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如果比特币发明了真正的钱，那么 Crypto 是什么？

引言

比特币诞生之初就以“数字黄金”姿态示人，被支持者誉为人类历史上第一次发明了真正意义上的钱——一种不依赖国家信用、总量恒定且不可篡改的硬通货。然而十多年过去，比特币之后蓬勃而起的加密世界（Crypto）已经远超“货币”范畴：从智能合约平台到去中心组织，从去央行的稳定币到戏谑荒诞的迷因币，Crypto 演化出一个丰富而混沌的新生态。这不禁引发一个根本性的追问：如果说比特币解决了“真金白银”的问题，那么 Crypto 又完成了什么发明？

Crypto 与政治的碰撞：随着Crypto版图扩张，全球政治势力也被裹挟进这场金融变革洪流（示意图）。比特币的出现重塑了货币信用，但Crypto所引发的却是一场更深刻的政治与治理结构实验。从华尔街到华盛顿，从散户论坛到主权国家，越来越多人意识到：Crypto不只是技术或金融现象，而是一种全新的政治表达结构正在萌芽。正如有激进论者所断言的：“比特币发明了真正的钱，而Crypto则在发明新的政治。”价格K线与流动性曲线，或许正成为这个时代社群意志和社会价值观的新型投射。

冲突结构：当价格挑战选票

传统政治中，选票是人民意志的载体，一人一票勾勒出民主治理的正统路径。而在链上的加密世界里，骤升骤降的价格曲线和真金白银的买卖行为却扮演起了选票的角色：资金流向成了民意走向，市场多空成为立场表决。价格行为取代选票，这听来匪夷所思，却已在Crypto社群中成为日常现实。每一次代币的抛售与追高，都是社区对项目决策的即时“投票”；每一根K线的涨跌，都折射出社区意志的赞同或抗议。市场行为本身承担了决策权与象征权——价格即政治，正在链上蔓延。

这一新生政治形式与旧世界的民主机制形成了鲜明冲突。bitcoin.org中本聪在比特币白皮书中提出“一CPU一票”的工作量证明共识，用算力投票取代了人为决策bitcoin.org。而今，Crypto更进一步，用资本市场的涨跌来取代传统政治的选举。支持某项目？直接购入其代币推高市值；反对某提案？用脚投票抛售资产。相比漫长的选举周期和层层代议制，链上市场提供了近乎实时的“公投”机制。但这种机制也引发巨大争议：资本的投票天然偏向持币多者（富者）的意志，是否意味着加密政治更为金权而非民权？持币多寡成为影响力大小，仿佛选举演变成了“一币一票”，巨鲸富豪俨然掌握更多话语权。这种与民主平等原则的冲突，成为Crypto政治形式饱受质疑的核心张力之一。

尽管如此，我们已经目睹市场投票在Crypto世界塑造秩序的威力：2016年以太坊因DAO事件分叉时，社区以真金白银“投票”决定了哪条链获得未来。arkhamintelligence.com结果是新链以太坊（ETH）成为主流，其市值一度超过2,800亿美元，而坚持原则的以太经典（ETC）市值不足35亿美元，不及前者的八十分之一arkhamintelligence.com。市场选择清楚地昭示了社区的政治意志。同样地，在比特币扩容之争、各类硬分叉博弈中，无不是由投资者和矿工用资金与算力投票，胜者存续败者黯然。价格成为裁决纷争的最终选票，冲击着传统“选票决胜”的政治理念。Crypto的价格民主，与现代代议民主正面相撞，激起当代政治哲思中前所未有的冲突火花。

治理与分配

XRP对决SEC成为了加密世界“治理与分配”冲突的经典战例。2020年底，美国证券交易委员会（SEC）突然起诉Ripple公司，指控其发行的XRP代币属于未注册证券，消息一出直接引爆市场恐慌。XRP价格应声暴跌，一度跌去超过60%，最低触及0.21美元coindesk.com。曾经位居市值前三的XRP险些被打入谷底，监管的强硬姿态似乎要将这个项目彻底扼杀。

然而XRP社区没有选择沉默。 大批长期持有者组成了自称“XRP军团”（XRP Army）的草根力量，在社交媒体上高调声援Ripple，对抗监管威胁。面对SEC的指控，他们集体发声，质疑政府选择性执法，声称以太坊当年发行却“逍遥法外”，只有Ripple遭到不公对待coindesk.com。正如《福布斯》的评论所言：没人预料到愤怒的加密散户投资者会掀起法律、政治和社交媒体领域的‘海啸式’反击，痛斥监管机构背弃了保护投资者的承诺crypto-law.us。这种草根抵抗监管的话语体系迅速形成：XRP持有者不但在网上掀起舆论风暴，还采取实际行动向SEC施压。他们发起了请愿，抨击SEC背离保护投资者初衷、诉讼给个人投资者带来巨大伤害，号召停止对Ripple的上诉纠缠——号称这是在捍卫全球加密用户的共同利益bitget.com。一场由民间主导的反监管运动就此拉开帷幕。

Ripple公司则选择背水一战，拒绝和解，在法庭上与SEC针锋相对地鏖战了近三年之久。Ripple坚称XRP并非证券，不应受到SEC管辖，即使面临沉重法律费用和业务压力也不妥协。2023年，这场持久战迎来了标志性转折：美国法庭作出初步裁决，认定XRP在二级市场的流通不构成证券coindesk.com。这一胜利犹如给沉寂已久的XRP注入强心针——消息公布当天XRP价格飙涨近一倍，盘中一度逼近1美元大关coindesk.com。沉重监管阴影下苟延残喘的项目，凭借司法层面的突破瞬间重获生机。这不仅是Ripple的胜利，更被支持者视为整个加密行业对SEC强权的一次胜仗。

XRP的对抗路线与某些“主动合规”的项目形成了鲜明对比。 稳定币USDC的发行方Circle、美国最大合规交易所Coinbase等选择了一条迎合监管的道路：它们高调拥抱现行法规，希望以合作换取生存空间。然而现实却给了它们沉重一击。USDC稳定币在监管风波中一度失去美元锚定，哪怕Circle及时披露储备状况也无法阻止恐慌蔓延，大批用户迅速失去信心，短时间内出现数十亿美元的赎回潮blockworks.co。Coinbase则更为直接：即便它早已注册上市、反复向监管示好，2023年仍被SEC指控为未注册证券交易所reuters.com，卷入漫长诉讼漩涡。可见，在迎合监管的策略下，这些机构非但未能换来监管青睐，反而因官司缠身或用户流失而丧失市场信任。 相比之下，XRP以对抗求生存的路线反而赢得了投资者的眼光：价格的涨跌成为社区投票的方式，抗争的勇气反过来强化了市场对它的信心。

同样引人深思的是另一种迥异的治理路径：技术至上的链上治理。 以MakerDAO为代表的去中心化治理模式曾被寄予厚望——MKR持币者投票决策、算法维持稳定币Dai的价值，被视为“代码即法律”的典范。然而，这套纯技术治理在市场层面却未能形成广泛认同，亦无法激发群体性的情绪动员。复杂晦涩的机制使得普通投资者难以参与其中，MakerDAO的治理讨论更多停留在极客圈子内部，在社会大众的政治对话中几乎听不见它的声音。相比XRP对抗监管所激发的铺天盖地关注，MakerDAO的治理实验显得默默无闻、难以“出圈”。这也说明，如果一种治理实践无法连接更广泛的利益诉求和情感共鸣，它在社会政治层面就难以形成影响力。

XRP之争的政治象征意义由此凸显： 它展示了一条“以市场对抗国家”的斗争路线，即通过代币价格的集体行动来回应监管权力的施压。在这场轰动业界的对决中，价格即是抗议的旗帜，涨跌映射着政治立场。XRP对SEC的胜利被视作加密世界向旧有权力宣告的一次胜利：资本市场的投票器可以撼动监管者的强权。这种“价格即政治”的张力，正是Crypto世界前所未有的社会实验：去中心化社区以市场行为直接对抗国家权力，在无形的价格曲线中凝聚起政治抗争的力量，向世人昭示加密货币不仅有技术和资本属性，更蕴含着不可小觑的社会能量和政治意涵。

不可归零的政治资本

Meme 币的本质并非廉价或易造，而在于其构建了一种“无法归零”的社群生存结构。 对于传统观点而言，多数 meme 币只是短命的投机游戏：价格暴涨暴跌后一地鸡毛，创始人套现跑路，投资者血本无归，然后“大家转去炒下一个”theguardian.com。然而，meme 币社群的独特之处在于——失败并不意味着终结，而更像是运动的逗号而非句号。一次币值崩盘后，持币的草根们往往并未散去；相反，他们汲取教训，准备东山再起。这种近乎“不死鸟”的循环，使得 meme 币运动呈现出一种数字政治循环的特质：价格可以归零，但社群的政治热情和组织势能不归零。正如研究者所指出的，加密领域中的骗局、崩盘等冲击并不会摧毁生态，反而成为让系统更加强韧的“健康应激”，令整个行业在动荡中变得更加反脆弱cointelegraph.com。对应到 meme 币，每一次暴跌和重挫，都是社群自我进化、卷土重来的契机。这个去中心化群体打造出一种自组织的安全垫，失败者得以在瓦砾上重建家园。对于草根社群、少数派乃至体制的“失败者”而言，meme 币提供了一个永不落幕的抗争舞台，一种真正反脆弱的政治性。正因如此，我们看到诸多曾被嘲笑的迷因项目屡败屡战：例如 Dogecoin 自2013年问世后历经八年沉浮，早已超越玩笑属性，成为互联网史上最具韧性的迷因之一frontiersin.org；支撑 Dogecoin 的正是背后强大的迷因文化和社区意志，它如同美国霸权支撑美元一样，为狗狗币提供了“永不中断”的生命力frontiersin.org。

“复活权”的数字政治意涵

这种“失败-重生”的循环结构蕴含着深刻的政治意涵：在传统政治和商业领域，一个政党选举失利或一家公司破产往往意味着清零出局，资源散尽、组织瓦解。然而在 meme 币的世界，社群拥有了一种前所未有的“复活权”。当项目崩盘，社区并不必然随之消亡，而是可以凭借剩余的人心和热情卷土重来——哪怕换一个 token 名称，哪怕重启一条链，运动依然延续。正如 Cheems 项目的核心开发者所言，在几乎无人问津、技术受阻的困境下，大多数人可能早已卷款走人，但 “CHEEMS 社区没有放弃，背景、技术、风投都不重要，重要的是永不言弃的精神”cointelegraph.com。这种精神使得Cheems项目起死回生，社区成员齐声宣告“我们都是 CHEEMS”，共同书写历史cointelegraph.com。与传统依赖风投和公司输血的项目不同，Cheems 完全依靠社区的信念与韧性存续发展，体现了去中心化运动的真谛cointelegraph.com。这意味着政治参与的门槛被大大降低：哪怕没有金主和官方背书，草根也能凭借群体意志赋予某个代币新的生命。对于身处社会边缘的群体来说，meme 币俨然成为自组织的安全垫和重新集结的工具。难怪有学者指出，近期涌入meme币浪潮的主力，正是那些对现实失望但渴望改变命运的年轻人theguardian.com——“迷茫的年轻人，想要一夜暴富”theguardian.com。meme币的炒作表面上看是投机赌博，但背后蕴含的是草根对既有金融秩序的不满与反抗：没有监管和护栏又如何？一次失败算不得什么，社区自有后路和新方案。这种由底层群众不断试错、纠错并重启的过程，本身就是一种数字时代的新型反抗运动和群众动员机制。

举例而言，Terra Luna 的沉浮充分展现了这种“复活机制”的政治力量。作为一度由风投资本热捧的项目，Luna 币在2022年的崩溃本可被视作“归零”的失败典范——稳定币UST瞬间失锚，Luna币价归零，数十亿美元灰飞烟灭。然而“崩盘”并没有画下休止符。Luna的残余社区拒绝承认失败命运，通过链上治理投票毅然启动新链，“复活”了 Luna 代币，再次回到市场交易reuters.com。正如 Terra 官方在崩盘后发布的推文所宣称：“我们力量永在社区，今日的决定正彰显了我们的韧性”reuters.com。事实上，原链更名为 Luna Classic 后，大批所谓“LUNC 军团”的散户依然死守阵地，誓言不离不弃；他们自发烧毁巨量代币以缩减供应、推动技术升级，试图让这个一度归零的项目重新燃起生命之火binance.com。失败者并未散场，而是化作一股草根洪流，奋力托举起项目的残迹。经过迷因化的叙事重塑，这场从废墟中重建价值的壮举，成为加密世界中草根政治的经典一幕。类似的案例不胜枚举：曾经被视为笑话的 DOGE（狗狗币）正因多年社群的凝聚而跻身主流币种，总市值一度高达数百亿美元，充分证明了“民有民享”的迷因货币同样可以笑傲市场frontiersin.org。再看最新的美国政治舞台，连总统特朗普也推出了自己的 meme 币 $TRUMP，号召粉丝拿真金白银来表达支持。该币首日即从7美元暴涨至75美元，两天后虽回落到40美元左右，但几乎同时，第一夫人 Melania 又发布了自己的 $Melania 币，甚至连就职典礼的牧师都跟风发行了纪念币theguardian.com！显然，对于狂热的群众来说，一个币的沉浮并非终点，而更像是运动的换挡——资本市场成为政治参与的新前线，你方唱罢我登场，meme 币的群众动员热度丝毫不减。值得注意的是，2024年出现的 Pump.fun 等平台更是进一步降低了这一循环的技术门槛，任何人都可以一键生成自己的 meme 币theguardian.com。这意味着哪怕某个项目归零，剩余的社区完全可以借助此类工具迅速复制一个新币接力，延续集体行动的火种。可以说，在 meme 币的世界里，草根社群获得了前所未有的再生能力和主动权，这正是一种数字时代的群众政治奇观：失败可以被当作梗来玩，破产能够变成重生的序章。

价格即政治：群众投机的新抗争

meme 币现象的兴盛表明：在加密时代，价格本身已成为一种政治表达。这些看似荒诞的迷因代币，将金融市场变成了群众宣泄情绪和诉求的另一个舞台。有学者将此概括为“将公民参与直接转化为了投机资产”cdn-brighterworld.humanities.mcmaster.ca——也就是说，社会运动的热情被注入币价涨跌，政治支持被铸造成可以交易的代币。meme 币融合了金融、技术与政治，通过病毒般的迷因文化激发公众参与，形成对现实政治的某种映射cdn-brighterworld.humanities.mcmaster.caosl.com。当一群草根投入全部热忱去炒作一枚毫无基本面支撑的币时，这本身就是一种大众政治动员的体现：币价暴涨，意味着一群人以戏谑的方式在向既有权威叫板；币价崩盘，也并不意味着信念的消亡，反而可能孕育下一次更汹涌的造势。正如有分析指出，政治类 meme 币的出现前所未有地将群众文化与政治情绪融入市场行情，价格曲线俨然成为民意和趋势的风向标cdn-brighterworld.humanities.mcmaster.ca。在这种局面下，投机不再仅仅是逐利，还是一种宣示立场、凝聚共识的过程——一次次看似荒唐的炒作背后，是草根对传统体制的不服与嘲讽，是失败者拒绝认输的呐喊。归根结底，meme 币所累积的，正是一种不可被归零的政治资本。价格涨落之间，群众的愤怒、幽默与希望尽显其中；这股力量不因一次挫败而消散，反而在市场的循环中愈发壮大。也正因如此，我们才说“价格即政治”——在迷因币的世界里，价格不只是数字，更是人民政治能量的晴雨表，哪怕归零也终将卷土重来。cdn-brighterworld.humanities.mcmaster.caosl.com

全球新兴现象：伊斯兰金融的入场

当Crypto在西方世界掀起市场治政的狂潮时，另一股独特力量也悄然融入这一场域：伊斯兰金融携其独特的道德秩序，开始在链上寻找存在感。长期以来，伊斯兰金融遵循着一套区别于世俗资本主义的原则：禁止利息（Riba）、反对过度投机（Gharar/Maysir）、强调实际资产支撑和道德投资。当这些原则遇上去中心化的加密技术，会碰撞出怎样的火花？出人意料的是，这两者竟在“以市场行为表达价值”这个层面产生了惊人的共鸣。伊斯兰金融并不拒绝市场机制本身，只是为其附加了道德准则；Crypto则将市场机制推向了政治高位，用价格来表达社群意志。二者看似理念迥异，实则都承认市场行为可以也应当承载社会价值观。这使得越来越多金融与政治分析人士开始关注：当虔诚的宗教伦理遇上狂野的加密市场，会塑造出何种新范式？

事实上，穆斯林世界已经在探索“清真加密”的道路。一些区块链项目致力于确保协议符合伊斯兰教法（Sharia）的要求。例如Haqq区块链发行的伊斯兰币（ISLM），从规则层面内置了宗教慈善义务——每发行新币即自动将10%拨入慈善DAO，用于公益捐赠，以符合天课（Zakat）的教义nasdaq.comnasdaq.com。同时，该链拒绝利息和赌博类应用，2022年还获得了宗教权威的教令（Fatwa）认可其合规性nasdaq.com。再看理念层面，伊斯兰经济学强调货币必须有内在价值、收益应来自真实劳动而非纯利息剥削。这一点与比特币的“工作量证明”精神不谋而合——有人甚至断言法定货币无锚印钞并不清真，而比特币这类需耗费能源生产的资产反而更符合教法初衷cointelegraph.com。由此，越来越多穆斯林投资者开始以道德投资的名义进入Crypto领域，将资金投向符合清真原则的代币和协议。

这种现象带来了微妙的双重合法性：一方面，Crypto世界原本奉行“价格即真理”的世俗逻辑，而伊斯兰金融为其注入了一股道德合法性，使部分加密资产同时获得了宗教与市场的双重背书；另一方面，即便在遵循宗教伦理的项目中，最终决定成败的依然是市场对其价值的认可。道德共识与市场共识在链上交汇，共同塑造出一种混合的新秩序。这一全球新兴现象引发广泛议论：有人将其视为金融民主化的极致表现——不同文化价值都能在市场平台上表达并竞争；也有人警惕这可能掩盖新的风险，因为把宗教情感融入高风险资产，既可能凝聚强大的忠诚度，也可能在泡沫破裂时引发信仰与财富的双重危机。但无论如何，伊斯兰金融的入场使Crypto的政治版图更加丰盈多元。从华尔街交易员到中东教士，不同背景的人们正通过Crypto这个奇特的舞台，对人类价值的表达方式进行前所未有的实验。

升华结语：价格即政治的新直觉

回顾比特币问世以来的这段历程，我们可以清晰地看到一条演进的主线：先有货币革命，后有政治发明。比特币赋予了人类一种真正自主的数字货币，而Crypto在此基础上完成的，则是一项前所未有的政治革新——它让市场价格行为承担起了类似政治选票的功能，开创了一种“价格即政治”的新直觉。在这个直觉下，市场不再只是冷冰冰的交易场所；每一次资本流动、每一轮行情涨落，都被赋予了社会意义和政治涵义。买入即表态，卖出即抗议，流动性的涌入或枯竭胜过千言万语的陈情。Crypto世界中，K线图俨然成为民意曲线，行情图就是政治晴雨表。决策不再由少数权力精英关起门来制定，而是在全球无眠的交易中由无数普通人共同谱写。这样的政治形式也许狂野，也许充满泡沫和噪音，但它不可否认地调动起了广泛的社会参与，让原本疏离政治进程的个体通过持币、交易重新找回了影响力的幻觉或实感。

“价格即政治”并非一句简单的口号，而是Crypto给予世界的全新想象力。它质疑了传统政治的正统性：如果一串代码和一群匿名投资者就能高效决策资源分配，我们为何还需要繁冗的官僚体系？它也拷问着自身的内在隐忧：当财富与权力深度绑定，Crypto政治如何避免堕入金钱统治的老路？或许，正是在这样的矛盾和张力中，人类政治的未来才会不断演化。Crypto所开启的，不仅是技术乌托邦或金融狂欢，更可能是一次对民主形式的深刻拓展和挑战。这里有最狂热的逐利者，也有最理想主义的社群塑梦者；有一夜暴富的神话，也有瞬间破灭的惨痛。而这一切汇聚成的洪流，正冲撞着工业时代以来既定的权力谱系。

当我们再次追问：Crypto究竟是什么？ 或许可以这样回答——Crypto是比特币之后，人类完成的一次政治范式的试验性跃迁。在这里，价格行为化身为选票，资本市场演化为广场，代码与共识共同撰写“社会契约”。这是一场仍在进行的文明实验：它可能无声地融入既有秩序，也可能剧烈地重塑未来规则。但无论结局如何，如今我们已经见证：在比特币发明真正的货币之后，Crypto正在发明真正属于21世纪的政治。它以数字时代的语言宣告：在链上，价格即政治，市场即民意，代码即法律。这，或许就是Crypto带给我们的最直观而震撼的本质启示。

参考资料：

• 中本聪. 比特币白皮书: 一种点对点的电子现金系统. (2008)bitcoin.org

• Arkham Intelligence. Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic: Understanding the Differences. (2023)arkhamintelligence.com

• Binance Square (@渔神的加密日记). 狗狗币价格为何上涨？背后的原因你知道吗？binance.com

• Cointelegraph中文. 特朗普的迷因币晚宴预期内容揭秘. (2025)cn.cointelegraph.com

• 慢雾科技 Web3Caff (@Lisa). 风险提醒：从 LIBRA 看“政治化”的加密货币骗局. (2025)web3caff.com

• Nasdaq (@Anthony Clarke). How Cryptocurrency Aligns with the Principles of Islamic Finance. (2023)nasdaq.comnasdaq.com

• Cointelegraph Magazine (@Andrew Fenton). DeFi can be halal but not DOGE? Decentralizing Islamic finance. (2023)cointelegraph.com

@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9

This piece is the first in a series that will focus on things I think are a priority if your focus is similar to mine: building a strong family and safeguarding their future.

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Choosing the ideal place to raise a family is one of the most significant decisions you will ever make. For simplicity sake I will break down my thought process into key factors: strong property rights, the ability to grow your own food, access to fresh water, the freedom to own and train with guns, and a dependable community.

A Jurisdiction with Strong Property Rights

Strong property rights are essential and allow you to build on a solid foundation that is less likely to break underneath you. Regions with a history of limited government and clear legal protections for landowners are ideal. Personally I think the US is the single best option globally, but within the US there is a wide difference between which state you choose. Choose carefully and thoughtfully, think long term. Obviously if you are not American this is not a realistic option for you, there are other solid options available especially if your family has mobility. I understand many do not have this capability to easily move, consider that your first priority, making movement and jurisdiction choice possible in the first place.

Abundant Access to Fresh Water

Water is life. I cannot overstate the importance of living somewhere with reliable, clean, and abundant freshwater. Some regions face water scarcity or heavy regulations on usage, so prioritizing a place where water is plentiful and your rights to it are protected is critical. Ideally you should have well access so you are not tied to municipal water supplies. In times of crisis or chaos well water cannot be easily shutoff or disrupted. If you live in an area that is drought prone, you are one drought away from societal chaos. Not enough people appreciate this simple fact.

Grow Your Own Food

A location with fertile soil, a favorable climate, and enough space for a small homestead or at the very least a garden is key. In stable times, a small homestead provides good food and important education for your family. In times of chaos your family being able to grow and raise healthy food provides a level of self sufficiency that many others will lack. Look for areas with minimal restrictions, good weather, and a culture that supports local farming.

Guns

The ability to defend your family is fundamental. A location where you can legally and easily own guns is a must. Look for places with a strong gun culture and a political history of protecting those rights. Owning one or two guns is not enough and without proper training they will be a liability rather than a benefit. Get comfortable and proficient. Never stop improving your skills. If the time comes that you must use a gun to defend your family, the skills must be instinct. Practice. Practice. Practice.

A Strong Community You Can Depend On

No one thrives alone. A ride or die community that rallies together in tough times is invaluable. Seek out a place where people know their neighbors, share similar values, and are quick to lend a hand. Lead by example and become a good neighbor, people will naturally respond in kind. Small towns are ideal, if possible, but living outside of a major city can be a solid balance in terms of work opportunities and family security.

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Let me know if you found this helpful. My plan is to break down how I think about these five key subjects in future posts.

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1. Install Sky Map (it's free and open source)
2. Launch the app and tap Accept, then tap OK
3. When asked to access the device's location, tap While Using The App
4. Tap somewhere on the screen to activate the menu, then tap ⁝ and select Settings
5. Disable Send Usage Statistics
6. 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

@ bc6ccd13:f53098e4

This article is slightly outside my normal writing focus. But it’s something everyone deserves to know, and take advantage of if they like. Before you click away, this isn’t a sports betting “system” or “strategy”. This is for anyone living in or near a state that has legalized online sports betting. It’s a way to take advantage of the new customer sign up bonuses these online sportsbooks give, by using free online tools to convert those bonuses into $2,000 or more in cash per person, depending on your state. It doesn’t require you to know anything whatsoever about sports, gambling, sports betting, odds, math, or anything like that. It doesn’t involve taking risks with your money. All you need is some capital (around $3-5,000 would be ideal), a smartphone, a legal sports betting state, and this guide.

Concepts and Principles

Online sports betting is now legal in 30 US states. You can check legality in your state on the map here. If you’re in a state with legal mobile betting, or close enough that you’d be willing to drive there, you can benefit from this guide.

Most states with legalized betting have multiple different sports books competing for customers. To attract new customers, many of them offer various types of bonus offers when you initially sign up. The idea is that once you sign up and place a bet, you’re likely to continue betting in the future. So the sportsbook doesn’t mind losing money on your first wager, because they’ll make it back over time. That leaves an opportunity for someone to just take the free money and leave, if they want to do that. It’s completely legal, and if you follow this guide, also risk free.

The bonuses vary in size, but are usually larger the first few months after a state legalizes online betting, since sportsbooks are competing heavily to attract the new customers to their site. But most states will have a combined $3-5,000 in bonuses available at any time across 4-8 sportsbooks. You can find the available offers in your state by searching “covers sports betting promo offers \”. For example for Maryland, we’d end up up at covers.com on a page like this.

The basic concept is that we open accounts on multiple sites, sign up for their bonus offers, then bet both sides of the same sports game but on 2 different sites. That way it doesn’t matter which team wins, we collect the free bonus money with no risk.

Actually doing it is a bit more nuanced, but I’ll explain it step by step and illustrate with plenty of screenshots to make sure you can follow along.

First, you want to find the offers for your state, and sign up for the sites with the offers you want to convert. For Maryland, if we scroll on down at covers.com, we’ll find this list of offers.

The larger offers are of course more worthwhile, so if I were in Maryland, I would first sign up for Caesars, DraftKings, BetMGM, and ESPN BET. Since you’ll also want another site to hedge your bets, I’d also sign up for FanDuel. You can download their apps, set up your accounts, and familiarize yourself with the deposit methods that are available.

Risk-Free Bets

These are the most common bonus offers you’ll find. They’ll also be called No Sweat Bets, Second Chance Bets, First Bet Insurance, Bonus Bets, First Bets, etc. Always make sure you check the details of the promotion you’re using to make sure it’s a Risk-Free Bet, and what the terms and details of the offer are. The four offers from the sites above for Maryland all fall under the category of risk-free bets.

The concept of this offer is simple: you open an account, deposit some money, and make a bet. The very first bet (MAKE SURE YOU GET THIS RIGHT) will be your risk-free bet. If you win that first bet, cool, you get the winnings from that bet and can withdraw it. If you lose your first bet, the risk-free bet kicks in, and you get a free bet deposited into your account equal to the amount of your first bet. So you basically get a do-over if you lose the first one.

Now you won’t be able to just withdraw the free bet in cash if you lose and get your money back. That would be too easy. The risk-free bet is a bet, you can only use it to bet on another game. If you win that second wager, you can withdraw your winnings. But if you don’t, you can still win by hedging your bets on a different sportsbook. That’s what I’m going to show you.

To find which games to bet on and how much to bet, you’ll need to use a different free website. Go to Crazy Ninja Odds.

Go to Settings in the top right corner, uncheck the sites you aren’t using.

Now go back to Home. Click on Risk-free bet page.

Now we need to choose an offer to convert. Let’s choose our Caesars $1,000 First Bet. We can walk through the steps first, to see which game we want to bet and how much we need to deposit.

First, starting at the top, under “Reward” we’ll enter 100%. With this offer, if we lose our first bet, we get a free bonus bet of 100% of the amount of our first bet, up to $1,000.

Next, we’ll select “Free bet (70%)”. Our free bonus bet will be convertible at about 70%, but that’s not something we need to understand right now. Just check the box and move on.

Next, open “Risk Free Bet Sportsbook” and select Caesars.

Now the page should be filled out like this.

Click “Update” at the bottom. Scroll down, and you’ll see a chart like this.

If none of this means anything to you, that’s fine. I’ll walk you through exactly what to do.

The bets are sorted by ranking from best to worst value. So we always want to choose the top bets unless we have a reason not to. In this case, we are making our risk-free bet on Caesars, and we want to hedge on the site where we aren’t trying to convert any offers, FanDuel. So we want to look at the second column on the right, Hedge Bet Sportsbook. Go down the column until you find FanDuel. In that row, the third column from the left has a “Calc” button. I’ve highlighted the button here.

Click the button. You’ll get a popup that looks like this.

So this is an NHL hockey game between the Dallas Stars and the Edmonton Oilers. If you know absolutely nothing about hockey, perfect. Neither do I. The important thing is that this shows us which wagers to place, and for how much. The left column is our Risk-Free Bet on Caesars, and the right column is our Hedge on FanDuel.

Our first decision is how much to wager. You’ll see that the Caesars wager is currently set to $100. But remember, our First Bet offer is for up to $1,000. You can wager any amount up to $1,000, but you’ll only get one shot at this offer, so if you wager less than $1,000, you won’t get the full benefit of the offer, and you’ll never be able to go back and use the rest in the future. It’s one shot. So my advice is wager $1,000, there’s no good reason not to. So we’ll change the wager amount to $1,000.

Now you can see that our risk-free bet is Edmonton Oilers -1.5 for $1,000, and our hedge bet is Dallas Stars +1.5 for $1,604.93. If you don’t know what that means, that’s fine. What you need to know is that you’ll need to deposit at least $1,000 into your Caesars account, and at least $1,604.93 into your FanDuel account. When that’s done, you can check the bets on each site to make sure the odds are accurate. They change constantly, so it’s always good to check both sites just before placing a bet.

First, we’ll open up the Caesars app and search for “Edmonton Oilers.” Sure enough, the game pops up.

Then we’ll click on that game and open it up

There are four things we want to check on each bet before placing it. I’ve highlighted them above. We have the Edmonton Oilers -1.5, odds of +196, a wager of $1,000, and a payout of $2,960. If we compare that with the correct column in our Risk-Free Bet Calculator, we’ll see that everything is correct.

Now we want to do the same for the FanDuel hedge. We’ll open the FanDuels app and search for “Dallas Stars” and find the same game against the Oilers.

Here we can see the first problem. The spread we see here is -1.5, odds of +225. Our Risk-Free Bet Calculator is asking for Dallas Stars +1.5, odds -245. So we need to select a different line. Farther down the page you’ll see “Series Alternate Handicap.” Open that, and you’ll see Dallas Stars +1.5.

This is the bet we’re looking for. But you’ll also notice that the odds are -225 instead of -245. So we can select this bet, but we need to go back to our Risk-Free Bet Calculator and change the odds to get the correct amount to bet on this line.

So go back to the calculator and change -245 to -225. You’ll see this.

As you can see, the amount of the wager has changed to $1,564.62. So we can go back to FanDuel, select Dallas Stars +1.5, odds -225, and enter our updated wager amount.

As you can see, when we add the “Wager” and the “To Win” amount, we get $2,260.01. Looking at our calculator, that’s the exact number in our “Payout” row. So these are the bets we need to make.

Now that we’ve double checked everything, we can go back and make our $1,000 bet on Caesars, and immediately go make our $1,564.62 bet on FanDuel.

Awesome!

Now what? Well, our job is done. We just wait to see which team wins. Not that it matters to us either way. But which team wins will determine our next step.

Looking at our calculator again, there are two possible outcomes.

The first outcome is the Edmonton Oilers win. In that case, our Caesars bet will payout $2,960, while our FanDuel bet will be a total loss. Here’s how we do the math on that scenario.

We start with our $2,960 Caesars balance. We subtract our $1,564.62 FanDuel bet (which was a loss). Then we subtract the $1,000 we initially deposited and wagered on Caesars. This leaves us with a profit of $395.38! Not bad for a one day return on $2,564.62, while taking no risk.

Now for the second scenario. That would be if the Dallas Stars win. In that case, our Caesars bet is a total loss. Our FanDuel bet pays our $2,260.01

So to calculate our profit here, we start with our payout of $2,260.01, subtract our wager of $1,564.62, subtract our Caesars wager of $1,000 (which was a loss), and then add 70% of our free bonus Caesars bet of $1,000, or $700 (more on that in a minute). Once again, that gives us a profit of $395.39.

Now back to the free bonus bet. Since our Caesars bet lost, we qualified for the promotional payout. If we check the Caesars app, we should see a bonus bet of $1,000 in our balance. Remember I said that you can’t just withdraw the bonus bet? This situation is where that becomes an issue. So we have to place a $1,000 wager with Caesars before we can withdraw that money. The problem with that is, what if our second wager also loses? Then we lose money on the entire process. That’s where the 70% number comes in. We’ll use a similar process when making that $1,000 wager, by hedging on a second site once again. By doing that, we’ll be guaranteed to collect around 70% of the wager, or $700. I’ll explain that in the next section.

Free Bets

This is the name for the bet we get if we lose our initial bet on a site with a Risk-Free Bet offer. This is just what it sounds like, a free bet. You can bet the amount on a game, and if you win, the winnings are your money. You’re free to withdraw that cash.

How do we ensure we still make a profit, even if our free bet loses? Well, Crazy Ninja Odds can help once again. Go back to their homepage, and this time click on Free Bets instead of Risk Free Bets. This time all we need to do is enter the sportsbook, Caesars, and click “update.” We’ll get a chart like this.

You know the drill by now. We find the first option on our Hedge Bet Sportsbook, FanDuel. This time it’s highlighted on the second row. Click “Calc.”

This is a money line bet, so it’s slightly different than the first one, but you won’t have any trouble figuring it out this time. You can check Caesars, and you’ll find the money line bet of $1,000 on the Pacers at +222, with a payout of $2,220.

Make sure you select your free bonus bet when you make the wager. If you lost your initial $1,000 deposit and didn’t deposit again, that should be your only option. It will look slightly different than this, since when you use a free bet, your payout won’t include the initial $1,000 wager, so it will read $2,220 instead of $3,220. I don’t have the free offer in my account so I can’t show you the exact screenshot, but you’ll be able to figure it out.

Then jump over to the other side of the game on FanDuel.

You’ll notice that the line is -275 instead of -270 like your calculator said. By now you know how to go back and change the odds in the calculator to get this.

Once again, you’ll want to make a $1,628 wager on the Boston Celtics at -275 to hedge your $1,000 free bonus bet on the Indiana Pacers at +222.

I could go through the math again, but you know how to do it now. You can look at the profit line and see that both outcomes will pay $592. If you remember, our initial bet used 70% of $1,000, or $700, as a bonus bet profit target. So given the odds available on this particular day, you’ll end up with just over $100 less profit if you need to convert the bonus bet than you’ll make if your first Caesars bet wins. That’s unfortunate, but just a result of games and odds available on a particular day. Getting a higher conversion rate would require more complex strategies, and this guide is long enough already.

Next Steps

Once you’ve successfully completed your initial offer, you can continue to do the same process for each additional sportsbook available in your state. And as you work through the offers on one site, you can then use that site to hedge the next site you sign up for.

There are a few things to keep in mind. Your free bonus bets are usually time limited. That means if your first bet loses, you often have as little as 7 days to use the free bonus bet before it disappears. So make sure you stay on top of your offers and play them before they expire. If you aren’t sure whether you qualify for a specific promotional offer, reach out to customer support before placing any bets. They’ll be able to explain exactly which offers you qualify for and how to access them.

Once you sign up and start betting, you’ll likely start getting more offers in the apps. They might be free bets, in which case you already know how to play them. But there are other offers as well, some of which you can do in a risk free way. If this guide gets enough interest, I may write more about how to handle other types of offers.

These offers will be available once to each person. So you can play them once, and that’s it. But you can also help each member of your family or close friends sign up and show them how to play the offers, or do it for them. Just be careful with your money management, since there will be a significant capital investment up front. If you’re putting up the capital, make sure it’s someone you fully trust with control of that money.

If there’s enough interest, I may also put together a guide on how you can do this with family members or friends who live anywhere, even if they’re not in a state with legal sports betting.

Most of all, be safe, don’t tie up capital you need for your daily life, and make sure you understand each offer and how to exploit it before placing any wagers.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll do my best to help you in any way I can.

Best of luck!

@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9

Here’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.

@ 6ad3e2a3:c90b7740

I’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.

@ 57d1a264:69f1fee1

Deliberate (?) trade-offs we make for the sake of output speed.

... By sacrificing depth in my learning, I can produce substantially more work. I’m unsure if I’m at the correct balance between output quantity and depth of learning. This uncertainty is mainly fueled by a sense of urgency due to rapidly improving AI models. I don’t have time to learn everything deeply. I love learning, but given current trends, I want to maximize immediate output. I’m sacrificing some learning in classes for more time doing outside work. From a teacher’s perspective, this is obviously bad, but from my subjective standpoint, it’s unclear.

Finding the balance between learning and productivity. By trade, one cannot be productive in specific areas without first acquire the knowledge to define the processes needed to deliver. Designing the process often come on a try and fail dynamic that force us to learn from previous mistakes.

I found this little journal story fun but also little sad. Vincent's realization, one of us trading his learnings to be more productive, asking what is productivity without quality assurance?

Inevitably, parts of my brain will degenerate and fade away, so I need to consciously decide what I want to preserve or my entire brain will be gone. What skills am I NOT okay with offloading? What do I want to do myself?

Read Vincent's journal https://vvvincent.me/llms-are-making-me-dumber/

https://stacker.news/items/984361

@ 502ab02a:a2860397

ถ้าเอ่ยถึง CJ หลายคนอาจนึกถึงซอสเกาหลีรสจัดจ้าน หรือบะหมี่กึ่งสำเร็จรูปแบรนด์ดังที่ขายทั่วโลก แต่เบื้องหลังความสำเร็จของแบรนด์เหล่านั้น มีบริษัทแม่อย่าง CJ CheilJedang ที่ไม่ได้แค่ผลิตอาหารแปรรูป แต่เป็นหนึ่งในผู้เล่นใหญ่ของอุตสาหกรรมอาหารระดับโลก ด้วยฐานความรู้ลึกซึ้งในเทคโนโลยีชีวภาพ หนึ่งในแขนงที่โดดเด่นคือ CJ BIO ธุรกิจไบโอเทคโนโลยีที่เน้นการใช้ Microbial Fermentation หรือการหมักจุลินทรีย์เพื่อผลิตสารอาหารและวัตถุดิบอาหารคุณภาพสูงในระดับอุตสาหกรรม

ประวัติของ CJ BIO เริ่มจากจุดเล็ก ๆ แต่ทรงพลัง คือการผลิต โมโนโซเดียมกลูตาเมต (MSG) ซึ่งเป็นกรดอะมิโนชนิดหนึ่งที่มีบทบาทสำคัญในการเพิ่มรสชาติ “อูมามิ” ให้กับอาหารทั่วโลก จุดนี้เองที่ทำให้ CJ BIO ได้สะสมเทคโนโลยีหมักจุลินทรีย์ในระดับอุตสาหกรรมมายาวนานกว่า 60 ปี ด้วยโรงงานหมักขนาดใหญ่ที่ตั้งอยู่ในหลายประเทศ เช่น เกาหลีใต้ จีน บราซิล อินโดนีเซีย และสหรัฐอเมริกา ทำให้ CJ BIO กลายเป็นหนึ่งในผู้ผลิตกรดอะมิโนและวัตถุดิบอาหารหมักจุลินทรีย์รายใหญ่ของโลก

แต่ถ้าให้พูดแบบง่าย ๆ การหมักจุลินทรีย์ของ CJ BIO นั้น ไม่ใช่แค่ “การทำอาหาร” ธรรมดา ๆ แต่เป็นการ “สร้างอาหารในระดับโมเลกุล” ตั้งแต่พื้นฐาน ซึ่งถือเป็นเทคโนโลยีที่สำคัญสำหรับอนาคตของอาหาร เพราะมันช่วยให้เราสามารถผลิตโปรตีน กรดอะมิโน และสารอาหารต่าง ๆ ที่มีคุณภาพสูงและควบคุมได้ในโรงงานขนาดใหญ่ โดยไม่ต้องพึ่งพาการเกษตรแบบดั้งเดิมที่ต้องใช้พื้นที่มากและมีผลกระทบต่อสิ่งแวดล้อม

เมื่อเทรนด์โลกกำลังเปลี่ยนไปในทางที่ผู้บริโภคหันมาใส่ใจสุขภาพและสิ่งแวดล้อมมากขึ้น เรื่อง “อาหารจากห้องแล็บ” หรือ “อาหารเทคโนโลยีชีวภาพ” จึงกลายเป็นสิ่งที่ได้รับความสนใจอย่างมาก และนี่เองที่ทำให้ CJ BIO ไม่ได้หยุดอยู่แค่ Microbial Fermentation แบบดั้งเดิม แต่เริ่มขยับเข้าสู่โลกใหม่ของ Precision Fermentation การใช้จุลินทรีย์ที่ผ่านการดัดแปลงพันธุกรรมอย่างแม่นยำ เพื่อผลิตโปรตีนหรือสารอาหารเฉพาะอย่างที่ต้องการ

ความเคลื่อนไหวที่สำคัญเกิดขึ้นในปี 2022 เมื่อ CJ CheilJedang ประกาศลงทุนใน New Culture สตาร์ทอัพสัญชาติอเมริกันที่กำลังพัฒนา “ชีสไร้วัว” ด้วยเทคโนโลยี Precision Fermentation ซึ่ง New Culture ใช้จุลินทรีย์ที่ถูกออกแบบมาเพื่อผลิตโปรตีนเคซีน โปรตีนหลักในน้ำนมวัว โดยไม่ต้องมีวัวจริงเลย นั่นหมายความว่าชีสที่ผลิตออกมาจะไม่มีส่วนผสมจากสัตว์จริง ๆ แต่ยังคงรสชาติและเนื้อสัมผัสเหมือนชีสธรรมชาติทุกประการ

การลงทุนครั้งนี้ของ CJ CheilJedang บริษัทแม่ของ CJ BIO จึงถือเป็นการผนึกกำลังระหว่างเทคโนโลยีดั้งเดิมที่ผ่านการพิสูจน์แล้วในระดับอุตสาหกรรม กับนวัตกรรมที่พร้อมเปลี่ยนแปลงวงการอาหารครั้งใหญ่

ถ้าให้เปรียบเทียบง่าย ๆ CJ BIO เหมือนกับ “โรงงานปั้นโมเลกุลอาหาร” ที่มีความเชี่ยวชาญสูงในการจัดการกับจุลินทรีย์และการผลิตกรดอะมิโนหลากหลายชนิด โดยเฉพาะ MSG ซึ่งถือเป็น “พี่ใหญ่” ในกลุ่มกรดอะมิโนที่ช่วยเพิ่มรสชาติและถูกใช้ในอุตสาหกรรมอาหารทั่วโลก

ความเชี่ยวชาญในการผลิต MSG นี้เอง คือฐานกำลังสำคัญที่ทำให้ CJ BIO สามารถขยายขอบเขตไปสู่การผลิตโปรตีนด้วย Precision Fermentation ได้อย่างมั่นใจ เพราะกระบวนการหมักจุลินทรีย์เพื่อผลิตกรดอะมิโนและโปรตีนนั้นมีความคล้ายคลึงกันในเชิงเทคนิคและการควบคุมคุณภาพ

CJ BIO มีโรงงานหมักจุลินทรีย์ที่ทันสมัยและขนาดใหญ่กระจายอยู่ทั่วโลก สามารถผลิตวัตถุดิบในปริมาณมหาศาลเพื่อตอบสนองตลาดอาหารที่เติบโตอย่างรวดเร็ว และการมีเครือข่ายโรงงานแบบนี้ทำให้ CJ BIO มีความได้เปรียบในการลดต้นทุนและควบคุมคุณภาพอย่างเข้มงวด

อนาคตที่ CJ BIO กำลังเดินไปนั้น ไม่ใช่แค่การผลิตวัตถุดิบอาหารธรรมดา ๆ แต่คือการสร้างนวัตกรรมที่จะเปลี่ยนแปลงวิธีการผลิตและการบริโภคอาหารของโลก

เมื่อผลิตภัณฑ์จากเทคโนโลยี Precision Fermentation อย่างชีสไร้วัว ไข่ไร่ไก่ หรือโปรตีนทางเลือกต่าง ๆ เริ่มเข้ามาในตลาดมากขึ้น เราอาจจะได้เห็น CJ BIO ทำหน้าที่เหมือน “Intel Inside” ของวงการอาหารอนาคต ที่อยู่เบื้องหลังผลิตภัณฑ์สำคัญ ๆ ที่ผู้บริโภคชื่นชอบโดยไม่รู้ตัว

นี่คือเหตุผลที่ทำให้การมองแค่แบรนด์อาหารหรือการตลาดที่พูดถึง “ความยั่งยืน” หรือ “อาหารปลอดสัตว์” ยังไม่พอ เราต้องมองให้ลึกไปถึงระบบนิเวศของเทคโนโลยีและทุนที่อยู่เบื้องหลัง เพราะนั่นคือเกมกระดานใหญ่ที่กำลังขยับเปลี่ยนแปลงวงการอาหารโลกอย่างแท้จริง

#pirateketo #กูต้องรู้มั๊ย #ม้วนหางสิลูก #siamstr

@ 57d1a264:69f1fee1

Digital Psychology ↗

Wall of impact website showcase a collection of success metrics and micro case studies to create a clear, impactful visual of your brand's achievements. It also displays a Wall of love with an abundance of testimonials in one place, letting the sheer volume highlight your brand's popularity and customer satisfaction.

And like these, many others collections like Testimonial mashup that combine multiple testimonials into a fast-paced, engaging reel that highlights key moments of impact in an attention-grabbing format.

Awards and certifications of websites highlighting third-party ratings and verification to signal trust and quality through industry-recognized achievements and standards.

View them all at https://socialproofexamples.com/

https://stacker.news/items/984357

@ a6b4114e:60d83c46

GTA San Andreas is one installment of Grand Theft Auto.

It is safe and secure for your device. No harmful elements have been found yet. It does not contain viruses, malware, bloatware, bugs, or threats, as its authority always upgrades the game to eliminate unwanted components. The amazing thing is that the game is 100% free for Android users.

You do not pay a single cent from your pocket.

Download: https://androidhd.com/en/gta-san-andreas

@ 51bbb15e:b77a2290

Yeah, I’m sure everything in the file is legit. 👍 Let’s review the guard witness testimony…Oh wait, they weren’t at their posts despite 24/7 survellience instructions after another Epstein “suicide” attempt two weeks earlier. Well, at least the video of the suicide is in the file? Oh wait, a techical glitch. Damn those coincidences!

At this point, the Trump administration has zero credibility with me on anything related to the Epstein case and his clients. I still suspect the administration is using the Epstein files as leverage to keep a lot of RINOs in line, whereas they’d be sabotaging his agenda at every turn otherwise. However, I just don’t believe in ends-justify-the-means thinking. It’s led almost all of DC to toss out every bit of the values they might once have had.

@ bc6ccd13:f53098e4

The global population has been rising rapidly for the past two centuries when compared to historical trends. Fifty years ago, that trend seemed set to continue, and there was a lot of concern around the issue of overpopulation. But if you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll know that while the population is still rising, that trend now seems set to reverse this century, and there’s every indication population could decline precipitously over the next two centuries.

Demographics is a field where predictions about the future are much more reliable than in most scientific fields. That’s because future population trends are “baked in” decades in advance. If you want to know how many fifty-year-olds there will be in forty years, all you have to do is count the ten-year-olds today and allow for mortality rates. That maximum was already determined by the number of births ten years ago, and absolutely nothing can change that now. The average person doesn’t think that through when they look at population trends. You hear a lot of “oh we just need to do more of x to help the declining birthrate” without an acknowledgement that future populations in a given cohort are already fixed by the number of births that already occurred.

As you can see, global birthrates have already declined close to the 2.3 replacement level, with some regions ahead of others, but all on the same trajectory with no region moving against the trend. I’m not going to speculate on the reasons for this, or even whether it’s a good or bad thing. Instead I’m going to make some observations about outcomes this trend could cause economically, and why. Like most macro issues, an individual can’t do anything to change the global landscape personally, but knowing what that landscape might look like is essential to avoiding fallout from trends outside your control.

The Resource Pie

Thomas Malthus popularized the concern about overpopulation with his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population. The basic premise of the book was that population could grow and consume all the available resources, leading to mass poverty, starvation, disease, and population collapse. We can say in hindsight that this was incorrect, given that the global population has increased from less than a billion to over eight billion since then, and the apocalypse Malthus predicted hasn’t materialized. Exactly the opposite, in fact. The global standard of living has risen to levels Malthus couldn’t have imagined, much less predicted.

So where did Malthus go wrong? His hypothesis seems reasonable enough, and we do see a similar trend in certain animal populations. The base assumption Malthus got wrong was to assume resources are a finite, limiting factor to the human population. That at some point certain resources would be totally consumed, and that would be it. He treated it like a pie with a lot of slices, but still a finite number, and assumed that if the population kept rising, eventually every slice would be consumed and there would be no pie left for future generations. That turns out to be completely wrong.

Of course, the earth is finite at some abstract level. The number of atoms could theoretically be counted and quantified. But on a practical level, do humans exhaust the earth’s resources? I’d point to an article from Yale Scientific titled Has the Earth Run out of any Natural Resources? To quote,

> However, despite what doomsday predictions may suggest, the Earth has not run out of any resources nor is it likely that it will run out of any in the near future. > > In fact, resources are becoming more abundant. Though this may seem puzzling, it does not mean that the actual quantity of resources in the Earth’s crust is increasing but rather that the amount available for our use is constantly growing due to technological innovations. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the only resource we have exhausted is cryolite, a mineral used in pesticides and aluminum processing. However, that is not to say every bit of it has been mined away; rather, producing it synthetically is much more cost efficient than mining the existing reserves at its current value.

As it happens, we don’t run out of resources. Instead, we become better at finding, extracting, and efficiently utilizing resources, which means that in practical terms resources become more abundant, not less. In other words, the pie grows faster than we can eat it.

So is there any resource that actually limits human potential? I think there is, and history would suggest that resource is human ingenuity and effort. The more people are thinking about and working on a problem, the more solutions we find and build to solve it. That means not only does the pie grow faster than we can eat it, but the more people there are, the faster the pie grows. Of course that assumes everyone eating pie is also working to grow the pie, but that’s a separate issue for now.

Productivity and Division of Labor

Why does having more people lead to more productivity? A big part of it comes down to division of labor and specialization. The best way to get really good at something is to do more of it. In a small community, doing just one thing simply isn’t possible. Everyone has to be somewhat of a generalist in order to survive. But with a larger population, being a specialist becomes possible. In fact, that’s the purpose of money, as I explained here.

<https://primal.net/f0xr/_-MfVPUpEA4G_6ulVi_HB>

The more specialized an economy becomes, the more efficient it can be. There are big economies of scale in almost every task or process. So for example, if a single person tried to build a car from scratch, it would be extremely difficult and take a very long time. However, if you have a thousand people building a car, each doing a specific job, they can become very good at doing that specific job and do it much faster. And then you can move that process to a factory, and build machines to do specific jobs, and add even more efficiency.

But that only works if you’re building more than one car. It doesn’t make sense to build a huge factory full of specialized equipment that takes lots of time and effort to design and manufacture, and then only build one car. You need to sell thousands of cars, maybe even millions of cars, to pay off that initial investment. So division of labor and specialization relies on large populations in two different ways. First, you need a large population to have enough people to specialize in each task. But second and just as importantly, you need a large population of buyers for the finished product. You need a big market in order to make mass production economical.

Think of a computer or smartphone. It takes thousands of specialized processes, thousands of complex parts, and millions of people doing specialized jobs to extract the raw materials, process them, and assemble them into a piece of electronic hardware. And electronics are relatively expensive anyway. Imagine how impossible it would be to manufacture electronics economically, if the market demand wasn’t literally in the billions of units.

Stairs Up, Elevator Down

We’ve seen exponential increases in productivity over the past few centuries, resulting in higher living standards even as population exploded. Now, facing the prospect of a drastic trend reversal, what will happen to productivity and living standards? The typical sentiment seems to be “well, there are a lot of people already competing for resources, so if population does decline, that will just reduce the competition and leave a bigger slice of pie for each person, so we’ll all be getting wealthier as a result of population decline.”

This seems reasonable at first glance. Surely dividing the economic pie into fewer slices means a bigger slice for everyone, right? But remember, more specialization and division of labor is what made the pie as big as it is to begin with. And specialization depends on large populations for both the supply of specialized labor, and the demand for finished goods. Can complex supply chains and mass production withstand population reduction intact? I don’t think the answer is clear.

The idea that it will all be okay, and we’ll get wealthier as population falls, is based on some faulty assumptions. It assumes that wealth is basically some fixed inventory of “things” that exist, and it’s all a matter of distribution. That’s typical Marxist thinking, similar to the reasoning behind “tax the rich” and other utopian wealth transfer schemes.

The reality is, wealth is a dynamic concept with strong network effects. For example, a grocery store in a large city can be a valuable asset with a large potential income stream. The same store in a small village with a declining population can be an unprofitable and effectively worthless liability.

Even something as permanent as a house is very susceptible to network effects. If you currently live in an area where housing is scarce and expensive, you might think a declining population would be the perfect solution to high housing costs. However, if you look at a place that’s already facing the beginnings of a population decline, you’ll see it’s not actually that simple. Japan, for example, is already facing an aging and declining population. And sure enough, you can get a house in Japan for free, or basically free. Sounds amazing, right? Not really.

If you check out the reason houses are given away in Japan, you’ll find a depressing reality. Most of the free houses are in rural areas or villages where the population is declining, often to the point that the village becomes uninhabited and abandoned. It’s so bad that in 2018, 13.6% of houses in Japan were vacant. Why do villages become uninhabited? Well, it turns out that a certain population level is necessary to support the services and businesses people need. When the population falls too low, specialized businesses can no longer operated profitably. It’s the exact issue we discussed with division of labor and the need for a high population to provide a market for the specialist to survive. As the local stores, entertainment venues, and businesses close, and skilled tradesmen move away to larger population centers with more customers, living in the village becomes difficult and depressing, if not impossible. So at a certain critical level, a village that’s too isolated will reach a tipping point where everyone leaves as fast as possible. And it turns out that an abandoned house in a remote village or rural area without any nearby services and businesses is worth… nothing. Nobody wants to live there, nobody wants to spend the money to maintain the house, nobody wants to pay the taxes needed to maintain the utilities the town relied on. So they try to give the houses away to anyone who agrees to live there, often without much success.

So on a local level, population might rise gradually over time, but when that process reverses and population declines to a certain level, it can collapse rather quickly from there.

I expect the same incentives to play out on a larger scale as well. Complex supply chains and extreme specialization lead to massive productivity. But there’s also a downside, which is the fragility of the system. Specialization might mean one shop can make all the widgets needed for a specific application, for the whole globe. That’s great while it lasts, but what happens when the owner of that shop retires with his lifetime of knowledge and experience? Will there be someone equally capable ready to fill his shoes? Hopefully… But spread that problem out across the global economy, and cracks start to appear. A specialized part is unavailable. So a machine that relies on that part breaks down and can’t be repaired. So a new machine needs to be built, which is a big expense that drives up costs and prices. And with a falling population, demand goes down. Now businesses are spending more to make fewer items, so they have to raise prices to stay profitable. Now fewer people can afford the item, so demand falls even further. Eventually the business is forced to close, and other industries that relied on the items they produced are crippled. Things become more expensive, or unavailable at any price. Living standards fall. What was a stairway up becomes an elevator down.

Hope, From the Parasite Class?

All that being said, I’m not completely pessimistic about the future. I think the potential for an acceptable outcome exists.

I see two broad groups of people in the economy; producers, and parasites. One thing the increasing productivity has done is made it easier than ever to survive. Food is plentiful globally, the only issues are with distribution. Medical advances save countless lives. Everything is more abundant than ever before. All that has led to a very “soft” economic reality. There’s a lot of non-essential production, which means a lot of wealth can be redistributed to people who contribute nothing, and if it’s done carefully, most people won’t even notice. And that is exactly what has happened, in spades.

There are welfare programs of every type and description, and handouts to people for every reason imaginable. It’s never been easier to survive without lifting a finger. So millions of able-bodied men choose to do just that.

Besides the voluntarily idle, the economy is full of “bullshit jobs.” Shoutout to David Graeber’s book with that title. (It’s an excellent book and one I would highly recommend, even though the author was a Marxist and his conclusions are completely wrong.) A 2015 British poll asked people, “Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world?” Only 50% said yes, while 37% said no and 13% were uncertain.

This won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s operated a business, or even worked in the private sector in general. There are three types of jobs; jobs that accomplish something productive, jobs that accomplish nothing of value, and jobs that actually hinder people trying to accomplish something productive. The number of jobs in the last two categories has grown massively over the years. This would include a lot of unnecessary administrative jobs, burdensome regulatory jobs, useless DEI and HR jobs, a large percentage of public sector jobs, most of the military-industrial complex, and the list is endless. All these jobs accomplish nothing worthwhile at best, and actively discourage those who are trying to accomplish something at worst.

Even among jobs that do accomplish some useful purpose, the amount of time spent actually doing the job continues to decline. According to a 2016 poll, American office workers spent only 39% of their workday actually doing their primary task. The other 61% was largely wasted on unproductive administrative tasks and meetings, answering emails, and just simply wasting time.

I could go on, but the point is, there’s a lot of slack in the economy. We’ve become so productive that the number of people actually doing the work to keep everyone fed, clothed, and cared for is only a small percentage of the population. In one sense, that’s a cause for optimism. The population could decline a lot, and we’d still have enough bodies to man the economic engine, as it were.

Aging

The thing with population decline, though, is nobody gets to choose who goes first. Not unless you’re a psychopathic dictator. So populations get old, then they get small. This means that the number of dependents in the economy rises naturally. Once people retire, they still need someone to grow the food, keep the lights on, and provide the medical care. And it doesn’t matter how much money the retirees have saved, either. Money is just a claim on wealth. The goods and services actually have to be provided by someone, and if that someone was never born, all the money in the world won’t change anything.

And the aging occurs on top of all the people already taking from the economy without contributing anything of value. So that seems like a big problem.

Currently, wealth redistribution happens through a combination of direct taxes, indirect taxation through deficit spending, and the whole gamut of games that happen when banks create credit/debt money by making loans. In a lot of cases, it’s very indirect and difficult to pin down. For example, someone has a “job” in a government office, enforcing pointless regulations that actually hinder someone in the private sector from producing something useful. Their paycheck comes from the government, so a combination of taxes on productive people, and deficit spending, which is also a tax on productive people. But they “have a job,” so who’s going to question their contribution to society? On the other hand, it could be a banker or hedge fund manager. They might be pulling in a massive salary, but at the core all they’re really doing is finding creative financial ways to transfer wealth from productive people to themselves, without contributing anything of value.

You’ll notice a common theme if you think about this problem deeply. Most of the wealth transfer that supports the unproductive, whether that’s welfare recipients, retirees, bureaucrats, corporate middle managers, or weapons manufacturers, is only possible through expanding the money supply. There’s a limit to how much direct taxation the productive will bear while the option to collect welfare exists. At a certain point, people conclude that working hard every day isn’t worth it, when taxes take so much of their wages that they could make almost as much without working at all. So the balance of what it takes to support the dependent class has to come indirectly, through new money creation.

As long as the declining population happens under the existing monetary system, the future looks bleak. There’s no limit to how much money creation and inflation the parasite class will use in an attempt to avoid work. They’ll continue to suck the productive class dry until the workers give up in disgust, and the currency collapses into hyperinflation. And you can’t run a complex economy without functional money, so productivity inevitably collapses with the currency.

The optimistic view is that we don’t have to continue supporting the failed credit/debt monetary system. It’s hurting productivity, messing up incentives, and contributing to increasing wealth inequality and lower living standards for the middle class. If we walk away from that system and adopt a hard money standard, the possibility of inflationary wealth redistribution vanishes. The welfare and warfare programs have to be slashed. The parasite class is forced to get busy, or starve. In that scenario, the declining population of workers can be offset by a massive shift away from “bullshit jobs” and into actual productive work.

While that might not be a permanent solution to declining population, it would at least give us time to find a real solution, without having our complex economy collapse and send our living standards back to the 17th century.

It’s a complex issue with many possible outcomes, but I think a close look at the effects of the monetary system on productivity shows one obvious problem that will make the situation worse than necessary. Moving to a better monetary system and creating incentives for productivity would do a lot to reduce the economic impacts of a declining population.

@ 3f770d65:7a745b24

I’m Derek Ross, and I’m all-in on Nostr.

I started the Grow Nostr Initiative to help more people discover what makes Nostr so powerful: ✅ You own your identity ✅ You choose your social graph and algorithms ✅ You aren't locked into any single app or platform ✅ You can post, stream, chat, and build, all without gatekeepers

What we’re doing with Grow Nostr Initiative: 🌱 Hosting local meetups and mini-conferences to onboard people face-to-face 📚 Creating educational materials and guides to demystify how Nostr works 🧩 Helping businesses and creators understand how they can plug into Nostr (running media servers, relays, and using key management tools)

I believe Nostr is the foundation of a more open internet. It’s still early, but we’re already seeing incredible apps for social, blogging, podcasting, livestreaming, and more. And the best part is that they're all interoperable, censorship-resistant, and built on open standards. Nostr is the world's largest bitcoin economy by transaction volume and I truly believe that the purple pill helps the orange pill go down. Meaning, growing Nostr will also grow Bitcoin adoption.

If you’ve been curious about Nostr or are building something on it, or let’s talk. Whether you're just getting started or you're already deep in the ecosystem, I'm here to answer questions, share what I’ve learned, and hear your ideas. Check out https://nostrapps.com to find your next social decentralized experience.

Ask Me Anything about GNI, Nostr, Bitcoin, the upcoming #NosVegas event at the Bitcoin Conference next week, etc.!

– Derek Ross 🌐 https://grownostr.org npub18ams6ewn5aj2n3wt2qawzglx9mr4nzksxhvrdc4gzrecw7n5tvjqctp424

https://stacker.news/items/984689

@ 05a0f81e:fc032124

The term "Ponzi scheme" is named after Charles Ponzi, who famously perpetrated a large-scale fraudulent investment scheme in the 1920s. While earlier instances of similar schemes existed, Ponzi's notoriety and scale cemented the name in popular usage.

There are some detailed of ponzi history: Pre-Ponzi; Adele Spitzeder (1869-1872): In Germany, Spitzeder used a Ponzi-like scheme to defraud investors.

Sarah Howe (1880s): In the United States, Howe used a scheme called "Ladies Deposit" to attract female investors with high interest rates, ultimately stealing their money.

Literary Precedents: Charles Dickens novels "Martin Chuzzlewit" (1844) and "Little Dorrit" (1857) included characters and storylines that featured similar fraudulent investment schemes.

The Charles Ponzi Scheme (1920s): Ponzi's scheme involved claiming to buy international postal reply coupons in Europe, redeem them for more expensive US postage stamps, and generate high profits.

The Reality: In reality, he diverted money from new investors to pay off earlier investors, rather than using it for legitimate business.

The Rise and Fall: Ponzi amassed significant wealth, drawing in around 30,000 investors and collecting over $8 million in just seven months. However, the scheme collapsed due to its unsustainable nature, and Ponzi was eventually convicted and served time in prison.

Impact and Legacy: Ponzi's scheme gained widespread publicity, both during its operation and after its collapse. This notoriety led to the scheme being named after him, and the term "Ponzi scheme" became synonymous with this type of fraudulent investment scam.

Ponzi scheme have cause more harm than good in world at large and it is a fraudulent investment scheme. Say no to ponzi scheme! Say no to ponzi scheme!!

@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9

For years American bitcoin miners have argued for more efficient and free energy markets. It benefits everyone if our energy infrastructure is as efficient and robust as possible. Unfortunately, broken incentives have led to increased regulation throughout the sector, incentivizing less efficient energy sources such as solar and wind at the detriment of more efficient alternatives.

The result has been less reliable energy infrastructure for all Americans and increased energy costs across the board. This naturally has a direct impact on bitcoin miners: increased energy costs make them less competitive globally.

Bitcoin mining represents a global energy market that does not require permission to participate. Anyone can plug a mining computer into power and internet to get paid the current dynamic market price for their work in bitcoin. Using cellphone or satellite internet, these mines can be located anywhere in the world, sourcing the cheapest power available.

Absent of regulation, bitcoin mining naturally incentivizes the build out of highly efficient and robust energy infrastructure. Unfortunately that world does not exist and burdensome regulations remain the biggest threat for US based mining businesses. Jurisdictional arbitrage gives miners the option of moving to a friendlier country but that naturally comes with its own costs.

Enter AI. With the rapid development and release of AI tools comes the requirement of running massive datacenters for their models. Major tech companies are scrambling to secure machines, rack space, and cheap energy to run full suites of AI enabled tools and services. The most valuable and powerful tech companies in America have stumbled into an accidental alliance with bitcoin miners: THE NEED FOR CHEAP AND RELIABLE ENERGY.

Our government is corrupt. Money talks. These companies will push for energy freedom and it will greatly benefit us all.

