili da o njemu raspravljaju vaši prijatelji ili kolege. Kako to da se cena stalno menja? Da li je Bitkoin dobra investicija? Kako to uopšte ima vrednost? Zašto ljudi stalno govore o tome kao da će promeniti svet?
"Mala knjiga o Bitkoinu" govori o tome šta nije u redu sa današnjim novcem i zašto je Bitkoin izmišljen da obezbedi alternativu trenutnom sistemu. Jednostavnim rečima opisuje šta je Bitkoin, kako funkcioniše, zašto je vredan i kako utiče na individualnu slobodu i mogućnosti ljudi svuda - od Nigerije preko Filipina do Venecuele do Sjedinjenih Država. Ova knjiga takođe uključuje odeljak "Pitanja i odgovori" sa nekim od najčešće postavljanih pitanja o Bitkoinu.
Ako želite da saznate više o ovom novom obliku novca koji i dalje izaziva interesovanje i usvajanje širom sveta, onda je ova knjiga za vas.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-05-24 04:01:00Starting January 1, 2026, the United Kingdom will impose some of the world’s most stringent reporting requirements on cryptocurrency firms.
All platforms operating in or serving UK customers-domestic and foreign alike-must collect and disclose extensive personal and transactional data for every user, including individuals, companies, trusts, and charities.
This regulatory drive marks the UK’s formal adoption of the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), a global initiative designed to bring crypto oversight in line with traditional banking and to curb tax evasion in the rapidly expanding digital asset sector.
What Will Be Reported?
Crypto firms must gather and submit the following for each transaction:
- User’s full legal name, home address, and taxpayer identification number
- Detailed data on every trade or transfer: type of cryptocurrency, amount, and nature of the transaction
- Identifying information for corporate, trust, and charitable clients
The obligation extends to all digital asset activities, including crypto-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat trades, and applies to both UK residents and non-residents using UK-based platforms. The first annual reports covering 2026 activity are due by May 31, 2027.
Enforcement and Penalties
Non-compliance will carry stiff financial penalties, with fines of up to £300 per user account for inaccurate or missing data-a potentially enormous liability for large exchanges. The UK government has urged crypto firms to begin collecting this information immediately to ensure operational readiness.
Regulatory Context and Market Impact
This move is part of a broader UK strategy to position itself as a global fintech hub while clamping down on fraud and illicit finance. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has championed these measures, stating, “Britain is open for business – but closed to fraud, abuse, and instability”. The regulatory expansion comes amid a surge in crypto adoption: the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority reported that 12% of UK adults owned crypto in 2024, up from just 4% in 2021.
Enormous Risks for Consumers: Lessons from the Coinbase Data Breach
While the new framework aims to enhance transparency and protect consumers, it also dramatically increases the volume of sensitive personal data held by crypto firms-raising the stakes for cybersecurity.
The risks are underscored by the recent high-profile breach at Coinbase, one of the world’s largest exchanges.
In May 2025, Coinbase disclosed that cybercriminals, aided by bribed offshore contractors, accessed and exfiltrated customer data including names, addresses, government IDs, and partial bank details.
The attackers then used this information for sophisticated phishing campaigns, successfully deceiving some customers into surrendering account credentials and funds.
“While private encryption keys remained secure, sufficient customer information was exposed to enable sophisticated phishing attacks by criminals posing as Coinbase personnel.”
Coinbase now faces up to $400 million in compensation costs and has pledged to reimburse affected users, but the incident highlights the systemic vulnerability created when large troves of personal data are centralized-even if passwords and private keys are not directly compromised. The breach also triggered a notable drop in Coinbase’s share price and prompted a $20 million bounty for information leading to the attackers’ capture.
The Bottom Line
The UK’s forthcoming crypto reporting regime represents a landmark in financial regulation, promising greater transparency and tax compliance. However, as the Coinbase episode demonstrates, the aggregation of sensitive user data at scale poses a significant cybersecurity risk.
As regulators push for more oversight, the challenge will be ensuring that consumer protection does not become a double-edged sword-exposing users to new threats even as it seeks to shield them from old ones.
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-05-24 04:02:07JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the U.S., is now allowing its clients to buy bitcoin — a big change of heart for an institution whose CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been a long-time critic of the scarce digital asset.
Dimon made the announcement on the bank’s investor day, which came as a shift in JPMorgan’s approach to digital assets. “We are going to allow you to buy it,” he said. “We’re not going to custody it. We’re going to put it in statements for clients.”
That means clients can buy BTC through JPMorgan but the bank won’t hold or store the digital asset. Instead it will provide access and include the BTC purchases in client statements.
According to multiple reports and posts, JPMorgan has been blocking transactions from digital asset exchanges, with several people complaining about their experience on social media.
There is even an official notice on the company’s UK website that explicitly says customers cannot use their funds to purchase digital assets.
JPMorgan Chase UK website — Source
It’s a big change because Dimon has been one of Bitcoin’s biggest critics. Over the years he’s called it “worthless”, a “fraud” and even compared it to a “pet rock”.
He’s repeatedly expressed concern over digital assets’ use in illegal activities such as money laundering, terrorism, sex trafficking and tax evasion. A role that his critics say the U.S. dollar is playing on a much larger scale.
Related: Jamie Dimon Would “Close Down” Bitcoin If He Had Government Role
“The only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers … money laundering, tax avoidance,” he told lawmakers during a Senate hearing in 2023. At the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, he doubled down, “Bitcoin does nothing. I call it the pet rock.”
Despite his personal views, Dimon says the bank is responding to client demand. “I don’t think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke,” he said. “I defend your right to buy bitcoin.”
It’s worth noting JPMorgan isn’t fully embracing digital assets. The bank won’t be offering direct custody services or launching its own exchange.
Instead, it’s offering access to digital asset exchanges. There are even reports that the bank also plans to facilitate access to bitcoin ETFs and possibly other investment vehicles. Until recently, JPMorgan had limited its bitcoin exposure to futures-based products.
Other big financial firms have already taken similar steps.
Morgan Stanley, for example, has been offering some clients access to bitcoin ETFs since August 2024. Its CEO, Ted Pick, said earlier this year that the firm is working closely with regulators to explore ways to get into the digital assets space.
Dimon does like blockchain, though — the technology that underpins it. JPMorgan has its own blockchain projects including JPM Coin and recently ran a test transaction on a public blockchain of tokenized U.S. Treasuries.
Many criticize this view, saying that the most powerful aspect of Bitcoin is its decentralization. So, a centralized blockchain is just useless. This might be the reason Dimon has grown weary of all JPMorgan’s blockchain initiatives, because they offered nothing of value.
He said he might have given blockchain too much credit during his investor day comments: “We have been talking about blockchain for 12 to 15 years,” he said. “We spend too much on it. It doesn’t matter as much as you all think.”
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@ c1e9ab3a:9cb56b43
2025-05-06 14:05:40If you're an engineer stepping into the Bitcoin space from the broader crypto ecosystem, you're probably carrying a mental model shaped by speed, flexibility, and rapid innovation. That makes sense—most blockchain platforms pride themselves on throughput, programmability, and dev agility.
But Bitcoin operates from a different set of first principles. It’s not competing to be the fastest network or the most expressive smart contract platform. It’s aiming to be the most credible, neutral, and globally accessible value layer in human history.
Here’s why that matters—and why Bitcoin is not just an alternative crypto asset, but a structural necessity in the global financial system.
1. Bitcoin Fixes the Triffin Dilemma—Not With Policy, But Protocol
The Triffin Dilemma shows us that any country issuing the global reserve currency must run persistent deficits to supply that currency to the world. That’s not a flaw of bad leadership—it’s an inherent contradiction. The U.S. must debase its own monetary integrity to meet global dollar demand. That’s a self-terminating system.
Bitcoin sidesteps this entirely by being:
- Non-sovereign – no single nation owns it
- Hard-capped – no central authority can inflate it
- Verifiable and neutral – anyone with a full node can enforce the rules
In other words, Bitcoin turns global liquidity into an engineering problem, not a political one. No other system, fiat or crypto, has achieved that.
2. Bitcoin’s “Ossification” Is Intentional—and It's a Feature
From the outside, Bitcoin development may look sluggish. Features are slow to roll out. Code changes are conservative. Consensus rules are treated as sacred.
That’s the point.
When you’re building the global monetary base layer, stability is not a weakness. It’s a prerequisite. Every other financial instrument, app, or protocol that builds on Bitcoin depends on one thing: assurance that the base layer won’t change underneath them without extreme scrutiny.
So-called “ossification” is just another term for predictability and integrity. And when the market does demand change (SegWit, Taproot), Bitcoin’s soft-fork governance process has proven capable of deploying it safely—without coercive central control.
3. Layered Architecture: Throughput Is Not a Base Layer Concern
You don’t scale settlement at the base layer. You build layered systems. Just as TCP/IP doesn't need to carry YouTube traffic directly, Bitcoin doesn’t need to process every microtransaction.
Instead, it anchors:
- Lightning (fast payments)
- Fedimint (community custody)
- Ark (privacy + UTXO compression)
- Statechains, sidechains, and covenants (coming evolution)
All of these inherit Bitcoin’s security and scarcity, while handling volume off-chain, in ways that maintain auditability and self-custody.
4. Universal Assayability Requires Minimalism at the Base Layer
A core design constraint of Bitcoin is that any participant, anywhere in the world, must be able to independently verify the validity of every transaction and block—past and present—without needing permission or relying on third parties.
This property is called assayability—the ability to “test” or verify the authenticity and integrity of received bitcoin, much like verifying the weight and purity of a gold coin.
To preserve this:
- The base layer must remain resource-light, so running a full node stays accessible on commodity hardware.
