@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

A fortnight of being real on Nostr

It's been over two weeks, since I announced that I would primarily be noting from my lesser-known Silberengel npub, and it's been an interesting experience. As with anything I ever do, I clicked around a lot, tested out a lot, and tried out a lot. Mostly, I observed.

Let me share, what I've learned

1. Nostr-related products are increasingly useless, if you don't follow anyone, or only follow a handful of people. Everything is geared to follows and you usually really do need to follow gobs of people, to have an interesting feed, by capturing the most-active people (about 10% of the people you follow). Those people tend to quote and boost other people's notes into your stream, allowing you to follow those additional people and so on, like a snowball scheme. This means that follows are actually a feed-management mechanism, rather than any indication of a relationship between npubs. It also means that 10% of the npubs decide what everyone will look at.
2. Many people collect followers, by being active for a very short time, following lots and lots of people and getting follow-backs, then they unfollow the smaller npubs or abruptly change their tone or the content (this is common with spammers and scammers). Then they have a high WoT score. What, precisely, is being trusted here? (Also, centering WoT on follows is influencer-maxxing for plebs, KWIM?)
3. Why are individuals never unfollowing these npubs? Because nobody unfollows anyone who hasn't seriously upset them. Follow-inertia is rampant and the follow lists are so long that most people don't even know who they are following. So long as the "bad npub" doesn't spam the people who are following them directly, they don't notice anything. That means following spam can inadvertently protect you from spam, whilst the same spammers throw crap at your own frens, all damned day.
4. Most relay owners/operators don't ever look directly at the feed from their own relay, so it's usually full of enormous amounts of garbage. Your clients and personal/private relays are often downloading and broadcasting all of that garbage indiscriminately, so the garbage gets passed around, like a social media virus. Many of you just haven't noticed, because you also don't look at the feed from your relays (see 1).
5. Almost all business logic (the controls, in the classic model-view-controller setup) has been placed on the client-side. This is great, if you're a client developer, as it makes relays superfluous and traps your customers in your app, by making moving to a different app more onerous. Every move requires a period of readjustment and fiddling, before they can see their feed the way that they are used to seeing it. This is less great, if you're a user and are interested in trying out a different app.
6. When I began, two weeks ago, the concept of topical, private, and personal relays interacting were mostly a pipe dream (pun intended), but I've been pleased to see, that some other people are beginning to catch on to the appeal of decentralizing and specializing the model layer. A diverse, sprawling network of relays, connected through the outbox model and negentropy syncing, is really next-generation communication, and essential for ensuring censorship-resistance, while supporting smooth interaction.
7. Once you get above a few hundred followers (which I already have, That went fast!), additional followers are increasingly spam or inactive/bot npubs, and once you get a few thousand followers, that Bot Effect goes parabolic, as your notes are spread more widely onto spammy relays. You won't notice, yourself, as anything over a few hundred becomes Some Big Number and you'll eventually stop even looking to see who they are, or caring about them, at all. Which leads directly to my next point...
8. The number of followers a person has, correlates with an increase in their disdain for people who care about follower counts, likes, reactions, or even zaps. This noblesse oblige says nothing about the usefulness or information any of these signals carry. You will please also notice that they never change npubs and rarely change profile pics because of reasons I don't need to elaborate on, further.
9. On-boarding is a lonely experience because nobody looks at the feed, and you initially have no followers. Even if you reply to people, they often can't see what you wrote because of your low WoT score. That is, unless you already know someone there, who can vouch for you. Or are lucky to get discovered by the Nostr Welcoming Committee and end up one of the biggest npubs overnight, which is like winning the follower lottery. For most new npubs, the experience is terrible and they eventually give up, for a handful the experience is absolutely fantastic and they are hooked. Obvious lesson: nobody should onboard, who doesn't know at least 1 other person: so invites only. Unlike Those Other Protocols, Nostr doesn't need a centrally-determined invite, as every client or relay can offer their own version, geared to a different audience. The goal simply needs to be: get off 1.
10. I don't get many zaps or reactions, anymore, but I still have interesting conversations, and I no longer face the surreal situation of every cough, hiccup, or sneeze I emit being front-page news. Nostr feels more like Nostr, again, and less like Twitter, and now I want communities and forums even harder.

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

Let's talk about baking bread

I've mentioned a few times, how large-scale central planning leads inevitably to artificial scarcity and rising prices. Allow me to illustrate -- using a completely invented allegory about bread -- that has absolutely no parallels to any economy you may already be familiar with.

We start with 20

Let us say, there is a group of 20 people in a village doing something that requires some niche skill and interest, but not inordinate amounts of talent or uncommon knowledge, such as baking loaves of bread containing emmer wheat. This is not an easy thing to do, and you'd have to read up on it and practice, to begin with, but it's not an insurmountably-high barrier for anyone who already knows how to bake.

Now, they're not baking all that much of this bread, as the market for people who want to eat it, is still rather small. But, they're happy to bake the bread, and sell it below cost (at $10), as they can see that the market is steadily growing and they know that there is a possibility of recuperating their investments, and maybe even turning some profit. They hope to eventually profit either directly (through the selling of the bread), or indirectly (as A Person Who Helped Invent Emmer Bread), or ideally some combination of the two.

They are baking away, and honing their baking skills, and scrounging up the money for bigger and better ovens or cleverly-arranging discounted contracts for slightly-larger deliveries of wheat, and more and more bakers see this activity and wander over to their village, to see how this bread is made. Well, the current bakers are starting to sink under all of the bread orders they are receiving, and customers are complaining of late deliveries, so they start to ask the 10 visiting bakers, if they would like to also set up a bakery and take some of the production off of their hands.

We now have 25 bakers

The visiting bakers consider it and 5 agree and the rest wander off again, as they already are quite busy baking the bread they've always baked, and they aren't as certain of the possibility of growth, for this new type of bread.

The 5 additional bakers take a while to setup shop and assemble staff and place wheat orders and etc., but after a few weeks or months, they are also adding to the bread supply. There are now 25 bakers, all completely booked-out, producing bread. The price of bread has fallen, to $8/loaf.

And the bread they produced! All of the bakers competing for orders and expanding their product lines and customer base quickly lead to the white emmer bread being followed by whole-grain emmer bread, emmer dinner rolls, emmer-raisin bread, and even one rebel daring to bake spelt-emmer pretzels because... Well, why not? The customer, (who, at this point, is the person eating the bread), gets to decide which bread will be baked, and the pretzels sell like hotcakes.

The emmer hotcakes also sell like hotcakes.

No baker is making much (or any) money off of the baking, but they all can see where this will end up, so they are still highly motivated and continue to invest and innovate at breathtaking speed. We now have emmer baking mixes, "We luv emmer" t-shirts, emmer baking crowd-sourcing, all-about-emmer recipe books and blogs, etc. The bakers see this all as an investment, and cross-finance their fledgling businesses through selling other bread types, their spouse's day job, burning through their savings, or working Saturday night, stocking shelves at the grocery.

Everyone can be a winner! Everyone can find their niche-in-niche! Everyone can specialize! Private enterprise for every baker, who rises and falls on his own efforts alone! And although everyone was competing with everyone else, there was no bitterness, as everyone could clearly see that effort and reward were in some sort of balance.

We are now short 3

But, alas, that was not meant to be. The joy and harmony is short-lived.

A gigantic, wealthy foundation, who is dedicated to "ensuring much emmer bread will be baked, by financially supporting emmer bakers" enters the chat.

"We have seen that there is much baking going on, here, but just think how much better and more baking could be done, if we financed your baking! Isn't that clever? Then you could really concentrate on baking, instead of having to worry about financing your business or marketing your products. All you have to do, is apply to receive our baker's grant, by signing this form, acknowledging that you will only bake products containing nothing but emmer and you will otherwise support our mission. We promise to pay you $100/loaf."

The 2 people making spelt-emmer pretzels, and the 1 person making spelt-emmer cookies, refuse to sign on, and slink off, as they are very convinced of the rightness of including spelt. One emmer-purist baker refuses on some economic principle that nobody comprehends, and immediately turns around and goes back to work in their bakery, with their shoulders hunched. But the remaining 21 bakers happily apply for a baker's grant. The mixed-grain bakers are upset about the breakup of the emmer market, and spend some time sulking, before wandering off to the new, much-smaller, spelt bread market, that is setting up, down the street. Where they sell their bread for $6 and slowly go bankrupt.

And then there were 10

2 weeks go by. 4 weeks go by. Baking has slowed. The grant hopefuls hold a meeting, where they discuss the joys of baking. Baking slows further.

Everyone is too excited, to find out if their new Universal Customer will be paying for the bread they bake. $100 a loaf! Just think of it! All of the bakers quickly do the math and realize that they not only will turn a profit, they can buy themselves a nice house and a new car and...

Nobody listens to the complaints from The Old Customers, who are the useless individual people only paying $8, despite them slaving away, all day, in front of a hot oven. They should be happy that they are getting bread, at all! Instead they complain that the bread is dry, that the delivery is late, that the bottoms are burnt. Ingrates.

And, then, the big day arrives, and the foundation happily announces that they will be giving 10 lucky bakers a grant.

The bakers are stunned. It had seemed that all of the bakers would be getting the grants, not only part of them. But, of course, the Universal Customer looked through the applications and tried to spend its money wisely. Why give grants to 5 bakers, who all produce the same type of olive-emmer bread? Give it to one, and then tell him to produce 5 times as much bread. He is then the olive-emmer bread expert and they will simply keep loose tabs on him, to nudge him to bake the bread in a sensible manner. And, of course, he shall always focus on baking olive bread, as that is what the grant is for.

The bakers stroll off, to their bakeries. Those who baked olive bread and received no grant, close up shop, as they can see which way the wind is blowing. The other grantless bakers reformulate their bakery plans, to see if they can somehow market themselves as "grant-free bakers" and wonder at how long they can stand the humiliation of selling to demanding, fickle customers at $8/loaf, when others are selling at $100/loaf, to an indifferent customer who doesn't even eat it.

The happiest 10 bakers leave for another conference, and while they are gone, their bakeries burn down. Their grants continue to flow, regardless, and the actual bread eaters are now standing in line at the last few bakeries, paying $20/loaf.

The End.

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

Young people, in Europe and America, started moving out at the turn of the last century. It wasn't a tradition, in those countries. Housing was formerly multigenerational, but people became steadily more transient, with industrialization and the following rise of office work and the concentration closer to cities.

Prior to then, housing (including rents) was prohibitively expensive, so everyone tried to stay in their parents' or employers' home, for as long, as possible. Both the "Go west!" and "Lebensraum!" slogans hint at that crowded past. People risked their lives, en mass, trying to find enough cheap land, to build their own home. Many people left Germany, and similarly crowded countries, to move to places like Texas, where you could own your own home and therefore marry without your employers' or parents' permission.

It is still common to have inheritance fueds, here, in Bavaria, with the children squabbling over who gets to "keep" the house and how much "payout" the other children will receive, as compensation. Because you cannot always simply move to a different home in the same area (there is little available land for building and nothing to rent), leaving the ancestral home can result in de facto banishment from the entire region.

Wages increased, after WWI created a tighter labor market, and governments and large corporations (receiving government subsidies) began building or subsidizing massive amounts of homes, while the size of each home shrank dramatically. Those factors combined to lower the relative cost of housing, to the individual purchaser.

But the resulting Baby Boom construction explosion so overwhelmed the housing and mortgage markets, that housing is a very unappealing long-term investment, now, as there is hardly anyone around, to move into those many homes, when the Boomers pass. Their children and grandchildren (if they have any) are much poorer than they are, and much fewer in number, which guarantees that the housing market in most areas will eventually begin to collapse, in real terms, as Boomers pass away, or attempt to downsize.

To stabilize prices and prevent fires or delinquency, governments will begin demolishing empty houses, as they already sometimes do, in the former East Germany. Former West Germany dealt with steadily-falling house prices by mass-importing foreigners and paying for their rent at above-market prices, to artificially reinflate the housing market, but it appears that the easterners had a more politically- and economically- sustainable model for ridding themselves of excess homes.

But the era of cheap housing is over, and will continue to be so, for the next 10-15 years, so young people increasingly stay home, well into adulthood. As some cultures now have "moving out", as a prerequisite to dating, their childrens' marriage rate has plummeted and, consequently, so has the birth rate.

@ 01d0bbf9:91130d4c

Chef's notes

Amazingly tangy, firey hot, but still mellow and bright.

I use this on everything– Use it to dress salads, dip (honey mustard) for fried chicken, elevate your taco nights, heck a spoonful first thing in the morning will wake you up better than coffee!

Don't forget to use up those delicious chilis and garlic, they are so good!

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 20 min
• 🍳 Cook time: 1-2 weeks
• 🍽️ Servings: (12x) 8oz jars

Ingredients

• 16oz fresh chili peppers
• 8oz red onion
• 8oz garlic
• 96oz honey
• Fresh thyme

Directions

1. Thinly slice peppers, garlic, shallots and fresh thyme
2. Add chopped ingredients to the honey
3. Leave to ferment (loosely covered) for 1-2 weeks
4. Drizzle that amazing pungent firey gold liquid over EVERYTHING. (Don't forget to use up those amazing chilis and garlic too.)

@ d6affa19:9110b177

i'm in the upstairs office. lost in some project i've been tinkering with. i feel driven with purpose.

the door is cracked open. i always leave the door open.

Her footsteps echo up the stairway. but my focus is intense; a solution just beyond my fingertips.

the door creaks open, a soft whisper of a sound.

i instantly feel Her presence. a sweet vanilla scent wraps around me, thick and intoxicating.

Her fingers brush through my hair, a gentle caress.

She grips my hair, then releases it— over and over again. it feels good.

a soothing warmth envelops me.

Her fingers glide, each stroke igniting my senses. a chill races down my spine.

the monitor becomes a bit distant.

"You're really focused, hmm?" She teases, leaning closer. "I'm just checking in on my sweet boy." Her tone alluring, already drawing me in.

"of course, my Queen." i reply, my eyes glued to the screen, struggling to concentrate. "thank You," my voice hints at annoyance. "i'm so close to finishing this up."

just when i near a breakthrough, She appears, a siren pulling me from my path. how does She know..? the quiet signals that betray my focus— that reveal my yearning.

"Hmmmm," She playfully muses.

ugh, i need to concentrate. but the way this feels...

it pulls me deeper.

Her fingers drift by my ear, lingering around my neck. nails grazing my skin, sending shivers through me.

my heart begins to race. the screen blurs, reality separates.

"Okay, sweet boy." Her voice is a soft command. Her nails dig in, a mixture of pain and pleasure. a sharp contrast to the softness of Her touch. "I'll be downstairs while you finish."

yet She remains. i close my eyes, drowning in the sensation. i should be finishing this project...

but each press feels like a silent command, an urge to abandon my thoughts, to succumb to the pull of Her presence.

the way She easily captures my attention... it makes me feel so vulnerable...

Her grip finally loosens, and slowly leaves my neck. it wants more...

i barely hear Her leave. but the air feels colder. the warmth of Her presence is fading. an aching emptiness fills the space...

the weight of Her absence settles in, another reminder of how easily She commands my thoughts...

desperately, i take in the remnants of Her scent.

i stare at my monitor. focus shattered, thoughts scattered like leaves.

i linger for a moment. fighting the urge to chase after Her.

the pull of Her absence is heavy in the air. i'm unable to resist. i rise from my seat.

the door is slightly open. She always leaves the door open.

i make my way downstairs, lost in the thoughts of serving Her. my true purpose...

@ a9434ee1:d5c885be

1. Relay = Community?

If spinning up a relay is getting easier and cheaper by the day, why can't the relays literally be the group/community?

Then: * Any relay is by default a public community. The more restricted read- or write-access is, the more it becomes a private group. * Any publication targeted at (h-tag) and stored, and thus accepted, by a relay can be seen as a publication in that community. * All-in-1 hosting solutions (integrated blossom servers, lightning nodes, ...) are made easier.

2. Why invent new kinds?

Why can't Kind 1 posts that are targeted and accepted by a relay (i.e. community) just be the forum-posts of that community? Why create new kinds for this? And even weirder, why create a new kind with that exclusively serves as a reply to that new kind? Why not just use generic replies (kind 1111) and take the #otherstuff (event kinds and apps) as an opportunity to introduce those?

For chat messages, however, I get it. You need a kind + reply-kind for those.

3. Community VS Private group

It seems like the only distinction you really need, both for the user and the apps implementing all this, is:
1. Public Community: anyone can read and follow this community but for writing the admins can set limits (pricing, white listings, ...) 2. Private group: only the profiles that even know this relay (i.e. group) exists can interact with it. Read-access has to be granted (invite, pricing, ...) and admins can set limits for writing too. Beyond this distinction it's a bit naive to try to categorize them. Open vs Closed doesn't really mean much for example, since technically all groups/communities set limits and are thus closed. It's more interesting to look the ways in which they can be closed and build on the simplest distinctions you can make there.

The difference between Public communities and private groups is the most important one because they both have very different UX and specification requirements:

Memberlist

Communities: None existent
Anyone can read and follow. It just has limits on who can publish what, when. So the most interesting thing to surface is probable something like a list of most active members or a highlighted set of profiles that have special characteristics within this community (top supporter, god-mode, resident artist, ...).
Private Groups: Necessary for it's existence
The whitelisted npubs for read-access are the members.

Moderation actions

Both types of groups need a way for the admin(s) to:
* Block/remove users * Remove events * Edit metadata (name, description, guidelines...) * Specify who can write publish what, under what condition

Only private groups need a way for the admin(s) to:
* Add/approve new members → specify who has read-access, under what condition

Generalizing too many actions like add member, join request, etc... that are only applicable to one of these categories just creates bad UX for the other one. You don't "add a member" to a public community. People can follow it without asking anyone's permission (ok yes, some will AUTH for reading but that's besides the point). Some of its followers will then just choose to publish something there and the admin either allows them or not.

Having a common protocol for specifying the conditions for this write-access interoperably (as mentioned above) is what I would like to see instead: * Both Communities and Private groups need it anyway * You have to assume admins need granularity in the conditions they set for publishing in their group/community: Who, what, under what condition, ... * You don't want to link out to custom websites (or similar) explaining their allowance schemes

Sidenote: we need a similar kind of spec for the services that allow you to spin up your hosting solution (relay, server, node, ...) so that, when you click "Create new community" in an app, those services can be surfaced. With their business models (including options to self-host parts of it) just there, in the app, without linking out. Same for the lines of communication and payments that are needed to make those business models work from within any app.

Publication and Discovery

Only Communities allow for the exciting possibility of publishing something in multiple overlapping communities at once. Someone writing about how Bees are Capitalists can target their article at the communities that most overlap with its content (and with the author's means and write-access of course). Members of a community around beekeeping can organically discover content and communities on Austrian economics relevant to them.

With Private groups publication happens only in the group and discovery is blocked on purpose.

@ ee11a5df:b76c4e49

Bye-Bye Reply Guy

There is a camp of nostr developers that believe spam filtering needs to be done by relays. Or at the very least by DVMs. I concur. In this way, once you configure what you want to see, it applies to all nostr clients.

But we are not there yet.

In the mean time we have ReplyGuy, and gossip needed some changes to deal with it.

Strategies in Short

1. WEB OF TRUST: Only accept events from people you follow, or people they follow - this avoids new people entirely until somebody else that you follow friends them first, which is too restrictive for some people.
2. TRUSTED RELAYS: Allow every post from relays that you trust to do good spam filtering.
3. REJECT FRESH PUBKEYS: Only accept events from people you have seen before - this allows you to find new people, but you will miss their very first post (their second post must count as someone you have seen before, even if you discarded the first post)
4. PATTERN MATCHING: Scan for known spam phrases and words and block those events, either on content or metadata or both or more.
5. TIE-IN TO EXTERNAL SYSTEMS: Require a valid NIP-05, or other nostr event binding their identity to some external identity
6. PROOF OF WORK: Require a minimum proof-of-work

All of these strategies are useful, but they have to be combined properly.

filter.rhai

Gossip loads a file called "filter.rhai" in your gossip directory if it exists. It must be a Rhai language script that meets certain requirements (see the example in the gossip source code directory). Then it applies it to filter spam.

This spam filtering code is being updated currently. It is not even on unstable yet, but it will be there probably tomorrow sometime. Then to master. Eventually to a release.

