@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

Lightspark 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.

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

The new communication protocol aims to improve the industry with measurable advantages in terms of efficiency and security.

A new study conducted by Hashlabs, in collaboration with the SRI (Stratum V2 Reference Implementation) team and figures like Matt Corallo, Alejandro De La Torre and others reveals how the Stratum V2 protocol can increase miner profitability compared to the current Stratum V1 standard, used for over a decade.

Speaking to Atlas21, Gabriele Vernetti, Stratum V2 maintainer, declared:

“This first case study demonstrates how much Stratum V2 can help miners as well, securing and increasing their profits, in addition to the rest of the network. It’s just a first study aimed at demonstrating how decentralization can be aligned with the profit dynamics typical of the mining sector.

In the future we will also focus on the benefits for mining pool operators, who can benefit from the protocol’s efficiency to lower their operating costs (such as those for bandwidth used by their servers).

The feedback has been very positive: this first study was a joint work with various market players, including miners and mining pool operators. As SRI we want to continue working together with the entire community as done in this case, becoming a reference point for all actors interested in innovating the Bitcoin mining field”.

The research, based on controlled tests with two identical ASIC S19k Pro, with stock firmware, demonstrates that Stratum V2 can increase net profits by up to 7.4%. For an industry that often operates with 10% margins, this could represent a substantial competitive advantage.

The V2 protocol reduces various inefficiencies that plague the current system. The latency in block switching, that is the waiting time created when a miner must change block template after a new block has been mined on the network, goes from 325 milliseconds to just 1.42 milliseconds, a speed 228 times higher. This translates to about 4.9 hours of completely wasted hash power less per year.

Another problem of modern mining concerns “stale shares” – proofs of work that arrive too late to be remunerated, often due to network latency or inefficient communication. However, not all stale shares depend on inefficiency problems. On average, about 2% are rejected for expected reasons, such as when the share doesn’t reach the minimum difficulty required by the pool. This value is considered normal in the sector. The remaining 98%, instead, is caused by avoidable delays. With Stratum V1, miners lose between 0.1% and 0.2% of their computing power this way. Stratum V2 with Job Declaration completely eliminates this waste, provided that the miner and the pool node have the same level of connectivity. This step could translate into a net profit increase of up to 2% by fully adopting Stratum V2 with Job Declaration.

In the Stratum V2 protocol, the Job Declaration Client (JDC) is software that allows miners to receive mining jobs directly from their local Bitcoin node, that is the block templates to work on. The JDC communicates directly with the miner’s local node, receiving updated data for new block construction and immediately sending them to the mining software via Stratum V2. This allows miners to receive jobs in real time from their own node, without having to wait for them from the pool, reducing latency and the risk of working on obsolete jobs. Furthermore, if the pool allows it, miners can build custom templates choosing which transactions to include in the block.

The research also highlights an often overlooked aspect: the loss of transaction fees. With the Stratum V1 protocol, miners lose about 0.75% of potential fees for each block due to the delay in receiving new jobs. Considering that about 52,560 blocks are mined each year, this loss per block adds up to a total of about 74 bitcoins per year, equivalent to over $8 million at current prices.

Beyond economic advantages, Stratum V2 solves a critical vulnerability of the current system: hashrate hijacking. The V1 protocol doesn’t encrypt communications, allowing attackers to intercept and steal up to 2% of computing power without the miner noticing. The new protocol eliminates this risk through end-to-end encryption and authentication.

According to the study, by reducing latency, optimizing share sending and improving security, Stratum V2 enables a potential net profit increase of 7.4%, derived exclusively from technical improvements.

The post Stratum V2 increases profits by 7.4%: “The study shows that profit and decentralization can coexist”, says Vernetti, SV2 maintainer appeared first on Atlas21.

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

Carl Rickertsen completely exits his position in Strategy as insiders sell $864 million worth of stock.

As reported by Protos, Carl Rickertsen, a member of Strategy’s board of directors, has fully liquidated his entire shareholding for over $10 million.

Rickertsen’s decision to completely exit his Strategy position marks a sharp shift from his previous investment stance. In 2022, the executive had shown confidence in the company by investing $700,000 in MSTR shares.

On June 13, 2022, Rickertsen purchased $608,000 worth of MSTR stock at $152 per share. Since then, the stock has rallied 152%. However, by 2023, the director had already sold half of his 4,000-share position.

Rickertsen’s approach to managing his holdings has become increasingly aggressive in recent years. Since joining the board in 2019, he has adopted a strategy of immediately liquidating any stock options received.

One example of this tactic occurred on June 2, when he acquired and sold 26,390 MSTR shares on the same day.

As of June 5 this year, Rickertsen reported zero vested Strategy shares, marking the end of his equity involvement with the company.

Rickertsen’s situation is not an isolated case within Strategy. Data from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reveals a controversial picture. According to information gathered by secform4.com, over the past five years, total insider sales have exceeded purchases by $864 million. This imbalance in insider transactions could raise questions about executives’ confidence in the company’s future.

The post Strategy director liquidates all his MSTR shares appeared first on Atlas21.

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

French lawmakers are proposing Bitcoin mining as a solution to optimize the national electricity system and make use of surplus energy.

A group of French parliamentarians has introduced an amendment that could turn the country into a European hub for Bitcoin mining, strategically leveraging its energy production capacity.

The legislative proposal aims to assess how mining could be integrated into the French energy system — the largest in Europe — to optimize the management of electricity produced by nuclear power plants.

The amendment to the law on “National Programming and Regulatory Simplification in the Energy Sector” calls on the government to conduct a thorough evaluation of the potential of Bitcoin mining. The initiative represents a pragmatic approach to addressing the issue of excess energy, a key topic for France’s nuclear industry.

France’s energy system, powered by nuclear for over 70% of its needs, often generates electricity surpluses that require efficient management. The proponents of the proposal see mining as an ideal solution to absorb this excess, transforming a potential waste into an economic resource.

The operational flexibility of mining farms offers a unique competitive advantage: machines can be quickly turned on and off based on production and consumption peaks, dynamically adapting to the needs of the electrical grid. This feature makes them particularly suitable for installation near power plants, even in the most remote areas of the country.

The parliamentary proposal highlights how mining could contribute to the revitalization of abandoned industrial sites, creating new opportunities for economic development under the supervision of public authorities.

Lawmakers emphasize the various benefits of this strategy: reducing negative pricing in wholesale markets, relieving the workload on nuclear plants by avoiding frequent modulation cycles that accelerate equipment wear, and absorbing surplus energy that would otherwise go to waste.

The French Association for the Development of Digital Assets (ADAN) collaborated in drafting the amendment, contributing technical expertise and industrial insight to the project. The organization emphasized how low-carbon Bitcoin mining could help strengthen the resilience of the national electricity grid.

The parliamentary report notes that mining in France could represent “an activity tailored to the constraints of the electrical system, absorbing surplus energy and reducing environmental impact” by using power that would otherwise be lost.

The post France considers Bitcoin mining: parliamentary proposal for managing nuclear energy appeared first on Atlas21.

@ e5cfb5dc:0039f130

はりまメンタルクリニック：GIDの大手そう。丸の内線ならパムくんちが近い。

わらびメンタルクリニック：GIDの大手そう？公式サイトには影もかたちも

ナグモクリニック：SRS手術までしてるところ。GID精神科外来が月1第1木曜日だけ？

狭山メンタルクリニック：距離・時間的にはまま近い。サイトの記述が思想的にちょとあやしげ。新患受付がだいぶ先。GIDは専門外か？

川島領診療所：オンライン診療あり！強迫性障害や美容皮膚科をやっている。雰囲気よさそうなところ。GIDは専門外か？

Jこころのクリニック：電車いっぽんなので楽。GIDは専門外か？

ハッピースマイルクリニック：オンライン診療あり！GIDは専門外か？

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

Russian authorities uncover 95 Bitcoin mining machines hidden inside a truck stealing electricity from a village.

Law enforcement in the Republic of Buryatia has uncovered an illegal Bitcoin mining operation concealed inside a KamAZ truck. The clandestine facility was siphoning off electricity meant for the local population.

According to the national news agency TASS, the discovery was made during a routine inspection of power lines in the Pribaikalsky district, where inspectors identified an unauthorized connection to a 10-kilovolt line — enough to power an entire village. The criminal operation showed a high level of organization, with sophisticated equipment hidden inside an apparently innocuous transport vehicle.

Source: Babr Mash

Inside the commercial truck, authorities found a fully operational mining center equipped with 95 machines and a portable transformer station. The technical setup suggested careful planning, designed to maximize bitcoin production while minimizing the risk of detection.

Two individuals suspected of involvement in the illegal activity managed to escape in an SUV before law enforcement arrived.

Impact of illegal mining on the local power grid

Buryatenergo, a regional unit of Rosseti Siberia, stressed how unauthorized connections severely compromise the stability of the local power grid. Consequences include voltage drops, overloads, and potential blackouts that disproportionately affect rural communities, already vulnerable in terms of energy access.

The illegal siphoning of electricity for mining creates a domino effect across the entire electrical infrastructure, causing service disruptions for legitimate users and increasing maintenance costs for grid operators.

Government restrictions on mining

The Russian government has implemented various restrictions on cryptocurrency mining in several regions of the country. In Buryatia, mining is banned from November 15 to March 15 due to seasonal energy shortages. Only companies registered in specific districts such as Severo-Baikalsky and Muisky are allowed to operate outside this period.

Federal restrictions were further tightened in December 2024, when Russia announced a ban on mining during peak energy months in multiple regions, including Dagestan, Chechnya, and parts of eastern Ukraine under Russian control. Since April, a total ban has been in effect in the southern region of Irkutsk.

Despite these restrictions, some Russian companies continue to operate legally in the sector. BitRiver, one of the country’s leading operators, takes advantage of the region’s low-cost energy, having launched its first and largest facility in 2019 in the city of Bratsk.

The post Illegal mining: clandestine operation discovered in a KamAZ truck in Russia appeared first on Atlas21.

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

The Brazilian government has abolished the Bitcoin tax exemption for small investors and introduced a flat 17.5% tax rate on all crypto capital gains.

Brazil has officially ended the tax-free period for small digital asset investors, introducing a flat 17.5% rate on all profits from cryptocurrency sales. The decision was formalized through Provisional Measure 1303, part of the government’s strategy to increase tax revenues from financial markets.

Until now, Brazilian residents selling up to 35,000 Brazilian reais (around $6,300) in cryptocurrencies per month were completely exempt from income tax. Profits exceeding this threshold were subject to progressive taxation, starting at 15% and reaching up to 22.5% for amounts over 30 million reais.

The new flat rate, which took effect on June 12, removes all exemptions and applies uniformly to every investor, regardless of the size of their transactions, according to local outlet Portal do Bitcoin.

While small-scale investors will now face a higher tax burden, high-net-worth individuals might actually benefit. Under the previous system, large transactions were taxed between 17.5% and 22.5%. With the new flat 17.5% rate, many high-profile investors will see their effective tax liability reduced.

Under the new rules, taxes will be calculated quarterly, with investors allowed to offset losses from the previous five quarters. However, starting in 2026, the time frame for claiming losses will be shortened.

Last March, Brazilian lawmakers also proposed a bill allowing employers to partially pay workers in cryptocurrency. According to the draft, crypto payments could not exceed 50% of an employee’s salary.

Full payment in cryptocurrencies would only be allowed for foreign workers or contractors, and only under specific conditions set by the Brazilian Central Bank. The bill prohibits full crypto payment for standard employees.

The post Brazil scraps crypto tax exemption: new 17.5% flat tax appeared first on Atlas21.

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

VanEck analyst Matthew Sigel warns of growing risks for Bitcoin treasury companies as their stock prices approach NAV.

Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, has sounded the alarm for companies that have adopted Bitcoin-based treasury strategies.

No public BTC treasury company has traded below its Bitcoin NAV for a sustained period.

But at least one is now approaching parity.

As some of these companies raise capital through large at-the-market (ATM) programs to buy BTC, a risk is emerging: If the stock trades at or near…

— matthew sigel, recovering CFA (@matthew_sigel) June 16, 2025

In a post on X, Sigel highlighted an emerging issue in the sector of companies holding Bitcoin treasuries. Until now, no public company with a Bitcoin treasury has ever traded below its own Net Asset Value (NAV) for extended periods. The NAV represents the net value of a company’s assets (such as bitcoin and cash) minus its liabilities, divided by the number of outstanding shares — essentially indicating the real value of each share based on the company’s holdings. However, at least one of these companies (Semler Scientific) is now dangerously approaching breakeven.

The core of the issue lies in the capital-raising mechanism. Many of these companies rely on large-scale at-the-market (ATM) programs to acquire bitcoin, but when the stock price nears the NAV, this strategy can shift from creating value to destroying it.

The risk for shareholders

Under normal market conditions, companies like Semler Scientific and Strategy trade at a premium to the value of the bitcoin they hold. This means investors are willing to pay more for the company’s stock than the simple value of its bitcoin treasury.

However, when a company’s stock price approaches or falls below its NAV, the situation becomes problematic, according to Sigel. Issuing new shares at these levels not only dilutes the value for existing shareholders but can also become extractive, as management continues to raise capital while benefiting more than shareholders.

Proposed solutions

Sigel suggested several measures for companies pursuing Bitcoin treasury strategies. His recommendations include implementing preventive safeguards while stock premiums still exist. Notably, he proposes announcing a pause in ATM issuances if the stock trades below 0.95 times NAV for ten or more consecutive trading days. Additionally, Sigel advises prioritizing buybacks when bitcoin appreciates but the company’s equity does not reflect that increase.

Lessons from Bitcoin miners’ past

The VanEck analyst pointed out that similar situations have occurred in the Bitcoin mining sector, marked by persistent equity issuances and disproportionate executive compensation. To avoid repeating those mistakes, Sigel suggests that executive pay should be tied to growth in NAV per share, not the size of the Bitcoin position or the total number of outstanding shares.

Sigel concluded:

“Once you are trading at NAV, shareholder dilution is no longer strategic. It is extractive. Boards and shareholders should act with discipline now, while they still have the benefit of optionality.”

The post Bitcoin treasury: VanEck sounds the alarm for companies in the danger zone appeared first on Atlas21.

@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d

When Richard Scotford moved to Costa Rica in 2018, he had no idea he would become a key figure in a thriving Bitcoin economy.

A longtime Bitcoin holder who initially saw it through the lens of speculation, Scotford’s journey led him to embrace Bitcoin’s deeper purpose and spearhead Bitcoin Jungle — a grassroots movement bringing real-world Bitcoin adoption to Costa Rica.

Bitcoin circular economies create holistic value for Bitcoiners

Bitcoin Jungle is inspired by Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador but uniquely adapted to Costa Rica’s economic landscape. Unlike El Salvador, where Bitcoin was positioned as a tool for financial inclusion, Costa Rica already has a fairly stable banking system.

The real issue? The friction of moving money. Expats, business owners, and tourists struggle with high fees, banking red tape, and slow transactions. Bitcoin helped solve a lot of these problems.

The Birth of Bitcoin Jungle

Scotford and his team launched Bitcoin Jungle in late 2021 with a simple goal: get bitcoin into people’s hands and make it usable. However, there was one challenge — he had no technical background.

Determined to create a circular bitcoin economy, Scotford networked aggressively. He attended the first Adopting Bitcoin conference in El Salvador, approaching strangers with his vision:

“I was just walking around trying to find people who could help me make this economy, going up to random people saying ‘Hey, what can you do? We’re trying to make a circular economy in Costa Rica, can you help us?’ They all thought I was crazy.”

The breakthrough came when he turned to Bitcoin Twitter. Nicolas Burtey from Galoy encouraged him to create a wallet, and developer Lee Salminen forked the Bitcoin Beach wallet for their project. 

“Within two weeks of Adopting Bitcoin, Lee forked the Galoy Bitcoin Beach wallet, which took Galoy by surprise. Even though they made their wallet to be forked if necessary, I don’t think they were expecting people to do it so fast and, I’d like to say, so well. They were like, ‘Okay, cool, who are these guys doing this?’”

Finally Bitcoin Jungle had its own working wallet, surprising even the Galoy team with the speed of execution.

Grassroots Adoption: One Vendor at a Time

How do you build a bitcoin economy from scratch? Scotford’s answer was simple: start at the farmers’ markets.

“We were like, okay, we’re going to get all the bespoke niche market sellers who are in this area. We have all these beautiful farmers markets, and we decided to approach these people first,” Scotford explained.

His team took a strategic approach, targeting market gatekeepers first.

“If you want to talk to every individual person, it’s really difficult. But if you can talk to the person who is the owner of the market, and then they can introduce you to their market stores, you’re already halfway there.”

Going stall by stall, they pitched Bitcoin’s advantages — no bank fees and better payment options. But adoption didn’t happen overnight, so Bitcoin Jungle initially offered a safety net — vendors could cash out at the end of the day.

“We would say to the vendors, ‘Look, accept bitcoin, and at the end of the day, if you don’t want to keep the bitcoin, we’ll buy it off you,’” Scotford recalled.

“When we first started, maybe 30–40% of the vendors were cashing up every day or at the weekends. Lee would be walking around with big fistfuls of money, cashing out vendors.”

But over time, something shifted — they started keeping their bitcoin.

“Eventually, the vendors started to learn themselves that, ‘Oh, actually it’s better to keep it.’ They would then pay for their tables in the markets using bitcoin. They thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to keep this bitcoin, I don’t really know what to do with it, but I can pay for my table.’ So there, the circular economy starts to happen.”

Today, Bitcoin Jungle runs with minimal intervention, and Scotford takes pride in their reliability.

“When you come here to Costa Rica, what we really pride ourselves on is that if someone says they accept bitcoin, 99% of the time, they will. And if they’re part of Bitcoin Jungle, they will 100% accept bitcoin and you will have a fluid experience with it.”

By mid-summer 2024 over 380 locations in Costa Rica accepted bitcoin

The Bitcoin Jungle Wallet and Real Usage

Bitcoin Jungle is an open-source community project built on the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Acting as a community bank, the project processes a large number of transactions daily. To encourage proper security practices, Scotford’s team alerts their peers, reminding users to move their bitcoin to cold storage.

“If you’ve got too much bitcoin on your wallet, we send you a message telling you to move it to cold storage,” he explained. For larger businesses, they even offer hands-on assistance to secure funds properly.

Unlike the HODL-only philosophy that many Bitcoiners advocate, Bitcoin Jungle encourages spending.

“Michael Saylor says don’t spend your bitcoin. We say the opposite,” Scotford laughed. “We’re the antithesis of that. You need to spend it.”

Bitcoin Jungle’s Unique Approach to Costa Rica

Bitcoin Jungle isn’t just another Bitcoin adoption effort; it’s tailored to Costa Rica’s economy. The wallet operates in Costa Rican colónes, making transactions feel familiar to residents while ensuring tourists and expats can still interact easily.

The team has also introduced low-fee bitcoin ATMs, point-of-sale integrations, and partnerships that allow users to pay in bitcoin while the recipient receives local currency.

A major breakthrough came when Francis Pouliot from Bull Bitcoin joined forces with Bitcoin Jungle, bringing his expertise in banking infrastructure to the project.

This collaboration enabled seamless bitcoin payments that integrate directly with Costa Rica’s financial system, allowing users to pay anyone, even businesses that don’t directly accept bitcoin, while the recipient receives funds in colónes or dollars.

“I can go to a hardware store, order steel for my new basketball court, pay in bitcoin, and the store gets dollars,” Scotford said. “For a non-tech guy like me, it’s magical.”

Why Aren’t There More Bitcoin Jungles?

Scotford sees an opportunity for more localized bitcoin economies.

“There should be a Bitcoin Harbor, a Bitcoin Mountain, a Bitcoin Driveway,” he joked. “But instead of waiting for permission or corporate funding, people need to take action themselves.”

He emphasizes that building a circular bitcoin economy doesn’t require deep pockets. “I probably gave away $600 worth of bitcoin when we started — just $3 here, $4 there — to get people using it.”

The Future of Bitcoin Jungle

Bitcoin Jungle continues to grow, recently hosting events like the Bitcoin Freedom Festival and integrating bitcoin into community projects, including a school where tuition can be paid in bitcoin.

“The institutions have come in, but the grassroots projects haven’t caught up,” Scotford observed. “It’s time for people to stop sitting on their hands and start building.”

Bitcoin is permissionless, no one has to wait for approval to start using it. Bitcoin Jungle proves that with vision and persistence, anyone can build a thriving Bitcoin economy, one market stall at a time.

Get the latest from Bitcoin Jungle: follow them on X

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

Years ago, I flew a microlight aircraft for the first time and felt what it meant to leave the ground. Recently, I bought a gigabyte of storage for 5 cents via Lightning, and something similar happened. This is about that moment—when you stop believing something works and start knowing it does.

Every now and then (if you’re lucky) you have one of those “eureka” moments where the full implications of something hit you for the first time. My biggest experience of that was years ago when I got a microlight aircraft. They’d just come out, so there were no regulations, and anyone could buy one and just fly.

People who should never be flying were going all over the place, and—having no navigation training—they were following motorways instead. Some were even landing at the service stops to get more fuel. How could I resist?

The price included training at an old airfield that was now not busy at all. After a lot of taxiing along the runways, it came time to try a takeoff. Nothing can prepare you for that. It’s not like a Cessna or any of those “proper” aircraft; it’s just an aluminum frame, and you hang off the center of the main pole, the center of gravity. There was a twin motor behind me, totaling 250 cc. I could feel where the wind was on the wings, which side, and even how far along. It was an insight into what birds must feel. I’d trade wings for a big brain any day!

I hit the gas on full, and we accelerated. I had been told that this thing could fly. and had seen my teacher fly in it many times. I thought I understood that it could fly, but as I left the ground and the drag on the wheels was suddenly gone, the whole thing lurched up into the air fast, at a really steep angle, and before I could think, I was already higher than a house. That was when I understood that this thing could fly. Belief is not knowledge, and knowledge only comes from experience.

So it is with many things. So it is with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. I believed that Lightning could “transform the economic landscape.” I had read about how bitcoin can “revolutionize the financial system.” What hadn’t happened yet was that I had not actually experienced it. That take-off moment came when someone sent me a file link on a CDN. I downloaded the PDF (300 MB or so) and then cut the end off the URL to have a look at the service provider.

To my surprise, they were offering storage space on the CDN at 5c per gigabyte per month. with “unlimited” data transfer. So I decided to try it out. Within a few seconds I had ordered, paid for, and received my credit, and the service was available. 5 cents! That was when I realized how simple everything else in the world can be with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

Who cares about how many stupid dollars you can get with bitcoin? Look at what you can do with it! In the new world that may be opening up for us, we can rid ourselves of the parasites who have held us back for so long. “When moon?” takes on a whole different meaning. Nothing is beyond our reach.

There was no bitcoin back in the Spanish Civil War when Durruti was doing his thing, but something of the same awakening must have stirred in him to inspire these words: “We should not be in the least afraid of ruins. They may blast and lay bare this world before they go, but we carry a new world here in our hearts, and this world is growing as we speak.”

https://satellite.earth is the site. It’s not just a storage provider; it’s a Nostr node you can use like any other node, and it has communities set up, among other things. It’s well worth a look. No, I’m not getting paid; they don’t even know me. And I’m not sure, but it looks like because I haven’t used the whole 1 GB yet, they are using my 5c to extend the time I have. In other words, it’s 5c per gigabyte-month, not per gigabyte per month.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy Acquires 10,100 BTC, Surpasses 592,000 Bitcoin in Holdings 

Michael Saylor’s Strategy announces it has purchased an additional 10,100 BTC for approximately $1.05 billion, raising its total holdings to 592,100 BTC acquired at an average cost of $70,666 per Bitcoin.

BREAKING: STRATEGY BUYS ANOTHER 10,100 #BITCOIN pic.twitter.com/TZ6nosWenr

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 16, 2025

Strategy added another 10,100 Bitcoin to its treasury between June 9 and June 15, 2025, according to a Form 8-K filed Monday with the SEC. The company spent approximately $1.05 billion on the latest allocation, paying an average price of $104,080 per Bitcoin, inclusive of fees and expenses. 

This brings Strategy’s total holdings to 592,100 BTC, acquired at a cumulative cost of $41.84 billion, or an average price of $70,666 per Bitcoin, solidifying its status as the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin.

The recent allocation was financed through multiple capital raises. Strategy tapped its STRK and STRF at-the-market offerings, and completed a $979.7 million public offering of STRD, its 10.00% Series A Perpetual Stride Preferred Stock, on June 10.

“The Bitcoin purchases were made using proceeds from the STRK ATM, STRF ATM, and STRD Offering,” the company stated.

In addition to the purchase, Strategy reported a 19.1% BTC yield year-to-date in 2025, reflecting the strength of its long-term bitcoin investment thesis. 

This latest acquisition follows a series of steady purchases throughout 2024 and early 2025. Strategy has continued to scale its position quarter over quarter, using capital market tools to accumulate Bitcoin as part of its strategy.

“Strategy continues to execute on its commitment to the Bitcoin standard,” the company stated in its filing. 

The company continues to emphasize transparency around its holdings. Its website, strategy.com, hosts a Bitcoin Dashboard that is regularly updated with BTC purchase details, securities activity, and performance metrics in compliance with Regulation FD.

Strategy’s move comes during increasing institutional adoption of Bitcoin in 2025. The company’s acquisition strategy and consistent messaging have made it a leader for corporate engagement with the digital asset. 

With its most recent buy, Strategy now holds over 592,000 Bitcoin, a significant portion of the asset’s fixed 21 million supply—showing its view of Bitcoin not just as an investment, but as a core component of its financial strategy.  

This post Strategy Acquires 10,100 BTC, Surpasses 592,000 Bitcoin in Holdings  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Senator Hagerty’s Vision Beyond The GENIUS Act: Make Tennessee A Hub For Bitcoin Mining

Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) has been in the headlines as of late as the GENIUS Act (S. 1582), a bill for which he was the primary sponsor, moves closer to passing in the U.S. Senate.

The GENIUS Act is a bill that, if enacted into law, would create a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins so that the technology can be more widely adopted. (While some Bitcoin enthusiasts may not like this, they should still pay attention to the language in the bill, as it could have an impact on U.S. citizens’ ability to use Bitcoin wallets privately.)

However, stablecoins aren’t the only thing on Senator Hagerty’s mind.

He’s also thinking about how to best produce and harness energy in Tennessee to use it for Bitcoin mining and AI compute.

He shared his vision on this topic with me in an interview I conducted with him at Bitcoin 2025:

Tennessee As A Hub For Bitcoin Mining and AI Compute

“We have an opportunity before us to be in the very lead,” Senator Hagerty told Bitcoin Magazine in regard to building nuclear facilities that can be used to produce energy for Bitcoin mining and AI processing.

“The largest utility in the world is the Tennessee Valley Authority — certainly the largest one in America — and I think we’ve got a unique opportunity here to move forward and become the energy hub of America,” he added.

“[We should] see more and more not only mining operations, but if you think about what Elon Musk is doing in Memphis with xAI, the data centers, the opportunities with artificial intelligence — there are many, many things that are going to happen in Tennessee.”

The Senator added that he believes the state can also strike partnerships with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, the University of Tennessee and Tennessee Tech as it works to become a more friendly destination for Bitcoin miners and data centers.

“We’ve got great opportunities [from] Memphis all the way across the state,” said Senator Hagerty.

Hagerty’s Call For Bipartisanship

Whether it’s working toward stablecoin legislation or crafting regulation that will enable industries like Bitcoin mining and data centers to thrive in the United States, Senator Hagerty believes these efforts should be inherently bipartisan.

“[These are] bipartisan — or nonpartisan issue[s] — frankly,” said the Senator.

“If you care about the competitiveness of America — if you want to see innovation happen on our shores rather than being pushed overseas — then you’re going to support what we’re trying to do in terms of putting a regulatory framework in place that will deliver certainty, that will create an ecosystem here in America that will allow these companies to thrive,” he added.

“It’s not just the stablecoin legislation I’m putting forward or what may happen with Bitcoin or other technologies like that. It’s the overall blockchain technology that’s going to help advance America beyond the 21st century. We need to stay in the lead. We can stay in the lead.”

This post Senator Hagerty’s Vision Beyond The GENIUS Act: Make Tennessee A Hub For Bitcoin Mining first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Frank Corva.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Michael Saylor and Pakistan’s Crypto Minister Bilal Talk Bitcoin and Global Investment

Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and State Minister of Crypto Bilal Bin Saqib, held a conversation recently with the Executive Chairman and CEO of Strategy, Michael Saylor, about Bitcoin and its potential role in Pakistan’s economy.

BREAKING: Pakistan’s Finance Minister and State Minister on Crypto Bilal just talked with Michael Saylor about #Bitcoin

Nation States are here pic.twitter.com/aa5tM5kKbY

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 15, 2025

Saylor highlighted the critical role of trust and leadership in attracting global capital, citing his own journey of turning a $400 million investment into a $40 billion market backed position through Bitcoin.

“Today, I will stay in touch with Bilal,” he said. “Pakistan has many brilliant people and a lot of people to do business with you. My company had less than $400 million to invest, but the markets gave me $40 billion because they trust us. And so the most important thing is leadership, intellectual leadership and that they trust you.”

Saylor further emphasized that trust and clarity of vision are what drive global capital flows.

“If the world trusts you and they hear your words, and you speak particularly, the capital and the capability will flow to Pakistan,” said Saylor. “It’s there, it wants to find a home and that’s what happened with our company. Our success is because we were clear and committed. And once the market decides who the leader is. They get behind the leader and they send their money to you. And I think they’d do it to Pakistan too. You have the most important thing, which is you have a commitment and a will and clarity here. So, I look forward to working with you.”

The new stance is a stark change for Pakistan, which had previously banned Bitcoin trading in 2018. On March 20, Bilal Bin Saqib told Bloomberg that Pakistan was planning to legalize Bitcoin and try to implement a regulatory framework to attract investors.

“Pakistan is done sitting on the sidelines,” said Saqib. “We want to attract international investment because Pakistan is a low-cost, high-growth market with 60% of the population under 30… Trump is making crypto a national priority, and every country, including Pakistan, will have to follow suit.”

During the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, Saqib announced that Pakistan was creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve.

“Today, I will announce that the Pakistan government is setting up their own government led Bitcoin strategic reserve… and this wallet, the national Bitcoin wallet,” said Saqib. “It’s not for speculation or hype. We will be holding this Bitcoin and we will never ever sell them.”