- Block sizes must remain small enough to prevent centralization of verification.
- Historical data must remain consistent and tamper-evident, enabling proof chains across time and jurisdiction.
Any base layer that scales by increasing throughput or complexity undermines this fundamental guarantee, making the network more dependent on trust and surveillance infrastructure.
Bitcoin prioritizes global verifiability over throughput—because trustless money requires that every user can check the money they receive.
5. Governance: Not Captured, Just Resistant to Coercion
The current controversy around
OP_RETURN
and proposals to limit inscriptions is instructive. Some prominent devs have advocated for changes to block content filtering. Others see it as overreach.Here's what matters:
- No single dev, or team, can force changes into the network. Period.
- Bitcoin Core is not “the source of truth.” It’s one implementation. If it deviates from market consensus, it gets forked, sidelined, or replaced.
- The economic majority—miners, users, businesses—enforce Bitcoin’s rules, not GitHub maintainers.
In fact, recent community resistance to perceived Core overreach only reinforces Bitcoin’s resilience. Engineers who posture with narcissistic certainty, dismiss dissent, or attempt to capture influence are routinely neutralized by the market’s refusal to upgrade or adopt forks that undermine neutrality or openness.
This is governance via credible neutrality and negative feedback loops. Power doesn’t accumulate in one place. It’s constantly checked by the network’s distributed incentives.
6. Bitcoin Is Still in Its Infancy—And That’s a Good Thing
You’re not too late. The ecosystem around Bitcoin—especially L2 protocols, privacy tools, custody innovation, and zero-knowledge integrations—is just beginning.
If you're an engineer looking for:
- Systems with global scale constraints
- Architectures that optimize for integrity, not speed
- Consensus mechanisms that resist coercion
- A base layer with predictable monetary policy
Then Bitcoin is where serious systems engineers go when they’ve outgrown crypto theater.
Take-away
Under realistic, market-aware assumptions—where:
- Bitcoin’s ossification is seen as a stability feature, not inertia,
- Market forces can and do demand and implement change via tested, non-coercive mechanisms,
- Proof-of-work is recognized as the only consensus mechanism resistant to fiat capture,
- Wealth concentration is understood as a temporary distribution effect during early monetization,
- Low base layer throughput is a deliberate design constraint to preserve verifiability and neutrality,
- And innovation is layered by design, with the base chain providing integrity, not complexity...
Then Bitcoin is not a fragile or inflexible system—it is a deliberately minimal, modular, and resilient protocol.
Its governance is not leaderless chaos; it's a negative-feedback structure that minimizes the power of individuals or institutions to coerce change. The very fact that proposals—like controversial OP_RETURN restrictions—can be resisted, forked around, or ignored by the market without breaking the system is proof of decentralized control, not dysfunction.
Bitcoin is an adversarially robust monetary foundation. Its value lies not in how fast it changes, but in how reliably it doesn't—unless change is forced by real, bottom-up demand and implemented through consensus-tested soft forks.
In this framing, Bitcoin isn't a slower crypto. It's the engineering benchmark for systems that must endure, not entertain.
Final Word
Bitcoin isn’t moving slowly because it’s dying. It’s moving carefully because it’s winning. It’s not an app platform or a sandbox. It’s a protocol layer for the future of money.
If you're here because you want to help build that future, you’re in the right place.
nostr:nevent1qqswr7sla434duatjp4m89grvs3zanxug05pzj04asxmv4rngvyv04sppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgs9tc6ruevfqu7nzt72kvq8te95dqfkndj5t8hlx6n79lj03q9v6xcrqsqqqqqp0n8wc2
nostr:nevent1qqsd5hfkqgskpjjq5zlfyyv9nmmela5q67tgu9640v7r8t828u73rdqpr4mhxue69uhkymmnw3ezucnfw33k76tww3ux76m09e3k7mf0qgsvr6dt8ft292mv5jlt7382vje0mfq2ccc3azrt4p45v5sknj6kkscrqsqqqqqp02vjk5
nostr:nevent1qqstrszamvffh72wr20euhrwa0fhzd3hhpedm30ys4ct8dpelwz3nuqpr4mhxue69uhkymmnw3ezucnfw33k76tww3ux76m09e3k7mf0qgs8a474cw4lqmapcq8hr7res4nknar2ey34fsffk0k42cjsdyn7yqqrqsqqqqqpnn3znl
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@ 90152b7f:04e57401
2025-05-24 03:47:24"Army study suggests U.S. force of 20,000"
The Washington Times - Friday, April 5, 2002
The Bush administration says there are no active plans to put American peacekeepers between Palestinians and Israelis, but at least one internal military study says 20,000 well-armed troops would be needed.
The Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), an elite training ground and think tank at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., produced the study last year. The 68-page paper tells how the major operation would be run the first year, with peacekeepers stationed in Gaza, Hebron, Jerusalem and Nablus.
One major goal would be to “neutralize leadership of Palestine dissenting factions [and] prevent inter-Palestinian violence.”
The military is known to update secret contingency plans in the event international peacekeepers are part of a comprehensive Middle East peace plan. The SAMS study, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, provides a glimpse of what those plans might entail.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld repeatedly has said the administration has no plans to put American troops between the warring factions. But since the escalation of violence, more voices in the debate are beginning to suggest that some type of American-led peace enforcement team is needed.
Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, quoted U.S. special envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni as saying there is a plan, if needed, to put a limited number of American peacekeepers in the Israeli-occupied territories.
Asked on CBS whether he could envision American troops on the ground, Mr. Specter said Sunday: “If we were ever to stabilize the situation, and that was a critical factor, it’s something that I would be willing to consider.”
Added Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, “In that context, yes, and with European forces as well.”
The recent history of international peacekeeping has shown that it often takes American firepower and prestige for the operation to work. The United Nations made futile attempts to stop Serbian attacks on the Muslim population in Bosnia.
The U.S. entered the fray by bombing Serbian targets and bringing about a peace agreement that still is being backed up by American soldiers on the ground. U.S. combat troops are also in Kosovo, and they have a more limited role in Macedonia.
But James Phillips, a Middle East analyst at the Heritage Foundation, used the word “disaster” to describe the aftermath of putting an international force in the occupied territories.
“I think that would be a formula for sucking us into the violence,” he said. “United States troops would be a lightening rod for attacks by radical Islamics and other Palestinian extremist groups. The United States cannot afford to stretch its forces any thinner. They’re very busy as it is with the war against international terrorism.”
Mr. Phillips noted that two Norwegian observers in Hebron were killed this week. U.N. representatives on the Lebanon border have been unable to prevent terrorists from attacking Israel.
The SAMS paper tries to predict events in the first year of peacekeeping and the dangers U.S. troops would face.
It calls the Israeli armed forces a “500-pound gorilla in Israel. Well armed and trained. Operates in both Gaza [and the West Bank]. Known to disregard international law to accomplish mission. Very unlikely to fire on American forces.”
On the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, the Army study says, “Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”
It described Palestinian youth as “loose cannons; under no control, sometimes violent.” The study was done by 60 officers dubbed the “Jedi Knights,” as all second-year SAMS students are called. The Times first reported on their work in September. Recent violence in the Middle East has raised questions about what type of force it would take to keep the peace.
In the past, SAMS has done studies for the Army chief of staff and the Joint Chiefs. SAMS personnel helped plan the allied ground attack that liberated Kuwait.
The Middle East study sets goals that a peace force should accomplish in the first 30 days. They include “create conditions for development of Palestinian State and security of [Israel],” ensure “equal distribution of contract value or equivalent aid” and “build lasting relationships based on new legal borders and not religious-territorial claims.”
The SAMS report does not specify a full order of battle for the 20,000 troops. An Army source who reviewed the paper said each of three brigades would require about 100 armored vehicles, 25 tanks and 12 self-propelled howitzers, along with attack helicopters and spy drones.
The Palestinians have supported calls for an international force, but Tel Aviv has opposed the idea.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2002/apr/5/20020405-041726-2086r/
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@ c9badfea:610f861a
2025-05-20 19:49:20- Install Sky Map (it's free and open source)
- Launch the app and tap Accept, then tap OK
- When asked to access the device's location, tap While Using The App
- Tap somewhere on the screen to activate the menu, then tap ⁝ and select Settings
- Disable Send Usage Statistics
- Return to the main screen and enjoy stargazing!
ℹ️ Use the 🔍 icon in the upper toolbar to search for a specific celestial body, or tap the 👁️ icon to activate night mode
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@ 3c389c8f:7a2eff7f
2025-05-23 21:35:30Web:
https://shopstr.store/
https://cypher.space/
https://plebeian.market/
Mobile:
https://www.amethyst.social/
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-05-24 04:01:53The exchange reveals the extent of the breach that occurred last December as federal authorities investigate the recent data leak.
Coinbase has disclosed that the personal data of 69,461 users was compromised during the breach in December 2024, according to documentation filed with the Maine Attorney General’s Office.
The disclosure comes after Coinbase announced last week that a group of hackers had demanded a $20 million ransom, threatening to publish the stolen data on the dark web. The attackers allegedly bribed overseas customer service agents to extract information from the company’s systems.
Coinbase had previously stated that the breach affected less than 1% of its user base, compromising KYC (Know Your Customer) data such as names, addresses, and email addresses. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company clarified that passwords, private keys, and user funds were not affected.
Following the reports, the SEC has reportedly opened an official investigation to verify whether Coinbase may have inflated user metrics ahead of its 2021 IPO. Separately, the Department of Justice is investigating the breach at Coinbase’s request, according to CEO Brian Armstrong.
