@ 71a4b7ff:d009692a

FOMO is the anxiety that arises from the belief that the most interesting, important, or trending events are happening elsewhere while others gain unique experiences.

It’s widely believed that FOMO stems from unmet social connection needs and reflects our innate fear of ostracism. These fears—of being left behind or excluded—are amplified in the digital age, where our perception of reality is often skewed. This can escalate from mild unease to overwhelming fear, significantly impacting mental well-being.

FOMO consists of two key components:

1. An unsettling feeling of missing out on something exciting or valuable.
2. Obsessive behaviors aimed at resolving this anxiety, which paradoxically only intensify it.

In today’s hyper-connected world, we have unprecedented, instant access to what others are doing. Social feeds, channels, and chats bombard us with endless options on how to live, what we lack, and what to value. But the sheer volume of this information far exceeds what anyone can process, leading many to feel overwhelmed.

The curated nature of digital lives, constant upward social comparisons, unrealistic expectations, and ceaseless data streams erode self-esteem and emotional stability. Our fear of alienation and loneliness fuels this cycle, pushing us deeper into digital platforms. These platforms, designed to stimulate our brain’s reward system, trap us in a feedback loop of anxiety and fleeting gratification.

We’re drawn in by the promise of effortless connection—quick, low-risk, and convenient interactions via swipes, likes, emojis, texts, even zaps. In contrast, real-life relationships, with their inherent complexities, take time, effort, and risk. This shift is causing us to lose touch with essential social skills like commitment, empathy, and genuine communication.

Instead, we seek solace in a digital environment that offers the illusion of safety, excitement, and eternal connectivity. But this comes at a cost. By overloading our internal reward systems, we drain the joy and meaning from authentic experiences, replacing them with an endless stream of curated content—images and videos we compulsively scroll through.

We’re lured by promises of knowledge, vivid experiences, and truth, yet what we often get is an avalanche of life hacks, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. Gigabit technologies, addictive interfaces, and external agendas fan the flames of loneliness, anxiety, and stress in our ancient, slow-evolving brains. This relentless burn depletes our reserves, leaving behind doubt: Are we doing enough? Are we in the right place? Will we be accepted?

Our already complex lives risk being consumed by a bleak cycle of doomscrolling.

But there is hope.

Fighting FOMO is possible. The more time we spend in knowledge-consuming environments, the more susceptible we become to its effects. The key is self-awareness and limiting screen time. Ironically, the very devices and services that fuel FOMO can also help us combat it. With thoughtful use of technology and intentional boundaries, we can regain control.

This is where NOSTR steps into the spotlight. Our favorite protocol has the potential to not only draw lessons from the legacy web but also to evolve beyond mere mimicry. It can introduce innovative ways for people to connect and collaborate—across services, networks, and each other. I believe it’s one of the most promising spaces on the Internet today, and its future depends entirely on what we make of it.

Thanks for You Time. Geo

@ 68fa45dc:3d2a26ed

Mit der rasanten Entwicklung von Wissenschaft und Technologie werden nach und nach einige Hilfsgeräte und Werkzeuge in das tägliche Leben integriert. Unter ihnen werden Signalstörsender als eine Art Ausrüstung mit großem Einfluss nicht nur im militärischen Bereich eingesetzt, sondern auch beginnen, im zivilen Bereich Probleme zu verursachen. Die Aufmerksamkeit der Leute. Ein Jammer Störsender ist ein Gerät, das Funkkommunikation blockiert oder stört. Seine Einführung und Anwendung haben das Leben und die Arbeit der Menschen erheblich erleichtert, aber auch eine Reihe von Diskussionen und Kontroversen ausgelöst.

Erstens spielen Störsender im militärischen Bereich eine entscheidende Rolle. Im Krieg sind die Sicherheit und Vertraulichkeit der Kommunikation von entscheidender Bedeutung. Die Signalstörungen des Feindes können das Kommunikationssystem unserer Armee stark beeinträchtigen und zum Durchsickern von Kampfplänen oder sogar zum Scheitern führen. Durch den Einsatz von handy frequenz jammer können die Kommunikationssignale des Feindes wirksam gestört und die Sicherheit unserer Kommunikation gewährleistet werden. Auf diese Weise wird die Kampfeffizienz verbessert und die nationalen Interessen geschützt. Aus diesem Grund werden Störsender in der modernen Kriegsführung häufig eingesetzt und sind aus dem militärischen Bereich nicht mehr wegzudenken.

Neben der militärischen Nutzung werden Störsender auch häufig im zivilen Bereich eingesetzt. Mit der Entwicklung der Mobilkommunikationstechnologie ist das Leben der Menschen untrennbar mit Mobiltelefonen und drahtlosen Netzwerken verbunden. In manchen Situationen, beispielsweise in Konferenzräumen, Prüfungsräumen, Theatern usw., können Störungen durch drahtlose Signale jedoch die normale Ordnung und die Arbeitsbedingungen beeinträchtigen. Störsender WLAN können in diesen Situationen drahtlose Kommunikationssignale abschirmen und so für Ruhe und Ordnung in der Umgebung sorgen. Darüber hinaus werden an manchen vertraulichen Orten, wie etwa in Regierungsbehörden, Forschungsinstituten usw., aus Gründen der Informationssicherheit auch Störsender benötigt, um den Diebstahl von Funksignalen zu verhindern und sicherzustellen, dass keine vertraulichen Informationen nach außen dringen.

Tragbare Detektor für DJI Drohnen

Allerdings hat der Einsatz von Störsendern auch zahlreiche Kontroversen ausgelöst. Manche Menschen befürchten, dass der übermäßige Einsatz von Störsendern die normalen Kommunikationsnetze stören und das normale Funktionieren der Gesellschaft beeinträchtigen könnte. Darüber hinaus nutzen manche Kriminelle GPS Tracker Jammer möglicherweise auch für illegale Zwecke, beispielsweise zur Blockierung von Notrufen oder zur Entführung von Flugzeugen, was eine potenzielle Gefahr für die soziale Sicherheit darstellt. Daher sind Aufsicht und vernünftige Verwendung von entscheidender Bedeutung.

Generell verändern Hochleistungs handy Störer als technische Geräte still und leise unser Leben. Im militärischen Bereich sorgt sie für die nationale Sicherheit, im zivilen Bereich sorgt sie für die Aufrechterhaltung der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung. Allerdings bedarf die Frage, wie der normale Betrieb der Gesellschaft sichergestellt werden kann, während sich Wissenschaft und Technologie weiterentwickeln, einer Lösung. Nur unter der Voraussetzung einer angemessenen Überwachung und Nutzung können Störsender besser zur Entwicklung und Sicherheit der menschlichen Gesellschaft beitragen.

https://www.jammer-store.de/H1B-D-tragbare-detektor-fuer-dji-drohnen.html

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Table Of Content

• The Rising Tide of Bitcoin's Influence in China

• China's Economic Struggles: A Closer Look

• The Cryptocurrency Solution: A Beacon for Chinese Investors?

• Historical Interplay: Bitcoin's Past Dance with China

• A New Era: The Evolving Dynamics of Bitcoin in China

• Conclusion

• FAQ

In the intricate web of global finance, China's economic dynamics have consistently been a focal point for analysts and investors alike. Recently, the nation has been grappling with one of its most significant capital flights in years, raising questions about potential economic solutions. Amidst this backdrop, the decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has emerged as a topic of interest. Could Bitcoin, with its global reach and decentralized nature, offer a viable alternative or solution to China's current economic challenges? This article delves deep into the potential symbiotic relationship between China's capital flight and the burgeoning world of Bitcoin.

The Rising Tide of Bitcoin's Influence in China

Bitcoin's allure in the Chinese market is not a new phenomenon, but recent economic challenges have amplified its significance. As the Chinese yuan faces depreciation amidst broader economic uncertainties, experts believe that Bitcoin might witness a substantial influx from Chinese investors. Markus Thielen, a prominent figure at Matrixport, underscores the potential of Bitcoin in these turbulent times. He suggests, "Given the current economic climate, the Chinese investors' familiarity and trust in Bitcoin could lead to substantial investments in the cryptocurrency over the next few months."

China's Economic Struggles: A Closer Look

The economic landscape in China is undergoing a transformation. Recent data, sourced from reputable financial analysts at Bloomberg, paints a concerning picture. China's capital outflows have skyrocketed to an alarming $49 billion in August alone, a figure not seen since December 2015. This surge is more than just a statistic; it indicates the mounting pressure and dwindling confidence in the yuan. Thielen offers a deeper perspective on this trend, highlighting the stark economic disparities between the U.S. and China. He observes, "The current USD/CNY exchange rate, trading at a 17-year high, underscores the U.S. economy's robust expansion, casting a shadow on China's dwindling growth momentum."

The Cryptocurrency Solution: A Beacon for Chinese Investors?

The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has left the Chinese economy in a state of flux. With the anticipated post-pandemic consumption rebound falling short of expectations and local companies grappling with diminishing profit margins, Chinese investors are in a quandary. They are actively seeking lucrative opportunities outside their homeland. However, China's stringent capital controls present formidable barriers. In this constrained financial environment, the allure of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, shines brightly. For many, Bitcoin and its peers represent a beacon of hope, potentially offering the alternative investment avenues that Chinese investors have been yearning for.

Historical Interplay: Bitcoin's Past Dance with China

The intricate relationship between Bitcoin and China is steeped in history. Rewinding to late 2016, there was a clear trend: Chinese investors, in large numbers, were turning to Bitcoin as a mechanism to move capital outside the restrictive borders of their country. The trading patterns from this era suggested a compelling link: as the Chinese yuan depreciated, Bitcoin's price surged, indicating a potential safe haven for Chinese capital.

A New Era: The Evolving Dynamics of Bitcoin in China

While history offers a treasure trove of insights, the present paints a nuanced picture. Edward Engel, a seasoned crypto analyst at Singular Research, believes that the dynamics between Bitcoin and China have undergone a transformation. Reflecting on the past, he states, "The last time I heard of such a trend was between 2017 and 2018 when underground banks leveraged Bitcoin for their operations. However, the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] has since taken stringent measures to curb such practices." Despite these changes, Thielen remains optimistic. He posits that innovative methods, such as leveraging domestic electricity for crypto mining or using over-the-counter trading platforms, might still offer avenues for moving Chinese capital in the face of restrictions.

Conclusion

China's multifaceted economic challenges, accentuated by its capital flight woes, present a conundrum that lacks easy solutions. In this complex scenario, Bitcoin emerges as a beacon, offering a potential lifeline to Chinese investors. Its decentralized nature and global appeal make it a contender for mitigating some of China's economic challenges. As we navigate the ever-evolving global financial landscape, the intricate dance between China's economy and the dynamic world of cryptocurrencies promises to be a riveting spectacle, deserving of our keen attention.

FAQ

What is China's capital flight? China's capital flight refers to the large-scale outflow of capital from the country, often due to economic uncertainties.

How is Bitcoin related to China's capital flight? With China's stringent capital controls and economic challenges, Bitcoin emerges as a potential alternative for investors to move and secure their capital.

Has Bitcoin historically been influenced by China's economic dynamics? Yes, in 2016, there was a trend of Chinese investors turning to Bitcoin as the yuan depreciated, indicating a potential correlation.

Are there restrictions on Bitcoin in China? While the Chinese government has taken measures to curb certain crypto practices, innovative methods still exist for Chinese investors to leverage cryptocurrencies.

Why is the Chinese yuan weakening? Economic challenges, post-COVID-19 consumption patterns, and broader global economic dynamics have contributed to the weakening of the yuan.

That's all for today

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

NOSTR: croxroad@getalby.com

X: @croxroadnews

Instagram: @croxroadnews.co

Youtube: @croxroadnews

Store: https://croxroad.store

Subscribe to CROX ROAD Bitcoin Only Daily Newsletter

https://www.croxroad.co/subscribe

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.

@ f3df9bc0:a95119eb

MPT Equations

Geometric Mean

$$ \bar{x} = (\prod_{i=1}^{n} x_i)^{1 \over n } $$

Covariance

$$ COV(x,y) = {1\over{n-1}} \sum_{i=1}^{n}{(x_i - \bar{x})(y_i - \bar{y})} $$

where $\bar{x}$ and $\bar{y}$ are the geometric mean.

Variance

$$ VAR(x) = {1\over{n-1}} \sum_{i=1}^{n}{(x_i - \bar{x})^2}

$$

Standard Deviation

$$ \sigma_x=\sqrt{VAR(x)} $$

Correlation Coefficient

$$ \rho_{xy} = {COV(x, y) \over \sigma_x\sigma_y} $$

Portfolio Variance

$$ VAR(P) = \sum_{ij}w_i w_j COV(i, j) $$

Where $w_i$ and $w_j$ are the normalized weight of the asset in the portfolio.

Note that this summation should include when $i = j$. In this case $COV(i, j) = VAR(i) = VAR(j)$

Expected Return

$$ E_P = \sum_{i}w_i E_i $$

Where $w_i$ is the normalized weight of the asset, and $E_i$ is the expected return of the individual asset.

@ 0b5faac9:12669905

In modern society, signal jammers are increasingly used, especially in wireless communications and navigation. In certain application scenarios, they can have unexpected positive effects.

In a business environment, WiFi signal blocker can be used to protect corporate network security. For example, some companies may use WiFi jammers at important product launches or business meetings to prevent competitors from stealing information or eavesdropping. By limiting unnecessary wireless signals, such measures can effectively protect trade secrets.

GPS jammers can interfere with global positioning system signals, making it impossible for receiving devices to obtain accurate location data. In some cases, such as military operations, the use of GPS jammers can effectively prevent the enemy from using navigation systems for positioning and attack. This technology can provide tactical advantages to the military on the battlefield, ensuring the concealment and mobility of operations.

In addition, GPS jammers can also be used to protect privacy. In some specific scenarios, individuals or organizations may want to avoid being tracked or located. Using GPS jamming device can effectively prevent external devices from obtaining location, thereby protecting personal privacy and security.

High-power jammers are mainly used to interfere with signals with a wider range, and are usually used in the military and security fields. When defending important facilities, protecting military operations or conducting counter-terrorism activities, high-power jammers can effectively interfere with the enemy's communication and navigation systems to ensure the safety of one's own side.

For example, at important political meetings, international summits or major events, security departments may use high power jammer to prevent potential attacks or surveillance. By interfering with surrounding wireless signals, this equipment can provide a relatively safe environment for the scene.

With the continuous advancement and development of technology, the application scope of signal jammers may continue to expand. It is necessary for us to have a deep understanding of the functions and values ​​of these technologies in order to better use them for our own use. Through the reasonable expression and understanding of data, we can look at the application prospects of these technologies more comprehensively.

https://www.jammermfg.com/all-jammers.html

@ fbf0e434:e1be6a39

Hackathon 总结

由斯坦福区块链加速器、Nautilus Chain、Zebec 和 Rootz Labs 联合主办的“Boundless Hackathon @Stanford”圆满落幕，318名注册开发者参与了159个项目。本次活动聚焦于通过去中心化金融（DeFi）、游戏、NFT和基础设施开发等赛道推进Web3基础设施的建设。

本次黑客松得到了DoraHacks的支持，战略合作伙伴如IOBC Capital、Eclipse 和 OKX Wallet也做出了重要贡献。值得一提的是，Aspecta 在技术合作方面也发挥了积极作用。活动在斯坦福大学的闭幕式上圆满结束，顶级项目获得了来自总奖金池30万美元的奖励。一等奖获得者获得了10,000美元，并额外获得了包括亚马逊云信用在内的生态系统和技术奖金。

Boundless Hackathon促进了区块链社区的合作与创新，强调了跨区块链平台整合新技术的重要性。

Hackathon 获奖者

Main Prize Winners

• Hexlink:
  Hexlink推出了一个模块化账户层，用于Web3，通过利用现有身份进行加密交易，模拟Web2体验。它消除了对种子短语的需求，通过在去中心化应用（dApps）中实现模块化身份认证，简化了入驻过程和安全性。
• Defi Board Options Exchange (DBOE):
  DBOE提出了一种新型的链上中央限价订单簿（CLOB），结合先进的风险管理策略。这通过专用市场做市（DMM）系统，改善了市场基础设施，提高了价格发现和流动性。
• Nulink:
  Nulink集成了用于dApp的隐私增强技术，采用基于加密学的共识机制，实现安全的应用开发，保障先进的数据隐私保护。

Sub-Award Winners

• Buff Network:
  Buff Network是一个点对池衍生品交易平台，提供用户友好的界面以便高效执行交易。通过创新的交易解决方案，它提升了去中心化金融（DeFi）的参与度。
• PoseiSwap:
  PoseiSwap通过扩展去中心化交易所（DEX）的功能，支持多种金融工具，实现DeFi和传统金融资产的无缝交换，从而改善了加密原生市场与传统市场的互操作性。

了解所有来自该黑客松的项目，请访问： https://dorahacks.io/hackathon/stanfordhack/buidl.

关于组织者：

斯坦福区块链加速器

斯坦福区块链加速器是由斯坦福大学学生和校友主办的非稀释性项目，隶属于斯坦福区块链俱乐部学生组织。该加速器为斯坦福的学生和校友团队提供5个月的孵化期，帮助他们建立、筹资并推出区块链项目。超过90%的毕业团队获得了领先基金的投资（累计筹集超过8000万美元），并且超过60%的团队在完成加速器项目后的6个月内实现了营收。

@ fbf0e434:e1be6a39

Hackathon 总结

YQuantum 2024 Hackathon圆满结束，吸引了大量参与者和众多项目提交，被公认为一个充满活力的创新平台。300名注册者中，有现场参与者组建团队，参与了28个BUIDLs的开发，参与者在如QuEra Computing、IBM Quantum、Classiq、DoraHacks、SandboxAQ和Capgemini/The Hartford/Quantinuum等知名量子计算组织赞助的各个领域中挑战。

参与者在奖励的驱动下开发了突破性的量子计算解决方案，奖励包括量子云端积分、实习机会、社交机会以及潜在的演讲机会。大奖表彰了卓越项目，冠军获得了2000美元奖金，有机会在耶鲁大学研究人员面前进行展示，并参加耶鲁创新峰会。

Hackathon成功地培育了一个鼓励探索尖端技术和创意的合作环境，推动了量子计算领域的发展。YQuantum 2024强调了量子技术的潜力，并促进了参与者和赞助商之间的知识交流。

Hackathon 获奖者

于2024年4月13日举办的YQuantum首次活动吸引了来自10个国家的300名参与者，设有六个由行业赞助的挑战，并在一系列的著名奖项中进行竞争。

Institute Grand Prizes Winners

• 1st Place: Quantum Consortium: Case-Duke-Lehigh-Vandy Nexus 该项目采用绝热方法来准备反铁磁能量特征态，重点是量子多体伤痕状态和增强计算中的误差纠正。

• 2nd Place: Sparse Quantum State Preparation 团队利用Classiq的API开发了用于稀疏量子态准备的高效算法，优化了在量子数据管理中的可扩展性和效率执行。

• 3rd Place: QuBruin 该项目利用动态量子电路优化算法并增强误差纠正。团队通过基于Qiskit的模型改善了在噪声条件下的电路性能，提升了用户可访问性。

IBM Quantum Prize Winners

• Modified IBM Challenge
  该项目探讨了基础的线性代数概念，强调核心原理的掌握。

QuEra Computing Prize Winners

• 3D Quantum Scars on 2D Tweezer Arrays
  团队在一个投射到二维的三维晶格上研究量子伤痕状态，利用Julia和QuEra的Bloqade来模拟量子动力学。

Classiq Technologies Prize Winners

• YQuantum2024 Classiq Team 34 Wavefunction Wizards
  项目聚焦于优化稀疏量子态准备，提高量子数据处理中的算法效率。

DoraHacks Prize Winners

• Spooner_QRNG_Classifier
  项目使用Python脚本和梯度提升分类器，预测来自量子设备的随机二进制数据的来源，超越了基线预测准确率。

Capgemini // Quantinuum // The Hartford Prize Winners

• Skittlez
  该合作项目通过跨学科的专业知识解决量子计算挑战，设计创新的量子解决方案。

• Honorable Mention: BB24 - Yale Quantum Monte Carlo 项目通过新的采样和编码方案增强了量子蒙特卡洛技术，提高了并行处理和计算效率。

SandboxAQ Prize Winners

• QuantumQuails
  项目通过量子化学改善了太阳能电池效率，利用变分量子本征求解器（VQE）建模太阳能吸收，以提高转换效果。

• Honorable Mention: mRNA Sequence Design via Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm 项目通过QAOA优化了mRNA序列设计，利用密码子和核苷酸参数提高了蛋白质表达和结构稳定性。

在DoraHacks探索所有项目。

关于组织者：

YQuantum

YQuantum在技术和区块链领域中是一家知名实体，以其创新方法和战略举措而著称。YQuantum专注于利用量子计算能力，致力于推进技术前沿。虽然未具体列出项目，但YQuantum在塑造行业标准方面的作用，使其成为该领域的领导者。通过对尖端研究和开发的奉献，YQuantum继续推动量子技术的进步，致力于实现其促进全球科学和技术进步的使命。

@ fd06f542:8d6d54cd

一直听说有个 nip50,但是没有太明白怎么用，今天测试了一下。明白了。 https://nos.today/search?q=client

wss://relay.noswhere.com/ wss://search.nos.today/ wss://relay.nostr.band/

支持搜索， 搜索事件： {"kinds":[1],"search":"client","limit":100}

测试代码： `import {WebSocket} from "ws" const relayUrl = 'wss://relay.nostr.band';

function sub(url,filter){ const relay = new WebSocket(url);

relay.onopen = () => { console.log('Connected to bootstrap relay'); // 查询中继列表 const query = ['REQ', 'subscription-id', filter]; relay.send(JSON.stringify(query)); };

relay.onmessage = (event) => { const data = JSON.parse(event.data); if (data[0] === 'EVENT' ) { const relayList = data[2].tags; console.log('Discovered relay list:', data[2].pubkey,relayList,data[2].content); // 连接到用户的中继 try{ relayList.forEach(([_, relayUrl]) => { const newRelay = new WebSocket(relayUrl); newRelay.onopen = () => { console.log(Connected to relay: ${relayUrl}); }; }); } catch {}

} };

} sub(relayUrl,{"kinds":[1],"search":"client","limit":100}) `

轻轻松松就出结果了。

@ 4ddeb0cf:94524453

He'd fallen into a deep sleep when he felt something jolt his shoulder. "Richie, honey, you have to wake up. My boss will show up any minute and can't find you in here." Struggling to gain consciousness, he slowly peeled his eyes open and found the clock he'd remembered seeing when he lay down in a room behind the receptionist's office of Roosevelt Lodge. The kid could barely remember arriving, but fighting to stay awake after navigating the switchbacks down the western slope, he'd driven that drunkard and his truck as far as he could. He jumped out and hurried toward the light of the rustic building without knowing what to say to the maniac who'd offered him a ride from that Billings truck stop. Thank God she'd opened the door. It had been freezing when he knocked shortly after midnight. It appeared to be almost five in the morning. "I'm sorry honey, I know it's early, but I need this job, and he will not be happy if he sees you. You can use the trailhead to the north. It will get you to the closest highway, and you can maybe find a ride there. I would take you myself, but Okie likes me to stick around in the morning."

"Thank you, Ma'am. I really appreciate everything," the young man said, hurriedly putting on his Converse All-Stars. The two exchanged goodbyes as the lady went back to setting up. On his way out of the lodge's rear exit, he noticed a pack of Lucky Strikes sitting on a coffee table beside a copy of LIFE Magazine.

When Richie was eleven, he'd first had a cigarette on a dare from his little sister. They'd found a pack in their parent's room while playing hide and seek. After taking one and running outside with a matchbook, Sarah challenged him to smoke it. He remembered the first drag. While it was harsh, he'd watched his uncle smoke for years and once heard him sharing advice during a card game to inhale very softly at first until you got the hang of it. Uncle Joe had never meant for the lesson to ignite the habit in his nephew but had been too far gone into his bottle of Seagram's 7 to notice him listening.

Through the next few years, Richie became very smooth in taking a pack every few days from the drug store his grandfather had once owned. He'd be cautious to grab them after a larger crowd rolled through the store. The owner, an old friend of his now departed Grandpa, never noticed, and Richie would always leave the payment for them in the cash register.

The memory faded, and the reality of a Montana trailhead before sunrise refocused his concentration. Richie noticed only three cigarettes in the pack, reaching into his pocket to grab the loose change from the gas station incident. There were seven matches to work with. While he struggled to wake up, this find gave him a burst of excitement, and a smile came over his face. He dropped two nickels on the coffee stand and took the remaining pack.

Upon arriving at the trailhead, Richie buttoned his jacket in the chill morning air. It was near pitch black outside, with just enough moonlight to make out the pathway through the forest. He felt scared walking along, yet an air of confidence due to making it this far kept his steps moving forward. Richie began to wonder how far he'd walked when the rising sun put enough illumination through the treeline to make out the opening to a small parking lot adjoining a road. The morning was silent, and he began to yawn. The minimal sleep began to remind him of his exhaustion. The lady from the lodge, what was her name? She'd been so kind when he showed up in the middle of the night, still soaking wet from the melted ice picked up from the passage through the Rockies. As the events began to replay the prior evening's treacherous journey, Richie reached into his pocket to grab a smoke. He imagined his mother's gaze as he successfully ignited the first match and lit the tobacco. The moment was empowering. What were the other kids back in Ohio doing this morning? Though he couldn't ignore the dangerous risks he'd taken along the way, Richie Buckland felt genuine freedom for the first time in his life.

He sat down on a rock to enjoy his smoke and await an oncoming vehicle. Birds began to awaken, and their singing disrupted the silence in the air. His heart filled with gratitude for having dry clothes and a full canteen as he recognized how in sync he felt with the surrounding nature of Yellowstone National Park. That nice lady had even thrown a few Atomic Fireball candies in his knapsack. He still had the twenty dollars his Mom insisted he take with him, having no idea he'd intended to hitchhike to California. She'd known the entire family needed a breather after Richie's fight with his father that night. He thought about his last-second decision to punch the wall beside his father's head instead of hitting his face. That moment had been on his mind throughout this entire journey. Determined to get one last cigarette hit before giving his fingers a break from the closing heat, the birds suddenly began chirping more assertively and in greater numbers. It became alarmingly loud, then silent. As Richie started to reach toward the ground to put out the cigarette, he saw a shape emerge to the right. About twenty feet away, exiting the forest on the same side of the road, was what appeared to be a bear cub. As he took in the sight, another cub followed. Both were brown, and immediately behind them was the largest animal he'd ever seen. His parents had once taken the family to the zoo, but he'd not remembered anything like this. He sat in awe of the creature, followed by a third cub. As they began to cross the road, the large Grizzly paused and turned to look directly at him. Richie was determined to resist the instinctive surge of fear, but his body wouldn't have moved had he tried. Everything felt frozen as the gaze of the enormous animal seemed to determine Richie wasn't a threat. He didn't stare into the bear's eyes but didn't look away. After a few moments, the bears continued along their path until they were out of sight for a long time.

The sunrise of the new morning was breathtaking. After remaining seated on the rock for some time after the incident with the bears, Richie stood up. Taking a healthy drink of water from the canteen, he heard the shifting of gears in the distance. There was no need to look at the map; anywhere the next driver was heading worked. There was no way to know if Mama Grizzly would reevaluate what a human tasted like for breakfast. Richie couldn't wait to reach Sacramento and find Uncle Joe. The approaching Chevy Impala began to slow down upon seeing the teenager standing up, thumb extended.

@ df478568:2a951e67

Note. I plan on publishing this on SubStack, but I will publish to nostr first.

Hello SubStack!

My government name is Marc. I write a blog about freedom tech on nostr. You can find this blog at npub.npub.pro. but I decided to cross post this blog on Substack because more people use Substack then habla.news. Here's a little more about the blog.

A Free And Open Source Blog

This blog is written using the Creative Commons 0 license. Since I write about free and open source software I call freedom tech. I thought it would be silly to keep my writing behind a paywall. I would rather my prose be available for free for all. This means all of my work is available for free, but to be honest, I like the subscription model. If SubStack gave me an option to charge sats, I would use their subscription service. Since they don't, I set up an account with Flash using Alby Hub.

Ads Suck, But Product Reviews Can Help Bootstrap The Circular Economy

Ads suck as much as paywalls, but I also wish to monetize this. Therefore, I have decided to try Jack Spirko's Membership Brigade model I learned about on The Side Hustle Show. I already was a member when I listened to this episode, bur the basic idea is ro charge $5.00 a month. For this price, Jack saves his listeners money by procuring discounts for products and services he uses and work great for him. He basically gives product reviews for his advertisers and his membership brigade receives discounts for those products and services. Since I'm just starting out, I don't have any discounts to offer yet, but I have some ideas. I also recommend free and open-source software that can save you money because it's free.

These are not ads. They are more like consumer reviews. There is a bitcoin circular economy developing on nostr. I want to recomend great products from this circular economy like LeatherMint's belts. They're not cheap, but very high quality. He hand crafts these belts to a size customized to yoir wasteline. He's from Canada and he sells these high quality belts for sats.

That was not an ad. It's my honest opinion. LeatherMint did not pay me to say this, but I wouldn't mind if he did. I give my recommendations to the Marc's Mention Members. The goal is to provide value by saving you sats. It's still a work in progress.

Shop Marc's Merch

I also created a merch shop on shopstr.store. This is nostr-powered shopping, an online mall that uses the native currency of the Internet. This is a quintessential example of freedom tech. I don't have too many products, but my goal is to add more. I'm working on personalized coffee mugs, but I don't yet have a minimally viable product. Until then, I'll sell other stuff. I also must test it some more before I start taking real money. :)

Thanks for reading.

Marc 878,550 Become Marc's Mention Member Marc's Merch

@ 4ddeb0cf:94524453

He'd fallen into a deep sleep when he felt something jolt his shoulder. "Richie, honey, you have to wake up. My boss will show up any minute and can't find you in here." Struggling to gain consciousness, he slowly peeled his eyes open and found the clock he'd remembered seeing when he lay down in a room behind the receptionist's office of Roosevelt Lodge. The kid could barely remember arriving, but fighting to stay awake after navigating the switchbacks down the western slope, he'd driven that drunkard and his truck as far as he could. He jumped out and hurried toward the light of the rustic building without knowing what to say to the maniac who'd offered him a ride from that Billings diner. Thank God she'd opened the door. It had been freezing when he knocked shortly after midnight. It appeared to be almost five in the morning. "I'm sorry honey, I know it's early, but I need this job, and he will not be happy if he sees you. You can use the trailhead to the north. It will get you to the closest highway, and you can maybe find a ride there. I would take you myself, but Okie likes me to stick around in the morning."

"Thank you, Ma'am. I really appreciate everything," the young man said, hurriedly putting on his Converse All-Stars. The two exchanged goodbyes as the lady went back to setting up. On his way out of the lodge's rear exit, he noticed a pack of Lucky Strikes sitting on a coffee table beside a copy of LIFE Magazine.

When Richie was eleven, he'd first had a cigarette on a dare from his little sister. They'd found a pack in their parent's room while playing hide and seek. After taking one and running outside with a matchbook, Sarah challenged him to smoke it. He remembered the first drag. While it was harsh, he'd watched his uncle smoke for years and once heard him sharing advice during a card game to inhale very softly at first until you got the hang of it. Uncle Joe had never meant for the lesson to ignite the habit in his nephew but had been too far gone into his bottle of Seagram's 7 to notice him listening.

Through the next few years, Richie became very smooth in taking a pack every few days from the drug store his grandfather had once owned. He'd be cautious to grab them after a larger crowd rolled through the store. The owner, an old friend of his now departed Grandpa, never noticed, and Richie would always leave the payment for them in the cash register.

The memory faded, and the reality of a Montana trailhead before sunrise refocused his concentration. Richie noticed only three cigarettes in the pack, reaching into his pocket to grab the loose change from the gas station incident. There were seven matches to work with. While he struggled to wake up, this find gave him a burst of excitement, and a smile came over his face. He dropped two nickels on the coffee stand and took the remaining pack.