This post Michael Saylor and Pakistan’s Crypto Minister Bilal Talk Bitcoin and Global Investment first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

@ 502ab02a:a2860397

ปี 1937 — บริษัท Hormel Foods Corporation ในเมืองออสติน รัฐมินนิโซตา สหรัฐฯ ชายคนหนึ่งชื่อ Jay C. Hormel ลูกชายของผู้ก่อตั้งบริษัท มีไอเดียแสนทะเยอทะยานว่า “อยากทำผลิตภัณฑ์จากหมู ที่เก็บได้นาน ไม่ต้องแช่เย็น และไม่แพง”

เพราะตอนนั้น หมูเหลือเยอะ โดยเฉพาะ “หัวไหล่หมู” ที่ขายไม่ออก เพราะมันไม่ใช่ชิ้นเนื้อพรีเมียมที่คนอยากซื้อไปทำอาหาร เจย์เลยทดลองบดเนื้อไหล่หมู เติมเกลือ น้ำตาล สารกันเสีย โซเดียมไนไตรต์ และสิ่งสำคัญสุดคือ เจลาตินจากน้ำต้มกระดูก เพื่อให้เนื้อเกาะตัว ไม่แห้ง และอยู่ได้นานโดยไม่ต้องแช่เย็น

ผลลัพธ์คือ หมูกระป๋อง 340 กรัมในกล่องสี่เหลี่ยม พร้อมเปิดฝาดึงด้วยมือ ไม่ต้องใช้ที่เปิดกระป๋อง ชูความ ราคาถูก เก็บง่าย พกพาสะดวก และไม่ต้องปรุงอะไรเพิ่มเติม ซ่อนความของเหลือเอาไว้เงียบๆ

และเพื่อให้คนจำได้ง่าย บริษัทจัดประกวดตั้งชื่อ และผู้ชนะเสนอคำว่า “Spam” = Spiced Ham (แต่ไม่มีใครรู้จริงๆ ว่าย่อจากอะไรแน่) แค่ “สั้น จัดจ้าน และจำง่าย” ก็พอ

เมื่อเกิดสงครามโลกครั้งที่ 2 ในปี 1939 สหรัฐฯ ยังไม่เข้าสงครามเต็มตัว แต่เริ่มเตรียมเสบียงสนับสนุนพันธมิตร และ Spam กลายเป็นของขวัญจากพระเจ้า เพราะ เก็บได้นานหลายปี ไม่ต้องแช่เย็น น้ำหนักเบา เปิดง่าย ไม่เสียง่ายแม้เจอฝุ่น โคลน หรือไอร้อนจากปืนใหญ่

รัฐบาลสหรัฐฯ เริ่มจัดสั่ง Spam ให้กับกองทัพในสัดส่วนที่มากขึ้นเรื่อยๆ โดยเฉพาะทหารแนวหน้าในยุโรปและแปซิฟิก เช่น ฮาวาย, ฟิลิปปินส์, กวม, และเกาหลี ระหว่างสงคราม Hormel ผลิต Spam มากถึง 15 ล้านกระป๋องต่อสัปดาห์ และส่งออกไปมากกว่า 100 ล้านกระป๋อง ภายในเวลาไม่กี่ปี

Jay C. Hormel ถือว่ามีบทบาททางสังคมและการเมืองอยู่ไม่น้อย โดยเฉพาะช่วงก่อนสงครามโลกครั้งที่ 2

เขาเคยเป็นสมาชิกของ America First Committee ซึ่งเป็นกลุ่มเคลื่อนไหวทางการเมืองที่มีอิทธิพลมากในช่วงก่อนสงครามโลกครั้งที่ 2 โดยกลุ่มนี้มีเป้าหมายคือ “ต่อต้านการที่อเมริกาจะเข้าไปร่วมสงครามในยุโรป” สมาชิกของกลุ่มนี้มีทั้งนักธุรกิจใหญ่ สื่อมวลชน นักวิชาการ รวมถึงชาร์ลส ลินด์เบิร์ก (นักบินชื่อดัง) เรียกได้ว่าเป็นกลุ่มที่มีอิทธิพลเชิงความคิดและการเมืองในช่วงปลายยุค 1930s

แม้ในตอนแรก Hormel จะมีแนวคิดไม่เห็นด้วยกับการเข้าสงคราม แต่พอสงครามเริ่มต้นจริง และสหรัฐฯ ต้องส่งทหารและเสบียงออกไปรบ เขาก็ “ปรับตัวทันที” และกลายเป็นหนึ่งในผู้จัดหาอาหารรายใหญ่ให้กองทัพ โดยเฉพาะ Spam ที่ผลิตส่งเป็นล้านกระป๋องต่อสัปดาห์ ซึ่งแน่นอนว่าไม่มีทางทำได้ถ้าไม่มีความสัมพันธ์และการประสานงานกับภาครัฐโดยตรง

หลังสงครามโลกสิ้นสุดในปี 1945 สิ่งที่รัฐบาลและภาคธุรกิจต้องเจอคือ จะทำยังไงกับโรงงานผลิตอาหารที่เคยทำเพื่อ “เลี้ยงทหารนับล้าน” แต่ตอนนี้ไม่มีสงครามแล้ว? Hormel ไม่ยอมให้ Spam หายไปจากโต๊ะอาหารโลกง่ายๆ แผนการตลาดที่ฉลาดมากของพวกเขาคือ 1. “Sell the nostalgia” ขายความทรงจำ! คนอเมริกันที่เป็นทหารผ่านศึก กลับมาใช้ชีวิตปกติ แต่ก็ยังคุ้นเคยกับ Spam อยู่แล้ว ก็ขายให้พวกเขานั่นแหละ 2. “ผูกกับอาหารเช้า” Hormel ทำสูตร “Spam and eggs” และโฆษณาว่าเป็นอาหารเช้าที่ให้พลังงาน ย่อยง่าย และเหมาะกับทุกครอบครัว 3. เจาะตลาดประเทศที่ได้รับ Spam ระหว่างสงคราม ฟิลิปปินส์, ฮาวาย, ญี่ปุ่น, เกาหลีใต้, อังกฤษ กลายเป็นตลาดหลัก บางประเทศพัฒนาเมนูท้องถิ่นกับ Spam เช่น ฟิลิปปินส์ Spam silog (Spam + ข้าว + ไข่ดาว), เกาหลี 부대찌개 (Budae-jjigae) หรือหม้อไฟทหาร, ญี่ปุ่น Spam onigiri, ฮาวาย Spam musubi (สแปมวางบนข้าว ปิดด้วยสาหร่าย) 4. สร้างแบรนด์ให้รัก Hormel สนับสนุนการจัดงานเทศกาล Spam (เช่น Spam Jam) และทำให้แบรนด์กลายเป็น Pop Culture ของอเมริกา เพื่อโปรโมตแบรนด์ให้เป็นของอเมริกันจ๋า ทั้งน่ารัก ทั้งเท่ ทั้งกินง่าย และกลายเป็นความภูมิใจของชนชั้นกลาง

ระหว่างปี 1937–1946 Spam สร้างชื่อให้ Hormel อย่างถล่มทลาย ถึงขั้นรัฐบาลโซเวียตยังเคยร้องขอให้สหรัฐฯ ส่ง Spam เข้าโซเวียตเพื่อเลี้ยงทหารแนวหน้า โดย นายพล Dwight D. Eisenhower (ต่อมาคือประธานาธิบดีสหรัฐฯ) เคยกล่าวว่า “I ate my share of Spam along with millions of other soldiers. I’ll even confess to a few unkind remarks about it—uttered during the strain of battle... But as former Commander in Chief, I believe I can still see Spam in my dreams.” (ฉันกิน Spam มากพอๆ กับทหารหลายล้านคน แม้จะเคยบ่นบ้าง แต่ในฐานะอดีตแม่ทัพใหญ่...ฉันยังฝันเห็นมันเลย)

Jay C. Hormel ไม่ใช่แค่คนขายหมู แต่เขาเป็นนักวางระบบอุตสาหกรรมขั้นเทพ สามารถยกระดับกิจการท้องถิ่นของพ่อให้กลายเป็นบริษัทอาหารที่ส่งออกระดับโลกได้ เขาเป็น early adopter ของสิ่งที่เรียกว่า vertical integration คือควบคุมทุกขั้นตอน ตั้งแต่ฟาร์ม โรงฆ่าสัตว์ โรงงาน บรรจุภัณฑ์ จนถึงการขนส่งและการตลาด

ในปี 1970s รายการตลกชื่อดังของอังกฤษอย่าง Monty Python’s Flying Circus ได้เอา Spam มาเล่นมุกในตอนหนึ่ง โดยฉากคือร้านอาหารที่ทุกเมนูมี Spam อยู่ในนั้น แล้วลูกค้าพยายามสั่งอาหารโดยไม่เอา Spam แต่ร้านไม่ยอม เพราะ “เมนูเรามี Spam ทุกอย่าง!” จนเสียงลูกค้ากับแม่ค้ากลายเป็นการโต้เถียงอันแสนตลก และมีนักแสดงแต่งเป็นไวกิ้งยืนร้อง “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam...” ซ้ำๆ อยู่ด้านหลังแบบไม่รู้จบ https://youtu.be/anwy2MPT5RE?si=-68WQeng47lhJENJ

ฉากนั้นกลายเป็นตำนานในโลกตลก และคำว่า “Spam” ก็เริ่มถูกใช้เป็นคำสแลงหมายถึง “ของที่ซ้ำซาก ไร้สาระ รบกวน” ซึ่งต่อมาก็กลายเป็นคำที่เราใช้เรียกอีเมลหรือข้อความขยะนั่นเอง

จะว่าไปแล้ว Spam ถือเป็น “สินค้าที่ครอบงำและเปลี่ยนแปลงอาหารของโลกอีกตัวนึง” อย่างแท้จริง จากเศษหมูไร้คนซื้อ → สินค้าแห่งนวัตกรรมอาหาร → เสบียงสงคราม → อาหารเช้าคลาสสิก → วัฒนธรรมท้องถิ่น → Meme ตลก → และสุดท้ายก็กลายเป็นคำด่าบนอินเทอร์เน็ต

Jay C. Hormel ไม่ได้เป็นนักการเมือง แต่เขาเป็น “นักอุตสาหกรรมที่มีบทบาททางการเมือง” โดยเฉพาะในช่วงเปลี่ยนผ่านของประเทศจาก “ไม่เอาสงคราม” ไปสู่ “ต้องชนะสงคราม”

เขาอาจเริ่มจากแนวคิด “อย่ายุ่งเรื่องคนอื่น” แต่พอเห็นว่าโอกาสมา เขาก็เปลี่ยนโหมดทันที และทำให้ Spam กลายเป็นเสบียงระดับชาติ แบบนี้แหละเฮียถึงบอกว่า “สงครามทำให้คนธรรมดากลายเป็นตำนาน” ...หรือไม่ก็ “สงครามทำให้ธุรกิจธรรมดากลายเป็นธุรกิจผูกขาดที่ไม่มีใครเลิกกินได้อีกเลย”

Spam ไม่ใช่แค่อาหารกระป๋อง แต่เป็นเครื่องมือทางภูมิสงคราม อุตสาหกรรม และการตลาด จากห้องครัวทดลองเล็กๆ ในมินนิโซตา กลายเป็นไอเท็มในสนามรบระดับโลก และสุดท้าย…ก็กลายเป็นทั้ง อาหารในตู้, มุกในมุขตลก, และ คำด่าบนโลกออนไลน์ ทั้งหมดนี้เริ่มต้นจากคำเดียว... "หมูมันเหลือ"

#pirateketo #กูต้องรู้มั๊ย #ม้วนหางสิลูก #siamstr

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

The banking giant is exploring an expansion of its blockchain services, focusing on digital payments and currencies.

JPMorgan Chase has filed a new trademark application for the name “JPMD.” The filing was submitted on June 15 to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The application, filed by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., covers a broad range of services related to digital assets and blockchain technology. These include the issuance of digital currencies, electronic payment processing, and financial custody services — all of which suggest a possible new stablecoin initiative for JPMorgan.

Experience with JPM Coin

This move wouldn’t be JPMorgan’s first foray into blockchain-based finance. The bank already operates JPM Coin, a dollar-pegged stablecoin used to enable instant transactions between institutional clients. The token runs on Quorum, a private blockchain network developed in-house by JPMorgan and based on Ethereum’s technology.

The registration of the JPMD trademark comes as JPMorgan and other major U.S. banks are considering a collaborative stablecoin project through their jointly owned entities: Early Warning Services and The Clearing House.

Similarly, corporations like Walmart and Amazon are mulling the creation of their own stablecoins.

The post JPMorgan files trademark for ‘JPMD’: a new stablecoin on the horizon for the American bank appeared first on Atlas21.

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

This article was originally published on dev.to by satshacker.

Alright, you’ve built a useful and beautiful website, tool or app. However, monetization isn’t a priority and you’d rather keep the project free, ads-free and accessible?

Accepting donations would be an option, but how? A PayPal button? Stripe? Buymeacoffe? Patreon?

All of these services require a bank account and KYC verification, before you can send and receive donations – not very convenient.

If we only could send value over the internet, with just one click and without the need of a bank account…

Oh, hold on, that’s bitcoin. The decentralized protocol to send value across the globe. Money over TCP/IP.

In this article, we’ll learn how anyone can easily add a payment button or donation widget on a website or app.

Let’s get into it.

Introduction

Bitcoin is digital money that you can send and receive without the need for banks. While bitcoin is extremely secure, it’s not very fast. The maximum transactions per second (TPS) the network can handle is about 7. Obviously that’s not useful for daily payments or microtransactions.

If you’d like to dig deeper into how bitcoin works, a great read is “Mastering Bitcoin” by Andreas Antonopoulos.

Bitcoin vs Lightning

If you’d like to receive bitcoin donations “on-chain” all you need is a bitcoin wallet. You simply display your bitcoin address on your site and that’s it. You can receive donations.

It would look something like this; 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

Instead of showing the actual bitcoin address, you can also turn it into a QR code.

However, this is not a recommended solution. Using static on-chain addresses has two major downsides. It lowers privacy for you and your donnors and it’s a UTXO disaster because many small incoming transactions could beocme hard to consolidate in the future.

For donations and small transactions, the Lightning Network is the better option. Lightning allows for instant settlement with fees only a fraction of a cent.

Similar to bitcoin, you have the choice between non-custodial and custodial wallets. This means, either you have full control over your money or the wallet provider has.

Option 1: Lightning Address

With the lightning address feature, you an easily receive donations to an email like address.

It looks like this: yourname@wallet.com

Many wallets support lightning addresses and make it easy to create one. Then, you simple add the address to your donation page and you’re ready to receive tips.

You can also add a link link as in lightning:yourname@wallet.com and compatible lightning wallets and browser wallets will detect the address.

How to get a Lightning Address Fast

Option 2: Lightning Donation Widgets

If you like to take it a step further, you can also create a more enhanced donation checkout flow. Of course you could programm something yourself, there are many open source libraries you can build upon. If you want a simple plug-and-play solution, here are a couple of options:

Name

Type

Registration

SatSale

Self-hosted

No KYC

BTCPay Server

Self-hosted

No KYC

Pay With Flash

Widget

Email

Geyser Fund

Widget

Email

The Giving Block

Hosted

KYC

OpenNode

Hosted

KYC

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SatSale (GitHub)

Lightweight, self-hosted Bitcoin/Lightning payment processor. No KYC.

Ideal for developers comfortable with server management. Simple to deploy, supports both on-chain and Lightning, and integrates with WooCommerce.

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BTCPay Server

Powerful, open-source, self-hosted processor for Bitcoin and Lightning. No KYC.

Supports multiple currencies, advanced features, and full privacy. Requires technical setup and maintenance. Funds go directly to your wallet; great for those seeking full control.

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Pay With Flash

Easiest for indie hackers. Add a donation widget with minimal code and no KYC. Payments go directly to your wallet for a 1.5% fee.

Setup Steps:

1. Sign up at PayWithFlash.com
2. Customize your widget in the dashboard
3. Embed the code:

1. Test to confirm functionality

Benefits:

• Minimal technical skills required
• Supports one-time or recurring donations
• Direct fund transfer, no intermediaries

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Geyser Fund

Crowdfunding platform. Widget-based, connects to your wallet, email registration.Focused on Bitcoin crowdfunding, memberships and donations.

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The Giving Block

Hosted, KYC required. Integrates with fiat and crypto, best for nonprofits or larger organizations.

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OpenNode

Hosted, KYC required. Accept Bitcoin payments and donations; supports conversion to fiat, suitable for businesses and nonprofits.

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Summary

• Fast, low-code setup: Use Pay With Flash or Geyser Fund.
• Privacy and control: Choose SatSale or BTCPay Server (requires technical skills).
• Managed, compliant solutions: The Giving Block or OpenNode.

Choose based on your technical comfort, privacy needs, and project scale.

I hope this article helped you. If you added bitcoin donations, share your link in the comments and I will send you a few satoshis maybe

@ df478568:2a951e67

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Trump Media Files to Launch Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF 

Trump Media & Technology Group has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the Truth Social Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF, B.T.

The ETF will directly hold Bitcoin and Ether, with an initial allocation of 75% Bitcoin and 25% Ether. Shares of the fund will be offered to investors to track the performance of these assets and are expected to trade on NYSE Arca once approved. 

JUST IN: Registration statement for Trump Media's Bitcoin Treasury deal was declared effective by the SEC pic.twitter.com/PFyy44qXxH

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 13, 2025

Crypto.com has been selected as the exclusive custodian, prime execution agent, staking, and liquidity provider for the ETF. Yorkville America Digital, LLC is the sponsor of the fund.

According to the company’s announcement, “The launch of the Truth Social Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF is pending effectiveness of the Registration Statement as well as approval of a Form 19b-4 filing with the SEC.” 

The fund is structured as a Nevada business trust. Shares will be issued and redeemed in blocks of 10,000 by authorized participants, with cash used for creation and redemption. The ETF may offer in-kind transactions in the future, pending additional regulatory approval. 

Trump Media acknowledged, “A registration statement relating to the Shares has been filed with the SEC but has not yet become effective. The Shares may not be sold, nor may offers to buy be accepted, prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective.” 

The ETF is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which typically governs mutual funds and traditional ETFs by imposing rules on investor protections, disclosures, and fund operations. Because the ETF holds Bitcoin and Ether directly rather than securities, it qualifies as a grantor trust and is exempt from these requirements. 

The ETF filing also reflects Trump Media’s strategy to establish a presence in the digital asset space beyond social media and streaming. With the development of its financial services arm, Truth.Fi, the company is clearly positioning itself to compete in the growing digital asset space.  

If approved, the Truth Social ETF would give investors a direct, regulated path into both Bitcoin and Ether through one fund. As Trump Media expands its presence in financial services, the move signals a clear intention to compete in the space. 

This post Trump Media Files to Launch Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

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"Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy.  A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world." - Eric Hughes, A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, 1993

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Privacy is essential to freedom. Without privacy, individuals are unable to make choices free from surveillance and control. Lack of privacy leads to loss of autonomy. When individuals are constantly monitored it limits our ability to express ourselves and take risks. Any decisions we make can result in negative repercussions from those who surveil us. Without the freedom to make choices, individuals cannot truly be free.

Freedom is essential to acquiring and preserving wealth. When individuals are not free to make choices, restrictions and limitations prevent us from economic opportunities. If we are somehow able to acquire wealth in such an environment, lack of freedom can result in direct asset seizure by governments or other malicious entities. At scale, when freedom is compromised, it leads to widespread economic stagnation and poverty. Protecting freedom is essential to economic prosperity.

The connection between privacy, freedom, and wealth is critical. Without privacy, individuals lose the freedom to make choices free from surveillance and control. While lack of freedom prevents individuals from pursuing economic opportunities and makes wealth preservation nearly impossible. No Privacy? No Freedom. No Freedom? No Wealth.

Rights are not granted. They are taken and defended. Rights are often misunderstood as permission to do something by those holding power. However, if someone can give you something, they can inherently take it from you at will. People throughout history have necessarily fought for basic rights, including privacy and freedom. These rights were not given by those in power, but rather demanded and won through struggle. Even after these rights are won, they must be continually defended to ensure that they are not taken away. Rights are not granted - they are earned through struggle and defended through sacrifice.

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

People 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.

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ e5cfb5dc:0039f130

はりまメンタルクリニック：GIDの大手そう。丸の内線ならパムくんちが近い。

わらびメンタルクリニック：GIDの大手そう？公式サイトには影もかたちも

ナグモクリニック：SRS手術までしてるところ。GID精神科外来が月1第1木曜日だけ？

狭山メンタルクリニック：距離・時間的にはまま近い。サイトの記述が思想的にちょとあやしげ。新患受付がだいぶ先。GIDは専門外か？

川島領診療所：オンライン診療あり！強迫性障害や美容皮膚科をやっている。雰囲気よさそうなところ。GIDは専門外か？

Jこころのクリニック：電車いっぽんなので楽。GIDは専門外か？

ハッピースマイルクリニック：オンライン診療あり！GIDは専門外か？

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

H100 Group Receives 144.8 BTC in Convertible Loan Deal

H100 Group, Swedish health-tech firm, has received 144.8 BTC as part of a settlement tied to its convertible loan agreement, according to a company press release issued Monday. With this latest transaction, the Stockholm-based firm now holds a total of 169.2 BTC on its balance sheet.

H100 Group Receives 144.8 BTC as Partial Settlement Under Convertible Loan Framework. Now holds 169.2 BTC. pic.twitter.com/MAW044iXkG

— H100 (@H100Group) June 16, 2025

The 144.8 BTC was transferred as a part of the first four segments of H100’s loan agreement, which has been well received by investors thus far. H100 said in the release, “H100 Group AB (‘H100 Group’ or the ‘Company’) has today received 144.8 BTC as part of the proceeds from Tranches 1 through 4 under its previously announced convertible loan agreements.”

This follows recent reporting that Blockstream CEO Adam Back committed to lead a 750 million kronor (~$79 million) funding initiative for H100, anchored by a 150 million-krona injection in Tranche 6. The loan, structured for speed and cost-efficiency, was priced at 6.38 kronor per share—a 33% premium to market—showing investor confidence.

The loan structure includes settlement flexibility—either in cash or Bitcoin—which allows counterparties to opt for BTC delivery, reducing fiat friction and lining up with the firm’s long-term treasury outlook. 

“Unexpectedly, given the strong reception, Tranches 1-4 became in-the-money rapidly,” Back told CoinDesk. “I was expecting [H100] would convert them over time as they reached in-the-money status.” 

This funding approach allows H100 to bypass traditional rights issues while onboarding capital in a flexible manner. Tranches 7 and 8 are on deck, with room for size increases depending on market appetite.  

This also reflects H100’s evolving financial strategy. While the company’s core operations remain focused on AI-driven health and longevity services, its growing Bitcoin position is reshaping how capital is raised, stored, and deployed. As of now, the company’s BTC holdings stand at 169.2 BTC—up from just 24.41 BTC prior to this latest tranche execution. 

H100’s stock jumped 22% on Monday in response to the developments. 

As the firm continues negotiations for future tranches and explores adoption of BTC as a financial backbone, it positions itself uniquely at the intersection of health tech and decentralized finance. 

This post H100 Group Receives 144.8 BTC in Convertible Loan Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Flash Releases Free Bitcoin Invoicing Tool with No Fees, KYC, or Custody

Flash, a Bitcoin payment platform, just announced it has launched Flash Invoicing, a completely free, non-custodial, and KYC-free Bitcoin invoicing tool. Designed for freelancers, the platform allows users to send professional invoices without platform fees, identity checks, or third party custody.

According to Deel, a crypto payments company for freelancers, Bitcoin is the most used cryptocurrency in the world for payments. Despite this growth, many freelancers continue to use basic methods such as pasting Bitcoin addresses into PDFs or emails. Some rely on custodial platforms that deduct fees or require identity verification, which can affect both earnings and data privacy.

“We’ve seen too many people paste BTC addresses into documents and call it invoicing,” said the CEO of Flash Pierre Corbin. “It’s messy. It’s risky. And it’s time for something better.” 

Flash Invoicing Features:

• 0% platform fees: no subscriptions or commission
• Non-custodial: Bitcoin goes straight to the user’s wallet
• No KYC: users maintain full privacy
• Professional output: branded PDFs and secure payment links
• Integrated dashboard: manage payments, clients, and revenue
• Works with Flash ecosystem: including Stores, Donations, Paywalls, and POS

Many Bitcoin invoicing tools charge a percentage per transaction or require a subscription. As a result, freelancers often lose part of their income simply to issue an invoice and receive payment. Flash is aiming to solve this issue.

“Freelancers work hard enough. The last thing they need is a platform skimming off their earnings,” said Corbin. “That’s why we dropped our fee from 1.5% to 0% — and launched the first invoicing tool that’s truly free, without compromising on privacy or control.”

Flash Invoicing allows users to accept Bitcoin payments without relinquishing control, privacy, or revenue. It is integrated with the broader Flash suite, enabling users to manage invoicing alongside features such as setting up stores, receiving donations, or gating premium content.

“As a freelancer myself, I love using the Flash invoicing feature,” stated a freelancer & Flash user. ”It keeps all my clients in one place, allows me to easily edit invoices and track payments. Much more professional than sending a lightning address in the footer of a PDF invoice.”

This post Flash Releases Free Bitcoin Invoicing Tool with No Fees, KYC, or Custody first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

@ e1cde248:609c13b0

Arthur Hayes ได้ฉายภาพหนึ่งในปัญหาใหญ่ที่สุดที่เศรษฐกิจโลกกำลังเผชิญ นั่นคือ "ศึกเงียบระหว่างคนรุ่นเก่าและรุ่นใหม่" ที่กำลังจะปะทุขึ้นจากการโอนถ่ายความมั่งคั่งขนาดมหาศาลจากรุ่น Baby Boomer ไปยัง Millennials และ Gen Z

ในอีกไม่กี่ปีข้างหน้า คนรุ่น Boomer ซึ่งเป็นกลุ่มที่ถือครองทรัพย์สินมากที่สุดในประวัติศาสตร์ กำลังเข้าสู่วัยเกษียณ และเริ่มขายสินทรัพย์อย่างหุ้น บ้าน และอสังหาริมทรัพย์ เพื่อเปลี่ยนเป็นเงินสดใช้ในบั้นปลายชีวิต

แต่ปัญหาคือ... ใครจะซื้อของเหล่านั้น?

คนรุ่นใหม่ไม่ได้มองบ้านหลังใหญ่ในชานเมืองหรือหุ้นบริษัทน้ำมันเป็นเป้าหมายชีวิตอีกต่อไป พวกเขาให้คุณค่ากับ "ประสบการณ์" มากกว่าสิ่งของ อีกทั้งยังสนใจ "สินทรัพย์ดิจิทัล" มากกว่าทรัพย์สินแบบดั้งเดิม และเชื่อในอิสระมากกว่าความมั่นคง

สิ่งนี้นำไปสู่คำถามสำคัญที่อาจเปลี่ยนทิศทางเศรษฐกิจโลก:

1. หากไม่มีใครอยากซื้อ สินทรัพย์จะราคาตกหรือไม่? ถ้าเกิดขึ้นจริง นั่นหมายถึงคนรุ่น Boomer จะต้องเกษียณด้วยสินทรัพย์ที่มีมูลค่าลดลง และอาจต้องพึ่งพารัฐบาลมากขึ้น

2. แล้วภาระจะตกกับใคร? หากรัฐบาลต้องอุ้มค่าใช้จ่ายผู้เกษียณ สิ่งที่ตามมาคือ "ภาษีที่เพิ่มขึ้น" ซึ่งจะตกอยู่กับคนรุ่นใหม่ที่แทบยังไม่มีอะไรในมือ

3. หรือสุดท้าย ทางออกเดียวจะคือการ “พิมพ์เงิน”? Hayes คาดว่ารัฐบาลจะหันไปใช้วิธีนี้ ซึ่งอาจช่วยได้ในระยะสั้น แต่จะกลายเป็นเชื้อเพลิงเงินเฟ้อในระยะยาว

และนั่นคือจุดที่ "ความไม่พอใจระหว่างรุ่น" อาจปะทุขึ้นอย่างรุนแรง

คนรุ่นใหม่จะถามว่า "ทำไมเราต้องจ่ายเพื่อความล้มเหลวของระบบที่เราไม่ได้สร้าง?" ขณะที่คนรุ่นเก่าอาจตอบว่า "เราเสียภาษีมาทั้งชีวิตเพื่อระบบนี้ แล้วใครจะดูแลเรา?"

นี่ไม่ใช่แค่ความต่างทางวัย แต่คือ ความขัดแย้งทางโครงสร้างเศรษฐกิจและคุณค่าของชีวิต ที่กำลังทวีความรุนแรงขึ้น

Hayes มองว่า ผลลัพธ์ของความขัดแย้งนี้ อาจมีตั้งแต่การปรับขึ้นภาษีรุนแรง การเปลี่ยนแปลงระบบบำนาญ ไปจนถึง ความไม่มั่นคงทางการเงินระดับชาติ ที่อาจเปลี่ยนวิธีที่โลกจัดการกับเงิน สินทรัพย์ และอนาคตของคนแต่ละรุ่นไปอย่างสิ้นเชิง

และในโลกแบบนี้ Hayes ถึงเชื่อว่า Bitcoin จะเป็นผู้ชนะ เพราะมันไม่สามารถพิมพ์เพิ่มได้ ซึ่งตรงข้ามกับเงินเฟ้อที่กำลังมาท่วมโลก

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH7TIPRKGZw

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

Bank run on every crypto bank then bank run on every "real" bank.

— ODELL (@ODELL) December 14, 2022

Good morning.

It looks like PacWest will fail today. It will be both the fifth largest bank failure in US history and the sixth major bank to fail this year. It will likely get purchased by one of the big four banks in a government orchestrated sale.  

March 8th - Silvergate Bank
March 10th - Silicon Valley Bank
March 12th - Signature Bank
March 19th - Credit Suisse
May 1st - First Republic Bank
May 4th - PacWest Bank?

PacWest is the first of many small regional banks that will go under this year. Most will get bought by the big four in gov orchestrated sales. This has been the playbook since 2008. Follow the incentives. Massive consolidation across the banking industry. PacWest gonna be a drop in the bucket compared to what comes next.

First, a hastened government led bank consolidation, then a public/private partnership with the remaining large banks to launch a surveilled and controlled digital currency network. We will be told it is more convenient. We will be told it is safer. We will be told it will prevent future bank runs. All of that is marketing bullshit. The goal is greater control of money. The ability to choose how we spend it and how we save it. If you control the money - you control the people that use it.

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ 2cde0e02:180a96b9

pen & ink; monochromized

https://stacker.news/items/1008456

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

Will not live in a pod.
Will not eat the bugs.
Will not get the chip.
Will not get a blue check.
Will not use CBDCs.

Live Free or Die.

Why did Elon buy twitter for $44 Billion? What value does he see in it besides the greater influence that undoubtedly comes with controlling one of the largest social platforms in the world? We do not need to speculate - he made his intentions incredibly clear in his first meeting with twitter employees after his takeover - WeChat of the West.

To those that do not appreciate freedom, the value prop is clear - WeChat is incredibly powerful and successful in China.

To those that do appreciate freedom, the concern is clear - WeChat has essentially become required to live in China, has surveillance and censorship integrated at its core, and if you are banned from the app your entire livelihood is at risk. Employment, housing, payments, travel, communication, and more become extremely difficult if WeChat censors determine you have acted out of line.

The blue check is the first step in Elon's plan to bring the chinese social credit score system to the west. Users who verify their identity are rewarded with more reach and better tools than those that do not. Verified users are the main product of Elon's twitter - an extensive database of individuals and complete control of the tools he will slowly get them to rely on - it is easier to monetize cattle than free men.

If you cannot resist the temptation of the blue check in its current form you have already lost - what comes next will be much darker. If you realize the need to resist - freedom tech provides us options.

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ 5d085290:0edc3292

SculpturesHome is a high-end custom sculpture factory in Shenzhen, China, with more than a decade of experience producing exclusive artwork for international clients. Their work encompasses hand-made and 3D-printed artworks such as animal sculptures and human statues, as well as decorative reliefs and furniture. They work in association with leading designers, interior companies, galleries, and individual artists to provide personalized sculptures for residences, hotels, workplaces, and public areas. Equipped with the latest machinery and skilled artisans, they provide quality care at each phase from sketch to last finish. Production times are usually between 4 and 12 weeks depending on size and complexity. SculpturesHome accommodates complete customization: customers may provide drawings, pictures, or idea notes to design uniques in every sense.

Their international shipping network covers North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, with safe and timely delivery. Shipping cost depends on weight, dimensions, destination, and selected mode (air/sea transport). Blending handmade artwork with 3D-printing technology, SculpturesHome provides high quality at affordable prices. Their workshop is located in the Silicon Valley Industrial Park, Longhua District, Shenzhen. Customer support is provided Monday to Friday (9am–8pm) and Saturday (10am–4pm) local time. SculpturesHome.com For questions, contact them through WhatsApp +86?13944048206 or email terry@sculptureshome.com.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

Nostr 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.

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If you missed my nostr introduction post you can find it here. My nostr account can be found here.

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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

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

What is KYC/AML?

• The acronym stands for Know Your Customer / Anti Money Laundering.
• In practice it stands for the surveillance measures companies are often compelled to take against their customers by financial regulators.
• Methods differ but often include: Passport Scans, Driver License Uploads, Social Security Numbers, Home Address, Phone Number, Face Scans.
• Bitcoin companies will also store all withdrawal and deposit addresses which can then be used to track bitcoin transactions on the bitcoin block chain.
• This data is then stored and shared. Regulations often require companies to hold this information for a set number of years but in practice users should assume this data will be held indefinitely. Data is often stored insecurely, which results in frequent hacks and leaks.  
• KYC/AML data collection puts all honest users at risk of theft, extortion, and persecution while being ineffective at stopping crime. Criminals often use counterfeit, bought, or stolen credentials to get around the requirements. Criminals can buy "verified" accounts for as little as $200. Furthermore, billions of people are excluded from financial services as a result of KYC/AML requirements.

During the early days of bitcoin most services did not require this sensitive user data, but as adoption increased so did the surveillance measures. At this point, most large bitcoin companies are collecting and storing massive lists of bitcoiners, our sensitive personal information, and our transaction history.

Lists of Bitcoiners

KYC/AML policies are a direct attack on bitcoiners. Lists of bitcoiners and our transaction history will inevitably be used against us.

Once you are on a list with your bitcoin transaction history that record will always exist. Generally speaking, tracking bitcoin is based on probability analysis of ownership change. Surveillance firms use various heuristics to determine if you are sending bitcoin to yourself or if ownership is actually changing hands.  You can obtain better privacy going forward by using collaborative transactions such as coinjoin to break this probability analysis.

Fortunately, you can buy bitcoin without providing intimate personal information. Tools such as peach, hodlhodl, robosats, azteco and bisq help; mining is also a solid option: anyone can plug a miner into power and internet and earn bitcoin by mining privately.

You can also earn bitcoin by providing goods and/or services that can be purchased with bitcoin. Long term, circular economies will mitigate this threat: most people will not buy bitcoin - they will earn bitcoin - most people will not sell bitcoin - they will spend bitcoin.

There is no such thing as KYC or No KYC bitcoin, there are bitcoiners on lists and those that are not on lists.

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

The 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.

