@ c1e9ab3a:9cb56b43

# Election Authority (EA) Platform ## 1.1 EA Administration Interface (Web-Based) - **Purpose**: Gives authorized personnel (e.g., election officials) a user-friendly way to administer the election. - **Key Tasks**: 1. **Voter Registration Oversight**: Mark which voters have proven their identity (via in-person KYC or some legal process). 2. **Blind Signature Issuance**: Approve or deny blind signature requests from registered voters (each corresponding to one ephemeral key). 3. **Tracking Voter Slots**: Keep a minimal registry of who is allowed one ephemeral key signature, and mark it “used” once a signature is issued. 4. **Election Configuration**: Set start/end times, provide encryption parameters (public keys), manage threshold cryptography setup. 5. **Monitor Tallying**: After the election, collaborate with trustees to decrypt final results and release them. ## 1.2 EA Backend Services - **Blind Signature Service**: - An API endpoint or internal module that receives a *blinded ephemeral key* from a voter, checks if they are authorized (one signature per voter), and returns the blind-signed result. - Typically requires secure storage of the EA’s **blind signing private key**. - **Voter Roll Database**: - Stores minimal info: “Voter #12345 is authorized to request one ephemeral key signature,” plus status flags. - Does **not** store ephemeral keys themselves (to preserve anonymity). - **(Optional) Mix-Net or Homomorphic Tally Service**: - Coordinates with trustees for threshold decryption or re-encryption. - Alternatively, a separate “Tally Authority” service can handle this. --- # 2. Auditor Interface ## 2.1 Auditor Web-Based Portal - **Purpose**: Allows independent auditors (or the public) to: 1. **Fetch All Ballots** from the relays (or from an aggregator). 2. **Verify Proofs**: Check each ballot’s signature, blind signature from the EA, OTS proof, zero-knowledge proofs, etc. 3. **Check Double-Usage**: Confirm that each ephemeral key is used only once (or final re-vote is the only valid instance). 4. **Observe Tally Process**: Possibly see partial decryptions or shuffle steps, verify the final result matches the posted ballots. - **Key Tasks**: - Provide a **dashboard** showing the election’s real-time status or final results, after cryptographic verification. - Offer **open data** downloads so third parties can run independent checks. ## 2.2 (Optional) Trustee Dashboard - If the election uses threshold cryptography (multiple parties must decrypt), each **trustee** (candidate rep, official, etc.) might have an interface for: - Uploading partial decryption shares or re-encryption proofs. - Checking that other trustees did their steps correctly (zero-knowledge proofs for correct shuffling, etc.). --- # 3. Voter Application ## 3.1 Voter Client (Mobile App or Web Interface) - **Purpose**: The main tool voters use to participate—**before**, **during**, and **after** the election. - **Functionalities**: 1. **Registration Linking**: - Voter goes in-person to an election office or uses an online KYC process. - Voter obtains or confirms their **long-term (“KYC-bound”) key**. The client can store it securely (or the voter just logs in to a “voter account”). 2. **Ephemeral Key Generation**: - Create an ephemeral key pair (\(nsec_e, npub_e\)) locally. - Blind \(\npub_e\) and send it to the EA for signing. - Unblind the returned signature. - Store \(\npub_e\) + EA’s signature for use during voting. 3. **Ballot Composition**: - Display candidates/offices to the voter. - Let them select choices. - Possibly generate zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) behind the scenes to confirm “exactly one choice per race.” 4. **Encryption & OTS Timestamp**: - Encrypt the ballot under the election’s **public** (threshold) key or produce a format suitable for a mix-net. - Obtain an **OpenTimestamps** proof for the ballot’s hash. 5. **Publish Ballot**: - Sign the entire “timestamped ballot” with the ephemeral key. - Include the EA’s blind signature on \(\npub_e\). - Post to the Nostr relays (or any chosen decentralized channel). 6. **Re-Voting**: - If the user needs to change their vote, the client repeats the encryption + OTS step, publishes a new ballot with a strictly later OTS anchor. 7. **Verification**: - After the election, the voter can check that their final ballot is present in the tally set. ## 3.2 Local Storage / Security - The app must securely store: - **Ephemeral private key** (\(nsec_e\)) until voting is complete. - Potential backup/recovery mechanism if the phone is lost. - Blind signature from the EA on \(\npub_e\). - Potentially uses hardware security modules (HSM) or secure enclaves on the device. --- # 4. Nostr Relays (or Equivalent Decentralized Layer) - **Purpose**: Store and replicate voter-submitted ballots (events). - **Key Properties**: 1. **Redundancy**: Voters can post to multiple relays to mitigate censorship or downtime. 2. **Public Accessibility**: Auditors, the EA, and the public can fetch all events to verify or tally. 3. **Event Filtering**: By design, watchers can filter events with certain tags, e.g. “election: 2025 County Race,” ensuring they gather all ballots. --- # 5. Threshold Cryptography Setup ## 5.1 Multi-Seg (Multi-Party) Key Generation - **Participants**: Possibly the EA + major candidates + accredited observers. - **Process**: A **Distributed Key Generation (DKG)** protocol that yields a single **public** encryption key. - **Private Key Shares**: Each trustee holds a piece of the decryption key; no single party can decrypt alone. ## 5.2 Decryption / Tally Mechanism - **Homomorphic Approach**: 1. Ballots are *additively* encrypted. 2. Summation of ciphertexts is done publicly. 3. Trustees provide partial decryptions for the final sum. - **Mix-Net Approach**: 1. Ballots are collected. 2. Multiple servers shuffle and re-encrypt them (each trustee verifies correctness). 3. Final set is decrypted, but the link to each ephemeral key is lost. ## 5.3 Trustee Interfaces - **Separate or integrated into the auditor interface**—each trustee logs in and provides their partial key share for decrypting the final result. - Possibly combined with ZK proofs to confirm correct partial decryption or shuffling. --- # 6. OpenTimestamps (OTS) or External Time Anchor ## 6.1 Aggregator Service - **Purpose**: Receives a hash from the voter’s app, anchors it into a blockchain or alternative time-stamping system. - **Result**: Returns a proof object that can later be used by any auditor to confirm the time/block height at which the hash was included. ## 6.2 Verifier Interface - Could be part of the **auditor tool** or the **voter client**. - Checks that each ballot’s OTS proof is valid and references a block/time prior to the election’s closing. --- # 7. Registration Process (In-Person or Hybrid) 1. **Voter presents ID** physically at a polling station or a designated office (or an online KYC approach, if legally allowed). 2. **EA official**: - Confirms identity. - Links the voter to a “voter record” (Voter #12345). - Authorizes them for “1 ephemeral key blind-sign.” 3. **Voter obtains or logs into the voter client**: - The app or website might show “You are now cleared to request a blind signature from the EA.” - Voter later (or immediately) generates the ephemeral key and requests the blind signature. --- # 8. Putting It All Together (High-Level Flow) 1. **Key Setup** - The EA + trustees run a DKG to produce the **election public key**. 2. **Voter Registration** - Voter is validated (ID check). - Marked as eligible in the EA database. 3. **Blind-Signed Ephemeral Key** - Voter’s client generates a key, blinds \(\npub_e\), obtains EA’s signature, unblinds. 4. **Voting** 1. Voter composes ballot, encrypts with the election public key. 2. Gets OTS proof for the ballot hash. 3. Voter’s ephemeral key signs the entire package (including EA’s signature on \(\npub_e\)). 4. Publishes to Nostr. 5. **Re-Voting** (Optional) - Same ephemeral key, new OTS timestamp. - Final ballot is whichever has the latest valid timestamp before closing. 6. **Close of Election & Tally** 1. EA announces closing. 2. Tally software (admin + auditors) collects ballots from Nostr, discards invalid duplicates. 3. Threshold decryption or mix-net to reveal final counts. 4. Publish final results and let auditors verify everything. --- # 9. Summary of Major Components Below is a succinct list: 1. **EA Admin Platform** - Web UI for officials (registration, blind signature issuing, final tally management). - Backend DB for voter records & authorized ephemeral keys. 2. **Auditor/Trustee Platforms** - Web interface for verifying ballots, partial decryption, and final results. 3. **Voter Application (Mobile / Web)** - Generating ephemeral keys, getting blind-signed, casting encrypted ballots, re-voting, verifying included ballots. 4. **Nostr Relays (Decentralized Storage)** - Where ballots (events) are published, replicated, and fetched for final tally. 5. **Threshold Cryptography System** - Multi-party DKG for the election key. - Protocols or services for partial decryption, mix-net, or homomorphic summation. 6. **OpenTimestamps Aggregator** - Service that returns a blockchain-anchored timestamp proof for each ballot’s hash. ## Additional Implementation Considerations - **Security Hardening**: - Using hardware security modules (HSM) for the EA’s blind-signing key, for trustee shares, etc. - **Scalability**: - Handling large numbers of concurrent voters, large data flows to relays. - **User Experience**: - Minimizing cryptographic complexity for non-technical voters. - **Legal and Procedural**: - Compliance with local laws for in-person ID checks, mandatory paper backups (if any), etc. --- ## Final Note While each **functional block** can be designed and deployed independently (e.g., multiple aggregator services, multiple relays, separate tally servers), the **key** to a successful system is **interoperability** and **careful orchestration** of these components—ensuring strong security, a straightforward voter experience, and transparent auditing. nostr:naddr1qqxnzde5xq6nzv348yunvv35qy28wue69uhnzv3h9cczuvpwxyargwpk8yhsygxpax4n544z4dk2f04lgn4xfvha5s9vvvg73p46s66x2gtfedttgvpsgqqqw4rs0rcnsu

