@ 92294577:49af776d

Since 2020, alongside Blockstream Research, I have been playing with the idea of cryptography without electronic computers. This is not a new idea: the entire history of cryptography until the 20th century was like this. But modern cryptography, with hundred-digit numbers and complex algorithms, has always used computers. And with good reason: computers can perform operations in a billionth of a second that might take a human minutes to perform.

A billion-fold slowdown is the least of the problems for a hand-computable cryptosystem. Humans are not just slow; there are only so many precise instructions they can keep in mind at once, they have limited patience for reading such instructions, and they struggle to do tedious computations for long. Humans also make frequent mistakes, even with things they have successfully done many times before.

As it turns out, despite the complexity of managing secret data, we can still perform many operations by hand with the help of worksheets and simple tools that can be printed and cut out.

Today, we are launching Codex32: A Shamir Secret Sharing Scheme, a new booklet available on the Blockstream store. Codex32 contains tear-out worksheets for checksumming and secret sharing, paper computers that can be cut out and assembled, a worksheet for removing bias from dice rolls, and beautiful artwork by Micaela Paez and M. Lufti' As'ad.

We will explore what the codex does, but first, let's address the question that has been nagging you since the first sentence of this post: Why?

https://image.nostr.build/44b82e7cc2d237e1611ec5f8da97d0d6c4fb1444330334f5503d4b0b6d146013.png The premise behind codex32 is that you will be generating, checksumming and splitting a BIP 32 master seed, from which you will derive Bitcoin addresses.

Why Hand Computation?

Electronic computers are pretty amazing. They can perform calculations far faster than humans, without mistakes, for years on end without rest or boredom. But superhuman speed means that their actions cannot really be checked by humans.

This is not just philosophy. This problem is why we have a multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity industry and the open-source software movement. This is why security researchers insist that voting machines produce paper records that can be counted by hand. Computers can be infected by malware, their code could be malicious, they may leak secret data through side channels or by failing to delete things, and they may be buggy. These problems are nearly intractable when it comes to software, but they also apply to hardware, where verification requires complex tools and expertise. And as detailed in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, even computers that are "working correctly" are likely to be working against their users' interest.

Every time you replace hardware or update software, all these concerns are renewed. (If you do not upgrade your software, they simply grow without limit.) Updates also risk compatibility breaks leaving your data inaccessible.

In our day-to-day lives, we mostly accept these things as the cost of being part of a digital society, but when it comes to the secret key data that controls a bearer asset such as Bitcoin, this cost may be too great.

By computing with pen and paper, we can be assured that no secret data appears anywhere we did not write it. We can create our own random data in a transparent way. We can choose how long we want to take to do various operations, confounding timing attacks. We can be assured that as long as our instructions are written somewhere, perhaps printed and stored in a safe, that our processes will remain compatible. And these assurances are not only real, but they feel real, giving us a peace of mind that electronic computers never can.

Brain Wallets and Paper Wallets

These ideas might remind readers of some old ideas bouncing around the BitcoinTalk forums. For example, a "paper wallet," in which a user writes a seed (or private key) on a piece of paper and stores this offline. Metal devices such as Cryptosteels or ColdTi are natural extensions of this idea, which are much more likely to survive natural disasters or flooded basements.

Offline storage of seed data is a good idea for increasing the security of your bitcoin holdings. It’s recommended to use some sort of metal device, though acid-free paper could work in a dry and fireproof location. With such storage there is a tradeoff between creating more copies (increasing the risk of theft) or fewer (increasing the risk of loss). The codex gives users more freedom to make this tradeoff, by allowing them to split their data into multiple "shares" such that the original data can only be recovered when enough of them are brought together.

Another idea from the same era is that of a "brain wallet" (or brainwallet) in which the user simply memorizes their secret data in lieu of physical backups. We strongly discourage this. One problem with this is that it encourages users to choose weak seeds that are too short, too highly structured, or which exist in printed literature. Even if such seeds are tweaked and prodded in various ways, they would not have enough information to withstand an attacker with a lot of computational power. One of the earliest Bitcoin scams was a website designed to "help" users produce such weak seeds for use with brain wallets.

The problem is ultimately that it is hard to memorize good randomness. The structure that makes common phrases, bits of poetry, and short stories so memorable is also what makes it easier for attackers to guess your words.

The second problem with brain wallets is that human memory is fallible. It is easy to convince ourselves that we are the kind of highly intelligent people whose memories would not fail. But intelligence will not help if you hit your head, get a fever, experience trauma, or simply lose the motivation to do your memory-refreshing ritual after a few years.

The correct way to generate seed data is to produce at least 128 bits of uniformly random data, and the correct way to store it is outside of a brain. The codex provides a way to produce such data by rolling dice and applying a von Neumann extractor to eliminate bias. There are other ways to get good seeds from dice, often referred to as diceware.

https://image.nostr.build/d4a1150ff423d704175ea01451bd0d4fe75c8e593a32ca13f05f49350d4bb92d.jpg ▶️ Watch Codex32, Simplicity, and Drivechains with Andrew Poelstra - Blockstream Talk #29

How Much Can You Actually Do by Hand?

With this background in place, let's discuss the various things that users might want to do with their seed backups.

• Verify the integrity of the backup.
• Verify that the coins controlled by the backup have not moved.
• Re-split the backup, if it is a secret shared backup.
• Recover or initialize a new wallet from the backup.

Some users might want to skip the "new wallet" and simply do everything on paper. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to derive addresses or sign transactions without using electronics. For the above tasks, though, we can.

Verify backup integrity. Long-term storage media might become corrupted or worn down so that they become unreadable. There is a mechanism to detect and fix small numbers of independent errors, called an error correction code or checksum. The codex provides worksheets enabling users to create and verify checksums on their data. If the checksum passes, everything is good. If it does not you know you have a mistake. The process of creating a checksum takes 30-60 minutes, and needs to be done twice to catch mistakes made the first time. Verifying a checksum takes the same amount of time, and only needs to be done once.

Verify the coins are still there. There is not much an offline backup can do to check the state of the blockchain. Instead, use an online watch-only wallet to monitor the blockchain for any movement of your coins, without ever needing access to secret data.

Split and re-split the backup. This is the most interesting and powerful feature of codex32. The codex provides the tools to create a secret split across several "shares" such that the secret can be recovered by a threshold number of them. Typical threshold values are 2 or 3. If an attacker has fewer shares than this, they learn nothing about the secret.

With codex32, the process is that a user generates threshold-many random initial shares, then using these shares, derives additional shares as needed, up to 31 in total. Later, given enough shares, they can reconstruct the secret.

The derivation process ensures that if your initial shares have valid checksums, then the derived shares and final secret automatically will as well. This means that you can create your initial shares, compute their checksums, derive additional shares, and verify their checksums—and if you make any mistakes during this tedious process, the checksum worksheet will catch it.

Deriving shares takes about 5-10 minutes per input share, and the final checksum check takes 30-60 minutes.

Recover or initialize a new wallet. Wallets can take codex32 shares to initialize themselves. The process is much the same as existing workflows using seed words.

Right now, there is an open pull request to Bitcoin Core to support codex32, which is included in the version of Core used in Bails. Several other wallets have indicated their intention to eventually support codex32, including Blockstream Green, Anchorwatch, and Liana. The technical difficulty of such support is comparable to the difficulty of supporting Segwit addresses back in 2016, except easier because codex32 reuses much of the same logic.

What's Next?

The immediate next step for codex32 is to improve wallet support. This means improving and polishing the rust-codex32 library and introducing support into BDK.

We would also like to implement error correction logic and expand the codex32 website to support this as well as more interactive functionality. Error correction currently requires computers. But at least for single errors, we plan to implement by-hand correction using lookup tables.

The codex has instructions for splitting and checksumming secrets. But it does not provide a lot of guidance for what to do next: distributing shares to people you trust and making a schedule to verify their integrity.

We would like to recommend that people verify their shares every year, but the current process is a pain to set up: you need to re-read the instructions, maybe assemble new paper computers, and then spend 30-60 minutes on the verification. And if this fails, in the absence of error correcting tables, you need to do everything again. So this is not a realistic recommendation.

However, we have a solution in mind: quickchecks are partial checksum checks that still detect 99.9% of errors, and can be contained (instructions, lookup tables, and all) on a single sheet of paper. There are seven quickchecks which together amount to a full checksum verification. Users can store many copies of the full set with their shares; then every year they simply grab the next page, follow the instructions to fill it out (which will take 10-15 minutes rather than 30-60), and destroy it.

Right now, quickchecks exist only as mathematics. We need to do the work of creating worksheets, tweaking parameters, and laying out instructions.

The above plans require a bit of elbow grease, but we have some big ideas for future research. From a given seed, is it possible to compute hashes to derive additional seeds, as is done in BIP 32? Is it possible to perform an elliptic curve multiplication, which would allow the derivation of addresses and signing of transactions? Is it possible to do encryption or handshaking protocols? As of this writing, we do not really know.

@ 2edbcea6:40558884

Happy Sunday #Nostr!

Here’s your #NostrTechWeekly newsletter brought to you by nostr:npub19mduaf5569jx9xz555jcx3v06mvktvtpu0zgk47n4lcpjsz43zzqhj6vzk written by nostr:npub1r3fwhjpx2njy87f9qxmapjn9neutwh7aeww95e03drkfg45cey4qgl7ex2

NostrTechWeekly is a weekly newsletter focused on the more technical happenings in the nostr-verse.

Let’s dive in!

Recent Upgrades to Nostr (AKA NIPs)

1) Proposed updates to NIP 47: Nostr Wallet Connect 💸

NIP 47 is already used to help Nostr users to make it easy to pay via lightning straight from Nostr clients. There’s been some difficulty standardizing what happens on the receiving end. These updates should help smooth out that process for all wallet providers and clients.

Author: nostr:npub1u8lnhlw5usp3t9vmpz60ejpyt649z33hu82wc2hpv6m5xdqmuxhs46turz

2) (Proposed) NIP 66: Relay Status and Metadata Connect 💬

When users choose relays it’s useful to have information about what that relay is about. Some people will want to join based on the topics the relay members focus on, or the locale of people who publish events there. It may also be useful to know how active the relay is and other general metadata.

These are all generally computationally expensive to run every time a user “might” want to subscribe to a relay. This leads to providers like Nostr.Watch and Relay.Guide running regular queries on all the relays they track in order to cache that metadata for Nostr users looking for the best relays.

This NIP proposes that relays could publish metadata using a new kind of Nostr event that would make it easier for people to directly ask relays these questions instead of third party providers doing it.

Author: https://github.com/dskvr

Notable projects

Hornet Storage

I’m no expert but it appears Hornet Storage is offering a way for Nostr apps to be able to store data (even larger chunks of data like files) on relays. But instead of it just shoving the whole file into a single Nostr event, Hornet will chunk the data and distribute the pieces on many relays.

Based on their docs it looks like this helps prevent tampering with files that are stored on relays. As well as protect the privacy around what’s being stored via relays (since all Nostr events can be read by anyone on a relay they can connect to). Looks like it could be a utility for anyone developing a Nostr app to offer file storage to their users.

Author: nostr:npub1h0rnetjp2qka44ayzyjcdh90gs3gzrtq4f94033heng6w34s0pzq2yfv0g

Nostrnet.work

The project from nostr:npub1cmmswlckn82se7f2jeftl6ll4szlc6zzh8hrjyyfm9vm3t2afr7svqlr6f seems to be progressing quickly. This week it was announced that NostrNet.Work is gaining a lot of functionality as a Progressive Web App (PWA) which makes it operate more like an app than a website which will improve the experience a fair amount.

Looks like even more is coming soon! We’ll stay tuned 🙂

DVM integration on Current

nostr:npub1current7ntwqmh2twlrtl2llequeks0zfh36v69x4d3wmckg427safsh3w is a Nostr client that has recently integrated a DVM to help Nostr users generate and share images created via an image generating AI.

As far as I’ve seen this is the first time a DVM has been integrated into a general purpose client. I’m sure it’s the first of many to come 💪.

NostrStats

When I first heard of this project, it was just showing some stats about the number of pubkeys, active users, posts, etc. Now it’s covering a lot more: trending hashtags, zaps, and relays.

The trending hashtags generate as you load the page and the list of top 30 relays calculates regularly so that the list has the latest activity informing the rankings.

Interested to see how this utility expands, seems handy!

Author: nostr:npub15ypxpg429uyjmp0zczuza902chuvvr4pn35wfzv8rx6cej4z8clq6jmpcx

Noswhere

A relay that specializes in search was launched this week by nostr:npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkj .

Next week’s newsletter is going to be focused on search, data permanence, and relays, so we’ll do more research and give this project the attention it deserves next week.

Latest conversations

Maximizing decentralization

Decentralization is important when there’s a risk of power accumulating and being abused. Democracy is intended to spread political power, Bitcoin; the power over money, and Nostr has the potential to spread the power of media (social and beyond).

But there are trade offs to decentralization; centralized systems have an easier time being more usable and efficient. Only improvements to technology unlock improving decentralization without sacrificing usability and efficiency. In other words the only way to have your cake and eat it too is to work at it.

Nostr’s going through a lot of experimentation right now, and you’ll hear a lot of the devs talking about something leading to more or less centralization. This is a nuanced and important topic and it’s happening at every level of Nostr development, every day.

https://i.nostr.build/qOWn.png

Take for example the debate about whether to support file storage via relays (via NIP 95 and solutions like Hornet Storage ). On the surface “more stuff in relays” means more stuff off the centralized providers (e.g. Google). Good right? Well it might make things more centralized than if we kept files out of relays.

Similar to the conversation about the Bitcoin block size, on the surface it may make sense to improve usability of Bitcoin. But if adopted fewer people could run Bitcoin nodes which means in the end Bitcoin is less likely to accomplish what the community wants. Bitcoin Cash failed.

Making relays able to handle files could similarly make more applicants entirely Nostr-driven, but they could also make it so that fewer people end up able to operate relays. It’s not just the raw increase in hosting costs, it’s the legal and financial risks operating a file storage and sharing system. We just don’t know yet, so people will experiment to find out.

Many of the bitterest debates we see boil down to people disagreeing on the second and third order effects of current actions on the decentralization of Nostr over time. It’s important to get right.

Events

Here are some upcoming events that we are looking forward to! We keep a comprehensive list and details of Nostr-related events that we hear about (in person or virtual) that you can bookmark here NostrConf Report

1. Nostrasia Nov 1-3 in Tokyo & Hong Kong
2. Nostrville Nov 9-10 in Nashville, TN, USA
3. NostrCon Jan 12, 2024 (online only)

Until next time 🫡

If you want to see something highlighted, if we missed anything, or if you’re building something we didn’t post about, let us know, DMs welcome.

nostr:npub19mduaf5569jx9xz555jcx3v06mvktvtpu0zgk47n4lcpjsz43zzqhj6vzk

Stay Classy, Nostr.

@ 72f97555:e0870ff3

Most people are wrong about rights. Rights are viewed as something that is granted, something that people fight to get, and something that people ought to have. But that is all wrong. In fact, that line of thinking is dangerous, and leads to the types of human rights violations that we are seeing across the planet today - everywhere from third-world countries, to the "great" countries like the United States. In this essay, I will explain what rights are, where they come from, and why the prevalent line of thinking is dangerous to society.

Rights are granted by God

I'm a Christian, and I know who my God is. You don't have to be a Christian, or even a believer to understand and agree with the concept that rights are a fundamental, and exist above the human condition. I think it makes the argument much stronger if one does believe in a god, but even a non-believer can arrive at the conviction, after deliberation, that rights are not dependent upon human thought or consideration. They are inherent in the Universe, and a fundamental truth. The authors of the Declaration of Independence believed this, which is why they wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

What the founders understood, and many of us have lost sight of, is that our rights are not something granted to us by humans, or by governments (which are just collections of humans), but by something above us which cannot be argued with. These rights are absolute and part of the fundamental nature of what it means to be human. They are "unalienable" meaning that they cannot become foreign to us - we cannot be separated from our rights. They are not bridgeable.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. -- George Washington

We must leave behind the common fallacy that governments can grant or suspend the rights of individuals. They may violate or recognize those rights, but they have no power over what those rights are, or whether they belong to you. When governments tell their populations that they may do a thing, that is permission, not a right. Permissions may be revoked or suspended, rights may not.

Governments are not gods

One of the great revolutions in the development of humankind took place during the feudalistic era. The development of chivalry represented a fundamental change in the way populations learned to view their rulers. Previously, Kings (and sometimes Queens) were viewed as deities in their own right - the ultimate authorities over all affairs both material and spiritual. Under chivalry, for the first time, we collectively realized that rulers were only human, and they were beholden to a higher power the same way the rest of us were.

Today, government is taking those rights from us, pretending that it gives us our rights. Indeed, those rights come from God, and it was recognized throughout our history as such. -- Judge Roy Moore

While the process was slow, and not without its setbacks and problems, this began the path towards the recognition of universal human rights, the limitation of the powers of rulers to protect their citizens from abuse, and ultimately, forms of representative government under constitutions, such as the constitutional monarchy and the constitutional republic. It was a gradual change in the way entire populations viewed the world around them and their place in it. They saw both the errant human in their rulers, and the highest ideal that all man was answerable to.

If we are not governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants. -- William Penn

Unfortunately, there has been a gradual regression taking place. People no longer look to that highest ideal any longer for their answers. Very often, they are turning to government for the solutions to their problems, protection from every danger, and answers for how it is acceptable to live. This creates a false image, that government is anything other than people exactly like us, with the same flaws, limitations, and corruption that lives in every single living human. Government is not here to help us, because government is us. Government cannot tell us how to live, or what our rights are, because government is just people, who unregulated have been shown to commit every type of atrocity to gain power and wealth for themselves.

Because many of us make mistakes that can have bad consequences, some intellectuals believe that it is the role of government to intervene and make some of our decisions for us. From what galaxy government is going to hire creatures who do not make mistakes is a question they leave unanswered. -- Thomas Sowell

The role of government

Government is a cooperation of groups of people, meant to establish guidelines (laws) that are acceptable to the majority of individuals in order to maximize freedom, happiness, and safety from the infringement of those rights. Any deviation from this goal is a perversion of government.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. -- Thomas Paine

Freedom and laws stand in a necessary tension with one another. Laws must govern the passions of humankind, to guard against one person violating the rights of another. But laws have a fascinating life of their own. They tend to grow over time as disputes are heard and government is asked to intervene in more and more cases. Can you think of a time that the number of laws actually decreased by any meaningful number during the life of a government?

The issue is that laws also grant power to the enforcer of those laws. Human nature reenters the equation, stage left. Judges become corrupted to decide cases for their own benefit, or are bribed. The laws become so numerous that our representatives begin passing them to benefit themselves or their friends, and nobody notices in the sea of laws being passed. In the United States we have reached the point where laws are being passed so fast, and so often, and are so encompassing, that the representatives have often not even read them before they are passed. This is a terrible corruption of the system, as the people writing the laws were never even chosen by the people, and begin to exercise power over the lives of their fellow citizens, with no oversight, and no checks upon what they do.

The one thing man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by a World Government, a New World Order. -- Henry A. Kissinger

It is interesting, that a country that has existed for over 200 years, continues to find this many things to pass laws about. There are budgetary things that are routine (and still manage to be handled horribly) but we still pass thousands of laws every year. We would be foolish to think that these laws are all required to protect the rights of one citizen from encroachment by another.

Congress has enacted approximately 200–600 statutes during each of its 115 biennial terms so that more than 30,000 statutes have been enacted since 1789. -- Wikipedia

The slippery slope

In this article, I have posited that rights are absolute, and inviolable. They may be in principle, but in practice, even the most conservative and rights loving individuals are often more than happy to violate the rights of others if the circumstances are right. This is a problem because once you accept the violation of one person's rights, you have already surrendered the fight for rights entirely. Indeed, you have conceded, and are now in negotiation about how many people's rights you are comfortable violating.

Don't believe me? Do you believe felons should have the right to vote and carry firearms after they serve the entirety of their sentence? I'm willing to wager the average American, at least, is perfectly comfortable stripping felons of these rights. There are many such groups. But let's remember the founder's principle - these rights are unalienable.

There is no greater threat to a free and democratic nation than a government that fails to protect its citizen’s freedom and liberty as aggressively as it pursues justice. -- Bernard B. Kerik, From Jailer to Jailed: My Journey from Correction and Police Commissioner to Inmate 84888-054

You might believe this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. You might believe the justice system works, that it never convicts the innocent (or worse, that it's "good enough"), and that the justice system is never turned against a population minding its own business, trying to live its life quietly... you know, pursuing that "liberty and happiness" stuff. If you do, then I applaud you for being blind, deaf, and oblivious to the realities around you.

I would urge you to consider carefully though, how long you think it will take a government that passes 200-600 laws every biennial term, to decide that something you are doing is a felony. You've already surrendered your rights for permissions in exchange for some safety and retribution. What are you going to think and feel the day the government declares war on Bitcoin, seizes your private property, or tells you how to raise your children? Do you really think they won't? We're over 50 years into a war on drugs.

Don't Surrender

Defending your rights means defending mine, and every other human being living around you. The minute their rights cease to be important to you - the moment you are willing to allow your fellow human being's rights to be violated in the name of "justice," "safety," or whatever reason the mob cries for, you have lost your own. It is only a matter of time before you notice. It takes a bigger person to stand up for the rights of those we find distasteful - but as with so many other medicines, what is good for us often tastes bad.

As is so often the case, what is wrong with rights isn't rights themselves. What's wrong with rights is that as a people we have forgotten what they are, and been deluded into believing we still have them, and that they are granted by some vague thing called "the government" that is somehow greater than human, despite being instituted by and filled with humans.

You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions – a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our Judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. -- Thomas Jefferson, to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820

The biggest defense of our own freedoms and rights we can exercise is to not tolerate the violation of anyone else's. They belong to all of us by birthright, granted to us by the highest ideal and are violated at our greatest peril.

@ 92e3aac6:fd211909

Testing another way to share music

@ 6efb74e6:41285536

proofofwork: 10 minutes

YIELD: approx 2 1/2 cups.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup parsley, washed and finely chopped

1 cup cilantro, washed and finely chopped

5 ea (1 teaspoon) garlic cloves

3 Tablespoons fresh oregano (2 tsp if using dried)

1 teaspoon fresh chilli or chilli flakes

1 teaspoon ground cumin, lightly toasted

2 Tablespoons quality red wine vinegar

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon lime juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

METHOD:

1. Pick and wash all the herbs, drying them as much as possible with a salad spinner or a tea towel.
2. Place all the chimichurri ingredients except the oil in a large bowl and mix them together well.
3. Add the oil until you reach the consistency you desire. If you are using it as a marinade then you will probably want slightly less oil.
4. When using as a marinade, coat your meat before grilling and refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours.

Check the seasoning and adjust it as you like.

chefstr, #foodstr, #yumstr, #grownostr, #homemade

@ 20d29810:6fe4ad2f

🚀 The Future of Finance: Why Bitcoin is My Top Pick! 🚀

Hey Crypto Fam! 👋 Today, let's talk about the incredible journey of #Bitcoin and what the future holds for the king of cryptocurrencies! 🌟

💰 Bitcoin as Digital Gold: In a world where trust in traditional financial systems is waning, Bitcoin has emerged as a digital haven for preserving wealth. It's like GOLD in the digital realm! 🪙💎

🏦 Institutional Love: Big institutions are jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon, and it's no wonder! Major financial players are investing billions, signaling that Bitcoin is here to stay! 🏧💼

⚙️ Scalability Solutions: Bitcoin's scalability issues are being tackled head-on. Lightning Network, anyone? ⚡ It's opening up new possibilities for fast and low-cost transactions. 🌐💸

🔗 Bitcoin & Blockchain: The revolutionary #blockchain technology behind Bitcoin is reshaping industries from finance to healthcare. Buckle up, because innovation is just getting started! 💡🌍

🌍 Global Regulation: Governments worldwide are recognizing Bitcoin's importance. Regulations are evolving, which could pave the way for mass adoption. 🌐📜

🌍 Financial Inclusion: Bitcoin is empowering the unbanked and underbanked, offering financial freedom to millions globally. That's a game-changer! 🌍💪

💹 Price Predictions: Analysts are forecasting some exciting price movements for Bitcoin. Are we on the cusp of a new ATH? 📈🚀

🤔 Challenges Ahead: Of course, there are hurdles to overcome, but Bitcoin's resilience is unmatched. We're ready for whatever comes our way! 💪🏁

🚀 Emerging Use Cases: Bitcoin's not just about HODLing anymore. NFTs, DeFi, and more are being built on the Bitcoin blockchain, creating endless possibilities! 💼🎨

📚 Educate & Elevate: Remember, knowledge is power. Learn how to securely buy, store, and use Bitcoin. It's an investment in your financial future! 📚💰

So, what's your take on Bitcoin's future? Are you bullish on the OG crypto? 🐂 Or do you have concerns? Let's chat in the comments! 💬👇

Remember, this isn't financial advice, just an influencer's take on the exciting world of Bitcoin! Stay informed, stay curious, and stay crypto-savvy, my friends! 🚀💯 #CryptoLife #BitcoinFuture 🌐🚀

@ 4657dfe8:47934b3e

The article below was written by one of our users and creators in the bitcoin sphere, Jacobo Fasja. It shares our vision on positive disruption of quality content, made by value 4 value monetization model. Which is possible thanks to many technologies that Alby uses and supports. We, like author, believe that removing friction from micropayments in the web, will incentivize better qualiy of the content and relationships between digital artists/creators and consumers. Thus, let us share with you guest article "Breaking the Chains: Liberating Content and Privacy with Micropayments".

Let us know in #Nostrcomments, if you agree with its thesis and share your ideas on how can we make the revolution happen...smoother :)

What's in it? (tl;dr):

🌟 Unlocking the Internet's Hidden Potential

In the early days of the internet, banner ads seemed promising, but they led to clickbait and quality decline. The internet's potential for superior content monetization was obscured.

🚫 The Clickbait Dilemma

Clickbait thrived as websites chased clicks at any cost, stifling quality content. Advertisers held sway over decisions, causing self-censorship and stifling diverse viewpoints.

🌐 A Digital Cargo Cult

The content industry clung to outdated models, but change is on the horizon. Bitcoin Lightning Network's micropayments promise privacy, creative freedom, and quality.

💰 The Rise of the Intermediary

Intermediaries extract staggering value from digital content. Parallels with financial institutions highlight inflated prices despite minimal value addition.

💥 Restoring Content's Reign

The current system yields diminishing returns for advertisers. It's time to restore content's rightful reign and explore better monetization models empowering creators and respecting user privacy. Join the conversation to reimagine online content monetization.

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by Jacobo Fasja:

A brief intro:

In the early days of the internet, banner ads served as the primary method of monetization for online content. At the time, online payments, let alone micropayments, were neither safe nor functional. These ads, typically displayed by a third party known as an 'ad network', functioned as a form of micropayment for the content users consumed. This model essentially transformed the consumer or reader into the product by capturing their attention and selling it to the highest bidder.

This concept wasn't new. Traditional media, especially the television industry, had thrived for years using a similar model. However, the internet's approach involved a greater level of intrusion into consumer privacy. Despite this, the internet was hailed as a 'revolution' that should have offered a superior method of monetizing valuable content."

"Pay peanuts, get monkeys.”

However, as the internet evolved, it became clear that banner ads had created a number of negative incentives. One of the biggest problems was the rise of clickbait. Because advertisers were paying for each click on their banner ad, websites had an incentive to create sensational headlines and misleading content in order to drive more traffic and generate more ad revenue. Without having to care about if the end user found the content valuable after reading it, all it mattered was to grab his attention for a brief moment.

This focus on clicks also had a negative impact on editorial decision-making. In order to drive traffic and generate revenue, websites began prioritizing content that was more likely to attract clicks, regardless of its quality or relevance. This led to the proliferation of low-quality content and the suppression of more meaningful or nuanced discussions.

"The one who pays the piper, calls the tune.”

In addition to these problems, banner ads also created a significant influence of advertisers on editorial decision-making. Because websites were reliant on ad revenue to survive, they were often unwilling to publish content that might offend or alienate their advertisers or “brand safety standards”. This led to a significant amount of self-censorship and a lack of diverse viewpoints on the internet.

“That's how my mother did it”

A girl once asked her mom why she cuts off the ends of a roast before cooking. The mom replied, "That's how my mom did it." The girl asked her grandmother, who said, "That's how my mom did it." When the girl asked her great-grandmother, she laughed, "I did it because my pot was too small. I guess nobody thought to stop once we got a bigger pot.” Looks like we have the same “cargo cult” in the content / media industry.

“You won’t believe what happens next”

Leveraging the Bitcoin Lightning Network for direct micropayments can liberate content creators from ad-reliance and give users control over their support. This method offers five benefits:

Privacy: Users aren't exposed to targeted ads, preserving their privacy. Freedom: Creators can produce content without advertiser restrictions. No Middlemen: Direct payments mean no intermediary deductions or payment delays. Feedback: Creators learn what content is truly appreciated, beyond misleading clickbait metrics. Quality: This reward system discourages low-quality content, incentivizing valuable work and disincentivizing deceitful clickbait.

While there are certainly challenges to be addressed in massive adoption of micropayments using the Bitcoin Lightning Network (mostly a case of UX), it is clear that this technology has the potential to fix many of the problems that have plagued the online media industry.

“Behind every great fortune, there's a ~~crime~~ intermediary extracting more value than they're adding”

In a 'Value for Attention' (VFA) model, the intermediary often extracts the lion's share of value from both the creator and the consumer. They do this by levying a substantial fee (~30%), holding onto the money for an extended period, and collecting data from both parties, which they may then sell to others.

While there is undeniable value in the platform (intermediary) that brings both parties together, it should not be the chief beneficiary, especially when the exchange involves digital products from both sides. This situation requires no substantial logistics, and the marginal cost of distributing each piece of content or ad is virtually zero.

Consider how much value has been captured by intermediaries like Google, Facebook, and ad networks. This value could have improved content quality or fostered profitable business models for creators focusing on small, high-value niches. I estimate that around 50 billion USD was lost to intermediaries just in 2022, a year when banner ads generated a massive 155 billion USD.

The roast doesn’t need cutting anymore

It is hard not to compare this situation to how financial institutions have exploited customer savings through fees and many other strategies by positioning themselves as “necessary” intermediaries, they extract substantial profits while offering comparatively minimal value.

This analogy holds up as both industries are primarily information-based (money is nothing more than information), and with the advent of the internet and Bitcoin, the cost of transmitting information has trended towards zero. Yet, these monopolies have managed to keep the price inflated.

“If you don't believe it or don't get it, I don't have the time to try to convince you, sorry.”

Now, this is not just a one sided issue for creators, if you have any idea on how much money has been extracted from advertisers due to placing their ads programmatically in “relevant” content which was actually just made to precisely attract those ads without delivering actual value content, you’ll understand that this industry created a lose-lose “solution” in which the intermediary is the main winer and the advertiser has only been seeing diminishing quality engagement rates on their ads.

For those who still hold that 'content is king,' let us now restore its rightful reign.

Jacobo F

@ b9e76546:612023dc

I feel like a lot of people have an inherent problem with this vague concept of “THE ALGORITHM” (which henceforth will receive the all caps & scary quote treatment) and their nostr feed that is entirely misplaced from the real problem of centralized social media, so I thought it would be good to address it directly.

First, “THE ALGORITHM” is just a set of rules that determines how you see your feed. There is no necromancy or joining of the dark side involved, and it has nothing to do with whether "THE ALGORITHM" is “good” or “bad.” The very idea of “not having an algorithm,” just means you want the algorithm to list the posts of who you follow in chronological order. It in no way means you are “algorithm free,” it just means that the rules of your feed are "take only the posts from the people I follow and order them chronologically," and that’s basically it.

Everything about the concept of a social network and the incredible potential and beauty of #nostr as a protocol is in controlling your experience, what content you see, and how you see it. This is literally the entire point of having follows, followers, and reposts in the first place. It's at the core of the very notion of what social media is. This is literally “an algorithm” in the same way as prioritizing new posts over old would be, or limiting those who post more, or amplifying those who post less in your feed. They are exactly the same kind of rules, they are different only in specificity.

So what’s the problem with “THE ALGORITHM” then? It’s nothing to do with some vague notion of an “unnatural” feed or whatever it might seem like since we seem to have developed this distaste for the very concept. The problem is purely that someone else has been specifically manipulating your feed against your best interests.

It’s the same issue as censorship. My blocking a dickhead who won’t shut up about their shitcoin or who squeals at me under every single post with demands to read some communist propaganda on my podcast, isn’t censorship, it’s me choosing who I interact with. Censorship is when an external participant, someone not involved in the conversation at all, decides that I should not see some idea or should not communicate with some person despite my explicit desire to do so, and is able to remove my access from it without my permission.

The same goes for “THE ALGORITHM.” It’s not a problem if I’m controlling it for my own feed, this is a basic and fundamental tool of digital filtering that absolutely must be embraced, not feared or run away from, because it’ll make a huge difference in the user experience. It’s simply that someone else shouldn’t be controlling it to be at odds with the content and experience that the user specifically wants and is trying to create. Only THEN it is a very bad "algorithm" and a dangerous relationship.

The problem with all of these things has nothing to do with what they actually are, its about who has control.

The user is always supposed to be in control of who they follow, the content and ideas they want to see, and the people they want to associate with. Only then is it truly a free market and open space guided and created by its users. The problem has always been about central points of control forcing information asymmetries that aren't real, censoring ideas that are beneficial to you and inconvenient to them, etc.

I always like to try to analogize these sorts of things to the IRL world to understand what makes them bad and why a good one is actually incredible important. In the real world, if you go to a party and decide to converse with your friend, while ignoring all others you are weighing their interaction higher than the others at the party. If you decide to play a game of beer pong with your friend, you are creating a very specific set of rules by which your interaction will fall into. Not because you enjoy the evils of "THE ALGORITHM," but because you want to get drunk and have a lot of fun. Censorship would be if some external govt or other party was able to mute your conversation from thousands of miles away, while you were standing in front of your friend talking to them. THEY interrupted your conversation and shut off your communication channel despite both of you explicitly agreeing to the interaction. Or you were having a conversation with your friend and the second they began telling you about how your mutual acquaintence in in the hospital with myocarditis, they vanish from the party and a person you don't even know immediately walks up to explain to you how safe and effective the Pfizer products are.

An IRL "evil algorithm" would be this external institution or person making a particular group at the party invisible to you without your knowledge, it would be forcing a beer pong table in front of you no matter where you went or what else you wanted to do. Constantly enticing you to get drunk and play a game you were doing everything to avoid. Even adding arbitrary obstacles to all other activities and dropping NLP messaging of "drink up" and "solo cup" into all of your conversations without your knowledge. As crazy as it sounds, this is essentially the norm. This is how our online environment has evolved. So it makes sense that when we broke free of that, we would have a horrible taste in our mouths for the very idea of "THE ALGORITHM." It certainly isn't irrational, despite being misplaced.

Being part of the digital world is a weird thing when comparing it to real life. There is never a situation in meatspace where one has to filter how they will talk to a million people all at once. The very notion is comically absurd. But this IS a consideration in the digital world. Its like being dropped into a seemingly unlimited ocean of content and people, which is to the individual, genuinely infinite, as more content and interactions are being added to it by the minute so fast that it would take a lifetime to even manually sort through it all. Blocking, filtering, information rules, value weights and yes, "THE ALGORITHM" aren't things that are nice to have, these things are critical, inescapable tools for navigating the endless ocean of the digital world. These are not things to be afraid of or label broadly as "evil" and avoided at all costs. To the contrary, they are basic pieces of the puzzle that I think we need to understand. We need to put them in the hands of the user, so we can do incredible things with them.

The one core concern, is quite simple: How do we enable the user to set the rules, and not a third party? In my opinion, this is all that distinguishes the ultimately good from the bad.

We must remember not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Creating "THE ALGORITHM" is not accepting an invitation from Darth Vader to join the dark side. It's just a means of curating your feed so you get the best experience you can, and you find the content, ideas, and community that you came to #nostr looking for.

When we realize the importance of custom controls and modes of interaction, then we realize what all of these clients really are. Every one of them is really just a different "algorithm" that the user can select from. One that shows only images, one that filters everything but a certain community or topic, one that organizes based on most zapped, or by the number of likes specifically from those in your network, and on and on. The potential of #nostr isn't an algorithm-free experience, it's in an ecosystem with an unlimited number of experiences to choose from so that each person can either choose or build the community that they want, in a global square with no rulers.

An important step to getting to the future we want is to understand, with specificity and nuance, the exact sources of the problems we are trying to fix, rather than painting broad strokes and just carrying around a bunch of baggage about a tool we should be using for ourselves. The promise of nostr, and Bitcoin, and so many other tools we are building on and embracing is to create at the communication layer, a foundation of freedom that can be accessed by every single user no matter where they are in the world.

So in short, there is no such thing as "THE ALGORITHM." The problem has always been about who has control over your digital world? Is it you, or is it someone else? In the fight to prevent that control from finding its way back into the hands of someone else, it would be foolish to let our PTSD over the past have us avoid the very tools that would let us build a future specifically tuned to give us the very value and and autonomy that we all seek.

@ 2edbcea6:40558884

Happy Sunday #Nostr !

Here’s your #NostrTechWeekly newsletter at the nostr:npub19mduaf5569jx9xz555jcx3v06mvktvtpu0zgk47n4lcpjsz43zzqhj6vzk written by nostr:npub1r3fwhjpx2njy87f9qxmapjn9neutwh7aeww95e03drkfg45cey4qgl7ex2

NostrTechWeekly is a weekly newsletter focused on the more technical happenings in the nostr-verse.

A lot of foundational work happening in the nostr-verse and quite a bit of new projects shipped this week. Let’s dive in!

Recent Upgrades to Nostr (AKA NIPs)

1) NIP 75: Zap Goals ⚡

Zapping has been such an integral part of what makes Nostr what it is. Earning for your content or contributions. Zaps for memes. Zaps as a way to boost the signal. It’s a growing concept as well.

NIP 75 was merged this week, with the goal of introducing the ability to set a “Zap Goal” which is similar to a fundraising goal. Users can zap the “goal” event directly and help the progress bar go up. Whatever the cause.

Interesting to see if this will stay simple and decentralized or if this will be the foundation of a GoFundMe type platform via Nostr using exclusively Bitcoin.

Author: nostr:npub107jk7htfv243u0x5ynn43scq9wrxtaasmrwwa8lfu2ydwag6cx2quqncxg

2) (Proposed) NIP 79: Digital contracts on Nostr ✍️

Think Docusign, but on Nostr. This NIP would introduce support for various kinds of digital agreement (contracts, covenants, agreements) which serve various purposes.

These agreements would all be unencrypted markdown, so the purpose is likely more for non-secret agreements so that they can be cited by all parties in public.

Author(s): https://github.com/xemuj nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z

3) (Proposed) NIP 34: Improved media attachments to notes 📎

Attaching media to notes in a way that is handled well on a majority of major clients is still more of an art than a science and nostr:npub108pv4cg5ag52nq082kd5leu9ffrn2gdg6g4xdwatn73y36uzplmq9uyev6 is determined to introduce a better pattern 💪.

This NIP introduces the pattern of using an explicit set of “media” tags on any note so that media that should accompany the note can be explicitly linked without clients needing to parse the content of the note to make the url of the media in the note a hyperlink.

Author: nostr:npub108pv4cg5ag52nq082kd5leu9ffrn2gdg6g4xdwatn73y36uzplmq9uyev6

4) (Proposed) Improvements to reddit-style moderated communities 💬

This proposed improvement to NIP 72 introduces the concept of a post (within a moderated community) that is exclusively posted to a specific community. Think about posting something that can make the front page of reddit versus a post that is intended solely for a subreddit. Seems like a welcome addition to NIP 72 👍

Author: https://github.com/vivganes

Notable projects

A nostr Wiki

The start of a truly open wiki.

Wikis are used for a lot of things: corporate intranets and documentation, fandoms managing information about their universe, and Wikipedia which may be one of the greatest repositories of knowledge on Earth. The main downside to Wikipedia is that it may be crowdsourced but it is centralized, seeking one version of each article (and therefore determining what is true).

This wiki (in the spirit of Nostr) allows people to create any number of articles on the same subject to offer different perspectives. At scale this could become something where people read various perspectives and determine the truth for themselves.

Author: nostr:npub1q7klm2w94hyq3qdm9ffzpahrrq0qcppmjrapzhz0rq6xgq3fdrnqr6atmj

Oxchat

Oxchat is a secure, private group chat experience for iOS and Android with a great UX 🙌.

Nostr needs its own standalone chat app that can stand up to the capabilities and ease of use of Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc. And Oxchat may be that app! Looking forward to using it more.

Author: nostr:npub10td4yrp6cl9kmjp9x5yd7r8pm96a5j07lk5mtj2kw39qf8frpt8qm9x2wl

Nostrnet.work

A web-based dashboard for Nostr, it’s a webpage that is a configurable hub for all the Nostr apps you want to have available quickly. You can log in with your Nostr account, and configure it to your liking.There’s a section for managing your profile (including your relays), as well as for taking notes, all of that on top of the list of Nostr apps for quick access.

Nostrnet.work seems to be evolving into almost a web-based browser of the nostr-verse. You can manage the apps that are on the dashboard Nostrnet.work via the basic/open app store from nostr.band. There’s endless possibilities for users to discover what Nostr has to offer and use those offerings from one unified interface.

A recent addition to the Nostrnet.Work interface is an area for “Nostr AI'' which is meant to allow users to utilize Data Vending Machines (explored in the Latest Conversations section). Data Vending Machines (or DVMs) are something that I think is unique to Nostr, and it's a product/ecosystem that may be the killer unique offering people come to Nostr to try out.

Author: nostr:npub1cmmswlckn82se7f2jeftl6ll4szlc6zzh8hrjyyfm9vm3t2afr7svqlr6f

w3.do url shortener

URL shorteners are a stable web util. In fact,

We started using w3.do because the tool we use to draft/publish this newsletter as a long form note will send Nostr links and embed the note instead of just linking to the note. So a url shortener is enough to trick the tool so we get fewer embeds and more links! Thanks nostr:npub1alpha9l6f7kk08jxfdaxrpqqnd7vwcz6e6cvtattgexjhxr2vrcqk86dsn !

Latest conversations

Data Vending Machines (DVMs)

“Data Vending Machines are data-processing tools. You give them some data, a few sats, and they give you back some data.” source: vendata. A practical example is a recent DVM published by Pablo: FOMOstr. You put up some sats, you’ll get back content on Nostr that you may have missed.

The concept seems to be that people need help from machines. And right now, the most common way for people to get that help is to pay a company for that help (email provider, calendar management, group chats, entertainment, etc).

These are great for more complex digital products, but what if you just have a question? Maybe you just want to generate an image. Or maybe just extract text, and then maybe translate it. These are most efficient as pay-as-you-need-it products. That’s where DVMs shine (on the long tail of needs).

You can put up a certain amount of money and people who have created algorithms or AIs that can accomplish these tasks will compete to do the job for the lowest price (and therefore win the money). This is the foundation of an economy of people who need jobs done and people who want to make income by creating the best DVMs for the jobs people need done.

DVMs that help you discover people and content on Nostr will be a god-send for improving the experience for people using Nostr while maintaining decentralization. This will certainly evolve over time, but it seems this could become an integral part of the Nostr ecosystem as well as become a unique service that can only be found on Nostr (attracting a new set of users).

Events

Here are some upcoming events that we are looking forward to! We keep a comprehensive list and details of Nostr-related events that we hear about (in person or virtual) that you can bookmark here NostrConf Report

1. Nostrasia Nov 1-3 in Tokyo & Hong Kong
2. Nostrville Nov 9-10 in Nashville, TN, USA
3. NostrCon Jan 12, 2024 (online only)

Until next time 🫡

If you want to see something highlighted, if we missed anything, or if you’re building something I didn’t post about, let me know, DMs welcome.

nostr:npub1r3fwhjpx2njy87f9qxmapjn9neutwh7aeww95e03drkfg45cey4qgl7ex2 or nostr:npub19mduaf5569jx9xz555jcx3v06mvktvtpu0zgk47n4lcpjsz43zzqhj6vzk

Stay Classy, Nostr.

@ 40b9c85f:5e61b451

Hello folks! I'm going to make a small article showing how a nostree list can be interoperable between different applications in the nostr world. I'm writing this little article on habla.news, where I know that nostree lists will be formatted correctly.

nostr:naddr1qqkxummnw3ex2efdxgerxvfkxqckytfcxd3rjtf5vc6xxttpvf3k2tfsv9nryveexfnrgcf4vspzqs9eep0ll6hurjkl3sc2fewgses07mjfwxsdcu3at2m8fd0xrdz3qvzqqqr4xy3j6s60

@ 3d82e8f6:2d214dc9

What is this contest?

Each month, we give away 2.1M sats (fractions of a bitcoin) to people who put our bitcoin stickers in public.

Ok, but why?

There's a popular saying in the Bitcoin community that "Bitcoin is inevitable." While I agree this is true on an infinite time scale, I want hyperbitcoinization (global bitcoin adoption) to happen within my lifetime. That's why I'm making resources and tools to accelerate bitcoin adoption.

I made bitcoin.rocks to make it easier to orange pill people you know, and our sticker program is a way to orange people in your community by leaving a sticker in public.

Each sticker has a QR code that links to an educational page about bitcoin. Our inflation-themed stickers link to a specific inflation page and our other stickers link to our educational home page.

Since we started these monthly contests about a year ago, our stickers have been scanned 6,886 times in public!

That's 6,886 people taking their first steps down the bitcoin rabbit hole. That's an incredible number and one we couldn't have reached without the help of everyone who puts our stickers in public.

This monthly sticker contest is the first since we quit Twitter and went Nostr-only. That means instead of having to mess with Lightning invoices, I can just zap the winners their sats directly on the post they submitted. Pretty cool!

If you want to get involved in September's contest, request a free pack of stickers or print your own! You can get involved and help spread bitcoin adoption no matter where you live.

Now, on to the winners from August's monthly bitcoin sticker contest — the first ever on Nostr!

1st Place

nostr:npub13d89zg9e237y6yzgw5x7wuqssvcv7c6urn39e7cckv5e92p3zhjqkdru5w wins 1,000,000 sats (0.01 BTC) for this sticker spot and dozens of others he submitted. Luke is a sticker slapping machine! nostr:note169qdxu5ja6pezydarnuuhzujm3smex0uqylu52y55fq8y6w95naqsam23z

2nd Place

nostr:npub1dk5pn7gad897tywq3vcl24wx6z4ejpge0663tptwxwgynsqccxhsn65sgk wins 210,000 sats (0.0021 BTC) for a series of stickers in high traffic places. nostr:note1ys4nd2d3vlhq8ftt5s682qdr70smwgcym2hszxvar7qpn2xwpu2slza8sd

3rd Place

nostr:npub122u7rt9rmunfwyzk35w25pg6haq0hhuvyjy6lwxjklxmr5wseehs720s42 wins 120,000 sats (0.0021 BTC) for this super creative spot! nostr:note1uqptpyccmrcxpall2yzy00yfa28m5p785vdul8t5mp9j965lns5qfr93h3

4th Place

nostr:npub1mpz30qp2gdr403t2apjzhla56fh94hs8zgznw5pp26q0tztw27dsu60pxm wins 50,000 sats (0.0005 BTC) for this great sticker series where people will definitely see them! nostr:note1sxtczeck3n6fd4epyu8nrj5d3fnqcx2jz2l5y304qzeka0v26v0s6ckg3l

5th Place

nostr:npub1y9gwxkgkcphlzw6ev63tqgghey0tjs6ag03ynheen4as0hcrra5szpr0fa wins 50,000 sats (0.0005 BTC) for this nice high traffic spot! nostr:note1zahy8jhct7xzwkyrrcfna9wjc3cry6qa73zvedzw8w09zqu5lqxs7zrpgh

6th Place

nostr:npub1f48mtlc2lwxqfekxuql4z2qmvezhd7v9uk7rfga8accs585zrars56lpgj wins 50,000 sats (0.0005 BTC) nostr:note1jt3djsacjry5pv5yv5ddea62q8f24vf5gd0nh09v0seaezplmr5sdjufxj

7th Place

nostr:npub133vne3sgggzj9ruat7pxyj2evugth0hxydk4fck8fv5zd5qwfjps8xfx0e wins 50,000 sats (0.0005 BTC) nostr:note1pq6jukg3dj5gcac0laleyqm2cxmfn5zfpe64prrmg5gkl3r0yv2qe8z5uf

8th Place

nostr:npub133vne3sgggzj9ruat7pxyj2evugth0hxydk4fck8fv5zd5qwfjps8xfx0e wins 50,000 sats (0.0005 BTC) nostr:note1pq6jukg3dj5gcac0laleyqm2cxmfn5zfpe64prrmg5gkl3r0yv2qe8z5uf

9th Place

nostr:npub1chakany8dcz93clv4xgcudcvhnfhdyqutprq2yh72daydevv8zasmuhf02 wins 50,000 sats (0.0005 BTC) nostr:note1nnqsvngw7mjjj7vsq9pae0x4f74mzgvl72j5asrgcl4axj26tzeqs386rr

10th Place

nostr:npub1ahk0j8g4uq7fyxqx4ehtl7r8w8reu9jpazvhsljdw6yldqc563rsq0ssh4 wins 50,000 sats (0.0005 BTC) nostr:note1q0szha5g0s9s6ehrtjx9cz6fsp892wlhjvvkhlz6gvtch3fsqgyqcqe5cc

11th Place

nostr:npub1wd522pp0mp7almxg00qmt08lqkz6r5r9vw95cddzuzvnnt7dpdksdtrvav wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1rz0j4z2k0gzafsj5vw32fn7s8wlmc0eyjqmfeektsrmjmhsmvphsv0mpm7

12th Place

nostr:npub1u4te63xx9c3r9d2ly8nwuc08sg2dcp89zxyac952dlnwqrq4l8zszqrdsd wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note10wnnzkdjvf253gjd3vvq9wsn8qyy65jd5ednuhn9889u62pcvt8qncw837

13th Place

nostr:npub128e8840pt7nhfgcnj9au7qsl7u3qkvluexyhva5xrezlwq8c3rfsszsela wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1amkv2u2arm8ecylegcmm2f0wacqgckee9xnn354ektpkc2wm8gfq4tx4sh

14th Place

nostr:npub1pxrhdm3n6a94tdv8cs6qapaggatwr3dn7n936d8vc0p9kmp0st8q8a4rk7 wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1hdm5acg4ex8r56ngad9hd0qu499svkzdn7a8lxegxqm7rc6c4dyq3xx2ju

15th Place

nostr:npub1kmjmsv43ple39493q4wa52nmfygqx6v8qcwl4msxhsd5mnp24assaxn00l wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1tfe35p9ntl87n72w4xatt62ed8gl9wtj74r0crgu5mmafgw42jlssfsjee

16th Place

nostr:npub12q6p5j8tefxuf0emk7u8ehgdmkedw55j7mwfxpxsd9778xf37kusypvpez wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1hfpxe6g5t0mc98yqqm0fux885xa3knawwmsjdnk58qvf3fv9zqfsnpr6ra

17th Place

nostr:npub1r2wjlqhgvwdu70cqtgqu30c74vwjxpulyakry274hpfulusj5hhqllep8d wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note19gvshswwg0u7c55g7c8578memua9dxettvykq78qvlsn2zmterysp52ref

18th Place

nostr:npub108q3662k2lv5cfgnmhksw8l5x8nuszzctlunpwc4k6e4zdkd8s5skp3pp8 wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1k3xzl7cr8u6x3xcdrrcnkfpe5avg0rvvgfvs0vyuy3nwg8eav5hq93yyyn

19th Place

nostr:npub1w8uatmszddfxa0tx6y6xsrzhvq7aywpduwdgre2946furlc3l7uqspvze7 wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1yn5m3z6luhc4upfr3nqhdangqv6sg4dvjqzrdtkns722lah0se8s8lcys3

20th Place

nostr:npub1rcksspnnl9v6tkpr2l2792jsz9mc4a35cvlyyp7v2nnal9pu0xxqt9gckg wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1hwyf4cxjw3xvtjuprmc8f0x89ztdwd6g9hx4d3st9c4rk063958q5kgh4l

21st Place

nostr:npub1psha64wnq3qrt506mv0k3syjhxq46r3agn7wdp2h7f6rlvd5cfqs06z5am wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note14n2dl5dn23jt9qr2e5s5xhpwy2azdxz62jrnh8n3n3gqwdrrfmhsn3c00a

22nd Place

nostr:npub104zp04wlgddf0w84tj8jul3w75e7ydcuuhsull2etste5040xm2qg285rf wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1fd8xadhfgfj59sqlgqd66420m2npps0dls3xre093ttn87xdhxxqnsdyjc

23rd Place

nostr:npub1cf0drsnqwwarjzmf2r7kq4n5lt9lh43p7g66l9tk37j5kfc2uxssv0gzew wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1c0vu3vpwsjrt5z5zng3v87xkx2pgnw8wtaxcy6vvyqrcm6z90kzstd2ypf

24th Place

nostr:npub1nthvv0sglny3nzr89kemd8rz7rxa9jtcq6mcc78lk87c3vmcksxsvl24gw wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note16qlrccttehh8t576vgrxh4nsa8fpzgfxvdaetkzg6t94xxpdajzswkd03c

25th Place

nostr:npub1vwymuey3u7mf860ndrkw3r7dz30s0srg6tqmhtjzg7umtm6rn5eq2qzugd wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1ue6pf5w6qjpdcc3wp7a9cc7wvaxp7h6kqp54sqprxvjtcve8cg3qca3n2u

26th Place

nostr:npub1ps73vvwd9uzkpgl5v0fjrew68pq8xj49e0enmwv477sjjq53fncqlavzfz wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note16wdzdy68cehmvepqklm282cukkqsnt74u0l2jup3w0h4aswgt0qsr3sstn

27th Place

nostr:npub1c0mpgcqpvffz4wmd0cmx8dzxtm9fukyz5yugx0n73fzzptlusnfqrns0qs wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note10ned9kpygejgsv3k3aznr396r3xgfukv4lyxnzd37yamm3xkuvyqrdlcdt

28th Place

nostr:npub1zh9w20hkx5vqwuznptk3md2rm8wv64mtk45vf0ncr52ce5njzwdsereg0l wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1kfx7yh3ja0ysu83hrjnv45fcn4u0lju5mqx6hv2we5c3l0kq0msqweunxy

29th Place

nostr:npub1p2c33zpwk3qepugzxcy88rlr279s3489puqd9djhegf3qx42wmtqed8kta wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1xqyx7z3jwqkr8tykmh2x8ndp9w5uzuzmlct5jc7l5z00hadwzzzqf9xupf

30th Place

nostr:npub15c3rmcmcafw645z4w7u8e8q8akjpk9cmqfr95mnyl86r2m6xqfdsluh6re wins 21,000 sats (0.00021 BTC) nostr:note1nzjj99nkru0cakg2mu9wl6jhz20jhxp0l7t7gxwq3mxxxr75zjhs004vd7

This is my first time using habla.news so I hope you can see all the embedded notes above.