Here is an example using all of the techniques listed above:

```rhai // This is a sample spam filtering script for the gossip nostr // client. The language is called Rhai, details are at: // https://rhai.rs/book/ // // For gossip to find your spam filtering script, put it in // your gossip profile directory. See // https://docs.rs/dirs/latest/dirs/fn.data_dir.html // to find the base directory. A subdirectory "gossip" is your // gossip data directory which for most people is their profile // directory too. (Note: if you use a GOSSIP_PROFILE, you'll // need to put it one directory deeper into that profile // directory). // // This filter is used to filter out and refuse to process // incoming events as they flow in from relays, and also to // filter which events get/ displayed in certain circumstances. // It is only run on feed-displayable event kinds, and only by // authors you are not following. In case of error, nothing is // filtered. // // You must define a function called 'filter' which returns one // of these constant values: // DENY (the event is filtered out) // ALLOW (the event is allowed through) // MUTE (the event is filtered out, and the author is // automatically muted) // // Your script will be provided the following global variables: // 'caller' - a string that is one of "Process", // "Thread", "Inbox" or "Global" indicating // which part of the code is running your // script // 'content' - the event content as a string // 'id' - the event ID, as a hex string // 'kind' - the event kind as an integer // 'muted' - if the author is in your mute list // 'name' - if we have it, the name of the author // (or your petname), else an empty string // 'nip05valid' - whether nip05 is valid for the author, // as a boolean // 'pow' - the Proof of Work on the event // 'pubkey' - the event author public key, as a hex // string // 'seconds_known' - the number of seconds that the author // of the event has been known to gossip // 'spamsafe' - true only if the event came in from a // relay marked as SpamSafe during Process // (even if the global setting for SpamSafe // is off)

fn filter() {

// Show spam on global
// (global events are ephemeral; these won't grow the
// database)
if caller=="Global" {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Block ReplyGuy
if name.contains("ReplyGuy") || name.contains("ReplyGal") {
    return DENY;
}

// Block known DM spam
// (giftwraps are unwrapped before the content is passed to
//  this script)
if content.to_lower().contains(
  "Mr. Gift and Mrs. Wrap under the tree, KISSING!"
) {
    return DENY;
}

// Reject events from new pubkeys, unless they have a high
// PoW or we somehow already have a nip05valid for them
//
// If this turns out to be a legit person, we will start
// hearing their events 2 seconds from now, so we will
// only miss their very first event.
if seconds_known <= 2 && pow < 25 && !nip05valid {
    return DENY;
}

// Mute offensive people
if content.to_lower().contains(" kike") ||
    content.to_lower().contains("kike ") ||
    content.to_lower().contains(" nigger") ||
    content.to_lower().contains("nigger ")
{
    return MUTE;
}

// Reject events from muted people
//
// Gossip already does this internally, and since we are
// not Process, this is rather redundant. But this works
// as an example.
if muted {
    return DENY;
}

// Accept if the PoW is large enough
if pow >= 25 {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Accept if their NIP-05 is valid
if nip05valid {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Accept if the event came through a spamsafe relay
if spamsafe {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Reject the rest
DENY

} ```

@ 1d5357bf:1bdf0a52

If Bitcoin Is in Its Infancy, Nostr Is Still in Its Nursing Stage Skepticism is healthy, especially within the Bitcoin community. At the moment, Nostr users are predominantly Bitcoiners, and it's understandable that people are cautious about adopting new technologies. However, based on my limited experience over the last few months, Nostr has shown immense potential and is evolving at a breakneck pace.

The Speed of Development: A Double-Edged Sword The rate at which new functionality is being rolled out on Nostr is staggering. On the one hand, this rapid development brings constant innovation and new tools for users to explore. On the other hand, it often means that many implementations still need refinement, or at the very least, better documentation. It's exciting, but there are still bumps in the road that need to be ironed out. Censorship Resistance and Relay-Based Architecture One of Nostr’s most appealing features is its decentralized architecture, which revolves around relays. This design ensures that the protocol is censorship-resistant. If you’re tech-savvy enough, you can even run your own relay, allowing you to retain full control of your notes. This distributed system empowers users by giving them the tools to protect their content and stay independent of centralized entities.

A Protocol, Not a Platform Nostr is not a platform—it's a protocol. This distinction is crucial because it enables a high degree of interoperability, which can pave the way for a diverse ecosystem of applications. This opens up a world of possibilities and allows for network effects to take hold as more people and applications begin to interact with the protocol.

Privacy and Control Another advantage is the ability to manage your privacy more effectively. With Nostr, you can use multiple nsec/npub keys, giving you more control over your identity and interactions. This flexibility is a game-changer in a world where privacy is often compromised by centralized platforms.

Areas for Improvement Of course, Nostr is not without its challenges. Many of the available applications feel unpolished, and spam is a growing issue (the infamous "reply guy" problem). The ephemeral nature of the content also presents a challenge—once you post something, you can't "put the toothpaste back in the tube," sort to speak.

Enjoying the Ride Despite its growing pains, I’ve found Nostr to be an enjoyable experience so far. There are no algorithms dictating what you see, which results in a signal-rich environment with minimal toxicity—for now, at least. It’s refreshing to engage in conversations that aren’t manipulated by unseen forces, and I look forward to seeing where Nostr goes from here.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Nostr: a quick introduction, attempt #2

Nostr doesn't subscribe to any ideals of "free speech" as these belong to the realm of politics and assume a big powerful government that enforces a common ruleupon everybody else.

Nostr instead is much simpler, it simply says that servers are private property and establishes a generalized framework for people to connect to all these servers, creating a true free market in the process. In other words, Nostr is the public road that each market participant can use to build their own store or visit others and use their services.

(Of course a road is never truly public, in normal cases it's ran by the government, in this case it relies upon the previous existence of the internet with all its quirks and chaos plus a hand of government control, but none of that matters for this explanation).

More concretely speaking, Nostr is just a set of definitions of the formats of the data that can be passed between participants and their expected order, i.e. messages between clients (i.e. the program that runs on a user computer) and relays (i.e. the program that runs on a publicly accessible computer, a "server", generally with a domain-name associated) over a type of TCP connection (WebSocket) with cryptographic signatures. This is what is called a "protocol" in this context, and upon that simple base multiple kinds of sub-protocols can be added, like a protocol for "public-square style microblogging", "semi-closed group chat" or, I don't know, "recipe sharing and feedback".

@ bf95e1a4:ebdcc848

This is the full AI-generated transcript of Bitcoin Infinity Show #127 featuring George Manolov!

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Welcoming George Manolov

Luke: George, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show, thank you for joining us.

George: Thank you, Knut.

Knut: Good to have you here, George.

George: to be here, yeah.

you're here to tell us about the city that I was most surprised by ever. Like, I've never heard of the city before I went to Bulgaria, Yeah, time flies.

Knut: So Plovdiv, Bulgaria, which was amazing, this rich, Thousands of years of history plays with a lot of different eras and different styles of architecture and stuff, really enjoyed Plovdiv, and you have a football team there.

George: yeah, indeed.

George Manolov and Botev Plovdiv

George: Please give us the story about George and Plovdiv Yeah, sure.

Knut: Plovdiv.

George: Sure, sure. So, Plovdiv is, well, I would say it's the oldest living city in Europe, so continuously inhabited. Like you say, not many people know it. I guess, like, we don't have good enough marketing, but, that's probably part of my job right now, right? To spread the word about it. so it's, like the second largest city in the country.

And, yeah, it's just this, it's very, like, I love how you put it because almost nobody has really heard of Plovdiv, right? Most people, when they hear of Bulgaria, they've probably heard of Sofia but Sofia is, okay, but Plovdiv is kind of the chill place, Plovdiv is the place that is actually worth visiting, the place where, people just enjoy going there.

I was born there, right? and, grew up there till 18 or so, then, Studied, lived in Sofia most of the time. And, last year, in kind of summer, I was already kind of way deeper into Bitcoin. I decided I'm going to go full time into Bitcoin, just commit all my time in Bitcoin at the time, educating, publishing books in Bulgarian about Bitcoin, creating my own educational platform.

And then I got, reached out and connected really to the owner of the football club in the city, which is also the oldest football club in the country, Botev Plovdiv, who was, well, he got introduced into Bitcoin himself and he realized it's going to be a very big, project. You know, going to play a central role in where the world is going.

Knut: What is this the owner of the club?

George: That's right. The owner of the club. was like, Hey, I think we can do something unique with Bitcoin because, you know, the club is really a company, right? It's a business on the one hand, but it's a special type of business, it's not where just you produce a certain product or service.

It's really a living organism where people are involved into it, for very emotional reasons. people feel like it's their own and it's not like a small group of people. It's a very large group of people. In our case, we have tens of thousands, arguably more than a hundred, 200, 000 people who care, who watch, who follow the club.

And so on the one hand, like there's many different ways in which we can look into this, but on the one hand. It's for me, what really inspired me and what got me like, Oh my God, like, is this really happening is that we can bring the conversation about Bitcoin from a completely different angle into society to a group of people who for the most part would never really They would like this, they would never listen to podcasts like this, they would never get to any of the kind of places and things we listen to, watch, consume, right?

and people go, You know, people go kind of for bread and circus, right,

Knut: yeah, yeah.

George: for the games. That's what really football is, right? It's fun and it's emotion, it's enjoyment, but then we push them censorship resistance and hard money, right?

And we don't really push it, you know, that's the thing, right? Because are like consistently, progressively, gradually over time, introducing it and finding the best way and the most appropriate way to, yeah, plant that seed. To the minds of the people, into the views of the people and so on and so forth.

so it's really like, you know, what we're trying to build is, we feel we're in a very privileged position, right? because we've been, the first really professional sports club globally, I would say, to have, uh, crypto Bitcoin, you know, people, departments, who is actually full time employed to, you know, think of a way to grow the business, to think of a way to integrate Bitcoin natively, within the various aspects of, of, of the organization, which obviously initially includes like accepting payments and so on and so forth.

But, um, but there's so much more you can do exactly with this type of, Like organization, again, like not, not, not just a business in a traditional sense.

Knut: Yeah. And, uh, won the league, right? Is that, is that right?

George: Yeah, man, like it's, uh, yeah, so we, um, when I started last year, things were super bad. Like exactly one year ago, I was there for the, for one of the first games. It was horrible. Like, I was like, okay, this is a great idea, but if the team is doing so bad and if, uh, if they keep losing and if the fans keep getting, you know, being unhappy, Um, it's not gonna go anywhere, but still, I gave it a, I gave it a go, right, because I was like, okay, I just hope that the sports side guys are going to do their, their part, and I have my opportunity here, um, to, to just like push, to educate, to, To do what, what, what life is giving me an opportunity to do.

And, uh, very fortunately, as we started working, the team started performing better and better and better. We got a completely new coach. We got a new sports director. We, we had a lot of key staff changes across the organization, which, Um, relatively quickly started showing results. So, uh, yeah, like, 10 months later in May, we won the Bulgarian Cup.

Luke: Is that the cup or the league? Like, uh,

George: it's the cup, it's the cup. So, so, I was saying, like, we started very bad in the league. And so, we were doing better and better, but still, like, we finished 9th in the league out of 16 clubs at the end of the day. But which was still okay, because, like, when I joined, like, we were, like,

Luke: Worried about relegation or something like that?

George: there. I mean,

Knut: We're complete, uh, like I've tried to take an interest to football, but like, uh, my ADD just, the brain just wanders away after five minutes and I can't concentrate anymore. So I don't

Luke: a basketball fan.

Knut: Am I now?

Football for Noobs

Knut: Uh, so, uh, what's the difference between the cup and the league? Let's begin there. That's, that's how much of a football noob I

George: So, so pretty much in every country is the same, right? You have a league or a championship where you have, in our case, 16 teams, and every team plays twice against every other team. So home game, away game, and then, you know, you either win three points when you win, or you lose, or you draw, and you, you, you win one point.

And then, so after you play, after you play, in our case, this, what is it, games? You know,

Luke: 30.

George: yeah, about 30. Yeah, right. You're better than Matt, it's obvious. So, um, so once you play these 30 games, um, you, um, yeah, like the team with the most points wins, right? Whereas, uh, the cup is direct elimination

Knut: So quarterfinals, semifinals, all that.

George: exactly. So it's the easier way. So this was the way for us to due to the bad start of the season. This was the way for us to, to achieve something in this season and to achieve something important because what the Cubs gives us as an opportunity and gave us was to play in the European Leagues.

So UEFA Leagues. And we just did that. We played six games. Uh, for the Europe, uh, Europe League and the Europe Conference League.

Knut: Okay. But to, to be in the champions league, that's a totally, you have to, yeah, yeah. You have to win the league and you have to win all sorts of stuff. Like how does that work?

George: yeah. You have to win the league. And then in our case, so in every country it's different, but in our case, we have to win, like we go to qualifications for the Champions League. So it's like, I mean, three to four games. And if we win that, we go to the Champions League.

Knut: Alright,

George: That's the current state of affairs, although that can change over the years.

Knut: alright, uh, it all makes sense to me now, that's a lie, but anyway.

Luke: No, uh, I'll definitely, we'll acknowledge here that I'm more of the, the sports fan, uh, generally here, and I, I follow football, I like, uh, I like European, uh, football, uh, well, and obviously I'm using the correct, uh, term despite my, um, my pseudo American accent, uh. Yeah, anyway, um, uh, no, it's fantastic to see, and I mean, yeah, for the non sports fans, uh, listening to this, I get that

Knut: Well, I am a sports fan, it's just that Starcraft 2 is my sport, and yeah, yeah,

Luke: yeah,

George: eSports.

Knut: yeah, yeah, so I watch, watch Starcraft 2 games. That's what I do for procrastination sometimes.

Luke: valid sports, I'm not going to compare it to other things that aren't

Knut: breakdancing? Is that a valid sport?

Luke: Breakdancing is, um, hmm, interesting. I think anything with points, that judges give points, is kind of not a sport, it's an activity.

Knut: yeah.

Luke: but, yeah, anyway,

Knut: thing to do.

Luke: is a thing to do, yes, definitely, but back to, back to, um, um, Botev Plod, is it Botev, Botev, what's, what's, Botev, Botev Plod, yeah, so, so, um, yeah, yeah, like, the, the, the achievement, winning, winning the cup, I mean, the, The cups are sort of more difficult.

They're both difficult in their own way, right? Like, the cup, you lose one game, you're out, basically, right? But, I mean, the league is like this endurance, achievement, right? You have to perform well over the course of the whole season. But the cheat code, so to say, and I probably subconsciously used the other football team's terminology, who's in the space, Real Bedford, um,

Botev Plovdiv's Bitcoin Strategy

Luke: The, the idea right, if, if I'm getting it, is that you guys would, would keep the Bitcoin in the, in the, the treasury, the, the company, and then over the course of time it's just gonna do the number go up thing and, and the, the club will have more resources.

Right. Is that, is that the idea you're thinking with the, the bitcoin strategy?

George: There's actually many, many things to it. And this is kind of the most, let's say, vanilla type of approach. Yeah, like just buy Bitcoin and hold it on the balance sheet, which is, which is great. But there's actually so many other things you can do. And that's where, because if you just do that, frankly, like, I mean, you don't need me involved, right, much.

I mean, just call Coinbase, whatever, wire the money, crack in and, buy. but with us it's like, really, uh, we see a huge opportunity to, first of all, align our brand with the Bitcoin brand, which is a royalty free, uh, The biggest brand in finance, for sure. One, uh, like it's going to be the biggest brand in the world for sure at some point.

Right. So that's, that's one play. And to do this, it's not enough for you to just buy Bitcoin and hold it on a balance sheet. It's what you need to do is proof of work, right? You need to do things that nobody has ever done. You need to really kind of be creative. Uh, and, and, um, to push the boundaries of what anyone has ever done before, right?

So, so that is, uh, that is my kind of job and it's a lot of, um, a lot of just like, let's, let's think of what, what new things we can do with Bitcoin and sports and football that nobody has ever done. Just because others are focused on the short term things, they're focused on, hitting those, those quick wins, those quick goals, which is why, for example, like a lot of the sports and, and that have, you know, interact, they haven't really interacted outside of Bedford with Bitcoin, right?

It's mostly been crypto because it's just, okay, let's make some quick money. Um,

Luke: usually, it's usually just sponsorships, right?

Knut: yeah,

George: yes. Um, and for us, because on the one hand, like, we're not like Manchester United, right? We're not Chelsea. So we don't have that much to monetize immediately. Like we're a large club, but.

Luke: You're a large club in a local league, which is, which is different from the, it's not one of the leagues that is internationally positioned like that. But, but, I mean, the, the difference between you guys and Bedford that I, that I think is, is really interesting. Like, McCormack, what he, Peter McCormack, what he's doing, I mean, he's, he's taking a club from the bottom and aiming for the top.

But who knows how long that's going to take him to get there, right? But you guys are already in the top of your league, right? Like, in the top league.

George: right, yeah, and also there's, there's different in this, we're in the top of our league. My goal, personally, is to go to Champions League, but this is very hard, right? Because, like, okay, when you start from Peter's ground, like, it's easy, okay, every year you level up, you level up, or, I mean, I'm not gonna say it's easy, but it's easier than, uh, than once you're, you know, at our level.

For us, it's important to play currently every year in European leagues like we've done so far and to every year consistently, like, increase the level of the sports, level of the business department bit by bit, and, but like breaking that point where we, you know, win the league, Where we win several more games and enter the Champions League, that, that's really hard.

I mean, because you're already at that stage where everybody, like, so many teams are so strong, right? So it's um, it takes just a lot of ingredients for you to, to, to hit, uh, in order to win. But we're gonna get there.

Knut: and does the club self custody it's bitcoin? And if so, is it a something out of 11 multisig, that sounds like a football thing?

George: Why so? Ah, yeah, an 11? Nah, nah, fuck that. I mean Nah, even, even 7 Motosick is a, is a killer, but no. Um, yeah, I can't really speak too much about this at this point. Yeah. Um, but, um, but yeah, I mean, we do, of course we do self custody. So that's, that's the approach that we've chosen with kind of a lot of, um, we've chosen to go really pure, pure Bitcoin in terms of the strategy.

And that's how we set ourselves apart. That's how we believe we win the long game because for instance, like we Bitcoin with BTC pay server. Which in my mind they don't even have competition. It's the only like, real, solid, autonomous, sovereign way to accept payments. And it's also the way which makes sense for like, Frankly, any standard business, because like, man, we're selling scarves, we're selling, um, membership boat cards, we're selling jerseys, we're selling basic merch, and if we are to sell it with basically any other service out there, outside of BTC Pay Server, we have to basically, uh, indirectly do KYC, right?

Like, we have to go through KYC, we have to go through KYB, which is ridiculous, um, in my mind. And so, um, so that's why we're exceptionally thankful to B2C Pay Server guys, uh, for what they've built. Uh, it's been like an absolute pleasure to, um, to use their product, to use their service. Uh, we have, you know, outside of B2C Pay, we, uh, we are the first, uh, sports club on Nostr.

Where, uh, we have, uh, actively been posting, exploring, you know, meeting people here. Kind of thinking of what we could do from our angle again, like first, first time on Nostr.

Aqua WAllet

George: Um, we have partnered with, uh, Aqua, JAN3's Aqua wallet, which has a, a Botive skin mode now. So if you go to settings, you can turn Botive mode and then it turns into the colors of the club and, you know, have the picture of the stadium there.

Um,

Luke: I'm using Aqua right now because, uh, uh, usually I like to use Aqua as like a sort of a middle wallet, uh, uh, because it's still slightly slower than other lightning wallets because they, they, the, everything actually lives on, on liquid and then they, they, uh, go out via bolts. Uh, so it's slightly slower than a faster, um, like, like than other, um, more direct lightning wallets.

And so usually when I come to a conference, I'm going to load up a, like a temporary. I don't know, Blink or something like that, but I forgot to do that, so I'm just using my Aqua wallet, and you know what, it's been great here, it's been working, uh, so yeah, we're big fans of Aqua wallet and what

Knut: Yeah, and a BTC pay server. I mean, uh, we can echo everything you said that we, BitcoinInfinity. com, like, and the store here We just fired up. Everything is powered by a BTC pay server, and we just love it. Yes.

Luke: So what was your question about, uh, Aqua?

George: If yours is on BOTEV mode.

Luke: Uh, I don't think I've gone into the settings and changed it to Vaudev mode, I'll have to do that, maybe we'll take

George: It's dark mode,

but cooler.

Luke: Doc dark mode, but cooler. Okay. Okay. Actually that's a, that's a, that's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah. We'll take a, we'll take a picture after, uh, after the episode and we'll de proof, bot, uh, bot e mode, and, uh, uh, post that on Nostr.

How does that sound?

George: Let's go.

Knut: Yeah. Nostr. Um, is there a connection there between both a plot and Nostr while you're doing Nostr stuff as well?

History and Freedom

George: Yeah. Well, look, um, a lot of these things is like, so What Botev Plovdiv stands for, um, very importantly, so the club was named after Hristo Botev, who's, uh, like, one of the most Bulgarians, if the most famous Bulgarian revolutionaries, like, historical figure, uh, he was a poet, he was a revolutionary, he fought for Bulgaria's freedom back in the day,

Luke: Which, which day, which, what day did you

George: uh, 110, uh, what is it, like, 50 years ago or so?

Yeah.

Knut: Mm-Hmm?

Luke: Okay. So, so

Knut: before the Commes.

Luke: ottoman, uh,

George: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he, he, he fought for the, for the liberation of Bulgaria from, from the Ottoman Empire. And a lot of what he stands for is this fight for freedom, his fight for liberty. Um, and this, this lives until this very day into the identity of the club and to what we stand for into the songs, into the, into the music.

Um, you know, um, the kind of like what, what our fans also resonate with, um, and, and what they sing like in many, in many ways. Right. So, um, Freedom of speech, freedom of, uh, of like freedom in general is, is a value that is deeply ingrained into kind of like what the club stands for. Um, and, uh, you know, that's why I'm into Bitcoin.

That's why I believe. And that's, that's why I saw this even bigger opportunity. Oh my God, like, how is this happening? There's so many, sometimes, you know, some like weird things happen in life and you have no explanation why and how all these things align. But, but for me, it's like this club was made really to.

to be aligned with BOTEF and to be, uh, to, to, to be aligned with Bitcoin and with Nostr. If I look at all the other clubs in Bulgaria, right, like just in Bulgaria, none of the others, like, there's no this contextual historical background that you can make these connections. But with us, we have it, and what a chance that, like, we have this owner, and he got, like, introduced to it, and then we got connected.

Like, how the hell does this happen, man? I don't know,

Luke: We like to say this, the surreal doesn't end, you know, and like, uh, my, my whole story, I've been talking about this, uh, at the, the conference here is like two years ago was the first time I ever met Bitcoiners here in Baltic Honeybadger. We, we met for the, for the first time, uh, all three of us, uh, met for the first time two years ago, I've been in Baltic Honeybadger and it's like, things, things happen so fast.

Uh, I've, I've, uh, I've thought it was been awesome just following, uh, what you've been doing with the, the club and the story. So great to, Great to get to talk about it, but, uh,

Bitcoin in Football

George: Yeah. No, for, for me, like really the, the most exciting part is really even coming forward. So, uh, because, so now it's been, so we, a long, we announced, uh, publicly that we're doing this, uh, 31st October last year. So the anniversary of the, of the, uh, Bitcoin White paper, um, we've built a lot right. And very, very importantly, I'm super proud, like, I don't know if you saw this, but like a month ago, we played on European League, the UEFA League with Bitcoin straight on our jerseys, which was like, like, when I saw this, I'm like, dude, it's crazy that this is happening.

But, but the best is really yet to come, like, like we like to say. Um, so I, I think we, we're, we have, um, we have still so much more to do. So for me, the next big part, which I'm super excited about literally in the coming month as, uh, as I go back. So is to finally get some of our. Players or at least one or two to get to do something publicly about this, because at the end of the day, that's why for me, the more I do, the more I, uh, play in this arena, I realized this is really a Trojan horse for us to bring Bitcoin into the conversation, into the minds, like I said, of people who otherwise wouldn't and, and our players, you know, especially a few of them, they're really influencers, right?

Um, a lot of people follow them. A lot of people respect them. And, um, and if they do, uh, you know, something meaningful, something cool, something impactful, this is going to have a huge impact onto our forwards. This could very well have impact onto, um, other sportsmen, other football people, other football clubs, right?

Uh, so that's why I'm doing it, right? Really?

Luke: No, this is fantastic, and actually this was exactly where I was hoping to go next, so thank you for queuing that up. But, no, no, the game theory of all this, right? Like, one club getting, Positioning as the, as the Bitcoin club in a league, uh, really means that eventually all the other clubs are going to need to adopt Bitcoin.

If they're going to be able to compete, because if play playing out the game theory, number go up, whatever it is, Bitcoin strategy plays out, you guys are going to be the most financially capable club. Financially sustainable in not very long, you know, assuming everything plays out the way we're thinking it will, right?

So, so other, other clubs then would become incentivized to also adopt Bitcoin. So what, what do you, what do you think about that? Like you, do you, do you see that, uh, happening as well?

George: Yeah, I'm not really sure if it would happen to me. That fast, to be fair. Like, I think it's inevitable, right, obviously, but I think it, yeah, like, I think this definitely takes at least three, four years, maybe more. Um,

Luke: That's, that's still pretty fast.

George: yeah, I guess. I mean, I mean, like, okay, let me define it better. It takes three, four years.

So, for other clubs within our league to start doing something like this, uh, maybe it takes less time for other clubs to realize it, but I think for them to do it, it also depends on our actions, right? So because like, we don't have like a treasury of microstrategy or something, so it's not, and we're not doing like a

Luke: you don't?

George: monthly like leverage on top of leverage on top of another leverage, you know, uh, we're not in, in Michael's privileged position. but we can do other cool things, right? Uh, one of the, um, so this is not yet live and this is not yet happening, but one of the, like two, two projects, let's say, I'm gonna briefly, like, tease here that, that I'm working on that I hope to have very large impact is first, uh, building this, uh, simple tool Uh, called like a Bitcoin, uh, football salary calculator that, uh, it's like really a DCA tool, but like looking back and like tailoring it to our niche where I want to, for us to visually and emotionally Show, um, to players, but also to fans of ours, like what Bitcoin could have done for their remuneration, if you look one year back in time, two years back in time, three years back in time, four years back in time, and for them to really realize, Oh my God, this is a no brainer.

Right? I want to make this mess. And this is hard, right? Um, because like, there's so many tools and like, but I want to be, because the audience is very wide, very different types of audience. I want to make this so that you can consume it in like two, three, four minutes. And you're like, okay, I need to learn more about this.

This actually is interesting. There's like, that's so much dense and emotional and compact information that you're like, Whoa. Why am I not doing this? How did I miss this?

Knut: What, what, what was the name of that website? I, I don't know if it's still up, but bitcoin or shit.com or something like that. So, so it lists if you bought this item when it came out, an iPhone five or whatever, uh, and if you had bought b bitcoin instead.com, I think that that's the, that's the name. So if you bought, uh, if you bought Bitcoin instead, it shows you how much, how much more money you'd have now and how many iPhones you

George: Yeah. Yeah. And of course there's many of these tools, obviously like we've all see them and we all like like them and retweet them and repost them. And it's all great. But I think, at least I hope that we can do something impactful with this. If we really tailor it, compact it to a specific type of niche audience with a specific message designed for them.

And because this audience is also like. A type of audience who can also like, um, you know, bring it to other bubbles that we ourselves are not part of, right? So that's, for example, one like, uh, one like project I'm very, very excited about and I hope we can, um, yeah, we'll bring forward relatively soon.

There's a few moving elements, but definitely in the coming month or two, uh, at most. And then, uh, and then, you know, speaking of the other clubs, what, what I want us to do is what we're working is next year, we're targeting to do, I hope we could do the world's first, uh, Bitcoin, uh, Cup tournament. Uh, for youth players, 70 year old boys who are, you know, right there before they sign their first professional contract, start earning money, for them, first of all, like, it's a Bitcoin football cup, like, it's the first time this, this could potentially ever happen And then it's, it's a football first tournament, right?

This is the, we want to make it like top quality, like really the highest quality when it comes to sports, but then you have Bitcoin involved all over the place, right? In terms of brand, in terms of rewards, in terms of, um, in terms of like plays, um, like, like games and, and interactions, activations, uh, throughout, before, throughout, and after the, And after the event, and for this, I'm targeting to get really like, like big clubs.

I mean, because it's academies, right? I mean, I cannot get the Manchester United first team, just maybe we could get the Manchester United 17 year old team or, you know, another big club. We get some of these, and then like we get their brands, we get them on the focus of Bitcoin. And we drive the conversation faster, you know, not three, four years from now, but Less

Knut: what about, um, like right now there's you and there's, um, you guys and there's a real bed for it, right? Those are the two I know of in Europe. Are you aware of any other clubs that are doing a Bitcoin strategy? I mean, is this virus spreading? Like, have you heard anything like,

George: Um, Oh, there's, uh, there's the Austrian Admira Vakir who have done some integration. So it's a second tier, uh, second league, uh, second league, uh, club that have, uh, that have, uh, you know, they've also had Bitcoin on the, their second team jersey. And, um, and they, they also accept Bitcoin payments, uh, here and there, but you know, the thing is, there's some other clubs, um, there's a Miami, um, not Miami, um, a Hawaiian club that, that is doing, uh, that is doing like their Bitcoin gig,

Knut: yeah, there are other, other sports, right, other sports team and sports teams in other sports that are doing it. But, but for football specifically,

George: which ones?

Knut: Uh, I'm so bad with sports, but wasn't there like a hockey team or a basketball team or

Luke: I'm not aware of any others, actually. Yeah, like, uh, there's been some attempts at

Knut: it's

Luke: an orange colored team or something like

Knut: more the individual athletes,

Luke: Yeah, yeah, there have been individual

Knut: for instance, a

Luke: have been individual

Knut: player, and there was some American football player.

George: There's been individual athletes, a lot of them. There's been, I was asking if you know, but there's been a baseball club in Australia, the Port Heat. Uh, who did kind of a Bitcoin strategy. Uh, but very unfortunately that didn't work out. They kind of started this at the peak of the last bull cycle. And, um, and as I understand, uh, there wasn't like a strong alignment between the owners and the management in terms of like understanding that this is a long game.

So that's why this kind of flopped. Um, but yeah, like I, I think the reason why it's not happening in more, unfortunately, and, and, and I see this even, even within our club, uh, you know, but, but definitely no other clubs because Fiat has permitted sports as well. Right. So all the sports club, uh, clubs or the vast majority in football, for sure.

They're like, you know, on the hamster wheel themselves.

Knut: They're indebted,

George: They're indebted.

Knut: to an extreme level,

George: yeah, like, like fighting for every dollar for every income. So it's, it's hard for you to like, Oh yeah, we're going to have this long term Bitcoin strategy that's going to take like two, three, four, five years to play out.

And we can benefit a lot from it. It's very, very hard in, you know, unfortunately for a large organizations, sports club in particular to To have this realization, to map this out, to get others on board. That's why it's not so popular and uh, and that's why I'm grateful and keep pushing that we have this chance.

Luke: I mean, you make a great point here about essentially the, it's the organizational alignment, right? Like the, the, these are companies, sports clubs are companies. They just have this large, the business is involved around getting fans to come in and consume this sort of marketing. Product, essentially. So it's, it's a certain kind of company that's run a certain way, but just like any other company, you need, you need alignment from the management.

So it's, it's fantastic that, uh, Boteb Plovdiv has, has the, uh, alignment and is, is putting their, their trust in you to, to move this thing forward. And I mean, from the, from the perspective of this thing, Playing out, right? The, the best part that, uh, I think one of the best parts that you, you mentioned again was the, the influencers.

Like you get, you get some players, there's, there's so many angles to, to reach people through this. I think it's, I think it's fantastic. The, uh, orange pilling a player and then they move to another club, but they, they, maybe they don't get to get paid in Bitcoin, but maybe they still put, put their money in, in Bitcoin.

Maybe they even ask their club to, to, uh, pay them in Bitcoin, something like that. And then the, the Questions start getting, uh, asked and all this.

5 Year Goals

Luke: So what, what is the, the goal in, in five years, for example, where, where do you see the club in the five year mark?

George: Oh man. Yeah, in five years, I think we definitely have to be in Champions League. Like in my mind, you know, like people around me like, oh, you're too ambitious. I'm like, man, yeah, like in five years, we definitely have to be in Champions League. Uh, that's, that's my personal goal. On our internal Slack, I have the Champions League icon there.

That's why I'm there, right? Um, so, uh, it's a lot of hard work. Like, it's really a lot of hard work. And it's also not completely dependent on me and my work, to be fair. Like, because, at all. I mean, really, like, uh, I mean, at the end of the day, the most important part is the sports department, right? Uh, in the club.

Um, so that has to continue going well. But, but I think We're going in a good direction there too, because we have the, they're the long term view as well, right. We have our academy internally, which is, yeah, it's one of the best academies. It's the best really academy in terms of infrastructure in the country.

That's why we're also can't afford to think of this Bitcoin Cup tournament, because we have the infrastructure, we have like a super cool stadium, that's crazy. If we can, if we can do a final for, for such a tournament there. Um, so, so we have all the things in place in terms of In terms of assets, I would say, uh, it's just a lot of moving parts.

a lot of work, consistency, and a bit of luck. Always it comes, you know, when, when it comes to, when it comes to football and sports, but, but five years from now, I want us to be in the champions league. I want us to be the absolute, you know, international professional level, uh, Bitcoin level, Bitcoin sports club.

and, uh, and I want for this tournament that I start to be like a, like, like to have the fourth edition by then. Uh, and, and I want to have clubs, but five years is a lot of time, you know, as you say, like, I also want to have other clubs following us by then. I think that's absolutely, absolutely is going to be doable.

Knut: What, what are the, what are the tax laws around Bitcoin in Bulgaria? Like what, are there any issues there? Or like what, is it easy enough,

George: It's kind of okay. Uh, it's kind of okay. So if you just buy Bitcoin and hold it, like you don't, uh, you don't, uh, incur taxes, uh, until you sell it, if you accept Bitcoin for payments, um, and if you don't sell it, you can just, uh, keep it as inventory on your balance sheet. So again, no,

Knut: but there's a capital gains tax or something if you sell it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright.

George: 10%. So it's, it's, uh,

Knut: Pretty good.

George: Yeah, I mean, it's not like El Salvador. Okay. Uh, but, but it's, uh, it's, it's way better than many other places. Um, and, uh, yeah, so we've been looking, looking actually, so I was in El Salvador a couple of months ago, because we've been looking very much to do stuff there.

And we've been, uh, yeah. Um, because we've been, we've been thinking of what to do more with Bitcoin, right? So that's why I said, like, it's not just about buying and accepting Bitcoin. It's about corporate strategies, about branding strategies, about how to make money. Um, it's about education strategies. It's, there's so much around it.

So in terms of corporate strategy, I was, uh, we're very attracted by El Salvador, um, and their, uh, capital markets regulation, because they're basically striving to build capital markets on top of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is legal tender there. They have all kinds of, tax incentives for companies to issue debt or to sell equity.

on their capital, on their, um, well, let's say nascent upcoming capital markets, because it's not like it's, you know, hustling and bustling yet. Um, but, but they're, they've put a lot of the rails, uh, um, or they're building a lot of the rails to, um, to really enable the, the, the creation of Bitcoin based capital markets.

So, um, we've had great talks there. We have meetings with, uh, um, we have. Yeah, with the Bitcoin office, right? Um, so, ideally, like, we're striving to build some connection there and to do something, interesting and world first again from a corporate perspective. It's just that, as many things, it's a little harder than you would expect it to be, or it takes a little more time than, Then you would hope to do it.

But my idea or long term vision, frankly, like what we want to do with Bitcoin, uh, and with the club is to enable our current fans and global fans to become co owners of the club. And that's why, you know, I have big hopes for, uh, for us being able to do this out of El Salvador and through El Salvador, because this would, like from a tax perspective, from a branding perspective, from legal security perspective would be, would be ideal.

It's just that, again, um, my enthusiasm is a little over, uh, ahead of kind of like how, uh, how, how advanced and set up everything there is, but, uh, but we're, we're very actively talking to them. We're working with many parties there, so. Just maybe we can have big news there too.

International and Local Effects

Luke: Well, no, and, and you actually said something great about global fans. I think this is a, a fantastic thing, right? A a again, Bedford is, is similar. They've, they've got, they've got fans all over the world and, and I think for you guys it's like who is going to tune into the Bulgarian football league outside of Bulgaria before, well, not too many people, but now a bunch of Bitcoiners.

If they're into, if they're into football or, or not even, because this is the funny thing. There were, there were a lot of people posting about that. They, they've got, they, they don't usually follow, follow sports at all, but, but they'll follow the Bitcoin team. So the, the funny thing is, I think, I think the first, the first club to adopt Bitcoin in every league is going to get all of these global fans.

And maybe the, maybe the, the second one, the third one, maybe can get some kind of other support, but it's really the first one in every

George: really.

Luke: That, that

George: Not

Luke: That's that. I, I completely agree with you there. It's the, it's the first one

Knut: first mover advantage.

Luke: mover advantage. It's gonna get, it is gonna get all of the, all of the Bitcoiners are gonna now be, be supporting and, uh, uh, yeah.

I mean, have, have you seen, uh, some, some uptick in, uh, kind of international

George: yeah, yeah. So, international but also local. Like, local is very important. Like, we have, like, so many people in the country who's like, just what you say, like, I didn't care about sports or football, like, forever, or at all, ever, but now I follow, now I buy merch, now I come, you know, every now and then they come to games, so

Luke: Well, because there's the bread and circuses thing that you said, it gets tossed around in the Bitcoin world and also some other places on kind of the Twitter sphere and whatever, it's like it's a distraction, that sports is sort of a distraction from clown world basically and it's a way of people to sort of Uh, forget about what's going on around them, but I think that's also missing the, the positives, which it, it's a, it's a community builder, it brings people together, there's a, there's a sense of, of pride in, in something local succeeding, everyone, everyone's happy, there's, there's real economic, uh, effects usually when a, when a local sports team wins, and so, so from, from my perspective, I, I, I think, I think sport is a good thing, and it's, and it's, it's something that, that people can rally around, and so,

George: an amazing thing.

Luke: Yeah.

And, and so what, what are, what are you looking at locally? Like what, what do you hope to have the effect, uh, uh, locally in, in piv?

George: Yeah. Um, yeah, no, look, uh, for me, sports, like, for us, the, the, the, the, about Plovdiv, for me, that's what I realized, like, we're kind of very much into Bitcoin and stuff, obviously, that's our interest, but I think when we go on a Bitcoin standard, Right. And, uh, in general, people start feeling wealthier, opposed to, like, being in the grind.

You're just going to have more time for fun stuff, right? Like playing football, I mean, or volleyball, or whatever your sport is, or, like, going and cheering your team, and, uh, and being part of such a community. And I think that's really what, you know, even Nostr is about. Like it's, Being part of these communities, because that's fun, and like, we as humans, at the end of the day, we are living to be part of communities, right?

And you find your community, you're an active part of it, you contribute to it, you evolve it, right? You build it in one way or another. And unfortunately, you know, today in the fiat world, this is just like A stress valve in many ways, or like you say, like Brothers and Sisters, whatever. Um, but, uh, but I think it can be so much more, right?

It is, but it can be so much more for a larger amount of people and so on and so forth. uh, but yeah, well, back in Plovdiv, man, like, I have big hopes. I really have big, big ambitions there. I want to get Bitcoin into the wallets of, uh, of like tens of thousands of people. I want people to wake up. I want people to see.

Luke: big is piv? How many

George: It's like three, four hundred thousand people. So it's a lot. Uh, our stadium is, uh, 21, 000 seats stadium. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's, it's 19. I wish it was 21.

Luke: Yeah. You'll have to add 2000 more

George: Maybe, yeah, we'll, we'll think of some additional construction.

Luke: the, make the infinity stand when

George: Right. Right. But, uh, but yeah, like the setting was super cool. Like, it's really cool.

Like when it's feel like, man, the atmosphere is amazing. Um, and so it's, and it's really this community that you can feel that people are involved. So it's, it's like consistency and it's social engineering in one way or another, right?

Knut: one of our favorite words,

George: but in a positive way.

Knut: in a positive way, okay.

George: So it's social engineering for us to ingrain Bitcoin and make it part of kind of what people see, do, have, own, interact with, right?

So, uh, I think exactly because of this community element, exactly because, Because, you know, football is a football club and there's this unique living organism we can, we can create this and, you know, it's fascinating. I'm so much into this and there's other people who are so much into this. Oh my god, like, we can make such a big difference.

And, and like in the country. You know, on a political and economic level, they don't get it. Like, they don't see it. They just are in their, you know, like, oh, are we going to accept the euro? Oh, what's happening with the war? I'm like, who cares? Let's build.

Bulgarian Currency Situation

Knut: Yeah, Bulgaria has its own shitcoin, I almost forgot about that, but uh, what's it called again?

George: Kinda. Um, but not quite, to be fair. It's, it's a good coin, uh, not for investing, but, but for medium of exchange is actually decent. Uh, Lev, Lev

Knut: Lev, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

George: and I recently got educated about this. So, uh, the lev is pegged to the euro. So, um, uh, so, so that, that is super cool for, for us, for me as a consumer, for businesses, because like the fixed rate.

So for trade is, um, It's, it's good, right? As the world would be in the future. You have one currency, Bitcoin, you don't have the currency exchange risk, right? We don't have it only with the European Union. And the good part with this, so, we got, we got hyperinflation back in 1997. Was really bad. People lost almost everything, everything, in many cases.

Um, and then we got this so called currency board introduced and the currency board is like we have the left, but the left has to be backed up by other currencies. So it's like a stable coin, kind of like how Tether is backed by, by dollars. You know, the levy is backed by euro and like a basket of, I think they have some other currencies and assets, which is cool because the local politicians, they cannot print, they cannot, you know, so, so it's been, it's been, I think, way better than Hungary, Sweden, uh, Finland, you have your, oh

but Sweden I've heard it's kind of bad,

Knut: It's kinda bad, Norway too, like, both Swedish and Norwegian crown, and the crown in Czechia, like the Czech Republic, it's also

George: Yeah.

Knut: I mean, they're all going to shit the smaller

George: So, so for us, it's like, I would say we're better than, than the Corona, the, and, and all these like local currencies, because we kind of just are there to the, peg to the Euro. The local politicians don't have the opportunity to print. So it's, it's a very good position for us to be.

Luke: You, you get the, the negatives of the, the euro. But, but still, I mean, I mean the, the realistically, the dollar at the Euro and maybe the, the Chinese currency are the only, are the only ones that are in the, sort of within our own, within our own lifetimes are, are going to be not as terribly bad against Bitcoin.

But all the other ones are just, are. All the other ones are

Knut: Yeah, I think it's just a matter of time before both, uh, at least Sweden, uh, switches to Euro standard. If not switching to Bitcoin standard happens first, but well, we'll see, we'll see what happens.

George: man. I'm very bearish about the Euro.

Knut: yeah, yeah, it's like,

Luke: It'll be the second last to fall or third last but but yeah it's it's it's it's not going to be the the last and so it's yeah.

Knut: So that is what it is. I mean, speaking of Bulgaria and currencies and stuff,

Bitcoin Adoption in Bulgaria

Knut: like, how is the rest of, how is Bitcoin adoption in general in Bulgaria? What's happening in other places? Like, Plamen opened a bar, I saw, and like, what are the connections? What's happening?

George: It's actually quite cool. I'm, I'm, I'm quite happy with, with how the ecosystem is evolving. There's, there's Plamen, um, with his whole community, like content creation, the conferences he's been doing, which has been like a very, I think he's responsible for like, I don't know, probably like, 000, maybe several 10, 000s of people who have opened their eyes and even if they're not hard bitcoiners, they now own bitcoin.

Uh, so that's huge. We have other content creators also who've had an impact. We have now once or twice per, yeah, about twice per year we have like, uh, A small, uh, merchant, uh, like, conference events, so for merchants to accept Bitcoin. we have these people who are active and who are doing things. Now, actually, yeah, there's something new that's coming up here, uh, literally in Plovdiv is we have this, um, this, uh, great dudes who have this, um, um, it's an application for, uh, ordering food, like takeaway and, uh, what is it, like,

Knut: like Glovo or

George: yeah, yeah, like Glovo, um, but, um, but, um, But it's not like this big corporate thing that, but, but still, it's a very good product and they've integrated accepting Bitcoin there for quite some time now they've made it even easier and they've introduced.

So we have like about, I think it's 15 restaurants in Sofia and like five or so in Plovdiv where through their system, you can order food. And pay with Bitcoin online, or you can also go in the restaurant and pay in Bitcoin online, and they just, um, they just won a, uh, grant from, uh, Bitcoin Beach, uh, and, uh, they're going to use the grant, uh, to, well, the attempt is really to start like a small circular economy, if you would Um, where, so if you go, uh, to one of those restaurants and pay with Bitcoin, you're going to get sats back 10%, and then, um, the restaurant is also going to get 10 percent sats back.

And if you order food, um, through their app, also the driver is going to get, uh, some sats back. And, uh, we've just been discussing, because obviously we're partnering with them, with the football club, so we'll push this out, because some of the restaurants that are there are our, I mean, basically, like, we have two restaurants locally that are partners, we got them in, right, obviously, in the deal, um, So, so that is also like, for me, it's like super cool because now for so far, the club has been pushing Bitcoin.

Now we have two of our restaurant partners who are themselves like hard Botevists, Botefans, and like they're popular. Now they're starting to accept Bitcoin in their, in their two restaurants, right? And they're going to have their campaigns. We're going to push them more. So, um, so I'm really excited about this and fingers crossed this goes well.

We have good metrics because if we have good metrics. Yeah, we'll look for ways to grow this. So there's a lot of grassroots things happening, which I love. On the top, nothing.

Knut: It's the way it's supposed to be.

George: But it's the way it is. Yeah, it's a better

Luke: Yeah it really seems like that you get one or two of these big anchors like like for example you you guys have had that had that conference last couple of years but now with both of Plavdev now Bulgaria is really got a couple of big anchors. Big relative in relative terms, uh, and all of this other stuff can, can start coming up around it.

And, uh, love, love to see it. I mean, he, I mean here, here with Rega, there's Honey Budger has been going for a really long time, and I, and I even think that they are honest about, we, we would, we just talked to, to Max, uh, about this, uh, from Defi and like yeah, there's not much other adoption in, in Lavia and this conference has been going on for a long time.

Exactly. And so it's just like, uh, it's, it's, it's great to see, uh, in, in your case, in Bulgaria's case, that there's, there's more of this, uh, picking up. So, yeah,

George: Well, I think it's really, in our case, I don't know, like it's grassroots, like I said, and I really believe grassroots and then Rio or for the vast majority, Rio adoption comes permissionless life. It comes like it's not forced. You know, there is this point where, okay, there's Plamen, like, he got the inspiration, he makes his content, he does the conferences, Like, our owner, he sees this opportunity for Bitcoin, for the club. He takes the action, right? So it's, it's not like, so it's individuals, right? Taking actions and then, as you have, you know, several of them, maybe others get inspired or get ideas going and that's how the magic happens. And, uh, yeah. Excited about it.

Wrapping Up

Luke: it's awesome, man. Great hear your story. So, was, uh, was there anything else that you wanted to discuss or bring up on this topic?

George: no, I mean, what I would say is absolutely, uh, Please, uh, you know, Knut, you've been, but please, you're absolutely welcome, Luke, join as well, like, both of you should come

Knut: Absolutely. Highly recommend it. I had a great time in Bulgaria, and it's such a fascinating country, it's such a rich history and such a beautiful place, and the food is great, and it's very affordable, it's very, yeah, very

George: like, I have people who come in Plogis specifically to, like, nomads, spend, like, a or a month. So, so please enjoy, visit the game. come spend in the restaurants where they accept Bitcoin, follow us on social media for sure, so, X and Nostr,

Luke: Yes, all the details, please.

Knut: And also like one of the eras, uh, infamous eras of Bulgaria is the commie era, right? Where you can see the impact that system had on the country and how horrid it is. Uh, so it's, it's, uh, that might not be a good pitch for, uh, but that's

Luke: Let him, let him share his social medias, Knut.

George: wait, do you have, do you have something

Knut: no, no, I think like the, The point I was getting to is, if you get to Bulgaria, don't only go to Sofia, go around the rest of the country, because it's not as raped as that town was by, as that city was by communism, all this concrete, yeah, yeah,

George: yeah, the,

Knut: you can really see the impact there. I'm not, um, yeah, this came out totally wrong, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to, To hype Bulgaria here, but also there's a historical lesson to be learned in the country, for sure,

George: sure. It's really like, there's so many different things there. So there's the communist part, there's like fucking amazing nature, there's like

Knut: is everything, yeah.

George: if you're into hiking, there's like, just like from Sofia, what I love about Sofia, like just last week, twice, end of the day, I'm like fucked up, like tired of computer.

40 minutes up and I'm up in the mountains, hiking, in like 2000 meters altitude. Uh, so, so there's all these like super cool things, but on the socials, yeah, we're on Twitter. we're on Nostr, uh, so Twitter is, um, botif underscore, uh, en, on Nostr, uh, we are just botif. Yeah, you can find us.

Luke: going say you're NPUB? No, no, no,

George: I'm still learning it, okay?

Luke: we'll post, you're still learning, we'll post all the details in the show

George: Yes. Yes. And feel free to also check out our website. We have, due to our El Salvadorian, um, kind of project, we already have a Salvadorian website, which is very easy to remember, botif. sv. So you can go there and from there you'll find all the links and information.

Luke: Absolutely fantastic.

Knut: Great! Get the inverse of Clown World. This is a shill. BitcoinInfinityStore. com And thank you very much for coming on,

George: was great having

Knut: Great to have

Luke: George, thanks so much. This has been Bitcoin Infinity Show. Thank you for

@ bbb5dda0:f09e2747

Moving into Norway the nice, almost-alpine landscapes greeted me. Slowly however the mountains numbed down and fjords started appearing. I was nearing Trondheim, the most northern city in Norway that has something that resembles a high-way. Anything further north and you’re bound to 80km/h roads. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, given the views.

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| | | --- | | | | On the road to Trondheim |

I went pretty much straight to Trondheim because I got in touch with Lucas through an ex-colleague of mine (Thanks Niek ;)). I texted Lucas about a week before we met to see if he’d be up to go hiking somewhere in the Trondheim area. He said he was thinking about going North, waaaay North, in order to see the midnight sun and he wanted to do this the next weekend. This was around June 21st, the longest day of the year. I said it’d be cool to experience that and so that is just what we did. For those of you who don’t know, on June 21st the sun is right at the ‘Tropic of Cancer’ (‘Kreeftskeerkring’ in Dutch), the most northern position of the sun after which the summer slowly turns into winter again. In the period around this moment, the sun will NOT go below the horizon at all when you are above the arctic circle.

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I’m glad Lucas has an electric car, because the round-trip would’ve cost me (whith my thirsty van) €333,-. Instead we spent less than €60,- for this 1200km round-trip. What a difference! So we left for the 9 hr drive on Friday-evening and camped out besides a lake next to the E6 highway, which runs all the way from the south to the north, which is over 3000(!) kilometers long.

| | | | | --- | --- | --- | | We found this seemingly abandoned bus, what a beauty! | | Woke up to this view! | | | Time for a charging break in Mosjøen | |

Because of a tunnel-closure we had to take this mountain-pass, not complaining here…

We moved on the next morning and had perfect weather, too perfect for Norway because it was just below 30 degrees Celsius. This hot weather reached well into the arctic circle, where we’d be hiking up a mountain to find a camp-spot with a view to the north. We parked the car and started to hike up the steep hill, we found a route online, but soon found out we missed the path shown on the map. We figured we would not backtrack but instead walk around the same height on the mountain to get back at that path. Long story short, that path didn’t exist (anymore). So we tried to get back at it but just couldn’t find it. Eventually we just followed the trail that was actually set out using red ‘T’-s that were painted on the rocks every 50-100 meters. It was quite a walk and the heat didn’t make it any easier.

A beginner mountaineer realizing he climbed the wrong mountain

| | | | | --- | --- | --- | | After a near-death experience with mosquito’s, the Deet really saved us | | | | | | Finally we reached our intended camp-spot |

After draining most of our energy we finally arrived at the place we wanted to camp for the night day, which was in front of a small lake and a bigger one which lied a bit lower. I don’t think I need to say much more about the beauty of the place when you can just look at the pictures below:

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The ‘next’ day we hiked back, and tried to return using the ‘official’ path we wanted to hike in the first place, all in vain. It led us to hike some strange, steep and almost treacherous paths after which we decided it would be wise to just backtrack a little bit and get back to the (red) marked trail. We got back to the car safely after which we drove to the river that was just below the car park to take a refreshing dive before heading back south. We found a (safe) spot to take the dive in the river that was now raging because of the heavy snow-melt due to the extremely high temperatures. Lucas later told me that in some regions electricity was even free due to the surplus of hydro-electricity.

| | | | --- | --- | | We had to walk over this | |

We made a car-recharge stop at Mosjøen where we had a quick pizza-dinner. Just after leaving the parking-lot we saw a couple hitch-hikers who wanted to go to Trondheim just like us. We pulled over and took them with us, they were a couple from different south-eastern European countries and were touring around Europe and soon also the world. They shared some cool stories and told about their plans. When we got to Trondheim we dropped them off near their camping-spot and drove back to Lucas’s house. Quite tired I jumped back in my own bed in my own home. How nice is it to have your house with you (almost) everywhere… 🙂

I camped in front of his house for a couple days. To be honest I didn’t do much those days as I was pretty much drained from experiencing all kinds of different things back-to-back for over a month now. I used this time to work a bit on the official stuff for my own freelance IT company which I started, I finally got a bank-account approved after 3 weeks of waiting, which allowed me to manage some of the essential setup-things and book-keeping. After these formalities I took a bit of time to head into the city-center, of course using my folding bike like a real Dutchie. And since Trondheim is a hilly city, biking downhill from Lucas’s house was a blast but going back up was quite the struggle with these tiny wheels, but it all worked out… That same night a thunderstorm was rolling in and sitting on top of a hill in a campervan, with lightning striking the ground at less than 100 meters away from the van was a new thing for me. I guess this too is part of the ‘living closer to nature’ thing…

I’m very thankful for the experiences and the hospitality of the people I meet along the way. It was very much fun to make this trip together! It’s the people that make the journey…

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@ 46fcbe30:6bd8ce4d

In a world driven by ambition, few things grant us more agency than money and influence. Money provides the means to achieve our dreams, while men with high agency have no problem earning it. But what happens when politicians enter the fray, seeking to reshape society to their whims?

These power-hungry individuals, drunk on the feeling of control that comes with passing laws, exert their agency over millions of lives. They believe they know best how to live, love, work and play. And the governed? They feel a subtle tug, a loss of autonomy, as their freedoms are incrementally chipped away.

In this high-stakes game of dominance, favors are traded like currency. Men in positions of power grant concessions to their friends and allies, further consolidating their grip on society. It's a delicate dance, where the slightest misstep can lead to political ruin or societal upheaval.

But in the end, who really holds the reins? Is it the politicians, the wealthy, or the masses who ultimately have the power to shape their own destinies? The answer lies in the interplay of agency, money, and favors - a complex web of influence that will continue to shape our world for generations to come.

@ 9bc2d34d:d19d2948

Chef's notes

This recipe is designed for home cooks who want to recreate the delicious buttery hollandaise sauce at home without feeling overwhelmed. It focuses on teaching the basics of the sauce, allowing beginners to master the fundamentals before experimenting with seasonings, hot sauces, or herbs.

Please note the thickness of sauce in the picture. This is after ten minutes of blending.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 3 minutes
• 🍳 Cook time: 10 minutes (blending)
• 🍽️ Servings: 2 - 4

Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 8 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper

Directions

1. Melt butter in the microwave or on the stovetop.
2. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites (reserve the egg whites for another dish).
3. Place the egg yolks in a blender.
4. Start the blender (medium to high settings for blend mode is fine).
5. Slowly pour the melted butter into the cover opening (it will splatter).
6. Add the remaining ingredients.
7. Blend for ten minutes (seriously, walk away and do something else).
8. Taste and adjust the flavors (add extra lemon juice or salt if desired).
9. Serve over your breakfast!

@ 361d3e1e:50bc10a8

https://forex-strategy.com/2024/09/28/a-former-british-mp-explains-what-the-elite-are-preparing-for-the-population/

A former British MP explains what the Elite are preparing for the population

uk #politics #population #freespeech #truth

How much should the population of the Earth become and when? How will it happen and the most important question, why is population reduction necessary?

Robots, Artificial Intelligence? But 200 years ago, mechanization came, one harvester replaced 100 people, but no one thought that the population should be reduced. Now it's different and why?

@ 8dc86882:9dc4ba5e

Today I saw a YouTube video from one of the privacy related channels, Techlore maybe? I don't exactly remember. Either way this particular video was going over the pluses and minuses of Android and iOS; and it has made me reconsider some things. I have one of each type of phone and jump back and forth a bit, but always thought I would end on Android. I'm not feeling that way anymore.

After really getting to understand Apple's Advanced Data Protection I think I came to the conclusion that my iPhone more than meets my needs and does everything I like. Yeah, Android sounds like it has most of the privacy coolness as far as mods, roms, and apps, but my iPhone is easily fully encrypted along with iCloud. The few services that aren't are covered by my Proton plan. It also allows me to stop paying for services I may not really need.

• I use and pay for Ente photos, which is great, but my Apple photos are already encrypted and backed up. I don't think I need to be paying for the extra service.
• The Apple Notes app falls under the fully encrypted side, and I can use the free version of Standard Notes for other things.
• I still use Signal Messenger where the OS doesn't matter as much.
• MySudo which I use for numbers is transferable between OSs also.

That's really about it, I mainly use my phone for Email, Calendar, Messaging, Notes, some social, and photos. I don't think I need anything special beyond that. The insecure apps I use on either platform keep their risks though Apple isn't an advertising company, so I feel they are less likely to abuse anything, at least for now. I wonder what other folks thoughts are. Feel free to share.

Cheers!

plebone

@ c69b71dc:426ba763

Chef's notes

This soup is a beautiful combination of simplicity, flavor, and nourishment. Quick to make, it delivers a fresh, slightly sweet taste that’s rich in nutrients. I've added avocado oil, pine nuts, sprouted buckwheat and millet, and a few herbs for the decoration. Feel free to experiment with different herbs, sprouts, seeds etc. making it a delightful and wholesome dish 💚

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 5 min.
• 🍳 Cook time: 0
• 🍽️ Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 1 cup raw fennel (medium-sized) cut into peaces
• 1 small-medium apple cut into pieces
• 1 cup water, kefir, or rejuvelac
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp (preferable raw) almond butter
• 1/2 tsp salt or herbal salt
• 1 tbsp Nama Tamari
• 1 tbsp avocado oil (or sesame seed oil)
• 1 pinch of nutmeg (about a knife’s tip)

Directions

1. Add all ingredients to a blender: fennel, apple, water (or kefir/rejuvelac), nutritional yeast, almond butter, salt, Nama Tamari, avocado oil, and nutmeg.
2. Blend until smooth and creamy.
3. Pour into two bowls and garnish with pine nuts, sprouted buckwheat, sprouted brown millet or any other sprouts, and fresh herbs as desired.

@ bf95e1a4:ebdcc848

This is the cleaned, AI-generated transcript of Bitcoin Infinity Show #127

If you'd like to support us, check out https://bitcoininfinitystore.com/ for all our books, merch, and more!

Welcoming George Manolov

Luke: George, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show, thank you for joining us.

George: Thank you, Knut.

Knut: Good to have you here, George.

George: to be here, yeah.

you're here to tell us about the city that I was most surprised by ever. Like, I've never heard of the city before I went to Bulgaria, Yeah, time flies.

Knut: So Plovdiv, Bulgaria, which was amazing, this rich, Thousands of years of history plays with a lot of different eras and different styles of architecture and stuff, really enjoyed Plovdiv, and you have a football team there.

George: yeah, indeed.

George Manolov and Botev Plovdiv

George: Please give us the story about George and Plovdiv Yeah, sure.

Knut: Plovdiv.

George: Sure, sure. So, Plovdiv is, well, I would say it's the oldest living city in Europe, so continuously inhabited. Like you say, not many people know it. I guess, like, we don't have good enough marketing, but, that's probably part of my job right now, right? To spread the word about it. so it's, like the second largest city in the country.

And, yeah, it's just this, it's very, like, I love how you put it because almost nobody has really heard of Plovdiv, right? Most people, when they hear of Bulgaria, they've probably heard of Sofia but Sofia is, okay, but Plovdiv is kind of the chill place, Plovdiv is the place that is actually worth visiting, the place where, people just enjoy going there.

I was born there, right? and, grew up there till 18 or so, then, Studied, lived in Sofia most of the time. And, last year, in kind of summer, I was already kind of way deeper into Bitcoin. I decided I'm going to go full time into Bitcoin, just commit all my time in Bitcoin at the time, educating, publishing books in Bulgarian about Bitcoin, creating my own educational platform.

And then I got, reached out and connected really to the owner of the football club in the city, which is also the oldest football club in the country, Botev Plovdiv, who was, well, he got introduced into Bitcoin himself and he realized it's going to be a very big, project. You know, going to play a central role in where the world is going.

Knut: What is this the owner of the club?

George: That's right. The owner of the club. was like, Hey, I think we can do something unique with Bitcoin because, you know, the club is really a company, right? It's a business on the one hand, but it's a special type of business, it's not where just you produce a certain product or service.

It's really a living organism where people are involved into it, for very emotional reasons. people feel like it's their own and it's not like a small group of people. It's a very large group of people. In our case, we have tens of thousands, arguably more than a hundred, 200, 000 people who care, who watch, who follow the club.

And so on the one hand, like there's many different ways in which we can look into this, but on the one hand. It's for me, what really inspired me and what got me like, Oh my God, like, is this really happening is that we can bring the conversation about Bitcoin from a completely different angle into society to a group of people who for the most part would never really They would like this, they would never listen to podcasts like this, they would never get to any of the kind of places and things we listen to, watch, consume, right?

and people go, You know, people go kind of for bread and circus, right,

Knut: yeah, yeah.

George: for the games. That's what really football is, right? It's fun and it's emotion, it's enjoyment, but then we push them censorship resistance and hard money, right?

And we don't really push it, you know, that's the thing, right? Because are like consistently, progressively, gradually over time, introducing it and finding the best way and the most appropriate way to, yeah, plant that seed. To the minds of the people, into the views of the people and so on and so forth.

so it's really like, you know, what we're trying to build is, we feel we're in a very privileged position, right? because we've been, the first really professional sports club globally, I would say, to have, uh, crypto Bitcoin, you know, people, departments, who is actually full time employed to, you know, think of a way to grow the business, to think of a way to integrate Bitcoin natively, within the various aspects of, of, of the organization, which obviously initially includes like accepting payments and so on and so forth.

But, um, but there's so much more you can do exactly with this type of, Like organization, again, like not, not, not just a business in a traditional sense.

Knut: Yeah. And, uh, won the league, right? Is that, is that right?

George: Yeah, man, like it's, uh, yeah, so we, um, when I started last year, things were super bad. Like exactly one year ago, I was there for the, for one of the first games. It was horrible. Like, I was like, okay, this is a great idea, but if the team is doing so bad and if, uh, if they keep losing and if the fans keep getting, you know, being unhappy, Um, it's not gonna go anywhere, but still, I gave it a, I gave it a go, right, because I was like, okay, I just hope that the sports side guys are going to do their, their part, and I have my opportunity here, um, to, to just like push, to educate, to, To do what, what, what life is giving me an opportunity to do.

And, uh, very fortunately, as we started working, the team started performing better and better and better. We got a completely new coach. We got a new sports director. We, we had a lot of key staff changes across the organization, which, Um, relatively quickly started showing results. So, uh, yeah, like, 10 months later in May, we won the Bulgarian Cup.

Luke: Is that the cup or the league? Like, uh,

George: it's the cup, it's the cup. So, so, I was saying, like, we started very bad in the league. And so, we were doing better and better, but still, like, we finished 9th in the league out of 16 clubs at the end of the day. But which was still okay, because, like, when I joined, like, we were, like,

Luke: Worried about relegation or something like that?

George: there. I mean,

Knut: We're complete, uh, like I've tried to take an interest to football, but like, uh, my ADD just, the brain just wanders away after five minutes and I can't concentrate anymore. So I don't

Luke: a basketball fan.

Knut: Am I now?

Football for Noobs

Knut: Uh, so, uh, what's the difference between the cup and the league? Let's begin there. That's, that's how much of a football noob I

George: So, so pretty much in every country is the same, right? You have a league or a championship where you have, in our case, 16 teams, and every team plays twice against every other team. So home game, away game, and then, you know, you either win three points when you win, or you lose, or you draw, and you, you, you win one point.

And then, so after you play, after you play, in our case, this, what is it, games? You know,

Luke: 30.

George: yeah, about 30. Yeah, right. You're better than Matt, it's obvious. So, um, so once you play these 30 games, um, you, um, yeah, like the team with the most points wins, right? Whereas, uh, the cup is direct elimination

Knut: So quarterfinals, semifinals, all that.

George: exactly. So it's the easier way. So this was the way for us to due to the bad start of the season. This was the way for us to, to achieve something in this season and to achieve something important because what the Cubs gives us as an opportunity and gave us was to play in the European Leagues.

So UEFA Leagues. And we just did that. We played six games. Uh, for the Europe, uh, Europe League and the Europe Conference League.

Knut: Okay. But to, to be in the champions league, that's a totally, you have to, yeah, yeah. You have to win the league and you have to win all sorts of stuff. Like how does that work?

George: yeah. You have to win the league. And then in our case, so in every country it's different, but in our case, we have to win, like we go to qualifications for the Champions League. So it's like, I mean, three to four games. And if we win that, we go to the Champions League.

Knut: Alright,

George: That's the current state of affairs, although that can change over the years.

Knut: alright, uh, it all makes sense to me now, that's a lie, but anyway.

Luke: No, uh, I'll definitely, we'll acknowledge here that I'm more of the, the sports fan, uh, generally here, and I, I follow football, I like, uh, I like European, uh, football, uh, well, and obviously I'm using the correct, uh, term despite my, um, my pseudo American accent, uh. Yeah, anyway, um, uh, no, it's fantastic to see, and I mean, yeah, for the non sports fans, uh, listening to this, I get that

Knut: Well, I am a sports fan, it's just that Starcraft 2 is my sport, and yeah, yeah,

Luke: yeah,

George: eSports.

Knut: yeah, yeah, so I watch, watch Starcraft 2 games. That's what I do for procrastination sometimes.

Luke: valid sports, I'm not going to compare it to other things that aren't

Knut: breakdancing? Is that a valid sport?

Luke: Breakdancing is, um, hmm, interesting. I think anything with points, that judges give points, is kind of not a sport, it's an activity.

Knut: yeah.

Luke: but, yeah, anyway,

Knut: thing to do.

Luke: is a thing to do, yes, definitely, but back to, back to, um, um, Botev Plod, is it Botev, Botev, what's, what's, Botev, Botev Plod, yeah, so, so, um, yeah, yeah, like, the, the, the achievement, winning, winning the cup, I mean, the, The cups are sort of more difficult.

They're both difficult in their own way, right? Like, the cup, you lose one game, you're out, basically, right? But, I mean, the league is like this endurance, achievement, right? You have to perform well over the course of the whole season. But the cheat code, so to say, and I probably subconsciously used the other football team's terminology, who's in the space, Real Bedford, um,

Botev Plovdiv's Bitcoin Strategy

Luke: The, the idea right, if, if I'm getting it, is that you guys would, would keep the Bitcoin in the, in the, the treasury, the, the company, and then over the course of time it's just gonna do the number go up thing and, and the, the club will have more resources.

Right. Is that, is that the idea you're thinking with the, the bitcoin strategy?

George: There's actually many, many things to it. And this is kind of the most, let's say, vanilla type of approach. Yeah, like just buy Bitcoin and hold it on the balance sheet, which is, which is great. But there's actually so many other things you can do. And that's where, because if you just do that, frankly, like, I mean, you don't need me involved, right, much.

I mean, just call Coinbase, whatever, wire the money, crack in and, buy. but with us it's like, really, uh, we see a huge opportunity to, first of all, align our brand with the Bitcoin brand, which is a royalty free, uh, The biggest brand in finance, for sure. One, uh, like it's going to be the biggest brand in the world for sure at some point.

Right. So that's, that's one play. And to do this, it's not enough for you to just buy Bitcoin and hold it on a balance sheet. It's what you need to do is proof of work, right? You need to do things that nobody has ever done. You need to really kind of be creative. Uh, and, and, um, to push the boundaries of what anyone has ever done before, right?

So, so that is, uh, that is my kind of job and it's a lot of, um, a lot of just like, let's, let's think of what, what new things we can do with Bitcoin and sports and football that nobody has ever done. Just because others are focused on the short term things, they're focused on, hitting those, those quick wins, those quick goals, which is why, for example, like a lot of the sports and, and that have, you know, interact, they haven't really interacted outside of Bedford with Bitcoin, right?

It's mostly been crypto because it's just, okay, let's make some quick money. Um,

Luke: usually, it's usually just sponsorships, right?

Knut: yeah,

George: yes. Um, and for us, because on the one hand, like, we're not like Manchester United, right? We're not Chelsea. So we don't have that much to monetize immediately. Like we're a large club, but.

Luke: You're a large club in a local league, which is, which is different from the, it's not one of the leagues that is internationally positioned like that. But, but, I mean, the, the difference between you guys and Bedford that I, that I think is, is really interesting. Like, McCormack, what he, Peter McCormack, what he's doing, I mean, he's, he's taking a club from the bottom and aiming for the top.

But who knows how long that's going to take him to get there, right? But you guys are already in the top of your league, right? Like, in the top league.

George: right, yeah, and also there's, there's different in this, we're in the top of our league. My goal, personally, is to go to Champions League, but this is very hard, right? Because, like, okay, when you start from Peter's ground, like, it's easy, okay, every year you level up, you level up, or, I mean, I'm not gonna say it's easy, but it's easier than, uh, than once you're, you know, at our level.

For us, it's important to play currently every year in European leagues like we've done so far and to every year consistently, like, increase the level of the sports, level of the business department bit by bit, and, but like breaking that point where we, you know, win the league, Where we win several more games and enter the Champions League, that, that's really hard.

I mean, because you're already at that stage where everybody, like, so many teams are so strong, right? So it's um, it takes just a lot of ingredients for you to, to, to hit, uh, in order to win. But we're gonna get there.

Knut: and does the club self custody it's bitcoin? And if so, is it a something out of 11 multisig, that sounds like a football thing?

George: Why so? Ah, yeah, an 11? Nah, nah, fuck that. I mean Nah, even, even 7 Motosick is a, is a killer, but no. Um, yeah, I can't really speak too much about this at this point. Yeah. Um, but, um, but yeah, I mean, we do, of course we do self custody. So that's, that's the approach that we've chosen with kind of a lot of, um, we've chosen to go really pure, pure Bitcoin in terms of the strategy.

And that's how we set ourselves apart. That's how we believe we win the long game because for instance, like we Bitcoin with BTC pay server. Which in my mind they don't even have competition. It's the only like, real, solid, autonomous, sovereign way to accept payments. And it's also the way which makes sense for like, Frankly, any standard business, because like, man, we're selling scarves, we're selling, um, membership boat cards, we're selling jerseys, we're selling basic merch, and if we are to sell it with basically any other service out there, outside of BTC Pay Server, we have to basically, uh, indirectly do KYC, right?

Like, we have to go through KYC, we have to go through KYB, which is ridiculous, um, in my mind. And so, um, so that's why we're exceptionally thankful to B2C Pay Server guys, uh, for what they've built. Uh, it's been like an absolute pleasure to, um, to use their product, to use their service. Uh, we have, you know, outside of B2C Pay, we, uh, we are the first, uh, sports club on Nostr.

Where, uh, we have, uh, actively been posting, exploring, you know, meeting people here. Kind of thinking of what we could do from our angle again, like first, first time on Nostr.

Aqua WAllet

George: Um, we have partnered with, uh, Aqua, JAN3's Aqua wallet, which has a, a Botive skin mode now. So if you go to settings, you can turn Botive mode and then it turns into the colors of the club and, you know, have the picture of the stadium there.

Um,

Luke: I'm using Aqua right now because, uh, uh, usually I like to use Aqua as like a sort of a middle wallet, uh, uh, because it's still slightly slower than other lightning wallets because they, they, the, everything actually lives on, on liquid and then they, they, uh, go out via bolts. Uh, so it's slightly slower than a faster, um, like, like than other, um, more direct lightning wallets.

And so usually when I come to a conference, I'm going to load up a, like a temporary. I don't know, Blink or something like that, but I forgot to do that, so I'm just using my Aqua wallet, and you know what, it's been great here, it's been working, uh, so yeah, we're big fans of Aqua wallet and what

Knut: Yeah, and a BTC pay server. I mean, uh, we can echo everything you said that we, BitcoinInfinity. com, like, and the store here We just fired up. Everything is powered by a BTC pay server, and we just love it. Yes.

Luke: So what was your question about, uh, Aqua?

George: If yours is on BOTEV mode.

Luke: Uh, I don't think I've gone into the settings and changed it to Vaudev mode, I'll have to do that, maybe we'll take

George: It's dark mode,

but cooler.

Luke: Doc dark mode, but cooler. Okay. Okay. Actually that's a, that's a, that's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah. We'll take a, we'll take a picture after, uh, after the episode and we'll de proof, bot, uh, bot e mode, and, uh, uh, post that on Nostr.

How does that sound?

George: Let's go.

Knut: Yeah. Nostr. Um, is there a connection there between both a plot and Nostr while you're doing Nostr stuff as well?

History and Freedom

George: Yeah. Well, look, um, a lot of these things is like, so What Botev Plovdiv stands for, um, very importantly, so the club was named after Hristo Botev, who's, uh, like, one of the most Bulgarians, if the most famous Bulgarian revolutionaries, like, historical figure, uh, he was a poet, he was a revolutionary, he fought for Bulgaria's freedom back in the day,

Luke: Which, which day, which, what day did you

George: uh, 110, uh, what is it, like, 50 years ago or so?

Yeah.

Knut: Mm-Hmm?

Luke: Okay. So, so

Knut: before the Commes.

Luke: ottoman, uh,

George: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he, he, he fought for the, for the liberation of Bulgaria from, from the Ottoman Empire. And a lot of what he stands for is this fight for freedom, his fight for liberty. Um, and this, this lives until this very day into the identity of the club and to what we stand for into the songs, into the, into the music.

Um, you know, um, the kind of like what, what our fans also resonate with, um, and, and what they sing like in many, in many ways. Right. So, um, Freedom of speech, freedom of, uh, of like freedom in general is, is a value that is deeply ingrained into kind of like what the club stands for. Um, and, uh, you know, that's why I'm into Bitcoin.

That's why I believe. And that's, that's why I saw this even bigger opportunity. Oh my God, like, how is this happening? There's so many, sometimes, you know, some like weird things happen in life and you have no explanation why and how all these things align. But, but for me, it's like this club was made really to.

to be aligned with BOTEF and to be, uh, to, to, to be aligned with Bitcoin and with Nostr. If I look at all the other clubs in Bulgaria, right, like just in Bulgaria, none of the others, like, there's no this contextual historical background that you can make these connections. But with us, we have it, and what a chance that, like, we have this owner, and he got, like, introduced to it, and then we got connected.

Like, how the hell does this happen, man? I don't know,

Luke: We like to say this, the surreal doesn't end, you know, and like, uh, my, my whole story, I've been talking about this, uh, at the, the conference here is like two years ago was the first time I ever met Bitcoiners here in Baltic Honeybadger. We, we met for the, for the first time, uh, all three of us, uh, met for the first time two years ago, I've been in Baltic Honeybadger and it's like, things, things happen so fast.

Uh, I've, I've, uh, I've thought it was been awesome just following, uh, what you've been doing with the, the club and the story. So great to, Great to get to talk about it, but, uh,

Bitcoin in Football

George: Yeah. No, for, for me, like really the, the most exciting part is really even coming forward. So, uh, because, so now it's been, so we, a long, we announced, uh, publicly that we're doing this, uh, 31st October last year. So the anniversary of the, of the, uh, Bitcoin White paper, um, we've built a lot right. And very, very importantly, I'm super proud, like, I don't know if you saw this, but like a month ago, we played on European League, the UEFA League with Bitcoin straight on our jerseys, which was like, like, when I saw this, I'm like, dude, it's crazy that this is happening.

But, but the best is really yet to come, like, like we like to say. Um, so I, I think we, we're, we have, um, we have still so much more to do. So for me, the next big part, which I'm super excited about literally in the coming month as, uh, as I go back. So is to finally get some of our. Players or at least one or two to get to do something publicly about this, because at the end of the day, that's why for me, the more I do, the more I, uh, play in this arena, I realized this is really a Trojan horse for us to bring Bitcoin into the conversation, into the minds, like I said, of people who otherwise wouldn't and, and our players, you know, especially a few of them, they're really influencers, right?

Um, a lot of people follow them. A lot of people respect them. And, um, and if they do, uh, you know, something meaningful, something cool, something impactful, this is going to have a huge impact onto our forwards. This could very well have impact onto, um, other sportsmen, other football people, other football clubs, right?

Uh, so that's why I'm doing it, right? Really?

Luke: No, this is fantastic, and actually this was exactly where I was hoping to go next, so thank you for queuing that up. But, no, no, the game theory of all this, right? Like, one club getting, Positioning as the, as the Bitcoin club in a league, uh, really means that eventually all the other clubs are going to need to adopt Bitcoin.

If they're going to be able to compete, because if play playing out the game theory, number go up, whatever it is, Bitcoin strategy plays out, you guys are going to be the most financially capable club. Financially sustainable in not very long, you know, assuming everything plays out the way we're thinking it will, right?

So, so other, other clubs then would become incentivized to also adopt Bitcoin. So what, what do you, what do you think about that? Like you, do you, do you see that, uh, happening as well?

George: Yeah, I'm not really sure if it would happen to me. That fast, to be fair. Like, I think it's inevitable, right, obviously, but I think it, yeah, like, I think this definitely takes at least three, four years, maybe more. Um,

Luke: That's, that's still pretty fast.

George: yeah, I guess. I mean, I mean, like, okay, let me define it better. It takes three, four years.

So, for other clubs within our league to start doing something like this, uh, maybe it takes less time for other clubs to realize it, but I think for them to do it, it also depends on our actions, right? So because like, we don't have like a treasury of microstrategy or something, so it's not, and we're not doing like a

Luke: you don't?

George: monthly like leverage on top of leverage on top of another leverage, you know, uh, we're not in, in Michael's privileged position. but we can do other cool things, right? Uh, one of the, um, so this is not yet live and this is not yet happening, but one of the, like two, two projects, let's say, I'm gonna briefly, like, tease here that, that I'm working on that I hope to have very large impact is first, uh, building this, uh, simple tool Uh, called like a Bitcoin, uh, football salary calculator that, uh, it's like really a DCA tool, but like looking back and like tailoring it to our niche where I want to, for us to visually and emotionally Show, um, to players, but also to fans of ours, like what Bitcoin could have done for their remuneration, if you look one year back in time, two years back in time, three years back in time, four years back in time, and for them to really realize, Oh my God, this is a no brainer.

Right? I want to make this mess. And this is hard, right? Um, because like, there's so many tools and like, but I want to be, because the audience is very wide, very different types of audience. I want to make this so that you can consume it in like two, three, four minutes. And you're like, okay, I need to learn more about this.

This actually is interesting. There's like, that's so much dense and emotional and compact information that you're like, Whoa. Why am I not doing this? How did I miss this?

Knut: What, what, what was the name of that website? I, I don't know if it's still up, but bitcoin or shit.com or something like that. So, so it lists if you bought this item when it came out, an iPhone five or whatever, uh, and if you had bought b bitcoin instead.com, I think that that's the, that's the name. So if you bought, uh, if you bought Bitcoin instead, it shows you how much, how much more money you'd have now and how many iPhones you

George: Yeah. Yeah. And of course there's many of these tools, obviously like we've all see them and we all like like them and retweet them and repost them. And it's all great. But I think, at least I hope that we can do something impactful with this. If we really tailor it, compact it to a specific type of niche audience with a specific message designed for them.

And because this audience is also like. A type of audience who can also like, um, you know, bring it to other bubbles that we ourselves are not part of, right? So that's, for example, one like, uh, one like project I'm very, very excited about and I hope we can, um, yeah, we'll bring forward relatively soon.

There's a few moving elements, but definitely in the coming month or two, uh, at most. And then, uh, and then, you know, speaking of the other clubs, what, what I want us to do is what we're working is next year, we're targeting to do, I hope we could do the world's first, uh, Bitcoin, uh, Cup tournament. Uh, for youth players, 70 year old boys who are, you know, right there before they sign their first professional contract, start earning money, for them, first of all, like, it's a Bitcoin football cup, like, it's the first time this, this could potentially ever happen And then it's, it's a football first tournament, right?

This is the, we want to make it like top quality, like really the highest quality when it comes to sports, but then you have Bitcoin involved all over the place, right? In terms of brand, in terms of rewards, in terms of, um, in terms of like plays, um, like, like games and, and interactions, activations, uh, throughout, before, throughout, and after the, And after the event, and for this, I'm targeting to get really like, like big clubs.

I mean, because it's academies, right? I mean, I cannot get the Manchester United first team, just maybe we could get the Manchester United 17 year old team or, you know, another big club. We get some of these, and then like we get their brands, we get them on the focus of Bitcoin. And we drive the conversation faster, you know, not three, four years from now, but Less

Knut: what about, um, like right now there's you and there's, um, you guys and there's a real bed for it, right? Those are the two I know of in Europe. Are you aware of any other clubs that are doing a Bitcoin strategy? I mean, is this virus spreading? Like, have you heard anything like,

George: Um, Oh, there's, uh, there's the Austrian Admira Vakir who have done some integration. So it's a second tier, uh, second league, uh, second league, uh, club that have, uh, that have, uh, you know, they've also had Bitcoin on the, their second team jersey. And, um, and they, they also accept Bitcoin payments, uh, here and there, but you know, the thing is, there's some other clubs, um, there's a Miami, um, not Miami, um, a Hawaiian club that, that is doing, uh, that is doing like their Bitcoin gig,

Knut: yeah, there are other, other sports, right, other sports team and sports teams in other sports that are doing it. But, but for football specifically,

George: which ones?

Knut: Uh, I'm so bad with sports, but wasn't there like a hockey team or a basketball team or

Luke: I'm not aware of any others, actually. Yeah, like, uh, there's been some attempts at

Knut: it's

Luke: an orange colored team or something like

Knut: more the individual athletes,

Luke: Yeah, yeah, there have been individual

Knut: for instance, a

Luke: have been individual

Knut: player, and there was some American football player.

George: There's been individual athletes, a lot of them. There's been, I was asking if you know, but there's been a baseball club in Australia, the Port Heat. Uh, who did kind of a Bitcoin strategy. Uh, but very unfortunately that didn't work out. They kind of started this at the peak of the last bull cycle. And, um, and as I understand, uh, there wasn't like a strong alignment between the owners and the management in terms of like understanding that this is a long game.

So that's why this kind of flopped. Um, but yeah, like I, I think the reason why it's not happening in more, unfortunately, and, and, and I see this even, even within our club, uh, you know, but, but definitely no other clubs because Fiat has permitted sports as well. Right. So all the sports club, uh, clubs or the vast majority in football, for sure.

They're like, you know, on the hamster wheel themselves.

Knut: They're indebted,

George: They're indebted.

Knut: to an extreme level,

George: yeah, like, like fighting for every dollar for every income. So it's, it's hard for you to like, Oh yeah, we're going to have this long term Bitcoin strategy that's going to take like two, three, four, five years to play out.

And we can benefit a lot from it. It's very, very hard in, you know, unfortunately for a large organizations, sports club in particular to To have this realization, to map this out, to get others on board. That's why it's not so popular and uh, and that's why I'm grateful and keep pushing that we have this chance.

Luke: I mean, you make a great point here about essentially the, it's the organizational alignment, right? Like the, the, these are companies, sports clubs are companies. They just have this large, the business is involved around getting fans to come in and consume this sort of marketing. Product, essentially. So it's, it's a certain kind of company that's run a certain way, but just like any other company, you need, you need alignment from the management.

So it's, it's fantastic that, uh, Boteb Plovdiv has, has the, uh, alignment and is, is putting their, their trust in you to, to move this thing forward. And I mean, from the, from the perspective of this thing, Playing out, right? The, the best part that, uh, I think one of the best parts that you, you mentioned again was the, the influencers.

Like you get, you get some players, there's, there's so many angles to, to reach people through this. I think it's, I think it's fantastic. The, uh, orange pilling a player and then they move to another club, but they, they, maybe they don't get to get paid in Bitcoin, but maybe they still put, put their money in, in Bitcoin.

Maybe they even ask their club to, to, uh, pay them in Bitcoin, something like that. And then the, the Questions start getting, uh, asked and all this.

5 Year Goals

Luke: So what, what is the, the goal in, in five years, for example, where, where do you see the club in the five year mark?

George: Oh man. Yeah, in five years, I think we definitely have to be in Champions League. Like in my mind, you know, like people around me like, oh, you're too ambitious. I'm like, man, yeah, like in five years, we definitely have to be in Champions League. Uh, that's, that's my personal goal. On our internal Slack, I have the Champions League icon there.

That's why I'm there, right? Um, so, uh, it's a lot of hard work. Like, it's really a lot of hard work. And it's also not completely dependent on me and my work, to be fair. Like, because, at all. I mean, really, like, uh, I mean, at the end of the day, the most important part is the sports department, right? Uh, in the club.

Um, so that has to continue going well. But, but I think We're going in a good direction there too, because we have the, they're the long term view as well, right. We have our academy internally, which is, yeah, it's one of the best academies. It's the best really academy in terms of infrastructure in the country.

That's why we're also can't afford to think of this Bitcoin Cup tournament, because we have the infrastructure, we have like a super cool stadium, that's crazy. If we can, if we can do a final for, for such a tournament there. Um, so, so we have all the things in place in terms of In terms of assets, I would say, uh, it's just a lot of moving parts.

a lot of work, consistency, and a bit of luck. Always it comes, you know, when, when it comes to, when it comes to football and sports, but, but five years from now, I want us to be in the champions league. I want us to be the absolute, you know, international professional level, uh, Bitcoin level, Bitcoin sports club.

and, uh, and I want for this tournament that I start to be like a, like, like to have the fourth edition by then. Uh, and, and I want to have clubs, but five years is a lot of time, you know, as you say, like, I also want to have other clubs following us by then. I think that's absolutely, absolutely is going to be doable.

Knut: What, what are the, what are the tax laws around Bitcoin in Bulgaria? Like what, are there any issues there? Or like what, is it easy enough,

George: It's kind of okay. Uh, it's kind of okay. So if you just buy Bitcoin and hold it, like you don't, uh, you don't, uh, incur taxes, uh, until you sell it, if you accept Bitcoin for payments, um, and if you don't sell it, you can just, uh, keep it as inventory on your balance sheet. So again, no,

Knut: but there's a capital gains tax or something if you sell it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright.

George: 10%. So it's, it's, uh,

Knut: Pretty good.

George: Yeah, I mean, it's not like El Salvador. Okay. Uh, but, but it's, uh, it's, it's way better than many other places. Um, and, uh, yeah, so we've been looking, looking actually, so I was in El Salvador a couple of months ago, because we've been looking very much to do stuff there.

And we've been, uh, yeah. Um, because we've been, we've been thinking of what to do more with Bitcoin, right? So that's why I said, like, it's not just about buying and accepting Bitcoin. It's about corporate strategies, about branding strategies, about how to make money. Um, it's about education strategies. It's, there's so much around it.

So in terms of corporate strategy, I was, uh, we're very attracted by El Salvador, um, and their, uh, capital markets regulation, because they're basically striving to build capital markets on top of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is legal tender there. They have all kinds of, tax incentives for companies to issue debt or to sell equity.

on their capital, on their, um, well, let's say nascent upcoming capital markets, because it's not like it's, you know, hustling and bustling yet. Um, but, but they're, they've put a lot of the rails, uh, um, or they're building a lot of the rails to, um, to really enable the, the, the creation of Bitcoin based capital markets.

So, um, we've had great talks there. We have meetings with, uh, um, we have. Yeah, with the Bitcoin office, right? Um, so, ideally, like, we're striving to build some connection there and to do something, interesting and world first again from a corporate perspective. It's just that, as many things, it's a little harder than you would expect it to be, or it takes a little more time than, Then you would hope to do it.

But my idea or long term vision, frankly, like what we want to do with Bitcoin, uh, and with the club is to enable our current fans and global fans to become co owners of the club. And that's why, you know, I have big hopes for, uh, for us being able to do this out of El Salvador and through El Salvador, because this would, like from a tax perspective, from a branding perspective, from legal security perspective would be, would be ideal.

It's just that, again, um, my enthusiasm is a little over, uh, ahead of kind of like how, uh, how, how advanced and set up everything there is, but, uh, but we're, we're very actively talking to them. We're working with many parties there, so. Just maybe we can have big news there too.

International and Local Effects

Luke: Well, no, and, and you actually said something great about global fans. I think this is a, a fantastic thing, right? A a again, Bedford is, is similar. They've, they've got, they've got fans all over the world and, and I think for you guys it's like who is going to tune into the Bulgarian football league outside of Bulgaria before, well, not too many people, but now a bunch of Bitcoiners.

If they're into, if they're into football or, or not even, because this is the funny thing. There were, there were a lot of people posting about that. They, they've got, they, they don't usually follow, follow sports at all, but, but they'll follow the Bitcoin team. So the, the funny thing is, I think, I think the first, the first club to adopt Bitcoin in every league is going to get all of these global fans.

And maybe the, maybe the, the second one, the third one, maybe can get some kind of other support, but it's really the first one in every

George: really.

Luke: That, that

George: Not

Luke: That's that. I, I completely agree with you there. It's the, it's the first one

Knut: first mover advantage.

Luke: mover advantage. It's gonna get, it is gonna get all of the, all of the Bitcoiners are gonna now be, be supporting and, uh, uh, yeah.

I mean, have, have you seen, uh, some, some uptick in, uh, kind of international

George: yeah, yeah. So, international but also local. Like, local is very important. Like, we have, like, so many people in the country who's like, just what you say, like, I didn't care about sports or football, like, forever, or at all, ever, but now I follow, now I buy merch, now I come, you know, every now and then they come to games, so

Luke: Well, because there's the bread and circuses thing that you said, it gets tossed around in the Bitcoin world and also some other places on kind of the Twitter sphere and whatever, it's like it's a distraction, that sports is sort of a distraction from clown world basically and it's a way of people to sort of Uh, forget about what's going on around them, but I think that's also missing the, the positives, which it, it's a, it's a community builder, it brings people together, there's a, there's a sense of, of pride in, in something local succeeding, everyone, everyone's happy, there's, there's real economic, uh, effects usually when a, when a local sports team wins, and so, so from, from my perspective, I, I, I think, I think sport is a good thing, and it's, and it's, it's something that, that people can rally around, and so,

George: an amazing thing.

Luke: Yeah.

And, and so what, what are, what are you looking at locally? Like what, what do you hope to have the effect, uh, uh, locally in, in piv?

George: Yeah. Um, yeah, no, look, uh, for me, sports, like, for us, the, the, the, the, about Plovdiv, for me, that's what I realized, like, we're kind of very much into Bitcoin and stuff, obviously, that's our interest, but I think when we go on a Bitcoin standard, Right. And, uh, in general, people start feeling wealthier, opposed to, like, being in the grind.

You're just going to have more time for fun stuff, right? Like playing football, I mean, or volleyball, or whatever your sport is, or, like, going and cheering your team, and, uh, and being part of such a community. And I think that's really what, you know, even Nostr is about. Like it's, Being part of these communities, because that's fun, and like, we as humans, at the end of the day, we are living to be part of communities, right?

And you find your community, you're an active part of it, you contribute to it, you evolve it, right? You build it in one way or another. And unfortunately, you know, today in the fiat world, this is just like A stress valve in many ways, or like you say, like Brothers and Sisters, whatever. Um, but, uh, but I think it can be so much more, right?

It is, but it can be so much more for a larger amount of people and so on and so forth. uh, but yeah, well, back in Plovdiv, man, like, I have big hopes. I really have big, big ambitions there. I want to get Bitcoin into the wallets of, uh, of like tens of thousands of people. I want people to wake up. I want people to see.

Luke: big is piv? How many

George: It's like three, four hundred thousand people. So it's a lot. Uh, our stadium is, uh, 21, 000 seats stadium. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's, it's 19. I wish it was 21.

Luke: Yeah. You'll have to add 2000 more

George: Maybe, yeah, we'll, we'll think of some additional construction.

Luke: the, make the infinity stand when

George: Right. Right. But, uh, but yeah, like the setting was super cool. Like, it's really cool.

Like when it's feel like, man, the atmosphere is amazing. Um, and so it's, and it's really this community that you can feel that people are involved. So it's, it's like consistency and it's social engineering in one way or another, right?

Knut: one of our favorite words,

George: but in a positive way.

Knut: in a positive way, okay.

George: So it's social engineering for us to ingrain Bitcoin and make it part of kind of what people see, do, have, own, interact with, right?

So, uh, I think exactly because of this community element, exactly because, Because, you know, football is a football club and there's this unique living organism we can, we can create this and, you know, it's fascinating. I'm so much into this and there's other people who are so much into this. Oh my god, like, we can make such a big difference.

And, and like in the country. You know, on a political and economic level, they don't get it. Like, they don't see it. They just are in their, you know, like, oh, are we going to accept the euro? Oh, what's happening with the war? I'm like, who cares? Let's build.

Bulgarian Currency Situation

Knut: Yeah, Bulgaria has its own shitcoin, I almost forgot about that, but uh, what's it called again?

George: Kinda. Um, but not quite, to be fair. It's, it's a good coin, uh, not for investing, but, but for medium of exchange is actually decent. Uh, Lev, Lev

Knut: Lev, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

George: and I recently got educated about this. So, uh, the lev is pegged to the euro. So, um, uh, so, so that, that is super cool for, for us, for me as a consumer, for businesses, because like the fixed rate.

So for trade is, um, It's, it's good, right? As the world would be in the future. You have one currency, Bitcoin, you don't have the currency exchange risk, right? We don't have it only with the European Union. And the good part with this, so, we got, we got hyperinflation back in 1997. Was really bad. People lost almost everything, everything, in many cases.

Um, and then we got this so called currency board introduced and the currency board is like we have the left, but the left has to be backed up by other currencies. So it's like a stable coin, kind of like how Tether is backed by, by dollars. You know, the levy is backed by euro and like a basket of, I think they have some other currencies and assets, which is cool because the local politicians, they cannot print, they cannot, you know, so, so it's been, it's been, I think, way better than Hungary, Sweden, uh, Finland, you have your, oh

but Sweden I've heard it's kind of bad,

Knut: It's kinda bad, Norway too, like, both Swedish and Norwegian crown, and the crown in Czechia, like the Czech Republic, it's also

George: Yeah.

Knut: I mean, they're all going to shit the smaller

George: So, so for us, it's like, I would say we're better than, than the Corona, the, and, and all these like local currencies, because we kind of just are there to the, peg to the Euro. The local politicians don't have the opportunity to print. So it's, it's a very good position for us to be.

Luke: You, you get the, the negatives of the, the euro. But, but still, I mean, I mean the, the realistically, the dollar at the Euro and maybe the, the Chinese currency are the only, are the only ones that are in the, sort of within our own, within our own lifetimes are, are going to be not as terribly bad against Bitcoin.

But all the other ones are just, are. All the other ones are

Knut: Yeah, I think it's just a matter of time before both, uh, at least Sweden, uh, switches to Euro standard. If not switching to Bitcoin standard happens first, but well, we'll see, we'll see what happens.

George: man. I'm very bearish about the Euro.

Knut: yeah, yeah, it's like,

Luke: It'll be the second last to fall or third last but but yeah it's it's it's it's not going to be the the last and so it's yeah.

Knut: So that is what it is. I mean, speaking of Bulgaria and currencies and stuff,

Bitcoin Adoption in Bulgaria

Knut: like, how is the rest of, how is Bitcoin adoption in general in Bulgaria? What's happening in other places? Like, Plamen opened a bar, I saw, and like, what are the connections? What's happening?

George: It's actually quite cool. I'm, I'm, I'm quite happy with, with how the ecosystem is evolving. There's, there's Plamen, um, with his whole community, like content creation, the conferences he's been doing, which has been like a very, I think he's responsible for like, I don't know, probably like, 000, maybe several 10, 000s of people who have opened their eyes and even if they're not hard bitcoiners, they now own bitcoin.

Uh, so that's huge. We have other content creators also who've had an impact. We have now once or twice per, yeah, about twice per year we have like, uh, A small, uh, merchant, uh, like, conference events, so for merchants to accept Bitcoin. we have these people who are active and who are doing things. Now, actually, yeah, there's something new that's coming up here, uh, literally in Plovdiv is we have this, um, this, uh, great dudes who have this, um, um, it's an application for, uh, ordering food, like takeaway and, uh, what is it, like,

Knut: like Glovo or

George: yeah, yeah, like Glovo, um, but, um, but, um, But it's not like this big corporate thing that, but, but still, it's a very good product and they've integrated accepting Bitcoin there for quite some time now they've made it even easier and they've introduced.

So we have like about, I think it's 15 restaurants in Sofia and like five or so in Plovdiv where through their system, you can order food. And pay with Bitcoin online, or you can also go in the restaurant and pay in Bitcoin online, and they just, um, they just won a, uh, grant from, uh, Bitcoin Beach, uh, and, uh, they're going to use the grant, uh, to, well, the attempt is really to start like a small circular economy, if you would Um, where, so if you go, uh, to one of those restaurants and pay with Bitcoin, you're going to get sats back 10%, and then, um, the restaurant is also going to get 10 percent sats back.

And if you order food, um, through their app, also the driver is going to get, uh, some sats back. And, uh, we've just been discussing, because obviously we're partnering with them, with the football club, so we'll push this out, because some of the restaurants that are there are our, I mean, basically, like, we have two restaurants locally that are partners, we got them in, right, obviously, in the deal, um, So, so that is also like, for me, it's like super cool because now for so far, the club has been pushing Bitcoin.