@ faade9ee:1c6dfd69

This is a normal piece of text.z

This is a bold piece of text via button press.z

this is also bold, but via double-starsz

this is an italic via button press

this also but via one-star

look, it's an underline!

oh, a piece of code has appeared. Nice. Button press tho. seems like it's purple / missed styling it, will change that.

another code but via text

code block, kinda buggy (really buggy actually x3)

```this is another, but via text which is disabled for now as it's cause issues```

This is a top number thing²²²

a bottom number thing_5ss65435ghrt

• bullets!

• another!

  • a third!

• Number!

• another!

  1. a third!

• [x] check

• [x] box

this is a quote

"quote"

heading 1

heading 2

heading 3 via text

heading 4 via text

heading 5 via text

heading 6 via text

this is a link via text (button has an annoyance bug)


---

video below

::youtube{#aApSteSbeGA}

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

The newly proposed RESTRICT ACT - is being advertised as a TikTok Ban, but is much broader than that, carries a $1M Fine and up to 20 years in prison️! It is unconstitutional and would create massive legal restrictions on the open source movement and free speech throughout the internet.

The Bill was proposed by: Senator Warner, Senator Thune, Senator Baldwin, Senator Fischer, Senator Manchin, Senator Moran, Senator Bennet, Senator Sullivan, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Collins, Senator Heinrich, and Senator Romney. It has broad support across Senators of both parties.

Corrupt politicians will not protect us. They are part of the problem. We must build, support, and learn how to use censorship resistant tools in order to defend our natural rights.

The RESTRICT Act, introduced by Senators Warner and Thune, aims to block or disrupt transactions and financial holdings involving foreign adversaries that pose risks to national security. Although the primary targets of this legislation are companies like Tik-Tok, the language of the bill could potentially be used to block or disrupt cryptocurrency transactions and, in extreme cases, block Americans’ access to open source tools or protocols like Bitcoin.

The Act creates a redundant regime paralleling OFAC without clear justification, it significantly limits the ability for injured parties to challenge actions raising due process concerns, and unlike OFAC it lacks any carve-out for protected speech. COINCENTER ON THE RESTRICT ACT

Full Text of Bill

---

If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

Trump Media & Technology Group is targeting the digital asset market by registering a Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) with NYSE Arca.

On June 16, Truth Social — a company controlled by Trump Media & Technology Group — officially submitted documentation for a Bitcoin and Ethereum-based Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

NEW: Trump's Truth Social has filed for a dual Bitcoin & Ethereum ETF. pic.twitter.com/a5iZtrtUyk

— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) June 16, 2025

This initiative would allow the social media platform to diversify its operations by entering the digital asset sector through these financial products.

The filing proposes a trust structure that would directly hold bitcoin and ether, with 75% of the fund’s assets invested in bitcoin and 25% in ether.

The Truth Social Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF will have Yorkville America Digital as the fund’s sponsor, while custody of the digital assets will be entrusted to the Crypto.com exchange.

The choice of NYSE Arca as the listing venue for the fund is no coincidence: this market already hosts several cryptocurrency-linked ETFs and offers the necessary technological infrastructure to manage these financial instruments.

Trump Media & Technology Group’s move aligns with a broader trend in which public companies are increasingly integrating Bitcoin and other digital assets into their corporate treasuries.

Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, stated:

“Trump Media’s vision is to aggressively enhance our offerings and capabilities, which includes holding bitcoin in our corporate treasury.”

The final approval of the Truth Social Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF will depend on the outcome of the regulatory review process at the SEC, which must assess the product’s compliance with current regulations on exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrency investments.

The post Truth Social files for Bitcoin-Ethereum ETF appeared first on Atlas21.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

People 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.

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

This article was originally published on dev.to by satshacker.

Alright, you’ve built a useful and beautiful website, tool or app. However, monetization isn’t a priority and you’d rather keep the project free, ads-free and accessible?

Accepting donations would be an option, but how? A PayPal button? Stripe? Buymeacoffe? Patreon?

All of these services require a bank account and KYC verification, before you can send and receive donations – not very convenient.

If we only could send value over the internet, with just one click and without the need of a bank account…

Oh, hold on, that’s bitcoin. The decentralized protocol to send value across the globe. Money over TCP/IP.

In this article, we’ll learn how anyone can easily add a payment button or donation widget on a website or app.

Let’s get into it.

Introduction

Bitcoin is digital money that you can send and receive without the need for banks. While bitcoin is extremely secure, it’s not very fast. The maximum transactions per second (TPS) the network can handle is about 7. Obviously that’s not useful for daily payments or microtransactions.

If you’d like to dig deeper into how bitcoin works, a great read is “Mastering Bitcoin” by Andreas Antonopoulos.

Bitcoin vs Lightning

If you’d like to receive bitcoin donations “on-chain” all you need is a bitcoin wallet. You simply display your bitcoin address on your site and that’s it. You can receive donations.

It would look something like this; 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

Instead of showing the actual bitcoin address, you can also turn it into a QR code.

However, this is not a recommended solution. Using static on-chain addresses has two major downsides. It lowers privacy for you and your donnors and it’s a UTXO disaster because many small incoming transactions could beocme hard to consolidate in the future.

For donations and small transactions, the Lightning Network is the better option. Lightning allows for instant settlement with fees only a fraction of a cent.

Similar to bitcoin, you have the choice between non-custodial and custodial wallets. This means, either you have full control over your money or the wallet provider has.

Option 1: Lightning Address

With the lightning address feature, you an easily receive donations to an email like address.

It looks like this: yourname@wallet.com

Many wallets support lightning addresses and make it easy to create one. Then, you simple add the address to your donation page and you’re ready to receive tips.

You can also add a link link as in lightning:yourname@wallet.com and compatible lightning wallets and browser wallets will detect the address.

How to get a Lightning Address Fast

Option 2: Lightning Donation Widgets

If you like to take it a step further, you can also create a more enhanced donation checkout flow. Of course you could programm something yourself, there are many open source libraries you can build upon. If you want a simple plug-and-play solution, here are a couple of options:

Name

Type

Registration

SatSale

Self-hosted

No KYC

BTCPay Server

Self-hosted

No KYC

Pay With Flash

Widget

Email

Geyser Fund

Widget

Email

The Giving Block

Hosted

KYC

OpenNode

Hosted

KYC

---

SatSale (GitHub)

Lightweight, self-hosted Bitcoin/Lightning payment processor. No KYC.

Ideal for developers comfortable with server management. Simple to deploy, supports both on-chain and Lightning, and integrates with WooCommerce.

---

BTCPay Server

Powerful, open-source, self-hosted processor for Bitcoin and Lightning. No KYC.

Supports multiple currencies, advanced features, and full privacy. Requires technical setup and maintenance. Funds go directly to your wallet; great for those seeking full control.

---

Pay With Flash

Easiest for indie hackers. Add a donation widget with minimal code and no KYC. Payments go directly to your wallet for a 1.5% fee.

Setup Steps:

1. Sign up at PayWithFlash.com
2. Customize your widget in the dashboard
3. Embed the code:

1. Test to confirm functionality

Benefits:

• Minimal technical skills required
• Supports one-time or recurring donations
• Direct fund transfer, no intermediaries

---

Geyser Fund

Crowdfunding platform. Widget-based, connects to your wallet, email registration.Focused on Bitcoin crowdfunding, memberships and donations.

---

The Giving Block

Hosted, KYC required. Integrates with fiat and crypto, best for nonprofits or larger organizations.

---

OpenNode

Hosted, KYC required. Accept Bitcoin payments and donations; supports conversion to fiat, suitable for businesses and nonprofits.

---

Summary

• Fast, low-code setup: Use Pay With Flash or Geyser Fund.
• Privacy and control: Choose SatSale or BTCPay Server (requires technical skills).
• Managed, compliant solutions: The Giving Block or OpenNode.

Choose based on your technical comfort, privacy needs, and project scale.

I hope this article helped you. If you added bitcoin donations, share your link in the comments and I will send you a few satoshis maybe

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Smarter Web Company Raises £29.3M to Grow Bitcoin Holdings

The Smarter Web Company, a UK-based web design and digital services firm, has raised £29.3 million in a new funding round to support its Bitcoin treasury strategy.

JUST IN: Publicly traded The Smarter Web Company raised £29.3M (~$37.1M) to buy more #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/n5k7XlLvie

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 16, 2025

The raise was completed through an accelerated bookbuild and a subscription with institutional investors. Shares were priced at £1.80 each, matching the closing bid on Friday, June 13. That price is more than double the company’s last fundraising round. 

“The Smarter Web Company is pleased to announce the successful completion of an Accelerated Bookbuild to institutional investors through Tennyson Securities and Peterhouse Capital Limited. A Subscription with Qualified Investors has also been completed, the company said. 

In total, more than 16.2 million new shares were issued—15.4 million through the bookbuild and about 854,000 through the subscription. 

With a high level of demand the Bookbuild and Subscription has raised approximately £29.3 million, well above the stated minimum of £15 million, through the issue of a total of 16,297,627 new ordinary shares of £0.001 each at £1.80 per share. The Offer Price was at the closing bid price on Friday 13 June 2025,” the company said. 

The raise comes just three days after the company revealed it had purchased 74.27 more Bitcoin for £5.98 million, bringing its total Bitcoin holdings to 242.34 BTC. Its average cost basis now sits at £78,793 per Bitcoin. 

“The Company believes that Bitcoin forms a core part of the future of the global financial system,” it said in both filings.  

Smarter Web started building its Bitcoin treasury strategy in 2023. 

“Since 2023 The Smarter Web Company has adopted a policy of accepting payment in Bitcoin. The Company is pioneering the adoption of a Bitcoin Treasury Policy into its strategy.” 

The strategy was officially formalized in April, 2025 with the launch of its “10 Year Plan,” seeing Bitcoin play a key role in its financial structure. 

Admission of the new shares is expected around June 19, after which the company’s total shares in issue will rise to over 220 million. 

With this raise, Smarter Web continues to stand out as one of the few UK-listed companies actively building a corporate Bitcoin treasury. 

This post Smarter Web Company Raises £29.3M to Grow Bitcoin Holdings first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jenna Montgomery.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinbase Announces Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, Offering up to 4% BTC Back on Everything

Coinbase 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.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Leading OnChain Comms Agency Melrose PR Joins Decentralized Gentleman’s Club with Rare Pepe Inscription on Bitcoin

LOS ANGELES, CA — Melrose PR, the leading onchain communications agency, officially joins Decentralized Gentlemen Club (DGC) with the minting of a rare Pepe inscription on the Bitcoin blockchain. The Decentralized Gentlemen Club (DGC) will be the biggest collection on Bitcoin when complete at 3GB, which is twice as large as the next biggest collection. DGC is a Bitcoin-themed, meme-culture movement that champions decentralization, style, and storytelling. Each member is immortalized as a custom, tuxedo-clad Pepe — a digital gentleman inscribed as a massive, one-of-a-kind Ordinal on the Bitcoin blockchain. Melrose PR’s symbolic mint is a wizard frog (wearing a bowtie) representation of Melrose PR CEO Kelley Weaver.

“At Melrose, we believe in Bitcoin, not just as a technology powering the future of finance, but also as a foundation for community,” said CEO Kelley Weaver. “This is why we’re delighted to join DGC with our Pepe inscription and be part of a community of meme lords, pioneers, and visionaries who value elegance, independence, and on-chain legacy.”

Since 2016, Melrose has represented some of the most innovative projects across Bitcoin infrastructure, crypto-native venture capital, blockchain-AI convergence, and Web3 networks. Their addition to DGC signals the importance of narrative in the next wave of Bitcoin culture.

“Kelley’s wizard inscription is more than just art—it’s an eternal membership,” said Mr. Bitcoin Beast, spokesperson for the Decentralized Gentlemen Club. “She understands that great storytelling isn’t optional. It’s essential. And there’s no better pepe wizard to help tell the tale of this movement.”

Melrose’s inscription in the DGC collection features Kelley Weaver in full arcane regalia, casting spells of signal over noise, clarity over confusion, and truth over trend. The JPEG, weighing in at 388 kilobytes, stands among the largest onchain artworks in Bitcoin history.

As the biggest Ordinals collection ever attempted, DGC is pushing the technical boundaries of what can be inscribed on Bitcoin. 2500 pieces have been minted so far out of the total 10,000. To join the DGC movement, you can mint your own Degent and submit the inscription ID to the DGC Telegram or you can buy a verified DGC Ordinal at Magic Eden: https://magiceden.us/ordinals/marketplace/degentclub

About the Decentralized Gentlemen Club

The Decentralized Gentlemen Club is a 10,000-piece Bitcoin Ordinal collection featuring tuxedoed Pepe-style frogs immortalized as large-inscription art. Each Gentleman represents a unique membership in the emergent cultural layer of Bitcoin—combining elegance, satire, and self-sovereignty. Get your forever Degent at https://degent.club

About Melrose PR

Melrose PR is a leading onchain communications firm focused on delivering the highest quality results for bitcoin and crypto companies. Founded in 2016, Melrose PR is known for its strategic approach based on intimate knowledge of the unique crypto media landscape. The agency’s relationships across mainstream business, finance, tech, and crypto outlets form the foundation for the team’s success in meeting and exceeding their clients’ goals.

---

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release. Readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence before acting on any information presented in this article.

This post Leading OnChain Comms Agency Melrose PR Joins Decentralized Gentleman’s Club with Rare Pepe Inscription on Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Melrose.

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

This article was originally published on dev.to by satshacker.

Alright, you’ve built a useful and beautiful website, tool or app. However, monetization isn’t a priority and you’d rather keep the project free, ads-free and accessible?

Accepting donations would be an option, but how? A PayPal button? Stripe? Buymeacoffe? Patreon?

All of these services require a bank account and KYC verification, before you can send and receive donations – not very convenient.

If we only could send value over the internet, with just one click and without the need of a bank account…

Oh, hold on, that’s bitcoin. The decentralized protocol to send value across the globe. Money over TCP/IP.

In this article, we’ll learn how anyone can easily add a payment button or donation widget on a website or app.

Let’s get into it.

Introduction

Bitcoin is digital money that you can send and receive without the need for banks. While bitcoin is extremely secure, it’s not very fast. The maximum transactions per second (TPS) the network can handle is about 7. Obviously that’s not useful for daily payments or microtransactions.

If you’d like to dig deeper into how bitcoin works, a great read is “Mastering Bitcoin” by Andreas Antonopoulos.

Bitcoin vs Lightning

If you’d like to receive bitcoin donations “on-chain” all you need is a bitcoin wallet. You simply display your bitcoin address on your site and that’s it. You can receive donations.

It would look something like this; 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

Instead of showing the actual bitcoin address, you can also turn it into a QR code.

However, this is not a recommended solution. Using static on-chain addresses has two major downsides. It lowers privacy for you and your donnors and it’s a UTXO disaster because many small incoming transactions could beocme hard to consolidate in the future.

For donations and small transactions, the Lightning Network is the better option. Lightning allows for instant settlement with fees only a fraction of a cent.

Similar to bitcoin, you have the choice between non-custodial and custodial wallets. This means, either you have full control over your money or the wallet provider has.

Option 1: Lightning Address

With the lightning address feature, you an easily receive donations to an email like address.

It looks like this: yourname@wallet.com

Many wallets support lightning addresses and make it easy to create one. Then, you simple add the address to your donation page and you’re ready to receive tips.

You can also add a link link as in lightning:yourname@wallet.com and compatible lightning wallets and browser wallets will detect the address.

How to get a Lightning Address Fast

Option 2: Lightning Donation Widgets

If you like to take it a step further, you can also create a more enhanced donation checkout flow. Of course you could programm something yourself, there are many open source libraries you can build upon. If you want a simple plug-and-play solution, here are a couple of options:

Name

Type

Registration

SatSale

Self-hosted

No KYC

BTCPay Server

Self-hosted

No KYC

Pay With Flash

Widget

Email

Geyser Fund

Widget

Email

The Giving Block

Hosted

KYC

OpenNode

Hosted

KYC

---

SatSale (GitHub)

Lightweight, self-hosted Bitcoin/Lightning payment processor. No KYC.

Ideal for developers comfortable with server management. Simple to deploy, supports both on-chain and Lightning, and integrates with WooCommerce.

---

BTCPay Server

Powerful, open-source, self-hosted processor for Bitcoin and Lightning. No KYC.

Supports multiple currencies, advanced features, and full privacy. Requires technical setup and maintenance. Funds go directly to your wallet; great for those seeking full control.

---

Pay With Flash

Easiest for indie hackers. Add a donation widget with minimal code and no KYC. Payments go directly to your wallet for a 1.5% fee.

Setup Steps:

1. Sign up at PayWithFlash.com
2. Customize your widget in the dashboard
3. Embed the code:

1. Test to confirm functionality

Benefits:

• Minimal technical skills required
• Supports one-time or recurring donations
• Direct fund transfer, no intermediaries

---

Geyser Fund

Crowdfunding platform. Widget-based, connects to your wallet, email registration.Focused on Bitcoin crowdfunding, memberships and donations.

---

The Giving Block

Hosted, KYC required. Integrates with fiat and crypto, best for nonprofits or larger organizations.

---

OpenNode

Hosted, KYC required. Accept Bitcoin payments and donations; supports conversion to fiat, suitable for businesses and nonprofits.

---

Summary

• Fast, low-code setup: Use Pay With Flash or Geyser Fund.
• Privacy and control: Choose SatSale or BTCPay Server (requires technical skills).
• Managed, compliant solutions: The Giving Block or OpenNode.

Choose based on your technical comfort, privacy needs, and project scale.

I hope this article helped you. If you added bitcoin donations, share your link in the comments and I will send you a few satoshis maybe

@ 8bad92c3:ca714aa5

Key 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 mission

Transcript

(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

@ 044da344:073a8a0e

Im September starten wir an der Freien Akademie für Medien & Journalismus eine Veranstaltungsreihe im Vorderen Bayerischen Wald und laden alle ein, live dabei zu sein, wenn Menschen interviewt werden, die etwas zu sagen und spannende Geschichten zu erzählen haben. Nach etwa einer Stunde werden die Kameras ausgeschaltet, sodass genug Raum bleibt für Fragen, für das Kennenlernen, für den Austausch mit Gleichgesinnten.

Die ersten Gäste ab dem 8. September: Jürgen Fliege, Joana Cotar, Gerd Reuther und Gabriele Gysi. Es gibt eine zweite Gesprächsreihe, die am 13. Oktober mit Jörg Bernig startet. Die Aufzeichnungen beginnen jeweils um 18 Uhr in einer Gaststätte im Raum Sankt Englmar. Wer eine weitere Anreise hat: Die Gegend ist wunderschön, lädt zum Entspannen ein (Wandern, hervorragende Gastronomie, Unterkünfte für jeden Geldbeutel) und verfügt über alles, was das Urlauberherz begehrt. Organistorisches und Anmeldung

8. September 2025: Jürgen Fliege – Glaube, Kirche, Hoffnung

Eine Talkshow im Ersten, präsentiert von einem Pastor, der alles mitbringt, was man braucht, um Menschen zu gewinnen: Einen besseren Werbeträger hätte sich die evangelische Kirche nicht wünschen können. Jürgen Fliege war von 1994 bis 2005 Stammgast in den Wohnzimmern und ist trotzdem oder gerade deshalb schon damals immer wieder in Konflikt geraten mit Amtsträgern aller Art. Ab 2020 hat er sich in Sachen Corona öffentlich klar positioniert und dabei auch auf die Bibel verwiesen.

9. September 2025: Joana Cotar – Acht Jahre Bundestag. Wie weiter mit der Demokratie?

Ganz stimmt das mit den acht Jahren nicht: Die zweite Legislaturperiode ist vor der Zeit zu Ende gegangen. Joana Cotar wurde zweimal über die AfD-Landesliste in Hessen in den Bundestag gewählt, war dabei 2021 auch als Spitzenkandidatin im Gespräch und zwei Jahre im Bundesvorstand. Ende 2022 hat sie Partei und Fraktion verlassen, im Parlament aber weitergemacht und immer wieder den Finger in die Wunde gelegt, wenn es um das Parteiensystem ging oder um den Spielraum der Volksvertreter.

10. September 2025: Gerd Reuther – Tatort Vergangenheit

Gerd Reuther hat sich als Medizinaufklärer ohne Tabus einen Namen gemacht – ein Radiologe, der an drei Kliniken Chefarzt war, dann aber mit 55 aufgehört hat. Sein Buch „Der betrogene Patient“ war 2017 ein Bestseller. Danach hat er die Geschichte der Medizin gegen den Strich gebürstet („Heilung Nebensache“) und in „Hauptsache Panik“ die europäische Seuchengeschichte demontiert. Jetzt nimmt er sich unsere gesamte Geschichte vor und stellt von den Römern bis in die Neuzeit unser „Wissen“ über die Vergangenheit in Frage.

11. September 2025: Gabriele Gysi – Gibt es noch eine deutsche Frage?

Niemand kann das besser beantworten als diese Künstlerin, Spross einer Politikerfamilie und Zeitzeugin für alle drei deutschen Nachkriegsstaaten – für die DDR sowieso, nach ihrer Ausreise 1984 aber auch für die alte Bundesrepublik und dann natürlich für die neue, wo sie unter anderem Chefdramaturgin der Berliner Volksbühne war. Gabriele Gysi sagt: Solange wir keine gesamtdeutsche Geschichte haben, bleibt die große Frage offen.

Michael Meyen: Videos

Freie Akademie für Medien & Journalismus

Unterstützen

@ ccef5d7e:8b1d0a3a

LiaScript Kochbuch - Buchstabensuppe

A. Grundlagen

Zubereitung / Arbeitszeit ca. 10 Minuten / Kochzeit ca. 25 Minuten

Gesamtzeit ca. 35 Minuten

Die Zwiebeln klein hacken bzw. schneiden und dann mit dem Olivenöl in einem großen Topf anschwitzen. Anschließend mit dem Wasser ablöschen und während dieses beginnt zu kochen, die geschälten Möhren direkt in den Topf hobeln. Wenn das Wasser kocht, die Brühe einrühren. Die Zucchini in Würfel oder halbierte Scheiben schneiden und dann zusammen mit den Nudeln zur Suppe geben. Circa 10 Minuten köcheln lassen und dann die klein geschnittenen Tomaten und Paprika dazugeben. Bei Bedarf etwas Wasser zugeben. Weitere 10 Minuten köcheln lassen und mit Gewürzen, Salz und Pfeffer abschmecken.

A.1 Zutaten-Listen

100 g Suppennudeln (Buchstabennudeln) 2 TL, gehäuft Gemüsebrühepulver, instant 1 Liter Wasser, evtl. etwas mehr 1 Zucchini 2 Paprikaschote(n), rote, rote 2 Karotte(n) 1 Zwiebel(n) 3 Tomate(n) evtl. Kräuter, frisch, getrocknet oder TK Salz und Pfeffer Paprikapulver, edelsüßes, edelsüß 1 EL Olivenöl

A.2 Tabbellen und Mengen

Nährwerte pro Portion: kcal 160

Stoff Gramm Eiweiß 6.31 g Fett 2.75 g Kohlenhydr. 26.48 g

A.3 Richtig Zitieren

Die Buchstabensuppe ist eine Nudelsuppe mit Buchstabennudeln als Einlage. Oft werden auch kleine Karottenstückchen und verschiedene Gewürze in die Einlage hinzugegeben. Buchstabennudeln sind bis zu einem Zentimeter groß und haben die Form der Buchstaben A–Z und seltener auch der Ziffern 0–9 oder des @-Zeichens. Buchstabennudeln und Buchstabensuppe gibt es seit mindestens 1867 in den Vereinigten Staaten, in Deutschland spätestens seit 1884. Buchstabennudeln werden im Handel in der Regel als Suppeneinlage angeboten, Buchstabensuppen als Tütensuppen oder als Konserven.

Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchstabensuppe

B. Externe Verweise

Quelle: https://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/2166951347805623/Buchstabensuppe-mit-frischem-Gemuese.html

B.1 Bilder

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Buchstabensuppe.jpg

https://www.verbformen.de/deklination/substantive/Buchstabensuppe.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Alphabet_soup%2C_empty.jpg

B.2 Musik zum Kochen

https://open.spotify.com/track/24fdXLWNsc6LJZrbE8wLaJ

https://soundcloud.com/sitzhupe/barbier-von-sevillia

B.3 Videos zum Kochen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_UW69w0uHE

B.4 Augmented-Reality und Mehr

https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/formschussel-fur-terra-sigillata-schalen-d4a48496f8bc4808b22277fdedba0b2b

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/states-of-matter/latest/states-of-matter_all.html

C. Rezept-Formate

Interaktive-Bücher, -Folien, -Präsentationen

C.1 Animationen & Kommentare

Wir kochen heute eine Buchstabensuppe und benötigen dafür folgende Zutaten:

Schneiden sie zunächst die Zwiebeln klein um sie dann mit dem Olivenöl in einem großen Topf anzuschwitzen.

https://openai-labs-public-images-prod.azureedge.net/user-ANzFa46RCwWLS19qYwta4rsP/generations/generation-jnFGtapIukJDG38mOKHcDx9g/image.webp

Anschließend mit dem Wasser ablöschen und während dieses beginnt zu kochen, die geschälten Möhren direkt in den Topf hobeln.

https://openai-labs-public-images-prod.azureedge.net/user-ANzFa46RCwWLS19qYwta4rsP/generations/generation-ZddGERw9EB3CEuPYGBRs5Sbn/image.webp

Wenn das Wasser kocht, die Brühe einrühren. Die Zucchini in Würfel oder halbierte Scheiben schneiden und dann zusammen mit den Nudeln zur Suppe geben. Circa 10 Minuten köcheln lassen.

https://openai-labs-public-images-prod.azureedge.net/user-ANzFa46RCwWLS19qYwta4rsP/generations/generation-rwRK8X0LqVixqeN1ah3ukoPv/image.webp

Zuletzt die klein geschnittenen Tomaten und Paprika dazugeben. Bei Bedarf etwas Wasser zugeben und weitere 10 Minuten köcheln lassen und mit Gewürzen, Salz und Pfeffer abschmecken. Und dann heiß servieren.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6paiDYJmOo&autoplay=1&mute=1

1: https://labs.openai.com/s/ZddGERw9EB3CEuPYGBRs5Sbn 2: https://labs.openai.com/s/jnFGtapIukJDG38mOKHcDx9g 3: https://labs.openai.com/s/rwRK8X0LqVixqeN1ah3ukoPv

D. Fragen und Quizze

E. Programmiertes Kochen

var Gaeste = 4 const Personen = 4

var Zutat = { Buchstabennudeln: 100, // Gramm Gemuesebruehe: 2, // TL Wasser: 1, // L Zucchini: 1, Paprika: 2, Karrotten: 2, Zwiebeln: 1, Tomaten: 3, Oel: 1 // EL }

for (const Name in Zutat) { Zutat[Name] = (Zutat[Name] / Personen) * Gaeste }

JSON.stringify(Zutat, null, 2)

F. Erweiterungen der Rezeptur

F.1 Eigene

F.2 Fremde

X. Anhang

X.1 KI - Künsteliche Intelligenz

https://phind.com

X.1.1 Prompt

``` markdown - Quiz-Prompt Create quizzes using LiaScript syntax. There are four types of quizzes: Single-Choice, Multiple-Choice, Text-Quiz, and Gap-Text.

For Single-Choice Quiz:

• Each quiz consists of a question and four answer options.
• Only one answer option is correct.
• Use square brackets with round brackets inside to mark the answer options.
• Place an "X" inside the round brackets to indicate the correct answer option.
• Separate each quiz with a blank line.
• Separate the answer options from the questions by a blank line.

For Multiple-Choice Quiz:

• Each quiz consists of a question and multiple answer options.
• One or more answer options can be correct.
• Use double square brackets to mark the answer options.
• Place an "X" inside the double square brackets to indicate the correct answer options.
• Separate each quiz with a blank line.
• Separate the answer options from the questions by a blank line.

For Text-Quiz:

• Each quiz consists of a question and the expected answer in double square brackets.
• Only single-line text answers are supported (no newlines).
• Separate each quiz with a blank line.
• Separate the answer from the questions by a blank line.

For Gap-Text Quiz:

• Each quiz consists of a description or sentence with missing words.
• Use double square brackets to mark the missing words or gaps.
• Learners need to fill in the correct words for each gap.
• Separate each quiz with a blank line.

Single-Choice Quiz Example: Question: What is the capital of France?

• [( )] London
• [( )] Berlin
• [(X)] Paris
• [( )] Rome

Question: Which color is associated with stop signs?

• [( )] Blue
• [(X)] Red
• [( )] Yellow
• [( )] Green

Multiple-Choice Quiz Example: Question: Which of the following are primary colors?

• [[X]] Red
• [[X]] Blue
• [[ ]] Green
• [[X]] Yellow

Question: Which of the following programming languages are object-oriented?

• [[X]] Java
• [[ ]] HTML
• [[X]] Python
• [[ ]] CSS

Text-Quiz Example: Question: What is the chemical symbol for water?

[[H2O]]

Question: Name a famous scientist.

[[Albert Einstein]]

Gap-Text Quiz Example:

Fill in the missing words in the following sentence:

The cat sat on the [[mat]].

Complete the sentence by filling in the gaps:

Roses are [[red]], violets are [[blue]], sugar is [[sweet]], and so are [[you]].

Fill in the blanks to complete the famous quote:

"Life is like a [[box]] of [[chocolates]]. You never know what you're gonna [[get]]."

Add the missing words to complete the phrase:

Actions speak louder than [[words]]. ```

X.1.2 ASCII-Art

X.2 Teilen von Kurse

X.3 Kl - Klassenräume

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

A new study by Kraken reveals how cryptocurrency investors perceive security as the main challenge in self-managing their digital assets.

According to The Block, a recent survey conducted by crypto exchange Kraken found that nearly half of respondents consider themselves the primary risk factor for their own crypto security. The research, which surveyed 789 participants, highlights that 48% of users see their own actions as the greatest threat to their investments in digital assets, surpassing concerns about external theft or fraud.

Kraken’s report underlines how personal responsibility in security management forces users to take full control of their digital funds. However, the study suggests that this autonomy can also become a source of anxiety for many investors.

Nick Percoco, Chief Security Officer at Kraken, commented on the findings, noting that “a lack of confidence in personal crypto security is capping the growth of the industry.” According to Percoco, unlocking the full potential of cryptocurrencies will require users to embrace self-custody and consistently invest in strong security habits.

Technologies to strengthen security

Despite the concerns highlighted in the study, 31% of participants expressed optimism about future technologies that could improve crypto security. Among the most promising solutions identified:

• advanced biometric systems for user authentication;
• multi-factor authentication to secure wallet access;
• AI-based fraud detection systems to prevent attacks.

Data and case studies

Kraken’s research emerges in a context where security threats remain a pressing reality. FBI data shows that in 2024, nearly 150,000 reports of crypto-related internet fraud resulted in $9.3 billion in losses. Older users, particularly those over 60, proved especially vulnerable, accounting for $3 billion in crypto-related financial fraud losses on their own.

The post Kraken study: 48% of users fear themselves in managing and securing their funds appeared first on Atlas21.

@ a4043831:3b64ac02

Financial planning involves knowing your current financial situation, defining your short- and long-term financial goals, and coming up with informed ways to achieve those goals. An ideal financial plan should consider inflation. It prepares you for potential risks and unforeseen events such as an accident or sudden job loss.

Financial planning ultimately ensures financial security and independence.

Elements of a Financial Plan

The following are the steps that must be taken when developing a financial plan:

• Define your goals This should be the first step. Start by detailing your present financial situation, determine what you want to accomplish, and establish realistic timelines for achieving those goals.

• Decide who will do it You need to decide whether you will create your financial plan yourself or seek professional help. The former is indeed possible, but a professional financial planner can help you ensure that your plan checks all the boxes.

• Budget and manage expenses If you haven't already, create a sound budget so that you can set aside money for investing. Decide on what amounts you can set aside, as well as the expenses to reduce. A good rule to follow is that what you can do without, do without.

• Assess your risk appetite This means knowing the risk amount that you can comfortably take and afford by considering your financial standing, investment objectives, and tolerance of probable losses. A well-understood risk appetite enables investment decisions in the right direction.

• Allocate your assets This will depend on your goals and risk appetite. A good financial planner comes in handy here. They can help you decide the right balance between high- and low-risk investments.

• Decide on an investment plan Decide where and how much you can or want to invest. Choose a plan that fits your objectives and risk tolerance by researching several options or getting investment advice from professionals.

• Monitor and adjust your plan Your goals and financial situation may change as you grow older. Keep revisiting your plan and adjusting things that are not performing, as necessary.

Benefits of Financial Planning

Proactive financial planning will benefit you in the following ways:

• Help you set and reach your financial goals

Setting a clear goal to work towards will make you more likely to succeed. A financial plan will help you do that.

• Improve your financial outcome

Planning helps you think beyond the present. Even small amounts of money can grow significantly over time by saving and investing smartly, thanks to compounding.

• Help you diversify risks better

Financial planning allows you to spread your investments across different options, thus reducing the risk of losing everything if one investment does not do well.

• Have a better lifestyle

A financial plan will help you build better habits like spending wisely and saving more. This will in turn help you avoid debt and ensure financial stability in the long run.

• Attain peace of mind

Money is a major source of stress for most people. This was confirmed by a 2022 study, which also found that people who work with a financial planner are less stressed than those who do not. This should be enough reason to get your finances in order.

Conclusion

You have certainly heard Benjamin Franklin’s quote, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This applies to your finances too. To achieve your goals, create your financial plan as soon as possible. No matter your age, the next best time is now.

If unsure where to start, Passive Capital Management’s financial planners and advisors can assist clients. They use gathered data to map the trajectory needed to achieve their goals. They will evaluate whether clients are on the right path now, before determining the adjustments needed to meet their long-term priorities. Contact them today to learn more.

@ 39cc53c9:27168656

Read the original blog post

After almost 3 months of work, we've completed the redesign of kycnot.me. More modern and with many new features.

Privacy remains the foundation - everything still works with JavaScript disabled. If you enable JS, you will get some nice-to-have features like lazy loading and smoother page transitions, but nothing essential requires it.

User Accounts

We've introduced user accounts that require zero personal information:

• Secret user tokens - no email, no phone number, no personal data
• Randomly generated usernames for default privacy and fairness
• Karma system that rewards contributions and unlocks features: custom display names, profile pictures, and more.

Reviews and Community Discussions

On the previous sites, I was using third party open source tools for the comments and discussions. This time, I've built my own from scratch, fully integrated into the site, without JavaScript requirements.

Everyone can share their experiences and help others make informed decisions:

• Ratings: Comments can have a 1-5 star rating attached. You can have one rating per service and it will affect the overall user score.
• Discussions: These are normal comments, you can add them on any listed service.

Comment Moderation

I was strugling to keep up with moderation on the old site. For this, we've implemented an AI-powered moderation system that:

• Auto-approves legitimate comments instantly
• Flags suspicious content for human review
• Keeps discussions valuable by minimizing spam

The AI still can mark comments for human review, but most comments will get approved automatically by this system. The AI also makes summaries of the comments to help you understand the overall sentiment of the community.

Powerful Search & Filtering

Finding exactly what you need is now easier:

• Advanced filtering system with many parameters. You can even filter by attributes to pinpoint services with specific features.

The results are dynamic and shuffle services with identical scores for fairness.

See all listings

Listings are now added as 'Community Contributed' by default. This means that you can still find them in the search results, but they will be clearly marked as such.

Updated Scoring System

New dual-score approach provides more nuanced service evaluations:

• Privacy Score: Measures how well a service protects your personal information and data

• Trust Score: Assesses reliability, security, and overall reputation

• Combined into a weighted Overall Score for quick comparisons

• Completely transparent and open source calculation algorithm. No manual tweaking or hidden factors.

AI-Powered Terms of Service Analysis

Basically, a TLDR summary for Terms of Service:

• Automated system extracts the most important points from complex ToS documents
• Clear summaries
• Updated monthly to catch any changes

The ToS document is hashed and only will be updated if there are any changes.

Service Events and Timelines

Track the complete history of any service, on each service page you can see the timeline of events. There are two types of events:

• Automatic events: Created by the system whenever something about a service changes, like its description, supported currencies, attributes, verification status…
• Manual events: Added by admins when there’s important news, such as a service going offline, being hacked, acquired, shut down, or other major updates.

There is also a global timeline view available at /events

Notification System

Since we now have user accounts, we built a notifiaction system so you can stay informed about anything:

• Notifications for comment replies and status changes
• Watch any comment to get notified for new replies.
• Subscribe to services to monitor events and updates
• Notification customization.

Coming soon: Third-party privacy-preserving notifications integration with Telegram, Ntfy.sh, webhooks...

Service Suggestions

Anyone with an account can suggest a new service via the suggestion form. After submitting, you'll receive a tracking page where you can follow the status of your suggestion and communicate directly with admins.

All new suggestions start as "unlisted" — they won't appear in search results until reviewed. Our team checks each submission to ensure it's not spam or inappropriate. If similar services already exist, you'll be shown possible duplicates and can choose to submit your suggestion as an edit instead.

You can always check the progress of your suggestion, respond to moderator questions, and see when it goes live, everything will also be notified to your account. This process ensures high-quality listings and a collaborative approach to building the directory.

---

These are some of the main features we already have, but there are many more small changes and improvements that you will find when using the site.

What's Next?

This is just the beginning. We will be constantly working to improve KYCnot.me and add more features that help you preserve your privacy.

Remember: True financial freedom requires the right to privacy. Stay KYC-free!

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.

• Version 1.3 of Bitcoin Safe introduces a redesigned interactive chart, quick receive feature, updated icons, a mempool preview window, support for Child Pays For Parent (CPFP) and testnet4, preconfigured testnet demo wallets, as well as various bug fixes and improvements.

• Upcoming updates for Bitcoin Safe include Compact Block Filters.

"Compact Block Filters increase the network privacy dramatically, since you're not asking an electrum server to give you your transactions. They are a little slower than electrum servers. For a savings wallet like Bitcoin Safe this should be OK," writes the project's developer Andreas Griffin.