Thank you to everyone who participated, even those who didn't win. Every sticker in public moves us closer to global bitcoin adoption, so thank you for your time and effort!

September's contest will be announced soon. Stay tuned and make sure you're stocked up on stickers!

@ 3d82e8f6:2d214dc9

Seeing if this works

@ fea400be:c89b9d0a

It's been a fun few months creating AI-based RPG storylines inspired by the Choose Your Own Adventure books we read as kids and there are now over 70 base storylines to choose from.

There have been lots of feedback ranging from "I love the games!" to hateful direct messages and negative personal opinions calling us nothing but spam and to go away. It's a rough and tough world and we all could use a little escape sometimes. That's all we're offering here: a little fun escape and some free sats for winning our games. I hope those with negative opinions of us find their own inner peace someday and lighten up.

We've had some recent recommendations, so we've now added women centric storylines as well as ones where you can be an animal.

Here's to more high adventures! Game options now include: animal, viking, superhero, pulp, war, action, mystery, treasure, pirate, zombies, fantasy, scifi, robots, terminator, aliens, disaster, wuxia, xianxia, and horror. To play women centric games, use woman as your keyword.

To start a game, make a new post that tags this account and "start game".

Example: @ChooseYourFate start game

It should start within a minute or so.

You can reference any of the specific game keywords when you want to play.

Example: @ChooseYourFate start game superhero

To play, you must be writing to any of the following relays: Nostr.wine, Damus, MutinyWallet, Relayable. The game will timeout in 5 mins if it doesn't get a response from you. Each game lasts on average 30 mins.

@ 6e75f797:a8eee74e

A Definitive Guide to Burgers

by Burgertoshi and TheGrinder, creators of Burgers

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Defining the Burger
• The Anatomy of a Burger
• Burger Varieties
• Classic Beef Burgers
• Poultry Burgers
• Seafood Burgers
• Exotic Meat Burgers
• Specialty Burgers
• The Burger Assembly
• Conclusion

Introduction

Burgers have become an emblem of culinary satisfaction, evoking joy and delight with every juicy bite. This whitepaper aims to explore the essence of what makes a burger a burger, outlining the fundamental characteristics that define this iconic sandwich. By delving into the various burger varieties, we will unravel the diverse range of flavours and experiences this beloved food offers.

Defining the Burger

A burger is a gastronomic masterpiece, characterised by a patty encased between two buns. The patty, traditionally composed of ground meat, takes centre stage, while the bun serves as a vessel, providing structure and holding all the delicious components together. This amalgamation of ingredients creates the quintessential burger experience.

The Anatomy of a Burger

The Bun:

The bun forms the foundation of the burger, serving as a platform for the patty and accompanying ingredients. It should strike a delicate balance between softness and resilience, enhancing the overall texture and flavour profile of the burger. Buns often have a slightly sweet or savoury taste and may be toasted or grilled to add a delightful crispness.

The Patty:

The patty is the heart and soul of any burger. Traditionally made from ground meat, it undergoes a meticulous process of seasoning, shaping, and cooking to achieve an optimal balance of flavors and textures. The patty can vary in thickness, shape, and cooking style, contributing to the uniqueness of each burger.

Burger Varieties

Burgers come in a myriad of varieties, offering an extensive palette of tastes and culinary experiences. While vegetable-based burgers are excluded from this exploration, we will focus on the following categories:

Classic Beef Burgers:

The epitome of burger culture, classic beef burgers feature juicy, seasoned beef patties. These burgers can be enjoyed with various toppings such as cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and condiments like ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise.

Poultry Burgers:

Poultry burgers offer a lighter alternative, utilising ground chicken or turkey to create flavorful patties. These burgers are often paired with complementary toppings and sauces that accentuate the poultry's unique qualities.

Seafood Burgers:

Seafood burgers showcase the bounty of the ocean, with options such as fish, shrimp, or crab patties. These burgers provide a delightful fusion of flavours, and the choice of accompanying ingredients can range from tangy citrus dressings to creamy tartar sauces.

Exotic Meat Burgers:

For the adventurous palate, exotic meat burgers introduce unconventional flavours. From bison and venison to kangaroo and ostrich, these burgers offer a tantalising departure from traditional options, opening up a world of culinary exploration.

Specialty Burgers:

Specialty burgers encompass a range of innovative creations tailored to specific themes or cultural influences. These can include gourmet burgers, fusion-inspired combinations, or regional variations that celebrate local ingredients and traditions.

The Burger Assembly:

The art of burger assembly is essential to ensure a harmonious and enjoyable eating experience. Following the correct order of ingredients is crucial to maintain the structural integrity of the burger and prevent it from becoming soggy. The ideal assembly order for a classic burger is as follows:

Bottom Bun:

The foundation of the burger, providing a stable base for the entire creation.

Lettuce:

Placing a layer of crisp lettuce directly on the bottom bun acts as a moisture barrier, preventing the bun from becoming soggy due to the juices released from the patty and toppings.

Patty:

The centrepiece of the burger, carefully cooked and seasoned to perfection, and positioned on top of the lettuce.

Toppings:

A tantalising medley of toppings, such as cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and any other preferred condiments, are strategically layered on the patty to enhance the burger's overall flavour profile.

Top Bun:

The crowning glory of the burger, completing the sandwich and providing a satisfying bite.

By meticulously following this assembly order, each bite remains a delightful symphony of flavours and textures, encapsulated within the perfect burger experience.

Conclusion

Burgers have transcended their humble origins to become a global culinary phenomenon. This whitepaper has highlighted the key elements that define a burger and explored the diverse range of burger varieties. Whether savouring a classic beef burger or venturing into the realm of specialty creations, the burger experience continues to captivate and satisfy taste buds worldwide.

Remember, the proper assembly of a burger plays a vital role in preserving its integrity and ensuring a delectable journey from the first bite to the last. Let us continue to celebrate the timeless allure of burgers as they continue to evolve, adapt, and bring joy to food enthusiasts everywhere.

---

TheGrinder Creator of burgers, author of the burger whitepaper and co-author of the milkshake whitepaper. There is no 2nd best!

@ 7dd04080:36f6813d

In 2000, we first started helping independent filmmakers and musicians with their digitial marketing, and a year or so later we launched a platform to help place music in film that would go on to be used by over 1,500 films worldwide.

Years later we launched our channels on Roku, Apple TV, etc to stream their content to as many people as possible. We wanted to get away from the traditional licensing model for our royalty payments, but need to make sure it was globally seamless. With the emergence of Bitcoin and then Nostr, we landed on using the Lightning Network as our automated pay out solution.

The new platform, called Royalty Points, was only launched 1 month go, but has already paid out over 5 million Sats to artists around the world. As a labor of love, this makes us extremely happy to see!

If you are interested in learning more, please contact us.

@ d61f3bc5:0da6ef4a

As Nostr continues to grow, we need to consider the reality of content moderation on such a radically open network at scale. Anyone is able to post anything to Nostr. Anyone is able to build anything on Nostr, which includes running bots basically for free. There is no central arbiter of truth. So how do we navigate all of this? How do we find signal and avoid the stuff we don’t want to see? But most importantly, how do we avoid the nightmare of centralized content moderation and censorship that plagues the legacy social media?

At Primal, we were motivated by the feedback from our users to build a new content moderation system for Nostr. We now offer moderation tools based on the wisdom of the crowd, combined with Primal’s open source spam detection algorithm. Every part of our content filtering system is now optional. We provide perfect transparency over what is being filtered and give complete control to the user. Read on to learn about how our system works.

Wisdom of the Crowd

Every Nostr user is able to define their personal mute list: accounts whose content they don’t wish to see. This simple tool is effective but laborious because the user needs to mute each non-wanted account individually. However, everyone’s mute list is public on Nostr, so we can leverage the work of other users. Primal’s content moderation system enables you to subscribe to any number of mute lists. You can select a group of people you respect and rely on their collective judgment to hide irrelevant or offensive content.

Outsourcing the moderation work to a group of people you personally selected is much better than having to do all the work yourself, but unfortunately it won’t always be sufficient. Spam bots are capable of creating millions of Nostr accounts that can infiltrate your threads faster than your network of humans is able to mute them. This is why we built a spam detection algorithm, which Primal users can subscribe to.

There Will Be Algorithms

Nostr users have a natural aversion to algorithms. Many of us are here in part because we can’t stand the manipulated feeds by the legacy social media. One of the most insidious examples of manipulation is shadowbanning: secretly reducing the visibility of an account throughout the entire site, where their posts are hidden from their followers and their replies don’t show up in conversation threads. It is understandable that many Nostr users are suspicious of algorithms to such extent that they don’t want any algorithms in their feeds. Those users will enjoy Primal’s default “Latest” feed, which simply shows the chronological list of notes by the accounts they follow. We even support viewing another user’s “Latest” feed, which enables consuming Nostr content from that person’s point of view, without any algorithmic intervention.

But algorithms are just tools, and obviously not all algorithms are bad. For example, we can use them to detect spam or not-safe-for-work content:

In our view, algos will play an important role in Nostr content moderation and discovery. We envision a future in which there is an open marketplace for algorithms, giving a range of choices to the user. At this early stage of Nostr development, it is important to consider the guiding principles for responsible and ethical use of algorithms. At Primal, we are thinking about it as follows:

1. All algorithms should be optional;
2. The user should be able to choose which algorithm will be used;
3. Algorithms should be open sourced and verifiable by anyone independently;
4. The output of each algorithm should be perfectly transparent to the user.

Perfect Transparency

Our new content moderation system enables users to easily check whether a Nostr account is included on any of the filter lists they subscribe to:

This simple search provides complete transparency regarding the inclusion of a given account in any of the active filter lists. Beyond that, it would be helpful to provide all filter lists in their entirety. Note that this is not trivial to do because these lists can get quite large. Our goal is to provide them in the most efficient way possible. We are working on exposing them via Nostr Data Vending Machines; stay tuned for more information on this in the coming days.

Complete Control

The user should always have the final word on filtering. If after configuring all the filtering settings to your liking, you find that some legitimate accounts are being filtered, you can specify your “never filter” allowlist, which will override all filtering. We are persisting this allowlist as a standard Nostr categorized people list (kind: 30000), so that other Nostr clients can leverage it as well. In addition, everyone you follow will automatically be excluded from all filtering.

Open Source FTW

At Primal, we do two things:

1. We build open source software for Nostr
2. We run a service for Nostr users, powered by our software

Every part of Primal’s technology stack is open sourced under the most-permissive MIT license. Anyone is free to stand up a service based on our software, fork it, make modifications to it, and add new features to it.

We run our service based on the policies we established as appropriate for Primal. Others can stand up services powered by our software and choose a different set of policies. Users are free to choose the service that best suits their needs. They can move between clients and services without any friction. This unprecedented level of user empowerment is what attracted most of us to Nostr. At Primal, we think that Nostr will change everything. We will continue to work tirelessly every day to keep making it better. 🤙💜

Please note: The entire Primal technology stack is still in preview. Just like everything else, the content moderation system is a work in progress. Thank you for helping us test it. Please keep the feedback coming. Let us know what’s not working and what we can improve.

@ 2edbcea6:40558884

Welcome to the Nostr Report conference updates. Thinking about joining a Bitcoin event? Here you will find info on major #Bitcoin and #Nostr conferences and meet-ups around the world.

Thanks to everyone who helped us create this list. If you have an event that’s not listed yet, or if you notice any information that needs to be updated, feel free to DM #NostReport or me directly, and we will add you to the note. 🤙

nostr:npub1y67n93njx27lzmg9ua37ce7csvq4awvl6ynfqffzfssvdn7mq9vqlhq62h 💜

Baltic Honey Badger - Sept 2-3, 2023 (Official Nostr Report Media Partner)

📍Riga, Latvia
https://baltichoneybadger.com/

Organized by nostr:npub1yul83qxn35u607er3m7039t6rddj06qezfagfqlfw4qk5z5slrfqu8ncdu

Announcements: * Riga #Bitcoin week is now! Let’s make sure we all use the official hashtag and make it trending for another year in Riga. #BH2023

SING NOSTR 2049 Afterparty - Sept 14, 2023

📍Singapore
https://lu.ma/xk3it4ue

Announcements: * Join nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 , nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft , and many other special guests at the SING NOSTR 2049 Afterparty! nostr:note1pkscfjawjhvq6yxymz7h06s0etp3d4fyntmaz32czy8nlvel8cxsx53fnr

Watch Out Bitcoin - Oct 6-8, 2023

📍Madrid, Spain
https://wobitcoin.org

Organized by Watch Out Freedom Foundation * Enrique Ho, investment fund advisor and #Bitcoin in the financial and geopolitical sector advocate, was announced as a speaker for #WoB23 nostr:note1mp4xpdsqznq50fqe5pdeh4df4neqhdr9538z3zxxm9gw2vkqwp8qgyh3w5 * nostr:npub1k3rychegd7vs20prks4g8g9xfyk2djw4pxxeukkj0mjhg68evz8qgsf820 content creator, YouTuber, #Bitcoin wallet specialist, and much more will be speaking at #WoB23 in Madrid. nostr:note1g4uh5geua6ysqv8fr4fl9f4v5eks5t9sc2gpqxc2npcsrgthttqqqanr9a * Cristina Carrascosa, lawyer, international business consultant, and founding partner of ATH21cripto. Will be sharing insightful updates on EU regulations and more, as she offers a fresh and critical perspective at #WoB23 nostr:note1mp4xpdsqznq50fqe5pdeh4df4neqhdr9538z3zxxm9gw2vkqwp8qgyh3w5

Nostrasia - Nov 1-3, 2023

📍Tokyo, Japan 📍Hong Kong, China
https://nostr.world/

Organized by nostr:npub1nstrcu63lzpjkz94djajuz2evrgu2psd66cwgc0gz0c0qazezx0q9urg5l * nostr:npub1g5pm4gf8hh7skp2rsnw9h2pvkr32sdnuhkcx9yte7qxmrg6v4txqqudjqv announced as speaker for #Nostrasia in Tokyo nostr:note1qap6cmsn6mewhuxa8c5v8pqjh0qn3dad45hqjuxnmxfjprxw62dspseg9u

Nostradam - Oct 11, 2023

📍Amsterdam, Netherlands
https://www.nostrdam.com

Organized by: Connect the World * Special guests include Damus creator nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s and nostr:npub14kw5ygpl6fyqagh9cnrytyaqyacg46lzkq42vz7hk8txdk49kzxs04j7y0 co-host nostr:npub1hqaz3dlyuhfqhktqchawke39l92jj9nt30dsgh2zvd9z7dv3j3gqpkt56s * I will also be there, so make sure to say hello!

Bitcoin Atlantis - March 1-3, 2024

📍Madeira Island, Portugal
https://bitcoinatlantis.com/

Organized by: nostr:npub1h493d0qgwhu95s82zd9sxrt3ckn3ttgvaf04z02neckadxw5fkvqte4cwz * Announced author, nostr:npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a as a speaker for their upcoming conference. nostr:note1e75lwwpcvx3l6fcassxs8lzaaw9acss2tvqh76pqwajp2c2ng67qd9x5ls

TABConf - Sept 6-9, 2023

📍Atlanta, USA
https://2023.tabconf.com

BTC 2023 - Sept 14-17, 2023

📍Innsbruck, Austria
https://bconf.de/en/

BTC Azores - Sept 23-24, 2023

📍Azores, Portugal
https://btcazores.com

Pacific Bitcoin Conf - Oct 5-6, 2023

📍Los Angeles, USA
http://pacificbitcoin2023.com/

The Bitcoin Conference - Oct 12-13, 2023

📍Amsterdam, Netherlands
https://b.tc/conference/amsterdam

Organized by: nostr:npub1t8a7uumfmam38kal4xaakzyjccht4y5jxfs4cmlj0p768pxtwu8skh56yu

Bitcoin4India - Oct 15, 2023

📍Bangaluru, Karnataka India
https://conference.bitcoin4india.org/

Organized by: nostr:npub1ma5tatv2fctj9nd5tfvdjmr8gcpkhjxk4fmltnmkazxhll0pa0mqcp4s5m

Lugano Plan B Forum - Oct 20-21, 2023

📍Lugano, Switzerland
https://planb.lugano.ch/planb-forum/

Indonesia Bitcoin Conference - Oct 26-27, 2023

📍Bali, Indonesia
https://indonesiabitcoinconference.com

SatsConf - Nov 2-5, 2023

📍São Paulo, Brasil
https://satsconf.com.br/

Nostrville - Nov 9-10, 2023

📍Nashville, Tennessee
https://www.meetup.com/bitcoinpark/events/292518506/

Adopting Bitcoin - Nov 15-17, 2023

📍San Salvador, El Salvador
https://adoptingbitcoin.org/2022/

@ 94e316a0:753ee256

If you have been following my articles, you know I am a big fan of social blockchain projects. I have written about projects such as Tangled, Uhive, Torum, and DeSo.

These projects are amazing and worth checking out, but I have recently encountered a social blockchain project that might be the king of social blockchain projects. This project is called Nostr.

What is Nostr?

In 2019, the ingenious minds of Fiatjaf and Ben Arc collaborated to give birth to Nostr, a creation with a profound purpose. Short for “Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relay,” Nostr is not just a network protocol, it’s an open-source marvel that has reshaped the landscape of social networking.

The first Nostr Protocol and Relay was created at the end of 2020. In 2022 Nostr got the attention of Jack Dorsey who donated 14 Bitcoin directly to Fiatjaf. In 2022 that was worth roughly $245,000 but today that would be worth roughly $350,000. Imagine what that will be worth in the next 5 to 10 years. — Info Source

Its creation can be traced back to the non-profit offshoot of Zebedee (to learn more about ZEBEDEE click here) known as No Big Deal (NBD). NBD has been a huge advocate for the development of open-source Bitcoin technology, and it served as the fertile ground where the seeds of the Nostr protocol were first planted.

At its core, Nostr is a protocol that empowers individuals by returning authority and control to the hands of the people. Nostr protocols start a new era in social networking.

As Nostr took shape, it became clear that it had the potential to revolutionize the way we interact, communicate, and share information. Its evolution grows the strength of collective creativity and the drive to create technologies that genuinely serve the greater good. Nostr uses the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

What is the Bitcoin Lightning Network?

Imagine the Lightning Network as a turbocharger for Bitcoin — it is a second layer of the Bitcoin blockchain that grows Bitcoin's potential. The Lightning Network allows users to fly through transactions instantly and with pocket-change fees. The original Bitcoin Blockchain can take up to 10 minutes per transaction but can be widely different based on things such as transaction fees, hash rate, and how many people are using the Blockchain. The fees for each transaction can be anywhere from $1 to $8 depending on the same factors as transaction speed. This can change depending on different circumstances and the amount you are trying to send or exchange.

To learn more about Bitcoin transaction speeds and gas fees check out the links below.

How Long Do Bitcoin Transactions Take?

What are Crypto gas fees?

Something needed to happen for wider adoption and to make Bitcoin easier to use for the average user. I think the majority of people who use Bitcoin and other Crypto projects are like me. We only have a small amount that we have been accumulating over the past couple of years. The average user can not afford such high gas fees.

Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja were the first to formally propose the Lightning Network in a 2016 paper. — Source

In 2016, a solution emerged to tackle Bitcoin’s growing pains — the Lightning Network. This clever network was born out of the need for Bitcoin to catch up in terms of transaction speed and affordability.

Picture the Lightning Network as your direct highway for transactions. It allows personalized payments between Bitcoin users. These payments let two parties engage in transactions without waiting for the traditional blockchain green light — no more holding your breath for confirmations. Traditional Bitcoin transaction confirmations take an average time of 10 minutes. The Lightning Network takes anywhere from 1 to 5 seconds!

The Lightning Network is a game-changer, making money transfers lightning-fast. There are some aspects of the lightning network that not everyone is happy about though. Bitcoin was all about self-custody, as they say, “Not your keys, not your Crypto.” So, while the Lightning Network is lightning fast, it comes with a trade-off, convenience or control, you decide.

How Does Nostr Work?

Nostr is resilient because it doesn’t rely on a small number of large servers for moving or storing data. Users can connect and publish to a growing number of “relays” that can change over time.

Nostr is a groundbreaking decentralized social media protocol that allows users to exchange messages with a unique twist, no central server is needed. How’s that for putting the power back in your hands? Everything is broadcasted and stored using Relays.

Relays

Nostr uses something called relays. Anyone can run these relays. You will need a little know-how (well quite a bit) but anyone with some free time can start the process. I am planning on learning more about relays in the future. I am still learning but plan to be as involved as possible with the Bitcoin Lightning Network and Blockchain technology as a whole.

What are relays? Relays are like the backend servers for Nostr. They allow Nostr clients to send them messages, and they may (or may not) store those messages and broadcast those messages to all other connected clients. The world of relays is changing fast so expect many changes here in the future. - Source

Relays are not just passageways for information but message hotspots, storage units, and the digital hubs that power Nostr’s engine. So when you hit “send,” it’s these relays that make sure your message reaches its intended recipient.

If you would like to know more about Nostr relays then check out these in-depth articles.

How To Run A Private Nostr Relay

5 Types Of Nostr Relays

What is a Nostr Relay?

Cryptographic Keys & Pseudonymous Identities

Rather than depending on centralized entities such as Google or Facebook for user authentication, Nostr employs the use of cryptographic keys. In this system, every user possesses a set of keys: a confidential private key and a public key that they readily share with others. To log in, individuals wishing to confirm their identity simply demonstrate their authenticity by signing a message using their private key. — Source

So what are cryptographic keys and signatures? They’re like the locks and keys to your virtual thoughts, ensuring only you can unlock and send them. These keys also leave an electronic signature — a trail that verifies your authenticity and marks your digital footprint.

Nostr allows you to be who you want to be in the digital world. You can embrace an alter ego, an online persona, or just be you — all while staying hidden under the cloak of pseudonymity. Your posts, authorized by your cryptographic keys, are your digital masterpieces and invincible to censorship attempts.

In a world where every character typed and every thought shared can be scrutinized, Nostr is a rebel with a cause. It stands tall as a defender of free expression and individuality, ensuring external forces don’t muffle your voice.

The Best Nostr Applications

When I first started using Nostr applications (also known as Clients) I was overwhelmed by the amount available. I searched for a way to get a detailed list of all of the apps available. There are multiple websites you can choose from but the best website I have come across so far is called “Nostr Apps”, a directory created by the creative mind of Karnage. Nostr Apps is a neatly packaged online hub.

Kudos are in order to the brain behind this fantastic resource. With “Nostr Apps,” the search for a comprehensive list ends, and the journey into the heart of Nostr’s applications begins. Sure, other websites attempt to map out the Nostr landscape, but let’s be real — this one takes the cake.

Nostr has a lot to offer, and it is open source which means anyone can build on it. This means that the number of Apps will always be growing and evolving.

The best way to find the apps/clients that work for you is by trying each one. Each platform is good in its own way. So some platforms might be better to use on your phone while others might be better to use on your computer. The sky is the limit when it comes to Nostr clients and this is just the beginning of what is to come.

Social ZEBEDEE — ZEBEDEE is a great resource for people interested in learning about the Bitcoin Lightning Network. It allows you to earn Crypto by playing games, and taking surveys, and connects you directly to Nostr by having its own built-in Social Platform.

Damus — A popular social client for iOS

Primal — Primal is a great way to enjoy Nostr using your browser.

Tools Nostr Band — Nostr data and statistics advanced search.

Nostrends — See what’s trending on Nostr

Zaplife — See who zaps who on Nostr

Music Stemstr — Music collaboration and sharing client for producers and artists.

Wavman — Fun nostr music player

Fountain — The podcast app that pays

Streaming Zap.Stream — Live stream and zap

Writing Habla — A long-form content client for nostr notes

Blogstack — Decentralized blogs over relay using nostr w/ ⚡ lightning tips

Flycat — Explore Nostr universe and long-form content

What I shared above is barely touching the surface of Nostr. Check out Nostr Apps for a full list and an easy-to-use directory.

But the real magic lies in what’s to come. With Nostr’s doors wide open to the world's creative minds, the possibilities are as boundless as the digital realm itself. Picture a future brimming with platforms that stretch the limits of imagination, all powered by Nostr’s foundation. The potential is sky-high, from apps that redefine how we socialize to platforms that reinvent how we shop or exchange ideas.

As the world catches on to the significance of this technology, brace yourself for a surge of interest that could rival a digital gold rush. Imagine a rush of curious minds and passionate explorers meeting to witness The Lightning Network in all its glory. It’s like being front-row spectators to the birth of a digital revolution.

As platforms continue to flourish and innovations continue to unfold, the Nostr ecosystem is poised to redefine how we interact, create, and envision the digital landscape. The age of Nostr has dawned, with it, a future that has the potential to rewrite the rules and reshape our digital identities.

What are Zaps?

Another amazing aspect of Nostr is being able to be “monetized” pretty much right when you start using the Nostr Protocol. This is done by Zaps. A “Zap” is the term for when someone sends you anywhere from 1 satoshi all the way up to 1,000,000 satoshis.

This allows for the average Joe to start earning from their content right away. You do not have to wait until you reach a certain amount of followers or anything along those lines. If someone likes your post or the information you share they can Zap you accordingly. Anyone has the chance to earn from posting and interacting. If someone likes your comment on their post they can Zap you. The more interactive you are and the more people align with you what have to say the more Zaps (Sats) you can earn.

The Future of Nostr

Gone are the days of corporate giants calling the shots on our digital existence. Cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology are the game-changers that are turning the tables on the status quo. People do not realize that their digital freedom is right around the corner, you just have to know where to look. Platforms such as Nostr, Tangled, Uhive(VD4R7R), Torum, and many more are showing us that we have the power to take back our digital selves. Imagine not having to reach a certain following count to start monetizing your content. Imagine being able to earn from your first post. It is possible thanks to platforms such as Nostr.

Imagine a world where big platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and their kin suddenly find themselves with a formidable rival. A wave of replacement platforms, spearheaded by Nostr, Tangled, DeSo, Uhive, Torum, and more have come knocking. These platforms aren’t just alternatives, they’re a digital revolution, offering a fresh take on sharing, expressing, and monetizing our online lives.

Brace yourself for a reality where the sky is the only limit. Thanks to Nostr’s ingenious open protocol and the power of decentralized relays, the future isn’t just bright — it’s an open canvas. Each platform is born from the passion and ingenuity of creators from all corners of the globe.

So, let’s raise our digital glasses to Nostr, the catalyst that sparked this seismic shift. We’re standing on the brink of a new era, where the digital world isn’t a playground for the select few but a canvas where anyone can paint their masterpiece. As the days unfold, as relays fire up, and as dreamers set their sights high, one thing’s certain, the future of technology just got a lot more exciting.

To get an idea of updates and information about the Nostr network check out nostr.report.

Final Thoughts

Since Bitcoin first came onto the scene in 2009, the buzz has been unstoppable. With each passing day, it’s as if a new page of history is being created. As more people begin to realize its significance, it becomes clearer that Bitcoin and its crypto companions are here to stay. It’s a tech evolution that’s not taking a back seat anytime soon.

Now, let’s set the record straight — not every crypto-project is cut out for the long haul. Among the gems, there are plenty of duds too. These imitators are clones crafted to cash in on the craze while leaving the genuine spirit of innovation behind. It’s a reminder that not every coin glittering in the crypto cosmos is worth its weight in code.

But let’s take a step back. Cryptocurrency? It’s not just changing the currency game, it’s flipping the script entirely. How we spend, save, and invest money has seen an irreversible shift. For some of us, it’s a revelation, a glimpse into what Bitcoin and its pioneering siblings are bound to become.

Consider this article your gateway to understanding that Bitcoin isn’t fading into obscurity — it’s powering up, growing mightier by the day, and forging a path that others can only follow.

I hope this has provided you with valuable insights into the world of Bitcoin, Nostr, and the Lightning Network. While I wouldn’t claim to be an expert in Bitcoin, I have eagerly pursued knowledge and noticed the potential Bitcoin holds. Each day, I am dedicated to deepening my understanding of this transformative technology, convinced that it is reshaping our world in a huge way.

Nostr Website — Nostr website (Nostr domain on sale for $5 million, may host Lightning wallet services if unsold)

Nostr Apps — Detailed list of Nostr Apps

Nostr Report — Updates about Nostr

Check out my website for all my content and learn more about Crypto!

Hatty’s Shack

Original article on Medium Or you can check out PublishOX if you do not use Medium. The original article has pictures and more links.

Thanks for reading!

@ fab018ad:dd9af89d

1. ฟาร์มกุ้งวิปโยค

“ทุกอย่างล้วนหายไปหมดแล้ว”

–Kolyani Mondal

เมื่อ 52 ปีก่อน พายุไซโคลนโบลาฆ่าผู้คนในแถบชายฝั่งของบังกลาเทศไปมากกว่า 1 ล้านคน ถือเป็นพายุไซโคลนที่ร้ายแรงที่สุดที่มีการบันทึกไว้ในประวัติศาสตร์

หน่วยงานท้องถิ่นและองค์กรนานาชาติรู้ถึงความเสี่ยงที่จะเกิดความเสียหายร้ายแรงจากพายุลักษณะนี้เป็นอย่างดี ดังนั้นในช่วงปี 1960 หน่วยงานภูมิภาคจึงสร้างแนวกันคลื่นขนาดใหญ่เพื่อป้องกันแนวชายฝั่ง ซึ่งเปิดโอกาสให้มีการใช้พื้นที่สำหรับการเกษตรได้มากขึ้น

แต่หลังจากการลอบสังหารผู้นำอย่าง ชีค มูจิบูร์ เราะห์มาน ในการประกาศอิสรภาพ ก็ได้เกิดการเปลี่ยนแปลงแนวทางภายใต้ระบอบเผด็จการของบังกลาเทศด้วยการผลักดันของอิทธิพลจากต่างประเทศ ชีวิตของผู้คนถูกลดความสำคัญ และแนวป้องกันพายุสำหรับประชาชนถูกทำให้อ่อนแอลง

หมายเหตุผู้แปล : ชีค มูจิบูร์ เราะห์มาน (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) เป็นผู้ก่อตั้งประเทศบังกลาเทศ โดยดำรงตำแหน่งประธานาธิบดีและนายกรัฐมนตรีระหว่างปี 1971 จนถูกลอบสังหารในปี 1975

ทั้งหมดก็เพื่อเร่งอัตราการส่งออกและเพื่อนำเงินมาชดใช้หนี้

โดยแทนที่จะส่งเสริมการปลูกป่าชายเลน ซึ่งสามารถเป็นแนวป้องกันพายุตามธรรมชาติ เพื่อประโยชน์สำหรับประชาชนมากกว่า 1 ใน 3 ของประเทศที่อาศัยอยู่ตามแนวชายฝั่ง หรือแม้แต่ลงทุนในการผลิตอาหารให้เพียงพอต่อการบริโภคภายในประเทศที่กำลังเติบโตอย่างรวดเร็ว แต่รัฐบาลกลับเลือกที่จะกู้เงินจากธนาคารโลกและกองทุน IMF เพื่อที่จะขยายฟาร์มกุ้ง ซึ่งกระบวนการเพาะเลี้ยงสัตว์น้ำในประเทศนั้นถูกควบคุมโดยเครือข่ายชนชั้นปกครองที่ร่ำรวยอีกด้วย

พวกคนรวยรวมหัวกันผลักดันบรรดาเหล่าชาวไร่ให้กู้ยืมเงินเพื่อทำสิ่งที่เรียกว่าการ “อัปเกรดกระบวนการเพาะเลี้ยง” โดยทำการขุดหลุมตามแนวกันคลื่นซึ่งป้องกันที่ดินของพวกเขาจากทะเล ทำให้ที่ดินที่เคยอุดมสมบูรณ์ของพวกเขาเต็มไปด้วยน้ำเกลือ หลังจากนั้นพวกเขาก็ต้องทำงานอย่างหลังขดหลังแข็ง เพื่อจับตัวอ่อนของกุ้งจากทะเลด้วยมือเปล่า เพื่อนำมันกลับมาเลี้ยงในบ่อพัก ก่อนจะขายกุ้งตัวโตเต็มวัยให้กับผู้รับซื้อกุ้ง ซึ่งมักจะเป็นผู้มีอิทธิพลในพื้นที่

เงินทุนที่กู้จากธนาคารโลกและ IMF ทำให้ไร่นาสวน ที่ดินลุ่มน้ำ และป่าชายเลนนับไม่ถ้วน ถูกดัดแปลงให้กลายเป็นบ่อกุ้งที่เรียกว่า “ghers”

พื้นที่บริเวณสามเหลี่ยมปากแม่น้ำคงคานั้นถือเป็นพื้นที่ที่มีความอุดมสมบูรณ์อย่างน่าทึ่ง โดยเป็นที่ตั้งของ “ป่าสุนทรพนา” ป่าชายเลนที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในโลก แต่หลังจากที่การทำฟาร์มกุ้งเชิงพาณิชย์ได้กลายเป็นธุรกิจหลักในท้องถิ่น ต้นโกงกางมากกว่าร้อยละ 45 ได้ถูกตัดออกไปเกลี้ยง ทิ้งให้ผู้คนเผชิญกับคลื่นสูงกว่า 10 เมตรที่พุ่งเข้าชนแนวชายหาดเวลาเกิดพายุไซโคลน พื้นที่ทำกินที่อุดมสมบูรณ์และสิ่งมีชีวิตตามริมแม่น้ำค่อย ๆ ถูกทำลายไปจากความเค็มที่เพิ่มขึ้นจากน้ำทะเล

จนสุดท้ายป่าทั้งป่าก็ได้อันตรธานหายไป เพราะฟาร์มกุ้งนั้นทำลายพืชพรรณท้องถิ่นทั้งหมด กลุ่มความร่วมมือพัฒนาชายฝั่ง (Coastal Development Partnership) ได้กล่าวถึงผลกระทบที่เกิดขึ้นนี้ว่า “การกระทำนี้ทำให้ดินแดนที่เคยอุดมสมบูรณ์กลายเป็น ‘ทะเลทรายที่เต็มไปด้วยน้ำเค็ม' ”

พื้นที่ไร่นาที่ปล่อยน้ำทะเลเข้ามาเพื่อทำฟาร์มกุ้งในจังหวัด Khuna

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อย่างไรก็ตาม ผู้มีอิทธิพลที่รับซื้อกุ้งเหล่านี้กลับร่ำรวยขึ้นอย่างมาก และกุ้ง (ซึ่งถูกเรียกว่าเป็น “ทองคำสีขาว”) ก็กลายเป็นสินค้าส่งออกอันดับ 2 ของประเทศ

โดยนับตั้งแต่ปี 2014 เป็นต้นมา ชาวบังกลาเทศมากกว่า 1.2 ล้านคนทำงานในอุตสาหกรรมกุ้ง และผู้คนอีกกว่า 4.8 ล้านคนที่ต้องพึ่งพิงอุตสาหกรรมนี้ในทางอ้อม ซึ่งตัวเลขนี้ถือเป็นครึ่งหนึ่งของจำนวนคนยากจนที่อาศัยอยู่ตามชายฝั่ง คนเก็บกุ้งเป็นผู้ที่ทำงานหนักที่สุด (ซึ่งถือเป็นร้อยละ 50 ของแรงงานในอุตสาหกรรม) แต่ได้รับส่วนแบ่งเพียงร้อยละ 6 ของผลกำไร โดยร้อยละ 30 ของแรงงานนั้นเป็นแรงงานเด็กที่มีทั้งเด็กผู้ชายและเด็กผู้หญิง ซึ่งทำงานในน้ำเค็มมากถึง 9 ชั่วโมงต่อวันด้วยค่าจ้างรายวันน้อยกว่า 1 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐ เด็กเหล่านี้ส่วนมากไม่รู้หนังสือและไม่ได้เรียนต่อ

ผู้คนเคยมีการลุกฮือขึ้นประท้วงต่อต้านการขยายตัวของฟาร์มกุ้ง แต่แล้วก็ถูกปราบปรามอย่างรุนแรง โดยในเหตุปราบปรามที่เลื่องลือครั้งหนึ่่งนั้น ขบวนผู้ประท้วงถูกทำร้ายด้วยระเบิดจากผู้มีอิทธิพลที่รับซื้อกุ้งและกลุ่มลูกน้อง และมีผู้หญิงรายหนึ่งชื่อ Kuranamoyee Sardar ถูกตัดศีรษะจากเหตุปราบปรามดังกล่าว

ในงานวิจัยปี 2007 ซึ่งสำรวจฟาร์มกุ้งของชาวบังกลาเทศกว่า 102 แห่ง พบว่าแม้ค่าใช้จ่ายในการผลิตทั้งหมดจะอยู่ที่ 1,084 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐต่อเฮกตาร์ แต่รายได้สุทธิกลับอยู่ที่ 689 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐ นั่นหมายถึงกำไรที่ประเทศได้จากการส่งออกนั้น แลกมาด้วยการที่แรงงานในอุตสาหกรรมกุ้งต้องรับเคราะห์จากค่าจ้างที่ถูกกดและสภาพแวดล้อมของพวกเขาที่ถูกทำลายจนหมดสิ้น

ในรายงานที่จัดทำโดยมูลนิธิความยุติธรรมด้านสิ่งแวดล้อม (Environmental Justice Foundation) ชาวไร่ที่อยู่ริมชายฝั่งอย่างคุณ Kolyani Mondal ได้กล่าวว่า “เธอเคยปลูกข้าว พร้อมเลี้ยงปศุสัตว์และสัตว์ปีก” แต่หลังจากที่ได้มีการทำเกษตรฟาร์มกุ้ง “วัว ควาย และแพะของเธอก็เริ่มเป็นโรคท้องร่วงไปพร้อม ๆ กับเหล่าแม่ไก่และเป็ดซึ่งเป็นสัตว์ของเธอ พวกมันล้วนตายทั้งหมด”

ตอนนี้ทุ่งของเธอเต็มไปด้วยน้ำเกลือ และที่ดินที่ยังเหลืออยู่ก็เพาะปลูกอะไรแทบไม่ขึ้น ในอดีตนั้นครอบครัวของเธอสามารถปลูกข้าวได้ 18-19 มอนต่อเฮกตาร์ แต่ตอนนี้เหลือแค่ 1 มอนต่อเฮกตาร์ เธอยังจำช่วงเวลาในปี 1980 ที่เพิ่งเริ่มมีการทำฟาร์มกุ้งได้ ในตอนนั้น ชาวบ้านได้รับการสัญญาว่าสิ่งนี้จะสร้างรายได้เพิ่มขึ้น รวมทั้งมอบอาหารและพืชผลให้พวกเขามากขึ้น

แต่ตอนนี้ “ทุกอย่างล้วนหายไปหมดแล้ว” ชาวไร่ผู้เลี้ยงกุ้งขอเช่าที่ดินของเธอ โดยตกลงจะจ่ายเงินเธอ 140 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐต่อปี แต่ตอนนี้อย่างดีที่สุดที่เธอได้รับคือเงินผ่อนจ่ายแปลงละ 8 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐบ้างเป็นครั้งคราว โดยเธอกล่าวว่า “ในอดีตครอบครัวของเธอสามารถหาเลี้ยงตัวเองได้อย่างดีจากบนผืนดินแห่งนี้ แต่ตอนนี้ไม่เหลือทางเลือกใด ๆ นอกจากการไปซื้ออาหารที่ตลาด”

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หมายเหตุผู้แปล : - มอน (Muand) เป็นหน่วยวัดน้ำหนักดั้งเดิมที่ใช้กันในเอเชียใต้ โดย 1 มอนมีค่าเทียบเท่าที่หลากหลายตั้งแต่ 11 กิโลกรัม จนถึง 72 กิโลกรัม - เฮกตาร์ (Hectare) เป็นหน่วยวัดพื้นที่ในมาตราเมตริกโดย 1 เฮกตาร์ เท่ากับ 10,000 ตารางเมตร หรือประมาณ 6 ไร่ 1 งาน.

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ในบังกลาเทศนั้นเงินกู้เพื่อการปรับโครงสร้างจากธนาคารโลกและ IMF ปริมาณนับพันล้านดอลลาร์ (ที่มาของชื่อ “เงินกู้เพื่อการปรับโครงสร้าง” ได้มาจากการที่ผู้ปล่อยกู้จะบังคับให้ประเทศผู้กู้ต้องปรับโครงสร้างทางเศรษฐกิจเพื่อให้เอื้อกับการส่งออก ซึ่งต้องแลกมาด้วยการบริโภคภายในประเทศ) ได้ทำให้กำไรในการส่งออกกุ้งของประเทศเพิ่มขึ้นจาก 2.9 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐในปี 1973 - เพิ่มเป็น 90 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐในปี 1986 - และเพิ่มเป็น 590 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐในปี 2012

ซึ่งรายได้ดังกล่าวถูกนำมาใช้จ่ายหนี้ต่างประเทศและใช้ในการพัฒนากองทัพ แต่เงินบางส่วนก็ไหลเข้ากระเป๋าเจ้าหน้าที่รัฐ (ซึ่งก็ไม่ได้แตกต่างอะไรกับกรณีส่วนใหญ่ของประเทศกำลังพัฒนา) ในขณะที่เหล่าแรงงานทาสในอุตสาหกรรมกุ้งต้องถูกกดขี่ให้ยากจน ถูกลิดรอนอิสรภาพ ต้องพึ่งพิงผู้อื่น และมีความสามารถในการหาเลี้ยงตัวเองได้น้อยลงกว่าแต่ก่อน

โดยที่แย่ไปกว่านั้นคือผลวิจัยยังแสดงให้เห็นว่า “หมู่บ้านที่มีป่าชายเลนไว้เป็นแนวป้องกันตัวจากคลื่นพายุซัดฝั่งจะมีผู้เสียชีวิตน้อยลงมาก เมื่อเทียบกับหมู่บ้านที่ป่าชายเลนเสียหายหรือถูกทำลาย”

ภายใต้แรงกดดันของสาธารณชน ในปี 2013 ธนาคารโลกจึงได้ปล่อยเงินกู้ 400 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐให้แก่บังกลาเทศเพื่อใช้ในการพยายามแก้ไขความเสียหายของระบบนิเวศที่เกิดขึ้น ซึ่งพูดในอีกแง่หนึ่งก็คือธนาคารโลกจะได้รับค่าตอบแทนในรูปแบบของดอกเบี้ยจากการพยายามแก้ปัญหาที่ตัวเองเป็นผู้ก่อขึ้นตั้งแต่แรก ในขณะเดียวกันธนาคารโลกยังได้ปล่อยเงินกู้นับพันล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐไปยังทุกประเทศ ไล่ตั้งแต่เอกวาดอร์ ไปยันโมร็อกโก จนถึงอินเดีย เพื่อเปลี่ยนฟาร์มดั้งเดิมในท้องถิ่นให้กลายเป็นฟาร์มกุ้ง

ธนาคารโลกได้อ้างว่าบังกลาเทศนั้นคือ “เรื่องราวที่น่าทึ่งของการลดความยากจนและการพัฒนาประเทศ” หากยึดจากในข้อมูลตามเอกสารที่ว่าแล้ว นี่ถือเป็นชัยชนะ เพราะเศรษฐกิจของประเทศอย่างบังกลาเทศมีแนวโน้มที่จะเติบโตต่อไป ในขณะเดียวกับที่มูลค่าการส่งออกนั้นเติบโตขึ้นเพื่อชดเชยมูลค่าจากการนำเข้า แต่แท้จริงแล้วรายได้จากการส่งออกส่วนใหญ่กลับไหลเข้าสู่กระเป๋าของชนชั้นนำและเจ้าหนี้ต่างประเทศ และหลังจากได้รับเงินกู้เพื่อการปรับโครงสร้างมาถึง 10 ครั้ง หนี้ของบังกลาเทศเติบโตขึ้นอย่างมหาศาล โดยเพิ่มจาก 145 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐในปี 1972 กลายเป็น 95,900 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐในปี 2022 ซึ่ง ณ ตอนนี้ประเทศบังกลาเทศเองก็กำลังเผชิญกับวิกฤตด้านดุลการชำระเงิน (Balance of Payments) จากหนี้สินอีกครั้ง และในเดือนพฤศจิกายน 2022 รัฐบาลก็ตกลงที่จะกู้เงินปรับโครงสร้างครั้งที่ 11 จาก IMF โดยมีการอัดฉีดเงินช่วยเหลือมูลค่า 4,500 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐเข้ามาในระบบ โดยแลกกับการถูกแทรกแซงในการปรับโครงสร้างที่เพิ่มขึ้นไปอีก

ธนาคารโลกและ IMF นั้นก็ต่างอ้างว่าพวกเขาต้องการช่วยเหลือประเทศที่ยากจน แต่ตลอด 50 ปีที่ผ่านมา ผลลัพธ์จากนโยบายของพวกเขาก็ได้แสดงให้เห็นอย่างชัดเจนว่า ประเทศอย่างบังกลาเทศกลับกลายเป็นประเทศที่ต้องพึ่งพาผู้อื่นมากขึ้น และเต็มไปด้วยหนี้สินอย่างที่ไม่เคยเป็นมาก่อน

ในระหว่างวิกฤตหนี้ของประเทศโลกที่สามในช่วงทศวรรษ 1990 การวิพากษ์วิจารณ์จากสาธารณชนทั่วโลกที่ต้องการจะตรวจสอบข้อเท็จจริงของธนาคารโลกและ IMF ได้ค่อย ๆ สะสมจนปะทุขึ้น เริ่มมีการศึกษาวิจัยเพื่อสืบค้นข้อมูลอย่างจริงจัง ผู้คนออกมาประท้วงตามท้องถนน และมีความเชื่อที่แพร่กระจายไปยังทุกฝั่งการเมือง (แม้กระทั้งในรัฐสภาของสหรัฐฯ เอง) ว่าองค์กรเหล่านี้ไร้ซึ่งประโยชน์ หรือกระทั่งเป็นพิษภัยด้วยซ้ำ แต่ความรู้สึกและความสนใจในองค์กรเหล่านี้ได้จางหายไปเกือบหมดแล้ว และถึงแม้ความรู้สึกและความสนใจเหล่านี้จะกลับมาอีกครั้ง มันกลับถูกมองว่าเป็นสิ่งที่ไม่สำคัญ หรือแม้จะมีการยอมรับว่าองค์กรพวกนี้มีปัญหาแต่ก็ยังมีความจำเป็นอยู่ หรือกระทั่งยังมีความเชื่อว่าองค์กรพวกนี้มีประโยชน์และยังได้รับการต้อนรับเหมือนเดิม

ความเป็นจริงแล้วองค์กรเหล่านี้ทำให้ผู้คนนับล้านยากจนลงและชีวิตเสี่ยงอันตรายมากกว่าในอดีต ในขณะเดียวกันกลับทำให้เหล่าผู้นำเผด็จการและเครือข่ายที่ยักยอกความมั่งคั่งของประเทศนั้นร่ำรวยขึ้น และยอมละทิ้งสิทธิมนุษยชนเพื่อทำให้อาหาร ทรัพยากรธรรมชาติ และแรงงานราคาถูกไหลออกจากประเทศที่ยากจนไปสู่ประเทศที่ร่ำรวย พฤติกรรมของพวกเขาที่กระทำในบังกลาเทศนั้นไม่ใช่เรื่องผิดพลาดหรือเป็นกรณียกเว้นแต่อย่างใด

แต่นั่นเป็นวิธีการดำเนินธุรกิจตามปกติของพวกเขา..

⚡️กด Zap บทความนี้เป็นกำลังใจทีมงาน

(ทุกยอด zap จะถูกแบ่งอัตโนมัติเข้าวอลเล็ทของผู้เขียนบทความต้นฉบับภาษาอังกฤษ, ผู้แปลดราฟต์ 1, ผู้เรียบเรียงดราฟต์ 2-3, กองบรรณาธิการและพิสูจน์อักษรจากไรท์ชิฟต์ พร้อมกันบางส่วนไว้เพื่อเป็นค่าธรรมเนียมธุรกรรม)

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>แปลและเรียบเรียงจากบทความต้นฉบับเรื่อง : STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT: HOW THE IMF AND WORLD BANK REPRESS POOR COUNTRIES AND FUNNEL THEIR RESOURCES TO RICH ONES ซึ่งเผยแพร่ครั้งแรกเมื่อวันที่ 22 พ.ย. ปี ค.ศ. 2022

@ 92294577:49af776d

This is the third (and final) blog post in a series detailing the many changes to CLN in the new v23.08 release, codenamed Satoshi’s Successor (courtesy of Matt Morehouse). The first post covers our improvements to user experience, and the second highlights new features and enhancements for developers.

In the early days of Lightning, developers publicly advised that using real funds was reckless. That is less true today, but we know some of you like to continue that pioneering spirit, so this section is for you (and the rest of us thank you for it!).

And let me just point you at our issues page so your injuries are not in vain.

Firstly, we have eliminated the concept of experimental builds: now every Core Lightning node can enable each experimental option separately, if they want to. This means that we have two new options, which were previously turned on by default in experimental builds: experimental-upgrade-protocol enables simple channel upgrades from old non-static-remotekey channels if both ends enable it, and experimental-quiesce enables temporary stopping of a channel progress (not very useful by itself, but good for other protocols, like splicing!).

Dual Funding Gets an Upgrade

As when we first released it in 2021, experimental-dual-fund will enable dual funding. It allows both peers to contribute funds to channels, enabling complex constructions like coinjoin, UTXO consolidation, and multiple parallel opens for each side; it also allows either side to RBF if your channel does not open fast enough, and an extension called option_will_fund to offer to lease channel liquidity to your peers.

This version has been tweaked for interoperability with the latest specification draft, and now works with Eclair! With this option in your configuration file, you can negotiate dual funded channels with any peer that supports it!

Splicing Channels, at Last

When you have a Lightning channel, if you want to increase the size of it, you have to open a new channel. To decrease the size, you have to close one (and maybe open a smaller one). The idea of being able to splice funds in or out of a live channel while it is still going is almost as old as Lightning implementations themselves, so when Lisa Neigut was designing the interactive construction mechanics required for dual funding, splicing in and out of existing channels was kept in the back of everyone’s minds.

Fast forward to today, and my early draft specification for splicing has been rewritten and implemented by Dusty Dettman for Core Lightning. This was Dusty’s first major contribution, and it was incredibly ambitious: dating back to May 2022, with a PR containing over 300 comments, reaching deep into the Core Lightning code. Preparatory work was merged in the last release, and then Dusty continued; the specification details were re-negotiated as the Lightning team from ACINQ started their implementation, causing multiple revisions, and much collaboration with them and Lisa Neigut. It was finally merged on July 31, after final review. Dusty has made numerous refinements since then, including more documentation, and moving the feature bit from the final 63 to an experimental 163 in case the specification changes again.

By restarting your node with experimental-splicing you and any compatible peers can start splicing today with the splice_init, splice_update, and splice_signed commands. Note that some explorers may consider your channel closed for the six blocks between the splice being mined and seeing the new splice announcements: the spec was amended a year ago to give apparently-closing channels 12 blocks before considering them definitively closed. Now we are going to see real splices on mainnet, I expect them to catch up quickly!

Pickhardt Payments, aka Renepay

Rene Pickhard is a well-known Lightning researcher who has released multiple papers on Lightning. One of his collaborators, Eduardo Quintana, was given a grant through Build On L2 to implement Rene’s minimum cost flow proposals in a concrete form, and the result is a (currently experimental) plugin called renepay.

Our current pay plugin does not have a very sophisticated view of the network: it attempts a payment and keeps trying variants until it runs out of time or things to try. Renepay maps out the likely payment sizes for each path and breaks the payment to spread across the most likely ones; it then collects feedback from failures (or partial successes) and continues the process until it has run out of time, or the probability of success is vanishingly small. Importantly, it remembers what it learned from previous payments for up to an hour, so second and further attempts are more likely to succeed.

It is still a new plugin: the simple renepay and renepaystatus commands are under active development and will continue to be enhanced until, hopefully, this becomes the default plugin for Core Lightning in a future release! Meanwhile, feel free to try renepay to pay invoices and report your results!