Now we have two of our restaurant partners who are themselves like hard Botevists, Botefans, and like they're popular. Now they're starting to accept Bitcoin in their, in their two restaurants, right? And they're going to have their campaigns. We're going to push them more. So, um, so I'm really excited about this and fingers crossed this goes well.

We have good metrics because if we have good metrics. Yeah, we'll look for ways to grow this. So there's a lot of grassroots things happening, which I love. On the top, nothing.

Knut: It's the way it's supposed to be.

George: But it's the way it is. Yeah, it's a better

Luke: Yeah it really seems like that you get one or two of these big anchors like like for example you you guys have had that had that conference last couple of years but now with both of Plavdev now Bulgaria is really got a couple of big anchors. Big relative in relative terms, uh, and all of this other stuff can, can start coming up around it.

And, uh, love, love to see it. I mean, he, I mean here, here with Rega, there's Honey Budger has been going for a really long time, and I, and I even think that they are honest about, we, we would, we just talked to, to Max, uh, about this, uh, from Defi and like yeah, there's not much other adoption in, in Lavia and this conference has been going on for a long time.

Exactly. And so it's just like, uh, it's, it's, it's great to see, uh, in, in your case, in Bulgaria's case, that there's, there's more of this, uh, picking up. So, yeah,

George: Well, I think it's really, in our case, I don't know, like it's grassroots, like I said, and I really believe grassroots and then Rio or for the vast majority, Rio adoption comes permissionless life. It comes like it's not forced. You know, there is this point where, okay, there's Plamen, like, he got the inspiration, he makes his content, he does the conferences, Like, our owner, he sees this opportunity for Bitcoin, for the club. He takes the action, right? So it's, it's not like, so it's individuals, right? Taking actions and then, as you have, you know, several of them, maybe others get inspired or get ideas going and that's how the magic happens. And, uh, yeah. Excited about it.

Wrapping Up

Luke: it's awesome, man. Great hear your story. So, was, uh, was there anything else that you wanted to discuss or bring up on this topic?

George: no, I mean, what I would say is absolutely, uh, Please, uh, you know, Knut, you've been, but please, you're absolutely welcome, Luke, join as well, like, both of you should come

Knut: Absolutely. Highly recommend it. I had a great time in Bulgaria, and it's such a fascinating country, it's such a rich history and such a beautiful place, and the food is great, and it's very affordable, it's very, yeah, very

George: like, I have people who come in Plogis specifically to, like, nomads, spend, like, a or a month. So, so please enjoy, visit the game. come spend in the restaurants where they accept Bitcoin, follow us on social media for sure, so, X and Nostr,

Luke: Yes, all the details, please.

Knut: And also like one of the eras, uh, infamous eras of Bulgaria is the commie era, right? Where you can see the impact that system had on the country and how horrid it is. Uh, so it's, it's, uh, that might not be a good pitch for, uh, but that's

Luke: Let him, let him share his social medias, Knut.

George: wait, do you have, do you have something

Knut: no, no, I think like the, The point I was getting to is, if you get to Bulgaria, don't only go to Sofia, go around the rest of the country, because it's not as raped as that town was by, as that city was by communism, all this concrete, yeah, yeah,

George: yeah, the,

Knut: you can really see the impact there. I'm not, um, yeah, this came out totally wrong, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to, To hype Bulgaria here, but also there's a historical lesson to be learned in the country, for sure,

George: sure. It's really like, there's so many different things there. So there's the communist part, there's like fucking amazing nature, there's like

Knut: is everything, yeah.

George: if you're into hiking, there's like, just like from Sofia, what I love about Sofia, like just last week, twice, end of the day, I'm like fucked up, like tired of computer.

40 minutes up and I'm up in the mountains, hiking, in like 2000 meters altitude. Uh, so, so there's all these like super cool things, but on the socials, yeah, we're on Twitter. we're on Nostr, uh, so Twitter is, um, botif underscore, uh, en, on Nostr, uh, we are just botif. Yeah, you can find us.

Luke: going say you're NPUB? No, no, no,

George: I'm still learning it, okay?

Luke: we'll post, you're still learning, we'll post all the details in the show

George: Yes. Yes. And feel free to also check out our website. We have, due to our El Salvadorian, um, kind of project, we already have a Salvadorian website, which is very easy to remember, botif. sv. So you can go there and from there you'll find all the links and information.

Luke: Absolutely fantastic.

Knut: Great! Get the inverse of Clown World. This is a shill. BitcoinInfinityStore. com And thank you very much for coming on,

George: was great having

Knut: Great to have

Luke: George, thanks so much. This has been Bitcoin Infinity Show. Thank you for

@ 4fe4a528:3ff6bf06

One of the main motivational factors for people to buy bitcoin is it’s ability to store value over time. During harvest we are doing the same thing. We have now harvested our garlic and 1/2 of our onions because if we don’t use the sun’s energy to cure the plants before winter they will start to rot. Let me explain why God has made the world this way; but, first let me explain why storing things isn’t evil.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. Matt. 6:19-21

Is it wrong, then to have a retirement portfolio or even to care about the material things of this world for ourselves or for others? The answer is again both no and yes. The no comes from the fact that this passage is not the only one in the Bible speaking to questions of wealth and provision for those who are dependent on us. Other passages counsel prudence and forethought, such as, “Those who gather little by little will increase [wealth]” (Proverbs 13:11b), and, “The good leave an inheritance to their children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22).

God guides Joseph to store up food for seven years in advance of a famine (Genesis 41:25-36), and Jesus speaks favorably in the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30). In light of the rest of Scripture, Matthew 6:19-21 cannot be a blanket prohibition. But the yes part of the answer is a warning, summed up beautifully in verse 21, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” In other words, the possessions you own will change you so that you care more about the possessions than about other things.” So choose carefully what you own, for you will inevitably begin to value and protect it to the potential detriment of everything else.

How are we to discern the line between appropriate and inappropriate attention to wealth? Jesus answers, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you” So if you believe your heart is following God’s direction go ahead and harvest your crops and / or buy some bitcoin. If you would have bought bitcoin one year ago, you would have 127% more purchasing power now. Let’s keep on fearing God and keeping his commandments.

@ af9c48b7:a3f7aaf4

Chef's notes

Easy recipe with simple ingredients. This recipe uses some store bought, precooked items as way to cut down on cook time. I recommend letting the vegetables thaw if you don't like them on the firm/crunchy side.Feel free to substitute fresh ingredients if you have the time and want to make the extra effort.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 20 min
• 🍳 Cook time: 50 min
• 🍽️ Servings: 8-10

Ingredients

• 2 (8 oz) packages refrigerated crescent rolls (dough sheets preferred)
• 1 pound cooked rotisserie chicken (deboned and chopped)
• 2 table spoons of butter
• 2 (10 once) packages of frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 (15 once can sliced potatoes (drained)
• 1 (10.5 once) can condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 (10.5 once) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1/2 cup milk
• salt and ground pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line the botton of 9x13-inch baking dish with one can of crescent roll dough. If you don't get the sheet dough, be sure to pinch the seams together.
2. Melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Then add the chicken, mixed vegetables, and sliced potatoes (recommend cutting into smaller pieces). Cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are thawed and mixture is heated through, 5 to 7 minutes.
3. While the mixed vegetables are heating, warm both cans of condensed soup in a seperate pan over medium-low heat. Slowly add milk and cook, stirring frequently, until combined and heated through, about 3 minutes.
4. Add the soup mixture to the chicken mixture, then pour into the baking dish. Top with the second can of crescent roll dough. Feel free to cut some slits in dough if you are using the dough sheets. Cover lightly with foil to prevent the crescent roll dough from browning too quickly.
5. Bake in oven until heated through and dough is a golden brown. Cook time should be around 45-50 minutes I reommend removing the foil for the last 10 minutes to get a golden crust. Be sure to keep a close watch on the crust after removing the foil because it will brown quickly.

@ 240be53b:edef3228

Beobachtete Carl Menger die Gründung der Psychologie? Sicher ist, dass die Österreichische Schule die Ökonomie auch vom Menschen her denkt. Wie die heutigen Erkenntnisse der Psychologie Mengers Sicht auf die Österreichische Schule geprägt hätte, erfährst Du hier:

https://medium.com/@ELTankred/die-%C3%B6sterreichische-schule-und-die-psychologie-02df0f89064a

@ 361d3e1e:50bc10a8

https://forex-strategy.com/2024/09/28/bottled-water-is-more-harmful-than-tap-water/

Bottled water is more harmful than tap water

water #usa #qatar #bottle #health #truth

@ 9358c676:9f2912fc

OBJECTIVES

To establish a guideline for the management of Acute Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) in our center, for both outpatient and hospitalized patients, with the aim of:

• Reducing morbidity and mortality associated with the condition.
• Improving the quality of medical care and optimizing hospital resources.
• Delaying the progression of antimicrobial resistance.

SCOPE

All patients over 16 years of age diagnosed with Acute Community-Acquired Pneumonia who are being followed by our institution in an outpatient or inpatient setting.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Physicians from the Medical Clinic, Medical Emergency, Coronary Unit, and Intensive Care Service. Nursing Coordination. Pharmacy Service. Infection Control Committee.

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Community-Acquired Pneumonia in Adults. Recommendations for its management. Lopardo et al. MEDICINA (Buenos Aires) 2015; 75: 245-257. Argentine Society of Infectiology. ISSN 0025-7680
2. Diagnosis and Treatment of Adults with Community-acquired Pneumonia. An Official Clinical Practice Guideline of the American Thoracic Society and Infectious Diseases Society of America. 2019. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Volume 200 Number 7 | October 1, 2019. DOI: 10.1164 rccm.201908-1581ST
3. ERS/ESICM/ESCMID/ALAT guidelines for the management of severe community-acquired pneumonia. Intensive Care Med (2023) 49:615–632 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-023-07033-8
4. Antimicrobial resistance. WHO. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial resistance
5. Internal Medicine. Farreras-Rosman. Volume I. Elsevier. 2008 Edition.
6. Considerations for the Responsible Use of Antibiotics in COVID-19. Argentine Society of Infectiology. 2020. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BmXD5x6rEpSqDIc8urccdqLcZKkP3U7X/view
7. Penicillin Allergy. Castells M. New England Journal of Medicine, 381(24), 2338–2351. doi:10.1056 nejmra1807761

INTRODUCTION

Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, affecting patients of all ages and with various risk factors. Proper management in both outpatient and hospital settings is crucial for improving clinical outcomes and reducing associated complications.

This document aims to standardize and optimize the treatment of pneumonia based on the most current evidence and recommendations from leading scientific organizations. It seeks to be a practical tool for healthcare professionals, providing a clear and concise approach to the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of patients with pneumonia.

FOUNDATIONS. HOSPITAL SITUATION ANALYSIS:

• Pneumonias represent a significant burden on the healthcare system due to their high prevalence and potential severity, underscoring the need for a standardized approach.
• A clinical guideline facilitates decision-making, ensuring that all healthcare professionals follow a uniform protocol that integrates best practices, thereby reducing variability in treatments. This allows for better resource utilization, optimizing antibiotic use and reducing the emergence of antimicrobial resistance.
• Antimicrobial resistance has been proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and related organizations as the leading cause of death and hospital expenditure by the year 2050.
• Pneumonias in our center, in their various presentations, have shown significant prevalence in hospitalizations according to measurements taken in 2024.
• In our center, antibiotics, as a whole, have been the main source of financial losses related to drugs during the billing cycle from June 2023 to July 2024.

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SITUATION:

Pneumonias represent a global incidence of 1.26 cases per 1000 inhabitants. It has been documented in some centers that this incidence can increase in patients over 65 years of age, representing 34 cases per 1000 inhabitants. Outpatient mortality varies between 0.1% and 5%, but can reach up to 50% in hospitalized patients, especially those requiring Intensive Care Unit stay.

The main risk factors for developing pneumonia are:

• Chronic Heart Disease.
• Chronic Respiratory Disease.
• Chronic Kidney Disease.
• Advanced-stage HIV infection.
• Immunosuppressed. Solid Organ Transplant. Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation.
• Diabetes mellitus.
• Neoplasms.
• Smoking.
• Chronic use of Corticosteroids or Proton Pump Inhibitors.
• Multiple Myeloma and Hypogammaglobulinemia.
• Anatomical or Functional Asplenia.

The main causative agents of acute community-acquired pneumonia in our setting are:

• Respiratory Viruses (Influenza, SARS-CoV2, RSV).
• Streptococcus pneumoniae.
• Haemophilus influenzae.
• Staphylococcus aureus.
• Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydophila pneumoniae.

It should be noted that Streptococcus pneumoniae shows a good sensitivity pattern to penicillin and continues to be the most frequent causative microorganism. Haemophilus influenzae only shows beta-lactamase production in 10% to 23% of cases. Staphylococcus aureus in our setting has a low incidence of methicillin resistance, although this possibility should be considered in certain situations and severe clinical presentations. Given these considerations, beta-lactams remain the first-line treatment.

Regarding Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates, they will only be relevant in patients with risk factors such as bronchiectasis, cystic fibrosis, prior treatment with corticosteroids, or broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Emerging pathogens of some relevance include the eventual emergence of cases caused by Leptospira interrogans, Legionella pneumophila, and Hantavirus. These cases should always be associated with a specific epidemiological link.

DIAGNOSIS

The diagnosis of pneumonia is based on clinical and imaging criteria. For the diagnosis of Acute Community-Acquired Pneumonia, we will consider:

Symptoms and Clinical Signs (at least 1 of the following): * Fever. * Altered general condition. * Cough. * Sputum production. * Chest pain. * Dyspnea. * Hemoptysis.

plus

Radiopacity on Chest X-ray (Alveolar consolidation with or without air bronchogram, interstitial pattern, bronchiectasis, cavitation, pleural effusion, new radiopacity, etc.). It is always recommended to request both frontal and lateral views.

Chest CT remains a method with greater sensitivity and specificity for evaluating lung parenchyma compared to conventional X-ray in infectious pathology. However, a simple chest X-ray is an adequate method for the initial evaluation of the condition and its complications, which is why a CT scan is not recommended as an initial method for evaluating pneumonia and should always be preceded by a conventional chest X-ray.

CT studies should be considered in the following situations:

• Respiratory failure.
• Evaluation or suspicion of differential diagnoses to Acute Community-Acquired Pneumonia.
• Evaluation or suspicion of complications of Acute Community-Acquired Pneumonia.
• Evaluation of radiological patterns that are not entirely clear on the chest X-ray.

CHOICE OF CARE SITE AND TREATMENT

For the choice of care site and treatment of pneumonia, it is recommended to complement clinical criteria with validated mortality scores associated with risk factors and clinical status.

CURB-65 (1 point for each item): * Confusion * Elevated urea greater than 90 mg/dl * Respiratory rate greater than 30/minute * Systolic blood pressure < 90 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure < 60 mmHg * Age equal to or greater than 65 years

Results:

• Groups 0 to 1: Outpatient management.
• Groups 1-2: Admission to General Ward.
• Groups 3-5: Admission to Intensive Care Unit.
• Appendix: A pulse oximetry reading of less than 92% is recommended as an independent factor for inpatient management under expert recommendation to complement the score.

COMPLEMENTARY STUDIES AND CULTURE SAMPLING

Once the diagnosis is completed, the patient's risk stratification and the choice of admission site are made, the following complementary studies and culture sampling are recommended to proceed with the patient's study during treatment.

Outpatient patient: * Pulse Oximetry. * Laboratory routine (complete blood count, glucose, urea, creatinine, liver function tests).

Inpatient patient in general ward: * Pulse Oximetry. * Laboratory routine (complete blood count, glucose, urea, creatinine, liver function tests). Acid-base status if pulse oximetry is less than 92%. * Sputum sample (Gram stain, culture, antibiogram). * Blood cultures. * In the presence of pleural effusion: Thoracentesis. Physical-chemical study for Light's Criteria. Direct and Culture of Pleural Fluid.

Inpatient patient in intensive care unit: * Pulse Oximetry. * Laboratory routine (complete blood count, glucose, urea, creatinine, liver function tests) plus acid-base status. * Sputum sample (Gram stain, culture, antibiogram). Tracheal aspirate, Mini-BAL, or BAL sampling for patients requiring ARM upon admission. * Blood cultures. * Urinary antigen for detection of Streptococcus pneumoniae, if available in microbiology. * In the presence of pleural effusion: Thoracentesis. Physical-chemical study for Light's Criteria. Direct and Culture of Pleural Fluid.

Special considerations for Viral Pneumonias: * We recommend performing a viral panel for Influenza A/B for any pneumonia presenting at least 1 risk factor mentioned during periods of viral circulation in the community. * We recommend performing a viral panel for SARS-CoV2 for any pneumonia presenting at least 1 risk factor mentioned during periods of viral circulation in the community or having epidemiological criteria of a suspected COVID-19 case. * The Infection Control Committee will timely inform based on the National Epidemiological Bulletin about the presence of circulating respiratory viruses in our setting.

Special considerations for Atypical Pneumonias and HIV Testing: * We recommend serological testing for IgM/IgG for Chlamydia and Mycoplasma for any pneumonia presenting a subacute evolution at the time of clinical presentation or clinical-radiological dissociation in its presentation. * In the suspicion of pneumonia caused by emerging pathogens (Legionella pneumophila, Leptospira interrogans, Hantavirus), consider the necessary epidemiological link as a prior epidemiological background before requesting specific diagnostic tests. * HIV testing is recommended for all pneumonias, with special emphasis on those that do not present the conventional risk factors mentioned.

ANTIMICROBIAL TREATMENT AND DURATION OF TREATMENT:

Directed antimicrobial treatment will be based on the present risk factors and the choice of care site and treatment.

Outpatient patient <65 years and without risk factors:

First choice: * Amoxicillin 875mg/12h orally for 5-7 days.

Scheme for history of allergy to Beta-Lactams: * Clarithromycin 500mg/12h orally for 5 days or * Azithromycin 500-1000mg/day for 5 days.

Outpatient patient >65 years or with at least 1 risk factor:

First choice: * Amoxicillin-Clavulanate 1g/12h orally for 7 days.

Scheme for history of allergy to Beta-Lactams: * Clarithromycin 500mg/12h orally for 5 days or * Azithromycin 500-1000mg/day orally for 5 days.

Inpatient patient in General Ward <65 years and without risk factors:

First choice: * Ampicillin-Sulbactam 1.5g/6h IV +/- Clarithromycin 500mg/12h orally/IV for 5-7 days.

Scheme for history of allergy to Beta-Lactams: * Ceftriaxone 1g/day IV for 5-7 days.

Inpatient patient in General Ward >65 years or with at least 1 risk factor:

First choice: * Ampicillin-Sulbactam 1.5g/6h IV for 7 days +/- Clarithromycin 500mg/12h orally/IV for 5 days.

Scheme for history of allergy to Beta-Lactams: * Ceftriaxone 1g/day IV for 7 days.

Inpatient patient in Intensive Care Unit:

First choice: * Ampicillin-Sulbactam 1.5g/6h IV for 7 days +/- Clarithromycin 500mg/12h orally/IV for 5 days.

Scheme for history of allergy to Beta-Lactams: * Ceftriaxone 1-2g/day IV for 7 days.

Special Considerations for Inpatients:

Scheme for risk factors for Pseudomonas aeruginosa*: * Piperacillin/Tazobactam 4.5g/6h IV or Cefepime 2g/8h IV for 7 days +/- Clarithromycin 500mg/12h orally/IV for 5 days.

Scheme for risk factors for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus**: * Add to conventional scheme: Vancomycin 15-20mg/kg/8-12h IV +/- Clindamycin 600mg/8h IV for 7-14 days.

Aspiration Pneumonia:

First choice: * Ampicillin-Sulbactam 1.5g/6h IV for 5-7 days.

*Risk factors for Pseudomonas aeruginosa: Bronchiectasis, cystic fibrosis, prior treatment with corticosteroids or broad-spectrum antibiotics. Documented isolates in respiratory cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

**Risk factors for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus: Previously healthy young patients with severe, necrotizing, and rapidly progressive pneumonia, cavitary infiltrates, hemoptysis, prior influenza, intravenous drug users, rash, leukopenia, recent or concomitant skin and soft tissue infections.

The routine use of corticosteroids in pneumonia is not recommended.

CONSIDERATIONS ON ANTIMICROBIALS IN VIRAL AND ATYPICAL PNEUMONIAS:

In the case of a concomitant antigen test or PCR for Influenza A/B or SARS-CoV2, the following treatment recommendations are made:

Influenza Virus A/B:

First choice: * Oseltamivir 75mg every 12 hours orally for 5 days. Other considerations: * In cases of Respiratory Failure in ARM or Obesity: Oseltamivir 150mg every 12 hours orally for 5 days. * Concomitant antimicrobial treatment is recommended as there is documented frequent association of Influenza Virus and Streptococcus pneumoniae.

COVID-19: * First choice is conventional treatment with dexamethasone 8 mg IV for 10 days in the event of respiratory failure. * Routine antimicrobial treatment is not recommended for COVID-19; therefore, upon a positive SARS-CoV2 test, it is recommended to discontinue antimicrobials.

Consider maintaining concomitant antimicrobial treatment only in suspected bacterial infection due to severe presentation: * Focal alveolar consolidation +/- air bronchogram in imaging studies plus 1 of the following: sepsis, risk factors, and/or immunosuppression.

Atypical Pneumonias with Seroconversion for Chlamydia or Mycoplasma:

First choice: * Clarithromycin 500mg every 12 hours IV/orally for 14 days. * Azithromycin 500-1000mg/day IV/orally for 14 days. * Doxycycline 100mg every 12 hours IV/orally for 14 days.

CONSIDERATIONS ON PENICILLIN AND OTHER BETA-LACTAM ALLERGIES:

Patients who report penicillin allergy are often misclassified. It is documented that more than 95% of patients who report penicillin allergy can receive beta-lactams without any complications. Additionally, penicillin hypersensitivity diminishes over the years.

Allergy to one beta-lactam does not imply the impossibility of using the entire spectrum of beta-lactams, as there are only a few cases of cross-hypersensitivity.

Therefore, we recommend the safe use of beta-lactams except in cases of a reported or documented history of severe allergy to penicillin (anaphylaxis).

In doubtful cases or confirmed allergy events during hospitalization, a consultation with an Allergy Specialist is available to evaluate the case.

FOLLOW-UP IN OUTPATIENT TREATMENT MODALITY

Patients undergoing pneumonia treatment in an outpatient setting can continue their treatment at home, considering advising them to seek further consultation in case of alarm signs (fever that does not subside after 48 to 72 hours, dyspnea, hemoptysis, chest pain, etc.). Nevertheless, it is good practice to consider a follow-up consultation in the emergency department or clinic after 48 to 72 hours of starting antibiotic therapy.

It is not routinely recommended to repeat a chest X-ray or CT scan to evaluate the evolution of pneumonia under outpatient treatment. Only in the case of suspected complications or unfavorable evolution. A follow-up at the end of treatment with the primary care physician is suggested.

FOLLOW-UP IN INPATIENT TREATMENT MODALITY

For hospitalized patients, we should consider transitioning from parenteral medication to oral when the following conditions are met

• Completion of 48 hours of parenteral treatment.
• Presence of a 24-hour afebrile period, with hemodynamic stability and significant clinical improvement.
• Availability of the oral route.

It is not routinely recommended to repeat a chest X-ray or CT scan to evaluate the evolution of pneumonia under outpatient or inpatient treatment. Only in the case of suspected complications or unfavorable evolution.

PREVENTION

The prevention of pneumonia is based on timely immunization with pneumococcal vaccines, influenza vaccination, and COVID-19 vaccination according to the immunization recommendations and current schedule from the Ministry of Health.

ICD-11 CODING

• CA40 - Pneumonia.
• CA40.0 - Bacterial Pneumonia.
• CA40.1 - Viral Bronchopneumonia.
• CA40.2 - Fungal Pneumonia.
• CA40.Z - Pneumonia, organism unspecified.

Autor

Kamo Weasel - MD Infectious Diseases - MD Internal Medicine - #DocChain Community npub1jdvvva54m8nchh3t708pav99qk24x6rkx2sh0e7jthh0l8efzt7q9y7jlj

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

We can talk about something else, now.

Making boosts/quotes the primary way new users find a variety of topics is a fundamental flaw. We don't need boosts (which merely results in the main trending list trending even harder, as people feel safer boosting something that is already popular), and hashtags have become the mess they naturally will become.

We need topical forums and relay-based community boards.

This would actively encourage those of us who want to write on OtherTopics to write more on them, as we would have some chance of the material being found by those interested in it. And it would spare us having to win some general popularity contest, just to be able to converse about golfing, Hinduism, or veganism.

Scrollable "timeline" feeds, even with AI assistance (like DVMs), don't accomplish this as well, as they eliminate the ability to skim the top-level and selectively read. You have to scroll, scroll, scroll.

It would also reduce the overloading of the original posts with videos, which is starting to give Nostr a Tik-Tok vibe. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, and we should probably have clients like that, but it makes life hard for anyone who wants to have a deeper discussion. People scrolling have trouble even "seeing" a text-based OP, but using the written word is a true signal to the other people, that you are capable of carrying a conversation through text.

Examples for other styles of client

(I am including the Communities in Nostrudel and Satellite, even though they don't yet work, effectively.)

Some of the things that set these clients apart, is that: 1. they are topic-first or thread-first, not person-first, 2. they sometimes allow voting (I suppose we could rank by zaps), 3. they often allow the user to override the default order and simply look at whatever is newest, most popular, or where their friends are currently active (i.e. they allow for easy sorting and filtering), 4. they cap the depth of threads to one or two levels, keep the indentation tiny, or offer a "flat" view, 5. they are primarily text-based (Reddit broke with this and now their main pages look really spammy), 6. they allow you to see all of the entries in the thread, at once, and simply actualize to display the entries that pop up in-between, 7. they often have some indication of what you have already read (this is application data) and allow you to sort for "stuff I haven't looked at, yet".

https://i.nostr.build/uCx5YKMOsjhKBU5c.png https://i.nostr.build/hMkm2oKpos0pWaV9.png https://i.nostr.build/mGQONMw5RC8XKtph.png https://i.nostr.build/TCSkG1bPuMOL0jja.webp https://i.nostr.build/3fLjCSNdtefiZmAH.png https://i.nostr.build/BHgo7EKTK5FRIsVl.png

@ bbb5dda0:f09e2747

After a small detour I entered the Jotunheimen National Park area and decided I would walk the Bessegen Ridge, A famous -you guessed it- ridge hike that runs all the way along a large lake.

It was a beautiful sunny day, blue skies and barely any wind. Quite rare conditions for Norway. So I thought that was a perfect moment to spend a couple hours video calling with my brother and his girlfriend. So in the late afternoon I decided to drive up to the trail-head and have some dinner before starting my hike.

At the trail-head there is a parking lot for both cars and campers for which they charge 250NOK (25EUR) per day! Since I was planning on hiking 2-3 days I decided I am too Dutch for this and drove on to the first free parking spot available, just ~1km further up the hill. So loaded up with a beefy backpack and my folding bike I sailed down to the parking lot and locked my bike to a tree. I just saved myself 50+ euros.

Day 1

Most people take the ferry at the trail-head first. After these delays I was ready to start the hike somewhere between 18:00 and 19:00. “Why so late, are you nuts!?”. Well, it’s not like there’s much of a difference between day and night there, remember. So I didn’t have to worry about a loss of daylight whilst up there. The only danger left was probably bears trying to eat me.

Contrary to what most people do I started to walk first and take the ferry back from Gjendesheim the last (of 2) stops. Most people take the ferry to the first stop which is Memurubu and then walk back to the trail-head. So while walking I would mostly come across batches of humans that came from the same ferry moving the opposite direction as me. Once they passed I’d be pretty much alone again.

Just above the trail-head.

After a steep start moving uphill I reached the ‘top’ of the ridge and from there on the walk was pretty flat until right before Memurubu. After a few hours of hiking and taking a moment here and there, and there, and there to take in the amazing views. As I arrived at the highest point overlooking two lakes I thought to myself: “Why not stay here?”. So that’s just what I did because the weather forecasts were good, no rain and barely any wind and good temperatures.

| | | | --- | --- | | I had to secure the tent to the ground with rocks | At around the darkest moment of the ‘night’ | | My initial idea was to camp right down there between the two lakes. (the right one is much higher than the left) | Coffee? |

This place has been hands down the best view I’ve ever slept with. It was so quiet and felt deeply peaceful. Just being there, cooking a meal, prepping a coffee and slowly winding down to sleep. I walked roughly 7km with 700m in elevation gain. | | | | | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | --- | --- | | | |

Day 2

Gooooooooooooodmorning! After quite a relaxed night in my tent I woke up around 9 and slowly got up and made myself some breakfast: oats with raisins and cinnamon and of course water. I was in no rush as I had until 5pm the next day to get to the end of the lake, which is about 17km of hiking left and 1500m-ish in elevation changes.

I made my way to in-between those lakes in the pictures above. I was chatting with an old colleague (Yay, 4G!) and we even had a call over an IT problem. You can’t lock me inside an office because most of what I need is already in my head anyways ;). Moving on I entered the true wilderness where few men (and even fewer IT-people) dare to walk: places without cell-signal. But I can tell you I survived, seemingly unharmed. Also a good time to fill up my camelback with fresh water. Filtering takes ~5-10min.

After a couple hours I reached Murumburu (I know, this placename sounds a bit like trying to pronounce a city while eating a sandwich to fast). There’s a cabin/hotel there that also sells some great coffee which is a warm welcome after a hike of 14km and 1700m elevation gain and loss. After enjoying this coffee I walked to the lake where there was a pebble beach that was part part of a riverbed. I decided to go in to freshen up. And fresh it it, because most of the water is fresh melting-water from nearby glaciers. It gets better after the tingling feeling of the whole body fades a bit. Then when you get out, you feel GREAT! The water was probably well under 5 degrees Celsius

I still had plenty of time left so most of the afternoon I enjoyed the sun on my face lying on the grass. Not complaining…

| | | | --- | --- | | Yup, that’s where we’re going… | This is a pretty good summary of Norway | | Looking back at Merumburu | Next to my campsite for the night |

I basically walked until I would find a suiting spot that was somewhat protected from the elements and ended up next to a small lake that seemed to house more mosquitos than water. But it was a pretty place nonetheless. Surrounded by glaciated peaks and lots of snow.

Goodnight.

Day 3

Last stretch! On to Gjendebu, where I would catch my ferry back to the trail-head. Just before starting my descent down from the platform I met the last of the very few signs, as 99% of the trail is just following the red T’s. This descend was very much as steep as it looks in the picture down below. I didn’t have much of a chance to take pictures as I needed all my focus not to slide down the bare rock when descending using several chains. Maybe without a backpack it wouldn’t have been too bad but keeping your stability with 10-15kg on your back takes a bit more effort.

Here, naive me was still thinking this path would just move parallel to the ridge. When I made it down and stepped foot in Gjendebu it started to rain, so it was a perfect moment to go inside and rest for a bit. I asked my inner voice if I deserved a beer. I did, because I saved so much money on parking and did a good job hiking. So this 9 Euro costing beer was enjoyed to the fullest.

Okay, actually 2 of them… The ferry was still an hour wait and to kill the time I went outside to sit down at a (covered) picnic table and made some soup. I wasn’t alone as a Norwegian family with kids aged ~1 and ~5 was also there prepping some food. We talked a bit and then the oldest girl -in her best English- offered me one of the pancakes they were making. Of course I couldn’t say no to that.

I really appreciate how they as a young family take the extra effort to bring out their kids to places like this while they could’ve just done the ‘made for kids’ activities in the area.

| | | | --- | --- | | So I climbed almost straight down on this part… | Thank you for your natural beauty! |

Sorry this was a bit of a long one. Writing these blogs isn’t always as easy and can be a bit intimidating at times. But it’s worth the effort, thank you for reading 😉

@ 8dc86882:9dc4ba5e

Today I am pondering the life of my blog, in this case my Npub.Pro blog. The existence of my post is limited by the time relays stay up and for how long. So a post could vanish at anytime.

Do I need a regular hosted blog? Where I know the longevity of my posts will be as long as I pay the bill?

Maybe I should just save a copy of everything, and if it disappears and I want it out there again I can just repost it?

Now I have a relay I am hosting and sharing. My posts go to it and will be on here until I stop it, so that is a good thing, since i plan on keeping it up as long as possible. Of course, I am not sure how to pull the data off of it.

The longevity question is a good one, I guess the only real way is to make second copies of everything and save and back them up. But I am bugged a little that links to stuff on my blog will someday possibly die, leading people nowhere. It's an interesting dilemma. I don't know if it outweighs the freedom of posting from Nostr? Maybe the freedom of Nostr makes the problem all worth while.

plebone

@ 3878d95d:f3b45a69

HIVETALK - Just a few notes about the Project:

• HiveTalk is primarily for helping people connect and screenshare on nostr and lightning in ways that was not available before.

• The Goal of this project is to get a working zoom/jitsi equivalent with no data collection of calls and with as much privacy as possible. No data on the server is logged. It was born out of frustration at using existing platforms such as Discord, Zoom, Jitsi which often fail to work effectively for Linux users. This project's long term goal is to be lean, minimal, and not to be captured by Big Tech. however, menu translations are still done by google translate and can be removed if you want. Dependencies are as barebones as possible with no frameworks.

• The websockets and REST API will be reworked and out soon so that integration with other apps will be a possibility. If you are interested, shoot the @hivetalk account a DM so that we can get you involved in an early beta test.

• I will not be pursing an open sats grant. My github contributions are about ~10hrs a week, spare time split across multiple projects. Currently I have no intention to be a full time developer (again). If I am not delivering fast enough to satisfy your needs, I am sorry :D, but you are welcome to make a Pull Request.

• Your zaps from the last 2 months will be applied 100% toward funding server costs for the next year. Any additional zaps will help extend the life of the server.

If you use this project, please consider donating to it at https://donate.hivetalk.org or by zapping this post

@ c4f5e7a7:8856cac7

Best viewed on Habla, YakiHonne or Highlighter.

TL;DR

This article explores the links between public, community-driven data sources (such as OpenStreetMap) and private, cryptographically-owned data found on networks such as Nostr.

The following concepts are explored:

1. Attestations: Users signalling to their social graph that they believe something to be true by publishing Attestations. These social proofs act as a decentralised verification system that leverages your web-of-trust.
2. Proof of Place: An oracle-based system where physical letters are sent to real-world locations, confirming the corresponding digital ownership via cryptographic proofs. This binds physical locations in meatspace with their digital representations in the Nostrverse.
3. Check-ins: Foursquare-style check-ins that can be verified using attestations from place owners, ensuring authenticity. This approach uses web-of-trust to validate check-ins and location ownership over time.

The goal is to leverage cryptographic ownership where necessary while preserving the open, collaborative nature of public data systems.

Open Data in a public commons has a place and should not be thrown out with the Web 2.0 bathwater.

Cognitive Dissonance

Ever since discovering Nostr in August of 2022 I've been grappling with how BTC Map - a project that helps bitcoiners find places to spend sats - should most appropriately use this new protocol.

I am assuming, dear reader, that you are somewhat familiar with Nostr - a relatively new protocol for decentralised identity and communication. If you don’t know your nsec from your npub, please take some time to read these excellent posts: Nostr is Identity for the Internet and The Power of Nostr by @max and @lyn, respectively. Nostr is so much more than a short-form social media replacement.

The social features (check-ins, reviews, etc.) that Nostr unlocks for BTC Map are clear and exciting - all your silos are indeed broken - however, something fundamental has been bothering me for a while and I think it comes down to data ownership.

For those unfamiliar, BTC Map uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) as its main geographic database. OSM is centred on the concept of a commons of objectively verifiable data that is maintained by a global community of volunteer editors; a Wikipedia for maps. There is no data ownership; the data is free (as in freedom) and anyone can edit anything. It is the data equivalent of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) - FOSD if you will, but more commonly referred to as Open Data.

In contrast, Notes and Other Stuff on Nostr (Places in this cartographic context) are explicitly owned by the controller of the private key. These notes are free to propagate, but they are owned.

How do we reconcile the decentralised nature of Nostr, where data is cryptographically owned by individuals, with the community-managed data commons of OpenStreetMap, where no one owns the data?

Self-sovereign Identity

Before I address this coexistence question, I want to talk a little about identity as it pertains to ownership. If something is to be owned, it has to be owned by someone or something - an identity.

All identities that are not self-sovereign are, by definition, leased to you by a 3rd party. You rent your Facebook identity from Meta in exchange for your data. You rent your web domain from your DNS provider in exchange for your money.

Taken to the extreme, you rent your passport from your Government in exchange for your compliance. You are you at the pleasure of others. Where Bitcoin separates money from the state; Nostr separates identity from the state.

Or, as @nvk said recently: "Don't build your house on someone else's land.".

https://i.nostr.build/xpcCSkDg3uVw0yku.png

While we’ve had the tools for self-sovereign digital identity for decades (think PGP keys or WebAuthN), we haven't had the necessary social use cases nor the corresponding social graph to elevate these identities to the mainstream. Nostr fixes this.

Nostr is PGP for the masses and will take cryptographic identities mainstream.

Full NOSTARD?

Returning to the coexistence question: the data on OpenStreetMap isn’t directly owned by anyone, even though the physical entities the data represents might be privately owned. OSM is a data commons.

We can objectively agree on the location of a tree or a fire hydrant without needing permission to observe and record it. Sure, you could place a tree ‘on Nostr’, but why should you? Just because something can be ‘on Nostr’ doesn’t mean it should be.

https://i.nostr.build/s3So2JVAqoY4E1dI.png

There might be a dystopian future where we can't agree on what a tree is nor where it's located, but I hope we never get there. It's at this point we'll need a Wikifreedia variant of OpenStreetMap.

While integrating Nostr identities into OpenStreetMap would be valuable, the current OSM infrastructure, tools, and community already provide substantial benefits in managing this data commons without needing to go NOSTR-native - there's no need to go Full NOSTARD. H/T to @princeySOV for the original meme.

https://i.nostr.build/ot9jtM5cZtDHNKWc.png

So, how do we appropriately blend cryptographically owned data with the commons?

If a location is owned in meatspace and it's useful to signal that ownership, it should also be owned in cyberspace. Our efforts should therefore focus on entities like businesses, while allowing the commons to manage public data for as long as it can successfully mitigate the tragedy of the commons.

The remainder of this article explores how we can:

1. Verify ownership of a physical place in the real world;
2. Link that ownership to the corresponding digital place in cyberspace.

As a side note, I don't see private key custodianship - or, even worse, permissioned use of Places signed by another identity's key - as any more viable than the rented identities of Web 2.0.

And as we all know, the Second Law of Infodynamics (no citation!) states that:

"The total amount of sensitive information leaked will always increase over time."

This especially holds true if that data is centralised.

Not your keys, not your notes. Not your keys, not your identity.

Places and Web-of-Trust

@Arkinox has been leading the charge on the Places NIP, introducing Nostr notes (kind 37515) that represent physical locations. The draft is well-crafted, with bonus points for linking back to OSM (and other location repositories) via NIP-73 - External Content IDs (championed by @oscar of @fountain).

However, as Nostr is permissionless, authenticity poses a challenge. Just because someone claims to own a physical location on the Internet doesn’t necessarily mean they have ownership or control of that location in the real world.

Ultimately, this problem can only be solved in a decentralised way by using Web-of-Trust - using your social graph and the perspectives of trusted peers to inform your own perspective. In the context of Places, this requires your network to form a view on which digital identity (public key / npub) is truly the owner of a physical place like your local coffee shop.

This requires users to:

1. Verify the owner of a Place in cyberspace is the owner of a place in meatspace.
2. Signal this verification to their social graph.

Let's look at the latter idea first with the concept of Attestations ...

Attestations

A way to signal to your social graph that you believe something to be true (or false for that matter) would be by publishing an Attestation note. An Attestation note would signify to your social graph that you think something is either true or false.

Imagine you're a regular at a local coffee shop. You publish an Attestation that says the shop is real and the owner behind the Nostr public key is who they claim to be. Your friends trust you, so they start trusting the shop's digital identity too.

However, attestations applied to Places are just a single use case. The attestation concept could be more widely applied across Nostr in a variety of ways (key rotation, identity linking, etc).

Here is a recent example from @lyn that would carry more signal if it were an Attestation:

https://i.nostr.build/lZAXOEwvRIghgFY4.png

Parallels can be drawn between Attestations and transaction confirmations on the Bitcoin timechain; however, their importance to you would be weighted by clients and/or Data Vending Machines in accordance with:

1. Your social graph;
2. The type or subject of the content being attested and by whom;
3. Your personal preferences.

They could also have a validity duration to be temporally bound, which would be particularly useful in the case of Places.

NIP-25 (Reactions) do allow for users to up/downvote notes with optional content (e.g., emojis) and could work for Attestations, but I think we need something less ambiguous and more definitive.

‘This is true’ resonates more strongly than ‘I like this.’.

https://i.nostr.build/s8NIG2kXzUCLcoax.jpg

There are similar concepts in the Web 3 / Web 5 world such as Verified Credentials by tdb. However, Nostr is the Web 3 now and so wen Attestation NIP?

https://i.nostr.build/Cb047NWyHdJ7h5Ka.jpg

That said, I have seen @utxo has been exploring ‘smart contracts’ on nostr and Attestations may just be a relatively ‘dumb’ subset of the wider concept Nostr-native scripting combined with web-of-trust.

Proof of Place

Attestations handle the signalling of your truth, but what about the initial verification itself?

We already covered how this ultimately has to be derived from your social graph, but what if there was a way to help bootstrap this web-of-trust through the use of oracles? For those unfamiliar with oracles in the digital realm, they are simply trusted purveyors of truth.

Introducing Proof of Place, an out–of-band process where an oracle (such as BTC Map) would mail - yes physically mail- a shared secret to the address of the location being claimed in cyberspace. This shared secret would be locked to the public key (npub) making the claim, which, if unlocked, would prove that the associated private key (nsec) has physical access to the location in meatspace.

One way of doing this would be to mint a 1 sat cashu ecash token locked to the npub of the claimant and mail it to them. If they are able to redeem the token then they have cryptographically proven that they have physical access to the location.

Proof of Place is really nothing more than a weighted Attestation. In a web-of-trust Nostrverse, an oracle is simply a npub (say BTC Map) that you weigh heavily for its opinion on a given topic (say Places).

In the Bitcoin world, Proof of Work anchors digital scarcity in cyberspace to physical scarcity (energy and time) in meatspace and as @Gigi says in PoW is Essential:

"A failure to understand Proof of Work, is a failure to understand Bitcoin."

In the Nostrverse, Proof of Place helps bridge the digital and physical worlds.

@Gigi also observes in Memes vs The World that:

"In Bitcoin, the map is the territory. We can infer everything we care about by looking at the map alone."

https://i.nostr.build/dOnpxfI4u7EL2v4e.png

This isn’t true for Nostr.

In the Nostrverse, the map IS NOT the territory. However, Proof of Place enables us to send cryptographic drones down into the physical territory to help us interpret our digital maps. 🤯

Check-ins

Although not a draft NIP yet, @Arkinox has also been exploring the familiar concept of Foursquare-style Check-ins on Nostr (with kind 13811 notes).

For the uninitiated, Check-ins are simply notes that signal the publisher is at a given location. These locations could be Places (in the Nostr sense) or any other given digital representation of a location for that matter (such as OSM elements) if NIP-73 - External Content IDs are used.

Of course, not everyone will be a Check-in enjoyooor as the concept will not sit well with some people’s threat models and OpSec practices.

Bringing Check-ins to Nostr is possible (as @sebastix capably shows here), but they suffer the same authenticity issues as Places. Just because I say I'm at a given location doesn't mean that I am.

Back in the Web 2.0 days, Foursquare mitigated this by relying on the GPS position of the phone running their app, but this is of course spoofable.

How should we approach Check-in verifiability in the Nostrverse? Well, just like with Places, we can use Attestations and WoT. In the context of Check-ins, an Attestation from the identity (npub) of the Place being checked-in to would be a particularly strong signal. An NFC device could be placed in a coffee shop and attest to check-ins without requiring the owner to manually intervene - I’m sure @blackcoffee and @Ben Arc could hack something together over a weekend!

Check-ins could also be used as a signal for bonafide Place ownership over time.

Summary: Trust Your Bros

So, to recap, we have:

Places: Digital representations of physical locations on Nostr.

Check-ins: Users signalling their presence at a location.

Attestations: Verifiable social proofs used to confirm ownership or the truth of a claim.

You can visualise how these three concepts combine in the diagram below:

https://i.nostr.build/Uv2Jhx5BBfA51y0K.jpg

And, as always, top right trumps bottom left! We have:

Level 0 - Trust Me Bro: Anyone can check-in anywhere. The Place might not exist or might be impersonating the real place in meatspace. The person behind the npub may not have even been there at all.

Level 1 - Definitely Maybe Somewhere: This category covers the middle-ground of ‘Maybe at a Place’ and ‘Definitely Somewhere’. In these examples, you are either self-certifying that you have checked-in at an Attested Place or you are having others attest that you have checked-in at a Place that might not even exist IRL.

Level 2 - Trust Your Bros: An Attested Check-in at an Attested Place. Your individual level of trust would be a function of the number of Attestations and how you weigh them within your own social graph.

https://i.nostr.build/HtLAiJH1uQSTmdxf.jpg

Perhaps the gold standard (or should that be the Bitcoin standard?) would be a Check-in attested by the owner of the Place, which in itself was attested by BTC Map?

Or perhaps not. Ultimately, it’s the users responsibility to determine what they trust by forming their own perspective within the Nostrverse powered by web-of-trust algorithms they control. ‘Trust Me Bro’ or ‘Trust Your Bros’ - you decide.

As we navigate the frontier of cryptographic ownership and decentralised data, it’s up to us to find the balance between preserving the Open Data commons and embracing self-sovereign digital identities.

Thanks

With thanks to Arkinox, Avi, Ben Gunn, Kieran, Blackcoffee, Sebastix, Tomek, Calle, Short Fiat, Ben Weeks and Bitcoms for helping shape my thoughts and refine content, whether you know it or not!

@ 4ce6abbd:94a514dd

We are Streaming the Dance Battle Festival Auditons

October 3rd 2024

6pm EST

Stream on TUNESTR

Zap: dancebattlefestival@geyser.fund

Mark your calendars, because October 3rd, 2024, is set to be a date to remember! 🎉 This is when Bitcoin, Nostr, and the art of dance collide in an electrifying celebration at the Dance Battle Festival Auditions.

The Dance Battle Festival Auditions: A Glimpse of Magic

Back in August, the vibrant city of Arusha, Tanzania, came alive as we held the Dance Battle Festival auditions. We captured all the energy and excitement on film, and we can’t wait to share it with you! Our vision? To showcase these incredible dancers on Tunestr, creating a whole new dynamic for the event.

Why This Matters? By sharing their performances on Tunestr, these talented dancers can expand their networks and even receive Bitcoin for their artistry. Value for Value | v4v

** Support from POWA: Empowering Artists** We’re thrilled to announce that POWA will be providing ongoing support to the dancers, helping them navigate the world of Bitcoin and Nostr. This isn’t just about technology; it’s about empowering artists and enriching their creative journey.

Join Us! So, we invite you to tune in and witness some phenomenal performances that showcase the spirit of the dance community in Arusha. Your support can help these dancers thrive through the innovative power of Bitcoin and Nostr.

Man Like Who?

Man Like Kweks!

Bitcoin #Nostr #DanceBattleFestival #DBFS2

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Why relay hints are important

Recently Coracle has removed support for following relay hints in Nostr event references.

Supposedly Coracle is now relying only on public key hints and kind:10002 events to determine where to fetch events from a user. That is a catastrophic idea that destroys much of Nostr's flexibility for no gain at all.

• Someone makes a post inside a community (either a NIP-29 community or a NIP-87 community) and others want to refer to that post in discussions in the external Nostr world of kind:1s -- now that cannot work because the person who created the post doesn't have the relays specific to those communities in their outbox list;
• There is a discussion happening in a niche relay, for example, a relay that can only be accessed by the participants of a conference for the duration of that conference -- since that relay is not in anyone's public outbox list, it's impossible for anyone outside of the conference to ever refer to these events;
• Some big public relays, say, relay.damus.io, decide to nuke their databases or periodically delete old events, a user keeps using that big relay as their outbox because it is fast and reliable, but chooses to archive their old events in a dedicated archival relay, say, cellar.nostr.wine, while prudently not including that in their outbox list because that would make no sense -- now it is impossible for anyone to refer to old notes from this user even though they are publicly accessible in cellar.nostr.wine;
• There are topical relays that curate content relating to niche (non-microblogging) topics, say, cooking recipes, and users choose to publish their recipes to these relays only -- but now they can't refer to these relays in the external Nostr world of kind:1s because these topical relays are not in their outbox lists.
• Suppose a user wants to maintain two different identities under the same keypair, say, one identity only talks about soccer in English, while the other only talks about art history in French, and the user very prudently keeps two different kind:10002 events in two different sets of "indexer" relays (or does it in some better way of announcing different relay sets) -- now one of this user's audiences cannot ever see notes created by him with their other persona, one half of the content of this user will be inacessible to the other half and vice-versa.
• If for any reason a relay does not want to accept events of a certain kind a user may publish to other relays, and it would all work fine if the user referenced that externally-published event from a normal event, but now that externally-published event is not reachable because the external relay is not in the user's outbox list.
• If someone, say, Alex Jones, is hard-banned everywhere and cannot event broadcast kind:10002 events to any of the commonly used index relays, that person will now appear as banned in most clients: in an ideal world in which clients followed nprofile and other relay hints Alex Jones could still live a normal Nostr life: he would print business cards with his nprofile instead of an npub and clients would immediately know from what relay to fetch his posts. When other users shared his posts or replied to it, they would include a relay hint to his personal relay and others would be able to see and then start following him on that relay directly -- now Alex Jones's events cannot be read by anyone that doesn't already know his relay.

@ eac63075:b4988b48

O mundo das criptomoedas sempre foi um espaço de inovação e experimentação, onde ideias revolucionárias surgem para transformar mercados. Recentemente, um conceito novo tem chamado a atenção de especuladores e investidores mais ousados: o re-staking. Ao contrário do staking tradicional, onde os tokens ficam bloqueados em uma única plataforma, o re-staking vai além e permite que os mesmos tokens sejam usados em múltiplas plataformas ao mesmo tempo, aumentando a percepção de escassez e, potencialmente, os riscos.

Mas o que isso significa para o mercado e, principalmente, para os investidores? Para entender o re-staking, precisamos primeiro compreender os princípios do staking e como ele tem sido utilizado para criar uma sensação de escassez no mercado.

A Escassez Forçada no Staking Tradicional

No staking tradicional, os investidores alocam seus tokens em um contrato inteligente, geralmente para ajudar a validar transações em uma rede blockchain, como o Ethereum. Esses tokens ficam "travados" por um período de tempo, durante o qual não podem ser negociados ou movimentados. Em troca, os investidores recebem recompensas, como juros, por ajudar a manter a segurança e a operação da rede.

O interessante é que, quando muitos tokens estão travados em staking, isso cria uma escassez artificial no mercado. Embora o número total de tokens de uma determinada criptomoeda permaneça o mesmo, os tokens em circulação — ou seja, aqueles disponíveis para compra e venda — tornam-se mais limitados. Essa "escassez forçada" pode, em teoria, aumentar o preço dos tokens circulantes, já que a demanda pode permanecer alta, mas a oferta disponível é menor.

O Problema da Ilusão de Escassez

Mas será que essa escassez é real? Em termos práticos, os tokens estão apenas temporariamente fora de circulação. Quando o período de staking termina, eles voltam ao mercado. O conceito de escassez forçada, portanto, levanta preocupações sobre a sustentabilidade desse mecanismo. Alguns críticos argumentam que isso cria uma falsa impressão de valor, já que os tokens não desapareceram — eles apenas estão "em espera".

Isso nos leva a uma das principais questões sobre o staking: ele pode realmente sustentar uma economia baseada em escassez artificial? E, mais importante, ele pode garantir a segurança e a descentralização que as blockchains precisam para funcionar de forma eficaz? Muitos acreditam que não, o que nos leva ao surgimento do re-staking como uma solução alternativa — ou seria uma armadilha?

Re-staking: A Nova Fronteira da Alavancagem em Cripto

O re-staking surge como uma tentativa de maximizar o potencial dos tokens bloqueados. Nesse modelo, os mesmos tokens que já estão alocados em uma plataforma podem ser "re-stakeados" em outras plataformas, permitindo que os investidores ganhem recompensas adicionais sem precisar comprar mais tokens. Parece uma solução perfeita, certo? Afinal, quem não gostaria de ganhar mais sem precisar gastar mais?

Porém, como muitos especialistas têm alertado, o re-staking cria uma dinâmica de alavancagem dentro do próprio mercado de staking. Ao permitir que os mesmos tokens sejam usados em múltiplas plataformas ao mesmo tempo, você cria a ilusão de que mais valor está sendo gerado, quando, na verdade, o risco subjacente está aumentando exponencialmente.

Pense nisso como um sistema de empréstimos sobre empréstimos. Se tudo correr bem, os ganhos são maiores. Mas se algo der errado, o efeito dominó pode ser catastrófico. O re-staking, de certa forma, transforma o mercado de criptomoedas em uma montanha russa de riscos, onde os investidores estão sempre um passo à frente de uma possível queda.

Os Riscos de Segurança no Re-staking

Um dos maiores riscos associados ao re-staking está relacionado à segurança. Quando você distribui seus tokens por várias plataformas, aumenta a exposição a possíveis falhas de segurança. Cada plataforma possui seus próprios contratos inteligentes, que, por mais bem auditados que sejam, estão sempre suscetíveis a falhas ou ataques.

Imagine que você está cuidando de uma planta. Se você dividir essa planta em várias partes e plantar cada uma em um solo diferente, você precisaria garantir que cada solo fosse adequado e que as condições fossem perfeitas em todos os lugares ao mesmo tempo. No mundo das criptomoedas, cada plataforma de staking é como um vaso diferente, e se um deles tiver uma rachadura — ou, no caso de uma falha em um contrato inteligente —, você pode perder parte ou até mesmo todos os seus tokens.

O risco de slashing (perda de tokens como penalidade por má conduta do validador) também é ampliado no re-staking. Se um validador com quem você está associado cometer um erro ou for desonesto em qualquer uma das plataformas onde você está re-stakeando seus tokens, você pode ser penalizado, perdendo parte do que alocou. Aumentar a quantidade de plataformas significa aumentar o risco de ser impactado por um erro de um terceiro.

Alavancagem: Uma Receita para o Colapso?

Outro fator importante a ser considerado é o impacto da alavancagem no mercado de criptomoedas. No re-staking, a alavancagem ocorre porque você está, essencialmente, duplicando o uso dos mesmos tokens, gerando mais valor do que realmente existe. Essa prática é semelhante à alavancagem no mercado financeiro tradicional, onde investidores tomam empréstimos para aumentar suas apostas.

O problema da alavancagem é que ela pode ser uma faca de dois gumes. Em um mercado em alta, ela pode amplificar os ganhos. Mas, em um mercado em queda, os prejuízos são igualmente amplificados. Se o preço das criptomoedas cair, os investidores que utilizaram re-staking podem ser forçados a liquidar suas posições para cobrir perdas, desencadeando um efeito dominó que pode colapsar todo o sistema.

Esse risco sistêmico é uma das maiores preocupações com o re-staking. Como vimos em crises financeiras anteriores, como a de 2008, o uso excessivo de alavancagem pode levar a um colapso total do mercado, e no mundo das criptomoedas, onde a volatilidade é alta e os preços podem mudar rapidamente, isso é ainda mais perigoso.

Conclusão: Re-staking — O Futuro ou uma Armadilha?

O re-staking representa um passo interessante na evolução do staking e das finanças descentralizadas. Ele oferece a promessa de maiores retornos, mas com essa promessa vêm riscos substanciais que precisam ser considerados cuidadosamente.

Para investidores que estão dispostos a assumir riscos maiores em busca de recompensas mais altas, o re-staking pode parecer uma oportunidade irresistível. No entanto, para aqueles que preferem uma abordagem mais cautelosa, o re-staking pode ser uma armadilha, criando uma falsa sensação de segurança e de crescimento, enquanto expõe o investidor a riscos potencialmente devastadores.

Assim como em qualquer investimento, a chave para o sucesso no re-staking está em compreender os riscos envolvidos e em adotar uma abordagem equilibrada. Afinal, no mundo das criptomoedas, onde o inesperado é a única certeza, um passo em falso pode ser o suficiente para transformar um grande salto em uma queda dolorosa.

---

Assista esse assunto no Morning Crypto

(artigo editado para ver se propaga)

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Bitcoin transactions explained

A transaction is a piece of data that takes inputs and produces outputs. Forget about the blockchain thing, Bitcoin is actually just a big tree of transactions. The blockchain is just a way to keep transactions ordered.

Imagine you have 10 satoshis. That means you have them in an unspent transaction output (UTXO). You want to spend them, so you create a transaction. The transaction should reference unspent outputs as its inputs. Every transaction has an immutable id, so you use that id plus the index of the output (because transactions can have multiple outputs). Then you specify a script that unlocks that transaction and related signatures, then you specify outputs along with a script that locks these outputs.

As you can see, there's this lock/unlocking thing and there are inputs and outputs. Inputs must be unlocked by fulfilling the conditions specified by the person who created the transaction they're in. And outputs must be locked so anyone wanting to spend those outputs will need to unlock them.

For most of the cases locking and unlocking means specifying a public key whose controller (the person who has the corresponding private key) will be able to spend. Other fancy things are possible too, but we can ignore them for now.

Back to the 10 satoshis you want to spend. Since you've successfully referenced 10 satoshis and unlocked them, now you can specify the outputs (this is all done in a single step). You can specify one output of 10 satoshis, two of 5, one of 3 and one of 7, three of 3 and so on. The sum of outputs can't be more than 10. And if the sum of outputs is less than 10 the difference goes to fees. In the first days of Bitcoin you didn't need any fees, but now you do, otherwise your transaction won't be included in any block.

If you're still interested in transactions maybe you could take a look at this small chapter of that Andreas Antonopoulos book.

If you hate Andreas Antonopoulos because he is a communist shitcoiner or don't want to read more than half a page, go here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Coin_analogy

@ 592295cf:413a0db9

Week 23th September

It's not your voice anymore if it's available to everyone.

Video Ai Voice

Nostr is psycho pop.

Nostrasia took place today. It all seemed beautiful. A muffled meeting, a bit in the clouds compared to the air you breathe in social media.

It seems there are two types of Nostr the one who doesn't want to grow and the one who wants to grow. 😅

1. There has always been a misconception that kind1 is the discovery layer, but in reality it is the opposite. If someone publishes a long form article there is less audience, it is true, but then it is easier to find quality content, therefore quality profiles to follow in the kind1 client aka twitter clone. And this can be true for all portable data layers, video streaming, audio, long form, ngit, wiki and whatsoever. So you have finally good follow.

2. The fact that in Nostr you don't see who follows you generally, only in a few clients, I only know one where you see who started following you. It's a strange thing, made to avoid seeing masses of bots that follow you and you can want to block, and you increase that list to the point of absurdity. It's strange because there is a lot of focus on the social graph, if you follow me it's an important aspect.

So in Nostr there are - portable data layers (Twitter style and other social) - non-portable, applications that use disposable npub, where the key is ephemeral.

1. 0xchat was becoming a good client, they killed it because it has to focus on chat. I don't use chat, I don't have anyone to chat with, I follow the 0xchat channel and then I read things from Moment. I use it with my second account, because after the nos2x-amber affair with the Odell result, which I had already told you about, I no longer tried to have the first profile even on the mobile. In the end they are all keys that will be burned 😔

Maybe I won't use Nostr anymore in the future just with burn npub, pow and whatsoever. In the end you don't build anything because it's a "stateless" communication.

---

Lol Moment

On Nostr the poor answer guy is helping the network 🤣🤣

call the police 911: what is your emergency?

a spam bot is attacking "nostr" relays.

you want some government censorship on those relays that contain spam, yes we can do that.

---

-Previous week- 16 09 Machines Like Me was a good book, maybe now it will become reality.

1. The cool thing about Plebchain radio, it's not the guests, it's these two Nostr users that do a podcast. And they focused on Bitcoin and Nostr and lightning, but maybe it's just the beginning, first you have to focus on a niche and then you expand to the whole world. I think the whole world phase is starting, the podcast topics would become too repetitive. The best part is the 15 10 minute intro. Or in the live show part, there could be some interesting clips.

2. • idea White button for activity pub user on voyage (app).

   • People hate Nostr. Don't use it

   • UnNip, now we've seen it all

   • Until the morale improves

3. People think Sync works like this by magic. Unfortunately it doesn't, I think, at least that's what those who are trying to do say, auto-merge, tinybase, evolu. There is an interesting local-first project. Jaguard a collaborative environment for writing empirical research papers.

4. Now I can search by id. I couldn't do it and I didn't understand the mechanism. Everything has to be instantiated. it works. Now I have to create a function maybe note_list_id and note_id. I continued to edit the NIPs page with asciidoc, categorizing this table is very fun.

New wave of Opensats grants.

1. If you haven't heard about WoT this week, you probably live on Mars. There are people who didn't know you could edit on amethyst.

You need to do a podcast of NIPs, features and whatsoever, maybe doing a podcast is not the best solution because it assumes you know something more and something that could change the next day or be no longer valid. maybe you should avoid doing things you don't have full control over, or at least not spread it outside. Maybe because last year at this time I was recording audio.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Nostr is not decentralized nor censorship-resistant

Peter Todd has been saying this for a long time and all the time I've been thinking he is misunderstanding everything, but I guess a more charitable interpretation is that he is right.

Nostr today is indeed centralized.

Yesterday I published two harmless notes with the exact same content at the same time. In two minutes the notes had a noticeable difference in responses:

The top one was published to wss://nostr.wine, wss://nos.lol, wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com. The second was published to the relay where I generally publish all my notes to, wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com, and that is announced on my NIP-05 file and on my NIP-65 relay list.

A few minutes later I published that screenshot again in two identical notes to the same sets of relays, asking if people understood the implications. The difference in quantity of responses can still be seen today:

These results are skewed now by the fact that the two notes got rebroadcasted to multiple relays after some time, but the fundamental point remains.

What happened was that a huge lot more of people saw the first note compared to the second, and if Nostr was really censorship-resistant that shouldn't have happened at all.

Some people implied in the comments, with an air of obviousness, that publishing the note to "more relays" should have predictably resulted in more replies, which, again, shouldn't be the case if Nostr is really censorship-resistant.

What happens is that most people who engaged with the note are following me, in the sense that they have instructed their clients to fetch my notes on their behalf and present them in the UI, and clients are failing to do that despite me making it clear in multiple ways that my notes are to be found on wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com.

If we were talking not about me, but about some public figure that was being censored by the State and got banned (or shadowbanned) by the 3 biggest public relays, the sad reality would be that the person would immediately get his reach reduced to ~10% of what they had before. This is not at all unlike what happened to dozens of personalities that were banned from the corporate social media platforms and then moved to other platforms -- how many of their original followers switched to these other platforms? Probably some small percentage close to 10%. In that sense Nostr today is similar to what we had before.

Peter Todd is right that if the way Nostr works is that you just subscribe to a small set of relays and expect to get everything from them then it tends to get very centralized very fast, and this is the reality today.

Peter Todd is wrong that Nostr is inherently centralized or that it needs a protocol change to become what it has always purported to be. He is in fact wrong today, because what is written above is not valid for all clients of today, and if we drive in the right direction we can successfully make Peter Todd be more and more wrong as time passes, instead of the contrary.

---

See also:

• Censorship-resistant relay discovery in Nostr
• A vision for content discovery and relay usage for basic social-networking in Nostr

@ bf95e1a4:ebdcc848

This is the AI-generated transcript from Bitcoin Infinity Show #126 with Derek Ross, lightly cleaned up for clarity and readability. It might not be perfect, but it's pretty good!

Check out http://bitcoininfinity.com/ for all our books, merch, and more!

Welcoming Derek

Luke: Derek, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show. Thanks so much for joining us.

Derek: Thanks for having me.

Knut: Yeah. Hi. Glad to have you here, Derek. so let's start off with, the TLDR. who are you and why

Derek: Well, it's, my dad liked Bo Derek, so he chose the name Derek. I don't know if we want to go that far back.

Introducing Derek Ross

Derek: I fell in love with Nostr, back in December of, 2022 when Jack Dorsey, discovered Nostr when he was looking for projects to fund and a bunch of Bitcoin developers and Bitcoiners said, Hey, you should fund Nostr and check out Nostr.

So a lot of Bitcoiners checked out Nostr at the same time too, and I found out that I could build Basic services on Nostr, because it was pretty simple to do so and add a few bells and whistles for people. I just really embraced the technology, really embraced what Nostr could mean for the world and started talking about Nostr And now, that's my passion.

I love going around to conferences, Bitcoin conferences, building and growing Nostr, and that's kind of, I guess, brought me to you guys today.

Luke: Yeah, I mean, we're here at Nostriga, basically the beginning of Nostriga. Still the morning has happened. Yes. But, this place is awesome. We had the Noob day yesterday, and you gave. Nostr 101 at the Noob Day, and so I don't think we need Nostr 101 for this audience necessarily, but can you at least do like a broad strokes of the important points of Nostr just so we have a little bit of a baseline?

Knut: And

The Basics of Nostr

Derek: Well, Nostr is decentralized and censorship resistant, and if that sounds familiar, it's because it shares a lot of the same ethos that Bitcoin shares. So I recognized immediately, you know, how important Bitcoin is for the world. Like I've been a Bitcoiner for a few years now, and I recognize that Nostr shares a lot of the same ethos, where it is censorship resistant, decentralized.

You can control your social information similarly to Bitcoin, where you can control which financial rules you decide to run on your own node. So it gives you A lot of ownership over your financial transactions for Bitcoin. Nostr gives you a lot of ownership over your social transactions, so I really liked the correlation to the two that really resonated with me.

it was really easy to understand if Bitcoin is the freedom to transact, then Nostr is the freedom to communicate, and I really liked that relationship. I really recognized that social media is broken and Nostr fixes a lot of that by giving the power and the choice back to users. I really think that that paired with a portable digital social identity that you own and you control for the very first time that you can take with you.

To whatever application, whatever social application you want to use, it's just really unique because you can't log into Twitter, take your social graph and then log into TikTok with it. You know, you just can't do that now. Nostr, you could technically do that. You could have a video streaming app and you log into an audio streaming app or a podcast app or your general social app, and you have the same followers, the same social graph, your contact list, everything is all there.

And that, that's really, really neat. And I think that that's a unique thing that we've never had before.

you explain the social graph in a little bit of detail? Yeah. So your, your social graph is basically who you are social with. It's your, you know, your circle of friends, your followers, the people you interact with on a daily basis in traditional social media that varies from different app to app. You had, you would have to ask everybody. Hey, what's your Instagram account?

I want to follow you there. What's your Twitter account? I want to follow you there. So your social graph is all of your, the people you interact with, the people you follow, the people that follow you. you're able to bring that with you with Nostr, no matter what app you sign into, all of that comes with you.

that's all portable. your social circle, your social experience.

Luke: Yeah. so the key feature of Nostr in that respect is this portability, but this is all still tied down by the, public private key cryptography similar to Bitcoin. In fact, it's the same, cryptography setup as Bitcoin.

Derek: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So just like Bitcoin, you know, you, you want to keep your private key safe. Nostr is the same way. Your private key unlocks access to your social identity, just like your Bitcoin private key unlocks access to your Bitcoin. So you want to keep them safe. You want to make sure that you're, you're practicing safe nsex and you're, you're storing your, Yeah, like, I like that dad joke.

It's a good one.

But you make sure that key is secure and you're not putting that key into random applications because like I said, it unlocks your identity.

Luke: Yeah. I mean, I think on a practical level, that actually is kind of a scary thing in this early days of Nostr, because first of all, people who are into the Nostr environment early are going to get this extremely strong web of trust with other early Nostr users.

Derek: Oh man, this is a fighting point. Like the Nostr is decentralized. So there's no correct way to say it. I've heard Nostr, Nostr, Nostra, like whatever you want. It's just like the logo. There's no official logo. You know, you can make a logo and you can use it. You can make your own saying and use it.

Luke: Nostr actually seems like the

Derek: say,

Knut: we'll go with no

Derek: I, you know, the next time you're gonna have somebody else in your show, they're gonna say Nostr. It's just how it is.

Luke: Totally.

Trust, Reputation, and Identity

Luke: I mean, the decentralization aspect of it, that's good. But the, so, okay, I think that the point I was getting at is that, yeah, these NSECs are really actually valuable in the sense of that, nothing is going to, from this point onward, if someone loses their NSEC, you're not really going to get back the same kind of network in the same way.

Derek: yeah, that's a valid point. If I spent, let's say, a year building my reputation, building my web of trust, my social graph. And then I leak my NSEC accidentally, I have to start all over again, and that's going to be hard because I essentially lost the last year's worth of work. I lost all that proof of work.

Now, people that know you and interact with you, people you've met in person, they'll immediately, transfer that trust to the new identity, but everybody else that doesn't physically know you, that's going to take time to rebuild that.

Luke: Yeah, and, okay, this is, a point here. Why is it important to have this trust and reputation? Why does Nostr need that to work?

Derek: Well, I think that, in Bitcoin, we say, don't trust verify. But, I think that a certain level of trust for certain social interactions has to happen. You know, if we're constantly afraid of interacting with other humans or, you know, stepping outside our comfort zone and being social with humans because we need verification, it just, paints a negative picture.

It, I think that a certain level of Trust will allow us to be more human, more social because we do have to trust for certain aspects of life. And if we don't want a third party to have to KYC us and we have to play by all sorts of other rules, I think that our reputation becomes our identity.

And that allows us to have all these new types of experiences, new types of interactions. Like if I wanted to sell something on Nostr. I have a lot of people that follow me and they say, Hey, I tried to sell something on Nostr and I wasn't able to do it. I said, Oh, I've sold stuff on Nostr.

They're like, yeah, but you're Derek. And you have a lot of people that follow you. And then I've had people. Come to me and say, hey, can you reshare this item that I'm selling to gain exposure because I have a lot of people that follow me and I say, well, I don't know if I want to do that.

I told a guy recently, I didn't know if I wanted to do that because I didn't know them. He wasn't in my web of trust and I didn't want to promote essentially his item that he was selling. Because I didn't know who he was. Now, if he was in my web of trust, maybe Luke, if you were selling something and you wanted me to, I know you, I I've interacted with you.

Sure. You're in my web of trust. I will help you out. I will reshare the item you're selling. And I think that that type of trust in. You know, human interactions is okay.

Breaking Nostr

Knut: one question I have about this whole thing and that, I still haven't wrapped my head around is like. It's super simple to fire up a cryptographic key pair. So, what's preventing basically DDoS attacks and someone firing up a ton of these and like,

Derek: there's essentially really nothing preventing it. We had a Bitcoin Core developer. Ron Stoner, I believe, recently. He decided to show this exact example. And he mined like four million end pubs and he sent a million of them to follow Will from Damus and just to show that, this is essentially an exploit. maybe, we need clients to start to look at low, I'll call them low value key, accounts that don't really follow anybody that have no credit. interactions, that look like they're spam because ultimately anybody can create an infinite number of new keys. Like that's just, that's kind of how it works.

Knut: Yeah, I know Twitter's way of mitigating that is probably the blue check nowadays, like where they, I love that they kick the celebrities off of their high horses and like now everyone can get a blue check. It's just a small payment per month. I don't know if it's 8 or something, but as I understand it, that's the way to fight the bots because like you need to get above a threshold.

Derek: And that kind of exists, in a way on Nostr. So Nostr has, it's not the same type of verification that you would have on Twitter because nothing is truly being verified except for A website exists that says this person has some way of updating a file on this webpage, it's a NIP05 Nostr address.

Luke: Nostr Improvement Protocol,

Derek: Improvement Protocol, or no, Nostr Implementation Possibility.

Yes. because you don't have to implement it if you don't want to. If you don't want to implement it, you don't have to.

And possibility was a miss, it was proposal I was thinking of, but yeah, possibility. Proposal. Yeah. that rings a bell. . Yeah, so, with these Nostr addresses, like, you can kind of have Some type of verification that somebody exists, but then bots could sit there and just spin up new accounts and constantly just verify themselves over and over and over again. So that's not a really good spam, mitigation technique.

I think the best that we have right now is rate limiting and relays. being paid. It's kind of a paywall. So there's free relays that are public that anybody can write to. But then there is also the paid relays where maybe it's a monthly fee. Maybe it's a one time fee, yearly fee, but it's some type of paywall.

Nostr's Relay Architecture

Luke: Can you lightly refresh the relay client,

Derek: Sure, sure. So Clients are just like your web browser, or just like your email browser, your email client, your email application. They connect to relays that store all of your Nostr data. Relays are just like, servers, they're nodes, and they store all of your events, all your nodes, all your Nostr content.

A client then connects to, All these different relays that a user would be utilizing and downloads or pulls the content from the relays. And then the user sends the content to the relays for other people to pull, to pull down. The relays are the real, real, like dumb part of Nostr. They don't really do anything overly exciting besides store and house information where clients are the power houses.

Clients are the ones that are unique and doing all the, Unique, features and displaying the content differently.

Knut: so is there a risk that it goes the same route as SMTP and email and we end up with your Hotmail and your Gmails are

Derek: centralized servers. Like there's like, what I can remember running email servers, you know, two decades ago and it was like no big deal. And now it's a lot harder. you basically get blacklisted by all the big, all the big companies, for, for being an unknown new host, essentially.

Could we see that? Maybe, but there's a new methodology that clients are starting to adopt that drastically improves decentralization. Right now, we would have to, on the majority of clients right now, for us to communicate and know each other exists on Nostr, we would have to share at least one relay in common.

So that way our content is both sent to and pulled from at least one server that we have in common. So we know each other exists and we can communicate that way. Which means you could then have centralization issues where everybody could be using the same Ten whatever relays in common, and you really don't want that in a true decentralized model.

So there's a new methodology that developers are slowly starting to implement in their clients. It's referred to as the outbox model, and the way that this works is that the client will look at all of the people, or all the end pubs, the profiles that A user is following and go out to that user's relays where they're publishing their content and pull the content down from that user's relays instead of the initial user's relays.

So it drastically improves decentralization because the two users don't have to share a relay in common. The client does all the work pulling the content down from whichever the relays are. So I could, in theory, publish all of my content to just like the Derek relay. And if your client supports this new type of outbox model and you don't use the Derek relay, you could still see my content because your client knows to go to the Derek relay to get Derek's content.

Knut: but nothing is forcing people to implement this model. Right.

Derek: No, no, no, exactly. So that, that's why right now we don't have every single client across Nostr using it, but if clients are built with the, NDK, the Nostr development toolkit, Outbox is supported by default now. Snort, Iris, Amethyst, Coracle, I believe. There's a handful of clients that support it now.

And Dalmas doesn't have it yet. Primal doesn't have it yet, but their developers are both committed to adding it in the future. Once all the major clients are doing it, it's like a social consensus at that point.

And just a quick follow on, on this. I think the distinction, the reason this works in my understanding, right. Is that most of these relays would be anyone can read, but you have to have access to write to it. is that correct? Yeah. Well, yeah. For example, like for my relay, anybody can read from my relay, but only, I only allow my wife and I to write to my relay, but since everybody in the world can read from it with the outbox model, you don't have to specifically tell your client.

Your client will know where my content is and go to my relay to get it for

Luke: right? So a model that actually would in fact work in this scenario is someone signs up for maybe one or two big paid relays, something like that. And that relay just lets anyone read from it. Then this outbox model would just let people pull down from those paid relays.

I think we'll see in the future a lot more smaller community based relays just because that methodology will just work like right now. If you have all sorts of smaller community relays, you have to know where the people you follow publish their content.

Derek: And then if they would start publishing it on a new relay and no longer use that relay, you could lose contact with that person. So this new method will fix that.

Nostr User Experience and Adoption

Knut: It's, I mean, all of this sounds complicated, and I think like, do, does Nostr get the masses, like, and can it be fixed with, improved user interfaces and stuff? Like how? there's always a trade off between usability and security, right? So like, how do you see that

Derek: I like to say that technology works best once it fades into the background. You should not know The protocol that you're using. You shouldn't know how all of the sausage is made. You should just know, man, I like sausage. It's delicious. Like, that's all you need to know. Right? and Nostr needs to, to get to that level.

Are we there yet? Definitely not. relays are important, but maybe in the future, whenever a new user signs in, they don't actually really need to choose the relays that often. Maybe it's just going to randomize. You know, there's a thousand relays out there just randomly picks, six relays or something, a half a dozen relays at random.

So it's drastically increasing decentralization. And it does all this in the background. And then under an advanced setting, you can add your own personal one or something like that. most people won't ever go into advanced settings. they'll just use their app because everything else just fades into the background.

They'll just use it. They won't need to know to go in to add media servers or they won't know to go in and configure relays. The clients will just do all of this for them because the technology stack has improved to the point where this can be done.

Knut: yeah, I'm going to continue on the devil's advocate, like

Derek: Fire away. We need

Knut: attack vectors here.

Ethical Concerns and Open Protocols

Knut: so since it's so open and anyone can develop Nostr stuff, like right now you have the ethos and like all the developers, like, I love that all of these young 180 IQ developers are now, they're not making shitcoins anymore and They're all on Nostr, and like, I love that fact, because that's, that's the right usage of that brainpower.

But going forward, and if this really takes off, or when this really takes off, don't you see, don't you think you'll see, people with not as ethical intentions get into the space and try to like, take over?

Derek: Yeah, I mean, sure. I think that, you know, Nostr is an open protocol. So anything will be tried because it can be tried because it's open. But then we need to look at the free market and we need to look at staying open. If Nostr is truly permissionless, then yes, shitcoiners should be able to come build on Nostr.

I don't want to use their clients. I won't recommend anybody. they should be able to come and try to build something because Nostr is open and maybe they'll only have their shitcoin corner of Nostr and they'll have their own community over here. The rest of us won't be using that.

And that's probably okay. Well,

Knut: It's all about optionality, right?

Derek: that I think is the issue that Nostr really solves is because it's giving people choice. And in legacy social media, you don't really have a lot of choice. You need to use what is spoon fed to you. So if somebody wants to come build, you know, Ethereum tipping or Solana tipping or something on Nostr, I mean, that's,

Cool. Like I'm not going to use it. I'm not going to tell my wife that she now needs to Ethereum zap me, but the fact that somebody could do it would prove that Nostr really is permissionless and open.

Knut: Yeah, this leads me directly to a deeper philosophical question.

Hypernostrification vs. Hyperbitcoinization

Derek: Yeah. Because, in your mind, what happens first? Hypernostrification or hyperbitcoinization? And the reason I ask this now is like, because if we get hyperbitcoinization first, then it might be harder for, for shitcoins Oh yeah.

Knut: But in your mind, what happens first of the two?

Knut: I don't know. Again, we're going to go to a Derekism, another saying I like to say. I like to say that the purple pill helps the orange pill go down. So it's lube.

Derek: I think that we see more Nostr adoption first, and that helps with Bitcoin adoption through just ease of use and fun and frictionless manners.

I really think that, we know the money's broken, but social's also broken too. I don't think, The world is entirely going to move to Bitcoin. we're going to see hyperbitcoinization in the next couple of years, but maybe we'll see hyper Nostrification in the next couple of years as applications slowly start to rebuild and try out Nostr and see how that works for them.

And then from there, they get on boarded to Bitcoin through that.

Knut: So the reason that the web is broken, and the reason social media is broken, is that because of bad money. Like, what's the correlation there? Like, have you thought about that?

Derek: Maybe I like to think back to, you know, two decades ago, if you wanted to run a server out of your house to run your own media server, your own, you know, photos, your own documents, you know, movies, music, whatever you wanted to do, any type of social. you really couldn't do it. Like we didn't really have the infrastructure or the technology to really do it.

It was very expensive to run a server at home. we didn't have point and click installs for the average person. We didn't have point and click, you know, setups for in configurations for routers, we just didn't have the technology. For the average person to do it, you know, if, if you're a, you know, systems administrator, network engineer, sure, you can do all that stuff.

I mean, I was doing that 20 years ago too, but nobody else, you know, besides people in that like profession really did that. Nowadays, you can spend 50 and buy a raspberry pi and Install piece of software on it and touch a couple buttons and boom, you can deploy all these home services.

I think that since we couldn't do that 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we moved the technology stack into these large data centers where. The technology existed for people to run these services because they had the software, they had the high bandwidth, they had the fast servers, computers.

So we moved everything into these data centers and we trusted these large technology companies because they had the resources to do that. But then as technology improves, the infrastructure improves. Software improves and becomes easier. Now we can start pulling that out of the data center and the users can do it at home.

I don't think it's related to bad money. I just think it's related to, you know, we were early, so we moved to centralization because we had to, and now that we've advanced enough, now we can kind of. Recapture that and pull it back.

Knut: Yeah.

Luke: I actually like that argument for this because I mean, it's the gold thing, right? Like the gold physically couldn't do these things, but now Bitcoin does that. so gold centralized into vaults. Because that was just the way that

Knut: And fiat solved that problem.

Luke: exactly. so now maybe what you're saying is that, yeah, at the time, the actual server infrastructure had to be centralized like that.

And now there's a decentralized alternative. I can buy that.

Derek: and here's, a thought on this, maybe fiat money and, you know, our kids take the bill and pushing things forward faster and faster, that led to the computer revolution and the internet revolution. If that had been done in a sounder way, then maybe the internet would have developed slower, but in a more sound way, maybe, you know, technology bills getting published And money printing to fund, you know, so they just build fast and quick and they built too fast. Maybe it wasn't sustainable. The only way to be sustainable was to centralize who knows. It's all related to bad money.

I get it.

Knut: My tip is to not spend 50 on a raspberry pi, but spend a couple of hundred bucks and buy a start 9 instead.

Luke: something that, Definitely has the slightly more resources. And I mean, I think definitely, we, we had, someone asked the question at the noob day about, about running relays and everything. And I mean, it's great that people are actually wanting to do the self sovereign thing with Nostr the same way as they, Do with the Bitcoin nodes and stuff.

And it's great to see that these like node in the box

Derek: Yeah.

Luke: are making that easy for people.

Running Your Own Relay

Luke: So maybe, maybe here's like a, like a practical thing, just like a little bit on running your own relay and being as self sovereign as possible. And Nostr, do you have some thoughts on that?

Derek: Yeah. So I personally run two different relays. I run a relay on my phone just to basically act as a place for my DMs and my offline notes to go. So I can have my, I'm sorry, not DMs. I meant drafts. The other D with drafts for my drafts to go. And then for my offline notes to go, I run a relay in my house for my wife and I to use, as I had mentioned earlier.

And I do a little bit more of a complicated method because I want my relay in my house to be accessible from the outside world. That piece of the puzzle was still a little bit technical because you have to configure some network settings to allow the outside world to connect in to a computer that you're running at home.

So that, portion of it isn't like point and click easy yet. But, if you do have a start nine or you do have an umbral, you can point and click to have a relay at home installed. And then while you're at home on, Wi Fi or if you have a desktop, it's hardwired, whatever, anything that's on your home network can easily use those local relays.

And then if you want to access them from the outside world, you have to know that networking piece that I was just talking about, or you need to use like a home VPN. Or something like tail scale. And then you can accomplish that.

Onboarding and User Accessibility

Knut: so when will my 78 year old mother, fire up a Nostr, keep her?

Derek: I don't know. Maybe does she use social media now?

Knut: Yeah, she does.

Derek: What does she use?

Knut: Facebook, mainly.

Derek: Okay. Well, maybe someday I think Facebook's going to be a holdout on this. Maybe we'll see Elon do it in the next, two or three years, but I think someday we'll see a large legacy.

Traditional social media client turn into a very highly customized Nostr client and users really won't even know it. They'll custody the keys for the user, give you a username and password. They'll do all of that stuff. It'll be a, filtered relay, maybe moderated relay, who knows. But it'll essentially look the same and function the same for users, except they'll be connected to the Nostrverse.

they'll be publishing publicly to Nostr, and they won't even know it yet. So maybe when that happens, then she'll have her keys. Otherwise, I think the onboarding process needs to be improved a little bit

Knut: Mm hmm.

Derek: We can have 78 year olds, actively using Nostr.

I think it needs to be easier.

Knut: Boomer.

Derek: Yeah.

Luke: Well, some 78 year olds are more tech savvy than others,

Knut: yes, most of them are more tech savvy than my mother for sure.

Luke: there you go.

Beyond Twitter Alternatives

Luke: But this actually leads to another point here, is that the Twitter alternatives are really the clients that are the big thing. And actually, I think even people who are in the Nostr ecosystem already, Don't really do much outside of these Twitter alternatives, but there are other ways to display the Nostr information that looks a lot different, right?

Can you go into that a little bit?

Derek: yeah, I think that the reasons that Twitter alternatives are the most popular is because that's what we needed most, you know, and that's what was the most popular use case in the beginning, and it still holds true today, but it's also because These applications kind of manage the key for you, like on your device.

And a lot of this other stuff, a lot of these new unique use cases are web applications, they're websites, and people don't want to just go and paste their private key, their NSEC into a random website, which you should never do anyways. I found out that using extensions is something a lot of people don't use.

Like, with my app, NostrNest. com, so many people just don't use extensions. And you need to use an extension to sign in. The extension manages your key for you on the web. It acts as like your key management signing device. And a lot of people just don't use it. I would tell them, oh, you need to use an extension.

They're like, well, how do I use an extension? It's like, oh, you just need to go here and install that. And so many people just aren't familiar with it. It's really, that was really surprising to me. my point is that the other stuff, while it can be exciting unique and cool, it's not used as much because I think signing into all these web apps is, Very different from the average user.

They're used to using a username and password. They're not used to having to go and install an extension in Safari or install a whole nother web browser on Android or a whole nother app, to access a website. That's weird. it's a little too different. And once that workflow improves, then maybe we'll see, your Twitch alternative or your, medium alternative, blow up.

And become more popular.

Luke: Well, and actually the funny thing is the experience. Once you have the extension set up and you just go

Derek: Oh, it's easy

clients, like frictionless, it's perfect. But once you get over that hurdle of installing the extension, putting your private key into it and logging into that first website where it says, Hey, you're trying to log in and this website wants to know who you are. Do you want to allow it? Yes. you're going to post something and you know, do you want to have this post to your profile?

Yes. Once you understand how that works, then it's a no brainer, but it's just that first technical hurdle that so many people struggle with. But hopefully we Nostr developers can make this easier, in the coming future.

Luke: it's the natural innovation beyond because, a lot of services had been adopting a password lists, authentication model, basically just send a code to your email address. and I like that model. I think that's a lot more secure. You just have to worry about your email being secure

But then you go, one, next level, and it's everything is from that key pair. we are Nostr pilled as far as the use case and what it is. But it comes down to, I think, a little more of the pain points and the usability of it,

Nostr Algorithms

Luke: I will use Nostr, like the, the feed and everything, but I'll also use the, the Twitter feed as well because there's just so much more information on that. and the thing is, my current thing that I would like to see improvement on, or at least my ability to make my own improvements on is the algorithm selection.

and I know you've got a talk, coming up about this, like how to tailor your own algorithm, basically. And so before I give any other specific questions on this topic, could you preview, what you're going to talk about in terms of how to

Derek: Sure. So even though there is no blockchain, time chain, whatever for Nostr, I like to say that Nostr is a proof of work protocol because there are no algorithms at the protocol level. And the content isn't necessarily all the time brought forward for you. You're not spoonfed content.

So that means you have to do the work. You have to put in the work to be social. You have to do the work to get discovered and to discover content. And people aren't so much used to that anymore because they're used to being spoonfed a fire hose of content from your major platform. So with Nostr, we have the ability to regain and control our attention.

And we can control our social experience. So you have to do the work. You have to go out and comment on people's posts and you have to socially engage. You need to let people know that you're here. You have to make your voice heard. You have to interact with people. You have to just be social.

And it's really, it's just an interesting take because right now on these traditional platforms, you can kind of just lurk and have a decent experience because you're fed content. And on Nostr, that isn't the case most of the time, but now we have these, algorithm stores that are starting to pop up, where you can use them if you want to, it's not a requirement, which is, you know, like, maybe on, Twitter or Instagram or something like that, like, the algorithm is there, and maybe you can view a different feed, but It's, not the default.

and right now, like Nostr clients, the default is your chronological feed. if that's what you want, you can always have it. But if you want to do some algorithm, you can choose to do that. And it's open and transparent. So you could go and look at the algorithm to see what it's doing.

And that's just unique. We don't really have that type of user choice. So you can be your own algorithm socially. Or you can use an algorithm that somebody else built.

Knut: All right. so I think this was sort of, at least partially, an answer to my next question. And this is something I talked to Giacomo about, but because of the very reasons you just mentioned, you get very high quality people on Nostr and people who agree with one another and are nice and friendly to one another and you take care, it's your reputational capital and so on.

But. Many people are on Twitter for the opposite reason, that they want to argue with people. So how do we get more assholes on Nostr that are wrong on the internet, you know, and

you know, Yeah.

Derek: but I like to say that these algorithms on these traditional platforms were built to keep us enraged and engaged because if we're constantly upset and engaged, we're going to be using the application more.

We're going to see more ads. Ads are going to make more money. And it's going to fuel them to build bigger, better, more algorithms. We're going to use the app more. We're going to be more engaged and enraged. And it's just a never ending cycle.

I think that sure, if somebody wanted to build an asshole algorithm and just only show you controversial, mean content on Nostr, it's open. You can do that. And then they can have their asshole feed, I guess.

Nostr's Competitiveness

Knut: but, okay, this ties into a more serious point, if the, traditional platforms are optimized for engagement and, you know, to keep you on, how does Nostr take off if it doesn't have that drug,

Derek: Yeah, sure. I think most humans generally, want to be good people and don't want to be bad and negative all the time. It's just that, media really fuels that clown world also is very upsetting to people sometimes too.

And it drives their social experiences that way. another Derek ism is that, we're doom scrolling on other platforms. But humans weren't born to doom scroll, they should bloom scroll, people want to be good, I hope, If you're surrounded by good content, it's going to make you more positive.

If you're surrounded by negative content, it's going to make you more negative.

Knut: yeah, I certainly hope that people will use it more, because it ties into why newspapers that have aggressive headlines and like fearful headlines sell better, because our brains are wired for fear,

Derek: Yeah, exactly. we need to change that. We need to take it back. We need to use Nostr to take it back. we should be selling good stuff, not bad stuff.

I totally agree, Is it going to work in practice?

Knut: we'll see.

Luke: actually, so part of the practical thing on this, you can scroll virtually infinitely on these, Twitter apps. But Nostr, there always is some kind of limit. And let me explain what I mean by that. So in Primal, for example, Primal being the app that I use mostly on the web and the phone now, I do like, some others such as, Amethyst, and I've tried other, clients for the web, great to have the variety, but mostly I use Primal for the ease of use factor.

You got into this, at the noob day a little bit. but the, the two styles of feed that I get there through Primal is basically a latest. a version of latest and a version of, trending and the ways that, so, okay, not to overcomplicate this exactly, but I like, for example, concepts of, your tribe, the people who you follow and who follow you

Li limits based on the web of trust, I think. I think that's good And primal gives you tools to limit. So if you decide you want to see a wider feed, maybe you get the people who your followers follow. And then when I click that, I always get a whole ton of Japanese and Thai stuff like that, right? So, it's funny that it's not quite perfect at that level.

To be able to discover new stuff. Okay. I'm, this is actually going to be multiple questions. So maybe we'll start with that one. But how do you discover new stuff on Nostr that isn't the top, top, top most trending thing? Cause this is another side of the problem. but isn't someone that you already know and already follow.

Data Vending Machines (DVMs)

Derek: so I use my main client is Amethyst and there's several clients now that support these things called DVMs. It stands for Data Vending Machine. it sounds kinda, you know, nerdy but all it is, is an algorithm, really. I mean, an algorithm that is executed when somebody says, hey, I want to obtain this piece of data from you, give it to me.

Some of these data vending machines may be free. Some of them may be like a vending machine where you pay it some sats, and then it gives you the data, the algorithms executed after it gets paid. So I use DVMs to find new content. Like that's part of that whole algorithm to discover content.

There's all sorts of different ones. Like maybe I want to. Find, popular notes of cats or dogs, fluffy friends is what I think it's called. Or maybe I want to find, a trending, or there's a new DVM that was suggested recently. It's really cool. it finds the latest note from people you follow.

So if you constantly are posting in the feed every single day, all day long, and then there's other people that maybe post once a week or something, you would never see their content because they're always drowned out by more active users. So this new data vending machine, like algorithm, it'll go out there and find just the top latest note from somebody you follow.

So it's just a feed of like latest notes and that's a way to find content that you. Might generally miss, and that there's actually one called, something like what, while you were away or find content while you weren't active, or something like that on Nostr. And it tries to find content for you that way.

There's all these unique ways to find content and now that they're showing up more and more clients like no strudel and cortical. Coracle does some really neat stuff on, discoverability, finding content now. And this gets back to building your own algorithm. If you want that and you use these clients and it helps you, you find content and you're right.

Like sometimes they're not perfect. Like maybe you'll see some, content from other languages, you know, but you know, that, yeah.

Luke: It's fine that that exists. It's just not relevant to me at all. I mean, I know there are

Derek: that's a feature, maybe that's a filter or something like that on a client that needs to be built in is only show content from my native, or from my language that I normally post in, or my locale, or something like that is a way to maybe that's a new DVM right there.

If we just figured it out, we need,

Well, how do users find information on DVMs? yeah, well, if you're at, this gets back to the, we're early and Nostr is very technical. They're onboarding on Nostr as a whole generally sucks. It does because it's technical. We need more explanations or we need things to be simpler. And because these things, neither of these exist, there's probably a lot of people that use maybe Amethyst or maybe use.

Nostrudel or Coracle that have no clue what these things are. today, Primal announced their DVM store. Their, algorithm marketplace, essentially. And they do it very, very well. It's gonna be, it looks like it's gonna be kind of front and center for you to choose. And you can configure your feed with just a toggle radio button.

It looks like it's designed really, really nice. And maybe we'll see some of this user experience slip over to other clients, because right now you can get to them on several other clients, but they need a little bit more work, I think, to be, more user friendly.

Luke: Sure, and well, okay, and so, you find this stuff even by asking where to find this stuff on Nostr?

Derek: I can give you a website, I don't know the name of it, but it's something like datavendingmachines. com or nostrdvms. com, I don't remember the exact domain name, but it lists them all and explains what they are and how they work.

You should, we should have some of that in app, I think, to have a better user experience.

Luke: And how difficult is it to make your own?

Derek: to make your own DVM or to use one.

Luke: even, for example, just configure it

Derek: To make your own DVM, you probably need to be a Nostr developer. You need to know how to do some development programming. But if you want to utilize one, it's just a few clicks of a button. The most configurable one that exists today, Coracle. You can build these custom feeds with DVMs, with hashtags, with lists of people, with all sorts of stuff, and you can build a very, very user customized, feed, and I believe Damus NoteDeck is going to have something similar like that, too, where in the future, they'll have these algorithm stores and all these different types of feeds that you're going to be able to very easily point and click and build these feeds, but to build your own feed, Custom DVM, yeah, you should probably be a developer for that.

Otherwise, you'll just use somebody else's DVM that they built.

Luke: Okay, and then, so, I guess the engagement side of it. That's the other way to so called build your own feed?

Derek: right, like if, and this kind of mimics the real world, right, if we're standing outside in the conference hall and you and Knut are talking and I want to interject in the conversation, I'm not gonna just stand there off to the side and hope that you look at me and say, hey, do you want to talk?

I gotta go over and stand there and I gotta join the conversation. And that's really what you need to do on Nostr. if somebody is posting, commenting, replying, whatever, if you want to join the conversation, you need to join the conversation. You need to comment and talk too. And then those people are going to be like, Oh, hey, look, Derek's replying.

Luke: I don't know who he is, but now he's joined the conversation. I liked his reply. Maybe I want to follow him. And it just mimics real world in that. and as I understand it, the primal algorithm is largely reply based, like, the, the trending is, is, notes that get a lot of, replies, and, that, that's, that's important for that algorithm, and that's, this is actually one of these things I would like to personally be able to, to, to toggle, is, is, I don't necessarily look for the things that have the most interest.

replies, maybe I want it, maybe I want, because that's engagement, maybe I want the things that, that have the most likes, or, the most zaps, that one, that one's easy, I like that, that one's usually, pretty available and all this,

Derek: yeah, the mentioning the Primal algorithm for their trending is an interesting topic because over the past year, like when they first announced trending I think their signal indicator might have been zaps and people were doing like fake zaps just to show that this could be gamed and then Primal went back and retooled a little bit and then it was people were doing like spamming like thousands and thousands of reactions and then hitting trending again.

It's an open protocol. Anybody's going to do anything. And then, you know, Primal went back again and retooled and made their algorithm better and, then they, once they, hit a working model that couldn't be gamed as easily, then they published it very transparent. This is how our algorithm works.

You can go review it all on GitHub, yada, yada, yada. And, you know, that's kind of where we're at today. I think that, having an algorithm or having a DVM or something that, You could customize, Hey, I want to see most likes or most zaps or most replies. I think that's cool with it. Cause maybe your signal indicator is different than mine.

And you'll have the one from, the client, like however their algorithm is configured, but maybe you can go in and configure your algorithm just a little bit differently because you like comments, but you want to see those big zaps and there actually is a DVM for top zaps or something like that.

Luke: It sounds like there's something for everyone here, it's just a matter of figuring out how to use it

Knut: It's sort of like the saying with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is for everyone and people pointing out that no, it's not. It's for anyone. Yeah, and that's a better description.

