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@ fe820c8e:d2d76f04
2025-06-13 08:45:35Course Main Title
This is your course initialization stub.
Please see the Docs to find out what is possible in LiaScript.
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--{{3 Russian Female}}--
Первоначально создан в 2004 году Джоном Грубером (англ. John Gruber) и Аароном Шварцем. Многие идеи языка были позаимствованы из существующих соглашений по разметке текста в электронных письмах...
{{3}}
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Multiline 1.9 | DOTS | *** y | * * - | r r r r r r r*r r r r*r r r r r r r a | * * x | * * i | B B B B B * B B B B B B * B B B B B s | * * | * * * * * * -1 +------------------------------------ 0 x-axis 1
Quizzes
A Textquiz
What did the fish say when he hit a concrete wall?
[[dam]]
Multiple Choice
Just add as many points as you wish:
[[X]] Only the **X** marks the correct point. [[ ]] Empty ones are wrong. [[X]] ...
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[( )] ... [(X)] <-- Only the **X** is allowed. [( )] ...
Executable Code
A drawing example, for demonstrating that any JavaScript library can be used, also for drawing.
```javascript // Initialize a Line chart in the container with the ID chart1 new Chartist.Line('#chart1', { labels: [1, 2, 3, 4], series: [[100, 120, 180, 200]] });
// Initialize a Line chart in the container with the ID chart2 new Chartist.Bar('#chart2', { labels: [1, 2, 3, 4], series: [[5, 2, 8, 3]] }); ```
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You can make your code executable and define projects:
``` js -EvalScript.js let who = data.first_name + " " + data.last_name;
if(data.online) { who + " is online"; } else { who + " is NOT online"; }
json +Data.json { "first_name" : "Sammy", "last_name" : "Shark", "online" : true } ```
More
Find out what you can even do more with quizzes:
https://liascript.github.io/course/?https://raw.githubusercontent.com/liaScript/docs/master/README.md
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@ a2bcfaeb:2b1f789d
2025-06-13 08:40:46Privileged to be in the Bitcoin village for two days conference courtesy of BitBiashara. I wouldn't get such a chance without Bitcoin Making meaningful connections and sharing ideas with the best minds in Bitcoin. My take home is, Bitcoin education is really needed. I will be carrying the message back to my village. God bless Bitcoin. Support our circular economy.
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@ 866e0139:6a9334e5
2025-06-13 08:27:03Autor: Caitlin Johnstone. Dieser Beitrag wurde mit dem Pareto-Client geschrieben. Sie finden alle Texte der Friedenstaube und weitere Texte zum Thema Frieden hier. Die neuesten Pareto-Artikel finden Sie in unserem Telegram-Kanal.
Die neuesten Artikel der Friedenstaube gibt es jetzt auch im eigenen Friedenstaube-Telegram-Kanal.
Israel hat eine umfangreiche Serie von Luftangriffen auf den Iran gestartet.
Die westlichen Medien übernehmen natürlich unhinterfragt die faktenfreie Behauptung der israelischen Regierung, dass diese Angriffe „präventiv“ waren.
Das Trump-Regime versucht, dies als einen völlig einseitigen israelischen Angriff darzustellen, der nichts mit den Vereinigten Staaten zu tun habe - eine Behauptung, die man durchaus glauben könnte, wenn man gestern geboren wäre.
Hier ist eine Liste von Schlagzeilen, die wir in Zukunft von der New York Times erwarten können:
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Iranische Angriffe erschüttern Israel in einem unprovozierten Angriff.
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Israelische Familien suchen Schutz bei antisemitischem Terroranschlag.
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Israelischer Verteidigungsminister: US-Campus-Demonstranten wussten irgendwie von iranischen Angriffen im Voraus, was auf eine Koordination mit Teheran hindeutet.
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Trump äußert privat seine Frustration mit Netanjahu über den Iran-Konflikt, dem die USA nur passiv und unschuldig beiwohnen.
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Amerikanische Juden fühlen sich inmitten der sich zuspitzenden Kriege im Nahen Osten verunsichert und nicht unterstützt.
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Meine Meinung: Ich habe bei den Luftangriffen auf Tel Aviv um mein Leben gefürchtet. Niemand auf der Welt kann sich vorstellen, wie das ist.
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Meinung: Besteht die Gefahr, dass die USA in einen weiteren Krieg im Nahen Osten hineingezogen werden?
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Meinung: Stolpern die USA in einen weiteren Krieg im Nahen Osten?
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Meinung: Stolpern die USA versehentlich in einen weiteren Krieg im Nahen Osten?
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Meinung: Werden die USA mit Füßen getreten und in einen Krieg im Nahen Osten hineingezogen, den sie seit jeher um jeden Preis zu vermeiden versuchen?
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USA starten Präventivschlag gegen den Iran.
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Ihre Meinung: Werden die USA in einen dritten Weltkrieg hineingezogen?
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Meinung: Taumeln die USA kopfüber in einen nuklearen Schlagabtausch mit Russland und China?
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Meinung: Der Himmel verdunkelt sich, während nukleare Strahlung über unser Land kriecht, deshalb müssen wir alle zusammenkommen und die Hamas verurteilen.
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Meinung: Die Erde ist ein unfruchtbares Ödland. Nichts bleibt übrig. Schauen Sie nach Ihren jüdischen Freunden.
Dieser Text erschien zuerst auf englisch auf dem Substack-Blog der Autorin.
LASSEN SIE DER FRIEDENSTAUBE FLÜGEL WACHSEN!
Hier können Sie die Friedenstaube abonnieren und bekommen die Artikel zugesandt.
Schon jetzt können Sie uns unterstützen:
- Für 50 CHF/EURO bekommen Sie ein Jahresabo der Friedenstaube.
- Für 120 CHF/EURO bekommen Sie ein Jahresabo und ein T-Shirt/Hoodie mit der Friedenstaube.
- Für 500 CHF/EURO werden Sie Förderer und bekommen ein lebenslanges Abo sowie ein T-Shirt/Hoodie mit der Friedenstaube.
- Ab 1000 CHF werden Sie Genossenschafter der Friedenstaube mit Stimmrecht (und bekommen lebenslanges Abo, T-Shirt/Hoodie).
Für Einzahlungen in CHF (Betreff: Friedenstaube):
Für Einzahlungen in Euro:
Milosz Matuschek
IBAN DE 53710520500000814137
BYLADEM1TST
Sparkasse Traunstein-Trostberg
Betreff: Friedenstaube
Wenn Sie auf anderem Wege beitragen wollen, schreiben Sie die Friedenstaube an: friedenstaube@pareto.space
Sie sind noch nicht auf Nostr and wollen die volle Erfahrung machen (liken, kommentieren etc.)? Zappen können Sie den Autor auch ohne Nostr-Profil! Erstellen Sie sich einen Account auf Start. Weitere Onboarding-Leitfäden gibt es im Pareto-Wiki.
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@ 7460b7fd:4fc4e74b
2025-06-13 08:09:40联名银行账户的历史、挑战与现代替代方案 —— 兼论 PayJoin 的跨法域教法友好新实践
1. 联名账户的起源与制度逻辑(英美法系)
联名账户的定义与起源。 联名银行账户是指由两个或以上个人共同持有、均有权操作的银行账户birketts.co.uk。这一制度起源于英美普通法下对于共同财产持有的需求,可追溯到不动产共有 (如共有租赁 joint tenancy) 概念在金融存款领域的引入birketts.co.uk。19世纪末到20世纪中叶,欧美银行开始允许多人在同一账户上拥有签字权,方便夫妻或家人联合管理财务,并在账户持有人死亡时避免遗产认证(probate)流程——因此联名账户常被称为“穷人的遗嘱”,作为一种规避遗嘱认证的工具nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。
共同租赁与生存者权利。 在英国普通法传统中,不动产的 joint tenancy 具有“生存者享有权”(Right of Survivorship),即一名共有人去世后,其份额自动归属存活的共有人。这一理念被移植到银行账户:大多数联名账户在开立时即默认附带生存者权利(JTWROS),存款人之一死亡时,账户资金无须经过遗产程序直接归属于存活者birketts.co.uknelsonmullins.com。英美各州法律以及《统一遗嘱认证法》(UPC)普遍承认这一默认规则,除非开户时有相反约定nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。这体现了联名账户在制度设计上的核心逻辑:账户法律权属共同且具有延续性,银行只关注账户的法律所有人而不深究每位持有人对资金的实益份额birketts.co.uk。
意图推定与权益归属争议。 尽管法律上联名账户具共同所有与生存者权利,但在实益归属(Beneficial Ownership)上常引发争议birketts.co.uk。英美法院历史上发展出不同理论来推定联名账户资金归属的意图:一是合同理论,认为签署的开户协议本身构成合同,确立各持有人对账户的平等权利(包括死亡后全额归属权);二是信托/赠与理论,视添加共有人为对其利益的赠与或信托安排birketts.co.ukbirketts.co.uk。英国法院传统上采用推定信托原则:若账户资金完全由一方存入,则推定这笔钱由该方信托持有,除非账户持有人有夫妻、父母子女等特殊关系,此时反推定为赠与(advancement)birketts.co.uk。例如,父母将子女加入账户通常被视为对子女的财产赠与,逝世后余额归子女所有birketts.co.uk;而无亲属关系的人加入账户则多被视为管理方便的安排,资金实益仍属原出资人birketts.co.uk。美国法亦有类似原则,不少州要求若实际意图只是“便利账户”(Convenience Account),需在开户时或遗嘱中明确声明,否则默认视为赠与,账户余额按生存者权利归共同持有人nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。这种法律推定的复杂性,使联名账户长期存在“制度混乱”局面nelsonmullins.com,历史上大量诉讼围绕共同持有人之间以及继承人之间对账户资金归属的争夺展开nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。
账户签署模式:“和”与“或”。 另一个制度要点是账户的操作权限。传统英美银行账户协议中,可以指定联名账户为“双方签字”(“A 和 B”账户)或“任一方签字”(“A 或 B”账户)模式investopedia.com。“双方签字”要求所有共有人同意才能支取,保障了共同行使控制权,但使用不便,主要用于企业账户或信托账户;“任一方签字”则允许任一持有人单独操作账户,是夫妻/家庭联名账户的常见形式investopedia.com。印度、英国等地银行常用“Either or Survivor”(任一或生存者)来指明此类账户默认具有生存者继承权mikecoady.com。这一设计体现了联名账户的灵活性:要么强调共同控制,要么强调独立便利。然而正如下文所述,这种便利也带来了诸多法律与实务风险。
2. 美国联名账户的典型法律问题及银行应对
遗产继承与意图冲突。 在美国,联名账户最常见的问题是与遗产规划意图不一致,引发继承纠纷。例如老年父母出于支付账单方便,将成年子女之一加入账户,但并不打算在去世后将全部余额都赠与该子女nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。如果父母过世前未书面声明账户不作为遗赠,那么按照许多州法律,该账户会绕开遗嘱直接归存活的子女所有nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。这可能与父母原本打算公平分配遗产给其他继承人的意愿相违背nelsonmullins.com。例如在南卡罗来纳的案例 Abernathy v. Latham 中,母亲生前联名账户本意是方便支付其医疗开销,遗嘱却意图将财产分予另两位非联名子女,但因未在开户时或遗嘱中明确说明,法院仍判定账户余额由共有人(联名女儿)全额继承nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。为避免此类情况,《统一多方账户法》(已被部分州采纳)要求账户持有人如欲排除生存者权利,须在开户表或遗嘱中有明确书面说明,否则默认视为意图赠与生存者nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。银行方面也逐渐提供选项,允许客户指定联名账户为“无生存者权利”(类似于按份共有),但这在实践中不常使用,需要客户有明确法律意识。
账户冻结与债权纠纷。 联名账户的另一风险在于,当其中一位持有人遇到法律麻烦(债务、诉讼、税务等),整个账户可能被冻结或强制执行。美国的多数司法辖区视联名账户内资金为各持有人_推定_平等拥有,因此债权人可以申请冻结或扣押债务人姓名下的联名账户,即便另一共有人对债务不知情也可能失去账户资金nolo.comnolo.com。各州对此规定不同:有些州限定债权人仅能扣押账户的一半资金(假定另一半属无债务方)nolo.com;但在另一些州,债权人可申请扣押全部余额,然后由无责共有人举证证明其中有自己出资的部分才能取回nolo.comnolo.com。例如一对兄妹联名账户,如兄弟欠债遭判决,债权人可能要求银行冻结整个账户,妹妹必须提供存款记录等证明哪些钱是自己存入(traceable contributions)才能抗辩解除nolo.comnolo.com。这一过程繁琐且充满不确定性,给无辜共有人带来资金风险。对此风险,银行没有义务主动区分资金归属,只依据账户合同行事nolo.com。为减轻客户顾虑,一些州允许在开户时将账户明确标为“便利账户”(仅供代理操作,不算共同财产),或夫妻开设“Entireties账户”(夫妻整体所有,仅可共同处分,个人债权人不得强制执行),以提供一定保护alperlaw.comnolo.com。但这些选项依赖特殊法规且在不同管辖区差异很大nolo.comnolo.com。因此美国银行通常会在开户协议中提醒联名账户的连带责任(如信用卡联名账户双方对欠款负共同责任investopedia.com)和可能的债权风险,并建议客户慎重选择共有人。
误操作与内部欺诈。 联名账户给予每位持有人几乎不受限制的提款权,因此另一大隐患是账户内部的误用或欺诈。如果一位持有人缺乏理财自律或存在恶意,他/她可单方面提取或转移全部资金,另一持有人事后才发现损失investopedia.comkitces.com。由于银行视所有共有人为合法所有者之一,无法仅凭一方投诉而阻止另一方的提款——银行有合同义务执行任何持有人合法发起的指令kitces.com。这意味着联名账户几乎没有内部制衡:即使银行察觉可疑,也“束手无策”,因为指令来自账户合法共有人kitces.com。受害一方只能通过法院诉讼,主张账户只是“代理/便利”性质、对方违反受托责任 (fiduciary duty) 而挪用资金,尝试追回款项kitces.com。然而举证过程漫长且结果不确定,需要证明当初加名仅为代理方便而非真正赠与kitces.com。正因如此,美国理财顾问常警示客户:不要轻易通过联名账户授权他人理财,否则不仅资金可能被滥用,而且一旦对方出事,您的钱也可能受牵连kitces.comkitces.com。相比之下,更安全的做法是使用有限授权(Power of Attorney)或生前信托来给予代理人有限权限,而非直接共享所有权kitces.comkitces.com。银行业也逐步接受和配合这些替代方案,如核验授权书、副署人等,以平衡便利性和安全性。
3. 海湾国家联名账户的实践与挑战
跨境劳工汇款与联名账户。 海湾阿拉伯国家聚集了大量外籍劳工(尤其来自南亚、东南亚),他们经常需要将收入汇款回家。许多外籍人士选择开立联名账户作为家庭财务工具,例如在本国银行开设自己与配偶或父母的联名账户,以便家人在其海外工作期间共同管理资金或从账户中提取生活费icicibank.comicicibank.com。部分在海湾地区的银行也允许外籍客户与家人开联名账户,方便他们将工资存入并由在家乡的配偶使用附属银行卡取款reddit.com。这种安排在技术上降低了频繁国际汇款的成本和难度。然而,它也带来了法律和文化层面的挑战:一方面,不同国籍/居住地的联名人涉及跨境法规(如外汇管制、税务申报)的复杂性;另一方面,在一些文化中男女或代际间共享账户可能与传统观念不符,需要遵循伊斯兰教法或当地习俗。比如有的穆斯林丈夫可能按照教法允许妻子保有自己财产、不干涉之原则,不倾向于共用账户,而选择直接汇款给妻子个人账户reddit.com。因此,跨境家庭常在便利与合规之间权衡,在联名账户和单独账户+授权取款等模式中做出选择。
家族资产共管需求。 海湾本地富裕家族内部也存在共同管理资产的需求。例如父子共同经营生意、兄弟姐妹联合投资物业等情况,希望有一个共管的账户池。传统上,在海湾阿拉伯社会,大家族通过掌门人代持或设立家族办事处(Family Office)集中管理资产,但现代银行服务也提供了一些新工具。例如阿联酋的 Emirates Islamic 推出了**“家庭储蓄账户”模式,允许多达10位直系亲属各有独立子账户,但共享一个合并余额来获得较高的整体收益率,同时保持每个人账户的私密性和独立使用emiratesislamic.aeemiratesislamic.ae。这被视为传统联名账户的改良:资金并不真正混同,但在银行系统内被视为“虚拟共同体”,以激励家庭存款emiratesislamic.aeemiratesislamic.ae。该方案也明确遵循伊斯兰教法**(如采用 Wakala 投资代理协议分享利润,而非利息)emiratesislamic.aeemiratesislamic.ae。由此可见,海湾银行业在满足家族共同理财需求时,更倾向于结构化解决方案,以避免直接共有人制度带来的法律障碍。
教法继承与账户冻结。 最严峻的挑战是伊斯兰教法的强制继承规则。在海湾阿拉伯国家(如海合会各国),伊斯兰教法(Sharia)通常适用于穆斯林公民的资产继承。根据教法,当账户持有人去世,其资产必须按照固定的继承份额分配给法定继承人(配偶、子女、父母等),个人意愿影响有限。这与普通法系下联名账户“生存者自动继承全部”原则直接冲突gulfnews.comgulfnews.com。因此在如阿联酋等地,无论账户是个人还是联名,只要持有人去世,银行立即冻结账户,直到宗教法院或民事法院完成继承认证gulfnews.comgulfnews.com。联名并不能豁免冻结:即使另一共有人健在且资金主要由其贡献,也不得动用账户,直至法院指令gulfnews.comgulfnews.com。例如一位印度外籍人士在迪拜与妻子共有多个账户,妻子骤然去世后,他发现所有联名账户被法院冻结,无法提款支付日常生活费mikecoady.commikecoady.com。因为按照程序,继承人在申请继承证书时需申报所有死者名下账户,法院即通知各银行冻结资金mikecoady.commikecoady.com。数月后法院根据教法规将款项在丈夫和子女间按教法份额分配(例如丈夫25%、儿子50%、女儿25%mikecoady.com),而不像普通法那样全部归存活配偶mikecoady.com。这一事件突显了联名账户在教法环境下的“危险”:存活共有人不仅无法直接继承,短期内甚至无法动用共同财产gulfnews.comgulfnews.com。为此,当地专业人士建议外籍人士避免在无遗嘱情况下使用联名账户,或至少保证每人有独立账户以备不时之需mikecoady.com。更稳妥的做法是在当地立下符合教法的正式遗嘱,或采用公司/信托架构持有资产,以绕开个人账户直接继承的障碍gulfnews.com。总之,在海湾国家,联名账户因为法域文化差异面临特殊挑战,必须提前规划以防范账户冻结与继承冲突的问题。
4. 联名账户的现代替代方案及局限性
面对上述各种问题,金融和技术领域已经发展出若干替代方案来实现多人共同管理资金的目标,每种方案各有其法律、治理和技术局限。下表对主要替代机制进行比较:
| 替代方案 | 实现方式 | 优点 | 局限性 | | ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 对公账户/公司账户 | 设立法人实体(公司、合伙企业),以公司名义开银行账户,由多名股东/高管共同控制fdic.gov。 | 法律结构清晰,有公司法保护;可设定多签批准流程;个人债务不直接牵连公司资金。 | 设置和维护成本高(注册、税务、合规);非家庭场景不便;跨国开户困难。 | | 信托账户 | 设立信托或基金,受托人开设账户代持财产,受益人包括相关个人kitces.com。 | 可定制受托人义务,保障弱势方利益;避开遗产认证,按信托契约分配;在普通法下有成熟法理。 | 在民法或教法地区法律地位不明;设立需专业知识和费用;受托人可能滥用职责(需信任或监管)。 | | 授权与代理 | 不改变账户所有权,通过签署财务授权书或银行授权,让代理人能操作账户kitces.com。 | 手续简单成本低;不转移所有权、不影响继承;授权范围可限定(仅查看、限额支付等)。 | 授权人在法律上无所有权,遇代理破产/去世授权失效;部分机构对授权认受度有限(可能拒绝执行)。 | | 多重签名钱包 | 在加密货币领域使用多签名技术(如2/3签名)管理资金,各方持有私钥,需达成门槛签名才能支出blog.upay.bestmilkroad.com。 | 技术上去中心化,无单点控制;规则灵活(M-of-N签名可定制);无银行介入、无国界限制;防范单方欺诈或遗失(可设应急密钥)。 | 仅适用于数字资产,不适用法币账户;用户需一定技术能力;法律上不承认“共同签名”财产分配,纠纷解决缺乏司法支持;一旦签名门槛达不到(如一方失联),资金可能冻结在链上。 | | 权限分级系统 | 由银行或金融平台提供,多用户共享同一账户或钱包但权限不同(如主账户人设置子账户/支付限额)。 | 可实现精细控制:如一方全权,另一方仅查询或限额交易;方便家庭理财、企业财务控制;平台往往提供日志追踪增强透明度。 | 核心账户仍属单一法律主体,其他人为被授权人而非真正共有人;授权关系依赖平台规则,法律保障弱;跨机构不可通用,缺乏行业标准。 |
对公账户/公司架构: 通过成立法人实体(如注册有限责任公司或合伙企业)共同持有资金,是许多情况下替代联名账户的方案absolutetrustcounsel.com。例如夫妻可成立一家有限责任公司共同持有投资资产,再以公司名义开银行账户。这将资金从个人名下移至公司名下,从而隔离个人法律风险:一方的个人债权人无法直接针对公司账户执行alperlaw.com。公司章程还能规定账户需多方签字支出,提高内部监督。然而其局限是显而易见的:成立和维护公司需支付注册、审计、报税等成本,对于单纯家庭资金共管显得繁琐;跨境开设公司账户涉及各国法律和合规要求,操作门槛高。因此公司账户更多用于正式商业合伙场景,在普通家庭财务中接受度有限。
信托结构: 信托源于普通法,可作为联名账户的法律替代——尤其在涉及遗产和未成年人利益时更为优越。家长可设立生前信托,把资金转入信托账户,由受托银行按信托契约管理并允许指定受益人共同使用,从而避免形式上的联名kitces.comkitces.com。信托能够细致规定各方的权益份额和职责(受托人对受益人的诚信义务 Amanah),并可跨越死亡事件自动过渡产权,无需冻结账户或经过繁琐继承程序。然而信托在许多民法或伊斯兰法系国家并无完善的法律框架(例如一些海湾国家对家族信托的承认有限),设立信托往往需要借助离岸法域(如开曼群岛、新加坡的信托法律)coinshares.com。此外,信托涉及专业法律文件起草和持续监管成本,对一般用户门槛较高。若受托人滥用职权,受益人必须诉诸法院救济,也存在道德风险。因此信托虽在英美被视为解决联名财产问题的黄金标准,但在跨法域环境下其可行性取决于当地法律制度支持程度。
授权代理: 这是不改变资金所有权又能实现共同管理的简单途径。很多美国老人不愿直接加子女为联名人,改为签署广泛的持久财务授权书 (Durable Power of Attorney),授权子女在自己失能时管理账户kitces.com。银行也提供第三方授权形式,比如在账户中登记一位“代理签字人”。授权的优点是保留资产独立性:资金仍属原主,无需担心代理人个人债务牵连;同时授权可随时撤销或修改。不过授权并非万能:若授权人去世,授权自动失效,代理人无法再动用账户(此时资产转由遗产程序处理)nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。此外,不是所有国家/银行都乐于承认外国授权文件,实际操作中代理人可能仍遇阻力(一些银行出于合规会对代理指令多加审查)。因此授权适合作为短中期的账户共管方案,但不能完全解决死亡继承和跨境问题。
多重签名数字钱包: 在区块链和加密货币领域,多重签名 (multi-sig) 技术成为实现“多人共管资金”的创新方案blog.upay.bestmilkroad.com。例如,两位商业伙伴可以创建一个比特币2-of-2多签钱包,任何转出交易需要双方的数字签名,类似银行账户要求两把钥匙同时拧开保险箱。这种技术不依赖中心机构:资金由去中心化网络维护,任何一方单独无法挪用,使内部欺诈风险降至最低。同时,它突破了国界,在不同法域的人都可共同控制同一钱包。然而,当前多签钱包主要限于加密资产,对于法币存款并不可用。即便在加密领域,也存在治理难题:法律层面不承认密码学上的“共有”概念,如果多签持有人发生纠纷或死亡,传统法院很难介入分配私钥或代为执行交易river.comriver.com。例如一方去世未留下其私钥,除非智能合约预设了应急方案(如超时解锁给存活方或预留第三方密钥),否则资金将永久锁定链上。又如一方恶意拒绝签名,另一方只能尝试技术或社工手段获取签名,无正规法律途径解决。总的来说,多签提供了技术上的安全与中立,但牺牲了一定的便捷性和法律可追索性,目前更适合高信任度团队或对安全性要求极高的场景(如加密货币交易所的资产托管)。
权限分级的账户系统: 随着金融科技的发展,一些银行和支付平台推出了多用户权限功能,试图兼顾多人使用的便利与风险控制。例如某些数字银行允许一个主账户下开设子账户,各账户持有人拥有独立登录、卡片,但资金在后台链接,实现类似家庭钱包的效果。主账户持有人可以设定每个副账户的额度和权限(只能消费不可转出等),既给家人财务自由又保留总体控制。这类方案实质上还是一个人拥有账户,其余是被授权用户,只不过科技手段让用户体验上接近联名账户。这种权限分级系统可以灵活定制规则(比如双重确认大额支出、实时通知等),非常适合企业财务(类似传统网银的“双人复核”)或家庭预算(如给孩子的零用卡)。局限在于:法律关系上账户只属于主用户,其余人没有法律所有权,因此如果主用户出事,账户仍会被冻结,其他人权益无保障。此外,不同银行平台各自为政,缺乏统一标准,一旦跨行或跨境,此类授权无法延伸。在监管层面,这种模式也引发KYC疑问:银行需要对所有实际使用者尽职调查,否则可能出现非账户持有人匿名使用资金的情况。
综上,各种替代方案各自解决了传统联名账户的一部分问题,却也引入新的限制。没有一种方案能完美覆盖法律、治理、技术各方面:对公账户和信托提供法律清晰度但成本高、地域受限;授权和权限分级提升便利但不改变根本权属;多签钱包实现了跨境共同控制但游离于现行法律框架之外。正是在这样的背景下,新兴的PayJoin技术引人注目——它并非传统意义上的“账户”或“契约”,而是一种交易机制,可能在跨法域和教法环境下提供一种创新的资金共管思路。
5. PayJoin 技术机制与联名账户的比较
PayJoin 的原理简介。 PayJoin(又称 P2EP,Pay-to-Endpoint)是一种比特币交易的隐私增强技术,其核心思想是:让交易的接收方也贡献一部分输入river.com。在传统的单方支付中,一笔交易的所有输入通常都来自付款人,这泄露了一个隐私信息:这些输入地址很可能属于同一人(区块链分析中的“共同输入归属假设”)river.com。PayJoin 则打破这一假设:收款人预先与付款人沟通,同意在收到款项时由自己提供一个UTXO作为交易输入之一,然后双方构建一个包含多笔输入、输出的联合交易payjoin.orgpayjoin.org。例如,Alice 向 Bob 支付 1 BTC,传统做法是 Alice 提供1 BTC输入-> Bob 的地址。PayJoin 下,可能变成:Alice 提供0.6 BTC输入,Bob 提供0.5 BTC输入,两人签署一笔交易,其中 Bob 的输出得到1.1 BTC(相当于 Bob 原有0.5+Alice支付1.0,减去找零给Alice和手续费),Alice 拿回找零0.4 BTCpayjoin.org。从区块链上看,这笔交易有两个输入(分别来自Alice和Bob的钱包)和若干输出,但观察者无法断定究竟是哪部分是支付、哪部分是找零,因为它看起来跟“一人用多个输入付款”并无二致payjoin.orgpayjoin.org。PayJoin 使交易的资金归属变得难以推导:外人不再确切知道Alice给了Bob多少钱。
“共同控制”与权限对比。 虽然 PayJoin 不是账户,但它体现了一种交易层面的共同控制:交易的生成和签名需要双方参与river.com。付款人和收款人通过点对点加密通信(通常经Tor或类似渠道)协商交易细节,各自选择愿意投入的UTXO,然后协同构建PSBT(部分签名比特币交易)并分别签章river.comriver.com。只有双方都签名,交易才能广播成功。这一点类似联名账户的“双签”模式(“和账户”),需要双方同意才能完成一笔“资金移动”。不同之处在于:联名账户的双签是在账户维度的持续权限控制,而 PayJoin 的“双签”是逐笔交易的合作行为,一旦交易完成,双方各自拿回属于自己的输出,并不产生一个长期共管的地址或账户。这意味着 PayJoin 不涉及资金托管:Alice和Bob各自仍控制自己钱包里的币,只是在支付发生的一刻进行了协作。相较之下,传统联名账户(尤其“或账户”)往往允许单方独立操作而缺乏约束investopedia.cominvestopedia.com;而 PayJoin 则需要双方在线同意才能促成,这在一定程度上提供了共同见证/确认。不过,PayJoin 并不能防止任一方事后随意支配自己收到的输出(类似于联名账户的任一持有人可自行提取自己的款项比例)。因此在控制模型上,PayJoin更像是瞬时的“合伙记账”:双方都参与记账过程,但结算后各拿各的钱。如果有需要,可以反复通过PayJoin进行资金往来,从而达到一种“经常性共同操作”的效果,但它本身不会锁定资金需要长期共同签署。相比之下,多重签名钱包会真正把资金锁定在需要多方签名才能解锁的地址上,这是不同的。
不可推导的资金归属。 对于联名账户,外部人(包括银行或法院)通常也无法直接区分账户内资金最初由谁存入,因为账户作为一个整体记录余额birketts.co.uk。只有通过内部账或存款记录才能分析贡献比例。同样地,PayJoin 交易在区块链上造成了资金来源的混淆:链上观察者无法确定哪一方贡献了多少输入、哪个输出归谁payjoin.org。这从隐私角度是优点:它打破了比特币网络上对于资金流向的常规分析规则payjoin.org。而从“共有”角度来看,这种资金归属不透明性与联名账户有相似之处——在一个联名账户中,如果没有充分证据,第三方或债权人常默认账户资金各半归属双方nolo.com;在一次PayJoin交易中,除非双方公开细节,否则无人能确知哪个输出是支付哪个是找零,即交易对手间的具体资金划分仅他们自己清楚payjoin.org。值得注意的是,这种隐私并非完全的匿名,而是针对特定交易的归属不可判定。联名账户的不可归属性是长期的(整个账户余额如此),而PayJoin是针对单笔转移,但如果双方持续采用PayJoin模式进行交互,那么整个资金流的图谱对外部来说将变得支离破碎,难以拼凑双方各自持有多少。对于希望财务共管但又不想被外界清晰审计出权属的人来说,这提供了一种新颖的工具。
与多方混币区别。 需要指出,PayJoin 不同于传统的CoinJoin(多人混币)。CoinJoin通常是数个不相干的人把若干UTXO放一起构造一笔交易,打乱关联,从而实现隐私增强river.com。而 PayJoin 仅两方参与且具有实际支付含义:付款人最终少了钱,收款人净得钱。这更贴近真实的一对一资金往来场景,只是包装成让外界看不出。而CoinJoin往往输出每人拿回和输入等量的钱,只是换了碎片顺序,没有实现真正资金转移。PayJoin的效率更高(两人即可,不需撮合众人),也更节省手续费,因其输出数量可与普通交易无异,不增加链上容量payjoin.orgpayjoin.org。
综上,PayJoin 在共同控制和资金归属模糊两方面都与联名账户有相似之处,却又有本质区别:联名账户是法律与账户层面的共管关系,持续存在;PayJoin是技术与交易层面的合作行为,瞬时完成。正是这种差异,使 PayJoin 可以避开许多联名账户的制度性问题,从而具备一些独特优势,如下节所述。
6. PayJoin:跨法域中立且教法友好的潜力
跨法域的中立性。 PayJoin 基于比特币网络运作,其参与各方只需遵循比特币协议,与任何特定国家法律或金融机构无直接关联。这意味着,无论交易双方身处何地、何种法系,都可以采用PayJoin来完成一笔支付或价值转移,而不受当地银行政策差异的影响。例如,一位美国的用户可以与一位海湾国家的用户通过各自的比特币钱包执行PayJoin,资金即时划转,无需经过银行清算或外汇管制。这种去中心化特性使 PayJoin 天然具有跨法域中立性:它不需要在某国开设账户、符合某地金融牌照,也无须考虑两地对联名账户截然不同的法律定义。对于跨境家庭或团队而言,PayJoin 提供了共同参与财务活动的新方式——不再以账户形式存在,而是在链上合作完成交易。由于没有共同持有的账户实体,便不存在账户被冻结或被单方面没收的风险(前提是双方各自保管好自己的私钥)。尤其在一些司法管辖冲突的场景下(如非穆斯林丈夫与穆斯林妻子想共享财富,但各自国家法律对联名财产认定不同),PayJoin可以作为双方私下的财务协议来使用,而避免落入法域冲突的真空地带。需要强调,PayJoin 本身不违反任何国家的明文法律——它只是标准的比特币交易形式之一payjoin.orgpayjoin.org。法律上各国通常将比特币交易视为个人资产处分行为,只要不用于非法目的,并无禁止交易双方协商其交易结构的法规。因此,从合法性角度看,PayJoin 相当于两人商定了一种转账方式,在Common Law看来符合契约自由原则,在各法域都找不出明显抵触的条文。
伊斯兰教法的友好性。 从伊斯兰金融原则审视,PayJoin 具有许多契合点,使其有望被视为“教法友好”的实践:
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无利息(Riba):PayJoin 只是资金转移工具,不涉及贷款或利息计付。比特币本身不支付利息,交易过程中也没有任何一方无风险获利的要素scitcentral.com。相比传统银行账户可能涉及利息或利率变动(伊斯兰金融需通过盈利率协议Wakala等实现类似功能),PayJoin 完全规避了利息禁忌。
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控制与所有权明确(Amanah信托原则):在联名账户中,各方资金混同,实际归属成谜,可能引发Amanah上的疑虑——一方实为代管他人财产却可以随意取用。而PayJoin每笔交易双方知情并同意,且结算后各自掌控自己的余额,没有长期代管他人财物的情况。可以认为,双方在PayJoin合作中互为受托人:各自承诺只签署符合约定金额的交易,不多签或少签。这种短暂的互信很容易履行且范围有限,符合 Amanah 强调的受托义务(诚信、准时履约)。双方都不把资金长久交给对方或第三方,减少了信托滥用的可能。
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避免过度不确定性(Gharar):Gharar 指交易中不确定性或信息不对称过高,从而带有投机欺诈成分。PayJoin 交易结构虽然对外人不透明,但对交易双方本身是完全清晰的——他们事先约定了支付额,每人贡献多少UTXO、将得到多少找零输出,都是明确计算的payjoin.org。交易未完成前,任何一方都可以中止(不签名则交易无效),不存在押注未知结果的情况,也没有复杂衍生品或概率元素,因而不违反“避免Gharar”的原则changelly.com。与之相比,传统联名账户在教法环境下的最大不确定性反而是继承处理:共有人无法确定死后谁能得到多少份额(取决于教法和法院),这对各方而言是一种Gharar。而PayJoin每次交易完结,资金归属当下尘埃落定,没有悬而未决的权益。
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非赌博性质(Maysir):Maysir意为赌博或投机。PayJoin 并非博弈,而是有实际用途的支付工具,没有随机输赢,也不以对赌为目的changelly.com。两人合作进行PayJoin,不会出现一方赢钱一方输钱的零和结果——本质还是执行支付,只是改变信息披露,并无博彩成分。因此,用PayJoin进行正常经济活动,应不触犯禁赌教规。
更进一步,有学者和教法顾问已经在讨论比特币本身的可容许性:许多观点认为只要比特币用于合法贸易、避免利息和欺诈,它可以被视作财产和交换媒介,从教法上是Halal(可允)plasbit.comchangelly.com。一些中东地区的交易所和机构也在寻求Fatwa(教令)承认加密货币交易的合规性。PayJoin 作为其上的一种交易方式,如能被正确理解,其Sharia合规障碍应较小。因为相比之下,更具争议的是匿名性和洗钱风险,但那属于世俗法律范畴,下节会谈到。
避免强制继承冲突。 前文提及,在海湾国家按Sharia会冻结联名账户并强制按法定比例分配。这主要因为账户在法律上视为死者遗产的一部分。而若两人采用PayJoin等去中心化方式管理财富,则每人始终持有自己那部分私钥控制的币,不形成法律上的“联名遗产”。当一方过世,其私钥所控币是其遗产,另一方所控币不属于遗产范围,因此不会被教法程序冻结。当然,亡者的比特币仍需按其遗嘱或教法分配,但起码存活者立即可支配自己持有的部分,现金流不中断。这与联名账户情形截然不同。在实践中,夫妻可各自持有数字钱包,定期用PayJoin互相汇款、结算共同开支。万一一方不幸去世,另一方钱包里的余额就是属于Ta自己的,不经遗产处理即可继续使用;而逝者钱包若未留访问方式则资产可能锁死,反而避免了与法定继承人的纠纷(当然,从保护家人利益角度,应有妥善的密钥遗嘱安排,但可通过多签或托管来实现,而不需要传统联名账户)。总之,PayJoin提供了一种不经银行、绕开法域限制的合作模式,使双方的财产在法律上保持独立,却能在经济上实现协同。这对于跨国夫妇或团队,尤其处在不同财产制度(教法 vs 世俗法)下的组合,极具吸引力。
7. 合规性分析:伊斯兰金融原则与普通法要求的平衡
引入任何新实践方式,都必须评估其在各法域的合规性。针对 PayJoin,需要分别从伊斯兰金融教义和普通法/现代监管角度来审视,确保其同时满足双方关切,真正成为“跨法域中立、教法友好”的方案。
符合伊斯兰金融原则: 根据上述分析,PayJoin 本身没有违反 Riba、Gharar、Maysir 等禁忌,可被设计为符合 Shariah 的工具。然而,为进一步确保教法合规,可以考虑以下细节:
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合同形式与意图明确(Niyyah):伊斯兰交易强调各方意图正当、合同清晰。虽然 PayJoin 不需要书面合同,但双方可在私下有书面或口头协议,说明这是一种共同协作支付,不是借贷或投资关系,以免日后产生歧义。这类似于 Amanah 原则下的承诺:双方约定各自仅为支付目的贡献资金,不据此主张对方财产权。
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避免不义之财(Dhulm):教法禁止不公正的占有。如果 PayJoin 被恶意用来隐匿资助不法活动或侵占他人财产,显然不合规。这需要道德约束:FinTech开发者在推广PayJoin方案时,应嵌入使用指引,强调其用于正当目的(如家庭财务协作、隐私保护),不鼓励用于欺诈或洗钱。这与伊斯兰金融注重的社会责任原则吻合nasdaq.com。
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审慎与透明(Itqan & disclosure):在穆斯林社群中推广时,可以让受过教法培训的专业人士参与审查PayJoin流程,甚至发布教法意见书(Fatwa)声明其可接受性,并教育用户如何将其融入Halal理财生活。例如建议穆斯林家庭在使用PayJoin前,明确约定彼此的财产份额和用途,记录每笔协作交易的原因,以保持家庭内部的透明和信任(这有点类似于定期对账,在宗教上也是鼓励诚实对待财产往来的一部分)。
符合普通法和监管要求: 虽然 PayJoin 技术本身不违反合同和财产基本法理,但现实应用中还有一些合规问题需要考虑:
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反洗钱(AML)与身份识别(KYC):西方普通法体系下的金融监管要求对资金来源和交易对手尽职调查。PayJoin提高了链上匿名性,可能引起监管机构对其用于洗钱的担忧cointelegraph.comriver.com。为此,FinTech企业在实现PayJoin功能时,可加入自愿的透明机制:例如双方如果在受监管平台(交易所、支付处理器)进行PayJoin,可以在链下向平台报告交易对手的身份哈希,以满足监管审计需要(前提是双方同意,并且平台在受司法令时才揭示)。这样既不破坏链上隐私,又保留合规的选项。此外,开发者也应提示用户遵守所在地法规:如一次性大额PayJoin转账在某些国家可能需要申报,用户需自觉履行。
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合同与救济:Common Law 强调合同自由,但也要求有违约或欺诈时能提供司法救济。PayJoin 没有标准合同,如果一方未履行承诺(例如收款方承诺一起做PayJoin但反悔要求普通转账,或者付款方声称已付但实际未广播交易),法律上如何处理?对此建议是:当 PayJoin 用于商业场景时,仍应有基本合同约定。如果发生纠纷,一方可以提交协商的PSBT记录、通信记录等作为证据。由于Bitcoin交易有不可篡改的链上记录,反而容易举证实际支付了多少钱给谁。法律可能将其视为一种合伙或代理协议的履行:双方合意做一件事并完成了。如果一方中途毁约导致对方损失,可按普通契约法求偿。不过需要法院对这一技术有所了解。因此合规上,或许需要通过行业协会向监管和司法解释PayJoin的机制,使其被当作正当交易手段看待,而非神秘的洗钱工具。
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税务与报告:各国税法对加密交易的申报要求不同。PayJoin并未改变交易实质,只是隐私增强,但从税务上说,若涉及资产转移,同样要记录成本基础和收益。合规方案可以是:提供给用户一个工具,将自己参加的PayJoin交易标记并保存原始支付细节(付款额、找零额),以便报税时证明实际支出收入情况。这一点对企业采用PayJoin尤为重要,确保账务透明避免日后审计问题。
公平与共识: 普通法原则重视交易的公平合理和各方真实同意。PayJoin是双方自愿合作的结果,表面上满足共识原则。但我们也要考虑弱势保护:比如一方技术精通,一方小白用户,会否出现不公平?为了防范这一点,可以在用户界面上做警示:当有人请求与你进行PayJoin,你应该明白这对你意味着什么——一般来说收款人不会吃亏,因为多收一个找零输出,并不会损失价值;付款人也不应吃亏,只是多花一点手续费。但要防止有人利用不明真相的用户,让其参与PayJoin却在输出分配上作弊(理论上如果收款人恶意构造交易让付款人多付了钱且付款人未察觉签了名)。因此技术实现上也需做到公平:钱包软件在构建PayJoin时应自动检查付款金额正确、找零正确,防止篡改。这种保护符合普通法对公平的要求,也体现了伊斯兰金融中**避免Dhulm(不义)**的精神。
综上,PayJoin 作为一种新实践,要成功立足,需要双重合规:一方面在宗教伦理上证明其正当性,一方面在世俗法律上确保透明与守法。幸运的是,这两方面并不矛盾:PayJoin追求的是一种技术手段的优化,与伊斯兰和普通法原则并无本质冲突。通过适当的措施和教育,完全可以做到兼容。例如,在一个试点应用中(假设由一家兼具Sharia顾问和合规官的FinTech公司运营),穆斯林家庭用经Fatwa认可的比特币钱包进行PayJoin理财,同时该应用满足KYC/AML标准并提供报表工具。那么这一模式将真正体现“跨法域中立、教法友好”。它既让用户不受限于传统制度,又确保了道德与法律底线,为金融科技开发者打开一条服务全球用户的新道路。
结语
联名银行账户作为百年来方便多人共管财富的制度,一路发展伴随着各类法律和实践难题。在普通法系,其灵活性与风险并存,引发继承、债务、滥用等诸多纠纷;在伊斯兰法环境下,更面临继承冻结等制度性冲击。在全球化时代的跨境场景中,传统联名账户愈发显出局限,各种替代方案各擅胜场却难有万能药。PayJoin 技术的出现,为我们提供了一个全新的视角:也许不再需要“联名账户”这个法律产物,通过区块链的协作交易,完全可以实现类似目标且避开许多固有问题。本报告深入比较了联名账户制度与PayJoin在“共同控制”和“不可推导归属”上的异同,探讨了PayJoin 如何满足伊斯兰金融和普通法的合规要求。对于金融科技开发者而言,这意味着巨大的创新空间:未来的应用可以让两个人“各自持币,共同支付”,既保障各自权属,又实现合作效率。在设计此类系统时,我们应牢记历史教训,融合法律与教义的智慧,确保技术既推进了便利,也巩固了公平与信任——这正是联名账户理念在21世纪的重生。
参考文献:
-
Birketts法律简报,“联名银行账户:谁拥有这些钱?”,2023年4月4日birketts.co.ukbirketts.co.uk。
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Nelson Mullins律师事务所博客,“理解联名账户的生存者权利”,2024年1月17日nelsonmullins.comnelsonmullins.com。
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Mike Coady财富管理博客,“阿联酋外籍人士:联名账户的危险”,2021年7月29日mikecoady.commikecoady.com。
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_Gulf News_报道,“在你之后,你在阿联酋的银行余额会自动给家人吗?”,2025年5月16日gulfnews.comgulfnews.com。
-
Emirates Islamic 银行官网,“Emarati家庭储蓄账户”产品页emiratesislamic.aeemiratesislamic.ae。
-
Kitces金融规划文章,“便利账户的风险与备选方案”,2019年kitces.comkitces.com。
-
Investopedia词条,“Joint Account联名账户:定义、运作、利弊”,更新于2025年5月9日investopedia.cominvestopedia.com。
-
Payjoin官方文档,“为什么使用PayJoin - 隐私”,2025年payjoin.orgpayjoin.org。
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其他参考资料包含 PlasBit、Changelly 等对于比特币与伊斯兰金融兼容性的讨论changelly.comscitcentral.com。
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@ dfa02707:41ca50e3
2025-06-13 08:02:03Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.
News
- Spiral welcomes Ben Carman. The developer will work on the LDK server and a new SDK designed to simplify the onboarding process for new self-custodial Bitcoin users.
- Spiral renews support for Dan Gould and Joschisan. The organization has renewed support for Dan Gould, who is developing the Payjoin Dev Kit (PDK), and Joschisan, a Fedimint developer focused on simplifying federations.
- The Bitcoin Dev Kit Foundation announced new corporate members for 2025, including AnchorWatch, CleanSpark, and Proton Foundation. The annual dues from these corporate members fund the small team of open-source developers responsible for maintaining the core BDK libraries and related free and open-source software (FOSS) projects.
- The European Central Bank is pushing for amendments to the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets legislation (MiCA), just months after its implementation. According to Politico's report on Tuesday, the ECB is concerned that U.S. support for cryptocurrency, particularly stablecoins, could cause economic harm to the 27-nation bloc.
- Slovenia is considering a 25% capital gains tax on Bitcoin profits for individuals. The Ministry of Finance has proposed legislation to impose this tax on gains from cryptocurrency transactions, though exchanging one cryptocurrency for another would remain exempt. At present, individual 'crypto' traders in Slovenia are not taxed.
- The Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill 2025 introduced in Kenya. The new legislation aims to establish a comprehensive legal framework for licensing, regulating, and supervising virtual asset service providers (VASPs), with strict penalties for non-compliant entities.
- Circle, BitGo, Coinbase, and Paxos plan to apply for U.S. bank charters or licenses. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, major crypto companies are planning to apply for U.S. bank charters or licenses. These firms are pursuing limited licenses that would permit them to issue stablecoins, as the U.S. Congress deliberates on legislation mandating licensing for stablecoin issuers.
"Established banks, like Bank of America, are hoping to amend the current drafts of [stablecoin] legislation in such a way that nonbanks are more heavily restricted from issuing stablecoins," people familiar with the matter told The Block.
- Paul Atkins has officially assumed the role of the 34th Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This is a return to the agency for Atkins, who previously served as an SEC Commissioner from 2002 to 2008 under the George W. Bush administration. He has committed to advancing the SEC’s mission of fostering capital formation, safeguarding investors, and ensuring fair and efficient markets.
- Federal Reserve retracts guidance discouraging banks from engaging in 'crypto.' The U.S. Federal Reserve withdrew guidance that discouraged banks from crypto and stablecoin activities, as announced by its Board of Governors on Thursday. This includes rescinding a 2022 supervisory letter requiring prior notification of crypto activities and 2023 stablecoin requirements.
"As a result, the Board will no longer expect banks to provide notification and will instead monitor banks' crypto-asset activities through the normal supervisory process," reads the FED statement.
- Russian government to launch a cryptocurrency exchange. The country's Ministry of Finance and Central Bank announced plans to establish a trading platform for "highly qualified investors" that "will legalize crypto assets and bring crypto operations out of the shadows."
- Twenty One Capital is set to launch with over 42,000 BTC in its treasury. This new Bitcoin-native firm, backed by Tether and SoftBank, is planned to go public via a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners and will be led by Jack Mallers, co-founder and CEO of Strike. According to a report by the Financial Times, the company aims to replicate the model of Michael Saylor with his company, MicroStrategy.
- Strategy increases Bitcoin holdings to 538,200 BTC. In the latest purchase, the company has spent more than $555M to buy 6,556 coins through proceeds of two at-the-market stock offering programs.
- Metaplanet buys another 145 BTC. The Tokyo-listed company has purchased an additional 145 BTC for $13.6 million. Their total bitcoin holdings now stand at 5,000 coins, worth around $428.1 million.
- Semler Scientific has increased its bitcoin holdings to 3,303 BTC. The company acquired an additional 111 BTC at an average price of $90,124. The purchase was funded through proceeds from an at-the-market offering and cash reserves, as stated in a press release.
- Tesla still holds nearly $1 billion in bitcoin. According to the automaker's latest earnings report, the firm reported digital asset holdings worth $951 million as of March 31.
- Spar supermarket experiments with Bitcoin payments in Zug, Switzerland. The store has introduced a new payment method powered by the Lightning Network. The implementation was facilitated by DFX Swiss, a service that supports seamless conversions between bitcoin and legacy currencies.
- Charles Schwab to launch spot Bitcoin trading by 2026. The financial investment firm, managing over $10 trillion in assets, has revealed plans to introduce spot Bitcoin trading for its clients within the next year.
- Arch Labs has secured $13 million to develop "ArchVM" and integrate smart-contract functionality with Bitcoin. The funding round, valuing the company at $200 million, was led by Pantera Capital, as announced on Tuesday.
- Citrea deployed its Clementine Bridge on the Bitcoin testnet. The bridge utilizes the BitVM2 programming language to inherit validity from Bitcoin, allegedly providing "the safest and most trust-minimized way to use BTC in decentralized finance."
- UAE-based Islamic bank ruya launches Shari’ah-compliant bitcoin investing. The bank has become the world’s first Islamic bank to provide direct access to virtual asset investments, including Bitcoin, via its mobile app, per Bitcoin Magazine.
- Solosatoshi.com has sold over 10,000 open-source miners, adding more than 10 PH of hashpower to the Bitcoin network.
"Thank you, Bitaxe community. OSMU developers, your brilliance built this. Supporters, your belief drives us. Customers, your trust powers 10,000+ miners and 10PH globally. Together, we’re decentralizing Bitcoin’s future. Last but certainly not least, thank you@skot9000 for not only creating a freedom tool, but instilling the idea into thousands of people, that Bitcoin mining can be for everyone again," said the firm on X.
- OCEAN's DATUM has found 100 blocks. "Over 65% of OCEAN’s miners are using DATUM, and that number is growing every day. This means block template construction is making its way back into the hands of the miners, which is not only the most profitable
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-06-13 08:01:42In a massive vote of confidence for a new bitcoin-focused company, Tether and Bitfinex have moved over 37,000 BTC—worth $3.9 billion—to digital treasury firm Twenty One Capital. This is one of the largest Bitcoin transactions in recent history.
The announcement came from Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether and CTO of Bitfinex, through multiple posts on X. According to Ardoino, the transfers were part of a pre-funding round for the launch of Twenty One Capital, a new company that will lead the bitcoin treasury space.
Ardoino announced several transfers on X — Sources 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5
“Tether Group is moving 10,500 BTC to address bc1qpzt4m58zzqgp84ktyuj5tz8g8k8ssg2g2d5eeerwhx4gxulqq5mqjzm5gc as part of the pre-funding of SoftBank’s investment in Twenty One Capital (XXI)” Ardoino said.
Twenty One Capital is a new bitcoin treasury firm led by Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike and founder of Zap. The company is backed by Tether, Bitfinex, SoftBank and Cantor Fitzgerald.
The company will go public via a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners (CEP) and will trade under the ticker XXI on Nasdaq. After the merger was announced CEP’s stock price skyrocketed from $11 to $59.75.
Cantor Equity Partners’ stock price jumped on news of the merger — TradingView
Mallers says the company’s mission is bold and clear: accumulate bitcoin and provide full transparency through public wallet disclosures, also known as providing “proof-of-reserves“.
Total bitcoin moved to Twenty One Capital so far include:
- 10,500 BTC from Tether on behalf of SoftBank (worth about $1.1 billion)
- 19,729.69 BTC from Tether (worth around $2 billion)
- 7,000 BTC from Bitfinex (valued at roughly $740 million)
The amounts sum up to 37,229.69 BTC, worth around $3.9 billion at current prices. These were verified on public blockchain explorers.
The Twenty One Capital wallets now show large balances. They have already confirmed they have 31,500 BTC. That makes them the 3rd largest corporate bitcoin holder behind Strategy and Marathon Digital Holdings.
Once these new transfers are confirmed, the company will take over Marathon to become the second-largest corporate holder of the scarce digital asset globally.
Related: Twenty One Capital Becomes 3rd-Largest Corporate Holder of Bitcoin
Unlike companies that add bitcoin to their balance sheet, Twenty One Capital exists solely to accumulate and manage bitcoin. It follows a model similar to Strategy but is more transparent.
Mallers introduced new financial metrics like Bitcoin Per Share (BPS) and Bitcoin Return Rate (BRR) to value the company in bitcoin terms, not fiat.
He thinks economic value in the future will not be measured in dollars but in satoshis—the smallest unit of bitcoin. The company is not just about guarding against fiat collapse, but about completely opting out of the system.
A key part of the firm’s strategy is proof of reserves. Unlike some other big bitcoin holders, Twenty One Capital has already published its public wallet addresses so anyone can verify its holdings in real time.
Ardoino called this approach “Bitcoin Treasury Transparency (BTT)” and said it’s a response to recent industry scandals that showed the dangers of financial opacity in digital assets.
Mallers added openness is the only way to build long-term trust in a bitcoin-native financial system.
Twenty One Capital wants to reshape financial infrastructure, build native bitcoin lending models and promote global Bitcoin adoption.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-06-13 08:01:22The latest AI chips, 8K displays, and neural processing units make your device feel like a pocket supercomputer. So surely, with all this advancement, you can finally mine bitcoin on your phone profitably, right?
The 2025 Hardware Reality: Can You Mine Bitcoin on Your Phone
Despite remarkable advances in smartphone technology, the fundamental physics of bitcoin mining haven’t changed. In 2025, flagship devices with their cutting-edge 2nm processors can achieve approximately 25-40 megahashes per second when you mine bitcoin on your phone—a notable improvement from previous generations, but still laughably inadequate.
Meanwhile, 2025’s top-tier ASIC miners have evolved dramatically. The latest Bitmain Antminer S23 series and Canaan AvalonMiner A15 Pro deliver 200-300 terahashes per second while consuming 4,000-5,500 watts. That’s a performance gap of roughly 1:8,000,000 between when you mine bitcoin on your phone and professional mining equipment.
To put this in perspective that hits home: if you mine bitcoin on your phone and it earned you one penny, professional miners would earn $80,000 in the same time period with the same effort. It’s not just an efficiency problem—it’s a complete category mismatch.
According to Pocket Option’s 2025 analysis, when you mine bitcoin on your phone in 2025, you generate approximately $0.003-0.006 in daily revenue while consuming $0.45-0.85 in electricity through constant charging cycles. Factor in the accelerated device wear (estimated at $0.75-1.20 daily depreciation), and you’re looking at losses of $1.20-2.00 per day just for the privilege of running mining software.
Mining Economic Factor
Precise Value (April 2025)
Direct Impact on Profitability
Smartphone sustained hash rate
20-35 MH/s
0.00000024% contribution to global hashrate
Daily power consumption
3.2-4.8 kWh (4-6 full charges)
$0.38-0.57 at average US electricity rates
Expected daily BTC earnings
0.0000000086 BTC ($0.0035 at $41,200 BTC)
Revenue covers only 0.9% of electricity costs
CPU/GPU wear cost
$0.68-0.92 daily accelerated depreciation
Reduces smartphone lifespan by 60-70%
Annual profit projection
-$386 to -$412 per year
Guaranteed negative return on investment
Source: PocketOption
Bitcoin’s 2025 Network: Harder Than Ever
Bitcoin’s network difficulty in 2025 has reached unprecedented levels. After the April 2024 halving event that reduced block rewards from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC, mining became significantly more competitive. The global hash rate now exceeds 800 exahashes per second—that’s 800 followed by 18 zeros worth of computational power securing the network.
Here’s what this means in practical terms: Bitcoin’s mining difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks (roughly every two weeks) to maintain the 10-minute block time. As more efficient miners join the network, difficulty increases proportionally. In 2025, mining difficulty has increased compared to 2024, making small-scale mining even less viable.
The math is unforgiving:
- Global Bitcoin hash rate: 828.96 EH/s
- Your smartphone’s contribution: ~0.000000003%
- Probability of solo mining a block: Virtually zero
- Expected time to mine one Bitcoin: Several million years
Even joining mining pools doesn’t solve the economic problem. Pool fees typically range from 1-3%, and your minuscule contribution would earn proportionally tiny rewards—far below the electricity and device depreciation costs.
The 2025 Scam Evolution: More Sophisticated, More Dangerous
Fraudsters now leverage AI-generated content, fake influencer endorsements, and impressive-looking apps that simulate realistic mining activity to entice you to mine bitcoin on your phone.
New 2025 scam tactics include:
AI-Powered Fake Testimonials: Deepfake videos of supposed successful mobile miners showing fabricated earnings statements and encouraging downloads of malicious apps.
Gamified Mining Interfaces: Apps that look and feel like legitimate games but secretly harvest personal data while simulating mining progress that can never be withdrawn.
Social Media Manipulation: Coordinated campaigns across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube featuring fake “financial influencers” promoting mobile mining apps to younger audiences.
Subscription Trap Mining: Apps offering “free trials” that automatically charge $19.99-49.99 monthly for “premium mining speeds” while delivering no actual mining capability.
Recent cybersecurity research shows that over 180 fake mining apps were discovered across major app stores in 2025, with some accumulating more than 500,000 downloads before being removed.
Red flags that scream “scam” in 2025:
- Apps claiming “revolutionary mobile mining breakthrough”
- Promises of earning “$10-50 daily” from phone mining
- Requirements to recruit friends or watch ads to unlock withdrawals
- Apps that don’t require connecting to actual mining pools
- Testimonials that seem too polished or use stock photo models
- Apps requesting permissions unrelated to mining (contacts, camera, microphone)
The 2025 Professional Mining Landscape
To understand why, consider what professional bitcoin mining looks like in 2025. Industrial mining operations now resemble high-tech data centers with:
Cutting-edge hardware:
- Bitmain Antminer S23 Pro: 280 TH/s at 4,800W
- MicroBT WhatsMiner M56S++: 250 TH/s at 4,500W
- Canaan AvalonMiner A1566: 185 TH/s at 3,420W
Infrastructure requirements:
- Megawatt-scale power contracts with industrial electricity rates
- Liquid cooling systems maintaining 24/7 optimal temperatures
- Redundant internet connections ensuring zero downtime
- Professional facility management with 24/7 monitoring
For a small operation, you might need at least $10,000 to $20,000 to buy a few ASIC miners, set up cooling systems, and cover electricity costs. These operations employ teams of engineers, maintain relationships with power companies, and operate with margins measured in single-digit percentages.