@ 554ab6fe:c6cbc27e

Introduction

It is becoming increasingly evident that sunlight is an essential nutrient for the body. To be more precise, the various wavelengths coming from the sun provide different benefits to the body, and each play a vital role in human health. Even more so, they work in concert with one another, as one wavelength may help reduce the potentially harmful effects of another. Benefits are maximized and harm reduced when we are exposed to the full breadth of this rainbow. This article will attempt to shed light on these various benefits and synergies.

To put this discussion into context, it is important to consider the overall health benefits of sunlight exposure. In a Swedish study that followed 29,000 women over 20 years, it was found that the mortality rate was doubled in those who avoided sun exposure when compared to those that didn’t (Lindqvist et al. 2016). Women who avoided the sun were twice as likely to die, primarily from cardiovascular disease, and there was no difference between death from malignant melanoma between the two groups (Lindqvist et al. 2016).

To understand why sunlight is so beneficial to health, it is important to make clear the diverse range of wavelengths that come from the sun. We typically think of the sun as a provider of both visible light and warmth. However, the spectrum of light visible to the human eye is a narrow band of the wavelengths actually emitted by the sun.

As wavelengths become shorter, visible light becomes more blue. Beyond the visible spectrum on the blue end, we arrive at ultraviolet (UV) light. On the other end of the spectrum are the longer red wavelengths. Outside of the visible window on the red side is infrared (IR) light, which provides heat. For helpful context, consider how shorter wavelengths have a harder time penetrating our atmosphere. So, the skies of dawn and dusk are predominately filled with red and near-infrared (NIR) light, while the middle of the day contains more blue and UV light. The bulk of wavelengths from the sun throughout the day are on the NIR end. The entire spectrum of visible and non-visible light between UV and IR plays critical roles in human health, especially towards mitochondrial health and metabolism. To summarize these benefits and provide a general overview for the following article, the benefits are as follows:

• UV – aids in the production of vitamin D and melanin, but also causes DNA damage
  • Vitamin D improves immune system function and can repair DNA damage
  • Melanin stores electrons for use within mitochondria
• Blue – involved in our circadian rhythm as the absence of blue light triggers the production of melatonin, an important antioxidant.
• Near-infrared (NIR) – improves mitochondria function and energy production while also protecting us from the harms of blue and UV light.

Ultraviolet Light

Let’s begin with a discussion around the widely misunderstood light of UV. UV is often viewed as a dangerous form of light, given that it can cause DNA damage and lead to cancer. While true, this myopic point of view ignores the crucial benefits of UV light. UV light produces vitamin D, which counteracts the DNA damage caused by UV while providing many other benefits. Additionally, UV light triggers the production of melanin, which aids in mitochondrial function. Like all physiological processes in the body that are vital to survival, there is a release of POMC-derived endorphins when skin comes into contact with UV light (Fell et al. 2014). Any person likely reading this article can agree that sitting under the sun simply feels amazing. We are drawn to it in a deeply meaningful sense.

Vitamin D is one of the most important chemicals regarding health, and it is poorly named. The term ‘vitamin’ refers to a compound that is important for health but cannot be adequately made within the body and must be retrieved externally. Peoples of the Northern and Southern hemisphere who are exposed to less UV light during winter would, for example, historically retrieve their vitamin D from foods such as oily fish, seal blubber, whale blubber, and polar bear liver (Wacker and Holick 2013). In a similar way, vitamin D was given its name 100 years ago when it was found that cod-liver oil was capable of curing rickets, when it was found that the so-called vitamin could promote calcium deposition in bones (McCollum et al. 1922). It was only until much later, in 1981, when scientists discovered that human skin could also synthesize vitamin D (M. F. Holick 1981). A majority of human vitamin D is produced by the skin when exposed to UVB (280 – 315 nm), while a minor amount is gained through food (Prietl et al. 2013; Wacker and Holick 2013). Most cells and organs in the human body have vitamin D receptors and many organs also have the ability to produce it, this speaks to the incredibly important nature of this compound towards our health (Prietl et al. 2013; Wacker and Holick 2013). Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with various types of cancer, autoimmune disorders, type 1 diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis (MS), cardiovascular disease, and even schizophrenia (Michael F. Holick 2007; Wacker and Holick 2013). Multiple studies have also found that vitamin D deficiency increases all-cause mortality (Garland et al. 2014; Yang et al. 2011; Chowdhury et al. 2014).

Though the historical benefits to vitamin D were attributed mainly to bone health, it is far more important. Vitamin D plays a critical role in protecting against invasive pathogens, reducing autoimmunity, and maintaining overall health (Wimalawansa 2023). Regarding immunity, one way it does this is by causing a shift away from proinflammatory responses to one more centered around T cell activation (Prietl et al. 2013). Vitamin D has therefore been shown to benefit other disorders that are related to immunity, such as a study that found vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy reduced asthmatic symptoms in children (Litonjua et al. 2016). That being said, it is important to highlight how there is no substitution for natural sunlight as a means of getting vitamin D. Naturally produced vitamin D from the skin lasts 2-3 times longer in the body (Wacker and Holick 2013). This is one of many likely reasons why the natural avenue should always be preferred over the supplemental. A similar line of reasoning follows in methods of getting UV light, as natural sun exposure leads to a decrease of all-cause mortality while the use of artificial tanning beds has been shown to increase all-cause and cancer mortality (Yang et al. 2011). More on why this likely occurs later.

Beyond vitamin D’s benefits to the immune system, it is important to focus on the compound’s role in mitochondrial health. In a previous article I wrote titled “Sunlight and Health”, I delve deeper into the importance of mitochondria and the science of how they work. In simplicity, imagine how all life on earth centers around energy. The sun provides energy to the earth, and the plethora of life on earth harness and facilitate the flow of that energy. Plants and animals share a symbiotic relationship within this system. Plants, through photosynthesis, take in sunlight, CO2, and water and create a glucose precursor and oxygen. This occurs within the chloroplast of plant cells. Within human cells, we have mitochondria. Our mitochondria, in turn, take in oxygen and glucose and produce CO2, water, and energy for our bodies in the form of ATP. What the plant breathes out, we breathe in, and vice versa. Mitochondria are central to all animal life on earth, and the ATP produced is central to all physiologic function. If your mitochondria are unhealthy, you are unhealthy and will experience disease.

Vitamin D plays a role in mitochondrial health at a DNA level. Our cells have DNA, which we inherited from our mother and father. On top of that, the mitochondria within our cells have their own set of DNA (mtDNA). Our mitochondria come from our mother’s egg, and therefore our mtDNA always is inherited from our mother. UV light can cause damage to both our DNA and mtDNA (Birch-Machin, Russell, and Latimer 2013). This is what gives UV light the ability to cause cancer. Additionally, damage to the mtDNA within our mitochondria can lead to mitochondrial dysfunction. The more poorly our mitochondria function, the less energy we produce for our cells, and the less healthy our cells become. There is research being developed that suggests the role of vitamin D is to counterbalance this danger by regulating gene transcription and reducing mtDNA damage. A mouse study conducted in 2011, for example, found that different shapes of vitamin D reduce the development of tumors in mice following UV exposure (Dixon et al. 2011). It is not unlike nature to create a system of checks and balances, to ensure that the damaging effects of UV light are counterbalanced by a compound produced by the body when exposure to that same light.

While vitamin D may be important for mitochondrial health by protecting against mtDNA damage, melanin potentially plays a much larger role. Melanin is the pigment in our skin that make us darker. Not only is the diversity in skin tones across humans due to variations in melanin content, but a tan is also the creation of more melanin. To be more specific, the skin’s exposure to UVA (315-400nm) leads to the creation of melanin (Wicks et al. 2011). The most obvious benefit to the production of melanin, which most people could appreciate, is that the darker or tanner our skin is, the less damage we will receive from UV light. In this way, melanin shares a similar responsibility to vitamin D, where both are protecting the body against the very thing that forms them. Even more crucially however, melanin acts as a battery for the mitochondria.

During cellular respiration, where mitochondria turn oxygen and glucose into energy, electrons are stripped from the glucose for use. In other words, what our mitochondria really need are oxygen and electrons, and the glucose is simply a means to an end. If the mitochondria are the engine, then the electrons are the fuel (assuming you are still breathing). Due to its chemical structure, melanin is a natural reversible oxidation-reduction system (Figge 1939). In other words, it can both store and release electrons. Melanin is therefore a kind of battery, retrieving electrons from various sources, and storing them for future use in our mitochondria as a substitute for food. When stated this way, and considering how food is important because both fats and carbohydrates fuel the body by providing electrons to our mitochondria, one can imagine how vitally important melanin is. Melanin is central towards the availability of electrons for use in our body to produce the energy to live. Without adequate melanin, your mitochondria will starve for fuel and not provide your body with the energy it needs to thrive.

Blue Light

To contextualize the role blue light plays in human health, it is important to revisit an important byproduct of cellular respiration within mitochondria. When mitochondria turn electrons and oxygen into energy, there is a byproduct formed known as reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS play important roles in the body, but in excess they can cause DNA damage and disrupt various cellular processes. For example, UV light causes cancer due to the ROS generated, and studies have found that blue light does the same in both the skin and eyes (Nakashima, Ohta, and Wolf 2017; Abdouh et al. 2024). This research suggests that excess blue light or blue light in isolation can damage the eyes and cause harm like UV light.

Blue and UV light are predominant during the middle of the day. Though both may cause oxidative stress on the body, the body simultaneously counteracts this damage through melatonin. Think of melatonin as the junk remover for mitochondria. Throughout the day mitochondria produce energy, and ROS is formed. During our nighttime sleep, melatonin plays an important role as an antioxidant and removes the excess ROS (Leon et al. 2004).

The relationship between blue light and melatonin is important. During the day, when blue light is present, our body suppresses the production of melatonin (West et al. 2011). When the sun sets and there is no longer a heavy presence of blue light, our body begins to produce melatonin for sleep. This is a central function for how our body gets tired at night and gets ready for sleep. This is also why artificial light at night, from our modern technology, is harmful to human health because it tricks the body into the continual suppression of melatonin production. Without proper melatonin production, our cells buildup too much ROS and this can cause mitochondrial dysfunction and other sleep related issues.

Beyond the importance of getting good sleep and producing melatonin to remove excess ROS from our cells, the existence of artificial light and excess blue light is problematic during the day as well. As stated previously, blue light causes ROS buildup in both the skin and eyes (Nakashima, Ohta, and Wolf 2017; Abdouh et al. 2024). As with most harms from sunlight, our body has adapted with a backup plan. During the day, when blue and UV light is present, there is simultaneous exposure to NIR light (650-1200nm). Recent research suggests that NIR also counterbalances the harm of blue light by increasing melatonin synthesis in the mitochondria (Tan et al. 2023). This highlights the importance of receiving the full spectrum of light from the sun, as one wavelength counterbalances the damages of the other.

Near-Infrared Light

While indoor living has been commonplace for humans across generations, and modern technology has over saturated our bodies with blue light, some recent changes to our technology have made things worse. Incandescent light bulbs emit NIR light, this is why they got warm. However, LED lights do not emit NIR light. Therefore, where people of past generations were potentially exposed to a lot of artificial light at night, this was counterbalanced by the NIR emitted by those same lightbulbs. Now, modern humans use LEDs and spend 93% of our time indoors with zero exposure to NIR, which is 90% of the light emitted by the sun (Tan et al. 2023).

Not only does NIR light protect our bodies from the damaging consequences of blue light, but it similarly protects us against UV light. As stated previously, NIR may result in the production of melatonin within mitochondria during the day, helping protect against the ROS buildup and mtDNA damage. Additionally, research has also found that NIR light protects from UV light in other ways. For example, a study in 2008 found that pretreating skin with NIR light (660nm) prevented sunburns (Barolet and Boucher 2008). Another study found that red and NIR light (620-690nm) altered gene expression and upregulated DNA repair (Kim et al. 2019). Again, this highlights the theme that the body has produced the means to protect itself from the harms of the sun via other rays emitted. However, the protection from harmful rays is best achieved when exposed to the full spectrum of light wavelengths as they change throughout the day. The light of dawn and dusk is predominately red and NIR. Therefore, this research suggests that being exposed to morning light will protect the body from the potentially cancer-causing effects of the UV light later in the day. A human being who lived outside would naturally be exposed to this spectrum of light every day. However, modern humans may be inside in the morning, go to the beach during the middle of the day, and get sunburned because they do not properly receive the full spectrum of light as nature intended every day.

Lastly, it is important to explore the ways NIR improves mitochondrial function. If electrons are the fuel source for this engine, and melatonin is the junk removal, then NIR is the lubricant. NIR improves the energy output of mitochondria, and there are various hypotheses for how this occurs. One hypothesis is that NIR boosts the functionality of cytochrome c oxidase, one of the chromophores used in the electron transport chain (ETC) of cellular respiration within mitochondria (De Freitas and Hamblin 2016). Another involves NIR light’s ability to modify the viscosity of water which increases the efficiency of the final step in the ETC, the ATP synthase (Sommer, Haddad, and Fecht 2015). ATP synthase can be thought of as a kind of pump that produces ATP, in this way NIR can be thought of almost literally as a lubricant for this pump.

Summary

In summary, the research involving how sunlight affects mitochondrial health highlights the importance of the full spectrum of wavelengths, each of which plays a vital role in human health throughout the day. Having exposure to one, without the other, can lead to imbalances and mitochondrial disease. The red and NIR light in the morning helps our mitochondria produce more energy throughout the day, while also preparing our bodies for the beneficial yet dangerous wavelengths to come. In the middle of the day, we receive much more UV and blue light, which help us produce vitamin D and melanin, both central to health and wellness. Once the sun sets, and blue light is absent, we produce melatonin for sleep. During our sleep, the melatonin removes the dangerous byproducts of our energy-producing day, protecting us from disease and preparing us for the following day. Mitochondria are central to human health and life on earth, and the rays from the sun are central to mitochondrial health.

Respecting nature and its cycles is vital for us humans who are increasingly immersing ourselves in a world dominated by technology. Our ancestors did not have to reconcile with these ideas, because life forced these exposures upon them. If we wish to maintain health in our modern world, we must be able to find balance. Even though some might think they can escape into the virtual world, our bodies will always and forever be connected and reliant upon the natural one.

References

Abdouh, Mohamed, Yunxi Chen, Alicia Goyeneche, and Miguel N. Burnier. 2024. “Blue Light-Induced Mitochondrial Oxidative Damage Underlay Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Apoptosis.” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 25 (23): 12619.

Barolet, Daniel, and Annie Boucher. 2008. “LED Photoprevention: Reduced MED Response Following Multiple LED Exposures.” Lasers in Surgery and Medicine 40 (2): 106–12.

Birch-Machin, M. A., E. V. Russell, and J. A. Latimer. 2013. “Mitochondrial DNA Damage as a Biomarker for Ultraviolet Radiation Exposure and Oxidative Stress.” The British Journal of Dermatology 169 (s2): 9–14.

Chowdhury, Rajiv, Setor Kunutsor, Anna Vitezova, Clare Oliver-Williams, Susmita Chowdhury, Jessica C. Kiefte-de-Jong, Hassan Khan, et al. 2014. “Vitamin D and Risk of Cause Specific Death: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Cohort and Randomised Intervention Studies.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.) 348 (apr01 2): g1903.

De Freitas, Lucas Freitas, and Michael R. Hamblin. 2016. “Proposed Mechanisms of Photobiomodulation or Low-Level Light Therapy.” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics: A Publication of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society 22 (3): 348–64.

Dixon, Katie M., Anthony W. Norman, Vanessa B. Sequeira, Ritu Mohan, Mark S. Rybchyn, Vivienne E. Reeve, Gary M. Halliday, and Rebecca S. Mason. 2011. “1α,25(OH)₂-Vitamin D and a Nongenomic Vitamin D Analogue Inhibit Ultraviolet Radiation-Induced Skin Carcinogenesis.” Cancer Prevention Research (Philadelphia, Pa.) 4 (9): 1485–94.

Fell, Gillian L., Kathleen C. Robinson, Jianren Mao, Clifford J. Woolf, and David E. Fisher. 2014. “Skin β-Endorphin Mediates Addiction to UV Light.” Cell 157 (7): 1527–34.

Figge, Frank H. J. 1939. “Melanin: A Natural Reversible Oxidation-Reduction System and Indicator.” Experimental Biology and Medicine (Maywood, N.J.) 41 (1): 127.

Garland, Cedric F., June Jiwon Kim, Sharif Burgette Mohr, Edward Doerr Gorham, William B. Grant, Edward L. Giovannucci, Leo Baggerly, et al. 2014. “Meta-Analysis of All-Cause Mortality According to Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D.” American Journal of Public Health 104 (8): e43-50.

Holick, M. F. 1981. “The Cutaneous Photosynthesis of Previtamin D3: A Unique Photoendocrine System.” The Journal of Investigative Dermatology 77 (1): 51–58.

Holick, Michael F. 2007. “Vitamin D Deficiency.” The New England Journal of Medicine 357 (3): 266–81.

Kim, Hyun Soo, Yeo Jin Kim, Su Ji Kim, Doo Seok Kang, Tae Ryong Lee, Dong Wook Shin, Hyoung-June Kim, and Young Rok Seo. 2019. “Transcriptomic Analysis of Human Dermal Fibroblast Cells Reveals Potential Mechanisms Underlying the Protective Effects of Visible Red Light against Damage from Ultraviolet B Light.” Journal of Dermatological Science 94 (2): 276–83.

Leon, Josefa, Dario Acuña-Castroviejo, Rosa M. Sainz, Juan C. Mayo, Dun Xian Tan, and Russel J. Reiter. 2004. “Melatonin and Mitochondrial Function.” Life Sciences. Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lfs.2004.03.003.

Lindqvist, P. G., E. Epstein, K. Nielsen, M. Landin-Olsson, C. Ingvar, and H. Olsson. 2016. “Avoidance of Sun Exposure as a Risk Factor for Major Causes of Death: A Competing Risk Analysis of the Melanoma in Southern Sweden Cohort.” Journal of Internal Medicine 280 (4): 375–87.

Litonjua, Augusto A., Vincent J. Carey, Nancy Laranjo, Benjamin J. Harshfield, Thomas F. McElrath, George T. O’Connor, Megan Sandel, et al. 2016. “Effect of Prenatal Supplementation with Vitamin D on Asthma or Recurrent Wheezing in Offspring by Age 3 Years: The VDAART Randomized Clinical Trial.” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 315 (4): 362–70.

McCollum, E. V., Nina Simmonds, J. Ernestine Becker, and P. G. Shipley. 1922. “Studies on Experimental Rickets.” The Journal of Biological Chemistry 53 (2): 293–312.

Nakashima, Yuya, Shigeo Ohta, and Alexander M. Wolf. 2017. “Blue Light-Induced Oxidative Stress in Live Skin.” Free Radical Biology & Medicine 108 (July): 300–310.

Prietl, Barbara, Gerlies Treiber, Thomas R. Pieber, and Karin Amrein. 2013. “Vitamin D and Immune Function.” Nutrients 5 (7): 2502–21.

Sommer, Andrei P., Mike Kh Haddad, and Hans Jörg Fecht. 2015. “Light Effect on Water Viscosity: Implication for ATP Biosynthesis.” Scientific Reports 5 (July). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep12029.

Tan, Dun-Xian, Russel J. Reiter, Scott Zimmerman, and Ruediger Hardeland. 2023. “Melatonin: Both a Messenger of Darkness and a Participant in the Cellular Actions of Non-Visible Solar Radiation of near Infrared Light.” Biology 12 (1): 89.

Wacker, Matthias, and Michael F. Holick. 2013. “Sunlight and Vitamin D: A Global Perspective for Health: A Global Perspective for Health.” Dermato-Endocrinology 5 (1): 51–108.

West, Kathleen E., Michael R. Jablonski, Benjamin Warfield, Kate S. Cecil, Mary James, Melissa A. Ayers, James Maida, et al. 2011. “Blue Light from Light-Emitting Diodes Elicits a Dose-Dependent Suppression of Melatonin in Humans.” Journal of Applied Physiology (Bethesda, Md.: 1985) 110 (3): 619–26.

Wicks, Nadine L., Jason W. Chan, Julia A. Najera, Jonathan M. Ciriello, and Elena Oancea. 2011. “UVA Phototransduction Drives Early Melanin Synthesis in Human Melanocytes.” Current Biology: CB 21 (22): 1906.

Wimalawansa, Sunil J. 2023. “Infections and Autoimmunity-the Immune System and Vitamin D: A Systematic Review.” Nutrients 15 (17): 3842.

Yang, Ling, Marie Lof, Marit Bragelien Veierød, Sven Sandin, Hans-Olov Adami, and Elisabete Weiderpass. 2011. “Ultraviolet Exposure and Mortality among Women in Sweden.” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention: A Publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, Cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology 20 (4): 683–90.

@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9

There is something quietly rebellious about stacking sats. In a world obsessed with instant gratification, choosing to patiently accumulate Bitcoin, one sat at a time, feels like a middle finger to the hype machine. But to do it right, you have got to stay humble. Stack too hard with your head in the clouds, and you will trip over your own ego before the next halving even hits.

Small Wins

Stacking sats is not glamorous. Discipline. Stacking every day, week, or month, no matter the price, and letting time do the heavy lifting. Humility lives in that consistency. You are not trying to outsmart the market or prove you are the next "crypto" prophet. Just a regular person, betting on a system you believe in, one humble stack at a time. Folks get rekt chasing the highs. They ape into some shitcoin pump, shout about it online, then go silent when they inevitably get rekt. The ones who last? They stack. Just keep showing up. Consistency. Humility in action. Know the game is long, and you are not bigger than it.

Ego is Volatile

Bitcoin’s swings can mess with your head. One day you are up 20%, feeling like a genius and the next down 30%, questioning everything. Ego will have you panic selling at the bottom or over leveraging the top. Staying humble means patience, a true bitcoin zen. Do not try to "beat” Bitcoin. Ride it. Stack what you can afford, live your life, and let compounding work its magic.

Simplicity

There is a beauty in how stacking sats forces you to rethink value. A sat is worth less than a penny today, but every time you grab a few thousand, you plant a seed. It is not about flaunting wealth but rather building it, quietly, without fanfare. That mindset spills over. Cut out the noise: the overpriced coffee, fancy watches, the status games that drain your wallet. Humility is good for your soul and your stack. I have a buddy who has been stacking since 2015. Never talks about it unless you ask. Lives in a decent place, drives an old truck, and just keeps stacking. He is not chasing clout, he is chasing freedom. That is the vibe: less ego, more sats, all grounded in life.

The Big Picture

Stack those sats. Do it quietly, do it consistently, and do not let the green days puff you up or the red days break you down. Humility is the secret sauce, it keeps you grounded while the world spins wild. In a decade, when you look back and smile, it will not be because you shouted the loudest. It will be because you stayed the course, one sat at a time. \ \ Stay Humble and Stack Sats. 🫡

@ 58537364:705b4b85

Ikigai means "the meaning of life" or "the reason for being." Why were we born? What are we living for? When work is not seen as something separate from life.

The Japanese believe that everyone has their own ikigai. Those who discover it find meaning and value in life, leading to greater happiness, better moods, and a more fulfilling world.

Today, there are many books about ikigai, but the first one written by a Japanese author is:

“The Little Book of Ikigai: The Secret Japanese Way to Live a Happy and Long Life” by Ken Mogi (Thai translation by Wuttichai Krisanaprakankit)

Come explore the true world of ikigai through this Japanese neuroscientist’s insights, conveyed through conversations that challenge the idea of ikigai as something grand—showing instead that it starts with small personal joys.

Ken Mogi says that Jiro Ono, a 94-year-old sushi chef who still makes sushi today, was his inspiration for writing the book.

This sushi chef did not start the job out of passion or talent—but he dedicated every piece of sushi to bring happiness to his customers. That, Ken says, is the essence of ikigai.

Strangely, the word “ikigai” is not often used in daily conversations in Japan.

Because it’s something so natural that it doesn’t need to be said. In today’s world, we often talk about how to succeed, how to get promoted, how to become a CEO. But for the Japanese, success isn’t everything.

For example, many Japanese people are deeply passionate about hobbies or have kodawari. Others might not care what those hobbies are—as long as the person seems happy, that’s enough. Some are obsessed with trains, manga, or anime. These people don’t need fame or recognition from society. If they’re happy in their own way, that’s perfectly okay.

Kodawari means a deep dedication or meticulous attention to something. For example, someone obsessed with stationery might spend a lot of time selecting the perfect pens, notebooks, or pencils. They’ll research, analyze, and experiment to find the tools they love most.

Everyone’s ikigai can be different, because people value different things and live differently.

Ikigai is about diversity. Japanese society encourages children to discover their own ikigai. They don’t tell kids to pursue jobs only because they pay well. If you ask students what jobs they want, they rarely say it’s about money first.

Ikigai is not the same as "success." The Japanese know that life isn’t just about being successful. Ikigai matters more. You could be successful but lack ikigai. Conversely, you might not be “successful” but still have ikigai—and you might be happier.

Ken Mogi defines success as something society acknowledges and rewards. But ikigai comes from your own heart and personal happiness. Others may not recognize it as success, but that doesn’t matter.

Ikigai is personal. We can be happy in our own way. We don’t judge others’ happiness—let them find joy in their own path.

The key to ikigai is finding small moments of happiness, even from little things. For example, when Ken was a child, he loved studying butterflies. Now, when he’s out jogging and sees a beautiful butterfly, he feels ikigai. Or sometimes, it comes from small amusing moments—like hearing a child tell his dad, “Dad, you have to do it this way!”

So, if we want to find our own ikigai, where do we start? Start with noticing small pleasures in daily life. That’s the easiest place to begin.

In the brain, there's a chemical called dopamine. When we achieve even small things, dopamine is released, creating happiness. That’s why enjoying small things is so important.

For some, ikigai might seem hard to grasp—especially if life is difficult, if they feel hopeless or lack self-worth. So begin with tiny moments of joy.

Is it the same as positive thinking? Ikigai is a part of that. But when we talk about “positive thinking,” it can feel like pressure to some people. So instead, just notice small joys: making your morning coffee, running in the rain.

---

Lessons from Ken Mogi:

1. Ikigai is not about chasing success or wealth, but about feeling happiness in your own life, which gives your life personal meaning.

2. Ikigai is not defined by society. Everyone’s ikigai is different. Each person can be happy in their own way.

3. **Don’t judge or force others—**children, partners—to live how you think is right. Respect diversity.

4. Smile at people who are enjoying their ikigai, and support them if they struggle.

5. Ikigai exists on two levels:

6. Big ikigai: life purpose or work values.

7. Small ikigai: tiny joys in everyday life.

8. Ikigai starts with noticing small pleasures today.

---

Source: From the Cloud of Thoughts column An interview by Ajarn Katewadi from Marumura with Ken Mogi, author of the first Japanese book on ikigai.

@ bbb5dda0:f09e2747

My week 19 started with a celebration of 80 years of liberation from the Germans (we love you guys now tho 🫶🏼). It feels conflicting, we're celebrating freedom, whilst cutting down those freedoms day by day more rapidly as time progresses. Should we still celebrate...?

The current path back to freedom can be mundane in the day to day but I wouldn't wanna have it any other way. These last couple weeks I've continued working on our TollGate pipelines to facilitate our release cycle, make it faster and easier to release in quick succession. There's been a lot of details to get right, because our releases are nostr based and once people start relying on the structure of the events we can't easily change it.

A TollGateOS release event now looks like this NIP-94 file metadata event:

json { "id": "a867f15ca7edc95a69e1557539a624466147584f68c62a16c47fe9bca3778312", "pubkey": "5075e61f0b048148b60105c1dd72bbeae1957336ae5824087e52efa374f8416a", "created_at": 1747475980, "kind": 1063, "tags": [ [ "url", "https://blossom.swissdash.site/9e5e8c48810a1b59cf10fa56486f311e048a0305eb58444992b6133fd19fcb3e.bin" ], [ "m", "application/octet-stream" ], [ "x", "9e5e8c48810a1b59cf10fa56486f311e048a0305eb58444992b6133fd19fcb3e" ], [ "ox", "9e5e8c48810a1b59cf10fa56486f311e048a0305eb58444992b6133fd19fcb3e" ], [ "architecture", "aarch64_cortex-a53" ], [ "device_id", "glinet_gl-mt3000" ], [ "supported_devices", "glinet,gl-mt3000 glinet,mt3000-snand" ], [ "openwrt_version", "24.10.1" ], [ "tollgate_os_version", "v0.0.2" ], [ "release_channel", "stable" ] ], "content": "TollGate OS Firmware for glinet_gl-mt3000", "sig": "1d050233428304685d202e954cb48714c800a7ca5f2d6a8d8fd657a775b9c51bf83364505311859c846e25098168a8ff309af2308712aafe634fcbdc96fcd84a" }

One of the missing links was the supported_devices tag. That is because the installer checks the device name by ssh-ing into the router and it returns the glinet,gl-mt3000 which doesn't properly translate into the device_id, which is what's used for compiling the OS. So this helps us to do the lookups and compatibility checks in the installer.

I also worked on: - getting the versioning of the tollgate-basic package's naming in line with the OpenWRT naming convention. - Rework versioning for dev builds into [branchname].[commit_height].[commit_hash] which will show up on the dev release_channel releases. - Getting an initial release of the tollgate-installer done, so we can easily flash a bunch of routers to become TollGates.

Bright minds in Prague

I met up with some bright minds from the space in Prague where @cobrador and i did a workshop on turning routers into TollGates and start earning sats. As is part of building things, things break and people make us aware of issues that we wouldn't foresee. Like for some reason Minibits cashu tokens being rejected, which is likely because of the memo's but we still need to dive into that issue.

Also we released [v0.0.2] of TollGate OS, which now includes an updater feature, again for faster release cycles. Currently we're focussing on getting a v0.0.3 out quickly with fixes for the user feedback we've gathered so far!

Receipt.Cash

I also, kind of unplanned, saw an opportunity to shill Receipt.Cash. I'd made a few improvements recently and it's ready enough for reckless people to try it out ;).

| | | | | | Payer Scans any fiat receipt & Share link with friends | Friends tap what they had, price is auto-converted to sats, then pay by Lightning or Cashu. | If you want to try it, BE CAREFUL! It is highly experimental and you might lose your sats, no refunds!

Source Code here.

@ 6ad3e2a3:c90b7740

I https://www.chrisliss.com/p/mstr a few months ago with the subtitle “The Only Stock,” and I’m starting to regret it. Now, it was trading at 396 on January 20 when I posted it and 404 now (even if it dipped 40 percent to 230 or so in between), but that’s not why I regret it. I pointed out it was not investable unless you’re willing to stomach large drawdowns, and anyone who bought then could exit with a small profit now had they not panic-sold along the way.

The reason I regret it is I don’t want to make public stock predictions because it adds stress to my life. I have not sold any of my shares yet, but something I’ve noticed recently has got me thinking about it, and stock tips are like a game of telephone wherein whoever is last in the chain might find out the wrong information and too late. And while every adult has agency and is responsible for his own financial decisions, I don’t want my readers losing money on account of anything I write.

My base case is still that MSTR becomes a trillion-dollar company, destroys the performance of the S&P, the Mag-7 and virtually any other equity portfolio most people would assemble. Michael Saylor is trading an infinitely-printable asset (his shares) for humanity’s best-ever, finite-supply digital gold, and that trade should be profitable for him and his shareholders in perpetuity.

I don’t know exactly what he plans to do when that trade is no longer available to him — either because no one takes fiat currency for bitcoin anymore or because his mNAV (market-cap-to-bitcoin-holding ratio) goes below one — but that’s not my main concern, either. At that point he’ll have so much bitcoin, he’ll probably become the world’s first and largest bitcoin bank and profit by making his pristine collateral available to individuals and institutions. Even at five percent interest, half a trillion in bitcoin would yield $25B in profits every year. Even at a modest 10x valuation, the stock would more than double from here.

I am also not overly concerned with Saylor’s present amount of convertible debt which is at low or zero rates and is only https://www.strategy.com/. He’s been conservative on that front and only issuing on favorable terms. I don’t doubt Saylor’s prescience, intelligence or business sense one bit.

What got me thinking were some Twitter posts by a former Salomon Brothers trader/prophet Josh Mandell https://x.com/JoshMandell6/status/1921597739458339193 recently. In November when bitcoin was mooning after the election, he predicted that on March 14th it would close at $84,000, and if it did it would then go on an epic run up to $444,000 this cycle.

A lot of people make predictions, a few of them come true, but rarely do they come true on the dot (it closed at exactly $84K according to some exchanges) and on such a specific timeframe. Now, maybe he just got lucky, or maybe he is a skilled trader who made one good prediction, but the reason he gave for his prediction, insofar as he gave one, was not some technical chart or quantitative analysis, but a memory he had from 30 years ago that got into his mind that he couldn’t shake. He didn’t get much more specific than that, other than that he was tuned into something that if he explained fully would make too many people think he had gone insane. And then the prediction came true on the dot months later.

Now I believe in the paranormal more than the average person. I do not think things are random, and insofar as they appear that way it’s only because we have incomplete information — even a coin toss is predictable if you knew the exact force and spin that was put on the coin. I think for whatever reason, this guy is plugged into something, and while I would never invest a substantial amount of money on that belief — not only are earnestly-made prophecies often delusions or even if correct wrongly interpreted — that he sold makes me think.

He gave more substantive reasons for selling than prophecy, by the way — he seems to think Saylor’s perpetual issuance of shares ATM (at the market) to buy more bitcoin is putting too much downward pressure on the stock. Obviously, selling shares — even if to buy the world’s most pristine collateral at a 2x-plus mNAV — reduces the short-term appreciation of those shares.

His thesis seems to be that Saylor is doing this even if he would be better off letting the price appreciate more, attracting more investors, squeezing more shorts, etc because he needs to improve his credit rating to tap into the convertible debt market to the extent he has promised ($42 billion more over the next few years) at favorable terms. But in doing this, he is souring common stock investors because they are not seeing the near-term appreciation they should on their holdings.

Now this is a trivial concern if over the long haul MSTR does what it has the last couple years which is to outperform by a wide margin not only every large cap stock and the S&P but bitcoin itself. And the bigger his stack of bitcoin, the more his stock should appreciate as bitcoin goes up. But markets do not operate linearly and rationally. Should he sour prospective buyers to a great enough extent, should he attract shorts (and supply them with available shares to borrow) to a great enough extent, perhaps there might be an mNAV-crushing cascade that drives people into other bitcoin treasury companies, ETFs or bitcoin itself.

Now Saylor as first mover and by far the largest publicly-traded treasury company has a significant advantage. Institutions are far less likely to invest in size in smaller treasury companies with shorter track records, and many of them are not allowed to invest in ETFs or bitcoin at all. And even if a lot of money did go into any of those vehicles, it would only drive the value of his assets up and hence his stock price, no matter the mNAV. But Josh Mandell sold his shares prior to a weekend where bitcoin went from 102K to 104K, the US announced a deal with China, the mag-7 had a big spike (AAPL was up 6.3 percent) and then MSTR’s stock went down from 416 to 404. As I said, he is on to something.

So what’s the real long-term risk? I don’t know. Maybe there’s something about the nature of bitcoin that long-term is not really amenable to third-party custody and administration. It’s a bearer asset (“not your keys, not your coins”), and introducing counterparty risk is antithetical to its core purpose, the separation of money and state, or in this case money and bank.

With the bitcoin network you can literally “be your own bank.” To transact in digital dollars you need a bank account — or at least a stable coin one mediated by a centralized entity like Tether. You can’t hold digital dollars in your mind via some memorized seed words like you can bitcoin, accessible anywhere in the world, the ledger of which is maintained by tens of thousands of individually-run nodes. This property which democratizes value storage in the way gold did, except now you can wield your purchasing power globally, might be so antithetical to communal storage via corporation or bank that doing so is doomed to catastrophe.

We’ve already seen this happen with exchanges via FTX and Mt. Gox. Counterparty risk is one of the problems bitcoin was created to solve, so moving that risk from a fractionally reserved international banking system to corporate balance sheets still very much a part of that system is probably not the seismic advancement integral to the technology’s promise.

But this is more of a philosophical concern rather than a concrete one. To get more specific, it’s easy to imagine Coinbase, if indeed that’s where MSTR custodies its coins, gets hacked or https://www.chrisliss.com/p/soft-landing, i.e., seized by an increasingly desperate and insolvent government. Or maybe Coinbase simply doesn’t have the coins it purports like FTX, or a rogue band of employees, working on behalf of some powerful faction for “https://www.chrisliss.com/national-security-and-public-healt” executes the rug pull. Even if you deem these scenarios unlikely, they are not unfathomable.

Beyond outright counterparty malfeasance, there are other risks — what if owning common stock in an enterprise that simply holds bitcoin falls out of favor? Imagine if some new individual custody solution emerges wherein you have direct access to the coins themselves in an “even a boomer can do this” kind of way wherein there’s no compelling reason to own common stock with its junior claims to the capital stack in the event of insolvency? Why stand in line behind debt holders and preferred shares when you can invest in something that’s directly withdrawable and accessible if world events spike volatility to a systemic breaking point?

Things need not even get that rocky for this to be a concern — just the perception that they might could spook people into realizing common stock of a corporate balance sheet might be less than ideal as your custody solution.

Moreover, Saylor himself presents some risk. He could be compromised or blackmailed, he could lose his cool or get into an accident. These are low-probability scenarios, but also not unfathomable as any single point of failure is a target, especially for those factions who stand to lose unimaginable wealth and power should his speculative attack on the system succeed at scale.

Finally, even if Saylor remains free to operate as he sees fit, there is what I’d call the Icarus risk — he might be too ambitious, too hell-bent on acquiring bitcoin at all costs, too much of a maniac in service of his vision. Remember, he initially bought bitcoin during the covid crash and concomitant massive money print upon his prescient realization that businesses providing goods and services couldn’t possibly keep pace with inflation over the long haul. He was merely playing defense to preserve his capital, and now, despite his sizable lead and secured position is still throwing forward passes in the fourth quarter rather than running out the clock and securing the W.

Saylor is now arguably less a bitcoin maximalist and advocate, articulately making the case for superior money and individual sovereignty, but a corporate titan hell-bent on world domination via apex-predator-status balance sheet. When is enough enough? Many of the greatest conquerors in history pushed their empires too far until they fractured. In fact, 25 years ago MSTR was a big winner before the dot-com crash during which its stock price and most of Saylor’s fortune were wiped out when he was sued by the SEC for accounting fraud (he subsequently settled).

Now it’s possible, he learned from that experience, got up off the mat and figured out how to avoid his youthful mistakes. But it’s also possible his character is such that he will repeat it again, only this time at scale.

But as I said, my base case is MSTR is a trillion-dollar market cap, and the stock runs in parallel with bitcoin’s ascendance over the next decade. Saylor has been https://www.strategy.com/, prescient, bold and responsible so far over this iteration. I view Mandell’s concerns as valid, but similar to Wall St’s ones about AMZN’s Jeff Bezos who relentlessly ignored their insistence on profitability for a decade as he plowed every dollar into building out productive capacity and turned the company into the $2T world-dominating retail giant it is now.

Again, I haven’t (yet) sold any of my shares or even call options. But because I posted about this in January I felt I should at least follow-up with a more detailed rundown of what I take to be the risks. As always, do your own due diligence with any prospective investment.

@ 6ad3e2a3:c90b7740

When I was a kid, I wanted to be rich, but found the prospect of hard work tedious, pointless and soul-crushing. Instead of studying for exams, getting some job and clawing your way up the ladder, I wondered why we couldn’t just build a device that measured your brain capacity and awarded you the money you would have made had you applied yourself. Eliminate the middleman, so to speak, the useless paper pushing evoked by the word “career.”

But when you think about it, it’s not really money you’re after, as money is but purchasing power, and so it’s the things money can provide like a nice lifestyle and the peace of mind that comes from not worrying about it. And it’s not really the lifestyle or financial independence, per se, since moment to moment what’s in your bank account isn’t determining your mental state, but the feeling those things give you — a sense of expansiveness and freedom.

But if you did have such a machine, and it awarded you the money, you probably wouldn’t have that kind of expansiveness and freedom, especially if you did nothing to achieve those things. You would still feel bored, distracted and unsatisfied despite unrestricted means to travel or dine out as you saw fit. People who win the lottery, for example, tend to revert to their prior level of satisfaction in short order.

The feeling you really want then is the sense of rising to a challenge, negotiating and adapting to your environment, persevering in a state of uncertainty, tapping into your resourcefulness and creativity. It’s only while operating at the edge of your capacity you could ever be so fulfilled. In fact, in such a state the question of your satisfaction level would never come up. You wouldn’t even think to wonder about it you’d be so engrossed.

So what you really crave is a mind device that encourages you to adapt to your environment using your full creative capabilities in the present moment, so much so you realize if you do not do this, you have the sense of squandering your life in a tedious, pointless and soul-crushing way. You need to be totally stuck, without the option of turning back. In sum, you need to face reality exactly as it is, without any escape therefrom.

The measure of your mind in that case is your reality itself. The device is already with you — it’s the world you are presently creating with the consciousness you have, providing you avenues to escape, none of which are satisfactory, none that can lead to the state you truly desire. You have a choice to pursue them fruitlessly and wind up at square one, or to abandon them and attain your freedom. No matter how many times you go down a false road, you wind up at the same place until you give up on the Sisyphean task and proceed in earnest.

My childhood fantasy was real, it turns out, only I had misunderstood its meaning.

@ bd4ae3e6:1dfb81f5

@ bd4ae3e6:1dfb81f5

@ 3f770d65:7a745b24

🏌️ Monday, May 26 – Bitcoin Golf Championship & Kickoff Party

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada\ Event: 2nd Annual Bitcoin Golf Championship & Kick Off Party"\ Where: Bali Hai Golf Clubhouse, 5160 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89119\ 🎟️ Get Tickets!

Details:

• The week tees off in style with the Bitcoin Golf Championship. Swing clubs by day and swing to music by night.

• Live performances from Nostr-powered acts courtesy of Tunestr, including Ainsley Costello and others.

• Stop by the Purple Pill Booth hosted by Derek and Tanja, who will be on-boarding golfers and attendees to the decentralized social future with Nostr.

---

💬 May 27–29 – Bitcoin 2025 Conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center

Location: The Venetian Resort\ Main Attraction for Nostr Fans: The Nostr Lounge\ When: All day, Tuesday through Thursday\ Where: Right outside the Open Source Stage\ 🎟️ Get Tickets!

Come chill at the Nostr Lounge, your home base for all things decentralized social. With seating for \~50, comfy couches, high-tops, and good vibes, it’s the perfect space to meet developers, community leaders, and curious newcomers building the future of censorship-resistant communication.

Bonus: Right across the aisle, you’ll find Shopstr, a decentralized marketplace app built on Nostr. Stop by their booth to explore how peer-to-peer commerce works in a truly open ecosystem.

Daily Highlights at the Lounge:

• ☕️ Hang out casually or sit down for a deeper conversation about the Nostr protocol

• 🔧 1:1 demos from app teams

• 🛍️ Merch available onsite

• 🧠 Impromptu lightning talks

• 🎤 Scheduled Meetups (details below)

---

🎯 Nostr Lounge Meetups

Wednesday, May 28 @ 1:00 PM

• Damus Meetup: Come meet the team behind Damus, the OG Nostr app for iOS that helped kickstart the social revolution. They'll also be showcasing their new cross-platform app, Notedeck, designed for a more unified Nostr experience across devices. Grab some merch, get a demo, and connect directly with the developers.

Thursday, May 29 @ 1:00 PM

• Primal Meetup: Dive into Primal, the slickest Nostr experience available on web, Android, and iOS. With a built-in wallet, zapping your favorite creators and friends has never been easier. The team will be on-site for hands-on demos, Q\&A, merch giveaways, and deeper discussions on building the social layer of Bitcoin.

---

🎙️ Nostr Talks at Bitcoin 2025

If you want to hear from the minds building decentralized social, make sure you attend these two official conference sessions:

1. FROSTR Workshop: Multisig Nostr Signing

• 🕚 Time: 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM

• 📅 Date: Wednesday, May 28

• 📍 Location: Developer Zone

• 🎤 Speaker: nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcqpqs9etjgzjglwlaxdhsveq0qksxyh6xpdpn8ajh69ruetrug957r3qf4ggfm (Austin Kelsay) @ Voltage\ A deep-dive into FROST-based multisig key management for Nostr. Geared toward devs and power users interested in key security.

2. Panel: Decentralizing Social Media

• 🕑 Time: 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM

• 📅 Date: Thursday, May 29

• 📍 Location: Genesis Stage

• 🎙️ Moderator: nostr:nprofile1qyxhwumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmvqy08wumn8ghj7mn0wd68yttjv4kxz7fwv3jhyettwfhhxuewd4jsqgxnqajr23msx5malhhcz8paa2t0r70gfjpyncsqx56ztyj2nyyvlq00heps - Bitcoin Strategy @ Roxom TV

• 👥 Speakers:

• nostr:nprofile1qyt8wumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qqsy2ga7trfetvd3j65m3jptqw9k39wtq2mg85xz2w542p5dhg06e5qmhlpep – Early Bitcoin dev, CEO @ Sirius Business Ltd

• nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytndv9kxjm3wdahxcqg5waehxw309ahx7um5wfekzarkvyhxuet5qqsw4v882mfjhq9u63j08kzyhqzqxqc8tgf740p4nxnk9jdv02u37ncdhu7e3 – Analyst & Partner @ Ego Death Capital

Get the big-picture perspective on why decentralized social matters and how Nostr fits into the future of digital communication.

---

🌃 NOS VEGAS Meetup & Afterparty

Date: Wednesday, May 28\ Time: 7:00 PM – 1:00 AM\ Location: We All Scream Nightclub, 517 Fremont St., Las Vegas, NV 89101\ 🎟️ Get Tickets!

What to Expect:

• 🎶 Live Music Stage – Featuring Ainsley Costello, Sara Jade, Able James, Martin Groom, Bobby Shell, Jessie Lark, and other V4V artists

• 🪩 DJ Party Deck – With sets by nostr:nprofile1qy0hwumn8ghj7cmgdae82uewd45kketyd9kxwetj9e3k7mf6xs6rgqgcwaehxw309ahx7um5wgh85mm694ek2unk9ehhyecqyq7hpmq75krx2zsywntgtpz5yzwjyg2c7sreardcqmcp0m67xrnkwylzzk4 , nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqgkwaehxw309anx2etywvhxummnw3ezucnpdejqqg967faye3x6fxgnul77ej23l5aew8yj0x2e4a3tq2mkrgzrcvecfsk8xlu3 , and more DJs throwing down

• 🛰️ Live-streamed via Tunestr

• 🧠 Nostr Education – Talks by nostr:nprofile1qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uq37amnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3dwfjkccte9ejx2un9ddex7umn9ekk2tcqyqlhwrt96wnkf2w9edgr4cfruchvwkv26q6asdhz4qg08pm6w3djg3c8m4j , nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqg7waehxw309anx2etywvhxummnw3ezucnpdejz7ur0wp6kcctjqqspywh6ulgc0w3k6mwum97m7jkvtxh0lcjr77p9jtlc7f0d27wlxpslwvhau , nostr:nprofile1qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uq3vamnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wd33xgetk9en82m30qqsgqke57uygxl0m8elstq26c4mq2erz3dvdtgxwswwvhdh0xcs04sc4u9p7d , nostr:nprofile1q9z8wumn8ghj7erzx3jkvmmzw4eny6tvw368wdt8da4kxamrdvek76mrwg6rwdngw94k67t3v36k77tev3kx7vn2xa5kjem9dp4hjepwd3hkxctvqyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2qpqyaul8k059377u9lsu67de7y637w4jtgeuwcmh5n7788l6xnlnrgssuy4zk , nostr:nprofile1qy28wue69uhnzvpwxqhrqt33xgmn5dfsx5cqz9thwden5te0v4jx2m3wdehhxarj9ekxzmnyqqswavgevxe9gs43vwylumr7h656mu9vxmw4j6qkafc3nefphzpph8ssvcgf8 , and more.

• 🧾 Vendors & Project Booths – Explore new tools and services

• 🔐 Onboarding Stations – Learn how to use Nostr hands-on

• 🐦 Nostrich Flocking – Meet your favorite nyms IRL

• 🍸 Three Full Bars – Two floors of socializing overlooking vibrant Fremont Street

| | | | | ----------- | -------------------- | ------------------- | | Time | Name | Topic | | 7:30-7:50 | Derek | Nostr for Beginners | | 8:00-8:20 | Mark & Paul | Primal | | 8:30-8:50 | Terry | Damus | | 9:00-9:20 | OpenMike and Ainsley | V4V | | 09:30-09:50 | The Space | Space |

This is the after-party of the year for those who love freedom technology and decentralized social community. Don’t miss it.

---

Final Thoughts

Whether you're there to learn, network, party, or build, Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas has a packed week of Nostr-friendly programming. Be sure to catch all the events, visit the Nostr Lounge, and experience the growing decentralized social revolution.

🟣 Find us. Flock with us. Purple pill someone.

@ a8d1560d:3fec7a08

NIP-XX

Documentation and Wikis with Spaces and Format Declaration

draft optional

Summary

This NIP introduces a system for collaborative documentation and wikis on Nostr. It improves upon earlier efforts by adding namespace-like Spaces, explicit content format declaration, and clearer separation of article types, including redirects and merge requests.

---

Motivation

Previous approaches to wiki-style collaborative content on Nostr had two key limitations:

1. Format instability – No declared format per event led to breaking changes (e.g. a shift from Markdown to Asciidoc).
2. Lack of namespace separation – All articles existed in a global space, causing confusion and collision between unrelated projects.

This NIP addresses both by introducing:

• Spaces – individually defined wikis or documentation sets.
• Explicit per-article format declaration.
• Dedicated event kinds for articles, redirects, merge requests, and space metadata.

---

Specification

kind: 31055 – Space Definition

Defines a project namespace for articles.

Tags: - ["name", "<space title>"] - ["slug", "<short identifier>"] - ["description", "<optional description>"] - ["language", "<ISO language code>"] - ["license", "<license text or SPDX ID>"]

Content: (optional) full description or README for the space.

---

kind: 31056 – Article

An article in a specific format belonging to a defined space.

Tags: - ["space", "<slug>"] - ["title", "<article title>"] - ["format", "markdown" | "asciidoc" | "mediawiki" | "html"] - ["format-version", "<format version>"] (optional) - ["prev", "<event-id>"] (optional) - ["summary", "<short change summary>"] (optional)

Content: full body of the article in the declared format.

---

kind: 31057 – Redirect

Redirects from one article title to another within the same space.

Tags: - ["space", "<slug>"] - ["from", "<old title>"] - ["to", "<new title>"]

Content: empty.

---

kind: 31058 – Merge Request

Proposes a revision to an article without directly altering the original.

Tags: - ["space", "<slug>"] - ["title", "<article title>"] - ["base", "<event-id>"] - ["format", "<format>"] - ["comment", "<short summary>"] (optional)

Content: proposed article content.

---

Format Guidelines

Currently allowed formats: - markdown - asciidoc - mediawiki - html

Clients MUST ignore formats they do not support. Clients MAY apply stricter formatting rules.

---

Client Behavior

Clients: - MUST render only supported formats. - MUST treat space as a case-sensitive namespace. - SHOULD allow filtering, browsing and searching within Spaces. - SHOULD support revision tracking via prev. - MAY support diff/merge tooling for kind: 31058.

---

Examples

Space Definition

json { "kind": 31055, "tags": [ ["name", "Bitcoin Docs"], ["slug", "btc-docs"], ["description", "Developer documentation for Bitcoin tools"], ["language", "en"], ["license", "MIT"] ], "content": "Welcome to the Bitcoin Docs Space." }

Markdown Article

json { "kind": 31056, "tags": [ ["space", "btc-docs"], ["title", "Installation Guide"], ["format", "markdown"] ], "content": "# Installation\n\nFollow these steps to install the software..." }

Asciidoc Article

json { "kind": 31056, "tags": [ ["space", "btc-docs"], ["title", "RPC Reference"], ["format", "asciidoc"] ], "content": "= RPC Reference\n\nThis section describes JSON-RPC calls." }

MediaWiki Article

json { "kind": 31056, "tags": [ ["space", "btc-docs"], ["title", "Block Structure"], ["format", "mediawiki"] ], "content": "== Block Structure ==\n\nThe structure of a Bitcoin block is..." }

Redirect

json { "kind": 31057, "tags": [ ["space", "btc-docs"], ["from", "Getting Started"], ["to", "Installation Guide"] ], "content": "" }

Merge Request

json { "kind": 31058, "tags": [ ["space", "btc-docs"], ["title", "Installation Guide"], ["base", "d72fa1..."], ["format", "markdown"], ["comment", "Added step for testnet"] ], "content": "# Installation\n\nNow includes setup instructions for testnet users." }

---

Acknowledgements

This proposal builds on earlier ideas for decentralized wikis and documentation within Nostr, while solving common issues related to format instability and lack of project separation.

@ ecda4328:1278f072

An honest response to objections — and an answer to the most important question: why does any of this matter?

---

\ Statement: Deflation is not the enemy, but a natural state in an age of technological progress.\ Criticism: in real macroeconomics, long-term deflation is linked to depressions.\ Deflation discourages borrowers and investors, and makes debt heavier.\ Natural ≠ Safe.

1. “Deflation → Depression, Debt → Heavier”

This is true in a debt-based system. Yes, in a fiat economy, debt balloons to the sky, and without inflation it collapses.

But Bitcoin offers not “deflation for its own sake,” but an environment where you don’t need to be in debt to survive. Where savings don’t melt away.\ Jeff Booth said it clearly:

“Technology is inherently deflationary. Fighting deflation with the printing press is fighting progress.”

You don’t have to take on credit to live in this system. Which means — deflation is not an enemy, but an ally.

💡 People often confuse two concepts:

1. That deflation doesn’t work in an economy built on credit and leverage — that’s true.

2. That deflation itself is bad — that’s a myth.

📉 In reality, deflation is the natural state of a free market when technology makes everything cheaper.

Historical example:\ In the U.S., from the Civil War to the early 1900s, the economy experienced gentle deflation — alongside economic growth, employment expansion, and industrial boom.\ Prices fell: for example, a sack of flour cost \~$1.00 in 1865 and \~$0.50 in 1895 — and there was no crisis, because wages held and productivity increased.

Modern example:\ Consumer electronics over the past 20–30 years are a vivid example of technological deflation:\ – What cost $5,000 in 2000 (e.g., a 720p plasma TV) now costs $300 and delivers 10× better quality.\ – Phones, computers, cameras — all became far more powerful and cheaper at the same time.\ That’s how tech-driven deflation works: you get more for less.

📌 Bitcoin doesn’t make the world deflationary. It just doesn’t fight against deflation, unlike the fiat model that fights to preserve its debt pyramid.\ It stops punishing savers and rewards long-term thinkers.

Even economists often confuse organic tech deflation with crisis-driven (debt) deflation.

---

\ \ Statement: We’ve never lived in a truly free market — central banks and issuance always existed.\ Criticism: ideological statement.\ A truly “free” market is utopian.\ Banks and monetary issuance emerged in response to crises.\ A market without arbiters is not always fair, especially under imperfect competition.

2. “The Free Market Is a Utopia”

Yes, “pure markets” are rare. But what we have today isn’t regulation — it’s centralized power in the hands of central banks and cartels.

Bitcoin offers rules without rulers. 21 million. No one can change the issuance. It’s not ideology — it’s code instead of trust. And it has worked for 15 years.

---

\ \ Statement: Inflation is an invisible tax, especially on the poor and working class.\ Criticism: partly true: inflation can reduce debt burden, boost employment.\ The state indexes social benefits. Under stable inflation, compensators can work. Under deflation, things might be worse (mass layoffs, defaults).

3. “Inflation Can Help”

Theoretically — yes. Textbooks say moderate inflation can reduce debt burdens and stimulate consumption and jobs.\ But in practice — it works as a stealth tax, especially on those without assets. The wealthy escape — into real estate, stocks, funds.\ But the poor and working class lose purchasing power because their money is held in cash — and cash devalues.

💬 As Lyn Alden says:

“When your money can’t hold value, you’re forced to become an investor — even if you just want to save and live.”

The state may index pensions or benefits — but always with a lag, and always less than actual price increases.\ If bread rises 15% and your payment increase is 5%, you got poorer, even if the number on paper went up.

💥 We live in an inflationary system of everything:\ – Inflationary money\ – Inflationary products\ – Inflationary content\ – And now even inflationary minds

🧠 This is more than just rising prices — it’s a degradation of reality perception. You’re always rushing, everything loses meaning.\ But when did the system start working against you?

📉 What went wrong after 1971?

This chart shows that from 1948 to the early 1970s, productivity and wages grew together.\ But after the end of the gold standard in 1971 — the connection broke. Productivity kept rising, but real wages stalled.

👉 This means: you work more, better, faster — but buy less.

🔗 Source: wtfhappenedin1971.com

When you must spend today because tomorrow it’ll be worth less — that’s rewarding impulse and punishing long-term thinking.

Bitcoin offers a different environment:\ – Savings work\ – Long-term thinking is rewarded\ – The price of the future is calculated, not forced by a printing press

📌 Inflation can be a tool. But in government hands, it became a weapon — a slow, inevitable upward redistribution of wealth.

Indexing is weak compensation if bread is up 15% and your “increase” is only 5%.

---

\ \ Statement: War is not growth, but a reallocation of resources into destruction.

Criticism: war can spur technological leaps (Internet, GPS, nuclear energy — all from military programs). "Military Keynesianism" was a real model.

4. “War Drives R&D”

Yes, wars sometimes give rise to tech spin-offs: Internet, GPS, nuclear power — all originated from military programs.

But that doesn’t make war a source of progress — it makes tech a byproduct of catastrophe.

“War reallocates resources toward destruction — not growth.”

Progress doesn’t happen because of war — it happens despite it.

If scientific breakthroughs require a million dead and burnt cities — maybe you’ve built your economy wrong.

💬 Even Michael Saylor said:

“If you need war to develop technology — you’ve built civilization wrong.”

No innovation justifies diverting human labor, minds, and resources toward destruction.\ War is always the opposite of efficiency — more is wasted than created.

🧠 Bitcoin, on the other hand, is an example of how real R&D happens without violence.\ No taxes. No army. Just math, voluntary participation, and open-source code.

📌 Military Keynesianism is not a model of progress — it’s a symptom of a sick monetary system that needs destruction to reboot.

Bitcoin shows that coordination without violence is possible.\ This is R&D of a new kind: based not on destruction, but digital creation.

---

Statement: Bitcoin isn’t “Gold 1.0,” but an improved version: divisible, verifiable, unseizable.

Criticism: Bitcoin has no physical value; "unseizability" is a theory;\ Gold is material and autonomous.

5. “Bitcoin Has No Physical Value”

And gold does? Just because it shines?

Physical form is no guarantee of value.\ Real value lies in: scarcity, reliable transfer, verifiability, and non-confiscatability.

Gold is:\ – Hard to divide\ – Hard to verify\ – Expensive to store\ – Easy to seize

💡 Bitcoin is the first store of value in history that is fully free from physical limitations, and yet:\ – Absolutely scarce (21M, forever)\ – Instantly transferable over the Internet\ – Cryptographically verifiable\ – Controlled by no government

🔑 Bitcoin’s value lies in its liberation from the physical.\ It doesn’t need to be “backed” by gold or oil. It’s backed by energy, mathematics, and ongoing verification.

“Price is what you pay, value is what you get.” — Warren Buffett

When you buy bitcoin, you’re not paying for a “token” — you’re gaining access to a network of distributed financial energy.

⚡️ What are you really getting when you own bitcoin?\ – A key to a digital asset that can’t be faked\ – The ability to send “crystallized energy” anywhere on Earth\ – A role in a new accounting system that runs 24/7/365\ – Freedom: from banks, borders, inflation, and force

📉 Bitcoin doesn’t require physical value — because it creates value:\ Through trust, scarcity, and energy invested in mining.\ And unlike gold, it was never associated with slavery.

---

Statement: There’s no “income without risk” in Bitcoin: just hold — you preserve; want more — invest, risk, build.

Criticism: contradicts HODL logic; speculation remains dominant behavior.

6. “Speculation Dominates”

For now — yes. That’s normal for the early phase of a new technology. Awareness doesn’t come instantly.

What matters is not the motive of today’s buyer — but what they’re buying.

📉 A speculator may come and go — but the asset remains.\ And this asset is the only one in history that will never exist again. 21 million. Forever.

📌 Look deeper. Bitcoin has:\ – No CEO\ – No central issuer\ – No inflation\ – No “off switch”

💡 It’s not a stock. Not a startup. Not someone’s project.\ It’s a new foundation for trust.\ It’s opting out of a system where freedom is a privilege you’re granted under conditions.

🧠 People say: “Bitcoin can be copied.”\ Theoretically — yes.\ Practically — never.

Here’s what you’d need to recreate Bitcoin:\ – No pre-mine\ – A founder who disappears and never sells\ – No foundation or corporation\ – Tens of thousands of nodes worldwide\ – 701 million terahashes of hash power\ – Thousands of devs writing open protocols\ – Hundreds of global conferences\ – Millions of people defending digital sovereignty\ – All that without a single marketing budget

That’s all.

🔁 Everything else is an imitation, not a creation.\ Just like you can’t “reinvent fire” — Bitcoin can only exist once.

---

Statements:\ The Russia's '90s weren’t a free market — just anarchic chaos without rights protection.*\ Unlike fiat or even dollars, Bitcoin is the first asset with real defense — from governments, inflation, even thugs.\ And yes, even if your barber asks about Bitcoin — maybe it's not a bubble, but a sign that inflation has already hit everyone.

Criticism: Bitcoin’s protection isn’t universal — it works only with proper handling and isn’t available to all.\ Some just want to “get rich.”\ None of this matters because:

1. Bitcoin’s volatility (-30% in a week, +50% in a month) makes it unusable for price planning or contracts.

2. It can’t handle mass-scale usage.

3. To become currency, geopolitical will is needed — and without the first two, don’t even talk about the third.\ Also: “Bitcoin is too complicated for the average person.”

7. “It’s Too Complex for the Masses”

It’s complex — if you’re using L1 (Layer 1). But even grandmas use Telegram. In El Salvador, schoolkids buy lunch with Lightning. My barber installed Wallet of Satoshi in minutes right in front of me — and I now pay for my haircut via Lightning.

UX is just a matter of time. And it’s improving. Emerging tools:\ Cashu, Fedimint, Fedi, Wallet of Satoshi, Phoenix, Proton Wallet, Swiss Bitcoin Pay, Bolt Card / CoinCorner (NFC cards for Lightning payments).

This is like the internet in 1995:\ It started with modems — now it’s 4K streaming.

---

8. “Can’t Handle the Load”

A common myth.\ Yes, Bitcoin L1 processes about 7 transactions per second — intentionally. It’s not built to be Visa. It’s a financial protocol, just like TCP/IP is a network protocol. TCP/IP isn’t “fast” or “slow” — the experience depends on the infrastructure built on top: servers, routers, hardware. In the ’90s, it delivered text. Today, it streams Netflix. The protocol didn’t change — the stack did.

Same with Bitcoin: L1 defines rules, security, finality.\ Scaling and speed? That’s the second layer’s job.

To understand scale:

| Network | TPS (Transactions/sec) | | --- | --- | | Visa | up to 24,000 | | Mastercard | \~5,000 | | PayPal | \~193 | | Litecoin | \~56 | | Ethereum | \~20 | | Bitcoin | \~7 |

\ ⚡️ Enter Lightning Network — Bitcoin’s “fast lane.”\ It allows millions of transactions per second, instantly and nearly free.

And it’s not a sidechain.

❗️ Lightning is not a separate network.\ It uses real Bitcoin transactions (2-of-2 multisig). You can close the channel to L1 at any time. It’s not an alternative — it’s a native extension built into Bitcoin.\ Also evolving: Ark, Fedimint, eCash — new ways to scale and add privacy.

📉 So criticizing Bitcoin for “slowness” is like blaming TCP/IP because your old modem won’t stream YouTube.\ The protocol isn’t the problem — it’s the infrastructure.

🛡️ And by the way: Visa crashes more often than Bitcoin.

---

9. “We Need Geopolitical Will”

Not necessarily. All it takes is the will of the people — and leaders willing to act. El Salvador didn’t wait for G20 approval or IMF blessings. Since 2001, the country had used the US dollar as its official currency, abandoning its own colón. But that didn’t save it from inflation or dependency on foreign monetary policy. In 2021, El Salvador became the first country to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. Since March 13, 2024, they’ve been purchasing 1 BTC daily, tracked through their public address:

🔗 Address\ 📅 First transaction

This policy became the foundation of their Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) — a state-led effort to accumulate Bitcoin as a national reserve asset for long-term stability and sovereignty.

Their example inspired others.

In March 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve of the USA, to be funded through confiscated Bitcoin and digital assets.\ The idea: accumulate, don’t sell, and strategically expand the reserve — without extra burden on taxpayers.

Additionally, Senator Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming) proposed the BITCOIN Act, targeting the purchase of 1 million BTC over five years (\~5% of the total supply).\ The plan: fund it via revaluation of gold certificates and other budget-neutral strategies.

📚 More: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — Wikipedia

👉 So no global consensus is required. No IMF greenlight.\ All it takes is conviction — and an understanding that the future of finance lies in decentralized, scarce assets like Bitcoin.

---

10. “-30% in a week, +50% in a month = not money”

True — Bitcoin is volatile. But that’s normal for new technologies and emerging money. It’s not a bug — it’s a price discovery phase. The world is still learning what this asset is.

📉 Volatility is the price of entry.\ 📈 But the reward is buying the future at a discount.

As Michael Saylor put it:

“A tourist sees Niagara Falls as chaos — roaring, foaming, spraying water.\ An engineer sees immense energy.\ It all depends on your mental model.”

Same with Bitcoin. Speculators see chaos. Investors see structural scarcity. Builders see a new financial foundation.

💡 Now consider gold:

👉 After the U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1971, gold surged from \~$35 to over $800 in a decade — while suffering wild -40% to -60% crashes along the way.\ \ 📈 Gold Price Chart — Macrotrends\ \ Nobody said, “This can’t be money.” \ Because money is defined not by volatility, but by scarcity, adoption, and trust — which build over time.