Upon arriving at the trailhead, Richie buttoned his jacket in the chill morning air. It was near pitch black outside, with just enough moonlight to make out the pathway through the forest. He felt scared walking along, yet an air of confidence due to making it this far kept his steps moving forward. Richie began to wonder how far he'd walked when the rising sun put enough illumination through the treeline to make out the opening to a small parking lot adjoining a road. The morning was silent, and he began to yawn. The minimal sleep began to remind him of his exhaustion. The lady from the lodge, what was her name? She'd been so kind when he showed up in the middle of the night, still soaking wet from the melted ice picked up from the passage through the Rockies. As the events began to replay the prior evening's treacherous journey, Richie reached into his pocket to grab a smoke. He imagined his mother's gaze as he successfully ignited the first match and lit the tobacco. The moment was empowering. What were the other kids back in Ohio doing this morning? Though he couldn't ignore the dangerous risks he'd taken along the way, Richie Buckland felt genuine freedom for the first time in his life.

He sat down on a rock to enjoy his smoke and await an oncoming vehicle. Birds began to awaken, and their singing disrupted the silence in the air. His heart filled with gratitude for having dry clothes and a full canteen as he recognized how in sync he felt with the surrounding nature of Yellowstone National Park. That nice lady had even thrown a few Atomic Fireball candies in his knapsack. He still had the twenty dollars his Mom insisted he take with him, having no idea he'd intended to hitchhike to California. She'd known the entire family needed a breather after Richie's fight with his father that night. He thought about his last-second decision to punch the wall beside his father's head instead of hitting his face. That moment had been on his mind throughout this entire journey. Determined to get one last cigarette hit before giving his fingers a break from the closing heat, the birds suddenly began chirping more assertively and in greater numbers. It became alarmingly loud, then silent. As Richie started to reach toward the ground to put out the cigarette, he saw a shape emerge to the right. About twenty feet away, exiting the forest on the same side of the road, was what appeared to be a bear cub. As he took in the sight, another cub followed. Both were brown, and immediately behind them was the largest animal he'd ever seen. His parents had once taken the family to the zoo, but he'd not remembered anything like this. He sat in awe of the creature, followed by a third cub. As they began to cross the road, the large Grizzly paused and turned to look directly at him. Richie was determined to resist the instinctive surge of fear, but his body wouldn't have moved had he tried. Everything felt frozen as the gaze of the enormous animal seemed to determine Richie wasn't a threat. He didn't stare into the bear's eyes but didn't look away. After a few moments, the bears continued along their path until they were out of sight for a long time.

The sunrise of the new morning was breathtaking. After remaining seated on the rock for some time after the incident with the bears, Richie stood up. Taking a healthy drink of water from the canteen, he heard the shifting of gears in the distance. There was no need to look at the map; anywhere the next driver was heading worked. There was no way to know if Mama Grizzly would reevaluate what a human tasted like for breakfast. Richie couldn't wait to reach Sacramento and find Uncle Joe. The approaching Chevy Impala began to slow down upon seeing the teenager standing up, thumb extended.

@ ae6ce958:d0f02c7d

In a strategic move to enhance accessibility and expand its reach, DamageBDD is proud to announce the listing of Damage Token (DAMAGE) on Coinstore, a leading centralized exchange (CEX). This step marks a significant milestone in our journey to provide seamless utility for our users while solidifying DamageBDD’s presence in the blockchain and verification ecosystem.

Why a Centralized Exchange (CEX)?

While DamageBDD has always championed decentralization and Bitcoin-first principles, we recognize the importance of meeting users where they are. Centralized exchanges play a pivotal role in the adoption curve by offering ease of use, robust liquidity, and a familiar interface for new and seasoned crypto enthusiasts alike. By listing on a CEX, DamageBDD lowers the entry barrier for users interested in leveraging Damage Token’s unique value proposition.

Why Coinstore?

The choice of Coinstore is intentional. Known for its user-friendly platform, broad global reach, and active engagement in emerging blockchain technologies, Coinstore aligns with DamageBDD’s vision of democratizing access to verification tools. Coinstore provides:

1. Wide User Base: Its growing community of traders ensures ample liquidity and market activity for Damage Token.

2. Security and Transparency: Coinstore's commitment to security mirrors our own principles of integrity and resilience.

3. Global Reach: With its focus on emerging markets, Coinstore allows DamageBDD to engage with a diverse and vibrant audience, including developers, investors, and enterprises who can benefit from DamageBDD’s verification features.

Utility Meets Accessibility

Listing on Coinstore is not about speculation but utility. Damage Token’s integration into the exchange allows developers, engineering managers, and organizations to acquire tokens effortlessly, unlocking the potential of DamageBDD for behavior-driven development (BDD) and milestone verification. This step enables smoother participation in our ecosystem while ensuring users can utilize Damage Tokens for real-world applications.

Bridging Fiat and Satoshis

Our strategy remains firmly rooted in bridging the fiat world with Bitcoin principles. By making Damage Token available on Coinstore, we provide a pathway for fiat-based users to access DamageBDD while continuing to uphold our Bitcoin-first ethos. This integration will help facilitate broader adoption, bringing the revolutionary capabilities of DamageBDD to a wider audience.

A Future of Greater Utility

This listing is just the beginning. DamageBDD is committed to continuously innovating and creating use cases that empower individuals and organizations. Whether through verifying software quality, enabling milestone-based payouts, or fostering a culture of accountability, Damage Token will remain a tool of pure utility in our collective pursuit of excellence.

The journey of DamageBDD is far from over, and we invite you to join us as we take this bold step forward. Together, let’s redefine the boundaries of development and verification, one token at a time.

---

Stay tuned for the official listing date and trading details on Coinstore.

@ bd4ae3e6:1dfb81f5

abstract

i'm writing this post to explain its title without me explaining it every time i talk about nostr or bitcoin and say im studying/working on them, and people immediately ask me about crypto. this would be helpful to clarify this for those overwhelmed with information from crypto projects advertising themselves as a decentralized system.

note: this post is not about financial markets and this stuff at all!

note 2: this post is not technical. i wrote it to make my life easier, and it may also make yours.

what happened?

around 16 years ago a cypherpunk called satoshi nakamoto published a standard called bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. the purpose was to define a decentralized cash system in simple terms. he used a data structure called blockchain that links some blocks of data containing changes in the balance state in the current block and adds a new one to it every 10 minutes.

later some guys started creating copies of bitcoin called altcoins such as ethereum or litecoin and more. over time the word decentralized became a fancy word and they were able to earn a lot of money using it. so, more people did it.

current state

these altocins have become more famous and more people are familiar with them. now here are some points that make all of these projects different from bitcoin:

1. bitcoin network has a lot of nodes running and validating network and checking transactions with a huge hash rate. anyone can join this network without any permissions. on the other hand, most crypto projects need a high-spec device and tokens to stake (since most of them are proof-of-stake or something similar) and there are a lot more tokens on hand of specific people so they can have more shares on voting. (since bitcoin is proof-of-work you won't need coins to have the right to vote)

2. decentralization is not only in a network of nodes. a decentralized system has no one in charge to check its security. when we run a bitcoin core node, there is some code running and this code will take actions which are our votes. bitcoin-core code is one of the most reviewed code bases and a lot of people will observe and review its changes. on the other hand, you can simply check all crypto projects and you can see how their code base is managed. you can see lots of changes are applied by a small group of people without any review.

3. there is a lot of pre-mined/minted coins controlled by teams, early users, vcs, and more in crypto projects. most of them can be mined or minted to infinity. which makes your coins lose their value over time since there is more of it out there, the same as fiat currency. but bitcoin is simple and fair: do work, get the reward. and coins are limited to 21 million. nobody doesn't have printed coins.

4. all crypto projects have a not anonymous team who are out there and the government has access to them. when this team or related people to it publish unexpected stuff on social, get arrested or anything like that, it will impact the whole ecosystem the things you hold which called coins. on the other hand the first guys behind bitcoin are gone now and we don't know him at all. and we don't have anything called bitcoin foundation officially. all of the people working on bitcoin are plebs such as me and you. so, there is now a central point of failure. for a better example search for the story of pavel durove and what happened to his project called the open network when france government arrested him.

so, they are not blockchains? you may think anything referred to as a p2p network or a blockchain is decentralized. this is not true. in simple terms, a blockchain is a data structure that we can use to store and maintain data using it. a decentralized system is something that no one can control it directly or censor it. for example bitcoin is a decentralized blockchain (and the only one), but nostr is a decentralized protocol that is not a blockchain, or hyperledger fabric based projects are blockchain, but they are not decentralized.

answer to you possible questions:

• q. bitcoin is slow and requires high fees, what should we do?

• a: lighting is a layer-2 off-chin solution that help us to make zero-fee transactions with the speed of lightning.

  note: lighting is not another blockchain or token, it's bitcoin itself.

• q: there are no smart contracts on bitcoin, what should we do?

• a: to be honest we don't need them. 99% percent of smart contracts are solving issues made by themselves and they don't fix any real issues. they are just super fancy. most of the real use cases they claim they can have are not implemented and don't work. and the rest is possible with nostr, really decentralized, and it's working.

then what is nostr?

nostr is a protocol. it's a set of rules which defined for communication between servers and apps on the web, mobile, or desktop. developers can write software that follows these rules to create social media and more. the resulting app is not a platform or something like that. for example x, meta, bluesky, and more. you control your client and you have the right to connect to any server managed by different people even yourself. and non of the actors in this system won't need permission for this. this is something like http. you can see a lot of websites accessible using http protocol and you can access them using different browsers. the website knows how to return stuff when someone calls them using http://.... and your browser knows how to show this stuff to you. the website you or the owner don't need to ask for permissions from something called http platform. this is just a way to and the website can talk to each other.

conclusion

crypto is not the same as bitcoin. nostr is not a blockchain. any blockchain is not decentralized and any decentralized thing is not a blockchain.

this article is draft-1. if you have any ideas for improvement, please tell me or add comments. but consider that i try my best to keep this short, simple, without technical words, and clear.

@ d830ee7b:4e61cd62

การเผชิญหน้า (The Collision Point)

กลางปี 2017 ที่ร้านคราฟท์เบียร์เล็ก ๆ ในย่านเกาะเกร็ด นนทบุรี อากาศร้อนจนเครื่องปรับอากาศ (ที่ยังไม่มี) ในร้านทำงานหนักแทบไหม้ "แจ๊ก กู้ดเดย์" (Jakk Goodday) นั่งลงบนเก้าอี้ไม้ที่เจ้าของร้านกันไว้ให้เป็นประจำ ราวกับเขาเป็นลูกค้าขาประจำระดับวีไอพี

กลิ่นกาแฟคั่ว ลอยผสมกับไอความร้อนจากนอกหน้าต่าง (ผิดร้านหรือเปล่า?) เกิดเป็นบรรยากาศขมติดปลายลิ้นชวนให้คนจิบแล้วอยากถอนใจ

เขาเหลือบมองออกไปนอกหน้าต่าง.. เห็นแสงแดดแผดเผาราวกับมันรู้ว่าสงคราม Blocksize กำลังคุกรุ่นขึ้นอีกครั้ง

บรรยากาศนอกหน้าต่างกับใน ฟอรัม Bitcointalk ช่างเหมือนกันจนน่าขนลุก มันร้อนแรง ไร้ความปรานี

แจ๊กเปิดแล็ปท็อป กดเข้าเว็บฟอรัม พอเสียงแจ้งเตือน “—ติ๊ง” ดังขึ้น คิ้วของเขาก็ขมวดเล็กน้อย คล้ายได้กลิ่นดินปืนกลางสนามรบ

“โรเจอร์ แวร์ (Roger Ver) ไลฟ์เดือดลั่นเวที!” “ปีเตอร์ วูเล (Pieter Wuille) โต้กลับเรื่อง SegWit!” “Hard Fork ใกล้ถึงจุดปะทะแล้ว!”

แจ๊กคลิกเข้าไปในลิงก์ของไลฟ์ทันที เหมือนมือของเขาไม่ต้องการคำสั่งจากสมอง ความคุ้นเคยกับเหตุการณ์แบบนี้บอกเขาว่า นี่ไม่ใช่ดีเบตธรรมดา แต่มันอาจเปลี่ยนอนาคตของ Bitcoin ได้จริง ๆ

เห็นแค่พาดหัวสั้น ๆ แต่ความตึงเครียดก็ชัดเจนขึ้นเรื่อย ๆ ทุกข้อความเหมือนสุมไฟใส่ใจกองหนึ่งที่พร้อมระเบิดได้ทุกเมื่อ

โทรศัพท์ของแจ๊กดังพร้อมปรากฏชื่อ แชมป์ ‘PIGROCK’ ลอยขึ้นมา เขาหยิบขึ้นมารับทันที

“ว่าไงวะแชมป์… มีอะไรด่วนหรือเปล่า?” น้ำเสียงแจ๊กฟังดูเหมือนง่วง ๆ แต่จริง ๆ เขาพร้อมจะลุกมาวิเคราะห์สถานการณ์ให้ฟังทุกเมื่อ

“พี่แจ๊ก.. ผมอ่านดีเบตเรื่อง SegWit ในฟอรัมอยู่ครับ บางคนด่าว่ามันไม่ได้แก้ปัญหาจริง ๆ บ้างก็บอกถ้าเพิ่ม Blocksize ไปเลยจะง่ายกว่า... ผมเลยสงสัยว่า Hard Fork ที่เค้าพูดถึงกันนี่คืออะไร ใครคิดอะไรก็ Fork กันได้ง่าย ๆ เลยเหรอ"

"แล้วถ้า Fork ไปหลายสาย สุดท้ายเหรียญไหนจะเป็น ‘Bitcoin ที่แท้จริง’ ล่ะพี่?”

“แล้วการ Fork มันส่งผลกับนักลงทุนยังไงครับ? คนทั่วไปอย่างผมควรถือไว้หรือขายหนีตายดีล่ะเนี่ย?”

แจ๊กยิ้มมุมปาก ชอบใจที่น้องถามจี้จุด

“เอางี้… การ Fork มันเหมือนแบ่งถนนออกเป็นสองสาย ใครชอบกติกาเก่าก็วิ่งถนนเส้นเก่า ใครอยากแก้กติกาใหม่ก็ไปถนนเส้นใหม่"

"แต่ประเด็นคือ... นี่ไม่ใช่เรื่องเล็ก ๆ เพราะมีผลต่ออัตลักษณ์ของ Bitcoin ทั้งหมดเลยนะมึง—ใครจะยอมปล่อยผ่านง่าย ๆ”

"คิดดูสิ ถ้าครั้งนี้พวกเขา Fork จริง มันอาจไม่ได้เปลี่ยนแค่เครือข่าย แต่เปลี่ยนวิธีที่คนมอง Bitcoin ไปตลอดกาลเลยนะ"

"แล้วใครมันจะอยากลงทุนในระบบที่แตกแยกซ้ำแล้วซ้ำเล่าวะ?"

“งั้นหมายความว่าตอนนี้ก็มีสองแนวใหญ่ ๆ ชัวร์ใช่ไหมครับ?” แชมป์ถามต่อ

“ฝั่ง โรเจอร์ แวร์ ที่บอกว่าต้องเพิ่ม Blocksize ให้ใหญ่จุใจ กับฝั่งทีม Core อย่าง ปีเตอร์ วูเล ที่ยืนยันต้องใช้ SegWit ทำให้บล็อกเบา ไม่กระทบการกระจายอำนาจ?”

“ใช่เลย” แจ๊กจิบกาแฟดำเข้ม ๆ ผสมน้ำผึ้งไปหนึ่งอึก

“โรเจอร์นี่เขาเชื่อว่า Bitcoin ต้องเป็นเงินสดดิจิทัลที่ใช้จ่ายไว ค่าธรรมเนียมไม่แพง ส่วนปีเตอร์กับ Bitcoin Core มองว่าการเพิ่มบล็อกเยอะ ๆ มันจะไปฆ่า Node รายย่อย คนไม่มีทุนก็รัน Node ไม่ไหว สุดท้าย Bitcoin จะกลายเป็นระบบกึ่งรวมศูนย์ ซึ่งมันผิดหลักการเดิมของ ซาโตชิ ไงล่ะ”

“ฟังแล้วก็ไม่ใช่เรื่องง่ายนะพี่… งั้นที่ผมได้ยินว่า จิฮั่น อู๋ (Jihan Wu) เจ้าของ Bitmain ที่ถือ Hashrate เกินครึ่งนี่ก็มาอยู่ฝั่งเดียวกับโรเจอร์ใช่ไหม?"

"เพราะยิ่งบล็อกใหญ่ ค่าธรรมเนียมยิ่งเพิ่ม นักขุดก็ได้กำไรสูงขึ้นใช่ป่ะ?”

“ไอ้เรื่องกำไรก็ส่วนหนึ่ง...” แจ๊กถอนหายใจ

“แต่ที่สำคัญกว่านั้นคืออำนาจต่อรอง… ตอนประชุมลับที่ฮ่องกงเมื่อปีที่แล้ว พี่เองก็ถูกชวนให้เข้าไปในฐานะคนกลาง เลยเห็นภาพน่าขนลุกอยู่หน่อย ๆ"

"จิฮั่นนั่งไขว่ห้างด้วยสีหน้ามั่นใจมาก ด้วย Hashrate ราว 60% ของโลก สั่งซ้ายหันขวาหันเหมือนเป็นแม่ทัพใหญ่ได้เลย พอโรเจอร์ก็ไฟแรงอยู่แล้ว อยากให้ Bitcoin ครองโลกด้วยวิธีของเขา สองคนนี่จับมือกันทีจะเขย่าชุมชน Bitcoin ได้ทั้งกระดาน”

"พี่รู้สึกเหมือนนั่งอยู่ในศึกชิงบัลลังก์ยุคใหม่ คนหนึ่งยึดพลังขุด คนหนึ่งยึดความศรัทธาในชื่อ Bitcoin แต่สิ่งที่พี่สงสัยในตอนนั้นคือ… พวกเขาสู้เพื่อใครกันแน่?"

แชมป์เงียบไปครู่เหมือนกำลังประมวลผล “แล้วตอนนั้นพี่คิดยังไงบ้างครับ? รู้สึกกลัวหรือว่ายังไง?”

“จะไม่กลัวได้ไง!” แจ๊กหัวเราะแห้ง ๆ แวบหนึ่งก็นึกถึงสีหน้าที่ยิ้มเยาะของทั้งคู่ตอนประกาศความพร้อมจะ Fork

“พี่อดคิดไม่ได้ว่าถ้า Core ยังไม่ยอมขยายบล็อก พวกนั้นจะลากนักขุดทั้งกองทัพแฮชเรตไปทำเครือข่ายใหม่ให้เป็น ‘Bitcoin สายใหญ่’ แล้วทิ้งเครือข่ายเดิมให้ซวนเซ"

"แค่คิดก็นึกถึงสงครามกลางเมืองในหนังประวัติศาสตร์แล้วน่ะ.. แตกเป็นสองฝ่าย สุดท้ายใครแพ้ใครชนะ ไม่มีใครทำนายได้จริง ๆ”

พูดจบ.. เขาเปิดฟอรัมดูไลฟ์ดีเบตจากงานในปี 2017 ต่อ โรเจอร์ แวร์ กำลังพูดในโทนร้อนแรง

“Bitcoin ไม่ใช่ของคนรวย! ถ้าคุณไม่เพิ่ม Blocksize คุณก็ทำให้ค่าธรรมเนียมพุ่งจนคนธรรมดาใช้ไม่ได้!”

ขณะเดียวกัน ปีเตอร์ วูเล่ ยืนอยู่ฝั่งตรงข้าม สีหน้าเยือกเย็นราวกับตั้งรับมานาน “การเพิ่มบล็อกคือการทำลายโครงสร้าง Node รายย่อยในระยะยาว แล้วมันจะยังเรียกว่ากระจายอำนาจได้หรือ?”

"ถ้าคุณอยากให้ Bitcoin เป็นของคนรวยเพียงไม่กี่คน ก็เชิญขยายบล็อกไปเถอะนะ แต่ถ้าอยากให้มันเป็นระบบที่คนทุกระดับมีส่วนร่วมจริง ๆ ..คุณต้องฟังเสียง Node รายเล็กด้วย" ปีเตอร์กล่าว

เสียงผู้คนในงานโห่ฮากันอย่างแตกเป็นสองฝ่าย บ้างก็เชียร์ความตรงไปตรงมาของโรเจอร์ บ้างก็เคารพเหตุผลเชิงเทคนิคของปีเตอร์

ข้อความจำนวนมหาศาลในฟอรัมต่างโหมกระพือไปต่าง ๆ นานา มีทั้งคำด่าหยาบคายจนแจ๊กต้องเบือนหน้า ตลอดจนการวิเคราะห์ลึก ๆ ถึงอนาคตของ Bitcoin ที่อาจไม่เหมือนเดิม

ในระหว่างนั้น.. แชมป์ส่งข้อความ Discord กลับมาอีก

“พี่ ถ้า Fork จริง ราคาจะป่วนแค่ไหน? ที่เขาว่าคนถือ BTC จะได้เหรียญใหม่ฟรี ๆ จริงไหม? ผมกลัวว่าถ้าเกิดแบ่งเครือข่ายไม่รู้กี่สาย ตลาดอาจมั่วจนคนหายหมดก็ได้ ใช่ไหมครับ?”

"แล้วถ้าเครือข่ายใหม่ล้มเหลวล่ะครับ? จะส่งผลอะไรต่อชุมชน Bitcoin เดิม?"

"ไอ้แชมป์มึงถามรัวจังวะ!?" แจ๊กสบถเพราะเริ่มตั้งรับไม่ทัน

“ก็ขึ้นกับตลาดจะเชื่อว่าสายไหนเป็น ‘ของจริง’ อีกนั่นแหละ” แจ๊กพิมพ์กลับ

“บางคนถือไว้เผื่อได้เหรียญใหม่ฟรี บางคนขายหนีตายก่อน"

"พี่เองก็ยังไม่กล้าการันตีเลย แต่ที่แน่ ๆ สงครามนี้ไม่ได้มีแค่ผลกำไร มันกระทบศรัทธาของชุมชน Bitcoin ทั้งหมดด้วย"

"ถ้าชาวเน็ตเลิกเชื่อมั่น หรือคนนอกมองว่าพวกเราทะเลาะกันเองเหมือนเด็กแย่งของเล่น ต่อให้ฝั่งไหนชนะ ก็อาจไม่มีผู้ใช้เหลือให้ฉลอง”

แล้วสายตาแจ๊กก็ปะทะกับกระทู้ใหม่ที่เด้งขึ้นมาบนหน้าฟอรัม

“โรเจอร์ แวร์ ประกาศ: ถ้าไม่เพิ่ม Blocksize เราจะฟอร์กเป็น Bitcoin ที่แท้จริง!”

ตัวหนังสือหนาแปะอยู่ตรงนั้นส่งแรงสั่นสะเทือนราวกับจะดึงคนในวงการให้ต้องเลือกข้างกันแบบไม่อาจกลับหลังได้

แจ๊กเอื้อมมือปิดแล็ปท็อปช้า ๆ คล้ายยอมรับความจริงว่าหนทางประนีประนอมอาจไม่มีอีกแล้ว..

“สงครามนี่คงใกล้ระเบิดเต็มทีล่ะนะ” เขาลุกจากเก้าอี้ สะพายเป้ พึมพำกับตัวเองขณะมองกาแฟดำที่เหลือครึ่งแก้ว “ถ้าพวกเขาฟอร์กจริง โลกคริปโตฯ ที่เราเคยรู้จักอาจไม่มีวันเหมือนเดิมอีกต่อไป”

เขามองออกไปนอกหน้าต่าง แสงแดดที่แผดเผาราวกับกำลังบอกว่า.. อนาคตของ Bitcoin อยู่ในจุดที่เส้นแบ่งระหว่างชัยชนะกับความล่มสลายเริ่มพร่าเลือน... และอาจไม่มีทางย้อนกลับ

ก่อนเดินออกจากร้าน เขากดส่งข้อความสั้น ๆ ถึงแชมป์

“เตรียมใจกับความปั่นป่วนไว้ให้ดี ไม่แน่ว่าเราอาจจะได้เห็น Bitcoin แตกเป็นหลายสาย.. ใครจะอยู่ใครจะไปไม่รู้เหมือนกัน แต่เรื่องนี้คงไม่จบง่าย ๆ แน่”

แจ๊กผลักประตูออกไปพบกับแดดจัดที่เหมือนแผดเผากว่าเดิม พายุร้อนไม่ได้มาแค่ในรูปความร้อนกลางกรุง แต่มาในรูป “สงคราม Blocksize” ที่พร้อมจะฉีกชุมชนคริปโตออกเป็นฝักฝ่าย และอาจลามบานปลายจนกลายเป็นศึกประวัติศาสตร์

ทว่าสิ่งที่ค้างคาใจกลับเป็นคำถามนั้น…

เมื่อเครือข่ายแบ่งเป็นหลายสายแล้ว เหรียญไหนจะเป็น Bitcoin จริง?

หรือบางที... ในโลกที่ใครก็ Fork ได้ตามใจ เราจะไม่มีวันได้เห็น “Bitcoin หนึ่งเดียว” อีกต่อไป?

คำถามที่ไม่มีใครตอบได้ชัดนี้ส่องประกายอยู่ตรงปลายทาง ราวกับป้ายเตือนว่า “อันตรายข้างหน้า” และคนในชุมชนทั้งหมดกำลังจะต้องเผชิญ…

โดยไม่มีใครมั่นใจเลยว่าจะรอด หรือจะแตกสลายไปก่อนกันแน่...

สองเส้นทาง (The Forked Path)

กลางปี 2017 ท้องฟ้าเหนือบุรีรัมย์ยังคงคุกรุ่นด้วยไอแดดและความร้อนแรงของสงคราม Blocksize แจ๊ก กู้ดเดย์ ก้าวเข้ามาในคาเฟ่เล็ก ๆ แห่งหนึ่งในย่านเทศบาลด้วยสีหน้าครุ่นคิด เขาพยายามมองหามุมสงบสำหรับนั่งตั้งหลักในโลกความเป็นจริง ก่อนจะจมดิ่งสู่สงครามในโลกดิจิทัลบนฟอรัม Bitcointalk อีกครั้ง

กลิ่นกาแฟคั่วเข้มลอยกระทบจมูก แจ๊กสั่งกาแฟดำแก้วโปรดแล้วปลีกตัวมาที่โต๊ะริมกระจก กระจกบานนั้นสะท้อนแสงอาทิตย์จัดจ้า ราวกับจะบอกว่าวันนี้คงไม่มีใครหนีความร้อนที่กำลังแผดเผา ทั้งในอากาศและในชุมชน Bitcoin ได้พ้น

เขาเปิดแล็ปท็อปขึ้น ล็อกอินเข้า Bitcointalk.org ตามเคย ข้อความและกระทู้มากมายกระหน่ำแจ้งเตือน ไม่ต่างอะไรจากสมรภูมิคำพูดที่ไม่มีวันหลับ “Hong Kong Agreement ล้มเหลวจริงหรือ?” “UASF คือปฏิวัติโดย Node?” เหล่านี้ล้วนสะท้อนความไม่แน่นอนในชุมชน Bitcoin ที่ตอนนี้ ดูคล้ายจะถึงจุดแตกหักเต็มที...

“ทั้งที่ตอนนั้นเราก็พยายามกันแทบตาย…” แจ๊กพึมพำ มองจอด้วยสายตาเหนื่อยใจพร้อมภาพความทรงจำย้อนกลับเข้าในหัว เขายังจำการประชุมที่ฮ่องกงเมื่อต้นปี 2016 ได้แม่น ยามนั้นความหวังในการประนีประนอมระหว่าง Big Block และ Small Block ดูเป็นไปได้ หากแต่กลายเป็นละครฉากใหญ่ที่จบลงโดยไม่มีใครยอมถอย...

---

...การประชุม Hong Kong Agreement (2016)

ภายในห้องประชุมหรูของโรงแรมใจกลางย่านธุรกิจฮ่องกง บรรยากาศตึงเครียดยิ่งกว่าการเจรจาสงบศึกในสมัยโบราณ

โรเจอร์ แวร์ ยืนเสนอว่า “การเพิ่ม Blocksize สำคัญต่ออนาคตของ Bitcoin — เราอยากให้คนทั่วไปเข้าถึงได้โดยไม่ต้องจ่ายค่าธรรมเนียมแพง ๆ”

“จิฮั่น อู๋ (Jihan Wu)” จาก Bitmain นั่งฝั่งเดียวกับโรเจอร์ คอยเสริมว่าการเพิ่มบล็อกคือโอกาสสำหรับนักขุด และหากทีม Core ไม่ยอม พวกเขาก็พร้อม “ดัน Fork” ขึ้นได้ทุกเมื่อ ด้วย Hashrate มหาศาลที่พวกเขาคุมไว้

ฝั่ง ปีเตอร์ วูเล (Pieter Wuille) กับ เกร็ก แมกซ์เวลล์ (Greg Maxwell) จาก Bitcoin Core เถียงกลับอย่างใจเย็นว่า “การขยายบล็อกอาจดึงดูดทุนใหญ่ ๆ แล้วไล่ Node รายย่อยออกไป ชุมชนอาจไม่เหลือความกระจายอำนาจอย่างที่ Satoshi ตั้งใจ”

สุดท้าย บทสรุปที่เรียกว่า Hong Kong Agreement ลงนามได้ก็จริง แต่มันกลับเป็นแค่ลายเซ็นบนกระดาษที่ไม่มีฝ่ายไหนเชื่อใจใคร

แจ๊กเบือนสายตาออกนอกหน้าต่าง สังเกตเห็นผู้คนเดินขวักไขว่ บ้างก็ดูรีบร้อน บ้างเดินทอดน่องเหมือนว่างเปล่า นี่คงไม่ต่างอะไรกับชาวเน็ตในฟอรัมที่แบ่งฝ่ายกันใน “สงคราม Blocksize” อย่างไม่มีทีท่าจะหยุด

แค่ไม่กี่นาที... เสียงโทรศัพท์ก็ดังขึ้น ชื่อ แชมป์ ‘PIGROCK’ โชว์หราเต็มจออีกครั้ง

“ว่าไงเจ้าแชมป์?” แจ๊กกรอกเสียงในสายด้วยอารมณ์เหนื่อย ๆ ทว่าพร้อมจะอธิบายเหตุการณ์ตามสไตล์คนที่ชอบครุ่นคิด

“พี่แจ๊ก.. ผมเข้าใจแล้วว่าการประชุมฮ่องกงมันล้มเหลว ตอนนี้ก็มีคนแยกเป็นสองขั้ว Big Block กับ SegWit แต่ผมเจออีกกลุ่มในฟอรัมเรียกว่า UASF (User-Activated Soft Fork) ที่เหมือนจะกดดันพวกนักขุดให้ยอมรับ SegWit..."

"อยากรู้ว่าตกลง UASF มันสำคัญยังไงครับ? ทำไมใคร ๆ ถึงเรียกว่าเป็น การปฏิวัติโดย Node กัน?”

แจ๊กอมยิ้มก่อนจะวางแก้วกาแฟลง พูดด้วยน้ำเสียงจริงจังกว่าเดิม “UASF น่ะหรือ? มันเปรียบได้กับการที่ ‘ชาวนา’ หรือ ‘ประชาชนตัวเล็ก ๆ’ ออกมาประกาศว่า ‘ฉันจะไม่รับบล็อกของนักขุดที่ไม่รองรับ SegWit นะ ถ้าแกไม่ทำตาม ฉันก็จะตัดบล็อกแกทิ้ง!’ เสมือนเป็นการปฏิวัติที่บอกว่าแรงขุดมากแค่ไหนก็ไม่สำคัญ ถ้าคนรัน Node ไม่ยอม… เชนก็เดินต่อไม่ได้”

“โห… ฟังดูแรงจริง ๆ พี่ แล้วถ้านักขุดไม่ร่วมมือ UASF จะเกิดอะไรขึ้น?” แชมป์ถามต่อเสียงสั่นนิด ๆ

“ก็อาจเกิด ‘Chain Split’ ยังไงล่ะ"

"แยกเครือข่ายเป็นสองสาย สุดท้ายเครือข่ายเดิม กับเครือข่ายใหม่ที่รองรับ SegWit ไม่ตรงกัน คนอาจสับสนหนักยิ่งกว่า Hard Fork ปกติด้วยซ้ำ"

"แต่นั่นแหละ... มันแสดงพลังว่าผู้ใช้ทั่วไปก็มีสิทธิ์กำหนดทิศทาง Bitcoin ไม่ได้น้อยไปกว่านักขุดเลย”

“เข้าใจแล้วครับพี่… เหมือน การปฏิวัติโดยประชาชนตาดำ ๆ ที่จับมือกันค้านอำนาจทุนใหญ่ใช่ไหม?” แชมป์หยุดครู่หนึ่ง “ผมเคยคิดว่า Node รายย่อยน้อยรายจะไปสู้อะไรไหว แต่ตอนนี้ดูท่าจะเปลี่ยนเกมได้จริงว่ะพี่…”

“ใช่เลย” แจ๊กตอบ

“นี่เป็นความพิเศษของ Bitcoin ที่บอกว่า ‘เราคุมเครือข่ายร่วมกัน’ แม้แต่ Bitmain ที่มี Hashrate มากกว่า 50% ก็หนาวได้ถ้าผู้ใช้หรือ Node รายย่อยรวมพลังกันมากพอ”

แชมป์ฟังด้วยความตื่นเต้นปนกังวล “แล้วแบบนี้ เรื่อง SegWit กับ Blocksize จะจบยังไงครับ? เห็นข่าวว่าถ้านักขุดโดนกดดันมาก ๆ คนอย่าง จิฮั่น อู๋ อาจออกไปสนับสนุน Bitcoin Cash ที่จะเปิดบล็อกใหญ่”

แจ๊กเลื่อนดูฟีดข่าวในฟอรัม Bitcointalk อีกครั้ง ก็เห็นพาดหัวชัด ๆ

“Bitmain ประกาศกร้าวพร้อมหนุน BCH เต็มพิกัด!”