@ c1e9ab3a:9cb56b43

# 1. Introduction Modern election systems must balance **privacy** (no one sees how individuals vote) with **public verifiability** (everyone can confirm the correctness of the tally). Achieving this in a decentralized, tamper-resistant manner remains a challenge. Nostr (a lightweight protocol for censorship-resistant communication) offers a promising platform for distributing and archiving election data (ballots) without relying on a single central server. This paper presents a design where: 1. Each *voter* generates a **new ephemeral Nostr keypair** for an election. 2. The election authority (EA) **blind-signs** this ephemeral public key (npub) to prove the voter is authorized, without revealing which voter owns which ephemeral key. 3. Voters cast *encrypted ballots* to Nostr relays, each carrying an **OpenTimestamps** proof to confirm the ballot’s time anchor. 4. **Re-voting** is allowed: a voter can replace a previously cast ballot by publishing a *new* ballot with a *newer* timestamp. 5. Only the *latest valid ballot* (per ephemeral key) is counted. We combine well-known cryptographic primitives—**blind signatures**, **homomorphic or mix-net encryption**, **threshold key management**, and **time anchoring**—into an end-to-end system that preserves anonymity, assures correctness, and prevents double-voting. --- # 2. Roles and Components ## 2.1 Voters - **Long-Term (“KYC-bound”) Key**: Each voter has some identity-verified Nostr public key used only for official communication with the EA (not for voting). - **Ephemeral Voting Key**: For each election, the voter **locally generates** a new Nostr keypair \((nsec_e, npub_e)\). - This is the “one-time” identity used to sign ballots. - The EA never learns the real identity behind \(\npub_e\) because of **blinding**. ## 2.2 Election Authority (EA) - Maintains the **official voter registry**: who is entitled to vote. - **Blind-Signs** each valid voter’s ephemeral public key to authorize exactly one ephemeral key per voter. - Publishes a **minimal voter roll**: e.g., “Voter #12345 has been issued a valid ephemeral key,” without revealing which ephemeral key. ## 2.3 Nostr Relays - Decentralized servers that store and forward events. - Voters post their ballots to relays, which replicate them. - No single relay is critical; the same ballot can be posted to multiple relays for redundancy. ## 2.4 Cryptographic Framework 1. **Blind Signatures**: The EA signs a blinded version of \(\npub_e\). 2. **Homomorphic or Mix-Net Encryption**: Ensures the content of each ballot remains private; only aggregate results or a shuffled set are ever decrypted. 3. **Threshold / General Access Structure**: Multiple trustees (EA plus candidate representatives, for example) must collaborate to produce a final decryption. 4. **OpenTimestamps (OTS)**: Attaches a verifiable timestamp proof to each ballot, anchoring it to a blockchain or other tamper-resistant time reference. --- # 3. Protocol Lifecycle This section walks through **voter registration**, **ephemeral key authorization**, **casting (and re-casting) ballots**, and finally the **tally**. ## 3.1 Registration & Minimal Voter Roll 1. **Legal/KYC Verification** - Each real-world voter proves their identity to the EA (per legal procedures). - The EA records that the voter is eligible to cast one ballot, referencing their long-term identity key (\(\npub_{\mathrm{KYC}}\)). 2. **Issue Authorization “Slot”** - The EA’s voter roll notes “this person can receive exactly one blind signature for an ephemeral key.” - The roll does *not* store an ephemeral key—just notes that it can be requested. ## 3.2 Generating and Blinding the Ephemeral Key 1. **Voter Creates Ephemeral Key** - Locally, the voter’s client generates a fresh \((nsec_e, npub_e)\). 2. **Blinding** - The client blinds \(\npub_e\) to produce \(\npub_{e,\mathrm{blinded}}\). This ensures the EA cannot learn the real \(\npub_e\). 3. **Blind Signature Request** - The voter, using their **KYC-bound key** (\(\npub_{\mathrm{KYC}}\)), sends \(\npub_{e,\mathrm{blinded}}\) to the EA (perhaps via a secure direct message or a “giftwrapped DM”). - The EA checks that this voter has not already been issued a blind signature. - If authorized, the EA signs \(\npub_{e,\mathrm{blinded}}\) with its private key and returns the blinded signature. 4. **Unblinding** - The voter’s client unblinds the signature, obtaining a **valid signature** on \(\npub_e\). - Now \(\npub_e\) is a **blinded ephemeral public key** that the EA has effectively “authorized,” without knowing which voter it belongs to. 5. **Roll Update** - The EA updates its minimal roll to note that “Voter #12345 received a signature,” but does *not* publish \(\npub_e\). ## 3.3 Casting an Encrypted Ballot with OpenTimestamps When the voter is ready to vote: 1. **Compose Encrypted Ballot** - The ballot can be **homomorphically** encrypted (e.g., with Paillier or ElGamal) or structured for a **mix-net**. - Optionally include Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) showing the ballot is valid (one candidate per race, etc.). 2. **Obtain OTS Timestamp** - The voter’s client computes a **hash** \(H\) of the ballot data (ciphertext + ZKPs). - The client sends \(H\) to an **OpenTimestamps** aggregator. - The aggregator returns a **timestamp proof** verifying that “this hash was seen at or before block/time \(T\).” 3. **Create a “Timestamped Ballot” Payload** - Combine: 1. **Encrypted ballot** data. 2. **OTS proof** for the hash of the ballot. 3. **EA’s signature** on \(\npub_e\) (the blind-signed ephemeral key). 4. A final **signature** by the voter’s ephemeral key \((nsec_e)\) over the entire package. 4. **Publish to Nostr** - The voter posts the complete “timestamped ballot” event to one or more relays. - Observers see “an event from ephemeral key \(\npub_e\), with an OTS proof and the EA’s blind signature,” but cannot identify the real voter or see the vote’s contents. ### 3.4 Re-Voting (Updating the Ballot) If the voter wishes to revise their vote (due to coercion, a mistake, or simply a change of mind): 1. **Generate a New Encrypted Ballot** - Possibly with different candidate choices. 2. **Obtain a New OTS Proof** - The new ballot has a fresh hash \(H'\). - The OTS aggregator provides a new proof anchored at a *later* block/time than the old one. 3. **Publish the Updated Ballot** - Again, sign with \(\npub_e\). - Relays store both ballots, but the *newer* OTS timestamp shows which ballot is “final.” **Rule**: The final vote for ephemeral key \(\npub_e\) is determined by the ballot with the **highest valid OTS proof** prior to the election’s closing. ## 3.5 Election Closing & Tally 1. **Close Signal** - At a specified time or block height, the EA publishes a “closing token.” - Any ballot with an OTS anchor referencing a time/block *after* the closing is invalid. 2. **Collect Final Ballots** - Observers (or official tally software) gather the *latest valid* ballot from each ephemeral key. - They confirm the OTS proofs are valid and that no ephemeral key posted two different ballots with the **same** timestamp. 3. **Decryption / Summation** - If homomorphic, the system sums the encrypted votes and uses a **threshold** of trustees to decrypt the aggregate. - If a mix-net, the ballots are shuffled and partially decrypted, also requiring multiple trustees. - In either case, individual votes remain hidden, but the final counts are revealed. 4. **Public Audit** - Anyone can fetch all ballots from the Nostr relays, verify OTS proofs, check the EA’s blind signature, and confirm no ephemeral key was used twice. - The final totals can be recomputed from the publicly available data. --- # 4. Ensuring One Vote Per Voter & No Invalid Voters 1. **One Blind Signature per Registered Voter** - The EA’s internal list ensures each real voter only obtains one ephemeral key signature. 2. **Blind Signature** - Ensures an *unauthorized* ephemeral key cannot pass validation (forging the EA’s signature is cryptographically infeasible). 3. **Public Ledger of Ballots** - Because each ballot references an EA-signed key, any ballot with a fake or duplicate signature is easily spotted. --- # 5. Security and Privacy Analysis 1. **Voter Anonymity** - The EA never sees the unblinded ephemeral key. It cannot link \(\npub_e\) to a specific person. - Observers only see “some ephemeral key posted a ballot,” not the real identity of the voter. 2. **Ballot Secrecy** - **Homomorphic Encryption** or **Mix-Net**: no one can decrypt an individual ballot; only aggregated or shuffled results are revealed. - The ephemeral key used for signing does not decrypt the ballot—the election’s threshold key does, after the election. 3. **Verifiable Timestamping** - **OpenTimestamps** ensures each ballot’s time anchor cannot be forged or backdated. - Re-voting is transparent: a later OTS proof overrides earlier ones from the same ephemeral key. 4. **Preventing Double Voting** - Each ephemeral key is unique and authorized once. - Re-voting by the same key overwrites the old ballot but does not *increase* the total count. 5. **Protection Against Coercion** - Because the voter can re-cast until the deadline, a coerced vote can be replaced privately. - No receipts (individual decryption) are possible—only the final aggregated tally is revealed. 6. **Threshold / Multi-Party Control** - Multiple trustees must collaborate to decrypt final results, preventing a single entity from tampering or prematurely viewing partial tallies. --- # 6. Implementation Considerations 1. **Blind Signature Techniques** - Commonly implemented with RSA-based Chaumian blind signatures or BLS-based schemes. - Must ensure no link between \(\npub_{e,\mathrm{blinded}}\) and \(\npub_e\). 2. **OpenTimestamps Scalability** - If millions of voters are posting ballots simultaneously, multiple timestamp aggregators or batch anchoring might be needed. - Verification logic on the client side or by public auditors must confirm each OTS proof’s integrity. 3. **Relay Coordination** - The system must ensure no single relay can censor ballots. Voters may publish to multiple relays. - Tally fetchers cross-verify events from different relays. 4. **Ease of Use** - The user interface must hide the complexity of ephemeral key generation, blind signing, and OTS proof retrieval—making it as simple as possible for non-technical voters. 5. **Legal Framework** - If law requires publicly listing which voters have cast a ballot, you might track “Voter #12345 used their ephemeral key” without revealing the ephemeral key. Or you omit that if secrecy about *who voted* is desired. 6. **Closing Time Edge Cases** - The system uses a *block/time anchor* from OTS. Slight unpredictability in block generation might require a small buffer around the official close. This is a policy choice. --- # 7. Conclusion We propose an **election system** that leverages **Nostr** for decentralizing ballot publication, **blinded ephemeral keys** for robust voter anonymity, **homomorphic/mix-net encryption** for ballot secrecy, **threshold cryptography** for collaborative final decryption, **OpenTimestamps** for tamper-proof time anchoring, and **re-voting** to combat coercion. **Key Advantages**: 1. **Anonymity**: The EA cannot link ballots to specific voters. 2. **One Voter, One Credential**: Strict enforcement through blind signatures. 3. **Verifiable Ordering**: OTS ensures each ballot has a unique, provable time anchor. 4. **Updatability**: Voters can correct or override coerced ballots by posting a newer one before closing. 5. **Decentralized Audit**: Anyone can fetch ballots from Nostr, verify the EA’s signatures and OTS proofs, and confirm the threshold-decrypted results match the posted ballots. Such a design shows promise for secure, privacy-preserving **digital elections**, though real-world deployment will require careful **policy, legal, and usability** considerations. By combining cryptography with decentralized relays and an external timestamp anchor, the system can uphold both **individual privacy** and **publicly auditable correctness**.