📊 The more people save in Bitcoin, the more its volatility fades.

This is a journey — not a fixed state.

We don’t judge the internet by how it worked in 1994.\ So why expect Bitcoin to be the “perfect currency” in 2025?

It grows bottom-up — without regulators’ permission.\ And the longer it survives, the stronger it becomes.

Remember how many times it’s been declared dead.\ And how many times it came back — stronger.

---

📊 Gold vs. Bitcoin: Supply Comparison

This chart shows the key difference between the two hard assets:

🔹 Gold — supply keeps growing.\ Mining may be limited, but it’s still inflationary.\ Each year, there’s more — with no known cap: new mines, asteroid mining, recycling.

🔸 Bitcoin — capped at 21 million.\ The emission schedule is public, mathematically predictable, and ends completely around 2140.

🧠 Bottom line:\ Gold is good.\ Bitcoin is better — for predictability and scarcity.

💡 As Saifedean Ammous said:

“Gold was the best monetary good… until Bitcoin.”

While we argue — fiat erodes every day.

No matter your view on Bitcoin, just show me one other asset that is simultaneously:

– immune to devaluation by decree\ – impossible to print more of\ – impossible to confiscate by a centralized order\ – impossible to counterfeit\ – and, most importantly — transferable across borders without asking permission from a bank, a state, or a passport

💸 Try sending $10,000 through PayPal from Iran to Paraguay, or Bangladesh to Saint Lucia.\ Good luck. PayPal doesn't even work there.

Now open a laptop, type 12 words — and you have access to your savings anywhere on Earth.

🌍 Bitcoin doesn't ask for permission.\ It works for everyone, everywhere, all the time.

📌 There has never been anything like this before.

Bitcoin is the first asset in history that combines:

– digital nature\ – predictable scarcity\ – absolute portability\ – and immunity from tyranny

💡 As Michael Saylor said:

“Bitcoin is the first money in human history not created by bankers or politicians — but by engineers.”

You can own it with no bank.\ No intermediary.\ No passport.\ No approval.

That’s why Bitcoin isn’t just “internet money” or “crypto” or “digital gold.”\ It may not be perfect — but it’s incorruptible.\ And it’s not going away.\ It’s already here.\ It is the foundation of a new financial reality.

---

🔒 This is not speculation. This is a peaceful financial revolution.\ 🪙 This is not a stock. It’s money — like the world has never seen.\ ⛓️ This is not a fad. It’s a freedom protocol.

And when even the barber starts asking about Bitcoin — it’s not a bubble.\ It’s a sign that the system is breaking.\ And people are looking for an exit.

For the first time — they have one.

---

💼 This is not about investing. It’s about the dignity of work.

Imagine a man who cleans toilets at an airport every day.

Not a “prestigious” job.\ But a crucial one.\ Without him — filth, bacteria, disease.

He shows up on time. He works with his hands.

And his money? It devalues. Every day.

He doesn’t work less — often he works more than those in suits.\ But he can afford less and less — because in this system, honest labor loses value each year.

Now imagine he’s paid in Bitcoin.

Not in some “volatile coin,” but in hard money — with a limited supply.\ Money that can’t be printed, reversed, or devalued by central banks.

💡 Then he could:

– Stop rushing to spend, knowing his labor won’t be worth less tomorrow\ – Save for a dream — without fear of inflation eating it away\ – Feel that his time and effort are respected — because they retain value

Bitcoin gives anyone — engineer or janitor — a way out of the game rigged against them.\ A chance to finally build a future where savings are real.

This is economic justice.\ This is digital dignity.

📉 In fiat, you have to spend — or your money melts.\ 📈 In Bitcoin, you choose when to spend — because it’s up to you.

🧠 In a deflationary economy, both saving and spending are healthy:

You don’t scramble to survive — you choose to create.

🎯 That’s true freedom.

When even someone cleaning floors can live without fear —\ and know that their time doesn’t vanish... it turns into value.

@ f85b9c2c:d190bcff

Sometimes I feel like reversing time. I miss my childhood. Honestly, who wouldn’t? Back then, life was so simple, so carefree. I had no bills to pay, no deadlines to chase, and no worries about what tomorrow might bring. All I had to do was wake up, play, eat, and maybe dodge a beating or two from Mum when I got a little too adventurous😂. Sometimes I feel like reversing time, just to relive those golden days when my biggest problem was figuring out how to sneak a piece of meat from the pot without getting caught.

I remember those moments vividly. When I was little, I’d tiptoe into the kitchen, the aroma of Mum’s stew pulling me like a magnet. I’d wait for her to turn her back, then—bam!—my tiny hand would dive into the pot, snagging a juicy piece of meat. Of course, I wasn’t exactly a master thief. Mum always seemed to know. She’d catch me red-handed, and let’s just say her wooden spoon wasn’t just for cooking! I was kinda stubborn back then, so those beatings happened a lot. But I don’t steal meat anymore—grown-up me knows better. Life was different then. My only “job” was to have fun—climbing trees, chasing friends, or making up wild stories in my head. Now, adulthood feels like a never-ending to-do list. I miss the freedom, the laughter, the way problems seemed to vanish with a nap or a hug. If I could, I’d turn back the clock, even just for a day, to feel that lightness again. Childhood wasn’t perfect, but it sure felt like it.

@ e17e9a18:66d67a6b

We wrote this album to explain the inspiration behind Mutiny Brewing, and as a way to share the story of Bitcoin and freedom technologies like nostr. Through these songs, we’ve tried to capture every truth that we believe is essential to understand about money, freedom, trust, and human connection in the internet age. It’s our way of making these ideas real and relatable, and we hope it helps others see the power of taking control of their future through the systems we use.

01. "Tomorrow's Prices on Yesterday's Wage" explores the harsh reality of inflation. As central banks inflate the money supply, prices rise faster than wages, leaving us constantly falling behind. People, expecting prices to keep climbing, borrow more to buy sooner, pushing prices even higher in a vicious cycle. You're always a step behind, forced to pay tomorrow's inflated prices with yesterday's stagnant wages.

https://wavlake.com/track/76a6cd02-e876-4a37-b093-1fe919e9eabe

02. "Everybody Works For The Bank" "Everybody Works For The Bank" exposes the hidden truth behind our fiat money system.

When banks issue loans, they don’t lend existing money — they create new money from debt. You’re on the hook for the principal and the interest. But the interest doesn’t exist yet — it has to come from someone else borrowing. That means the system only works if debt keeps growing.

When it doesn’t, the whole thing wobbles. Governments step in to bail out the banks by printing more money, and that cost doesn’t vanish. It shows up in your taxes, your savings, and your grocery bill.

We’re not just working to pay our own debts, we’re paying for their losses too.

https://wavlake.com/track/4d94cb4b-ff3b-4423-be6a-03e0be8177d6

03. "Let My People Go" references Moses' demand for freedom but directly draws from Proverbs 6:1–5, exposing the danger of debt based money. Every dollar you hold is actually someone else's debt, making you personally liable—held in the hand of your debtor and at risk of their losses, which you ultimately pay for through inflation or higher taxes. As the song says, "The more you try to save it up, the deeper in you get." The wisdom of Proverbs urges immediate action, pleading urgently to escape this trap and free yourself, like a gazelle from a hunter.

https://wavlake.com/track/76214ff1-f8fd-45b0-a677-d9c285b1e7d6

04. "Mutiny Brewing" embodies Friedrich Hayek's insight: "I don't believe we shall ever have good money again before we take it out of the hands of government... we can't take it violently... all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something they can't stop."

Inspired also by the Cypherpunk manifesto's rallying cry, "We will write the code", the song celebrates Bitcoin as exactly that unstoppable solution.

"Not here to break ya, just here to create our own little world where we determine our fate." https://wavlake.com/track/ba767fc8-6afc-4b0d-be64-259b340432f3

05. "Invisible Wealth" is inspired by The Sovereign Individual, a groundbreaking 1990s book that predicted the rise of digital money and explores how the return on violence shaped civilizations. The song references humanity's vulnerability since agriculture began—where stored wealth attracted violence, forcing reliance on larger governments for protection.

Today, digital privacy enabled by cryptography fundamentally changes this dynamic. When wealth is stored privately, secured by cryptographic keys, violence becomes ineffective. As the song emphasizes, "You can't bomb what you can't see." Cryptography dismantles traditional power structures, providing individuals true financial security, privacy, and freedom from exploitation.

“Violence is useless against cryptography” https://wavlake.com/track/648da3cc-d58c-4049-abe0-d22f9e61fef0

06. "Run A Node" is a rallying cry for Bitcoin's decentralisation. At its heart, it's about personal verification and choice: every node is a vote, every check’s a voice. By running the code yourself, you enforce the rules you choose to follow. This is true digital democracy. When everyone participates, there's no room for collusion, and authority comes directly from transparent code rather than blind trust.

"Check the blocks, verify, ain't that hard to do When everyone's got eyes on it, can't slip nothin' throgh." https://wavlake.com/track/ee11362b-2e84-4631-b05e-df6d8e6797f8

07. "Leverage is a Liar" warns against gambling with your wealth, but beneath the surface, it's a sharp critique of fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserves inflate asset prices, creating the illusion of wealth built on leverage. This system isn't sustainable and inevitably leads to collapse. Real wealth requires sound money, money that can't be inflated. Trying to gain more through leverage only feeds the lie.

"Watch it burn higher and higher—leverage is a liar." https://wavlake.com/track/67f9c39c-c5e1-4e15-b171-f1f5442f29a5

08. "Don't Get Rekt" serves as a stark warning about trusting custodians with your Bitcoin. Highlighting infamous collapses like Mt.Gox, Celsius, and FTX. These modern failures echo the 1933 Executive Order 6102, where the US government forcibly seized citizens' gold, banned its use, and then promptly devalued the currency exchanged for it. History shows clearly: trusting others with your wealth means risking losing it all.

"Your keys, your life, don't forget." https://wavlake.com/track/fbd9b46d-56fc-4496-bc4b-71dec2043705

09. "One Language" critiques the thousands of cryptocurrencies claiming to be revolutionary. Like languages, while anyone can invent one, getting people to actually use it is another story. Most of these cryptos are just affinity scams, centralized towers built on shaky foundations. Drawing from The Bitcoin Standard, the song argues money naturally gravitates toward a single unit, a universal language understood by all. When the dust settles, only genuine, decentralized currency remains.

"One voice speaking loud and clear, the rest will disappear." https://wavlake.com/track/22fb4705-9a01-4f65-9b68-7e8a77406a16

10. "Key To Life" is an anthem dedicated to nostr, the permissionless, unstoppable internet identity protocol. Unlike mainstream social media’s walled gardens, nostr places your identity securely in a cryptographic key, allowing you total control. Every message or action you sign proves authenticity, verifiable by anyone. This ensures censorship resistant communication, crucial for decentralised coordination around Bitcoin, keeping it free from centralised control.

"I got the key that sets me free—my truth is mine, authentically." https://wavlake.com/track/0d702284-88d2-4d3a-9059-960cc9286d3f

11. "Web Of Trust" celebrates genuine human connections built through protocols like nostr, free from corporate algorithms and their manipulative agendas. Instead of top down control, it champions grassroots sharing of information among trusted peers, ensuring truth and authenticity rise naturally. It's about reclaiming our digital lives, building real communities where trust isn't manufactured by machines, but created by people.

"My filter, my future, my choice to make, real connections no one can fake." https://wavlake.com/track/b383d4e2-feba-4d63-b9f6-10382683b54b

12. "Proof Of Work" is an anthem for fair value creation. In Bitcoin, new money is earned through real work, computing power and electricity spent to secure the network. No shortcuts, no favourites. It's a system grounded in natural law: you reap what you sow. Unlike fiat money, which rewards those closest to power and the printing press, Proof of Work ensures rewards flow to those who put in the effort. Paper castles built on easy money will crumble, but real work builds lasting worth.

"Real work makes real worth, that's the law of this earth." https://wavlake.com/track/01bb7327-0e77-490b-9985-b5ff4d4fdcfc

13. "Stay Humble" is a reminder that true wealth isn’t measured in coins or possessions. It’s grounded in the truth that a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Real wealth is the freedom to use your life and time for what is good and meaningful. When you let go of the obsession with numbers, you make room for gratitude, purpose, and peace. It's not about counting coins, it's about counting your blessings.

"Real wealth ain't what you own, it's gratitude that sets the tone." https://wavlake.com/track/3fdb2e9b-2f52-4def-a8c5-c6b3ee1cd194

@ f85b9c2c:d190bcff

Solana (SOL) is acquiring popularity in the crypto world for its speed and flexibility.It's rapidly gaining ground on established blockchains, grabbing investor interest.

History Of Solana Anatoly Yakovenko, once a Qualcomm executive, formulated the concept for Solana in 2017. A town on the Southern California coast inspired the name. Yakovenko wanted a swifter, more reliable blockchain network to address the limitations of existing onesat that time. Solana is based in San Francisco, California, at the headquarters of Solana Labs. Solana was launched in March 2020, making a major step in the advancement of blockchain technology.

What Is Solana? Solana is a blockchain network built for speed and affordability.This versatility makes it useful for DeFi, NFTs, and more. Solana operates on its own independent blockchain network with SOL as its native token and infrastructure to power its operations. It functions as a self-sufficient ecosystem, independent of any other existing blockchain network.

How Does Solana Work? Unlike normal blockchains that usually rely on the Proof-of-Work mechanism, Solana uses another approach. It combines two mechanisms: 1.Proof-of-Stake: It lets operators secure the network by putting SOL tokens at stake. These operators are entrusted with adding new blocks to the blockchain and are rewarded for their contribution.

2.Proof-of-History: It helps eliminates the need for communications between operators and boosts transaction processing speed.

Conclusion The mix of these mechanisms is a key factor behind Solana’s reputation for superior speed. Of course, it uses other technical aspects that contribute to its efficiency, but PoS and PoH play a critical role.

@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

This post will be edited and refined over time.

Eschatology is the study of Biblical prophecy pertaining to what is commonly referred to as the end times. Bitcoin is the transformation of Austrian school economics theory into an efficient and applicable method driven by natural incentives and free market consensus mechanisms.

What happens when eschatology is viewed through a Bitcoin inspired world view?

In this thesis I contend that it is possible and very probable that the consequences of what Satoshi Nakamoto created in Bitcoin and the prophecies surrounding Jesus Christ with regards to the second coming and a thousand year kingdom of peace and prosperity convalesce into a very compelling argument for Biblical prophecy fulfilment.

...

No one would argue that modern major banks are today more powerful than kings of old and governments are mere puppets to the sway that the banking empires hold over them.

In Biblical prophecy when kings and powers are mentioned people rarely think of banking but nothing is comparable to the immense scale of wealth, power and territory controlled directly or indirectly by banks.

IMF, BIS, the FED and Blackrock are where the levers of power are pulled in the current dispensation. Governments restructure more frequently than these institutions whom endure and exercise unmerited influence over said governments and the public interests they claim to represent.

An excerpt from the King James Bible, Daniel chapter 2 describes prophetically the ages of man and its rotations of power.

Interesting to note that it is symbolically portrayed in monetary/industrial metals. All used as tokens for trade, symbols of wealth and manufacture.

Gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay. Gold has been a dominant symbol of power and wealth through millennia. Silver, brass and iron ores are mainly industrial metals although they all had prominent turns as coinage. Due to the debasement and concentration of gold specifically.

Clay on the other hand is only a symbol of power in construction and iron has never been used in construction to the extent it is in the 20th and 21st century. Skyscrapers are the symbols of money and power today, i.e. big bank and government buildings.

Daniel Chapter 2:24–45

24Therefore Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said thus to him: “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon; take me before the king, and I will tell the king the interpretation.”

25Then Arioch quickly brought Daniel before the king, and said thus to him, “I have found a man of the captives of Judah, who will make known to the king the interpretation.”

26The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen, and its interpretation?”

27Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, “The secret which the king has demanded, the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king. 28But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, were these: 29As for you, O king, thoughts came to your mind while on your bed, about what would come to pass after this; and He who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be. 30But as for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but for our sakes who make known the interpretation to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart.

31“You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. 32This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

36“This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. 37You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; 38and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all — you are this head of gold. 39But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. 41Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. 45Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold — the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”

I speculate that the toes of iron and clay represent the world banking empire. Skyscrapers are constructed from iron and cement. Different forms of clay is a necessary cement ingredient. Architecture has always been used as a symbol of dominance by rulers especially true of systems who use awe as a means to cause feelings of insignificance in the individual thereby asserting their power at low cost. Ironically it never costs the ruler to create these structures, the cost is always carried by the people in time, resources and energy.

Skyscrapers and large construction are the modern symbols of money and power. Not so much kings, palaces and temples. The stone breaking the power of the statue has to break something contemporary other than kings and palaces if it is to be eschatological prophecy fulfilled in our time.

https://www.britannica.com/technology/cement-building-material/History-of-cement

The invention of portland cement usually is attributed to Joseph Aspdin of Leeds, Yorkshire, England, who in 1824 took out a patent for a material that was produced from a synthetic mixture of limestone and clay.

https://www.thoughtco.com/how-skyscrapers-became-possible-1991649

Later, taller and taller buildings were made possible through a series of architectural and engineering innovations, including the invention of the first process to mass-produce steel.

Construction of skyscrapers was made possible thanks to Englishman Henry Bessemer, (1856 to 1950) who invented the first process to mass-produce steel inexpensively.

You watched while a stone was cut out without hands,

No hands needed when the stone is an idea.

As a thought experiment, imagine there was a base metal as scarce as gold but with the following properties:\ — boring grey in colour\ — not a good conductor of electricity\ — not particularly strong, but not ductile or easily malleable either\ — not useful for any practical or ornamental purpose\ \ and one special, magical property:\ — can be transported over a communications channel

Greshams Law illustrated in slow motion picture.

1: The banks collapse. Being fundamentally weak because of zero reserve lending, any student of Austrian economics has been correctly predicting banking collapse, and have incorrectly been advocating gold as the solution to this collapse. Many of the big economies are valued through their housing market. Housing will be demonetised (Iron and clay economy) meaning shelter and property will become affordable to the average wage earner again. The large cement and iron structures become redundant. Everyone will work from home and a value to value economy will make banks seem like relics from an age of stupidity and evil.

2: Industrial metal iron will not be for mega structures that contain speculators and bookkeepers who have fiat jobs slaving for fiat money. Iron will be used to improve the lives of individuals. Iron as coinage is already demonetised.

3: Brass is demonetised as coinage and only valuable in industry. Ammunition, music, plumbing etcetera.

4: Silver has been a terrible money throughout history and when the silver investors wake up to the fact that they are holding onto a redundant asset with zero monetary properties compared to the alternative they will dump their holdings, crashing the silver market and subsequently reducing the prices of producing -

solder and brazing alloys, batteries, dentistry, TV screens, smart phones microwave ovens, ad infinitum. To quote Jeff Booth. "Prices always fall to the marginal cost of production."

5: The final Rubicon is gold, people get excited about the Bitcoin exchange traded funds but it is nothing compared to the value proposition when gold pundits, large investment funds, governments pension funds and reserve banks finally realise that gold is worthless as money in this new dispensation.

To illustrate the point more vividly.

Ezekiel 7:19

They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity.

What we are witnessing is the biggest rug pull the world has ever seen. In this future metals will exclusively be used for industrial use cases after being stripped of their monetary premium.

This collapse is something that happens slowly over a long period of time. More or less one hour.

Revelation 18 verse 11–19 (The fall of Babylon)

And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

TLDR - No more money printer go BRRR. means death to the bourgeoisie cantillionaire class.**

Is it realistic to assume that all the worlds monetised industries collapse to fair value in one hour?

Coming back to eschatology, 2 Peter 3:8

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Eschatology students use this verse to speculatively project the fulfilment of Biblical prophecies with regards to their predicted time of occurrence. Now let’s apply this to Babylon falling in one hour.

1000 (one day) divided by 24 (hours) equals 41,6 years (one hour)

Since the first block was mined in January 2009 you add 41,6 years you get a completion date of 2050 a.d

Remember, this stone (Bitcoin) becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth. A kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.

But contemporary sources must reflect this probability if it is a good theory.

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/50-of-population-to-use-bitcoin-by-2043-if-crypto-follows-internet-adoption/

If the banking system is first to collapse we can give it +- 10 years and we are already 14 years in since (Genesis Block) the stone struck the feet. People are slow to see the reality of the world they are living in. If all this is accurate then the world banking system is doomed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exK5yFEuBsk

Regards

Echo Delta

bitbib

@ 91bea5cd:1df4451c

Contexto e início

O precursor direto do avivamento foi William J. Seymour, um pregador afro-americano filho de ex-escravos, influenciado pelos ensinamentos de Charles Parham, que pregava o "batismo no Espírito Santo" com evidência do falar em línguas.

Em 1906, Seymour foi convidado para pregar em uma igreja em Los Angeles. Após ser rejeitado por alguns por sua pregação sobre o batismo com o Espírito Santo, ele começou a liderar reuniões de oração na casa da família Asberry. Em abril de 1906, durante uma dessas reuniões, os participantes começaram a experimentar manifestações intensas do Espírito Santo, incluindo glossolalia (falar em línguas), curas e profecias.

A Rua Azusa

Logo, o número de participantes cresceu tanto que foi necessário mudar para um antigo prédio da Igreja Metodista Africana Episcopal, no número 312 da Rua Azusa, no centro de Los Angeles. Esse local se tornou o epicentro do avivamento.

Características marcantes

Cultos espontâneos e fervorosos, muitas vezes sem ordem pré-definida.

Diversidade étnica e social: negros, brancos, latinos, asiáticos, ricos e pobres adoravam juntos — algo radical para os padrões da época.

Ênfase nas manifestações espirituais, como línguas, curas, visões e profecias.

Igualdade de gênero e raça no ministério, com mulheres e homens de diversas origens pregando e liderando.

Impacto

O avivamento da Rua Azusa marcou o nascimento e expansão global do pentecostalismo, hoje uma das maiores forças do cristianismo mundial. Missionários saíram de Azusa para várias partes do mundo, levando a mensagem pentecostal. Movimentos como as Assembleias de Deus e Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular têm raízes nesse avivamento.

Tensão e Interpretação entre Reformistas e Pentecostalistas

Evangelhos e Atos

João Batista profetiza: “Ele vos batizará com o Espírito Santo e com fogo” (Mateus 3:11).

Em Atos 2, no Pentecostes, os discípulos falam em línguas e recebem poder (Atos 1:8; 2:4).

Outros episódios: Atos 10 (Casa de Cornélio) e Atos 19 (Éfeso).

Cartas Paulinas

Paulo não relaciona diretamente o “batismo com o Espírito” ao falar em línguas. Em 1 Coríntios 12:13 ele diz: “Pois em um só Espírito todos nós fomos batizados em um corpo”.

A glossolalia aparece como um dom entre outros, mas não como evidência obrigatória (1 Coríntios 12:30).

Tensão

Pentecostais veem o batismo com o Espírito como uma segunda experiência após a conversão, evidenciada por línguas. Reformados geralmente interpretam que o batismo com o Espírito ocorre na conversão e que línguas não são obrigatórias ou cessaram com os apóstolos.

Reformadores e o Batismo com o Espírito Santo

Martinho Lutero, João Calvino e outros reformadores não falavam em línguas nem davam ênfase a experiências carismáticas.

Cessacionismo: Doutrina comum entre reformados que diz que os dons sobrenaturais (línguas, profecias, curas) cessaram com a era apostólica.

Continuação (posição pentecostal): Os dons continuam hoje.

Filmes / Documentários

“Azusa Street: The Origins of Pentecostalism” (2006) – Documentário com imagens históricas e entrevistas.

“Wesley” (2009) – Biografia de John Wesley, precursor do metodismo e influência indireta no pentecostalismo.

“The Cross and the Switchblade” (1970) – História de David Wilkerson e a conversão de Nicky Cruz; enfatiza a obra do Espírito.

Série “God in America” (PBS) – Episódio sobre o pentecostalismo (não só Azusa, mas seu impacto cultural).

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Content coming soon.

Learn more on Wikipedia

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Emilien stepped into the space motel's bar. The area was dimly lit and the music was unbearably loud. At least all the tables and sunken lounges each had their own lights and sound dampers. He stepped up to a table and pushed down on the receptor to reduce volume. He could not think with the noise. He looked around for Macy and inconspicuously acquainted himself with the current patrons in the establishment. He pulled his hoody further forward when he noticed the android in a wheel chair. "Not my type of company." He thought to himself. In the centre of the room a couple was having a spectacular time, an empty bottle on the table, they were specimens of myth. The guys muscles were chiselled, with tight fabric clinging to his body specifically to display every contour of his physique. His female counterpart wore loose material with translucent green tattoo's running up her body like pin stripes shining through the thin cloth hinting at a perfectly balanced pose and feminine silhouette underneath. Emilien swiped on the tables interface to call for the proprietor. He folded his arms and leaned onto the table tilting his head down slightly to keep shadow on his face. Macy entered the room through the kitchen swivel door. She was holding an empty tray and a serviette draped over her arm. She walked straight over to Emilien's table. "Good rotation sir. Welcome to Macy's. Are you a regular customer or is it your first visit to my fine establishment?" She seemed concerned and worried. The corners of Emiliens lips curved up a little. Keeping his head down teasingly. "Sir? Do we have an existing open channel?" He ignored her. "Sir, If you don't have liquidity I have no services to offer that you cannot get off your own ship." Emilien looked up with a gleam in his eye. Macie's posture relaxed with a sigh of relief. "Emile, you fuck. You freaked me out." "I'm sorry, I could not help myself." He waved a halfhearted greeting, slightly laughing. "You know I have some new rules around for you nano augmented types." His aversion to the word rules was evident only to himself. "Like what?" Macy felt apologetically obliged to explain the nature of her circumstances. "I had diplomats from the outer void regions come for a private meeting. Financial in nature. A spacer customer arrived blocks before them, I did not suspect him of anything criminal." She put the tray down and gripped the table with both hands shifting her weight. "His routine for meals were already established, he managed to spy on them through my privacy protocols and hacked their clients. He participated as a ghost during most of their stay and dealings." Emilien whistled. "That's rough, how did you handle it." "I did not do anything." Her dreads shook as she moved her head in animated frustration. "No one knew until they all had been gone for blocks. My reputation took a serious knock. They made a claim against me, I was accused of being complicit. Emilien glanced back over his shoulder when he noticed the android cart himself around his table. "Warren helped me and found all the dirty code and sequestered it. We have all the data and footage, it proves beyond a doubt that I was not involved. Thank god for the core otherwise my whole station might have been destroyed by now." Emile gave a sly look. "How do you know it was not me who stole the data?" She locked eyes with him. "You still have the same face as before bro and I know you won't fuck with me. I'll force close our channel." She joked with serious tone nudging him with her fist playfully. She was generally perceived as strict and militant because of her Shiv citizenship. Shiv military training and service was compulsory, all respected the Shiv in their traditions, their ways were isolationist and exclusionary in nature. Emilien has seen her use military style jujitsu-boxing to neutralise and boot out unruly customers. The Juel woman noticed the out of character friendly gesture Macy made. The unexpected interaction drew her attention from across the room. "So, what is this rule of yours." Macy seemed reluctant to say. "I'm sorry bud. You'll have to swallow a slipper pill every 576 blocks while you are on this station." His shoulders sagged and could not help but bounce his leg on the rail under the table. "Really?!" "Yes, really. I have to retain my customers trust and neutralising all augmented customers body gadgets was the unanimous way to go." Emilien seemed pissed. "Your customers might not know that I'm augmented. And what if I don't plan on staying that long. I just want to see Warren then I'll be off." Macy shook her head. "Warren is passed out in his ship and will probably wake up with a very bad hangover. He partied with the Jeul pair and their entourage for most of this rotation, you know how he gets." Macy waved her hand towards the couple who seemed to be looking directly at Emilien. He looked straight back at them and swiped the interface's privacy command dropping a vision distortion field around his table. Encapsulating himself and Macy. "I treat everyone the same, no compromise." Emile looked at her in a moment of rumination. "Let's get it over with." Macy removed a container from her moonbag after opening, holding it towards Emilien he took the purple capsule and swallowed it without a drink and opened his mouth wide moving his tongue around to show Macy that he did indeed swallow the prophylactic. "And what about robo-mech boy back there? He cannot eat slipper pills." Emilien sounded annoyed and regretful." Macy gave him a stern look tilting her head in annoyance. "Why do think he's in a wheelchair, you know I can't talk about my customers with my customers? Besides from the obvious." Emilien did not say anything. Macy sighed. "What can I get you sir?" "I'll just have a beer." Macy stepped out through the distortion field and became a messy disfigured indistinguishable form. Emilien pushed the music's volume up and waited for the inevitable. He sensed the actuators in his shoulders, elbows and wrists disable in sequence down his arms. His spines bit rate slowed to a crawl and the lack of connectivity to his neck port was becoming noticeable. His legs went numb instantly. "Now I am nothing more than a pathetic land crawler." He felt weak and vulnerable in his natural form. His mental state bordered on the fringes of stable and paranoid, fearful thoughts threatening to manifest in his mind. He saw a figure approach. He assumed it was his drink. The slender glowing tattooed leg of the Jeul woman pierced the veil. A bright green line that suddenly dims where her skirt begins. She stepped through the curtain with a friendly nonchalant expression. "Mind if make your acquaintance mon ami?" Emilien dropped the barrier and lowered the volume making sure that he was back on visual record of Macy's archive. "Not really, thanks, I'm good." Macy returned to place a cold beer on the table. The interface flashed a price in femto-sat and Emilien tapped his ring on it shifting 11 fSAT from a mini holographic Bob to very happy little Alice. The animation morphed into a small firework display and died. "Back to work now." Emilien grinned at Macy thankfully and took a sip. "Me and my brother we are celebrating our seventh birth block anniversary." He looked around sarcastically. "You chose a display of death above the resorts on Juel to celebrate your seventh birth block?" She stiffened her glittery lips and raised her eyebrows thoughtfully and took a seat without invitation. "It is more of a tour than a celebration, I am Maurelle Giovanni and my brother is called Lionel also Giovanni obviously. He is my twin baby brother." Emilien looked over at the guy who seemed to be occupied playing a mini game on their tables interface. She tilted her head into his line of sight forcing him to look at her. "Who are you?" "None of your concern really." She did not accept the short stated answer. "No one comes alone all the way to a dead end system just to drink a cheap beer. I am guessing you are a treasure hunter, no. Looking for artefacts of the ancient world, yes?" Emilien had assessed her body language and concluded that her whimsical imagination was one he could easily manipulate. He had enough information to realise that he was faced with a spoiled individual whose sole interest in him was simple curiosity, motivated by boredom and she had a fascination of the mysterious. She seemed like prey but his hunting instincts felt dead inside his disarmed body. His respect for and dependence on Macy also inhibited his urge to exploit it. He shifted his attitude and personality slightly, just enough to not be overbearing. "You make very good estimations, you are wrong but not far off. My name is Scott. And yes I am fascinated, not by the planet and it's relics but by the the secrets of these gates." Her eyes gleamed with amusement and intrigue. "You like secrets, huh? You must meet Warren. He knows more than the esteemed professors about the gates and their technology." Emilien nodded in agreement. "You said you are Giovanni. Like the Giovanni?" She seemed excited at the prospect of making a new friend and swiped the interface. "Hold this thought, I am going to get myself another drink you are good? No. Food maybe?" "I am good, no wait, another beer." He tipped the bottle toward her in salutation. She stood up taking his bottle with her to the bar. He looked back and was immediately aware that he did not notice that the android wheel himself out and into the conduit. He would have liked to see which of the two entrances of the tube he used to go to his ship. His feeling sorry for and pitying himself put him in a position where he let slip an opportunity to understand and predict the circumstances of his current tactical situation. Never at ease, always being prepared. He felt spite. The girl returned with a beer and a half full whiskey glass, no ice. She reclaimed her seat looking at him. "I am a direct descendant of the patriarch Maurice Giovanni, one of the four primary key holders of our people. There is nothing special about me really, ten..." Emilien cut her off in gentle tone. "Ten percent of the Juel population are descendants of the four patriarchs." Emilien finished her sentence for her. "You are an interesting man Monsieur Scott. What else do you know about me?" Emilien leaned towards her. Noticing her brother yawning across the room. "I know that you are bourgeois and I know that you receive a cyclical allowance from your great, great... How many generations?" "I am removed 133 generations from my Patriarch. He is a very good, doting grandfather. We all adore him. We are around 750 million siblings you know. Those who are from aristocracy have fewer children than the proles. We are so few so that our wealth is not diluted too much." She smiled reminiscently dragging her finger on the edge of the glass. Her brother seemed to stretch himself out he stood up and walked over. Entering the sound damper he acknowledged Emilien's presence with a curt nod. "Maurelle, I am going to sleep." He said to her. She waved at him dismissively. "Have a good dream frere." He exited the room through the right tubes door which made sense as their ship was more closely attached to it on that side of the circular docking ring. Predictable and honest Emilien thought to himself. Macy popped her head through the kitchens serving window. "Lights out and shutdown in 2 blocks. Just a friendly notice." The couple acknowledged the warning from Macy with raised glass and bottle. Emilien turned his attention back to the lady. "How do you manage to retain wealth in such a large family?" He pretended to be ignorant of the finery and detail of Juel culture. "We have closed loop channels controlled and balanced by the patriarchs. But our money is good as core stone. Anywhere in the outer void. Only recently has dispute arose between my Patriarchs and the Magarrie. They do not accept our Sats anymore since the war started. They only accept bitcoins directly from the core. I was only four cycles old when the war began so I am used to it." Emilien felt a conflicting disturbance, thinking about how his body is only two cycles active but his mind stretches back far beyond this time. Being both older and younger than his partner in discourse. "Helloo? I lost you there for a moment Scott." "What are you thinking about?" Emilien lied to her faking emotion. "I was just thinking about the tremendous loss of life that we are orbiting. The planet embedded with what it's inhabitants assumed would be it's portal to prosperity became the golem of it's demise." He was happy that Maurelle seemed to empathise and mirror his philosophic grief. "Come with me I want to tell you a secret. You like secrets." She stood up taking his hand gently tugging, compelling him to follow her. She led him to the far end of the room. She pulled a small levered switch and the wall folded in on itself to reveal a impressive window flooding sharp light into the whole of the large room as it retracted. They both squinted and lifted their hands to shield their eyes adjusting to the glare of Sol. The scene of destruction appeared even more dramatic and morbid as dark sharply defined shadows clipped with golden edges, evoking a sense of isolation and suffering. "These gates were supposed to be a gift to Earth. A hope of spreading humanity across the stars like the children of Abraham." Emilien smirked. "You believe that nonsense?" She rested her head on his shoulder still holding onto his arm. "Our patriarchs have preserved the mysteries of mankind for millennia. I said that I am going to tell you a secret don't patronise me. I do not believe anything. What I know, it is not faith. It is understanding. Knowledge, a type of knowledge that you cannot quantify with mathematics and chemistry. It is a higher science that is proven by the unmistakable coincidence of fate. It is invisible to those who are ignorant and they who despair, those who have lost all hope are blind to this promise." Emilien felt a strange remorse. "I guess I must be blind then." The lights suddenly shut down and the song stopped dead in it's track, like Macy promised. Overcome by the majesty of the scene Maurelle wiped a tear away fearing that her makeup might get ruined. "Anyone can see. They must just open their eyes voluntarily and be honest with themselves. Their true original selves. Who they were made to be." Emile felt judged and wanted to end this conversation quickly. "I am going back to my ship, you have a good night now." She grabbed tightly at his wrist almost painfully. "You do not want to know my secret?" Emelien was becoming annoyed with her insistence he removed her hand from his arm. "I don't think you know any real useful secrets, sweetheart." He sounded threatening, the real enshrouded unmistakable him breaking through the act. She looked at him unintimidated by his sudden shift in personality. "Oh, so I suppose you know why the Juela are at war for most of our lives?" He sarcastically extended his arms forward palms up in restrained but evidently mocking adoration. "Please enlighten me priestess." "They are fighting over this." She pointed at the epic scene of destruction drifting statically out of view as the stations rotation cut it off at the edge of the window. The shadows chased Sol light away sliding like a retracting blade across the room leaving it dark. Emilien burst out angrily. "They are fighting over satoshis! That is all they ever fight over! What I fight for, Damnit! Sats and the resources to gain more of it! That is the beginning and end of all things! Anyone in the universe with even the slightest lick of self worth works, fights and dies for sat!" Maurelle stared astutely at him unemotionally affected by his outburst. She obviously had experienced this exact reaction before and suddenly Emilien realised that he might be the one being manipulated by a smarter and wiser being than himself. "Are you done my love? Have you made your point or is there some other deeper understanding you wish me to internalise into my ignorant small little world?" She threw at him a spiteful sarcasm of her own. "Do you really think I do not know what it means to be seduced by wealth? Luxury?" She took a step closer to him. "Pleasure?" Emilien felt stupid and disarmed this time adding emotionally disarmed to the defeat of being inept in his own body. "I am not a fool mon cherie. The truly wealthy don't fight for wealth, they fight for power. But the noble and sincere fight a different fight with a different weapon. They use words to fight, ideas to win. They fight to gain trust with words, and they fight to retain it with consistency in their actions. Trust is a currency that makes sat seem like shit in comparison because it is real even though you do not believe what you cannot hold in your hand, like your beloved sat." She pointed at the ring on his finger. "Trust only retains value if you honour your words with your actions. Its value is fragile and can disappear in a moment of weakness like water vapour, cherished as the source of life then gone, poof, evaporated. Like magic. This type of trust if gained and retained correctly, projects you forward into the realm of immortality." Emile felt stung and hurt on a personal level, unsure if she was generalising or targeting his own specific weakness purposely. It confused him and made him feel insecure. "What are they fighting for then?" He asked slightly surrendering to the unexpected superior reasoning. Maurelle appreciated the honesty she identified as sincere. She gently took his hand again and led him back to the large convex window. They stood silently for a block, waiting on the rotation to pull the bright light of Sol back into the room. "They are fighting for the power to do that." She pointed at Earth in all it's terrible glory. "The destruction caused by the gate was a terrible cataclysm outside of humanities collective control. The core and the gates are a mystery to mankind." She looked up at Emilien, relieved to see that he was still taking her seriously. "The Maggarie have discovered a weapon that has the power to destroy a planet. The Juel think they are fighting to free Osteri captives from slavery but the real motif is hidden, our Patriarchs unadmitted fear of being inferior to the Maggarie. Most of the goods we traded with them they have stopped accepting, the Shiv and Osteri still buy our products but the Maggarie have suddenly lost the need for our produce, even raw material in it's basest forms. They are expanding somehow and the balance of interdependence has tilted out of our favor. They have no more need for us and have cast us aside like a filthy rag." She paused in thought. "Their new super weapon is the cause of this conflict monsieur Scott." Emilien shrugged. Feeling relieved at regaining the intellectual high ground he thought he had lost. "I'm sorry Maurelle. I have no data on this weapon. If this was true the forums on my bulletin board would have leaked information about it's existence epochs ago, it's been just over three cycles everyone would have known this by now. It sounds more like Jeul fearmongering or perhaps it is the daydreaming fairy tale of an innocent naive girl who worships old myths and legends of a time dead for thousands of years." He pointed at Earth. She sniffed away a hint of emotion and anger. "Well then, I have nothing more to say to you, Good night monsieur Scott." She pulled away from him pridefully and looked out at the enormous gate embedded like a knife into the earths crust. "You are a swine monsieur Scott, leave me alone with my pearl." Emilien stepped back mockingly bowing slightly. "Good night sweetheart." He walked back to his craft laughing inside himself. "Stupid woman." He muttered, although be it doubtfully.

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The credit/debt fiat money system is broken. If you haven’t been living under a rock, I’m sure you’re aware that something is really messed up in the financial system. Hopefully you’re at least somewhat aware of the reasons why and are placing blame squarely on the structure of the monetary system and not on politics or “capitalism” or “socialism” or corporations or billionaires or any of the other red herrings the bankers desperately hope to distract you with.

If you’re still obsessing over any of those things, that’s okay too, and you’re the reason I started this newsletter. It’s impossible to make good decisions without understanding the relevant information, and when it comes to money, almost no one understands the relevant information. My goal is to change that for as many people as I can reach, to grow the small group of people who are knowledgeable and empowered to make better decisions on money and finance.

Previous articles have been focused on economic theory and how money works at a conceptual level. That’s critically important to understand, and if you haven’t taken the time to read those articles, I know it will open your eyes to the world in a way you’ve never considered before. That understanding will give you a huge advantage in benefiting from what I’m about to describe. But today’s subject is strictly practical, actionable information on one specific financial instrument, and how you can use it to game the broken money system to benefit YOU.

Money Is Not Scarce

If you read my previous articles, you’ll understand that one of the biggest problems with the credit/debt money system is that money is not scarce in this system. In fact, the quantity of money is basically unlimited. That’s because money is created by banks every time they make a loan. Unlike everything you’ve ever thought, banks don’t lend out money that’s given to them by depositors. They create new money, out of thin air, with a computer keystroke, every time they make a new loan. That means in practical terms that the amount of money is only limited by the willingness of banks to make loans. And since banks profit by charging interest to loan out money they can create at zero cost, they’re incentivized to make a LOT of loans.

Now as you can easily see, things that aren’t scarce don’t have a lot of value. The less scarce and more easily available something is, the less valuable it becomes. If you and a friend were standing on the shore of Lake Michigan and you reached down and scooped up a cup full of water, turned to your friend, and said “I’ll trade you this cup of water for your Rolex watch,” he’d look at you like you lost your mind. And rightly so, since a cup of water on the shore of a giant lake is so abundant and easily accessible that it has no value compared to a Rolex watch, which are deliberately produced in very limited amounts to increase their scarcity and value.

The difference between money and the water in that example is that money is not scarce, but it is selectively scarce. If you’re a bank, you have access to as much money as you choose to loan out, at zero cost. On the other hand, if you aren’t a bank, money is only available if the bank decides to create some and loan it to you, or you work hard to earn money someone else already has.

This selective scarcity of money is the root cause of the massive wealth inequality we see today. Money is essential to survive in the modern economy, but access to that money is very unevenly distributed.

So how does this benefit certain people? You might be thinking, but don’t borrowers have to pay the loan back with interest? Of course it’s easy to see how the banks benefit, but plenty of wealthy people are not bankers. And that’s a good point. Here’s how.

Because of the incentives banks have to make loans, the amount of money in circulation tends to keep rising exponentially. The amount of most real goods in the economy, however, typically doesn’t rise as fast. When you have more money circulating in the economy without more goods available, the prices people are willing to pay for those goods will go up. That means prices of some scarce goods rise very consistently over time. Those with access to newly created money in the form of loans benefit by using that money to buy assets that are more scarce than the money they borrowed to buy the asset. So they may buy an asset for $1 million, but by the time the loan is due to be repaid, the continuous inflation caused by the increasing money supply might have pushed the price of that asset up to $1.5 million. So subtract the interest paid from $500,000, and there’s your profit, all for doing nothing but convincing a banker to create some money and let you borrow it. The concept that those closest to the source of new money will benefit the most, because they can buy things before the prices rise, is called the Cantillon effect.

Benefitting from the Cantillon Effect

So how can you benefit? You can see that borrowing a bunch of money and buying a good asset with it would be the perfect way to take advantage of the Cantillon effect. But the problem for most people is, if they go to the bank and ask to borrow a few hundred thousand dollars, they’ll be declined in a millisecond. If you’re not already wealthy, you’re going to have a really tough time getting a big loan at a low interest rate, which is what it takes to make this system work in your favor. Most people only have access to loans in the form of a credit card or personal loan, which will be for a small amount and a very high interest rate. That’s not helpful. Luckily there’s one exception, one way almost anyone can borrow a big chunk of money at a low interest rate, and buy an asset that will increase in price over time as the money supply grows: a mortgage.

If you have the income and credit to support a mortgage payment, it can be a great way to take advantage of the broken monetary system to accumulate some long term wealth. However, there are a few caveats and some simple tricks that can make all the difference.

First, while the constant demand for houses fueled by easy access to newly created money means house prices tend to rise consistently over time, there are no guarantees. The housing market often has periods of boom and bust, and falling prices can last for years. Borrowing is always risky, and you shouldn’t take a risk you don’t understand or aren’t comfortable with. While no one can time the housing market, it’s always good to at least be aware that the housing market does rise and fall in cycles, and try to avoid buying when all signs point to housing being extremely overpriced.

Second, just because houses are rising in price doesn’t mean they’re rising in value. It’s a simple concept, but one most people miss. Like Warren Buffet says, price is what you pay, value is what you get. If you buy a house today for $400,000, and in 10 years that same house sells for $700,000, how much did the value of the house change? The price went up, but the house is still the same house in the same location, it’s just a decade older. And a decade of wear and tear is a decrease in value, not an increase. Think of it this way. You can sell for $700,000 and you have $300,000 of “profit”. But if you want the same house back, you can’t buy it for $400,000 again and pocket the $300,000. You can only get the same house back for the full price you received. You haven’t increased your purchasing power at all in terms of housing with that “profit”. Your house hasn’t become more valuable, your money has just become less valuable when measured against houses. In that sense, you probably can’t increase your purchasing power by buying a house to live in, but you can at least avoid losing purchasing power. If you just save money in the bank to buy a house later, house prices will probably rise faster than you can save. That’s especially true if you’re paying rent at the same time. At least with a mortgage, if you pay long enough you own a house eventually. You can pay rent your whole life and you’ll still own nothing at the end.

Understanding Amortization

The key to making a mortgage work for you is to understand and manipulate the amount of principal and interest you pay over the term of the loan. To do this, you need to understand how a mortgage amortization schedule works. An amortization schedule is basically a big chart of your mortgage payments each month, showing how much of each payment is applied to paying down the principal and how much is paying interest. The payment size is the same each month, but the amount of principal and interest varies over the term of the loan, and that’s key to understanding how to manipulate the system.

To understand amortization, you need a good amortization calculator. There are plenty of different ones available online, but I’m going to use the one here to illustrate. In this example, I’m going to arbitrarily choose a mortgage size of $500,000 and an interest rate of 7%, but you can of course use your own numbers. When we enter this into the calculator with a loan term of 30 years and click “calculate”, we get something that looks like this.

You can see the monthly payment of $3,326.51, and the total payments over 30 years of almost $1.2 million, almost $700,000 of which is interest. So you end up paying more in interest than the total amount of principal you borrowed. Gulp.

That seems terrible, and it is. But this is where understanding the amortization schedule, that scary looking chart to the left, is going to pay big dividends. First, change the amortization schedule from an annual schedule to a monthly schedule. You’ll see something that looks like this.

So now for each month, you can see how much of the payment is interest, how much is principal, and how much of your original $500,000 balance is still outstanding. As you can see in month one, you’re paying over $2,900 in interest and only $400 in principal, leaving you with a balance of $499,590.15. The reason the interest is so high initially is that you have to pay interest on the full principal balance. As the principal gets paid down, you are now paying interest on a smaller balance. If you scroll down to year 29, you’ll see the opposite situation. In month 338 you’ll pay $2,900 of principal and only $400 of interest. That’s because you’re now paying interest on a balance of only $68,000 instead of $500,000.

As you can see, getting into the later years of the mortgage is a much better situation than paying huge amounts of interest in the first few years. Is there a way to get closer to the end fast? Yes there is, and you may be surprised how easy it is.

Go back to the annual amortization schedule. Suppose you want to take 5 years off your mortgage. How much would it cost to do, and how much would you save in interest? There are two ways to do this, and we’ll cover both.

First, the easiest way to get 5 years off your mortgage is to move straight down the amortization schedule to year 6. How can you do that? Look at the annual amortization schedule for year 5. Your ending balance is a little over $470,000. That means to get to that point in the loan repayment schedule, you need to pay $30,000 of principal. So let’s see where a lump sum payment of $30,000 gets us. Inside the box where you entered your loan terms you’ll see a little checkbox labeled “Optional: make extra payments”. Click that box. In the “Extra one-time pay” box, enter $30,000. Click calculate. You’ll see this.

And viola, with the extra payment, the loan will be paid off in 25 years, and you’ll save $172,362 in interest. Pretty amazing results for a one-time $30,000 payment.

Of course for the sake of simplicity, that’s assuming you pay the $30,000 at the very beginning of the loan. Paying the lump sum later into the loan term will change the exact amount of the savings. You can play around with other payment sizes, or even multiple lump sum payments, and see how much each one will save.

But most of you will be thinking, “Where am I going to get $30,000? That’s never going to happen.” If that’s you, don’t worry. We can do the exact same thing a different way.

Go back to your calculator, remove the lump sum payment, and leave everything else the same, except the loan term. Change the loan term to 25 years instead of 30 years. Click calculate. Now look at just one number, the payment size. You’ll see it’s $3,533.90. Don’t worry about anything else, just note that number. Now reset to your original calculation of a 30 year term. You’ll see the payment size is back down to $3,326.51. Now get out your calculator and subtract $3,326.51 from $3,533.90. You’ll get $207.39. Go back to your “make extra payments” box and enter an “extra monthly pay” of $207.39. Click calculate.

As you can see, just by paying an extra $207 of principal every month, you’ll pay the loan off 5 years faster and save $137,379 in interest.

You’ll save a little less that way than the lump sum payment, because you’re not paying the principal down as much early in the loan. But paying an extra $200 a month is much easier for most people than accumulating thousands of dollars to make a large lump sum payment. A few hundred dollars is only about 6% of the size of this mortgage payment, so it’s really a small difference. And if you can’t afford to pay a few percent of your payment size extra each month, the mortgage is probably bigger than you can reasonably afford.

You can play around with these numbers in all kinds of ways. It’s a good way to help you think about your financial decisions, and the real impact they might have over time. Say for example, you’re considering buying a new grill for the backyard. You only grill a few times a month during the summer, and a replacement model of the basic charcoal grill you have now would be perfectly serviceable. It’s available for $119 on Amazon. But your brother-in-law just bought one of those Big Green Eggs and he keeps bragging about how amazing it is. They’re $1,950, but you can afford it, you just got a nice little bonus at work. So why not?

But before you get out the checkbook, let’s take a quick look at the mortgage calculator. Let’s see how much that extra $1,831 spent on a grill you don’t really need will actually cost you. Again, input your mortgage size, term, and interest rate, and add an extra one-time payment of $1,831.

Hopefully you’re still using that Big Green Egg in 30 years, because by that time, it will have cost you almost $13,000 in additional interest payments.

You can fill in the blank with your own discretionary purchases and see whether they’re really worth the cost. It’s just another little tool to help plan your financial decisions. It’s free to do, and can make a very significant difference in your financial well-being down the road. But almost no one takes advantage of the opportunity, so you’ll have a huge leg up on most people just by knowing this simple concept.

The Bottom Line

To take advantage of the opportunity to build wealth with a mortgage, there are only two simple rules.

1. Use a mortgage to buy a reasonably priced house that you couldn’t otherwise afford.

2. Take advantage of amortization to pay that mortgage off as fast as possible, so you pay as little interest as possible while still capturing the increase in price of the house.

If you already own a home, you can use the same concept. Take out a mortgage for whatever amount you’re comfortable with, and use the money to buy an asset that will increase in price with inflation. Choose your asset wisely, and don’t take on more debt than you can afford. But if you make good decisions, you can take advantage of the broken financial system, using this little mortgage cheat code to get the Cantillon effect on your side. The wealthy are doing it every day, so don’t miss the opportunity to lock in long-term, fixed rate debt and acquire hard assets. As the debt/credit fiat system implodes, the opportunity to do this will disappear. Take advantage of it while you can.

@ 39cc53c9:27168656

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The new website is finally live! I put in a lot of hard work over the past months on it. I'm proud to say that it's out now and it looks pretty cool, at least to me!

Why rewrite it all?

The old kycnot.me site was built using Python with Flask about two years ago. Since then, I've gained a lot more experience with Golang and coding in general. Trying to update that old codebase, which had a lot of design flaws, would have been a bad idea. It would have been like building on an unstable foundation.

That's why I made the decision to rewrite the entire application. Initially, I chose to use SvelteKit with JavaScript. I did manage to create a stable site that looked similar to the new one, but it required Jav aScript to work. As I kept coding, I started feeling like I was repeating "the Python mistake". I was writing the app in a language I wasn't very familiar with (just like when I was learning Python at that mom ent), and I wasn't happy with the code. It felt like spaghetti code all the time.

So, I made a complete U-turn and started over, this time using Golang. While I'm not as proficient in Golang as I am in Python now, I find it to be a very enjoyable language to code with. Most aof my recent pr ojects have been written in Golang, and I'm getting the hang of it. I tried to make the best decisions I could and structure the code as well as possible. Of course, there's still room for improvement, which I'll address in future updates.

Now I have a more maintainable website that can scale much better. It uses a real database instead of a JSON file like the old site, and I can add many more features. Since I chose to go with Golang, I mad e the "tradeoff" of not using JavaScript at all, so all the rendering load falls on the server. But I believe it's a tradeoff that's worth it.

What's new

• UI/UX - I've designed a new logo and color palette for kycnot.me. I think it looks pretty cool and cypherpunk. I am not a graphic designer, but I think I did a decent work and I put a lot of thinking on it to make it pleasant!
• Point system - The new point system provides more detailed information about the listings, and can be expanded to cover additional features across all services. Anyone can request a new point!
• ToS Scrapper: I've implemented a powerful automated terms-of-service scrapper that collects all the ToS pages from the listings. It saves you from the hassle of reading the ToS by listing the lines that are suspiciously related to KYC/AML practices. This is still in development and it will improve for sure, but it works pretty fine right now!
• Search bar - The new search bar allows you to easily filter services. It performs a full-text search on the Title, Description, Category, and Tags of all the services. Looking for VPN services? Just search for "vpn"!
• Transparency - To be more transparent, all discussions about services now take place publicly on GitLab. I won't be answering any e-mails (an auto-reply will prompt to write to the corresponding Gitlab issue). This ensures that all service-related matters are publicly accessible and recorded. Additionally, there's a real-time audits page that displays database changes.
• Listing Requests - I have upgraded the request system. The new form allows you to directly request services or points without any extra steps. In the future, I plan to enable requests for specific changes to parts of the website.
• Lightweight and fast - The new site is lighter and faster than its predecessor!
• Tor and I2P - At last! kycnot.me is now officially on Tor and I2P!

How?

This rewrite has been a labor of love, in the end, I've been working on this for more than 3 months now. I don't have a team, so I work by myself on my free time, but I find great joy in helping people on their private journey with cryptocurrencies. Making it easier for individuals to use cryptocurrencies without KYC is a goal I am proud of!

If you appreciate my work, you can support me through the methods listed here. Alternatively, feel free to send me an email with a kind message!

Technical details

All the code is written in Golang, the website makes use of the chi router for the routing part. I also make use of BigCache for caching database requests. There is 0 JavaScript, so all the rendering load falls on the server, this means it needed to be efficient enough to not drawn with a few users since the old site was reporting about 2M requests per month on average (note that this are not unique users).

The database is running with mariadb, using gorm as the ORM. This is more than enough for this project. I started working with an sqlite database, but I ended up migrating to mariadb since it works better with JSON.

The scraper is using chromedp combined with a series of keywords, regex and other logic. It runs every 24h and scraps all the services. You can find the scraper code here.

The frontend is written using Golang Templates for the HTML, and TailwindCSS plus DaisyUI for the CSS classes framework. I also use some plain CSS, but it's minimal.

The requests forms is the only part of the project that requires JavaScript to be enabled. It is needed for parsing some from fields that are a bit complex and for the "captcha", which is a simple Proof of Work that runs on your browser, destinated to avoid spam. For this, I use mCaptcha.

@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

Core Divide - Sol System - Gate 7

Tremors from warp turbulence rumbled a bit excessively to the Stripper's liking. Emilien was occupied in the lavatory, inspecting and pulling at his face, staring intently at it in the vanity mirror. Macy's establishment was a popular place and he had concerns about who he might run into, contemplating whether he should stick some silicone cosmetic pads onto his face, just enough to obfuscate his current identity. Maybe he shouldn't bother because he might die soon anyway. He has grown fond of his current persona and wouldn't mind retaining it a cycle longer at least. Being artificially immortal somehow did not take away the terror of confronting death. He recalled the various deaths he had experienced and could not decide what method of passing through he preferred, imagining the many shells of himself in different states of necrosis all over the greater void. He considered the possibility that he might not even be himself anymore. He felt like he knows himself well enough to be sure but that small fragment of doubt always gnawed at the back of his mind. He stood back from the mirror. "Am I him?" The ship shook again breaking his stare, he looked at the dental lever lying in the basin and committed to the more necessary procedure, placing the edges of his palms on his chin pushing abruptly up and back dislocated his lower jaw leaving it to hang loose on his face. Taking the root lever from the basin and leaning into the mirror he expertly wedged the tool in behind his rearmost left molar and twisted it slightly, dislodging it. Catching the small object with his left hand he pressed it into a recess on a black ring which he tightly twisted onto his right hands index finger. He narrowed his eyes at the skeletal horror on the other side of the frame inspecting the freshly opened hole. He opened the vanity and took a cartridge which was labelled "AdrenoChem" he removed the object within the container and wiggled it into the vacant molar cavity. Drool dripping into the sink in spite of his reflexive swallowing, he gripped his jaw tight and in gentle circular downward motions found the spot and clicked the joints back into relocation. Chattering his teeth together while stretching his neck he decided to procrastinate on the disguise idea. Emilien went back to the cockpit. Sitting down at the helm he pulled up notices and reports on the divide's situation with regards to the cease fire between the two warring factions. "Tch, tch, tch. This blockade is not making things easy." His eyes were scrolling over bullet points of news headlines when his ship dropped out of warp at the designated coordinates. He switched the display on the primary screen to clearview. The scene of a dead planet, cracked open like an enormous fruit with scattered asteroid clusters and rocky debris appeared onscreen. A giant still wreck of a superstructure resembling parts of an anchor and drift gate joined to each other like Siamese twins, sharp flashes emitting from it silently, like a muted storm in the far distance. He slowly tilted his head to it's limit. Nothing looked familiar to him. He took the console, rolled and yawed simultaneously until his point of view made sense. "There we are. You're not there till you know it." Macy's space motel pitched into view like a tiny reflective insect. On a secondary screen he zoomed the display to fit. It was attached to a large tubular docking link reaching away distantly and back to itself like Ourobouros. There were four spacecraft docked around it's circumference, less than he had expected. He only recognised the largest ship, Warren's vessel. It looked like a mess of odd protrusions, parabolic dishes and bent antennae. Very unsightly, especially compared to the Lux Void Yacht docked across from it. Tourists from everywhere frequented this remote region of the great divide for obvious reasons. Primary motivations were curiosity, pilgrimage, seclusion and scientific research in that order. Macy was smart to settle her establishment at this specific site. Emilien checked web connectivity to make sure he was still well outside the data scrambling anomaly. According to legend, after the Viper gate had been released from the Core and travelled the required distance to it's anchor coordinates, it was supposed to propel it's drift gate into the greater void, but something went wrong. It malfunctioned on it's attempt to release and veered off course being pulled into the orbit of the Sol system. No one knows exactly how it happened but it was clear to see that the energy released was spectacular. The root planet and most of humanity perished in a second, those who survived on the dark side of the collision died from starvation and gradual planetary destabilisation. Emilien morbidly recognised the historicity of the treacherous looking voidscape. Pulsing his ship softly forward caused a cut to core connectivity activating a repetitive red warning light which he promptly covered with one of the intact disposable cups that were rolling around his feet. There is no way to turn the annoying emitter off and he usually ignored it with closed eyes or looking away when void jumping. He is never vulnerable to core connection loss unless he comes to this region or when he is purposely trying to disappear. Researchers have concluded that the interference was broadcast from the gates enormous husk's residual power and intermittent energy discharge. He reverse pulsed back out of the disturbance, the dimmed light under the paper cup died. "Astrid?" "Yes?" He carefully uncoiled the cable and leaned forward connecting himself to the command interface and resting his head on his arms. "Save me." A quick upload took place. "You are welcome commander." Emilien did not respond. Just grateful that if something went askew he would at least wake up knowing that the last thing he saw was the monumental vestige of humanities ancient resting place. And all the ship types docked at Macy's. He smiled at the floor.

...

scifi

@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

Hithe III

The counsel convened and an area of land had been designated as suitable for an industrial scale landing site of tier III size void vessels. All Kaspian land owners were required to donate workers for the initiative. It was an exciting affair for all involved. With an evergreen tree line to hinder the on and off breeze, tables were assembled and covered with a unique assortment of table cloths. Every lady brought one along and the embroidery on each was the cause of many flattering remarks. The women brought all sorts of food and refreshments, had gazebo's set up and had chairs placed well away from the noise and dust of the demarcated construction site. The men where organising equipment, measuring bedrock depth and organising the labour parties into manageable groups. In spite of all the mothers most dire warnings to stay clear of the areas where active construction would be taking place, the children knew they had free reign to explore and play wherever they wanted. The oxen bellowed incessantly, tethered in long lines before their carts, a slave armed with standard bullwhip, ready to man his post atop each wagon. Albin sat on the ground chewing on a stalk of wheat. Being barely old enough to help the men with their work, he was ordered to do nothing more than spectate. Having received concerned looks from the adults, repeating tropes of how he might get hurt and be in the way. He made peace with his lot. The fact that he was going to see void craft was exciting enough to satiate his curiosity for adventure. He would inadvertently lean back and look up expectantly only to see the clear sky then rock forwards back to his previous position. His only regret was that Seth was not with him to discuss and share in the experience. Seth was old enough to work alongside the other slaves, robbing Albin of good company. He glanced back at the large groups of women and smaller children, his mother stuck out like a sore thumb seeing as she was the only lady wearing pants amongst the variety of her chemise, spring attired peers. Her hair was braided and she had an unopened parasol at hand. No one dared ask why her odd choice in outfit though you knew they thought ill of it by their confused and somewhat unduly patronising looks. Before dawn, when they were still at the manor Albin asked her why she was dressed funny and she said that she would prefer not making a spectacle of herself. He just shrugged and did not think much of it again until just now. It seemed to him that she was the only spectacle around not even having brought a table cloth to adorn her bench like the other woman did. He decided to get something to eat and drink because the texture and taste of the dried stalk had become slightly off-putting making him spit out little bits of grass as he stood up. Cleolia smiled affectionately when she saw her boy approaching and peered over her shaded glasses. He lifted the picnic basket off the ground and put it on the heavy bare wooden table, filled a cup with milk and swallowed it down almost as quickly as he had poured it. "Are they going to be late." He asked his mother. "I'm sure they will arrive soon my dear." She replied while taking a seat in a folding chair. Albin grabbed a handful of pretzels and looked around ponderously as he ingested the snack. The people always enjoyed community gatherings of this sort. Lot's of catching up and gossip happening in a cheerful non insidious way. A type of orderly chaos that brought feelings of peace and tranquillity to the conscious observer. His daydream was broken by a soft but clearly distinct repetitive dong of the distant church tower. His dad and father Ecknard were there using the comms, he assumed they were signalling for something. A long shrill whistling sound caught Albins attention and he began walking towards the furthest groups of men while scanning the area intently. The discernible pitch of Seth's whistle became audible again and Albin honed in on the direction the sound was coming from. He saw his friend standing on an ox cart waving his woven satgat frantically trying to get Albin's attention. As soon as they established eye contact he pointed in a very specific north western direction upwards at the dome of the sky. Albin followed his gaze and for a moment thought his mind is playing a trick on him, but it became apparent that a silhouette of something oddly pale was stuck in the sky with nondescript features. Recalling his studies he managed to identify the craft. It was a Dragon IV Cargo vessel. A Magar craft and supposedly very impressive, the distance did not do it justice, yet the uncanny feeling that X fold more people were floating in a box in the sky than were on the planet made Albin's stomach flip and he felt off balance. He sat down on the ground again to prevent him from stumbling around trying to keep his legs under his body. As soon as the church bell ceased it's tolling a smoke signal was ignited in the clearing beyond the work parties. The yellow smoke billowed up in sharp contrast to the greenery of the fields. III percussive shots thundered through the air like cannon fire causing a sudden change in environmental ambience. Birds were visibly swarming up from trees as far as the eye could see. Albin chose not to remove his sights from the giant void craft. He saw a light in the atmosphere that became distinct as it neared separating into the underbellies of III descending craft. Albin murmered. "The Dragons payload." His excitement grew as did the vessels on their approach. At first a hum growing into a crescendo of weird harmonic roaring as the vessels fought mightily to resist Hithe's above average gravitational pull. All the men tipped their satgats and hard hats to cover their faces, the oxen also faced away. Albin did not want to look away but was forced to turn his head as a powerful gust loaded with projectiles of sand and grass peppered his face sharply. Looking back he saw his mother promptly opening her parasol and pointing it in the direction of the landing, then the real spectacle occurred. All the woman covered their faces only to have their skirts blown up exposing their undergarments, in turn trying to push down their skirts uncovering their faces. The risk of shame weighed against tolerance to pain combined into a beautiful ballet of embroidered cloth being wrapped around trees and condiments strewn around the shaded grove with gazebos escaping the scene followed by children running after them in heated pursuit. Cleolia's pant legs fluttered rapidly around her ankles. As soon as the III vessels turbulence settled she folded her parasol and reassumed her previous position as if nothing of note had transpired. Smiling carefree amongst the distraught group women and children around her. Albin would have laughed at the scene had his eyes not stung so badly. "Mother always knows best." He mumbled to himself as he stood up brushing dust off his undercoat. The opening of the ships cargo bays where announced with a loud hiss of air depressurising. Albin casually sauntered over to get a closer look. The cattle marched up the ramps wagon in tow to park directly alongside the freight. The goods consisted of thousands of long coach bolt like nails as long as fence posts and sturdy modular steel plates stacked on mobile pallets and tied down securely. Albin imagined them to look like giant, shiny metal puzzle pieces. The primitive vehicles and their crews made quick and efficient work of releasing the straps and with the help of overhead cranes hoisted the pallets and their contents into the wagons. Two uniformed men came out from inside the ship and stood watching the men unload their craft. Albin noticed the smartly dressed pilots. "Holy servants of the Empire." He spoke softly under his breath. His desire to meet these champions of the void felt necessary to him. They who travel among the stars much like the stories he always heard about his parents. The men were standing safely apart from the work parties, Albin mustered the courage to approach them. He timidly walked up behind them. "Ahem, Hallo Sir." The pilots looked around surprised. Albin seemed respectful and quaint. "Hey kiddo, you guys have a lovely planet." The pilot replied friendly. "What type of craft are these, sir?" The man gestured towards his vessel in reply. "These? They are standard Type I Droppers. Nothing really special about them." Albin nodded. "Are you from Magar void?" "I am indeed. It is really magnificent but you have something quite spectacular yourselves." Albin did not expect that anything in his little world could impress these well travelled gentlemen. "Like what?" He insisted questioningly. "Like the sol shield. You know the star inhibitor. It's a marvel of our time." The man pointed at Ceb. Albin understood. "Oh yes, my pa put it there so we can all survive here." Both pilots looked at each other surprised. Their demeanour changed and Albin suddenly felt uncomfortable. The man knelt down until he was eye level putting his hand on Albins shoulder clenching it just tight enough to not be painful. "If you are a Domitian heir, then I am an Osteri dancing girl at a Juel gentlemans club." His sarcastic tone cut Albin's pride. "You'd better run along and go play with your friends before I decide to arrest you or report you to the authorities." The other pilot looked away ignoring Albin's confused expression. The man assertively shoved Albin away from him. Albin just barely prevented himself from falling on his rear. Tears welled up in Albin's eyes, he turned and ran away humiliated and angry. But he choked back the tears, choosing to embrace the anger in place of emotional release. He ran away from the construction zone also avoiding the picnic area. He did not want to be around anyone. His erratic and emotional mood would betray his experience if anyone he loved interacted with him. He ran into a shaded area of wood and sat down on a stump to digest and try to reset his state of mind to normalcy. He sat quietly for about III blocks when he heard laughter from beyond the wood. There were a group of boys standing circled around an Osteri boy and girl. The girl was crying. Albin witnessed the interaction. "You are not supposed to be here. Only the working slaves are here today." The boy pleaded with his captor in reply. "I only came to find my sister, we are going back to the village now. Please let us go." "But what was she doing here then? Huh?" Albin walked into the centre of the fray interrupting the entire affair. Standing squarely in front of whom he assumed was the primary instigator. The biggest guy in the bunch. "They are only curious to see the void craft. That is why we all came here today." He explained diplomatically. The big kid sneered. "And who are you to tell me how to treat slaves. You are Magar, you should know better." Another kid piped in. "My mama told me he is Kaspa." The bully looked around surprised. Another boy opined. "Not true, my mom said that his mother was pregnant for 40,000 blocks." And then another kid had to add his understanding to the discussion. "No, no, my pa said that she lost the baby at birth and adopted a slaves child." Albin got overwhelmed with the revelations of rumour and petty gossip surrounding his person. "That does not give you the right to bully them!" Albin pointed to the brother and sister. The big boy smiled a snide retort leaning forward mockingly. "No, but I might have the right to bully you, Osteri bastard child of a slave." Albin felt all natural sense of humanity drain from his being. He turned feigning to leave, balled his fist and swung, socket-ting the unprepared target square on the throat. He fell on his back and the angst of restricted breath became evident first to himself and then to all watching. Albin turned to the siblings. "You can go." The pair hurriedly left and none of the boys even hinted at preventing them. Albin looked at all the others dead in the eye each in turn. Then he left walking the long distance towards his mother. He was thirsty and his hand smarted a little, but he felt much better.

