-
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@ 6e0ea5d6:0327f353
2025-02-21 18:15:52
"Malcolm Forbes recounts that a lady, wearing a faded cotton dress, and her husband, dressed in an old handmade suit, stepped off a train in Boston, USA, and timidly made their way to the office of the president of Harvard University. They had come from Palo Alto, California, and had not scheduled an appointment. The secretary, at a glance, thought that those two, looking like country bumpkins, had no business at Harvard.
— We want to speak with the president — the man said in a low voice.
— He will be busy all day — the secretary replied curtly.
— We will wait.
The secretary ignored them for hours, hoping the couple would finally give up and leave. But they stayed there, and the secretary, somewhat frustrated, decided to bother the president, although she hated doing that.
— If you speak with them for just a few minutes, maybe they will decide to go away — she said.
The president sighed in irritation but agreed. Someone of his importance did not have time to meet people like that, but he hated faded dresses and tattered suits in his office. With a stern face, he went to the couple.
— We had a son who studied at Harvard for a year — the woman said. — He loved Harvard and was very happy here, but a year ago he died in an accident, and we would like to erect a monument in his honor somewhere on campus.
— My lady — said the president rudely —, we cannot erect a statue for every person who studied at Harvard and died; if we did, this place would look like a cemetery.
— Oh, no — the lady quickly replied. — We do not want to erect a statue. We would like to donate a building to Harvard.
The president looked at the woman's faded dress and her husband's old suit and exclaimed:
— A building! Do you have even the faintest idea of how much a building costs? We have more than seven and a half million dollars' worth of buildings here at Harvard.
The lady was silent for a moment, then said to her husband:
— If that’s all it costs to found a university, why don’t we have our own?
The husband agreed.
The couple, Leland Stanford, stood up and left, leaving the president confused. Traveling back to Palo Alto, California, they established there Stanford University, the second-largest in the world, in honor of their son, a former Harvard student."
Text extracted from: "Mileumlivros - Stories that Teach Values."
Thank you for reading, my friend!
If this message helped you in any way,
consider leaving your glass “🥃” as a token of appreciation.
A toast to our family!
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@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1
2025-02-15 07:02:08
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
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@ 0fa80bd3:ea7325de
2025-02-14 23:24:37
#intro
The Russian state made me a Bitcoiner. In 1991, it devalued my grandmother's hard-earned savings. She worked tirelessly in the kitchen of a dining car on the Moscow–Warsaw route. Everything she had saved for my sister and me to attend university vanished overnight. This story is similar to what many experienced, including Wences Casares. The pain and injustice of that time became my first lessons about the fragility of systems and the value of genuine, incorruptible assets, forever changing my perception of money and my trust in government promises.
In 2014, I was living in Moscow, running a trading business, and frequently traveling to China. One day, I learned about the Cypriot banking crisis and the possibility of moving money through some strange thing called Bitcoin. At the time, I didn’t give it much thought. Returning to the idea six months later, as a business-oriented geek, I eagerly began studying the topic and soon dove into it seriously.
I spent half a year reading articles on a local online journal, BitNovosti, actively participating in discussions, and eventually joined the editorial team as a translator. That’s how I learned about whitepapers, decentralization, mining, cryptographic keys, and colored coins. About Satoshi Nakamoto, Silk Road, Mt. Gox, and BitcoinTalk. Over time, I befriended the journal’s owner and, leveraging my management experience, later became an editor. I was drawn to the crypto-anarchist stance and commitment to decentralization principles. We wrote about the economic, historical, and social preconditions for Bitcoin’s emergence, and it was during this time that I fully embraced the idea.
It got to the point where I sold my apartment and, during the market's downturn, bought 50 bitcoins, just after the peak price of $1,200 per coin. That marked the beginning of my first crypto winter. As an editor, I organized workflows, managed translators, developed a YouTube channel, and attended conferences in Russia and Ukraine. That’s how I learned about Wences Casares and even wrote a piece about him. I also met Mikhail Chobanyan (Ukrainian exchange Kuna), Alexander Ivanov (Waves project), Konstantin Lomashuk (Lido project), and, of course, Vitalik Buterin. It was a time of complete immersion, 24/7, and boundless hope.
After moving to the United States, I expected the industry to grow rapidly, attended events, but the introduction of BitLicense froze the industry for eight years. By 2017, it became clear that the industry was shifting toward gambling and creating tokens for the sake of tokens. I dismissed this idea as unsustainable. Then came a new crypto spring with the hype around beautiful NFTs – CryptoPunks and apes.
I made another attempt – we worked on a series called Digital Nomad Country Club, aimed at creating a global project. The proceeds from selling images were intended to fund the development of business tools for people worldwide. However, internal disagreements within the team prevented us from completing the project.
With Trump’s arrival in 2025, hope was reignited. I decided that it was time to create a project that society desperately needed. As someone passionate about history, I understood that destroying what exists was not the solution, but leaving everything as it was also felt unacceptable. You can’t destroy the system, as the fiery crypto-anarchist voices claimed.
With an analytical mindset (IQ 130) and a deep understanding of the freest societies, I realized what was missing—not only in Russia or the United States but globally—a Bitcoin-native system for tracking debts and financial interactions. This could return control of money to ordinary people and create horizontal connections parallel to state systems. My goal was to create, if not a Bitcoin killer app, then at least to lay its foundation.
At the inauguration event in New York, I rediscovered the Nostr project. I realized it was not only technologically simple and already quite popular but also perfectly aligned with my vision. For the past month and a half, using insights and experience gained since 2014, I’ve been working full-time on this project.
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@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365
2025-02-13 06:16:49
My favorite line in any Marvel movie ever is in “Captain America.” After Captain America launches seemingly a hopeless assault on Red Skull’s base and is captured, we get [this line](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kqsomjpz7ok):
“Arrogance may not be a uniquely American trait, but I must say, you do it better than anyone.”
Yesterday, I came across a comment on the song [Devil Went Down to Georgia](https://youtu.be/ut8UqFlWdDc) that had a very similar feel to it:
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America has seemingly always been arrogant, in a uniquely American way. Manifest Destiny, for instance. The rest of the world is aware of this arrogance, and mocks Americans for it. A central point in modern US politics is the deriding of racist, nationalist, supremacist Americans.
That’s not what I see. I see American Arrogance as not only a beautiful statement about what it means to be American. I see it as an ode to the greatness of humanity in its purest form.
For most countries, saying “our nation is the greatest” *is*, in fact, twinged with some level of racism. I still don’t have a problem with it. Every group of people *should* be allowed to feel pride in their accomplishments. The destruction of the human spirit since the end of World War 2, where greatness has become a sin and weakness a virtue, has crushed the ability of people worldwide to strive for excellence.
But I digress. The fears of racism and nationalism at least have a grain of truth when applied to other nations on the planet. But not to America.
That’s because the definition of America, and the prototype of an American, has nothing to do with race. The definition of Americanism is *freedom*. The founding of America is based purely on liberty. On the God-given rights of every person to live life the way they see fit.
American Arrogance is not a statement of racial superiority. It’s barely a statement of national superiority (though it absolutely is). To me, when an American comments on the greatness of America, it’s a statement about freedom. Freedom will always unlock the greatness inherent in any group of people. Americans are *definitionally* better than everyone else, because Americans are freer than everyone else. (Or, at least, that’s how it should be.)
In *Devil Went Down to Georgia*, Johnny is approached by the devil himself. He is challenged to a ridiculously lopsided bet: a golden fiddle versus his immortal soul. He acknowledges the sin in accepting such a proposal. And yet he says, “God, I know you told me not to do this. But I can’t stand the affront to my honor. I am the greatest. The devil has nothing on me. So God, I’m gonna sin, but I’m also gonna win.”
*Libertas magnitudo est*
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@ daa41bed:88f54153
2025-02-09 16:50:04
There has been a good bit of discussion on Nostr over the past few days about the merits of zaps as a method of engaging with notes, so after writing a rather lengthy [article on the pros of a strategic Bitcoin reserve](https://geek.npub.pro/post/dxqkgnjplttkvetprg8ox/), I wanted to take some time to chime in on the much more fun topic of digital engagement.
Let's begin by defining a couple of things:
**Nostr** is a decentralized, censorship-resistance protocol whose current biggest use case is social media (think Twitter/X). Instead of relying on company servers, it relies on relays that anyone can spin up and own their own content. Its use cases are much bigger, though, and this article is hosted on my own relay, using my own Nostr relay as an example.
**Zap** is a tip or donation denominated in sats (small units of Bitcoin) sent from one user to another. This is generally done directly over the Lightning Network but is increasingly using Cashu tokens. For the sake of this discussion, how you transmit/receive zaps will be irrelevant, so don't worry if you don't know what [Lightning](https://lightning.network/) or [Cashu](https://cashu.space/) are.
If we look at how users engage with posts and follows/followers on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc., it becomes evident that traditional social media thrives on engagement farming. The more outrageous a post, the more likely it will get a reaction. We see a version of this on more visual social platforms like YouTube and TikTok that use carefully crafted thumbnail images to grab the user's attention to click the video. If you'd like to dive deep into the psychology and science behind social media engagement, let me know, and I'd be happy to follow up with another article.
In this user engagement model, a user is given the option to comment or like the original post, or share it among their followers to increase its signal. They receive no value from engaging with the content aside from the dopamine hit of the original experience or having their comment liked back by whatever influencer they provide value to. Ad revenue flows to the content creator. Clout flows to the content creator. Sales revenue from merch and content placement flows to the content creator. We call this a linear economy -- the idea that resources get created, used up, then thrown away. Users create content and farm as much engagement as possible, then the content is forgotten within a few hours as they move on to the next piece of content to be farmed.
What if there were a simple way to give value back to those who engage with your content? By implementing some value-for-value model -- a circular economy. Enter zaps.
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Unlike traditional social media platforms, Nostr does not actively use algorithms to determine what content is popular, nor does it push content created for active user engagement to the top of a user's timeline. Yes, there are "trending" and "most zapped" timelines that users can choose to use as their default, but these use relatively straightforward engagement metrics to rank posts for these timelines.
That is not to say that we may not see clients actively seeking to refine timeline algorithms for specific metrics. Still, the beauty of having an open protocol with media that is controlled solely by its users is that users who begin to see their timeline gamed towards specific algorithms can choose to move to another client, and for those who are more tech-savvy, they can opt to run their own relays or create their own clients with personalized algorithms and web of trust scoring systems.
Zaps enable the means to create a new type of social media economy in which creators can earn for creating content and users can earn by actively engaging with it. Like and reposting content is relatively frictionless and costs nothing but a simple button tap. Zaps provide active engagement because they signal to your followers and those of the content creator that this post has genuine value, quite literally in the form of money—sats.
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I have seen some comments on Nostr claiming that removing likes and reactions is for wealthy people who can afford to send zaps and that the majority of people in the US and around the world do not have the time or money to zap because they have better things to spend their money like feeding their families and paying their bills. While at face value, these may seem like valid arguments, they, unfortunately, represent the brainwashed, defeatist attitude that our current economic (and, by extension, social media) systems aim to instill in all of us to continue extracting value from our lives.
Imagine now, if those people dedicating their own time (time = money) to mine pity points on social media would instead spend that time with genuine value creation by posting content that is meaningful to cultural discussions. Imagine if, instead of complaining that their posts get no zaps and going on a tirade about how much of a victim they are, they would empower themselves to take control of their content and give value back to the world; where would that leave us? How much value could be created on a nascent platform such as Nostr, and how quickly could it overtake other platforms?
Other users argue about user experience and that additional friction (i.e., zaps) leads to lower engagement, as proven by decades of studies on user interaction. While the added friction may turn some users away, does that necessarily provide less value? I argue quite the opposite. You haven't made a few sats from zaps with your content? Can't afford to send some sats to a wallet for zapping? How about using the most excellent available resource and spending 10 seconds of your time to leave a comment? Likes and reactions are valueless transactions. Social media's real value derives from providing monetary compensation and actively engaging in a conversation with posts you find interesting or thought-provoking. Remember when humans thrived on conversation and discussion for entertainment instead of simply being an onlooker of someone else's life?
If you've made it this far, my only request is this: try only zapping and commenting as a method of engagement for two weeks. Sure, you may end up liking a post here and there, but be more mindful of how you interact with the world and break yourself from blind instinct. You'll thank me later.
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@ 91bea5cd:1df4451c
2025-02-04 17:24:50
### Definição de ULID:
Timestamp 48 bits, Aleatoriedade 80 bits
Sendo Timestamp 48 bits inteiro, tempo UNIX em milissegundos, Não ficará sem espaço até o ano 10889 d.C.
e Aleatoriedade 80 bits, Fonte criptograficamente segura de aleatoriedade, se possível.
#### Gerar ULID
```sql
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pgcrypto;
CREATE FUNCTION generate_ulid()
RETURNS TEXT
AS $$
DECLARE
-- Crockford's Base32
encoding BYTEA = '0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ';
timestamp BYTEA = E'\\000\\000\\000\\000\\000\\000';
output TEXT = '';
unix_time BIGINT;
ulid BYTEA;
BEGIN
-- 6 timestamp bytes
unix_time = (EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM CLOCK_TIMESTAMP()) * 1000)::BIGINT;
timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 0, (unix_time >> 40)::BIT(8)::INTEGER);
timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 1, (unix_time >> 32)::BIT(8)::INTEGER);
timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 2, (unix_time >> 24)::BIT(8)::INTEGER);
timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 3, (unix_time >> 16)::BIT(8)::INTEGER);
timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 4, (unix_time >> 8)::BIT(8)::INTEGER);
timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 5, unix_time::BIT(8)::INTEGER);
-- 10 entropy bytes
ulid = timestamp || gen_random_bytes(10);
-- Encode the timestamp
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 0) & 224) >> 5));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 0) & 31)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 1) & 248) >> 3));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 1) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 2) & 192) >> 6)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 2) & 62) >> 1));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 2) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 3) & 240) >> 4)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 3) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 4) & 128) >> 7)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 4) & 124) >> 2));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 4) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 5) & 224) >> 5)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 5) & 31)));
-- Encode the entropy
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 6) & 248) >> 3));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 6) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 7) & 192) >> 6)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 7) & 62) >> 1));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 7) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 8) & 240) >> 4)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 8) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 9) & 128) >> 7)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 9) & 124) >> 2));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 9) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 10) & 224) >> 5)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 10) & 31)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 11) & 248) >> 3));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 11) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 12) & 192) >> 6)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 12) & 62) >> 1));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 12) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 13) & 240) >> 4)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 13) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 14) & 128) >> 7)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 14) & 124) >> 2));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 14) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 15) & 224) >> 5)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 15) & 31)));
RETURN output;
END
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql
VOLATILE;
```
#### ULID TO UUID
```sql
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION parse_ulid(ulid text) RETURNS bytea AS $$
DECLARE
-- 16byte
bytes bytea = E'\\x00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000';
v char[];
-- Allow for O(1) lookup of index values
dec integer[] = ARRAY[
255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255,
255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255,
255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255,
255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255,
255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 255, 255, 255,
255, 255, 255, 255, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 1, 18, 19, 1, 20, 21, 0, 22,
23, 24, 25, 26, 255, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31,
255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14, 15, 16, 17, 1, 18, 19, 1, 20, 21,
0, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 255, 27, 28, 29,
30, 31
];
BEGIN
IF NOT ulid ~* '^[0-7][0-9ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ]{25}$' THEN
RAISE EXCEPTION 'Invalid ULID: %', ulid;
END IF;
v = regexp_split_to_array(ulid, '');
-- 6 bytes timestamp (48 bits)
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 0, (dec[ASCII(v[1])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[2])]);
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 1, (dec[ASCII(v[3])] << 3) | (dec[ASCII(v[4])] >> 2));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 2, (dec[ASCII(v[4])] << 6) | (dec[ASCII(v[5])] << 1) | (dec[ASCII(v[6])] >> 4));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 3, (dec[ASCII(v[6])] << 4) | (dec[ASCII(v[7])] >> 1));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 4, (dec[ASCII(v[7])] << 7) | (dec[ASCII(v[8])] << 2) | (dec[ASCII(v[9])] >> 3));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 5, (dec[ASCII(v[9])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[10])]);
-- 10 bytes of entropy (80 bits);
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 6, (dec[ASCII(v[11])] << 3) | (dec[ASCII(v[12])] >> 2));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 7, (dec[ASCII(v[12])] << 6) | (dec[ASCII(v[13])] << 1) | (dec[ASCII(v[14])] >> 4));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 8, (dec[ASCII(v[14])] << 4) | (dec[ASCII(v[15])] >> 1));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 9, (dec[ASCII(v[15])] << 7) | (dec[ASCII(v[16])] << 2) | (dec[ASCII(v[17])] >> 3));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 10, (dec[ASCII(v[17])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[18])]);
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 11, (dec[ASCII(v[19])] << 3) | (dec[ASCII(v[20])] >> 2));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 12, (dec[ASCII(v[20])] << 6) | (dec[ASCII(v[21])] << 1) | (dec[ASCII(v[22])] >> 4));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 13, (dec[ASCII(v[22])] << 4) | (dec[ASCII(v[23])] >> 1));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 14, (dec[ASCII(v[23])] << 7) | (dec[ASCII(v[24])] << 2) | (dec[ASCII(v[25])] >> 3));
bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 15, (dec[ASCII(v[25])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[26])]);
RETURN bytes;
END
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql
IMMUTABLE;
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION ulid_to_uuid(ulid text) RETURNS uuid AS $$
BEGIN
RETURN encode(parse_ulid(ulid), 'hex')::uuid;
END
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql
IMMUTABLE;
```
#### UUID to ULID
```sql
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION uuid_to_ulid(id uuid) RETURNS text AS $$
DECLARE
encoding bytea = '0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ';
output text = '';
uuid_bytes bytea = uuid_send(id);
BEGIN
-- Encode the timestamp
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 0) & 224) >> 5));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 0) & 31)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 1) & 248) >> 3));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 1) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 2) & 192) >> 6)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 2) & 62) >> 1));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 2) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 3) & 240) >> 4)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 3) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 4) & 128) >> 7)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 4) & 124) >> 2));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 4) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 5) & 224) >> 5)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 5) & 31)));
-- Encode the entropy
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 6) & 248) >> 3));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 6) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 7) & 192) >> 6)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 7) & 62) >> 1));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 7) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 8) & 240) >> 4)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 8) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 9) & 128) >> 7)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 9) & 124) >> 2));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 9) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 10) & 224) >> 5)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 10) & 31)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 11) & 248) >> 3));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 11) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 12) & 192) >> 6)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 12) & 62) >> 1));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 12) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 13) & 240) >> 4)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 13) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 14) & 128) >> 7)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 14) & 124) >> 2));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 14) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 15) & 224) >> 5)));
output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 15) & 31)));
RETURN output;
END
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql
IMMUTABLE;
```
#### Gera 11 Digitos aleatórios: YBKXG0CKTH4
```sql
-- Cria a extensão pgcrypto para gerar uuid
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pgcrypto;
-- Cria a função para gerar ULID
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION gen_lrandom()
RETURNS TEXT AS $$
DECLARE
ts_millis BIGINT;
ts_chars TEXT;
random_bytes BYTEA;
random_chars TEXT;
base32_chars TEXT := '0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ';
i INT;
BEGIN
-- Pega o timestamp em milissegundos
ts_millis := FLOOR(EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM clock_timestamp()) * 1000)::BIGINT;
-- Converte o timestamp para base32
ts_chars := '';
FOR i IN REVERSE 0..11 LOOP
ts_chars := ts_chars || substr(base32_chars, ((ts_millis >> (5 * i)) & 31) + 1, 1);
END LOOP;
-- Gera 10 bytes aleatórios e converte para base32
random_bytes := gen_random_bytes(10);
random_chars := '';
FOR i IN 0..9 LOOP
random_chars := random_chars || substr(base32_chars, ((get_byte(random_bytes, i) >> 3) & 31) + 1, 1);
IF i < 9 THEN
random_chars := random_chars || substr(base32_chars, (((get_byte(random_bytes, i) & 7) << 2) | (get_byte(random_bytes, i + 1) >> 6)) & 31 + 1, 1);
ELSE
random_chars := random_chars || substr(base32_chars, ((get_byte(random_bytes, i) & 7) << 2) + 1, 1);
END IF;
END LOOP;
-- Concatena o timestamp e os caracteres aleatórios
RETURN ts_chars || random_chars;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
```
#### Exemplo de USO
```sql
-- Criação da extensão caso não exista
CREATE EXTENSION
IF
NOT EXISTS pgcrypto;
-- Criação da tabela pessoas
CREATE TABLE pessoas ( ID UUID DEFAULT gen_random_uuid ( ) PRIMARY KEY, nome TEXT NOT NULL );
-- Busca Pessoa na tabela
SELECT
*
FROM
"pessoas"
WHERE
uuid_to_ulid ( ID ) = '252FAC9F3V8EF80SSDK8PXW02F';
```
### Fontes
- https://github.com/scoville/pgsql-ulid
- https://github.com/geckoboard/pgulid
-

@ 9e69e420:d12360c2
2025-02-01 11:16:04

Federal employees must remove pronouns from email signatures by the end of the day. This directive comes from internal memos tied to two executive orders signed by Donald Trump. The orders target diversity and equity programs within the government.

CDC, Department of Transportation, and Department of Energy employees were affected. Staff were instructed to make changes in line with revised policy prohibiting certain language.
One CDC employee shared frustration, stating, “In my decade-plus years at CDC, I've never been told what I can and can't put in my email signature.” The directive is part of a broader effort to eliminate DEI initiatives from federal discourse.
-

@ 6be5cc06:5259daf0
2025-01-21 20:58:37
A seguir, veja como instalar e configurar o **Privoxy** no **Pop!_OS**.
---
### **1. Instalar o Tor e o Privoxy**
Abra o terminal e execute:
```bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt install tor privoxy
```
**Explicação:**
- **Tor:** Roteia o tráfego pela rede Tor.
- **Privoxy:** Proxy avançado que intermedia a conexão entre aplicativos e o Tor.
---
### **2. Configurar o Privoxy**
Abra o arquivo de configuração do Privoxy:
```bash
sudo nano /etc/privoxy/config
```
Navegue até a última linha (atalho: **`Ctrl`** + **`/`** depois **`Ctrl`** + **`V`** para navegar diretamente até a última linha) e insira:
```bash
forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
```
Isso faz com que o **Privoxy** envie todo o tráfego para o **Tor** através da porta **9050**.
Salve (**`CTRL`** + **`O`** e **`Enter`**) e feche (**`CTRL`** + **`X`**) o arquivo.
---
### **3. Iniciar o Tor e o Privoxy**
Agora, inicie e habilite os serviços:
```bash
sudo systemctl start tor
sudo systemctl start privoxy
sudo systemctl enable tor
sudo systemctl enable privoxy
```
**Explicação:**
- **start:** Inicia os serviços.
- **enable:** Faz com que iniciem automaticamente ao ligar o PC.
---
### **4. Configurar o Navegador Firefox**
Para usar a rede **Tor** com o Firefox:
1. Abra o Firefox.
2. Acesse **Configurações** → **Configurar conexão**.
3. Selecione **Configuração manual de proxy**.
4. Configure assim:
- **Proxy HTTP:** `127.0.0.1`
- **Porta:** `8118` (porta padrão do **Privoxy**)
- **Domínio SOCKS (v5):** `127.0.0.1`
- **Porta:** `9050`
5. Marque a opção **"Usar este proxy também em HTTPS"**.
6. Clique em **OK**.
---
### **5. Verificar a Conexão com o Tor**
Abra o navegador e acesse:
```text
https://check.torproject.org/
```
Se aparecer a mensagem **"Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor."**, a configuração está correta.
---
### **Dicas Extras**
- **Privoxy** pode ser ajustado para bloquear anúncios e rastreadores.
- Outros aplicativos também podem ser configurados para usar o **Privoxy**.
-

@ b17fccdf:b7211155
2025-01-21 17:02:21
The past 26 August, Tor [introduced officially](https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-proof-of-work-defense-for-onion-services/) a proof-of-work (PoW) defense for onion services designed to prioritize verified network traffic as a deterrent against denial of service (DoS) attacks.
~ > This feature at the moment, is [deactivate by default](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/blob/main/doc/man/tor.1.txt#L3117), so you need to follow these steps to activate this on a MiniBolt node:
* Make sure you have the latest version of Tor installed, at the time of writing this post, which is v0.4.8.6. Check your current version by typing
```
tor --version
```
**Example** of expected output:
```
Tor version 0.4.8.6.
This build of Tor is covered by the GNU General Public License (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html)
Tor is running on Linux with Libevent 2.1.12-stable, OpenSSL 3.0.9, Zlib 1.2.13, Liblzma 5.4.1, Libzstd N/A and Glibc 2.36 as libc.
Tor compiled with GCC version 12.2.0
```
~ > If you have v0.4.8.X, you are **OK**, if not, type `sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade` and confirm to update.