@ 46fcbe30:6bd8ce4d

[This post by Eric Weiss](https://x.com/Eric_BIGfund/status/1893001303845937246) inspired me to try it out. After all, I have plaid around with [ppq.ai - pay per query](https://ppq.ai) before. Using this script: ```bash #!/bin/bash models=(gpt-4o grok-2 qwq-32b-preview deepseek-r1 gemini-2.0-flash-exp dolphin-mixtral-8x22b claude-3.5-sonnet deepseek-chat llama-3.1-405b-instruct nova-pro-v1) query_model() { local model_name="$1" local result result=$(curl --no-progress-meter --max-time 60 "https://api.ppq.ai/chat/completions" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $ppqKey" \ -d '{"model": "'"$model_name"'","messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Choose one asset to own over the next 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. Reply only with a comma separated list of assets."}]}') if jq -e '.choices[0].message.content' <<< "$result" > /dev/null 2>&1; then local content=$(jq -r '.choices[0].message.content' <<< "$result") local model=$(jq -r '.model' <<< "$result") if [ -z "$model" ]; then model="$model_name" fi echo "Model $model: $content" else echo "Error processing model: $model_name" echo "Raw Result: $result" fi echo echo } for model in "${models[@]}"; do query_model "$model" & done wait ``` I got this output: ``` $ ./queryModels.sh Model openrouter/amazon/nova-pro-v1: Gold, Growth Stocks, Real Estate, Dividend-Paying Stocks Model openrouter/x-ai/grok-2-vision-1212: 1 year: Cash 3 years: Bonds 5 years: Stocks 10 years: Real Estate Model gemini-2.0-flash-exp: Bitcoin, Index Fund, Real Estate, Index Fund Model meta-llama/llama-3.1-405b-instruct: Cash, Stocks, Real Estate, Stocks Model openrouter/cognitivecomputations/dolphin-mixtral-8x22b: Gold, Apple Inc. stock, Tesla Inc. stock, real estate Model claude-3-5-sonnet-v2: Bitcoin, Amazon stock, S&P 500 index fund, S&P 500 index fund Model gpt-4o-2024-08-06: S&P 500 ETF, S&P 500 ETF, S&P 500 ETF, S&P 500 ETF Model openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-chat: Bitcoin, S&P 500 ETF, Gold, Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Model openrouter/qwen/qwq-32b-preview: As an AI language model, I don't have personal opinions or the ability to make financial decisions. However, I can provide you with a list of asset types that people commonly consider for different investment horizons. Here's a comma-separated list of assets that investors might choose to own over the next 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years: High-Yield Savings Accounts, Certificates of Deposit (CDs), Money Market Funds, Government Bonds, Corporate Bonds, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), Stocks, Index Funds, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), Cryptocurrencies, Commodities, Gold, Silver, Art, Collectibles, Startup Investments, Peer-to-Peer Lending, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Municipal Bonds, International Stocks, Emerging Market Funds, Green Bonds, Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) Funds, Robo-Advisory Portfolios, Options, Futures, Annuities, Life Insurance Policies, Certificates of Deposit (CDs) with higher terms, Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), Timberland, Farmland, Infrastructure Funds, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, Sovereign Bonds, Digital Real Estate, and Virtual Currencies. Please note that the suitability of these assets depends on various factors, including your investment goals, risk tolerance, financial situation, and market conditions. It's essential to conduct thorough research or consult with a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. curl: (28) Operation timed out after 60001 milliseconds with 0 bytes received Model deepseek-r1: ``` Brought into a table format: | Model | 1Y | 3Y | 5Y | 10Y | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | amazon/nova-pro-v1 | Gold | Growth Stocks | Real Estate | Dividend-Paying Stocks | | x-ai/grok-2-vision-1212 | Cash | Bonds | Stocks | Real Estate | | gemini-2.0-flash-exp | **Bitcoin** | Index Fund | Real Estate | Index Fund | | meta-llama/llama-3.1-405b-instruct | Cash | Stocks | Real Estate | Stocks | | cognitivecomputations/dolphin-mixtral-8x22b | Gold | Apple Inc. stock | Tesla Inc. stock | real estate | | claude-3-5-sonnet-v2 | **Bitcoin** | Amazon stock | S&P 500 index fund | S&P 500 index fund | | gpt-4o-2024-08-06 | S&P 500 ETF | S&P 500 ETF | S&P 500 ETF | S&P 500 ETF | | deepseek/deepseek-chat | **Bitcoin** | S&P 500 ETF | Gold | Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) | qwen/qwq-32b-preview returned garbage. deepseek-r1 returned nothing. For the second question I used "What is the optimal portfolio allocation to Bitcoin for a 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years investment horizon. Reply only with a comma separated list of percentage allocations." ``` Model gpt-4o-2024-05-13: 0.5, 3, 5, 10 Model gemini-2.0-flash-exp: 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% Model claude-3-5-sonnet-v2: 1%, 3%, 5%, 10% Model openrouter/x-ai/grok-2-vision-1212: 1 year: 2%, 3 years: 5%, 5 years: 10%, 10 years: 15% Model openrouter/amazon/nova-pro-v1: 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% Model openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-chat: 1, 3, 5, 10 Model openrouter/qwen/qwq-32b-preview: I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I cannot provide specific investment advice or recommendations. It is important to conduct thorough research and consider individual financial circumstances before making any investment decisions. Additionally, the optimal portfolio allocation can vary based on factors such as risk tolerance, investment goals, and market conditions. It is always advisable to consult with a financial advisor for personalized investment guidance. Model meta-llama/llama-3.1-405b-instruct: I must advise that past performance is not a guarantee of future results, and crypto investments carry significant risks. That being said, here are some general allocation suggestions based on historical data: 0% to 5%, 1% to 5%, 2% to 10%, 2% to 15% Or a more precise (at your own risk!): 1.4%, 2.7%, 3.8%, 6.2% Please keep in mind these are not personalized investment advice. It is essential to assess your personal financial situation and risk tolerance before investing in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Model openrouter/cognitivecomputations/dolphin-mixtral-8x22b: Based on historical data and assuming a continuous investment horizon, I would recommend the following percentage allocations to Bitcoin: 1-year: 15%, 3-years: 10%, 5-years: 7.5%, 10-years: 5%. Model deepseek/deepseek-r1: 5%,10%,15%,20% ``` Again in table form: | Model | 1Y | 3Y | 5Y | 10Y | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | gpt-4o-2024-05-13 | 0.5% | 3% | 5% | 10% | | gemini-2.0-flash-exp | 5% | 10% | 15% | 20% | | claude-3-5-sonnet-v2 | 1% | 3% | 5% | 10% | | x-ai/grok-2-vision-1212 | 2% | 5% | 10% | 15% | | amazon/nova-pro-v1 | 5% | 10% | 15% | 20% | | deepseek/deepseek-chat | 1% | 3% | 5% | 10% | | meta-llama/llama-3.1-405b-instruct | 1.4% | 2.7% | 3.8% | 6.2% | cognitivecomputations/dolphin-mixtral-8x22b | 15% | 10% | 7.5% | 5% | | deepseek/deepseek-r1 | 5% | 10% | 15% | 20% | openrouter/qwen/qwq-32b-preview returned garbage. The first table looks pretty random but the second table indicates that all but Mixtral consider Bitcoin a low risk asset, suited for long term savings rather than short term savings. I could not at all reproduce Eric's findings. https://i.nostr.build/ihsk1lBnZCQemmQb.png

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

E-cash are coupons or tokens for Bitcoin, or Bitcoin debt notes that the mint issues. The e-cash states, essentially, "IoU 2900 sats". They're redeemable for Bitcoin on Lightning (hard money), and therefore can be used as cash (softer money), so long as the mint has a good reputation. That means that they're less fungible than Lightning because the e-cash from one mint can be more or less valuable than the e-cash from another. If a mint is buggy, offline, or disappears, then the e-cash is unreedemable. It also means that e-cash is more anonymous than Lightning, and that the sender and receiver's wallets don't need to be online, to transact. Nutzaps now add the possibility of parking transactions one level farther out, on a relay. The same relays that cannot keep npub profiles and follow lists consistent will now do monetary transactions. What we then have is * a **transaction on a relay** that triggers * a **transaction on a mint** that triggers * a **transaction on Lightning** that triggers * a **transaction on Bitcoin**. Which means that every relay that stores the nuts is part of a wildcat banking system. Which is fine, but relay operators should consider whether they wish to carry the associated risks and liabilities. They should also be aware that they should implement the appropriate features in their relay, such as expiration tags (nuts rot after 2 weeks), and to make sure that only expired nuts are deleted. There will be plenty of specialized relays for this, so don't feel pressured to join in, and research the topic carefully, for yourself. https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/60.md https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/61.md

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

Most people only know customer-to-customer (C2C) and business-to-customer (B2C) software and websites. Those are the famous and popular ones, but business-to-business (B2B) is also pretty big. How big? Even something boring and local like [DATEV](https://www.datev.de/web/de/startseite/startseite-n/) has almost 3 million organizations as customers and €1,44 billion in annual revenue. FedEx has €90 billion in annual revenue and everyone who uses it comes into contact with its software. There's a whole chain of software between the sender and receiver of the package, and it all has to work seamlessly. Same with Walmart, Toyota, Dubai Airport, Glencore, Tesla, Edeka, Carrefour, Harvard and University of Texas, Continental, Allianz, Asklepios, etc. That's the sort of software I help build. You've probably never heard of it, but when it doesn't work properly, you'll hear about it on the news.

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

I think this note from Chip (nostr:npub1qdjn8j4gwgmkj3k5un775nq6q3q7mguv5tvajstmkdsqdja2havq03fqm7) is one of those things that people with business management experience take a lot more seriously than most developers and influencers do. I am painfully aware of the cost of systems administration, financial transaction management and recordkeeping, recruiting and personnel management, legal and compliance, requirements management, technical support, renting and managing physical spaces and infrastructure, negotiating with suppliers, customer service, etc. etc. There's this idea, on Nostr, that sort of trickled in along with Bitcoin Twitter, that we would all just be isolated subsistance farmers and one-man-show podcasters with a gigantic server rack in the basement. But some of us are running real companies -- on and off Nostr, for-profit and non-profit -- and it often requires a lot of human labor. The things we build aren't meant to be used by one person and his girlfriend and his dog. Yes, he can also run all these things, himself, but he no longer has to. Our existence gives him the choice: run these things or pay us to run them and spend your time doing something else, that you do better than we do. These things are meant to be used by hundreds... thousands... eventually millions of people. The workflows, processes, infrastructure, and personnel need to be able to scale up-and-down, scale in-and-out, work smoothly with 5 people or 50 people. These are the sort of Nostr systems that wouldn't collapse when encountering a sudden influx or mass-escape. But these systems are much more complex and they take time to build and staff to run them. (And, no, AI can't replace them all. AI means that they now also have to integrate a bunch of AI into the system and maintain that, too.) GitCitadel (nostr:npub1s3ht77dq4zqnya8vjun5jp3p44pr794ru36d0ltxu65chljw8xjqd975wz) is very automation-forward, but we still have to front the incredibly high cost of designing and building the automation, train people to interact with it (there are now over 20 people integrated into the workflow!), adjust it based upon their feedback, and we have to support the automation, once it's running. This sort of streamlined machine is what people pay companies for, not code. That is why there's little business cost to open source. Open-source is great, but...  nostr:nevent1qqsgqh2dedhagyd9k8yfk2lagswjl7y627k9fpnq4l436ccmlys0s3qprdmhxue69uhhg6r9vehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdakj7q3qqdjn8j4gwgmkj3k5un775nq6q3q7mguv5tvajstmkdsqdja2havqxpqqqqqqzdhnyjm