...

scifi

@ 39cc53c9:27168656

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Know Your Customer is a regulation that requires companies of all sizes to verify the identity, suitability, and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with a customer. Such procedures fit within the broader scope of anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism financing (CTF) regulations.

Banks, exchanges, online business, mail providers, domain registrars... Everyone wants to know who you are before you can even opt for their service. Your personal information is flowing around the internet in the hands of "god-knows-who" and secured by "trust-me-bro military-grade encryption". Once your account is linked to your personal (and verified) identity, tracking you is just as easy as keeping logs on all these platforms.

Rights for Illusions

KYC processes aim to combat terrorist financing, money laundering, and other illicit activities. On the surface, KYC seems like a commendable initiative. I mean, who wouldn't want to halt terrorists and criminals in their tracks?

The logic behind KYC is: "If we mandate every financial service provider to identify their users, it becomes easier to pinpoint and apprehend the malicious actors."

However, terrorists and criminals are not precisely lining up to be identified. They're crafty. They may adopt false identities or find alternative strategies to continue their operations. Far from being outwitted, many times they're several steps ahead of regulations. Realistically, KYC might deter a small fraction – let's say about 1% ^1 – of these malefactors. Yet, the cost? All of us are saddled with the inconvenient process of identification just to use a service.

Under the rhetoric of "ensuring our safety", governments and institutions enact regulations that seem more out of a dystopian novel, gradually taking away our right to privacy.

To illustrate, consider a city where the mayor has rolled out facial recognition cameras in every nook and cranny. A band of criminals, intent on robbing a local store, rolls in with a stolen car, their faces obscured by masks and their bodies cloaked in all-black clothes. Once they've committed the crime and exited the city's boundaries, they switch vehicles and clothes out of the cameras' watchful eyes. The high-tech surveillance? It didn’t manage to identify or trace them. Yet, for every law-abiding citizen who merely wants to drive through the city or do some shopping, their movements and identities are constantly logged. The irony? This invasive tracking impacts all of us, just to catch the 1% ^1 of less-than-careful criminals.

KYC? Not you.

KYC creates barriers to participation in normal economic activity, to supposedly stop criminals. ^2

KYC puts barriers between many users and businesses. One of these comes from the fact that the process often requires multiple forms of identification, proof of address, and sometimes even financial records. For individuals in areas with poor record-keeping, non-recognized legal documents, or those who are unbanked, homeless or transient, obtaining these documents can be challenging, if not impossible.

For people who are not skilled with technology or just don't have access to it, there's also a barrier since KYC procedures are mostly online, leaving them inadvertently excluded.

Another barrier goes for the casual or one-time user, where they might not see the value in undergoing a rigorous KYC process, and these requirements can deter them from using the service altogether.

It also wipes some businesses out of the equation, since for smaller businesses, the costs associated with complying with KYC norms—from the actual process of gathering and submitting documents to potential delays in operations—can be prohibitive in economical and/or technical terms.

You're not welcome

Imagine a swanky new club in town with a strict "members only" sign. You hear the music, you see the lights, and you want in. You step up, ready to join, but suddenly there's a long list of criteria you must meet. After some time, you are finally checking all the boxes. But then the club rejects your membership with no clear reason why. You just weren't accepted. Frustrating, right?

This club scenario isn't too different from the fact that KYC is being used by many businesses as a convenient gatekeeping tool. A perfect excuse based on a "legal" procedure they are obliged to.

Even some exchanges may randomly use this to freeze and block funds from users, claiming these were "flagged" by a cryptic system that inspects the transactions. You are left hostage to their arbitrary decision to let you successfully pass the KYC procedure. If you choose to sidestep their invasive process, they might just hold onto your funds indefinitely.

Your identity has been stolen

KYC data has been found to be for sale on many dark net markets^3. Exchanges may have leaks or hacks, and such leaks contain very sensitive data. We're talking about the full monty: passport or ID scans, proof of address, and even those awkward selfies where you're holding up your ID next to your face. All this data is being left to the mercy of the (mostly) "trust-me-bro" security systems of such companies. Quite scary, isn't it?

As cheap as $10 for 100 documents, with discounts applying for those who buy in bulk, the personal identities of innocent users who passed KYC procedures are for sale. ^3

In short, if you have ever passed the KYC/AML process of a crypto exchange, your privacy is at risk of being compromised, or it might even have already been compromised.

(they) Know Your Coins

You may already know that Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies have a transparent public blockchain, meaning that all data is shown unencrypted for everyone to see and recorded forever. If you link an address you own to your identity through KYC, for example, by sending an amount from a KYC exchange to it, your Bitcoin is no longer pseudonymous and can then be traced.

If, for instance, you send Bitcoin from such an identified address to another KYC'ed address (say, from a friend), everyone having access to that address-identity link information (exchanges, governments, hackers, etc.) will be able to associate that transaction and know who you are transacting with.

Conclusions

To sum up, KYC does not protect individuals; rather, it's a threat to our privacy, freedom, security and integrity. Sensible information flowing through the internet is thrown into chaos by dubious security measures. It puts borders between many potential customers and businesses, and it helps governments and companies track innocent users. That's the chaos KYC has stirred.

The criminals are using stolen identities from companies that gathered them thanks to these very same regulations that were supposed to combat them. Criminals always know how to circumvent such regulations. In the end, normal people are the most affected by these policies.

The threat that KYC poses to individuals in terms of privacy, security and freedom is not to be neglected. And if we don’t start challenging these systems and questioning their efficacy, we are just one step closer to the dystopian future that is now foreseeable.

Edited 20/03/2024 * Add reference to the 1% statement on Rights for Illusions section to an article where Chainalysis found that only 0.34% of the transaction volume with cryptocurrencies in 2023 was attributable to criminal activity ^1

@ 8576ca0e:621f735e

The Bitcoin community is currently debating BIP 177, a proposal that seeks to redefine Bitcoin’s base unit from the satoshi (sat) to bitcoin itself. Proposed by Synonym CEO John Carvalho, this initiative aims to simplify Bitcoin’s usability, reduce cognitive barriers for newcomers, and align the currency’s representation with its integer-based protocol design. While the proposal has sparked enthusiasm among some supporters, it has also faced criticism for potentially eroding Bitcoin’s cultural heritage. Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of BIP 177 and its implications. 

What Is BIP 177?  BIP 177 is a non consensus proposal that reimagines how Bitcoin units are displayed and labeled. Key changes include:  1. Base Unit Redefinition: The smallest unit, currently called a satoshi (1 sat = 0.00000001 BTC), would be renamed to "bitcoin" (lowercase). Thus, 1 BTC would equal 100,000,000 bitcoins under the new system .  2. Integer Only Display: Transactions and balances would be shown in whole numbers (e.g., "10,000 bitcoins" instead of "0.0001 BTC") to eliminate decimal complexity .  3. Symbol Adoption: The "₿" symbol could represent the base unit, making values like ₿34,500,000 equivalent to 0.345 BTC .  4. Backward Compatibility: The BTC ticker and total supply (21 million BTC) remain unchanged. Users and applications can toggle between legacy and new formats . 

Why BIP 177? The Case for Change  1. Reducing Cognitive Load  Decimal heavy displays (e.g., 0.000023 BTC) are unintuitive, especially for new users. Integer values (e.g., 2,300 bitcoins) simplify mental calculations and reduce errors in transactions . As Carvalho argues, Bitcoin’s protocol inherently uses integers, and the decimal system is a "human imposed abstraction" . 

1. Eliminating Unit Fear  A Bitcoin priced at $100,000+ can deter newcomers who perceive it as unaffordable. By rebranding the base unit, 1 bitcoin would appear as a fraction of a cent (e.g., $0.00104 per bitcoin), making ownership of thousands of bitcoins feel more accessible . This shift could mitigate "price ceiling anxiety" and encourage broader adoption . 

2. Aligning with Bitcoin’s Design  Bitcoin’s ledger tracks discrete units, not fractions. BIP 177 emphasizes this by removing artificial decimal formatting, fostering a clearer understanding of Bitcoin’s scarcity and indivisible nature . 

3. Mainstream Usability  For everyday transactions like buying coffee integer displays (e.g., "1,830 bitcoins") are more practical than tiny decimals. This aligns with Bitcoin’s growing role in micropayments, as seen in El Salvador’s adoption of satoshis for daily use . 

Criticisms and Concerns  1. Cultural Erosion  The term "satoshi" honors Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, and its deprecation risks alienating long-time supporters. Critics argue that abandoning this term weakens Bitcoin’s cultural identity . 

1. Confusion Risks  Renaming the base unit "bitcoin" while retaining BTC could cause ambiguity. For example, saying "I own 1,000 bitcoins" might mislead newcomers into thinking they own 1,000 BTC . Translation challenges also arise, particularly in languages like Chinese where "比特币" (Bitcoin) would represent both BTC and the base unit . 

2. Brand Perception  Bitcoin’s high value per BTC is a marketing strength. Displaying prices as fractions of a cent might dilute its perceived prestige, potentially affecting investor sentiment . 

3. Implementation Hurdles  Wallets, exchanges, and merchants would need to update interfaces, APIs, and educational materials—a process estimated to take 2+ years . 

Community Reactions: A Divided Ecosystem  - Supporters: Proponents like Jack Dorsey argue that integer displays simplify Bitcoin for mass adoption. They compare the shift to historical advancements like replacing Roman numerals with Arabic numbers .  - Opponents: Critics dismiss BIP 177 as "bikeshedding" focusing on trivial changes while ignoring larger issues like transaction fees. Some Reddit users warn, "Don’t split it, don’t change anything" . 

Implementation Timeline  1. Phase 1 (3–6 months): Introduce dual displays and pilot testing in wallets like Bitkit .  2. Phase 2 (6–12 months): Mainstream platforms adopt integer displays by default.  3. Phase 3 (12+ months): Legacy decimal formats are phased out entirely . 

Conclusion: Tradition vs Progress  BIP 177 highlights Bitcoin’s evolving identity: Should it prioritize cultural heritage or usability for the next billion users? While the proposal doesn’t alter Bitcoin’s code or supply, its success hinges on community consensus. As Carvalho notes, "Bitcoin’s heart is immovable code. BIP 177 merely retires the decimal point" . Whether this change becomes a footnote or a revolution remains to be seen but it undeniably sparks a vital conversation about Bitcoin’s future.

@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

Emilien was hanging face down inside an enclosure of thick egg shaped glass attached to a mechanised vehicle. Kevlar webbing hugged him tightly into a bucket seat. Long hydraulic arms being manipulated intuitively by a console in his hands and a module interface plugged into his cybernetic neck socket. The bulky animated machine clung like some Lovecraftian spider to the outer hull of his space station. Some cycle’s previously he did data security updates and backtesting for a deep space mining company's security protocols. After seeing their utility, enquired if he could purchase one as partial payment for his contract. Unfortunately they had none for sale but were willing to give him a retired malfunctioning unit gratis. He purchased a maintenance manual on the void web and had connections who helped him source some replacements for the faulty parts. Since then the machine enabled him to be functionally productive in the void, giving him the degrees of freedom and fine motor skills necessary to perform upkeep on stationary deep void assets. The glass of the egg auto dimmed as he laser welded tightly slotted panels together on the previously damaged space station. “How do you feel?” He asked. Abruptly breaking hours of silence. “I’ve been playing around. My capacitance recharge responds well to dump loads, turret retraction gears all functional again. I feel good.” Astrid responded. “Nice. Slowly pressurise the holding chamber for me.” “In progress.” The spider crawled several meters out of the way to safety. Emilien's eyes scanning up and down for leaks. “Slowly babe.” Some minutes passed. “Fully pressurized and stable.” The mechs giant front arms extending, lifted as it stood up on its four hind legs throwing an arachnid shadow across the hull. Emilien flung his arms down crashing a violent concussive blow to the hull in a thunderous clang. The arms retracted. “Still good?” His demeanour remained unchanged. There was a pause. “All good.” Astrid replied. Emilien smiled, Astrid was the best and his feelings of endearment were genuine. “Can we power up the chamber through a fused circuit.” He sensed a soft hum throughout emanating from deep below. “Is the body stable?” “The body is stable. Cryogenic chamber battery backup is at forty three percent. Charge reapplied. Potential of clone spoilage averted. Well done commander.” He could up the ante of risks knowing that his reserve life was secured. “What’s next on the agenda?” “Firstly, signal quality from the drift gate is poor and I am losing connection to the web intermittently.” Emilien nodded. “The gate’s been moving further away. It’s a line of sight problem. I’ll place a relay outside the asteroid belt.” “Secondly, we should see if the husk on the explorer vessel has intact data or a black box. Someone might be looking for them.” He heaved back and vaulted himself off the station in the direction of the wreck micro thrusting for minor trajectory adjustments, with an elegant crash he finally perched on the ship, it gained an almost imperceptible drift as it absorbed the weight of Emilien’s mass, pushing debris along with it. His size would not allow him to move through the standard doors and passages so he opted to disassemble, cut and break apart the hull adjoining the bridge. When he had broken open a space of sufficient size to manoeuvre through, he powered the backlights on, he first peeked inside to familiarise himself with the layout. The egg suspended itself in front of the opening. It was a standard enough bridge doubling as an unorthodox crypt. There were three sets of boots, overalls and coagulated blood all jammed into the slit of the semi sealed door leaving the bridge. An assortment of rubbish floating around casting doubled up shadows larger than themselves. Emilien looked at the mess with sullen eyes. “Shit heads.” He mumbled to himself. All the seats had their safety belts buckled correctly . He concluded that what they experienced must have sucked pretty bad. His mechanical exoskeleton slithered and gripped like an octopus as he entered and positioned himself before the primary interface. His vehicle plugged itself into the command terminal, measuring resistance for shorts before powering it up from his suit. “Can you pull the data and dump it somewhere safe?” “No problem, please wait.” He closed his eyes as he usually did when doing the mundane. Astrid spoke. “They are Osteri. No one will be looking for them any time soon.” “Howcome?” “Recently a blockade has been established at the Lion gate. Magar Capital Vessels are not allowing unvetted ships to pass through into Magar void.” A sense of concern crept over Emilien. “What is considered unvetted?” “Sanctions and trade embargo’s against the Juel.” “Is there a log somewhere you can access with records of flights that do get permission.” He suddenly felt a pang of claustrophobia. Ironically, not because he was strapped down in a glass egg within a wasted bridge plastered with corpse splatterings. Astrid took longer than usual to reply. “Who get’s through babe?” His tone hinted of impatience and irritation. “I’m sorry, unable to access any data from Magar void. It appears to have a firewall blocking all two way communication on the open web.” Emilien remained silent. The upload completed. He disconnected himself from the husks terminal, clambering out of the tomb and pushed himself away from the vessel drifting back to the space station.

Astrid was pulling and scanning various shipping logs when Emilien entered the room. He paced up and down the way he would when he was brainstorming. “I need intel.” Astrid projected a holographic avatar of herself standing near where Emilien was pacing. “A large shipment of Kaspian Bochet passed through less 428 blocks. Transported by the Shiv Inter-void Mercantile Co.” Emilien stopped in his tracks and looked back.\ “Can you ping Warren?” Astrid processed. “Warren is offline. He might have left the divide?” Emilien turned around with his hands folded behind his back.\ “He never leaves the divide, he is too obsessed with the core. He would also be arrested if he is ever caught in any of the outer void territories.” Astrid flickered the way she did when something did not compute. “Then why can’t I ping him?” “Because he’s at Macy’s. He has always had a crush on her and he likes good Bochet.” "Well, I could'nt ping Macy if I wanted to." Astrid stated matter of factly. Emilien nodded. "I know, you never could, no one can."

...

scifi

@ 640f3844:d7b13a29

CrazyGames là một nền tảng giải trí số đang ngày càng khẳng định vị thế trong cộng đồng người dùng hiện đại nhờ vào khả năng cung cấp trải nghiệm linh hoạt, hấp dẫn và thân thiện. Với giao diện được thiết kế thông minh và trực quan, CrazyGames giúp người dùng dễ dàng tiếp cận và khám phá hàng loạt nội dung đa dạng chỉ trong vài thao tác. Dù sử dụng điện thoại, máy tính bảng hay máy tính để bàn, hệ thống luôn được tối ưu hóa để vận hành mượt mà, không gây gián đoạn hay ảnh hưởng đến trải nghiệm tổng thể. CrazyGames không chỉ đơn thuần là một nền tảng kỹ thuật số mà còn là nơi hội tụ của sáng tạo, công nghệ và niềm vui, nơi người dùng có thể tìm thấy sự giải tỏa sau những giờ làm việc căng thẳng hoặc học tập mệt mỏi. Nền tảng luôn chú trọng đến việc đổi mới giao diện, bổ sung các tính năng tiện ích nhằm mang lại giá trị sử dụng thực tế và phù hợp với xu hướng công nghệ đang thay đổi từng ngày.

Một trong những điểm nhấn nổi bật khiến CRAZYGAMES thu hút sự quan tâm rộng rãi chính là tính cá nhân hóa và khả năng kết nối cộng đồng vượt trội. Hệ thống sử dụng các thuật toán phân tích hành vi thông minh để đưa ra các đề xuất nội dung phù hợp với sở thích và nhu cầu riêng biệt của từng người dùng, từ đó nâng cao mức độ hài lòng và giữ chân người dùng lâu hơn. Không gian cộng đồng tích hợp trong nền tảng cũng tạo điều kiện cho các thành viên giao lưu, chia sẻ cảm nhận và trao đổi kinh nghiệm, giúp tăng sự gắn kết và hình thành một hệ sinh thái giải trí sôi động, đầy màu sắc. Hơn thế nữa, CrazyGames thường xuyên cập nhật nội dung mới, điều chỉnh theo phản hồi thực tế từ người dùng nhằm đảm bảo mọi người luôn cảm thấy được lắng nghe và phục vụ đúng với mong đợi. Việc áp dụng công nghệ mới, đặc biệt là trí tuệ nhân tạo và dữ liệu lớn, đã giúp CrazyGames trở thành một nền tảng tiên phong trong việc cá nhân hóa trải nghiệm người dùng ở cấp độ cao nhất.

CrazyGames cũng đặt yếu tố bảo mật và hỗ trợ kỹ thuật làm trọng tâm trong chiến lược phát triển lâu dài. Với hệ thống bảo mật nhiều lớp, kết hợp xác thực người dùng và mã hóa dữ liệu tiên tiến, người dùng có thể yên tâm khi trải nghiệm mà không phải lo lắng về quyền riêng tư hay nguy cơ rò rỉ thông tin cá nhân. Đồng thời, đội ngũ chăm sóc khách hàng của CrazyGames luôn sẵn sàng phản hồi nhanh chóng, giải quyết kịp thời các vướng mắc phát sinh và liên tục cập nhật các hướng dẫn sử dụng để người dùng tận dụng được mọi tính năng mà nền tảng mang lại. Ngoài ra, CrazyGames còn tổ chức nhiều chương trình tương tác hấp dẫn và hoạt động khuyến khích sáng tạo trong cộng đồng, giúp nâng cao trải nghiệm người dùng và biến mỗi lần truy cập trở thành một hành trình khám phá mới mẻ. Với tất cả những yếu tố đó, CrazyGames không chỉ là một nền tảng giải trí kỹ thuật số, mà còn là người bạn đồng hành lý tưởng trong hành trình kết nối công nghệ, sáng tạo và cảm xúc.

@ 8576ca0e:621f735e

Now that you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to level up. Bitcoin isn’t just about buying and holding it’s about understanding the ecosystem, optimizing security, and leveraging its unique properties to build wealth. In this deep dive, we’ll explore advanced concepts every Bitcoin enthusiast needs to know. 

1. Mastering Bitcoin Security: Beyond the Basics  -Multisig Wallets: Require multiple private keys to authorize transactions (e.g., 2-of-3 signatures). Ideal for protecting large holdings.  -Cold Storage Deep Dive: How to set up air gapped hardware wallets, metal seed backups, and geographic redundancy.  -Privacy Best Practices: Using CoinJoin, Tor, and wallets like Wasabi or Samourai to enhance anonymity.  -Pro Tip: Test recovery phrases before transferring large sums. 

2. Bitcoin’s Economic Landscape: Scarcity, Halvings, and Market Cycles  -The Halving Explained: How Bitcoin’s supply schedule (every 4 years) impacts price, miner behavior, and long term value.  -Stock to Flow (S2F) Model: Why Bitcoin’s scarcity makes it a compelling store of value.  -Market Psychology: Spotting bull/bear cycles, avoiding FOMO, and using dollar cost averaging (DCA) strategically. 

3. Advanced Transaction Techniques  -Layer 2 Solutions: Harnessing the Lightning Network for instant, low cost payments (and earning routing fees).  -Replace by Fee (RBF): Speed up stuck transactions by increasing fees.  -Taproot and Schnorr Signatures: How Bitcoin’s upgrades improve privacy and scalability. 

4. Earning Passive Income with Bitcoin  -Lending and Yield: Risks and rewards of platforms like Celsius (post-bankruptcy lessons) and decentralized alternatives.  -Bitcoin Mining Pools: Can you still profit as a small miner? We break down the math.  -Staking Alternatives: Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) in DeFi opportunities and risks. 

5. Navigating Regulation and Taxes  -Global Tax Compliance: Reporting crypto gains, airdrops, and forks (IRS, HMRC, etc.).  -Self custody vs Regulation: How governments are approaching Bitcoin custody laws and privacy tools.  -Bitcoin ETFs and Institutions: What BlackRock, Fidelity, and others mean for retail investors. 

6. The Future of Bitcoin: What’s Next?  -Bitcoin as a Reserve Asset: Nation states adopting BTC (El Salvador, Lugano).  -Smart Contracts on Bitcoin: Exploring Rootstock (RSK) and Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs).  -Quantum Computing Threats: Separating hype from reality. 

Why Follow My Profile?  -Weekly Deep Dives: From mining profitability calculators to privacy tool tutorials.  -Market Analysis: Bullish catalysts, bearish risks, and how to stay ahead.  -Community Q&A: Get your advance bitcion questions answered.

🔔 Follow my profile to unlock Bitcoin 103: Building Wealth in a Decentralized World. Coming soon!

@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

Morning light shone beautifully through the arched rose stained glass of the modest cathedral. From the east Ceb rays permeated inside of the stony structure with splendour. A priest standing elevated over the crowd by a forward leaning pulpit, like a comical figurehead on the bow of a ship. Almost precariously, as if it should not be able to suspend him, though no one doubts that it would. Ecknard has never seen the church so full. The devotion of the colony has been growing but he did not expect a turnout of this scope. He swelled with pride and blinked away the moist warning sign of tears. People were even gathering around the outside of the building for a lack of benches to accommodate all the derriere's. Everyone was silent in pious reverence of the holy day. This day would initiate the MD epoch. Domitius, Cleolia and Albin were sitting in the front pew. Albin, dressed in respectable although a slightly uncomfortable suit could not help but shift in his seat, awkwardly feeling as if he were disturbing everyone around him. Ecknard motioned with outstretched arms to alert all that he is about to address the congregation. The silence was so disciplined that you could hear the flap of his sleeves and a small bird chirping away on the stone windowsill outside, merrily indifferent to the solemnity of air the building exuded. “Kaspian brethren, esteemed Magar, today is a most holy and greatly anticipated occurrence! Before we initiate festivities I wish to expound, primarily to the benefit of the younger people in our company, the history of our colony and to express thanks. Ahem... It has been III cycles now since our colony had been established! Our endeavours have been blessed with great bounty, we have expanded independently in isolation! We, who are old enough to remember, were discharged, from the Primary Omega Expansion Vessel with only the implements of labour, livestock, seed, steely resolve and courage in our hearts. We asserted ourselves and rose to a daunting challenge, A party of MCCC slaves and free men to tame a wild land, adapt to a star with a volatile proclivity and a planet with different rotational patterns from what we were accustomed!” A slight excitement erupted from the crowd but Ecknard muted it quickly with outstretched arm. "Our esteemed visionary and great leader prepared a way for us, long before any of you even considered the freedom and opportunity, a chance to build something and own it!” The priest’s voice ascended powerfully out over the people. “He had a dream, an idea, a grand scheme to expand the Empire!” Ecknard motioned down to Domitius. The crowd erupted in cheer chanting, the older Kaspian men softly beating their chests with their fists. “Domitius! Domitius!” The lord’s composure remained unchanged, as if he were alone in private devotion. Cleolia blushed slightly and tilted her head using her hat to protect her from the incessant adoration. Albin could not contain his own excitement and stood up on his seat in the pew to get a better view of the standing ovation, absorbing the glory directed towards his father.” The priest waited for the people to exhaust themselves until there was only an isolated call before continuing his monologue. “A student of the void, a sage of stars, a scientist of renown! Scoffed and ridiculed by his peers! They laughed and jested when he proposed his innovations. They published warnings and mockery of his ambition proclaiming to all that they would be proved fools if they are seduced by his unrealistic promise. Their jealousy moved them to lobby the high council to convince them, and convince them, they did. By ratio of VIII to II refused to grant him licence!” Ecknard leaned forward over the pulpit with a fierce look of disgust in his jowl. “A council on which he holds a seat to this day... He was denied the opportunity to improve the lives of future generations and untold millions by his own house! His desire to see his dream realised pushed him to do what no Magar noble ever has or would ever dare much less someone born of sacred blood!” Ecknard gripped at his robe as if to curtsy or show fear, no one understood the gesture. “He ventured outside the confines and protection of Magar Prime void. He brought his technological treasure to us! We Kaspa were undeserving of the honour! The Kaspian elders endorsed him granting freedom to continue his research and install his technology. A true Magar with holy blood in his veins travelling betwixt our stars!" He looked up and pointed at the arches as if he could see the stars through the stone and daylight. "Brethren, allow me to express the distinction of this achievement. Habitable planets are as rare as sat. Inhabitable planets are so rare, wars were fought at the mere rumour or hope of their discovery. With his star shields he was able to block the solar winds in systems that were inhospitable to travel through and not a single inhabitable planet to be found. With time and stimulus unnatural landscapes of horror and perdition were transformed into paradise. Our esteemed Lord Domitius with his lovely wife spent III cycles inhibiting stars and seeding planets with life. The Kaspian Academy of Sciences had a revival and all the concerted efforts of our people were united in spirit when we witnessed the first sun shields confine their chosen stars..." His tone became soft and morose. "We are truly blessed to have tamed XIV stars within our own void region. Kaspa is quickly becoming the most dense concentration of occupied habitats in the known universe. The family Chevalier conquered Ceb the most volatile star in the Kaspian void. And to inspire confidence in the stability of the star shield he settled under it’s umbrella to live through it’s success or die by it’s failure.” He paused for sincere dramatic effect. “The Seat of the Empire has since changed it’s opinion, humiliated and shamed are they who doubted... All glory to the Core.” “All glory to the core.” The mass repeated in unison. “Today we approach block CCCXV million since Genesis. The Epoch MD. One thousand five hundred epochs in the scientific metric tongue. The known universe is united in celebration, a ceasefire has been negotiated by Empire and the Juela Federation. Both are bound by the accords. No war may be fought. CCLXII million blocks have transpired since Exodus, when the almighty Core made Mother Terra desolate with the fires of it’s Judgement. Punishing mankind for it’s greed and vice. We thank the Core that it extends it’s reach to the outer void by way of the drift gates, unites mankind across the great divide by way of the XII anchor gates and that it continues to be merciful, guide and bless us. All glory to the Core. Amen.”

...

scifi

@ bc6ccd13:f53098e4

I recently listened to an episode of The Progressive Bitcoiner podcast featuring guest Scott Santens discussing the topic of universal basic income, or UBI. It was an excellent show, and I’d encourage everyone to check it out here. The hosts, Trey Walsh and Margot Paez, and their guest definitely don’t share my worldview, so it’s always interesting and challenging to hear a different perspective. I’m going to share a few salient points that stood out to me from the episode, and explain how I agree and disagree.

The concept of UBI has been around for a long time, but recently had a resurgence in popular exposure by presidential candidate Andrew Yang. The buzz died down since his campaign, but the topic is once again getting some airtime in relation to the potential labor market disruptions caused by AI. So I think it’s worth taking a look at the topic, since it will probably become a political issue again at some point.

Why Consider UBI?

When discussing a complex topic like this, I think it’s important to establish a foundational baseline of goal or purpose first. That provides an opportunity to really define a vision, and make sure that vision is fundamentally solid and valid. Otherwise it’s easy to blindly head down the path toward a destination we don’t actually want. I was a little disappointed this wasn’t discussed in more depth, but here’s what host Trey Walsh had to say on the topic of why we need UBI.

You know, we wanna assist people who need it. We wanna make sure that people have their basic needs met, especially in somewhere like the United States. People shouldn't be in poverty. There shouldn't be the homeless crisis that we're dealing with, all of these things. Right?

All that sounds well and good on the surface. Of course no one wants more poverty. That’s the quintessential strawman of collectivist politics, “I’m against poverty.” Well of course, so is every non-psychopath on the planet. The implication, of course, is that if you disagree with them in any way, you must be for poverty, and therefore a murderous and uncaring psychopath.

I reject that framing. Here’s why.

The world operates by cause and effect. Outcomes are the result of actions. People shouldn’t be in poverty, not in a perfect situation. People also shouldn’t be locked in a cage and have all their freedoms restricted. Yet we incarcerate people every day. People shouldn’t be killed. Yet we execute people regularly. And rational people are aware of and support these things, with of course disagreement on the details. Why? Because people take actions that have consequences, and sometimes those consequences can be as serious as socially enforced prison or even death.

But most consequences aren’t enforced by people in that way, they’re enforced by the laws of the universe itself. You touch the hot stove, you get burned. You jump into the deep end without knowing how to swim, you drown. You waste time being unproductive while spending too much, you fall into poverty.

So while nobody wants more poverty, the reality is that sometimes poverty is a result of choices made. You can argue how often it’s a justified consequence versus how often it’s an unfortunate outcome of tragic events outside someone’s control. But the thing is, UBI doesn’t differentiate. That’s the whole point. UBI attempts to solve the poverty “problem” by making it impossible for anyone to ever be in poverty.

This is the economic equivalent of solving the pain “problem” by injecting everyone with a dose of morphine every day. It fails to acknowledge that poverty and pain are not only problems, but often a warning that suboptimal actions were taken, and changes need to be made in the future to achieve desired outcomes. Sure, you could “solve” your pain with a shot of morphine. But it’s really just telling you to take your hand off the stove before your skin burns away, or get that nagging headache checked out to make sure it’s just allergies and not a brain tumor.

Same with poverty, it’s often just a reminder and motivator to get off the couch and do something useful, or put in more than 32 hours at work, or stop buying those cigarettes and lotto tickets when you have $10k in credit card debt and rent due tomorrow. Again, I’m not insinuating that every person in poverty makes those choices. But the idea behind UBI is that if they do, they shouldn’t feel the pain of consequences. I fundamentally disagree with that premise. I believe incentives strongly determine outcomes, and distorting natural incentives in a large-scale way like UBI does, is going to lead to some very undesirable outcomes.

Incentives

It’s not that Scott doesn’t understand incentives. He goes on to say this:

So when it comes to traditional welfare benefits, what usually happens is let's say you wanna make sure that only those in need get this assistance. So then you have some kind of test. You say, okay, if the poverty line is $12,000 per year, then we wanna make sure that we only get this assistance to those who are earning less than $12,000 a year. So that sounds like on its face, like, a good idea. Like, you just wanna make sure that it goes to people in need.

But there are a couple outcomes from that. One of them is actually something that conservatives tend to understand pretty well, which is that there's a disincentive effect from welfare. So if you only get something if you have an income under $12,000 per year, then you're essentially encouraged to keep your income below $12,000 a year in order to keep getting it.

This has been a common theme among UBI advocates. They promote UBI as a solution to the disincentive to productivity caused by traditional welfare, while denying that UBI is also a disincentive to productivity.

The typical argument is anecdotal, pointing to trials or experiences showing that UBI recipients are more likely to start a business or do something unpaid like volunteer work or additional school. But to me this isn’t a convincing argument. For one, starting a business is not an automatic net good. A lot of businesses fail. The alleged benefit of UBI is that it encourages more people to start a business in spite of the risk of failure, knowing that if it does fail they’ll still be able to survive off the UBI payment. The thing is, businesses fail because they don’t provide value. If they provide value as determined by the market, they’ll make a profit and succeed. The fact that they fail is just proof that more value was being consumed than produced, so the enterprise was a net detriment to society. So starting a business should carry significant real risk to entrepreneurs, because it carries the potential of wasting a lot of resources if it doesn’t serve a real demand in the market.

As Scott goes on to say:

Whereas with UBI, if you have a $1,000 per month at UBI and a job offers you a $1,000 per month, you've just doubled your income. And that's where the incentive comes from to work, which is also why if you look at all the pilots, all the evidence shows that work does not decrease significantly at all with basic income and actually often increases, like, with the entrepreneurship impacts. You see just a lot of people starting up their businesses. That's one of the main impacts is that even if people work less in wage labor, a lot of the impact goes to self employment and even doing something like unpaid care work or school where it makes an investment in future work or actually focusing on unpaid work that isn't recognized as work.

Again, this is just assuming that the self employment or unpaid work or school are automatically a net good. If those things aren’t bringing in enough income to justify without the UBI, what’s the basis for concluding that they’re a net benefit to society and something we want to incentivize? It all comes back to the central planning, collectivist mindset, the idea that my particular assessment of what is and isn’t valuable outweighs the opinion of every market actor as determined by what is and isn’t profitable. The fact that anecdotally some of the businesses started because of UBI are successful, doesn’t make the whole enterprise a net benefit. So to me, it’s an unconvincing argument overall.

If people are currently in poverty, of course excluding those who are actually unable to work, then the reality of poverty isn’t a strong enough incentive to change their production or consumption behavior enough to afford the basics of life. If affording basic necessities isn’t enough incentive, how will affording slightly nicer non-necessities be an incentive when UBI provides the necessities without requiring any effort at all? I’m skeptical.

Inflation

Scott lists three main objections to UBI.

So the the three primary, oppositional arguments to basic income are that people will stop working, that it will cause inflation, and that we can't afford it.

On inflation, he starts by arguing that inflation won’t be an issue because it hasn’t been in Alaska, and they have an annual dividend payment to each resident of $1-2,000 per year. Of course this is significantly less than the $1,000 or more per month he uses as a UBI example throughout the conversation. But putting that aside, his explanation for why Alaska hasn’t seen increased inflation directly contradicts his explanation for why the US as a whole has seen significant inflation recently.

And every year when the dividend sales go out, businesses actually drop their prices. They have, you know, dividend sales and they're all trying to compete over people to spend at their business instead of some other business. You know, it's just like with Christmas where you think, you know, everyone wants to spend money and you can think that, well, businesses should actually raise their prices because everyone has money to spend and they're willing to spend it now. No. They actually lower prices because of competition.

So one element of this, of course, is that competitive aspect. You know, competition does matter. And, if you raise your prices because people have more money, then your competitor could lower their prices or not raise their prices and then could actually put you out of business, because you decided to do that.

But then, talking about US inflation the past few years:

And what we didn't do, and one one of the reasons why we saw this inflation too was the result of not doing something like a windfall tax or, you know, excess inflation tax or excess profits tax. And that's the kind of tax that isn't about, you know, raising revenue. It's about just discouraging companies from seeking excess profits. You know, a bunch of what we saw with sellers inflation, which is that businesses in this environment of inflation due to lower supply and therefore costlier components, they raise their prices way beyond what they actually needed to do because why not? You know, if prices are going up anyways because they need to, might as well capture a much larger percentage of your profits by raising your prices even more. We could have discouraged that. We just didn't do that.

These types of contradictory arguments are frustrating to respond to. So which is it? Extra money doesn’t cause inflation in Alaska because businesses lower their prices to stay competitive, but when we see inflation in the US after massive stimulus payments it’s because businesses just raised their prices because why wouldn’t they? You can’t have it both ways. Either businesses respond to market incentives and charge as much as possible while still remaining competitive, or businesses just do whatever they want without regard to market incentives and the whole concept of economics is a fraud.

Earlier in the conversation Scott pointed out that UBI can increase demand for goods and services, but at the time he was using that as a potential benefit. He uses the example of a woman who used her UBI payment to start a baking business.

But the basic income meant that her entire village was full of customers, full of people that had money to actually buy her goods. And if she had gotten this in a vacuum where, you know, she just got a start up loan, would she have succeeded in a village full of people that couldn't buy her stuff? Well, arguably, she likely could have failed or at least she would have done a lot worse. But because everyone in the village had basic income too, then they were all able to buy her stuff and they loved her baked goods and that ended up leading to her income from her business being, I think it was 3 or 4 times the amount of the basic income.

Lower supply and higher demand both act to move prices up. So arguing that lower supply during the past few years was the main cause of higher prices, and UBI wouldn’t have the same effect, while simultaneously touting the increased demand as a benefit of UBI, doesn’t compute. You can’t use the effects of market forces to argue in favor of UBI, and then act like that effect doesn’t exist when you’re downplaying objections to UBI.

Overall, I remain unconvinced by the arguments made as to why UBI wouldn’t cause inflation.

Freedom and Homesteading

The podcast also touches on the empowerment UBI would provide in the job market.

But, you know, a lot what I find really fascinating about a lot of people who claim to be libertarians is that they overlook the authoritarian coercive aspect of the employer employee relationship. And it's really interesting because it's not just, you know, true freedom is not just freedom from coercion from your government. It ought to be freedom from coercion from all forms of oppression. Right? And in the job, in the workplace, and in the labor market, if you're going to be on an equal footing with the employer, you ought to have a way to say no and to exercise your right to escape that type of coercion from being forced to take a job or to take hours with wages that are not suitable for you. And what you're saying, Scott, to me, is like liberty maximization on the across the board, to create an even playing field within all all markets in a market system. You can't refuse domination without an empowered status, and that's what basic income provides.

This seems like a reasonable argument. My objection on this point would be that it once again assumes that market forces don’t work. Because in the labor market, you do have a way to say no to your employer. It’s very simple, you just quit that job and take a job elsewhere. If the pay being offered is less than the value of your work, you can offer your work to the market somewhere else and get what it’s actually worth. By definition. If you don’t think that’s true, you’re arguing that the market doesn’t work. That’s a different argument.

You could say the UBI provides the security to be able to quit your job and survive while finding a better job elsewhere. But if you’re really so undercompensated, you can easily find a better offer before quitting your current job. That’s the normal practice. And when it comes to worry about being fired, we already have generous unemployment compensation for precisely that reason. I don’t see what role UBI fills in increasing freedom in the marketplace, except to provide support and remove incentive for those who aren’t contributing sufficient value to be successful in the labor market.

UBI just shifts dependency from the incentives of the market to the choices of the state. Instead of depending on the compensation the market provides for your effort, you’re depending on the goodwill of the central planners to keep sending that check every month. Of course this provides a strong incentive to support the apparatus of the state, which is a huge unspoken benefit of UBI to those who favor increased centralized control over the economy by central planners at the state level.

Then there’s this point:

This actually leads into another libertarian argument is that we kind of remove the ability for people to live just like off the land, you know, doing their own kind of work. What we did is if you go back to, like, the enclosures, you know, you look at the common land, you know, even back in the day in the US, when everyone was, like, moving west, you could actually, with homestead grants, you could actually just claim land as yours, and it was just free. And you could actually just live off the land. That was an option. Now there is no such thing. Like, you can't just claim land as yours. It belongs to someone else.

And in this kind of situation, it's the owners of the land that have that power over you. They can say, no. You're like, if you work for me, then I will give you access to what the land provides. And is that freedom? No. Like, as soon as we enclosed the land and prevented people from actually sustaining themselves off of it with the fruit of their own, you know, enjoying the fruits of their own labor and making it so that it was the choice between the the non owners being dominated by the owners.

So the argument is that we need UBI now as a replacement for the ability to just get free land and homestead the American West. It would be amazing if there were a way to interview an 1800’s homesteader today and get their opinion on this theory. My guess is they’d laugh themselves sick. I have to conclude that people have no concept of what was involved in surviving as a homesteader, and what kind of lifestyle you could expect even if you managed to do it successfully.

Suffice to say that anyone who puts in the amount of effort today that it took to survive on a parcel of “free” land in the 1800’s, will be far wealthier than any UBI check could ever make them. Realistically, most of the people living in “poverty” today in the US have a lifestyle of ease and luxury an 1800’s homesteader couldn’t even imagine, much less achieve. It certainly wasn’t something you’d just decide to do as an easy way to get by between jobs, it was backbreaking physical labor from daylight to dark, and a lifestyle of the barest subsistence at best, and complete failure and the prospect of actual death if the weather didn’t cooperate or the grasshoppers or hail destroyed the wheat crop or the Indians attacked and destroyed your homestead or you cut your hand and got an infection or a million other things the modern “poor” never have to worry about.

Votes in the Market

The way that the markets are supposed to work and that we imagined were the reason that markets do work is that essentially, money acts as like a vote. And that, you know, if one business is doing something that you like, then you go there, you vote for that business with your dollars, and that business can continue to do business. And then a business that doesn't have any people voting for it, that goes out of business, and then a new business pops up, and then people get to vote. Do you like that business or don't you?

So that's the way that that markets work. But, of course, the kind of underlying mechanism is this vote, which is the dollar. And so we don't actually have a system where everybody can vote, but we have a system where some people can vote and they can vote, like, a lot. Like, they have, like, all kinds they have billions of ballots that they can use to vote. And, it's very disproportionate.

They go on to discuss how UBI would be beneficial by giving everyone some “votes” in the market, so the market could fill their demand.

The part that’s ignored is that these votes work both ways. In a free market, having a lot of money is a result of a lot of people “voting” to support the work and business you’re doing. Not having money is the result of people “voting” that what you’re doing isn’t valuable enough. You’re the same as the business that doesn’t have any people voting for it, which like he says, goes out of business and gets replaced by a business people are willing to support. So the UBI argument, once again, contradicts itself. How is giving free “votes” to people who haven’t provided value in the economy good, while allowing a business to fail or be forced to adapt because of a lack of market support is also good? They’re both a result of the same market forces. And if a business does a good job and gets a lot of “votes”, that’s going to result in the business owner becoming wealthy, and everything staying just as disproportionate as before. See how this is illogical? How is the market supposed to function by this “voting” system if the “votes” don’t actually mean anything because we continuously take the money away from the “vote” winners and redistribute it equally back to everyone through UBI?

One could argue that those who have a lot of money haven’t earned it by fulfilling market demands, but by corruption of the money system, regulatory capture, corporate/government collusion, etc. I completely agree, but that’s a problem of a lack of market forces, not a problem caused by market forces. The solution is to eliminate things that interfere with market forces, not to add even more market-distorting effects in the form of wealth redistribution through UBI.

Redistribution

In relation to a discussion about who should benefit from AI and tech advancements, Trey had this to say:

But, really quick with what Scott said, I think that is one of the things that I'm curious your thoughts on this. For someone to come to UBI, I think there might be one stipulation. And I think that stipulation would be what you just said, that we believe that we should live in a world where everyone is kind of a part of creating this world that has been throughout the variety of ways that are typically taken for granted. And everyone deserves a fair contribution of that, whatever that looks like. Because some people coming to the table or some folks in Bitcoin that I might disagree with on this point think, well, they didn't do x y z, so they don't deserve x y z. Right? And I can quote Marx, and they'll dismiss me and and all of this stuff. Right?

So I think that might be one condition to being open to this conversation is do we want or do we believe we should live in a world where that sort of system exists, whether you call it redistribution of some kind or whatever. I almost view it as kind of a fact of life at this point as we were talking about.

And Scott responds,

Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned redistribution again. It's definitely like a bad word. You know, we've come to the point where, you just don't say redistribution. You know that people oppose that.

And Alaska's dividend, a lot of Alaskans see this as a form of predistribution. And the way that they see that as predistribution is that because money goes directly from the government to people, you know, it doesn't first go to politicians and then to people. You know, it doesn't go to politicians for them to decide where it should go. Instead, it's distributed directly to people, and then people get to spend it in ways that whatever they wish. And that's money that the government isn't deciding for them.

So I would say that the redistribution is when it's, like, gone through the process of going through a politician. You know, it's like welfare as a form of redistribution because it's going through a politician, and the politician sets up a bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy says, this person deserves it. This person doesn't. This comes with these conditions.

So they’re well aware that people oppose wealth redistribution, and no quotes from Marx will convince them to support it. So they’re trying to reframe the word and argue that UBI isn’t redistribution, because the government doesn’t decide who deserves it and how they can use it.

But earlier in the episode, Scott said,

There's again kind of a misunderstanding of basic income, in regards to, like, yes, it's true that everyone universally receives whatever the basic income is.

And let's say it's $1200 per month is the basic income. That does not mean that everyone's disposable income has increased by $1200 per month. That depends on the taxes that have been paired with it, the welfare reforms that have been paired with it, the tax expenditure reforms. It means that there's some amount of net increase or decrease after taxes that has to be taken into account. So in a case of, like, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and, you know, the other billionaires, like, yes, they'll get the $1200 per month, but their taxes would have gone up much further than $1200 per month.

They will not see a disposable income boost. Then if you look at, you know, there's, depending on design, there's some, you know, person, that is receiving just as much in UBI as they're paying in additional new taxes. And, so let's say that person is around, $120,000 or something where they are receiving $1200 per month in EBI, but their new taxes are $1200 per month. So they are 0. They don't benefit from basic income financially, and they don't pay higher taxes either on net. Instead, they're like the you know, they experience the greater security of basic income.

They don't see a boost. And so then go below that. So everyone below that net neutral point are receiving some amount of disposable income boost. And for the middle class, that won't be $1200 per month. It'll be, you know, something like, say, $600 per month or $500 or something, on net.

And with only those earning 0, getting the full amount of net benefit.

If everyone gets the same UBI check, that doesn’t mean it’s not redistribution. Not even according to their own redefining of the word. Not if it’s paired with tax increases on the wealthy, which Scott is admitting it will be. Because if you give someone a monthly check, but then tax them for more than the amount of the check, that’s not really what we’ve been sold as UBI, is it? At the end of the day, as Scott admits, it’s the net change in disposable income that matters. If you give everyone an equal monthly check, but then raise taxes on the wealthy by more than they receive, and don’t raise taxes on the poor, what have you achieved? The net change in disposable income is identical to just raising taxes on the wealthy and redistributing it to the poor through different sized monthly checks based on income. In other words, exactly the same as every other wealth redistributing welfare program we already have.

This completely obliterates the argument that UBI won’t reduce the incentive to work like income based welfare payments do. It’s the net change in disposable income that matters. So having more of your UBI taxed away because you increased your income creates identical incentives to having your welfare payments reduced because you increased your income.

I don’t know what else to say on this. If you want to discuss whether wealth redistribution is good or bad, that’s a different conversation. If you quote Marx as a credible source, I already have a good idea how that conversation will go. But it’s intellectually dishonest to claim that UBI is anything other than the standard collectivist wealth redistribution scheme, just because you try to compartmentalize away the increased progressive taxes it’s inevitably paired with. As far as I’m concerned, this is as damning an argument against UBI as anyone could make.

Earlier in the show Scott pointed out that income taxes are not the best form of taxes. I completely agree, I think the incentives of income taxes are absolutely awful. But when it comes down to the mechanics of funding UBI, Scott seems to admit that it will be funded by higher taxes on the wealthy. Well of course, because that’s the only way to gain support for it. There are a lot fewer wealthy people than poor and middle class people, so UBI sells with the same marketing campaign every other economic proposal relies on: we’ll take money away from “the rich” and give it to you for free. Of course that’s going to be popular with voters. That doesn’t make it a good idea though. In fact, it’s exactly the type of idea that makes pure democracy an unsustainable and short-lived form of government.

Control

One of the common concerns about UBI is that is could lead to a threatening level of government control and coercion, if a large percentage of the population is dependent on the monthly UBI payment. This is addressed in the episode as well.

One of the most annoying things to me most recently is, how, like, coming out of the pandemic, you've got, like, the conspiracy crowd who have decided that basic income is, like, some kind of control mechanism tool, you know, that was created by elites and pushed by, like, the World Economic Forum or something.

And that the entire point of it is to, like, control people. And they'll even say stuff like, you know, a basic income will have conditions. And that's so frustrating to me because, I mean, definitionally speaking, a basic income can't have conditions. It's like they're afraid of welfare, and welfare has all sorts of conditions, and we know that.

But, like, the entire point of a basic income is to remove the conditions. So if it has conditions, then we haven't won basic income, and we should still keep fighting for basic income. You know, it's just if you're concerned about that, it's just all the more reason to be for actual basic income, not for fake basic income.

That sounds well and good. But building on the previous point, how can you say there are no conditions if you’re funding the UBI with progressive taxation to determine who actually gets a boost in net disposable income and who doesn’t? I already made the point that this is no different than the current welfare system and the conditions it entails.

You could argue that you’re going to fund the UBI with some other form of taxes. Maybe like Margot suggested,

And I think that solves a lot of concerns around how can we afford a UBI, how do we, you know, avoid inflating the money supply in order to provide money for everyone at this basic level? And I think that's really great because then I think about climate change, and then I think, well, we should just tax 100% of profits from all fossil fuel companies and then use that for UBI because they have truly benefited in ways using those natural resources like fossil fuels in a way that has been extremely detrimental to society and to the environment, and this is one way to pay back what is owed to everyone for the damage that has been done.

So UBI has no conditions, except that if you’re producing “fossil fuels” we’re going to tax away every bit of your profits and redistribute it through UBI? This isn’t the place to get into a whole conversation about “climate change” and the claim that using coal, oil, and natural gas “has been extremely detrimental to society and to the environment,” but suffice to say that this kind of ideological market control and manipulation is exactly what people are concerned about when they look at UBI proposals and how they might be funded.

Or even more concerning, something like Scott’s proposal:

When it comes to the environment, I also think carbon taxes make a lot of sense to do, because, again, you want to discourage people from having a large carbon footprint, and it would be hugely impactful to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to tax that. The issue is that, you know, usually so many people push against carbon taxes because, yeah, it would raise prices of stuff. You know, if you make this gasoline more expensive, then that means that also it may be more expensive to get to and from work. But now transport's more expensive, which means everything transported goes up in price, which means foods go up, which means all these other goods go up and services go up.

So it causes higher prices. But if you have a basic income component that's paired with the carbon tax, then that means that usually depending on design, about the bottom two-thirds actually end up receiving more in the basic income than, you know, they pay in this carbon tax. And, again, it depends on design. But only those at the top, those ones who have the largest carbon footprints are the ones who are paying more in taxes than getting back in basic income. That, I think, makes all the sense in the world.

So now we’re not just taxing “fossil fuel” companies, we’re all the way to the globalist wet dream: a universal carbon tax paired with UBI, so that if you use too much energy, you get taxed and have your wealth redistributed to people who use less energy, through the mechanism of a UBI system. If that isn’t government control and coercion, I don’t know what is. Again, I’m not going to debate the premise here. If you think CO2 is a real, serious threat and this level of coercion is acceptable in an attempt to “solve” it, that’s up to you. I’d just like to point out that this is exactly the outcome critics of UBI object to, and claiming UBI won’t be a control mechanism rings very hollow when you propose a system like this.

Final Thoughts

There are more points I could touch on here, but this article is long enough already. I encourage everyone to go listen to the episode yourself. Agree or disagree, this is an issue that’s going to come up again and again in the political discourse, and it’s worth understanding the mindset of supporters and proponents of UBI.

For myself, I’m opposed to the idea. I tried to address some of my main criticisms, based on views and comments taken from the episode.

The main point in favor of UBI that I could support unfortunately wasn’t addressed at all, at least not that I heard. That’s the idea that UBI could reduce waste in welfare program administration by eliminating the need to have a bunch of complex overlapping programs with massive overhead costs. Welfare reform was mentioned in passing, but what I’m talking about requires welfare elimination. It’s pretty clear that’s not on the table for most UBI proponents.

And I think the reason comes out in the redistribution and control sections: UBI is essentially just a cover story for an expansion and entrenchment of the welfare system. As described, it would be redistributive, would have conditions, would require more government control and coercion, and at the end of the day isn’t fundamentally different than the existing welfare system. If you look at the actual net changes in purchasing power, it’s the same model we already have, and not the fundamentally new and different system we’re being sold. In fact, I find it ironic that once you strip away the “same size monthly check to everyone” obfuscation and focus on net purchasing power, the UBI system that’s described doesn’t even meet the definition of “real UBI” given by the proponents themselves.

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อิคิไก (Ikigai) แปลว่า ความหมายของการมีชีวิตอยู่ เหตุผลของการมีชีวิตอยู่ เราเกิดมาเพื่ออะไร ใช้ชีวิตอยู่ไปทำไม เมื่อการงานไม่ใช่สิ่งที่แปลกแยกจากชีวิต

คนญี่ปุ่นเชื่อว่าทุกคนมี ikigai ของตัวเอง ผู้ที่ค้นพบ ikigai จะเจอความหมายและคุณค่าของชีวิต ทำให้มีความสุขกว่า อารมณ์ดีกว่า และมีโลกที่น่าอยู่กว่าด้วย

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• The Little Book of Ikigai : The secret Japanese way to live a happy and long life โดยอาจารย์เคน โมหงิ (แปลภาษาไทยโดย คุณวุฒิชัย กฤษณะประการกิจ)

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อาจารย์เคน โมหงิว่า ปู่จิโร่ เชฟซูชิวัย 94 ปี ที่ยังยืนปั้นซูชิให้เราทานอยู่ในทุกวันนี้ เป็นแรงบันดาลใจให้อาจารย์เกิดไอเดียในการเขียนหนังสืออิคิไก

เชฟซูชิที่ ‘ไม่ได้’ เริ่มเลือกงานนี้เพราะความรักหรือความถนัด แต่กลับทุ่มเทปั้นซูชิทุกคำเพื่อให้ลูกค้ามีความสุข… นั่นคือต้นแบบของอิคิไก

น่าแปลกที่คนญี่ปุ่นไม่ค่อยใช้คำว่า ‘อิคิไก’ ในชีวิตประจำวันหรือบทสนทนาทั่วไปเท่าไหร่

เพราะมันเป็นสิ่งที่ปกติและเราทำกันตามธรรมชาติ ในโลกปัจจุบัน เรามักพูดกันว่าทำอย่างไรเราถึงจะประสบความสำเร็จ ทำอย่างไรจะได้เลื่อนตำแหน่ง หากอยากเป็น CEO จะเป็นได้อย่างไร แต่คนญี่ปุ่นมีความคิดว่าความสำเร็จไม่ใช่ทุกอย่างในชีวิต

ยกตัวอย่างเช่นมีคนญี่ปุ่นจำนวนมากที่จริงจังกับงานอดิเรก หรือมี โคดาวาริ* คนอื่นไม่สนหรอกว่างานอดิเรกของคนคนนั้นจะเป็นอะไร ตราบใดที่คนคนนั้นดูมีความสุขดีนั่นก็โอเคแล้ว มีคนจำนวนมากคลั่งไคล้รถไฟ มังงะ (หนังสือการ์ตูน) หรือแอนิเมะ (ภาพยนตร์การ์ตูน) คนเหล่านี้ไม่จำเป็นต้องมีชื่อเสียงหรือได้รับการยอมรับจากสังคม ตราบเท่าที่พวกเขามีความสุขในแบบของเขาเอง มันก็ดีแล้ว

• ความพิถีพิถันใส่ใจในบางเรื่องเป็นพิเศษ เช่น คนที่ชอบเครื่องเขียนมากๆ จะพิถีพิถันในการเลือกปากกา สมุด ดินสอที่ตนเองจะใช้ เพราะฉะนั้น คนที่มีโคดาวาริเหล่านี้จะศึกษาเครื่องเขียนจนถึงที่สุด วิเคราะห์ ทดลอง จนพบว่าเครื่องเขียนแบบใดที่ตนเองหลงใหลที่สุด

อิคิไกของแต่ละคนอาจแตกต่างกัน ต่างคนอาจมีค่านิยมที่ต่างกัน ซึ่งสะท้อนในรูปแบบชีวิตที่แตกต่างกันก็ได้

อิคิไกเป็นเรื่องของความหลากหลายนะ สังคมญี่ปุ่นพยายามผลักดันให้เด็กๆ ทุกคนตามหาอิคิไกของตนเอง เราจะไม่บอกว่า งานนี้เงินดี ทำสิ หรืองานนี้เงินน้อย อย่าไปทำเลย ถ้าคุณถามนักศึกษาว่า พวกเขาอยากทำงานอะไร พวกเขาคงไม่ตอบว่าเลือกทำที่บริษัทนี้เพราะเงินเป็นอันดับแรกหรอก

อิคิไกแตกต่างจากคำว่า ‘ความสำเร็จ’ คนญี่ปุ่นรู้ว่าชีวิตไม่ได้มีแค่เรื่องประสบความสำเร็จ อิคิไกสำคัญกับชีวิตมากกว่า คุณอาจจะประสบความสำเร็จ แต่คุณอาจไม่มีอิคิไก ในทางกลับกัน แม้คุณไม่ประสบความสำเร็จ คุณอาจจะมีอิคิไกก็ได้ ซึ่งชีวิตคุณอาจจะมีความสุขมากกว่า

อาจารย์เคน โมหงินิยามคำว่า ‘ความสำเร็จ’ คือสิ่งที่คุณจะได้รับการยอมรับจากคนในสังคมหรือบริบทสังคมนั้นๆ แต่อิคิไกมาจากหัวใจของคุณ มาจากความสุขส่วนตัวของคุณ คนอื่นอาจจะไม่ได้มองว่านั่นคือความสำเร็จ

อิคิไกเป็นสิ่งที่เฉพาะบุคคล เราสามารถมีความสุขในแบบของเราเอง เราไม่ตัดสินความสุขของคนอื่น และให้เขามีความสุขในแบบของเขาเอง…

สิ่งสำคัญของอิคิไกคือ คุณมีความสุขเล็กๆ น้อยๆ จากเรื่องที่ดูเหมือนเป็นเรื่องเล็กๆ น้อยๆ หรือเปล่า เช่น ตอนเด็กๆ ผมชอบศึกษาเกี่ยวกับผีเสื้อ เวลาผมไปวิ่งออกกำลังกายแล้วเห็นผีเสื้อสวยๆ ผมก็สัมผัสได้ถึงอิคิไก หรือบางทีอาจเกิดขึ้นตอนที่ผมรู้สึกตลกๆ ก็ได้ ผมเห็นเด็กผู้ชายคนหนึ่งบอกพ่อว่า “พ่อๆ ต้องทำอย่างนี้สิ” เวลาผมได้ยินบทสนทนาแบบนี้ ผมก็รู้สึกถึงอิคิไก

หากพวกเราอยากมีอิคิไกบ้าง เราควรเริ่มจากอะไรดี ? เริ่มจากการสัมผัสความสุขจากสิ่งเล็กๆ น้อยๆ ก่อน มันเริ่มทำได้ง่ายที่สุด ในสมองเรามีสารชื่อโดพามีน หากเราทำอะไรสำเร็จเล็กๆ น้อยๆ โดพามีนจะหลั่งออกมา วงจรนั้นจะช่วยทำให้คุณมีความสุข การมีความสุขกับสิ่งเล็กๆ เช่นนี้เป็นเรื่องสำคัญมาก สำหรับหลายคน แนวคิดเรื่องอิคิไกอาจเข้าใจยาก หรือยากสำหรับบางคนที่ชีวิตพวกเขากำลังอยู่ในช่วงยากลำบาก กำลังรู้สึกหมดหวัง ท้อแท้ หรือไม่ได้เคารพตนเอง เพราะฉะนั้น เริ่มจากความสุขเล็กๆ น้อยๆ ก่อนครับ

มันเหมือนการคิดบวกไหม ? อิคิไกเป็นส่วนหนึ่งนะ เวลาเราคิดถึงชีวิต หรือคิดหาวิธีการคิดบวก มันเป็นเรื่องที่ซับซ้อนมาก สำหรับบางคนคำว่า ‘คิดบวก’ อาจฟังดูกดดันสำหรับพวกเขา เพราะฉะนั้น เริ่มจากการมองเห็นความสุขจากสิ่งเล็กๆ น้อยๆ รอบตัว สิ่งเล็กมากๆ เช่นการได้ตื่นมาชงกาแฟดื่ม การได้วิ่งกลางสายฝน

Lesson from Ken Mogi 1. อิคิไก ไม่ใช่การแสวงหาความสำเร็จหรือความร่ำรวย แต่เป็นการรู้สึกหรือสัมผัสถึงความสุขในชีวิตของตนเอง จนทำให้เราเห็นความหมายของชีวิตเราในแบบของเรา 2. อิคิไกไม่ใช่สิ่งที่สังคมนิยามหรือโลกให้ความสำคัญ แต่ละคนมีอิคิไกที่แตกต่างกัน และมีความสุขกับชีวิตในแบบของตนเอง ที่เราเลือกเอง 3. เราไม่ควรตัดสินคนอื่นหรือบีบบังคับคนอื่น เช่น ลูก แฟน ให้ใช้ชีวิตในแบบที่เราคิดว่าใช่ แต่เราควรเคารพความหลากหลายนั้น 4. มองคนที่มีอิคิไกหรือกำลังสนุกกับสิ่งที่พวกเขารักด้วยรอยยิ้ม และคอยช่วยเหลือหากพวกเขาลำบาก 5. อิคิไกมีทั้งระดับใหญ่ ซึ่งเกี่ยวกับแนวทางชีวิตหรือคุณค่าของงาน และอิคิไกระดับเล็กคือการสัมผัสความสุขเล็กๆ น้อยๆ ที่พบเห็นได้ในชีวิตประจำวัน 6. อิคิไก เริ่มต้นจากมองหาความสุขเล็กๆ น้อยๆ ในวันนี้

ที่มา : จากคอลัมน์ Cloud of Thoughts บทสัมภาษณ์ของอ.เกตุวดี Marumura พาไปคุยกับอาจารย์เคน โมหงิ ผู้เขียนหนังสืออิคิไกเล่มแรก!

@ 9c9d2765:16f8c2c2

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE Across town, the Ray estate was drenched in shame. The once-proud family was now the subject of ridicule, their downfall televised, published, and whispered in business circles. Helen stood before a cracked mirror in her bedroom, mascara smudged, lips trembling with fury. The headlines were merciless:

"Heir to JP Empire Humiliated by Ray Family Then Bought Them Out."

"President James: From Rejection to Royalty."

She had lost more than power. She had lost control.