• Learn more about the current and upcoming features of Bitcoin Safe wallet here.

What's new in v1.3

• Redesign of Chart, Quick Receive, Icons, and Mempool Preview (by @design-rrr).
• Interactive chart. Clicking on it now jumps to transaction, and selected transactions are now highlighted.

• Speed up transactions with Child Pays For Parent (CPFP).
• BDK 1.2 (upgraded from 0.32).
• Testnet4 support.
• Preconfigured Testnet demo wallets.
• Cluster unconfirmed transactions so that parents/children are next to each other.
• Customizable columns for all tables (optional view: Txid, Address index, and more)
• Bug fixes and other improvements.

Announcement / Archive
Blog Post / Archive
GitHub Repo
Website

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.

• The latest firmware updates for COLDCARD devices introduce two major features: COLDCARD Co-sign (CCC) and Key Teleport between two COLDCARD Q devices using QR codes and/or NFC with a website.

What's new

• COLDCARD Co-Sign: When CCC is enabled, a second seed called the Spending Policy Key (Key C) is added to the device. This seed works with the device's Main Seed and one or more additional XPUBs (Backup Keys) to form 2-of-N multisig wallets.
  • The spending policy functions like a hardware security module (HSM), enforcing rules such as magnitude and velocity limits, address whitelisting, and 2FA authentication to protect funds while maintaining flexibility and control, and is enforced each time the Spending Policy Key is used for signing.
  • When spending conditions are met, the COLDCARD signs the partially signed bitcoin transaction (PSBT) with the Main Seed and Spending Policy Key for fund access. Once configured, the Spending Policy Key is required to view or change the policy, and violations are denied without explanation.

"You can override the spending policy at any time by signing with either a Backup Key and the Main Seed or two Backup Keys, depending on the number of keys (N) in the multisig."

• A step-by-step guide for setting up CCC is available here.

• Key Teleport for Q devices allows users to securely transfer sensitive data such as seed phrases (words, xprv), secure notes and passwords, and PSBTs for multisig. It uses QR codes or NFC, along with a helper website, to ensure reliable transmission, keeping your sensitive data protected throughout the process.

  • For more technical details, see the protocol spec.

"After you sign a multisig PSBT, you have option to “Key Teleport” the PSBT file to any one of the other signers in the wallet. We already have a shared pubkey with them, so the process is simple and does not require any action on their part in advance. Plus, starting in this firmware release, COLDCARD can finalize multisig transactions, so the last signer can publish the signed transaction via PushTX (NFC tap) to get it on the blockchain directly."

• Multisig transactions are finalized when sufficiently signed. It streamlines the use of PushTX with multisig wallets.
• Signing artifacts re-export to various media. Users are now provided with the capability to export signing products, like transactions or PSBTs, to alternative media rather than the original source. For example, if a PSBT is received through a QR code, it can be signed and saved onto an SD card if needed.
• Multisig export files are signed now. Public keys are encoded as P2PKH address for all multisg signature exports. Learn more about it here.
• NFC export usability upgrade: NFC keeps exporting until CANCEL/X is pressed.
• Added Bitcoin Safe option to Export Wallet.
• 10% performance improvement in USB upload speed for large files.
• Q: Always choose the biggest possible display size for QR.

Fixes

• Do not allow change Main PIN to same value already used as Trick PIN, even if Trick PIN is hidden.
• Fix stuck progress bar under Receiving... after a USB communications failure.
• Showing derivation path in Address Explorer for root key (m) showed double slash (//).
• Can restore developer backup with custom password other than 12 words format.
• Virtual Disk auto mode ignores already signed PSBTs (with “-signed” in file name).
• Virtual Disk auto mode stuck on “Reading…” screen sometimes.
• Finalization of foreign inputs from partial signatures. Thanks Christian Uebber!
• Temporary seed from COLDCARD backup failed to load stored multisig wallets.
• Destroy Seed also removes all Trick PINs from SE2.
• Lock Down Seed requires pressing confirm key (4) to execute.
• Q only: Only BBQr is allowed to export Coldcard, Core, and pretty descriptor.

Blog Post / Archive
GitHub Repo
CCC Guide
Key Teleport site

@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d

CANNES, FRANCE – May 2025 — Bitcoin mining made its mark at the world’s most prestigious film gathering this year as Puerto Rican director and producer Alana Mediavilla introduced her feature documentary Dirty Coin: The Bitcoin Mining Documentary at the Marché du Film during the Cannes Film Festival.

The film puts bitcoin mining at the center of a rising global conversation about energy, technology, and economic freedom.

Dirty Coin is the first feature-length documentary to explore bitcoin mining through immersive, on-the-ground case studies.

From rural towns in the United States to hydro-powered sites in Latin America and the Congo, the film follows miners and communities navigating what may be one of the most misunderstood technologies of our time.

The result is a human-centered look at how bitcoin mining is transforming local economies and energy infrastructure in real ways.

To mark its Cannes debut, Mediavilla and her team hosted a packed industry event that brought together leaders from both film and finance.

Dirty Coin debut ceremony at the Marché du Film

Sponsors Celestial Management, Sangha Renewables, Nordblock, and Paystand.org supported the program, which featured panels on mining, energy use, and decentralized infrastructure.

Attendees had the rare opportunity to engage directly with pioneers in the space. A special session in French led by Seb Gouspillou spotlighted mining efforts in the Congo’s Virunga region.

Dirty Coin builds on Mediavilla’s award-winning short film Stranded, which won over 20 international prizes, including Best Short Documentary at Cannes in 2024.

That success helped lay the foundation for the feature and positioned Mediavilla as one of the boldest new voices in global documentary filmmaking.

Alana Mediavilla speaks at the Marché du Film — Cannes Film Festival

“If we’ve found an industry that can unlock stranded energy and turn it into real power for people—especially in regions with energy poverty—why wouldn’t we look into it?” says Mediavilla. “Our privilege blinds us.

“The same thing we criticize could be the very thing that lifts the developing world to our standard of living. Ignoring that potential is a failure of imagination.”

Much like the decentralized network it explores, Dirty Coin is spreading globally through grassroots momentum.

Local leaders are hosting independent screenings around the world, from Roatán and Berlin to São Paulo and Madrid. Upcoming events include Toronto and Zurich, with more cities joining each month.

Mediavilla, who previously worked in creative leadership roles in the U.S. — including as a producer at Google — returned to Puerto Rico to found Campo Libre, a studio focused on high-caliber, globally relevant storytelling from the Caribbean.

She was also accepted into the Cannes Producers Network, a selective program open only to producers with box office releases in the past four years.

Mediavilla qualified after independently releasing Dirty Coin in theaters across Puerto Rico. Her participation in the network gave her direct access to meetings, insights, and connections with the most active distributors and producers working today.

The film’s next public screening will take place at the Anthem Film Festival in Palm Springs on Saturday, June 14 at 2 PM. Additional screenings and market appearances are planned throughout the year at Bitcoin events and international film platforms.

Dirty Coin at the Cannes Film Festival

Watch the Trailer + Access Press Materials

📂 EPK
🎬 Screener
🌍 Host a Screening

Follow the Movement

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dirty_coin_official/
Twitter: https://x.com/DirtyCoinDoc
Website: www.dirtycointhemovie.com

@ e1cde248:609c13b0

ในโลกของเกมออนไลน์ โดยเฉพาะเกมที่มีระบบแลกเปลี่ยนและการซื้อขายกันระหว่างผู้เล่น (player-to-player trading) มีสิ่งหนึ่งที่เกิดขึ้นซ้ำแล้วซ้ำเล่าในแทบทุกเกม นั่นคือ "item หายาก" (rare item) ค่อยๆ กลายเป็นสื่อกลางในการแลกเปลี่ยน มันไม่ใช่แค่ของมีค่าในตัวเองเท่านั้น แต่ยังถูกใช้เสมือนเป็น “เงิน” (currency) ของโลกเสมือนนั้นด้วย

ลองจินตนาการว่าเรากำลังเล่นเกมที่มีระบบ economy ผู้เล่นสามารถหาของจากการล่ามอนสเตอร์ (monster hunting) หรือผ่านเควสต่างๆ สิ่งที่เกิดขึ้นคือบาง item มีโอกาสดรอป (drop rate) ต่ำมากๆ และมีความต้องการสูง สิ่งเหล่านี้แหละที่เริ่ม “มีมูลค่า” ในสายตาของผู้เล่น

เมื่อคนจำนวนมากเริ่มยอมรับว่า item นี้ “แลกของอื่นได้” หรือ “ใช้วัดมูลค่าได้” มันก็กลายเป็นเงินอย่างไม่เป็นทางการโดยอัตโนมัติ

Rare item = เงิน? ได้ไง?

คำตอบง่ายมาก: เพราะมัน หายาก (scarce), เป็นที่ต้องการ (demanded) และ เป็นที่ยอมรับในกลุ่มผู้เล่น (accepted)

ในระบบที่ไม่มีเงินกลางแบบ fix ผู้เล่นจะเริ่มหาสิ่งใดสิ่งหนึ่งมาทำหน้าที่แทน เช่น item ที่ทุกคนรู้ว่าหายากจริง หาไม่ได้ง่ายๆ และมีปริมาณจำกัดในตลาด ระบบนี้เกิดขึ้นเองโดยไม่มี dev หรือระบบของเกมไปบอกว่า "นี่คือเงินนะ"

สิ่งนี้ทำให้เกิด “เศรษฐกิจเสมือน (virtual economy)” ที่ผู้เล่นสร้างขึ้นเองโดยธรรมชาติ และมันคือบทเรียนสำคัญเรื่องเงินในโลกจริง

เศรษฐกิจที่เกิดจาก consensus (ฉันทามติ)

เงิน ไม่ว่าจะในโลกจริงหรือโลกเสมือน มีจุดเริ่มต้นมาจากสิ่งเดียวกันคือ ความเชื่อร่วมกัน (shared belief)

ในเกม ผู้เล่นหลายพันคนพร้อมใจกันเชื่อว่า item ชิ้นนี้ “มีค่า” จึงสามารถใช้แลกทุกอย่างได้ บางคนเอาไปจ้างช่วยผ่านบอส บางคนเอาไปซื้อชุดหรือของตกแต่ง ความน่าสนใจคือ item นั้นอาจไม่ใช่สิ่งที่มี "utility" สูงด้วยซ้ำ บางอันมีไว้โชว์เท่ๆ เท่านั้น แต่มันมี “มูลค่า” เพราะผู้เล่นเห็นว่ามันควรมี

นั่นคือพลังของ consensus และมันคือกลไกเดียวกับที่เงินกระดาษ หรือแม้แต่คริปโตอย่าง Bitcoin ใช้ในการสร้างมูลค่า

ระบบที่ไร้เสถียรภาพ (fragile system)

แต่ economy แบบนี้ไม่ได้สมบูรณ์แบบไปเสียหมด สิ่งหนึ่งที่มักเกิดขึ้นคือ ความเปราะบาง (fragility)

ถ้า item ที่เคยหายากอยู่ๆ กลายเป็นดรอปง่ายขึ้น หรือมี bug ให้ dup ได้ ความเชื่อในความขาดแคลนนั้นจะพังลงทันที และแน่นอนว่า value ที่เคยสูงลิ่วก็ร่วงตามไปด้วย

นอกจากนี้ ยังมีปัจจัยอื่นเช่น การที่ dev แก้กฎ เพิ่มหรือลด supply item โดยไม่แจ้งล่วงหน้า หรือปิด server แบบไม่คาดคิด สิ่งเหล่านี้ทำให้ economy ที่เคยดูมั่นคงต้องสลายไปเพียงชั่วข้ามคืน

นั่นคือจุดที่ virtual economy แตกต่างจาก real-world crypto economy ที่สร้างอยู่บนความโปร่งใสและโค้ดที่ทุกคนตรวจสอบได้

สิ่งที่เราเห็นในเกมไม่ใช่เรื่องบังเอิญ มันคือบทเรียนทางเศรษฐศาสตร์แบบเรียลไทม์ และเรียลฟีล

เรารู้ว่าเงินไม่จำเป็นต้องถูกสร้างโดยรัฐ เรารู้ว่าเงินไม่จำเป็นต้องมีตัวตนแบบธนบัตร และเรารู้ว่า สิ่งใดก็ตามที่หายาก ตรวจสอบได้ และได้รับการยอมรับร่วมกัน — มันสามารถเป็น “เงิน” ได้ แม้จะเป็นแค่ item ในเกมก็ตาม

โลกของเกมจึงเป็น sandbox ที่สอนเราว่า “value” คือสิ่งที่ถูกสร้างขึ้นจากฉันทามติ ไม่ใช่จากอำนาจ

สรุป: เกมคือโลกจำลองของเศรษฐกิจมนุษย์

ไอเทมหายากในเกมที่กลายเป็นเงินไม่ใช่แค่เรื่องบังเอิญ แต่มันคือภาพสะท้อนว่า ความขาดแคลน + ความต้องการ + ความยอมรับ = มูลค่า และนั่นคือหัวใจของระบบเงินทุกแบบ ไม่ว่าจะเป็นทองคำ เงินเฟียต หรือสินทรัพย์ดิจิทัลอย่าง Bitcoin

โลกของเกมไม่ใช่แค่ที่เล่นสนุก แต่มันคือห้องทดลองทางเศรษฐกิจ ที่เปิดเผยให้เราเห็นว่าผู้คนสามารถสร้างระบบเงินได้ด้วยตัวเอง โดยไม่ต้องพึ่งรัฐ ไม่ต้องมีธนาคารกลาง และไม่ต้องมีใคร “อนุมัติ”

มันเริ่มจาก item เล็กๆ ที่คนอยากได้ และจบลงด้วยระบบ economy ที่ทรงพลังยิ่งกว่าที่ dev เคยคาดคิด

@ de54d599:77efc747

Some gifts delight. Others leave a lasting impression. Moët & Chandon’s Personalised Impérial Brut does both—offering the glamour of champagne and the intimacy of a custom message in one iconic bottle.

Your Message, Moët’s Signature

The Personalised Impérial gives you the chance to print a name or phrase directly on the label of one of the world’s most celebrated champagnes. Whether it’s “Happy 30th, Alex,” “Cheers to Us,” or simply “With Love,” the moment becomes yours—captured in gold foil and timeless design.

The Ultimate Gift for Every Occasion

From birthdays to engagements, job promotions to holiday gifting, this bespoke bottle is more than a gesture—it’s a moment, wrapped in elegance. For corporate clients, it doubles as a premium branded gift with lasting impact.

Inside: The Classic Moët Impérial

The champagne itself is just as memorable. Expect vibrant fruit (apple, pear, citrus), soft toasty notes, and a refined mousse. Moët Impérial is crafted to please a range of palates—balanced, crisp, and full of celebration in every glass.

Effortlessly Personalised, Beautifully Delivered

Ordering a personalised bottle online is quick and intuitive. Preview your label in real time, select your format, and have it delivered directly to your door—gift-ready and guaranteed to impress.

Why Personalised Moët Matters

Personalisation elevates a bottle of champagne into something deeper—a tribute, a memory, a toast to the people who matter most. With Moët & Chandon Personalised Impérial, every sip becomes a story worth celebrating.

@ 0b65f96a:7fda4c8f

„Wir können Probleme nicht mit derselben Denkweise lösen, mit der wir sie geschaffen haben.“ A. Einstein

Und hätten wir es beim Problem der Gestaltung unserer Gesellschaft einfach nur mit einem Narrativ zu tun, würden wir das wahrscheinlich auch sehr schnell einsehen. Allerdings gleicht der Blick auf unsere Gesellschaft eher der Betrachtung eines Teppichs mit kompliziertem Muster. Um zu erkennen welche Linienführung mit welcher anderen verbunden ist, braucht es etwas Engagement und Geduld. Wir müssen erstmal Narrative entflechten, bevor wir erkennen können, dass sie alle letztlich aus einer Denkweise hervorgehen.

Genauer hingeguckt, haben wir es im Wesentlichen mit drei herrschenden Leiterzählungen im Hintergrund zu tun: Eine, die alles ganz auf das Individuelle stellen will. Eine, die uns vorrangig auf unsere Bedürfnisse beschränkt. Und eine, die uns nur gelten lassen will, insofern wir gleich sind. Die Vertreter der jeweiligen Narrative werfen sich gegenseitig vor, von den anderen in der Entfaltung der eigenen Erzählung gestört zu werden. Das sei der Grund, warum wir Probleme haben. Deutlicher: jeder behauptet, wenn nur endlich das eigene Narrativ rein zur Geltung kommt, dann ist das große Los gezogen und das allgemeine Glück gewonnen.

Der Schritt zur Einsicht, dass „Probleme nicht mit derselben Denkweise gelöst werden können, mit der sie geschaffen wurden“ fällt uns schwer. Darum, weil wir immer der Meinung sind aus unserer Perspektive doch mit anderer Denkweise auf die Problemerzählungen der anderen zu antworten. Es kommt aber nicht darauf an, ob ich – egal welches Hintergrundnarrativ ich für das richtige halte – aus meiner Perspektive ein anderes widerlegen kann. Vielmehr ist entscheidend innerhalb einer Leiterzählung alles so weit zu durchdenken, dass ihre Grenzen deutlich werden. Also wiederholt Hintergrunderzählungen zu durchdenken, um wiederholt festzustellen: „Wir können Probleme nicht mit derselben Denkweise lösen, mit der wir sie geschaffen haben.“ Wäre eine der Erzählungen so umfassend, dass sie tatsächlich die Problemlösung brächte, wäre das schon gelungen. Die Narrative sind schlicht nur separate Erzählstränge innerhalb der gleichen Denkweise.

Wir müssen also erstmal aufdröseln. Das muss nicht langwierig sein. Sondern kann kurzweilig sein und mit Witz und Esprit vonstattengehen, wie schon das Inhaltsverzeichnis ahnen lässt. Und sind wir einmal so weit gekommen, wird es wirklich interessant: Denn jetzt sind wir bei der Frage, ob wir mit neuen Denkansätzen eine neue, umfassendere, Leiterzählung gewinnen können? Eine Leiterzählung, die so umfassend ist, dass wir mit ihr eine freiheitliche Gesellschaftsordnung strukturell stützen können? Um es vorweg zu nehmen: Ja, können wir. Es muss also niemand seine kostbare Lebenszeit auf die knapp 150 Seiten aufwenden, um dann festzustellen, dass alles vergebene Liebesmüh war.

„Zukunft beginnt im Kopf. Ein Debattenbeitrag zur Kernsanierung von Rechtsstaat und Demokratie“ greift Rudolf Steiners phänomenologischen Forschungsansatz des Sozialen auf. Der gut 100 Jahre alte Ansatz der sozialen Dreigliederung führt zu einer erstaunlich umfassenden und differenzierten Erzählung. Diese hat tatsächlich das Potenzial eine Leiterzählung zu sein, die eine freiheitliche Gesellschaftsordnung strukturell stützen kann. Ihr Kernpunkt liegt in der Fähigkeit des Perspektivenwechsels. Darum kommt die soziale Dreigliederung nicht mit fertig gestrickten Lösungen daher, sondern konzentriert sich auf die Betrachtung der grundlegenden Gesetzmäßigkeiten von Gesellschaftsbildung. Die wirklich praktischen Lösungen und ihre schlussendliche Form der Durchführung, können wir erst gemeinsam finden, wenn wir aufgehört haben diese Gesetzmäßigkeiten zu missachten.

Leseprobe und Bestellmöglichkeit: Zukunft beginnt im Kopf

Paperback, 148 Seiten, ISBN-13: 9783759734266, € 12,50

In jeder Buchhandlung erhältlich.

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Dieser Beitrag wurde mit dem Pareto-Client geschrieben.

Noch nicht auf Nostr? Hier entlang zum leichten Einstieg!

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Über den Autor

Patric I. Vogt, geb. 1968 in Mainz lebt als freischaffender Künstler, Lehrer und Unternehmer. Studium der Eurythmie, Anthroposophie, Sprachgestaltung und Ausbildung zum Instructor der M. Chekhov Acting Technique. Über drei Jahrzehnte Beschäftigung mit dem Ideenfeld soziale Dreigliederung und Anthroposphie. Moderation und Mediation von sozialen Prozessen und Organisationsentwicklung.  Staatlich ungeprüft, abgesehen von den Fahrerlaubnissen zu Land und zu Wasser. Vom Leben mit vielen Wassern gewaschen und am liebsten auf eigenem Kiel unterwegs.\ Motto: Gedanken werden Worte, werden Taten!

www.perspektivenwechsel.social

post@perspektivenwechsel.social

Nostr patric@pareto.town

auf X @patricivogt

#dreigliederung

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

Nostr 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.

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If you missed my nostr introduction post you can find it here. My nostr account can be found here.

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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

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

The newly proposed RESTRICT ACT - is being advertised as a TikTok Ban, but is much broader than that, carries a $1M Fine and up to 20 years in prison️! It is unconstitutional and would create massive legal restrictions on the open source movement and free speech throughout the internet.

The Bill was proposed by: Senator Warner, Senator Thune, Senator Baldwin, Senator Fischer, Senator Manchin, Senator Moran, Senator Bennet, Senator Sullivan, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Collins, Senator Heinrich, and Senator Romney. It has broad support across Senators of both parties.

Corrupt politicians will not protect us. They are part of the problem. We must build, support, and learn how to use censorship resistant tools in order to defend our natural rights.

The RESTRICT Act, introduced by Senators Warner and Thune, aims to block or disrupt transactions and financial holdings involving foreign adversaries that pose risks to national security. Although the primary targets of this legislation are companies like Tik-Tok, the language of the bill could potentially be used to block or disrupt cryptocurrency transactions and, in extreme cases, block Americans’ access to open source tools or protocols like Bitcoin.

The Act creates a redundant regime paralleling OFAC without clear justification, it significantly limits the ability for injured parties to challenge actions raising due process concerns, and unlike OFAC it lacks any carve-out for protected speech. COINCENTER ON THE RESTRICT ACT

Full Text of Bill

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ f85b9c2c:d190bcff

In today’s financial landscape there are many markets to choose from two of which are forex (foreign exchange) and cryptocurrency. Forex is a far more established market. Additionally most forex activity is done by experienced traders whereas crypto is a mix of institutional and bulk investors. In the case that people use forex it is often in a mid-sized transactions for activities such as travel.

What is forex trading?✔ Forex trading is a process where one currency is exchanged for another. With daily trading volumes over $6 trillion it’s the largest financial market globally. Forex operates 24 hours a day five days a week and traders can speculate on the relative value of currency pairs.

There are several important aspects of forex trading.

What is crypto trading? Crypto trading involves selling and buying digital currencies as long as they rely upon blockchain technology. Commercial banks central banks and investment firms are considered the most powerful financial institutions in terms of influencing the friction of a market or the flow of currency transactions in the crypto market. Cryptocurrencies are distinct from traditional currency because they are stateless and don’t have a central administrator. Some well-known coins include Bitcoin (digital gold) and Ethereum (having smart contract capabilities). Stablecoins are the most common form of crypto for settlement and liquidity between exchanges and traders. The most common are fiat currency denominated stablecoins of which USDT and USDC are the most popular and are dollar-denominated.

@ a10260a2:caa23e3e

If you're like me, private payments where you only have to post the address once excites you. BOLT 12 and Silent Payments are doing that for Lightning and on-chain payments, respectively. I hope to update this table as more wallets support these two protocols over time.

| | Phoenix | Cake Wallet | Strike | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | BOLT 12 (Send) | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | | BOLT12 (Receive) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | | Silent Payment (Send) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | | Silent Payment (Receive) | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | | BIP 353 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

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"Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy.  A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world." - Eric Hughes, A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, 1993

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Privacy is essential to freedom. Without privacy, individuals are unable to make choices free from surveillance and control. Lack of privacy leads to loss of autonomy. When individuals are constantly monitored it limits our ability to express ourselves and take risks. Any decisions we make can result in negative repercussions from those who surveil us. Without the freedom to make choices, individuals cannot truly be free.

Freedom is essential to acquiring and preserving wealth. When individuals are not free to make choices, restrictions and limitations prevent us from economic opportunities. If we are somehow able to acquire wealth in such an environment, lack of freedom can result in direct asset seizure by governments or other malicious entities. At scale, when freedom is compromised, it leads to widespread economic stagnation and poverty. Protecting freedom is essential to economic prosperity.

The connection between privacy, freedom, and wealth is critical. Without privacy, individuals lose the freedom to make choices free from surveillance and control. While lack of freedom prevents individuals from pursuing economic opportunities and makes wealth preservation nearly impossible. No Privacy? No Freedom. No Freedom? No Wealth.

Rights are not granted. They are taken and defended. Rights are often misunderstood as permission to do something by those holding power. However, if someone can give you something, they can inherently take it from you at will. People throughout history have necessarily fought for basic rights, including privacy and freedom. These rights were not given by those in power, but rather demanded and won through struggle. Even after these rights are won, they must be continually defended to ensure that they are not taken away. Rights are not granted - they are earned through struggle and defended through sacrifice.

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@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d

Paris, 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.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.

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

News

• Bitcoin mining centralization in 2025. According to a blog post by b10c, Bitcoin mining was at its most decentralized in May 2017, with another favorable period from 2019 to 2022. However, starting in 2023, mining has become increasingly centralized, particularly due to the influence of large pools like Foundry and the use of proxy pooling by entities such as AntPool.

Source: b10c's blog.

• OpenSats announces the eleventh wave of Nostr grants. The five projects in this wave are the mobile live-streaming app Swae, the Nostr-over-ham-radio project HAMSTR, Vertex—a Web-of-Trust (WOT) service for Nostr developers, Nostr Double Ratchet for end-to-end encrypted messaging, and the Nostr Game Engine for building games and applications integrated with the Nostr ecosystem.
• New Spiral grantee: l0rinc. In February 2024, l0rinc transitioned to full-time work on Bitcoin Core. His efforts focus on performance benchmarking and optimizations, enhancing code quality, conducting code reviews, reducing block download times, optimizing memory usage, and refactoring code.
• Project Eleven offers 1 BTC to break Bitcoin's cryptography with a quantum computer. The quantum computing research organization has introduced the Q-Day Prize, a global challenge that offers 1 BTC to the first team capable of breaking an elliptic curve cryptographic (ECC) key using Shor’s algorithm on a quantum computer. The prize will be awarded to the first team to successfully accomplish this breakthrough by April 5, 2026.
• Unchained has launched the Bitcoin Legacy Project. The initiative seeks to advance the Bitcoin ecosystem through a bitcoin-native donor-advised fund platform (DAF), investments in community hubs, support for education and open-source development, and a commitment to long-term sustainability with transparent annual reporting.
  • In its first year, the program will provide support to Bitcoin hubs in Nashville, Austin, and Denver.
  • Support also includes $50,000 to the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a $150,000 commitment at the University of Austin, and up to $250,000 in research grants through the Bitcoin Scholars program.

"Unchained will match grants 1:1 made to partner organizations who support Bitcoin Core development when made through the Unchained-powered bitcoin DAF, up to 1 BTC," was stated in a blog post.

• Block launched open-source tools for Bitcoin treasury management. These include a dashboard for managing corporate bitcoin holdings and provides a real-time BTC-to-USD price quote API, released as part of the Block Open Source initiative. The company’s own instance of the bitcoin holdings dashboard is available here.

Source: block.xyz

• Bull Bitcoin expands to Mexico, enabling anyone in the country to receive pesos from anywhere in the world straight from a Bitcoin wallet. Additionally, users can now buy Bitcoin with a Mexican bank account.

"Bull Bitcoin strongly believes in Bitcoin’s economic potential in Mexico, not only for international remittances and tourism, but also for Mexican individuals and companies to reclaim their financial sovereignty and protect their wealth from inflation and the fragility of traditional financial markets," said Francis Pouliot, Founder and CEO of Bull Bitcoin.

• Corporate bitcoin holdings hit a record high in Q1 2025. According to Bitwise, public companies' adoption of Bitcoin has hit an all-time high. In Q1 2025, these firms collectively hold over 688,000 BTC, marking a 16.11% increase from the previous quarter. This amount represents 3.28% of Bitcoin's fixed 21 million supply.

Source: Bitwise.

• The Bitcoin Bond Company for institutions has launched with the aim of acquiring $1 trillion in Bitcoin over 21 years. It utilizes secure, transparent, and compliant bond-like products backed by Bitcoin.
• The U.S. Senate confirmed Paul Atkins as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At his confirmation hearing, Atkins emphasized the need for a clear framework for digital assets. He aims to collaborate with the CFTC and Congress to address jurisdiction and rulemaking gaps, aligning with the Trump administration's goal to position the U.S. as a leader in Bitcoin and blockchain finance.
• Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith has been released from custody. Griffith, whose sentence was reduced to 56 months, is now seeking a pardon. He was initially sentenced to 63 months for allegedly violating international sanctions laws by providing technical advice on using cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology to evade sanctions during a presentation titled 'Blockchains for Peace' in North Korea.
• No-KYC exchange eXch to close down under money laundering scrutiny. The privacy-focused cryptocurrency trading platform said it will cease operations on May 1. This decision follows allegations that the platform was used by North Korea's Lazarus Group for money laundering. eXch revealed it is the subject of an active "transatlantic operation" aimed at shutting down the platform and prosecuting its team for "money laundering and terrorism."
• Blockstream combats ESP32 FUD concerning Jade signers. The company stated that after reviewing the vulnerability disclosed in early March, Jade was found to be secure. Espressif Systems, the designer of the ESP32, has since clarified that the "undocumented commands" do not constitute a "backdoor."

• Bank of America is lobbying for regulations that favor banks over tech firms in stablecoin issuance. The bank's CEO Brian Moynihan is working with groups such as the American Bankers Association to advance the issuance of a fully reserved, 1:1 backed "Bank of America coin." If successful, this could limit stablecoin efforts by non-banks like Tether, Circle, and others, reports The Block.
• Tether to back OCEAN Pool with its hashrate. "As a company committed to financial freedom and open access, we see supporting decentralization in Bitcoin mining as essential to the network’s long-term integrity," said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.
• Bitdeer to expand its self-mining operations to navigate tariffs. The Singapore-based mining company is advancing plans to produce machines in the U.S. while reducing its mining hardware sales. This response is in light of increasing uncertainties related to U.S. trade policy, as reported by Bloomberg.
• Tether acquires $32M in Bitdeer shares. The firm has boosted its investment in Bitdeer during a wider market sell-off, with purchases in early to mid-April amounting to about $32 million, regulatory filings reveal.
• US Bitcoin miner manufacturer Auradine has raised $153 million in a Series C funding round as it expands into AI infrastructure. The round was led by StepStone Group and included participation from Maverick Silicon, Premji Invest, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Qualcomm Ventures, Mayfield, MARA Holdings, GSBackers, and other existing investors. The firm raised to over $300 million since its inception in 2022.
• Voltage has partnered with BitGo to [enable](https://www.voltage.cloud/blog/bitgo-and-voltage-team-up-to-deliver-instant-bitcoin-and-stabl

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

The newly proposed RESTRICT ACT - is being advertised as a TikTok Ban, but is much broader than that, carries a $1M Fine and up to 20 years in prison️! It is unconstitutional and would create massive legal restrictions on the open source movement and free speech throughout the internet.

The Bill was proposed by: Senator Warner, Senator Thune, Senator Baldwin, Senator Fischer, Senator Manchin, Senator Moran, Senator Bennet, Senator Sullivan, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Collins, Senator Heinrich, and Senator Romney. It has broad support across Senators of both parties.

Corrupt politicians will not protect us. They are part of the problem. We must build, support, and learn how to use censorship resistant tools in order to defend our natural rights.

The RESTRICT Act, introduced by Senators Warner and Thune, aims to block or disrupt transactions and financial holdings involving foreign adversaries that pose risks to national security. Although the primary targets of this legislation are companies like Tik-Tok, the language of the bill could potentially be used to block or disrupt cryptocurrency transactions and, in extreme cases, block Americans’ access to open source tools or protocols like Bitcoin.

The Act creates a redundant regime paralleling OFAC without clear justification, it significantly limits the ability for injured parties to challenge actions raising due process concerns, and unlike OFAC it lacks any carve-out for protected speech. COINCENTER ON THE RESTRICT ACT

Full Text of Bill

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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

Paris, 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/press

How Flash Enables Interoperable, Self-Custodial Bitcoin Commerce

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

Treasury Secretary Bessent foresees a promising future for stablecoins pegged to the US dollar.

During a US Senate hearing held on June 11, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the market for US dollar-backed stablecoins has the potential to surpass the $2 trillion mark within the next three years.

“I believe that stablecoin legislation backed by U.S. treasuries or T-bills will create a market that will expand U.S. dollar usage via these stablecoins all around the world,” the government official stated.

Bessent reiterated the administration’s commitment to strengthening the dollar’s status through USD-denominated stablecoins.

GENIUS Act gains ground

The legislative process received a boost after the Senate voted to advance the stablecoin bill, moving it closer to a final vote. The GENIUS Act, once approved, will establish strict requirements for the stable digital currency sector.

The bill mandates that stablecoins must be fully backed by US dollars or assets with equivalent liquidity (Treasuries). It also requires annual audits for issuers with a market capitalization exceeding $50 billion and includes specific provisions regarding the issuance of these cryptocurrencies abroad.

Stablecoins and the financial system

The stablecoin sector is drawing increasing interest from banking institutions. Bank of America is preparing to launch its own stablecoin, while Circle — issuer of USDC — went public this month, with shares surging 235% on its first trading day.

Currently, US dollar-pegged stablecoins account for over 96% of the entire stable digital currency market.

The post Stablecoins: market could reach $2 trillion by 2028, says Bessent appeared first on Atlas21.

@ a8d1560d:3fec7a08

THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!

After the wave of word-scrambling spam bots, a new and very problematic kind of spam has arrived in the Nostr. Whenever you post something now, you will get gay porn videos as an automated answer (No, being gay itself is not problematic!!!). To get rid of all the automated spam, remove the following relays from your inbox and outbox relay list: - nos.lol - relay.damus.io - nostr.oxtr.dev - relay.primal.net

As long as you have even one of these relays in your inbox and outbox lists, you and your followers will be spammed whenever posting something.

It is unknown if the bots only reply to kind 1 events or to all events.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

The 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.

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If you have never used lightning before, use this guide to get started on your phone.

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If you found this post helpful support my work with bitcoin.

@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d

Coinbase is launching its first-ever credit card — the Coinbase One Card — with up to 4% back in bitcoin on everyday purchases.

The announcement was made at the 2025 State of Crypto Summit in New York and marks a big step towards making bitcoin more accessible and rewarding for everyday use.