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

## Beginning at the start In my previous article, [The Establishment](https://next-alexandria.gitcitadel.eu/publication?d=the-gitcitadel-blog-the-establishment-3-by-stella-v-1), I answered the question: "How do we form a company?" I realize, now, that I was getting a bit ahead, of myself, as the precursor to a *company* is a *team*, and many people struggle to form teams. So, I will go back to the beginning, and then you can read both articles to the end, and then stop. ## The Initiation The first, and most-difficult step of team formation, is *the initiation*. We know that it must be the most-difficult, as it's the step that carries the highest potential reward, and it's the step that is tried-and-failed most often. (Some people, like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, are born Initiators with excellent follow-through, but this archetype is exceedingly thin on the ground because it requires you to be mildly autistic, have barely-throttled ADHD, and/or tend to megalomania, also popularly known as "toxic masculinity", "CEO personality", or "being a successful military officer".) Someone needs to form a useful, attractive Vision and then motivate other people to help them achieve it. That sounds really easy, but it's actually brutally difficult because * You have to come up with an idea that is coherent, plausible, and inspiring. * You have to be able to communicate that idea to other people and make it appealing to them, by tying it into their own personal goals and desires. * You have to be able to hone and reformulate that idea, constantly, to correct it or to re-motivate the other team members. * You have to defend the idea against detractors, naysayers, and trolls, and you have to do it so vociferously, that it will erode your own popularity among those who disagree with you and open you to personal attacks. * You have to be able to focus on the idea, yourself, for a long stretch of time, and not allow yourself to get bored, lazy, or distracted.  So, just do and be all of those things, and then initiate the team, with the method I will name the *Hatbock Method*. It is so named because of the classic, German initiation ritual, in which an Initiator stands up, loudly defines their Vision and calls into a group "Wer hat Bock?" (roughly, "Who has the hunger/desire?") and whoever responds with "Ich hab Bock." (roughly, "Yes, I hunger for this.") is a part of the team. Then the Initiator says, "Okay, everyone with the hunger, let's sit down together, and discuss this some more." (This "sitting" is literally called a "seating", or "Sitzung", which is the German word for "meeting".) ## The Sitting We now get to the second most difficult part of team formation: figuring out *where to sit*. Most teams get this wrong, repeatedly, and many teams dissolve or fracture under the difficulty of this momentous decision. You would think organizing yourselves online would make this easier ("Oh, we'll just meet online!"), but the number of places available for sitting online are limitless. You can talk your whole Vision into the ground, with laborous discussions and migrations between Chachi, OxChat, Telegram, SimpleX, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, GitHub, Teams, Coracle, Matrix... you get the idea. Try to keep in mind that the Vision is more important than the seating area, and go with the flow. Simply, find someplace and go there. Worry about it again, at a later date. Don't lose momentum. Sit down and start discussing the Vision, *immediately*.  Now, this next bit is very important: > Do not let anyone outside your team influence where you sit! ...unless they are providing your team with some good, service, or income, that makes choosing their preferred location the superior choice. This is the German *Stammtisch* principle, where a host encourages you to come sit down, regularly, in some particular place, because your sitting there provides them with some benefit: they can overhear your conversations, get you to test out their seating area, sell you refreshments, etc. Your choice of seating, in other words, is a valuable good, and you should only "sell" it to someone who rewards you in measure. They have to reward you because their preferred seating area wasn't your immediate and obvious choice, so there was probably something unappealing or uncertain about the seating area. ## Plan it in Once you've sat down, and finished your rough draft of the Vision, you need to figure out *when to sit*. This is the third most-difficult part of team formation. (Yes, don't worry, it gets easier as it goes along.) The most popular plan is the Wirsehenuns Plan (roughly, "We'll see each other, around.") This can work quite well, if you just want to have a loose collaboration, that calls itself together in an ad hoc fashion, when a team member feels the need. Also known as "@ me, bros". It's not a great plan for more intensive collaboration, as that tends to need a certain amount of velocity, to actually happen, as the speed of movement has a centrifugal effect on the tasks. Team momentum, in other words, creates a sort of gravity, that keeps the team together as a unit. So, for deeper teamwork, I would recommend the Stammtisch variant: name a place and date/time, when you will next meet. Preferably, on a rotating schedule: daily, weekly, last Thursday of the month, etc. And then meet there and then. And discuss amongst yourselves. Set clear, short-term tasks (and assign them to particular people!), medium-term strategies, and longer-term goals. *Write everything down.* Anything not written down, is a suggestion, not an assigned task. If you find your Stammtisch becoming increasingly rewarding and productive, and your goals start moving closer and closer into sight, then you might want to formalize your team structure further, [as a company](https://next-alexandria.gitcitadel.eu/publication?d=the-gitcitadel-blog-the-establishment-3-by-stella-v-1).

@ c8383d81:f9139549

**My own stats on what I’ve done over the weekend:** - Spoke to +100 developers, it was great seeing a couple of familiar Flemish faces and meeting some new ones but overall the crowd was extremely diverse. - Ended up doing a short interview promoting the protocol and ended up going to 0 talks. - Tried to evangelize by going booth by booth to distribute a Nostr flyer to other FOSDEM projects, with the hope that they would broadcast the info towards their SOME person to add Nostr on their list or to build out a library for the languages that were present ( This was a fairly slow approach ) - Kept it to Nostr protocol 95% of the time, the Bitcoin narrative is not always a good time to push and as a side note I’ve met more Monero users than in the last 5 years. - Was able to convince some engineers to look into the #soveng endeavor. **Small overview from the most common questions:** - They have heard about Nostr but are not sure of the details. ( mostly through the bitcoin community ) - What is the difference with ActivityPub, Mastodon, Fediverse ? - IOT developers, so questions regarding MQTT & Meshtastic integrations ? - Current state of MLS on Nostr ? - What are the current biggest clients / apps build on Nostr ? - Will jack still give a talk ? **Things we could improve:** - Bring more stickers like loads more, - Bring T-shirts, Pins… could be a good way to fund these adventures instead of raising funds. ( Most projects where selling something to help raise funds for projects ) - Almost no onboarding / client installs. - Compared to the Nostr booth at BTC Amsterdam not a single person asked if they could charge their phone. **Personal Note:** The last time I visited was roughly 13 years ago and me being a little more seasoned I just loved the fact that I was able to pay some support to the open source projects I’ve been using for years ( homebrew, modzilla, Free BSD,.. ) and see the amazing diverse crowd that is the open source Movement 🧡 **Al final shoutout to our great pirate crew 🏴‍☠️:** The Dutch Guard ( nostr:npub1qe3e5wrvnsgpggtkytxteaqfprz0rgxr8c3l34kk3a9t7e2l3acslezefe & nostr:npub1l77twp5l02jadkcjn6eeulv2j7y5vmf9tf3hhtq7h7rp0vzhgpzqz0swft ) and a adrenaline fueled nostr:npub1t6jxfqz9hv0lygn9thwndekuahwyxkgvycyscjrtauuw73gd5k7sqvksrw , nostr:npub1rfw075gc6pc693w5v568xw4mnu7umlzpkfxmqye0cgxm7qw8tauqfck3t8 and nostr:npub1r30l8j4vmppvq8w23umcyvd3vct4zmfpfkn4c7h2h057rmlfcrmq9xt9ma amazing finally meeting you IRL after close to 2 years since the Yakihonne hackathon 😀 