Luke: Well, and actually this is another philosophical question here, right, because still we're going to get people that come into this who aren't going to want to do any customization. They just want to come in and have it work and be like their Twitter.

And then what happens is that the default algorithm of the largest app turns into the new

Derek: into like the default.

Luke: yeah, which also turns into the things that people see and all of this.

Derek: well, right now, as far as I know, there are no clients that the default feed that you get is an algorithm. I think you have to go in and configure that and change that and choose to do that. As long as that stays the case. You know, the chronological, some people might say chronological order is its own algorithm, but as long as the, chronological algorithm is the default one, I really don't see that's that big of a deal, but even if it is, we have user choice, you're right.

If the most popular client would automatically say, Hey, We're gonna switch to using this algorithm. Whenever Facebook makes a feed change, or Twitter would make a feed change, you know people are up in arms and they yell and they complain, but you can't do anything about it. Well, Nostr's different. You, you literally can, you can say, well, I'm going to use a new client.

So I'm curious what would happen if, the most popular client makes a major change like this, they change the algorithm, the default algorithm, would everybody really do what they say they want to do on Facebook? Like I'm never using Facebook again because you changed my feed. Well, they can't go anywhere else.

So they stick to Facebook, but now you could. So would people actually move to another app?

Funny that you should say that, because that's one of the things that made me leave Facebook, right? Because they actually did some social experiment by pissing people off but now you would have a choice, right? Like, so that opens up a whole new

Knut: yeah, and I could take my posts with me.

Derek: You take your content, your social graph with you. so maybe we won't see that, or maybe once someone does it, they shoot some self in the foot and they're like, Oh, we don't, maybe we shouldn't do this.

We should give users a choice.

The Permanency of Online Content

Knut: There's another thing about the social graph and the permanency of it, like how permanent it is, because everyone should know that anything you do on the internet is as permanent as a tattoo. And that's why you can't delete posts from Nostr, like the whole deleting of data is a mirage.

It's not real.

you can delete, but not every relay is going to honor that request. but what I'm coming to here is that, is that going to scare people that their stupid post from when they were 15 years old will be there forever?

Derek: Well, what I'd be curious about is, on legacy social platforms, when you hit delete, Is it actually deleted from a database or is it just flagged as deleted and don't show again?

probably the latter. Yeah, so probably, you can screenshot stuff. Like if you post something on the internet, it's literally never going to go away.

Knut: People just need to learn this. So maybe Nostr is the way that they learn that, because it's more honest.

Derek: it is more honest. Like I can make a request for a deletion from every relay that my content exists on.

Knut: Yeah.

Derek: If I, you know, let's say there's a thousand relays and 999 of them delete the content, but one of them says, yeah, I'm going to archive everything, I'm not deleting it.

Well, then it still exists on the internet, like it just, so that's why we say there's no delete. Yeah, maybe you're right, maybe it is the most honest that you can request it to be deleted, but there's no guarantee that the request is going to be honored.

Luke: Good. Yeah. okay.

Getting the Most Out of Nostr

Luke: So, the principles of Nostr seem to be getting pretty clear here that, it's all about this portability, this decentralization, this new way of doing things, and yes, there is going to be some. Switchover, that people have to do to, really get the most out of it.

But, that said, there's so much cool stuff going on, that once you make that switch, there's this whole new world of it. And, for me personally, the biggest thing that's prevented me from going all in is, I guess I just, haven't got quite The right thing, the right feed, the engagement. I mean, I think timezone right now plays a big role here, because when is everyone actually active?

How do you get involved in conversations? For Europe, it's a bit tough. You almost have to post on Nostr in the European evening to get any engagement with North American users, which at the moment are the majority. At least in the English speaking world.

Derek: That doesn't really happen unless you specifically seek. That on Nostr. So a little hack about being your own algorithm that I've used over the past, year and a half or so is, you know, people used to say it was bad form to retweet your own tweets, but you need to do that.

You need to boost your own content on Nostr. You need to, I do it specifically for different time zones. Like you said, you know, maybe I posted something really good. In 8 o'clock in the morning and then six hours later, I'm like, you know what? There's more people up and out and about in the world right now.

I'm going to boost that because I thought that was really good. I don't do it for every single one of my notes because that's probably overkill. But maybe once or twice a day, if I thought I did something, I think, man, that needs more views.

So this gets back to being your own algorithm. So I would say try that. People aren't going to hate on you for it. people understand that you need to be your own algorithm and bring your own content forward.

Knut: know how Nostr reminds me that I should be more careful on the internet because like sometimes I accidentally like posts that I want to, I want to declick the button and make the like go away, but it doesn't.

Derek: But well, so that depends on the client. So what that would do is that would send a delete request

Knut: yeah, exactly what we talked about before.

Yeah, to all like amethyst supports on, you know, unliking, but it sends a delete request to all the relays saying, Hey, delete that, that reaction. that's the thing. It's, it reminds me of what's actually going on under the hood while the other social media platforms just are optimized for make it simple for the user. Yeah.

Nostr vs Bitcoin

Knut: to take this in a slightly different direction and, a final point here, we've found out why you're so bullish on Nostr.

Why are you bullish on Bitcoin? Like what's, what's your, what are you most excited for in the Bitcoin space right now?

Derek: The most exciting thing about Bitcoin for me is to see these developing communities around the world, like using Bitcoin because it's better than their corrupt money. they're inflated money. And seeing them being able to save for the very first time and being able to essentially like be their own bank, you know, banking the unbanked and just being better money for them.

I think that is so cool. Like I absolutely love watching all these videos of Communities around the world bettering themselves and educating their youth or children on money and finances and seeing the kids being able to have better lives because of this. Like that's the use case. It's cool.

wealth preservation is cool. I understand, sound money Everything is broken, after reading, Safedine's, the fiat standard. thinking about Bitcoin is another element there's a lot of interesting use cases and ways to think about it.

But my favorite is, communities having these circular economies and bettering themselves.

Knut: Great.

Luke: Yeah, fantastic answer and very much aligned with us. And, since we've been, poking at different bits of Nostr this whole time, I also was hoping to end on a, on a optimistic note on the Nostr side as, as well.

Most Exciting Projects on Nostr

Luke: So what are you most excited about that's coming up right now? What do you think is going to make the biggest impact in what you're aware of?

Derek: There's so many really cool projects out there. Oh man. there's probably ones being demonstrated right now that I've never even, you know, wasn't aware of. I really like the ability to have, so the, There's a Nostr app called zap. store. It is a Google Play or App Store, replacement, FOSS, built on Nostr.

It allows us to see, applications that are reviewed and installed by our web of trust. So An application that's really popular and has good reviews by people, you know, people that are in your web of trust versus who knows who they are, if they're bots or whatever on, you know, these other app stores. I think that that's a very neat use case.

You know, we see problems in the Bitcoin ecosystem where apps get removed from app stores all the time, And it just seems that everything is getting choked in this regard. So I think that's a neat use case, especially what's been going on in the Bitcoin ecosystem. I'm really excited to see that continue to grow and get fleshed out.

I think just. Everything being able to be more interoperable on Nostr. I'm really bullish for the next big thing to be built on Nostr and then all these other clients to be like, wow, I want to implement it. And then they all implement it. And that feature then is used everywhere, but there's just so much stuff.

It's hard to be bullish on one thing. Like, you know, Pablo's, Nutsack, Cashew wallet is really cool.

Luke: Yeah. What a

Derek: It takes balls to decide the kind of name. does.

Knut: All right.

Wrapping Up

Derek: So other than Nostr, where can people find you on the internet know what? I got tired of Odell yelling about Nostr only and me being a huge Nostr bull, not being Nostr only. So a couple of months ago I deleted everything. It's all gone. I have no Twitter. I have no Facebook. I have no Instagram, no LinkedIn. I'm Nostr only.

Knut: All right.

Derek: you want to find me, You need to go to Nostr because I don't exist anywhere else anymore.

Luke: any specific things that you're working on that you'd like to tell us

Derek: So the most exciting thing that I've personally done recently is I organized a community led Nostr booth at BTC Prague, where I basically said to the community, Hey, Nostr needs to have a big presence so we can purple pill Prague. Let's have a booth. I want developers to be able to come to the booth, talk to their users, talk about their products.

Getting a booth is expensive. And a lot of these indie, smaller developers, can't afford that. So what if they just donate a little bit of Bitcoin? We pooled those funds together. We had maybe a couple larger, Developers, sponsors, and we pull all these funds together. We have this Nostr booth.

it was great. I think it was one of the most well received booths. I'm a little biased there, but it was busy for three days straight. We had tons of people there all the time. everybody that I talked to absolutely loved it. It was great to see. the whole Nostr community come together for this, essentially an educational slash marketing effort really to help grow Nostr and teach and educate people about Nostr.

I'm excited to do it again. Like I don't know when and where, but I want to do it again. I think it was great and I would love to have the same initiative at some point in the near future.

Luke: thanks a lot for coming on.

Derek: for having me.

Luke: We could probably continue to try and pick your encyclopedic brain on the Nostr stuff, but we'll give you a break. We know you've got another panel

Derek: So enjoy the rest of the conference. Thanks again, Derek. This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show. All right. Thank you

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Censorship-resistant relay discovery in Nostr

In Nostr is not decentralized nor censorship-resistant I said Nostr is centralized. Peter Todd thinks it is centralized by design, but I disagree.

Nostr wasn't designed to be centralized. The idea was always that clients would follow people in the relays they decided to publish to, even if it was a single-user relay hosted in an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

But the Nostr explanations never had any guidance about how to do this, and the protocol itself never had any enforcement mechanisms for any of this (because it would be impossible).

My original idea was that clients would use some undefined combination of relay hints in reply tags and the (now defunct) kind:2 relay-recommendation events plus some form of manual action ("it looks like Bob is publishing on relay X, do you want to follow him there?") to accomplish this. With the expectation that we would have a better idea of how to properly implement all this with more experience, Branle, my first working client didn't have any of that implemented, instead it used a stupid static list of relays with read/write toggle -- although it did publish relay hints and kept track of those internally and supported kind:2 events, these things were not really useful.

Gossip was the first client to implement a truly censorship-resistant relay discovery mechanism that used NIP-05 hints (originally proposed by Mike Dilger) relay hints and kind:3 relay lists, and then with the simple insight of NIP-65 that got much better. After seeing it in more concrete terms, it became simpler to reason about it and the approach got popularized as the "gossip model", then implemented in clients like Coracle and Snort.

Today when people mention the "gossip model" (or "outbox model") they simply think about NIP-65 though. Which I think is ok, but too restrictive. I still think there is a place for the NIP-05 hints, nprofile and nevent relay hints and specially relay hints in event tags. All these mechanisms are used together in ZBD Social, for example, but I believe also in the clients listed above.

I don't think we should stop here, though. I think there are other ways, perhaps drastically different ways, to approach content propagation and relay discovery. I think manual action by users is underrated and could go a long way if presented in a nice UX (not conceived by people that think users are dumb animals), and who knows what. Reliance on third-parties, hardcoded values, social graph, and specially a mix of multiple approaches, is what Nostr needs to be censorship-resistant and what I hope to see in the future.

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|| |:-:| |EVOLA, Julius; Ensayos filosóficos, esotéricos y religiosos: 1925-1931; Hipérbola Janus, 2024|

Desde nuestra misma fundación como editorial, la figura de Julius Evola ha sido un punto de referencia fundamental para abordar muchas de nuestras publicaciones. Desde 2014 nos marcamos como objetivo la divulgación de sus ideas en el ámbito editorial, siempre en la medida de nuestras posibilidades, y teniendo en cuenta la importancia del autor, del Maestro Romano, en un discurso que hemos asumido plenamente: la necesidad de rebelarse contra el mundo moderno y buscar una alternativa que debe ser irreductible y antitética respecto a éste. El fundamento metafísico, especialmente importante en el tradicionalista francés René Guénon, viene a complementarse con la otra visión de la Tradición, más heterodoxa, de la acción (no en el sentido activista propiamente moderno, obviamente) a través de la figura del Khsatriya evoliano, del guerrero, con sus prolongaciones, de enorme importancia, que se derivan de sus doctrinas en el ámbito de la metapolítica.

Fruto de estos anhelos, hemos publicado ya algunos volúmenes recopilatorios sobre las obras del autor italiano: Metapolítica, Tradición y Modernidad: Antología de artículos evolianos (2020) y Monarquía, Aristocracia y Ética elitista: Antología de artículos evolianos 1929-1974 (2022), al que debiéramos añadir, por seguir la misma línea, dentro de la Tradición Perenne, al ya mencionado René Guénon con El Maestro de la Tradición Perenne: Antología de artículos guenonianos (2021). Recientemente, también publicamos Diorama filosófico: Problemas del espíritu en la Italia de entreguerras 1934-1935 (2024), que sin ser una obra íntegramente evoliana, si representa un importante proyecto cultural desarrollado por nuestro autor italiano durante los años del Ventennio de la Italia fascista, con la creación de un Think Tank que trataba de aglutinar a toda la intelligentsia de la Derecha tradicional de su época, y aunque no terminó de cuajar, nos brindó un modelo de civilización alternativo para la Europa de entreguerras.

|| |:-:| |TARCHI, Marco (Ed); Diorama filosófico: Problemas del espíritu en la Italia de entreguerras 1934-1935; Hipérbola Janus, 2024|

Son contribuciones fundamentales a la difusión de la obra evoliana en lengua hispana, con artículos completamente inéditos en nuestro idioma, que nos ofrecen la visión del Julius Evola más prolífico, con notables escritos difundidos en diferentes medios, revistas y periódicos, especialmente después de 1945, como Rassegna Italiana, Il Borghese, Rivolta Ideale o La Stampa entre otros muchos. En el caso que nos ocupa, descubrimos una nueva remesa de artículos, publicados durante la juventud de Julius Evola en la revista Bilychnis, una revista de estudios religiosos fundada en 1912 y editada por la escuela teológica bautista de Roma, cuya existencia se prolongó hasta el verano de 1931. La colaboración de Evola con la revista se concretó en los últimos años de su existencia, entre 1925 y 1931.

Como el propio autor nos precisa en su obra autobiográfica El camino del cinabrio, en el momento en que se inicia su colaboración con Bilychnis, se encuentra inmerso en su etapa filosófica, cuyos frutos podemos ver a través de dos obras fundamentales del citado periodo, como son I Saggi sull'idealismo magico (1925) y Teoria e fenomenologia dell'Individuo Assoluto (1917-1924), que aportaron al joven tradicionalista romano principios «racionalizantes y sistematizadores» para tratar en sus análisis hermenéuticos sobre doctrinas sapienciales y esotéricas relacionadas con el yoga, la magia o la iniciación, en lo que preludia su entrada en la etapa de la magia y la formación del Grupo de Ur. Otros ensayos, presentes en el actual volumen, como es el caso «De la pureza como valor metafísico» forman parte de este espíritu idealista en el que se hallaba inmerso nuestro autor.

Son nueve los ensayos o artículos que componen el presente volumen, y sobre los cuales vamos a tratar de establecer una breve síntesis general con la intención de esbozar y presentar su contenido. Este volumen comienza con «E. Cuoé y el “actuar sin actuar”» (1925), centrado en el farmacéutico y psicólogo francés Émile Coué (1857-1926), famoso por desarrollar un método de autosugestión que hoy es la base de muchos manuales de autoayuda. Su técnica consistía en repetir frases y estímulos positivos para influir en la mente y el comportamiento, con la idea de que el poder mental puede contribuir a la curación física y emocional. Coué creía que la imaginación superaba a la voluntad, y su método, que tuvo éxito en Europa y Estados Unidos, inspiró sistemas posteriores como el Método Silva, basado en autosugestión y niveles de oscilación cerebral.

El psicólogo francés propone una ausencia de acción con un aspecto positivo, sobre todo frente a la voluntad como puro activismo, característica de la civilización moderna. Este activismo desenfrenado, exaltado como progreso continuo, ignora el «ser» y es evidente en las ciencias, donde el evolucionismo y la especulación prevalecen sobre principios inmutables.

Frente a este activismo moderno, las antiguas tradiciones espirituales ofrecen un camino hacia un sentido superior y objetivo de la realidad. Estas tradiciones permiten evitar las desviaciones del activismo desmedido, que representa debilidad y decadencia. Evola subraya cómo filosofías vitalistas y nietzscheanas exaltan el devenir y lo irracional, ignorando la clara distinción espiritual entre lo «natural» y lo «inteligible». Para autores neoplatónicos como Plotino, el movimiento simboliza la incapacidad de alcanzar la perfección, mientras que el mundo inteligible representa una acción perfecta, autosuficiente y supranatural, defendida por tradiciones orientales con principios inmutables y viriles, ajenas al devenir.

Evola, comentando el Tao Te Ching y el concepto del wei-wu-wei («actuar sin actuar»), señala que estas doctrinas no implican quietud o negación de la acción, sino su forma más perfecta y trascendente. Similar al «primer motor inmóvil» de Aristóteles, quien dirige el movimiento sin moverse, esta filosofía propone la subordinación de la acción al ser, manteniendo el control y permaneciendo invulnerable frente a deseos o impulsos.

El wei-wu-wei contrasta con el concepto moderno de acción, que, en el mundo antitradicional, se manifiesta como un activismo caótico y pasivo, dominado por instintos y deseos. Nuestra civilización, hiperdesarrollada materialmente, como advertía René Guénon, ha perdido la centralidad interior y ha entregado la acción a la tecnología y las pasiones, cayendo en la autodestrucción. Ante esto, Evola propone un ascetismo viril y una superioridad aristocrática como oposición al naturalismo instintivo y la subversión moderna.

|| |:-:| |GUÉNON, René; El Maestro de la Tradición Perenne: Antología de artículos guenonianos, Hipérbola Janus, 2021|

El artículo «De la “pureza” como valor metafísico» (1925) muestra a un joven Evola en plena maduración intelectual, explorando las ideas de Ser y Devenir, y el Yo frente a las contingencias. Influido por la perspectiva del Kshatriya o guerrero, Evola busca una acción absoluta y objetiva, libre de las limitaciones biológicas y de la naturaleza. Esta visión heroica no es una abstracción, sino una forma de existencia que se manifiesta a través del sacrificio y el acto purificador. Evola plantea una acción purificada de emociones, deseos y vínculos sentimentales, superando las dicotomías modernas como éxito y fracaso. La acción pura es objetiva, autosuficiente y superior, siendo expresión de jerarquías naturales. Evola promueve un actuar imperturbable, desapegado y libre de odio, que nace del silencio, la soledad y el desapego, como un ejercicio de liberación y clarificación de la realidad.

Otro de los artículos que debemos destacar en esta compilación es «La escolástica ante el mundo moderno» (1926), aborda un tema siempre complejo y muy característico de la cultura medieval en el Occidente europeo. Es un concepto filosófico que hace referencia a las enseñanzas de Santo Tomás de Aquino, en una suerte de visión actualizada y adaptada al pensamiento cristiano de las teorías aristotélicas. La asistencia de la filosofía y del principio racional al discurso revelado de la fe, es su característica más inmediata, nutriendo los principios teológicos y sometiéndolos a la especulación filosófica con una amplia variedad de discursos que resultan demasiado complejos como para ser uniformizados. Durante el Renacimiento, y con la eclosión del humanismo, como ocurrió con muchos aspectos del pensamiento y la cultura medieval, la escolástica fue denostada y adquirió unas connotaciones negativas. En este contexto, la crítica de nuestro autor al pensamiento escolástico, que se ciñe, en lo básico, a los aspectos teóricos formulados por este, parte de una idea profundamente negativa del Cristianismo, en el que ve una doctrina fundamentalmente irracional, que ha «humanizado» lo divino, convirtiéndose en uno de los principales responsables de la secularización moderna y la cultura profana que impera en nuestros días.

Según Evola, el Cristianismo ha provocado una fractura insuperable entre lo humano y lo divino, de tal modo que lo divino aparece como una barrera inalcanzable. En la base del dualismo cristiano se encuentra la idea de la «creación desde la nada» (ex-nihilo), lo que supone un abismo inabarcable entre el mundo sensible y el supramundo, entre lo humano y lo divino. Frente al Dios todopoderoso, capaz de crear todo de la nada, se encuentra la criatura, pura creación ex-nihilo. Por ese motivo el Cristianismo ha también ha puesto las bases del nihilismo moderno, en la medida que la creación supone una «entificación» de la nada, como un principio diferente en relación a las cosas del mundo y la sustancia de las que estarían constituidas. El mundo creado por Dios, como un acto gratuito, aparece como totalmente contingente, y para nuestro autor, también inconsistente. Este dualismo es el fruto del carácter pesimista del Cristianismo, y el carácter exotérico que prevalece sobre su plano práctico y moral. Ese pesimismo se deja entrever en la imposibilidad de que el hombre pueda conocer merced a sus propias fuerzas lo divino. Solamente se acepta la revelación y en relación a ésta el ejercicio de la fe. Pero la mayor parte de la humanidad se encuentra radicada en esa dimensión exotérica y de la fe, y su expresión religiosa, puramente devocional es la única forma de entrar en contacto con lo trascendente. Asimismo también considera que el Cristianismo niega la posibilidad al hombre de alcanzar la salvación de manera autónoma, siendo la doctrina la de gracia, con la intervención externa de Dios. Los cristianos han establecido que los actos del hombre que parecen propiciar la gracia en realidad son tales porque proceden de una gracia anterior. Por ese motivo Evola considera que el desarrollo más coherente del Cristianismo se encontraría en la teoría de la predestinación absoluta de Calvino y Jansenio, que implica la negación del libre arbitrio y de toda responsabilidad en el hombre.

|| |:-:| |Mos Maiorum, III (Invierno 2021): Revista sobre Tradición, postmodernidad, filosofía y geopolítica, Hipérbola Janus 2021|

Además el Cristianismo es, para nuestro autor, eudemonista y heterónoma. Eudemonista en la medida que su enfoque la virtud es un medio para alcanzar la salvación y la felicidad individual, en lugar de considerarla un fin en sí misma (como se hacía en las doctrinas clásicas). Heterónoma en la medida que está condicionada por factores externos o una ley desde fuera, en lugar de ser el resultado de la autonomía o la voluntad propia, como sí ocurría con los valores del «paganismo clásico». En realidad la felicidad es algo que se encuentra radicado o proyectado en otro mundo, y no es más que una manifestación de la decadencia y la degeneración. En este punto nuestro autor hace suyas las críticas de Nietzsche, quien valoraba negativamente el Cristianismo como valores negativos y propias de una «moral de esclavos». Incapaces de exaltar valores fuertes y autónomos, lo hacen con aquellos propios de «naturalezas débiles y malogrados» y de ahí la exaltación del perdón o el amor al prójimo.

Las consideraciones evolianas sobre el catolicismo son menos contundentes, y está mediatizado por el sincretismo de muchos elementos precristianos, propiamente «paganos» en sus orígenes. El catolicismo representa una versión superior respecto al Cristianismo debido a los elementos de autoridad y la impregnación de cierta «mentalidad pagana» presentes en una serie de características de orden y racionalidad que le son inherentes. No obstante, hay elementos dentro de la racionalidad escolástica que, desde la perspectiva de Evola, representan cuestiones irresolubles, en la medida que pretende racionalizar ideas que a su juicio eran totalmente irracionales.

Evola critica la teología medieval por intentar justificar la relación entre la creación y la sustancia de Dios mediante el principio de analogía, que distingue el ser de Dios del ser en el mundo. También señala la incapacidad del ser humano para captar plenamente el ser absoluto, lo que genera diferencias con lo divino. Algunos teólogos propusieron la existencia de dos actos de creación para explicar estas diferencias. Para Evola, la teología cristiana enfrenta dos opciones: justificar dogmas basados en razonamientos erróneos o adoptar posturas heréticas. Este análisis refleja la etapa anticristiana de Evola, aunque posteriormente moderó sus posiciones. Estas consideraciones se corresponden con esta etapa, la de los artículos de Bilychnis, que es coetánea a la de su etapa más furibundamente anticristiana, con la publicación de Imperialismo pagano. Aunque sus posiciones no variaron sustancialmente, sí que se suavizaron notablemente en lo sucesivo.

En el artículo «El valor del ocultismo en la cultura contemporánea» (1927), Evola critica la insuficiencia de la religión para el hombre moderno, lo que ha llevado a muchos hacia prácticas ocultistas y espirituales superficiales, como el espiritismo y el sincretismo New Age. Estas prácticas, influidas por la ciencia moderna, son peligrosas y comparables al decadente mundo helenístico. Evola, influido por René Guénon y Arturo Reghini, rechaza estos sincretismos y promueve una «tercera vía» espiritual para el hombre «diferenciado», que busca una realización esotérica más allá de la religión convencional y el ocultismo.

En Máscara y rostro del espiritualismo contemporáneo (1932), Evola critica las formas de neoespiritualidad y pseudoespiritualidad surgidas tras la disolución del Grupo de Ur en 1929. Estas corrientes, según él, son expresiones materialistas y racionalistas que han deformado la espiritualidad moderna. Evola señala que la religión occidental ha perdido su sentido trascendente, convirtiéndose en una práctica devocional vacía y moralista.

|| |:-:| |MARLETTA, Gianluca; OVNIS y alienígenas: Origen, historia y prodigio de una pseudorreligión; Hipérbola Janus, 2019|

Evola advierte sobre los peligros de las influencias extranormales y psíquicas, que pueden desestabilizar al individuo, especialmente a los más débiles. Fenómenos como la videncia o las artes adivinatorias no deben confundirse con lo espiritual, ya que representan lo «infranatural», un descenso a un estado inferior en lugar de una elevación trascendente.

Para finalizar, y teniendo en cuenta la existencia de más artículos en la presente compilación, querríamos destacar el último de los trabajos evolianos publicados en Bilychnis es «La “mística de la sangre” en el nuevo nacionalismo alemán» (1931). El fenómeno de racismo, que es indudablemente un hecho de origen moderno, y muy en boga durante esta etapa, con el ascenso meteórico del nacionalsocialismo en Alemania, y más adelante, aunque ya en fechas tardías, lo veremos reflejado en la participación de Julius Evola en La difesa della razza a finales de los años 30, y en diferentes obras, como por ejemplo El mito de la sangre (1937), La raza del espíritu (1941), Indirizzi per una educazione razziale (1941) y Sintesi di dottrina della razza (1941). Hay que tener claro, así de entrada, que el tema de la raza es un aspecto suplementario y no principal en la doctrina evoliana. A priori, el nacimiento no obedece a la casualidad o el azar en el esquema tradicional, y tal y como se deriva de las interpretaciones de Guénon, de las que, sin duda, Evola era deudor, la existencia física y material forma parte de las múltiples posibilidades de manifestación del ser. Esto significa que la formación del individuo en sus carácteres físico-biológicos es fruto de un determinismo, bajo la premisa de la encarnación de un «yo» preexistente en un cuerpo material sometido a las leyes de la contingencia. Para esto sujeto del mundo tradicional, antítesis del propiamente moderno, la existencia o la muerte no representaban tampoco categorías absolutas.

El punto de partida fundamental del racismo evoliano, de un racismo espiritual, es la existencia de una identidad propia y diferenciada frente al racismo moderno propuesto por Alfred Rosenberg en El mito del siglo XX, absolutamente contrario al hombre-masa y el individuo anónimo de las teorías raciales modernas. No obstante, nos señala Evola, la reivindicación de la raza tiene un punto positivo en la medida que nos vincula al pasado y trata de resistir la corriente del devenir que impulsa la noción de progreso. Además, recurriendo al mito, nos señala que somos el producto de elementos antitéticos, telúricos e hiperbóreos, lo que implica tendencias al caos y al orden que subsisten en pugna en nuestro interior. A nivel colectivo estas tendencias se manifiestan, en el caso de Italia, en la tensión entre la raza mediterránea y la ario-romana. En este sentido, podemos aludir en nuestro caso, en el de España, a aquellos dos polos que mencionaba José Antonio Primo de Rivera en su famoso opúsculo Germanos contra bereberes, donde se traza esa visión entre dos concepciones de España, una heroica, viril y trascendente, representada por la Reconquista y la construcción de España, que sería la propiamente germánica, frente a un polo opuesto, que representaría valores oscuros, pasivos y femeninos, y vendría representada por la imagen de Al-Andalus y todo su legado, que permanecería vivo hasta los tiempos presentes, y encarnado, claro está, por otros sujetos/actores diferentes.

Los aspectos positivos que nuestro autor ve en el racismo son aquellos orientados a trascender el fenómeno moderno, que se harían extensivos también a los movimientos nacionalistas, todo ello a pesar de mantenernos en el terreno de lo inmanente y las contingencias. Pero al mismo tiempo el racismo también es una forma degradada y pasiva de modernidad, precisamente porque en su génesis está el biologismo y el cientifismo moderno, reduciendo al hombre a una categoría animal, a la pulsión y el instinto. De ahí la necesidad de recurrir a una orientación trascendente y un soporte metafísico capaz de afirmar la divinidad del hombre. Esta era una dirección que Julius Evola deseaba, en un cambio radical respecto a las afirmaciones más groseras del fenómeno.

El racismo espiritual implica la búsqueda de una actualización permanente de los valores y potencialidades que son inherentes a la raza, que deben ser mantenidos a través de una rigurosa práctica espiritual. De hecho, los aspectos modernos de la raza, construidos en base a la ciencia moderna, adquieren, según Evola, un sentido muy similar al talmudismo hebreo, al hablar de «pueblo elegido», y en esta medida establece paralelismos entre el nacionalsocialismo y el sionismo en la formulación del término. Del mismo modo, se habla de una superioridad racial, la cual no se fundamenta en logros espirituales o en concepciones tradicionales, sino en logros puramente materiales, científicos y técnicos, que son propios de la civilización occidental. Para Julius Evola, en la actualidad, no existe ninguna raza que posea los atributos exclusivos de la raza espiritual hiperbórea, portadora del elemento divino. Y aunque desde el nacionalsocialismo atribuyeran esa superioridad al elemento nórdico, Evola considera que un sujeto de raza negra perteneciente a un grupo tribal, fiel a sus tradiciones y a la práctica espiritual inherente a estas, era más cercano a ese principio que un caucásico moderno, cuya vida se encuadre en el marco de las costumbres, ideas y cosmovisión moderna.

---

Artículo original: Hipérbola Janus, Presentación de «Ensayos filosóficos, esotéricos y religiosos (1925-1931)», de Julius Evola (TOR), 27/Sep/2024

@ 599f67f7:21fb3ea9

¿Qué es una dirección Lightning o Lightning address?

Una dirección Lightning es una dirección que visualmente se asemeja a una dirección de correo electrónico legible para los humanos, por ejemplo usuario@dominio.com pero que en realidad te permite recibir pagos en bitcoin instantáneos y económicos, sin la necesidad de tener un nodo en linea en tu dispositivo ni tener que generar facturas de forma manual cada vez que alguien te quiere hacer un pago.

¿Suena bien no?

¿Y cómo funciona?

Funciona utilizando el protocolo de pago LNURL.

Aquí se muestra un sencillo esquema de lo que ocurre en segundo plano.

En resumen, cuando otro usuario quiere pagarte usando tu dirección Lightning, tu billetera convierte la dirección Lightning en una solicitud de pago LNURL. Luego se utiliza esa solicitud de pago LNURL exitosa para obtener una factura BOLT11.

💡 Dirección Lightning > LNURLp > Factura BOLT 11.

Suena bien, pero ¿cuál es el problema?

Por el momento, muchas de las implementaciones de Lightning Address son de custodia, porque se necesita un dominio para que Lightning Address funcione y un nodo que esté siempre en línea para recibir los pagos. Debido a que es de custodia, el custodio puede atacarte en cualquier momento y monitorear tus transacciones.

Tienes que confiar en el propietario del dominio para no cambiar el registro de tu dirección Lightning. Y no funciona si el servidor LNURL no está en línea.

Bitcoin Txoko ofrece una sencilla solución de Lightning Address respaldada por LNbits. Esto también es de custodia, así que por favor mantén solo una pequeña cantidad en tu billetera Bitcoin Txoko y ve retirando a tu billetera de autocustodia a medida que recibas más sats.

Estoy listo, ¿qué necesito para empezar?

¡Todo lo que necesitas es un teléfono móvil o un ordenador y una conexión a Internet!

1. Creando tu billetera

Si aún no lo has hecho, navega a https://bitcointxoko.com y crea una nueva billetera. Puedes elegir el nombre que quieras.

2. Activar extensiones

Hace falta la extensión Pay Links para que las direcciones Lightning funcionen.

Abre Extensiones en la barra de herramientas y activa Pay Links.

3. Creando tu enlace de pago

• En a la extensión Pay Links, haz clic en New Pay Link.

• Elige la billetera que has creado.

• Para la descripción del artículo, puedes escribir lo que quieras.

• Elige un nombre de usuario de tu dirección Lightning. Tu dirección Lightning se verá como username@bitcointxoko.com.

• Desmarque Fixed amount y cambia el valor mínimo a 1 y el valor máximo a 500000.

⚠️ También puedes cambiar el valor máximo a algo más alto, pero es más probable que los pagos más grandes fallen debido a la limitada capacidad de entrada del nodo Lightning de Bitcoin Txoko. Así que recomendamos mantenerlo en 500000 sats.

• Ahora abre Advanced options y cambia Comment maximum characters a 799. Este paso no es necesario pero permite más funcionalidades más adelante.

• Marca Enable nostr zaps en la parte inferior, para que puedas utilizar tu dirección Lightning para recibir zaps.

• Las demás opciones avanzadas son opcionales, puedes configurarlas si quieres o dejarlas en blanco.

Al final debería verse algo así.

• Cuando hayas comprobado que todo es correcto, sigue adelante y haz clic en Create Pay Link.

Probando

Puedes probar si tu nueva dirección Lightning funciona yendo a otra cartera, pulsando en Enviar y escribiendo tu dirección Lightning como destino, y luego enviándote una pequeña cantidad de sats.

Vuelve a tu billetera Bitcoin Txoko y comprueba si has recibido tu propio pago. Es posible que tengas que actualizar la página.

Si todo funcionó correctamente, ¡enhorabuena! 🥳

Si no es así, háznoslo saber. Siempre estamos aquí para ayudar.

Próximos pasos

Nostr zaps

Puedes añadir tu dirección Bitcoin Txoko Lightning a tu perfil de nostr y usarla para recibir zaps. Normalmente, esto se hace yendo a Perfil > Editar > Dirección Lightning y cambiando la dirección Lightning.

LNDhub

Puedes importar tu billetera LNbits como un LNDhub en tu teléfono utilizando una aplicación como Zeus o BlueWallet, en lugar de visitar la billetera en el navegador cada vez que desees comprobar tu saldo o realizar un pago. Echa un vistazo a nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzqkvlvlma7a55ccp6d5rrdc27h3ssmdmael286mjaq5uxmqslk04fqqxnzd3exuerqdfkxccnyv3cs0uvul sobre cómo hacer esto.

Código QR

También puedes compartir o imprimir tu código QR LNURLp para que la gente pueda escanearlo fácilmente con sus teléfonos. ¡Muy útil si estás introduciendo bitcoin a tu comerciante local favorito para que pueda recibir propinas Lightning!

Simplemente comparte el enlace a tu página compartida, o imprime el código QR como PDF yendo a View Link > Print.

@ ea1e6f68:49fe0005

The elections in the US are coming soon. Like always, this will be ‘the most important election ever’! The freedom movement is divided: Should we vote for Trump since he made promises to both the Bitcoin and the Libertarian community, or should we stay away from politics and not vote? In this article I will explain whether freedom minded people should vote.

The seen and the unseen of voting

I am a very big fan of the book ‘Economics in One Lesson’ by Henry Hazlitt. I can’t recommend you enough to read this book. The seen and the unseen of government policy is the main theme of the book. It describes that the benefit of government policy is always clearly visible and obvious. It’s always ‘seen’ and thus celebrated by the public.

However, the cost is always greater. Those costs are not visible for the public and thus ‘unseen’ and often ignored. This is why counter productive policies keep happen over and over again. I believe this principle of ‘the seen and the unseen’ is true for voting too. The benefits are obvious and easy to recognise, but tiny. While the cost is only visible when you do a deep dive, but it’s huge.

What Can We Get from Voting? - The Seen - Political Changes

There are some arguments to vote, and there are arguments to not vote. To make a clear analyses we first have to establish what we will get from voting, and what the cost will be. What we get is pretty clear, it’s directly visible and people are discussing these issues daily. Here are a few:

• Ross might be released
• Bitcoin adoption might accelerate
• It might undermine the current clown world regime
• A CBDC might be banned
• Taxes might get slightly better

The word ‘might’ is very important here, since they are promises made by a politician. We all know that politicians are famous for lying. Especially in case of Trump. He had 4 years to fulfil his promises and he didn’t. However, there is an argument that he might do it this time: Bitcoin Magazine donated a lage sum of money to the Trump campagne. Politicians are prostitutes, so he might please his highest bidders.

What is the Costs of Voting? - The Unseen - Your Dignity

If you pay taxes your energy (money = energy) is used for coercive activities like murder (war), theft (tax enforcement), kidnapping (draft and arrest for victimless crimes) and more. However, if you don’t vote you are a victim of this coercive entity, so you are morally not complicit in its crimes. To explain this I like to use a comparison on the level of the individual:

If you get robbed for $100,- on your way home and you learn that the robber bought a gun with this money and killed someone. Are you now complicit in the murder? We will all agree that you’re not, because you didn’t want to hand your money to the robber. I would argue that paying taxes by itself doesn’t make you complicit in the crimes the government does for the same reason. However, in combination with voting it does. If you vote you agree to the rules of the game, which includes that you willingly hand over your money to buy the gun.

If You Let Me Smash 3 Eggs on Your Head, I’ll Give You 10 Dollar

In my younger years I was a member of the Scouting. We went camping often, it was alway a great experience. One day the Scout leader asked us who wanted to earn ten dollar by allowing him to smash 3 eggs on his head. The first to raise his hand was placed on a chair in the middle of the group.

The leader broke the first egg on his head. The slimy stuff ran over his face and his clean clothes. Everyone was laughing, it was very amusing. Then he did the second egg. While the poor kid was waiting for the 3rd egg the leader said that he was finished, and wouldn’t do the last egg.

Then the kid realised that he wouldn’t get the ten dollar because the deal was 3 eggs. He also realised that he couldn’t get angry about the two eggs being smashed on his head, because he implicitly allowed it when he agreed to play the game.

The kid duped himself by playing the game. The promise of ten dollars lured him into accepting the eggs being smashed on his head. Normally, nobody would accept this, because it’s a clear violation of his rights. The outlook of the reward of ten dollar made him accept the humiliation including the violation of his rights.

A voter is lured into playing the game by the outlook of the ‘seen’ advantages we described earlier. By playing the game he accepts the humiliation that's part of the game, which describes that the winner is allowed to take his money (tax) and spend it however he want for the coming 4 years. In other words, you are in with all the crimes being done in the following periode, whoever wins the election.

I would say that even the people who voted for Trump in the last election are complicit in Biden’s crimes, while non-voters are not. Trump voters played the stupid game and implicitly agreed to the rules which means that Biden could do whatever the F he wants in the coming 4 years because he won, while non-voters didn’t.

The fact that you implicitly agree on the rules of the game if you play** can be explained much easier. Imagine you get challenged to fight someone in the ring. Your opponent explains some insanely stupid rules before the game. Obviously you disagree on the rules, because they are very bad for you.

Everyone will agree that if you accept the fight (you play) you implicitly agree to these rules. You obviously can’t complain about them half-way the fight when you start losing. Once you accepted the fight you accepted the rules no matter how stupid they are. You shouldn’t play to begin with! *

The hidden or ‘unseen’ cost of voting is your dignity

Whether you are religious or not: You will be judged either at the doors of heaven by God or throughout your life and on your death bed by yourself. Knowing that you did the right thing and wasn’t part of the evil shit that happened in the world is the most important thing. Now imagine your judgement by yourself, by God or in a future trial:

If you say that you voted because you wanted those good things to happen, you sound as dumb as the kid who allowed the eggs to be broken on his head because he wanted to get the easy money. The non-voter is a very different story: He sounds like someone who get the eggs smashed on his head out of the blue without agreeing to play the game. What do you think the difference in judgement would be?

Let’s make up the balance

If you vote you might get some political changes that you want. However, the chance that your vote makes the difference is extremely small. Generally, there are about 160 million people who are going to vote. The chance that your vote will be decisive is tiny, comparable with the chance to win a lottery. Even if you win this lottery, it’s still possible that these changes won’t happen, simply because the politician in question was lying to get more votes.

This means that by voting you get a lottery ticket where the jackpot is that some political changes might happen. To buy this lottery ticket you sell your dignity and make yourself complicit in the most heinous crimes like theft, murder and incarceration on a massive scale. Is the benefit worth the cost? Obviously not!

*Imagine why voting is seen as …..

Make not voting your vote!

If you want to see change in the world, start with yourself and your own neighbourhood. Vote with your money, vote with your actions and vote with your feet, but never vote for politicians! You will expand where you focus on. As long as people keep voting, politicians will feel massively empowered and you feel disempowered, because you focus on others to solve your problems.

The only reason why murder, theft and incarnation by the state aren’t seen as a crime is that the majority of the population made themselves complicit by voting. This part of the population will always defend these crimes as ‘necessary policy’ because they won’t admit that they are responsible for the death and destruction caused by the state they voted for.

As soon as enough people realise that voting is a fools game designed to whitewash crimes by politicians, political power will decrease and the productive class will flourish. If we all do the right thing indirect slavery (statism) can be abolished like direct slavery was abolished in the 19th century. This is the real important vote! DON’T F*CKING VOTE!

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

But who will identify the spam?

Any relay will get hit with spam. That's just the cost of being a server admin. (Of course, we're all going to end up server admins, now that local and private relays are becoming ubiquitous, but I digress.)

The question is more: What is spam? Who gets to determine which events are spam?

That's actually a completely subjective decision, so I think individual npubs should be determining it. nostr:npub1494rtg3ygq4cqawymgs0q3mcj6hucvu4kmadv03s5ey2sg32df5shtzmp0 was heading in the direction of individually-trained, intelligent spam filters, with Minitru, but npubs need more standardized information, to make effective decisions and to calibrate their personal filters.

6 Confirmations

Information about an unknown npub is gathered by

Examining it in isolation * interacting with it (such as in a conversation), * reading what it has already published, * asking it to pay money * requesting it to perform some task

... and by examining it within a group * asking other npubs if they follow it (the basis of WoT) * or asking others if the npub is already known to them (community membership, articles they've zapped, replies they've given, etc.)

All of these things should leave a sort of audit trail, so that the next evaluator can judge accordingly, or ask for more information. Then the confirmations build up, without someone needing to be followed.

Like with Bitcoin. The transactions aren't "followed", they're confirmed.

This npub has had 3 confirmations... 6 confirmations... 10470 confirmations.

You could have 10 followers, but 12000 confirmations, because you manage to meet everyone's minimum, but didn't make the hurdle to the "follow" list.

Hit two birds with one stone

This would also allow follow lists to become friend lists, again, eliminate the need for an additional "favorites" list, and raise the information value of following.

@ bf95e1a4:ebdcc848

This is the lightly-edited AI generated transcript of Bitcoin Infinity Show #125. The transcription isn't perfect, but it's usually pretty good!

If you'd like to support us, send us a zap or check out the Bitcoin Infinity Store for our books and other merchandise! https://bitcoininfinitystore.com/

Intro

Luke: Paolo, Mathias, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show. Thank you for joining us.

Paolo: Thank you for having us.

Knut: Yeah, good to have you here, guys. We're going to talk a bit about Keet and Holepunch and a little bit about Tether today, aren't we?

Luke: Sounds like that's the plan. So thank you again, both for joining us.

Introducing Paolo and Mathias

Luke: would you both mind giving a quick introduction on yourselves just so our listeners have the background on you

Paolo: Sure, I'm Paolo Arduino, I'm the CEO at Tether. I started my career as a developer, I pivoted towards more, strategy and execution for, Tether and Bitfinex. And, co founded with Matthias, Holepunch, that is, building very, crazy and awesome technology, that is gonna be disrupting the way people communicate.

Luke: And, Mathias, over to you.

Mathias: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I've been, so I come from a peer-to-peer background. I've been working with peer-to-peer technology. The last, I always say five, but it's probably more like 10 years. I did a lot of work on BitTorrent and I did a lot of work on JavaScript. and a little bit later to, Bitcoin and I saw a lot of potential on how we can use Bitcoin with pureology and like how we can use.

P2P technology to bring the same mission that Bitcoin has, but to all kinds of data, setting all data free and, making everything private per default and self sovereignty and that kind of thing. I'm very into that. and I've been lucky to work with, like I said, with Paolo for, many years now and, Get a lot of, valuable, feedback and, idea sharing out of that.

And we're on a mission to, build some, really cool things. In addition to all the things we've already been building. So it's super exciting and glad to be here.

Luke: Oh, fantastic.

Introduction to Holepunch

Luke: Matthias, that was a perfect segue into basically, an introduction to, can you tell us about, Holepunch.

What is Holepunch and what are you doing?

Mathias: Yeah, sure. like I said, we co founded the company a couple of years ago. Now, we've been building up a team of really talented peer to peer engineers. we're always hiring also. So if anybody's listening and want to join our mission, please, apply. we have some really smart people working with us.

but we teamed up to basically. like I said in my introduction, I've been working on peer to peer technology for many years now and thinking ahead how we can, stop using all that technology when I started it was only used for basically piracy. I'm from the Nordics, and I think Knut is from the Nordics also, so he knows all about, the Nordics know about piracy.

It wasn't back in the day. A lot of very interesting technologies came out of that. But basically, how can we use those ideas that were proven by piracy back then to be really unstoppable, because a lot of people wanted to stop it, but apply that same kind of mindset to the general data, so we can build actual applications that has that kind of quality, that can withstand the wrath of God.

that can work without any centralization. Actually, nobody can shut down, not even the authorities if they wanted to. Basically unkillable and make that general enough that it can basically run any kind of application, solve a lot of really hot problems. it works on your own computers, your own networks.

Mobile phones, and tie that up. I'm a developer by heart, into a software stack that people can just build on. So not everybody has to go in and tackle all these problems individually, but just give them some software to solve all this so they can, as much as possible, just worry about making really cool applications that we use,

Yeah, like I said, we've been working really intensely on this, for a long time and in Holepunch, we made this our co mission to scale this up and, deliver a software stack on that. it's been really exciting and it's been really fun and it's been very, challenging, but if it's not challenging, then why, do it?

and, especially, with the backing of, Tether, through Paolo and also just expertise from there, we have a good hand built to deliver this to the world. And, the first thing we did was, like, think about what's, a good first application that we can build that can showcase this, but also something we really want to use ourself and see scale have also have on the world.

And obviously that was a communications app, keyed, which we was our first project. And, we're still in beta and we're still lots of work to do. And we're still iterating that really heavily, but I like to show that you can build these kind of apps without any kind of. central points. and we released that also, like the first thing we released when we launched the company.

And like I said, we're still, building and still iterating it. A lot of fun. and then take the software stack from that, which we call the pair runtime and then split that out. So anybody else can build similar apps on top. With that same technology stack, and, yeah, that's, we launched that earlier this year also, and, it's been really exciting so far, and it's, I love going to work every day and solve, even though, you can see on my hair that it's not really good for, the head scratching, but, but, it's really fun, and it's really challenging, and it's interesting thing. goal as a company, basically to have that if we go out of business tomorrow, our technology continues to exist because we're not in the loop of anything. It's also sometimes really hard to explain that we don't have any, chip coins involved or any kind of limitations on the stack because we're basically engineering it not to be part of it, because that's the only way you can actually engineer these things that they can understand.

anything, super exciting and, encourage everybody to try to check it out.

Luke: we've both used Keet and I've certainly enjoyed the experience. I, think, the, basics of this, as I understand it, is that it's, entirely on both sides. The communicators end, or a group of communicators, it's all on their end, and the communication is entirely peer to peer, what is Keet really, what is the basics of Keet as, say, a product?

What is the easiest way that you would explain what it is?

The Vision Behind Keet

Mathias: But We're basically trying to just build a world class communications app that works to a large degree, like normal communication apps that you know, like Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp. Just with all the centralization tucked away, with all the costs of running it tucked away, and then adding all the features that also we can, because we're peer to peer

People don't care about technology. We loved it, but don't have that surface off too much to the user.

Just have the user use it as any other app, but then just have it be 100 percent private per default, 100 percent like no strings attached. It just works. if we get caught off by a. From the internet tomorrow, it will still work, that kind of thing, but deliver that in a way, and this is always our mission where users don't really need to worry about it.

It just works. And, it works the same way to a large degree as their other apps work, except obviously, there's no phone numbers and things like that. Very cryptographically sound and, but trying always not to bubble it up. And I think that's, so it's actually a really simple mission, but it's obviously really hard.

And that requires a lot of smart people, but luckily our users in a good way, don't need to be very smart about that.

Keet vs Nostr

Knut: Yeah, a quick one there. No strings attached starts with the letters Nostr, so is, Keet and Nostr, do they go mix well together or, is there an integration there between the two? I see a lot of similarities here.

Paolo: I tried to explain the differences between Kit and Nostr. I think Nostr is a very interesting protocol, but also is very, simple. the way I like to describe it is that, if you are familiar with the history of filesharing, Starting from the first one, super centralized, and then eventually every single step, you get to a decentralized platform.

And the last one, the most decentralized one, that is BitTorrent. the history of file sharing proved that every time you try to centralize something, it ends up badly, right? if you have any special node in the system that does a little bit more than others and requires more resources than others to run, that will end up badly.

You might end up in a small room with a lamp in your room. Point it to your face, and then everyone suddenly will stop running an indexer. That reminds me about Nostr structure. if you are building a peer to peer system, or if you are building a very resilient communication system, if you think about Nostr, you would imagine that if you have, 10 million or 100 million users, the number of relays would be probably less than the square root of the number of users.

So that surface, although a hundred million users is very, they're not attackable, right? But the surface of, the relays is much more attackable. look at what is happening with, the coin joinin platforms, right? very similar. the beauty of KIT versus Nostr is that in KIT you have number of relays is actually equal to the number of users because the users are their own relays.

and they can act as relays for others to, further their connectivity. That is how we think a technology that, has to be ready for the apocalypse and resilient to the wrath of God should, work. if you have, a log number of users or square root of number of users as relates, I don't think it's cool technology.

It will work better than centralized, Technologies like WhatsApp and so on, or Twitter, but eventually will not work when you will need it the most. Because the point is that we will not know what will happen when we will need this technology the most. Today, not for everyone, but the world is still almost at peace.

Things might unfold, in the future, maybe sooner rather than later. But when things unfold, you will need the best technology, the one that is truly independent, the one that is truly peer to peer. it's not really peer to peer if you have specialized relays, but where you have super peers randomly.

Luke: Yeah, the difference here, between the Realize and not having any other centralized infrastructure in the picture is certainly an interesting distinction. I hadn't heard anything about that you can act as a next connector or something like that.

Pear Runtime

Luke: So there's a couple of related things. I know there was an announcement about the, pair runtime, is that right? can you talk a little bit about that or any other, ways that this is growing in your whole, platform,

Mathias: Yeah, sure. so basically when we talk about ideas, internally, also from our software background, We want to solve a small problem that then can solve it for everybody. So

We want to build technology that can just send data around efficiently, so you can build any kind of app on top. We're all about modularity and taking these things to the extreme so we can repurpose it into any kind of application and other people can, get value out of it.

And, that's been our mission from the get go. So basically, like Paolo said, when we built Keed. We took all of these primitives we have, it's all open source on our GitHub, that can do various things, relay encrypted data in a way that's completely private, nobody can read it, and in a generalizable way, so it can run on any applications.

We have databases that can interpret, work with this data on device, but still in a way where nobody else knows what's going on, fully private, and we spent many years perfecting this, and it's still ongoing. And we, similar to like connectivity, it might seem really easy if you don't know what's going on that, connecting this computer to another computer and another place, but it's really hard because ISPs and, your internet providers, et cetera, they don't really want you to do that.

So there's a lot of firewalls involved that you have to work around to get around This is all really, hard problems that took a long time to solve.

But luckily, all of these are like generalizable problems where you just solve them once to a large degree, and then it's solved for everybody. If you put them in a modular framework where anybody can put the Legos together on top. And that's what we've been heavily invested in. And then as we were building Keed, we realized that Keete is just like 95 percent of these Lego blocks that are applicable for anything.

So why not take all this stuff, pack it up for free, we don't make any money on it. and an open source runtime that we're just giving away so other people can contribute to it, but also build their own apps. the more peer to peer apps the world has, the better from my point of view.

and document it and make it really easy to install. And I think actually Paolo said something interesting because as soon as you have, one point of centralization, you can always unravel it. coming from the Bitcoin days, I remember how quickly things can unravel. people went to jail for linking to things because authorities, when they crack down, really hard.

so if you have one weak spot, it will be taken advantage of at some point by somebody. And so even things like distributing updates to your software can be really hard because this often requires a central point, like you go to a website and you don't download it. And so all apps built on our runtime, for example.

It's distributed through the runtime, which is a little bit mind bending. So all apps are peer to peer data applications themselves, and the network doesn't care, which means that we can continue to distribute updates even, if everything gets shut down, you only need like a bootstrap for the first install when you get the app.

So we're thinking that in. At every level, because it's really, important to us to, basically learn from everything that happened in the past and then actually build things that are resilient. And we take this to a degree where I'm sure we could move 10 times faster if we just let go a little bit of that idea, because it is easier to just put all the data in one place or put all the updates in one place.

But then it's then we're just building the same old thing that's going to die eventually anyway. So we're very, uncompromising in that mission of actually decentralizing everything from updates to data, and then also always solving in a way where everybody can take advantage of that.

And then the final thing I'll say about that is that, every time we update. That runtime, those building blocks of that runtime, every time we fix a bug, every time we make it faster, every app becomes faster. That's also very exciting. It's because you're building the whole infrastructure into this layer that runs on your phone.

And it's all somewhat generalizable. Every time we fix something, it's just better for the entire ecosystem. And that's obviously really, exciting. And like I said, actually, no strings attached.

Yeah, so I think you were referring to the trial of the Pirate Bay people there In Sweden, right? lucky enough to meet a couple of them in Denmark and it's been very fun to hear about their journey and, yeah, like

Knut: and there, there's, there was a great documentary made about it called TPBAFK. So the Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard, about that whole trial and how, corrupt the system was even back then. And, throwing people in jail for providing links. they didn't do any more wrong than Google did, from a certain perspective.

And, I remember even, before BitTorrents, there was a program called. DC or Direct Connect Do you remember that?

Mathias: I used to, it was one of my first introductions to decentralization. it as you just shared your, like a Google Drive for everyone or something. Like you just shared parts of your file tree to everyone who wanted to peek into it, Yeah, anyway. Oh, that's good that you didn't know you were going with that. it interesting what you said, because I think it's interesting to think that I think to a large degree, the whole decentralization movement that was happening with BitTorrent back in the day got shut down because At some point, authorities figured out that they could just block DNS requests to shut it down for normal people, and as soon as they did that, it was actually effective.

And to Paolo's point, no matter how weak it is, they're done. and they tried to kill the technology elsewhere, but that's actually what killed them. Then, obviously, alternatives came that people could pay for, and it also shows that people actually want, to stay on the right side of things.

I think, now it's going very much in the wrong direction again, because now we're back at abusing that centralization again. the cycle will repeat. But, yeah, like any point of weakness will be attacked at any point.

Decentralization vs. Centralization

Luke: So what are the drawbacks to decentralization? I think we and our audience certainly understand the benefit of decentralization, what you gain by decentralizing, but what do you naturally give up in terms of the user experience and the convenience factor?

Mathias: yeah, I'm sure Paola has stuff to say here, but I'm just, I love talking about this stuff, so I'll go first. Mattias.

I think it's a really interesting question, first of all, because it's one of those questions where You know, obviously I want to say there's no drawbacks, but like anything, it's a balance, right?

Because it's not that there's drawbacks and advantages, there obviously is, but it's also just a different paradigm. first of all, with sensitization, I think one of the biggest thing I noticed also with developers is that we all come out of systems, education systems. That teaches how to think centralized, which makes us biased towards centralized solutions.

and that's, I remember my whole curriculum was about servers and clients and stuff like that. it's actually really hard to think about decentralization as a developer. And I think that's actually part of why a lot of people think it's hard. It's complex because it is complex, but also because we're just like, we've been trained massively in the other direction, and it's really hard to go back because decentralization can be as simple as what Knut said about DC Connect, DC where it's just, oh, I'm just browsing other people's computers.

That's amazing. That's a really, simple experience, and it's like something you can never do But like in today's world, people, the first thing I always get asked is like, how do I get a username? And I'm like, usernames have an inherent centralization and there's trade offs there.

And we need to think that through and stuff. and most applications don't necessarily require usernames. I'm not saying that's a bad feature, but it's that's where you need to think more about the trade offs because there's governance involved to some degree. But for the core experience, and I think that's what we've shown in Keith so far.

Then, there's obviously tons of upsides also, it's much easier to do big data transfers. Money is less of a concern, which actually changes the thinking, how you think about features.

And that, again, is something we've been trained in a lot as developers, because we think centralized. When we talk about features at Holepunch, hey, we should add podcast recording to Keed. Normally somebody would say, that's going to cost a lot of money to host that data. And we just always we don't even have that discussion because it doesn't matter because it's just between the users.

And then it's more about like the UX. But then other simple, like I said, other simple discussions, let's add a username index. That's where we're like, okay, let's think that through because there's like various things to think about there because there's no centric governance, and we don't want to introduce that because again, one point is.

It's bad. so it's, more like you really need to think differently and it's really hard to wire your brain to think differently. but once you get past that point, I think it's, super interesting. And I, think actually developers care way more than normal people because, developers care a lot about how links look and links and structure and that.

And normal people are just used to just clicking buttons and apps and going with the flow on that. And that's also what we're seeing, I think, with, a lot of key

Paolo: I think the hiring has proven a little bit more challenging, as Matthias was saying, when you are told that the cloud is your friend, hosting, on, Google Cloud or AWS is the right thing to do. And, of course, it got cheaper and cheaper, so now everyone can host their websites.

But the reality is that 70 percent of, the entire internet knowledge is hosted in the data centers of three companies. developers should think about that, should think about the fact that internet was born to be point to point and peer to peer. And, we are very far away from that initial concept.

over the years, especially with the boom in, in the year 2000 for the internet boom, and bubble, then, realized that, holding people's data is the way to go, with social media and social network. That is even worse. And so you have these friendly advertisements that are telling you, That, with a smiley face that, you know, yeah, you should, upload all your data on, Apple cloud or Google cloud.

And in general, cloud backups are great, right? You want to have some sort of redundancy in your life, but the reality is that you should be able to upload those. In an encrypted way, and yet most of this data sits unencrypted because, the big tech companies have to decrypt it and use it for, to milk the information to pay for, for, another month of their new data centers.

the, issue is, we have so much power in our hands through our phones. the phones that we have today are much more powerful than the phones that we, or even the computers that we have 10 years ago or 5 years ago. And so We should, we are at a stage where we can use this hardware, not only for communicating, but also for in the future for AI processing and inference and so on.

is, we need to, understand that the word cannot be connected to Google. I mean we cannot be a function of Google. We cannot be a function of AWS. And so I think that, there is, escalating pace of, towards centralization and it's almost a black hole.

And eventually, the, we'll attract all the lights and if we are too close to it, no lights will come out anymore. And, that's why we want to really to double down on this technology, because it's not going to be easy, right? It's going to be very challenging, and most of the people don't care, as Maite has said before.

Most of the people will think, everything works with WhatsApp and, Signal, but Signal announced that their 2023 costs for data centers and data center costs are around 50 million, and they, apart from the mobile coin that was not The best thing that they could do, there is, it's not easy for them to monetize.

And the problem is that if you are, you're basically almost the only way to monetize it is to sell your customer's data. So if you don't want to sell your customer data, eventually your service will not be sustainable. So the only way to make it sustainable is actually going back to peer, where you can leverage people, infrastructure, people, connectivity, people, phones, people, processing power, Deliver very high quality communication system.

And when they will care, it will be probably usually too late if nothing exists yet. when people will care is because shit is hitting the fan. And, you really want to have a solution that is not, that will survive if, the countries around you or around the country where you live are not going to be nice to your own country.

So that's the view to peer-to-peer. The peer-to-peer wheel system will keep working if your neighbor countries are not going to be nice towards you. That's independence, that's resiliency, those are terms that, we need to take very seriously, especially seeing where the, world is going to.

Knut: Yeah, I think we're all primed for, centralized solutions, from a very young age. this is the state, this is what it is like, state funded schooling. state funders or state subsidized media. We are, like brainwashed into, trusting, institutions all our lives.

So I think that is somewhat connected to why people are so reluctant to be vigilant about this on the internet. I think the two go hand in hand that we, take the comfortable way, or most people take the comfortable route of, not taking responsibility for their own stuff. not only on the internet, but outsourcing responsibility to the government is basically the, another side of the same coin, right?

Mathias: I also find it very interesting, especially being from a small country like Denmark that doesn't have a lot of homegrown infrastructure. And I'm just seeing how much communication with some of the public entities is happening through centralized platforms like Facebook and things like that, where even though we centralize it, we also centralize it in companies that we don't even have any control over in different countries where we probably have, no rights at all.

So it's like hyper centralization, especially from the weakest point of view. And I think that's super problematic. And I'm always. Thinking it's, weird that we're not talking about that more especially when you look at the things that they're trying to do in the EU, they're almost trying to just push more in that direction, which I find even more interesting.

yeah, definitely. it's, a huge problem and it's only getting bigger. And that's, why

Challenges and Future of Decentralization

Luke: So to what level can decentralization actually get there? What is the limit to decentralization? And I'll calibrate this with an example. The internet itself, you said it was built to essentially originally be decentralized, but we don't have it. For physical links, like individual physical links between each other, the fiber or whatever the wire is goes together into another group of wires, which eventually go into some backbone, which is operated by a company.

And then that goes into the global Internet. And so somewhere it centralizes into telecom companies and other services. It might be decentralized on one level, but there is a layer of centralized services that make the internet work that isn't necessarily the so called cloud providers and that sort of thing.

So is there a limitation to how far this can go?

Paolo: I think the, in general, sure, there are the ISPs and, their physical infrastructure is in part centralized, but also you start having redundancy, right? So for example, the backbones are redundant. There are multiple companies running, cross connects across different areas of the world.

Now you have Starlink if you want. that is a great way to start decentralizing connectivity because Starlink will not be the only one that will run satellites, so there will be multiple companies that will allow you to connect through satellites, plus you have normal cabling.

So you will have, it will become a huge mesh network, it's already in part, but it will become more and more a huge mesh network. in general, you will always find a way, even with a pigeon, to start sending bits out of your house.

I think the most important part is, you have to be in control of your own data, and then, you need to send this data with the shortest path to the people that you want to talk to. Right now, I usually make this example, because I think it's When we do this presentation, we try to make people think about how much waste also centralized systems have created.

imagine you live in Rome, you live in Rome and you have your family. Most people live nearby their families. That is a classic thing among humans. 90 percent of the people live nearby their families. Maybe nearby, like 10km, 50km nearby. If you talk to your family, every single message, every single photo that you will send to your family, that message will travel, instead of going 50 kilometers in a nearby town where your mother lives or your father lives, it will travel every single message, every single bit of every single video call or every single bit of every photo will travel 5, 000 miles to Frankfurt just to go back 50 kilometers from you.

Imagine how much government spent in order to create these internet lines and to empower them to make it bigger, more, with more capacity Peer to peer allows with a lower latency, allows to save on bandwidth, allows to save on cost of global infrastructure.

So that's how, actually, We can create better mesh networks, more resilient mesh networks, just because data will always find the shortest path from one point to another.

And still all roads lead to Rome. I'm Italian, so I need to use Rome as an example.

Knut: Yeah.

Mathias: I think the discussion here is really interesting compared to Bitcoin, because it's actually the scaling longer term. Sovereignty, like how, Bitcoin kind of told us very direct terms that if you have a key pair, you have your money.

And it doesn't matter where you are in the world. If you have that key pair, you have a way to get to that money. the means of transportation, it's actually very uninteresting in that sense, because you have it with you. The Internet today, the centralized Internet is designed in a way where, what does it mean to go to Facebook?

it's really hard to explain because it's like some certificate that issued by somebody, and there's. Some, cabal of companies that manages them, there's some regulations around it, but we don't really actually understand it that well as normal people. Technically, we can understand it, but it's very, centralized and it's very, opaque and it's built into the infrastructure in that way, in a bad way.

And, with Pure Technology, we're taking the same approach as Bitcoin here and saying, You're just a key pair, and the other person is just a key pair, and there's a bunch of protocols around that, but the transportation is actually not that interesting. Right now, we use the internet to do it.

We'll probably do that for a long time, but there's no reason why we can take the same technology we have right now and in 50 years run it on, laser beams or something else, because we're taking the software and feedback.

Bitcoin and Holepunch: Drawing Parallels

Mathias: I think, that's the main thing to think about in that. Discussion.

Luke: when, Paolo, when you were talking about that people don't care, when you were saying that people don't care because WhatsApp just works, I was at the same time thinking that's the parallel of people saying that, I don't care because Visa just works, right? And so the parallel between Bitcoin and what you're doing at Holepunch, Keet, everything else here, really seems to be tracking along the same line.

And I guess there's the connection that, I won't say all, but a lot of the people involved are already in the Bitcoin ecosystem. But can you comment on is there a little more of a connection there between Holepunch and Keet and Bitcoin?

Paolo: Yeah, Bitcoin definitely is working and servicing, I think, in a good way, many, people in communities. The users of Bitcoin today are, unfortunately, and also that relates to Tether, mostly, in the Western world, in the richer countries, as a way to save wealth and, as a store of value, more than a means of exchange.

For different reasons, right? We'd like a network that would improve, of course, over time, and there will be different approaches, but, still, the world is not yet using Bitcoin, but the world will use Bitcoin when shit will hit the fan. but the beauty of Bitcoin is that an option is already there, is available, and when something bad will happen, people immediately, with a snap of a finger, will turn to Bitcoin, and will have it and can use it. don't have that in communications. What is our communica our parallel with communications, if we don't have it? I don't know, because if, if suddenly centralized communications will, be blocked, then, or privacy in communications will be blocked, and you cannot, you cannot use Whatsapp, or Whatsapp has to start giving all the information to every single government.

and the government will become more evil than what they are today, also western governments then. don't, we wanted to build the exact parallel as we said it, we just tried to describe it, that with Bitcoin, for communications. We need to have something that, since there are so many alternatives that are working as with your, you can make the parallel with Visa, right?

Visa is working today, so people are still using a lot of Visa, but if something will happen, they will use Bitcoin from one day to another. Whatsapp is working, and Zoom is working, and Google Meet is working, so people don't feel the urge, but there will be a trigger point when people will feel the urge at some point in their lives, because something happened around them, and we need to make sure that kit will be available to them.

and will be an option, will be stable, will be well designed so that when they will need it the most that option will be available to them.

Luke: Yeah, fantastic.

The Future of Decentralized Communication

Luke: And so I think the follow up I have, and just to get back to the earlier discussion a little bit with Nostr, the communication in terms of messaging, I absolutely see that and directly in what Keet is, I already absolutely see that. Is there a goal to get somewhere towards more like Social media, social networking, things like that in a, in certainly a decentralized way, but right now there isn't something like that as I understand it, coming from, Keet.

So is, that a goal? Is that on the roadmap?

Paolo: Yeah, it is on the roadmap, it's something that, so we had to start with the thing that we thought was more urgent and also the thing that could have been, would have been a game changer. social media is very important, especially In difficult situation, you want to get news, and you want to get unbiased news, so you want to use, social networks to see what's happening in the world.

But we, think that the most sacrosanct thing that you need in your life is to be able to talk to your family and friends in any situation with the highest privacy possible. that's the first thing that we tackled, and also was a way to battle test the technology with, KIT you can do high quality video calls as well, so if we are able to tackle in the best way possible privacy and extreme scalability of peer to peer communications, then on top of that foundation we can build also social media and every single other application that we have in mind.

Mathias: But first, we wanted to tackle the hardest problem. No, I think it makes a lot of sense. And I also just want to say, as a, probably like one of the most prolific KEET users, I use KEET right now also as a very, like a social media, we have big public rooms where we talk about KEET and talk about technology. I get a lot of the value I would get otherwise on Twitter X from that because I, it's like a public platform for me to, get ideas out there, but also interact with users directly.

And I think, there's many ways to take them as a young app. And we're talking about this a lot, obviously it has to be simple, has to be parent approved. My parents can figure it out, but I think, to a large degree, all really healthy social networks that are actually, to some degree, a communication app.

And it's also just a really good way to get local news and to get this locality that Peter is good at. That doesn't mean that we might not also make other things, but I think it's a hard line to set the difference between a social network and a communications app when it's structured correctly,

Interoperability and User Experience

Luke: Yeah, and this, another thing that came to mind just as, you were talking about these parallels, as, I understand it, the account system with Keet is, essentially still just a, Key pair. Correct me if I'm, wrong,

Mathias: Very, true.

Luke: you backups with the same 1224 words.

Is, that fully interoperable as well? Is that, could be your Bitcoin key. That could be

Mathias: We use the, same, I can't remember the date, the BIP, but there's a BIP for like during key generation. So we can use it also in the future for other things. and you have those words, you have your account, and that's, we never store that. And that's like your sovereignty and, no, I was just going to say that lets you use it seamlessly on different devices also. It's one of those things that I love because I know what's going on when you use keyed Insanely hard problem, but it's solved by the runtime, and it just works seamlessly and I think that's, the beauty of it.

Paolo: I think there's some UX stuff to figure out about onboarding that stuff a little bit easier for normal people. That's probably to a large degree the same for Bitcoin. The other part that I would do with Bitcoin is that, with Bitcoin, with your 12, 24 words, you can access your private wealth. the beauty of Bitcoin is that you can remember 12 24 words, you cross borders, and you carry with you your wealth. You can do the same thing with your digital private life.

You remember 12 24 words, they could be the same by the way. whatever happens, you can spawn back your digital private life fully encrypted from, one of your other devices that you connected that is somewhere else in the world. So when you start seeing and understanding the unlock in terms of also human resilience that this creates is very, insane and can create a very powerful, that can be used for, to create a very, powerful applications, not just communications, but you can build.

Really any sort of interaction, even mapping. Imagine peer to peer mapping, where basically data is not stored in one single location. You can access, tiles of the maps, from, local people that curate them in a better way. So the, level of applications that you can build, All unlocked by the same technology that is being used by Bitcoin is very, incredible.

Luke: Yes, absolutely it is. And what do you think of the idea that all of this stuff is just interoperable now based on essentially you have your private key and there you go. It doesn't matter the technology stack. Is that sort of an agnostic thing where you can take your data to any one of these systems?

What you're building with Keith being one, Nostr being another, Bitcoin being a third, what do you think of that?

Paolo: Yeah, the fact that, data is yours, right? So you should do whatever you want with your data. That is, I think, an axiom that we should assume. And, it shouldn't even, we shouldn't even discuss about this, right? We are discussing about it because people are trying to take away this axiom from us.

The, you are a key pair, and you're basically, unique, and uniqueness is expressed by the cryptography around those 24 words, and that's, that also is a way to prove your identity, it's a mathematical way to prove your identity.

No one can steal that from you, of course, but no one can track it as no one can impersonate, should not be able to impersonate you. So it's truly powerful.

Mathias: also think it's like worth remembering here also in this discussion that a lot of very high valuable data for yourself is actually not that big, but centralized platforms take it hostage anyway. if you take all my chat history and, I have pictures, but like a couple of the pictures would probably be bigger than all my chat history ever.

but a lot of that, those messages have a lot of value for me, especially personally and also being able to search through it and have infinite history, it's very valuable for me personally. But it's very scary for me if that's on some other platform where it gets leaked at some point, et cetera, et cetera.

But we already have the devices, just normal consumer devices that we buy, that we all have, phones, computers, whatever, that have more than enough capacity to store multiple copies of this. In terms of like per user, data production, it's a manageable problem.

And I think it's interesting how, providers force us to think in terms of giving that data away, even though we could easily store it.

Paolo: And this is even more important when we think about potential, AI applications, right? So imagine your best assistant. Paolo's assistant should go through all my emails, my kids chats, my old social stuff, and be able to be my best assistant. But in order to do that, I have two options.

Either, I imagine that OpenAI would come with an assistant. They would upload, All the information on their servers, crunch that information, and then, use it to serve, me, but also service their own needs. And that can become very scary, also because they wear a hat. It's public, right?

you don't want your most intimate codes that your best personal assistant could know, to be on somewhere else, rather than your devices. And so people were, people never uploaded, at least most of the people would never upload medical, information on Facebook, right? But they are uploading it on ChatGPT to get a second opinion.

so things can be, get even scarier than what we described today because, we, discussed about social media, that is basically, the fun part where we upload photos, But, things can become scarier when it comes to privacy and data control with ai.

So I want to see a future where I have a local AI that can read all key messages that I have from my local phone on my local device, and can become the best powers assistant possible without renouncing to my privacy, and also still governed by the same 24 words. the fine tuning that is applied on that LLM should stay local to my own device, and it should be in control of that.

And still, the current power of the devices that we have makes it possible. We should not fall for the same lie. We don't need, of course, big data centers with GPUs are important for training a huge LLM, but that is a generic LLM. You can take that one and then fine tune it with your own data and run it by yourself.

And for most of it, unless you want to do crazy things, that is more than enough and can run on modern GPUs or local GPUs or your phones. We should start thinking that we can build local experiences without having an API all the time connected to someone else's data center.

Knut: Yeah.

The Role of Tether in the Crypto Ecosystem

Knut: It's super interesting. you briefly just briefly mentioned tether before and I think we need to get into this. what is it and how much of a maxi are you, Paolo?

And, what, made this thing happen? Can you give us the story here about Tether?

Tether's Origin and Evolution

Paolo: Tether started in 2014. I consider myself a maxi, but running Tether, you could say that, I'm a shit coiner. I don't mind, right? I like what I do, and I think I'm net positive, so it's okay. Tera was born in 2014 with a very simple idea. there were a few crypto exchanges in, 2014.

it was Bitfinex, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp. OKCoin, there was BTCChina, and just a few others, right? Around 10 that were meaningful. The problem back then was to do, trading arbitrage, you sell Bitcoin on the exchange where the price is higher, you take the dollars. From that sale, you move the dollars on the exchange where the price is lower and rinse and repeat.

That is called arbitrage. It is a property of every single efficient financial system. And that also helps to keep the price of Bitcoin in line across different exchanges. But, that was very, hard in 2014. If you remember in 2013 was the first year that Bitcoin broke the 1, 000.

But on some exchanges the price was 1. 2, on others was 900. in order to arbitrage that price difference, you have to move dollars from one exchange to another and Bitcoin from one exchange to another. You can move Bitcoin from one exchange to another. 10 minutes, but dollars would take days, right?

International wires. And so of course the opportunity arbitrage was, fully gone by, the, time the wire was hitting the, receiving exchange. the reason why we created that was, USDT was simply to put the dollar on a blockchain so that we could have the same user experience that we had with bitcoin.

For the first two years, almost no exchange apart Bitfinex understood USDT. Then Poloniex in 2016 started to add the USDT across for against every single trading pair. There was the start of the ICO boom. 2017 was the peak of the ICO boom and, USDT reached 1 billion in market cap. Fast forward in 2020, we had around 10 billion in market cap, and then the bull run started, but also another important thing started, that was the pandemic.

USDT's Impact on Emerging Markets

Paolo: So the pandemic had a huge effect on many economies around the world, in all the economies around the world, but especially in emerging markets, developing countries.

Basically pandemic also killed entire economies. And so as a Bitcoin you would think, oh, all these people that are in countries like Argentina and Venezuela and Turkey and so on, they should use Bitcoin and they should, they should, only use Bitcoin because everything else is cheap.

So that is pretty much, the approach that we have as Bitcoiners that, I believe in. But the problem is that. Not everyone is ready, so not everyone has our time to understand Bitcoin. Not everyone has yet the full skill set to understand Bitcoin at this stage, at this moment in time.

we as Bitcoiners didn't build the best user experience in the world, right? So one of the best wallets for Bitcoin is still Electrum. That, is not necessarily nice and well done for and simple to be used for, a 70 year old lady. so we need to do a better job as Bitcoiners to build better user experiences we want Bitcoin to be more used around the world.

At the same time, 99 percent of the population knows, especially the ones that are living in high inflation areas, knows that there is the dollar that is usually Much better currency than what they hold in their hands. the US dollar is not, definitely not perfect. It's not the perfect fiat currency. but it's like the tale of the two friends running away from the lion, right?

you have, one friend tells to the other, Oh, the lion is gonna kill us. We have to run really fast. And one of the two friends says to the other, I just have to run faster than you, right? So the US dollar is the friend that is running faster, in a sense that is the one that is likely better than the others.

And so being better than the others is creating a sort of safety feeling among 5 billion people in the world that live in high inflation countries. And for those people that, they don't have yet the time, they didn't have the luck also, maybe, to understand Bitcoin, they are, in fact, using USDT.

If you live in Argentina, peso lost 98% against the US dollar in the last five years. The Turkish L lost 80% against the US dollar in, the last five years. So of course, Bitcoin would be better than the US dollar, but even already, if you hold the dollar, you are the king of the hill there, right?

So because it's, you are able to preserve your wealth much, better than almost anyone else in the region. I think, USDT is offering a temporary solution and is providing a service, a very good service to people that don't have alternatives and good alternatives and they are very, familiar with the U.

S. dollar already. so eventually, the hyperbitcoinization, I think it will happen. there is no way it won't happen. It's hard to pinpoint on a time when, that will happen. But it's all about the turning point. What the economy will look like in the next, 10, 20 years and what trigger point there will be for fiat currencies to blow up and become irrelevant.

Bitcoin as a Savings Account

Paolo: the way I see it is that it's likely that the U. S. dollar will stay around for a while, and people might still want to use, the U. S. dollar as a checking account, but they, should start to use, Bitcoin as their savings account, in the checking account, you, are happy to not make interest, It's something that you use for payments, it's something that you are okay to detach from because it's the money that you are ready to spend.

The savings account is the thing that we should fight for. This thing is the thing that matter the most, and, it's the thing that will is protecting people wealth. And so in the long term. And in the medium term, we should push for this savings account to be Bitcoin. also with Tether, we are heavily investing in companies, in Bitcoin companies.

we support the Blockstream. We supported so many in the space that are, we, are supporting RGB. That is a protocol that is building, assets on top of, like network, style channels. Thank you for listening. and we buy Bitcoin ourselves. We do a lot of Bitcoin mining.

We develop, I think, the best and most sophisticated Bitcoin mining software, by the way, based on hole punch technology. It's like IoT for Bitcoiners and Bitcoin mining. It's very cool. we are relying on the dollar and, you could say that USDT is helping the dollar, expansion, but the same way I don't think Dollar and Bitcoin aren't necessarily opposed to one or the other.

I think that Bitcoin has its own path. And no matter what happens, there is no way to slow it down. I think, it's going to be inevitable success. It's going to be inevitable that it will become global internet money and global words money. No country will trust to each other with, with each other currencies for, for a longer time, and so the only viable solution is a currency that is governed by math.

That is the only objective way, objective thing that we have in the universe. that's my train of thoughts on, Tether and Bitcoin.

Knut: Oh, thank you. Thank you for that explanation. It explains a lot of things. To me, it sounds a bit like you're a lubrication company, like selling lubrication for the transition between the rape of the dollar to the love fest of the hyperbitcoinized world, to make the transition a little smoother.

Paolo: we are more than, at Tether we have also this educational arm and, believe it or not, the majority of the creation we do is actually on Bitcoin, right? So we are supporting the Plan B network led by the great Giacomo Zucco. The unfortunate thing is that USDT, didn't have a marketing team up to, 2022 with Tether.

So basically, I wish I could say that success of Tether is because we were super intelligent and great. but actually the success of Tether, unfortunately is a symptom of the success of, of, national economies. And it's sad if you think about it, right? So the success of your main product U as it is, They're actually proportional to the FACAP of many central banks. And, but it is what it is, right? So we need to do what we do at, really, at DataRace, creating all these educational contents to try to explain that, sure, we are providing a tool for today, but, For tomorrow you probably need, you need to understand that you have other options, you need to understand Bitcoin, because as we said for, Keith, right?

So the moment when you will need the most Bitcoin, it has to be available, you need to understand it, so that is a true option for you. The way we, see bitcoin education.

Knut: No, and, something like Tether would have, emerged, either way, and it's very comforting to know that it's run by Bitcoiners and not by a central bank itself or something. yeah, and the Plan B Network, I was a guest lecturer there in Logano and it was fantastic.

I love what you're doing there with the educational hub. And we even got Giacomo to write the foreword to our new book here that you can see here behind Luke.

Luke: Always say the title, Knut. Always say the title.

Knut: Bitcoin, the inverse of Clown World. It's, you, if, you're good at maths and emojis, you might be able to figure out the title from the cover, but it's one divided by Clown World anyway, which is on the opposite side of the everything divided by 21 million equation, So anyway, looking forward to seeing you in Lugano and giving you both a copy of the book, of course.

Paolo: Oh, with pleasure, with great pleasure, with a nice, education.

Luke: Absolutely. Yep.

Plan B Forum and Future Events

Luke: 100%. And we have to wind things down, but I'll just say as well, yeah, absolutely looking forward to Lugano Plan B Forum. Always a highlight of the year. It was my first time last year. I absolutely loved it. can't wait to attend this year.

so it's the 25th, 2020 6th of October, 2024. this year, it's a Bitcoin event that is not made to make money. So the problem with events is that. You have to find sponsors, and usually, sponsor might not be well aligned with the message you want to give, right? I think Tether is lucky enough, to not have to make money on the event.

Paolo: I want to have, good, guests. I want to have great speakers. I want to have the messaging. That is not only about Bitcoin, it's about, freedom of speech as well. We had the family of Assange for the last few years, and I think that they will come also this year.

I'm going to be probably killed by the By our marketing team, I'm not sure if they announced it, but we are going to have another Plan B event also in El Salvador next year, so we're trying to create this network of cities and countries that have things in common and, invite people that want to share knowledge around the world.

And, yeah, and of course we, are very proud of the good food that we, serve in Lugano. So that is another thing that, not all the bands can say the same thing.

Knut: No, it's fantastic. And we happened to bump into the Assange family at the cocktail bar in a fancy hotel and, had a very interesting conversation with them there. So if you're listening. Anyone from the Assange family is welcome on the show any time. So yeah, no looking forward to that event for sure, we had a great time.

And I think we're even playing this year, aren't we, Luke?

Paolo: You're

Luke: yeah, the Satoshi Rakamoto is in the event there, we, played, back in Prague, it was my first, time, but Knut is a regular at the Rakamotos.

Yeah, we played at Lugano last year Oh, anything and everything, what did we do in Prague?

Knut: paranoid and,

Paolo: Can I commission a

Knut: What song would you like to hear?

Paolo: I have two that I would suggest. One is Nothing Else Matters.

Knut: Alright.

Paolo: So I think that, is very inspiring, right?

Knut: Bitcoin, for sure.

Nothing Else Matters. it's perfectly aligned with Bitcoin. And, the other one is Sad But True. Oh, that would be fun. We'll squeeze in some Metallica there, won't we, Luke?

Mathias: we'll 100% have those songs ready to go. We also have, a big peer to peer track at the conference,

Knut: Yeah.

Mathias: not so much music, but yeah, that's peer to

Knut: Nothing else matters.

Luke: looking forward to that.

Knut: Sorry, brain fart. Sad but true is about the dollar still being around,

Paolo: Yeah, you can say that.

Luke: Okay.

Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

Luke: Hey, we have to wind things down here because, we're, almost, out of time. So I'll just hand this, back to you both. Is there anything else you'd like to, mention about, your plans in the upcoming couple of years, in, key, toll, punch, anything like that?

Mathias: only that we're, like I said, we're integrating really hard right now, and it's a really fun time to, join the company because, we're small and efficient We get to work with Tether, which has a lot of benefits and it's getting really fast, so definitely check that out. And it's also a really fun time to join Keith in our public rooms.

There's a lot of very personal, in a good way, intense chats where you get to be part of the loop. I love to be part of those early communities and I would suggest everybody to check that out and go to the website and try it out.

Paolo: we will certainly do that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So go check out Keith and Holepunch and the Plan B forum in Lugano, You could visit tether. io, that is, the website where we are trying to explain what we have in our minds between, finance, bitcoin mining, energy production, AI, communications, brain chips and stuff, right? I think it's more exciting.

Mathias: Just those things, that's all.

Paolo: Yeah, we can piss off more than this. Thanks.

Mathias: a

Luke: No, It's just perfect. and is on that note, is there anywhere else specific you'd like to direct our listeners?

Paolo: just follow the social channels and give us feedback on kit all the time because these technologies, needs everyone's help to be nailed them.

Mathias: We love technical feedback. We love UX feedback. We're trying to make something that works for the masses, so anything is good.

Luke: So that's, all at Keet. Is that correct? For Keet?

Mathias: Key. io and pairs. com for our runtime. It's all peer to peer.

Knut: Alright,

Mathias: Wonderful. And you're also still on the legacy social media platforms, right? Yeah.

Knut: we'll make sure to include links to your handles so people can find you there if they would like. forward to seeing you in Lugano.

Paolo: Likewise, I

Knut: But yeah, worth saying again.

Paolo: Thank you for having an invitation.

Luke: Yes, we'll wrap things up here. This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

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Custos Ocultos da Propriedade

Investir em imobiliário envolve custos iniciais e contínuos significativos, incluindo:

1. Entrada: Tipicamente 10% do preço de compra, que poderia ser melhor gasto em outro lugar.
2. Custos de fecho: Taxas associadas à compra e venda de propriedades, que variam entre 2-5% do preço de compra.
3. Impostos sobre propriedades: Pagamentos anuais ou semestrais aos governos locais (IMI por exemplo), que podem aumentar com o tempo.
4. Seguro: Prémios para seguros de edifícios e responsabilidade civil.
5. Manutenção: Custos contínuos, que geralmente representam entre 1-3% do valor da propriedade anualmente.

Comparação: Verdadeiras Despesas da Propriedade vs. Arrendamento

O arrendamento muitas vezes evita os custos iniciais substanciais, impostos e taxas de manutenção associados à posse de uma casa. Para muitos, especialmente em mercados habitacionais voláteis, isso torna o arrendamento mais financeiramente viável no curto a médio prazo. Possuir propriedades pode bloquear capital que poderia ser melhor investido noutro lugar.

Riscos de Alavancagem e Dívida

Os investimentos imobiliários geralmente requerem dívida, amplificando tanto os ganhos potenciais quanto as perdas. Uma pequena queda no valor da propriedade pode ter um impacto significativo na sua equidade. Se os valores das propriedades diminuírem, os investidores podem encontrar-se em dificuldades financeiras.

Os Fardos Ocultos do Imobiliário

Embora frequentemente visto como um investimento de baixo risco, o imobiliário traz fardos ocultos. Muitos presumem que é um investimento passivo, mas gerir propriedades—lidar com manutenção e inquilinos—é tudo menos passivo.

Externalidades e Consequências Secundárias

Ao comprar uma propriedade, você também assume: - Custos de manutenção: Desde pequenos reparos até grandes renovações. - Gestão de inquilinos: Encontrar inquilinos fiáveis e lidar com questões relacionadas com inquilinos. - Mudanças de vizinhança: Dinâmicas de vizinhança em mudança podem afectar os valores das propriedades. - Preocupações ambientais: Desastres naturais ou mudanças ambientais locais podem impactar as propriedades.

Imprevisibilidade e Risco do Mercado

O mercado imobiliário está sujeito a bolhas e recessões. As bolhas de propriedades, as quedas de mercado e as mudanças nas regulamentações podem ter efeitos severos sobre o valor do imobiliário.

Liquidez

O imobiliário é um activo altamente ilíquido, muitas vezes levando meses a ser vendido. Em contraste, activos mais líquidos podem ser vendidos rapidamente quando necessário, tornando o imobiliário menos atractivo para aqueles que buscam flexibilidade.

O Impacto Social do Investimento Imobiliário

A forma como a sociedade vê o imobiliário impacta a acessibilidade e a disponibilidade de habitação.

A Crise de Acessibilidade à Habitação

Investir em propriedades para armazenar riqueza ou gerar rendimento passivo eleva os preços e reduz a disponibilidade de habitação para famílias de baixos e médios rendimentos. O “prémio monetário” associado ao investimento imobiliário aumenta a procura, empurrando os preços para cima e exacerbando a escassez de habitação em grandes cidades europeias.

Prémio Monetário

O prémio monetário no contexto do imobiliário refere-se ao valor extra que os investidores atribuem às propriedades não apenas pela sua utilidade como casas, mas como investimentos que podem armazenar, ou preservar, riqueza. Isso significa que as pessoas estão dispostas a pagar mais pelo imobiliário porque o veem como uma forma de preservar e aumentar o seu dinheiro, em vez de apenas um lugar para viver.

Por exemplo, se uma casa vale €200,000 com base na sua utilização real (como espaço habitacional), mas os investidores estão dispostos a pagar €250,000 porque acreditam que ela irá valorizar ao longo do tempo, a diferença de €50,000 é o prémio monetário. Este aumento da procura por parte dos investidores pode elevar os preços das habitações, dificultando a vida às pessoas que precisam de casas acessíveis. Em essência, o prémio monetário reflecte a ideia de que algumas propriedades são valorizadas mais pelo seu potencial como activos financeiros do que pela sua função como lares.

Preço vs. Valor Utilitário

Se o imobiliário fosse visto apenas pela sua utilidade—proporcionar abrigo—os preços das habitações reflectiriam melhor o seu valor real, melhorando a acessibilidade. O modelo actual, que prioriza o investimento em propriedades em detrimento da sua função como casa, promove a gentrificação e o deslocamento.

Bom vs. Mau Investimento numa Casa

Enquanto comprar uma casa para viver é um investimento sensato, usar o imobiliário para preservação de riqueza, arrendamento ou especulação pode ter consequências sociais negativas, perpetuando a desigualdade e reduzindo as opções de habitação para aqueles que mais precisam.

Finanças Tradicionais vs. Imobiliário

Em contraste com o imobiliário, os mercados financeiros tradicionais proporcionam uma forma mais dinâmica e eficiente de armazenar valor.

Mercado de Acções e Índices como Melhores Alternativas

Historicamente, os índices do mercado de acções, como o S&P 500 e o Euro Stoxx 50, superaram o imobiliário em termos de retornos. Estes índices oferecem diversificação e exposição de baixo custo ao crescimento a longo prazo. No entanto, mesmo estes mercados têm limitações, especialmente quando se considera a inflação. Por exemplo, o retorno composto histórico do S&P 500 é de cerca de 7% por ano uma vez ajustado pela inflação. Em alguns casos, pode mesmo resultar em perdas ao considerar a inflação real.

Custos e Barreiras de Entrada

Para as pessoas comuns, aceder ao mercado de acções requer um corretor, o que adiciona camadas de complexidade e taxas. Muitas pessoas, especialmente aquelas que trabalham em empregos "9 às 5", encontram-se numa posição em que são quase forçadas a aprender sobre o mercado de acções e investimentos tradicionais apenas para proteger o seu dinheiro, arduamente ganho, da inflação. Esta não é uma tarefa simples, pois investir em acções ou índices requer pesquisa, monitorização e conhecimento que a maioria das pessoas não tem tempo ou desejo de adquirir.

Além disso, a taxa de inflação real que as pessoas enfrentam muitas vezes difere das métricas oficiais, como o Índice de Preços ao Consumidor (IPC). A verdadeira inflação sentida pelas pessoas é melhor reflectida no aumento de preços dos bens e serviços que compram regularmente. Assim, mesmo o S&P 500, uma vez ajustado para esta inflação do mundo real, pode não ser tão seguro ou lucrativo quanto parece.

Uma Alternativa Mais Simples

Para aqueles que procuram uma opção de investimento mais directa, existe uma alternativa moderna: Bitcoin. Ao contrário das acções e do imobiliário, que requerem conhecimento significativo e gestão, Bitcoin pode ser comprado e mantido com esforço mínimo. Isso torna-o uma escolha atraente para indivíduos que não têm tempo para navegar pelas complexidades das finanças tradicionais.

Por Que Bitcoin É um Armazenamento de Valor Superior

1. Custos Baixos e Sem Externalidades

Bitcoin não tem impostos sobre propriedades, custos de manutenção ou seguros. A sua natureza descentralizada e baixas taxas de transacção tornam-no uma forma de armazenamento de valor eficaz em termos de custo.

2. Liquidez e Segurança

Bitcoin é um activo altamente líquido e facilmente transferível, tornando-o superior ao imobiliário, que leva tempo a vender. Além disso, a tecnologia descentralizada e segura do Bitcoin oferece protecção contra manipulação e confiscação.

3. Sem Necessidade de Especialização

Ao contrário do mercado de acções ou do imobiliário, Bitcoin pode ser mantido e gerido sem conhecimento especializado, tornando-o ideal para pessoas ocupadas ou aquelas novas no investimento.

4. Melhor que o Ouro

A natureza digital de Bitcoin faz com que seja mais transportável e acessível do que activos físicos como o ouro. É sem fronteiras e pode ser armazenado de forma segura, ao contrário do ouro ou do imobiliário, que exigem medidas de segurança física.

Conclusão: Repensar a Estratégia de Investimento

• A Armadilha do Imobiliário: Muitos veem o imobiliário como um investimento de baixo risco e padrão, mas esta mentalidade é errada. Os custos ocultos, os impactos sociais e as questões de liquidez tornam-no menos atraente quando analisado criticamente.

• Alternativas das Finanças Tradicionais: Investimentos tradicionais como acções e índices oferecem retornos superiores e escalabilidade em comparação com o imobiliário, proporcionando uma opção melhor para preservação de riqueza.

• A Ascensão de Bitcoin: Bitcoin oferece uma forma ainda mais directa e eficiente de armazenar valor, livre das complexidades e custos tanto do imobiliário quanto das finanças tradicionais, enquanto proporciona liquidez, segurança e facilidade de uso.

• Um Futuro Mais Brilhante: Ao movermo-nos além das estratégias tradicionais centradas no imobiliário e abraçar alternativas modernas, podemos desbloquear um futuro mais equitativo e rentável para a preservação de riqueza.

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Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Drivechain

Understanding Drivechain requires a shift from the paradigm most bitcoiners are used to. It is not about "trustlessness" or "mathematical certainty", but game theory and incentives. (Well, Bitcoin in general is also that, but people prefer to ignore it and focus on some illusion of trustlessness provided by mathematics.)

Here we will describe the basic mechanism (simple) and incentives (complex) of "hashrate escrow" and how it enables a 2-way peg between the mainchain (Bitcoin) and various sidechains.

The full concept of "Drivechain" also involves blind merged mining (i.e., the sidechains mine themselves by publishing their block hashes to the mainchain without the miners having to run the sidechain software), but this is much easier to understand and can be accomplished either by the BIP-301 mechanism or by the Spacechains mechanism.

How does hashrate escrow work from the point of view of Bitcoin?

A new address type is created. Anything that goes in that is locked and can only be spent if all miners agree on the Withdrawal Transaction (WT^) that will spend it for 6 months. There is one of these special addresses for each sidechain.

To gather miners' agreement bitcoind keeps track of the "score" of all transactions that could possibly spend from that address. On every block mined, for each sidechain, the miner can use a portion of their coinbase to either increase the score of one WT^ by 1 while decreasing the score of all others by 1; or they can decrease the score of all WT^s by 1; or they can do nothing.

Once a transaction has gotten a score high enough, it is published and funds are effectively transferred from the sidechain to the withdrawing users.

If a timeout of 6 months passes and the score doesn't meet the threshold, that WT^ is discarded.

What does the above procedure mean?

It means that people can transfer coins from the mainchain to a sidechain by depositing to the special address. Then they can withdraw from the sidechain by making a special withdraw transaction in the sidechain.

The special transaction somehow freezes funds in the sidechain while a transaction that aggregates all withdrawals into a single mainchain WT^, which is then submitted to the mainchain miners so they can start voting on it and finally after some months it is published.

Now the crucial part: the validity of the WT^ is not verified by the Bitcoin mainchain rules, i.e., if Bob has requested a withdraw from the sidechain to his mainchain address, but someone publishes a wrong WT^ that instead takes Bob's funds and sends them to Alice's main address there is no way the mainchain will know that. What determines the "validity" of the WT^ is the miner vote score and only that. It is the job of miners to vote correctly -- and for that they may want to run the sidechain node in SPV mode so they can attest for the existence of a reference to the WT^ transaction in the sidechain blockchain (which then ensures it is ok) or do these checks by some other means.

What? 6 months to get my money back?

Yes. But no, in practice anyone who wants their money back will be able to use an atomic swap, submarine swap or other similar service to transfer funds from the sidechain to the mainchain and vice-versa. The long delayed withdraw costs would be incurred by few liquidity providers that would gain some small profit from it.

Why bother with this at all?

Drivechains solve many different problems:

It enables experimentation and new use cases for Bitcoin

Issued assets, fully private transactions, stateful blockchain contracts, turing-completeness, decentralized games, some "DeFi" aspects, prediction markets, futarchy, decentralized and yet meaningful human-readable names, big blocks with a ton of normal transactions on them, a chain optimized only for Lighting-style networks to be built on top of it.

These are some ideas that may have merit to them, but were never actually tried because they couldn't be tried with real Bitcoin or inferfacing with real bitcoins. They were either relegated to the shitcoin territory or to custodial solutions like Liquid or RSK that may have failed to gain network effect because of that.

It solves conflicts and infighting