* Basic PoW support can be checked by running this command:
```
tor --list-modules
```
Expected output:
```
relay: yes
dirauth: yes
dircache: yes
pow: **yes**
```
~ > If you have `pow: yes`, you are **OK**
* Now go to the torrc file of your MiniBolt and add the parameter to enable PoW for each hidden service added
```
sudo nano /etc/tor/torrc
```
Example:
```
# Hidden Service BTC RPC Explorer
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service_btcrpcexplorer/
HiddenServiceVersion 3
HiddenServicePoWDefensesEnabled 1
HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:3002
```
~ > Bitcoin Core and LND use the Tor control port to automatically create the hidden service, requiring no action from the user. We have submitted a feature request in the official GitHub repositories to explore the need for the integration of Tor's PoW defense into the automatic creation process of the hidden service. You can follow them at the following links:
* Bitcoin Core: https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/issues/8002
* LND: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/28499
---
More info:
* https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-proof-of-work-defense-for-onion-services/
* https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/wikis/Documentation/PoW-FAQ
---
Enjoy it MiniBolter! 💙
-

@ 3f770d65:7a745b24
2025-01-19 21:48:49
The recent shutdown of TikTok in the United States due to a potential government ban serves as a stark reminder how fragile centralized platforms truly are under the surface. While these platforms offer convenience, a more polished user experience, and connectivity, they are ultimately beholden to governments, corporations, and other authorities. This makes them vulnerable to censorship, regulation, and outright bans. In contrast, Nostr represents a shift in how we approach online communication and content sharing. Built on the principles of decentralization and user choice, Nostr cannot be banned, because it is not a platform—it is a protocol.
**PROTOCOLS, NOT PLATFORMS.**
At the heart of Nostr's philosophy is **user choice**, a feature that fundamentally sets it apart from legacy platforms. In centralized systems, the user experience is dictated by a single person or governing entity. If the platform decides to filter, censor, or ban specific users or content, individuals are left with little action to rectify the situation. They must either accept the changes or abandon the platform entirely, often at the cost of losing their social connections, their data, and their identity.
What's happening with TikTok could never happen on Nostr. With Nostr, the dynamics are completely different. Because it is a protocol, not a platform, no single entity controls the ecosystem. Instead, the protocol enables a network of applications and relays that users can freely choose from. If a particular application or relay implements policies that a user disagrees with, such as censorship, filtering, or even government enforced banning, they are not trapped or abandoned. They have the freedom to move to another application or relay with minimal effort.
**THIS IS POWERFUL.**
Take, for example, the case of a relay that decides to censor specific content. On a legacy platform, this would result in frustration and a loss of access for users. On Nostr, however, users can simply connect to a different relay that does not impose such restrictions. Similarly, if an application introduces features or policies that users dislike, they can migrate to a different application that better suits their preferences, all while retaining their identity and social connections.
The same principles apply to government bans and censorship. A government can ban a specific application or even multiple applications, just as it can block one relay or several relays. China has implemented both tactics, yet Chinese users continue to exist and actively participate on Nostr, demonstrating Nostr's ability to resistant censorship.
How? Simply, it turns into a game of whack-a-mole. When one relay is censored, another quickly takes its place. When one application is banned, another emerges. Users can also bypass these obstacles by running their own relays and applications directly from their homes or personal devices, eliminating reliance on larger entities or organizations and ensuring continuous access.
**AGAIN, THIS IS POWERUFL.**
Nostr's open and decentralized design makes it resistant to the kinds of government intervention that led to TikTok's outages this weekend and potential future ban in the next 90 days. There is no central server to target, no company to regulate, and no single point of failure. (Insert your CEO jokes here). As long as there are individuals running relays and applications, users continue creating notes and sending zaps.
Platforms like TikTok can be silenced with the stroke of a pen, leaving millions of users disconnected and abandoned. Social communication should not be silenced so incredibly easily. No one should have that much power over social interactions.
Will we on-board a massive wave of TikTokers in the coming hours or days? I don't know.
TikTokers may not be ready for Nostr yet, and honestly, Nostr may not be ready for them either. The ecosystem still lacks the completely polished applications, tools, and services they’re accustomed to. This is where we say "we're still early". They may not be early adopters like the current Nostr user base. Until we bridge that gap, they’ll likely move to the next centralized platform, only to face another government ban or round of censorship in the future. But eventually, there will come a tipping point, a moment when they’ve had enough. When that time comes, I hope we’re prepared. If we’re not, we risk missing a tremendous opportunity to onboard people who genuinely need Nostr’s freedom.
Until then, to all of the Nostr developers out there, keep up the great work and keep building. Your hard work and determination is needed.
###
-
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@ cff1720e:15c7e2b2
2025-01-19 17:48:02
**Einleitung**\
\
Schwierige Dinge einfach zu erklären ist der Anspruch von ELI5 (explain me like I'm 5). Das ist in unserer hoch technisierten Welt dringend erforderlich, denn nur mit dem Verständnis der Technologien können wir sie richtig einsetzen und weiter entwickeln.\
Ich starte meine Serie mit Nostr, einem relativ neuen Internet-Protokoll. Was zum Teufel ist ein Internet-Protokoll? Formal beschrieben sind es internationale Standards, die dafür sorgen, dass das Internet seit über 30 Jahren ziemlich gut funktioniert. Es ist die Sprache, in der sich die Rechner miteinander unterhalten und die auch Sie täglich nutzen, vermutlich ohne es bewusst wahrzunehmen. http(s) transportiert ihre Anfrage an einen Server (z.B. Amazon), und html sorgt dafür, dass aus den gelieferten Daten eine schöne Seite auf ihrem Bildschirm entsteht. Eine Mail wird mit smtp an den Mailserver gesendet und mit imap von ihm abgerufen, und da alle den Standard verwenden, funktioniert das mit jeder App auf jedem Betriebssystem und mit jedem Mail-Provider. Und mit einer Mail-Adresse wie <roland@pareto.space> können sie sogar jederzeit umziehen, egal wohin. **Cool, das ist state of the art!** Aber warum funktioniert das z.B. bei Chat nicht, gibt es da kein Protokoll? Doch, es heißt IRC (Internet Relay Chat → merken sie sich den Namen), aber es wird so gut wie nicht verwendet. Die Gründe dafür sind nicht technischer Natur, vielmehr wurden mit Apps wie Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, TikTok u.a. bewusst Inkompatibilitäten und Nutzerabhängigkeiten geschaffen um Profite zu maximieren.

**Warum Nostr?**
Da das Standard-Protokoll nicht genutzt wird, hat jede App ihr eigenes, und wir brauchen eine handvoll Apps um uns mit allen Bekannten auszutauschen. Eine Mobilfunknummer ist Voraussetzung für jedes Konto, damit können die App-Hersteller die Nutzer umfassend tracken und mit dem Verkauf der Informationen bis zu 30 USD je Konto und Monat verdienen. Der Nutzer ist nicht mehr Kunde, er ist das Produkt! Der Werbe-SPAM ist noch das kleinste Problem bei diesem Geschäftsmodell. Server mit Millionen von Nutzerdaten sind ein “honey pot”, dementsprechend oft werden sie gehackt und die Zugangsdaten verkauft. 2024 wurde auch der Twitter-Account vom damaligen Präsidenten Joe Biden gehackt, niemand wusste mehr wer die Nachrichten verfasst hat (vorher auch nicht), d.h. die Authentizität der Inhalte ist bei keinem dieser Anbieter gewährleistet. Im selben Jahr wurde der Telegram-Gründer in Frankreich in Beugehaft genommen, weil er sich geweigert hatte Hintertüren in seine Software einzubauen. Nun kann zum Schutz **"unserer Demokratie”** praktisch jeder mitlesen, was sie mit wem an Informationen austauschen, z.B. darüber welches Shampoo bestimmte Politiker verwenden.

Und wer tatsächlich glaubt er könne Meinungsfreiheit auf sozialen Medien praktizieren, findet sich schnell in der Situation von Donald Trump wieder (seinerzeit amtierender Präsident), dem sein Twitter-Konto 2021 abgeschaltet wurde (Cancel-Culture). Die Nutzerdaten, also ihr Profil, ihre Kontakte, Dokumente, Bilder, Videos und Audiofiles - gehören ihnen ohnehin nicht mehr sondern sind Eigentum des Plattform-Betreibers; lesen sie sich mal die AGB's durch. Aber nein, keine gute Idee, das sind hunderte Seiten und sie werden permanent geändert. Alle nutzen also Apps, deren Technik sie nicht verstehen, deren Regeln sie nicht kennen, wo sie keine Rechte haben und die ihnen die Resultate ihres Handelns stehlen. Was würde wohl der Fünfjährige sagen, wenn ihm seine ältere Schwester anbieten würde, alle seine Spielzeuge zu “verwalten” und dann auszuhändigen wenn er brav ist? “Du spinnst wohl”, und damit beweist der Knirps mehr Vernunft als die Mehrzahl der Erwachsenen. \
\
**Resümee:** keine Standards, keine Daten, keine Rechte = keine Zukunft!

\
**Wie funktioniert Nostr?**
Die Entwickler von Nostr haben erkannt dass sich das Server-Client-Konzept in ein Master-Slave-Konzept verwandelt hatte. Der Master ist ein Synonym für Zentralisierung und wird zum **“single point of failure”**, der zwangsläufig Systeme dysfunktional macht. In einem verteilten Peer2Peer-System gibt es keine Master mehr sondern nur gleichberechtigte Knoten (Relays), auf denen die Informationen gespeichert werden. Indem man Informationen auf mehreren Relays redundant speichert, ist das System in jeglicher Hinsicht resilienter. Nicht nur die Natur verwendet dieses Prinzip seit Jahrmillionen erfolgreich, auch das Internet wurde so konzipiert (das ARPAnet wurde vom US-Militär für den Einsatz in Kriegsfällen unter massiven Störungen entwickelt). Alle Nostr-Daten liegen auf Relays und der Nutzer kann wählen zwischen öffentlichen (zumeist kostenlosen) und privaten Relays, z.B. für geschlossene Gruppen oder zum Zwecke von Daten-Archivierung. Da Dokumente auf mehreren Relays gespeichert sind, werden statt URL's (Locator) eindeutige Dokumentnamen (URI's = Identifier) verwendet, broken Links sind damit Vergangenheit und Löschungen / Verluste ebenfalls.\
\
Jedes Dokument (Event genannt) wird vom Besitzer signiert, es ist damit authentisch und fälschungssicher und kann nur vom Ersteller gelöscht werden. Dafür wird ein Schlüsselpaar verwendet bestehend aus privatem (nsec) und öffentlichem Schlüssel (npub) wie aus der Mailverschlüsselung (PGP) bekannt. Das repräsentiert eine Nostr-Identität, die um Bild, Namen, Bio und eine lesbare Nostr-Adresse ergänzt werden kann (z.B. <roland@pareto.space> ), mehr braucht es nicht um alle Ressourcen des Nostr-Ökosystems zu nutzen. Und das besteht inzwischen aus über hundert Apps mit unterschiedlichen Fokussierungen, z.B. für persönliche verschlüsselte Nachrichten (DM → OxChat), Kurznachrichten (Damus, Primal), Blogbeiträge (Pareto), Meetups (Joinstr), Gruppen (Groups), Bilder (Olas), Videos (Amethyst), Audio-Chat (Nostr Nests), Audio-Streams (Tunestr), Video-Streams (Zap.Stream), Marktplätze (Shopstr) u.v.a.m. Die Anmeldung erfolgt mit einem Klick (single sign on) und den Apps stehen ALLE Nutzerdaten zur Verfügung (Profil, Daten, Kontakte, Social Graph → Follower, Bookmarks, Comments, etc.), im Gegensatz zu den fragmentierten Datensilos der Gegenwart.\
\
**Resümee:** ein offener Standard, alle Daten, alle Rechte = große Zukunft!

\
**Warum ist Nostr die Zukunft des Internet?**
“Baue Dein Haus nicht auf einem fremden Grundstück” gilt auch im Internet - für alle App-Entwickler, Künstler, Journalisten und Nutzer, denn auch ihre Daten sind werthaltig. Nostr garantiert das Eigentum an den Daten, und überwindet ihre Fragmentierung. Weder die Nutzung noch die kreativen Freiheiten werden durch maßlose Lizenz- und Nutzungsbedingungen eingeschränkt. Aus passiven Nutzern werden durch Interaktion aktive Teilnehmer, Co-Creatoren in einer Sharing-Ökonomie **(Value4Value)**. OpenSource schafft endlich wieder Vertrauen in die Software und ihre Anbieter. Offene Standards ermöglichen den Entwicklern mehr Kooperation und schnellere Entwicklung, für die Anwender garantieren sie Wahlfreiheit. Womit wir letztmalig zu unserem Fünfjährigen zurückkehren. Kinder lieben Lego über alles, am meisten die Maxi-Box “Classic”, weil sie damit ihre Phantasie im Kombinieren voll ausleben können. Erwachsene schenken ihnen dann die viel zu teuren Themenpakete, mit denen man nur eine Lösung nach Anleitung bauen kann. “Was stimmt nur mit meinen Eltern nicht, wann sind die denn falsch abgebogen?" fragt sich der Nachwuchs zu Recht. Das Image lässt sich aber wieder aufpolieren, wenn sie ihren Kindern Nostr zeigen, denn die Vorteile verstehen sogar Fünfjährige.

\
**Das neue Internet ist dezentral. Das neue Internet ist selbstbestimmt. Nostr ist das neue Internet.**
<https://nostr.net/> \
<https://start.njump.me/>
**Hier das Interview zum Thema mit Radio Berliner Morgenröte**
<https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-yxc36-17bb4be>
-

@ f9cf4e94:96abc355
2025-01-18 06:09:50
Para esse exemplo iremos usar:
| Nome | Imagem | Descrição |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Raspberry PI B+ |  | **Cortex-A53 (ARMv8) 64-bit a 1.4GHz e 1 GB de SDRAM LPDDR2,** |
| Pen drive |  | **16Gb** |
Recomendo que use o **Ubuntu Server** para essa instalação. Você pode baixar o Ubuntu para Raspberry Pi [aqui]( https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-pi). O passo a passo para a instalação do Ubuntu no Raspberry Pi está disponível [aqui]( https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-your-raspberry-pi). **Não instale um desktop** (como xubuntu, lubuntu, xfce, etc.).
---
## Passo 1: Atualizar o Sistema 🖥️
Primeiro, atualize seu sistema e instale o Tor:
```bash
apt update
apt install tor
```
---
## Passo 2: Criar o Arquivo de Serviço `nrs.service` 🔧
Crie o arquivo de serviço que vai gerenciar o servidor Nostr. Você pode fazer isso com o seguinte conteúdo:
```unit
[Unit]
Description=Nostr Relay Server Service
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/opt/nrs
ExecStart=/opt/nrs/nrs-arm64
Restart=on-failure
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
---
## Passo 3: Baixar o Binário do Nostr 🚀
Baixe o binário mais recente do Nostr [aqui no GitHub]( https://github.com/gabrielmoura/SimpleNosrtRelay/releases).
---
## Passo 4: Criar as Pastas Necessárias 📂
Agora, crie as pastas para o aplicativo e o pendrive:
```bash
mkdir -p /opt/nrs /mnt/edriver
```
---
## Passo 5: Listar os Dispositivos Conectados 🔌
Para saber qual dispositivo você vai usar, liste todos os dispositivos conectados:
```bash
lsblk
```
---
## Passo 6: Formatando o Pendrive 💾
Escolha o pendrive correto (por exemplo, `/dev/sda`) e formate-o:
```bash
mkfs.vfat /dev/sda
```
---
## Passo 7: Montar o Pendrive 💻
Monte o pendrive na pasta `/mnt/edriver`:
```bash
mount /dev/sda /mnt/edriver
```
---
## Passo 8: Verificar UUID dos Dispositivos 📋
Para garantir que o sistema monte o pendrive automaticamente, liste os UUID dos dispositivos conectados:
```bash
blkid
```
---
## Passo 9: Alterar o `fstab` para Montar o Pendrive Automáticamente 📝
Abra o arquivo `/etc/fstab` e adicione uma linha para o pendrive, com o UUID que você obteve no passo anterior. A linha deve ficar assim:
```fstab
UUID=9c9008f8-f852 /mnt/edriver vfat defaults 0 0
```
---
## Passo 10: Copiar o Binário para a Pasta Correta 📥
Agora, copie o binário baixado para a pasta `/opt/nrs`:
```bash
cp nrs-arm64 /opt/nrs
```
---
## Passo 11: Criar o Arquivo de Configuração 🛠️
Crie o arquivo de configuração com o seguinte conteúdo e salve-o em `/opt/nrs/config.yaml`:
```yaml
app_env: production
info:
name: Nostr Relay Server
description: Nostr Relay Server
pub_key: ""
contact: ""
url: http://localhost:3334
icon: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u= https://public.bnbstatic.com/image/cms/crawler/COINCU_NEWS/image-495-1024x569.png
base_path: /mnt/edriver
negentropy: true
```
---
## Passo 12: Copiar o Serviço para o Diretório de Systemd ⚙️
Agora, copie o arquivo `nrs.service` para o diretório `/etc/systemd/system/`:
```bash
cp nrs.service /etc/systemd/system/
```
Recarregue os serviços e inicie o serviço `nrs`:
```bash
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now nrs.service
```
---
## Passo 13: Configurar o Tor 🌐
Abra o arquivo de configuração do Tor `/var/lib/tor/torrc` e adicione a seguinte linha:
```torrc
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/nostr_server/
HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:3334
```
---
## Passo 14: Habilitar e Iniciar o Tor 🧅
Agora, ative e inicie o serviço Tor:
```bash
systemctl enable --now tor.service
```
O Tor irá gerar um endereço `.onion` para o seu servidor Nostr. Você pode encontrá-lo no arquivo `/var/lib/tor/nostr_server/hostname`.
---
## Observações ⚠️
- Com essa configuração, **os dados serão salvos no pendrive**, enquanto o binário ficará no cartão SD do Raspberry Pi.
- O endereço `.onion` do seu servidor Nostr será algo como: `ws://y3t5t5wgwjif<exemplo>h42zy7ih6iwbyd.onion`.
---
Agora, seu servidor Nostr deve estar configurado e funcionando com Tor! 🥳
Se este artigo e as informações aqui contidas forem úteis para você, convidamos a considerar uma doação ao autor como forma de reconhecimento e incentivo à produção de novos conteúdos.
-
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@ 6389be64:ef439d32
2025-01-14 01:31:12
Bitcoin is more than money, more than an asset, and more than a store of value. Bitcoin is a Prime Mover, an enabler and it ignites imaginations. It certainly fueled an idea in my mind. The idea integrates sensors, computational prowess, actuated machinery, power conversion, and electronic communications to form an autonomous, machined creature roaming forests and harvesting the most widespread and least energy-dense fuel source available. I call it the Forest Walker and it eats wood, and mines Bitcoin.
I know what you're thinking. Why not just put Bitcoin mining rigs where they belong: in a hosted facility sporting electricity from energy-dense fuels like natural gas, climate-controlled with excellent data piping in and out? Why go to all the trouble building a robot that digests wood creating flammable gasses fueling an engine to run a generator powering Bitcoin miners? It's all about synergy.
Bitcoin mining enables the realization of multiple, seemingly unrelated, yet useful activities. Activities considered un-profitable if not for Bitcoin as the Prime Mover. This is much more than simply mining the greatest asset ever conceived by humankind. It’s about the power of synergy, which Bitcoin plays only one of many roles. The synergy created by this system can stabilize forests' fire ecology while generating multiple income streams. That’s the realistic goal here and requires a brief history of American Forest management before continuing.
# Smokey The Bear
In 1944, the Smokey Bear Wildfire Prevention Campaign began in the United States. “Only YOU can prevent forest fires” remains the refrain of the Ad Council’s longest running campaign. The Ad Council is a U.S. non-profit set up by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers in 1942. It would seem that the U.S. Department of the Interior was concerned about pesky forest fires and wanted them to stop. So, alongside a national policy of extreme fire suppression they enlisted the entire U.S. population to get onboard via the Ad Council and it worked. Forest fires were almost obliterated and everyone was happy, right? Wrong.
Smokey is a fantastically successful bear so forest fires became so few for so long that the fuel load - dead wood - in forests has become very heavy. So heavy that when a fire happens (and they always happen) it destroys everything in its path because the more fuel there is the hotter that fire becomes. Trees, bushes, shrubs, and all other plant life cannot escape destruction (not to mention homes and businesses). The soil microbiology doesn’t escape either as it is burned away even in deeper soils. To add insult to injury, hydrophobic waxy residues condense on the soil surface, forcing water to travel over the ground rather than through it eroding forest soils. Good job, Smokey. Well done, Sir!
Most terrestrial ecologies are “fire ecologies”. Fire is a part of these systems’ fuel load and pest management. Before we pretended to “manage” millions of acres of forest, fires raged over the world, rarely damaging forests. The fuel load was always too light to generate fires hot enough to moonscape mountainsides. Fires simply burned off the minor amounts of fuel accumulated since the fire before. The lighter heat, smoke, and other combustion gasses suppressed pests, keeping them in check and the smoke condensed into a plant growth accelerant called wood vinegar, not a waxy cap on the soil. These fires also cleared out weak undergrowth, cycled minerals, and thinned the forest canopy, allowing sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor. Without a fire’s heat, many pine tree species can’t sow their seed. The heat is required to open the cones (the seed bearing structure) of Spruce, Cypress, Sequoia, Jack Pine, Lodgepole Pine and many more. Without fire forests can’t have babies. The idea was to protect the forests, and it isn't working.
So, in a world of fire, what does an ally look like and what does it do?
# Meet The Forest Walker
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For the Forest Walker to work as a mobile, autonomous unit, a solid platform that can carry several hundred pounds is required. It so happens this chassis already exists but shelved.
Introducing the Legged Squad Support System (LS3). A joint project between Boston Dynamics, DARPA, and the United States Marine Corps, the quadrupedal robot is the size of a cow, can carry 400 pounds (180 kg) of equipment, negotiate challenging terrain, and operate for 24 hours before needing to refuel. Yes, it had an engine. Abandoned in 2015, the thing was too noisy for military deployment and maintenance "under fire" is never a high-quality idea. However, we can rebuild it to act as a platform for the Forest Walker; albeit with serious alterations. It would need to be bigger, probably. Carry more weight? Definitely. Maybe replace structural metal with carbon fiber and redesign much as 3D printable parts for more effective maintenance.
The original system has a top operational speed of 8 miles per hour. For our purposes, it only needs to move about as fast as a grazing ruminant. Without the hammering vibrations of galloping into battle, shocks of exploding mortars, and drunken soldiers playing "Wrangler of Steel Machines", time between failures should be much longer and the overall energy consumption much lower. The LS3 is a solid platform to build upon. Now it just needs to be pulled out of the mothballs, and completely refitted with outboard equipment.
# The Small Branch Chipper
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When I say “Forest fuel load” I mean the dead, carbon containing litter on the forest floor. Duff (leaves), fine-woody debris (small branches), and coarse woody debris (logs) are the fuel that feeds forest fires. Walk through any forest in the United States today and you will see quite a lot of these materials. Too much, as I have described. Some of these fuel loads can be 8 tons per acre in pine and hardwood forests and up to 16 tons per acre at active logging sites. That’s some big wood and the more that collects, the more combustible danger to the forest it represents. It also provides a technically unlimited fuel supply for the Forest Walker system.
The problem is that this detritus has to be chewed into pieces that are easily ingestible by the system for the gasification process (we’ll get to that step in a minute). What we need is a wood chipper attached to the chassis (the LS3); its “mouth”.
A small wood chipper handling material up to 2.5 - 3.0 inches (6.3 - 7.6 cm) in diameter would eliminate a substantial amount of fuel. There is no reason for Forest Walker to remove fallen trees. It wouldn’t have to in order to make a real difference. It need only identify appropriately sized branches and grab them. Once loaded into the chipper’s intake hopper for further processing, the beast can immediately look for more “food”. This is essentially kindling that would help ignite larger logs. If it’s all consumed by Forest Walker, then it’s not present to promote an aggravated conflagration.
I have glossed over an obvious question: How does Forest Walker see and identify branches and such? LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) attached to Forest Walker images the local area and feed those data to onboard computers for processing. Maybe AI plays a role. Maybe simple machine learning can do the trick. One thing is for certain: being able to identify a stick and cause robotic appendages to pick it up is not impossible.
Great! We now have a quadrupedal robot autonomously identifying and “eating” dead branches and other light, combustible materials. Whilst strolling through the forest, depleting future fires of combustibles, Forest Walker has already performed a major function of this system: making the forest safer. It's time to convert this low-density fuel into a high-density fuel Forest Walker can leverage. Enter the gasification process.
# The Gassifier
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The gasifier is the heart of the entire system; it’s where low-density fuel becomes the high-density fuel that powers the entire system. Biochar and wood vinegar are process wastes and I’ll discuss why both are powerful soil amendments in a moment, but first, what’s gasification?
Reacting shredded carbonaceous material at high temperatures in a low or no oxygen environment converts the biomass into biochar, wood vinegar, heat, and Synthesis Gas (Syngas). Syngas consists primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane. All of which are extremely useful fuels in a gaseous state. Part of this gas is used to heat the input biomass and keep the reaction temperature constant while the internal combustion engine that drives the generator to produce electrical power consumes the rest.