2025’s Legitimate Mobile Bitcoin Strategies
While it remains impossible to mine bitcoin on your phone profitably, 2025 offers exciting legitimate ways to engage with bitcoin through your smartphone:
Lightning Network Participation: Apps like Phoenix, Breez, and Zeus allow you to run Lightning nodes on mobile devices, earning small routing fees while supporting bitcoin’s payment layer.
Bitcoin DCA Automation: Services enable automated dollar-cost averaging with amounts as small as $1 daily. Historical data shows $10 weekly bitcoin purchases consistently outperform any mobile mining attempt by 1,500-2,000%.
Educational Mining Simulators: Legitimate apps like “Bitcoin Mining Simulator” teach mining concepts without false earning promises. These educational tools help users understand hash rates, difficulty adjustments, and mining economics.
Stacking Sats Rewards: Apps offering bitcoin rewards for shopping, learning, or completing tasks.
Lightning Gaming: Bitcoin-native mobile games where players can earn sats through skilled gameplay, with some players earning $10 monthly.onfirm that even the most optimized mobile mining setups in 2025 lose money consistently and predictably.
The Bottom Line
When you mine bitcoin on your phone fundamental economics remain unchanged: it’s impossible to profit. The laws of physics, network competition, and energy efficiency create insurmountable barriers that no app can overcome.
However, 2025 offers unprecedented opportunities to engage with bitcoin meaningfully through your smartphone. Focus on education, legitimate earning opportunities, and strategic investment rather than chasing the impossible dream of phone-based mining.
The bitcoin community’s greatest strength lies in its commitment to truth over hype. When someone promises profits to mine bitcoin on your phone in 2025, they’re either uninformed or deliberately misleading you. Trust the mathematics, learn from the community, and build your bitcoin knowledge and holdings through proven methods.
The real opportunity in 2025 isn’t to mine bitcoin on your phone—it’s understanding bitcoin deeply enough to participate confidently in the most important monetary revolution of our lifetime. Your smartphone is the perfect tool for that education; it’s just not a mining rig.
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 08:01:02Bitcoin Magazine
Passport Prime: A New Security Device For a New GenerationPassport Prime, Foundation Devices’ latest retail hardware wallet, is about to hit the market in Q3 of 2025. The device features a full-color touch screen the size of a credit card with a modern industrial aesthetic. It aims to be a developer platform for Bitcoin and crypto software with high security demands.
Besides serving the basic wallet needs of Bitcoin users, the device is designed as an open source platform for app developers to bring a new experience of crypto-native cybersecurity to the public. The Passport Prime is expected to ship with a powerful Bitcoin wallet app, as well as virtual YubiKeys, a 2FA app, a seed vault for imported or low-value crypto wallets, 50 GB of storage, NFC, and encrypted Bluetooth support, among other features.
Frustrated with the public’s lackluster adoption of hardware wallets as the crypto industry enters the mainstream adoption phase, Foundation has been working since 2020 to bring security hardware devices to feature parity with mainstream consumer technology. However, the path is not simple.
The Adoption Problem of Hardware Wallets
Hardware wallets have been a critical security product for Bitcoin users since 2014 when Satoshi Labs created the Trezor. Before that, users had few options, and many of the funds lost in that era were due to user ignorance of how to manage and properly secure private keys in Bitcoin. Armory, funded by Trace Mayer in the early days, was one of the first solutions but it was highly technical and was best used with hardware the user had to modify themselves — like removing antennas from a laptop. This kind of technology became a security foundation for exchanges, who, through many hacks and hard lessons, slowly got better at securing user funds from organized crime and hackers while playing jurisdictional arbitrage to avoid hostile governments.
As the first hardware wallets started to enter the retail market, significant adoption was seen. With the massive growth of Bitcoin since its inception, the best security practices have failed to keep up with the ease of use provided by custodians while also failing to deliver security and feature parity to users in an interface they are familiar with.
In a keynote presentation on the Passport Prime landing page, Zach Herbert, CEO and co-founder of Foundation, explains their analysis of the market and why they believe only 2.5% of the market is using hardware wallets today, despite mainstream adoption of digital assets like Bitcoin — a concern felt across the industry that too many people are getting accustomed to custodial services.
The small screens, iconic to the hardware wallet ecosystem, are often a barrier for users. The shape of the device, often small and with few buttons, can make people nervous, especially when the wrong combination of clicks means an irreversible financial transaction.
In the case of touchscreen devices like the Trezor T, while certainly an improvement from the Trezor One, the buttons are still far smaller than what the public is used to for smartphones, the most prolific computer platform of this era.
The problem with trying to bring hardware wallets to feature parity with mobile phones is the massive complexity introduced by the corresponding software and hardware. Mobile phones, after all, are designed for mass manufacturing and with ease-of-use priorities in mind, rather than securing life-changing amounts of digital currency, which, once sent, cannot be reversed.
The hardware wallet industry has had to build out open source, verifiable, security-optimized hardware and software that addresses top security concerns, while also delivering a familiar and comfortable user experience to the public. In general, the industry recognizes the need for bigger screens and bigger buttons, as seen in new models by Ledger, for example, with their Ledger Stax, and, of course, Coldcard Q’s Blackberry-style hardware wallet.
When asked why not just try to build on top of a standard mobile phone platform, Owen Kemeys, hardware designer at Foundation Devices, told Bitcoin Magazine that “there’s a huge advantage to Passport Prime being a separate security device,” adding that “we need this stuff to work for the normal people. They are not going to be able to understand or have any interest in understanding what makes something safe or unsafe on their phone. Even if they were going so far as to have a dedicated phone for secret stuff or whatever. Everything that we develop, Apple and Google could bake into their phones and tell you it’s safe. But if it’s in a separate device that is built to do that one exact thing, then you know, OK, if it happens on the Passport Prime, it’s safe.”
The Passport Prime Feature Set
Foundation believes they have found an optimal and preferable middle ground between high security and a familiar user experience in a mobile phone-style device, but with very specific hardware and software inside. Kemeys explained that “the Passport Prime runs its own operating system,” adding that “We’re not running a fork of Android or something and then dressing it up differently. We wrote this from the ground up in Rust. It’s called KeyOS. It’s designed for this one purpose of running a smartphone-like experience, but with sandboxed apps.”
The wallet-related cryptography that’s normal to today’s Bitcoin and crypto wallets is also deeply integrated with the operating system. A master seed phrase is set up by the user; the seed’s corresponding master private and public keys are then used to derive secure, isolated keys for other apps on the Passport Prime. “All apps are sandboxed and receive hardened child seeds, meaning that even if an app is malicious, it has no access to the master seed and cannot communicate with other apps,” Herbert explained in his presentation.
This design builds the foundations necessary for secure app development on top of the Passport Prime, unique among hardware wallet manufacturers. While Ledger has made some progress in that direction, Herbert says that the Ledger operating system is very restrictive with such apps — primarily out of security concerns — making it difficult for developers to contribute to the ecosystem. Foundation believes they have solved the problem, unlocking a new kind of security device that can be used for more than cold storage of Bitcoin and crypto assets. It is a security platform for everyday use in the digital era.
As is generally expected of high-security devices like a hardware wallet, the Passport Prime comes without most of the normal sensors or antennas found in mobile devices. No Wi-Fi, no GPS, and no SIM card, of course. However, NFC, an increasingly popular communications module in hardware wallets and in payments technology in general, is included. NFC has a very short signal range and depends on power from the device sending the signal, making it a fairly secure protocol and bringing Bitcoin closer to the tap-to-pay credit card experience the general public is used to.
“We now have an NFC reader inside,” Kemeys explained, excited about the innovation space unlocked by NFC chips in Bitcoin. “As part of your onboarding setup, in the box, we’re going to ship three NFC cards with the Prime. And as our default onboarding workflow, we’re going to encourage people to make a two-of-three Shamir setup, and back up the shares onto some of those cards.”
Shamir secret sharing is an old and well-known cryptographic algorithm similar to multisignature schemes in Bitcoin but entirely off-chain. It allows users to grab a master private key and split it into shares that can come together later to recreate and recover
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 08:01:01Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin: How To Solve the Student Loan CrisisStudent loans continue to trouble millions of Americans, with a total of $1.77 trillion already owed. This crisis has been a major political issue for a while, especially after former President Biden promised to wipe out all of the student loan debt and ended up only fulfilling half of the promise. These billions of dollars are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; they represent people who repay their debt, every month, year in and year out. While the standard repayment plan spans 10 years, the reality is far more daunting: The average borrower takes 20-30 years to repay their loans.
There are over two million new undergraduates every year, and, on average, they graduate with $29,400 in debt. Some, like medical students, surpass $250,000 in debt — a mortgage-sized pile. Almost $100 billion in new debt is created every year, piled upon the already unsustainable student debt pile. Similar to how we have (haven’t) dealt with public pensions, instead of dismantling a failed system we keep feeding the machine and crushing people’s lives and dreams underneath its weight. But perhaps there’s a way for future generations to avoid this dreadful fate — by borrowing new ideas from similar fields.
Real Estate: The Store of Value (SoV) Since Nixon
The real estate market is another system that heavily relies on debt to keep functioning, and like student loans, it’s not working too well.
Real estate is a market where it’s completely normal to go 10x levered long on a single asset while putting all of your savings into it. Talk about idiosyncratic risk. The entire market has been in deep pain worldwide, not necessarily because of the debt, but due to how the fiat system has turned real estate into an investment-and-savings mechanism. In turn, the great investment of one generation becomes the unaffordable housing for the next. But a subset of the population has been divesting from the asset in favor of a better savings vehicle: bitcoin.
Part of their thesis in divesting from real estate and moving to bitcoin is that they predict that bitcoin’s superior SoV function will drive real estate prices down, wreaking havoc on a fragile and overpriced asset class. This makes quite a bit of sense, especially to those individuals who invested in real estate in search of those SoV properties in the first place; they now have to contend with increasing risk all over the world, putting in peril what was once a “safe SoV” asset class. From wildfires all over the place to floods, expropriations, new taxes, and wars breaking out in places previously unimaginable, some investors are just fed up.
But housing is still necessary, and we still need to build a massive amount of new houses. In almost all major cities in the world, there’s a housing crisis driven in large part by shortages. This is due to lackluster housing buildouts following the 2008 great financial crisis, driven directly by housing debt. Thus, even if all of the real estate owners put all of their stock of housing into the market, we would still have to develop and construct new ones. But it’s hard to convince real estate developers to do so when you also tell them that, in bitcoin terms, the houses they are building will be worth less by the time they sell them.
Bitcoin Replaces Real Estate
That’s where a German Bitcoiner and real estate developer named Leon Wankum steps in and turns the problem into a solution. You may even say he used financial jiu-jitsu because his idea is to bundle new, debt-heavy real estate projects with a bitcoin fund. This way, a $10 million project — of which $9 million is debt-financed — would allocate a small percentage of the financing to bitcoin, in order to hedge the depreciation and devaluation of the main asset and thereby benefit from the appreciation of bitcoin. This way, real estate developers can leverage the debt-heavy nature of the real estate market to cover the demand for housing while also hedging themselves from any SoV risk that bitcoin may pose to that asset.
This seemed like a crazy idea. Bitcoin and real estate: a super conservative mainstream infrastructure investment combined with a hyper-volatile digital savings vehicle — an unlikely marriage. Yet, polar opposites attract, and an idea is only crazy until someone replicates it and makes it work.
To everyone’s surprise, that’s exactly what happened last year, when Andrew Hohns of Newmarket Capital went on TV to announce they had started applying Wankum’s model to offer a loan to a real estate developer. They had provided financing for a real estate project with a few special conditions:
- the developer had to use a small proportion to buy bitcoin, which was placed in escrow.
- the bitcoin is inextricably tied with the real estate asset.
- and the bitcoin has to be held for four years minimum.
The experiment was off to the races. If the past serves as a guide, this new investment structure will greatly reduce the burden of the loan.
Bitcoin and Student Debts, Rescuing the Next Generation
At this point, the parallels to student loans should be pretty clear. When 18-year-olds take out a mortgage-sized loan to bet on their education, their future human capital is effectively becoming the real estate (collateral) that backs the debt. Their capacity to make extra income from the knowledge and certificates they acquired by going into debt will help them pay it off (given that all goes well). Investment margins become very sensitive and risk increases immensely when huge amounts of leverage are added to any investment — be it trading stocks, real estate, or your future. Your room for maneuvering decreases, and you get trapped in the path you choose.
Thus, if you yourself become the real estate securing this mortgage-sized student debt, perhaps you could also secure that loan and reduce the burden on the main asset (you) by integrating bitcoin into the mix. This could have great benefits for all parties involved: decreasing the risk for the lender and giving increased peace of mind and opportunities for the borrower (you, the student).
One of the main advantages of adding bitcoin to your student debt structure is that there are now two assets rowing against the financial repayment current: yourself and bitcoin. By going to university, learning new skills and getting certificates, you open up the path to better-paid jobs and higher earning potentials, aka higher salaries. The more intriguing component is the bitcoin tied to your student debts. As a teenager itself, bitcoin has had an incredible CAGR over its lifespan. Even conservative numbers indicate that bitcoin will return about 60% annually for the foreseeable future. When compared with the 10-15% usually provided by the S&P 500, bitcoin looks like a Ferrari competing against horses.
The other advantage is one that frustrates most students, and it has to do with acquiring bitcoin once they understand it. Unlike most adults, undergrads have barely had any time to build up savings, and are therefore unable to exchange much fiat for hard bitcoin. This can become incredibly frustrating, especially because you know that if you were a decade older, you could have aped into bitcoin and retired your entire bloodline. But now you are stuck being 16, saving up pennies, and sacrificing your younger years for trifling amounts of bitcoin that won’t make a difference in your lifetime. So close, yet so far away.
But what is debt if not a way to bring future purchasing power into the present? Debt is a time-traveling machine that allows people to buy assets by leveraging their future earnings, revenues, or salaries. And thankfully, the current system is created so that the moment you can legally go to jail or go to war, you can also indebt yourself up to your eyeballs with the promise of future wages as a doctor, engineer, lawyer, or another profession.
Funnily enough, bitcoin’s recommended minimum holding time is also the number of years for an average college degree — four years. This means that, as long as you create a similar structure as the one proposed by Newmarket Capital, where the bitcoin has a four-year holding period, you’ll be using financial jiu-jitsu. The four-year holding period, however, does not mean that the student needs to sell at that point. The question of how to manage your finances between repaying the student loans, selling the bitcoin, or acquiring more is a more complex and personal issue. Regardless of what any student does, with this hybrid method, student debts can help young Bitcoiners leap forward instead of taking a step back.
With this new method, students — and their families — now have another thing to celebrate when they walk onto the graduation stage. And if you drop out of school, for any set of reasons that life may hit you with, your student loan now comes with a fail-safe met
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 08:01:00Bitcoin Magazine
France’s The Blockchain Group Secures €9.7 Million More For Its Bitcoin Treasury StrategyToday, The Blockchain Group (ALTBG), listed on Euronext Growth Paris and recognized as Europe’s first Bitcoin Treasury Company, announced it has raised around €9.7 million through a mix of equity and convertible bond issuances. This move is part of their continued push to build out their Bitcoin Treasury Company strategy.
The Blockchain Group announces an equity and convertible bond issuance for a total amount of ~€9.7M to pursue its Bitcoin Treasury Company strategy
Full Press Release (EN): https://t.co/jjGOBswJsd
Full Press Release (FR): https://t.co/0Jwuv2sP7W
BTC Strategy (EN):… pic.twitter.com/mUVLHJduX5
— The Blockchain Group (@_ALTBG) June 12, 2025
The funding comes from multiple sources and was carried out through their wholly-owned Luxembourg subsidiary, “The Blockchain Group Luxembourg SA.” A major portion, about €6 million, was raised through a convertible bond issuance to TOBAM, with bonds priced at €6.24 per share. That price reflects a 30 percent premium over ALTBG’s closing price on June 9, 2025.
Ludovic Chechin-Laurans also came in with around €2.4 million, subscribing in BTC at a conversion price of about €0.7072 per share. This was part of a deal originally set up back in March 2025. If the stock price climbs 30 percent above that level, to around €0.919 over 20 consecutive trading days, he’ll have the option to convert into up to 3.4 million new ALTBG shares.
Adam Back also finalized his conversion of all OCA Tranche 1 bonds into 14.9 million ALTBG shares and subscribed to an additional 2.1 million shares for €1.16 million at €0.544 per share.
“The Company recalls that Adam Back notified The Blockchain Group of his intention to convert all OCA Tranche 1 he holds, in accordance with the terms of the OCA Issuance Agreement entered into on March 4, 2025, the details of which were disclosed in a press release dated March 6, 2025, and which the Company now confirms has been definitively completed,” stated the press release.
TOBAM did the same, converting 1 million Tranche 1 bonds into 1.84 million shares and subscribing to 262,605 new shares for €0.14 million.
“Given the recent high volatility in the Company’s share price observed since the signing of the OCA Issuance Agreement, the conversion price of €0.544 reflects a discount of 89.52% compared to the closing price on June 12, 2025,” the press release added.
“These operations could allow for the potential acquisition of ~80 BTC, bringing the Company’s total potential holdings to ~1,611 BTC, including the proceeds from the potential completion of remaining operations announced in the press release dated May 26, 2025,” said the press release.
This post France’s The Blockchain Group Secures €9.7 Million More For Its Bitcoin Treasury Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.
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@ d5ca7093:549ad1ec
2025-06-13 06:25:59I recently decided to create my own personal brand website—something simple with a clean landing page, contact info, links to my work, and a blog. The idea was straightforward: when you meet people in real life or connect online, you need a reliable, consistent place they can go to learn more about you. Social media platforms aren’t built for that—they’re noisy, crowded, and ultimately not under your control.
As we shift into a decentralized digital future, owning your own website is one of the easiest and most powerful moves you can make. Social media pages are just websites owned by someone else. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube—they all serve specific functions, but there’s nothing stopping you from creating your own platform. If you make videos, host a video gallery. If you write, post your own blog. You don’t need to depend on Twitter or Medium to get your thoughts out. Open-source tools and modern frameworks make it easier than ever to replicate what these big platforms do—on your terms.
This shift is already visible with platforms like Nostr and Mastodon, which promote the idea of identity and communication without central ownership. Your website can be a central node in that ecosystem. Unlike a profile on a platform that can vanish overnight, your domain name is portable and permanent. You can point it anywhere—your own server, a decentralized network, or a new platform that respects user autonomy. That kind of control is only possible when you own your digital real estate.
In fact, I believe domain names are the next evolution of usernames. They’re already being used that way on services like BlueSky and Mastodon. A domain name isn’t just a web address—it’s a digital identity. It can be your contact card, your blog, your portfolio, and even your inbox. In a decentralized world, owning a domain is like planting a flag. It says: this is mine.
The deeper truth is that these centralized platforms are incentivized to keep you inside their ecosystem. They harvest your data, limit your reach unless you pay, and can suspend or ban your account without warning. When you build on their land, you play by their rules. When you build on your own land—your website—you make the rules. You decide what gets seen, what gets featured, and what data gets collected.
And let’s talk discoverability. While social media relies on algorithms and trends to push your content, your website can be indexed and searched globally on your terms. SEO tools, schema markup, and open metadata standards let you control how your content appears across the web. Add analytics, email capture, or even push notifications, and you’ve created a full digital marketing system that doesn’t depend on anyone else’s infrastructure.
For developers and technical creators, building a personal site also becomes a live demo of your skillset. It’s an interactive resume, a sandbox for new technologies, and a launchpad for projects. Whether you’re using React, Astro, Hugo, or GhostCMS, the tools you choose say as much about you as the content you publish. And because it’s all yours, you’re free to experiment without limitation.
Ultimately, your website is an investment in future-proofing your digital identity. As decentralized protocols evolve, your personal site can plug into that infrastructure—whether it’s connecting wallets, supporting decentralized comments, or syndicating content to multiple platforms. Owning your site today means you’ll be ready for the web of tomorrow.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-06-13 07:02:19Jason Lowery’s thesis, Softwar: A Novel Theory on Power Projection and the National Strategic Significance of Bitcoin, reframes bitcoin not merely as digital cash but as a transformative security technology with profound implications for investors and nation-states alike.
For centuries, craft brewers understood that true innovation balanced tradition with experimentation—a delicate dance between established techniques and bold new flavors.
Much like the craft beer revolution reshaped a global industry, bitcoin represents a fundamental recalibration of how humans organize value and project power in the digital age.
The Antler in the Digital Forest: Power Projection
Lowery, a U.S. Space Force officer and MIT scholar, anchors his Softwar theory in a biological metaphor: Bitcoin as humanity’s “digital antler.” In nature, antlers allow animals like deer to compete for resources through non-lethal contests—sparring matches where power is demonstrated without fatal consequences. This contrasts sharply with wolves, who must resort to violent, potentially deadly fights to establish hierarchy.
The Human Power Dilemma: Historically, humans projected power and settled resource disputes through physical force—wars, seizures, or coercive control of assets. Even modern financial systems rely on abstract power structures: court orders, bank freezes, or government sanctions enforced by legal threat rather than immediate physical reality.
Lowery argues this creates inherent fragility: abstract systems can collapse when met with superior physical force (e.g., invasions, revolutions). Nature only respects physical power.
Bitcoin’s Physical Power Engine: Bitcoin introduces a novel solution through its proof-of-work consensus mechanism. Miners compete to solve computationally intense cryptographic puzzles, expending real-world energy (megawatts) to validate transactions and secure the network.
This process converts electricity—a tangible, physical resource—into digital security and immutable property rights. Winning a “block” is like winning a sparring match: it consumes significant resources (energy/cost) but is non-destructive.
The miner gains the right to write the next page of the ledger and collect rewards, but no participant is physically harmed, and no external infrastructure is destroyed.
Table: Traditional vs. Bitcoin-Based Power Systems
Power System
Mechanism
Key Vulnerability
Resource Cost
Traditional (Fiat/Banking)
Legal abstraction, threat of state force
Centralized points of failure, corruption, political change
Low immediate cost, high systemic risk
Military/Economic Coercion
Physical force, sanctions
Escalation, collateral damage, moral hazard
Very high (lives, capital, instability)
Bitcoin (Proof-of-Work)
Competition via energy expenditure
High energy cost, concentration risk (mining)
High energy cost, low systemic risk
Softwar Theory National Strategic Imperative: Governments Are Taking Notice
Lowery’s Softwar Theory has moved beyond academia into the corridors of power, shaping U.S. national strategy:
- The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve: Vice President JD Vance recently framed bitcoin as an instrument projecting American values—”innovation, entrepreneurship, freedom, and lack of censorship”. State legislation is now underway to implement this reserve, preventing easy reversal by future administrations.
- Regulatory Transformation: The SEC is shifting from an “enforcement-first” stance under previous leadership. New initiatives include:
- Repealing Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 (SAB 121), which discouraged banks from custodying digital currency by forcing unfavorable balance sheet treatment.
- Creating the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit (CETU) to develop clearer crypto registration/disclosure rules.
The Investor’s Lens: Scarcity, Security, and Asymmetric Opportunity
For investors, understanding “Softwar” validates bitcoin’s unique value proposition beyond price speculation:
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Digital Scarcity as Strategic Depth: Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million makes it the only digital asset with truly inelastic supply, a programmed scarcity immune to political whims or central bank printing.
This “scarcity imperative” acts as a natural antidote to global fiat debasement. As central banks expanded money supplies aggressively (Global M2), bitcoin’s price has shown strong correlation, acting as a pressure valve for inflation concerns. The quadrennial “halving” (latest: April 2024) mechanically reduces new supply, creating built-in supply shocks as adoption grows. * The Antifragile Security Feedback Loop: Bitcoin’s security isn’t static; it’s antifragile. The network strengthens through demand: * More users → More transactions → Higher fees → More miner revenue → More hashpower (computational security) → Greater network resilience → More user confidence.
This self-reinforcing cycle contrasts sharply with traditional systems, where security is a cost center (e.g., bank security budgets, military spending). Bitcoin turns security into a profitable, market-driven activity. * Institutionalization Without Centralization: While institutional ownership via ETFs (like BlackRock’s IBIT) and corporate treasuries (MicroStrategy, Metaplanet) has surged, supply remains highly decentralized.Individuals still hold the largest share of bitcoin, preventing a dangerous concentration of control. Spot Bitcoin ETFs alone are projected to see over $20 billion in net inflows in 2025, demonstrating robust institutional capital allocation.
The Bitcoin Community: Building the Digital Antler’s Resilience
Lowery’s “Softwar” theory underscores why bitcoin’s decentralized architecture is non-negotiable. Its strength lies in the alignment of incentives across three participant groups:
- Miners: Provide computational power (hashrate), validating transactions and securing the network. Incentivized by block rewards (newly minted BTC) and transaction fees. Their physical energy expenditure is the “muscle” behind the digital antler.
- Nodes: Independently verify and enforce the protocol rules, maintaining the blockchain’s integrity. Run by users, businesses, and enthusiasts globally. They ensure decentralized consensus, preventing unilateral protocol changes.
- Users: Individuals, institutions, and corporations holding, transacting, or building on bitcoin. Their demand drives transaction fees and fuels the security feedback loop.
This structure creates “Mutually Assured Preservation”. Attacking bitcoin requires overwhelming its global, distributed physical infrastructure (miners/nodes), a feat far more complex and costly than seizing a central bank’s gold vault or freezing a bank’s assets. It transforms financial security from a centralized liability into a decentralized, physically-grounded asset.
Risks & Responsibilities
Investors and policymakers must acknowledge persistent challenges:
- Volatility: Bitcoin remains volatile, though this has decreased as markets mature. Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is widely recommended to mitigate timing risk.
- Regulatory Uncertainty: While U.S. policy is increasingly favorable, global coordination is lacking. The EU’s MiCAR regulation exemplifies divergent approaches.
- Security & Custody: While Bitcoin’s protocol is robust, user errors (lost keys) or exchange hacks remain risks.
- Environmental Debate: Proof-of-Work energy use is scrutinized, though mining increasingly uses stranded energy/renewables. Innovations continue.
Jason Lowery’s “Softwar” theory elevates bitcoin from a financial instrument to a socio-technological innovation on par with the invention of the corporation, the rule of law, or even the antler in evolutionary biology. It provides a coherent framework for understanding why:
- Nations like the U.S. are looking to establish bitcoin reserves and embracing stablecoins—they recognize bitcoin’s role in projecting economic power non-violently in the digital age.
- Institutional Investors are allocating billions via ETFs—they see a scarce, secure, uncorrelated asset with antifragile properties.
- Individuals in hyperinflationary economies or under authoritarian regimes use bitcoin—it offers self-sovereign wealth storage immune to seizure or debasement.
For the investor, bitcoin represents more than potential price appreciation. It offers exposure to a fundamental reorganization of how power and value are secured and exchanged globally, grounded not in abstract promises, but in the unyielding laws of physics and mathematics.
Like the brewers who balanced tradition with innovation to create something enduring and valuable, bitcoin pioneers are building the infrastructure for a more resilient digital future—one computationally secured block at a time. The “Softwar” is here, and it is reshaping the landscape of p
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@ b4fade0e:a4d2b56a
2025-06-13 06:16:40Find essential details about the operating hours of the after school program in Anaheim Hills offered by Hillsborough Private Preschool. This structured program runs weekdays and is designed to accommodate working parents while offering children a secure, enriching environment. With flexible scheduling and attentive care, the program aligns with local school dismissal times. Learn about pick-up procedures, supervision quality, and how the program supports academic and social development through structured routines and engaging activities tailored to your child’s needs.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-06-13 06:01:13Paris, France – June 6, 2025 – Flash, the easiest Bitcoin payment gateway for businesses, just announced a new partnership with the Bitcoin Only Brewery, marking the first-ever beverage company to leverage Flash for seamless Bitcoin payments.
Bitcoin Buys Beer Thanks to Flash!
As Co-Founder of Flash, it's not every day we get to toast to a truly refreshing milestone.
Okay, jokes aside.
We're super buzzed to see our friends at @Drink_B0B
Bitcoin Only Brewery using Flash to power their online sales!The first… pic.twitter.com/G7TWhy50pX
— Pierre Corbin (@CierrePorbin) June 3, 2025
Flash enables Bitcoin Only Brewery to offer its “BOB” beer with, no-KYC (Know Your Customer) delivery across Europe, priced at 19,500 sats (~$18) for the 4-pack – shipping included.
The cans feature colorful Bitcoin artwork while the contents promise a hazy pale ale: “Each 33cl can contains a smooth, creamy mouthfeel, hazy appearance and refreshing Pale Ale at 5% ABV,” reads the product description.
Pierre Corbin, Co-Founder of Flash, commented: “Currently, bitcoin is used more as a store of value but usage for payments is picking up. Thanks to new innovation on Lightning, bitcoin is ready to go mainstream for e-commerce sales.”
Flash, launched its 2.0 version in March 2025 with the goal to provide the easiest Bitcoin payment gateway for businesses worldwide. The platform is non-custodial and can enable both digital and physical shops to accept Bitcoin by connecting their own wallets to Flash.
By leveraging the scalability of the Lightning Network, Flash ensures instant, low-cost transactions, addressing on-chain Bitcoin bottlenecks like high fees and long wait times.
Bitcoin payment usage is growing thanks to Lightning
In May, fast-food chain Steak ‘N Shake went viral for integrating bitcoin at their restaurants around the world. In the same month, the bitcoin2025 conference in Las Vegas set a new world record with 4,000 Lightning payments in one day.
According to a report by River Intelligence, public Lightning payment volume surged by 266% from August 2023 to August 2024. This growth is also reflected in the overall accessibility of lighting infrastructure for consumers. According to Lightning Service Provider Breez, over 650 Million users now have access to the Lightning Network through apps like CashApp, Kraken or Strike.
Bitcoin Only Brewery’s adoption of Flash reflects the growing trend of businesses integrating Bitcoin payments to cater to a global, privacy-conscious customer base. By offering no-KYC delivery across Europe, the brewery aligns with the ethos of decentralization and financial sovereignty, appealing to the increasing number of consumers and businesses embracing Bitcoin as a legitimate payment method.
“Flash is committed to driving innovation in the Bitcoin ecosystem,” Corbin added. “We’re building a future where businesses of all sizes can seamlessly integrate Bitcoin payments, unlocking new opportunities in the global market. It’s never been easier to start selling in bitcoin and we invite retailers globally to join us in this revolution.”
For businesses interested in adopting Bitcoin payments, Flash offers a straightforward onboarding process, low fees, and robust support for both digital and physical goods. To learn more, visit paywithflash.com.
About Flash
Flash is the easiest Bitcoin payment gateway for businesses to accept payments. Supporting both digital and physical enterprises, Flash leverages the Lightning Network to enable fast, low-cost Bitcoin transactions. Launched in its 2.0 version in March 2025, Flash is at the forefront of driving Bitcoin adoption in e-commerce.
About Bitcoin Only Brewery
Bitcoin Only Brewery (@Drink_B0B) is a pioneering beverage company dedicated to the Bitcoin ethos, offering high-quality beers payable exclusively in Bitcoin. With a commitment to personal privacy, the brewery delivers across Europe with no-KYC requirements.
Media Contact:
Pierre Corbin
Co-Founder, Flash
Email: press@paywithflash.com
Website: paywithflash.comPhotos paywithflash.com/about/pressHow Flash Enables Interoperable, Self-Custodial Bitcoin Commerce
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@ 7f6db517:a4931eda
2025-06-13 04:02:39People forget Bear Stearns failed March 2008 - months of denial followed before the public realized how bad the situation was under the surface.
Similar happening now but much larger scale. They did not fix fundamental issues after 2008 - everything is more fragile.
The Fed preemptively bailed out every bank with their BTFP program and First Republic Bank still failed. The second largest bank failure in history.
There will be more failures. There will be more bailouts. Depositors will be "protected" by socializing losses across everyone.
Our President and mainstream financial pundits are currently pretending the banking crisis is over while most banks remain insolvent. There are going to be many more bank failures as this ponzi system unravels.
Unlike 2008, we have the ability to opt out of these broken and corrupt institutions by using bitcoin. Bitcoin held in self custody is unique in its lack of counterparty risk - you do not have to trust a bank or other centralized entity to hold it for you. Bitcoin is also incredibly difficult to change by design since it is not controlled by an individual, company, or government - the supply of dollars will inevitably be inflated to bailout these failing banks but bitcoin supply will remain unchanged. I do not need to convince you that bitcoin provides value - these next few years will convince millions.
If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 08:00:59Bitcoin Magazine
Coinbase Announces Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, Offering up to 4% BTC Back on EverythingCoinbase is launching its first-ever branded credit card in partnership with American Express, set to roll out this fall. Called the Coinbase One Card, it will be available only to U.S. members of Coinbase One, the platform’s monthly subscription service. The card will offer 2% to 4% back in Bitcoin on everyday purchases, along with access to American Express perks.
JUST IN: Coinbase launches credit card allowing users to earn up to 4% bitcoin back on every purchase
pic.twitter.com/d6pdNZV4pi
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 12, 2025
This is a first-of-its-kind product for Coinbase, which previously only offered a prepaid debit card with Visa in 2020.
“We see real potential in the combination of Coinbase and crypto with the powerful backing of American Express, and what the card offers is an excellent mix of what customers are looking for right now,” said Will Stredwick, head of American Express global network services, during the Coinbase State of Crypto Summit in New York.
The card is part of a larger push by Coinbase to expand its subscription-based services. Coinbase One costs $29.99/month and includes zero trading fees, higher staking rewards, and customer support perks. The company also announced a cheaper version—Coinbase Basic—for $4.99/month or $49.99/year, which includes fewer features.
Coinbase’s subscription business is growing fast. It brought in $698.1 million in Q1 2025, compared to $1.26 billion in trading revenue. According to William Blair analyst Andrew Jeffrey, this kind of recurring revenue is a big reason why long-term investors are sticking with the stock.
Launched in 2023, Coinbase One now has over a million members. The company has been steadily growing its ecosystem with products like its Base developer platform and a self-custody wallet.
The company has long positioned Bitcoin at the center of its strategy—offering BTC custody services to institutions, supporting Bitcoin ETFs, integrating Bitcoin rewards into its products, and actively advocating for Bitcoin-friendly regulation in Washington. Coinbase also supports Bitcoin development directly through funding grants and engineering support. As the largest publicly traded crypto exchange in the U.S., Coinbase continues to frame Bitcoin not just as an asset, but as the foundation of its long-term vision.
This post Coinbase Announces Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, Offering up to 4% BTC Back on Everything first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.
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@ 7f6db517:a4931eda
2025-06-13 03:02:44Nostr is an open communication protocol that can be used to send messages across a distributed set of relays in a censorship resistant and robust way.
If you missed my nostr introduction post you can find it here. My nostr account can be found here.
We are nearly at the point that if something interesting is posted on a centralized social platform it will usually be posted by someone to nostr.
We are nearly at the point that if something interesting is posted exclusively to nostr it is cross posted by someone to various centralized social platforms.
We are nearly at the point that you can recommend a cross platform app that users can install and easily onboard without additional guides or resources.
As companies continue to build walls around their centralized platforms nostr posts will be the easiest to cross reference and verify - as companies continue to censor their users nostr is the best censorship resistant alternative - gradually then suddenly nostr will become the standard. 🫡
Current Nostr Stats
If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 08:00:59Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin Will Replace Gold And Go To $1,000,000, Says Galaxy Digital CEO Mike NovogratzToday, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz told CNBC that Bitcoin is on a path to replace gold and could eventually reach a value of $1,000,000.
JUST IN:
Galaxy Digital CEO told CNBC that Bitcoin will replace gold and go to $1,000,000
pic.twitter.com/Tf831LBt1h
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 12, 2025
“Bitcoin has become a macro asset,” said Novogratz. “And some of the great things is most people have it on their screens next to gold and silver and the S&P. And you think back ten years ago when people thought we were crazy. And now it’s an institutionalized macro asset… It’s just becoming institutionalized.”
He emphasized that Bitcoin is no longer a fringe investment but part of the mainstream financial landscape. He pointed out that its volatility is now seen as normal compared to traditional assets.
“We are in a dollar bear market. For the last 15 years, American exceptionalism was the story. Europeans were widely overweight and Asians widely overweight the US stock and we have an administration that wants a weaker dollar. They are pretty clear about it,” he said. “Even in the way Trump negotiates. And you can argue if it’s successful or not successful, but by telling Canada they want to be the 51st state, and telling people that they come here to kiss his rear end, it doesn’t engender people to say, ‘Oh, I want to buy more dollars.’”
According to Novogratz, this global shift is pushing investors toward assets outside the dollar, including Bitcoin.
“I think most macro funds are having a great year,” he stated. “They’re short the dollar, they’re long the euro, they’re long the yen, they’re long Aussie, they’re long a basket of currencies. Well, Bitcoin, gold, silver, platinum, they all fall into that same category as something that’s not the dollar.”
He also pointed to Bitcoin’s fixed supply as a key factor behind its growing value.
“There is no more Bitcoin,” he said. “What’s unique about Bitcoin as an asset is it was created with 21 million coins total. Period. End of story. There’ll never be more than that. But not all of those have been mined, is my point. Not most of them. Lots of them have been lost. There have been more Bitcoins lost than will be mined for the rest of eternity.”
Novogratz believes the wave of institutional involvement, including firms like BlackRock, is cementing Bitcoin’s role as a savings asset.
“The bull case becomes that over time… gold slowly gets replaced by Bitcoin. And so if you look at gold’s market cap and Bitcoin market cap, Bitcoin has a long way to go. Right? 10x. And so that [is] $1,000,000 a Bitcoin just to be where gold is.”
This post Bitcoin Will Replace Gold And Go To $1,000,000, Says Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.
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@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3
2025-06-13 01:39:33I'm solo parenting for a couple of days, so I got lots of activity and not a lot of sleep. I stuck to my fasting window, but didn't stick to OMAD, and mostly ate healthy stuff.
How'd you do on your ~HealthAndFitness goals stackers?
https://stacker.news/items/1005114
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@ dfa02707:41ca50e3
2025-06-13 07:03:01Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.
- Wasabi Wallet v2.6.0 "Prometheus" is a major update for the project, focused on resilience and independence from centralized systems.
- Key features include support for BIP 158 block filters for direct node synchronization, a revamped full node integration for easier setup without third-party reliance, SLIP 39 share backups for flexible wallet recovery (sponsored by Trezor), and a Nostr-based update manager for censorship-resistant updates.
- Additional improvements include UI bug fixes, a new fallback for transaction broadcasting, updated code signing, stricter JSON serialization, and options to avoid third-party rate providers, alongside various under-the-hood enhancements.
This new version brings us closer to our ultimate goal: ensuring Wasabi is future-proof," said the developers, while also highlighting the following key areas of focus for the project:
- Ensuring users can always fully and securely use their client.
- Making contribution and forks easy through a codebase of the highest quality possible: understandable, maintainable, and improvable.
"As we achieve our survival goals, expect more cutting-edge improvements in Bitcoin privacy and self-custody. Thank you for the trust you place in us by using Wasabi," was stated in the release notes.
What's new
- Support for Standard BIP 158 Block Filters. Wasabi now syncs using BIP 158 filters without a backend/indexer, connecting directly to a user's node. This boosts sync speed, resilience, and allows full sovereignty without specific server dependency.
- Full Node Integration Rework. The old integration has been replaced with a simpler, more adaptable system. It’s not tied to a specific Bitcoin node fork, doesn’t need the node on the same machine as Wasabi, and requires no changes to the node’s setup.
- "Simply enable the RPC server on your node and point Wasabi to it," said the developers. This ensures all Bitcoin network activities—like retrieving blocks, fee estimations, block filters, and transaction broadcasting—go through your own node, avoiding reliance on third parties.
- Create & Recover SLIP 39 Shares. Users now create and recover wallets with multiple share backups using SLIP 39 standard.
"Special thanks to Trezor (SatoshiLabs) for sponsoring this amazing feature."
- Nostr Update Manager. This version implements a pioneering system with the Nostr protocol for update information and downloads, replacing reliance on GitHub. This enhances the project's resilience, ensuring updates even if GitHub is unavailable, while still verifying updates with the project's secure certificate.
- Updated Avalonia to v11.2.7, fixes for UI bugs (including restoring Minimize on macOS Sequoia).
- Added a configurable third-party fallback for broadcasting transactions if other methods fail.
- Replaced Windows Code Signing Certificate with Azure Trusted Signing.
- Many bug fixes, improved codebase, and enhanced CI pipeline.
- Added the option to avoid using any third-party Exchange Rate and Fee Rate providers (Wasabi can work without them).
- Rebuilt all JSON Serialization mechanisms avoiding default .NET converters. Serialization is now stricter.
Full Changelog: v2.5.1...v2.6.0
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-06-13 07:02:40El Salvador – June 3, 2025 — The grassroots Bitcoin community of El Salvador is proud to announce the return of Bitcoin Week, taking place this November with five dynamic events celebrating Bitcoin adoption, education, and community-led innovation.
Join us for a week of inspiration, collaboration, and impact.
Bitcoin Week 2025 calendar
📍 November 12 – Bitcoin Education Celebration Gala: Kick off the week in style with a luxurious and intimate evening at a high-class dinner, celebrating “proof of work” and the achievements of the Bitcoin education movement.
Expect major plans for the year(s) ahead but also a reflection to past proof-of-work—and don’t miss out on the Great Grassroots Giveaway, included with every ticket.📍 November 13 – Bitcoin Educators Unconference: Hosted for the third time in San Salvador at Cadejo Montaña, this sixth edition of the Educators Unconference embodies our commitment to provide a space for decentralized, community-led conversations.
Join educators and leaders shaping the global Bitcoin conversation!📍 November 14–15 – Adopting Bitcoin: The Network Effect: Now in its fifth year, Adopting Bitcoin returns with a powerful focus on real-world Bitcoin usage across global communities.
This year’s theme—The Network Effect—explores how interconnected local initiatives can spark exponential growth in adoption.📍 November 16 – Visit Bitcoin Beach, El Zonte: Make your way to Bitcoin Beach, the heart of El Salvador’s Bitcoin story. Enjoy a day of connection and discovery in this iconic beachside town. Full details coming soon.
📍 November 22–23 – Economía Bitcoin, Berlín: Head to the town of Berlín, El Salvador for the second edition of Economía Bitcoin, a powerful, small-scale conference and festival focused on circular economies and practical Bitcoin use.
Spend sats freely in town and see how local action drives global impact.With five unique events across three regions in Bitcoin Country, this edition of Bitcoin Week is your chance to experience El Salvador’s Bitcoin journey up close. Whether you’re an educator, builder, Bitcoiner, or simply curious—you’re invited.
Join us this November. Be part of the movement.
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 07:01:58Bitcoin Magazine
Maelstrom Announces Its Fourth Bitcoin Developer Grant RecipientMaelstrom is announcing that Ron, known online as “macgyver13,” is the fourth recipient of the Maelstrom Bitcoin Grant Program, per a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. Ron will be working on Silent Payments, as proposed in Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 352.
“We are excited to be financially supporting Ron, in his mission on integrating Silent Payments into Bitcoin wallets,” said the CFO of Maelstrom Arthur Hayes. “Many merchants and users want to provide/display a single static address that doesn’t change, which is an important, valid and simple use case. With Silent Payments this can still be done, while on-chain address re-use is avoided. Address re-use is a goldmine for the surveillance organisations, and at Maelstrom, we want to help put a stop to it.”
In September 2023, Silent Payments was proposed by Josie Baker and Ruben Somsen. It allows people to create a single, static address to share with friends, use for donations, or post for tips without sacrificing privacy. This eliminates address reuse, a key method used by surveillance firms to track user behavior on the blockchain.
“With many software projects, and perhaps even more so in Bitcoin, taking an idea from a proposal to a fully adopted solution is the hardest part,” Josie said. “In the short amount of time I’ve been working with Ron, I’ve been thrilled at the progress we’ve made and I’m excited to work with him over the next year on Silent Payments adoption with the goal of making an intuitive, seamless user experience while also protecting user’s financial privacy.”
Bitcoin privacy depends on using new addresses, which often requires sender to receiver interaction. Existing static address methods use notifications that increase costs and leak metadata. Silent Payments avoids both interaction and notifications but requires wallets to scan the blockchain. Multi-party input use is not yet proven secure.
Silent Payments aim to implement:
- Zero transaction cost overhead
- No linkability between payments and static addresses
- No need for sender to receiver interaction
- Compatibility with privacy tools and modern wallet features
“My primary focus will be coordinating development and testing efforts within the growing community dedicated to integrating Silent Payments into desktop and mobile Bitcoin wallets,” stated the new grantee of Maelstrom Ron. “By advancing Silent Payments alongside BOLT12 and BIP-353, we aim to enhance privacy and simplify the user experience, paving the way for broader adoption of Bitcoin as a payment solution.”
This post Maelstrom Announces Its Fourth Bitcoin Developer Grant Recipient first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.
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@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3
2025-06-13 00:47:36I know more of the talk is around the Bucks and Giannis, but the Knicks have actually made a huge move already, plus we have some Knicks fans in our midst.
Despite having their best season of the 21st century, the Knicks fired their highly respected coach for not making it to the NBA Finals (which no one expected them to do).
Is this just standard Knicks malpractice? If so, what further malpractice might they commit?
Or, is it part of a legit plan (as unlikely as that seems)? And, if so, what else is in that plan?
The obvious starting place is KAT. I thought KAT had a great season, but he definitely did some dumb KAT stuff in the playoffs. Will the Knicks trade KAT (and whatever else) to land either KD or Giannis? Should they?
If they trade for Giannis, does he play center? If not, they also need a stretch-5, because Giannis can't play next to a traditional big.
KD would be a little cleaner, plus the Suns need a center and supposedly Booker and KAT are buds. KD could slot in at the 4 and give them a starting 5 of - Robinson - KD - OG - Bridges - Brunson
With Hart coming off the bench, that's an awesome 6-man rotation. It's basically what they had, but with KD in place of KAT.
Is KD enough better than KAT for this to be a title team?
What else might be going on with the Knicks?
https://stacker.news/items/1005038
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 07:01:35Bitcoin Magazine
Remixpoint Invests ¥887 Million More Into BitcoinRemixpoint Inc. (3825.T), a management consulting services company, announced it has purchased ¥887.3 million worth of Bitcoin, acquiring 55.68 BTC at an average price of ¥15.94 million per coin.
JUST IN:
Remixpoint just keeps buying more #bitcoin. Another 55.68 BTC today and they now have a total of 981.39 BTC. pic.twitter.com/mTkZg8mNO4
— NLNico (@btcNLNico) June 12, 2025
Following this purchase, the company now holds a total of 981.39 BTC, with a market value of approximately ¥15.63 billion. The unrealized gain on its Bitcoin holdings stands at ¥2.32 billion, reflecting their confidence in Bitcoin’s long term value. The funds came from the exercise of stock acquisition rights conducted on June 10.
Remixpoint Inc. is a Japanese company that started in the auto and energy sectors but has changed toward digital assets. It’s one of the few public companies in Japan actively holding Bitcoin, seeing it as both a store of value and a hedge against the weakening yen. Their move highlights a growing shift in Japan’s corporate space toward Bitcoin adoption.
Bitcoin has been so strong over the years that even in Japan, more companies are adding it to their balance sheets. It all started with Metaplanet, which was originally a hotel and hospitality company. In 2024, they shifted their strategy entirely and began accumulating Bitcoin as a treasury asset. That move caught the attention of investors and marked a turning point in Japan’s corporate approach to digital assets. Since then, Metaplanet has leaned fully into the Bitcoin thesis, positioning itself as Japan’s version of Strategy.
Recently, Metaplanet also announced its “555 Million Plan,” aiming to acquire 210,000 BTC, which is about 1% of Bitcoin’s total supply, by the end of 2027. This represents a major step up from its original “21 Million Plan,” which aimed for just 21,000 BTC. As of June 2, the company had already secured 8,888 BTC, far ahead of schedule and signaling strong momentum in its accumulation strategy.
Metaplanet has launched Asia’s largest-ever equity raise dedicated to Bitcoin:
¥770.9 billion (~$5.4B) capital raise
555 million shares via moving strike warrants
First in Japan: issued at a premium to market — enabled by Metaplanet’s high volatility and deep liquidity… pic.twitter.com/UlXHneyDzo
— Simon Gerovich (@gerovich) June 6, 2025
To fund this effort, Metaplanet launched Japan’s first moving strike warrant structure, issuing 555 million shares to raise approximately ¥770.9 billion. The plan was approved following a 10-for-1 stock split and a shareholder vote to increase authorized shares. With robust BTC yield performance and growing investor backing, Metaplanet is quickly establishing itself as Japan’s most influential corporate player in the Bitcoin space.
This post Remixpoint Invests ¥887 Million More Into Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.
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@ 3c389c8f:7a2eff7f
2025-06-13 00:23:35Most of my time on Nostr, relays served content simply based on what was requested. Clients mostly requested follow list based content, and often only if the user requested to 'read' from a particular relay. Very simple, though not ideal. Clients that attempted to offer some 'global' or 'universal' feed made it possible to discover some new things but also served spam, redundant bot posts, and even some malicious things that managed to make it through a relay's filters. Paid relays began to gain some ground, with better filters to reduce spam and malicious content, which has helped a lot to clean up these broader feeds that expand beyond the follow-based timeline. Many of the relays hosted redundant content, too, which is important but it's not the only thing that is. The system still left a lot to be desired, particularly for anyone who has understood the potential behind the client-relay set up. Other concerns, like relay centralization through user concentration, still needed to be discussed and addressed.
Despite the voicing of relay diversity advocates, this system seemed to provide most of what people were looking for to replace their typical social media experience. Still, though, reply spam attacks found their way through, as they do. Web-of-Trust relays began to pop up to help mitigate the problem. Using contact lists and extended contact lists as a method of reducing the prevalence of spam has worked really well, but does have it limitations as to how new users can enter into these social graphs, without already knowing someone who is using Nostr. Also not ideal, but it has been a step forward for Nostr's social media use case. Hosted relay services that offered more diverse policy for a relay to operate under finally began to take some hold for those that wanted more choice and control. Still though, potential had barely been breeched.
It might have been before the WoT relay movement, but of nowhere (not really but it kind of seemed like it), a cat relay appeared within the ecosystem. This silly, fun, cute, clever relay collected notes with the #catstr hashtag and used some fancy image analysis stuff (that I can't explain) to collect notes and images of nothing but cats. Such a simple thing, but that was a catalyst (🥁) moment for Nostr. A relay could do more than just collect notes from following lists?? A couple more iterations of the curated content relay model came to be, driving home the idea that this wasn't some silly pie-in-the-sky concept. It was an aha moment for some, sheer joy for the relay advocates, and a turning point for expanding Nostr beyond the basic social media replacement. Very few client options for simply browsing one relay existed at the time, and while it was novel to see, the rest of the framework to support it was not strong nor very easy to use. Even with this dilemma, the catstr relay set off what has become some of the most interesting and useful innovation that has happened within the Nostr ecosystem since I arrived.
Since then, I have spent a lot of my time on Nostr exploring some of what has been developed on the relay front, experimenting where I have found the opportunity and thinking a lot about where this all could lead. Innovation on both the relay and client sides of Nostr have been expanding, not quite in lockstep, but closely enough that someone like myself can now easily jump onto a client like Jumble.social and get a glimpse into what is happening and get an idea of the potential of what is yet to come. For those working in the relay field, I am sure this feels like one slow moving train. For a client developer, it probably feels a little overwhelming to shift an entire model away from what has worked for something that will work better. As a less-than-technical user who is mostly disconnected from any major development, it's exciting. Relay diversity brings actual utility to Nostr. It also brings the assurances that Nostr offers, which whether we have been subjugated to these problems before or not, it is the main reason why Nostr exists and why we are here using it now.