Meanwhile, Coinbase has faced criticism for its delayed response to the data breach. Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, stated that the stolen data could cause irreparable harm. In a post on X, Arrington wrote:
“The human cost, denominated in misery, is much larger than the $400m or so they think it will actually cost the company to reimburse people. The consequences to companies who do not adequately protect their customer information should include, without limitation, prison time for executives.”
Coinbase estimates the incident could cost between $180 million and $400 million in remediation expenses and customer reimbursements.
Arrington also condemned KYC laws as ineffective and dangerous, calling on both regulators and companies to better protect user data:
“Combining these KYC laws with corporate profit maximization and lax laws on penalties for hacks like these means these issues will continue to happen. Both governments and corporations need to step up to stop this. As I said, the cost can only be measured in human suffering.”
The post Coinbase: 69,461 users affected by December 2024 data breach appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-05-24 03:03:08KYC database of Coinbase, the largest U.S. digital asset exchange, has been breached and up to 1% of monthly active users, or around 100,000 customers, have had their personal info stolen.
Hackers reportedly bribed overseas customer support agents and contractors to leak internal company info and user data. They then demanded $20 million and threatened to release the stolen data if Coinbase didn’t pay.
Instead of paying the ransom, Coinbase said no and is setting up a $20 million reward fund for anyone who can help catch the hackers.
“They then tried to extort Coinbase for $20 million to cover this up. We said no,” the company said in a blog post. “Instead of paying the $20 million ransom, we’re establishing a $20 million reward fund.”
So what’s been stolen? The breach, which was first disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), did not involve any theft of customer funds, login credentials, private keys or wallets.
But the hackers did get:
- Full names
- Addresses
- Phone numbers
- Email addresses
- Last 4 digits of Social Security numbers
- Bank account numbers and some bank identifiers
- Government ID images (driver’s licenses, passports, etc.)
- Account balances and transaction history
- Internal corporate documents and training materials
Coinbase says Prime accounts were not affected and no passwords or 2FA codes were stolen.
According to Coinbase, the attackers targeted outsourced support agents in countries like India. They were offering cash bribes in exchange for access to the company’s internal customer support tools.
“What these attackers were doing was finding Coinbase employees and contractors based in India who were associated with our business process outsourcing or support operations, that kind of thing, and bribing them in order to obtain customer data,” said Philip Martin, Coinbase’s Chief Security Officer.
Coinbase said it first saw suspicious activity in January 2025 but didn’t get a direct email from the threat actors until May 11. The email had evidence of stolen data and the ransom demand.
Coinbase quickly launched an investigation, fired all the involved support agents and notified law enforcement. It also started notifying users via email on May 15.
The Coinbase data breach has hit it hard, financially and publicly. The company estimates it will spend $180-$400 million on security upgrades, reimbursements and other remediation.
Coinbase’s stock also took a hit, dropping 6.4% after the news broke, before rebounding.
Analysts say this couldn’t have come at a worse time, as Coinbase is about to be added to the S&P 500 index – a big deal for any publicly traded company.
It’s definitely an unfortunate timing. “This may push the industry to adopt stricter employee vetting and introduce some reputational risks,” said Bo Pei, analyst at U.S. Tiger Securities.
Coinbase will reimburse any customers who were tricked into sending their digital assets to the attackers as part of social engineering scams. They’ve also introduced new security measures:
- Extra ID verification for high-risk withdrawals
- Scam-awareness prompts
- A new U.S.-based support center
- Stronger insider threat monitoring
- Simulation testing for internal systems
Affected customers have already been notified and the exchange is working with U.S. and international law enforcement to track down the attackers.
This is part of a larger trend in the digital assets world. Earlier this year, Bybit, another exchange, was hit with a $1.5 billion theft, dubbed the biggest digital asset heist in history.
Research from Chainalysis shows over $2.2 billion was stolen from digital asset platforms in 2024 alone.
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-05-24 04:01:47Banking giants JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo are in talks to develop a unified stablecoin solution.
According to the Wall Street Journal on May 22, some of the largest financial institutions in the United States are exploring the possibility of joining forces to launch a stablecoin.
Subsidiaries of JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo have initiated preliminary discussions for a joint stablecoin issuance, according to sources close to the matter cited by the WSJ. Also at the negotiating table are Early Warning Services, the parent company of the digital payments network Zelle, and the payment network Clearing House.
The talks are reportedly still in the early stages, and any final decision could change depending on regulatory developments and market demand for stablecoins.
Stablecoin regulation
On May 20, the US Senate voted 66 to 32 to advance discussion of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), a specific law to regulate stablecoins. The bill outlines a regulatory framework for stablecoin collateralization and mandates compliance with anti-money laundering rules.
David Sacks, White House crypto advisor, expressed optimism about the bill’s bipartisan approval. However, senior Democratic Party officials intend to amend the bill to include a clause preventing former President Donald Trump and other US officials from profiting from stablecoins.
Demand for stablecoins has increased, with total market capitalization rising to $245 billion from $205 billion at the beginning of the year, a 20% increase.
The post Major US banks consider launching a joint stablecoin appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ 3c389c8f:7a2eff7f
2025-05-23 21:27:26Clients:
https://untype.app
https://habla.news
https://yakihonne.com
https://cypher.space
https://highlighter.com
https://pareto.space/en
https://comet.md/
Plug Ins:
https://github.com/jamesmagoo/nostr-writer
https://threenine.co.uk/products/obstrlish
Content Tagging:
https://labelmachine.org
https://ontolo.social
Blog-like Display and Personal Pages:
https://orocolo.me
https://npub.pro
Personal Notes and Messaging:
https://app.flotilla.social There's an app, too!
https://nosbin.com
RSS Readers:
https://nostrapps.com/noflux
https://nostrapps.com/narr
https://nostrapps.com/feeder
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@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9
2025-05-20 15:47:16Here’s a revised timeline of macro-level events from The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 by Lionel Shriver, reimagined in a world where Bitcoin is adopted as a widely accepted form of money, altering the original narrative’s assumptions about currency collapse and economic control. In Shriver’s original story, the failure of Bitcoin is assumed amid the dominance of the bancor and the dollar’s collapse. Here, Bitcoin’s success reshapes the economic and societal trajectory, decentralizing power and challenging state-driven outcomes.
Part One: 2029–2032
-
2029 (Early Year)\ The United States faces economic strain as the dollar weakens against global shifts. However, Bitcoin, having gained traction emerges as a viable alternative. Unlike the original timeline, the bancor—a supranational currency backed by a coalition of nations—struggles to gain footing as Bitcoin’s decentralized adoption grows among individuals and businesses worldwide, undermining both the dollar and the bancor.
-
2029 (Mid-Year: The Great Renunciation)\ Treasury bonds lose value, and the government bans Bitcoin, labeling it a threat to sovereignty (mirroring the original bancor ban). However, a Bitcoin ban proves unenforceable—its decentralized nature thwarts confiscation efforts, unlike gold in the original story. Hyperinflation hits the dollar as the U.S. prints money, but Bitcoin’s fixed supply shields adopters from currency devaluation, creating a dual-economy split: dollar users suffer, while Bitcoin users thrive.
-
2029 (Late Year)\ Dollar-based inflation soars, emptying stores of goods priced in fiat currency. Meanwhile, Bitcoin transactions flourish in underground and online markets, stabilizing trade for those plugged into the bitcoin ecosystem. Traditional supply chains falter, but peer-to-peer Bitcoin networks enable local and international exchange, reducing scarcity for early adopters. The government’s gold confiscation fails to bolster the dollar, as Bitcoin’s rise renders gold less relevant.
-
2030–2031\ Crime spikes in dollar-dependent urban areas, but Bitcoin-friendly regions see less chaos, as digital wallets and smart contracts facilitate secure trade. The U.S. government doubles down on surveillance to crack down on bitcoin use. A cultural divide deepens: centralized authority weakens in Bitcoin-adopting communities, while dollar zones descend into lawlessness.
-
2032\ By this point, Bitcoin is de facto legal tender in parts of the U.S. and globally, especially in tech-savvy or libertarian-leaning regions. The federal government’s grip slips as tax collection in dollars plummets—Bitcoin’s traceability is low, and citizens evade fiat-based levies. Rural and urban Bitcoin hubs emerge, while the dollar economy remains fractured.
Time Jump: 2032–2047
- Over 15 years, Bitcoin solidifies as a global reserve currency, eroding centralized control. The U.S. government adapts, grudgingly integrating bitcoin into policy, though regional autonomy grows as Bitcoin empowers local economies.
Part Two: 2047
-
2047 (Early Year)\ The U.S. is a hybrid state: Bitcoin is legal tender alongside a diminished dollar. Taxes are lower, collected in BTC, reducing federal overreach. Bitcoin’s adoption has decentralized power nationwide. The bancor has faded, unable to compete with Bitcoin’s grassroots momentum.
-
2047 (Mid-Year)\ Travel and trade flow freely in Bitcoin zones, with no restrictive checkpoints. The dollar economy lingers in poorer areas, marked by decay, but Bitcoin’s dominance lifts overall prosperity, as its deflationary nature incentivizes saving and investment over consumption. Global supply chains rebound, powered by bitcoin enabled efficiency.
-
2047 (Late Year)\ The U.S. is a patchwork of semi-autonomous zones, united by Bitcoin’s universal acceptance rather than federal control. Resource scarcity persists due to past disruptions, but economic stability is higher than in Shriver’s original dystopia—Bitcoin’s success prevents the authoritarian slide, fostering a freer, if imperfect, society.
Key Differences
- Currency Dynamics: Bitcoin’s triumph prevents the bancor’s dominance and mitigates hyperinflation’s worst effects, offering a lifeline outside state control.
- Government Power: Centralized authority weakens as Bitcoin evades bans and taxation, shifting power to individuals and communities.