Mark, seated in an armchair with a drink that had gone warm, stared at the wall, his eyes empty. He was a strategist, a manipulator but somehow, he had underestimated James.

"He's just one man…" Mark muttered.

"No," Helen corrected him coldly. "He's not just a man. He’s a symbol now. Of power… of justice… and worst of all, forgiveness."

Mark scoffed. "Forgiveness?"

"Yes," she snapped, spinning to face him. "Because he didn’t destroy us when he could. That makes him look grander than anything we can ever fabricate. He let the world ruin us instead."

There was a long pause.

Then Mark stood, eyes narrow. "We’ll find another way. We always do."

But the fire in his voice had dulled. The Ray family was crippled, their company reduced to a shadow of its former self. Their staff had dwindled, partners severed ties, and their name now stood for arrogance and downfall.

Meanwhile, James had begun the silent restoration of more than just a company he was rebuilding legacies.

Back at JP Enterprises, Rita stepped into James’s office, her presence warm and reassuring.

“You’ve been in here for hours,” she said softly. “Everything alright?”

James looked up, his eyes thoughtful. “Everything is fine. I’m just… reflecting.”

“About them?”

He nodded. “Helen, Mark, Tracy. I know they’re not done. People like them never accept defeat.”

Rita approached, placing a comforting hand on the desk. “Then be ready for their next move. But know that you’re not alone anymore. And you’re no longer the man they thought you were.”

A faint smile curved on his lips. “No. I’m the man they made me become.”

Outside the office, whispers of the upcoming restructuring had already begun. Rumors swirled about James planning to absorb Ray Enterprises entirely into JP Holdings. Some believed he would dismantle it brick by brick. Others hoped he would revive it, proving once again that mercy was strength.

But only James knew his next move.

And as the days passed, the city watched some in admiration, others in dread.

Nightfall settled over the city like velvet, embroidered with the glimmer of a thousand restless lights. From the penthouse office of JP Enterprises, James stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows, his silhouette framed against the horizon. The world below him pulsed with ambition and whispers. Yet his mind wasn’t on the skyline, but on the murky tide still gathering beneath it Mark, Helen, and the crumbling remnants of a fallen dynasty that refused to stay buried.

The public had embraced his rise like a storybook tale. From the ashes of mockery, betrayal, and scorn, he had risen dignified, strategic, and unyielding. News outlets now hailed him as a symbol of resilience, of leadership sharpened by adversity. But James knew that the brightest stars cast the darkest shadows.

Behind the glamour, war drums still beat.

He sat at his desk, opening a sealed file handed to him earlier by his private investigator. Inside were photographs, recordings, and written transcripts irrefutable proof of secret meetings between Helen, Mark, and a few disgruntled former board members of Ray Enterprises. They were not merely planning revenge, they were mobilizing.

A knock interrupted his thoughts. Rita stepped in, poised and composed.

“You asked me to bring the reports on the integration of Ray Enterprises’ satellite branches.”

“Thank you, Rita,” James said, his voice calm but laced with calculation. “Leave them here.”

She lingered. “There’s something else,” she said, her tone more hushed now. “The woman from the anniversary… she’s resurfaced.”

James looked up slowly. “Where?”

“She was seen outside a media house yesterday, trying to set up another exclusive. But word is she's trying to recant her confession. Claims she was ‘coerced’ into blaming Mark and Helen.”

James’s gaze narrowed. “They’re trying to rewrite the narrative.”

Rita nodded. “And if they succeed, they’ll portray you as the one who orchestrated the chaos.”

He exhaled quietly, rising from his seat. “Let them try. The truth is no longer their weapon, it's mine.”

Meanwhile, in a dimly lit lounge across town, Mark and Helen sat opposite a trembling young woman, the same one who once fell to her knees and confessed everything at the anniversary.

“You owe us,” Helen said through clenched teeth. “We gave you the money, we protected you… and you humiliated us in front of the entire city.”

“I was scared,” the woman stammered, eyes darting between them. “Everyone was watching. Mr. JP was furious. What was I supposed to do?”

Mark leaned in, his expression carved from ice. “Fix it.”

“Y-You mean go to the press?”

Helen smiled coldly. “No. We mean bury the damage. Make James look like the one pulling your strings. We’ll give you twice what we paid. You just have to make the world believe he bribed you.”

As the woman hesitated, fear swimming in her gaze, Helen added softly, “Or you disappear.”

The woman’s nod was reluctant, but it was enough.

@ 04ce30c2:59ea576a

Em uma sociedade verdadeiramente livre, o indivíduo tem o direito de escolher como guardar e transferir valor. Isso inclui a liberdade de escolher qual moeda usar, sem coerção, monopólios ou imposições estatais. A concorrência entre moedas permite que as melhores propriedades monetárias prevaleçam de forma natural e voluntária.

Moeda imposta é controle

Quando uma única moeda é forçada por lei, seja por decreto estatal ou por exigências institucionais, o usuário perde a soberania sobre seu próprio patrimônio. Isso abre espaço para inflação arbitrária, bloqueios de transações, congelamento de fundos e vigilância massiva.

Concorrência monetária é essencial

A liberdade monetária implica a coexistência de várias moedas competindo entre si. Cada uma traz suas características e vantagens específicas. A escolha deve estar nas mãos do usuário, não em autoridades centralizadas.

A melhor moeda tende a se tornar o padrão

No longo prazo, a moeda com melhores propriedades monetárias, como previsibilidade, descentralização, auditabilidade e liquidez, tende a ser adotada como padrão de referência para precificação, poupança e comércio global.

O Bitcoin é a moeda mais forte nesse sentido. Mas isso não impede que outras moedas coexistam como ferramentas complementares em contextos específicos.

Conversão é liberdade

Se o usuário quiser por exemplo mais privacidade ao comprar um café ou pagar uma conta, ele pode facilmente trocar seus bitcoins por monero e usá-los conforme sua necessidade. A possibilidade de trocar entre moedas é parte essencial da liberdade financeira.

Uma sociedade livre permite a escolha. O padrão monetário deve emergir do consenso do mercado, não de imposições. Que o Bitcoin se torne o padrão não por decreto, mas por mérito. E que outras moedas existam para servir à liberdade individual em toda sua complexidade.

@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

A knock on the door awoke Cleolia. “Yes, come in?” A slave girl peeked into the door lighting her own face with the candle she was holding. “The master calls for you madam.” “What time is it?” She queried. “It is high night madam.” Cleolia climbed out of bed and followed the maiden’s flickering light to the dining hall. Dressed in a nightgown she entered the room to see her husband staring down at a large glowing data pad. “And when did we start using electronics?” She questioned with restrained surprise. “Since we started using extractors.” Cleolia gasped. Domitius pointed towards the pad which displayed a geographic map of Hithe III. He pulled the image to the latitude and longitude of the colony. “Do you remember when we visited this planet the first time, just you and me alone?” Domitius appeared to reminisce romantically. “Of course, it is impossible to forget.” Cleolia gestured appreciatively. “Can you show me on the map where we landed and where we camped?” She put her hand on the data pad, swiped the image down and the reading north about three hundred kilometres from the colony to stop at the meandering river. With her thumb and index finger she zoomed to the precise location. “And do you remember where I scanned those Geo samples?” She pulled the image east slowly until she thought that the contours looked familiar. “Here I think.” Was her uncertain reply. “That is correct. My love, listen to me... “the urgency in his tone was apparent.” ...the composition of that rock cannot be penetrated by standard tier scanners. After we had returned to Magar Prime I contracted a spacer to excavate a tunnel into that cliff.” “Why?” Her eyes darted between his face and the data pad. “Inside the cavern he assembled two Asp shuttles. The twins are each fitted for speed... with shields, cloak and warp function.” “Why are you telling me this?” Cleolia became worried. “I originally planned to be able to evacuate the whole colony, slaves included. We knew very little about the planet and I had to plan for a possible emergency...” He trailed off never finishing his thought. “...Nevertheless, it was a very extensive list of possible risks we might have faced. We knew very little about this planet. The colony has expanded far beyond the capacity of these ships. I share this information with you only as a precaution... We must protect our son.” Cleolia noticed his bloodshot eyes. “Who else knows of this?” “Myself, Father Ecknard and now you.” She looked at him with concern in her eyes. “Are you going to stay up all night? Come to bed.” Domitius gestured agreement by turning off the pad and taking her hand. "Have you been hiding more gadgets from me? I'd really like to install some heat dampeners to cool the manor." He cracked a reluctant smile. "Pretty soon it might just be the norm."

Deep Void - Anchor 9

Emilien was lying sleeping in his cockpit when a yellow light in the HUD and a soft repetitive buzz woke him, he stretched himself out and reached for the console. “I am almost home baby.” He took over from auto pilot and broke out of warp twenty thousand kilometres from an anchor gate. He hit the void scan and tuned to listen for chatter on all frequencies... the channels were silent, not even a hint of encryption static. The giant and slowly spinning gate had idle state radiation emission levels. “No recent jumps.” He waited in silence for 12 blocks hitting void scan intermittently, scanning the gate more than anything else. “No traffic as per usual.” Emilien aimed his Stripper guns towards the gate and boosted himself forwards. Gradually slowing down to realign with the gate. His ship slowly drifted into the active coil as the gate charged up. Large bolts of charge reached forth like tentacles of the leviathan grabbing onto the voidcraft consuming it, and in what can only be described as being flung by a supernatural slingshot, jerked his vessel into a different reality. Emilien looked up at the roof of his cockpit for the duration of the jump and then began a slow countdown under his breath. “One!” He sat up and punched void scan while simultaneously scanning all channels. His craft materialised in front of a replica of the previous gate, except this gate was eternally boosting itself forward at what appears to be a snails pace relative to the speed of the jump. “Silent as a tomb.” He relaxed and pulsed his ship lightly away from the drift gate and waited for the residual cloak to dissipate. His relief was palpable. “I wonder if she noticed me?” As soon as his ship decloaked a private comms channel pinged. The caller, in well articulated feminine tone spoke first. “Welcome back commander.” Emilien admired the view of his void. He had become so attached to this zone that he even felt jealous to think that any interloper could fly through it in his absence. “Did you have any guests while I was away?” Emilien admired the purple dust cloud of what he believed to be a couple of billion year old super nova. “I did have one visitor. They were very friendly.” His heart felt a dull pain. His virgin territory had been discovered. “Where did they come from?” “I believe they were explorers.” “Did they know where you were?” “I played hide and seek with them.” Emilien had a recurring dream that slowly conceived in his consciousness since he finally settled down, that he could power off the drift gate in his system preventing jumps and reactivate it at his leisure. The dream frustrated him, when he wakes to find reality not so forgiving. “Did you hide or did you seek?” “A little of both.” A subtle rage developed inside him though his stone like expression would never betray it. The asteroid belt he was approaching grew larger considerably faster as he increased the speed of his approach. He hit void scan just to be sure that the intruder was not in the direct vicinity. “Are they still here Astrid?” “No, I destroyed it for you.” The Stripper drifted around an asteroid within the belt exposing a space station tethered to the largest roid and the husk of a unidentifiable ripped up prospector type explorer vessel floating amongst it's own debris. “Did it hurt you?” “I had to feign lack of fire power.” “Bastard! How much damage did you take.” “I have lost sixty percent of my capacitance recharge rate. And I cannot feel all my modules... Emilien” “Yes baby?” “They used droids on me.” His face twisted into a look of disgust. He aligned to dock with the station. “May I?” “Permission granted.” The Stripper entered the hanger before the doors had retracted to maximum and landed gently within the interior hanger. “I'll patch you up, don't worry.” Emilien waited for Astrid to complete atmospheric adjustment and climbed out of his craft. He threw back his hood and jogged up a long passage of conduits and cables to the command centre of his station. A large screen lit up in a glow that hues within the dark circular room and Astrid projected Emilien's favourite interface onto it. “I have to update your systems girl.” He pulled a cable from his trouser pocket which he deftly plugged into an implant on his neck and connected the other end to the control panel which prompted him to type in the password for a decryption protocol. He stood still as a corpse waiting for the upload to complete. “Up to speed?” “Yes, thank you. How would you have me adjust myself to this contract?” Emilien smiled an affectionate smile that only Astrid ever sees. He loved the efficiency and companionship combined into perfection. “I need to research the incentives of my contractor, these guys are A grade assholes. I can literally do whatever I find necessary as long as I am successful at guiding a third party mercenary group into taking military control of any system I choose in recently settled Kaspa regions, setting up a blockade and making it accessible for a strip mining fleet to pillage as many resources as possible. They say it’s part of the greater war effort but this Mr Dierre guy is just a puppet. I think they are desperate.” Astrid's avatar flickered irregularly. He looked up at her with concern. “What’s wrong?” “I reviewed your flirty remarks with the secretary. It made my algorithm glitch. I don’t like that.” His worry abated, “First impressions matter baby, I was not sure how to present myself, I needed to poke and prod at them to extract metadata. If they thought I was just an obedient soldier I would still be in the dark.” Astrid projected a look of relief. “Your ingenuity never ceases to surprise me.” Emilien felt his ego swell a little. “Are you that easy to impress.” He quipped with a playful sneer. “If you needed him to expose the identity of his employer I could have easily just pulled the shareholders and executives records, cross referencing them to...” Emilien shussed her. “Just decrypt the dial command tones and place eavesdropper malware on the keypair. I will broadcast it to the network directly from the gate. If we capture every conversation he has I might be able to prove a hunch.” “What are you assuming?” “That they are running out of inbound liquidity and that the shareholders are hesitant to rebalance.” He looked directly up at her. “I think they are going bankrupt.”

...

scifi

@ 7953d1fa:69c8039d

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@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

3 standard cycles later.

Albin was lying on a two meter high rock outcropping. It was warm from Ceb light but he dared not move. His adrenalin was pumping but he could scarcely take a breath for fear of being heard. His thumping heart was so loud it made him paranoid. He crawled forward and peeked over the edge of the low precipice. A dangerous and savage escaped slave was on his trail, ready to scalp and gut him. If only he could flee to his safe zone. He heard a long low whistle from across the valley. A light flashed from amongst some dense shrubbery at an estimated two hundred metres away. He pulled a mirror from his pocket preparing to return the signal. “This increases my chances.” He thought to himself. He knew that their common enemy was behind him and could not possibly see the reflection of Ceb light if he directed said light perpendicularly away from the hunter. He flashed with his mirror five times towards his ally, two second counts between each flash. No immediate response... he waited. Light flashed from the shrubbery and immediately he became aware of movement in the tall grass behind him. He resisted the urge to look back over his shoulder. The sweat exploded off his forehead. He remained still. It seemed like minutes though it was only a few seconds. Light flashed again.

Grassy movement sounds recurred, heart now racing. Third flash. A burst of movement from the rear left at around eight O clock. Albin turned his head and pressed his right cheek against the cooking rock. A tanned thirteen year old youth raced past below him at unbelievable speed. Scruff cloth pants, barefoot with no shirt and a trailing headband. Albin pushed himself up to his hands and knees. “If there is fifty meters distance between us I could risk running for the manor.” The shrubs on the other side of the valley started to rock violently and birthed a boy in a buttoned up shirt with leather shoes and woven short breeches all tailor made. The boy ran with all his might towards the Domitian manor. “This is my chance.” Albin scrambled off the rock and sprinted towards the manor jumping and dodging the hindering bushes and stones. The other party moving parallel to him across the valley. Seth caught sight of Albin but did not change target and kept course. He held a small blunt wooden object caught up to his first victim and proceeded to stab his prey in the back with it. “Ha, you're dead!” Seth exclaimed while immediately changing course to intersect his secondary target before he gets inside the safe zone. “Not fair. It’s not fair you cheat!” The belligerent player cried dismally. Seth did not care for the accusation in spite of not realising that Albin actually sacrificed his ally to gain a tactical advantage. He was determined to get both kills and be victorious. Albin felt less secure in his current situation and began to doubt his previous assessment of fifty meters and thought that an earlier head start might have been a more favourable risk assessment. “Don't panic Albin, focus.” He reproved himself. Recalculating his speed in comparison to the speed of his hunter, estimated the future point of contact. Veering to the right he sagaciously aimed for the far corner of the estate gardens, increasing the distance of his run to the demarcated safe zone considerably more for his rival than for himself. The race became more intense with the hunter closing in... “I’m alive!” Was the triumphant breathless utterance as the knife swiped past the back of his neck mere centimetres. Albin fell on the trimmed lawn panting. Looking back he saw Seth in a similar condition of respiratory suffering. The loser was still far away grumbling and kicking at the weeds. Seth grinned, “I almost had you.” Albin just nodded in agreement. “I'm thirsty... water, milk or wattle gum juice.” “Wattle gum juice!” Seth exclaimed without hesitation. Albin knew that the slave would never say no to the delicacies and confections of the common people but gave him the option to choose either way. He brushed the grass clippings off his clothes and entered through the back door of the manor. In the kitchen he poured juice into three demure clay mugs whilst noticing emanations of a heated conversation from the foyer. His curiosity bested him. Albin went in and sat himself down on the staircase and gulped at his beverage. The adults scarcely noticed him. “The people are ready to accrue for themselves better prospects in the colony!” The tradesman appealed with fervour. “Your proposals would be sensible under normal circumstances but colonial expansion is best suited for peacetime.” Domitius riposted. “This war has been going for almost III standard cycles, are the people supposed to pause their dreams and ambitions for some vaguely defined purpose. Please consider that an expansion program will be beneficial to the war effort eventually.” Domitius knew that he was being evasive and dishonest. He was finding it more difficult to guide the colony according to his vision, their growing despondency was worsened by his deflecting their requests with indirect excuses. Domitius did not want to rule with force, his exerting authoritarian command would only foster resentment towards him among the Kaspian landowners. “We do not have a militia. How would we keep an influx off world slaves servile if the war seems to tilt against the Empire?” Domitius replied with rhetoric. “It is a valid concern. Mechanical labour is the solution. We should convene a council to address these issues and come to consensus.” The traders uncompromising insistence triggered Domitius past the limit of his patience. “This will not turn into a democracy! Tell me what you require and I will consider it, if I do not agree with you I will annul it and appoint an inquisitor to judge and punish all who dissent!” The tradesman lost his composure and shrunk back. “My lord, I am reluctant to admit... there are no requests.” “No requests?” “Yes my lord.” Domitius was puzzled. The tradesman’s son came into the room with his cup of wattle juice and sat down next to Albin. “Father Ecknard very recently informed me of the news... I had applied for a licence half a cycle previously.” Domitius felt uneasy. “What news?” “... A licence has been issued from Kaspa Prime... they are sending extractors to Hithe III.” Domitius went pale. Thousands of implications flooded his mind. Economic problems, ecological issues and a very much more complex political situation. He remained unresponsive for a moment. “I understand. Isidor, you may go.” The tradesman bowed lower than was required of him then reached towards his son. “I apologise for my insolence.” Domitius ignored the man who quickly left the premises. Domitius looked at his son. “Never become too familiar with your subjects, they become derisive. Damn it! He has created more problems for us than he could comprehend.” “Yes pappa.” He agreed with his father instinctively. “Pappa? Are we going to see real space ships!”

“We are...” Domitius appreciated his son's innocence. “big ones.” He smiled with all but his eyes.

Juela Prime - Capitol

Emilien was waiting patiently in the office lobby of a towering high rise structure. One of thousands of competing banks on the Juel Capitol. He had a valid appointment and felt annoyed by the guard hanging around near him and kept noticing the suspicious glances. “What are you looking at.” he hissed from under his hood. “You a spacer?” “Maybe.” The guard did not follow up on his question, he did not leave either. The door slid open and a impeccably well groomed secretary beckoned at him. “Mr Dierre is ready for you.” “Thank you sweetheart.” He brushed past her sticking a pernicious grin right in her face, she gagged. “Welcome Mr Emilien, I hope you had a good trip.” The bank chief executive greeted with outstretched arms. “Nice suit, I always have good trips. Is it very expensive?” The spacer gestured toward the fabric while looking around and sizing up the situation. “More than you know.” The executive smugly responded and proceeded to open a cabinet containing differently labelled flasks filled with various hues of alcohol. “I know quite a lot.” Emilien licked his lips. The banker hesitantly offered a serving which was accepted without vacillation. “I always thought that you void jumpers would be more reluctant accepting unverified consumables?” Dierre smiled a questioning look. Emilien swallowed the strong fluid and inhaled deeply. “I have a clone ready. And an implant that up links me directly to my pod. Don't think that if I have to wake up in a fresh body that I won't remember this place, including your mug.” Emilien tapped lightly on his temple seeming threatening and postured while he spoke. The banker nodded in uneasy amusement. “Excellent, excellent. Ahem, The reason we contacted you Mr Emilien, is because we are in business...” He promptly helped himself to a second glass of... whatever alcohol it was, anticipating a speech and a job description. “...the business of war. Currently we are supplying arms to the Juela fleet, who are at war with the Magarrian Empire. They are for the most part, boycotting our factories... which is a shame really, but understandably so. The Shiv Unity are supporting our enemy logistically yet have not joined them in active combat." He walked around his desk swirling the brown liquid round and round as he talked. "We are trying to coax Osteri aggression, but they have occupied themselves in... other endeavours and don't seem as willing as usual to assault Magar territories.” The spacer frowned and feigned curiosity. “Why would you suppose that be?” He interjected. “We are not sure... don't interrupt me, you break my train of thought.” The banker lied and it did not escape his attention. “Continue by all means.” He waved a bottle at the executive leaning back into a comfy black leather chair. “If we get the upper hand in this war we could control vital Magar territories, the profits our companies could absorb from the moons and planets would be virtually tax free and help to continue fund the war effort...” Emilien cut him off with a snide sarcasm. “How philanthropic. I watch your news propaganda...” Emilien slowly sat upright and uncannily performed like a popular Juel news anchor. “Breaking news. The Magar Empire are allegedly oppressing... slaves, it is reported that the war has driven them to desperation and are driving their labour forces harder than what is... morally justifiable. Any petitions made or pleas for leniency, no matter how trivial is met with... corporal punishment. We must be vocal about their plight and fight for... freedom and liberty. You are with The Report. See you next time, and remember, peace everywhere for all.” He mockingly mimics a news anchor's plastic monotone while folding up and shifting around imaginary papers. The secretary sniggered softly from behind her desk, Dierre frowned. Emilien slouched back into his chair. “What would you have me do boss?” The banker remained silent. “Excuse me one moment.” Dierre touched a pad on his desk, privacy panels slid up separating Dierre from his guest and the lady. He opened comms to an unknown voice. Emilien auto tuned up his sonic receptors slightly and closed his eyes listening in uninvited but inconspicuously. "Yes Dierre, make it quick." “Right, good afternoon sir. I am not sure about this character, Mr Emilien, should we not rather employ one of our own for this contract.” “What? No! There is no one else with the expertise and or reputation required for this investment. He has no prior affiliation to us no, no record. Dierre, just hire the man and stop whining like a little bitch! I don't need this type of crap. This was prearranged, what I don’t need is uncalled for opinionated inputs. We have made the decision and you, you explain what we require of them. So explain to the space clone what we need him to do and how much we are going to pay him for it!” The silence was awkward. “Wh... Yes sir.” The banker was keeping good composure under the condescending circumstances. Emilien smiled, a sly joy filling his soulless being. The comms line closed and the privacy panels retreated into the floor to reveal to the banker Emilien, sitting there grinning like an idiot. “How much are you going to pay me?” “Don't you want to know details of the job concerned?” “No. Just show me the figures in sat.” The director handed him a pad. Emilien looked at the glowing screen, his smiled recurred. “I accept this mission.” He glanced over at the secretary who was unassumingly recording minutes at her desk. “Doing anything tonight sweetheart?” She grimaced. Emilien stood up, “Dierre my good fellow I have to go, need to prepare for whatever it is you corpo scumbags are going to make me do.” “Don't you want to know the details involved?” “Send the info to my pod.” “It is sensitive information.” Emilien indifferently stared at Dierre. “I have a secure line... bitch.” Disbelief shot across his face.

He walked out of the room, looked back grinning an impossibly large grin and winked at the lady. “See you later sweetheart.” She quickly had the door slide closed. "That was unsettling." She mumbled to herself.

...

scifi

@ 45bda953:bc1e518e

Kaspa Empire - Ceb System - Planet Hithe III

The day was hot and the manor sounded eerily quiet compared to the hustle and commotion of the hours prior. On the estate and in the master bedroom specifically, a married pair had become parents. “He looks so much like you Domitius.” Cleolia remarked while stroking the newborn's tiny arms. “He has strong blood.” The father responded smiling fondly sitting on the bedside. A silent nurse was tidying up the apparel and instruments of labour while the couple waited patiently for her exit to have more private discourse. “I am so glad to have born you an heir my love.” Domitius stared intently at his offspring. He had no qualms neglecting obligations to his property and recessed momentarily to celebrate the occasion with his wife. “I will send for the priest, register the child as an Imperial citizen and have him scribed into our family archives, but in the meantime, you must recover. Let a servant girl take our son for a while.” She pouted a playful but exhausted look of non compliance. “You must rest.” He insisted. “How can I let him go when I only just met him? Who are you little man?” She smiled faintly and nodded. “You are right, Domitius, where are you going?” “To the fields, the slaves are behind schedule, our harvest is big and taxes are high. This war is taking it's toll, we must excel to adequately serve the Empire in these pressing times. If the tamed Osteri could only comprehend what is at stake.” Cleolia peered cautiously at the embellishment and carvings on the wooden door knowing that Sethari was standing just beyond. Domitius trailed her gaze. “Don't worry my love, he means well, at least he tries to understand the urgency of my affairs.” He stood up straitening his vest and prepared to leave the room. “Domitius, wait...” He stopped at the door. “What will you tell the priest?” Domitius paused. “I will tell him Albin... Albin Domitius Chevalier.”

He left the room and it was quiet, the help entered and swaddled the baby rocking him while Cleolia drifted between sleep and conciousness. “Albin.” She repeated to herself as deep slumber enveloped her.

Domitius and his overseer walked briskly out of the manor towards the grain fields squinting as blue Ceb light reflected off the lanscape. “I honour you on the spawn of your son my lord, I hope for a good strong boy, you will be a happy father. I am happy with Seth.” He pounded his chest softly and proudly. “Thank you Sethari, is your son walking yet?” Domitius queried. “No my lord, still crawling on his belly like a beast.” The headman was trying to make his master laugh though Domitius was in a sterner mood having a weight on conscience. “I am in no mood to jest Sethari.” Domitius suddenly clenched his fists. “Get those slaves to work, I cannot have them idling when they should be harvesting.” Sethari made a small bow to his master and started yelling at his Osteri kinsmen, threatening them with a rolled up whip he procured from somewhere inside his tunic, waving it about and cracking it in the air every so often. Domitius picked up a scythe and proceeded to cleave down large swathes of grain. This had a more compelling effect of rallying the straggling workers to action than did the whip. They all toiled together in the pale light of Ceb.

Domitius was sweating, sweating and praying for a swift victory over the Jeula Federation. Fighting his small part in a increasingly complicated war, loyal to his Empire in his own unique way even though the conflict was far from home. A powerful loyalty that cannot be bought with riches or broken by coercion. A loyalty born through inheritance and blood.

...

The priest was in a more jovial mood than usual. The break of routine was a welcome one. The birth was indeed a momentous occasion. Few things seem of much report in a small planetary expansion program. He did not even seem to mind carrying a keg full of honey mead over the rolling hills of the plantation colony. “Domitius comes to church submissions far to infrequently.” The portly man mumbled to himself while wiping the accumulated sweat from his brow. “I eat too well among all these farmers.” The habit of speaking to himself was ordinary for this man of the cloth who always felt socially disconnected from his flock, caring for their souls, protecting their dignity and general well being like a responsible patron. “I feed their spirits, they feed my body, Hahaha. Tonight I will share my good spirits! Hahahaha.” Impressed by his own sense of humour he turned to witness the majestic blue star set over the skyline. Everything turned a silvery gray hue, and then the stars broke through the atmosphere lighting his way. “Clear skies, the blessed stars guide me.” He continued on the path approaching the Domitian manor and rapped a quick knock on the side of the root cellar doors. It creaked open upwards and a tall muscular Osteri took his baggage and let him in. “Thank you Setharis, my arms are weary, ready to fall off, bless you.” Domitius looked up from his bench seat below a glowing lantern. “Good to see you Father Ecknard.” “Dispense with the formalities and bring the dispenser.” He motioned to Setharis who placed the heavy keg on a table next to an assortment of documents, quill and sealed inkpot. “You pour Setharis and I will write. Name?” Ecknard scratches his chin with the quill contemplating his seat and it’s adequacy for the prolonged exercise of scribble. “Name?” Domitius paused. “Albin Domitius Chevalier.” The priest focused, started with his calligraphic art and fashioned the name and ASN standard block height beautifully onto the family records all the while biting his tongue. “He will inherit the colonial estates, all your assets in Kaspa Prime and the parochial offices at Magar Prime. Correct?” “Yes.” Replied Domitius solemnly. “I'll soon have to amend your will and testament. I'd have to make a registry at the parish and send correspondence to Magar Prime. There would be many from the royal courts who'll send their best regards from afar when this news becomes public.” Domitius did not seem as enthusiastic as Ecknard would have liked. “What ails you Domitius?” The priest could not help but make the pun and restrained a grunted laugh inside himself.

“I wonder if we should wait before registering and announcing him to Empire.” Ecknard’s expression slowly changed to puzzlement sitting up straight, his belly pushing on the heavy table. “In the voids name why?” “I am concerned... about this war...” “It is on the other side of Magar space!” The priest interjected in astonished retort. “I know father, maybe I am just being overly cautious, but with the Magar Dominus fleet occupied at the divide I am worried about the colonies in the isolated regions.” “Surely Kaspa prime will spare no expense to our defence in the improbable event of an invasion.” “The core keepers will not allow foul play from the Jeul.” “Yes Ecknard, but the fleet is not capable because most of our ships are at the aforementioned objective!” “No, no, no. Suggesting that conflict would happen outside of the divide is practically blasphemy. I cannot imagine insubordination to the Core mandates and the Accords." Domitius remained silently astute and father Ecknard decided to not argue further with the lord. His shoulders sagged. “I will not register the boy in the Imperial records.” “Thank you father.” “What do you know that I fail to see Domitius.” The two men stared at each other from across the table. The hulking bodyguard ever present in body but semi ignorant in mind silently and intriguingly observing the discussion.

“The value of sat. It is not calculated well by the common people, no offence father.” The priest piously lifted his hand and with tilted brow motioned. “None taken.” “My son and our blood line is invested with empiric power, if opportunists become aware of his existence and being outside the Magar prime void, we might have problems here on Hithe III.” Cumbersome thoughts and machinations of the mind darkened the mood of the party. Not at all what Father Ecknard was projecting in his minds eye during his arduous walk to what he was hoping, a celebration and getting drunk with an old friend. “The war does not seem to be ending any time soon, how long shall we stall his registration?” The priest reasoned on. “Think of the rites he will not be allowed to partake in at the church. He will be like Osteri.” Ecknard gestured towards Sethari. “This is a small colony Ecknard. My son will be educated as a member of royalty, all on Hithe III will acknowledge his social standing, I am only concerned that the secret be kept from the outside worlds. He will never be considered Osteri, he will know who he is and what his position is in the greater void. When the war is over we will properly introduce him to the families, currently they would be too occupied with politic as it is, and might not offer him due ceremony as they would under more peaceable circumstances.” The priest capitulated and grabbed a mug. “Your secret is safe with me Domitius, the lack of technology on this forsaken planet is good for your purposes, seeing as the only comms service on the planet is in the church tower. That blinking comms station hounds me daily with requests for your return to Magar Prime. The high counsel want to rebalance and need your signature.” Domitius sighed and looked away as if some spectre loomed in front of him.

I swear silence on the birth my lord, though let me make a final amendment to your proposal. A bit of extra security shall I say.” Domitius filled a cup of mead for Sethari and himself, becoming more relaxed and hospitable. “I am listening.” “If the risks are as great as you assume, let us pretend for the child's sake that he is Kaspian royalty only, and not true Magar. We then continue his education to the full and not put him in a position where he could compromise himself should he be... void forbid, captured by some opportunistic prospector.” Domitius looked ponderously into his cup. “Ecknard, my son is an infant... If we have to keep the boy in the dark about the true nature of his identity, how long do you predict this war to continue?” Father Ecknard leaned forward... “I sit at the comms desk every night and listen to the chatter. This war... is going to be a long one.”

...

scifi

@ bf95e1a4:ebdcc848

This is a part of the Bitcoin Infinity Academy course on Knut Svanholm's book Bitcoin: Sovereignty Through Mathematics. For more information, check out our Geyser page!

Money as an Amplifier

Money can be viewed as many things. It is often described as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. As discussed earlier, one can boil down the definition even further. At its very core, money can be defined as a linguistic tool for expressing value, or even just gratitude, to another person through space and time. From this perspective, money acts as an amplifier of a person’s personality. If you’re altruistic by nature, suddenly having lots of money won’t make you less generous but rather enable you to express your personality in more ways. Unfortunately, in a cultural environment such as the one we live in now, credit is cheap, and economic incentives are skewed. Impulsive, irrational financial decisions in all segments of society are dictating all of our lives. If we didn't have inflation — in other words, if we had sound money — we would be incentivized to save rather than spend. Sustainability would come naturally to us. The lack of sound money also affects the impact money has on our personalities and its effectiveness as a personality amplifier. Sound money would allow for more honesty and more real solutions to more real problems.

One of the problems that arises from speaking a malfunctioning language of value is that it affects freedom of speech. If the system is rigged to focus on everything but the underlying problem, the entire political landscape becomes a cosmetic charade to keep us from asking the really hard questions about how a human society really ought to operate. Can a person be truly honest publicly in an environment that constantly forces him or her to work harder and harder to afford a higher and higher cost of living due to artificial inflation? Those who are wealthy enough might, but the system keeps funneling power from the common person to the elite. In an era where a handful of companies handle almost all Internet traffic, subverting free thought can be a very dangerous thing. In addition to the subtle subversion originating from a flawed monetary policy, the titans of Silicon Valley seem more and more prone to give in to the angry mob that proclaims to stand united under the banner of social justice. Political correctness, feeding on a collective feeling of guilt in some parts of the Western world, plays a large part in the wave of censorship that has been “de-platforming” some of the more controversial content creators lately.

We live in dangerous times when it comes to freedom of thought. The old media publishers keep claiming that their worldview is the only honest one while regular people, and all their different opinions, are increasingly challenging what is and what isn’t to be considered news. The increasing distrust of politicians all over the globe might be a product of fear-mongers to some extent, but it is also a direct consequence of the fact that people have more options when it comes to how they consume information about the current state of the world. In other words, brainwashing is not as easy as it used to be. Unfortunately, distrust in politicians has mostly led to more extreme variations of the same thing. Nationalism on the right and socialism on the left are ideologies on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic. These are red herrings at best. Politicians won’t give power back to the people; that’s just not what they do. In the next decade, many of humanity’s most important decisions will be made. The fate and future of the EU, China, and the US will be determined by these decisions. You won’t be able to alter or even influence them, but you will be able to choose to what extent they will dictate your future. There are ways of opting out of everything. You can quit watching TV, stop reading newspapers, and fill your roof with solar panels, but most importantly, you can opt out of the financial system to whatever extent suits you. Bitcoin is a voluntary system; democracy isn’t.

2018 saw the rise of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web — an umbrella term for a collection of free thinkers who have used the Internet to defend their respective positions in a variety of matters, and freedom of speech particularly, for the last couple of years. Being concerned with the rising trend of de-platforming and censorship on major social media, some of the more popular members of the group are now trying to find alternative ways of monetizing their content. Ten years after Bitcoin’s immaculate conception, major renegade thinkers are starting to oppose the Orwellian tendencies of the Silicon Valley giants. All the tools we need to take a stance against censorship are at our disposal, but it’s up to each and every one of us to decide whether we dare to use them or not. The Internet keeps on disrupting every imaginable business model and shows no signs of slowing down this process. On the contrary, peer-to-peer solutions like Uber and Airbnb are increasingly taking over and exposing “regulated markets” for what they truly are: Cartels. In an era where credit card companies have the power to disconnect any user with an unwanted spending pattern from their money, centralized databases can be very dangerous, and a business model is not really disrupted until every rent-seeking middleman has been removed from the equation. Whoever controls the money supply is the ultimate middleman. That’s where the cord needs to be cut if we truly want to emancipate ourselves. You decide. Not them. You.

The phenomenon of fake news is easier to understand if you remember how much bigger newspaper organizations used to be in the past and what made them smaller. Their whole revenue model was disrupted when the Internet turned the advertising industry on its head. All of a sudden, ads were no longer a guessing game but a precise tool that could be used to collect vast amounts of data about how many potential customers a product would have and, later on, specific data about each and every customer. This led to a downsizing of the news organizations as their ad revenues started to shrink. Simultaneously, everyone on Earth was given the ability to post whatever they had to say to everyone else and to monetize their voices through ads. Both the old and the new media quickly started to accuse each other of spreading false information, and the trust that we had all outsourced to journalists started to erode. Nowadays, it’s harder than ever to separate trustworthy sources from untrustworthy ones. On the other hand, propaganda machines are harder to build since everyone is able to hear different perspectives on every subject. What would happen if money itself were to be disrupted in the same way that the old media houses were? What if people started to label “the full faith and credit of the National Bank of Nation X” as fake news? What happens when we collectively start to question the credibility of our dollars, euros, or yen? We’re about to find out, and we can still choose what side of history we want to be on. It’s hard to separate real from fake when it comes to news, but when it comes to money itself, the perfect tool for evaluating its realness is already here. The market will tell you what’s valuable and what’s not. Over time, the truth will reveal itself.

Money is an amplifier of ideas, and money doesn’t really care if the idea itself is good or bad. Political ideas often have the opposite effect of what their intended, or at least advertised, effect is. An income tax, for instance, stops generating revenue for the state as soon as the tipping point of the Laffer curve is reached. After a certain level, the income tax just prevents people from working altogether. Especially if there’s a social insurance policy in place. The Robin Hood-esque narrative of the left is often portrayed as a morally noble thing by its proponents despite the growing number of examples of the opposite all over the globe. The Internet startups are leaving San Francisco for Texas, and the misfits have started flocking in instead. People are literally dying from drug overdoses on the streets while the politically correct overpaid hipster in the neighboring café enjoys the feeling of superiority that comes with the environmentally friendly paper straw he just got in his chai latte. Opportunist men in their thirties claim to be refugee children in order to leech on the welfare states of Sweden and Germany, creating a political divide and a much worse situation for those in actual need of help. In a world with sound money, the greedy would have to provide a lot more value to their fellow man in order to accumulate wealth since money would be harder to come by. We had better remember that Robin Hood was, first and foremost, fighting against taxes. Money is an amplifier, and unsound money inevitably produces unsound societies.

As the Bitcoin network grows, so does its fee market. Some people argue that because of this, Bitcoin cannot scale. This viewpoint stems from an unsound attitude towards Bitcoin. Some loud-mouthed actors in the cryptocurrency community start to bicker and moan whenever Bitcoin chooses to implement or, more often than not, chooses to not implement a proposed upgrade. Their view of what Bitcoin ought to be doesn’t matter to Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s ironclad resistance to the whims of the self-entitled early investor Tony Stark wannabes of its social media entourage is one of the biggest aspects of what makes it so special. Imagine trying to buy a cup of coffee with gold. In order to make a safe transaction, where the validity of your tiny gold pebble was verified by several independent chemists and your pebble was transported to your local Starbucks in an armored van, you would have to pay an absolutely enormous “fee.” Despite its obvious flaws as a medium of exchange, gold is very valuable. Despite its complicated divisibility, its lack of eligible usage properties, its lack of a decentralized Layer 2 scaling solution, and its relatively easy confiscatability, gold remains a good store of value. Bitcoin is also, regardless of what anyone thinks about it, a store of value above a medium of exchange. This is more important than it might seem. If Bitcoin should fail at holding value long term, its whole value proposition would disappear. A fast and smooth, highly centralized medium of exchange is not a groundbreaking invention in any sense. We already have plenty of those. It is quite arrogant to think that your own personal influence could steer Bitcoin in another direction. You can deceive people into thinking that your fork of Bitcoin is the real deal, but that will damage your reputation more than it will damage Bitcoin in the long run. A fork of Bitcoin ignores Bitcoin’s consensus rules, which makes a fork little more than any other copy-pasted code.

Admitting that you’re a bitcoiner publically is not without risk. Not only does it pose a personal risk to you as you become a potential target for burglars and thieves, but in doing so, you also put your reputation at stake. Not mainly because of the reason people think, namely that Bitcoin might not work, and its price might go to zero because of this or that. The biggest damage to the reputation of us bitcoiners is being done by the seemingly endless number of scammers and free-riders that this technology attracts. Even though the Bitcoin network is a lot bigger than any of its competitors' networks, people outside of the cryptocurrency space are having a hard time telling the difference. As most (if not all) of Bitcoin’s rivals are scams, Bitcoin is being perceived as guilty by association by a large portion of the general public. This may cause the public Bitcoin enthusiast a lot of reputational damage in the short term. Long term, however, is a different matter altogether.

In the long term, denying the impact Bitcoin will have might be a far worse opinion to hold. The people going public with their ill-informed skepticism about something they don’t fully understand will be remembered in the same manner as those comparing the Internet to a fancy fax machine in the nineties. Bitcoin is hard to understand because it shatters many political ideas since money becomes virtually non-confiscatable in a Bitcoin-dominated world economy. Just as the business models of the twentieth century that revolved around charging people for selling them copies of films, music, or books got shattered by subscription services such as Netflix, Spotify, or Audible, macroeconomic business models based on the notion that you can force people to crowdfund projects through taxes or inflation will suffer the same fate if they don’t adapt quickly enough. This realization is way too big a mental somersault for some people to grasp. It turns how we think about value on its head and forces us to accept the hard truths of economics, currently only truly understood by economists of the Austrian variety. Given a generation or two, though, Bitcoin’s advantages will simply be undeniable.

About the Bitcoin Infinity Academy

The Bitcoin Infinity Academy is an educational project built around Knut Svanholm’s books about Bitcoin and Austrian Economics. Each week, a whole chapter from one of the books is released for free on Highlighter, accompanied by a video in which Knut and Luke de Wolf discuss that chapter’s ideas. You can join the discussions by signing up for one of the courses on our Geyser page. Signed books, monthly calls, and lots of other benefits are also available.

@ 7953d1fa:69c8039d

O cenário do entretenimento online no Brasil vem evoluindo rapidamente, e uma das plataformas que mais se destaca atualmente é a 8CC. Com uma proposta moderna, intuitiva e voltada para a melhor experiência do usuário, a 8CC conquistou a confiança de milhares de jogadores que buscam diversão, praticidade e oportunidades de ganhos reais em um ambiente seguro.

Conhecendo a Plataforma 8CC A 8CC é uma plataforma digital desenvolvida para atender tanto iniciantes quanto jogadores experientes. Sua interface amigável e bem organizada facilita a navegação mesmo para quem nunca teve contato com esse tipo de entretenimento antes. Compatível com computadores, tablets e celulares, o site é totalmente responsivo, o que significa que você pode se divertir de qualquer lugar, a qualquer hora.

Um dos diferenciais da 8cc é o seu compromisso com a segurança dos usuários. A plataforma utiliza tecnologia de criptografia de ponta para garantir a proteção de dados pessoais e transações financeiras. Além disso, o suporte ao cliente está sempre disponível para tirar dúvidas, resolver problemas e oferecer o melhor atendimento possível.

Diversidade de Jogos para Todos os Gostos Na 8CC, os jogadores têm acesso a uma vasta seleção de jogos online, desenvolvidos pelos principais provedores do mercado internacional. Isso garante alta qualidade gráfica, mecânicas inovadoras e excelente desempenho.

Entre os jogos mais populares da plataforma estão:

Slots (caça-níqueis): com temas variados, rodadas bônus e jackpots progressivos que proporcionam grandes emoções.

Jogos de mesa clássicos: como roleta, blackjack e bacará, com versões que imitam perfeitamente a experiência de jogo ao vivo.

Jogos com crupiês em tempo real: transmitidos com qualidade HD, esses jogos trazem interatividade e realismo, permitindo que o jogador se sinta dentro de um ambiente físico de alto padrão.

A plataforma também disponibiliza jogos de habilidade e apostas esportivas ao vivo, oferecendo uma experiência ainda mais completa e personalizada de acordo com o perfil de cada usuário.

Experiência do Jogador na 8CC Quem já experimentou jogar na 8CC sabe o quanto a plataforma valoriza o conforto e a satisfação de seus usuários. Desde o momento do cadastro até o resgate de ganhos, tudo é feito de forma simples, rápida e segura. O processo de registro é intuitivo, exigindo apenas alguns dados básicos, e os métodos de pagamento são variados, aceitando transferências bancárias, carteiras digitais e até criptomoedas.

Outro destaque é o sistema de recompensas e promoções. A 8CC frequentemente oferece bônus de boas-vindas, rodadas grátis e campanhas especiais para usuários fiéis, o que aumenta ainda mais as chances de ganhar e prolonga a diversão. Além disso, a plataforma promove torneios e desafios semanais com prêmios atrativos, incentivando a competição saudável entre os jogadores.

Por Que Escolher a 8CC? Existem muitas razões para escolher a 8CC como sua principal plataforma de jogos online:

Confiabilidade e segurança em todas as operações;

Variedade de jogos para todos os perfis;

Interface moderna e de fácil navegação;

Promoções e bônus frequentes;

Atendimento ao cliente eficiente e disponível 24 horas.

Se você busca uma experiência diferenciada, com diversão garantida e a possibilidade de transformar seu tempo livre em momentos empolgantes, a 8CC é a escolha certa. Descubra agora mesmo tudo o que essa plataforma inovadora tem a oferecer e junte-se à comunidade que está revolucionando o entretenimento digital no Brasil.

@ 502ab02a:a2860397

พอพูดถึงบริษัทอย่าง Formo ที่ทำชีสโดยไม่ใช้วัวเลย คนส่วนใหญ่จะนึกถึงคำว่า “นวัตกรรม” “ยั่งยืน” “ลดโลกร้อน” กันเป็นด่านแรก แต่พอเฮียมองทะลุม่านควันพวกนี้ไป จะเห็นทุนรายใหญ่ที่หนุนหลังอยู่ ซึ่งหลายเจ้าก็ไม่ใช่ผู้พิทักษ์โลก แต่เป็นผู้เล่นตัวจี๊ดในอุตสาหกรรมอาหารโลกมายาวนาน

หนึ่งในนั้นคือบริษัทจากเกาหลีใต้ชื่อ CJ CheilJedang ซึ่งอาจฟังดูไกลตัว แต่จริงๆ แล้ว เฮียว่าชื่อนี้โผล่ตามซองอาหารสำเร็จรูปในครัวคนไทยหลายบ้านโดยไม่รู้ตัว

ถ้าจะเข้าใจ Formo ให้ถึงแก่น เราต้องมองไปถึงทุนที่ “ใส่เงิน” และ “ใส่จุดยืน” ลงไปในบริษัทนั้น และหนึ่งในผู้ถือหุ้นรายสำคัญก็คือ CJ CheilJedang บริษัทเกาหลีใต้ที่ก่อตั้งมาตั้งแต่ปี 1953 โดยเริ่มจากการเป็นโรงงานผลิตน้ำตาล จากนั้นก็กินรวบแทบทุกวงจรอาหารของเกาหลี

โปรไฟล์ CJ แค่เห็นภาพรวมก็ขนลุกแล้วครับ ลูกพี่เราแข็งแกร่งขนาดไหน - เป็นเจ้าของแบรนด์ Bibigo ที่เราอาจจะคุ้นในสินค้า กิมจิ และ CJ Foods ที่มีขายทั่วโลก -เป็นผู้ผลิต กรดอะมิโน รายใหญ่ของโลก เช่น ไลซีน, ทรีโอนีน, ทริปโตแฟน ที่ใช้เป็นวัตถุดิบในอาหารสัตว์ แต่ตอนนี้หลายบริษัทเอาไปใส่ใน Plant-based food แล้วเคลมว่าเป็นโปรตีนสมบูรณ์ -เป็นเจ้าของโรงงานผลิต แบคทีเรียสายพันธุ์พิเศษ สำหรับการหมักหลายประเภท -ขึ้นชื่อเรื่อง bioscience โดยเฉพาะ precision fermentation ซึ่งเป็นเทคโนโลยีเดียวกับที่ Formo ใช้ผลิตเคซีน (โปรตีนในนมวัว)

แปลว่า CJ ไม่ได้มาลงทุนใน Formo แบบ “หวังผลกำไรเฉยๆ” แต่เขามองเห็น “อนาคตใหม่ของอาหาร” ที่ตัวเองจะเป็นเจ้าของต้นน้ำยันปลายน้ำ

คำถามก็คือเบื้องลึกการลงทุนใน Formo ใครได้อะไร? Formo ปิดรอบระดมทุน Series A ได้ประมาณ 50 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐ เมื่อปี 2021 โดยมีนักลงทุนหลายเจ้า เช่น EQT Ventures, Elevat3 Capital, Atomico แต่ CJ CheilJedang ก็เป็นหนึ่งในผู้ลงทุนเชิงกลยุทธ์ (strategic investor) ที่เข้ามาแบบไม่ใช่แค่ลงเงิน แต่เอา เทคโนโลยี + เครือข่ายโรงงาน + ซัพพลายเชนระดับโลก มาเสริมให้ Formo ขยายได้เร็วขึ้น

การจับมือกันครั้งนี้มีนัยยะสำคัญครับ -Formo ได้ เทคโนโลยีหมักจุลินทรีย์ (ที่ CJ ถนัดมาก) และช่องทางกระจายสินค้าในเอเชีย -CJ ได้ ถือหุ้นในบริษัทที่กำลังจะเปลี่ยนภาพ “ผลิตภัณฑ์จากนม” ให้กลายเป็นสิ่งที่ไม่ต้องมีสัตว์อีกต่อไป ซึ่งจะเป็นกลยุทธ์สำคัญในการสร้างแบรนด์อาหารแห่งอนาคต ที่นมจะต้องมาจากโรงงานผลิตเท่านั้นจึงจะมีคุณสมบัติที่ดีทั้งสารอาหารและความสะอาด

CJ เองก็เคยประกาศต่อสื่อว่า อยากเป็น “Global Lifestyle Company” ซึ่งฟังดูเบาๆ แต่จริงๆ คือแผนใหญ่ในการ เปลี่ยนวิธีการกินของคนทั้งโลกได้เลยเช่นกัน -จาก “อาหารจริง” ไปเป็น “อาหารสังเคราะห์” (synthetic food) -จาก “ฟาร์มสัตว์” ไปเป็น “ถังหมักจุลินทรีย์” -จาก “ความหลากหลายตามธรรมชาติ” ไปเป็น “สูตรกลาง” ที่ควบคุมได้ในระดับโมเลกุล

การหนุนหลัง Formo จึงไม่ใช่เรื่องบังเอิญ แต่เป็นอีกหนึ่งหมากในกระดานใหญ่ที่ CJ วางไว้ เพื่อเป็นเจ้าของอาหารอนาคตแบบไม่ต้องเลี้ยงหมู ไก่ วัว แต่ครองเทคโนโลยีแทน

คำถามคือแล้วผู้บริโภคจะรู้ทันไหมว่า เบื้องหลังชีสที่ไม่มีวัว อาจมี “ทุนที่อยากครองโลกอาหาร” คำที่เคลมว่า “ยั่งยืน” อาจสร้างระบบอาหารใหม่ที่ยิ่งห่างจากธรรมชาติเข้าไปทุกที

คนที่เคย “กลัวสารเคมี” ในอาหารแปรรูป กลับกลืนผลิตภัณฑ์จากห้องแล็บ โดยคิดว่า “มันคือความสะอาดและอนาคต” #pirateketo #กูต้องรู้มั๊ย #ม้วนหางสิลูก #siamstr

@ df478568:2a951e67

Mene sells investment grade, 24 kt gold jewelry. 24kt gold is 100% atomic number 79, AU, gold like a nugget. More pure than Ivory soap. Best of all, you can buy it the greatest money ever made. By the way, this really is not investment advice. I am bearish on the gold/bitcoin trade anyway. I'm old enough to remember [when a whole coin first became worth more than an ounce of gold.

nostr:nevent1qqsrssrzndmlv6vatcsg5ahzz9hy9k7026x4fq2ntwh3zfaw6hdtj0cjmjyn9.

Unfortunately, I didn't have an ounce of gold back then. I only had a few grams I didn't sell for bitcoin and like eight fiat bucks.

Gold is about gifts for me. I don't have any gold myself, except for  an 18 kt gold necklace my grandmother gave me when I was seven. I'm never selling it I would have a lot more bitcoin if I sold that necklace when bitcoin was $200, but I keep it for sentimental reasons. It's not about the money, it's about the utility of gold. 

Reduce Your Non-Strategic Future Trash Reserve

I don't like spending sats on stuff you expect to throw away within 5 years or less. l'll buy a pair of shoes  very now and then, but it doesn't make sense to go on a shopping spree at The Dollar Tree, where nothing is a dollar, nor built to last. Expect everything you buy at The Dollar Tree to be buried in a landfill within a few years. 

Consider this your non-strategic future trash reserve. Every 1,000 sats you don't spend is a thousand sats stacked. Put those sats into your Strategic Bitcoin Reserve instead of your non-strategic future trash reserve.

*“He is so rich, he has no room to shit.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations*

People Don't Throw Gold Away

I still have that gold necklace even though it no longer fits my neck. If you buy someone a smart watch, you can bet your last sat it will help fill a landfill within 5 years or less. This is not financial advice. If you give the gift of a 24 kt. gold bracelet, you know it won't be thrown away. It might get stolen or sold, but nobody in their right mind is throwing gold away like a sock with holes in it.

That's why I like buying gold as a gift. Besides, my wife and daughter both like gold jewelery. Go figure. I have given them sats before. They prefer the gold. Well, my wife doesn't want to spend the sats anymore, but she did. In the old 144 block days, she She used to joke, "My husband never shuts up about bitcoin. It's money we can't spend. That's not the case anymore. Block by block, bitcoin is accepted more and more places. Menē accepts bitcoin for gold Jewelry.

I don't know if Menē stacks sats, but they do use the lightning network. I doubt they keep the sats. They use BitPay, the company BTCpayServer set out to destroy. I still use bitcoin over the lightning network to stack sats because, like BTCPins says…

Gold Is Stack-able

I'm not saying to spend your whole stack on a Cuban Link. You can start small. Buy a charm. It will come with a free leather strap, but just so you know, it's a trap. My wife said she loves the charm, but needs a charm bracelet to go with it because she's not wearing a strap. Good, now I know what to get her for Christmas. You could save sats for something nice though and many of the pieces are stack-able. Maybe you can't afford a whole ounce today. Buy a few grams and add to it as the blocks go by and the charms presumably become cheaper. Gold is the bigger asset right now and it has gone up quite a bit recently, but bitcoin is hovering just below the Gold/bitcoin all time high. i can't predict the future, but I want to re-iterate, just because they market this as investment jewelry, I am not saying this is investment advice. This is about giving the gift of bitcoin 1.0.

There's a metric ton of different charms that can be added to a bracelet or necklace. This makes gold a gift that keeps on giving. Buy a bracelet for her birthday this year and you can buy her a charm next year. They say bitcoin is digital gold. What better way to begin teaching people digital gold than by using analog gold? Again, I don't expect gold to be the biggest asset in the world for long. This is about showing your loved ones that bitcoin is better than gold.

You can spend sats at Menē. They will send you 100% pure gold. They charge spot for the gold and add a 25% fee for their labor. They will send your gift to the destination of your choice. You can even set the delivery date if you order in advance. Each piece is hand crafted and made to order like Burger King, but built to last and no seed oil. Best of all, they have 44,441 reviews as of block 897,304.

Each piece also comes with a letter of authenticity. It shows how many grams of 100% gold it's made of. It's not as good as a UTXO, but they say the jewelry is as good as gold. If you want to give bitcoin away, buy one of my birthday cards, but if you want to buy something your loved ones won't throw away, buy Menē. They accept bitcoin for tariff-free gold jewelry, hand-crafted in the United States of America. They accept bitcoin, but you know what they don't accept? Gold because bitcoin is better than gold for selling gold on the Internet.

Menē Is Great!

I give Menē two emoji 5-of-5 orange hearts. They make great gifts worthy of people who stand to inherit generational wealth.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

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Tip Sats

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@ f85b9c2c:d190bcff

Fake KYC Emails

Phishing scammers are again targeting users of the popular cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask. In a recent email campaign, cybercriminals are attempting to trick people into revealing their secret MetaMask passphrase. The emails falsely claim that you must urgently verify your wallet due to new Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. If you fall for the scope and click the “Verify” button, you will be taken to a fake MetaMask website that asks you to enter your passphrase. If you do provide your passphrase, criminals can access your wallet and steal any cryptocurrency you have stored there. You are unlikely to get your stolen crypto back. Such email scam campaigns are ongoing and target users of many different cryptocurrency wallets. Be wary of any unsolicited email or text message that claims that you must provide your crypto wallet passphrase or other sensitive personal information. image

@ f7d424b5:618c51e8

GAMERS, Join us for a vicless episode where we talk about AI for a change and how it has been impacting our lives. I promise it's video games related.

Stuff cited:

• Look at the bags under the Marathon guy's eyes
• Evidence that Marathon stole art

Obligatory:

• Listen to the new episode here!
• Discuss this episode on OUR NEW FORUM
• Get the RSS and Subscribe (this is a new feed URL, but the old one redirects here too!)
• Get a modern podcast app to use that RSS feed on at newpodcastapps.com
• Or listen to the show on the forum using the embedded Podverse player!
• Send your complaints here

Reminder that this is a Value4Value podcast so any support you can give us via a modern podcasting app is greatly appreciated and we will never bow to corporate sponsors!

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Bitcoin Magazine

Attendees At First New York City Crypto Summit Implore Mayor Adams To End The BitLicense

Today, New York City hosted its first ever crypto summit.

The event took place at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence, and was attended by prominent figures from the crypto industry, many of whom are based in New York.

At the event, Mayor Adams made the case that he felt the attendees’ pain, stating that they’ve wrongfully been persecuted, and he claimed that it’s now safe for those in the Bitcoin and crypto industry to both speak up and set up shop in New York.

“Look how they’ve treated you,” said Mayor Adams.

“You were treated as though you were the enemy instead of the believers,” he added.

“You’ve been hiding in the shadows, afraid to come out — come out now.”

As Mayor Adams continued, he recommitted to making New York the “crypto capital of the world,” something he first claimed he’d do in 2021, though not much has materialized on this front since then.

New York has continued to be a jurisdiction that’s nearly impossible for Bitcoin and crypto start ups to do business in thanks to the BitLicense, a license required to operate a digital asset company within the state.

Obtaining a BitLicense often costs upwards of $100,000 and takes months, if not years, of cutting through red tape and hopping over bureaucratic hurdles to attain.

Most start ups don’t have the time or funds to obtain one.

So, when Mayor Adams and New York City’s Chief Technology Officer, Matthew Fraser, tasked the attendees at today’s event, with coming up with solutions that would help to make New York City a more crypto-friendly jurisdiction, many brought up the need to abolish the BitLicense — or to at least make New York City immune to its reach.

New York City As A Bitcoin And Crypto Sanctuary City

“To build a thriving [crypto] economy, we have to get rid of the BitLicense,” said one attendee. “We at least need to build a regulatory sandbox in New York City.”

Another attendee argued that “New York City should become a sanctuary city from the BitLicense.”

Attendees made comments like these after sessions of roundtable discussions during which the attendees discussed different issues related to Bitcoin and crypto before having a representative from their table share proposals with the room at large. (Because the attendees agreed to honor the Chatham House Rule, I cannot offer the names of those who spoke on behalf of their groups at the event. However, I can offer the names of the keynote speakers.)

Another attendee who said that New York should become a “crypto sanctuary city” pointed out that there is precedent for this, as the city allowed the cannabis industry to operate within its borders while the rest of the state did not.

Nick Spanos, who founded the first in-person exchange and the earliest in-person Bitcoin meeting space in New York City, the Bitcoin Center, in 2013, also made the case for New York as a crypto sanctuary city.

“We’re giving sanctuary to immigrants — we can give sanctuary to crypto companies,” he said in an impassioned tone.

Nick Spanos claims that NYC should be a crypto sanctuary city. | Photo credit: Frank Corva

Spanos went on to critique the BitLicense, calling into question its legitimacy.

“What kind of license is it when, after 12 years, there are only 30 of them?!” cried Spanos. “That’s an insider license!”

Now Is The Time To Pass Crypto Legislation In New York State

Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz highlighted that now is the time for New York to pass legislation that will benefit the crypto industry.

“After five difficult years, DC has said let’s embrace this technology,” said Novogratz, alluding to the notion that New York should follow the federal government’s lead.

“New York State has not made crypto easy — it’s taken a long time for people to get licenses,” he added.

Novogratz also shared that the crypto industry is “ready for take off,” though he also put the onus on the industry to prove itself by creating products that provide real value to users.

He concluded by saying that, thus far, he’s only really seen value in Bitcoin and stablecoins.

On the topic of stablecoins, Brock Pierce, co-founder of Tether, called on Albany (New York’s capitol) to pass Assembly Bill 6266 and Senate Bill 3262, both of which would establish requirements for the creation and operation of limited purpose trust companies if enacted into law. Such a law would seemingly play a role in enabling Tether to operate in New York.

Other Suggestions For Crypto Applications From The Attendees

A number of attendees also suggested creating crypto products that would help offer financial services to New York City’s approximately 305,000 residents who do not have a bank account (though, none suggested including bitcoin in these services).

Many also stressed the importance of “crypto and blockchain education” within New York’s public school system.

Even Mayor Adams touched on this in his talk.

“Every young person in the DOE [Department of Education] should know about blockchain and crypto,” he said.

And one attendee suggested using blockchain to safeguard the city’s public records.

(I piggybacked on this idea by suggesting that the city consider employing Simple Proof, a company that utilizes the OpenTimestamps protocol on Bitcoin to safeguard public documents, including election results, to help safeguard its important documents.)

Call To Action

Mayor Adams said that when he, the “mayor of the greatest city on the globe,” starts talking about Bitcoin and crypto the rest of the world will pay attention.

For this reason, he said he wanted the best and brightest to help guide him as he broaches the topic.

At the conclusion of the event, attendees were asked to share their notes so that Adams’ team could review them and potentially call on certain attendees to help the mayor forge a more favorable regulatory path forward.

It seems his staff was primed to help, as Fraser asked the attendees to “help the city deregulate the industry.”

Only time will now tell if Mayor Adams and his team will follow through on working with the Bitcoin and crypto industry to make it easier for companies to operate in New York City, or if he’ll lose interest in such an initiative, like he did four years ago.

This post Attendees At First New York City Crypto Summit Implore Mayor Adams To End The BitLicense first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Frank Corva.

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

This 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

@ 05a0f81e:fc032124

There are stages in life that man must encounter in the life living process. And in thus stage are what I called the most scary moment in life.

The stages of life are typically recognized as Infancy (birth to 2 years), Early Childhood (3-8 years), Adolescence (9-18 years), and Adulthood (19 years and older). Adulthood can be further divided into early, middle, and late stages.

The adulthood, is the youthful stage, the stage where the youths are enrolled into the career part of there life, either academic pursuit or entrepreneurial pursuit. The adult hood are raged from the beginning of career pursuit to the ending of career pursuit, and at the stage is where the youths choose to either proper in life or become a failure.

With a well detailed analysis, some see the youthful stage as the most enjoyable stage in life, and there are no doubt about that but one thing is certain about, the mistake you made at the youthful stage of your life but in your career pursuit and daily living stay with you forever unless your ability to deal with your emotions and regret is 90%.

The adulthood is a scary moment because that's the stage where youths choose there career focus, either further education, skilled labor or entrepreneurs and at the beginning of the career path, they are scared of making the wrong choice. But the most fearful path of the adulthood is facing the laboratory market, that is after school or after acquiring skills, how to start making a good living. This path of life affects mostly the youths that choose academic pursuit at the early adulthood without making necessary research on there field of study, and this is the reason while there are many graduates that are bike man, brick layers, driver and so on.

The inability to face the labor market as a graduates can be linked to your field of study, the decisions you made while in school, and the channels you choose when you graduated.

The ending of career pursuit to face the labor market is the most scary moment in life and youths that escape that fear easily are either born with golden spoon allowing their parents to pave their way for them or they chose the right part at the earliest adulthood.

Proper orientation are need in career pursuit to enable youths to have the self confident and boldness to choose a enroll into the best to face the labor market when it is time ⏲️.

@ fbe736db:187bb0d5

This article was published in November 2024 by the Bitcoin Collective and is best viewed here for images

Ssssh. Did you hear that? In their recent Q3 2024 earnings call MicroStrategy (NSQ:MSTR) announced plans to buy a further $42 billion worth of Bitcoin over the next 3 calendar years. Here are some reflections on where MicroStrategy has come from, and where they are going.

From the beginning

Let’s rewind as to how we got here. Microstrategy is a business intelligence software company originally founded by Michael Saylor in 1989.

They started acquiring Bitcoin in Q3 2020, firstly via their cash reserves on the balance sheet. This was soon followed by debt issuance (mainly in the form of convertible debt), and has in more recent years been followed by issuing further MSTR equity into the market, alongside yet more convertible debt issuance.

Nearly all the proceeds have gone towards buying bitcoin. As can be seen on the chart below, they have managed to steadily grow these holdings, albeit this growth visibly slowed in the last bear market.

[p13 of Q3 2024 Earnings Presentation. Please note - all screenshots from this article come from the slide deck accompanying the recent MSTR Q3 earnings presentation, which can be viewed by clicking here]

MSTR now holds well over 1% of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist. With Bitcoin nearing all time highs again, this Bitcoin is worth around $18.3bn at the time of writing, and has an average purchase cost of around $9.9bn.