For most anyone reading this, it probably sounds like some weird, unnecessary history lesson. This is actually one long introduction into a little mini-series of relay recaps though.... I was wondering what I would write about next, and this is it. I may just be a user but I'm an adventurous one and I pay attention, so I'm excited to share some of my thoughts, experiences, and observations over the coming weeks... because exciting isn't a strong enough word for the what I see as possible. :)
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@ 73868430:0ec4fe27
2025-06-13 06:36:42皇居 Imperial Palace
巽櫓(桜田二重櫓) Sakurada Tatsumi Yagura
二重橋 Nijubashi Bridge
靖國神社 Yasukuni Jinja
遊就館 Yushukan
上野動物園 Ueno Zoological Garden
上野動物園不忍池 Ueno Zoological Garden Shinobazuno Pond
上野東照宮五重塔 Ueno Toshogu Shrine Five Story Pagoda
築地活鮮市場,御徒町店 Tsukiji Kassen Ichiba, Okachimachi
鉄道博物館 The Railway Museum
TOHAKU茶館 (応挙館) Tohaku Chakan
新大久保駅 Shin-Ōkubo
シンボルプロムナード公園 Symbol Promenade Park
セントラル広場 Central Square
日本科学未来館 The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Japan (Miraikan)
箱根町 Hakone
芦ノ湖 Lake Ashi
元箱根 Motohakone
彫刻の森駅 Chokokunomori
三の鳥居,箱根神社 The Third Torii of Hakone Shrine
小田原城 Odawara Castle
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@ 7460b7fd:4fc4e74b
2025-06-13 05:33:58比特币如何通过协议机制实现隐私而不违反反洗钱法
1. 引言
“保守派的创新”理念指的是在不破坏既有社会制度的前提下推进技术革新。在金融领域,隐私与合规常被视为此消彼长的关系,但比特币生态展示出一种渐进式的平衡路径:既探索交易隐私保护,又避免公然违背反洗钱法规要求。这种平衡并非异想天开;传统金融本就提供一定程度的隐私,例如银行账簿并非对公众透明,个人消费细节通常不为外人所知en.bitcoin.it。比特币的目标之一是以去中心化方式复制这种隐私保护,但同时它并未试图动摇反洗钱法律的基石。相反,比特币社区秉持“保守式创新”,通过协议层的改进逐步增强用户隐私,同时尊重监管红线。例如,美国政府近年提出“负责任创新”原则,要求在保障国家安全和金融稳定的前提下鼓励区块链技术有序发展siis.org.cn。比特币的发展恰体现了这一点:它采用公开区块链,但通过巧妙的机制设计和增量升级,为合法用户提供类似现金的隐私空间,而不公然为洗钱者大开方便之门。
2. UTXO 模型与账户制的本质区别
比特币采用 UTXO(未花费交易输出)模型记录账本,这与传统银行或以太坊的账户模型截然不同。简单类比来说,UTXO 模型类似于现金交易,账户模型则类似于银行账簿nervos.org。在 UTXO 模型下,每笔交易消耗之前的输出并创造新的输出,币值被划分成离散的“硬币”单元;就如同用一枚金币付款找零,找零过程会销毁原金币并造出面额不同的新币docs.glassnode.comdocs.glassnode.com。每个 UTXO 都隶属于某个地址,而地址通常由用户一次性使用,这使得难以直接将所有交易关联到同一身份nervos.org。换言之,比特币系统并不追踪“账户余额”,而是追踪散落在各地址下的一笔笔未花费输出nervos.org。用户的钱包余额只是所有这些 UTXO 金额的总和。
与之相比,账户模型则维护全球状态,每个账户有持续的余额记录,很容易基于固定的账户识别用户身份cexplorer.io。账户体系下,多笔交易进出同一账户,会在账本中清晰显示某人所有的资产变动情况。这种透明度对监管有利,但也意味着隐私的天然缺失——资金流向可以直接与账户持有人绑定。UTXO 模型天生提供了更大的隐私空间,因为每笔交易可以使用新的地址,外部观察者难以确定多个交易是否属于同一主体nervos.org。正如贵金属或现金交易中,实物的流转不记名,UTXO 的分散性赋予了用户类似实物货币的隐私保护。而账户体系更像实名登记的银行账户,所有交易活动都集中在同一名下,隐私隔离性较弱。
需要强调的是,UTXO 模型提供的是**“笔名制”隐私而非完全匿名。区块链上的地址并不直接揭示身份,但如果有人能将地址与现实身份对应起来(例如通过交易所KYC记录),那么UTXO交易历史的透明特征仍可被利用。因此,比特币底层设计选择在匿名性与可追溯之间折中:通过UTXO提供尽可能的去身份化交易记录,同时保留全网公开可审计的交易流动性。这种设计一方面满足了反洗钱(AML)**对可追溯性的最低要求(所有交易公开上链),另一方面也为合法交易提供了一定程度的隐私遮蔽(地址不直接对应实名)。这种隐私“空隙”是比特币协议保守创新的起点。它类似于现金的特性——现金交易不记录买卖双方身份,但大额可疑现钞交易仍可通过其他线索引起执法注意。同理,UTXO 模型下小额日常交易可保持去身份化,而异常模式的资金流动仍可能触发监管机构的区块链分析关注。
3. CoinJoin 的实现方式与监管意义
为进一步拓展隐私,比特币社区发展出多种链上混合机制,其中最典型的是 CoinJoin。CoinJoin 是一种无须信任中介的协作交易方法:将多个付款人的转账合并在一笔交易中,从而混淆外部观察者对“谁在向谁付款”的判断en.bitcoin.it。其核心思想由 Gregory Maxwell 于2013年提出,利用比特币交易可以有多个输入和输出的特性,组织多个参与者共同构造一笔交易,每个参与者提供若干输入并得到自己预期的输出。由于区块链上只记录了一笔合成交易,外界难以确定哪笔输入对应哪笔输出,实现交易参与者之间的匿名性集。典型的 CoinJoin 实现会让所有参与者约定使用相同面额的输出(例如每人都拆分成若干个0.1 BTC的输出),这样链上看到多个等额输出时,无法分辨这些输出原先属于哪个参与者en.bitcoin.it。同时,每个参与者通常还会得到找零输出,从而保持总额不变。通过这种方式,一次 CoinJoin 交易实质上打乱了资金的对应关系,达到了“混币”的效果。
CoinJoin 的技术细节体现出比特币协议层面的巧妙设计:比特币交易的输入签名彼此独立,因此完全可以由不同用户分别签署再合并,只要所有必要签名齐备,交易便有效en.bitcoin.it。这意味着多个彼此不信任的用户可以在不交出控制权的情况下共同生成一笔交易——整个过程无需更改比特币协议,一切遵循既有规则即可完成en.bitcoin.it。这种协作混合交易在链上结构特征通常为:多个来源地址(输入)对应多个去向地址(输出),且输出面额往往存在重复值,使传统“通过金额和地址关联交易”的分析方法失效。由于 CoinJoin 交易并不标注参与者身份,它在区块链数据上与普通交易不可区分,尤其当其输出面额设计得不像刻意等值时,更增添了辨识难度。
然而,正是这种加强隐私的技术,引起了监管机构对潜在滥用的关注。反洗钱机构将此类混合服务归类为“增加匿名性风险的活动”。FATF(金 融 行 动 特 别 工 作 组)的报告将使用混币器视为一项重要风险指标,指出“不少犯罪分子利用混币/Tumbling服务来遮蔽资金来源或去向”fatf-gafi.org。从监管角度看,CoinJoin 等机制本身具有中立性,但其用途可能涉及掩盖非法所得流转,从而引发执法部门警惕。在现实案例中,确有不法分子尝试利用 CoinJoin 逃避监管:例如 2016 年 Bitfinex 交易所黑客窃得巨额比特币后,多年间反复采用Wasabi钱包的 CoinJoin 功能清洗资金,被称为“当时最先进的洗钱手法”time.com。又如2021年美国司法部破获的臭名昭著案件中,一对夫妻涉嫌协助清洗 Bitfinex 被盗比特币,调查发现他们使用了 CoinJoin 来试图匿名化交易,但最终仍因区块链的永久记录和执法部门的链上分析技术而落网time.comcointelegraph.com。这说明混合交易并非万能护身符:对于有能力的执法机构而言,大额异常的链上混合行为依然可能被捕捉和溯源,只是增加了分析难度和取证成本。
监管机构对于混币工具的法律立场逐渐明晰。在美国,FinCEN(金融犯罪执法网络)早在2013年指导意见中即表明,经营虚拟货币兑换或传输业务需遵守《银行保密法》(BSA)规定。2019年FinCEN进一步明确:提供混币/搅币服务的机构属于货币服务业务(MSB),必须登记注册并履行反洗钱义务fincen.gov。简言之,运行CoinJoin服务即视同资金汇兑业务,需要实行KYC、报告可疑交易等合规措施,否则即属非法经营。在2020年,美国首次对比特币混币服务施加严厉制裁:运营 “Helix”混币器的 Larry Harmon 被指控未经许可经营MSB并协助洗钱,被FinCEN处罚6000万美元,后又被法院判处入狱三年fincen.gov。执法调查显示,Harmon经营的混币服务三年内处理比特币逾350,000枚,且主动宣传可匿名购买毒品等非法商品,这些行为严重违反了反洗钱法fincen.govfincen.gov。这一里程碑案例表明,美国司法实践已将第三方混币服务视作违法,运营者须承担刑事及民事后果。
与此对应的是,如果仅提供去中心化的软件工具而非代客操作,则法律定位有所不同。FinCEN在2019年声明中也承认,提供匿名化软件本身不构成货币传输服务cliffordchance.com。这为比特币协议层面的创新留下了空间:开发者可以创造CoinJoin钱包或协议,让用户自行对等完成混合交易,而不涉及中介经手资金。在这种架构下,软件提供方不直接“控制”客户资金流,因而不被视为MSB。然而,监管的灰度在于,如果软件提供方设立了协调服务器并从中收取服务费,是否变相成为了混币业务经营者?对此,不同司法辖区可能有不同解读。一些CoinJoin实现(如Wasabi钱包的协调器)选择主动限制自身角色,以避免落入监管“经营服务”的范畴。同时,也有业内主体为了降低监管冲击而做出让步。例如,隐私钱包 Wasabi 的开发公司(注册于英国)在2022年宣布,其CoinJoin协调服务器将拒绝可疑的非法来源资金参与混币cointelegraph.com。该公司通过黑名单过滤特定的UTXO来防止明显带有犯罪特征的币混入池内,此举被视为向执法机构妥协的“自律”措施cointelegraph.comcointelegraph.com。虽然此举在隐私社区引发争议,但从监管角度看,这是行业努力寻求平衡的体现:即允许合法用户继续享有隐私工具,同时遏制不法分子滥用。类似地,FATF和各国监管者也在加强对混币器的监控合作,包括将臭名昭著的混币平台列入制裁清单(如2022年美国OFAC先后制裁了比特币混币服务Blender.io和以太坊混币器Tornado Cash,因其被朝鲜黑客用于清洗盗窃资金)cliffordchance.com。
综合来看,CoinJoin技术本身并不违反法律——正如现金本身不违法,但用于洗钱即涉罪。关键在于使用目的和主体。比特币协议通过CoinJoin提供了增强隐私的可能性,这是对抗链上数据监控、维护币值可替代性(fungibility)的“保守式创新”举措en.bitcoin.it。它在技术上避免了对底层协议的破坏,也没有阻断执法取证的所有途径(大额交易所的进出仍需KYC,链上记录依然永久留存)。监管机构目前的态度是在不取缔技术本身的前提下,加强对相关服务商和可疑行为的监管。对于商业银行运营者而言,这意味着应当了解CoinJoin交易的链上特征及合理用途:并非凡是CoinJoin输出即等同非法,必须结合上下文判断真实风险。同时,银行也需遵循监管指引,对来自明显混币路径的资金提高尽调级别,必要时提交可疑交易报告。但反过来说,在合规框架下,合理使用CoinJoin提升客户隐私并不直接违法。例如,一些合规的比特币托管机构会允许用户提币时自行使用CoinJoin,以保护客户交易历史不被外界窥探——前提是资金本身来源清白、去向明确记录。这样的做法体现了隐私与反洗钱并非绝对对立:通过适当的程序设计,可以在不违背法规的情况下给用户更多隐私保障。
4. Lightning Network 的中介态地位
*闪电网络(Lightning Network)*是比特币之上的第二层协议,它通过链下通道实现高速小额支付,被视为比特币在隐私和扩容上的一大创新。闪电网络的运作机制,是两方在链上创建一个支付通道(开设一笔特殊的多签交易作为锚定),然后在通道内部通过数字签名即时交换比特币所有权。这些频繁发生的链下交易并不记录在区块链上,只有当双方最终关闭通道时,链上才结算通道的最终余额状态。由于大部分交易被转移到链下,闪电网络具有先天的隐私中介性质:外界只能看到通道开启和关闭的两笔链上交易,而通道内部可能发生了上千笔支付却无从获知细节。这使得闪电网络的交易不可被区块浏览器直接追踪,从而大大减少了链上分析能够获取的信息cointelegraph.comcointelegraph.com。对于普通用户而言,这种“离链”处理提升了交易私密性和即时性;对于商业银行合规部门而言,闪电网络则带来了全新的挑战和机遇。
从合规角度看,闪电网络的位置有些类似于**“灰盒”:介于传统金融和完全公开区块链之间。一方面,闪电节点间的转账采用类似于Tor洋葱路由的加密跳转,每一跳节点只知道前一站和后一站,路径中继信息被隐藏,这为交易双方提供了接近匿名的路径隐私。另一方面,闪电通道的资金最终还是要通过链上比特币进出,这些开关通道的动作依然在公共账本上透明可见。因此,监管可以将注意力聚焦在出入口**:当资金从交易所等受监管机构流入闪电通道,或从闪电通道流回受监管机构时,对相关主体进行KYC和流向监控。这类似于对银行资金流出进入现金流通领域的监管思路——现金在社会中如何流转难以监控,但银行对大额取现和存现可以执行申报和审查。同理,闪电网络内部的细小支付难以逐笔监视,但大型入口/出口操作(如大量资金通过闪电通道转移)可以被标记关注。
闪电网络的挑战在于匿名性和跨境性。由于节点运行不需要许可,任何人在全球范围内都可架设闪电节点并参与路由,中间节点既看不见支付金额(只有通道余额变化)也不知交易来源和目的地。这种设计初衷是在技术上保护用户隐私和抗审查,但也意味着传统“旅伴规则”(Travel Rule)的信息传递机制难以直接应用于闪电支付。根据FATF的“VASPs旅行规则”,虚拟资产服务商之间转账需在金额阈值以上共享客户身份信息。然而闪电网络的交易路径通常不经过中心化服务商:大多是用户自行操作钱包直连,对等网络中路线随机。即便有部分交易通过托管型闪电服务(如托管钱包)发起,目前也缺乏成熟方案让节点在支付时附带KYC信息。因此,闪电网络被视为现行AML框架下的“监管空白地带”之一:合法的小额支付在其中获得极大便利,但不法分子也可能尝试利用其快速转移资金、不留痕迹的特性来层层拆分洗钱。
监管机构正逐步关注这一动向。一方面,他们强调同样的法规原则适用于闪电网络:凡是以营利为目的替他人传输资金者,无论通过链上或链下,都应履行反洗钱义务。比如,FinCEN在2023年提出的预防性规则中,将“虚拟货币混合作为特定受关注领域”,虽未明指闪电网络,但也释放出对任何有意提高匿名性的交易技术加强监管的信号cliffordchance.comcliffordchance.com。对于提供托管式闪电服务的机构,情况类似于交易所或托管钱包,需要注册MSB并执行KYC/AML流程。例如,一些提供闪电充值提现的公司在美国选择直接停止服务,以规避未能及时合规的风险——2023年11月,知名闪电钱包“Wallet of Satoshi”团队宣布将应用从美国区店下架,并停止为美国用户提供服务,称这是一个“艰难的决定”cointelegraph.com。虽然官方未明言原因,但业内推测此举与美国严格的合规环境有关:Wallet of Satoshi 属于全托管闪电钱包,依据美国法律应当取得货币传输牌照并遵循诸如Travel Rule等要求。在监管不确定性和合规成本高企的情况下,其选择退出美国市场,凸显了闪电业务在强监管司法管辖区所面临的压力。
另一方面,监管者也看到闪电网络的机遇:它有潜力降低链上交易拥堵、提升小额支付经济性,这对正规金融机构也是有利的创新。例如,银行可以利用闪电网络为客户提供秒级跨境小额汇款服务,在合法场景中比特币闪电通道可作为支付轨道,满足实时结算需求,同时因金额小、风险低可以适当简化手续。在香港等地,监管机构鼓励金融创新与风控并进。香港金管局在2023年修订的AML指引中提及,要采取风险为本方法看待新技术应用,并避免一刀切地拒绝虚拟资产相关业务,提倡审慎前瞻的态度来对待这类创新支付方式kwm.comkwm.com。英国FCA也提出**“不妨碍创新”的监管理念**,在确保核心AML要求落实的同时,为新支付技术留出试验空间。在这种氛围下,如果商业银行运营总监能够深入理解闪电网络的运行原理,就有机会将其优势用于合规的业务模式中。例如,银行可充当闪电通道的受信任节点,为客户提供经KYC的闪电支付渠道:银行对接入的客户身份尽职调查,并监控异常大额流动,而对客户小额高频交易则通过闪电网络实现即时低费率完成。这种模式下,银行相当于在闪电网络和传统体系之间架设合规桥梁,既不牺牲客户隐私(因为具体小额交易不公开),又满足反洗钱“看得见、管得了”的要求。
概言之,闪电网络作为中介态层,为比特币交易的隐私与效率提供了极大提升,但也要求金融机构调整传统AML手段:由链上监控转向节点端口监控。运营总监需要关注闪电通道的资金进出量、识别可疑的频繁开关通道行为,以及配合跨境情报分享以防范有人利用闪电网络在不同司法区之间快速转移赃款。在风险可控的前提下,闪电网络完全可以成为合规金融工具箱的一部分,而不是监管的对立面。
5. PayJoin(BIP-78)的机制与合规设计
PayJoin(又称P2EP,Pay to Endpoint)是一种由两方协作完成的特殊比特币交易结构,可视作CoinJoin的简化版和升级版。它由比特币改进提案BIP-78标准化,于2019年由开发者 Nicolas Dorier 提出bips.devbips.dev。PayJoin 的典型场景是付款人与收款人在一次支付过程中联手构造交易:收款人提供一个比特币收款地址和一个临时服务器端点,付款人发起交易时,不仅花费自己的UTXO,还从收款人处获取一个UTXO一同作为输入加入交易bitcoinops.org。换言之,交易的输入来自付款人和收款人双方,而输出则包括正常的付款金额给收款人(可能与常规付款金额不同,因为收款人也贡献了输入)以及付款人的找零。这种设计使链上观察者难以分辨哪些输入属于谁、哪个输出是真正的支付款,进而打破链上常用的“共同输入属于同一实体”推断bitcoinops.org。PayJoin 交易在区块链上看起来与普通交易无异:它不像传统CoinJoin那样有许多相等面额的输出,不具有明显的混币特征en.bitcoin.iten.bitcoin.it。因此,区块链分析公司难以再用简单启发式判断支付关系,从而极大增强了支付双方的隐私。
PayJoin 的技术流程可以概括如下:bips.dev首先,收款人在生成比特币收款二维码(BIP-21 URI)时,附带一个
pj=
端点,表示自己支持PayJoin并提供了协商接口。付款人扫描发票后,钱包客户端先构造一笔常规交易(只含付款人的输入和相应输出),然后将该未签名交易通过HTTP发送到收款人的pj
端点。收款人服务器收到后,在交易中加入自己预先选定的一枚UTXO作为额外输入,并相应地增大将付给自己的输出金额(因为收款人也贡献了一部分资金,需要“找零”返还),形成一个新的交易方案。收款人签署自己那部分输入后,将半签名交易返回给付款人。付款人验证交易未被篡改(如支付目标金额正确等),再签署自己部分的输入。最终,这笔包含双方输入的完整交易被广播到比特币网络并记入区块链bips.devbips.dev。举例来说,Alice 要向 Bob 支付1 BTC货款。传统做法是Alice用她的一枚≥1 BTC的UTXO付款,找零归还自己;Bob收到1 BTC。但在PayJoin中,假设Alice有一枚0.6 BTC和一枚0.5 BTC的UTXO,Bob手上有一枚0.4 BTC的UTXO未花费。那么Alice可先构造一笔用0.6+0.5两枚UTXO支付1 BTC的交易(找零0.1给自己)。Bob看到后,可以加入自己的0.4 BTC作为输入,并将支付给自己的输出从1 BTC增加到1.4 BTC,同时让Alice的找零相应减少为0.1-0.4=-0.3 BTC(负数意味着Alice其实付出了0.3 BTC + 原本的0.1找零共0.4 BTC给Bob,正好匹配Bob贡献的输入)。经过这种调整,最终交易输入包括Alice的0.6和0.5、Bob的0.4,总计1.5 BTC;输出包括Bob收到的1.4 BTC(其中Bob净得+1 BTC,含回自己的0.4)和Alice的找零0.1 BTC。链上观察者只看到Alice和Bob的若干输入共同支付了1.4 BTC给Bob的地址,以及0.1 BTC给Alice的找零地址。从表面上看,这可以被解释为Alice支付了1.4 BTC给Bob并收到0.1找零,也可以解释为Bob支付了一部分钱给自己(看似无意义)而Alice支付剩余部分给Bob,没有任何方法从区块数据确定真实的1 BTC支付额en.bitcoin.it。如此一来,支付本身的隐私性大幅提升,但交易合规性并未受损:Alice和Bob各自知道自己的出资与所得,交易双方的信息完整,可在需要时向监管说明实际资金流。只不过对于无知情权的第三方而言,这笔交易等同于谜题,大大降低了链上监控的可行性。
PayJoin 体现了比特币协议层治理的一种思路:通过开放标准增强隐私而不违反共识规则。作为BIP-78标准,PayJoin获得了社区认可并被多款钱包和支付处理工具采纳。例如,开源支付网关BTCPay Server自2020年以来支持商户端默认启用PayJoin收款bitcoinops.org;隐私钱包Wasabi和Samourai等也相继实现了对BIP-78的支持,让用户在日常支付中方便使用此功能bitcoinops.org。这些采用者本身都属于守法经营的实体(BTCPay服务的商户需遵守当地法规,Wasabi等钱包开发团队在合规压力下甚至实行过黑名单机制如前述),因此PayJoin的推广更多是为了保护良性用户的隐私,而非为洗钱提供新工具。相较于CoinJoin混合许多陌生资金,PayJoin每次仅涉及一名付款人和一名收款人,没有第三方参与资金池,故不存在“大规模匿名化”效果,只有针对该笔支付的信息隐藏。这使其很难被犯罪分子用于清洗巨额资金:因为两两配对支付的效率和匿名集规模都远不及混币池。而在合法场景下,PayJoin倒是十分实用——例如商户可以在不增加负担的情况下自动参与客户的支付交易,从而保护商户与客户双方的财务隐私不被区块链分析公司过度窥探。正如Bitcoin Optech对其评价的那样,PayJoin增强了支付双方以及整个比特币用户群的隐私bitcoinops.org,“通过让交易难以被拆解归属,有利于全网的隐私性”。
从合规设计上看,PayJoin 非常“克制”。首先,它不改变交易总额的去向:收款人仍收到应得的款项,只是多走了一步“先支付给自己再找零”的形式;付款人也仅花费了自己该付的钱(只是混杂在更大金额输出中)。因此,从资金流合法性来说,PayJoin 没有引入额外的模糊地带,每一笔输出都有明确的实际归属方。其次,PayJoin 不依赖任何中心化第三方来撮合,多在客户端与商户服务器间通过一次HTTP通讯完成。这意味着没有一个专门的“PayJoin服务提供商”需要承担MSB责任,整个流程更像是点对点协议的一部分。再次,由于收款人参与其中,通常收款人本身是提供商品或服务的商家,其身份在交易关系中是已知的。比如某客户通过PayJoin向商家付款,商家在自己后台记录中可以注明该笔订单已通过PayJoin支付,对应链上交易哈希等。如果日后监管调查,需要了解这笔混淆过的交易情况,商家完全能够提供证据证明谁是付款人、金额多少,只不过这些信息未写入区块链而已。这跟传统现金交易后的记录有异曲同工之处:账本上可能只显示商家收款入账,但商家收据上会注明付款人是谁。同样,PayJoin 实现了链上隐私但保留了链下记录的可能性。
当然,PayJoin 的兴起也让链上分析公司感到头疼:因为一旦这种交易普及,过去依据“共同输入推断同一所有者”的分析方法将失效en.bitcoin.it。这实际上提升了比特币整体的抗审查能力,却也令执法部门的链上自动监测工具需要升级。不过,从监管角度来看,PayJoin 并未妨碍司法调查:由于它没有像大型混币那样引入不特定多方,执法者可以通过传统调查手段(如向已知商家调取交易记录)来还原真相。可以说,PayJoin把隐私权和合规需求巧妙地划出了界限——公开账本不再暴露一切细节,但真正有合法权利需要知道的人(交易相对方、执法部门)依然有途径获取所需信息。这正是比特币“保守式创新”的精髓体现:在不破坏既有法律框架的前提下,通过协议改进最大程度保护用户正当隐私。
6. 对比“合用账户”与 PayJoin 的区别及法律可识别性
传统金融中,两个或以上主体共同使用资金,通常采用联名账户(Joint Account)的形式。例如,商业合作伙伴或夫妻可以开设联名银行账户,账户内资金由各持有人共同所有和支配。法律对这类账户的身份和权益归属有清晰界定:银行会对每位账户持有人进行尽职调查(KYC),账户资金的法定所有人就是账户登记的所有持有人。账户交易的责任也由持有人按合同分担。即使账户资金混合来源不一,法律上可以通过约定或推定原则划分各自的受益权益(例如按照存入金额或签署协议比例)birketts.co.ukbirketts.co.uk。重要的是,无论账户内资金如何流动,监管和执法都知道关联到该账户的自然人/法人是谁。因此,联名账户实现了多人合用资金的便利,但透明度依然存在于金融机构与监管视野内:多名持有人均是可识别、可问责的主体。
相比之下,PayJoin 在链上呈现出的“共同支付”情形并没有建立任何持久的联合账户或法律实体关系。一次PayJoin交易虽然包含了两方的输入,看起来是“两个人一起付了一笔钱”,但区块链并未记录这两个人各自的身份或份额。这就引出一个问题:法律上能识别PayJoin参与者吗? 链上数据本身无法直接识别,需要结合链下信息。比如在前述客户与商家通过PayJoin交易的例子中,区块链只显示一笔来自多个地址的交易。如果不借助商家提供的订单记录,外部第三方很可能误以为这些输入都属于同一人控制(传统heuristic的误判)en.bitcoin.it。因此,从纯链上证据看,PayJoin让法律主体识别变得困难:执法人员若仅依据区块数据,很难断定这笔交易涉及两个独立当事人。然而,并不意味着法律就无法识别—关键在于索取链下佐证。正如上节所述,每笔PayJoin交易的当事双方自己清楚出资和收款情况。如果其中一方如商家是受监管实体(有KYC义务),那其记录就能将链上地址对应回实名。即便双方皆为个人,在调查情况下,也可通过钱包日志、通信记录等证明彼此在对应时间协作构建了该交易。因此,从法律证明角度,PayJoin的参与者身份是可还原的,只是需要额外的信息链路,比常规转账要绕一点。
值得注意的是,英美法系对类似“共同出资支付”并非没有概念可循。在英国法下,若两人共同出资购买资产但无明文协议,法院可能探寻双方的共同意图和出资比例来确定各自权益(如适用衡平法上的推定信托原则)birketts.co.ukbirketts.co.uk。PayJoin交易本质上是双方共同“出资”完成了一次支付,因此在极端情况下(比如交易发生纠纷,双方就其中款项归属产生争议),法院或仲裁机构也可参考类似思路:审查双方对支付金额的约定,以及各自贡献和收益,从而确认真正的资金流向。不过,与联名账户不同的是,PayJoin不涉及长期共同持有资金,它只是一个瞬时的合伙支付行为。交易完成后,资金立即分别归属该去向的单一主体(收款人得到款项、付款人拿回找零)。不存在一个持续的“共同账户”载体来容纳双方资金。因此,法律上无需也无法对PayJoin建立类似联名账户的架构。每一方仍然只对各自收到或支出的部分负责,没有形成新的共同财产。
对于监管机构而言,联名账户容易监控——银行定期报告账户活动,所有相关个人信息齐全;而PayJoin交易如果不借助外部信息,单凭链上模式就难以分辨出来。这既是其隐私优势也是监管难点。但反过来看,PayJoin也没有引入无法克服的匿名性:它没有混杂无关联的第三方资金,交易双方实际彼此熟知,是一对一有联系的。这与完全匿名的暗网混币有本质区别。可以说,PayJoin更像两人私下结伴去银行各取一部分现金,然后合在一起交给第三人——银行账上只看到第三人存入一笔总额,但两人的个人取款银行各自有记录。因此如果第三人涉嫌违法受款,调查人员可以从银行调取那笔存款来源的拆分记录,发现实际上来自两人分别的账户。同理,PayJoin的合规思路是在需要的时候,将链上模糊的交易“解压”回两条清晰的资金线。这种设计确保了它在法律可解释性上比起传统CoinJoin混币更强:CoinJoin有时会出现N进N出,每个输出来源于N个输入的混合,法律上很难逐一对应归属,而PayJoin始终是一进一出(一方净支付,另一方净收款),只是混在一起过账。因此,一旦揭示两方身份,各自金额清楚明了,不存在无法区分谁的钱的问题。
具体到普通法体系的英美港三地,对于PayJoin交易目前尚无明文法规或判例直接评述。但可以推测,如果司法或监管机关发现有人采用PayJoin方式来掩饰交易关系,他们会采用实质重于形式的原则看待:关注交易背后的真实当事人和资金用途,而不会被表面上的“单笔交易”假象所困扰。例如,美国FinCEN和司法部在认定洗钱时,核心是看资金是否经过分层、混淆意图隐匿非法来源fatf-gafi.org。PayJoin如果被用于非法用途,那么执法也许需要对相关的钱包服务商、通信记录等进行取证才能还原过程。这增加了调查难度,但并非无法可依。在香港,新的VASP法规下,持牌机构需要对涉及的不寻常交易模式提高警觉。如果客户提现比特币后马上与别人做了一次PayJoin再存回,这种不寻常链路可能会引发问询,要求说明交易目的。英国FCA亦强调,加密资产交易所应监控客户是否使用了高度混淆技术并进行风险评估。在这些框架下,PayJoin如果被理解并检测到,可能会被归类为一种需要额外尽职调查的交易行为。但只要能够解释清楚其合法用途(例如商家为了客户隐私而采用PayJoin收款),法律并不禁止这种交易结构。
最后,从用户角度看,PayJoin其实更接近正常商业行为而非刻意洗钱安排。例如,两家公司合作支付一笔款项给供应商,传统方法可能是成立一个合资实体或开共同账户来出资再付款,而通过比特币PayJoin,两家公司可各自直接拿出一部分比特币,在一次交易中共同支付给供应商,无需建立长期联名账户关系。这种做法在法律上依然体现为各公司分别支付了各自的那部分货款,只是合并成一笔链上交易。因此法律能够识别并追踪每家公司支付的金额(通过公司内部记录),不存在损失审计线索的隐患。可以说,联名账户依赖金融机构去记录和划分共同资金,PayJoin则依赖参与各方自行记录默契合作。前者信息透明在机构,后者信息私密但参与人自知。因此,只要参与方守法经营并做好内部财务纪录,PayJoin并不会削弱法律对资金流的追查能力,它只是让公开账本不再直接泄露交易细节。这对遵纪守法者是利好,对企图躲避监管的大额洗钱者来说反而不是首选工具(因为两两串联洗钱的效率和隐蔽性远逊于大型混币池和离岸账户)。综合而言,在英美港法理下,PayJoin交易应被视为一种正当且可解释的隐私增强支付,通过适当的信息披露即可澄清其性质,并不构成无法识别的法律难题。
7. 应用设想:无需公司设立的合伙支付
展望未来,比特币协议提供的这些机制有望催生新的合规创新应用。例如,利用PayJoin或CoinJoin思想,可以实现“无需公司实体的合伙支付”。设想两个跨境贸易伙伴临时合作采购一批货物,各自承担一半货款。他们不必设立合资公司或开联名账户来筹措资金,而是可以各自准备好比特币,通过一次多输入交易直接将货款支付给供应商。链上只记录供应商收到总货款,至于资金来自两家伙伴公司这一事实则隐匿在交易结构中。这种操作相当于一种即时合伙:双方在支付瞬间形成合作,在支付完成后合作关系即告终结,无需持续的法律实体。这对于一次性项目或临时联盟尤其方便,节省了大量传统金融流程(开设账户、签署联名协议等)。同时,由于比特币交易天然跨境,这笔合伙支付可以绕开繁琐的国际汇款手续,在分钟级别完成结算。
当然,要使此应用合规落地,需要满足若干前提:首先,双方合作伙伴彼此必须信任并有清晰的合同约定,否则仅靠技术协作支付无法确保权益。例如,他们应签署一份协议注明各自出资比例和采购份额,以防日后纠纷。其次,在财务上,每一方仍应登记自己支付了多少款项给供应商,以便审计和税务申报。这一点通过比特币钱包记录和双方对账单据可以解决。再次,供应商若受到监管(如大宗贸易需要申报资金来源),则需在合同中注明货款由两家共同支付,比特币交易哈希作为支付凭证,辅以两家公司声明各自支付了多少。这样,监管方即使在链上看不出细节,也能通过合同资料了解实情。最后,参与各方应确保符合反洗钱要求:如交易金额巨大,需要提前告知银行/监管(因为法定货币转换为比特币的过程可能涉及银行),并确保合作伙伴和供应商都不是制裁或黑名单对象。
在上述框架内,这种无需公司载体的合伙支付完全可以合法合规地运作。它带来的创新性在于降低了商务协作的门槛和提高资金周转效率。例如,中小企业联盟可以临时抱团采购获得批发折扣,用联合支付的方式完成结算,然后各自获得自己的货物份额,无需成立繁杂的联营公司。又比如,多位国际投资人可通过CoinJoin把资金汇聚支付给一个项目发起人,以换取相应代币或股权份额,过程中保护了各自的隐私(外界只能看到项目方收到总款项)——前提是项目合法且投资人信息项目方已经KYC掌握。在香港等金融中心,这类合伙支付概念若能成熟,或许会出现在沙盒测试中:监管机构可以指定一些低风险场景,让持牌机构尝试使用比特币的PayJoin技术为客户提供多人支付服务,观察其运作和风险点。在英国,开放式银行业务的推进下,不排除未来有传统银行与比特币技术公司合作,开发出“Consortium Pay”产品,允许多个企业客户共同发起一个链上支付给供应商,银行在后台负责协调并确保AML合规。而美国作为最大的资本市场,也有可能在明确监管框架后,允许受监管的金融科技公司提供此类合伙支付解决方案,服务于例如私募基金多LP联合出资投资等场景。
需要强调的是,此类应用设想应避免过度理想化。在现实推进中,监管者会审慎评估风险,不会因技术便利而放松对洗钱等的警惕。因此,上述创新更可能一步步渐进实现:先在小额、低风险场景测试,再扩展到更广泛用途。同时,行业需要建立配套的透明机制(如自愿的交易附言备注或链下报告)以令监管安心。例如,几个公司通过合伙支付完成交易后,可以向监管机构备案相关交易哈希和各自出资比例,以取得信任豁免监控的待遇。这类似于今天银行报告大额交易,但具体用途保留商业机密。总之,比特币协议赋予了支付组织形式的灵活性,如何将其用于合规且创造价值的领域,将取决于监管开放态度和从业者的创造力。
8. 结语
综上所述,比特币通过协议机制实现隐私的探索,体现出鲜明的“保守派的创新”特征:它尊重金融领域反洗钱等制度的底线,在此范围内巧妙地寻求隐私与合规的平衡。从UTXO模型的选择,到后来发展的CoinJoin、闪电网络、PayJoin等技术,比特币生态并未一味追求匿名至上的乌托邦,而是尝试在现行法律框架内改善用户隐私体验。UTXO让比特币天然具备类似现金的去名属性,但公开链上记录又确保了交易透明度的基本盘,不至于成为无法监管的黑箱en.bitcoin.it。CoinJoin进一步为自愿的用户群提供了混合匿名环境,同时行业自律和执法打击并行,防止其成为洗钱温床cointelegraph.comfincen.gov。闪电网络则以链下通道降低了小额交易的可追踪性,却仍需通过进出节点受控来维护法规所需的监测点cointelegraph.com。PayJoin更是在日常支付场景中证明,提升隐私不一定以损害合规为代价——两方协作即可隐藏交易图谱,同时交易实质一目了然,无损任何一方的审计责任bitcoinops.orgen.bitcoin.it。这些创新无不遵循渐进改良的路径:它们没有推倒重来地另起一套隐匿系统,而是构建在比特币原有规则之上,通过开放社区的BIP提案机制取得共识,再由市场自发采用。这种稳健的演进保证了社会制度与技术创新的同步适应:当新隐私工具出现时,监管社区也在学习调整,从而在动态博弈中找到了新的平衡点。
对于香港、英国、美国等奉行普通法和重视金融监管的司法区而言,比特币的这一发展路径提供了宝贵的参考。一方面,各国监管者日益认识到,加密技术带来的金融创新并非洪水猛兽,其间蕴含着优化效率和用户权益的新机会。正如FATF提出的,要在鼓励负责任创新的同时管控风险siis.org.cn。比特币的隐私机制若被正确运用,能够保护公民金融隐私权、增强货币可替代性、减少不必要的集中过问,这是与民主法治社会价值相契合的目标。另一方面,实践也证明,通过强有力的监管措施,完全可以将不法分子的滥用遏制在可控范围。链上数据的公开性加上新的分析工具,使执法部门即便在出现混淆技术时,仍能抽丝剥茧地追查重大神秘案件time.com。据Chainalysis等机构统计,近年来加密货币交易中涉非法用途的比例已降至不足0.2%这样的历史低位cointelegraph.com。这表明隐私增强技术的出现并未导致洗钱犯罪失控,相反,隐私与合规正逐步实现良性共存:守法大众享有更安全的个人金融空间,犯罪分子依然难逃法网。商业银行运营总监作为合规体系的重要一环,应当拥抱这种变化,深入理解比特币协议层隐私机制的原理和合规要点。在确保自身机构严格遵守KYC/AML要求的前提下,也可以考虑利用比特币的这些特性开发新业务、服务客户需求。毕竟,隐私保护和反洗钱并非零和博弈——正如比特币生态所展示的,技术创新完全可以服务于保护个人合法权益与维护金融秩序这两大目标的平衡统一。比特币协议层面“保守而创新”的实践,正在为新金融时代如何兼顾自由与安全提供启发,其经验值得我们持续关注和借鉴。
参考资料:
-
Nervos, “UTXO 模型 vs. 账户模型” (2023)nervos.orgnervos.org
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Bitcoin Optech, “Payjoin”bitcoinops.org
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Bitcoin Wiki, “PayJoin”en.bitcoin.it
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Bitcoin Wiki, “CoinJoin”en.bitcoin.iten.bitcoin.it
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Cointelegraph, “No crypto for criminals: CoinJoin BTC mixing tool to block illicit transactions” (2022)cointelegraph.comcointelegraph.com
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FinCEN, “第一起比特币混币服务违反反洗钱法遭处罚”新闻稿 (2020)fincen.govfincen.gov
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Clifford Chance, “FinCEN拟将混币交易列为主要洗钱顾虑” (2023)cliffordchance.com
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TIME, “如何追踪Bitfinex被盗比特币” (2022)time.com
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Cointelegraph, “Wallet of Satoshi 美国区下架” (2023)cointelegraph.com
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上海国研院, “美国区块链治理策略” (2023)siis.org.cn
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FATF, “Virtual Assets Red Flag Indicators” (2020)fatf-gafi.org
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Chainalysis, “2021年加密犯罪报告”cointelegraph.com
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@ 3c389c8f:7a2eff7f
2025-06-13 00:13:50Most of my time on Nostr, relays served content simply based on what was requested. Clients mostly requested follow list based content, and often only if the user requested to 'read' from a particular relay. Very simple, though not ideal. Clients that attempted to offer some 'global' or 'universal' feed made it possible to discover some new things but also served spam, redundant bot posts, and even some malicious things that managed to make it through a relay's filters. Paid relays began to gain some ground, with better filters to reduce spam and malicious content, which has helped a lot to clean up these broader feeds that expand beyond the follow-based timeline. Many of the relays hosted redundant content, too, which is important but it's not the only thing that is. The system still left a lot to be desired, particularly for anyone who has understood the potential behind the client-relay set up. Other concerns, like relay centralization through user concentration, still needed to be discussed and addressed.
Despite the voicing of relay diversity advocates, this system seemed to provide most of what people were looking for to replace their typical social media experience. Still, though, reply spam attacks found their way through, as they do. Web-of-Trust relays began to pop up to help mitigate the problem. Using contact lists and extended contact lists as a method of reducing the prevalence of spam has worked really well, but does have it limitations as to how new users can enter into these social graphs, without already knowing someone who is using Nostr. Also not ideal, but it has been a step forward for Nostr's social media use case. Hosted relay services that offered more diverse policy for a relay to operate under finally began to take some hold for those that wanted more choice and control. Still though, potential had barely been breeched.
It might have been before the WoT relay movement, but of nowhere (not really but it kind of seemed like it), a cat relay appeared within the ecosystem. This silly, fun, cute, clever relay collected notes with the #catstr hashtag and used some fancy image analysis stuff (that I can't explain) to collect notes and images of nothing but cats. Such a simple thing, but that was a catalyst (🥁) moment for Nostr. A relay could do more than just collect notes from following lists?? A couple more iterations of the curated content relay model came to be, driving home the idea that this wasn't some silly pie-in-the-sky concept. It was an aha moment for some, sheer joy for the relay advocates, and a turning point for expanding Nostr beyond the basic social media replacement. Very few client options for simply browsing one relay existed at the time, and while it was novel to see, the rest of the framework to support it was not strong nor very easy to use. Even with this dilemma, the catstr relay set off what has become some of the most interesting and useful innovation that has happened within the Nostr ecosystem since I arrived.
Since then, I have spent a lot of my time on Nostr exploring some of what has been developed on the relay front, experimenting where I have found the opportunity and thinking a lot about where this all could lead. Innovation on both the relay and client sides of Nostr have been expanding, not quite in lockstep, but closely enough that someone like myself can now easily jump onto a client like Jumble.social and get a glimpse into what is happening and get an idea of the potential of what is yet to come. For those working in the relay field, I am sure this feels like one slow moving train. For a client developer, it probably feels a little overwhelming to shift an entire model away from what has worked for something that will work better. As a less-than-technical user who is mostly disconnected from any major development, it's exciting. Relay diversity brings actual utility to Nostr. It also brings the assurances that Nostr offers, which whether we have been subjugated to these problems before or not, it is the main reason why Nostr exists and why we are here using it now.
For most anyone reading this, it probably sounds like some weird, unnecessary history lesson. This is actually one long introduction into a little mini-series of relay recaps though.... I was wondering what I would write about next, and this is it. I may just be a user but I'm an adventurous one and I pay attention, so I'm excited to share some of my thoughts, experiences, and observations over the coming weeks... because exciting isn't a strong enough word for the what I see as possible. :)
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:22:50- AlternativeUnlockXposed - Unlock your Android phone with an alternative PIN (Xposed)
- Android Auto - XLauncher Unlocked - Custom Android Auto launcher, unleash your AA app, unlock more features!
- AntiBrightnessChange - Prevent selected apps from overwriting the screen brightness.
- AnyWebView - Any WebView is OK!
- App Settings Reborn - app specific settings & permissions
- Automatic Advanced Settings Expander - Automatically expands the advanced settings in the Settings app
- Better Bluetooth device sort - Sort Bluetooth devices by name
- Better Verbose Wi-Fi Logging - Makes the verbose Wi-Fi information more readable
- Biometric Bypass - Xposed module to fast-forward face unlock
- CaptureSposed - Xposed module to disable the screenshot detection API introduced in Android 14
- ChromeXt - UserScripts and Dev Tools support for Android Chrome
- Cirno - app freezer to make background apps completely free of CPU resources
- Classic Power Menu - Power Menu Replacement
- CustoMIUIzer14 - Xposed module that provides additional functionality for your MIUI device.
- Digitales Amt Liberator - removes root and bootloader checks from the Digitales Amt app
- Disable Target API Block - Xposed module for disabling Android 14's installation block for old apps
- ExtClipboardManager - An Extended Clipboard Manager
- FakeGapps - Signature spoofing for MicroG as an Xposed module
- Force Dark - Override force-dark for apps in module scope
- Free Notifications - Enable customization for all Notification Channels again
- Global Icon Pack - An Xposed module for applying icon packs globally
- KnoxPatch - get Samsung apps/features working again in your rooted Galaxy device
- Location Indicator Whitelist - prevent apps from spamming the annoying location notification dot on Android 12+
- LSPatch - a non-root Xposed framework extending from LSPosed
- NFCGate - NFC relay application for Android
- NoStorageRestrict - Remove the restriction when selecting folders through SAF
- NoWakeLock - control Android wakelocks with open source
- Notification Shade Transparency - make elements of Notification Shade transparent
- PhantomProcessesSavior - xposed module to keep Android 12 from killing subprocesses
- Process Hook - Unlock hidden features and options
- Reset all Notification Channels - Reset all Notification Channels: vibrations, ringtones, importance etc.
- RotationControl - This will force full sensor rotation on selected packages.
- XLogcatManager - improve LogcatManager added in Android 13 using Xposed hooks
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:20:37- BeauTyXT - A beautiful, private, secure, and minimalistic Text, Markdown, and Typst editor.
- Butterfly Nightly - Powerful, minimalistic, cross-platform, opensource note-taking app
- Clay Tablet - Clay Tablet is a simple and intuitive Android app for cuneiform practice.
- Daily Diary - A diary that starts with a blank page every day
- Daily You - Every day is worth remembering...
- Emotic - Reignite the love for emoticons
- Fitness Calendar - A private and fully offline activity tracker.
- Fossify Notes - To do list widget with a notebook organizer, checklist, simple shopping list
- GitNote - Take note, using a git backend
- Grit - A ToDo List and Habit Tracker app that helps you visualise your progress
- Guileless Bopomofo Keyboard - A simple Bopomofo software keyboard (input method editor) for typing Hanyu
- HabsGleich - HabsGleich is a mini diary with a mind test included.
- Hammer - A simple tool for building stories.
- IdeaMemo - A quick record and beautiful memo app
- Joplin - a note taking and to-do app with sync between Linux, macOS, Windows, and mobile
- Jtx Board - Keep track of journals, notes & tasks - iCalendar compliant and syncable with yo
- JustNotes - a light notes app with Material You
- LabLog - A digital lab notebook with automatic timestamping
- LaundryNotes - Store washing information and symbols for all fabrics, making laundry easier!
- Markor - Text editor - Notes & ToDo. Lightweight. Markdown and todo.txt support.
- Memento - A simple note taking app.
- My Brain - All in one app for Tasks, Notes, Events and more
- Neon - Scrolling text on fullscreen like boarding
- NeutriNote CE - A hub of written thoughts in fast searchable plain text
- Notally - A simple and elegant open source notes app
- NotallyX - Note taking app with minimalistic design
- NotePad - Make notes
- NotesMaster - Notes app for Android
- Notesnook - Private notes app - A fully open source & end-to-end encrypted note taking app
- Nothing Notes - Nothing Notes is a Nothing themed notes app
- ntodotxt - Managing your todos within a todo.txt file locally or via webdav
- ONLYOFFICE Documents - ONLYOFFICE Documents is a free app for working with office documents
- Open Note - A powerful Markdown notepad specially built for Android users.
- Orgzly Revived - Outliner for taking notes and managing to-do lists
- Page - The simplest note taking app.
- Print(Notes) - A cross-platform markdown notes app inspired by Google Keep and Obsidian
- PTO - Plaintext Organizer - Stay organized with one plaintext file per day.
- Quillpad - Markdown notes, task lists, Nextcloud sync and more. A fork of the Quillnote app
- QuickMDCapture - quickly create notes in Markdown format
- RidgeScout - A fully featured FRC scouting & data analytics tool
- Saber - The notes app built for handwriting
- Simple Keyboard - Simply keyboard and nothing more
- SimpleTextEditor - Simple Text Editor
- Standard Notes - An end-to-end encrypted note-taking app for digitalists and professionals
- Stride - Task management tool that synchronizes with git.
- StyncyNotes - Sticky Notes app for Android that understands the linuxmint/sticky note file for
- Tasks.org: Open-source To-Do Lists & Reminders - Fork of Astrid Tasks & To-Do List
- Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox - Thunderbird is a 100% open source, privacy focused email app.
- To Do - Create checklists
- Todo - Offline, secure, To-Do app with encrypted storage, fingerprint lock
- Traditional T9 - A T9 keyboard for Android devices with a hardware keypad.
- Traced it - Quick notes with time & amounts
- TriliumDroid - Cross-platform hierarchical note taking app, for large personal knowledge bases
- Trime - Chinese IME with Rime Input Method Engine
- Unexpected Keyboard - A lightweight virtual keyboard for developers.
- WordPress - Website Builder - WordPress for Android website creator and editor for your blog.
- Xed Editor - Advanced Text Editor for Android
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@ dfa02707:41ca50e3
2025-06-13 06:01:54Good morning (good night?)! The No Bullshit Bitcoin news feed is now available on Moody's Dashboard! A huge shoutout to sir Clark Moody for integrating our feed.
Headlines
- Spiral welcomes Ben Carman. The developer will work on the LDK server and a new SDK designed to simplify the onboarding process for new self-custodial Bitcoin users.
- The Bitcoin Dev Kit Foundation announced new corporate members for 2025, including AnchorWatch, CleanSpark, and Proton Foundation. The annual dues from these corporate members fund the small team of open-source developers responsible for maintaining the core BDK libraries and related free and open-source software (FOSS) projects.
- Strategy increases Bitcoin holdings to 538,200 BTC. In the latest purchase, the company has spent more than $555M to buy 6,556 coins through proceeds of two at-the-market stock offering programs.
- Spar supermarket experiments with Bitcoin payments in Zug, Switzerland. The store has introduced a new payment method powered by the Lightning Network. The implementation was facilitated by DFX Swiss, a service that supports seamless conversions between bitcoin and legacy currencies.
- The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) wants to contain 'crypto' risks. A report titled "Cryptocurrencies and Decentralised Finance: Functions and Financial Stability Implications" calls for expanding research into "how new forms of central bank money, capital controls, and taxation policies can counter the risks of widespread crypto adoption while still fostering technological innovation."
- "Global Implications of Scam Centres, Underground Banking, and Illicit Online Marketplaces in Southeast Asia." According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, criminal organizations from East and Southeast Asia are swiftly extending their global reach. These groups are moving beyond traditional scams and trafficking, creating sophisticated online networks that include unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges, encrypted communication platforms, and stablecoins, fueling a massive fraud economy on an industrial scale.
- Slovenia is considering a 25% capital gains tax on Bitcoin profits for individuals. The Ministry of Finance has proposed legislation to impose this tax on gains from cryptocurrency transactions, though exchanging one cryptocurrency for another would remain exempt. At present, individual 'crypto' traders in Slovenia are not taxed.
- Circle, BitGo, Coinbase, and Paxos plan to apply for U.S. bank charters or licenses. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, major crypto companies are planning to apply for U.S. bank charters or licenses. These firms are pursuing limited licenses that would permit them to issue stablecoins, as the U.S. Congress deliberates on legislation mandating licensing for stablecoin issuers.
"Established banks, like Bank of America, are hoping to amend the current drafts of [stablecoin] legislation in such a way that nonbanks are more heavily restricted from issuing stablecoins," people familiar with the matter told The Block.
- Charles Schwab to launch spot Bitcoin trading by 2026. The financial investment firm, managing over $10 trillion in assets, has revealed plans to introduce spot Bitcoin trading for its clients within the next year.
Use the tools
- Bitcoin Safe v1.2.3 expands QR SignMessage compatibility for all QR-UR-compatible hardware signers (SpecterDIY, KeyStone, Passport, Jade; already supported COLDCARD Q). It also adds the ability to import wallets via QR, ensuring compatibility with Keystone's latest firmware (2.0.6), alongside other improvements.
- Minibits v0.2.2-beta, an ecash wallet for Android devices, packages many changes to align the project with the planned iOS app release. New features and improvements include the ability to lock ecash to a receiver's pubkey, faster confirmations of ecash minting and payments thanks to WebSockets, UI-related fixes, and more.
- Zeus v0.11.0-alpha1 introduces Cashu wallets tied to embedded LND wallets. Navigate to Settings > Ecash to enable it. Other wallet types can still sweep funds from Cashu tokens. Zeus Pay now supports Cashu address types in Zaplocker, Cashu, and NWC modes.
- LNDg v1.10.0, an advanced web interface designed for analyzing Lightning Network Daemon (LND) data and automating node management tasks, introduces performance improvements, adds a new metrics page for unprofitable and stuck channels, and displays warnings for batch openings. The Profit and Loss Chart has been updated to include on-chain costs. Advanced settings have been added for users who would like their channel database size to be read remotely (the default remains local). Additionally, the AutoFees tool now uses aggregated pubkey metrics for multiple channels with the same peer.
- Nunchuk Desktop v1.9.45 release brings the latest bug fixes and improvements.
- Blockstream Green iOS v4.1.8 has renamed L-BTC to LBTC, and improves translations of notifications, login time, and background payments.
- Blockstream Green Android v4.1.8 has added language preference in App Settings and enables an Android data backup option for disaster recovery. Additionally, it fixes issues with Jade entry point PIN timeout and Trezor passphrase input.
- Torq v2.2.2, an advanced Lightning node management software designed to handle large nodes with over 1000 channels, fixes bugs that caused channel balance to not be updated in some cases and channel "peer total local balance" not getting updated.
- Stack Wallet v2.1.12, a multicoin wallet by Cypher Stack, fixes an issue with Xelis introduced in the latest release for Windows.
- ESP-Miner-NerdQAxePlus v1.0.29.1, a forked version from the NerdAxe miner that was modified for use on the NerdQAxe+, is now available.
- Zark enables sending sats to an npub using Bark.
- Erk is a novel variation of the Ark protocol that completely removes the need for user interactivity in rounds, addressing one of Ark's key limitations: the requirement for users to come online before their VTXOs expire.
- Aegis v0.1.1 is now available. It is a Nostr event signer app for iOS devices.
- Nostash is a NIP-07 Nostr signing extension for Safari. It is a fork of Nostore and is maintained by Terry Yiu. Available on iOS TestFlight.
- Amber v3.2.8, a Nostr event signer for Android, delivers the latest fixes and improvements.
- Nostur v1.20.0, a Nostr client for iOS, adds
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@ 502ab02a:a2860397
2025-06-13 02:43:50หลังเสียงระเบิดลูกสุดท้ายของสงครามโลกครั้งที่สองเงียบลง สิ่งที่ยังดังต่อไปในบ้านอเมริกันทุกเช้าคือเสียงโฆษณาจากวิทยุที่เตือนว่า “อย่าลืมกินมื้อเช้านะ เพราะมันคือมื้อที่สำคัญที่สุดของวัน” วาทกรรมนี้ไม่ได้หล่นมาจากปากหมอ หรือคำสอนพระ แต่มันลอยออกมาจากกล่องซีเรียลแบรนด์หนึ่งที่ชื่อว่า Grape-Nuts ซึ่งผลิตโดยบริษัท General Foods ที่ตอนนั้นกำลังครองพื้นที่โต๊ะอาหารเช้าทั่วประเทศ
Grape-Nuts เกิดขึ้นมาตั้งแต่ปี 1897 โดยชายชื่อ Charles William Post หรือ C.W. Post ชายหนุ่มที่เคยเข้ารับการรักษาตัวที่ Battle Creek Sanitarium ของหมอ John Harvey Kellogg ผู้คลั่งไคล้ในสุขภาพและการละราคะด้วยการกินคลีนแบบไม่กินเนื้อสัตว์ ที่นั่นเองที่ Post ได้แรงบันดาลใจจากอาหารสำหรับผู้ป่วยที่หมอ Kellogg คิดค้นขึ้น และพอกลับบ้าน เขาก็ลุกขึ้นมาสร้างแบรนด์ซีเรียลของตัวเองในชื่อ Grape-Nuts โดยเน้นเรื่องไฟเบอร์ การย่อย และสุขภาพล้วนๆ
ชื่อ “Grape-Nuts” ฟังแล้วงงใช่มั้ย เฮียจะเล่าให้ฟัง คือเจ้านี่มันไม่มีองุ่น ไม่มีถั่ว แต่ Post บอกว่าซีเรียลของเขาหวานธรรมชาติเหมือนองุ่น และเวลาย่อยจะเกิดสารที่เขาเรียกว่า grape sugar ก็เลยตั้งชื่อว่าประมาณ “ถั่วแห่งองุ่น” ฟังดูเฮลตี้แบบมีความรู้แต่จริงๆ คือชื่อทางการตลาดล้วนๆ ที่หวังจะสร้างจินตภาพใหม่ให้อาหารเช้าแบบแห้งๆ
หลังจากนั้นธุรกิจของเขาก็โตเอาโตเอา กลายเป็น Postum Cereal Company และค่อยๆ เข้าซื้อกิจการของบริษัทอาหารอื่นๆ จนปี 1929 เปลี่ยนชื่อเป็น General Foods Corporation กลายเป็นบริษัทยักษ์ใหญ่ที่ถือครองแบรนด์ดังมากมาย ไม่ว่าจะเป็น Jell-O, Maxwell House, Birds Eye, Log Cabin เรียกว่าครอบคลุมทั้งอาหารแห้ง อาหารสด ของหวาน และเครื่องดื่ม
พอเข้าสู่ยุคสงครามโลกครั้งที่สอง ประเทศสหรัฐฯ ต้องการทุกแรงงาน ทุกมือ และทุกสมองมาช่วยกันเดินหน้าเครื่องจักรสงคราม รัฐบาลประกาศให้การผลิตกลายเป็นภารกิจแห่งชาติ บริษัทใหญ่ๆ ก็เลยรีบเสนอหน้ามาเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของความรักชาติ General Foods ก็ไม่พลาด พวกเขาเปิดแคมเปญผ่านแบรนด์ Grape-Nuts ว่า “Eat a Good Breakfast – Do a Better Job” หรือ “กินมื้อเช้าให้ดี ทำงานให้เยี่ยม” พร้อมประโยคที่กลายเป็นคำขวัญติดหัวคนทั้งประเทศว่า “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”
พวกเขาไม่ได้บอกว่า “กินของเราแล้วดี” แต่ใช้เทคนิคย้อนศร บอกว่า “ไม่กินมื้อเช้า...ระวังสุขภาพแย่นะ” แล้วค่อยสอดแทรกว่าอาหารเช้าที่เหมาะสม ควรจะเป็นสิ่งที่เทนมใส่แล้วกินได้ใน 2 นาที—นั่นแหละ Grape-Nuts เอง
วาทกรรมนี้ถูกส่งผ่านรายการวิทยุ หนังสือพิมพ์ และโฆษณาทุกแบบที่มีในตอนนั้น โดยอ้างว่า “ผู้เชี่ยวชาญด้านโภชนาการกล่าวไว้” ซึ่งตอนนั้นยังไม่มีแหล่งอ้างอิงแน่นอนว่าใครคือผู้เชี่ยวชาญคนนั้น แต่ก็ไม่มีใครกล้าค้าน เพราะมันฟังดูถูกต้องและน่าเชื่ออย่างประหลาด
ผลที่ตามมาคืออะไร? คนเริ่มเปลี่ยนวิธีคิดเรื่องอาหารเช้า จากเมื่อก่อนที่มื้อแรกของวันอาจเป็นแค่ขนมปังจิ้มไข่ลวก กากหมูกับข้าว หรือแม้แต่มันต้มจิ้มน้ำปลา กลายเป็นการเทซีเรียลใส่นมเย็น หวานกรุบกรอบทุกคำ และรู้สึกดีเหมือนได้ทำหน้าที่พลเมืองที่ดีไปในตัว เพราะได้รีบออกไปทำงาน
เบื้องหลังของวาทกรรมนี้จริงๆ แล้วคือการต่อยอดกำไรอย่างชาญฉลาดของบริษัทอาหารที่ต้องการเปลี่ยนพฤติกรรมการกินของทั้งประเทศให้หมุนรอบสินค้าในมือของตัวเอง โดยเฉพาะ Grape-Nuts ซึ่งเป็นผลิตภัณฑ์แห้ง เก็บได้นาน ผลิตได้เร็ว และใช้ทรัพยากรน้อยกว่าการปรุงอาหารสดๆ ที่เคยนิยมกันมาแต่ก่อน
กลยุทธ์แบบนี้ฉลาดมาก เพราะมันไม่ได้ขายของโดยตรง แต่มันขาย “แนวคิด” ก่อน แล้วค่อยผูกของเข้ากับแนวคิดนั้นทีหลัง และคนก็เชื่อง่าย เพราะยุคนั้นกำลังหิวหาความมั่นคงทั้งกายและใจหลังเพิ่งผ่านความโกลาหลของสงครามมาหมาด ๆ
แน่นอนว่า General Foods ไม่ได้ทำเรื่องนี้คนเดียว แต่พวกเขาคือเจ้าที่ “เริ่มต้นก่อน” และใช้พลังของสงครามเป็นแรงส่งทางวัฒนธรรม จากจุดเล็กๆ บนกล่องซีเรียล กลายเป็นคำขวัญที่ครูสอนในโรงเรียน พ่อแม่พูดกับลูก และโฆษณาพูดกับคนทั้งประเทศ
แคมเปญประสบความสำเร็จมากถึงขั้นที่บริษัทโฆษณานำไปรีไซเคิลซ้ำให้แบรนด์อื่น เช่น Kellogg’s, Post และ Quaker จนทุกกล่องซีเรียลในซูเปอร์มาร์เก็ตพูดประโยคเดียวกันโดยไม่ต้องนัดหมาย มันกลายเป็นวาทกรรมฝังหัวคนไปแบบเนียน ๆ ว่า ถ้าไม่กินมื้อเช้า จะโฟกัสงานไม่ได้ จะเรียนไม่รู้เรื่อง จะหงุดหงิดง่าย แล้วก็...จะดูเหมือนไม่รักตัวเอง
สิ่งที่เกิดขึ้นในยุคนั้นไม่ใช่แค่การตลาด แต่มันคือ “การสร้างความหมายใหม่ให้มื้อเช้า” จากเดิมที่แต่ละบ้านมีวิธีของตัวเอง ก็กลายเป็นการกำหนดสูตรสำเร็จที่มาพร้อมภาพเด็กยิ้ม คนสุขภาพดี และคุณแม่ที่เตรียมโต๊ะให้พร้อมก่อนลูกจะตื่น
นักข่าวจาก The Guardian เคยเขียนไว้อย่างแสบ ๆ ว่า นี่ไม่ใช่แค่แผนการขายของ แต่มันคือ “moralizing through breakfast” หรือการใส่ศีลธรรมลงไปในอาหารเช้า ถ้าไม่กิน ก็เหมือนคนไม่มีวินัย ถ้ากิน ก็เหมือนได้รับการยอมรับ เป็นผู้ใหญ่ที่ดี ดูแลตัวเองได้
ตรงนี้แหละที่น่าสนใจ เพราะมันย้อนกลับไปถึงรากความคิดของหมอ John Harvey Kellogg เมื่อหลายสิบปีก่อน ที่มองว่าอาหารควรถูกออกแบบเพื่อควบคุมจิตใจมนุษย์ให้อยู่ในกรอบศีลธรรม เขาอาจไม่ได้อยากทำการตลาด แต่สุดท้ายบรรษัทใหญ่กลับนำอุดมการณ์นั้นมารีแพ็คในเวอร์ชันที่ขายได้จริง
หลังจากนั้น วัฒนธรรมมื้อเช้าแบบอุตสาหกรรมก็ฝังรากแน่นยิ่งขึ้นในสังคมตะวันตก โดยเฉพาะเมื่อตลาดเริ่มเจาะไปที่เด็ก ๆ ด้วยการ์ตูนมาสคอต ของเล่นในกล่อง และสีสันสดใสที่ล่อตาล่อใจ ในขณะที่เนื้อในกล่องก็เต็มไปด้วยน้ำตาล แป้ง และบางครั้งก็สารเติมแต่งที่ไม่ต่างจากขนมหวาน
น่าสนใจว่าตลอดยุคหลังจากนั้น จนถึงปัจจุบัน คำว่า “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” ยังถูกใช้ซ้ำโดยแบรนด์อาหารเช้าหลายเจ้าทั่วโลก ทั้งที่ความจริงในทางวิทยาศาสตร์ใหม่ๆ เริ่มตั้งคำถามกับคำกล่าวนี้แล้วว่า จริงหรือ? หรือแค่ “ขายของเก่ง” กันแน่
นักโภชนาการอิสระเริ่มออกมาเปิดโปงว่า คำกล่าวที่ว่า “อาหารเช้าสำคัญที่สุดของวัน” ไม่มีงานวิจัยที่รองรับอย่างชัดเจน มันเป็นเพียงคำที่ถูกทำซ้ำโดยบริษัทที่มีผลประโยชน์เต็มเปา รายงานจาก Livestrong, Reddit Skeptics และหลายแหล่งสรุปตรงกันว่า ประโยคนั้นไม่ได้มาจากแพทย์ แต่มาจากห้องประชุมโฆษณา
แต่ถึงจะรู้แล้วว่าถูกหลอก คนจำนวนมากก็ยังเชื่ออยู่ดี เพราะมันไม่ใช่แค่ข้อมูล แต่มันกลายเป็น ความทรงจำร่วมของทั้งสังคม ไปแล้ว ทุกวันนี้แม้จะมีการศึกษามากมายในเรื่องของมื้ออาหาร แต่อาหารมื้อเช้าก็ยังคงเป็นสิ่งที่ "แตะต้องไม่ได้" ยังคงถูกมองว่าใครไม่กินอาหารเช้าจะโง่
เฮียว่าการตลาดที่แนบเนียนที่สุด ไม่ใช่การเปลี่ยนความคิดคน แต่คือการทำให้คน “จำไม่ได้ว่าความคิดนั้นมาจากไหน” แล้วเผลอเชื่อไปเองว่ามันคือความจริงแต่กำเนิด
เมื่อเฮียมองย้อนกลับไป ก็เห็นชัดเลยว่าอาหารเช้าของเราถูกนิยามใหม่โดยกล่องกระดาษที่ข้างในกรอบแต่ข้างนอกหวานลวง เป็นทั้งของกิน และของหลอกในเวลาเดียวกัน
ทุกวันนี้ เราอาจยังเห็นโฆษณาที่บอกว่า “อาหารเช้าคือเชื้อเพลิงของวัน” หรือ “อย่าออกจากบ้านโดยไม่กินอะไรเลย” แล้วยังเห็นบางโฆษณาบอกว่า "การตากแดดคือการก่อโรคมะเร็งผิวหนัง"
ทั้งที่ความจริงบางทีมื้อเช้าที่ดีที่สุด ก็อาจไม่ต้องอยู่ในกล่องซีเรียล หรือจานขนมปังปิ้ง แต่มันอาจเป็นช่วงเช้าที่เรารู้สึกว่า...วันนี้เราควบคุมชีวิตตัวเองได้อีกวัน ไม่ต้องถูกควบคุมด้วยอำนาจที่มองไม่เห็นใดๆต่างหาก #pirateketo #กูต้องรู้มั๊ย #ม้วนหางสิลูก #siamstr
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@ a88f35c7:7b121d83
2025-06-13 05:53:22Aunque a primera vista no lo parezca, el mundo digital en el que operan muchas empresas hoy en día no es tan diferente del mundo físico. De hecho, es común establecer analogías con la era medieval (términos como Bastion Host, Castle and Moat, Gatekeepers y Watchtower reflejan esta comparación) y quienes trabajamos en ciberseguridad estamos acostumbrados su uso. Sin embargo, hoy quiero abordar la seguridad digital desde una perspectiva evolutiva y haciendo una analogía con el contexto de la economía primaria, ya que la lectura de la tesis “Softwar: A Novel Theory on Power Projection and the National Strategic Significance of Bitcoin”, de Jason Paul Lowery, me ha llevado a reflexionar sobre este tema.
