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@ 4857600b:30b502f4
2025-02-20 19:09:11
Mitch McConnell, a senior Republican senator, announced he will not seek reelection.
At 83 years old and with health issues, this decision was expected. After seven terms, he leaves a significant legacy in U.S. politics, known for his strategic maneuvering.
McConnell stated, “My current term in the Senate will be my last.” His retirement marks the end of an influential political era.
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@ 94a6a78a:0ddf320e
2025-02-19 21:10:15
Nostr is a revolutionary protocol that enables **decentralized, censorship-resistant communication**. Unlike traditional social networks controlled by corporations, Nostr operates without central servers or gatekeepers. This openness makes it incredibly powerful—but also means its success depends entirely on **users, developers, and relay operators**.
If you believe in **free speech, decentralization, and an open internet**, there are many ways to support and strengthen the Nostr ecosystem. Whether you're a casual user, a developer, or someone looking to contribute financially, **every effort helps build a more robust network**.
Here’s how you can get involved and make a difference.
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## **1️⃣ Use Nostr Daily**
The simplest and most effective way to contribute to Nostr is by **using it regularly**. The more active users, the stronger and more valuable the network becomes.
✅ **Post, comment, and zap** (send micro-payments via Bitcoin’s Lightning Network) to keep conversations flowing.\
✅ **Engage with new users** and help them understand how Nostr works.\
✅ **Try different Nostr clients** like Damus, Amethyst, Snort, or Primal and provide feedback to improve the experience.
Your activity **keeps the network alive** and helps encourage more developers and relay operators to invest in the ecosystem.
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## **2️⃣ Run Your Own Nostr Relay**
Relays are the **backbone of Nostr**, responsible for distributing messages across the network. The more **independent relays exist**, the stronger and more censorship-resistant Nostr becomes.
✅ **Set up your own relay** to help decentralize the network further.\
✅ **Experiment with relay configurations** and different performance optimizations.\
✅ **Offer public or private relay services** to users looking for high-quality infrastructure.
If you're not technical, you can still **support relay operators** by **subscribing to a paid relay** or donating to open-source relay projects.
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## **3️⃣ Support Paid Relays & Infrastructure**
Free relays have helped Nostr grow, but they **struggle with spam, slow speeds, and sustainability issues**. **Paid relays** help fund **better infrastructure, faster message delivery, and a more reliable experience**.
✅ **Subscribe to a paid relay** to help keep it running.\
✅ **Use premium services** like media hosting (e.g., Azzamo Blossom) to decentralize content storage.\
✅ **Donate to relay operators** who invest in long-term infrastructure.
By funding **Nostr’s decentralized backbone**, you help ensure its **longevity and reliability**.
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## **4️⃣ Zap Developers, Creators & Builders**
Many people contribute to Nostr **without direct financial compensation**—developers who build clients, relay operators, educators, and content creators. **You can support them with zaps!** ⚡
✅ **Find developers working on Nostr projects** and send them a zap.\
✅ **Support content creators and educators** who spread awareness about Nostr.\
✅ **Encourage builders** by donating to open-source projects.
Micro-payments via the **Lightning Network** make it easy to directly **support the people who make Nostr better**.
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## **5️⃣ Develop New Nostr Apps & Tools**
If you're a developer, you can **build on Nostr’s open protocol** to create new apps, bots, or tools. Nostr is **permissionless**, meaning anyone can develop for it.
✅ **Create new Nostr clients** with unique features and user experiences.\
✅ **Build bots or automation tools** that improve engagement and usability.\
✅ **Experiment with decentralized identity, authentication, and encryption** to make Nostr even stronger.
With **no corporate gatekeepers**, your projects can help shape the future of decentralized social media.
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## **6️⃣ Promote & Educate Others About Nostr**
Adoption grows when **more people understand and use Nostr**. You can help by **spreading awareness** and creating educational content.
✅ **Write blogs, guides, and tutorials** explaining how to use Nostr.\
✅ **Make videos or social media posts** introducing new users to the protocol.\
✅ **Host discussions, Twitter Spaces, or workshops** to onboard more people.
The more people **understand and trust Nostr**, the stronger the ecosystem becomes.
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## **7️⃣ Support Open-Source Nostr Projects**
Many Nostr tools and clients are **built by volunteers**, and open-source projects thrive on **community support**.
✅ **Contribute code** to existing Nostr projects on GitHub.\
✅ **Report bugs and suggest features** to improve Nostr clients.\
✅ **Donate to developers** who keep Nostr free and open for everyone.
If you're not a developer, you can still **help with testing, translations, and documentation** to make projects more accessible.
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## **🚀 Every Contribution Strengthens Nostr**
Whether you:
✔️ **Post and engage daily**\
✔️ **Zap creators and developers**\
✔️ **Run or support relays**\
✔️ **Build new apps and tools**\
✔️ **Educate and onboard new users**
**Every action helps make Nostr more resilient, decentralized, and unstoppable.**
Nostr isn’t just another social network—it’s **a movement toward a free and open internet**. If you believe in **digital freedom, privacy, and decentralization**, now is the time to get involved.
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@ 5de23b9a:d83005b3
2025-02-19 03:47:19
In a digital era that is increasingly controlled by large companies, the emergence of Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is a breath of fresh air for those who crave freedom of expression.
Nostr is a cryptography-based protocol that allows users to send and receive messages through a relay network. Unlike conventional social media such as Twitter or Facebook
1.Full Decentralization: No company or government can remove or restrict content.
2.Sensor-Resistant: Information remains accessible despite blocking attempts.
3.Privacy and Security: Uses cryptography to ensure that only users who have the keys can access their messages.* **
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@ 9e69e420:d12360c2
2025-02-17 17:12:01
President Trump has intensified immigration enforcement, likening it to a wartime effort. Despite pouring resources into the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), arrest numbers are declining and falling short of goals. ICE fell from about 800 daily arrests in late January to fewer than 600 in early February.
Critics argue the administration is merely showcasing efforts with ineffectiveness, while Trump seeks billions more in funding to support his deportation agenda. Increased involvement from various federal agencies is intended to assist ICE, but many lack specific immigration training.
Challenges persist, as fewer immigrants are available for quick deportation due to a decline in illegal crossings. Local sheriffs are also pressured by rising demands to accommodate immigrants, which may strain resources further.
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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:
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*