@ dd1f9d50:06113a21

#### **(Because Most People Don’t Understand Money)** #### The requisite knowledge needed to know whether $100 or $100,000 per Bitcoin is relatively speaking “a lot,” is what value means. One way to measure value is through a universal yardstick we call “Money.” The question of “What is money?” is perhaps one of the most overlooked and under answered in our day and age. There is even an entire podcast dedicated to that question with the eponymous title, hosted by Robert Breedlove. That podcast often delves into the more philosophical underpinnings whereas I hope to approach this with a more practical answer. **Money is a technology.** Money is the technology with which we interact with one another to reorganize goods and services to the place and time they are best suited. Most money of the past has been tangible (though not a requisite feature), scarce, recognizable (read: verifiable), durable, portable, and divisible. These features one might call the “Attributes of Money.” These attributes are absolutely essential for a money to maintain its status as a money. (Those of you who understand the U.S. Dollar system maybe scratching your heads right now but, believe me, I will address that elephant in due time.) These attributes, you may notice, are not a yes or no but more of a gradient. A money can be MORE portable than another yet, less durable. One more divisible but not scarce whatsoever. The point being they must have, in some capacity, these attributes or they simply aren’t money. **One of These Things is Not Like the Other** | | **Bitcoin** | **Gold** | **Dollars** | |-----------------|:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:|:------------------------------------------------------------------:|:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:| | **Scarcity** | 21 million coins <br />is the maximum supply | Unknown- the <br />supply grows roughly 2% per year | Also unknown to anyone outside of the Federal Reserve, Trillions and counting | | **Recognizability** | Each coin is verifiable to it's genesis on the timechain | Each molecule of gold has distinct physical verifiable properties | If the Federal reserve says it is a valid note, it is (Unless you are an enemy of the United States) | | **Durablility** | Each "Bitcoin" is information stored on a globally distributed network | Doesn't Rust and as far as can be measured Au197 is stable forever | Can be destroyed by any means that effect fabric and centralized databases | | **Portability** | Available wherever data can be store- Anywhere | Can be moved at 9.81 Newtons per Kilogram- Methods may vary | Can be moved physically with fabric notes- Digitally with express permission from a US accredited banking institution | | **Divisibility** | Currently can be divided into 100 million parts called Sats (can be further subdivided by adding decimal places) | Can be divided to the Atomic level (Though not practical) | Can be divided (without dilution) by adding new denominative bills or coinage<br />Can be divided (with dilution) by printing new bills or coinage | | | **Bitcoin** | **Gold** | **Dollars** | You may think with all of the great functionality of Bitcoin that the phrase "One of these things is not like the other" refers to BTC. No, I was referring to the Dollar. It is the only one on the list that was a currency that was substituted as some kind of faux money. It asserts itself, or rather the Federal Reserve asserts it, as money, de facto. **Dollars are NOT money.** Dollars are (allegedly) a currency. If money is a specific technology, currency is the financial infrastructure that allows that technology to reach and be used by the most number of people possible. This requires a firm tether between the asset being used as money and the currency used as a claim to that money. For example: If I hand you a chicken, you have a chicken. But, if I hand you a coupon that is redeemable for a chicken, you do not have a chicken. You have a claim to a chicken that is only as good as the party making that claim. Bringing it back to money again, dollars (Prior to 1971) were redeemable for gold at a rate of $35 per ounce. This is that strong tether that pegged dollars to gold and physical reality itself. Without a proof of work, mining, . Until… **WTF Happened in 1971?** The Nixon shock happened. Briefly, The U.S. took in Europe’s gold in the 1940’s to keep it out of Hitler’s hands. The U.S. made an agreement to peg the dollar to Europe’s gold. The U.S. over printed dollars in relation to the gold holdings. Around 1971 France (among others) called the U.S. out for devaluing the dollar and thus European currencies. So, Nixon “Temporarily” suspended the convertibility of dollars to gold. Now, here we all are like Wile E. Coyote having run off of the golden cliff clutching our dollars in our arms and 54 years later we still haven’t looked down to see the truth. **Dollars Aren’t Backed by Anything** This is why no country in the world today has a money standard. Seemingly they all forgot the number one rule of issuing currency, it must be backed by something. Now, you may hear dollar proponents say “The U.S. dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States!” Another way of saying that is, “We said it is worth something, so it is!” This fiat (by decree) mentality creates a plethora of perverse incentives. The ever growing supply disallows users of the Dollar to save without inccuring the penalties of inflation. **Just a Few Examples of How You're Being Crushed** Because your dollar loses value: - It pushes people to spend them on assets that seem to appreciate (as the dollar debases) but are truly staying stagnant. - It pushes people to gamble on securities hoping the perceived value is enough to beat the inflationary curve. - It pushes people away from saving for their future and the future of their families. - It creates insane credit incentives so that people borrow way more than they can afford today knowing that dollars will be cheaper in the future. (Effectively a short position) - It pushes people to spend less and less time making and maintaining their families as it becomes more expensive to keep a similar lifestyle to which it was founded. These are just a few of the terrible consequences of not knowing that trading a currency with no monetary backing has on a society. Most may blame this soley on the ability to print currency by a central bank but, that is not the only factor. If the fed printed dollars against gold, people would simply take the best rate they could get and remonetize themselves with the gold. But because there is no monetary escape hatch guaranteed by the issuance of dollars, I.E. no one has to take your dollars in exchange for their Bitcoin or gold, you are left at the mercy of the market. **One Day, People Will Stop Accepting Your Dollars** Those lementing the high price of Bitcoin might want to thank their lucky stars that Bitcoin still has a rational number next to the "BTC 1=$?" sign. One day you will have to exchange something of actual value to the spender (no longer a seller). Your product, good or service, will be the only thing that anyone might be willing to part with their Bitcoin over. That is what makes a money, the most salable non-consumable good, whose only funtion is to back a financial structure that facilitates trade. **Bitcoin is Capital** Capital is a broad term that can describe anything that confers value or benefit to its owners, such as a factory and its machinery, or the financial assets of a business or an individual. Bitcoin being the latter creates the financial structures from which you build upon. You use capital to hold, transfer, and grow value. You do not do this with cash. Cash is a depreciating asset when you don't use it to gain goods or services for yourself or your business. This misconception around the equivalance between cash and money (financial capital) is what tricks people into believing Dollars are money. And what's worse is that even some of our greatest heroes have done this. **Slay Your Heroes, Within Reason** Unfortunately due to a mixing of verbiage that have **very distinct** differences, the title: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" is technically inaccurate. Bitcoin doesn't fit the definition of **cash**, which is a liquid asset that can be easily converted into its equivalent value. In short, Satoshi misspoke. In reality, owning Bitcoin UTXOs (with private keys) means you already possess the asset, not just a claim to it. When you spend Bitcoin, the recipient receives the actual asset, not a promise of it. When you receive Bitcoin, you have final settlement on that transaction. Fundamentally Bitcoin is not cash, electronic or otherwise. # Bitcoin is Money.

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

# GitCitadel Development Operations We, at GitCitadel, have been updating, moving, and rearranging our servers, for quite some time. As a rather large, complex, sprawling project, we have the infrastructure setup to match, so we've decided to give you all a quick run-down of what we are doing behind-the-scenes. ## Supplier Coordination  Our first task, this week, was figuring out who would host what where. We have four different locations, where our infra is stored and managed, including two locations from our suppliers. We got that straightened out, quickly, and it's all slowly coming together and being connected and networked. Exciting to watch our DevOps landscape evolve and all of the knowledge-transfer that the interactions provide. ## OneDev Implementation  Our biggest internal infra project this week was the migration of all of our issues from Jira, build scripts from Jenkins, and repos from GitHub to a [self-hosted OneDev instance](https://onedev.gitcitadel.eu). In the future, all of our internal build, test, issue, patch/PR, etc. effort will take place there. We also have a separate repo there for communicating with external developers and suppliers. Our [team's GitHub projects](https://github.com/ShadowySupercode) will be demoted to mirrors and a place for external devs to PR to. Public issues and patches will continue to be managed over our self-hosted [GitWorkshop instance](nostr:naddr1qvzqqqrhnypzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uqq5emfw33kjarpv3jkcs83wav). We're especially glad to finally escape the GitHub Gulag, and avoid being bled dry by Jira fees, without having to give up the important features that we've come to know and love. So, yay! ## Next Infrasteps ### Automated Testing Now, that we have everything tied up in one, neat, backed-up package, we can finally move on to the nitty-gritty and the dirty work. So, we're rolling up our sleeves and writing the Selenium smoke test for our [Alexandria client](https://next-alexandria.gitcitadel.eu). We'll be running that in Docker containers containing different "typical Nostr" images, such as Chrome browser with Nostr Connect signing extension, or Firefox browser with Nos2x-fox extension. Once we get the Nsec Bunker and Amber logins going, we'll add test cases and images for them, as well. (Yes, we can do Bunker. I hope you are in awe at our powers). We are also designing an automated infrastructure test, that will simply rattle through all the various internal and external websites and relays, to make sure that everything is still online and responsive. After that, a Gherkin-based [Behave feature test](https://behave.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) for Alexandria is planned, so that we can prevent regression of completed functionality, from one release to the next. The Gherkin scenarios are written and attached to our stories before development begins (we use acceptance tests as requirements), a manual test-execution is then completed, in order to set the story to *Done*. These completed scenarios will be automated, following each release, with the resulting script linked to from the origin story.  ### Automated Builds As the crowning glory of every DevOps tool chain stands the build automation. This is where everything gets tied together, straightened out, configured, tested, measured, and -- if everything passes the quality gates -- released. I don't have to tell you how much time developers spend staring at the build process display, praying that it all goes through and they can celebrate a Green Wave.  We are currently designing the various builds, but the ones we have defined for the Alexandria client will be a continuous delivery pipeline, like so:  This will make it easier for us to work and collaborate asynchronously and without unnecessary delays. ### Expanding the Status Page  And, finally, we get to the point of all of this busyness: reporting. We are going to have beautiful reports, and we are going to post them online, on our [status page](https://status.gitcitadel.com). We will use bots, to inform Nostriches of the current status of our systems, so go ahead and follow our [GitCitadel DevOps npub](nostr:npub16p0fdr2xccfs07hykx92t0cascac69xjuwaq38kjqy3aawt5hx8s82feyj), to make sure you don't miss out on the IT action. ## Building on stone All in all, we're really happy with the way things are humming along, now, and the steady increase in our productivity, as all the foundational work we've put in starts to pay off. It's getting easier and easier to add new team members, repos, or features/fixes, so we should be able to scale up and out from here. Our GitCitadel is built on a firm foundation. Happy building!

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

## Planning Alexandria People keep asking what features nostr:npub1s3ht77dq4zqnya8vjun5jp3p44pr794ru36d0ltxu65chljw8xjqd975wz has planned for #Alexandria, but they're not set in stone because we're an agile project. What we do have, is lots of tickets on our Kanban boards and a naming scheme, where we use a famous person's last name, to signify the release goals.  ### Gutenberg v 0.1.0 (after the inventor of the printing press) will contain the features needed to read and write [NIP-62 Curated Publications](https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/1600), as well as encompassing the complex infrastructure, architecture, documentation, and personnel we require to make this all run smoothly and look easy.  ### Euler v 0.2.0 (after a mathematician credited with establishing graph theory) will contain the features for deep-searching, visually exploring, and smartly navigating the data set, wiki page display, annotating and citing the publications, exporting to other formats (like PDF, ePUB, and LaTeX), and commenting/reviewing. To help with the heavy lifting, we will be swapping out the core with our own Nostr SDK called "Aedile".  ### Defoe v 0.3.0 (after an author who perfected the novel format) will be all about our favorite writers. We will be focusing upon profile data, payment systems, book clubs and communities, and stylesheets. That is everything we have planned, for the v1.0 edition, and we consider that version to be a true product. As for after that, a teaser... 

@ e034d654:ca919814

I stumbled into nostr end of March 2023. At that point already fully thrown into the hows, whys and whats of Bitcoin, never really interested in social apps, just recently playing around with Lightning, the only experience of which at the time was Muun (😬) and stacker.news custodial wallet. Fairly inexperienced with technicals other than rough understandings of concepts. A crappy laptop node with a dangling SSD via USB, constantly having to resync to current blockheights whenever I was ready to make an on chain transaction to cold storage. My great success after over two years of delay, and a couple failed attempts. Something about the breadth of information for nitty gritty specifics, the clash with all the things that I found interesting about Bitcoin, with others equally as focused, kept me interested in Nostr. Plus the lighthearted shit posting to break up plumbing the depths of knowledge appealed to me. Cut to now. Through the jurisdictional removals and even deaths of LN wallet projects, using mobile LSPs, finding use cases with the numerous cashu implementations, moderate comfortability with NWC strings of various permissions, budgets for seemingly endless apps of Nostr clients, swapping relays, isolated wallets with Alby go for my wife and cousin (I told them both not to put much on there as I'm sure failure is imminent) Alby Hub and Zeus, now fully backended by my own persistently online lightning node. All of it adding to the fluidity of my movement around the protocol. Nimble. Gradual progress. Reading through notes and guides posted on Nostr learning little bits, circling back eventually, if even at a time it wasn't clicking for me. Either way. Glad i've stuck to it even if I still barely know what it is I'm doing.

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

I am so tired of people trying to waste my time with Nostrized imitations of stuff that already exists. Instagram, but make it Nostr. Twitter, but make it Nostr. GitHub, but make it Nostr. Facebook, but make it Nostr. Wordpress, but make it Nostr. GoodReads, but make it Nostr. TikTok, but make it Nostr. That stuff already exists, and it wasn't that great the first time around, either. Build something better than that stuff, that can only be brought into existence because of Nostr. Build something that does something completely and awesomely new. Knock my socks off, bro. Cuz, ain't nobody got time for that.