Critically, this gasification process is “continuous feed”. Forest Walker must intake biomass from the chipper, process it to fuel, and dump the waste (CO2, heat, biochar, and wood vinegar) continuously. It cannot stop. Everything about this system depends upon this continual grazing, digestion, and excretion of wastes just as a ruminal does. And, like a ruminant, all waste products enhance the local environment.
When I first heard of gasification, I didn’t believe that it was real. Running an electric generator from burning wood seemed more akin to “conspiracy fantasy” than science. Not only is gasification real, it’s ancient technology. A man named Dean Clayton first started experiments on gasification in 1699 and in 1901 gasification was used to power a vehicle. By the end of World War II, there were 500,000 Syngas powered vehicles in Germany alone because of fossil fuel rationing during the war. The global gasification market was $480 billion in 2022 and projected to be as much as $700 billion by 2030 (Vantage Market Research). Gasification technology is the best choice to power the Forest Walker because it’s self-contained and we want its waste products.
# Biochar: The Waste
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Biochar (AKA agricultural charcoal) is fairly simple: it’s almost pure, solid carbon that resembles charcoal. Its porous nature packs large surface areas into small, 3 dimensional nuggets. Devoid of most other chemistry, like hydrocarbons (methane) and ash (minerals), biochar is extremely lightweight. Do not confuse it with the charcoal you buy for your grill. Biochar doesn’t make good grilling charcoal because it would burn too rapidly as it does not contain the multitude of flammable components that charcoal does. Biochar has several other good use cases. Water filtration, water retention, nutrient retention, providing habitat for microscopic soil organisms, and carbon sequestration are the main ones that we are concerned with here.
Carbon has an amazing ability to adsorb (substances stick to and accumulate on the surface of an object) manifold chemistries. Water, nutrients, and pollutants tightly bind to carbon in this format. So, biochar makes a respectable filter and acts as a “battery” of water and nutrients in soils. Biochar adsorbs and holds on to seven times its weight in water. Soil containing biochar is more drought resilient than soil without it. Adsorbed nutrients, tightly sequestered alongside water, get released only as plants need them. Plants must excrete protons (H+) from their roots to disgorge water or positively charged nutrients from the biochar's surface; it's an active process.
Biochar’s surface area (where adsorption happens) can be 500 square meters per gram or more. That is 10% larger than an official NBA basketball court for every gram of biochar. Biochar’s abundant surface area builds protective habitats for soil microbes like fungi and bacteria and many are critical for the health and productivity of the soil itself.
The “carbon sequestration” component of biochar comes into play where “carbon credits” are concerned. There is a financial market for carbon. Not leveraging that market for revenue is foolish. I am climate agnostic. All I care about is that once solid carbon is inside the soil, it will stay there for thousands of years, imparting drought resiliency, fertility collection, nutrient buffering, and release for that time span. I simply want as much solid carbon in the soil because of the undeniably positive effects it has, regardless of any climactic considerations.
# Wood Vinegar: More Waste
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Another by-product of the gasification process is wood vinegar (Pyroligneous acid). If you have ever seen Liquid Smoke in the grocery store, then you have seen wood vinegar. Principally composed of acetic acid, acetone, and methanol wood vinegar also contains ~200 other organic compounds. It would seem intuitive that condensed, liquefied wood smoke would at least be bad for the health of all living things if not downright carcinogenic. The counter intuition wins the day, however. Wood vinegar has been used by humans for a very long time to promote digestion, bowel, and liver health; combat diarrhea and vomiting; calm peptic ulcers and regulate cholesterol levels; and a host of other benefits.
For centuries humans have annually burned off hundreds of thousands of square miles of pasture, grassland, forest, and every other conceivable terrestrial ecosystem. Why is this done? After every burn, one thing becomes obvious: the almost supernatural growth these ecosystems exhibit after the burn. How? Wood vinegar is a component of this growth. Even in open burns, smoke condenses and infiltrates the soil. That is when wood vinegar shows its quality.
This stuff beefs up not only general plant growth but seed germination as well and possesses many other qualities that are beneficial to plants. It’s a pesticide, fungicide, promotes beneficial soil microorganisms, enhances nutrient uptake, and imparts disease resistance. I am barely touching a long list of attributes here, but you want wood vinegar in your soil (alongside biochar because it adsorbs wood vinegar as well).
# The Internal Combustion Engine
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Conversion of grazed forage to chemical, then mechanical, and then electrical energy completes the cycle. The ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) converts the gaseous fuel output from the gasifier to mechanical energy, heat, water vapor, and CO2. It’s the mechanical energy of a rotating drive shaft that we want. That rotation drives the electric generator, which is the heartbeat we need to bring this monster to life. Luckily for us, combined internal combustion engine and generator packages are ubiquitous, delivering a defined energy output given a constant fuel input. It’s the simplest part of the system.
The obvious question here is whether the amount of syngas provided by the gasification process will provide enough energy to generate enough electrons to run the entire system or not. While I have no doubt the energy produced will run Forest Walker's main systems the question is really about the electrons left over. Will it be enough to run the Bitcoin mining aspect of the system? Everything is a budget.
# CO2 Production For Growth
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Plants are lollipops. No matter if it’s a tree or a bush or a shrubbery, the entire thing is mostly sugar in various formats but mostly long chain carbohydrates like lignin and cellulose. Plants need three things to make sugar: CO2, H2O and light. In a forest, where tree densities can be quite high, CO2 availability becomes a limiting growth factor. It’d be in the forest interests to have more available CO2 providing for various sugar formation providing the organism with food and structure.
An odd thing about tree leaves, the openings that allow gasses like the ever searched for CO2 are on the bottom of the leaf (these are called stomata). Not many stomata are topside. This suggests that trees and bushes have evolved to find gasses like CO2 from below, not above and this further suggests CO2 might be in higher concentrations nearer the soil.
The soil life (bacterial, fungi etc.) is constantly producing enormous amounts of CO2 and it would stay in the soil forever (eventually killing the very soil life that produces it) if not for tidal forces. Water is everywhere and whether in pools, lakes, oceans or distributed in “moist” soils water moves towards to the moon. The water in the soil and also in the water tables below the soil rise toward the surface every day. When the water rises, it expels the accumulated gasses in the soil into the atmosphere and it’s mostly CO2. It’s a good bet on how leaves developed high populations of stomata on the underside of leaves. As the water relaxes (the tide goes out) it sucks oxygenated air back into the soil to continue the functions of soil life respiration. The soil “breathes” albeit slowly.
The gasses produced by the Forest Walker’s internal combustion engine consist primarily of CO2 and H2O. Combusting sugars produce the same gasses that are needed to construct the sugars because the universe is funny like that. The Forest Walker is constantly laying down these critical construction elements right where the trees need them: close to the ground to be gobbled up by the trees.
# The Branch Drones
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During the last ice age, giant mammals populated North America - forests and otherwise. Mastodons, woolly mammoths, rhinos, short-faced bears, steppe bison, caribou, musk ox, giant beavers, camels, gigantic ground-dwelling sloths, glyptodons, and dire wolves were everywhere. Many were ten to fifteen feet tall. As they crashed through forests, they would effectively cleave off dead side-branches of trees, halting the spread of a ground-based fire migrating into the tree crown ("laddering") which is a death knell for a forest.
These animals are all extinct now and forests no longer have any manner of pruning services. But, if we build drones fitted with cutting implements like saws and loppers, optical cameras and AI trained to discern dead branches from living ones, these drones could effectively take over pruning services by identifying, cutting, and dropping to the forest floor, dead branches. The dropped branches simply get collected by the Forest Walker as part of its continual mission.
The drones dock on the back of the Forest Walker to recharge their batteries when low. The whole scene would look like a grazing cow with some flies bothering it. This activity breaks the link between a relatively cool ground based fire and the tree crowns and is a vital element in forest fire control.
# The Bitcoin Miner
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Mining is one of four monetary incentive models, making this system a possibility for development. The other three are US Dept. of the Interior, township, county, and electrical utility company easement contracts for fuel load management, global carbon credits trading, and data set sales. All the above depends on obvious questions getting answered. I will list some obvious ones, but this is not an engineering document and is not the place for spreadsheets. How much Bitcoin one Forest Walker can mine depends on everything else. What amount of biomass can we process? Will that biomass flow enough Syngas to keep the lights on? Can the chassis support enough mining ASICs and supporting infrastructure? What does that weigh and will it affect field performance? How much power can the AC generator produce?
Other questions that are more philosophical persist. Even if a single Forest Walker can only mine scant amounts of BTC per day, that pales to how much fuel material it can process into biochar. We are talking about millions upon millions of forested acres in need of fuel load management. What can a single Forest Walker do? I am not thinking in singular terms. The Forest Walker must operate as a fleet. What could 50 do? 500?
What is it worth providing a service to the world by managing forest fuel loads? Providing proof of work to the global monetary system? Seeding soil with drought and nutrient resilience by the excretion, over time, of carbon by the ton? What did the last forest fire cost?
# The Mesh Network
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What could be better than one bitcoin mining, carbon sequestering, forest fire squelching, soil amending behemoth? Thousands of them, but then they would need to be able to talk to each other to coordinate position, data handling, etc. Fitted with a mesh networking device, like goTenna or Meshtastic LoRa equipment enables each Forest Walker to communicate with each other.
Now we have an interconnected fleet of Forest Walkers relaying data to each other and more importantly, aggregating all of that to the last link in the chain for uplink. Well, at least Bitcoin mining data. Since block data is lightweight, transmission of these data via mesh networking in fairly close quartered environs is more than doable. So, how does data transmit to the Bitcoin Network? How do the Forest Walkers get the previous block data necessary to execute on mining?
# Back To The Chain
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Getting Bitcoin block data to and from the network is the last puzzle piece. The standing presumption here is that wherever a Forest Walker fleet is operating, it is NOT within cell tower range. We further presume that the nearest Walmart Wi-Fi is hours away. Enter the Blockstream Satellite or something like it.
A separate, ground-based drone will have two jobs: To stay as close to the nearest Forest Walker as it can and to provide an antennae for either terrestrial or orbital data uplink. Bitcoin-centric data is transmitted to the "uplink drone" via the mesh networked transmitters and then sent on to the uplink and the whole flow goes in the opposite direction as well; many to one and one to many.
We cannot transmit data to the Blockstream satellite, and it will be up to Blockstream and companies like it to provide uplink capabilities in the future and I don't doubt they will. Starlink you say? What’s stopping that company from filtering out block data? Nothing because it’s Starlink’s system and they could decide to censor these data. It seems we may have a problem sending and receiving Bitcoin data in back country environs.
But, then again, the utility of this system in staunching the fuel load that creates forest fires is extremely useful around forested communities and many have fiber, Wi-Fi and cell towers. These communities could be a welcoming ground zero for first deployments of the Forest Walker system by the home and business owners seeking fire repression. In the best way, Bitcoin subsidizes the safety of the communities.
# Sensor Packages
### LiDaR
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The benefit of having a Forest Walker fleet strolling through the forest is the never ending opportunity for data gathering. A plethora of deployable sensors gathering hyper-accurate data on everything from temperature to topography is yet another revenue generator. Data is valuable and the Forest Walker could generate data sales to various government entities and private concerns.
LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) can map topography, perform biomass assessment, comparative soil erosion analysis, etc. It so happens that the Forest Walker’s ability to “see,” to navigate about its surroundings, is LiDaR driven and since it’s already being used, we can get double duty by harvesting that data for later use. By using a laser to send out light pulses and measuring the time it takes for the reflection of those pulses to return, very detailed data sets incrementally build up. Eventually, as enough data about a certain area becomes available, the data becomes useful and valuable.
Forestry concerns, both private and public, often use LiDaR to build 3D models of tree stands to assess the amount of harvest-able lumber in entire sections of forest. Consulting companies offering these services charge anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars per square kilometer for such services. A Forest Walker generating such assessments on the fly while performing its other functions is a multi-disciplinary approach to revenue generation.
### pH, Soil Moisture, and Cation Exchange Sensing
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The Forest Walker is quadrupedal, so there are four contact points to the soil. Why not get a pH data point for every step it takes? We can also gather soil moisture data and cation exchange capacities at unheard of densities because of sampling occurring on the fly during commission of the system’s other duties. No one is going to build a machine to do pH testing of vast tracts of forest soils, but that doesn’t make the data collected from such an endeavor valueless. Since the Forest Walker serves many functions at once, a multitude of data products can add to the return on investment component.
### Weather Data
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Temperature, humidity, pressure, and even data like evapotranspiration gathered at high densities on broad acre scales have untold value and because the sensors are lightweight and don’t require large power budgets, they come along for the ride at little cost. But, just like the old mantra, “gas, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free”, these sensors provide potential revenue benefits just by them being present.
I’ve touched on just a few data genres here. In fact, the question for universities, governmental bodies, and other institutions becomes, “How much will you pay us to attach your sensor payload to the Forest Walker?”
# Noise Suppression
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Only you can prevent Metallica filling the surrounds with 120 dB of sound. Easy enough, just turn the car stereo off. But what of a fleet of 50 Forest Walkers operating in the backcountry or near a township? 500? 5000? Each one has a wood chipper, an internal combustion engine, hydraulic pumps, actuators, and more cooling fans than you can shake a stick at. It’s a walking, screaming fire-breathing dragon operating continuously, day and night, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year. The sound will negatively affect all living things and that impacts behaviors. Serious engineering consideration and prowess must deliver a silencing blow to the major issue of noise.
It would be foolish to think that a fleet of Forest Walkers could be silent, but if not a major design consideration, then the entire idea is dead on arrival. Townships would not allow them to operate even if they solved the problem of widespread fuel load and neither would governmental entities, and rightly so. Nothing, not man nor beast, would want to be subjected to an eternal, infernal scream even if it were to end within days as the fleet moved further away after consuming what it could. Noise and heat are the only real pollutants of this system; taking noise seriously from the beginning is paramount.
# Fire Safety
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A “fire-breathing dragon” is not the worst description of the Forest Walker. It eats wood, combusts it at very high temperatures and excretes carbon; and it does so in an extremely flammable environment. Bad mix for one Forest Walker, worse for many. One must take extreme pains to ensure that during normal operation, a Forest Walker could fall over, walk through tinder dry brush, or get pounded into the ground by a meteorite from Krypton and it wouldn’t destroy epic swaths of trees and baby deer. I envision an ultimate test of a prototype to include dowsing it in grain alcohol while it’s wrapped up in toilet paper like a pledge at a fraternity party. If it runs for 72 hours and doesn’t set everything on fire, then maybe outside entities won’t be fearful of something that walks around forests with a constant fire in its belly.
# The Wrap
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How we think about what can be done with and adjacent to Bitcoin is at least as important as Bitcoin’s economic standing itself. For those who will tell me that this entire idea is without merit, I say, “OK, fine. You can come up with something, too.” What can we plug Bitcoin into that, like a battery, makes something that does not work, work? That’s the lesson I get from this entire exercise. No one was ever going to hire teams of humans to go out and "clean the forest". There's no money in that. The data collection and sales from such an endeavor might provide revenues over the break-even point but investment demands Alpha in this day and age. But, plug Bitcoin into an almost viable system and, voilà! We tip the scales to achieve lift-off.
Let’s face it, we haven’t scratched the surface of Bitcoin’s forcing function on our minds. Not because it’s Bitcoin, but because of what that invention means. The question that pushes me to approach things this way is, “what can we create that one system’s waste is another system’s feedstock?” The Forest Walker system’s only real waste is the conversion of low entropy energy (wood and syngas) into high entropy energy (heat and noise). All other output is beneficial to humanity.
Bitcoin, I believe, is the first product of a new mode of human imagination. An imagination newly forged over the past few millennia of being lied to, stolen from, distracted and otherwise mis-allocated to a black hole of the nonsensical. We are waking up.
What I have presented is not science fiction. Everything I have described here is well within the realm of possibility. The question is one of viability, at least in terms of the detritus of the old world we find ourselves departing from. This system would take a non-trivial amount of time and resources to develop. I think the system would garner extensive long-term contracts from those who have the most to lose from wildfires, the most to gain from hyperaccurate data sets, and, of course, securing the most precious asset in the world. Many may not see it that way, for they seek Alpha and are therefore blind to other possibilities. Others will see only the possibilities; of thinking in a new way, of looking at things differently, and dreaming of what comes next.
-
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@ 23b0e2f8:d8af76fc
2025-01-08 18:17:52
## **Necessário**
- Um Android que você não use mais (a câmera deve estar funcionando).
- Um cartão microSD (opcional, usado apenas uma vez).
- Um dispositivo para acompanhar seus fundos (provavelmente você já tem um).
## **Algumas coisas que você precisa saber**
- O dispositivo servirá como um assinador. Qualquer movimentação só será efetuada após ser assinada por ele.
- O cartão microSD será usado para transferir o APK do Electrum e garantir que o aparelho não terá contato com outras fontes de dados externas após sua formatação. Contudo, é possível usar um cabo USB para o mesmo propósito.
- A ideia é deixar sua chave privada em um dispositivo offline, que ficará desligado em 99% do tempo. Você poderá acompanhar seus fundos em outro dispositivo conectado à internet, como seu celular ou computador pessoal.
---
## **O tutorial será dividido em dois módulos:**
- Módulo 1 - Criando uma carteira fria/assinador.
- Módulo 2 - Configurando um dispositivo para visualizar seus fundos e assinando transações com o assinador.
---
## **No final, teremos:**
- Uma carteira fria que também servirá como assinador.
- Um dispositivo para acompanhar os fundos da carteira.
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---
## **Módulo 1 - Criando uma carteira fria/assinador**
1. Baixe o APK do Electrum na aba de **downloads** em <https://electrum.org/>. Fique à vontade para [verificar as assinaturas](https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/gpg-check.html) do software, garantindo sua autenticidade.
2. Formate o cartão microSD e coloque o APK do Electrum nele. Caso não tenha um cartão microSD, pule este passo.
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3. Retire os chips e acessórios do aparelho que será usado como assinador, formate-o e aguarde a inicialização.
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4. Durante a inicialização, pule a etapa de conexão ao Wi-Fi e rejeite todas as solicitações de conexão. Após isso, você pode desinstalar aplicativos desnecessários, pois precisará apenas do Electrum. Certifique-se de que Wi-Fi, Bluetooth e dados móveis estejam desligados. Você também pode ativar o **modo avião**.\
*(Curiosidade: algumas pessoas optam por abrir o aparelho e danificar a antena do Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, impossibilitando essas funcionalidades.)*
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5. Insira o cartão microSD com o APK do Electrum no dispositivo e instale-o. Será necessário permitir instalações de fontes não oficiais.
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6. No Electrum, crie uma carteira padrão e gere suas palavras-chave (seed). Anote-as em um local seguro. Caso algo aconteça com seu assinador, essas palavras permitirão o acesso aos seus fundos novamente. *(Aqui entra seu método pessoal de backup.)*
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---
## **Módulo 2 - Configurando um dispositivo para visualizar seus fundos e assinando transações com o assinador.**
1. Criar uma carteira **somente leitura** em outro dispositivo, como seu celular ou computador pessoal, é uma etapa bastante simples. Para este tutorial, usaremos outro smartphone Android com Electrum. Instale o Electrum a partir da aba de downloads em <https://electrum.org/> ou da própria Play Store. *(ATENÇÃO: O Electrum não existe oficialmente para iPhone. Desconfie se encontrar algum.)*
2. Após instalar o Electrum, crie uma carteira padrão, mas desta vez escolha a opção **Usar uma chave mestra**.
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3. Agora, no assinador que criamos no primeiro módulo, exporte sua chave pública: vá em **Carteira > Detalhes da carteira > Compartilhar chave mestra pública**.
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4. Escaneie o QR gerado da chave pública com o dispositivo de consulta. Assim, ele poderá acompanhar seus fundos, mas sem permissão para movimentá-los.
5. Para receber fundos, envie Bitcoin para um dos endereços gerados pela sua carteira: **Carteira > Addresses/Coins**.
6. Para movimentar fundos, crie uma transação no dispositivo de consulta. Como ele não possui a chave privada, será necessário assiná-la com o dispositivo assinador.
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7. No assinador, escaneie a transação não assinada, confirme os detalhes, assine e compartilhe. Será gerado outro QR, desta vez com a transação já assinada.
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8. No dispositivo de consulta, escaneie o QR da transação assinada e transmita-a para a rede.
---
## **Conclusão**
**Pontos positivos do setup:**
- **Simplicidade:** Basta um dispositivo Android antigo.
- **Flexibilidade:** Funciona como uma ótima carteira fria, ideal para holders.
**Pontos negativos do setup:**
- **Padronização:** Não utiliza seeds no padrão BIP-39, você sempre precisará usar o electrum.
- **Interface:** A aparência do Electrum pode parecer antiquada para alguns usuários.
Nesse ponto, temos uma carteira fria que também serve para assinar transações. O fluxo de assinar uma transação se torna: ***Gerar uma transação não assinada > Escanear o QR da transação não assinada > Conferir e assinar essa transação com o assinador > Gerar QR da transação assinada > Escanear a transação assinada com qualquer outro dispositivo que possa transmiti-la para a rede.***
Como alguns devem saber, uma transação assinada de Bitcoin é praticamente impossível de ser fraudada. Em um cenário catastrófico, você pode mesmo que sem internet, repassar essa transação assinada para alguém que tenha acesso à rede por qualquer meio de comunicação. Mesmo que não queiramos que isso aconteça um dia, esse setup acaba por tornar essa prática possível.
---
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@ 1bda7e1f:bb97c4d9
2025-01-02 05:19:08
### Tldr
- Nostr is an open and interoperable protocol
- You can integrate it with workflow automation tools to augment your experience
- n8n is a great low/no-code workflow automation tool which you can host yourself
- Nostrobots allows you to integrate Nostr into n8n
- In this blog I create some workflow automations for Nostr
- A simple form to delegate posting notes
- Push notifications for mentions on multiple accounts
- Push notifications for your favourite accounts when they post a note
- All workflows are provided as open source with MIT license for you to use
### Inter-op All The Things
Nostr is a new open social protocol for the internet. This open nature exciting because of the opportunities for interoperability with other technologies. In [Using NFC Cards with Nostr]() I explored the `nostr:` URI to launch Nostr clients from a card tap.
The interoperability of Nostr doesn't stop there. The internet has many super-powers, and Nostr is open to all of them. Simply, there's no one to stop it. There is no one in charge, there are no permissioned APIs, and there are no risks of being de-platformed. If you can imagine technologies that would work well with Nostr, then any and all of them can ride on or alongside Nostr rails.
My mental model for why this is special is Google Wave ~2010. Google Wave was to be the next big platform. Lars was running it and had a big track record from Maps. I was excited for it. Then, Google pulled the plug. And, immediately all the time and capital invested in understanding and building on the platform was wasted.
This cannot happen to Nostr, as there is no one to pull the plug, and maybe even no plug to pull.
So long as users demand Nostr, Nostr will exist, and that is a pretty strong guarantee. It makes it worthwhile to invest in bringing Nostr into our other applications.
All we need are simple ways to plug things together.
### Nostr and Workflow Automation
Workflow automation is about helping people to streamline their work. As a user, the most common way I achieve this is by connecting disparate systems together. By setting up one system to trigger another or to move data between systems, I can solve for many different problems and become way more effective.
#### n8n for workflow automation
Many workflow automation tools exist. My favourite is [n8n](https://n8n.io/). n8n is a low/no-code workflow automation platform which allows you to build all kinds of workflows. You can use it for free, you can self-host it, it has a user-friendly UI and useful API. Vs Zapier it can be far more elaborate. Vs Make.com I find it to be more intuitive in how it abstracts away the right parts of the code, but still allows you to code when you need to.
Most importantly you can plug anything into n8n: You have built-in nodes for specific applications. HTTP nodes for any other API-based service. And community nodes built by individual community members for any other purpose you can imagine.
#### Eating my own dogfood
It's very clear to me that there is a big design space here just demanding to be explored. If you could integrate Nostr with anything, what would you do?
In my view the best way for anyone to start anything is by solving their own problem first (aka "scratching your own itch" and "eating your own dogfood"). As I get deeper into Nostr I find myself controlling multiple Npubs – to date I have a personal Npub, a brand Npub for a community I am helping, an AI assistant Npub, and various testing Npubs. I need ways to delegate access to those Npubs without handing over the keys, ways to know if they're mentioned, and ways to know if they're posting.
I can build workflows with n8n to solve these issues for myself to start with, and keep expanding from there as new needs come up.
### Running n8n with Nostrobots
I am mostly non-technical with a very helpful AI. To set up n8n to work with Nostr and operate these workflows should be possible for anyone with basic technology skills.
- I have a cheap VPS which currently runs my [HAVEN Nostr Relay](https://rodbishop.npub.pro/post/8ca68889/) and [Albyhub Lightning Node](https://rodbishop.npub.pro/post/setting-up-payments-on-nostr-7o6ls7/) in Docker containers,
- My objective was to set up n8n to run alongside these in a separate Docker container on the same server, install the required nodes, and then build and host my workflows.