The card is being released in partnership with American Express and will roll out in the U.S. this fall. It’s only available to Coinbase One members, the company’s growing subscription service.

“Whether you’re buying groceries or booking a trip, the Coinbase One Card lets you earn rewards in Bitcoin — making everyday spending more rewarding than ever,” Coinbase said in a blog post.

The Coinbase One Card lets you earn 2-4% back in bitcoin, depending on how much you have in assets on the Coinbase platform. All cardholders will start at 2%, but those with more assets can unlock higher cashback rates.

The card also has a metal design with text from Bitcoin’s original Genesis Block engraved on it, representing its connection to the birth of the scarce digital asset.

Coinbase One Card

The bitcoin rewards are a first for Coinbase, which previously only released a prepaid debit card with Visa in 2020. The new card is a shift from traditional digital asset trading tools to everyday financial products that integrate with the blockchain.

The card is on the American Express Network, which provides access to travel protections, exclusive offers, personalized experiences and the secure infrastructure of one of the most trusted brands in payments.

Will Stredwick, SVP of Global Network Services at American Express said:

“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.”

Luke Gebb, Executive Vice President of Amex Digital Labs added that Amex is committed to “practical, compliant applications” of the blockchain and Bitcoin technology.

The Coinbase One Card is issued by First Electronic Bank and offered through a partnership with fintech company Cardless. A waitlist is open now on Coinbase’s website and more info will be shared as the fall launch approaches.

To use the card, you need to be enrolled in Coinbase One, a subscription program launched in 2023. There are now two options:

• Standard Coinbase One: $29.99/month, with zero trading fees, priority customer support and enhanced staking rewards.
• Coinbase One Basic: $4.99/month or $49.99/year, to make it more affordable. Basic members also get the card and the same bitcoin rewards.

Both tiers get up to 4% bitcoin back, zero-fee trading on eligible assets (up to $500/month for Basic), and 4.5% APY on the first $10,000 in USDC holdings.

“Our customers are graduating from just creating [accounts] to now using Coinbase as a primary financial account,” said Max Branzburg, Coinbase’s VP of Product.

The Coinbase One Card launch comes as more digital asset platforms are entering the credit and debit card space. Rivals like Gemini have launched cards with similar cashback features and payments giants like Mastercard are exploring bitcoin integrations.

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

Good 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

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

In a quiet corner of the world, bitcoin mining operations in Africa are turning electricity into digital currency and in the process, redefining how value is created.

At its core, bitcoin mining involves validating transaction information before adding new blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain by competing to solve a cryptographic puzzle that meets a specific criterion.

Globally, mining plays a key role in keeping the blockchain decentralized and secure. The system depends on miners to verify and record transactions, mainly to prevent a problem called double spending, the digital version of using the same money twice.

To understand this better, imagine Charles sends $5 to Amanda. With physical cash, Amanda can trust the note is real and hasn’t been used elsewhere. But with digital currency, copying data is easy, so how can she be sure that the same $5 wasn’t sent to someone else too? That’s the exact problem Bitcoin mining helps solve.

In recent years, Africa has started to draw attention in this space, positioning itself as a key hub in global bitcoin mining. While there may be less than 2 million bitcoin left to be mined from the total 21 million supply, the rise of mining operations in Africa has sparked excitement, creating new jobs and drawing in foreign capital.

Although some countries still grapple with power shortages and the energy demands of mining, many citizens view bitcoin as a more stable store of value and a safeguard against the volatility of their local currencies.

At the same time, Africa’s wealth of hydro, solar, wind, and geothermal resources makes the continent one of the most promising regions for cost-effective and sustainable mining.

What Makes a Large-Scale Bitcoin Mining Operation in Africa?

It all starts with difficulty. Bitcoin mining isn’t just about solving a puzzle, it’s about solving one that keeps getting harder. Mining difficulty refers to how much computational work is needed to generate a number lower than the target hash.

This difficulty automatically adjusts every 2,016 blocks (about every two weeks), depending on how quickly miners solved the previous batch. If mining is fast and efficient, the network increases the difficulty; if miners drop off and block times slow, it reduces it, all to maintain a consistent block production time of roughly 10 minutes.

The significance of mining difficulty lies in the increased demands it places on mining operations. As difficulty rises, miners require more powerful hardware, cost-effective energy sources, advanced infrastructure, and substantial financial investment. These requirements distinguish large-scale mining operations from smaller, casual miners.

In short, it’s the difficulty of mining that births the need for large facilities, massive energy inputs, industrial-grade hardware, and significant financial investment, the very traits that define a “large” bitcoin mining operation.

This leads us to the 4 key factors that define large Bitcoin mining operations in Africa, each one a direct response to the growing demands of the network:

1. Facility size and infrastructure:

The physical size of a mining facility is a direct reflection of its capacity to house mining equipment and support systems. Larger operations typically have thousands of mining rigs installed, supported by extensive infrastructure such as advanced cooling systems and stable power supplies.

These are critical to ensure that the equipment runs continuously and efficiently, given the intense heat and electricity demands of mining.

While it is possible to mine Bitcoin using desktop computers or gaming rigs by joining mining pools, these setups are limited in profitability. Mining pools distribute rewards based on the computational power contributed, meaning small or less efficient machines earn only modest returns.

To compete effectively, mining operations invest in specialized hardware known as Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) miners. These machines are far more powerful and energy-efficient than regular computers but require significant capital investment, with prices ranging from $4,000 to $12,000 per rig depending on their performance.

Large-scale operations typically deploy hundreds or thousands of these ASIC miners, which necessitates the large facilities and sophisticated infrastructure mentioned earlier. In this way, the size of the facility and the sophistication of the mining equipment are tightly linked, together defining the overall scale and capability of a bitcoin mining operation.

2. Hashrate contribution:

Hashrate refers to the computational power used to mine and process transactions on the Bitcoin network. A higher hashrate indicates a more significant contribution to the network’s security and transaction processing.

Large mining operations often possess substantial hashrate, measured in exa hashes per second (EH/s). For instance, as of July 2024, the Bitcoin network’s hashrate was approximately 733.41 EH/s.

3. Energy consumption and power source:

Bitcoin mining is energy-intensive. The total energy consumption of the Bitcoin network has been estimated at 175.87 terawatt-hours annually, comparable to the power consumption of Poland. Large mining operations often seek locations with access to cheap and reliable energy sources, such as hydroelectric, solar, or wind power, to reduce operational costs and environmental impact.

4. Financial banking and investor interest:

Significant financial investment is required to establish and maintain large-scale mining operations. This includes the cost of mining hardware, facility construction, energy procurement, and operational expenses. Companies with substantial financial backing can invest in cutting-edge technology and infrastructure, enhancing their mining capabilities. 

Overview of Bitcoin Mining in Africa

Africa is beginning to carve out its share of the global Bitcoin mining market, which was valued at $2.45 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $8.24 billion by 2034. 

As Bitcoin’s value continues to rise, countries across the continent are positioning themselves to benefit, many by tapping into abundant renewable energy sources and taking advantage of regulatory ambiguity or excess energy production. 

Ethiopia currently leads the continent in Bitcoin mining activity, with around 2.5% of the global hashrate reportedly coming from operations powered entirely by renewable energy. 

This energy mismatch has attracted major miners from China and other regions, who see an opportunity to monetize surplus electricity. Ethiopia’s success showcases how renewable energy and mining can coexist sustainably while contributing meaningfully to state revenue. 

Kenya follows closely behind. As the top geothermal energy producer in Africa, with an installed capacity of 863 MW, the country is using its energy advantage to support sustainable mining. 

Nigeria is emerging as a serious contender. While not yet dominant, its large population, increasing tech engagement, and growing interest in using flared gas for mining signal potential for expansion. Nigeria’s complex but evolving regulatory landscape also leaves room for further mining developments as the government explores clearer crypto frameworks.

Malawi represents a more localized model of Bitcoin mining. By converting rainfall-powered microgrids into revenue-generating infrastructure, Malawi shows how small-scale mining can play a powerful role in community development and rural electrification.

In Libya, Bitcoin mining is technically illegal, but that hasn’t stopped it. Despite the ban, underground mining continues to thrive thanks to heavily subsidized electricity. In 2021, Libyan miners accounted for an estimated 0.6% of the global Bitcoin production, the highest in both the Arab world and Africa at the time. Today, mining reportedly consumes around 2% of the country’s electricity, even as it operates in the shadows.

Angola rounds out the list with limited public data but notable potential. The country struggles with energy inefficiencies, losing nearly 40% of its hydroelectric power during transmission. Some reports suggest Bitcoin miners are beginning to capitalize on this otherwise stranded energy, though large-scale operations are yet to surface.

What unites these countries is a shared set of conditions: untapped or mismanaged energy resources, an openness or gray area in regulation, and the growing understanding that Bitcoin mining can serve as a financial incentive to build and stabilize decentralized energy systems. 

Whether through massive hydroelectric projects or rural microgrids, Bitcoin mining is emerging as both an energy monetization strategy and a bridge to infrastructure development across Africa.

Profiles of the Largest Bitcoin Mining Operations in Africa

1. BitCluster (Ethiopia)

As of 2024, Bitcoin mining in Africa is largely concentrated in

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

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• RoboSats v0.7.7-alpha is now available!

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• This version brings a new and improved coordinators view with reviews signed both by the robot and the coordinator, adds market price sources in coordinator profiles, shows a correct warning for canceling non-taken orders after a payment attempt, adds Uzbek sum currency, and includes package library updates for coordinators.

Source: RoboSats.

• siggy47 is writing daily RoboSats activity reviews on stacker.news. Check them out here.
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What's new

• New coordinators view (see the picture above).
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Source: RoboSats.

• Fix for wrong message on cancel button when taking an order. Users are now warned if they try to cancel a non taken order after a payment attempt.
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• For coordinators: library updates.
• Add docker frontend (#1861).
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Full Changelog: v0.7.6-alpha...v0.7.7-alpha

GitHub Repo

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

The Barcelona Cyphers Conference (BCC8333), the city’s first biggest bitcoin-themed event, transforms a historic building in the central born district of the Catalan capital into a hub for bitcoin enthusiasts and cypherpunks. Named after the port bitcoin nodes use to sync the timechain (8333), this inaugural event delivers high-signal discussions and practical applications of decentralized technology, uniting over 100 attendees from Spain, Europe, and beyond.

Venue and Atmosphere

Set in a 17th-century palace that doubles as a flamenco venue, Palau Dalmases blends historical elegance with a creative, almost rebellious vibe. The unique setting fosters deep conversations, hands-on workshops, and genuine connections, prioritizing substance over spectacle. The spectacular courtyard serves as a lively backdrop for collaboration and sparking chats that resonates with the event’s freedom/privacy-oriented ethos.

Lightning Network Integration

BCC8333 embedds Bitcoin’s Lightning Network (LN) into its core, emphasizing privacy and scalable technology. Two on-site bars accept LN payments for drinks, demonstrating fast, low-cost bitcoin transactions in action.

But the usage of Lightning Network extends beyond just ‘refreshments’. 

·       Chain Duel: This simple yet engaging game has many BCC8333 participants send sats via LN to enter, compete, and have fun for the two days of the event. A large-screen tournament on the main stage amplifies the excitement, showcasing one more practical case for LN in the bitcoin ecosystem with a nice bounty, i.e. winners claiming the collected sats.

·       Thematic sessions and practical workshops on wallets, vending machines, and Nostr highlight LN’s role in bitcoin adoption, while touching on the importance of privacy vs. scalable transactions.

While the overall adoption in Barcelona’s local establishments outside the venue remains rather limited, attendees find a nearby street with vivid graffiti dedicated to bitcoin, and in a practical way, whenever possible, swap sats for fiat among themselves when direct payments aren’t possible.

Selected Highlights

The agenda balances intense sessions with networking breaks, ensuring space for reflection and collaboration. Some of the key sessions include: 

·       Future of Private Transactions (English, Max Hillebrand).

·       Miniscripts Roundtable (English, Edouard from Liana, Landabaso from Rewind, Francesco from BitVault, Yuri da Silva from Great Wall).

·       Sovereign Hardware Tools (English, Wesatoshi).

·       Debate: Future of Lightning (Spanish, mixed attendees).

·       Op_return Debate (English, Peter Todd, Unhosted Marcellus, Lunaticoin).

Recordings from the main stage and additional coverage by Juan Cienfuegos, host of the BitCorner Podcast, will soon be available online (X: @BCC833, @TheJuanSC).

Why BCC8333 Stood Out

·       Local Maxis: vibrant and well-organized approach shines through, with local bitcoiners as organizers of the event (Spanish and expats) bringing their best PoW to the table.

·       Focused Discussions: Free of hype and influencers, BCC8333 prioritizes signal over noise, diving into critical topics like privacy, nodes, wallets, P2P tools, decentralized mining, and Nostr. 

·       Community Vibe: The smaller crowd enables authentic connections, fostering a tight-knit community of freedom-tech enthusiasts committed to sovereignty.

BCC8333 is a powerful testament to the cypherpunk spirit, blending bitcoin and privacy to fuel innovation. From LN-powered interactions to thought-provoking talks, the event underscores the strength of a community dedicated to building decentralized solutions. Congratulations to the organizers, contributors, volunteers, and attendees for making this conference a standout moment in the year’s lineup of bitcoin-themed events.

@ 6a6be47b:3e74e3e1

What’s up, frens? 🎬

How was your weekend? I hope you got a chance to rest and decompress, even just a little, and that you’re recharged for the new week! As for me, I spent some time catching up on movies.

🍿 On Saturday, I was scrolling through a Criterion list—some films I’d already seen, others just weren’t my vibe. But then I landed on David Cronenberg’s Scanners and thought, “Yep, this is it.”

For a moment, I honestly felt like I was watching The Toxic Avenger (and I love The Toxic Avenger). Though this movie, it was… okay, but honestly, I don’t think it’s one I’ll remember or recommend, hehe.

🍿 Next up was Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. It was cute, just like all his other films. To be fair, I was expecting a bit more since some of my favorites are his—The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom are top-tier for me. I always find myself giggling at the dry humor and silliness with which his characters tackle tough topics like death, loss, coming of age, and family. I love how “strange” or totally ordinary situations spiral into something unique, sometimes with surprisingly insightful conclusions. Asteroid City had its moments, but it felt a bit slow-paced for my taste this time. Still, it’s a cute watch, and I love how sometimes the kids seem to have more sense than the adults!

🍿 On Sunday, I watched Perfect Strangers—the Spanish adaptation of the Italian film of the same name. Friends gather for a cozy dinner and decide to play a “harmless” game: reading all their messages and notifications aloud, and answering calls on speaker. What could possibly go wrong, right? If you’ve seen any of these movies—or want to—I’d love to hear your thoughts! It’s always fun to chat about movies (and books) with you all.

See you later, alligator! 🐊

Godspeed! 💓

https://stacker.news/items/1008008

@ 3c7dc2c5:805642a8

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

"Bitcoin trades 168 hours a week. Every other asset trades 35 hours at best (and less on holidays). This is the most magical, transparent, and hard-working [asset] in history. I’m in awe watching Bitcoin trade at 9:30 pm on a Saturday. You could liquidate $100 million worth, any hour of any day, and maybe take a 3% haircut. This is extremely high-bandwidth price discovery." —Michael Saylor https://i.ibb.co/LXCm3Kp8/Gshl-Ixas-Awezk3.png

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

13 years ago the block subsidy was 50 BTC. 13 years from now it will be 0.39 BTC.

On the 2nd of June:

➡️Hong Kong’s Reitar Logitech files to acquire $1.5B in Bitcoin, becoming the latest firm to join the Bitcoin treasury trend. The logistics and real estate company says the move strengthens its financial foundation as it scales its global tech platform.

➡️Bitcoin's global hashrate has reached a new all-time high, with data from Hashrate Index showing a 7-day simple moving average peak of 943 EH/s. https://i.ibb.co/3yR2ZZ0w/Gsahm-VXMAA1m-Ol.png

➡️(K)now (Y)our (C)ustomer is nothing but Stealth Mass Surveillance. What 95% of regulations cost versus return in one picture? https://i.ibb.co/Q3CLzF7j/Gsb20g-Pb-IAABy4-L.jpg

➡️Norwegian Block Exchange becomes the first publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company in Norway.' - Simply Bitcoin

➡️Poland just elected pro-Bitcoin Presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki. “Poland should be a birthplace of innovation rather than regulation.”

➡️NYC Mayor Eric Adams: “You all mocked me, ‘You’re taking your first 3 paychecks in #Bitcoin, what’s wrong with you?’ Now you wish you would have done.”

➡️Strategy plans to launch an IPO for 2.5M shares of its 10% Series A 'Stride' Preferred Stock (STRD), with proceeds going toward general corporate use and Bitcoin acquisition. Dividends are non-cumulative and paid only if declared.

Bit Paine: 'Remember: the entire fiat system is just various forms and layers of debt with different issuers all backed by an “asset,” (itself just a base layer of sovereign debt) that can and will be printed into oblivion. MSTR is just recapitulating this system but with a fixed supply underlying, meaning that in real terms anything it issues will benefit from the dilution of the fiat base layer and hence outperform (wildly) any fiat debt. No matter your institutional mandate, it makes no sense to hold debt whose base layer can be unilaterally demonetized when you can hold debt backed by a fixed supply underlying commodity that goes up forever.'

On the 3rd of June:

➡️Tether sends 37,229 Bitcoin worth almost $4 billion in total to Jack Maller's Twenty-One Capital

➡️El Salvador is running a full Bitcoin node!

➡️Canadian construction engineering company SolarBank adopts a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve "As the adoption of Bitcoin continues to grow, SolarBank believes that establishing a Bitcoin treasury strategy taps into a growing sector that is seeing increasing adoption."

➡️Willy Woo: "Who are the idiots who are selling when institutions and sovereigns are racing to buy billions in BTC?" This chart sheds light. The big whales >10k BTC have been selling since 2017. "They're stupid!" Most of those coins were bought between $0-$700 and held 8-16 years.' https://i.ibb.co/xKctV3Tf/Gsid236as-AAXPl-D.jpg

Selling at 20,000% profit is generally not a bad move.

➡️'South Korea just elected a pro-Bitcoin President who promised to legalize spot Bitcoin ETFs and scrap unfair regulation.' -Bitcoin Archive

➡️The average US investor owns 0.3% of their net worth in Bitcoin.

https://i.ibb.co/5WtFH9LM/Gsfoem-Tb0-AEfo-Ds.jpg

We are so damnn early.

➡️MARA mined 950 Bitcoin worth over $100 MILLION in May. They HODLed all of it.

➡️Bitcoin for Corporations: "Metaplanet just became Japan’s most traded stock — topping the charts in both value and volume:

➤ 170M shares traded

➤ ¥222B ($1.51B) value traded

This is what a Bitcoin strategy looks like in motion."

➡️'The Blockchain Group acquires 624 BTC for €60.2 million, nearly doubling their stack. They are now holding a total of 1,471 BTC with a BTC Yield of 1,097.6% YTD.' -Bitcoin News

➡️Publicly traded company K33 buys 10 Bitcoin for SEK 10 million for its balance sheet.

➡️California Assembly passes a bill to allow the state to receive payments in Bitcoin and digital currencies. It passed 68-0 and now heads to the Senate.

But hold up...

Bitcoin held on exchanges for +3 years will be transferred to the state of California under a law passed by the Assembly.

Not your keys…

➡️Adam Back invests $2.1 million into Swedish Bitcoin treasury company H100.

On the 4th of June:

➡️Daniel Batten: 'A large Bitcoin mining operation uses < 1/3 of the water of an average US family, and 0.0006% of the water a typical Gold mine uses.' https://i.ibb.co/TxNWSkHg/Gsn-VIjh-XQAEECOh.jpg

➡️And there it is: for JPMorgan, Bitcoin is now "safe collateral" JP Morgan will now offer loans backed by Bitcoin ETFs.

https://i.ibb.co/cXX0hKBK/Gsn-C5-B8-Wg-AA2e3i.png

Bent the knee. Wall Street realizes that Bitcoin is pristine collateral. Liquid 24/7/365 globally.

➡️Spanish coffee chain Vanadi Coffee to purchase $1.1 billion Bitcoin for its treasury reserve.

Disclaimer: This sounds great but it's not the whole story.

Pledditor: 'You mean a coffee shop chain founded just 4 years ago, only has 6 locations, and every year it has operated has suffered millions of dollars of net losses? They have 1975 Instagram followers. They have 149 Facebook followers. They have 48 X followers. But remember guys, you are investing in a "COFFEE GIANT"

So where does the $1.1B come from?

'The same way it came for Metaplanet (and all these other penny stocks) Get a bunch of high follower Bitcoin X accounts to hype your ticker (usually Bitcoin Magazine, Vivek, Pete Rizzo, etc), start up an "Irresponsibly Long ___" group, then dump a shitload of stock on the plebs.'

I have said it before...

Bitcoin treasury companies won't prevent another bear market; they’re the reason it’ll happen again this cycle.

➡️Public company Semler Scientific purchases an additional 185 Bitcoin for $20 million.

➡️Wicked: Imagine how rekt people would get if we went from $200k back down to $58k next bear market. The funny thing is that’d only be a 71% pullback, the smallest bear market pullback ever.

https://i.ibb.co/DfFtFZnP/Gsnr-U-3-Xo-AAJy-Kq.jpg

➡️Fidelty: An increasing number of institutions are leveraging Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. And as understanding of the asset deepens, interest continues to grow. See what may be driving the shift: Source: https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/research-and-insights/adding-bitcoin-corporate-treasury?ccsource=owned_social_btc_corp_treasury_june_x

➡️Solo Bitcoin miner solves block 899,826, earning 3.151 BTC ( $330K). A solo miner rented a massive amount of hashrate on @NiceHashMining and successfully mined a Bitcoin block solo on CKpool, claiming the full reward alone.

➡️Romania's national postal service, Poșta Română, launches a pilot program by installing its first Bitcoin ATM at a Tulcea branch, partnering with Bitcoin Romania (BTR Exchange), the country's leading cryptocurrency exchange.

On the 6th of June:

➡️Mononaut: 'With a weight of only 5723 units, block 899998 was the second lightest non-empty block of this halving epoch.'

➡️'UK-listed gold miner Bluebird Mining Ventures announces strategy to convert gold mining income into Bitcoin. A gold mining company will become the first UK-listed company to implement a Strategic Bitcoin Treasury' - Bitcoin News

➡️Phoenix Wallet: Phoenix 2.6.1 now supports NFC for sending and receiving. Works on Android and iOS. (NFC received on iOS is only due to Apple restrictions)

➡️Man from Germany fails to declare 24 words when crossing the border – nothing happens.

https://i.ibb.co/21W5qVks/Gswdghd-Xw-AA7-SH6.png

➡️Know Labs, Inc. to become a Bitcoin Treasury Strategy company starting with 1,000 BTC. Funny isn't it? Even former Ripple executive, Greg Kidd, is choosing to fill their company treasuries with bitcoin—not XRP.

➡️Bitcoin Successfully Mines the 900,000th Block! https://x.com/i/status/1930973314475815120

➡️Trump Media's latest S-3 filing officially adopts a Bitcoin treasury strategy. - Registers up to $12B in new securities to buy BTC - Adds to $2.44B already raised - Mentions “Bitcoin” 362 times (vs. once in prior S-3)

➡️Bitcoin News: Metaplanet just issued ¥855B ($5.4B) in moving-strike warrants to buy more Bitcoin, Japan’s largest equity issuance of its kind ever. It’s the first above-market pricing in Japan's history, defying the usual 8–10% discount.

➡️ Uber CEO tells Bloomberg Bitcoin is a proven store of value and that it is exploring crypto payments.

➡️Agricultural commodity trading company Davis Commodities will buy $4.5 million Bitcoin for their reserves, calling it "digital gold.

➡️Fidelity: As digital assets evolve, bitcoin’s potential as a store of value sets it apart from other cryptocurrencies. “Coin Report: Bitcoin” outlines why the asset’s design, scarcity, and decentralized nature help make it distinct—and where its future opportunities may lie. Read now: https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/research-and-insights/coin-report-bitcoin-btc?ccsource=owned_social_btc_report_june_x

➡️Japanese public company Remixpoint announces it bought 44.8 #Bitcoin worth $4.7 million

On the 8th of June:

➡️Wicked: Bitcoin has been running for 6,000 days and it’s already spent 60 of them, 1% of its life, closing above $100k. https://i.ibb.co/kVyrjR7v/Gs4uy-MIW8-AAOl-A.jpg

On the 9th of June:

➡️Australia’s ABC News reports on how Bitcoin adoption is bringing financial freedom and greater safety to Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slums in Kenya.

➡️ IBIT just blew through $70b and is now the fastest ETF to ever hit that mark in only 341 days, which is 5x faster than the old record held by GLD of 1,691 days. https://i.ibb.co/DfKbwhjG/Gt-Ar6-Eq-X0-AAzrl5.png

Credit chart JackiWang17 on X

➡️Japanese fashion brand ANAP plans to buy and hold over 1,000 Bitcoin by August 2025.

➡️South Korean President to introduce legislation this week to allow big banks to adopt Bitcoin.

➡️Wicked: Bitcoin's now 3x larger than the top 9 shitcoins combined. https://i.ibb.co/LDQKsGHM/Gt-AJy-D6-X0-AA7-PIY.jpg

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

On the 3rd of May:

👉🏽'Hedge funds are still not buying the Magnificent 7: Hedge funds’ long/short ratio on Magnificent 7 stocks is now at its lowest level in 5 years, per Goldman Sachs. This is even lower than at the 2022 bear market bottom. Furthermore, their exposure to Magnificent 7 stocks is now down -50% over the last year. Meanwhile, hedge funds have bought US information technology stocks for 3 consecutive weeks. This occurred after the sector had been net sold in 10 of the previous 12 weeks. Retail has led the recent rebound.' -TKL

On the 6th of June:

👉🏽If you net out the Mag 7 from the S&P 500, the remaining 493 stocks have barely gone anywhere in over a decade (comparatively speaking). Chart: Goldman Sachs https://i.ibb.co/s9LmVBL8/Gsx53k6-W8-AAM2xr.jpg

🏦Banks:

On the 21st of May: 👉🏽No News

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

'The reality is that the US soft defaults on its debt every day through structural inflation (the perpetual debasement of the US dollar). In other words, the Treasury pays you back dollars that are worth far less than what you lent to them. A soft default.' This is also valid for Europe.

On top of that, the richest man in the world is publicly arguing with the president of the United States about America’s solvency. Consider buying bitcoin.

So far regarding Trump: - didn't audit the Gold - didn't stop the wars - didn't reduce the deficit/debt/budget - didn't form a Bitcoin reserve - didn't release the Epstein files

Anyway, consider buying Bitcoin.

On the 2nd of June:

👉🏽'The Bank of Japan just racked up a record ¥28.6 trillion in bond losses That’s three times bigger than last year! This isn’t just Japan’s problem. It’s a screaming red alert for global markets.' - StockMarket News

TKL: " Japanese equity funds posted a record $11.8 billion in net outflows last week. This brought the 4-week moving average of outflows to $4.0 billion, an all-time high. Investors’ concerns over rapidly rising long-dated Japanese government bond yields were behind the outflows. Additionally, investors withdrew $5.1 billion from US stock funds. All while global equity funds saw $9.5 billion in net outflows, the most this year. Investors are taking profits after a sharp market recovery."

👉🏽The money printer is back on. US M2 just hit a new all-time high at $21.86T. Liquidity is flowing back into the system.

https://i.ibb.co/fGdx5kmt/Gsd-Jn-R9-XUAAUAO2.jpg

Recession odds have just dropped by 70% to 30% That’s the steepest decline in 65 years without a recession actually happening. Forget everything about a recession when M2 is moving up. Simple as that.

👉🏽$698 billion worth of homes are for sale in the United States, a new all-time high. Rajat Soni: 'The price of a house should be 0.01 BTC right now The housing market is way overpriced in terms of Bitcoin Interest rates or real estate prices will have to fall for these these homes actually to be sold.'

👉🏽The US Dollar is worth 8.9% less than it was at the beginning of the year.

👉🏽Argentina's economy grew 8% year-over-year in April 2025, the highest in the Western world!

On the 3rd of June:

👉🏽Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" bans all 50 states from regulating AI for 10 years, centralizes control at the federal level, and integrates AI systems into key federal agencies. https://i.ibb.co/Q7t14q7M/Gse-V2f-YWUAAyb-Py.png

👉🏽 ZeroHedge: 'Total US debt is now $37.5 trillion (accrued). The $36.2 trillion actual is just the ceiling set by the debt limit which will be revised to $40 trillion in August/September.'

👉🏽A million seconds ago was May 23rd

A billion seconds ago was 1993

A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 B.C.

The US national debt is now rising by $1 Trillion every 180 days.

👉🏽NATO pushes European members to increase ground-based air defense systems five-fold — Bloomberg

👉🏽Global Markets Investor: 'This is incredible how European markets have outperformed the US this year. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Austria have grown their market capitalization by 44%, 36%, and 33%, respectively. Next are Hungary, Spain, Luxembourg, Greece, and Germany. The US has been flat.'

https://i.ibb.co/TMwrLnB0/Gsiu-KWYXEAAto-U1.jpg

This is one of the WORST years for the US stock market in history: The S&P 500 has UNDERperformed World stocks excluding the US by 12 percentage points year-to-date, the most in 32 YEARS. This is even worse than during the Great Financial Crisis.

👉🏽Bravos Research: 'M2 money supply is now expanding at 4.4% After reaching its deepest contraction in 65 years This is quite constructive for the stock market.' https://i.ibb.co/hFCRgFhr/Gsht-Kgk-Xw-AAy-PFq.jpg

On the 4th of June:

👉🏽“The $1.06 trillion unrealized loss in 2024 was ‘modestly higher’ than the $948.4 billion paper loss seen in 2023.” https://i.ibb.co/Pvm7zVWy/Gsj-9-OWs-AAvwp-F.jpg

Probably nothing. What’s a trillion between friends…

Currently, the US is spending $1,200 trillion per year on interest payments (dark line). If everything were financed at the current interest rate, the cost would exceed $1,500 trillion per year (green). https://i.ibb.co/mCpYtwVW/Gsm-H6-Mr-Xc-AAqd-F5.png

Note: The national debt is $36,9 trillion.

👉🏽Global debt is gigantic: Debt-to-GDP is above 100% in 6 of 7 G7 nations, and is still rising. Japan: ~250% Italy, the US, France, the UK, and Canada: all near or above 100%.

For 5 of 7 G7 economies, debt is set to surge further by 2030. Now debt is a problem but the main question would be...what will the productivity be in 2030?

On the 5th of June:

👉🏽 The United States Treasury just bought back $10 Billion of its own debt, the largest Treasury buyback in history.

Buying back your own debt with printed money. That's what happens just before fiat money goes to die (eventually). Eventually, nobody wants that worthless debt anymore, eventually!

Context by EndGame Macro:

💰 $10 Billion Buyback: The Treasury’s Silent Signal

On June 3, 2025, the U.S. Treasury quietly executed the largest debt buyback in American history, repurchasing $10 billion in short- and medium-term bonds. At first glance, it looked routine. But under the surface, this was a stealth intervention aimed at calming a system under increasing strain. This wasn’t just liquidity smoothing. It was strategic triage.

🧾 What Happened

Buyback Size: $10B (a record)

Debt Offered: $22.87B — more than double what was accepted

Target Maturities: July 2025 to May 2027

Issues Accepted: 22 of 40 eligible

Settlement: June 4, 2025

That huge offer volume isn’t just noise—it’s a warning sign that institutional players are under pressure.

🚨 What the Buyback Really Signaled

1. A Quiet Circuit Breaker The buyback focused on maturities clustered around a $9 trillion rollover wall over the next 12 months. Without announcing it, the Treasury effectively tripped a circuit breaker to reduce near-term funding stress.
2. QE Without the Label This wasn’t the Fed. No balance sheet expansion. But by retiring debt ahead of maturity and shrinking market float, the effect mirrored QE—without the political baggage.
3. Institutions Are Feeling the Squeeze A staggering $22.87 billion in offers points to constraints at banks, funds, or foreign reserve desks. The Treasury didn’t save everyone—just enough to relieve pressure quietly.

🎯 Strategic Motivation

This wasn’t about boosting confidence. It was about managing two threats: Maturity Wall Risk: Avoiding auction failures as short-term debt piles up in 2025–2026. Yield Curve Stability: Preventing disorderly spikes by quietly absorbing supply. This move avoided triggering headlines—while containing the fire under the hood.

🧠 Echoes from History

This buyback fits into a lineage of quiet but powerful interventions: Operation Twist (1961) – Rebalancing maturity without QE branding. BoE Gilt Crisis (2022) – Targeted long-end intervention to save pensions. Belgium’s Shadow QE (2014) – U.S. debt absorbed off-balance-sheet during geopolitical tension. Each move relied on subtlety and intent—not optics.

🧩 What the Market Heard

Primary Dealers: Help exists—but it’s selective and discretionary.

Foreign Holders: Exit in order—or risk exclusion.

Money Markets: Relief, not resolution.

❗ Where the Logic Cracks

If this was routine: Why buy back below par? Why accept only 44% of the offered debt? Why deploy this now and not earlier? Each of these points to deeper stress than officials are openly admitting.

🔒 High-Conviction Takeaway

This buyback was a preemptive stabilization maneuver, not a stimulus. With over $9 trillion in short-term debt set to roll, foreign participation weakening, and institutional selling pressure rising, the Treasury acted before fractures became visible. The line wasn’t drawn to show strength. It was drawn behind the market—to stop a collapse.

🕵️‍♂️ Known Unknowns

Who were the biggest sellers—and what’s pressuring them? Was this coordinated with the Fed or global reserve desks? Is this a one-off event—or the start of a multi-phase liquidity campaign? The silence is strategic—but the signal is loud.

👉🏽Joe Consorti: 'Congress refuses to cut spending. So we must "grow our way out" of the deficit. That would take 39 years of 5% nominal GDP growth, or 22 years at 10%. In other words, 2-4 decades of explosive growth just to break even. We can't "grow our way out". We'll print our way out.'

👉🏽ZeroHedge: And just like that, the "climate crisis" is gone https://i.ibb.co/GQ76Z79P/Gsr3uus-XEAAjuv6.png

Don't get me wrong and with all respect to my environmentalist friends, but the “Crisis” never existed. A big part of the push has been marketing dollars/euros and media spin, let's face it.

Why do I think that? How do you think we will grow out of the Global Debt problem? One word: PRODUCTIVITY.

How can we manage that? They (Governments/Central Banks) need AI data farms. What do data farms need?