- Societal Outcome: Instead of a surveillance state, 2047 sees a decentralized, bitcoin driven world—less oppressive, though still stratified between Bitcoin haves and have-nots.
This reimagining assumes Bitcoin overcomes Shriver’s implied skepticism to become a robust, adopted currency by 2029, fundamentally altering the novel’s bleak trajectory.
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-05-24 03:01:47Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin Pizza Day: 15 Years Since 10,000 BTC Bought Two Pizzas and Changed EverythingOn May 22, 2010, Bitcoin became more than just an idea—it became real money. Laszlo Hanyecz, a developer and early contributor to Bitcoin’s codebase, posted a casual offer: “I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.” Five days later, someone took him up on it. Two Papa John’s pizzas were delivered. A screenshot was posted. Bitcoin had entered the real world.
15 years ago, Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 #bitcoin worth $30 on two Papa John's pizzas.
Today, 10,000 $BTC is worth over $1,100,000,000.
What a legend!
pic.twitter.com/EbxQAsixhZ
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 22, 2025
That 10,000 Bitcoin, worth about $41 at the time, is now valued at over $1.1 billion. And with Bitcoin hitting a new all-time high of $111,999 on the 15th anniversary of the transaction, the story of the “Bitcoin Pizza” carries more weight than ever.
15 years ago, someone paid 10,000 #Bitcoin for 2 pizzas. That’s worth over $1,000,000,000 today!
It wasn’t just about the pizza. This was the moment Bitcoin proved itself as a functioning currency. Until then, it had lived mostly in theory and code—talked about by cryptographers and mined by hobbyists. Hanyecz’s post, and the trade that followed, transformed the idea into action. “This transaction made Bitcoin real in my eyes,” he said in a 2019 interview. “It wasn’t worth much at the time. I wouldn’t have spent $100 million on pizza, right? But if I hadn’t done that, maybe Bitcoin wouldn’t have become so popular.”
Over the summer of 2010, Hanyecz continued using Bitcoin to buy pizzas, eventually spending more than 79,000 BTC—now worth nearly $8.7 billion. While some have joked at his expense, the truth is this: without those early real-world transactions, Bitcoin might never have proven its use case. Hanyecz helped move Bitcoin from the fringe into functionality.
That legacy still shapes us today. Bitcoin Pizza Day has become a cultural milestone in the crypto world, with meetups, pizza parties, and educational events held globally each May 22. The day serves as a reminder of how far the technology has come—and the importance of everyday actions and the impact they have.
Smiles, joy, and shared moments, this is what today looked like.#Bitcoin Pizza Day at His Grace School was more than a visit. It was connection, care, and community. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated and supported #BitcoinGhana #BitcoinPizzaDay #BTC #Bitfiasi pic.twitter.com/xRMv1rpife
— Bitfiasi Initiative (@bitfiasi) May 22, 2025
Just this week, fast food chain Steak ‘n Shake began accepting Bitcoin via the Lightning Network, signaling a growing wave of mainstream adoption. What once felt experimental is now becoming part of everyday commerce.
Bitcoin Pizza Day is about recognition. One simple transaction proved that Bitcoin could work—and 15 years later, the world is still building on that first bite.
This post Bitcoin Pizza Day: 15 Years Since 10,000 BTC Bought Two Pizzas and Changed Everything first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-05-24 04:01:25Bitcoin Magazine
The Freedom Issue: Letter From the EditorBitcoin is freedom money, a censorship-resistant form of digital cash allowing anyone with an internet connection to send money to anyone else, regardless of nationality, borders, or other arbitrary restrictions.
I personally first heard about Bitcoin in early 2013, through friends who were buying… stuff from Silk Road, the darknet marketplace helmed by the mysterious Dread Pirate Roberts. Although Silk Road was controversial (the “stuff” most people bought and sold was, of course, illegal drugs), it represented a radical example of the form of freedom that Bitcoin provides.
Later in 2013, Silk Road was shut down by the FBI, and Ross Ulbricht was revealed as the market’s founder and the true identity behind the Dread Pirate Roberts pseudonym — although he claims several people operated the account. Ulbricht was sentenced to two life sentences plus forty years in prison without the possibility of parole.
In my view — and that of many Bitcoiners — it was excessive. Even if you believe Ulbricht was guilty of everything he was convicted of (all nonviolent crimes), he was made an example of, and didn’t actually deserve to be locked up for the rest of his days.
Fortunately, Ulbricht was granted a full and unconditional pardon from President Trump in January of this year. The founder of Silk Road, in a very literal sense, has regained his freedom.
This edition of Bitcoin Magazine celebrates and highlights the freedom aspect of Bitcoin with a range of articles and artwork focusing on the people and projects that use bitcoin to advance liberty, and those who make this possible… with a special focus on Ulbricht and Silk Road.
For other stories about bitcoin as freedom money, flip the magazine around!
Welcome to The Freedom Issue.
Aaron van Wirdum
Don’t miss your chance to own The Freedom Issue—featuring never-before-seen letters from Ross Ulbricht and his mother, Lyn. Limited run. Only available while supplies last.
This piece is the Letter from the Editor featured in the latest print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Freedom Issue. We’re sharing it here as an early look at the ideas explored throughout the full issue.
This post The Freedom Issue: Letter From the Editor first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Aaron Van Wirdum.
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@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b
2025-05-23 21:17:02Originalni tekst na bitcoin-balkan.com.
Pregled sadržaja
- Šta uzrokuje Inflaciju?
- Da li nam je infacija potrebna?
- Kako se meri inflacija?
- Da li inflacija pokreće ekonomski rast?
- Da li inflacija pokreće ili umanjuje nejednakost bogatstva?
- Gde se danas javlja inflacija?
- Šta je deflacija?
- Kakav uticaj inflacija ima na društvo?
Inflacija može da bude uznemirujuća tema, jer uključuje amorfni koncept novca. Međutim, inflacija je zapravo jednostavna tema koja je napravljena da bude složena razdvajanjem novca i drugih dobara. U ovom članku razlažemo inflaciju i njene uzroke.
Najjednostavnija definicija inflacije je rast cena dobara i usluga. Kada cene rastu, to takođe znači da vrednost jedinice novca – poput dolara – opada. Uzmimo primer McDonald’s hamburgera: 1955. ovaj skromni hamburger se prodavao za samo 15 centi. U 2018. godini se prodavao za 1,09 USD. U 2021. godini prodaje se za 2,49 USD – ogroman rast cene od 1650%.
To znači da je dolar izgubio dosta svoje vrednosti. 1955. godine mogli ste da kupite gotovo 7 hamburgera za novčanicu od jednog dolara. 2021. godine taj dolar vam ne bi kupio ni jedan hamburger. Zašto se čini da cene uvek rastu tokom vremena? I šta možete da učinite povodom toga? Ovaj članak ima za cilj da odgovori na ta pitanja.
Ekonomisti pokušavaju da sumiraju rast cena mnogih dobara i usluga kao jedan prosečan broj. Ovaj broj predstavlja promenu ukupnih troškova u godišnjim troškovima prosečnog potrošača, kao što su stanarina, hrana i gorivo.
U Sjedinjenim Državama ovaj broj je poznat kao Indeks Potrošačkih Cena, eng. Consumer Price Index (CPI). Kada se CPI poveća tokom određenog vremenskog perioda, ekonomisti kažu da imamo inflaciju. Kada se smanji, to se naziva deflacija.
Šta uzrokuje Inflaciju?
Mnogi izvori kažu da je stalna inflacija koju danas doživljavamo ili uzrokovana povećanjem potražnje (eng. demand-pull) ili smanjenjem ponude usled povećanih proizvodnih troškova (eng. cost-push).
Ovi razlozi nisu tačni – hajde da pogledamo zašto.
Da bismo razumeli pravi razlog inflacije, moramo da sagledamo dve vrste inflacije:
- Inflacija Cena: Cene vremenom rastu.
- Monetarna Inflacija: Količina valute u opticaju raste sa vremenom.
Prva, inflacija cena, retko se javlja tokom dužih perioda (decenije, vekovi) zbog povećane potražnje ili povećanih troškova. Zašto? Tržišta teže da se uravnoteže. Tokom istorije smo više puta videli da povećana potražnja za dobrom povećava njegovu cenu, što podstiče proizvođače da proizvode više tog dobra. Kada se ponuda poveća, cene se smanjuju.
Ovaj ciklus može da potraje nekoliko godina, i javlja se kod gotovo svake robe i „konačnog dobra“ (automobili, televizori, hrana itd.) na Zemlji. Izuzetak su retki metali poput zlata i srebra. Dokazi o tome su prikazani u nastavku.
Kada se poveća trošak za proizvodnju dobra, cena tog dobra često raste da bi pokrila te troškove. Ovaj rast cene dovodi do toga da potrošači tog dobra traže alternativu ili smanjuju potrošnju tog dobra, što dovodi do pada cena na prethodni nivo.
Tržište se prirodno uravnotežava, a cene se smanjuju ili povećanjem ponude ili smanjenjem potražnje.
Da li imamo dokaze da tržišta vremenom uravnotežuju ponudu i potražnju?
Podaci o cenama robe tokom vremena mogu nam dati bolje razumevanje da li tržišta zaista efikasno uravnotežuju ponudu i potražnju. Međutim, cene ne možemo da posmatramo u smislu nacionalnih valuta, jer naše vlade uvek štampaju više svojih nacionalnih valuta.
Oni sprovode monetarnu inflaciju, koja može da izazove inflaciju cena. Posmatranje tržišnih cena u smislu nacionalnih valuta, poput američkog dolara, je poput merenja visine lenjirom koji se neprestano smanjuje. Vaša visina u broju biće sve veća i veća, ali stvarna visina se ne menja.