#### Installing n8n
Self-hosting n8n could not be easier. I followed n8n's [Docker-Compose installation docs](https://docs.n8n.io/hosting/installation/server-setups/docker-compose/)–
- Install Docker and Docker-Compose if you haven't already,
- Create your ``docker-compose.yml`` and `.env` files from the docs,
- Create your data folder `sudo docker volume create n8n_data`,
- Start your container with `sudo docker compose up -d`,
- Your n8n instance should be online at port `5678`.
n8n is free to self-host but does require a license. Enter your credentials into n8n to get your free license key. You should now have access to the Workflow dashboard and can create and host any kind of workflows from there.
#### Installing Nostrobots
To integrate n8n nicely with Nostr, I used the [Nostrobots](https://github.com/ocknamo/n8n-nodes-nostrobots?tab=readme-ov-file) community node by [Ocknamo](nostr:npub1y6aja0kkc4fdvuxgqjcdv4fx0v7xv2epuqnddey2eyaxquznp9vq0tp75l).
In n8n parlance a "node" enables certain functionality as a step in a workflow e.g. a "set" node sets a variable, a "send email" node sends an email. n8n comes with all kinds of "official" nodes installed by default, and Nostr is not amongst them. However, n8n also comes with a framework for community members to create their own "community" nodes, which is where Nostrobots comes in.
You can only use a community node in a self-hosted n8n instance (which is what you have if you are running in Docker on your own server, but this limitation does prevent you from using n8n's own hosted alternative).
To install a community node, [see n8n community node docs](https://docs.n8n.io/integrations/community-nodes/installation/gui-install/). From your workflow dashboard–
- Click the "..." in the bottom left corner beside your username, and click "settings",
- Cilck "community nodes" left sidebar,
- Click "Install",
- Enter the "npm Package Name" which is `n8n-nodes-nostrobots`,
- Accept the risks and click "Install",
- Nostrobots is now added to your n8n instance.
#### Using Nostrobots
Nostrobots gives you nodes to help you build Nostr-integrated workflows–
- **Nostr Write** – for posting Notes to the Nostr network,
- **Nostr Read** – for reading Notes from the Nostr network, and
- **Nostr Utils** – for performing certain conversions you may need (e.g. from bech32 to hex).
Nostrobots has [good documentation](https://github.com/ocknamo/n8n-nodes-nostrobots?tab=readme-ov-file) on each node which focuses on simple use cases.
Each node has a "convenience mode" by default. For example, the "Read" Node by default will fetch Kind 1 notes by a simple filter, in Nostrobots parlance a "Strategy". For example, with Strategy set to "Mention" the node will accept a pubkey and fetch all Kind 1 notes that Mention the pubkey within a time period. This is very good for quick use.
What wasn't clear to me initially (until Ocknamo helped me out) is that advanced use cases are also possible.
Each node also has an advanced mode. For example, the "Read" Node can have "Strategy" set to "RawFilter(advanced)". Now the node will accept json (anything you like that complies with [NIP-01](https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/01.md)). You can use this to query Notes (Kind 1) as above, and also Profiles (Kind 0), Follow Lists (Kind 3), Reactions (Kind 7), Zaps (Kind 9734/9735), and anything else you can think of.
#### Creating and adding workflows
With n8n and Nostrobots installed, you can now create or add any kind of Nostr Workflow Automation.
- Click "Add workflow" to go to the workflow builder screen,
- If you would like to build your own workflow, you can start with adding any node. Click "+" and see what is available. Type "Nostr" to explore the Nostrobots nodes you have added,
- If you would like to add workflows that someone else has built, click "..." in the top right. Then click "import from URL" and paste in the URL of any workflow you would like to use (including the ones I share later in this article).
### Nostr Workflow Automations
It's time to build some things!
#### A simple form to post a note to Nostr
I started very simply. I needed to delegate the ability to post to Npubs that I own in order that a (future) team can test things for me. I don't want to worry about managing or training those people on how to use keys, and I want to revoke access easily.
I needed a basic form with credentials that posted a Note.
For this I can use a very simple workflow–
- **A n8n Form node** – Creates a form for users to enter the note they wish to post. Allows for the form to be protected by a username and password. This node is the workflow "trigger" so that the workflow runs each time the form is submitted.
- **A Set node** – Allows me to set some variables, in this case I set the relays that I intend to use. I typically add a Set node immediately following the trigger node, and put all the variables I need in this. It helps to make the workflows easier to update and maintain.
- **A Nostr Write node** (from Nostrobots) – Writes a Kind-1 note to the Nostr network. It accepts Nostr credentials, the output of the Form node, and the relays from the Set node, and posts the Note to those relays.
Once the workflow is built, you can test it with the testing form URL, and set it to "Active" to use the production form URL. That's it. You can now give posting access to anyone for any Npub. To revoke access, simply change the credentials or set to workflow to "Inactive".
It may also be the world's simplest Nostr client.
You can find the [Nostr Form to Post a Note workflow here](https://github.com/r0d8lsh0p/nostr-n8n/blob/main/Nostr_Form_to_Post_a_Note.json).
#### Push notifications on mentions and new notes
One of the things Nostr is not very good at is push notifications. Furthermore I have some unique itches to scratch. I want–
- **To make sure I never miss a note addressed to any of my Npubs** – For this I want a push notification any time any Nostr user mentions any of my Npubs,
- **To make sure I always see all notes from key accounts** – For this I need a push notification any time any of my Npubs post any Notes to the network,
- **To get these notifications on all of my devices** – Not just my phone where my Nostr regular client lives, but also on each of my laptops to suit wherever I am working that day.
I needed to build a Nostr push notifications solution.
To build this workflow I had to string a few ideas together–
- **Triggering the node on a schedule** – Nostrobots does not include a trigger node. As every workflow starts with a trigger we needed a different method. I elected to run the workflow on a schedule of every 10-minutes. Frequent enough to see Notes while they are hot, but infrequent enough to not burden public relays or get rate-limited,
- **Storing a list of Npubs in a Nostr list** – I needed a way to store the list of Npubs that trigger my notifications. I initially used an array defined in the workflow, this worked fine. Then I decided to try Nostr lists ([NIP-51, kind 30000](https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/51.md)). By defining my list of Npubs as a list published to Nostr I can control my list from within a Nostr client (e.g. [Listr.lol](https://listr.lol/npub1r0d8u8mnj6769500nypnm28a9hpk9qg8jr0ehe30tygr3wuhcnvs4rfsft) or [Nostrudel.ninja](https://nostrudel.ninja/#/lists)). Not only does this "just work", but because it's based on Nostr lists automagically Amethyst client allows me to browse that list as a Feed, and everyone I add gets notified in their Mentions,
- **Using specific relays** – I needed to query the right relays, including my own HAVEN relay inbox for notes addressed to me, and wss://purplepag.es for Nostr profile metadata,
- **Querying Nostr events** (with Nostrobots) – I needed to make use of many different Nostr queries and use quite a wide range of what Nostrobots can do–
- I read the EventID of my Kind 30000 list, to return the desired pubkeys,
- For notifications on mentions, I read all Kind 1 notes that mention that pubkey,
- For notifications on new notes, I read all Kind 1 notes published by that pubkey,
- Where there are notes, I read the Kind 0 profile metadata event of that pubkey to get the displayName of the relevant Npub,
- I transform the EventID into a Nevent to help clients find it.
- **Using the Nostr URI** – As I did with my NFC card article, I created a link with the `nostr:` URI prefix so that my phone's native client opens the link by default,
- **Push notifications solution** – I needed a push notifications solution. I found many with n8n integrations and chose to go with [Pushover](https://pushover.net/) which supports all my devices, has a free trial, and is unfairly cheap with a $5-per-device perpetual license.
Once the workflow was built, lists published, and Pushover installed on my phone, I was fully set up with push notifications on Nostr. I have used these workflows for several weeks now and made various tweaks as I went. They are feeling robust and I'd welcome you to give them a go.
You can find the [Nostr Push Notification If Mentioned here](https://github.com/r0d8lsh0p/nostr-n8n/blob/main/Nostr_Push_Notify_If_Mentioned.json) and [If Posts a Note here](https://github.com/r0d8lsh0p/nostr-n8n/blob/main/Nostr_Push_Notify_If_Post_a_Note.json).
In speaking with other Nostr users while I was building this, there are all kind of other needs for push notifications too – like on replies to a certain bookmarked note, or when a followed Npub starts streaming on zap.stream. These are all possible.
#### Use my workflows
I have open sourced all my workflows at my [Github](https://github.com/r0d8lsh0p/nostr-n8n) with MIT license and tried to write complete docs, so that you can import them into your n8n and configure them for your own use.
To import any of my workflows–
- Click on the workflow of your choice, e.g. "[Nostr_Push_Notify_If_Mentioned.json](https://github.com/r0d8lsh0p/nostr-n8n/blob/main/Nostr_Push_Notify_If_Mentioned.json "Nostr_Push_Notify_If_Mentioned.json")",
- Click on the "raw" button to view the raw JSON, ex any Github page layout,
- Copy that URL,
- Enter that URL in the "import from URL" dialog [mentioned above](#creating-and-adding-workflows).
To configure them–
- Prerequisites, credentials, and variables are all stated,
- In general any variables required are entered into a Set Node that follows the trigger node,
- Pushover has some extra setup but is very straightforward and documented in the workflow.
### What next?
Over my first four blogs I explored creating a good Nostr setup with [Vanity Npub](https://rodbishop.npub.pro/post/mining-your-vanity-pubkey-4iupbf/), [Lightning Payments](https://rodbishop.npub.pro/post/setting-up-payments-on-nostr-7o6ls7/), [Nostr Addresses at Your Domain](https://rodbishop.npub.pro/post/ee8a46bc/), and [Personal Nostr Relay](https://rodbishop.npub.pro/post/8ca68889/).
Then in my latest two blogs I explored different types of interoperability [with NFC cards](https://rodbishop.npub.pro/post/edde8387/) and now n8n Workflow Automation.
Thinking ahead n8n can power any kind of interoperability between Nostr and any other legacy technology solution. On my mind as I write this:
- Further enhancements to posting and delegating solutions and forms (enhanced UI or different note kinds),
- Automated or scheduled posting (such as auto-liking everything [Lyn Alden](nostr:npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a) posts),
- Further enhancements to push notifications, on new and different types of events (such as notifying me when I get a new follower, on replies to certain posts, or when a user starts streaming),
- All kinds of bridges, such as bridging notes to and from Telegram, Slack, or Campfire. Or bridging RSS or other event feeds to Nostr,
- All kinds of other automation (such as [BlackCoffee](nostr:npub1dqepr0g4t3ahvnjtnxazvws4rkqjpxl854n29wcew8wph0fmw90qlsmmgt) [controlling a coffee machine](https://primal.net/e/note16fzhh5yfc3u4kufx0mck63tsfperdrlpp96am2lmq066cnuqutds8retc3)),
- All kinds of AI Assistants and Agents,
In fact I have already released an open source workflow for an [AI Assistant](https://primal.net/p/npub1ahjpx53ewavp23g5zj9jgyfrpr8djmgjzg5mpe4xd0z69dqvq0kq2lf353), and will share more about that in my next blog.
Please be sure to let me know if you think there's another Nostr topic you'd like to see me tackle.
GM Nostr.
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@ e97aaffa:2ebd765d
2024-12-31 16:47:12
Último dia do ano, momento para tirar o pó da bola de cristal, para fazer reflexões, previsões e desejos para o próximo ano e seguintes.
Ano após ano, o Bitcoin evoluiu, foi ultrapassando etapas, tornou-se cada vez mais _mainstream_. Está cada vez mais difícil fazer previsões sobre o Bitcoin, já faltam poucas barreiras a serem ultrapassadas e as que faltam são altamente complexas ou tem um impacto profundo no sistema financeiro ou na sociedade. Estas alterações profundas tem que ser realizadas lentamente, porque uma alteração rápida poderia resultar em consequências terríveis, poderia provocar um retrocesso.
# Código do Bitcoin
No final de 2025, possivelmente vamos ter um _fork_, as discussões sobre os _covenants_ já estão avançadas, vão acelerar ainda mais. Já existe um consenso relativamente alto, a favor dos _covenants_, só falta decidir que modelo será escolhido. Penso que até ao final do ano será tudo decidido.
Depois dos _covenants,_ o próximo foco será para a criptografia post-quantum, que será o maior desafio que o Bitcoin enfrenta. Criar uma criptografia segura e que não coloque a descentralização em causa.
Espero muito de Ark, possivelmente a inovação do ano, gostaria de ver o Nostr a furar a bolha bitcoinheira e que o Cashu tivesse mais reconhecimento pelos _bitcoiners_.
Espero que surjam avanços significativos no BitVM2 e BitVMX.
Não sei o que esperar das layer 2 de Bitcoin, foram a maior desilusão de 2024. Surgiram com muita força, mas pouca coisa saiu do papel, foi uma mão cheia de nada. Uma parte dos projetos caiu na tentação da _shitcoinagem_, na criação de tokens, que tem um único objetivo, enriquecer os devs e os VCs.
Se querem ser levados a sério, têm que ser sérios.
> “À mulher de César não basta ser honesta, deve parecer honesta”
Se querem ter o apoio dos _bitcoiners_, sigam o _ethos_ do Bitcoin.
Neste ponto a atitude do pessoal da Ark é exemplar, em vez de andar a chorar no Twitter para mudar o código do Bitcoin, eles colocaram as mãos na massa e criaram o protocolo. É claro que agora está meio “coxo”, funciona com uma _multisig_ ou com os _covenants_ na Liquid. Mas eles estão a criar um produto, vão demonstrar ao mercado que o produto é bom e útil. Com a adoção, a comunidade vai perceber que o Ark necessita dos _covenants_ para melhorar a interoperabilidade e a soberania.
É este o pensamento certo, que deveria ser seguido pelos restantes e futuros projetos. É seguir aquele pensamento do J.F. Kennedy:
> “Não perguntem o que é que o vosso país pode fazer por vocês, perguntem o que é que vocês podem fazer pelo vosso país”
Ou seja, não fiquem à espera que o bitcoin mude, criem primeiro as inovações/tecnologia, ganhem adoção e depois demonstrem que a alteração do código camada base pode melhorar ainda mais o vosso projeto. A necessidade é que vai levar a atualização do código.
# Reservas Estratégicas de Bitcoin
## Bancos centrais
Com a eleição de Trump, emergiu a ideia de uma Reserva Estratégia de Bitcoin, tornou este conceito _mainstream_. Foi um _pivot_, a partir desse momento, foram enumerados os políticos de todo o mundo a falar sobre o assunto.
A Senadora Cynthia Lummis foi mais além e propôs um programa para adicionar 200 mil bitcoins à reserva ao ano, até 1 milhão de Bitcoin. Só que isto está a criar uma enorme expectativa na comunidade, só que pode resultar numa enorme desilusão. Porque no primeiro ano, o Trump em vez de comprar os 200 mil, pode apenas adicionar na reserva, os 198 mil que o Estado já tem em sua posse. Se isto acontecer, possivelmente vai resultar numa forte queda a curto prazo. Na minha opinião os bancos centrais deveriam seguir o exemplo de El Salvador, fazer um DCA diário.
Mais que comprar bitcoin, para mim, o mais importante é a criação da Reserva, é colocar o Bitcoin ao mesmo nível do ouro, o impacto para o resto do mundo será tremendo, a teoria dos jogos na sua plenitude. Muitos outros bancos centrais vão ter que comprar, para não ficarem atrás, além disso, vai transmitir uma mensagem à generalidade da população, que o Bitcoin é “afinal é algo seguro, com valor”.
Mas não foi Trump que iniciou esta teoria dos jogos, mas sim foi a primeira vítima dela. É o próprio Trump que o admite, que os EUA necessitam da reserva para não ficar atrás da China. Além disso, desde que os EUA utilizaram o dólar como uma arma, com sanção contra a Rússia, surgiram boatos de que a Rússia estaria a utilizar o Bitcoin para transações internacionais. Que foram confirmados recentemente, pelo próprio governo russo. Também há poucos dias, ainda antes deste reconhecimento público, Putin elogiou o Bitcoin, ao reconhecer que “Ninguém pode proibir o bitcoin”, defendendo como uma alternativa ao dólar. A narrativa está a mudar.
Já existem alguns países com Bitcoin, mas apenas dois o fizeram conscientemente (El Salvador e Butão), os restantes têm devido a apreensões. Hoje são poucos, mas 2025 será o início de uma corrida pelos bancos centrais. Esta corrida era algo previsível, o que eu não esperava é que acontecesse tão rápido.
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## Empresas
A criação de reservas estratégicas não vai ficar apenas pelos bancos centrais, também vai acelerar fortemente nas empresas em 2025.
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Mas as empresas não vão seguir a estratégia do Saylor, vão comprar bitcoin sem alavancagem, utilizando apenas os tesouros das empresas, como uma proteção contra a inflação. Eu não sou grande admirador do Saylor, prefiro muito mais, uma estratégia conservadora, sem qualquer alavancagem. Penso que as empresas vão seguir a sugestão da BlackRock, que aconselha um alocações de 1% a 3%.
Penso que 2025, ainda não será o ano da entrada das 6 magníficas (excepto Tesla), será sobretudo empresas de pequena e média dimensão. As magníficas ainda tem uma cota muito elevada de _shareholders_ com alguma idade, bastante conservadores, que têm dificuldade em compreender o Bitcoin, foi o que aconteceu recentemente com a Microsoft.
Também ainda não será em 2025, talvez 2026, a inclusão nativamente de wallet Bitcoin nos sistema da Apple Pay e da Google Pay. Seria um passo gigante para a adoção a nível mundial.
# ETFs
Os ETFs para mim são uma incógnita, tenho demasiadas dúvidas, como será 2025. Este ano os _inflows_ foram superiores a 500 mil bitcoins, o IBIT foi o lançamento de ETF mais bem sucedido da história. O sucesso dos ETFs, deve-se a 2 situações que nunca mais se vão repetir. O mercado esteve 10 anos à espera pela aprovação dos ETFs, a procura estava reprimida, isso foi bem notório nos primeiros meses, os _inflows_ foram brutais.
Também se beneficiou por ser um mercado novo, não existia _orderbook_ de vendas, não existia um mercado interno, praticamente era só _inflows_. Agora o mercado já estabilizou, a maioria das transações já são entre clientes dos próprios ETFs. Agora só uma pequena percentagem do volume das transações diárias vai resultar em _inflows_ ou _outflows_.
Estes dois fenómenos nunca mais se vão repetir, eu não acredito que o número de _inflows_ em BTC supere os número de 2024, em dólares vai superar, mas em btc não acredito que vá superar.
Mas em 2025 vão surgir uma infindável quantidade de novos produtos, derivativos, novos ETFs de cestos com outras criptos ou cestos com ativos tradicionais. O bitcoin será adicionado em produtos financeiros já existentes no mercado, as pessoas vão passar a deter bitcoin, sem o saberem.
Com o fim da operação ChokePoint 2.0, vai surgir uma nova onda de adoção e de produtos financeiros. Possivelmente vamos ver bancos tradicionais a disponibilizar produtos ou serviços de custódia aos seus clientes.
Eu adoraria ver o crescimento da adoção do bitcoin como moeda, só que a regulamentação não vai ajudar nesse processo.
# Preço
Eu acredito que o topo deste ciclo será alcançado no primeiro semestre, posteriormente haverá uma correção. Mas desta vez, eu acredito que a correção será muito menor que as anteriores, inferior a 50%, esta é a minha expectativa. Espero estar certo.
# Stablecoins de dólar
Agora saindo um pouco do universo do Bitcoin, acho importante destacar as _stablecoins_.
No último ciclo, eu tenho dividido o tempo, entre continuar a estudar o Bitcoin e estudar o sistema financeiro, as suas dinâmicas e o comportamento humano. Isto tem sido o meu foco de reflexão, imaginar a transformação que o mundo vai sofrer devido ao padrão Bitcoin. É uma ilusão acreditar que a transição de um padrão FIAT para um padrão Bitcoin vai ser rápida, vai existir um processo transitório que pode demorar décadas.
Com a re-entrada de Trump na Casa Branca, prometendo uma política altamente protecionista, vai provocar uma forte valorização do dólar, consequentemente as restantes moedas do mundo vão derreter. Provocando uma inflação generalizada, gerando uma corrida às _stablecoins_ de dólar nos países com moedas mais fracas. Trump vai ter uma política altamente expansionista, vai exportar dólares para todo o mundo, para financiar a sua própria dívida. A desigualdade entre os pobres e ricos irá crescer fortemente, aumentando a possibilidade de conflitos e revoltas.
> “Casa onde não há pão, todos ralham e ninguém tem razão”
Será mais lenha, para alimentar a fogueira, vai gravar os conflitos geopolíticos já existentes, ficando as sociedade ainda mais polarizadas.
Eu acredito que 2025, vai haver um forte crescimento na adoção das _stablecoins_ de dólares, esse forte crescimento vai agravar o problema sistémico que são as _stablecoins_. Vai ser o início do fim das _stablecoins_, pelo menos, como nós conhecemos hoje em dia.
## Problema sistémico
O sistema FIAT não nasceu de um dia para outro, foi algo que foi construído organicamente, ou seja, foi evoluindo ao longo dos anos, sempre que havia um problema/crise, eram criadas novas regras ou novas instituições para minimizar os problemas. Nestes quase 100 anos, desde os acordos de Bretton Woods, a evolução foram tantas, tornaram o sistema financeiro altamente complexo, burocrático e nada eficiente.
Na prática é um castelo de cartas construído sobre outro castelo de cartas e que por sua vez, foi construído sobre outro castelo de cartas.
As _stablecoins_ são um problema sistémico, devido às suas reservas em dólares e o sistema financeiro não está preparado para manter isso seguro. Com o crescimento das reservas ao longo dos anos, foi se agravando o problema.
No início a Tether colocava as reservas em bancos comerciais, mas com o crescimento dos dólares sob gestão, criou um problema nos bancos comerciais, devido à reserva fracionária. Essas enormes reservas da Tether estavam a colocar em risco a própria estabilidade dos bancos.
A Tether acabou por mudar de estratégia, optou por outros ativos, preferencialmente por títulos do tesouro/obrigações dos EUA. Só que a Tether continua a crescer e não dá sinais de abrandamento, pelo contrário.
Até o próprio mundo cripto, menosprezava a gravidade do problema da Tether/_stablecoins_ para o resto do sistema financeiro, porque o _marketcap_ do cripto ainda é muito pequeno. É verdade que ainda é pequeno, mas a Tether não o é, está no top 20 dos maiores detentores de títulos do tesouros dos EUA e está ao nível dos maiores bancos centrais do mundo. Devido ao seu tamanho, está a preocupar os responsáveis/autoridades/reguladores dos EUA, pode colocar em causa a estabilidade do sistema financeiro global, que está assente nessas obrigações.
Os títulos do tesouro dos EUA são o colateral mais utilizado no mundo, tanto por bancos centrais, como por empresas, é a charneira da estabilidade do sistema financeiro. Os títulos do tesouro são um assunto muito sensível. Na recente crise no Japão, do _carry trade_, o Banco Central do Japão tentou minimizar a desvalorização do iene através da venda de títulos dos EUA. Esta operação, obrigou a uma viagem de emergência, da Secretaria do Tesouro dos EUA, Janet Yellen ao Japão, onde disponibilizou liquidez para parar a venda de títulos por parte do Banco Central do Japão. Essa forte venda estava desestabilizando o mercado.
Os principais detentores de títulos do tesouros são institucionais, bancos centrais, bancos comerciais, fundo de investimento e gestoras, tudo administrado por gestores altamente qualificados, racionais e que conhecem a complexidade do mercado de obrigações.
O mundo cripto é seu oposto, é _naife_ com muita irracionalidade e uma forte pitada de loucura, na sua maioria nem faz a mínima ideia como funciona o sistema financeiro. Essa irracionalidade pode levar a uma “corrida bancária”, como aconteceu com o UST da Luna, que em poucas horas colapsou o projeto. Em termos de escala, a Luna ainda era muito pequena, por isso, o problema ficou circunscrito ao mundo cripto e a empresas ligadas diretamente ao cripto.
Só que a Tether é muito diferente, caso exista algum FUD, que obrigue a Tether a desfazer-se de vários biliões ou dezenas de biliões de dólares em títulos num curto espaço de tempo, poderia provocar consequências terríveis em todo o sistema financeiro. A Tether é grande demais, é já um problema sistémico, que vai agravar-se com o crescimento em 2025.
Não tenham dúvidas, se existir algum problema, o Tesouro dos EUA vai impedir a venda dos títulos que a Tether tem em sua posse, para salvar o sistema financeiro. O problema é, o que vai fazer a Tether, se ficar sem acesso às venda das reservas, como fará o _redeem_ dos dólares?
Como o crescimento do Tether é inevitável, o Tesouro e o FED estão com um grande problema em mãos, o que fazer com o Tether?
Mas o problema é que o atual sistema financeiro é como um curto cobertor: Quanto tapas a cabeça, destapas os pés; Ou quando tapas os pés, destapas a cabeça. Ou seja, para resolver o problema da guarda reservas da Tether, vai criar novos problemas, em outros locais do sistema financeiro e assim sucessivamente.