Some people want fully private transactions in a UTXO model, others want "accounts" they can tie to their name and build reputation on top; some people want simple multisig solutions, others want complex code that reads a ton of variables; some people want to put all the transactions on a global chain in batches every 10 minutes, others want off-chain instant transactions backed by funds previously locked in channels; some want to spend, others want to just hold; some want to use blockchain technology to solve all the problems in the world, others just want to solve money.

With Drivechain-based sidechains all these groups can be happy simultaneously and don't fight. Meanwhile they will all be using the same money and contributing to each other's ecosystem even unwillingly, it's also easy and free for them to change their group affiliation later, which reduces cognitive dissonance.

It solves "scaling"

Multiple chains like the ones described above would certainly do a lot to accomodate many more transactions that the current Bitcoin chain can. One could have special Lightning Network chains, but even just big block chains or big-block-mimblewimble chains or whatnot could probably do a good job. Or even something less cool like 200 independent chains just like Bitcoin is today, no extra features (and you can call it "sharding"), just that would already multiply the current total capacity by 200.

Use your imagination.

It solves the blockchain security budget issue

The calculation is simple: you imagine what security budget is reasonable for each block in a world without block subsidy and divide that for the amount of bytes you can fit in a single block: that is the price to be paid in satoshis per byte. In reasonable estimative, the price necessary for every Bitcoin transaction goes to very large amounts, such that not only any day-to-day transaction has insanely prohibitive costs, but also Lightning channel opens and closes are impracticable.

So without a solution like Drivechain you'll be left with only one alternative: pushing Bitcoin usage to trusted services like Liquid and RSK or custodial Lightning wallets. With Drivechain, though, there could be thousands of transactions happening in sidechains and being all aggregated into a sidechain block that would then pay a very large fee to be published (via blind merged mining) to the mainchain. Bitcoin security guaranteed.

It keeps Bitcoin decentralized

Once we have sidechains to accomodate the normal transactions, the mainchain functionality can be reduced to be only a "hub" for the sidechains' comings and goings, and then the maximum block size for the mainchain can be reduced to, say, 100kb, which would make running a full node very very easy.

Can miners steal?

Yes. If a group of coordinated miners are able to secure the majority of the hashpower and keep their coordination for 6 months, they can publish a WT^ that takes the money from the sidechains and pays to themselves.

Will miners steal?

No, because the incentives are such that they won't.

Although it may look at first that stealing is an obvious strategy for miners as it is free money, there are many costs involved:

1. The cost of ceasing blind-merged mining returns -- as stealing will kill a sidechain, all the fees from it that miners would be expected to earn for the next years are gone;
2. The cost of Bitcoin price going down: If a steal is successful that will mean Drivechains are not safe, therefore Bitcoin is less useful, and miner credibility will also be hurt, which are likely to cause the Bitcoin price to go down, which in turn may kill the miners' businesses and savings;
3. The cost of coordination -- assuming miners are just normal businesses, they just want to do their work and get paid, but stealing from a Drivechain will require coordination with other miners to conduct an immoral act in a way that has many pitfalls and is likely to be broken over the months;
4. The cost of miners leaving your mining pool: when we talked about "miners" above we were actually talking about mining pools operators, so they must also consider the risk of miners migrating from their mining pool to others as they begin the process of stealing;
5. The cost of community goodwill -- when participating in a steal operation, a miner will suffer a ton of backlash from the community. Even if the attempt fails at the end, the fact that it was attempted will contribute to growing concerns over exaggerated miners power over the Bitcoin ecosystem, which may end up causing the community to agree on a hard-fork to change the mining algorithm in the future, or to do something to increase participation of more entities in the mining process (such as development or cheapment of new ASICs), which have a chance of decreasing the profits of current miners.

Another point to take in consideration is that one may be inclined to think a newly-created sidechain or a sidechain with relatively low usage may be more easily stolen from, since the blind merged mining returns from it (point 1 above) are going to be small -- but the fact is also that a sidechain with small usage will also have less money to be stolen from, and since the other costs besides 1 are less elastic at the end it will not be worth stealing from these too.

All of the above consideration are valid only if miners are stealing from good sidechains. If there is a sidechain that is doing things wrong, scamming people, not being used at all, or is full of bugs, for example, that will be perceived as a bad sidechain, and then miners can and will safely steal from it and kill it, which will be perceived as a good thing by everybody.

What do we do if miners steal?

Paul Sztorc has suggested in the past that a user-activated soft-fork could prevent miners from stealing, i.e., most Bitcoin users and nodes issue a rule similar to this one to invalidate the inclusion of a faulty WT^ and thus cause any miner that includes it in a block to be relegated to their own Bitcoin fork that other nodes won't accept.

This suggestion has made people think Drivechain is a sidechain solution backed by user-actived soft-forks for safety, which is very far from the truth. Drivechains must not and will not rely on this kind of soft-fork, although they are possible, as the coordination costs are too high and no one should ever expect these things to happen.

If even with all the incentives against them (see above) miners do still steal from a good sidechain that will mean the failure of the Drivechain experiment. It will very likely also mean the failure of the Bitcoin experiment too, as it will be proven that miners can coordinate to act maliciously over a prolonged period of time regardless of economic and social incentives, meaning they are probably in it just for attacking Bitcoin, backed by nation-states or something else, and therefore no Bitcoin transaction in the mainchain is to be expected to be safe ever again.

Why use this and not a full-blown trustless and open sidechain technology?

Because it is impossible.

If you ever heard someone saying "just use a sidechain", "do this in a sidechain" or anything like that, be aware that these people are either talking about "federated" sidechains (i.e., funds are kept in custody by a group of entities) or they are talking about Drivechain, or they are disillusioned and think it is possible to do sidechains in any other manner.

No, I mean a trustless 2-way peg with correctness of the withdrawals verified by the Bitcoin protocol!

That is not possible unless Bitcoin verifies all transactions that happen in all the sidechains, which would be akin to drastically increasing the blocksize and expanding the Bitcoin rules in tons of ways, i.e., a terrible idea that no one wants.

What about the Blockstream sidechains whitepaper?

Yes, that was a way to do it. The Drivechain hashrate escrow is a conceptually simpler way to achieve the same thing with improved incentives, less junk in the chain, more safety.

Isn't the hashrate escrow a very complex soft-fork?

Yes, but it is much simpler than SegWit. And, unlike SegWit, it doesn't force anything on users, i.e., it isn't a mandatory blocksize increase.

Why should we expect miners to care enough to participate in the voting mechanism?

Because it's in their own self-interest to do it, and it costs very little. Today over half of the miners mine RSK. It's not blind merged mining, it's a very convoluted process that requires them to run a RSK full node. For the Drivechain sidechains, an SPV node would be enough, or maybe just getting data from a block explorer API, so much much simpler.

What if I still don't like Drivechain even after reading this?

That is the entire point! You don't have to like it or use it as long as you're fine with other people using it. The hashrate escrow special addresses will not impact you at all, validation cost is minimal, and you get the benefit of people who want to use Drivechain migrating to their own sidechains and freeing up space for you in the mainchain. See also the point above about infighting.

See also

• Podcast episode with Ruben Somsen and Aaron van Wirdum explaining Drivechain
• Alternatives to Drivechain
• Drivechain comparison with Ethereum

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

What is 3 minutes worth?

I think I've run into the problem that the sort of work I do on here is only efficient and effective, if I spend all day doing it and really concentrate on it. It's not like being a developer or an influencer, where you can allot 2 hours in the morning to it, and then spend all day doing something else and talking about touching grass.

I either have to do it all day or completely stop because 99% of the work is absorbing and digesting information and interacting in real time; pausing is like pulling a mental break and slamming to a stop. It's more of a performance art than a durable good. I have to practice all damn day, every day, for a week, producing only ephemeral products, just to get up and sing for 3 minutes.

Shut up and sing

But with singing, the value is obvious, since most people have tried to sing and know that they aren't very good at it. Most people haven't tried to manage, design, or test systems on an open software protocol, but they all figure they can spontaneously do it, at some point, with little knowledge and no preparation, and be really great at it. That means that hardly anyone sees any value in it, especially as I make it look so easy, that watching me do it merely enhances the idea that the effort can be performed on a whim. The difference in enthusiasm between my dev work and my other work is palpable, but contains no signal.

That is the opposite of development or system administration, that is mostly done off in a hidey-hole, and no one can tell how much effort you personally expended, but they know you did something they can't fully understand, so they get all excited about it.

The indifferent bleating at the uninterested

But we can see that this differentiation is unfounded. Auxiliary software development is highly-skilled labor, it's tedious and exhausting, and it brings no status or prestige, which is why hardly anyone does it or their efforts are of low-quality and relatively pointless. Most developers and funders are regularly encouraging people to "step up" and do it spontaneously and on a purely volunteer basis because they feel obliged to pretend to care about software quality, but actually think it has little value.

Well, the people they are speaking to, agree with them. So, they ignore them.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Table Of Content

• Educational Initiatives Promoting Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Awareness

• Supportive Government Policies and Regulatory Frameworks

• Growing Cryptocurrency Mining Industry

• Increased Adoption by Businesses and Consumers

• Establishment of Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Digital Asset Marketplaces

• Collaboration with Neighboring Countries

• Conclusion

• FAQ

In recent years, Thailand has emerged as a hub for blockchain technology and cryptocurrency adoption. The country has shown an eagerness to embrace the Bitcoin revolution, with significant developments in areas such as education, mining, and regulatory frameworks. This article explores the key factors that have contributed to Thailand's growing prominence in the global Bitcoin landscape

Educational Initiatives Promoting Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Awareness

Thailand has recognized the importance of education in fostering a strong foundation for the growth of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency adoption. As a result, numerous universities and educational institutions now offer courses and degree programs in the field. This has created a talented pool of blockchain experts and enthusiasts who are driving the growth of the industry in the country.

Supportive Government Policies and Regulatory Frameworks

The Thai government has adopted a proactive approach towards the regulation and growth of the cryptocurrency market. In recent years, the country has established clear legal frameworks and guidelines for digital asset businesses, which has encouraged both local and international players to invest in Thailand's burgeoning cryptocurrency sector.

Growing Cryptocurrency Mining Industry

Thailand has become an attractive destination for cryptocurrency mining, thanks to its affordable electricity rates and well-developed infrastructure. The country has seen an influx of mining companies, which have set up large-scale mining operations to capitalize on the favorable conditions. This has not only created jobs but also contributed to the growth of the local economy.

Increased Adoption by Businesses and Consumers

In Thailand, both businesses and consumers are embracing the Bitcoin revolution. A growing number of merchants accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, while consumers are increasingly adopting digital wallets for everyday transactions. This widespread adoption has facilitated the growth of a vibrant cryptocurrency ecosystem in the country.

Establishment of Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Digital Asset Marketplaces

Thailand's supportive regulatory environment has paved the way for the establishment of numerous cryptocurrency exchanges and digital asset marketplaces. These platforms have facilitated easy access to cryptocurrencies for Thai citizens, further boosting the adoption and use of digital assets in the country.

Collaboration with Neighboring Countries

Thailand has actively engaged with neighboring countries in the Southeast Asian region to develop cross-border initiatives and partnerships in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. These collaborative efforts have helped to create a strong regional network that supports the growth of the industry in Thailand and beyond.

Conclusion

Thailand's rapid embrace of the Bitcoin revolution is a testament to the country's forward-thinking approach towards technology and innovation. By fostering education, supportive regulation, and collaboration, Thailand has positioned itself as a leading player in the global blockchain and cryptocurrency landscape. This has not only benefited the Thai economy but also contributed to the worldwide adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

FAQ

How has Thailand embraced the Bitcoin revolution in education? Thailand has incorporated blockchain and cryptocurrency courses into university curriculums, creating a talented pool of experts and enthusiasts who contribute to the growth of the industry.

What role does the Thai government play in supporting the Bitcoin revolution? The government has established clear legal frameworks and guidelines for digital asset businesses, encouraging both local and international players to invest in the cryptocurrency sector.

Why is Thailand becoming a popular destination for cryptocurrency mining? The country offers affordable electricity rates and well-developed infrastructure, attracting mining companies to set up large-scale operations and contributing to the local economy.

How have Thai businesses and consumers adopted cryptocurrencies? A growing number of merchants accept cryptocurrencies as payment, and consumers increasingly use digital wallets for everyday transactions, fostering a vibrant cryptocurrency ecosystem in the country.

That's all for today

If you want more, be sure to follow us on:

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Table Of Content

• Types of Bitcoin Wallets

• Security Measures

• Conclusion

• FAQ

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that is used as a means of payment and as an investment. It is a digital currency that is based on a decentralized blockchain network. One of the most important aspects of Bitcoin is the security of the wallet that holds it. In this article, we will cover everything you need to know about Bitcoin wallets and security.

Types of Bitcoin Wallets

There are several types of Bitcoin wallets, each with its own set of features and security levels. Here are some of the most common types of Bitcoin wallets:

Hardware Wallets

Hardware wallets are physical devices that store your Bitcoin offline. They are considered to be the most secure type of Bitcoin wallet as they are not connected to the internet.

Software Wallets

Software wallets are applications that can be downloaded on your computer or mobile device. They are easy to use and are a popular choice for beginners.

Paper Wallets

Paper wallets are simply printed pieces of paper that contain your Bitcoin address and private key. They are not as secure as hardware wallets but are still a good option for storing small amounts of Bitcoin.

Web Wallets

Web wallets are online wallets that are accessible through a web browser. They are convenient but are considered to be less secure than other types of wallets.

Security Measures

No matter what type of Bitcoin wallet you choose, there are several security measures you can take to keep your Bitcoin safe:

1. Use a Strong Password: Make sure your password is at least 8 characters long and includes a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols.

2. Enable Two-Factor Authentication: Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to your account by requiring a code in addition to your password.

3. Keep Your Private Keys Safe: Your private keys are what give you access to your Bitcoin. Make sure to keep them in a safe place and never share them with anyone.

4. Regularly Update Your Software: Make sure to keep your Bitcoin wallet software up to date to ensure that any security vulnerabilities are patched.

Conclusion

Bitcoin wallets are an essential part of owning and investing in Bitcoin. By choosing the right type of wallet and implementing security measures, you can keep your Bitcoin safe from hackers and other threats. Remember to always keep your private keys safe and to regularly update your software to ensure the security of your Bitcoin wallet. With the information provided in this article, you now have everything you need to know about Bitcoin wallets and security.

FAQ

What happens if I lose my Bitcoin wallet? If you lose your Bitcoin wallet, you will lose access to your Bitcoin. That's why it's important to keep your private keys safe and to have a backup of your wallet.

Can I store my Bitcoin on an exchange? While it is possible to store your Bitcoin on an exchange, it is not recommended as exchanges are often targeted by hackers.

Can I recover my Bitcoin if I forget my password? If you forget your password, you may be able to recover your Bitcoin using your recovery seed. However, if you lose your recovery seed, you will not be able to recover your Bitcoin.

That's all for today

If you want more, be sure to follow us on:

NOSTR: croxroad@getalby.com

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@ 1b5ee74d:bb1aae6e

• Who Is Responsible for the Content Published on Social Networks?
• What should the role of platforms be in content moderation?
• Who should be consulted in cases of disputes involving illegal content?
• Should there be a limit to freedom of speech online? Where should the line be drawn?

These are just a few of the numerous questions that have characterized the debate for years, not only regarding social networks but, more broadly, the entire landscape of online interactions.

In recent weeks, tensions have reignited due to three cases that have stirred the pot—depending on the perspective—with slogans of either combating illegal activity or fighting censorship: Telegram, Meta, and X.

These cases are distinct, with the platforms and their executives behaving differently in each instance: Meta cooperated with authorities, while Telegram and X were more reluctant. However, all three stories share a key issue—perhaps the key issue: the ability to intervene in the content they host.

To understand the reason, let’s briefly recap what happened.

Telegram, Meta, and X: Three Different Cases, One Common Origin

Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, was arrested in Paris on August 24th as part of an investigation that French authorities have been conducting for months against the messaging platform.

The accusations are numerous: money laundering, drug trafficking, child pornography, and refusal to cooperate with law enforcement. In the press release issued by the Prosecutor’s Office, there is even mention of violations related to the import and export of cryptographic tools—an approach reminiscent of the United States in the 1990s, when the government classified cryptography on par with weaponry. This interpretation only changed due to the outcome of the Crypto Wars.

In fact, reports tell us that Pavel Durov was released after a few days upon paying a €5 million bail, with the condition that he not leave France. Initially, Telegram issued a statement via Twitter, asserting its compliance with European laws. But on September 6th, the founder of Telegram decided to fight back, leaving little room for interpretation.

"Sometimes we can’t reach an agreement with regulators in certain countries on the right balance between privacy and security," Durov said, adding that, if necessary, Telegram will leave markets that are incompatible with these principles.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time Durov has clashed with authorities. In the past, he refused to cooperate with Russia by denying access to Telegram users’ personal data. This refusal led to the platform being temporarily blocked in Russia in 2018.

Meta: Pressure from the White House and Zuckerberg’s Revelations

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, recently disclosed pressures he received from the White House during the pandemic. In a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg revealed that the Biden administration pushed Meta to remove content related to the virus, including satirical and critical posts.

Zuckerberg explained that in 2021, Meta deleted more than 20 million posts related to COVID-19 but expressed regret over some of the decisions made, admitting that the company had succumbed to excessive political pressure.

Zuckerberg emphasized that these requests were perceived by the company as an obligation rather than a choice, and in hindsight, some of these actions might have been mistakes. Meta’s future commitment, according to Zuckerberg, will be to better resist such pressures, even in emergency situations.

I believe the government’s pressure was wrong, and I regret not being more transparent about it.

X and the Clash with the Brazilian Government

Elon Musk and X (formerly Twitter) are at the center of a legal dispute in Brazil, where the platform was blocked after Musk refused to appoint a local legal representative, as required by the country’s Supreme Court. The issue arose when Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to suspend certain accounts accused of spreading political disinformation, particularly those associated with former president Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters.

Musk’s reaction was harsh. He accused the Supreme Court of corruption and of violating free speech, criticizing de Moraes and calling him a “criminal.” However, the judge continued his legal actions against Musk and his company, even freezing the bank accounts of Starlink, Musk’s satellite division, to pressure X into complying with Brazilian laws.

Brazilian authorities are even pursuing those who attempt to access the platform using VPNs, sparking further controversy over freedom in Brazil.

Currently, the platform remains suspended, with about 21 million Brazilian users cut off from the service. The legal dispute is ongoing and could have long-term repercussions for X’s presence in Brazil, one of the platform’s largest markets.

The Ownership of Content

Telegram and X have found themselves in hot water for refusing to comply with content moderation mandates imposed by various jurisdictions. Meta, on the other hand, has avoided such issues by adhering to directives from the White House, including the removal of content flagged by Washington, such as “satirical and ironic” posts, as noted in the letter.

The decisive factor in all three cases is the same: the ability to intervene in what is published on the platform. The terms and conditions of Meta and X do not formally claim ownership of the content users post, but they clarify that users grant the companies a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, distribute, modify, and display the content in relation to the services offered. Telegram’s terms are slightly stricter: while users also retain formal ownership of their content, Telegram requires a license to distribute and display content only within its ecosystem.

However, the result remains the same. Anything published by users can be modified by the platform, according to the implicit contract every single user agrees to when they begin using the service.

Nostr is the Way

It’s no coincidence that, in recent weeks, many who care about issues such as privacy and censorship resistance have reignited interest in Nostr. The protocol, whose acronym stands for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays, can be used via various clients, not a single platform—similar to how the Web is accessible from different browsers.

But most importantly, users who create an account do not do so through a username and password saved on the company’s servers—because, in this case, the company doesn’t exist—but rather through a public key and a private key.

This key pair allows users to interact with Nostr across multiple clients and send their “notes”—as posts are called on Nostr—to as many relays (servers) as they wish. In other words, the data is not stored on a single server but on multiple servers chosen by the user—and the user can even set up their own server without much difficulty.

Most importantly, the data is portable. Posts sent are cryptographically signed: in Nostr, content ownership is not just formally with the user, it is mathematically so.

In such a context, blaming the operator of a client or relay for the content signed and published by users' private keys would be bordering on absurdity, besides revealing a clear technical ignorance. Of course, after the accusations from the U.S. Department of Justice against the developers of Samourai Wallet, it’s fair to be ready for anything.

But giving a chance to solutions like Nostr also means considering the possibility of reclaiming one's online identity and no longer being an unconscious victim of manipulative algorithms and invasive governments.

@ 13e63e99:25525c6a

Preview

Last week, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador emphasized Bitcoin’s role in enhancing the country's global image that boosted foreign investment and tourism. At the NostrWorld Unconference in Riga, the synergy between Bitcoin and decentralized social  networks was a key focus, showcasing the potential for integrating Bitcoin with the growing Nostr protocol. Meanwhile, Lightspark launched its Extend platform, facilitating instant Bitcoin payments for U.S. businesses, thereby expanding the accessibility  of Bitcoin transactions. Publicly traded companies have increased their Bitcoin holdings by nearly 200%, bringing their total to $20  billion, reflecting strong institutional confidence in Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Additionally, Bitcoin in exchange experienced its third-largest daily net outflow of 2024, indicating a shift toward long-term holding among investors. Despite some withdrawals,  including a $13.5 million outflow from BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, the fund remains a dominant force in the Bitcoin investment landscape. Lastly, Nigeria's SEC granted its first provisional exchange license, a milestone in the regulation of the country’s  rapidly growing digital asset industry, positioning Nigeria as a leading player in global digital asset adoption. For more details, continue reading below.

A. Bitcoin Data Dashboard

1. Bitcoin Transactions\ 2. Supply\ 3. Mining\ 4. Transaction Fees\ 5. Difficulty Retarget\ 6. Lightning Network (Public)

B. Bitcoin Ecosystem

1. Bukele: Bitcoin was a powerful rebranding tool for El Salvador\ 2. NostrWorld Unconference in Riga: Exploring Bitcoin and Decentralized Social Networks\ 3. Lightspark launches Extend for instant Bitcoin Lightning payments in the U.S.\ 4. Public companies boost Bitcoin holdings by nearly 200%, reaching $20 billion\ 5. Bitcoin exchanges see 3rd-largest daily net outflow of 2024\ 6. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust faces $13.5m outflow amid broader ETF withdrawals

C. Regulation

1. Nigeria's first provisional exchange license from SEC, marking milestone in digital asset regulation

D. Macroeconomy

1. Vice President Harris proposes wealth tax targeting unrealized gains for ultra rich\ 2. Jobless claims drop as labor market slows, US economy remains on steady growth path

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A. Bitcoin Data Dashboard

As of Sep 2, 2024

B. Bitcoin Ecosystem

1. Bukele: Bitcoin was a powerful rebranding tool for El Salvador

President Nayib Bukele recently provided a candid assessment of El Salvador's groundbreaking decision to adopt Bitcoin as  legal tender, a move that has drawn both praise and criticism on the global stage. In an interview with Time magazine,  Bukele emphasized that the initiative has had substantial benefits  particularly in enhancing El Salvador's international image  despite the country's bitcoin adoption has not expanded as rapidly as he has hoped, Bukele described the Bitcoin adoption  as a powerful rebranding tool for the nation, one that has attracted foreign investment and boosted tourism. The president’s  marketing advisor, Damian Merlo, echoed this sentiment, calling the decision "genius" and likening it to a major public  relations campaign that El Salvador didn’t have to pay for. "We could have spent millions on a PR firm to rebrand the  country," Merlo noted, "but instead, we adopted Bitcoin." While the move initially strained relations with institutions like  the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which urged Bukele to abandon the policy due to perceived risks, there are signs  that the tension is easing. El Salvador has recently reported progress in negotiations with the IMF, with a focus on enhancing  transparency and addressing potential fiscal and financial stability risks related to the Bitcoin project. 

Reference: Bitcoin.com, Time

2. NostrWorld Unconference in Riga: Exploring Bitcoin and Decentralized Social Networks

Last week, NostrWorld’s third unconference, held in Riga, Latvia, gathered advocates and developers of the Nostr protocol. Organized by  Jack Dorsey, NostrWorld provides a platform for open-source enthusiasts to collaborate on building a decentralized internet. The event,  called Nostriga, underscored the emerging synergy between Nostr’s decentralized social network and Bitcoin. Nostr is an  open-source protocol for a decentralized, censorship-resistant social network. Unlike traditional platforms, Nostr operates on a  network of relays, supporting features like micropayments and digital identity management. It promises greater privacy  and independence from centralized platforms. A highlight of the conference was Strike CEO Jack Mallers discussing  how Nostr’s micropayments—Zaps—helped a skeptic understand Bitcoin’s value. This feature shows Bitcoin’s  utility in social contexts, advancing the concept of internet tipping. Jack Dorsey enphasizing the importance of open source.  Nostr faces the challenge of broadening its user base beyond Bitcoin enthusiasts. New initiatives like Ditto aim to  integrate Nostr with larger internet communities, potentially increasing Bitcoin’s visibility and accessibility. Nostr’s role  as a social and identity system could pave the way for decentralized digital economies. By leveraging social graphs and  cryptographic trust, Nostr and Bitcoin together could enable secure, decentralized commerce.

Reference: Bitcoin magazine

3. Lightspark launches Extend for instant Bitcoin Lightning payments in the U.S.

Lightspark has unveiled Lightspark Extend, a new solution designed to facilitate instant Bitcoin Lightning payments for U.S. businesses.  This platform integrates with Universal Money Addresses (UMA) and Lightning-enabled wallets, exchanges, or bank accounts,  offering a compliant and cost-effective way to handle transactions around the clock. Lightspark Extend is compatible with over 99% of U.S.  banks that support real-time payments, enabling businesses to provide their customers with fast, low-cost transactions. UMA simplifies the  payment process by using easy-to-remember addresses similar to email, removing the need for complex codes or passwords. With this launch,  Lightspark Extend makes real-time payments via the Bitcoin Lightning Network accessible to eligible recipients across the U.S. Businesses  interested in adopting this solution can sign up for a UMA address, link their accounts, and start receiving payments through an onboarding  process facilitated by Zero Hash, a regulated U.S. financial institution. The introduction of Lightspark Extend marks a significant advancement in expanding the accessibility and utility of Bitcoin payments. This follows Lightspark’s recent announcement of a partnership with Coinbase,  enabling customers to send up to $10,000 instantly through the Lightning Network.

Reference: Bitcoin magazine

4. Public companies boost Bitcoin holdings by nearly 200%, reaching $20 billion

Publicly listed companies have seen their Bitcoin holdings soar by nearly 200% in a year, rising from $7.2 billion to $20 billion.  According to Bitbo data, 42 such companies now hold 335,249 BTC, valued at roughly $20 billion. This marks a 177.7% increase  from a year ago, when their BTC holdings were worth $7.2 billion. The trend began with MicroStrategy's August 2020  purchase of over 21,000 BTC, making Bitcoin its primary treasury reserve asset, and the company has since grown its holdings  to 226,500 BTC. A survey commissioned by Nickel Digital Asset Management revealed strong institutional support for Bitcoin  as a reserve asset, with 75% of 200 surveyed institutional investors and wealth managers endorsing public companies holding  BTC. The survey, involving firms managing $1.7 trillion in assets, also found that 58% believe 10% or more of public companies  will hold BTC within five years. Nickel Digital's CEO, Anatoly Crachilov, noted that institutional investors see Bitcoin as a hedge  against currency debasement and a valuable addition to reserve allocations. Despite this growth, the 335,249 BTC held by public  companies represent just 1.6% of Bitcoin's total capped supply of 21 million.

Reference: Cointelegraph

5. Bitcoin exchanges see 3rd-largest daily net outflow of 2024

Bitcoin is seeing a significant uptick in exchange withdrawals as its price nears the $60,000 mark, with approximately 45,000 BTC  removed from exchanges on August 27 alone. This movement represents the third-largest net outflow of Bitcoin from exchanges  in 2024, following similar spikes in July. According to data from CryptoQuant, this trend could signal a growing bullish sentiment  among investors, who appear to be transferring their Bitcoin off exchanges to hold for the long term, thereby reducing potential  selling pressure in the market. As of August 27, major exchanges hold around 2.63 million BTC, reflecting a 12.5% decrease  from the 3.01 million BTC held at the beginning of the year. This reduction in exchange reserves underscores a broader trend  of investors preferring to hold their Bitcoin privately, possibly in anticipation of future price increases.

Reference: Cointelegraph

6. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust faces $13.5m outflow amid broader ETF withdrawals

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) experienced a $13.5 million outflow on Thursday, marking its first outflow since  May 1st and only the second in the fund's history since its launch in January. This rare withdrawal contrasts with the ETF’s  usual pattern of consistent inflows, underscoring its dominance in the Bitcoin investment space. The outflow came as part of  a broader trend affecting spot Bitcoin ETFs, which saw a collective $71.8 million in withdrawals on Thursday. Competing  Bitcoin ETFs from Grayscale, Fidelity, Valkyrie, and Bitwise also reported significant outflows, ranging from $8 million to  $31 million. Despite these withdrawals, ARK's Bitcoin ETF saw an inflow of $5.3 million, highlighting a mixed investor  sentiment as Bitcoin remains below the $60,000 mark. This divergence suggests varied outlooks among investors regarding  Bitcoin's future. Despite the recent dip, BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF continues to lead the market, having attracted over $20  billion in net inflows since inception. With more than 350,000 BTC under management, it remains one of the largest  institutional Bitcoin holders, reflecting its enduring appeal and influence in the Bitcoin investment landscape.

Reference: Bitcoin magazine

C. Regulation

1. Nigeria's first provisional exchange license from SEC, marking milestone in digital asset regulation

The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has granted Quidax, an Africa-based crypto exchange, its  first provisional operating license. This marks a significant step toward formal recognition and regulation of Nigeria's  digital asset industry. The SEC's license allows Quidax to operate as a registered crypto exchange in Nigeria,  a move the company describes as a "shot of adrenaline" for the local crypto community, spurring innovation and growth. Quidax CEO Buchi Okoro praised the SEC, particularly under the leadership of Emomotimi Agama, for its efforts  to bring order and investor protection to the Nigerian crypto market. The approval also paves the way for Quidax to  collaborate with banks and financial institutions, pending approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria. This licensing follows the SEC's recent amendment to its rules on June 21, covering digital asset issuance, exchange,  and custody. Despite concerns that stringent requirements could limit local crypto exchanges, the new regulatory  framework, including the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme, aims to align virtual asset service providers  with the latest standards. Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, is a global leader in cryptocurrency adoption, ranking  second in Chainalysis’ 2023 Cryptocurrency Geography Report. While foreign investment in Nigeria's crypto sector  has been slower than expected, the new regulatory environment and Quidax's licensing could attract more investors  by offering a stable and secure market.

Reference: Cointelegraph

D. Macroeconomy

1. Vice President Harris proposes wealth tax targeting unrealized gains for ultra rich

As a presidential candidate, Vice President Harris has aligned with President Biden’s tax policies, including the pledge  not to raise taxes on anyone earning under $400,000 annually. However, she also has her own ambitious tax proposals. These include raising the top marginal tax rate on high earners from 37% to 39.6%. Although she previously suggested  a 4% “income-based premium” on households earning over $100,000 to fund Medicare for All, this idea has not  resurfaced in 2024. Among the more controversial proposals Harris supports is a tax on unrealized capital gains for  individuals with over $100 million in wealth. Often dubbed the “billionaire tax,” this would require these households to  pay an annual minimum tax of 25% on their combined income and unrealized gains. This approach would be groundbreaking  in U.S. tax history, as it taxes assets that have not yet been sold. For example, if you buy stock at $10 and it increases to $20,  you would owe taxes on the $10 gain, even if you haven’t sold the stock. The same principle would apply to real estate,  where yearly value increases would be taxed. This proposal raises significant concerns, particularly about the administrative  challenges of valuing assets annually and the potential for future expansion of the tax to lower wealth thresholds. The wealth  tax faces hurdles in Congress and potential court challenges, but it signals Harris's intent to push for new forms of taxation  on the ultra-wealthy.

Reference: Forbes

2. Jobless claims drop as labor market slows, US economy remains on steady growth path

Last week, new applications for jobless benefits in the U.S. dropped slightly, but re-employment opportunities for laid-off  workers are becoming scarcer, indicating the unemployment rate likely remained high in August. Despite this, the labor market's  orderly slowdown is keeping economic growth on track, with the economy growing faster than initially reported in the second  quarter, driven by consumer spending and rebounding corporate profits. The labor market's cooling supports the expectation that  the Federal Reserve may start cutting interest rates next month, though a 50-basis-point reduction seems unlikely. Initial jobless  claims fell by 2,000 to 231,000 for the week ending August 24, while continuing claims, which indicate ongoing unemployment,  rose slightly, suggesting prolonged joblessness. In the second quarter, the economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.0%, with  consumer spending revised upward to a 2.9% growth rate, offsetting lower business investment and exports. Corporate profits  also reached a record high, helping businesses manage input costs amid supply-chain challenges. The goods trade deficit widened  in July due to a surge in imports, likely driven by expectations of higher tariffs if former President Trump wins the November election.  Despite these factors, economists predict growth will slow but avoid a recession.

Reference: Reuters, dol.gov

@ 469fa704:2b6cb760

I joined Nostr a week ago and wanted to recap it for myself and also give other newbies a simple introduction. Maybe this will help you get started too.

Step 1: Create your identity and get your private key for a browser extension

I started with the Snort client on my local home server. It created my private/public key pair and I was good to go. Then I transferred the private key to Amethyst, a pretty good Android-based client. Before looking at various clients and other nostr-based websites, I tried transferring my private key into a browser extension. I looked at Alby and nos2x. I chose the latter because I wanted to keep my Lightning wallet separate from my identity management. You don't have to, I just found it easier.

Step 2: If you're confused, always check your feed settings

I tried many different clients and was very confused at first. Due to its decentralized nature, Nostr relies on relays, which are just small servers, and to each one you can connect to, all your data is stored. When you post a message, write a note, an article like this or simply who you follow. The main reason and benefit for this is that there is no single point of failure or server-like entity that could be censored. The side effect of this, combined with using different clients, was that not only did it look different everywhere, but the content was also very different. This was simply because I wasn't connected to all my different clients with the same relays. But the main reason why each feed looks different on each client is usually because you can choose different variations of feeds and some clients even offer filters for the feeds.

Scroll down to get a small overview of the clients I've tried.

Step 3: Set up your lightning wallet with something like Wallet of Satoshi

I made my Bitcoin Lightning wallet independent of my identity. That's why I just went with the number one Lightning wallet on the market: Satoshi's Wallet. It's very simple and provides you with a Lightning address that resembles and has the format of an email address. You can add this address to your Nostr profile description and you're ready to receive Sats. Anyone can send them to you, e.g. for a good message or something else they find valuable on Nostr (like a podcast, a video, an article, ...). Just be aware that Satoshi's wallet contains your key and the sats you have there are not really your sats. So only leave a small amount there or no more than you need for your nostr experience.

Step 4: Set up your Nostr address

I set up a unique NIP-05 identifier that is human readable and also looks like an email address. For me, that's tobiya@nostrplebs.com, also called a nostr address. It's much easier to read, share and remember than your public key, which is just a long, unwieldy string of characters.

Some popular services are: * NostrVerified * Alby * Iris * Primal * Snort * nostrplebs.com

Most offer free services or at least a free tier. I chose nostrplebs.com because it links my Nostr address (tobiya@nostrplebs.com) to my Lightning wallet. ⚡

Brief overview of the clients (I have tested)

Web/Browser:

• Primal: Fast, user-friendly, nice looking, easy to use
• Coracle: Focuses on decentralized reputation, privacy and trust metrics. Also well organized and structured
• noStrudel: The most comprehensive I've found, has everything
• Rabbit: Designed like X (Twitter) Pro, focuses on everything at once
• Nostter: Clearly structured, easy to find what you're looking for
• Snort: Fast web client for those who prefer simplicity and speed.

iOS

I'm not an iPhone user, but everything I've discovered says that Damus is the best app for iOS.

Android:

• Amethyst: Feature rich for Android, I only tried this program because it gives me everything I currently need on my phone.
• Primal: Works seamlessly with Primal on the web, which is a pretty convenient starting point if you only want to use one client.

As for the web clients, I'm still figuring out which one will be my favorite. But I think they're all good in their own way. In the time of writing, I am mainly using Primal on Android and Web, Amethyst and noStrudel.

Let's have fun!!

@ 8d34bd24:414be32b

I think I forgot to post this on nostr. Hopefully it isn't a duplicate.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us “pray without ceasing;”

You may be thinking, “I have responsibilities. How can I pray without ceasing? I can’t be on my knees praying without stopping. This can’t be what the Bible expects from us.”

Don’t worry, prayer doesn’t have to be a burden. It doesn’t have to be locking yourself in a room alone for hours on you knees on a cold, hard stone floor like the monks of the middle ages. Prayer is just what you need to help you on your next step to growing closer to Jesus.

Analogy of old married couple and believer with God

As believers, our prayer relationship with God should be like the way an old, loving couple talks. They don’t talk without stopping to do other things, but they are always talking and keeping the other person included in what they do and what they care about.

They also have lots of different kinds of conversation. Some are deep conversations that take an extended period of time. Some are brief comments about what is going on in their life. Some are pointing out something interesting or asking for help. Sometimes the words are just an acknowledgement of the other’s presence. Sometimes communications may be no more than a glance or a grunt, but it conveys so much because of how close they are.

Scheduled time

Just like the old married couple schedules a date night or other time together, there are times that we want to schedule time with God. It might be a group prayer meeting. It might be a time alone to discuss particular worries with God. This is usually an extended time to pray about something in particular. It may be scheduled regularly. It may be scheduled specifically based on circumstances.

To many people, this is what they think of when they think about being a prayer warrior, but the truth is, at least for most of us, this is the smallest portion of our prayer life.

Regular time

Just like an old married couple has times that they are regularly together and talking, such as first thing in the morning when they awake and say “Good morning!” or just talk about their plans for the day. Most couples regularly talk during meals together. These discussions might be about how the day is going or about plans for the future or about various common interests. Most couples also talk at least briefly at bed time. They know that almost every day they will talk during these periods.

In the same way, believers should have regular times that they talk to God. I think upon waking, at meals, and at bedtime are good times to pray regularly. That doesn’t mean that you always have to pray for extended periods . Most of these will probably be fairly short and the time allowed may vary from day to day.

Praying at these 5 times is handy because you wake up and go to bed every day and most people eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. These events are reminders to pray. You may have other times like when you pick kids up at school, when you get in your car to drive, or nightly devotions before putting kids to bed. You might have other times that work for you because everyone’s life is a little different. Some of these may be solitary prayers, while others might include someone else, especially family members. Whatever the case, these are times that you usually pray every day. They are guaranteed times with God. They are times God can count on you and you can count on God.

With others

An old married couple usually doesn’t hang out only with each other. They also hang out and talk with friends and family. They will get together with some friends/family on regular occasions. They will get together with others on special occasions. This is a nice time of jointly conversing and helping each other.

Believers also are called to pray together.

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42) {emphasis mine}

We may pray with a person or group. We may pray at church, a Bible study, or a prayer meeting. We may regularly meet with one or more people just to pray for our church, our country, and each other.

For 2-3 years I had a friend I would pray with once a week for about an hour. We were both very busy. We both homeschooled kids and had other responsibilities. We didn’t live near each other, so we prayed together on the phone. We made prayer together work, even when it wasn’t convenient, because it was important to us.

Depending on our life circumstances, we may pray with others more or less. (Singles usually have less opportunities to pray with others, while families always have each other to pray with.) Whether or not it happens every day, we are called to pray to God with other believers and for other believers.

Random discussion (Thanks, interests, & Concerns)

Random discussion normally should be the largest component of communications between a couple and between believers and God. These prayers are not planned or organized. They are a sign that we are including another in our daily lives because they are important to us.

Sometimes these prayers are a quick comment on what is happening in our lives. Sometimes these prayers are about a worry or concern. They can be a mention of something we find interesting or something we find beautiful. It may be a comment on something we learned or about us finally understanding something. Frequently they are prayers to say a quick “help” or “thank you.”

These little brief prayers shot up to God, usually while doing the normal activities of life, are just a sign that we find God important and want Him in our life. You may say, “Wow! That is a great view! You made beautiful mountains.” You may say, “I’m really struggling with this. Please help me do better.” You may say, “What is happening in the world is scary. Please help me to know what to do and help me to trust you in all things.” You might ask, “What am I supposed to say to this unbeliever to draw them to you?” or “How do I speak wisely to this person who is hurting?” We are including God in our lives and listening to Him because we want His opinion and guidance.

We may speak out loud or we may think our prayers silently where only God hears. We usually aren’t kneeling. We usually don’t have our hands folded, nor do we have our eyes closed.

If we are truly depending on God to guide our lives, these prayers should be a huge part of our lives. They should be sprinkled consistently through our day.

Cries for help

Part of the joy of a long and loving marriage is having someone to depend on when we are in need, whether sick, or tired, or sad, or frustrated, or physically unable to do something ourselves. We always have that other person to depend on and lean on.

And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

In the same way believers should lean on God to support them throughout their lives. I’ll admit that I used to only “bother God” with my really big concerns. I wasn’t comfortable asking Him for help with my little, day-to-day concerns, but that was pushing God away.

Unlike with a person who has a limited amount of time and energy, God can see and hear all prayers throughout all of history at the same time and not even break a sweat. We aren’t bothering God with our requests. We are honoring Him with our requests. He wants to be not only a part of our lives, but the leading part of our lives. When we ask for His help, His wisdom, His guidance, and His power, we are doing exactly what we should and we are growing our relationship with Him.

It is good to continually ask God for help, but that doesn’t mean we should ask for every petty desire. Our prayers shouldn’t be filled with requests for wealth, fame, and power. All prayers should include the same qualifier (even if not stated explicitly) Jesus used right before going to the cross, saying, “… yet not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42b) We should be praying our problems and leaving the solution to Him. He frequently will answer in ways we never imagined (and frequently would never choose for ourselves), but these answers are always for our good.1

Conclusion

As you can see, praying continually is just a lifestyle. It is a way of including God in our lives. It is a way of showing we trust God fully. It is a way of serving God and being used by God.

In reality, praying continually isn’t as hard as it sounds. Like all habits, it just takes a little time to build the habit. Once prayer becomes a part of your life, it doesn’t feel like work, it just happens. It is as natural as talking to your best friend or spouse or parents or kids. You can’t imagine not talking to God continually.

I’ll end with these lyrics:

What a friend we have in Jesus\ All our sins and grieves to bear\ What a privilege it is to carry\ Everything to God in prayer

Have we trials and temptations\ Is there trouble anywhere\ Our precious Savior\ He is still our refuge\ Take it to the Lord in prayer

When we're weak and heavy laden\ Cumbered with a load of care\ We should never be discouraged\ When we take it to the Lord in prayer

Oh what peace we often forfeit\ Oh what needless pain we bear\ We should never be discouraged when we\ Take it to the Lord in prayer

Trust Jesus.\ \ your sister in Christ,

Christy

Bible verses are NASB (New American Standard Bible) 1995 edition unless otherwise stated

FYI, If you are wondering what to say, this acrostic (ACTS) is a handy for outline for prayer:

• A = Adoration -Praise God for who He is

• C = Confession - Admit our sins and His righteous lordship

• T = Thanks - Thank God for all He has done for us including our salvation

• S = Supplication - Make requests from God for help and to supply our needs.

To read more check out the Trust Jesus Substack or subscribe at the bottom of the substack version of "Pray Continually."

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

I hate to be the one to tell y'all this, but my profile pic doesn't matter to me. And it shouldn't matter to you. My handle also shouldn't matter, except as a pet name for display. My NIP-05 matters, for human-typed discoverability and link/mention-readability, but it can be changed. My npub matters, but I could have more than one or stop using one, like I have done and will continue to do.

A profile on the Internet is not a person. Who is writing this article? Is it Stella? Oh, yeah? You know that? How? Did you sit there and watch me type it in?

I don't need PfP-recognition because I post stuff a lot of people like to look at (even if they have no idea who I am, imagine that!), and my npub therefore has high WoT.

Here's what I think: Y'all are trying to change a communication protocol into Twitter 2.0, where everyone needs to self-brand and stay on-script, on-camera, and in-their-lane. But if I were that sort of person, I'd be terrible at my job. The whole point of my job is to do all the stuff most users won't do, but some might, and to tell you how it went.

How about we just turn off all of the profile pics and people have to be interesting, entertaining, and/or knowledgeable again? How many of the people getting engagement, now, wouldn't get as much? How many people getting little engagement, now, would get more?

I have questions.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Parallel Chains

We want merged-mined blockchains. We want them because it is possible to do things in them that aren't doable in the normal Bitcoin blockchain because it is rightfully too expensive, but there are other things beside the world money that could benefit from a "distributed ledger" -- just like people believed in 2013 --, like issued assets and domain names (just the most obvious examples).

On the other hand we can't have -- like people believed in 2013 -- a copy of Bitcoin for every little idea with its own native token that is mined by proof-of-work and must get off the ground from being completely valueless into having some value by way of a miracle that operated only once with Bitcoin.

It's also not a good idea to have blockchains with custom merged-mining protocol (like Namecoin and Rootstock) that require Bitcoin miners to run their software and be an active participant and miner for that other network besides Bitcoin, because it's too cumbersome for everybody.

Luckily Ruben Somsen invented this protocol for blind merged-mining that solves the issue above. Although it doesn't solve the fact that each parallel chain still needs some form of "native" token to pay miners -- or it must use another method that doesn't use a native token, such as trusted payments outside the chain.

How does it work

With the SIGHASH_NOINPUT/SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT soft-fork[^eltoo] it becomes possible to create presigned transactions that aren't related to any previous UTXO.

Then you create a long sequence of transactions (sufficient to last for many many years), each with an nLockTime of 1 and each spending the next (you create them from the last to the first). Since their scriptSig (the unlocking script) will use SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT you can obtain a transaction id/hash that doesn't include the previous TXO, you can, for example, in a sequence of transactions A0-->B (B spends output 0 from A), include the signature for "spending A0 on B" inside the scriptPubKey (the locking script) of "A0".

With the contraption described above it is possible to make that long string of transactions everybody will know (and know how to generate) but each transaction can only be spent by the next previously decided transaction, no matter what anyone does, and there always must be at least one block of difference between them.

Then you combine it with RBF, SIGHASH_SINGLE and SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY so parallel chain miners can add inputs and outputs to be able to compete on fees by including their own outputs and getting change back while at the same time writing a hash of the parallel block in the change output and you get everything working perfectly: everybody trying to spend the same output from the long string, each with a different parallel block hash, only the highest bidder will get the transaction included on the Bitcoin chain and thus only one parallel block will be mined.

See also

• Drivechain

[^eltoo]: The same thing used in Eltoo.

@ 9358c676:9f2912fc

Introduction

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) began as a pandemic in the 1980s. In its early days, it was seen as a certain death sentence, a taboo associated with marginalized groups, and it highlighted the failures of poverty in accessing healthcare. Gradually, the struggle for life and the suffering of those who are no longer with us, including both famous and anonymous individuals, became visible.

Today, 40 years later, HIV is presented as a chronic disease with effective treatment. Patients living with HIV who receive appropriate treatment have no detectable virus in their circulating blood, enjoy a good quality of life, and are more concerned about other aspects of their health during medical consultations, almost forgetting their condition. For these patients, daily treatment is the cure, similar to someone taking a pill every day for high blood pressure or diabetes.

The Global Impact

HIV is a lentivirus, a subgroup of retroviruses composed of RNA. The natural history of HIV infection involves an attack on the immune system, particularly targeting CD4 cells, where chronic deterioration can lead to the acquisition of infectious and oncological diseases that may be fatal over the years, resulting in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Interestingly, there is a small group of people known as "elite controllers" who manage to control HIV infection without treatment and remain healthy for much of their lives, despite having a hidden deep viral reservoir. The primary modes of transmission are sexual, followed by blood and vertical transmission from mother to child, with the first mode predominating today.

Today, in the downward trend of the HIV epidemic, it is estimated that 39 million people are living with HIV worldwide. Depending on the region, nearly half of this population belongs to at-risk groups, such as men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender individuals, sex workers, and people who inject drugs. These vulnerable groups are especially important for prevention efforts. However, little is done for prevention in the general population, which sometimes represents the other half of the cake of people living with HIV (PLWH).

Breaking the Dogma: The Concept of Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U)

The introduction of highly effective antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1994 broke the curve of the HIV epidemic. The introduction of new medications with fewer side effects and greater effectiveness in controlling the virus has been crucial. In 2007, the launch of Raltegravir as the first viral integrase inhibitor marked a milestone in current treatments, allowing patients to effectively control the virus within 3 to 6 months.

The positive impact of these treatments led health organizations to launch the concept of undetectable = untransmittable (U=U) to impact the general population and at-risk groups, updating the dogma and eradicating stigma: a patient living with HIV who maintains an undetectable viral load in their blood through treatment will not transmit HIV sexually.

Although this concept has transformed the social dynamics and stigma surrounding the disease, adherence to treatment must be complete to achieve this new paradigm.

Prophylaxis as a Method to Prevent HIV in Healthy Populations

The correct use of condoms has been the cornerstone of HIV prevention and other sexually transmitted infections over the years. However, it is not the only tool available today and can be complemented for comprehensive sexual health.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a novel strategy that involves administering antiretroviral medication to vulnerable groups before they are exposed to HIV (MSM, transgender individuals, sex workers, people who inject drugs). It involves taking medication daily, effectively reducing the risk of contracting HIV and providing protection to these groups. It is similar to taking a contraceptive pill daily. It has had a very positive impact on protecting these populations. In the Americas, it has been successfully implemented in the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. Other countries, although with some delay, are now implementing this strategy.

Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), on the other hand, is a strategy that involves administering antiretroviral treatment after a potential exposure to HIV. If the treatment is administered within the first 72 hours and maintained for 4 weeks, the chances of contracting HIV decrease substantially.

Both strategies have been remarkably successful in preventing HIV in at-risk populations and healthy populations, although their dissemination and awareness remain limited.

https://image.nostr.build/08682bf763ade56741d8e4c8c6d870cb8d71ab7d72c605b9aa805af2234348ff.jpg

The New Horizon: Long-Acting Antiretrovirals, HIV Vaccines, and Promising Therapies

The introduction of viral integrase inhibitors and new nucleoside analogs in the last 15 years has allowed for the availability of safe drugs with minimal side effects in the treatment of HIV, many of which are included in a single pill regimen per day. However, the pharmaceutical industry continues to diversify the offerings in a healthy manner.

Cabotegravir is a new long-acting integrase inhibitor that is administered via injection. Combined with Rilpivirine, it has proven to be effective and safe in the treatment of HIV, with injections every 2 months. This has revolutionized treatment for people who are tired of taking pills daily, as well as in PrEP, where effective prevention against HIV can be achieved with injections every 2 months for at-risk groups.

Additionally, subdermal implants of Islatravir, a new long-acting nucleoside analog, are being tested as a PrEP strategy. Similar to monthly hormonal contraceptive injections or hormonal contraceptive implants, this strategy has proven effective in at-risk groups.

Regarding the HIV vaccine, we have been developing it for over two decades, with advances and setbacks. While vaccines have shown promising results in terms of safety and antibody generation, we still need to await conclusive phase III results demonstrating their effectiveness in at-risk groups and the general population.

The Eradication of HIV and Patients Cured Without Treatment

While current treatment allows for the elimination of HIV from the bloodstream and sexual transmission, there remains a reservoir in some deep immune cells that have been infected by the retrovirus, which contain latent HIV DNA and have the potential to reactivate if daily treatment is interrupted.

However, there are patients who have managed to eliminate HIV from their bodies, including these deep cells, and HIV is undetectable upon discontinuation of treatment. These cases are very rare, with only 7 to 8 individuals being the subject of intensive scientific study. Among them are the "Berlin patient" of Germany and "City of Hope patient" from Argentina. Some of these cases involved patients under effective HIV treatment who underwent suppressive chemotherapy for bone marrow transplants and managed to eliminate these deep cells with latent HIV DNA.

Unfortunately, this treatment is not scalable for the entire HIV-positive population, both due to its cost and potential side effects. However, "Shock and Kill" strategies have been proposed, aiming to use monoclonal antibodies to activate these latent cells during HIV treatment, exposing them to antiretroviral medication for elimination, thereby eradicating these small reservoirs of HIV.

WHO Goals

The World Health Organization (WHO) has established clear objectives that are constantly updated to achieve the eradication of HIV in the population.

The updated goals of the WHO propose that, to end the HIV epidemic, three objectives must be met by the year 2025-2030:

1. 95% of people living with HIV must be diagnosed through testing.
2. 95% of diagnosed individuals must be on highly effective antiretroviral therapy (HAART).
3. 95% of those on HAART must have an undetectable viral load in their blood.

Developing and underdeveloped countries currently have an effectiveness rate for these strategies that disagree significantly.

https://image.nostr.build/ac6693df57aaca6dac0b06b5db9eb1a2757e7c08511edb0f11617e12653d3db5.png

Key Takeaways

• HIV has a cure, and the cure is permanent treatment.
• Treatment for HIV is free and accessible to the population, as it is a public health impact disease.
• A person living with HIV who receives appropriate treatment will not transmit the virus sexually, will enjoy a full life without the disease, and can have children without HIV.
• In the event of a potential HIV exposure (such as unprotected sexual contact with an infrequent partner), you can go to a hospital within the first 72 hours to receive treatment that will prevent HIV infection.
• Just as we witnessed the eradication of smallpox from the face of the earth in 1978 due to scientific advances, we will live to see the eradication of HIV.

Autor

Kamo Weasel - MD Infectious Diseases - MD Internal Medicine - #DocChain Community npub1jdvvva54m8nchh3t708pav99qk24x6rkx2sh0e7jthh0l8efzt7q9y7jlj

Resources

1. World Health Organization (WHO)
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
3. UNAIDS

Bibliography

1. The natural history of HIV infection. DOI: 10.1097/COH.0b013e328361fa66
2. Changing Knowledge and Attitudes Towards HIV Treatment-as-Prevention and "Undetectable = Untransmittable": A Systematic Review. DOI: 10.1007/s10461-021-03296-8
3. Challenges of HIV diagnosis and management in the context of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), test and start and acute HIV infection: a scoping review. DOI: 10.1002/jia2.25419
4. Long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine dosed every 2 months in adults with HIV-1 infection (ATLAS-2M), 48-week results: a randomised, multicentre, open-label, phase 3b, non-inferiority study. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32666-0
5. Efficacy and safety of long-acting cabotegravir compared with daily oral tenofovir disoproxil fumarate plus emtricitabine to prevent HIV infection in cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men 1 year after study unblinding: a secondary analysis of the phase 2b and 3 HPTN 083 randomised controlled trial. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-3018(23)00261-8
6. Safety and immunogenicity of a subtype C ALVAC-HIV (vCP2438) vaccine prime plus bivalent subtype C gp120 vaccine boost adjuvanted with MF59 or alum in healthy adults without HIV (HVTN 107): A phase 1/2a randomized trial. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004360
7. Shock and kill within the CNS: A promising HIV eradication approach?. DOI: 10.1002/JLB.5VMR0122-046RRR

@ 0edc2f47:730cff1b

Chef's notes

In this case, sweet-and-sour doesn’t mean Americanized Chinese food but rather the sauce that dominated the Shabbos and Pesach dinner table among American Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 30 minutes
• 🍳 Cook time: 6 hours
• 🍽️ Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 8-10 large cloves garlic
• 1 cup ketchup
• ¼ cup dry sherry
• ¼ cup sake
• ¼ cup cider vinegar
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• ¼ cup honey
• ¼ cup Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1½ cups Coca-Cola, ginger ale, or Dr. Pepper
• 1 first-cut brisket, 6 to 7 pounds (2.7-3.2kg), rinsed and patted thoroughly dry

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325F / 160C.
2. Combine all ingredients except brisket in a blender and blend until smooth.
3. Place brisket in a Dutch oven or other large pot with a tight-fitting lid.
4. Pour sauce over brisket, place lid on pot, roast in oven for 3 hours. Flip roast and return to oven for 3 hours or until fork tender.
5. Remove roast to rest. Skim fat from sauce and reduce if desired. Serve immediately with sauce or cool, cover brisket and refrigerate overnight in cooking pan. The next day, defat sauce, reduce if desired, and reheat meat in sauce before serving.

@ 75bf2353:e1bfa895

Testing Obsidian On Nostr

This is a second test of obsidian on nostr. I prefer the nostr blog clients to write long form notes, but I want to see what this looks like. Testing LInk

Heading 2

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse sed aliquam metus. Duis tortor dui, tempus quis accumsan vitae, posuere ac lacus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Sed quis mi mauris. Quisque quis enim porta, malesuada mauris ultrices, pellentesque magna. Aliquam sed felis dictum, rutrum lacus vestibulum, dictum augue. Suspendisse purus nisl, ullamcorper vitae mattis in, ullamcorper vitae mi. Cras dolor ex, lobortis et leo at, rutrum porta sem. Nam imperdiet magna nec nisl malesuada euismod. Pellentesque iaculis nunc vitae vulputate lobortis. Aliquam iaculis diam tortor. Pellentesque eget facilisis nulla, a venenatis arcu.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis faucibus, libero nec sollicitudin vestibulum, velit justo ultrices dui, sed rhoncus tortor est vel lectus. Vestibulum sed massa ut sapien ornare sodales. Fusce tristique ipsum sed fringilla blandit. Fusce venenatis est venenatis tincidunt condimentum. Fusce ac ornare sapien. Aenean consequat felis a gravida elementum. In eget erat at orci tempor finibus. Nulla fringilla ex nec enim porttitor, mollis lacinia ligula porttitor.

Heading 3

Duis molestie fermentum ligula in viverra. Ut sed risus nec dolor euismod euismod et vitae erat. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae; Proin venenatis lacus a sem tempor sodales. Mauris vel pharetra lorem. Etiam id hendrerit leo. Morbi luctus nisi nisl, ac malesuada nisi tincidunt at. Mauris sodales sem nec est tincidunt dictum.

Nulla facilisi. Etiam efficitur dolor id vehicula scelerisque. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

• Morbi ac sodales nulla, sed luctus turpis.
• Nam eu dui mauris.
• Aenean efficitur, mauris non ultrices pretium, risus enim faucibus nunc, et varius odio sem a leo.

Sed mi turpis, ~~tristique at venenatis id, scelerisque a libero. Sed non est elit. ~~ Pellentesque pulvinar quam ac dolor mollis suscipit sollicitudin id erat. Phasellus imperdiet posuere pharetra. Morbi luctus, massa at suscipit tincidunt, purus libero dignissim diam, ut convallis eros neque sed turpis. Cras eleifend vitae enim in vestibulum.

1. Donec lacus dui, dictum id posuere vitae, congue vitae lacus.
2. Nullam vel eros sed massa rhoncus auctor a id elit.
3. Suspendisse lobortis, nunc eu blandit viverra, sapien libero placerat libero, et vestibulum orci tortor eget magna. Fusce in convallis diam.

Heading 4

Nunc aliquet, tortor vitae gravida finibus, magna diam placerat ante, quis fermentum nulla nisi ac urna. Nulla at nunc et lectus sollicitudin luctus at sed velit. Cras posuere orci in lacus fermentum, a blandit lectus malesuada. Pellentesque ut urna metus. Integer luctus dignissim varius. Quisque dapibus aliquet sagittis. Cras lacus est, lobortis luctus sagittis id, luctus vel sem. Aenean gravida ornare lorem varius dapibus. Vestibulum pulvinar, lacus a porta porta, velit felis sollicitudin elit, et accumsan arcu erat eget purus. Cras hendrerit libero velit, ac tristique orci fringilla et. Etiam ultrices vulputate posuere. Pellentesque consectetur mauris vel dolor fringilla luctus. Praesent laoreet urna congue feugiat tincidunt.

@ 3b7fc823:e194354f

I dOn'T cAre ABouT pRivAcY. IT dOEsN'T maTtER. i'M nOT dOiNg AnyThiNg wRonG.

GHOSTn

Your phone is spying on you. Your apps are spying on you. Your websites, search engine, fitness tracker, smart watch, IoT device, EVERYTHING is collecting anything it can and sending it off to be stored, cross referenced, and sold.

Data is the new oil.

So what? I don't care if Google knows I like motorcycles. By itself one data point isn't a big deal but once you start bringing everything together...

Who are you talking to? When and how long did you talk to them? Where did you go? How often do you go there? On and on the profile starts to become overwhelmingly invasive.

Right now it is extremely cheap and easy to collect and store the data but it's hard and expensive to cross reference and tabulate the data down to the individual. But in the extremely near future using AI and faster processers, data profiles for sale go from white men between 25 - 30, with this education level, and background like XYZ to -> John loves motorcycls and steak.

Suddenly your insurance premiums are way higher than your friends because you partake in dangerous activities and eat too much red meat. You get denied that loan because you invest in risky assets and it raises your risk factors to pay it back. That job that you applied to never responded because they already ran you through the algorithm and you don't fit the culture.

Protect your data and privacy now before its too late.

privacy

@ 113958ea:f1ce9557

@ 3ad01248:962d8a07

test poasting

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Blockchains are not decentralized data storage

People are used to saying and thinking that blockchains provide immutable data storage. Then many times they add a caveat that says blockchains are very expensive, so we can't really store too much data on them, but we can still store some data if we really want and are ok with paying for it.

But the fact is that blockchains cannot ever be used to store anything. The purpose of blockchains is to keep track of some state that everybody must agree upon at all times, and arbitrary data that anyone may have wanted to backup there is not relevant to anyone else[^relevant] and thus there are no incentives for anyone else to keep track of that. In other words: if you backup your personal pictures as OP_RETURN outputs on Bitcoin, people may delete that and your backup will be void[^op-return-invalid-outputs].

Another thing blockchains supposedly do is to "broadcast" something. For example, nodes may delete the OP_RETURN outputs, but at least they have to verify these first, and spread they over the network, so you can broadcast your data and be sure everybody will get it. About this we can say two things: 1, if this happens, it's not a property of blockchains, but of the Bitcoin transaction sharing network that operates outside of the blockchain. 2, if you try to use that network for purposes that are irrelevant for the functioning of the Bitcoin protocol there is no incentive for other nodes to cooperate and they may ignore you.

The above points may sound weird and you may be prompted to answer: but you can do all that today and there is no actual mechanism to stop anyone from broadcasting irrelevant crap!, and that is true. My point here is only that if you're thinking about blockchains as being this data-broadcast-storage mechanism you're thinking about them wrong, that is not an essential part of any blockchain. In other words: the incentives are not aligned for blockchains to be used like that (unless you come up with a scheme that makes data from everyone else to be relevant to everybody), in the long term such things are not expected to work and insisting on doing them will result in either your application or protocol that stores data on the blockchain to crash or in the death of the given blockchain (I hope Bitcoin haters don't read this).

(This is a counterpoint to myself on idea: Rumple, which was a protocol idea that relied on a blockchain storing irrelevant data.)

[^relevant]: For example, all Bitcoin transactions are relevant to all Bitcoin users because as a user the total supply and the ausence of double-spends are relevant, and also the fact that any of these transactions may end up being ancestors of transactions that you might receive in the future. [^op-return-invalid-outputs]: Of course you can still backup your pictures as invalid P2PKH outputs or something like that, then it will be harder for people to spot your data as irrelevant, but this is not a feature, it's a bug of Bitcoin that enables someone to spam other nodes in a way they can't detect it. If people started doing this a lot it would break Bitcoin.

@ 8f69ac99:4f92f5fd

As revoluções muitas vezes começam com os membros mais jovens da sociedade—adolescentes, idealistas e cheios de energia, ansiosos por causar mudanças. No entanto, no mundo de hoje, a noção de revolução foi sequestrada por forças que procuram controlar e manipular, em vez de empoderar os indivíduos. A chamada "revolução woke" é um exemplo claro, impulsionada por uma agenda que polariza a sociedade ao longo das linhas da política identitária. Esta distracção desvia a atenção dos verdadeiros problemas: a desigualdade económica e o autoritarismo. Mas há uma alternativa melhor, uma que prioriza a liberdade e a soberania em vez da divisão e do controlo—Bitcoin.

A "Revolução Woke" Globalista e a Agenda da Polarização

Uma das tácticas mais insidiosas da "revolução woke" é a polarização deliberada da sociedade. Ao criar narrativas que colocam as pessoas umas contra as outras com base em raça, género, religião e política, aqueles no poder mantêm o controlo e desviam a atenção dos problemas mais profundos que realmente importam. Esta estratégia é orwelliana: ao criar uma mentalidade de "nós contra eles", fabricam uma cultura de conflito perpétuo.

Em vez de promover uma mudança significativa, a "revolução woke" prende as pessoas num ciclo de indignação e divisão, distraindo-as de enfrentar as verdadeiras estruturas de poder—como a desigualdade económica e o excesso de controlo estatal. Esta fragmentação enfraquece os laços entre as pessoas, tornando a sociedade mais vulnerável à manipulação pelas autoridades centralizadas.

Esta polarização serve os interesses daqueles que estão no poder. Quando as pessoas estão demasiado ocupadas a lutar entre si, são menos propensas a questionar os sistemas que realmente as controlam. A "revolução woke" torna-se menos uma questão de progresso genuíno e mais uma forma de manter o status quo através da divisão e da distracção.

Por Que a Polarização é Incentivada

A polarização não é acidental—é uma estratégia calculada com o objectivo de controlar. Dividindo as pessoas em campos opostos, a sociedade fragmenta-se, tornando mais difícil para os indivíduos unirem-se contra adversários comuns ou combaterem políticas que beneficiam as elites.

Esta divisão serve também como uma distracção poderosa. Enquanto as pessoas estão consumidas por batalhas ideológicas, os sistemas financeiros centralizados e o controlo governamental expandem-se silenciosamente. Os meios de comunicação, muitas vezes controlados pelos mesmos poderes, alimentam estas divisões, mantendo as pessoas focadas em conflitos internos enquanto ocultam as verdadeiras ameaças à liberdade.

A polarização também corrói as liberdades individuais. Quando as pessoas estão envolvidas em batalhas ideológicas intermináveis, são menos propensas a notar a erosão gradual dos seus direitos. Isto é precisamente o que os poderes estabelecidos desejam—uma população distraída e dividida, demasiado ocupada para desafiar o desmantelamento lento das suas liberdades pessoais.

O Resultado da Polarização

O resultado desta polarização deliberada é uma sociedade mais preocupada com a pureza ideológica do que com a garantia das suas verdadeiras liberdades. As pessoas ficam presas na política identitária, priorizando a lealdade ao grupo em detrimento da autonomia individual. Isto promove uma mentalidade de "pensamento de grupo", onde questionar a narrativa dominante é desencorajado.

Entretanto, a desigualdade económica aprofunda-se à medida que os poderes centralizados continuam a consolidar o controlo. Os sistemas que deveriam promover equidade tornam-se cada vez mais manipulados, beneficiando os poucos em detrimento dos muitos. A verdadeira liberdade—especialmente a liberdade financeira—torna-se mais difícil de alcançar, com os indivíduos presos em sistemas concebidos para beneficiar uma minoria poderosa.

No final, a "revolução woke" apenas reforça as mesmas estruturas que afirma combater. Ao dividir as pessoas e distraí-las dos verdadeiros problemas, os poderes estabelecidos mantêm o seu controlo, enquanto as liberdades pessoais e financeiras da maioria continuam a ser corroídas.

Bitcoin: A Verdadeira Revolução

Em contraste com a "revolução woke", que divide, Bitcoin oferece uma verdadeira revolução—uma que empodera os indivíduos em vez de os separar. Bitcoin proporciona soberania financeira, retirando poder dos governos autoritários e das instituições centralizadas.

Bitcoin permite que os indivíduos controlem a sua própria riqueza, eliminando a necessidade de intermediários como bancos ou governos. As pessoas já não estão sujeitas a entidades que restringem a sua liberdade financeira. Com Bitcoin, podem criar, armazenar e transferir valor de forma segura, transparente e acessível.

Isto não se trata apenas de economia—é sobre recuperar a liberdade. A natureza descentralizada do Bitcoin permite que as pessoas tomem decisões financeiras sem interferência do estado ou de entidades corporativas.

Porque é Que o Bitcoin é Revolucionário

A verdadeira natureza revolucionária do Bitcoin reside no seu design e princípios, que rompem com os sistemas de controlo enraizados. Eis algumas razões pelas quais o Bitcoin é transformador:

• Aberto e Sem Fronteiras: O Bitcoin transcende fronteiras, permitindo que pessoas de todo o mundo participem igualmente no sistema financeiro. Quebra barreiras baseadas em nacionalidade ou geografia, permitindo uma participação económica global.

• Resistente à Censura: Nenhum governo ou empresa pode parar uma transacção em Bitcoin, dando às pessoas a liberdade de transferir valor sem medo de interferências ou retaliações. Esta é a forma definitiva de autonomia financeira.

• Sem Permissão: O Bitcoin não requer aprovação de nenhuma autoridade. Ao contrário dos sistemas financeiros tradicionais, não há porteiros a controlar quem pode participar, tornando o Bitcoin uma ferramenta para a verdadeira auto-soberania financeira.

• Neutro: O Bitcoin é imparcial. Não se importa com raça, género, religião ou política. Num mundo onde a política identitária é usada para dividir, o Bitcoin trata todos de forma igual, oferecendo um sistema financeiro inclusivo que transcende essas divisões.

Bitcoin como o Antídoto para a Polarização

O Bitcoin oferece uma solução para a divisão criada pela polarização. Transcende a política identitária ao tratar todos de forma igual, independentemente da sua origem ou crenças. A neutralidade do Bitcoin garante que nenhum grupo ou facção pode manipulá-lo para impor as suas visões sobre os outros.

Bitcoin permite que os indivíduos se libertem das narrativas divisivas e tomem controlo dos seus destinos financeiros. Promove a cooperação em vez do conflito, capacitando as pessoas a focarem-se em objectivos comuns, em vez de batalhas ideológicas.

O Bitcoin não é apenas uma moeda—é uma força unificadora, oferecendo esperança àqueles que estão cansados da divisão e das lutas pelo poder. Representa uma mudança para práticas financeiras inclusivas que priorizam a autonomia individual em detrimento do controlo centralizado.

Um Apelo à Acção

Para os jovens que sonham em criar uma mudança real: se querem liderar uma revolução que verdadeiramente empodere os indivíduos e quebre as cadeias do controlo centralizado, então é hora de abraçar o Bitcoin.

Esta revolução não é sobre seguir uma agenda predefinida ou alinhar-se com ideologias divisivas. Trata-se de criar um futuro de sistemas financeiros abertos, onde todos têm a liberdade de participar igualmente.

A cor desta revolução é laranja, simbolizando o logótipo do Bitcoin e o movimento em direcção à liberdade financeira. Representa a esperança para aqueles que querem escapar das restrições dos sistemas tradicionais e criar um mundo descentralizado e empoderado.

Conclusão

Estamos à beira de uma revolução financeira. A juventude tem uma escolha: seguir as narrativas pré-definidas dos sistemas ultrapassados ou tomar controlo dos seus próprios destinos através de redes financeiras descentralizadas e abertas.

O Bitcoin é a verdadeira revolução. É um movimento impulsionado pelo desejo de liberdade, autonomia e inclusão. Juntem-se à revolução, sejam parte de algo maior, e ajudem a construir um mundo onde o poder é descentralizado, as oportunidades são iguais e o futuro é brilhante e laranja—a cor da liberdade financeira.

Photo by Tarik Haiga on Unsplash

@ 6c2d68ba:846525ec

Dear friend,

it seems like you have decided to turn your back on those walled gardens and set sails to enter uncharted territory. A world without walls, an open world, a world of beautiful chaos. At least for today, I don't intend guiding you out of the safe harbour onto the open, endless sea. Today, my only intent is sharing a few thoughts, before you depart.

As a wise man on Madeira once said, it's not so much about having the right answers, it's about asking the right questions. While I'm not certain whether I have found the right questions myself by now, let me share the current set with you:

• What causes the discomfort that drives you out of the walled garden onto the open sea?

• Are you trying to transfer from one walled garden to the next one, where the difference being a slightly friendlier colour on the wall?

• What are you hoping to find on the open sea that walled gardens cannot provide?

• What are you willing to sacrifice for freedom (of speech)?

• What will you need to keep the ship afloat?

• How will you react when you find yourself in the middle of a storm?

I sincerely believe that it's worthwile taking a step back before departing to reflect on the big picture and the underlying paradigm shift between walled gardens and nostr. This is not about building competitors to broken systems, this is not about mimicking centralised services, this is not about repeating the same mistakes over and over.

This is about building a new world, an open world without walled gardens and data silos.

Onwards!

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Rede Relâmpago

Ao se referir à Lightning Network do O que é Bitcoin?, nós, brasileiros e portugueses, devemos usar o termo "Relâmpago" ou "Rede Relâmpago". "Relâmpago" é uma palavra bonita e apropriada, e fácil de pronunciar por todos os nossos compatriotas. Chega de anglicismos desnecessários.

Exemplo de uma conversa hipotética no Brasil usando esta nomenclatura:

– Posso pagar com Relâmpago?

– Opa, claro! Vou gerar um boleto aqui pra você.

Repare que é bem mais natural e fácil do que a outra alternativa:

– Posso pagar com láitenim?

– Leite ninho?

@ eaef5965:511d6b79

For six full years I've been updating and commenting on the status of global central bank money on Twitter. As the seventh year of my research commences, for 2024 Q2, it's about time to bring it home to the better bird protocol. This is a much more philosophically aligned place to focus in on the signal when it comes to our money, and I'm happy to finally convert these posts to long-form here.

This is quarterly update #25, for 2024 Q2.

If you have followed my work before, then you know that the constant hymn I've sung while speaking publicly about Bitcoin is that the only, economically comparable money supply in the fiat world to 21 million bitcoins is what economists call the "monetary base," or "base money." This is a corporeal money supply that has existed across all of modern economic and central banking epochs. For an apples-to-apples, ontological comparison with Bitcoin, look no further then Base money.

So what is it?

It is central bank money, comprised of two supplies:

1. Physical currency: Notes and coins, or “cash;”
2. Bank reserves: The “Master account” that each commercial bank holds with its central bank.

Now, why do I refer to this as, "Central bank money?" This is because, unlike all other money supplies in the fiduciary banking world (like M1/M2/M3), the Monetary base is the sole and ultimate money supply controlled by the central bank. It is, literally, the printing press.

What follows won't be a lesson in reserve ratios or monetary economics. The point is that you simply understand that there is a money supply that central banks solely control, and of course (of course!) this is what Bitcoin's 21 million are up against.

The monetary base is to the core of the entire fiat financial system, as 21 million bitcoins are to the core of the Bitcoin protocol.

One is open and permissionless, and one is not.

By the way, the monetary base is essentially (though not entirely) analogous to the total liabilities of a central bank, so we can (basically) say that the monetary base is the "balance sheet" of each central bank.

On cash. Quick notes on the above. Certainly you understand what "cash" is, and it is indeed an instrument that has been fully monopolized by each central bank in each nation around the world--only they can print it. Even though it is true that banks in more free banking societies in the past could freely print and strike notes and coins, the central bank (or state) monopoly has been around for a long time. Kublai Khan was the first to do it 750 years ago.

On bank reserves. Don't stress your brain on this too much, but this is the main "settlement money" that banks use between each other, when they want to settle their debts. It is digital now (Fedwire in US, CHAPS in UK), but it doesn't technically have to be, and of course before modern technology took over even a few decades ago, it was not.

These two stacks of retail and wholesale cash, stacks of central bank money, are what makes up the Monetary base. This is the printing press. Only this compares to 21 million bitcoins.

And gold, and silver by the way.

Final note, central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, which are simply LARPing on Bitcoin's success, are indeed created by central banks, and they are indeed classified as Base money. They are going to be a "third rail." They are thankfully incredibly small, pilot projects today. We will see how far democracies will be tested, as autocracies no doubt will mainstream them; but for now, consider them, at least economically, to be inconsequential to the update below.

With that review out of the way, onward to Q2 update for 2024.

Bitcoin is the 6th largest money in the world.

In February 2024, it surpassed the monetary base of the United Kingdom, that is its value was larger than the Bank of England's balance sheet, and it remains so to this day.

As of 30 June 2024, there are four central bank balance sheets larger than Bitcoin:

1. Federal Reserve (dollar): $5.73 trillion
2. European Central Bank (euro): $5.19 trillion equivalent
3. People's Bank of China (yuan): $5.11 trillion equivalent
4. Bank of Japan (yen): $4.20 trillion equivalent

So if we only look at this from a "fiat" perspective, then Bitcoin is indeed the 5th largest money in the world.

However, the all-important monetary metal throughout history that even a child knows about--gold--is still king at around $15 trillion in value, or 6.1 billion ounces worldwide. Note, this does not include gold lost/recycled through industry; in that case, it is estimated that about 6.8 billion ounces of gold have been mined throughout humanity.

Update #25 Executive Summary

Silver, for what it's worth, is still a big "monetary" metal; though it is true, much more silver is gobbled up in industry compared to gold. There are about 30.9 billion ounces of non-industrial silver floating around the world (most of it in jewelry and silverware form) that is valued in today's prices at $930 billion. Bitcoin bigger.

State of the Print: $26.1 trillion.

If we add up the Big Five central banks already mentioned above (again, Bitcoin being larger than the Bank of England's monetary base), as well as the next 45 central banks, we get to a total, USD equivalent value of $26.1 trillion in base money across the world.

If we consider $26.1 trillion as the Big Boss of central bank money, the figure in totality, then Bitcoin at $1.2 trillion network value indeed has some way to go. We can also imagine how the Pareto distribution occurs even in money, if Bitcoin after only 15 years is already larger than every central bank money in the world except for four of them. Wild to ponder.

Inflation: 12.7% per year.

It is also true that for two years they have been trying to "normalize" their balance sheets after the 2020-22 Covid madness, stimulus, and money printing. Of course, they have been trying all along to normalize since the 2008 global finance crisis (GFC), but I digress.

When I first started my website, I vowed never to use such a non-corporeal thing as CPI to discuss how much things cost. A "general increase in the level of consumer prices," or CPI, as measured by planning boards around the world, is not a real thing. It may be calculated by people with the best of intentions, but it has been manipulated and volumes have been written about it. I don't use it.

I have always defined inflation as the classical economists did: Inflation is an increase in the "stock" of money. If we know the all-time stock of euros printed by the European Central Bank now, and we know the all-time stock of euros printed by the ECB 12 months ago, then it is very easy to calculate the annual inflation of the euro. Not only is it easy, but it is real. It is corporeal. Watch what they do, not what they say.

But we should be rigorous. If inflation is an increase in the stock of money, what is a decrease in the stock of money? Does this happen? Well, this is deflation, and yes it does happen. You may be surprised to learn that for two years central banks around the world have collectively been shrinking their balance sheets, and thus we have been in a state of deflation.

With my research we can visually see all of this, and it is here:

Inflation, or Deflation?

Turns out that the normalization is more difficult than they thought, as they are still at $26.1 trillion, and before Covid the global monetary base was $20 trillion. Nonetheless, they have stopped the money printing of 2020 and 2021.

I have written much about my methodology for these reports, but the bottom line is that the area curve on the left axis (the base money itself, denominated in dollars), will not necessarily reflect what is happening with the actual money print, trailing 12-month % figures on the right axis (the growth rate or inflation rate). It is a Wittgenstein's ruler thing.

The blended, global, annual rate of central bank money printing at the moment is nearly flat, just slightly negative at -0.3%.

The flat levels and the slight rate of deflation have been relatively consistent for the last two years, but if you look at that the 2022 peak of $30 trillion, this may seem like they have cut the supply much more than this. They haven't. This is because, on balance, most of the world's currencies have fallen faster in value against the dollar, even though they continue to print.

This is why we have seen $4 trillion in base money shed in value over the last couple years of rising interest rates, but the actual decrease the rate of base money printed has only been around -1% to -2% per year, when measured across each currency's native unit growth, each month.

And for the high signal, no-noise figure in my attempt to get you to one number to understand how much central banks have compounded their fiat base money stack across 50+ years, that figure is 12.7% per year.

And Powell says he wants to cut rates (print money) again. Wild.

Let's compare.

For the rest of this report, I want to do something different and simply spend some time looking at the compound annual growth rates of various corporeal things around the world, in order that we can compare those to the growth of the fiat monetary base, and Bitcoin.

Remember, most things in the financial and economic world grow exponentially. This simply means that they grow constantly. The financial term here is compound growth, or compound interest. This rate of growth can indeed change year to year (interest rates can go up, or down), but over the years we can observe a strong trend, and that is what I want to summarize here for you.

Population.

The world has grown exponentially at 1.7% per year over the last 75 years. However, despite all the overpopulation myths you've probably heard, this rate of growth is actually falling, well below trend, and we only grow at 0.9% per year at the moment.

GDP.

The United States has grown its economy at 5.2% compounded per year since the founding of the republic. We are at the higher end of this trend right now, $28 trillion per year and growing at 5.8% per year.

Stocks.

Stocks grow exponentially as well, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The growth rate is 7.3% per year for the S&P 500, the main US index that tracks more than 80% of total market caps.

Stocks. With Dividends.

If you reinvest those dividends into the same stock market, you'll earn more. Still compound growth, but 2% higher at 9.3% per year for the S&P.

Bonds.

Bonds are supposedly safer than stocks (bondholders get paid back first), and more cash flowing. If you look at the longest running bond index in the US, it grows at 7.1% per year, compounded.

Base Money.

As we've discussed, base money grows, if re-weighting the native unit growth each month, at 12.7% compounded per year. However, this trendline analysis looks at it differently. It simply looks at the USD value of the global monetary base (again, $26.1 trillion), and draws an exponential trendline on that USD equivalent growth for 50+ years. In other words, this is going to be after all currency fluctuations have played themselves out.

Do you think the growth rate here will be higher or lower? Actually lower, at 10.3% per year. But there is a big asterisk here, as more base money supplies are added in later periods than in the 1970s and 1980s, so it is not as rigorous as the 12.7% figure. In any event, one might expect this trendline analysis to actually be higher in that case, so it goes to show how quickly currency values can fall against the global reserve currency!

Silver.

This is total ounces ever mined. They trend upward at 1.4% per year.

Gold.

This is total ounces ever mined. Gold trends upward at 1.7% per year. Faster than silver. Surprised? Notice the R-squared (goodness of fit) for both silver and gold.

Bitcoin.

Bitcoins grow according to a basic logarithmic curve. Trying to draw percentiles is pointless here, and even measuring a trendline is somewhat pointless, as everyone knows the bitcoins prescribed into the future, by the protocol. Better to just quote the trailing 12-month growth figure, and it is 1.7% per year and falling. For now, identical to gold.

Silver price.

Since 1971 it's trended at 3.4% per year. Silver bug?

Gold price.

Since 1971 it's trended at 5.0% per year. Gold bug?

Bitcoin price.

Note, we have finally arrived at something that grows differently than exponential. As I've observed since 2018, Bitcoin grows according to a power trend. Did you notice that all the prior exponential trends displayed themselves as straight lines on log scale? Well, with Bitcoin, the power trendline gradually falls across time, but the growth is still well larger than anything we've covered thus far.

Why? It's being adopted, of course.

Bitcoin's power trendline has grown 169.9% per year since Bitcoin Pizza Day in 2010. Note that this is something akin to a "Lifetime Achievement" figure, and it will continue to fall every day. Over the prior 12 months ending 30 June 2024, Bitcoin grew 105.6% over the year. The compound growth of the power trend today is 45% per year. By 2030 it will fall to "only" 36% per year.

Oh yes, and it is free, open, and permissionless.

To summarize.

That's a lot of data that came at you quick. I've compiled it all in a helpful table here for you to review at any time. This is the world at 2024, Q2:

Base money concluded

The following table gives you a complete summary of the fiat currencies, gold, silver, and Bitcoin figures used in this analysis, for this quarter. Please print it out if you like, it is meant to be a helpful, in-depth companion when fiat friends come asking.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider zapping, and you can also donate to my BTCPay on my website if you'd like to help keep this research going.

@ 1467d9ba:8e5d92f5

KyberTrike

Intro story

[CORPORATION 1 MAIN CHARACTER]

It's been 15 years since [CORPORATION 1] abandoned us on this dying planet. We've made due with the supplies we had, and built ourselves a survivable future. Ironically it's not the star going out that's our biggest threat right now. It's actually the nihlistic degenerates of [CORPORATION 2]. They'd rather steal food from us than farm their own. If they had just listened to us from the start, we could have built a harmonious settlement. Instead we're nearing all-out war over the prettiest real-estate.

I'm hopeful we can overcome this. Our hard work will see us through to victory.

As for [CORPORATION 3], lord knows where they are. Either moved to the other side of the planet, or dead.

[CORPORATION 2 MAIN CHARACTER]

I've never felt so alive in my life. When the motherships left, first I was afraid. Then I realized I'm a king without them! I don't give a fuck about anything or anyone and I'm taking what's mine, which is everything! [chaotic laugh]

[CORPORATION 1]? Greedy bastards. They have hectacres of farmland, there's plenty of food to go around. They actually wanted to sell it to us, can you believe that?

And it's not like we can't survive without them. In the mines, we found out that you can just drink [exotic ore] and it keeps you alive no matter how thin you are! And you feel great too, on top of the world! Hell, I'm drinking some right now and I feel like I could kill every last [CORPORATION 1] employee and still have energy left! [chaotic laugh]

Factions

[CORPORATION 1]

• Lawful good
• specializes in farming
• Punk rock music

[CORPORATION 2]

• Chaotic evil
• specializes in mining
• Death metal music

[CORPORATION 3]

• Neutral neutral
• Missing
• Aphex Twin music

Story behind the story

KyberTrike is a spritiual successor to CyberStrike2, a late 90's game.

The corporations abandoning the settlers is analogus to Simutronics abandoning CyberStrike2 without explaination or parting gifts. Much like former Cyberstrike2 players are left with a void of CyberStrike gameplay, the settlers are left with a void of peace and common humanity.

To be continued...

@ 42342239:1d80db24

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

-- Juvenal (Who will watch the watchmen?)

In mid-July, numerous media outlets reported on the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. FBI Director Christopher Wray stated later that same month that what hit the former president Trump was a bullet. A few days later, it was reported from various sources that search engines no longer acknowledged that an assassination attempt on ex-President Trump had taken place. When users used automatic completion in Google and Bing (91% respectively 4% market share), these search engines only suggested earlier presidents such as Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin as people who could have been subjected to assassination attempts.

The reports were comprehensive enough for the Republican district attorney of Missouri to say that he would investigate matter. The senator from Kansas - also a Republican - planned to make an official request to Google. Google has responded through a spokesman to the New York Post that the company had not "manually changed" search results, but its system includes "protection" against search results "connected to political violence."

A similar phenomenon occurred during the 2016 presidential election. At the time, reports emerged of Google, unlike other less widely used search engines, rarely or never suggesting negative search results for Hillary Clinton. The company however provided negative search results for then-candidate Trump. Then, as today, the company denied deliberately favouring any specific political candidate.

These occurrences led to research on how such search suggestions can influence public opinion and voting preferences. For example, the impact of simply removing negative search suggestions has been investigated. A study published in June 2024 reports that such search results can dramatically affect undecided voters. Reducing negative search suggestions can turn a 50/50 split into a 90/10 split in favour of the candidate for whom negative search suggestions were suppressed. The researchers concluded that search suggestions can have "a dramatic impact," that this can "shift a large number of votes" and do so without leaving "any trace for authorities to follow." How search engines operate should therefore be considered of great importance by anyone who claims to take democracy seriously. And this regardless of one's political sympathies.

A well-known thought experiment in philosophy asks: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" Translated to today's media landscape: If an assassination attempt took place on a former president, but search engines don't want to acknowledge it, did it really happen?

@ 4735cdca:0c0ecb64

É muito provável que você imediatamente associe a ciência à tecnologia. São conceitos tão próximos que precisamos de um pouco de atenção para entender as diferenças.

Vamos direto ao ponto.

A ciência busca as explicações sobre os fenômenos que ocorrem na natureza.

A tecnologia é uma atividade prática — um método, instrumento ou processo que ajude a alcançar um objetivo.

O divulgador da ciência e escritor Simon Singh tem uma ótima definição:

(…) a tecnologia envolve todo o necessário para tornar a vida (e a morte) mais cômoda, enquanto a ciência é simplesmente um esforço para compreender o mundo.

E o saudoso Carl Sagan escreveu:

A ciência é uma tentativa, em grande parte bem-sucedida, de compreender o mundo, de controlar as coisas, de ter domínio sobre nós mesmos, de seguir um rumo seguro.

A tecnologia depende da ciência?

A tecnologia não necessariamente depende da ciência.

Imagine como se deu a descoberta da produção de fogo pelos seres humanos primordiais. Eles não tinham noção que é a combustão do oxigênio que gera calor e luz. Estavam interessados em aquecimento, iluminar um ambiente, manter predadores afastados etc.

Outro exemplo é do físico alemão Wilhelm Röntgen (1845 – 1923). Ele descobriu o raio X em 1895, enquanto estudava a luz fluorescente emitida por um tubo de raios catódicos. Esse aparelho é chamado também de tubo de Crookes.

Röntgen percebeu que uma chapa próxima ao experimento brilhava enquanto o tubo estava ligado. Ele executou alguns testes que demonstraram que alguns materiais bloqueavam esses raios e outros não. O cientista até pediu à sua esposa para colocar a mão entre o tubo e a chapa, revelando os ossos de seus dedos.

Röntgen tinha a tecnologia. Já que a natureza daqueles raios invisíveis era um mistério, ele não conhecia a ciência envolvida ali. Por isso, Wilhelm não pôde sequer dar um nome adequado à sua descoberta, que permaneceu chamada raio X.

https://image.nostr.build/0bd313bb463f304f8dc066c170497d4d2734a04f46d6addc25101ef6fe127c89.jpg

Imagem da série The Knick, do canal Cinemax, em que o personagem Herman Barrow tem um raio X tirado de seu crânio enquanto nem ele nem o operador usam qualquer tipo de proteção.

Muitas pessoas foram expostas em excesso a raios X antes de sabermos que eles podem causar mutações e outros prejuízos ao corpo. Isso poderia ser evitado se tivéssemos um conhecimento mais profundo sobre radiação.

Daí a importância de uma base científica por trás de uma tecnologia. Esse embasamento nos permite usar a tecnologia de forma mais controlada e responsável.

Desenvolvendo tecnologia a partir da ciência

O que vemos hoje é a tecnologia muito mais dependente da ciência.

Para produzir um celular, precisamos de conceitos de ondas para ele fazer ligações e se conectar à Internet. Sua bateria necessita de princípios de química e eletricidade para funcionar.

Por isso também podemos definir tecnologia como a aplicação prática da ciência.

Há empresas que investem em ciência aplicada porque sabem que os estudos são conduzidos em uma área que gera resultados práticos. A indústria farmacêutica é um bom exemplo. Estudos bioquímicos podem levar à produção de novas drogas que salvam vidas.

Mas nem todo tipo de conhecimento científico resulta em aplicações práticas em um futuro próximo.

Chamamos de ciência de base a busca pelo conhecimento motivada essencialmente pela curiosidade em saber como as coisas funcionam. É um trabalho dedicado a deixar um legado para a humanidade.

Agora uma frase do físico e escritor Steven Weinberg

A ciência e a tecnologia se beneficiam uma da outra, mas, em seu nível mais fundamental, não se faz ciência por razões de ordem prática.

Em geral, a maior parte do fomento a esse campo vem de dinheiro público, mas também há instituições privadas que investem nesse tipo de ciência sem esperar resultados práticos em troca. Inclusive, há campanhas de financiamento coletivo como a da neurocientista Suzana Herculano-Houzel, que já superou a meta de R$ 100.000,00 em contribuições.

Há quem pense que investimentos em ciência de base são uma perda de dinheiro e de tempo. Mas anos de pesquisa em ciência de base podem resultar em aplicações práticas e avanços que nossa visão ainda não é capaz de enxergar.

Eventualmente esse conhecimento será “útil” e fará uma diferença no dia a dia. Só então seremos gratos aos engenheiros, cientistas e inventores que acreditaram no conhecimento mas muitas vezes veem seus trabalhos desprezados?

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Timeu

Os quatro elementos, a esfera como a forma mais perfeita, os cinco sentidos, a dor como perturbação e o prazer como retorno, o demiurgo que cria da melhor maneira possível com a matéria que tem, o conceito de duro e mole, todas essas coisas que ensinam nas escolas e nos desenhos animados ou sei lá como entram na nossa consciência como se fossem uma verdade, mas sempre uma verdade provisória, infantil -- como os nomes infantis dos dedos (mata-piolho, fura-bolo etc.) --, que mesmo as crianças sabem que não é verdade mesmo.

Parece que todas essas coisas estão nesse livro. Talvez até mesmo a classificação dos cinco dedos como mata-piolho e tal, mas talvez eu tenha dormido nessa parte.

Me pergunto se essas coisas não eram ensinadas tradicionalmente na idade média como sendo verdade absoluta (pois afinal estava lá o Platão dizendo, em sua única obra) e persistiram até hoje numa tradição que se mantém aos trancos e barrancos, contra tudo e contra todos, sem ninguém saber como, um conhecimento em que ninguém acredita mas acha bonito mesmo assim, harmonioso, e vem despida de suas origens e fontes primárias e de todo o seu contexto perturbar o entendimento do mundo pelas crianças.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Programming quibbles

• About CouchDB
• my personal approach on using let, const and var in javascript
• A crappy course on torrents
• Multi-service Graph Reputation protocol
• The monolithic approach to CouchDB views
• My stupid introduction to Haskell
• The unit test bubble
• There's a problem with using Git concepts for everything
• On the state of programs and browsers
• Rust's .into() is a strictly bad thing

@ 4735cdca:0c0ecb64

Você já teve a oportunidade de ler um livro de divulgação científica? Ele provavelmente citou o método científico em algum momento.

No entanto, nem sempre os autores explicam o que de fato ele é.

Então vamos entender essas regras que são a base de como fazer ciência.

Lembrando que na literatura o número de passos do método pode variar. Aqui veremos em seis passos.

1. Observação

Observe a natureza, algum evento, o comportamento das pessoas ou qualquer que seja o seu objeto de estudo.

O observador deve ser objetivo, ater-se aos fatos e não se deixar influenciar por impressões ou intuições.

A observação vai despertar a sua curiosidade, que vai levar aos questionamentos.

2. Questionamento

Questione por que aquilo que você observou acontece.

Suas perguntas serão seu guia numa espécie de formulação de um problema.

A solução desse problema é onde queremos chegar com o uso do método científico.

O questionamento e a observação estão muito interligados. A observação leva ao questionamento, mas o questionamento também pode estimular novas observações.

3. Hipótese

Levante uma hipótese.

Essa será a sua sugestão de solução do problema formulado durante o questionamento.

É importante que essa hipótese seja testável e falseável. Ela será colocada a prova com experimentos.

Aqui, vale falarmos mais sobre falseabilidade.

Uma ideia ganha mais força quando outras pessoas validam que ela acontece ou funciona.

Daí a importância de uma hipótese ser testável. Assim, temos a capacidade de verificar se ela é verdadeira ou falsa.

Uma hipótese falseável é aquela que temos como considerar falsa.

Segundo o exemplo do filósofo alemão Karl Popper, a hipótese de que "todos os cisnes são brancos" é falseável. Basta encontrarmos um cisne negro para refutá-la.

4. Experimentação

Crie um ou mais experimentos controlados, cujos resultados esperados possam reforçar a sua hipótese.

5. Análise

Verifique bem os resultados dos experimentos.

Analise os dados, refaça as contas e certifique-se de que não houve erros ou vieses para atrapalhar a interpretação das informações.

E nada de "interpretação criativa" dos dados. Avalie-os da maneira mais imparcial e fria possível, afinal, eles devem refletir a realidade e não o que você gostaria que eles representassem.

Peço licença novamente, dessa vez para relembrar o que são lei, hipótese e teoria.

Uma lei é a generalização de um conjunto de observações, não tendo sido encontrada nenhuma exceção a tais observações. Exemplo: Lei da Gravitação Universal.

As hipóteses são conjecturas, especulações, previsões sobre determinado fenômeno da natureza e como ele se comporta. Exemplo: Hipótese da Geração Espontânea.

E as teorias são explicações bem fundamentadas para descrever eventos que ocorrem na natureza. Envolvem fatos, leis e hipóteses já testadas exaustivamente. Exemplo: Teoria da Evolução.

6. Conclusão

Caso o experimento não tenha saído como o esperado, tente entender o por quê e retorne ao Passo 3. Ajuste a sua hipótese ou formule uma nova.

Se os dados obtidos com o experimento comprovam a sua hipótese, chegamos à solução do problema.

A partir daí, sua ideia poderá ser refinada, revisada por outros cientistas, publicada e quem sabe até se tornar uma teoria.

Não pense, porém, que o método científico serve apenas para cientistas. Ele é para todos!

Você pode usá-lo no seu dia a dia, mesmo que seja uma versão mais flexível.

Assim, evitamos de ser enganados e reafirmamos o nosso compromisso com a verdade.

Referências: * Science: The Definitive Visual Guide, DK * O Livro da Ciência, Editora Globo * BYNUM, William; Uma Breve História da Ciência, Editora L&PM * Simpatia Funciona? - Nerdologia * Origem da Vida e Método Científico - Descomplica * O Método Científico e os Tipos de Pesquisa - Aula da Professora Regina Fonseca * Falseabilidade - Canal do Pirula

@ 4ec341e6:6dc2fdaf

There is a reference to chapter 12 - Relating design patterns to the model and also to chapter 4 - Layered Architecture.

An interesting part here in chapter 1 was about making business rules more explicit, an example is given where the rule is implicit within an application method:

java public int makeBooking(Cargo cargo, Voyage voyage) { double maxBooking = voyage.capacity() * 1.1; if ((voyage.bookedCargoSize() + cargo.size()) > maxBooking) return –1; int confirmation = orderConfirmationSequence.next(); voyage.addCargo(cargo, confirmation); return confirmation; }

So the code is refactored to something like this:

```java public int makeBooking(Cargo cargo, Voyage voyage) { if (!overbookingPolicy.isAllowed(cargo, voyage)) return –1; int confirmation = orderConfirmationSequence.next(); voyage.addCargo(cargo, confirmation); return confirmation; }

public boolean isAllowed(Cargo cargo, Voyage voyage) { return (cargo.size() + voyage.bookedCargoSize()) <= (voyage.capacity() * 1.1); } ```

The advantage here is that the overbooking business rule is more explicit and accessible, which makes it easier for everyone involved in the project to understand. In addition, of course, to making the rule clearer (explicit).

In my opinion, this also brings another series of advantages, it makes maintenance easier and helps functions do only one thing.

The chapter also talks about the importance of deepening the understanding of the domain (that is, the company's business rules) to create more useful and representative models.

@ 472f440f:5669301e

I'm sure you are all well aware of the news out of France. The French government has made the bold move of arresting the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, after charging him with 12 criminal counts ranging from "complicity in web-mastering an online platform in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group" to "importing a cryptology tool ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration".

Telegram is an extremely popular messaging app that is used by almost 1 billion people from around the world. I have personally been a user for seven years and it is very dismaying to see the French government attack an entrepreneur who has built a widely used and loved app. We've said it many times over the years in this rag, governments need to stop throwing the baby out with the bath water by attacking successful businesses for the crimes their users commit and begin doing better law enforcement. It makes no sense to demonize a technology for the crimes that are committed by a small minority of users of that tool. Is the French government going to go after the CEO of Bic, the largest producer of pens in the world, because there are pen pals out there who use their pens to write letters in which they coordinate criminal activity? If we apply the same logic behind the decision to arrest Pavel it would seem that the Bic CEO should be a bit worried.

Who knows what evidence the French government has against Pavel. Maybe he is directly involved in the coordination of crimes that were committed on his app. I highly doubt it, but who knows. We'll have to wait and see what evidence the French courts put forth once a trial gets under way. As of yesterday, we know that this seems like a classic case of "You refuse to cooperate with deep state actors who want access to your users' data, so we're going to accuse you of all of the crimes."

The fact of the matter is, we shouldn't have to worry about the actions of a founder dictating the accessibility of a novel technology that they bring to market. Especially technologies that enable people to connect in the digital world to exercise their God given right to free speech.

It's a bit poetic that this happened on Saturday night in Europe. Just one day after the Nostriga conference in Riga, Latvia wrapped up. Nostriga was a two-day event which attracted people from all over the world so that they could meet to discuss how to push the Nostr protocol forward. For those who are unaware of what Nostr is, it is an open source communications protocol with no leaders that enables individuals to publish their thoughts to the world is a distributed, censorship resistant fashion. User profiles are created via a private-public key pair. The public key makes it easy for others to follow and the private key enables a user to sign notes with certain data that get broadcasted to relays. App developers can then pull the user generated data from those relays and present the data in unique ways using front-end interfaces known as clients. Users can port their private keys (commonly known as nsecs) into any client they like and have all of the data they've published to the protocol automatically show up. Said another way, since Nostr is a protocol and not a platform, users have way more optionality when it comes to the applications that present the data they publish. If one client decides to censor or simply has a bad UX, they can plop their magic string (private key) into another client and see everything they've ever posted while still being connected to everyone they added to their social graph historically. This is extremely powerful on many fronts.

Gone are the days of having to worry about building an audience on a platform, making that a critical part of your brand and livelihood, and having to self-censor because of the fear of being deplatformed. You own your private key and that gives you access to your data. Not the platform.

For app developers, the network effect of Nostr produces an incredible and truly unique bootstrapping mechanism. Instead of having to start from scratch and hope that users find your app, fill it with data, and begin spreading the word to more users you adopt the social graph of Nostr from day one. Every user of the protocol is already feeding your application data. If you can build an appealing product that provides users of the protocol with value, they will find it and immediately be able to leverage it. There will be no need for them to build up a reputation or find their social connections on the app. They will be ported into the client.

Nostr can be additive to seemingly unrelated applications that aren't built directly on Nostr. We've already seen this with bitcoin wallets that have enabled users to port their Nostr social graphs directly into their wallet. Making it easy for individuals to find their friend's Nostr account and send bitcoin directly to the lightning address they've associated with it. No need for an invoice. Just find your friend and send them money like you would on an app like Venmo.

The number of added benefits users and app developers get from Nostr beyond those I just explained are too long to list. Long story short, this protocol is a massive deal.

It is still very early for Nostr, but the progress that has been made in the last couple of years has been nothing short of awe inspiring. If you squint into the future, it isn't hard to see how Nostr becomes mainstream by the end of the decade. The compounding network effects are stronger than anything I've seen since bitcoin.

All of this is to say that this will be one of the only ways to build truly robust communications-based applications moving forward. As we've seen with TikTok and now Telegram, if the state doesn't like the owner of a particular platform they will either kick the platform out of their country or arrest the founder and do their best to corrupt the platform itself once he is in custody. This hasn't happened yet with Telegram, but you can bet your ass that the deep state will try to corrupt Telegram if they successfully remove him from the picture.

To be clear, this doesn't make the founders of particular Nostr clients immune to this type of overt overreach by governments. However, the design of Nostr is such that governments would have an exponentially harder time achieving their end goal, suppressing and controlling speech that's expressed on these platforms, because the protocol has hundreds of competing clients serving customers the data stored in relays. They could even attempt to go after the relays, but that task may prove to be impossible as well.

Make no mistake, we live in very trying times. The world's governments are losing control and they are doing the best they can to suppress freedom of speech in anyway they can to prevent people from spreading information that makes the Regime to look like the evil fools that they are. The best we can do is to build robust systems that make their attempts at suppressing speech as close to impossible as is possible. The efforts to build out robust systems like bitcoin and Nostr should be complemented with pushing back against the Regime via the courts. But as we all know, we can't always depend on the courts to actually deliver justice. There are times where freedom must be taken and defended. We are certainly living through one of those times right now.

Despite the insanity of the world and the governments who would like to rule it, the momentum of the light is building. People are taking action and solutions are being built slowly but surely. It is our job to keep the momentum up and make sure the lifeboats of bitcoin, Nostr and similar protocols are ready to go once the Deep State begins attacking others. They came for TikTok and Telegram. Don't think that platforms like X, Rumble and Gab aren't in their crosshairs as well.

Here are four videos from Nostriga that I think you all should watch.

https://youtu.be/XUsk7cqZyKU?si=2vUl01azeFJQjczZ

https://youtu.be/qUwXRDrfJU0?si=np3vyTDddoQKuPJK

https://youtu.be/OHqxp-Hrx9k?si=K7vhVBWtFQwB68Tr

https://youtu.be/iZyqVGHjDGo?si=CjJCbAlNBa06qcwV

And a panel I hosted about funding Nostr if you're interested in that.

https://youtu.be/qD-Y0fq5KiA?si=L81sFCPGw2ayXXzw

We're going to win.

---

Final thought... Jet lag sucks.

@ 44dc1c2d:31c74f0b

Chef's notes

Last time I made this I subbed the tomato puréed with some blistered cherry tomatoes. Don't think I'll be using the purée going forward.

I prefer thighs so that's what I use for this but use whatever you want.

Adjust spices based on the size of your onions. If all you have is two massive onions maybe use one and a half onion or just up the amount of spices a little.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: ~10 min
• 🍳 Cook time: ~40 ish min
• 🍽️ Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 Onions
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 1/3 cup cashews
• 1.5 tsp Garam Masala
• 2 ish cloves of crushed garlic
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsb ground turmeric
• 1 tsb salt
• 1 tbsp plain yogurt
• 2 tbsp of your cooking oil or fat
• 1 tbsp Coriander (Cilantro) plus extra for garnish
• 1 tbsp sultanas (golden raisins)
• 1 lb of chicken cubed
• 6 oz of white button mushrooms

Directions

1. Quarter the onions and put them in a food possessor for about a minute
2. Add the tomatoes, nuts, garlic, Garam masala, chili powder, lemon juice, turmeric, salt, yogurt and blend for another minute tell its well mixed in.
3. In a wok or a large pan heat your cooking oil and add the onion and spice mix in. Fry gently for around 2-ish minutes, stir frequently.
4. Add the chicken, coriander, and raisins to the pan. Stir-fry for another minute or so.
5. Add mushrooms and water. Bring to simmer and cover the pan cook for 10 min or until the chicken is 100% cooked through.
6. Serve with plain rice and enjoy!

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Trello Attachment Editor

A static JS app that allowed you to authorize with your Trello account, fetch the board structure, find attachments, edit them in the browser then replace them in the cards.

Quite a nice thing. I believe it was done to help with Websites For Trello attached scripts and CSS files.

• https://github.com/fiatjaf/trello-attachments
• https://fiatjaf.github.io/trello-attachments/#/login

See also

• Temperos

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

A flexibilidade da doutrina socialista

Os fatos da revolução russa mostram que Lênin e seus amigos bolcheviques não eram só psicopatas assassinos: eles realmente acreditavam que estavam fazendo o certo.

Talvez depois de um tempo o foco deles tenha mudado mais para o lado de se preocuparem menos com a vida e o bem-estar dos outros do que com eles mesmos, mas não houve uma mudança fundamental.

Ao mesmo tempo, a doutrina socialista na qual eles acreditavam era enormemente flexível, assim como a dos esquerdistas de hoje. É a mesma doutrina: uma coleção de slogans que pode ser adaptada para apoiar ou ir contra qualquer outra tese ou ação.

Me parece que a justificativa que eles encontraram para fazer tantas coisas claramente ruins vem dessas mesma flexibilidade. Os atos cruéis estavam todos justificados pela mesma coleção de slogans socialistas de sempre, apenas adaptados às circunstâncias.

Será que uma doutrina mais sólida se prestaria a essas atrocidades? Se concluirmos que a flexibilidade vem da mente e não da doutrina em si, sim, mas não acho que venha daí, porque é sempre o socialismo que é flexível, nunca nenhuma outra doutrina. Ou, na verdade, o socialismo é tão flexível que ele envolve e integra qualquer outra doutrina que seja minimamente compatível.

Talvez a flexibilidade esteja mesmo na mente, mas existe alguma relação entre a mente que desconhece a coerência e a lógica e a mente que se deixa atrair pelos slogans socialistas.

@ 472f440f:5669301e

Last night I had the pleasure of sitting down with Caitlin Long, Founder and CEO of Custodia - a fully reserved bank providing banking services to bitcoin companies, to discuss an affidavit written by Elaine Hetrick of Silvergate Bank. Elaine is the Chief Administrative Officer of Silvergate and wrote an affidavit, a sworn testimony subject to perjury, in which she detailed the events that led to Silvergate voluntarily winding down their business and returning deposits to their customers.

This affidavit is a bombshell because it confirms speculation that Silvergate was solvent in early 2023 and wasn't shut down because of bad risk management on behalf of the bank's management team, but instead was forced to shutter its doors because the Biden Administration, with strong influence from Senator Elizabeth Warren, forced Silvergate's hand because they didn't like that they were banking digital asset companies.

For those who are a bit fuzzy on the details of the narratives that were flying around Silvergate at the time, I'll jog your memory. FTX was a customer of Silvergate's at the time their Ponzi scheme unraveled. As FTX was blowing up, everyone and their mother was scrambling to get their money out of Silvergate because they assumed that since one of the bank's largest counterparties was going bust, the bank must be in trouble too. A sane decision. Especially considering the history of systemically non-important financial institutions this century.

Unless you were paying close attention during this time, you were likely under the impression that Silvergate was a typical fractionally reserved bank that was experiencing a run that led to its inevitable demise. The media made it seem this way. The regulators made it seem this way. And one pompous short seller made it seem this way. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Here are the most important parts of the affidavit:

Silvergate had stabilized, was able to make regulatory capital requirements, and had the capability to continue to serve its customers that had kept their deposits with Silvergate Bank.

Despite this, regulators decided to turn the pressure up and essentially gave Silvergate Bank, and Signature Bank as well, an ultimatum; drastically change your business models immediately by dropping your digital asset customer base or we'll shut you down. There were no hard numbers described in Elaine's testimony, but rumors are that the regulators wanted Silvergate to quickly shrink their exposure to digital asset-related clients to less than 15% of their capital base. At the time, Silvergate's customer base was made up almost entirely of digital asset companies (99.5% to be exact).

The regulators were asking Silvergate to do something that was quite literally impossible given the circumstances. Faced with an impossible task, on March 8th of 2023 Silvergate decided to voluntarily wind down their operations and return deposits back to their customers.

Let's be very clear here, Silvergate did not lose a single penny of customer deposits due to the run on their bank. Management, understanding the volatile nature of the digital asset markets, designed their risk management and capital allocation strategies in a way that would enable them to return dollars to any customer who requested them. And that's exactly what they did when customers came to request their money. They returned EVERY SINGLE PENNY.