Mi možemo da znamo da li tržišta uravnotežuju ponudu i potražnju gledajući cene dobara u smislu monetarnog dobra koje ima vrlo konzistentnu ponudu tokom vremena.
Vremenom se pokazalo da zlato ima najmanju monetarnu inflaciju od svih postojećih valuta i dobara. To čini zlato odličnim ‘lenjirom’ za merenje da li tržišta vremenom uravnotežuju ponudu i potražnju. Da bismo bolje razumeli inflaciju cena tokom vremena, pitaćemo koliko unci zlata nešto košta tokom vremena.
Cene u zlatu pokazuju nam da se tržišta vremenom uravnotežuju
Ako cene dobara posmatramo u obliku zlata, vidimo da cene robe prate srednje tačke tokom dužih vremenskih perioda.
Nafta, na primer, je vrlo nestabilna, ali ima tendenciju da se kreće oko 2,5 grama zlata po barelu.
WTI Sirova Nafta u gramima Zlata po Barelu
Cena nafte je promenljiva, ali tokom decenija ima tendenciju da se kreće po strani.
Cene kuća tokom proteklih 10 godina takođe su prilično stabilne, iako imamo fiksnu količinu zemlje na planeti. Vidimo da cene kuća u pogledu zlata imaju tendenciju da variraju oko indeksne cene od oko 80, prikazane na grafikonu.
Shiller-ov US indeks cena kuća u USD i zlatu
Ovaj grafikon je na logaritamskoj skali, što nam omogućava da vizualizujemo zapanjujuća povećanja u zelenoj liniji, koja predstavlja domove u dolarima.
Grafički izražene u američkim dolarima, cene ovih dobara uvek rastu – baš kao i McDonald’s hamburger. Da su povećana potražnja ili povećani troškovi odgovorni za konstantnu inflaciju cena, takođe bismo videli kako se cena ove robe povećava u smislu zlata. Podaci iznad pokazuju da su cene konstantne.
Moraju da postoje i drugi razlozi za upornu inflaciju cena koju smo videli u dolarskim iznosima tokom proteklog veka.
Evo šta znamo o tome šta dugoročno utiče na cene, kao u periodu od 1955. do 2018. godine:
- Rast produktivnosti uzrokovan inovacijama, što dovodi do pada cena tokom vremena
- Monetarna inflacija – štampanje velikih količina valute – koja uzrokuje porast cena denominovanih u toj valuti tokom vremena
Znamo da cene izražene u dolarima, eurima i ostalim valutama neprestano rastu. Ako ne mislimo da naša produktivnost kao društva ide unazad, postoji samo jedan jednostavan razlog za inflaciju cena: štampanje većih količina valute, iliti monetarna inflacija.
Naše vlade i banke su zapravo prilično iskrene u pogledu zapanjujućih količina valute koje štampaju. Oni nam svakodnevno govore da oni uzrokuju monetarnu inflaciju.
Da li nam je infacija potrebna?
Bez uporne monetarne inflacije (koja uzrokuje inflaciju cena), naša celokupna savremena ekonomija bi se srušila.
Dozvolite da vam objasnim. Sledeći odeljak može da bude šokantan, i ohrabrujem vas da i sami istražite ukoliko mislite da nisam u pravu.
Kada centralne banke i komercijalne banke daju zajmove, one stvaraju novu valutu.
Kada centralne banke daju zajmove vladama “kupujući državni dug”, one stvaraju novu valutu kada to urade. To omogućava vladama da vode budžetski deficit trošeći više nego što uzimaju od poreza. U tom procesu državni dug se nagomilava.
Komercijalne banke stvaraju novu valutu kada daju zajmove fizičkim licima i preduzećima. Jedino ograničenje koliko novog novca mogu da stvore je zakonski zahtev da banka ima na raspolaganju određeni procenat od ukupnog iznosa novca koji su ljudi deponovali. Zbog toga je naš bankarski sistem poznat kao delimična rezerva – banke pri ruci moraju da imaju samo deo vašeg novca.
Stvaranje valute je neophodno da bi održalo sistem u životu
Budući da se svi zajmovi uglavnom sastoje od novostvorene valute, mora se stvoriti još više valute da bi se taj dug otplatio. A evo i zašto:
Recimo da su prošle godine sve svetske kreditne aktivnosti dovele do stvaranja 100 milijardi dolara. Svih tih 100 milijardi dolara je novostvoreno, i one se duguju bankama sa nekom dodatnom vrednošću za kamate. Odakle dolazi ova dodatna valuta za plaćanje kamata? Budući da ovde govorimo o celokupnoj svetskoj ekonomiji, to plaćanje kamata mora da dodje iz nove količine novostvorene valute.
Sve jedinice današnjih valuta nastale su pozajmljivanjem, a isplata kamate na te zajmove znači da moramo stalno da stvaramo još više nove valute. To dovodi do beskrajne monetarne inflacije. Kada nova valuta cirkuliše kroz ekonomiju, to dovodi do porasta cena: inflacije cena.
Previše monetarne inflacije može dovesti do hiperinflacije cena. U Venecueli je krajem 2018. godine piletina koštala preko 14 miliona Bolivara. Izvor: NBC News
Monetarni sistem se raspada ako se ova monetarna inflacija zaustavi, jer bi to značilo da veliki broj onih koji su uzeli zajam širom sveta ne bi mogao da vrati novac koji su pozajmili – oni ne bi izmirili svoje dugove.
Banke ili zajmodavci koji drže dug tada bi imali bezvrednu imovinu. Budući da vrednost duga podupire vrednost valute, vrednost valute bi strmoglavo padala zajedno sa dugom.
Kada ljudi izgube poverenje u ’tradicionalnu’ valutu, ona brzo postane bezvredna. To se dogodilo u Nemačkoj nakon Prvog svetskog rata, u Peruu devedesetih, Jugoslaviji 1994. ,Zimbabveu, Venecueli i sa još bezbroj drugih tradicionalnih valuta. Da bi odložile ovaj neizbežni ishod dokle god mogu, centralne banke jačaju poverenje u sistem nastavljajući da štampaju valutu stabilnim kursom.
Ovo osigurava da većina ljudi koju su uzeli zajam ima valutu za otplatu svojih kredita. Upravo to se dešava kada vlada izvrši „spas“ kao 2008. ili 2020. – oni osiguravaju da svi imaju dovoljno novca za plaćanje dugova, tako da laž može da se nastavi.
Inflacija ne dolazi iz povećanja potražnje
Sa više valute u opticaju, monetarna inflacija može da izgleda kao povećanje potražnje. Međutim, ekonomisti koji kažu da povećana potražnja pokreće stabilnu inflaciju tokom decenija propuštaju suptilnu poentu: iako monetarna inflacija može da prouzrokuje veću potrošnju, to nije zato što su ljudi zaista bogatiji, već zato što veruju da su bogatiji.
Kada se puno novca ubrizga u ekonomiju, cene jednostavno rastu jer više valute pokriva istu količinu robe. Rast cena znači pad vrednosti valute, tako da nema realnog povećanja stvarnog bogatstva, iako ljudi možda “troše više” u nominalnom iznosu valute.
Uzmimo ovaj primer: vi mesečno zarađujete 1.500 EUR, i prema svom trenutnom načinu života vi mesečno trošite oko 1.500 EUR. Dolazi vlada i počinje da vam daje dodatnih 500 EUR svakog meseca – vi se osećate poprilično dobro, zar ne? Sada možete da izlazite češće u restoran.
Međutim, vlada daje svima po 500 EUR mesečno, i svi ostali takođe troše taj novac. Ekonomista u vladinoj kancelariji, vidi da sada svi troše tih dodatnih 500 EUR mesečno i zaključuje da je vlada ‘stimulisala ekonomiju’.
Ipak, kako sav taj dodatni novac kruži ekonomijom, cene prirodno rastu. Sada vam je potrebno 2.000 EUR da biste održali svoj trenutni način života.
Da li si nešto bogatiji?
Vi možda imate više eura na vašem bankovnom računu, ali svaki od njih vam kupuje manje. Sada trošite 2.000 EUR mesečno da biste živeli životnim stilom koji vas je nekada koštao samo 1.500 EUR mesečno.
Ovo je ono što monetarna inflacija radi, i zašto je toliko pametnih ekonomista zavarano da misle da povećana potražnja, radije nego štampanje novca, pokreće trajnu inflaciju cena.
Da li smo uvek imali inflaciju?
Stalna inflacija cena relativno je nedavna pojava u modernim ekonomijama i započela je u vreme kada su Sjedinjene Države počele da konstantno štampaju valutu. Ako bi promene ponude i potražnje zaista dugoročno uzrokovale inflaciju cena, videli bismo inflaciju cena tokom istorije. Podaci govore drugačiju priču.
Indeks potrošačkih cena, koji se povećava kada imamo inflaciju cena, bio je prilično konstantan pre početka našeg trenutnog tradicionalnog ’fiat’ monetarnog sistema.
Taj sistem je započeo Bretton Woods-ovim sporazumom iz 1945. godine, a ubrzao se kada je Nixon 1971. okončao svetski zlatni standard.
Indeks potrošačkih cena, Sjedinjene Države, 1790-2015
Kako se meri inflacija?
Inflacija cena se često prikazuje kao promena indeksa potrošačkih cena (CPI). CPI je prosek cena raznih dobara koje ljudi kupuju u svakodnevnom životu: hrane, goriva, stanovanja itd. U Sjedinjenim Državama, vladin odsek pod nazivom Biro za statistiku rada (BLS) meri promene cena. To rade tako što posećuju maloprodajne radnje, beleže cene, računaju prosek i izveštavaju godišnju inflaciju kao promenu u odnosu na prošlu godinu.