### Conta mestre
Uma possível solução seria dar uma conta mestre à Tether, dando o acesso direto a uma conta no FED, semelhante à que todos os bancos comerciais têm. Com isto, a Tether deixaria de necessitar os títulos do tesouro, depositando o dinheiro diretamente no banco central. Só que isto iria criar dois novos problemas, com o Custodia Bank e com o restante sistema bancário.
O Custodia Bank luta há vários anos contra o FED, nos tribunais pelo direito a ter licença bancária para um banco com _full-reserves_. O FED recusou sempre esse direito, com a justificativa que esse banco, colocaria em risco toda a estabilidade do sistema bancário existente, ou seja, todos os outros bancos poderiam colapsar. Perante a existência em simultâneo de bancos com reserva fracionária e com _full-reserves_, as pessoas e empresas iriam optar pelo mais seguro. Isso iria provocar uma corrida bancária, levando ao colapso de todos os bancos com reserva fracionária, porque no Custodia Bank, os fundos dos clientes estão 100% garantidos, para qualquer valor. Deixaria de ser necessário limites de fundos de Garantia de Depósitos.
Eu concordo com o FED nesse ponto, que os bancos com _full-reserves_ são uma ameaça a existência dos restantes bancos. O que eu discordo do FED, é a origem do problema, o problema não está nos bancos _full-reserves_, mas sim nos que têm reserva fracionária.
O FED ao conceder uma conta mestre ao Tether, abre um precedente, o Custodia Bank irá o aproveitar, reclamando pela igualdade de direitos nos tribunais e desta vez, possivelmente ganhará a sua licença.
Ainda há um segundo problema, com os restantes bancos comerciais. A Tether passaria a ter direitos similares aos bancos comerciais, mas os deveres seriam muito diferentes. Isto levaria os bancos comerciais aos tribunais para exigir igualdade de tratamento, é uma concorrência desleal. Isto é o bom dos tribunais dos EUA, são independentes e funcionam, mesmo contra o estado. Os bancos comerciais têm custos exorbitantes devido às políticas de _compliance_, como o KYC e AML. Como o governo não vai querer aliviar as regras, logo seria a Tether, a ser obrigada a fazer o _compliance_ dos seus clientes.
A obrigação do KYC para ter _stablecoins_ iriam provocar um terramoto no mundo cripto.
Assim, é pouco provável que seja a solução para a Tether.
### FED
Só resta uma hipótese, ser o próprio FED a controlar e a gerir diretamente as _stablecoins_ de dólar, nacionalizado ou absorvendo as existentes. Seria uma espécie de CBDC. Isto iria provocar um novo problema, um problema diplomático, porque as _stablecoins_ estão a colocar em causa a soberania monetária dos outros países. Atualmente as _stablecoins_ estão um pouco protegidas porque vivem num limbo jurídico, mas a partir do momento que estas são controladas pelo governo americano, tudo muda. Os países vão exigir às autoridades americanas medidas que limitem o uso nos seus respectivos países.
Não existe uma solução boa, o sistema FIAT é um castelo de cartas, qualquer carta que se mova, vai provocar um desmoronamento noutro local. As autoridades não poderão adiar mais o problema, terão que o resolver de vez, senão, qualquer dia será tarde demais. Se houver algum problema, vão colocar a responsabilidade no cripto e no Bitcoin. Mas a verdade, a culpa é inteiramente dos políticos, da sua incompetência em resolver os problemas a tempo.
Será algo para acompanhar futuramente, mas só para 2026, talvez…
É curioso, há uns anos pensava-se que o Bitcoin seria a maior ameaça ao sistema ao FIAT, mas afinal, a maior ameaça aos sistema FIAT é o próprio FIAT(_stablecoins_). A ironia do destino.
Isto é como uma corrida, o Bitcoin é aquele atleta que corre ao seu ritmo, umas vezes mais rápido, outras vezes mais lento, mas nunca pára. O FIAT é o atleta que dá tudo desde da partida, corre sempre em velocidade máxima. Só que a vida e o sistema financeiro não é uma prova de 100 metros, mas sim uma maratona.
# Europa
2025 será um ano desafiante para todos europeus, sobretudo devido à entrada em vigor da regulamentação (MiCA). Vão começar a sentir na pele a regulamentação, vão agravar-se os problemas com os _compliance_, problemas para comprovar a origem de fundos e outras burocracias. Vai ser lindo.
O _Travel Route_ passa a ser obrigatório, os europeus serão obrigados a fazer o KYC nas transações. A _Travel Route_ é uma suposta lei para criar mais transparência, mas prática, é uma lei de controle, de monitorização e para limitar as liberdades individuais dos cidadãos.
O MiCA também está a colocar problemas nas _stablecoins_ de Euro, a Tether para já preferiu ficar de fora da europa. O mais ridículo é que as novas regras obrigam os emissores a colocar 30% das reservas em bancos comerciais. Os burocratas europeus não compreendem que isto coloca em risco a estabilidade e a solvência dos próprios bancos, ficam propensos a corridas bancárias.
O MiCA vai obrigar a todas as exchanges a estar registadas em solo europeu, ficando vulnerável ao temperamento dos burocratas. Ainda não vai ser em 2025, mas a UE vai impor políticas de controle de capitais, é inevitável, as exchanges serão obrigadas a usar em exclusividade _stablecoins_ de euro, as restantes _stablecoins_ serão deslistadas.
Todas estas novas regras do MiCA, são extremamente restritas, não é para garantir mais segurança aos cidadãos europeus, mas sim para garantir mais controle sobre a população. A UE está cada vez mais perto da autocracia, do que da democracia. A minha única esperança no horizonte, é que o sucesso das políticas cripto nos EUA, vai obrigar a UE a recuar e a aligeirar as regras, a teoria dos jogos é implacável. Mas esse recuo, nunca acontecerá em 2025, vai ser um longo período conturbado.
# Recessão
Os mercados estão todos em máximos históricos, isto não é sustentável por muito tempo, suspeito que no final de 2025 vai acontecer alguma correção nos mercados. A queda só não será maior, porque os bancos centrais vão imprimir dinheiro, muito dinheiro, como se não houvesse amanhã. Vão voltar a resolver os problemas com a injeção de liquidez na economia, é empurrar os problemas com a barriga, em de os resolver. Outra vez o efeito Cantillon.
Será um ano muito desafiante a nível político, onde o papel dos políticos será fundamental. A crise política na França e na Alemanha, coloca a UE órfã, sem um comandante ao leme do navio. 2025 estará condicionado pelas eleições na Alemanha, sobretudo no resultado do AfD, que podem colocar em causa a propriedade UE e o euro.
Possivelmente, só o fim da guerra poderia minimizar a crise, algo que é muito pouco provável acontecer.
Em Portugal, a economia parece que está mais ou menos equilibrada, mas começam a aparecer alguns sinais preocupantes. Os jogos de sorte e azar estão em máximos históricos, batendo o recorde de 2014, época da grande crise, não é um bom sinal, possivelmente já existe algum desespero no ar.
A Alemanha é o motor da Europa, quanto espirra, Portugal constipa-se. Além do problema da Alemanha, a Espanha também está à beira de uma crise, são os países que mais influenciam a economia portuguesa.
Se existir uma recessão mundial, terá um forte impacto no turismo, que é hoje em dia o principal motor de Portugal.
# Brasil
Brasil é algo para acompanhar em 2025, sobretudo a nível macro e a nível político. Existe uma possibilidade de uma profunda crise no Brasil, sobretudo na sua moeda. O banco central já anda a queimar as reservas para minimizar a desvalorização do Real.
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Sem mudanças profundas nas políticas fiscais, as reservas vão se esgotar. As políticas de controle de capitais são um cenário plausível, será interesse de acompanhar, como o governo irá proceder perante a existência do Bitcoin e _stablecoins_. No Brasil existe um forte adoção, será um bom _case study_, certamente irá repetir-se em outros países num futuro próximo.
Os próximos tempos não serão fáceis para os brasileiros, especialmente para os que não têm Bitcoin.
# Blockchain
Em 2025, possivelmente vamos ver os primeiros passos da BlackRock para criar a primeira bolsa de valores, exclusivamente em _blockchain_. Eu acredito que a BlackRock vai criar uma própria _blockchain_, toda controlada por si, onde estarão os RWAs, para fazer concorrência às tradicionais bolsas de valores. Será algo interessante de acompanhar.
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Estas são as minhas previsões, eu escrevi isto muito em cima do joelho, certamente esqueci-me de algumas coisas, se for importante acrescentarei nos comentários. A maioria das previsões só acontecerá após 2025, mas fica aqui a minha opinião.
Isto é apenas a minha opinião, **Don’t Trust, Verify**!
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@ 16d11430:61640947
2024-12-23 16:47:01
At the intersection of philosophy, theology, physics, biology, and finance lies a terrifying truth: the fiat monetary system, in its current form, is not just an economic framework but a silent, relentless force actively working against humanity's survival. It isn't simply a failed financial model—it is a systemic engine of destruction, both externally and within the very core of our biological existence.
The Philosophical Void of Fiat
Philosophy has long questioned the nature of value and the meaning of human existence. From Socrates to Kant, thinkers have pondered the pursuit of truth, beauty, and virtue. But in the modern age, the fiat system has hijacked this discourse. The notion of "value" in a fiat world is no longer rooted in human potential or natural resources—it is abstracted, manipulated, and controlled by central authorities with the sole purpose of perpetuating their own power. The currency is not a reflection of society’s labor or resources; it is a representation of faith in an authority that, more often than not, breaks that faith with reckless monetary policies and hidden inflation.
The fiat system has created a kind of ontological nihilism, where the idea of true value, rooted in work, creativity, and family, is replaced with speculative gambling and short-term gains. This betrayal of human purpose at the systemic level feeds into a philosophical despair: the relentless devaluation of effort, the erosion of trust, and the abandonment of shared human values. In this nihilistic economy, purpose and meaning become increasingly difficult to find, leaving millions to question the very foundation of their existence.
Theological Implications: Fiat and the Collapse of the Sacred
Religious traditions have long linked moral integrity with the stewardship of resources and the preservation of life. Fiat currency, however, corrupts these foundational beliefs. In the theological narrative of creation, humans are given dominion over the Earth, tasked with nurturing and protecting it for future generations. But the fiat system promotes the exact opposite: it commodifies everything—land, labor, and life—treating them as mere transactions on a ledger.
This disrespect for creation is an affront to the divine. In many theologies, creation is meant to be sustained, a delicate balance that mirrors the harmony of the divine order. Fiat systems—by continuously printing money and driving inflation—treat nature and humanity as expendable resources to be exploited for short-term gains, leading to environmental degradation and societal collapse. The creation narrative, in which humans are called to be stewards, is inverted. The fiat system, through its unholy alliance with unrestrained growth and unsustainable debt, is destroying the very creation it should protect.
Furthermore, the fiat system drives idolatry of power and wealth. The central banks and corporations that control the money supply have become modern-day gods, their decrees shaping the lives of billions, while the masses are enslaved by debt and inflation. This form of worship isn't overt, but it is profound. It leads to a world where people place their faith not in God or their families, but in the abstract promises of institutions that serve their own interests.
Physics and the Infinite Growth Paradox
Physics teaches us that the universe is finite—resources, energy, and space are all limited. Yet, the fiat system operates under the delusion of infinite growth. Central banks print money without concern for natural limits, encouraging an economy that assumes unending expansion. This is not only an economic fallacy; it is a physical impossibility.
In thermodynamics, the Second Law states that entropy (disorder) increases over time in any closed system. The fiat system operates as if the Earth were an infinite resource pool, perpetually able to expand without consequence. The real world, however, does not bend to these abstract concepts of infinite growth. Resources are finite, ecosystems are fragile, and human capacity is limited. Fiat currency, by promoting unsustainable consumption and growth, accelerates the depletion of resources and the degradation of natural systems that support life itself.
Even the financial “growth” driven by fiat policies leads to unsustainable bubbles—inflated stock markets, real estate, and speculative assets that burst and leave ruin in their wake. These crashes aren’t just economic—they have profound biological consequences. The cycles of boom and bust undermine communities, erode social stability, and increase anxiety and depression, all of which affect human health at a biological level.
Biology: The Fiat System and the Destruction of Human Health
Biologically, the fiat system is a cancerous growth on human society. The constant chase for growth and the devaluation of work leads to chronic stress, which is one of the leading causes of disease in modern society. The strain of living in a system that values speculation over well-being results in a biological feedback loop: rising anxiety, poor mental health, physical diseases like cardiovascular disorders, and a shortening of lifespans.
Moreover, the focus on profit and short-term returns creates a biological disconnect between humans and the planet. The fiat system fuels industries that destroy ecosystems, increase pollution, and deplete resources at unsustainable rates. These actions are not just environmentally harmful; they directly harm human biology. The degradation of the environment—whether through toxic chemicals, pollution, or resource extraction—has profound biological effects on human health, causing respiratory diseases, cancers, and neurological disorders.
The biological cost of the fiat system is not a distant theory; it is being paid every day by millions in the form of increased health risks, diseases linked to stress, and the growing burden of mental health disorders. The constant uncertainty of an inflation-driven economy exacerbates these conditions, creating a society of individuals whose bodies and minds are under constant strain. We are witnessing a systemic biological unraveling, one in which the very act of living is increasingly fraught with pain, instability, and the looming threat of collapse.
Finance as the Final Illusion
At the core of the fiat system is a fundamental illusion—that financial growth can occur without any real connection to tangible value. The abstraction of currency, the manipulation of interest rates, and the constant creation of new money hide the underlying truth: the system is built on nothing but faith. When that faith falters, the entire system collapses.
This illusion has become so deeply embedded that it now defines the human experience. Work no longer connects to production or creation—it is reduced to a transaction on a spreadsheet, a means to acquire more fiat currency in a world where value is ephemeral and increasingly disconnected from human reality.
As we pursue ever-expanding wealth, the fundamental truths of biology—interdependence, sustainability, and balance—are ignored. The fiat system’s abstract financial models serve to disconnect us from the basic realities of life: that we are part of an interconnected world where every action has a reaction, where resources are finite, and where human health, both mental and physical, depends on the stability of our environment and our social systems.
The Ultimate Extermination
In the end, the fiat system is not just an economic issue; it is a biological, philosophical, theological, and existential threat to the very survival of humanity. It is a force that devalues human effort, encourages environmental destruction, fosters inequality, and creates pain at the core of the human biological condition. It is an economic framework that leads not to prosperity, but to extermination—not just of species, but of the very essence of human well-being.
To continue on this path is to accept the slow death of our species, one based not on natural forces, but on our own choice to worship the abstract over the real, the speculative over the tangible. The fiat system isn't just a threat; it is the ultimate self-inflicted wound, a cultural and financial cancer that, if left unchecked, will destroy humanity’s chance for survival and peace.
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@ a367f9eb:0633efea
2024-12-22 21:35:22
I’ll admit that I was wrong about Bitcoin. Perhaps in 2013. Definitely 2017. Probably in 2018-2019. And maybe even today.
Being wrong about Bitcoin is part of finally understanding it. It will test you, make you question everything, and in the words of BTC educator and privacy advocate [Matt Odell](https://twitter.com/ODELL), “Bitcoin will humble you”.
I’ve had my own stumbles on the way.
In a very public fashion in 2017, after years of using Bitcoin, trying to start a company with it, using it as my primary exchange vehicle between currencies, and generally being annoying about it at parties, I let out the bear.
In an article published in my own literary magazine *Devolution Review* in September 2017, I had a breaking point. The article was titled “[Going Bearish on Bitcoin: Cryptocurrencies are the tulip mania of the 21st century](https://www.devolutionreview.com/bearish-on-bitcoin/)”.
It was later republished in *Huffington Post* and across dozens of financial and crypto blogs at the time with another, more appropriate title: “[Bitcoin Has Become About The Payday, Not Its Potential](https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/bitcoin-has-become-about-the-payday-not-its-potential_ca_5cd5025de4b07bc72973ec2d)”.
As I laid out, my newfound bearishness had little to do with the technology itself or the promise of Bitcoin, and more to do with the cynical industry forming around it:
> In the beginning, Bitcoin was something of a revolution to me. The digital currency represented everything from my rebellious youth.
>
> It was a decentralized, denationalized, and digital currency operating outside the traditional banking and governmental system. It used tools of cryptography and connected buyers and sellers across national borders at minimal transaction costs.
>
> …
>
> The 21st-century version (of Tulip mania) has welcomed a plethora of slick consultants, hazy schemes dressed up as investor possibilities, and too much wishy-washy language for anything to really make sense to anyone who wants to use a digital currency to make purchases.
While I called out Bitcoin by name at the time, on reflection, I was really talking about the ICO craze, the wishy-washy consultants, and the altcoin ponzis.
What I was articulating — without knowing it — was the frame of NgU, or “numbers go up”. Rather than advocating for Bitcoin because of its uncensorability, proof-of-work, or immutability, the common mentality among newbies and the dollar-obsessed was that Bitcoin mattered because its price was a rocket ship.
And because Bitcoin was gaining in price, affinity tokens and projects that were imperfect forks of Bitcoin took off as well.
The price alone — rather than its qualities — were the reasons why you’d hear Uber drivers, finance bros, or your gym buddy mention Bitcoin. As someone who came to Bitcoin for philosophical reasons, that just sat wrong with me.
Maybe I had too many projects thrown in my face, or maybe I was too frustrated with the UX of Bitcoin apps and sites at the time. No matter what, I’ve since learned something.
**I was at least somewhat wrong.**
My own journey began in early 2011. One of my favorite radio programs, Free Talk Live, began interviewing guests and having discussions on the potential of Bitcoin. They tied it directly to a libertarian vision of the world: free markets, free people, and free banking. That was me, and I was in. Bitcoin was at about $5 back then (NgU).
I followed every article I could, talked about it with guests [on my college radio show](https://libertyinexile.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/osamobama_on_the_tubes/), and became a devoted redditor on r/Bitcoin. At that time, at least to my knowledge, there was no possible way to buy Bitcoin where I was living. Very weak.
**I was probably wrong. And very wrong for not trying to acquire by mining or otherwise.**
The next year, after moving to Florida, Bitcoin was a heavy topic with a friend of mine who shared the same vision (and still does, according to the Celsius bankruptcy documents). We talked about it with passionate leftists at **Occupy Tampa** in 2012, all the while trying to explain the ills of Keynesian central banking, and figuring out how to use Coinbase.
I began writing more about Bitcoin in 2013, writing a guide on “[How to Avoid Bank Fees Using Bitcoin](http://thestatelessman.com/2013/06/03/using-bitcoin/),” discussing its [potential legalization in Germany](https://yael.ca/2013/10/01/lagefi-alternative-monetaire-et-legislation-de/), and interviewing Jeremy Hansen, [one of the first political candidates in the U.S. to accept Bitcoin donations](https://yael.ca/2013/12/09/bitcoin-politician-wants-to-upgrade-democracy-in/).
Even up until that point, I thought Bitcoin was an interesting protocol for sending and receiving money quickly, and converting it into fiat. The global connectedness of it, plus this cypherpunk mentality divorced from government control was both useful and attractive. I thought it was the perfect go-between.
**But I was wrong.**
When I gave my [first public speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtVypq2f0G4) on Bitcoin in Vienna, Austria in December 2013, I had grown obsessed with Bitcoin’s adoption on dark net markets like Silk Road.
My theory, at the time, was the number and price were irrelevant. The tech was interesting, and a novel attempt. It was unlike anything before. But what was happening on the dark net markets, which I viewed as the true free market powered by Bitcoin, was even more interesting. I thought these markets would grow exponentially and anonymous commerce via BTC would become the norm.
While the price was irrelevant, it was all about buying and selling goods without permission or license.
**Now I understand I was wrong.**
Just because Bitcoin was this revolutionary technology that embraced pseudonymity did not mean that all commerce would decentralize as well. It did not mean that anonymous markets were intended to be the most powerful layer in the Bitcoin stack.
What I did not even anticipate is something articulated very well by noted Bitcoin OG [Pierre Rochard](https://twitter.com/BitcoinPierre): [Bitcoin as a *savings technology*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BavRqEoaxjI)*.*
The ability to maintain long-term savings, practice self-discipline while stacking stats, and embrace a low-time preference was just not something on the mind of the Bitcoiners I knew at the time.
Perhaps I was reading into the hype while outwardly opposing it. Or perhaps I wasn’t humble enough to understand the true value proposition that many of us have learned years later.
In the years that followed, I bought and sold more times than I can count, and I did everything to integrate it into passion projects. I tried to set up a company using Bitcoin while at my university in Prague.
My business model depended on university students being technologically advanced enough to have a mobile wallet, own their keys, and be able to make transactions on a consistent basis. Even though I was surrounded by philosophically aligned people, those who would advance that to actually put Bitcoin into practice were sparse.
This is what led me to proclaim that “[Technological Literacy is Doomed](https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/technological-literacy-is-doomed_b_12669440)” in 2016.
**And I was wrong again.**
Indeed, since that time, the UX of Bitcoin-only applications, wallets, and supporting tech has vastly improved and onboarded millions more people than anyone thought possible. The entrepreneurship, coding excellence, and vision offered by Bitcoiners of all stripes have renewed a sense in me that this project is something built for us all — friends and enemies alike.
While many of us were likely distracted by flashy and pumpy altcoins over the years (me too, champs), most of us have returned to the Bitcoin stable.
Fast forward to today, there are entire ecosystems of creators, activists, and developers who are wholly reliant on the magic of Bitcoin’s protocol for their life and livelihood. The options are endless. The FUD is still present, but real proof of work stands powerfully against those forces.
In addition, there are now [dozens of ways to use Bitcoin privately](https://fixthemoney.substack.com/p/not-your-keys-not-your-coins-claiming) — still without custodians or intermediaries — that make it one of the most important assets for global humanity, especially in dictatorships.
This is all toward a positive arc of innovation, freedom, and pure independence. Did I see that coming? Absolutely not.
Of course, there are probably other shots you’ve missed on Bitcoin. Price predictions (ouch), the short-term inflation hedge, or the amount of institutional investment. While all of these may be erroneous predictions in the short term, we have to realize that Bitcoin is a long arc. It will outlive all of us on the planet, and it will continue in its present form for the next generation.
**Being wrong about the evolution of Bitcoin is no fault, and is indeed part of the learning curve to finally understanding it all.**
When your family or friends ask you about Bitcoin after your endless sessions explaining market dynamics, nodes, how mining works, and the genius of cryptographic signatures, try to accept that there is still so much we have to learn about this decentralized digital cash.
There are still some things you’ve gotten wrong about Bitcoin, and plenty more you’ll underestimate or get wrong in the future. That’s what makes it a beautiful journey. It’s a long road, but one that remains worth it.
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@ f0c7506b:9ead75b8
2024-12-08 10:03:35
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[Abbas Kiarostami]( https://www.piktobet.net/search/label/abbas%20kiarostami?m=1)
* Bazı şeyleri yapmak, söylemekten daha kolaydır.
* Bütün güzel şeyleri bize toprak verir. Bütün güzel şeyler toprağa geri döner.
* Eğer mevsimlere bakarsanız her mevsim meyve getirir. Yazın meyve vardır, sonbaharda da. Kış farklı meyveler getirir, ilkbahar da. Hiçbir anne çocukları için bu kadar çok çeşit meyveyle buzdolabını dolduramaz.
* Kendimi bu hayattan kurtarmaya karar verdim. Ne için mi? Bu anlamanıza yardım etmeyecektir ve bunun hakkında sizinle konuşamam; anlayamazsınız. Anlamayacağınız için değil; çünkü benim hissettiklerimi hissedemezsiniz. Duygularımı anlayıp paylaşabilirsiniz, bana merhamet gösterebilirsiniz; ama acımı hissedebilir misiniz? Hayır. Acı çekersiniz ve ben de çekerim. Sizi anlarım. Acımı anlayabilirsiniz; ama onu hissedemezsiniz.
* İnsanın devam edemeyeceği bir an gelir.
* Birisine yardım etmek istediğiniz zaman bunu uygun biçimde yapmalısınız, bütün kalbinizle. Bu daha iyidir. Daha adil ve daha makul.
* İntiharın en büyük günahlardan birisi olduğunu biliyorum. Fakat mutsuz olmak da büyük bir günah. Mutsuzken başka insanları incitirsiniz. Bu da bir günah değil mi? Başkalarını incittiğinizde bu bir günah değil midir? Aileni incitiyorsun, arkadaşlarını, kendini incitiyorsun. Bu bir günah değil mi? Size yakın olan insanları incitiyorsanız bu da büyük bir günahtır.
* Yardım, mutlaka karşılığı ödenmesi gereken bir şey değildir.