This begs the question, "Why did they essentially force Silvergate to shut down?" They seemed to be running a very responsible operation after all. You'd think the regulators would applaud Silvergate's vigilance in risk management on behalf of their customer base. How many banks would have been able to do the same thing if put in the same situation? Probably not many.

The answer to this question is already well known throughout the industry, but Elaine Hetrick's testimony adds some hard evidence that makes it undeniable; Elizabeth Warren, the SEC, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve have been acting in concert to unconstitutionally and extrajudicially target the bitcoin and broader digital asset industry because they do not believe that it should exist. It is a threat to their power structure. The financial system, as it is designed today, gives those who would like to centrally plan the economy and micromanage the lives of American citizens a ton of power. Bitcoin is a threat to that power and they have to do everything in their power to prevent its proliferation.

The targeting of the industry was also confirmed by the aftermath of the NYDFS and FDIC uncharacteristically taking Signature Bank behind the woodshed in the evening of Sunday, March 20th, 2023, despite the fact that Barney Frank and others at the bank were convinced they could handle withdraws come market open the next day.

Signature Bank was ultimately sold to Flagstar Bank. However, they were forced to spin out their digital asset-related accounts before doing so.

This public signaling and sudden regulatory shift made clear that, at least as of the first quarter of 2023, the Federal Bank Regulatory Agencies would not tolerate banks with significant concentrations of digital asset customers, ultimately preventing Silvergate Bank from continuing its digital asset focused business model.

Pretty damning if you ask me. Also, very frustrating and most definitely illegal.

Elizabeth Warren and her gaggle of hall monitors across alphabet soup agencies and the Federal Reserve have been on one massive, unconstitutional, power trip for the last four years. They've besmirched bitcoin and those of us working hard to ensure that the United States of America leads the way forward as bitcoin adoption continues at every turn. Good people striving to make the world a better place.

No one is a better example of this than Alan Lane, the former CEO of Silvergate Bank. I consider Alan a friend and feel supremely confident when I say that he is one of the nicest and thoughtful people I have met in this industry. A man who followed his passion to bring legitimacy and much needed banking services to an industry that the incumbents refused to touch. And he did bring legitimacy. As I explained earlier, Alan and his team understood the volatile nature of the industry and built their firm in a way that took this volatility into account. Silvergate did not fail, they were forced to shut down by Elizabeth Warren and her acolytes at the regulatory agencies.

What's worse, Warren's vendetta against bitcoin and the digital asset industry incited the largest banking crisis this country had seen since 2008. Silvergate and Signature being taken behind the woodshed put everyone on their toes and bank runs started across the country. This led to the failure of First Republic, Silicon Valley Bank and a couple of smaller banks, forced the Fed to step in with their emergency BTFP program, and burdened taxpayers with $40B in FDIC costs that needed to be absorbed as a result. If it weren't for the bailouts things would have gotten completely out of control. All because Elizabeth Warren wants to live in a world in which we are forced to use CBDCs and unable to opt-in to bitcoin.

The euthanasia of Silvergate and Signature are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Chokepoint 2.0.

Caitlin Long and Custodia have been in a years long battle with the Federal Reserve to receive a Fed master account so that they can properly serve their customers. For those who are unaware, Custodia is a full-reserve bank that exist to serve bitcoin and digital asset businesses as well as other adjacent businesses like fintechs, banks and funds. Custodia is a chartered bank and special purpose depository institution that has built custody services so that customers can hold bitcoin within their bank accounts alongside their dollar accounts.

Like Silvergate and Signature, Custodia has been singled out and unlawfully denied a master account with the Fed because the Federal Reserve doesn't want a bank like Custodia to exist. Either because they worry about the ramifications of the introduction of a full-reserve bank into a system dominated by fractional-reserve banks or they simply do not want to see bitcoin succeed. If we're being honest, it's probably a combination of the two.

Despite what we, or anyone else, thinks about the potential effect a bank like Custodia could have on the market if it's granted a master account, the Fed's actions are unconstitutional in this case as well. This was made pretty clear (but yet to be determined by a court) in an amicus brief written by Paul Clement on behalf of Custodia earlier this Summer. The Fed is actively undermining the dual-banking system that was set up in this country to enable competition between state chartered banks and the Federal Reserve system.

In the case of Custodia, the Federal Reserve is exhibiting expansive discretionary power that it has never shown before. Custodia is a state chartered special purpose depository institution in the state of Wyoming. Historically, it would be trivial for this type of state chartered bank to get a master account with the Fed. But for whatever reason (we know the reason) the Fed has been denying Custodia their right to this account for a number of years. To the point where Custodia was forced to sue the Federal Reserve and take their case to the courts.

What's interesting about the saga of Custodia and the Fed is that it has forced Custodia's legal team to dig in and highlight where the Fed is overextending its reach and acting arbitrarily. In the amicus brief that was published in July of this year, Paul Clement argues that the way Federal Reserve Bank presidents are chosen is unconstitutional when you take into consideration the fact the these Fed branch presidents are unilaterally undermining state banking laws by denying master accounts.

If they are going to unilaterally undermine state banking laws they need to be appointed by the President or an official acting on behalf of the Executive Branch. Federal Reserve Bank presidents aren't appointed by the President of the United States or any official acting with the authority of the Executive Branch. Instead, they are appointed by their boards, which are controlled by the privately held commercial banks who own them. The Federal Reserve system is clearly acting unconstitutionally when they deny Custodia from being assigned a master account.

The people in power within the federal government and the Federal Reserve system are actively targeting the bitcoin and digital asset industry, acting extrajudicially and making a mockery of the rule of law in the United States. They are completely out of control and it is important that everyone who cares about the future of bitcoin in the United States and the future of the United States more broadly (even if you don't like bitcoin) speaks out and fights against these totalitarians as vehemently as possible. What they are doing is wrong. It's unconstitutional. And it is putting the future of our country at risk.

If the federal government, the regulators and the Federal Reserve do not get out of the way and let law abiding citizens build the businesses they want and associate with businesses they want, those businesses will go elsewhere and the United States will be set back generations as a result.

It's time to put these people in their place and let it be known that freedom will reign supreme in the Land of the Free. Fight!

Final thought... I promised Parker Lewis that I would do cross fit on Friday morning and I'm using today's final thought as an accountability tool.

@ 91687725:a0de48ea

こんにちは。Kateです。

最近ちょっとお休みしていますが、日本でビットコインを専門に扱うDiamond Hands Magazineに寄稿したりしてます。

私がビットコインと出会ったのは2011年、まだビットコイン利用者はとても少なかった時代です。たまたま身内にビットコイン界隈の人がいました。もしかしたら今でいうビト妻だったかも？

まだビットコインが1ドル以下でおもちゃみたいな存在だった頃に知ったわけですが、その後勢いづいて、100ドル、1000ドルと価値が上がっていきました。

それを見て、ビットコインを少しずつ買って貯めておけば、将来リタイヤの蓄えになるかもと思ってお小遣い程度のビットコインを積立してました。でも、アクシデントで失くしちゃったんですよね。

その後、身内のごたごたで自分の生活が天地がひっくり返るように一変し、気がつけばカナダでただお金がないアジア系移民シングルマザー、しかも周りに家族が誰もいないという、非常にマイノリティな立場になりました。

人生、何事も経験。一度ビットコインを失くし、傷心もあり、数年はビットコインから離れました。でも気がつけばビットコインは冬の時代を終えて、また元気になっていたんですね。自分は海外でひとり子育てに追われ、なんとか生きてた感じですが！

ビットコインが500ドルくらいになっていた時に困窮していた私は、ふとペーパーウォレットと呼ばれた当時の携帯可能ウォレット？に0.5btc 残っていたのを発見して速攻換金しましたね。悔やまれます。

その後、2017年頃、カナダで当時大手の割と使い勝手のいい取引所があることを知って、再度ビットコイン貯蓄にチャレンジしました。2年ほどで、ほぼ1ビットコインと10ETHくらいあったんですけどね、今度は取引所の代表者が行方不明になり、またもやビットコインを失くしました。

ふつうだったら、もうやめますよね。2回もなくしたら。

けれど、自分はかつてインターネットが始まったころのワクワクを経験していました。90年代半ば、新宿にできたばかりのインターネットカフェで、GIFがかろうじて表示できるグレーのブラウザ画面と対面しました。世界を変える技術を体験した時の感動は今でも忘れられません。

（こう書くと立派なオバサンなのがバレちゃいますね。ビットコインネイティブ世代の中では年長者）

それから15年以上たって、初めてサトシナカモトのホワイトペーパーを読んだ時に、同じ衝撃を受けたのです。初めて実用化されたインターネット上で世界の誰とでも送り合えるマネー。その可能性は無限∞。

そのビットコインの進化を、実際に買ってみたり、使ってみたり、なくしたりしつつ、より深く知ろうと付き合ってきた自分は、いつの間にかビットコインを通して世の中のいろいろを見て考えるようになりました。

ビットコインが生まれ、実験段階を経て、すでに15年が経ちます。けれども、ビットコインは今でも多くの人から最も誤解されている技術・発明のように見えます。ここまで来たら、自分が生きている間に、ビットコインが世界とどう関わっていくのか見届けたいと思います！

そして、私自身がビットコインを知ることで発見した世界や新しい価値観を、誰かに伝えられたらいいなと願って、このブログをスタートすることにしました。

今回は自己紹介という形になりましたが、私がビットコインを通して学んだことや気づいたことをこれから少しづつアップしてみます！

週1くらいのペースで投稿が目標です。よろしくお願いします。

@ b39b8e83:0e391257

For widespread privacy, we need a social contract. People must work together to deploy these systems for the common good.

Privacy isn't just personal. It's a collective effort. The more people use privacy tech, the stronger our defenses become.

Adopting privacy tools is a form of solidarity. When you protect your data, you help protect everyone's.

Education is key. Teach others about privacy tools. Help your friends and family set up encrypted messaging.

Support privacy-focused projects, businesses, & developers. Contribute code, donate, or simply use and promote these tools.

Normalize privacy practices. Make using encryption and anonymity tools as common as locking your front door.

Privacy as a social norm benefits everyone. It protects whistleblowers, journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens alike.

The social contract for privacy: I'll respect your right to privacy, and you'll respect mine.

https://image.nostr.build/f235113e856a4adfa13b25dd703f46e17bbeef3f40bbdebacacc5e0fc0063f79.jpg

@ 1b5ee74d:bb1aae6e

The days when a mere announcement from Tesla, stating that it would begin accepting Bitcoin for some of its products, would cause a surge in the cryptocurrency's price seem like a distant memory. That was in 2021.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374617643446063105https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374617643446063105https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374617643446063105https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374617643446063105https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374617643446063105https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374617643446063105https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374617643446063105Today, three years later, the price barely reacts to three pieces of institutional adoption news released within 72 hours.

The first piece of news comes from Switzerland, where SIX, the Swiss Stock Exchange operator, announced that it is seriously considering launching a crypto exchange. Bjørn Sibbern, global head of exchanges at SIX Group, stated, "The company is evaluating the creation of a platform where we can facilitate trading, both in crypto spot and derivatives."

The second news comes from Germany, where two of the country's leading banks, Commerzbank and DZ Bank, have launched Bitcoin trading for their clients. Commerzbank is one of Germany's four largest banks, while DZ Bank is part of the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken group, effectively giants of the European banking system. Together, they will open access to Bitcoin trading for approximately 40 million customers.

The third news comes from the United States, where BlackRock published a report describing Bitcoin as a diversification opportunity for traditional investors.

Some might ask: “But wasn’t Bitcoin supposed to be an anti-system technology?”

The Economic Incentive: A Core Part of Game Theory

Bitcoin is far more than just an anti-system asset. It’s a technology that incentivizes not only its most radical supporters but also potential adversaries. It’s now clear how its programmed scarcity creates a mechanism for appreciation, assuming demand stays the same. Each event signaling an increase in adoption represents a step toward an increase in the asset's value. The reason why even financial institutions—seemingly unrelated or even hostile to Bitcoin—are drawn to it lies in this market dynamic.

Banks and major institutions cannot ignore the asset’s appreciation. Bitcoin creates a perfect environment for both speculation and long-term investment. When the price rises, even the most conservative financial actors cannot overlook the economic incentive.

This is where game theory comes into play: Bitcoin is structured in such a way that anyone—even those who deny or criticize its potential—is incentivized to participate to avoid being excluded from future economic benefits. Financial institutions, driven by greed or opportunism, are forced to join in, knowing that staying out could be costly.

The Two Opposing Cycles: Virtuous for Bitcoin, Vicious for the Fiat System This process creates a reinforcing effect for Bitcoin while paradoxically weakening the traditional financial system that embraces it. Every time an institution decides to offer Bitcoin to its clients or include it in its portfolio, it legitimizes the asset in the public's eyes, strengthens its position, and further increases demand. The result is a virtuous cycle for Bitcoin: the more it is adopted, the more it appreciates, and the more financial actors become interested.

Shorting the System

For the fiat system, the process is the opposite. Bitcoin’s increasing demand pushes its value upward, while the traditional debt-based and expansionary monetary system loses strength. In this context, buying Bitcoin with fiat currency becomes an implicit shorting operation. Every transaction that shifts value from fiat to Bitcoin reduces the demand for fiat, increasing its vulnerability to inflation.

The demand dynamic is not complex: every time an investor buys Bitcoin, they commit resources that would otherwise have been destined for purchasing or investing in fiat-denominated assets. This reduces the buying pressure on fiat itself while increasing it on Bitcoin. The more money flows into Bitcoin, the less remains to sustain the value of fiat currencies.

Let’s suppose, for example, that a bank decides to allocate $100 million to Bitcoin. The market responds to this capital shift by increasing Bitcoin’s price due to its scarcity, while the demand for dollars decreases. All else being equal, this decrease in demand reduces the dollar’s purchasing power, thus increasing inflationary pressure.

This dynamic can also be expressed in terms of the relationship between supply and demand. While Bitcoin’s supply is fixed and predetermined, the dollar’s supply can be expanded infinitely through inflationary monetary policies. The dollar, therefore, tends to lose value as trust in it diminishes and its supply increases.

This process is not immediately visible, but its cumulative effect is devastating for the fiat system. Once the cycle begins, it becomes almost impossible to stop, as more institutions realize the dynamic and rush to buy Bitcoin to protect themselves from the erosion of fiat value.

The Trojan Horse

Given all this, we can understand why Alex Gladstein describes Bitcoin as a “Trojan horse for freedom.”

The news from the last three days, though seemingly small and quiet, signals a much larger and deeper phenomenon: the slow but steady transition of the traditional financial system toward Bitcoin. The banks and institutions adopting Bitcoin, often without fully realizing it, are contributing to a systemic shift that could lead to the downfall of the very institutions that fail to adapt to the new reality.

These small adoption moves are now so frequent and widespread that they no longer make a big splash. Yet with every move, with every bank launching a Bitcoin product, or every traditional investor adding it to their portfolio, the grave for the traditional financial system is being slowly dug. The actors who remain outside this process risk finding themselves in an increasingly weaker position, unable to compete with a market that is gradually embracing Bitcoin.

@ 104f6f7d:220bf499

“He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.” - Ayn Rand

@ b0510a0c:12716ced

On April 24, 2012, Erik Voorhees changed everything about Bitcoin with the launch of Satoshi Dice:

a game that captivated users and intensified debates about Bitcoin's evolution and the network's ability to handle an increasing volume of transactions.

At that time, Satoshi Dice allowed thousands of players to bet on digital dice rolls, leading to a MASSIVE influx of transactions that filled the blocks of the blockchain.

📈 Success of Satoshi Dice:

Satoshi Dice achieved phenomenal success, attracting millions of users with its simplicity. Players flocked in, bets piled up, and blocks filled up.

Erik Voorhees effectively leveraged Bitcoin's microtransactions, quickly saturating the blocks with these. This was a testament to the game's popularity, but also a source of tension within the community.

Within months, Satoshi Dice became the most popular service on the Bitcoin network, boosting its usage and virality.

Players appreciated the "provable fairness" aspect of the game, where they could verify the transparency and fairness of each bet.

🚫 Criticism and Controversy:

However, this success was not without criticism.

Many Bitcoin enthusiasts viewed the massive influx of transactions generated by the game unfavorably. For them, these sometimes trivial transactions "spammed" the blockchain, clogging the blocks and increasing transaction fees for all users. Does this sound familiar?

The network, designed to handle about seven transactions per second, quickly reached its maximum capacity, causing validation delays and "high" fees.

⚔️ BlockSize Wars:

The BlockSize wars, which took place mainly between 2016 and 2017, were a technical and ideological conflict centered on block size and scalability solutions.

While Satoshi Dice was not the sole cause, the game significantly contributed to the emergence of this event by helping to popularize Bitcoin among new users and generating substantial transaction volume.

As Bitcoin adoption grew, the network faced intense pressure, leading to block saturation and rising transaction fees. On one side, some advocated for increasing block size to allow more transactions, leading to the creation of Bitcoin Cash in August 2017. On the other, proponents of solutions like SegWit pushed for improvements without compromising decentralization.

🔧 Adoption of SegWit:

Erik Voorhees expressed his support for the SegWit2x proposal, which aimed to improve network scalability by combining the implementation of SegWit with an increase in block size.

Segregated Witness (SegWit) was adopted in August 2017, allowing transaction data to be separated from signatures. This reorganization not only increased transaction processing capacity but also paved the way for the development of the Lightning Network, a layer 2 solution enabling instant and low-cost transactions.

SegWit was a crucial response to the challenges posed by network congestion, which had been exacerbated by Bitcoin's growing adoption and the emergence of popular applications like Satoshi Dice.

⚡ SegWit and Lightning:

The adoption of SegWit helped resolve blockchain congestion issues, while the Lightning Network, a layer 2 solution, facilitated fast and low-cost transactions.

Together, these innovations not only addressed technical challenges but also renewed enthusiasm for games and other applications on Bitcoin, paving the way for a new wave of development.

🎲 Nostr Dice:

Today, as we reflect on the impact of Satoshi Dice, a new project emerges: nostr:npub1nstrdc6z4y9xadyj4z2zfecu6zt05uvlmd08ea0vchcvfrjvv7yq8lns84

This modern clone of the original game is built on Nostr, a decentralized communication protocol, and Lightning, paying homage to the past while offering an enhanced gaming experience that does not impact layer 1 congestion!

From a game that caused Bitcoin congestion to its rebirth on Lightning, which it helped to bring about, the circle is complete!

@ e97aaffa:2ebd765d

Ontem, voltei a ouvir aquela mítica frase, que se repete ano após ano:

«Se eu soubesse, há 10 anos tinha comprado bastante #bitcoin e hoje estava rico»

Quem diz isso não tem a mínima noção da realidade, não faz ideia o que era o bitcoin e a sociedade há 10/12 anos atrás. É claro que com o pensamento de hoje é fácil, mas temos que refletir com o pensamento de há 10 anos. As certezas que temos hoje em dia sobre o futuro do Bitcoin, nada se compara com o que existia no passado.

A situação é similar, ao acertar no euromilhões (ou mega-sena, no Brasil). É muito fácil saber a combinação vencedora do euromilhões após o sorteio. O difícil é saber os números, no dia anterior ao sorteio. Claro, se viajássemos no tempo, 2 dias para trás e apostar nos números certos. Assim é fácil de ficar rico. O difícil é acertar os números antes do sorteio.

Hoje em dia, já muita gente acredita no futuro do Bitcoin, o seu valor é inegável, podemos duvidar do preço, se vai valer 100k ou 500k ou 1 milhão ou até mesmo 10k, mas no valor, do quanto revolucionário é, ninguém duvida. Na época, como ninguém acreditava que iria atingir estes valores, ninguém olhava como uma reserva de valor, usava-o como uma moeda, gastavam. Também não havia cuidado em preservar as seeds ou as chaves públicas, porque ninguém acreditava que aquelas moedas poderiam ser a sua aposentadoria. Se hoje as pessoas queixam-se que guardar as seeds é complicado, nem queiram saber como era antes dos bip39.

Se estes novatos tivessem comprado há 10/12 anos, teria acontecido o que aconteceu a mim e a quase toda a gente da época, acabamos por ficar sem os bitcoins. Uns venderam(trocar por FIAT), outros trocaram(por outro produto) e outros perderam ( scam, hack ou ficaram sem as chaves). Na história, foram muito poucas as pessoas que conseguiram holdar bitcoin até hoje. Das raras pessoas que o conseguiram manter, eram pessoas que tinham quantidade muito elevada, que permitiu vender ao longo do tempo, mas ainda sobrou algum. São raros casos.

Quase toda a gente que entrou muito cedo, acabou por ficar sem o bitcoin, muitos voltaram anos mais tarde a comprar, mas apenas conseguiram uma ínfima parte do que tiveram no passado, foi o meu caso. É duro ter agora pouquinho bitcoin, quando tivemos alguns no passado, foi uma grande lição, a frustração transformou-se numa enorme convicção, que permite suportar tudo. Todos nós, em algum momento, tivemos ou vamos ter as nossas “pizzas”, como o Laszlo, que ao preço de hoje, custaram milhões. Isto também faz parte do percurso, para criar as mão de diamante. Agora, como as valorizações já não são tão elevadas, este fenómeno vai desvanecer, isto condiciona a utilização do bitcoin como moeda (meio de troca).

Termino com um conselho para os mais novos, não pensem no passado, mas sim no presente e especialmente no vosso futuro. Nunca entrem no bitcoin com o único objetivo de enriquecer rápido, porque vai correr muito mal. Estudem primeiro e comprem a seguir.

Se estás a achar que é tarde demais para comprar, nunca é tarde e acredita, que daqui a 5 anos vais ouvir outras pessoas com a mesma dúvida.

Nunca é tarde demais para comprar #Bitcoin, a liberdade não tem preço.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

microanalytics

A replacement for Google Analytics that run inside a CouchDB, when CouchDB still was a potential platform for hosting of simple apps and easily distribution of apps with data.

It also had a CLI app for browsing the data with nice CLI charts.

• https://github.com/fiatjaf/microanalytics
• https://github.com/fiatjaf/microanalytics-cli

See also

• About CouchDB
• trackingco.de

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Castas hindus em nova chave

Shudras buscam o máximo bem para os seus próprios corpos; vaishyas o máximo bem para a sua própria vida terrena e a da sua família; kshatriyas o máximo bem para a sociedade e este mundo terreno; brâmanes buscam o máximo bem.

@ 7ed5bd1c:4caa7587

การอ้างอิงใน MV "Heavy Is The Crown"

ผืนธงเปิด MV

1. T1 vs LNG ใน Worlds 2023 Quarterfinals ในเกมที่ 2 นาทีที่ 30 ไฟท์หน้า Elder Dragon ทาง LNG ได้พลาดท่าเสีย Scout's Jayce ก่อนที่ Oner's Rell ได้เปิดจังหวะใส่ GALA's Apehelios และปิดเกม 2 ได้อย่างสวยงาม อ้างอิง: https://youtu.be/sClE_FbT4X8?si=3QaBU2JXYEbCusHb&t=261

2. T1 vs JDG การกลับมาเจอกันอีกครั้งของ Faker และ Ruler โดยในปี 2017 SKT พ่ายแพ้ให้กับ SSG 0-3 เกม ในรอบชิงชนะเลิศ และใน Worlds 2023 Quarterfinals ในเกมที่ 3 นาทีที่ 29 Faker's Azir ได้แสดงการเล่น Azir อย่างหนือชั้น ได้เข้าไปอัตติเปิดใส่ Ruler's Varus พลักเข้ากลางไฟต์ ก่อนจะเก็บ JDG หมดทีม แก้แค้นคืนจาก World 2017 ได้สำเร็จ อ้างอิง: https://youtu.be/qDFAYyMOxuw?si=afKAKyWqDnSp9tiF&t=733

3. T1 vs WBG ใน Worlds 2023 Quarterfinals ในเกมที่ 2 นาทีที่ 24 Zeus' Aatrox ถูกผู้เล่นของ WBG รุม 4 ต่อ 1 แต่ก็ยังสามารถยื้อชีวิต จนทีมร่วมทีมมาช่วยได้ทัน และสวนกลับเอาชนะเกมนี้ไป อ้างอิง: [ https://youtu.be/g3NcF5Uv-w4?si=WysYNIQIS44JMY_U&t=616

ผู้เล่นที่อยู่ใน MV

1. BLG Bin ในศึก Mid-Season Invitational 2024 (MSI) กลยุทธ์การเล่นของ BLG ที่เน้นความดุดันและการสนับสนุนของ Bin สร้างความกดดันให้กับ T1 เป็นอย่างมาก จนทำให้ T1 ต้องพ่ายแพ้ 3-2 และลงไปแข่งในสายล่าง ขณะที่ BLG ได้ผ่านเข้าสู่รอบชิงชนะเลิศ

2. FLY Massu ผู้เล่นตำแหน่ง Bot Lane ได้กล่าวถึงประสบการณ์ของเขาที่เล่นกับ T1 โดยยอมรับว่าการเล่นกับ T1 นั้นเป็นเรื่องยากมาก เพราะเมื่อ T1 ได้เปรียบแล้ว พวกเขาก็ไม่ยอมปล่อยโอกาสให้ FLY กลับเข้าสู่เกมอีกเลย เขาอธิบายว่ารู้สึกเหมือน "กำลังชนกำแพง" เพราะไม่มีช่องว่างให้ทีมเขากลับมาได้เลย​

3. RED Brance Brance ผู้เล่น Bot Lane เขาเป็นตัวแทนจากบราซิล และในบางการแข่งขัน เขาแสดงฝีมือยอดเยี่ยมด้วยแชมเปี้ยนอย่าง Zeri ที่ช่วยทำให้ทีมได้รับการยอมรับในวงการระดับโลก

4. G2 Caps Caps ถือว่าเป็นผู้เล่นที่มีประสบการณ์สูงในวงการ โดยเฉพาะในยุโรป ความสามารถของเขาในการสร้างจังหวะและการต่อสู้เพื่อชัยชนะ ทำให้ G2 สามารถแข่งขันกับ T1 ได้อย่างสูสี

5. GEN Chovy ความมุ่งมั่นของ Chovy ที่จะชนะ T1 โดยเฉพาะการต่อสู้กับ Faker ทำให้การแข่งขันระหว่าง Gen.G และ T1 ยิ่งเข้มข้นขึ้น เนื่องจาก Chovy และทีม Gen.G มักเป็นคู่แข่งที่สูสีกับ T1 ในการแข่งขันระดับสูงสุดของเกาหลีใต้

6. โค้ชนักแข่ง Roach และ kk0ma ถือมงกุฎไปให้ Faker

siamstr #yakihonne #Worlds2024 #LeagueOfLegends

@ 8f69ac99:4f92f5fd

Os Millennials e a Geração Z estão a sentir a pressão. Dívidas estudantis esmagadoras, o aumento do custo de vida e salários estagnados têm levado muitos a questionar o futuro. Ao navegarem num sistema que parece estar contra eles, não é surpresa que um número crescente procure soluções que prometem intervenção governamental ou até mesmo o socialismo, na esperança de encontrar alívio.

Mas e se o problema não for o capitalismo ou o livre mercado, como muitos são levados a acreditar? E se a verdadeira solução estiver noutro lugar — algo que oferece tanto liberdade financeira como clareza moral?

Entra Bitcoin. Mais do que uma moeda digital, Bitcoin representa um novo caminho — um que pode proporcionar poder económico ao mesmo tempo que nos liberta da corrupção e do controlo do sistema actual. Vamos explorar como Bitcoin pode oferecer aos Millennials e à Geração Z a liberdade financeira, moral e espiritual que têm procurado.

As Lutas Económicas dos Millennials e da Geração Z

Num mundo que celebra a inovação e a educação, por que é que os Millennials e a Geração Z estão a lutar mais do que qualquer outra geração anterior? Apesar de serem os grupos mais educados e tecnologicamente avançados da história, os jovens na casa dos 20 e 30 anos enfrentam desafios financeiros que ameaçam as suas perspectivas de longo prazo.

Desafios Financeiros da Geração Z

A Geração Z, nascida entre o final da década de 1990 e o início da década de 2010, está a enfrentar uma verdadeira tempestade financeira. Dados recentes revelam que:

• Declínio do rendimento: O rendimento médio para jovens de 22-24 anos no 4.º trimestre de 2023 era de 45.493 dólares, uma queda de quase 12% em relação aos 51.852 dólares no 4.º trimestre de 2013.
• Dívida crescente: A relação dívida-rendimento para a Geração Z aumentou para 16,05%, enquanto a dívida média de cartão de crédito é agora de 2.834 dólares.
• Stress financeiro: Um impressionante 45% vive de salário em salário, e apenas cerca de um quarto acredita que se reformará de forma confortável.

As principais causas incluem o aumento dos custos de vida, dívidas estudantis que rondam os 31.300 dólares e a inflação, que tem corroído o poder de compra.

Desafios Económicos dos Millennials

Da mesma forma, os Millennials, nascidos entre 1981 e 1996, enfrentam as suas próprias lutas:

• Cicatrizes da recessão: Ao entrarem no mercado de trabalho durante a Grande Recessão, muitos ainda enfrentam insegurança no emprego e salários mais baixos.
• Dificuldades habitacionais: Tal como a Geração Z, confrontam-se com a escalada dos preços das habitações, sendo que muitos não conseguem encontrar habitação acessível.
• Incerteza na carreira: A economia dos “gig” cria um ambiente de trabalho precário, dificultando a estabilidade.

Estes desafios são exacerbados pela desigualdade de riqueza, dinâmicas laborais em mudança e a pesada dívida estudantil.

Factores Contribuintes

As forças por detrás destes desafios económicos incluem:

• Aumento dos custos de vida: Os preços das habitações aumentaram mais de 50% na última década, o que pressiona as finanças dos jovens.
• Dívida estudantil: Níveis elevados de dívida continuam a sobrecarregar ambas as gerações.
• Inflação: A erosão dos salários reduz ainda mais o rendimento disponível para investir no futuro.

Estas dificuldades económicas são sintomas de uma mudança cultural mais ampla. À medida que mergulhamos mais profundamente nos próximos capítulos, exploraremos como estas transformações estão a redefinir as noções tradicionais de trabalho, riqueza e segurança.

O Apelo das Narrativas Marxistas, Socialistas e Globalistas

Nos últimos anos, os Millennials e a Geração Z têm sido inundados com uma cacofonia de narrativas económicas que culpam o capitalismo pelas suas dificuldades financeiras. Esta narrativa tem ganhado tracção nas redes sociais, nas instituições de ensino e até entre alguns políticos. No entanto, e se esta perspectiva for fundamentalmente falaciosa? Este capítulo defende que os verdadeiros culpados pelas dificuldades económicas destas gerações não são o capitalismo em si, mas sim as políticas e instituições que governam a nossa economia.

Culpar Erradamente: Compreender as Verdadeiras Causas das Dificuldades Económicas

Os Millennials e a Geração Z enfrentam desafios financeiros como nenhuma geração anterior — dívidas estudantis esmagadoras, habitação inacessível e salários estagnados estão entre as principais barreiras à estabilidade financeira. No entanto, muitos são atraídos por narrativas que fazem do capitalismo o bode expiatório para as suas dificuldades.

Políticos e elites frequentemente afirmam que a social-democracia e a intervenção estatal são as respostas para os nossos problemas económicos. Argumentam que o capitalismo é um sistema falhado, culpando-o pela desigualdade e pela pobreza, ao mesmo tempo que apresentam o socialismo e o controlo governamental como soluções necessárias. Esta perspectiva, contudo, simplifica em demasia uma questão complexa.

Na realidade, os Millennials e a Geração Z não enfrentam um problema de concentração excessiva de riqueza nas mãos de poucos. Enfrentam, sim, uma falta de mobilidade económica e de segurança para todos. O problema não é que o capitalismo seja injusto; é que a nossa social-democracia actual gerou disparidades no acesso a recursos e oportunidades.

A Realidade: Não Vivemos num Mercado Livre

A narrativa de que os Millennials e a Geração Z enfrentam dificuldades financeiras devido aos defeitos do capitalismo é fundamentalmente errada. Na realidade, a nossa sociedade opera sob um sistema de social-democracia, não sob princípios verdadeiros de mercado livre.

Sistema Actual: Social-Democracia, Não Capitalismo

A sociedade hoje está mais alinhada com a social-democracia do que com um verdadeiro mercado livre. Temos uma forte intervenção governamental, proteccionismo e capitalismo de compadrio que favorecem grandes corporações e elites políticas em detrimento de pequenos empreendedores e negócios. O planeamento central das políticas monetárias, das regulações e do controlo dos mercados frequentemente leva a desigualdade e instabilidade económica.

Culpa Errada no Capitalismo

Os desafios que os Millennials e a Geração Z enfrentam — como a crise da dívida estudantil, a inflação e a habitação inacessível — não são produtos do livre mercado, mas sim da intervenção governamental, de políticas fiscais falhadas e de medidas proteccionistas. A crise da dívida estudantil, por exemplo, resulta de políticas governamentais que incentivaram o endividamento e, ao mesmo tempo, inflacionaram o custo da educação.

Da mesma forma, a inflação e a habitação inacessível são frequentemente causadas por políticas governamentais que favorecem certas indústrias ou corporações em detrimento de outras, levando à distribuição desigual de recursos e oportunidades económicas.

Bitcoin como Solução Económica

Bitcoin oferece uma alternativa ao sistema falido que os Millennials e a Geração Z herdaram. Como moeda digital descentralizada, Bitcoin opera fora dos sistemas financeiros tradicionais e oferece um conjunto único de benefícios que podem ajudar a enfrentar os desafios económicos enfrentados por estas gerações.

Princípios de Dinheiro Forte

A oferta limitada de 21 milhões de unidades de bitcoin faz com que seja imune às práticas inflacionárias dos bancos centrais. Ao contrário das moedas fiduciárias, que podem ser impressas indefinidamente, a escassez do Bitcoin assegura que este preserve o seu valor ao longo do tempo. Este princípio de dinheiro forte oferece uma protecção contra a inflação e ajuda a proteger a riqueza individual numa economia onde as moedas controladas pelo governo perdem valor.

Preservação da Riqueza

Bitcoin também é uma poderosa ferramenta para a preservação da riqueza, especialmente num ambiente económico volátil. Enquanto investimentos tradicionais, como acções e obrigações, flutuam com as condições de mercado, o valor de Bitcoin é, em grande parte, independente das políticas dos bancos centrais e das economias nacionais. A sua natureza deflacionária significa que, à medida que mais pessoas adoptam Bitcoin, o seu valor tende a aumentar, proporcionando uma protecção contra crises económicas.

Bitcoin como Solução Moral e Espiritual

Para além de ser uma ferramenta económica, Bitcoin oferece uma solução moral e espiritual para aqueles que estão desiludidos com o sistema actual.

Descentralização e Ética

A natureza descentralizada do Bitcoin proporciona um caminho para que as pessoas controlem as suas vidas financeiras sem depender de autoridades centrais. Esta descentralização promove transparência, justiça e resistência à corrupção — valores muitas vezes ausentes nas instituições financeiras centralizadas de hoje.

Uma Solução para a Corrupção

O protocolo incorruptível de Bitcoin impede que qualquer entidade o manipule. Ao contrário dos sistemas tradicionais, que podem ser influenciados por interesses especiais, a blockchain, e a prova de trabalho de Bitcoin asseguram a transparência e a integridade em todas as transacções. Isto torna Bitcoin uma alternativa moral aos sistemas que estão sujeitos a corrupção e exploração.

Bitcoin como Visão de Liberdade a Longo Prazo

Bitcoin é mais do que uma solução temporária para os problemas económicos — representa uma visão de liberdade financeira e pessoal a longo prazo.

Liberdade Financeira

Bitcoin liberta os indivíduos dos ciclos inflacionários e das armadilhas da dívida criadas pelos sistemas monetários tradicionais. A sua oferta limitada assegura que o valor é preservado, oferecendo um futuro financeiro estável e seguro. Ao possuir Bitcoin, as pessoas podem escapar ao ciclo de dependência das moedas fiduciárias controladas pelo governo e proteger a sua riqueza contra a desvalorização.

Soberania Espiritual

Bitcoin não se trata apenas de acumulação de riqueza; trata-se de recuperar o controlo sobre o próprio destino. Ao permitir que as pessoas tomem decisões financeiras autónomas, Bitcoin proporciona soberania espiritual — a capacidade de viver de acordo com os próprios valores, sem estar dependente de instituições centralizadas.

Conclusão: Recuperar a Liberdade com Bitcoin

As dificuldades económicas enfrentadas pelos Millennials e pela Geração Z não são resultado do capitalismo de mercado livre, mas sim de um sistema corrompido pela intervenção governamental e pelo proteccionismo. Bitcoin oferece uma alternativa revolucionária — uma que permite que os indivíduos recuperem o controlo das suas finanças, do seu futuro e da sua liberdade.

Bitcoin representa mais do que estabilidade financeira — é um movimento em direcção à libertação moral e espiritual. Para os Millennials, a Geração Z e todos os que estão desiludidos com o sistema actual, Bitcoin oferece uma forma de romper com o status quo e construir um futuro sustentável baseado na liberdade pessoal, na integridade e na responsabilidade.

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Photo by Emil Kalibradov on Unsplash

@ 6ad3e2a3:c90b7740

I have a thesis as to why things have gone so off the rails in the United States (and beyond), but it might not be what you think. Most of what we decry as insane and inexplicable policies are but symptoms of an underlying process. That process is the creation of money via fiat, the way in which the money propagates through the system and how it distorts the incentives of so many who are beholden to it.

Let’s start at the beginning. New money is created via debt issuance all the time. It’s why the US government is nearly $36 trillion in debt — it issues bonds and owes the bond buyers the interest and principle on it. “Issuing debt” is a fancy way of saying “borrowing money.” The US government borrows from its citizens, corporations, geopolitical allies (and even adversaries) to finance its operations.

If there is insufficient demand for its debt — if not enough people want to loan it money, it can raise rates, i.e., promise to pay more interest so as to entice more lenders, or just have the Federal Reserve buy the debt (either via its primary dealer banks or in some cases directly) and place the assets (bonds) on its balance sheet. US government debt (promise to pay) is an asset, and so the Fed can put that promise on its balance sheet.

The result of new money coming into the system via government borrowing is inflation. There is simply more money chasing the same amount of goods and services, so the prices for them rise. If while injecting more money into the economy the government were simultaneously injecting more goods and services, there wouldn’t be inflation, but unfortunately while you can always print more money out of thin air, you can’t print more energy, grass-fed steak or expert medical care.

But the inflation of the money supply and its concomitant debasement doesn’t happen all at once. Initially when there’s more money injected into the system, those who are closest to the new supply (banks through which it passes, their largest accounts, investors and asset holders) spend it and benefit from it before its inflationary effect has fully taken hold. This is known as the Cantillon Effect. Eventually inflation drives ordinary wages up too, but not enough to offset higher prices, and only after the Cantillonaire class has disproportionately benefited.

The unfairness of this arrangement is evident enough, but the second and third order effects are far more sinister. When the government can essentially borrow (print) money to finance whatever it wants, whether the Iraq War and its military contractors, “free” mRNA shots (Pfizer made nearly $100B off those contracts) or any other policy that benefits cronies and favored corporations, there are going to be a lot of resources and effort devoted to getting in good with the decision makers in the government.

Put differently, if I run a small business, I can only earn money if I offer my customers something they value enough to pay more for it than it cost me to produce. If I hire you, you’ll need to add value to the business and also hope it can continuing adding enough value to customers to pay your salary. We have to work for it.

But the government can simply print it, and in infinite supply. Are you better off starting a business (or working for one) that relies on adding value to its customers in a competitive environment or one that taps the infinite font of government money?

People respond to incentives, and as a result of the untethered money printing which began in earnest in 1971 when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard (essentially a default caused in part by the cost of the Vietnam War), financial services experienced explosive growth, making up a larger share of the economy than at any time since the eve of the Great Depression. The best and brightest in large numbers eschewed value-creating careers in fields like engineering for jobs in finance. Why try to innovate and compete in the ruthless marketplace if you can join forces with the Cantillonaires, quickly become one and amass generational wealth via passive asset holding?

But it’s not just the bankers and the asset holders. In the scheme of things that theft off the top and upward redistribution is almost benign. Where things start to go seriously off the rails is that people cannot save in an inflating currency, and so they are forced to buy financial instruments like stocks and bonds. (Poor people can’t afford to do so, try to save in a debasing currency and usually stay poor and stuck.) But even middle and upper middle class people who get a small piece of the Cantillon pie, as their asset values rise on account of the increased money supply (to offset their lagging wages), have a new problem: most lack the time, skill or inclination to hold down a second job managing their investments.

As a result, they either lost money in the markets (selling when the market dropped, buying the top when everyone had already made money) or paying exorbitant fees to brokers who added little value except to take the stress of managing it out of their hands.

Eventually, investors figured out low-fee passive index funds outperform brokers, and so millions piled into them. As a result, companies like Black Rock, Vanguard and Fidelity absorbed money flows in the trillions of dollars, giving them outsized power. If they divested from a company its stock would tank, and its executives would miss their marks. If Blackrock and its ilk decided every company needed to be ESG or DEI compliant, the CEOs had little choice but to follow suit or they would be replaced. Consequently, you had a few elites, essentially dictating policy for the entire economy.

But back to that $36 trillion in debt, roughly a quarter of which was racked up during ill-conceived wars of choice in the Middle East. A country with that level of debt can’t honor its obligations over the medium and especially longer term. The elites know this — they know the promised social security, pensions, healthcare entitlements, etc. can never be delivered in the way they’re expected. Via inflation they might be delivered nominally, i.e., you might get the number you were promised, but no chance you’d ever get the purchasing power that number represented when the promise was made. When groceries cost a thousand dollars, a million dollar pension doesn’t go far.

What that means is the wealth people think is coming to them is not there. Even the wealth represented by the digital bits in your bank account isn’t there. Sure, if you took it out and spent it tomorrow, you could get 2024-level value for it, but even Bernie Madoff’s first clients to withdraw were able to get their money out. The problem is that collectively the digital bits do not remotely have the purchasing power they purport.

The elites need to do something about this, or there will be a French Revolution-style reckoning for them. They looted society’s collective wealth, and they need to assert control over the fallout. And they need to make sure the fallout is delayed. They need to keep people divided and fearful of demanding what they were promised.

The fear-mongering takes many forms (pandemics, climage change terrorism, white supremacy!), but foremost among them is to cast anyone who purports to reveal the unfair arrangement to the people as an enemy. “Populist” candidates must be smeared as “racist” or “fascist” and deemed unacceptable to large swaths of the population. Luckily for the oligarchs they had a few aces in the hole to enforce this perception. First, they had the megaphone of legacy media and also large centralized social media companies like Facebook and Twitter on which they could lean to suppress content that undermined their aims.

Second, via the centralized investment firms, they could dictate terms and initiatives to large publicly traded corporations and the officers of said corporations could reward compliant employees with promotions and power. Anyone who worked in those spheres therefore was selected for belief in the corporate-media dictated narratives.

Third, via their control of academia (donations from academia to the Blackrock-favored democratic party outpace donations to the disfavored one by a factor of 10), they could indoctrinate college students, reward the ones for whom it takes with jobs and social acceptance. Moreover, they also encouraged more people to go to college than ever before, creating an overproduction of elites, and a large indebted, indoctrinated wave of young people who didn’t have much to show for the debt they took on. That made them more desperate to stay in the good graces of the oligarchy, more compliant lest they lose the small income stream they were able to find in low-level managerial roles. Finally, as a reward for following the path, they were given status as educated people, those who had mastered the protocols of the elite.

Things like using the proper pronouns, avoiding the forbidden words for which a less savvy person would be cancelled and having the right beliefs (like climate change being an existential threat, more on that below) signaled moral and class superiority. Even if the electrician or plumber made more money than them, offered a service that provided real value to people, he did not know increasingly labyrinthine protocols for navigating elite discourse.

The more successful members of this class have all of these incentives plus a real paycheck, and they and those aspiring to join them formed a strong and influential bulwark against the rising discontent of working class people struggling with rising costs and feeling the disdain of elites who saw them as “deplorables” and “racists.”

The climate change agenda — promulgated religiously via academia and corporate media — was especially powerful because it instilled fear, a sense of dwindling resources and an incentive to consume less. That last part was especially crucial because if the digital bits in people’s accounts were going to fall far short of their purported purchasing power, getting an army of people to voluntarily reduce their power consumption (and angrily demand it of others) killed two birds with one stone. Not only would they have a ready-made excuse for the lack of promised power (purchasing power is the ability to wield energy, and “energy” and “power” are essentially synonymous), but they would also have a reason to bar those who did not voluntarily relinquish it from enjoying its full use.

Once the oligarchs had successfully indoctrinated a large swath of the population to be in debt, desperate to hang onto their trivially replaceable jobs, believe power consumption was not only wrong but an existential threat and anyone advocating otherwise was racist, fascist and morally inferior, they could sell them on ever-increasing top-down government control for the greater good. No matter how draconian the measures — covid lockdowns, forced injections, mask mandates for toddlers — the indoctrinated (and terrified) subject would not only go along but enforce those edicts on others.

Anyone refusing to go along would be accused of heresy, so to speak, and mobs of eager acolytes would be quick to call for his excommunication. If you think this is hyperbole, you are probably memory-holing the covid era wherein some of the most prominent celebrities and politicians eagerly advocated for those who declined pharmaceutical conglomerate chemicals to be barred from participating in society, put in camps and left to die should they need medical attention.

Of course, maintaining total control over the population is difficult, especially as economic conditions worsen, and those who are not totally beholden to the cantillonaire corporate class and who bypassed the university indoctrination complex gain awareness via uncensored niches of social media and ignorantly trusting their own eyes and ears. To that end, pushes for increased censorship were needed, as well as ever novel social wedge issues to divide the populace. On their face insane policies like letting biological males compete in women’s sports and encouraging minors to have sex changes served to further divide people and also served as a loyalty test of sorts. If you could advocate for Lia Thomas dominating collegiate women’s swimming, for example, you demonstrated your bona fides as a true comrade to the educated class.

Of course, suggesting something like this or advocating for sex changes among 12 year olds would have landed you in a straitjacket 15 years ago, but that was the point. If you were not willing to state a woman could have a penis and men could get pregnant you were not sufficiently loyal to the cause. Perhaps that’s a little too strong, but at a minimum you could not vociferously object to these absurd precepts and still expect to keep your job.

As such we now have a wide swath of educated, above-average IQ, ostensibly otherwise sensible Americans cheering on the fomenting of World War III in Ukraine, justifying ideological censorship contra the very First Amendment of the United States Constitution, unchecked illegal immigration irrespective of financial and social cost, among other insane policies of which virtually no one had been in favor when they identified as garden-variety liberals 10 years ago.

They have been bribed not to see what’s happening in front of their faces, not to remember how their rights were violated during covid, not to acknowledge the myriad lies to their faces like “the lab leak is a conspiracy theory,” “Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election,” that “Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation” that they only needed to take the vaccine to avoid covid, that covid was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” that Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack” and anyone saying otherwise was a conspiracy theorist.

I could go on for pages about the lies and hoaxes, but you get the point. The problem is via money printing, the oligarchy has essentially unlimited power to astroturf all manner of absurd agendas and incentivize tens of millions to go along via social and professional bribes. Of course the truth will come out eventually because it always does. Lies can carry the day so long as enough energy is pumped into the system to sustain them, but the truth is like gravity — when your plane runs out of fuel it will necessarily fall to the ground.

So this is where we find ourselves — a half awake populace of “conspiracy theorists,” “racists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “xenophobes” and “cranks” pointing out the unfathomable and mind-boggling destruction taking place in our cities, schools and once esteemed institutions, being dismissed, ignored and vilified by mobs of head-in-the-sand loyalists bribed not to see the blue whale in the room, the unsustainable, immoral and unholy assault upon the foundations of civilization itself, right in front of their faces.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Economics

Just a bunch of somewhat-related notes.

• notes on "Economic Action Beyond the Extent of the Market", Per Bylund
• Mises' interest rate theory
• Profits, not wages, as the originary factor
• Reisman on opportunity cost
• Money Supply Measurement
• Per Bylund's insight
• Maybe a new approach to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, some disorganized thoughts
• An argument according to which fractional-reserve banking is merely theft and nothing else
• Conjecture and criticism
• Qual é o economista? (piadas)
• UBI calculations
• Donations on the internet

@ 6bae33c8:607272e8

It’s funny because I thought this was a get-well game for Dallas and that they’d cover the 6.5, but I picked the Giants in my low-stakes pool because it’s not worth it for me to go against them, and they covered. But only thanks to Brandon Aubrey finally missing a 50-yard FG.

• Malik Nabers suffered a concussion late, but I’d have a hard time arguing against someone taking him a 1.1 even in a re-draft league once he’s healthy. He’s a target and catch machine.

• Wan’Dale Robinson is the clear No. 2 and made some nice plays after the catch. He’s small and won’t make chunk plays, but useful.

• Darius Slayton showed up finally, and he’s a useful field-stretching No. 3, the role for which they drafted Jalin Hyatt who hasn’t shown up.

• Greg Joseph was 5-for-5 on FGs, including a 52-yarder. Even the waiver-wire guys are better than the GOATs of yesteryear. (Kicking is the one area you can compare players across eras because it’s independent of the competition level.)

• Daniel Jones played well — his INT was a last-second desperation heave. He was accurate and had some zip on his passes. The negative is when he’s pressured he still doesn’t have great feel. He only took one sack, but he rarely turns those plays into a positive. Still, this was progress.

• The Giants offensive line played well against the Dallas pass rush. Devin Singletary made a great move to turn a loss into a first down, but there’s no juice in the run game, no speed element.

• Dak Prescott was solid, took what the defense gave him, didn’t make mistakes. He also made a nice shovel pass to Jake Ferguson when under duress, the kind of thing Jones hasn’t been able to do.

• Rico Dowdle is the Cowboys starting back. He was bottled up early, but got free late. He also caught a TD. He seems like a stopgap, not the solution, but was adequate at least.

• CeeDee Lamb saw targets and production early, did little in the second half. He also had three rushes, as the Cowboys are desperate to get the ground game going.

• Jake Ferguson is healthy again and seems like the clear No. 2

• Aubrey is such a monster, drilling a 60-yarder down the middle with plenty of distance to spare. Seriously should have gone in the eighth round in the NFFC.

@ bf95e1a4:ebdcc848

This is the first time we're releasing our episode transcripts on Nostr! Up until now, the transcripts have been available on our show website, but now we're going to add them here on Nostr, too!

The transcripts aren't perfect - we've cleaned up obvious mistakes and repetitive chatter that nobody wants to read, but sometimes the transcript doesn't pick something up properly or doesn't understand somebody's name or a niche word. But hopefully the transcript is still useful, as is!

Check out Bitcoin: The Inverse of Clown World! Out now at https://bitcoininfinitystore.com/

BIS124 - Peter Dunworth

Welcoming Peter Dunworth Back

Luke: Peter, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

Knut: It's a pleasure to be with you two. Likewise, how are you doing down in Australia?

Peter: Life is beautiful down here. They've lifted the jail like restrictions, so we're free to move around. We can leave the country when we want to, which is nice, and I've got to say it's a cold time of year in the southern hemisphere. It's our winter time and it's been a wet and a cold one relative to what we normally have, but I'd like to say that life is beautiful.

Knut: Good to hear.

Luke: Can you quantify the cold? Because, we've got cold here.

Knut: Yeah, we got proper cold.

Peter: I'm talking about 13 degrees Celsius.

Knut: yeah.

Luke: Yeah, you might be warmer than me right now, in, the middle of July here in Finland, All good.

Peter: move in, it's good.

Luke: Hey,

Knut: saw Dave Grohl on the Foo Fighters play in Bergen, Norway once, and the first thing he said was, this is summer to you? He couldn't believe it, that the people considered that weather to be summer.

Peter: yeah, we need to work on that.

Knut: Yeah.

Bitcoin and Incentive Structures

Knut: What rabbit hole, what sub cavern of the rabbit hole are we exploring today?

Peter: I was hoping you'd help me on this, but one thing that's been, running around my head, is thinking about why Bitcoin has the incentive structure that it does, and its ability, to unite, more of mankind than anything else.

And there are a few things that sort of Running around my head in that we've got the tragedy of the commons, which is a major problem when there's a common good. No one looks after it. Yet, here we have Bitcoin, which is for 8 billion people. And it seems to be looked after pretty well by, all accounts.

The other thing with that, and this is what I find really interesting about the incentive structures with Bitcoin, is that Bitcoin, for a lot of people, takes on a religious type quality. And where a lot of people become obsessed by and one of the things that's sort of been playing around in my head is why is that so?

And I can't help but come back to the Maslow's needs hierarchy that it fulfills a whole host of those base layer needs. And once you've got those base layer needs felt, All looked after, then you can grow spiritually and mentally, to fulfill those other needs that are at a higher scale. And because so many people in the Bitcoin community are relying on that foundational principle of those base layers being built on Bitcoin, it really doesn't matter which side of the political aisle you come from or religious spectrum that you, you want to adopt.

foundational base layer of being. You know, your money is basically Bitcoin, and that sorts out and lays the foundation for you to achieve greater things. Then, everything else is downstream of that. You know, Bitcoin fixes this again.

Knut: Yeah, I think Maslov's, Ladder of Needs is now on a Bitcoin standard, it's Maslow's escalator.

Peter: We talked about that last time. And this is where So, one of the conversations, listening back to our last conversation was, you know, you've got the easiest job in the world, I think you said, as a financial advisor or investment advisor, talking about Bitcoin.

It's like, just buy Bitcoin and do nothing, and that ironically is the hard part though, the doing nothing.

Bitcoin Mining

Knut: Yeah, some people have a hard time doing nothing, myself included. about the incentive structure, the only part of that, that I'm not fully, you know, the whole thesis of Bitcoin, when they're in your head, anyone, trying to steal them, if you simply just keep them in your head, they'll get nothing.

So the incentive to attack someone goes down, right? The, peaceful revolution thing. However, for miners, still, or mining pool owners, let's say, or big mining farms still do have an incentive to attack one another. At least, if they grow large enough and you have structural, like, nation level big things.

so, is there a problem there? And also with miner centralization and all of this, like, I'd love to hear your take on, these, spammy miners that, or the mining pools allowing for spam. so that the individual miners are merely hash salesmen and not really miners at all, since they don't know what block they're mining on.

so is there a problem there and how big is that problem? Is it?

Peter: Good question. Personally, I'd like to think that I'm a free market guy, so I'd like to see the market solve that problem. And I think in some way, shape, or form, we are seeing the market solve that. if we look at the cost of transacting around the halving.

we were up over 1, 000 sat VBITE for those early blocks after block 840, 000. And now, we did some transactions this week that were sub 6 sat VBITE. So that is a 99 percent drop or 98 percent drop in fees. And that's all been sorted out by the market. We haven't had to coerce. Any of the minors, it's all been sorted out through natural market attrition.

Knut: And this is where I think the spam problem, in a broader sense, it really gets solved by the market Yeah, that's the hopeful take. but if you go to mempool space and look at the latest block and how much of it is this data is quite a lot still. And all of that data is making the Initial cost of firing up a node more expensive for the node runner. and the downloading of the time chain.

when you syn it now you go up to, 2022 and then it gets slow

Peter: Yeah, really slow. And if anyone's out there watching mempool or like just pull it up and have a look, it's actually, it's mesmerizing to watch. And I sound like such a dork saying this, but I sincerely love watching. Cools, but like blocks being created and to conceptualize this without a mempool in front of us, what you're referring to there.

Is what you see is these tiny little blocks, that typically have 0. 0001 of a bitcoin in it, but they take up an improportionate amount of the block space because there's so much data attached to it. And that's the spamming that you referred to. I think the Node Runners, the technology's getting better and the rest of it, and hey, you know, if you look at the nodes, the number of nodes that are on the network, they continually and steadily rise, so I think that's probably proportionate to an improvement in technology and, you know, maybe bandwidth is getting better, so that's going to be less of a problem, but the other question that you posed on the mining front, mining is the fiercest competition on earth.

Open to anyone with electricity and miners to do it, or, you know, as you guys like to say, someone with a pen and pad who can add up quickly, that, to me, is the competition. I'm really fearful for a lot of Bitcoin miners because I think it's the most intense competition that we see.

And if you look in the market, you have a host of the Bitcoin miners moving to AI. Why are they moving to AI? Because there's more predictable revenues and there's, Probably a more predictable future, and when it comes to the listed miners anyway, they want to see predictability in revenues, whereas when it comes to Bitcoin mining, it's a wild ride, and this is where I look at the cost structure, the OPEX and CAPEX structure of the Bitcoin mining network.

It realistically will end up being a state owned enterprise, is what I think, like an infrastructure asset that every country will run for themselves, so that they're assured of getting their piece of the block or having their transactions loaded on the block. And this is where, from a free market perspective, I think governments around the world will start subsidizing that as a way to compete.

And that competition gets fiercer. It doesn't get any easier. It gets much more intense, I think, when the nation states enter and they've got free energy.

Knut: huh? Let's, let's think about that for a while because that's sort of allows for those, government miners to, To do all the ESG bullshit and accept payments, offline and all of the trash that the inscriptions and ordinance people are doing right now, like paying miners off band and, the mining pools not paying out the entire, fee to the miners, but keeping a lot for themselves and stuff like that. I think you get all these, external influences, when you have the state level mining. So, now in a high fee environment well, it's lower right now, but like rewind the clock six months, you have Bitcoin still functioning, but. Only every 100 block or something do you get your transaction through because it's all filled up with these, other transactions from players that have less of an incentive to have Bitcoin's longevity in the back of their minds.

Nation-State Game Theory

Knut: Do you see a risk there with state owned mining?

Peter: in the short term, yes. In the long term, no. Short term, those incentives can be corrupted, but long term, I think everyone will be incentivized to play by the rules and maximize the outcomes that they're looking to do, because at the end of the day, if the governments aren't going to make an investment in Bitcoin, that concern that you've got, is alleviated dramatically when you look at the fact that they could put Bitcoin on the balance sheet, because then they've got a counterweight to the investment that they're making in the mining network, in that they could just stop investing in the mining and actually buy the underlying and be far more profitable at it.

So it's a counterweight to the concern that. It's going to be a runaway mess with a network full of spam because at the end of the day, I think the governments are going to have to maximize the outcomes that they want to do because there are going to be, rational players in the marketplace who, if the governments don't compete on a rational level, they're going to get outplayed and they're going to have less Bitcoin and they'll lose power.

And I look at this and think, the obvious example that, you know, holds a light for Bitcoin at the moment is El Salvador and what Bukele's done with his Bitcoin mining and you look at his policy when it comes to, not only is he wanting to mine Bitcoin, but he's putting that on the balance sheet.

So he needs to assess, is the mining going to be more beneficial or do we need to just buy more Bitcoin with it? Because there's a cost associated with both of those things. And from a government perspective, globally, I look at El Salvador and think, I would really like to see him in Australia, running Australia, and he seems like one of the most logical leaders that we've got globally, who understands the game theory of Bitcoin, and he's winning.

And so, he doesn't really have any competition now, though, but when competition enters the market, then there's a decision to make. And then there's probably a constriction on his decisions as to, you know, what he has to maximize for. And then that's another decision making, and this is where the forcing function of good decision making is absolutely brutal in Bitcoin.

And I dare say we've all suffered the fate of selling Bitcoin. And then looking at the cost of that and we still calculate how much the 5 bitcoin or 10 bitcoin we sold 10 years ago would be worth today. And the governments are no different. They just haven't been playing the game as long as we have. So everyone plays the game at some point in time and we'll learn those lessons.

Knut: Yeah. That's the game theory. how do El Salvador custody their Bitcoin? I can't remember. they do use a custodian, I believe. how will a government, take control of their keys? A government is just a group of people, right?

those coins do not belong to the people of the country, they belong to an X amount of people. Keyholders and like, will they have multi sig solutions or will they just use a custodian? not your keys, not your coins, right? So some guy owns the Bitcoin and not the government of country X.

And some guy can fuck off and go buy an island somewhere. I foresee a lot of chaos, when banks and governments and stuff try to, acquire Bitcoin, because they don't know how to do it properly. I mean, paper Bitcoin is paper Bitcoin, right?

So that, so, how do you see that?

Peter: I see it being chaotic, just like all of our experiences up until this date with our own experience with Bitcoin. And this is the problem with Bitcoin is that there is not only a proof of work required to prove and claim a block reward, but there is a proof of work required to be a responsible Bitcoiner and be capable of looking after your own Bitcoin

And this is where, The institutions coming to Bitcoin, are going to have to learn very quickly or leverage off the experience of others in this space, and if they don't, they're going to learn, a very costly lesson that the kind of fuck around and find out is going to happen at a nation state level, it's going to happen at a corporate level, it will happen at a bank level, there are going to be these failures, and this is where, as Bitcoiners who have been in this space for a long time, I think we have a responsibility to talk about this because We've seen it all before and sadly our little goldfish memories that we're all operating on, you know, we don't really have a memory past four years, we kind of forget things.

We laugh at goldfish having a five second memory, but, humans are operating with about a four year memory for pain, so, yeah, ironically four years is the same time it takes to, go through a full Bitcoin epoch, and the same mistakes are going to get basically rehashed over and over again, but probably on a much bigger scale because you've got much Bigger entrance to the market.

So I hope that's not the case, but I just don't see how people are going to learn at those different levels unless these mistakes are made.

Knut: No, I totally agree. It's going to be fun to see it play out. I might disagree with we having a responsibility to make governments, to help governments hold Bitcoin. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing governments finding out after fucking up.

Peter: Oh no, I've got no responsibility to the government. I've got none whatsoever, but if anyone asks for my help, a fellow bitcoiner asks for my help, I feel a responsibility, a sense of duty, that if they've gotten this far and they've found me and say, hey, I want help, it's like, great, we definitely want to help.

Incentives and Investing

Peter: there's another incentive structure at play here that is very beautiful. And that's like all the people potentially involved in making this decision that my government, our government or our corporation is going to adopt Bitcoin. They do all have an incentive to front run that, you know, and acquire Bitcoin as individuals themselves first.

Knut: And probably more of it than what they are buying for the institution. so even if a president of country X decides that I'm gonna use this tax money to buy Bitcoin, to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet, he has probably Acquired some himself first and told all his friends and family first.

and I think that's, that's just beautiful because like you can't get around that everyone's an individual and that Bitcoin's for enemies and all that.

Peter: like that idea and one of my favorite sites is the Nancy Pelosi Tracker. And to digress for a minute, which is exactly that point, we've had clients invested in NVIDIA for a long time, to the point where they're sitting on a 4, 000 percent return. And NVIDIA terrifies me. So, although we've been very lucky or fortunate to, I've put client money to work in NVIDIA and seen outrageous returns, which is about the only thing that has outperformed Bitcoin in that period, but it has.

I've been terrified that on a balance of probabilities, the chart looks outrageous and it kind of needs to come off. And I was talking to clients in the last two weeks and said, look, we need to take some money off the table here. they agreed, we all agreed, and then last week, or it might have been earlier this week, the Nancy Pelosi tracker said that Nancy has bought a lot of NVIDIA.

And it's totally changed my thinking on NVIDIA. Now I'm like, Oh, dammit, what, what does she know?

so I'm sitting here having conversations with clients over millions of dollars of decisions to be made about this one single stock and we've all agreed to get rid of it. And they said, is there any reason we wouldn't do this? And I'm like, well, there is one and she's proven to be the best fund manager on earth and her trades very rarely lose and she outperforms the market by, you know, she beats every hedge fund by a mile.

maybe we should tone down the decision not to sell all of it. We'll just sell half of it. So, you know, I make light of it, but it was a serious conversation and consideration to the point that, you know, if we have the ability to see what, these decision makers are doing, and they will be doing it at scale with much larger sums that they're in charge of, boy oh boy, that's the game theory that they're going to help their friends and family and say, yeah, we're putting into work, You know, a trillion dollars tomorrow, you might want to buy some.

Knut: we have a German friend that, told me about his, career as an investor in various stocks. He was day trading for like 15 years. Every day, just looking at the charts and trying to play them as best as he could. And then, he calculated how much money he had made being honest to himself, like 15 years down the line and made a giant spreadsheet and included all the taxes and all the banking fees and whatnot.

And he figured out that he made a hundred euros.

Peter: Damn!

Knut: so then he thought, why is that? Why is it damn near zero? And, yeah, his thesis is that You need, either you need, to know a regulator, like if you do this over a long time, it's just like, if you take the risks and the probability that it will play out that way is extremely high because the only thing that can, you basically need insider information to be able to win, over this casino that we call the markets over the long run, right?

So you need either to, be an insider in the actual company that you're buying stocks from, or you need to be a regulator, or you need to be insanely lucky, and that's unfortunately how the game is rigged when we're, especially when we have a money printer, skewing all of this and creating all of this artificial monopolies and whatnot, the regulators having too much power.

Peter: I agree with that, and particularly, if your friend was day trading, that's an impossibility. You're never beating the market in that, because you're dealing with flash trades, you're dealing with market insiders, and there's no edge in that time frame.

Knut: no, but this was, quite a while ago. So I think that during maybe the last couple of years there, the algorithms started taking over and out competing the individual day traders.

Peter: this is what I love about Bitcoin and one of my all time favorite books was a book on Jesse Livermore's life called Reminiscences of a Stock Operator and it was written over a hundred years ago. If you haven't read it and you're curious about the stock market, it's a fabulous book and it talks about the world's best short seller and the two pieces of information I gleaned out of that was outside of being it's extremely difficult to be successful at it, he said that the money wasn't in the buying or the selling, the money was made in the sitting.

And I can't think of a more perfect analogy to what, you know, the money is made in the sitting when it comes to Bitcoin. It's not made in the trading, it's made in the sitting there for eight years and, you know, taking your punishment and dealing with the cortisol. Ups and downs of, you know, the most volatile asset ever invented and then waking up eight years later where it's gone 100x.

That's where the money's made. And the other thing that came out of this book where I just kind of put the book down and thought, well, that ends all hopes and aspirations of being a trader and making a fortune out of it. So, Note to self, like, if the best can't make money out of it, like,

Knut: well, that was Warren Buffett's key to success, right? Not selling for a couple of decades.

Peter: he didn't.

Knut: and no, that's fascinating, where was I? I had a thought here.

Stay Humble and Stack Sats

Luke: I think this is an interesting one about the sort of stay humble and stack sats thing. I saw a critique today on on Twitter about the stay humble stack sats thing.

Knut: That's it.

Luke: The critique was basically that you need to sell your Bitcoin to do stuff with it at some point. Yeah, obviously. The point of stay humble, stack sats is not stay humble, stack sats, and never touch the sats ever. it's don't trade.

that's basically what stay humble, stack sats is. It's don't trade, don't shitcoin, don't try and beat the market, but when you plan to save some money for the future, whether that's six months or eternity, just stay humble and stack sats. That's it.

Knut: this is the same tweet I saw, and my reaction to it is exactly that, like, yeah, sure. Use your Bitcoin to create the life you want to lead, like, but the way to do that is to stay humble and sack sass for like 10 years and then do it. You don't do it right away. first you let the purchasing power go up and then you can use a minuscule amount of your net worth to live your dream life.

and I think that's the way the best way to go about it.

Peter: I couldn't agree more, and this is where Bitcoin, I think, offers the opportunity to do this better than any other asset I've seen, and I had this analogy the other day that Bitcoin is Analogous to, or creating wealth is analogous to being shot out of a cannon, and Bitcoin is the biggest cannon that you can find that will shoot you the furthest.

And if you think about it, they've hodled Bitcoin for eight years. And now they're sitting on a ton of Bitcoin that they want to make lifestyle investment decisions with and they've elevated themselves to a new level of economic reality that they never would have been able to achieve without Bitcoin.

And I think it's analogous to being shot out of a cannon and all of a sudden you go from being at sea level to a thousand feet in the air. And you're looking down thinking, oh my goodness, it's a long way down. I want to take some chips off the table to buy a house or pay off debt or make sure that, you know, I can basically not hurt myself when I fall.

And this is where you, you know, if you want to go up, you want to concentrate your decision into the best asset that you can find. Personally, I think that's Bitcoin. But when you've reached a level that you don't want to fall from, then taking chips off the table to pay a home or, or do some of the lifestyle things that you talk about is akin to literally deploying a parachute when you've reached where you want to get to, to make sure that you can come down and land safely if something catastrophic were to happen.

And this is where, for me, Bitcoin represents the opportunity to move up as, Maslow's Needs Hierarchy in the fastest way possible, and there's a common misconception here in the investment community that most investment advisors want to talk to you about a diversified portfolio, and I'm sitting there thinking, oh, why?

If you want to ascend that wealth Ladder. The fastest way to do it is to find the best asset and put as much as you can stomach into it. Once you've gotten to the level that you want to, then you think about diversifying because no one has made money diversifying.

Well, not no one has made money diversifying. A lot of people have gotten very comfortable diversifying and for the broader population that is the best thing to do from a long term basis. The extreme wealth is through concentrated bets. I look at all the wealthiest people on earth. They've all done it through their own endeavor.

Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, they're concentrated bets.

Knut: Yeah, and the diversification is sort of a, it's for security, once you're there. So it's not the path, it's what you do when you reach the destination, sort of.

Peter: Yep. And this is the thing with, say, Warren Buffett. Everyone always references Warren Buffett diversification. That's not what he does. He put, he took concentrated bets in the best companies he could find and he put all his money in there. And then sadly, he got so good at doing that, that when he put money to work in a company, it changed the market.

And it totally redefined the dynamics of the investment decision that he was making. So now, all of a sudden, he becomes the market, and the only thing that he can do is invest in Apple. And ironically, in the 60 years investing career that he's had, 50 percent or more of his returns have come in the last six or seven years from investing in Apple.

That's outrageous.

Stock Market Speculation

Knut: so how much of the problems with the stock market in general in the world, and these inflated, stocks that are worth way too much, probably because everyone's speculating on the same assets and so on. How much of that, to do with broken money? how much does broken money gets The blame for that and why

Peter: I think the large majority of it is. In the Bitcoin community, it's well, well understood. It's a very clearly defined problem that there is an easy solution for, but in the broader, the broader consensus is very slow to understand that. And this is where the increased liquidity over the last 50 years, the moving off the gold standard, and then the ability to print ad infinitum is, is a huge concern because it dilutes everyone.

And if we take it down to our most basic of needs. Let's just say we were all at a pub together, and it was, you know, we were having beers, having a drink, and the publican, when he was pouring beers, decided to top our beer up with 40 percent water and dilute our drink. We would be rioting in the streets.

We would be so filthy that someone would try and rip us off of our hard earned money

Knut: the analogy is flawed

Peter: But with money, you don't feel better the day after.

Knut: No, no, it's

Peter: don't even know you're getting robbed. That's the problem. So, I look at this and think, if it was a broadly understood problem, then Bitcoin would, it wouldn't be at the levels that it is now.