Stopa inflacije koja se izveštava, je važna svima jer se koristi za određivanje povećanja troškova života i socijalnih davanja, poput plaćanja socijalnog osiguranja. Kada se CPI prilagodi naniže, isplate zarada i naknada su manje nego što bi trebalo da budu.
Efekti su se vremenom sjedinili: osoba koja u svojoj prvoj godini rada zaradi 40.000 USD zarađivaće samo 52.000 USD u svojoj desetoj godini staža, sa povećanim troškovima života od 3% da bi se plata podudarala sa inflacijom. Ako bi vlada umesto toga prijavila inflaciju od 6%, ta osoba bi u svojoj desetoj godini zarađivala 67.500 USD – tj. oko 30% više. Način na koji izračunavamo i prijavljujemo inflaciju ima ogroman uticaj na zaradu većine zaposlenih i građana.
Ovo je inflacija (procentualna promena u CPI) izmerena u poslednjih 20 godina u Sjedinjenim Državama:
Prvobitno je BLS jednostavno beležio cenu korpe robe široke potrošnje svake godine. Međutim, istraživanje Boskinove Komisije 1996. godine dovelo je do novih alata koji Birou za statistiku rada omogućavaju prilagođavanje cena u CPI. Dva najvažnija alata su geometrijsko ponderisanje i hedonika.
Geometrijsko Ponderisanje
Geometrijsko ponderisanje znači da kupovne navike sada mogu da utiču na to koliko promena cene pojedinog dobra utiče na CPI. Ako potrošači kupe manje robe, ona ima manju težinu kada se ubaci u presek indeksa potrošačkih cena. Boskinova Komisija je tvrdila da bi ova promena pomogla da se promene sklonosti potrošača. Međutim, ne postoji način da se utvrdi da li ljudi menjaju svoje kupovne navike jer zapravo žele da kupuju različite stvari. Vrlo je moguće da ljudi kupuju manje određenog dobra jer ono raste u ceni. Stoga geometrijsko ponderisanje uzrokuje da roba sa velikim rastom cena ima manje uticaja na CPI, što dovodi do niže prijavljene inflacije.
Hedonika
Hedonika omogućava Birou za statistiku rada da menja cenu dobra na osnovu njegovog opaženog povećanja ‘korisnosti’ tokom vremena. Evo primera: recimo da se televizor sa rezolucijom od 720p 2009. godine prodavao za 200 USD. U 2010. godini isti model televizora sada ima rezoluciju od 1080p i prodaje se po istoj ceni: 200 USD. Međutim, pošto se tehnologija u televizoru poboljšala, zaposleni u Birou za statistiku rada mogu da izmisle ‘korisni’ broj i pomoću njega oduzmu deo vrednosti od cene televizora. Kao rezultat, BLS može da kaže da TV košta 180 USD u 2010. godini – iako je njegova cena 200 USD. Ovo dovodi do pada prijavljene inflacije.
Oba ova prilagođavanja smanjuju prijavljenu stopu inflacije, što smanjuje povećanje troškova života i isplate naknada za socijalno osiguranje. Koliko ta prilagođavanja inflacije pogađaju radničku klasu i penzionere? Neke procene, poput procena ekonomiste John Williams-a, sa koledža u Darmouthu, stavljaju stvarnu inflaciju u SAD na u proseku 3% – 6% više nego što je izveštavano od strane Bira za statistiku rada. To bi inflaciju u 2020 dovelo do 5% – 8%, umesto na prijavljenih 2%.
U 2021. godini prijavljena inflacija je 5.4%, u prvom kvartalu.
Da li inflacija pokreće ekonomski rast?
Mnogi ljudi veruju da stabilna inflacija pokreće ekonomski rast podstičući investicije i potrošnju umesto štednje. Međutim, osnovni ekonomski podaci pobijaju ovu uobičajenu tvrdnju.
Ako za primer uzmemo Sjedinjene Države, nacija je imala samo kratke periode inflacije od 1775. do oko 1950. godine, kao što pokazuje indeks potrošačkih cena koji je ostao nepromenjen. Inflacija dobija zamah tek nakon 1971. godine, pa bi bilo za očekivati da će i stopa rasta bruto domaćeg proizvoda (BDP) Sjedinjenih Država porasti nakon 1971. godine.
Indeks potrošačkih cena, Sjedinjene Države, 1790-2015
Međutim, vidimo da se bruto domaći proizvod (BDP) po stanovniku u Sjedinjenim Državama, uobičajena mera ekonomske snage, neprekidno povećavao od 1820. godine do danas po stopi od oko 1,85% godišnje. Ne postoji porast oko 1971. godine, uprkos rastućoj inflaciji koja je započela u to vreme.
Ovo je logaritamski grafikon, koji nam omogućava da bolje vizualizujemo rast tokom vremena: što više logaritamski grafikon podseća na pravu liniju, to je stopa promene konzistentnija. Za više detalja, ovde pogledajte naslov: Rast na tehnološkoj granici i rast dostizanja.
To pokazuje da inflacija ne pokreće ekonomski rast.
Nažalost, imamo dokaze da inflacija ima i druge neželjene posledice, poput nejednakosti bogatstva. Koncentracija bogatstva u top 1%, počela je da raste krajem 1970-ih, nekoliko godina nakon što su Sjedinjene Države skinule svet sa zlatnog standarda i pretvorile se u monetarni sistem zasnovan na dugovima koji zahteva monetarnu inflaciju, a time i inflaciju cena, da bi preživeo.
Za potpunu istoriju tranzicije novca sa robnog sistema na dužni sistem, pročitajte naš članak o novcu.
Da li inflacija pokreće ili umanjuje nejednakost bogatstva?
Veza između inflacije i nejednakosti bogatstva postaje jasna kada pogledamo kako novostvorena valuta ulazi u ekonomiju. Vlade, komercijalne banke, velike korporacije i bogati često koriste kredite da bi iskoristili prednosti svojih moći. Kada podignu kredite, oni novonastalu valutu dobijaju ranije od svih ostalih. Oni imaju koristi od inflacije trošenjem nove valute pre nego što cene počnu da rastu kao rezultat te nove valute koja kruži u ekonomiji. Veliki i bogati subjekti često mogu da dobiju kredite po nižim troškovima od prosečnog građanina ili malog preduzeća. To znači da mogu da povećaju svoje poslovanje i bogatstvo brže od manjih firmi.
Bogati mogu da dobiju jeftine zajmove, zahvaljujući Federalnim Rezervama koje zadržavaju niske kamatne stope. To im omogućava da koriste ovo prednost za ostvarivanje ogromne dobiti.
Inflacija pogadja one koji rade za platu i ne mogu da ulože veći deo svog prihoda. Zarade se polako menjaju, ponekad se uskladjuju samo jednom godišnje. Kao rezultat, cene osnovnih dobara i usluga često rastu mnogo pre nego što zarade porastu. Cena potrošačke korpe takođe se smanjuje sa manipulacijama indeksom potrošačkih cena (CPI) koji skriva rast inflacije.
Gde se danas javlja inflacija?
Rekordno visoka inflacija javlja se u zemljama kao što su Venecuela, Zimbabve, Turska, Iran, Kuba, Južna Afrika i Argentina. To dovodi do sloma trgovine i političke nestabilnosti.
U razvijenom svetu vlade izveštavaju o niskoj inflaciji cena. Međutim, globalni bankarski sistem stvara nove valute u tonama – u toku je velika monetarna inflacija. Centralne banke dovode do sve većeg stvaranja valuta snižavanjem kamatnih stopa. To dovodi do toga da korporacije i pojedinci mogu da uzimaju jeftinije kredite, a svaki kredit znači stvaranje nove valute. Od 2008. godine, gotovo sve glavne centralne banke postavile su kamatne stope blizu nule.
Mnoge centralne banke takođe su pozajmljivale ogromne iznose vladama i bankama koje su propale nakon finansijske krize 2008. godine. Za samo nekoliko meseci, ovo je udvostručilo (ponekad utrostručilo ili učetvorostručilo) novčanu masu mnogih nacija. Oni su ovo nazvali „kvantitativno ublažavanje“.
Ako banke koriste toliku monetarnu inflaciju, zašto onda mi ne vidimo inflaciju cena?
Jednostavno rečeno, većina nove valute nije dospela u ruke običnih ljudi. Kada obični ljudi budu mogli da potroše novoštampanu valutu na svoje svakodnevne potrebe, tada ćemo videti rast CPI i inflacije.
Danas većina valuta ulazi u svet putem bankarskih zajmova, pa banke igraju veliku ulogu u tome gde se dešava inflacija. Banke prvenstveno pozajmljuju vrlo ‘sigurnim’ klijentima poput bogatih pojedinaca, vlada i velikih korporacija. Ovi subjekti kupuju luksuznu robu, umetnička dela, finansijsku imovinu i državne obveznice.
Cene ovih vrsta imovine nisu uključene u CPI, tako da je prijavljena inflacija niska. Kao rezultat, povećanje plata i isplate socijalnog osiguranja su takođe na niskom nivou.
Bogati su uživali u periodu od 2008. do 2021. godine, kada je njihova imovina upumpavana sa velikom količinom novog novca proizvedenog od bankarskih kredita!
Šta se dešava kada nova valuta dodje u ruke običnih ljudi?
Nažalost, jednog dana će sva ova nova valuta da uđe u normalnu ekonomiju i time će se povećati cene svakodnevne robe. To je poćelo da se dešava 2021. godine kao rezultat stimulativnih programa COVID-19 u Sjedinjenim Državama, koji su ljudima distribuirali trilione dolara. Iako je ovo zasigurno poželjnije od spašavanja korporacija, svaka vrsta spašavanja koja uključuje štampanje novca ima gadne dugoročne efekte.