* Size başımdan geçen bir olayı anlatacağım: henüz yeni evlenmiştim. Belaların her türlüsü bizi buldu. Öylesine bıkkındım ki her şeye son vermeye karar verdim. Bir sabah şafak sökmeden önce arabama bir ip koydum. Kendimi öldürmeyi kafama koydum. Yola koyuldum. Dut ağaçlarıyla dolu bir bahçeye vardım. Orada durdum. Hava henüz karanlıktı. İpi bir ağacın dalı üzerine attım; ama tutturamadım. Bir iki kere denedim ama kâr etmedi. Ardından ağaca tırmandım ve ipi sımsıkı düğümledim. Sonra elimin altında yumuşak bir şey hissettim: Dutlar. Lezzetli, tatlı dutlar. Birini yedim. taze ve suluydu. Ardından bir ikincisini ve üçüncüsünü. Birdenbire güneşin dağların zirvesinden doğduğunun farkına vardım. O ne güneşti, ne manzaraydı, ne yeşillikti ama! Birdenbire okula giden çocukların seslerini duydum. Bana bakmak için durdular.** "Ağacı sallar mısın?"** diye bana sordular. Dutlar düştü ve yediler. Kendimi mutlu hissettim. Ardından alıp eve götürmek için biraz dut topladım. Bizim hanım hâlâ uyuyordu. Uyandığı zaman dutları güzelce yedi. Ve hoşuna gitti. Kendimi öldürmek için ayrılmıştım ve dutlarla geri döndüm. Bir dut hayatımı kurtarmıştı.
* Bir türk, doktoru görmeye gider. Ve ona der ki: **"Doktor bey, vücuduma parmağımla dokunduğumda acıyor, başıma dokunsam acıyor, bacaklarıma dokunsam acıyor, karnıma, elime dokunsam acıyor." doktor onu muayene eder ve sonra ona der ki: "vücudun sağlam; ama parmağın kırık!"**
* Hayat dümdüz ilerleyen bir tren gibidir; rayların sonuna geldiğinde son durağa ulaşır. Ve ölüm son durakta bekler. Elbette, ölüm bir çözümdür; fakat ilk olarak değil. Genç yaşta hiç değil.
* Dünya göründüğü gibi değildir. Bakış açınızı değiştirmelisiniz ki dünya değişsin. İyimser olun. Her şeye olumlu tarafından bakın.
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@ e31e84c4:77bbabc0
2024-12-02 10:44:07
*Bitcoin and Fixed Income was Written By Wyatt O’Rourke. If you enjoyed this article then support his writing, directly, by donating to his lightning wallet: ultrahusky3@primal.net*
Fiduciary duty is the obligation to act in the client’s best interests at all times, prioritizing their needs above the advisor’s own, ensuring honesty, transparency, and avoiding conflicts of interest in all recommendations and actions.
This is something all advisors in the BFAN take very seriously; after all, we are legally required to do so. For the average advisor this is a fairly easy box to check. All you essentially have to do is have someone take a 5-minute risk assessment, fill out an investment policy statement, and then throw them in the proverbial 60/40 portfolio. You have thousands of investment options to choose from and you can reasonably explain how your client is theoretically insulated from any move in the \~markets\~. From the traditional financial advisor perspective, you could justify nearly anything by putting a client into this type of portfolio. All your bases were pretty much covered from return profile, regulatory, compliance, investment options, etc. It was just too easy. It became the household standard and now a meme.
As almost every real bitcoiner knows, the 60/40 portfolio is moving into psyop territory, and many financial advisors get clowned on for defending this relic on bitcoin twitter. I’m going to specifically poke fun at the ‘40’ part of this portfolio.
The ‘40’ represents fixed income, defined as…
> An investment type that provides regular, set interest payments, such as bonds or treasury securities, and returns the principal at maturity. It’s generally considered a lower-risk asset class, used to generate stable income and preserve capital.
Historically, this part of the portfolio was meant to weather the volatility in the equity markets and represent the “safe” investments. Typically, some sort of bond.
First and foremost, the fixed income section is most commonly constructed with U.S. Debt. There are a couple main reasons for this. Most financial professionals believe the same fairy tale that U.S. Debt is “risk free” (lol). U.S. debt is also one of the largest and most liquid assets in the market which comes with a lot of benefits.
There are many brilliant bitcoiners in finance and economics that have sounded the alarm on the U.S. debt ticking time bomb. I highly recommend readers explore the work of Greg Foss, Lawrence Lepard, Lyn Alden, and Saifedean Ammous. My very high-level recap of their analysis:
- A bond is a contract in which Party A (the borrower) agrees to repay Party B (the lender) their principal plus interest over time.
- The U.S. government issues bonds (Treasury securities) to finance its operations after tax revenues have been exhausted.
- These are traditionally viewed as “risk-free” due to the government’s historical reliability in repaying its debts and the strength of the U.S. economy
- U.S. bonds are seen as safe because the government has control over the dollar (world reserve asset) and, until recently (20 some odd years), enjoyed broad confidence that it would always honor its debts.
- This perception has contributed to high global demand for U.S. debt but, that is quickly deteriorating.
- The current debt situation raises concerns about sustainability.
- The U.S. has substantial obligations, and without sufficient productivity growth, increasing debt may lead to a cycle where borrowing to cover interest leads to more debt.
- This could result in more reliance on money creation (printing), which can drive inflation and further debt burdens.
In the words of Lyn Alden “Nothing stops this train”
Those obligations are what makes up the 40% of most the fixed income in your portfolio. So essentially you are giving money to one of the worst capital allocators in the world (U.S. Gov’t) and getting paid back with printed money.
As someone who takes their fiduciary responsibility seriously and understands the debt situation we just reviewed, I think it’s borderline negligent to put someone into a classic 60% (equities) / 40% (fixed income) portfolio without serious scrutiny of the client’s financial situation and options available to them. I certainly have my qualms with equities at times, but overall, they are more palatable than the fixed income portion of the portfolio. I don’t like it either, but the money is broken and the unit of account for nearly every equity or fixed income instrument (USD) is fraudulent. It’s a paper mache fade that is quite literally propped up by the money printer.
To briefly be as most charitable as I can – It wasn’t always this way. The U.S. Dollar used to be sound money, we used to have government surplus instead of mathematically certain deficits, The U.S. Federal Government didn’t used to have a money printing addiction, and pre-bitcoin the 60/40 portfolio used to be a quality portfolio management strategy. Those times are gone.
### Now the fun part. How does bitcoin fix this?
Bitcoin fixes this indirectly. Understanding investment criteria changes via risk tolerance, age, goals, etc. A client may still have a need for “fixed income” in the most literal definition – Low risk yield. Now you may be thinking that yield is a bad word in bitcoin land, you’re not wrong, so stay with me. Perpetual motion machine crypto yield is fake and largely where many crypto scams originate. However, that doesn’t mean yield in the classic finance sense does not exist in bitcoin, it very literally does. Fortunately for us bitcoiners there are many other smart, driven, and enterprising bitcoiners that understand this problem and are doing something to address it. These individuals are pioneering new possibilities in bitcoin and finance, specifically when it comes to fixed income.
Here are some new developments –
Private Credit Funds – The Build Asset Management Secured Income Fund I is a private credit fund created by Build Asset Management. This fund primarily invests in bitcoin-backed, collateralized business loans originated by Unchained, with a secured structure involving a multi-signature, over-collateralized setup for risk management. Unchained originates loans and sells them to Build, which pools them into the fund, enabling investors to share in the interest income.
Dynamics
- Loan Terms: Unchained issues loans at interest rates around 14%, secured with a 2/3 multi-signature vault backed by a 40% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio.
- Fund Mechanics: Build buys these loans from Unchained, thus providing liquidity to Unchained for further loan originations, while Build manages interest payments to investors in the fund.
Pros
- The fund offers a unique way to earn income via bitcoin-collateralized debt, with protection against rehypothecation and strong security measures, making it attractive for investors seeking exposure to fixed income with bitcoin.
Cons
- The fund is only available to accredited investors, which is a regulatory standard for private credit funds like this.
Corporate Bonds – MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR), a business intelligence company, has leveraged its corporate structure to issue bonds specifically to acquire bitcoin as a reserve asset. This approach allows investors to indirectly gain exposure to bitcoin’s potential upside while receiving interest payments on their bond investments. Some other publicly traded companies have also adopted this strategy, but for the sake of this article we will focus on MSTR as they are the biggest and most vocal issuer.
Dynamics
- Issuance: MicroStrategy has issued senior secured notes in multiple offerings, with terms allowing the company to use the proceeds to purchase bitcoin.
- Interest Rates: The bonds typically carry high-yield interest rates, averaging around 6-8% APR, depending on the specific issuance and market conditions at the time of issuance.
- Maturity: The bonds have varying maturities, with most structured for multi-year terms, offering investors medium-term exposure to bitcoin’s value trajectory through MicroStrategy’s holdings.
Pros
- Indirect Bitcoin exposure with income provides a unique opportunity for investors seeking income from bitcoin-backed debt.
- Bonds issued by MicroStrategy offer relatively high interest rates, appealing for fixed-income investors attracted to the higher risk/reward scenarios.
Cons
- There are credit risks tied to MicroStrategy’s financial health and bitcoin’s performance. A significant drop in bitcoin prices could strain the company’s ability to service debt, increasing credit risk.
- Availability: These bonds are primarily accessible to institutional investors and accredited investors, limiting availability for retail investors.
Interest Payable in Bitcoin – River has introduced an innovative product, bitcoin Interest on Cash, allowing clients to earn interest on their U.S. dollar deposits, with the interest paid in bitcoin.
Dynamics
- Interest Payment: Clients earn an annual interest rate of 3.8% on their cash deposits. The accrued interest is converted to Bitcoin daily and paid out monthly, enabling clients to accumulate Bitcoin over time.
- Security and Accessibility: Cash deposits are insured up to $250,000 through River’s banking partner, Lead Bank, a member of the FDIC. All Bitcoin holdings are maintained in full reserve custody, ensuring that client assets are not lent or leveraged.
Pros
- There are no hidden fees or minimum balance requirements, and clients can withdraw their cash at any time.
- The 3.8% interest rate provides a predictable income stream, akin to traditional fixed-income investments.
Cons
- While the interest rate is fixed, the value of the Bitcoin received as interest can fluctuate, introducing potential variability in the investment’s overall return.
- Interest rate payments are on the lower side
Admittedly, this is a very small list, however, these types of investments are growing more numerous and meaningful. The reality is the existing options aren’t numerous enough to service every client that has a need for fixed income exposure. I challenge advisors to explore innovative options for fixed income exposure outside of sovereign debt, as that is most certainly a road to nowhere. It is my wholehearted belief and call to action that we need more options to help clients across the risk and capital allocation spectrum access a sound money standard.
Additional Resources
- [River: The future of saving is here: Earn 3.8% on cash. Paid in Bitcoin.](http://bitcoin%20and%20fixed%20ihttps//blog.river.com/bitcoin-interest-on-cash/ncome)
- [Onramp: Bitcoin, The Emergent Asset Class](https://onrampbitcoin.docsend.com/view/j4wje7kgvw357tt9)
- [MicroStrategy: MicroStrategy Announces Pricing of Offering of Convertible Senior Notes](https://www.microstrategy.com/press/microstrategy-announces-pricing-of-offering-of-convertible-senior-notes_09-18-2024)
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*Bitcoin and Fixed Income was Written By Wyatt O’Rourke. If you enjoyed this article then support his writing, directly, by donating to his lightning wallet: ultrahusky3@primal.net*
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@ a849beb6:b327e6d2
2024-11-23 15:03:47
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/e306357a7e53c4e40458cf6fa5625917dc8deaa4d1012823caa5a0eefb39e53c.jpg">
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It was another historic week for both bitcoin and the Ten31 portfolio, as the world’s oldest, largest, most battle-tested cryptocurrency climbed to new all-time highs each day to close out the week just shy of the $100,000 mark. Along the way, bitcoin continued to accumulate institutional and regulatory wins, including the much-anticipated approval and launch of spot bitcoin ETF options and the appointment of several additional pro-bitcoin Presidential cabinet officials. The timing for this momentum was poetic, as this week marked the second anniversary of the pico-bottom of the 2022 bear market, a level that bitcoin has now hurdled to the tune of more than 6x despite the litany of bitcoin obituaries published at the time. The entirety of 2024 and especially the past month have further cemented our view that bitcoin is rapidly gaining a sense of legitimacy among institutions, fiduciaries, and governments, and we remain optimistic that this trend is set to accelerate even more into 2025.
Several Ten31 portfolio companies made exciting announcements this week that should serve to further entrench bitcoin’s institutional adoption. AnchorWatch, a first of its kind bitcoin insurance provider offering 1:1 coverage with its innovative use of bitcoin’s native properties, announced it has been designated a Lloyd’s of London Coverholder, giving the company unique, blue-chip status as it begins to write bitcoin insurance policies of up to $100 million per policy starting next month. Meanwhile, Battery Finance Founder and CEO Andrew Hohns appeared on CNBC to delve into the launch of Battery’s pioneering private credit strategy which fuses bitcoin and conventional tangible assets in a dual-collateralized structure that offers a compelling risk/return profile to both lenders and borrowers. Both companies are clearing a path for substantially greater bitcoin adoption in massive, untapped pools of capital, and Ten31 is proud to have served as lead investor for AnchorWatch’s Seed round and as exclusive capital partner for Battery.
As the world’s largest investor focused entirely on bitcoin, Ten31 has deployed nearly $150 million across two funds into more than 30 of the most promising and innovative companies in the ecosystem like AnchorWatch and Battery, and we expect 2025 to be the best year yet for both bitcoin and our portfolio. Ten31 will hold a first close for its third fund at the end of this year, and investors in that close will benefit from attractive incentives and a strong initial portfolio. Visit ten31.vc/funds to learn more and get in touch to discuss participating.\
\
**Portfolio Company Spotlight**
[Primal](http://primal.net/) is a first of its kind application for the Nostr protocol that combines a client, caching service, analytics tools, and more to address several unmet needs in the nascent Nostr ecosystem. Through the combination of its sleek client application and its caching service (built on a completely open source stack), Primal seeks to offer an end-user experience as smooth and easy as that of legacy social media platforms like Twitter and eventually many other applications, unlocking the vast potential of Nostr for the next billion people. Primal also offers an integrated wallet (powered by [Strike BLACK](https://x.com/Strike/status/1755335823023558819)) that substantially reduces onboarding and UX frictions for both Nostr and the lightning network while highlighting bitcoin’s unique power as internet-native, open-source money.
### **Selected Portfolio News**
AnchorWatch announced it has achieved Llody’s Coverholder status, allowing the company to provide unique 1:1 bitcoin insurance offerings starting in [December](https://x.com/AnchorWatch/status/1858622945763131577).\
\
Battery Finance Founder and CEO Andrew Hohns appeared on CNBC to delve into the company’s unique bitcoin-backed [private credit strategy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26bOawTzT5U).
Primal launched version 2.0, a landmark update that adds a feed marketplace, robust advanced search capabilities, premium-tier offerings, and many [more new features](https://primal.net/e/note1kaeajwh275kdwd6s0c2ksvj9f83t0k7usf9qj8fha2ac7m456juqpac43m).
Debifi launched its new iOS app for Apple users seeking non-custodial [bitcoin-collateralized loans](https://x.com/debificom/status/1858897785044500642).
### **Media**
Strike Founder and CEO Jack Mallers [joined Bloomberg TV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4z-2v_0H1k) to discuss the strong volumes the company has seen over the past year and the potential for a US bitcoin strategic reserve.
Primal Founder and CEO Miljan Braticevic [joined](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqR_IQfKic8) The Bitcoin Podcast to discuss the rollout of Primal 2.0 and the future of Nostr.
Ten31 Managing Partner Marty Bent [appeared on](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WwZDEtVxOE&t=1556s) BlazeTV to discuss recent changes in the regulatory environment for bitcoin.
Zaprite published a customer [testimonial video](https://x.com/ZapriteApp/status/1859357150809587928) highlighting the popularity of its offerings across the bitcoin ecosystem.
### **Market Updates**
Continuing its recent momentum, bitcoin reached another new all-time high this week, clocking in just below $100,000 on Friday. Bitcoin has now reached a market cap of [nearly $2 trillion](https://companiesmarketcap.com/assets-by-market-cap/), putting it within 3% of the market caps of Amazon and Google.
After receiving SEC and CFTC approval over the past month, long-awaited options on spot bitcoin ETFs were fully [approved](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-etf-options-set-hit-082230483.html) and launched this week. These options should help further expand bitcoin’s institutional [liquidity profile](https://x.com/kellyjgreer/status/1824168136637288912), with potentially significant [implications](https://x.com/dgt10011/status/1837278352823972147) for price action over time.
The new derivatives showed strong performance out of the gate, with volumes on options for BlackRock’s IBIT reaching [nearly $2 billion](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/20/bitcoin-etf-options-introduction-marks-milestone-despite-position-limits/) on just the first day of trading despite [surprisingly tight](https://x.com/dgt10011/status/1858729192105414837) position limits for the vehicles.
Meanwhile, the underlying spot bitcoin ETF complex had yet another banner week, pulling in [$3.4 billion](https://farside.co.uk/btc/) in net inflows.
New reports [suggested](https://archive.is/LMr4o) President-elect Donald Trump’s social media company is in advanced talks to acquire crypto trading platform Bakkt, potentially the latest indication of the incoming administration’s stance toward the broader “crypto” ecosystem.
On the macro front, US housing starts [declined M/M again](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-single-family-housing-starts-134759234.html) in October on persistently high mortgage rates and weather impacts. The metric remains well below pre-COVID levels.
Pockets of the US commercial real estate market remain challenged, as the CEO of large Florida developer Related indicated that [developers need further rate cuts](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-19/miami-developer-says-real-estate-market-needs-rate-cuts-badly) “badly” to maintain project viability.
US Manufacturing PMI [increased slightly](https://www.fxstreet.com/news/sp-global-pmis-set-to-signal-us-economy-continued-to-expand-in-november-202411220900) M/M, but has now been in contraction territory (<50) for well over two years.
The latest iteration of the University of Michigan’s popular consumer sentiment survey [ticked up](https://archive.is/fY5j6) following this month’s election results, though so did five-year inflation expectations, which now sit comfortably north of 3%.
### **Regulatory Update**
After weeks of speculation, the incoming Trump administration appointed hedge fund manager [Scott Bessent](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/11/22/donald-trump-chooses-hedge-fund-executive-scott-bessent-for-treasury-secretary.html) to head up the US Treasury. Like many of Trump’s cabinet selections so far, Bessent has been a [public advocate](https://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/1856204133901963512) for bitcoin.
Trump also [appointed](https://www.axios.com/2024/11/19/trump-commerce-secretary-howard-lutnick) Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick – another outspoken [bitcoin bull](https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/09/04/tradfi-companies-want-to-transact-in-bitcoin-says-cantor-fitzgerald-ceo/) – as Secretary of the Commerce Department.
Meanwhile, the Trump team is reportedly considering creating a new [“crypto czar”](https://archive.is/jPQHF) role to sit within the administration. While it’s unclear at this point what that role would entail, one report indicated that the administration’s broader “crypto council” is expected to move forward with plans for a [strategic bitcoin reserve](https://archive.is/ZtiOk).
Various government lawyers suggested this week that the Trump administration is likely to be [less aggressive](https://archive.is/Uggnn) in seeking adversarial enforcement actions against bitcoin and “crypto” in general, as regulatory bodies appear poised to shift resources and focus elsewhere.
Other updates from the regulatory apparatus were also directionally positive for bitcoin, most notably FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg’s confirmation that he [plans to resign](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/19/fdics-gruenberg-says-he-will-resign-jan-19-00190373) from his post at the end of President Biden’s term.
Many critics have alleged Gruenberg was an architect of [“Operation Chokepoint 2.0,”](https://x.com/GOPMajorityWhip/status/1858927571666096628) which has created banking headwinds for bitcoin companies over the past several years, so a change of leadership at the department is likely yet another positive for the space.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler also officially announced he plans to resign at the start of the new administration. Gensler has been the target of much ire from the broader “crypto” space, though we expect many projects outside bitcoin may continue to struggle with questions around the [Howey Test](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/howey-test.asp).
Overseas, a Chinese court ruled that it is [not illegal](https://www.benzinga.com/24/11/42103633/chinese-court-affirms-cryptocurrency-ownership-as-legal-as-bitcoin-breaks-97k) for individuals to hold cryptocurrency, even though the country is still ostensibly [enforcing a ban](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58678907) on crypto transactions.
### **Noteworthy**
The incoming CEO of Charles Schwab – which administers over $9 trillion in client assets – [suggested](https://x.com/matthew_sigel/status/1859700668887597331) the platform is preparing to “get into” spot bitcoin offerings and that he “feels silly” for having waited this long. As this attitude becomes more common among traditional finance players, we continue to believe that the number of acquirers coming to market for bitcoin infrastructure capabilities will far outstrip the number of available high quality assets.
BlackRock’s 2025 Thematic Outlook notes a [“renewed sense of optimism”](https://www.ishares.com/us/insights/2025-thematic-outlook#rate-cuts) on bitcoin among the asset manager’s client base due to macro tailwinds and the improving regulatory environment. Elsewhere, BlackRock’s head of digital assets [indicated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE7cAw7oIeA) the firm does not view bitcoin as a “risk-on” asset.
MicroStrategy, which was a sub-$1 billion market cap company less than five years ago, briefly breached a [$100 billion equity value](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microstrategy-breaks-top-100-u-191842879.html) this week as it continues to aggressively acquire bitcoin. The company now holds nearly 350,000 bitcoin on its balance sheet.
Notably, Allianz SE, Germany’s largest insurer, [spoke for 25%](https://bitbo.io/news/allianz-buys-microstrategy-notes/) of MicroStrategy’s latest $3 billion convertible note offering this week, suggesting [growing appetite](https://x.com/Rob1Ham/status/1860053859181199649) for bitcoin proxy exposure among more restricted pools of capital.
The [ongoing meltdown](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/22/synapse-bankruptcy-thousands-of-americans-see-their-savings-vanish.html) of fintech middleware provider Synapse has left tens of thousands of customers with nearly 100% deposit haircuts as hundreds of millions in funds remain missing, the latest unfortunate case study in the fragility of much of the US’s legacy banking stack.
### **Travel**
- [BitcoinMENA](https://bitcoin2024.b.tc/mena), Dec 9-10
- [Nashville BitDevs](https://www.meetup.com/bitcoinpark/events/302533726/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events), Dec 10
- [Austin BitDevs](https://www.meetup.com/austin-bitcoin-developers/events/303476169/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events), Dec 19
- [Nashville Energy and Mining Summit](https://www.meetup.com/bitcoinpark/events/304092624/?eventOrigin=group_events_list), Jan 30
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@ 87730827:746b7d35
2024-11-20 09:27:53
Original: https://techreport.com/crypto-news/brazil-central-bank-ban-monero-stablecoins/
Brazilian’s Central Bank Will Ban Monero and Algorithmic Stablecoins in the Country
===================================================================================
Brazil proposes crypto regulations banning Monero and algorithmic stablecoins and enforcing strict compliance for exchanges.
* * *
**KEY TAKEAWAYS**
* The Central Bank of Brazil has proposed **regulations prohibiting privacy-centric cryptocurrencies** like Monero.
* The regulations **categorize exchanges into intermediaries, custodians, and brokers**, each with specific capital requirements and compliance standards.
* While the proposed rules apply to cryptocurrencies, certain digital assets like non-fungible tokens **(NFTs) are still ‘deregulated’ in Brazil**.

In a Notice of Participation announcement, the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB) outlines **regulations for virtual asset service providers (VASPs)** operating in the country.
**_In the document, the Brazilian regulator specifies that privacy-focused coins, such as Monero, must be excluded from all digital asset companies that intend to operate in Brazil._**
Let’s unpack what effect these regulations will have.
Brazil’s Crackdown on Crypto Fraud
----------------------------------
If the BCB’s current rule is approved, **exchanges dealing with coins that provide anonymity must delist these currencies** or prevent Brazilians from accessing and operating these assets.
The Central Bank argues that currencies like Monero make it difficult and even prevent the identification of users, thus creating problems in complying with international AML obligations and policies to prevent the financing of terrorism.
According to the Central Bank of Brazil, the bans aim to **prevent criminals from using digital assets to launder money**. In Brazil, organized criminal syndicates such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho have been increasingly using digital assets for money laundering and foreign remittances.
> … restriction on the supply of virtual assets that contain characteristics of fragility, insecurity or risks that favor fraud or crime, such as virtual assets designed to favor money laundering and terrorist financing practices by facilitating anonymity or difficulty identification of the holder.
>
> – [Notice of Participation](https://www.gov.br/participamaisbrasil/edital-de-participacao-social-n-109-2024-proposta-de-regulamentacao-do-)
The Central Bank has identified that **removing algorithmic stablecoins is essential to guarantee the safety of users’ funds** and avoid events such as when Terraform Labs’ entire ecosystem collapsed, losing billions of investors’ dollars.
The Central Bank also wants to **control all digital assets traded by companies in Brazil**. According to the current proposal, the [national regulator](https://techreport.com/cryptocurrency/learning/crypto-regulations-global-view/) will have the **power to ask platforms to remove certain listed assets** if it considers that they do not meet local regulations.