เขาถอนหายใจเฮือกหนึ่ง “ก็ใกล้เป็นจริงแล้วล่ะ… โรเจอร์ แวร์ เองก็ผลักดัน BCH ว่าคือ Bitcoin แท้ที่ค่าธรรมเนียมถูก ใช้งานได้จริง ส่วนฝั่ง BTC ที่ยึดเอา SegWit เป็นหลัก ก็ไม่ยอมให้ Blocksize เพิ่มใหญ่เกินจำเป็น.."

"ต่างคนต่างมีเหตุผล... แต่อุดมการณ์นี่คนละทางเลย”

“แล้วพี่คิดว่าใครจะเป็นฝ่ายชนะครับ?”

“เฮ้ย.. มึงถามยากไปหรือเปล่า” แจ๊กหัวเราะหึ ๆ “ทุกคนมีโอกาสได้หมด และก็มีโอกาสพังหมดเหมือนกัน ถ้า UASF กดดันนักขุดให้อยู่กับ Core ได้ พวกเขาอาจยอมแพ้ แต่ถ้า Bitmain เทใจไป BCH นักขุดรายใหญ่คนอื่น ๆ ก็คงตาม"

"แล้วถ้าฝั่ง BCH เริ่มได้เปรียบ... อาจดึงคนไปเรื่อย ๆ สุดท้ายจะเหลือไหมล่ะฝั่ง SegWit ตัวจริง?”

“งั้น Node รายย่อยจะยืนอยู่ตรงไหนล่ะครับพี่?” แชมป์ถามอย่างหนักใจ

“Node รายย่อยและชุมชนผู้ใช้นี่แหละ คือ ตัวแปรชี้ขาด ทุกวันนี้คนกลุ่ม UASF พยายามโชว์พลังว่าตัวเองมีสิทธิ์ตั้งกติกาเหมือนกัน ไม่ใช่แค่นักขุด"

"อย่างที่บอก.. มันคือการ ‘ลุกขึ้นปฏิวัติ’ โดยชาวนา ต่อสู้กับเจ้าที่ที่ถือ ‘แฮชเรต’ เป็นอาวุธ”

แจ๊กตบบ่าตัวเองเบา ๆ ก่อนจะหัวเราะเล็กน้อย

“นี่แหละความมันของ Bitcoin ไม่มีเจ้าไหนสั่งได้เบ็ดเสร็จจริง ๆ ทุกฝั่งต่างถือไพ่คนละใบ สงครามยังไม่รู้จะจบยังไง ถึงอย่างนั้นมันก็สะท้อนวิญญาณ ‘decentralization’ ที่แท้จริง กล้ายอมรับสิทธิ์ทุกฝ่ายเพื่อแข่งขันกันตามกติกา”

จู่ ๆ ในหน้าฟอรัมก็มีกระทู้ใหม่เด้งเด่น “Bitmain หนุน Bitcoin Cash ด้วย Hashrate กว่า 50%! สงครามเริ่มแล้ว?” ข้อความนั้นดังโครมครามเหมือนระเบิดลงกลางวง

แจ๊กนิ่งไปชั่วขณะ สัมผัสได้ถึงความปั่นป่วนที่กำลังปะทุขึ้นอีกครั้ง เหงื่อบางเบาซึมบนหน้าผากแม้อากาศในคาเฟ่จะเย็นฉ่ำ เขาหันมองโทรศัพท์ที่ยังค้างสายกับแชมป์ แล้วเอ่ยด้วยน้ำเสียงจริงจัง

“นี่ล่ะ.. จุดเริ่มของสองเส้นทางอย่างชัดเจน… บล็อกใหญ่จะไปกับ BCH ส่วน SegWit ก็อยู่กับ BTC แน่นอนว่าทั้งสองฝ่ายไม่คิดถอยง่าย ๆ นักขุดจะเลือกข้างไหน? Node รายย่อยจะยอมใคร?"

"เมื่อสงครามครั้งนี้นำไปสู่การแบ่งเครือข่าย ใครกันแน่จะเป็นผู้ชนะตัวจริง? หรืออาจไม่มีผู้ชนะเลยก็เป็นได้”

ปลายสายเงียบงัน มีแต่เสียงหายใจของแชมป์ที่สะท้อนความกังวลปนอยากรู้อย่างแรง

“พี่… สุดท้ายแล้วเรากำลังยืนอยู่บนรอยแยกที่พร้อมจะฉีกทุกอย่างออกเป็นชิ้น ๆ ใช่ไหมครับ?”

“อาจจะใช่ก็ได้... หรือถ้ามองอีกมุม อาจเป็นวัฏจักรที่ Bitcoin ต้องเจอเป็นระยะ ทุกคนมีสิทธิ์ Fork ได้ตามใจใช่ไหมล่ะ? ก็ขอให้โลกได้เห็นกันว่าชุมชนไหนแน่จริง” แจ๊กพูดทิ้งท้ายก่อนจะแย้มยิ้มเจือรอยอ่อนล้า

ภาพบนจอคอมพิวเตอร์ฉายกระทู้ถกเถียงกันไม่หยุด ประหนึ่งเวทีดีเบตที่ไม่มีวันปิดไฟ แจ๊กจิบกาแฟอึกสุดท้ายเหมือนจะเตรียมพร้อมใจก่อนเข้าสู่สนามรบครั้งใหม่ สงครามยังไม่จบ.. ซ้ำยังดูหนักข้อยิ่งขึ้นเรื่อย ๆ

เขาลุกขึ้นจากโต๊ะ ชำเลืองมองแสงแดดจัดจ้าที่สาดลงมาไม่หยุด เปรียบเหมือนไฟแห่งข้อขัดแย้งที่เผาผลาญทั้งชุมชน Bitcoin ไม่ว่าใครจะเลือกอยู่ฝั่งไหน กลุ่ม UASF, กลุ่ม Big Block, หรือ กลุ่ม SegWit ทางเดินข้างหน้าล้วนเต็มไปด้วยความไม่แน่นอน

“สุดท้ายแล้ว… เมื่อกระดานแบ่งเป็นสองเส้นทางอย่างเด่นชัด สงคราม Blocksize จะจบลงด้วยใครได้บทผู้ชนะ?"

"หรือบางที… มันอาจไม่มีผู้ชนะที่แท้จริงในระบบที่ใครก็ Fork ได้ตลอดเวลา”

คำถามนี้ลอยติดค้างอยู่ในบรรยากาศยามบ่ายที่ร้อนระอุ ชวนให้ใครก็ตามที่จับตาดูสงคราม Blocksize ต้องฉุกคิด

เมื่อไม่มีใครเป็นเจ้าของ Bitcoin อย่างสมบูรณ์ ทุกคนจึงมีสิทธิ์บงการและเสี่ยงต่อการแตกแยกได้ทุกเมื่อ แล้วท้ายที่สุด ชัยชนะ–ความพ่ายแพ้ อาจไม่ใช่จุดสิ้นสุดของโลกคริปโตฯ

แต่เป็นเพียงจุดเริ่มต้นของการวิวัฒน์ที่ไม่มีวันจบสิ้น…

เมาท์แถมเรื่อง UASF (User-Activated Soft Fork)

นี่สนามรบยุคกลางที่ดูเหมือนในหนังแฟนตาซี ทุกคนมีดาบ มีโล่ แต่จู่ ๆ คนตัวเล็กที่เราไม่เคยสังเกต—พวกชาวนา ช่างไม้ คนแบกน้ำ—กลับรวมตัวกันยกดาบบุกวังเจ้าเมือง พร้อมตะโกนว่า “พอเถอะ! เราก็มีสิทธิ์เหมือนกัน!”

มันอาจจะดูเวอร์ ๆ หน่อยใช่ไหมครับ?

แต่ในโลก Bitcoin ปี 2017 นี่คือสิ่งที่เกิดขึ้นในรูปแบบ “User-Activated Soft Fork” หรือ UASF การปฏิวัติด้วยพลังโหนด ซึ่งทำให้นักขุดยักษ์ใหญ่ตัวสั่นงันงกันมาแล้ว!

แล้ว UASF มันคืออะไรล่ะ?

“User-Activated Soft Fork” หรือเรียกย่อ ๆ ว่า “UASF” ไม่ใช่อัปเกรดซอฟต์แวร์สวย ๆ แต่เป็น “ดาบเล่มใหม่” ที่คนตัวเล็ก—หมายถึง โหนด รายย่อย—ใช้ต่อรองกับนักขุดรายใหญ่ โดยกติกาคือ.. ถ้านักขุดไม่ทำตาม (เช่น ไม่รองรับ SegWit) โหนดก็จะปฏิเสธบล็อกของพวกเขาอย่างไม่เกรงใจใคร

สมมุติว่าคุณคือโหนด..

คุณรันซอฟต์แวร์ Bitcoin คอยตรวจสอบธุรกรรม วันดีคืนดี คุณประกาศ “ต่อไปถ้าใครไม่รองรับ SegWit ฉันไม่ยอมรับบล็อกนะ!” นี่ล่ะครับ “UASF” ตัวเป็น ๆ

คำขวัญสุดฮิตของ UASF

“No SegWit, No Block”

หรือแปลว่าถ้าบล็อกไม่รองรับ SegWit ก็เชิญออกไปเลยจ้า..

มันเหมือนการที่ชาวนาโผล่มาตบโต๊ะอาหารท่านขุนว่า “นายใหญ่จะปลูกอะไรก็ปลูกไป แต่ไม่งั้นฉันไม่รับผลผลิตนายนะ!”

ความเชื่อมโยงกับ BIP 148

ถ้าจะพูดถึง UASF ต้องรู้จัก BIP 148 ไว้นิดนึง มันเปรียบเหมือน “ธงปฏิวัติ” ที่ตีตราว่าวันที่ 1 สิงหาคม 2017 คือเส้นตาย!

BIP 148 บอกไว้ว่า.. ถ้าถึงวันนั้นแล้วยังมีนักขุดหน้าไหนไม่รองรับ SegWit บล็อกที่ขุดออกมาก็จะถูกโหนดที่ใช้ UASF “แบน” หมด

ผลลัพธ์ที่ตั้งใจ นักขุดไม่อยากโดนแบนก็ต้องทำตาม UASF กล่าวคือ “นายต้องรองรับ SegWit นะ ไม่งั้นอด!”

หลายคนกลัวกันว่า “อ้าว ถ้านักขุดใหญ่ ๆ ไม่ยอมแล้วหันไปขุดสายอื่น จะไม่กลายเป็นแยกเครือข่าย (Chain Split) หรือ?”

ใช่ครับ.. มันอาจเกิดสงครามสายใหม่ทันทีไงล่ะ

ทำไม UASF ถึงสำคัญ?

ย้อนกลับไปก่อนปี 2017 Bitcoin มีปัญหาโลกแตกทั้งค่าธรรมเนียมแพง ธุรกรรมหน่วง บวกกับความขัดแย้งเรื่อง “จะเพิ่ม Blocksize ดีไหม?” ทางกลุ่มนักขุดรายใหญ่ (นำโดย Bitmain, Roger Ver ฯลฯ) รู้สึกว่า “SegWit ไม่ใช่ทางออกที่แท้จริง” แต่อีกฝั่ง (ทีม Core) ชี้ว่า “Blocksize ใหญ่มากไปจะรวมศูนย์นะ โหนดรายย่อยตายหมด”

UASF เลยโผล่มา เหมือนชาวนาตะโกนว่า

“หุบปากได้แล้วไอ้พวกที่สู้กัน! ถ้าพวกแกไม่รองรับ SegWit พวกข้า (โหนด) ก็จะไม่เอาบล็อกแก”

สาระก็คือ.. มันคือตัวบ่งชี้ว่าคนตัวเล็กอย่างโหนดรายย่อยก็มีพลังต่อรอง เป็นกลไกที่ดึงอำนาจจากมือทุนใหญ่กลับสู่มือชุมชน (Decentralization ที่แท้ทรู)

วิธีการทำงานของ UASF

ลองจินตนาการตาม..

1. การกำหนดเส้นตาย BIP 148 ประกาศไว้ “ถึงวันที่ 1 สิงหาคม 2017 ถ้านายยังไม่รองรับ SegWit โหนด UASF จะไม่รับบล็อกนาย”

2. ถ้าคุณเป็นนักขุด… คุณขุดบล็อกออกมา แต่ไม่ได้ตีธง “ฉันรองรับ SegWit” UASF โหนดเห็นปุ๊บ พวกเขาจะจับโยนทิ้งไปเลย

3. ผลกระทบ? นักขุดที่ไม่ยอมทำตามจะเจอปัญหา บล็อกที่ขุดออกมาไม่มีใครรับ—เสียแรงขุดฟรี

อาจเกิด Chain Split คือ แยกเครือข่ายเลย ถ้านักขุดเหล่านั้นไปตั้งสายใหม่

ความสำเร็จและความท้าทายของ UASF

ความสำเร็จ.. หลังการรวมพลังผู้ใช้ โหนดรายย่อยกดดันนักขุดได้ไม่น้อย จนกระทั่ง SegWit เปิดใช้งานจริงใน Bitcoin วันที่ 24 สิงหาคม 2017 ช่วยให้ธุรกรรมเร็วขึ้น แก้ Transaction Malleability และเปิดทางสู่ Lightning Network ในอนาคต

ความท้าทาย.. นักขุดบางค่ายไม่โอเค.. โดยเฉพาะ Bitmain ซึ่งคาดว่าจะสูญรายได้บางส่วน ก็นำไปสู่การสนับสนุน “Bitcoin Cash (BCH)” แยกสาย (Hard Fork) ของตัวเองตั้งแต่วันที่ 1 สิงหาคม 2017 นั่นเอง

ว่าแล้วก็เปรียบง่าย ๆ

UASF เหมือนปฏิบัติการยึดคฤหาสน์เจ้าเมืองมาเปิดให้ชาวบ้านเข้าอยู่ฟรี.. แต่อีกฝ่ายบอก

“งั้นฉันออกไปตั้งคฤหาสน์ใหม่ดีกว่า!”

บทเรียนสำคัญ UASF เป็นตัวอย่างชัดว่า “ผู้ใช้” หรือ โหนดรายย่อย สามารถสร้างแรงกดดันให้นักขุดต้องยอมเปลี่ยนได้จริง ๆ ไม่ใช่แค่ยอมรับเงื่อนไขที่ขุดกันมา

ผลกระทบระยะยาวหลังจากนั้นล่ะ?

SegWit ถูกใช้งาน ทำให้ค่าธรรมเนียมธุรกรรมลดลง (ช่วงหนึ่ง) เกิด Lightning Network เป็น Layer 2 สุเฟี้ยวของ Bitcoin เกิด BCH (Bitcoin Cash) เป็นสายแยกที่อ้างว่า Blocksize ใหญ่คือทางออก

สรุปแล้ว UASF ทำให้โลกได้รู้ว่า..

Bitcoin ไม่ใช่ของนักขุด หรือของฝ่ายพัฒนาใดฝ่ายเดียว แต่มันเป็นของทุกคน!

“Bitcoin เป็นของทุกคน”

ไม่มีใครมีอำนาจเบ็ดเสร็จ ไม่ว่าคุณจะถือ Hashrate มากแค่ไหน ถ้า Node ทั่วโลกไม่เอา ก็จบ!

“แรงขุดใหญ่แค่ไหน ก็แพ้ใจมวลชน!”

(น่าจะมีตอนต่อไปนะ.. ถ้าชอบก็ Zap โหด ๆ เป็นกำลังใจให้ด้วยนะครับ)

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

Instructions

1. Place 2 medium-sized, boiled potatoes and a handful of sliced leeks in a pot.
2. Fill the pot with water or vegetable broth, to cover the potatoes twice over.
3. Add a splash of white wine, if you like, and some bouillon powder, if you went with water instead of broth.
4. Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Puree the soup, in the pot, with a hand mixer. It shouldn't be completely smooth, when you're done, but rather have small bits and pieces of the veggies floating around.
6. Bring the soup to a boil, again, and stir in one container (200-250 mL) of heavy cream.
7. Thicken the soup, as needed, and then simmer for 5 more minutes.
8. Garnish with croutons and veggies (here I used sliced green onions and radishes) and serve.

Guten Appetit!

@ 4d41a7cb:7d3633cc

Today is Bitcoin genesis block day, literally Bitcoin’s birthday number 16th. The purpose of this article is to deep dive into Bitcoin's beginnings, what it was meant to be, what its creator's incentives were, why the collaborators were interested in contributing to its success, and what Bitcoin is achieving.

Bitcoin exists to solve a problem.

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.

Satoshi Nakamoto, February 11, 2009

In this post, Satoshi reveals the main problem: central banking, how this institution has abused the trust we have put in them. Bitcoin is an alternative to a “broken” or corrupt monetary system that it’s been running and stealing from people for centuries, creating credit bubbles with their debt-based fractional reserve banking system

Ponzi nature of banking system

For those who don’t understand this system and its corrupt and inviable nature, think about it as a rigged musical chairs game.

When the music (trust in the banking system and its currency) is on, everyone is happy playing the economic game. Economic activity is soaring; we see new businesses, new products, cheap credit, high lending, asset prices inflate, and people consuming more (thus pushing the economic numbers higher). Everything seems to be okay. But then something happens.

Under this monetary game, deposits are chairs and depositors are players; as the game goes on, there are always more players than chairs or depositors than deposits because banks “lend” currency that they don’t have. When the music (trust in the bank) is stopped, the game is over, and many people lose their chairs (their deposit), creating deflationary recessions and economic crises.

When this happens, everything starts trending the exact opposite way. The economic activity starts slowing down, debt problems arise, bankruptcies occur, people lose their jobs and consume less, asset prices deflate, until the central bank intervenes and the cycle starts again.

This is officially known as the “economic cycle,” and it's sold to us as a natural phenomenon. But the truth is this is a pure central bank–artificially created cycle by monetary manipulation, as we can learn from the Austrian school of economics.

I call the central bankers the market wizards because they hold the lever to manipulate the economic game. They are the money masters, the financial alchemists, the kings of the economic and financial game of commerce where all economic agents operate under.

Bitcoin is a revolution against the central bank monarch, but Satoshi was not shouting about this to the four winds. He didn’t want to get attention before Bitcoin was strong enough, because it would have implied a great risk to its success. Central banks are the most powerful institutions on earth; they literally have the power to create currency in unlimited amounts and buy anything they need to maintain their monopoly.

If we need a more clear confirmation of this, we can look into the encrypted message that Satoshi left in the genesis block. To understand the genesis block, imagine a bookkeeping ledger that adds new pages (blocks) daily and contains a record of all bitcoin transactions ever made. The very first page of this book is called the genesis block.

Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

Satoshi Nakamoto 03 January 2009

Here’s the newspaper cover he was making reference to.

In allusion to the bank bailouts that were taking place at the time, Satoshi included this intriguing line in the genesis block when he created Bitcoin during the Great Global Financial Crisis. In addition to providing the remedy, those who caused the issue (and profit from it) were making unprecedented profits. \ \ This game is about privatizing profits and socializing losses. This is the opposite of free markets and capitalism. It's clear that Satoshi Nakamoto, whomever he was, detested the established financial system. Since the Bank of England, which was the subject of this article, was established in 1694, we may trace the debt based fractional reserve banking system history back at least 331 years. \ \ This allusion to traditional banking's shortcomings was a declaration of what Bitcoin was trying to combat: fractional reserve banking and its consequences, which include debt, taxation, and inflation.

\ \ The bookkeepers \ \ In essence, banking and money management are bookkeeping, keeping track of who owns what and who owes what. Due to its revolutionary impact on accounting, Bitcoin has been dubbed "triple entry bookkeeping" by some. \ \ These days, banks are in charge of bookkeeping; they basically have the authority to make changes to the books and add new entries, or "print money." Inflation is basically a robber of time, energy, and wealth from everyone using that currency denomination, and banks are the ones who create it. Additionally, they have the ability to cause economic crises and market crashes for their own financial gain, making them deflation inductors. \ \ The incapacity of gold (real money) to meet the demands of a growing global economy gave banks this authority. They essentially became gold safe-keepers and gold IOU bookkeepers' ledgers because people trusted these organizations to provide scalability and lower the cost and risk of gold transactions. \ \ The purpose of banking was to enable credit and payments. Governments and banks did not create money. The free market determined the value of gold and silver, and people only trusted banknotes that were backed by gold. \ \ “Gold is money, everything else is credit" JP Morgan, 1912. \ \ Since banks began growing, they have sought to increase their size even more. When they discovered that the metal money system was restricting their ability to increase credit and bank profits, they literally plotted to seize control of the money market and overthrow governments by demonetizing these metals, effectively eliminating the demand for money in general and substituting it with debt and credit instruments. Essentially promissory notes issued by banks based on debt. \ \ "The borrower is a slave to the lender, and the wealthy dominate the poor”. Proverbs 22:7\ \ Human history is a chronicle of the literal plot by banks to enslave humanity, which resulted in hundreds of wars, thousands of assassinations, and the loss of millions of innocent lives in order to fulfill the banksters' objective of creating a global fractional reserve credit system. The currency that they decided to control? The term "U.S dollars" is frequently and incorrectly used to refer to Federal Reserve Notes. \ \ Slavery is essentially personified in this system. Slavery, in my opinion, is working for a currency that someone else can print without any effort or labor. This is the underlying cause of legal inequality. Theoretically, we live in a democracy and capitalist society where everyone is treated equally, but income taxes and central banking are vital components of the communist manifiesto. \ \ Where do we draw the boundary between a free human being and a slave citizen, given that this system directly violates private property rights? You are 100% slave when you pay 100% taxes, and 40% slave when you pay 40% taxes. It is being violently imposed upon you if it is not a voluntary business deal. Violence or the threat of losing your freedom are used to compel people to pay taxes. \ \ Natural law, often known as moral law, states that every person has the right to keep all of the fruits of their labor. However, this fraudulent financial system is robbing everyone of their means of trade, whether they are called coins, currencies, deposits, checks, etc. Furthermore, ceasing to feed a parasite is the only way to eradicate it. \ \ A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.

Satoshi Nakamoto, October 31, 2008\ \ \ \ What backs fiat currencies?\ \ The worst aspect of this system is that it views people as collateral cattle for the currency's purchasing power. In essence, "government currencies" are credits of their corresponding debts, or government bonds, which are effectively secured by the government's “authority” to impose taxes on its populace. In essence, the government's power to compel its people to give them X percent of their income without providing them with equal recompense.

In essence, citizens' wealth is "baking" the government's debts. Since the currency cannot be exchanged for wealth at a particular rate, it is inaccurate to state that it is backed, thus I said "baking." However, if we must identify a valuable component of the currency, it is as follows: wealth and labor (i.e., human time and energy).

\ And what makes up this wealth? Among other things, land, homes, resources, businesses, and human time. They have demand for trade and exchanges because they make up half of every transaction. However, what do people trade more for currency? Energy and time. \ \ Those who can produce currency out of thin air with little effort (simply adding numbers to the bank ledger) can effectively steal from everyone else who has to labor and invest time and energy (real wealth), as most people exchange their time and energy for currency. Clearly, this is the root cause of inequality. \ \ Not only is this utterly immoral and unfair, but it gets worse. The worst aspect is not that they want to charge interest and can easily generate currency, but rather that they insist that WE repay them! \ \ What am I saying? Every currency unit's counterpart in government bonds is a public debt that generates compound interest on a continuous basis. There is a dollar due plus interest for every dollar that exists. In essence, this debt is a claim on the nation's wealth, which includes the labor (time and energy) and wealth of its citizens. \ \ And to whom is this debt owed? The banks. Therefore, if we apply common logic, it is easy to see that just as borrowers are slaves to lenders, governments and "we the people" are slaves to banks. \ \ However, what precisely do we owe? What kind of material have they given our governments? Is it wealth of any sort, whether it land, gold, or resources? No, it's not. is essentially a promissory note issued by a private bank, a document that serves as a means of exchange and may be produced in an infinite quantity. A counterfeit check.\ \ Global slavery to the banks is the price we pay for a scalable medium of exchange! \ \ And now we have a great substitute! \ \ To sum up, we spend our lives, precious time, energy, stress, suffering, and effort to obtain these currencies and pay our taxes, while another group sits there making up new reasons to add currency the ledger —also known as "printing digital money"—that we must repay plus interest! It's crazy. \ \ The worst aspect is that because the debt exceeds the amount of money in circulation due to compound interest, which keeps accruing and increasing the loan's size, it is mathematically impossible to pay back.\ \ It is equivalent to burning the currency because we pay taxes to cover the interest on an ever-increasing debt that we are unable to pay back. A black hole for taxpayer funds, debt-based currencies are essentially human slavery that is supported by banks and maintained by governments. \ \ Why isn't everyone voicing their disapproval and exposing this? The answer is brainwashing and a lack of knowledge. Much of this has been concealed or esoteric, and a major contributing factor to this blind spot is the misinformation we receive regarding the operation of this system. In order to play the game the way they want us to and avoid the game ending anytime soon, we are given a children's interpretation of human history and reality. \ \ \ Libertarianism\ \ Bitcoin's libertarian nature cannot be disregarded; even Satoshi acknowledged this when he stated:\ \ It’s very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly.\ I’m better with code than with words though.

Satoshi Nakamoto, November 14, 2008\ \ Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds freedom and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians conceive of freedom in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, so long as it does not involve violating the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them.

Libertarians advocate for the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. They generally support individual liberty and oppose authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope and nature of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. 1\ \ Here are several arguments in favor of Bitcoin's libertarian nature. \ \ Non-Aggression Principle: Unlike taxes and fiat currencies, which are supported by state aggression, Bitcoin is supported by energy, math, and processing power. The monopoly of violence “belongs” to governments, and banks use this authority to compel everyone to follow their rules (I'm talking about business). \ \ Personal independence: Bitcoin doesn't require confidence and doesn't have counterparty risk. With bitcoin, the person has complete control over his finances and doesn't require "permission" from a third party to earn, save, or spend it. Bitcoin is referred to be "freedom money" for this reason. \ \ Equality before the law: Unlike the actual banking system, where a group can create money out of thin air with little effort and can alter the rules to suit their interests, the bitcoin protocol ensures that everyone is playing by the same rules and that there is no possibility of cheating or inflating the supply of bitcoin. Equality exists under the Bitcoin protocol. \ \ Indeed there is nobody to act as central bank or federal reserve to adjust the money supply as the population of users grows.\ Satoshi Nakamoto, Febrero 18, 2009\ \ Freedom of speech: To uphold justice and the truth in an era of widespread censorship, freedom of speech is an essential human right. The fact that Bitcoin is information also fits into this category; money is a means of conveying value, but this time in an unstoppable manner that is impervious to censorship. \ \ Freedom of thought: Using bitcoin does not require you to subscribe to any particular philosophy or set of beliefs, including libertarianism or anarchism. Bitcoin is unbiased and doesn't care. \ \ Freedom of choice: Unlike fiat currencies, where you frequently have no other choice, no one will compel you to use bitcoin. \ \ Libertarians reject the current political and economic structures because they are blatantly immoral, criminal, and illegitimate. It is "shaped" by indoctrinated mob rule democracies, supported by violence, and based on lies.

Bitcoin's ascent \ \ Bitcoin wasn't created overnight; rather, it was the result of decades' worth of research, development, and technology. Above all else, however, bitcoin represented a breakthrough—a new method of accomplishing tasks that had previously been impossible. \ \ A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990's. I hope it's obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we're trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system.

Satoshi Nakamoto, Febrero 15, 2009\ \ Due to their centralization and unique points of failure, all of the numerous attempts to implement alternative e-currencies failed. The distributed nature of the bitcoin network makes it more robust and challenging to attack. \ \ The secret to developing a decentralized unchangeable ledger was Satoshi's solution to a problem that had been thought to be intractable since the 1970s. Following years of failure and lessons learned, Satoshi established a finite amount of money that is governed by processing power and energy.\ \ The proof-of-work chain is a solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem.\ Satoshi Nakamoto, Febrero 15, 2009

The return of money \ \ Bitcoin has also had a significant impact on the monetary front, particularly on the system's capacity to function as money and not simply a currency. It has been shown to be the best store of value (SOV) in addition to being an excellent medium of exchange (MOE).

Since currencies replaced money during the last century, we have lost track of what money is. And in order to protect our wealth, we need to be aware of the important distinctions between these technologies. \ \ A currency must be recognized, divisible, fungible, portable, and widely accepted in order to function as a medium of exchange. \ \ All of those qualities are present in money, but it also has the capacity to hold value over time, and it must be scarce in order to function as a store of value. A currency, in contrast to money, is susceptible to inflation due to its ease of replication. This is the cause of the constant price increases. \ \ The money supply needs to be scarce in order to preserve its purchasing power over time (i.e., to be immune to inflation). For thousands of years, gold and silver have been the preferred forms of money. \ \ At first, paper currency was only used to facilitate transitions by serving as a convenient alternative (derivative) to precious metals. Since goldsmiths and subsequent bankers used fractional reserve banking to lend more money (i.e., print more paper currency) than they actually had in storage, paper currencies—which are easily reproducible—have always been vulnerable to inflation. This resulted in the recurring "bank run" crises that are documented throughout history.\ \ But before bitcoin, we didn't have any money since 1933 because banks had taken it and devalued it. Real state, stocks, bonds, and other choices had been selected as alternatives due to the absence of money (a store of value). People buy real estate, stocks, and bonds to protect their wealth because fiat currencies are continually being inlfated, not because they love them. \ \ An estimated 900 trillion dollars' worth of wealth is held in financial and tangible assets worldwide. \ \ In real state, 330 trillions (36.6%)\ \ Bonds worth 300 billions (33.3%)\ \ Currency totaling 120 trillions (13.3%)\ \ Equity of 115 trillions (12,7%)\ \ Art worth 18 billions (2%)\ \ Gold worth 16 trillions (1,77%)\ \ Automobiles and collectibles worth 6 trillions (0,66%)\ \ Bitcoin worth two trillions (0,22%)\ \ Bitcoin only makes up about 0.22% of the world's total wealth. The greatest money ever created, property that you can actually own, with a sovereign protocol, no counterparty risk, a limited supply (better than scarce), and no need for banks or governments. Freedom money is unaffected by debt, taxes, or inflation. \ \ A bitcoin market cap of x10 ($1,000,000) would represent 2,22% of the world's wealth, and a market cap of x100 ($10,000,000) would represent 22,22%. \ \ The denominator, the dollar, is always losing value since it is created infinitely by continuously increasing the debt supply, and wealth is not fixed—rather, it is eternally increasing. According to CBNC the U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion about every 100 days.

Bitcoin is energy \ \ Bankers and significant international leaders are aware that energy is the foundation of all human activity. They are aware that they must control the energy sources, including their supply, distribution, and price, in order to establish a monopoly over every industry and a system of slave labor. They even clarified in several released documents that this is the only way to engineer the global economy.

:Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars explains:

In order to achieve such sovereignty, we must at least achieve this one end: that the public will not make either the logical or mathematical connection between economics and the other energy sciences or learn to apply such knowledge.

It is only a matter of time before the new breed of private programmer/economists will catch on to the far-reaching implications of the work begun at Harvard in 1948. The speed with which they can communicate their warning to the public will largely depend upon how effective we have been at controlling the media, subverting education, and keeping the public distracted with matters of no real importance.