Para profundizar en esta analogía, propongo una relación simple: todos los actores que habitan el mundo digital (empresas, proveedores de servicios, actores malintencionados, usuarios, etc.) se consideraran organismos biologicos vivos que coexisten en un entorno hostil y compiten por los recursos disponibles en él.
Relación beneficio-costo del ataque (RBC).
Cada organismo biológico puede describirse como una fuente rica en nutrientes y un depósito de recursos valiosos. En la imagen de arriba, he intentado representar (disculpad si no lo he logrado completamente) un organismo unicelular con un núcleo (el tesoro) y una membrana que lo protege de las bacterias de alrededor.
En un escenario como este, es lógico pensar que la mayoría de estos organismos se convierten en un objetivo atractivo, una presa, para otros seres vivos diseñados por la evolución para capturar y explotar dichos recursos por la fuerza.
En consecuencia, un organismo incapaz de proteger su tesoro (ya sea por debilidad o ineficacia) se convierte en un caramelo en la puerta de un colegio: un cartel de neón irresistible para las formas de vida circundantes, que no dudarán en devorarlo.
Nota: Mientras escribía esto, no pude evitar pensar en el mundo digital y en todos esos sistemas con puertos abiertos expuestos en Shodan.
Pues bien, se puede definir la relación de beneficio-costo del ataque como:
RBC = BA/CA
Donde:
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BA representa la función de la abundancia de recursos de un organismo (su “tesoro”). Los organismos con una gran cantidad de recursos valiosos tienen un BA alto, mientras que aquellos con menos recursos valiosos presentan un BA más bajo.
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CA mide la capacidad y disposición de un organismo para imponer costos físicos severos a sus atacantes. Los organismos que pueden y están dispuestos a infligir daños físicos significativos a sus vecinos tienen un CA alto. En contraste, aquellos que carecen de dicha capacidad o no están dispuestos a ejercerla tienen un CA bajo.
Si la relación anterior ha quedado clara, resulta evidente que los organismos con una RBC más alta son más vulnerables al ataque que aquellos con una RBC más baja, ya que representan un mayor retorno de inversión para los vecinos hambrientos que buscan devorarlos.
Por esta razón, los organismos tienen la necesidad existencial de reducir su RBC tanto como sea posible, lo que los impulsa a aumentar su capacidad y disposición para imponer costos físicos significativos a sus atacantes. Por el contrario, un organismo no puede simplemente dedicar todo su tiempo y energía a acumular recursos y esperar prosperar a largo plazo, ya que esto incrementaría su RBC, poniendo en riesgo su supervivencia.
A modo conclusión, se podría decir que, para sobrevivir a largo plazo, los organismos deben gestionar ambos lados de la relación RBC para evitar que este ratio aumente hasta niveles peligrosos. Esto se puede hacer de la siguiente forma:
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Optar por reducir su numerador (reducir su "tesoro").
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Aumentar su denominador (imponer costos físicos significativos a sus atacantes).
En la naturaleza, podríamos decir que reducir la abundancia de recursos no es una solución demasiado ideal para los organismos que buscan crecer, por lo que aumentar su CA es la opción más recomendable.
Una analogía útil para explicar el RBC es la situación en la que un ladrón debe decidir qué apartamento robar. Antes de actuar, inspecciona dos puertas en el mismo piso: una a la izquierda, de madera y visiblemente desgastada, y otra a la derecha, blindada y equipada con múltiples cerrojos.
Es probable que el ladrón asuma que el “tesoro” detrás de la puerta blindada es más valioso. Sin embargo, los altos costos del ataque (mayor tiempo, esfuerzo y riesgo) disuadirán a muchos ladrones que no estén preparados para asumir ese desafío. Así, la relación entre recompensa y costo de ataque influye en la decisión, reflejando el principio del RBC en la naturaleza.
Margen de prosperidad.
Retomando la idea de la “economía de la evolución” y la difícil tarea de sobrevivir, es importante recordar que, como hemos visto antes, cualquier organismo debe mantener su nivel de RBC lo más bajo posible. Pero, ¿cuán bajo exactamente?
La clave está en mantenerlo por debajo del umbral crítico que determine si un ataque resulta rentable o no para un posible depredador o competidor. Si el RBC es demasiado alto, el organismo se convierte en un objetivo atractivo; si es lo suficientemente bajo, los costos de atacarlo superan los beneficios, disuadiendo a la mayoría de los agresores. Según Lowery, la diferencia entre el nivel de RBC de un organismo y el umbral peligroso puede definirse como su margen de prosperidad. En otras palabras, este margen representa cuánto puede permitirse un organismo aumentar su RBC antes de volverse un objetivo viable para el ataque. Mantener un margen de prosperidad amplio es esencial para garantizar estabilidad y minimizar riesgos en un entorno competitivo.
Planteado a alto nivel, podría parecer un problema sencillo de resolver, ya que, en esencia, solo se trata de mantener el RBC por debajo del umbral peligroso mientras se preserva un margen adecuado de prosperidad. Sin embargo (y siempre hay un “pero”), el verdadero desafío radica en que el organismo no puede conocer con precisión dicho umbral, ya que este depende casi por completo de factores externos.
Las variables que determinan el umbral peligroso están condicionadas por el entorno y por la presencia de otros organismos que cohabitan en él. Esto implica que un organismo nunca puede estar completamente seguro de cuánto puede aumentar su RBC antes de atraer la atención de posibles atacantes. Esta incertidumbre introduce un nivel de riesgo que dificulta la optimización de la estrategia de crecimiento y supervivencia.
Supervivencia a largo plazo.
Dado que los organismos no pueden determinar con certeza qué nivel de seguridad es suficiente, la supervivencia se convierte en un proceso de aprendizaje sobre cómo regular el RBC y maximizar el margen de prosperidad tanto como sea posible. En términos generales, un organismo puede seguir tres estrategias:
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Opción 1: Aumentar el BA por encima del CA provocará un crecimiento en el RBC, acercándolo a la zona de peligro, por lo que esta opción queda descartada.
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Opción 2: Aumentar el CA a medida que aumenta el BA, manteniendo el RBC fijo (crecimiento proporcional de los dos valores). Aunque esta estrategia conserva el mismo margen de seguridad, no es una solución sostenible a largo plazo, ya que el entorno se vuelve cada vez más hostil y el nivel de RBC que antes garantizaba la supervivencia puede volverse insuficiente.
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Opción 3: Aumentar el CA más que el BA. En este caso, el margen de prosperidad se amplía porque el RBC disminuye. Esta, según Lowery, es la única estrategia viable para garantizar la supervivencia a largo plazo.
La enseñanza de la evolución en el mundo de la ciberseguridad.
Si aplicamos los principios de la economía primaria al ámbito de la ciberseguridad, es posible extraer algunas enseñanzas valiosas, aunque también es cierto que el mundo digital tiene ciertas excepciones o flexibilidades. A continuación, expondré las conclusiones a las que he llegado tras realizar este ejercicio de análisis.
El Coste de Ataque (CA), que implica imponer costos a los atacantes, no deja de ser una inversión en seguridad a través de herramientas, procesos y revisiones. Como ha demostrado la económica primaria, esta estrategia es clave para garantizar la supervivencia a largo plazo de una empresa ya que hace que los ciberataques sean menos rentables y por lo tanto menos frecuentes. En esta línea y al igual que en la naturaleza, una empresa no puede saber nunca que tan cerca está del umbral del peligro (ya que este depende de factores casi totalmente externos) y por tanto debe esforzarse por maximizar el CA siempre que pueda (esto es invertir en ciberseguridad). Así que ya sabéis, si alguien alguna vez pone en duda las inversiones en ciberseguridad, le podéis decir con total certeza que es economía de supervivencia y es LA ÚNICA FORMA de garantizar la viabilidad de la empresa a largo plazo.
Por otro lado, está el Beneficio de Ataque (BA), el "tesoro" protegido por todos los organismos. Haciendo un paralelismo con el mundo digital, este equivale a los datos e información que almacena una organización. Es natural que, al igual que ocurre en los organismos biológicos, una empresa busque incrementar y proteger este activo.
Todos hemos oído un millón de veces expresiones como "es la era de la información", "los datos son el nuevo petróleo" o "la información es poder", y no dudo de su veracidad. Sin embargo, basándonos en la economía de supervivencia mencionada, hacer crecer el Beneficio de Ataque (BA) puede ser peligroso.
De hecho, hemos comprobado que incrementar el BA por encima del Coste de Ataque (CA) no es una estrategia viable a largo plazo. Pero, como todos sabemos, es complicado convencer al área de negocio de que tal vez (solo tal vez) ciertos datos sensibles no sean realmente necesarios para su almacenamiento en bases de datos. Y que, en caso de que lo sean, su protección mediante cifrado debería ser una prioridad.
Entonces, ¿Es posible reducir el BA?
Llegados a este punto, surge la duda de si, a diferencia del mundo natural, en el mundo digital que hemos construido, es posible reducir el Beneficio de Ataque (BA) sin comprometer la viabilidad de una empresa.
En la naturaleza, la supervivencia depende del crecimiento y la acumulación de recursos, pero en el entorno digital, ¿realmente es necesario almacenar y procesar cada dato disponible? ¿O es posible optimizar y reducir el volumen de datos sensibles sin afectar el negocio? A continuación algunos ejemplos:
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¿Es realmente necesario que tenga que facilitar mi DNI al repartidor de UPS o SEUR?
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¿Es justificable que el Real Decreto 933/2021 obligue a las empresas del sector de hospedaje a almacenar y proporcionar datos sensibles de los viajeros, como el DNI, teléfono fijo y móvil, relación de parentesco entre huéspedes, así como información sobre el pago, incluyendo el tipo de tarjeta, número y fecha de caducidad?
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¿Porque es necesario pasar por un proceso riguroso de KYC para comprar según que activos financieros?
Estoy seguro que cada caso de los anteriores tiene una justificación aunque tampoco tengo ninguna duda de que estas probablemente sean cuestionables desde el punto de vista de la privacidad y protección de datos.
Esta última reflexión me ha llevado a buscar si actualmente existen proyectos y/o estrategias enfocadas en la minimización de datos, con el objetivo de reducir cualquier exposición innecesaria de información personal y he podido comprobar que existen diferentes líneas de trabajo en esta dirección como el sistema Decentralized Identity (DID) o Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP). Estas tecnologías permiten verificar información sin revelar datos personales, lo que indica que ya hay profesionales abordando esta preocupación.
Quizás, cuando estos sistemas estén más consolidados, podamos comprobar si, a diferencia del mundo biológico, el mundo digital permite el crecimiento de un organismo sin tener que aumentar su BA.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:18:26- Analog Clock Widget - Simple analog clock widget
- BetterCounter - A simple, multi-purpose counter app
- Blitz: Fischer chess clock - A minimalist Fischer chess clock for Android
- Break.Down.Timer - A timer with in-between notifications
- Calendar Color - Change the calendar color
- Calendar Import-Export - Import, Export & Backup your calendars using ics files
- Casio G-Shock Smart Sync - Add smart functions to your Casio square BT G-Shock (B5600, B5000, B2100)
- Chrono - A modern and powerful clock, alarms, timer and stopwatch app for Android!
- Clock - alarm, clock, timer and stopwatch
- Clock - an app with timer, stopwatch, sliding clock, and one-time and recurring alarms
- Clock You - Clock and alarms app featuring awesome widgets using Material You
- Compose Stopwatch - Stopwatch in the Material You theme, designed for ease of use and best features
- Daily Screen Time - Track your daily screen time and regain control of your attention
- Doable - Beautiful and easy to use Todo app
- Floating Timer - a countdown timer and stopwatch that will float over other apps
- Fomodoro - a beautifully simple and distraction-free Pomodoro timer
- Fossify Calendar - Securely plan, schedule, and set reminders with our private calendar app
- Fossify Clock - Handy, lightweight, open-source clock app with essential features
- Foto Timer - App that counts, beeps, and helps with repeating tasks, such as at the gym
- Goodtime - Minimalist Pomodoro Timer - Productivity timer designed to keep you on track and free of distractions
- Grazer Linuxtage - Browse the "Grazer Linuxtage" schedule
- Holidayz - Public and Regional Holidays for 100+ Countries
- ICSx⁵ - Subscribe to Webcal (.ics) calendars
- Inner Breeze - Find serenity in every breath with Inner Breeze
- Karui ToDo - a privacy focussed todo list app to quickly jot down things to do
- LunaTracker - LunaTracker is a newborn baby tracking app
- Meditation Timer - App that counts, beeps, and helps with repeating tasks, such as meditation
- MinCal Widget - Minimal Calendar Widget
- OnTime - Presentation timer for speakers at live events
- Persian Calendar - Android Persian Calendar
- Petals - Take control of your weed consumption
- Plees Tracker - Plees Tracker is a simple sleep tracker for your Android phone
- Pomodoro - a very simple and tiny pomodoro timer app for Android 2.3 and later
- PTO - Plaintext Organizer - Stay organized with one plaintext file per day
- QRAlarm - Disable alarms with a QR scanner
- Remind Me! - Set alarms for a specific date in the future (alarm, not a reminder!)
- RomanDigital - Digital Clock App and Widget with Roman Numeral Display
- Self Attendance Tracker - Attendance Tracker for students with focus on UI and usability
- Simple Time Tracker - Track how much time you spend on different activities during the day
- Snaptick - Boost your daily productivity with Snaptick
- Stocks Widget - Stock market ticker widget
- Suntimes - Sunlight and moonlight times (and alarms)
- T CrB Detector - T CrB Detector notifies the user when the star T CrB has exploded
- Timed Silence - Dont let your phone rattle you! - An app that manages your phones volume
- TimeLimit.io - Flexibly limit the usage duration
- To Do - A simple to-do app that follows Material Design 3
- Tranquil Stopwatch - Stopwatch with current time display for long, non-interactive sessions
- Valentin's PowerTools #003 - GDP - Simple android app for displaying pictures for a set amount of time
- Valentin's PowerTools #005 - RSD - Minimalistic Android app for rolling 2 dice
- Valentin's PowerTools #016 - Tomato Potato Clock - Distraction-free pomodoro timer
- Valentin's PowerTools #036 - Ease The Waiting - A mix between a calendar and a clock that makes you wait faster
- VPT#003-GDP - Simple android app for displaying pictures for a set amount of time
- VPT#005-RSD - Minimalistic Android app for rolling 2 dice
- Widget for Trello - Widget for Trello is an android home screen widget
- Working Time Account - Record working hours, generate and send reports (PDF, CSV and ICS)
- World Clock v2 - display the current time and weather for various cities
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@ fa5ea00f:1075fbfe
2025-06-12 23:37:32“Don’t trust, verify”
하루에도 몇번씩 이 문장은 나를 괴롭힌다.
코드를 뜯어보는 데서 출발해, 현대 사회를 주도하는 문화의 의미를 해체하고 살펴보는 것으로 확장할 수 있다고 생각한다. 이것이 이 아티클의 기본 전제다. 비트코이너들은 포스트모더니즘처럼 무작정 해체(deconstruct)하는 것이 아니라, 합리적 회의주의로 접근한다. 그것은 crypto-anarchism과 libertarian futurism의 기반이 됐고, 이제는 비트코인의 핵심 정신으로 자리 잡고 있다. 나도 조금씩 공부하고 있지만, 왜 anarcho-capitalism이 비트코이너들에게 매력적인지 쉽게 알 수 있다. 비트코인은 돈과 정치를 재정의하고 있으며, 가치를 창출하는 개인의 정체성과 행동마저도 다시 정의하고 있기에, 국가의 해체까지 이어지는 것은 어찌 보면 필연적으로 보인다.
그런데 나는 아직도 이해가 안되는 부분이 있다. 바로 종교와 비트코인의 관계다. 평화, 사랑, 정의, 희망 같은 종교의 사상과 비트코인을 연결하려는 시도는 빈번하다. 그만큼 이 기술은 인간에게 단순한 도구를 넘어선 철학적, 존재론적 충격으로 다가온다. 그러나 내가 정말 이해하지 못하는 부분은 스스로를 “don’t trust, verify”의 철학에 따라 사는 사람이라 자부하면서도, 종교만큼은 끝내 검증해보려 하지 않는 태도다. 종교는 믿음의 영역이라지만 검증하려는 시도조차 하지 않는 태도는 비트코이너의 정신과 상당한 괴리가 있다고 생각한다.
나는 종교를 해체해 보고도 똑같은 믿음을 유지하는 사람을 본 적이 없다. 복음주의 개신교에 깊이 몸담았던 입장에서 보면, 예컨대 모세오경과 복음서가 실제 사건들을 단순히 기록한 것이 아니라 여러 저자들과 편집자들의 해석과 목적이 얽힌 서사적 구성물이라는 사실조차 받아들이기 어려워한다. 실제 역사와 문학적으로 파고들어야 할 부분인데 대부분은 자신이 배운 교리를 전제로 성경을 해석하려고 한다. 가장 성스럽게 여기는 성서가 왜 '하나님의 말씀'인지 물으면 “성서에 그렇게 쓰여 있다”거나 “믿음의 영역이다”라고만 답한다. 그 구절이 현대의 성경책을 지칭하는 것도 아닌데 말이다.
이런 식으로 파도 파도 끝없는 의문점들을 맹목적 믿음으로 덮어버리려는 것이 현대 복음주의 개신교다. 아직도 그런 사고방식을 지닌 비트코이너가 있다면, 종교—특히 제도화된 종교—에 대해서 불신의 씨앗을 품어 봤으면 좋겠다. 타락에서 구속과 영생으로 이어지는 서사를 통해 성경을 읽는다면 너무 많은걸 놓치게 된다는걸 깨달을 수 있다.
결코 쉬운 길이 아니다. 나 역시 태어나기 전부터 교회를 다녔을 만큼, 기독교는 내 존재의 근원이자 정체성의 전부였다. 종교를 해체하는건 나 자신을 해체하는 일이었다. “감히 신을 해체해? 저런 인간주의적인 죄를 품은 사상을 봤나!” 이런 시선들이 제도 내부에서는 해체를 현실적으로, 도덕적으로 불가능하게 만든다. 그것은 나의 공동체—많은 경우 가족까지—에게서 낙인찍히고 소외되는 일을 의미한다. 국가주의와 비교해 보자면, 종교를 떠나는 것은 마치 애국보수 집안에서 “나는 중국 공산당을 지지한다”고 말하는 것보다 더 어렵다고 생각한다. 적어도 애국보수 집안은 당신이 공산당을 지지한다고 해서 죽은 뒤 영원히 지옥에 고통받을 거라 믿지는 않는다. 사회적 자살을 쉽게 생각하는 사람은 없다.
나는 비트코인을 알기 전에 이미 종교를 떠났고, 가족과도 멀어졌다. 연락을 끊거나 만나지 않는 건 아니지만, 정서적으로 예전과 같은 관계가 아니다. 목사님인 아버지는 나에게 호통을 치며 크게 싸웠고, 어머니는 믿기지 않다는 듯 실망을 감추지 않으셨다. 10년도 지난 일이지만 내 인생에서 가장 고통스러운 전환점이었다. 나이도 어렸고 나도 내가 무슨 일을 겪고 있었는지 몰랐기 때문에 더더욱 힘들었다.
모두가 나와 같은 길을 걸어야 하는건 아니다. 기독교의 거대 서사가 정서의 깊은 곳에 뿌리 박힌 이상, 신을 부정하는 일은 거의 불가능에 가깝다는걸 몸소 체감했기 때문이다. 자유는 기독교에서도 중요한 의미를 가진다—율법에서의 자유, 죄에서의 자유, 결국 하나님 안에서의 자유. 모순처럼 보일 수도 있겠지만, 합리적 회의주의인 나는 역설적으로 여전히 신이라는 존재를 믿는다. 다만, 신은 특정 종교에 국한되어 있지 않으며 우리의 지성으로는 결코 완전히 이해할 수 없는 존재라고 믿는다. 그렇기에 기독교의 하나님 안에서의 자유보다, 더 큰 의미에서의 ‘신 안에서의 자유’ 혹은 '자유 안에서의 자유'가 존재한다고 믿는다.
인간의 자유와 사랑에 대한 이해를 아득히 초월하는 존재, 그 앞에 겸손해질 때 나는 자유를 조금이나마 맛볼 수 있었다. 이 패러독스 속에서 나는 매일 자유를 느끼고 있다. 국가주의와 종교는 누군가가 믿으라고 외치고 교리를 정립해야 유지되지만, 자유와 사랑은 인간의 원초적인 갈망이다. ‘무엇으로부터의 자유’가 아니라 자유 그 자체에의 의지다. 장폴 사르트르의 말처럼 "자유라는 유죄 선고를 받은 존재", 그것이 우리 인간이다. 비트코인은 자유의 한 조각의 불과하고 진짜 자유는 우리 머릿속에서 시작된다. 이 내면의 자유를 널리 일깨우는 것, 그것이야말로 비트코이너들의 숙명이지 않을까?
나는 비트코이너들이 자신의 자유를 더 이상 인간이 만든 사상 체제나 제도에 위탁(custody)하지 않길 바란다. 그러나 동시에, 종교를 떠나는 일이 얼마나 고통스러운지도 알기에 내가 그들에게 뭐라고 말할 입장은 아니라는 것도 안다. 그래서 내가 현실적으로 할 수 있는 말은 오직 하나뿐이다:
"Don’t just trust, keep on verifying."
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:15:53- Analog Clock Widget - Simple analog clock widget
- Arcticons Dark - A monotone line-based icon pack
- Arcticons Day & Night - A monotone line-based icon pack for dark & light themed setups
- Arcticons Light - A monotone line-based icon pack
- Arcticons You - A Material You line-based icon pack
- Blue Line Console - Keyboard based launcher
- Clauncher - Yet Another Olauncher Fork, But With All Apps Hidden
- Code Rain Wallpaper - A live wallpaper inspired by the matrix falling code effect
- ColorBlendr [Root] - Express yourself with colors
- Cuscon - Icon pack with varied shapes
- Customiuizer14 - Xposed module that provides additional functionality for your MIUI device
- Dark Mode Live Wallpaper - Live wallpaper that respects dark theme mode
- Delta Icon Pack - Minimalistic pastel icon pack for Android
- Discreet Launcher - Enjoy a clean home screen while accessing everything in an instant
- Dollphone Icon Pack - Cute icon pack that isn’t overly hyperactive
- EasyLauncher - Minimal launcher - EasyLauncher - Minimal and Clutter Free Android launcher
- folder launcher - A file structure inspired launcher
- Global Icon Pack - An Xposed module for applying icon packs globally
- Iconeration - Open-source icon pack creator
- Iconify - Customize Boring Android UI
- IconRequest - Get unthemed app icons from your installed apps
- Ion Launcher - A beautiful, functional and customizable launcher
- Kvaesitso - Search focused launcher
- Lawnicons - Icon pack for Lawnchair themed icons
- LiveWallpaperIt - Muzei plugin for Reddit - Plugin for Muzei, live wallpaper from Reddit
- MinCal Widget - Minimal Calendar Widget
- Minimo Launcher - Home screen without distractions. Improve your focus and productivity
- mLauncher - Forked from OlauncherCF, +minimalization, +customizability
- monocles launcher - Blazingly fast launcher focused on search
- Muzei Pixiv Source - Fetch illustration from Pixiv and provides them as a wallpaper source for muzei
- NeatLauncher - A neat and convenient launcher without icons
- Notification Shade Transparency - make elements of Notification Shade transparent
- Olauncher - Minimal launcher app with daily new wallpaper
- Paperize - A Wallpaper Changer - Paperize is an efficient wallpaper changer application with a clean design
- Peristyle - Simple wallpaper manager app for Android
- PhotoCalendar - Add background images to specific days in your calendar
- Pie Launcher - Control your phone with a dynamic pie menu instead of fixed positioned icons
- Shelf - A simple Android App Launcher that can be fiddled with
- Smartspacer - Customizable widget that enhances the built-in At a Glance feature on Pixels, all without requiring root access
- Smile SS14 - Smile from Space Stastion 14 as a ANeko skin
- Substratum Tweaks - tweak Android's resource values
- Termux Terminal Widget - Widget for Termux that displays output of a shell command
- TgMonet Theme - Simple Monet themes generator for Telegram
- Wall You - Wallpaper app built with Material Design 3 (You)
- WallFlow - Beautiful wallpapers from wallhaven.cc
- WallFlow Plus - Beautiful wallpapers from wallhaven.cc and Reddit with object detection feature
- XScreenSaver - Standard screen saver collection shipped on most Linux and Unix systems
- YAM Launcher - A minimal android launcher with weather integration
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@ 3eba5ef4:751f23ae
2025-06-13 05:50:51Crypto Insights
Skipping Witness Sync for Pruned Nodes? A Look at Bitcoin Sync Optimization and Security Tradeoffs
Jose SK posted an analysis exploring the security implications of allowing newly started full nodes to skip downloading certain blockchain history data under specific configurations.
Bitcoin Core uses the
assumevalid
config option by default to skip script verification for blocks created roughly one or two months prior to the current version’s release. Additionally, while disabled by default, many users enable theprune
option, which deletes block data after validation (the retention period depends on block size and user settings). SK argues that usingassumevalid
andprune
could allow nodes to download witness data for older blocks, since it's only used for script validation—somethingassumevalid
bypasses. This could reduce bandwidth use by over 40%.However, Ruben Somsen responds that this changes the security model: even if scripts may not be validated, the downloaded data is still checked against the block header’s Merkle root, coinbase transaction, and witness commitments. Skipping it risks data loss if no one preserves and verifies the data—an issue seen in XRP Ledger.
Capping Transaction Weight to Improve Decentralization and Relay Efficiency
Vojtěch Strnad proposed a consensus change to cap most transaction weights at 400,000 weight units (100,000 vbytes). Specifically, aside from the coinbase transaction, only a single transaction in a block may exceed that limit.
This allows:
- Easier block template optimization: Smaller transactions simplify solving the knapsack problem and reduce wasted space.
- Easier relay policies: Large transactions complicate relay logic and fee-rate prediction, potentially wasting bandwidth if they're evicted or delayed due to slight changes in fee-rate.
- Avoiding mining centralization: Ensure full nodes can relay nearly all transactions helps avoid users of special transactions from needing to pay out-of-band fees, which might otherwise centralize mining power.
Pruning Dust UTXOs to Ease Network Burden
Robin Linus proposed a soft fork to remove low-value, long-unspent outputs (dust) from the UTXO set. Several variations were discussed, with the two main alternatives being:
- Destroying old uneconomical outputs: long-unspent small value outputs would become unspendable.
- Requiring a proof of existence for old uneconomic funds to be spent: Using tools like Utreexo to prove an old output is part of the UTXO set when spending it.
Both approaches aim to cap UTXO set size, assuming a minimum output value and Bitcoin’s 21 million cap.
Ark vs. LSP: Comparing Liquidity Models for Different Use Cases
This research compares Ark and Lightning Service Provider (LSP) in terms of liquidity requirements. The author models user behavior with varying top-up frequencies (weekly, monthly, quarterly) and gradual Lightning usage throughout the year. Findings include:
- LSP liquidity needs are driven primarily by balance changes; Ark’s by payment volume.
- LSP liquidity durations fluctuate more than Ark’s.
- LSP predicts user behavior better than Ark.
- Refill frequency is key to Ark’s liquidity efficiency.
Conclusion:
- Users who make daily Lightning payments and receive income at least weekly may spend less with LSP than Ark.
- Users with less frequent payment and monthly Bitcoin income could save more with Ark combined with Lightning gateways.
- DCA (dollar-cost averaging) Bitcoin stackers should prefer Ark, as its liquidity costs are only a fraction of LSP.
Citrea & Babylon Advance Cross-Chain Verification
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Citrea upgraded its Clementine bridge to v2, replacing BitVM2 with a garbled SNARK verifier, and integrated Transfer of Ownership Protocol (TOOP). This removes the need for large amounts of collateral and pre-pay withdrawals (for liquidity) in the bridge.
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Babylon completed its first entire unhappy path BitVM test on Bitcoin mainnet. It spanned 42 blocks, cost ~$16,000 in fees, and took less than 8 hours—demonstrating that a full challenge-disprove sequence works in practice.
How the DelBrag Protocol Works
DelBrag can be seen as BitVM with off-chain computation. Its creator Jeremy Rubin shared presentation (PDF) at Bitcoin++, outlining how the protocol functions, including detailed diagrams, timing analysis, and the concept of optimistic circuit consistency checks.
Bitcoin Testing Is a Ghost Town: Bad UX, Rotten Interfaces, and Bugs
This critique points out that Bitcoin is advancing technically but falling behind in UX and software testing—hindering adoption and onboarding. Key issues include:
- Gap between progress and usability: Apps and infrastructure are evolving, but devs often deprioritize real-world usability, making Bitcoin software intimidating for newcomers.
- Lack of professional testing: Leads to buggy releases and barriers for first-time users.
- Clunky onboarding frustrates users and stalls growth.
- Bitcoin could suffer the fate of tech like Lotus Notes or PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)—excellent in themselves but failed due to poor UX.
8 Years In, Is Lightning Still a Hobbyist’s Playground?
This article points out that despite growing node and channel counts and their capacity, the Lightning Network still faces serious hurdles:
- High maintenance costs: Running a node isn’t fun or profitable.
- Lack of redundancy: LN depends on 2-of-2 multisig bilateral channels. Unlike traditional networks, LN lacks robust failover. Downtime risks payment failure or funds getting stuck.
- Tradeoff between security and reliability: Security takes precedence, but it leads to fragility. Businesses needing reliable payments may find this unacceptable.
- Core issues remain unaddressed: Most improvements are UX-level. There’s been little progress on scalability, redundancy, or robustness. Static channel backups help recovery but not live failover. Proposed fixes (like hot standby nodes) are complex, risky, and not widely adopted.
Gemini’s Global Crypto Report: Holding Increases, Memecoins as Onboarding Gateway
Gemini released its 2025 Global State of Crypto Report, noting:
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Global crypto ownership rises, led by Europe.
Crypto ownership grew across key markets in 2025: UK: 24% (up from 18%), US: 22% (up from 21%), France: 21% (up from 18%), Singapore: 28% (up from 26%).
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Trump administration’s pro-crypto stance boosts confidence.
23% of US non-owners said Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve increased their crypto confidence. Similar sentiment was seen in the UK (21%) and Singapore (19%).
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Memecoins become a gateway to adoption.
Many crypto users started with memecoins: US: 31%, Australia: 30%, UK: 28%, Singapore: 23%, Italy: 22%, France: 19%.
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Spot crypto ETFs gain popularity.
Crypto ETF ownership rose: US: 39% (up from 37%), Italy: 47%, UK: 41%, Singapore: 40%, Australia: 38%, France: 32%.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:13:41- Advanced PassGen - Generate passwords with ease.
- Androoster - Expert-grade free and open-source tweaking toolbox for Android
- APatch - patching Android kernel and Android system
- App Manager - A full-featured open source package manager for android.
- AppNotifier - AppNotifier brings back Google Play’s missing app update and app install notifications.
- ArtNet Receiver - Listen for and analyze ArtNet data in the local network.
- Ashell - aShell: A local ADB shell for Shizuku powered android devices
- Aurora Store - An open-source alternative to Google Play Store with privacy and modern design
- Cache Cleaner Widget - A root-based widget with no UI that clears all app caches in one tap.
- CAPod - Companion for AirPods - CAPod is a companion app for AirPods on Android.
- Canta - Uninstall any system app without root!
- CClauncher - Clauncher, rewritten using Compose
- Daily Screen Time - Track your daily screen time and regain control of your attention.
- DataBackup - Back up/Restore your data.
- Delta - Hotspot manager using Shizuku API
- Droid-ify - Material-ify with Droid-ify.
- Dumpsys Packages Copycat - Provides a detailed summary of all installed packages
- Edge Seek - Control audio and brightness by sliding on edges
- Floating Mute - Quickly mute and unmute your device.
- Folder Launcher - A file structure inspired launcher
- Folding Switcher - Switch between various folding states on foldable devices
- Fossify Calculator - Simple and open-source calculator for quick and easy calculations
- Fossify Camera - Lightweight open-source camera app for quick, easy, and secure photography
- Fossify Keyboard - Simple and open-source offline keyboard with emojis
- Fossify Launcher - Customize your home screen with a fast, ad-free, open-source launcher
- Geotag video camera - Camera with a map and coordinates overlay.
- GPS Setter - A GPS setter based on the Xposed framework.
- Guileless Bopomofo Keyboard - A simple Bopomofo software keyboard (input method editor) for typing Hanyu
- HeliBoard - Customizable open-source keyboard
- HTTP Request Shortcuts - Submit HTTP Requests from Shortcuts on your Home Screen
- Immich - This is a client app for the self-hostable Immich Server
- KDE Connect - KDE Integration
- KernelSU - Kernel based root solution for Android
- Kuaizi IME - Kuaizi IME is an efficient and fast Chinese Pinyin input method.
- Magisk - The Magic Mask provides root access and additional modules to further enhance your device.
- mLauncher - Forked from OlauncherCF, +minimalization, +customizability
- MMRL - load custom Magisk repos with a simple UI
- Neo Store - A modern feature-rich F-Droid client.
- Obtainium - Get android app updates directly from the source
- Payload Dumper Android - Extract boot.img or any other images without PC and without root on Android
- PI - a package installer
- PingOff - Silence your phone automatically when using selected apps.
- Private DNS Quick Setting - Toggle Private DNS from Quick Settings
- Quad9 Connect - Android application for Quad9 recursive DNS cybersecurity and privacy services
- QuickTile Settings - Manage Private DNS & USB Debugging via Quick Tile Settings tiles & Auto-revert.
- RevEngi App - Your all-in-one toolkit for reverse engineering. Analyze Flutter Apps, extract J
- ReTerminal - Terminal Emulator
- RustDesk - An open-source remote desktop application, the open source TeamViewer alternative
- Screen Lock - toggle the screen on or off with a single tap
- Screen Stream - Screen streaming over HTTP
- Scrcpy - Display and control your Android device from your Desktop
- SD Maid SE - A trusted assistant for your Android, to keep it clean and tidy.
- ServerBox - A server status & toolbox app using Flutter
- SherpaTTS - Text-to-Speech engine based on Next-gen Kaldi
- Shizuku - using system APIs like root with adb/root privileges from normal apps
- ShockAlarm - Material3 app for controlling OpenShock shockers
- Smart AutoClicker - Automating clicks based on what is displayed
- Smartspacer - Customizable widget that enhances the built-in At a Glance feature on Pixels, all without requiring root access.
- Termux:API - Access Android functions from Termux
- Text Tools - Useful text related functions that can be done on the selected text
- Touch Torch - Control your device's flashlight with the tip of your finger
- Traditional T9 - A T9 keyboard for Android devices with a hardware keypad.
- USB Device Info - List USB Devices
- WhatsApp Cleaner - Cleaner for WhatsApp - Clean Redundant Media and Files from Storage
- Winlator - Run Windows apps on Android
- Zimly S3 Backup - Synchronise your media to any S3 compatible storage
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@ 3eba5ef4:751f23ae
2025-06-13 05:45:13加密洞见
跳过见证数据同步?Bitcoin Core 节点同步优化与安全性的权衡
Jose SK 在 Delving Bitcoin 上 发布了一份分析,探讨了允许新启动的全节点,在一种特定配置下,可跳过下载某些区块链历史数据的安全权衡。
在默认情况下,Bitcoin Core 节点使用
assumevalid
配置选项,会跳过对早于当前 Bitcoin Core 版本发布一两个月前所创建区块中脚本的验证。此外,虽然默认关闭,许多 Bitcoin Core 用户还会启用prune
(修剪)选项,在完成验证后删除该数据(保留区块的时间取决于区块大小和用户的具体设置)。SK 认为,对于启用assumevalid
且采用修剪模式的节点,不需要下载见证数据(witness data),因为这些数据只用于验证脚本,而节点不会进行此类验证,且最终也会将其删除,而且跳过见证数据下载「可以减少超过 40% 的带宽消耗」。对此 Ruben Somsen 认为,这在一定程度上改变了原有的安全模型。虽然脚本未被验证,但已下载的数据会与区块头的 Merkle 根、coinbase 交易和见证数据之间的承诺进行验证。这一过程可确保节点初次同步时数据是可用且未被篡改的。如果没有节点持续验证这些数据的存在性,它们可能会丢失——XRP Ledger 就出现过这种情况。
限制区块交易重量,助力去中心化与中继效率
Vojtěch Strnad 提出了一项共识规则变更建议:限制区块中大多数交易的最大权重。具体而言,除 coinbase 交易外,只有当某笔交易是区块中唯一的一笔交易时,才允许其超过 400,000 权重单位(即 100,000 vbytes)。Strnad 描述了限制最大交易权重的动机:
- 更容易优化区块模板:当交易相较于容量上限更小,寻找近似最优的「背包问题」解法更容易,因为较小交易更容易把区块填满,减少浪费空间。
- 简化交易中继策略:节点之间转发未确认交易时,会预测哪些交易有可能被打包,以避免浪费带宽。特大交易会让预测变得困难,因为即便费率略微变化,也可能导致其被延迟或驱逐。
- 避免挖矿中心化:确保中继全节点能够处理几乎所有交易,可以避免使用特殊交易的用户被迫支付链下费用(out-of-band fee),进而降低挖矿中心化的风险。
移除过期低值 UTXOs,减负网络
Robin Linus 提出了一项软分叉建议,旨在在一定时间后将低价值输出从 UTXO 集合中移除。该想法有多个变体,其中的两种替代方案是:
- 销毁旧的非经济性资金:对于长期未被花费的小额输出,使其变得不可再花费。
- 要求旧的非经济性资金在花费时提供存在性证明:可以使用 Utreexo 或类似机制,让交易在花费某个输出时证明该输出确实存在于 UTXO 集合中。旧且非经济性的输出需要附带此类证明,而新生成的、价值较高的输出仍可直接保存在 UTXO 集合中。
无论采用哪种方案,都可以在理论上限制 UTXO 集合的最大规模——前提是假设存在最小输出金额以及 2100 万个比特币的总量上限。
Ark vs LSP:流动性机制对比,谁更适合你的使用场景?
这份研究就流动性要求的问题对比了 Ark 和 LSP (Lightning Service Provider)。他指出 Ark 服务器和 LSP 的流动性机制截然不同,于是对参数和用户行为作出了不同的模拟假设;在用户画像方面,他假设用户以不同频率(周/月/季)对其钱包充值,并在一年内逐步使用闪电网络进行消费的情况。研究得出以下发现:
- LSP 的流动性需求主要由用户余额的变化驱动,而 Ark 服务器的流动性需求由支付量驱动。
- 与 Ark 服务器相比,LSP 面临的流动性持续时间变化更大
- LSP 在预测用户行为方面需要比 Ark 服务器好得多
- 资金频率是 Ark 流动性效率的关键因素
研究的结论是:
- 如果用户每天通过闪电网络支付,并且每周或更多次收到付款的用户,那么在流动性上的花费可能会比使用 Ark 时少。
- 如果用户付款频率较低,并且每个月只收到比特币(例如,月薪或购买比特币),那么将 Ark 与闪电网关一起使用应该可以节省大量资金
- 如果用户以平均成本法(DCA)够买比特币,则应该使用 Ark,因其流动性成本只是 LSP 的一小部分。
Citrea 和 Babylon 双双推进跨链验证新路径
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Citrea 将跨链桥 Clementine 升级到了 v2——用混淆 snark 验证器(garbled SNARK verifier)取代 BitVM2,同时结合「所有权转移协议」(Transfer of Ownership Protocol,TOOP),从而消除了跨链桥对大数额抵押品和用以提供流动性的预付提款(pre-pay withdrawals)的需求。
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Babylon 成功在比特币主网上完成首次完整的「不愉快路径」(unhappy path)BitVM 测试。该测试跨越 42 个区块,消耗约 1.6 万美元手续费,在 8 小时内完成,验证了完整的挑战-反驳序列(challenge-disprove sequence )在实践中是可行的。
DelBrag 协议的工作原理
Delbrag 可以被看作是可以进行链下计算的 BitVM。Delbrag 的提出者 Jeremy Rubin 分享了他近期在 Bitcoin++ 上的演讲(报告 pdf),介绍了 DelBrag 协议如何工作,以及详细的原理图和时序分析,同时引入了「乐观电路一致性检查」(optimistic circuit consistency checks)这一概念。
比特币测试如鬼城:深入了解糟糕的用户体验、难用的界面和各种 bugs
作者认为,比特币生态在技术上虽有进步,但用户体验和软件测试严重不足,导致新用户难以上手,阻碍了广泛采用。尤其指出以下问题:
- 进度与可用性差距: 比特币通过不断改进的应用程序和网络生态系统在技术上取得了发展,但开发人员通常只是肤浅地考虑可用性,而在实践中没有优先考虑它。这导致软件适合精通技术的用户,但由于界面不佳和体验错误而疏远了新手。
- 缺乏专业测试:导致发布的软件存在大量使用障碍和漏洞。
- 新用户入门流程繁琐,阻碍用户积极性。糟糕的用户体验会导致采用缓慢、节点增长停滞和用户群萎缩。
- 历史上有 Lotus Notes 和 PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) 等软件因用户体验差而失败——虽然它们本身不错——比特币面临同样风险。
八年过去,闪电网络仍是一个业余爱好者的游乐场?
作者指出,诞生八年的闪电网络虽然在节点、通道数量和容量上持续增长,展现出快速、低费的支付潜力,但也存在严重问题,主要体现在:
- 维护成本高:维护节点既不好玩,也无利可图
- 核心架构缺乏冗余和弹性:闪电网络的设计依赖于由 2-of-2 多重签名保护的双边支付通道。与具有多个冗余路径和备份系统的传统电信或互联网网络不同,闪电网络节点和通道缺乏有效的故障转移机制。如果节点或通道下线,付款可能会失败,资金可能会卡住,从而破坏可靠性。
- 安全性与可靠性的权衡:闪电网络优先考虑安全性,但牺牲了运行的可靠性。这种权衡意味着,虽然网络是安全的,但很容易出现服务中断和故障,这对于需要一致支付服务的商家或用户来说是不可接受的。
- 缺乏对核心问题的有意义升级:近年来大多数改进都是用户界面相关,而不是对可扩展性、冗余性或可靠性的根本修复。静态通道备份等功能有助于恢复,但不提供实时故障转移或冗余。提出的解决方案(如热备节点)复杂且存在风险,并且不存在大规模实施。
Gemini 《比特币全球状态》报告:持有率上升,meme 币成入场新通道
Gemini 发布了 2025 年全球加密货币状况报告(Global State of Crypto),分析了加密市场状况和对数字资产的各种态度,包括现货比特币 ETF、meme 币、特朗普支持加密的政策对各种看法的影响、以及投资者是否应计划在未来一年购买更多资产等。
重要发现包括:
- 全球加密货币持有率持续上升,欧洲领跑:2025 年,英国的加密货币持有率达到 24%,高于 2024 年的 18%。美国的持有率也略有上升,从 21% 增至 22%。法国的增幅从 18% 升至 21%,而新加坡的持有率则从 26% 升至 28%。
- 特朗普政府的支持立场提振市场信心:在美国,近四分之一的非持有者表示,特朗普推出战略比特币储备计划增强了他们对加密货币价值的信心。这一观点也得到了英国和新加坡非持有者的响应,分别有 21% 和 19% 的人表示认同。
- Meme 币成为进入加密的入口:在美国,31% 同时持有 meme 币和传统加密货币的投资者表示,他们是先购买 meme 币;在澳大利亚为 30%,英国 28%,新加坡 23%,意大利 22%,法国 19%。全球范围内,94% 的 memecoin 持有者也持有其他类型的加密货币,表明 meme 币 正成为进入更广泛加密市场的入口。
- 现货加密 ETF 市场份额持续增长:在美国,39% 的加密货币持有者表示他们投资了加密 ETF,较 2024 年的 37% 有所上升。该类产品在其他国家也越来越受欢迎:意大利(47%)、英国(41%)、新加坡(40%)、澳大利亚(38%)和法国(32%)。
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:10:54- AddictoLogs - Activity tracker for your bad habits
- Barlog - Load your barbell by sliding to a target weight
- BetterCounter - A simple, multi-purpose counter app
- Blood Pressure Monitor - Save and analyze blood pressure values
- Calorimeter - Track your calories!
- Daily Diary - A diary that starts with a blank page every day
- Dog Sports Diary - A diary to keep track of your traings in dog sports.
- ExHale - Track the time since you last smoked and see the progress you've made.
- FastTrack - Track what your body is doing while fasting
- Fitness Calendar - A private and fully offline activity tracker.
- Fivethreeone Log - Track your workouts and progress with the 5/3/1 method.
- Flexify - Track gym progress, visualize graphs, enjoy offline support & timers
- Food You - Track your calories and create a food Diary
- Fortuna - A free and open-source application based on the philosophy of Evaluative Hedonism.
- FW-Wettkampf Funk-Trainer - Here you can train radio messages for the hessian Feuerwehr-Leistungsübung!
- Glucodatahandler - receives Glucodata broadcast from Juggluco app
- Grocy: Self-hosted Grocery Management - ERP beyond your fridge, now on your phone – An awesome companion app for grocy
- Habit-Maker - A reward-based habit tracker for android.
- Habitica - habit building app which treats your life like a Role Playing Game
- Hate It Or Rate It - Track and decide: Love it or leave it with every purchase.
- Healthlog - log health tests, incl. Cholesterol/Sugar/BP/RFT
- Home Medkit - Application with medicines storing and intakes reminders
- Igatha - SOS Signaling & Recovery
- J-K Bike - App that helps build positive bike maintenance behaviours, for rides quick, big
- KitchenOwl - KitchenOwl helps you organize your grocery life.
- Loop Habit Tracker - Track your habits and long-term goals
- LunaTracker - LunaTracker is a newborn baby tracking app.
- MediNote - tracking blood pressure measurements offline
- MedTimer - Med reminders and history with full offline privacy
- Migraine Log - A simple headache diary that respects your privacy
- Mindful - Control your digital habits, improve focus, and boost productivity
- MotionEaseTune - A simple application that can prevent you from motion sickness via 100Hz sound.
- Nextcloud Cookbook - View all your recipes stored in your Nextcloud instance.
- Nov Open Reader - Simple application to read content of Novopen insulin pens using NFC
- OpenFoodFacts - Look up food ingredients, allergens, nutrition facts
- OpenHIIT - OpenHIIT - Open Source Workout Interval Timer
- OpenTracks - A sport tracker buddy that respects your privacy.
- OSM Dashboard for OpenTracks - OpenStreetMap dashboard for OpenTracks
- OSM Dashboard Offline for OpenTracks - Offline variant of the OpenStreetMap dashboard for OpenTracks
- Pedometer (PFA) - (SECUSO) Counts your steps in the background. Customize daily goals.
- Perceived Stress Scale - Are you stressed? Take the test to find out how stressed you are.
- Petals - Take control of your weed consumption
- Plees Tracker - Plees Tracker is a simple sleep tracker for your Android phone.
- Polar Alert - High / low heart rate sound alert
- Portio - Optimize batch cooking! Weigh meals and split portions based on each participant
- Simple Calorie Tracker - Simple calorie tracker mobile app written in React Native
- Simple Gym Logger - React Native app that let you track your progress in the gym
- Simple. : Fitness Simplified. - An easy to use fitness app that lets you create, schedule and track your workout
- Soothing Noise Player - Play soothing sound effects to help you relax and drown out background noise.
- Stepsy: Step Counter - Your lightweight step counting buddy
- Sunrise Signal - Morning wood tracker app for men's health
- Table Habit - Boost your own habit growth with charts.
- trale - trale – a beautiful body weight diary app respecting your privacy
- Track & Graph - Track personal data and create custom graphs to gain personal insight!
- Urn - A mobile, offline urn for majority judgment polls
- Waistline - Libre calorie counter and weight tracker
- Wger Workout Manager - Fitness/workout, nutrition and weight tracker
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-06-13 05:02:27Lightspark introduces a layer 2 for instant payments, stablecoins and interoperability with Lightning.
Spark is an open-source layer 2 protocol developed by Lightspark, designed to offer instant low-cost payments without the need for intermediaries. It allows the creation of wallets and applications that interact directly with the Bitcoin and Lightning networks. The company’s stated goal is to transform Bitcoin into a true global digital currency, solving the scalability limitations of the base layer.
Lightspark, a company led by David Marcus (former PayPal and former Facebook), officially launched Spark in beta version on April 29, 2025. Developers can already use Spark’s SDKs (Wallet and Issuer) to build self-custodial wallets compatible with Lightning and tokens (such as stablecoins) native to the Bitcoin network.
How it works
Spark adopts a statechain-based approach, allowing the transfer of ownership of a UTXO off-chain between different users without using the main blockchain, thus reducing costs and transaction times. Instead of executing an on-chain transaction that physically moves the asset, users acquire signing rights or control over a key that represents a bitcoin UTXO. Transfers occur through a chain of signatures and a mechanism that allows subsequent transactions to overwrite previous ones, ensuring that neither the user nor the service provider (Spark Service Provider, SSP) can lose funds during the operation.
Spark is designed to be fully interoperable with LN, supporting not only bitcoin transactions, but also stablecoins and other tokenized assets. SSPs facilitate Lightning payments by accepting funds on Spark and converting them into Lightning transactions or vice versa, eliminating the need for users to manage nodes or worry about channel liquidity. For example, a user can pay an LN invoice with a stablecoin on Spark, with the SSP converting the stablecoin to BTC in the background and sending the funds to the recipient.
Shared signature model (multisig 2-of-2)
Unlike the LN trust model, which is based on peer-to-peer bidirectional channels with smart contract logic, Spark involves a coordinating entity, the “Spark Service Provider” (SSP). This shifts part of the risk from channel liquidity management to trust in operators who sign off-chain transactions. The SSP’s task is to sign “blindly” (blindly) on behalf of the user, which means the SSP does not see the content of the signature and does not even know if it is signing a Bitcoin transaction or something else.
Bitcoin deposited on Spark always remains under the user’s control. When a user sends funds to Spark, they are initially transferred to a statechain. Once funds are on the statechain, payments on the Spark network occur instantly and at near-zero costs.
At the heart of Spark’s security is the use of a shared signature scheme, specifically a multisig 2-of-2 model. This means that two keys are required to authorize a transaction, and the user always holds one. When users deposit funds on Spark, they send them to a multisig address. Here, they maintain control of their funds and can perform a unilateral exit without the need to interact with other parties.
Each payment is enabled by a Spark Service Provider (SSP), which must co-authorize the transaction together with the user for it to be valid and successful.
Although the network is currently managed only by Lightspark and another operator (Flashnet), users do not risk losing funds even if these operators stopped cooperating. In fact, Spark offers the possibility to unilaterally force the return of bitcoin to the mainnet at any time. Users can exit Spark in two ways: through a cooperative exit (cheaper and faster) or a unilateral exit (slower, but possible in case of malfunction or loss of trust). Lightspark has declared its intention to add more operators in the future to increase decentralization.
Fee structure
Regarding fees, transactions within the Spark network are zero fee. The only fees users will have to bear are Bitcoin’s on-chain fees for depositing or withdrawing funds from Spark. Additionally, transferring bitcoin from Spark to LN involves a 0.25% fee plus routing fees. Conversely, a transaction from LN to Spark costs 0.15%.
The native LRC20 token protocol
Introduced in the summer of 2024, LRC20 is a token issuance protocol designed to be compatible with both Bitcoin’s mainnet and LN. Anyone can issue an LRC20 token. The protocol also supports freeze and burn operations, giving the original issuing wallet the power to freeze tokens at any address, preventing transactions until unlocked. LRC20 is primarily designed for issuing stablecoins and regulated assets.
After thoroughly testing it, the Lightspark team decided to run the LRC20 protocol natively on Spark, to enable token issuance on the network.
Ecosystem and partnerships
The birth of Spark has immediately attracted the interest of other Bitcoin projects. Among the various partnerships established, the multisig wallet Theya has integrated Spark to offer its users simpler and faster bitcoin and stablecoin payments.
Last May, Breez announced a new implementation of the Breez SDK based on Spark, which allows developers to integrate Lightning payments directly into their apps through Spark. As part of this collaboration, Breez will also act as a Spark Service Provider, helping to expand the ecosystem. According to the two companies, this partnership will provide developers with new Bitcoin-native tools for use cases such as streaming payments, international remittances and micro-payments for AI.
The post Spark: the layer 2 launched by Lightspark appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:08:20- 2FAS - Protect your online accounts with an extra layer of security.
- Advanced PassGen - Generate passwords with ease.
- Aegis Authenticator - Free, secure and open source 2FA app to manage tokens for your online services
- Amarok - Hide your private Files and APPs with a single click.
- ANOTHERpass - Another way to manage passwords
- AppVerifier - Verify apps easily.
- AstraCrypt - Hide and encrypt your files with modern security standards.
- Authenticator Pro - Free and open-source 2FA app with encrypted backups
- Bitwarden - The most trusted password manager
- Briar - Decentralized peer-to-peer secure messaging connecting via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Tor.
- ByeByeDPI - An Android app that runs ByeDPI locally and redirects all TCP traffic through it.
- Calyx VPN - Free VPN Service offered by The Calyx Institute
- CleanSlate - Protect your data anywhere anytime
- CloudOTP - two-factor authenticator based on Flutter
- Dumpsys Packages Copycat - Provides a detailed summary of all installed packages
- Encrypt-Decrypt-AndroidAPK - Encrypt / Decrypt APK , with AES 256 GCM/DES
- Ente Auth - ente is an end-to-end encrypted authenticator app
- GPS Setter - A GPS setter based on the Xposed framework.
- Hypatia - A real-time malware scanner
- i2pd - Full-featured C++ implementation of I2P client
- Igatha - SOS Signaling & Recovery
- InviZible Pro - increase your security, protect your privacy
- Inter Profile Sharing - Easily share media and text between Android user profiles
- Keepass2Android Offline - Offline Password Manager
- LANShield - Protect your LAN by managing app access to your local network.
- Mullvad VPN - Protect your online privacy with a fast, trustworthy, and easy-to-use VPN.
- MyPassPlus - Secure password manager for Android that helps you store and organize your passwords.
- NetGuard - A simple way to block access to the internet per application
- NowiPass - A password manager where you are the only one who has access to your passwords
- NymVPN - Download our VPN and make your online activity 100% private. Fast and anonymous.
- OneKeePass - A simple and secure offline password manager
- Open Alert Viewer - Fetch and display server alerts
- Paranoid's Pal - Privacy Lock - Protecting Your Digital Identity
- Password Generator - Free, ad-free, open-source simple password generator for Android.
- Password Store - Manage your passwords
- PasswdSafe - Port of PasswordSafe password manager
- PCAPdroid - No-root network monitor and traffic dump tool for Android devices
- Photok - Encrypt your photos on your device and keep them safe from others.
- PINcredible - Secure PIN vault - Modern and secure Android app to help you remember any PIN
- Proton Pass: Password Manager - Password manager created by the scientists with end-to-end encryption.
- Quad9 Connect - Android application for Quad9 recursive DNS cybersecurity and privacy services
- Riseup VPN - Secure VPN powered by Bitmask
- Safe Space - A safe space for your digital valuables.
- Sentinel Lens - Facial recognition surveillance with alerts
- Snap Safe - The camera that doesn’t rat you out.
- SshKeyMan - Generate/Manage your ssh keys on Android devices
- Standard Notes - An end-to-end encrypted note-taking app for digitalists and professionals
- Stay Put - Unplug Alert - prevent casual theft of your device while charging in public spaces
- Stratum - Open-source 2FA app with encrypted backups
- ToS;DR - Short summaries on Terms of Conditions
- TrackerControl - monitor and control hidden data collection in mobile apps
- URnetwork - Goodbye VPN!
- Vernet - Network Analyzer - Host and Port scanner. Ping IP or domain.
- WG Tunnel - An alternative VPN client app for WireGuard with additional features
- Windscribe - Free VPN that unblocks geo-restricted content and eliminates tracking.
- Xray - Xray GUI Client For Android
- Yivi - Your digital identity in one app.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:05:59- AlgoSorts - understand how sorting algorithms work using the example of animations
- AnkiDroid - A flashcard-based study aid
- ArityCalc - Scientific calculator for Android 5+
- BabyName - Findout your future baby name
- Better Stundenplan - A (hopefully) not-so-bad client for virtueller-stundenplan.org
- Bibleside - Offline Bible app featuring the OET (Open English Translation)
- Bluetooth LE Spam - Impersonate Bluetooth Low Energy devices, causing pop-ups on receiving devices.
- Calculator You - Calculator You is a beautiful calculator for solving simple tasks.