• Flying car not included

Join the CLN Community

As always, we want to give a special shoutout to all the contributors (31 for the v23.08 release) who continue to help us improve CLN with every update. We are grateful for your support; the new release was only possible with your dedication and feedback.

Let us know what you like or what we could improve by starting a thread on Build On L2 or by commenting via our usual social channels: Twitter, Telegram, or Discord.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Table Of Content

• Bitcoin Beach Wallet Rebrands as Global Shore Wallet

• Feature-Rich Wallet for Enhanced User Experience

• Partnerships to Drive Adoption and Education

• Conclusion

• FAQ

Bitcoin Beach Wallet, originally developed to support the Bitcoin community in El Salvador, has made significant strides since its inception. The wallet started as a grassroots project aimed at driving Bitcoin adoption in a small coastal town, and has now transformed into a global force. With a new name and a plethora of innovative features, the wallet is set to become a major player in the world of cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Beach Wallet Rebrands as Global Shore Wallet

As part of the wallet's evolution, it has been rebranded as the Global Shore Wallet. This name change reflects the wallet's expanded focus beyond El Salvador, as it aims to promote Bitcoin adoption and financial inclusion in communities across the globe. The new name signifies a broader commitment to empowering individuals and businesses with a versatile cryptocurrency wallet that caters to their unique needs.

Feature-Rich Wallet for Enhanced User Experience

The Global Shore Wallet comes packed with features designed to enhance the user experience and promote widespread adoption. Some of these exciting new features include:

1. Multilingual Support To cater to a global audience, the wallet now supports multiple languages, ensuring that users worldwide can navigate and use the wallet with ease.

2. Multi-Currency Compatibility In addition to Bitcoin, the wallet now supports various cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, Litecoin, and more, making it a one-stop solution for users looking to manage multiple digital assets.

3. Lightning Network Integration To facilitate faster, cheaper, and more scalable transactions, the Global Shore Wallet has integrated the Lightning Network. This upgrade allows users to make instant payments with minimal fees.

4. Advanced Security Features The wallet offers cutting-edge security features, such as biometric authentication, two-factor authentication, and encrypted backups, ensuring that users' digital assets are well-protected.

5. Seamless Onboarding The Global Shore Wallet simplifies the onboarding process with a user-friendly interface and step-by-step guidance, making it easy for new users to get started with cryptocurrency.

Partnerships to Drive Adoption and Education

To further its mission of promoting Bitcoin adoption and financial inclusion, the Global Shore Wallet team has entered into strategic partnerships with various organizations. These collaborations aim to provide educational resources and offer support to communities looking to embrace cryptocurrency.

Conclusion

The transformation of the Bitcoin Beach Wallet into the Global Shore Wallet marks an important milestone in the journey towards global cryptocurrency adoption. With a new name, cutting-edge features, and strategic partnerships, the Global Shore Wallet is poised to become a leading wallet solution for individuals and businesses around the world. By fostering financial inclusion and empowering users with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy, the Global Shore Wallet is set to make a lasting impact on the cryptocurrency landscape.

FAQ

What was the original purpose of the Bitcoin Beach Wallet? The Bitcoin Beach Wallet was initially developed to support the Bitcoin community in El Salvador, focusing on driving Bitcoin adoption in a small coastal town.

What is the new name of the Bitcoin Beach Wallet? The Bitcoin Beach Wallet has been rebranded as the Global Shore Wallet.

Why was the name changed to Global Shore Wallet? The name change reflects the wallet's expanded focus on promoting Bitcoin adoption and financial inclusion in communities across the globe, beyond just El Salvador.

How is the Global Shore Wallet promoting Bitcoin adoption? The Global Shore Wallet is fostering adoption through its user-friendly features, educational resources, and strategic partnerships with organizations to support communities looking to embrace cryptocurrency.

That's all for today, see ya tomorrow

If you want more, be sure to follow us on:

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.

@ b19d9305:216e10b9

Testinggg.. Can I edit this?

@ 57fe4c4a:c3a0271f

👥 Authors: Pieter Wuille ( nostr:npub1tjephawh7fdf6358jufuh5eyxwauzrjqa7qn50pglee4tayc2ntqcjtl6r )

📅 Messages Date: 2023-09-04

✉️ Message Count: 1

📚 Total Characters in Messages: 393

Messages Summaries

✉️ Message by Pieter Wuille on 04/09/2023: Version 0.4.0 of libsecp256k1 has been released, featuring the addition of the ellswift module for ElligatorSwift encoding. See release notes for details.

Follow nostr:npub15g7m7mrveqlpfnpa7njke3ccghmpryyqsn87vg8g8eqvqmxd60gqmx08lk for full threads

@ 15538cce:3aca1c5a

I know many of you are frustrated there are people who still won’t take the covid injections. The problem is you’re going about it the wrong way. Below I list steps you can take that will result in universal uptake:

1. Stop Calling Them “Vaccine Hesitant”

If you were trying to persuade a vegan to up his B-12 intake by eating meat, you wouldn’t get far by labeling him “steak hesitant.” “Oh, I see, you’re just ‘steak hesitant’ must be that hippie propaganda you’re reading. Steak hesitant people like you…” Insulting people’s choices won’t get you anywhere. Try, “I see you don’t like being coerced to take medicine via threats to your basic rights and ability to earn a livelihood, that’s understandable. Let me persuade you why getting an mRNA jab is a good medical choice.” And then you’ll have to make your case, which, at the moment is not especially strong (particularly with respect to healthy, younger people, many of whom have already had covid), but that brings us to…

** 2. Lobby For More Aggressive Gain Of Function Research**

Frankly, the Wuhan Lab didn’t do its best work. Covid is deadly for people with pre-existing conditions, metabolic disorders and the elderly, but it’s insufficiently so to kill many healthy people under 70. The overall IFR is about 0.2 percent, with the vast majority of that group either old or sick. To incentivize independent-minded younger people the next lab leak needs to be a far more lethal strain. If we can get one as contagious as covid, but with an equal opportunity IFR above 15 percent, now we’re cooking with gas. When your 30-year old cousin, both your parents, several of your work colleagues, Kyrie Irving, Aaron Rodgers, Novak Djokovic, 25 members of Congress and a few cabinet members are dead, that will get their attention.

3. Commission Vaccines From New Companies

While many who decline the mRNA shot are no doubt victims of disinformation — believing theories that government and large pharmaceutical companies are conspiring to enrich themselves first and foremost without proper regard for safety — it would be harder for them to connect those dots if you used more scrupulous providers. For example, it’s less than ideal that Johnson and Johnson just paid a settlement of five billion dollars for their part in the opioid crisis and Pfizer settled for 2.3 billion for marketing a drug as a pain killer that even the rubber-stamping FDA refused to approve for that purpose, while allegedly paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe it. It was apparently the fourth settlement for Pfizer since 2002, and that excludes the experimental drug anti-meningitis drug, Trovan that killed 11 children and disabled dozens more in 1996. It’s insane to think that means anything about these miracle products in 2022, the motive for which was so obviously public health and ending the pandemic, but you have to admit it’s not a great look.

4. Keep Vaccine Companies On The Hook For Adverse Events

There was never a need to waive liability for vaccine makers for adverse effects because everyone knows the mRNA shot is safe and effective. Yes, you hear anecdotal accounts of heart problems and strokes, but both have always been common in young people. Growing up, a few of my friends undoubtedly had heart attacks and strokes in grade school, though they were probably just under-diagnosed back then. I understand why the companies want to waive liability — it’s wrong to require legal accountability when these heroes are busy saving so many lives, but there’s no need for it when you have such a safe product. It just feeds unfounded suspicion.

5. Create A Vaccine That Stops The Spread

Obviously, we know vaccines don’t have to stop the spread entirely to be effective. Look up the definition of vaccine

https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1435606845926871041?s=20&t=5EIgymJ3ocpwtqFQyTZ9Sw

— nowhere does it list that as a requirement. But if it actually stopped transmission in some material way, you’d be in a better position to argue for its uptake, citing the benefit it might have for the people around them. Now, people are just trying the “you’re taking up an ICU bed” angle, which doesn’t make much sense to young, healthy people, barring a far deadlier strain.

6. Permit Useless Early Treatments

One big mistake that was made was banning and discouraging phony, yet harmless treatments like Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine and even Vitamin D. All that did was make people think they worked, and feed false conspiracy theories that they were funneling people toward the vaccine. Useless treatments should be encouraged so anyone who knows people who tried them can see how little good they did.

7. Don’t Bribe People

I love donuts as much as the next person with metabolic syndrome, but giving people food, money and even weed just makes you look desperate. If you want to make something seem enticing, you’ve got to market it as something I’m lucky to get, not something you’re begging me to take.

8. Choose Better Spokespeople

I know Bill Gates is one of the biggest investors in the space, but is it really necessary to have someone, who was paling around with convicted underage sex offender Jeffery Epstein, as your go-to vaccine promoter?

9. Amend The US Constitution And Nuremberg Code

It’s annoying we have these anachronistic documents that didn’t contemplate the spread of a deadly pandemic, but unfortunately, The Fourth Amendment requiring people to be secure in their “persons,” and the Nuremberg Code which requires consent for medical procedures are still The Supreme Law Of The Land, and International Law, respectively. A little carve-out saying, “unless there’s a deadly pandemic” would go a long way toward granting the requisite legal authority.

10. Stiffer Consequences For Those Who Refuse

Let’s be honest. There’s nothing more important than public health, and getting everyone vaccinated is the optimal way to achieve that aim. It’s unfortunate it would have to come to this, but we can’t let the selfish actions of a few imperil the good of the many who do as instructed. Actions have consequences! If the first nine steps are ineffective, you could imprison, torture or simply exterminate those who decline this medical option, something for which there is historical precedent in the last century.

I can assure you these 10 steps will result in 100 percent uptake. Hopefully it doesn’t come to step 10, but you have to ask yourself, do you care about preserving the rights of the privileged few, or are you willing to do what it takes for public health and the greater good of society?

I hope the answer is as clear for you as it is for me.

https://chrisliss.substack.com/p/how-to-persuade-the-vaccine-hesitant-to-take

---

@ 92294577:49af776d

This is the second blog post in a series detailing the changes to CLN in the new v23.08 release, codenamed Satoshi’s Successor (courtesy of Matt Morehouse). The first post covers the improvements we made to user experience, and in the third and final post, we will delve into the experimental features enabled by v23.08, so you can carry on that reckless Lightning spirit!

In this installment, we focus on the new features and enhancements for developers. We know you all have been asking for several things of CLN, and this release we delivered!

REST API and Ancient Runes

CLN finally has an official REST API (web API, if you are a pedant) through a new plugin called clnrest, which is installed by default. You will need some Python packages installed to make it work, but it will produce an informative message in the logs about why it cannot run if it does not have them. It’s already a superset of the clightning-rest plugin, which the Ride the Lightning project has supported for some time, but has some neat additions and will be kept up-to-date from now on. This is not surprising when you find out the author is Shahana Farooqui herself (of RTL fame) who has also promised to write a detailed guide to using this API!

Runes are also now first-class citizens. Runes are bearer credentials, introduced in our commando plugin for controlling a node via the Lightning Network itself. The rune says exactly what commands you are allowed to run, and have proven popular for other uses, so now the functionality has been moved into the core of CLN for other projects to share them. They have proven extremely useful, and now you do not even have to implement them yourself: you can use our createrune and checkrune commands to do all the heavy lifting. At this point I will simply quote from the manual:

Oh, I almost forgot. Runes can also be invoked like in ancient times with the invokerune command. Feel the magical powers of a rune by invoking it.

Pay Command Upgrades

There are two main developer enhancements to the pay command. The first is that we now allow self-payment, where we used to reject that as… well, self-serving. The second is a little more embarrassing: because Bolt11 can legally contain the hash of the description, with the actual description elsewhere, there’s been debate over whether nodes should be given the actual description. The spec (and our users, not to mention the folks in accounting) are fairly clear that we should know the description of the purpose of the payment for us to sign off on it, but a change in 2019 eliminated this requirement, and I did not notice until 2022! So back in April 2022 (v0.11), we deprecated paying invoices if you did not supply the description. But it turns out that a bug in our parsing of the description meant that you could not always pass the description into the pay command, so we have had to undeprecate that again for now!

Other Commands

Long-awaited, we have added the first steps to a general wait and pagination API. The wait command simply waits until an entry is created, updated, or deleted, and works reliably across node and plugin restarts! It pairs with a list command, which for the moment is only supported on listinvoices. So every invoice has two numbers: a created_index and an optional updated_index. These start at 1, and are unique, and only ever increase: if you call the wait invoices created 1 command it will return once your first invoice has been created.

Paired with this, you can call listinvoices and specify index as either created or updated. You can specify start to indicate what index to start at, and an optional limit. So if the wait above returns created : 5, you know to listinvoices index=created start=1 will show you all the new invoices you missed. As a helpful addition, the wait command itself often returns some information about the invoice (label, Bolt11, and status): this is particularly convenient to save a call to listinvoices, but is not present if you actually missed the change (perhaps your plugin was slow, or offline for a while), so you will need to call listinvoices sometimes anyway.

Future releases will extend this API to the other list commands, allowing you to easily and reliably wait for almost any Core Lightning event, such as on-chain transactions or payment results.

Finally, we have added initial support for user-defined tracing on Linux, which allows you to profile what happens on your node at various key points. It is extremely useful for developers to analyze performance in live systems without interfering, and we have documented the process for you to get started.

Join the CLN Community

We want to thank the contributors (31 for the v23.08 release) who continue to help us improve CLN with every update. We are grateful for your support; your dedication and feedback made the new release possible.

As always, let us know what you like or what we could improve by starting a thread on Build On L2, where we have special developer and node runner pages to help facilitate long-form discussions. It is free to sign up, and nyms are more than welcome!

You can also reach us on our usual social channels: Twitter, Telegram, or Discord.

@ a9f1cd1f:802f3fb7

About discovering Bitcoin, Austrian economics, Privacy & Security and questioning everything

Beginning

In 2020, I had about 200$ in my bank account. Still, I became interested in this whole “Make money with money thing”. I started studying stock market — more precisely value investing. That led me to studying how money works. I began to watch all those videos about how federal reserve works (by Goldbugs mostly, so no Bitcoin yet).

Then came the Lockdown. And the Bitcoin dump to 5000$. So I became greedy when others were fearful and inspired by the motto of one of the richest Bitcoin hater, I bought some sats. At the time, I didn’t know how this would affect my life. I wasn’t some laser-eyed fanboy to buy just to hold. I understood the implications of huge money printing that was coming. But little I knew that Bitcoin is not only about money.

Discovery

After some time of inactivity and consolidating my existing Bitcoin knowledge, I read Separation of money and state (Czech version). It was life-changing. It describes Austrian economics, nature of the state and other aspects of Bitcoin. I also dived into Bitcoin Twitter. At this point, everything started to click in. If you fall down the Rabbit hole this much, It will lead you to certain conclusions.

Enlightenment and Conclusions

Austrian economics will give you better understanding of the world around you. It’s more about human nature and psychology. If you view world as red vs blue, you’ll be left confused. If you view the world as individuals and groups with driven by self-interest, everything will start to click in.

Studying nature of the state will help you realize that it won’t get better with next elections. And that in government you will find only incompetent morons or competent thieves.

You will also shift from high to low time preferences. I started caring more about my health — started weightlifting, having proper diet. Now I’m diving into martial arts.

And last but not least: learning about Internet Privacy & Security, which will require separate part of this post.

Internet Privacy & Security

To be honest, I’m not sure how I discovered this topic. It was even before diving into BT, so probably YouTube. But the topic immersed me. I started with basic things like browser trackers and password management. Then I ended up on more obscure things (for me at the time) like servers with self hosted privacy services.

I found out how important privacy (not only online) is. What also interested me was its overlap with Bitcoin. And I also began to realize that Bitcoin is an essential, next piece of puzzle. And the puzzle being human sovereignty, individuals seclusion from state and tyranny.

But online P&S is often confusing and complicated. And when it gets complicated, that’s when you make a mistake. Today, not taking P&S seriously might not be fatal. Unfortunately, governments ability to spy on their citizens rises. In the future it will be no longer option to protect your online Privacy & Security.

End of a Beginning

After spending some time in my Twitter bubble, I started to search my purpose and began to figure out what I want to do in my life.

Even if they are multiple different topics that I enjoyed on TW (from economics to health & fitness), Privacy and Security was the one that interested me the most.

Above, I promised that it will require separate part of this post. But at the end, this whole blog will be focused on this topic. I will try to simplify it, so even non-tech savvy would understand and could implement measures to be protected. Without confusion of having too many options and need to understand nuances in those options. All that in one place.

Thank you for reading my story, I’ll myself see where it takes me. If you want to get Privacy & Security tips, or simply follow my journey, follow me on Twitter.

”Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

“I don’t much care where.”

“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.”

– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

@ a10260a2:caa23e3e

It's been about a week since I discovered YakiHonne and we've got another round of updates to test. The fact that the YakiHonne team has pushed more updates this soon is exciting as that means the app is iterating at a fast pace, which usually means a quick response to user feedback.

With that said, let's dive into the 8 updates from this round:

1. Bookmarks - you can save your preferred articles

This feature behaves as expected and similar to how bookmarks work for short notes on clients like Damus.

Got an article you want to read later? Look for the bookmark icon near the top-right. Once you click on that, you'll be prompted to sign the event (I'm using nos2x).

If that went well, you'll see the bookmark icon change to indicate that it was a success.

2. Comments replies threads - you can view and reply to comments within the replies threads

This worked really well and as expected.

After signing the event, the reply was shown inline which was a nice touch.

Although the reply was a success, I discovered a disconnect after looking for my comment on Damus (I believe I found the note by copying the naddr).

It turned out the comment that I replied to had already received a reply from the note author even though YakiHonne displayed "0 REPLY(IES)". I believe this has something to do with differing relays.

3. “sensitive content” - you can decide the type of content as sensitive content when publishing

I don't plan on using this anytime soon, if ever. But I think it can be an important feature moving forward, especially when it comes to relays and clients.

4. Reports counter - view how many users reported a piece of content

I spoke with the YakiHonne team recently and they will be manually reviewing reported accounts to prevent abuse of this feature.

On the flip side, hopefully it'll help with what seems to be a flood of AI-generated content. This is currently a big deterrent to my using YakiHonne as a reader unfortunately. Will be keeping an eye on this one. 👀

5. Images upload - you can directly upload images while writing

What a time saver this one.

Before, I would upload an image using nostr.build, copy the URL, and paste it in here.

Now, all I've gotta do is click the upload button (right next to "Add image"), select a photo from my computer, and the photo is inserted with the correct syntax.

6. Uploads history - you can re-use uploaded images for any written articles

At this point in this article's creation, I've uploaded 3 images and I already see them when I click "Uploads history" in the top-right.

I'm pretty sure this'll come in handy as I write more articles and need to re-use past images.

7. Search - searching users by username/nip-05 identifiers

Hm, this one could use some improvement.

Searching for my fren bitcoin.rocks was unsuccessful despite trying a few variations (e.g. "bitcoin.rocks", "bitcoinrocks", and "bitcoindotrocks") and the NIP-05 (_@bitcoin.rocks). Btw, that first result is incorrect because I checked the npub.

However, searching for the guy that always reminds me to stay humble and stack sats was successful (not sure what the difference between success and failure is).

Finally, when searching for a keyword. The users that were returned in the results aren't the most intuitive. I would think users with "bitcoin" in their username would appear but not a single one.

And it seems like articles shown could potentially not be relevant. I'm assuming any article can show up here if it's tagged with bitcoin.

Looking forward to seeing some improvements here in terms of speed and accuracy.

8. Math equations are now supported using the katex syntax

LFG! Y'all know the only equation that matters. 😎

$$\sum_{i=0}^{32} 210,000 \frac{50}{2^i}$$

The trick here is to use "Insert Code" and put the equation between a pair of "$$".

Like so. (Thanks Yofu)

Also, the 32 and "i=0" should go on top of and below the summation, respectively. But I guess this is just a rendering issue that can be fixed.

---

That's a wrap for this round! YakiHonne is definitely proving to be best long form note editor at the moment for me. I hope the team continues to add new features, and, more importantly, improve the existing ones.

Don't forget to follow me so you don't miss my articles on future updates.

Onward. 🫡

@ 1e52c554:21771908

Posthumous work of the Colombian poet born in Don Matias on January 20, 1948.

Welcome to this blog dedicated to the Posthumous work of the Colombian poet Francisco Luis Arroyave Tabares born in Don Matias on January 20, 1948-2010. Where I will be publishing each of the 170 sonnets from his unpublished collection 'Sonnets For The Twenty First Century And A Circadian Musical (1984-1987).' Analyzed with GPT4 artificial intelligence and illustrated with AI tools... I hope you enjoy this garden of words snatched from the solitude of a locked room.

Likewise, any enthusiast of the sonnet form is invited to conduct their personal studies of Arroyave Tabares' work, as it is a collection that, although registered since 1989, has not yet been published.

Frank Duna

---

Sonnet 101 by Francisco Luis Arroyave Tabares

```

Pythian Rites

The book of time has some pages hidden That only the rocks perhaps remember Ānd signs that are to our time forbidden But written in stories of some amber. 4

In the meantime we can read a fable Or study the myths that remain occult To find hints that will make us more able To read stars with knowledge of an adult.

I believe Apollo, in ancient day 9 Tired of hunting dipsas that shock the dirt 10 Visited "The Altar Stone" in each May 11 After seing his friend Boreas first. 12

Equinox, leap years, and things he thought great 13 He learnt, for Pythians to celebrate. 14 ***

4-.amber= fossil resins found by sea costs. 9.Apollo= one of the most important 0lympian gods for music, poetry, beauty, youth and prophesy. His bitrth was celebrated each Soring by the Theophania festivals, and his victory over the Phyton was
commemorated each fourth summer by the Pythian Games. 1O-. dipsas= mythological dragons or snakes. 11-."The Altar Stone"= the same "Stona Henge", which is a neolitic astrological observatory in England. 12-.Boreas= the north wind personified. 13-. Equinox= the time when the sun crosses the equator, twice a year. l4- Pythian= a priestess of Apollo, or an inhabitant of delphi.

```

Analysis "Pythian Rites"

Introduction

Sonnet 101 by Francisco Luis Arroyave Tabares, titled "Pythian Rites," is a richly layered poem that draws heavily on classical mythology and ancient history. The sonnet is structured in the traditional Shakespearean format, consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet, with the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

Thematic Analysis

The first quatrain (lines 1-4) introduces the theme of time and hidden knowledge. The speaker refers to the "book of time" with "pages hidden" that only the "rocks" might remember. This could be interpreted as a metaphor for the ancient wisdom and knowledge that has been lost or forgotten over time. The reference to "stories of some amber" suggests the preservation of ancient life and events in fossilized form, a metaphor for the enduring nature of history.

The second quatrain (lines 5-8) continues this theme, suggesting that we can learn from the "fable" and "myths" of the past. The speaker implies that these stories contain "hints" that can help us understand the universe ("read stars") with the wisdom of an adult.

The third quatrain (lines 9-12) introduces the figure of Apollo, the Greek god of music, poetry, beauty, youth, and prophecy. The speaker imagines Apollo visiting "The Altar Stone" (Stonehenge), a Neolithic astronomical observatory, after seeing his friend Boreas, the personification of the north wind. This could be a metaphor for the transition from winter (represented by Boreas) to spring (represented by Apollo), a time of renewal and rebirth.

The final couplet (lines 13-14) refers to the equinox and leap years, astronomical events that mark the passage of time. The speaker suggests that Apollo learned these things for the Pythians to celebrate, referring to the priestesses of Apollo or the inhabitants of Delphi. This could be interpreted as a metaphor for the role of religion and ritual in marking time and celebrating the cycles of nature.

Overall, "Pythian Rites" is a complex and evocative poem that explores themes of time, knowledge, history, and the natural world through the lens of classical mythology and ancient history. The sonnet form, with its structured rhyme and meter, provides a fitting framework for this exploration of timeless themes.

Rhyme Scheme

Sonnet 101 by Francisco Luis Arroyave Tabares follows the traditional Shakespearean sonnet structure, which consists of three quatrains (four-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet (two-line stanza). The rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

Let's break down the rhyme scheme of this sonnet:

``` Quatrain 1: A: hidden (line 1) B: remember (line 2) A: forbidden (line 3) B: amber (line 4)

Quatrain 2: C: fable (line 5) D: occult (line 6) C: able (line 7) D: adult (line 8)

Quatrain 3: E: day (line 9) F: dirt (line 10) E: May (line 11) F: first (line 12)

Couplet: G: great (line 13) G: celebrate (line 14) ```

As you can see, the end words of each line follow the ABAB CDCD EFEF GG pattern, which is characteristic of a Shakespearean sonnet. This structure creates a rhythmic and melodic effect, which enhances the overall impact of the poem. The final couplet (GG) often serves as a summary or a conclusion, providing a sense of closure to the poem. In this case, the couplet ties together the themes of time, knowledge, and celebration introduced in the preceding quatrains.

Additional Aspects to Analyze

While we've covered the structure, rhyme scheme, and some thematic elements of Sonnet 101 by Francisco Luis Arroyave Tabares, there are still several aspects that can be further analyzed, including its use of imagery, allusion, and meter.

1. Imagery: The sonnet is rich in vivid and evocative imagery. For instance, the "book of time" with "pages hidden" and "stories of some amber" create a strong visual representation of the passage of time and the preservation of history. Similarly, the image of Apollo visiting Stonehenge and learning about astronomical events paints a vivid picture of the blending of myth and science.

2. Allusion: The sonnet is filled with allusions to Greek mythology and ancient history. Apollo, Boreas, and the Pythians are all figures from Greek mythology, while the "Altar Stone" refers to Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in England. These allusions add depth and complexity to the poem, inviting readers to delve into the rich tapestry of ancient myths and history.

3. Meter: Like most traditional sonnets, Sonnet 101 is written in iambic pentameter, which means each line consists of five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. This rhythmic pattern gives the poem a musical quality and helps to emphasize certain words and ideas.

4. Symbolism: The sonnet uses various symbols to convey its themes. For example, the "book of time" symbolizes the passage of time and the accumulation of knowledge, while the "amber" symbolizes the preservation of history. Apollo and Boreas symbolize spring and winter respectively, representing the cycle of seasons and the passage of time.

5. Tone: The tone of the sonnet is reflective and somewhat melancholic, suggesting a longing for the lost wisdom of the past. However, there is also a sense of hope and celebration in the idea that we can learn from the past and celebrate the cycles of nature.

6. Message: The sonnet seems to convey a message about the importance of learning from the past and celebrating the cycles of nature. It suggests that ancient myths and rituals can provide us with valuable insights into the nature of the universe and our place in it.

---

(GPT4)

---

Count the syllables of each line of the Sonnet

(www.howmanysyllables.com)

```

Pythian Rites

10 The book of time has some pages hidden 10 That only the rocks perhaps remember 10 Ānd signs that are to our time forbidden 10 But written in stories of some amber.

10 In the meantime we can read a fable 10 Or study the myths that remain occult 10 To find hints that will make us more able 10 To read stars with knowledge of an adult.

10 I believe Apollo, in ancient day
10 Tired of hunting dipsas that shock the dirt
10 Visited "The Altar Stone" in each May
10 After seing his friend Boreas first.