The Harvard Economic Research Project (1948-) was an extension of World War II Operations Research. Its purpose was to discover the science of controlling an economy: at first the American economy, and then the world economy. It was felt that with sufficient mathematical foundation and data, it would be nearly as easy to predict and control the trend of an economy as to predict and control the trajectory of a projectile. Such has proven to be the case. Moreover, the economy has been transformed into a guided missile on target.

As we can see, the actual monetary system was created as a system of control (SOC), which is essentially founded on thievery and has restrictions, barriers, closed doors, a lack of transparency, and different rules for different actors. Through fabricated inflation and economic crises, it has been stealing our riches and freedom and controlling not just the electrical supply but also the social energies of humanity. (Inductors and economic conductors)\ \ However, Bitcoin is restoring our freedom. A way to make money, save it, and spend it without any restrictions, inflation, or capricious regulations. A novel kind of property that is not dependent on a counterparty, like banks or governments, and that requires energy to manufacture rather than being formed spontaneously.

Bitcoin generation should end up where it's cheapest. Maybe that will be in cold climates where there's electric heat, where it would be essentially free.

Satoshi Nakamoto, August, 2010

This fact is key to unlock the benefits of deflation that had been opaqued by the artificially created inflation.

Natural deflation

The primary benefit of bitcoin is deflation. Deflation incentives people to delay consumption and save more. Saving is the key to economic growth, because it can help to increase investment and productivity.

With the increase in productivity, prices tend to go down as they are more abundant and we find cheaper ways to produce thanks to technology.

The only reason that prices are not going down today -except in products where improvements are very rapid (e.g., computers)- is because of government-caused-currency inflation.

They have been stealing the benefits of natural deflation from us, but now we can access it thanks to Bitcoin.

It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 1/17/2009

Conclusion

To only way to scape the slavery system is to earn, save and spend bitcoin; a money that’s not controlled by the governments and banks, that is not subject to inflation and where everyone has to play under the same rules.

Happy birthday Bitcoin!

Bitcoin or Slavery!

@ 3ad01248:962d8a07

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a happy start to the new year. Are you ready to achieve your goals this year? Put the peddle to the metal? I know I am! This year I am dedicating myself to eating healthier, working out more, losing some weight and more importantly devoting more time to writing and getting my thoughts out into the wider world. So here we go.

Well 2025 has gotten off to a crazy start hasn't it? A terrorist attack in New Orleans, the "incident " in Las Vegas and now Los Angeles is burning down to the ground. What in the Sam hill is going on right now? I had a gut feeling that something like this would happen the moment Trump was elected.

If you want to call me a conspiracy theorist go ahead but deep down you know that you feel the same way too. The Democrats or the monied powers behind the curtains do not like the MAGA agenda and will stop at nothing to stop this movement from accomplishing any of its stated goals. What better way to do that than stir up trouble before Trump is even sworn into office again.

The Trump administration and congress are going to be so caught up bouncing from one crisis to another for the next year that its going to fatigue policymakers enough where they can't focus on passing anything of substance. If you understand how congress works they really only have about a year to get anything done. Next year there will be mid-term elections so nothing will get done because they will worrying about being re-elected.

In reality 2025 is the only time Trump has to get his agenda passed. If you remember his first time in office he wasn't particularly good at managing congress and getting them to work with him to fulfill his campaign promise. Do you think he has gotten any better in the last 4 years? Probably not. I could see maybe getting some kind of tax law passed and some kind of border security bill but that about it. Sorry to say but here is what is going to be left on the cutting room floor of his agenda:

• Border Wall
• Deportation of illegal immigrants
• Bitcoin Strategic Reserve
• Reduction of national debt
• No involvement in foreign wars

Sure Republicans have a majority in congress but it is so incredibly small that it is pretty much rendered ineffective. Republicans can only afford to lose 2-3 votes on any legislation that they want to pass. Good luck getting everyone to agree and row in the same direction for the good of the "team".

Most of congress is filled with self-serving egotistical millionaires who don't know how to work together as a team. They didn't get to positions of power by playing well with others. The clawed on the backs of others with good intentions to rise to power. At the end of the day, politicians look out for themselves and will vote their own self-interest. Constituents be damned.

This is why I think some kind of tax reform bill will pass because it benefits them financially and watered down border security bill with no border wall component because it will placate the base and help them get reelected. All the other issues they Republicans could give two shits about.

Republican business interest benefits from illegal immigration. Republican don't give shit about Bitcoin because it takes the power of the printing press away from them. Republicans don't care about the national debt because they believe in fiat Keynesian economics. They don't see the debt as a problem. Republicans love war because if funds the military industrial complex.

What Does This Mean For America?

The next four years are probably going to look like a re-run of 2016-2020. There will be tons of congressional deadlock over any bill of consequence followed by periodic mini crisis's over the debt ceiling.

Inflation will continue to run red hot over the next four years because the main drivers of inflation is not the out of control consumer, its the government and its profligate spending. Lyn Alden has written a fantastic piece about it recently, I highly suggest you give it a read.

The Ukraine war will still be funded maybe not to the level that it has been but Trump isn't going to cut them off completely. America's military industrial complex will still be all over the middle east ready to pounce on Iran if Israel takes the first shot.

At the end of the day we as Americans don't have the power to really influence anything on the macro level. We do have power on the micro or personal level. It's through our individual action that things will change over time.

The best thing that you can do for you and your family is to invest in hard assets. Bitcoin is preferable but if you have family that is not ready to go down that route, property/land and gold are good things to own. In an economic environment like this owning bearer assets is a must.

The global economy is living on borrowed to time to be honest. It's not a matter of if the global economy is going to collapse its a matter of when will it happen. History has shown that all fiat currencies collapse at some point because of human nature. Governments get drunk on the power of creating money out of nothing and forget the only way to have a truly sustainable form of money is something that is backed by something that is hard to produce.

This is a lesson that man has failed to learn time and time again. Hopefully we learn this time and the world finally decides to leave the mirage of fiat currency in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Bitcoin #Nostr

@ 6bae33c8:607272e8

I was putting off writing this article because I knew the result would be bad. Real man probably doesn’t write it at all, just skips town and never posts again. But being the nutless monkey I am, I will hold my nose and revisit the bold predictions from last August. And remember, the worst your record, the bolder they were. They were really bad last year too, I just discovered.

1. Stefon Diggs leads the Texans in targets, catches and receiving yards

Right now, he’s getting drafted more than a round behind Nico Collins and less than a round ahead of Tank Dell. Diggs is 30, but he was one of the league’s best receivers until halfway through last year when the Bills made an offensive play-calling change. Moreover, Diggs is getting paid $22.5 million, so the Texans obviously don’t think he’s washed up, and he’s also in a contract year.

Verdict: False. Had he stayed healthy he would have, but that was only because Nico Collins had gotten hurt first. (0-1)

2. CJ Stroud leads the NFL in passing yards

This is +600 on DraftKings, so the real odds are probably north of 8:1. Stroud adds Diggs to his receiving corps, doesn’t run much and heads into Year 2.

Verdict: False. It looked good with Diggs, Collins and Tank Dell, but the first two got hurt, Dell was a bust, and the offensive line was horrible. Plus Stroud himself regressed. (0-2)

3. Roman Wilson (ADP 211) has more receptions than George Pickens (ADP 47)

Pickens is a boom or bust downfield playmaker, not high-target alpha, and Wilson is a good fit for the slot for the Steelers new QBs. Think Martavis Bryant not Antonio Brown. (Not that Wilson is Brown!) Van Jefferson isn’t good, and someone will need to fill the void. Moreover, because Pittsburgh has new QBs, neither has an existing rapport with the incumbent Pickens.

Verdict: LOL. I was right about Pickens and the Steelers WRs, but Wilson never even played. (0-3)

4. DeAndre Hopkins (ADP 82) out produces Calvin Ridley (ADP 54) in PPR

Hopkins wasn’t terrible last year, has a rapport with Will Levis and is a future Hall of Famer who can still run routes. Ridley is already 29 and is just a guy outside of his monster season in 2020.

Verdict: False. Ridley smoked him, and Hopkins was eventually traded. (0-4)

5. The Giants will field a top-10 fantasy defense.

I’ve been crushed by my homer bold predictions in the past, but they added Brian Burns to a rush that already had Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeaux, the offense should be on the field more and generate some leads with a real playmaking receiver in Malik Nabers.

Verdict: False. They started out strong, but it’s very hard to be a good fantasy defense on a three-win team, and they finished 24th. (0-5).

6. One of the following Year 2 receivers will finish in the top-15 PPR: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Jayden Reed, Jordan Addison, Dontayvion Wicks, Michael Wilson, Josh Downs, Andrei Iosivas, Quentin Johnston, Marvin Mims, Jalin Hyatt

I make this prediction every year, and it often pans out as Year 2 is when receivers typically make the leap. I left out Tank Dell because he’s now got a fifth-round ADP, as well as the obvious ones: Zay Flowers, Rashee Rice and Puka Nacua.

Verdict: True. Jaxon Smith-Njigba finished 11th. (1-5)

7. Rome Odunze (ADP 77) will outproduce Xavier Worthy (ADP 59)

Both receivers enter crowded situations, and while Worthy’s is far better, he’s also got essentially the same skill-set as teammate Marquise Brown. Moreover, Andy Reid rarely entrusts rookies with large roles, especially early on. Odunze is 6-3, 215 and has the pedigree of a true NFL alpha, while Worthy weighs only 165 pounds at 5-11. Finally, Patrick Mahomes already has an established rapport with both Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice, while Odunze gets a more open competition with the Bears veteran WRs, given all three will play with Caleb Williams for the first time.

Verdict: False. It was reasonably close, but Worthy pulled ahead late in the year (1-6)

8. Dalvin Cook will lead the Cowboys in rushing yards

Cook is 29 and looked beyond “cooked” last year on the Jets, but his 3.3 YPC was on a small sample (67 carries), and prior to that, he’d been very good for the Vikings. At the very least he should have fresh legs, and he’d only need to beat out the ancient Ezekiel Elliott and Rico Dowdle. (Of course, Cook would have to be promoted from the practice squad first, so I really should hedge and make the prediction “neither Elliott, nor Dowdle will lead the Cowboys in rushing yards,” but I’ll push it and say it’s Cook.)

Verdict: LOL. Cook was the one veteran back from the Class of 2017 who really was washed up. (1-7)

9. Jonathan Taylor (ADP12 ) will lead the NFL in rushing yards.

He’s got little competition in the Indy backfield and a running QB who should open lanes for him. Draft Kings has him at +600, so his real odds are probably about 10:1, but I’d take him over the favored Christian McCaffrey (age/mileage) and all the other backs who are more hybrid types or old (Derrick Henry.)

Verdict: False. He finished fourth despite missing three full games, so this wasn’t too far off. What’s funny is I make this prediction of Barkley virtually every year except this one. (1-8)

10. Dalton Kincaid (TE4) will lead all TE in catches

I guess this is a chalky pick because he and Kelce are both favored at the position at +3000, while Evan Engram is +5000! (I’d way rather bet on Engram at those odds.) But straight up, I’m going with Kincaid who is likely Josh Allen’s de facto No. 1 target with Diggs gone. In his final 11 regular season games Kincaid had 56 catches which prorates to 87 catches over the full year. And rookie tight ends rarely do anything and often make a leap in Year 2. (1-9)

Verdict: LOL. Kincaid was one of the biggest busts in the draft. (1-9)

11. Some of these predictions will be wrong

No one’s perfect, but you never want to get shut out.

Verdict: Crushed, especially the comment the prescience of which makes Nostradamus look like the corner astrologer. (2-9)

@ 5002cb48:31a0d6d8

I am trying to update my profile, but it's not happening. Is the site broken?

@ 714f9dc3:76659adb

Last week, I was reading “The Air We Breathe”, by Glen Scrivener. It’s about “How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality”, and it explores the Christian roots of the values we prize in today's western society. It’s all around us, but we don’t really know where it came from: It’s the air we’re breathing. The ideas and ethics behind Christianity, whether you believe in them or not, are embedded in our culture.

As I was reading this, I saw so many parallels with Bitcoin, so wanted to list them below and share some of my thoughts. Can Bitcoin also become “The Air We Breathe”? Or in plebs words: hyperbitcoinization? Can Bitcoin become so ubiquitous that it becomes normal? Can there be a world in which we don’t even know where Bitcoin came from? It would be a world with many similar views as with today's view on Christianity. It becomes the air we breathe, something that used to be a counterculture that over time became ubiquitous. What can we learn from it?

These are my ten parallels of Bitcoin with the early days of Christianity. 1. Separation from state 2. From obscure counterculture to dominant force 3. Exponential grassroots growth 4. Conversion of emperors/politicians 5. Sudden tolerance and protection for ideology 6. Fall of the empire, end of the status quo 7. Missionaries spreading the word 8. Persuasion and education are key 9. Age of Enlightenment

Note: I’m no expert on Christianity, nor a historian of the Roman Empire, and I know just a bit about Bitcoin. See this as a thought experiment.

1. Separation from state In all fairness, I’m not the first to draw this first parallel. It was Satoshi Nakamoto themself who made the connection even before Bitcoin was available to the public, with several hints pointing back to important dates and moments in Christian history. The big parallel here is the “separation of money and state” and “separation of church and state”.

Before going back to the early days of Christianity in the first centuries AD, I first want to draw this parallel with Satoshi.

It’s 1517. The German Priest Maarten Luther writes his Ninety-five Theses, and nails this on the church doors in Wittenberg. The theses are also known as the “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”. He kickstarted a movement with a radical new idea for that time: The separation of the church from the state.

The Catholic Church had become one with the state. Via the means of indulgences, there was an ability to pay for your redemption. The church was corrupted by money, power and politics. The church and indulgences replaced the need for personal responsibility and an individual faith with money and perverse structures.

Reformation Day is a Protestant Christian religious holiday celebrated on 31 October in remembrance of the onset of the Reformation. But the 31st of October is also the day in which Satoshi shared his pamphlet with the world: in 2008 they published the Bitcoin Whitepaper. It kickstarted a movement with a radical new idea for that time: The separation of the money from the state.

But this was not Satoshi’s only hint. Another one is the date of Bitcoin’s Genesis Block: January 3, 2009. It was the day that the idea of the separation of money and the state became reality, more than just an idea in an individual's mind.

Did you know that Maarten Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1521 by Pope Leo X for sparking this revolutionary new way of thinking (and being). It happened on January 3 as well. I bet Satoshi Nakamoto knew.

To be fair, this parallel is not new and known by many bitcoiners. But it’s a good introduction to the topic, and after reading “The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality”, I automatically started to see more parallels between (the early days of) Christianity and todays adoption of Bitcoin. Because it was of course not Maarten Luther who sparked these rebellious thoughts in 1500, but it was Jesus himself approx. 2000 years ago.

Let’s go back from the 1500s to the first decades AD to the beginning of this radical new belief system. During the dominance of the Roman empire in the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, someone told a story that opposed every mainstream paradigm.

Jesus’ idea was radically different from the belief systems of that day. He preached Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality in a world that was full of Debauchery and Violence, with Gladiator Games, Slavery, Public Crucifixion, and Brutalities. The belief system of that time was not like todays. There were superior races (Greek/Romans over barbarians), superior sexes (man over women), superior classes (free man over slaves) and the concept of justice was more something in the realm of “restoring rights of those that were superior”, than “equality for all, men and women, Greek and barbarian, free and slave”.

Jesus opposed the status quo. It started small and irrelevant; as a counterculture. But it didn’t stay that way.

2. From obscure counterculture to dominant force In “The Air We Breathe”, Scrivener asks the question: “How did the obscure, marginal Jesus movement of the 1st century become the dominant religious force in the Western world in a few centuries?”

Important to know, is that the Christian faith was the opposite of the narrative. Concepts like Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality didn’t exist in the Roman Empire. Human rights neither. Individual rights neither. The emperor was almost de facto God himself.

Early Christians were persecuted for preaching a different story: that God is NOT the ruler of the empire. Jesus preached the separation of politics from God; separating faith from the state. As a result, he was crucified, and many of his followers were killed by Nero (between 54 and 68 AD), Domitian (81–96 AD), Trajan (98–117 AD) and Decius (249–251 AD). This new narrative was a thread for the Roman rulers.

Draw the parallels of how there have been many attempts to “kill” bitcoin, not with physical persecution but with an information war. Not by physical violence, but by misinformation. Bitcoin threatens the status quo, just like Christianity threatened the Roman Empire.

You see?

But how is the obscure movement of Bitcoin in the 20th century becoming the dominant force, similar to the question that Scrivener asked about Christianity? Perhaps the answer lies in the following parallel.

3. Exponential grassroots growth Sociologist Rodney Stark estimates in “The Rise of Christianity” that from the time of the first Easter, the church began growing at a rate of 40% per decade, a modest but relentless 3.4% per year. By the year 300, Christians numbered perhaps 6 million: about a tenth of the empire.

Despite pushbacks, the army of believers continued to grow. Grassroots, peer-to-peer. It was not the state-religion, it was a peaceful army of believers that spread the word, resulting in an exponential growth of its followers. The counterculture became more and more dominant.

You may see what I’m doing here. It was basically the meme that all Bitcoiners know: Gradually, then suddenly. Against the current.

4. Conversion of emperors/politicians In 312 a big change happened: Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. As Stark writes, "Constantine's conversion would better be seen as a response to the massive exponential wave in progress, not as its cause".

Are we living in that same era, where nation states start to embrace Bitcoin? Where politicians don’t oppose as strongly anymore, but are flirting with the idea of embracing it? And again the parallel: it’s responsive to the exponential wave of progress, not as its cause.

Whether Constantine is Nayib Bukele, Donald Trump, or Milei: it doesn’t matter. It’s the dynamic that matters. The counterculture becomes so dominant, that the “rulers” of the world are wanting to be part of it. Which will be followed by “rules” that favour the ideology, movement, and beliefs.

5. Tolerance and protection for ideology In 313 Constatines Edict of Milan granted freedom to Christians that were remarkable for that time and a model for religious toleration for the coming centuries.

The tide was turning, and by 380 Emperor Theodosius made Christianity Rome's official religion, more than half the population had already converted. In a few short centuries Christianity had gone from radical counterculture to dominant cultural power. This was an extraordinary shift in the church's relationship with the world. The edict expressly grants religious liberty to Christians, who had been the object of special persecution, but also goes even further and grants liberty to all other religions. And then, in 410, the world itself changed.

It changed from grassroots, bottom-up adoption to some kind of nation state adoption. One that was driven by decrees and edicts, instead of the analog cyberhornets of that day. Actually, the ideas of Indulgences were introduced via these Edicts, something that Maarten Luther actually was fighting against in the 1500s.

The world changed from the state-less Christian belief and moved (back) towards a system in which the state and church were connected again. Yes — the Roman Catholic Church. Until the previously mentioned critics during the Reformation.

6. Fall of the empire, end of the status quo When people speak of the fall of the Roman Empire, they usually mean in the 5th century when the western half fell. But there was also an eastern half, known as the Byzantine Empire (with its capital in what is modern-day Istanbul).

How did this relate to the movement that once was Cult, and now suddenly had become Culture?

It was Augustine, the north African bishop (354-430), who laid the foundation for a new philosophical, theological, and legal system. He distinguished between the fragile earthly realm and the eternal heavenly kingdom. Rome was “a city of man”, which fell. But the “city of God” was forever. He continued to separate the Roman Catholic Church from the faith that it once was. This distinction was vital, and it gave rise to the concept of "the secular realm". He planted the first ideas of "the separation of church and state" again, which started to spread throughout Europe during the supposedly "sandy desert" of the Middle Ages.

The parallel and lesson here might be that narratives can be taken over, for the worse. And that it takes centuries to take back the narrative, but/and only after an empire has fallen. Whether we refer to “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe or “Changing World Orders” by Ray Dalio. There is something to preserve, and it needs active monitoring and pushbacks!

7. Missionary, spreading the word The way the church sought to spread its influence would become a question that would take many centuries (and many failures) to settle. In the past, empires sought to spread their influence almost always by force. Christianity has been a missionary faith from the beginning. It was for this reason that Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine to Britain to convert the Anglo-Saxons.

Augustine was commanded by Gregory to use only "gentle means". His goal was persuasion. His method was teaching and preaching. And he was successful, converting King Aethelbert of Kent and becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

You see what I’m talking about again: the parallel is simple. Bitcoin is a similar peaceful revolution, a missionary movement, of those that wish to see their Cult turn into a Culture. “Genle means”, teachings, persuasions. Or in pleb terminology: Orangepilling.

8. Persuasion and education are key Over the next decades and centuries, this movement continued. English Benedictine monk (675-754) Boniface was sent from the previously “barbarian” Britain to “orangepill the East” – in this case the Saxons in the Germanic lands. In the words of his advisor, the Bishop of Winchester, his goal was "to convince them by many documents and arguments". This mission of persuasion and education was largely successful. Today he’s better known as “the Apostle to the Germans". He was killed in The Netherlands (Dokkum).

Boniface kept to a policy of non-violence and non-retaliation, even to the point of death. Another famous writer about this topic, Tom Holland, summarises the lesson we learn from Boniface: "to convert was to educate".

In the following century this lesson was sorely needed by the Frankish king Charles the Great, aka Charlemagne (742-814). Charlemagne's path to power was a brutal one. When the Saxons stood in his way, Charlemagne beheaded 4,500 of them in a single day. There are concrete reasons why "getting medieval" might be associated today with brutality.

Is “Bitcoin as Legal Tender”, whether this is peaceful or violently, the way to go? Are we “getting medieval” with these kind of measures, in order to go from Cult to Culture, from counterculture to dominant culture, in which we lose the true essence of our revolution of separation of the state from the matter?

9. Age of Enlightenment Alcuin of York (735-804), was bold enough to write to Charlemagne directly with his criticism. "A person can be drawn into the faith, not forced into it". Be a lighthouse, not a tugboat!

The church's official teaching would later agree with Alcuin's position. In the 12th century all "harsh means" were forbidden since faith arises from the will, not compulsion. Enlightenment comes through education and persuasion.

There’s work to do. Grassroots. Education. Peer-to-peer. Not directed by politicians, nor opposed by those in power. Through education and persuasion. Rules without rulers. Because eventually, with the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, there are stark examples of the church using “harsh means" again. Forcing Bitcoin on people will never be the way: it’s a cheat code to the end goal. In order to succeed, we’ll need to be a missionary.

Final words I don’t want in any way to compare Christianity in itself as a faith, and Bitcoin as a technology, with each other. I enjoyed exploring the sociological phenomena between two countercultures, the grassroots movement and missionary parallels between both of them. Satoshi gave the first assist, with the 31st of October (Whitepaper Day) and the Genesis Block on January 3rd.

Let’s not mix religion with monetary systems, even though there are many similarities between certain movements. That’s not my goal for sharing this brain dump. But let’s learn from the past, from Constatine’s Edict and from Augustine, from Charlemagne (and especially Alcuin of York), from Boniface and from Maarten Luther. And from Satoshi Nakamoto.

@ 60d9f6d8:bc336770

My focus is predominantly on whether I could eliminate traditional banking accounts (e.g. BofA / JPM Chase etc) with the added benefit of stacking sats automatically on a day-to-day basis.

• The first part is very simple: register via foldapp.com and wait for your card to arrive. I chose the Fold+ membership at 100 per year if paid annually, otherwise 10/month. The trial period is 3 months before you are charged.
• Upon receiving the card, activate via the app (very simple click of a button and confirmation of card digits).

# Fold+ Membership costs & benefits

Linking/Funding from banking institutions

• On average, it is taking around 3 business days to make those funds available on Fold.
• There is an option to add "Instant Debit Card Funding" at a 1.5% charge; however, keep in mind that you are currently limited to adding a maximum of 2 cards.

Paying Bills

• In most cases I simply add the account & routing number to the billing company website (i.e. credit card / utilities / phone etc). In some cases, I can simply add my debit card number.
• Additionally, as a Fold+ user, any payment I make earns back rewards in sats.

Bill Pay ACH Rewards

Bitcoin (buying / sending / receiving) features

• Fold gives you many options to buy, send & receive bitcoin either automatically, via transfer or direct deposit with the ability to choose a certain percentage towards fiat or Bitcoin.
• Ability to Round-Up purchases with various multipliers.
• Push to Card: this feature effectively allows you to replenish your fiat/cash balance in your account. This does not happen automatically, so you will need to do this manually.

Authorized Users

• Fold allows you to authorize up to 3 users (must be at least 18 years old)
• This user will receive their own debit card.
• The user can also direct deposit into the account.

Note: at this time, authorized users do not have access to the app itself, which is only available to the primary account holder. This creates some friction given the authorized user cannot move funds if needed or even determine the balance on the account without interacting or communicating with the primary account holder.

Limits (as of Sept 2024)

Note: the limits only refer to your fiat balance, not a combination of your fiat & bitcoin/rewards balance.

Final Thoughts

I have been using Fold for about a month now and it is working very well. I haven't had any issues paying bills, making deposits (direct or otherwise), making purchases, buying bitcoin and/or earning rewards in general. The customer support has been really positive in responding to my inquiries within a few hours. Mostly, those inquiries have been around information I simply could not find via the foldapp or blog websites.

As of now, my intent is to continue utilizing this card/application and wean myself away from traditional banks entirely. However, there are a couple of pain points I'll point out that hopefully will be addressed in the future:

1. The limits need to increase, especially if you intend on using this with your spouse/family members.
2. The authorized user(s) should have the ability to log into the app and allow the primary holder to dictate the permissions for said user(s). Likewise, it might be useful to allow joint holders to have separate accounts within one view.
3. Increase the 2-card limit for "Instant Debit Funding".
4. Ability to search in the "gift card" section instead of scrolling through.
5. Ability to send via Zelle as I still, unfortunately, need to send payments to those who are unable/unwilling to use something else.
6. Ability to automatically Push to Card if funds are low.

There are of course many benefits of the Fold card I have glossed over as it relates to rewards, so I'll just mention a few here:

• Daily Spin allows you to addictively hope for the grand prize of 1 BTC. While the odds are extraordinarily low, at a minimum you'll earn some sats with each spin.
• Gift cards rewards are very impressive and highly recommend you use those to earn free sats.

As of now, I've earned around 30k sats this month by doing nothing different financially outside of my normal spending habits, so this of course is a major advantage.

Lastly, if you have any feedback or questions please ask and I'll try my best to answer and if you want to give it a try, here is a referral link that'll get you 20k sats: https://use.foldapp.com/r/WAANYUMJ

Fold | Personal finance

Blog | Fold Bitcoin Rewards App

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation or sponsorship with Fold. I'm just a normie looking to get closer to a Bitcoin standard without too much disruption.

@ 3906af02:af15c9f4

NEW: HRF #Bitcoin Development Fund grants 700 million satoshis to 20 projects worldwide!

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/human-rights-foundation-donates-700000000-satoshis-to-fund-bitcoin-development-and-projects

The grants cover decentralized #Bitcoin mining, technical education, decentralized communications, independent media & privacy-enhanced financial solutions for human rights groups, focusing on key regions in Latin America, Asia, and Africa 🌍🌏🌎🎁

Grants include:

🛠️ Stratum V2 Reference Implementation (SRI) decentralizes #Bitcoin mining by allowing nodes create their own block templates, reducing reliance on large pools. Funds will support @bit-aloo’s work on SRI including benchmarking tools, integration tests & codebase maintenance

⛏️ Public Pool makes #Bitcoin mining accessible for low-hash-rate devices, empowering individuals to self-host mining servers & contribute to decentralization. Funds will support hosting costs, hardware upgrades, & operational expenses.

🛠️ Jon Atack, recognized as one of the top all-time contributors to #Bitcoin Core, plays a pivotal role in enhancing Bitcoin’s decentralization and robustness. Funds will empower him to continue his vital contributions to Bitcoin development

👩🏿‍💻 Naiyoma, the first female #Bitcoin Core developer from Africa. Her work focuses on reviewing pull requests (PRs), addressing bugs through new PRs & improving Bitcoin Core’s codebase. Funds will support her full-time contributions to advancing Bitcoin Core.

🔒 Daniela Brozzoni, a #Bitcoin Core developer who previously contributed to the Bitcoin Development Kit (BDK). This grant will support her full-time contributions to Bitcoin Core reviewing key pull requests (PRs), contributing to new features & improving testing coverage

📱 UX/UI Design for Bitcoin Core by @Michaelhaase will bring the #Bitcoin Core App to mobile enabling users to run nodes, access essential wallet features directly on their phones to improve their financial privacy. Funding will support the project’s design & development.

🚀 Brink, co-founded by Mike Schmidt, supports #Bitcoin protocol engineers with grants and offers training & mentorship to onboard new contributors to open-source development. This grant will support operational expenses

⚡@Tando.me, cofounded by Sabina Gitau, integrates #Bitcoin with Kenya’s M-PESA system, enabling KYC-free, fee-free Lightning payments for everyday transactions for 54 million Kenyans. Funds will help boost Tando’s liquidity, support user growth & drive African expansion.

🌐 YakiHonne, a Nostr client founded by Wendy Ding, supports free speech & promote #Bitcoin payments across 170 countries with innovative functionality & a blend of online & offline events. Funds will support smart widget development, relay improvements & community events.

🌍 SeedSigner Multi-language Support brings accessibility to the open-source SeedSigner hardware wallet, empowering marginalized communities through inexpensive & accessible self-custody. Funds support Ace to deliver a multi-language version of SeedSigner.

🤝 Vexl, cofounded by Lea Petrasova, provides a private, KYC-free, peer-to-peer #Bitcoin trading experience by connecting users to trade through the social graph of their phone contacts. Funds will support expanded adoption in Africa & improvements to the backend infrastructure.

🇮🇳 Tomatech is building developer talent in Goa, India to advance #Bitcoin infrastructure & FOSS projects through training, workshops, & community meetups. Funding will support developer training, the creation of a developer hub, bounties & grants, & general operations.

💾 Krux, open-source firmware that turns generic devices into hardware wallets for secure #Bitcoin self-custody featuring air-gapped operations, key management & backups & support for 10 languages. Funding will support @odudex to advance this project.

🔐 Iris, a #Nostr web client by @MarttiMalmi, which aims to improve protection for metadata & message content, ensuring conversations remain private, especially in surveillant environments. Funding will support hiring an additional developer to expand Iris' features & functionality.

💻 Cashu-ts, the primary Software Development Kit in the @CashuBTC ecosystem developed by @Gandlaf21, simplifies wallet creation, integrates the latest protocol updates & powers popular wallets. Funds will support the developers to maintain & improve this essential library.

🤝 Unify, a Payjoin wallet developed by Fontaine, enhances privacy in #Bitcoin transactions by obscuring transaction histories, crucial for individuals navigating repressive regimes. Funds will support the developer to ship new features & expand compatibility with other wallets.

📢 The Financial Freedom Policy Coalition, led by Venezuelan activist Jorge Jraissati, promotes economic opportunities for people living under authoritarian regimes. Funds will support advocacy missions to educate policymakers on how #Bitcoin supports human rights.

🎓 African UX Bitcoin Bootcamp, led by @MouxDesign, empowered 10 African UX designers with #Bitcoin UX research skills ahead of the Africa Bitcoin Conference & support to test 5 popular Bitcoin products during the conference. Funds cover all program expenses for participants.

📰 No BS Bitcoin delivers ad-free, privacy-focused #Bitcoin news in clear & accessible format, essential for activists & citizens under authoritarian regimes. This grant ensures continued operations, adds an editor & supports Nostr features like Zaps & comments.

📖 Bitcoin History, a research project by Pete Rizzo, documenting key people, events & materials that shaped Bitcoin’s rise as a global monetary & human rights force. Fund will support a researcher to investigate & document stories of Bitcoin’s use against authoritarianism.

🌎 HRF is committed to supporting human rights and financial freedom with #Bitcoin.

If you are working on a #Bitcoin or adjacent freedom tech software (Nostr, eCash, TOR etc), education or adoption project that meets our mandate, submit your application at http://hrf.org/bdfapply 💪

@ df173277:4ec96708

Maple AI combines the best of both worlds – encryption and personal AI – to create a truly private AI experience. Discuss personal and company items with Maple, we can't read them even if we wanted to.\ Join the waitlist to get early access.

We are a culture of app users. Every day, we give our personal information to websites and apps, hoping they are safe. Location data, eating habits, financial details, and health information are just a few examples of what we entrust to third parties. People are now entering a new era of computing that promises next-level benefits when given even more personal data: AI.

Should we sacrifice our privacy to unlock the productivity gains of AI? Should we hope our information won't be used in ways we disagree? We believe we can have the best of both worlds – privacy and personal AI – and have built a new project called Maple AI. Chat between you and an AI with full end-to-end encryption. We believe it's a game-changer for individuals seeking private and secure conversations.