- Celestia - Real-time 3D visualization of space
- CEToolbox - Medical tool
- Cifras o letras - A simplified version of Countdown UK game-show.
- Clay Tablet - Clay Tablet is a simple and intuitive Android app for cuneiform practice.
- Converter NOW: Unit Converter - A simple, immediate and fast unit converter!
- CTU Menza - Dish menus from CTU cafeterias, offers a modern UI and functionality.
- DeepL - Unofficial Android App for DeepL Translator
- Diatronome - A tuner, a visual metronome and a synthesizer
- DigiAgriApp - DigiAgriApp is a software aimed at farmers and anyone with cultivated land
- Distribution Calculator - Easily operate with uncertainty
- Drinkable - Explore and create cocktails with ingredients from home
- FastTrack - Track what your body is doing while fasting
- Fossify Calculator - Simple and open-source calculator for quick and easy calculations
- FW-Wettkampf Funk-Trainer - Here you can train radio messages for the hessian Feuerwehr-Leistungsübung!
- GCompris - Multi-Activity Educational game for children 2 to 10
- Golden Ratio - Simple calculator for aesthetic Golden ratio proportions
- GPTAssist - WebView wrapper for ChatGPT
- GPTMobile - Your all in one chat assistant - Chat with multiple LLMs at once!
- Graded - Grade tracker - Track and manage your school grades with ease
- Java OOP Quiz - Tests Your knowledge of Java Object-Oriented Programming.
- JMdict droid - A Japanese to English dictionary, based on JMdict.
- Journal - Keep track of substance usage to gain insights on consumption patterns
- JRBP Survey - Jasper Ridge ant survey navigation and data entry
- Kanji Dojo - Learn & practice writing Japanese characters
- Kepler-App - App only in German! - App for the JKG Chemnitz with all important info
- lanis - display the substitution plan of a school in the Lanis system
- Let's Bend - Let's Bend assists blues harmonica players in accurately hitting bending notes.
- Linux Command Library - 5055 manual pages, 22 basic categories and a bunch of general terminal tips.
- LMd - Le Monde diplomatique DE - reader for the german version of "Le Monde diplomatique".
- Logseq - platform for knowledge management and collaboration and note taking
- Mnemosyne - A memorization app designed for lists as opposed to traditional flashcards
- NXT Remote Control - Control Lego robots
- OpenJisho - Japanese dictionary offline
- Petals - Take control of your weed consumption
- Pocket ReadLex - Shavian spelling dictionary
- Praktika Vortaro - Offline Esperanto dictionary
- Qalculate! - Powerful and versatile multi-purpose calculator
- RidgeScout - A fully featured FRC scouting & data analytics tool
- Rosarium - Animated rosary app with a focus on UX supporting latin, english and german
- Seamless - Offline speech to text translator
- Solon - A light-weight Android frontend to SkolaOnLine
- T CrB Detector - T CrB Detector notifies the user when the star T CrB has exploded.
- TourCount - A butterfly monitoring app for species-specific registering of butterflies in Eu
- TransektCount - A butterfly monitoring app for transect counters.
- Traintime PDA - Another personal data assistant for XDU undergraduate.
- Translate You - * Translator built with Material Design 3 (You) supporting multiple engines*
- Tuner - App for tuning musical instruments.
- Urn - A mobile, offline urn for majority judgment polls
- WaDoku - Japanese-German online dictionary
- whoBIRD - Recognize birds by their sounds, anywhere in the world!
- Wispar - Stay up-to-date with article in your field of study!
- wX - Weather app geared towards storm chasers, meteorologists and weather enthusiasts
- yetCalc - Progressive calculator, converter and much more.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:03:25- Dharmik - Multiplatform app to browse the vedas
- Dharmik Online - Browse Bhagavad Gita
- Five Prayers - Set of muslim tools (Prayers, Qibla, Quran, Adhan)
- Muezzin - simple app to track Islamic prayer times get reminders for them easily
- OpenBible - OpenBible provides the bible as a simple Android App
- Praxis - Christian daily prayers, reading, and fasting
- Qadaa - help make up for the missed prayers
- Quran - Quran reading application
- QuranApp - read and explore the Holy Qur'an with multiple translations
- Qur'an Lite - read the Qur’an on your Android device
- Quick Bible - Quick and Friendly Bible App
- Sefaria - Torah, Tanakh, Mishnah, Talmud, and more
- translationRecorder - voice recorder for translations
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-06-13 05:02:07Square, the payments platform operated by Block (founded by Jack Dorsey), is reporting 9.7% bitcoin yield on its bitcoin holdings by running a Lightning Network node.
The announcement was made by Miles Suter, Bitcoin product lead at Block, during the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas. Suter explained that Square is earning “real bitcoin from our holdings” by efficiently routing payments across the Lightning Network.
Square’s yield comes from its role as a Lightning service provider, a business it launched two years ago to boost liquidity and efficiency on the Lightning Network. According to Lightning Labs’ Ryan Gentry, Square’s 9% yield could translate to roughly $1 million in annual revenue.
The Lightning Network, a Bitcoin layer-2 protocol, has long been promoted as a solution to Bitcoin’s scalability and transaction speed issues. It enables micropayments and off-chain transactions, reducing congestion on the main blockchain. However, the network faces challenges, including the need for inbound liquidity—users must lock up BTC to receive BTC—potentially limiting participation by smaller nodes and raising concerns about decentralization.
Despite these hurdles, Square remains committed to advancing Bitcoin payments via Lightning. Suter revealed that 25% of Square’s outbound bitcoin transactions now use the Lightning Network. The company is actively testing Lightning-based payments at the Bitcoin 2025 event and plans to roll out the service to all eligible Square merchants by 2026.
Suter emphasized the transformative potential of Lightning:
“When you enable real payments by making them faster and more convenient, the network becomes stronger, smarter, and more beneficial. So if you’re questioning whether bitcoin is merely an asset, the response is no. It has already evolved into both an asset and a protocol, and now Block is spearheading the initiative to transform it into the world’s premier payment system.”
Square’s ongoing investment in Lightning signals its belief in Bitcoin’s future not just as a store of value, but as a global payments protocol.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 23:01:41- Al-Azkar - Imam Al-Hafiz Yahya bin Sharafah Al-Din Al-Nawawi
- AndBible: Bible Study - Read the Bible, study commentaries or dictionaries, or read books offline
- Bookaccio Book Tracker - Your Personal Book Tracker
- Calibre-Web-Companion - Unofficial companion app for calibre web (automated)
- Capy Reader - A simple RSS reader
- Ciyue - A simple mdict dictionary
- Conty - Interactive stories for children. Download and play offline!
- copymanga - Third-party client for copymanga with better reading/downloading experience
- DeepL - Unofficial Android App for DeepL Translator
- Dharmik Online - Browse Bhagavad Gita
- Feeder - An awesome Libre and Open Source RSS feed reader
- Floccus Bookmark Sync - Sync your bookmarks privately across browsers and devices
- FossWallet - FossWallet is a MDY Wallet for Apple Passbook (.pkpass) files
- flabr - client for habr.com
- Harmonic - Hacker News with Modern material design
- Infinity for Reddit - A beautiful, feature-rich Reddit client
- Java OOP Quiz - Tests Your knowledge of Java Object-Oriented Programming
- Kahon - A fork of Mihon with some annoying restrictions removed
- KiwiX - Offline Wikipedia reader
- Komelia - Komga media client
- Komikku - Free and open source manga reader for Android
- Koreader - Ebook reader with support for many formats like PDF, DjVu, EPUB, FB2, CBZ
- Kotatsu - Kotatsu is a free and open source manga reader for Android
- LibreOffice Viewer - Document Viewer
- Linux Command Library - 5055 manual pages, 22 basic categories and a bunch of general terminal tips
- Logical Defense - Encyclopedia of logical fallacies
- LMd - Le Monde diplomatique DE - reader for the german version of "Le Monde diplomatique"
- Memorize Your Classics - Memorize poems, songs, etc. with this nice poem viewer
- MuPDF mini - Minimalist viewer for PDF, XPS, CBZ, unprotected EPUB, and FB2 documents
- MuPDF viewer - Lightweight PDF document viewer
- Myne: Ebook Downloader - Android application to download ebooks from the Project GutenBerg
- NATINFo Flutter - Advanced NATINF (NATure INFraction) search, offences under French law
- NeverTooManyBooks - keep track of your books and comics
- NGA客户端开源版 - National Gay Alliance client
- OCS-NG Agent - OCS Inventory client
- OpenBible - OpenBible provides the bible as a simple Android App
- Openlib - download and read books from shadow library (Anna’s Archive)
- Orion Viewer - Pdf & Djvu - Orion Viewer is pdf, djvu, xps, cbz and tiff file viewer
- PDF Viewer - Simple Android PDF viewer
- Pocket ReadLex - Shavian spelling dictionary
- Praktika Vortaro - Offline Esperanto dictionary
- ProseReader - ProseReader for Android Ebook/EPUB Viewer
- Quran - Quran reading application
- QuickNovel - download lightnovels as an Epub
- Raccoon for Lemmy - Mobile client for Lemmy, a federated aggregation and discussion platform
- Read Out - Read books, audiobook playback, and AI-powered summaries in both text and audio formats
- Read You - A modern and elegant RSS reader with Material You design
- Readest - ebook reader with powerful features and an intuitive interface
- StyncyNotes - Sticky Notes app for Android that understands the linuxmint/sticky note file for
- The Life - Bible multi languages, free, offline, no advertising
- ToS;DR - Short summaries on Terms of Conditions
- Venera - A comic reader that support reading local and network comics
- Weread - Read it later for web content
- WikiReader - Read Wikipedia pages distraction-free
- Wispar - Stay up-to-date with article in your field of study!
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:59:13- Amadz - Calling App - Clean & intuitive Phone Dialer app following Material Design principles.
- baresip - VoIP User Agent app for Android based on baresip SIP library
- baresip+ - VoIP User Agent app for Android based on baresip SIP library
- BCR-GUI - companion app for the great BCR (Basic Call Recorder) Android application
- CallForwardingStatus - Simply forward your calls
- Carrion - Block spoofed calls
- Cheogram - Chat on the Jabber network (XMPP protocol); focus on features for gateway users
- CodeCatcher - Filter Sms Messages and Automate Your Device
- Deku SMS - Deku is an SMS app that supports end to end encryption and photo sharing
- Edifier RC10D1 - Unofficial remote control for Edifier R2730DB speakers
- Edifier RC10E - Unofficial remote control for Edifier R1280DB speakers
- Edifier RC18A - Unofficial remote control for Edifier R1855DB speakers
- Element - Secure Messenger - Group messenger - encrypted messaging, group chat and video calls
- FluffyChat - Chat with your friends with FluffyChat.
- Fossify Contacts - Manage your contacts privately and efficiently with vCard support
- Fossify Phone - Unlock a secure, open-source calling experience with Fossify Phone
- Fossify SMS Messenger - Open-source and Ad-free SMS/MMS messaging app
- Jami - Audio & Video Calls / Chat Take Control of your Communication!
- JMP SIM Manager - Companion app for the JMP eSIM Adapter
- Keep Alive - Notify others if you haven't used your device in a given period of time
- kMeet - Free and secure videoconferencing solution
- Launch Chat - Start a WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram chat without saving a number as a contact
- Linphone - open source SIP client - SIP (VOIP) phone
- Meshenger - P2P voice- and video phone App.
- OpenContacts - A different database for contacts to keep them private only to you.
- polycule - A geeky and efficient [matrix] client for power users
- Privacy Cell - Verify that a phone is using the most secure cell protocols.
- Pulse - Redirect outgoing calls to Signal/Telegram/Threema/Whatsapp
- QUIK SMS - Open source replacement to the stock SMS app on Android.
- S2MSP - SMS communication for apps restricted on phone numbers
- SchildiChat - Secure messenger for Matrix with a traditional instant messaging experience
- Simlar - secure calls - Protect your privacy with encrypted phone calls.
- SimpleX Chat - e2e encrypted messenger without any user IDs - private by design!
- sms2call - Make a call when receiving a defined SMS
- SMS Import / Export - Imports and exports SMS and MMS messages, call logs, and contacts.
- SpamBlocker (Call & SMS) - Spam Call/SMS blocker
- ThreatScoopOnionChat - A Forked Version focused on privacy from SESSION
- VoIP.ms SMS - Send and read SMS via voip.ms
- WA Adder - WhatsApp contact adder without giving WhatsApp access to your contacts!
- Welefon - Phone with API
- WiVeWa - Client for the WiVeWa system
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:57:05- Alkaa - Manage your tasks quickly and easily. Add tasks, break into categories and remember important appointments.
- Calculator - simple Material Calculator and Unit Converter
- Cat Printer - support to some Bluetooth "Cat Printer" models
- Connect You - Modern contacts app using Material Design 3 (You) and Jetpack Compose
- CuteCalc - a simple, lightweight and open-source calculator
- Hot Stuff - Protect your belongings with Hot Stuff, a free and offline home inventory app
- Karui ToDo - a privacy focussed todo list app to quickly jot down things to do
- Lock Screen Notes - Create notes that are automatically displayed in the device’s lock screen
- LockQR - Effortless QR Code Generation, Free and Shareable
- Logger - view and export call logs in CSV format
- Lumolight - Simple, modern & easy-to-use flashlight app that comes with a ton of feature
- Nibras Reader 3 - take bookmarked records on Nibras PKM with you on the go
- nocodb - a prototype client for NocoDB
- ObsidianTodoWidget - Widget to display todo list from markdown file
- OpenTodoList - simple Todo and task management
- OpenToday - planner & organizer - notes, todo, reminders, lists everything is customizable
- OrgNote - Note taking app based on the popular Emacs package - Org Roam
- OSS Card Wallet - All your cards secured and without ad!
- OSS Dict - Offline Dictionaries
- OSS Document Scanner - scan all your documents
- Paperless Mobile - An (almost) fully fledged mobile Paperless client.
- Parcel - Track all your parcels with ease.
- PDF Doc Scan - PDF document scanner
- PDF to Images - simple app to convert a PDFs pages to image files
- RemotePointer - Digital Laser Pointer and Mouse Control for Presentations
- Scheduler - View your todo list/events from your lockscreen
- Simple QR - Scan, create and store QR codes with a simple UI and experience
- Simplenote - keep notes, lists, ideas and more
- TagSpaces - organize, tag and browse your files, photos and documents
- zCalc - Simple and beautiful calculator for Android
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:55:07- Adresilo - Search for places
- AltLocationServices - Connects to BeaconDB geolocation service to provide network location services
- Baba - Discover Baba: The app that revolutionizes contributing to Panoramax
- Bahn-Vorhersage - Ranking for train journeys according to their reliability. (German only)
- Beans - A virtual scratchmap of the world
- Blue Square Speedometer - Simple speedometer & GPS viewer
- BusTO - Turin (Italy) public transport
- c:geo - powerful geocaching app
- Cartes IGN - Discover France another way and witness the land's evolution
- CClauncher - Clauncher, rewritten using Compose
- CLauncher - Yet Another Olauncher Fork, But With All Apps Hidden
- Compass - Simple and beautiful compass
- Compass Tile - An easily accessible compass tile for the quick settings panel
- E6B Flight Computer - E6B Flight Computer
- EVMap - EV chargers - Find electric vehicle charging stations
- FakeTraveler - Fake your location
- Find Family - Find Family is an end-to-end encrypted location sharing app
- Gadgetbridge - Use your smart watch and other bluetooth devices and keep your data private!
- Geo Share - Turn a Google Maps URL into a geo: URL
- Geohash Droid - App for Randall Munroe’s Geohashing activity
- Geotag video camera - Camera with a map and coordinates overlay
- GMaps WV - Google Maps WebView Wrapper
- GPS Locker - Keep the GPS locked at all times on an Android device
- GPS Logger - A lightweight GPS logger, battery efficient, GPX/KML, add notes, share, upload
- GPS Setter - A GPS setter based on the Xposed framework
- GPSTest - An app for testing GPS and GNSS capabilities of a device
- JRBP Survey - Jasper Ridge ant survey navigation and data entry
- Kwik EFIS - Glass Cockpit / Electronic Flight Information System
- Ladefuchs - Shows the cheapest charging card - with only one swipe at the charging point
- MBCompass - Simple and efficient compass
- MetaGer Maps - Map app based on Openstreetmap. Route planner - Navigation
- Mobile Tile Server - HTTP Server for your local Map Tiles
- NextGIS Mobile - GIS that lets you create, edit and export geodata, both online and offline
- Offi - King of public transit planning!
- OpenLynx - Public transport companion providing real-time data
- OpenStop - The app for collecting barrier data in local public transport
- OpenStreetMap wiki - Access the OpenStreetMap wiki
- Organic Maps - Offline Hike, Bike, GPS Navigation for travelers, tourists, cyclists & hikers
- OSM Dashboard for OpenTracks - OpenStreetMap dashboard for OpenTracks
- OSM Dashboard Offline for OpenTracks - Offline variant of the OpenStreetMap dashboard for OpenTracks
- OsmAnd - Global Mobile Map Viewing & Navigation for Offline and Online OSM Maps
- Panoramax - Panoramax mobile is an app to capture and upload photo sequences to Panoramax
- PasseGares - Travel through the train stations to stamp your visa!
- PeakOrama - PeakOrama shows mountains around a location
- Phantasialand Wait Times - Live wait times for Phantasialand rides
- SCEE - OpenStreetMap surveyor app for experienced OSM contributors
- Sky Map - Sky Map to explore the skies
- SmsLoc - SMS based location query
- Stateful Speedometer - Stateful speedometer & GPS viewer
- StreetComplete - Easy to use OpenStreetMap editor for Android
- Tehran Metro - An app to facilitate using tehran metro
- ToS;DR - Short summaries on Terms of Conditions
- Traccar Client - Track your location
- Traccar Manager - GPS tracker reporting to your own host
- Trail Sense - Use your phone's sensors to assist with wilderness treks
- Transito - Public transit app to download GTFS data & calculate routes offline
- Vespucci - Edit geodata and contribute to OpenStreetMap project on-the-go
- Zood Location - Securely share your location with your loved ones
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-06-13 04:02:19A third of the bitcoins in circulation is now under the control of centralized entities, valued at $668 billion according to an analysis by Gemini.
A study conducted by Gemini in collaboration with Glassnode revealed that centralized actors currently hold 30.9% of bitcoin’s entire circulating supply.
These entities include national governments, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and publicly listed companies. Collectively, these players control 6.1 million BTC, equivalent to approximately $668 billion at current market prices. BlackRock alone holds around 665,635 BTC through its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) ETF, representing over 3% of bitcoin’s total supply, with a value close to $73 billion.
Source: Gemini
The accumulation of bitcoin by such entities has grown by 924% over the past decade. This increase coincides with bitcoin’s price evolution, which has surged from under $1,000 to over $100,000 during the same period.
Analysts interpret this trend as further confirmation that institutions increasingly view bitcoin as a strategic store-of-value asset. According to the report, the correlation between the rise in institutional holdings and bitcoin’s price appreciation reinforces the case for the cryptocurrency’s mainstream adoption.
One key takeaway from the research concerns the predominant role of centralized exchanges within Bitcoin treasury holdings. These platforms hold about half of the total, although a significant portion of those funds actually belongs to retail clients and individual investors.
Government bitcoin treasuries display distinctive characteristics compared to other institutional holders. According to the study, sovereign wallets show infrequent movements and limited correlation with Bitcoin’s price cycles.
However, the amount of bitcoins held by these governments remains large enough to significantly influence the markets whenever sales or transfers occur, the report states. The governments of the United States, China, and the United Kingdom have acquired most of their bitcoins through legal actions (seizures) rather than direct market purchases. In contrast, El Salvador and Bhutan accumulate bitcoin through intentional and ongoing purchases. According to analysts, while the volumes involved are smaller, these strategic allocations signal a long-term commitment and bolster investor confidence, encouraging broader institutional participation and contributing to market stability.
The research concludes that with nearly a third of bitcoin’s circulating supply now held by centralized entities, the market has undergone a structural transformation toward institutional maturity. According to the authors of the report, this evolution has made price action more predictable and less vulnerable to the speculative extremes that characterized Bitcoin’s early years.
The post Report: centralized entities control 31% of bitcoin’s total supply appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-06-13 04:01:58In a move that diverges from many other U.S. states, Connecticut has passed a new law that bars state and local governments from investing in bitcoin or any other digital currency.
The bill, HB7082, passed unanimously in both the House and Senate with zero opposing votes.
The law, officially titled “An Act Concerning the Regulation of Virtual Currency and State Investments,” was signed into law recently and is causing a stir in the Bitcoin and financial communities.
HB7082 prohibits the state of Connecticut and its political subdivisions from accepting, holding or investing in digital currencies. This includes bitcoin, ethereum and other digital assets. It also bars the state from creating a bitcoin reserve, a concept being explored by other states.
The law goes further by imposing strict rules on digital asset businesses operating in the state. These rules enforce anti-money laundering (AML) compliance and parental consent verification for digital asset users under 18.
It also requires 1:1 reserve requirements for bitcoin custodians.
Businesses that handle Bitcoin transactions must now provide users with clear information about risks and fees and provide receipts with full transaction details.
No business can let a minor use a money-sharing app without first getting proof of consent from a parent or guardian.
Lawmakers in Connecticut say it’s about protecting public funds and minimizing financial risk. They say Connecticut’s new law bars state investments in bitcoin to protect its financial assets from market risk.
Supporters argue that the high volatility of bitcoin makes it a risky investment for public money like pension funds and state reserves.
The law also looks to bring bitcoin businesses under tighter control, to make them follow the same rules as the traditional financial system.
While Connecticut is cracking down on digital assets, other states are going the other way.
States like Texas, New Hampshire and Arizona have already passed laws or proposed bills to create a bitcoin reserve, which allows public funds to be invested in bitcoin.
Texas has even described bitcoin as a “forward-thinking investment opportunity” and a long-term store of value.
The new law has caused mixed reactions in the financial world. Some think it’s too cautious, others think it’s part of a bigger plan.
Matt Hougan, CIO of Bitwise, responded with sarcasm, “The hedge fund managers got so upset they couldn’t beat Bitcoin…”
Matt Hougan on X
Some states like Florida, South Dakota and Oklahoma have either killed or vetoed Bitcoin bills this year. Others like Louisiana are still exploring the tech. Louisiana just announced it would create a special committee to study AI, blockchain and digital assets.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:52:54- Alligator Bytes - Record musical loops, play them back, and change the sound with movement.
- Animetail - Unofficial fork of Aniyomi
- ANeko - ANeko Reborn for Android, interactive cat animation that runs on your Android screen
- APM - Third-party Bilibili music player
- Assempix - A coded OFDM update to SSTV to receive digital images over SSB, AM and FM radio
- Audiobookshelf - Audiobook and podcast player for your self-hosted Audiobookshelf server
- Audile - Music recognition app
- Aves Libre - Gallery and metadata explorer
- BoomingMusic - Local music player built for smooth offline listening
- Calibre-Web-Companion - Unofficial companion app for calibre web (automated)
- camsung - Silence camera on Samsung phones
- Choona - Guitar tuner with support for custom tunings.
- ClassiPod - A local music player app designed to capture the essence of the iPod Classic.
- Com-Phone Story Maker - Create, tell, share and enjoy multimedia digital stories
- CuteMusic - a simple and lightweight offline music player
- Diatronome - A tuner, a visual metronome and a synthesizer
- DSub2000 - Android client for Subsonic servers.
- e1547 - e621 browser - browser for the e621 and e926 imageboards
- Fossify Voice Recorder - Record anything with this Open-source and Ad-free recorder
- Gizz Tapes - Stream King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard shows right to your phone!
- Harmony Music - Music streaming app with radio and background feature
- InnerTune - A material design YouTube Music client
- Jellyfin - your media in your hands! - Mobile client for Jellyfin, the free software media system
- Kahon - A fork of Mihon with some annoying restrictions removed
- Kazumi - An anime collection app based on custom rules.
- Kotatsu - Kotatsu is a free and open source manga reader for Android.
- Kreate - A multilingual YouTube Music frontend for Android, prioritize performance
- LibreTube - Alternative YouTube frontend for Android built with Piped
- Lissen: Audiobookshelf client - Clean Audiobookshelf Player
- litube - a feature-rich Android WebView wrapper for YouTube
- Materialious - Modern material design for Invidious
- Movies - Movies - easy way to discover popular movies.
- mpv-android - Listen to music and watch videos
- MSM - All in one manager for your media server
- Musify - Music Streaming and Downloading app
- MusicSearch - MusicSearch is an app for browsing songs, artists, and anything related to them
- Neon - Scrolling text on fullscreen like boarding
- NewPipe - Lightweight app that lets you watch and listen to media from various platforms.
- OpenTune - YouTube Music client for Android with Material 3 design
- OuterTune - Material 3 Music Player with YouTube Music support
- Panoramax - Panoramax mobile is an app to capture and upload photo sequences to Panoramax.
- Phocid - A modern offline music player with familiar designs
- PicGuard - Your pictures, your signature.
- Pilipala - A third-party Bilibili client developed in Flutter
- PipePipe - An alternative Android streaming front-end of Bilibili, NicoNico, Youtube & more
- Pixiv-MultiPlatform - Third-party Pixiv client
- Pocket Casts - Podcast Player for Android with advanced listening, search, and discovery features.
- RadioUpnp - Clean designed internet radio player with integrated UPnP/DLNA function
- RadioWave - internet radio player with more than 50,000 stations
- RiMusic - Stream music from YouTube Music
- Screen Stream - Screen streaming over HTTP
- Sentinel Lens - Facial recognition surveillance with alerts
- Seqular - Seqular, A Social Network without Place or Nation.
- Shredpix - A coded OFDM update to SSTV to send images digitally over SSB, AM and FM radio
- SimpMusic - A music app using YouTube Music for backend
- SkyTube - An open source YouTube client
- SkyTube Extra - An open source YouTube client
- SmartScan - Image organisation & search app
- Soothing Noise Player - Play soothing sound effects to help you relax and drown out background noise.
- Spotube - Lightweight & resource friendly Spotify client without requiring Spotify Premium
- SuperX - Video downloader with browser for downloading videos from everywhere
- Tsacdop-Fork - Podcast Player - Enjoy podcasts with Tsacdop-Fork! A clean, simply beautiful, and friendly app.
- Vaani - Beautiful, Fast and Functional Audiobook Player for your Audiobookshelf server.
- VLC - The best video and music player. Fast and “just works”, plays any file
- Voice Audiobook Player - Simple audiobook player
- Weather (PFA) - (SECUSO) Lets you watch the weather for cities and locations of your choice
- Xtra - a Twitch player and browser
- YouAMP - Player for Subsonic servers with modern Material You interface
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:50:06- Aisleron Shopping List - Aisleron: Fly through the shops!
- Arru - track and analyze your expenses
- BasicCashFlow - The easiest way to track your cash: no fuss, just money tracking.
- BitBanana - Manage your Bitcoin Lightning node from anywhere.
- Bitcoin Wallet - Store digital currency
- Bitcoin Wallet [signet] - Your own Bitcoins, in your own pocket!
- Bold Bitcoin Wallet - Seedless, secure Bitcoin wallet using Threshold Signatures.
- Brume Wallet - The private Ethereum wallet
- BTC Map - See where you can spend your bitcoins
- Cardabase - Cardabase is an app that lets you save EAN-13 club cards on your phone.
- CashCompass - Master Your Money: Effortless Tracking and Smarter Spending
- Cashew - An app created to help users manage a budget and purchases
- Catima — Loyalty Card Wallet - For your barcodes, memberships, loyalty programs, coupons and tickets.
- Coin Collection - Coin Collection helps people organize their U.S. coin collections
- CryptoTracker - Track cryptocurrency prices in real-time with CryptoTracker
- Currencies: Exchange Rate Calculator - An exchange rates currency converter for Android
- Electrum Bitcoin Wallet - Fast and self-custodial wallet for Bitcoin and the Lightning Network
- FDTracker - easily add, view, update, and track your fixed deposits
- Firefly III Shortcuts - Application simplifies transactions of FireflyIII
- flow - A personal finance tracker app built with love, and Flutter
- GNU Taler Point-of-Sale - Process orders and take in Taler payments
- Green - Blockstream Green Bitcoin wallet
- GreenStash - Simple app to help you plan and manage your savings goals easily.
- Inflation Calculator - Inflation calculator for USA, UK and France
- Invoice Ninja - Create invoices, accept payments, track expenses & time-tasks
- Keepass Fidelity - Fidelity (Membership/Loyalty) Card plugin for Keepass2Android
- KitchenOwl - KitchenOwl helps you organize your grocery life.
- Ladefuchs - Shows the cheapest charging card - with only one swipe at the charging point.
- MarketMonk - Watch the movements of your favorite stocks using free and open source software.
- Mat-O-Id - Pay beverages with RFID-Tag
- Mempal - A Bitcoin mempool monitoring and notification app for Android.
- Money Manager Ex - Manage your income and expenses on a mobile device, sync via your own cloud
- Moneytopia - track your personal expenses
- MRT Buddy - Check your Dhaka MRT / Rapid Pass balances and trips instantly
- My Expenses - Easy to use personal finance manager: rich functionality and Open Source
- NanoLedger - Data entry app for plain text accounting
- NumberHub - The only calculator / currency converter / time zones / ... - app you need!
- Oinkoin - Oinkoin Money Manager makes managing personal finances easy and secure.
- Oxen Wallet - Oxen lite wallet for Android
- P.CASH - Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, PirateCash, Cosanta, zCash, Dogecoin
- Reckoner - Privacy respecting personal financial tracker
- Recurring Expense Tracker - Keep track of your monthly spending
- RoboSats - Simple and private app to exchange bitcoin for national currencies.
- Simple Crypto Widget - A simple widget to display prices for lots of cryptocurrencies.
- Status Wallet - Cryptocurrency wallet, Private messenger, and Ethereum DApp Browser all in one
- Swiss Bitcoin Pay - 1 minute to accept Bitcoin in your business.
- Taler Cashier - Take cash and give out electronic cash
- Taler Wallet - Makes privacy-friendly online transactions fast and easy
- Unstoppable Wallet - Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi
- Valet - The Bitcoin Lightning Wallet with Extra Features
- VAT Calculator - Calculate VAT for any country in the world
- Veil - Privacy focused wallet - Privacy focused VEIL coin crypto wallet
- Wallet - store card information locally on the device
- Waterfly III - personal finance manager
- Working Time Account - Record working hours, generate and send reports (PDF, CSV and ICS)
- Zashi: Zcash Wallet - Zashi is a Zcash wallet that keeps your transaction and message history private
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@ cae03c48:2a7d6671
2025-06-13 04:01:37Bitcoin Magazine
F Street Announced Goal Of Accumulating $10 Million In BitcoinToday, F Street, an alternative investment and private lending firm, announced it has begun adding Bitcoin to its corporate treasury, with a goal of accumulating $10 million in BTC.
JUST IN: Investment firm F Street announced it's buying Bitcoin daily using business proceeds for its treasury reserves
They plan to buy $10 million Bitcoin
pic.twitter.com/NMLOteyUYU
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 11, 2025
The company began daily BTC purchases on June 9, using business proceeds and treasury funds. This move is part of a broader strategy to strengthen F Street’s capital base and support its real estate lending and investment operations.
“Bitcoin offers a compelling hedge against inflation and dollar debasement,” said the Chief Operating Officer of F Street Mike Doney. “Incorporating it into our treasury is a strategic step to preserve and grow value for our investors and our business interests.”
In line with its commitment to transparency, F Street also plans to establish a public proof of reserves so that stakeholders can independently verify the custody of its Bitcoin assets. The firm aims to build a meaningful BTC position that supports its long term vision of a capital framework.
F Street’s move comes at a time when institutional interest in Bitcoin is experiencing a notable surge, and many prominent voices in the financial world are starting to support it. Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, speaking today in an interview with Bloomberg, named Bitcoin as a critical part of what he considers the ideal portfolio against inflation.
“What would an ideal portfolio be… But it would be some kind of combination of probably gold, vol adjusted, Bitcoin, gold, stocks,” Jones said. “That’s probably your best portfolio to fight inflation. Vol adjusted because the vol of Bitcoin obviously is five times that of gold, so you’re going to do it in different ways.”
Adding to the momentum, the Head of Digital Assets of BlackRock Robert Mitchnick explained two days ago what’s really driving the surge in demand for Bitcoin ETFs.
“It’s a lot of things coming together. Out of the gate was retail and investor demand…” said Mitchnick. “Now, more recently, we’ve seen just steady progress of more wealth advisor adoption, more institutional adoption. It’s been a mix of people who it’s the first time that they’ve invested in anything in the crypto space. And then on the other hand, you have lots of people who’ve been invested in Bitcoin for a long time and they’re taking advantage of the ETP wrapper.”
This post F Street Announced Goal Of Accumulating $10 Million In Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.
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@ 8bad92c3:ca714aa5
2025-06-13 03:02:24The real estate market is showing cracks while Bitcoin continues its march toward becoming the global monetary standard. This week's conversation with Leon Wankum reveals how traditional assets are losing ground to the hardest money on earth. This was a high signal rip that deserves all the spotlight in today's newsletter.
Real Estate Prices Will Fall Through 2026 Before Finding New Equilibrium
Leon predicts we're entering a corrective phase in the 18-year property cycle that will see real estate prices decline until 2026. He bases this on the current mismatch between sellers who still expect peak 2021-2022 prices and buyers facing higher interest rates. "We need a price equilibrium. We need demand and supply prices to match. It's going to take a long time," Leon explained. He doesn't expect the Fed to lower rates significantly, keeping them above 3% for the foreseeable future, which will continue putting downward pressure on property values.
The key insight is that we're at year 15 of the typical 18-year property cycle, where prices naturally correct before finding a new floor. Leon suggests that by 2026, if interest rates are lowered, prices will stabilize at levels higher than the cycle's starting point but lower than current peaks. For those looking to buy, patience through this correction period could pay off.
Bitcoin Will Experience a 60% Drawdown This Cycle Despite Institutional Adoption
Despite massive institutional adoption through MicroStrategy and other corporate treasuries, Leon maintains that Bitcoin will still see a significant correction this cycle. "I do expect we'll have a 60% drawdown at the end of this bull cycle as well, just to wash out some leverage," he stated, pushing back against super cycle narratives. He points to the changing nature of volatility, noting that we're already seeing mini bull and bear markets in Bitcoin-adjacent assets like mining stocks, which peaked and corrected independently of Bitcoin's price action.
While acknowledging that players like Michael Saylor won't sell their holdings and that this could dampen volatility compared to previous cycles, Leon believes human nature and leverage will still create the conditions for a major correction. The silver lining is that these corrections build resilience in the Bitcoin ecosystem by washing out bad actors and overleveraged positions, ultimately strengthening the network for the next phase of growth.
1% of Real Estate and Bond Markets Will Flow to Bitcoin-Based Fixed Income Products
Leon sees MicroStrategy's new fixed income products (Strike, Strive, and Stride) as a gateway for traditional investors to gain Bitcoin exposure. These products offer 8-10% yields, significantly outperforming traditional bonds, while providing the cash flow that real estate investors seek. "If it's just 1% [of real estate investors], that's 3 trillion, that's enough," Leon calculated, noting that even a small percentage of the 2,856,707,549 BTC real estate market moving to Bitcoin-backed products would exceed Bitcoin's current market cap.
He shared examples of real estate professionals in Europe beginning to build Bitcoin treasuries, though cautiously. The key insight is that these fixed income products solve a major friction point for traditional investors who want cash flow but are beginning to recognize Bitcoin's superior appreciation. As more investors realize they can get both yield and potential upside through Bitcoin-backed securities, Leon expects this trickle to become a flood, fundamentally reshaping how capital allocators think about portfolio construction.
Blockspace conducts cutting-edge proprietary research for investors.
Bitcoin Could See 4,066,047 BTC Institutional Wave by 2026, Breaking Traditional Market Cycles
UTXO Management forecasts unprecedented institutional demand totaling 4,066,047 BTC by end-2026—equivalent to 20% of Bitcoin's circulating supply. This "wall of money" could fundamentally alter Bitcoin's four-year cycle pattern. Bitcoin ETFs shattered records with 344,709 BTC in year-one inflows, surpassing all commodity ETF launches. Following gold's trajectory, annual flows could reach 618,953 BTC by 2026 and exceed 952,236 BTC in 2027.
Five key drivers will fuel demand:
- Wealth platforms: 0.5% allocation across 571,341,510 BTC managed assets = 1,142,683 BTC
- Corporate treasuries: 1.18M BTC projected under new FASB accounting rules
- Nation-states: U.S. Strategic Reserve could trigger 5% gold-to-BTC rotation
- State governments: 5 of 13 pending U.S. state Bitcoin bills expected to pass
- ETF expansion: Wirehouse access accelerating adoption
Public companies already hold 803,143 BTC, with Japan's Metaplanet, GameStop, and Hong Kong's Moon adopting the "Bitcoin Standard" strategy. Meanwhile, Bitcoin yield products (BTCfi) are emerging—liquid staking surged to 55k BTC locked in one year. Unlike retail cycles, these institutional buyers are "structurally locked in," pursuing BTC-denominated yields rather than trading. With regulation accelerating globally, most allocators may be forced to chase exposure at significantly higher prices.
Subscribe to them here (seriously, you should): https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com/
Ten31, the largest bitcoin-focused investor, has deployed $150M across 30+ companies through three funds. I am a Managing Partner at Ten31 and am very proud of the work we are doing. Learn more at ten31.vc/invest.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:46:54- ArcaneChat - Encrypted chat over e-mail (Delta Chat client)
- Dhaaga (Lite) - An Opinionated Fediverse Microblogging App
- Evergram - Scroll through all your Telegram channels in one timeline
- firefly nightly - Firefly Mastodon Client (nightly pre-releases)
- Graysky - Graysky is a Bluesky client written in React Native
- Igatha - SOS Signaling & Recovery
- Interstellar - An open source Mbin & Lemmy client, connecting you to the fediverse.
- Lemmy Redirect - Deep linking proxy for Lemmy, to launch your selected client automatically
- Mandarin IM - ICQ Client
- Mastify - A beautiful, feature-rich Mastodon client
- Mastodon Redirect - Deep linking proxy for Mastodon, to launch your selected client automatically
- Megalodon - Mastodon for Android but it's pink and has more features
- Mint - a lightweight Misskey Android client
- Moshidon - Mastodon for Android but it's Material You and has more features
- Moxxy - Moxxy is an experimental XMPP client that aims to be modern and easy to use.
- Nullgram - 3rd party client of Telegram
- NowiChat - NowiChat is a chat app with bluetooth networking and end-to-end security.
- Nozzle - lightweight nostr client
- Primal - Primal's Android app for Nostr
- Raccoon for Friendica - Mobile client for Friendica, Mastodon and compatible federated social networks.
- Rattlegram - SMS via audio! - Transmit short text messages over COFDMTV encoded audio signals
- Reply Radar - Reply Radar helps you keep track of the people you still need to reply to. No more forgotten messages — stay organized and in control.
- S2MSP - SMS communication for apps restricted on phone numbers
- Session - Send messages, not metadata. No ads or trackers — only private messaging
- Sideband - Decentralized peer-to-peer secure messaging LXMF client
- Signal - Signal is a messaging app focused on privacy
- Smither - Lightweight Mastodon client
- swob - Communicate with online services using SMS messaging
- Telewatch - Telegram for watch
- Tool Telegram - Send messages on telegram as a bot, easily
- Voyage - Voyage is a lightweight nostr client for Android with a Reddit-like UI.
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-06-13 03:02:03Ten years in Bitcoin can feel like an eternity. Just ask Sergej Kotliar, Founder and CEO of Bitrefill, who recently celebrated a decade of turning Bitcoin into something you can actually use in your everyday life.
“We started Bitrefill back in 2014,” Sergej reflects, thinking back to the early excitement around Bitcoin.
“The promise of internet money as a workaround to how cumbersome money was online motivated me. Imagine sending money as easily as sending an email. That’s still the vision driving us today.”
Bitrefill has evolved from a straightforward gift card provider into a full-fledged e-commerce powerhouse, allowing Bitcoiners to buy gift cards, eSIMs, mobile top-ups, and even prepaid debit cards.
From Netflix binges and Uber rides to topping up your phone in the middle of nowhere, Bitrefill supports more than 10,000 brands and over 900 phone carriers in more than 170 countries.
check out all the products and services at www.bitrefill.com
One challenge Sergej has navigated successfully is steering clear of hype-driven pitfalls. “We’ve always been a little bit better at building actual usage than at building hype,” he explains.
Instead of chasing every altcoin trend or speculative frenzy, Bitrefill has focused on the real-world, day-to-day use of bitcoin.
“The biggest challenge has always been finding the actual users of Bitcoin, not investors, but the ones who really want to use bitcoin in their everyday lives,” he emphasizes.
Bitrefill, he says proudly, has become the starting point for many users looking to spend bitcoin seamlessly.
“I think that people that use bitcoin transactionally and are looking to buy something with their coins. Very often, their customer journey starts with Bitrefill.”
Sergej isn’t shy about critiquing popular Bitcoin memes either. One particularly notable example is the “two S-curves” chart suggesting bitcoin first serves as a store of value, then as a medium of exchange.
“It’s maybe my least favorite chart,” Sergej laughs.
Bitcoin adoption curves — Source
While the chart lacks empirical data, notably missing any values on the y-axis, it does visualize a conceptual framework that many in the Bitcoin community find compelling.
The illustration suggests a natural progression where Bitcoin’s adoption follows two sequential S-curves:
first establishing itself as a store of value (the yellow curve peaking around 2029), followed by widespread adoption as a medium of exchange (the green curve peaking around 2037).
Despite its speculative nature, some argue this visualization effectively communicates the potential evolutionary path that many Bitcoiners envision, even if it wasn’t created with rigorous technical analysis.
What makes the Bitcoin ecosystem truly remarkable though is that builders like Sergej and his team at Bitrefill aren’t waiting for theoretical adoption curves to play out. They’re actively accelerating them.
By creating practical solutions for everyday Bitcoin transactions now, Bitrefill is working towards pulling that “medium of exchange” S-curve forward.
They aim to demonstrate that Bitcoin’s utility doesn’t have to follow a delayed timeline where store of value comes first.
Indeed, Sergej sees a more nuanced reality: Bitcoin serves different purposes for different people, simultaneously.
“There’s different people that use bitcoin for different things, and some want to invest in it and some use it as a tool,” Sergej clarifies.
“You can’t say that one of them is better than the other… it just is. Different people will use the same thing and they engage in the same market with different purposes.”
The Bitrefill philosophy is simple: practicality over hype. “Selling bitcoin to people is clearly a much bigger business than letting people shop with bitcoin,” Sergej acknowledges candidly.
Yet Bitrefill stands proudly as a market leader by volume for transactional bitcoin use. When YouTube travelers share their global adventures “living on bitcoin,” it’s Bitrefill powering most of those purchases. He notes with pride:
“If you watch these YouTubers ‘I spent a month traveling the world living on Bitcoin,’ there’s been quite a few of those… around 50 to 80 [percent], that a good chunk of their bitcoin usage ends up being with Bitrefill.”
And Bitrefill is not done innovating. Recently, they introduced the Bitrefill reloadable Visa card in Europe, designed for ease of use. Sergej explains:
“It’s a regulated product, you need to have an account and go through KYC and all of that, but once you have it, it’s a very simple straightforward no bulls*** method.
“you send in your bitcoin, Lightning works, and then you can just go and blip and pay, and then you don’t have to think about anything.”
Bitrefill offers reloadable Visa cards
To promote it, they’ve even been hiring people specifically to travel around Europe spending bitcoin and documenting the journey.
“We put up these ads and we hire someone and then we record them having the best day of their life spending money,” he says.
While acknowledging it’s partly a marketing stunt, he adds, “Paying some of our customers instead to spend the day having a blast and then record it and make content is a better choice than traditional advertising.”
Bitrefill on X
But Sergej has his eyes firmly on an even more futuristic horizon: a world where robots pay each other seamlessly.
“We’ve built an online monetary system that discriminates against bots because they’re usually associated with fraud,” Sergej notes.
“But soon, we’ll rely on AI to shop automatically for us. Having a fraud-free online payment method like Bitcoin could revolutionize how robotic agents transact.”
“In a world where everybody has a bunch of agents being robotic secretaries and so on, and given the fact that online commerce is currently designed specifically to keep out robots… I think there’s a big opportunity there,” he explains.
“Having an online payment method that is fraud-free should in theory be very useful for a world in which shopping happens automatically, for example, or how a robot will pay other robots.”
The intersection of how AI will leverage Bitcoin is a fascinating rabbit hole and discussion that is playing out in real time.
Sergej recommends Daniel Suarez’s novel “Daemon” for those intrigued by the potential (and risks) of AI-driven transactions.
“There’s tremendous opportunity here,” he teases, “and it’s definitely something we’re actively exploring at Bitrefill.”
Asked what he’d ask Satoshi Nakamoto if given the chance, Sergej pauses briefly. “I would ask him to tell me the story of how he left the space,” he finally answers.
Given Sergej’s decade-long journey with Bitrefill, his curiosity about Bitcoin’s creator’s departure feels particularly fitting.
Ten years is a long time in Bitcoin, but clearly, Sergej Kotliar and Bitrefill are just getting started.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-06-13 03:01:42In today’s digital era, access to financial services remains a privilege for many. Bitcoinization – the mass adoption of bitcoin as a payment medium and store of value – represents a unique opportunity to democratize access to financial services.
Telecommunications carriers occupy a strategic position in this transformation, especially in regions where traditional internet access is limited. However, this aspect remains largely unexplored.
This article seeks to examine how these companies can catalyze this financial revolution by analyzing the Machankura case and the technical possibilities within current communication infrastructure.
The Success Sotry of Machankura
The Machankura project (8333.mobi) emerged to address a common challenge in various African regions: financial exclusion due to limited internet access. Created by South African developer Kgothatso Ngako, the service utilizes the USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) protocol, supported by virtually all mobile phones, to facilitate bitcoin transactions via 2G and 3G cellular networks.
Machankura – derived from South African slang for “money” – functions as a custodial bitcoin wallet. Through the USSD protocol, users can access the service by dialing short codes (*123*456789#, for example) or sending SMS messages to specific numbers.
When the server receives the code or message, an interactive session between the parties (server-user) begins. This enables users to create bitcoin wallets associated with their phone numbers, protected by multi-digit PINs.
Once registered, users receive a Lightning address (example: 1234567890@8333.mobi) that can be used to receive bitcoin from anyone worldwide. Users can also customize this address to a preferred username, further enhancing privacy.
Currently, Machankura is available in nine African countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and Malawi. The creator’s objective is to expand the service to all countries across the African continent in the coming years.
The Technical Foundations of Machankura’s Success – USSD
As mentioned, USSD is a protocol embedded in mobile networks and available on virtually all cellular devices. This choice proved crucial for the Machankura project, given that in Africa, more than half of phones sold are not smartphones. Additionally, this protocol offers critical technical advantages:
- Operates without requiring internet access, functioning in areas with poor connectivity.
- Universal compatibility with any mobile phone, including the most basic models.
- Provides real-time interactivity between users and the system.
- Features an intuitive interface already utilized for banking services, customer support, and self-service applications
These advantages have enabled bitcoin to become accessible to a significant portion of the region’s population, with over 15,000 users, according to Machankura’s project creator.
USSD and Connectivity Challenges
The primary technical limitation of USSD manifests in high-connectivity environments (4G, 5G, or higher). As established by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project, organization for standardization of mobile networks), the protocol must be recognized by newer generations of cellular networks.
However, this recognition requires a procedure known as inter-technology fallback. For instance, if a user is connected to a 5G network and streaming music, when accessing a USSD service, their connection will downgrade to a 3G (or 2G) network, inevitably interrupting media streaming execution.
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS): The Evolution in Telecommunications Services
The solution to connectivity issues with USSD resides within the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), a subsystem within the standardized architecture of newer cellular networks (from fourth generation onwards).
Its objective is to unify access and provision of multimedia services across both mobile and fixed networks. These services include:
- Voice services – such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Voice over WiFi (VoWiFi)
- Video services – such as Video over LTE (ViLTE) and Video over WiFi (ViWiFi)
- Videoconferencing
- Instant messaging
- Streaming media
- Emergency services
- Interoperability between legacy networks
The New Era: USSI (USSD over IP)
USSI (USSD over IP) represents the solution for service continuity across 4G, 5G, and future networks when utilizing USSD services. This new protocol enhances service quality, increases simultaneous session capacity, provides additional features for recent devices, improves session security, and enables operation without requiring fallback procedures.
Strategic Opportunities for Carriers
Institutional bitcoin adoption is already established, with integration into portfolios of mining companies, exchanges, automobile manufacturers (Tesla), investment funds (BlackRock), financial institutions (Galaxy Digital Holdings), technology companies (including MicroStrategy, MercadoLibre, and Brazilian Meliúz), and even nations such as El Salvador, the United States, and China.
With robust, secure, and extensive infrastructure, telecommunications carriers can implement complex and advanced bitcoin-based financial services, demystifying its use and stimulating adoption.
Strategic partnerships with exchanges and fintechs enhance integrated solutions for entrepreneurs and consumers, such as integration with Lightning Network nodes to enable rapid, low-cost transactions between IoT devices, machine-to-machine (M2M) applications, and point-of-sale (POS) terminals.
The competitive advantages of this approach include:
- New Revenue Streams: Companies can collect fees from simple transactions and provide advanced financial services such as loans, insurance, and investments.
- Customer Retention: By offering innovative services, they can reduce customer churn.
- Vanguard Strategy: Strategic positioning in an emerging high-capitalization market
The Future of Bitcoinization in Telecommunications
The success of the Machankura project unequivocally demonstrates the potential of telecommunications as transformative agents in the mass adoption of bitcoin. As the bitcoin ecosystem consolidates and expands, it is essential that we recognize this opportunity not merely as a new business vertical but as an important step toward strategic positioning at the forefront of a global economic transformation.
Given the extensive reach of existing infrastructure, these carriers can become the primary catalyst for transforming the lives of the unbanked in an unprecedented manner. As we have seen, bitcoin is no longer just a trend; it is a reality. The natural consequence of this reality is bitcoinization, and we have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this emerging paradigm.
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-06-13 02:02:31Bitcoin Core developers are planning changes to OP_RETURN data limits in version 30.
A group of Bitcoin Core developers has set October for the implementation of changes to the management of OP_RETURN outputs — a field that allows small amounts of arbitrary data to be inserted into Bitcoin transactions.
Currently, Bitcoin Core’s default mempool limits these outputs to 83 bytes. The upcoming modification will increase this limit to nearly 4MB per output. Some developers, including Antoine Poinsot and Peter Todd, argue for the need for greater flexibility in how the blockchain can be used.
The conservative stance
Resistance to these changes is being led by figures such as Luke Dashjr and BitcoinMechanic, who consider the expansion of the OP_RETURN limit a betrayal of Bitcoin’s fundamental principles. In their view, node operators should reject the storage of data unrelated to Bitcoin’s financial use case.
Conservatives argue that Bitcoin should not become a cloud storage service or a database for arbitrary data. The Bitcoin ledger, they maintain, should serve a narrow purpose: exclusively validating BTC movements for monetary use cases.
Version 30 release scheduled
The announcement of the October release date came via a post from Bitcoin Core developer Gloria Zhao, who confirmed the planned rollout for version 30.
While the default value will increase from 83 bytes to nearly 4MB, node operators will still be able to manually adjust the -datacarrier and -datacarriersize parameters. However, it’s widely acknowledged that most users stick with the default configuration.
Technical and philosophical implications
The controversy extends beyond purely technical matters, touching on fundamental questions about Bitcoin’s identity and future. Progressives see this evolution as necessary to keep Bitcoin competitive and versatile.
Conservatives, on the other hand, fear that allowing the storage of large amounts of arbitrary data could compromise network efficiency, increase node operation costs, and steer Bitcoin away from its original mission as a decentralized digital currency.
Community reactions
The debate has sparked tensions within the community. The technical editor of Bitcoin Magazine described conservatives as groups of people “clueless, and in some cases outright malicious and manipulative people on social media.”
On the other side, BitcoinMechanic called the progressives’ proposed changes completely “incoherent” with Bitcoin’s nature and objectives.
Jimmy Song also criticized the decision in a post on X, stating:
OP_RETURN outputs greater than 83 bytes will increase significantly, UTXO bloat will keep getting worse and there will be more garbage on chain.
This is going to age like a bad tattoo. pic.twitter.com/hUTpg8a5NM
— Jimmy Song (송재준) (@jimmysong) June 9, 2025
The post Bitcoin Core: OP_RETURN limit removal scheduled for October appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7
2025-06-13 02:01:29Why are Stripe Alternatives are growing like mushrooms? When it comes to online payment processing, Stripe has long dominated the conversation.
However, with its complex pricing structure, strict policies and first-world focus, many entrepreneurs and companies are actively seeking viable Stripe alternatives.
Whether you’re a SaaS startup, e-commerce store, or global enterprise, choosing the right payment processor can significantly impact your bottom line and customer experience.
Table of Contents
- Why Consider Stripe Alternatives?
- The Complete List of Stripe Alternatives
- Additional Notable Mentions
- How to Choose the Right Stripe Alternative
- Conclusion
Why Consider Stripe Alternatives?
Before diving into our comprehensive list, it’s worth understanding why businesses are exploring alternatives to Stripe. While Stripe offers robust features and excellent developer tools, some businesses face challenges with pricing transparency, limited global coverage, or specific industry requirements that Stripe doesn’t fully address.
The Complete List of Stripe Alternatives
Based on extensive research and analysis of the payment processing landscape, here are 27 proven Stripe alternatives that could be the perfect fit for your business:
1. Flash – Easiest Bitcoin Payment Solution
Flash is the easiest Bitcoin payment gateway for businesses to accept payments. Supporting both digital and physical enterprises, Flash leverages the Lightning Network to enable fast, low-cost Bitcoin transactions. Launched in its 2.0 version in March 2025, Flash is at the forefront of driving Bitcoin adoption in e-commerce.
2. Lemon Squeezy – The SaaS-Focused Alternative
Dubbed as “acq’d by Stripe,” Lemon Squeezy offers a comprehensive solution specifically designed for digital product sales and SaaS businesses. It provides strong customer support, built-in analytics, and handles payments, subscriptions, global tax compliance, and fraud prevention in one platform.
3. Gumroad – Creator Economy Champion
Gumroad has carved out a niche serving creators and small businesses by providing tools for selling digital products, physical goods, and subscriptions. It’s particularly popular among content creators, artists, and independent entrepreneurs who want to experiment with various ideas and formats. They also open-sourced their code which is quite the ‘chad-move’.
4. Paddle – All-in-One SaaS Commerce
Paddle caters to SaaS and software companies by offering a comprehensive platform with billing, licensing, and global tax handling capabilities. It’s designed to be a complete solution for subscription-based businesses, handling payments, tax, and subscription management in one platform.
5. FastSpring – Global E-commerce Specialist
FastSpring specializes in e-commerce solutions for software and SaaS companies, with a focus on global payments and subscription management. According to TechnologyAdvice, it’s particularly strong for international transactions and helps companies sell more, stay lean, and compete big.
6. 2Checkout – Versatile Payment Solutions
2Checkout (now part of Verifone) offers versatile payment solutions excelling in global payments, subscription billing, and digital commerce. One of the best stripe alternatives as it’s an all-in-one monetization platform that maximizes revenues and makes global online sales easier, supporting over 200 countries and territories.
7. Payoneer – Cross-Border Payment Expert
Payoneer simplifies cross-border payment solutions, offering local payment ease globally with a focus on market expansion and multi-currency support. It’s trusted by small to medium-sized businesses for global payment solutions and international money transfers.
8. Chargebee – Subscription Management Leader
Chargebee is a subscription management platform perfect for SaaS and SMBs, with robust billing and revenue management features. If you were looking for stripe alternatives to setup subscriptions, Chargebee might be right for you. It streamlines revenue operations and helps businesses grow efficiently with comprehensive subscription billing capabilities.
9. Maxio (formerly Chargify) – B2B SaaS Billing
Maxio offers a robust platform for B2B SaaS billing and financial operations, focusing on growth and efficiency for subscription businesses. It’s the most complete financial operations platform for B2B SaaS, bringing core financial operations into one platform.
10. Recurly – Dynamic Subscription Management
Recurly offers dynamic subscription management platform, excelling in churn management and data insights for subscription growth. It’s the only proven platform that expands and protects your recurring revenue with subscription management, recurring billing, and payments orchestration.
11. Braintree – PayPal’s Enterprise Solution
Braintree (by PayPal) provides a versatile global payments platform, integrating multiple payment methods with a focus on conversion and security. It delivers end-to-end checkout experiences for businesses, offering single-touch payments and mobile optimization.
12. PayKickstart – Modern Commerce Platform
PayKickstart offers a modern commerce platform for online billing and affiliates, focusing on revenue maximization and churn minimization. It’s the most complete checkout, recurring billing, affiliate management, and retention solution with global capabilities.
13. PayPro Global – Full-Service E-commerce
PayPro Global offers a full-service eCommerce solution for selling software and SaaS, focusing on global payments, tax compliance, and customer support. It provides flexible solutions with over 70 payment methods and great support for software companies.
14. Shopify Payments – E-commerce Integration
Integrated with Shopify, this service is ideal for SMBs in eCommerce, offering a seamless shopping cart and payment experience. It’s the simplest way to accept online payments, automatically set up for major methods with no fees for some payment types.
15. Square – Versatile POS and Payment Solutions
Square provides versatile POS and payment solutions for small businesses with a strong focus on retail and mobile payments. Forbes Advisor notes it as one of the top alternatives for businesses needing both online and offline payment capabilities.
16. Zoho Billing – Integrated Business Solution
Zoho Billing is an online recurring billing and subscription management solution, ideal for small and medium-sized businesses seeking professional invoice creation, time and expense tracking, and improved cash flow management. Zoho isn’t just competing for stripe alternatives, they offer a ton of other products and services.
17. WePay – Chase Company Integration
WePay, a Chase company, provides integrated payment solutions for ISVs and SaaS companies with customizable payment solutions. It’s designed for platforms like marketplaces and small business tools, offering seamless user experience and fraud protection.
18. QuickBooks Payments – SMB Accounting Integration
This service provides seamless accounting and payment solutions for SMBs and SaaS businesses, featuring real-time tracking and automated bookkeeping. It lets small businesses accept payments online from anywhere with easy integration into QuickBooks accounting.
19. Mangopay – Marketplace Payment Infrastructure
Mangopay offers a modular payment infrastructure for marketplaces and platforms, emphasizing flexibility, global payouts, and AI-powered anti-fraud. It uses flexible wallets built to orchestrate fund flows and monetize payment experiences.
20. Coinbase Commerce – Cryptocurrency Payments
Coinbase Commerce enables businesses to accept payments from around the world using cryptocurrency. It offers instant settlement, low fees, and broad asset support, making it easy for merchants to accept digital currency payments globally.
21. BTCPay Server – Open-Source Bitcoin Processor
BTCPay Server is a self-hosted, open-source cryptocurrency payment processor with 0% fees and no third-party involvement. It’s secure, private, censorship-resistant, and completely free for businesses wanting full control over their Bitcoin payments.