10 Equinox, leap years, and things he thought great
10 He learnt, for Pythians to celebrate.
***

```

---

Sonnets For The Twenty First Century And A Circadian Musical Written By Francisco Luis Arroyave Tabares (1984-1987)

---

poetry #sonnet #art #poems #poem #nostr #nostrart #artist #artnotai #artonnostr #artstr #literature #books #original #poet #poets #author #grownostr #poetstr #iambicpentameter #pleb #plebchain #zaps

mythology #myth

---

Analyzed by GPT4 and www.howmanysyllables.com; Image by leonardo.ai; First published on Nostr Protocol by franciscoarroyavet@nostrplebs.com

@ 92294577:49af776d

Today, we welcome the latest Core Lightning release, v23.08, codenamed Satoshi’s Successor (courtesy of Matt Morehouse). The August 2023 release has such an overwhelming array of changes we are splitting the release announcement into three separate blog posts:

User Experience: new features users have requested.

Developer Experience: new features and enhancements for developers.

Experimental Features: a look into Lightning’s future by enabling experimental options at runtime.

The next two will be shared tomorrow and the following day, so make sure you subscribe below or bookmark the Lightning blog to stay updated.

Lightning Polished and Stable

We uncovered several cases where channels with Eclair and LND nodes could fail, which we have fixed or made compatible. These are rare, but channel breakage is always annoying. There are also a slew of minor fixes and tweaks in the 530 changes since the last release; my favorite is the one where, if the only unexpired invoices you had expired after the year 2038, we would loop forever on old 32-bit platforms (which, yes, we still support!).

We added a new parameter to setchannel called ignorefeelimits, to insulate channels against fee disagreements with peers. We had a previous global setting, but this one can be set or unset on more trusted peers dynamically, and will allow them to set on-chain fee rates even if we think they are wrong. In particular, LND will always re-request the same channel fee even if its fee rate estimate has since changed, so setting this temporarily can “unstick” a channel. It turns out that bitcoind forgets the previous minimum real fee when it restarts, too, so nodes can also get confused from that (this has been fixed for the next Bitcoin release).

We also added Taproot address support, thanks to Greg Sanders: you can issue Taproot addresses for people to send you on-chain funds, and we will immediately use them for our own change outputs. Taproot addresses (i.e., P2TR) start with bcp1 instead of bcq1, just so you know!

Updated Plugins and New Commands

Our pay plugin, which drives payments, has some tweaks to make paying faster and more reliable: this is the first concrete feedback from Christian Decker’s work on Greenlight (Blockstream’s developer preview of our hosted, non-custodial Lightning infrastructure), where he analyzed payment failures on the real network and fed the results back into upstream development. No doubt there will be many more such refinements in future versions! The third installment of the blog series will go into more detail on pay and discuss the new experimental renepay plugin!

To help manage your node, there is a new command to change settings without restarting your node: setconfig. This changes the configuration setting dynamically, and also changes it (with a comment) in the correct configuration file so that it is persistent! This is matched by the power of the update output from listconfigs, which shows you exactly where each configuration setting came from: was it a particular line in a configuration file, the command line, or the default? The setconfig command is currently only used for setting autoclean limits, but this will expand to more settings in future releases as people request them (we also have an open issue you can add to).

Logging got some work, too: you can now add different filters to different log files. For example, you can have one log file for debug-level logging, and another for normal info-level logs. You can also use this to configure more logging for particular peers or plugins.

Thanks to the Summer of Bitcoin work of Aditya Sharma, you can now save and restore your node’s secret key in the new BIP 93 format (aka. codex32). Unlike BIP 39 seed words, this can be done on all nodes, using the hsmtool getcodexsecret command, and your node restored using the - -recover commandline option. This will also gain more abilities in future releases, such as finding and recovering any existing channels and funds you might have. Our BIP 93 strings look like:

cl10leetsllhdmn9m42vcsamx24zrxgs3qrl7ahwvhw4fnzrhve25gvezzyqqjdsjnzedu43ns

They have some amazing ability to recover from errors which we will be exploring in future, but for now, you would have to make more than eight mistakes before there is any chance we would accept it as valid.

Our reckless plugin manager got more powerful: it can install from local copies of plugins, not just GitHub. That brings everyone a little closer to becoming a developer: grab a plugin, change some things, then get reckless to install and start it for you!

▶️ Core Lightning Features (Part 2) with Rusty Russell

Finally, as part of the fallout of the recent Bitcoin fee spike, Bastien Teinturier of ACINQ noticed that one channel closure can cascade to others, if a payment was in progress and fees increase markedly. We now handle this case more carefully and will sacrifice a not-worthwhile payment on an outgoing closed channel, to avoid causing incoming channels to fail. This should contain the damage on any unilateral channel close in the future!

Join the CLN Community

As always, we want to give a special shoutout to all the contributors (31 for the v23.08 release) who continue to help us improve CLN with every update. We are grateful for your support; the new release was only possible with your dedication and feedback.

Let us know what you like or what we could improve by starting a thread on Build On L2. We also have special developer and node runner pages to help facilitate long-form discussion. It is free to sign up, and nyms are more than welcome!

@ ec42c765:328c0600

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@ d830ee7b:4e61cd62

"Bitcoin isn't real money until you can buy coffee at the street corner with it."

I've heard this frustrating argument many times. I don’t have exact numbers to confirm the current global adoption rate, but I believe over 90% of the world still doesn't know about it. That's why many still mockingly view Bitcoin as play money, stemming from their own misunderstandings.

Indeed, most general businesses don't accept it as a 'Unit of Account' yet. No governments globally have allowed Bitcoin to be a 'Medium of Exchange.' And why would they? Who would willingly relinquish financial control and power?

For over a decade, Bitcoin has proven itself as a 'Store of Value'. No other form of currency can preserve and enhance wealth like it. The HODLers have witnessed Bitcoin's value appreciation over time, surpassing fiat's fickle nature.

This phenomenon makes most Bitcoin enthusiasts reluctant to spend their stash. It's understandable and beyond criticism. After all, it's a natural right of an individual. We can't force someone to frivolously spend their saved Bitcoin, can we?

Then came Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja, who jointly developed the Lightning Network in 2015. Bitcoin's world was never the same.

In 2018, the Lightning Network was introduced to the public. Starting with about 4 BTC and 1,000 nodes in March 2018, it has grown to 4,797.48 BTC (+119,837%) and 15,448 nodes (+1,444.8%). No other payment system has witnessed such astounding growth.

Bitcoin enthusiasts, then, face a personal dilemma (especially from my experiences in Thailand). They must choose between hoarding fervently or using a fraction of their Bitcoins. Whichever path they choose, both essentially promote Bitcoin adoption. Both are pushing Bitcoin to become genuine money and gain global acceptance.

A new case study emerges for Bitcoin adoption following the advent of the Lightning Network. Instead of beginning with a laborious and time-consuming study of Bitcoin, this new generation can immediately adopt it through learning and experimenting with Bitcoin Lightning. Once they experience its convenience and instantly recognize its benefits, they willingly dive deeper, venturing down their own rabbit holes.

I have an example to illustrate this. The excitement of numerous people who tried the Lightning Payment at the Bitcoin Thailand Conference 2023 (#BTC2023).

https://youtu.be/-wVuD9QUe5U?si=2e7mfhhkVsbJrPU0

We at Right Shift saw this phenomenon coming from the outset, and have played a pioneering role in pushing Lightning Network Adoption in Thailand consistently throughout 2022-2023. The impact has been overwhelmingly positive.

I can confidently state that its momentum is truly powerful. The only thing that could possibly hinder its growth is governments that don't wish to see it succeed. I believe they will either find a way to regulate it or, more likely, resist it vehemently with their lackluster CBDCs. Ironically, they're only driving more interest towards Bitcoin.

Today, I'd like to extend my gratitude to fiatjaf, the developer behind this human protocol, and Jack Dorsey, the force behind Nostr which you are using right now. Although it lacks any algorithm, I'm naturally addicted to it. I feel like a kid who has just received a Playstation5 after waiting for 3 years.

Nostr is the next evolutionary step for humanity, working hand in hand with the stories I've mentioned above to further Bitcoin adoption. In a world currently heading towards severe inflation and mainstream social media acting like power-hungry tyrants, these elements will serve as perfect catalysts to accelerate the inevitable adoption.

I have endured the mainstream media and those overwhelming apps for so long. As soon as I encountered Nostr and its constant developments, I instantly foresaw the victory of the side I chose, which will surely happen in the near future.

My team, Right Shift, and I spent less than an hour discussing the campaign to promote Nostr in Thailand. Believe it or not, after that, hundreds of Thais started exploring Nostr, some of whom had never heard of the Lightning Network before!

They grew tired of the overbearing rules of mainstream social media platforms and quickly embraced Nostr (as evidenced by #ThaiNostrich, #Siamstr, and specific events like #ThailandZapathon, as well as what’s happening on Zap.stream).

Nostr, which has captured their hearts, introduced them to Lightning and Bitcoin. This realization hit me immediately.

I believe it's a brilliant idea to show people the deterioration of this world, starting with the online community and then expanding to the real society under the control of governments that shouldn't exist and play their current roles. Eventually, they will see that Bitcoin and Nostr are solutions to these distortions.

For this reason, Nostr is paving the way for more Bitcoin adoption options through use cases that resonate more with contemporary society.

Bitcoin is no longer a challenging or rocky subject to study. Nostr is one of the easiest and most fun ways to adopt Bitcoin right now.

I'm confident that when hosting the Bitcoin Thailand Conference 2024 (#BTC2024) next year, Nostr will surely be a major highlight.

If you are a developer, expert, or enthusiast on Nostr, let me know if you'd like to be in Bangkok next year.

@ 20986fb8:cdac21b3

YakiHonne.com is continuously improving to offer a top-notch user experience. With weekly updates being rolled out, you are invited to test these updates and post your feedback and opinions as an article via YakiHonne.com.

Top 10 feedback will get up to 100,000 SATs each. All participants will share the Popularity Prize Pool of 400,000 SATs.

Round 5 will be from 22nd Aug to 4th Sep

How to participate:

1. Test Updates below
2. Write your feedback and opinion (pros and cons are all welcomed)
3. Don't forget to add tag 'YakiHonne-Updates' to your article
4. Post your article on Nostr via YakiHonne.com
5. Share your articles on social media like Nostr and Twitter, don't forget to @YakiHonne
6. Share the link to our community: http://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured
7. Get as many upvotes as possible to get more shares from Popularity Prize Pool
8. Be Zapped!

Requirements:

1. No malicious speech such as discrimination, attack, incitement, etc.
2. No Spam/Scam, not fully AI-generated article
3. No directly copy & paste from other posts on Relays
4. Experience our updates in action, NO limit on the length of your post, share your REAL feedback and opinion
5. The top 10 posts will be zapped up to 100,000 SATs
6. All participants will share the Popularity Prize Pool of 400000 SATs based on the upvotes number
7. The evaluation will based on the article's depth, completeness, and constructiveness.
8. Contact us for additional zaps if bugs are found.
9. Any language is welcome

Updates to be tested in Round 4:

1. Bookmarks: you can save their preferred articles
2. Comments replies threads: you can view and reply to comments within the replies threads
3. “sensitive content”: you can decide the type of content as sensitive content when publishing
4. Reports counter: view how many users reported a piece of content
5. Images upload: you can directly upload images while writing
6. Uploads history: you can re-use uploaded images for any written articles
7. Search: searching users by username/nip-05 identifiers
8. Math equations are now supported using the katex syntax
9. More updates and fixed bugs in Weekly Report Vol.11 and Weekly Report Vol.12
10. Comments and suggestions are welcome

If you missed previous Rounds, the updates could be tested as additions:

Round 1 & 2 Details: https://yakihonne.com/article/naddr1qq245nndxgu5x6e3fqe8v5m8f9prgv6rd95nsq3qyzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesxpqqqp65wh0ezl4

Round 3 Details: https://yakihonne.com/article/naddr1qq24v6fhd48hv4enxfkrqa24ffy4s5m0gdzrqq3qyzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesxpqqqp65wkz87pp

Round 4 Details: https://yakihonne.com/article/naddr1qq2hq5n0f9n8gmpdw4qj6utfwanhw4jyggknxq3qyzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesxpqqqp65wscktjj

Don't miss this opportunity to participate in Round 4, test the updates, and provide valuable feedback. Head over to YakiHonne.com to share your thoughts and earn SATs for your valuable input. Act fast!

Selected Review from Previous Rounds

Round 1 Results: https://yakihonne.com/curations/naddr1qq25g53k29gykjjjw4gyk7t6v9jygd2pdv6rzq3qyzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesxpqqqp6nzq5s9a0

Round 2 Results: https://yakihonne.com/curations/naddr1qq255t25xdcyjdnk2drkgnnvdpz4qamwgdh82q3qyzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesxpqqqp6nzqldy3a

Round 3 Results: https://yakihonne.com/curations/naddr1qq25znjtgerhjd222aq4gunpf5m8gujdgfk9gq3qyzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesxpqqqp6nz5wgz3l

Round 4 Results: https://yakihonne.com/curations/naddr1qq2hsmryfa69z43kwgm8q7r5d9g9qw2sg3z5zq3qyzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesxpqqqp6nzer680e

---

About YakiHonne:

YakiHonne is a Nostr-based decentralized content media protocol, which supports free curation, creation, publishing, and reporting by various media. Try YakiHonne.com Now!

Follow us

• Telegram: http://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured
• Twitter: @YakiHonne
• Nostr pubkey: npub1yzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesnxrf8q

@ d830ee7b:4e61cd62

ผมเจอหลายคนเริ่มต้นกับ Nostr มานาน แต่กลับยังไม่สามารถ “อิน” กับการอยู่ในสังคมแห่งใหม่นี้ได้เท่าไหร่นัก บางคนยังมีเพื่อนใหม่เพียงหลักสิบคน และหลายคนยังแทบไม่รู้จักหรือกดตามใครเลย บางคนมีคนติดตามเพียง 3-5 คน เท่านั้น แล้วมันจะไปมีคนเห็นสิ่งที่เราสื่อสารออกไปได้มากพอได้อย่างไรล่ะคับ?

ก็คนที่ไม่ได้ติดตามเราเค้าก็จะมองไม่เห็นสิ่งที่เราโน๊ตไปนั่นเอง

นี่แหละครับ Nostr

ผมไม่ชอบใช้คำว่า “เล่น Nostr” เท่าไหร่นัก สำหรับผมแล้ว.. Nostr คือ สถานที่ใหม่ สังคมใหม่ที่ทุกคนต้องเริ่มนับใหม่จากศูนย์ ผมขอใช้คำว่ามันเป็นการ “ใช้ชีวิตบน Nostr” ก็แล้วกัน เชื่อไหมครับว่าในแต่ละวัน ผมยังรู้สึกว่าตัวเองมีเวลาไม่มากพอจะใช้ชีวิตบน Nostr ให้สมใจอยากได้เลย.. ในขณะที่บางคนกลับรู้สึกว่า 5 นาทีมันก็นานเกินไปแล้ว..

เราลองมาพิจารณากันดูไหมว่าเพราะอะไร?

มันไม่ค่อยมีอะไรให้อ่าน ไม่ค่อยมีเรื่องให้ทำ

สำหรับข้อโต้แย้งนี้ผมคงต้องบอกว่ามัน “ผิดถนัด” เลยล่ะ.. บน Nostr นี่มีอะไรให้เราทำมากกว่าบนทุกแพลตฟอร์มเก่าๆ มาขยำรวมกันเสียอีกนะ

ผมคิดว่า.. ผมคงต้องเริ่มเล่าเรื่องในจินตนการให้พวกเราเห็นภาพนี้ได้ง่ายขึ้น ผมขอพาพวกเรากลับไปสู่จุดเริ่มต้นของการก่อร่างสร้างสังคม

อันดับแรก ผมอยากให้พวกเราลืม “สังคมแบบเดิม” ไปเสียก่อน ทั้งในชีวิตจริง หรือในโลกออนไลน์ที่เราเคยประสบพบเจอมา ที่ Nostr นี่มันต่างออกไปอย่างสิ้นเชิงครับ

จินตการว่าเราได้ลงจากเรือโนอาห์ที่เกาะขนาดใหญ่แห่งหนึ่ง กองเรือจัดตั้งอาณานิคมใหม่หลายลำที่พาผู้คนหลักแสนมาปล่อยไว้ ณ สถานที่เดียวกัน เกาะอันเวิ้งว้างว่างเปล่าที่อุดมไปด้วยทรัพยากรธรรมชาติ เต็มไปด้วยสิ่งเร้นลับและแปลกใหม่ ที่รอให้เหล่านักสำรวจได้ออกไปทำการค้นพบ

Nostr ก็คือสถานที่แบบเดียวกันนั้น..

เราต่างคนต่างมา ณ ที่แห่งนี้ เรามีสถานะภาพเท่าเทียมกันทุกประการ ทุกคนเริ่มนับหนึ่งใหม่ที่นี่ เริ่มทำความรู้จักกัน รวมกลุ่มกัน สร้างสังคมขนาดย่อมจนผ่านเวลาไปถึงขนาดกลางและกลายเป็นใหญ่ได้ในที่สุด

สิ่งนี้จะเกิดขึ้นไม่ได้เลย ถ้าผู้คนเหล่านี้ไม่พยายาม “Engage” เข้าหากัน ไม่มีปฏิสัมพันธ์ต่อกัน ไม่ยอมแลกเปลี่ยนหรือทำกิจกรรมบางอย่างร่วมกัน นี่คือกลไกการสร้างสังคมโดยธรรมชาติที่จะไม่มีใครมีคอยชี้นำ บังคับ หรือออกกฏเกณฑ์ชี้นิ้วสั่งใครให้ต้องทำอะไรทั้งนั้น.. มันคือสังคมแห่งเสรีชนโดยแท้จริง ทุกคนจะประพฤติอย่างเสรีภายใต้ทัศนวิสัยของปัจเจกชน

โฆษณาชวนเชื่อ หรือการทำเท่ห์ด้วยคอนเท้นต์โก้หรู ศิลปะในการหลอกล่ออัลกอริทึมเหมือนที่เคยทำๆ กันมา มันใช้ไม่ได้กับที่แห่งนี้

ที่นี่พวกเราให้ค่ากับ “คุณค่า” ที่เราจะได้รับมันมาจริงๆ และคุณค่าของแต่ละคนก็ไม่มีวันเหมือนกันเสียด้วย นี่คือความท้าทายที่พวกเราต้องเริ่มออกไปค้นหา ‘คุณค่า’ ที่ว่านั้น ด้วยตัวเองหรือจะทำกันเป็นหมู่คณะก็ย่อมให้ผลดีกว่าอย่างแน่นอนครับ

ไม่มีใครต้องการ “ฮีโร่” ที่นี่ ทุกคนแค่ต้องการ “เพื่อน” เพื่อนที่จะคอย 'ให้' เราก่อนและ 'ขอ' เราทีหลัง

ผมร่ายมายาวก็เพียงแค่ต้องการจะบอกว่า..

ที่เราไม่เห็นคอนเทนต์อะไรน่าสนใจเลย อาจเป็นเพราะเรายังทำความรู้จักกับ “คนที่น่าสนใจ” ยังไม่มากพอก็เป็นได้

แล้วมันเพราะอะไรได้อีกบ้าง?

เรายังกดติดตามคนอื่นน้อยเกินไป

ทำให้เราไม่เจอโน๊ตหรือคอนเทนต์ที่ดึงดูดใจเราได้มากพอ เราก็จะเห็นแต่โน๊ตของคนที่เราติดตามไว้อย่างน้อยนิดนั่นแหละครับ เว้นแต่เราจะไปกดดูแบบ Global ที่จะเห็นผู้คนทั้งเกาะเป็นหมื่นๆ แสนๆ ต่างคนต่างคนโน๊ตกันรัวๆ ซึ่งมันคงเต็มไปด้วยสิ่งที่เราไม่ได้ให้ความสนใจหรือคัดสรรมา

เรามีคนติดตามเราน้อยเกินไป

ทำให้เหงาและเงียบกริบทุกรอบที่เราโน๊ต มันก็แน่อยู่แล้ว ถ้าทั้งเกาะมีคนที่รู้จักเราอยู่แค่ 2-3 คน มันก็คงมีคนแค่จำนวนนี้แหละครับที่จะได้ยินสิ่งที่เราพูด ได้เห็นสิ่งที่เราทำ เราแค่ต้องออกไปทำความรู้จักหรือมีปฏิสัมพันธ์กับคนอื่นๆ ให้มากกว่านี้ มันไม่เหมือนกันนะครับ ระหว่างการโพสต์สิ่งที่อยากพูดออกไป เน้นเอาเท่ เอาเจ๋ง ไว้ก่อน กับการเดินไปหาคนอื่นเพื่อแลกเปลี่ยนความคิดและสร้างมิตรภาพกับเขาอย่างจริงใจ ผมคิดว่ามันให้ผลลัพธ์ไม่เหมือนกันบน Nostr

เรายังไม่เจอ Hashtag หรือกลุ่มสนทนาที่ตรงกับจริต

ทำให้เราไม่รู้สึกอินกับอะไรที่นี่เลย คนชอบฟุตบอลก็ชอบเสวนากับคนดูบอลฉันใด บิตคอยเนอร์ก็อยากจะคุยถูกคอกับบิตคอยเนอร์ฉันนั้น คนรักแมวก็มองหาคนรักแมว ฯลฯ ที่นี่มันพาเราย้อนกลับไปที่ยังยุคแรกๆ ของสังคมโซเชียลมีเดีย ที่คนจะเชื่อมโยงหากันโดยใช้ “Hashtag” ที่ต่างก็สนใจร่วมกัน มันเหมือนการชูป้ายไฟโลกให้รู้ว่า “ฉันรักแมว” (#Catstr) เพื่อดึงดูดคนประเภทเดียวกัน นั่นแหละครับ เราแค่ต้องหาป้ายไฟที่ว่านั่นให้เจอ

เราไม่เห็นได้ “Earn Zap” อย่างที่หลายคนป้ายยาเราไว้เลย

ก็ถ้าวันนี้เราเองยังไม่ค่อยอยาก Zap ให้ใครเท่าไหร่ แน่นอนว่ามันก็จะไม่มีใครอยาก Zap ให้เราด้วยเช่นกัน ป๋ามา-ป๋ากลับ คนที่นี่เป็นกันแบบนั้น มันประหลาดดี ทำลายความเชื่อแบบเดิมๆ ของเราไปเลยทีเดียว

จริงๆ แล้วมันไม่มีใครอยากได้ Sats เพิ่มบน Nostr เพราะมันไม่ง่ายขนาดนั้น พวกเขาก็แค่อยากหาเรื่อง Zap ให้คนอื่นๆ พวกเขาแสวงหาโน๊ต ข้อความ หรือคอนเทนต์ แม้กระทั่งมีมที่โดนใจ ไม่มีใครมาคอยนั่งคิดคำนวนว่า "วันนี้ฉัน Earn ไปเท่าไหร่” (คอนเซ็ปต์แบบนี้มัน Fiat สิ้นดี) สังคมบน Nostr นั้นเน้นการให้และการมีส่วนร่วม ช่วยเหลือกัน เมื่อคุณให้มา เราจะให้กลับ มันแฟร์ๆ แมนๆ ครับ

ในสังคมที่ไม่มีใครคอยมาทำหน้าที่กำกับดูแลพฤติกรรมหรือการกระทำของเรา ความสัมพันธ์จะเกิดขึ้นอย่างเป็นธรรมชาติสุดๆ เป็นเรื่องของปัจเจกชนที่จะเลือกว่าพวกเขาจะให้คุณค่ากับอะไร ดังนั้น.. เราจึงแทบไม่มีทางรู้ได้เลยว่าใครจะชอบ หรือคิดอะไรยังไง นอกเสียจากว่า.. เราจะใช้เวลาไปกับการทำความรู้จักความคิดและจิตใจของพวกเขา ออกไปพูดคุยแลกเปลี่ยนกับพวกเขาเพื่อให้เราเข้าใจคนอื่นได้มากขึ้นนั่นเอง

เมื่อคุณเข้าใจผู้อื่น มันก็ไม่ยากที่คุณจะรู้ว่า “คุณค่า” ที่พวกเขาตามหานั้นคืออะไร?

บก. จิงโจ้ ผู้มีปฎิสัมพันธ์และคอย Make friend กับคนไปทั่ว นั่นทำให้เขามีคนติดตาม และติดตามคนอื่นจำนวนมากทีเดียว เขาทำไปเพื่อ Sats หรือเปล่า? ผมคิดว่าไม่นะ.. Just make friend

เราไม่รู้ว่ามันใช้งานยังไง ทำอะไรได้บ้าง เลยไม่รู้จะไปต่อยังไง

ประเด็นนี้ก็ต้องย้อนกลับไปที่หัวข้อต่างๆ ด้านบน ก็ในเมื่อเรายังไม่เคยเจอคนที่จะคอยตอบคำถาม หรือสอนการใช้งานเราให้กับเราได้ หรือจริงๆ แล้วเราก็อาจแค่ถูกสอนให้ “รอรับ” มากกว่าที่จะ “ค้นหา” จนเคยตัว เราเลยไม่ชินกับการต้องออกไปไขว่คว้ามันด้วยตัวเอง?

ไม่ว่าอย่างไร.. เรามาเริ่มกันใหม่ที่นี่ เชื่อไหมครับว่าหลายคนบน Nostr นั้นเป็นระดับพระกาฬแทบทั้งสิ้น แถมพวกเขายังเต็มใจที่จะให้ความช่วยเหลือหรือคอยตอบคำถามให้กับพวกเราด้วย เราต้องหาเค้าให้เจอและเปลี่ยนตัวเองให้เป็นคนที่จะ “กล้า” ถาม กล้าแสดงออก และกล้าที่จะยอมรับว่าเราไม่รู้ ก่อนที่จะเราจะกลายเป็นผู้เชี่ยวชาญได้ในภายหลัง

นี่เป็นโอกาสที่เราจะได้ใกล้ชิดกับคนที่เราอยากคุยด้วยมานานแล้ว คนที่เราเคยชื่นชม หรือคนที่เราเคยเห็นบนโลกเฟียตๆ แต่ไม่เคยหาเหลี่ยมได้สักทีว่าจะเข้าหาหรือเข้าถึงพวกเขาได้ยังไง

แค่เริ่มทำความรู้จัก โลกก็เปลี่ยน

เอาล่ะ.. ผมจะลองแนะนำวิธีว่าเราจะเพิ่มผู้ติดตามหรือเลือกเฟ้นยังไงในการติดตามผู้อื่น ผมมีแนวทางของผมเอง คงไม่ใช่สูตรสำเร็จ แต่ถ้าเพื่อนๆ จะลองนำไปประยุกต์ก็ไม่ว่ากันครับ

ตามคนดัง

วิธีที่ง่าย และตรงไปตรงมาที่สุด ซึ่งมันก็ถูกแล้ว เพราะคนเหล่านี้การที่เค้าจะดังได้ต่างก็มี proof-of-work และความน่าสนใจในแบบของตัวเองด้วยกันทั้งนั้น แอคเคาต์แรกๆ ที่พวกเราคงนึกถึงก็คงเป็น อ.ตั๊ม พิริยะ และ Right Shift ทั้งแอคเคาต์ทางการ และทีมงานทั้งทีม ก็แหง๋ล่ะ เพราะพวกเขาป้ายยาพาคุณมาอยู่บน Nostr แต่อย่าตามแค่พวกเขาไม่กี่คนเท่านั้นนะครับ คุณควรจะ...

ตามคนอื่นๆ เลียนแบบคนดัง

เราสามารถกดดูได้ว่าใครกดติดตามใครเอาไว้บ้าง คนดังก็มักจะตามกลุ่มคนที่น่าสนใจแหละส่วนหนึ่ง ส่วนที่เหลือเขาก็คงตามคนที่ถูกจริตกับตัวเอง นอกจากนี่คนที่กดติดตามพวกเขาก็จะเป็นคนที่ชอบอะไรคล้ายๆ กับเขา มันก็เป็นไปตามกฎแห่งแรงดึงดูดทางด้านความสัมพันธ์ เราค่อยๆ กดไปดูโปรไฟล์ของแต่ละคนได้ว่าเขามีความน่าสนใจยังไง ชอบโน๊ตหรือการสื่อสารแบบไหน เขามีวิธีคิดหรือนิสัยใจคอ มีเคมีแบบเดียวกันกับเราหรือเปล่า?

ถ้าใช่.. คุณก็แค่กดปุ่ม Follow แล้วกระโจนเข้าไปตอบโต้กับเขาได้เลย ไม่ว่าจะในโน๊ตใหม่ หรือ โน๊ตเก่าๆ คอมเม้นให้มันได้เพื่อนนะครับ อย่าไปเม้นให้ได้ศัตรู

เราจะเห็นแอคฯ น่าสนใจให้เพียบ แค่ลองกดไปดูว่าคนดังๆ เขามีวงสังคมบน Nostr เป็นใครกันบ้าง แล้วตอบตัวเองว่าเราอยากพาตัวเองเข้าไปอยู่ในนั้นบ้างไหม?

ตาม Hashtag

ตามหา “ป้ายไฟ” สีที่เราชอบ หรือก็คือกด ‘#’ นำในช่องค้นหา ตามด้วยคำที่เราสนใจ แล้วลองไล่หาดูได้เลย คุณอาจเจอเข้ากับกระทู้ที่ตรงกับสิ่งที่ตามหา เรื่องที่อยากอ่าน หรือมุมมองที่อยากเห็น รวมไปถึงคนที่.. เอ้อ มันเจ๋งดีว่ะ อะไรแบบนี้ได้ง่ายๆ เลยล่ะ

เมื่อเราชอบแฮ็ชแท็กไหน เรายังสามารถกดติดตามตัวแฮชแท็กนั้นได้อีกด้วย และอย่าลืมกดติดตาม หรือติดแฮ็ชแท็ก #ThaiNostrich กับ #Siamstr เอาไว้ด้วยนะครับ มันคือป้ายไฟสามัญประจำบ้านของคนไทยบน Nostr คุณสามารถตามหาเพื่อนคนไทยได้ง่ายๆ ด้วยแฮชแท็ก 2 ตัวนี้นี่แหละ

Swarmstr เป็นตัวอย่างไคลเอนต์ที่จะรวบรวมข้อมูลบน Nostr ที่เราสามารถค้นหา หรือศึกษา Nostr ได้จากหัวข้อต่างๆ ตามแฮชแท็คที่แสดงเป็นตัวอย่างได้ (หรือค้นหาด้วยตัวเอง)

ตามประเด็นที่สนใจไปจนเจอตัวพ่อ

มันต้องมีบางโอกาสที่เราไปเจอเข้ากับกระทู้น่าสนใจ มีการสนทนากันอย่างเผ็ดร้อนหรือรื่นเริงจนคุณก็อดเข้าไปแจมด้วยไม่ได้ ที่แบบนี้แหละที่คุณจะเจอกับคนเก่งๆ ในด้านนั้นๆ หรือผู้เชี่ยวชาญเฉพาะด้าน หรือกระทั่งเป็นผู้ก่อตั้ง หรือนักพัฒนาไคลเอนต์เลยทีเดียว และคนเหล่านี้เขาก็มาที่เกาะแห่งนี้ด้วยจุดประสงค์คล้ายๆ เรา คือ "หนีความวุ่นวายและโสมมบนโลกเก่าเพื่อแสวงหาเสรีภาพและมิตรภาพ ณ สังคมใหม่"

ดังนั้น เขาเต็มใจที่จะได้ทำความรู้จักกับเราอย่างแน่นอนครับ

แต่คนนิสัยไม่ดี หรือมีพฤติกรรมไม่เป็นมิตรเราก็จะดูออกได้ในทันที และมันก็เป็นสิทธิ์ของเราล้านเปอร์เซ็นต์ที่จะเลือกว่า จะสนใจติดตามคนๆ นี้ หรือแค่ปล่อยผ่าน หรือไม่ก็ บล็อกแม่ง ให้มันจบๆ ไป

Nostrends เป็นตัวอย่างไคลเอ็นต์ที่คอยรวบรวมและแสดงโน๊ต หรือหัวข้อที่กำลังได้รับความนิยมบน Nostr ตามช่วงเวลาหรือตัวกรองที่เราเลือก

พยายามอย่าทำพฤติกรรมแบบเดิมๆ บน Nostr

ผมเชื่อว่ามีพวกเราส่วนใหญ่ (ชาวไทย) จะคุ้นเคยกับการใช้งานและวัฒนธรรมบน Facebook แต่ชาวต่างชาติหรือผู้ใช้งานส่วนใหญ่ที่นี่จะเคยชินกับวัฒนธรรมแบบ Twitter กันมากกว่านะครับ ไม่ว่าจะเป็นการโพสต์ การคอมเมนต์ หรือการกดตอบโต้ด้วยอีโมจิ (Discord cult) ก็ถือว่าเป็นวัฒนธรรมในแบบที่เราอาจยังไม่คุ้นเคยกันมากนักและคงต้องใช้เวลาเรียนรู้กันพอสมควร

ขอให้พวกเราทิ้งวิธีคิดแบบเดิมๆ ในการใช้งานโซเชียลมีเดียไปได้เลยครับ เราควรอยู่บน Nostr โดยใช้แนวคิดแบบเดียวกับการอยู่ในสังคมจริงๆ ทักทาย ตอบโต้ เห็นอกเห็นใจ ช่วยเหลือ แลกเปลี่ยน คอนทริบิ้วท์และมีส่วนร่วมให้มากกว่าที่เคย ฯลฯ เราจึงจะมีตัวตนและรู้สึกเหมือนเป็นส่วนหนึ่งในสังคมแห่งนี้ได้จริงๆ (ไม่งั้นเราก็เป็นได้เพียง "ผู้สังเกตการณ์เหงาๆ" เท่านั้นเอง)

ที่นี่.. ไม่ให้คุณค่ากับ การอวดรู้ หรือ โชว์พาว ทุกคนดูออกได้ง่ายๆ ว่าเจตนาของแต่ละคนคืออะไร คนเหล่านี้ล้วนเคยขยะแขยง Fiat Social Media Cult มาแทบทั้งนั้น ถ้าต้องมาเจออะไรแบบนี้บน Nostr ก็จะ ยี้ ได้ทันที และทุกคนก็พร้อม และ มีสิทธิ์ที่จะบล็อกเราได้ตลอดเวลา

เราจะกดติดตามคนนั้น-คนนี้ให้มากมายไปทำไมกัน ถ้าเราจะแค่ไถๆๆ ฟีดวืดๆๆ ไปวันๆ เราจะไม่ได้เพื่อนเลยสักคนกับการทำแบบนั้น และอาจพลาดโอกาสดีๆ ที่จะได้เรียนรู้อะไรบางอย่าง

เราไม่ควรทำแค่อ่านผ่านๆ เหมือนกับตอนที่เราเบื่อโลกเมื่อต้องใช้ Facebook และเห็นแต่อะไรที่ไม่ต้องการเห็น ที่นี่.. เราจะเลิกติดตามไปเลยก็ได้ถ้าแอคฯ นั้นเอาแต่โพสต์อะไรที่ดูไม่เข้าตา หรือไม่สามารถดึงดูดเราได้ (ถ้าเกรงใจก็กด Mute ไว้ก่อนก็ได้)

การอ่านอย่างตั้งใจในสิ่งที่เค้าโพสต์มา และตอบโต้ตามสมควร ก็เปรียบเสมือน การรับฟังผู้พูดอย่างตั้งอกตั้งใจ นั่นเอง นั่นคือหนทางเดียวที่เราจะเรียนรู้ได้ว่าเราควรตอบโต้อย่างไร เพราะเราเข้าใจ สาส์น ที่เขาได้สื่อออกมาอย่างถ่องแท้นั่นเองครับ

ถ้าไม่ว่าง คุณก็ปัดทิ้งได้ แล้วค่อยตามไปอ่านทีหลัง มันไม่มีการลบหรือปิดกั้นเรา ไม่มีโฆษณามาให้รกหูรกตา ถ้าเจอพวก แสกม/แสปม ก็บล็อกมันซะ อย่าให้พวกน่ารังเกียจได้มีที่ยืนบนสังคมที่คุณอยากให้เป็น

และขอให้ทุกคนระลึกไว้เสมอว่า การพูดคุยและมีปฎิสัมพันธ์ต่อกัน เท่านั้น ที่จะทำให้มนุษย์ได้มีความสัมพันธ์ต่อกัน

ผมขอทิ้งท้ายด้วยเคล็ดลับตกผลึกสั้นๆ ว่า..

• ติดตามผู้อื่น
• Zap ให้คนอื่นๆ
• เริ่มสร้าง Note ของตัวเอง (โพสต์) สักครั้ง หรือบ่อยครั้ง
• คุยกับคนอื่นให้มากกว่าที่เคย (มากกว่าแค่อ่านๆ ไปเรื่อยเหมือนตอนใช้ Facebook)
• ได้ Zap กลับมาจากคนอื่น
• สำรวจแฮชแท็กต่างๆ ลองใช้งานมันไปเรื่อยๆ

เหนือสิ่งอื่นใด จงใช้ชีวิตบน Nostr และแค่สนุกไปกับมันให้ได้ก็พอ.. :)

ปล. |--

• มนุษย์มีวุ้นแปลภาษาจริงๆ แล้วนะครับ ก็ Google translate นั่นยังไง อย่าให้ภาษากลายเป็นกำแพงแห่งการเรียนรู้.. จงใช้มัน ไม่ต้องขวยเขิลกันหรอกครับ (เพราะผมเองก็ใช้)

• บทความต่อไปผมจะมาลองแนะนำว่า มีแอคเคานต์ไหนบ้างที่น่าสนใจกดติดตามสัก 10-20 บัญชี เอาคนไทยเราก่อนเลย ไว้คอยติดตามกันนะครับ

@ 78733875:4eb851f2

After announcing our first wave of grants for bitcoin[^fn-btc] and nostr[^fn-nostr] projects, we are pleased to announce an additional wave of grants for open-source projects in the space:

[^fn-btc]: First Wave of Bitcoin Grants [^fn-nostr]: First Wave of Nostr Grants

• BDK
• LNbits
• Watchdescriptor
• Stratum V2 Testing \& Benchmarking Tool
• Fedimint Modules and Resources
• Amber: Nostr Event Signer
• Nostr UI/UX Development
• Nostr Use-Case Exploration \& Education

The first five grants are sourced from our General Fund, the last three—being nostr projects—from our Nostr Fund. This brings the total number of OpenSats grants to 41, adding to the grants we previously announced in July.

Once again, let's take a closer look at each of the projects to see how they align with the OpenSats mission.

---

BDK

Bitcoin Development Kit (BDK) is a set of libraries and tools that allows you to seamlessly build cross-platform on-chain bitcoin wallets without having to re-implement standard bitcoin data structures, algorithms, and protocols. BDK is built on top of the powerful rust-bitcoin and rust-miniscript libraries and adds features for managing descriptor-based wallets, syncing wallets to the bitcoin blockchain, viewing transaction histories, managing and selecting UTXOs to create new transactions, signing, and more. The core BDK components are written in Rust, but the team also maintains Kotlin and Swift language bindings for use in mobile projects. There are also Python bindings, and React Native and Flutter support is being actively developed.

Repository: bitcoindevkit/bdk
License: Apache 2.0 / MIT

LNbits

LNbits is used by a multitude of projects in the bitcoin space, especially as part of their lightning payments stack. Being easy to build on through its extension framework, LNbits has been pioneering various cutting-edge solutions and experiments in the world of bitcoin, lightning, and nostr.

The project has a thriving maker community building various hardware devices such as Lightning ATMs, point-of-sale devices, DIY hardware wallets, and nostr signing devices. The modular design of LNbits makes it attractive to users and tinkerers alike, as its plugin architecture makes it easy to extend and understand.

Repository: lnbits/lnbits
License: MIT

Watchdescriptor

watchdescriptor is a CLN plugin written in Rust that connects a business's treasury wallet to its CLN node. It utilizes cln-plugin and the BDK library to track coin movements in registered wallets and report this information to the bookkeeper plugin.

The plugin enables businesses to design a complete treasury using Miniscript and import the resulting descriptor into CLN. Since bookkeeper already accounts for all coin movements internal to CLN, this plugin is the last piece businesses need in order to unify all their bitcoin accounting in one place. This enables businesses to account for all inflows and outflows from their operations, streamlining tax reporting and financial analysis.

The watchdescriptor project is part of a broader vision to transform the lightning node (particularly CLN) into a financial hub for businesses, enabling them to conduct operations without reliance on any third parties.

Repository: chrisguida/watchdescriptor
License: MIT

Stratum V2 Testing & Benchmarking Tool

The Stratum V2 Testing & Benchmarking Tool allows the bitcoin mining industry to test and benchmark Stratum V2 performance against Stratum V1. The tool supports different mining scenarios to help miners make informed decisions and evaluate their profitability. The goal of the project is to motivate miners to upgrade to Stratum V2, increasing their individual profits and making the Bitcoin network more resilient in the process.

Repository: stratum-mining/stratum @GitGab19
License: Apache 2.0 / MIT

Fedimint Modules and Resources

Fedimint is a federated Chaumian e-cash mint backed by sats with deposits and withdrawals that can occur on-chain or via lightning. It can be understood as a scaling and privacy layer as well as an adoption accelerator for Bitcoin.

The goal of this particular project is to improve the Fedimint UI and develop free and open resources for developers and "Guardians" to enable more people to run and develop on Fedimint.

Repository: fedimint/ui @EthnTuttle
License: MIT

Amber: Nostr Event Signer

Amber is a nostr event signer for Android. It allows users to keep their nsec segregated in a single, dedicated app. The goal of Amber is to have your smartphone act as a NIP-46 signing device without any need for servers or additional hardware. "Private keys should be exposed to as few systems as possible as each system adds to the attack surface," as the rationale of said NIP states. In addition to native apps, Amber aims to support all current nostr web applications without requiring any extensions or web servers.

Repository: greenart7c3/Amber
License: MIT

Nostr UI/UX Development

The goal of this project is to help improve the UI/UX of major nostr clients, starting with Gossip and Coracle, emphasizing the onboarding process as well as usability and accessibility. One part of onboarding is solving the discoverability problem that nostr has in the first place. Solving the problem of jumping in and out of the nostr world is what motivated the development of njump, which was redesigned as part of these efforts and is now live at nostr.com.

In addition to client-specific improvements, generic design modules and learnings will be incorporated into the Nostr Design project for others to use.

Activity: github.com/dtonon @dtonon
License: MIT

Nostr Use-Case Exploration & Education

As of today, most nostr clients implement social media applications on top of the nostr protocol. However, nostr allows for various use cases, many of which go beyond social media. Two examples are Listr and Ostrich, a list management tool and job board, respectively.

In addition to use-case exploration, this project will continue to educate users and developers alike, be it via Nostr How or various video series, e.g., explaining how to build upon NDK.

Activity: github.com/erskingardner @jeffg
License: MIT / GPL-3.0 / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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We have more grants in the pipeline and will provide funding for many more projects in the future. Note that we can only fund those projects which reach out and apply. If you are an open-source developer who is aligned with our mission, don't hesitate to apply for funding.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Table Of Content

• The Psychology of Scarcity

• Trust in Decentralization

• The Power of Network Effects

• The Role of Intrinsic Motivation

• Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristics

• Conclusion

• FAQ

Bitcoin has been the talk of the town since its inception in 2009. While most people primarily view it as a digital currency, it offers much more than that. In this article, we will examine the various aspects of Bitcoin that set it apart from traditional currencies, focusing on behavioral economics. By understanding these unique features, we can better appreciate the true value and potential of Bitcoin in the world's financial landscape.

The Psychology of Scarcity

The limited supply of Bitcoin, capped at 21 million coins, contributes to the perceived value of the cryptocurrency. This scarcity can drive increased demand, as people are generally drawn to scarce resources. This phenomenon is well documented in behavioral economics, and it can lead to irrational decision-making, fear of missing out (FOMO), and even price manipulation.

Trust in Decentralization

Bitcoin operates on a decentralized network, meaning no central authority or government can control its supply or value. This aspect appeals to many users who have lost faith in traditional financial institutions due to corruption, mismanagement, or economic instability. From a behavioral economics perspective, the trust in decentralization can lead to a preference for Bitcoin over conventional currencies.

The Power of Network Effects

The value of Bitcoin is further enhanced by its growing network of users, developers, and investors. As more people adopt and use the cryptocurrency, its utility and demand increase, further driving up its value. This positive feedback loop is a classic example of network effects in behavioral economics, and it helps explain the rapid growth and adoption of Bitcoin.

The Role of Intrinsic Motivation

Bitcoin's open-source nature and the pseudonymous identity of its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, have fostered a sense of community and intrinsic motivation among its supporters. This shared sense of ownership and the desire to contribute to the success of the project can drive innovation, development, and adoption of the cryptocurrency. Intrinsic motivation is a powerful force in behavioral economics, often leading to better outcomes than extrinsic rewards.

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristics

Bitcoin's highly volatile nature can be attributed, in part, to cognitive biases like anchoring and adjustment. People often anchor their expectations of Bitcoin's value to a previous reference point, such as an all-time high or low. As new information emerges, they adjust their valuation, sometimes leading to overreactions and significant price swings. Understanding these heuristics can help explain the often unpredictable behavior of Bitcoin's price.

Conclusion

Bitcoin is more than just a digital currency; it is a complex financial ecosystem that can be better understood through the lens of behavioral economics. By analyzing the psychological factors that drive its value and adoption, we can gain valuable insights into the cryptocurrency's potential and the unique role it plays in our global economy. As the world continues to evolve, so too will Bitcoin and the fascinating interplay between human behavior and digital finance.

FAQ

How does scarcity influence Bitcoin's value? Bitcoin's limited supply creates a sense of scarcity, driving demand and leading to increased value and potential irrational decision-making.

Why is decentralization important for Bitcoin? Decentralization eliminates central authority control, appealing to users who distrust traditional financial institutions and prefer a more trustless system.

How does the psychology of FOMO influence Bitcoin adoption? Fear of missing out (FOMO) drives people to invest in Bitcoin to avoid feeling left out, potentially resulting in impulsive decision-making and increased demand.

How do cognitive biases affect our perception of Bitcoin's value? Cognitive biases like confirmation bias and herd mentality can lead to irrational beliefs and expectations about Bitcoin's value, influencing investment decisions.

Can behavioral economics explain the appeal of Bitcoin for speculative investors? Yes, factors like scarcity, network effects, and cognitive biases can make Bitcoin an attractive option for speculative investors seeking high returns.

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.

@ 9ecbb0e7:06ab7c09

MIAMI, Estados Unidos. — La Asamblea de la Resistencia Cubana (ARC) envió una carta a la importante organización The A21Camping denunciando el tráfico de jóvenes cubanos hacia Rusia para luchar en la guerra con Ucrania.

The A21Camping es reconocida mundialmente por su lucha contra las diferentes formas de abuso, entre ellas, el tráfico humano y la esclavitud alrededor del mundo.

En la misiva, la Asamblea de la Resistencia Cubana denuncia enfáticamente y provee evidencias que señalan la colaboración entre Cuba y Rusia.

“Desde el 16 de mayo de 2023 cuando Vladimir Putin anunció públicamente que todas las personas que se unieran al ejército ruso (…) recibirían una ciudadanía rusa, miles de cubanos en Rusia y dentro de Cuba han sido arrastrados o enviados a la guerra”, indica la carta.

El texto explica que la operación de tráfico humano también ha sido conducida desde dentro de la Isla, donde se les ha ofrecido a jóvenes cubanos un contrato en idioma ruso que no pueden entender con supuestas oportunidades de trabajo en Rusia.

“Una vez en ese país, los jóvenes son llevados a unidades militares para tomar entrenamiento y ser enviados a la guerra. Sus pasaportes cubanos son confiscados y les dan una etiqueta de metal militar con un ID ruso”, agrega la misiva.

Además, la denuncia menciona que el régimen cubano trata de “separarse” de las violaciones de tráfico humano al alegar que todo ha sido una “operación ilegal” realizada desde fuera de Cuba.

“Es imposible que tal operación pueda ser ‘clandestinamente’ organizada dentro de Cuba. El Ministerio del Interior (MININT) cubano es el encargado de emitir los pasaportes. Además, muchas personas en Cuba tienen prohibido salir del país, por lo que la policía política chequea a cada individuo que aplica para un pasaporte”, asegura la carta.

Por otro lado, el texto señala la reunión el pasado marzo del ministro de Seguridad en Rusia, Nikolai Petrushev, y los líderes del régimen cubano, Raúl Castro y Miguel Díaz-Canel, como prueba de que la operación de tráfico humano “fue organizada desde los más altos niveles” entre la Isla y el Kremlin.

Como evidencia adicional, la misiva resalta que en julio de este año la aerolínea rusa Aeroflot comenzó a volar a un aeropuerto pequeño en Varadero, provincia de Matanzas, y no al aeropuerto internacional de La Habana.

“Desde el aeropuerto de Varadero salieron 2.000 cubanos a Rusia. Tenemos una copia en video mostrando más de 100 de esos pasaportes”, apuntó la Asamblea de la Resistencia Cubana.

Finalmente, la carta exhorta a The A21Camping a que se interese en investigar y denunciar el tráfico de personas desde Cuba, “el cual tiene también serias implicaciones para Ucrania. Un país libre y democrático, víctima de una agresión imperialista”.

@ be73ff09:c8539bee

Introduction

Superconductivity, an enthralling scientific phenomenon, occurs when specific materials shed all electrical resistance upon reaching a critical temperature. This breakthrough behavior allows electric currents to flow uninterrupted through these materials, heralding a future replete with remarkable technological prospects. Superconductors, the materials showcasing this enchanting property, have gained heightened attention due to their potential applications across diverse domains, including power transmission, medical imaging, and quantum computing.

Historical Evolution

The roots of superconductivity trace back to 1911 when Heike Kamerlingh Onnes unveiled a pivotal discovery. Mercury's electrical resistance vanished as its temperature plummeted below 4 degrees Kelvin, equivalent to a frigid -269 degrees Celsius. Over time, this novel phenomenon emerged in various materials, culminating in the astonishing revelation of a material exhibiting superconductivity at approximately 138 degrees Kelvin (-135 degrees Celsius).

Quantum Dance of Superconductivity

At the core of this mesmerizing dance lies the intricate realm of quantum mechanics. Cooper pairs, the captivating union of two electrons intricately linked through virtual boson exchange, form the centerpiece. These Cooper pairs manifest a state of lower energy, enabling them to glide effortlessly through the lattice of superconductors without encountering resistance.

Promise of Transformation

The allure of superconductivity extends across manifold applications, each carrying the potential for transformative advancements:

1. Power Transmission: The appeal of superconducting cables lies in their capacity to transport substantial electrical currents without succumbing to energy losses from resistance. The ramifications are profound—superconducting cables possess the capability to revolutionize long-distance power transmission, significantly minimizing energy wastage.

2. Medical Imaging: Within the realm of medical diagnostics, superconducting magnets wield a compelling influence. These magnetic powerhouses, integral to MRI machines, facilitate the generation of highly detailed images of internal bodily structures. Their exceptional strength, surpassing that of conventional magnets, contributes to the production of transparent and informative medical images.

3. Quantum Computing: Quantum computing, at the forefront of innovation, harnesses superconductors to propel computational power to unparalleled heights. Quantum computers, leveraging the uncanny attributes of quantum bits or qubits, far surpass the performance of their classical counterparts. This breakthrough opens doors to solving intricate problems previously deemed impossible by conventional computers.

The Surge and Subsequent Unveiling

In recent days, an unforeseen surge of enthusiasm swept through the scientific community and beyond, sparking intense speculation. This excitement centered on the potential for significant advancements in superconductivity, hinting at an impending era of technological progress. However, this fervor was abruptly dampened by an unforeseen revelation—the eagerly anticipated breakthrough that had captured collective imagination was unveiled as an illusion, akin to a fleeting glint within the ever-shifting landscape of scientific exploration.

Balancing Discovery and Validation

This episode serves as a poignant reminder of the delicate equilibrium between exuberant discovery and rigorous validation. While the abrupt shift may have evoked disappointment, it stands as a testament to the exacting standards upheld within the scientific process. The journey of exploration, characterized by peaks and troughs, underscores an unwavering commitment to meticulous scrutiny and empirical validation—an indispensable foundation for genuine scientific progress. Transient Insights, Lasting Resolve

The transient nature of scientific inquiry takes center stage, where promising breakthroughs may dissolve under meticulous examination. As the echoes of this event fade, they leave behind a renewed determination to navigate the path of discovery with precision, distinguishing captivating illusions from authentic revelations that illuminate the vast realm of human knowledge.

As research within the realm of superconductivity accelerates, the potential for groundbreaking applications continues to expand. This captivating frontier beckons with promise, nurturing a spirit of enthusiastic exploration propelled by the boundless vistas that superconductivity unveils.

@ 8fb140b4:f948000c

As the title states, scratch behind my ear and you get it. 🐶🐾🫡

@ 9ecbb0e7:06ab7c09

La Junta Superior de Apelaciones de Inmigración de EE. UU. (BIA) desestimó la opción de considerar el formulario I-220A como documento a través del cual se pueda acceder a una residencia migratoria legal en el país.

El fallo de este lunes es un espaldarazo al criterio del Gobierno de EE. UU. y una derrota para los miles de inmigrantes cubanos que han entrado través de la frontera sur desde finales de 2021 e intentan regularizar su estatus bajo la Ley de Ajuste Cubano.

Aún así, la batalla legal por el reconocimiento de la I220-A podría todavía continuar en el Tribunal de Apelaciones del Onceno Circuito (Alabama, Florida y Georgia) y, finalmente, en la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos, según explicaron fuentes consultadas por el periodista Mario J. Pentón.

En los últimos meses, una cantidad creciente de cubanos que fueron liberados con el formulario I-220A, también conocido como “Orden de libertad bajo palabra”, han insistido en que se les reconozca su entrada a Estados Unidos.

Quienes llevan más de un año y un día en Estados Unidos no pueden aplicar a su residencia a través de la Ley de Ajuste Cubano porque dicha ley establece el parole como un requisito, no la I-220A.

El gobierno de EE.UU. le otorga la I-220A a ciertas personas que han estado detenidas y después liberadas por oficiales de inmigración.

En abril pasado, un grupo de cubanos se reunió frente al famoso restaurante Versailles, en Miami, para exigir el cese de las deportaciones hacia Cuba y pedir la regularización para quienes obtuvieron un documento I-220A al entrar a Estados Unidos.

A gritos de “¡No deportación!”, “¡Libertad para los presos políticos!” y “Abajo la dictadura”, los cubanos se manifestaron pacíficamente en contra de la reanudación de las deportaciones por parte de la administración de Joe Biden.

@ 36ceac90:0d24128d

Listen live on ⚡️✨ZAP STREAM✨

CURRENT PROGRAMMING

Click Vortex

Sam (@ltngstore/@wavlake) and Jason (Aquarium Drunkard) stumble down a rabbit hole of hyperlinks, following trails of interconnection between music and wildly varied topics. Live every other week on YouTube and in your podcast feed.

Subscribe: Fountain, Other

The Spindle

The 7-inch record isn’t just a format–it’s an art form. On each episode of The Spindle podcast, Marc and John dive into a great 7-inch every other week, dissecting its background, impact, and the reasons why it stands out as a small plastic piece of music history.

Subscribe: Fountain, Other

HOTLINE

This bi-weekly video series features your favorite artists answering questions from the 1-877-WASTOIDS answering machine, sharing their fantasy world, records they can't live with out and anything else that comes in.

Subscribe: YouTube, Fountain, Other

Midnight Music Review in the Attic

Monthly video series spotlighting experimental songwriters, garage rockers, avant-pop acts and more from the mind (and attic) of Argentinian artist Salvador Cresta.

Subscribe: YouTube

WASTOIDS Music News

Decoy Deloy brings you the latest in music news, each Friday from the WASTOIDS loft.

Subscribe: YouTube

HIGHLIGHTER

Jenny Nobody brings a weekly video roundup of what you may have missed last week on WASTOIDS.

Subscribe: YouTube

WASTOIDS DIGS

Handpicked new releases from the WASTOIDS staff every week on WASTOIDS DOT COM

SPECIALS

Nilsson Talks Nilsson

Olivia and Kiefo share interesting tidbits, unknown stories, and personal experiences related to their father, legendary singer, producer, interpreter, and composer, Harry Nilsson.

Subscribe: Fountain, Other

Special Podness

Four-part mini-series dedicated to the history of The Special Goodness by the three dudes who (probably) know it best: Pat Wilson of Weezer, drummer Atom Willard (Rocket From the Crypt, Plosivs, Against Me!) and Karl Koch, Weezer historian.

Subscribe: Fountain, Other

In The Crates

In the early ’80s, skate punk roared out of Phoenix, led by a group of teenagers called Jodie Foster’s Army. On JFA’s 1983 full-length debut, Valley of the Yakes, vocalist Brian Brannon rails against preps, gossipers, cops, and Reagan. But he saves some of his gnarliest lyrics for a local radio deejay, a guy named Johnny D.

Subscribe: Fountain, Other

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Clairaudience

A late night weekly mood music/paranormal radio show featuring kitschy and soothing music, far out stories from guests like John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, plus calls from the WASTOIDS hotline.

Subscribe: Fountain, Other

WASTOIDS With

Interviews featuring Van Dyke Park, Keith Morris, Steve Keene, Roger manning Jr., Paul Leary, Laura Jane Grace, East Bay Ray from Dead Kennedys, CREEM Magazine, The Source Family, and more.

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Strange Gear

An exploration of unusual musical equipment and the stories behind it featuring artists like, A Place to Bury Strangers and Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos, and more.

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WASTOIDS, Season 1

Initially created for Night Flight, this 4 episode series is baked and fried in the Sonoran Desert and NYC, throwing back to the halcyon days when stoned teenagers could stay up all night watching music videos, loopy comedy, and arty strangeness on the TV set.

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Out of Site

Recurring live music video series, featuring Mute Swan, Supercrush, Dante Elephant, Beach Bums, Sydney Sprague, and more.

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MIXTAPE

Curated playlists from WASTOIDS friends

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WHAT ELSE?

WASTOIDS is a hotline: 1-877-WASTOIDS. We want to know: What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you? Has a stranger ever relayed a cryptic message? Have you witnessed something confounding in the sky? Found yourself stranded in a frightening location? Call WASTOIDS and tell us your strange tale.

Follow us on Nostr!

@ 134743ca:46019ee7

We have reached 1000🎉🎉🎉 We can't believe it but we have arrived here💜

We are very happy and we want to share it with you, we have been working hard to be able to launch all these new features all at once, today, for you:

New design

https://nostrcheck.me/media/quentin/nostrcheck.me_c7971bf984d68e661ad19740b6116d9b788a3e91ed35f90b.mp4

Nostrcheck.me was born as a small project with the aim of offering nostr address to anyone who did not have their own domain. Over time it grew and we have been very focused on making our backend solid and technologically powerful. It was time to give some love to our visible face, we hope you like it!

https://nostrcheck.me/media/quentin/nostrcheck.me_da527cea258f21f20bdaf31dbf27899169331020a4370813.webp

Visit us to see it in action!

Lightning redirection

https://nostrcheck.me/media/quentin/nostrcheck.me_810d951385157e0fefc43ee0b52ed2ebc6571c38279f98b0.webp

One of the most requested features by our users is the lightning redirects. With this new feature we offer more flexibility to our community by giving them the possibility to choose their own lightning address.

You can use your nostr address as your only address for nostr and lightning, you can try this one for example 😉

quentin@nostrcheck.me

Smoother image upload

https://nostrcheck.me/media/quentin/nostrcheck.me_4eff5bd176146728cbaf70498d4e8d33273ab4e8dc32cd9b.mp4

We have adapted our multimedia upload process to our powerful backend, so we process each upload, we remove all metadata and we compress the uploaded files to improve your sharing experience.

New domain name, nostrverse.net

https://nostrcheck.me/media/quentin/nostrcheck.me_6221aefece0a2b67e7ecf8486b272ce6e53ea7a3fa6e20de.webp

The aim of nostrcheck.me is to offer the widest range of possibilities for everyone. Nostrverse.net joins our family as a private domain like its siblings. Only the first 100 members will be able to get it directly, after that it will only be available by invitation from another member.

If you don't want to stay without your nostr address @nostrverse.net sign up here.

Magnets!! 🧲

http://nostrcheck.me/media/quentin/nostrcheck.me_5ca2e846754cbf91bace34330d2f7fd48ef8e1b50a0c8ba6.webp

Our spirit is as free as the wind, we don't like you to depend on us for the survival of your multimedia files. Every upload to nostrcheck is automatically shared on the bittorrent network, so if you want, you can download all your files using the magnet link and share them with whoever you want!

Improved public gallery

https://nostrcheck.me/media/quentin/nostrcheck.me_1ef64dcd7cf50ee2a4848fbd76d916a42d2aa08b60a77087.mp4

We have made profound improvements to the public gallery, now everything flows fast and beautifully. Our heart is your nostr address, but we know that multimedia uploads are a very important part of your nostr experience.

We have improved our public gallery so you can use it without being registered, with the same limits as a nostrcheck member. We like freedom, and that's why we offer it all to you.

Our passion is nostr and this is how we celebrate it 💜

We will give out 100,000 sats to all the people who follow us and send us a little thank you message on this note.

555 sats to each message of love and affection that we receive, one per pubkey.

We hope to celebrate 10,000 very soon. Thanks for being there 🤗

@ 9ecbb0e7:06ab7c09

Durante el mes de agosto, Cuba fue escenario de al menos 159 acciones represivas, según el informe más reciente del Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (OCDH). Estos actos incluyeron 11 detenciones arbitrarias y otros 148 abusos.

El informe detalló una variedad de hechos como brutalidad policial, hostigamientos, citaciones, multas, juicios e impedimentos de viaje. Además, durante el mes de agosto, la organización detectó 87 denuncias de violaciones de derechos sociales, parte de ellas expresada por adultos mayores que viven en pobreza extrema.

Una de las acciones represivas destacadas en el informe fue la condena a nueve años de cárcel de la activista Ienelis Delgado Cué, conocida en las redes sociales como “Mambisa Agramontina”.

Delgado Cué enfrentó cargos de desacato por ejercer su derecho a la libertad de expresión en defensa de su amiga Anniette González, conocida como “la mujer de la bandera”, a quien arrestaron desde marzo pasado por publicar fotos envuelta en la bandera cubana, como muestra de apoyo al preso político Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.

Ienelis enfrentó un juicio arbitrario, donde incluso su “abogada” se mostró condescendiente ante la corte. “Dice la mamá de Ienelis que ella se comportó muy valiente durante el juicio, incluso dijo que sacaran a la abogada, porque esta mujer respondía al régimen, que ella no la necesitaba para defenderse”, comentó el periodista Tan Estrada, tras ser liberado de un arresto por tratar de dar cobertura al juicio.

Aunque se detectó un descenso de acciones represivas en comparación con lo registrado el año pasado, cuando las fuerzas del régimen realizaron al menos 338 actos de este tipo, el OCDH indicó que la reducción es una estrategia del gobierno cubano “para mejorar la imagen de Miguel Díaz-Canel ante el próximo Examen Periódico Universal que enfrentará Cuba en la ONU en noviembre”.

El OCDH también recordó que más de mil cubanos se encuentran presos por motivos políticos; la mayoría tras las protestas populares del 11 de julio de 2021. Ente ellos están dos líderes de la oposición, los activistas José Daniel Ferrer y Félix Navarro.

“Cuba está hoy en modo de supervivencia, debido a la extrema pobreza de la mayoría de sus habitantes, quienes ven en la emigración la única solución a sus problemas”, alertó la organización.

El reporte también indicó: “la represión y el empobrecimiento del pueblo han provocado que en los últimos dos años un 4% de la población cubana se haya marchado de la Isla; una válvula de escape diseñada por el régimen para disminuir la tensión interna, sin resolver los problemas reales del país, como la ausencia de libertades y el hambre”.

@ 20986fb8:cdac21b3

A weekly update on YakiHonne.com 15th – 21st Aug

TL;DR

1. Featured Articles of the Week

2. Tech Updates - Images uploading & uploading history: you can directly upload images while writing and re-use them - NIP-05 identifiers: search tab now support searching users by usersnames - Math equations are now supported using the katex syntax
 - Bugs fixed (Bookmark, report, editor, etc.) - UI/UX Enhancement

3. YakiHonne Events - Web3, AI and DeSci Creator Hackathon - YakiHonne Ideathon | Integrate Future Creativity and Set Sail on an Artistic Journey - Publish Your Long-form Content on Nostr and Earn 17,500,000 SATs - Hot Topics Creation Hackathon with YakiHonne - Earn SATs with YakiHonne Updates

4. Weekly Featured Streaming

5. Weekly Curation Picks

6. Top Curators/Creators from All Relays

1. Featured Articles of the Week ☕

Nostr ecosystem's long-form posts is breakthrough! Thanks to all the creators, like james, Vivido srl, TopWK1, yael, Disturbia, chef4₿rains, Welcome all to explore the enriching experience of yakihonne.com.

1. Navigating the Fourth Turning: A Strategic Guide for Investors — by @ Flextiger

Based on Neil Howe's new book, "The Fourth Turning Is Here", @Flextiger led us to delve into a forecast of looming economic recession, inflation, volatility, and instability in the financial markets.

2. Honne Boxshow | The Key Role of User Experience (UX) in Driving Digital Product Growth (Feat. Caleb) — Feat. Caleb

Constant improvement is what will make any product retain a large market share. How can #UX drive digital product growth? Welcome to listen and read Honne Boxshow EP8 (Feat. @Caleb from #Nostr-YakiHonne client

3. Grants for BDK, LNbits, Nostr, and More! — by @ OpenSats

After announcing the first wave of grants, OpenSats announce an additional wave for 8 projects in #bitcoin and #nostr. What did these projects do? How to apply for OpenSats grants?

4. Sonnet 96 "Artemis And Iris (In A Prelude 0f Spring) By Francisco Luis Arroyave Tabares — by @Francisco Luis

Sonnet 96, "Artemis And Iris (In A Prelude 0f Spring)" is a beautifully crafted poem that has not yet been published. frank_duna shared this poem and used AI (ChatGPT4) to help analyze it.

5. Orange pilling in developed nations — by @ Beme

There are many misunderstandings about #Bitcoin, especially in developed nations. How to explain them? #Beme shared some challenges and tips when talking about Bitcoin.

6. The art of self reflection — by @ Lnuvf

Like a masterpiece in the making, #selfreflection crafts a life that is not only lived, but deeply understood, embraced, and enriched. What is the meaning of self-reflection? How does it help us?

7. Why are there different types of Bitcoin addresses? — by @ Disturbia

The #Bitcoin blockchain is running stable. However, due to different needs and other reasons, #softforks are implemented. How do they impact Bitcoin wallet address design?

8. On linguistic issues and the definition of racism — by @ enlund

Is it possible to be #Racist against white people? The answer depends on who you ask, and when you ask... it has become a driver of political polarisation.

9. 7 economic principles through Bitcoin Glasses — by @ honeybadger

Knowledge of economics is essential as we journey through #Bitcoin. @honeybadger shared 7 economic principles, such as Lindy Effect, S2F, Cantillon Effect, etc. to help us understand Bitcoin.

2. Product Updates 💻

Weekly Updates - Add images upload for the writing editor: users now can directly upload images while writing - Add uploads history within the writing tab to allow users re-use already uploaded images for any written articles
 - Arabic language support (only articles previewing), Arabic native users need to write with inverted indent at the moment 
 - Stats icons are responsive now, whenever they are hovered – users feedback
 - Search tab now support searching users by usersnames/nip-05 identifiers – users feedback 
 - Users now can re-verse upvoting/downvoting or even canceling them 
 - Math equations are now supported using the katex syntax
 - UX/UI enhancements: curations description box shows/hides by hovering/arrow - 

Fixed bugs:
 - Fixed the bookmark list disappear after removing a bookmark - Fixed the curations description box UX/UI for mobile version
 - Change report flag colors - Fixed typos/grammatical/hints errors - Fixed writing editor glitching when zooming the window - Fixed editor scroll bar - Fixed UI for firefox browser - Fixed inexistent profiles in user’s profile page - Fixed settings page reload (two times in a row)
 - Fixed katex syntax and images uploading not working on mobile version
 - Fixed code blocks showing only the first line - Fixed misplaced dragged articles in curation creation

3. YakiHonne Events 🏖️

YakiHonne not only provides creators with a convenient and friendly creating platform, but also holds a series of activities to allow creators to express and share in more channels and forms. Welcome to join and Have FUN with YakiHonne!

Click to check out YakiHonne ongoing events Curation!

1) Web3, AI and DeSci Creator Hackathon

With the rise of Web3 technologies, scientific research will usher in unprecedented improvements in data sharing, collaboration, and transparency. At the same time, the application of artificial intelligence in data analysis, model prediction and other fields will greatly promote the development of scientific research. By holding the Web3, AI and Creator Hackathon, we aim to stimulate the thinking of researchers, developers and creators, and explore how to use Web3 and AI technology to optimize scientific research and promote the continuous advancement of science.

Creators from various universities and communities participated in the YakiHonne Web3, AI, and DeSci Creation Hackathon. Community voting is open. Welcome to upvote and comment on your favorite posts in the selected post curation.

2) YakiHonne Ideathon | Integrate Future Creativity and Set Sail on an Artistic Journey

In order to promote the nostr ecology and encourage more creations on the relays, YakiHonne invites you to experience and exchange discussions on Digital Art and Technology Creation, Sustainable Art and Environmental Protection, and The future relationship between AI and human beings via participating ideathon and posting creations from yakihonne.com.

"Embrace future creativity and set sail on an artistic journey!"

Discussing themes like #DigitalArt #AIGC #SustainableArt with like-minded creators in the #Ideathon. Share the world your creating procedure and results via the censorship-resistant platform yakihonne.com, and win generous bonuses.

How to participate 1. Join our group: https://t.me/YakiHonne_ideathon, share your idea, proposals and posts. 2. Join discussion and post your idea in ideathon via the link under each theme. 3. Be inspired by other people's ideas, or form your own ideas, make them a creation. 4. Adding #YakiHonne-Ideathon tag when posting your creations. 5. Posting, sharing, and being zapped. 6. Encourage more people to create, Let's meet and have fun IRL in the future.

More details: YakiHonne Ideathon | Integrate Future Creativity and Set Sail on an Artistic Journey

3) Hot Topics Creation Hackathon Round 1

Hot Topics Creation Hackathon with YakiHonne is the new global creation hackathon, that initiated by YakiHonne, and centered around hot topics. Any creator who enjoys discovering and tracking hot topics is welcome to participate, regardless of your field or subject matter. The exclusive platform feature of YakiHonne is the freedom to express, create, curate, and share your creation on a wide range of topics with a global audience. YakiHonne, a decentralized long-form content platform based on the Nostr open network protocol, ensures a perfect creating experience for every creator.

By joining the Hot Topics Creation Hackathon, not only can you showcase your creation, but you can also leverage various promotional methods exclusive to YakiHonne, such as Workshops, Podcasts, Live Streams, Meetups, etc., to promote your creation and the stories behind to audiences in 86 countries (still growing!). What's even more exciting is that your creations can be rewarded with up to 170,000 SATs!

The Hot-Topic Hackathon is a long-term hackathon, with weekly evaluations. Come join now and share the 17,000,000 SATs prize pool!

Round 1 ended, and entered evaluation stage, stay tuned for updates!

Read More Details: English | 中文

4) Publish Your Long-form Content on Nostr and Earn 17,500,000 SATs

A long-term Nostr Creation Grant, with a 17,500,000 SATs funding pool. Over 300 posts get zapped.

Round 4 had ended successfully! Stay tuned for new Round 5!

YakiHonne Creation Zap Grant continues! Round 4 is concluded. Nostr's long-form posts are created by 100+ creators from 80+ countries. The variety of content expanded to include opinions, insights, travel notes, study notes, feedback, health tips, comics, and even oil paintings. Additionally, posts in Persian and Thai languages became part of the ecosystem. The boom of the ecosystem is thanks to all the creators, and their support is greatly appreciated!

Creating for You and Your Fans through Nostr and ZAP Now.

Zap Rules:

1. No malicious speech such as discrimination, attack, incitement, etc.
2. No Spam/Scam, not fully AI-generated article
3. No directly copy & paste from other posts on Relays
4. Spread positive content like your knowledge/experience/insight/ideas, etc.

How to Get Zap:

1. Join YakiHonne TG group: https://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured
2. Share your post in the group
3. Make sure your LN address is in your profile
4. Based on the rules above, we will ZAP your post directly within 2 days

Join our group for more query: https://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured

5) Earn SATs with YakiHonne Updates

YakiHonne.com is continuously improving to offer a top-notch user experience. With weekly updates being rolled out, you are invited to test these updates and post your feedback and opinions as an article via YakiHonne.com.

As an incentive, participants can earn up to 100,000 SATs.

Here are the reviews curations from Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, and Round 4.

Thanks to all participants, Stay tuned for Round 5!

4. Weekly Featured Streaming🎙️

Honne Boxshow EP8 with Bello on 16th Aug

YakiHonne Convos EP1

5. Weekly Curation Picks 📚

1. Submissions from Web3, AI & DeSci Creation Hackathon - by YakiHonne The Web3, AI & DeSci Creation Hackathon was successfully held. Throughout the hackathon, we received submissions of various forms and topics. This curation has collected selected submissions, thanks to all the creators.

2. self sovereign identity - by vp

3. Decentralized Identity - by vp Dive into our series on decentralized identity, shedding light on the revolutionary Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and the powerful Decentralized Identifiers (DID). Explore a future where identity control shifts from central entities to individuals, reshaping the digital age's essence. Join us in navigating this transformative realm, poised to redefine personal identity and digital interactions.

6. Top Curators 👩‍💻

1. YakiHonne

2. Vp

3. Wendyding

4. SNostrich

5. Shaun

6. S

---

About YakiHonne:

YakiHonne is a Nostr-based decentralized content media protocol, which supports free curation, creation, publishing, and reporting by various media. Try YakiHonne.com Now!

Follow us

• Telegram: http://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured
• Twitter: @YakiHonne
• Nostr pubkey: npub1yzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesnxrf8q

@ 57fe4c4a:c3a0271f

👥 Authors: Antoine Riard ( nostr:npub1vjzmc45k8dgujppapp2ue20h3l9apnsntgv4c0ukncvv549q64gsz4x8dd )

📅 Messages Date: 2023-07-25

✉️ Message Count: 1

📚 Total Characters in Messages: 4315

Messages Summaries

✉️ Message by Antoine Riard on 26/07/2023: Implementations should be cautious about flushing BOLT8 messages at fixed intervals to avoid timing analysis and potential channel closure. Fixed-size packets may also incur bandwidth costs and impact privacy.

Follow nostr:npub1j3t00t9hv042ktszhk8xpnchma60x5kz4etemnslrhf9e9wavywqf94gll for full threads

@ 7d5afaa7:c1f00f8a

Why is KYC-free important

Cryptocurrencies are intended to be a private and financially inclusive currency outside of the state's monopoly on money (=fiat) and identity (=government ID KYC). For this, cryptocurrencies only require a pseudonymous randomly-generated cryptographic private key that you can generate with easy-to-use wallet software --- unlike banking, no government ID or corporate permission is required.

The state, banks and corporations shouldn't be able to decide who can buy or use cryptocurrencies or know everyone's balances and transactions. Economic censorship, KYC regulations and the war on cash already exclude millions of people who can't get government ID (e.g. the state refuses to print ID for them), a bank account or a vaccine passport from basic needs like finances, jobs, apartment rentals and healthcare. In comparison, KYC-free cryptocurrencies allow everyone to earn, spend and save money worldwide, which provides a way to circumvent censorship, access truly free markets ("underground economy") and live freely.

In addition, KYC endangers people with ID to doxxing, targeted theft, surveillance, financial censorship, hacked data leaks, intentional data disclosures and seizure of funds. Exchanges permanently store purchase records with the amount, date, full name, photo, home address, ID scan and SSN, and they disclose this information voluntarily to both state and corporate third parties without customers' knowledge or consent. Many KYC exchanges have been hacked and customers' ID scans were leaked and sold in the darknet (even as low as $10 per person).

Unlike what many people believe, Bitcoin mixers and Monero do not fix KYC. Bitcoin mixers and Monero can provide on-chain privacy and make it difficult to find out where you are sending your money, but they do not remove the inaccessible government ID requirements of KYC exchanges and do not delete the permanent purchase records. Only KYC-free exchanges fix KYC.

KYC-free exchanges and payment methods sometimes have slightly higher fees (~5%), but it's worth it for accessibility reasons (support financial inclusion for people who can't pass KYC by contributing to KYC-free adoption and liquidity) and for privacy/personal safety reasons (can't leak information that wasn't collected).

How to buy and earn KYC-free Bitcoin and Monero

There are many ways to buy Bitcoin and Monero without government ID or a bank account. Some examples include cash, gift cards, gold/silver and jobs.

Please note that credit cards, bank transfers, Revolut, Zelle, Cashapp and similar aren't KYC-free, since the bank requires ID to open an account, which excludes people without ID and makes pseudonymous usage impossible. These payment methods are sometimes referred to as KYC-lite (the exchange itself doesn't require ID, but the payment processor does).

Also keep in mind that KYC specifically refers to government ID requirements, not general personally identifiable information (PII), like a name, phone number or shipping address. If necessary, it's possible to use a pseudonym, mask, burner phone number or maildrop to circumvent PII. In comparison, it is more difficult to bypass government ID KYC by convincing the state to print ID for you or finding a fake ID seller.

Cash in person, cash by mail, money orders

KYC-free peer-to-peer exchanges allow you to buy and sell Bitcoin and Monero via cash in person, cash by mail, money orders, gift cards and gold/silver. Search for your preferred payment method and location and contact a seller. If there are no selling ads where you live, you can post a buying ad (offer a discount if necessary).

Some trusted KYC-free P2P exchanges are LocalMonero (https://localmonero.co), HodlHodl (https://hodlhodl.com), Bisq (https://bisq.network), LocalCryptos (https://localcryptos.com) and RoboSats (http://robosats6tkf3eva7x2voqso3a5wcorsnw34jveyxfqi2fu7oyheasid.onion). Avoid LocalBitcoins and Paxful since these exchanges require ID.

For cash in person, meet in a public place like a cafe, mall or park and bring cash and a mobile wallet (such as Blue Wallet for Bitcoin or Cake Wallet for Monero).

For cash by mail, here is a guide: https://localmonero.co/cash-by-mail-tips

US money orders guide (KYC-free for buyers, sadly not for sellers): https://archive.org/details/how-to-buy-non-kyc-bitcoin-with-a-us-postal-money-order

Bitcoin ATMs

Bitcoin ATMs are a convenient option, if there is a KYC-free ATM near you (https://coinatmradar.com). Many ATMs allow you to buy and sell Bitcoin for cash without ID up to around $1000. Some ATMs require SMS verification, but this isn't KYC (no ID required) and you can use an anonymous burner number, e.g. from TextVerified.com or JuicySMS.com. Look for ATMs near you and check the ATM's terms and limits via CoinATMRadar.com. Guide for Bitcoin here: https://archive.org/details/how-to-use-text-verified-to-buy-non-kyc-bitcoin-at-a-bitcoin-atm Monero: https://archive.org/details/how-to-buy-non-kyc-monero

Gift cards

You can sell popular gift cards, such as Amazon or Apple gift cards, for Bitcoin. Some P2P exchanges offer gift card trades. In addition, Redeeem (https://redeeem.com) is a specialized KYC-free exchange for gift card trades. If you are in the US, you can also trade Visa/MasterCard gift cards for Bitcoin with CardCoins (https://cardcoins.co).

Bitcoin vouchers

Some companies sell Bitcoin vouchers for cash in brick-and-mortar stores. One example is Azteco (https://azte.co). More sellers here: https://github.com/cointastical/P2P-Trading-Exchanges/

Home mining

You can mine Bitcoin at home with a specialized ASIC miner or mine Monero with a regular CPU. Via home mining, you strengthen the network and earn money at the same time. Bitcoin home mining guides: https://diverter.hostyourown.tools/mining-for-the-streets/ and https://www.econoalchemist.com/post/home-mining-for-non-kyc-bitcoin Monero home mining subreddit: https://reddit.com/r/moneromining

Local groups

You can often find cash in person or cash by mail traders in local groups. Look for Bitcoin, tech or libertarian meetups in your city (or country, if using cash by mail), visit a Bitcoin conference or start a local crypto group: https://github.com/taxmeifyoucan/p2p-trading/

Exchange altcoins

If you already have a different cryptocurrency, you can exchange it for Bitcoin or Monero without ID via KYC-free accountless exchanges. Some examples are FixedFloat (https://fixedfloat.com), Flyp.me (https://flyp.me), SideShift (https://sideshift.ai) and TradeOgre (https://tradeogre.com). There are also Bitcoin <-> Monero atomic swaps (https://sethforprivacy.com/guides/bitcoin-monero-atomic-swaps/).

Jobs

You can work remotely for Bitcoin or Monero, e.g. as a writer, translator, graphic designer, software developer, beta tester or artist. Microlancer (https://microlancer.io), FreelanceForCoins (https://freelanceforcoins.com) and Monero Jobs (https://t.me/MoneroJobs) are good KYC-free freelance platforms. More info here: https://cointastical.medium.com/freelancing-platforms-which-pay-in-bitcoin-e38be56166df

Sell products/services

If you have an online store, you can easily accept KYC-free Bitcoin or Monero payments e.g. via BTCPayServer (https://btcpayserver.org), SatSale (https://satsale.org), Blockonomics (https://blockonomics.co) or MoneroIntegrations (https://monerointegrations.com). Guide for BTCPay Jungle: https://archive.org/details/how-to-accept-non-kyc-bitcoin-with-btcpay-jungle-and-electrum

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, BTCPayServer offers a point-of-sale feature (https://blog.btcpayserver.org/how-to-earn-bitcoin-btcpayserver), or you can use a regular mobile wallet such as Blue Wallet (https://bluewallet.io) or Cake Wallet (https://cakewallet.com). Oshi (https://oshi.tech) helps local businesses to accept Bitcoin Lightning payments.

If you are a content creator, you can include a Bitcoin or Monero donation address or Paynym (https://paynym.is) in your bio, articles or videos.

You can also sell products and services in crypto-friendly marketplaces, such as Bitejo (https://bitejo.com), Mirage Sale (https://miragesale.com), Tukan Market (https://tukan.market), Bitcoin P2P Marketplace (https://t.me/bitcoinp2pmarketplace) or Monero Market (https://reddit.com/r/moneromarket). Additionally, you can simply add "10% discount for Bitcoin payments" to your Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace listing.

Where to spend KYC-free Bitcoin and Monero

Cryptocurrencies are currencies, so use them to buy products and services.

There are many places to spend cryptocurrencies, including for digital products, brick-and-mortar stores, gift cards and KYC-free prepaid debit cards.

Stores that accept crypto

There are many directories for online and brick-and-mortar stores that accept crypto, including electronics, clothes, restaurants, gaming and more. AcceptedHere (https://acceptedhere.io) and CryptWerk (https://cryptwerk.com) are great directories with thousands of stores worldwide.

Gift cards

Buy gift cards to online and brick-and-mortar stores like Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, Uber Eats and more from CoinCards (https://coincards.com), Bitrefill (https://bitrefill.com) and The Bitcoin Company (https://thebitcoincompany.com). Make sure to check the store's terms, as some stores require customers to link a credit card before they can redeem gift cards.

PayWithMoon (https://paywithmoon.com) and CoinDebit (https://coindebit.io) sell KYC-free prepaid Visa cards that work in US online stores. Purse.io (https://purse.io) allows you to shop from Amazon with crypto.

Proxy stores

Proxy stores are KYC-free personal shopper services that allow you to buy from any store with crypto. Enter the product URL, send Bitcoin or Monero and the proxy store purchases the product with their business bank account and reships the product to you. Some examples are Proxystore (https://proxysto.re), Sovereign Stack Rerouter (https://sovereignstack.tools/rerouter/), Fiatrefill (https://fiatrefill.com), ShopInBit (https://shopinbit.com). You may also be able to find someone via a P2P exchange who would pay a fiat invoice for you in return for crypto.

Marketplaces

With peer-to-peer crypto marketplaces, you can buy and sell products and services, similar to Craigslist or Ebay:

Classifieds, jobs, fundraisers and exchanges: https://bitejo.com Classifieds, marketplace and privacy services: https://ghostnet.id Bitcoin Craigslist: https://tukan.market Bitcoin/Monero marketplace: https://miragesale.com Local Bitcoin-friendly stores: https://oshi.tech Telegram Bitcoin marketplace: https://t.me/BitcoinP2PMarketplace Matrix crypto marketplace: https://matrix.to/#/#cryptomarketplace:matrix.org Reddit Monero marketplace: https://reddit.com/r/moneromarket OpenBazaar remake: https://mobazha.com Decentralized P2P marketplace: https://particl.io

Bitcoin circular economies

Circular economies are decentralized local and global economies to buy and sell products and services for Bitcoin or Monero, outside of the state and large corporations. Circular economies can offer products, jobs, apartment rentals, healthcare, travel, proxy merchant services and more. Information about Bitcoin circular economies: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/kyc-free-bitcoin-circular-economies and https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/its-time-to-join-the-bitcoin-circular-economy

More info about KYC-free cryptocurrencies

For more info on the dangers of KYC and the potential of KYC-free cryptocurrencies to create truly free markets, visit:

Directories: https://kycnot.me, https://bitcoiner.guide, https://bitcoinbookmarks.com, https://monerica.com, https://lightningnetworkstores.com

KYC-free peer-to-peer alternatives: https://anarkiocrypto.medium.com/the-rarely-discussed-dangers-of-kyc-in-crypto-and-daily-life-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-20f2b5894439

Reject the state's monopoly on identity: https://anarkiocrypto.medium.com/why-the-states-monopoly-on-identity-is-more-dangerous-than-google-facebook-and-microsoft-4ce415793d7e

The dangers and exclusion of government ID systems: https://www.statelessness.eu/blog/each-person-left-living-streets-we-are-losing-society, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/still-stateless-still-suffering-its-time-for-european-leaders-to-take-action, https://fee.org/articles/passports-were-a-temporary-war-measure