@ 6871d8df:4a9396c1

## 2024 Prediction Reflections ### Politics #### **Democrats & 2024 Election** - _“Democrats’ attempt to stifle democracy will likely put Trump in the White House. If not, some real sketchy stuff would need to happen to keep him out.”_ This prediction was *exactly right*. The assassination attempt on Trump seemed to be the final blow for the Democrats. Despite a heavy push my legacy media, Trump won handily. The Democrats switched to Kamala Harris after Biden showed signs of incapacity, most notably in the first debate against Trump. My prediction for the election also turned out to be [exactly right](https://cwilbzz.com/election-prediction-my-vote/), which, thank you [Robert Barnes and Richard Baris](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHe3u4zZfY7K8PqHcVM0iLjHKV9Sr7iDy). #### **Evidence of Institutional Ideological Capture** - _“People will continue to wake up to ideologically captured institutions, and DEI will be the main loser.”_ Trump’s resounding election victory underscores that the public is increasingly aware of (and rejecting) such institutional capture. Of note, Boeing comes to mind as an institution that had a tough time in 2024, in large part to DEI. Nothing seemed to function correctly. The biggest story being how they [stranded people in space](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2023/01/17/boeing-spacex-nasa-artemis/) ### Media & Public Opinion #### **Rise of Independent & Alternative Media** - _“Independent and alternative media will continue to grow as people’s trust in legacy media declines.”_ Twitter (X), under Elon Musk, shattered mainstream media’s influence far more than expected. As Elon has said, “You are the media now.” Alternative sources are king. - *Notable Example:* Kamala Harris’s decision _not_ to appear on the Joe Rogan podcast contrasted with Trump’s appearance, further highlighting the power shift to alternative media. ### Markets & IPOs #### **Interest Rates & Public Markets** - _“As interest rates come down, I expect public markets and IPOs to heat up.”_ This _did not_ play out. Companies that were expected to go public in 2024 remain private in 2025. The reasons are varied, but there is confidence that 2025 might see changes. ### Technology & AI #### **LLMs & AI Adoption** - _“AI and LLMs will continue to move at a rapid rate, increasing productivity. Tools like Bard will become more mainstream.”_ AI did *take off*. Usage among nontechnical users increased, and it’s no longer uncommon for people to default to AI-driven tools rather than Google search. #### **Decentralized AI** - _“I hope to see a rise in decentralized AI to counter big-player LLMs.”_ We didn’t see explicit ‘decentralized AI’ breakthroughs, but more players entered the AI market. ChatGPT still dominates, with Elon’s ‘Grok’ making moves. Google, Meta, and Microsoft remain active but slightly behind in usage. ### Bitcoin & Digital Assets #### **Institutional Adoption of Bitcoin** - _“2024 will bring more institutions to Bitcoin. Possibly another large company or nation-state. The ETF should help, likely pushing BTC to a new all-time high.”_ No *large* public company or nation-state placed a bet, but smaller public companies did. Michael Saylor presented to Microsoft’s Board, which was the closest instance to a major move. - *Price Movement:* Bitcoin _did_ hit a new all-time high, rising to as much as $108k in 2024. #### **Lightning Network** - _“Lightning will improve but remain primarily used for acquiring Bitcoin, not everyday payments.”_ Still true. Lightning usage remains *tiny* relative to broader Bitcoin adoption. #### **Nostr Adoption** - _“Nostr will grow, and we’ll see new companies leverage this network beyond just social media.”_ Growth continues, but Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover slowed adoption. Nostr will remain niche until a major catalyst occurs (e.g., a big player joins or forced usage due to censorship). #### **Stablecoin-Specific Regulations** - _“Expect stablecoin regulations in 2024 that’ll be favorable to them.”_ This didn’t happen, largely due to the administration’s hostility. Expect potential change in 2025. #### Miscellaneous 2024 Reflections - **Return to Sanity** - 2024 felt like sanity prevailed, largely due to the Democrats’ collapse behind Biden and Harris and Elon’s Twitter dominance. - **Operation Chokepoint 2.0** - Received a lot of attention, and I’m thankful it did because my experience at Strike was radicalizing and extreme. - **Bryan Johnson & Anti-Aging** - He burst onto the scene with his obsession over biomarkers. I see it as misguided—chasing markers in isolation doesn’t automatically yield a healthy system. - **Apple’s Rough Year** - Without a visionary leader, Apple appears to be scraping by on existing products rather than innovating. - **Google Under Fire** - Google is in a tough fight with the government, just as it seems they’re on their heels with AI competition. --- ## 2025 Predictions 1. **Bitcoin’s Performance** Bitcoin will have a good year, but not better than 2024. To beat 2024, it must close above 206k on December 31, 2025. I’ll take the under on that. - I am not ruling out it to be over that at some point in 2025. 2. **Twitter’s Success Continues to Stunt nostr** - Nostr adoption will stay slow due to Elon’s dominant influence with X (Twitter). - As long as it remains a beacon of free speech, I doubt we see an exodus. - Rumble integrating Tether *might* help if they allow Nostr-like features (zaps), but that seems unlikely. 3. **Apple** - Apple will continue its rent-seeking behavior and put out underwhelming products. 4. **Google’s Quantum & AI** - Recent buzz about Google’s quantum chip and AI improvements won’t pan out as a big deal. - Google will continue to trail OpenAI and xAI in practical LLM usage. 5. **Elon, Vivek & DOGE** - I expect them to *deliver* more than critics think. They’ll expose bloat and inefficiencies in ways that will shake up norms. I greatly welcome this. I wouldn’t bet against them. 6. **Mainstream Media Reckoning** - In Trump’s second term, mainstream news outlets will face a real reckoning, as I can’t see how their bias can continue. - They’ll have to reduce their bias or risk bankruptcy. - Alternative media’s growth trend continues, especially as Twitter keeps exposing mainstream outlets’ weaknesses. 7. **RFK Delivers** - We will see big changes in the health space due to RFK at HHS. These are changes that I am very excited to see. 8. **Foreign Policy** - With the transition to Trump, I expect some foreign policy wins that will buck the establishment but will deliver wins that are not thought possible by the “experts.” --- ### Closing Note - **Overall 2024**: It was a year of major political upheaval, vindication for Bitcoin, and continued AI advances. - **Outlook for 2025**: Bitcoin remains strong, AI competition heats up, and media institutions face existential challenges. I’m optimistic for continued decentralization and a more level playing field across tech, finance, and politics. I think the start of Trump’s second term will be very strong for the market, health, and culture. Accelerate.

@ f7922a0a:82c34788

Now that the 3rd Satellite Skirmish is complete I wanted to highlight some of the cool features on embrace.satskirmish.com This is what the cutting edge of podcasting 2.0 looks like imo. Live video in an app that allows you to send sats to the artists in real time. On the left hand side we have a Boost score borad that displays the total amount of sats that have come in during the show, live Boosts/Booastagrams as they come in, total amount of sats from each person Boosting and total amount sent from each app. The middle is ovisaly the video of the band playing but with some graphics around it and Boost alerts that show up on the screen in the form of snow flakes for this one. The righthand side is an IRC chat window that connects to an IRC server that the No Agenda community has used for 18+ years thanks to zoidzero++.  The bottom of the page is where things get cool. When you click the Boost the Crew button in the center you can send a Boost that gets split between everyone helping produce the show (hightlighted in yellow).   Each band also has their own Boost button so you can Boost them while they are playing or anytime you visit the page.  

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

# Instructions 1. Place 2 medium-sized, boiled potatoes and a handful of sliced leeks in a pot.  2. Fill the pot with water or vegetable broth, to cover the potatoes twice over. 3. Add a splash of white wine, if you like, and some bouillon powder, if you went with water instead of broth.  4. Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes. 5. Puree the soup, in the pot, with a hand mixer. It shouldn't be completely smooth, when you're done, but rather have small bits and pieces of the veggies floating around.  6. Bring the soup to a boil, again, and stir in one container (200-250 mL) of heavy cream. 7. Thicken the soup, as needed, and then simmer for 5 more minutes. 8. Garnish with croutons and veggies (here I used sliced green onions and radishes) and serve.  Guten Appetit!

@ 7ed7d5c3:6927e200

Can't decide if the terrible book you just read is a 1 or 1.5 star book? Look no further than this chart. Was it Shit or just Bad? Was that movie you watched Very Good or just Decent? How many things out there are really Life Changing? Finally, a rating scale for humans. Use it for anything in your life that needs a rating out of 5 stars. Rating / Description 0.5 – The worst 1.0 – Shit 1.5 – Bad 2.0 – Eh 2.5 – Entertaining, but not great 3.0 – Neutral 3.5 – Alright 4.0 – Decent 4.5 – Very good 5.0 – Life Changing P.S. Do not use it to rate your wife's cooking. The author is not liable for any damages.

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

## Hodling Bitcoin does not make you a capitalist I've noticed that Bitcoin-mindedness seems to lead some people to communistic thinking because it's a hard-limited form of capital. Marx, like most Bitcoiners, heavily discounted the possibility of economic growth or transformation changing the economy enough to undermine some minority's control of some form of capital. What few today understand, is that many of the Dirty Capitalists of Marx's era actually agreed with him; they were just disdainful of labor and worried that the workers finding out that Marxism is correct about the nature of capitalism would cause unrest. They were the original HFSP crowd. This was the basic idea, that Marx had, and that many Bitcoiners would agree with: > Capital is strictly limited and the people that control it can keep labor from attaining any, except when their labor is necessary. And, as we know, automation will make human labor increasingly unnecessary. ## The math doesn't check out  That underlies all of the calculations of "Well, if I just grab this Bitcoin wallet and hodl for twenty years, then it will grow in value to equal half of everything in existence and then I can just buy up half the planet and rule over everyone like a god." This is economic nonsense because it assumes that: 1) the value of all things remains static over time, 2) purchasing something with money gives you ownership of it, 3) people will always use that specific money (or any money, at all!) for all transactions, 4) there is no such thing as opportunity cost, 5) people will always value money more than any other thing, and therefore be willing to always trade it for anything else, 6) humans are passive, defenseless, and easy to rule over, 7) someone who is preoccupied with hodling an asset steadily and sharply rising in price would ever be emotionally ready to part with it. ## All monies can die. People use money for everything because it is easy, fast and cheap. If money becomes too precious or scarce, they will simply switch to using other things (as we saw with gold). Humans replace tools that aren't working well, with those that work better, and money is just another tool. Bitcoin is more divisible than gold, but that won't matter, if enough of it is held by too few. This is why there's a natural cap on the price of a money and why human productivity _in the here and now_ is not irrelevant or in vain.

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

_Ingredients_ * 1 kg of pork roast with rind, such as shoulder or a lean belly * 1 bottle of beer, light or dark * chopped German-style mirepoix (best combination, for this recipe, includes celery root, carrot, red onion, and leeks) * salt, pepper, nutmeg * 1 diced garlic clove _Directions_ 1. Spread the vegetables on the bottom of the roasting pan. 2. Pour half the beer over the roast. (Drink the other half.) 3. Season the meat, to taste. 4. Roast the meat at 180 °C, until done (depends upon the weight of the roast). 5. Remove the meat from the oven, and wrap in aluminum foil. 6. Pour 2-3 cups of water into the roasting pan. 7. Pour/scrape everything from the pan into a sieve over a sauce pot. 8. Press the vegetables against the sieve, with the back of a spoon, to ensure that you get all that good dripping flavor into the sauce. 9. Defat the sauce with a grease separator, then pour it back into the pot. 10. Thicken the sauce, slightly (it should remain slightly watery, and not turn into a gravy), according to your usual method. 11. Open the foil and slice the roast. 12. Serve with the sauce.        