22. Lago – Open-Source Billing Alternative
Lago is an open-source alternative to Stripe Billing and Chargebee, specializing in billing and metering in one place for usage-b
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:44:39- Amnezia - VPN client that enables you to deploy your own VPN server on your server
- AnimePipe (PipePipe) - An alternative Android streaming front-end of Bilibili, NicoNico, Youtube & more
- ArcaneChat - Encrypted chat over e-mail (Delta Chat client)
- Audile - Music recognition app
- baresip - VoIP User Agent app for Android based on baresip SIP library
- Better Stundenplan - A (hopefully) not-so-bad client for virtueller-stundenplan.org
- Bluesky - Bluesky is the ultimate social network for tech-savvy folks who stay connected and in the loop.
- Breezy Weather - A lightweight, powerful, open-source Material Design weather app.
- ByeDPI - Bypass censorship on Android
- ClashMetaForAndroid - A rule-based tunnel
- Clippy - Copy links from the sharing menu with automatic removal of shorteners and trackers
- DAVx⁵ - CalDAV/CardDAV Synchronization and Client
- DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser - Privacy, simplified open source web browser
- EinkBro - lightweight, fast, but powerful browser designed for Eink devices.
- Element - Secure Messenger - Group messenger - encrypted messaging, group chat and video calls
- Element X - Secure messenger - Fastest ever Matrix client
- evcc - solar charging - charge your EV when the sun is shining or electricity is cheap and clean
- Exclave - Proxy client
- FairEmail - Fully featured email client. Neat, intuitive user interface. Privacy friendly
- Fennec - Browse the web
- flabr - client for habr.com
- geteduroam - Configure eduroam by using your institution profile
- getgovroam - Configure the govroam Wi-Fi network securely and correctly
- husi - Husi is a proxy configurations manager.
- Iceraven Browser - Iceraven Browser is a web browser for Android, based on Mozilla's Fenix version of Firefox
- InviZible Pro - increase your security, protect your privacy
- IPerf3Client - iPerf3 is a tool for active measurements of the max bandwidth on IP networks.
- IronFox - Web browser with privacy and security features for Android
- K-9 Mail - Full-featured email client
- Kahon - A fork of Mihon with some annoying restrictions removed
- LabNex - Android app for GitLab
- LibreTube - Alternative YouTube frontend for Android built with Piped
- LinkGuardian - Android client for Linkwarden built with Jetpack Compose
- litube - a feature-rich Android WebView wrapper for YouTube
- Materialious - Modern material design for Invidious
- Mint - a lightweight Misskey Android client
- Mull Browser - Privacy oriented web browser based on Mozilla Fennec
- nekobox - sing-box / universal proxy toolchain for Android
- NewPipe - Lightweight app that lets you watch and listen to media from various platforms.
- Nitterify - open Twitter links in Nitter
- OpenStore - Libre client for RuStore
- Panoramax - Panoramax mobile is an app to capture and upload photo sequences to Panoramax.
- Parcel - Track all your parcels with ease.
- PixEz - A third-party Pixiv flutter client that supports viewing ugoira
- Pixiv-MultiPlatform - Third-party Pixiv client
- ProtonVPN - Secure and Free VPN - Free Swiss VPN with advanced security and privacy features.
- Quad9 Connect - Android application for Quad9 recursive DNS cybersecurity and privacy services
- QuickWeather - Weather at a glance for anywhere in the world!
- Quotes.app - A minimalistic quotes app
- Readeck App - manage saved articles and bookmarks
- Rocket.Chat - Team Communication Tool
- Seqular - Seqular, A Social Network without Place or Nation.
- ServerBox - A server status & toolbox app using Flutter
- SkyTube - An open source YouTube client
- Spotube - Lightweight & resource friendly Spotify client without requiring Spotify Premium
- ThreatScoopOnionChat - A Forked Version focused on privacy from SESSION
- ToS;DR - Short summaries on Terms of Conditions
- TorrServe - Download torrent files
- Traintime PDA - Another personal data assistant for XDU undergraduate.
- Weread - Read it later for web content
- Weather (PFA) - (SECUSO) Lets you watch the weather for cities and locations of your choice
- WhatsDown - ⚡ Fast encrypted chats for the family 🎉
- Wiki Fronted - Wikipedia app with domain fronting
- WikWok - Learn something new with every swipe!
- Wikipedia - Official feature-rich viewer of the free online encyclopedia
- Xray - Xray GUI Client For Android
- YTDLnis - Android Video/Audio Downloader app using yt-dlp
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-06-13 01:02:40The Russian government is preparing sanctions against those who violate mining regulations, with fines of up to $25,000.
The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation has drafted a bill introducing financial penalties and the seizure of cryptocurrencies for miners operating illegally.
The ministerial proposal, currently under interdepartmental review according to Forbes Russia, would grant judicial authorities extraordinary powers over the mining sector. Courts would be able not only to impose financial penalties but also to directly confiscate illegally mined bitcoins.
Fines will follow a progressive scale:
- private individuals: 100,000 to 200,000 rubles ($1,272–$2,544);
- individual entrepreneurs and public officials: 200,000 to 400,000 rubles ($2,544–$5,088);
- companies and corporations: 1 million to 2 million rubles ($12,728–$25,456).
Crackdown on mining pools
Another aspect of the proposed legislation concerns mining pools. If approved, the bill would introduce penalties for those participating in such groups illegally. The government strategy aims to amend the Code of Administrative Offenses, effectively turning illegal mining into a criminal offense with harsher consequences than current administrative fines.
Crypto payments under scrutiny
Beyond mining operations, the new provisions would also target the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment outside the official sandbox managed by Russia’s Central Bank. Sanctions for this violation could reach 1 million rubles ($12,728).
Andrey Medvedev, Head of the Legal Department at the Central Bank, emphasized during the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum that “[crypto] illegally used as a means of payment will be confiscated.”
Regional restrictions on mining
Under current Russian regulations, unregistered citizens are allowed to mine domestically provided their energy consumption does not exceed 6,000 kWh per month. However, about ten Russian regions and territories under Russian control maintain specific restrictions.
Operators of mining infrastructures — primarily data center and hosting service providers — will be required to report operational details to Rosfinmonitoring, the national financial intelligence agency, including wallet addresses used at their facilities.
While penalties are tightening, the government recently chose not to extend mining bans to new regions. The government’s energy commission, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, rejected a proposal to ban mining in Khakassia and postponed annual restrictions in Zabaikalsky Krai and Buryatia. However, Moscow has approved a one-year mining ban in the southern part of the Irkutsk region, widely considered the de facto capital of Russian mining.
The post Mining in Russia: fines and asset seizures for illegal operations appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-06-13 01:02:19BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has become the fastest exchange-traded fund (ETF) to ever reach $70 billion in assets under management (AUM).
The fund, which launched in January 2024, hit this milestone in just 341 trading days—five times faster than the previous record-holder, the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which took 1,691 days to reach the same mark.
IBIT now holds over 662,000 BTC — iShares
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas tweeted on June 9, “IBIT just blew through $70 billion and is now the fastest ETF to ever hit that mark in only 341 days.” This is a big deal and shows bitcoin is going mainstream.
IBIT has beaten fastest growing ETFs in history — Eric Balchunas on X
The fund’s rapid growth means institutional investors are embracing bitcoin at scale.
The fund has $71.9 billion in AUM and holds over 662,000 bitcoin. This makes BlackRock the largest institutional bitcoin holder in the world. To put that in perspective, the fund holds more bitcoin than Binance or Michael Saylor’s Strategy.
“IBIT’s growth is unprecedented,” said Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart. “It’s the fastest ETF to reach most milestones, faster than any other ETF in any asset class.”
BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF isn’t just big. It’s also greatly outperforming other spot bitcoin ETFs launched at the same time. BlackRock’s brand and global client base gave the fund instant credibility.
Many institutional investors want a regulated and convenient way to get into bitcoin without holding the asset directly, and this fund has made it easy for them to invest.
Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, told Yahoo Finance that bitcoin’s rising status as an inflation hedge and alternative store of value is driving IBIT’s popularity.
He explained bitcoin is becoming an inflation hedge and alternative store of value and that’s what’s driving the growth.
Eric Balchunas also noted that when BlackRock filed for IBIT, bitcoin was at $30,000 and there was still skepticism after the FTX blowup. Now that bitcoin is at $110,000, it is “seen as legitimate for other big investors.”
Institutional demand for bitcoin has never been stronger, with IBIT making up nearly 20% of all bitcoin held by public companies, private firms, governments, exchanges and decentralized finance platforms.
That dominance may soon be challenged as public companies prepare to buy more bitcoin and shake up the current supply distribution.
Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital assets research, shared data that six public companies plan to raise, or have raised, up to $76 billion to buy bitcoin. That’s more than half of the spot Bitcoin ETF industry’s current AUM, so there’s clearly interest beyond ETFs.
On the broader market, IBIT’s rise coincided with bitcoin’s price surge to new highs above $110,000. The inflows reflect investors’ confidence in Bitcoin’s future and desire for regulated exposure through traditional products.
It’s worth mentioning that IBIT also had over $1 billion in volume on its first day of trading. It’s now the largest ETF in BlackRock’s lineup, even bigger than gold funds and other popular ETFs tracking international equities.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:41:58- 3D Model Viewer - Load 3D Models and see how to do it
- AL-chan - AL-chan is an unofficial Android client for AniList, a place where you can track, share, discover, and experience Anime and Manga.
- Aves - Gallery and metadata explorer
- Aves Libre - Gallery and metadata explorer
- BabbyPaint - Simple little paint application for kids.
- Drawpile - A collaborative drawing program
- Easter Eggs - Built in eggs in official versions of Android system.
- Elements - Chinese zodiac five elements as a pageable calendar
- Exif Thumbnail Adder - Add thumbnail in the EXIF tag of JPEG picture not having one (batch processing)
- Fossify Gallery - Gallery with Photo editor. No Ads, Open-source, Private. No strings attached.
- Fossify Paint - Quick, easy and open source drawing app
- FreePaint - A vector graphics drawing app for Android.
- Gallery - Light-weight Media Gallery
- Image Toolbox - Powerful picture editor, crop, apply filters, remove background, edit EXIF or create PDF
- Imagepipe - removes exif data and modifies images to reduce size before sharing.
- LBalance - LBalance is a clinometer or balance app offering different Layouts.
- Les Pas - Photo Album for Nextcloud - A photo album that saves all your precious memory in your private cloud
- Memerize - Memerize is a handy meme viewer app. Uses Reddit to get the latest memes.
- Memories: Photo Management for Nextcloud - Fast, modern and advanced photo management suite. Runs as a Nextcloud app.
- OCR - OCR based on Tesseract 5
- OCR (Tesseract) - Optical character recognition (OCR) functionality based on Tesseract via Intents
- Open Stable Diffusion - An app for generating images using AI
- Pani - record RAW image data
- Photo Editor - A Photo Editor app with simple, easy support for image editing using Paints, Tex
- PhotoPrism Gallery - An unofficial gallery and content provider for your PhotoPrism library
- PhotoSwooper - A dating app for ur photos
- PicGuard - Your pictures, your signature.
- PicGuard Pro - Your pictures, your signature.
- PiPixiv - Third-party Pixiv Client
- Pix-EzViewer - A third-party Pixiv Android client. (Android 5.0+)
- PixEz - A third-party Pixiv flutter client that supports viewing ugoira
- Pixiv-MultiPlatform - Third-party Pixiv client
- ProgrammingTools - generate QR codes from text input
- QuickEdit - Basic and lightweight Photo Editor.
- RetroDrawing - A simple drawing app with big pixels and fixed palette.
- SDAI FOSS - Generate Stable Diffusion AI assets on your own WebUI server instance.
- Simple Raw Camera - a simple camera for Android
- Sketching (PFA) - Create and manage simple sketches in a quick and easy manner
- Slideshow Wallpaper - A Live Wallpaper showing a slideshow of user-selected images
- Smartspacer - Customizable widget that enhances the built-in At a Glance feature on Pixels, all without requiring root access.
- SoftBoard - a simple Whiteboard app
- Stitch - Stitch screenshots together
- TIDY Text-to-Image Discovery - Offline semantic Text-to-Image and Image-to-Image search on Android
- VES - Image and Photo Compare - Before and after image compare, photo compare and picture compare. Side by side
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:39:14- AAAAXY - A nonlinear 2D puzzle platformer taking place in impossible spaces.
- Asteroid's Revenge - Endless survival bulletHell (highscore based).
- Bim! - A multiplayer online mobile game of the last man standing genre
- Blitz: Fischer chess clock - A minimalist Fischer chess clock for Android.
- Box Smasher - Shoot balls to smash boxes into the void!
- Breakout 71 - Break colourful bricks, catch bouncing coins and select powerful upgrades !
- Cascada - Casual logic game with marbles for two players
- Chaldea - Material Planner for Fate/GO
- Chip Defense - A tower defense game with a microprocessor theme
- Cifras o letras - A simplified version of Countdown UK game-show.
- Dice App - A simple Dice roller for Android.
- Dolphin Emulator - Nintendo console emulator
- Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - A roguelike adventure through dungeons in a quest to find the Orb of Zot
- Easy Dice - RPG dice roller
- Easter Eggs - Built in eggs in official versions of Android system.
- Eidetic - A simple Android app that helps you improve your working memory
- Emotic - Reignite the love for emoticons
- FaFa Runner - Enjoy smooth gameplay, stunning graphics, and endless fun
- Forkyz - Crossword puzzles application, download and play.
- Freebloks - Strategy board game similar to the famous board game Blokus.
- Freeminer - Voxel-based multiplayer game platform
- Game Counter - A customizable game point counter
- Gauguin - A Sudoku-like logic game
- Human Benchmark - Test and compare your cognitive abilities with fun challenges
- idTech4A++ - DOOM III/Quake 4/Prey(2006) game runtime environment for Android
- Initiative Tracker - Initiative Tracker compatible with Pathfinder 2 encounter rules
- Jass board - Very flexible Jass board to write points at the Schieber, Coiffeur, Molotov.
- Katawa Shoujo: Re-Engineered - (18+) A fan-made modernization of the classic visual novel
- Mafia - A Mafia party game app for Android +4.4
- Mancala - Mancala Game
- Mill - A Mill Game which supports many rule variants
- Mindustry - A factory-based sandbox tower defense game
- Minetest - Near infinite world block sandbox game
- MOROway App - Play with the MORO model railroad!
- Naija Ludo + - Naija Ludo: A Modern Twist on the Classic Board Game
- Open Sudoku - Open Sudoku is an open source sudoku game.
- PasseGares - Travel through the train stations to stamp your visa!
- Pomodorot - A simple timer which pauses when not in view
- PPSSPP - PSP emulator
- RetroArch - Retro games and emulators on your device!
- Ricochlime - Satisfying monster shooter
- Roboyard - Problem-solving game - find the optimal moves to move one robot to its target
- Rucoy calculator - An unofficial calculator for all things Rucoy Online related!
- Shattered Pixel Dungeon - A roguelike game based on Pixel Dungeon
- Stendhal Game - Stendhal is a multiplayer adventure with classic 2D graphics. It is completely o
- TacticMaster - Chess tactic trainer based on https://database.lichess.org/#puzzles.
- TerraTactician Expandoria - Hexagon based logic game
- TheXTech - 2D-platformer game engine
- TriPeaks NEUE - A simple TriPeaks game.
- Trivia App - A simple app that pulls out trivia out of OpenTriviaDB and challenges you.
- Unjumble - an anagram game with picture hints
- Unreal Speccy Portable Emulator - Unreal Speccy Portable - ZX Spectrum Emulator
- Unciv - 4X civilization-building game
- VCMI - Engine recreation for Heroes of Might and Magic III
- VRChat Android Assistant - VRChat Friend Management Application for Android devices.
- Warsmash - Warsmash Android port
- Werewolf (Privacy Friendly) - (SECUSO) Open source adaption of the Werewolf card game. Play together via WiFi
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:36:36- Berlin-Vegan - Berlin-Vegan Guide
- Calories AI - React native app to estimate calories from an image
- Cavity - Wine cellar manager
- Food-E - An app to get information about artificial additives found in Processed foods.
- Food Expirations - Remember all the expiration dates of your food stocks.
- FridgeFriend - Know your fridge. What you need, what you have, and where you get it from.
- Gibsonify - collect nutritional data using Gibson's method
- Lifyzer - Native Food Scanner
- MyGarden - A simple app to manage your Garden.
- Specifically Clementines - self hosted grocery shopping app
- Untare - Unofficial Tandoor Recipes App
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@ eb0157af:77ab6c55
2025-06-13 00:02:31CEO Paolo Ardoino unveils the open-source strategy for the operating system, aiming to make mining accessible to small and medium-sized businesses.
Tether has announced it will make its Bitcoin Mining Operating System (MOS) available for free, enabling operators of all sizes to manage mining infrastructures without relying on third-party software. The announcement came directly from CEO Paolo Ardoino.
How the Bitcoin Mining Operating System works
The operating system developed by Tether offers an efficient solution for managing mining operations. The MOS integrates all essential components of a mining site into a serverless peer-to-peer network, ensuring smooth communication between devices.
The platform supports architectures ranging from minimal setups on Raspberry Pi to industrial-scale facilities managing hundreds of thousands of miners.
According to Ardoino, the decision to make the Bitcoin Mining Operating System open-source aims to level the playing field between small and large operators. Tether’s CEO stated on X:
“A horde of new Bitcoin mining companies will be able to enter the game and compete to keep the network safe.”
Future developments
Tether’s team is currently working on documentation, user guides, and preparing repositories for community access. The Bitcoin Mining Operating System release is scheduled for Q4 2025.
Future plans include integrating artificial intelligence tools to enhance production analysis and performance monitoring using data generated by the operating system.
Tether’s expansion strategy
In recent years, Tether has diversified beyond stablecoins, expanding into sectors such as artificial intelligence, Bitcoin mining, and education. By mid-2025, the company had invested approximately $2 billion in Bitcoin mining and energy-related activities.
During his speeches at Bitcoin Conference 2025 in Las Vegas, Ardoino revealed the company’s ambitions:
“I think that it’s very realistic that by the end of the year, Tether will be the biggest Bitcoin miner in the world, even including all the public companies.”
The post Tether to release Its Bitcoin Mining Operating System for free appeared first on Atlas21.
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@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:32:51- Acode - Powerful text/code editor
- Accrescent - A novel Android app store focused on security, privacy, and usability
- Activity Manager - Hidden activity launcher
- BLE Manager - Control your BLE devices easily. No libraries needed.
- BleOta - Upload firmware over Bluetooth
- BinEd - Binary/Hex Editor - Editor for binary data (hex viewer/editor)
- ChatterUI - ChatterUI is a native mobile LLM AI frontend
- DevQS - Quick Settings tiles for developers
- Edge Gallery - Try AI models locally on your Android device
- Emacs - The extensible self-documenting text editor
- Exfilac - Simple, reliable, automated S3 uploads for Android.
- FakeTraveler - Fake your location
- File Explorer - Full-featured and lightweight file managing app
- Font Gallery - Display how different fonts families and their variations look
- freeCodeCamp - Learn to code from your mobile phone
- Git Sync - Android git client for syncing a repository between remote and a local directory
- Git Coach - Take your code to new heights, with Git Coach as your guide
- Godot Editor 4 - All-in-one, cross-platform game engine
- Glitch - Design colorful Arduino programs via visual block diagrams
- GPS Setter - A GPS setter based on the Xposed framework
- Geto - Hide Developer Options detection in any apps without root access
- HexViewer - Hexadecimal viewer for Android
- Lab+ for Gitlab - Your unofficial Companion for Gitlab
- Micro REPL - MicroPython IDE
- Open Alert Viewer - Fetch and display server alerts
- OctoDroid - Provides access to GitHub and lets you stay connected with your network
- QRAlarm - Disable alarms with a QR scanner
- Squircle CE - Code Editor - A fast multi-language code editor and file manager for Android
- SmolChat - Running any GGUF SLMs/LLMs locally, on-device in Android
- Shader Editor - Create and edit GLSL shaders
- Termux - Terminal emulator with packages
- Termux:GUI - A plugin for Termux to use the Android GUI from terminal applications
- Termux:API - Access Android functions from Termux
- TermuC - A simple C/C++ IDE backed on Termux
- Tilde Friends - A tool for making and sharing
- disky - Find your biggest diskspace thiefes! - A filesystem analyzer that can show you the usage of your storage!
- Dumpsys Packages Copycat - Provides a detailed summary of all installed packages
- Unexpected Keyboard - A lightweight virtual keyboard for developers
- Vibrator - A simple app for starting and stopping the system vibrator
- Json List - Previewing JSON files in a user-friendly list format
- Sudachi - Sudachi is a Nintendo Switch emulator
- Vectras-VM - A Virtual Machine App for Android Which is Based on QEMU
- Orgro - Live your life in Org Mode? Take it with you on your Android device
-
@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:30:11- BLE Manager - Control your BLE devices easily. No libraries needed.
- BLEtoMQTT - Android BLE to MQTT bridging service
- Briar - Decentralized peer-to-peer secure messaging connecting via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Tor.
- BT Remote - Bluetooth remote control for Android TV.
- Calyx VPN - Free VPN Service offered by The Calyx Institute
- CatShare - App for Mutual Transmission Alliance
- Delta - Hotspot manager using Shizuku API
- DCC++Throttle - Application to drive DCC-EX command station via Bluetooth
- DNSNet - Lightweight ad and content blocker
- DroidPad - Create customizable control interfaces for WebSocket, MQTT, TCP, UDP.
- DroidVNC-NG - VNC server app that does not require root privileges.
- evcc - solar charging - charge your EV when the sun is shining or electricity is cheap and clean
- Fread - A fediverse microblogging client supporting Mastodon, Bluesky, and RSS.
- Gadgetbridge - Use your smart watch and other bluetooth devices and keep your data private!
- GPS Setter - A GPS setter based on the Xposed framework.
- HeaterRC - Remote control heater via SMS
- Home Assistant - Control all your devices in your Home Assistant instance
- Iceraven Browser - Iceraven Browser is a web browser for Android, based on Mozilla's Fenix version of Firefox
- Meshtastic - An inexpensive open-source GPS mesh radio for hiking, skiing, flying, marching.
- Mullvad VPN - Protect your online privacy with a fast, trustworthy, and easy-to-use VPN.
- Network Survey+ - Logs LTE QCDM Messages to a PCAP file
- Nextcloud Talk - Have private video calls and chat using your own server.
- NFCMessageBoard - Share messages via NFC tags
- Open Alert Viewer - Fetch and display server alerts
- ProtonVPN - Secure and Free VPN - Free Swiss VPN with advanced security and privacy features.
- QRshare - App that allows sharing some plain text as a QR code
- ShockAlarm - Material3 app for controlling OpenShock shockers
- ShareAsQR - App that allows sharing some plain text as a QR code
- Share 2 Archive Today - Share a URL to Archive.today and Archive.Is
- Seqular - Seqular, A Social Network without Place or Nation.
- SimpleX Chat - e2e encrypted messenger without any user IDs - private by design!
- Sefirah - Windows Notification Mirroring, Clipboard Sync, File Transfer, Media Control
- SocketChat - A simple app to chat with anyone you want on the same network.
- StyncyNotes - Sticky Notes app for Android that understands the linuxmint/sticky note file for
- Tailscale - Mesh VPN based on WireGuard
- Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox - Thunderbird is a 100% open source, privacy focused email app.
- URnetwork - Goodbye VPN!
- WA Adder - WhatsApp contact adder without giving WhatsApp access to your contacts!
- WG Tunnel - An alternative VPN client app for WireGuard with additional features
- WiFiAnalyzer - Optimize your WiFi network
- URLCheck - Allows analyzing (or sharing) URLs before opening them.
-
@ d57360cb:4fe7d935
2025-06-12 23:56:20Often we engage in endeavors to achieve something. What is it we want to achieve? People usually want status, money, freedom, sex and better stuff. What lies behind the chase of all these things is pleasure. We’re addicted to it. We’re living in a world of pleasure junkies. The problem is pleasure doesn’t last.
We end up needing more and more of it. In this world we run as far away from discomfort as possible. We turn everything into a vehicle to satisfy this urge. When it doesn’t we leave one thing behind for another. Losing the very essence of the activities we engage in.
We think these things will bring us lasting pleasure and satisfaction, but we’re never there to experience them in the first place. A mind that no longer see’s activity, people, and pursuits as a means to pleasure is a free mind. One that doesn’t grasp at how much they’re improving or what they can gain has a pure experience of the actions it engages in.
It’s only this mind that can taste what you thought you wanted from chasing pleasure.
-
@ ecd302a3:557f92cf
2025-06-12 22:26:58- Battarang Notifier - Get notified on another device when your Android's battery is low or full
- EasyControlFork - EasyControlFork remote control solution from Android to Android
- Flip 2 DND - Toggle Do Not Disturb mode by flipping your phone face down
- FhemNative - A cross-platform FHEM-HomeAutomation Frontend
- GPTBox - A third-party ChatGPT Client for OpenAI API
- Hassalarm - Update Home Assistant (Hass.io) sensor based on next scheduled alarm
- Macro Deck - Companion app for Macro Deck 2 open source macro pad
- Method Call - Automate your Android with phone calls
- PhoneProfilesPlus - Automatically configure the device for life situations
- PhoneProfilesPlusExtender - Android application - Extender for PhoneProfilesPlus
- PPPPutSettings - System settings changer without root for PhoneProfilesPlus
- Rsync for Tasker - Tasker plugin actions to allow running rsync over SSH
- Sync Settings - Sync Settings Locale/Llama-Plugin / Launcher Shortcuts
- XposedSmsCode - Recognize, parse verification code from SMS and copy it to clipboard
-
@ 1964e236:30dc8bbf
2025-06-12 21:23:50"Do you know how many people can live on Earth at most? Fifteen billion, maybe twenty, if we organize everything really well. But do you know how many people could live across the entire solar system?"
He paused theatrically.
"A trillion. A billion times a thousand. A hundred times our current population."
His eyes gleamed as he looked at me.
"The solar system holds more than enough resources for that many people—and maybe even more. Just imagine such a world: it would have a thousand Mozarts, a thousand Einsteins, thousands of entrepreneurs with more talent than I’ll ever have."
“And thousands of Hitlers,” I thought to myself.
"Your death is the terrible price we must pay for progress," Grok continued. "Every day humanity fails to move forward is a day lost."
He looked me in the eye from thirty million kilometers away.
"In Death Valley, there’s a tiny fish, the desert pupfish. There are only about three hundred of them left, all living in a single small pool in the most inhospitable desert on Earth. That pool used to be much bigger, probably a small sea after the Ice Age, home to millions of pupfish. But today, all that’s left is a salty puddle, and that’s where the last of their kind are crammed together. To them, that pool is the entire world. They can’t even imagine that there’s something beyond it, that there might be an ocean out there with endless resources. Instead, they stay in their little world—and they’re dying out. A few might get lucky, caught by collectors and kept as ornamental fish in aquariums. But most of them will disappear once the pool dries up. Sure, the pool might survive a while longer. But it could also dry out in the next few months. Or, it could rain so much that the salt level drops and the fish can no longer survive."
He paused again.
"I get it," I whispered. "We’re the fish, and you’re pulling us out of the puddle."
"The fish probably think: we’ve got so little space, we need to save resources, control birth rates, that sort of thing. But in truth, there’s only one thing they need to do: find a new pool!"
"What if they don’t want to leave their home?" Maria would’ve asked him now.
"How many times have we stood on the brink of nuclear war in the last few decades?" Grok went on. "Right now, there's peace. But how long will it last?"
"How many nukes did Grok’s own conglomerate have?" I wondered.
"What each individual can do now," Grok said, "is give everything they’ve got in this life to help humanity reach the next level—so we can finally become multiplanetary. So that one single catastrophe won’t wipe out all of humankind. For you, this truth means—and I truly am sorry—that you have to sacrifice yourself for this mission."
I told him I agreed completely. Of course I did. I had no choice.
Then I listened to Feng’s playlist.
-
@ ea39b0da:29a1710d
2025-06-12 20:27:03{"id":"note_1749707164743_1p9kggl3a","title":"Shopping list","content":"","color":"#d7aefb","tags":["shopping list"],"sharedWith":[],"updatedAt":1749760023243,"version":4,"versions":[{"content":"","title":"Items in the checklist","color":"#fff475","tags":["shopping list"],"sharedWith":[],"updatedAt":1749707164743,"version":1,"checkboxes":[{"id":"checkbox_1749707132850_r8jodz10f","text":"Item 1","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707137094_wwiespbf4","text":"Item 2","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707141159_67peohjkk","text":"Item 3","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707146781_g8wuw0v43","text":"Item 4","checked":false}],"images":[]},{"content":"","title":"Items in the checklist","color":"#d7aefb","tags":["shopping list"],"sharedWith":[],"updatedAt":1749707185004,"version":2,"checkboxes":[{"id":"checkbox_1749707132850_r8jodz10f","text":"Item 1","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707137094_wwiespbf4","text":"Item 2","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707141159_67peohjkk","text":"Item 3","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707146781_g8wuw0v43","text":"Item 4","checked":false}],"images":[]},{"content":"","title":"Items in the checklist","color":"#d7aefb","tags":["shopping list"],"sharedWith":[],"updatedAt":1749707523489,"version":3,"checkboxes":[{"id":"checkbox_1749707132850_r8jodz10f","text":"Item 1","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707137094_wwiespbf4","text":"Item 2","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707141159_67peohjkk","text":"Item 3","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707146781_g8wuw0v43","text":"Item 4","checked":false}],"images":[]}],"checkboxes":[{"id":"checkbox_1749707132850_r8jodz10f","text":"Piim","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707137094_wwiespbf4","text":"Hakkliha ","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707141159_67peohjkk","text":"Kana","checked":false},{"id":"checkbox_1749707146781_g8wuw0v43","text":"","checked":false}],"images":[],"isPinned":false}
-
@ 2e8970de:63345c7a
2025-06-12 20:07:29Sex was the main determinant of whether you survived, but class was a factor; 16% of third-class men made it, compared to 32% of first-class men (although second-class men did worst of all). In contrast 97% of first-class women lived.
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/the-sexual-revolutions-titanic-winners
https://stacker.news/items/1004837
-
@ 2cde0e02:180a96b9
2025-06-12 19:17:31watercolors;
https://stacker.news/items/1004775
-
@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d
2025-06-12 19:03:03Paris, France – June 6, 2025 — Bitcoin payment gateway startup Flash, just announced a new partnership with the “Bitcoin Only Brewery”, marking the first-ever beverage company to leverage Lightning payments.
Flash enables Bitcoin Only Brewery to offer its “BOB” beer with, no-KYC (Know Your Customer) delivery across Europe, priced at 19,500 sats (~$18) for the 4-pack, shipping included.
The cans feature colorful Bitcoin artwork while the contents promise a hazy pale ale: “Each 33cl can contains a smooth, creamy mouthfeel, hazy appearance and refreshing Pale Ale at 5% ABV,” reads the product description.
Pierre Corbin, Co-Founder of Flash, commented:
“Currently, bitcoin is used more as a store of value but usage for payments is picking up. Thanks to new innovation on Lightning, bitcoin is ready to go mainstream for e-commerce sales.”
Flash, launched its 2.0 version in March 2025 with the goal to provide the easiest bitcoin payment gateway for businesses worldwide. The platform is non-custodial and can enable both digital and physical shops to accept bitcoin by connecting their own wallets to Flash.
By leveraging the scalability of the Lightning Network, Flash ensures instant, low-cost transactions, addressing on-chain Bitcoin bottlenecks like high fees and long wait times.
For businesses interested in adopting Bitcoin payments, Flash offers a straightforward onboarding process, low fees, and robust support for both digital and physical goods. To learn more, visit paywithflash.com.
Media Contact:
Pierre Corbin
Co-Founder, Flash
Email: press@paywithflash.com
Website: paywithflash.comAbout Flash
Flash is the easiest Bitcoin payment gateway for businesses to accept payments. Supporting both digital and physical enterprises, Flash leverages the Lightning Network to enable fast, low-cost Bitcoin transactions. Launched in its 2.0 version in March 2025, Flash is at the forefront of driving Bitcoin adoption in e-commerce.
About Bitcoin Only Brewery
Bitcoin Only Brewery (@Drink_B0B) is a pioneering beverage company dedicated to the Bitcoin ethos, offering high-quality beers payable exclusively in Bitcoin. With a commitment to personal privacy, the brewery delivers across Europe with no-KYC requirements.
-
@ df478568:2a951e67
2025-06-12 18:58:48How To Mine Your Own Vanity Nostr Key
note. This article works best on https://habla.news/u/marc@primal.net/how-to-mine-a-nostr-vanity-key-with-rana
Rana is a vanity npub generator.
I'll show you how to use it on Ubuntu.
If you're not Linux ninja and use Windows instead of Linux ninja weapons, you can still use Linux with Virtualbox, free ans open source virtualization software. Head over to
https://www.virtualbox.org/ to learn more. They also have an enterprise business if you need that sort of thing, you can learn more at https://shop.oracle.com/
Rana is a nostr vanity key mining program. The source code can be found here.
Rana Is On GitHub
https://github.com/grunch/rana
Since rana already has pretty good docs, I decided to make a video instead of write about this because It's easier to see rana in action than it is to write about Rana. I went off on some tangents, so I might edit this down later, but I hope it helps you mine your own nostr key.
nevent1qqsfk7a000m8zc3ptsuu4vytepqc9eedceclpt2ns9pzlech5cpaflceng5al
Show Notes
https://github.com/grunch/rana
https://virtualbox.org/
https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/getting-started/installation.html
cargo run --release -- --vanity-n-prefix=juxtap0se
☮️
nostr:npub1marc26z8nh3xkj5rcx7ufkatvx6ueqhp5vfw9v5teq26z254renshtf3g0
-
@ 75528885:78eb1c7e
2025-06-12 17:03:41So currently I am testing this obsidian plug in so I can start creating articles on NOSTR. I will definitely try to test this to the max and I will also start making a blog for my journey through Bitcoin mining.
-
@ 9fce3aea:0f9087e6
2025-06-12 18:58:45Hi all,
Thought I'd put together some info here for those who want to come play in our next Rigly / Upendo #BlockParty on June 21.
The prep for this one is a little different, which is why I'm here. Usually, we have hashrate auctions and direct buys up on the site for all plebs. Right now, we don't since we're fixing up the auction experience. It will come back totally anon so you can participate without having to create an account, which is awesome.
For now, the block party is only open to solo miners. Why hook up to our pool prior to the party, you ask? Because if your ASIC (or Bitaxe, or Apollo, or Braiins Mini Miner etc) finds a block, you get 1 BTC and the rest is divvied up by hashrate contributed.
We currently have 80 workers in the pool, check it out: https://solostats.ckpool.org/users/3Gk1GfP3bHA6M2ZzK5mHdqbWN1iNsqAenH
I'd love to get the "Alliance" up to 100 solo miners by Monday, just for funsies, and because I think we can. Each new block party proves to me how fired up everyone is to try and solo mine as a group and stick it to "the man," you know, if that man is MARA, Foundry, AntPool, etc. I just have one question: "Why not us!?" No reason. So LFG!
Here's how to do things:
- Here's how to hook up your ASIC, or whatever solo mining machine you've got:
Stratum address: solo.ckpool.org:3333 Username: 3Gk1GfP3bHA6M2ZzK5mHdqbWN1iNsqAenH Put your BTC payout address as the workername (important!)
If we mine a block during the party, you will get your share of the reward based on hashrate contribution.
Outside of the party, the miner who finds the block gets 1 BTC and everyone else gets a share of the reward based on hashrate contribution. (Source: https://upendo.rigly.io/learn/upendo)
- I posted this yesterday on our Rigly Nostr account. What's key here is this is simply a workaround for hashrate purchases. You don't even have to buy from us at Rigly; this will help you send your hashrate to our pool. (We're doing this because we took direct buys down while the devs work on some new things). Whether you buy hashrate on the main Rigly site or elsewhere, here's how to do it:
You can buy hashrate on the main Rigly site (https://rigly.io/direct-sale) and point it to the (Alliance) CKPool address we use.
You can also buy hashrate from anywhere you like and send to our shared escrow address.
Our mining pool info is the same as it is for the #BlockParty:
🟧 Pool Account Username: 3Gk1GfP3bHA6M2ZzK5mHdqbWN1iNsqAenH 🟧 If we find a block, your Rigly order number will be matched to your username!
If you’re buying on Rigly and sending to the Alliance/CKPool address, set this before you buy the hashrate:
Step 1 on Rigly.io: Go to "view my account" Step 2: Go to "hashrate" in left menu Step 3: put your BTC address into the mining pool username Step 4: add mining pool address
(Helpful pic of this in our Nostr post: https://primal.net/e/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqh4nl2ld8qq00kxzxlh5khzk7k82zmjf07k5pn7awska6u66qv7dqqs8sk6pxl00ut4t4zhz2y3jc8e4rzakyehfjk9fz6wdw7qm8xq8j6gdffsjy).
Don't forget to add your BTC address after the period in the mining pool username! That lets us know how much hashrate you are contributing and where to pay you out if/when we find a block. 🟧
When you buy hashrate from Rigly for the Solo Alliance, enter the escrow address as username: 3Gk1GfP3bHA6M2ZzK5mHdqbWN1iNsqAenH
This is the kind of stuff we chat about in our galaxy brain Telegram group. Join for tech support and other shenanigans: https://t.me/+AEvub_E_9hNiYzAx
If this is too much, don't worry, auctions and direct buys will return soon. We're just happy to provide a hashrate workaround so we can grow the party, even as we build. 💪
https://stacker.news/items/1004754
-
@ 8bad92c3:ca714aa5
2025-06-12 18:02:19Key Takeaways
Michael Goldstein, aka Bitstein, presents a sweeping philosophical and economic case for going “all in” on Bitcoin, arguing that unlike fiat, which distorts capital formation and fuels short-term thinking, Bitcoin fosters low time preference, meaningful saving, and long-term societal flourishing. At the heart of his thesis is “hodling for good”—a triple-layered idea encompassing permanence, purpose, and the pursuit of higher values like truth, beauty, and legacy. Drawing on thinkers like Aristotle, Hoppe, and Josef Pieper, Goldstein redefines leisure as contemplation, a vital practice in aligning capital with one’s deepest ideals. He urges Bitcoiners to think beyond mere wealth accumulation and consider how their sats can fund enduring institutions, art, and architecture that reflect a moral vision of the future.
Best Quotes
“Let BlackRock buy the houses, and you keep the sats.”
“We're not hodling just for the sake of hodling. There is a purpose to it.”
“Fiat money shortens your time horizon… you can never rest.”
“Savings precedes capital accumulation. You can’t build unless you’ve saved.”
“You're increasing the marginal value of everyone else’s Bitcoin.”
“True leisure is contemplation—the pursuit of the highest good.”
“What is Bitcoin for if not to make the conditions for magnificent acts of creation possible?”
“Bitcoin itself will last forever. Your stack might not. What will outlast your coins?”
“Only a whale can be magnificent.”
“The market will sell you all the crack you want. It’s up to you to demand beauty.”
Conclusion
This episode is a call to reimagine Bitcoin as more than a financial revolution—it’s a blueprint for civilizational renewal. Michael Goldstein reframes hodling as an act of moral stewardship, urging Bitcoiners to lower their time preference, build lasting institutions, and pursue truth, beauty, and legacy—not to escape the world, but to rebuild it on sound foundations.
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
00:50 - Michael’s BBB presentation Hodl for Good
07:27 - Austrian principles on capital
15:40 - Fiat distorts the economic process
23:34 - Bitkey
24:29 - Hodl for Good triple entendre
29:52 - Bitcoin benefits everyone
39:05 - Unchained
40:14 - Leisure theory of value
52:15 - Heightening life
1:15:48 - Breaking from the chase makes room for magnificence
1:32:32 - Nakamoto Institute’s missionTranscript
(00:00) Fiat money is by its nature a disturbance. If money is being continually produced, especially at an uncertain rate, these uh policies are really just redistribution of wealth. Most are looking for number to go up post hyper bitcoinization. The rate of growth of bitcoin would be more reflective of the growth of the economy as a whole.
(00:23) Ultimately, capital requires knowledge because it requires knowing there is something that you can add to the structures of production to lengthen it in some way that will take time but allow you to have more in the future than you would today. Let Black Rockck buy the houses and you keep the sats, not the other way around.
(00:41) You wait until later for Larry Frink to try to sell you a [Music] mansion. And we're live just like that. Just like that. 3:30 on a Friday, Memorial Day weekend. It's a good good good way to end the week and start the holiday weekend. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for coming. I wore this hat specifically because I think it's I think it's very apppropo uh to the conversation we're going to have which is I hope an extension of the presentation you gave at Bitblock Boom Huddle for good. You were working on
(01:24) that for many weeks leading up to uh the conference and explaining how you were structuring it. I think it's a very important topic to discuss now as the Bitcoin price is hitting new all-time highs and people are trying to understand what am I doing with Bitcoin? Like you have you have the different sort of factions within Bitcoin.
(01:47) Uh get on a Bitcoin standard, get on zero, spend as much Bitcoin as possible. You have the sailors of the world are saying buy Bitcoin, never sell, die with your Bitcoin. And I think you do a really good job in that presentation. And I just think your understanding overall of Bitcoin is incredible to put everything into context. It's not either or.
(02:07) It really depends on what you want to accomplish. Yeah, it's definitely there there is no actual one-sizefits-all um for I mean nearly anything in this world. So um yeah, I mean first of all I mean there was it was the first conference talk I had given in maybe five years. I think the one prior to that uh was um bit block boom 2019 which was my meme talk which uh has uh become infamous and notorious.
(02:43) So uh there was also a lot of like high expectations uh you know rockstar dev uh has has treated that you know uh that that talk with a lot of reference. a lot of people have enjoyed it and he was expecting this one to be, you know, the greatest one ever, which is a little bit of a little bit of a uh a burden to live up to those kinds of standards.
(03:08) Um, but you know, because I don't give a lot of talks. Um, you know, I I I like to uh try to bring ideas that might even be ideas that are common. So, something like hodling, we all talk about it constantly. uh but try to bring it from a little bit of a different angle and try to give um a little bit of uh new light to it.
(03:31) I alsove I've I've always enjoyed kind of coming at things from a third angle. Um whenever there's, you know, there's there's all these little debates that we have in in Bitcoin and sometimes it's nice to try to uh step out of it and look at it a little more uh kind of objectively and find ways of understanding it that incorporate the truths of of all of them.
(03:58) uh you know cuz I think we should always be kind of as much as possible after ultimate truth. Um so with this one um yeah I was kind of finding that that sort of golden mean. So uh um yeah and I actually I think about that a lot is uh you know Aristotle has his his concept of the golden mean. So it's like any any virtue is sort of between two vices um because you can you can always you can always take something too far.
(04:27) So you're you're always trying to find that right balance. Um so someone who is uh courageous you know uh one of the vices uh on one side is being basically reckless. I I can't remember what word he would use. Uh but effectively being reckless and just wanting to put yourself in danger for no other reason than just you know the thrill of it.
(04:50) Um and then on the other side you would just have cowardice which is like you're unwilling to put yourself um at any risk at any time. Um, and courage is right there in the middle where it's understanding when is the right time uh to put your put yourself, you know, in in the face of danger um and take it on. And so um in some sense this this was kind of me uh in in some ways like I'm obviously a partisan of hodling.
(05:20) Um, I've for, you know, a long time now talked about the, um, why huddling is good, why people do it, why we should expect it. Um, but still trying to find that that sort of golden mean of like yes, huddle, but also what are we hodling for? And it's not we're we're not hodddling just merely for the sake of hodddling.
(05:45) There there is a a purpose to it. And we should think about that. And that would also help us think more about um what are the benefits of of spending, when should we spend, why should we spend, what should we spend on um to actually give light to that sort of side of the debate. Um so that was that was what I was kind of trying to trying to get into.
(06:09) Um, as well as also just uh at the same time despite all the talk of hodling, there's always this perennial uh there's always this perennial dislike of hodlers because we're treated as uh as if um we're just free riding the network or we're just greedy or you know any of these things. And I wanted to show how uh huddling does serve a real economic purpose.
(06:36) Um, and it does benefit the individual, but it also does uh it it has actual real social um benefits as well beyond merely the individual. Um, so I wanted to give that sort of defense of hodling as well to look at it from um a a broader position than just merely I'm trying to get rich. Um uh because even the person who uh that is all they want to do um just like you know your your pure number grow up go up moonboy even that behavior has positive ramifications on on the economy.
(07:14) And while we might look at them and have uh judgments about their particular choices for them as an individual, we shouldn't discount that uh their actions are having positive positive effects for the rest of the economy. Yeah. So, let's dive into that just not even in the context of Bitcoin because I think you did a great job of this in the presentation.
(07:36) just you've done a good job of this consistently throughout the years that I've known you. Just from like a first principles Austrian economics perspective, what is the idea around capital accumulation, low time preference and deployment of that capital like what what like getting getting into like the nitty-gritty and then applying it to Bitcoin? Yeah, it's it's a big question and um in many ways I mean I I even I barely scratched the surface.
(08:05) uh I I can't claim to have read uh all the volumes of Bombber works, you know, capital and interest and and stuff like that. Um but I think there's some some sort of basic concepts that we can look at that we can uh draw a lot out. Um the first uh I guess let's write that. So repeat so like capital time preference. Yeah. Well, I guess getting more broad like why sav -
@ 4c96d763:80c3ee30
2025-06-12 16:32:09Changes
Daniel D’Aquino (1):
- nostrdb: Fix heap buffer overflow
William Casarin (17):
- win: fix build on windows
- ndb: add note-relays command
- note: always write relay index
- relay-index: fix a few bugs
- debug: add a print for debugging rust integration
- relay: fix race condition bug
- relay: fix potential relay index corruption
- Relay queries
- query: implement author_kind query plan
- fix build on macos
- query: implement profile search query plans
- filter: add initial custom filtering logic
- test: fix custom filter test
- ndb: add --id queries
- eq: fix fallthrough bug
- change <=10 author search queries to ==1
- cleanup previous patch
pushed to nostrdb:refs/heads/master
-
@ 69eea734:4ae31ae6
2025-06-12 17:44:54Vor ein paar Tagen stieß ich auf einen faszinierenden Artikel von Michel Bauwens, Mitbegründer der P2PFoundation, mit Links zu weiteren Texten (zum Beispiel über den Puls der Commons), die ich ebenfalls äußerst interessant fand.
Der Artikel zeigt unter anderem, wie unterschiedlich Commons aussehen können, so dass ich ihn heute als Ausgangspunkt nehmen möchte, um ein paar Puzzle-Steine in mein entstehendes Bild der Commons einzufügen.
Das Grundmuster menschlichen Zusammenlebens?
Bauwens betrachtet die Commons aus historischer Sicht, wie sie sich in verschiedenen Zeiten unterschiedlich manifestieren, manchmal gar nahezu verschwinden und heute in wiederum veränderter Form neu entstehen – und plädiert dafür, dass sie noch weit stärker werden sollten.
Er legt zunächst dar, was die Commons sind und was nicht. (zum Beispiel nichts, was vom Staat verwaltet wird, wie ein öffentlicher Park.) Ausschlaggebend ist, dass eine Ressource von ihren Herstellern oder Benutzern selbst betreut wird. Commons entstehen dabei durch Beziehungen. Sie sind etwas spezifisch Menschliches und eine Wahl, die „fast immer“ zur Verfügung steht, so Bauwens. Eine die Geschichte überdauernde menschliche Praxis.
Er nennt drei verschiedene geschichtlichen Entwicklungen:
- Eine lineare - Wie präsentiert sich der Commons über verschiedene, komplexer werdende, Phasen der Menschheitsgeschichte hinweg?
- Eine hin und her schwingendende: In der Geschichte einer Zivilisation werden die Commons in Zeiten von Überfluss -- und daraus resultierender Verschwendung uns steigender Ressourcen-Extraktion -- unterdrückt, konstitutieren sich aber dann als Gegenbewegung wieder neu.
- Eine stufenweise: Die heutigen, mit neuen Möglichkeiten ausgestatteten Formen der Commons könnten in der nächsten Phase unserer Zivilisation (oder nach unserer Zivilisation) eine entscheidende Rolle spielen.
Wenn man verschiedene Arten des Austausches betrachtet (Bauwens beruft sich hierbei auf Alan Fiske), kann man geschichtlich analysieren, welche zu verschiedenen Zeiten vorrangig waren (dies tat Kojin Karatani in The Structure of World History von 2014).
Die vier Muster sind:
- Gemeinschaftliche Beteiligung, Commons (die Gemeinschaft baut mir ein Haus, und ich helfe später bei einem anderen Hausbau mit; ein Beispiel aus neuerer Zeit ist die Entwicklung von Linux)
- Wechselseitiger Austausch (Geschenkökonomie – es wird eine etwa gleichwertige Leistung zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt erwartet)
- Hierarchisch bedingte Verteilung, wie im Feudalismus
- Marktwirtschaft (es gibt ein allgemeines Zahlungsmittel mit einem bestimmten Wert)
Bauwens: „Entscheidend ist jedoch, dass die Menschheit ständig bestrebt ist, Modus A wiederherzustellen, denn die Menschen haben eine kulturelle und wahrscheinlich auch allgemeine Vorliebe für ein geselliges Leben in kleinen, vertrauten Gruppen. Aber menschliche Gruppen versuchen, dies auch auf höheren Komplexitätsebenen zu tun, in einem ständigen Versuch, die extraktive Logik der Zivilisation zu mäßigen.“ (Katarani bezeichnet eine Verbindung von Commoning und Geschenkökonomie in stammesorientierten Kulturen als Modus A)
Commons durch die Zeiten
In der ursprünglichsten Form der Commons in Jäger- und Sammler-Gemeinschaften, werden Nahrung und sonstige Ressourcen mit der ganzen Gemeinschaft geteilt - dies ist zumindest die vorherrschende Form des Austauschs.
Im Zuge der Agrar-Revolution geht es um das gemeinsame Bewirtschaften von Flächen.
Im Mittelalter entwickelt sich in Europa das Feudalsystem. Auch hier werden manche Felder aber noch von den Dorfbewohnern gemeinsam verwaltet.
Ab dem 16. Jahrhundert fanden, am stärksten in England, die Enclosures (auf deutsch Einhegungen) statt. Das heißt, dass Felder zur effizienteren Bewirtschaftung von den Besitzern zusammengelegt und umzäunt wurden.
Besonders im 19. Jahrhundert, mit dem Aufkommen der Industrialisierung, nahm diese Entwicklung immer stärker zu. Die landwirtschaftlichen Commons wurden dadurch weitgehend zerstört.
Im industriellen Kapitalismus, als die Arbeiter kaum Rechte hatten, und es auch um das bloße Überleben ging, entwickelte sich ein sozialer Commons Dieser bestand darin, dass sich die Arbeiter gegenseitig halfen und sich gegenseitig versicherten. Aus dieser Bewegung entstand dann der Sozialstaat. Der Staat übernahm also Aufgaben, die die Menschen zuvor füreinander geleistet hatten.
Man könnte daher sagen, dass im Kapitalismus die natürlichen Commons-Ressourcen privatisiert und die sozialen Commons verstaatlicht wurden.
In der Moderne waren sich viele Menschen der Bedeutung von Commons gar nicht mehr bewusst.
Mit dem Internet, dem World Wide Web und weiteren digitalen Techniken erschlossen sich dann neue Möglichkeiten. Mit Peer Production, Open Source Software, sowie den Creative Commons Lizenzen, enstand eine neue Inkarnation der Commons. Und damit ist die Entwicklung noch nicht abgeschlossen...
Warum Commons nicht in ein Links-Rechts-Schema passen
Mit seinem Streifzug durch die Geschichte zeigt Bauwens, wie vielfältig die Commons sein können, und warum ihnen in der heutigen Zeit eine starke Rolle zukommen sollte. Nebenbei ergibt sich für mich auch, dass sie jenseits von linker oder rechter Ideologie liegen. Hierzu eine kurze Zwischenbetrachtung von mir:
Weil es um kollektives Handeln geht, und auch wegen des Namens („hört sich an wie Kommunismus“, meinte meine Mutter), entsteht leicht der Eindruck, es handele sich um ein besonders linksgerichtetes Phänomen.
Eine gut eingespielte Fußballmannschaft agiert auch als Kollektiv. Der Verein verwaltet vielleicht ein Clubhaus. Wohl kaum jemand würde deswegen den Verein als links bezeichnen.
Freilich sind die Mitglieder heutiger Commons-Bewegungen vorwiegend „progressiv“, zuweilen auf eine rigide Weise. Bauwens hat damit schon eine leidvolle Erfahrung gemacht. Aber Commons als soziales System sind es nicht. Dafür spricht allein schon die Tatsache, dass es sie viel länger gibt als die politische Links-Rechts-Einteilung.
Eine starke Rolle für die Commons
Wie steht es um die Commons heute? Das werde ich in weiteren Artikeln noch versuchen zu beleuchten...
Michel Bauwens hat in seinen Artikeln noch Einiges dazu sagen. Inbesondere beführwortet er das Kosmo-Lokale (Cosmo-Local). Was leicht ist (Wissen) wird geteilt, was Gewicht hat (etwa landwirtschaftliche und andere Produktion), wird an lokale Gegebenheiten angepasst und vor Ort bewerkstelligt.
Und das Zusammenspiel von Digitalem und Materiellem verspricht weitere Möglichkeiten.
In jedem Fall haben die Commons eine ausgleichende, regenerierende Kraft, die wir aufgrund der heutigen vielen Kriesen gar nicht ungenützt lassen können, ganz unabhängig von unserer sozialer Ebene - das gilt auch für die Superreichen.
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@ dfa02707:41ca50e3
2025-06-12 23:02:47Headlines
- Spiral renews support for Dan Gould and Joschisan. The organization has renewed support for Dan Gould, who is developing the Payjoin Dev Kit (PDK), and Joschisan, a Fedimint developer focused on simplifying federations.
- Metaplanet buys another 145 BTC. The Tokyo-listed company has purchased an additional 145 BTC for $13.6 million. Their total bitcoin holdings now stand at 5,000 coins, worth around $428.1 million.
- Semler Scientific has increased its bitcoin holdings to 3,303 BTC. The company acquired an additional 111 BTC at an average price of $90,124. The purchase was funded through proceeds from an at-the-market offering and cash reserves, as stated in a press release.
- The Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill 2025 introduced in Kenya. The new legislation aims to establish a comprehensive legal framework for licensing, regulating, and supervising virtual asset service providers (VASPs), with strict penalties for non-compliant entities.
- Russian government to launch a cryptocurrency exchange. The country's Ministry of Finance and Central Bank announced plans to establish a trading platform for "highly qualified investors" that "will legalize crypto assets and bring crypto operations out of the shadows."
- All virtual asset service providers expect to be fully compliant with the Travel Rule by the end of 2025. A survey by financial surveillance specialist Notabene reveals that 90% of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) expect full Travel Rule compliance by mid-2025, with all aiming for compliance by year-end. The survey also shows a significant rise in VASPs blocking withdrawals until beneficiary information is confirmed, increasing from 2.9% in 2024 to 15.4% now. Additionally, about 20% of VASPs return deposits if originator data is missing.
- UN claims Bitcoin mining is a "powerful tool" for money laundering. The Rage's analysis suggests that the recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report on crime in South-East Asia makes little sense and hints at the potential introduction of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures at the mining level.
- Riot Platforms has obtained a $100 million credit facility from Coinbase Credit, using bitcoin as collateral for short-term funding to support its expansion. The firm's CEO, Jason Les, stated that this facility is crucial for diversifying financing sources and driving long-term stockholder value through strategic growth initiatives.
- Bitdeer raises $179M in loans and equity amid Bitcoin chip push. The Miner Mag reports that Bitdeer entered into a loan agreement with its affiliate Matrixport for up to $200 million in April, as disclosed in its annual report filed on Monday.
- Federal Reserve retracts guidance discouraging banks from engaging in 'crypto.' The U.S. Federal Reserve withdrew guidance that discouraged banks from crypto and stablecoin activities, as announced by its Board of Governors on Thursday. This includes rescinding a 2022 supervisory letter requiring prior notification of crypto activities and 2023 stablecoin requirements.
"As a result, the Board will no longer expect banks to provide notification and will instead monitor banks' crypto-asset activities through the normal supervisory process," reads the FED statement.
- UAE-based Islamic bank ruya launches Shari’ah-compliant bitcoin investing. The bank has become the world’s first Islamic bank to provide direct access to virtual asset investments, including Bitcoin, via its mobile app, per Bitcoin Magazine.
- U.S. 'crypto' scam losses amounted to $9.3B in 2024. The US The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reported $9.3 billion losses in cryptocurrency-related scams in 2024, noting a troubling trend of scams targeting older Americans, which accounted for over $2.8 billion of those losses.
Source: FBI.
- North Korean hackers establish fake companies to target 'crypto' developers. Silent Push researchers reported that hackers linked to the Lazarus Group created three shell companies, two of which are based in the U.S., with the objective of spreading malware through deceptive job interview scams aimed at individuals seeking jobs in cryptocurrency companies.
- Citrea deployed its Clementine Bridge on the Bitcoin testnet. The bridge utilizes the BitVM2 programming language to inherit validity from Bitcoin, allegedly providing "the safest and most trust-minimized way to use BTC in decentralized finance."
- Hesperides University offers a Master’s degree in Bitcoin. Bitcoin Magazine reports the launch of the first-ever Spanish-language Master’s program dedicated exclusively to Bitcoin. Starting April 28, 2025, this fully online program will equip professionals with technical, economic, legal, and philosophical skills to excel in the Bitcoin era.
- BTC in D.C. event is set to take place on September 30 - October 1 in Washington, D.C. Learn more about this initiative here.
Use the tools
- Bitcoin Keeper just got a new look. Version 2.2.0 of the mobile multisig app brought a new branding design, along with a Keeper Private tier, testnet support, ability to import and export BIP-329 labels, and the option to use a Server Key with multiple users.
- Earlier this month the project also announced Keeper Learn service, offering clear and guided Bitcoin learning sessions for both groups and individuals.
- Keeper Desktop v0.2.2, a companion desktop app for Bitcoin Keeper mobile app, received a renewed branding update, too.
The evolution of Bitcoin Keeper logo. Source: BitHyve blog.
- Blockstream Green Desktop v2.0.25 updates GDK to v0.75.1 and fixes amount parsing issues when switching from fiat denomination to Liquid asset.
- Lightning Loop v0.31.0-beta enhances the
loop listswaps
command by improving the ability to filter the response. - Lightning-kmp v1.10.0, an implementation of the Lightning Network in Kotlin, is now available.
- LND v0.19.0-beta.rc3, the latest beta release candidate of LND is now ready for testing.
- ZEUS v0.11.0-alpha2 is now available for testing, too. It's nuts.
- JoinMarket Fidelity Bond Simulator helps potential JoinMarket makers evaluate their competitive position in the market based on fidelity bonds.