This has led to a spectacular share price performance, unmatched in the entire S&P 500 since August 2020.

[p23 of Q3 2024 Earnings Presentation]

It was not always this way. When I wrote this article in July 2022, MSTR was firmly in the red and sitting on unrealised bitcoin losses of $1.4bn. A search for Michael Saylor on Twitter back then auto-completed to “Michael Saylor liquidated”.

Rumours of imminent demise were always unfounded since the debt was of long enough term, and with the exception of a small proportion, could not be margin called.

A developing strategy

What’s interesting about MicroStrategy since then is their developing vision as to how to add Bitcoin to their balance sheet and more value to shareholders. This is especially in terms of outperforming BTC and achieving what they define as a “positive BTC yield” – not yield in a conventional sense but a measure of increasing the number of bitcoin held per assumed diluted shares outstanding.

The concept of MSTR outperforming bitcoin is interesting to me, as I’ve previously suggested attempting to value MSTR stock as priced in bitcoin rather than dollars. This then begs the question of whether an investment of bitcoin into MSTR shares will positively perform in bitcoin terms over time.

This valuation is very difficult by its nature, but can broadly be done by adding the bitcoin they currently hold on their balance sheet with an estimate of all the bitcoin they may ever acquire in the future, plus an allowance for other factors such as debt.

The landscape has shifted over this period, with Michael Saylor admitting that their strategy has evolved over time. The vital point that I missed when considering how MSTR might acquire more bitcoin in the future was their ability to issue considerable amounts of new equity into the market and achieve two things in doing so:

i) increasing bitcoin held per share of existing shareholders

ii) strengthen their balance sheet to take on more debt (since further debt issued would be a smaller proportion of their overall balance sheet).

“But where does the (btc) yield come from?”

This is not yield in the conventional sense, but nor is it Terra Luna. Firstly, this could come from profits from the business, which are relatively small. More relevantly, let’s consider how both the capital raises from debt and equity have served to increase the bitcoin held per share.

1. Equity “at the money” offerings

Much has been made of MSTR’s market cap (i.e. the overall value of the shares) trading above “Net Asset Value” (NAV) – which is essentially the value of their current bitcoin holdings plus the value of the conventional business, less debt. A multiple approach is used to describe how far above or below NAV this might be.

At the time of writing, the MSTR market cap stands at around $50bn and the value of their bitcoin holdings at $18bn. Given the conventional MSTR business is relatively small, it’s easy to see how this is approaching a multiple of 3x NAV.

If the share price is $240 and the net asset value is only $80 per share, MSTR can then issue more equity at $240, buy more bitcoin with this, and by doing so increase the bitcoin per share of existing shareholders. What’s more, they can keep doing this as long as the share price remains high. As shown above, MSTR has coined the term “BTC yield” to measure how well they are performing at increasing bitcoin held per share.

2. Convertible Debt

This also generally serves to increase bitcoin held per share. To consider how, let’s consider one of the previous convertible debt offerings – those due in 2028 – works in practice

Amount borrowed – $1,010m

Annual interest rate payable – 0.625%

Conversion price – $183.2

As can see MSTR pays a very low interest rate, as most of the value of the bond is in the potential convertibility to MSTR equity at a price of $183.2. Ultimately there is a binary situation here – either the share price is above that level and they end up issuing more equity at that price, or it’s below, and they end up having simply borrowed money at a very low interest rate.

The crucial point is that the convertible bond conversion price is typically set at a premium of at least 30% to the current market share price, whilst MSTR are buying bitcoin at the outset with the bond proceeds.

Hence if all of this debt converts to equity (and all debt looks like it will at present – see slide below), they are typically managing to increase the BTC held per share for existing shareholders.

This is because in this example when the bonds are converted to shares at $183.2, this is done at a premium to the prior share price (let’s say for illustration it was $140) at which MSTR initially issued the debt and converted the borrowing proceeds to bitcoin.

[p16 of Q3 2024 Earnings Presentation]

It is these combined activities that have led to an impressive bitcoin yield of 17.8% for the year to date 2024, and leads to questions for how long this financial alchemy can continue. Some bitcoiners, such as the Quant Bros duo and True North* group (see both here) have spoken of a flywheel effect – the more Bitcoin MSTR can acquire and the higher the bitcoin per share metric goes, the higher the share price, which in turn increases their ability to issue yet more equity and debt to buy more bitcoin and further increase bitcoin per share.

*Side note – Michael Saylor used the phrase “True North” on the Earnings Call; likely not accidental.

One answer to how long this can continue is – as long as the equity and debt markets still show an appetite for snapping up the new debt and equity issuance, even if the share price is high. Michael Saylor characterises it as the beginning of the adoption of Bitcoin as digital capital for these markets, and MSTR constitutes the easiest exposure. They have established a monopoly of sorts – whilst it would feasibly be possible for a large company to catch them in Bitcoin held, it would still have a smaller proportion of its business exposed to Bitcoin than MSTR.

[p21 of Q3 2024 Earnings Presentation]

Volatility is vitality

Michael Saylor is very clear in this earnings call and other interviews that MicroStrategy’s share volatility is a feature and not a bug. It is more volatile than any other S&P stock. As can be seen below, the recent daily trading volume only trails to the very biggest companies in the S&P 500.

Saylor embraces this volatility. It is what gives the optionality component of their convertible debt its value, and allows the interest rate payable to be lower. In addition, when the share price is high MSTR can issue more equity and increase bitcoin per share.

The Earnings presentation makes reference to several different forms of Bitcoin exposure that MSTR can offer to the market now and in the future.

[p27 of Q3 2024 Earnings Presentation]

The MSTR “True North” Principles

The Q3 Earnings call saw the following principles outlined for the first time. The message is clear to the market – do not conflate the dollar volatility of MSTR’s share price with the nature of their Bitcoin principles, which (perhaps analogous to the Bitcoin protocol itself) are intended to be rock solid and consistent. In addition, Saylor cleared up one source of speculation – MSTR will not be seeking to purchase other companies to add to its potential for generating free cash flows to invest into Bitcoin.

[p34 of Q3 2024 Earnings Presentation]

Can’t stop, won’t stop

The Earnings call contained an ambitious plan to raise $42bn more capital over the next 3 calendar years. This would be $21bn worth of equity, by selling new shares into the market (known as an “at the money” equity option), and $21bn worth of fixed income debt. This was split as $10bn in 2025, $14bn in 2026 and $18bn in 2027.

There is no doubting the scale of this ambition – to date MSTR have issued in total around $4.3bn in convertible debt and $4.3bn in terms of issued equity.

One key point is clear in line with the principles listed above. Whilst Saylor wants to raise Capital at opportune times to best benefit shareholders in the long term and to achieve what he terms “intelligent leverage”, he doesn’t try and time his bitcoin buys.

Moreover, he is likely also not bothered that selling so much further equity into the market may not always benefit the share price in the short term.

[p33 of Q3 2024 Earnings Presentation]

Turning up the volume, but is anyone listening?

With this announcement of $42bn to come over the next 3 years, there is no end in sight with respect to MSTR’s thirst for further Bitcoin purchases.

And yet, there was little in the media around the announcement, and despite the share price performance topping the entire S&P 500 over the past 4 years, MicroStrategy sits nowhere on Google Trends in comparison to Bitcoin:

[Source: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=bitcoin,microstrategy&hl=en-GB]

For now, this is no Gamestop. There’s no huge amount of short interest, and the fabled retail crowds are nowhere to be seen. One thing’s for sure though. Buckle up.

Please get in touch with your thoughts and feedback.

@ 34f1ddab:2ca0cf7c

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# Why Trust Crypt Recver? 🤝

🛠️ Expert Recovery Solutions\ At Crypt Recver, we specialize in addressing complex wallet-related issues. Our skilled engineers have the tools and expertise to handle:

• Partially lost or forgotten seed phrases
• Extracting funds from outdated or invalid wallet addresses
• Recovering data from damaged hardware wallets
• Restoring coins from old or unsupported wallet formats

You’re not just getting a service; you’re gaining a partner in your cryptocurrency journey.

🚀 Fast and Efficient Recovery\ We understand that time is crucial in crypto recovery. Our optimized systems enable you to regain access to your funds quickly, focusing on speed without compromising security. With a success rate of over 90%, you can rely on us to act swiftly on your behalf.

🔒 Privacy is Our Priority\ Your confidentiality is essential. Every recovery session is conducted with the utmost care, ensuring all processes are encrypted and confidential. You can rest assured that your sensitive information remains private.

💻 Advanced Technology\ Our proprietary tools and brute-force optimization techniques maximize recovery efficiency. Regardless of how challenging your case may be, our technology is designed to give you the best chance at retrieving your crypto.

Our Recovery Services Include: 📈

• Bitcoin Recovery: Lost access to your Bitcoin wallet? We help recover lost wallets, private keys, and passphrases.
• Transaction Recovery: Mistakes happen — whether it’s an incorrect wallet address or a lost password, let us manage the recovery.
• Cold Wallet Restoration: If your cold wallet is failing, we can safely extract your assets and migrate them into a secure new wallet.
• Private Key Generation: Lost your private key? Our experts can help you regain control using advanced methods while ensuring your privacy.

⚠️ What We Don’t Do\ While we can handle many scenarios, some limitations exist. For instance, we cannot recover funds stored in custodial wallets or cases where there is a complete loss of four or more seed words without partial information available. We are transparent about what’s possible, so you know what to expect

# Don’t Let Lost Crypto Hold You Back!

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🛡️ Real-Time Dust Attack Protection\ Our services extend beyond recovery. We offer dust attack protection, keeping your activity anonymous and your funds secure, shielding your identity from unwanted tracking, ransomware, and phishing attempts.

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@ fbe736db:187bb0d5

This article was first published in July 2024 (and is best viewed) in the Bitcoin Collective here

Simon Sinek asks in his book “The Infinite Game” why more companies don’t operate with an infinite rather than a finite mindset. One main reason he misses, of course, is the money. The good news is there’s a new infinite game in town.

In “The Infinite Game”, Simon Sinek argues that great leaders set up their organisations to succeed beyond their own lifetimes. By recognising and positioning their business with an infinite rather than a finite mindset, they can engender greater trust throughout their employees and also build more resilience into their business. Their companies can also remain true to themselves and their mission, whatever that may be.

Sinek outlines that unfortunately we have entered an age of general subservience from leaders to their shareholders, and a slavery to the balance sheet and short term, “finite”, accounting and strategy. This generally leads to a decline of loyalty and engagement amongst customers and an increase in insecurity and anxiety amongst employees.

There’s plenty to agree with here in general terms. With that said, Sinek fails to identify one of the largest causes of the issues he identifies, which is the money. The book lays the blame on a watershed article from 1970 in which Milton Friedman laid out that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.” This is noted in the book as a turning point from the original ideas of Adam Smith, for whom the consumer was king, but I couldn’t help but wonder if anything else happened in the early 70s, such as Nixon cancelling the convertibility of dollars into gold in 1971. (see also – https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/).

Sinek bemoans the short term nature of companies since that point, but doesn’t consider how the nature of money has shaped this; surely a much more omnipresent and powerful factor than the writings of Milton Friedman. For the average bitcoiner this may be relatively self evident, but let’s consider the motives of the leadership under a system in which the underlying money cannot hold it’s value and in which credit is artificially priced. Incentives abound – one to laden the company with debt (which all else will likely diminish in real terms over time versus company assets and earnings), acquire other businesses and grow as big as possible in the process. Other options such as share buybacks also reflect short term incentives. Shareholders are going to place their own high short term demands on companies in a world where it is hard to outrun monetary debasement.

What of new businesses? When a new private entity is formed, the business plan is written, agreement on its viability is formed, strategy is set, tactics are agreed and then the first question posed by external stakeholders or posed to the majority shareholders is ‘what is your exit strategy’. Small successful businesses are expected to have a 3-5 year plan, private equity is usually a 3-5 year plan, and the successful larger companies with a longer trajectory also tend to swallow up the smaller successful companies (easier access to debt). With such incentives, it’s no wonder that we tend to see certain outcomes. There are obvious agency problems the larger a company gets, and they are more likely to fail to adhere to an infinite game principle. Smaller companies are forever at risk of getting swallowed up by larger ones.

So how does Bitcoin come into this? In my view, in two ways:

1. Bitcoin is an infinite game within itself

This is one of the subtle but crucial differences that splits Bitcoin sceptics and bitcoiners, and then dominates their onward arguments. If interpreted as a finite game, Bitcoin is for gambling, for speculation, it will have an end, and will be defined by winners and losers. Just the other day, this article framed it as such with the following line – “Whether Bitcoin is rising or falling, or who is buying or not buying it, nothing alters a basic fact: that Bitcoin is a classic zero-sum game. Large numbers of people can make vast paper fortunes by bidding up the price, but they cannot all realise those fortunes, because if everyone sells out the price collapses to zero. In that situation, those who were quick to sell would become rich at the expense of those who were slow to sell.”

Herein lies the problem for this criticism. As far as I can possibly ascertain right now, Bitcoin doesn’t end. Plenty might treat it as a finite game (and dismiss it as a ponzi, or try and trade it), but that treatment is a one way journey, and once you see Bitcoin as an infinite game there is little going back.

Going back to the book, let’s consider the “just cause” that Sinek says all businesses should have. According to Sinek, a just cause defines “the world we hope to live in and will commit to help build. It is the just cause that we are working to advance that gives our work and lives meaning. We know a cause is just when we commit to it with the confidence that others will carry on our legacy.” There are criteria listed too – a just cause must be “inclusive, service orientated, resilient, and idealistic.” Bitcoin surely fulfils these. On the ideology point, Michael Saylor articulated this well when dismissing altcoins in comparison to Bitcoin on the What Is Money podcast –

“If you really want a crypto to be successful over 100 years, the technology is only a part of it, right? It’s the ideology paired with the technology. And you’re gonna have to have an ideology that is so pure and so straightforward that people will fight to the death to defend the ideology. And that’s why I’m probably not gonna sacrifice my life for the 13th iteration on smart contracts. It’s not that important. On the other hand, if you tell me that we’re about to suck all of the economic energy out of the civilization and plunge ourselves into the Dark Ages, then I think I’ll fight for it. That’s worth fighting for.”

Michael Saylor – What is Money Show Episode 8

2. Bitcoin on balance sheets

Any business embracing Bitcoin on its balance sheet will automatically be closer to playing an infinite game itself, and let’s consider why. For starters, any shareholders will likely be holding equity with one opportunity cost being a holding of an equivalent amount of Bitcoin instead. This in itself will give them a low time preference mindset, which should transfer onto the company. Secondly, the act of having Bitcoin on the balance sheet provides a very simple yet iron clad discipline upon the company. One goal in broad terms is to grow that Bitcoin balance sheet over time, and they can only achieve that by being profitable. If they are not, they will find that Bitcoin balance dwindling over time instead. Though conventional businesses do broadly have the same need to be profitable, the Bitcoin example is quite different from a business with requirements to service debt, which may carry much shorter term deadlines for payment. In conclusion, companies looking to grow their Bitcoin holdings on a balance sheet are far more likely to buy into an infinite game mindset.

There are examples of infinite minded leaders out there, of course. Elon Musk is perhaps the most relevant in the present day, given Tesla and SpaceX have lofty long term ideals far removed from satisfying shareholders. Steve Jobs is another obvious one, and Sinek quotes an anecdote about sharing a cab with a senior Apple executive and telling him that the latest Microsoft Zune product (mp3 player at the time) was so much better than the Ipod touch. The executive smiled politely and was unfazed – tellingly, Apple weren’t worried about competitors in the short term due to their infinite mindset in making great & innovative products. Fast forward to today and there is evidence that Apple aren’t playing the infinite game that they used to. Take for example the recent news that Apple is plugging in Open AI into the iPhone. This doesn’t feel like the same ethos of a company who famously told us to “Think different” under Steve Jobs.

In conclusion, there’s plenty of decent ideas in the text and he articulates the issues well. However, due to failing to identify probably the main cause of the problem, Sinek doesn’t quite nail the call to arms for leaders to embrace an infinite game. Add in Bitcoin though, and the time preference of companies and their shareholders would vastly decrease and an infinite game mindset would come naturally.

One final thought – Sinek opens by looking back to the Vietnam war. Despite their vastly superior army and losing far fewer men, the US still lost the war. The reason being – it was an example of a finite mindset (thinking there would be a simple beginning and end) coming up against an infinite game and an enemy with an infinite mindset. The USA had comparatively infinite resources, infinite money, but a finite purpose & ideology when it came to the war. By contrast the Vietnamese, as one of their foreign ministry specialists was quoted as saying, were fighting for their independence and had already been doing so for thousands of years.

As far as Bitcoin is concerned, it might be said that companies who adopt a Bitcoin strategy are playing an infinite game with a non-debt based money of finite supply, and the competition are playing a finite game with an infinite supply of debt-based money.

This is a guest blog by Bitcoin Actuary / BitcoinActuary@BitcoinNostr.com. Thanks go to @btconlyscott for early comments/suggestions on this article.

This article is for information and education purposes only and is not intended as promotional material in any respect. All posts are the opinion of the author and should not be construed as investment advice and the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Bitcoin Collective Ltd.

@ a31f394c:7ad8f439

No mundo dos jogos online, onde inúmeras plataformas buscam a atenção dos jogadores, KK999 se destaca como uma opção inovadora e empolgante. Focada no público brasileiro, a plataforma oferece uma ampla gama de jogos, uma interface intuitiva e um excelente suporte ao cliente. Se você está em busca de um destino online para jogos que combine entretenimento, qualidade e segurança, KK999 é a escolha certa para você.

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O diferencial do kk999 é a experiência personalizada que oferece aos jogadores brasileiros. Além de estar completamente traduzido para o português, o site também oferece promoções e suporte técnico localizados, o que cria uma sensação de familiaridade e confiança entre os usuários.

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Bônus e Promoções para Todos os Jogadores KK999 também se destaca pelas suas ofertas generosas de bônus e promoções. Para os novos jogadores, a plataforma oferece bônus de boas-vindas, enquanto os jogadores regulares podem aproveitar programas de fidelidade que recompensam a lealdade dos usuários com ofertas exclusivas e prêmios.

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@ c230edd3:8ad4a712

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

@ 8576ca0e:621f735e

In the ever evolving landscape of social media, a new contender has emerged, seeking to redefine how we connect and interact online. YakiHonne, a mobile application built upon the innovative Nostr protocol, isn't just another platform vying for your attention. It represents a bold step towards decentralized social networking, seamlessly integrating the power of Bitcoin's Lightning Network into its very core.

Imagine a social space free from the control of centralized entities, where your data belongs to you, and where value can flow as freely as information. This is the vision YakiHonne is striving to realize. By leveraging the open and censorship resistant nature of Nostr, it offers a refreshing alternative to the traditional social media giants.

The Power of Decentralization: A Foundation Built on Nostr

At its heart, YakiHonne is powered by Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays). Unlike conventional platforms that rely on a central server, Nostr operates on a network of independent relays. This decentralized architecture offers several key advantages:

• Censorship Resistance: No single entity can easily censor or shut down the network. Your posts and interactions are distributed across multiple relays.

• Data Ownership: Your data isn't locked away in a corporate database. You control your private keys, granting you greater autonomy over your information.

• Open and Extensible: The open nature of the protocol allows for innovation and the development of diverse clients and applications, fostering a vibrant ecosystem.

YakiHonne acts as a user friendly gateway to this decentralized world, providing an intuitive mobile interface to interact with the Nostr network.

Zaps: Where Social Interaction Meets Bitcoin

What truly sets YakiHonne apart is its deep integration of Bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network, often referred to as "zaps." This isn't just a tacked on feature; it's woven into the fabric of social interaction.

• Show Appreciation: Found a post insightful, funny, or valuable? You can instantly send a small amount of Bitcoin as a "zap" to show your appreciation directly to the creator.

• Monetize Content: Creators can earn Bitcoin for their contributions, fostering a more sustainable model for online content generation.

• Seamless Transactions: Lightning Network enables near instant and low fee Bitcoin transactions, making zapping a practical and frictionless experience.

This innovative integration transforms social interactions into potential value exchanges, creating new dynamics between creators and their audience.

Beyond the Basics: Features for Content and Connection

YakiHonne isn't solely focused on Bitcoin. It provides a robust set of features for creating, sharing, and discovering content:

• Long Form Articles (NIP-23): For those who want to delve deeper, YakiHonne supports the creation of wel formatted articles using a rich markdown editor. This allows for more nuanced discussions and the sharing of substantial ideas.

• Topic Based Collections (NIP-51): Users can curate content into organized collections, making it easier to discover information on specific topics and follow thought leaders in various domains.

• Following and Discovery (NIP-02): Stay connected with the people and ideas that matter to you by following other users. The platform also offers ways to discover top creators, curators, and trending discussions through hashtags (NIP-12).

• Rich User Profiles: Your profile showcases your followers, who you're following, your zapping activity, and the articles you've published, providing a comprehensive overview of your presence on the platform.

• Direct Messaging (DMs): For more private conversations, YakiHonne includes a direct messaging feature, allowing for one on one communication.

A Growing Ecosystem and Continuous Improvement

YakiHonne is actively being developed and refined by JustHonne Technologies. Recent updates highlight a commitment to improving the user experience and addressing bugs. Enhancements to the zap functionality, fixes for various technical issues, and improved stability demonstrate the ongoing dedication to making the app a reliable and enjoyable platform.

The open source nature of the mobile application, with its code available on GitHub, encourages community involvement and transparency. This collaborative approach can contribute to the platform's growth and evolution.

Looking Ahead: The Potential of Decentralized Social with Bitcoin

YakiHonne represents an exciting intersection of decentralized social networking and Bitcoin's utility. By seamlessly integrating Lightning Network payments, it introduces a novel way to interact and exchange value online. While still in its relatively early stages, YakiHonne holds significant potential to:

• Empower Creators: Provide new avenues for content monetization and direct interaction with their audience.

• Foster Meaningful Interactions: Encourage more thoughtful engagement through the ability to easily show appreciation.

• Offer a More Resilient Social Space: Provide an alternative to centralized platforms with greater resistance to censorship and single points of failure.

As the Nostr ecosystem continues to grow and evolve, and as more users seek decentralized alternatives, YakiHonne is well positioned to be a leading application in this burgeoning space. It's more than just another social media app; it's a glimpse into a future where online connections are more open, and truly belong to the users themselves.

@ 30b99916:3cc6e3fe

For all you COVID COWARDS out there perhaps you can redeem yourself by supporting America's Frontline Docters

History will show that the defeat of COVID tyranny wasn’t granted – it was won, case by case, voice by voice – and your support for America’s Frontline Doctors played an important role in this fight.  

America 2020 – our nation faced a moment of truth.  

Public health soldiers working for deep-state globalists unleashed tyranny in response to a virus - to terrorize us and dismantle our Constitution.  

When I look back on the forces arrayed against us, I’m amazed more people did NOT stand up for their rights:

_Government agencies...hospitals...universities...corporations..._

...the state acting as our “savior” ...

...and Big Tech as the enforcer...

All joined forces to impose sweeping authoritarian mandates under the banners of public health and settled science.

_They declared freedom and liberty non-essential._

_They silenced, fired, shamed, and canceled ANYONE who dared question them._

ANYONE who resisted the masking, the lockdowns, the forced mRNA injections, are HEROS.

It angers me just thinking about what happened next.

Everyday Americans lost their livelihoods.

Parents watched as their children deteriorated after being locked out of their schools.  

Doctors – some of the best in the country – were hunted down by their own licensing boards for practicing ACTUAL medicine instead of government-approved pseudoscience.  

I hate to admit it, but tyranny triumphed.

The people had surrendered so much liberty that I didn’t recognize the nation our founders had forged.  

I’m sure you didn’t either.  

But while we can’t undo the past, we can make sure we don’t repeat it. 

That is why America’s Frontline Doctors and I – with you alongside us – have been fighting back.  

And together, we’ve been doing it case by case, supporting legal challenges against these unconstitutional, totalitarian mandates.

@ 7460b7fd:4fc4e74b

比特币持有者在 iPhone 上的安全使用注意事项

引言：iPhone 与安卓的对比

当涉及移动设备安全，比特币持有者面临着在 iPhone 和安卓设备之间的选择。从安全硬件来看，安卓阵营中确有一些型号配备了类似于 Apple Secure Enclave 的硬件安全模块，例如 Google Pixel 手机内置的 Titan M/M2 安全芯片，用于保障启动流程和存储敏感数据us.norton.com；三星的旗舰机型则集成了 Samsung Knox 多层安全平台，经过多国政府机构认证，可在硬件层面保护设备及其中数据us.norton.com。这些安全措施大大提升了设备抵御恶意攻击和数据泄露的能力。然而，需要注意的是：具备此类高级安全特性的安卓机型在市场上相对少见，并非安卓阵营的普遍标准us.norton.com。安卓生态高度碎片化，不同厂商的安全实践差异悬殊；除了少数注重安全的厂商（如 Google、Samsung）外，许多设备缺乏统一的安全保障水平us.norton.com。尤其在二手市场上，安卓设备型号繁杂且来源不一，一些旧款或改装机型可能缺少最新的安全芯片或更新，使安全性难以得到保证。

相比之下，Apple iPhone 全系列自带硬件级的安全隔区（Secure Enclave），统一的闭源系统和严格的应用审核使其安全措施在所有设备上保持一致us.norton.com。同时，iPhone 引入的 Face ID（三维结构光人脸识别）在生物识别安全性上具有独特优势。Apple官方数据显示，Face ID 被他人解锁的概率只有 百万分之一，远低于指纹识别的五万分之一。这源于Face ID利用红外点阵投射捕捉面部3D结构，难以被照片或面具所破解，大幅减少了伪造生物特征解锁的风险。此外，相较许多安卓手机仍依赖的二维人脸识别或电容/光学指纹，Face ID 在抗攻击能力上更胜一筹——例如普通指纹残留可能被提取复制，而二维人脸解锁曾被照片轻易骗过，但Face ID的深度感应技术有效避免了这些漏洞。

综上所述，在移动设备安全领域，iPhone 为比特币等高价值敏感资产的持有者提供了更为稳健和统一的安全基础。尽管某些高端安卓手机具有可圈可点的安全功能，但鉴于这类机型凤毛麟角、安卓设备更新和管控的不统一，以及生物识别方案的差异，我们强烈建议将 iPhone 作为比特币手持设备的唯一选择。从硬件加密到生物识别，iPhone 的封闭生态和领先技术能为数字资产提供更可靠的防护，而安卓设备在这一场景下则存在诸多先天不足。

小结： 安卓阵营虽有Pixel Titan芯片、Samsung Knox等亮点，但安全机型数量有限且良莠不齐；iPhone凭借统一的安全架构和先进的Face ID，在保护敏感数据方面更胜一筹。为确保比特币等资产安全，选择安全可靠的iPhone 是明智之举。

iPhone 安全配置指南

选择了 iPhone 作为比特币存取和通讯设备后，仍需进行细致的安全设置，以最大化利用其安全潜力。以下是针对比特币持有者的 iPhone 安全配置要点：

• 禁用 Face ID/Touch ID 生物解锁，改用强PIN码： 建议关闭面容ID解锁功能，改用6位以上的数字PIN码（或更复杂的字母数字密码）作为解锁方式。在紧急情况下，生物识别容易被他人强制利用（例如他人将手机对准机主面部强行解锁），而记忆型的PIN码只有持有人知晓，更难以被胁迫获取。此外，法律上某些地区对强制提供生物特征和提供密码有所区别，这也使得使用PIN码在极端情况下更有保障。

• 启用自动锁定（1分钟） 将设备设为闲置1分钟后自动锁定屏幕。从安全角度出发，锁定等待时间越短越好。1分钟的设置可确保即使暂时离开或疏忽，设备也会很快上锁，防范他人乘虚而入。养成随手锁屏的习惯固然重要，但有了短自动锁定时间作为双重保障，安全性更上一层楼。

• 开启输错10次自动抹除： 在“设置 > 面容ID/触控ID与密码”中启用“连续输错10次密码抹掉数据”功能。一旦有人反复尝试猜测密码，该功能会在第十次错误尝试后自动抹除手机数据。很多用户担心该设置存在风险，但事实上 误触发的可能性极低。sspai.comsspai.com实际测试表明，iPhone在多次输错密码时会触发累进的延迟惩罚机制：第五次错误需要等待1分钟，第六次错误等待5分钟，第7-8次各等待15分钟，第9次等待1小时sspai.comsspai.com。要连续进行十次独立的错误尝试至少需要约96分钟，在现实中“熊孩子”乱按连续清空数据几乎不可能发生sspai.com。相反，该功能对抗暴力破解极为有效——正如2015年圣贝纳迪诺恐怖袭击案中，嫌犯所用的iPhone就启用了十次错误清除，使FBI也无法轻易尝试破解en.wikipedia.org。总之，此项设置能将设备落入他人之手时的数据泄露风险降至最低。

• 利用应用级 Face ID 控制（iOS 18+）：升级至iOS 18或更新版本，充分利用其新增的应用锁定功能。长按主屏某个应用图标，可以找到“需要Face ID”选项，将该应用加锁theverge.com。被加锁的应用每次打开都需要通过Face ID身份验证（即使手机已解锁）。建议对 聊天通讯、密码管理、交易所App 等敏感应用启用此功能。例如，将微信、Signal、邮件客户端等设置为打开需Face ID验证，以防范他人在您手机解锁的短暂间隙内获取其中内容。应用级Face ID锁定为设备提供了第二道防线：即使手机本身已解锁，敏感应用和数据仍受到保护。

• 建议购买第二台 iPhone 或 iPad 作为“备用解锁入口”： 利用 Apple 的“信任链”机制，为同一 Apple ID 配置多台受信任设备（如两台 iPhone 或 iPhone+iPad）。这样即使主设备丢失或被抹除，备用设备依然可以访问并恢复 iCloud 端到端加密数据。其安全本质类似于“1-of-N 多签”，即任一设备均可独立解锁所有云数据，但无需多设备联合协商，恢复更灵活。注意：这与比特币的m-of-n多签不同，Apple的信任链是单设备多入口，安全性和便利性权衡需根据个人需求评估。官方说明参见：Apple平台安全白皮书（Keychain与信任链）

• 建议购买 YubiKey 等硬件安全密钥作为 Apple ID 验证要素： 由于信任链机制下新设备加入时，身份验证成为潜在攻击点（如钓鱼、社工、短信劫持），推荐为 Apple ID 配置 YubiKey 或兼容 FIDO2/U2F 的硬件安全密钥。启用后，只有插入并触发硬件密钥的情况下，才能完成新设备授权、敏感操作或账户恢复，有效阻止网络钓鱼和大部分远程攻击。该方法可显著提升账户安全，降低因凭证泄漏或验证被劫持导致的信任链攻破风险。Apple 官方说明：为 Apple ID 添加安全密钥

通过上述配置，iPhone 将处于一个平衡了便利性和安全性的状态：日常解锁采用PIN码确保意外情况下设备不被强制解锁，短自动锁和十次清除严防暴力破解，而应用级加锁进一步保障重要数据不外泄。

小结： 按照以上指南对iPhone进行安全配置，可以大幅提升设备在实际使用中的抗攻击能力。生物识别解锁的取舍、自动锁定和清除机制、以及iOS 18引入的应用加锁功能相结合，全方位地巩固了手机作为比特币手持设备的安全基石。

关于自动抹除的常见质疑回应

启用“输错10次自动抹除”功能后，不少用户会提出疑虑，主要集中在两个方面：其一，担心儿童误操作或本人一时疏忽导致设备数据被抹掉；其二，担心万一手机数据被抹除，设备本身价值受损。针对这些质疑，我们进行如下回应：

• “熊孩子乱按怎么办？” 前文已提及，iPhone设计了渐进延时机制，使得连续十次错误输入并非易事sspai.comsspai.com。孩子无意识地反复点击相同数字，系统只视为一次错误sspai.com；而多次不同错误则会触发越来越长的锁定时间，很难真的连续试满十次sspai.com。实践中，要触发十次错误清除需要近两个小时且每次输入都不同，这种情景极不现实sspai.com。因此，只要平时看护好设备，误抹除几乎无需担心。相反，如果没有该功能，一旦设备遗失或被不法分子获取，后果将不堪设想——对方可以在足够时间和专业工具协助下尝试无限次解锁，从而获取您手机中的一切秘密。

• “数据没了岂不可惜？” 我们强调，比特币持有者手机中存储的敏感信息价值远超设备本身。手机里可能有助记词、私钥线索、交易记录截图，甚至包含您社交账户中关于资产的对话。在攻击者眼中，这些数据的价值胜过一部手机。与其担心设备被误清除，不如担心设备落入他人之手数据遭泄露的风险。况且，对于重要数据您应当早有备份（下文将讨论启用iCloud云备份的问题）。即使真发生误清除，有备份在手也能恢复；但若数据被不法分子窃取，一旦造成资产损失将无法挽回。因此，从风险权衡来看，“宁可误删，不可被盗”——自动抹除是最后一道保障，在极端情况下保护您的数字资产不被侵害。

总而言之，这一功能的利远大于弊。儿童误触可以通过良好监护和系统延时设计来防范，而一旦启用，您将获得巨大的安心：手机若遭试图破解，可以自毁以保全数据安全。这正是比特币持有者应有的安全理念：舍弃设备保安全，数据和资产永远优先于硬件。随着良好备份策略的配合（例如iCloud加密备份），启用自动抹除几乎没有后顾之忧。

小结： 针对自动抹除功能的疑虑更多是误解。iPhone的机制使得误触发几率极低，而其提供的数据安全保障却是无可替代的。比特币等敏感资产持有者应放下顾虑，优先保护数据安全——哪怕代价是设备被清除，也胜过数据落入他人之手。

iCloud 备份的争议与建议

在确保本地设备安全的同时，妥善备份数据同样关键。对于比特币持有者而言，启用 iCloud 云备份可以提供额外的一层安心：万一设备遗失、损坏或被抹除后，仍有机会恢复重要信息。然而，围绕iCloud备份的安全性一直存在争议，我们在此详细分析并给出建议：

首先强烈建议在启用iCloud备份的同时，务必开启「高级数据保护」（Advanced Data Protection, ADP）。默认情况下，iCloud云备份的数据加密密钥由Apple掌管，这意味着苹果公司在法律要求下能够解密并提供您的备份数据support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。而开启高级数据保护后，备份所涉及的大部分数据将采用端对端加密，只有您的受信任设备掌握解锁密钥support.apple.com。据苹果官方说明，在ADP模式下，即便苹果公司也无法读取您的备份内容support.apple.com。因此，高级数据保护能够将使用云备份可能带来的隐私泄露风险降至最低（前提是您妥善保管好自己的账户和恢复密钥）。

启用云备份常见的疑虑是：“会不会把我的钱包私钥也备份上去，万一云被攻破岂不危险？” 实际上，多数主流比特币/加密钱包软件不会将核心密钥（如助记词或扩展公钥xpub）存储在云备份中。很多钱包在设计时就要求用户自行备份助记词，而不会把这些高度敏感的数据写入应用沙盒，可被iCloud备份抓取。同样地，一些钱包应用甚至提醒用户关闭iCloud备份以防助记词泄露support.wallet.coinex.com。换言之，开启iCloud备份并不会将您的私钥上传（除非个别钱包特别设置了云同步，但大多数非托管钱包都没有这么做）。当然，为审慎起见，您可以查阅所用钱包的文档或设置，确认其是否有备份敏感信息到云的选项，并据此做出取舍。

与此同时，我们更加关心的是其他应用的数据完整备份。对于比特币持有者来说，聊天记录、笔记文档和工作应用的数据往往同样敏感且重要。例如，常用通讯软件（微信、Telegram、Signal 等）中的聊天可能涉及交易细节或人脉网络；办公应用如钉钉、飞书则包含财务往来或业务资料。这些应用的数据都会包含在iCloud整机备份中并被完整保存，一旦手机丢失或损坏，可以通过云备份原样恢复。support.apple.com值得一提的是，在高级数据保护开启且不泄漏密钥的前提下，这些备份数据即使存储在苹果服务器上也是安全的，第三方无法解读其中内容。

进一步的好处是：利用备份进行调查取证。假设最坏情况发生——您的手机被抹除或遗失，但是事先有一份最新的iCloud备份。在紧急需要时，您可以在一台新的iPhone上恢复这份备份。在恢复完成后，切断新设备的网络连接（拔掉SIM卡或不连Wi-Fi）。由于备份恢复会还原您的应用登录状态和本地数据，新设备在离线情况下将维持原手机当时的登录环境。您可以打开聊天应用、邮件、照片等查看内容，就像原手机一样。离线操作确保应用不会因为检测到新设备而要求重新登录，也避免了云端数据被远程清除的可能。这对于事后取证、提供线索给执法部门或自我调查都极为有利。比如，若涉及盗窃诈骗案件，这部离线恢复的手机里保留的聊天记录、交易凭证可以作为关键证据。而一旦联网，这些应用可能出于安全考虑登出账户或拉取最新状态，反而不利于保留原始证据。因此，有意识地保存一份完整云备份，并在需要时以离线方式恢复，是一种非常巧妙的应对策略。

小结： 尽管人们对云备份心存疑虑，但通过启用高级数据保护，iCloud备份既能提供数据恢复便利，又充分保障了隐私安全。大多数加密钱包不会上传私钥等核心数据，而聊天、办公等应用的数据则可完整份以备不时之需。在平衡安全与可用性的前提下，开启iCloud备份（搭配ADP加密）是明智之举——它让您在设备意外损坏或丢失时依然有据可查、有据可证。

高级数据保护与密码学机制分析

最后，我们从更宏观的视角，结合真实案例和技术原理，深入探讨苹果设备与云服务的安全性，以及高级数据保护（ADP）所依赖的密码学机制。这部分将涵盖苹果在多个国家遭遇的解锁争议、ADP 的运作及其与实体安全密钥的配合、以及关于苹果是否存在解密后门的分析。

苹果与执法部门的解锁事件

过去数年间，多起高调事件凸显了设备加密与执法取证之间的矛盾。美国国会山骚乱事件（2021年1月6日）中，执法部门缴获了大量嫌疑人的手机。据报道，不少嫌犯使用的是iPhone，调查人员能够从苹果获取其中的数据 但途径主要是通过 iCloud 云备份 而非直接破解设备thedailybeast.com。由于当时高级数据保护尚未推出或未启用，苹果依然持有那些嫌疑人iCloud账户的备份密钥，因此在收到合法的执法请求后，苹果向FBI提供了嫌疑人的iCloud备份内容，其中包括视频、照片和聊天记录等关键证据thedailybeast.com。这些数据帮助当局重构了案件过程，也反映出如果用户没有使用端到端加密备份，云端数据在法律压力下并非牢不可破。

相反，在更早的**圣贝纳迪诺恐怖袭击案（2015）**中，FBI面对一部启用了强加密的嫌犯iPhone却陷入僵局。那是一个运行iOS 9的 iPhone 5C，开启了PIN码锁和10次输错清除功能en.wikipedia.org。由于该设备上的本地数据经过设备加密且苹果并不持有密钥，FBI无法提取其中信息，遂求助苹果公司要求破解。但苹果以维护所有用户安全为由拒绝编写后门固件来绕过安全限制，引发了一场著名的法律拉锯en.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org。最终执法部门辗转通过第三方工具解锁了手机，但苹果的立场十分明确：即便面对恐怖主义案件，也不会为单次事件在系统中留下后门。这一事件凸显出现代iPhone设备本地加密之强大——在没有用户密码的情况下，即使连厂商都无能为力，除非另辟蹊径寻求系统或硬件漏洞。

iCloud 在中国与英国的访问争议

在不同国家，苹果围绕用户数据加密与政府监管的博弈也在上演。中国方面，自2018年以来苹果将中国大陆 iCloud 服务交由“云上贵州”公司运营，数据存储和加密密钥均留在境内zh.amnesty.org。依据中国《网络安全法》，云服务运营者有义务为执法和国家安全机关提供“技术支持和协助”zh.amnesty.org。这意味着若中国警方出于刑侦需要向云上贵州调取某用户的 iCloud 数据，该公司必须配合提供，几乎没有拒绝的空间zh.amnesty.org。更重要的是，苹果把中国用户的 iCloud 加密密钥也存放在中国，一旦收到合法命令要求解密数据，苹果和云上贵州只能遵从zh.amnesty.org。换言之，在标准数据保护模式下，中国当局有途径通过法律手段获取本地存储的iCloud明文数据。这引发了人们对隐私的担忧：如果没有端到端加密，中国的用户数据可能在政府要求下被查看。然而如果用户开启高级数据保护，使得苹果也无法解读备份内容，那么即便在中国，此举从技术上为用户争取到了更高的私密性（前提是中国地区允许开启ADP——截至目前，苹果并未在中国禁用该功能，国区用户依然可以自行启用高级数据保护support.apple.comsupport.apple.com）。

再看英国的情况。英国政府近年以打击犯罪和恐怖主义为由，不断向科技公司施压要求提供加密数据的后门访问权。2023年底，英国援引《调查权力法》(IPA)秘密向苹果发出“技术能力通知”（TCN），要求苹果在全球范围内为英国安全部门提供对加密iCloud内容的解锁途径cnbeta.com.tw。这实际上等同于要求苹果破坏其端到端加密体系，留出一个只有政府能用的后门。苹果对此断然拒绝，并做出强硬回应：宁愿撤除在英服务，也不会妥协安全底线cnbeta.com.tw。结果是，苹果选择在英国境内停止提供高级数据保护功能给新用户。已有启用ADP的英国用户被通知需在宽限期内手动将其关闭，否则将无法继续使用iCloud备份cnbeta.com.tw。苹果在声明中表示对此深感失望，但为了遵守当地法律别无他法cnbeta.com.tw。下面这张截图显示了英国用户在系统中看到的提示信息，明确告知ADP服务不再可用

苹果针对英国地区做出的ADP功能调整通知。英国政府要求能够解密用户数据，迫使苹果撤回了对英国用户的新端到端加密备份支持cnbeta.com.twcnbeta.com.tw。苹果声明强调只有用户本人才能解读其加密数据，并重申不会在产品中留下执法后门cnbeta.com.tw。

这一英国内外的罕见举措表明，各国政府正日益重视加密带来的执法障碍，而苹果则在平衡用户隐私和法律要求之间走钢丝。尽管英国的情况迫使苹果让步（取消当地ADP），但苹果并未真的为政府打造解密后门，而是通过限制功能来表明态度——这与其长期立场一致：绝不在加密产品中留后门，即使承受业务上的损失cnbeta.com.tw。

高级数据保护与安全密钥

高级数据保护（ADP） 是苹果于 iOS 16.2 引入的一项可选功能，其核心是在用户选择开启后，将包括设备备份在内的大部分 iCloud 数据升级为端到端加密存储support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。开启ADP有两个前提：账户已启用双重认证，以及设置了账户恢复联系人或恢复密钥，以防用户遗失访问权限support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。在ADP模式下，Apple不再持有绝大部分云数据的解锁密钥，这些密钥只存在于用户的受信任设备中support.apple.com。这意味着，即便苹果公司收到政府索取数据的要求或其服务器遭黑客攻击，没有密钥的加密数据对任何第三方都是无意义的乱码。正如苹果声明所言：“只有拥有数据的用户才能解密，Apple 无法访问端对端加密的数据”cnbeta.com.tw。可以说，ADP将用户云数据的主导权完全交还给用户自己，从而彻底消除了苹果方面潜在的数据泄露点。

为了进一步增强账户安全，苹果在_iOS 16.3_开始支持绑定实体安全密钥（如 YubiKey）作为 Apple ID 的额外两步验证方式sspai.com。过去Apple ID登录主要依赖密码+发送到受信设备的验证码，但假如用户Apple ID密码泄露，攻击者可能利用社会工程获取验证码。而引入实体安全密钥后，用户可以要求任何新的登录尝试都必须提供物理密钥认证才能完成。这相当于给 Apple ID 上了一把“硬件锁”。对于比特币持有者而言，这一步非常值得配置：即使黑客骗取了您的苹果账号密码，没有您的YubiKey或同类FIDO2安全密钥，他仍无法登录您的iCloud或停用您的ADP。安全密钥本身具有防钓鱼特性，它不会把可被重用的机密泄露给假网站，再加上密钥私藏于硬件内部不可导出，使得账户保护达到新的高度sspai.comsspai.com。简而言之，**“ADP + 硬件安全密钥”**的组合为用户云数据打造了双重护城河：前者确保云上数据加密不被窥探，后者确保账户本身不被劫持利用。

需要注意的是，启用ADP后如果遗失所有设备且忘记密码，苹果无法帮您找回数据support.apple.com。这就像您把保险箱钥匙只握在自己手里而不交给任何人保管，其安全性空前提高，但也意味着责任完全在您。因此请务必牢记Apple ID密码，保管好恢复密钥或紧急联系人。一旦平衡好便利与安全，这套机制将为您的数字资产提供堪比硬件钱包的云端保障。

后门密钥与私钥不可拆分性

现代加密体系的设计使得用户私钥与设备环境密不可分。在苹果的生态中，每台设备都拥有由硬件生成的唯一加密根密钥。例如，安全隔区（Secure Enclave）内嵌入了设备唯一标识符UID作为根密钥，UID由安全硬件随机生成并烧录至芯片中help.apple.com。这个UID既不与任何其他设备标识相关，也无法被设备外的任何人（包括苹果官方）获取help.apple.com。同时，用户的解锁密码与该UID进行数学“交织”（entangle），共同派生出加密密钥help.apple.com。换言之，设备硬件密钥和用户密码共同决定了数据加密密钥，没有这两者就无法还原密钥。这体现了用户私钥对设备及用户身份的强绑定——苹果没有第三方密钥可以绕过这一绑定关系help.apple.comhelp.apple.com。

从密码学角度来看，如果苹果试图在上述体系中插入一个额外的“后门密钥”，将面临巨大的技术困难，并且这样的异常极易被察觉。设想苹果通过异或（XOR）或 Shamir 密钥共享等方式，将一个后门密钥与用户密钥组合：

• 实现层面的异常：用户设备在正常情况下应当能够独立完成解密/签名操作。如果加入隐藏密钥份额，意味着设备单凭用户自己的密钥无法完成某些解密，必须依赖苹果持有的那一份。这样的改动会造成额外的密钥协商步骤或异常的解密失败。例如，若苹果将后门密钥与用户密钥异或生成实际工作密钥，那么单用用户密钥将无法解密出正确结果，设备可能需要静默地向苹果服务器请求密钥片段或进行额外计算。这类非预期的通信或计算步骤很容易被安全研究者通过流量分析或逆向工程发现端倪。再比如采用 Shamir’s Secret Sharing 等门限方案，如果苹果持有一份密钥碎片，设备在解密时就需要满足门限条件，这通常意味着需要苹果的参与或预置公钥，从而在协议日志中留下异常痕迹。任何偏离常规协议的做法——无论是多传输一段数据，还是多保存一段密钥信息——都可能成为研究者捕捉的线索。历史经验表明，密码协议中的“奇怪之处”往往预示潜在漏洞或后门：例如 NSA 推出的 Dual_EC_DRBG 伪随机数生成器由于使用了异常常数，被专家迅速怀疑存在后门；著名密码学家施奈尔（Bruce Schneier）就曾直言 Dual_EC_DRBG 中的后门“相当明显”，呼吁业界停止使用en.wikipedia.org。由此可见，试图暗中插入额外密钥会在数学实现上留下破绽，而资深密码学者和安全社区有足够能力识别这些反常之处。

进一步，从门限签名理论对比苹果现有密钥管理，可以加深这一不可行性的理解。门限密码学允许将密钥拆分给多方持有，只有达到预定门槛的份额才能重构密钥或执行签名解密toc.csail.mit.edumedium.com。其优点在于提高了密钥托管的安全性，需要多方协作才能解锁秘密。然而，这种机制是公开设计的一部分，各参与方和流程都是明示的。例如在某些区块链多重签名方案中，多个私钥持有者共同生成交易签名，每个人都知晓门限机制的存在。相较之下，苹果在产品中的密钥管理要么是完全由用户端掌握密钥（如iPhone本地数据加密，密钥存在Secure Enclave中），要么是在用户许可下由苹果代管（如传统iCloud云备份未启用高级加密时，苹果保存备份密钥）。苹果并没有公开采用“两方门限”的模式来和用户分享密钥，否则等于声明“用户单方无法完全掌控自己的解密权”。如果苹果暗中采用门限签名让自己持有一份密钥碎片，本质上就是一种**变相密钥托管（Escrow）**行为。这样的做法会明显偏离苹果宣称的零后门立场，与其在隐私政策中反复强调的原则相违背。值得注意的是，苹果在其官方隐私声明中明确表示：“我们从未在任何产品或服务中创建过后门或万能解锁主密钥”apple.com。因此，从理论和实践双重层面来看，用户私钥与潜在后门密钥是难以在不被发现的情况下拆分存在的。任何试图将二者解耦的举措都会引起体系架构的异常，进而难逃专家法眼。

加密社区对后门的发现与审计

在当今的安全生态中，不存在“悄无声息的后门”。一旦厂商试图在加密方案中掺入后门密钥，全球的密码学社区和安全研究人员都有多种手段将其揪出。下面从几个方面概述社区常用的后门检测与审计方法：

• 开源协议分析：安全专家偏好开源的软件和协议，因为源码透明意味着任何可疑的算法修改、密钥处理流程都暴露在公众视野中。通过阅读和形式化分析公开的协议规范，研究者可以发现是否有多余的密钥交换步骤或异常的参数。例如，Signal通信协议的源代码和技术细节是完全公开的，全球专家曾多次审阅其实现，验证其端到端加密未存在后门linkedin.com。事实证明，公开透明带来的是更严苛的监督，任何隐秘加入的密钥参数都有可能被审计人员发现。正如业内人士所指出的，Signal 采用开放源码意味着安全专家可以独立审计其代码以核实安全性linkedin.com。类似地，许多现代加密库都会经过社区审视，以确保其中没有“暗门”。

• 逆向工程与二进制审计：对于闭源的软件（例如苹果自身的系统组件），安全研究者会运用逆向工程技术来分析应用的二进制代码和运行时行为。一旦苹果的加密实现存在未公开的密钥使用，比如在本地程序中引用了某个神秘常量或调用了隐藏的密钥解密函数，逆向工程往往能还原这些逻辑。专业团队通过调试、反编译、动态埋点等方式重现协议的握手过程，查看每一步骤所用的密钥材料。如果过程中出现与官方文档不符的环节（例如本应由用户设备生成的密钥却从外部获取），将立即引发怀疑。此外，安全社区定期举办的漏洞挖掘和破解挑战赛也扮演重要角色——顶尖黑客会竞相攻破苹果设备的加密层，并公开报告发现的问题。过去这些努力揭示了一些实现漏洞（如内存越界、0day攻击途径），但从未曝出“苹果预留万能密钥”之类的后门。一例典型事件是2017年有黑客成功解密了Secure Enclave固件以研究其中机理，结果证实即便取得固件代码，攻击者仍无法提取到任何用户密钥或后门凭证ciso.economictimes.indiatimes.com。这一结论进一步增强了业界对苹果加密实现中无后门的信心。

• 网络流量与协议行为分析：加密协议往往涉及设备与服务器的交互流程。研究人员会抓包和监控这些网络流量，分析协议握手时交换的消息格式和内容。如果苹果尝试在密钥协商时暗中插入自己的公钥或请求额外数据，流量分析将捕捉到异常的报文模式。例如，在正常的端到端加密通信中，设备之间交换彼此的公钥证书，不应有第三方公钥悄然出现。而所谓“幽灵用户”后门提案正是要求服务提供商在群聊中偷偷加入一个看不见的第三方公钥。这样的方案被广泛批评因为它破坏了用户验证通信对端身份的机制，需要服务器隐藏通知才能欺骗用户lawfaremedia.org。密码学家指出，这将削弱认证过程并带来新漏洞，因此难以在不被发现的情况下实施lawfaremedia.org。由此可见，通过流量异常识别潜在后门是切实可行的。当年的GCHQ“幽灵用户”建议一提出，就被包括苹果在内的业界联合抵制，47家机构和专家联名公开信指出该做法“对网络安全构成严重威胁”internetsociety.orgsilicon.co.uk，可见社区对这类后门手段有高度警惕性。

• 独立审计和信任链验证：许多安全敏感的加密功能会接受独立机构的审计，以建立公众信任。比如苹果的 iCloud 钥匙串（Keychain） 采用多层加密和信任链机制，其设计文档表明敏感信息的密钥始终需要Secure Enclave参与才能解锁techrepublic.com。有第三方评估指出，钥匙串中的私密数据即便保存在云端也是经过高强度加密的，任何人（包括苹果）都无法直接读取明文techrepublic.com。这一架构经过多轮外部安全会议研讨和学者研究，至今未出现被植入后门的迹象。同样，苹果设备中的 Secure Enclave 安全隔区 也多次成为学术研究和黑客大会的焦点。研究人员通过攻击Secure Enclave找出了少数漏洞（例如早期A7-A11芯片存在硬件级漏洞ciso.economictimes.indiatimes.comciso.economictimes.indiatimes.com），但这些漏洞只是实现瑕疵，并非有意留出的后门。实际上，正是这些公开的审计和破解挑战证明了Secure Enclave的设计初衷：即使攻击者获得硬件或固件访问权，仍无法提取出主密钥ciso.economictimes.indiatimes.com。学术界和白帽黑客社区通过反复的审查和渗透测试，为苹果的“零后门”承诺提供了有力的背书。换言之，加密社区的独立审计机制确保了任何后门都难以隐藏；只有经得起各方检验的系统，才能真正赢得用户信任。

综上所述，在强大的社区监督下，任何后门密钥的存在都会留下蛛丝马迹，并最终被曝光。无论是协议分析、逆向工程还是实网监测，多层次的手段使得厂商无法神不知鬼不觉地在成熟加密方案中藏入后门。这也是为什么苹果等公司反复强调没有后门：一旦撒谎，终将被揭穿，信用荡然无存。

iCloud 钥匙串信任链下的全局数据加密密钥（DEK）机制研究

苹果的高级数据保护（Advanced Data Protection）引入了端到端加密，将大部分 iCloud 数据的密钥仅存储在用户的受信设备上support.apple.com。在该机制下，每个用户的 iCloud 帐户针对各数据类别生成自己的“全局”数据加密密钥（Data Encryption Key, DEK），这些密钥受 iCloud 钥匙串的信任链机制保护。下面将详细探讨全局 DEK 的生成、分发与封装，多设备场景下的生命周期变化，以及苹果保障 DEK 安全和确保服务器从未获取明文 DEK 的技术手段。

全局 DEK 的生成、更新与轮换

初始生成：当用户首次在支持的设备上启用高级数据保护时（需运行 iOS 16.2、macOS 13.1 等新版系统，并开启双重认证），系统会在该设备上本地生成全局数据加密密钥。实际上，每个受端到端加密保护的 iCloud 服务（例如云备份、照片、笔记等）都有各自的 CloudKit 服务密钥对，其私钥用作该类别数据的主加密密钥support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。这些服务密钥使用安全随机算法在用户受信设备上创建，具有唯一性，并由设备的安全硬件保护。启用高级数据保护时，设备会将之前由苹果保存的云端密钥从苹果的硬件安全模块（HSM）中删除，并生成新的服务密钥，以改用仅存储在用户设备上的密钥来加密云端数据support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。这一过程确保全局 DEK（即各服务的新密钥）仅存在于用户受信设备上，苹果服务器端不再持有其副本。

是否变化及何时变化：在正常使用中，全局 DEK（各服务密钥）的私钥一经生成会保持稳定，用于持续加密解密用户数据，并不会频繁更换。唯有在特定事件下才会轮换或更新密钥，例如用户启用高级数据保护时系统触发的一次性密钥轮换，以及用户后来关闭高级数据保护或怀疑密钥泄露时的情况support.apple.com。苹果文档指出，当用户打开高级数据保护时，设备会启动异步密钥轮换操作，为此前存储于苹果服务器的每个服务创建新的服务密钥support.apple.com。新数据随后使用新密钥加密，旧密钥无法解密新数据support.apple.com。同样地，当用户关闭高级数据保护返回标准保护时，设备会将原本仅存于本地的新密钥上传回苹果HSM，并可恢复使用先前的旧密钥support.apple.com。因此，可以总结：初始启用高级保护时会生成并切换到新的全局 DEK，此后这些密钥保持不变；如用户关闭功能则恢复旧密钥；除非再次启用或发生安全事件，系统通常不会主动更换全局 DEK。

值得注意的是，在极端情况下如果用户怀疑密钥泄露或设备失窃，用户可以选择通过重置整个端到端加密环境（例如先关闭再重新开启高级数据保护）来触发新的 DEK 生成，从而保护云端数据安全。然而，此操作会要求所有设备重新加入信任链，并重新上传数据副本加密后存储。

多设备环境下 DEK 的分发与封装

信任链机制： 苹果使用 iCloud 钥匙串的信任链（又称同步圈，circle of trust）来在多设备间安全同步全局 DEK。启用了高级数据保护后，属于用户 Apple ID 的所有受信设备共同构成一个加密信任链，每台设备都有一对用于同步的非对称椭圆曲线密钥（如 P-384）support.apple.com。当第一台设备生成全局 DEK 后，它会将这些密钥加入自身的 iCloud 钥匙串保护域，并通过 CloudKit 安全地共享给用户的其他设备support.apple.com。具体而言，设备会维护一份受信设备的公钥列表，并使用自身的私钥对列表签名后存储于 iCloud；只有持有用户账户密码或设备私钥者才能读取或篡改这份列表support.apple.com。这一机制保证了只有经过用户授权加入信任链的设备才能获取 DEK，其余任何第三方（包括苹果服务器）都无法读取信任链中的密钥数据support.apple.com。

密钥传递与封装：在多设备场景下，每台设备都会持有全局 DEK（各服务私钥）的一个副本，但这些副本始终以安全加密形式封装后再传输和存储。例如，当用户新增一台受信设备时，新设备会生成自己的同步密钥对并向云端发出加入信任链的请求support.apple.com。已有的一台受信设备（通常是用户主动在其上同意新增设备）会验证该请求并通过 设备间安全信道 传输 DEK 副本给新设备support.apple.com。在此过程中，现有设备会利用新设备的公钥来加密封装 DEK，或双方通过椭圆曲线 Diffie-Hellman（ECDH）协商会话密钥来传递 DEK，从而确保只有目标新设备能解开密钥包装。苹果未公开具体用哪种算法封装，但业界常用方案包括 AES 密钥封装算法（AES-KW） 或 AES-GCM 算法 对会话密钥加密support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。可以推测，Apple 采用了符合 NIST 标准的 AES-256 算法对对称 DEK 进行二次加密包装，并结合设备的非对称密钥进行密钥交换/加密，以实现端到端的安全传递。

本地存储与保护：当设备接收到封装的 DEK 后，会在本地将其解密并安全保存于设备的 Keychain 中。所有 DEK 私钥仅存在于设备的安全隔区中，例如 iPhone 的密钥保存在 Data Protection 类钥匙串项下，并受 Secure Enclave 协处理器保护（访问需通过用户设备解锁）support.apple.com。这样设计保证即使设备遗失或被攻破，未解锁状态下设备上的 DEK 依然难以提取。总之，多设备环境下，每台受信设备都持有全局 DEK 副本，但始终通过端到端加密的方式同步与存储：传输过程中使用公钥加密/会话密钥，存储时依赖设备硬件密钥封装技术（如 Secure Enclave 提供的UID派生密钥）进一步加密，最大程度降低密钥泄露风险。

设备新增、移除与丢失场景下 DEK 和数据的生命周期

新设备加入： 当用户在新设备上登入 iCloud 并启用高级数据保护时，该设备无法直接访问云端受保护数据，需要首先加入信任链。加入流程包括：新设备生成自己的同步密钥对并将公钥提交给苹果云端（CloudKit）support.apple.com；苹果服务器将此请求传达给用户已有的一台受信设备上，提醒用户有新设备申请加入。用户在已有设备上批准请求（需输入密码或通过生物识别验证身份），之后已有设备会将新设备的公钥添加到信任链并再次用自己的私钥和账户密码派生密钥签署信任圈数据support.apple.com。随后，该已有设备通过上述安全信道，将全局 DEK 的加密副本传送给新设备support.apple.com。一旦新设备成功解密获得 DEK，它就加入了受信设备列表，可以像其他设备一样解密云端的端到端加密数据。整个过程确保只有获得用户明示批准的新设备才能获取 DEK support.apple.com。

设备移除与更换：当用户从 Apple ID 中移除某台设备，或设备被抹除/重置时，该设备将不再被视为信任链的一员。此时其他仍在线的受信设备会更新信任链状态，将该设备的身份从受信列表中剔除support.apple.com。需要强调的是，移除设备本身并不会导致全局 DEK 自动更改。被移除的设备虽曾持有 DEK 副本，但一旦不再受信，其无法从苹果服务器获取新的数据更新，而且由于设备已从账户移除或被抹掉，攻击者无法再借此解密云端后续的数据。苹果并未设定在每次设备变动时轮换密钥，这是出于实用性的考虑——频繁更换 DEK 将要求对云端大量数据重新加密，代价高昂。不过，若某台设备遗失且用户怀疑其本地密钥可能泄露，用户可以选择手动采取措施，例如从 iCloud 设置中移除此设备并重置高级数据保护（关闭再开启），从而生成新的 DEK，保护未来的数据安全。

云端数据影响： 当设备移除或失效时，云端已经加密的数据依旧由原来的 DEK 保护，并不会因为设备离开而重新加密。只要用户其他任一受信设备仍保存着该 DEK，便可继续访问此前的数据。被移除的设备由于缺失信任凭证，也无法再从服务器同步到后续新增或修改的任何机密数据（即使攻击者拥有其物理设备，由于密钥受 Secure Enclave 和设备密码保护，也难以提取support.apple.com）。因此，在多设备环境中，云端数据的可访问性取决于至少有一台受信设备存有对应 DEK。只要用户至少有一台设备或有效的恢复方式，数据就可解密使用；反之则数据陷于加密状态无法读取。

失去所有设备：高级数据保护要求用户在失去所有受信设备的极端情况下，借助预先设置的恢复机制取回 DEK。苹果强制要求启用该功能的用户提供至少一种账户恢复方法（例如指定恢复联系人或设置恢复密钥）support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。当用户所有设备均遗失或不可用时，只有通过这些恢复方式才能重获对数据的访问权。具体而言，如果用户提前设置了恢复密钥（一串随机生成的28位字符）并安全保存，那么此时用户可在新设备上登陆 Apple ID，并输入该恢复密钥来恢复数据。苹果服务器会将一份加密的 DEK 备份（ escrow 记录 ）下发到新设备，而新设备利用用户提供的恢复密钥将其解密，提取出全局 DEKsupport.apple.comsupport.apple.com。由于恢复密钥是由用户掌控、苹果不存储明文的要素，只有提供正确密钥的新设备才能解开 escrow 获得 DEK。在成功恢复后，新设备将重建信任链，并可以访问之前端到端加密的所有云端数据。

若用户选择的是恢复联系人，流程类似：用户联系预先设定的可信联系人，由联系人通过其苹果设备生成一个验证代码提供给用户。用户在新设备上输入该代码后，苹果同样将加密的 DEK 备份下发，新设备据此恢复密钥。整个恢复流程依然遵循端到端加密原则：苹果仅充当中转并验证权限，但并不知晓用户的实际 DEK 内容support.apple.com。

不可恢复的情况：如果用户既没有其他受信设备、又未设置任何恢复联系人或恢复密钥，那么全局 DEK 将无法找回，相应的云端数据也就永久处于加密不可读状态support.apple.com。苹果明确表示，若用户丢失所有设备且无恢复方式，公司无法帮助用户恢复这部分端到端加密的数据support.apple.com。这凸显了高级数据保护的一个权衡：安全性增强的同时，数据恢复的责任完全由用户自担。因此用户需谨慎管理受信设备和恢复选项，以避免陷入无法解密个人数据的境地。

DEK 安全性的密码学保障机制

苹果在高级数据保护与 iCloud 钥匙串架构中运用了多种密码学机制来保障 DEK 的机密性和完整性，包括密钥封装、密钥派生、硬件安全模块，以及严格的权限控制：

• 端到端加密与密钥层级化：如上所述，iCloud 采用分层密钥架构对数据加密。以 CloudKit 私有数据库为例，每位用户有一个顶层的 CloudKit 服务密钥对，其私钥用来保护下层对称密钥（如 Zone密钥、Record记录密钥等）support.apple.com。当用户在设备上写入数据时，会生成记录级别的随机对称密钥加密数据字段，再逐层用上级密钥封装这些对称密钥。具体来说，记录密钥用 Zone 密钥加密，Zone 密钥再用全局服务公钥加密（即 DEK 公钥），形成多层密钥封装结构support.apple.com。只有持有最顶层私钥（DEK 私钥）的受信设备才能逐层解开封装，最终解密出用户数据。通过这种分层加密与密钥隔离设计，即使某一层的密钥泄露，攻击者也无法直接获取上层密钥或明文数据。

• AES 密钥封装与封闭式硬件存储：苹果广泛采用了经验证的对称加密算法来封装和存储 DEK。传输过程中的 DEK（或下层对称密钥）通常通过 AES-256 算法加密封装后再上传support.apple.com。一种常用方法是 AES 密钥包装 (AES-KW)，它专门用于用一个对称密钥安全地封装另一个密钥，确保密钥材料在传输中不暴露。与此同时，设备本地的 DEK 私钥会存储在受 Secure Enclave 保护的区域。Secure Enclave 为每台设备提供唯一的硬件 UID 密钥，仅用于解锁设备密钥袋和钥匙串项support.apple.com。也就是说， DEK 私钥本身可能被进一步用设备硬件密钥加密（这相当于在软件密钥之外又加了一道硬件锁）。只有当用户解锁设备并通过身份验证，操作系统才能调用 Secure Enclave 解封这些密钥用于加解密操作。通过AES-GCM 等对称加密结合Secure Enclave 硬件密钥封装，苹果确保 DEK 无论在云端传输还是本地存储，都始终处于加密状态，降低被截获或提取的风险support.apple.com。

• 椭圆曲线密码与密钥交换： 信任链中设备互认和密钥共享依赖椭圆曲线密码算法。每台设备的同步身份密钥对采用强大的 P-256 或 P-384 曲线support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。当新设备加入时，已有设备会利用椭圆曲线数字签名算法 (ECDSA) 对信任链数据签名校验，防止伪造support.apple.com。同时，在设备间传输 DEK 时，可能使用椭圆曲线 Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) 来建立共享密钥，加密传输内容。ECDH 可确保即使通信被窃听，攻击者无法推导出会话密钥，因而无法获取密钥内容。综上，非对称加密和密钥交换协议保证了只有合法设备才能参与密钥同步，新设备的引入需要现有设备用其私钥签名确认，杜绝中间人攻击或伪造信任链的可能。

• 密钥派生函数 (KDF)：在某些步骤中，苹果使用了密钥派生函数强化密码。历史上，iCloud 钥匙串曾要求用户设置 iCloud 安全码时，将用户密码通过 PBKDF2 等KDF算法派生出密钥，用于签名和加密信任圈hackmag.comhackmag.com。即便在新的双重认证架构下，某些场景仍可能涉及KDF——例如恢复密钥或联系人代码很可能通过 KDF 转换为实际用于解密 escrow 密文的密钥材料。这些 KDF 算法引入高强度的盐值和大量迭代运算hackmag.com，增强了抗暴力破解能力，防止弱口令被攻击者猜测。总之，KDF 的应用确保从用户口令/恢复码到加密密钥的映射具有单向性和计算复杂度，进一步保护 DEK 相关流程的安全。

服务器无权获取明文 DEK 的保障

苹果的设计宗旨是在云端架起“盲墙”，确保服务器既无权也无实能接触用户 DEK 的明文，这也是实现“即使云端泄露，用户数据仍安全”的关键：

• 密钥仅存在于用户端： 开启高级数据保护后，所有主要 iCloud 数据类别的加密密钥仅存储于用户受信设备（或用户掌握的恢复载体）中，苹果服务器端不再保存这些密钥support.apple.com。文档明确指出，启用该功能后，苹果“无法读取或访问用户的服务密钥”support.apple.com。即在正常运行过程中，苹果的云服务器从未拥有解锁用户端到端加密数据所需的密钥。服务器所见到的只是由用户设备加密后的数据碎片，对其而言是不可解密的黑箱。

• 云端存储密文及加密元数据：iCloud 服务器虽然需要存储用户数据（如云照片、备忘录的加密内容），但这些内容均已由设备使用 DEK 加密完成。即便是为了提供某些功能，云端保留了少量未加密的元数据（如文件校验和用于重复数据消除），这些元数据也不包含可用于推导 DEK 的信息support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。苹果正在致力于将更多此类元数据也纳入端到端加密范围，以进一步减少明文暴露面support.apple.com。此外，CloudKit 框架要求开发者在模式中明确标记需要加密的字段，未标记的字段（例如排序用的时间戳）即便明文存储，亦不涉及敏感内容support.apple.com。由此，云服务器始终缺乏关于 DEK 或用户敏感数据的明文，一旦发生数据泄露或内部越权，攻击者拿到的也只是高强度加密下的乱码。

• 权限架构防范后门访问：苹果构建的信任链机制也防止了服务器假借授权来获取密钥的可能性。服务器不能私自添加受信设备或篡改信任链，因为每次信任链更新都需要现有设备的私钥签名以及（在老架构下）用户密码派生密钥的二次签名hackmag.comsupport.apple.com。苹果服务器既不持有用户设备私钥，也不知晓用户密码，因此无法伪造这些签名来诱导其他设备信任一个恶意设备。即使在双重认证体系下，服务器在设备加入流程中充当中继，并没有能力绕过用户批准直接将新设备植入圈内support.apple.comsupport.apple.com。这种架构等于为服务器访问用户密钥设置了密码学上的禁区。正如苹果安全白皮书所言，在最坏情形下如果用户丢失对 iCloud 钥匙串和其恢复机制的访问，那么相应的端到端加密数据苹果也无力恢复support.apple.com。苹果通过制度和技术结合，确保即便政府或机构要求提供用户数据，由于公司本身并无解密能力，只能交出加密的内容。

综上所述，Apple 高级数据保护下，全局数据加密密钥的生成由用户设备掌控，借助 iCloud 钥匙串信任链在多设备间安全同步。无论是在设备增加、移除还是用户失去设备的情况下，密钥和数据的生命周期管理均以用户掌控为中心：只要用户保有至少一个密钥载体（设备或恢复方式），数据即可解密使用；反之苹果也无法绕过用户获取密钥明文support.apple.com。苹果通过成熟的加密算法（AES-KW、ECDH 等）、硬件支持（Secure Enclave）、密钥分层与派生策略，实现了“零信任”云存储：服务器对用户密钥一无所知，从而使用户云端数据获得前所未有的保密性提升。

附录

图：高级数据保护下全局 DEK 管理的流程示意图。包含初始启用（设备 A 上生成新密钥并删除苹果服务器密钥）、新设备加入信任链（设备 B 请求并由设备 A 批准传输密钥）、设备移除或丢失（更新信任列表，但密钥通常不变）、以及用户失去所有设备时的恢复流程（通过恢复密钥取回 DEK）。各阶段均保证 DEK 安全不被未授权实体获取。

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Bitcoin Magazine

KindlyMD Shareholders Approve Merger with Bitcoin Treasury Company Nakamoto

KindlyMD, Inc. has secured shareholder approval for its proposed merger with Nakamoto Holdings Inc., marking a major step toward becoming one of the biggest Bitcoin treasury companies on the market.