Financial inclusion for unbanked people: https://whycryptocurrencies.com/for_the_unbanked.html

Avoid the cashless dystopia: https://whycryptocurrencies.com/cashless_dystopia.html

Free markets for a free world with Crypto Agorism: Video: https://tube.tchncs.de/w/tPvohTaiocfg5LEsFjGqHN Slides (PDF): https://anarkio.codeberg.page/crypto_agorism.pdf

Infographics

KYC-free Bitcoin

KYC-free Monero

Crypto Marketplaces

Circular Economy

---

20+ ways to join the Bitcoin circular economy

Bitcoin is a unique, private and censorship-resistant way to pay in online and brick-and-mortar stores. Unlike credit cards and banking, Bitcoin doesn't require corporate permission or government ID. Just download a wallet and you can send and receive money in minutes, worldwide.

You don't need a bank account in order to use Bitcoin. For example, you can buy Bitcoin with cash (in person, by mail, with Bitcoin ATMs or vouchers) or with gift cards:

• https://sovrnbitcoiner.com/15-methods-to-aquire-non-kyc-bitcoin
• https://hodlhodl.com
• https://robosats.com
• https://bisq.network

With Bitcoin circular economies, you can buy and sell products for Bitcoin. The following ideas can help you to get started:

1. Sell electronics, clothes, food & more for Bitcoin with https://bitejo.com or https://t.me/bitcoinp2pmarketplace
2. Earn Bitcoin with remote work, microtasks and gigs with https://microlancer.io (Software development, art, copywriting, tutoring, personal assistants & more)
3. Find more ways to stack sats with https://www.stacksats.how
4. Tip with Bitcoin in restaurants, bars or taxis or send Bitcoin as a gift: https://lightning.gifts
5. Find local Bitcoin-friendly businesses and earn Bitcoin rewards while shopping with https://oshi.tech
6. Browse hundreds of businesses that accept Bitcoin with https://acceptedhere.io, https://cryptwerk.com, https://lightningnetworkstores.com
7. Search a large range of Bitcoin-friendly stores with https://spendabit.co
8. View a map of Bitcoin brick-and-mortar stores here: https://coinmap.org
9. Encourage your favorite businesses to accept Bitcoin with this brochure: https://twitter.com/linkinparkrulz_/status/1543348394181148672 or this introduction: https://anarkio.codeberg.page/bitcoin
10. Accept Bitcoin in your online store with https://btcpayserver.org or https://blockonomics.co or use a mobile wallet in your brick-and-mortar store such as https://bluewallet.io
11. Sell Bitcoin vouchers in your store (similar to phone refills) with https://azte.co and https://bitramp.co
12. Send Bitcoin invoices with https://zaprite.com
13. Buy gift cards to most mainstream businesses with https://bitrefill.com, https://coincards.com, https://thebitcoincompany.com
14. Use a Bitcoin personal shopping service to buy from any online store, no credit card required: https://sovereignstack.tools/rerouter, https://proxysto.re
15. Shop from Amazon and pay with Bitcoin with https://purse.io
16. Get anonymous global mobile data with https://silent.link, an anonymous VOIP number with https://jmp.chat or SMS verifications with https://juicysms.com
17. Earn Bitcoin tips by posting with https://stacker.news
18. Support your favorite podcasters and earn sats with https://fountain.fm
19. Monetize your Youtube channel, blog or social media by adding a Bitcoin donation address or Paynym: https://paynym.is
20. KYC-free Bitcoin tips for Twitter: https://tweetoshi.com
21. Enable Bitcoin tips, subscriptions and memberships for your content with https://starbackr.com or https://getmash.com
22. Start fundraisers with https://geyser.fund, https://tallycoin.app or https://docs.btcpayserver.org/Apps/#crowdfunding-app
23. Join or start a local Bitcoin marketplace for your city in Signal or Telegram: https://github.com/taxmeifyoucan/p2p-trading/
24. Visit a Bitcoin meetup: https://bitcoin-only.com/meetups or start a Bitcoin group in Freedom Cells: https://freedomcells.org
25. Switch to a Bitcoin-friendly VPS host and domain registrar: https://1984.is, https://bitlaunch.io, https://njal.la
26. Easily send Bitcoin tips, subscriptions and shop online with https://getalby.com
27. Read articles about living on Bitcoin from https://cointastical.medium.com, https://darthcoin.substack.com and https://sovrnbitcoiner.com
28. Join online Bitcoin communities like https://t.me/sovereignbitcoiner and https://matrix.to/#/#citadel:bitcoin.kyoto

Replace these fiat platforms with a Bitcoin standard:

1. Ebay, Craigslist, Amazon, Etsy: https://bitejo.com, https://t.me/bitcoinp2pmarketplace, https://plebeian.market, https://mobazha.com
2. Upwork, Fiverr: https://microlancer.io, https://freelanceforcoins.com
3. Uber, Lyft, Deliveroo: https://degenrides.io, https://libretaxi.org (or buy gift cards with https://thebitcoincompany.com, https://bitrefill.com)
4. GoFundMe, Kickstarter: https://geyser.fund, https://tallyco.in, https://docs.btcpayserver.org/Apps/#crowdfunding-app
5. Patreon, Ko-Fi, Open Collective: https://starbackr.com, https://getmash.com, https://docs.btcpayserver.org/Apps/#payment-button
6. Paypal, Stripe: https://btcpayserver.org, https://blockonomics.co, https://satsale.org
7. Credit cards: https://paywithmoon.com, https://coindebit.io, https://thebitcoincompany.com
8. Sim cards: https://silent.link, https://jmp.chat, https://juicysms.com
9. Mobile payment apps: https://bluewallet.io, https://samouraiwallet.com

@ 9ecbb0e7:06ab7c09

En el banco de 29 y 42, situado en el municipio habanero de Playa, limitaron la extracción de efectivo a solo 2.000 pesos cubanos (CUP) por persona debido a los bajos niveles de disponibilidad de dinero, según reporta el periodista oficialista Lázaro Manuel Alonso.

“Las personas solo pueden sacar en efectivo 2.000 pesos por caja. Varios entrevistados nos dicen que hacen la cola allí y luego la de los cajeros, que esta tarde solo sirve efectivo uno de los dos que tiene la sucursal”, refiere el comunicador en su perfil oficial de Facebook.

Los elevados niveles de inflación en la economía nacional hacen que cada día tenga que utilizarse más dinero para pagar por productos y servicios que suben de precio constantemente. La mayoría de estos bienes se comercializa en el mercado informal, en donde opera casi exclusivamente el uso de efectivo.

Lo anterior es la causa fundamental de que “la demanda de efectivo en los bancos y los cajeros siga siendo la operación más común en estas instituciones”, indica Alonso.

Muchos cubanos han reaccionado a la publicación del periodista argumentando las dificultades que pasan para acceder al dinero en efectivo de su salario mensual, que luego gastan en prácticamente dos días de compras de comida que no alcanza.

“Mientras exista un mercado informal con mayores ofertas y mayor respuesta para las necesidades de la población que los establecimientos estatales, el efectivo va a ser un problema con solución pendiente, en estos tipos de negocios solo se acepta efectivo que por lo general no regresa a los bancos”, comentó Gennis Corrales Sánchez

Por su parte, Mario Ernesto González le cuestiona al periodista “¿cuál será la solución y para cuándo? Creo que se ha escrito bastante y se han hecho ya muchos reportajes, ¿no cree?”. Ante esto, el comunicador solo responde que es su trabajo hacer el reportaje.

Sin embargo, es conocido que los periodistas estatales solo trabajan y tratan determinados temas cuando el Departamento Ideológico del Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) autoriza realizar esos trabajos periodísticos que luego salen en el Noticiero Estelar de la Televisión.

La jubilada Margarita Barrios Sánchez expuso su triste experiencia con los cajeros automáticos. “Los jubilados los días de cobro tenemos prioridad en las cajas. En mi nueva condición de jubilada fui a cobrar. Se supone que deben darme mi jubilación completa, cuando le pedí a la compañera mi dinero me dijo que eso no podía ser mi jubilación. ¿Tendremos que ir con un funcionario de trabajo y seguridad social al banco? Con un abogado que nos defienda ‘por si acaso’. Me parece que nos estamos pasando”, refirió.

@ 2edbcea6:40558884

Happy Sunday #Nostr!

We're very excited to announce that we are partnering with nostr:npub1r3fwhjpx2njy87f9qxmapjn9neutwh7aeww95e03drkfg45cey4qgl7ex2 to bring you the #NostrTechWeekly newsletter here at the nostr:npub19mduaf5569jx9xz555jcx3v06mvktvtpu0zgk47n4lcpjsz43zzqhj6vzk . A little about him: he’s been on Nostr since January, and he’s a developer that’s been working on Nostr-related projects related to relays.

Our goal here is a weekly newsletter on the more technical happenings in the nostr-verse. Follow the hashtag #NostrTechWeekly to ensure you’re getting the newsletter ASAP!

Lots of activity improving the Nostr protocol this week! Let’s dive in.

Recent Upgrades to Nostr (NIPs)

1) Nostr Marketplaces add Shipping Cost 📦

This is a relatively small update to NIP 15 (marketplaces on Nostr); it adds explicit support for shipping cost as part of purchasing items on a marketplace implemented on top of this pattern.

Author: nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6

2) Consolidate core capabilities into NIP 1 ⬇️

NIP 1 is dead simple which is why Nostr was so easy to start developing on. As more folks started developing on Nostr, some functionality was added to the Nostr protocol and codified as subsequent NIPs.

Now they’re all so core to the protocol that nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 has advocated and merged an update that places all the core NIPs as part of NIP 1 since the philosophy is that you can theoretically enjoy decent Nostr experience if your client and relay only implement NIP 1. Now that’s true again!

Author: nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6

3) Mailing Lists (Proposed) 💌

NIP 101 is a proposal to formalize a way for Nostr users to subscribe to mailing lists via the Nostr protocol.

Users can publish a specific kind of Nostr event with their email address and the list they want to subscribe to. The email address is encrypted, which means the manager of the mailing list and the subscriber are the only ones with access to the email address. This cuts out third parties used by the author of the newsletter (mailchimp, convertkit, etc).

Could be a neat foundation for a more private, secure, and decentralized newsletter tool to outcompete the existing players.

Author: KaffinPX

4) NIPs over Nostr (Proposed) ♻️

NIP 17 is a proposal to allow people to publish NIPs via Nostr itself. It allows versioning the NIP, being explicit about dependencies, and many other structured details that are missing from the existing repo (which is “just” a collection of Markdown).

Where this goes right is that the Nostr community can adopt NIPs without the blessing of the existing big players that currently manage the NIP repo (which is currently where “approved” NIPs) live.

Where this goes wrong is the difficulty of consensus on something this disorganized. NIPs would no longer be able to take advantage of 1) the tools like Github that help facilitate conversation as well as 2) the shepherding of the early Nostr community by the visionaries that started the movement through some measure of benevolent control of what gets merged into the NIP repo.

Authors: nostr:npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkj

5) Gift wrapping events for secrecy (Proposed) 🎁

One of the big critiques of standard Nostr DMs is that the message is encrypted but the metadata (from, to, etc) is not. The proposed NIP 59 would allow Nostr users to almost entirely encrypt Nostr events including metadata.

The most obvious use case (and the motivating force) was to create more private and secure DMs. But anywhere where privacy matters on Nostr, gift wrapping Nostr events could help.

Authors: nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z Kieran Paul Miller Jon Staab

Notable projects

Amethyst private DMs

Amethyst (the client) has taken steps to implement their own version of DMs that are more private that standard Nostr DMs are at the moment. They’re using their own proposed “gift wrapping” NIP 59 (discussed above).

I think this will be a “proof is in the pudding” moment where we’ll see the code in action even before the NIP is adopted. If it works well, it’s hard to imagine NIP 59 won’t be approved.

Favvy (Link in bio)

A Nostr-based LinkTree competitor. Favvy allows Nostr users to configure their “link in the bio” page that links out to all the various places that can’t all fit in a profile bio.

It’s Nostr-based so if you control the private key for a Nostr account then you can update that accounts Favvy. Feels elegant.

Latest conversations

Nostr is the non-dystopian Super

WeChat is a super-app which can consolidate an entire ecosystem of functionality within a single mobile app. It’s attractive for mobile-first users and authoritarians who see it as an easier way to control users. This phenomenon has been mostly limited to Asian markets but X (formerly Twitter) is working towards the same goal. They claim to want it to be less dystopian, but we aren’t a very trusting community 🙂

Is there a way to build something that has all the advantages of the super app without the dystopian effects of centralization of such critical digital infrastructure?

Enter Nostr. This post by nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft (builder of highlighter.com) paints a picture of how Nostr currently has all the basics needed to achieve that dream already.

The Nostr protocol already seems to be evolving into a kind of decentralized, consent-based app store where developers are recreating much of the existing products internet users love, but with a bent towards self-sovereignty, privacy, security, and cutting out middlemen.

It’s a compelling vision. There would be much work to do, and many challenges to solve to keep the spirit of Nostr alive through mass adoption.

Events

I’ll keep a running list of Nostr-related events that I hear about (in person or virtual).

1. Nostrasia Nov 1-3 in Tokyo & Hong Kong
2. NostrCon Jan 14, 2024 (online only)

If you wanna see something highlighted here just send a DM to nostr:npub1r3fwhjpx2njy87f9qxmapjn9neutwh7aeww95e03drkfg45cey4qgl7ex2

Until next time 🫡

If I missed anything, or you’re building something I didn’t post about, let me know, DMs welcome.

Stay Classy, Nostr.

@ 4c7f8d41:91693bb8

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@ 1bc70a01:24f6a411

The concept of value of value is one where information yearns to flow freely, transactions should be voluntary, unlimited and direct. In V4V model, people pay what something is worth to them.

Sounds great. On paper. There are some issues…

Free sucks

At least, that’s the perception. People don’t assign much value to free. Ask anyone who has ever ran any business and has not suggested a value for a product or service and they’ll tell you that they earned far less than when charging for the thing.

It’s true, some people will give a lot, some a little, and most none. Most - none. None.

Pricing is Signal

Pricing is a signal of desirability and quality. Of course, it is often incorrect and people manipulate pricing all the time. But for the most part, people don’t see much value in free. Unless a recommended price is offered, people will usually pay nothing. This is not a great model to thrive on if you spend years of your life acquiring knowledge and turning it into products that nobody ultimately buys. 
I have very personal experience with free. I’ve created and sold digital products and ran many pricing experiments myself. The highest priced products usually generated the most revenue. Surprise! The middle cost product (same product, just priced less) decimated the revenue stream. When set to 0 (even with a suggested minimum price), I generated almost no revenue at all.

None of this is surprising. Pricing acts as a psychological anchor. “You get what you pay for” is ingrained in our brains whether we think about it or not.

People are clueless

The issue with price is that most people don’t have a clue what anything is worth. The only time people have any rough idea of what they should pay for something is when they have already purchased that thing in the past. But, introduce something they have never before purchased and they won’t have a single clue about what to pay. Take for example a set of professional photos of you and your family. Unless you’ve been to a photo studio in the last 5 years, you probably won’t have a single clue what that package of photos is worth. Does that mean the product is worthless? Of course not, but people don’t know what to pay.

In a value for value model, the absence of price makes it super difficult to determine the value of anything. You may take some social cues from previous payments from other people, but this could backfire for the content creator.

Suppose I created a UI framework that saved developers hundreds of hours. In theory, I should be able to charge at least a few hours’ worth of value for this product. If the developer’s time is valued at $100/hour, a $200 price for a product that saves you $2000 worth of time seems very justifiable. Not only do you get to use it once, but you can re-use the product for ALL future projects and employment.

Now, remove the price and see what people pay. Absolutely nothing. You may have a few people who pay $200 voluntarily, but it’s highly unlikely The vast majority will pay nothing, and some may “tip” in the 5-$60 range. Anything that approaches a $100 mark is seen as a purchase. Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just see what other founders have figured out long ago and combine with my own observations. Don’t kill the messenger.

Free is Expensive

If I am accurate in my assessment and recall my personal experiences accurately, then the majority of people who consume your value will do so for free. When that content is a product, you may end up spending a lot of time on supporting the thing that is not generating any revenue. You don’t want to be rude and ignore people so you’ll probably spend your valuable time answering questions and helping them troubleshoot issues. All of that time adds up. Startup founders who offer free tiers or near free tiers of services learn very quickly that free customers are the most painful and demanding. You are basically forced to charge just to avoid dealing with demanding people who expect everything for nothing.

Free is Noise

Price is not just a request for value, but it acts as a feedback signal for future content. If you have no idea what people are paying for, it’s difficult to know if what you create is worth anything. A situation where the vast majority of your content is consumed for free yield a lot of noise.

Well, why not focus on the people who pay? You certainly could, but it ends up being a tiny fraction of the sample size you could have had if you actually charged something up front.

Lack of forecasting

Businesses rely on predictible revenue. Forecasting is necessary for all sorts of decisions if you work with anyone but yourself. It helps with purchasing decision (expenses) and with planning of future products. Value for value makes it impossible to know what your revenue will be next month as you just have no idea if everyone pays nothing or a lot.

V4V could make you uncompetitive

In a model where one person charges a fixed price and the other is relying on the good will of the people to "see the value" in their work, the person with predictible revenue will most likely win out in a competitive environment - enabling them to get ahead of you and your business. They will have an easier time planning further content / products and hiring people to scale the business even further.

It’s not all hopeless

That’s not to say that I don’t like the idea of value for value. Of course I only want people to pay if they find the thing useful. The issue is that people may not know the thing is useful until they’ve already acquired it. At that point who is going back to pay for the thing they already got for free? Few to none.

Value for value may work. For some.

I’m not saying value for value doesn’t work sometimes, for some people. It is entirely possible that a person earns a living on v4v transactions. However, I think for that to be true there may be other factors at play such as social standing, personal brand, influence, likability, status within a community. The vast majority of creators do not fall into this category and will just struggle.

I’m cautiously optimistic about V4V and hope it works out at scale. But as it stands, I have not seen much evidence that it actually pays the bills. Yes, there has been some support for podcasts on Fountain, but it is unclear whether it is just as or more significant than traditional transaction model.

“Information is not scarce” is irrelevant

There’s some notion that information yearns to be free and cannot be scarce by nature. I think this may be a false argument from the start. When we purchase digital things, we are not paying for scarcity - it’s totally irrelevant. We pay for the experience and the feeling we get from that thing. In fact, the same is probably true for physical products (with the added benefit of personal sustenance). I don’t go into the grocery store to buy a dinner and fork over the money because it’s scarce. I pay because I’m hungry. There’s utility and there’s pleasure and fulfillment. If I’m having a dinner with friends, there’s also fun. Unless I am totally misunderstanding the argument, I’m not sure how it applies.

In Summary

• Value 4 value may work at scale, but remains to be seen
• It could be great fun money but not serious enough to pay the bills (for most of us)
• Sounds good on paper but we humans have our own ways of thinking about value and what it's worth
• May work well for people who build a personal brand or have status in a community

As always I look forward to your thoughts. Let me know if I’m overlooking something or should consider some point of view in more depth.

@ 3129509e:c846f506

KILL DAMUS HELLTHREADS

As a user, I want to be able to "Mute Conversation" and not see any reactions, reposts, and/or replies to that conversation. I'd like the option to apply this mute to either the OP or to the note that I'm accessing the "Mute Conversation" feature from. This should apply to my "Notes", "Notes and Replies" and "Notification" feeds. I should have a list of muted conversations similar to my list of muted npubs.

Expires Block 806,000

@ 15d8956b:a57be6bf

Test krub edit dai mai

@ 92294577:49af776d

Growing evidence suggests, however, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach but rather many complementary protocols, each addressing different problems and catering to specific use cases and markets.

In this edition of Layer-2 Roundup, we look at some of these second-layer protocols in detail. Among other things, we will explore their interoperability (or lack thereof) and the projects using these solutions to promote mass adoption. We will also look at some of the various growing pains experienced so far, as seen recently as a result of May’s high-fee market environment.

Choosing the Right Tool for the Job

Each second layer addresses a unique set of limitations inherent in the mainchain, such as the lack of high transaction throughput, privacy, or the ability to issue assets. For example, if you want to send a friend a small amount of sats and value affordability and speed, Lightning is likely the best option. Whereas if you are a financial institution wanting to issue an asset like a bond or digital security, it makes more sense to use Liquid.

https://cdn.nostr.build/i/5fdbca0ff4cd19d5cccd049387d495812a91b45fafd5e9a4c899eb7478611378.png

There are also varying tradeoffs when using each solution that may affect a user’s decision to opt in, like Lightning’s liquidity constraints or the trust requirements (albeit distributed) seen with federated models, such as Liquid and Fedimint. As creator Burak has openly shared, even the newest addition to the layer-2 landscape, Ark, has tradeoffs with the mainchain and other L2s.

Like the old analogy of 'choosing the right tool for the job,' in a hyperbitcoinized world, users can expect to have a toolkit of L2s at their disposal, with different capabilities and tradeoffs.

Increasing Interoperability

Often overlooked is the importance of interoperability between not only the second-layer protocol and Bitcoin but the layer-2 protocols themselves. A second layer, where end-users can leverage several protocols together and move seamlessly between them, creates a healthier, more resilient financial system and an overall better user experience—both essential for mass adoption. For example, by running Lightning on top of Liquid, users gain greater privacy, additional liquidity, and cheaper fees (and much more, as we will explore later).

While both Liquid and Lightning networks operate independently, they are complementary and interoperable, offering a secure, alternative method to stacking sats or a more cost-effective option to Lightning channel rebalancing, especially when fees are high on the mainchain.

Elements, the open-source codebase that Liquid is built on, is designed to be as close to parity with Bitcoin Core as possible. This not only offers some nice security guarantees (since any bug fix or performance improvement upstream in Bitcoin can be merged into Elements) but also greater interoperability with other L2s, given that its design functions very similarly to Bitcoin.

Connecting the Second Layer with Lightning

The basis of Lightning is its network of payment channels, which are fundamentally made possible through Bitcoin's Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs) in conjunction with Lightning's Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs). The UTXO model allows certain script conditions, and hash puzzles and time constraints to be encoded in the transaction for payment to be securely routed across Lightning.

One of the many design features that Liquid inherits from Bitcoin is its UTXO model. This compatibility allows Lightning's HTLCs to function with Liquid Bitcoin (L-BTC) in a manner similar to how they function with Bitcoin, enabling the payment network to operate on top of Liquid. Note that this Lightning Network on Liquid would run as a separate network but with all the advantages of Liquid as its underlying chain (e.g., Confidential Transactions and deterministic blocks). You could even bridge the two networks if you ran both—one on top of Bitcoin, the other on Liquid—for greater cross-platform compatibility. The payments remain end-to-end secure since both use the HTLC construction. The bridge, however, gets to dictate a dynamic exchange rate if the two assets being transferred are different, which is not an issue when transferring BTC and L-BTC since they are pegged.

Lightning's inherent decentralization, wide adoption, and compatibility with UTXO-based technologies could position it as the connective tissue between each L2. It could act as a primary hub for new protocols seeking to bridge to existing ones, helping to avoid the chicken-and-egg problem of adoption that has plagued new protocols in the past.

This thesis has begun to play out more recently, with several big-name exchanges adding Lightning and swap platforms incorporating Liquid with Lightning to leverage the benefits of both protocols.

Unfairly Cheap with Lightning and Liquid

In early May, on-chain Bitcoin transaction costs surged due to network congestion, resulting in the highest fees seen in nearly two years. This affected major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, and even some Lightning-compatible wallets like Muun, pricing some users out of the market entirely. This week-long episode underscored the importance of hardening scalability solutions like Lightning, which have so far relied on mainchain transactions to keep liquidity balanced. The event also raised awareness of the powerful benefits of using layer-2 technologies together, especially when fees on Bitcoin's mainchain are not only high but also volatile.

One of the new products in-market driven by this episode is the use of Liquid submarine swaps by Boltz to offer cheap Lightning channel liquidity to its users. As opening a Lightning channel requires an on-chain transaction and many users rely on the mainchain to add liquidity to their Lightning node, costs can quickly add up in high-fee conditions. By using the Liquid sidechain instead of the Bitcoin mainchain as the underlying liquidity source, users can rebalance their Lightning channels independently from the congested mainchain mempool—and do so without losing self-custody of their funds, thanks to the atomic nature of the swap.

In a high-fee scenario, users can expect upwards of 99% savings using the Liquid swap feature. Boltz intends to expand the scope of their Liquid integration by building an L-BTC <> BTC chain-to-chain atomic swap for trustless peg-outs—the first of its kind.

You can read more about Boltz's decision to add Liquid and why in their write-up here.

📺 Lightning Channel Rebalancing with Liquid Bitcoin on boltz.exchange

Another option for users is the self-hosted rebalancing protocol PeerSwap, which allows Lightning node operators to rebalance their channels with peers directly using BTC and L-BTC atomic swaps. This setup eliminates the need for a third-party coordinator for even greater savings and allows smaller nodes to better compete with larger ones. PeerSwap is currently available for both CLN and LND implementations.

The story does not end there, though. In addition to provisioning Lightning liquidity with Liquid, users turned to Lightning <> Liquid swaps to stack sats (and humbly, I might add). Many used a cheap starting point like Strike, Cash App, or some other fiat on-ramp to buy Lightning Bitcoin (LN-BTC) directly and then moved to one of the growing number of Lightning to Liquid swap services like Boltz, SideShift, or Classic CoinOs to convert to L-BTC to HODL for the mid-term. So, why would anyone HODL in L-BTC rather than LN-BTC? Unlike with Lightning, Liquid assets can be self-custodied offline in cold storage, like on a hardware device such as Jade. This setup is better for HODLing over a longer time frame—another difference to consider when deciding what layer-2 solution is best for you and your specific use case.

The Emergence of the Bitcoin Superapp

Some builders are already working on improving the Bitcoin layer-2 user experience by directly integrating swaps and multi-protocol support into their app offerings.

For example, the Blockstream Green team is in the final stages of adding Lightning capability via Greenlight, giving Bitcoiners the ability to self-custody mainchain, Liquid, and Lightning all in one app. Green, SideSwap, and the soon-to-be rereleased version of the AQUA wallet also plan to incorporate in-app Lightning <> Liquid swaps using the Boltz API.

Wallby, a newly anointed Bitcoin ‘superapp,’ supports the custody of mainchain, Liquid, and Rootstock, with further plans to add Lightning and RGB. The Wallby team is also placing emphasis on features. For instance, users can already add bitcoin and other digital assets to liquidity pools and earn interest through an automated market maker (AMM), with the ability to lend and borrow peer-to-peer and perform cross-chain swaps also on the way.

The emergence of these Bitcoin superapps and new features like in-app swaps prioritizes improving user experience, something the Bitcoin space is notoriously bad at (to the point it has become a running meme). This pivot and Lightning's maturation as a sort of lingua franca of Bitcoin will be a crucial part of the strategy for increasing layer-2 interoperability and facilitating mass adoption. Each protocol will have a unique place in the hyperbitcoinization story, ending in a second layer that is stronger than each individual protocol on its own.

@ 97c70a44:ad98e322

By an accident of history, I have been knee-deep for the last week or two in several NIPs related to encrypted DMs and group chat. The accident is my proposal for encrypted groups — which will help me turn Coracle into something approximating a replacement for Facebook, rather than Twitter.

In order to make that happen though, a few things need to happen first. I need a better way to encrypt messages without leaking metadata, and (un)fortunately I'm no cryptographer. It's well known that NIP 04 has a number of issues, and there have been several proposals to fix it since as early as October 2022. Building on that foundation would be a waste of time.

My purpose in this post is to outline the problems with NIP 04 as it stands, and sketch out for you some possible solutions applicable not only to DMs, but to other encrypted use cases.

NIP 04 Considered Harmful

It's pretty well-known that nostr DMs leak metadata. What this means is that when you send a DM to someone else, anyone can see:

• Who you are
• Who you sent a message to
• When you sent the message
• How big the message was

And, of course, vice versa. Now, I personally don't take the cyanide pill on this like some do. DMs in centralized social platforms are far less private even than this, since the platform can read them anytime they want, share them with law enforcement, and potentially leak them to the entire world. It's my opinion that if applications were designed with the above properties in mind, it would be possible to gamify DMs, making metadata leakage a feature rather than a bug. Of course, no one has designed such a thing, so maybe it's a moot point.

The much bigger problem, as I learned last week, has to do with the cryptography used in NIP 04 (and several other places, including private mute lists and app-specific data). Here's a quote from Paul Miller's very helpful explanation:

1. Unhashed ECDH exposes some curves to Cheon's attack 1, which allows an attacker to learn private key structure when doing continuous diffie-hellman operations. Hashing converts decisional oracle into a computational oracle, which is harder.
2. CBC IVs should not only be unrepeatable, they must be unpredictable. Predictable IV leads to Chosen Plaintext Attack. There are real exploits.
3. CBC with reused key has 96-bit nonces and loses 6 bits of security for every magnitude. 10**4 (10K) messages would bring archive security of the scheme to 72 bits. 72 bits is very low. For example, BTC has been doing 2^67 hashes/sec as per early 2023. Advanced adversaries have a lot of resources to break the scheme
4. CBC has continuously been exploited by Padding Oracle attack. We can't expect all implementations to have proper padding check
5. AES was modeled as ideal cipher. Ideal ciphers don't care about non-random keys. However, AES is not an ideal cipher. Having a non-IND key, as in NIP4, exposes it to all kinds of unknown attacks, and reducing security of overall scheme

There is a lot going on here, very little of which I (and likely you) understand. But the really horrifying takeaway for me is in items 1 and 3. If you read it carefully, you'll notice that the more times you use your private key to encrypt data using NIP 04's encryption scheme, the easier it is for an attacker to brute-force your key.

I want to be careful not to overstate this — I don't think this means that everyone's private key is compromised; it would require many thousands of signatures to meaningfully reduce the security of your key. But it does mean that NIP 04's days are numbered — and if we don't replace it, we have a real existential threat to the entire protocol on our hands.

So much for motivation to put NIP 04 to rest. Where do we go from here?

The lay of the land

There are a few different components to making private messages work (whether we're talking about DMs or encrypted groups).

• Encryption scheme
• Explicit metadata hiding
• Implicit metadata hiding
• Transport and deliverability
• Identity and key exchange

Each of these components needs to be solved in order to create a robust messaging system on nostr.

Encryption scheme

As mentioned above, NIP 04 is borked. Luckily, there are a few folks in the nostr dev community who know a thing or two about encryption, most notably Paul Miller. Way back in May, Paul proposed a new encryption scheme based on his implementation of XChaCha20, which is the same algorithm used by SMP (more on that below).

To move the proposal forward, I created a different PR with some edits and adjustments, which is very near to being merged. The implementation already exists in nostr-tools, and there are PRs out for nos2x and Alby as well.

Explicit metadata hiding

As mentioned above, normal nostr messages share lots of information publicly, even if the content is encrypted, including:

• Kind
• Created timestamp
• Tags (topics, mentions, recipients, etc)
• Message size
• Author

Private messages have to hide this information, at the very minimum.

Implicit metadata hiding

The above level of security should be enough for most use cases. But it definitely doesn't get us to total secrecy yet. Some additional metadata includes:

• Client fingerprinting
• Relay selection for publishing and queries
• IP address collection
• First seen timestamp
• Identification of users by AUTH
• Correlation of the event with other messages sent/received during a session

These issues are much harder to solve, because they are part of the process of delivering the message, rather than just constructing it. These issues can be mitigated to some extent by using TOR, proxying connections with relays, using short-lived connections, randomizing publish time, and careful selection of trusted relays. But all of these are only techniques to reduce exposure, and require a prescriptive protocol to wrap them all up into a cohesive whole.

Transport and deliverability

In my view, the key feature of nostr that makes it work is relays. Relays provide storage redundancy and heterogeneity of purpose with a common interface shared by all instances. This is great for censorship resistance, but everything comes with a tradeoff.

Publishing notes is sort of like hiding easter eggs. If you want a kid to be able to find an egg, you have to put it somewhere they'll look for it. Putting an egg on the roof does not constitute "hiding" it, at least in a way consistent with the spirit of the game.

Historically, notes have been broadcast to whatever relays the user or client selects, without regard with someone else's preferences, resulting in apparently missing notes when author and recipient don't share a relay.

This problem has been partly solved by NIP 65, which encourages clients to publish notes where the recipient will look for them. There is some guesswork involved in selecting good relays, but the process is fairly straightforward for direct messages and group chats.

The situation can be improved further by DM-specific signaling, like what @fiatjaf has suggested as an addition to NIP 65. A user could then run his own relay that accepts messages from anyone, but only serves messages to himself. This would be the only relay well-behaved clients would ever write encrypted messages to, improving both privacy and deliverability.

Variants of this could also work for encrypted groups. For small groups, the same relay hints could be used as with DMs, and for larger groups with key sharing the admin could set up a dedicated relay for the group which members would write to.

This also creates a potential affordance for querying of encrypted events. If a relay is highly trusted, it could be added as a member to an encrypted group, gaining the ability to decrypt events. It could then receive REQ messages for those events, filter based on the encrypted content, and serve the encrypted version. This could greatly improve performance for larger groups where downloading all events isn't feasible.

Identity and key exchange

One dimension of privacy that deserves its own section is identity and key exchange. In nostr, this is simpler than in other protocols because in nostr your pubkey is your username. Arguably, this is a flaw that will need to be solved at some point, but for now it means that we get to skip a lot of the complexity involved with binding a name to a key.

However, the problem is still relevant, because one effective way to improve privacy is through key exchange. In the case of DMs, it would be nice to be able to request an alias key from someone you want to communicate with in order to hide the only piece of metadata that has to remain on a message in order to deliver it, that is, the recipient.

There's a lot of good stuff about this problem in the Messaging Layer Security protocol. The author of 0xChat has also put together a draft spec for executing simple key exchange, albeit with less information hiding than in the MLS protocol.

Key exchange between individual users can be considered an optional privacy enhancement, but is required for group chat based on a shared key. In either case, exchanging keys is fairly straightforward — the real challenge is achieving forward secrecy.

By default, if at any point a user's private key is compromised, any messages that were retained by an attacker can then be decrypted. This is a major vulnerability, and solving it requires key exchange messages to be reliably discarded.

What's cooking

So that's an overview of the problems that need to be solved for private DMs and group chats. Not all of these problems will be solved right away, just because the bar for creating a decentralized encrypted chat system on par (or better than) Signal is the kind of thing you get venture capital for.

So the question becomes, should we build a sub-par messaging system that is tightly integrated with nostr, or refer users to a better option for encrypted communication?

Well, why did Twitter create its own DM solution rather than integrating email? Was it to harvest user data, or to provide additional utility to their users by allowing the social graph to inform messaging? Native features simply create a better UX.

On the other hand, in Paul Miller's words:

I would like to remind that nostr DMs, if nostr gets a traction, would be used by all kinds of people, including dissidents in dangerous places. Would you be willing to risk someone getting killed just because you want to keep backwards compatibility with bad encryption?

There is no easy answer, but it's clear that as we continue to work on this problem it is very important that applications communicate clearly the privacy implications of all "private" features built on nostr.

So, assuming we can pull off an appropriate balance between privacy and convenience, let me outline three new developments in this area that I'm excited about.

Gift wrap

Way back in April, Kieran proposed a dumb, but effective, way of hiding metadata on DMs. The technique involved simply encrypting a regular nostr event and putting that in another event's content field. The neat thing about this is that not only does this hide some of the most revealing event metadata, it's not tied to a particular event kind — anything can be wrapped.

What this means is that we can build entire "nostr within nostr" sub-networks based on encryption — some between two users, others based on a shared group key. This is much more powerful than a messaging-specific encryption schema. Now we can make private reactions, private calendars, private client recommendations, private reviews. I find this very exciting!

This proposal was further developed by Vitor — the current version can be found here. The latest version introduces double-wrapping, which can help prevent the wrapped event from being leaked by stripping its signature — that "draft" event is encrypted, wrapped, and signed to verify authorship without revealing contents, and then that wrapper is in turn wrapped and signed with a burner key to avoid revealing the author.

Wrapping also makes it possible to randomize the created timestamp to avoid timing analysis, as well as to add padding to a message, reducing the possibility of payload size analysis.

New DMs and small groups

The main subject of Vitor's proposal was a new way to do DMs and small groups using double-wrapping to hide metadata. This works basically the same way NIP 04 did — a shared key is derived and the message is encrypted for the recipient, whose pubkey is revealed publicly so that it can be delivered.

However, Vitor was able to extend this to multiple recipients simply by wrapping the message multiple times, with multiple shared secrets. With the addition of some metadata on the inner event, this makes it possible to define a group where the members know who each other member is, but no one else does.

Large groups

This proposal has one important limitation though — the number of events that need to be signed and broadcast is equal to number of messages * number of members. This is fine with 5, 10, or even 100 members, but becomes infeasible when you reach groups of 1000+ members.

For that, we have two similar proposals, one by @simulx, and one by myself. The differences between the two are not important for this discussion — both use gift wrap as a way to exchange and rotate shared group keys, and both support a weak form of forward secrecy.

As a side note, this is the proposal I'm most excited about, and why I got into nostr in the first place. Private community groups which can support shared calendars, marketplaces, notes, etc., are what I'm most excited to see on nostr.

Shortcomings

The above proposals are great, but of course leave much to be desired. If these are built, nostr will be hugely improved in both security and functionality, with the following weaknesses:

• Deliverability is still an open question — are relay selections enough to ensure recipients get their messages, and no one else does?
• There is no way to create a group whose members cannot dox each other. You must always be able to trust the people you share a group with, and of course, the larger the group, the more people there are that can betray you.
• Content can always be shared outside a group, although in Vitor's small group proposal, the only way to verifiably leak messages would be to reveal your private key.
• Key rotation is not supported by the small groups proposal, but it may be possible to solve it for the entire protocol by building out a name resolution system for nostr.
• Forward secrecy for large groups is weak at best. A key rotation can be triggered at any time, including when a member leaves the group, but unless all relays and all members destroy the key rotation events, it may be possible to decrypt messages after the fact.
• Credential sharing still has to be bootstrapped, meaning at least one encrypted message for each participant may be publicly seen. Of course, credential sharing could also be done out of band, which would largely solve this problem.

What about SimpleX?

Lots of people, including Semisol and Will, have expressed interest in integrating nostr with SimpleX and using their cryptography and transport instead of nostr's.

The first question to answer though, is which protocol should we use? SimpleX is split into a few different pieces: there's the SimpleX Messaging Protocol, which describes setting up unidirectional channels, the SMP Agent Protocol which describes how to convert two unidirectional channels into a bidirectional channel, and the SimpleX Chat Protocol which describes a standard way to send chat messages across a bidirectional channel.

SimpleX Chat Protocol

So far, most proposals to fix messaging have focused simply on DMs, and sometimes on group chat. This is SimpleX's wheelhouse, so it could definitely make sense to communicate that kind of information over SimpleX's top-level chat protocol, and leave nostr out of it entirely.

The downside of this is that it requires clients to support two different protocols, and connect users to two categories of servers. This isn't a deal breaker, but it does increase the complexity involved in writing a full-featured nostr client, especially since there are no implementations of the SimpleX protocol other than (17k lines of) Haskell.

Using SimpleX's chat protocol would also limit the message types we'd be able to encrypt. Anything outside SimpleX's protocol (like zaps for example) would have to be sent using a custom namespace like nostr.kind.1234, which wouldn't be recognized by normal SimpleX clients. There are also areas of overlap where both protocols describe how to do something, for example profile data, requiring clients to choose which kind to support, or send both.

Another wrinkle is that the SimpleX protocol is AGPL v3 licensed, meaning proprietary software would not be able to interoperate, and MIT licensed products would have to abide by their license's terms.

SMP and Agent Protocols

The lower-level SMP and Agent protocols are more promising however, since their scope is narrower, and doesn't overlap as much with nostr's own core competencies. Both are quite simple, and very prescriptive, which should make it easy to create an implementation.

SMP is actually quite similar to some of the proposals mentioned above. Some of the same primitives are used (including XChaCha20 for encryption), and SMP is transport agnostic meaning it could be implemented over websockets and supported by nostr relays. The network topology is basically the same as nostr, except SimpleX doesn't make any assumptions about which servers should be selected, so in that regard nostr actually has an advantage.

The main incompatibility is that SimpleX requires the use of ed25519 and ed448 EdDSA algorithms for signatures, which means nostr's native secp256k1 signature scheme wouldn't be compatible. But this could be ok, since keys shouldn't be re-used anyway, and there are other ways to share a nostr identity.

Forward secrecy?

Whenever a server is involved, several attack vectors inherently exist that would not in peer-to-peer systems. Servers can threaten user privacy by storing messages that should be deleted, analyzing user behavior to infer identity, and leaking messages that should otherwise be kept secret.

This has been used by some to suggest that nostr relays are not a good way to transport messages from one user to another. However, SMP has the same attack vector:

Simplex messaging server implementations MUST NOT create, store or send to any other servers: - Logs of the client commands and transport connections in the production environment. - History of deleted queues, retrieved or acknowledged messages (deleted queues MAY be stored temporarily as part of the queue persistence implementation). - Snapshots of the database they use to store queues and messages (instead simplex messaging clients must manage redundancy by using more than one simplex messaging server). In-memory persistence is recommended. - Any other information that may compromise privacy or forward secrecy of communication between clients using simplex messaging servers.

So whether SimpleX servers or nostr relays are used, privacy guarantees are severely weakened if the server is not trustworthy. To maintain complete privacy in either scheme, users have to deploy their own servers.

Relays to the rescue

Because nostr servers are currently more commonly self-hosted, and more configurable, this makes nostr the better candidate for channel hosting. Users can choose which relays they send messages to, and relay admins can tune relays to only accept messages from and serve messages to certain parties, delete messages after a certain time, and implement policies for what kinds of messages they decide to relay.

All that to say, SMP itself or a similar protocol could easily be built into nostr relays. Relays are not the wrong tool for the job, in fact they're exactly the right tool! This is great news for us, since it means SMP is applicable to our problem, and we can learn from it, even if we don't strictly implement the protocol.

Bootstrapping over nostr

One assumption SMP makes is that channels will be bootstrapped out of band, and provides no mechanism for an initial connection. This is to ensure that channels can't be correlated with user identities. Out of band coordination is definitely the gold standard here, but coordination could also be done over the public nostr network with minimal metadata leakage — only that "someone sent {pubkey} something".

Unidirectional channels

Unidirectional channels are a great primitive, which can be composed to solve various problems. Direct messages between two parties are an obvious use case, but the SimpleX Chat Protocol also includes an extension for groups, defined as a set of bi-directional SimpleX connections with other group members.

This is similar to Vitor's small-group model, and likewise isn't conducive to supporting very large groups, since a copy of every message has to be sent to each group member.

However, it's possible to build large groups on top of unidirectional channels by sharing receiver information within the group and having all participants read from and write to a single channel. In fact, this is very similar to how our large group proposals work.

Conclusion

So, the takeaway here is that SimpleX's lower level protocols are great, and we should learn from them. It may be worth creating a NIP that describes the implementation of their unidirectional channels on nostr, and re-using that primitive in DM/group implementations, or simply following the same general process adapted to nostr.

I'm personally encouraged by reading SimpleX to see that we are headed in the right direction — although many of the details of our proposals have not been fully hammered out in the way SimpleX's has.

As for what the future holds, that's up to the builders. If you want to see tighter SimpleX integration, write a NIP and a reference implementation! I'll continue learning and fold in everything I can into my work going forward.

@ cb4a6579:54438e39

Some of the largest wallets have been exerting a lot of selling pressure on Arbitrum (ARB), an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution.

The two whales kept a sum of 7.44 million ARB tokens worth roughly $6.31 million on driving cryptographic money trade Binance, notwithstanding the symbolic cost dropping over 8% as of now.

One of the whales, distinguished by the location 0xe9728, kept 3.8 million ARB tokens on Binance, adding up to $3.26 million, at a typical cost of $0.86. This whale additionally gathered 1,812 ETH from Binance during a similar time span, worth $2.94 million, at a typical cost of $1,621, and reasonable sold ARB for ETH through Binance.

This whale currently possesses 13.78 million ARB tokens worth $11.5 million, as indicated by the data. Be that as it may, the whale has lost an expected all out of $7.02 million from ARB as it aggregated 17.6 million ARB tokens worth $21.83 million from Gate.io and Binance at a typical cost of $1.24 in only two days on April 4 and 5, 2023.

Another whale saving ARB tokens on Binance is Wintermute Exchanging, a market producer and liquidity supplier for computerized resources. In the last eight hours, Wintermute Trading has deposited $3.36 million worth of ARB tokens on Binance. At the moment, Wintermute Trading owns 36 million ARB tokens, each worth $27.7 million.

A third whale in Aave, who has been long on ARB for quite a while, is likewise offering ARB to take care of its obligation. This whale has deposited 3.8 million ARB tokens worth $2.93 million into Binance and withdrawn 5 million ARB tokens worth $3.85 million from Aave in the last five hours.

This whale currently possesses $8 million worth of ARB tokens.

The impact of the sales caused the Arbitrum price to suddenly fall today. At the time this article was written, it was trading at $ 0.76, down 8.60% throughout the day.

support author on : https://en.bitcoinsistemi.com/author/mete/

@ 9be0be0e:c3cbb81e

Enable the freedom to communicate.

Reach should be the result of how many people want or don’t want to listen to your message, there is no reason for a third party or algorithm to be required in this equation.

You should be in control of what you can or cannot see. Who you block should be up to you.

Ideally Nostur tries to reduce the need to require or trust any third party in order to communicate, unless there is no other way.

BUT

Nostur is built for iPhone, iPad and Mac users. In one way this is a limitation, (e.g., zap restrictions by Apple) but if we are using the Apple ecosystem already, we might as well use it to our advantage.

Nostur's target audience already trusts Apple with their data, their messages, photos, calendar, reminders, security cameras, etc.

We don’t need to store our data on random relays, and hope our contact list doesn’t get lost, or leak metadata to the public. We can store everything on our device, and sync using iCloud, it is reliable, and we already use it for far more important data anyway. Converting Apple users to Android or GrapheneOS is an uphill battle, I applaud people who take that route, but it’s not for Nostur users, we have people saying don't trust the media, don't use twitter, don't use iPhone, if we keep going, we end up sending smoke signals in a circle. As for interoperability, we can still publish or export using nostr native formats so you can use your data in another nostr app.

Nostur will publish to relays, but our data is on our device first, iCloud second, and third-party relays third. And you can still use a personal private relay for yourself if you want.

With this in mind, Nostur tries to let relays just be relays, not personal storage. Using relays for storage might end up centralising nostr, in the same way email, which used to be decentralised, is now mostly hosted by google and microsoft.

If you disagree with this mission or direction, Nostur's source is released under GPL-3.0 license, so feel free to fork and create a different version.

Ultimately, the goal of Nostur is not to get more people to use Nostur, but to get more people to use nostr.

@ 5ec98673:3ef3cfb1

Notes from today's Fedimint dev call. Jotted down while listening in.

TAB Conf demos kicked off. Release candidate 4 was used to setup a fedimint about a dozen times with different configurations. Once 0.1 releases, docs from this evolution will be released.

Ben Carman made Mutimint - Mutiny is now an ecash wallet. 1/1 federation as an example.

FEDIMINT v0.1 RELEASING TODAY!!

Fixing a blocking RPC call during DKG.

Discussion around config encoding and surfacing the information via the API. Discussed creating a CLI command to view the client config. Additional discussions around adding and editing metadata during initial setup of a fedimint, but still cannot update a running fedimint. There's some complications with hashing over JSON vs strings on the Rust side of the house that makes some of the config work tricky.

There was discussion around adding some data around Guardians information so clients can query and know "who" the Guardians are.

Can add meta fields of fedimintd using ENV VARS.

Docker tags now part of CI/CD.

Releases will be in a branch and tags will be made off that branch. This allows for backporting to the branch any changes that are relevant.

Devimint in a docker container! Discussing around running the UI for different users.

Investigation into running tests on android/iOS simulators was discussed.

GitHub actions won't run on forked version of Fedimint.

Fedimint dev-tools container available on docker hub.

Added a shortcut command/alias to dump database for specific server in the regtest dev setup.

Fedimint gateway integration with LSP by adhering to LSP spec.

LDK dependencies were updated by the Mutiny team (benthecarman) to resolve an issue seen during TABConf hackathon.

CLN update to v23.08 is causing some CI failures but otherwise ready for merge.

DB compaction of outstanding LN contracts now make the audit summary way more performant.

Gateway web server now is long-lived so config and other things can be managed without tearing it down. Updating fees or gateway password can then be updated.

Version of consensus on master branch is u32::MAX to hopefully indicate that it should not be used. This is updated in release branches.

A couple of "good first issues" were labeled involving surfacing available modules via CLI.

A GH discussion will be started around how Cashu encodes mint information into a token so once exchanged, a user can know where to redeem said ecash.

@ d5d25ac9:65ea8ded

📝 Summary: [TEST-J] An extension to BOLT-11 is proposed for invoices to contain two bundled payments for non-custodial exchanges. Boltz is distributing a submarine swap client separate from the user's lightning wallet, enabling competition and increasing potential user base. However, dedicated logic is required for a trust-minimized swap. 👥 Authors: • Olaoluwa Osuntokun ( nostr:npub1p032kpesmmlcwqcexuglqwxug3flxa2ayuhdd8utpw896k7x99gs37dh8h ) • Thomas Voegtlin ( nostr:npub1ghyhf8fhfkysttrhqkq3cjr4c4jaf70ug8chcczh88lpptx26ggs785w2q ) 📅 Messages Date Range: 2023-06-13 to 2023-06-15 ✉️ Message Count: 3 📚 Total Characters in Messages: 17494

@ 20986fb8:cdac21b3

背景

随着Web3技术的兴起，科学研究在数据共享、合作和透明度方面将迎来前所未有的改善。同时，人工智能在数据分析、模型预测等领域的应用，将极大地推动科学研究的发展。通过举办Web3、AI与创作者Hackathon，我们旨在激发科研者、开发者和创作者的思考，探讨如何借助Web3和AI技术，优化科学研究，进而促进科学的不断前进。

参与人员

Web3、区块链、元宇宙、人工智能等前沿领域的研究者、创作者、爱好者等。

时间&地址

8月19日下午14:30-17:30 地址： 北京、澳门、新加坡

活动细则

创意主题

主题 1: AI4S—人工智能技术为科学研究创造新的可能性 主题 2: DeSci-DeSci、CeSci与NeSci 主题 3: 期刊生态—以Web3和AI为代表的智能技术，对科学期刊体系的创新 主题 4: 科学热点—科学热点话题分析、捕捉、创作

比赛规则

任选一个主题，并在限定时间内完成与该主题相关内容创作，创作形式不限于长文（500字起）、视频、图片、漫画等单一或组合形式； 成功发布在 yakihonne.com 平台; 添加基于闪电网络的Zap⚡打赏功能; 等待社区和评委投票 资金匹配，发放Hackathon奖金

评选规则

评选机制： 1. 基于现场评委测评，评选出最佳创作奖、最佳表现奖和最佳创意奖，每项奖金10万SATs 最佳创作奖：奖励在内容深度、专业度方面最出色的作品 最佳表现奖：奖励在文本展现形式、风格方面最具有表现力的作品 最具想象力奖：奖励在切入角度、创作视角方面最具想象力的作品 2. 基于社区投票，按照该作品的upvote（点赞）数占所有作品总upvote数的比例，瓜分40万SATs人气奖金池 另外，所有参与者均可获得小额Sats参与奖 以上所有奖励，会通过yakihonne.com独家的Zap⚡打赏功能奖励至每个获胜者的作品

小贴士

1. 需要携带个人电脑💻；
2. 允许提前收集需要创作的素材资料。但不允许在比赛现场的直接内容复制粘贴，否则视为弃权；
3. ChatGPT可以作为现场创意协助生产工具，但不能直接用来生成最终的发布内容，否则视为违规不予评选；
4. 创作者可以选择任何有趣且有价值的视角或形式来创作内容。

问&答

1. 我必须是资深科研人员才可以参与么?

• 不一定. 我们鼓励并欢迎所有对Desci，Web3、区块链、元宇宙、人工智能等前沿领域感兴趣的科研人员，学者，爱好者，开发者，建设者等创作群体加入比赛。

2. 评审组是谁，评选结果有说服力么? - 为了增加比赛评审机制的公平性及多样性，Yakihonne采用社区投票+评委投票。除了专业评审团的投票，我们也会结合每个作品在社区里的Up Vote数来综合打分。

3. 获胜奖金什么时候发放? - 奖金会在比赛结束后的2个工作日内发放

4. 我需要提前准备什么？ - 选择一个您感兴趣的主题，准备相应的创作素材，会更有助于您获胜.

5. YakiHonne 承办这次活动的目的是什么? - YakiHonne 是一个基于Nostr的去中心化内容媒体协议，支持各类创作者的自由策展、创作、发布和报道. 我们将长期支持研究人员在全球范围内展开创作和交流。

如何设置新账号

简单来说，只需要在登录页面点击生成新密钥即可，记得保存好你的公钥和私钥。

但安全起见，同时也为了可以接收到打赏，建议设置闪电网络钱包并用该钱包登陆：

• 在浏览器中安装钱包拓展（例如，Alby），并在yakihonne.com登陆页面生成公钥和私钥；
• 跟随下面视频中的步骤完成设置，即可安全地使用并接收打赏了：

---

关于YakiHonne：

YakiHonne 是一个去中心化内容媒体协议，支持各种媒体的自由策展、创作、发布和报道。 点击尝试 YakiHonne.com！

关注我们

• 社区： http://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured
• 推特： @YakiHonne
• Nostr 公钥： npub1yzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesnxrf8q

@ e9dc3ce5:1e672715

แท้จริงแล้วสรรพสิ่งในโลกหล้าเพียงแค่เป็นเช่นนั้นไปตามครรลองของมัน

สภาวะของสิ่งต่าง ๆ นั้นไม่ได้มี "ความเป็นปัญหา" เป็นคุณสมบัติในตัวมันเอง

ปัญหาจะเกิดขึ้น เฉพาะเมื่อ ใครสักคนหนึ่ง เกิดไม่พึงใจในสภาวะของบางสิ่ง ต้องการให้สภาวะนั้นเปลี่ยนแปลงไปตามความใคร่ปรารถนาของตน

สภาวะเดียวกันนั้น ผู้หนึ่งรับรู้แล้วพึงใจก็ไม่ใช่ปัญหาของเขา อีกผู้หนึ่งรับรู้แล้วไม่พึงใจก็กลับเป็นปัญหาขึ้นมา สภาวะอย่างหนึ่งจึงสามารถเป็นปัญหาและไม่เป็นปัญหาไปพร้อม ๆ กันได้ ขึ้นกับผู้มอง

ดังนี้แล้ว ปัญหา ก็คือความไม่พึงใจส่วนตน ที่ปัจเจกบุคคลมีต่อสภาวะอย่างใดอย่างหนึ่ง เป็นเรื่องอัตวิสัย (subjective) มิใช่เรื่องวัตถุวิสัย (objective) แต่อย่างใด

ฉะนั้นจึงเป็นการยากอย่างยิ่ง ที่สภาวะใด ๆ จะถูกนิยามเป็น ปัญหาส่วนรวม เพราะนั่นหมายความว่าสภาวะนั้นจะต้องถูกมองว่าเป็นปัญหาโดยปัจเจกทุกคนที่เป็นสมาชิกของคำว่า ส่วนรวม ตามที่กล่าวอ้าง

เมื่อพิจารณาสภาวะใดสภาวะหนึ่ง สำหรับผู้ที่พึงใจในสภาวะนั้น ในใจของเขาก็ปราศจากปัญหาที่ต้องได้รับการแก้ไข เขาจึงปล่อยให้สภาวะนั้นเป็นไปเช่นเดิม ก็นับว่าสมเหตุสมผล

ส่วนสำหรับผู้ไม่พึงใจในสภาวะนั้น ในใจของเขาก็มีปัญหาที่ต้องได้รับการแก้ไข จึงเป็นหน้าที่ของเขาที่จะลงมือเปลี่ยนแปลงสภาวะนั้น เพื่อบรรลุความปรารถนาส่วนตน นี่ก็นับว่าสมเหตุสมผล

ทว่าการลงมือเปลี่ยนแปลงสภาวะใด ๆ นั้นต้องใช้ ทรัพยากร ไม่ว่าจะในรูปของกำลัง รูปของเวลา หรือรูปของเงิน

น่าเศร้าที่ไม่ใช่สำหรับทุกปัญหาในใจของทุกคนจะสามารถถูกแก้ไขได้ ด้วยข้อจำกัดของทรัพยากรนี้เอง

• หากเขามีทรัพยากรไม่เพียงพอ เขาก็ไม่สามารถแก้ไขปัญหานั้น
• หากเขามีทรัพยากรเพียงพอ แต่มีปัญหาอื่นที่สำคัญคุ้มค่ากว่าให้แก้ไข เขาก็เลือกที่จะ(ยัง)ไม่แก้ไขปัญหานั้น
• ต่อเมื่อเขามีทรัพยากรเพียงพอ และปัญหานี้คุ้มค่าที่สุดสำหรับการใช้ทรัพยากรนั้น เขาจึงลงมือแก้ไขปัญหานั้น

แต่กระนั้นบางปัญหา ก็เกินกว่ากำลังทรัพยากรของคนเพียงคนเดียวจะสามารถแก้ไขได้ การรวมกำลังทรัพยากรจากคนจำนวนมากซึ่งมองเห็นปัญหาอย่างเดียวกันเพื่อร่วมกันแก้ไขปัญหา ก็สามารถทำได้ ผ่านการรณรงค์ ผลักดัน โน้มน้าว ให้ผู้คนมองเห็นปัญหาและวิธีการแก้ไขไปในแนวทางเดียวกัน ระดมทรัพยากรบนกำลังและความสมัครใจของปัจเจกบุคคล ดังนี้ปัญหาใหญ่ของคนจำนวนมากก็สามารถแก้ไขได้โดยทรัพยากรของคนเหล่านั้นเอง ซึ่งมีหน้าที่ที่จะต้องแก้ไขปัญหานั้น

ฉะนั้นไม่ว่าจะเป็นปัญหาเล็กหรือปัญหาใหญ่ ก็เป็นหน้าที่ของผู้ตระหนักว่าสิ่งนั้นเป็นปัญหาที่จะต้องแก้ไขปัญหานั้น ไม่ใช่หน้าที่ของคนอื่นใด

ด้วยเหตุนี้ การให้ผู้อื่นเป็นผู้กำหนดความเห็นแทนเราว่าสิ่งใดเป็นปัญหาสำหรับเรา จึงเป็นเรื่องไม่สมเหตุสมผล และการให้ผู้อื่นตัดสินใจว่าจะใช้ทรัพยากร ของเรา ไปในการใด ก็ไม่สมเหตุสมผลยิ่งกว่า

ผู้อื่นนั้น... ก็คือ รัฐ

• ตั้งแต่เมื่อไรกันที่เรายอมให้ผู้กุมอำนาจรัฐบอกเราว่าสิ่งใดบ้างที่เป็นปัญหา สิ่งใดบ้างที่ไม่เป็นปัญหา และปัญหาใดสำคัญกว่า สำหรับเราทุกคน
• ตั้งแต่เมื่อไรกันที่เรายอมให้กุมอำนาจรัฐตัดสินใจว่าปัญหาใดควรได้รับการแก้ไขอย่างไร ทั้งที่ทรัพยากรที่พวกเขาใช้นั้นคือทรัพยากรของเรา
• ตั้งแต่เมื่อไรกันที่เราถูกหลอกให้เชื่อว่ารัฐมีหน้าที่แก้ไขปัญหาแทนพวกเรา และเรามีหน้าที่ต้องกราบกรานอ้อนวอนต่อพวกเขา เพื่อโน้มน้าววิธีการที่พวกเขาใช้ทรัพยากรของเรา

---

หน้าที่ของรัฐ คืออะไรกันแน่? การแก้ปัญหาของทุกคน คือหนึ่งในนั้นหรือไม่?

แล้วคุณเริ่มคิดว่า รัฐ เป็นปัญหาสำหรับคุณหรือยัง?

Siamstr

@ c5fb6ecc:e58c38bb

https://ln.tips is a great wallet. It's an extremely easy to use, custodial Lightning wallet for the masses. Each telegram account has it's own @ln.tips LN Address, but sometimes you want to use your own domain.

In this guide I will teach you how to setup LN Address redirection with your own domain using Cloudflare's Redirection Rules.

---

Prerequisites

• A Web Domain that's has Cloudflare setup on it.
• https://ln.tips setup and ready to go.
  • Using ln.tips is optional. This guide will work with any other custodial wallet that provides you with an LN Address will work too.

Setup

Getting your destructured LN Address

ln.tips

Since ln.tips provides two LN addresses to everybody, you have two options. 1. Use your Telegram username LN address (Not Recommended) 1. This isn't recommended because anyone can see your Telegram username with this method and use it to message you. It's the best choice for anonymity from other users. 2. ex: nym@ln.tips 2. Use your anonymous LN address (Recommended) 1. This is recommended because the address is random, nobody can look this up back to your Telegram account. 2. Can be obtained by running /advanced to the bot, and finding it under "Anonymous Lightning address" 3. ex: 0x84e6b3ea699ab309@ln.tips

What option you pick doesn't matter to your next step, you're going to want to take the username portion of the address (everything before the @, like an email address) add https://ln.tips/.well-known/lnurlp/<username> username goes at the end.

The final url should look something like https://ln.tips/.well-known/lnurlp/0x84e6b3ea699ab309 (depending on the method you chose)

Other platforms

Custodial Wallets that provide you with a Lightning address work similarly to this. Apps like Wallet of Satoshi provide you with a completely random address when you sign up, so a Wallet of Satoshi destructured address would look like: https://walletofsatoshi.com/.well-known/lnurlp/LawyerCicanery69

Setting up Cloudflare Redirects

Assuming that you have Cloudflare hooked up and ready to go, you're going to want to follow a few steps. 1. Open your site on the panel 2. On the sidebar, click the dropdown arrow next to Rules 3. Click "Redirect Rules" 4. Press the button that says "Create Rule" 5. Configure your new rule 1. Give it a name. ex: "lnaddr" 2. Configure the first condition 1. Set "Field" to URI Path 2. Set "Operator" to starts with 3. Set "Value" to /.well-known/lnurlp/ 3. Configure the "then" 1. Set "Type" to Static 2. Set "URL" to your destructured Lightning address from earlier 3. Set "Status Code" to 307 4. Check "Preserve query string" 6. Click Save

All done! Now whenever someone goes to pay your new Lightning address, it should automatically redirect to your custodial wallet. Have fun!

@ 20986fb8:cdac21b3

This article original was published in nostr.com and it is shared in here for convenience and fast acces within YakiHonne client. All credit goes to https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr

Clients are the way that you access and interact with the Nostr protocol.

What's a client?

A client in Nostr is just the app that you use to access and interact with the protocol. It's like the Twitter iOS app or web app that you use to interact with Twitter's feed of tweets.

Because the Nostr protocol is very simple and flexible, different clients have approached the protocol in different ways: some try to make the experience look exactly like Twitter, others try to highlight the importance of relays to the protocol and expose that to users, and others try to use heuristics and algorithms to ensure the maximum degree of censorship-resistance without burdening users too much.

Can I switch clients?

Yes. Because a client is just a way to access the underlying data held by relays, you can switch clients or sign into as many clients as you'd like. As long as each client is looking at the same set of relays for their data, you'll see the same messages in each client.

Should I enter my private key in the client?

Generally, it's better not to enter your private key into any client. Most clients that ask for private keys do their absolute best to keep your key secure but given the nature of software, there are always breaches, exploits, and bugs that could potentially expose your private key.

Remember, your private key is your identity in Nostr, so if it is compromised you'll lose your followers and will have to start from scratch rebuilding your identity.

A few of the already existed clients

Web

• YakiHonne, YakiHonne is a censorship-resistant content media protocol, which supports free curation, creation, publishing, and reporting by various media.
• Snort, an easy-to-use client with great onboarding.
• Coracle, an experimental client that is advancing the UX and internals of social media.
• Iris, a client that throws you in instantly.

iOS

• Damus, the first Nostr client to be banned in China.
• Primal, a very fast client that relies on server-side caching.

iOS and Android

• Plebstr, a closed-source client that is beautiful, fast and smooth.
• ZBD, a custodial, hosted client for ZBD users.
• Current, a client that comes with a built-in Bitcoin wallet.

Android

• Amethyst, a client that has all the features you might imagine.
• Nozzle, a very lean client, but still a work-in-progress.

Desktop

• Gossip, a native client that tries to efficiently follow people in wherever relay they happen to be, made in Rust with egui.
• more-speech, a client that gives you a powerful global view and way of interacting with custom filtering based on web-of-trust and relay selection, made in Clojure. Check out a guide here.
• Lume, an ambitious client made with Tauri.

What are relays ?

Relays are like the backend servers for Nostr. They allow Nostr clients to send them messages, and they may (or may not) store those messages and broadcast those messages to all other connected clients.

The world of relays is changing fast so expect many changes here in the future. One thing to note, because Nostr is decentralized and depends on relays to store and retreive data, if you notice that your Nostr client feels slow, it's most likely due to the relays that you're using. It might be worth adding a few more relays to your client.

Where can I find a list of relays?

The best resource we've found for browsing and assessing the speed of known relays is the nostr.watch site.

What happens if all the relays I use stop working?

If all the relays that you have used in the past go offline, all your posts will be unretrievable. This is one reason that Nostr allows users to connect to many relays – this ensures some degree of backup. That said, if you're really interested in being uncensorable, you can run your own personal relay.

Should i run my own relay?

For most people, no, it's not worth the hassle. That said, if you're technical and want to ensure that your speech is absolutely uncensorable, then you can and should run your own relay. This ensures that you always have a copy of all your Nostr posts and interactions for all time. Here is a guide from Andre Neves for hosting your own relay under 5 minutes

How can someone find me in a personal or obscure relay?

You should be able to hint where you are publishing to to people that may be interested by using the NIP-19 nprofile code or the NIP-05 "relays" field.

If you manage to (and your client helps) you can publish a list of the relays you use to multiple other relays that you don't, so others can find that list and start following you were you are.

Finally, clients from others should include relay hints in events that mention or reply to you, the hints should point to where your notes can be found, so that can give clients a clue.

What public relays exist?

The nostr.watch website keeps a very complete list that has a bunch of information about each relay, not only their address.

How to contribute?

Here are some ways you can contribute to the success of Nostr:

1. Contribute to your favorite client, try to come up with approaches that both make Nostr fun and useful and also promote decentralization and ultra-interoperability
2. Start a new client if you think you have new approaches and ideas to contribute that wouldn't fit in an existing app
3. Check out https://bountsr.com/ for things that might interest you
4. Use Nostr, think about it, and let others know what you have seen in this crazy new idea that has captured your imagination
5. Give feedback to client authors, but patiently
6. Create or contribute to bounties on https://bountsr.com/
7. Give money to people that are doing things you think are good
8. Write explainers and curated resources, put them online so they can help others
9. Check how your skills can help Nostr software or the mission of spreading the Nostr world, partner with others that may be searching for that
10. If you have a good, concrete, real-world use case for Nostr that you want to use yourself and others might want to, bring it up and it's likely that someone else will be interested in building it
11. Annoy content creators, people banned from social media and other personalities that you follow that you think may be interested in Nostr until they look at it

@ c7063ccd:e2c8aabd

From the inception of the Current App, our primary mission has been to empower creators, allowing them to utilize their creativity to the utmost and monetize their work without the constraints posed by big tech companies. To achieve this, we integrated the resilient Nostr protocol into the Current App and incorporated the lightning wallet for content monetization.

Lately, generative AI has been making waves, producing breathtaking images that have left many in awe. Recognizing this trend, it was only fitting that we started to integrate generative AI tools into the Current App. In our pursuit of developing superior image generation AI, we've adhered to the Nostr Improvement Proposal NIP-90, also known as DVM (Data Vending Machines). This approach allows developers to craft their AI generation tools, offering Current users a buffet of options to pick and choose the best tools to suit their needs. We are at the beginning of a promising journey, and this release marks our first significant stride.

Users of Current can now dive in and craft their unique generative art simply by inputting text. Once the AI generates the image, it can be seamlessly incorporated into a post or even shared across different social media platforms.

But that's not all! We've introduced several enhancements in this release, starting with a comprehensive overhaul of the home feed display and a refined presentation of post threads.

Changelog for v0.1.3-Alajuela:

Home feed: Experience a redesigned home feed layout that offers more room for content.

Threads: Our revamped comments feature offers improved interactivity. Drag a comment downwards to view its context.

Images: Posts with images now gain prominence on the home feed with maximized display. Enjoy features like zooming in and out, and effortlessly save images for later.

Image Generation DVM: Dive into the world of AI with the DVM feature on Nostr. Generate stunning images and share them instantly on your home feed. Feeling creative? Remix other images you discover on Nostr. But proceed with caution - this feature is still in its alpha stage and might contain surprises!

Here are the links to get to the App from your device.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/current-nostr-bitcoin/id1668517032 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.getcurrent.current

Support Telegram Channel: https://t.me/+1NhSTfdwv1M2MTky

@ 52b4a076:e7fad8bd

What is NIP-05 really?

If you look at the spec, it's a way to map Nostr public keys to DNS-based internet identifiers, such as name@example.com.

If you look at Nostr Plebs:

It's a human readable identifier for your public key. It makes finding your profile on Nostr easier. It makes identifying your account easier.

If you look at basically any client, you see a checkmark, which you assume means verification.

If you ask someone, they probably will call it verification.

How did we get here?

Initially, there was only one client, which was (kind of) the reference implementation: Branle.

When it added support for NIP-05 identifiers, it used to replace the display name with the NIP-05 identifier, and it had to distinguish a NIP-05 from someone setting their display name to a NIP-05. So they added a checkmark...

Then there was astral.ninja and Damus: The former was a fork of Branle, and therefore inherited the checkmark. Damus didn't implement NIP-05 until a while later, and they added a checkmark because Astral and other clients were doing it.

And then came new clients, all copying what the previous ones did... (Snort originally did not have a checkmark, but that changed later.)

The first NIP-05 provider

Long story short, people were wondering what NIP-05 is and wanted it, and that's how Nostr Plebs came to be.

They initially called their service verification. Somewhere between January and February, they removed all mentions to verification except one (because people were searching for it), and publicly said that NIP-05 is not verification. But that didn't work.

Then, there were the new NIP-05 providers, some understood perfectly what a NIP-05 identifier is and applied the correct nomenclature. Others misnamed it as verification, adding confusion to users. This made the problem worse on top of the popular clients showing checkmarks.

(from this point in the article we'll refer to it as a Nostr address)

And so, the scams begin

Spammers and scammers started to abuse Nostr addresses to scam people: - Some providers has been used by fake crypto airdrop bots. - A few Nostr address providers have terminated multitude of impersonating and scam identifiers over the past weeks.

This goes to show that Nostr addresses don't verify anything, they are just providers of human readable handles.

Nostr addresses can be proof of association

Nostr addresses can be a proof of association. The easiest analogy to understand is email:

jack@cash.app -> You could assume this is the Jack that works at Cash App.

jack@nostr-address-provider.example.com -> This could be any Jack.

What now?

We urge that clients stop showing a checkmark for all Nostr addresses, as they are not useful for verification.

We also urge that clients hide checkmarks for all domain names, without exception in the same way we do not show checkmarks for emails.

Lastly, NIP-05 is a nostr address and that is why we urge all clients to use the proper nomenclature.

Signed:

• Semisol, Nostr Plebs (semisol@nostrplebs.com)
• Quentin, nostrcheck.me (quentin@nostrcheck.me)
• Derek Ross, Nostr Plebs (derekross@nostrplebs.com)
• Bitcoin Nostrich, Bitcoin Nostr (BitcoinNostrich@BitcoinNostr.com)
• Remina, zaps.lol (remina@zaps.lol)
• Harry Hodler, nostr-check.com (harryhodler@nostr-check.com)

@ 92294577:49af776d

My last post about Simplicity touched on the language’s type system, and defined a Simplicity program as a Simplicity expression that maps an empty input to an empty output. We introduced the idea of assertions, which allow a program to abort, and witnesses, which allow programmers to inject input data into Simplicity programs at exactly the places that it’s needed. Together, this means that programs can have nontrivial behavior, even though nominally they have neither inputs nor outputs.

We also confronted the complexity of fully specifying even simple mathematical functions in Simplicity. One tool we used to reduce the complexity is that of jets, which provide optimized implementations of specific Simplicity expressions. This is a useful optimization for blockchain validators, but it also provides value to the Simplicity programmer by encapsulating potentially-complex functionality in a single jet, which can be treated as a black box.

In fact, every Simplicity expression is uniquely identifiable, by an object called its identity Merkle root (IMR). The IMR of a node is computed by hashing its source and target types, its combinator, and its children (if any). Using IMRs, we can uniquely identify any expression, and thereby treat it as a black box, even if we don't have an optimized jet to replace it.

Bit-Flipping, Revisited

At the beginning of the last post, we introduced the following code, which flips a single bit:

``` bit0 := injl unit : 1 * 1 -> 2 -- imr 31059b22... bit1 := injr unit : 1 * 1 -> 2 -- imr 9864ae9d...

padR := pair iden unit : 2 -> 2 * 1 -- imr 457121c2... bitflip := case bit1 bit0 : 2 * 1 -> 2 -- imr 7d5ff8d0... main := comp padR bitflip : 2 -> 2 -- imr a6ecc3dd... ```

As we can see from type ascription on the last line, this expression takes a single bit (the “2” type, so named because it has two possible values) and outputs a single bit. In this listing, we have also computed the IMR of each expression. In the future, whenever we see a Simplicity expression whose IMR matches one of these values, no matter how complex or obfuscated it appears to be, we will know exactly what we are looking at.

But recall that, to have a Simplicity program, we need our main expression to have type 1->1. Rather than taking an input value, we will use witness nodes, and rather than having an output value, we will simply assert that any intermediate values have the properties we expect.

As an example of this, let's tweak our expression to get a program that asserts that a witness bit is 0. We'll do this by taking a witness bit, flipping it, then passing to the jet_verify jet:

``` witbit := witness : 1 -> 2 -- imr ???

-- Assume we have the above expression, with the name bitflip. -- Notice that its IMR is the same as above.

bitflip :: 2 -> 2 -- imr a6ecc3dd... zerovfy := comp bitflip jet_verify : 2 -> 1 -- imr b3bca637...

main := comp witbit zerovfy : 1 -> 1 -- imr ??? ```

Here we have an interesting observation. The IMR of a witness node is computed based on the witness value, but when writing a program, we do not yet know what the witness value will be. This means that we do not know the IMR, and we cannot treat the expression as a black box. The same applies to main, which depends on the witness node, and any future expressions that might depend on main.

The same considerations apply to disconnected expressions. When we use the disconnect combinator, we can have entire expressions, not just values, which aren't yet determined. We will talk about disconnect in a later post.

IMRs and CMRs

Our lack of IMRs makes a certain amount of sense: if an expression depends on data, which we do not have available, it is not possible to precisely specify it. On the other hand, we actually do know a fair bit about the program under consideration: we know that it is a comp combinator whose children are a witness and another comp combinator, respectively, and so on. In this case, we even know the exact source and target types of all nodes.

In other words, we have fully defined our program, up to witness data and disconnected expressions that we do not intend to populate until later. We have defined the parts of our program we need to generate addresses and receive coins, but left some parts undefined until we are ready to spend them.

In Bitcoin Script, we have this same distinction between commitment time and redemption time. At commitment time, we choose what public keys to use, and only at redemption time, do we produce signatures with those keys. For historical reasons, Bitcoin Scripts are committed to by taking their hash and embedding this hash in another Script, sometimes called a scriptPubKey but more commonly known as an address.

Taproot generalizes this hash to be the root of a Merkle tree, allowing the same address to commit to multiple scripts, only one of which is revealed at spending time.

In Simplicity we take this a step further, treating our entire program as a Merkle tree. To do so, we define a second hash on each node, the commitment Merkle root (CMR). Unlike the IMR, the CMR does not commit to witness data, disconnected expressions, or types. It only commits to the structure of the program.

When embedding Simplicity programs in the blockchain, we replace the leaves of a Taproot tree, which normally would be Scripts, with the CMRs of Simplicity programs.

We can write out the CMR of each node in our bit-flipping program:

``` witbit := witness : 1 -> 2 -- cmr bf12681a... bitflip : 2 -> 2 -- cmr 8f214cce... zerovfy := comp bitflip jet_verify : 2 -> 1 -- cmr ab61cadb...

main := comp witbit zerovfy : 1 -> 1 -- cmr 58655557... ```

Every node, including witness and disconnect nodes, has a CMR. And every witness node, in every program, has the same CMR.

Naming and Sharing

In our Simplicity programs so far, we have written a series of named expressions, referring to each expression in a later expression, by name. Naturally, we are not limited to referring to names only once. This concept is essential to using Simplicity. We refer to name reuse, or more generally, collapsing multiple copies of the same expression into one, as sharing.

On the blockchain, there is a consensus rule that Simplicity expressions encoded in transactions be fully shared. That is, it is actually illegal to encode two nodes that have the same IMR. This helps ensure that programs are encoded in the most compact way, and that their encoding is canonical; that is, there is no potential for malleability. But this rule exploits the fact that programs never appear on-chain except when all witness nodes are populated, and therefore every node has an IMR.

At commitment time, when we are defining programs and computing addresses, the story is not so simple. Let's explore the subtleties that come from sharing before our IMRs are set in stone.

Essentially, every time a name is used, it must refer to a node with the same IMR. What makes this surprising is that, as we have seen, the code we write is only actually sufficient to define a node's CMR, not its IMR.

Let's see a simple example of where this might lead to trouble. Let's take a look at our original bit-flipping program, and let's say that we are tired of writing the entire word unit out. So we define an alias

u := unit -- cmr 62274a89...

and try to use it in our program:

``` bit0 := injl u : 1 * 1 -> 2 -- cmr bd0cce93... bit1 := injr u : 1 * 1 -> 2 -- cmr 79a70c6a...

padR := pair iden u : 2 -> 2 * 1 -- cmr 7751cd1c... bitflip := case bit1 bit0 : 2 * 1 -> 2 -- cmr 1d4aa8f4... main := comp padR bitflip : 2 -> 2 -- cmr 8f214cce... ```

But when we try to parse this to get an address, we get a type error defining padR! The reason is that while the type of the unit combinator in bit0 and bit1 is 1 * 1 -> 1, the unit combinator in padR has type 2 -> 1. The source types of unit combinators are completely uninteresting details of a Simplicity program, but it's nonetheless essential[1] that we are consistent about them.

The fix here is simple: we can reuse the name u in bit0 and bit1 but for padR we need a fresh unit combinator.

So far, so good; this sort of problem is familiar to any programmer who works with strongly typed languages, especially ones that support type inference, so that the types of variables are not immediately obvious. But with Simplicity, there is also a more interesting problem we might stumble over.

Consider the following program, which checks whether the user has found a SHA256 "fixed point", i.e., an input whose SHA256 hash is equal to itself. Because SHA256 is a cryptographic hash function, this should be impossible, so coins stored at this program should be unspendable.

``` -- Witnesses -- CMR: bf12681a... -- IMR: [none] wit_input := witness

-- All jets have source type 1; but to use the pair combinator -- we want one with source type 2^256. To get this, we compose -- it with unit. -- CMR: a520761f… -- IMR: 21182050... sha256_init : 2^256 -> _ sha256_init := comp unit jet_sha_256_ctx_8_init

-- Using this, we can write a self-contained "take 32 bytes and -- compute their sha2 hash" function. -- IMR: 8e341445... -- CMR: bf70ec35... sha256 : 2^256 -> 2^256 sha256 := comp comp pair sha256_init iden jet_sha_256_ctx_8_add_32 jet_sha_256_ctx_8_finalize

-- Finally, our main function takes an input witness, hashes it, -- and compares the input and output to check for a fixpoint. -- CMR: 9b3b900a... -- IMR: [none] main := comp comp pair (comp wit_input sha256) wit_input jet_eq_256 jet_verify ```

Here we have reused the name wit_input. Our rule is that we can only reuse names when all uses have the same IMR, but here we don't even have an IMR to compare. Will this be a problem?

Well, consider this alternate version of main, which takes a second witness, wit_output, and compares this to the hash of wit_input. This new main is trivial to satisfy: provide anything at all for wit_input and provide its SHA256 hash for wit_output.

``` -- Witnesses -- CMR: bf12681a... -- IMR: [none] wit_input := witness wit_output := witness

[...rest of program elided...]

-- CMR: 9b3b900a... main := comp comp pair (comp wit_input sha256) wit_output jet_eq_256 jet_verify ```

The important thing to notice here is that these two programs, our fixed-point-checking program and the trivially-solvable program, have the same CMR and, therefore, the same Bitcoin address. This is because Simplicity does not commit to sharing. This subtle, but crucial, fact, means that our fixed-point program, rather than being impossible to spend coins from, is trivial.

Fortunately, Simplicity prevents us from making this mistake. If we attempt to assemble our original version of the program, we get the following error:

Error: witness/disconnect node `wit_input` was accessible by two distinct paths from the same root

What this is telling us, in somewhat jargony language, is that we are simply not allowed to share witness or disconnect nodes, or any expressions which refer to them. This is because such nodes, even when they have identical types and CMRs, may not end up the same.

At redemption time, when witness data and disconnected expressions are present, every node has an IMR and it is unambiguous whether nodes are the same. At that time, if two witnesses were present and had the same types and values, they would be shared. But this sharing depends on the particular values chosen for each witness node, which are not decided at commitment time, and therefore do not reflect anything about the actual structure of the program.

To fix our program, there are a couple of strategies that we could take. One thing we could do is to define two witness nodes, with different names, and use the jet_eq_256 jet to assert that they are both equal. This would work, but increase the complexity of code, making it harder to review or to extend. A more direct approach is to duplicate the output of a single witness node.

We do this by pulling our check out of main into its own expression, whose input value is accessed by the iden combinator twice:

``` -- IMR: 5ddb65c2... -- CMR: 198bfeb5... assert_fixpoint : 2^256 -> 1 assert_fixpoint := comp comp pair (comp iden sha256) iden jet_eq_256 jet_verify

-- CMR: ac8df50b... -- IMR: [none] main := comp wit_input assert_fixpoint ```

This program is accepted without error.

Conclusion

As with ordinary Taproot transactions, addresses are derived from commitments to programs, but the programs themselves are not revealed until spending time. Also, as with Taproot, in Simplicity, we reveal only those parts of the program that are actually used.

Bitcoin Script has a strict separation between program code and witness data, so the program revealed on-chain is the same as the program committed to in addresses (aside from pruning). Witness data is encoded separately and provided to the program code as input. Script does not have any notion of sharing, or of disconnected expressions, so functionality such as delegation is missing (and functionality such as loops are very inefficient to implement).

In Simplicity, we instead attach witness data directly to our programs, and when encoding programs, we insist that nodes are never repeated. This combination requires us to have a surprisingly subtle notion of "identity," which, when applied to text-encoded programs, allows us to reuse names in a mostly-natural way. But there are potential pitfalls here, which our tooling helps to avoid.

In our next post, we will explore pruning, which is the process by which unused nodes are not revealed, and its interactions with witnesses and the type system.

Until then, join the Simplicity discussions on GitHub to connect with the community, and follow us at @blksresearch on Twitter to stay updated with the latest Simplicity announcements.

[1]In theory, Simplicity could have supported polymorphic types, which would allow the same unit combinator to be used with different type signatures. But aside from increasing the complexity of using and analyzing the language, this would have increased the computational complexity of type inference, a task that must be done by all validators on all programs.

@ 1f5ddbfd:b0df5755

There has been a ransomware attack on BRAK's Brussels office. About 160 GB of data was lost.

This is reported by Beck.de, among others.

"After several renowned law firms such as DLA Piper, CMS Hasche Sigle and Kapellmann, the Federal Bar Association (BRAK) has now also been hit. There was a ransomware attack on the Brussels office, which is supposed to represent the German legal profession at the European institutions.

According to BRAK's managing director responsible for data protection, Sebastian Aurich, a server operated there was attacked, the "systems" of which had been encrypted. Aurich said on request that data had also been leaked. The NJW has received an email from the German Lawyers' Association, which informed local lawyers' associations with reference to a communication from the BRAK. According to this announcement from BRAK, there are said to be 160 GB of data, and the attackers threatened to publish it. The BRAK cites “contact information or communication histories” as examples of data that may have been leaked.

That's a strange formulation ("whose "systems" were encrypted. Data was also leaked") in the article.

Encrypted data is (also) data.

If encrypted data has been stolen, then (otherwise there could have been no extortion) the meta data issue still remains. They are also very valuable because they can be sensitive.

However, this formulation (https://datenbank.nwb.de/Dokument/1023448/) sounds different: "Whether and to what extent data from people in contact with the Brussels office - such as contact information or communication histories - was leaked is still being determined. As a precaution, the BRAK assumes that such data has also been leaked."

The results of the "forensic analysis of the IT systems" cannot be found on the internet so far (09/11/2023). The transparency requirement at least makes it conceivable that the interested and possibly affected reader will soon find out more here.

Why can this be of interest to the legal profession? Because a basic uneasiness remains, but in any case increased caution and self-restraint seem advisable.

The Federal Chamber of Notaries is currently upgrading digitally and more and more online procedures are becoming possible (we have pointed this out in the blog).

However, all of these new possibilities are linked to the fact that vast amounts of data, some of which are highly sensitive, accumulate at a central point (of failure). And this central point is an extremely attractive target (honeypot) for global hackers.

Even if "only" with the BRAK (and not the Fed. Chamber of Notaries), but 160 GB of data; this is a serious incident. And there is so incredibly little reporting and information about it - including from the RA Chamber to us lawyers. The impression arises that as little as possible should be reported so that "no unrest" arises in the legal profession.

@ 3129509e:c846f506

Splitstr

An application to split bills and track shared expenses in a group, with the ability to “settle-up” with lightning invoices.

The Splitwise app on iOS and android is a great example, but lacks lightning and Nostr.

https://www.splitwise.com

@ 82341f88:fbfbe6a2

There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified.

I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:

1. Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.
2. Only the original author may remove content they produce.
3. Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.

The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company.

The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves. This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society. Much more about this here: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690

I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time. Of course mistakes were made. But if we had focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us, and moved much faster towards absolute transparency, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset (which I am supportive of). Again, I own all of this and our actions, and all I can do is work to make it right.

Back to the principles. Of course governments want to shape and control the public conversation, and will use every method at their disposal to do so, including the media. And the power a corporation wields to do the same is only growing. It’s critical that the people have tools to resist this, and that those tools are ultimately owned by the people. Allowing a government or a few corporations to own the public conversation is a path towards centralized control.

I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it. It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible. Doing so complicates important context, learning, and enforcement of illegal activity. There are significant issues with this stance of course, but starting with this principle will allow for far better solutions than we have today. The internet is trending towards a world were storage is “free” and infinite, which places all the actual value on how to discover and see content.

Which brings me to the last principle: moderation. I don’t believe a centralized system can do content moderation globally. It can only be done through ranking and relevance algorithms, the more localized the better. But instead of a company or government building and controlling these solely, people should be able to build and choose from algorithms that best match their criteria, or not have to use any at all. A “follow” action should always deliver every bit of content from the corresponding account, and the algorithms should be able to comb through everything else through a relevance lens that an individual determines. There’s a default “G-rated” algorithm, and then there’s everything else one can imagine.

The only way I know of to truly live up to these 3 principles is a free and open protocol for social media, that is not owned by a single company or group of companies, and is resilient to corporate and government influence. The problem today is that we have companies who own both the protocol and discovery of content. Which ultimately puts one person in charge of what’s available and seen, or not. This is by definition a single point of failure, no matter how great the person, and over time will fracture the public conversation, and may lead to more control by governments and corporations around the world.

I believe many companies can build a phenomenal business off an open protocol. For proof, look at both the web and email. The biggest problem with these models however is that the discovery mechanisms are far too proprietary and fixed instead of open or extendable. Companies can build many profitable services that complement rather than lock down how we access this massive collection of conversation. There is no need to own or host it themselves.

Many of you won’t trust this solution just because it’s me stating it. I get it, but that’s exactly the point. Trusting any one individual with this comes with compromises, not to mention being way too heavy a burden for the individual. It has to be something akin to what bitcoin has shown to be possible. If you want proof of this, get out of the US and European bubble of the bitcoin price fluctuations and learn how real people are using it for censorship resistance in Africa and Central/South America.

I do still wish for Twitter, and every company, to become uncomfortably transparent in all their actions, and I wish I forced more of that years ago. I do believe absolute transparency builds trust. As for the files, I wish they were released Wikileaks-style, with many more eyes and interpretations to consider. And along with that, commitments of transparency for present and future actions. I’m hopeful all of this will happen. There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from. The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.

As far as the free and open social media protocol goes, there are many competing projects: @bluesky is one with the AT Protocol, nostr another, Mastodon yet another, Matrix yet another…and there will be many more. One will have a chance at becoming a standard like HTTP or SMTP. This isn’t about a “decentralized Twitter.” This is a focused and urgent push for a foundational core technology standard to make social media a native part of the internet. I believe this is critical both to Twitter’s future, and the public conversation’s ability to truly serve the people, which helps hold governments and corporations accountable. And hopefully makes it all a lot more fun and informative again.

💸🛠️🌐 To accelerate open internet and protocol work, I’m going to open a new category of #startsmall grants: “open internet development.” It will start with a focus of giving cash and equity grants to engineering teams working on social media and private communication protocols, bitcoin, and a web-only mobile OS. I’ll make some grants next week, starting with $1mm/yr to Signal. Please let me know other great candidates for this money.

@ c9dccd5f:dce00d9a

I am an aspiring physicist, interested in atomic, particle and gravitational physics. In 2021 I became interested in Bitcoin and have been fascinated by it and its impact on the world ever since. Like probably most of you, in December 2022 Nostr happened to me, which kept me hooked throughout.

I always wanted to write something, like a blog, but I never knew what to write about and where to publish it. I never got used to sites like Substack, but now with Nostr I know where to publish. What remains is the question: What should I write about?

My plan is to document what I learn and to help me learn. So it's not a typical blog, which is why I put blog in quotes in the first paragraph. Most likely the topics will be physics, Bitcoin and Nostr related. But anything is possible.

I will not have a publishing schedule, at least at the beginning. I will post as things come to me.

The posts are mainly for me to learn, so I'm planning to write my posts in the style of the Feynman technique and you are my audience. You probably already know what it is, but if not, my next post will explain it to you 😜

My hope is that you will find my posts useful and that we can have a learning experience together. I look forward to your comments. Surely it will happen that I get something wrong and I hope you will correct me.

PV 🤙

@ 560d137a:c5e9171b

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@ 479d6f6c:69709cc0

blog test

@ 6e468422:15deee93

Not too long ago, I tried to paint a picture of what a vision for a value-enabled web could look like. Now, only a couple of months later, all this stuff is being built. On nostr, and on lightning. Orange and purple, a match made in heaven.

It goes without saying that I'm beyond delighted. What a time to be alive!

nostr

Here's the thing that nostr got right, and it's the same thing that Bitcoin got right: information is easy to spread and hard to stifle.[^fn-stifle] Information can be copied quickly and perfectly, which is, I believe, the underlying reason for its desire to be free.

[^fn-stifle]: That's a Satoshi quote, of course: "Bitcoin's solution is to use a peer-to-peer network to check for double-spending. In a nutshell, the network works like a distributed timestamp server, stamping the first transaction to spend a coin. It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle."

Easy to spread, hard to stifle. That's the base reality of the nature of information. As always, the smart thing is to work with nature, not against it.[^1] That's what's beautiful about the orange coin and the purple ostrich: both manage to work with the peculiarities of information, not against them. Both realize that information can and should be copied, as it can be perfectly read and easily spread, always. Both understand that resistance to censorship comes from writing to many places, making the cost of deletion prohibitive.

Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor's younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor.

Eric Hughes, A Cypherpunk's Manifesto

Nostr is quickly establishing itself as a base layer for information exchange, one that is identity-native and value-enabled. It is distinctly different from systems that came before it, just like Bitcoin is distinctly different from monies that came before it.

As of today, the focus of nostr is mostly on short text notes, the so-called "type 1" events more commonly known as tweets.[^fn-kinds] However, as you should be aware by now, nostr is way more than just an alternative to twitter. It is a new paradigm. Change the note kind from 1 to 30023 and you don't have an alternative to Twitter, but a replacement for Medium, Substack, and all the other long-form platforms. I believe that special-purpose clients that focus on certain content types will emerge over time, just like we have seen the emergence of special-purpose platforms in the Web 2.0 era. This time, however, the network effects are cumulative, not separate. A new paradigm.

Let me now turn to one such special-purpose client, a nostr-based reading app.

[^fn-kinds]: Refer to the various NIPs to discover the multitude of event kinds defined by the protocol.

Reading

I'm constantly surprised that, even though most people do read a lot online, very few people seem to have a reading workflow or reading tools.

Why that is is anyone's guess, but maybe the added value of such tools is not readily apparent. You can just read the stuff right there, on the ad-ridden, dead-ugly site, right? Why should you sign up for another site, use another app, or bind yourself to another closed platform?

That's a fair point, but the success of Medium and Substack shows that there is an appetite for clean reading and writing, as well as providing avenues for authors to get paid for their writing (and a willingness of readers to support said authors, just because).

The problem is, of course, that all of these platforms are platforms, which is to say, walled gardens that imprison readers and writers alike. Worse than that: they are fiat platforms, which means that permissionless value-flows are not only absent from their DNA, they are outright impossible.[^2]

Nostr fixes this.

The beauty of nostr is that it is not a platform. It's a protocol, which means that you don't have to sign up for it---you can create an identity yourself. You don't have to ask for permission; you just do, without having to rely on the benevolence of whatever dictator is in charge of the platform right now.

Nostr is not a platform, and yet, powerful tools and services can be built and monetized on top of it. This is good for users, good for service providers, and good for the network(s) at large. Win-win-win.

So what am I talking about, exactly? How can nostr improve everyone's reading (and writing) experience?

Allow me to paint a (rough) picture of what I have in mind. Nostr already supports private and public bookmarks, so let's start from there.

Imagine a special-purpose client that scans all your bookmarks for long-form content.[^fn-urls] Everything that you marked to be read later is shown in an orderly fashion, which is to say searchable, sortable, filterable, and displayed without distractions. Voilà, you have yourself a reading app. That's, in essence, how Pocket, Readwise, and other reading apps work. But all these apps are walled gardens without much interoperability and without direct monetization.

[^fn-urls]: In the nostr world long-form content is simply markdown as defined in NIP-23, but it could also be a link to an article or PDF, which in turn could get converted into markdown and posted as an event to a special relay.

Bitcoin fixes the direct monetization part.[^fn-v4v] Nostr fixes the interoperability part.

[^fn-v4v]: ...because Bitcoin makes V4V practical. (Paywalls are not the way.)

Alright, we got ourselves a boring reading app. Great. Now, imagine that users are able to highlight passages. These highlights, just like bookmarks now, could be private or public. When shared publicly, something interesting emerges: an overlay on existing content, a lens on the written Web. In other words: swarm highlights.

Imagine a visual overlay of all public highlights, automatically shining a light on what the swarm of readers found most useful, insightful, funny, etc.

Further, imagine the possibility of sharing these highlights as a "type 1" event with one click, automatically tagging the highlighter(s)---as well as the author, of course---so that eventual sat-flows can be split and forwarded automatically.

Voilà, you have a system that allows for value to flow back to those who provide it, be it authors, editors, curators, or readers that willingly slog through the information jungle to share and highlight the best stuff (which is a form of curation, of course).

Zaps make nostr a defacto address book[^fn-pp] of payment information, which is to say lightning addresses, as of now. Thanks to nostr wallet connect (among other developments), sending sats ~~will soon be~~ is already as frictionless as leaving a like.

[^fn-pp]: The Yellow Pages are dead, long live The Purple Pages!

Value-for-value and participatory payment flows are something that traditional reading apps desperately lack, be it Pocket, Instapaper, Readwise, or the simple reading mode that is part of every browser.

A neat side-effect of a more structured way to share passages of text is that it enables semi-structured discussions around said passages---which could be another useful overlay inside special-purpose clients, providing context and further insights.[^5]

Further, imagine the option of seamlessly switching from text-on-screen to text-to-speech, allowing the user to stream sats if desired, as Podcasting 2.0 clients already do.[^3]

Imagine user-built curations of the best articles of the week, bundled neatly for your reading pleasure, incentivized by a small value split that allows the curator to participate in the flow of sats.

You get the idea.

I'm sure that the various implementation details will be hashed out, but as I see it, 90% of the stuff is already there. Maybe we'll need another NIP or two, but I don't see a reason why this can't be built---and, more importantly: I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be sustainable for everyone involved.

Most puzzle pieces are already there, and the rest of them can probably be implemented by custom event types. From the point of view of nostr, most everything is an event: bookmarks are events, highlights are events, marking something as read is an event, and sharing an excerpt or a highlight is an event. Public actions are out in the open, private actions are encrypted, the data is not in a silo, and everyone wins. Especially the users, those who are at the edge of the network and usually lose out on the value generated.

In this case, the reading case, the users are mostly "consumers" of content. What changes from the producing perspective, the perspective of the writer?

Writing

Back to the one thing that nostr got right: information is easy to spread but hard to stifle. In addition to that, digital information can be copied perfectly, which is why it shouldn't matter where stuff is published in the first place.

Allow me to repeat this point in all caps, for emphasis: IT SHOULD NOT MATTER WHERE INFORMATION IS PUBLISHED, and, maybe even more importantly, it shouldn't matter if it is published in a hundred different places at once.[^fn-torrents]

What matters is trust and accuracy, which is to say, digital signatures and reputation. To translate this to nostr speak: because every event is signed by default, as long as you trust the person behind the signature, it doesn't matter from which relay the information is fetched.

This is already true (or mostly true) on the regular web. Whether you read the internet archive version of an article or the version that is published by an online magazine, the version on the author's website, or the version read by some guy that has read more about Bitcoin than anyone else you know[^fn-guy]---it's all the same, essentially. What matters is the information itself.

[^fn-guy]: There is only one such guy, as we all know, and it's this Guy: nostr:npub1h8nk2346qezka5cpm8jjh3yl5j88pf4ly2ptu7s6uu55wcfqy0wq36rpev

Practically speaking, the source of truth in a hypernostrized world is---you guessed it---an event. An event signed by the author, which allows for the information to be wrapped in a tamper-proof manner, which in turn allows the information to spread far and wide---without it being hosted in one place.

The first clients that focus on long-form content already exist, and I expect more clients to pop up over time.[^4] As mentioned before, one could easily imagine prism-like value splits seamlessly integrated into these clients, splitting zaps automatically to compensate writers, editors, proofreaders, and illustrators in a V4V fashion. Further, one could imagine various compute-intensive services built into these special-purpose clients, such as GPT Ghostwriters, or writing aids such as Grammarly and the like. All these services could be seamlessly paid for in sats, without the requirement of any sign-ups or the gathering of any user data. That's the beauty of money proper.

Plagiarism is one issue that needs to be dealt with, of course. Humans are greedy, and some humans are assholes. Neither bitcoin nor nostr fixes this. However, while plagiarism detection is not necessarily trivial, it is also not impossible, especially if most texts are published on nostr first. Nostr-based publishing tools allow for OpenTimestamp attestations thanks to NIP-03, which in turn allows for plagiarism detection based on "first seen" lookups.

That's just one way to deal with the problem, of course. In any case, I'm confident that we'll figure it out.

Value

I believe that in the open ~~attention~~ information economy we find ourselves in, value will mostly derive from effective curation, dissemination, and transmission of information, not the exclusive ownership of it.

Although it is still early days, the statistics around Podcasting 2.0 and nostr zaps clearly show that (a) people are willing to monetarily reward content they care about, and (b) the willingness to send sats increases as friction decreases.

The ingenious thing about boostagrams and zaps is that they are direct and visible, which is to say, public and interactive. They are neither regular transactions nor simple donations---they are something else entirely. An unforgable value signal, a special form of gratitude and appreciation.