Electricity, water, energy.

Because Big Tech and AI need energy -- wherever they can find it -- climate change as a cause is finished. It was all virtue signaling. And remember the climate didn’t cool, it just stopped polling well. The scariest part of the “climate crisis” becoming out-of-vogue with the left is that it'll likely be replaced by something equally absurd and artificially manufactured.

On the 6th of June

👉🏽 'The US economy adds 139,000 jobs in May, above expectations of 126,000. The unemployment rate was 4.2%, in line with expectations of 4.2%. The April jobs number was revised down from 177,000 to 147,000. The headline numbers continue to exceed expectations.' - TKL

Surprise, surprise…

March jobs revised: 185K 120K (-65k)

April jobs revised: 177K 147K (-30k)

13 of the L16 have been revised lower.

Just to make it even worse, this is something I have shared multiple times in 2024. The number of year-over-year private job gains in 2024 was likely overstated by a MASSIVE 907,000 jobs, according to BLS data released Wednesday. This comes as the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data covering 97% of employers showed a private payroll growth rate of 0.6% for December 2024. This is 50% lower than the 1.2% growth rate initially reported in the monthly non-farm payroll (NFP) reports. To put this differently, there was a 907,000 gap between NFP data and QCEW data in 2024. This means jobs were likely overstated by an average of 75,583 PER MONTH in 2024.

👉🏽Opinion: Milei reduced government spending by 30% and achieved a surplus in only 1 month. His popularity didn't fall, it rose. Don't tell me fiscal discipline isn't popular with the general public. It's just unpopular to the powerful special interests that control DC or Brussels.

👉🏽'In the current fiscal year, the U.S. government already spent $4,159 billion. This is for the first 7 months and the fiscal year ends in September. The latest available data is as of April. The already accrued deficit amounts to over $1 trillion: $1,049 billion.

You can see in the chart how net interest expense has become the #2 largest spending category at $579 billion (for 7 months) after social security ($907 billion) and even exceeded national defense ($536 billion), health ($555 billion), and Medicare ($550 billion). The deficit is 34% of total receipts! (1049/3110) In other words: the U.S. government spent 34% more than it took in.

The last full fiscal year ended in September 2024. In that fiscal year, we spent $1.13 trillion on interest expenses. After only the first 7 months of fiscal year 2025 ending in September, they are already at $776 billion. This means we'll likely touch $1.3 trillion this fiscal year!' - AJ https://i.ibb.co/RTLTZPn1/Gsxv-Tso-Xc-AAZs-Zo.jpg

On the 7th of June:

👉🏽 The EU Commission paid climate "NGOs" for questionable lobbying with money from German taxpayers and wanted to keep it secret. https://i.ibb.co/zH6J41Zq/Gsz-Lu-F9-Xg-AAZttn.jpg Now read the above statement again and after that read the following bit:

👉🏽EU TRIES TO LECTURE EL SALVADOR - BUKELE BODYSLAMS BACK Source: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/el-salvador-statement-spokesperson-foreign-agents-law-and-recent-developments_en

The Diplomatic Service of the European: "El Salvador: The EU regrets the adoption of the Foreign Agents Law, which risks restricting civil society and runs counter to international obligations. Recent arrests of human rights defenders raise further concerns."

The EU’s sanctimonious finger-wagging at El Salvador reeks of hypocrisy. Brussels lectures sovereign nations on “civil society” while funneling billions into globalist NGOs that undermine national sovereignty. The institution that attacks liberty, freedom, democracy, and free speech in the name of a neosocialist woke ideology wants to lecture other countries on how they defend against their constant meddling and aggression. They are a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, accountable to no one, representing no one. Classic!

Supporting this further, let’s have a look how the EU is increasingly positioning itself as a technocratic regulator of personal freedom:

'The EU – the one that:

•wants to monitor every Bitcoin transaction through MiCA & DAC-8 •would love to ban non-custodial wallets

•is planning a chat control law that would make even China blush

•is considering a wealth register to digitally track every cent of your retirement savings

•restricts cash withdrawals in some member states •is testing CBDCs with expiration dates and spending limits

•and is preparing the digital euro as a full-blown control tool

…this EU is now complaining about human rights violations in El Salvador – a country whose government enjoys one of the highest approval ratings in the world. Over 85% support for President Bukele. Show me a single Western leader who even comes close to that.' - Bitcoin Hotel

Great reply by El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele: 'EU: El Salvador regrets that a bloc which is aging, overregulated, energy-dependent, tech-lagging, and led by unelected bureaucrats still insists on lecturing the rest of the world.'

👉🏽Sam Callahan: Alternative title: 73% of bonds in the world trading at less than the rate of debasement https://i.ibb.co/Y4qMvh0T/Gs7-Ry-WMAABf49.jpg

On the 8th of June:

👉🏽'US existing home sales dropped -3.1% year-over-year to an annualized 4.0 million in April, the lowest for any April since 2009. Month-over-month, home sales fell 0.5%, well below expectations of a +2.0% increase. The decline was driven by the West and Northeast regions. Sales in the South were flat, while in the Midwest improved slightly. Meanwhile, existing home inventory rose +21%, to 1.45 million, the most for any April since 2020, per ZeroHedge. Despite that, the median sales price increased +1.8% year-over-year to $414,000, a record for April. Homebuyer demand is weak and prices are still rising.' -TKL

On the 9th of June:

👉🏽Jeroen Blokland: '- China bought more gold in May. -China has been buying even more gold through ‘unofficial’ channels. - China's gold reserves today are low compared to those of the US and European countries -China is determined to move away from US dollar hegemony - China’s ambition to move away from the US dollar will only have strengthened because of the Trump tariff war - China has to acknowledge that few countries, companies, and households want to hold the Yuan So what will China be doing for years to come?'

No surprise central banks are avoiding sovereign debt and adding gold.

👉🏽TKL: Gold is on fire: Gold's share of global reserves reached 23% in Q2 2025, the highest level in 30 years. Over the last 6 years, the percentage has DOUBLED. At the same time, the US Dollar's share of international reserves has declined 10 percentage points, to 44%, the lowest since 1993. By comparison, the Euro's share has decreased 2 percentage points, to 16%, the lowest in 22 years. Gold is quickly replacing fiat currencies as a reserve currency.

🎁If you have made it this far, I would like to give you a little gift:

Lysander: "Lyn Alden gave one of the clearest breakdowns of why the U.S. is on an unstoppable fiscal path—and why Bitcoin matters more than ever because of it.

Lyn Alden walks through the numbers behind the federal deficit, interest expenses, Social Security, and the structural changes that happened post-2008. The short version? We’re in a new era. One where the government can’t slow down even if it wants to.

Her phrase: “Nothing stops this train.” Not because of ideology, but because of math—and human nature.

This isn’t hyperinflation doom-talk. It’s a sober look at what happens when a system built on ever-growing debt reaches its limits—and why Bitcoin, with its fixed supply and transparent rules, is the opposite of that system.

If you haven’t seen it, this is a must watch. Pure signal! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Giuzcd4oxIk

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: PocketBitcoin especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly.

Use the code SE3997

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple. ⠀ ⠀

⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you?

If so, please share it and support my work with a zap.

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⭐ Many thanks⭐

Felipe - Bitcoin Friday!

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@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

Flash, the all-in-one Bitcoin payment platform, just launched Flash Invoicing. The first invoicing tool for Bitcoin that is completely free, non-custodial, KYC-free, and fully integrated into a comprehensive bitcoin business suite.

Freelancers, contractors and independent workers can now send professional bitcoin invoices with 0% platform fees, no identity verification, and no third-party custody — a first in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

According to Deel, crypto payments to freelancers grew 10x in 2023, with bitcoin remaining the most-used currency. But despite this surge, the tools available for invoicing remain outdated.

Most freelancers still paste Bitcoin addresses into PDF footers or emails, hoping their client sends the right amount. Others use custodial platforms that charge high fees and require full identity verification.

“We’ve seen too many people paste BTC addresses into documents and call it invoicing,” said Pierre Corbin, CEO of Flash.

“It’s messy, reduces privacy and very inconvenient both for payee and payer.”, he explains.

Most Bitcoin invoicing tools charge a percentage per transaction — or lock users into subscription plans. That means freelancers lose a portion of every invoice just for the privilege of getting paid.

The other option is host open-source invoicing tools or use a google sheet template. While the former requires a hardware investment, the latter lacks functionality. Flash Invoicing is aiming to provide a better solution to address the invoicing needs for modern businesses and freelancers.

“Freelancers work hard enough. The last thing they need is a platform skimming off their earnings,” said Pierre.

“That’s why we dropped our fee from 1.5% to 0% — and launched the first invoicing tool that’s truly free, without compromising on privacy or control.”

“As a freelancer myself, I love using the Flash invoicing feature. It keeps all my clients in one place, allows me to easily edit invoices and track payments. Much more professional than sending a lightning address in the footer of a PDF invoice.” — Ada, freelancer & Flash user

Whether you’re a solo designer in Nairobi, a Web3 developer in Buenos Aires, or a consultant billing startups in Berlin, Flash Invoicing gives you a way to accept Bitcoin — without giving up control, privacy, or revenue.

And because it’s fully integrated with the broader Flash suite, freelancers can easily scale from invoicing to setting up stores, receiving donations, or gating premium content.

About Flash

Flash is the only non-custodial, KYC-free Bitcoin payment platform built for freelancers, creators, and businesses. With tools for invoicing, donations, stores, and POS, Flash gives users full control over how they earn and operate in Bitcoin — with no fees and no middlemen.

Learn more on www.paywithflash.com

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

That’s exactly what Simplified Privacy VPN is offering: a new kind of privacy tool that feels more like spinning up a secure, disposable virtual browser than using a traditional VPN.

Most of us know what a VPN is: it hides your IP address, encrypts your traffic, and gives you a bit more control over your privacy online. But what if you could go way beyond that—without setting up a complicated system, running a full virtual machine, or revealing anything about yourself?

What Makes It Different?

When I tried it myself, I realized this wasn’t just another VPN. It didn’t just route my traffic—it gave me access to a completely separate browsing environment. Imagine logging into a private, anonymous machine in the cloud, one that:

• Has its own browser and system settings
• Can’t see your personal files, history, or identity
• Randomizes details like screen size and timezone
• Leaves no trace once you’re done

This isn’t just hiding your IP—it’s giving you a fresh, secure web session that’s disconnected from your actual device.

Simplified Privacy VPN: The Lightning-Powered Twist

Here’s where it gets even cooler for us in the Lightning world: access costs just $1 in bitcoin via the Lightning Network.

You send a few sats, and within seconds you get access to a private browser session that lasts for a full month. Want a different profile or setup? Just pay another dollar and spin up a new one—no account, no email, no friction.

You can create as many instances as you like, each with its own identity. This is microtransaction-based privacy in action—exactly the kind of innovation Lightning enables.

Excellent Support, Secure Channels

I also tested their support team with a couple of questions—one technical issue and one feature request. Support is offered through secure, privacy-respecting channels, including Session chat. Responses were fast, friendly, and helpful. Even more impressive: my feature request was implemented not long after I sent it in.

In a space where many privacy tools leave you to figure things out on your own, this kind of responsive support makes a big difference.

Why This Matters

For journalists, activists, developers, or just regular folks who don’t want Big Tech watching their every move, this setup is a game-changer:

• More realistic protection than just using incognito mode or a VPN
• No need to trust the website, since this system isolates the browser to its own filesystem
• No need to trust the app, since it doesn’t require root access or your system password.
• Instant access with no signup or personal info
• Perfect match for Lightning’s low-cost, no-middleman model

One Note of Caution

While the system is impressive and genuinely different from anything I’ve seen, the project is still early and niche. The website and team aren’t as well-known as major VPN providers. So use it like any experimental tool—test it, learn from it, but don’t put all your trust in one basket yet.

Final Thoughts

In a world where online tracking is getting creepier and centralized control is tightening, SimplifiedPrivacy.com is pushing in the opposite direction: easy, user-controlled privacy with zero setup and lightning-fast access.

If you’ve got a dollar and a need for a little online invisibility, this might be one of the best ways to spend your sats.

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.

• The latest firmware updates for COLDCARD devices introduce two major features: COLDCARD Co-sign (CCC) and Key Teleport between two COLDCARD Q devices using QR codes and/or NFC with a website.

What's new

• COLDCARD Co-Sign: When CCC is enabled, a second seed called the Spending Policy Key (Key C) is added to the device. This seed works with the device's Main Seed and one or more additional XPUBs (Backup Keys) to form 2-of-N multisig wallets.
  • The spending policy functions like a hardware security module (HSM), enforcing rules such as magnitude and velocity limits, address whitelisting, and 2FA authentication to protect funds while maintaining flexibility and control, and is enforced each time the Spending Policy Key is used for signing.
  • When spending conditions are met, the COLDCARD signs the partially signed bitcoin transaction (PSBT) with the Main Seed and Spending Policy Key for fund access. Once configured, the Spending Policy Key is required to view or change the policy, and violations are denied without explanation.

"You can override the spending policy at any time by signing with either a Backup Key and the Main Seed or two Backup Keys, depending on the number of keys (N) in the multisig."

• A step-by-step guide for setting up CCC is available here.

• Key Teleport for Q devices allows users to securely transfer sensitive data such as seed phrases (words, xprv), secure notes and passwords, and PSBTs for multisig. It uses QR codes or NFC, along with a helper website, to ensure reliable transmission, keeping your sensitive data protected throughout the process.

  • For more technical details, see the protocol spec.

"After you sign a multisig PSBT, you have option to “Key Teleport” the PSBT file to any one of the other signers in the wallet. We already have a shared pubkey with them, so the process is simple and does not require any action on their part in advance. Plus, starting in this firmware release, COLDCARD can finalize multisig transactions, so the last signer can publish the signed transaction via PushTX (NFC tap) to get it on the blockchain directly."

• Multisig transactions are finalized when sufficiently signed. It streamlines the use of PushTX with multisig wallets.
• Signing artifacts re-export to various media. Users are now provided with the capability to export signing products, like transactions or PSBTs, to alternative media rather than the original source. For example, if a PSBT is received through a QR code, it can be signed and saved onto an SD card if needed.
• Multisig export files are signed now. Public keys are encoded as P2PKH address for all multisg signature exports. Learn more about it here.
• NFC export usability upgrade: NFC keeps exporting until CANCEL/X is pressed.
• Added Bitcoin Safe option to Export Wallet.
• 10% performance improvement in USB upload speed for large files.
• Q: Always choose the biggest possible display size for QR.

Fixes

• Do not allow change Main PIN to same value already used as Trick PIN, even if Trick PIN is hidden.
• Fix stuck progress bar under Receiving... after a USB communications failure.
• Showing derivation path in Address Explorer for root key (m) showed double slash (//).
• Can restore developer backup with custom password other than 12 words format.
• Virtual Disk auto mode ignores already signed PSBTs (with “-signed” in file name).
• Virtual Disk auto mode stuck on “Reading…” screen sometimes.
• Finalization of foreign inputs from partial signatures. Thanks Christian Uebber!
• Temporary seed from COLDCARD backup failed to load stored multisig wallets.
• Destroy Seed also removes all Trick PINs from SE2.
• Lock Down Seed requires pressing confirm key (4) to execute.
• Q only: Only BBQr is allowed to export Coldcard, Core, and pretty descriptor.

Blog Post / Archive
GitHub Repo
CCC Guide
Key Teleport site

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.

• Version 1.3 of Bitcoin Safe introduces a redesigned interactive chart, quick receive feature, updated icons, a mempool preview window, support for Child Pays For Parent (CPFP) and testnet4, preconfigured testnet demo wallets, as well as various bug fixes and improvements.

• Upcoming updates for Bitcoin Safe include Compact Block Filters.

"Compact Block Filters increase the network privacy dramatically, since you're not asking an electrum server to give you your transactions. They are a little slower than electrum servers. For a savings wallet like Bitcoin Safe this should be OK," writes the project's developer Andreas Griffin.

• Learn more about the current and upcoming features of Bitcoin Safe wallet here.

What's new in v1.3

• Redesign of Chart, Quick Receive, Icons, and Mempool Preview (by @design-rrr).
• Interactive chart. Clicking on it now jumps to transaction, and selected transactions are now highlighted.

• Speed up transactions with Child Pays For Parent (CPFP).
• BDK 1.2 (upgraded from 0.32).
• Testnet4 support.
• Preconfigured Testnet demo wallets.
• Cluster unconfirmed transactions so that parents/children are next to each other.
• Customizable columns for all tables (optional view: Txid, Address index, and more)
• Bug fixes and other improvements.

Announcement / Archive
Blog Post / Archive
GitHub Repo
Website

@ 9ca447d2:fbf5a36d

Japanese investment firm Metaplanet has announced a massive $5.4 billion plan to increase its bitcoin holdings to 210,000 BTC by the end of 2027 — that’s about 1% of the total bitcoin supply.

Metaplanet on X

The Tokyo-listed company is accelerating its already aggressive bitcoin plan, with CEO Simon Gerovich calling the initiative “Asia’s largest-ever equity raise to buy Bitcoin — again!”

The company’s new capital raise, called the “555 Million Plan”, involves issuing 555 million shares through moving strike warrants. That’s basically a type of option where people can buy shares later, and the price they pay depends on the stock’s price at that time.

So with moving strike warrants, the price at which people can buy the stock goes up or down depending on how the company’s stock is doing. It gives investors more flexibility — and it can make the warrants more attractive — because they don’t get stuck with a bad deal if the stock price drops.

This way the company can raise capital gradually over the next 2 years without impacting the stock market and existing shareholders.

The funds raised will be used to buy bitcoin, with some to redeem bonds and other income-generating strategies like selling put options.

This is a big step up from Metaplanet’s previous targets. Initially aiming to reach 10,000 BTC by the end of 2025, the company now plans to reach:

• 30,000 BTC by end of 2025
• 100,000 BTC by end of 2026
• 210,000 BTC by end of 2027

The Japanese investment firm hopes to be in the “Bitcoin 1% club” which means holding at least 1% of the total 21 million bitcoin supply.

Metaplanet bitcoin targets

Metaplanet is already making good progress. As of June 2025, the company holds 8,888 BTC, acquired at a cost of about ¥122.2 billion (around $849 million) and has already reached 89% of its original 10,000 BTC target for 2025.

This comes after the success of the company’s previous “210 Million Plan” which raised ¥93.3 billion ($650 million) in 60 trading days by issuing 210 million shares.

During that time, the company’s bitcoin holdings grew from 1,762 BTC to 7,800 BTC and the BTC Yield (a key performance metric showing growth in bitcoin per share) increased by 189%.

Year to date the BTC Yield is 225.4%.

Metaplanet’s BTC Yield graph

The stock has reflected this momentum, up 275% since early 2025 and 1,619% over the past year.

Metaplanet’s stock price chart — TradingView

Metaplanet is now one of the most actively traded stocks in Japan and has become a top-ten corporate bitcoin holder globally, recently surpassing Block Inc., the company founded by Jack Dorsey.

Metaplanet sees this as part of a bigger shift in capital markets.

By being a “bitcoin treasury vehicle” listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, it aims to offer investors exposure to bitcoin through regulated equity markets. This is especially useful in Japan where retail investors are often restricted from accessing bitcoin directly.

“Bitcoin is repricing the global cost of capital,” the company said in a statement. “Through our 555 Million Plan, Metaplanet is doubling down on a high-conviction, equity-driven capital markets strategy to accelerate our Bitcoin accumulation trajectory.”

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

The OP_RETURN Debate has recently caused a stir within the bitcoin community. Bitcoin stands as a groundbreaking peer-to-peer currency, engineered for financial sovereignty and unshackled from centralized control, embodying Satoshi Nakamoto’s visionary design of a trustless monetary system.

Introduced in 2009, it leverages proof-of-work and a decentralized network of nodes to enable individuals to transact freely, free from the influence of banks or governments. This design prioritizes the integrity of money as a store of value and medium of exchange, reflecting Nakamoto’s intent to create a resilient alternative to fiat currencies.

For over a decade, bitcoin has thrived as a beacon of economic autonomy, drawing adherents who value its unalterable rules and global accessibility.

Yet, as of June 14, 2025, the ongoing OP_RETURN debate has emerged as a critical juncture, challenging bitcoin’s core identity. OP_RETURN, a script opcode introduced in 2014 to embed up to 80 bytes of data in transactions, was designed to reduce UTXO bloat from earlier data-stuffing practices.

However, recent proposals, such as Peter Todd’s pull request #32359, to expand this limit—potentially up to the 1MB block size—have sparked intense discussion. This controversy pits the purity of bitcoin’s monetary purpose against a push for data-driven experimentation, such as timestamping, NFTs, and Ordinals, which leverage the blockchain for purposes beyond financial transactions.

At the heart of this debate lies a fundamental tension: whether bitcoin should remain a specialized ledger for value transfer or evolve into a general-purpose data platform.

Proponents argue that expanding OP_RETURN could streamline development and enable innovative use cases, such as sidechains, while critics warn it risks diluting bitcoin’s focus, increasing node costs, and eroding its decentralized ethos.

This clash echoes past scaling disputes, like the 2017 block size wars, and underscores the delicate balance between adapting to new demands and preserving the principles that define bitcoin’s strength. As of June 14, 2025, the community appears divided, with developers like Todd and Luke Dashjr advocating opposing views, and the outcome poised to shape bitcoin’s future trajectory.

For those guided by bitcoin’s original vision of sovereignty and minimalism, this debate is more than technical—it’s philosophical. The push to expand OP_RETURN raises questions about the integrity of the network, the role of individual node operators, and the risk of centralization through data-heavy use.

As the discussion unfolds, it forces a reckoning: will bitcoin stay true to its roots as sound money, or will it embrace experimentation that critics argue could compromise its foundational values? This article explores these tensions, offering a perspective rooted in bitcoin’s essence and the principles of its staunchest defenders.

Background on OP_RETURN

OP_RETURN emerged as a script opcode in 2014, designed to allow the inclusion of up to 80 bytes of arbitrary data within unspendable transaction outputs on the Bitcoin blockchain. This innovation addressed the inefficiencies of earlier data-stuffing methods, which cluttered the UTXO set (a database of spendable coins) and increased the computational burden on nodes.

By providing a controlled way to embed data—marking it as unspendable—OP_RETURN aimed to balance the network’s functionality with its primary role as a monetary ledger, reflecting bitcoin’s focus on efficiency and scalability.

Historically, OP_RETURN has been used for practical purposes like timestamping documents and limited data storage, serving as a lightweight tool for decentralized proof-of-existence. However, in recent years, particularly by June 14, 2025, its use has increasingly shifted toward innovative but data-intensive applications like Ordinals and NFTs.

These developments, often achieved through workarounds such as inscribing data in SegWit fields or layered protocols, have pushed the boundaries of the 80-byte limit, transforming Bitcoin into a platform for digital collectibles and other use cases. This shift has sparked debate about whether such applications align with or undermine Bitcoin’s original intent as a peer-to-peer currency.

The Proposed Update

One of the most notable proposals in the OP_RETURN debate, as of June 14, 2025, is a pull request attributed to Peter Todd (#32359), which suggests removing the existing 80-byte cap on data embedded via OP_RETURN.

This change would potentially allow data payloads to expand up to the full 1MB block size limit, significantly increasing capacity for embedding information directly into bitcoin transactions. Introduced to address evolving use cases and technical inefficiencies, the proposal has gained traction among some developers who see it to enhance the protocol’s flexibility, leveraging Bitcoin’s existing infrastructure.

Arguments in favor of this update highlight several benefits. Proponents argue that removing the cap would simplify bitcoin’s codebase by eliminating the need for workarounds, such as multi-signature schemes or excessive transaction outputs, that currently clutter the UTXO set (a database of spendable coins).

Additionally, it could reduce network strain caused by these inefficient methods, potentially improving performance. Another key point is the potential to enable sidechain innovations, allowing bitcoin to serve as a foundation for layered solutions that enhance scalability and support new applications, all while keeping data within the blockchain’s secure framework.

However, the proposal faces strong counterarguments rooted in bitcoin’s monetary focus. Critics contend that lifting the 80-byte limit risks transforming bitcoin into a general-purpose data ledger, diluting its primary role as a peer-to-peer currency and store of value.

This shift could lead to blockchain bloat—potentially adding significant storage demands annually—raising resource requirements for node operators and possibly excluding smaller participants, thus threatening decentralization.

While some argue modern hardware can handle larger blocks, critics warn that even small increases burden low-resource nodes, clashing with the minimalist vision of Satoshi Nakamoto and purists like Giacomo Zucco, who argue that data storage is better suited to alternative blockchains or off-chain solutions.

Giacomo Zucco, a leading voice in the bitcoin community, champions the notion that bitcoin’s strength derives from its decentralization and censorship resistance, safeguarded by a minimal, secure protocol built on proof-of-work. Like Zucco, Nakamoto’s whitepaper emphasizes a lean system focused on financial transactions, empowering individual node operators to enforce consensus rules and prevent any single entity—be it a miner, developer, or corporation—from dictating its direction.

Expanding OP_RETURN undermines this vision by inviting bloat, which could raise node operational costs and centralize control among well-funded data users. This shift risks turning bitcoin into a platform for data-intensive applications like NFTs or Ordinals, rather than a robust financial network.

Zucco and other purists would likely argue that proof-of-work and the fee market should prioritize financial transactions, reflecting bitcoin’s original intent as a currency and store of value, while data storage belongs on second layers or alternative chains.

Preserving this focus is essential to maintaining the decentralized soul that defines bitcoin’s essence, a principle that node operators must uphold to honor its founding ethos.

Community Divide and Risks

The OP_RETURN debate has exposed a deep divide within the bitcoin community, particularly among developers and users, as of mid-June 2025. On one side, figures like Peter Todd and Antoine Poinsot support expanding the OP_RETURN limit to 4MB in Bitcoin Core’s version 30, set for release in October 2025, arguing it aligns with miner practices and reduces harmful workarounds.

In contrast, developers like Luke Dashjr argue that such changes dilute bitcoin’s monetary purpose, promoting Bitcoin Knots—a fork of Bitcoin Core with stricter filters, defaulting to a 40-byte OP_RETURN limit—as a countermeasure.

This split extends to users, with Bitcoin Knots nodes surging from 2% to 11% by June 2025, signaling a preference for a leaner blockchain, while others embrace the flexibility of larger data capacities, highlighting growing tension over the network’s future direction.

This division carries significant risks that could undermine bitcoin’s accessibility, a cornerstone of its decentralized ethos. Expanding OP_RETURN could lead to fee spikes as data-heavy transactions compete for block space, disproportionately burdening smaller users and node operators with limited resources.

Proponents argue that fee markets and prunable OP_RETURN outputs will regulate data use, but critics warn that spikes could still exclude low-resource participants. Node fragmentation is another concern, as differing mempool policies between Knots and Bitcoin Core nodes could disrupt transaction relay, weakening the unified network that secures Bitcoin.

While the change avoids a hard fork by adjusting mempool policy rather than consensus rules, it risks eroding trust in Bitcoin Core’s governance, reminiscent of the 2017 block size wars that fractured the community. Such tensions could weaken Bitcoin’s security and trustless environment, posing a critical challenge to its long-term viability.

Preserving Bitcoin’s Essence

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

The Present Ecosystem It Is Not Just Calls

The role of telecommunications carriers has long since evolved beyond that of simple call connectors. Currently, they serve as actual digital centers that penetrate practically every facet of our interconnected lives. With more than 5.7 billion mobile service subscribers and 4.7 billion mobile internet users worldwide (roughly 58% of the global population), telecommunications are the foundation of the digital economy. It is anticipated that by 2030, this figure will rise to an astounding 5.5 billion mobile internet users, or 64% of the world’s population.

A variety of connectivity options are available in the current telecommunications ecosystem, ranging from home fiber optics to 5th generation of mobile networks, which is expected to be adopted globally by 57% by 2030, creating roughly 5.3 billion connections. Collaborations with streaming services that provide on-demand entertainment.

Current Telecom Ecosystem

From fiber optics to 5G technology, telecommunications companies have focused on diversifying global connectivity. By 2030, they are expected to reach 57% global adoption, resulting in around 5.3 billion connections.

There are partnerships with streaming platforms that have transformed carriers into true content gateways. This has helped the explosive growth of data traffic, which reached the mark of 26.53 exabytes per month in 2018.

These companies are offering some personalized business services, such as IoT, security and cloud solutions.

Furthermore, many carriers already provide basic financial services like mobile payments and device financing. This last one is the perfect starting point for a further revolution: the integration of Bitcoin into the telecom ecosystem.

Telecommunications and Bitcoin: A Perfect Match

Carriers’ use of Bitcoin is a radical rethinking of the business-customer relationship, not merely a new mode of payment. Here is how this new ecosystem could work:

• Customer Experience and Infrastructure – Before implementing Bitcoin, an carrier must build the necessary infrastructure. This entails creating mechanisms that may not only receive cryptocurrency payments but alsoIf companies want to lessen their exposure to volatility, they can automatically convert Bitcoin to fiat money. Companies can also easily integrate with current invoicing systems and provide a more straightforward user experience.

  Imagine launching the app for your carrier, scanning a QR code, and having your bill paid or your monthly plan renewed in a matter of seconds. Without waiting for business days, without banking middlemen, and without exorbitant costs.

• Bringing in New Segments – In addition to making life easier for current clients, Bitcoin’s acceptance draws in entirely new demographics:

  Those that appreciate innovation and wish to back trailblazing businesses are known as technology enthusiasts.
  Advocates for privacy: Customers who favor transactions that need less personal information to be shared
  Global clientele are tourists from other countries who can pay for services without worrying about regional restrictions or exchange rates.

  Carrier might develop targeted marketing, such as “early access to new devices for customers who use cryptocurrencies” or “10% discount on data top-ups when paid with Bitcoin,” to attract these demographics.

Ongoing Innovation: What Will Happen After Bitcoin?

When businesses embrace Bitcoin and fully utilize blockchain technology, the real revolution will take place. This strategy creates opportunities for developments like:

• Creative Smart Contracts – Smart contracts are self-executing, blockchain-based programs that eliminate middlemen and automate processes. This could be interpreted by carriers as:
  • Instant service activation – Your Bitcoin payment has been validated and your international data package is activated automatically even before you land at the airport.Contracts that automatically expire at the designated time eliminate the need for a constant call to the call center.
  • Simplified termination – Mini-smart contracts enable family members to automatically transfer excess mobile data.

This was recently illustrated by the Japanese carrier Rakuten Mobile, which unveiled a system that enables users to temporarily increase their bandwidth through smart contracts for a few hours (for instance, to broadcast live events) without modifying their primary plan.

• Creative Partnerships in the World Ecosystem – The carriers are able to establish strategic alliances with:
  • Fintech companies that specialize in bitcoin to create integrated digital wallets.
  • Startups creating telecom-specific decentralized applications (DApps).
  • Academic institutions will investigate novel applications of blockchain technology in the telecommunications sector.

Given that the market is dominated by industry titans like China Mobile (794 million subscribers in 2023), Verizon (US$ 133.97 billion in 2023), and AT&T (US$ 161.5 billion in revenue in 2022), these partnerships have the potential to accelerate disruptive innovations that benefit the entire telecommunications ecosystem.

Reimagining the Customer Relationship with New Business Models

The incorporation of Bitcoin enables the investigation of business ideas that were before unfeasible:

• Microtransactions: Only Paying for the Things You Use – Processing fees in the traditional financial system make it impossible to charge tiny sums. This issue is resolved by Bitcoin, particularly via the Lightning Network, which permits:
  • Payment per call second (think of paying R$0.001 per second for just the actual usage)
  • – Acquiring small data packages (e.g., 500MB for a single movie)
  • – Immediate access to high-quality WiFi networks at cafes or airports, with just the time spent connecting being charged,

The startup Althea Network, which enables communities to establish their own internet networks where users automatically pay for each byte consumed, is already testing this idea. The trend of increasing video traffic, which currently makes up 70% of all mobile data traffic and is predicted to reach 80% by 2028, is well aligned with this strategy.

• Loyalty Initiatives on the Blockchain: Conventional point systems have little transparency and are hard to use. A method based on blockchain can:

Make loyalty tokens that are equivalent to actual digital money.
Permit customer exchanges (you can trade or sell points you won’t use).
Form more extensive alliances wherein other businesses accept the carrier tokens.

A system where users earn blockchain-based “T-points” tokens that can be turned into modest amounts of Bitcoin or swapped for other services is already being tested by South Korean carrier SK Telecom. In South Korea, one of the top markets for the adoption of 5G worldwide, this kind of innovation is especially pertinent.

Obstacles and Realistic Implementation Considerations

Despite the vast potential, there are important issues that must be resolved:

• Evolutionary Regulation – Countries’ cryptocurrency regulations differ greatly from one another and are always evolving. Carriers will require:
  • Maintain specialized teams to keep an eye on regulatory developments, work with authorities to help create reasonable regulations, and create adaptable systems that can evolve to meet new needs.
  • This strategy is crucial in light of the fact that the telecom industry is already dealing with a lot of regulatory pressure in different jurisdictions, as demonstrated by the Canadian government’s recent initiatives to encourage more access to MVNOs (mobile virtual network carriers) in 2023.
  • Please read this to undertand how Governors don’t  do anything to help you.
• Financial Management and Volatility – One difficulty is the volatility of Bitcoin pricing. In order to reduce hazards, carriers can:
  • Convert a portion of payments into fiat money automatically.
    Employ hedge services to guard against sharp swings.
    Provide dynamic prices that change based on the state of the market.
  • Given that international carriers oversee yearly earnings in the hundreds of billions of dollars, these tactics are particularly pertinent.
• Education of Consumers – Many customers are still confused about cryptocurrencies. Strategies that work include:
  • The carrier app’s simplified instructional
  • Committed assistance for Bitcoin transactions
  • Rewards for initial cryptocurrency purchases

With more than 5.7 billion mobile consumers worldwide, this educational initiative has the potential to significantly accelerate the widespread acceptance of cryptocurrencies.

Now is the time for deep digital transformation

Telecommunications companies that incorporate blockchain and Bitcoin into their ecosystem are doing more than simply introducing a new payment method; they are putting themselves at the vanguard of a significant digital revolution that will keep up with the industry’s explosive growth, which is expected to reach US$ 1.3 trillion globally by 2028.

The ability to innovate services, draw in creative clients, and open up new markets will be available to those that welcome this shift, which the conventional model would not allow. In order to prepare the infrastructure for this revolution, more than 300 commercial 5G networks will be operational globally beginning in 2024, marking the beginning of this shift.