Building a Private Foundation

Maple is built on our flagship product, OpenSecret, a backend platform for app developers that turns private encryption on by default. The announcement post for OpenSecret explains our vision for an encrypted world and what the platform can do. We think both users and developers benefit when sensitive personal information is encrypted in a private vault; it's a win-win.

The Power of Encrypted AI Chat

AI chat is a personal and intimate experience. It's a place to share your thoughts, feelings, and desires without fear of judgment. The more you share with an AI chatbot, the more powerful it becomes. It can offer personalized insights, suggestions, and guidance tailored to your unique needs and perspectives. However, this intimacy requires trust, and that's where traditional AI chatbots often fall short.

Traditional AI chats are designed to collect and analyze your data, often without your explicit consent. This data is used to improve the AI's performance, but it also creates a treasure trove of sensitive information that can be mined, sold, or even exploited by malicious actors. Maple AI takes a different approach. By using end-to-end encryption, we ensure that your conversations remain private and secure, even from us.

Technical Overview

So, how does Maple AI achieve this level of privacy and security? Here are some key technical aspects:

• Private Key: Each user has a unique private key that is automatically managed for them. This key encrypts and decrypts conversations, ensuring that only the user can access their data.
• Secure Servers: Our servers are designed with security in mind. We use secure enclaves to protect sensitive data and ensure that even our own team can't access your conversations.
• Encrypted Sync: One of Maple's most significant benefits is its encrypted sync feature. Unlike traditional AI chatbots, which store conversations in local storage or on standard cloud servers, Maple syncs your chats across all your devices. The private key managed by our secure servers means you can pick up where you left off on any device without worrying about your data being compromised.
• Attestation and Open Code: We publish our enclave code publicly. Using a process called attestation, users can verify that the code running on the enclave is the same as the code audited by the public.
• Open Source LLM: Maple uses major open-source models to maximize the openness of responses. The chat box does not filter what you can talk about. This transparency ensures that our AI is trustworthy and unbiased.

Personal and Work Use

Maple is secure enough to handle your personal questions and work tasks. Because we can't see what you chat about, you are free to use AI as an assistant on sensitive company items. Use it for small tasks like writing an important email or large tasks like developing your organization's strategy. Feed it sensitive information; it's just you and AI in the room. Attestation provides cryptographic proof that your corporate secrets are safe.

Local v Cloud

Today's AI tools provide different levels of privacy. The main options are to trust a third party with your unencrypted data, hoping they don't do anything with it, or run your own AI locally on an underpowered machine. We created a third option. Maple gives you the power of cloud computing combined with the privacy and security of a machine running on your desk. It's the best of both worlds.

Why the Maple name?

Privacy isn't just a human value - it's a natural one exemplified by the Maple tree. These organisms communicate with each other through a network of underground fungal hyphae, sending messages and sharing resources in a way that's completely invisible to organisms above ground. This discreet communication system allows Maple trees to thrive in even the most challenging environments. Our goal is to provide a way for everyone to communicate with AI securely so they can thrive in any environment.

Join the Waitlist

Maple AI will launch in early 2025 with free and paid plans. We can't wait to share it with the world. Join our waitlist today to be among the first to experience the power of private AI chat.

@ df173277:4ec96708

OpenSecret is a backend for app developers that turns private encryption on by default. When sensitive data is readable only by the user, it protects both the user and the developer, creating a more free and open internet. We'll be launching in 2025. Join our waitlist to get early access.

In today's digital age, personal data is both an asset and a liability. With the rise of data breaches and cyber attacks, individuals and companies struggle to protect sensitive information. The consequences of a data breach can be devastating, resulting in financial losses, reputational damage, and compromised user trust. In 2023, the average data breach cost was $5 million, with some resulting in losses of over $1 billion.

Meanwhile, individuals face problems related to identity theft, personal safety, and public embarrassment. Think about the apps on your phone, even the one you're using to read this. How much data have you trusted to other people, and how would it feel if that data were leaked online?

Thankfully, some incredibly talented cypherpunks years ago gave the world cryptography. We can encrypt data, rendering it a secret between two people. So why then do we have data breaches?

Cryptography at scale is hard.

The Cloud

The cloud has revolutionized how we store and process data, but it has limitations. While cloud providers offer encryption, it mainly protects data in transit. Once data is stored in the cloud, it's often encrypted with a shared key, which can be accessed by employees, third-party vendors, or compromised by hackers.

The solution is to generate a personal encryption password for each user, make sure they write it down, and, most importantly, hope they don't lose it. If the password is lost, the data is forever unreadable. That can be overwhelming, leading to low app usage.

Private key encryption needs a UX upgrade.

Enter OpenSecret

OpenSecret is a developer platform that enables encryption by default. Our platform provides a suite of security tools for app developers, including private key management, encrypted sync, private AI, and confidential compute.

Every user has a private vault for their data, which means only they can read it. Developers are free to store less sensitive data in a shared manner because there is still a need to aggregate data across the system.

Private Key Management

Private key management is the superpower that enables personal encryption per user. When each user has a unique private key, their data can be truly private. Typically, using a private key is a challenging experience for the user because they must write down a long autogenerated number or phrase of 12-24 words. If they lose it, their data is gone.

OpenSecret uses secure enclaves to make private keys as easy as an everyday login experience that users are familiar with. Instead of managing a complicated key, the user logs in with an email address or a social media account.

The developer doesn't have to manage private keys and can focus on the app's user experience. The user doesn't have to worry about losing a private key and can jump into using your app.

Encrypted Sync

With user keys safely managed, we can synchronize user data to every device while maintaining privacy. The user does not need to do complicated things like scanning QR codes from one device to the next. Just log in and go.

The user wins because the data is available on all their devices. The developer wins because only the user can read the data, so it isn't a liability to them.

Private AI

Artificial intelligence is here and making its way into everything. The true power of AI is unleashed when it can act on personal and company data. The current options are to run your own AI locally on an underpowered machine or to trust a third party with your data, hoping they don't read it or use it for anything.

OpenSecret combines the power of cloud computing with the privacy and security of a machine running on your desk.

Check out Maple AI\ Try private AI for yourself! We built an app built with this service called Maple AI. It is an AI chat that is 100% private in a verifiable manner. Give it your innermost thoughts or embarrassing ideas; we can't judge you. We built Maple using OpenSecret, which means you have a private key that is automatically managed for you, and your chat history is synchronized to all your devices. Learn more about Maple AI - Private chat in the announcement post.

Confidential Compute

Confidential computing is a game-changer for data security. It's like the secure hardware that powers Apple Pay and Google Pay on your phone but in the cloud. Users can verify through a process called attestation that their data is handled appropriately. OpenSecret can help you run your own custom app backend code that would benefit from the security of an enclave.

It's the new version of that lock on your web browser. When you see it, you know you're secure.

But do we want our secrets to be open?

OpenSecret renders a data breach practically useless. If hackers get into the backend, they enter a virtual hallway of locked private vaults. The leaked data would be gibberish, a secret in the open that is unreadable.

On the topic of openness, OpenSecret uses the power of open source to enable trust in the service. We publish our code in the open, and, using attestation, anyone can verify that private data is being handled as expected. This openness also provides developers with a backup option to safely and securely export their data.

Don't trust, verify.

Join the Movement

We're currently building out OpenSecret, and we invite you to join us on the journey. Our platform can work with your existing stack, and you can pick and choose the features you need. If you want to build apps with encryption enabled, send us a message to get early access.

Users and companies deserve better encryption and privacy.\ Together, let's make that a reality.

@ 7ed7d5c3:6927e200

There was a time when we dared not rustle a whisper. But now we write and read samizdat and, congregating in the smoking rooms of research institutes, heartily complain to each other of all they are muddling up, of all they are dragging us into! There’s that unnecessary bravado around our ventures into space, against the backdrop of ruin and poverty at home; and the buttressing of distant savage regimes; and the kindling of civil wars; and the ill-thought-out cultivation of Mao Zedong (at our expense to boot)—in the end we’ll be the ones sent out against him, and we’ll have to go, what other option will there be? And they put whomever they want on trial, and brand the healthy as mentally ill—and it is always “they,” while we are—helpless.

We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble:

“But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.”

We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence. We have lost our strength, our pride, our passion. We do not even fear a common nuclear death, do not fear a third world war (perhaps we’ll hide away in some crevice), but fear only to take a civic stance! We hope only not to stray from the herd, not to set out on our own, and risk suddenly having to make do without the white bread, the hot water heater, a Moscow residency permit.

We have internalized well the lessons drummed into us by the state; we are forever content and comfortable with its premise: we cannot escape the environment, the social conditions; they shape us, “being determines consciousness.” What have we to do with this? We can do nothing.

But we can do—everything!—even if we comfort and lie to ourselves that this is not so. It is not “they” who are guilty of everything, but we ourselves, only we!

Some will counter: But really, there is nothing to be done! Our mouths are gagged, no one listens to us, no one asks us. How can we make them listen to us?

To make them reconsider—is impossible.

The natural thing would be simply not to reelect them, but there are no re-elections in our country.

In the West they have strikes, protest marches, but we are too cowed, too scared: How does one just give up one’s job, just go out onto the street?

All the other fateful means resorted to over the last century of Russia’s bitter history are even less fitting for us today—true, let’s not fall back on them! Today, when all the axes have hewn what they hacked, when all that was sown has borne fruit, we can see how lost, how drugged were those conceited youths who sought, through terror, bloody uprising, and civil war, to make the country just and content. No thank you, fathers of enlightenment! We now know that the vileness of the means begets the vileness of the result. Let our hands be clean!

So has the circle closed? So is there indeed no way out? So the only thing left to do is wait inertly: What if something just happens by itself?

But it will never come unstuck by itself, if we all, every day, continue to acknowledge, glorify, and strengthen it, if we do not, at the least, recoil from its most vulnerable point.

From lies.

When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.

And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!

And this is the way to break out of the imaginary encirclement of our inertness, the easiest way for us and the most devastating for the lies. For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person.

We are not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think—this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think!

This is the way, then, the easiest and most accessible for us given our deep-seated organic cowardice, much easier than (it’s scary even to utter the words) civil disobedience à la Gandhi.

Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.

And thus, overcoming our timidity, let each man choose: Will he remain a witting servant of the lies (needless to say, not due to natural predisposition, but in order to provide a living for the family, to rear the children in the spirit of lies!), or has the time come for him to stand straight as an honest man, worthy of the respect of his children and contemporaries? And from that day onward he:

· Will not write, sign, nor publish in any way, a single line distorting, so far as he can see, the truth;

· Will not utter such a line in private or in public conversation, nor read it from a crib sheet, nor speak it in the role of educator, canvasser, teacher, actor;

· Will not in painting, sculpture, photograph, technology, or music depict, support, or broadcast a single false thought, a single distortion of the truth as he discerns it;

· Will not cite in writing or in speech a single “guiding” quote for gratification, insurance, for his success at work, unless he fully shares the cited thought and believes that it fits the context precisely;

· Will not be forced to a demonstration or a rally if it runs counter to his desire and his will; will not take up and raise a banner or slogan in which he does not fully believe;

· Will not raise a hand in vote for a proposal which he does not sincerely support; will not vote openly or in secret ballot for a candidate whom he deems dubious or unworthy;

· Will not be impelled to a meeting where a forced and distorted discussion is expected to take place;

· Will at once walk out from a session, meeting, lecture, play, or film as soon as he hears the speaker utter a lie, ideological drivel, or shameless propaganda;

· Will not subscribe to, nor buy in retail, a newspaper or journal that distorts or hides the underlying facts.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the possible and necessary ways of evading lies. But he who begins to cleanse himself will, with a cleansed eye, easily discern yet other opportunities.

Yes, at first it will not be fair. Someone will have to temporarily lose his job. For the young who seek to live by truth, this will at first severely complicate life, for their tests and quizzes, too, are stuffed with lies, and so choices will have to be made. But there is no loophole left for anyone who seeks to be honest: Not even for a day, not even in the safest technical occupations can he avoid even a single one of the listed choices—to be made in favor of either truth or lies, in favor of spiritual independence or spiritual servility. And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.

For us, who have grown staid over time, even this most moderate path of resistance will be not be easy to set out upon. But how much easier it is than self-immolation or even a hunger strike: Flames will not engulf your body, your eyes will not pop out from the heat, and your family will always have at least a piece of black bread to wash down with a glass of clear water.

Betrayed and deceived by us, did not a great European people—the Czechoslovaks—show us how one can stand down the tanks with bared chest alone, as long as inside it beats a worthy heart?

It will not be an easy path, perhaps, but it is the easiest among those that lie before us. Not an easy choice for the body, but the only one for the soul. No, not an easy path, but then we already have among us people, dozens even, who have for years abided by all these rules, who live by the truth.

And so: We need not be the first to set out on this path, Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands—they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we will grow to tens of thousands—we will not recognize our country!

But if we shrink away, then let us cease complaining that someone does not let us draw breath—we do it to ourselves! Let us then cower and hunker down, while our comrades the biologists bring closer the day when our thoughts can be read and our genes altered.

And if from this also we shrink away, then we are worthless, hopeless, and it is of us that Pushkin asks with scorn:

Why offer herds their liberation? 
............................. Their heritage each generation
The yoke with jingles, and the whip.

February 12, 1974

—translated from the Russian by Yermolai Solzhenitsyn

@ 77c2969e:a33cfa50

换了个客户端Nostrmo，比damus好用，不过好像关注列表丢失了😩。

现在使用#YakiHonne，好像更流畅

不加图片他还会显示一个空白图片，好丑，我还是上传一个吧

@ f9c0ea75:44e849f4

In a recent TFTC podcast episode, Parker Lewis outlined a mathematical inevitability—a liquidity crisis unfolding in 2025. While optimism around the Trump administration’s economic policies exists, Lewis argues that no fiscal policy can counteract the Federal Reserve’s tightening liquidity. The real issue? Too much debt and not enough dollars.

This reflection expands on Lewis’ key arguments, breaking down:

1. Where the liquidity crisis is coming from
2. Why it’s a structural problem
3. What the consequences are
4. Why Bitcoin matters in this scenario

---

1. Where Is the Liquidity Crisis Coming From?

The crisis stems from a fundamental imbalance:

• Debt levels have skyrocketed, particularly post-2008 and post-COVID.
• Dollars needed to service this debt are shrinking because of Federal Reserve tightening (QT, interest rates, and shrinking reserves).

The Math Behind the Liquidity Squeeze

• In 2007, there was $53 trillion in U.S. dollar-denominated debt, but only $900 billion in base money—a 50:1 leverage ratio.
• By 2023, FED policies had drained dollars from the banking system, while debt levels continued to explode higher. The result? A liquidity-starved financial system dependent on an ever-smaller money pool.

---

2. The Structural Problem: FED Policy is the Real Driver

While fiscal policy (tax cuts, tariffs, and deregulation) can marginally improve economic conditions, it cannot stop a liquidity crisis. Lewis emphasizes that the Federal Reserve is the key player in determining financial stability.

What the FED Has Done to Shrink Liquidity

• Quantitative Tightening (QT): Actively reducing the money supply by letting bonds roll off the balance sheet.
• Interest Rate Hikes (2022–2023): Made borrowing more expensive, slowing credit creation.
• Reverse Repo Drain: Reduced excess bank reserves, limiting lending ability.
• Shrinking Bank Reserves: With fewer reserves, banks lend less, tightening financial conditions.

This means the liquidity crisis isn’t theoretical—it’s already happening.

---

3. The Warning Signs: Cracks in the Financial System

Lewis points to clear signals that liquidity is disappearing:

• Rising delinquencies in commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) – approaching post-2008 highs.
• Credit card delinquencies – nearing 2008 levels.
• Treasury yield inversion anomalies – typically, rate cuts lead to falling long-term bond yields, but that’s not happening, suggesting market pessimism. Bank failures in 2023 (SVB, First Republic, Signature Bank) – early signs of systemic liquidity stress.

The takeaway? Debt is growing, but the available money to service it is shrinking—a recipe for financial instability.

Consequences: What Happens If Liquidity Remains Tight?

If the FED continues draining liquidity, we may see:

✔ More bank failures, as weaker institutions struggle to survive.

✔ Debt defaults rise, particularly in real estate and corporate debt.

✔ Stock market volatility, as credit-dependent sectors suffer.

✔ A potential recession, triggered by a credit crunch.

The FED may eventually be forced to reverse course and print more money, but waiting too long could trigger a financial shock first.

---

Final Thoughts: The Crisis is Already Unfolding

This isn’t just speculation, it's a mathematical inevitability. The FED's policies have set the stage for a debt-starved economy with fewer dollars available to sustain it. The next 12 months could be highly volatile, with financial stress increasing.

Key Takeaways

✅ Trump’s policies may be positive, but they won't prevent a liquidity crisis.

✅ The FED is the dominant force, and its liquidity-draining policies are causing systemic risks.

✅ Leading indicators suggest we’re already in a liquidity crunch.

✅ Bitcoin remains a strategic hedge as the FED eventually returns to money printing.

What to Expect?

A volatile 2025—prepare for financial instability and potential FED intervention.

@ fd78c37f:a0ec0833

Bitcoin, as a decentralized digital currency, is reshaping the global financial landscape, sparking innovation and transformation across various sectors. In South America, Bitcoin communities are emerging as crucial drivers of economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and local technological advancement. This issue will highlight 21 Bitcoin communities from South America, exploring their missions, growth trajectories, and recent developments. By examining these grassroots initiatives, we aim to show how Bitcoin is being leveraged to create sustainable economic ecosystems, foster social progress, and expand access to education and financial tools. Thank you, YakiHonne decentralized media client on Nostr to support people in owning their voice. #iOS #Android, for supporting the publication of the Bitcoin Community Newsletter. Most of the content has been reviewed and confirmed by the South American communities. If there are any omissions, please feel free to reach out to me.

1.Mi Primer Bitcoin nostr:npub17cyatz6z2dzcw6xehtcm9z45m76lde5smxdmyasvs00r4pqv863qrs4ml3 * Introduction My First Bitcoin is a Bitcoin education initiative rooted in the principles of independence, fairness, and community leadership. Originating in El Salvador, it aims to empower individuals and communities by providing open-source educational resources and fostering a decentralized network. Through a commitment to high-quality education, resistance to external influence, and the creation of a global collaborative network, it seeks to spread Bitcoin education to every corner of the world, offering a transparent and transformative model for reshaping traditional financial systems. * Latest Updates Recently, MyfirstBitcoin successfully hosted the fourth Bitcoin Educators Unconference, featuring guests such as nostr:npub1zfgx8v2g0faswd0ry2qn3ay4pvx4jr6q4fw9d0yqalpkyv9hhp0sjccnj5 nostr:npub1rhh9pkmf6l6z7298yg6fgp95rzkmx4j9uxpekn8j73p5k95ck7gsvce7vj attracting around 170 participants and receiving positive feedback. They also held the graduation ceremony in Ilopango, El Salvador, and continued to organize their regular monthly Bitcoin education meetups and Bitcoin game nights. Additionally, MyfirstBitcoin’s Bitcoin Educators Node Network welcomed four new projects from Canada, Nigeria, and the United States. In partnership with Bitcoin Boma, they are launching a free online Bitcoin education course for Malawi in January 2025, aimed at enhancing local Bitcoin knowledge.

2.Bitcoin Beach

• Introduction Bitcoin Beach is a groundbreaking initiative in El Salvador aimed at fostering sustainable local economic development through Bitcoin. The project provides financial services to the community, particularly for those without access to traditional banking. By using Bitcoin for payments, residents can cover everyday expenses such as utility bills, medical costs, and food. Bitcoin Beach leverages the Lightning Network and community collaboration to promote the adoption of Bitcoin both within El Salvador and globally.
• Latest Updates Recently, Bitcoin Beach attended the conference at Bitcoin Lake, where they hosted the Bitcoin Beach Meetup and Bitcoin Beach Festival to support local businesses with Bitcoin. They also invited notable figures such as nostr:npub1q0al05h2uvtj0fp8ww7etl0pdjnkum638ynz9tmku3e522fyvlmqjq04mt Hermann Buhr-Vivier, nostr:npub164xhe3pgcqaj70ls7ls5e4hwlnvl4ttuu8wns99jmwp5z6lwhutsa27wle as podcast guests. The discussions covered a range of impactful topics, including how Bitcoin mining can truly light up rural Africa, how to use Bitcoin to transform small towns in South Africa, and integrating Bitcoin into state-level policies across the United States, among other key areas.

3.Praia Bitcoin Brazil nostr:npub1m3tu3l6y59g2tmackq23v5vgn59u7hu66gxg8xajghz59tqm6xnqk2m888 * Introduction Praia Bitcoin Brazil, located in Jericoacoara, Brazil, is dedicated to creating the country's first Bitcoin circular economy, empowering local residents with financial inclusion. Founded by Fernando Motolese, the project promotes Bitcoin adoption through education, technology, and community-driven initiatives. It has integrated over 40 local businesses into the Bitcoin ecosystem and raised more than 12 BTC through Bitcoin-only crowdfunding. Praia Bitcoin offers self-sovereign financial services and runs programs like the "Bitcoin Smiles" initiative and educational support for children. * Latest Updates Recently, Praia Bitcoin Brazil launched several innovative projects, including the first stage lighting course and free acoustic guitar course funded entirely through Bitcoin crowdfunding. Additionally, Praia Bitcoin successfully hosted the Praia Bitcoin Conference 2024, attracting 10 volunteers, 100 local residents, and 10 new merchants. The conference also sponsored the first music performance paid in Bitcoin and introduced three local courses, all funded via Bitcoin crowdfunding. These initiatives highlight Praia Bitcoin's ongoing efforts to drive Bitcoin adoption and foster local community development.

4.Bitcoin Lake / Lago Bitcoin Guatemala nostr:npub1a4excy7uf9z3mcafvm9cwdr549dl5lpazuvpr2nc550vf27n5a4scqq5k2 * Introduction Bitcoin Lake aims to create a circular economy powered by Bitcoin, providing a novel and accessible solution for unbanked as well as banked merchants in Guatemala. * Latest Updates The Bitcoin Lake community has been actively preparing and promoting a series of innovative initiatives. On November 30 and December 1, Bitcoin Lake successfully hosted its 2024 conference, inviting industry experts such as Ronny Avendaño, co-founder and CEO of the Bitcoin hardware store, and prominent Bitcoin advocate Roman Martínez (chimbera). During the conference, the community also organized creative activities like the coffee workshop and “Be Captain of the Bitcoin Boat”， offering participants an opportunity to dive deeper into Bitcoin and the local economy. Additionally, through partnerships with local merchants, Bitcoin Lake is actively advancing the development of the Bitcoin economy, fostering economic growth and financial inclusion in the community.

5.Bitcoin jungle nostr:npub14f26g7dddy6dpltc70da3pg4e5w2p4apzzqjuugnsr2ema6e3y6s2xv7lu * Introduction Bitcoin Jungle is an open-source community project built on the Bitcoin Lightning Network with the goal of creating a circular Bitcoin economy. The project provides education, resources, and technology to both individuals and businesses. Starting from the Golden Triangle area in Costa Rica (Dominical, Uvita, Ojochal, Platanillo, Tinamaste), it is developing a shining example of what a Bitcoin community can represent. * Latest Updates Recently, the Bitcoin Jungle community has been actively promoting the adoption and use of Bitcoin in Costa Rica, participating in various projects and events. Community members attended the Adopting Bitcoin conference in El Salvador, further advancing global Bitcoin adoption. At the same time, they have been actively supporting children's charity projects and Bitcoin diploma courses, continuously driving Bitcoin education, social responsibility, and community development.

6.Bitcoin Berlín sv * Introduction Bitcoin Berlín sv aimed at creating a financially sovereign town in Berlín, El Salvador, through the implementation of a Bitcoin circular economy. The project seeks to integrate Bitcoin into the local economy by educating residents and businesses about its benefits, promoting the adoption of Bitcoin-based payment systems, and empowering local entrepreneurs with financial education. It also focuses on environmental sustainability, encouraging the use of renewable energy and waste reduction. * Latest Updates Recently, the Bitcoin Berlín sv has been actively promoting the use of Bitcoin by sharing informative articles and supporting the graduation of podcast producer Joel through the BlinkBTC QR code platform, allowing contributions in sats. This initiative not only supports the growth and development of community members but also furthers Bitcoin’s adoption and usage within the community. Additionally, on November 23rd, the community successfully hosted a cultural festival celebrating the local heritage. During the event, all vendors accepted Bitcoin payments, showcasing its practical application in Berlín’s economy. The festival attracted numerous tourists and residents eager to experience Bitcoin payments, further advancing its integration into daily life.

7.Bitcoin embassy San Salvador * Introduction Bitcoin embassy San Salvador is more into promoting Nostr in the region. * Latest Updates Recently, the Bitcoin Embassy San Salvador has been actively promoting the use and adoption of Bitcoin within the community, organizing various events. One of the highlights was the Christmas Toy Drive x Cuarteto Salvación, where toys were purchased using Sats to bring holiday cheer to children in need. The event, held on December 1 at Cuscatlán Park, also featured a special Music Night, attracting a large audience. Additionally, the Embassy hosted an educational gathering for food vendors, aimed at promoting Bitcoin payment systems. During the event, vendors accept Bitcoin payments through tiankii_Tech and blinkbtc platforms, further encouraging local businesses to embrace and adopt Bitcoin payments.

8.ONG Bitcoin Argentina * Introduction ONG Bitcoin Argentina is dedicated to advancing the development and application of decentralized technologies, particularly in the fields of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain. As a leading organization in this space, the community promotes user protection and the healthy growth of the crypto ecosystem through education, training, and public advocacy. Its mission is to help individuals, businesses, and decision-makers understand and leverage decentralized, transparent, and secure technologies to bring more opportunities and progress to society. ONG Bitcoin Argentina has become a leading force in promoting decentralized technology in Argentina and Latin America. * Latest Updates Recently, ONG Bitcoin Argentina has been actively preparing for the “Moon Party | Despedimos el año ATH (A Todo Hodler)” celebration, set to take place on December 5, 2024. Bitcoin enthusiasts will gather to enjoy exciting activities, including a Lightning Network demonstration and the Fish Bowl Manizesto Bitcoiner art exhibition. In addition, the community has hosted and will host a series of conferences and workshops covering a range of topics, including local digital asset services, Bitcoin as a strategic reserve in the U.S., the reconversion of the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency economy and financial systems, the role of crypto economics in financial system reform, the impact of Bitcoin ETFs on markets, and Bitcoin's influence on global issues, fostering in-depth discussions and development within the crypto industry.

9.La bitcoineta * Introduction La Bitcoineta is an initiative launched by the Argentine community in 2018, designed to promote the adoption and understanding of Bitcoin through a unique and powerful tool: a van and a group of volunteers. This traveling educational project has visited hundreds of towns across Latin America, Africa, and Europe, reaching thousands of people and covering hundreds of thousands of kilometers with the aim of spreading its mission and activities.With its innovative and mobile approach, Bitcoineta has become a globally recognized educational project.

10.Motiv Peru * Introduction Motiv is a non-profit organization founded in 2020, focused on addressing systemic poverty through Bitcoin and innovative projects, aiming to provide better opportunities for survival and prosperity to underserved communities. Its founders, Rich Swisher and Vali Popescu, witnessed firsthand the tragic impact of poverty and lack of basic living conditions in a remote village in the Andes Mountains of Peru, where children were dying due to preventable causes. This inspired them to create Motiv, with the goal of empowering vulnerable populations. By leveraging global support and partnerships, Motiv uses Bitcoin to help local communities break free from poverty and improve their lives, striving to bring positive change and hope to those in need. * Latest Updates Recently, MOTIV Perú has made significant progress in promoting Bitcoin and the circular economy. The organization continues to transform communities across Peru through various initiatives. For example, in the Comas district of Lima, entrepreneurial women are paying for their classes with Bitcoin and learning how to make delicious desserts, further advancing the local circular economy. Additionally, MOTIV Perú held its first Bitcoin training in Carabayllo-Lima, helping Peruvians understand the nature of money and the advantages of Bitcoin. MOTIV is also assisting communities in areas like Tarapoto and Ancon, where locals are using Bitcoin for daily transactions, driving financial freedom and economic empowerment.

11.Montanha bitcoin * Introduction Building a circular economy in Sao thome, Brazil. * Latest Updates Recently, The community has had no recent updates. The latest event dates back to June 2024, highlighting a water contamination incident.

12.Amityage honduras * Introduction Amityage Honduras is the first Bitcoin education center in Honduras, located on Roatán Island in the Prosperá zone. The center's mission is to educate the local community about Bitcoin and spread this knowledge throughout Central America and the Caribbean. It is dedicated to helping businesses on the island adopt Bitcoin as a payment method, teaching children financial literacy, and empowering individuals to achieve financial sovereignty through Bitcoin. The center aims to empower the local community through education and innovation, fostering economic independence and sustainable development. * Latest Updates Recently, Amityage Honduras is actively promoting Bitcoin education by participating in various international Bitcoin events and organizing local courses to help more people understand Bitcoin. Community members took part in significant events such as AdoptingBTC 2024 and BitcoinUnconference, and hosted workshops around the theme of “How to Enter the World of Bitcoin Education.” In Haidmühle, Germany, AmityAge completed a four-day Bitcoin Educators Academy, where the curriculum included topics like using simple analogies to explain Bitcoin and public speaking exercises. Additionally, the community hosted Bitcoin education courses on Roatán Island and provided a free Bitcoin event for beginners at the Crawfish Rock community, further spreading Bitcoin knowledge.

13.Lima - Orange Pill Perú nostr:npub1fw8m5g6nfywmsgqjc66j47jax7jrv8lq46zf7grydjqppc54a8eql47qrx * Introduction Orange Pill Peru is a community-driven initiative dedicated to empowering Peruvians through Bitcoin education. With a focus on transforming the financial landscape, Orange Pill Peru provides resources for individuals to learn about Bitcoin, connect with like-minded enthusiasts, and grow their knowledge through various events and workshops. The community serves as a hub for both beginners and professionals, offering a supportive environment to explore the fundamentals of Bitcoin, its history, and its potential to shape the future of finance. * Latest Updates Recently, there have been no major updates. They actively engage in Bitcoin education and industry updates by sharing and reposting Bitcoin-related content. They support MOTIV Perú's financial freedom education project in the Ancon community in Lima, emphasizing the empowerment of women through Bitcoin. Additionally, the community has shared information about the upcoming Bitcoin Medellin Conference scheduled for January 2025.

14.La Antigua Bitcoin * Introduction La Antigua Bitcoin is a community-based initiative in La Antigua Guatemala, focusing on promoting Bitcoin adoption in local businesses. The community works to create awareness and facilitate the use of Bitcoin as a payment method in various establishments throughout the city. By encouraging merchants to accept Bitcoin, La Antigua Bitcoin aims to integrate cryptocurrency into the everyday economy, driving financial innovation and expanding access to decentralized financial systems within the region. * Latest Updates Recently, the Antigua Bitcoin community has had few updates, with a focus on organizing its first meetup in collaboration with “Run with Bitcoin” on November 24, 2023. The event garnered significant attention within the community, featuring interactions with a special guest. The aim of the event was to further promote Bitcoin adoption in Antigua, Guatemala, and encourage exchange and collaboration between Bitcoin enthusiasts and the local community.

15.Horizonte Bitcoin nostr:npub1wl8u4wfqsdz5m9ey0vvzh4y05mcpk2lm2xhhpw3uzs3878c2mw9sr2ksxk * Introduction Project that aims to contribute to the Bitcoinization of the economy and encourage Entrepreneurship and Decentralization. * Latest Updates Recently, The community has had no recent updates. The latest event dates back to Oct 2024, which shared a message encouraging women to learn more about Bitcoin and connect with others in the field, highlighted a meetup, Satoshe's Lounge, for women, providing a space to learn, discuss, and share knowledge about Bitcoin.

16.Escuelita Bitcoin nostr:npub1awggmqvlw8pa0kp9qq5law8zsvp2a8suztk0357j7e0nt746suwspt7lwx * Introduction Educational Project for Little School. * Latest Updates Recently, the Escuelita Bitcoin team has grown to five members and is actively advancing Bitcoin education and community development. Team members have hosted several workshops in Paraguay and Mexico, spreading Bitcoin knowledge within local communities and encouraging merchants to accept Bitcoin payments, particularly in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. The team is raising funds through platforms like Geyser. fund and Kuno.anne.media to support the expansion of their educational initiatives and help locals better understand and use Bitcoin. Escuelita Bitcoin also emphasizes privacy education, promoting the use of tools like CakeWallet and Monero. Through collaborations with other organizations and individuals, the team is extending the reach of Bitcoin education, fostering the adoption of Bitcoin in Latin America and emerging markets.