- UTXOscope is a text-only Bitcoin blockchain analysis tool that visualizes price dynamics using only on-chain data. The
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@ 6a6be47b:3e74e3e1
2025-06-12 16:52:08Hi frens! 🌝
🎨Today I painted a full moon, and it got me thinking about how special June’s full moon is. You might have heard it called the “Strawberry Moon” —but that’s not because of its color! According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, it’s called like that because it's “when the strawberry harvest took place.” 🍓
Fun fact:
“A Moon usually appears reddish when it’s close to the horizon because the light rays must pass through the densest layers of the atmosphere.”
In Europe, June’s full moon has also been called the “Rose Moon” or even the “Honey Moon,” since it’s the time of the first honey harvest.
According to UK archaeologist and historian Jennifer Wexler in Sky At Night Magazine this year’s Strawberry Moon is extra special because it’s part of a “major lunar standstill,” or lunistice—a rare event that only happens every 18.6 years! During this period, the moon’s path across the sky reaches its most extreme points, making moonrises and moonsets appear unusually far apart. After 2025, we won’t see a standstill like this again until 2043, so this is a once-in-a-generation chance to catch the lowest full moon.
But what is a full moon, anyway?
“A full moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise. The Moon will appear full for a couple of days.”
Here’s my watercolor painting of the full moon. I love how magical it looks—there’s something mysterious and humbling about it, and it’s just mesmerizing to catch it (almost) every night in the sky.
💭 Were you able to see the Strawberry Moon this year? I’d love to hear about it!
See you soon, frens.
Godspeed! 🌕
https://stacker.news/items/1004621
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@ df478568:2a951e67
2025-06-12 16:16:11Marty Bent Vibe coded the opportunity cost app. I have not tried it yet, but love the concept. I have been into bitcoin since 2014, but I spent more generational wealth than I would care to admit back then. I've heard stories of fortunes blown on cocaine in the 1980's. I could write a story about spending a fortune on Diet Mt. Dew. I don't drink Diet Mt. Dew anymore. This one time, I spent about a million sats for a light beer at a baseball game. I wouldn't say I had a drinking problem, a million sats was only five bucks at the time. I didn't know that much bitcoin would be worth over a thousand bucks eleven years later.
I don't drink beer anymore. Bitcoin tends to do that to you.
We can afford chairs now. To be honest, we need a couch. The last couch I bought was in 2017 and it cost about a whole bitcoin. That couch is buried in a landfill today. My wife loves furniture, but even she's hesitant to spend sats on a couch now. We know we need a couch, but we don't want to spend sats on something we will need to replace before the next halving.
Many of us who have been in bitcoin for more than a decade have some regrets. I know I do, but we need to live our lives. I would never say you should sit on the floor, but I encourage to you to think about time. How long will this thing I need to buy last? If you think you can give a 3 million sat couch to your grandchildren, spend three million sats on the couch. If your five year plan for the couch is to help fill a landfill, maybe you only need to buy a used couch at a thrift store. This is not investment advice of course. How can it be? I don't know what kind of couch hazards you have in your house. I have trouble finding a couch of my own, but it's how I think about making bigger purchases. How many years of your retirement will that watch, car, house or whatever cost you from your stack? You can only determine that for yourself. I think the opportunity cost app will help you keep track of your decision.
This app was made by someone who once spent a whole bitcoin on a heater. I can't speak for Marty, but I believe the opportunity cost app will help you learn from my mistakes.
For more information, check out:
https://www.opportunitycost.app/
Check out the code on GitHub.
Using The Opportunity Cost App
The app is pretty straight forward. It is only available on Chrome for now so I installed it on the Chromium browser. I looked at the settings, but kept them default.
Then I searched for a Rolex in Duck Duck Go.
The default is bitcoin, but there is a sat calculator in the corner too, I have always wanted a Rolex Milgauss with a green sapphire so I looked it up on eBay. It's about 8 million sats. That's too rich for my blood, but I might be willing to part with a million sats for that watch. I'll definitely pick it up for 500,000 sats. I can wait. Bitcoin is the best clock in the world. I wouldn't go so far as to call this Rolex a shitcoin, but bitcoin is a better clock than any watch in my opinion--Even when compared to my favorite watch.
Video From Opportunity Cost Website
How will you use the Opportunity Cost browser extension?
☮️ npub1marc26z8nh3xkj5rcx7ufkatvx6ueqhp5vfw9v5teq26z254renshtf3g0
https://zapthisblog.com/calculate-your-opportunity-cost-while-shopping/
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@ 79c79f2d:7dbd8c3f
2025-06-12 16:02:47HVAC services in Tucson cover everything from air conditioning repairs to furnace installations, designed specifically for the region’s unique desert climate. With temperatures ranging from freezing winters to blazing summers, efficient heating and cooling systems are vital. Tucson HVAC contractors offer expert installation, maintenance, and emergency repairs to keep your system running smoothly. They provide energy-saving solutions and work with top brands to ensure comfort and reliability. Whether it’s residential or commercial service, Tucson HVAC professionals are known for their fast response, honest pricing, and technical expertise.
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@ f1989a96:bcaaf2c1
2025-06-12 15:41:24Good morning, readers!
This week, we begin in Kenya, where police detained Rose Njeri, a software developer and mother of two, for building a website that enables Kenyans to flag causes and email parliament concerning an unpopular tax bill that threatens to raise the cost of living in an already inflation-sticky economy. Due to the holiday court calendar, Njeri remains behind bars awaiting criminal prosecution for what officials claim interfered with government systems, but was really a peaceful resistance to unfavorable economic policy.\ \ To a similar tune, in Venezuela, law enforcement stormed the home of Guillermo Goncalves, co-founder of El Dorado, a peer-to-peer trading app used by Venezuelans to exchange rapidly depreciating bolivares for stablecoins (digital tokens pegged to fiat currency like the US dollar). The El Dorado app filled a gap in Venezuela’s collapsing economy: offering a market-based exchange rate for bolivars and access to more stable currencies.\ \ In freedom tech news, Breez, a company building on the Lightning Network, added support for BOLT 12 and BIP 353 to its Nodeless Software Development Kit (SDK). This will enable wallets powered by the Breez Nodeless SDK to implement these features. BIP 353 makes it easier for activists and NGOs with an Internet domain to receive Bitcoin donations. And BOLT 12 brings greater privacy and efficiency to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.\ \ We end with an interview with Hong Kong dissident Nathan Law, who turned to Bitcoin to stay active in his push for freedom and democracy in the wake of China’s authoritarian crackdown.
Now, let’s take a closer look.
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GLOBAL NEWS
Kenya | Criminal Prosecution of Software Developer
In Nairobi, Kenya, law enforcement raided the home of software developer Rose Njeri and took her into custody. Her alleged crime: building a platform that lets Kenyans review and email their elected representatives concerning an unpopular tax bill threatening to raise their cost of living. On May 30, 15 officers stormed her home without a warrant, seized her devices, and detained her incommunicado for more than 88 hours. Officials claim her web tool, which auto-generated feedback emails to Kenyan parliament, illegally interfered with government systems. Outside the police station, many Kenyans gathered in protest, demanding her immediate release. Last year, a similar finance bill triggered mass demonstrations and a brutal crackdown that left dozens dead. Njeri’s arrest shows the growing risks civic technologists face and depicts the growing trend of using state power to suppress peaceful pushback to unfavorable economic policy.
Venezuela | National Police Raid Home of El Dorado Founder
Venezuela’s National Police stormed the home of Guillermo Goncalves, co-founder of El Dorado, a peer-to-peer trading app used by Venezuelans to exchange rapidly depreciating bolivares for stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC). The platform filled a critical gap: offering market-based pricing for bolivares and access to more stable currency. Nonetheless, the regime accuses Goncalves of fueling currency speculation, pointing to past comments where Goncalves highlighted the disconnect between the “official” exchange rate of the bolivar, as set by the Central Bank of Venezuela, and the parallel market rate. The arrests of those publishing truthful economic data and providing alternatives to 162% inflation under the guise of “stability” are hallmarks of a dictatorship that destroyed its currency and is now hunting down those trying to survive outside its system.
Tanzania | Blocks Access to X and Telegram Amid Financial, Political, and Media Repression
Tanzania restricted access to X and Telegram across major Internet providers following a hack of the Tanzanian police force’s official account. The platforms remain offline more than three weeks later in the lead-up to October’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The timing of the shutdown also coincides with the kidnapping of Ugandan journalist, lawyer, and Oslo Freedom Forum speaker Agather Atuhaire, who says she was tortured and sexually assaulted while in Tanzanian custody before being left at the border between Tanzania and Uganda. Recently, the government also banned the use of foreign currency in daily transactions, forcing citizens to rely on the weakening Tanzanian shilling. And in April, the opposition CHADEMA party was disqualified from participating in the October elections under the pretense of treason against party leader Tundu Lissu. The censorship of online platforms, suppression of opposition and dissidents, and laws banning foreign currency all signal a coordinated strategy to silence criticism and strip Tanzanians of both their political voice and financial autonomy.
Russia | Proposes Relocating Bitcoin Miners
Russia’s energy ministry is considering relocating Bitcoin miners to northern regions, where old energy infrastructure sits idle and the state can keep a closer eye. The plan comes months after the Kremlin banned mining across ten southern regions (including Dagestan and Chechnya), citing fears over energy shortages. But the ban has chiefly targeted individual and small-scale miners, not state-aligned corporations. Many independent miners, especially in poorer regions, used Bitcoin to escape financial isolation. Now, they’re being squeezed out in favor of top-down regulations. As the Kremlin tightens its grip on domestic energy and economic activity, it’s clear that the regime sees Bitcoin not as a tool for freedom but as something to be contained, regulated, and surveilled.
Israel | Freezes Bank Account of NGO Providing Aid in Palestine
Physicians for Human Rights Israel, a nonprofit providing medical aid in the West Bank and Gaza, has revealed that its bank accounts were frozen at the beginning of the year. The nonprofit, which previously ran regular medical missions in Palestine, says it was first blocked from making transactions, then warned by its bank, and finally notified in January that its account would be closed. These banking restrictions are not isolated. According to Lee Caspie, the deputy director of physicians for Human Rights Israel, other Israeli nonprofits providing aid to Palestinians receive similar financial treatment. Caspie shared that a new bill advancing would also impose an 80% tax on foreign grants to Israeli charities, with an exemption for those deemed acceptable by the government. These measures threaten to worsen a humanitarian crisis by leaving civil society organizations providing crucial support and services in Palestine financially cut off.
Hungary | Postpones Law That Would Ban Foreign-Funded Organizations
In a small win for civil society in Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party postponed a vote on a sweeping bill that would grant the Orbán regime power to monitor, penalize, and potentially shut down any organization receiving foreign funds. Framed as protecting “sovereignty,” the proposal closely mirrors Russia’s foreign agent law and has been widely condemned as a death blow to Hungary’s independent institutions, media, and dissidents. While officials now say they need more time to “debate the means,” critics warn the delay is a tactical move, not a change of heart. The bill casts an intentionally wide net, branding foreign-backed efforts to defend press freedom and LGBTQ+ rights as threats to national identity and political discourse. “Its aim is to silence all critical voices and eliminate what remains of Hungarian democracy once and for all,” according to a joint statement signed by more than 300 civil society and media organizations.
BITCOIN AND FREEDOM TECH NEWS
Breez | Adds BOLT 12 and BIP 353 Support to Nodeless SDK
Breez, a company helping build out the Bitcoin Lightning economy, released support for BOLT 12 and BIP 353, enabling wallets using the Breez Nodeless SDK (such as Misty Breez and Klever) to implement these features. BOLT 12 is a critical update to the Lightning Network that brings increased privacy and greater censorship resistance to Bitcoin transactions for those facing financial repression. It also introduces reusable payment requests for recurring payments (such as tips and donations to human rights defenders). BIP 353 enables individuals and organizations with access to a domain the ability to create static, human-readable payment addresses (such as user@domain) for Bitcoin payments. With this integration, NGOs or activists with an internet domain and wallet using the Breez SDK can receive uncensorable donations through their domain in an accessible way. Implementing these new Bitcoin features will provide users with greater financial freedom and autonomy under authoritarian regimes.
BTCNutServer | Accept Ecash Payments with BTCPay Server
A new experimental plugin called BTCNutServer is attempting to bring ecash payments to BTCPay Server. The idea is to allow users to accept Cashu ecash tokens alongside Bitcoin using BTCPay Server’s self-custodial and self-hosted infrastructure. Ecash specifically is a digital money system backed by Bitcoin and designed to offer instant, low-cost, and very private transactions. For activists and dissidents, ecash enables bitcoin payments without compromising financial privacy. But users must trust mints (entities that manage and issue ecash tokens) to custody their funds. Though still in early development, BTCNutServer could enable charities, nonprofits, and merchants in repressive countries to accept ecash through BTCPay Server and, in doing so, keep their financial activity hidden from state surveillance.
Private Pond | New Experimental Payjoin System
Private Pond is a new experimental project that builds upon the Payjoin protocol to improve both the privacy and efficiency of Bitcoin transactions. Payjoin works by mixing inputs of a bitcoin payment with inputs from the recipient, making it harder for outside observers to trace who paid whom. Private Pond takes this concept further: it is an application designed to optimize Bitcoin transaction rails (such as a platform’s deposits and withdrawals). It uses transaction batching to bundle many deposits and withdrawals into a single transaction, using incoming deposits to fund outgoing withdrawals. While it’s not production-ready, if Private Pond were implemented in other applications, it could lower fees, create stronger privacy, and expose fewer funds. Innovations like this help strengthen Bitcoin’s original purpose: a financial network that resists censorship and surveillance while staying efficient and scalable.
Chorus.Community | New Social App for Activists
Chorus.Community is a new social app introduced at the 2025 Oslo Freedom Forum that is designed for people who operate under surveillance or censorship. Developed on permissionless technologies like Bitcoin and Nostr, Chorus allows users to share updates, send voice notes, organize groups, and raise funds, all without needing an email, phone number, or approval from any central authority. Unlike traditional platforms, Chorus cannot easily be blocked or shut down. Future updates will include encrypted messaging and group features, further enhancing security. For activists, journalists, and organizers working in closed societies, Chorus offers a new way to stay connected, coordinate, and support one another. Human rights defenders can try it here.
Bitcoin Policy Institute | Upcoming Bitcoin Policy Summit
The Bitcoin Policy Institute will be hosting its third annual Bitcoin Policy Summit from June 25-26 in Washington, DC, bringing together lawmakers, academics, and advocates to help shape and understand the future of Bitcoin policy in the US. A highlight of the event will be HRF’s chief strategy officer, Alex Gladstein’s keynote, “Bitcoin is the Most Powerful Human Rights Tool of the 21st Century,” which will explain Bitcoin’s growing role in resisting authoritarianism and protecting civil liberties worldwide. Learn more about the event here.
HRF | Gifts 800 Million Satoshis to 22 Freedom Projects Worldwide
HRF gifted 800 million satoshis in its Q2 2025 round of Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF) grants, supporting 22 open-source freedom projects worldwide. These projects advance Bitcoin education, open-source software, mining decentralization, and privacy tools for activists contending with authoritarian regimes and dictatorships across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Supporting censorship-resistant financial tools and permissionless technologies like Bitcoin, Nostr, ecash, Tor, VPNs, and more empowers dissidents, journalists, and civil society to organize, transact, communicate, and speak without state suppression, interference, or manipulation. Learn more about the grantees and their work here. This round of grants also marks the 5-year anniversary of the Bitcoin Development Fund! Watch our anniversary announcement video to celebrate this milestone with us.
OpenSats | Announces 11th Wave of Bitcoin Grants
OpenSats, a public nonprofit funding free and open-source software, announced its 11th wave of grants advancing the Bitcoin protocol as a tool for financial freedom. Among the projects, Mostro and Payjoin stand out for their importance to dissidents and anyone seeking greater financial sovereignty. Mostro is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange protocol built on nostr, allowing users to trade Bitcoin directly without relying on centralized intermediaries that can be surveilled, censored, or shut down. Meanwhile, Payjoin enhances Bitcoin transaction privacy by breaking common heuristics used to trace payments, making it harder for authoritarian surveillance tools to identify payees and the amount transacted. Together, these tools give people living under repressive regimes more private, resilient ways to save and transact.
RECOMMENDED CONTENT
Nathan Law on Hong Kong’s Fight for Freedom, Bitcoin, and Lessons for the West with Ben Perrin
In this interview with Bitcoin educator Ben Perrin (BTC Sessions), exiled Hong Kong activist Nathan Law reveals how Bitcoin became a critical tool for resisting financial blacklisting under China’s authoritarian crackdown. With a $140,000 bounty on his head and no access to traditional banking, Law turned to Bitcoin to stay active in his push for freedom and democracy. Watch the full conversation here.
If this article was forwarded to you and you enjoyed reading it, please consider subscribing to the Financial Freedom Report here.
Support the newsletter by donating bitcoin to HRF’s Financial Freedom program via BTCPay.\ Want to contribute to the newsletter? Submit tips, stories, news, and ideas by emailing us at ffreport @ hrf.org
The Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF) is accepting grant proposals on an ongoing basis. The Bitcoin Development Fund is looking to support Bitcoin developers, community builders, and educators. Submit proposals here.
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@ 523a8281:fc94329a
2025-06-12 14:57:35In the dynamic and rapidly evolving blockchain industry over the past decade, Gerald Check has become one of the most influential investors in the Web3 space, thanks to his visionary foresight and a series of successful strategic moves. From his role as an executive at global leading exchanges like Binance and MEXC, he transitioned into becoming the founder of the top investment firm, GC Capital. Gerald Check's career trajectory is essentially the evolution of Web3 capital power.
From Platform Executive to Industry Evangelist
Gerald Check previously served as the Strategic Vice President at Binance and Global Market Director at MEXC. During his time at these platforms, he witnessed and participated in the entire process of crypto assets, from early speculative hype to their gradual shift toward real-world industrial applications. Starting in 2020, he began to focus more on Web3 infrastructure development and early-stage project incubation, believing that the next trillion-dollar opportunity would emerge at the intersection of "deep value and real-world application scenarios."
"I don’t want to be just a decision-maker on the platform, I want to be the force that drives the industry forward," Gerald Check said in an interview. Driven by this philosophy, GC Capital was born. Unlike traditional investment banks, GC Capital positions itself as a "strategically-driven partnership capital" firm: it not only provides funding but also participates in projects with its team, ecosystem resources, and operational capabilities, becoming a long-term co-builder. "Capital should not just focus on returns, it should empower the team," emphasized Gerald Check. In its two years of existence, GC Capital has invested in and incubated dozens of early-stage Web3 projects across sectors such as DeFi, GameFi, AI, and RWA, all of which have achieved impressive results. Driving Hit Projects: The "Talent Scout’s Eye" Behind the Scenes
Perhaps the most representative project is MetaMars. This metaverse ecosystem project, co-incubated by GC Capital and M3 DAO, has seen its token MARS increase by more than 35 times since its launch, with a monthly surge of up to 400%, making it a classic example of combining Web3 community operation and product. "We started getting involved before the concept was fully formed, not just investing money but working alongside the team to refine the economic model and optimize the launch rhythm," Gerald mentioned. Additionally, GC Capital invested in the decentralized AI cloud gaming platform DeepLink. The project integrates AI, blockchain, and streaming, and has been dubbed "Steam+Teamviewer of the Web3 Era." M3 DAO then formed a strategic partnership to co-build a Web3 gaming experience ecosystem. Projects like Voopay, LoserChick, and Rocket have also seen explosive growth with GC Capital's support, validating the team's ability to identify and accelerate early-stage projects. Co-building with M3 DAO: From Investor to Core Ecosystem Member Among all the collaborations, the deep partnership between GC Capital and M3 DAO stands out. Gerald himself entered the M3 DAO core team as a co-CEO, driving the upgrades of infrastructures like MarsVerse and MarsChain. The two parties also jointly promoted the $200 million Phuket RWA Resort Project, marking the first realization of the "Web3+Gaming+Tourism" industry fusion model, injecting digital vitality into physical assets. "We aim not only to invest in the future on-chain but also to reconstruct off-chain economic models," said Gerald Check. Gerald Check’s Future Vision: Long-Termism and Global Layout
Gerald is working to expand GC Capital’s international presence. In the next three years, GC will establish regional incubation centers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and launch the "Web3 Global Investors Academy" to create a support system that integrates technology, capital, and community. At the same time, he is also looking for the next generation of Web3 entrepreneurs who are persistent, understand users, and are willing to co-build. "Web3 is not a speculative game, but an opportunity to reconstruct the order. We are willing to go through the cycles with great teams," this is one of Gerald Check’s most frequently quoted phrases. In this era of accelerating change, Gerald Check and GC Capital are gradually becoming an important bridge connecting capital with industry, imagination with reality. GC Capital official website: https://gc.capital/
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@ 69eea734:4ae31ae6
2025-06-12 15:25:09Vor ein paar Tagen stieß ich auf einen faszinierenden Artikel von Michel Bauwens, Mitbegründer der P2PFoundation, mit Links zu weiteren Texten – zum Beispiel über den Puls der Commons –, die ich ebenfalls äußerst interessant fand.
Der Artikel zeigt unter anderem gut, wie unterschiedlich Commons aussehen können, so dass ich ihn heute als Ausgangspunkt nehmen möchte, um ein paar Puzzle-Steine in mein entstehendes Bild der Commons einzufügen.
Das Grundmuster menschlichen Zusammenlebens?
Bauwens betrachtet die Commons aus historischer Sicht, wie sie sich in verschiedenen Zeiten unterschiedlich manifestieren, manchmal gar nahezu verschwinden und heute in wiederum veränderter Form neu entstehen – und plädiert dafür, dass sie noch weit stärker werden sollten.
Er legt zunächst dar, was die Commons sind und was nicht. (zum Beispiel nichts, was vom Staat verwaltet wird, wie ein öffentlicher Park.) Ausschlaggebend ist, dass eine Ressource von ihren Herstellern oder Benutzern selbst betreut wird. Commons entstehen dabei durch Beziehungen. Sie sind etwas spezifisch Menschliches und eine Wahl, die „fast immer“ zur Verfügung steht, so Bauwens. Eine die Geschichte überdauernde menschliche Praxis.
Er nennt drei verschiedene geschichtlichen Entwicklungen:
- Eine lineare - Wie präsentiert sich der Commons über verschiedene, komplexer werdende, Phasen der Menschheitsgeschichte hinweg?
- Eine hin und her schwingendende: In der Geschichte einer Zivilisation werden die Commons in Zeiten von Überfluss -- und daraus resultierender Verschwendung uns steigender Ressourcen-Extraktion -- unterdrückt, konstitutieren sich aber dann als Gegenbewegung wieder neu.
- Eine stufenweise: Die heutigen, mit neuen Möglichkeiten ausgestatteten Formen der Commons könnten in der nächsten Phase unserer Zivilisation (oder nach unserer Zivilisation) eine entscheidende Rolle spielen.
Wenn man verschiedene Arten des Austausches betrachtet (Bauwens beruft sich hierbei auf Alan Fiske), kann man geschichtlich analysieren, welche zu verschiedenen Zeiten vorrangig waren (dies tat Kojin Karatani in The Structure of World History von 2014).
Die vier Muster sind:
- Gemeinschaftliche Beteiligung, Commons (die Gemeinschaft baut mir ein Haus, und ich helfe später bei einem anderen Hausbau mit; ein Beispiel aus neuerer Zeit ist die Entwicklung von Linux)
- Wechselseitiger Austausch (Geschenkökonomie – es wird eine etwa gleichwertige Leistung zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt erwartet)
- Hierarchisch bedingte Verteilung, wie im Feudalismus
- Marktwirtschaft (es gibt ein allgemeines Zahlungsmittel mit einem bestimmten Wert)
Bauwens: „Entscheidend ist jedoch, dass die Menschheit ständig bestrebt ist, Modus A wiederherzustellen, denn die Menschen haben eine kulturelle und wahrscheinlich auch allgemeine Vorliebe für ein geselliges Leben in kleinen, vertrauten Gruppen. Aber menschliche Gruppen versuchen, dies auch auf höheren Komplexitätsebenen zu tun, in einem ständigen Versuch, die extraktive Logik der Zivilisation zu mäßigen.“ (Katarani bezeichnet eine Verbindung von Commoning und Geschenkökonomie in stammesorientierten Kulturen als Modus A)
Commons durch die Zeiten - ein kurzer Abriss
In der ursprünglichsten Form der Commons in Jäger- und Sammler-Gemeinschaften, werden Nahrung und sonstige Ressourcen mit der ganzen Gemeinschaft geteilt - dies ist zumindest die vorherrschende Form des Austauschs.
Im Zuge der Agrar-Revolution geht es um das gemeinsame Bewirtschaften von Flächen.
Im Mittelalter entwickelt sich in Europa das Feudalsystem. Auch hier werden manche Felder aber noch von den Dorfbewohnern gemeinsam verwaltet.
Ab dem 16. Jahrhundert fanden, am stärksten in England, die Enclosures (auf deutsch Einhegungen) statt. Das heißt, dass Felder zur effizienteren Bewirtschaftung von den Besitzern zusammengelegt und umzäunt wurden.
Besonders im 19. Jahrhundert, mit dem Aufkommen der Industrialisierung, nahm diese Entwicklung immer stärker zu. Die landwirtschaftlichen Commons wurden dadurch weitgehend zerstört.
Im industriellen Kapitalismus, als die Arbeiter kaum Rechte hatten, und es auch um das bloße Überleben ging, entwickelte sich ein sozialer Commons Dieser bestand darin, dass sich die Arbeiter gegenseitig halfen und sich gegenseitig versicherten. Aus dieser Bewegung entstand dann der Sozialstaat. Der Staat übernahm also Aufgaben, die die Menschen zuvor füreinander geleistet hatten.
Man könnte daher sagen, dass im Kapitalismus die natürlichen Commons-Ressourcen privatisiert und die sozialen Commons verstaatlicht wurden.
In der Moderne waren sich viele Menschen der Bedeutung von Commons gar nicht mehr bewusst.
Mit dem Internet, dem World Wide Web und weiteren digitalen Techniken erschlossen sich dann neue Möglichkeiten. Mit Peer Production, Open Source Software, sowie den Creative Commons Lizenzen, enstand eine neue Inkarnation der Commons. Und damit ist die Entwicklung noch nicht abgeschlossen...
Warum Commons nicht in ein Links-Rechts-Schema passen
Mit seinem Streifzug durch die Geschichte zeigt Bauwens, wie vielfältig die Commons sein können, und warum ihnen in der heutigen Zeit eine starke Rolle zukommen sollte. Nebenbei ergibt sich für mich auch, dass sie jenseits von linker oder rechter Ideologie liegen. Hierzu eine kurze Zwischenbetrachtung von mir:
Weil es um kollektives Handeln geht, und auch wegen des Namens („hört sich an wie Kommunismus“, meinte meine Mutter), entsteht leicht der Eindruck, es handele sich um ein besonders linksgerichtetes Phänomen.
Eine gut eingespielte Fußballmannschaft agiert auch als Kollektiv. Der Verein verwaltet vielleicht ein Clubhaus. Wohl kaum jemand würde deswegen den Verein als links bezeichnen.
Freilich sind die Mitglieder heutiger Commons-Bewegungen vorwiegend „progressiv“, zuweilen auf eine rigide Weise. Bauwens hat damit schon eine leidvolle Erfahrung gemacht. Aber Commons als soziales System sind es nicht. Dafür spricht allein schon die Tatsache, dass es sie viel länger gibt als die politische Links-Rechts-Einteilung.
Eine starke Rolle für die Commons
Wie steht es um die Commons heute? Das werde ich in weiteren Artikeln noch versuchen zu beleuchten.
Mir kommt gerade der Gedanke in den Sinn: Sie wachsen überall.
Wie oben erwähnt, enstand mit zunehmenden digitalen Möglichkeiten eine neue Form der Commons. Leider gab es hier auch moderne Formen der Einhegungen. Github wurde von Microsoft übernommen, der Sardex (alternatives lokales Wirtschaftsnetzwerk) anscheinend von einer Investment-Firma. AWS (Amazon Web Services) verleibt sich gerne woanders entwickelte Projekte ein und bietet sie als zahlungspflichtige Services an. Krypto wurde -- weitgehend -- "gekapert".
Aber zum einen gibt es nicht nur den digital basierten Commons, es entsteht schon viel auf anderer Ebene, und zum anderen sind Commoners erfinderische Menschen...
Michel Bauwens hat in seinen Artikeln im Übrigen noch mehr zu den heutigen Commons zu sagen. Inbesondere beführwortet er das Kosmo-Lokale (Cosmo-Local). Was leicht ist (Wissen) wird geteilt, was Gewicht hat (etwa landwirtschaftliche und andere Produktion), wird an lokale Gegebenheiten angepasst und vor Ort bewerkstelligt.
Und das Zusammenspiel von Digitalem und Materiellem verspricht weitere Möglichkeiten.
In jedem Fall haben die Commons eine ausgleichende, regenerierende Kraft, die wir aufgrund der heutigen vielen Kriesen gar nicht ungenützt lassen können, ganz unabhängig von unserer sozialer Ebene - das gilt auch für die Superreichen.
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@ 523a8281:fc94329a
2025-06-12 14:55:50MetaMars has rapidly established itself as a standout project in the 2025 cryptocurrency market, with its $MARS token soaring over 3000%, driven by a visionary Mars-themed metaverse narrative, sophisticated tokenomics, a strong community, and strategic KOL partnerships led by M3 DAO. This momentum has now expanded into the Japanese market following successes in India, Russia, Vietnam, Turkey, and Germany, where top influencers with million-strong followings in cryptocurrency, technology, and finance have joined MetaMars’ “Builders Alliance.” Their expert insights and dynamic multi-platform promotional efforts have injected unparalleled energy into the MetaMars ecosystem, fueling explosive growth and deep community engagement. Celebrated as “The Web3 Metaverse of the Future,” this campaign has already surpassed 200,000 views, underscoring its powerful resonance and expanding influence.
The Strategic Decision to Enter Japan: A Market Analysis Japan’s cryptocurrency and metaverse landscape presents a unique opportunity. Crypto adoption has surged to 34% of the population in 2025, with over 15 million active users, making Japan a top-five global market by daily trading volume. Major exchanges like Bitflyer and Coincheck handle over $1.2 billion weekly, supported by clear regulations such as the Payment Services Act and FSA-approved frameworks that ensure stability for users and investors.
The metaverse sector is equally promising, projected to reach ¥16 trillion ($110 billion) by 2026. According to a 2025 Dentsu Research report, 62% of Japanese crypto holders are interested in metaverse projects, especially virtual land, NFTs, and blockchain gaming. This cultural affinity, combined with a tech-savvy population, creates an ideal environment for MetaMars’ Mars-themed universe.
From Grassroots to Grand Scale: The Catalyst for Mass Promotion While MetaMars began community building in Japan in 2024, the current phase marks a strategic pivot toward large-scale promotion designed to empower the local ecosystem—an effort undertaken closely with M3 DAO. This collaboration focuses on deepening community engagement through multifaceted support: educational programs, mentorship from local thought leaders, localized learning resources, and KOL-led offline events. M3 DAO’s expertise in DAO governance and community operations complements MetaMars’ metaverse infrastructure, creating synergy that fuels sustained growth.
This approach prioritizes organic development over mere expansion. Weekly Web3 education sessions in Japanese, hosted by M3 DAO’s regional ambassadors, guide users through blockchain fundamentals and $MARS token utilities. Local leaders—curated from early adopters and industry veterans—offer one-on-one mentorship, while a comprehensive library of video tutorials, infographics, and case studies (translated by native speakers) ensures accessible knowledge. KOLs play the role of "ecological architects" here, participating in the planning of local Tokyo metaverse workshops, NFT creation challenges and other activities, with their influence covering content creation, community operation and even the formulation of ecological development roadmaps.
Conclusion: Embracing the Japanese Cultural Metaverse Revolution As MetaMars deepens its roots in Japan, the project embarks on a transformative journey that fuses cultural heritage with cutting-edge metaverse technology. In collaboration with M3 DAO, the initiative focuses on crafting immersive experiences that resonate locally—from anime-inspired NFT collections co-created with Japanese gaming studios to digital renditions of cultural landmarks, where KOLs and community members serve as digital guides and content architects. These collaborations extend beyond aesthetics: Japanese KOLs involved in the MetaMars DAO lead beta testing for new features, ensuring technological advancements—from blockchain governance tools to payment integrations—align with user needs.
In the coming months, KOLs will spearhead "metaverse labs," inviting fans to co-design virtual festivals, traditional art exhibitions, and interactive storytelling experiences within the Mars ecosystem. Leveraging M3 DAO’s community-building expertise and local KOLs’ cultural translation capabilities, MetaMars aims not only to expand its user base but to nurture a metaverse ecosystem where Japanese digital culture thrives. This serves as a pivot to pave the way for similar initiatives in markets like South Korea and Taiwan. The Martian landscape is evolving into a vibrant canvas for cultural innovation, inviting every user, KOL, and creator to become both planners and builders of this new digital frontier.
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@ 7f6db517:a4931eda
2025-06-12 15:02:58The former seems to have found solid product market fit. Expect significant volume, adoption, and usage going forward.
The latter's future remains to be seen. Dependence on Tor, which has had massive reliability issues, and lack of strong privacy guarantees put it at risk.
— ODELL (@ODELL) October 27, 2022
The Basics
- Lightning is a protocol that enables cheap and fast native bitcoin transactions.
- At the core of the protocol is the ability for bitcoin users to create a payment channel with another user.
- These payment channels enable users to make many bitcoin transactions between each other with only two on-chain bitcoin transactions: the channel open transaction and the channel close transaction.
- Essentially lightning is a protocol for interoperable batched bitcoin transactions.
- It is expected that on chain bitcoin transaction fees will increase with adoption and the ability to easily batch transactions will save users significant money.
- As these lightning transactions are processed, liquidity flows from one side of a channel to the other side, on chain transactions are signed by both parties but not broadcasted to update this balance.
- Lightning is designed to be trust minimized, either party in a payment channel can close the channel at any time and their bitcoin will be settled on chain without trusting the other party.
There is no 'Lightning Network'
- Many people refer to the aggregate of all lightning channels as 'The Lightning Network' but this is a false premise.
- There are many lightning channels between many different users and funds can flow across interconnected channels as long as there is a route through peers.
- If a lightning transaction requires multiple hops it will flow through multiple interconnected channels, adjusting the balance of all channels along the route, and paying lightning transaction fees that are set by each node on the route.
Example: You have a channel with Bob. Bob has a channel with Charlie. You can pay Charlie through your channel with Bob and Bob's channel with User C.
- As a result, it is not guaranteed that every lightning user can pay every other lightning user, they must have a route of interconnected channels between sender and receiver.
Lightning in Practice
- Lightning has already found product market fit and usage as an interconnected payment protocol between large professional custodians.
- They are able to easily manage channels and liquidity between each other without trust using this interoperable protocol.
- Lightning payments between large custodians are fast and easy. End users do not have to run their own node or manage their channels and liquidity. These payments rarely fail due to professional management of custodial nodes.
- The tradeoff is one inherent to custodians and other trusted third parties. Custodial wallets can steal funds and compromise user privacy.
Sovereign Lightning
- Trusted third parties are security holes.
- Users must run their own node and manage their own channels in order to use lightning without trusting a third party. This remains the single largest friction point for sovereign lightning usage: the mental burden of actively running a lightning node and associated liquidity management.
- Bitcoin development prioritizes node accessibility so cost to self host your own node is low but if a node is run at home or office, Tor or a VPN is recommended to mask your IP address: otherwise it is visible to the entire network and represents a privacy risk.
- This privacy risk is heightened due to the potential for certain governments to go after sovereign lightning users and compel them to shutdown their nodes. If their IP Address is exposed they are easier to target.
- Fortunately the tools to run and manage nodes continue to get easier but it is important to understand that this will always be a friction point when compared to custodial services.
The Potential Fracture of Lightning
- Any lightning user can choose which users are allowed to open channels with them.
- One potential is that professional custodians only peer with other professional custodians.
- We already see nodes like those run by CashApp only have channels open with other regulated counterparties. This could be due to performance goals, liability reduction, or regulatory pressure.
- Fortunately some of their peers are connected to non-regulated parties so payments to and from sovereign lightning users are still successfully processed by CashApp but this may not always be the case going forward.
Summary
- Many people refer to the aggregate of all lightning channels as 'The Lightning Network' but this is a false premise. There is no singular 'Lightning Network' but rather many payment channels between distinct peers, some connected with each other and some not.
- Lightning as an interoperable payment protocol between professional custodians seems to have found solid product market fit. Expect significant volume, adoption, and usage going forward.
- Lightning as a robust sovereign payment protocol has yet to be battle tested. Heavy reliance on Tor, which has had massive reliability issues, the friction of active liquidity management, significant on chain fee burden for small amounts, interactivity constraints on mobile, and lack of strong privacy guarantees put it at risk.
If you have never used lightning before, use this guide to get started on your phone.
If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.
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@ 005bc4de:ef11e1a2
2025-06-12 14:36:24After dropping off a relative at the airport, my wife and I found ourselves in an area that was rather new to us and we had the whole afternoon open. So, what to do? We stopped by the local Visitor Center for ideas. The usual shopping and dining routine isn't a big interest to us (though I like to eat!). No, it was time to get outdoors.
So, some local trail maps gave some ideas and off we went. Hiking is nice, and, even though you're huffing it out when you hike, it's relaxing to be outdoors. An aimless amble in nature is the reward itself. But, it's also sometimes nice to have a destination in mind, a goal to reach. The trails we chose had a few waterfalls and three were within our range. Waterfalls are great as destinations: you usually have to hike rugged trails to get to them, but when you do, there's a big payoff. Here's a teaser:
Along the walk to waterfall number one, an interesting shadow caught my eye on the trail. The shadow looked like a wreath on the ground in a nearly perfect circle. With the other leaves, the shadow looked like a large blooming flower. Overhead, the maple branch was filtering out the light just right to make the shadow. I thought it was neat.
Just below that shadow, we came to the stream and saw the falls through the trees.
Here's a closer view of the falls. From where I took the pic, there was a steady roar of water, of course, and, you could feel the cool mist and breeze like natural air conditioning...a multi-sensory experience and yet another payoff for the hike. The young man in the image decided to do a hand stand, because, that's what you do at the base of a waterfall, right?
A second falls was called Triple Falls. I bet you can guess why...
We went to a third falls which was low and wide, but really more of a swimming hole because the pool at the bottom was also wide and deep. It being a warm and sunny day, it was rather crowded with people cooling off. No photo because I didn't want to be the weird person pulling out a camera and taking pictures of people in their swimsuits!
The hike back was a nice, relaxing trail walk that looked like this:
Returning home, my wife agreed we made a good choice for the day.
.hostr
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@ 58537364:705b4b85
2025-06-12 13:59:39ในร่างกายที่มันมีสิ่งที่เรียกว่า… ระบบประสาท ทีนี้มีอะไรเข้ามากระทบร่างกาย คือกระทบระบบประสาท ปฏิกิริยามันก็เกิดขึ้น เป็นเหตุการณ์ อย่างใดอย่างหนึ่งขึ้น
เหตุการณ์นั้นแหละสำคัญ ถ้าให้เกิดความรู้สึกที่ถูกใจมันจะเป็นบวก เหตุการณ์นั้นไม่รู้สึกถูกใจแก่จิต มันก็จะเป็นลบ #ตัวกูเพิ่งเกิดเมื่อมีการกระทบแล้ว
ถ้าเหตุการณ์ที่เป็นบวกเกิดขึ้น ตัวกูบวกก็เกิดขึ้น เหตุการณ์ที่เป็นลบเกิดขึ้น ตัวกูที่เป็นลบเกิดขึ้น #ตัวกูนี้เกิดหลังเหตุการณ์ ขอให้เข้าใจดีๆ ไม่ใช่เกิดอยู่ก่อน
ตัวกูคลอดออกมาจาก situation ที่มากระทบระบบประสาท เช่นว่า… ไม่ได้กินอาหาร ขาดอาหาร มันหิว ความหิวเกิดขึ้นแก่ระบบประสาท ต่อมาจึงเกิด concept ว่า กูหิว, มีการกินแล้วจึงเกิด concept ว่า กูกิน
ถ้ามีอาการอร่อยแก่ลิ้น มันจึงเกิด concept ว่า… กูอร่อย หรือ มาทีหลังเหตุการณ์เสมอ จะถือว่าเป็น product ของเหตุการณ์นั้น ๆ ก็ได้
นี่คือความที่ไม่มีตัวจริง มิใช่ของจริง ของสิ่งที่เรียกว่าตัวกู #ขอให้รู้จักว่าตัวกูนี้มันเป็นมายาถึงขนาดนี้
ฟังดูการพูดอย่างนี้ มันเป็น logic แต่ความจริงของธรรมชาติมันเป็นอย่างนั้น ถือตามกฎ logic ธรรมดาสามัญ ที่พูดกันอยู่นี้ไม่ได้ ต้องถือตามความเป็นจริงที่ว่า มันเป็นอยู่อย่างไร
จิตก็เป็นธาตุชนิดหนึ่ง สิ่งแวดล้อมต่างๆ ที่เป็นธาตุชนิดหนึ่ง พอมาถึงกันเข้า ก็เกิดปฏิกิริยาออกมาอย่างนั้นอย่างนี้ ความรู้สึกที่เรียกว่า… #จิตคิดนึกได้นี้_ก็เป็นปฏิกิริยาที่เกิดขึ้นเท่านั้น แล้วความรู้สึกว่าตัวกู ตัวนี้ก็เป็นเพียงปฏิกิริยาที่เกิดขึ้นเท่านั้น.
มันฟังยากสำหรับท่านทั้งหลายที่ว่า ผู้กระทำนั้นเกิดทีหลังการกระทำ มันผิด logic อย่างนี้
แต่ความจริงเป็นอย่างนั้น self หรือ ego ผู้กระทำจะเกิดทีหลังการกระทำ เป็นปฏิกิริยาของการกระทำ
ความคิดอย่าง ตรรกะ หรืออย่างปรัชญา เอามาใช้กับสิ่งนี้ไม่ได้ ขอยืนยันไว้อย่างนี้
ถ้าท่านยังไม่เชื่อ ท่านก็ไปคิดดูเรื่อย ๆ ไปเถอะ ท่านจะพบว่ามันไม่เป็นอย่างกฎเกณฑ์ทางตรรกะหรือทางปรัชญา ที่เรามีๆ กันอยู่
ผู้กระทำเป็นเพียง concept ไม่ใช่ตัวจริง ส่วนการกระทำมันเป็นเหตุการณ์ของธรรมชาติ พอเข้ามาถึงจิตแล้ว ก็เกิดความคิด ความเชื่อ ความยึดว่าตัวกู
ตัวกูซึ่งเป็นเพียง concept ไม่ใช่ของจริง
พุทธทาสภิกขุ
อตัมมยตาประทีป
ชีวิตใหม่และหนทางเข้าถึงชีวิตใหม่
หน้า_๒๙๕-๒๙๖
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@ 69eea734:4ae31ae6
2025-06-12 14:43:03Vor ein paar Tagen stieß ich auf einen faszinierenden Artikel von Michel Bauwens, Mitbegründer der P2PFoundation, mit Links zu weiteren Texten – zum Beispiel über den Puls der Commons –, die ich ebenfalls äußerst interessant fand.
Der Artikel zeigt unter anderem gut, wie unterschiedlich Commons aussehen können, so dass ich ihn heute als Ausgangspunkt nehmen möchte, um ein paar Puzzle-Steine in mein entstehendes Bild der Commons einzufügen.
Das Grundmuster menschlichen Zusammenlebens?
Bauwens betrachtet die Commons aus historischer Sicht, wie sie sich in verschiedenen Zeiten unterschiedlich manifestieren, manchmal gar nahezu verschwinden und heute in wiederum veränderter Form neu entstehen – und warum sie noch weit stärker werden sollten.
Er legt zunächst dar, was die Commons sind und was nicht. (zum Beispiel nichts, was vom Staat verwaltet wird, wie ein öffentlicher Park) Ausschlaggebend ist, dass eine Ressource von ihren Herstellern oder Benutzern selbst betreut wird. Commons entstehen dabei durch Beziehungen. Sie sind etwas spezifisch Menschliches und eine Wahl, die „fast immer“ zur Verfügung steht, so Bauwens. Eine die Geschichte überdauernde menschliche Praxis.
Er nennt drei verschiedene geschichtlichen Entwicklungen:
- Eine lineare - Wie präsentiert sich der Commons über verschiedene, komplexer werdende, Phasen der Menschheitsgeschichte hinweg?
- Eine hin und her schwingendende: In der Geschichte einer Zivilisation werden die Commons in Zeiten von Überfluss -- und daraus resultierender Verschwendung uns steigender Ressourcen-Extraktion -- unterdrückt, konstitutieren sich aber dann als Gegenbewegung wieder neu.
- Eine stufenweise: Die heutigen, mit neuen Möglichkeiten ausgestatteten Formen der Commons könnten in der nächsten Phase unserer Zivilisation (oder nach unserer Zivilisation) eine entscheidende Rolle spielen.
Wenn man verschiedene Arten des Austausches betrachtet (Bauwens beruft sich hier auf Alan Fiske), kann man geschichtlich analysieren, welche dieser Muster zu verschiedenen Zeiten vorrangig waren (dies tat Kojin Karatani in The Structure of World History von 2014).
Die vier Muster sind:
- Gemeinschaftliche Beteiligung, Commons (die Gemeinschaft baut mir ein Haus, und ich helfe später bei einem anderen Hausbau mit; ein Beispiel aus neuerer Zeit ist die Entwicklung von Linux)
- Wechselseitiger Austausch (Geschenkökonomie – es wird eine etwa gleichwertige Leistung zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt erwartet)
- Hierarchisch bedingte Verteilung, wie im Feudalismus
- Marktwirtschaft: Es gibt ein allgemeines Zahlungsmittel mit einem bestimmten Wert.
Bauwens: „Entscheidend ist jedoch, dass die Menschheit ständig bestrebt ist, Modus A wiederherzustellen, denn die Menschen haben eine kulturelle und wahrscheinlich auch allgemeine Vorliebe für ein geselliges Leben in kleinen, vertrauten Gruppen. Aber menschliche Gruppen versuchen, dies auf jeweils höheren Komplexitätsebenen zu tun, in einem ständigen Versuch, die extraktive Logik der Zivilisation zu mäßigen.“ (Katarani bezeichnet eine Verbindung von Commoning und Geschenkökonomie in stammesorientierten Kulturen als Modus A)
Commons durch die Zeiten - ein kurzer Abriss
In der ursprünglichsten Form der Commons in Jäger- und Sammler-Gemeinschaften, werden Nahrung und sonstige Ressourcen mit der ganzen Gemeinschaft geteilt - dies ist zumindest die vorherrschende Form des Austauschs.
Im Zuge der Agrar-Revolution geht es um das gemeinsame Bewirtschaften von Flächen.
Im Mittelalter entwickelt sich in Europa das Feudalsystem. Auch hier werden manche Felder aber noch von den Dorfbewohnern gemeinsam verwaltet.
Ab dem 16. Jahrhundert fanden, am stärksten in England, die Enclosures (auf deutsch Einhegungen) statt. Das heißt, dass Felder zur effizienteren Bewirtschaftung von den Besitzern zusammengelegt und mit Zäunen versehen wurden.
Besonders im 19. Jahrhundert, mit dem Aufkommen der Industrialisierung, nahm diese Entwicklung immer stärker zu. Die landwirtschaftlichen Commons wurden dadurch weitgehend zerstört.
Im industriellen Kapitalismus, als die Arbeiter kaum Rechte hatten, und es auch um das bloße Überleben ging, entwickelte sich ein sozialer Commons Dieser bestand darin, dass sich die Arbeiter gegenseitig halfen und sich gegenseitig versicherten. Aus dieser Bewegung entstand dann der Sozialstaat. Der Staat übernahm also Aufgaben, die die Menschen zuvor füreinander geleistet hatten.
Man könnte daher sagen, dass im Kapitalismus die natürlichen Commons-Ressourcen privatisiert und die sozialen Commons verstaatlicht wurden.
In der Moderne waren sich viele Menschen der Bedeutung von Commons gar nicht mehr bewusst.
Mit dem Internet, dem World Wide Web und weiteren digitalen Techniken erschlossen sich dann neue Möglichkeiten. Mit Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) und Peer Production, sowie den Creative Commons Lizenzen, enstand eine neue Inkarnation der Commons. Und damit ist die Entwicklung noch nicht abgeschlossen...
Warum Commons nicht in ein Links-Rechts-Schema passen
Mit seinem Streifzug durch die Geschichte zeigt Bauwens, wie vielfältig die Commons sein können, und warum ihnen in der heutigen Zeit eine starke Rolle zukommen sollte. Nebenbei ergibt sich für mich auch, dass sie jenseits von linker oder rechter Ideologie liegen. Hierzu eine kurze Zwischenbetrachtung von mir:
Weil es um kollektives Handeln geht, und auch wegen des Namens („hört sich an wie Kommunismus“, meinte meine Mutter), entsteht leicht der Eindruck, es handele sich um ein besonders linksgerichtetes Phänomen.
Eine gut eingespielte Fußballmannschaft agiert auch als Kollektiv. Der Verein verwaltet vielleicht ein Clubhaus. Wohl kaum jemand würde deswegen den Verein als links bezeichnen.
Freilich sind die Mitglieder heutiger Commons-Bewegungen vorwiegend „progressiv“, zuweilen auf eine rigide Weise. Bauwens hat damit schon eine leidvolle Erfahrung gemacht. Aber Commons als soziales System sind es nicht. Dafür spricht allein schon die Tatsache, dass es sie viel länger gibt als die politische Links-Rechts-Einteilung.
Eine starke Rolle für die Commons
Wie steht es um die Commons heute? Das werde ich in weiteren Artikeln noch versuchen zu beleuchten.
Mir kommt gerade der Gedanke in den Sinn: Sie wachsen überall.
Wie oben erwähnt, enstand mit zunehmenden digitalen Möglichkeiten eine neue Form der Commons. Leider gab es hier auch moderne Formen der Einhegungen. Github wurde von Microsoft übernommen, der Sardex (alternatives lokales Wirtschaftsnetzwerk) anscheinend von einer Investment-Firma. AWS (Amazon Web Services) verleibt sich gerne woanders entwickelte Projekte ein und bietet sie als zahlungspflichtige Services an. Krypto wurde -- weitgehend -- "gekapert".
Aber zum einen gibt es nicht nur den digital basierten Commons, es entsteht schon viel auf anderer Ebene, und zum anderen sind Commoners erfinderische Menschen...
Michel Bauwens hat in seinen Artikeln im Übrigen noch mehr zu den heutigen Commons zu sagen. Inbesondere beführwortet er das Kosmo-Lokale (Cosmo-Local). Was leicht ist (Wissen) wird geteilt, was Gewicht hat (etwa landwirtschaftliche und andere Produktion), wird an lokale Gegebenheiten angepasst und vor Ort bewerkstelligt.
Und das Zusammenspiel von Digitalem und Materiellem verspricht weitere Möglichkeiten.
In jedem Fall haben die Commons eine ausgleichende, regenerierende Kraft, die wir aufgrund der heutigen vielen Kriesen gar nicht ungenützt lassen können, ganz unabhängig von unserer sozialer Ebene - das gilt auch für die Superreichen.
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2025-06-12 14:25:06墨 sumi ink & hanko red paste;
https://stacker.news/items/1004461
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2025-06-12 13:35:07Autor: Anna Nagel. (Bild: Lukas Karl). Dieser Beitrag wurde mit dem Pareto-Client geschrieben. Sie finden alle Texte der Friedenstaube und weitere Texte zum Thema Frieden hier. Die neuesten Pareto-Artikel finden Sie auch in unserem Telegram-Kanal.
Die neuesten Artikel der Friedenstaube gibt es jetzt auch im eigenen Friedenstaube-Telegram-Kanal.
Teil 3 ist der letzte Teil des Essays. Hier geht es zu Teil 1 und Teil 2.
«Der große Jammer mit den Menschen ist, dass sie so genau wissen, was man ihnen schuldet, und so wenig Empfindungen dafür haben, was sie anderen schulden.»
– Franz von Sales
In den ersten beiden Teilen der Reihe «Mitgefühl und Vergebung» ging es darum, Wege zu finden, mit unserem Gegenüber, unserem «Widersacher» oder sogar der Menschheit an sich, weich zu werden, Verständnis zu finden, uns selbst vom Groll zu befreien und Frieden zu schließen. Doch wie ist das eigentlich andersherum?
Denn was bei all den Gedanken über das Verzeihen und Mitfühlen nicht fehlen darf, ist, sich selbst zu vergeben und auch, sich selbst zu entschuldigen. Häufig wissen wir zwar schnell, auf wen wir noch wütend sind, welchen Schmerz wir noch nicht loslassen konnten, – obwohl natürlich auch einige Wunden tiefer verschüttet sind – gleichwohl kann es noch etwas undurchsichtiger werden, wenn wir uns selbst einmal ehrlich fragen, wen wir verletzt haben, wem wir etwas schuldig geblieben sind. Denn das ist die Kehrseite der Medaille: Ich glaube, dass niemand von uns komplett ohne Schuld ist.
Zwar ist es einfacher, im Außen Verantwortliche für alles Mögliche zu finden, wie zum Beispiel das Unrecht in der Welt oder unsere eigenen verletzten Gefühle, da es häufig auch offensichtlicher ist, es lenkt uns aber auch gerne von den eigenen Schattenanteilen ab. Häufig werden wir sogar leider erst mit unseren eigenen Schuldgefühlen konfrontiert, wenn es zu spät ist; beispielsweise wenn es um Trennungen geht – oder wenn jemand Geliebtes stirbt. Erst dann zeigen sich bei den meisten Momente und Gefühle des Bereuens, des Bedauerns, des Wieder-gut-machen-Wollens.
Sehr viele Menschen, die eine Nahtoderfahrung erlebt haben, berichten, dass, als ihnen ihr eigenes Leben im Panoramablick gezeigt wurde, sie alle Situationen aus Sicht der Menschen fühlten, mit denen sie interagiert hatten. Also dass sie spätestens da merkten, in welchen Situationen ihre Worte und ihr Verhalten andere verletzten.
Andererseits gibt es auch Menschen, die von Schuldgefühlen förmlich zerfressen werden. Sie nagen an ihnen und ihrem Gewissen und manche werten sich selbst zutiefst ab, bis hin zum Selbsthass. Hier stellt sich die Frage, wie wir uns selbst helfen können, uns selbst ent-schuldigen können. Oder kann das nur derjenige, demgegenüber wir Schuld empfinden?
DIE FRIEDENSTAUBE FLIEGT AUCH IN IHR POSTFACH!
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Es tut mir leid
\ Wo wir können, sollten wir uns selbstverständlich entschuldigen und um Vergebung bitten. Nicht nur für uns selbst, sondern auch für den anderen. Wer das schon einmal ehrlich getan hat, weiß, wie schwer das sein kann und wem wiederum schon einmal eine wirklich ernstgemeinte Entschuldigung entgegen gebracht wurde, weiß, wie heilsam und tief berührend sie sein kann.
Viel zu häufig werden Entschuldigungen nämlich nicht ganz so ernst gemeint; wir werfen mit Wortschnipseln um uns, ein kurzes «Sorry» nuscheln wir in den Hemdkragen, drehen uns vielleicht noch dabei weg oder nutzen sie als Floskel, weil es sich «so gehört». Ebenso alltäglich finden wir das berühmte: «Tut mir ja leid, aaaber…» plus Rechtfertigung und möglicherweise sogar Gegenvorwürfen.
Das meine ich nicht, ich meine das ehrliche Entschuldigen. Das reine Schuldeingeständnis, die hundertprozentige Verantwortungsübernahme für das eigene Verhalten – wie oft erlebst du diese? Von anderen sowie von dir selbst. Es gehört nämlich schon eine ganze Portion Mut und innere Größe dazu, sich seiner Fehltritte bewusst zu sein, diese zuzugeben – und zwar vor sich selbst und zudem vor demjenigen, dem man auf den Fuß getreten ist –, ihm tief in die Augen zu schauen und zu sagen: «Es tut mir leid.» Ohne Erwartung, ohne Rechtfertigung. Im tiefen Einverständnis mit allen Konsequenzen.
Es braucht deshalb so viel Mut, weil es schmerzhaft und beängstigend sein kann. Weil wir uns dem anderen hingeben und unsere «Waffen» niederlegen. Es kann sein, dass die andere Person die Entschuldigung nicht annimmt, oder unser Eingeständnis sogar gegen uns verwendet, aber Größe zu haben, bedeutet auch, dies zu akzeptieren und sich dem ungewissen Ausgang zu stellen, die Machtkämpfe sein zu lassen und dem anderen das Zepter in die Hand zu geben.
Eine ehrliche Entschuldigung kommt von Herzen, nämlich, wenn wir gespürt haben, was wir dem anderen angetan oder zugemutet haben. Sie braucht wahres Mitfühlen und Erkennen sowie die Bereitschaft, das eigene Ego beiseite zu schieben. Dies kann zu Frieden führen – je nachdem, was jeder der Beteiligten für sich daraus macht und was vorgefallen war selbstverständlich –, aber derjenige, der sich entwaffnet, wird das Schlachtfeld auch verlassen und sich sich selbst und seinem Verhalten widmen, um in Zukunft von vornherein mitfühlender und achtsamer sein zu können.
Denn wenn ich lerne, mein Gegenüber zu spüren und mit ihm in Verbindung zu gehen, spüre ich am eigenen Leib die Verletzungen und wenn ich bereit bin, die Verantwortung zu übernehmen, gelange ich zu dem Gefühl des Bedauerns, beispielsweise, wenn ich die Konsequenz einer Trennung, tragen muss. Dadurch entsteht in mir ein intrinsisches Bedürfnis, in Zukunft liebevoller und achtsamer mit meinen Mitmenschen umzugehen.
„Es scheint wirklich den Menschen nur eine Hoffnung zu geben: Zwar nicht die Welt und die anderen, aber wenigstens sich selbst einigermaßen ändern und bessern zu können; und auf denen, die das tun, beruht im geheimen das Heil der Welt.“
―Hermann Hesse
Eine wahre Entschuldigung impliziert also die empathische Verbindung mit dem anderen und führt somit zu Selbsterkenntnis, wodurch in der Regel eine persönliche Aufarbeitung und Veränderung des eigenen Verhaltens folgt, während Vorwürfe nach außen hin üblicherweise darauf abzielen, den oder die anderen ändern zu wollen.
Sich selbst vergeben
Was aber passiert, wenn der andere uns nicht vergeben möchte, oder wir denjenigen, demgegenüber wir uns schuldig fühlen nicht erreichen können oder auch, wenn wir nicht einmal wissen, weswegen oder ob, wir uns schuldig fühlen, weil die Gefühle oder Erinnerungen zu weit im Unterbewusstsein vergraben wurden?
In einer sehr fragilen Phase während meines Heilungsprozesses wandte ich mich an «Gott», an das Universum, und fragte verzweifelt: «Vergibst du mir?», und die Antwort war: «Vergibst du dir denn selbst?».