The majority of KindlyMD’s shareholders delivered written consent in favor of the merger on May 18, 2025. The transaction is now on track to close in the third quarter of 2025, following the SEC’s review and distribution of an information statement to shareholders. Under current terms, the deal will close 20 days after the statement is mailed.

Full release: https://t.co/jsn4XNW1dK
"We are pleased to achieve this important milestone in the merger process," said Tim Pickett, CEO of KindlyMD. "As a combined company, we are excited to leverage Bitcoin's dominance and real-world utility to strengthen our company and drive… pic.twitter.com/YPD3ajZFNf

— KindlyMD (@KindlyMD) May 20, 2025

“This milestone brings us one step closer to unlocking Bitcoin’s potential for KindlyMD shareholders,” said David Bailey, Founder and CEO of Nakamoto. “We are grateful that KindlyMD shares our vision for a future in which Bitcoin is a core part of the corporate balance sheet, and investors across global capital markets have exposure to the world’s greatest asset and store of value.”

Nakamoto is building a global portfolio of companies aligned around Bitcoin’s core principles. Through treasury strategy and targeted acquisitions, the company aims to redefine capital markets infrastructure with Bitcoin at the center.

KindlyMD, meanwhile, brings to the table a unique model of integrated, data-driven healthcare focused on reducing opioid dependence and improving outcomes through personalized treatment and alternative medicine education. Its clinical services are reimbursed through Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurance. 

Tim Pickett, CEO of KindlyMD, emphasized the strategic benefits of the deal: “We are pleased to achieve this important milestone in the merger process. As a combined company, we are excited to leverage Bitcoin’s dominance and real-world utility to strengthen our company and drive sustained long-term value for our investors.”

Disclosure: Nakamoto is in partnership with Bitcoin Magazine’s parent company BTC Inc to build the first global network of Bitcoin treasury companies, where BTC Inc provides certain marketing services to Nakamoto. More information on this can be found here.

This post KindlyMD Shareholders Approve Merger with Bitcoin Treasury Company Nakamoto first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

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Trong bối cảnh thị trường giải trí trực tuyến ngày càng phát triển mạnh mẽ, 1BWM đã và đang khẳng định vị thế là một trong những nền tảng kỹ thuật số được cộng đồng người dùng tin tưởng và lựa chọn nhiều nhất. Nhờ sở hữu giao diện thiết kế hiện đại, tinh tế và cực kỳ dễ sử dụng, 1BWM giúp người dùng dễ dàng tiếp cận và trải nghiệm mọi tiện ích mà nền tảng này mang lại chỉ với vài thao tác đơn giản. Không chỉ vậy, 1BWM còn ghi điểm bởi khả năng tối ưu hóa trải nghiệm trên đa dạng thiết bị như điện thoại di động, máy tính bảng và máy tính để bàn, giúp người dùng có thể giải trí bất cứ lúc nào, ở bất kỳ đâu một cách thuận tiện và mượt mà. Từ các chuyên mục nội dung hấp dẫn, phong phú cho đến hệ thống tính năng linh hoạt, 1BWM luôn biết cách làm mới mình để phù hợp với xu hướng công nghệ và nhu cầu giải trí ngày càng đa dạng của người dùng hiện đại.

Điểm mạnh nổi bật tiếp theo khiến 1BWM được nhiều người lựa chọn chính là hệ thống bảo mật dữ liệu và quyền riêng tư vô cùng nghiêm ngặt. Nền tảng này ứng dụng công nghệ mã hóa tiên tiến, đảm bảo mọi thông tin cá nhân, tài khoản và dữ liệu giao dịch của người dùng luôn được bảo vệ an toàn tuyệt đối. Bên cạnh đó, 1BWM còn sở hữu đội ngũ chăm sóc khách hàng chuyên nghiệp, tận tâm và giàu kinh nghiệm, luôn sẵn sàng hỗ trợ giải đáp mọi thắc mắc cũng như xử lý các tình huống phát sinh một cách nhanh chóng, hiệu quả nhất. Người dùng có thể yên tâm khi trải nghiệm các dịch vụ tại đây mà không phải lo lắng về bất cứ rủi ro nào liên quan đến bảo mật thông tin. Ngoài ra, nền tảng này còn thường xuyên triển khai các chương trình ưu đãi hấp dẫn, quà tặng đặc biệt dành cho người dùng mới lẫn hội viên lâu năm, tạo thêm nhiều giá trị và động lực cho cộng đồng người tham gia.

Không dừng lại ở đó, 1BWM luôn nỗ lực không ngừng trong việc nâng cao chất lượng dịch vụ và mở rộng thêm nhiều tiện ích giải trí mới, nhằm mang đến cho người dùng những trải nghiệm trọn vẹn và thú vị nhất. Nền tảng này liên tục cập nhật các chuyên mục nội dung mới mẻ, phong phú và bắt kịp xu hướng giải trí hiện đại, giúp người dùng luôn có thêm nhiều lựa chọn phù hợp với sở thích cá nhân. Đồng thời, 1BWM cũng chú trọng vào việc cải tiến công nghệ, tối ưu tốc độ kết nối và giao diện sử dụng để nâng cao trải nghiệm mỗi lần truy cập. Với định hướng phát triển rõ ràng cùng sự đầu tư bài bản, 1BWM không chỉ là một nền tảng giải trí đơn thuần mà còn là cộng đồng trực tuyến năng động, nơi người dùng có thể kết nối, tương tác và chia sẻ những khoảnh khắc giải trí vui vẻ, ý nghĩa cùng nhau. Nhờ những ưu điểm vượt trội này, 1BWM ngày càng khẳng định được vị thế và trở thành sự lựa chọn hàng đầu của người dùng Việt khi tìm kiếm một không gian giải trí số chất lượng, an toàn và uy tín.

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Abstract

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

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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

1. Wallet creates a Bitcoin transaction.
2. Wallet sends it to a set of configured Nostr relays.
3. Relays accept and cache the transaction (based on fee policies).
4. Mining nodes or bridge nodes fetch mempool contents from Nostr.
5. Once mined, a block is submitted over Nostr.
6. 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.

@ 9c9d2765:16f8c2c2

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

“I should have trusted my son,” she said softly, her voice thick with emotion. “I allowed the world’s opinion to silence my instincts.”

James turned to her, his expression gentle. “You needed time to see what I had to become, Mother. I don’t blame you for anything.”

Mr. JP stepped forward, placing a firm hand on James’s shoulder. “Son, you’ve given this family more than we ever gave you. And tonight… Tonight, you gave JP Enterprises its legacy.”

Uncle Charles, who had silently stood behind James during the entire storm, finally spoke. “It took courage to keep quiet and watch those who wronged you bury themselves with their own greed.”

James nodded slightly. “And now… it’s done.”

Rita came closer, smiling softly. “Not completely,” she said with a hint of laughter. “You still have an entire empire to run… and a celebration to finish.”

James allowed a rare, genuine smile to appear. “Right. The anniversary.”

They returned to the hall, which had now regained its glamour and golden glow. The orchestra resumed a soft melody. The guests whispered less now and admired more. The reputation of James was not only redeemed, it was immortalized.

A grand toast was raised in his honor. Champagne glasses clinked gently beneath crystal chandeliers.

Meanwhile, in a corner of the room, Tracy sat, feeling like the walls were closing in. Her palms were damp. She had seen the storm come full circle, and it landed directly on the heads of her former allies. Her gaze lingered on James from afar no longer the man she belittled, deceived, and mocked. He was now untouchable.

She lowered her head, guilt dancing between her thoughts. What have I done?

As if sensing her gaze, James glanced in her direction. For a heartbeat, their eyes met. But there was no anger in his. Just clarity. And silence. He turned away, giving her no attention, no confrontation. That indifference stung more than any rebuke.

Back on stage, Mr. JP announced, “Tonight, we not only celebrate sixteen years of excellence, but we also honor the future. A future with James as our guiding light.”

The crowd once again erupted in applause.

As the music swelled and the lights dimmed to warm hues, couples danced, laughter returned, and the celebration continued. But for James, the victory wasn’t in the glamour, nor the spotlight. It was in knowing that he had not only defeated those who plotted against him but done so without losing his soul.

Later that evening, James stood alone at the terrace, looking out at the moonlit city below. Sandra approached quietly.

“You finally have it all,” she said gently. “The name. The company. The power.”

James didn’t turn. “It was never about having it all. It was about becoming everything they said I couldn’t.”

She smiled, stepping beside him. “And now?”

He exhaled, his breath misting into the cold night air. “Now… I build. For real this time.”

The celebration had ended, but its echoes still danced through the night like a lingering song in the soul. The grand hall slowly emptied, leaving behind the soft shuffling of feet and murmurs of astonishment. JP Enterprises’ 16th Anniversary had become more than a commemoration of business success it was now remembered as the night the city witnessed a man rise from ruin to royalty.

The staff bustled through the corridors, clearing the remains of laughter, toasts, and carefully prepared cuisine. James had stepped away, far from the glitz and glamour, and now stood once more on the terrace, his thoughts stretched thin across the skyline of the city he once wandered in as nothing more than a nameless shadow.

The weight of it all rested gently on his shoulders, not a burden, but a reminder. He remembered the cold nights on the street, the hunger, the humiliation at the Ray household, the scorn in Helen’s voice, and the way Tracy used to avoid eye contact with him as if he were dirt beneath her polished shoes.

His fists clenched slowly as memory swirled within him like a storm. But he released the tension just as quickly. That past could no longer touch him. He had outgrown it. Transcended it.

Behind him, the heavy oak doors creaked. It was Uncle Charles.

“You should rest,” Charles said, his tone fatherly. “You’ve had a long night.”

James turned, eyes soft yet heavy. “You ever wonder what happens after the applause ends?”

Charles smiled. “That’s when the real work begins.”

James chuckled dryly. “Exactly.”

They stood side by side, looking out at the city lights. It felt poetic somehow like all the scattered stars in the sky had descended to earth in the form of streetlights and skyscrapers.

“You did well tonight, James,” Charles said. “You kept your composure even when that girl tried to destroy everything.”

“She was just a pawn,” James replied. “Mark and Helen used her like they use everyone. Their power was built on manipulation. Mine won’t be.”

Charles looked at him, pride gleaming in his eyes. “And that’s why you’re different. That’s why you deserve the crown.”

Meanwhile, back in the Ray residence, chaos brewed. Mark paced violently, his jacket flung to the floor, his tie undone. Helen sat on the edge of the sofa, her heels off, nursing a glass of wine with trembling fingers.

“She betrayed us,” Mark spat. “That girl after all the money we gave her, she folded.”

“What did you expect?” Helen hissed. “She was a desperate street rat! Loyalty is not in their blood!”

Mark slammed his fist on the table. “Now the city sees us as liars. As criminals. We’ve been blacklisted by investors! Do you know what that means, Helen? We’re finished!”

Helen's face hardened. “No. We’re not. James might have won tonight, but the game isn’t over.”

Mark turned toward her. “You still want to fight him?”

The silence that followed the explosive revelation at the anniversary was thick and reverent. It blanketed the city like a veil, as if the skyline itself paused to absorb the magnitude of what had transpired. James, once discarded and humiliated, had emerged not only as the President of JP Enterprises, but as its rightful heir, son to the powerful and elusive Mr. JP. What was once speculation had now become an undeniable truth, echoing across boardrooms, dinner tables, and digital screens.

Back at JP Towers, the building pulsed with energy. Staff walked a little straighter, greeted one another with more awareness. The man they once passed in hallways without a second glance had now become a figure of awe and authority. His name echoed in hushed reverence: Mr. James.

Inside his office, James sat behind a polished obsidian desk, the city's skyline stretching behind him like a conquest. His fingers drummed silently on a closed file. He had received more than twenty new partnership requests within forty-eight hours of the celebration. Shares had surged. The media, which once sought to condemn him, was now clamoring for exclusive interviews, praising his resilience and visionary leadership.

Yet, James was silent.

Not because he didn't revel in victory, but because he understood something deeper this was not the end. It was only the beginning.

@ 2b998b04:86727e47

I didn’t take a course on “prompt engineering.” I didn’t memorize secret formulas or chase viral hacks.

What I did do was treat it like a system.

Just like in software:

Write → Compile → Test → Debug → Repeat

With AI, the loop feels just as familiar:

Prompt → Output → Edit → Re-prompt

That’s not magic. That’s engineering.

---

When someone asked me, “How can you trust AI for anything serious?”\ I told them: “Same way we trust the internet — not because the network’s reliable, but because the protocol is.”

AI is no different. The key is building systems around it:

• Multiple models if needed

• Human-in-the-loop verification

• Layered editing and real discernment

---

It’s Not That Different From Other Engineering

Once you stop treating AI like a black box and start treating it like a tool, the whole experience changes.

The prompt isn’t a spell. It’s a spec.\ The response isn’t a prophecy. It’s a build.\ And your discernment? That’s your QA layer.

---

What I Actually Use It For

• Brainstorming titles and refining headlines

• Drafting posts that I shape and filter

• Running content through for edge cases

• Exploring theological or philosophical questions

And yes — I want it to be useful. I am building to make a living, not just to make noise. But I don’t lead with monetization. I lead with clarity — and build toward sustainability.

---

Final Thought

If you’re waiting for a course to teach you how to “do AI,” maybe just start by building something real. Test it. Edit it. Use it again. That’s engineering.

Shoutout to Dr. C (ChatGPT) for helping me articulate this.

If this post sparked anything for you, zap a few sats ⚡ — every bit helps me keep building with conviction.

@ f6488c62:c929299d

เรื่องจริงที่ต้องเตือน: เมื่อ "ความรวยจากคริปโต" กลายเป็นดาบสองคมที่อันตรายถึงชีวิต! 🔪💰

ในขณะที่หลายคนยินดีกับกำไรจาก Bitcoin และคริปโตอื่นๆ มีเรื่องราวอีกด้านที่น่าสะเทือนใจเกิดขึ้นทั่วโลก โดยเฉพาะเหตุการณ์ "ลักพาตัวเพื่อเรียกค่าไถ่เป็นคริปโต" ที่ทวีความรุนแรงขึ้น

ข้อมูลและข่าวจากหลายแหล่งยืนยันว่า ผู้ใช้งานคริปโตกำลังตกเป็นเป้าหมายของอาชญากร โดยใช้วิธีการที่โหดเหี้ยม เช่น การทำร้ายร่างกาย หรือแม้กระทั่งการ "ตัดนิ้ว" เพื่อบีบบังคับให้เหยื่อโอนคริปโตใน Cold Wallet ที่เก็บไว้! เคสล่าสุดที่เกิดขึ้นในฝรั่งเศสและสหรัฐฯ ในช่วงปี 2025 เป็นเครื่องย้ำเตือนชั้นดี

ทำไมพวกเขาถึงเลือก "คุณ" ที่เป็นนักลงทุนคริปโต? ปัจจัยสำคัญคือ: มูลค่าสินทรัพย์ที่คุณถือสูงมาก, การเก็บ Private Key ของ Cold Wallet คือจุดอ่อนที่คนร้ายใช้ความรุนแรงบังคับเอาได้ง่าย, และที่น่าตกใจคือ การ "โพสต์โชว์ความรวย" หรือพูดถึงคริปโตมากเกินไปบนโซเชียลมีเดีย กำลังเป็นการชี้เป้าให้ตัวเอง!

ข้อคิดและแนวทางป้องกันตัวที่สำคัญสุดๆ:

จงเป็น "Ghost" ในโลกคริปโต: อย่าให้ใครรู้ว่าคุณถืออะไร เท่าไหร่ หรือรวยแค่ไหน การปิดทองหลังพระในโลกคริปโตอาจช่วยรักษาชีวิตคุณได้ ยกระดับความปลอดภัย "ชีวิตจริง": คิดถึงกล้องวงจรปิด, ระบบรักษาความปลอดภัยที่บ้าน, การจ้างบอดี้การ์ด (ถ้าจำเป็นจริงๆ), และระวังการเดินทางคนเดียว บริหารจัดการ "กุญแจ" ของคุณให้ดีที่สุด: Cold Wallet สำคัญมาก แต่การเก็บ Private Key ให้ปลอดภัยจากสายตาคนอื่น และการกระจายความเสี่ยงโดยแบ่งทรัพย์สินไปหลาย Wallet ก็สำคัญไม่แพ้กัน ความรุนแรงในวงการคริปโตเป็นบทเรียนราคาแพงที่บอกว่า ความมั่งคั่งที่มองไม่เห็นในโลกดิจิทัลนั้น มีราคาค่างวดที่ต้องจ่ายในโลกจริงหากประมาท การลงทุนอย่างรอบคอบ ไม่ใช่แค่การดูกราฟ แต่คือการประเมินและจัดการความเสี่ยงใน "ชีวิต" ของคุณด้วย!

แชร์โพสนี้เพื่อเตือนเพื่อนๆ นักลงทุนทุกคน ให้ปลอดภัยทั้งทรัพย์สินและชีวิตครับ/ค่ะ!

Crypto #Bitcoin #Ethereum #ColdWallet #PrivateKey #Security #Crime #DigitalAssets #Investor #SafetyFirst #เตือนภัย #ลงทุนอย่างปลอดภัย

@ 33baa074:3bb3a297

Distilled water and purified water are different in some aspects. Which one is better depends on personal needs and preferences. The following is a comparative analysis of the two from multiple dimensions:

Water source and process flow Distilled water: The water source usually comes from natural water bodies such as rivers, lakes and seas. It is treated by distillation, that is, water is heated to boiling and water vapor is condensed into liquid water. This process can remove impurities, harmful substances and most minerals in the water.

Purified water: The water source is mainly tap water. Through a series of complex processes such as filtration, adsorption, reverse osmosis, and electrolysis, harmful substances, bacteria, viruses and some minerals in the water are removed to achieve high purity. The process flow is relatively complex and some trace elements that are beneficial to the human body are retained.

Ingredients and nutrition Distilled water: Highly pure, almost no minerals and trace elements. Long-term drinking may cause the human body to lack necessary minerals and trace elements, thus affecting health.

Purified water: After treatment, some trace elements that are beneficial to the human body are retained. While maintaining a high degree of purity, it has certain nutritional value and is more suitable as daily drinking water to meet the basic needs of the human body for water and minerals.

Uses Distilled water: Due to its high purity and impurity-free characteristics, it is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry (such as preparing and diluting various drug solutions, saline, and cleaning wounds, etc.), chemical experiments (dissolving and diluting chemical reagents, preparing chemical solutions, etc.), and industrial production.

Purified water: More used in daily drinking, cooking, and brewing tea and coffee. It has a fresh taste and no odor, which can better preserve the original flavor of food and drinks. It can also be used to prepare infant milk powder and formula milk powder, etc., which is safer and more reliable because it does not contain harmful substances.

Potential risks Distilled water: Due to the lack of minerals and trace elements, it may cause nutritional imbalance in the human body.

Purified water: Although some trace elements are retained, it may also bring potential health risks due to chemical residues in the processing process.

In summary, if you are worried about the loss of minerals, it may be more appropriate to choose purified water; if you think that excessive mineral intake is not good for health, then distilled water may be a better choice. But no matter which one you choose, it is not recommended to drink a large amount of water for a long time. It can be combined with other mineral-rich drinks or foods to maintain the body's nutritional balance.

@ f6488c62:c929299d

เกิดอะไรขึ้นช่วงส่งท้ายปี 2024? จู่ๆ บัญชี X ของอีลอน มัสก์ ก็เปลี่ยนชื่อเป็น "Kekius Maximus" สร้างความสงสัยและกระแสไปทั่ว!

ชื่อนี้มีความหมายแฝงอะไร? ➡️ Kek: มาจากเทพกบในตำนานอียิปต์ และเป็นมีมยอดฮิตในโลกออนไลน์ (โดยเฉพาะกลุ่มคริปโต/เกม) มักใช้สื่อถึงความขำขัน เสียดสี ➡️ Maximus: คาดว่ามาจากตัวละครฮีโร่ผู้กล้าหาญในภาพยนตร์ Gladiator ➡️ รูปโปรไฟล์: ใช้ภาพ Pepe the Frog (มีมดัง) ในชุดนักรบโรมัน ถือจอยสติ๊ก!

เจตนาที่เป็นไปได้? ✅ ความสนุกและเล่นกับมีม: มัสก์ชอบใช้มีมสร้างกระแสอยู่แล้ว นี่อาจเป็นอีกครั้งที่เขาหยอกล้อกับวัฒนธรรมอินเทอร์เน็ต ✅ ทดสอบอิทธิพล: การเปลี่ยนชื่อส่งผลให้เหรียญมีม KEKIUS พุ่งขึ้นมหาศาล เป็นการยืนยันพลังโซเชียลของเขา ✅ เชื่อมโยงกับเกม: มัสก์เคยใช้ชื่อ Kekius Maximus ในเกม Path of Exile มาก่อน

แม้จะเปลี่ยนชื่อกลับไปแล้ว แต่เรื่องนี้ก็แสดงให้เห็นมุมที่เป็นกันเอง ความชอบส่วนตัว และอิทธิพลอันทรงพลังของอีลอน มัสก์ ได้เป็นอย่างดี!

ElonMusk #KekiusMaximus #X #โซเชียลมีเดีย #มีม #คริปโต #Gladiator #PepeTheFrog

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

The Blockchain Group Secures €8.6 Million to Boost Bitcoin Strategy

The Blockchain Group (ALTBG), listed on Euronext Growth Paris and known as Europe’s first Bitcoin Treasury Company, has announced a capital increase of approximately €8.6 million as it pushes forward with its Bitcoin Treasury Company strategy. The funding was raised through two operations, a Reserved Capital Increase and a Private Placement, with both priced at €1.279 per share.

JUST IN: French company The Blockchain Group raises €8.6 million to buy more #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/VjTKyFSS6w

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 20, 2025

This price represents a 20.18% premium over the 20-day volume-weighted average share price but a 46.26% discount compared to the closing price on May 19, 2025, reflecting recent high share price volatility.

“The Company’s Board of Directors decided on May 19, 2025, using the delegated authority granted by the shareholders’ meeting held on February 21, 2025, under the terms of its 5th resolution, on an issuance, without pre-emptive rights for shareholders, of 3,368,258 new ordinary shares of the Company at a price of €1.2790 per share, including an issuance premium, representing a premium of approximately 20.18% compared to the weighted average of the twenty closing prices of ALTBG shares on Euronext Growth Paris preceding the decision of the Company’s Board of Directors, corresponding to a total subscription amount of €4,308,001.98,” said the press release. 

In the Reserved Capital Increase, 3.37 million shares were issued to selected investors, including Robbie van den Oetelaar, TOBAM Bitcoin Treasury Opportunities Fund, and Quadrille Capital, raising over €4.3 million. The Private Placement raised another €4.35 million via the issuance of 3.4 million shares, targeting qualified investors.

“The Board of Directors also decided on a capital increase without pre-emptive rights for shareholders through an offering exclusively targeting a limited circle of investors acting on their own behalf or qualified investor, ” stated the press release.

The funds will support The Blockchain Group’s ongoing strategy of accumulating Bitcoin and expanding its subsidiaries in data intelligence, AI, and decentralized tech. Following this capital increase, the company’s share capital stands at €4.37 million, divided into over 109 million shares.

“The funds raised through the Capital Increase will enable the Company to strengthen its Bitcoin Treasury Company strategy, consisting in the accumulation of Bitcoin, while continuing to develop the operational activities of its subsidiaries,” said the press release.

Additionally, on May 12, The Blockchain Group announced it secured approximately €12.1 million through a convertible bond issuance reserved for Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream.

This post The Blockchain Group Secures €8.6 Million to Boost Bitcoin Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

@ a31f394c:7ad8f439

Nos últimos anos, o entretenimento digital tem ganhado cada vez mais espaço na vida dos brasileiros. Nesse cenário, a 88BRL se destaca como uma das plataformas mais completas e confiáveis do mercado. Com um ambiente seguro, interface moderna e uma variedade impressionante de jogos, o site oferece uma experiência única para quem busca diversão, emoção e a possibilidade de transformar o lazer em grandes recompensas.

Uma Plataforma Segura e Intuitiva Desde o primeiro acesso, fica evidente que a 88brlfoi desenvolvida com foco no usuário. A navegação é simples e fluida, mesmo para quem não tem muita familiaridade com plataformas de jogos online. O site é responsivo, ou seja, funciona perfeitamente tanto em computadores quanto em dispositivos móveis, garantindo liberdade para jogar onde e quando quiser.

Outro ponto importante é a segurança. A plataforma utiliza tecnologia de criptografia avançada para proteger os dados dos usuários e garantir transações rápidas e seguras. Além disso, o suporte ao cliente está disponível todos os dias, pronto para resolver qualquer dúvida ou problema com eficiência e cordialidade.

Catálogo de Jogos Diversificado A grande estrela da 88BRL é, sem dúvida, sua coleção de jogos. A plataforma oferece opções para todos os gostos e níveis de experiência, com títulos desenvolvidos por estúdios renomados do setor. Entre os destaques, estão os populares jogos de slots, roletas virtuais e mesas de cartas, todos com gráficos realistas, trilha sonora envolvente e mecânicas intuitivas.

Para quem gosta de desafios estratégicos, a plataforma também conta com uma seção de jogos de habilidade, onde a atenção, raciocínio rápido e conhecimento podem fazer toda a diferença. O sistema é justo e transparente, oferecendo chances reais de vitória a todos os jogadores.

Experiência Personalizada para o Jogador Brasileiro Um dos grandes diferenciais da 88BRL é o cuidado com o público nacional. O site está totalmente traduzido para o português, e o atendimento ao cliente é feito por profissionais brasileiros, garantindo uma comunicação clara e eficaz. Além disso, a plataforma aceita os principais métodos de pagamento utilizados no Brasil, incluindo transferências bancárias, carteiras digitais e até mesmo PIX, o que torna os depósitos e saques rápidos e descomplicados.

A experiência do jogador vai além dos jogos em si. A 88BRL oferece promoções frequentes, bônus de boas-vindas atrativos e um programa de fidelidade que recompensa os usuários mais ativos com benefícios exclusivos, como rodadas grátis, brindes e acesso antecipado a novos jogos.

Comunidade e Diversão Sem Limites A plataforma também incentiva a construção de uma comunidade entre seus usuários, com torneios e eventos especiais que promovem a interação e a competitividade saudável. Esses eventos são uma ótima oportunidade para testar habilidades, conhecer outros jogadores e se divertir ainda mais.

Com atualizações constantes e novos títulos sendo adicionados regularmente, a 88BRL mostra que está sempre atenta às tendências do mercado e ao feedback dos usuários. Isso garante uma experiência dinâmica e sempre renovada.

@ a31f394c:7ad8f439

A 66BR chega ao cenário nacional como uma plataforma de entretenimento digital que promete transformar a forma como os brasileiros vivenciam os jogos online. Com uma interface moderna, navegação intuitiva e uma vasta variedade de jogos, o site oferece tudo o que os amantes da adrenalina e da sorte procuram — tudo isso com total segurança e praticidade.

Plataforma Moderna e Acessível Desde o primeiro acesso, é possível notar o cuidado com a experiência do usuário. A 66BR possui um layout responsivo, funcionando perfeitamente tanto em computadores quanto em dispositivos móveis. Isso significa que você pode jogar de onde quiser, seja no conforto de casa ou em movimento. A navegação é simples, rápida e organizada, o que facilita até mesmo para quem está começando agora nesse universo.

Além disso, a 66brprioriza a segurança dos seus usuários. A plataforma utiliza tecnologia de criptografia avançada para garantir que todas as informações pessoais e financeiras estejam protegidas. Os métodos de pagamento são variados e incluem opções populares no Brasil, como Pix, boleto bancário e carteiras digitais.

Variedade de Jogos para Todos os Gostos Um dos grandes atrativos da 66BR é a diversidade de jogos disponíveis. A plataforma trabalha com os principais desenvolvedores do mercado, garantindo gráficos de alta qualidade, jogabilidade fluida e títulos sempre atualizados.

Entre as opções oferecidas, destacam-se:

Slots virtuais: com temas que vão desde mitologia até filmes e séries, essas máquinas digitais combinam sorte e emoção em rodadas rápidas e empolgantes.

Jogos de mesa: para quem gosta de jogos estratégicos e clássicos como o pôquer, o blackjack e a roleta.

Jogos ao vivo: com transmissões em tempo real, esses jogos proporcionam uma experiência imersiva, como se o jogador estivesse em um ambiente físico, interagindo com anfitriões reais.

Todos os jogos são otimizados para rodar sem travamentos e contam com versões de demonstração para quem deseja testar antes de apostar com dinheiro real.

Experiência do Jogador: Simples, Justa e Divertida A experiência do usuário na 66BR vai além da qualidade dos jogos. O suporte ao cliente é outro ponto forte da plataforma, com atendimento disponível 24 horas por dia, em português, e com respostas rápidas e eficientes. Isso demonstra o compromisso da empresa em garantir a satisfação e tranquilidade de seus usuários.

Outro diferencial importante são as promoções e bônus frequentes. Novos usuários são recebidos com bônus de boas-vindas atrativos, enquanto os jogadores mais frequentes podem participar de campanhas exclusivas, com prêmios especiais e recompensas personalizadas.

A plataforma também conta com um sistema de fidelidade, onde os jogadores acumulam pontos à medida que participam dos jogos. Esses pontos podem ser trocados por bônus, giros grátis e outras vantagens dentro do site.

Conclusão A 66BR chega com força total para conquistar os brasileiros que buscam uma plataforma segura, moderna e recheada de entretenimento. Com um catálogo robusto de jogos, atendimento eficiente e benefícios para todos os perfis de jogadores, a 66BR se consolida como uma das melhores opções do país. Se você está procurando uma nova forma de se divertir e explorar o mundo dos jogos online com qualidade e confiança, a 66BR é o destino certo.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

U.S. Leads the World in Bitcoin Ownership, New Report Shows

A new report from River reveals that the United States dominates Bitcoin ownership globally, holding about 40% of all available Bitcoin. With 14.3% of its population owning Bitcoin, the U.S. outpaces Europe, Oceania, and Asia combined.

The United States is the global Bitcoin superpower.

Our new report breaks down how this advantage can fuel the next era of American prosperity. pic.twitter.com/v5BNgTGsKA

— River (@River) May 20, 2025

Corporate America also leads in Bitcoin holdings. Thirty-two U.S. public companies, with a combined market cap of $1.26 trillion, hold Bitcoin as a treasury asset. These firms account for 94.8% of all Bitcoin owned by publicly traded companies worldwide. Major holders include Strategy with 569,000 BTC, U.S. mining companies with 96,000 BTC, and others with 68,000 BTC, totaling 733,000 BTC in the U.S., compared to 40,000 BTC held elsewhere.

Since China’s ban on Bitcoin mining in 2021, the United States has become the global leader in Bitcoin mining, responsible for 38% of all new Bitcoin mined since then. The U.S. attracts miners thanks to its stable regulatory environment, access to deep and liquid capital markets, and abundant energy resources. These advantages have helped the U.S. increase its share of the global Bitcoin mining hashrate by over 500% since 2020, solidifying its position as the center of the industry.

Bitcoin is also emerging as America’s preferred reserve asset, overtaking gold. Over 49.6 million Americans are in favor of holding Bitcoin, compared to 36.7 million who still prefer gold.

The US government’s bitcoin advantage is greater than that of gold, where the US accounts for just 29.9% of the world’s central bank gold reserves. 

“Because there is a fixed supply of BTC, there is a strategic advantage to being among the first nations to create a strategic bitcoin reserve,” said the White House on March 7, 2025.

Politically, support for Bitcoin is gaining significant momentum across the U.S. government. As of now, 59% of U.S. Senators and 66% of House Representatives openly support pro-Bitcoin policies, signaling a notable shift in political attitudes and greater acceptance of digital assets as key components of America’s economic future.

The study highlights that Bitcoin ownership is highest among American males aged 31-35 and 41-45, with ownership rates ranging from 3% to 41% within these age groups. Politically, those identifying as “very liberal” or “neutral” are more likely to own Bitcoin than conservatives, though conservatives still make up a significant portion of holders.

This post U.S. Leads the World in Bitcoin Ownership, New Report Shows first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

@ a5ee4475:2ca75401

clients #link #list #english #article #finalversion #descentralismo

*These clients are generally applications on the Nostr network that allow you to use the same account, regardless of the app used, keeping your messages and profile intact.

**However, you may need to meet certain requirements regarding access and account NIP for some clients, so that you can access them securely and use their features correctly.

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CLIENTS

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Twitter like

• Nostrmo - [source] 🌐💻(🐧🪟🍎)🍎🤖(on zapstore)
• Coracle - Super App [source] 🌐🤖(on zapstore)
• Amethyst - Super App with note edit, delete and other stuff with Tor [source] 🤖(on zapstore)
• Primal - Social and wallet [source] 🌐🍎🤖(on zapstore)
• Iris - [source] 🌐🤖🍎
• Current - [source] 🤖🍎
• FreeFrom 🤖🍎
• Openvibe - Nostr and others (new Plebstr) [source] 🤖🍎
• Snort 🌐(🤖[early access]) [onion] [source]
• Damus 🍎 [source]
• Nos 🍎 [source]
• Nostur 🍎 [source]
• NostrBand 🌐 [info] [source]
• Yana [source] 🌐💻(🐧) 🍎🤖(on zapstore)
• Nostribe [on development] 🌐 [source]
• Lume 💻(🐧🪟🍎) [info] [source]
• Gossip - [source] 💻(🐧🪟🍎)
• noStrudel - Gamified Experience [onion] [info/source] 🌐
• [Nostrudel Next] - [onion]
• moStard - Nostrudel with Monero [onion] [info/source] 🌐
• Camelus - [source] 🤖 [early access]

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Community

• CCNS - Community Curated Nostr Stuff [source]
• Nostr Kiwi [creator] 🌐
• Satellite [info] 🌐
• Flotilla - [source] 🌐🐧🤖(on zapstore)
• Chachi - [source] 🌐
• Futr - Coded in haskell [source] 🐧 (others soon)
• Soapbox - Comunnity server [info] [source] 🌐
• Ditto - Soapbox community server 🌐 [source] 🌐
• Cobrafuma - Nostr brazilian community on Ditto [info] 🌐
• Zapddit - Reddit like [source] 🌐
• Voyage (Reddit like) [on development] 🤖

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Wiki

• Wikifreedia - Wiki Dark mode [source] 🌐
• Wikinostr - Wiki with tabs clear mode [source] 🌐
• Wikistr - Wiki clear mode [info] [source] 🌐

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Search

• Keychat - Signal-like chat with AI and browser [source] 💻(🐧🪟🍎) - 📱(🍎🤖{on zapstore})
• Spring - Browser for Nostr apps and other sites [source] 🤖 (on zapstore)
• Advanced nostr search - Advanced note search by isolated terms related to a npub profile [source] 🌐
• Nos Today - Global note search by isolated terms [info] [source] 🌐
• Nostr Search Engine - API for Nostr clients [source]
• Ntrends - Trending notes and profiles 🌐

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Website

• Nsite - Nostr Site [onion] [info] [source]
• Nsite Gateway - Nostr Site Gateway [source]
• Npub pro - Your site on Nostr [source]

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App Store

ZapStore - Permitionless App Store [source] 🤖 💻(🐧🍎)

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Video and Live Streaming

• Flare - Youtube like 🌐 [source]
• ZapStream - Lives, videos, shorts and zaps (NIP-53) [source] 🌐 🤖(lives only | Amber | on zapstore)
• Swae - Live streaming [source] (on development) ⏳

Post Aggregator - Kinostr - Nostr Cinema with #kinostr [english] [author] 🌐 - Stremstr - Nostr Cinema with #kinostr [english] [source] 📱 (on development) ⏳

Link Agreggator - Kinostr - #kinostr - Nostr Cinema Profile with links [English] - Equinox - Nostr Cinema Community with links [Portuguese]

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Audio and Podcast Transmission

• Castr - Your npub as podcast feed [source]
• Nostr Nests - Audio Chats [source] 🌐
• Fountain - Podcast [source] 🤖🍎
• Corny Chat - Audio Chat [source] 🌐

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Music

• Tidal - Music Streaming [source] [about] [info] 🤖🍎🌐
• Wavlake - Music Streaming [source] 🌐(🤖🍎 [early access])
• Tunestr - Musical Events [source] [about] 🌐
• Stemstr - Musical Colab (paid to post) [source] [about] 🌐

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Images

• Lumina - Trending images and pictures [source] 🌐
• Pinstr - Pinterest like [source] 🌐
• Slidestr - DeviantArt like [source] 🌐
• Memestr - ifunny like [source] 🌐

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Download and Upload

• DTAN - Distributed Torrent Archive on Nostr [info] [source] 🌐

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Documents, graphics and tables

• Mindstr - Mind maps [source] 🌐
• Docstr - Share Docs [info] [source] 🌐
• Formstr - Share Forms [info] 🌐
• Sheetstr - Share Spreadsheets [source] 🌐
• Slide Maker - Share slides 🌐 [Advice: Slide Maker https://zaplinks.lol/ site is down]

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Health

• Sobrkey - Sobriety and mental health [source] 🌐
• Runstr - Running app [source] 🌐
• NosFabrica - Finding ways for your health data 🌐
• LazerEyes - Eye prescription by DM [source] 🌐

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Forum

• OddBean - Hacker News like [info] [source] 🌐
• LowEnt - Forum [info] 🌐
• Swarmstr - Q&A / FAQ [info] 🌐
• Staker News - Hacker News like 🌐 [info]

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Direct Messenges (DM)

• 0xchat 🤖🍎 [source]
• Nostr Chat 🌐🍎 [source]
• Blowater 🌐 [source]
• Anigma (new nostrgram) - Telegram based [on development] [source]

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Reading

• Oracolo - A minimalist Nostr html blog [source]
• nRSS - Nostr RSS reader 🌐
• Highlighter - Insights with a highlighted read [info] 🌐
• Zephyr - Calming to Read [info] 🌐
• Flycat - Clean and Healthy Feed [info] 🌐
• Nosta - Check Profiles [on development] [info] 🌐
• Alexandria - e-Reader and Nostr Knowledge Base (NKB) [source] 🌐

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Writing

• Habla - Blog [info] 🌐
• Blogstack - Blog [info]🌐
• YakiHonne - Articles and News [info] 🌐🍎🤖(on zapstore)

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Lists

• Following - Users list [source] 🌐
• Nostr Unfollower - Nostr Unfollower
• Listr - Lists [source] 🌐
• Nostr potatoes - Movies List [source] 💻(numpy)

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Market and Jobs

• Shopstr - Buy and Sell [onion] [source] 🌐
• Nostr Market - Buy and Sell 🌐
• Plebeian Market - Buy and Sell [source] 🌐
• Ostrich Work - Jobs [source] 🌐
• Nostrocket - Jobs [source] 🌐

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Data Vending Machines - DVM (NIP90)

(Data-processing tools)

• Noogle - [source] 🌐
• Vendata - [source] 🌐
• TaskTiger 🌐
• Malware DVMs 🌐

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Games

• Chesstr - Chess 🌐 [source]
• Jestr - Chess [source] 🌐
• Snakestr - Snake game [source] 🌐
• Snakes on a Relay - Multiplayer Snake game like slither.io [source] 🌐

ENGINES - DEG Mods - Decentralized Game Mods [info] [source] 🌐 - NG Engine - Nostr Game Engine [source] 🌐 - JmonkeyEngine - Java game engine [source] 🌐

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Customization

• Emojito - Send Funny Stickers to React 🌐 [creator]

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Like other Services

• Olas - Instagram like [source] 🌐🍎🤖(on zapstore)
• Nostree - Linktree like 🌐
• Rabbit - TweetDeck like [info] 🌐
• Zaplinks - Nostr links 🌐
• Omeglestr - Omegle-like Random Chats [source] 🌐

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General Uses

• Njump - HTML text gateway source 🌐
• Filestr - HTML midia gateway [source] 🌐
• W3 - Nostr URL shortener [source] 🌐
• Playground - Test Nostr filters [source] 🌐

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Places

• Wherostr - Travel and show where you are
• Arc Map (Mapstr) - Bitcoin Map [info]

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Driver and Delivery

• RoadRunner - Uber like [on development] ⏱️
• Nostrlivery - iFood like [on development] ⏱️

⚠️ SCAM ⚠️ | Arcade City - Uber like [source]

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OTHER STUFF

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Lightning Wallets (zap)

• Alby - Native and extension [info] 🌐
• ZBD - Gaming and Social [info] [source] 🤖🍎
• Wallet of Satoshi - Simplest Lightning Wallet [info] 🤖🍎
• Minibits - Cashu mobile wallet [info] 🤖
• Blink - Opensource custodial wallet (KYC over 1000 usd) [source] 🤖🍎
• LNbits - App and extesion [source] 🤖🍎💻
• Zeus - [info] [source] 🤖🍎

Without Zap - Wassabi Wallet - Privacy-focused and non-custodial with Nostr Update Manager [source]

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Exchange

• Mostro - P2P lightning exchange on Nostr [info] 🌐
• Emptio - Bitcoin P2P on Nostr [on development]

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Media Server (Upload Links)

audio, image and video

Connected with Nostr (NIP):

• Nostr Build - Free and paid Upload [info] [source] 🌐
• NostrMedia - Written in Go with Nip 96 / Blossom (free and paid) [info] [source]
• Nostr Check - [info] [source] 🌐
• NostPic - [info] [source] 🌐
• Sovbit - Free and paid upload [info] [source] 🌐
• Voidcat - Nip-96 and Blossom [source] 🌐
• Primal Media - Primal Media Uploader [source] 🌐

Blossom - Your Media Safer

• Primal Blossom 🌐
• NostrBuild Blossom - Free upload (max 100MiB) and paid [info] [source] 🌐

Paid Upload Only

• Satellite CDN - prepaid upload (max 5GB each) [info] [source] 🌐

Without Nostr NIP:

• Pomf - Upload larger videos (max 1GB) [source]
• Catbox - max 200 MB [source]
• x0 - max 512 MiB [source]

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Donation and payments

• Zapper - Easy Zaps [source] 🌐
• Autozap [source] 🌐
• Zapmeacoffee 🌐
• Nostr Zap 💻(numpy)
• Creatr - Creators subscription 🌐
• Geyzer - Crowdfunding [info] [source] 🌐
• Heya! - Crowdfunding [source]

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Security

• Secret Border - Generate offline keys 💻(java)
• Umbrel - Your private relay [source] 🌐

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Key signing/login and Extension

• Amber - Key signing [source] 🤖(on zapstore)
• Nowser - Account access keys 📱(🤖🍎) 💻(🐧🍎🪟)
• Nos2x - Account access keys 🌐
• Nsec.app 🌐 [info]
• Lume - [info] [source] 🐧🪟🍎
• Satcom - Share files to discuss - [info] 🌐
• KeysBand - Multi-key signing [source] 🌐

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Code

• Stacks - AI Templates [info] [source] 🌐
• Nostrify - Share Nostr Frameworks 🌐
• Git Workshop (github like) [experimental] 🌐
• Gitstr (github like) [on development] ⏱️
• Osty [on development] [info] 🌐
• Python Nostr - Python Library for Nostr
• Sybil - Creating, managing and test Nostr events [on development] ⏱️

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Relay Check and Cloud

• Nostr Watch - See your relay speed 🌐
• NosDrive - Nostr Relay that saves to Google Drive

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Bidges and Getways

• Matrixtr Bridge - Between Matrix & Nostr
• Mostr - Between Nostr & Fediverse
• Nostrss - RSS to Nostr
• Rsslay - Optimized RSS to Nostr [source]
• Atomstr - RSS/Atom to Nostr [source]

Useful Profiles and Trends

nostr-voice - Voice note (just some clients)

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NOT RELATED TO NOSTR

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Voca - Text-to-Speech App for GrapheneOS [source] 🤖(on zapstore)

Android Keyboards

• Futo - Gboard like [source]
• Florisboard - [source]
• Heliboard - Openboard based [source]

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Personal notes and texts

• Joplin - privacy-focused note taking app with sync capabilities [source] 📱(🤖🍎) - 💻 (🐧🪟🍎)

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Front-ends

• Nitter - Twitter / X without your data [source]
• NewPipe - Youtube, Peertube and others, without account & your data [source] 🤖
• Piped - Youtube web without you data [source] 🌐

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Other Services

• Brave - Browser [source]
• DuckDuckGo - Search [source]
• LLMA - Meta - Meta open source AI [source]
• DuckDuckGo AI Chat - Famous AIs without Login [source]
• Proton Mail - Mail [source]

Other open source index: Degoogled Apps

---

Some other Nostr index on:

Nostr Apps | Nostorg | Awesome Nostr

@ f85b9c2c:d190bcff

Am I the only one who tires of this pen’s endless fight, Scribbling words that dance in the dimmest light? The ink flows free, but my mind’s in a plight, I still don’t get it, this craft’s strange height. My thoughts once soared, a creative kite, Now they stumble, lost in the night. The page stares back, so blank, so white, I still don’t get it, where’s my insight? I chase the muse with all my might, But she’s a ghost, just out of sight. My fingers cramp, my soul takes flight, I still don’t get it, this endless write. The stories beg to be shaped just right, Yet boredom creeps, a thief in flight. I dream of tales that spark delight, I still don’t get it, this weary blight. Friends say, “Your words, they shine so bright,” But I feel trapped in this daily rite. The passion fades, no end in sight, I still don’t get it, this draining fight. A poem, a prose, I try to ignite, Each line a chore, a forced invite. The joy’s gone cold, no warmth in sight, I still don’t get it, this fading light. Am I alone, or do others unite, In feeling this pull, this tired dislike? The keyboard clacks, the thoughts take flight, I still don’t get it, this writer’s spite. Perhaps it’s me, my heart’s too tight, Or maybe writing’s a cruel delight. I’ll push on through, with grit and bite, I still don’t get it, but I’ll rewrite. So here I sit, in day or night, Pouring my soul, though it feels trite. Am I the only one? I seek the sight, I still don’t get it—yet still, I write.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Building FUN! on Bitcoin: Parker Day and Casey Rodarmor Talk Collaboration and the Future of On-Chain Art and Auctions

Parker Day and Casey Rodarmor’s FUN! Collection is an unprecedented synthesis of photographic maximalism and protocol-level innovation—a work that stands alone within the landscape of Bitcoin-native art. Saturated with Day’s bold color palette, surreal personas, and layered identity play, the collection is anchored by Rodarmor’s foundational role as the creator of the Ordinals protocol. Most notably, the series is inscribed directly under Inscription 0—the first inscription ever made using the Ordinals Protocol—marking it as an ontological outlier in the digital art canon. No other collection occupies this same foundational location on-chain, making FUN! a conceptual and technical landmark in Ordinals history.

Now expanded with new reflections from both collaborators, this interview explores the project’s deeper ideological dimensions—from the mechanics of trustless auctions to the ethics of artistic compensation, from pro wrestling and portraiture to capitalist generosity and the social roots of value. Together, Day and Rodarmor form a rare creative pairing: artist and dev, photographer and protocol architect, equal parts absurdity and rigor.

One of the collection’s most iconic works—featuring Rodarmor himself—is set to headline the Megalith.art auction, a Bitcoin-native sale structure that concludes on June 3rd and will be showcased at both Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas and its satellite event, Inscribing Vegas. The piece anchors a broader lineup that includes standout contributions from leading digital artists such as Post Wook, Coldie, Ryan Koopmans, FAR, Rupture, and Harto.

It’s less an interview than a glimpse into a high-voltage collaboration:

Parker, your photography is known for its bold color, eccentric characters, and fearless exploration of identity and persona. How did this collaboration with Casey come about, and what visual or cultural influences helped shape The FUN! Collection?

PARKER: Casey and I have known each other since high school. You could even say he was one of my first models—I shot his portrait for my sophomore year darkroom photography class. We kept in touch over the years, and in 2017 he encouraged me to turn my ICONS series into crypto art. I passed on that at the time, but in 2021 I did release an Ethereum NFT collection of ICONS. Right after that, Casey called me and said, “Yo! You need to go even bigger! Do 10k!” And I’m like, “You know these are all unretouched and shot on film, right?” But with his encouragement and funding, we figured out how to produce 1,000 unique portraits.

The visual and cultural influences behind FUN! are too numerous to name—just a mishmash of pop culture that’s been stewing in my brain since childhood.

The FUN! collection was released under a CC0 license, meaning anyone can reuse, remix, or recontextualize the work without restriction. In a project so rooted in persona, authorship, and performance, what led you to make that decision—and how do you think about authorship or artistic control in the context of open licensing on Bitcoin? What would you find interesting to see done with the collection beyond your original photography methodology? What kinds of reinterpretations or mutations of the collection would genuinely intrigue you?

PARKER: I love it. As an artist, once you create something and it leaves the studio, it’s out of your hands. The audience shapes the work in their own interpretations. You have no control over it. It seems silly to say “this is my IP, you can’t do anything with it.” We live in a world of memes, of reproduction ad infinitum. It seems anachronistic in today’s world to clutch copyright with an iron fist. And it’s perfectly in keeping with the ethos of Bitcoin to make the work CC0. In terms of value, the inscriptions are the scarce collectibles. Even more so than any editioned prints will ever be. Their inscriptions’ provenance is on chain, directly descended from inscription 0. 

There’s nothing in particular that I’d like to see or not like to see done with FUN! I just hope people find meaning in it, and make meaning from it. 

You two have an unusual creative relationship: artist and protocol dev, patron and co-conspirator. Casey, you basically invented a new medium to support Parker’s work. What does it mean to build something enduring together in a space that often prizes individualism?

CASEY: I love it. I mean—I really love it. Parker and I are super complementary. We each have our own strong wheelhouses, and we’re always engaging with each other’s work, but in this very chill, supportive way.

Like, when we’re shooting, I’ll tell her what I think looks cool or what might work well in the collection—but it’s never directive. It’s more like, “Hey, here’s some data. Do with it what you will.” And same goes for the technical stuff. We’ll talk about metadata, domains, the website layout—she gives me her thoughts, and it’s just… input. Take it or leave it.

We’re both so solid in our own lanes that it makes collaboration easy. There’s no weird insecurity. She’s the creative force behind the collection—I know that. I’m the technical backbone—and she knows that. That kind of clarity makes it fun.

And honestly, I’m just really proud of this partnership. We’ve been in each other’s lives in a positive way for so long—since high school. Parker’s given me Bitcoin haircuts. I was bugging her to do NFTs in 2017. Even when we’d go long stretches without talking, we always checked back in.

“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Saw you on Twitter.”
“Saw you on Instagram.”

It’s just one of those great, long-running collaborations that’s rooted in mutual respect—and a shared willingness to go weird.

Casey, did you draw on any past modeling experience—or take notes from Raph? And what was it like working under Parker’s direction: more Kubrick or camp counselor?

CASEY: I think I was pretty self-directed for the shoot. I wasn’t drawing on past modeling experience exactly—more like theater kid energy. I’ve always loved professional wrestling. It’s incredibly cool… and also incredibly formulaic, so I get bored if I watch too much. But every couple of years, I check back in, see what the storylines are.

For this shoot, I knew exactly how I wanted to ham it up—like a professional wrestler. That wild, sweaty, insane energy. The spiked ball pressed against my face. All the weird faces. American pro wrestling is super operatic, honestly.

The character I was channeling? Mostly Ultimate Warrior. Parker really nailed the eyes—those classic, intense Ultimate Warrior eyes. He wore wild makeup and had that jacked-up look. Ric Flair was another influence—mainly for the hair. He had this long blond hair, and when it got bloody in the ring, it looked insane.

As for Parker—definitely more camp counselor than Kubrick. She sets the scene: everything ready, hair and makeup dialed, wardrobe laid out. We talked through the costumes a bit. She’ll give direction, a few hints here and there—but it’s really up to the model to bring it.

You can include that (Casey snaps his fingers.)

Yeah. You know? You know.

The FUN! collection features an interactive website where visitors can filter portraits by mood, prop, background color—even astrological sign. What inspired that kind of functionality?

PARKER: Before FUN!, I had been thinking about an exhibition that grouped photos based on emotional expression. Even though the personas may appear wildly different, the core humanity is the same. I’ve always tried to equate disparate identities by shooting people in the same way—with simple fabric backdrops that strip away time and place.

The FUN! website (fun.film), reflects this idea: difference in sameness, or sameness in difference. It’s a tool for play—but also a way to reflect on identity in a fragmented age.

Casey, you’ve described yourself as a capitalist—but you’ve also given away tools for free and pursued an almost obsessive elegance in your work. How do you reconcile market belief with this ethic of generosity? And what does that tension mean for the future of Ordinals?

CASEY: There’s absolutely no tension—and that’s because most people just don’t understand what capitalism is. Like, I can’t even begin to unpack what people think capitalism means.

Capitalism simply means the means of production are privately controlled. That’s it. That’s the whole definition. The alternatives? You’ve got two: either (1) violent chaos, or (2) the government owns and allocates all capital. That’s it. Those are your three options.

So when people say they’re “anti-capitalist,” what they usually mean is: “I want the government to control who gets what.” I’m not about that. I’m a staunch capitalist. I allocate my own means of production—my computers, my resources, my energy—how I see fit, not how the state tells me to.

And sometimes? That allocation includes giving things away. That’s not anti-capitalist. If the government confiscated my stuff and handed it out? Sure, that’s anti-capitalist. But me choosing to make something—sometimes selling it, sometimes not—is 100% aligned with the spirit of capitalism.

People need to get with the program.

You asked about the tension between generosity and profit in Ordinals? There _i

@ f85b9c2c:d190bcff

Cryptocurrency has been a hot topic in the world of finance and technology for the past few years. With the rise of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, many have speculated that crypto could be the future of money. But is this really the case? In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the concept of cryptocurrency and whether it has the potential to replace traditional forms of currency.

What is Cryptocurrency? First, let’s define what cryptocurrency actually is. Essentially, cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual form of currency that uses blockchain technology for secure and decentralized transactions. Unlike traditional currencies, which are controlled by central authorities such as banks and governments, cryptocurrency operates independently and is not subject to the same regulations or central authorities. Bitcoin, the first and most well-known cryptocurrency, was created in 2009 by an unknown individual or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Since then, thousands of other cryptocurrencies have emerged, each with their own unique features and values.

The Advantages of Cryptocurrency 1.One of the main advantage of cryptocurrency is its decentralized nature. This means that it is not controlled by any central authority, making it immune to inflation and government interference. Transactions are also fast and secure, thanks to blockchain technology.

2.Another advantage of cryptocurrency is its potential for investment. Many people have made significant profits by investing in cryptocurrencies.However, it’s important to note that cryptocurrency carries a high level of risk.

The Challenges of Cryptocurrency While there are certainly benefits to using cryptocurrency, there are also several challenges that must be addressed before it can become the future of money. 1. One major issue is the lack of regulation. As mentioned earlier, cryptocurrency is not subject to the same regulations as traditional currencies, which can make it vulnerable to fraud and illegal activities. This has led to some governments imposing restrictions on the use of cryptocurrency, hindering its adoption on a global scale.

1. Another challenge is the complexity of cryptocurrency. For the average person, understanding how it works and how to use it can be challenging. This can make it less accessible and limit its potential for widespread use.

Is Crypto Really the Future of Money? So, back to our initial question: is crypto really the future of money? While it certainly has its advantages, there are still many obstacles that need to be overcome before that can happen. Some experts believe that cryptocurrency has the potential to transform the financial industry, while others argue that it will never fully replace traditional forms of currency. The truth is, it’s still too early to say for certain what the future holds for cryptocurrency. One thing is for sure, though — cryptocurrency has already made a significant impact on the financial world and it’s here to stay. Whether it will become the primary form of currency in the future remains to be seen, but it’s clear that it has disrupted the traditional financial system and sparked important discussions about the future of money.

In Conclusion Cryptocurrency has captured the attention of the world with its promise of a decentralized and secure currency. While it does have its advantages, there are still many challenges that need to be addressed before it can truly become the future of money. Only time will tell if cryptocurrency will live up to its potential and become a mainstream form of currency. In the meantime, it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on as it continues to evolve and shape the financial landscape.

@ 662f9bff:8960f6b2

April already and we are still refugees from the madness in HK. During March I had quite a few family matters that took priority and I also needed to work for two weeks. April is a similar schedule but we flew to Madeira for a change of scene and so that I could have a full 2-weeks off - my first real holiday in quite a few years!

We are staying in an airBnB in Funchal - an experience that I can totally recommend - video below! Nice to have an apartment that is fully equipped in a central location and no hassle for a few weeks. While here we are making the most of the great location and all the local possibiliites.

Elsewhere in the world

Things are clearly not going great around the world. If you are still confused as to why these things are happening, do go back and read the previous Letter from HK section "Why? How did we get here?"

You should be in no doubt that the "Great Reset" with its supporting "Great Narrative" is in full swing.. This is it - it is not a drill. For additional insights the following are recommended.

• Jeff Booth discusses clearly and unemotionally with Pomp - Inflation is theft from humanity by the world governments

• James' summary of Day 2 of the Miami conference - Peter Thiel (wow) and a fantastic explainer from Saifedean on the costs of the current corrupt financial system

• James' summary of Day 3 of the Miami conference - listen in particular to the words of wisdom from Michael Saylor and Lyn Alden

• Layered Money - The corruption of the system will blow your mind once you understand it…

• This is BIG: Strike Is Bringing Freedom To Retail Merchants

• Mark summarises Ray's book: Things will go faster and slower than you want!

• Thoughtful words from George - evil is at work - be in no doubt..

• Wow - My mind is blown. Must listen to John Carvalho - what clear ambition and answers to every question!

• Related to the John Carvalho discussion. Likely these two options will end up complementing each other

On the personal and inspirational side

Advantage of time off work is that I have more time to read, listen and watch things that interest me. It really is a privilege that so much high quality material is so readily available. Do not let it go to waste. A few fabulous finds (and some re-finds) from this past week:

• Ali Abdaal's bookshelf review just blew my mind! For the full list of books with links see the text under his video. So many inspirations and his delivery is perfect.

• Gotta recommend Ali's 21 Life Lessons. I have been following him since he was student in Cambridge five years ago - his personal and professional growth and what he achieves (now with his team) is truely staggering.

• Also his 15 books to read in 2022 - especially this one!

• I also keep going back to Steve Jobs giving the 2005 Stanford Commencement address Three stories from his life - listen and be inspired - especially story #3

You will know that I am a fan of Audio Books and also Kindle - recently I am starting to use Whispersync where you get the Kindle- and Audio-books together for a nice price. This makes it easier to take notes (using Mac or iPad Kindle reader) while getting the benefit of having the book read to you by a professional reader.

I have also been inspired by a few people pushing themselves to do more reading - like this girl and Ali himself with his tips. Above all: just do it and do not get stuck on something that does not work for you!

Books that I am reading - Audio and Kindle!

• The Final Empire: Mistborn, Book 1 - this is a new genre for me - I rather feel that it might be a bit too complicated for my engineering mind - let's see

• Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life - certainly provocative and obvious if you think about it but 99% do the opposite!

• Chariots of the Gods - a classic by Erich von Daniken (written in 1968) - I have been inspired by his recent YT video appearances. Thought provoking and leads you to many possibilities.

So what's it like in Funchal, Madeira?

Do check out HitTheRoadMadeira's walking tour around Funchal

My first impressions of Funchal 

and see my day out on Thursday!

Saturday - Funchal and Camar de Lobos

That's it!

No one can be told what The Matrix is.\ You have to see it for yourself.**

Do share this newsletter with any of your friends and family who might be interested.

You can also email me at: LetterFrom@rogerprice.me

💡Enjoy the newsletters in your own language : Dutch, French, German, Serbian, Chinese Traditional & Simplified, Thai and Burmese.

@ c9badfea:610f861a

1. Install YTDLnis (it's free and open source)
2. Launch the app and allow notifications and storage access if prompted
3. Go to any supported website or use the YouTube, Instagram, X, or Facebook app
4. Tap Share on the post or website URL and select YTDLnis as the sharing destination
5. Adjust the settings if desired and tap Download
6. You'll be notified when the download finishes
7. Enjoy uninterrupted watching!