17.Bitcoin é aqui! Rolante/Riozinho-RS-BRASIL nostr:npub168dqt5c8ue3uj8ynlk0lhwalnp7uy39lvzf9tm09wy3htxwmw7qq5nerj4 * Introduction Bitcoin é Aqui! Rolante is located in Rolante, Brazil, and is dedicated to creating a lifestyle and tourism destination where 40% of businesses now accept Bitcoin as a payment method, showcasing the community's success in integrating Bitcoin into the local economy. Residents and visitors can use it to pay for all services, including accommodation, tours, local goods, medical services, and even construction and solar energy equipment. This reflects the practical application and convenience of its use in everyday life, aiming to create a digitally-driven environment powered by Bitcoin. * Latest Updates Recently, the Bitcoin é Aqui! Rolante has been actively promoting the adoption and use of Bitcoin in Brazil and beyond. The community has organized several educational events aimed at spreading basic Bitcoin knowledge and its practical applications in daily life, particularly through online videos and lectures. These efforts help people understand how Bitcoin plays a crucial role in the global financial system. The community has also been actively involved in promoting Bitcoin payments, supporting their adoption by local businesses and in the tourism industry.

18.Bitcoin Forte * Introduction Bitcoin Forte is a voluntary initiative aimed at introducing Bitcoin as a currency to Praia do Forte in Bahia, Brazil. The project provides valuable information about Bitcoin’s importance and encourages local merchants to adopt it as a payment method. By highlighting Bitcoin's international use, simplicity, and security, Bitcoin Forte aims to facilitate its adoption among both tourists and businesses.The community promotes Bitcoin as a stable and controlled currency, helping to avoid systemic price inflation. Bitcoin Forte simplifies the process for businesses by offering tools such as QR codes and the “Satoshi POS Wallet” app, which connects to a merchant’s primary wallet for seamless transactions. * Latest Updates Recently, the community has had no recent updates. The latest event dates back to July 2024, introducing Airbtc, a platform similar to Airbnb, but it only accepts Bitcoin as payment.

19.Bitcoin Paraguay * Introduction Bitcoin Paraguay is a community dedicated to connecting individuals in Paraguay who are interested in Bitcoin, promoting its adoption, and fostering the development of local circular economies. The community’s mission is to increase Bitcoin adoption by collaborating with local businesses and nonprofit organizations, helping to create a more sustainable local economy. Through regular events, talks, and resource sharing, Bitcoin Paraguay provides education and support to its members while actively exploring Bitcoin's application across various sectors in Paraguay. * Latest Updates Recently, the Bitcoin Paraguay community has made significant progress in promoting Bitcoin adoption. On November 5, they successfully hosted the fifth Bitcoin meetup in Asunción, attracting 110 attendees. The event included two Spanish-language presentations and a Lightning Network onboarding training session, with food and drinks available for purchase using Bitcoin. The event was made possible with strong support from sponsors Blink Wallet and Hacking Lives. On November 13, Josef Tetek visited Bitcoin Paraguay to help promote the adoption of Vexl in the country. The community also shared their progress through articles, with Jake, a community member, publishing an article in the Asunción Times on how Bitcoin Paraguay is improving people's lives.

20.Bitcoin Amantikir * Introduction They are starting the first community in the Serra da Mantiqueira to use and extol people about the bitcoin economy. * Latest Updates Recently, the Bitcoin Amantikir community has made significant progress in promoting Bitcoin as a payment method and fostering a circular economy in Santo Antônio do Pinhal. Various businesses, including a pet store, transportation service providers, a hotel, a fruit shop, and a tourist attraction, have started accepting Bitcoin payments. Additionally, the community is organizing a Bitcoin financial education course on December 2nd at Munay Pousada, aimed at helping young people aged 14-18 acquire essential financial knowledge and understand the importance of Bitcoin.

21.La Crypta nostr:npub1rujdpkd8mwezrvpqd2rx2zphfaztqrtsfg6w3vdnljdghs2q8qrqtt9u68 * Introduction La Crypta is an open-source community dedicated to advancing the adoption of the Nostr protocol and Bitcoin through developer-friendly tools and resources. By providing an integrated open-source stack, La Crypta empowers developers to sync with multiple relays, showcase profiles with badges, and facilitate seamless messaging, making it easier to build and utilize decentralized social platforms. Events like hackathons further enhance collaboration and attract new members, fostering innovation in decentralized social media. * Latest Updates LaWallet, their open-source wallet, integrates Bitcoin, Lightning, and Nostr to provide a seamless learning experience. With over 8,000 NFC cards distributed across conferences in regions like Argentina, Brazil, and Spain, LaWallet enables easy adoption while prioritizing user privacy. The wallet’s functionality is now supported by Alby’s official browser extension, further boosting accessibility.

@ 1380337c:2d77df3e

Fiat has entered its final phase, falling victim to its inherent flaws.

Decades of money printing, unchecked government spending and the Cantillion effect (those closest to the money printer benefit at the behest of the rest of us) are finally taking its toll.

As calls for a return to hard money grow louder, it is only the most astute Cantillion economists (and their government backers) who believe money supply should be managed by “a council of wise (wo)men”.

Among those seeking hard money are the BRICS nations, who are looking into creating a gold-backed system to challenge the fiat dollar’s dominance.

This would have been a great idea, were it not for Bitcoin. With the existence of Bitcoin any attempt to create gold-backed systems is doomed from the start.

Fiat has entered its final phase, falling victim to its inherent flaws.

The Rise and Fall of Gold-Backed Systems

Gold was money for thousands of years, universally accepted because of its scarcity and durability.

However, as global trade developed, the world ran into gold’s main limitation – physical gold couldn’t keep up with trade.

This led to gold being replaced by gold-backed currencies, which combined gold reliability with the convenience of paper money. Yet, this hybrid system inherited gold’s flaws while introducing its own.

Gold’s supply uncertainty remained a major weakness. Sudden discoveries, like Spain’s conquest of South America or the California Gold Rush, destabilized economies by flooding markets with new gold.

Worse, gold-backed systems led to the centralization of reserves, concentrating power in the hands of governments and banks.

This led to the inevitable corruption and mismanagement of the money supply, which quickly became inflated at the expense of holders of gold-backed currencies.

The step towards full fiat was a small one after this…

Gold was money for thousands of years, universally accepted because of its scarcity and durability. 

However, as global trade developed, the world ran into gold’s main limitation – physical gold couldn’t keep up with trade. 

This led to gold being replaced by gold-backed currencies, which combined gold reliability with the convenience of paper money. Yet, this hybrid system inherited gold’s flaws while introducing its own.

Gold’s supply uncertainty remained a major weakness. Sudden discoveries, like Spain’s conquest of South America or the California Gold Rush, destabilized economies by flooding markets with new gold. 

Worse, gold-backed systems led to the centralization of reserves, concentrating power in the hands of governments and banks.

This led to the inevitable corruption and mismanagement of the money supply, which quickly became inflated at the expense of holders of gold-backed currencies.

The step towards full fiat was a small one after this…

Gold-Backed Systems Stand No Chance Against Bitcoin

Bitcoin exposes the vulnerabilities of gold-backed systems in every dimension:

• Fixed Supply vs. Supply Uncertainty: Bitcoin’s hard cap of 21 million coins provides unmatched predictability and scarcity. No sudden “Bitcoin rush” can destabilize the system, unlike gold’s history of disruptive supply shocks.

• Decentralization vs. Centralization: Gold-backed systems concentrate reserves in the hands of governments or banks, creating single points of failure. Bitcoin’s decentralized network eliminates these vulnerabilities, making it immune to corruption and mismanagement.

• Censorship Resistance: Centralized control leaves gold-backed systems open to confiscation and censorship. Bitcoin’s censorship-resistant design ensures no entity can control the network or seize assets.

• Trustless vs. Trust-Based: Gold-backed systems demand trust in central authorities to maintain their peg—“Trust me, bro”. Bitcoin operates on a transparent, verifiable ledger, replacing trust with cryptographic proof: “Don’t trust, verify.”

• Efficiency and Mobility: Settlement times for Bitcoin are near-instant, compared to the logistical nightmare of moving and securing physical gold.

• Sovereign Protection: Bitcoin enables nations to protect their reserves anywhere in the world. A government under siege could flee with its wealth intact, stored securely on the blockchain. Imagine Assad, fleeing Syria with his country’s riches encoded in a 24-word seed phrase, using it to organize resistance against his foes. Such flexibility is unthinkable with gold.

Gold-Backed Systems Will Never Stand a Chance Again

Gold-backed systems are flawed relics of the past, their flaws exposed by Bitcoin.

With its immutability, decentralization, and efficiency, Bitcoin eliminates the vulnerabilities of centralization and mismanagement inherent in gold-backed systems.

Bitcoin thrives in a digital-first world, offering portability, resistance to confiscation, and unmatched security. Its finite supply and transparent ledger set a new standard that gold can never meet.

Bitcoin is more than an evolution of money—it’s a safeguard against regimes that seek to weaken their nations through centralised monetary systems, even under the guise of gold-backed currencies.

Gold-backed systems are flawed relics of the past, their flaws exposed by Bitcoin.

With its immutability, decentralization, and efficiency, Bitcoin eliminates the vulnerabilities of centralization and mismanagement inherent in gold-backed systems.

Bitcoin thrives in a digital-first world, offering portability, resistance to confiscation, and unmatched security. Its finite supply and transparent ledger set a new standard that gold can never meet.

Bitcoin is more than an evolution of money—it’s a safeguard against regimes that seek to weaken their nations through centralised monetary systems, even under the guise of gold-backed currencies.

@ 6e24af77:b3f1350b

7

@ a58a2663:87bb2918

1. Concluir com minha filha, até o fim de 2025, a leitura da tradução latina de Ursinho Pooh, isto é, Winnie Ille Pu, de Alexander Lenard (1910-1972), poeta, ensaísta e tradutor húngaro que viveu no Brasil. Que texto curioso! Estranho estímulo que me chegou para voltar a estudar latim a sério.

1. Importar mais livros pela Thrift Books e menos pela Loja do Diabo. Seu acervo é excepcional e o frete é mais barato. Às vezes, em menos de duas semanas já estou com o livro em mãos (e olha que resido no Maranhão).

2. Concluir e publicar meu livro Vida após as Universidades. Escrita & criação em velhos & novos contextos de risco, desenvolvimento de algumas ideias que insinuei em Contra a vida intelectual, no que diz respeito ao encerramento de um ciclo histórico de modos de fazer investigação erudita.

3. Rematar o terceiro e último módulo de Convivium - Seminário Permanente de Humanidades, "A Alegoria do Mundo: o Mago, o Filólogo e o Colonizador", embrião de um longo ensaio sobre o "projeto humanista" e as vias de saída da modernidade oferecidas pelo pensamento latino-americano. (As inscrições seguem abertas. Caso queira inscrever-se pagando em bitcoin, me mande um e-mail: camoensiii57@protonmail.com).

4. Defender no primeiro semestre minha tese de doutoramento sobre João Francisco Lisboa (1812-1863), o maior prosador brasileiro de meados do século XIX. Compreender seu Jornal de Tímon implica rever concepções há muitos estabelecidas sobre a formação da literatura brasileira.

5. Escrever pelo menos cinco ensaios de apresentação do pensamento de Vilém Flusser e do que pretendo realizar em FLUSSER_project. A ideia é divulgá-los em inglês e especialmente aqui pelo Nostr.

6. Ler TUDO de Ignacio Gómez de Liaño.

7. Não ceder à tentação de discutir com imbecil.

@ c4b5369a:b812dbd6

Ecash systems built on top of bitcoin have seen increasing adoption over the last couple of years. They have become a polarising topic in the bitcoin community, due to their centralized and custodial nature. Like any system, ecash comes with a lot of pros and cons when compared to other systems, that are fercely debated in cyber- and meat-space.

I have been working on developing tools and software for the ecash implementation Cashu for about 2 years now. I have had countless discussions with various people from different backgrounds about the topic. OG bitcoiners, fiat bankers, friends and family, privacy enthusiast... . As you can imagine the flow and outcome of these discussions varied widely.

Usually, conversations with bitcoiners were the most interesting for me. Their opinions about ecash polarised the most, by far. (excluding the fiat bankers, but that's a story for another day). In this short peice, I want to share some insights from the discussions I had, and maybe clear up some misconceptions about ecash on bitcoin.

What is Ecash?

If you still don't know what ecash is, sorry, I won't go into much detail explaining it. I recommend reading the wikipedia article on Ecash , and then this article on the rise and fall of digicash, the first and maybe only ecash company that existed. This will bring you up to speed on ecash history up until bitcoin entered the scene. Ecash was pretty much dead from the day after digicash went bankrupt untill it recently saw it's revival in two different spheres:

One of these spheres is obviously the bitcoin sphere. Here, ecash got reintroduced with the two open source projects Fedimint and Cashu. In my opinion, the main reason for this revival is the following fact: Unlike an implementation of ecash in the fiat world, that would rely on the permissioned system to "allow" something like ecash to exist, bitcoin does not come with that limitation. The permissionless nature of bitcoin allows for these protocols to exist and interoperate with the existing bitcoin stack.

The second, and maybe lesser known sphere is the revival of ecash as a CBDC. Bitcoiners might get scared at the mentioning of that word. Trust me, I don't like it either. Nonetheless, privacy enthusiasts see the opportunity to steer the CBDC-ship in another direction, by using an underlying technology for them that would limit targeted discrimination by the centralized authorithy. Something that works like cash... but in cyberspace... Ecash. One such implementation is GNU Taler, another one is Project Tourbillon. Usually, these kind of implementations use a cuck-version of the OG ecash, where only payers are anonymous, but not payees.

Anyway, in this article we will focus on the implementation of ecash on bitcoin.

About self custody

Bitcoin as a whole is about sovereignty and liberation. If someone else controls your money, they control you. For the first time since we've stopped using gold, bitcoin allows us to fully take control back of our money. A money that doesn't corrode, a money which supply connot get inflated, and a money that cannot be easily seized. All of this is true for bitcoin. There is only one precondition: You have to hold and use it self custodially.

Using bitcoin self custodially

The problem comes in when using bitcoin in a self custodial fashion. For bitcoin to maintain the monetary properties mentioned above, it has to remain decentralized. This means it is hard to scale, which in turn means the use of bitcoin tends to become more costly as usage increases.

So even if we wish that everyone would use bitcoin self custodially all the time for everything, I fear it is mostly just a dream, at least for the forseable future. Even with trustless second layer protocols like the Lightning Network, we are running into scaling issues, since at the end of the day, they are bound to the same onchain fee realities as bare-bones bitcoin transactions.

For most of humanity, it is financially not viable to pay even 1$ transaction fees for every transaction. Second layer protocol may bring the cost down a bit, but have other requirements. For example in lightning, you have an online assumption, to make sure your channel peers aren't trying to cheat. You need to have inbound liquidity to receive payments. There are cost associated with opening or closing payment channels, or rebalancing liquidity.

Other upcoming second layer protocols like Ark may improve on some of these issues. It is definitely something to look forward to! But they will have their own trade-offs, most likely also cost related. The fact remains that all trustless protocols that use the bitcoin timechain for conflict resolution, will have to deal with this matter. This is the cost of trustlessness.

Soo... Don't self custody...?

NO! If you can, you should always use self custody. As much as possible!

Personally, I use all the tools mentioned above. And I recommend that if you can, you should too.

But the fact is, not everyone can. Many would love to take control over their financial freedom, but the threshold for them to use bitcoin in a sovereign fashion is simply to high. So they will either remain in fiat slavery land, or they will end up using "bitcoin" through a custodian like coinbase, binance, or whatever banking service they have access to.

I will also mention that for some usecases, enjoying the convenience of a custodian is just very attractive. Of course, this is only the case as long as the custodian plays by the book, and doesn't suddenly freeze-, or worse, run away with your deposits.

The right tool for the right job

I don't beleive that one way of using bitcoin is better than the other. It entirely depends on which problem you are trying to solve.

If the problem is storing or transfering wealth, then of course you would want to do that on chain.

If on the other hand, you want to send and receive frequent small to midsized payments, you might want to get setup with a lightning channel to an LSP. Depending on how deep you want to get involved, you may even set up some infrastructure and become part of the Lightning network.

If you want to receive digital tips that you can later claim into self custody after they reach a certain threshold, you might opt for a custodial solution.

If you require certain properties, like offline peer-to-peer transferability, or cash-like privacy, you might choose an ecash system.

It doesn't mean that if you use one, you cannot use the other. You should use whatever is useful for the current problem you are trying to solve, maybe even using multiple tools in conjuction, if that makes sense.

Ecash vs Onchain vs L2?

First of all, we have to understand that ecash is neither a replacement for self custody, nor is it a replacement for trustless second layer protocols. They are irreplaceable with something that is custodial in nature, due to the simple fact that if you lose control over your money, you have lost the control over your life.

So. No one beleives you should prioritize custodial solutions to secure your wealth. Self custody will always remain king in that regard. Custodial wallets should be thought off as a physical spending wallet you can walk around with, even through the dark alleyways where it might get robbed from you. Keep your cash in there for convenient spending, not worrying about fees, liquidity, data footprints, channel backups, etc. etc. etc... These benefits obviously come at the cost of trust, that the provider doesn't rug-pull your deposit.

I really like the user experience of custodial services. I would never put a lot of money into any one of them though, because I don't trust them. Just like I wouldn't walk around with $10000 in my physical wallet. The risk that it gets stolen is simply to great. At the same time, this risk doesn't mean I will get rid of my physical wallet. I think having a wallet with some cash in it is super useful. I will mittigate the risk by reducing the amount I carry inside that wallet. This is the same way I think about digital money I hold in custodial wallets, be it an ecash service or others.

All things considered, it is hard to argue that self custody comes even close to the UX a custodian can give you, due to the fact that they can take care of all the complexities (mentioned above) for you.

So then, why ecash?

We now know, that we are NOT comparing ecash with the sovereign bitcoin stack. We are comparing it instead to traditional custodial systems. This is the area ecash is trying to improve uppon. So if you've chosen that the best tool to solve a problem might be a custodial solution, only then should you start to consider using ecash.

It offers a more privacy preserving, less burdonsome and less censorable way of offering a custody solution.

It offers some neat properties like offline peer-to-peer transactions, programability, de-linkage from personally identifiable information, and more.

Here is an example, on how ecash could create a fairer environment for online consumers:

Online services love to offer subscriptions. But for the consumer, this is mostly a trap. As a consumer, I would rather pay for a service right now and be done with it. I don't want to sign up for a 10 year plan, give them my email address, my date of birth , create an account, etc...

One way of doing that, would be for the service provider to accept payments in ecash, instead of having an account and subscription model.

It would work like this:

1. The user creates ecash by paying into the service's mint. Hereby it is not required to use lightning or even bitcoin. It could be done with any other value transfer meduim the service provider accepts (cash, shitcoins, lottery tickets...).
2. You use the issued ecash, to retreive services. This could be anything from video streaming, to AI prompts.
3. Once you are done, you swap your remaining ecash back.

In a system like this, you wouldn't be tracked as a user, and the service provider wouldn't be burdoned with safeguarding your personal information. Just like a cash-for-goods transaction in a convenience store.

I beleive the search engine Kagi is building a system like that, according to this podcast. It has also be demoed by https://athenut.com/ how it would be implemented, using Cashu.

Here is another example, on how an event organizer can provide privacy preserving electronic payment rails for a conference or a festival, using ecash:

If you have been part of organizing a conference or an event, you might have experienced this problem. Onchain payments are too slow and costly. Lightning payments are too flaky.

Do merchants have to setup a lightning channel? Do they have to request inbound liquidity from an LSP? Do they have to splice into the channel once they run out of liquidity? In practice, these are the realities that merchants and event organizers are faced with when they try to set up payment rails for a conference.

Using ecash, it would look like this:

1. Event organizer will run a dedicated ecash mint for the event.
2. Visitors can swap into ecash when ariving at the entrance, using bitcoin, cash, or whatever medium the organizer accepts.
3. The visitor can spend the ecash freely at the merchants. He enjoys good privacy, like with cash. The online requirements are minimal, so it works well in a setting where connectivity is not great.
4. At the end of the event, visitors and merchants swap their ecash back into the preferred medium (cash, bitcoin...).

This would dreastically reduce the complexity and requirements for merchants, while improving the privacy of the visitors.

A bold experiment: Free banking in the digital age

Most bitcoiners will run out of the room screaming, if they hear the word bank. And fair enough, I don't like them either. I believe in the mantra "unbank the banked", after all. But the reason I do so, is because todays fiat/investment banks just suck. It's the same problem as with the internet platforms today. You, the "customer", is not realy the customer anymore, but the product. You get sold and squeezed, until you have nothing more to give.

I beleive with a sound money basis, these new kind of free banks could once again compete for customers by provididng the best money services they can, and not by who can scam his way to the money printer the best. Maybe this is just a pipe dream. But we all dream a little. Some dream about unlimited onchain transactions (I've had this dream before), and some dream about free banks in cyberspace. In my dream, these banks would use ecash to respect their users privacy.

Clearing up misconceptions and flawed assumptions about ecash on bitcoin

Not only, but especially when talking with bitcoiners there are a lot of assumptions regarding ecash on bitcoin. I want to take this opportunity to address some of those.

Ecash is an attack on self custody

As we've mentioned above, ecash is not meant to compete with self custody. It is meant to go where self custodial bitcoin cannot go. Be it due to on-chain limitations, or network/infrastructure requirements. Ecash is completely detached from bitcoin, and can never compete with the trustless properties that only bitcoin can offer.

Ecash mints will get rugged

100% correct. Every custodial solution, be it multisig or not, will suffer from this risk. It is part of the deal. Act accordingly. Plan for this risk when choosing to use a custodial system.

Working on ecash is a distraction from what really matters, since it is not self custodial

While it is true that improving self custodial bitcoin is one of the most important things our generation will have to solve, it doesn't mean that everything else becomes irrelevant. We see that today, in a lot of circumstances a fully sovereign setup is just not realistic. At which point most users will revert back to custodial solutions. Having technology in place for users that face these circumstances, to offer them at least some protection are worth the effort, in my opinion.

Ecash mints will retroactively introduce KYC

Yes it is true that ecash mints can do that. However, what would they learn? They would learn about the amount you were holding in the mint at that time, should you choose to withdraw. They would not be able to learn anything about your past transactions. And needless to say, at which point you should be one and done with this mint as a service provider, and move to someone that respects their users.

Ecash will be used to "steal" bitcoins self custodial user base

I would argue the oposite. Someone that has realized the power of self custody, would never give it up willingly. On the other hand, someone that got rugged by an ecash mint will forever become a self custody maximalist.

Closing thoughts...

I hope you enjoyed reading my take on ecash built on bitcoin. I beleive it has massive potential, and creators, service providers and consumers can benefit massively from ecash's proposition. Using ecash doesn't mean you reject self custody. It means you have realized that there is more tools than just a hammer, and you intend to use the tool that can best solve the problem at hand. This also means, that to some the tool "ecash" may be useless. After all, not everyone is a carpenter. This is also fine. Use whatever you think is useful, and don't let people tell you otherwise.

Also, please don't take my word for it. Think for yourself.

Best,

Gandlaf

@ e373ca41:b82abcc5

Heute Abend um 19 Uhr sprechen Elon Musk und Alice Weidel auf X. Der alternative Radiosender Kontrafunk aus der Schweiz bringt eine Übersetzung davon im Stream. 

Da die Webseite des Kontrafunks gestern angegriffen wurde, ist hier der Stream unzensierbar aufrufbar, als kleines Back-up: 

https://stream.kontrafunk.radio/listen/kontrafunk/radio.mp3

\ Im Nostr-Netzwerk dauerhauft auch u.a. hier aufrufbar (falls wir angegriffen werden).

---

Tonight at 7 pm (CET), Elon Musk and Alice Weidel will be speaking on X. The alternative radio station Kontrafunk from Switzerland will be streaming a translation. 

As the Kontrafunk website was attacked yesterday, the stream can be accessed uncensored here as a small backup: 

https://stream.kontrafunk.radio/listen/kontrafunk/radio.mp3

In the Nostr network also permanently available here (in case we are attacked).

---

ADVERTISEMENT:

Looking for the easiest way to buy Bitcoin and store it yourself? The Relai app is the No. 1 crypto start-up and No. 2 of all fintech start-ups in Switzerland. Here you can buy Bitcoin in just a few steps and also set up savings plans. Nobody has access to your Bitcoin except you. With the referral code MILOSZ you save on fees (no financial advice). Disclaimer due to regulatory issues: The services of the Relai App are hereby only recommended to inhabitants of Switzerland or Italy.

Need more security? The Trezor wallets are recommended and easy to use, others are available in the store. Need more advice? Book an introductory meeting with a wallet expert.

---

Join the marketplace of ideas! We are building a publishing ecosystem on Nostr for citizen-journalism, starting with a client for blogging and newsletter distribution. Sound money and sound information should finally be in the hands of the people, right? Want to learn more about the Pareto Project? Zap me, if you want to contribute (all Zaps go to the project).

Update:* Since my last article on the Pareto project, we have received more than 50 messages from publications, journalists, authors, testers and supporters. Thank you very much, we are happy to help everyone become censorship-resistant! May just take a little time. Are you a publication and want to be part of it, test us, migrate your content to Nostr? Write to team@pareto.space***

Not yet on Nostr and want the full experience? Easy onboarding via Nosta.me.

@ 6e24af77:b3f1350b

2

@ 6e24af77:b3f1350b

test 44

@ 6d8e2a24:5faaca4c

Why do people enjoy pain and a short time pleasure, which could ruin their life and peace?

Why can't people leave their fleshy desires, obsession and pleasures even if it kills them?

Many have become slaves to their obsession having no will of theirs, claiming to be free yet imprisoned by their futility and lust.

We thought we have closed all the doors and windows, turn off the light so no one can see us, least so we thought to ourselves, forgetting our conscience is wide open, and God who sit in heaven watching, like it was never night nor dark, sees through us for he is light ruling over darkness.

The devil working upon our obsession making it a reality. The devil always uses our sinful, lustful desire to trick us given an end vain pleasure

We fall once, down with the guilt and pain of sin, the weight of the burden once thought, destroying the spirit and causing so many pains of regret, low self-esteem, and lack of confidence again.

He comes again not to bring new but to dwell in our past, bringing memories, mistakes, and errors making us feel more guilty and vulnerable, making us feel worthless and hopeless "We are doomed, so we think, God can't help us, our sins are too many; and with that, he finds a way to make us fall again, destroying us slowly till we are empty, having no will (stronghold).

Like a fire 🔥 lit in a bush, small as it is no one thought it could cause so much harm, or rather they thought they could control it or, put it off when they don't need it or, get bizarre.

Anything that has passed infantry allowed to grow is difficult or impossible to control so is a sin when is allowed to grow like a fire covering many areas is hard to put all areas off fast before one knows many areas are damaged many are beyond repairs

Every day we wake up, we plan how our lives, and how we are going to live the day, without the slimmest thought of contention, 'what if'. We do believe we have everything under control, everything planned out, but we forget that we are nothing but a sand timer that runs down so quickly than we thought.

Like the sand timer, our lives fade away gently, piece by piece till we cease to exist, only then, do we understand that we are rebels in this kingdom, not owners for we own nothing, with the dust reaching its last, the heartbeat and craves for more time, then we also understand, that time is never enough and time is so precious and priceless

Why do we always feel as if we have all the time in the world? why do we assume death to be a fairytale or a horror ghost story just to scare us out? Without having a sting.

Every day death proves more eager, the grave is so desperate that it looms looking and searching for any opportunity necessary to sting it stings.

But we are so carried away by life, deceived by what we have, the power, authority, and influence. We feel we are covered, yes we are but only to some certain extent. For life is so spiritual, than we could ever imagine or think of.

The night comes darkness looms over, evil rises, and fear grips one's heart, all wishing for the light. But now is no longer darkness that's so terrifying, but light itself has become as terrifying as the darkness, people wishing to live through the light, now wish the same to live through the night, for in it they find peace and comfort 😢

Why, I ask why, why has light become so terrifying and darkness become more comforting that the people find solace in it?

I came to understand why people find comfort in darkness is because they are afraid of selves afraid of what they have become, darkness does not challenge but rather allows you to wallow in your misery and regret, killing and draining you where no one will correct you or remind you, that you are not good enough, darkness gives you the room to accept who and what you have become, and there and then it echoes is better to die and live in peace than to be alive and live in misery.

Why will one think of death as the only option or think of death as the only solution to peace, is living not joyful, is life not great to live, why will one wish to leave all, family, friends everything, and settle for death?

I came to understand that, the most reason why one tends to choose death over life or loves to behold the warmth of darkness instead of light, is the feeling of emptiness and internal failure even after a significant measure, of material and social success, is a direct result of failure to discover purpose in life and a reason of being, when one loses his peace, joy all that's left or remain is pain, and regret. When a man reaches a stage of emptiness, where nothing else again matters life itself has no meaning, then it's only a test of time before destruction befalls such a person

Even the rich are depressed and frustrated beholding the enticement of the dark, and many try to drink themselves up, to them is the only way to find peace within, why, after so much wealth and achievement yet feel lonely, his greatest friends are alcohol and nights.

If money, riches cant give fulfillment or perfect peace then what can?

@ 5a261a61:2ebd4480

It was late afternoon, and Tom hoped the lunchtime crowd had already returned to work while the after-school rush was still thin. A quick glance under the stalls as he strode through the mall’s large restroom confirmed he was alone. He hurried into the last stall, checked his watch—two minutes to go.

What could go wrong?

He unzipped his backpack and tore a hole in the small paper package inside. A few strips of skimpy fabric tumbled into his hand, along with a note: WEAR ME.

A chill ran down his spine. It was the first handwritten note from her. That alone was enough to unnerve him, but what truly sent shivers through his body was the clothing itself: a black-lace G-string, a flat-chest bra, and purple-black striped knee socks.

Beep.

His watch jolted him from his trance. Shit. It's 1:00 PM already.

He stripped quickly, pausing only to listen for any signs of company. Satisfied with the silence, he dressed, obeying her command dutifully, despite the trembling in his hands.

When he was done, he unlocked his phone and took a selfie—neck down, body framed just enough to show his obedience, the stall’s background confirming where he was.

The G-string barely contained him. The thin pouch was already failing as his arousal grew. Standing there, dressed like a slut, waiting for the telltale three dots of her typing status—it only made him harder. Maybe, if he completed this task perfectly, she would deem him worthy of the cage.

Finally.

His phone vibrated with her response: "Good slut. Bad angle. Try harder."

He snapped another picture. Then another. His desire to please her overrode everything else. He tried to be more "artistic," offering different angles, better framing, careful lighting. He submitted each for her approval.

Her only response: a frowning emoji.

"It looks like a bitch, acts like a bitch, but it has something no bitch should have. Disappointed."

He scanned the images again. She had a point. But he was so unbearably horny. Five days of orgasm denial had left him painfully sensitive. Even his nipples strained against the sheer fabric of the bra.

"Are you going to fix it, or should I consider this your final submission?"

His mind raced.

Then—an idea.

Slipping off his shoe, he unthreaded the lace and, through a mixture of pain and precision, crafted a tight, effective tucking shibari. He took a photo of his bound, darkening flesh and sent it.

"Would that be enough?"

A reply came instantly: a grinning emoji, followed by a meme of Jeff Goldblum captioned, "Life Finds a Way"—edited to say, "Bitch Finds a Way."

Then another message:

"Hurry up, or I won’t need a cage to keep you soft forever, and there is no fun in that."

"You have two minutes. No mistakes this time."

His chest tightened. Sometimes, he wished he could fall at her feet and kiss her toes for everything she did to him. His fantasies mercifully ignored the fact that he didn't even know her shoe size. Or what colour skin his tongue should be worshipping.

Shame fueled his arousal as he continued his photoshoot. He posed, exposing his chest, arching his back, spreading his legs to make himself more accessible. The phone holder with suction-cup he’d brought made certain angles easy. Finally, he sat on the closed toilet, knees hooked over his arms, presenting himself as thoroughly as possible.

The two-minute deadline might have passed, but he didn’t notice.