Ovo što sada doživljavamo dogodilo se u Nemačkoj tokom i posle Prvog svetskog rata. Cene u Nemačkoj su zapravo pale tokom Prvog svetskog rata uprkos velikom stvaranju valute od strane Nemačke centralne banke. Nisko poverenje u ekonomiju sprečavalo je nemački narod da troši novac. Međutim, kad se rat završio i kada su ljudi ponovo počeli da ga troše, cene su vrlo naglo skočile i valuta je postala bezvredna. To bi moglo da se dogodi 2020-ih u Sjedinjenim Državama, sa obzirom na predložene programe podsticaja.
Politike poput Univerzalnog Osnovnog Dohotka, eng. Universal Basic Income (UBI), koje izgledaju pogodne za njihova obećanja da će “spasiti ljude”, takođe mogu da pokrenu hiperinflaciju. Obični ljudi bi se osećali imućnije, trošili bi svoju novoštampanu valutu i doveli do brzog rasta cena. Ovo bi u suštini poništilo pozitivan uticaj građana koji dobijaju “besplatan novac” svakog meseca.
Pa kako onda vi možete da zaštitite svoju ušteđevinu od inflacije? Kupujte imovinu koja je retka, potcenjena i koju vlade teško mogu da prigrabe. Ova imovina su plemeniti metali poput zlata, i Bitcoin.
Šta je deflacija?
Deflacija znači pad cena tokom vremena. Mnogi ekonomisti kažu da će ovo dovesti do toga da ljudi gomilaju valutu i da će dovesti do ekonomskog kolapsa, jer ljudi prestaju da kupuju robu i ulažu u preduzeća. To jednostavno nije tačno, jer ljudi uvek imaju potrebe i želje zbog kojih kupuju odredjenu robu. Stalni pad cena tokom vremena jednostavno bi promenio psihologiju potrošačke kulture u kojoj živimo.
Potrošačka kultura potiče od inflacije
Kako je to istina? Pogledajmo na sledećem primeru. Recimo da želite novi auto i da imate dovoljno novca da ga kupite. Poznato je da u našem svetu zbog stalne inflacije vaš novac vremenom postaje sve manje i manje vredan. U paralelnom svemiru u kojem se javlja stalna deflacija, vaš novac vremenom postaje sve vredniji.
- Uz konstantnu inflaciju, auto će koštati nešto više sledeće godine, i nešto više naredne godine. Niste sigurni gde da uložite novac da biste sa vremenom sigurno očuvali njegovu kupovnu moć. Ako niste sigurni da li ćete da kupite auto, ima više finansijskog smisla da ga kupite odmah, da biste dobili najbolju ponudu.
- Uz konstantnu deflaciju, auto će koštati nešto manje sledeće, i još manje naredne godine. Ako samo čuvate vaš novac, sledeće godine ćete dobiti bolju ponudu za auto. Ako niste sigurni da li ćete da kupite auto, ima više finansijskog smisla da sačekate malo duže da biste dobili bolju ponudu.
Sada razmislite o ta dva scenarija, pomnožena bilionima ljudi i proizvoda. Uz konstantnu inflaciju, svako ima malo više razloga da kupuje stvari upravo sada. Uz konstantnu deflaciju, svi sada imaju malo manje razloga da kupuju. Upravo na taj način inflacija je u osnovi naše materijalističke, potrošačke kulture. Deflacija bi mogla da bude lek.
Inflacija uzrokuje loše investicije
Vaš novac godišnje gubi “2%” svoje vrednosti zbog inflacije. Sada, recimo da vas Stefan pita da investirate u njegov Fast food. Nakon uvida u brojeve, verujete da ćete ovom investicijom izgubiti 1% od vrednosti svog novca. Gubitak od 1% u Stefanovom poslu bolji je od gubitka od 2% zbog inflacije, pa se vi odlučujete da uložite. Ovo je loša investicija, eng. malinvestment – investirajući vi ćete da izgubite deo vrednosti. Međutim, čuvanje valute je još gore, zato ulažete.
Mnogi investitori, poput penzijskih fondova, danas su prisiljeni da investiraju u neprofitabilne biznise zbog investicionih mandata i same veličine njihove ‘imovine pod upravljanjem’.
Pristalice konstantno niske inflacije veruju da bi deflacija smanjila investicije. Međutim, to bi samo smanjilo ulaganje u preduzeća sa negativnim očekivanim prinosom poput Stefanovog Fast food-a. Na primer, recimo da je deflacija u proseku oko 2% godišnje. Na ovom tržištu investitori bi jednostavno prestali da ulažu u projekte za koje misle da će im zaraditi manje od 2% godišnjeg povrata ulaganja.
Neznatno deflaciona valuta obeshrabriće ulaganja u lažna i loša preduzeća i podstaći ulaganje u solidna preduzeća koja svetu dodaju vrednost.
Kakav uticaj inflacija ima na društvo?
Inflacija pokreće povećanu potrošnju, smanjenu štednju i povećani dug. Sve ove stvari dovode do toga da većina ljudi mora da radi više sati i duže u starosti. Iako inflacija kažnjava one koji rade za platu, ona obogaćuje vlasnike bilo koje imovine koja dobija na ceni kada nova valuta uđe u sistem. Ova imovina uključuje akcije, umetnička dela, nekretnine i drugu imovinu koju bogataši koriste za čuvanje svog bogatstva.
Vremenom ljudi i firme izmišljaju nove načine za jeftinije stvaranje dobara i usluga višeg kvaliteta. Ovo je poznato kao ‘rast produktivnosti’ i trebalo bi da uzrokuje da cene tokom vremena konstantno padaju, a ne da rastu. Samo konstantno stvaranje valute koje je neophodno zbog monetarnog sistema zasnovanog na dugu naše vlade uzrokuje stalnu inflaciju i njene loše efekte.
Ako vam se sviđa moj rad, molim vas da ga podelite sa svojim prijateljima i porodicom. Cilj mi je da svima pružim pogled u ekonomiju i na to kako ona utiče na njihov život.
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@ 2b998b04:86727e47
2025-05-24 03:40:36Solzhenitsyn Would Have Loved Bitcoin
I didn’t plan to write this. But a comment from @HODL stirred something in me — a passing thought that took root and wouldn’t let go:
> “Solzhenitsyn would have understood Bitcoin.”
The more I sat with it, the more I realized: he wouldn’t have just understood it — he would have loved it.
A Life of Resistance
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn didn’t just survive the Soviet gulags — he exposed them. Through The Gulag Archipelago and other works, he revealed the quiet machinery of evil: not always through brutality, but through systemic lies, suppressed memory, and coerced consensus.
His core belief was devastatingly simple:
> “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
He never let anyone off the hook — not the state, not the system, not even himself. Evil, to Solzhenitsyn, was not “out there.” It was within. And resisting it required truth, courage, and deep personal responsibility.
Bitcoin: Truth That Resists
That’s why I believe Solzhenitsyn would have resonated with Bitcoin.
Not the hype. Not the coins. Not the influencers.
But the heart of it:
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A system that resists coercion.
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A ledger that cannot be falsified.
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A network that cannot be silenced.
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A protocol that doesn't care about party lines — only proof of work.
Bitcoin is incorruptible memory.\ Solzhenitsyn fought to preserve memory in the face of state erasure.\ Bitcoin cannot forget — and it cannot be made to lie.
Responsibility and Sovereignty
Bitcoin demands what Solzhenitsyn demanded: moral responsibility. You hold your keys. You verify your truth. You cannot delegate conscience.
He once wrote:
> “A man who is not inwardly prepared for the use of violence against him is always weaker than his opponent.”
Bitcoin flips that equation. It gives the peaceful man a weapon: truth that cannot be seized.
I’ve Felt This Line Too
I haven’t read all of The Gulag Archipelago — it’s long, and weighty — but I’ve read enough to know Solzhenitsyn’s voice. And I’ve felt the line he describes:
> That dividing line between good and evil… that runs through my own heart.
That’s why I left the noise of Web3. That’s why I’m building with Bitcoin. Because I believe the moral architecture of this protocol matters. It forces me to live in alignment — or walk away.
Final Word
I think Solzhenitsyn would have seen Bitcoin not as a tech innovation, but as a moral stand. Not a replacement for Christ — but a quiet echo of His justice.
And that’s why I keep stacking, writing, building — one block at a time.
Written with help from ChatGPT (Dr. C), and inspired by a comment from @HODL that sparked something deep.
If this resonated, feel free to zap a few sats — not because I need them, but because signal flows best when it’s shared with intention.
HODL mentioned this idea in a note — their Primal profile:\ https://primal.net/hodl
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@ 86611181:9fc27ad7
2025-05-23 20:31:44It's time to secure user data in your identity system This post was also published with the Industry Association of Privacy Professionals.
It seems like every day there is a new report of a major personal data breach. In just the past few months, Neiman Marcus, Ticketmaster, Evolve Bank, TeamViewer, Hubspot, and even the IRS have been affected.
The core issue is that user data is commonly spread across multiple systems that are increasingly difficult to fully secure, including database user tables, data warehouses and unstructured documents.
Most enterprises are already running an incredibly secure and hardened identity system to manage customer login and authorization, commonly referred to as a customer identity access management system. Since identity systems manage customer sign-up and sign-in, they typically contain customer names, email addresses, and phone numbers for multifactor authentication. Commercial CIAMs provide extensive logging, threat detection, availability and patch management.
Identity systems are highly secure and already store customers' personally identifiable information, so it stands to reason enterprises should consider identity systems to manage additional PII fields.