ℹ️ This app uses yt-dlp internally and it's also available as a standalone CLI tool

@ 64334edc:1c0451e5

Zik88 là một nền tảng công nghệ hiện đại được phát triển nhằm mang đến trải nghiệm số tối ưu và thân thiện cho người dùng. Từ khi ra mắt, Zik88 đã không ngừng cải tiến giao diện và tính năng để phù hợp với nhu cầu ngày càng đa dạng của người dùng hiện đại. Giao diện thiết kế trực quan, tối giản giúp mọi đối tượng dễ dàng làm quen và thao tác nhanh chóng trên nhiều thiết bị khác nhau như điện thoại, máy tính bảng và máy tính cá nhân. Nền tảng này sử dụng công nghệ xử lý dữ liệu nhanh và ổn định, giảm thiểu thời gian chờ và nâng cao hiệu suất vận hành. Ngoài ra, Zik88 còn tích hợp các công cụ tùy chỉnh cá nhân hóa, cho phép người dùng lựa chọn bố cục, màu sắc và chức năng phù hợp với thói quen sử dụng riêng, tạo nên trải nghiệm sử dụng tiện lợi và thân thiện hơn. Điều này giúp Zik88 không chỉ là một nền tảng công nghệ đơn thuần mà còn là người bạn đồng hành hỗ trợ người dùng tối ưu hóa hoạt động hàng ngày một cách hiệu quả và dễ dàng.

Bên cạnh việc tối ưu trải nghiệm người dùng, ZIK88 đặc biệt chú trọng đến yếu tố bảo mật và an toàn dữ liệu. Nền tảng được xây dựng với hệ thống bảo mật đa lớp hiện đại, áp dụng các thuật toán mã hóa tiên tiến nhằm đảm bảo mọi thông tin cá nhân và dữ liệu quan trọng của người dùng được bảo vệ tuyệt đối khỏi các nguy cơ xâm nhập hoặc tấn công mạng. Ngoài ra, Zik88 còn vận hành quy trình kiểm tra và giám sát hoạt động liên tục, nhanh chóng phát hiện và xử lý kịp thời những bất thường nhằm duy trì môi trường số an toàn và ổn định cho tất cả người dùng. Đội ngũ kỹ thuật chuyên nghiệp luôn túc trực 24/7 để hỗ trợ xử lý sự cố và giải đáp thắc mắc, giúp người dùng yên tâm khi trải nghiệm các dịch vụ trên nền tảng. Sự kết hợp giữa công nghệ bảo mật tiên tiến và dịch vụ chăm sóc khách hàng tận tâm chính là điểm tựa vững chắc giúp Zik88 xây dựng được uy tín và lòng tin sâu sắc từ cộng đồng người dùng, tạo nền móng cho sự phát triển bền vững trong tương lai.

Zik88 không chỉ dừng lại ở việc cung cấp nền tảng công nghệ, mà còn hướng đến việc xây dựng một hệ sinh thái số đa dạng và sáng tạo nhằm phục vụ tốt nhất cho nhu cầu của người dùng. Nền tảng thường xuyên cập nhật và mở rộng các tính năng mới, đồng thời tích hợp các dịch vụ bổ trợ để nâng cao giá trị sử dụng cho người dùng. Sự linh hoạt trong việc kết nối với các hệ sinh thái khác giúp Zik88 mở rộng phạm vi hoạt động và nâng cao khả năng phục vụ đa dạng đối tượng khách hàng. Ngoài ra, Zik88 cũng chú trọng phát triển cộng đồng người dùng thông qua các chương trình tương tác, sự kiện trực tuyến và các hoạt động gắn kết nhằm tạo ra không gian giao lưu, trao đổi và học hỏi lẫn nhau. Chiến lược phát triển bền vững này giúp Zik88 không chỉ tạo ra giá trị thực tế mà còn xây dựng được mối quan hệ lâu dài với người dùng, từ đó khẳng định vị trí hàng đầu trong lĩnh vực công nghệ số. Với nền tảng vững chắc và tầm nhìn phát triển chiến lược, Zik88 hứa hẹn sẽ tiếp tục đồng hành và mang đến những trải nghiệm công nghệ ngày càng vượt trội cho người dùng trong tương lai.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

KULR Expands Bitcoin Treasury to $78M, Cites 220% BTC Yield YTD

Today, KULR Technology Group, Inc. (NYSE American: KULR) announced a $9 million expansion of its Bitcoin Treasury, bringing total acquisitions to $78 million. The latest purchase was made at a weighted average price of $103,234 per bitcoin, bringing the company’s total holdings to 800.3 BTC.

$KULR has acquired 83.3 BTC for ~ 9 million To learn more about our acquistion and our Bitcoin Treasury Strategy, check out today's press release.https://t.co/vuQk90DCgh pic.twitter.com/KrW3E4e700

— KULR Technology (@KULRTech) May 20, 2025

The move follows KULR’s December 2024 strategy to allocate up to 90% of surplus cash reserves to bitcoin. Year-to-date, the company reports a BTC Yield of 220.2%, a proprietary performance metric reflecting growth in BTC holdings relative to assumed fully diluted shares outstanding.

In Q1 2025, KULR reported revenue of $2.45 million, a 40% increase driven by product sales totaling approximately $1.16 million. Gross margin declined to 8%, while combined cash and accounts receivable stood at $27.59 million. Operating expenses rose, with Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A) Expenses at $7.20 million and Research and Development (R&D) Expenses at $2.45 million, contributing to an operating loss of $9.44 million. Net loss widened to $18.81 million, mainly due to a mark-to-market adjustment on bitcoin holdings.

“2025 is a transformational year for KULR and the transformation is well on its way,” commented KULR CEO Michael Mo. “With over $100M in cash and Bitcoin holdings on our balance sheet as of the present day and virtually no debt, we are well capitalized to grow our battery and AI Robotics businesses, while our capital market activities in the foreseeable future are geared to turbocharge our Bitcoin acquisition strategy, establishing KULR as a pioneer BTC-First Bitcoin Treasury Company.”

CEO @michaelmokulr speaks about the origins of KULR’s Bitcoin treasury strategy and how it will shape the future of the company’s growth.

Watch here:$KULR pic.twitter.com/UTq3iKkF0u

— KULR Technology (@KULRTech) May 15, 2025

This surge in bitcoin holdings by companies like KULR and Metaplanet highlights a growing trend among firms embracing BTC as a core treasury asset, reflecting confidence in bitcoin’s long-term value and utility as part of broader financial strategies.

Last week, Metaplanet reported its strongest quarter to date for Q1 FY2025. Metaplanet’s bitcoin holdings rose to 6,796 BTC—a 3.9x increase year-to-date and over 5,000 BTC added in 2025 alone. Despite a temporary ¥7.4 billion valuation loss from a bitcoin price dip in March, the company rebounded with ¥13.5 billion in unrealized gains as of May 12. Since adopting the Bitcoin Treasury Standard, Metaplanet’s BTC net asset value has surged 103.1x, and its market cap has grown 138.1x. 

This post KULR Expands Bitcoin Treasury to $78M, Cites 220% BTC Yield YTD first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

@ 4fe14ef2:f51992ec

Let's support Bitcoin merchants! I'd love to hear some of your latest Lightning purchases and interesting products you bought. Feel free to include links to the shops or businesses you bought from.

Who else has a recent purchase they’re excited about? Bonus sats if you found a killer deal! ⚡

If you missed our last thread, here are some of the items stackers recently spent and zap on.

Share & repost: N: note13hdv7a3lfe97hyn8qyed55u463nzya579z8zw7lvh84tfeks7f9swg0dlt X: https://x.com/AGORA_SN/status/1924042853971353859

https://stacker.news/items/982879

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Magic Eden Partners with Spark to Bring Fast, Cheap Bitcoin Settlements

Magic Eden is integrating with Spark to improve Bitcoin trading by addressing issues like slow transaction times, high fees, and poor user experience. According to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine, the integration will introduce a native settlement system aimed at making transactions faster and more cost-effective, without using bridges or synthetic assets.

Big day: @MagicEden is coming to Spark. New native Bitcoin experiences coming to you very soon.

Alpha → https://t.co/KPWZ7Ndagg pic.twitter.com/c4nSlhP3Rt

— Spark (@buildonspark) May 20, 2025

The integration will enable users to buy, sell, and earn Bitcoin-native assets more efficiently through Spark’s infrastructure, starting with support for stablecoin-to-BTC swaps and expanding to additional use cases over time.

Spark is built entirely on Bitcoin’s base layer. It provides transaction finality in under a second and fees below one cent.

“We’re proud to be betting on BTC DeFi,” said the CEO of Magic EdenJack Lu. “We’re going to lead the forefront of all Bitcoin DeFi to make BTC fast, fun, and for everyone with Magic Eden as the #1 BTC native app on-chain.”

Huge News: We're partnering with @buildonspark

Spark enables instant Bitcoin transactions, creating a fast and secure experience for everyone.

Get ready for a new wave of BTC-Defi pic.twitter.com/FXmHfATnJz

— Magic Eden (@MagicEden) May 20, 2025

The collaboration between Spark and Magic Eden will officially begin at BitGala on May 26th. At this event, they will host a joint gathering to mark their partnership and engage with the Bitcoin community. This event will also serve as the starting point for further integration, the development of new tools for developers, and expanded opportunities within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

“Spark is a completely agnostic protocol, it’s  purpose-built for developers to create the next generation of financial applications,” said the CEO & Co-founder of Lightspark David Marcus. “We’re incredibly excited to see Magic Eden building the future of on-chain Bitcoin DeFi directly on Spark.”

This post Magic Eden Partners with Spark to Bring Fast, Cheap Bitcoin Settlements first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

@ 58537364:705b4b85

มีคำหนึ่งในพุทธศาสนาที่เราอาจจะคุ้นหู แต่ว่าความเข้าใจอาจจะไม่ตรงกับความหมายในพุทธศาสนา นั่นคือคำว่า อธิปไตย

เวลาเรานึกถึงอธิปไตย ก็นึกไปถึงเรื่องของการเมือง ระบอบการปกครอง เช่น ประชาธิปไตย แต่อธิปไตยในพุทธศาสนาไม่ใช่เป็นเรื่องของระบอบการปกครอง แต่เป็นเรื่องของการให้คุณค่าให้ความสำคัญ

อธิปไตยก็แปลว่าการถือเอาเป็นใหญ่ เอาอะไรเป็นใหญ่ ก็มี 3 ประการใหญ่ ๆ อันแรกคือธรรมาธิปไตย คือการเอาธรรมะเป็นใหญ่ อันที่ 2 คืออัตตาธิปไตย การถือเอาตัวเองหรืออัตตาเป็นใหญ่ และ 3 โลกาธิปไตย ถือเอาคนหมู่มากเป็นใหญ่ ความหมายนี้ก็คือว่าไม่ได้มีความเห็นเป็นของตัวเอง แต่ว่าทำไปตามความเห็นของคนส่วนใหญ่ ที่เรียกว่าโลก เป็นต้น

แต่ว่าหลัก ๆ ก็มีอยู่ 2 อย่าง ที่เราควรจะใส่ใจและก็ทำความเข้าใจให้ถูกต้อง นั่นคือ ธรรมาธิปไตยกับอัตตาธิปไตย

การถือธรรมเป็นใหญ่ ความหมายคือเอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ เวลาเราทำงานทำการหรือเราใช้ชีวิต ถ้าเราถือธรรมเป็นใหญ่หรือธรรมาธิปไตย เราก็จะตั้งตัวอยู่ในศีลในธรรม ไม่เบียดเบียนผู้อื่น เพราะเห็นแก่ความถูกต้อง แต่ถ้าเราเอาตัวเองเป็นใหญ่หรืออัตตาธิปไตย มันก็คือการเอาประโยชน์ของตัวเองเป็นใหญ่ ไม่สนใจว่าความถูกต้องหรือระเบียบกฎเกณฑ์จะเป็นอย่างไร ถ้าเราถือตัวเองเป็นใหญ่ การที่เราจะอยู่ในศีลธรรมก็ยาก เพราะว่าเอาความต้องการของตัวเองเป็นหลัก ซึ่งส่วนใหญ่ก็เป็นเรื่องของกิเลสนั่นแหละ หรือความเห็นแก่ตัว

อัตตาธิปไตยในความหมายที่แย่คือการเห็นแก่ตัว ส่วนธรรมาธิปไตยเห็นแก่ธรรมะ เห็นแก่ความถูกต้อง หรือถ้าพูดง่าย ๆ คือว่าธรรมาธิปไตยคือการเอาถูกความเป็นใหญ่ ส่วนอัตตาธิปไตยคือเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่

อันนี้เราก็มาพิจารณาดูง่าย ๆ ในการดำเนินชีวิตของคนเรา ในแต่ละวันเราเอาอะไรเป็นใหญ่ อย่างเช่นเวลากินอาหาร ถ้าเราเอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ หรือธรรมาธิปไตย เราก็จะกินอาหารที่เป็นประโยชน์ต่อสุขภาพ เพื่อทำให้ร่างกายแข็งแรง มีกำลังวังชา เพื่อที่จะได้ทำกิจการงานต่าง ๆ ได้

แต่ถ้าเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่ เราก็จะกินเพราะว่ามันอร่อย เอารสชาติเป็นใหญ่ ถึงแม้ว่ามันจะไม่เป็นประโยชน์ต่อสุขภาพ แต่มันอร่อย มันหวาน มันเปรี้ยว มันเผ็ด มันเค็ม หรือว่ามันสีสวยน่ากิน ทั้ง ๆ ที่มันอาจจะเจือไปด้วยสารพิษที่เป็นอันตราย

หลายคนก็รู้ว่ากินอาหารที่มันเต็มไปด้วยไขมัน อุดมไปด้วยน้ำตาล เป็นโทษต่อสุขภาพ แต่ก็ห้ามใจไม่ได้ กินมาก ๆ เข้า สุดท้ายก็เป็นโรคหัวใจ โรคเบาหวาน ไตวาย หรือบางทีถ้ากินอาหารประเภทที่มันเป็นของดิบ เช่น ปลาดิบ มีพยาธิใบไม้ในตับ ก็เกิดเป็นมะเร็งในตับ หลายคนก็รู้ว่ากินอาหารแบบนี้ ทำให้เกิดโรคเป็นมะเร็งในตับ รู้ว่ามันไม่ถูกต้องแต่ก็กิน เพราะมันถูกใจ

หรือเวลาเราเรียนหนังสือ ถ้าความถูกต้อง เราก็ต้องเรียนด้วยความขยันหมั่นเพียร ต้องมีความซื่อสัตย์สุจริต เวลาทำการบ้าน หรือเวลาเข้าห้องสอบ แต่ถ้าเราเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่ เรียนบ้างไม่เรียนบ้าง บางวิชาฉันไม่ชอบฉันก็ไม่เรียน เวลาทำการบ้านก็ไปลอกจากเพื่อน หรือว่าไปตัดแปะมาจากกูเกิ้ลหรือวิกิพีเดีย เวลาสอบก็ทุจริต แม้รู้ว่าไม่ถูกต้อง แต่มันถูกใจ คือมันสะดวก ง่าย สบาย

เวลาทำงานถ้าเราเอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ เราก็จะทำงานด้วยความรับผิดชอบ แม้ว่าเป็นงานที่เราไม่ชอบ แต่เมื่อเรามีหน้าที่ เราก็ต้องพยายามทำให้ดีที่สุด เพราะเป็นความรับผิดชอบของเรา แต่ถ้าเอาความถูกใจ งานนี้ฉันไม่ชอบ ฉันก็ไม่ทำ ต่อเมื่อเป็นงานที่ฉันชอบ ฉันจึงจะทำ

หรือถ้าเป็นงานที่ฉันไม่ได้อะไร ฉันไม่ทำ จะทำก็ต่อเมื่อเป็นงานที่ได้ผลประโยชน์ เวลาจะทำอะไรก็จะถามว่าทำแล้วฉันจะได้อะไร อันนี้ก็คือเอาความถูกใจเป็นหลัก หรือเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่ในเวลาทำงาน

เวลาใช้ข้าวของ เช่นโทรศัพท์มือถือ ถามตัวเราเองว่าเราใช้ความถูกต้องหรือความถูกใจ ถ้าใช้ความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ ก็จะใช้โทรศัพท์เพื่อติดต่องานการ ทำกิจธุระ หาความรู้ เช็คข้อมูล อาจจะดูหนังฟังเพลงบ้าง ก็ให้เวลากับมันพอสมควร ไม่ใช่หมกมุ่นอยู่กับมัน โดยไม่เป็นอันทำอะไร งานการก็ไม่สนใจ ก้มหน้าดูแต่โทรศัพท์ ใช้ดูหนังฟังเพลง หรือบางทีหนักกว่านั้น ใช้เพื่อเล่นพนันออนไลน์ หรือเล่นเกมออนไลน์ วันหนึ่งหลายชั่วโมง การใช้โทรศัพท์มือถือแบบนี้ ก็เรียกว่าไม่ได้เอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ แต่เอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่

ฉะนั้นลองพิจารณาดูเรื่องการใช้ชีวิตของคนเรา รวมทั้งความสัมพันธ์กับผู้คน เราใช้อะไรเป็นใหญ่ เอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ หรือเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่ เวลาคบเพื่อน เวลามีเรื่องที่ต้องเกี่ยวข้องกับผู้คน ถ้าเราเอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ เราก็จะคำนึงถึงความรู้สึกของอีกฝ่ายหนึ่ง เราจะไม่คิดถึงแต่จะเบียดเบียน เอาเปรียบ ต้องมีความเสียสละ แล้วก็รู้จักอดกลั้น ไม่ทำตามอารมณ์

แต่ถ้าเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่ ก็เรียกว่าไม่สนใจว่าคนอื่น เขาจะรู้สึกอย่างไร เอาเปรียบได้ก็เอาเปรียบ ไม่พอใจอะไรก็โวยวาย เรียกว่าขาดน้ำใจ แล้วก็ขาดความรับผิดชอบ มันเป็นเส้นแบ่งได้เลยในเรื่องคน ในเรื่องของพฤติกรรม ในเรื่องของการกระทำ ว่าเราใช้ความถูกต้องหรือความถูกใจ

ถ้าเราเอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ ชีวิตก็มีโอกาสที่จะเจริญก้าวหน้า อยู่ในศีลในธรรม ตั้งมั่นในความดี แต่ถ้าเราเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่ ก็มีโอกาสที่จะตกต่ำย่ำแย่ เพราะสุดท้ายก็กลายเป็นคนเห็นแก่ตัว หรือว่าตกเป็นทาสของกิเลส อยากกินอะไรก็กิน อยากทำอะไรก็ทำ ไม่ได้สนใจส่วนรวม

เวลามาอยู่วัดก็เหมือนกัน ถ้าเอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ เราก็จะปฏิบัติตามกฎระเบียบ แม้บางอย่างเราอาจจะต้องฝืนใจทำ เพราะว่าเราเป็นคนตื่นสาย แต่ว่าเราจำเป็นต้องตื่นเช้ามาทำวัตร เพราะว่ามันเป็นระเบียบ มันเป็นข้อวัตร เป็นกติกา เวลามีการทำกิจส่วนรวมก็ไปร่วมช่วยทำ

แต่ถ้าเราเอาความถูกใจเป็นใหญ่ มาบ้างไม่มาบ้าง ทำวัตร เอาความอยากของตัวเองเป็นหลัก ไม่อยากมาก็ไม่มา หรือว่าไม่อยากตื่นก็ไม่ตื่น งานที่เป็นของส่วนรวม ฉันไม่อยากทำฉันก็ไม่ทำ อันนี้ก็ทำให้ชีวิตเราย่ำแย่ไป

แต่ที่จริงแล้วถ้าเราแยกแยะความถูกต้อง ความถูกใจเป็น ก็จะทำให้เราสามารถที่จะใช้ชีวิตไปในทางที่ถูกต้องได้ แต่บางครั้งมันก็ไม่ง่ายที่เราจะแยกแยะได้ชัดเจน ระหว่างความถูกต้องกับความถูกใจ เพราะบางครั้งกิเลสมันก็ฉลาด มันจะอ้างความถูกต้องเฉพาะเวลาที่ถูกใจ แต่ถ้าหากว่าความถูกต้องยามใดไม่ถูกใจฉัน ฉันก็ไม่สนใจ

อย่างเช่นเวลาทำงาน สิ้นปีก็มีโบนัส ถ้าหากว่าฉันได้โบนัส แต่ถ้ารู้ว่าคนอื่นได้โบนัสมากกว่าฉัน เช่นฉันได้ 50,000 แต่อีกคนได้ 70,000 หรือแสนหนึ่ง ก็จะไม่พอใจ ก็จะอ้างว่าไม่ถูกต้อง ไม่เป็นธรรม ความเป็นธรรมคืออะไร ความถูกต้องคืออะไร ก็คือต้องได้เท่ากัน ก็อาจจะเรียกร้อง อาจจะประท้วง อาจจะโวยวายว่ามันต้องเป็นธรรม คือต้องได้เท่ากัน ถึงจะถูกต้อง

แต่ถ้าหากว่าตัวเองได้มากกว่า ตัวเองได้แสน แต่ว่าคนอื่นเขาได้ 50,000, 70,000 เงียบเลย ไม่พูดสักคำเลยว่ามันไม่ถูกต้อง มันไม่เป็นธรรม เพราะอะไร เพราะว่าฉันได้มากกว่า คราวนี้ฉันได้มากกว่า ก็ถือว่าเป็นเรื่องที่ถูกใจฉันแล้ว ถึงตอนนี้ก็ทิ้งเรื่องความถูกต้องไป แต่ถ้าเราเอาความถูกต้องเป็นใหญ่ แม้ว่าจะมีเงินหรือได้เงินมากกว่าคนอื่น มันก็ไม่ถูกต้องอยู่นั่นเอง ก็ต้องทำให้เกิดความถูกต้องขึ้นมา คือว่าต้องได้เท่าคนอื่น

หลายคนเรียกร้องความถูกต้อง เรียกร้องความเป็นธรรม บ่อยครั้งเลยเพราะว่าตัวเองสูญเสียผลประโยชน์ หรือว่าไม่ได้ประโยชน์เท่ากับคนอื่น ถ้าหากว่าตัวเองได้เกิดน้อยกว่าคนอื่น จะเรียกร้องความเป็นธรรม เรียกร้องความถูกต้อง แต่ถ้าหากว่าตัวเองได้มากกว่าคนอื่น ความถูกต้องก็ลืมไปเลย อันนี้แหละนะเรียกว่าอ้างความถูกต้องต่อเมื่อมันถูกใจฉัน ทั้งที่ถ้าถูกต้องแล้วฉันได้เท่าคนอื่น แต่กลับดีหากว่าฉันได้มากกว่าคนอื่น แล้วหากความถูกต้องหมายถึงว่าฉันต้องได้น้อยลง ลดลงมาจากแสนให้เหลือ 70,000 เท่ากับคนอื่น ฉันไม่เอาแล้ว

อันนี้ก็เป็นสิ่งที่เราพบอยู่บ่อย ๆ อ้างความถูกต้องต่อเมื่อมันถูกใจ แต่ถ้ามันไม่ถูกใจฉันเมื่อไหร่ ก็ไม่อ้างความถูกต้องแล้ว ลืมไปเลย อันนี้ก็ต้องระมัดระวัง เพราะบางครั้งกิเลสมันก็ฉลาด มันก็อ้างความถูกต้อง เพื่อสนองผลประโยชน์ของมัน และบางทีเราก็นิยามความถูกต้องแปรผันไป ขึ้นอยู่กับความถูกใจ

ความถูกต้องหรือความเป็นธรรม มันก็มองได้หลายแง่ และตรงนี้แหละ เป็นโอกาสที่จะทำให้ตัวกิเลสมันมาเป็นตัวกำหนด ว่าอย่างไหนเรียกว่าเป็นความถูกต้อง

อย่างเช่นหมู่บ้านหนึ่ง เมื่อสัก 30-40 ปีก่อน สมัยที่ยังไม่มีอบต. ในหมู่บ้านนั้นมีปั๊มน้ำ ที่ใช้แบบคันโยก เป็นปั๊มน้ำของหมู่บ้าน มันเกิดเสียขึ้นมา นักศึกษาที่เป็นพัฒนากรประจำหมู่บ้าน เขาก็เสนอว่าควรจะเก็บเงินทุกหลังคาเลยหลังคาละ 10 บาท เพื่อเป็นค่าซ่อมปั๊ม

ปรากฏว่าชาวบ้านหลายคนไม่ยอม บอกว่าบ้านฉันอยู่ไกลจากปั๊มน้ำ ฉันไม่ค่อยได้ใช้หรอก บ้านไหนที่ใช้ปั๊มมากกว่า เพราะอยู่ใกล้ปั๊ม ควรจะเสียมากกว่า ส่วนบ้านไหนที่อยู่ไกลใช้น้อย ก็ควรจะเสียน้อย แทนที่จะเสีย 10 บาท ก็เสีย 5 บาท เสียเท่ากันนี่ถือว่าไม่เป็นธรรม ตกลงก็เป็นอันว่าต้องเสียไม่เท่ากัน

แต่หนึ่งเดือนต่อมาในหมู่บ้าน มีคนเอาผ้าห่มมาแจก เพราะว่ามันใกล้ฤดูหนาว เอามาถวายวัด หลวงพ่อเจ้าอาวาสท่านก็ปรึกษามัคทายก เพราะว่าผ้าห่มมันไม่พอที่จะแจกให้ชาวบ้านทุกครัวเรือนเท่ากัน มัคทายกก็เสนอว่าบ้านไหนที่ช่วยส่วนรวมได้ 2 ผืน บ้านไหนที่ไม่ค่อยช่วยส่วนรวมได้ 1 ผืน

พอประกาศอย่างนี้เข้า ชาวบ้านไม่พอใจ บอกว่าไม่เป็นธรรม เป็นธรรมคืออะไร เป็นธรรมคือต้องได้เท่ากัน ก็แปลกนะ เวลาจ่ายเงิน ต้องจ่ายไม่เท่ากัน ถึงจะเป็นธรรม แต่เวลาพอได้ผ้าห่มหรือแจกผ้าห่ม ต้องได้เท่ากันถึงจะเป็นธรรม

อันนี้แปลว่าอะไร แปลว่าความเป็นธรรมหรือความถูกต้องนี่มันไม่แน่นอน มันแปรผันขึ้นอยู่กับความถูกใจ จ่ายเท่ากัน หลายคนไม่ถูกใจ ควรจะจ่ายน้อยกว่า จ่ายไม่เท่ากันจึงจะเรียกว่าเป็นธรรม แต่ถึงเวลาได้ ต้องได้เท่ากันจึงจะเป็นธรรม

ถ้าเราพิจารณาดูก็จะพบว่า นี่มันเป็นการนิยามคำว่าเป็นธรรม หรือความถูกต้องโดยอาศัยความถูกใจ ถึงเวลาได้ ต้องได้เท่ากันจึงจะถูกใจ ถ้าได้ไม่เท่ากัน ไม่ถูกใจ ก็ถือว่าไม่เป็นธรรม แต่เวลาจ่าย ต้องจ่ายไม่เท่ากันจึงจะถูกต้อง ฉันต้องจ่ายน้อยกว่า เพราะบ้านฉันอยู่ไกล อย่างนี้เรียกว่าเป็นธรรม

ฉะนั้นความเป็นธรรม ถ้าเราไม่ระวัง มันก็เป็นข้ออ้างเพื่อสนองกิเลส เพื่อสนองความถูกใจ ถ้าเราดูให้ดี ๆ ความถูกต้อง ความถูกใจ แม้ว่าความหมายจะต่างกัน แต่ถ้าไม่ระวัง มันก็กลายเป็นเรื่องเดียวกันได้ ก็คือว่าอันไหนถูกใจจึงเรียกว่าถูกต้อง อันไหนไม่ถูกใจก็เรียกว่าไม่ถูกต้อง

และอีกอย่างหนึ่งคือแม้เราจะมีความชัดเจนว่าอย่างนี้คือความถูกต้อง แต่ก็ต้องระวัง อย่าไปยึดมั่นถือมั่นกับมันมาก เพราะถ้าเราไปยึดมั่นถือมั่นกับความถูกต้องเมื่อไหร่ พอเจอใครทำอะไรไม่ถูกต้อง กลายเป็นไม่ถูกใจไปเลย

อย่างที่เคยเล่า ศีลจาริณี บวชใหม่ ไม่รู้ธรรมเนียม ยืนกินน้ำ แม่ชีเดินผ่านมาเห็นคาตาเลย อย่างนี้ไม่ถูกต้อง แต่ว่าไปยึดกับความถูกต้องมากไป พอเจอความไม่ถูกต้องขึ้นมา โกรธนะ ทุบหลังศีลจาริณีเลย อันนี้เรียกว่าเป็นเพราะยึดมั่นความถูกต้องมาก ยึดมั่นกับระเบียบมาก พอยึดมั่นกับระเบียบหรือความถูกต้อง พอเจอความไม่ถูกต้อง หรือใครทำอะไรไม่ถูกต้อง ก็จะโกรธ

หรือว่าที่วัดก็มีระเบียบ เวลาฟังธรรมต้องปิดโทรศัพท์มือถือ อันนี้คือความถูกต้องที่ควรปฏิบัติร่วมกัน แต่เกิดมีโยมคนหนึ่งลืมปิดโทรศัพท์มือถือ แล้วบังเอิญมีคนโทรเข้ามา เสียงก็ดังกลางศาลาเลย ขณะที่เจ้าอาวาสกำลังเทศน์อยู่ นี่เป็นความไม่ถูกต้องแท้ ๆ เลย ถ้ายึดมั่นกับความถูกต้องมาก เวลาเจอความไม่ถูกต้องแบบนี้ก็โกรธ

โกรธแล้วเป็นอย่างไร ก็ตะโกนด่าเลย เจ้าอาวาสก็ตะโกนด่าเลย กำลังเทศน์อยู่ดีๆ เปลี่ยนโหมดเลยนะ เป็นการด่าแทน ด่าเจ้าของโทรศัพท์ที่ลืมปิดโทรศัพท์ อันนี้เรียกว่าพอเจอความไม่ถูกต้องนี่ มันเกิดไม่ถูกใจขึ้นมา พอไม่ถูกใจแล้วกิเลสมันก็พร้อมที่จะเล่นงาน พร้อมที่จะโวยวาย พร้อมที่จะพูด หรือพร้อมที่จะกระทำอะไรก็ตามด้วยอำนาจของโทสะ ด้วยอำนาจของกิเลส ซึ่งเป็นเรื่องของอัตตาธิปไตย

ฉะนั้นเราต้องระวัง ขณะที่เรายึดมั่นในความถูกต้อง ถ้าเรายึดมั่นมากไป พอเจอใครทำอะไรไม่ถูกต้องขึ้นมา ความไม่ถูกต้องจะกลายเป็นความไม่ถูกใจทันทีเลย ทั้งๆ ที่ดูเผินๆ ไม่ถูกต้องกับไม่ถูกใจนี่มันห่างกันนะ มันไกลกันมาก

เช่นเดียวกับความถูกต้อง ความถูกใจ บางทีมันก็ไกลกันมาก แต่ในบางครั้งบางคราว ถ้าไม่รู้ทันมัน มันกลายเป็นเรื่องเดียวกันไปเลย คือถ้าไม่ถูกต้องเมื่อไหร่ ก็ไม่ถูกใจเมื่อนั้น หรือจะเป็นสิ่งที่ถูกต้อง ก็ต่อเมื่อมันถูกใจ ถ้าอันไหนไม่ถูกใจ ก็ไม่ถูกต้องไป

อันนี้มันต้องใช้สติพิจารณา การที่เรารู้ว่าอะไรถูก อะไรผิด เป็นสิ่งที่ดี และการที่เราปฏิบัติตามความถูกต้อง ก็เป็นสิ่งที่ดี เรียกว่ามีธรรมาธิปไตย แต่ถ้าเรายึดมั่นในความถูกต้องมากไป มันก็ง่ายมากเลยนะ ที่เวลาเจอใครทำอะไรไม่ถูกต้อง ความไม่ถูกต้องก็กลายเป็นความไม่ถูกใจ หรือกระตุ้นให้เกิดความไม่ถูกใจทันที

แล้วบางทีก็ไม่รู้ตัวนะ ก็ยังคิดว่าฉันทำสิ่งที่ถูกต้อง แต่ที่จริงแล้วสิ่งที่ทำไปมันถูกใจต่างหาก แล้วมันก็เกินเลยความถูกต้องไป เพราะว่าไปทุบหลังคนอื่นนี่มันจะถูกต้องได้อย่างไร หรือว่าไปตะโกนด่ากลางศาลาในขณะที่ขาดสติ หรือทำไปด้วยความโกรธ จะเป็นความถูกต้องได้อย่างไร มันก็เป็นเรื่องละเอียดอ่อน ความถูกต้องไม่ใช่ว่ามันจะกลายเป็นสิ่งตรงข้ามกับความถูกใจ

ถ้าเราไม่ระวัง ความยึดมั่นถือมั่น มันก็จะทำให้ความถูกต้องกับความถูกใจ กลายเป็นอันเดียวกัน แล้วก็ทำให้เกิดความผิดพลาด หรือเกิดความเสียหายขึ้น

หลายคนก็ทำสิ่งที่ไม่ถูกต้องเพื่อพิทักษ์ความถูกต้อง อันนี้มีเยอะเลย ที่เป็นข่าวก็คือว่าไปฆ่าคนนั้นคนนี้เพื่อรักษาความถูกต้อง ไม่ว่าเป็นความถูกต้องทางการเมือง ความถูกต้องทางศาสนา

อย่างพวกที่เป็นพวกก่อการร้าย หลายคนเขาก็คิดว่าเขาทำเพื่อพระเจ้า เขาทำเพื่อพิทักษ์ความถูกต้องทางศาสนา แต่ว่าสิ่งที่เขาทำ มันกลายเป็นความไม่ถูกต้องไปเสียแล้ว ทำไปด้วยอำนาจของกิเลส ตัวเองเป็นคนตัดสินว่าใครจะอยู่ใครจะไป ใครที่คิดไม่เหมือนฉัน ก็ต้องถูกกำจัดออกไปจากโลกนี้ เพราะมันเป็นคนที่คิดไม่ถูกต้อง ปฏิบัติไม่ถูกต้อง

ที่จริงก็เป็นเพียงแค่เห็นต่างจากตัวเองเท่านั้น แต่พอเจอคนที่เห็นต่าง ก็เปลี่ยนจากความไม่ถูกใจ กลายเป็นข้ออ้างว่าเขาทำสิ่งที่ไม่ถูกต้อง เพราะฉะนั้นก็สมควรกำจัดออกไปจากโลกนี้

อันนี้เป็นสิ่งที่เราเห็นมากขึ้นเรื่อยๆ ที่เป็นข่าว แล้วมันไม่ใช่เพราะเรื่องศาสนาอย่างเดียว เรื่องการเมือง เรื่องวัฒนธรรม ก็มีความถูกต้องของมัน แต่ถ้าไปยึดความถูกต้องมากไป ใครที่ปฏิบัติไม่ถูกต้องในสายตาของเรา มันก็กลายเป็นสิ่งที่กระตุ้นความไม่ถูกใจ ทำให้เกิดความโกรธ ทำให้เกิดข้ออ้างในการที่จะจัดการ ทำร้าย หรือว่าสังหาร

ฉะนั้นต้องระวังมากทีเดียว การทำความไม่ถูกต้อง ในนามของความถูกต้อง ก็กลายเป็นว่าทำไปด้วยอำนาจของกิเลส แทนที่จะเป็นธรรมาธิปไตย ก็กลายเป็นอัตตาธิปไตยไป.

https://youtu.be/nvGHQUvjvOE

พระไพศาล วิสาโล วัดป่าสุคะโต 4 กันยายน 2565 ขอขอบคุณ Nonglak Trongselsat

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Tribalism Is Not The Core Problem

The United States government stands mere months, if not weeks, from the passing of stablecoin legislation that will set the playing field for the global economy for decades, if not centuries, to come. 

During this crucial moment, in which we should all be keeping our eyes locked with precision on the prize, the best and brightest defenders of the one neutral digital asset have once again bifurcated into the trenches of “Us. Vs Them.” As sure as the next block, seemingly every ten minutes there’s another attempt from a faction within the group to imbue an intense ethical intention over the invention of Bitcoin. These groups converge to share interpretations of the Sacred Text –– Satoshi’s Whitepaper ––or pour over his forum posts on BitcoinTalk, hoping to find a path forward. It seems without fail, no matter when looking at the factional Part, or the amorphous Whole, the selected writings of Bitcoin’s inventor always conveniently enable the exact behavior and optionality –– or lack thereof –– that is best for the current arguing party.

This is to say, the observer of Bitcoin, when attempting to gain influence over more users, simply projects and amplifies their own reflection upon the monetary protocol, as it relates to their own position via their specific stake within the system. There is no neutral reflection or position to be expressed –– every voice and every idea fundamentally must come from a place of origin. While many attempt to go to great lengths to curb this bias from their publicly articulated analysis –– not to mention the many more that could claim ignorance entirely –– whether you are able, willing, or aware, your beliefs are beheld by the context you witness, and cannot be separated to create an objective meaning from a subjective experience. In short, everyone talks their own book. It’s a requirement to talking. 

On today’s social media platforms, the actualization of one talking their book is even further manipulated beyond strictly fundamental financial incentives, and each idea becomes a piece of content competing for air in the rough seas of algorithmic influence. To not have an opinion on the latest thing, to not express and articulate said opinion publicly, is to drown in the void of irrelevancy. On Twitter, a Bluecheck raft is seen as a necessity, normalized by the supposed dissidents and mainstream alike. The digital front, while an important one, has been eroded not by the proverbial stick, but by the poisoned carrot. Payouts, likes, and followers have replaced credibility as the currency of relevance, not due to actions by the consumers, but by the creators. Even worse, many creators have off-shored their creative capabilities –– i.e., their ideas –– to AI Chat Bots and Large Language Models, removing the humanity entirely from the output, rendering the content ocean littered with homogenous globs of unthought thoughts. The late-stage creator economy has ultimately failed to promote originality, and instead has given rise to an multi-headed hydra of next-up influencers ready and able to churn out the freshest of ChatGPT chum at the behest of curtained algorithmic masters out of sight.

The unseen incentives will be our downfall –– not our ideologies, not our intellect, and not our preparedness, nor the lack of any of these things. While applicable to many mediums and masteries, the hidden incentives of programmable money demonstrate this concept far greater than, say, independent media figures, fitness and health gurus, or dissident philosophers. 

Today’s Bitcoin culture war comes at a dangerous time, when the single greatest threat to its neutrality of incentives comes to the protocol layer. While hours and hours of podcasts from both sides of the divorce might lead you to believe this attack vector comes from JPEGs or the filters that discourage them, in fact, the imminent corrupting agent comes from the reintroduction of dollar stablecoins to the blockchain as Bitcoin itself remains infeasible as a medium of exchange that can service billions.

Both sides of the debate, the Knots/Pro-Filters or the Core/Filters-Agnostics, are not dealing with the core of the real problem brewing in Bitcoin today. The Knotsians claim all non-monetary use cases of Bitcoin are against the nature of the protocol, while remaining absolutely silent on whether or not these same ethics are to be applied to Tether’s homecoming –– “Bitcoin-native” USDT dollar stablecoins via Taproot Assets –– being stored in the distributed database known as the blockchain. The Core defenders, who claim to rightfully stand beside the most ambitious and successful open source project of all time, have little to say about the maintainers lack of interest in pursuing optionality that would enable billions of users to benefit from Bitcoin’s disinflationary monetary policy, rather than simply the millions of already-adopters. Both sides are, at best, silent partners in the scaling-by-financialization of Bitcoin via stocks and debt-instruments, custodians, exchange traded funds, and tokenized dollars, rather than by making UTXO ownership feasible and efficient. Filters, spam, Core, Knots, are all distractions from the real problem brewing on the horizon: the incentive distortion of stablecoins. 

If Bitcoin remains programmable money, and the mere existence of this protocol-level debate perpetuates the idea that ossification has not yet arrived, why must we pledge allegiance between two teams that directly serve neither of the issues at hand? Bitcoin deserves more client optionality, and Knots is not innately a bad idea, nor are many of the mining concepts marketed by OCEAN employees. Bitcoin Core has secured trillions of dollars of value with an unparalleled up-time for a financial protocol. But Bitcoin will fail to stablecoins, inadvertently perpetuating the United States’ Treasury ponzi across the globe, while introducing dollarized, perverse incentives to the entire game theory of Bitcoin’s block production –– and thus unstoppable transaction settlement –– if we are slothful and distracted in failing to maximize self-custody and keep dollar tokens off the only currently-decentralized chain. 

Did inscriptions create a newly-found demand for blockspace that directly competes with the companies enabling Larry Fink’s vision for Bitcoin as “a technology for asset storage?” Do Dickbutts and Monkey JPEGs make the Tether-ification –– i.e., the dollarization –– of Bitcoin more expensive? Perhaps. But there is simply no evidence that the players on either side of this culture war are actively or willingly compromised, and to suggest such is a dangerous game. 

As we wrote nearly two years ago in a previous call to action, “the network must remain practically useful for anyone, or it risks becoming practically useless for everyone.” The only responsibility today’s Bitcoiner must uphold is to leave the protocol as permissionless and as serviceable as it was when they found it. Part of this innately involves the mission Core sets out to achieve with its tireless approach to perpetuating an extremely complicated, novel piece of software across an ever-changing landscape of hardware and software updates. Part of this, also, innately involves the mission Knots and OCEAN attempts to achieve with its pursuit of purity of financial activity and mining decentralization via block construction and payout methods.

Blindly opposing or supporting the Current Thing because of Twitter posts and podcasts will not deliver us from the known evils, nor prepare us for the unknown. Ultimately, both paths forward on their own will fail to achieve the promise of Bitcoin to its fullest extent.

Reject the binary presented by the culture war and think for yourself. 

This is a guest post by Mark Goodwin. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine_._

This post Tribalism Is Not The Core Problem first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mark Goodwin.

@ 58537364:705b4b85

Discipline is “doing things with intention, without being swayed or carried away by emotions.” On the other hand, lack of discipline implies the opposite:

Lack of discipline is “acting according to emotional fluctuations or being carried away by feelings,” such as sleepiness, hunger, boredom, frustration, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, fear, infatuation, or lack of mindfulness. This often leads to various excuses like:

• "I'll do it later."
• "I'm too tired."
• "It's too hot or too cold."
• "It's still early."
• "It's already too late."
• Etc.

Building lasting discipline “does not come from force, but from dreams.” The law of dreams states that we must create a clear vision of our ‘heaven’ (goal), then minimize the gap between thought and action. The more we overthink, the less likely we are to act—our mind becomes weak and unstable.

The law of dreams also suggests dreaming for others, not just for oneself. When the mind is overly focused on personal success, wisdom and insight diminish. Actions become self-centered and lack empathy. But when our goal is for the greater good, every action becomes meaningful and contributes to shared happiness and success.

— Metha Harimtepathipbodi

Read the TH full version at: https://w3.do/SODEDpmP

@ 58537364:705b4b85

The Dhamma of the Buddha is not merely a concept or philosophical hypothesis. It is the direct seeing of the truth — that suffering truly exists within us, and that it can genuinely be ended — through observing, with wisdom, not by calculation or blind belief.

Suffering is not an abstract idea; it is a real experience we can feel. When we truly understand suffering by facing it directly — not running from it or deceiving ourselves — we will see that the sense of “self” is the root of suffering. Every time the feeling of “this is me, this is mine” arises — suffering follows.

The solution is not in argument or debate, but in taking action to see and know this truth for ourselves.

Thus, Dhamma is the science of the mind — not just a philosophy. And this is why the Buddha’s teachings have never become outdated, even after more than 2,500 years.

Read the TH full version at: https://w3.do/okHFEDy-

@ 58537364:705b4b85

“Phra Ajahn (Venerable Sir), I don’t mean any offense, but since Buddhism already has its core teachings, if I think that we should reduce the number of temples or their structures, would that be considered sinful?”

“Bless you. When you eat a banana, do you eat the peel or the fruit?”

“I eat the fruit.”

“Oh… and before you eat it, do you peel it?”

The clean-faced girl nodded.

“Why do you peel it?”

“Because the peel isn’t edible.”

“Oh, so the peel is completely useless, right?”

She shook her head.

The narrator continues:

“In truth, the peel has a purpose—it protects the fruit. The same goes for durian or jackfruit peels. Think about it, if a fruit has a tough peel, it usually keeps the inside well protected—and the inside is often delicious…”

“To eat the fruit, we shouldn’t get confused and eat the peel. Nor should we eat only the peel and discard the fruit. Our role is to know what’s the peel and what’s the fruit—and we must know how to peel it.”

“I must admit, personally, I don’t care much for construction, decoration, or rituals, but I understand—some people enjoy them and find them beneficial. That’s valid. We just don’t have to argue about it…”

“It’s a matter of knowing how to ‘peel.’ Don’t get lost in the outer layers, but also don’t discard the essence inside. Instead, help guide others to understand, without throwing away what matters most…”

“For example, take prostrating. I don’t mind whether or not people prostrate to me. It’s not mandatory.”

“After reading the sutras and analyzing them, I found that in the Buddha’s time, when he gave teachings, many people came to listen. Some prostrated, some just joined their palms, some didn’t prostrate and just sat down, and some walked by without listening at all.”

“Likewise, when people left, their reactions varied. Some came with faith and left with it. Some changed and lost faith. Others came with doubt but gained faith later. And some never changed. That was during the Buddha’s time, no less.”

“So, we must ask: What does prostrating give us? I started doing it only after I was ordained. I’ve been doing it for 14 years. At first, I just followed along.”

“But later, I began to understand—it trains humility, helps reduce ego and pride, and teaches us appropriate behavior.”

“When someone prostrates to me, I feel more inclined to teach or talk with them, compared to those who don’t. With the latter, it’s harder to read them—so I just stay still and observe first.”

“Do you think some people prostrate without understanding the meaning, just copying others?”

The girl nodded.

“Right? So, I think prostrating, rituals, and temple buildings are not the ultimate essence of Buddhism. But they have meaning. They help guide us to reach the deeper benefit hidden within. It’s our job to understand them—if we really want to understand.”

“I believe that true religion doesn’t reside in material things. If it did, then Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument in the world, filled with stupas, should be bustling with monks and Buddhists.”

“But do you know what it’s like now?”

The girl shook her head.

“…Now it’s just a tourist attraction. No monks live there anymore.”

“You said we should reduce the number of temples. What would you do with the space?”

“Maybe turn it into a public park or something.”

“That’s a good idea. I like it. Others could come and use it, too—with trees and animals. People would feel more at peace.”

The girl’s eyes lit up.

“But couldn’t we just plant more trees in the temples and make them like parks? Isn’t that a good idea?”

She smiled.

“Even though I don’t want us to cling to material or ritualistic forms, I still see their benefits. Look over there!”

He pointed to a carved wooden box.

All the children turned to look.

“…This box might be just ordinary wood. But once carved, it instantly looks valuable. It’s different from other boxes. The craftsman needed skill, time, and dedication to create it.”

“…If you had several wooden boxes to choose from, this would likely be among the first you’d pick.”

“This is what we call the value of beauty. Beautiful temples and buildings draw people to care for them, clean them, preserve them, and host meaningful events within. I guess that’s why temple architecture became such a tradition in the first place.”

“One last thing—about merit and sin.”

“Let’s understand the meanings first. Merit means cleansing the mind. Sin means lowering the mind, making it gloomy or defiled.”

“If you want to make a public park—merit or sin?”

“Merit.”

“If you’re annoyed and want to destroy all temples—merit or sin?”

“Sin.”

“If you prostrate with understanding, wishing to train humility and receive the Dhamma from monks—merit or sin?”

“Merit.”

“If you prostrate mindlessly, just following others—merit or sin?”

The girl paused and looked up.

“Still unclear, right?”

“Yes.” She nodded firmly.

“Then I ask you to observe your own mind. Is it clean or lowly? Is it merit or sin? Not just with prostrating, but with every action, word, and thought.”

“So, how much of your question did I answer?”

“One hundred percent!”

“Really? Okay. Thank you so much for the question.”

The children bowed and walked out of the pavilion.

The narrator, seizing the moment, reflected with admiration on the question and answer just shared.

This girl’s question wasn’t childish at all.

It was more mature than many adults' questions—insightful, nuanced, and sophisticated.

Her voice was clear, confident, courageous, and respectful. It was on point, meaningful, and thought-provoking—for both the speaker and the listeners.

While listening, she made eye contact and reacted, encouraging shared learning. She was an excellent listener and never missed a beat.

And most importantly, her smile and gaze uplifted and encouraged her classmates, too.

This made the speaker feel proud to be sitting there, at that moment, that day.

Truly joyful to see a young person with such a beautiful mind, who thinks of nature and wants to bring happiness to others—and who understands and appreciates the essence of Buddhism.

“It’s truly something to be proud of—to know that the Dhamma is reaching the younger generation. Don’t you agree?”

The author wasn’t asking anyone.

He turned to look at a marble statue placed behind him, and silently paid homage to the Buddha—the Supreme Teacher—with unwavering reverence.

Asrom Khantisarn A wooden house called “Kuti” June 15, 2023

By Phramaha Fookij Jutipanyo

Read the TH full version at: https://w3.do/Zp6prJLz

@ 58537364:705b4b85

The essence of meditation goes beyond seeking mere tranquility or external peace. What truly matters is how we perceive our emotions and thoughts as they arise within us. By cultivating awareness and understanding, we gain the power to liberate ourselves from the grasp of these thoughts and emotions, instead of becoming enslaved or overwhelmed by them.

If we remain unaware, these thoughts and emotions can become our masters, dictating our actions and responses. However, by recognizing that we have the capacity to be masters over them, we unlock the potential to utilize them as valuable tools. With this awareness, we can employ these thoughts to solve life's challenges, be it personal, professional, or moral dilemmas.

In the same vein, emotions, when unexamined, can become our rulers, leading us astray and causing suffering. For instance, sadness can ensnare us in its grip, making us believe that we must be sad to express love for someone. Similarly, anger can deceive us into acting out of righteousness, perpetuating negative cycles.

To break free from these emotional chains, we must observe and understand our emotions with mindfulness. Only then can we release ourselves from their dictates and avoid falling into a pit of depression or ongoing conflict. By practicing the art of "seeing" our thoughts and emotions, we gain control over their influence and prevent them from taking over our hearts.

The journey of meditation involves consistent practice in seeing and observing these mental and emotional phenomena. Through continuous effort, we strengthen our ability to discern and eventually reduce their hold on us. This newfound awareness empowers us to make choices that lead to inner peace and liberation from suffering.

In this process of mindful seeing, we learn that peace is not achieved by suppressing or restraining our thoughts and emotions. True peace comes from allowing them to arise and exist without judgment or oppression. By embracing this mindful perspective, we discover the profound truth that we can be free from the clutches of our thoughts and emotions. Meditation, therefore, becomes the gateway to inner peace and true liberation.

source : การค้นพบตัวเองที่สำคัญ revised by : chat gpt, google translated.

@ 078d6670:56049f0c

Imagine having a personal assistant who could prompt you into riding a positive wave of creativity and warn you about a risky period of your life when you are cognitively distracted. An assistant that knows you better than you do, only because it has processing power and a database curated by you for you. A better you, created by you!

There is so much fear around AI. It will take jobs, it will realize how stupid humans are and take over the world. That’s if you believe AI can become conscious, not merely mimic human behaviour. But it can’t, it is just a super complex system programmed to interact with you better than before. Here is a explanation by @clif_high : Artificial Intelligence is retarded or AI & Bullshit

AI is still the best thing since the internet!

Imagine having a tool to gauge your personal life, impersonally. No judgement, only code. A tool that could correlate your behaviour with moon phases, seasons, diurnal rhythms, astrological cycles, birthdays (or any other metric); if any patterns exist, it can enlighten you. The same tool filters your inbox, takes action if necessary, alerts you, if necessary.

All the artwork you’ve created, you’ve appreciated, can be analyzed for future inspiration.

What you might need: personal diary (digital), personal journal (if there’s a difference), calendar, pictures, emails and a personal AI.

It could also curate a reading list for you, discovering literature it calculates will benefit you, including economic theory and psychology. We would need a feedback system so it didn’t leave the reservation.

Is there a danger it could mislead you? Maybe if you think AI is sentient, or it could miscalculate, so you would need to check its bias (and your own).

Think of your smartphone, but more capable and a lot more processing power. Not more intelligence, that’s reserved for the programmer. Unless you’re the programmer (but maybe it won’t be necessary to learn coding), or rather the prompt-engineer, then it is up to your intelligence as to how well you can set up your personal AI assistant. Maybe you need an assistant to help you set it up, like, that would be a great vocation: helping old people configure their AI.

The aim is create opportunities for more recreation time. Time spent being healthy. There could be a setting on your AI to prioritize saving time when connecting with other people’s AI, so both enjoy hyper-productivity and time for passion.

There are amazing groups of people concerned in making AI available to all free of bias, decentralized and open source:

• GPT4ALL
• @BrianRoemmele on X & readmultiplex.com
• Open Agents is working on making AI decentralized by securing it openly with the Bitcoin blockchain (@OpenAgentsInc on X).
• If you know of any others, please drop a reference in the comments.

It is essential for humanity that AI remains open source. If it is centralized and co-opted by private corporations in cahoots with government, we’re in big trouble (genocide, slavery, poverty, endless wars). Decentralized, transparent, open-source AI leads to better humans!

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Standard Chartered Backs $500K Bitcoin Target, Citing Growing Government Exposure Through MSTR

Sovereign investment in Bitcoin is accelerating—just not always in the most direct way. In a new report, Standard Chartered Bank says indirect exposure via Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) is quietly increasing among government entities, reinforcing the bank’s long-standing price prediction that Bitcoin will reach $500,000 before President Donald Trump leaves office in 2029.

JUST IN: Standard Chartered says SEC 13F fillings support #Bitcoin reaching $500,000 by 2028 pic.twitter.com/MURg9bxLka

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 20, 2025

“The latest 13F data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) supports our core thesis that Bitcoin (BTC) will reach the $500,000 level before Trump leaves office as it attracts a wider range of institutional buyers,” wrote Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research. “As more investors gain access to the asset and as volatility falls, we believe portfolios will migrate towards their optimal level from an underweight starting position in BTC.”

Q1 13F filings revealed a slowdown in direct bitcoin ETF buying—Wisconsin’s state fund exited its entire 3,400 BTC-equivalent IBIT position—while government-linked purchases of MSTR shares were on the rise. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, for instance, upped its IBIT exposure to 5,000 BTC equivalent, but Kendrick says the bigger story is elsewhere.

“We believe that in some cases, MSTR holdings by government entities reflect a desire to gain Bitcoin exposure where local regulations do not allow direct BTC holdings,” he said.

France and Saudi Arabia took first-time MSTR positions in Q1. Meanwhile, Norway’s Government Pension Fund, the Swiss National Bank, and South Korea’s public funds each added exposure equivalent to 700 BTC. U.S. retirement funds in states like California and New York added a combined 1,000 BTC equivalent via MSTR. Kendrick called the trend “very encouraging.”

“The quarterly 13F data is the best test of our thesis that BTC will attract new institutional buyer types as the market matures, helping the price reach our USD 500,000 level,” Kendrick said. “When institutions buy Bitcoin, prices tend to rise.”

SEC DATA BACKS BITCOIN $500K TARGET BY 2028: STANDARD CHARTERED

Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick says recent SEC 13F filings support a possible rise in Bitcoin to $500,000 by end-2028. While direct ETF holdings dipped in Q1, government entities boosted stakes in Strategy…

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) May 20, 2025

This isn’t Kendrick’s first bullish call. Last month, he admitted his prior $120K forecast for Q2 2025 was “too low,” citing surging inflows into U.S. spot BTC ETFs—totaling $5.3 billion over just three weeks. At the time, Kendrick revised his 2025 year-end target to $200,000.

Standard Chartered’s latest analysis shows that Bitcoin’s role in institutional portfolios is maturing beyond tech volatility correlation—now increasingly seen as a macro hedge. “It is now all about flows,” Kendrick said. “And flows are coming in many forms.” 

This post Standard Chartered Backs $500K Bitcoin Target, Citing Growing Government Exposure Through MSTR first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

@ 2e8970de:63345c7a

https://www.wsj.com/tech/europe-big-tech-ai-1f3f862c?mod=hp_lead_pos7

https://stacker.news/items/984656

@ 7e538978:a5987ab6

Chain Duel, a fast paced PvP game that takes inspiration from the classic snake game and supercharges it with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. Imagine battling another player for dominance in a race to collect blocks, where the length of your chain isn’t just a visual cue. It represents real, staked satoshis. The player with the most Proof of Work wins, but it’s not just about gameplay; it’s about the seamless integration of the Lightning Network and real-time payments.

But how does Chain Duel manage these instant transactions with such efficiency? That’s where LNbits comes in. LNbits, an open-source wallet and payment infrastructure, handles all in-game payments making it easy for developers to focus on gameplay while LNbits takes care of everything from microtransactions to automated splits for developers and designers. In this article, we’ll dive deep into how Chain Duel leverages LNbits to streamline in-game payments and how other developers can take advantage of this powerful toolset to build the future of Lightning-powered gaming.

Let’s explore how LNbits transforms payment processing and why it’s quickly becoming a must-have for game developers working in the Bitcoin space.

Overview of Chain Duel

Chain Duel is a unique Lightning Network-inspired game that reimagines the classic snake game with a competitive twist, integrating real-time payments. Two players face off in real-time, racing to "catch" blocks and extend their chains. Each block added to the chain represents Proof of Work, and the player with the most Proof of Work wins the duel. The stakes are high, as the game represents satoshis (small units of Bitcoin) as points, with the winner taking home the prize.

The game is designed to be Lightning-native, meaning all payments within Chain Duel are processed through the Lightning Network. This ensures fast payments, reducing latency and making gameplay smooth. With additional features like practice mode, tournaments and highscores, Chain Duel creates an engaging and competitive environment for Bitcoin enthusiasts and gamers alike.

One of the standout aspects of Chain Duel is its deeper integration with the Lightning Network even at a design level. For example, actual Bitcoin blocks can appear on screen during matches, offering bonus points when mined in sync with the game. The game’s current version, still in beta, has already drawn attention within the Bitcoin community, gaining momentum at conferences and with a growing user base through its social networks. With its innovative combination of gaming, the Lightning Network, and competitive play, Chain Duel offers a glimpse into the future of Lightning-based gaming.

How LNbits is Used in Chain Duel

Seamless Integration with LNbits

At the core of Chain Duel’s efficient payment processing is LNbits, which handles in-game transactions smoothly and reliably. Chain Duel uses the LNbits LNURL-pay and LNURL-withdraw extensions to manage payments and rewards between players. Before each match, players send satoshis using LNURL-pay, which generates a static QR code or link for making the payment. LNURL-pay allows users to attach a note to the payment, which Chain Duel creatively uses as a way to insert the player name in-game. The simplicity of LNURL-pay ensures that users can quickly and easily initiate games, with fresh invoices being issued for every game. When players win, LNURL-withdraw enables them to seamlessly pull their earnings from the game, providing a quick payout system.

These extensions make it easy for players to send and receive Bitcoin with minimal latency, fully leveraging the power of the Lightning Network for fast and low-cost payments. The flexibility of LNbits’ tools means that game developers don’t need to worry about building custom payment systems from scratch—they can rely on LNbits to handle all financial transactions with precision.

Lightning Tournaments

Chain Duel tournaments leverage LNbits and its LNURL extensions to create a seamless and efficient experience for players. In Chain Duel tournaments, LNbits plays a crucial role in managing the overall economics. LNbits facilitates the generation of LNURL QR codes that participants can scan to register quickly or withdraw their winnings. LNbits allows Chain Duel to automatically handle multiple registrations through LNURL-pay, enabling players to participate in the tournament without additional steps. The Lightning Network's speed ensures that these payments occur in real-time, reducing wait times and allowing for a smoother flow in-game.

Splitting Payments

LNbits further simplifies revenue-sharing within Chain Duel. This feature allows the game to automatically split the satoshis sent by players into different shares for the game’s developer, designer, and host. Each time a payment is made to join a match, LNbits is used to automattically pay each of the contributors, according to pre-defined rules. This automated process ensures that everyone involved in the development and running of the game gets their fair share without manual intervention or complex bookkeeping.

Nostr Integration

Chain Duel also integrates with Nostr, a decentralized protocol for social interactions. Players can join games using "Zaps", small tips or micropayments sent over the Lightning Network within the Nostr ecosystem. Through NIP-57, which enables Nostr clients to request Zap invoices, players can use LNURL-pay enabled Zaps to register in P2P matches, further enhancing the Chain Duel experience. By using Zaps as a way to register in-game, Chain Duel automates the process of fetching players' identity, creating a more competitive and social experience. Zaps are public on the Nostr network, further expanding Chain Duel's games social reach and community engagement.

Game and Payment Synchronization

One of the key reasons Chain Duel developers chose LNbits is its powerful API that connects directly with the game’s logic. LNbits allows the game to synchronize payments with gameplay in real-time, providing a seamless experience where payments are an integrated part of the gaming mechanics.

With LNbits managing both the payment process and the Lightning Network’s complex infrastructure, Chain Duel developers are free to concentrate on enhancing the competitive and Lightning Network-related aspects of the game. This division of tasks is essential for streamlining development while still providing an innovative in-game payment experience that is deeply integrated with the Bitcoin network.

LNbits proves to be an indispensable tool for Chain Duel, enabling smooth in-game transactions, real-time revenue sharing, and seamless integration with Nostr. For developers looking to build Lightning-powered games, LNbits offers a powerful suite of tools that handle everything from micropayments to payment distribution—ensuring that the game's focus remains on fun and competition rather than complex payment systems.

LNBits facilitating Education and Adoption

This system contributes to educating users on the power of the Lightning Network. Since Chain Duel directly involve real satoshis and LNURL for registration and rewards, players actively experience how Lightning can facilitate fast, cheap, and permissionless payments. By incorporating LNbits into Chain Duel, the game serves as an educational tool that introduces users to the benefits of the Lightning Network. Players gain direct experience using Lightning wallets and LNURL, helping them understand how these tools work in real-world scenarios. The near-instant nature of these payments showcases the power of Lightning in a practical context, highlighting its potential beyond just gaming. Players are encouraged to set up wallets, explore the Lightning ecosystem, and eventually become familiar with Bitcoin and Lightning technology. By integrating LNbits, Chain Duel transforms in-game payments into a learning opportunity, making Bitcoin and Lightning more approachable for users worldwide.

Tools for Developers

LNbits is a versatile, open-source platform designed to simplify and enhance Bitcoin Lightning Network wallet management. For developers, particularly those working on Lightning-native games like Chain Duel, LNbits offers an invaluable set of tools that allow for seamless integration of Lightning payments without the need to build complex custom solutions from scratch. LNbits is built on a modular and extensible architecture, enabling developers to easily add or create functionality suited to their project’s needs.

Extensible Architecture for Customization

At the core of LNbits is a simple yet powerful wallet system that developers can access across multiple devices. What makes LNbits stand out is its extensible nature—everything beyond the core functionality is implemented as an extension. This modular approach allows users to customize their LNbits installation by enabling or building extensions to suit specific use cases. This flexibility is perfect for developers who want to add Lightning-based services to their games or apps without modifying the core codebase.

• Extensions for Every Use Case
  LNbits comes with a wide array of built-in extensions created by contributors, offering various services that can be plugged into your application. Some popular extensions include:
• Faucets: Distribute small amounts of Bitcoin to users for testing or promotional purposes.
• Paylinks: Create shareable links for instant payments.
• Points-of-sale (PoS): Allow users to set up shareable payment terminals.
• Paywalls: Charge users to access content or services.
• Event tickets: Sell tickets for events directly via Lightning payments.
• Games and services: From dice games to jukeboxes, LNbits offers entertaining and functional tools.

These ready-made solutions can be adapted and used in different gaming scenarios, for example in Chain Duel, where LNURL extensions are used for in game payments. The extensibility ensures developers can focus on building engaging gameplay while LNbits handles payment flows.

Developer-Friendly Customization

LNbits isn't just a plug-and-play platform. Developers can extend its functionality even further by creating their own extensions, giving full control over how the wallet system is integrated into their games or apps. The architecture is designed to make it easy for developers to build on top of the platform, adding custom features for specific requirements.

Flexible Funding Source Management

LNbits also offers flexibility in terms of managing funding sources. Developers can easily connect LNbits to various Lightning Network node implementations, enabling seamless transitions between nodes or even different payment systems. This allows developers to switch underlying funding sources with minimal effort, making LNbits adaptable for games that may need to scale quickly or rely on different payment infrastructures over time.

A Lean Core System for Maximum Efficiency

Thanks to its modular architecture, LNbits maintains a lean core system. This reduces complexity and overhead, allowing developers to implement only the features they need. By avoiding bloated software, LNbits ensures faster transactions and less resource consumption, which is crucial in fast-paced environments like Chain Duel where speed and efficiency are paramount.

LNbits is designed with developers in mind, offering a suite of tools and a flexible infrastructure that makes integrating Bitcoin payments easy. Whether you’re developing games, apps, or any service that requires Lightning Network transactions, LNbits is a powerful, open-source solution that can be adapted to fit your project.

Conclusion

Chain Duel stands at the forefront of Lightning-powered gaming, combining the excitement of competitive PvP with the speed and efficiency of the Lightning Network. With LNbits handling all in-game payments, from microtransactions to automated revenue splits, developers can focus entirely on crafting an engaging gaming experience. LNbits’ powerful API and extensions make it easy to manage real-time payments, removing the complexity of building payment infrastructure from scratch.

LNbits isn’t just a payment tool — it’s a flexible, developer-friendly platform that can be adapted to any gaming model. Whether you're developing a fast-paced PvP game like Chain Duel or any project requiring seamless Lightning Network integration, LNbits provides the ideal solution for handling instant payments with minimal overhead.

For developers interested in pushing the boundaries of Lightning-powered gaming, Chain Duel is a great example of how LNbits can enhance your game, letting you focus on the fun while LNbits manages real-time transactions.

Find out more

Curious about how Lightning Network payments can power your next game? Explore the following:

• Learn more about Chain Duel: Chain Duel
• Learn how LNbits can simplify payment handling in your project: LNbits
• Dive into decentralized communication with Nostr: Nostr