He selected the best shot from each pose and sent them one by one. The last one nearly didn’t make the cut—his shibari work was visible—but he’d unconsciously parted his lips, doll-like, as if ready to be fucked.

He sent it.

Her response was immediate.

"Good girl."

His stomach twisted with pride.

"Get rid of the shibari. Keep the bitch uniform. Get dressed and text me when you leave the stall."

Was that all?

Disappointment prickled at him, but she sounded almost content. That was good… right?

His train of thought derailed as blood rushed back into his tortured cock, sending a wave of sharp pain through his core. It took him a moment to breathe through it, to compose himself enough to leave.

The G-string left him utterly exposed. Every step sent shivers up his spine as his pants caressed his bare ass.

Outside, he sent the message.

Her response came instantly:

"Go to the photo kiosk and wait."

Wait?

Confused, but knowing better than to question her, he obeyed.

"Pick up order XYZ."

Oh no.

Dread churned in his gut as he typed in the pickup code.

Bzzz.

The printer spat out five photos of him.

At least his face was covered—emoji stickers distorted his expressions—but still.

Another message:

"Buy a disposable SIM, write the number on the back of the photos, and distribute them. Then, you can go home. But keep the bitch uniform on for the night. I’ll check in on you in the morning. Have fun, my sweet boy."

Tom exhaled shakily.

It was going to be a long night.

@ 2063cd79:57bd1320

Wer Bitcoin besitzt oder mit dem Gedanken spielt Bitcoin zu erwerben und prinzipiell etwas gründlicher an solche Entscheidungen herantritt, wird sich sicherlich schon mit dem Gedanken beschäftigt haben, was mit dem eigenen Bitcoin passiert, wenn uns selbst etwas widerfahren sollte. Ähnliche Gedanken, wird wohl jeder schonmal gehabt haben, wenn es um das Thema Online-Accounts geht. Wer hat Zugang zu meinen Profilen, Accounts, und sonstigen Informationen und was passiert im Falle eines Unfalls, einer plötzlichen Krankheit, oder ähnlichen Szenarien? Um ehrlich zu sein, mir persönlich ist es egal, was mit meinem Gmail oder Youtube-Account passiert, jedoch bei Bitcoin ist das ein anderes Thema. Denn hier verbergen sich hinter den privaten Schlüsseln UTXOs mit einem reellen Wert. Und anders als bei Bankkonten oder anderen Anlagearten, lässt sich keine Bank oder andere Verwahrstelle kontaktieren, die den Hinterbliebenen Zugriff auf die Vermögenswerte bereitstellt.

Eine vernünftige Nachlassplanung, bzw. Bitcoin Zukunftsplanung, ist also wirklich wichtig, denn wir möchten, dass unsere Opfer, die wir heute in Form von Arbeit und Zeitaufwand erbringen, in der Zukunft Früchte tragen und hoffentlich auch unseren Nachkommen zugutekommen. Jede Entscheidung, heute kein Geld für etwas auszugeben, dass einem selbst heute Spaß gemacht hätte, um in eine sicherere und angenehmere Zukunft zu investieren, sollte auch in der Zukunft belohnt werden. Es fühlt sich irgendwie kurzsichtig an, insbesondere wenn es um Bitcoin geht, nur an sich selbst zu denken (wen Lambo?), wenn es sich bei Bitcoin um einen Vermögenswert handelt, der die Fähigkeit besitzt, über mehrere Generationen in der Zukunft zu bestehen und vielleicht sogar seinen Wert zu steigern.

https://www.genexyz.org/post/29-block-782180-bitcoin-ist-zeit-2nsaku/

Es muss also einen besseren Weg geben, als zu hoffen, dass der Ehepartner oder die Kinder in der Lage sind die bitcoins aus einem 24-Wörter-Seed wiederherzustellen, wenn man einmal nicht mehr ist, oder nicht mehr in der Lage ist, dies selbst zu veranlassen. Denn der Seedphrase ist in den meisten Fällen das bestgehütetste Geheimnis jedes Bitcoiners und wahrscheinlich haben die wenigsten zusätzlich einen Wiederherstellungsplan für ihre Hinterbliebenen angefertigt und versteckt. Wenn wir über die Nachlassplanung in Bitcoin nachdenken, gibt es einige Komplexitäten. Aber wenn man sich die Zeit nimmt, über alle Ergebnisse nachzudenken, die man erreichen möchte, gibt es einige wirklich wichtige Dinge, die getan werden können.

Traurigerweise ist es kein angenehmer Gedanke, über den eigenen Tod nachzudenken und darüber, wie man seine bitcoins aus dem Grab heraus weitergeben soll. Ich habe vor längerer Zeit eine humoristische Aufstellung von verschiedenen Planungsmöglichkeiten aufgestellt, die man sich hier anschauen kann:

https://www.genexyz.org/post/10-block-750965-bitcoin-und-der-tod-15n3yf/

• Nichts tun
• Exchange plus Passwort
• Desktop Wallet
• Mobile Wallet
• Paper Wallet zu Hause
• Paper Wallet im (Bank-)Safe
• Hardware Wallet zu Hause
• Hardware Wallet im (Bank-)Safe
• Multisig Lösung
• Custodial Service

Allerdings ist das Thema wirklich kompliziert und nicht einfach zu lösen. Es gibt unterschiedliche persönliche Faktoren, wie das eigene Alter, der eigene Gesundheitszustand, in welchem familiären Konstrukt man lebt, wo man lebt, wie viel Bitcoin es zu verwahren und weiterzugeben gilt, usw. Darüber hinaus stellt sich auch die Frage, ob die Weitergabe professionell und im Einklang mit den aktuellen Rechtsstrukturen gemacht werden soll, denn dann ergeben sich sowohl aus steuerlicher als auch aus rechtlicher Sicht unterschiedliche Szenarien, die eventuell sogar erhebliche Vorteile bieten könnten. Darunter eine Reihe rechtlicher Vorzugsbehandlungen beim Schutz von Vermögenswerten, die über die eigenen Vorkehrungsmaßnahmen hinausgehen können. Aber dies soll kein steuerlicher oder juristischer Rat werden.

Bei Bitcoin dreht sich alles um den souveränen Besitz von Eigentum. Dazu gehört auch die Entscheidung, wie und an wen das Eigentum weitergegeben werden soll. Der Inhalt eines Testaments kann und wird in der Regel dann angefochten, wenn das Vermögen ungleich verteilt wird oder wenn es einem der Begünstigten gegenüber ungerecht erscheint. Daher ist es immer am besten, ein Testament so zu gestalten, dass es für alle Beteiligten fair erscheint, und zweitens ist es wichtig, eventuelle Einschränkungen für alle zu kommunizieren. Ein gutes Erwartungsmanagement hilft, Konflikte zu vermeiden. Das ist die erste Stufe.

If it's your keys, it's your bitcoin. If it's not your keys, it's not your bitcoin! That's a lesson that we all learned during Gox, so...let's try not to have to be taught that lesson again. — Andreas Antonopolous, 14. April 2016

Die zweite Stufe ist ein wasserdichtes Setup der privaten Schlüssel. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin, ist in diesem Zusammenhang eine sehr wirkungsvolle Aussage. Anders als bei jedem anderen Vermögenswert auf der Welt kontrolliert derjenige, der die Schlüssel besitzt, die UTXOs. Ein Rechtsanspruch ist nicht möglich, da die Kryptographie einen deutlich höheren Stellenwert einnimmt als ein Rechtsanspruch. Es gibt den rechtlichen Anspruch auf Bitcoin (die Worte im Testament) und dann gibt es die praktische Anwendung des Eigentums oder der Verteilung dessen (die Kontrolle der Schlüssel). Bei anderen Vermögenswerten wie Grundbesitz (Immobilien), Anleihen, Aktien, Rohstoffen usw. besteht immer die Möglichkeit, Berufung einzulegen. Wenn also etwas nicht in Ordnung zu sein scheint, die Vermögenswerte nicht auffindbar sind oder es andere Streitigkeiten gibt, ist es jederzeit möglich, sich an die jeweilige Behörde zu wenden und Berufung einzulegen.Es ist jederzeit möglich, sich an eine offizielle Stelle oder ein Amt zu wenden und zu argumentieren, dass man einen Anspruch hat, um dann die Behörde dazu zu veranlassen, den Vermögenswert auf den eigenen Namen übertragen zu lassen.

Bei Bitcoin gibt es keine solche Behörde. Wenn eine/r der Begünstigten nicht über die privaten Schlüssel verfügt, die unmissverständlich Auskunft über den Besitz geben, stellt das für den/die Begünstigte/n ein großes Problem dar. Die korrekte Gestaltung der Eigentumsverteilung hat also einige schwerwiegende Konsequenzen. Ähnlich wie die Verantwortung und Rechenschaftspflicht, die mit dem Besitz von Bitcoin in Eigenverwahrung einhergeht (und dort eigentlich wirklich beginnt), fügt die Nachlassplanung dem Prozess des Todes und der anschließenden Übertragung von Vermögenswerten eine völlig neue Dimension hinzu.

Das Hauptproblem besteht also darin, wie der/die Eigentümer//in der bitcoins den vollständigen und einseitigen Zugriff behalten und gleichzeitig den Erben oder Begünstigten direkt oder einem Testamentsvollstrecker Zugriff gewähren kann, um das Vermögen an die Erben oder Begünstigten zu verteilen.

Der Kniff liegt darin, die volle Kontrolle zu behalten und gleichzeitig das Eigentum so zu gestalten, dass die Erben auch bei einem plötzlichen und unerwarteten Ereignis Zugriff haben, und das im besten Fall, ohne sich auf Dritte verlassen zu müssen, um dem Bitcoin Ethos gerecht zu werden. Dieses Ereignis muss nicht zwingend der Tod sein, es reicht schon, wenn man handlungsunfähig wird.

Denn oft wird vergessen, dass eine gute Nachlassregelung auch dann wichtig ist, wenn der Eigentümer nicht stirbt. Eine Person kann sich auch verletzen, sich den Kopf stoßen oder auf andere Weise die volle Kontrolle über ihre Fähigkeiten verlieren, was bedeutet, dass sie möglicherweise auch den Zugang (die Erinnerung) zu ihrem Vermögen, einschließlich ihrer bitcoins, verliert.

---

Bei Bitcoin gibt es keine einheitliche Lösung, sondern nur Kompromisse. Das gilt auch für so viele andere Dinge, wie zum Beispiel das Trilemma, bei dem Skalierbarkeit der Sicherheit und Dezentralisierung geopfert wird, oder die Selbstverwaltung, bei der Benutzerfreundlichkeit und Komfort in gewissem Maße der Sicherheit und Privatsphäre geopfert werden.

Deshalb sollte man sich der Wahl der persönlichen Lösung über die Kompromisse Gedanken machen, die es einem erlauben, den Kompromiss zu wählen, der einem am besten gefällt, am besten zur persönlichen Situation passt und mit dem man sich am sichersten fühlt. Ich habe oben z.B. "Nichts tun" aufgeführt; vielleicht hat der ein oder andere Bitcoiner keine Familie, keine Kinder und keine Personen, die ihm/ihr nahe stehen, oder vielleicht doch, aber sie sind es nicht wert mit dem ersparten, wertvollen Bitcoin bedacht zu werden. In diesem Fall, danke für die Spende an das Netzwerk.

Sich mit Lösungen vertraut zu machen, die Kontrolle und Verantwortung in den Vordergrund stellen und die Abhängigkeit von einem einzigen Gerät oder einem einzigen Schlüssel, sowie die Abhängigkeit von einer einzelnen Person ausschließen, da diese potenzielle Angriffsvektoren und einzelne Fehlerquellen darstellen, bedeutet, dass man für sich selbst ein Bewusstsein schafft, wie Selbstverwahrung und die daraus entstehenden Konsequenzen im Allgemeinen funktionieren. Nutzer//innen fühlen sich bei der Selbstverwahrung ihrer bitcoins immer wohler, sobald sie verstehen, dass der Verlust eines einzelnen Schlüssels nicht sofort den Verlust des Zugriffs auf das gesicherte Vermögen bedeutet - sofern das richtige Setup gewählt wurde. Es ist wirklich wichtig, dass der Anteil derjenigen, die Bitcoin in Selbstverwahrung halten, vergrößert wird, denn es ist wichtig, dass jeder einzelne bitcoin – der nicht aktiv gehandelt wird – von den Börsen entfernt wird, und gleichzeitig Nutzer//innen mit der Materie der Selbstverwahrung vertraut werden.

Denn wie auf der Grafik zu sehen ist, liegen schätzungsweise immer noch über 2,3 Millionen bitcoins auf Börsen. Bei einer Menge von 19,4 Millionen Bitcoin im Umlauf, reduziert um die Anzahl verlorener bitcoins und Satoshis bitcoins (19,4 - 3 - 1,1 = 15,3), ist es mit 15% aller existierenden bitcoins ein immer noch zu hoher Prozentsatz. Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass von den 2,3 Millionen bitcoins auf Börsen sich der Großteil auf Binance und Coinbase befindet, also die beiden Namen, die gerade im Kreuzfeuer der SEC stehen. Zum Glück gibt es einen Trend zum Rückgang des Anteils von auf Börsen gehaltenen bitcoins, gemessen an der Umlaufmenge, da Bitcoin dank persönlicher Verwahrungslösungen, welche im Laufe der Zeit immer gängiger und robuster werden, immer mehr auf seine eigentlichen Nutzer verteilt wird.

Das Abheben von Bitcoin von den Börsen hat nicht nur den zusätzlichen Vorteil, dass die Bitcoin-Bestände sicherer sind und die Nutzer//innen mehr Vertrauen haben, dass ihre Ersparnisse tatsächlich vorhanden sind und nicht weiter verpfändet wurden. Sondern ohne Bitcoin auf den Börsen und daher ohne Papier-Bitcoin ist auch eine echte Preisfindung wieder möglich, welche heute von den Börsen verzerrt wird.

---

Zurück zur Nachlassplanung: Letztendlich ist es am wichtigsten, dafür zu sorgen, dass die gewählte Methode dafür sorgt, dass die Schlüssel und die dazugehörigen bitcoins sicher und zuverlässig zu den Erben oder Begünstigten gelangen, ohne dabei zu viele Kompromisse einzugehen oder zu viele Angriffsvektoren zu schaffen.

Es gibt sogar komplizierte Modelle, in denen z.B. ein Trust gegründet (abhängig von der Gerichtsbarkeit, in der man sich befindet), bei der der Eigentümer einen gesetzlichen Auftrag erteilt, dass die Begünstigten oder Erben als Teil des Trusts ein Einkommen in Höhe eines bestimmten Prozentsatzes beziehen können. Dieses Verfahren könnte von den jeweiligen Gerichtsbarkeiten rechtlich angefochten werden, aber wenn das Setup kryptografisch eingerichtet und ausgeführt wird, ohne das eine Partei Einfluss auf diese Ausführung nehmen kann, kann man von Rechts wegen nichts dagegen tun, da kein Testamentsvollstrecker oder keine andere Partei gezwungen werden kann, den Auszahlungsmechanismus zu ändern, da dies mechanisch unmöglich ist. Denn wie wir wissen, übertrifft die Kryptographie jegliche rechtliche Ansprüche. Dies ist eine einzigartige Funktion von Bitcoin, die kein anderer Vermögenswert auf der Welt besitzt. Es ist ein sehr wirksames Instrument, um Eigentum und Besitz langfristig zu sichern und sicherzustellen, dass Eigentum innerhalb des Personenkreises (Freunde, Familie, Bekannte, Geschäftspartner) bleibt, bei dem es bleiben soll.

Über diese einzigartige Eigenschaft von Bitcoin wird in der Regel nicht viel gesprochen. Man könnte sogar argumentieren, dass der Tausch von anderem Eigentum in Bitcoin vor der Übergabe an Erben oder Begünstigte eine strategisch sinnvolle Option ist, um die korrekte Ausführung seines Testaments zu kontrollieren – auch aus dem Grab heraus.

Die Nachlassplanung bei Bitcoin ist die letzte Stufe der Evolution. Der erste Schritt besteht darin, sich über Bitcoin zu informieren und genug darüber zu verstehen, um Interesse an der Materie zu wecken. Dieser erste Schritt ist ein fortlaufender Prozess, der jeden Bitcoiner auf seiner Reise begleiten wird, da es unmöglich ist, jeden Aspekt und jede Interpretation des Themas vollständig zu verstehen. Man hört nie auf zu lernen. Der Honigdachsbau ist unendlich tief.

Dieser erste Schritt muss genug Interesse an Bitcoin und den umliegenden Themenfeldern wecken, dass man den zweiten Schritt geht: Bitcoin zu erwerben. Im diesem Sinne spielt es zunächst keine Rolle, wie man in den Besitz von Bitcoin gelangt, ob man Bitcoin kauft, durch Mining produziert, "findet" oder auf andere Weise erhält. Wichtig ist, dass man in den Besitz von Bitcoin gelangt und es nun aufbewahren muss.

Denn das ist Schritt drei, die sichere und solide Aufbewahrung der Bitcoin-Vermögenswerte in einer selbstverwalteten und selbstverwahrenden Art und Weise. Dazu gehören auch Setups, an denen bis zu einem gewissen Grad Dritte, wie z.B. andere bekannte Personen oder Verwahrungsdienste beteiligt sein können. Wichtig ist, dass die Schlüssel jederzeit vollständig zugänglich und damit Transaktionen vollständig ausführbar sind. Aus diesem Grund ist jede Speicheroption ausgeschlossen, bei der die Schlüssel ausschließlich von Dritten gehalten werden, wie z.B. von Börsen, Brokern oder anderen Verleih- oder Speicherplattformen – not your keys, not your Bitcoin!

Der letzte Schritt in diesem persönlichen Entwicklungsprozess ist die Zukunftssicherheit dieser Vermögenswerte. Da die bitcoins nun sicher aufbewahrt sind, muss sichergestellt werden, dass es einen Weg zur Wiederherstellung oder Vererbung gibt, falls etwas passiert. Dies ist einfach der logische Evolutionsprozess, den jeder durchlaufen muss, der Bitcoin langfristig besitzen möchte.

Besonders in einer Zeit, in der die SEC zwei der größten kRyPto-Börsen der Welt auf den Leib rückt, muss man sich der Realität bewusst werden, dass Dritte, selbst wenn sie scheinbar groß und etabliert sind, nicht für immer existieren werden. Bitcoiner fordern schon seit langem alle und jede/n dazu auf, ihre bitcoins von den Börsen zu nehmen. Jeder, der dachte, dass es eine gute Idee sei, Bitcoin kurzfristig an Börsen zu halten, wurde bereits mehrfach an diesen Trugschluss erinnert - Mt. Gox, Bitfinex und FTX - um nur die großen zu nennen. Wer denkt, dass es eine gute Idee sei, bitcoins auf Börsen zu lagern, um schließlich nur ein Stück Papier mit den Zugangsdaten an die Erben weiterzugeben, der begeht einen schrecklichen Fehler. Die bisherigen Ausführungen sollten dies klar gemacht haben.

---

Ich habe absichtlich keine Vorschläge gemacht, wie ein sicheres Setup aussehen soll. Wie schon gesagt, gibt es keine eine richtige Lösung - nur Kompromisse. Der persönliche Kompromiss hängt von zu vielen Faktoren ab, so dass man eine einheitliche Lösung anbieten kann. Man sollte sich jedoch die folgenden Punkte merken:

• Früh genug mit der Planung beginnen - hinter jeder Ecke lauert ein Bär!
• Das Einschließen von Dritten in die Nachlassplanung sollte mit Bedacht gewählt und gründlich überlegt sein.
• Das gewählte Setup sollte mindestens einmal getestet werden, bevor der schlimmste Fall eintritt.
• Es ist immer ratsam, die mit dem Nachlass bedachten Personen aufzuklären, dass im schlimmsten Fall etwas auf sie zukommt.

🫳🎤

---

In diesem Sinne, 2... 1... Risiko!‌

@ c4b5369a:b812dbd6

How to print your own ecash, using Gandlaf's money printer

To celebrate the recent money printer update, here is a short guide on how to use it.

Step 1: Go to the money printer

Unlike the FED's money printer, this Cashu ecash money printer is openly available. Head over to https://brrr.gandlaf.com to give it a spin.

Select a mint

Choose a mint that should be backing the ecash notes. You have a few different options when choosing a mint:

1. Connect to your own mint: Connecting to your own mint is great if you want to be the backer of the ecash notes. It does however require you to have your mint up and running. You can connect to it by typing the mint URL into the input field.
2. Connect to a known mint: There are mints that are already indexed on nostr. You can find them by clicking on the `discover more mints` button.
3. Connect to any mint you want!: All you need is the mints URL. Just type it into the input bar!

Once you selected a mint, click connect to set up the mint for money printing :

After connecting to the mint, you will have the option to select the currency you want to print. Not all mints support all currencies! The dropdown menu below will show all available currencies the mint offers.

After selecting your preferred currency, click confirm to continue.

In the next step, you will chose the amount that should be printed on each note. Be careful though, because unfortunately not every amount is possible. To preserve mint users privacy ecash mints use fixed coin amounts. This means a specific amount, will be made up from smaller amounts. Today, most cashu mints use power-of-2 amounts.

So if you for example would like to print the amount "100", it would be made up from the coins [64, 32, 4]. The maximum number of coins that can be encoded in a QR code, without the QR code losing its readability is \~4. The money printer will analyze which amounts the mint offers, and show how many coins will be needed.

Below, you will see the calculation of how much the total issuance for this printing cycle will be. Once you are all set, click confirm to continue.

You can now either add the funds for the print via Cashu token or via Lightning. Let's first take a look on how to add funds via Cashu token.

If you select this option, I will assume that you already own ecash from the mint you wish to print the notes. Otherwise, you should move on to the payment by lightning.

You have to make sure that the token you are pasting is from the correct mint, in the correct unit/currency and matches the amount exactly! Otherwise, it will not work.

If you don't own ecash from that mint, you can pay for the print with lightning directly. The only fees that will be charged are Lightning network fees.

Just scan the QR code that is presented to you and wait for the payment to be confirmed.

Once the payment has confirmed, either through Cashu or through Lightning, the print is ready. You can now customize the design you wish to print.

You can select a color, a brand image and a corner image that should be put on the note.

Once you are happy with the design, go ahead and click `Print now! BRRRRRRRRRRR`

This will take you to the print page. You can now print the ecash by pressing `CTRL`+`P`

And that's it! You have now printed your own money. I hope you liked the experience of playing FED for a day.

Be aware! Once scanned and redeemed, the ecash notes become invalid. So they are one-time-use.

If you want to make another print, just refresh the page. It will take you back to the beginning. Your past prints will also be stored in the browser cache, so you can come back to them at a later time, if your printer overheated or something.

Happy printing!

Gandlaf

@ d830ee7b:4e61cd62

ผมจำได้ว่าหัวใจเต้นแรงแค่ไหนตอนเปิดประตูเข้าไปในสตูดิโอ RightTalk สิ่งแรกที่ปะทะตาคือแสงไฟเจาะลงมาเป็นวงใหญ่ ไม่ต่างจากเวทีคอนเสิร์ต

ผมรู้สึกได้ทันทีว่าความเย็นจากเครื่องปรับอากาศในห้องส่งไม่ได้ช่วยลดอุณหภูมิในร่างกายสักเท่าไหร่ ตอนนั้นผมพยายามบอกตัวเองให้ใจเย็น แต่มันยากเอาเรื่องเมื่อคิดว่ามีคนดูทางบ้านอีกมากรอติดตาม

คุณซุป พิธีกรของรายการ เดินมาทักผมด้วยรอยยิ้มที่ทำให้ผมค่อย ๆ ตั้งสติได้ เขาเชื้อเชิญให้นั่งลงบนเก้าอี้ที่จัดไว้ตรงกลางฉาก

แถวหลังมีทีมงานเดินขวักไขว่ จิงโจ้, อาร์ม, เทนโด้ และอีกหลายๆ คนที่คุ้นตากันดี

บรรยากาศออกกึ่งกันเองกึ่งเป็นทางการ ผมไม่ได้อธิบายอะไรมาก ก่อนที่เสียงผู้กำกับจะให้สัญญาณเริ่ม

คุณซุปหย่อนคำถามเล็ก ๆ ให้ผม “พร้อมนะครับ?” ผมพยักหน้านิด ๆ คิดในใจว่ามันคงไม่มีคำว่า “พร้อมจริง” ได้หรอก แต่ยังไงก็ต้องไปต่อ...

“คุยทุกเรื่องที่ใช่กับ RightTalk”

นั่นคือประโยคแรกที่ผมได้ยินในหูฟัง ขณะไฟสปอร์ตไลต์สาดสว่างทั่วเวทีอีกครั้ง คุณซุปเอ่ยแนะนำตัวผมว่าเป็นคนที่ผ่านประสบการณ์ สงคราม Blocksize มาตั้งแต่ยุคเปลี่ยนผ่าน และพ่วงด้วยข่าวว่าตอนนี้ราคา Bitcoin ทะลุหลักแสนดอลลาร์แล้ว

ผมยืดหลังเพื่อกลั้นความตื่นเต้น แต่ก็ไม่วายตัวเกร็งเล็กน้อย เขาหันมาทางผมพลางกล่าวอย่างเป็นกันเอง

“คุณแชมป์ PIGROCK สบายดีไหมครับ?"

"รู้สึกยังไงบ้างครับกับสถานการณ์ในปัจจุบันที่มันต่างจากสมัยก่อนลิบลับ?”

ผมเผลอกัดริมฝีปากเพราะความประหม่าหลุดขึ้นมาเล็กน้อย แต่ผมยังคุมโทนได้ จึงตอบไปว่า

"ผมชื่อแชมป์ครับ.. เป็นแค่นักวาดดิจิทัลธรรมดา ๆ ที่จู่ ๆ ก็ได้อยู่ข้าง ๆ Jakk Goodday พี่ชายจอมยิงใยผู้เปลี่ยนชีวิตผม ถ้าไม่ใช่เพราะเขา ผมคงไม่รู้จักคำว่า UASF หรือ SegWit ขนาดนี้"

ผมเห็นคุณซุปยิ้มมากขึ้น แล้วก็พยักเพยิดให้ผมพูดต่อ “ว่ากันว่าตอนนั้น Bitcoin มีแนวโน้มแตกออกเป็นหลายสาย เล่าหน่อยสิครับ ว่าพี่อยู่ในจุดไหน?”

ผมถือไมโครโฟนแน่นขึ้นตอบตามจริงว่า จุดเริ่มต้นมาจากความขัดแย้งว่า Blocksize ควรจะใหญ่ขึ้นหรือไม่ จนกลายเป็นสงครามขนาดย่อมบนฟอรัม Bitcointalk และโซเชียลมีเดียต่าง ๆ

ซึ่งผมเป็นคนที่ไม่เชี่ยวชาญเทคโนโลยีเลย แต่โชคดีตรงที่เจอ Jakk คอยเปิดแผนที่ให้เห็นภาพรวมว่าใครอยู่ฝ่ายไหน

ผมยังเล่าให้ผู้ชมฟังว่า... ครั้งแรกที่ได้ยินคำว่า UASF ก็ยอมรับว่างงอยู่เหมือนกัน แต่มันก็เป็นจุดที่ทำให้ผมเข้าใจว่า Bitcoin ไม่ได้มีเจ้าของเป็นตัวบุคคล

แถมยังเป็นครั้งแรกที่ผมเห็นประชาชนโหนดรายย่อยจะมาคุมเกมสั่งนักขุด “ถ้าไม่รองรับ SegWit ก็ไม่รับบล็อกกันเลย” ซึ่งเป็นเรื่องที่ผมเองก็ไม่เคยคาดคิดว่าจะเกิดขึ้นได้

ซุปหันไปมองกล้องด้วยสีหน้าน่าสนใจ พร้อมสรุปสั้น ๆ ก่อนพักเบรกว่า “โอเค.. งั้นตอนหน้ามาคุยกันเรื่อง UASF และ SegWit กันชัด ๆ ว่ามันเปลี่ยนแปลงชุมชน Bitcoin ได้ขนาดไหน ห้ามพลาดนะครับ!”

ผมก็ยิ้มรับแล้ววางไมค์ คิดในใจว่ายังมีอีกเยอะที่ผมอยากเล่า—ทั้งความวุ่นวายของปี 2017 และเรื่องราวของ Jakk ที่เป็นแหล่งข้อมูลล้ำค่าในชีวิตผม

ผมกลับเข้ามานั่งบนเก้าอี้ในสตูดิโอ RightTalk อีกครั้งหลังพักเบรกสั้น ๆ พิธีกรซุปมองสบตาผมราวกับบอกเป็นนัยว่า.. ตอนนี้ได้เวลาเล่าช่วงสำคัญที่ทุกคนรอคอย

ผมสูดลมหายใจเบา ๆ แล้วพยักหน้าอย่างมั่นใจ ถึงจะไม่ใช่นักเทคนิคโดยกำเนิด แต่ผมก็พร้อมจะบอกสิ่งที่ประสบมาในช่วงปี 2017 ซึ่งในตอนนั้น แค่ได้ยินคำว่า UASF ครั้งแรกผมยังสับสนแทบแย่ว่ามันคืออะไร

“พี่ว่า UASF เหมือนการปฏิวัติครับ”

ผมพูดด้วยน้ำเสียงตื่นเต้นขณะที่กล้องจับภาพเต็มจอ

“ตอนนั้นกลุ่มโหนดรายย่อยลุกขึ้นมาประกาศชัด ๆ ว่า ถ้านักขุดไม่สนับสนุน SegWit พวกเขาจะไม่รับบล็อกเหล่านั้นอีกต่อไป เป็นภาพที่พี่ไม่เคยคาดคิดมาก่อนว่า... เสียงของคนตัวเล็ก ๆ จะดังได้ขนาดนี้ เหมือนชาวบ้านรวมตัวท้าทายอำนาจจักรวรรดิไม่มีผิด”

ผมหันไปเห็นประกายตาในคุณซุป เขาขยับไมโครโฟนเล็กน้อย

“แบบนี้ก็ต้องมีเรื่องขัดแย้งกับพวก Hashrate ใหญ่ใช่ไหมครับ ผมได้ยินชื่อ Bitmain กับ Roger Ver โผล่มาบ่อยมากตอนนั้น”

ผมพยักหน้าแล้วหัวเราะน้อย ๆ “ใช่ครับ พวก Big Block มองว่าต้องขยาย Blocksize สายตรงไปเลย จะได้จุธุรกรรมได้เยอะ ค่าธรรมเนียมไม่โหด"

"ส่วนอีกฝั่งยืนยันว่าควรใช้ SegWit มาช่วยแทนโดยไม่ต้องขยายบล็อกจริง ๆ ประเด็นนี้ใหญ่พอจะทำให้เกิดการแตกสายกลายเป็น Bitcoin Cash ในวันที่ 1 สิงหาคม 2017 นั่นแหละครับ”

ผมเล่าย้อนภาพในหัว...

ช่วงนั้น Jakk บอกไว้อย่างชัดถ้อยชัดคำว่า “พวกเขาคงแยกตัวได้ แต่อย่าหวังว่าจะมาแทน BTC หรืออะไรใหญ่โตนัก รอดูไปเถอะ เดี๋ยวก็เห็นเอง”

มันฟังดูเหมือนคำทำนายที่ห้าวหาญ แต่สุดท้ายก็เป็นจริง ที่ผมตื่นเต้นยิ่งกว่านั้นคือ SegWit เองก็ไม่ใช่แค่จัดการปัญหา Transaction Malleability หากยังเปิดทางให้เทคโนโลยีในอนาคตอย่าง Lightning Network เกิดขึ้นมาได้อีก

ตอนแรกหลายคนเรียกกันว่าเป็นแค่ ‘ไอเดียบนกระดาษ’

แต่ตอนนี้ (ปี 2025) กลับกลายเป็นเลเยอร์สำคัญที่ทำให้ผมโอนเงินข้ามประเทศได้แทบจะฟรีในเสี้ยววินาทีจริง ๆ

“พี่เองยังคิดไม่ถึงว่ามันจะสำเร็จขั้นนั้น” ผมหัวเราะก่อนบอกต่อ

“ตอนแรกที่ SegWit เปิดใช้งาน คนจำนวนหนึ่งยังสงสัยด้วยซ้ำว่ามันจะแก้ปัญหาได้ไหม แต่พอมี UASF โหนดรายย่อยก็กดดันนักขุดจนต้องยอม มันเป็นความเคลื่อนไหวที่แสดงให้เห็นว่าคนมีอำนาจโหวตแบบไร้ศูนย์กลางมากจริง ๆ”

“แล้วเรื่องราคา Bitcoin ในปีนั้นล่ะครับ?” ซุปจับจังหวะได้ดี

“2017 ถือเป็นปีที่ราคา BTC แตะสองหมื่นดอลลาร์ครั้งแรกเลยใช่ไหม แล้วตอนนี้ทะลุแสนไปแล้ว มันเกิดอะไรขึ้นกันแน่?”