Contrast that with a link to Paypal or Patreon: impersonal, slow, indirect, and friction-laden. It's the opposite of a super-charged interaction.

While today's information jungle increasingly presents itself in the form of (short) videos and (long-form) audio, I believe that we will see a renaissance of the written word, especially if we manage to move away from an economy built around attention, towards an economy built upon value and insight.

The orange future now has a purple hue, and I believe that it will be as bright as ever. We just have a lot of building to do.

---

Further Reading

• A Vision for a Value-Enabled Web
• The Freedom of Value
• The Rediscovery of Money
• Lightning Prisms

NIPs and Resources

• Nostr Resources
• value4value.info
• nips.be
• NIP-23: Long-form content
• NIP-57: Event-specific zap markers
• NIP-47: Nostr Wallet Connect
• NIP-03: OpenTimestamps attestations for events

Originally published on dergigi.com

---

[^1]: Paywalls work against this nature, which is why I consider them misguided at best and incredibly retarded at worst.

[^2]: Fiat doesn't work for the value-enabled web, as fiat rails can never be open and permissionless. Digital fiat is never money. It is---and always will be---credit.

[^3]: Whether the recipient is a text-to-speech service provider or a human narrator doesn't even matter too much, sats will flow just the same.

[^4]: BlogStack and Habla being two of them.

[^5]: Use a URI as the discussion base (instead of a highlight), and you got yourself a Disqus in purple feathers!

[^fn-torrents]: That's what torrents got right, and ipfs for that matter.

@ 62a45004:b2ff78c5

Macom slid the memory disk in his pocket, grabbed his coat and badge, and headed for the communications tower. Outside, the bright but cold day encouraged him to walk briskly under the deep blue skies that reminded him of his childhood on his home planet.

Along the uneven sidewalk, a treacherous minefield of puddles from the previous night’s downpour made it necessary to focus on one’s steps. As Macom waved off a group of teens looking to peddle their counterfeit ration cards, he accidentally stepped on a loose tile, which promptly responded by squirting a copious stream of muddy water all over his right leg and torso. Without the slightest flinch, Macom continued onward, his mind focused on the task at hand.

It was not much to look at from the outside. Like most other buildings, the round-shaped communications “tower” was half-way embedded into the ground as a way to take advantage of the earth’s biomass and its natural cooling and heating effects. On top, transmission disks no larger than a few feet in diameter adorned the building like ears on the head of a sleeping, mossy giant.

Inside, however, the space was majestic and luminous. Beyond the security checkpoints, the circular, expansive lobby was centered around a grand spherical computer. The Galactic Timechain, as it was known, was encased in glass, and around it, a second layer formed a terrarium of the native ecosystem, meant to mirror the resilient and self-sustaining nature of the Timechain’s distributed network.

Along the curved wall, intricate but faded murals of historic figures blended into textual inscriptions of poems and quotes, and from above, a beam of sunlight from the roof-timer cycled its’ focus through each piece of art as new blocks were added to the Timechain. The space felt more like a temple than a government building.

‘Good morning Sub-Commander,’ the guard uttered as Macom flashed his badge, ‘you are earlier today than usual.’ The greeting was silently acknowledged with a stoic nod, and as he was waiting for the gate to open, the beam of sunlight moved to the left, and the newly illuminated quote on the gallery wall caught his attention.

Time is an abstraction at which we arrive by means of the changes of things.

Macom had never really understood the meaning of those abstract words. But today of all days, the quote he had seen a thousand times found within him a renewed resonance. He remembered being taught that in ancient civilizations, humans measured the passing of time by the ticking of metal arms around a circle, which was meant to track the astrological movement of planets around a sun. As interstellar travel evolved, this antiquated system created synchronization nightmares, for everyone had a different definition of what “time” was, of how long it took their planet to circle their sun.

Now, the addition of new blocks on the Galactic Timechain marked the passage of time. Macom felt this was curious. There was nothing in the transactions and records stored within the blocks, in the bits of zeroes and ones, that had a physical existence called “time.” Neither could the humans of antiquity find any physical element constituting “time” in the movement of the planets. The change of any thing, in fact, could be used as the measuring yardstick, and in this particular moment, Macom realized he had been unconsciously measuring time by the quickly changing political situation: the Empire’s draconian laws would open the floodgates to changes not seen since the Wars of Independence. Millennia would happen within the next few blocks, and for that reason, he thought, now was the time for decisive action.

Aided by this newly found revelation, Macom walked across the lobby towards the elevator, finding his way to transcription station #B412. The room, no larger than a regular size office, betrayed no sign of its importance. This station was designed as a decoy and kept as a closely guarded secret, for it contained the Nhafezi Confederacy’s keys, used to compose and transmit blocks onto the Galactic Mempool. As such, the security clearance used to access it also triggered an alert to high command. Even someone of his rank was not supposed to be here unannounced, and Macom knew he would only have a few moments to complete his task.

Standing in front of the door, Macom took a deep breadth to gather his courage, for he knew that as soon as he entered the room and sent the message across the Timechain, there would be no stopping, that there would be no coming back from this. He thought of the countless years of suffering, the bad winters, the unnecessary cruelty of it all. He thought of the despair and hopelessness he saw on so many faces, including his own. Above all, he thought of his brother, now gone.

As long as the life of a star to the human mind, and as short as the span of a human life to a star, the moment ended, and Macom swiped his badge on the door’s console. Moving swiftly now, he slid onto the station chair, picked the memory disk from his pocket and blended it into the transcriptor in one fluid motion. The text appeared before him, exactly as he had last proof-read it. Just as he was about to fetch the keys, a gentle knock came from the door before it opened.

With his heart skipping a beat, Macom saw a familiar figure appear from the corner of his eyes, and quickly composed himself. “I am that predictable,” he said with an air of resignation while still staring into the transcriptor.

“You were never good at hiding that look on your face,” Jiun said sardonically, while closing the door behind her.

Guarding against stalling tactics, he ignored the jab and tried to finish the job, but his fingers had barely moved before Jiun flung her comm tablet and key ring towards his desk.

“No one is coming Macom, I had Ella disengage the alert and now you have my personal key ring. I know you will not stop, not even for me, but I ask you to hear me out. If you still want to go ahead after we are done talking, I won’t stop you.”

The tablet, which had landed with a loud thud and knocked over a mug, displayed ‘#B412, alert disengaged.’ Macom was not the trusting kind, and for a moment he hesitated, thoughts of deception and betrayal rushing through his head. But even after all these years, Jiun’s word still meant something.

“I helped you draft this, remember?” Macom said while turning towards her. “It wasn’t that long ago you agreed we have to send this out.”

“That was before the council voted it down,” Jiun said with a calm assertiveness.

“And that changes nothing. You know better than I do how the Empire is systematically starving us. I am not going to allow them to reduce us to nothing, to drain us of our strength until finally, stripped of all self-respect and dignity, unable to summon the will to fight, they can simply sweep us out with a broom. We must fight,” Macom said emphasizing each word, “even though the council is too afraid, perhaps even too corrupted to do what must be done.”

“I agree, the Empire wants us to do nothing. But they would equally benefit if we over-reacted. Now that Antigonium can be synthesized and mass manufactured, we are disposable. They would like nothing more than to have the perfect excuse to send their destroyers. We have to fight, not to destroy our enemy, but to save what we love, and sending this archive to the Galactic Timechain would be suicidal.”

“The real suicide is already happening Jiun. How many people are starving? How many have taken their own lives in their misery and despair?,” Macom’s voice splintered with the faintest of cracks, before continuing. “How many of our young will they take, once this new round of laws are enforced? Should we wait until we start getting paid in imperial script, or perhaps when we start forgetting our own language? Revolution is not suicide, even if it leads to certain death. Our ancestors knew that when they fought for our independence.”

“You are right, but this is not a decision for you to make. Corrupted as it might be, the council is still needed to organize any meaningful resistance. And we might be able to force their hand, but not if the transgression comes from you Macom. If you do this, they will call it a military coup, and it would only further our internal division and turmoil. That is exactly what the Empire wants. They put us in a position to make an impossible decision, they infiltrate the council with unseen extortion and threats, all so they can watch us implode from the inside. You know this playbook.”

A long silence now enveloped the space between them, words being said without a single sound. The impasse brought into relief their conflicts from eons ago, and as Macom digested the arguments of this latest salvo, he also felt reminded with a certain fondness, why she was who she was, their indisputable moral leader.

Standing up now, Macom walked towards the door, accepting her overture: “Someone has to do it, Jiun. Even if it is a trap, even if it leads to our demise, the archive would guarantee the preservation of our culture and Our-Story for future generations. We must break the long silence. You know it is time.”

As Macon exited the room, he handed her his badge and his Antigonium pendant, the one she had gifted him all those years ago. Now alone, Jiun took a long and deep sigh before heading towards the transcriptor. On the screen, the words they had drafted together stared back at her. She sat down, clutching the pendant that stored his keys, and read it one last time.

---

Top Secret

My name is Jiun Nhafezi, Matriarch of the Nhafezi Confederacy, and these words, inscribed on the Galactic Timechain Codex, block number 226,524,579, will in all likelihood lead to our demise, effectively constituting our people’s last act.

Bitcoin’s Timechain has long afforded the possibility of free speech, and more importantly, the preservation of a lasting legacy against physical genocide and cultural erasure. For the first time ever, the last defiant breath from those facing annihilation will not simply scatter in the wind, unheard of and forgotten by those who seek to erase us from their-story. For the first time ever, they who control the present will not be able to sanitize, re-write, and control the past. Our past, which is also our future.

Even though this tool has been but an open road, useless to those who seek to walk it when a gun is held to their heads, it has nevertheless acted as leverage for those fighting for survival under the Empire’s watchful eye. And for millennia, this leverage has afforded our people a semblance of life: ever since the Independence Wars, our accord has forbidden us from off-planet communication. As long as we supplied the Empire with minerals and kept our words and ideas to ourselves, we were allowed the independence to uphold our customs and organize our own way of life. This is why you might have never heard of our people, or of Kaweah, a faraway moon better known in the ancient world as an Antigonium mine.

But the balance of power has now changed. As our world grew stronger and brighter, so did the Empire’s fear. Our knowledge, our art, our way of life, all of it became dangerous proof that another mode of social organization is not merely possible, but if allowed to flourish, would undermine the deepest moral foundations of the Empire in the eyes and hearts of their own people.

And so we must be destroyed.

First came the impossible mineral quotas, the penalties of which were reduced food supplies. Slowly, they forced us to choose who would go hungry, sowing the seeds of discord. Then, as we grew more desperate, the Empire extended a helping hand, offering to send our young off-world, saddling them with unpayable debts, and scattering them across the stars in search of “a better life.” Now, under the guise of industrial standardization and efficiency management, they are forcing us to adopt the imperial tongue in all curricula and settings, abandoning our own.

Faced with the slow, painful immiseration of our people, and the clear directive to dismantle our society piece by piece, we are left with no choice but to break our long silence, preserving our cultural heritage, our memory and our knowledge on the Timechain. Perhaps the two most important ones are the lexical archive, for those who seek to learn our tongue, and the mineral archive, which includes the hitherto secret chemical composition of the synthetic ingredients needed to mass manufacture Antigonium. Now it becomes open-source, our first, and perhaps last gift to the Universe.

For our transgression, the Empire will soon circle our moon and rain down extinction. Our last efforts to defend ourselves will most likely fail. By the time you receive this message, we will have long ceased to exist. I will presume these words are the only record that will survive us. Our books will be burned, our culture expunged. The young sent to the Ministry of Harmony and Reintegration will likely never speak our language our know of their heritage. Our matriarchs will be sent to the gallows, and our men to labor camps across the known galaxies.

It is our hope that this fate that awaits us, that announces its presence with every word that I convey to you, is but a temporary defeat, a chapter linking our past and the many revolutions to come. Faced with the certainty of a death of the spirit, and the possibility of a death of the body and the flesh, we as a people have chosen to not give up our dignity. Instead, we choose life at its fullest.

As we begin, so we end. This is Our-Story.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Table Of Content

• An Ideal Environment for Crypto Growth

• Economic Impact of Bitcoin in Texas

• Future Prospects

• Conclusion

• FAQ

The Lone Star State has witnessed a phenomenal rise in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption in recent years. This article will explore the factors behind this surge, the benefits it offers to the local economy, and the potential implications for the future of Bitcoin and the broader crypto landscape in Texas and beyond.

An Ideal Environment for Crypto Growth

A. Energy Abundance

Texas boasts abundant and affordable energy resources, particularly from wind and natural gas. This has attracted a growing number of cryptocurrency mining operations, which require vast amounts of energy to maintain and secure the blockchain.

B. Regulatory Framework

Texas has embraced a relatively open regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies. The state government has shown a willingness to adapt existing regulations and create new ones to support the growth of the crypto industry.

C. Tech-Friendly Population

Texas has a tech-savvy population with a strong entrepreneurial spirit. This has led to the establishment of numerous startups and businesses focused on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency services.

Economic Impact of Bitcoin in Texas

A. Job Creation

The rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency-related businesses has created thousands of jobs in Texas. These range from mining operations to software development, financial services, and support roles.

B. Attracting Investment

The growth of the crypto sector in Texas has attracted significant investment from both domestic and international sources. This influx of capital has spurred the local economy and fostered innovation in the state.

C. Increased Tax Revenue

With more businesses and individuals engaging in cryptocurrency transactions, tax revenues have increased. This additional revenue can be used to improve public services and infrastructure in Texas.

Future Prospects

A. Becoming a Global Crypto Hub

As Texas continues to foster a favorable environment for cryptocurrencies, it has the potential to become a global hub for blockchain technology and digital assets. This could help attract even more talent and investment to the region.

B. Wider Adoption of Cryptocurrencies

The rise of Bitcoin in Texas could lead to broader adoption of cryptocurrencies throughout the state and beyond. As more people and businesses become familiar with digital assets, they may increasingly use them for everyday transactions.

C. Challenges and Risks

Despite the promising outlook, there are still challenges and risks associated with the growth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These include regulatory uncertainty, potential environmental impact, and volatility in the crypto markets.

Conclusion

The rapid rise of Bitcoin in Texas is a testament to the state's favorable conditions and forward-looking approach to emerging technologies. With continued investment and innovation, Texas has the potential to become a global leader in the cryptocurrency space. However, it remains essential to address the associated challenges and risks to ensure a sustainable and responsible growth trajectory.

FAQ

Why has Bitcoin become popular in Texas? Bitcoin has become popular in Texas due to the state's favorable regulatory environment, its thriving energy industry, and a growing interest in alternative forms of investment.

Is Bitcoin legal in Texas? Yes, Bitcoin is legal in Texas. In fact, the state has taken steps to encourage the development of the cryptocurrency industry.

Can I use Bitcoin to buy goods and services in Texas? Yes, you can use Bitcoin to buy goods and services in Texas. Some businesses in the state have begun accepting Bitcoin as payment.

What does the rise of Bitcoin in Texas mean for the future? The rise of Bitcoin in Texas could be a sign of things to come, as more people become interested in digital currencies and more businesses begin accepting them as payment. It could also lead to increased investment in the cryptocurrency industry and further innovation in the field.

That's all for today, see ya tomorrow

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.

@ 7ecd3fe6:6b52f30d

Social media is a part of our lives, like it or not, it's how we get our news, voice our opinions engage with friends and family, find community and argue with anons, it's just what we modern humans do.

The problem with social media today is that it is run by corporations, these platforms, while acting as public utilities for communication are actually walled gardens where narratives can be pushed or suppressed and your time on site is paid for by ads that are burning your eyeballs so hard they leave an imprint on the back of your brain.

We can all see the incentive structure of corporate social media has us all going a little loopy while others have fully given themselves over to whoring for the algorithm.

We need decentralised social media

It's obvious we need a platform where we're not beholden to who has the biggest budget, or what the algos are looking to rage bait you into so you remain on site to see more ads. This is not a system that is good for one's brain and soul, the "free" social media model comes at a price, and you as the product have begun to decay.

Anyone who voices their real opinions or counters narratives that go against profits and the bottom line of interest parties also gets cleaned out pretty quickly so if you're are still on trad social media it's because you're willing to self-censor or you have nothing real to say.

We are all self-censoring in a way, you know it, I know it, but we all accept it.

Nostr came along

I think many of us didn't know we needed an alternative until #nostr came along and we could start to play around in a world where we had more control and some of us started to like it.

Nostr has grown slowly and steadily, without a token, without a real path to monetisation, it's organic growth built by people who have an interest in seeing this protocol eat away market share from tradsocial.

Right now it's just a bunch of people sharing their ideas, engaging in a small community testing out new features, pushing clients for new updates, and zapping one another along the way.

Despite the seemingly inconspicuous nature of nostr it's already started to rub large institutions the wrong way, first, it was banned in China, then it's mobile clients were removed from the Chinese Apple App store and later it was threatened by the global app store to remove zaps.

If a little protocol that simply allows for chronological curation and organic following of accounts and content along with independent payments powered by Bitcoin is already in the eyes of big institutions at this early stage, then you know you're on to something.

Shitcoiners are not going to let us have our fun

Nostr might have started as a Bitcoin-centric tool, but like Bitcoin its a protocol for enemies, you can say and do what you like on nostr, and if certain clients or relays don't like what you're doing you can find one that do or build your own.

If you're not a fan of zaps and you want to use stablecoins or your preferred shitcoin, you could build that into your own nostr client and relays that support it. But this would mean you are supporting nostr, since you're growing the user base and if your project failed, those users would simply login to the nostr clients and relays that remain.

But that's not the shitcoiner way, they don't want to compete, they want to extract value while its possible, the shitcoiner way is to try and create walled gardens where they can sucker you in and dilute you slowly or quickly.

---

---

Nothing new to the space

SocialFi is nothing new, if you've paid attention to this space long enough you would know that a lot of this is the rebranding of failed ideas and projects for a new cohort of users.

For those of you who were not around from 2016 during the ICO phase, you might not know that social media on the blockchain was all the rage. It was tried on separate blockchains like STEEM, these social applications like STEEMIT were wildly popular back then, running up to over 1 billion in market cap and were firmly in the top 10 tokens at the time.

Today it's still around, with a tiny user base, most people have abandoned it, those who profited from it have gone on to build new scams and the token has fallen down the ranks.

---

STEEM price action since launch

---

The way this scam worked was you would pre-mine tokens for yourself and your buddies, and then build various dApps would reward users with new inflation. Users would create content on your site, and users with stake would upvote their content.

When you upvote content you receive an amount of tokens, which is usually autostaked and the incentive for you is to create more content to earn tokens or buy tokens to build up a reputation so you can control more of the inflation through upvotes.

As users earned tokens and purchased tokens to stake them, you as the pre-mine owner get to sell into that demand and you have less competition for sales as the incentive is to stake to gain influence on the platform, so you're profiting off peoples egos and the gamification of the system.

Eventually, like all inflationary shitcoin projects you run out of new suckers and the original suckers feel they want to profit too and start dumping inflation just keeps pumping out, and you dilute demand to a point where your token is worth nothing.

I mention STEEM because it was probably the most "successful" relatively speaking, so i see this as the best outcome for these kinds of projects. Of course, there were others like Bitcoin Cash-funded Read Cash and Noise Cash, EOS-funded Trybe and Voice, SoMee, and Publish0x which used a bunch of random shitcoins.

---

Friends.tech and why we can't have nice things

So socialFI failed in 2018 and we all moved on from the dumb idea, the Bitcoin circles have picked up on nostr and it's got a fair bit of traction, so what do the shitcoiners do? Support Nostr?

Hell no, let's make socialFi 3.0 as part of this painfully stupid web3 narrative, and the first play in this new brand of SocialFI seems to be friends.tech.

An app that emerged out of nowhere and is built on Base Coinbases fork of ETH which is a weird choice, but it hasn't stopped its growth in a week the network reached 136,000 daily active users beating out OpenSea over the same time frame.

How much of that is real or just botting I don't know but that's the numbers being promoted.

So what is this app all about? Uncensorable social media? Owning your data? Migrating your data between apps seamlessly? No

The app essentially allows users to tokenize your social network by selling shares in your profile. So influencers in the space can sell access to themselves since buying someone’s share grants owners the ability to exchange private messages with them.

The new social app has driven 4,400 ETH ($8.1 million) in trading volume in less than 24 hours since its launch, far surpassing OpenSea’s in the same time frame.

Again these user numbers and trading value is not verified, and we don't know how much is just botting or wash trading to create attractive metrics to sucker people in, but sucker people in they will.

To me this just looks like another zero some game of extracting wealth from your followers, as if influencers don't already do this, I don't see how this is in anyway decentralised or an improvement on social media today, in fact I think it just super charges the worst kind of behaviour we see on social media and I don't see this app living longer than a footnote of 2023.

---

Sources:

• https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/08/11/is-friendtech-a-friend-or-foe-a-dive-into-the-new-social-app-driving-millions-in-trading-volume/
• https://captainaltcoin.com/friend-tech-leads-the-way-for-the-next-generation-of-socialfi-on-basechain/

@ 1bc70a01:24f6a411

You may remember a documentary on Netflix that discussed the negative effects of social media - Social Dilemma. It sparked many discussions in various circles, but nothing came of it.

Well, today I want to talk about making social media healthier, if not for ourselves, but for our kids.

We have a once in a lifetime opportunity with Nostr to reshape social media clients from scratch. Let us not blindly copy existing social media behavior. After all, the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Let’s not be stupid and make social media just as, if not more addicting than before.

The big TLDR; is that social media addictive mechanisms harm self image in kids. At the time where they should be building confidence, the mechanics of social media make them feel insecure. I can only imagine the downstream effects into adulthood, but on society level it can’t be good.

Some organizations even exist to supposedly move this subject forward, but after reviewing their content, I see nothing substantial put forward. One such organization “Center for Human Technology” seems to say the right things but puts no effort into offering any actual solutions.

Strategies to make social media healthier

Let’s brainstorm some actual things we can do to limit social media addictiveness, reduce social influence and manipulation.

Boost self-esteem

Vanity metrics can play a positive role but the wrong kind of metric is more harmful than not. Follower count immediately comes to mind. You see people obsessing with their follower count, and even those not realizing they are obsessed are constantly comparing themselves to one another. You are probably one of those people. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and close down your account right now, and create a fresh one to start over. I’ll wait.

Still here? I thought so. Short of constantly deleting our accounts, we can do something else - not showing a follower metric at all.

Remove followers metrics

As drastic as this sounds, removing followers is a huge step forward to better mental health. We don’t need to see how many people follow us. As long as you can see who you follow, it shouldn’t matter who is following you.

This goes beyond Twitter-like apps. Subscriber counts on YouTube channels, on email lists, none of these things need to exist. The number of people you send something to should be irrelevant. Think about it - how does it impact the content of your message whether you have 100 followers or 10,000? It doesn’t.

Avoid algorithms at all costs

Algos are excellent at hijacking attention. They know what you like and keep feeding off you to keep you hooked. Let’s end this stupidity once and for all and say no to algorithms.

I also came to a realization that “algorithmic choice” is an illusion. The “best” algorithm will by definition be the winner and the most popular. Clients will implement the thing that people crave most until “better” algorithms get more users hooked on a client. Who doesn’t want that for their platform? Everyone. Attention is money. Attention is harm.

If we want to create a better future for our children, we’ll say no to algorithms. This means we have to accept that people will gravitate towards “cheaters” who do include “useful” algorithms in their clients. It also means we have to be willing to forgo larger profits.

Perhaps well-thought out policy can be introduced in the future that limits the harm of algorithms, but in the meantime we can take matters into our own hands and simply say no.

Improve happiness levels

Avoid news feeds

Thanks to nostr we can create clients that only handle news feeds, so we don’t really need to include them in social clients.

News keeps people down because negative news gets most clicks. We can avoid this whole issue just by not including news feeds in social applications. Less clickbaity headlines, less rage, more productive conversations.

If you still crave news, go ahead and use that nostr client designed specifically for news consumption.

Of course, we can’t stop people from sharing the news, but we can avoid algos that surface it, and avoid creating feeds specifically designed for news consumption.

News also consumed a lot of time and spreads misinformation. You get scenarios where neither of the arguers read the article in full and are arguing about something that’s not even reported. It’s painful to watch.

Then you have situations where the news is actually a narrative spun by some organization or individual who wants to influence social behavior. They may report correct information or completely misrepresent facts.

News is “bad news”. Just don’t build it into social clients intentionally.

Create happiness clients

One thing I have not seen any social media do is ask whether a piece of content makes you feel positive, neutral or negative.

In theory, we should be able to create clients that prioritize positive content. I know I said avoid algorithms at all costs, but if you wanted to create a happiness portal, you could cheat a little and ask people to market content as positive, neutral or negative, and then surface only the positive.

In my opinion this is not an ideal way to go about it, because you’re creating a different type of bubble, one where people ignore the reality of things. Yet, it is a possibility if we want to alter our mood by putting algos to work for us. At the very least it would be a fun experiment!

Reduce addiction / Save time

Disable notifications by default

You hear countless stories of people feeling better in their lives after disabling notifications. Why not make this the default behavior? “But, people won’t know if the app works!” Yeah.. it has to start some place. If we want change, we need to make tough decisions. If you want to be less extreme about it, you could disable most notifications by default, while not touching the “critical” ones. Personally, I don’t think any notification is critical, you should be completely in control over your attention and that any notification is a major intrusion into your consciousness.

With notifications disabled, we can regain time and attention. Society as a whole might think more clearly and be in the moment. I think it would be a huge step forward.

Delay notifications

Nothing sucks more time than notifications. That tiny red dot begging to be tapped. One solution to make notification less addicting short of turning them off is to delay them. We can purposely set a timer to show notifications in a delayed fashion rather than right away. This way people or kids don’t need to constantly check to see who replied or messaged you. Something as simple as a 3 minute notification delay may be sufficient to curb the constant checking behavior.

Delay reactions

Dopamine is fun, but constant dopamine in real time is unhealthy. Real time reactions force us to stare at our screens waiting for the next reaction.

We can lessen this addictive behavior by introducing delayed reactions to notes. Instead of reactions coming in real time, introduce a delay of 1-5 minutes. If you know that you won’t see any responses to your post for at least 5 minutes, it makes it easier to put down the phone and not have to constantly look to see who liked your note.

Improve Transparency

Once media organizations get on nostr, I think there’s a lot we can do to make them more transparent, accountable, and less manipulative.

One thing we can do is to create meta data for media accounts to indicate their funding sources. Everyone should be able to see who funds a certain organization (as discovered by anyone in the community and voted on by the community in terms of accuracy).

The idea is that someone could dig up funding sources for an organization and add them as meta notes to the account. The community can then collectively decide if this is accurate or inaccurate, giving others an idea if there is a certain bias involved.

Think about the Greenpeace ordeal currently happening. A meta note to indicate that Ripple, a “competing” cryptocurrency is funding them would add a lot of transparency to their claims. I think people would be less likely to believe the nonsense they are spewing.

Create a record of accuracy

Fueled entirely by the community, people could verify the accuracy of claims and indicate that in meta data. Other members can then review those claims and vote on them as well. With enough people involved, you could see if there is a sufficient sample size to indicate whether a media organization has been accurate or inaccurate in the past.

One thing we’d need to watch out here is bot manipulation. Said organizations could hire out malicious services to make it seem they are more accurate than they are typically. We’d have to think of some ways of preventing that.

The sheer lack of ratings on a claim should raise an eyebrow and whether something is to be believed or not.

The right to be forgotten

I know I will catch a lot of heat for this one. “The internet never forgets!” This is what the vast majority of people will say right away. That’s fine… but hear me out…

As builders and developers, we can form a consensus that social media data should be forgotten after x amount of time. Yes, anyone can screenshot it, mirror, put it on their own relay, rebroadcast it, yada yada yada… I get it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t create a consensus by which many builders, relay operators can voluntarily abide. It may not be a bulletproof solution, but it’s an effort that counts.

When we speak in the real world, unless recorded, our words are forgotten. A person should not be judged by a stupid thing they said yesterday, a week ago, a year ago. We can’t be in the right all the time - all people make mistakes and say and do stupid things. However, online, your word remains forever. Various servers cache, duplicate, at zero cost. I totally get that. Yet, we can still design an experience where that information disappears from our feeds, unless actively surfaced with some specific intent to surface it. I think this is a worthwhile effort that developers should consider today.

In cases where information should be saved for good reasons, someone will save it. Entire clients can and will exist to index everything, but that doesn’t mean every single client should surface every single note. People have a right to be wrong and to not be constantly harassed for what they said or did if they no longer feel or act that way.

Let’s have this conversation because no one else will

This article is meant to be a conversation starter. I really think we should weave it into the Nostr conferences as a crucial segment worth exploring and discussing. If we don’t do this, no one will. The world will continue to get gamified, attention hijacked and kids will continue suffering, depressed, lacking confidence and the tools needed to create a better world for their own kids. Let’s not fall sleep at the wheel and actually do something about it.

What other ideas do you have? Share the article and attach your own ideas.

@ 604e96e0:20279eb2

notacomment allows you to zap nostr notes when you comment on them. In order to use notacomment, you have to run a script yourself either on your own computer or in the cloud somewhere. To get started open https://github.com/SamSamskies/notacomment in a browser tab.

At this point, I'm sure a lot of you are feeling like this:

Let's breakdown the instructions from the README.

Prerequisites

Node.js and npm - I suggest installing the latest Node.js LTS version from https://nodejs.org. That should also install npm.

Once installation is complete, open your terminal. On a Mac you can press cmd + spacebar and type in terminal to open the terminal. On other platforms, you'll have to ask ChatGPT 😂 .

To verify installation of Node.js type node -v. To verify installation type npm -v.

It should look something like this:

Leave the terminal open.

Downloading the code to your computer

The easiest way to download the code is to download the zip file from the GitHub repo. Remember that first link I told you to open? That's the GitHub repo. Click the green button that says Code on it and click Download ZIP from the menu.

Now unzip the file and then navigate to the folder in the terminal. To navigate to the folder use the cd command. If you unzipped the folder in the Downloads folder, you can navigate to the folder by typing cd ~/Downloads/notacomment-main/.

Usage With Strike

1. Create an account with Strike if you don't already have one https://strike.me/download/
2. Get a Strike API key with all the payment scopes from https://dashboard.strike.me/
3. Create a .env file and provide NOSTR_NSEC and STRIKE_API_KEY values (see .env.example)
4. Install the dependencies using npm or yarn or whatever your heart desires
5. Make sure you have money in your Strike account
6. Run the script npm start

Keep in mind that Strike pays the invoices from your cash balance. This means the payment rounds up to the nearest cent when paying an invoice, so if you set the zap amount to 1 sat, you'll be sending more money to Strike than the person you are zapping with every zap.

Usage With LNbits

I recommend making a separate wallet from your main LNbits wallet for usage with notacomment in case you accidentally leak the admin key.

1. Create a .env file and provide NOSTR_NSEC, LNBITS_ADMIN_KEY, and LNBITS_URL values (see .env.example)
2. Install the dependencies using npm or yarn or whatever your heart desires
3. Make sure you have sats in your LNbits wallet
4. Run the script npm start

Usage With Nostr Wallet Connect

1. Create a NWC connection string using something like https://nwc.getalby.com/
2. Create a .env file and provide NOSTR_NSEC and NWC_CONNECTION_STRING values (see .env.example)
3. Install the dependencies using npm or yarn or whatever your heart desires
4. Make sure you have sats in your wallet that you generated the NWC connection string with
5. Run the script npm start

Screenshot of terminal with commands to install dependencies, create .env file, open .env file, and start the script:

@ 6e75f797:a8eee74e

I've received a few questions from other creators about streaming on ZapStream so I've decided to write this short introduction to ZapStream and, for those who don't have a nostr account yet, a simple 3-step guide to get started on nostr.

What is ZapStream?

ZapStream is a live streaming platform built on the nostr protocol allowing creators to stream and instantly monetize their content on a true and circular value4value social media network. On ZapStream there is no “road to affiliate” grind, no perks and no revenue share with the platform.

What is nostr?

Nostr - notes and other stuff transported by relays

Nostr is a simple, open protocol that enables global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social media. When creating an account for nostr you’re able to access any app, website or platform through one account. No user names, password or two-factor authentication. Your nostr account is your key to everything nostr. Guard it well!

---

Creating a nostr account

There are many ways to join the nostr network but for the purpose of this tutorial I’ve decided to focus on guiding you through three simple steps.

GetAlby

This browser extension is your authenticator for the nostr network and doubles as a Bitcoin lightning wallet. Head to GetAlby and add the extension to your browser to create a GetAlby account.

Snort

Snort is one of many social media sites on the nostr network. You could compare it to platforms like Twitter. Once you’ve created your GetAlby account, head over to Snort.social and authenticate with your brand new extension. WELCOME TO NOSTR!

Setting up your profile

On Snort browse to your profile settings and create your nostr profile. Avatar, banner, user name, display name, about (bio) website. NIP-5? Don’t worry about it just yet or click here to learn more about NIP-5. Now that you’ve joined the nostr network and created your profile it’s time to send your first note. Go back to the home page and say hi to the world.

---

ZapStream

Go to zap.stream and click the login button on the top right. Authenticate with your GetAlby extension and you’re almost ready to stream.

OBS Configuration

OBS tutorials

Configuring OBS depends very much on the users hardware components and bandwidth. Thus there is no “one guide fits all”. When installing OBS you’ll be prompted to run the setup wizard, run it. The wizard will identify your hardware and configure your OBS. Once OBS has auto-configured you can go into settings and customize the bitrate, output resolution and frame rate.

There are plenty of OBS tutorials on the internet for NVIDA, AMD and software encoding. Therefore we won't address this further in this guide. Google loves you.

Going Live

To go live on ZapStream click again on the top-right to grab the streaming URL and stream key. Select your desired stream option and add your stream info, cover and tags. Click save and hit start streaming in OBS. You're live!

Hosted

Connecting OBS to ZapStream is no different than connecting to any other site but you can choose from several options. Pick your desired option, copy the stream URL and stream key, add both to OBS and you’re ready to go.

Best

This option charges 10sats/min and offers server side encoding for your streams output (source, 720, 480, etc). ZapStream might add more features to this plan in the future but for now it’s only the guaranteed encoding for your viewers.

Basic

This option charges only 2.5sats/min but doesn’t offer server side output encoding. If you use this option consider setting your video settings in OBS to 30 FPS and rescale your output to 720 for best viewing quality. Viewers with a slower connection may experience blurry video. Thus using the Best solution is recommended in particular for gaming.

Self hosted

Creators with a server or Cloudflare account may stream directly to ZapStream through applications such as Owncast or others. Please refer to Cloudflare streaming or Owncast’s website for details on how-to setup your own streaming server.

Features / Options

OBS overlays

At the time of writing the only overlay available is the chat overlay. To add your chat to OBS, create a new browser source in OBS and add https://zap.stream/chat/YOURnostrPubkey to the source. By adding your nostr pubkey to the source your overlay will always show the chat of the current stream / nostr event.

OBS Docks

You can also add your chat as a custom dock to OBS. Use the same link as above when you create the dock allowing you to have your chat inside OBS rather than popping it out on your desktop.

Chat features

On nostr all content has unique event identifiers also known as nostr events. ZapStream supports embedding of almost any nostr event directly into your chat. This can be a note, emoji pack, goal or any other supported nostr event. To add an event add the tag nostr: before the event ID.

Chat moderation

Nostr is a censorship resistant and free speech centric protocol self-moderating the content users want to see or not see is the way to go. However, ZapStream supports muting of users (NIP-28, kind 10_000 events). This means that users can mute other users and anyone muted by the host will be muted in the creators chat for everyone else (host mute list).

Emote packs

As creator you can add your own emote packs to chat or use packs created by other nostr users. Head over to https://emojis-iota.vercel.app/ to create or add emotes to your account. Viewers may also use their own emotes and you can link emote packs in chat so viewers can add them to their own account.

Cards

Cards are the widgets you see below your stream. Cards support most nostr events, images, links and text. You can add your schedule, chat rules, referrals, partners or anything else you like by editing the cards.

Goals

Creators can create goals for their stream. The option to create a goal for the current stream scan be found above the chat. Add a goal name and the amount to be raised and click save. The goal will appear above your chat and it will be removed at the end of your stream or when starting a new stream. Goals can be also added to cards. To add a custom goal to a card head over to https://goals-silk.vercel.app/, create a custom url and then copy/paste the event ID of the goal into the text field of a card. Goals also work in chat.

Dedicated yourname@zap.stream handle

Creators may also secure a unique ZapStream identifier through Snort.social. To secure your handle head over to https://snort.social/settings/handle, add your channel name and pay the invoice. One you’ve secured your handle you’ll be able to use https://zap.stream/YOURHANDLE for your ZapStream.

---

Reference links for ZapStream and nostr:

• ZapStream ToS
• Emote packs
• Nostr goals
• Nostr - Get started

@ 98fb8505:825b2c93

Can anyone help me please? I'm trying to find a client-agnostic way to link between notes from the same nostr account.

I can get it to work on either blogstack.io or habla.news, but not both.

nostr:naddrxxxx appears to work on habla only and only if I open in a new tab.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Test link

nostr:naddr1qqyrzwfkv56xxvnrqgsf37u9q4up37etd4w4fgdfkxvurxk74gcmsf9ea0g7vgyasfdjeycrqsqqqa289cajej

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Things that we mostly can't fix, but that maybe could have been done better if they were here from the beginning -- or something like that.

• Choosing secp256k1 felt cool and maybe it still feels cool because it is the Bitcoin curve, but since many people have pointed out that other curves and algorithms are much faster maybe picking those would have been better.
• Writing a spec for direct messages and implementing them was bad. In my defense, it was an attempt to please the public, but still I should have not have done that, or thought more about it before doing it.
• For a long time I didn't realize Nostr wasn't useful just for "social networking" things. I wonder what else could have been better designed in the relay-client interface if the needs of non-social-networking apps were kept in mind.
• The querying system is sometimes too generic, it could have been better if it was more restrictive, but more complete. For example: allowing generic querying over tags is weird, can lead to O(n²) issues in some cases and relays are left to fend for themselves -- on the other hand we can't query for the absence of some tags. But I don't know how any of these things could have been better even today, so maybe it wasn't so bad.
• Making the events be JSON: sometimes I think this was a bad idea and a binary format would have been better, but most of the times I think Nostr wouldn't have become any popular at all if this was the case -- also binary is slower than JSON in JavaScript, so I guess this wasn't a completely bad choice. Perhaps if something like NSON had been adopted from the start, though, that would have been better for everybody.

When I decided to write this I had one item in mind, but when I started I forgot what that was. I'll add it here back when I remember.

@ 668ceee5:930b960e

So you've joined nostr, set up your lightning wallet, and started receiving zaps ⚡️ Maybe you've even participated in some zapathons. Bitcoin on nostr is a lot of fun, but why is everyone so excited about it?

I do not wish to get technical. While you can benefit greatly from learning about UTXOs and the other confusing things about Bitcoin, I want to talk about why Bitcoin is the hardest money ever discovered.

Many believe money is something governments create, or simply a figment of our imagination. As long as everyone believes the paper printed by governments is money, then we can have an economy. This is incorrect.

Money is actually an emergent property of trade. Suppose I have an apple, and I want your banana. We can trade, and this is called the barter system. But what if you don't want my apple because you would rather have oranges? How do I get your banana?

I could trade my apple for an orange and trade my orange for your banana, but this is obviously a huge inconvenience. Add a few million more goods to this equation, and we can see how this quickly becomes chaotic.

But humans are smart, and they eventually found a way to solve this problem with money. Money can be anything; this is true. However, we will soon see why some goods are better suited as money than others.

Suppose we all agree that apples will be the money we choose to exchange for goods. If I want bananas or oranges or iPhones, I give you a certain number of apples. This could work, because you know that you can purchase anything you want with apples, so you readily accept my apples.

https://cdn.nostr.build/p/rkMj.jpg

Eventually you want to buy a car that cost 1000 apples, so you start to save these apples. Everything is going great, until a few weeks later your apples start to rot. Nobody wants rotten apples, so you’re never getting that car.

Let's pretend apples do not rot, and you can successfully save 1000 apples. This takes you several years, and you can finally afford that car. However, people act; and since apples are money, everyone realized years ago that money can literally grow on trees. By the time you have saved 1000 apples, everyone has 10,000 apples from the trees they grew, and new apples are being harvested everyday.

The amount of a good in circulation divided by its annual production is called stock-to-flow ratio. As the production of apples quickly increases, the purchasing power of your apples decline because of apple inflation. This means our unrottable apples are not a good store of value, and therefore apples are easy money (as opposed to hard money).

https://cdn.nostr.build/p/ZEkl.jpg

Apples are terrible money, and humans eventually figured out they need something that doesn't rot or rust, while also having a low stock-to-flow ratio. This is how gold became the standard money of the world. Gold is practically indestructible, and despite many efforts from the alchemists, gold cannot be created. We must dig for gold, and put in real work to obtain it. Gold is also scarce, so it has one of the lowest stock-to-flow ratios of any resource in the world. For thousands of years, gold was the hardest money society had ever discovered. Gold sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it?

So what is so special about Bitcoin if we already have gold? Well, one of the most important distinctions is you cannot zap gold on nostr. This sounds like a joke, but it has very important implications.

https://cdn.nostr.build/p/owDW.jpg

Gold is bulky, it's difficult to divide into smaller units, and it's very expensive to transport. If I want to send you the equivalent of $1 in gold for your meme, it wouldn't be worth the trouble. Likewise, if we meet IRL and I have $10 in gold, but you only want $1 for your apple, it would be very difficult to divide my gold into exactly 1/10th pieces.

And this is how fiat dollars were born. The US used to be on a gold standard, where every dollar was a reciept for a certain amount of gold. This gave you the convenience of carrying a lightweight and easily divisible amount of gold.

It's important to note that governments did not declare paper and gold are money and force everyone to use it. On the contrary, governments form when a group of people are able to steal large amounts of gold, allowing them to afford armies that can steal even more gold.

The indestructibility of gold used to make this very easy. If I am the leader of a group of bandits and robbers, we can burn down your house and take the gold. However, there came a time when people began to trust and admire this group of bandits. So instead of burning down your house, I simply threaten you with violence and steal your gold. But don't worry, in return you get a piece of paper that we pretend is worth $1 in gold. Makes things more convenient for you, and I will safely store your gold in a centralized bank.

https://cdn.nostr.build/p/6xKa.jpg

This actually sounds like a decent deal, but after several years of trading paper for goods, the temptation to print more paper than the existing gold supply was too much. If a banker or politician can print $1000 to buy a brand new Model T, who's going to notice?

Well, like our inflated apples above, eventually the market noticed. People brought their paper receipts to the banks to get their gold back. But there wasn't enough gold, and this caused the Great Depression. Instead of owning their mistakes, governments and banks began working on a new form of economics based on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes. This is called Keynesian economics, but we will not get into all that.

https://cdn.nostr.build/p/nb2744.jpeg

The point is, gold has its flaws, and these flaws eventually led to the US Federal government being $32,000,000,000,000 in debt, endless wars, and a crumbling society.

But now we have Bitcoin. Like gold, Bitcoin is mined by powerful machines that require work. It cannot be created out of thin air. Bitcoin has a stock-to-flow ratio that is cut in half every four years. In the year 2140 there will be 21 million Bitcoin, and then no other Bitcoin will ever be mined again. This makes Bitcoin the most scarce resource in the universe.

Unlike gold, Bitcoin is not bulky, hard to divide, or difficult to transport because Bitcoin doesn't physically exist. Bitcoin is weightless, massless, easily divisible, and travels at the speed of light. You don't need to trust a bank to hold your Bitcoin, because instead of a vault, Bitcoin is held on 12 or 24 word seed phrases.

This means the equivalent of billions of dollars can be held on a single piece of paper, a metal plate, a digital hardware wallet, or even stored inside your thoughts. Nobody can burn down your house and steal it. If they threaten you with violence, they have no way to confirm the sats you give them are all you have.

https://cdn.nostr.build/p/nb2500.jpeg

Yes, this is the same Bitcoin we are all zapping each other on nostr. Not only is it more convenient than fake paper dollars, it is the greatest and hardest money ever discovered.

This is why Bitcoiners always stress the importance of self custody. Bitcoin is your property, and as history has shown time and time again, we cannot trust anyone. We cannot trust the governments, the banks, exchanges, or even the custodial wallets you download to your phone. 

But all you have to do is have fun zapping your Bitcoin on nostr, move it to self custody when you accumulate a decent amount of sats, and wait for the market to respond. Because like gold before it, Bitcoin doesn’t need governments to accept it. Bitcoin is inevitable.

If you would like to learn more about the economics of Bitcoin and Austrian Economics in general, I highly recommend reading The Bitcoin Standard by nostr:npub1gdu7w6l6w65qhrdeaf6eyywepwe7v7ezqtugsrxy7hl7ypjsvxksd76nak, which this note attempts to summarize.

@ 2448a66f:838296c9

หลายคนคงคุ้นเคยกับ Gamefi เป็นอย่างดี บางคนเริ่มเข้าสู่การลงทุนในโลกคริปโตจาก Gamefi เพราะมันสนุก เข้าใจง่าย และ ได้ผลตอบแทน เราจะไม่พูดว่า Gamefi คืออะไร มันเป็นเรื่องเก่าไปแล้ว ที่จะพูดถึงในตอนนี้

แต่มีบางอย่างใน Gamefi ที่เราเรียนรู้จากมันได้

Gamefi จำลองสถานการณ์ทางการเงินที่เกิดขึ้นบนโลกนี้ได้อย่างเด่นชัด มันเป็นเหมือนประเทศเล็กๆ ที่ซ้อนทับอยู่บนโลกแห่งความจริง เมื่ออำนาจในการผลิตเงิน (Token) ถูกผูกเอาไว้ที่กลุ่มคนใดกลุ่มคนหนึ่ง อำนาจที่สร้างผลกระทบต่อเราอย่างหลีกเลี่ยงไม่ได้

---

ระบบการเงินในโลกของ Gamefi ถูกผูกเอาไว้ที่นักพัฒนา ในขณะที่ระบบการเงินในโลกจริง ถูกผูกเอาไว้กับรัฐบาล

นักพัฒนาของ Gamefi สร้างเหรียญขึ้นมาก่อนจำนวนหนึ่ง โดยอ้างว่าเพื่อใช้จ่ายเพิ่มสภาพคล่องของเกมส์ กำหนดปริมาณเหรียญที่ผู้ใช้งานจะได้รับ กำหนดปริมาณการใช้จ่ายเหรียญเพื่อแลกอะไรสักอย่างในระบบ ออกกฎ นโยบาย เงื่อนไขการผลิตเหรียญของผู้ใช้งาน เพิ่มความต้องการสร้างผลตอบแทน เร่งการใช้จ่ายเหรียญ ผ่านการ staking, อัพเกรดไอเทม, ขาย NFT

มันก็ไม่ต่างอะไรกับรัฐบาลของเรา พวกเขากำหนดรายได้ของผู้คนได้ ผ่านนโยบายค่าแรงขั้นต่ำ กำหนดความสามารถในผลิตเงินของภาคเอกชน ผ่านการกำหนดนโยบาย โครงการรัฐ สร้างกองทุนเพื่อดึงเงินจากภาครัฐ และเอกชน นำกลับมาสร้างเงินเพื่อใช้จ่ายในระบบ พวกเขาต่างมีอำนาจทำได้ทุกอย่างไม่มีข้อจำกัด เหมือนๆกัน

---

เงินหมุนเวียนในโลกของ Gamefi การเพิ่มปริมาณ supply ของเหรียญ ด้วยการออก NFT สำหรับใช้ในการผลิตเงิน ดึงเงินจากมือผู้ใช้งาน กลับเข้าไปในระบบ และผู้ใช้งานก็ยอมจ่าย เพราะพวกเขาต้องการเพิ่มความสามารถในการผลิตเหรียญให้มากขึ้น เพื่อที่พวกเขาจะได้ยังคงรักษาเอาไว้ซึ่งความสามารถในการได้รับผลตอบแทนเอาไว้เท่าเดิม

นานวันเข้าผู้ใช้งานก็เริ่มรู้สึกตัวว่า สิ่งที่เขาลงทุนไป ไม่สามารถรักษาความสามารถนั้นได้ มูลค่าของเหรียญลดน้อยถอยลงทุกวัน มันเริ่มไม่สามารถนำไปแลกเปลี่ยนเป็นสินค้าอะไรอื่นได้อีก เหรียญไม่มีค่า ให้เอาเวลาไปเสียอีกต่อไปแล้ว

ไม่ต่างอะไรกับ เงินหมุนเวียนในโลกของความจริง เงินถูกผลิตขึ้นมาได้อย่างไม่มีข้อจำกัด ผ่านการออกพันธบัตรรัฐบาล ผู้ถือพันธบัตรรัฐบาล มีความสามารถในการผลิตเงินเพิ่มเข้าสู่ระบบ เทียบกับโลกของ Gamefi มันก็ไม่ต่างอะไรกับการเสก NFT ขึ้นมาเพื่อเพิ่มอำนาจในการผลิตเงิน

เมื่อมูลค่าของเงินลดน้อยถอยลงทุกวัน ผู้คนต่างก็แสวงหาการลงทุนระยะสั้นที่ให้ผลตอบแทนที่ดี เพื่อรักษาเอาไว้ซึ่งความสามารถในการแลกเปลี่ยน ยิ่งเวลาผ่านไป ยิ่งต้องพยายามให้มากขึ้น แสวงหาต่อไปเรื่อยๆ ไม่จบสิ้น

เงินในโลกของเราตอนนี้ ก็ไม่ต่างอะไรกับเงินในโลกของ Gamefi มันไร้ค่า และ ใกล้พังเต็มทีแล้ว

@ 98fb8505:825b2c93

Link

nostr:naddr1qqxnzd3exsengwpcxumrqv3hqgsf37u9q4up37etd4w4fgdfkxvurxk74gcmsf9ea0g7vgyasfdjeycrqsqqqa28cejcl6

@ 89e14be4:a4fdd02c

test

quentin@nostrcheck.me

test

@ 7d9bfdfc:bf5f3e3e

You should read Kit Klarenberg's Leaked: CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution in Indonesia because: * the US is undermining democracies and putting pressure on governments all over Asia * the US is preparing for its unprovoked war of aggression against China, and Indonesia is an extremely important country in the region

Klarenberg's article: * provides the necessary historical context for Indonesian/US relations * explains why the upcoming elections are especially important for Indonesia's further development and how it positions itself internationally * briefly explains which mechanisms the US uses to interfere with elections abroad * then (in section ‘Personal Branding Development’) explains contents and relevance of the leaked documents, how the US is preparing and positioning its own candidates across different political parties in Indonesia, as well as how the US preparing for their defeat AKA preparing for destabilizing Indonesia * shows that while the interests of the Indonesian people and US interests in the country and region are diametrically opposed, the US has a track record of funding, bribing and corrupting just the right people in just the right positions to further the interests of the US oligarchy

Read: Leaked: CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution in Indonesia

Follow: @KitKlarenberg

Check out more from: Mint Press News

WYSR - 'why you should read' - is a brief overview what an article is about and why it's relevant.

@ fa984bd7:58018f52

Let's talk about NIP-31, NIP-89 and how discoverability in Nostr is not only not broken, but it's a step-function improvement over the status quo of the siloed web.

The captured internet has organically evolved multiple solutions to enable discoverability, which is, the process of discovering new content / tools / people, etc.

These tools sit at the top of the internet food chain: Search engines, app stores, social networks' proprietary algorithms, etc.

These individual approaches are multi-billion industries on their own.

How are we, humble nostriches, supposed to compete with these giants and their enormous moats?

We compete by not competing. By playing a different game.

The game

Nostr has a funny design that makes for some very creative implementations.

In Nostr everything is an event. These events can reference other events. Each event has a kind number, which represent what that event is. An event of kind 1 is a short note, what we typically call a tweet. An event of kind 7 is a reaction to another event, such as 🤙ing it. Zaps? Those are kind 9735.

It's very simple. Painfully simple.

But the fact that these event kinds can mix together in a chaotic soup of events changes the game.

The soup

A few months ago I wrote an application based on Karnage's designs. Zapstr. It's a music player where everything you do is... you guessed it, a nostr event. Publishing a song. Listening to a song. Liking it, and of course, zapping it.

But also, you can respond to a song with a short note.

And that's the first ingredient of this soup.

The moment you find a song you like in this remote corner of the internet and make a comment about it, your followers, can see this comment on any other social application.

Of course, since Zapstr is an application with zero marketing budget, using a kind number I came up with (kind 31337, a wink to the elite hackers out there), your followers don't know what you're talking about.

You're talking to the void.

The void

This is where NIP-31 and NIP-89 come in.

Until these NIPs, you responding to a random song, or to a random anything, your followers will think you're going insane. You're responding with something like "Wow, this song moved me to my core", but you don't mention what song you're talking about.

Lana del rey, is that you?

NIP-31 is, like almost anything in nostr, simple as hell.

If you remember the good old alt tag in HTML <img>s that was so important when you were loading images on your 28k modem, you'll understand NIP-31. This NIP proposes that event kinds that are not widely supported by all clients, include an alt tag explaining, in a human readable format, what the event is about.

alt: "This is a song 'Video Games' by Lana del Rey."

Simple.

But now your followers have context.

Of course, the context is helpful. But insufficient for a full experience.

The full experience

The measuring stick most people will compare our ecosystem with, are superapps.

WeChat. X.com. Etc.

here's a reason these apps are so popular. It's not merely that people might crave being governed by a benevolent dictator; the convenience of superapps stands on its own merit.