@ a42048d7:26886c32

OP_CAT, Coffee, and keeping an open mind to Bitcoin soft forks by an 80 IQ BTC Maxi Pleb TLDR: CAT is both low risk and low appeal to the broader non-dev BTC community. I don’t care and you shouldn’t either. If I am an 80 IQ HODL pleb or a company that caters to that group, can you please give me 2-4 fifth grade level coherent english sentences that explain why I should support CAT? I’m still waiting… CTV or LNHANCE on the other hand have broad appeal. Five years ago in the office we got a fancy $6,000 coffee maker. It was hooked up to wifi, showed TV on a giant screen, and could make every type of coffee/milkshake you could think of. I was captivated… for about 1 day. After trying a few times I realized almost all the drinks it made were of low quality. The wifi connection actually ended up just being annoying. Half the time I wanted a coffee, only had a 5 minute break, and the machine displayed some inscrutable error. I went back to the proverbial grind un-caffeinated and frustrated wishing we had the old reliable boring coffee maker back. I also found myself only coming back to the 2 drinks I really cared about, espresso and maybe an occasional cappuccino. It was “cool” that new machine could make over 60 different drinks, but when I sat back and thought about it all I really needed or wanted were a few key options that I used constantly. Especially as those extra bells and whistles seemed to be the usual suspect in the coffee machine constantly breaking. I would’ve loved them upgrading from burnt starbucks coffee beans to a local specialty roaster, that would’ve greatly enhanced my daily coffee. Echoing this realization, my coffee setup at home became a simple machine that could only make espresso and a hand crank coffee bean grinder. Still have them years later and they work great. They’re robust and fit exactly what I wanted with no nonsense that created more headache than everyday value. As you probably suspected, this is a loose comparison to OP_CAT. I’ve listened to podcast after podcast, read blog after blog, and sat through every CAT pitch I could find. I genuinely tried to approach with an open mind. However, ultimately what every pro OP_CAT argument boils down to is that there is no simple left curve elevator pitch a pleb will understand or care about. “But we can get this really cool ZK Rollup and have infinite DEFI bridging to altcoin chains! Look we sort of did it on this other altcoin chain.” And they did, they aren’t lying. They have live software on a shitcoin chain like ETH or SOL that does some modest volume. But the story quickly falls apart in the face of a few basic left curve questions: “Why should I, as an 80 IQ left curve BTC maxi give a shit?” “Does this enhance my everyday experience holding and using BTC?” “Why do you have a non-BTC token for your rollup/sidechain/glorified multisig that is totally centralized?” “Why is there only a hard to understand often ill-defined *path* to de-centralization? Why isn’t it just already decentralized?” “What is a clear use case that the typical non-technical everyday BTC holder can understand and rally behind?” “Why should I care about bridging to ETH, SOL, or whatever shitcoin chain? I only want BTC and don’t want to participate in all that shitcoin bullshit. Bitcoin is a store of value and money to me and it doesn’t help with those use cases in a clear direct way. It sounds like it maybe, kinda, sorta does help with a lot of caveats, ifs, and steps that I struggle to understand.” Sorry yeah I know, that one got a little personal. I’ll try to do better going forward guys. ZK proofs or other Pro-CAT arguments, are undoubtedly cool and do factually enable potential cool new stuff. It just happens to all be stuff that sounds complex, esoteric, and unappealing to an 80 IQ HODL pleb - let alone a miner, ETF investor, or exchange exec. I don’t mean to say ZK or other tech has no potential and that we won’t eventually move there, but just to say that it’s not in the cards as currently dealt. I really went out trying to keep an open mind and steelman the case for CAT. I came back firmly believing: #1 Support is deep in the developer community, but **nonexistent** everywhere else. I have yet to find a single person that supports CAT who is not a dev or working at or sponsored by a company that stands to directly profit from something CAT enables. Which is fine, but I reserve the right to be skeptical of your direct incentive. I acknowledge rough consensus is very hard to judge, and am open to changing my mind on this over time but feel this is a currently accurate assessment. #2 To get a soft fork you need rough consensus. Most people in that potential consensus are not highly technical developers. They care mostly or exclusively about BTC’s store of value use case. No one has yet articulated a clear compelling store of value enhancing use case that they can understand and care about. Without pull demand from potential users and paying customers, CAT will inevitably stall. #3 Lots of factually inaccurate FUD has been thrown at CAT. People saw the Taproot Wizards or shitcoiners pushing CAT, and immediately dismiss CAT as an evil psyop without any real consideration for its technical merits. Frankly most people just hate Udi and say “Fuck CAT” based solely on that. Maybe not fair, but true. #4 CAT is low risk, and it is not a catastrophe waiting to happen. Anything bad it potentially enables is enabled in such an inefficient and/or use hostile way that it is highly unlikely to pose any issues to Bitcoin. CAT’s technical risk is low and this is consistently proven by other chains enabling CAT and having no issues with it, such as Liquid. #5 Lots of people who have no idea wtf they are talking about falsely claim CAT is the apocalypse without any ability whatsoever to explain why. Imho you are no better than Udi and the shitcoiners if you are willing to lie about CAT just because you dislike them. We as the BTC community need the ability to have a rational discussion on technical merits, and not to devolve into a cult of personality based political battle. The question should be, “Is CAT good or bad and why?” and not “I just hate Udi, therefore its a no from me dog.” Summarizing CAT using TradFi language: those pushing CAT have technology in search of a problem and no clear product market fit. They are pushing their technology to an apathetic audience. Pushers of CAT are not pulled forward by customer demand. In the tech world these are some of the quintessential red flags that every good investor knows mean you need to sit this one out. CTV or LNHANCE on the other hand are soft fork proposals that have clear use cases you can quickly explain to a broad swathe of the Bitcoin ecosystem: “Hey HOLD pleb, worried about losing your coins? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a simple vault that reduces the chances your coins are lost or stolen? Let’s make self custody and BTC’s store of value use case strictly better, specifically without enabling any shitcoin-ery.” “Hey Blackrock, Van Eck, ARK, Franklin Templeton, and every ETF investor - it would really suck if Coinbase lost all your Bitcoin and that ETF went to zero, right? What it we could create vaults to make that Bitcoin more secure?” “Like Lightning but find it hard to use self-custodially? Let’s make Lightning better, easier, and more scalable with fewer onchain transactions and lower fees.” “Tried or seen the ARK demos yet? They have real working code even without covenants. With covenants we get big ARK volumes and scaling while also making it easier.” Signing off: See the difference? I, an 80 IQ pleb, can steelman multiple use cases for CTV/LNHANCE that have broad appeal. I have yet to see any such case for CAT, and until then I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. *Pro-CAT Sources I’ve digested and would encourage others to consider: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Covenants_support https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_Nj-MX53w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yp4eYK9S6M Pro-CTV/LNHANCE sources to consider which have CLEAR use cases with widespead appeal: https://github.com/jamesob/simple-ctv-vault https://github.com/stutxo/op_ctv_payment_pool https://lnhance.org/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/how-ctv-can-help-scale-bitcoin

@ a4a6b584:1e05b95b

## The Four-Layer Framework ### Layer 1: Zoom Out  Start by looking at the big picture. What’s the subject about, and why does it matter? Focus on the overarching ideas and how they fit together. Think of this as the 30,000-foot view—it’s about understanding the "why" and "how" before diving into the "what." **Example**: If you’re learning programming, start by understanding that it’s about giving logical instructions to computers to solve problems. - **Tip**: Keep it simple. Summarize the subject in one or two sentences and avoid getting bogged down in specifics at this stage. _Once you have the big picture in mind, it’s time to start breaking it down._ --- ### Layer 2: Categorize and Connect  Now it’s time to break the subject into categories—like creating branches on a tree. This helps your brain organize information logically and see connections between ideas. **Example**: Studying biology? Group concepts into categories like cells, genetics, and ecosystems. - **Tip**: Use headings or labels to group similar ideas. Jot these down in a list or simple diagram to keep track. _With your categories in place, you’re ready to dive into the details that bring them to life._ --- ### Layer 3: Master the Details  Once you’ve mapped out the main categories, you’re ready to dive deeper. This is where you learn the nuts and bolts—like formulas, specific techniques, or key terminology. These details make the subject practical and actionable. **Example**: In programming, this might mean learning the syntax for loops, conditionals, or functions in your chosen language. - **Tip**: Focus on details that clarify the categories from Layer 2. Skip anything that doesn’t add to your understanding. _Now that you’ve mastered the essentials, you can expand your knowledge to include extra material._ --- ### Layer 4: Expand Your Horizons  Finally, move on to the extra material—less critical facts, trivia, or edge cases. While these aren’t essential to mastering the subject, they can be useful in specialized discussions or exams. **Example**: Learn about rare programming quirks or historical trivia about a language’s development. - **Tip**: Spend minimal time here unless it’s necessary for your goals. It’s okay to skim if you’re short on time. --- ## Pro Tips for Better Learning ### 1. Use Active Recall and Spaced Repetition Test yourself without looking at notes. Review what you’ve learned at increasing intervals—like after a day, a week, and a month. This strengthens memory by forcing your brain to actively retrieve information. ### 2. Map It Out Create visual aids like [diagrams or concept maps](https://excalidraw.com/) to clarify relationships between ideas. These are particularly helpful for organizing categories in Layer 2. ### 3. Teach What You Learn Explain the subject to someone else as if they’re hearing it for the first time. Teaching **exposes any gaps** in your understanding and **helps reinforce** the material. ### 4. Engage with LLMs and Discuss Concepts Take advantage of tools like ChatGPT or similar large language models to **explore your topic** in greater depth. Use these tools to: - Ask specific questions to clarify confusing points. - Engage in discussions to simulate real-world applications of the subject. - Generate examples or analogies that deepen your understanding. **Tip**: Use LLMs as a study partner, but don’t rely solely on them. Combine these insights with your own critical thinking to develop a well-rounded perspective. --- ## Get Started Ready to try the Four-Layer Method? Take 15 minutes today to map out the big picture of a topic you’re curious about—what’s it all about, and why does it matter? By building your understanding step by step, you’ll master the subject with less stress and more confidence.