However, the regulations will not include [NFTs](https://techreport.com/statistics/crypto/nft-awareness-adoption-statistics/), real-world asset (RWA) tokens, RWA tokens classified as securities, and tokenized movable or real estate assets. These assets are still ‘deregulated’ in Brazil.
Monero: What Is It and Why Is Brazil Banning It?
------------------------------------------------
Monero ($XMR) is a cryptocurrency that uses a protocol called CryptoNote. It launched in 2013 and ‘erases’ transaction data, preventing the sender and recipient addresses from being publicly known. The Monero network is based on a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, which incentivizes miners to add blocks to the blockchain.
Like Brazil, **other nations are banning Monero** in search of regulatory compliance. Recently, Dubai’s new digital asset rules prohibited the issuance of activities related to anonymity-enhancing cryptocurrencies such as $XMR.
Furthermore, exchanges such as **Binance have already announced they will delist Monero** on their global platforms due to its anonymity features. Kraken did the same, removing Monero for their European-based users to comply with [MiCA regulations](https://techreport.com/crypto-news/eu-mica-rules-existential-threat-or-crypto-clarity/).
Data from Chainalysis shows that Brazil is the **seventh-largest Bitcoin market in the world**.

In Latin America, **Brazil is the largest market for digital assets**. Globally, it leads in the innovation of RWA tokens, with several companies already trading this type of asset.
In Closing
----------
Following other nations, Brazil’s regulatory proposals aim to combat illicit activities such as money laundering and terrorism financing.
Will the BCB’s move safeguard people’s digital assets while also stimulating growth and innovation in the crypto ecosystem? Only time will tell.
References
----------
Cassio Gusson is a journalist passionate about technology, cryptocurrencies, and the nuances of human nature. With a career spanning roles as Senior Crypto Journalist at CriptoFacil and Head of News at CoinTelegraph, he offers exclusive insights on South America’s crypto landscape. A graduate in Communication from Faccamp and a post-graduate in Globalization and Culture from FESPSP, Cassio explores the intersection of governance, decentralization, and the evolution of global systems.
[View all articles by Cassio Gusson](https://techreport.com/author/cassiog/)
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@ 5e5fc143:393d5a2c
2024-11-19 10:20:25
Now test old reliable front end
Stay tuned more later
Keeping this as template long note for debugging in future as come across few NIP-33 post edit issues
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@ af9c48b7:a3f7aaf4
2024-11-18 20:26:07
## Chef's notes
This simple, easy, no bake desert will surely be the it at you next family gathering. You can keep it a secret or share it with the crowd that this is a healthy alternative to normal pie. I think everyone will be amazed at how good it really is.
## Details
- ⏲️ Prep time: 30
- 🍳 Cook time: 0
- 🍽️ Servings: 8
## Ingredients
- 1/3 cup of Heavy Cream- 0g sugar, 5.5g carbohydrates
- 3/4 cup of Half and Half- 6g sugar, 3g carbohydrates
- 4oz Sugar Free Cool Whip (1/2 small container) - 0g sugar, 37.5g carbohydrates
- 1.5oz box (small box) of Sugar Free Instant Chocolate Pudding- 0g sugar, 32g carbohydrates
- 1 Pecan Pie Crust- 24g sugar, 72g carbohydrates
## Directions
1. The total pie has 30g of sugar and 149.50g of carboydrates. So if you cut the pie into 8 equal slices, that would come to 3.75g of sugar and 18.69g carbohydrates per slice. If you decided to not eat the crust, your sugar intake would be .75 gram per slice and the carborytrates would be 9.69g per slice. Based on your objective, you could use only heavy whipping cream and no half and half to further reduce your sugar intake.
2. Mix all wet ingredients and the instant pudding until thoroughly mixed and a consistent color has been achieved. The heavy whipping cream causes the mixture to thicken the more you mix it. So, I’d recommend using an electric mixer. Once you are satisfied with the color, start mixing in the whipping cream until it has a consistent “chocolate” color thorough. Once your satisfied with the color, spoon the mixture into the pie crust, smooth the top to your liking, and then refrigerate for one hour before serving.
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@ 41e6f20b:06049e45
2024-11-17 17:33:55
Let me tell you a beautiful story. Last night, during the speakers' dinner at Monerotopia, the waitress was collecting tiny tips in Mexican pesos. I asked her, "Do you really want to earn tips seriously?" I then showed her how to set up a Cake Wallet, and she started collecting tips in Monero, reaching 0.9 XMR. Of course, she wanted to cash out to fiat immediately, but it solved a real problem for her: making more money. That amount was something she would never have earned in a single workday. We kept talking, and I promised to give her Zoom workshops. What can I say? I love people, and that's why I'm a natural orange-piller.
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@ 4ba8e86d:89d32de4
2024-11-07 13:56:21
Tutorial feito por Grom mestre⚡poste original abaixo:
http://xh6liiypqffzwnu5734ucwps37tn2g6npthvugz3gdoqpikujju525yd.onion/240277/tutorial-criando-e-acessando-sua-conta-de-email-pela-i2p?show=240277#q240277
Bom dia/tarde/noite a todos os camaradas.
Seguindo a nossa série de tutoriais referentes a tecnologias essenciais para a segurança e o anonimato dos usuários, sendo as primeiras a openPGP e a I2P, lhes apresento mais uma opção para expandir os seus conhecimentos da DW.
Muitos devem conhecer os serviços de mail na onion como DNMX e mail2tor, mas e que tal um serviço de email pela I2P. Nesse tutorial eu vou mostrar a vocês como criar a sua primeira conta no hq.postman.i2p e a acessar essa conta.
É importante que vocês tenham lido a minha primeira série de tutoriais a respeito de como instalar, configurar e navegar pela I2P nostr:nevent1qqsyjcz2w0e6d6dcdeprhuuarw4aqkw730y542dzlwxwssneq3mwpaspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygzt4r5x6tvh39kujvmu8egqdyvf84e3w4e0mq0ckswamfwcn5eduspsgqqqqqqsyp5vcq Esse tutorial é um pré-requisito para o seguinte e portanto recomendo que leia-os antes de prosseguir com o seguinte tutorial. O tutorial de Kleopatra nostr:nevent1qqs8h7vsn5j6qh35949sa60dms4fneussmv9jd76n24lsmtz24k0xlqzyp9636rd9ktcjmwfxd7ru5qxjxyn6uch2uhas8utg8wa5hvf6vk7gqcyqqqqqqgecq8f7 é complementar dado que é extremamente recomendado assinar e criptografar as mensagens que seguem por emails pela DW.
Sem mais delongas, vamos ao tutorial de fato.
## 1. Criando uma conta de email no hq.postman
Relembrando: Esse tutorial considera que você já tenha acesso à I2P.
Entre no seu navegador e acesse o endereço hq.postman.i2p. O roteador provavelmente já contém esse endereço no seu addressbook e não haverá a necessidade de inserir o endereço b32 completo.
Após entrar no site vá para a página '1 - Creating a mailbox'
https://image.nostr.build/d850379fe315d2abab71430949b06d3fa49366d91df4c9b00a4a8367d53fcca3.jpg
Nessa página, insira as credenciais de sua preferências nos campos do formulário abaixo. Lembre-se que o seu endereço de email aceita apenas letras e números. Clique em 'Proceed' depois que preencher todos os campos.
https://image.nostr.build/670dfda7264db393e48391f217e60a2eb87d85c2729360c8ef6fe0cf52508ab4.jpg
Uma página vai aparecer pedindo para confirmar as credenciais da sua nova conta. Se tudo estiver certo apenas clique em 'Confirm and Create Mailbox'. Se tudo ocorrer como conforme haverá uma confirmação de que a sua nova conta foi criada com sucesso. Após isso aguarde por volta de 5 minutos antes de tentar acessá-la, para que haja tempo suficiente para o servidor atualizar o banco de dados.
https://image.nostr.build/ec58fb826bffa60791fedfd9c89a25d592ac3d11645b270c936c60a7c59c067f.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/a2b7710d1e3cbb36431acb9055fd62937986b4da4b1a1bbb06d3f3cb1f544fd3.jpg
Pronto! Sua nova conta de email na I2P foi criada. Agora vamos para a próxima etapa: como acessar a sua conta via um cliente de email.
## 2. Configurando os túneis cliente de SMTP e POP3
O hq.postman não possui um cliente web que nos permite acessar a nossa conta pelo navegador. Para isso precisamos usar um cliente como Thunderbird e configurar os túneis cliente no I2Pd que serão necessários para o Thunderbird se comunicar com o servidor pela I2P.
Caso não tenha instalado o Thunderbird ainda, faça-o agora antes de prosseguir.
Vamos configurar os túneis cliente do servidor de email no nosso roteador. Para isso abra um terminal ou o seu gestor de arquivos e vá para a pasta de configuração de túneis do I2P. Em Linux esse diretório se localiza em /etc/i2pd/tunnels.d. Em Windows, essa pasta se localiza em C:\users\user\APPDATA\i2pd.
Na pasta tunnels.d crie dois arquivos: smtp.postman.conf e pop-postman.conf. Lembre-se que em Linux você precisa de permissões de root para escrever na pasta de configuração. Use o comando sudoedit <nome_do_arquivo> para isso.
Edite-os conforme as imagens a seguir:
Arquivo pop-postman.conf
https://image.nostr.build/7e03505c8bc3b632ca5db1f8eaefc6cecb4743cd2096d211dd90bbdc16fe2593.jpg
Arquivo smtp-postman.conf
https://image.nostr.build/2d06c021841dedd6000c9fc2a641ed519b3be3c6125000b188842cd0a5af3d16.jpg
Salve os arquivos e reinicie o serviço do I2Pd. Em Linux isso é feito pelo comando:
```
sudo systemctl restart i2pd
```
Entre no Webconsole do I2Pd pelo navegador (localhost:7070) e na seção I2P Tunnels, verifique se os túneis pop-postman e smtp-postman foram criados, caso contrário verifique se há algum erro nos arquivos e reinicie o serviço.
Com os túneis cliente criados, vamos agora configurar o Thunderbird
## 3. Configurando o Thunderbird para acessar a nossa conta
Abra o Thunderbird e clique em criar uma nova conta de email. Se você não tiver nenhum conta previamente presente nele você vai ser diretamente recebido pela janela de criação de conta a seguir.
https://image.nostr.build/e9509d7bd30623716ef9adcad76c1d465f5bc3d5840e0c35fe4faa85740f41b4.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/688b59b8352a17389902ec1e99d7484e310d7d287491b34f562b8cdd9dbe8a99.jpg
Coloque as suas credenciais, mas não clique ainda em Continuar. Clique antes em Configure Manually, já que precisamos configurar manualmente os servidores de SMTP e POP3 para, respectivamente, enviar e receber mensagens.
Preencha os campos como na imagem a seguir. Detalhe: Não coloque o seu endereço completo com o @mail.i2p, apenas o nome da sua conta.
https://image.nostr.build/4610b0315c0a3b741965d3d7c1e4aff6425a167297e323ba8490f4325f40cdcc.jpg
Clique em Re-test para verificar a integridade da conexão. Se tudo estiver certo uma mensagem irá aparecer avisando que as configurações do servidores estão corretas. Clique em Done assim que estiver pronto para prosseguir.
https://image.nostr.build/8a47bb292f94b0d9d474d4d4a134f8d73afb84ecf1d4c0a7eb6366d46bf3973a.jpg
A seguinte mensagem vai aparecer alertando que não estamos usando criptografia no envio das credenciais. Não há problema nenhum aqui, pois a I2P está garantindo toda a proteção e anonimato dos nossos dados, o que dispensa a necessidade de uso de TLS ou qualquer tecnologia similar nas camadas acima. Marque a opção 'I Understand the risks' e clique em 'Continue'
https://image.nostr.build/9c1bf585248773297d2cb1d9705c1be3bd815e2be85d4342227f1db2f13a9cc6.jpg
E por fim, se tudo ocorreu como devido sua conta será criada com sucesso e você agora será capaz de enviar e receber emails pela I2P usando essa conta.
https://image.nostr.build/8ba7f2c160453c9bfa172fa9a30b642a7ee9ae3eeb9b78b4dc24ce25aa2c7ecc.jpg
## 4. Observações e considerações finais
Como informado pelo próprio site do hq.postman, o domínio @mail.i2p serve apenas para emails enviados dentro da I2P. Emails enviados pela surface devem usar o domínio @i2pmai.org. É imprescindível que você saiba usar o PGP para assinar e criptografar as suas mensagens, dado que provavelmente as mensagens não são armazenadas de forma criptografada enquanto elas estão armazenadas no servidor. Como o protocolo POP3 delete as mensagens no imediato momento em que você as recebe, não há necessidade de fazer qualquer limpeza na sua conta de forma manual.
Por fim, espero que esse tutorial tenha sido útil para vocês. Que seu conhecimento tenha expandido ainda mais com as informações trazidas aqui. Até a próxima.
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@ 0176967e:1e6f471e
2024-07-20 08:28:00
Tento rok vás čaká workshop na tému "oranžové leto" s Jurajom Bednárom a Mariannou Sádeckou. Dozviete sa ako mení naše vnímanie skúsenosť s Bitcoinom, ako sa navigovať v dnešnom svete a odstrániť mentálnu hmlu spôsobenú fiat životom.
Na workshop je potrebný [extra lístok](https://pay.cypherpunk.today/apps/maY3hxKArQxMpdyh5yCtT6UWMJm/crowdfund) (môžete si ho dokúpiť aj na mieste).
Pre viac informácií o oranžovom lete odporúčame pred workshopom vypočuťi si [podcast na túto tému](https://juraj.bednar.io/podcast/2024/04/13/oranzove-leto-stanme-sa-tvorcami-svojho-zivota-s-mariannou-sadeckou/).
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@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d
2024-03-19 14:01:01
# Nostr is not decentralized nor censorship-resistant
Peter Todd has been [saying this](nostr:nevent1qqsq5zzu9ezhgq6es36jgg94wxsa2xh55p4tfa56yklsvjemsw7vj3cpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet5qy8hwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddaksz9rhwden5te0dehhxarj9ehhsarj9ejx2aspzfmhxue69uhk7enxvd5xz6tw9ec82cspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3vamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwdehhxarj9e3xzmnyqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehgu3wvfnsz9nhwden5te0wfjkccte9ec8y6tdv9kzumn9wspzpn92tr3hexwgt0z7w4qz3fcch4ryshja8jeng453aj4c83646jxvxkyvs4) for a long time and all the time I've been thinking he is misunderstanding everything, but I guess a more charitable interpretation is that he is right.
Nostr _today_ is indeed centralized.
Yesterday I published two harmless notes with the exact same content at the same time. In two minutes the notes had a noticeable difference in responses:
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The top one was published to `wss://nostr.wine`, `wss://nos.lol`, `wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com`. The second was published to the relay where I generally publish all my notes to, `wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com`, and that is announced on my [NIP-05 file](https://fiatjaf.com/.well-known/nostr.json) and on my [NIP-65](https://nips.nostr.com/65) relay list.
A few minutes later I published that screenshot again in two identical notes to the same sets of relays, asking if people understood the implications. The difference in quantity of responses can still be seen today:
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These results are skewed now by the fact that the two notes got rebroadcasted to multiple relays after some time, but the fundamental point remains.
What happened was that a huge lot more of people saw the first note compared to the second, and if Nostr was really censorship-resistant that shouldn't have happened at all.
Some people implied in the comments, with an air of obviousness, that publishing the note to "more relays" should have predictably resulted in more replies, which, again, shouldn't be the case if Nostr is really censorship-resistant.
What happens is that most people who engaged with the note are _following me_, in the sense that they have instructed their clients to fetch my notes on their behalf and present them in the UI, and clients are failing to do that despite me making it clear in multiple ways that my notes are to be found on `wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com`.
If we were talking not about me, but about some public figure that was being censored by the State and got banned (or shadowbanned) by the 3 biggest public relays, the sad reality would be that the person would immediately get his reach reduced to ~10% of what they had before. This is not at all unlike what happened to dozens of personalities that were banned from the corporate social media platforms and then moved to other platforms -- how many of their original followers switched to these other platforms? Probably some small percentage close to 10%. In that sense Nostr today is similar to what we had before.
Peter Todd is right that if the way Nostr works is that you just subscribe to a small set of relays and expect to get everything from them then it tends to get very centralized very fast, and this is the reality today.
Peter Todd is wrong that Nostr is _inherently_ centralized or that it needs a _protocol change_ to become what it has always purported to be. He is in fact wrong today, because what is written above is not valid for all clients of today, and if we [drive in the right direction](bc63c348b) we can successfully make Peter Todd be more and more wrong as time passes, instead of the contrary.
---
See also:
- [Censorship-resistant relay discovery in Nostr](nostr:naddr1qqykycekxd3nxdpcvgq3zamnwvaz7tmxd9shg6npvchxxmmdqgsrhuxx8l9ex335q7he0f09aej04zpazpl0ne2cgukyawd24mayt8grqsqqqa2803ksy8)
- [A vision for content discovery and relay usage for basic social-networking in Nostr](nostr:naddr1qqyrxe33xqmxgve3qyghwumn8ghj7enfv96x5ctx9e3k7mgzyqalp33lewf5vdq847t6te0wvnags0gs0mu72kz8938tn24wlfze6qcyqqq823cywwjvq)
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@ e6ce6154:275e3444
2023-07-27 14:12:49
Este artigo foi censurado pelo estado e fomos obrigados a deletá-lo após ameaça de homens armados virem nos visitar e agredir nossa vida e propriedade.
Isto é mais uma prova que os autoproclamados antirracistas são piores que os racistas.
https://rothbardbrasil.com/pelo-direito-de-ser-racista-fascista-machista-e-homofobico
Segue artigo na íntegra. 👇
Sem dúvida, a escalada autoritária do totalitarismo cultural progressista nos últimos anos tem sido sumariamente deletéria e prejudicial para a liberdade de expressão. Como seria de se esperar, a cada dia que passa o autoritarismo progressista continua a se expandir de maneira irrefreável, prejudicando a liberdade dos indivíduos de formas cada vez mais deploráveis e contundentes.
Com a ascensão da tirania politicamente correta e sua invasão a todos os terrenos culturais, o autoritarismo progressista foi se alastrando e consolidando sua hegemonia em determinados segmentos. Com a eventual eclosão e a expansão da opressiva e despótica cultura do cancelamento — uma progênie inevitável do totalitarismo progressista —, todas as pessoas que manifestam opiniões, crenças ou posicionamentos que não estão alinhados com as pautas universitárias da moda tornam-se um alvo.
Há algumas semanas, vimos a enorme repercussão causada pelo caso envolvendo o jogador profissional de vôlei Maurício Sousa, que foi cancelado pelo simples fato de ter emitido sua opinião pessoal sobre um personagem de história em quadrinhos, Jon Kent, o novo Superman, que é bissexual. Maurício Sousa reprovou a conduta sexual do personagem, o que é um direito pessoal inalienável que ele tem. Ele não é obrigado a gostar ou aprovar a bissexualidade. Como qualquer pessoa, ele tem o direito pleno de criticar tudo aquilo que ele não gosta. No entanto, pelo simples fato de emitir a sua opinião pessoal, Maurício Sousa foi acusado de homofobia e teve seu contrato rescindido, sendo desligado do Minas Tênis Clube.
Lamentavelmente, Maurício Sousa não foi o primeiro e nem será o último indivíduo a sofrer com a opressiva e autoritária cultura do cancelamento. Como uma tirania cultural que está em plena ascensão e usufrui de um amplo apoio do establishment, essa nova forma de totalitarismo cultural colorido e festivo está se impondo de formas e maneiras bastante contundentes em praticamente todas as esferas da sociedade contemporânea. Sua intenção é relegar ao ostracismo todos aqueles que não se curvam ao totalitarismo progressista, criminalizando opiniões e crenças que divergem do culto à libertinagem hedonista pós-moderna. Oculto por trás de todo esse ativismo autoritário, o que temos de fato é uma profunda hostilidade por padrões morais tradicionalistas, cristãos e conservadores.
No entanto, é fundamental entendermos uma questão imperativa, que explica em partes o conflito aqui criado — todos os progressistas contemporâneos são crias oriundas do direito positivo. Por essa razão, eles jamais entenderão de forma pragmática e objetiva conceitos como criminalidade, direitos de propriedade, agressão e liberdade de expressão pela perspectiva do jusnaturalismo, que é manifestamente o direito em seu estado mais puro, correto, ético e equilibrado.
Pela ótica jusnaturalista, uma opinião é uma opinião. Ponto final. E absolutamente ninguém deve ser preso, cancelado, sabotado ou boicotado por expressar uma opinião particular sobre qualquer assunto. Palavras não agridem ninguém, portanto jamais poderiam ser consideradas um crime em si. Apenas deveriam ser tipificados como crimes agressões de caráter objetivo, como roubo, sequestro, fraude, extorsão, estupro e infrações similares, que representam uma ameaça direta à integridade física da vítima, ou que busquem subtrair alguma posse empregando a violência.
Infelizmente, a geração floquinho de neve — terrivelmente histérica, egocêntrica e sensível — fica profundamente ofendida e consternada sempre que alguém defende posicionamentos contrários à religião progressista. Por essa razão, os guerreiros da justiça social sinceramente acreditam que o papai-estado deve censurar todas as opiniões que eles não gostam de ouvir, assim como deve também criar leis para encarcerar todos aqueles que falam ou escrevem coisas que desagradam a militância.
Como a geração floquinho de neve foi criada para acreditar que todas as suas vontades pessoais e disposições ideológicas devem ser sumariamente atendidas pelo papai-estado, eles embarcaram em uma cruzada moral que pretende erradicar todas as coisas que são ofensivas à ideologia progressista; só assim eles poderão deflagrar na Terra o seu tão sonhado paraíso hedonista e igualitário, de inimaginável esplendor e felicidade.
Em virtude do seu comportamento intrinsecamente despótico, autoritário e egocêntrico, acaba sendo inevitável que militantes progressistas problematizem tudo aquilo que os desagrada.
Como são criaturas inúteis destituídas de ocupação real e verdadeiro sentido na vida, sendo oprimidas unicamente na sua própria imaginação, militantes progressistas precisam constantemente inventar novos vilões para serem combatidos.
Partindo dessa perspectiva, é natural para a militância que absolutamente tudo que exista no mundo e que não se enquadra com as regras autoritárias e restritivas da religião progressista seja encarado como um problema. Para a geração floquinho de neve, o capitalismo é um problema. O fascismo é um problema. A iniciativa privada é um problema. O homem branco, tradicionalista, conservador e heterossexual é um problema. A desigualdade é um problema. A liberdade é um problema. Monteiro Lobato é um problema (sim, até mesmo o renomado ícone da literatura brasileira, autor — entre outros títulos — de Urupês, foi vítima da cultura do cancelamento, acusado de ser racista e eugenista).
Para a esquerda, praticamente tudo é um problema. Na mentalidade da militância progressista, tudo é motivo para reclamação. Foi em função desse comportamento histérico, histriônico e infantil que o famoso pensador conservador-libertário americano P. J. O’Rourke afirmou que “o esquerdismo é uma filosofia de pirralhos chorões”. O que é uma verdade absoluta e irrefutável em todos os sentidos.
De fato, todas as filosofias de esquerda de forma geral são idealizações utópicas e infantis de um mundo perfeito. Enquanto o mundo não se transformar naquela colorida e vibrante utopia que é apresentada pela cartilha socialista padrão, militantes continuarão a reclamar contra tudo o que existe no mundo de forma agressiva, visceral e beligerante. Evidentemente, eles não vão fazer absolutamente nada de positivo ou construtivo para que o mundo se transforme no gracioso paraíso que eles tanto desejam ver consolidado, mas eles continuarão a berrar e vociferar muito em sua busca incessante pela utopia, marcando presença em passeatas inúteis ou combatendo o fascismo imaginário nas redes sociais.
Sem dúvida, estamos muito perto de ver leis absurdas e estúpidas sendo implementadas, para agradar a militância da terra colorida do assistencialismo eterno onde nada é escasso e tudo cai do céu. Em breve, você não poderá usar calças pretas, pois elas serão consideradas peças de vestuário excessivamente heterossexuais. Apenas calças amarelas ou coloridas serão permitidas. Você também terá que tingir de cor-de-rosa uma mecha do seu cabelo; pois preservar o seu cabelo na sua cor natural é heteronormativo demais da sua parte, sendo portanto um componente demasiadamente opressor da sociedade.
Você também não poderá ver filmes de guerra ou de ação, apenas comédias românticas, pois certos gêneros de filmes exaltam a violência do patriarcado e isso impede o mundo de se tornar uma graciosa festa colorida de fraternidades universitárias ungidas por pôneis resplandecentes, hedonismo infinito, vadiagem universitária e autogratificação psicodélica, que certamente são elementos indispensáveis para se produzir o paraíso na Terra.
Sabemos perfeitamente, no entanto, que dentre as atitudes “opressivas” que a militância progressista mais se empenha em combater, estão o racismo, o fascismo, o machismo e a homofobia. No entanto, é fundamental entender que ser racista, fascista, machista ou homofóbico não são crimes em si. Na prática, todos esses elementos são apenas traços de personalidade; e eles não podem ser pura e simplesmente criminalizados porque ideólogos e militantes progressistas iluminados não gostam deles.