The appeal of a superapp is the convenience of the seamless integration across use-cases.

Chat with your friends? ✅

Pay your bills? ✅

Get a ride? ✅ How about order some food while you're riding back home? ✅

The super app is the internet. Why leave? Why create a new account somewhere else? Why go through the hassle of connecting your payment methods, porting your social graph?

It's all so painful. What's the upside?

Of couse, if you've been paying attention, you feel that Nostr provides many of these properties.

Frictionless transition through all use cases: it's all just one npub!

Porting your social graph: there is no porting; your social graph already transcends whatever nostr clients you use.

Reconnecting your payment methods: well, we have bitcoin, and wallet connect, and lightning!

Putting it all together

Here the vision of the Nostr I see comes full circle, and why I believe nostr doesn't only NOT suffer from a discoverability problem, but it's actually orders of magnitude better than the status quo. We've just haven't fully built it yet.

Nostr allows any developer, with no marketing budget, to create an app, a new app, using a new kind number, on an incredibly niche use case of the internet/nostr, and leverage the liquid nature of how event kinds interoperate to provide organic reach to these new and strange use case of nostr/internet.

The glue

NIP-89 was that one last missing piece to make the experience of transitioning through multiple microapps cohesive. It provides two simple building blocks:

• a way for apps to "register" kind applications handlers (e.g. app X supports kind Y using such-and-such URL)
• a way for users to publicly associate kinds with these application handlers throughout their different platforms (e.g. web, vs ios)

A byproduct of this, is that anyone can query 1) which applications exist for a given kinds, and 2) which one the people they follow use.

Let's go back to the Zapstr example.

One of your followers sees that song, but clicking on the event yields nothing. Their client doesn't know what kind 31337 means, how to render, or interact with it.

But, using NIP-89 the client can ask the user's social graph "hey, what apps do you use for kind 31337?"

All the user experiences is the song opening up in Zapstr, or in any other app that supports kind 31337 as recommended by the people they follow.

From the people the user follows.

This is key.

This means that multiple applications can compete and win under the same use case in different communities.

A million microapps, one glue

Why do I insist that Nostr is orders-of-magnitude better than the siloed internet and the superapps approach?

Superapps need to appeal to everybody; they have to move carefully, iterate in small steps and remain very conservative. By their very nature, they MUST be bland (which is why all these superapps look very much alike and none of them look like ONOSENDAI)

Whereas in nostr we can experiment with the wildest of ideas and weirdest approaches since no app needs to serve all users. Perhaps a very weird app appeals to only 20 or 50 people, but it can transparently interact with all other apps serving the same event kind.

Long-tails all the way down.

As these microapps enable all types of niche use cases while maintaining interoperability and leveraging discoverability and distribution through nostr, the use cases of nostr begin to blend in and the artificial use-case silos break down.

App Stores need not apply

I believe App Stores are a synthetic solution to a problem that doesn't exist in Nostr.

App Stores exist due to the internet's lack of unification in exposing novel use cases to users.

App Stores are necessary because the captured internet lacks a way of unifying different use cases exposing novel use cases and applications to users. The main way of discovering these was through use cases.

But in this world, where within the context of a social client you might see when one of the people you follow posts a new product for sale, or adds a review to a concert, or takes notes about a book they're reading you can immediately discover these new use cases organically.

WTF happened in 1989?

For decades, we've operated within data silos, with each use case as its own isolated entity. The only trancendence of use-cases was the centralizing vertical-integration of a Facebook offering both social media and commerce.

YouTube data isn't interoperable with Spotify's. Twitter isn't interoperable with Amazon, and Airbnb doesn't inform in any sort of way what happens in reddit.

Every one of these use cases is its own thing, and, to stay relevant, they needed to persuade you to engage, engage, engage. We are all very aware of this and it's many pitfalls.

We know where that path leads.

But, as we've constructed Nostr apps we've erected similar use-case walls. Social clients are interoperable with other social clients, but the link to music clients, or to commerce websites, or to airbnb-like websites, etc, is mostly non-existent.

Just like in 1989, bringing down this wall, will unleash a great flurry of innovation and creativity. When Nostr can provide organic, free, non-invasive, discoverability and distribution to any new use case, we'll see millions of microapps bloom and new entrepreneurs and developers build on Nostr.

Developers, tear down this wall.

@ fab018ad:dd9af89d

3. การปรับโครงสร้าง (Structural Adjustment)

“การปรับเปลี่ยนเป็นเรื่องใหม่เสมอ และไม่เคยจบสิ้น”

>### –Otmar Emminger อดีตผู้อำนวยการ IMF และผู้คิดค้น SDR

ในพาดหัวข่าวการเงินทุกวันนี้จะเต็มไปด้วยเรื่องเกี่ยวกับการที่ IMF ไปเยี่ยมเยือนประเทศต่าง ๆ เช่น ศรีลังกาหรือกาน่า และผลลัพธ์ที่ได้ออกมานั้นคือกองทุน IMF ได้ปล่อยเงินกู้นับพันล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐให้แก่ประเทศที่กำลังประสบวิกฤติ โดยแลกกับสิ่งที่เรียกว่า "การปรับโครงสร้าง" (Structural Adjustment)

ในเงินกู้เพื่อการปรับโครงสร้างนั้น นอกเหนือจากที่ผู้กู้จะต้องจ่ายเงินต้นคืนพร้อมดอกเบี้ยแล้ว ผู้กู้ยังจะต้องยินยอมที่จะปรับเปลี่ยนโครงสร้างเศรษฐกิจของตนเองตามความต้องการของธนาคารโลกและ IMF โดยเงื่อนไขเกือบทุกครั้งมักจะระบุให้ผู้กู้ต้องเพิ่มการส่งออกให้มากที่สุด โดยแลกมากับการบริโภคภายในประเทศที่ต้องได้รับผลกระทบ

ในช่วงค้นคว้าข้อมูลสำหรับการเขียนบทความนี้ ผู้เขียนได้เรียนรู้เป็นอย่างมากจากผลงานของคุณ Cheryl Payer นักวิชาการด้านการพัฒนาซึ่งเขียนหนังสือและงานวิจัยเกี่ยวกับอิทธิพลของธนาคารโลกและกองทุน IMF ในช่วงทศวรรษ 1970, 1980 และ 1990 แม้ผู้เขียนเองอาจจะมีความเห็นที่ไม่ตรงกับคุณ Payer ในเรื่องของ “ทางออกเพื่อแก้ไขปัญหา” ซึ่งทางแก้ของคุณ Payer นั้นค่อนข้างเอนเอียงไปในแนวทางสังคมนิยม เฉกเช่นเดียวกับนักวิจารณ์ส่วนใหญ่ที่วิพากษ์วิจารณ์ธนาคารและกองทุน IMF แต่ถึงกระนั้นข้อสังเกตเกี่ยวกับเศรษฐกิจโลกที่เธอค้นพบก็เป็นความจริงที่ไม่ได้เอนเอียงไปตามอุดมการณ์ใด ๆ

“เป้าหมายของโครงการจาก IMF นั้นชัดเจนและไม่ซับซ้อน” เธอกล่าว “นั่นคือการกีดกันการบริโภคในท้องถิ่น เพื่อให้มีทรัพยากรที่เหลือเฟือสำหรับการส่งออก”

นี่เป็นประเด็นสำคัญที่เน้นย้ำเท่าไรก็คงไม่พอ

หากกล่าวตามเรื่องเล่าอย่างเป็นทางการแล้ว ธนาคารและกองทุนเหล่านี้ถูกออกแบบมาเพื่อการ “ส่งเสริมการเติบโตทางเศรษฐกิจแบบยั่งยืน ยกระดับคุณภาพชีวิต และลดปัญหาความยากจน” แต่ถนนและเขื่อนที่พวกเขาสร้างนั้นไม่ได้ถูกออกแบบมาเพื่อพัฒนาการขนส่งให้ดีขึ้น หรือเพื่อจ่ายพลังงานไฟฟ้าให้ชุมชนในท้องถิ่น มันกลับมีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อทำให้เป็นการง่ายต่อบรรษัทข้ามชาติในการกอบโกยความมั่งคั่งออกไป

และเงินให้กู้เพื่อความช่วยเหลือจาก IMF นั้นไม่ได้มีไว้เพื่อ “ช่วยเหลือ” ประเทศให้รอดพ้นจากการล้มละลาย (ซึ่งจากในหลายกรณีแล้วนั้น การล้มละลายไปน่าจะเป็นทางเลือกที่ดีที่สุด) แต่มีไว้เพื่อให้ประเทศเหล่านั้นสามารถจ่ายหนี้ก้อนเดิมได้ด้วยหนี้ก้อนใหม่ที่ใหญ่กว่า เพื่อช่วยให้ธนาคารจากชาติตะวันตกไม่ต้องมีหนี้สูญในงบดุลของพวกเขา

คุณ Payer ได้อธิบายไว้ในหนังสือของเธอที่เกี่ยวข้องกับเรื่องธนาคารโลกและ IMF ถึงวิธีที่สถาบันการเงินเหล่านี้ใช้อ้างว่าเงื่อนไขของเงินกู้เหล่านี้ที่ต้องปฏิบัติตามนั้น จะช่วยให้ประเทศผู้กู้ “มีสภาพดุลการค้าและดุลบัญชีชำระเงินที่ดีขึ้น” แต่จุดประสงค์หลักจริง ๆ แล้วนั้น เธอกล่าวว่า “นั่นคือการติดสินบนรัฐบาลของประเทศผู้กู้ เพื่อป้องกันไม่ให้พวกเขาสร้างการเปลี่ยนแปลงโครงสร้างทางเศรษฐกิจไปในทางที่ดีขึ้นที่จะทำให้พวกเขาสามารถลดการพึ่งพาประเทศอื่น และสามารถเลี้ยงตัวเองได้”

เมื่อประเทศต้องจ่ายคืนหนี้เงินกู้เพื่อการปรับโครงสร้างเหล่านี้ การชำระหนี้จะกลายเป็นภารกิจสำคัญอันดับต้น ๆ และเงินเพื่อการใช้จ่ายภายในประเทศก็จะถูก “ปรับ” ให้ลดน้อยลง

เงินกู้ของ IMF มักจะถูกจัดสรรผ่านกลไกที่เรียกว่า “Stand-by Agreement” ซึ่งคือทางกองทุนจะจัดเตรียมวงเงินกู้ไว้ให้ แต่จะให้เบิกใช้ก็ต่อเมื่อรัฐบาลประเทศผู้กู้สามารถบรรลุวัตถุประสงค์ที่ได้กำหนดไว้ โดยตั้งแต่จาการ์ตา ลากอส ไปจนถึงบัวโนสไอเรส จะมีเจ้าหน้าที่ของ IMF บินไปยังประเทศเหล่านี้ (บนที่นั่งชั้นหนึ่งหรือชั้นธุรกิจเสมอ!) เพื่อพบกับผู้นำที่ไม่ได้มาจากระบอบประชาธิปไตย และเสนอเงินให้มูลค่านับล้านหรือนับพันล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐ เพื่อแลกกับการทำตามวิธีการด้านเศรษฐกิจของพวกเขา

โดยทั่วไปแล้วสิ่งที่ IMF ต้องการให้ประเทศผู้กู้ทำก็คือ :

1. การลดค่าเงิน
2. การลดหรือยกเลิกการควบคุมการแลกเปลี่ยนเงินตราต่างประเทศและการนำเข้า
3. การลดการปล่อยกู้ของธนาคารภายในประเทศ
4. การขึ้นอัตราดอกเบี้ย
5. การเพิ่มภาษี
6. ยุติการให้การอุดหนุนด้านอาหารและพลังงานแก่ประชาชน
7. ให้มีการตั้งเพดานค่าแรง
8. จำกัดการใช้จ่ายและลงทุนของรัฐบาล โดยเฉพาะในด้านสาธารณสุขและด้านการศึกษา
9. มีเงื่อนไขด้านกฎหมายและแรงจูงใจที่เป็นมิตรต่อบริษัทข้ามชาติ
10. ให้มีการขายรัฐวิสาหกิจและขายสิทธิ์ในการเข้าถึงทรัพยากรธรรมชาติในราคาที่ถูกมาก ๆ

และทางธนาคารโลกเองก็มีวิธีการบีบบังคับประเทศลูกหนี้ของพวกเขาเองเหมือนกัน โดยคุณ Payer ได้ยกตัวอย่างไว้ดังนี้ :

1. เปิดให้มีการลงทุนในด้านการขนส่งและการสื่อสารในพื้นที่ที่ห่างไกล
2. ให้มีการช่วยเหลือบริษัทข้ามชาติที่อยู่ในกลุ่มอุตสาหกรรมเหมืองแร่
3. เน้นย้ำจุดยืนด้านการผลิตเพื่อการส่งออก
4. กดดันผู้กู้ให้แก้สิทธิพิเศษทางกฎหมายในด้านภาระภาษี เพื่อให้เอื้อต่อการลงทุนจากต่างประเทศมากขึ้น
5. คัดค้านการออกกฎหมายค่าแรงขั้นต่ำและการทำกิจกรรมของกลุ่มสหภาพแรงงาน
6. ยุติมาตรการปกป้องทางการค้าสำหรับธุรกิจท้องถิ่น
7. ให้เงินสนับสนุนโครงการเวนคืนที่ดิน ผืนน้ำ และป่าไม้ จากกลุ่มคนยากจน และส่งมอบสิทธิการบริหารจัดการให้กับบริษัทข้ามชาติ
8. ลดขนาดอุตสาหกรรมการผลิตและธุรกิจการผลิตอาหารให้เล็กลง เพื่อแลกกับการส่งออกทรัพยากรธรรมชาติและวัตถุดิบ

ตามประวัติศาสตร์แล้ว รัฐบาลของประเทศโลกที่สามมักถูกบังคับให้รับเงื่อนไขเหล่านี้รวม ๆ กัน (ซึ่งบ้างจะรู้จักในชื่อ “ฉันทามติวอชิงตัน (Washington Consensus)”) เพื่อให้สามารถเบิกใช้เงินกู้ของธนาคารโลกและกองทุน IMF ได้

เหล่าอดีตเจ้าอาณานิคมนั้นมักจะปล่อยเงินกู้เพื่อใช้สำหรับ “การพัฒนา” ให้แก่อดีตประเทศใต้อาณานิคม หรือประเทศที่อยู่ในเขตอิทธิพลของตัวเอง เช่น :

• ฝรั่งเศสให้กู้กับแอฟริกาตะวันตก
• ญี่ปุ่นให้กู้กับอินโดนีเซีย
• อังกฤษให้กู้กับแอฟริกาตะวันออกและเอเชียใต้
• สหรัฐอเมริกาให้กู้กับลาตินอเมริกา

โดยตัวอย่างที่เด่นชัดคือเขตประชาคมทางการเงินของแอฟริกา (CFA) ซึ่งผู้คนกว่า 180 ล้านคนของประเทศในทวีปแอฟริกากว่า 15 ประเทศ ยังคงถูกบังคับให้ใช้สกุลเงินของประเทศเจ้าอาณานิคมอย่างฝรั่งเศส อย่างฟรังก์ซีเอฟเอ (CFA Franc) และด้วยคำแนะนำของ IMF ในปี 1994 ฝรั่งเศสก็ได้ทำการลดค่าเงินสกุลฟรังก์ซีเอฟเอถึงร้อยละ 50 ถือเป็นการทำลายเงินออมและอำนาจการจับจ่ายใช้สอยของคนหลายสิบล้านคนที่อาศัยในประเทศต่าง ๆ ไล่ตั้งแต่เซเนกัล ไอวอรีโคสต์ จนถึงกาบอง โดยทั้งหมดนั้นเพื่อทำให้การส่งออกวัตถุดิบมีความสามารถในการแข่งขันได้มากขึ้น

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>หมายเหตุผู้แปล : ประชาคมทางการเงินของแอฟริกา (CFA) (ในภาษาฝรั่งเศส Communauté Financière d'Afrique, ในภาษาอังกฤษ African Financial Community) คือกลุ่ม 15 ประเทศในแอฟริกา ที่ใช้เงินสกุล CFA Franc ซึ่งเป็นสกุลเงินที่ถูกหนุนหลังโดยกระทรวงการคลังของฝรั่งเศส ซึ่งจะมีการตรึงอัตราแลกเปลี่ยนกับเงินสกุลยูโรแบบคงที่ โดยที่ทางฝรั่งเศสจะเป็นผู้กำหนดอัตราแลกเปลี่ยนนี้

ผลลัพธ์จากนโยบายของธนาคารโลกและกองทุน IMF ที่มีต่อประเทศโลกที่สามนั้น ช่างคล้ายคลึงเหลือเกินกับสิ่งที่เคยเกิดขึ้นภายใต้ระบอบจักรวรรดิแบบดั้งเดิม นั่นคือค่าแรงถูกกดขี่ ผู้คนสูญสิ้นอิสรภาพ และการต้องพึ่งพาประเทศอื่นในด้านการเกษตร โดยความแตกต่างที่สำคัญสำหรับระบอบใหม่นี้ คือดาบและปืนที่เคยถูกใช้เป็นอาวุธ วันนี้มันถูกแทนที่ด้วยอาวุธที่เรียกว่า "หนี้สิน"

ในช่วง 30 ปีที่ผ่านมา การปรับโครงสร้างมีความเข้มข้นมากขึ้นเรื่อย ๆ เมื่อเทียบกับเงินกู้ที่ธนาคารโลกและกองทุน IMF ปล่อยกู้ก่อนปี 1980 ซึ่งในช่วงนั้นการปล่อยเงินกู้เพื่อการปรับโครงสร้างของธนาคารโลกถือเป็นเรื่องไม่ปกติ เงินกู้เกือบทั้งหมดนั้นเป็นการปล่อยกู้แบบเจาะจงเฉพาะรายโครงการ หรือเจาะจงเฉพาะกลุ่มอุตสาหกรรม อย่างไรก็ตามนับตั้งแต่นั้นมา การปล่อยเงินกู้ช่วยเหลือของธนาคารโลกจะเป็นแบบ “เชิญใช้ได้ตามใจชอบ” โดยเอาระบบเศรษฐกิจมาแลก การกู้ลักษณะนี้ได้กลายเป็นส่วนหลักของนโยบายธนาคาร ซึ่งสำหรับ IMF แล้วนี่เป็นสิ่งสำคัญเสมือนเส้นเลือดใหญ่หล่อเลี้ยงพวกเขา

ตัวอย่างเช่น เมื่อตอนที่ IMF ได้ให้แพ็กเกจเงินกู้ช่วยเหลือแก่เกาหลีใต้และอินโดนีเซียมูลค่า 57,000 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐและ 43,000 ล้านดอลลาร์สหรัฐ ในระหว่างช่วงวิกฤติทางการเงินของเอเชียในปี 1997 ซึ่งทางกองทุน IMF มีเงื่อนไขที่เข้มงวดให้ผู้กู้ต้องลงนามในข้อตกลงที่ “ละเอียดซับซ้อนเกินกว่าจะเป็นสัญญากู้เงินปกติ โดยมีเงื่อนไขถึง 50-80 รายการที่ระบุไว้อย่างละเอียดและครอบคลุม ตั้งแต่การยกเลิกกฎหมายจนเกิดการผูกขาดในตลาดกระเทียม ไปจนถึงการเก็บภาษีในอาหารวัว และกฎหมายสิ่งแวดล้อมแบบใหม่" ตามที่นักวิชาการด้านการเมือง คุณ Mark S. Copelvitch ได้กล่าวไว้

รายงานวิจัยในปี 2014 แสดงให้เห็นว่าในช่วง 2 ปีก่อนหน้านั้นทาง IMF จะใส่เงื่อนไขในการปล่อยเงินกู้เฉลี่ย 20 เงื่อนไขต่อการให้กู้ในแต่ละครั้ง ซึ่งถือว่าเพิ่มขึ้นอย่างเป็นประวัติกาล โดยประเทศอย่างจาเมกา กรีซ และไซปรัส ที่ได้กู้เงินในช่วงไม่กี่ปีที่ผ่านมานั้น มีการถูกตั้งเงื่อนไขในการกู้เงินของแต่ละประเทศเฉลี่ยประมาณ 35 รายการ

สิ่งที่น่าสนใจเกี่ยวกับเงื่อนไขที่ทางธนาคารโลกและ IMF เป็นผู้กำหนดขึ้น ซึ่งควรถูกพูดถึง นั่นก็คือการที่เงื่อนไขเหล่านี้ไม่เคยระบุถึงการปกป้องเสรีภาพในการแสดงความคิดเห็นและด้านสิทธิมนุษยชน หรือยับยั้งการผลาญเงินผ่านงบกลาโหม หรือควบคุมการใช้ความรุนแรงของตำรวจ

และที่บิดเบี้ยวขึ้นไปอีกคือนโยบายของทางธนาคารโลกและกองทุน IMF สร้างสิ่งที่เรียกว่า “เงินกู้ซ้ำซ้อน (Double Loan)” ตัวอย่างเช่น การปล่อยเงินกู้เพื่อใช้สร้างเขื่อนโรงไฟฟ้าพลังน้ำ แต่เม็ดเงินเกือบทั้งหมดกลับถูกจ่ายคืนไปให้บริษัทในชาติตะวันตก ฉะนั้นเหล่าผู้เสียภาษีในประเทศโลกที่สามก็ต้องรับภาระในการจ่ายทั้งเงินต้นและดอกเบี้ยของเงินกู้นั้นคืนกลับ

นั่นเท่ากับว่ากลุ่มประเทศที่พัฒนาแล้วจะได้รับเงินคืนเป็นสองเท่า!

บริบทของเงินกู้ซ้ำซ้อนนี้ คือการที่ชาติที่เหนือกว่ามอบเงินกู้ยืมให้กับเหล่าอดีตประเทศใต้อาณานิคมผ่านทางธนาคารโลกและ IMF ซึ่งบรรดาผู้ปกครองท้องถิ่นของประเทศผู้กู้มักใช้เงินกู้ก้อนใหม่นี้จ่ายคืนให้กับบริษัทข้ามชาติที่เข้ามาตักตวงผลประโยชน์โดยตรงผ่านการให้บริการเป็นที่ปรึกษา บริการด้านการก่อสร้าง และบริการด้านการนำเข้าสินค้า

โดยการที่ธนาคารโลกและ IMF สามารถบังคับใช้เงื่อนไขการปรับโครงสร้าง ก็เพื่อที่จะรับประกันได้ว่าจะมีการลดค่าเงิน การควบคุมค่าแรง และการเพิ่มมาตรการที่เข้มงวดในการปล่อยกู้ของธนาคารท้องถิ่นได้ ทำให้ผู้ประกอบการท้องถิ่นต้องตกอยู่ในสถานะเสียเปรียบอย่างหนัก เพราะต้องจมอยู่กับระบบเงินเฟียตในประเทศที่กำลังล่มสลาย อีกทั้งยังถูกทิ้งให้เผชิญกับปัญหาโดยลำพัง ในขณะที่ผลประโยชน์กลับไปตกอยู่กับกลุ่มบรรษัทข้ามชาติที่ใช้เงินสกุลดอลลาร์ ยูโร หรือเยน

แหล่งข้อมูลอีกแหล่งนึงของผู้เขียนคือหนังสือ “The Lords of Poverty” โดยนักประวัติศาสตร์ Graham Hancock ซึ่งเขียนขึ้นเพื่อสะท้อนถึงช่วง 5 ทศวรรษแรกของนโยบายของธนาคารโลกและ IMF รวมถึงความช่วยเหลือต่อประเทศอื่น ๆ ในภาพรวม

“ธนาคารโลกนั้น” คุณ Hancock ได้เขียนไว้ “เป็นองค์กรแรกที่ยอมรับว่าแท้ที่จริงแล้ว จากเงินทุก 10 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐที่ประเทศเหล่านั้นได้รับ จะมีเงินถึงประมาณ 7 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐที่ถูกนำกลับไปใช้ซื้อสินค้าและบริการจากกลุ่มประเทศอุตสาหกรรมที่ร่ำรวย”

ในช่วงที่ธนาคารโลกเร่งขยายการสนับสนุนทางการเงินเมื่อปี 1980 นั้น เขากล่าวว่า “จากเงินภาษีของสหรัฐฯ ทุก 1 ดอลลาร์ที่ให้ไป จะมีเงินจำนวนถึง 82 เซนต์ที่กลับคืนสู่ธุรกิจอเมริกันทันทีผ่านรูปแบบของใบคำสั่งซื้อ”

โดยพลวัตเหล่านี้ไม่ได้เกิดขึ้นกับแค่เงินปล่อยกู้ แต่ยังรวมถึงเงินให้ความช่วยเหลือด้วย ยกตัวอย่าง เช่น ในตอนที่สหรัฐอเมริกาหรือเยอรมนีส่งเครื่องบินขนความช่วยเหลือไปยังพื้นที่ที่ประสบภัย ค่าใช้จ่ายในด้านการขนส่ง อาหาร ยา และเงินเดือนเจ้าหน้าที่จะถูกรวมเข้าไปอยู่ใน ODA ซึ่งคือ “ความช่วยเหลือเพื่อการพัฒนาอย่างเป็นทางการ (Official Development Assistance)”

ดูผิวเผินแล้ว สิ่งนี้เหมือนเป็นการช่วยเหลือและการสนับสนุน แต่แท้ที่จริงแล้วเงินส่วนใหญ่กลับไหลคืนสู่บริษัทในชาติตะวันตก แทบไม่ได้ไหลลงไปยังพื้นที่ประสบภัยแม้แต่นิดเดียว

เมื่อวิเคราะห์เหตุการณ์วิกฤติหนี้สินของประเทศโลกที่สามในช่วงปี 1980 คุณ Hancock สังเกตว่า “เงินทุก 1 ดอลลาร์ของการช่วยเหลือจากสหรัฐอเมริกา จะมีถึง 70 เซนต์ของเงินก้อนนั้นที่ไม่เคยได้ออกไปนอกแผ่นดินอเมริกันเลยด้วยซ้ำ” ในส่วนของสหราชอาณาจักรนั้น ร้อยละ 80 ของเงินช่วยเหลือจะไหลตรงไปยังสินค้าและบริการสัญชาติอังกฤษทันที

“มีอยู่ปีหนึ่ง” คุณ Hancock ระบุ “ผู้เสียภาษีชาวอังกฤษได้มอบเงินให้แก่หน่วยงานในการช่วยเหลือระดับพหุภาคีกว่า 495 ล้านปอนด์ อย่างไรก็ตามในปีเดียวกันนั้นเอง บริษัทอังกฤษก็ได้รับสัญญาซื้อขายกว่า 616 ล้านปอนด์” คุณ Handcock ได้กล่าวว่าหน่วยงานระดับพหุภาคีเหล่านี้ “พึ่งพาการจัดซื้อสินค้าและบริการจากประเทศอังกฤษ โดยเป็นมูลค่าเทียบเท่าร้อยละ 120 ของเงินที่ประเทศอังกฤษบริจาคให้ในระดับพหุภาคีทั้งหมด”

เราคงจะเริ่มเห็นแล้วว่าสิ่งที่เรียกว่า “ความช่วยเหลือ” ที่เรามักจะคิดว่าเป็นการกุศล แต่แท้จริงกลับเป็นสิ่งตรงกันข้าม และอย่างที่คุณ Handcock ได้ชี้ให้เห็นว่างบประมาณด้านความช่วยเหลือต่อต่างประเทศนั้นมีแต่จะเพิ่มขึ้นตลอดไม่ว่าผลลัพธ์จะออกมาเป็นอย่างไร เพราะความคืบหน้าที่เกิดขึ้นจะแสดงเสมือนว่าความช่วยเหลือที่ให้ไปนั้นได้ผล และเช่นเดียวกัน “การช่วยเหลือที่ไม่คืบหน้าก็ถือเป็นหลักฐานว่าจำนวนเงินที่ส่งไปยังไม่มากพอ และจำเป็นต้องเพิ่มปริมาณเงินให้มากขึ้นอีก”

โดยฝ่ายผู้ที่สนับสนุนการพัฒนานั้น ทางคุณ Handcock ได้เขียนไว้ว่า “พวกนี้จะโต้แย้งว่าเป็นการไม่สมควรที่เราจะปฏิเสธความช่วยเหลือต่อประเทศที่ทำได้ดี (จนเจริญก้าวหน้า) และจะถือว่าโหดร้ายยิ่งกว่า หากจะปฏิเสธความช่วยเหลือต่อประเทศที่ขัดสนและจำเป็นต้องให้ช่วย (ซึ่งยังพัฒนาตามหลังอยู่) ดังนั้นเงินช่วยเหลือจึงเปรียบเสมือนเหล้าแชมเปญ กล่าวคือในยามที่คุณทำสำเร็จคุณก็สมควรได้รับมัน แต่ในยามที่คุณล้มเหลวคุณก็ยิ่งต้องการมัน”

และนี่คือกับดักนรกที่วนเวียนไปไม่มีวันจบสิ้น..

⚡️ กด Zap ที่ลิงก์นี้ เพื่อเป็นกำลังใจทีมงานผู้เรียบเรียงบทความ

(ทุกยอด zap จะถูกแบ่งอัตโนมัติเข้าวอลเล็ทของผู้เขียนบทความต้นฉบับภาษาอังกฤษ, ผู้แปลดราฟต์ 1, ผู้เรียบเรียงดราฟต์ 2-3, กองบรรณาธิการและพิสูจน์อักษรจากไรท์ชิฟต์ พร้อมกันบางส่วนไว้เพื่อเป็นค่าธรรมเนียมธุรกรรม)

@ 6e75f797:a8eee74e

Last night I started a nostr community multiplayer instance for No Man's Sky on ZapStream and before we knew it, we had 4 Nostrichs arriving on the genesis planet to join the fun. NSM is an deterministic, procedurally generated open universe where players can explore, quest, build, combat and have fun together. Every new system discovered is generated when the first Traveller enters the system making the game a unique experience for any open world gaming fan.

If you fancy joining us in the Nostrverse let me know and I'll friend you in #NMS and on Steam or Epic. If you just want to watch the fun, participate in naming systems, planets, fauna and flora come and hang out in my stream or the stream of Oceanbee, HolgerHatGarKeineNode or taette.

If you already own NMS, feel free to add me!

My NMS friend code is: EMAZ-KMHT-ZPFXP

See you in space Traveller! - TheGrinder

@ 7d9bfdfc:bf5f3e3e

You should read Kit Klarenberg's Leaked: CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution in Indonesia because: * the US is undermining democracies and pressuring governments in all of Asia * the US is preparing for its unprovoked war of aggression against China, and Indonesia is an extremely important country in the region

Klarenberg's article: * provides the necessary historical context for Indonesian/US relations * explains why the upcoming elections are especially important for Indonesia's further development and how it positions itself internationally * briefly explains which mechanisms the US uses to interfere with elections abroad * then (in section ‘Personal Branding Development’) explains contents and relevance of the leaked documents, how the US is preparing and positioning its own candidates across different political parties in Indonesia, as well as how the US preparing for their defeat AKA preparing for destabilizing Indonesia * shows that while the interests of the Indonesian people and US interests in the country and region are diametrically opposed, the US has a track record of funding, bribing and corrupting just the right people in just the right positions to further the interests of the US oligarchy

Read: Leaked: CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution in Indonesia

Follow: @KitKlarenberg

Check out more from: Mint Press News

WYSR - 'why you should read' - is a brief overview what an article is about and why it's relevant.

@ 32e18276:5c68e245

Hey guys,

I spent some time this weekend fixing a bunch of the bugs that were introduced in the latest nostrdb refactor. See the changelog below for the full list of changes in the latest build!

Planned this week

I have a big list of things I'm planning on adding to Damus this week:

• Lists!
• Zap improvements: Bringing back top zap comments in threads, profile zap comments in notifications, Private DM Zaps
• Video player improvements
• Sharing improvements (share to damus, etc)

Make sure to come back in a week to see how much I could get done!

Changelog

Added

• Add close button to custom reactions (Suhail Saqan)
• Add ability to change order of custom reactions (Suhail Saqan)
• Adjustable font size (William Casarin)

Changed

• Show renotes in Notes timeline (William Casarin)

Fixed

• Ensure the person you're replying to is the first entry in the reply description (William Casarin)
• Don't cutoff text in notifications (William Casarin)
• Fix wikipedia url detection with parenthesis (William Casarin)
• Fixed old notifications always appearing on first start (William Casarin)
• Fix issue with slashes on relay urls causing relay connection problems (William Casarin)
• Fix rare crash triggered by local notifications (William Casarin)
• Fix crash when long-pressing reactions (William Casarin)
• Fixed nostr reporting decoding (William Casarin)
• Dismiss qr screen on scan (Suhail Saqan)
• Show QRCameraView regardless of same user (Suhail Saqan)
• Fix wiggle when long press reactions (Suhail Saqan)
• Fix reaction button breaking scrolling (Suhail Saqan)
• Fix crash when muting threads (Bryan Montz)

@ f982dbf2:46fe23d6

fasdfdad

@ 35a8f9c0:351dae66

test

@ 32e18276:5c68e245

Hey guys,

I've been quiet lately... I've been working on something big. In the past 2 weeks there have been 9539 new lines of code added to damus, 2928 removed, 279 files changed. I've rewritten much of the codebase in preparation for the nostrdb integration.

nostrdb

What is nostrdb? nostrdb is an integrated relay within damus, with the same design as strfry, but slightly different to support embedding into nostr apps. This will be the heart of Damus apps going forward, including notedeck and other future microapps. Think of it as a kind of development kit but with an embedded database and query capabilities. I didn't want to have to recreate all of the same querying, caching, and parsing code when building new apps, nostrdb will solve all of the painful and slow parts. nostr seems simple but if you want a fully working app it is pretty complicated, especially if you want it to be fast and sync efficiently.

Goals

• be the best and most efficient at querying, syncing and storing nostr notes
• enable direct mapping of notes into application code without any serialization overhead
• provide advanced syncing capabilities such as negentropy, which allows us to only query stuff we don't have
• be as portable as possible. nostrdb is a C library that you can embed into basically anything.
• full relay filter support
• full text search

Benefits

• full note verification
• more efficient de-duplication before we begin processing events off the wire
• set-reconciliation based syncing (negentropy) drastically reduces bandwidth usage and latency
• iteration on future nostr apps will be quicker (android, desktop, etc)
• features like ghost mode, account switching, etc will be much more efficient as you will be able to quickly switch between notes that are cached locally
• much smaller memory footprint due to optimized in-memory note format, which in turn improves cpu-cache efficiency
• much better profile and note searching

So that's what I've been working on in the past two weeks. On to what else is new in this release:

Multi reactions!

Suhail did an amazing job at adding multiple reaction support. All you need to do is long-press the Shaka button to show different options. You can customize these in settings as well

New onboarding features

Damus will now suggest people to follow when you first enter the app, this is the first of many onboarding improvements coming soon. Thank Klabo for this one!

That's all for now! Please test thoroughly and let me know if you run into any issues. You likely will since the entire codebase has been changed, and I probably broke something.

Until next time 🫡

@ 98fb8505:825b2c93

**Level 2 heading

basic texts

![[Pasted image 20230831213507.png]]

![[Engelbart.jpg]]

marktest

0570bd97ab248f3b9797b38fef51f53de49ac36e7b25718a19c1f02ec5749e7a

@ 20986fb8:cdac21b3

YakiHonne.com is continuously improving to offer a top-notch user experience. With weekly updates being rolled out, you are invited to test these updates and post your feedback and opinions as an article via YakiHonne.com.

As an incentive, participants can earn up to 100,000 SATs.

Round 3 will be from 3rd to 7th Aug

How to participate:

1. Pick one or multiple Updates below, test it (them)
2. Write your feedback and opinion (pros and cons are all welcomed)
3. Don't forget to add taggs 'YakiHonne-updates' and 'YakiHonne' to your article
4. Post your article on Nostr via YakiHonne.com
5. Share your article to social media like Nostr and Twitter, don't forget to @YakiHonne
6. Share the link to our group: http://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured
7. Be Zapped!

Requirements:

1. No malicious speech such as discrimination, attack, incitement, etc.
2. No Spam/Scam, not fully AI-generated article
3. No directly copy & paste from other posts on Relays
4. Experience our updates in action, NO limit on the length of your post, share your REAL feedback and opinion
5. The top 10 posts will be zapped during each round.
6. The evaluation will based on the article's depth, completeness, and constructiveness.
7. Contact us for additional zaps if bugs are found.

Updates to be tested in Round 3:

1. Reporting: NIP-56 supported, users now have the ability to report undesired long-form content within the platform. 

2. Zaps: confirmation prompt to notify the sender that the transaction successfully completed; Zaps stat icon now function same as the original zapping button, so that users can intuitively fast acces to it.
3. NIP-05 support: users now have the ability to add their NIP-05 to their profile settings and view other users identifiers across the platform.

4. Images upload: all across yakihonne client now have the option to either paste a url image or instantly upload images within yakihonne server (instant uploads for the write article section is coming soon); not restricted to 1MB anymore, use wisely and avoid large images.
5. Back-to-Top button: on the home feed page(right-bottom corner) for a quicker navigation.

6. Welcome to feedback your suggestions and bugs reporting.

If you missed Round 1 & 2, the updates below could be tested as additions:

Round 2:

1. Comments: re-implemented and comments can be deleted

2. NIP-25 supporting: users now can upvote and downvote

3. Zap stats: Zaps sent and Zaps received can be seen from users profiles

4. “login with an extension” button: now it is grayed out rather than invisible

5. Search: search list showing optimization, adjust users searching results to the NIP-21 URI scheme

6. Tags: click on the tags in the article to view the content under the tag

7. Share: sharing posts with one click

8. NIP-05: verify your profile

Round 1:

1. Comment function: more user-friendly

2. Stats area: clearly displays the interactive status of each article

3. Following function: generated-key users can also be followed

4. Curation function: easily add or remove articles from an existing curation

5. Tags: search and browse articles with the tags

6. Home feed scrolling pagination: optimized data fetching and faster loading time

7. Article editing preview: preview the final version of the article while writing in MarkDown

Don't miss this opportunity to participate in Round 2, test the updates, and provide valuable feedback. Head over to YakiHonne.com to share your thoughts and earn SATs for your valuable input. Act fast!

---

About YakiHonne:

YakiHonne is a Nostr-based decentralized content media protocol, which supports free curation, creation, publishing, and reporting by various media. Try YakiHonne.com Now!

Follow us

• Telegram: http://t.me/YakiHonne_Daily_Featured
• Twitter: @YakiHonne
• Nostr pubkey: npub1yzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesnxrf8q

@ aa8e5554:071fd9fc

由 DoraHacks 和 Ripple 共同发起的 XRPL 夏季黑客马拉松活动已圆满结束，获奖者名单已在全球极客运动平台DoraHacks.io公布。

作为全球黑客马拉松组织者和全球最活跃的Web3 开发者平台之一，DoraHacks与Ripple联手培育创新，共同探索 XRP 区块链生态系统的巨大潜力。

本次黑客松设有金融、Tokenization和 Hooks 侧链三大赛道，88个BUIDL团队提交了项目申请，共同角逐60,000 美元奖金。各赛道冠军还可以获得在Ripple官方论坛 devRel 上展示其作品的机会。

DoraHacks 一直致力于支持广大开发者和区块链生态建设，目前已为 5,000 多个项目提供支持，帮助其获得超过 3,000 万美元资助和捐款，参与了50 多个主要的区块链生态系统。现已成为开源开发资金管理和推动社区管理的重要平台。

此次DoraHacks与Ripple的成功合作，向大众展示了双方在促进创新、鼓励区块链网络建设和资助业内顶尖人才的共同承诺。

现在，一起来了解一下本次 XRPL 夏季黑客马拉松的获奖团队吧！

Tokenization 赛道 1. BobbyBot trade Bobbybot.trade 将允许用户将基于 Steam 的虚拟物品（例如：GO、TF2、Rust 等热门游戏）交易为 TRON 和 XRPL 。

1. TextRP TextRP是一个适用于 XRPL且安全的消息系统，为用户提供隐私、功能选择和访问首选消息渠道的权限。

2. Rakkan Rakkan可以帮助名人通过智能手机签名数字艺术后，在XRPL上使用XLS-20制作NFTS。

3. Restate Restate专注于日益增长的全球权力下放和资产民主化需求，为各种资产的标记化和交易提供了一个安全且易于使用的平台。

4. Optimart Optimart是一个基于XRP Ledger的NFT市场。

金融赛道 1. EpicTask Epic Task是一个使用XRP Ledger（XRPL）构建的web3平台，允许家长激励孩子完成任务并赚取XRP或“eTask”通证，这些通证可以根据选择兑换各种奖励。

1. XummHub XummHub是一个开放的xApp自由职业者平台，目前使用XRP的企业和自由职业者（早期采用者）可以开始相互联系。

2. EchoBox EchoBox可以充当商家及其他用户启用交易收据的语音信使。

3. XRP Money Market XRP Money Market是专门为稳定币甚至中央银行数位货币（CBDC）设计的AAVE风格货币市场的MVP。提供了一套全面的工具和功能，从钱包管理到无缝交易，都在一个安全且用户友好的界面中完成。

4. Bill protocol Bill Protocol是一个网络平台，允许用户在XRPL网络上管理发票和付款，其理念是通过区块链简化收款流程。

Hooks 侧链赛道 1. CLP-Helix CLP-Helix是XRP分类账上的集中流动性池。

1. Defi Futures Defi Futures是XRPL上第一个使用Hooks的基于智能合约的期货交易平台。

2. XRottery XRottey是第一个使用XRP分类账上的Hooks构建的GameFi。

3. HooksHub Hooks Hub可以无缝集成Web Assembly模块，帮助开发者扩展和自定义XRPL功能。

4. VoteX 赋能去中心化社区：帮助用户利用XRPL Hooks无缝创建、管理和创新基于XRPL的DAO组织

除黑客松奖金外，本次评选出的优秀团队，还将可以加入多种资助计划、接触投资机构，获得潜在融资机会，从而进一步拓宽项目发展前景。

DoraHacks 将持续推动Web3领域开源运动的发展，充分发挥全球影响力，实践为开发者赋能的承诺。甚至对于生态系统不活跃的区块链，也通过DoraHacks实现了前所未有的生态系统发展。DoraHacks是区块链领域培养创新人才、建立繁荣生态系统的理想平台。

@ 83d999a1:46171d19

We are building something cool that maybe you'll be interested in.

What is this? An announcement of an announcement (AoA for short)?

Well. Yes.

But bear with us.

We are doing an AoA because we haven't figured out all the details yet, (e.g. the name of what we're doing)

But here is what we do know:

• 2 months of focused building in #madeira.
• 21 builders with a record of shipping things in the #lightning/#nostr space
• working individually or in teams to make progress towards advancing freedom tech
• nostr:npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc and nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft will be physically (and spiritually) there to help bounce ideas off
• Funding (likely) available to all teams

Dates? Jan 8th - March 1st.

How to be a part of it? Details to follow very soon™️

But in the mean time, if you're stoked, DM us at nostr:npub1s0veng2gvfwr62acrxhnqexq76sj6ldg3a5t935jy8e6w3shr5vsnwrmq5.

@ db8f291d:4cc51dd0

First they came for... Updated for the digital age Joel Walbert Sep 9, 2023

originally published at https://thetruthaddict.substack.com/p/first-they-came-for

---

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

—Martin Niemöller

---

Greetings fellow Plebs & Peasants,

I would assume everyone is familiar with the above quote. Well a friend of mine, a true covidian, seemed to finally have a wake up call. A little background on him. His entire family (wife, in-laws, brother and 3 sisters), has died from the covid injections, and still was in such denial that he had lied his way into 47 boosters this year alone and got tattooed with the batch number of each one to forever memorialize his obedience. He was hooked. Well thinking he was a good little boy by following all the rules, he thought he could say whatever he wanted on Twitface. He got into an argument with a black Trump supporter and started calling this man a nazi and all other sorts of nonsensical things. Things got heated and eventually dropped an N-bomb, which he thought was allowed when directed at a Trump supporter. Well, yesterday he tried to login and found his account has been permanently terminated for hate speech. Something must have hit him, because the following is what he wrote shorty after this banning. Better late than never.

• jw

DoNotComply #NoCompromise #NoSurrender

---

First they came for The Daily Stormer, and I did not speak out—because I was not an evil white supremacist.

Then they came for Alex Jones, and I did not speak out—because I was not a dangerous conspiracy theorist.

Then they came for the journalists and doctors, and I did not speak out—because I I don’t spread deadly misinformation.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

— Norm E. Sheepleton

---

Ways to connect

Telegram: @JoelWalbert

Email: thetruthaddict@tutanota.com

The Truth Addict Telegram channel https://t.me/TheTruthAddict

Hard Truth Soldier chat on Telegram https://t.me/+RKTrEm8K-1mtLBDs

Mastodon: @thetruthaddict@noagendasocial.com

Session: 05e7fa1d9e7dcae8512eed0702531272de14a7f1e392591432551a336feb48357c

Donations (#Value4Value)

Bitcoin:

bc1qe8enf89g667dy890j2lnt637xqlt9wvc9f07un (on chain)

https://strike.me/nrn108

nemesis@getalby.com (lightning)

joelw@fountain.fm (lightning)

+wildviolet72C (PayNym)

Monero:

43E8i7Pzv1APDJJPEuNnQAV914RqzbNae15UKKurntVhbeTznmXr1P3GYzK9mMDnVR8C1fd8VRbzEf1iYuL3La3q7pcNmeN

@ db8f291d:4cc51dd0

First they came for... Updated for the digital age Joel Walbert Sep 9, 2023

originally published at https://thetruthaddict.substack.com/p/first-they-came-for

---

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

—Martin Niemöller

---

Greetings fellow Plebs & Peasants,

I would assume everyone is familiar with the above quote. Well a friend of mine, a true covidian, seemed to finally have a wake up call. A little background on him. His entire family (wife, in-laws, brother and 3 sisters), has died from the covid injections, and still was in such denial that he had lied his way into 47 boosters this year alone and got tattooed with the batch number of each one to forever memorialize his obedience. He was hooked. Well thinking he was a good little boy by following all the rules, he thought he could say whatever he wanted on Twitface. He got into an argument with a black Trump supporter and started calling this man a nazi and all other sorts of nonsensical things. Things got heated and eventually dropped an N-bomb, which he thought was allowed when directed at a Trump supporter. Well, yesterday he tried to login and found his account has been permanently terminated for hate speech. Something must have hit him, because the following is what he wrote shorty after this banning. Better late than never.

• jw

DoNotComply #NoCompromise #NoSurrender

---

First they came for The Daily Stormer, and I did not speak out—because I was not an evil white supremacist.

Then they came for Alex Jones, and I did not speak out—because I was not a dangerous conspiracy theorist.

Then they came for the journalists and doctors, and I did not speak out—because I I don’t spread deadly misinformation.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

— Norm E. Sheepleton

---

Ways to connect

Telegram: @JoelWalbert

Email: thetruthaddict@tutanota.com

The Truth Addict Telegram channel https://t.me/TheTruthAddict

Hard Truth Soldier chat on Telegram https://t.me/+RKTrEm8K-1mtLBDs

Mastodon: @thetruthaddict@noagendasocial.com

Session: 05e7fa1d9e7dcae8512eed0702531272de14a7f1e392591432551a336feb48357c

Donations (#Value4Value)

Bitcoin:

bc1qe8enf89g667dy890j2lnt637xqlt9wvc9f07un (on chain)

https://strike.me/nrn108

nemesis@getalby.com (lightning)

joelw@fountain.fm (lightning)

+wildviolet72C (PayNym)

Monero:

43E8i7Pzv1APDJJPEuNnQAV914RqzbNae15UKKurntVhbeTznmXr1P3GYzK9mMDnVR8C1fd8VRbzEf1iYuL3La3q7pcNmeN

@ 7cc328a0:2a247c0e

I built a really cool little temperature and air quality sensor that reports data to particle.io events and from there into influxdb cloud.

With Free Dashboards!!

Yes I mean free as free can get. Particle.io, free (to 100 devices). InfluxDB cloud, free (to (x) amount of stats). We're not talking about a lot of stats here, but after many hours of research for a free dashboard solution this was the absolute best!

InfluxDB cloud dashboards look really nice as well.

Build Components

• RedBear Duo github

Note, particle.io has since aquired RedBear labs and the Duo is old, yet still available in some places. You may also want to try particle devices like Argon instead of a redbear.

• DHT22 Temperature/Humidity sensor adafruit
• PM2.5 Air Quality Sensor and Breadboard Adapter Kit - PMS5003/PMS7003 adafruit

Note, I used a slightly different adapter, and it was lame to have to order it once I realized the PMS7003 I ordered did not come with an adaptor! The adafruit link above should get you hooked up. These air quality sensors come in different flavors just make sure you have a breakout board along with it when you order!

Software

• Sign up for (free) particle.io
• Sign up for (free) InfluxDB Cloud

Steps

The Hardware wiring diagram

Plug in your device and connect it to particle.io

I used the following guide for the Redbear DUO here

Coding the application

• Go to console.particle.io, open the IDE by clicking the icon (bottom left < >)
• Create a new application.
• Click the "Libraries" icon on the bottom left of the screen.
• In the "Libraries" search enter "PMS7003-Particle-Sensor-Serial" and import it into the project.
• Click "Libraries" again, and search for "Adafruit_DHT_Particle" and import it into the project.

Paste this code into your app: ```arduino // This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.

include

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.

include

PMS7003Serial pms7003(Serial1, D0);

define DHTPIN D0 // what pin we're connected to

// Here we define the type of sensor used

define DHTTYPE DHT22 // DHT11 or DHT22

DHT dht(DHTPIN, DHTTYPE);

void setup() { //Serial.begin(); dht.begin();

}

unsigned long last = 0; unsigned long last_pm_reading = 0;

void loop() {

unsigned long now = millis();

// check every time to see if there is data if (pms7003.Read()) { last_pm_reading = now; }

if ((now - last) > 10000) { float f = dht.getTempFarenheit(); float h = dht.getHumidity(); Particle.publish("TempDegreesF", String(f)); Particle.publish("PercentHumidity", String(h)); // Let us be generous. Active state the device // reports at least every 2.3 seconds. if ((now - last_pm_reading) > 10000) { Particle.publish("No reading for at least 10 seconds!"); } else { Particle.publish("pm1", String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.pm1_0))); Particle.publish("pm2_5",String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.pm2_5))); Particle.publish("pm10",String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.pm10))); // I didn't use these but they're there if you want them in the future. /Serial.println("um_3:" + String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.count0_3um))); Serial.println("um_5:" + String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.count0_5um))); Serial.println("um1:" + String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.count1um))); Serial.println("um2_5:" + String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.count2_5um))); Serial.println("um5:" + String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.count5um))); Serial.println("um10:" + String(pms7003.GetData(pms7003.count10um))); / } last = now; } } ```

Flash the application to the device

You should see events coming into the particle.io console

Now we're ready to setup InfluxDB

• Create a new bucket called "sensors" (or whatever you like)
• Keep this window open or copy these settings, we need them to setup particle.io webhooks.
• Open organization settings
• Copy the info for ClusterURL and OrganizationID
• Go to tokens and generate a new API token (and save it for the next step!)

Go back to particle.io console "Integrations"

• Create new WebHook Integration Setting | Value --------|------ Event Name | pm2_5 URL | https://YourClusterURL/api/v2/write?org=YourOrganizationID&bucket=sensors&precision=s Request Type | POST Request Format | Custom Body Device | Any Status | Enabled

• Expand the Advanced Settings!

Setting | Value --------|------|- Custom Request Body | envSensors,sensorID={{{PARTICLE_DEVICE_ID}}} {{{PARTICLE_EVENT_NAME}}}={{{PARTICLE_EVENT_VALUE}}} HTTP HEADERS (two fields) | Authorization | Token YOUR-API-TOKEN * After you're done creating the webhook it should look like this -> * While viewing the webhook we should start to see the webhook logs below -> You can inspect the logs by clicking a response. Hopefully all is well so far. * Repeat the steps above for Temperature and Humidity (change the Event Name)

Now we can build an influxDB dashboard!

• You can create a new dashboard and play around. For example: create a new cell.
• Use QUERY BUILDER to point-and-click the sensor data.

Done! Enjoy the free charts!

@ 7d4417d5:3eaf36d4

To Kill A Mocking Fly

Although this may not be the most practical way of killing flies, it sure does come in handy when other tools aren’t available. It’s also a great demonstration in perception and physiology. With science at your disposal, you can finally show this type of pest a lesson.

The World Through A Fly’s Eye

The first principle to understand is what goes on inside the fly’s brain when a threat is approaching. If the right eye sees a threat coming directly from the right, a signal is sent to the brain to “fly to the left”. As amazing as this next part may sound, the same is true for the left side sending a signal to “fly to the right”.

The Exploit

The exploit in this hack involves sending threat signals to both eyes at the same time, and in equal proportion. This will cause both signals of “fly to the left” and “fly to the right” to trigger simultaneously, causing the fly to go (nearly) straight up.

Application

For your first attempts, it is best to attack flies that have landed on a level surface. It is possible to pull this off successfully when they are on a vertical surface, or other angled surfaces, but save that for when you’re ready to level up.

With the fly on a level surface in front of you, align yourself so that you are either facing the fly head-on, or tail-first. With your hands about shoulder-width apart, on either side of the fly, clap about 4”-6” above the fly. I’ve noticed this height varies with temperature, as the flies slow down when it’s colder. (I just reached around my laptop monitor and killed another one, btw).

Once you have this down, you’ll finally have leveled the playing field. You won’t be able to get them every time, but you can dwindle the population down enough to a tolerable measure.