We would be, fighting for a Satoshi. That's the kind of level that Bitcoin would go to and I look at all of the functions of store of value at the moment are, properties, shares, the rest of it. There's no ability to save money anymore because there's a negative real return.

Medium of Exchange vs Store of Value vs Unit of Account

Knut: We go into this in the book, like, what Bitcoiners understand, I think is that, gold was good at storing value and fiat is good as a medium of exchange. But Bitcoin does both better, but I think it goes even deeper than that because I think the very term store of value is very misguided.

in research for the book, I looked up the Misesian definition of money and it's just the most common medium of exchange in society. And he pushes the medium of exchange narrative sort of, it's sort of implied that it needs to store value, but it still sees money. As a medium of exchange.

So I was thinking about that and I realized that the term medium of exchange is enough. It's just medium of exchange over time and medium of exchange over space because it's not really a store of values and values subjective, but it is a medium of exchange over time. What you're doing when you're saving is that you're trading with your future self.

So you're just using money, and you are making an exchange because that money, if it's proper money that holds its value, then it does provide you with some financial security during that time period. it's never idle, it always, Serves a function to you, the holder of the money.

But I think this is, this also ties into this whole, you know, that tweet we talked about just five minutes ago with, how to, you should stay humble and stack sats is wrong. Well, it's not because. It's all a medium of exchange. It's just that you have to account for all four dimensions and you can't have the spatial dimensions without having the temporal dimension sorted first.

Peter: he would love it. You're speaking to the wrong Dudworth. On that, it's funny, the money with the sort of the three functions of money, and this is where I think there is a distortion to that. The three functions kind of does distort what this is, and the study that I've looked at and done on this, I look at, and maybe this is a, quite a conservative way to look at this.

I think Bitcoin as a store of value and a unit of account, excluding the medium exchange, is, to me, the killer use case. And if I break it down from a market cap perspective, and total market share of store of value medium exchange unit of account. And when it comes to functions of money, the store of value has maybe a, maybe a 15 trillion market cap with gold, give or take.

Now, the definition I'm using for store of value is gold. Medium exchange might be a 100 trillion market. And unit of account, to me, some people will say it's, you know, 800 trillion, but I think it's more like 2, 000 trillion. And I look at this and I think, if you capture the store of value and the unit of account markets, then by default you get the mean of exchange.

And this is where you come in and talk about spatial and temporal. If you capture over time, store a value and unit of account, by definition, everyone will end up using Bitcoin as the medium exchange. So it's a fait accompli that we will get medium exchange if you have those two corner posts. And from an immediate perspective, and this bringing it down to the personal level, because I think all decisions resonate from the personal up, not from a top down decision.

if you. Capture the store value market and the unit of account market. You've effectively captured 95 percent of the value accretion in the marketplace for money. And then that little bit in the middle, 100 trillion dollars, the 5 percent that's remaining is your medium of exchange.

But this is where it gets very complicated when you look at the temporal and spatial effects on that interaction.

Knut: How is unit of account a market though? How can it be like, because you're measuring from. The very thing you're trying to measure the value of,

Peter: A circumstantial,

Knut: Is that the market for the US dollar or because that's the most common unit of account?

Peter: Well, yes, but I think it's everything. I think it's every, all value that needs to be captured, and I look at this on, a personal level, how I think about it, and this is a conversation that we had last time, was, we play the simplest game on earth, stack sats, all we have to do is have one more sat than this time last

Knut: Yeah, yeah. let me guess how you think about this and the market for unit of account, everything divided by something, right?

Peter: Ah, let me think, yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is. this is where, to me, things get really interesting, because everything divided by 21 million, people think, if say there's, let's just agree that there's a thousand trillion dollars of value in the world that needs to be accounted for.

We divide it by 21 million and we Get that. But what I think a lot of people miss in valuing Bitcoin, I personally think that it can be a lot more than a trillion dollars divided by 21 million because you need to value the future value of that Bitcoin. And this is where your point is outstanding in that it's not just everything now, it's everything in the future that will be.

And if you look at that, there's a time preference and a monetary premium given to that future value. Now, when you have all of your base layers on that Maslow's Needs Hierarchy covered, you can think further into the future. It allows you to have a lot less and spend a lot less of your proportionate stack.

And this is where that escalator, I think, is such a novel term in that Bitcoin can account for hundreds of quadrillions of dollars.

Knut: the problem there is like now we're into scaling territory, but I have my most misinterpreted article ever was one about the scaling and how the real scaling solution is just that we will use money less and, I think most people misinterpreted that and saying that it was a bit too much on the Kumbaya side of things, but I think that's why we don't see retail adoption and stuff, galore everywhere because most people Don't want to spend their Bitcoin.

And like most people want to do the stay humble stack sets and then maybe spend a little on top 10 years down the line. but there is a problem there because like, transaction fees will inevitably go up and it will highly, it's highly unlikely that it will ever be worth the time or the effort or the money to, to buy a cup of coffee on chain anymore.

there is something to the scaling thing, but my thesis from that article was that when you have that, everything else becomes money first, you have some sort of Gresham's law thing going on, including your reputational capital, if you have 10 wealthy people, that go and eat together every night, then there's probably 10 transactions being made because someone picks up the bill every night, right?

So there's 10 transactions. If you have 10 very poor people eating every night, then they probably sit at home and buy their own noodles. So there's a hundred transactions going on, like over 10 days. for the poor, there's probably a need for more transactions with functioning money, that's what the, MMT people, view as a successful economy when people spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. But I think that this, perfectly sound money and this absolutely finite supply makes it so that You will be really, really careful with what you use that for.

And you will use it a few times and those times will be far apart. And that's a feature, not a bug, like, for instance, I view this as a trade we're in, we're in a trade right now, we're trading information with one another, and if you come over to Europe or if I come to Australia, then we'll probably buy each other dinners and stuff, you know, and that is, Because we know deep inside this thing about Bitcoin is being incentivized to help one another that there's no real need for greed or needs to, spend your stack when you can just spend your reputation and get a reputational gain by spending something else like your fiat or whatever.

So there is a scenario where barter and stuff like this becomes More common, I think. It's kind of hard to articulate this thought, but I see the need for many transactions going down on a Bitcoin standard and not up.

Timelocking

Peter: I agree with you. And this is where, I've had a conversation with my brother on this. And you know how he time locked the Bitcoin into the future?

Knut: Yeah. Based.

Peter: I think that's a wild idea and I'll talk more about that because it's resurfacing on a geopolitical level too.

He talks about the fact that because he's given a contribution to humanity into the future, and that, will be worth an absolute, unseemly amount of money. He talks about the reputational capital that goes with having made that contribution into the future. It's like, oh my goodness, there's Michael Dunworth, who basically put a whole bitcoin into the future to solve a mining problem or whatever he perceived to be a problem, but he made a contribution to the network.

We should either elevate his opinion or be grateful that he's contributed to humanity on some way, shape or form. And bitcoin's the most objective way to do that. And this is where, what's interesting with that whole time locking concept, it's starting to get a second run with, Trump talking about having a Bitcoin strategic reserve asset for the U.

S. And I think, someone's floated the notion that they should buy a trillion dollars worth of Bitcoin, time lock it into the future, and that is a way of solving the U. S. national debt problem. And I look at this and think, well, that's really interesting because that's one way to ensure that they can't spend it.

So, it's time locked for 30 years and who knows, maybe there's a chance that they can actually get out of the debt problem that they've got by actually buying Bitcoin and time locking it. It also sends a really clear message to the rest of the world that, hey, we're serious about Bitcoin and this is where, to one of the points you raised earlier, I think, in thinking about Bitcoin as a store of value we just don't have the ability to pay off the debts that we've got right now.

And the only way I see us being able to get out of this hole, is to recapitalize the markets. And so how do you recapitalize the markets? At this point in time, you either have to pump money into different asset classes. If you pump money into commodities, that's going to be highly inflationary for every other sector because it's a base, base cost in the economy.

If you pump money into the property sector, firstly you've got to pump a lot of money into the property sector and secondly it affects cost of housing, cost of living. So that's another area that you don't really want to pump money into. Then you've got the speculative degen stock market, which ironically is moving closer and closer to meme coin

DGN trading than it is to a, you know, a responsible profession of investing. And if you pump money into the stock market, then you're going to incentivize all these DGNs to trade harder. I look at this across the board and think the only realistic outcome of pumping money into to recapitalize the market is to pump money into Bitcoin and have Bitcoin recapitalize the entire sector, because putting 1 into the Bitcoin market will give you a 10 or a 50 or a 100x return on that by way of market cap, whereas if you put 1 into the property market it might go up by Half a half, a half a percent.

It's not a big return, but you get a hundred thousand or you get a 10000% return by putting a dollar into Bitcoin, you get maybe a 50% return by putting a dollar into the stock market. And I look at this and think a lot of people looking at this problem and thinking that we've got a debt problem. And yes, we do have a debt problem, but the other side of the coin of a debt problem is that we, we've got a collateral problem.

So how do you solve that? You either fix one of the two things. You either fix the debt or you fix the collateral. And it's far easier to fix the collateral side of things with a globally ubiquitous asset in Bitcoin than it is to fix the debt. So I look at this as a way of sort of getting balance back into the broader economics of what we're dealing with.

Bitcoin vs Fiat

Knut: Yeah. And it's so fascinating because all money, not only Bitcoin, The reason we value it, I mean, we still vote for the value of fiat currencies by choosing to buy or not buy different sorts of stuff, right? and goods and services. so it's all just, In the back of our heads, like it's all in our heads, all of it, all the trillions of dollars in debt that the world is in.

At the end of the day, it's just like some sort of intersubjective valuation mechanism going on. And the fiat isn't working because it's the rules are broken, but Bitcoin is just rules that are working. And we're just facing out of this old flawed mental state into a mental state that actually works and that it's all happening in our heads.

That's the most mind blowing part. I mean, yeah, I know how money is not a collective illusion and there's a Harari narrative and that's, it has to be attached to something, it's all in our heads and like, this is what I push all the time in terms of narratives is that, Bitcoin is you, like there's no difference and the ASIC is just a fancy abacus to help us calculate, to verify what's going on.

so the energy expenditure is just like a side effect, but it's a side effect that makes this. A competition of minds possible, but still at the end of the day, all of the information, it's in our head. you can't get around that. And that's what I find so insanely mind blowing.

Peter: I think it's a paradigm shift because for the first time in history we've got, we're not playing a zero sum game. this is back to that incentives conversation earlier, because it's the first thing that is not a zero sum game. This is the first game we can play where we have a collective benefit.

Knut: That's a tweet. Bitcoin is an everything divided by 21 million some game.

Peter: It's true though, like, it's the first time that, you know, we can all benefit. And this is where, you know, finance up until this point in time has been, you know, you either win or you lose. Someone's either winning or losing and you're on the wrong side of it and for the first time maybe this comes back to that incentives that we talked about at the start that to me the fact that we're not playing a zero sum game is How we can all align and get behind this thing.

Luke: Of course, Knut is actually tweeting during a

Peter: Yeah, nice.

Luke: Yes, save me here, Luke, We've all agreed to that. Very this is awesome. I mean, Yeah. I love the optimism whenever we talk to you or whenever you go on other pods, it's always like, you are in competition for the most bullish person in the entire space. Basically, you and Luke Broyles together is, like trying to one up each other a little bit.

Mch also does the same thing. There's something about the loop.

Exactly. I've got you, Knut. Yeah, but I think we're a little more understated than those other guys. But anyway, not in a, not like that's a negative. It's just, you know, we're the philosophizers. Those guys are the, hype men. I think something like that. but yeah,

Knut: equals 1BTC.

Luke: exactly.

Peter: So true.

Peter's Short-Term Outlook

Luke: But, yeah, Peter, what's your thinking on, the short term here, because, the having happened and everything, kind of maybe was a little disappointing from the perspective of anyone who wanted to see everything go to the moon right away, are you at all worried or just waiting for the rip?

what's going on?

Peter: I'll probably say something which is probably not going to be so popular, but it's just where we're at at this point in time, given current market dynamics, but it would not surprise me to see this sideways action continue for the next three months. And I know that's not what people want. It's definitely not what I want.

But I think about this, that a lot of. The previous cycles had, sort of three months after the halving was the bottom in, in past cycles. And that was typically caused because there was a lot of minor cell pressure, maybe people got overexcited, got, you know, ahead of themselves. And then there was that sort of realization that, oh, there's a lot more heavy lifting that needs to be done in order to get to where we need to go to.

And if you buy into that minor capitulation theory, we could be waiting a lot longer for that to happen. And that's a lot more than what we've seen in the past, because if you remember back in February, basically since the beginning of the year, we had huge fees. March was a bumper month. You couldn't get a transaction on there because we had, you know, the network was just out of control from a fee perspective.

And then it died down a little bit, then came into the halving, and then first, call it week after the halving, fees went down. Absolutely mental. Like, that first block mine, block 840, 000, I think, was the first block in the epoch. Like, there was 39 million in fees in that one single block, which was just outrageous.

And I think about this, and I think the other thing that adds to this is that All of these miners have benefited from these additional fees prior to the halving, and we've also got all time highs before the halving. That never happened before as well. So these businesses are very well capitalized, and so they haven't had to puke up all their Bitcoin yet.

So I look at this and think, oh, we could be extended here for another three months, and it wouldn't surprise me. Having said that, I'd love Trump to come out and just say, yeah, we're buying a trillion dollars of Bitcoin and we just send it to a million dollars overnight would be, you know, my preferred outcome.

But do I think that happens? No. I'd prefer to prepare for the worst, hope for the best and be pleasantly surprised in between.

Pro vs Anti-Bitcoin Politicians

Knut: What would you prefer? A pro Bitcoin president or an anti Bitcoin president?

Peter: Oh, great question.

Knut: Because it's not an easy one, you know, because you want people to be proper Bitcoiners, run their nodes and, not because they have permission to do so, like it needs to be black market money, because that's what permissionless means, like, it needs to be uncensorable, it needs to be all of these things, otherwise the value proposition is gone.

Like, it needs to be non controlled, not controlled by humans in any way, shape, or form. So this is, yeah, I struggle with this. It is game theory playing out, and Trump is starting to talk about it. It's exciting, of course, it means something,

Peter: here's a question to you on that note. What would you think of Xi adopting it?

Knut: of who?

Peter: President Xi from China.

Knut: Ah, GEOP, yeah.

Peter: about Trump adopting it. Okay, great for the US to adopt it, but like, think about, our enemy's money or whatever. Like, or Putin comes out tomorrow and says, hey, I'm doing Bitcoin.

Knut: Well I think the chaos theory, we discussed before still plays out these people are going to fuck this up so bad and it's going to end up with some guy and I root for some guy, you know, but the thing is, it doesn't matter because like once they have the Bitcoin and once they have Bitcoin on the balance sheet or whatever you may call it, Then the only way for them to leverage that in any way, shape, or form is to spend the Bitcoin.

You can't, you can't do anything else with it. And that's, that's the beautiful part. So, so in the end, it benefits individuals and that's great. And even if they hoard. all that happens if they hoard it and keep, and you know, put it away in a vault somewhere, however you may do that, is, is number go up.

That's the, that's the outcome of that. So, no, I, I, I don't have a problem with, you know, buying Bitcoin. Not at all.

Peter: I don't have a problem with it either. And in a twisted way, I think it would incentivize that other nations adopt it quicker, just in case it was the thing that was going to catch on. But to another point on that is, I think Bitcoin requires a learning process for every Bitcoiner to go through. And so, back to what we discussed earlier, it's almost like a hero's journey that every Bitcoiner has to go through.

So everyone will go through their own learning, and to me, if it's someone I like, someone I don't like, hey, who cares? Everyone's going to have to go through this at some point in time, so if you know it's an inevitability, and this is probably one thing that gets overlooked, I think, Bitcoin, is an inevitability.

But if you know it's an inevitability, then you should probably get on the train sooner rather than later.

Knut: Yeah, absolutely. but at the end of the day, if you take the thought vector and you follow it to its inevitable end, the whole notion of a nation state is sort of gone. You know, all aggression is gone in the end, because a nation state is basically just a monopoly of violence in a geographical area.

and you may think that's a good or a bad thing. You may think that if there wasn't a government, something worse would, but still, that's what it is. But if you can keep 99 percent of your wealth in your head, then you cannot extract that wealth, if you're an attacker, the best way to extract that wealth from someone else is to trade with them and exchange something of value back to them and not to threaten to kill them.

Because if you kill them, the Bitcoin is gone. so like, this is the peaceful revolution, train of thought here. But at the end of the day, Bitcoin obsoletes the nation state. That's, it, it just does, there's no way around that.

Peter: So we turned into 8 billion nations.

Knut: Self sovereign, the sovereign individual, literally. I'm looking forward to it and I'm looking forward to trading with other nations, you know, trading, a couple of pints with another self sovereign nation next to me.

Number Salad

Peter: I've got to say, I look forward to that day. In light of everything that's gone on here and what's, what's gone on throughout the world in the last few years, that degradation of trust, has been enormous. And this is one of the fundamental premises of why I'm so enamored with Bitcoin is that I think it has the ability for us to, to build that trust back within society that has been utterly lost.

And I look at, say, if I just confine that lack of trust to the financial sphere where I spend most of my time. We've had the Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, the most esteemed prestigious institution on earth when it comes to finance. You've had insider trading allegations. You had the JPOW say that he didn't think that inflation was, Here to stay, it was transitory.

And then he said, oh hang on, we've got a problem. And then he jacked rates from 0 percent to 5%. These banks in the US that had treasuries on their balance sheet, who just bought US treasuries, which are classified by the accounting standards as risk free, ended up blowing up the banks. All of those Silicon Valley banks that blew up last year were a direct result of holding the risk free treasuries.

And then we're getting, gas lit into telling us that the economy is fantastic, GDP is good. They redefined the term recession to say that, oh no, recession isn't two negative GDP quarters. It's actually two negative GDP quarters and higher unemployment. And I'm like, in my nearly 50 years on earth, it's never been defined with the unemployment vector to it.

It's always been, you know, GDP. Is it up or down? It's down for two quarters. So I'm just like, and then the revision of the unemployment numbers. Always after the fact, six months after the fact, they tell us, oh yeah, they're a lot worse than what they thought they were.

Like, it's just, they're telling you a story and there's no objective way to tell, like, To figure out what they're doing.

Knut: And the word, the word unemployment itself, let's start by GDP is a, a bullshit metric to begin with because what does it measure? You include like, sales of medicine to the population in GDP. what is that? That's not a sinus of success. the metrics are all wrong.

even the notion of unemployment. It's fictitious, like the government came up with the word unemployment because on a totally free market without interventionism, there is no such thing as unemployment. It is not a condition, it's just someone choosing not to work, and there will always be someone willing to pay something for someone to work.

It's just when you introduce these social security schemes and stuff, that unemployment is a thing. in a functioning market, it can't be. So, it's all false.

Peter: Well, they put those sort of false dichotomies in place and, they sort of try and underpin the value of labor by putting in the minimum wages. And it's like, look, if someone's not worth 15, you shouldn't have to pay them 15. They should be willing to work for whatever you're prepared to pay them so that they can learn the skill to get on the ladder of being employable and up to that 15 mark.

And then when they get to 15, move to 20, 30, 50, whatever.

Knut: Yeah, and minimum wage is so easy to debunk, and you can even, like, I hate using empiricism in economics, but where the hell do you think the touchscreens at McDonald's come from? They come from minimum wage laws, because they can't afford staff to do that stuff for you.

it's because of the minimum wage law, not because the robot is so great. It's just that it's cheaper.

Peter: So, I mean, these are all the challenges that we face and I look at, you know, the one bright spot in the finance world that I look at is Bitcoin, but it's completely misunderstood by the broader, you know, broader community of finance acolytes and this is where the opportunity for the pleb to stack sats comes in because while it's misunderstood and we do our best to explain it, therein lies the opportunity.

Knut: Exactly. They're just not aware of what we're transitioning into.

Peter: Touche.

The Bitcoin Adviser

Luke: point here. Haha. Anyway, so hey, it's been a while since we last caught up. It was actually a while since we caught up generally, but since we've had you on the pod, and there's been a lot going on, we've had a couple of other people in the Bitcoin advisor sphere. And as everyone knows, we are Bitcoin advisors ourselves, If someone wanted to be advised by us, we would absolutely do it, but we've been, finishing our book and everything, but, we're ready and raring to go, from the horse's mouth itself, can we get the TLDR and everything you've been up to in the last year and, the Bitcoin advisor and everything, because you can explain it so much better than we can, I think.

Peter: You know what, it's been an absolute blast. Boy, what's happened in the last 12 months, and I've got to say, I'm absolutely delighted you two are on the team. We literally have a team of rock stars. I think the best Bitcoin team in the world. And, you know, we've got a mission to get every Bitcoin off exchange, which I think is a very noble mission.

the team's grown dramatically. You know, we started off, Andy and I, Circa 18 months ago and that's now a team of 40 globally and we basically get to help Bitcoiners all over the globe get their Bitcoin off exchange and I've got to say it is such a fun feeling watching the coins. Get ripped off the exchange into self custody.

And for me, that I think is the highest purpose I can serve the Bitcoin community. And I'm thrilled that we've got, you know, nearly 40 advisors now globally who share that mission to help anyone who wants help getting coins off exchange where we're there to help. And, you know, we provide a stack of free resources.

There's a whole host of IP, we share literally our entire IP catalogue, how you want to do it, how we do it, it's there for anyone to take and, you know, one thing that I've got to say I'm so happy to see is that there's a whole host of other services popping up that are adjacent to what we do or similar to what we do, I think, the Bitcoin Way and Tony and, you know, you've had him on and what a fabulous story that is.

great service, Bitcoin Mentor with BTC Sessions. These services are really invaluable and I look at this and think, Some people look at this as competition, and I think, no, we're all on the same team, we're all trying to achieve the same outcome, it's just a different way of doing it, so, for me, I'm thrilled that I get to work in Bitcoin, I'm thrilled that I get to work with the best Bitcoiners in the world, and something that's, you know, an absolute privilege.

Pleasure and a delight, and it really is a treasure for me, is that I get to talk about Bitcoin, all day. So, the novelty of working with your passion hasn't worn off yet. It's still a pleasure and an honor to be able to talk about Bitcoin all day, because I know there's a whole host of Bitcoiners out there who are living, basically, separate lives.

they're living the day to day mundane going to work and doing what they do and then, you know, at any spare moment, they're sitting there listening to podcasts like this and trying to learn about Bitcoin and, want to go down that rabbit hole and get a really deep understanding this is where, I think, one of the things that's been really fun for me to watch as well is the advisors who come on the team and being able to grow with them as well Hearing their stories and success around talking to clients it's a lot of fun having an impact on someone's life and Relieving a real world problem for them that we've been able to solve It's a really satisfying level on a, like, a really heartwarming level, regardless of what financial outcomes are achieved, it's still a wonderful feeling to help another human being solve a big problem for them.

So, for me, I think a lot of the teams starting to experience, The joy of being able to solve Bitcoiners problems and this is the fun part that I think as, as the price grows, the need for these type of services is going to continue to grow because the sudden realization of someone being responsible for millions or tens of millions of dollars of Bitcoin without any redundancies or fail safes in place, it's a very rare breed where people can deal with that, so I think the more services we have in this space, the better.

This is where I'm thrilled that, you boys are on the team and gonna get to experience all of this in the very near future.

Knut: No, I know the feeling. I still pinch myself that I'm able to do this. any Bitcoin stuff really. it's just the journey is also real.

Peter: Yeah, I've gotta say it's fun and, you know, I think back to some of those early conversations, Knut, that you had with our clients probably a couple of years ago now. And I think, you know, in the early days of you transitioning to full time Bitcoin. To me, any Bitcoiner being able to do Bitcoin full time is Pretty much the end goal.

And this is where say, from a, from a, interestingly, from an advice perspective and a business perspective, it's far easier for me to take a bitcoiner and turn them into an advisor than it is to take an advisor and turn them into a bitcoiner.

Knut: Yeah, I mean, transitioning into a full time Bitcoiner, I'm thinking tender reveal, like you're changing your tender, right? That's, switch tenders.

Peter: What you're tethered to, right?

Knut: Yeah.

Peter: Yeah, so it's a lot of fun and, we get to have a good laugh with the team and, catch up on everyone's news. one of the things that I think is really valuable is that we all get to learn together and it's a source of constant improvement.

It's not like, okay, here's the best solution and we're just going to do this. It's like, no. we want to have continual improvement and, one thing when you're dealing with Bitcoin security and custody, it's eternal vigilance. Because you don't get a second chance at putting the genie back in the bottle.

Once it's out, it's done. So, from a service level perspective, perfection when it comes to helping clients custody their Bitcoin. It's the bare minimum that we can deliver and I've been very fortunate that, you know, we haven't lost a single Satoshi, that collaborative security protocol is a really important way of being able to deliver that and, quite sadly, we've had a number of clients who have passed and they've been self casting their Bitcoin and we've still been able to recover that.

That Bitcoin for the family. And this is where to anyone who's listening about that, that's a very serious thing that, you know, you need to consider. if you go home after listen to this and ask your wife, hey, or your partner, hey, can you move my Bitcoin?

If you don't get a satisfactory answer, then you've got some work to do on making sure that you don't die with the music inside you. And that's, that's a really big deal to your point earlier, Knut, that this is the first asset that you can't extract. TrueForce. It sits in your head and if you don't have a map to that bitcoin, then it's lost forever.

Or until someone breaks SHA 256 and we can access it.

Knut: Yeah, I love all this, the way of framing it, because it's so hard to debunk those theories, and, what play, another way of looking at it is that Bitcoin was always there, and it's just that the hashing power was zero up until 2009,

Peter: I love that thought. It's wild.

Knut: but it's true, it's 100 percent true,

Peter: Yeah.

Knut: the numbers were there somewhere.

So yeah, it's goes back to the, the thing only being information and like even deeper. It's just data ones and zeros and, data interpreted, can be called information. And yeah, that's what Bitcoin is.

The Inverse of Clown World

Peter: Can I ask a question of you boys? I want you to show me your latest and greatest. This book that's coming out. Hit me.

Knut: it's the best Bitcoin book I've ever read.

No, like, so Bitcoin, the inverse of clown world, started as an idea and it started with a long, long period of writer's block for me. So I knew I wanted to write something and I knew I wanted to write another Bitcoin book, but I couldn't get started. And then sometime during last December, like early December last year, it just started pouring out of me and it's, inspired by the two years, almost two years of conversations we've had with excellent Bitcoiners now, all of those ideas, started pouring out.

And then I wanted to look on board as some sort of editor or something. We hadn't really decided what your role was going to be. as we started looking at the text together, we realized that you're not the editor, you're the co author here, like we should write this as a team, which turned it into a bigger project.

And we, I had written around 10 chapters, I think, but then we saw, we looked at the chapters at one point and realized that, it's sort of a hero's journey thing, I looked up the conceptual hero's journey

and we realized that if we just order these chapters correctly, we can sort of have it in the back of our minds that they fit into this, Heroes Journey template, and then the reader is the hero, that removes Clown World by, focusing on Bitcoin.

so that's what we did. The first part of the book describes, the reality we find ourselves in, and clown world, and what makes, why clown world exists, and why politicized money turns into completely arbitrary issues being focused on, and bullshit, being emphasized everywhere, Then, the midsection of the book is a journey of introspection and this whole concept of your satoshis and how much, the mind creates reality and how you remove that old world by, focusing on different things.

and then the last part of a book is sort of hinting at what's on the other side there. The funniest book yet, I'd say, and a bit more thorough this time, or we have, since that's sort of what Luke added, is like, coherency to the thing and, and us reading, we did like three passes with the book, so we read it one time first, like my, my original outline, and then decided this goes here, that goes there, and then we read it when the last chapters were, Done.

So we had another pass and then we had a third pass and we've had our editor Mel, who's fantastic, look through it too and, change a synonym here and there and a paragraph here and there, making it look nicer. it is what's on the other side of the, everything divided by 21 million equation.

Everything divided by 21 million equals the inverse of clown world. it is the natural follow up to that book, and we're doing a pass with everything divided at the moment. a readability pass, I'd say. So we are doing a light edit to make the ultimate version of that book. And it's, the sentences are a bit less choppy.

It was quite a choppy book, so we're making it a bit more readable. And it's good to look back on that because we see so much mirrored in the new book. It's just, the other side of the equation. So we're very proud of it and we're excited to release it. We can't wait.

What's your take, Luke?

Luke: Well, I was, I was going to let, Peter, I was gonna let you respond a little bit, but sure, I'll just, I'll add, I'll add one thing. it's definitely funnier and more toxic than the previous Knut books. And this was from, I hadn't realized this, actually, because it sort of felt like everything that we've been doing for the last two years, this crazy show, this, formerly Freedom Footprint show, now Bitcoin Infinity show.

the Freedom Footprint years are the input to this book, but, we just have a blast, joking together and, talking together about anything and everything. what actually went into this book is, there's jokes everywhere and, the toxicity is turned up a level then it was, the process of going back and re reading everything divided.

you weren't nearly as toxic or, even nearly as intentionally funny. There aren't as many jokes in Everything Divided and it's different. I'm proud of my contribution. I mean, I'm honored to be here, really.

And, as with everything in Bitcoin, it's, the surreal doesn't end. It's less than two years since I first. Met any bitcoiners face to face. Riga, 2022 is my first time. and so Riga 2024 we're launching this book together. And, for me, it's just surreal.

can you explain all of it? thanks Peter, for asking, and I think this is the first time we've really gone in depth about the book on this show,

Peter: I'm so excited for you. I sincerely love you boys and think you are a great team. Quirky as hell. And I, I'm really looking forward to this book. Like, the second I saw it I was like, ah, I cannot wait. And then, to me, like, being a fan of your work, I'm like, yeah. Oh, you're going to release a box set? Sweet!

Another thing to just put on the shelf! I can't wait. Literally, call me and let me know when I can buy it, because I would love to buy not only Clown World, I want to get the rehashed box set. And I think, like I shared with you, the reading everything divided by 21 million, the thoughts in that were so dense.

It was like the gravity of the sun relative to other books because and I remember reading it and I sat down and I'd like a dedicated time, it was a book that I was really looking forward to reading and I'd set time aside to focus on this and I thought, oh, it's a little book, you know, I'll get through this in no time.

And. We talked about this, that the density of thought in that little book had me reading like a paragraph at a time and then I'd just sit back and I'd be like, Damn, and I'd have to think about one little paragraph in there for moments, like minutes, maybe even 10 minutes and what ended up happening was it took me probably five times longer to read that book than I had anticipated.

Because it was so thought provoking for me. I was like, man, like, the things you've thought about in here are so deep and profound. I wanted to, you know, ponder on what, what the significance of it was, a question I've got on the release of Clown World. one thing I love doing with everything divided by 21 million was going back and listening to it because then I couldn't stop and ponder because I had to keep the train of thought going.

And I'm wondering, at the time of release of Clown World, Are you going to release an audio version of it as well? Like, can you get both at the same time?

Luke: Same time, probably not. The manuscript is done now, but we're still waiting on our forward, hopefully by the time this is released, Giacomo has given us our forward, and so we need that for the audio version, but we'll get it to Guy right away once we have that done. This is like a little snapshot in time here when we've got the thing done, but it's not 100 percent done yet.

So yeah, we'll have the audio book, but it might not be quite immediately at launch. Bitcoin Infinity Day is a pretty specific day on the calendar and we can't move the launch date. I hope you understand.

Peter: Totally.

Knut: you want a paragraph, Peter?

Peter: Yeah, come on, hit me.

Knut: This is from a chapter called Freedom Footprint. The fight for freedom is never ending. Every generation must participate or be forever shackled to its hamster's wheels. The siren's song of the government has led many adventurers to a state of perpetual Stockholm syndrome.

Even though the beaches are littered with human skulls, her song seduces new sailors daily. Free healthcare, universal basic income, fixed weather, free lunches abound. The government's anaconda grip over your life tightens every time another freedom is sacrificed on the altar of perceived safety.

She is a cunning snake that grows stronger whenever we forget to resist. The history of human civilization is one of repeating cycles over the centuries. Property rights lead to perspective. Prosperity. Prosperity leads to more government spending. More government spending leads to bigger government. Big government leads to dilutions of grandeur and totalitarianism.

And totalitarianism leads to civil wars and revolutions. Are you prepared to take matters into your own hands? Probably not. You still live in the world you were born into and idealistic martyrdom is not on most people's bucket lists, but whatever small step you take to increase your personal freedom footprint increases the total level of freedom dioxide in the atmosphere.

Freedom dioxide is essential to life. It prevents political climate change and global laming.

Authoritarian Australia

Peter: I love it. I've got to say, that just resonates so deeply with me at the moment because in Australia we have A change in law coming into our tax code next year, 1st of July, for balances over a certain threshold in our pension system will now suffer the fate of unrealized capital gains tax.

Knut: Oh, holy fuck.

Peter: So, I cannot tell you the amount of stress and sleep that I have lost over this, but it affects a big part of my life. Maybe 70, 000 Australians presently, but if you've got a couple of Bitcoin in your super fund, it's going to affect every Australian who's got a couple of Bitcoin in their super fund before too long.

And this to me is the encroachment that is just beyond the pale for me. That's

like theft straight up.

Knut: yeah, even if you don't believe tax is theft, which it is, or that inflation is theft, which it is, taking an unrealized gain from someone is definitely theft. Like, how is it not?

Peter: it's insane. And to give you some examples of this, because I've done the numbers on it, I'm not allowed to touch my retirement money till, till I turn, 63, I think it is, or 62, but by the time I get there, it'll be 65 or 70. Let's assume it's 16 years before I can touch it. By my calculations, I will have 86 percent less Bitcoin on my retirement than I do now through this unrealized capital gains tax.

Knut: We need to set up a voting accident for you, Peter.

Peter: I don't think that's possible. I'm pretty good at custody.

Knut: I like the way you're thinking, but it's, it really is perplexing to me. We've had this discussion before about, you know, completely clean government approved Bitcoin and, coin joined the sneaky shadow super recoder Bitcoin. And you've been a proponent of the former

Peter: that's true.

Knut: yeah, it's, I hate to tell you, but this is a case of fuck around and find out, I think,

Peter: Yeah, I've got to say, it's particularly disturbing because it skews the incentives dramatically, and I had a conversation, about this, but what it does is it robs you of the ability to compound your return through time, and you end up poor. But the best thing, That can happen to you. And this is doing the numbers, and this is the crazy part.

The best outcome that I can hope for, is to end up with 14% of the Bitcoin that I've got now that's the best outcome.

Knut: but it is an argument for not doing KYC Bitcoin ever, like doing it all under the table, all black market.

Peter: But if, if you want to catch a, that Bitcoin in your, in your superannuation or pension system in Australia, it, it is all documented. So, there's no getting out of it that I'm aware of. So, it's an encroachment I am, I am none too happy about. And I kind of feel like, in light of how orchestrated the governments across the globe have been, or Western democracies anyway, it feels like a trial balloon in Australia to see if they can get away with it and then they'll implement it in Australia.

All of the other nations once they've got, got that tick off, tick of approval.

Knut: So how do you get out of it?

Peter: You

Knut: off somewhere?

Peter: No. I need a 30 percent unrealized gain per annum, so I'm just sitting there properly disturbed by the fact that our government thinks it's acceptable to take unrealized capital gains, and what I'm more concerned about is because of the volatility of Bitcoin, what will end up happening at some point in time is when you get a 10x return on your Bitcoin, It'll go from, say, a balance of 3 million to 30 million in a year.

that represents a 9 million unrealized capital gains tax bill payable. After a 10x year in Bitcoin, you know what happens. You usually have an 80 percent drop. And so 30 million will drop to 6 million, but you'll have a 9 million outstanding tax bill payable and they'll take all of your super fund, all of your pension money because you've got 9 million outstanding for their tax bill and you only have 6 million to pay it.

So, unless I can pick the top of every market between now and the next 20 years, which is an impossible feat. I'll probably have no pension money left by the time I get to retirement. So, I've got to say, to say I'm particularly upset about it would be an understatement.

Knut: Sucks.

Peter: So, if you find a solution over there, in Scandinavia, ship it in.

Luke: I mean, we just have the capital gains, the regular kind, but, yeah, if there was talk of putting in unrealized capital gains, I think you'd see a lot of Bitcoiners leaving pretty quickly and, craziness, jurisdictions, doing things differently, doing things unintelligently will be, over the next 20, 30 years, I guess.

Probably lots of differences between jurisdictions.

Conferences and Wrapping Up

Peter: So, anyway, we've got all that to look forward to. On brighter note, I'm really looking forward to your new book. I can't wait to get it, can't wait to read it. Are you celebrating Bitcoin Infinity Day, hosting an event? Bitcoin Infinity Day

Knut: Yeah. In Riga, at the basement bar, which is the first bar in Riga that accepts Bitcoin and Bitcoin only. So yeah, looking forward to that a lot. We have a lot to look forward to in Riga, there's the Nostriga conference, big Nostr event, there's Noob Day Wiz's thing there, where we're both speaking and we're both speaking at the regular conference as well and doing interviews and all this stuff, so really looking forward to it, we love Riga and the team over there,

Peter: I'm hoping to make it to Rega next year.

Knut: Yeah, I might make it to Sydney next year.

Peter: Oh

Knut: we'll see. I'd love to return. Like I think every two years is, I could live with that.

Peter: You were, Very, very popular, I've got to say, and sort of speaking to, the crew at, the Sydney Bitcoin Meetup, I can tell you before you arrived, everyone was so excited to see you here. And we understand it's a really long way from the rest of the world and, the fact you guys, or, Knut, you made it out here, Luke, hopefully you can jump on the next time and come out as a two for one.

any Bitcoin talent that comes out here, we're thrilled to see, but, to have you. Still one of my favorite memories in Bitcoin is your rendition of Fuck You Money with Daz.

Knut: yeah, that was a great moment.

Peter: Loved

Knut: that's, it's great. And it's so fun to play. Music with, and yeah, no, just the community down there in general is great. And, I'd love to see it. I'd love to, love to come again.

Peter: well, anytime,

Luke: Fantastic. Peter, I think we're winding down here. I'm feeling the energy and, so anything else you had on your mind before we sign off for today?

Peter: No, I just want to thank you guys for, you know, just being great citizens in the Bitcoin community and doing what you do. I have enjoyed immensely the work you guys put out. big fan of the show, big fan of your books. And I can't wait to see what the new iteration looks like with the new co authors. So, Luke, I can't wait to read it.

Knut: We'll send you a copy as soon as we can.

Peter: no, I'll pay.

Knut: all right, Peter, thank you very much.

Peter: Thank you, boys.

Luke: Thanks, Peter.

Knut: Use code freedom.

Luke: This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show. Thank you for listening.

@ e83b66a8:b0526c2b

If you have your own domain and optionally run a node, then you can consolidate your email address, NIP-05 and Lightning address to yourname@yourdomain

Here’s how to do it.

First NIP-05

Want your NIP-5 to be: yourname@yourdomain

Copy this nostr.json file from here: https://mikehardcastle.com/.well-known/nostr.json

Replace the "mike" with your own name. Replace the string to the right with the hex of your npub.

You can obtain the hex of your npub here: https://nostrcheck.me/converter/

Also replace the string at the top of the relay list with your hex npub.

Then replace the relays at the bottom with your primary relays (just 3 or 4 primary relays are needed).

Be careful not to change commas, quotes, brackets etc....

Upload the "nostr.json" file to your web server, making sure it is in the directory:

/.well-known

at the root of your HTML content

Then your NIP-05 will be:

yourname@yourdomain

Lightning Address, optionally routing to your own node:

If you have your own domain, have an Alby account and want your Lightning payment address to be yourname@yourdomain then follow this guide: https://guides.getalby.com/user-guide/v/alby-account-and-browser-extension/alby-account/use-your-lightning-address/own-domain

If you run your own lightning node, or have always wanted to self sovereign your own Sats, then follow this guide: https://guides.getalby.com/user-guide/v/alby-account-and-browser-extension/alby-hub/getting-started

If you run an Umbrel or Start9, you can run Alby Hub directly from your node: https://guides.getalby.com/user-guide/v/alby-account-and-browser-extension/alby-hub/alby-hub-flavors/umbrel-start9-etc

@ b2d670de:907f9d4a

onion-service-nostr-relays

A list of nostr relays exposed as onion services.

The list

| Relay name | Description | Onion url | Operator | Payment URL | Payment options | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | nostr.oxtr.dev | Same relay as clearnet relay nostr.oxtr.dev | ws://oxtrdevav64z64yb7x6rjg4ntzqjhedm5b5zjqulugknhzr46ny2qbad.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | relay.snort.social | Same relay as clearnet relay relay.snort.social | wss://skzzn6cimfdv5e2phjc4yr5v7ikbxtn5f7dkwn5c7v47tduzlbosqmqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.thesamecat.io | Same relay as clearnet relay nostr.thesamecat.io | ws://2jsnlhfnelig5acq6iacydmzdbdmg7xwunm4xl6qwbvzacw4lwrjmlyd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.land | The nostr.land paid relay (same as clearnet) | ws://nostrland2gdw7g3y77ctftovvil76vquipymo7tsctlxpiwknevzfid.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN | | bitcoiner.social | No auth required, currently | ws://bitcoinr6de5lkvx4tpwdmzrdfdpla5sya2afwpcabjup2xpi5dulbad.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | relay.westernbtc.com | The westernbtc.com paid relay | ws://westbtcebhgi4ilxxziefho6bqu5lqwa5ncfjefnfebbhx2cwqx5knyd.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN | | freelay.sovbit.host | Free relay for sovbit.host | ws://sovbitm2enxfr5ot6qscwy5ermdffbqscy66wirkbsigvcshumyzbbqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.sovbit.host | Paid relay for sovbit.host | ws://sovbitgz5uqyh7jwcsudq4sspxlj4kbnurvd3xarkkx2use3k6rlibqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.wine | 🍷 nostr.wine relay | ws://nostrwinemdptvqukjttinajfeedhf46hfd5bz2aj2q5uwp7zros3nad.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN, BTC, Credit Card/CashApp (Stripe) | | inbox.nostr.wine | 🍷 inbox.nostr.wine relay | ws://wineinboxkayswlofkugkjwhoyi744qvlzdxlmdvwe7cei2xxy4gc6ad.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN, BTC | | filter.nostr.wine | 🍷 filter.nostr.wine proxy relay | ws://winefiltermhqixxzmnzxhrmaufpnfq3rmjcl6ei45iy4aidrngpsyid.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN, BTC | | N/A | N/A | ws://pzfw4uteha62iwkzm3lycabk4pbtcr67cg5ymp5i3xwrpt3t24m6tzad.onion:81 | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.fractalized.net | Free relay for fractalized.net | ws://xvgox2zzo7cfxcjrd2llrkthvjs5t7efoalu34s6lmkqhvzvrms6ipyd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nfrelay.app | nfrelay.app aggregator relay (nostr-filter-relay) | ws://nfrelay6saohkmipikquvrn6d64dzxivhmcdcj4d5i7wxis47xwsriyd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | relay.nostr.net | Public relay from nostr.net (Same as clearnet) | ws://nostrnetl6yd5whkldj3vqsxyyaq3tkuspy23a3qgx7cdepb4564qgqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nerostrator | Free to read, pay XMR to relay | ws://nerostrrgb5fhj6dnzhjbgmnkpy2berdlczh6tuh2jsqrjok3j4zoxid.onion | operator |Payment URL | XMR |

Contributing

Contributions are encouraged to keep this document alive. Just open a PR and I'll have it tested and merged. The onion URL is the only mandatory column, the rest is just nice-to-have metadata about the relay. Put N/A in empty columns.

If you want to contribute anonymously, please contact me on SimpleX or send a DM on nostr using a disposable npub.

Operator column

It is generally preferred to use something that includes a NIP-19 string, either just the string or a url that contains the NIP-19 string in it (e.g. an njump url).

@ bcbb3e40:a494e501

El hombre y el contexto

El pensamiento tradicionalista español cuenta con una amplia trayectoria en la que concurren personajes, situaciones e ideas gestadas en el transcurso de dos siglos, en los que debemos distinguir el conflicto dinástico y el papel del legitimismo de la propia doctrina, que es algo que se construirá en el tiempo, con la contribución de figuras como el protagonista de este escrito, Don Juan Vázquez de Mella, así como por la confluencia de fuerzas de diferente signo que tiene lugar a lo largo del siglo XIX y la consolidación del Estado liberal, que lo hará siempre en lucha abierta contra las peculiaridades y el carácter genuino del pueblo español. Vázquez de Mella, nuestro autor, quizás represente la consolidación y madurez doctrinal del movimiento tradicionalista español, uno de sus primeros y más brillantes sistematizadores. No se destacó por una obra extensa ni especialmente difundida más allá de sus discursos, de sus artículos en periódicos y sus escritos dispersos, los cuales fue capaz de dotar de una especial significación y dignidad fruto de su enorme carisma y especial clarividencia para dar una forma definida y meridianamente clara a las ideas y doctrinas que nutrieron el tradicionalismo español madurado al calor de las armas, de las tres guerras que el carlismo libró contra el liberalismo español.

|| |:-:| |Juan Vázquez de Mella|

Nuestro autor, de origen asturiano, y nacido en Cangas de Onís un 8 de junio de 1861, ha mantenido vivo su prestigio y el valor de sus aportaciones teórico-doctrinales, ampliamente reconocidos por sus sucesores, por Rafael Gambra Ciudad (1920-2004) y Francisco Elías de Tejada y Espinola (1918-1978), así como de otros autores como Álvaro D'Ors (1915-2004) y otros muchos, que han reivindicado su figura en el tiempo y se han nutrido de sus fecundas enseñanzas. Se ha destacado la rectitud de su pensamiento, su inquebrantable voluntad y su impagable contribución en la creación de un marco teórico y conceptual para dar un sentido y una forma a las ideas del tradicionalismo español. Hijo de un militar de origen gallego, muerto prematuramente, quedó huérfano de padre durante su niñez, por lo cual pasó al cuidado de unos parientes de origen modesto. Estudió en la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, donde mostró tempranamente su temperamento y habilidades oratorias, que explotó convenientemente a través de diarios como La Restauración o El pensamiento galaico, donde también mostró sus filiaciones militantes con el catolicismo tradicional. Sus habilidades y la brillantez de sus escritos pronto llegaron a Madrid, a las más altas instancias del Carlismo, lo que le permitió dar continuidad a sus actividades desde un medio más amplio, a través de El correo español.

En su militancia política llegó a las más altas cotas de su trayectoria con la elección en 1893 como representante de las Cortes por el distrito de Estella, Navarra, que ya con sus primeros discursos obtuvo un notable éxito, incluso entre los propios liberales, hasta 1900, fecha en la que se vio obligado a marcharse a Portugal, acusado de participar en una conspiración para derrocar el régimen de la Restauración. No regresó a España hasta 1905, manteniendo su estatus como diputado hasta 1919. De todos modos, no queremos dar más protagonismo a la biografía en detrimento de la doctrina, que es lo que nos interesa en este artículo, de ahí que obviemos otros datos biográficos trascendentes, polémicas con otras facciones del carlismo o sus posturas respecto a la dictadura del general Miguel Primo de Rivera, que nos harían desviar la atención del propósito principal que acabamos de enunciar.

La gran paradoja del Carlismo fue que a pesar de su derrota en la Tercera Guerra Carlista (1872-1876), y pese a la posterior escisión integrista en 1888, el partido carlista continuó manteniendo una fuerza y preponderancia significativa en la sociedad española del régimen de la Restauración durante el último cuarto de siglo. El Carlismo se vio inmerso en un buen número de paradojas, de situaciones encontradas, especialmente en relación al Desastre del 98 y la pérdida de los últimos territorios ultramarinos. Mientras que la gran esperanza del tradicionalismo español estaba depositada en el desmoronamiento y caída final de la restauración alfonsina, por otro lado este mismo régimen trataba de defender, al menos en teoría, los últimos restos del imperio español y, de algún modo, a la España católica frente a una nación protestante, como era la anglosajona estadounidense. Al mismo tiempo, durante esta época el tradicionalismo español se enfrentó a los grandes retos que presentaba una sociedad en cambio, con transformaciones políticas y sociales de gran calado como la emergencia del sufragio universal o el nacimiento de los separatismos periféricos (propiciados por la burguesía liberal), las cuales requerían de nuevas estrategias y reestructuraciones internas capaces de enfrentar la envergadura de todos estos cambios. Fue en este contexto donde se significó la figura de Juan Vázquez de Mella, quien merced a la obra de sistematización a la que ya hemos hecho alusión, y de sus concurridas conferencias, dio lugar a la denominada Acta Loredán, redactada por el tradicionalista asturiano y publicado en El correo español. Este escrito tenía como ejes fundamentales la defensa de la nación política española fundamentada en la monarquía, el catolicismo y el régimen foral. Al mismo tiempo, también recogía la reivindicación de un programa corporativista y gremial al abrigo de la doctrina social de la Iglesia defendido en la encíclica Rerum Novarum (1891), y es lo que se conoce como el «sociedalismo», cuyos antecedentes encontramos ya en autores como Donoso Cortés o Antonio Aparisi Guijarro. Son precisamente los atributos de esta doctrina, que contribuyó a la revitalización del pensamiento carlista, los que nos disponemos a desarrollar a continuación.

La figura del tradicionalista asturiano, de Don Juan Vázquez de Mella, aparece como necesaria ante una serie sucesiva de destrucciones que el régimen liberal ha producido sobre los fundamentos tradicionales de España, pero su papel no fue, como ya venimos apuntando, el de un gran intelectual erudito, y de hecho, como apunta Rafael Gambra, las mayores debilidades de su pensamiento se encuentran en los principios filosóficos, y destacando, en cambio, su papel de «revulsivo espiritual» podemos ubicarlo mejor en el ámbito de lo político y lo espiritual. Para ello debió tomar en cuenta las fuentes de sus predecesores, entre los cuales podemos ubicar perfectamente al ya mencionado Donoso Cortés y Jaime Balmes, así como también a otro contemporáneo suyo, Menéndez Pelayo. De los dos primeros tomó su capacidad de síntesis y la sencillez expositiva, mientras que de Menéndez Pelayo tomó, al menos en parte, el sentido de la crítica histórica en aras de la restauración de una Tradición nacional. Pero más allá de los sistemas de pensamiento y elementos retóricos, vemos a Vázquez de Mella profundamente interesado por la vida política de los pueblos medievales de Las Españas, lo cual fue, en definitiva, el marco de referencia para una síntesis política de conjunto más allá de los posicionamientos teóricos, como algo que puede ser llevado a la práctica en sus aspectos concretos y que es perfectamente viable. Todo un sistema edificado sobre el pensamiento tomista y una una profunda religiosidad, En este contexto, y más allá de las ideas formuladas por realistas y carlistas en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, Mella teoriza junto a la concepción del espíritu medieval, la idea de la coexistencia de dos soberanías, una política y otra social, una teoría de la soberanía tradicional inspirada por un principio dinámico y que se cimenta en las propias experiencias humanas en el devenir de la historia.

|| |:-:| |NITOGLIA, Curzio; En el mar de la nada: Metafísica y nihilismo a prueba en la posmodernidad, Hipérbola Janus, 2023|

El concepto de lo social

Lo social para Mella no tiene absolutamente nada que ver con las denominadas «políticas sociales», tan comunes en el lenguaje político de las democracias liberales, en las que se contempla lo social como un elemento externo a la propia estructura política, donde prevalece el individualismo a todos los niveles, y la sociedad aparece como un mero agregado de individuos. Muy al contrario, lo social, en el tradicionalismo de nuestro autor, implica la afirmación de un principio intrínseco tanto al modelo social como al tipo humano, así como a la naturaleza de las cosas en las que la persona desarrolla su existencia en común con los demás. Nos referimos a las instituciones, a los elementos jurídicos y otros órganos gestados en el tiempo por la experiencia histórica, que regulan la vida común.

En el ámbito de la sociedad cristiana medieval, en plena Reconquista, cuando todavía no existía un Estado unitario como tal, cada municipio tenía sus propias leyes y sus normas, adaptadas a su modelo de vida y costumbres, Las comunidades se concebían como agrupaciones de familias con un sistema de propiedad comunal y privado en las que el patrimonio y el estatus de cada uno de sus miembros venía garantizado por el ejercicio activo de una serie de derechos en defensa de las libertades concretas, cuya fuente última era el derecho natural. Los señores feudales y los reyes se limitaban a reclamar tributos para la guerra, pero sin interferir en la defensa de estas libertades concretas ni vulnerar el sistema que las sustentaba.

Eran gobiernos autárquicos, muy estables e inspirados por un principio democrático, el cual nada tenía que ver con las democracias liberales plutocráticas de la actualidad, cuya idea del derecho y la justicia está pervertida por el formalismo jurídico vacío e inane de sus constituciones, abstractas y plenamente funcionales a las oligarquías, al servicio de intereses espurios. En este caso, el hombre alcanzaba una plena dignidad y desarrollo en el contexto de una comunidad donde prevalecía el vínculo comunitario, al amparo de un modelo tradicional, de normas consuetudinarias y concretas que permitían la defensa efectiva del propio derecho. Ni siquiera con el advenimiento de los Estados modernos, y la centralización de algunos elementos de poder, como la Hacienda o el Ejército, se vieron alterados significativamente estos elementos, que representaban a los denominados «cuerpos intermedios» de la sociedad, y que adquirieron su propia expresión particular bajo el nombre de «Fueros», los que los propios reyes juraron respetar a lo largo de toda la Edad Moderna y hasta el advenimiento del régimen borbónico.

La antropología tradicional vincula al hombre a un medio social, a una familia, a una estirpe o a un pueblo, que reproducen esa misma estructura familiar, aunque a mayor escala. En nuestro caso particular lo vemos a través de la convivencia de pequeños grupos humanos, de ahí la importancia de los municipios o de los concejos en un marco de vida comunitaria fuertemente institucionalizada. Al mismo tiempo este modelo y estructura también se replicaba en otros ámbitos, como en la vida económica y profesional, impregnando todas las esferas de la vida del hombre. Instituciones naturales, amparadas en el derecho natural, y orientadas a la protección y garantía de prosperidad de los hombres, y esto por encima de cualquier interés particular y mercantil de negocio. Para Mella, la ruptura con este mundo, y en general con las experiencias del pasado, es la que nos lleva, merced a la acción del liberalismo, a los tiempos actuales, y lo hace recorriendo un itinerario que todos conocemos, y que tienen su punto de partida en la Ilustración y la posterior Revolución Francesa, la irrupción del elemento racional y abstracto y la destrucción de la religión, considerada como fruto de la superstición. La destrucción del orden feudal, que todavía pervivía como marco de convivencia en el mundo rural, como una suerte de prolongación de ese espíritu medieval, hizo desaparecer de un plumazo ese entorno de relaciones concretas y personales para sustituirlas por lo «público» entendido como la centralización estatal uniforme, ignorando las realidades particulares subyacentes en el cuerpo social, los denominados «cuerpos intermedios», que fueron despojados de su autonomía, corporaciones y patrimonios. De modo que la destrucción de estas «sociedades intermedias» que mediaban entre el Estado y la sociedad desenraizó y destruyó la propia sociedad, al mismo tiempo que los fundamentos cristianos del derecho natural sobre la cual se hallaba asentada, para hacer prevalecer esos principios racionales y abstractos traídos por la revolución.

Al mismo tiempo, y anejo a este desarraigo, del individuo se encuentra sometido a poderes arbitrarios del propio Estado liberal, sin un conglomerado institucional propio que lo proteja de estos atropellos, sumido en el individualismo ajeno a toda institución y destino colectivo, se limita al voto cada cuatro años de los partidos al servicio de oligarquías e intereses espurios, contrarios al Bien común. En este sentido, y advirtiendo las posibles acusaciones de «absolutismo» que en ocasiones se han lanzado contra el tradicionalismo, hay que señalar que Mella las rechaza por completo, dado que viola la idea de contrapoderes frente a la autoridad del rey que éste formula, ya que el absolutismo creía en la existencia de un poder ilimitado y tiránico del rey, transmitido por Dios y ajeno a la participación de la sociedad y sus estamentos. Como bien señaló Julius Evola, el absolutismo es un fenómeno antitradicional, vinculado a la descomposición y desacralización de las estructuras tradicionales. De hecho, el absolutismo, como los regímenes liberales de hoy, dejan al individuo totalmente desprotegido, sin un asidero sobre el que apoyarse en la defensa de sus libertades concretas. El propio Mella, como bien saben todos los que se adentren en su obra, fue partidario de contrarrestar el creciente poder del aparato estatal, tal y como hemos visto y seguiremos viendo en lo sucesivo, a lo largo del presente artículo.

|| |:-:| |EVOLA, Julis; Metapolítica, Tradición y Modernidad: Antología de artículos evolianos, Hipérbola Janus, 2020|

En nuestro caso particular, la desaparición de la organización gremial y corporativa tuvo unas consecuencias especialmente nefastas, y en especial después de las dos desamortizaciones liberales (Mendizabal y Madoz) al despojar a los grupos sociales populares de su natural organización sociohistórica. Asimismo, desvincularon la propiedad en las relaciones comunitarias y su uso patrimonial para vincularla al uso privado y anónimo, para fines puramente especulativos, los que caracterizan al liberal-capitalismo. De ahí nace la figura del asalariado, del contratado como mera mercancía, en un proceso de alienación del trabajo característico en el desarrollo del capitalismo burgués. De aquí parte lo que algunos tradicionalistas, como Gambra, denominan el «problema social», frente al cual, y al margen de las recetas ideológicas de la modernidad, Mella reivindica la restauración de los antiguos vínculos corporativos y orgánicos de inspiración medieval.

La idea de soberanía social

Todos los procesos disolutivos que conducen a la Modernidad liberal tienen su punto de inicio con el Renacimiento, con la afirmación del individualismo y la ruptura definitiva del ecumene cristiano medieval, algo que aparece indefectiblemente unido a la Reforma luterana, así como la «valorización» del mundo clásico, con la reemergencia de teorías de tipo hedonista, como las de Epicuro, por ejemplo, generando una disolución de los vínculos con el medio concreto. Esto supone la aparición de un nuevo tipo, que es el hombre abstracto que escapa cada vez más al entorno inmediato y vital, esto al tiempo que el poder del Estado se robustece y se vuelve omnipotente. Es por ese motivo que en lo sucesivo se ha impuesto en nuestras sociedades la falta de concreción, tanto en lo teórico como en lo político, lo cual ha propiciado el triunfo del contrato social roussoniano y la justificación del orden social en virtud de componendas voluntarias y totalmente artificiales. Estas construcciones político-ideológicas son las que contribuyen a la construcción de la sociedad liberal, asentada sobre patrones puramente racionales, individualistas y mercantilistas.

De hecho, la mayor preocupación de Mella es la destrucción de las instituciones locales y ese vínculo afectivo del hombre con su realidad inmediata, algo que impregnaba su relación con el trabajo, con su obra, con su impronta vocacional y devota, imprimiéndole, como en el caso del artesano, un sello propio y particular a su trabajo.

Y en este sentido, Mella afirma que la sociedad moderna ha perdido su sentido institucional como base estable de la sociabilidad. A través del elemento jurídico y la participación en las instituciones es el medio a partir del cual la comunidad se cohesiona y construye sus vínculos y su particular autonomía, que le hace tener una vida propia e interna, y con la institución nos podemos referir desde una asociación profesional, a la universidad o una cofradía etc. El individualismo ha representado el factor disolutivo y corrosivo que ha destruido este vínculo social fundado en múltiples solidaridades que han enfrentado y polarizado al cuerpo social, con el enfrentamiento entre «clases sociales» y la negación de las jerarquías naturales.

Ante todo lo relatado, y como consecuencia de las destrucciones provocadas por la revolución, Mella plantea su teoría de la soberanía social. Esta teoría consiste básicamente en encuadrar de nuevo a la sociedad en sus raíces naturales, concebida en todos sus órdenes como portadora de un dinamismo propio en una suerte de organización geométrica en la que conviven objetivos y finalidades variadas y concretas con su propia legitimidad y autonomía. Estas finalidades, amparadas en el derecho natural, son junto al poder del propio Estado las únicas formas de limitación del poder. La particularidad de esta idea de soberanía social está en el hecho de que la formación de la jerarquía social tiene una dirección ascendente, que tiene como punto de partida a las personas colectivas y concretas, pasando por una serie de instituciones, hasta llegar al Estado central, de forma escalonada y plenamente conscientes de sus funciones. Así lo expresa Mella en su propio lenguaje: «la jerar­quía de personas colectivas, de poderes organizados, de clases, que suben desde la familia hasta la sobera­nía que llamo política concretada en el Estado, que deben auxiliar, pero también contener». Es lo que Mella concibe como el sociedalismo, que supone la reintegración de la sociedad en la vida concreta de los hombres, con el desarrollo de una vida política común y estable en el marco de instituciones naturales que potencien las relaciones humanas y sociales, estimulando la sociabilidad. Y hablamos, desde la perspectiva de la integración de distintas sociedades, fuertemente institucionalizadas con funciones y finalidades concretas, más allá del sentido democrático y pactista que pueda entenderse en términos modernos o de cualquier asociación u organización relacionada con el «problema social».

¿Qué es la Tradición?

De este modo quedan formuladas las dos soberanías, la política y la social, que coexisten en un mismo espacio limitándose y apoyándose recíprocamente en lo que es uno de los fundamentos del sociedalismo de Mella. No obstante, esta doble soberanía no explica todavía la concreción política de cada pueblo y el vínculo superior que lo lleva a federarse con las diferentes sociedades y a mantenerse unido en una historia y espíritu comunes. Los vínculos que las mantienen unidas en el tiempo tienen que ver con un orden histórico concreto, con un vínculo espiritual que las entrelaza interiormente de una generación a otra, y en última instancia de ese orden tradicional que lo engloba todo, y que al mismo tiempo se asienta en la monarquía y la religión católica. La lealtad a Dios y a un solo rey en torno a los cuales se aglutina la fe, viene a coronar todas estas estructuras y lazos forjados en el fermento de la historia.

No se trata de la Tradición en términos de un «ultraconservadurismo», que ya sabemos que el prefijo «ultra» (lo que sea) es muy recurrente en nuestros días, con la idea de un medio social y político petrificado e invariable, sino que es el producto de un proceso de maduración y evolución histórica, de carácter dinámico y nutrido de experiencias humanas. Nada que ver con las monstruosas ideologías progresistas y modernas, nacidas de lo abstracto e impulsadas por un desbocado «ir hacia delante», desarraigado y que tiende siempre hacia la deshumanización y la destrucción de toda creación humana natural forjada en el devenir de los siglos. Este mismo dinamismo, planteado por Mella, en torno al concepto e idea de Tradición tiene continuidad y adquiere fuerza en sus sucesores y depositarios. Y al fin y al cabo, Mella no hace más que partir de la propia etimología del término, que viene del latín tradere, entregar, de la generación que entrega los frutos de su experiencia a la siguiente, perfeccionándola, haciéndola más estable y segura.

Podríamos seguir extrayendo más conclusiones del pensamiento tradicional de Vázquez de Mella, pero probablemente excedería, y por mucho, el modesto propósito de este escrito, de modo que nos quedaremos aquí, no sin advertir a nuestros lectores de la posibilidad de que en un futuro volvamos a retomar nuevamente el tema.

Antes de acabar queremos llamar la atención sobre una polémica acontecida hace unos años en torno a una Plaza en Madrid que llevaba el nombre de nuestro autor y que se cambio para dedicársela a un sujeto cuyos méritos eran, por decirlo suavemente, más que discutibles, concretamente a Pedro Zerolo, miembro del PSOE y activista al servicio del lobby homosexualista. Durante aquella época, en 2019, muchos miembros de la izquierda globalista trataron de identificar a Vázquez de Mella como un «pensador franquista», cuando en realidad ni cronológica ni ideológicamente tuvo nunca nada que ver con el franquismo. Recordemos que murió en 1928, y la impronta de su pensamiento ha tenido como continuadores a sus propios correligionarios dentro del ámbito tradicional, aunque en su tiempo llegó a ser muy respetado también por sus adversarios, los liberales. Aunque la retirada del nombre de una calle pueda resultar algo banal, o carente de una importancia excesiva, también contribuye, a su modo, a una forma de damnatio memoriae que condena al olvido y al ostracismo a grandes autores de la Tradición, portadores de un Patriotismo sano y capaz de entender las peculiaridades y el Dasein profundo de España, que si bien no nació invertebrada, como pretendían los Orteguianos, su esencia y naturaleza es mucho más compleja que cualquiera de las grandes naciones de Europa.

---

Artículo original: Hipérbola Janus, Juan Vázquez de Mella y el tradicionalismo español, 16/Ago/2024

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Thoughts on Nostr key management

On Why I don't like NIP-26 as a solution for key management I talked about multiple techniques that could be used to tackle the problem of key management on Nostr.

Here are some ideas that work in tandem:

• NIP-41 (stateless key invalidation)
• NIP-46 (Nostr Connect)
• NIP-07 (signer browser extension)
• Connected hardware signing devices
• other things like musig or frostr keys used in conjunction with a semi-trusted server; or other kinds of trusted software, like a dedicated signer on a mobile device that can sign on behalf of other apps; or even a separate protocol that some people decide to use as the source of truth for their keys, and some clients might decide to use that automatically
• there are probably many other ideas

Some premises I have in my mind (that may be flawed) that base my thoughts on these matters (and cause me to not worry too much) are that

• For the vast majority of people, Nostr keys aren't a target as valuable as Bitcoin keys, so they will probably be ok even without any solution;
• Even when you lose everything, identity can be recovered -- slowly and painfully, but still --, unlike money;
• Nostr is not trying to replace all other forms of online communication (even though when I think about this I can't imagine one thing that wouldn't be nice to replace with Nostr) or of offline communication, so there will always be ways.
• For the vast majority of people, losing keys and starting fresh isn't a big deal. It is a big deal when you have followers and an online persona and your life depends on that, but how many people are like that? In the real world I see people deleting social media accounts all the time and creating new ones, people losing their phone numbers or other accounts associated with their phone numbers, and not caring very much -- they just find a way to notify friends and family and move on.

We can probably come up with some specs to ease the "manual" recovery process, like social attestation and explicit signaling -- i.e., Alice, Bob and Carol are friends; Alice loses her key; Bob sends a new Nostr event kind to the network saying what is Alice's new key; depending on how much Carol trusts Bob, she can automatically start following that and remove the old key -- or something like that.

---

One nice thing about some of these proposals, like NIP-41, or the social-recovery method, or the external-source-of-truth-method, is that they don't have to be implemented in any client, they can live in standalone single-purpose microapps that users open or visit only every now and then, and these can then automatically update their follow lists with the latest news from keys that have changed according to multiple methods.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

nix

Pra instalar o neuron fui forçado a baixar e instalar o nix. Não consegui me lembrar por que não estava usando até hoje aquele maravilhoso sistema de instalar pacotes desde a primeira vez que tentei, anos atrás.

Que sofrimento pra fazer funcionar com o fish, mas até que bem menos sofrimento que da outra vez. Tive que instalar um tal de fish-foreign-environment (usando o próprio nix!, já que a outra opção era o oh-my-fish ou qualquer outra porcaria dessas) e aí usá-lo para aplicar as definições de shell para bash direto no fish.

E aí lembrei também que o /nix/store fica cheio demais, o negócio instala tudo que existe neste mundo a partir do zero. É só para computadores muito ricos, mas vamos ver como vai ser. Estou gostando do neuron (veja, estou usando como diário), então vou ter que deixar o nix aí.

@ 1ad8f5d3:bb624486

Exciting Developer Bounty: Create a uMod Plugin for Nostr Wallet Connect Integration!

We are thrilled to announce an open-source project opportunity to create a plugin that will integrate Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) into the popular game Rust. This plugin could revolutionize in-game commerce and server monetization, benefiting the entire Rust community, and we need passionate developers like you to bring it to life!

About the Project

Our goal is to develop a uMod (oxide) plugin that leverages NWC, as outlined in NIP-47 of the Nostr protocol. If you’re new to Nostr, check out our detailed post here to get started and learn more about the protocol here. NWC documentation is available here, and you can join the NWC developer Discord here.

The plugin will be server-side, built using the .NET Framework, and written in C#. Utilizing uMod’s capabilities, the plugin will dynamically enhance game functionality without requiring any client modifications. You can find uMod documentation here and join the uMod/Oxide developer Discord here, check out these guides from @thethingtracks and kwamaking. There is some NWC support in NNostr which is written in C# and could be a useful reference point.

"The cool thing with NWC is that it's quite easy to implement, no matter which language / tech stack you are using. It's basically sending some (signed & encrypted) JSON messages over a websocket connection." - @reneaaron

Initial Use Case

Server Wallet Integration: - The server admin will input the NWC connection pairing secret into the plugin's configuration file. - The plugin will use this pairing secret to interact with the server's wallet.

Player-to-Server Commerce Examples: 1. Buying VIP Status: - Players type /buyvip in-game. - The plugin requests an invoice from the server's wallet using NWC. - The invoice is displayed to the player as a QR code. Once paid, the player is added to the oxide permission group granting them VIP perks. - The configuration file allows customization of command name, price, and the Oxide permission group granted.

1. Buying In-Game Currency:
2. If the currency item is blood, players could type /buyblood and specify the amount they wish to purchase.
3. The plugin requests an invoice from the server's wallet and displays it to the player.
4. Once paid, the player receives the specified quantity of blood (1 blood = 1 sat).

5. The configuration file allows customization of currency item and command name.

6. Selling In-Game Currency (sending):

7. Players type /sendblood and provide a destination Lightning address.
8. The plugin deletes the specified amount of blood (currency item) from the player's inventory.
9. Using NWC, the plugin sends sats from the server's wallet to the destination address.

Future Expansion Ideas

Player-to-Player Commerce: - Enable the plugin to handle P2P commerce, enhancing in-game trading mechanics like the Vending Machine and less reliance on an in-game currency item. Possibly by allowing players to input their NWC connection pairing secret.

Embedded Wallet: - Utilize the Alby Hub's new isolated apps feature to give all players an embedded wallet. Join the Alby discord here.

Example Development Tasks:

• Develop the plugin as a C# code file.
• Ensure the plugin generates a JSON configuration file for customization.
• Implement chat commands for buying and selling in-game currency.
• Handle errors and notify players in chat with the lightning invoice.
• Check invoice status and handle unsuccessful payments.
• Submit Pull request to orangemart.cs

Why Join Us?

We have set aside 1 million sats ($650 USD at today’s value) for the initial development and ongoing support of this plugin. Orangemart’s proof of funds can be found at our Geyser Fundraiser, where we have received over 25 million sats in donations from over 100 contributors. Additionally, proof of our disbursement of these funds to our community is available on the Lightsats leaderboard, where we have gifted over 10 million sats in over 7000 prizes to our community.

This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to an exciting project that could significantly impact the Rust community. Join our Discord to get started and collaborate with us on this thrilling journey: Orangemart Discord.

Let’s build something amazing together! 🚀