As customers, we may anticipate more individualized, open, and effective services. Our civilization is progressing toward a telecommunications infrastructure that is fully suited to the digital era and capable of handling the enormous amount of data traffic

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.

This update brings key enhancements for clarity and usability:

• Recent Blocks View: Added to the Send tab and inspired by Mempool's visualization, it displays the last 2 blocks and the estimated next block to help choose fee rates.
• Camera System Overhaul: Features a new library for higher resolution detection and mouse-scroll zoom support when available.
• Vector-Based Images: All app images are now vectorized and theme-aware, enhancing contrast, especially in dark mode.
• Tor & P2A Updates: Upgraded internal Tor and improved support for pay-to-anchor (P2A) outputs.
• Linux Package Rename: For Linux users, Sparrow has been renamed to sparrowwallet (or sparrowserver); in some cases, the original sparrow package may need manual removal.
• Additional updates include showing total payments in multi-payment transaction diagrams, better handling of long labels, and other UI enhancements.

• Sparrow v2.2.1 is a bug fix release that addresses missing UUID issue when starting Tor on recent macOS versions, icons for external sources in Settings and Recent Blocks view, repackaged .deb installs to use older gzip instead of zstd compression, and removed display of median fee rate where fee rates source is set to Server.

Learn how to get started with Sparrow wallet:

Release notes (v2.2.0)

• Added Recent Blocks view to Send tab.
• Converted all bitmapped images to theme aware SVG format for all wallet models and dialogs.
• Support send and display of pay to anchor (P2A) outputs.
• Renamed sparrow package to sparrowwallet and sparrowserver on Linux.
• Switched camera library to openpnp-capture.
• Support FHD (1920 x 1080) and UHD4k (3840 x 2160) capture resolutions.
• Support camera zoom with mouse scroll where possible.
• In the Download Verifier, prefer verifying the dropped file over the default file where the file is not in the manifest.
• Show a warning (with an option to disable the check) when importing a wallet with a derivation path matching another script type.
• In Cormorant, avoid calling the listwalletdir RPC on initialization due to a potentially slow response on Windows.
• Avoid server address resolution for public servers.
• Assume server address is non local for resolution failures where a proxy is configured.
• Added a tooltip to indicate truncated labels in table cells.
• Dynamically truncate input and output labels in the tree on a transaction tab, and add tooltips if necessary.
• Improved tooltips for wallet tabs and transaction diagrams with long labels.
• Show the address where available on input and output tooltips in transaction tab tree.
• Show the total amount sent in payments in the transaction diagram when constructing multiple payment transactions.
• Reset preferred table column widths on adjustment to improve handling after window resizing.
• Added accessible text to improve screen reader navigation on seed entry.
• Made Wallet Summary table grow horizontally with dialog sizing.
• Reduced tooltip show delay to 200ms.
• Show transaction diagram fee percentage as less than 0.01% rather than 0.00%.
• Optimized and reduced Electrum server RPC calls.
• Upgraded Bouncy Castle, PGPainless and Logback libraries.
• Upgraded internal Tor to v0.4.8.16.
• Bug fix: Fixed issue with random ordering of keystore origins on labels import.
• Bug fix: Fixed non-zero account script type detection when signing a message on Trezor devices.
• Bug fix: Fixed issue parsing remote Coldcard xpub encoded on a different network.
• Bug fix: Fixed inclusion of fees on wallet label exports.
• Bug fix: Increase Trezor device libusb timeout.

Linux users: Note that the sparrow package has been renamed to sparrowwallet or sparrowserver, and in some cases you may need to manually uninstall the original sparrow package. Look in the /opt folder to ensure you have the new name, and the original is removed.

What's new in v2.2.1

• Updated Tor library to fix missing UUID issue when starting Tor on recent macOS versions.
• Repackaged .deb installs to use older gzip instead of zstd compression.
• Removed display of median fee rate where fee rates source is set to Server.
• Added icons for external sources in Settings and Recent Blocks view
• Bug fix: Fixed issue in Recent Blocks view when switching fee rates source
• Bug fix: Fixed NPE on null fee returned from server

Announcement / Archive
GitHub Repo

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Layer 2: Statechains

Statechains are an original second layer protocol originally developed by Ruben Somsen in 2018, depending on the eltoo (or LN Symmetry) proposal. In 2021 a variation of the original proposal, Mercury, was built by CommerceBlock. In 2024, a further iteration of the original Mercury scheme was built, Mercury Layer. 

The Statechain protocol is a bit more complicated to discuss compared to other systems such as Ark or Lightning because of the range of variations that are possible between the original proposed design, the two that have been actually implemented, and other possible designs that have been loosely proposed. 

Like Ark, Statechains depend on a centralized coordinating server in order to function. Unlike Ark, they have a slightly different trust model than a vUTXO in an Ark batch. They depend on the coordinating server to delete previously generated shares of a private key in order to remain trustless, but as long as the server follows the defined protocol and does so, they provide a strong security guarantee. 

The general idea of a Statechain is to be able to transfer ownership of an entire UTXO between different users off-chain, facilitated by the coordinator. There is no requirement for receiving liquidity like Lightning, or the coordinator server to provide any liquidity like Ark. 

To begin, we will look at the original protocol proposed by Ruben Somsen. 

The Original Statechain

Statechains are effectively a pre-signed transaction allowing the current owner of the Statechain to unilaterally withdraw on-chain whenever they want, and a history signed messages cryptographically proving that past owners and the receivers they sent the Statechain to approved those transfers. 

The original design was built on eltoo using ANYPREVOUT, but the current plans on how to enable the same functionality make use of CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY and CHECKSIGFROMSTACK (a high level explanation of this is at the end of the CHECKSIGFROMSTACK article). The basic idea is a script enabling a pre-signed transaction to spend any UTXO that has that script and locks the appropriate amount of bitcoin, rather than being tied to spending a single specific UTXO. 

In the protocol, a user wishing to deposit their coins to a Statechain approaches a coordinator server and goes through a deposit protocol. The depositing user, Bob, generates a key that will be uniquely owned by him, but also a second “transitory” key that will eventually be shared (more on this soon). They then craft a deposit transaction locking their coin to a multisig requiring the coordinator’s key and the transitory key to sign. 

Using this multisig, Bob and the coordinator sign a transaction that spends that coin and creates a UTXO that can either be spent by any other transaction signed by the transitory key and the coordinator’s key using LN Symmetry, or Bob’s unique key after a timelock. Bob can now fund the multisig with the appropriate amount, and the Statechain has been created. 

To transfer a Statechain to Charlie, Bob must go through a multistep process. First, Bob signs a message with his unique private key that attests to the fact he is going to transfer the Statechain to Charlie. Charlie must also sign a message attesting to the fact that he has received the Statechain from Bob. Finally, the coordinator server must sign a new transaction allowing Charlie to unilaterally claim the Statechain on-chain before Bob sends Charlie a copy of the transitory key. 

All of this is made atomic using adapter signatures. These are signatures that are modified in such a way using a random piece of data that renders them invalid, but can be made valid again once the holder of the signature receives that piece of information. All of the messages, and the new pre-signed transaction are signed with adapter signatures, and atomically made valid at the same time through the release of the adapter data. 

Holders of a Statechain must trust that the coordinator server never conspires with a previous owner to sign an immediate closure of the Statechain and steal funds from the current owner, but the chain of pre-signed messages can prove that a coordinator has participated in theft if they were to do so. If a past owner attempts to use their pre-signed transaction to steal the funds, the timelock on the spend path using only their key allows the current owner to submit their pre-signed transaction and correctly claim the funds on chain. 

Mercury and Mercury Layer

The original Statechain architecture requires a softfork in order to function. CommerceBlock designed their variant of Statechains to function without a softfork, but in order to do so tradeoffs were made in terms of functionality. 

The basic idea is the same as the original design, all users hold a pre-signed transaction that allows them to claim their funds unilaterally, and the coordinator server still plays a role in facilitating off-chain transfers that requires them to be trusted to behave honestly. The two major differences are how those transactions are signed, and the structure of the pre-signed transaction users are given. 

Where the signing is concerned, there is no longer a transitory private key that is passed from user to user. Instead of this, a multiparty-computation protocol (MPC) is used so that the original owner and the coordinator server are able to collaboratively generate partial pieces of a private key without either of them ever possessing the full key. This key is used to sign the pre-signed transactions. The MPC protocol allows the current owner and coordinator to engage in a second protocol with a third party, the receiver of a transfer, to regenerate different pieces that add up to the same private key. In both the Mercury and Mercury Layer protocol, after completing a transfer an honest coordinator server deletes the key material corresponding to the previous owner. As long as this is done, it is no longer possible for the coordinator to sign a transaction with a previous owner, as the new piece of key material they have is not compatible with the piece any previous owner might still have. This is actually a stronger guarantee, as long as the coordinator is honest, than the original proposal.

The pre-signed transaction structure for Mercury and Mercury Layer can’t use LN Symmetry, as this is not possible without a softfork. In lieu of this, CommerceBlock opted to use decrementing timelocks. The original owner’s pre-signed transaction is timelocked using nLocktime to a time far out in the future from the point of the Statechain’s creation. As each subsequent user receives the Statechain during a transfer, the nLocktime value of their transaction is some pre-determined length of time shorter than the previous owner. This guarantees that a previous owner is incapable of even trying to submit their transaction on-chain before the current owner can, but it also means that eventually at some point the current owner must close their Statechain on-chain before previous owners’ transactions start becoming valid. 

The major difference between Mercury and Mercury Layer is how these transactions are signed. In the case of Mercury, the coordinator server simply sees the transaction proposed, verifies it, and then signs it. Mercury Layer uses a blind-signing protocol, meaning that they do not actually see any details of the transaction they are signing. This necessitates the server tracking Statechains using anonymized records on the server, and a special authorization key of the current owner so that they can be sure they are only signing valid transfers. 

Synergy With Other Layers

Statechains can synergize with other Layer 2s that are based on pre-signed transactions. For instance, part of the original proposal suggested a combination of Statechains and Lightning Channels. Because both are simply pre-signed transactions, it is possible to actually nest a Lightning channel on top of a Statechain. This simply requires the current owner’s unilateral exit key to be a multisig, and the creation of the pre-signed transactions spending that output into a Lightning channel. This allows Lightning channels to be opened and closed entirely off-chain. 

In a similar fashion, it is possible to nest a Statechain on top of a vUTXO in an Ark batch. This simply requires the pre-signed transactions necessary for a Statechain to be constructed, spending the vUTXO output. 

Wrapping Up

Statechains are not entirely trustless, but they are a very trust minimized scheme that is very liquidity efficient and allows freely transferring UTXOs off-chain between any users willing to accept the trust model of Statechains. 

While the original proposal has yet to be built, the two implementations designed by CommerceBlock have been completely implemented. Both failed to achieve anything more than marginal use in the real world. Whether this is due to users being unwilling to accept the trust model involved, or simply a failure in marketing or awareness is something that cannot be fully ascertained. 

Regardless, given that there are two full implementations and designs for a more flexible variation should LN Symmetry ever become possible on Bitcoin, this an option

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

• This version introduces the Soroban P2P network, enabling Dojo to relay transactions to the Bitcoin network and share others' transactions to break the heuristic linking relaying nodes to transaction creators.

• Additionally, Dojo admins can now manage API keys in DMT with labels, status, and expiration, ideal for community Dojo providers like Dojobay. New API endpoints, including "/services" exposing Explorer, Soroban, and Indexer, have been added to aid wallet developers.
• Other maintenance updates include Bitcoin Core, Tor, Fulcrum, Node.js, plus an updated ban-knots script to disconnect inbound Knots nodes.

"I want to thank all the contributors. This again shows the power of true Free Software. I also want to thank everyone who donated to help Dojo development going. I truly appreciate it," said Still Dojo Coder.

What's new

• Soroban P2P network. For MyDojo (Docker setup) users, Soroban will be automatically installed as part of their Dojo. This integration allows Dojo to utilize the Soroban P2P network for various upcoming features and applications.
• PandoTx. PandoTx serves as a transaction transport layer. When your wallet sends a transaction to Dojo, it is relayed to a random Soroban node, which then forwards it to the Bitcoin network. It also enables your Soroban node to receive and relay transactions from others to the Bitcoin network and is designed to disrupt the assumption that a node relaying a transaction is closely linked to the person who initiated it.
  • Pushing transactions through Soroban can be deactivated by setting NODE_PANDOTX_PUSH=off in docker-node.conf.
  • Processing incoming transactions from Soroban network can be deactivated by setting NODE_PANDOTX_PROCESS=off in docker-node.conf.
• API key management has been introduced to address the growing number of people offering their Dojos to the community. Dojo admins can now access a new API management tab in their DMT, where they can create unlimited API keys, assign labels for easy identification, and set expiration dates for each key. This allows admins to avoid sharing their main API key and instead distribute specific keys to selected parties.
• New API endpoints. Several new API endpoints have been added to help API consumers develop features on Dojo more efficiently:
  • New:
    • /latest-block - returns data about latest block
    • /txout/:txid/:index - returns unspent output data
    • /support/services - returns info about services that Dojo exposes
  • Updated:
    • /tx/:txid - endpoint has been updated to return raw transaction with parameter ?rawHex=1
  • The new /support/services endpoint replaces the deprecated explorer field in the Dojo pairing payload. Although still present, API consumers should use this endpoint for explorer and other pairing data.

Other changes

• Updated ban script to disconnect inbound Knots nodes.
• Updated Fulcrum to v1.12.0.
• Regenerate Fulcrum certificate if expired.
• Check if transaction already exists in pushTx.
• Bump BTC-RPC Explorer.
• Bump Tor to v0.4.8.16, bump Snowflake.
• Updated Bitcoin Core to v29.0.
• Removed unnecessary middleware.
• Fixed DB update mechanism, added api_keys table.
• Add an option to use blocksdir config for bitcoin blocks directory.
• Removed deprecated configuration.
• Updated Node.js dependencies.
• Reconfigured container dependencies.
• Fix Snowflake git URL.
• Fix log path for testnet4.
• Use prebuilt addrindexrs binaries.
• Add instructions to migrate blockchain/fulcrum.
• Added pull policies.

#FREESAMOURAI

Learn how to set up and use your own Bitcoin privacy node with Dojo here.

Announcement / Archive
GitHub Repo

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

In 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 (Read this article Can the Lightning Network Lead to “Hyperbitcoinization”? to know more about Bitcoinization). 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 infrastructures.

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.

Why Lightning network? Please read this article Lightning Network vs. Traditional Bitcoin Transactions.

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 the Machankura 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.

@ cae03c48:2a7d6671

Bitcoin Magazine

Canadian Company Universal Digital Launches Bitcoin Treasury Strategy

Universal Digital Inc. (CSE: LFG) has announced it has launched a Bitcoin Treasury Strategy as a core pillar of its capital allocation framework, beginning with the divestment of altcoin holdings to accumulate Bitcoin under a new reserve model.

“Our Bitcoin Treasury Strategy marks a deliberate shift in how we manage capital – by holding Bitcoin as a long-term treasury asset, we aim to enhance balance sheet strength and align with the evolving global financial landscape,” said the CEO of the Company Tim Chan. “The framework we’ve established with GFA enables us to explore extending this model to Asia, where digital assets are gaining traction among public companies and institutional investors.”

The strategy is designed to increase long term net asset value while aligning Universal Digital with the broader global shift toward institutional adoption of BTC. The Company sees Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset and intends to implement the strategy in a transparent and phased manner.

Universal Digital plans to work with publicly traded companies across Asia to introduce Bitcoin treasury models. Eastern Asia, led by markets such as Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, accounted for 8.9% of global on-chain crypto transaction volume between July 2023 and June 2024, according to the press release.

“Universal Digital’s and its management’s experience with the crypto and Bitcoin treasury combined with our expertise on the Japanese markets makes us a strong team,” stated Gen Matsuda, CEO of Ground Financial Advisory Co. “I look forward to working closely with Universal Digital to introduce bitcoin reserve model to Japanese listed companies.”

As part of its expansion into Asia, Universal Digital signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on June 12, 2025, with Ground Financial Advisory Co., a Tokyo stock exchange listed financial and technology group. The partnership aims to develop Bitcoin based corporate finance models for the Japanese market.

Under the MOU, the companies will jointly explore: 

• Implementing Bitcoin reserve models for publicly listed companies in Japan.
• Designing capital raising instruments such as warrants and market-based offerings to support Bitcoin acquisitions.
• Strengthening frameworks for digital asset governance, investor relations, and secure custody.

This collaboration may also extend to joint investments in public companies, the creation of blockchain-enabled corporate structures, and projects that integrate Bitcoin with cultural intellectual property and Web3-driven consumer ecosystems, according to the release. The agreement was signed on an arm’s length basis, with no related party interests between Universal Digital and GFA.

This post Canadian Company Universal Digital Launches Bitcoin Treasury Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Oscar Zarraga Perez.

@ f3873798:24b3f2f3

Muito se fala sobre racismo no Brasil. A mídia, os políticos e os intelectuais engajados repetem discursos antirracistas, promovem campanhas e ergueram bandeiras pela igualdade. No entanto, existe uma hipocrisia gritante quando olhamos para a realidade dos povos indígenas no país.

No Brasil, o indígena ainda é, juridicamente, tratado como incapaz de decidir por si mesmo, sendo suas terras consideradas propriedade da União. Isso significa, na prática, que tudo o que diz respeito à sua cultura, território e desenvolvimento precisa do “amém” do Estado. É um tipo de tutela que remete aos tempos coloniais, onde os “civilizados” decidiam o que era melhor para os “selvagens”.

O mais engraçado e trágico deste fato, é que não há nenhum movimento midiático que aborda sobre a existência absurda deste tipo de regimento jurídico, não há influenciar não há atores e atrizes da Globo, nem cantores que questione e lance a pauta

Como falar em fim da escravidão ou combate ao racismo estrutural, se ainda hoje tratamos povos inteiros como se fossem incapazes de autodeterminação?

Enquanto isso, o governo federal, representado atualmente por figuras como “Tio Lule”, negocia e entrega terras indígenas para interesses geopolíticos, sustentando ditaduras e alianças internacionais, enquanto os próprios povos originários ficam à margem do desenvolvimento econômico.

Recursos como açaí, cupuaçu, babaçu e muitos outros produtos amazônicos serão explorados por empresas estrangeiras, que lucrarão intensamente, sem que as comunidades locais tenham condições mínimas de acesso aos meios de produção ou ao mercado. Isso destrói a economia regional, perpetua a dependência e impede que o verdadeiro protagonismo indígena aconteça.

Um ciclo que se repete: a história da borracha

O que está em curso não é novidade. É uma repetição histórica. Basta lembrar do ciclo da borracha, quando os ingleses levaram sementes de seringueira da Amazônia para plantar na Ásia, quebrando o monopólio brasileiro e afundando a economia da região Norte, que até hoje carrega as marcas desse roubo histórico.

Agora, a história se repete, mas com outros nomes e produtos — e com o apoio explícito do Estado brasileiro.

@ 9c9d2765:16f8c2c2

CHAPTER FORTY

James scoffed quietly, his jaw tightening. "He gave up the right to judge me the day he cast me out. Everything I have now, I earned without his shadow."

He walked toward the bar, poured himself a glass of water, and turned back to Rosa.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

She swallowed, her voice lowering. "Because I don’t want to be on the losing side when the truth comes out. And because I believe in you. Despite everything, you did what none of them could revive a crumbling empire. That has to count for something."

James studied her for a moment, then nodded. "It does. More than you know."

The following day dawned, cloaked in a deceptive stillness. The city, oblivious to the brewing storm within the corridors of power, bustled with its usual rhythm. But within the executive tower of JP Enterprises, the atmosphere was anything but ordinary.

James sat in his office, the vast room silent except for the soft hum of the air conditioning. The files laid out before him were damning evidence of not only his father’s covert betrayal, but also a trail of influence that reached far beyond what he had initially imagined. There were names, transfers, off-the-record meetings, and veiled communications each pointing to a calculated attempt to usurp his leadership under the guise of concern for the company’s future.

His eyes narrowed as he read through the final report. The extent of the deception wasn’t just hurtful but also enraging. These weren’t mere business rivalries; they were orchestrated acts of sabotage, engineered by those who once claimed to be family.

Just then, his assistant, Cole, stepped in.

“Sir, the board has gathered. They're waiting for you in the main conference hall,” he said respectfully.

James stood, adjusted his tailored suit, and nodded. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

As he walked through the corridor, whispers followed him. The viral scandal, though rapidly discredited thanks to Rosa’s intervention, had left behind its sting. But James moved with the composure of a man who had endured fire and emerged unburnt.

Inside the boardroom, every seat was occupied. Helen and Mark were present, feigning innocence, while other executives exchanged nervous glances. Even Mr. JP had arrived early, seated at the far end, his expression inscrutable.

James entered and placed a thick folder on the table with deliberate calm.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice composed yet firm, “the recent rumors surrounding my integrity and leadership have not only been malicious but entirely fabricated. Today, I present to you the evidence of the orchestration behind those lies.”

He opened the file, revealing photographs, digital footprints, financial trails, and a list of corroborated testimonies. Gasps echoed softly as names began to surface Mark, Helen, and to the surprise of many, Mr. JP himself.

James didn’t flinch as the tension escalated.

“This company stands on the foundation of transparency, innovation, and integrity,” he continued. “If we allow treachery to flourish within our ranks, we compromise everything we claim to be.”

A heavy silence followed.

Mr. JP slowly stood, his voice low but resonant. “Is this your retribution, James? Exposing your own blood before the board?”

James met his gaze without wavering. “This is accountability, father. You taught me to protect the legacy, not the lies.”

The room held its collective breath.

After a moment of silence, a senior board member cleared his throat. “We move to vote on the proposed expulsion of those found guilty of misconduct,” he said, and one by one, the members raised their hands.

As Helen’s face drained of color and Mark muttered a curse under his breath, James stood motionless. Not out of pride but out of quiet triumph. For once, truth had prevailed not through vengeance, but by the sheer strength of character.

James, once scorned and ridiculed by those who couldn’t see beyond his humble beginning, had not only reclaimed his name but restored honor to the JP legacy. The revelation of his identity silenced critics and vindicated every hardship he endured. No longer just the mysterious President of JP Enterprises, he stood proud as the rightful heir, an important leader shaped by fire, not privilege.

Hi again. She and James, once distant due to family interference, reconnected this time with mutual respect and quiet understanding.

Mr. and Mrs. JP had returned not only to witness the revival of their empire but to make peace with their only son. With tearful eyes, they welcomed James back not just as a son but as a man who had become greater than they had ever imagined.

James, ever composed, continued to lead with excellence and grace. He never let power cloud his judgment or pride dictate his path. He remembered where he came from and used that pain as a compass.

And so, the man who was once dismissed as a beggar walked boldly into his destiny not to seek revenge, but to rewrite the narrative. His story became one whispered in corporate circles and told in classrooms a testimony that no matter how dark the beginning, greatness can still emerge from the shadows.

@ 692a0d34:31dbec4d

Core Implementation Specifications

Core Features

1. Feature A: Implemented with [details].
2. Feature B: Implemented with [details].
3. Feature C: Implemented with [details].

Basic Functionality

• Functionality 1: Verified and working as expected.
• Functionality 2: Key interactions tested and validated.

Initial Tests

• Test Case 1: Passed with [results].
• Test Case 2: Passed with [results].
• Test Case 3: Passed with [results].

Lessons Learned

• Lesson 1: Description of any challenges faced.
• Lesson 2: Improvements for future iterations.

@ 41959693:3888319c

Überblick über die Anthologie

Die Anthologie „365 Tage Frieden“, herausgegeben von Rüdiger Heins und Michael Landgraf, erschien 2025 im Verlag EDITION MAYA. In diesem Werk haben über 100 Autoren ihre Gedanken zum Frieden geäußert und zeigen dabei thematisch wie stilistisch, welche Vielfalt und Komplexität unter diesem Begriff vereint werden kann.

Diese Buchbesprechung geht nicht auf einzelne Beiträge ein, sondern betrachtet die Zusammenstellung und Gesamtwirkung der Texte. Jedem Tag des Jahres wurde ein Text zugeordnet, wobei es keine feste Abgrenzung oder Reihenfolge von Lyrik und Prosa gibt. Das Aufschlagen einer neuen Seite bzw. eines neuen Tages ist stets eine Überraschung, ein Wunder, ähnlich dem Frieden wie einige Autoren meinen.

Die Stimmen der Autoren erreichen den Leser dabei nicht nur aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum, sondern international und als Querschnitt aus unterschiedlicher Perspektiven, Lebensweisen, Erfahrungen, Ängsten und Hoffnungen. Dies beginnt bereits bei der Definition des „Friedens“. Ist es das Schweigen der Waffen; die erbauliche Koexistenz? Ist es die Stille, die in der Andacht der Natur gefunden wird? Ist es innere Gelassenheit? Die thematische Inhomogenität der Texte kann keine klare Antwort finden – doch in dieser Offenheit liegt auch der Reiz, die vermeintlich kleine Gedankenwelt des in der Moderne gehetzt-gestressten Normalbürgers ebenso zu akzeptieren wie die innere Ruhe eines System-Aussteigers, der im Glauben steht, sich den großen Fragen des Universums zu widmen.

Doch zurück fällt das Gros der Texte unabhängig davon immer wieder auf die formelhafte Beschwörung von Harmonie, Liebe und Freiheit und der Wunsch nach Verständnis, Verständigung und einer sicheren Zukunft. Dieser ständige Rückgriff wirkt nicht ermüdend oder altbacken, nicht mit der Gewissheit im Hinterkopf, wie kostbar und leicht zerbrechlich der Frieden ist. Im Vorwort des Buches berichtet Michael Landgraf beispielsweise in einem kurzen historischen Abriss vom aufgezwungenen römischen Frieden über den dreißigjährigen Krieg bis zu den völkerrechtswidrigen Kriegen der Gegenwart. Im Nachwort erinnert Uli Rothfuss daran, welche Aufgabe gerade Autoren in solchen Zeiten zufällt und verstärkt die Erkenntnis, dass Frieden eine Leistung ist, an der alle mitwirken können.

Stil und Wirkung

Die Anthologie stützt sich auf das Abwechslungsreichtum der Beiträge: Hier überwiegen vor allem die lyrischen Werke und Prosagedichte. Es gibt auch vereinzelte Prosatexte, welche aber i. d. R. in ihrer Länge drei Seiten nicht überschreiten. Sprache wie Gattung sind vielfältig: nüchterner Essay, phonetische Sprachspiele, Aphorismen und Akrosticha, von ernst bis augenzwinkernd. Die Gedichte sind überwiegend reimlos und ohne Metrik, selten lösen sie sich ganz vom Schema klassischer Typografie und spielen so mit dem Betrachter. Immer wieder finden sich direkte und indirekte Zitate, die religiösen und philosophischen Schriften entstammen oder Persönlichkeiten zuzuordnen sind, welche sich als Aufklärer, Humanisten und Menschenrechtler einen Namen gemacht haben.

Thematisch sprechen die Autoren sich nicht nur für den Frieden aus, sondern illustrieren zum Teil auch verbal brutal die Schrecken des Krieges, zeigen die Zerstörung, den Schmerz, die Fremde und Einsamkeit. Wir erfahren von Hass, gezüchtet und blühend in den Rabatten. In einem Beitrag heißt es: „Da sah ich das Spiel der Liebe Arm in Arm mit den Drogen zum Dinner flanieren.“

Die Poesie soll uns mahnend im Gedächtnis bleiben und all die Bandbreite fassen; die Sicherheit des Friedens ebenso wie die Verzweiflung über die Sinnlosigkeit des Tötens. Diese Unnatürlichkeit, die uns als fühlende Wesen eigentlich fassungslos hinterlassen sollte, machen die Autoren durch ihre Sprache sichtbar: „Ich habe über den Frieden schreiben wollen, und dann verbrannte ich mich an Grablichtern.“

Fazit: Wie diese Anthologie helfen kann

„365 Tage Frieden“ ist nicht dafür geschrieben, sie wie ein gewöhnliches Buch von vorn bis hinten durchzublättern. Durch ihre Vielstimmigkeit soll sie Hoffnung wecken und mit dem Konzept, jeden Tag einen anderen Text vor sich zu haben, bindet sich der Leser an ein Stück Kontinuität.

Wer es sich zum Ritual machen möchte, jeden Tag einen Moment inne zu halten und einen der kleinen Friedenstexte zu lesen, wird gewiss die Möglichkeit finden, mit Vertrauen in die Zukunft zu blicken und sich gegen Angst zu wappnen. Die auch in zahlreichen Texten beschworenen Schrecken sollen dabei die Wichtigkeit des Friedens verdeutlichen und verschaffen der Reise durch das Jahr bzw. durch das Buch thematische und stilistische Abwechslung.

Der Wunsch nach Frieden und Versöhnung bleibt zeitlos, im Studium der Geschichte finden sich aber markante Punkte und Persönlichkeiten, die wir immer mit den großen Konflikten der Menschheit verbinden. Allgemeine, vergangene wie aktuelle Auseinandersetzungen, z. B. im Gaza-Streifen oder im Ukraine-Krieg kommen zur Ansprache, ebenso wie beispielsweise momentane Entwicklungen in den USA.

Wer dem Frieden eine Stimme geben möchte, kann durch dieses Buch seine Überzeugung stärken und die Stimmbänder emotional wie intellektuell trainieren. Die Schicksale und Beobachtungen der Autoren zeigen, dass wir fortwährend Fürsprecher für eine gemeinsame Zukunft brauchen werden.

---

365 Tage Frieden

Hrsg. Rüdiger Heins und Michael Landgraf

Verlag EDITION MAYA, 2025

ISBN: 978-3-930758-95-1

---

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Artikel findet man auch auf Telegram unter:

https://t.me/pareto_artikel

https://t.me/friedenstaube_artikel

@ 39cc53c9:27168656

Read the original blog post

The new website is finally live! I put in a lot of hard work over the past months on it. I'm proud to say that it's out now and it looks pretty cool, at least to me!

Why rewrite it all?

The old kycnot.me site was built using Python with Flask about two years ago. Since then, I've gained a lot more experience with Golang and coding in general. Trying to update that old codebase, which had a lot of design flaws, would have been a bad idea. It would have been like building on an unstable foundation.

That's why I made the decision to rewrite the entire application. Initially, I chose to use SvelteKit with JavaScript. I did manage to create a stable site that looked similar to the new one, but it required Jav aScript to work. As I kept coding, I started feeling like I was repeating "the Python mistake". I was writing the app in a language I wasn't very familiar with (just like when I was learning Python at that mom ent), and I wasn't happy with the code. It felt like spaghetti code all the time.

So, I made a complete U-turn and started over, this time using Golang. While I'm not as proficient in Golang as I am in Python now, I find it to be a very enjoyable language to code with. Most aof my recent pr ojects have been written in Golang, and I'm getting the hang of it. I tried to make the best decisions I could and structure the code as well as possible. Of course, there's still room for improvement, which I'll address in future updates.

Now I have a more maintainable website that can scale much better. It uses a real database instead of a JSON file like the old site, and I can add many more features. Since I chose to go with Golang, I mad e the "tradeoff" of not using JavaScript at all, so all the rendering load falls on the server. But I believe it's a tradeoff that's worth it.

What's new

• UI/UX - I've designed a new logo and color palette for kycnot.me. I think it looks pretty cool and cypherpunk. I am not a graphic designer, but I think I did a decent work and I put a lot of thinking on it to make it pleasant!
• Point system - The new point system provides more detailed information about the listings, and can be expanded to cover additional features across all services. Anyone can request a new point!
• ToS Scrapper: I've implemented a powerful automated terms-of-service scrapper that collects all the ToS pages from the listings. It saves you from the hassle of reading the ToS by listing the lines that are suspiciously related to KYC/AML practices. This is still in development and it will improve for sure, but it works pretty fine right now!
• Search bar - The new search bar allows you to easily filter services. It performs a full-text search on the Title, Description, Category, and Tags of all the services. Looking for VPN services? Just search for "vpn"!
• Transparency - To be more transparent, all discussions about services now take place publicly on GitLab. I won't be answering any e-mails (an auto-reply will prompt to write to the corresponding Gitlab issue). This ensures that all service-related matters are publicly accessible and recorded. Additionally, there's a real-time audits page that displays database changes.
• Listing Requests - I have upgraded the request system. The new form allows you to directly request services or points without any extra steps. In the future, I plan to enable requests for specific changes to parts of the website.
• Lightweight and fast - The new site is lighter and faster than its predecessor!
• Tor and I2P - At last! kycnot.me is now officially on Tor and I2P!

How?

This rewrite has been a labor of love, in the end, I've been working on this for more than 3 months now. I don't have a team, so I work by myself on my free time, but I find great joy in helping people on their private journey with cryptocurrencies. Making it easier for individuals to use cryptocurrencies without KYC is a goal I am proud of!

If you appreciate my work, you can support me through the methods listed here. Alternatively, feel free to send me an email with a kind message!

Technical details

All the code is written in Golang, the website makes use of the chi router for the routing part. I also make use of BigCache for caching database requests. There is 0 JavaScript, so all the rendering load falls on the server, this means it needed to be efficient enough to not drawn with a few users since the old site was reporting about 2M requests per month on average (note that this are not unique users).

The database is running with mariadb, using gorm as the ORM. This is more than enough for this project. I started working with an sqlite database, but I ended up migrating to mariadb since it works better with JSON.

The scraper is using chromedp combined with a series of keywords, regex and other logic. It runs every 24h and scraps all the services. You can find the scraper code here.

The frontend is written using Golang Templates for the HTML, and TailwindCSS plus DaisyUI for the CSS classes framework. I also use some plain CSS, but it's minimal.

The requests forms is the only part of the project that requires JavaScript to be enabled. It is needed for parsing some from fields that are a bit complex and for the "captcha", which is a simple Proof of Work that runs on your browser, destinated to avoid spam. For this, I use mCaptcha.

@ 472f440f:5669301e

Marty's Bent

So much for that tariff hyperinflation.\ \ New inflation numbers came at 1.2% — way below the Fed’s target.\ \ For the 4th time in Trump’s 4 months.\ \ Yet not a word about easing from the fed. Who’s now moving the inflation goal-posts to 2026 or even 2027. pic.twitter.com/nwzSCABrbR

— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) June 16, 2025

After months of pundits, politicians, and partisan hacks kvetching about the aggressive tariff regime put forth by the Trump administration, we're beginning to see some data tickle in that makes it seem as if the tariff strategy may actually be working. At the end of last week, inflation data hit the market cooler than expected. Some core components coming in below the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation target. Granted, the CPI is manipulated and may be underreporting actual inflation. However, if we're simply comparing the CPI to itself, it seems to be moving in the right direction if, like me, you don't like when prices consistently rise month on month, year on year, decade on decade.