Tanto pela ética quanto pela ótica jusnaturalista, é facilmente compreensível entender que esses traços de personalidade não podem ser criminalizados ou proibidos simplesmente porque integrantes de uma ideologia não tem nenhuma apreciação ou simpatia por eles. Da mesma forma, nenhum desses traços de personalidade representa em si um perigo para a sociedade, pelo simples fato de existir. Por incrível que pareça, até mesmo o machismo, o racismo, o fascismo e a homofobia merecem a devida apologia.
Mas vamos analisar cada um desses tópicos separadamente para entender isso melhor.
Racismo
Quando falamos no Japão, normalmente não fazemos nenhuma associação da sociedade japonesa com o racismo. No entanto, é incontestável o fato de que a sociedade japonesa pode ser considerada uma das sociedades mais racistas do mundo. E a verdade é que não há absolutamente nada de errado com isso.
Aproximadamente 97% da população do Japão é nativa; apenas 3% do componente populacional é constituído por estrangeiros (a população do Japão é estimada em aproximadamente 126 milhões de habitantes). Isso faz a sociedade japonesa ser uma das mais homogêneas do mundo. As autoridades japonesas reconhecidamente dificultam processos de seleção e aplicação a estrangeiros que desejam se tornar residentes. E a maioria dos japoneses aprova essa decisão.
Diversos estabelecimentos comerciais como hotéis, bares e restaurantes por todo o país tem placas na entrada que dizem “somente para japoneses” e a maioria destes estabelecimentos se recusa ostensivamente a atender ou aceitar clientes estrangeiros, não importa quão ricos ou abastados sejam.
Na Terra do Sol Nascente, a hostilidade e a desconfiança natural para com estrangeiros é tão grande que até mesmo indivíduos que nascem em algum outro país, mas são filhos de pais japoneses, não são considerados cidadãos plenamente japoneses.
Se estes indivíduos decidem sair do seu país de origem para se estabelecer no Japão — mesmo tendo descendência nipônica legítima e inquestionável —, eles enfrentarão uma discriminação social considerável, especialmente se não dominarem o idioma japonês de forma impecável. Esse fato mostra que a discriminação é uma parte tão indissociável quanto elementar da sociedade japonesa, e ela está tão profundamente arraigada à cultura nipônica que é praticamente impossível alterá-la ou atenuá-la por qualquer motivo.
A verdade é que — quando falamos de um país como o Japão — nem todos os discursos politicamente corretos do mundo, nem a histeria progressista ocidental mais inflamada poderão algum dia modificar, extirpar ou sequer atenuar o componente racista da cultura nipônica. E isso é consequência de uma questão tão simples quanto primordial: discriminar faz parte da natureza humana, sendo tanto um direito individual quanto um elemento cultural inerente à muitas nações do mundo. Os japoneses não tem problema algum em admitir ou institucionalizar o seu preconceito, justamente pelo fato de que a ideologia politicamente correta não tem no oriente a força e a presença que tem no ocidente.
E é fundamental enfatizar que, sendo de natureza pacífica — ou seja, não violando nem agredindo terceiros —, a discriminação é um recurso natural dos seres humanos, que está diretamente associada a questões como familiaridade e segurança.
Absolutamente ninguém deve ser forçado a apreciar ou integrar-se a raças, etnias, pessoas ou tribos que não lhe transmitem sentimentos de segurança ou familiaridade. Integração forçada é o verdadeiro crime, e isso diversos países europeus — principalmente os escandinavos (países que lideram o ranking de submissão à ideologia politicamente correta) — aprenderam da pior forma possível.
A integração forçada com imigrantes islâmicos resultou em ondas de assassinato, estupro e violência inimagináveis para diversos países europeus, até então civilizados, que a imprensa ocidental politicamente correta e a militância progressista estão permanentemente tentando esconder, porque não desejam que o ocidente descubra como a agenda “humanitária” de integração forçada dos povos muçulmanos em países do Velho Mundo resultou em algumas das piores chacinas e tragédias na história recente da Europa.
Ou seja, ao discriminarem estrangeiros, os japoneses estão apenas se protegendo e lutando para preservar sua nação como um ambiente cultural, étnico e social que lhe é seguro e familiar, assim se opondo a mudanças bruscas, indesejadas e antinaturais, que poderiam comprometer a estabilidade social do país.
A discriminação — sendo de natureza pacífica —, é benévola, salutar e indubitavelmente ajuda a manter a estabilidade social da comunidade. Toda e qualquer forma de integração forçada deve ser repudiada com veemência, pois, mais cedo ou mais tarde, ela irá subverter a ordem social vigente, e sempre será acompanhada de deploráveis e dramáticos resultados.
Para citar novamente os países escandinavos, a Suécia é um excelente exemplo do que não fazer. Tendo seguido o caminho contrário ao da discriminação racional praticada pela sociedade japonesa, atualmente a sociedade sueca — além de afundar de forma consistente na lama da libertinagem, da decadência e da deterioração progressista — sofre em demasia com os imigrantes muçulmanos, que foram deixados praticamente livres para matar, saquear, esquartejar e estuprar quem eles quiserem. Hoje, eles são praticamente intocáveis, visto que denunciá-los, desmoralizá-los ou acusá-los de qualquer crime é uma atitude politicamente incorreta e altamente reprovada pelo establishment progressista. A elite socialista sueca jamais se atreve a acusá-los de qualquer crime, pois temem ser classificados como xenófobos e intolerantes. Ou seja, a desgraça da Europa, sobretudo dos países escandinavos, foi não ter oferecido nenhuma resistência à ideologia progressista politicamente correta. Hoje, eles são totalmente submissos a ela.
O exemplo do Japão mostra, portanto — para além de qualquer dúvida —, a importância ética e prática da discriminação, que é perfeitamente aceitável e natural, sendo uma tendência inerente aos seres humanos, e portanto intrínseca a determinados comportamentos, sociedades e culturas.
Indo ainda mais longe nessa questão, devemos entender que na verdade todos nós discriminamos, e não existe absolutamente nada de errado nisso. Discriminar pessoas faz parte da natureza humana e quem se recusa a admitir esse fato é um hipócrita. Mulheres discriminam homens na hora de selecionar um parceiro; elas avaliam diversos quesitos, como altura, aparência, status social, condição financeira e carisma. E dentre suas opções, elas sempre escolherão o homem mais atraente, másculo e viril, em detrimento de todos os baixinhos, calvos, carentes, frágeis e inibidos que possam estar disponíveis. Da mesma forma, homens sempre terão preferência por mulheres jovens, atraentes e delicadas, em detrimento de todas as feministas de meia-idade, acima do peso, de cabelo pintado, que são mães solteiras e militantes socialistas. A própria militância progressista discrimina pessoas de forma virulenta e intransigente, como fica evidente no tratamento que dispensam a mulheres bolsonaristas e a negros de direita.
A verdade é que — não importa o nível de histeria da militância progressista — a discriminação é inerente à condição humana e um direito natural inalienável de todos. É parte indissociável da natureza humana e qualquer pessoa pode e deve exercer esse direito sempre que desejar. Não existe absolutamente nada de errado em discriminar pessoas. O problema real é a ideologia progressista e o autoritarismo politicamente correto, movimentos tirânicos que não respeitam o direito das pessoas de discriminar.
Fascismo
Quando falamos de fascismo, precisamos entender que, para a esquerda política, o fascismo é compreendido como um conceito completamente divorciado do seu significado original. Para um militante de esquerda, fascista é todo aquele que defende posicionamentos contrários ao progressismo, não se referindo necessariamente a um fascista clássico.
Mas, seja como for, é necessário entender que — como qualquer ideologia política — até mesmo o fascismo clássico tem o direito de existir e ocupar o seu devido lugar; portanto, fascistas não devem ser arbitrariamente censurados, apesar de defenderem conceitos que representam uma completa antítese de tudo aquilo que é valioso para os entusiastas da liberdade.
Em um país como o Brasil, onde socialistas e comunistas tem total liberdade para se expressar, defender suas ideologias e até mesmo formar partidos políticos, não faz absolutamente o menor sentido que fascistas — e até mesmo nazistas assumidos — sofram qualquer tipo de discriminação. Embora socialistas e comunistas se sintam moralmente superiores aos fascistas (ou a qualquer outra filosofia política ou escola de pensamento), sabemos perfeitamente que o seu senso de superioridade é fruto de uma pueril romantização universitária da sua própria ideologia. A história mostra efetivamente que o socialismo clássico e o comunismo causaram muito mais destruição do que o fascismo.
Portanto, se socialistas e comunistas tem total liberdade para se expressar, não existe a menor razão para que fascistas não usufruam dessa mesma liberdade.
É claro, nesse ponto, seremos invariavelmente confrontados por um oportuno dilema — o famoso paradoxo da intolerância, de Karl Popper. Até que ponto uma sociedade livre e tolerante deve tolerar a intolerância (inerente a ideologias totalitárias)?
As leis de propriedade privada resolveriam isso em uma sociedade livre. O mais importante a levarmos em consideração no atual contexto, no entanto — ao defender ou criticar uma determinada ideologia, filosofia ou escola de pensamento —, é entender que, seja ela qual for, ela tem o direito de existir. E todas as pessoas que a defendem tem o direito de defendê-la, da mesma maneira que todos os seus detratores tem o direito de criticá-la.
Essa é uma forte razão para jamais apoiarmos a censura. Muito pelo contrário, devemos repudiar com veemência e intransigência toda e qualquer forma de censura, especialmente a estatal.
Existem duas fortes razões para isso:
A primeira delas é a volatilidade da censura (especialmente a estatal). A censura oficial do governo, depois que é implementada, torna-se absolutamente incontrolável. Hoje, ela pode estar apontada para um grupo de pessoas cujas ideias divergem das suas. Mas amanhã, ela pode estar apontada justamente para as ideias que você defende. É fundamental, portanto, compreendermos que a censura estatal é incontrolável. Sob qualquer ponto de vista, é muito mais vantajoso que exista uma vasta pluralidade de ideias conflitantes na sociedade competindo entre si, do que o estado decidir que ideias podem ser difundidas ou não.
Além do mais, libertários e anarcocapitalistas não podem nunca esperar qualquer tipo de simpatia por parte das autoridades governamentais. Para o estado, seria infinitamente mais prático e vantajoso criminalizar o libertarianismo e o anarcocapitalismo — sob a alegação de que são filosofias perigosas difundidas por extremistas radicais que ameaçam o estado democrático de direito — do que o fascismo ou qualquer outra ideologia centralizada em governos burocráticos e onipotentes. Portanto, defender a censura, especialmente a estatal, representa sempre um perigo para o próprio indivíduo, que mais cedo ou mais tarde poderá ver a censura oficial do sistema se voltar contra ele.
Outra razão pela qual libertários jamais devem defender a censura, é porque — ao contrário dos estatistas — não é coerente que defensores da liberdade se comportem como se o estado fosse o seu papai e o governo fosse a sua mamãe. Não devemos terceirizar nossas próprias responsabilidades, tampouco devemos nos comportar como adultos infantilizados. Assumimos a responsabilidade de combater todas as ideologias e filosofias que agridem a liberdade e os seres humanos. Não procuramos políticos ou burocratas para executar essa tarefa por nós.
Portanto, se você ver um fascista sendo censurado nas redes sociais ou em qualquer outro lugar, assuma suas dores. Sinta-se compelido a defendê-lo, mostre aos seus detratores que ele tem todo direito de se expressar, como qualquer pessoa. Você não tem obrigação de concordar com ele ou apreciar as ideias que ele defende. Mas silenciar arbitrariamente qualquer pessoa não é uma pauta que honra a liberdade.
Se você não gosta de estado, planejamento central, burocracia, impostos, tarifas, políticas coletivistas, nacionalistas e desenvolvimentistas, mostre com argumentos coesos e convincentes porque a liberdade e o livre mercado são superiores a todos esses conceitos. Mas repudie a censura com intransigência e mordacidade.
Em primeiro lugar, porque você aprecia e defende a liberdade de expressão para todas as pessoas. E em segundo lugar, por entender perfeitamente que — se a censura eventualmente se tornar uma política de estado vigente entre a sociedade — é mais provável que ela atinja primeiro os defensores da liberdade do que os defensores do estado.
Machismo
Muitos elementos do comportamento masculino que hoje são atacados com virulência e considerados machistas pelo movimento progressista são na verdade manifestações naturais intrínsecas ao homem, que nossos avôs cultivaram ao longo de suas vidas sem serem recriminados por isso. Com a ascensão do feminismo, do progressismo e a eventual problematização do sexo masculino, o antagonismo militante dos principais líderes da revolução sexual da contracultura passou a naturalmente condenar todos os atributos genuinamente masculinos, por considerá-los símbolos de opressão e dominação social.
Apesar do Brasil ser uma sociedade liberal ultra-progressista, onde o estado protege mais as mulheres do que as crianças — afinal, a cada semana novas leis são implementadas concedendo inúmeros privilégios e benefícios às mulheres, aos quais elas jamais teriam direito em uma sociedade genuinamente machista e patriarcal —, a esquerda política persiste em tentar difundir a fantasia da opressão masculina e o mito de que vivemos em uma sociedade machista e patriarcal.
Como sempre, a realidade mostra um cenário muito diferente daquilo que é pregado pela militância da terra da fantasia. O Brasil atual não tem absolutamente nada de machista ou patriarcal. No Brasil, mulheres podem votar, podem ocupar posições de poder e autoridade tanto na esfera pública quanto em companhias privadas, podem se candidatar a cargos políticos, podem ser vereadoras, deputadas, governadoras, podem ser proprietárias do próprio negócio, podem se divorciar, podem dirigir, podem comprar armas, podem andar de biquíni nas praias, podem usar saias extremamente curtas, podem ver programas de televisão sobre sexo voltados única e exclusivamente para o público feminino, podem se casar com outras mulheres, podem ser promíscuas, podem consumir bebidas alcoólicas ao ponto da embriaguez, e podem fazer praticamente tudo aquilo que elas desejarem. No Brasil do século XXI, as mulheres são genuinamente livres para fazer as próprias escolhas em praticamente todos os aspectos de suas vidas. O que mostra efetivamente que a tal opressão do patriarcado não existe.
O liberalismo social extremo do qual as mulheres usufruem no Brasil atual — e que poderíamos estender a toda a sociedade contemporânea ocidental — é suficiente para desmantelar completamente a fábula feminista da sociedade patriarcal machista e opressora, que existe única e exclusivamente no mundinho de fantasias ideológicas da esquerda progressista.
Tão importante quanto, é fundamental compreender que nenhum homem é obrigado a levar o feminismo a sério ou considerá-lo um movimento social e político legítimo. Para um homem, ser considerado machista ou até mesmo assumir-se como um não deveria ser um problema. O progressismo e o feminismo — com o seu nefasto hábito de demonizar os homens, bem como todos os elementos inerentes ao comportamento e a cultura masculina — é que são o verdadeiro problema, conforme tentam modificar o homem para transformá-lo em algo que ele não é nem deveria ser: uma criatura dócil, passiva e submissa, que é comandada por ideologias hostis e antinaturais, que não respeitam a hierarquia de uma ordem social milenar e condições inerentes à própria natureza humana. Com o seu hábito de tentar modificar tudo através de leis e decretos, o feminismo e o progressismo mostram efetivamente que o seu real objetivo é criminalizar a masculinidade.
A verdade é que — usufruindo de um nível elevado de liberdades — não existe praticamente nada que a mulher brasileira do século XXI não possa fazer. Adicionalmente, o governo dá as mulheres uma quantidade tão avassaladora de vantagens, privilégios e benefícios, que está ficando cada vez mais difícil para elas encontrarem razões válidas para reclamarem da vida. Se o projeto de lei que pretende fornecer um auxílio mensal de mil e duzentos reais para mães solteiras for aprovado pelo senado, muitas mulheres que tem filhos não precisarão nem mesmo trabalhar para ter sustento. E tantas outras procurarão engravidar, para ter direito a receber uma mesada mensal do governo até o seu filho completar a maioridade.
O que a militância colorida da terra da fantasia convenientemente ignora — pois a realidade nunca corresponde ao seu conto de fadas ideológico — é que o mundo de uma forma geral continua sendo muito mais implacável com os homens do que é com as mulheres. No Brasil, a esmagadora maioria dos suicídios é praticada por homens, a maioria das vítimas de homicídio são homens e de cada quatro moradores de rua, três são homens. Mas é evidente que uma sociedade liberal ultra-progressista não se importa com os homens, pois ela não é influenciada por fatos concretos ou pela realidade. Seu objetivo é simplesmente atender as disposições de uma agenda ideológica, não importa quão divorciadas da realidade elas são.
O nível exacerbado de liberdades sociais e privilégios governamentais dos quais as mulheres brasileiras usufruem é suficiente para destruir a fantasiosa fábula da sociedade machista, opressora e patriarcal. Se as mulheres brasileiras não estão felizes, a culpa definitivamente não é dos homens. Se a vasta profusão de liberdades, privilégios e benefícios da sociedade ocidental não as deixa plenamente saciadas e satisfeitas, elas podem sempre mudar de ares e tentar uma vida mais abnegada e espartana em países como Irã, Paquistão ou Afeganistão. Quem sabe assim elas não se sentirão melhores e mais realizadas?
Homofobia
Quando falamos em homofobia, entramos em uma categoria muito parecida com a do racismo: o direito de discriminação é totalmente válido. Absolutamente ninguém deve ser obrigado a aceitar homossexuais ou considerar o homossexualismo como algo normal. Sendo cristão, não existe nem sequer a mais vaga possibilidade de que algum dia eu venha a aceitar o homossexualismo como algo natural. O homossexualismo se qualifica como um grave desvio de conduta e um pecado contra o Criador.
A Bíblia proíbe terminantemente conduta sexual imoral, o que — além do homossexualismo — inclui adultério, fornicação, incesto e bestialidade, entre outras formas igualmente pérfidas de degradação.
Segue abaixo três passagens bíblicas que proíbem terminantemente a conduta homossexual:
“Não te deitarás com um homem como se deita com uma mulher. Isso é abominável!” (Levítico 18:22 — King James Atualizada)
“Se um homem se deitar com outro homem, como se deita com mulher, ambos terão praticado abominação; certamente serão mortos; o seu sangue estará sobre eles.” (Levítico 20:13 — João Ferreira de Almeida Atualizada)
“O quê! Não sabeis que os injustos não herdarão o reino de Deus? Não sejais desencaminhados. Nem fornicadores, nem idólatras, nem adúlteros, nem homens mantidos para propósitos desnaturais, nem homens que se deitam com homens, nem ladrões, nem gananciosos, nem beberrões, nem injuriadores, nem extorsores herdarão o reino de Deus.” (1 Coríntios 6:9,10 —Tradução do Novo Mundo das Escrituras Sagradas com Referências)
Se você não é religioso, pode simplesmente levar em consideração o argumento do respeito pela ordem natural. A ordem natural é incondicional e incisiva com relação a uma questão: o complemento de tudo o que existe é o seu oposto, não o seu igual. O complemento do dia é a noite, o complemento da luz é a escuridão, o complemento da água, que é líquida, é a terra, que é sólida. E como sabemos o complemento do macho — de sua respectiva espécie — é a fêmea.
Portanto, o complemento do homem, o macho da espécie humana, é naturalmente a mulher, a fêmea da espécie humana. Um homem e uma mulher podem naturalmente se reproduzir, porque são um complemento biológico natural. Por outro lado, um homem e outro homem são incapazes de se reproduzir, assim como uma mulher e outra mulher.
Infelizmente, o mundo atual está longe de aceitar como plenamente estabelecida a ordem natural pelo simples fato dela existir, visto que tentam subvertê-la a qualquer custo, não importa o malabarismo intelectual que tenham que fazer para justificar os seus pontos de vista distorcidos e antinaturais. A libertinagem irrefreável e a imoralidade bestial do mundo contemporâneo pós-moderno não reconhecem nenhum tipo de limite. Quem tenta restabelecer princípios morais salutares é imediatamente considerado um vilão retrógrado e repressivo, sendo ativamente demonizado pela militância do hedonismo, da luxúria e da licenciosidade desenfreada e sem limites.
Definitivamente, fazer a apologia da moralidade, do autocontrole e do autodomínio não faz nenhum sucesso na Sodoma e Gomorra global dos dias atuais. O que faz sucesso é lacração, devassidão, promiscuidade e prazeres carnais vazios. O famoso escritor e filósofo francês Albert Camus expressou uma verdade contundente quando disse: “Uma só frase lhe bastará para definir o homem moderno — fornicava e lia jornais”.
Qualquer indivíduo tem o direito inalienável de discriminar ativamente homossexuais, pelo direito que ele julgar mais pertinente no seu caso. A objeção de consciência para qualquer situação é um direito natural dos indivíduos. Há alguns anos, um caso que aconteceu nos Estados Unidos ganhou enorme repercussão internacional, quando o confeiteiro Jack Phillips se recusou a fazer um bolo de casamento para o “casal” homossexual Dave Mullins e Charlie Craig.
Uma representação dos direitos civis do estado do Colorado abriu um inquérito contra o confeiteiro, alegando que ele deveria ser obrigado a atender todos os clientes, independente da orientação sexual, raça ou crença. Preste atenção nas palavras usadas — ele deveria ser obrigado a atender.
Como se recusou bravamente a ceder, o caso foi parar invariavelmente na Suprema Corte, que decidiu por sete a dois em favor de Jack Phillips, sob a alegação de que obrigar o confeiteiro a atender o “casal” homossexual era uma violação nefasta dos seus princípios religiosos. Felizmente, esse foi um caso em que a liberdade prevaleceu sobre a tirania progressista.
Evidentemente, homossexuais não devem ser agredidos, ofendidos, internados em clínicas contra a sua vontade, nem devem ser constrangidos em suas liberdades pelo fato de serem homossexuais. O que eles precisam entender é que a liberdade é uma via de mão dupla. Eles podem ter liberdade para adotar a conduta que desejarem e fazer o que quiserem (contanto que não agridam ninguém), mas da mesma forma, é fundamental respeitar e preservar a liberdade de terceiros que desejam rejeitá-los pacificamente, pelo motivo que for.
Afinal, ninguém tem a menor obrigação de aceitá-los, atendê-los ou sequer pensar que uma união estável entre duas pessoas do mesmo sexo — incapaz de gerar descendentes, e, portanto, antinatural — deva ser considerado um matrimônio de verdade. Absolutamente nenhuma pessoa, ideia, movimento, crença ou ideologia usufrui de plena unanimidade no mundo. Por que o homossexualismo deveria ter tal privilégio?
Homossexuais não são portadores de uma verdade definitiva, absoluta e indiscutível, que está acima da humanidade. São seres humanos comuns que — na melhor das hipóteses —, levam um estilo de vida que pode ser considerado “alternativo”, e absolutamente ninguém tem a obrigação de considerar esse estilo de vida normal ou aceitável. A única obrigação das pessoas é não interferir, e isso não implica uma obrigação em aceitar.
Discriminar homossexuais (assim como pessoas de qualquer outro grupo, raça, religião, nacionalidade ou etnia) é um direito natural por parte de todos aqueles que desejam exercer esse direito. E isso nem o direito positivo nem a militância progressista poderão algum dia alterar ou subverter. O direito natural e a inclinação inerente dos seres humanos em atender às suas próprias disposições é simplesmente imutável e faz parte do seu conjunto de necessidades.
Conclusão
A militância progressista é absurdamente autoritária, e todas as suas estratégias e disposições ideológicas mostram que ela está em uma guerra permanente contra a ordem natural, contra a liberdade e principalmente contra o homem branco, cristão, conservador e tradicionalista — possivelmente, aquilo que ela mais odeia e despreza.
Nós não podemos, no entanto, ceder ou dar espaço para a agenda progressista, tampouco pensar em considerar como sendo normais todas as pautas abusivas e tirânicas que a militância pretende estabelecer como sendo perfeitamente razoáveis e aceitáveis, quer a sociedade aceite isso ou não. Afinal, conforme formos cedendo, o progressismo tirânico e totalitário tende a ganhar cada vez mais espaço.
Quanto mais espaço o progressismo conquistar, mais corroída será a liberdade e mais impulso ganhará o totalitarismo. Com isso, a cultura do cancelamento vai acabar com carreiras, profissões e com o sustento de muitas pessoas, pelo simples fato de que elas discordam das pautas universitárias da moda.
A história mostra perfeitamente que quanto mais liberdade uma sociedade tem, mais progresso ela atinge. Por outro lado, quanto mais autoritária ela for, mais retrocessos ela sofrerá. O autoritarismo se combate com liberdade, desafiando as pautas de todos aqueles que persistem em implementar a tirania na sociedade. O politicamente correto é o nazismo dos costumes, que pretende subverter a moral através de uma cultura de vigilância policial despótica e autoritária, para que toda a sociedade seja subjugada pela agenda totalitária progressista.
Pois quanto a nós, precisamos continuar travando o bom combate em nome da liberdade. E isso inclui reconhecer que ideologias, hábitos e costumes de que não gostamos tem o direito de existir e até mesmo de serem defendidos.