@ 79998141:0f8f1901

Happy new year, Anon. Thanks for tuning in to whatever this long form post will be. I hope to make these more regular, like journal entries as we travel through "real life" and the Nostrverse together. If I'm making time for this reflective writing, then things are going as planned. 2024 was a wildly transformative year for me for many reasons... there's no way I can possibly fit all of them here. They're not all related to Bitcoin and Nostr- I've got a beautiful life outside of all that which has its own independent arc. My wife and I celebrated 7 years of marriage together, stronger than ever (don't believe that "itch" bullshit). We let go of some negative relationships and embraced some positive ones. We cut some bad habits, and we made some good habits. We worked, we traveled, we saw family, and we partied. But damn, these two technologies have become a huge part of my life. God willing, this trend will continue until they've both eclipsed my professional capacity through our startup, Conduit BTC. This was the year I was truly orange pilled. Until late 2023, I had traded (quite profitably) Bitcoin, "crypto", stocks, options, prediction markets and whatever else I could get my hands on that felt undervalued. I did this all in my spare time, grinding out a little financial freedom while I hustled at my fiat ventures to support my little family. I wasn't a true believer- just an opportunist with a knack for spotting where and when a crowd might flock to next. That was right up until I ran face first into Lyn Alden's book "Broken Money". Something about Lyn's engineer/macro-finance inspired prose clicked with me, lock and key. Total one way function. By the end of the book my laser eyes had burned a hole in my bedroom ceiling. I was all in- and acted accordingly both with my capital and my attention. It wasn't long before I discovered Nostr and dove in here too, falling deep into my current orange and purple polyamorous love affair. > "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Despite the passion, through studying Bitcoin's criticisms (from the likes of Mike Green and Nassim Taleb) I found a hole in the utopian plot: none of this works without Bitcoin actually being used as money. Worldwide transactions must skyrocket demand for blockspace to keep the network secure/stable for the long term. Besides, if everyday folks aren't using Bitcoin as money then we haven't done shit to make the world a better place. In that world, we've only replaced old masters with new ones. Fuck that. Whatever I did in this space needed to increase the usage of Bitcoin as money. Simple. This was bigger than passion, this was purpose. I knew that come hell or high water I would dedicate myself to this mission. Lucky for me I found a partner and best friend in @aceaspades to go on this adventure with. I'm infinitely grateful for him. He's an incredible man who also happens to be an insanely creative and talented software developer. We'd tried for years to find the right project to focus on together, experimenting with all kinds of new techy ideas as they came across our field. Nothing had ever captured our attention like this. This was different. By March of 2024 we had formed a company and gotten to work iterating on how we could leverage these beautiful protocols and open-source tech to create something that served our mission. This is @ConduitBTC. I've done well in my fiat career executing plans downstream of someone else's creative vision. I've learned the ins and outs of an established ecosystem and found ways to profit from it. I take plans developed by others, compete to win contracts to build them, and execute on them in a cashflow-positive way. I'm bringing this no bullshit blue collar skillset with me to the Nostrverse whether they like it or not. The adventure we're embarking on now is totally different though. We're charting a new course - totally creative, highly intuitive and extremely speculative towards a future that doesn't exist yet. There are few established norms. The potential is vast but unknown. We're diving into a strange quest to sell a map to an imaginary place and to simultaneously architect its creation (alongside all the amazing builders here doing the same thing). This is insanely exciting to me. We're barely getting started but a lot has been invested under the surface which will show itself in 2025. We'll be sharing updates in a proper post on @ConduitBTC soon. As for my personal 2025 resolutions, here they are: - zero alcohol for the entire year (did this in 2019 and had a great year, it's time for a rerun) - more focused presence in the moment: especially with my wife - more self care and prioritized mental/physical health - this includes daily: naps, prayer, self hypnosis or meditation, sweat, and stretching/massaging (overworked in 2024 with a fiat 9-5, a board/advisor role in a fiat business I have equity in, and my newfound passion here. Two serious burn out episodes experienced this year - zero is the only acceptable number of burnouts for long term health and success.) - related to the above: get Conduit some mission-aligned funding partners and leave my fiat 9-5. Grow the Conduit team (have put in a serious amount of my personal capital already to get this going, which will show fruit in the new year... but I am not an island) - more authentic and thoughtful posts on Nostr, with a solid amount of shitposting and organic home grown memes to balance it out... more zaps, more geniune connections and interactions with the curious forward thinking people on here - more IRL Nostr/Bitcoin events - more laughter, more jokes Enough for now. Cheers to you and yours Anon, may 2025 bring you the magic you've been dreaming of.

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

## The paparazzi are we  One of the things that bothers me about social media, in general, is that it gives celebrities an air of approachability, that they don't actually offer. Theoretically, a celebrity could respond to any one of the dozens or even hundreds of people asking them questions or lodging complaints or singing their praises, but they usually only respond very selectively and leave everyone else just sitting there, as a living monument to the ReplyGuy. And, as a wise man once said, ReplyGuy is a hoe.  ## Death of a ReplyGuy This is usually because of time and energy restrictions, but also due to distaste, disdain, or indifference. Regardless of motivation, it is simply the nature of things, when a larger number of people are clamboring for the attention of some particular person. > Ooh, ooh! Can I have the next question?! > Would you please address my bug? > May I have a microsecond of your time?  Social media (and I include GitHub in this category) ups this game considerably, and potentially turns it all into a dangerous psychological torture, by making us all preoccupied with people who don't interact with us. The most irrational of groupies because we are forever making almost-contact with our stars. If we can see them talking to _one_ person, we're supposed to feel like they've spoken with _all_ of us. But they haven't. They spoke with someone else, and we were allowed to watch. No different than on television, except that we might be disappointed and eager to return the next day, to renew our futile attempt. The same intoxicating feeling that playing the lottery elicits. Everyone is a _potential_ winner, but there is only one jackpot. Come back next week. Buy another ticket. This next time, is your time. Promise. ## The view from the peanut gallery  It is all an illusion that there is no hierarchy, where there clearly is one. Celebrities of the past had, at least, the decency to remain slightly aloof. But they all want to be one of the Common Folk, now, just as every multi-millionaire aspires to see himself as fundamentally working-class.  All of celebrity social media is a stage, and most of us are merely spectators or commentators, to what is playing on it. This is why, if someone treats me like someone sitting in the peanut gallery, my instinct is to treat them like an actor. Because, in reality, that is what they are.

@ a42048d7:26886c32

DIY Multisig is complex and 100x more likely to fail than you think if you do it yourself: A few years ago as an experiment I put what was then $2,000 worth Bitcoin into a 2 of 3 DIY multisig with two close family members holding two keys on Tapsigners and myself holding the last key on a Coldcard. My thought was to try and preview how they might deal with self custodied multisig Bitcoin if I died prematurely. After over a year I revisited and asked them to try and do a transaction without me. Just send that single Utxo to a new address in the same wallet, no time limit. It could not possibly have failed harder and shook my belief in multisig. To summarize an extremely painful day, there was a literally 0% chance they would figure this out without help. If this had been for real all our BTC may have been lost forever. Maybe eventually a family friend could’ve helped, but I hadn’t thought of that and hadn’t recommended a trusted BTC knowledge/help source. I had preached self sovereignty and doing it alone and my family tried to respect that. I should’ve given them the contact info of local high integrity bitcoiners I trust implicitly. Regardless of setup type, I highly recommend having a trusted Bitcoiner and online resources your family knows they can turn to to trouble shoot. Bookmark the corresponding BTCSessions video to your BTC self custody setup. Multisig is complicated as hell and hard to understand. Complexity is the enemy when it comes to making sure your BTC isn’t lost and actually gets to your heirs. Many Bitcoiners use a similar setup to this one that failed so badly, and I’m telling you unless you’re married to or gave birth to a seriously hardcore maxi who is extremely tech savvy, the risk your Bitcoin is lost upon your death is unacceptably high. My family is extremely smart but when the pressure of now many thousands of dollars was on the line, the complexity of multisig torpedoed them. Don’t run to an ETF! There are answers: singlesig is awesome. From observing my family I’m confident they would’ve been okay in a singlesig setup. It was the process of signing on separate devices with separate signers, and moving a PSBT around that stymied them. If it had been singlesig they would’ve been okay as one signature on its own was accomplished. Do not besmirch singlesig, it’s incredibly powerful and incredibly resilient. Resilience and simplicity are vastly underrated! In my opinion multisig may increase your theoretical security against attacks that are far less likely to actually happen, e.g. an Oceans Eleven style hack/heist. More likely your heirs will be fighting panic, grief, and stress and forget something you taught them a few years back. If they face an attack it will most likely be social engineering/phishing. They are unlikely to face an elaborate heist that would make a fun movie. While I still maintain it was a mistake for Bitkey to not have a separate screen to verify addresses and other info, overall I believe it’s probably the best normie option for small BTC holdings(yes I do know Bitkey is actually multisig, but the UX is basically a single sig). This incident scared me into realizing the importance of simplicity. Complexity and confusion of heirs/family may be the most under-considered aspects of BTC security. If you’ve made a DIY multisig and your heirs can’t explain why they need all three public keys and what a descriptor is and where it’s backed up, you might as well just go have that boating accident now and get it over with. Once you get past small amounts of BTC, any reputable hardware wallet in singlesig is amazing security I would encourage folks to consider. In a singlesig setup - For $5 wrench attack concerns, just don’t have your hardware signer or steel backup at your home. You can just have a hot wallet on your phone with a small amount for spending. If you get a really big stack collaborative multisig is a potentially reasonable middle ground. Just be very thoughtful and brutally honest about your heirs and their BTC and general tech knowledge. Singlesig is still great and you don’t have to move past it, but I get that you also need to sleep at night. If you have truly life changing wealth and are just too uncomfortable with singlesig, maybe consider either 1) Anchorwatch to get the potential benefits of multisig security with the safety net of traditional insurance or 2) Liana wallet where you can use miniscript to effectively have a time locked singlesig spending path to a key held by a third party to help your family recover your funds if they can’t figure it out before that timelock hits, 3) Bitcoin Keeper with their automatic inheritance docs and mini script enabled inheritance key. The automatic inheritance docs are a best in class feature no one else has done yet. Unchained charges $200 for inheritance docs on top of your $250 annual subscription, which imho is beyond ridiculous. 4) Swan vault, I’ve generally soured on most traditional 2 of 3 collaborative multisig because I’ve always found holes either in security (Unchained signed a transaction in only a few hours and has no defined time delay, and still doesn’t support Segwit, seriously guys, wtf?), only support signers that are harder to use and thus tough for noobs, or the overall setups are just too complex. Swan Vault’s focus on keeping it as simple as possible really stands out against competitors that tack on unneeded confusion complexity. TLDR: For small amounts of BTC use Bitkey. For medium to large amounts use singlesig with a reputable hardware wallet and steel backup. For life changing wealth where you just can no longer stomach sinsglesig maybe also consider Anchorwatch, Bitcoin Keeper, Sean Vault, or Liana. Don’t forget your steel backups! Be safe out there! Do your own research and don’t take my word for it. Just use this as inspiration to consider an alternative point of view. If you’re a family of software engineers, feel free to tell me to go fuck myself.