On top of this, the amount of revenue that tariffs are bringing in is significant and rising quickly. In May, tariff revenue collected in the U.S. hit a record of $22.3 billion. In April, the U.S. government brought in $16.5 billion from tariffs, and collectively, since Trump took office, the government has brought in around $67.2 billion in tariff revenue. Tariffs now reflect 4% of the total federal revenue, which is up from an average of 2% over the last few years. If this trend keeps up, the idea that tariffs can replace income tax revenue in the United States seems to be validated. Even better, it seems that the increased inflation that many were warning about hasn't materialized yet. There could be a way to increase the revenue of the federal government without increasing taxes on American producers while keeping prices lower. This is a beautiful thing.

I don't think it's time to ring the bell and claim victory in regards to tariffs and inflation quite yet, but this is extremely encouraging and something that all of you should be monitoring closely in the months ahead. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, I think we should all celebrate if the bold strategy of levying tariffs on the rest of the world to bring manufacturing home, while the government produces revenue via means that don't attack the income of individual citizens actually works out in the end.

It's crazy what pricing your life in Bitcoin does as you surf the internet. This newsletter was partly inspired by the video above from our good friend Peter St. Onge, but also because of this tweet I saw earlier today that priced the tariff revenue in bitcoin.

via The Kobeissi Letter

The Kobeissi Letter did not include the bitcoin denominations in its tweet. Our browser extension, Opportunity Cost, automatically injected it into the tweet so that I could understand how much revenue the government is bringing in in terms of Bitcoin. If they chose to use Bitcoin as a reserve asset.

It's crazy to think that at current bitcoin prices and if tariff revenue stays at the level it reached last month, the United States government could acquire a strategic reserve of 1 million bitcoin in less than five months. That really puts things into perspective, for me at least, about how much money is being thrown around the system both in the private markets and the public sector.

We are still extremely early in terms of bitcoin's adoption and monetization. Just looking at the tweet makes me want to tap somebody on the shoulder in the government and say, "Hey, look at this. If you sacrifice less than five months of tariff revenue and funnel that into bitcoin, you could have your strategic reserve by the end of the year. Before Thanksgiving even."

If tariff revenue continues to increase at the pace it has over the last couple of months, and the economy recovers, inflation isn't that bad, why not? Why not start building the strategic reserve with some of these revenues? A man can dream.

Washington's Bitcoin Awakening: From Crime Concerns to Strategic Asset

Ken Egan described a remarkable shift in how Washington views Bitcoin. Just a year ago, he recalls fighting defensive battles against basic misconceptions about criminal use and technical vulnerabilities. Today, policymakers ask sophisticated questions about Bitcoin's role in global monetary competition and national security strategy. Egan emphasized that discussions no longer waste time on "is it just for buying drugs" but instead focus on how Bitcoin can counter China's parallel financial systems and strengthen America's competitive position.

"There are people thinking, even the Department of Energy, some of whom will be at our conference, thinking really deeply about everything this ecosystem has to offer and how we can apply it to sort of a comprehensive national security strategy." - Ken Egan

Multiple government departments are now actively exploring Bitcoin's potential, Egan revealed. The Department of Defense examines mining for energy resilience, while the Department of Energy considers grid applications. Trump's executive order formally distinguished Bitcoin from other cryptocurrencies, signaling institutional recognition of its unique properties. This evolution from skepticism to strategic thinking represents a fundamental transformation in how America's policy establishment approaches Bitcoin.

Check out the full podcast here for more on institutional Bitcoin adoption, resistance money warnings, and bipartisan coalition building.

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Headlines of the Day

France Eyes Bitcoin Mining to Use Excess Energy - via X

Truth Social Files for Bitcoin ETF - via X

French Firm Raises €9.7M to Expand Bitcoin Treasury - via X

China's DDC Enterprise Adds 38 BTC to Treasury - via X

Get our new STACK SATS hat - via tftcmerch.io

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Bitcoin’s Next Parabolic Move: Could Liquidity Lead the Way?

Is bitcoin’s next parabolic move starting? Global liquidity and business cycle indicators suggest it may be.

Read the latest report from Unchained and TechDev, analyzing how global M2 liquidity and the copper/gold ratio—two historically reliable macro indicators—are aligning once again to signal that a new bitcoin bull market may soon begin.

Download the report here

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Ten31, the largest bitcoin-focused investor, has deployed $150.00M 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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Final thought...

The best way to start your Monday morning is for the brake system in your car to completely shit the bed and force you to sit on the side of the road for a tow truck for two hours.

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Download our free browser extension, Opportunity Cost: https://www.opportunitycost.app/ start thinking in SATS today.

Get this newsletter sent to your inbox daily: https://www.tftc.io/bitcoin-brief/

Subscribe to our YouTube channels and follow us on Nostr and X:

@ c04ae0f0:b0cd5684

In an increasingly digital world where traditional currencies lose purchasing power and bank fees weigh heavily on small businesses, Bitcoin emerges as a serious and beneficial alternative for merchants.

Yet many still hesitate. Is it due to lack of information? Fear of volatility? A system that seems too technical? Here’s a practical and human approach to help them take the first step.

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🎯 1. Understand Their Needs First

Before talking about Bitcoin, listen to the merchant. What are their day-to-day challenges?

Do they have foreign customers?

Do they experience banking delays or network issues?

Are they frustrated by high card transaction fees?

Have they ever heard of Bitcoin?

👉 The goal isn’t to give a tech lecture, but to show them that Bitcoin can solve real business problems: high fees, banking delays, or lack of access to reliable financial services.

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💡 2. Highlight the Benefits for Their Business

✅ No Bank Fees

Bitcoin payments don’t go through intermediaries. No hidden costs, no commissions.

✅ Fast and Irreversible Transactions

Once confirmed, the money is theirs. No chargebacks, no bank disputes.

✅ New Customer Base

Bitcoin users actively seek out businesses that accept it. This is a chance to gain free visibility and attract loyal, values-driven clients.

✅ Financial Independence

The merchant has full control over their funds. No account freezes, no gatekeepers.

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📉 3. Reassure Them About Volatility

Volatility is one of the first concerns skeptics bring up: “What if the price crashes?”

Let them know they don’t have to hold Bitcoin. They can:

Convert instantly to their local currency using apps like Coin Corner, Blink, or Strike.

Keep pricing in local currency (e.g., CFA or euros), but receive payments in SATs (fractions of BTC).

Start small by accepting just a portion of payments in Bitcoin (e.g., 10%).

🛠 Tip: Set them up with an app that shows real-time BTC/local currency conversion for added peace of mind.

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📲 4. Offer a Simple, Cost-Free Setup

No need for expensive card machines or new hardware. Here’s what they need:

A Bitcoin mobile wallet (Wallet Of Satoshi, Blink, Phoenix, Muun, or BlueWallet).

A way to generate a QR code for payment.

A small sign saying “Bitcoin accepted here” with a QR code.

Optionally, a point-of-sale tool like BTCPay Server for a more professional setup.

🎯 Bonus: Offer to do a live demo. Buy a product using Bitcoin on the spot and show them how it works. Nothing is more convincing than seeing it in action.

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🌍 5. Emphasize the Social and Community Value

Bitcoin isn’t just about tech—it’s a global movement for financial freedom.

By accepting Bitcoin, a merchant:

Stands out as an innovator and forward-thinker.

Supports a borderless, censorship-resistant economy.

Joins an active community that can recommend their store and promote it for free on social platforms or apps like Bitcoin Map.

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🗣 6. Share Real-World Examples

Nothing reassures like knowing others are already doing it. Provide relatable examples:

In El Salvador, Bitcoin has been legal tender since 2021, and thousands of merchants use it daily.

Across French-speaking Africa, more and more vendors, artisans, and shopkeepers are adopting it.

Projects like Hope With Bitcoin promote Bitcoin use in orphanages, local markets, and among families in need.

🔎 You can even show them a map of local merchants accepting Bitcoin or offer to help them get listed.

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🧘 7. Be Patient and Supportive

Change takes time. Avoid pressure or judgment. Instead, be available to:

Answer their questions,

Solve any technical problems,

Walk them through their first transactions.

You can even offer to do a quick training session for their staff on how to accept payments and confirm transactions using QR codes.

---

Every new merchant who accepts Bitcoin opens the door to a freer, more inclusive, and resilient economy.

@ 5d085290:0edc3292

You Are navigating city streets or tackling off-road trails, fuel economy is a critical factor for SUV buyers — and this model delivers. According to recent updates, the Nissan Xterra 2025 release date is expected later this year, bringing with it a balance of power and practicality. Drivers across the UAE can expect mileage figures that compete with the best in its class, and you can explore full regional insights in the 2025 Nissan Xterra mileage in UAE guide. The SUV is estimated to deliver between 12–16 km/l depending on road conditions, which is a solid figure for a full-size adventure-ready vehicle. Compared to the previous model, efficiency has been boosted with smarter engine tuning — read more in the Nissan Xterra 2024 vs 2025 comparison. Designed for UAE conditions, it includes fuel-saving features like eco-driving modes and advanced gear ratios. This makes the 2025 Xterra not just a capable off-roader, but also a smart choice for daily commutes.

@ dfa02707:41ca50e3

Contribute to keep No Bullshit Bitcoin news going.

• Version 1.3 of Bitcoin Safe introduces a redesigned interactive chart, quick receive feature, updated icons, a mempool preview window, support for Child Pays For Parent (CPFP) and testnet4, preconfigured testnet demo wallets, as well as various bug fixes and improvements.

• Upcoming updates for Bitcoin Safe include Compact Block Filters.

"Compact Block Filters increase the network privacy dramatically, since you're not asking an electrum server to give you your transactions. They are a little slower than electrum servers. For a savings wallet like Bitcoin Safe this should be OK," writes the project's developer Andreas Griffin.

• Learn more about the current and upcoming features of Bitcoin Safe wallet here.

What's new in v1.3

• Redesign of Chart, Quick Receive, Icons, and Mempool Preview (by @design-rrr).
• Interactive chart. Clicking on it now jumps to transaction, and selected transactions are now highlighted.

• Speed up transactions with Child Pays For Parent (CPFP).
• BDK 1.2 (upgraded from 0.32).
• Testnet4 support.
• Preconfigured Testnet demo wallets.
• Cluster unconfirmed transactions so that parents/children are next to each other.
• Customizable columns for all tables (optional view: Txid, Address index, and more)
• Bug fixes and other improvements.

Announcement / Archive
Blog Post / Archive
GitHub Repo
Website

@ 39cc53c9:27168656

Read the original blog post

Know Your Customer is a regulation that requires companies of all sizes to verify the identity, suitability, and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with a customer. Such procedures fit within the broader scope of anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism financing (CTF) regulations.

Banks, exchanges, online business, mail providers, domain registrars... Everyone wants to know who you are before you can even opt for their service. Your personal information is flowing around the internet in the hands of "god-knows-who" and secured by "trust-me-bro military-grade encryption". Once your account is linked to your personal (and verified) identity, tracking you is just as easy as keeping logs on all these platforms.

Rights for Illusions

KYC processes aim to combat terrorist financing, money laundering, and other illicit activities. On the surface, KYC seems like a commendable initiative. I mean, who wouldn't want to halt terrorists and criminals in their tracks?

The logic behind KYC is: "If we mandate every financial service provider to identify their users, it becomes easier to pinpoint and apprehend the malicious actors."

However, terrorists and criminals are not precisely lining up to be identified. They're crafty. They may adopt false identities or find alternative strategies to continue their operations. Far from being outwitted, many times they're several steps ahead of regulations. Realistically, KYC might deter a small fraction – let's say about 1% ^1 – of these malefactors. Yet, the cost? All of us are saddled with the inconvenient process of identification just to use a service.

Under the rhetoric of "ensuring our safety", governments and institutions enact regulations that seem more out of a dystopian novel, gradually taking away our right to privacy.

To illustrate, consider a city where the mayor has rolled out facial recognition cameras in every nook and cranny. A band of criminals, intent on robbing a local store, rolls in with a stolen car, their faces obscured by masks and their bodies cloaked in all-black clothes. Once they've committed the crime and exited the city's boundaries, they switch vehicles and clothes out of the cameras' watchful eyes. The high-tech surveillance? It didn’t manage to identify or trace them. Yet, for every law-abiding citizen who merely wants to drive through the city or do some shopping, their movements and identities are constantly logged. The irony? This invasive tracking impacts all of us, just to catch the 1% ^1 of less-than-careful criminals.

KYC? Not you.

KYC creates barriers to participation in normal economic activity, to supposedly stop criminals. ^2

KYC puts barriers between many users and businesses. One of these comes from the fact that the process often requires multiple forms of identification, proof of address, and sometimes even financial records. For individuals in areas with poor record-keeping, non-recognized legal documents, or those who are unbanked, homeless or transient, obtaining these documents can be challenging, if not impossible.

For people who are not skilled with technology or just don't have access to it, there's also a barrier since KYC procedures are mostly online, leaving them inadvertently excluded.

Another barrier goes for the casual or one-time user, where they might not see the value in undergoing a rigorous KYC process, and these requirements can deter them from using the service altogether.

It also wipes some businesses out of the equation, since for smaller businesses, the costs associated with complying with KYC norms—from the actual process of gathering and submitting documents to potential delays in operations—can be prohibitive in economical and/or technical terms.

You're not welcome

Imagine a swanky new club in town with a strict "members only" sign. You hear the music, you see the lights, and you want in. You step up, ready to join, but suddenly there's a long list of criteria you must meet. After some time, you are finally checking all the boxes. But then the club rejects your membership with no clear reason why. You just weren't accepted. Frustrating, right?

This club scenario isn't too different from the fact that KYC is being used by many businesses as a convenient gatekeeping tool. A perfect excuse based on a "legal" procedure they are obliged to.

Even some exchanges may randomly use this to freeze and block funds from users, claiming these were "flagged" by a cryptic system that inspects the transactions. You are left hostage to their arbitrary decision to let you successfully pass the KYC procedure. If you choose to sidestep their invasive process, they might just hold onto your funds indefinitely.

Your identity has been stolen

KYC data has been found to be for sale on many dark net markets^3. Exchanges may have leaks or hacks, and such leaks contain very sensitive data. We're talking about the full monty: passport or ID scans, proof of address, and even those awkward selfies where you're holding up your ID next to your face. All this data is being left to the mercy of the (mostly) "trust-me-bro" security systems of such companies. Quite scary, isn't it?

As cheap as $10 for 100 documents, with discounts applying for those who buy in bulk, the personal identities of innocent users who passed KYC procedures are for sale. ^3

In short, if you have ever passed the KYC/AML process of a crypto exchange, your privacy is at risk of being compromised, or it might even have already been compromised.

(they) Know Your Coins

You may already know that Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies have a transparent public blockchain, meaning that all data is shown unencrypted for everyone to see and recorded forever. If you link an address you own to your identity through KYC, for example, by sending an amount from a KYC exchange to it, your Bitcoin is no longer pseudonymous and can then be traced.

If, for instance, you send Bitcoin from such an identified address to another KYC'ed address (say, from a friend), everyone having access to that address-identity link information (exchanges, governments, hackers, etc.) will be able to associate that transaction and know who you are transacting with.

Conclusions

To sum up, KYC does not protect individuals; rather, it's a threat to our privacy, freedom, security and integrity. Sensible information flowing through the internet is thrown into chaos by dubious security measures. It puts borders between many potential customers and businesses, and it helps governments and companies track innocent users. That's the chaos KYC has stirred.

The criminals are using stolen identities from companies that gathered them thanks to these very same regulations that were supposed to combat them. Criminals always know how to circumvent such regulations. In the end, normal people are the most affected by these policies.

The threat that KYC poses to individuals in terms of privacy, security and freedom is not to be neglected. And if we don’t start challenging these systems and questioning their efficacy, we are just one step closer to the dystopian future that is now foreseeable.

Edited 20/03/2024 * Add reference to the 1% statement on Rights for Illusions section to an article where Chainalysis found that only 0.34% of the transaction volume with cryptocurrencies in 2023 was attributable to criminal activity ^1

@ 9c9d2765:16f8c2c2

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

“Set up a meeting with Rosa,” he said, finally answering the message in his own way.

Sandra gave a small nod, then paused. “Are you sure?”

James exhaled slowly. “Some chapters are better closed properly than left half-written.”

The soft murmur of the city below seemed far away to James as he sat in his chair, staring at the horizon. The past had shaped him, molded him into someone capable of building an empire from the ashes of failure, but now, in the stillness of his office, he wondered if the price had been too high.

The knock at the door disrupted his thoughts.

“Enter,” he called out, his voice calm, through a storm brewed within.

Sandra walked in, a folder in hand. She had been with him through many of the hardest decisions, and her loyalty never wavered. But tonight, her expression was different and there was a weight on her shoulders.

“James,” she began, her tone measured but serious, “there’s something you need to know.”

James sat up straighter, his instincts sharpening. “What is it?”

Sandra placed the folder on the desk and opened it, revealing a set of documents. “I just received these from one of our inside sources. It’s about your father.”

James’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t speak. Sandra continued.

“It seems he’s planning something. A move, an alliance, with a rival company. It’s still unclear, but it could be disastrous for JP Enterprises.”

The words sank into James’s mind like stones dropping into a deep well. His father had already betrayed him once before, but this? This was different. His father had always been the patriarch, the one who held the strings. To have him plotting against the very company James had painstakingly built from the ground up was something James couldn’t ignore.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, his voice steady but edged with anger.

Sandra nodded. “The source is reliable. We can’t afford to wait for more confirmation. The stakes are too high.”

James leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his face. This was the last thing he needed right now. His thoughts immediately turned to the Ray family Helen, Mark, and their scheming. He’d already defeated them once, but this was on a different level. This was family.

“I need to find out what’s really going on,” he said, his voice firm, yet filled with an underlying resolve. “Reach out to our contacts. Let’s get some more information before we make any moves.”

Sandra nodded, knowing the battle ahead wouldn’t be easy. “Understood. I’ll get to work on it right away.”

As she turned to leave, James couldn’t shake the feeling that his father’s betrayal was only the beginning. He’d spent years fighting to rise from nothing, and just when things were looking up, the very people he trusted most were threatening to bring him down. The storm had only just begun, and James knew he couldn’t stand alone. He had to be ready for whatever came next.

The city below sparkled in the night, the streets alive with a pulse that felt both foreign and familiar. Everything he had worked for was built on the foundations of betrayal, loss, and sacrifice. But even now, he wasn’t ready to let go. He wasn’t ready to surrender.

His phone buzzed on the desk, snapping him from his thoughts. It was a message from Rosa. He hadn’t heard from her in days, not since their last meeting. He’d been expecting this moment the inevitable confrontation, the discussion they needed to have about their past.

He opened the message: James, I need to see you. Now.

He sighed. There it was. The past was knocking on his door again.

Without hesitation, he stood up, grabbed his jacket, and walked toward the door. The decisions ahead wouldn’t be easy, but they had to be made. There was no turning back now.

"James, we need to talk," Rosa’s voice trembled slightly as she stood at the entrance of his private suite.

James turned away from the city skyline, his gaze narrowing as he registered the anxiety in her tone. She had always been composed, even in the face of adversity, but tonight, her voice carried a weight that unsettled him.

"Come in," he said calmly, gesturing to the velvet armchair across from him.

Rosa stepped in, her heels clicking lightly against the polished marble. Her eyes scanned the room quickly, not out of admiration, but caution as if expecting shadows to whisper secrets from the corners.

"What is it?" James asked, folding his hands before him, his voice laced with controlled curiosity.

She hesitated for a moment, then exhaled deeply. "It’s about your father. And something else I should have told you earlier."

His brows furrowed. "Go on."

"I know who orchestrated the smear campaign with the street woman. It wasn’t just Helen and Mark." She paused. "Your father helped them fund it."

James’s silence was deafening. For a long moment, the air between them felt too dense to breathe.

"You’re sure?" he asked, though he already knew Rosa wasn’t the type to speak without certainty.

She nodded. "He’s been working with them behind the scenes. The financial transactions are discreet, routed through third-party accounts. But I traced one back to an alias he’s used before."

James rose slowly, his expression unreadable, like a calm sea hiding a whirlpool beneath. "So he’s decided to destroy everything I’ve built… again."

“Don't destroy it, take it back," Rosa corrected gently. "He doesn’t think you deserve it. Not yet. He thinks you’re… impulsive. Unworthy."

@ 9c9d2765:16f8c2c2

At the edge of the meadow stood an ancient tree, so old its roots cracked through stone, and its trunk wore the marks of many seasons.

Children played around it. Lovers carved hearts into its bark. But no one truly listened except for Michael, a quiet boy who stuttered when he spoke.

People often cut him off or laughed when he tried to speak. So Micheal stopped using words and spent hours under the tree, reading or sketching in silence.

One windy afternoon, he pressed his ear to the bark. A soft rustling filled his ears not the breeze, but a whisper. A voice without words.

Each day, he returned and listened.

It told stories of rain before roads, of birds who once nested in its crown, of a girl who danced barefoot every spring.

Michael began writing the stories in a notebook.

One day, a classmate named Jennifer found his notes. She read them aloud during literature hour.

“Who wrote this?” the teacher asked, astonished.

Michael raised his hand slowly.

From that day forward, Micheal didn’t have to shout to be heard. He had found his voice through listening and helped others hear the beauty in silence too.

Moral: When you take time to listen, you’ll discover voices even the world has forgotten.

@ 7f6db517:a4931eda

The 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.

@ 8bad92c3:ca714aa5

Key Takeaways

In this landmark episode of TFTC, Adam Back and Sean Bill explore Bitcoin’s path to $1 million, focusing on its growing role as pristine collateral in a faltering financial system. Back highlights Blockstream’s infrastructure efforts, from mining operations to tokenized securities, designed to support this transformation, while Bill shares how he navigated institutional skepticism to bring Bitcoin exposure to a U.S. pension fund. Together, they unpack how institutions are entering the space through structured products and Bitcoin-backed credit, with Blockstream’s mining notes offering a glimpse of this new financial architecture. Amid rising debt, inflation, and fiat fragility, the duo presents Bitcoin not just as sound money, but as a strategic reserve asset gaining traction from El Salvador to Wall Street.

Best Quotes

"It's not a stretch to say that Bitcoin could reach parity with gold. That would imply something closer to a million dollars a coin."

"Digital gold vastly understates Bitcoin’s potential, but it’s where the conversation had to start."

"We’re not just building software, we’re solving financial market gaps, one at a time."

"You can wipe out an entire pension fund’s unfunded liability with a 2% allocation to Bitcoin, if it performs as we expect."

"ETF buyers are the new hodlers. They’re not day traders; they’re five-year pocket investors."

"Bitcoin is becoming super collateral, its role in structured credit could help engineer the soft landing everyone hopes for."

"In a world of financial repression, Bitcoin is how the have-nots finally access property rights and savings."

"Emerging markets will be the early adopters of Bitcoin finance because they need it the most."

"You worked for your money. To systematically steal it through hidden inflation is perverse."

"Bitcoin could be the story that saves public pensions, and the people relying on them."

Conclusion

This episode presents a bold vision of Bitcoin as more than sound money, it’s the foundation of a new global financial system. Adam Back and Sean Bill argue that Bitcoin’s role as “super collateral” is reshaping credit, pensions, and sovereign reserves, while a robust infrastructure of financial tools quietly prepares it to absorb institutional capital. As fiat trust erodes, Bitcoin’s adoption will be driven not by hype, but by necessity, and when the shift becomes undeniable, $1 million per coin will mark the start of a new financial era.

Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:38 - New ATH
00:02:06 - Sean's Journey Getting Bitcoin Into Pensions
00:03:15 - Blockstream's Evolution Into Finance
00:08:30 - Building Bitcoin Financial Infrastructure
00:14:30 - The Challenge of Conservative Pension Boards
00:17:02 - Bitkey
00:18:10 - Bitcoin's Current Price and Market Cycle
00:24:05 - Bitcoin as Super Collateral
00:27:24 - Unchained
00:30:09 - Cypherpunk Ideals vs Financial Reality
00:34:55 - Pension Fund Crisis and Bitcoin Solution
00:42:29 - The Cypherpunk Banking Stack
00:49:54 - Digital Cash and Free Banking
00:57:06 - Liquid Network and Institutional Rails
01:07:49 - Sean At CBOT
01:22:16 - Bitcoin Futures and Market Structure
01:25:53 - 2025 Bitcoin Price Predictions

Transcript

(00:00) I'm uh permeable, so I'm always astounded that it's not, you know, 10 or 100 times higher. If everybody saw it, the addressable mark, I mean, it would already be 100 200 trillion asset class, right? That's not a stretch to say that Bitcoin could reach parody with gold. That would imply something closer to a million dollars a coin.
(00:18) You see some established public market companies in different countries saying, "Oh, we're going to buy a billion of Bitcoin. We're going to raise and buy 500." Black Rockck ETF. They're even talking about recommended allocations to portfolio managers in the 2% range. Obviously, digital gold would vastly understate the potential of Bitcoin.
(00:38) Gentlemen, thank you for joining me. Of course. Thanks for having us on. Uh Adam, I was just saying I'm woefully embarrassed. This podcast is almost 8 years old and this is your first time on the show. Oh, okay. This is uh but it's an exciting time. Yeah. And you uh really dedicated to podcast. It's been a lot of years, a lot of episodes, right? It has been. Cool.
(00:59) I think we're approaching 700, which is crazy to think. Wow, that is impressive. The uh No, we're talking hit a new alltime high today. Yeah, Bitcoin doing Bitcoin things just as we were on stage uh at the talking hedge kind of asset manager conference uh trying to explain to them why they should put Bitcoin in their uh fund allocations.
(01:23) Yeah, we were discussing it before we hit record and I saw Tur's tweet looked like Tur was at the event, too. Yeah, he was. M so 50% held up they have Bitcoin in their personal account but only 2% or 4% of the funds very few that actually had allocated to Bitcoin. So a lot of them are believers at a personal level but they haven't been able to sell it within their institution you know so they own it themselves uh but they haven't quite gotten the boards to agree yet.
(01:53) So which was a similar situation I was in in 2019 when I first proposed it. You know, I had my experience with Bitcoin. I had a very good experience and was trying to convince uh the pensions in California that they should be looking at adding Bitcoin to the portfolio. Yeah. And it was great to hear some of your background last night, Sean.
(02:11) So, Sean, for those of you watching, uh is the CIO at Blockstream now. Yeah. I am really excited to have both of you here because I've got into Bitcoin in 2013 and nerded out uh on the tech side of Bitcoin distributed system mining full nodes the layered stack that's been built out and so I followed probably all the work that you guys have done at Blockstream since you've been around and it's been really cool to see everything you've done from the Blockstream satellite.
(02:42) I've broadcast some transactions through that before. It's a Jade um uh CLN or excuse me, Core Lightning now. Um the uh liquid and now over the last few years really sort of leaning into the financialization of finance as I like to um to reference it. And so Adam, like how's that transition from being hypert focused towards a more financial perspective on Bitcoin been? Well, actually in our 2014 uh kickoff meeting, you know, with the founders sitting around big whiteboard, we were trying to forward cast what we'd have to do to get
(03:28) a Bitcoin layer 2 for, you know, settlement of assets and Bitcoin working. And one of the risk you know so we thought we'll build the tech and other people issue the assets but like well they might be lazy they might not do it if that happens we'll have to do it ourselves. So there was a lot of situations like that actually where you know you would think there would be lots of people building applications but many people are really just more in business development and a technology is basically a website and a database and
(03:55) you know Bitcoin core wallet on a server or something like that right so we actually ended up building a lot of middleware and getting into asset management a couple earlier steps one was the mining note so we're doing hosting and mining in our own account and what we did when when it was public that we were hosting initially Fidelity was the uh launch customer.
(04:16) They kept coming back to us and saying, "No, we need we need some hosting." And you know, uh, they'd looked around and decided that we were the best. We were we were like, "No, no, we're prop mining. We don't do hosting." But they persuaded us to host them. And then we're like, "Okay, maybe we should expand and host for other people.
(04:31) " And then that became news. And so then a lot of Bitcoiners contacted us and says, you know, I've got like a dozen miners. Can you host them for me? And of course, if you're if you're hosting for thousands of customers, that's a whole you need need a support team. Somebody has got two miners and one of them's crashed or failed, they're very upset, right? It's half the revenue.
(04:52) Whereas somebody's got, you know, 10,000 per client, it's just part of the, you know, maintenance cycle like a big data center. Discs fail 1% a year, you replace them when they die, they raid, it doesn't matter, right? So, it's kind of that phenomena. So we try to figure out well how can we help you know how can we help people do this without creating a you know that painoint and so we designed this mining note concept where it's kind of socialized so that collectively they look like one of the enterprise customers and then we put a 10% buffer in it so that we would eat
(05:22) the first 10% of equipment failure so they wouldn't get you know the drooping hash rate as miners like failed due to age uh for the for the onset And we also figured out how to try and make them a unified market. So, you know, we're selling more tranches into the market. This started in 2021, a three-year product.
(05:45) And um you know, there was some people on the launch branch and then some people 3 months later. So, what we do is look at how many Bitcoin it had mined in the first three months. We buy that and then match it with a 33month contract for the next one. And so the economically equivalent neither dilutive or anti-dilutive for the buyer and therefore they could trade in a unified market even though there were eight sales tranches over the first I don't know like 12 months or something like that and that that market you know it was using initially using uh liquid
(06:17) security tokens uh with uh stalker a European company that does the securitization I mean the legal p

@ 19a1fc7f:3da39c1e

System Architecture

Core Components

1. Main Application - Handles initialization and coordination of components
2. Data Processing - Responsible for core data transformations
3. Storage Layer - Manages persistence of application data
4. API Layer - Provides interfaces for external communication

Component Interactions

mermaid graph TD A[Main Application] --> B[Data Processing] A --> C[Storage Layer] A --> D[API Layer] B --> C D --> B

Implementation Guidelines

• Use clean architecture principles
• Components should be loosely coupled
• Interfaces should be defined before implementation

@ eb0157af:77ab6c55

French authorities are intensifying their fight against kidnappings related to the digital asset sector with a new series of arrests.

French law enforcement has made further arrests in an investigation concerning a kidnapping case connected to the cryptocurrency world. According to the public broadcaster France 24, on June 11 several individuals suspected of involvement in the abduction of the father of a crypto entrepreneur were detained.

The case that drew international attention involves the father of an anonymous crypto entrepreneur, who was held captive for several days on an isolated property. The criminals, in their ransom demands, went as far as to cut off one of the victim’s fingers as a form of psychological pressure, demanding up to €7 million (about $8 million) for his release.

The rescue operation, carried out on May 3 by French special forces, led to the victim’s liberation and the arrest of five people on site. However, investigations uncovered a wider criminal network, resulting in new arrests, the exact number of which has not yet been disclosed by authorities.

French authorities did not limit their actions to national territory. On June 4, a man suspected to be a key figure behind the series of crypto kidnappings in France was arrested in Morocco.

The escalation of crypto kidnappings in 2025

Data shows an increase in crypto-related kidnappings in France and worldwide. The phenomenon has grown to such proportions that French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau convened an emergency meeting to address the issue.

Among the most notable cases of 2025 is the attempted daytime kidnapping of Pierre Noizat’s daughter and grandson. Noizat is the co-founder and CEO of the French exchange Paymium; the incident took place on May 13.

According to data from Jameson Lopp, co-founder of Casa, at least 29 personal attacks against cryptocurrency holders have been recorded in 2025 alone. If this trend continues, the annual total could surpass the 35 cases reported in 2024 and the 24 cases in 2023.

The post France: new arrests linked to crypto kidnappings appeared first on Atlas21.

@ b1ddb4d7:471244e7

Years ago, I flew a microlight aircraft for the first time and felt what it meant to leave the ground. Recently, I bought a gigabyte of storage for 5 cents via Lightning, and something similar happened. This is about that moment—when you stop believing something works and start knowing it does.

Every now and then (if you’re lucky) you have one of those “eureka” moments where the full implications of something hit you for the first time. My biggest experience of that was years ago when I got a microlight aircraft. They’d just come out, so there were no regulations, and anyone could buy one and just fly.

People who should never be flying were going all over the place, and—having no navigation training—they were following motorways instead. Some were even landing at the service stops to get more fuel. How could I resist?

The price included training at an old airfield that was now not busy at all. After a lot of taxiing along the runways, it came time to try a takeoff. Nothing can prepare you for that. It’s not like a Cessna or any of those “proper” aircraft; it’s just an aluminum frame, and you hang off the center of the main pole, the center of gravity. There was a twin motor behind me, totaling 250 cc. I could feel where the wind was on the wings, which side, and even how far along. It was an insight into what birds must feel. I’d trade wings for a big brain any day!

I hit the gas on full, and we accelerated. I had been told that this thing could fly. and had seen my teacher fly in it many times. I thought I understood that it could fly, but as I left the ground and the drag on the wheels was suddenly gone, the whole thing lurched up into the air fast, at a really steep angle, and before I could think, I was already higher than a house. That was when I understood that this thing could fly. Belief is not knowledge, and knowledge only comes from experience.

So it is with many things. So it is with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. I believed that Lightning could “transform the economic landscape.” I had read about how bitcoin can “revolutionize the financial system.” What hadn’t happened yet was that I had not actually experienced it. That take-off moment came when someone sent me a file link on a CDN. I downloaded the PDF (300 MB or so) and then cut the end off the URL to have a look at the service provider.

To my surprise, they were offering storage space on the CDN at 5c per gigabyte per month. with “unlimited” data transfer. So I decided to try it out. Within a few seconds I had ordered, paid for, and received my credit, and the service was available. 5 cents! That was when I realized how simple everything else in the world can be with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

Who cares about how many stupid dollars you can get with bitcoin? Look at what you can do with it! In the new world that may be opening up for us, we can rid ourselves of the parasites who have held us back for so long. “When moon?” takes on a whole different meaning. Nothing is beyond our reach.

There was no bitcoin back in the Spanish Civil War when Durruti was doing his thing, but something of the same awakening must have stirred in him to inspire these words: “We should not be in the least afraid of ruins. They may blast and lay bare this world before they go, but we carry a new world here in our hearts, and this world is growing as we speak.”

https://satellite.earth is the site. It’s not just a storage provider; it’s a Nostr node you can use like any other node, and it has communities set up, among other things. It’s well worth a look. No, I’m not getting paid; they don’t even know me. And I’m not sure, but it looks like because I haven’t used the whole 1 GB yet, they are using my 5c to extend the time I have. In other words, it’s 5c per gigabyte-month, not per gigabyte per month.