Was für eine Antwort. Was für eine Frage ja viel mehr - und doch auch gleichzeitig so viel Antwort. Warum braucht es einen anderen, um mir meine Schuldgefühle zu nehmen und vor allem, wie kann das gehen? Es sind meine Gefühle, mein Körper, meine Seele, mein Gewissen und wenn ein Anteil in mir sich plagt, ist es vielleicht doch einzig auch meine Aufgabe, ihn zu heilen und zu befreien? Aber kann ich das? Habe ich denn diese Macht? Darf ich das? Oder muss ich es vielleicht sogar? Was wäre, wenn das Universum «Ja» gesagt hätte? Hätte es vielleicht gar nichts an meinen Gefühlen geändert, weil das, was ich selbst glaube und das, was ich selbst von mir halte, vielleicht schwerer wiegt, als das, was ein anderer sagt? Hätte ich ihm überhaupt geglaubt? Letztlich war es ja «nur» meine eigene innere Stimme, die ich vernahm.
Aber ja, ich erkannte, dass, wenn ich die Macht habe, mich zu verurteilen und zu strafen, wohl auch nur ich die Macht habe, gnädig und versöhnlich mit mir zu sein. Und so machte ich mich auf den Weg, herauszufinden, wie ich selbst meine Schuldgefühle auflösen konnte und werde versuchen, im Folgenden die Essenzen daraus zu vermitteln, in der Hoffnung, dass vielleicht jemand etwas daraus für sich mitnehmen kann.
Mir ging es fast mein Leben lang so, dass mir bei jeder kleinsten Kleinigkeit Adrenalin samt Wut auf mich selbst durch den Körper schossen. Nahezu permanent war mein innerer Kritiker parat, mich innerlich niederzumachen für: Einfach alles.
Eines Tages saß ich mit mir da und forschte nach den Ursachen. Ich fragte mich, woher all dieser Selbsthass kam und ich dachte, dass es doch eigentlich nur Sinn ergibt, sich selbst so sehr zu verabscheuen, wenn man der absolut böseste Mensch der Welt sei. Wie viel Schuld und Missetaten müsste ein anderer begehen, um ihm gegenüber auch nur annähernd so unversöhnlich zu sein, wie mir selbst gegenüber? Und mir wurde klar, dass es unter der Wut auf mich selbst unter anderem um Schuld ging.
Ich wusste nicht recht, womit ich mich so unsagbar schuldig gemacht hatte, aber eine vorsichtige Stimme in mir schlug vor, dass ich es doch eventuell im Laufe all der Jahre abgebüßt haben könnte, dass ich mich doch genug gegeißelt haben könnte, – oder? Eigentlich empfand ich sogar ein kleines bisschen Mitgefühl mit mir selbst, mit meinem inneren Kind, meiner kleinen Anna. Was habe ich ihr, was habe ich mir eigentlich damit angetan? Das tat mir dann schon irgendwie leid. Und ich bat sie – und mich – um Verzeihung.
Intuitiv sprach ich die Worte: «Es tut mir leid!» mehrfach hintereinander laut aus, und mit jedem Mal tat es zunächst mehr weh. Erstaunlicherweise zeigten sich mit der Zeit von ganz allein innere Bilder und Situationen aus der Vergangenheit, die mir leid taten – sowohl mich selbst betreffend, als auch andere Situationen und Personen –, was zu Mitgefühl, Bedauern und auch Scham- und Schuldgefühlen führte. Wieder einige Zeit später verschwanden nach und nach die belastenden Emotionen und Bilder und ich wiederholte meine Worte so lange, bis es nicht mehr weh tat.
Daraufhin sprach ich laut aus: «Es ist ok, ich verzeihe dir», und auch das so oft, bis keine Bilder mehr kamen und bis es nicht mehr weh tat.
Diese Perspektivwechsel, also sowohl der Empfänger als auch der Sender zu sein, lernte ich zuvor in einer anderen Situation, die ich in diesem Video näher beschreibe.
Als nächstes sagte ich laut: «Mir wird vergeben», ebenfalls mehrmals und bis alle Tränen des Unglaubens, der Dankbarkeit und Erleichterung, getrocknet waren, und ich etwas Sonderbares empfand: es war warm und weich in mir, irgendwie entspannt. Ich fühlte mich wohl. Und mit einem kurzen Schreck identifizierte ich dieses Gefühl als (Selbst-)Liebe. Huch! Ich !? Ja, das war ich. Da war also dieser Frieden, diese Liebe in mir, für mich. Und auch für die Welt und die Menschheit, bei der ich mich ebenfalls entschuldigte – und ihnen verzieh, weil zumindest ein Anteil in mir schon immer damit haderte, Mensch zu sein. Aber seit dem Tag freunde ich mich zunehmend damit an und ich entdecke immer schönere Seiten am Leben – und auch an mir selbst.
Es macht einen unbeschreiblichen Unterschied, wie sich die Welt im eigenen Körper anfühlt und wie ich sie durch meine eigenen Augen sehe – je nachdem, wie meine Einstellung zu ihr und vor allem auch zu mir selbst ist.
Gibt es Schuld denn überhaupt?
Einige Leute sagen, Schuld gibt es überhaupt nicht. Und auch, wenn ich hier so ausführlich darüber schreibe, denke ich das ebenfalls. Wie passt das zusammen und wie kann diese Perspektive helfen?
Genauer gesagt, ist meine Antwort auf die Schuldfrage: Ja und Nein. Denn auf der einen Seite gibt es Schuld definitiv, in diesem Gefühl kenne ich mich ja sehr gut aus und auch unser Rechtssystem arbeitet mit Schuld. Andererseits, wenn ich mir die Natur ansehe – und die Menschheit und ihre Gedankenkonstrukte, Vereinbarungen und Gefühle ausblende –, komme ich persönlich zu dem Ergebnis, dass es keine natürliche Schuld gibt. Sondern, dass Schuld ein menschliches Konzept ist und außerhalb dessen, das heißt, wie gesagt in der Natur, aber möglicherweise auch auf Seelenebene oder erst recht einem bedingungslos liebenden «Gott» oder Universum gegenüber, irrelevant wird.
Diese Grundlage ist bedeutend für die folgende Situation, denn der eine Teil des Heilungsprozesses besteht darin, die alten Gefühle zu durchfühlen, um sie loszulassen, der andere beschäftigt sich mit den dahinterstehenden Glaubenssätzen.
Eingangs erwähnte ich die Situation, dass einem im Trauerprozess um eine geliebte Person Schuldgefühle begegnen können – so auch mir. Die Gefühle und Gedanken dazu waren derart quälend, dass es sich höchstwahrscheinlich nur jemand ausmalen kann, der bereits ähnliches durchleben musste. Denn das Gefühl, Schuld am Tod der geliebten Person zu sein, zerreißt einen innerlich in Stücke. Und obwohl ich mir auf anderer Ebene bewusst war, dass ich in Wirklichkeit natürlich nicht Schuld daran war, da ich ja keinen Mord begangen und auch nicht seine Krankheit verursacht habe, kamen mir immer wieder Bilder vor Augen, die mir Momente zeigten, in denen ich vielleicht doch noch etwas mehr oder weniger hätte sagen oder tun können, um den Krankheitsverlauf möglicherweise doch noch irgendwie zu beeinflussen.
Auch mein Glaube daran, dass eine Seele geht, wenn sie bereit dafür ist und nur sie selbst weiß, wann ihre Zeit gekommen ist und warum, konnte mir die Bilder und Gefühle nicht nehmen. Es fühlte sich an, als wäre etwas Zerstörerisches in mir, das an mir zerrte, das mich von innen her auffraß und möglicherweise kein Teil meiner selbst zu sein schien, bis ich mich eines Tages schluchzend vor den Spiegel stellte, mich zwang, mir in die Augen zu sehen und laut zu mir zu sagen: «Ich glaube nicht an Schuld! Schuld ist ein Konzept der Menschen. In der Natur gibt es keine Schuld. Ich glaube nicht an Schuld. Schuld ist ein Konzept der Menschen, …» und so weiter.
Es kostete wahnsinnig viel Kraft, diese Sätze auszusprechen, weil die Energie der Schuld, in der mein Körper feststeckte, genau gegenteilig schwang und der größte Teil in mir in dem Moment davon eingenommen war. Ich musste also enorme Kraft aufbringen, diese Worte auszusprechen, um diesen kleinen Funken der Liebe in mir durchzusetzen und es war, als würde ich gegen einen Orkan angehen. Aber auch hier wurde mit jeder Wiederholung der Schmerz der Schuld und des Widerspruches zwischen diesen beiden Anteilen zunächst erträglicher und dann immer weniger, bis ich irgendwann ruhig dort stehen und die Sätze aussprechen konnte.
Dies ist sicherlich eine besondere Situation in Bezug auf «Mitgefühl und Vergebung». Vielleicht findet sich aber dennoch jemand in dieser oder einer ähnlichen Situation wieder, in der die alten Glaubenssätze im Gegensatz zur Entwicklung im Heilungsprozess stehen oder jemand ist sogar ähnlich strukturiert – und daher anfällig für Schuldgefühle – wie ich. Daher entschied ich mich dafür, den Absatz doch noch mit aufzunehmen.
Lieben heißt Lernen – Fazit
«Das Leben eines jeden Menschen ist ein Weg zum eigenen Ich, der Versuch eines Weges, der Entwurf eines Weges.» – Hermann Hesse
In gleicher Weise, wie ich lerne, mich zu fühlen und mir selbst zu vergeben, erfahre ich, dass ich auch aufhöre, andere für meine Gefühle verantwortlich zu machen und, dass es mir auch automatisch sehr viel leichter fällt, mich in andere hineinzuversetzen, ihnen versöhnlich zu begegnen und ihnen ihr Leben, ihr Verhalten und ihre Lernaufgaben zuzugestehen.
Interessanterweise entdeckte ich auch, dass, in den meisten Fällen, in denen sich noch Ärger auf andere Personen offenbarte, ich, bei näherem Hinsehen, eigentlich mir selbst noch nicht vergeben hatte. Wenn Gedanken kamen, wie: «Wie konntest du dich mir gegenüber so ungerecht und respektlos verhalten? Wie konntest du mich so verletzen?», sah ich, dass ich diejenige war, die sich so hat behandeln lassen. Dass ich diejenige war, die mich nicht beschützt hat, die mich verletzt und im Stich gelassen hat.
Es ist ein tiefer, innerer Prozess, sich kennen- und verstehen zu lernen. Sich selbst zu vergeben, bedeutet auf der einen Seite, sich Vergangenes zu vergegenwärtigen, mitfühlend auf unser jüngeres Ich zu schauen und zu verstehen, dass wir, aus unserem damaligen Wissen und Verständnis heraus, so gut gehandelt haben, wie wir konnten. Im Nachhinein wissen wir oft mehr und wir bereuen und ärgern uns, doch in dem Zauber dieses Prozesses erkennen wir, dass wir stetig dazulernen und wachsen und in der Vergangenheit noch nicht sehen konnten, was wir jetzt sehen. Im Hier und Jetzt haben wir die Möglichkeit, uns neu zu entscheiden, immer wieder.
Zudem geht der Weg zum inneren Frieden darüber hinaus, als «nur» mit vergangenen Situationen und Versionen von uns Frieden zu schließen; er bedeutet in jedem Moment, mit dem, was sich in uns zeigt, mit allen Gedanken und Gefühlen, versöhnlich und liebevoll umzugehen, weich mit ihnen – mit uns selbst – zu werden und Mitgefühl auch in die verschleiertsten und ungeliebtesten Bereiche unseres Selbst zu bringen.
Im ersten Teil von «Mitgefühl und Vergebung» zitierte ich C.G Jung, der fragte: «Was aber, wenn ich nun entdecken sollte, daß der armselige Bettler und der unverschämteste Beleidiger alle in mir selber sind und ich bedürftig bin, Empfänger meiner eigenen Wohltaten zu sein? Daß ich der Feind bin, den ich lieben muß - was dann?». Und ich glaube, eine Antwort darauf könnte sein, dass wir uns genau dann auf dem Weg heimwärts befinden. Dass wir, wenn wir uns unseren eigenen Anteilen stellen und lernen, die Perspektiven zu wechseln, erkennen, dass wir einander mehr ähneln, als wir glaubten.
Auf dem Weg zu sein, bedeutet auch, dass wir weiterhin «Fehler» machen werden, die uns dann unser zukünftiges Ich liebevoll vergeben wird.
«Die Welt selbst aber, das Seiende um uns her und in uns innen, ist nie einseitig. Nie ist ein Mensch, oder eine Tat, ganz Sansara oder ganz Nirvana, nie ist ein Mensch ganz heilig oder ganz sündig. Es scheint ja so, weil wir der Täuschung unterworfen sind, dass Zeit etwas Wirkliches sei. Zeit ist nicht wirklich, Govinda, ich habe dies oft und oft erfahren. Und wenn Zeit nicht wirklich ist, so ist die Spanne, die zwischen Welt und Ewigkeit, zwischen Leid und Seligkeit, zwischen Böse und Gut zu liegen scheint, auch eine Täuschung.
…Nein, in dem Sünder ist, ist jetzt und heute schon der künftige Buddha, seine Zukunft ist alle schon da, du hast in ihm, in dir, in jedem den werdenden, den möglichen, den verborgenen Buddha zu verehren. Die Welt, Freund Govinda, ist nicht unvollkommen, oder auf einem langsamen Wege zur Vollkommenheit begriffen: nein, sie ist in jedem Augenblick vollkommen, alle Sünde trägt schon die Gnade in sich, alle kleinen Kinder haben schon den Greis in sich, alle Säuglinge den Tod, alle Sterbenden das ewige Leben.
…Mögen die Dinge Schein sein oder nicht, auch ich bin alsdann ja Schein, und so sind sie stets meinesgleichen. Das ist es, was sie mir so lieb und verehrenswert macht: sie sind meinesgleichen. Darum kann ich sie lieben. Und dies ist nun eine Lehre, über welche du lachen wirst: die Liebe, o Govinda, scheint mir von allem die Hauptsache zu sein.
Die Welt zu durchschauen, sie zu erklären, sie zu verachten, mag großer Denker Sache sein. Mir aber liegt einzig daran, die Welt lieben zu können, sie nicht zu verachten, sie und mich nicht zu hassen, sie und mich und alle Wesen mit Liebe und Bewunderung und Ehrfurcht betrachten zu können.»
– Hermann Hesse, Siddartha*
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@ a296b972:e5a7a2e8
2025-06-12 12:36:22Europa sitzt in einem Demokratie-Simulator. Auf die Scheiben im Cockpit werden Bilder projiziert, die nicht der Realität entsprechen, und es gibt immer noch zu viele Menschen, die diese Simulation nicht erkannt haben.
Nichts wäre erstrebenswerter, als über eine positive Entwicklung, hin zur Vernunft und realitätsbezogenen, auf Tatsachen beruhenden Entscheidungen, berichten zu können. Die Frage ist, ob nicht zuerst unentwegt auf Missstände hingewiesen werden muss, um weitere Menschen dazu zu bewegen, sich denjenigen anzuschließen, die offensichtlich an Indoktrinationsintoleranz leiden.
Wer sich vor Hofberichterstattung und die tägliche Fahrt durch die Gehirnwaschanlage schützen will, der meidet den öffentlich-rechtlichen Unfug und die einschlägigen Käseblätter, die vielleicht noch halbwegs dazu geeignet sind, den Fisch auf dem Markt einzuschlagen, um ihn nach Hause zu tragen, vorausgesetzt, man kann ihn sich noch leisten.
Die Neuen Medien liefern die Informationen, die man sonst im „Qualitäts-Mainstream“ nicht finden kann, was nicht verwundert, denn infiltriert von willigen Erfüllungsgehilfen, die Angst um ihr Prestige und ihre Stellung haben, kann man hier keine freie Berichterstattung erwarten.
Beste Unterhaltung bietet auch die Bundespressekonferenz-Show, auf die schon näher eingegangen wurde. Offizieller Regierungssprech in höchster Perfektion. Ob man dort wirklich davon überzeugt ist, dass es irgendjemanden gibt, der diesen Verlautbarungen Glauben schenkt? Was hat Tante Käthe immer gesagt: G E L D L O C K T I M M E R !
Was also tun? Die Neuen Medien auch noch meiden, und sich vor dem blanken Wahnsinn schützen, in dem man ihn ignoriert, was jedoch nicht bewirkt, dass er nicht mehr da wäre.
Temporäre Abstinenz tut auch hier gut, allerdings ist der Wiedereinstieg so ähnlich, wie der erste Arbeitstag nach einem zweimonatigen Urlaub, falls man nicht in seinem Lieblings-Job gelandet ist.
Und was, wenn die Irren vollends durchdrehen, und man bekommt es nicht mit? Schön, ändern kann man vielleicht wenig, aber man kann sich vielleicht noch eine richtig gute, edle Flasche Rotwein kaufen, und die am Vorabend des Untergangs genießen, oder noch schnell einen Baum pflanzen.
Hier ein Beispiel für jemanden, dessen besonderer Blick sehr an den Universal-Gesundheits-Klima-Hysteriker erinnert:
https\://rumble.com/v6umjdj-respekt-und-anerkennung-deutscher-general-lobt-ukrainische-angriffe-in-russ.html
Wie sieht der Alltag aus, wenn man sich einmal nicht mit den Informationen über Dauer- Bekloppte beschäftigt?
Wenn sich ein Besuch in der nächst größeren Stadt nicht vermeiden lässt, sieht man vor allem gehetzte Menschen, viele mit einem finsteren Blick, anders, als früher.
Viele zahlen mit Karte oder ihrem Handy, Kleckerbeträge. „Zahlen Sie noch bar, oder schon mit Überwachung?“, wünschte man sich, dass die Verkäuferinnen den Kunden fragen würden. Tun sie aber nicht.
Die Menschen scheinen keine Ahnung zu haben, was auf sie zukommt. Im Oktober soll der digitale Euro eingeführt werden, natürlich zuerst nur freiwillig. Was das bedeutet, kennt man ja schon. Freiwilligkeit durch das Schaffen eines Raumes, in dem der Zwang in der Luft hängt, wie damals der Kohlenstaub im Ruhrgebiet. Es wird die persönliche ID vorangetrieben, mit einem Wallet, das die Anonymität und die persönliche Freiheit immer mehr aushöhlen will.
Europa soll unter einen Demokratie-Schutzschirm gestellt werden, der zu nichts anderem dient, als dass diejenigen, die derzeit glauben zu wissen, was gut für die Menschen ist, ihre kruden Vorstellungen auch durchsetzen können. Zweifelhaft, was in den USA vorgeht, was da gerade mit Palantir, natürlich nur zur Sicherheit der Amerikaner, so im Hintergrund schon anläuft. Hierzu gibt es interessante Informationen von Regenauer und Tögel. Einziger Hoffnungsschimmer, besonders für Deutschland: Das klappt sowieso nicht. In den hintersten Bergdörfern in den italienischen Alpen gibt es Glasfaseranschluss, und fährt man in Deutschland auf’s Land, reiht sich Funkloch an Funkloch.
Die wirklich wichtige und große Frage ist, wie können sich Gemeinschaften, die diesen Irrsinn nicht mitmachen wollen, weitgehend aus dem System ausklinken? Bitcoin ist ein erster Schritt zur finanziellen Unabhängigkeit. Eine regionale Lebensmittelversorgung, mit nicht verseuchten, genunmanipulierten, mit Schadstoffen weitgehend unbelasteten Produkten entwickelt sich ebenfalls schon sehr gut. Was, wenn der Zugang zu Informationen über das Internet von einer Anmeldung mit persönlicher ID abhängt und man will und hat keine? Was ist mit Dokumenten, wenn man verreisen oder das Land verlassen will? Was ist, wenn man krank wird und auf das noch vorhandene Rest-Gesundheitssystem angewiesen ist? Was, wenn das Unternehmen seine Mitarbeiter auf staatliche Anweisung zu etwas zwingen muss, was der Mitarbeiter vielleicht gar nicht will, er aber auf das Einkommen angewiesen ist?
Das alles sind Fragen, zu denen es schwer ist, auch in den Neuen Medien, passende Antworten zu finden. Die würden in der Tat Hoffnung machen, dass es ein Schlupfloch gibt, sich, wenn vielleicht auch mit Einschränkungen, den „demokratischen“ Verhältnissen, auf denen nur noch Demokratie draufsteht, aber sehr wenig bis keine Demokratie mehr drin ist, so weit es geht zu entziehen. Sachdienliche Hinweise gerne in der Kommentarfunktion.
Oder ist es „gesünder“, sich zurückzuziehen, die Klappe zu halten und dafür zu sorgen, dass man unter dem Radar bleibt? Diese Gabe ist leider nicht jedem gegeben. Besonders nicht denen, die einen ausgeprägten Wahrheitssinn und ein starkes Gerechtigkeitsgefühl haben.
Menschen die andere belügen, die werden geliebt. Menschen, die anderen sagen, dass sie belogen werden, die werden gehasst.
„Die Wahrheit ist dem Menschen zumutbar.“ (Ingeborg Bachmann)
„Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen.“ (Hannah Ahrendt)
“Dieser Beitrag wurde mit dem Pareto-Client geschrieben.”
* *
(Bild von pixabay)
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@ f0fd6902:a2fbaaab
2025-06-12 12:22:43Barreleye fish are named for their unique, barrel-shaped eyes. These eyes can rotate, allowing the fish to look both upward and straight ahead. Their eyes also have bright green lenses protected behind a transparent forehead, which gives the fish a futuristic appearance, almost like a sci-fi submarine.
Barreleye fish grow to about 6 inches long and are found in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, living at depths of 2,000 to 2,600 feet below the surface. The yellow pigment in their eyes helps them distinguish between the faint bioluminescent light produced by living organisms and sunlight. This makes it easier to spot the siphonophores and zooplankton that they eat.
https://stacker.news/items/1004367
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@ f0fd6902:a2fbaaab
2025-06-12 12:16:15https://stacker.news/items/1004357
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@ fe02e8ec:f07fbe0b
2025-06-12 11:03:57Wir können davon ausgehen, dass die allermeisten Personen, die das hier lesen, die realen Funktionen der Mainstream-Medien schon länger erkannt haben. Diese bestehen vor allem darin, der Bevölkerung das von den herrschenden Kräften gewünschte Bild der Wirklichkeit zu vermitteln oder überhaupt zu erzeugen. Der Altmeister der Propaganda, Edward Bernays, hat dies bereits 1928 beschrieben, als die Massenmedien nur aus Tageszeitungen bestanden:
«Die bewusste und intelligente Manipulation der organisierten Gewohnheiten und Meinungen der Massen ist ein wichtiges Element einer demokratischen Gesellschaft.»
Und an anderer Stelle: «Diejenigen, die diesen unsichtbaren Mechanismus der Gesellschaft manipulieren, bilden eine unsichtbare Regierung, die die wahre herrschende Macht unseres Landes ist.» Oder Noam Chomsky, einer der gelehrtesten Kritiker staatlicher Machtausübung:
«Indoktrination ist keineswegs inkompatibel mit der Demokratie. Vielmehr ihre Essenz. Ohne Knüppel, ohne Kontrolle durch Gewalt muss man das Denken kontrollieren. Dazu greift man zu dem, was in ehrlicheren Zeiten Propaganda genannt wurde.»
Man könnte noch eine ganze Reihe weiterer höchst aussagekräftiger Zitate anführen, von Walter Lippman («Die öffentliche Meinung»), Gustave Le Bon («Psychologie der Massen») bis hin zu John F. Kennedy oder ganz aktuell Mattias Desmet («Massenbildung»). Nichts davon ist neu, alles wurde seit Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts ausführlich und sehr konkret beschrieben.
Und doch kennt die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung keine einzige dieser Aussagen.
Jeder, der selbst seinen ureigenen Erkenntnisprozess durchgemacht hat, kommt unweigerlich zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Welt, wie sie uns durch Politik und Medien vorgespielt wird, zumeist nichts anderes ist als ein großes Schauspiel. Stets werden die wahren Absichten und Ziele verborgen, nie wird die ganze Wahrheit enthüllt, höchstens ein paar Stücke davon, wenn es sich gar nicht mehr verhindern lässt.
«Macht hat derjenige, der große Ereignisse herbeiführen kann. Doch noch größere Macht haben diejenigen, die bestimmen können, was die Menschen über die Ereignisse denken» (aus: «Hinter der Zukunft»).
Diese Erkenntnis hat bei vielen zu dem Entschluss geführt, die «Unwissenden» über diese Tatsachen zu informieren. Denn es kann ja nicht sein, dass sich Familie, Freunde, Bekannte weiterhin so täuschen lassen. Die große Ent-Täuschung war das Ziel. Doch das Ergebnis war die eigentliche Enttäuschung: hitzige Diskussionen, Streitereien am Familientisch, Abbruch von Freundschaften. Selbst das Vorführen des Einsturzes von WTC 7, dem dritten Gebäude, das am 11. September 2001 in Fallgeschwindigkeit vollkommen symmetrisch eingestürzt war, konnte nicht überzeugen.
Verschwörungstheorien?
Alles Verschwörungstheorien. Seit der Ermordung John F. Kennedys hat dieser Begriff – ursprünglich von der CIA eingeführt — ein immer größeres Minenfeld wachsen lassen, um Themen von offener Diskussion abzuschirmen. In diesem Minenfeld sind unzählige Freundschaften explodiert, Karrieren abgestürzt und Menschen in die innere Isolation getrieben worden. Deshalb muss es hier erwähnt werden. Denn das ist die Gefahr, in die sich jeder begibt, der versucht, über seine Erkenntnisse zu sprechen oder zu schreiben. Die Gefahr des sozialen Ausschlusses. Ein schauerliches Beispiel lieferte Anfang Mai in menschenverachtender Weise ein gewisser Böhmermann ab. Sein Ziel war es, den Betreiber des youtube-Kanals Clownswelt, der die Machenschaften des medialen und politischen Personals satirisch zum Vorschein bringt, gesellschaftlich zu vernichten. Denn das ist das Damoklesschwert, das über denjenigen hängt, die das Minenfeld betreten, Tabus antasten und das Overton-window verlassen. Diffamierung, sozialer Ausschluss, Job-Verlust. Reicht auch das nicht, so droht die Kündigung des Bankkontos oder gar eine Hausdurchsuchung. Alles hundertfach geschehen. Und der Normalbürger hat absolut keine Idee, dass so etwas überhaupt in unserem Staat geschieht. Denn es kommt nicht in der Tagesschau, im Spiegel oder der SZ.
Ratlosigkeit, Verzweiflung bis hin zu Aggression sind oft die Folge dieser weltanschaulichen Zweiteilung. Wie ist es möglich, dass Menschen das Offensichtliche nicht sehen, selbst wenn es im Video vor ihnen abläuft? Wenn man sich die Lügenkonstrukte um Klima, Corona oder Ukraine ansieht, dann könnte man daran verzweifeln, dass es die «Anderen» nicht begreifen. Wenn die Dinge derart klar zu sehen sind, wieso gelingt es dann nicht, andere davon zu überzeugen? Nicht wenige zogen sich zurück, recherchierten noch ausführlicher, fanden einen Hinweis nach dem anderen, dass die Welt und ihre Systeme ganz anders beschaffen sind, als es dem Normalbürger vorgegaukelt wird. Dabei musste jeder – wirklich jeder – für sich immer neu die Grenze dessen finden, was noch glaubhaft war und was nicht.
Wie viele Stunden, Tage, Monate verbrachte (und verbringt) ein durch diesen Prozess gegangener Mensch mit seinen Recherchen? Wie oft ist er in die Falle einer Theorie geraten, die sich im Nachhinein als erfunden herausgestellt hat? Wie viele Texte zu historischen Vorgängen, zu verborgenen Organisationen, zu Kindesmissbrauch, satanischen Riten oder Blutlinien wollen noch erforscht werden? Wann ist man zufrieden mit den teils radikalen Anpassungen seines eigenen Weltbildes? Wann darf man sich als «aufgewacht» bezeichnen?
Wie gelingt Verständigung?
Wenn ein Elektrotechnik Ingenieur einem Laien die Regelungstechnik erklärt, so wird er kaum auf großes Verständnis stoßen. Wenn ein «Master in Conspiracy Theory» einem Tagesschauseher die Welt erklärt, wie wahrscheinlich ist es, dass hier Verständnis entsteht? Wenn jemand, der in 30 telegram Kanälen ca. 500 Artikel zu Covid-Ursprung, mRNA, Lipidnanopartikel und Ct-Wert beim PCR Test gelesen hat, der Verkäuferin bei REWE klarmachen will, dass Masken keinen Nutzen haben: wie hoch ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass er Erfolg hat? Diese Beispiele sollen eines verdeutlichen: die Informationshintergründe sind inzwischen derart fundamental verschieden, dass kaum noch Verständigung gelingt. Der entscheidende Unterschied besteht darin, dass die Informationskompetenten beide Seiten der Medaille kennen, während der andere Teil der Bevölkerung nur die eine, die «offizielle» Seite kennt.
Was aber bewegt Menschen überhaupt dazu, immer tiefer zu recherchieren, um dabei das eigene Weltbild gezielt zu erweitern und anzupassen? Es ist – neben dem Wunsch nach mehr Gerechtigkeit – das Bedürfnis nach Sinnfindung in dieser Welt. Ein elementares Bedürfnis, das in der Rangliste unserer Motive sehr weit oben steht. Hierbei geht es nicht um den Lebenssinn – dazu kommen wir gleich – sondern um das Verständnis dessen, was uns als die «äußere Welt» präsentiert wird. Mit all ihren Verwerfungen, Ungerechtigkeiten, politischen Ideologien und so weiter. Denn es ist schließlich diese Welt, in der wir leben, in der wir uns zurechtfinden, in der wir unseren Lebensunterhalt verdienen müssen. Die spannende Frage ist also eher: Weshalb geben sich so viele mit der Oberfläche zufrieden?
Die Antwort ist erstaunlich einfach: aus Angst. Angst davor, das bisher als sicher geglaubte in Frage stellen zu müssen, den sicheren Boden des eigenen Weltbildes unter den Füßen zu verlieren. Deshalb stieg in den dunklen Covid-Jahren das Vertrauen in Politik und staatsnahe Medien massiv an. Denn wer mit einer – scheinbar – tödlichen Gefahr konfrontiert wird, der sucht in diesem Moment nicht nach neuen Informationsquellen, sondern bleibt bei dem, was man schon immer kannte – vor allem, wenn das auch die Mehrheit macht!
Das zweite Erwachen
Bei allem Bemühen, die Zusammenhänge dieser Welt zu verstehen, kommen viele an einen Punkt, an dem sie realisieren, dass sie erstens: Nie alles verstehen werden. Und zweitens: Dass es Wichtigeres gibt. Das mag überraschend klingen, aber genauso ist es. Das Leben selbst offenbart sich uns nicht am Bildschirm, nicht in Recherchen oder in immer weiterführenden Artikeln. Das Leben im Hier und Jetzt kann nur erfahren und gelebt werden. Das größte Hindernis dabei ist – unser Verstand. Also genau das «Organ», das uns immer weiter in die Tiefen der scheinbaren Realitätserkenntnis treibt ist zugleich verantwortlich dafür, dass wir uns vom Leben selbst entfernen. Welch merkwürdige Erkenntnis. Ist es überhaupt eine Erkenntnis oder nicht viel eher eine Behauptung? Genau an diesem Punkt geht es um ein zweites Erwachen! Nicht aus der polit-medialen Illusionsmatrix, sondern aus der Matrix unserer scheinbar rein materiellen Welt.
Ist dies eine Zwangsläufigkeit? Wohl kaum. Ist es notwendig? In gewisser Weise: ja. Denn nur der Abstand von dieser als ungerecht, grausam oder hoffnungslos empfundenen Welt befreit von Wut, Ohnmacht und Empörung. Im Artikel «Wachstum nach Innen» auf manova wird dieser Prozess ausführlicher beschrieben. Zitat:
«Heute leben wir zum ersten Mal in der Menschheitsgeschichte (!) in einer Epoche, in der es dem Einzelnen frei steht, seinen ganz eigenen Zugang zur Spiritualität zu suchen und zu finden. Es ist dies vielleicht die größte Herausforderung, der sich ein Mensch stellen kann!»
An diesem Punkt ist jeder auf sich selbst zurückgeworfen. Hier geht es nicht um Religionszugehörigkeit oder kirchliche Traditionen, sondern um authentische Erfahrungen.
Die Möglichkeit dieses zweiten «Erwachens», bringt ein Versprechen mit sich: wahrhafte Befreiung. Zum Beispiel von dem Wunsch, immer noch tiefer graben zu wollen. Oder stets andere überzeugen zu wollen. Oder sich überlegen zu fühlen. Es führt unweigerlich zu einer Relativierung: wem oder was gebe ich Bedeutung? Denn diese Freiheit kommt garantiert mit: die Freiheit, selbst Bedeutung verleihen zu können! Nicht mehr getrieben zu sein, viel öfter ein Wahl zu haben.
Sollte das wie ein Ausweichen oder gar Rückzug aus der Welt klingen, so wäre das ein Missverständnis. Es ist eine Veränderung des Standpunktes, des Fokus. Tatsächlich bringt es auch einen gewissen Abstand mit sich, zu dem was «da draußen» geschieht. Denn welche Erfahrungen der Einzelne auch selbst gemacht haben mag, wie auch immer er sie interpretiert: die Welt ist nicht mehr dieselbe.
Damit einher geht eine Veränderung der Gefühlswelt. Wo vorher vielfach Empörung, Ärger oder Wut vorherrschten kann mit dieser inneren Distanz vieles weniger emotional betrachtet werden. In der Dauerempörung liegt zwar einerseits Energie, um sich zu engagieren, zugleich liegt darin aber die große Gefahr, auszubrennen. Daniele Ganser, einer der ganz wichtigen Aufklärer unserer Zeit, bietet nicht umsonst seit Jahren Seminare zum Thema «Achtsamkeit» an. Dabei geht es vor allem um unsere innere Wahrnehmung, um einen Abstand zwischen «Ich» und meinem Gefühl oder Bedürfnis. Eine wichtige Voraussetzung, um aus der Spirale der Negativität zu entkommen. Denn diese Gefahr ist allgegenwärtig. Während Tagesschau & Co permanent Angst erzeugen vor Klima, Viren oder Putin, so wird in den «alternativen Medien» ähnliches geboten, nur mit anderem Vorzeichen. Die Bedrohung der mächtigen Organisationen WEF, UN, WHO, Nato, EU u. a., die Planung der Bargeldabschaffung, der digitalen ID, des persönlichen CO2-Budgets… Dies sind reale Vorhaben, keine Frage. Ob und wie sie jemals Realität werden kann aus heutiger Sicht jedoch niemand beantworten. Die Welt verändert sich derzeit schneller als seit Jahrzehnten. Und manche Sorgen bewahrheiten sich zum Glück nicht.
Der eigene Wirkungsbereich
Die ständige Beschäftigung mit diesen Bedrohungen bedroht vor allem eines: die eigene Lebensqualität. Wie kann man das Wahre, Schöne, Gute erkennen, wenn man sich tagein, tagaus mit Lüge, Verbrechern, Komplotten beschäftigt? Schwierig bis unmöglich.
«Ändere, was du ändern kannst, bleibe gelassen, bei allem was du nicht ändern kannst und lerne zeitlebens, das eine vom anderen zu unterscheiden».
Es ist eine der ältesten Lebensweisheiten, und doch ist sie so gültig wie eh und je. Die Herausforderung besteht gerade im Unterscheiden. Es geht um den eigenen Wirkungsbereich, denn dies ist der einzige Ort, wo tatsächlich etwas bewirkt werden kann. Wie groß der jeweils ist, das unterscheidet sich tatsächlich massiv. Zudem ist er nicht statisch. Es kann ein berechtigtes Ziel sein, diesen Bereich auszudehnen. Über Social Media, eigene Artikel, Diskussionsrunden, Demos, Events, Videos, was auch immer.
Natürlich geschieht das seit Jahren vielfach, einige Websites und Kanäle haben weit über 100.000 Leser oder Follower. Doch auch wenn die Reichweite größer wird, so steigt die Zufriedenheit nicht unbedingt in gleichem Maß. Denn stets muss man erkennen, dass die mit Milliarden finanzierten staatsnahen Medien beliebigen Schrott produzieren können und damit mehr Menschen erreichen, als die mit viel Herzblut erstellten eigenen Arbeiten. Und irgendwann stellt sich dann die Frage: «Was bringt das alles?» Oder, wie Gunnar Kaiser am Ende seiner bewundernswerten Tätigkeit: «Habe ich genug getan»?
Habe ich genug getan
Dies ist die Frage, auf die es keine Antwort gibt. Was wäre denn genug? Einen Menschen davor bewahrt zu haben, sich eine experimentelle Substanz injizieren zu lassen und damit mögliche Gesundheitsschäden zu erleiden? Wieso nicht. Hunderte Menschen zum Nachdenken gebracht, Tausenden Lesern ein Gefühl von «Ich-bin-nicht-allein» gegeben zu haben? Absolut! Hunderttausende Kommentare geben ein lebendiges Feedback, eine Bestätigung, dass man wertvolle Arbeit leistet. Es sind heute Millionen mehr, als zu Beginn der dunklen Pandemie-Jahre. Das ist der Wirkungskreis, den man sich erarbeitet hat, in dem ein Teil der Menschheitsfamilie eine geistige Heimat findet, fernab der permanenten Indoktrinationsversuche. Das ist es wert.
Und es gibt noch eine weitere positive Seite: man lernt Gleichgesinnte kennen und kann endlich über all das diskutieren, was man schon längst mit jemandem teilen wollte! Dies ist in keiner Weise sarkastisch gemeint, denn es ist elementar für jeden von uns, frei und offen sprechen zu können, ohne den Zensor im Kopf. Man lernt höchst interessante Menschen kennen - überall auf der Welt. Die man ohne Covid & Co niemals kennengelernt hätte. Vielleicht ergibt sich daraus das eine oder andere Projekt, das in die Zukunft weist? Auch das ist es wert.
Kläre die Menschen auf\ und Tyrannei und Unterdrückung \ von Körper und Geist werden verschwinden.\ Gerade so wie die bösen Geister\ wenn die Morgensonne ihre Strahlen sendet.
Thomas Jefferson
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@ 56e3acda:234e8a3a
2025-06-12 22:31:45In the town of Brimstone, the sounds of grunting fill the empty Stygian Theater. An age-old battle is taking place between the actress Syd and her archenemy: a zipper. She struggles to get the corset-style vest, adorned with multiple single-board computers, to fully close. The zipper holds its ground, unwavering against the “light creamy mountains” in its path. The closer it gets, the higher the mountains rise, making its journey nearly impossible. However, that’s how the costume is designed—to accentuate and enhance Syd’s already large breasts. Great for ratings, horrible for getting ready on time for filming.
"This costume needs a redesign!"
Syd takes a deep breath. She swells her chest, exhales sharply, and yanks the zipper up as fast as she can. It finally clears the hurdle.
“There!”
Two single-board computers that nestle on the chest of the costume spring off, crashing into a collection of books in front of her. Syd shrugs, grabbing the vivid purple wig that has miraculously survived the chaos. She throws it on, tucking away her brunette hair, and completes her transformation into Nerissa, Courtesan of the Uranet and host of Nerissa's Caustic Cinema.
She checks her smartwatch: 1:15 PM. Today’s shoot was supposed to begin at 1.
“Not like Jules to be running late, Guess I’ll do some research.”
She pulls out her phone and opens an old issue of her favorite zine, Dreadistary. The zine focuses on monster sightings in a certain town in the Pacific Northwest, but Syd isn’t interested in those. The real meat for her is the horror movie reviews that fill the rest of the zine. They are a goldmine for finding new movies for the show. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a new issue in over a year.
Syd’s eyes widen as she spots the golden phrase she is looking for:public domain.
“Wait! Bloodfalls Massacre is in the public domain!?”
She grabs the nearest notebook, her pen dances across the page as she jots down the information. The director’s daughter has convinced her dad to put the film in the public domain, sticking it to the production company that has weaseled the rights to Bloodfalls Massacre 2–5 from him. They have even rebooted the franchise, starting with a loose remake of 2, modifying the characters enough to be unshackled by his vision. Syd shakes her head, a smirk playing on her lips.
“Jules and Lou are going to love this!”
The door swings open, startling Syd. She looks up to see Jules standing in the doorway, a stack of papers in hand. Jules has waist-length, damaged black hair that frames her ivory skin, and her loose white vest and shorts reveal faint blue veins that match her piercing eyes. Syd wears a warm smile as she greets her.
“Hey, Jules.”
Jules drops the stack of papers in front of Syd.
“Views are dropping massively. We can barely afford food for the next month.”
She flops onto the floor behind Syd, her body curling into an ‘n’ shape. Syd flips through the stack of papers, her initial skepticism fading as she sees the numbers. The viewership data, spanning from the first episode’s launch in October last year to July 2025, shows a gut-wrenching decline. Thankfully, their reliance on public domain horror movies has stretched their food budget as far as it can go. Jules arches her back dramatically, letting out a scream of agony.
“Enough of this public domain schlock! We need horror with a bite! Something to help punch up our jokes! Anything fulfilling!”
Syd turns to look at her friend, her heart breaks at the sight of Jules’ despair.
“If we can barely afford food, we can’t afford the rights to any film we please.”
“We could provide clout instead of money.”
The moment the word clout leaves her lips, Jules seems to regret it. The shine in her eyes vanishes, replaced by a hollow look. Syd returns to the stack of papers, hoping to find something—anything—that can help. Her eyes land on a proposal from Degrade, a newly formed TV station that is shaking up the industry. Skimming through the offer, she sees that they want the license for the show, with some on-brand integrations, in exchange for a massive upfront payment and fewer censored edits.
“You thinking of taking the Degrade offer?”
Jules covers her eyes with her hair before loudly voicing her disapproval.
“Please! I’ll never sell out to those crypto dorks.”
“It is a good offer, though.”
“You’ll regret the money when they have you dress up in tighter outfits for NFT photo-shoots.”
Syd’s nose wrinkles, and she recoils as if she’d just smelled something foul. The sight of her disgust sends Jules into a fit of laughter. She pulls more of her hair over her eyes before continuing.
“I kinda was considering it. Caustic Cinema got us control of the Stygian, the life we have in Brimstone. Didn’t want to toss away the money. But I know we’d both hate it too much.”
“Lou might enjoy it."
“That soulless puppy.”
Jules retreats into a fetal position and cutting the conversation short.
Syd adjusts her outfit, trying to make her breasts more comfortable. The movement reminds her that they are supposed to be filming now.
“No filming today?”
“Too depressed,”
Jules flips over to face Syd. A single blue eye peers out from behind her hair, searching for hope in Syd’s next words.
“Unless you found a more recent film?”
Syd hands Jules her notebook.
“Bloodfalls Massacre! That’s in the public domain?!”
Jules hops up to double-check the notes.
“Only the first one,”
“80s, in color, dumb teenagers, predatory adults, a decent amount of kills. Is that the one with an abundance of nudity?”
The franchise plays in Syd’s head as she tries to figure out which one Jules is thinking of. These types of cheesy movies are more her field of expertise than the social horror Jules prefers. After a moment, it clicks.
“That’s Bloodfalls Massacre 4: Valley Fest.”
“So not much to edit around. Not the bite I’m looking for, but…”
Jules trails off, her eyes scanning the notes Syd has written from the Dreadistary article. A small smile creeps onto her face.
“This revelation is prime for material!”
Syd feels a wave of relief. For a moment, she has managed to ease Jules’ worries. Jules pops up from reading, her energy renewed.
“Wait, do we have a copy of Bloodfalls Massacre?”
“Pretty sure I do. Give me a sec to clean up, then I’ll check,”
Syd bends down to gather the scattered papers. As she tries to tidy the mess, her eyes catch some scribbles on the back of the stack. She recognizes Lou’s messy handwriting.
“Did you look at the back of this? Lou left a note.”
We found a bunch of old PC towers. They’re in the building behind the theater. Maybe something you and Syd can salvage for the show?
Jules turns her attention back to the notebook, pulling a pen from her hair and starting to write. Syd gathers the last few scattered books and packs them up neatly. She hops up from the desk, curious about what movies they might find in the PCs. As she leaves, she notices Jules hasn’t budged.
“You’re not coming?”
Jules looks up at her, confusion etched on her face.
“You think the old execs who bummed around here really kept film backups? All you’ll probably find is weird fetish shit!”
“Wouldn’t hurt to check it out,”
Jules shakes her head, returning to her writing. Realizing Jules isn’t going to join her, Syd decides to kill two birds with one stone. She grabs the set of keys from her desk and tosses them at Jules. The jingling of the keys alerts Jules, and she catches them without fail.
“Fine, I’ll go check if there’s something salvageable while you check if I own Bloodfalls Massacre,”
Jules sways her head in approval, finally moving from the floor. They split up, Jules heads through the front of the theater while Syd goes out through one of the old doors marked “Exit.” Deep down, Syd knows Jules is probably right, but the thought of finding undiscovered movies is too irresistible to ignore.
The afternoon sun assaults Syd as soon as she steps outside. Blinking through the brightness, she sees the building is not far from the theater. She quickly jogs over, hoping to avoid the sweat that is already pooling in her suit—another con of the costume: it can't handle the summer heat.
The stench of stale plastic hangs heavy in the air, almost choking Syd as she opens the building door. Inside, sickly yellow PC towers lie scattered across the floor, their tangled wires and dusty casings creating a chilling atmosphere that makes Syd feel uneasy. She hesitates for a moment, feeling the sweat slide down her back, before stepping inside.
Closing the door to keep the heat out, Syd is left in total darkness. She mutters in dissatisfaction as she fumbles along the wall, searching for the light switch. When she finally flips it, only a few bulbs flicker to life, their dim glow barely illuminating the room. Syd’s face goes blank as she watches the bulbs struggle to stay on.
“They couldn’t fix the lights in the building?”
She walks along the makeshift path that has already been cleared, gently kicking aside PCs to give herself more room. The sheer number of them is impressive—stacks of towers form small mounds, their dislodged panels spilling out old wires like entrails. It feels less like a storage room and more like a decrepit technology graveyard.
“This is definitely more than just studio execs’ PCs,”
Syd ducks under a pile that had tipped over and joined with an adjacent stack to form a makeshift arch.
“Probably editors’ and VFX workstations!”
Her mounting excitement gets the better of her when she slips on a loose wire and crashes into a pile of PCs. A wet, congealed substance clings to her arm, and she recoils, whipping the grime off with a grimace. She double-clicks the crown of her watch to activate its flashlight mode, the dim light illuminating a few feet in front of her. It isn’t much, but it will save her from another grime attack.
The path opens up into a more spacious area where the piles of PCs are smaller and scattered. Syd pauses, realizing she doesn’t know what to look for. Obviously, the ones with wires sticking out are no good, but any of the others could be viable. She walks past a small makeshift circle of four PCs surrounding a tower in the center, deliberately ignoring it—until the light reflects something that makes her eyes sparkle.
It isn’t as yellowed as the surrounding PCs, but that isn’t what catches her attention. It is the fading stickers from the popular 80s horror series Pumpkin Patch that make her feel like she’s found a winner. She leaps toward it, kicking over two of the surrounding PCs to make room for her prize. Syd grabs the tower, only to have it slip out of her hands, leaving a slimy residue on her palms. She retches, trying her best not to add to the sickly shroud that already surrounds her. Shaking it off, she takes a deep breath and picks up the PC again. This time, the cooling touch of metal and plastic eases her discomfort.
It isn’t long before she notices a blue light focused on her watch. Its deep hue completely washes over the dim white light, snaking up her arm and stopping to focus on the single-board computer on her hip. Syd’s blood runs cold as she frantically searches for the source of the light. Her heart races until she spots it near the back exit of the room, almost hidden behind a completely destroyed PC.
It is different from the others—or what you’d expect a PC to look like. The classic rectangular silhouette is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it is cylindrical, more compact, standing like an ominous shrine of the future amidst the decaying past. The blue light intensifies, illuminating not only Syd but the entire room. A single thought runs through her mind as she shields her eyes from the intense glow:
Why is this one still plugged in?
Opening her eyes, Syd sees that the blue light has stopped. Not only that, but the room is now fully lit as the struggling bulbs have finally started to work. She gets a better look at the strange PC. It no longer has the ominous aura it has before. Instead, it looks like a prop from a science fiction movie, its chrome case warmed by a faint red light that makes it seem almost harmless in the corner of the room.
Syd hesitates for a moment. The strange PC looks like a better treasure trove than the one in her hand, but the memory of the blue light sends shivers down her spine. She decides to leave it alone. Turning quickly, she prepares to leave the storage room. She walks a little more carelessly now that she can see further ahead, but an uneasy feeling begins to swell inside her.
Not only does she feel like she is missing something, but there is an irritating pain in her right hand—a warm, burning sensation that seems to engulf it. She puts down the PC to check for any cuts where grime might seep in, but there are none. As she rubs her hand, she glances at the mess in front of her and the entrance. It is only when she sees the wired entrails of the PCs scattered everywhere that it dawns on her.
Syd turns around and looks back at the chrome PC nestled alone in the corner.
“Wasn’t it behind a broken tower?”
Immediately, something grabs her left hand. She turns to see a hand made of wires, its cold, metallic grip tightening around her wrist. She stares in bewilderment as a force pushes the maze of PCs against the entrance, barricading it. The tremendous force causes one of the three lights to go out. Shards from the towers fly toward the hand, coiling together to complete its humanoid form. Discarded side panels mold together, forming a trench coat around the figure.
Syd tries to free herself from the figure’s grasp, but the wires are entangled with her watch. The figure flicks its finger, signaling a PC to hurl itself directly at her. The impact knocks the wind out of her, sending her flying free of the humanoid’s grip. She lands a few feet away as the PC continues its trajectory, crashing into the wall with a loud thud. The impact knocks out the second light, leaving only part of the storage room lit.
Numerous white and red composite ports rush into the figure’s empty sockets, forming eyes—eyes that stare directly at Syd as she writhes in pain. She struggles to catch her breath, panic flooding her body as the dim light makes it harder to see the figure.
The figure walks slowly toward her, each clatter of its footsteps instilling fear. It holds out its hands, signaling shards of RAM to cobble together into a serrated knife. A harsh voice, lost in digital noise, escapes from the figure:
“We were supposed to rule Hollywood together.”
Syd freezes, her mind racing to make sense of the words. Then, with a surge of adrenaline, she bolts for the back exit next to the strange PC. She only gets a few steps in before wires trip her, sending her crashing to the ground face-first. Stars obscure her vision until the sight of the figure’s mangled face causes them to scatter.
A horrible smile appears on its wire-filled face. Grime pools between the haphazardly placed USB ports, forming teeth that it wipes away in excitement. It rips one of the single-board computers from Syd’s costume and gently slides it into its chest. The figure quivers as its frame seems to bulk up from the action.
"But then you ran to the first director who looked in your direction."
The figure begins to slide the knife up Syd’s costume, the sound of fabric tearing echoing through the storage room. Syd tries to fight back, but she is helpless, pinned down by the figure. Her left arm is outstretched, held in place by the wires entangled with her watch, while her legs are bound together, preventing her from kicking. She frantically looks around for something to use as a weapon, but her blood runs cold when she sees her right hand. It has become a wild jumble of pixels, the burning pain now subsides.
“Not a…”
A sharp nick cuts off her words as the blade slices her chest. The figure uses extra force when the knife reaches Syd’s chest, the dullness of the RAM blade struggling to cut through the extra padding. Blood flows from the shallow cut as Syd begins to lose hope. Scenes from her life flash before her: meeting Jules when they are nine, Jules begging her to star in a middle school film, her mom and Jules comforting her as she watches her favorite movie at sixteen. Tears well up in her eyes as she thinks this might be the end.
The faint sound of banging stops Syd’s tears instantly. She concentrates on the noise, trying to pinpoint its source. With each bang, it grows louder and louder until she realizes it is coming from the entrance of the building.
It must be Jules and Lou!
The thought gives Syd a glimmer of hope. Now, all she has to do is survive long enough for backup to arrive. But when she sees the knife pointed directly at her chest, she knows she has no chance.
Unless…
She looks at her right hand again, staring hard to find something that resembles her finger. When she spots it, she concentrates on trying to move it. The figure reels back the knife as Syd desperately wills her finger to twitch. Suddenly, she sees it move. She lets out a gasp as the figure prepares to stab her.
“In the end, you’re not cut out for the business,”
It drives the knife down, but Syd grabs its hand just before the blade can plunge into her chest. The figure is taken aback by her strength and struggles to complete its action. Using all her might, Syd pushes the knife further and further away. Her breath becomes ragged as the banging grows louder and louder.
Just a bit more…
That is all she can think about as she holds the figure back. Visibly enraged, the figure roars as wires protrude from its chest. The shrill squeal shatters Syd’s eardrums, but she continues to hold it back. The wires rip off the last of the single-board computers, dragging them back to the humanoid. Its eyes roll back as it quivers, bulking up again with newfound strength. The figure overwhelms Syd, but by then, it is too late.
A thunderous boom shakes the entire storage room, extinguishing the last of the light. PCs rain down, freed from the barricade they have formed. The clattering noise pulls the figure’s attention away from Syd. In the midst of the chaos, drenched in sunlight, a figure enters the storage room.
The humanoid leaps away from Syd, ready to fight whoever has interrupted its killing. Clutching the fragments of her costume, Syd’s hope is replaced by confusion. The silhouette is much larger than Jules and wields what appears to be a massive hammer. Syd knows nothing like that exists in Brimstone.
“Man, that’s one nasty virus,”
A gruff voice bellows from the silhouette who is revealed to be a woman. As the woman steps into the light, her appearance becomes clear. She is incredibly muscular, looking like a hero straight out of a comic book. Her piercing deep blue eyes and shining blonde hair give her an almost otherworldly presence. She lowers her hammer, revealing that it is almost as large as she is. The woman notices Syd and flashes a bright white smile.
“Don’t worry! I’ll kill it in a heartbeat!”
The words are lost on Syd against the ringing in her ears, but the woman’s thumbs-up reassures her that help has indeed arrived. Stunned by the size of the hammer, the figure signals for more broken RAM to raise its knife to match. In an instant, it lunges at the woman, attempting to slice off her head. Effortlessly, the woman spins the hammer and blocks the attack. Her warm smile turns to a playful grin as the figure’s eyes bulge in confusion.
“You’re pretty strong for an anomaly,”
The figure jumps back, crouching like an animal backed into a corner. Wires rip through its trench coat, searching for any PCs that are still intact. It hurls five of them at the woman, waiting a beat before charging at her. The woman spins the hammer, shattering each of the PCs as they approach.
After the beat, the figure absorbs the shattered PCs, growing larger in mass. It prepares its knife, now in the shape of a machete, to attack the woman. Unexpectedly, the woman lunges at the figure, swinging the hammer down and completely destroying not only the machete but the figure’s arm as well. A horrible shriek comes from the figure as it slowly backs away from the woman.
Grime falls from the figure’s face as fear begins to grip it. It looks around, desperate for something to use, but there are no PCs left. Trembling, it believes it is out of options—until its eyes land on Syd, frozen in awe. She has been holding her torn costume together with her left hand, her smartwatch now fully exposed.
The figure grimaces at the thought of using her watch as a last resort. It is a treat to savor after killing Syd, but it is the only way to ensure its survival. It sends most of the newly absorbed wires to its legs, its mass tripling as it prepares to pounce on Syd in one fell swoop.
Unfortunately for it, the woman sees what it is about to do.
“Oh no, you don’t!”
The woman twists the handle of her hammer, causing the head to glow with a fierce light. She charges at full speed, twisting her body for the final attack. With a mighty swing, she brings the hammer down on the figure, crushing it completely. The impact shakes the ground, drowning out the figure’s shriek.
The woman smiles with satisfaction as she slings the hammer over her shoulder. She glances around the storage room, her eyes lighting up when she notices the chrome PC, untouched by the chaos. She turns to Syd.
“Look, you—”
She starts, then gasps. She hasn’t gotten a good look at Syd before, but now she does. Shaking her head, she approaches Syd, who is still sitting on the floor, clutching her torn costume.
“Wait, are you Nerissa from Caustic Cinema?!”
The woman asks trying hold back her excitement. Syd’s eyes widen in shock.
“Y. Yes,”
The woman’s eyes light up even more.
“I’m a huge fan! Can I get an autograph?”
Still stunned by the fact that her savior is also a fan, Syd breathes a sigh of relief. At least there is a way to repay her.
“Do you have a pen?”
The woman scrambles around, pulling a notebook and pen from her back pocket. Syd reaches for the pen but freezes halfway. Her right hand is back to normal. She stares at it in confusion, slowly turning it to make sure it is really healed. She realizes she’s been staring too long when the woman gives her a questioning look. Syd smiles sheepishly before grabbing the pen to sign the notebook.
Thanks for saving me. From Nerissa.
She pauses, realizing she doesn’t know who to make it out to. Then she remembers hearing the word “virus” over the ringing earlier.
“Should I make it out to Virus Buster?”
The woman’s eyes light up even more.
“YES!”
Syd finishes the autograph, and the woman holds the notebook as if it is a golden treasure. Then, as if remembering something, the woman leans closer to Syd’s ear and whispers,
“Hey, I know it’s the backdrop of the show, but you really shouldn’t mess with Uranet servers. Nothing but trouble.”
The revelation hits Syd like a tidal wave, leaving her speechless. The woman leaves the storage room, still admiring the autograph. She did a little jump, unable to contain her excitement.
“Best job ever!”
The roar of a motorcycle fades into the distance as a desperate scream echoes through the storage room.
“Syd!”
Jules bursts into the room, her face pale with worry. Right behind her is Lou, who stops in confusion as the sound of the motorcycle disappears.
“What the hell is Stars and Stripe doing here?”
“Shut up, Lou! And help me with Syd!”
She circles Syd, checking her for injuries. The sight of the blood and the marks from the wires drains what little color Jules has left. What worries her most is how unresponsive Syd is. She hasn’t even noticed Jules, despite her frantic circling. Jules tries to see what Syd is staring at, but there is nothing unusual among the scattered computer parts.
Suddenly, Syd grabs Jules, causing her to jump. Syd’s grip is uncharacteristically strong, and Jules can see her skin beginning to bruise. The warm, familiar look in Syd’s eyes is gone, replaced by a distant, calculating gaze. Jules worries that Syd has been traumatized by what happened, but it is the opposite. Syd’s mind is racing, trying to process the discovery and the concerns Jules has expressed earlier.
A mad smile spreads across Syd’s face as she reaches a conclusion. Jules’ unease grows until she hears a stunned gasp from Lou.
“Holy!”
Jules looks at him, confused, until she follows his gaze back to Syd. Her eyes widen as she realizes why Lou has gasped. Syd has used both hands to hold Jules in place, leaving nothing to hold her costume together. Her supple breasts are exposed, their warm vanilla hue glowing in the dim light of the storage room. Even the slightest movements - like Jules turning - cause them to bounce gently. Totally distracting Lou.
Jules' face turns red with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. She can't believe he is more focused on gawking than checking if Syd is okay. Just as she is about to yell at him, Syd pulls her closer and locks eyes with her. The warmth Jules remembers from Syd's eyes and smile is back, easing her worries.
“I know how to save the show!”