Identity systems are designed to store numerous PII fields and mask the fields for other systems. The Liberty Project developed the protocols that became Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0, the architecture at the core of CIAM systems, 20 years ago, when I was its chief technology officer. SAML 2.0 was built so identity data would be fully secure, and opaque tokens would be shared with other systems. Using tokens instead of actual user data is a core feature of identity software that can be used to fully secure user data across applications.
Most modern identity systems support adding additional customer fields, so it is easy to add new fields like Social Security numbers and physical addresses. Almost like a database, some identity systems even support additional tables and images.
A great feature of identity systems is that they often provide a full suite of user interface components for users to register, login and manage their profile fields. Moving fields like Social Security numbers from your database to your identity system means the identity system can fully manage the process of users entering, viewing and editing the field, and your existing application and database become descoped from managing sensitive data.
With sensitive fields fully isolated in an identity system and its user interface components, the identity system can provide for cumbersome and expensive compliance with standards such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act for medical data and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for payment data, saving the time and effort to achieve similar compliance in your application.
There are, of course, applications that require sensitive data, such as customer service systems and data warehouses. Identity systems use a data distribution standard called System for Cross-domain Identity Management 2.0 to copy user data to other systems. The SCIM is a great standard to help manage compliance such as "right to be forgotten," because it can automatically delete customer data from other systems when a customer record is deleted from the identity system.
When copying customer data from an identity system to another application, consider anonymizing or masking fields. For example, anonymizing a birthdate into an age range when copying a customer record into a data warehouse can descope the data warehouse from containing personal information.
Most enterprises already run an Application Programming Interface Gateway to manage web services between systems. By combining an API Gateway with the identity system's APIs, it becomes very easy to automatically anonymize and mask customer data fields before they are copied into other systems.
A new set of companies including Baffle, Skyflow, and Piiano have introduced services that combine the governance and field management features of an identity system with extensive field masking. Since these systems do not offer the authentication and authorization features of an identity system, it's important to balance the additional features as they introduce an additional threat surface with PII storage and permissions.
PII sprawl is an increasing liability for companies. The most secure, compliant and flexible central data store to manage PII is the existing CIAM and API Gateway infrastructure that enterprises have already deployed.
Move that customer data into your identity system and lock it down. https://peter.layer3.press/articles/3c6912eb-404a-4630-9fe9-fd1bd23cfa64
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-05-24 05:01:18Vivek Ramaswamy’s company bets on distressed bitcoin claims as its Bitcoin treasury strategy moves forward.
Strive Enterprises, an asset management firm co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, is exploring the acquisition of distressed bitcoin claims, with particular interest in around 75,000 BTC tied to the Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate. This move is part of the company’s broader strategy to build a Bitcoin treasury ahead of its planned merger with Asset Entities.
According to a document filed on May 20 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Strive has partnered with 117 Castell Advisory Group to “identify and evaluate” distressed Bitcoin claims with confirmed legal judgments. Among these are approximately 75,000 BTC connected to Mt. Gox, with an estimated market value of $8 billion at current prices.
Essentially, Strive aims to acquire rights to bitcoins currently tied up in legal disputes, which can be purchased at a discount by those willing to take on the risk and wait for eventual recovery.
In a post on X, Strive’s CFO, Ben Pham, stated:
“Strive intends to use all available mechanisms, including novel financial strategies not used by other Bitcoin treasury companies, to maximize its exposure to the asset.”
The company also plans to buy cash at a discount by merging with publicly traded companies holding more cash than their stock value, using the excess funds to purchase additional Bitcoin.
Mt. Gox, the exchange that collapsed in 2014, is currently in the process of repaying creditors, with a deadline set for October 31, 2025.
In its SEC filing, Strive declared:
“This strategy is intended to allow Strive the opportunity to purchase Bitcoin exposure at a discount to market price, enhancing Bitcoin per share and supporting its goal of outperforming Bitcoin over the long run.”
At the beginning of May, Strive announced its merger plan with Asset Entities, a deal that would create the first publicly listed asset management firm focused on Bitcoin. The resulting company aims to join the growing number of firms adopting a Bitcoin treasury strategy.
The corporate treasury trend
Strive’s initiative to accumulate bitcoin mirrors that of other companies like Strategy and Japan’s Metaplanet. On May 19, Strategy, led by Michael Saylor, announced the purchase of an additional 7,390 BTC for $764.9 million, raising its total holdings to 576,230 BTC. On the same day, Metaplanet revealed it had acquired another 1,004 BTC, increasing its total to 7,800 BTC.
The post Bitcoin in Strive’s sights: 75,000 BTC from Mt. Gox among its targets appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ 6ad3e2a3:c90b7740
2025-05-20 13:49:50I’ve written about MSTR twice already, https://www.chrisliss.com/p/mstr and https://www.chrisliss.com/p/mstr-part-2, but I want to focus on legendary short seller James Chanos’ current trade wherein he buys bitcoin (via ETF) and shorts MSTR, in essence to “be like Mike” Saylor who sells MSTR shares at the market and uses them to add bitcoin to the company’s balance sheet. After all, if it’s good enough for Saylor, why shouldn’t everyone be doing it — shorting a company whose stock price is more than 2x its bitcoin holdings and using the proceeds to buy the bitcoin itself?
Saylor himself has said selling shares at 2x NAV (net asset value) to buy bitcoin is like selling dollars for two dollars each, and Chanos has apparently decided to get in while the getting (market cap more than 2x net asset value) is good. If the price of bitcoin moons, sending MSTR’s shares up, you are more than hedged in that event, too. At least that’s the theory.
The problem with this bet against MSTR’s mNAV, i.e., you are betting MSTR’s market cap will converge 1:1 toward its NAV in the short and medium term is this trade does not exist in a vacuum. Saylor has described how his ATM’s (at the market) sales of shares are accretive in BTC per share because of this very premium they carry. Yes, we’ll dilute your shares of the company, but because we’re getting you 2x the bitcoin per share, you are getting an ever smaller slice of an ever bigger overall pie, and the pie is growing 2x faster than your slice is reducing. (I https://www.chrisliss.com/p/mstr how this works in my first post.)
But for this accretion to continue, there must be a constant supply of “greater fools” to pony up for the infinitely printable shares which contain only half their value in underlying bitcoin. Yes, those shares will continue to accrete more BTC per share, but only if there are more fools willing to make this trade in the future. So will there be a constant supply of such “fools” to keep fueling MSTR’s mNAV multiple indefinitely?
Yes, there will be in my opinion because you have to look at the trade from the prospective fools’ perspective. Those “fools” are not trading bitcoin for MSTR, they are trading their dollars, selling other equities to raise them maybe, but in the end it’s a dollars for shares trade. They are not selling bitcoin for them.
You might object that those same dollars could buy bitcoin instead, so they are surely trading the opportunity cost of buying bitcoin for them, but if only 5-10 percent of the market (or less) is buying bitcoin itself, the bucket in which which those “fools” reside is the entire non-bitcoin-buying equity market. (And this is not considering the even larger debt market which Saylor has yet to tap in earnest.)
So for those 90-95 percent who do not and are not presently planning to own bitcoin itself, is buying MSTR a fool’s errand, so to speak? Not remotely. If MSTR shares are infinitely printable ATM, they are still less so than the dollar and other fiat currencies. And MSTR shares are backed 2:1 by bitcoin itself, while the fiat currencies are backed by absolutely nothing. So if you hold dollars or euros, trading them for MSTR shares is an errand more sage than foolish.
That’s why this trade (buying BTC and shorting MSTR) is so dangerous. Not only are there many people who won’t buy BTC buying MSTR, there are many funds and other investment entities who are only able to buy MSTR.
Do you want to get BTC at 1:1 with the 5-10 percent or MSTR backed 2:1 with the 90-95 percent. This is a bit like medical tests that have a 95 percent accuracy rate for an asymptomatic disease that only one percent of the population has. If someone tests positive, it’s more likely to be a false one than an indication he has the disease*. The accuracy rate, even at 19:1, is subservient to the size of the respective populations.
At some point this will no longer be the case, but so long as the understanding of bitcoin is not widespread, so long as the dollar is still the unit of account, the “greater fools” buying MSTR are still miles ahead of the greatest fools buying neither, and the stock price and mNAV should only increase.
. . .
One other thought: it’s more work to play defense than offense because the person on offense knows where he’s going, and the defender can only react to him once he moves. Similarly, Saylor by virtue of being the issuer of the shares knows when more will come online while Chanos and other short sellers are borrowing them to sell in reaction to Saylor’s strategy. At any given moment, Saylor can pause anytime, choosing to issue convertible debt or preferred shares with which to buy more bitcoin, and the shorts will not be given advance notice.
If the price runs, and there is no ATM that week because Saylor has stopped on a dime, so to speak, the shorts will be left having to scramble to change directions and buy the shares back to cover. Their momentum might be in the wrong direction, though, and like Allen Iverson breaking ankles with a crossover, Saylor might trigger a massive short squeeze, rocketing the share price ever higher. That’s why he actually welcomes Chanos et al trying this copycat strategy — it becomes the fuel for outsized gains.
For that reason, news that Chanos is shorting MSTR has not shaken my conviction, though there are other more pertinent https://www.chrisliss.com/p/mstr-part-2 with MSTR, of which one should be aware. And as always, do your own due diligence before investing in anything.
* To understand this, consider a population of 100,000, with one percent having a disease. That means 1,000 have it, 99,000 do not. If the test is 95 percent accurate, and everyone is tested, 950 of the 1,000 will test positive (true positives), 50 who have it will test negative (false negatives.) Of the positives, 95 percent of 99,000 (94,050) will test negative (true negatives) and five percent (4,950) will test positive (false positives). That means 4,950 out of 5,900 positives (84%) will be false.