ผมยกไหล่แล้วยิ้ม “ตอนนั้นพี่ก็ตื่นเต้นสุด ๆ ครับ เหมือนรถไฟเหาะกันทั้งตลาด แต่ใครจะคิดว่ามันจะไปได้สูงกว่านั้นอีกหลายเท่าตัว บางคนก็ปรามาสว่าเป็น ‘ฟองสบู่แตกแน่ ๆ’ ส่วนคนเชื่อก็เชื่อสุดใจ"

"ไม่ต่างจากประเด็นว่า BCH จะแทน BTC ได้ไหม ซึ่งเอาเข้าจริงแล้ว ทุกวันนี้ BCH ก็ยังอยู่ แต่ไม่ค่อยมีใครพูดถึงหรือเชียร์แรง ๆ เหมือนในอดีต หลังเวลาผ่านไป ตลาดเลยเหมือนตัดสินว่า BTC ยังเป็นตัวหลักมากกว่า”

“พี่รู้สึกอย่างไรกับคำทำนายของ Jakk ที่ว่า BCH ไม่น่ารอดยาว?” ซุปถามแทรก มุมปากมีรอยยิ้มเจ้าเล่ห์นิด ๆ เหมือนอยากได้คำตอบที่สะใจ

“พี่ขอเรียกเขาว่าเป็นคนมองขาดละกัน”

ผมยิ้มพลางนึกหน้าตายของ Jakk “แกเป็นคนที่มองเกมเชิงเทคนิคและปรัชญาของ Bitcoin ได้คมมากนะครับ แกจะบอกเสมอว่า ‘ไม่มีใครเป็นเจ้าของ Bitcoin แท้จริงหรอก ตราบใดที่ชุมชนทั้งหมดไม่ยอมรับ ก็จบ’ "

"จนถึงตอนนี้ พี่ยังรู้สึกทึ่งว่าทำไมแกถึงทำนายถูกหลายเรื่อง”

ผมเห็นเวลาในหูฟังบอกใกล้หมดช่วงแล้ว จึงตบท้ายว่าเหตุการณ์ครั้งนั้นมันสอนให้ผมรู้เรื่องประชาธิปไตยในระบบไร้ศูนย์กลาง

ทุกฝ่าย—ไม่ว่าจะนักขุด โหนด หรือผู้ใช้—ต่างมีสิทธิ์ Fork ได้ แต่ไม่มีใครการันตีว่า Fork นั้นจะไปรอด

ท้ายที่สุด ตลาดต้องเป็นผู้ตัดสินเอง และนั่นคือเสน่ห์ของ Bitcoin ที่ผมรู้สึกโชคดีที่ได้เข้าไปเห็นด้วยตาตัวเอง

ซุปพยักหน้าแล้วยิ้มกว้าง หันไปมองกล้อง “โอเคครับ คุณผู้ชม วันนี้เราคุยกันเรื่อง UASF, SegWit, BCH, Lightning Network และความผันผวนของตลาดในปี 2017 ที่ต่อยอดมาถึง 2024 แบบพอหอมปากหอมคอ"

"ต้องขอบพี่แชมป์ ‘PIGROCK’ ที่มาให้มุมมองสนุก ๆ พร้อมแง่คิดที่น่าสนใจมาก ๆ ไว้เจอกันใหม่ใน RightTalk กับผมและแขกรับเชิญท่านอื่น ๆ ไม่นานนี้”

เสียงปรบมือดังขึ้นเบา ๆ ขณะที่ไฟบนเวทีค่อย ๆ หรี่ลงอีกครั้ง

ผมปลดไมค์ออกจากเสื้อ สูดลมหายใจโล่ง ๆ พร้อมกล่าวขอบคุณทุกคน แล้วคิดถึงคำพูดของ Jakk ในวันวานที่ฝังอยู่ในหัว

“สงคราม Blocksize แค่งานวอร์มอัพ โลกคริปโตฯ ยังมีอะไรให้ลุ้นอีกเยอะนะน้องชาย”

ผมยิ้มเงียบ ๆ คิดว่ามันคงจริงอย่างที่แกว่า เพราะถ้า Bitcoin ไม่ใช่ของใครคนเดียว เราก็คงเห็นการเคลื่อนไหวอะไรใหม่ ๆ เกิดขึ้นเสมอ

ซุปทำท่าเกริ่นรอบสุดท้าย สบตากับผมแล้วถามขึ้นด้วยน้ำเสียงเรียบ ๆ แต่ชวนให้ผมรื้อฟื้นความทรงจำทั้งหมดที่เพิ่งเล่ามา

“แล้วพี่คิดว่า... สิ่งที่ Bitcoin Cash กับ SegWit สอนเราเกี่ยวกับ Bitcoin คืออะไรครับ?”

ผมยิ้มบาง ๆ สูดหายใจแล้วลองเรียบเรียงคำตอบในหัว ผมคิดถึงภาพที่ผ่านมา... ทั้งช่วงที่โหนดรายย่อยลุกขึ้นเรียกร้องสิทธิ์ UASF ทั้งวันที่ BCH แยกตัวอย่างอลังการ ตลอดจนเวลาที่ SegWit เปิดทางให้เทคโนโลยีใหม่ ๆ เกิดขึ้น

ผมรวบทุกประสบการณ์ไว้ในประโยคเดียวก่อนพูด

“สำหรับพี่นะ... สงคราม Blocksize หรือจะเรียกว่าการแตกแยกครั้งนั้น มันสอนให้เห็นว่าระบบนี้ไม่เคยเป็นของใครคนเดียวเลยนะครับ"

"นี่แหละคือ การกระจายอำนาจ อย่างแท้จริง ใครจะฟอร์ก ใครจะทำอะไรก็ได้ แต่สุดท้ายตลาดและชุมชนทั้งหมดนี่ล่ะที่เป็นคนตัดสินว่าเส้นทางไหนจะอยู่หรือไป"

"เรื่องนี้ทำให้พี่ตระหนักว่าบางที... การขัดแย้งก็พาให้เทคโนโลยีมันพัฒนาไปอีกขั้นเหมือนกัน ตราบใดที่เราไม่ลืมสารตั้งต้นว่ามันคือ ระบบเปิดที่ทุกคนเข้าถึงได้ ”

ซุปนิ่งฟังแล้วผงกศีรษะเบา ๆ เหมือนยอมรับในประเด็นที่ผมว่า เขาหันไปทางกล้องและปิดรายการด้วยสไตล์ที่คนดูคุ้นเคย

“วันนี้เราคุยกันหลายแง่มุมเลยนะครับ ตั้งแต่ UASF กับปัญหาความขัดแย้ง ไปจนถึงผลลัพธ์ของ SegWit, BCH และ Lightning Network"

"ต้องขอบคุณพี่แชมป์ ‘PIGROCK’ มาก ๆ ที่มาแบ่งปันประสบการณ์อันเป็นประโยชน์ หวังว่าทุกคนจะได้ไอเดียกลับไปไม่มากก็น้อยนะครับ และนี่คือ RightTalk คุยทุกเรื่องที่ใช่ เจอกันตอนหน้าครับ!”

เสียงดนตรีประจำรายการดังขึ้นอัตโนมัติ เป็นสัญญาณว่าการถ่ายทอดสดสิ้นสุดลง

ผมถอนหายใจเฮือกใหญ่โล่งอกอย่างไม่ปิดบัง ทีมงานบางคนเดินเข้ามาขอบคุณพร้อมจับมือเบา ๆ ผมรู้สึกเหมือนเพิ่งยกภูเขาออกจากอกที่ได้ถ่ายทอดสิ่งที่เคยแบกไว้มานาน

ไม่ใช่แค่เรื่องเทคนิคบล็อกเชน แต่เป็นการขบคิดด้วยว่า ในโลกที่ทุกคนเรียกหาเสรีภาพทางการเงิน ไม่มีชัยชนะของใครที่จีรังได้นาน ถ้าผู้ใช้ทั้งหมดไม่ยอมรับ

ผมเผลอมองขึ้นไปบนไฟสปอร์ตไลต์อีกครั้ง คราวนี้ไม่ได้รู้สึกว่ามันจ้าจนแสบตาเหมือนช่วงเริ่มรายการ แต่กลับรู้สึกว่ามันอบอุ่นดี

ผมยิ้มให้ตัวเองเล็กน้อย ทบทวนว่านี่คงเป็นบทเรียนที่ดีว่าถึงเราจะเป็นเพียงโหนดเล็ก ๆ หรือผู้ใช้งานตัวเล็ก ๆ แต่ในระบบกระจายอำนาจแบบ Bitcoin มันก็มีสิทธิ์เปล่งเสียงได้

และบางครั้งก็อาจเปลี่ยนกระแสทั้งโลกได้เลย ถ้านั่นไม่ใช่คำจำกัดความของ “เสรีภาพ” ผมก็ไม่รู้จะเรียกมันว่าอะไรแล้วล่ะ

End credit

ผมนั่งพักหลังกองอัดรายการแทบไม่ได้หายใจเป็นชิ้นเป็นอัน พิธีกรสุดกระตือรือร้นอย่างซุป เดินดุ่ม ๆ มาหาผมพร้อมแววตาวิ้งวับ ก่อนจะรั้งเก้าอี้มาเบียดติดข้างผม

ถึงแม้ไฟสปอตไลต์จะดับไปแล้ว แต่เขายังดูเหมือนพร้อมลุยถามต่อไม่หยุด

“พี่แชมป์” เขาเอ่ยชื่อผมแบบลากเสียงยาว

“คอผมมันคันยุบยิบ มีเรื่องต้องเม้าท์ต่อจริง ๆ นะพี่ ผมกั๊กไว้ตั้งแต่ก่อนจะเริ่มรายการละ”

ผมเลยหัวเราะพลางเท้าคาง “ไหนว่ามาสิวะ ซุป ใจคอนายจะไม่ให้พี่ไปเข้าห้องน้ำเข้าห้องท่าก่อนเลยเหรอวะ?” ผมพูดด้วยน้ำเสียงกึ่งหยอกกึ่งประชด

“ฮ่า ๆ โทษทีพี่ ผมนี่มันขี้สงสัย” เขายิ้มเจ้าเล่ห์

“คือเรื่อง ‘The One Who Claims to Be Satoshi’ น่ะ… ก็ Craig Wright ไงล่ะพี่ ผมสตั๊นกับเขามานาน เห็นว่าฟ้องชาวบ้านเขาไปทั่ว เห็นมีข่าวว่าขู่ฟ้องใครก็ตามที่พูดว่าเขาไม่ใช่ Satoshi ผมล่ะขำไม่ไหว!”

ผมยักไหล่ “เอาตรง ๆ นะ... พี่มองว่าเขาเป็น ราชาสายปั่นของแท้ รู้จักดึงกระแสเก่งเป็นบ้า ส่วนจะเป็น Satoshi จริงหรือเปล่า? พี่ไม่เชื่อเลยสักเสี้ยว ยังไงพี่ก็ว่ามันดู ‘เฟค’ ไปหมด”

ซุปตบโต๊ะเบา ๆ “โอ๊ย! ใช่เลยพี่! ผมก็ดูละครฉาก ‘พิสูจน์ Private Key’ แล้วแทบขำกลิ้ง"

"แต่พี่รู้ไหม? ตอนแรกดราม่าก็แรงเพราะหลายคนคิดว่าบางทีแกอาจจะเป็นจริง ๆ แต่หลักฐานไม่ชัด สุดท้ายคนในชุมชน ‘กระซวก’ จนหลุดหมดว่าใช้เทคนิคปลอมลายเซ็น”

ผมพยักหน้า “ยิ่งไปกว่านั้นนะ... ตอนเขาแยกสายไป Bitcoin SV อ้างว่าสานต่อ ‘Satoshi’s Vision’ นายลองดูตอนนี้สิ มีกี่คนพูดถึง BSV... "

"แทบไม่มี... มันก็ตลกดีนะ โลกคริปโตนี่ ถ้าไม่มีคนยอมรับ ต่อให้เป็น Satoshi ยังไงก็แพ้ตลาด”

“โอ้โห.. พี่พูดได้ถูกใจมาก” คุณซุปแหงนหน้าหัวเราะลั่น “นี่ถ้าพี่คนนี้อยู่ต่อหน้าคงเถียงเขาร้อนเป็นไฟเลยนะ แต่เอาจริง ถ้าอยู่ดี ๆ เขาพิสูจน์ได้ว่าเป็น Satoshi ขึ้นมาจริง ๆ พี่ไม่ช็อกเหรอ?”

ผมยิ้มพลางยักคิ้ว “ช็อกนิดหน่อยนะ… แต่มันคงไม่เปลี่ยนอะไรหรอก เพราะ Bitcoin น่ะไปไกลเกินกว่าตัวบุคคลแล้ว ใครจะเป็น Satoshi ก็เรื่องของเขา พี่ถือคติว่า BTC ไม่ต้องการ ‘เจ้านาย’ อีกแล้ว ตอนนี้มันเป็นของทุกคนบนโลกต่างหาก”

"We're all Satoshi เคป่ะ?"

“สุดยอด!” ซุปตบมือถูกใจใหญ่

“ผมก็คิดเหมือนกัน ผมแอบยกให้พี่เป็นปรมาจารย์ทางความคิดเรื่องนี้เลยนะเนี่ย”

"มึงก็อวยเกินไป.. ไอ้นี่" ผมรีบปัดคำชมบ้า ๆ นั่นไปทันที

พูดจบเขาก็กำลังจะบอกอะไรต่อ แต่ทันใดนั้นประตูสตูดิโอเปิดออกแผ่ว ๆ เผยให้เห็นผู้ชายรูปร่างสูงโปร่ง คิ้วไม่เข้มเท่าไหร่ แต่งตัวไม่เป็นทางการสีเข้ม ก้าวเข้ามาแบบไม่รีบร้อน

“ตายล่ะพี่แจ็ก!” คุณซุปอุทานเบา ๆ ก่อนสะดุ้งตั้งท่าเหมือนเจอลูกพี่ใหญ่ ผมเองก็ตาโตนิดหน่อย “โผล่มาเงียบ ๆ ระวังผมช็อกตายนะ”

คนที่เข้ามาคือ Jakk Goodday ที่ผมเคารพและเกรงใจมาตลอด.. และใช่เลย เขาคือ Co-founder ของ Right Shift ตัวจริง เสียงจริง

“โย่ สองหนุ่มเม้าท์อะไรกันอยู่ กลิ่นดราม่าลอยมาถึงนอกห้องเลยนะ” เขายิ้มยั่ว พร้อมวางแก้วคราฟท์เบียร์ของเขาบนโต๊ะใกล้ ๆ

“พี่แจ็ก ขอโทษครับ ผมก็แค่คันปากเรื่อง Craig Wright” ซุปรีบบอก พยายามวางมาดพิธีกรสายยียวนเหมือนเดิม แต่ผมเห็นหลังตาเขายังกระพริบบ่อยแปลก ๆ

“ซุปเอ๊ย.. ขี้เม้าท์ตั้งแต่สมัยฝึกงานจนตอนนี้เป็นพิธีกรระดับประเทศก็ไม่เปลี่ยน” Jakk ยักคิ้ว เขามีเสียงเรียบแต่น่าฟัง

“แต่ดีนะ... เรื่อง Craig Wright"

"เนี่ย... พี่เองก็ขำทุกทีที่ได้ยินว่าพยายามฟ้องคนนู้นคนนี้ว่า ‘เธอดูถูกว่าฉันไม่ใช่ Satoshi’ โอ๊ย มุกนี้แม่งใช้มากี่ปีแล้วก็ไม่รู้”

ผมหัวเราะออกมาเบา ๆ “ถ้าพี่ว่าแล้วมันไม่หยาบไป ก็ช่วยกัดเพิ่มให้หน่อย ผมว่าต้องมีคำเจ็บ ๆ ของพี่แจ็กแน่ ๆ”

Jakk หรี่ตาเล็กน้อย...

“ถ้าผมพูดแบบเจ็บ ๆ จริงก็เกรงจะโดนฟ้องเหมือนกันนะ” เขาทำท่ายกแก้วเก๊กฮวยลึกลับขึ้นจิบ

“แต่เอาเป็นว่า… ตลาดไม่เคยโกหกใคร โค้ดก็ไม่เคยโกหกใคร ใครที่เรียกตนเองเป็น Satoshi หรือพระเจ้าคนไหนก็ตาม ถ้าทำให้คนยอมรับไม่ได้ มันก็จบตรงนั้นละ”

ซุปหัวเราะก้าก “ว้าว! ตรงกว่าผมอีก! 5555"

"นี่เป็นเหตุผลว่าทำไมพี่ถึงเป็นหัวโจกได้ใช่ไหม สายบวกแบบตอกหมุดเลย”

Jakk หันมาทางผม “แต่เอาจริง พี่ก็ respect ในความปากแจ๋วของคุณซุปเค้านะ ถ้าเจอ Craig Wright ตัวเป็น ๆ เมื่อไหร่ บางทีอาจจะสนุกกว่าที่คิด”

ผมกับคุณซุปหันมาสบตากันแล้วระเบิดหัวเราะพร้อมเพรียง “ไม่เอา ไม่เจอดีกว่า ผมขอความสงบสุขในชีวิต!” คุณซุปว่า

Jakk วางแก้วเก๊กฮวยลงบนโต๊ะ กระตุกยิ้มตรงมุมปากอย่างคนมั่นใจ “ขอจบด้วยโควทหนึ่งละกัน ใครอยากเป็น Satoshi ก็เชิญเป็น แต่จำไว้ว่า…"

"ผู้ชนะที่แท้จริง ไม่ได้ชนะเพราะได้สวมมงกุฎ หากแต่ชนะเพราะผู้คนยอมรับให้เขาสวม และ Bitcoin ก็แสดงให้เราเห็นแล้วล่ะ ว่าตัวตนแท้ ๆ ของมันไม่ต้องพึ่งใครมาคุมบังเหียนสักคนเดียว”

ผมกับคุณซุปนิ่งไปครู่สั้น ๆ ก่อนหัวเราะเบา ๆ รับคำพูดคมคายเสียดสีในแบบของ Jakk Goodday “โอเคครับพี่แจ็ก นี่สินะ Signature Quote ที่เราคอยตามหา!” คุณซุปพูดตบท้าย ท่ามกลางเสียงเก็บอุปกรณ์ของทีมงานที่ใกล้จะเลิกงานเต็มที

ผมเองยักไหล่แล้วลุกขึ้นบิดขี้เกียจ “เอ้า! ปิดสตูแล้วดีกว่า เดี๋ยวเราจะโดนปิดไฟตัดน้ำไม่รู้ตัวนะครับพี่แจ๊ก”

“เออ ๆ รีบปิดสตูเถอะ” Jakk ตอบเรียบ ๆ แต่สายตายังฉายแววเจ้าเล่ห์หน่อย ๆ

“ไว้เจอกันรอบหน้า อย่าเผลอไปปั่นจนโดนฟ้องกันเองล่ะ ฮ่า ๆ”

และนั่นก็เป็นฉากสั้น ๆ ที่สามเราปิดท้ายกันแบบเฮฮาและมีสาระนิด ๆ ทิ้งประเด็นว่าบางครั้งในโลกคริปโต คำพูดของใครสักคนอาจสั่นสะเทือนได้

แต่ตอนจบจริง ๆ ก็ต้องดูว่าชุมชนยอมรับมากน้อยแค่ไหน… Craig Wright จะอ้างตัวเป็น Satoshi กี่ครั้งก็ได้ แต่ถ้าโลกไม่เชื่อ...

นั่นก็อาจเป็นเพียงเรื่องตลกในตำนานคริปโตเท่านั้นเอง

ลำดับเหตุการณ์สงคราม Blocksize (Blocksize War)

จุดเริ่มต้นของความขัดแย้ง (2015–2016)

ปัญหาความแออัดของเครือข่าย Bitcoin:

• การเพิ่มขึ้นของธุรกรรมทำให้บล็อกขนาด 1 MB ไม่เพียงพอ ส่งผลให้ค่าธรรมเนียมสูงและการยืนยันธุรกรรมล่าช้า

ชุมชนเริ่มแบ่งเป็น 2 กลุ่ม:

• Big Block (ขยายบล็อกใหญ่ขึ้น): ต้องการเพิ่ม Blocksize ตรง ๆ เช่น 2 MB หรือมากกว่านั้น

• Small Block (คงขนาดบล็อกเดิม): เน้นการแก้ปัญหาผ่านวิธีอื่น เช่น Segregated Witness (SegWit)

---

การพัฒนาของ SegWit (2016)

Segregated Witness (SegWit):

• เสนอโดย Pieter Wuille และทีม Bitcoin Core

• แก้ปัญหา Transaction Malleability และเพิ่มพื้นที่ธุรกรรมในบล็อกโดยย้ายข้อมูลลายเซ็นออกจากธุรกรรมหลัก

Hong Kong Agreement (2016):

• ความพยายามประนีประนอมระหว่างกลุ่ม Big Block และ Small Block

• ตกลงว่าจะเพิ่ม Blocksize เป็น 2 MB และเปิดใช้งาน SegWit แต่ไม่สำเร็จจริง

---

UASF และ SegWit Activation (2017)

UASF (User-Activated Soft Fork):

• เสียงของโหนดรายย่อยลุกขึ้นกดดันนักขุดให้รองรับ SegWit ผ่าน BIP 148

• เส้นตาย: 1 สิงหาคม 2017 ถ้านักขุดไม่รองรับ SegWit โหนด UASF จะไม่ยอมรับบล็อกของนักขุดเหล่านั้น

SegWit Activation:

• นักขุดยอมรับ SegWit เพื่อหลีกเลี่ยงการแยกเครือข่าย

• SegWit เปิดใช้งานสำเร็จในวันที่ 24 สิงหาคม 2017

---

การเกิด Bitcoin Cash (1 สิงหาคม 2017)

Hard Fork ครั้งใหญ่:

• กลุ่ม Big Block นำโดย Roger Ver และ Jihan Wu สร้าง Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

• BCH เปิดตัวด้วย Blocksize ขนาด 8 MB และโปรโมตว่าเป็น “เงินสดดิจิทัลที่แท้จริง”

ผลกระทบ:

• ชุมชน Bitcoin แตกเป็น 2 ฝ่ายชัดเจน

• BCH ได้รับความนิยมในช่วงแรก แต่ไม่สามารถแทนที่ BTC ได้ในระยะยาว

---

การพัฒนาของ Lightning Network (2017–2018)

Layer 2 Solution:

• Lightning Network (LN) เป็นเทคโนโลยีที่พัฒนาต่อเนื่องหลัง SegWit เปิดใช้งาน

• ลดความแออัดในเครือข่ายหลักและทำให้การทำธุรกรรมเร็วขึ้น

การใช้งานจริง:

• LN เริ่มทดสอบใน Testnet และเปิดตัวอย่างเป็นทางการในปี 2018

---

ราคา Bitcoin พุ่งสูงสุด (ปลายปี 2017)

• Bitcoin แตะ $20,000 ครั้งแรก:

• ช่วงปลายปี 2017 ตลาดคริปโตเข้าสู่ช่วงเฟื่องฟู (Crypto Boom)

• BCH ก็พุ่งสูงสุดที่มากกว่า $3,000 แต่เริ่มลดลงในปีถัดมา

---

ความแตกแยกใน Bitcoin Cash (2018)

Hard Fork อีกครั้ง:

• เกิดความขัดแย้งในชุมชน BCH เรื่องแนวทางการพัฒนา

• นำไปสู่การแยกตัวเป็น Bitcoin SV (BSV) นำโดย Craig Wright

ผลกระทบ:

• BCH และ BSV สูญเสียส่วนแบ่งตลาด

• BTC ยังคงเป็นผู้นำในตลาดคริปโต

---

การยอมรับ SegWit และการเปลี่ยนแปลงตลาด (2018–ปัจจุบัน)

SegWit Adoption:

• เมื่อผู้ใช้งานเริ่มใช้ SegWit มากขึ้น ค่าธรรมเนียมธุรกรรมลดลง และความแออัดในเครือข่ายลดลง

• Bitcoin กลายเป็น Store of Value:

• BTC ถูกมองว่าเป็น “สินทรัพย์เก็บออม” มากกว่า “เงินสดดิจิทัล”

BCH และ BSV:

• ตลาดของทั้งสองสายลดลง และไม่สามารถทดแทน BTC ได้

https://v.nostr.build/pxBuxtiSVNbisYMv.mp4

@ 1bda7e1f:bb97c4d9

Tldr

• Nostr is an open protocol which is interoperable with all kinds of other technologies
• You can use this interoperability to create custom solutions
• Nostr apps define a custom URI scheme handler "nostr:"
• In this blog I use this to integrate Nostr with NFC cards
• I create a Nostr NFC "login card" which allows me to log into Amethyst client
• I create a Nostr NFC "business card" which allows anyone to find my profile with a tap

Inter-Op All The Things!

Nostr is a new open social protocol for the internet. This open nature is very exciting because it means Nostr can add new capabilities to all other internet-connected technologies, from browsers to web applications. In my view, it achieves this through three core capabilities.

• A lightweight decentralised identity (Nostr keys, "npubs" and "nsecs"),
• A lightweight data distribution network (Nostr relays),
• A set of data interoperability standards (The Nostr Improvement Protocols "NIPs"), including the "nostr:" URI which we'll use in this post.

The lightweight nature is its core strength. Very little is required to interoperate with Nostr, which means many existing technologies can be easily used with the network.

Over the next few blog posts, I'll explore different Nostr inter-op ideas, and also deliver my first small open source projects to the community. I'll cover–

• NFC cards integrated with Nostr (in this post),
• Workflow Automations integrated with Nostr,
• AI LLMs integrated with Nostr.

The "Nostr:" URI

One feature of Nostr is it defines a custom URI scheme handler "nostr:". What is that?

A URI is used to identify a resource in a system. A system will have a protocol handler registry used to store such URI's, and if a system has a URI registered, then it knows what to do when it sees it. You are probably already familiar with some URI schemes such as "http:" and "mailto:". For example, when you click an http link, the system knows that it describes an http resource and opens a web browser to fetch the content from the internet.

A nostr: link operates in the same way. The nostr: prefix indicates a custom URI scheme specifically designed for the Nostr protocol. If a system has a Nostr application installed, that application may have registered "nostr:" in the protocol handler registry. On that system when a "nostr:" URI is clicked, the system will know that it describes a nostr resource and open the Nostr client to fetch the content from the nostr relay network.

This inter-op with the protocol handler registry gives us the power to do nice and exciting things with other technologies.

Nostr and NFC

Another technology that uses URIs is NFC cards. NFC (Near Field Communication) is a wireless technology that enables devices to exchange data over a few centimeters. It’s widely used in contactless payments, access control, and information sharing.

NFC tags are small chips embedded in cards or stickers which can store data like plain text, URLs, or custom URIs. They are very cheap (cents each) and widely available (Amazon with next day delivery).

When an NFC tag contains a URI, such as a http: (or nostr:) link, it acts as a trigger. Tapping the tag with an NFC-enabled device launches the associated application and processes the URI. For example, tapping a tag with "nostr:..." could open a Nostr client, directing it to a specific login page, public profile, or event.

This inter-op allows us to bridge the physical world to Nostr with just a tap.

Many useful ideas

There are many interesting ways to use this. Too many for me to explore. Perhaps some of these are interesting for your next side hustle?

• Nostr NFC "login cards" – tap to log into Amethyst on Android,
• Nostr NFC "business cards" – give to connections so they can tap to load your npub,
• Nostr NFC "payment cards" – integrating lightning network or ecash,
• Nostr NFC "doorbells", "punch cards", "drop boxes", or "dead drops" – put a tag in a specific place and tap to open a location-specific message or chat,
• Integrations with other access control systems,
• Integrations with other home automation systems,
• Many more ...

To start with I have built and use the "login card" and "business card" solutions. This blog post will show you how to do the same.

Nostr Login Card

You can use an NFC card to log into your Nostr client.

Most Nostr clients accept a variety of login methods, from posting your nsec into the app (insecure) to using a remote signer (more secure). A less known but more secure method is to sign into a session with a tap of a specially-configured NFC card. Amethyst is a Nostr client on Android which supports this type of login.

• A secure method for logging in
• Optionally keeps no log in history on the device after logout
• Does not require users to know or understand how keys work
• Keys are kept secure on a physically-separated card to reduce risk of compromise

Nostr devs think that this is useful for anti-establishment actors–Fair enough. For me, I am interested in this login card pattern as it could be useful for rolling out identities within an organisation context with less training (office workers are already familiar with door access cards). This pattern potentially abstracts away key management to the IT or ops team who provision the cards.

I first discovered this when Kohei demonstrated it in his video.

Here's how you set it up at a high level–

1. Buy yourself some NFC cards
2. Get your Nostr key ready in an encrypted, password protected format called "nencryptsec"
3. Write the nencryptsec to the NFC card as a custom URI
4. Tap to load the login screen, and enter your password to login

Here it is in detail–

Buy yourself some NFC cards

I found no specific requirements. As usual with Nostr so far, I tried to the cheapest possible route and it worked. Generic brand NFC cards shipped from China, I believe it was 50X for $15 from Amazon. Your mileage may vary.

Get your Nostr key ready

Your key will be saved to the NFC card in an encrypted password-protected format called "nencryptsec". Several applications support this. As we'll be using this to login to Amethyst, we will use Amethyst to output the nencryptsec for us.

1. Login to Amethyst with your nsec,
2. Open the sidebar and click "Backup Keys",
3. Enter a password, and click "Encrypt and my secret key",
4. It will add the password-protected key to your clipboard in the format "ncryptsec1...",
5. Remember to backup your password.

Write the ncryptsec to the NFC card

1. Download the free NFC Tools app to your device, and open it,
2. Click "Write" and "Add a record", then click "Custom URL / URI",
3. Paste your nencryptsec with the nostr URI in front, i.e. "nostr:ncryptsec1..." and click OK,
4. Click "Write". NFC Tools will prompt you to "Approach an NFC tag",
5. Place your NFC card against your phone, and it will write to the card,
6. Your card is ready.

Tap to load the login screen

Tap the card against your phone again, and your phone should open the login screen of Amethyst and prompt you for your password.

Once you enter your password, Amethyst will decrypt your nsec and log you in.

Optionally, you can also set the app to forget you once you log out.

You have created a Nostr NFC "login card".

Nostr Business Card

You can use another NFC card to give anyone you meet a link straight to your Nostr profile.

I attended Peter McCormack's #CheatCode conference in Sydney and gave a few of these out following the Nostr panel, notably to Preston Pysh where it got some cut through and found me my first 100 followers. You can do the same.

To create your Nostr NFC "business card" is even easier than your NFC "login card".

1. Buy yourself some NFC cards,
2. Download the free NFC Tools app to your device, and open it,
3. Click "Write" and "Add a record", then click "Custom URL / URI",
4. Write your npub to the NFC card as a custom URI in the format "nostr:npub1..." (e.g. for me this is "nostr:npub1r0d8u8mnj6769500nypnm28a9hpk9qg8jr0ehe30tygr3wuhcnvs4rfsft"),
5. Your card is ready.

Give the card to someone who is a Nostr user, and when they tap the card against their phone it will open their preferred Nostr client and go directly to your Nostr profile page.

You have created a Nostr NFC "business card".

What I Did Wrong

I like to share what I did wrong so you don't have to make the same mistakes. This time, this was very easy, and little went wrong. In general

• When password-protecting your nsec, don't forget the password!
• When writing to the NFC card, make sure to use "Custom URI/URL" as this accepts your "nostr:" URI scheme. If you use generic "URI/URL" it won't work.

What's Next

Over my first four blogs I have explored creating a good Nostr setup

• Mined a Nostr pubkey and backed up the mnemonic
• Set up Nostr payments with a Lightning wallet plus all the bells and whistles
• Set up NIP-05 and Lighting Address at my own domain
• Set up a Personal Relay at my own domain

Over the next few blogs I will be exploring different types of Nostr inter-op

• NFC cards integrated with Nostr (this post)
• Workflow Automations integrated with Nostr
• AI LLMs integrated with Nostr

Please be sure to let me know if you think there's another Nostr topic you'd like to see me tackle.

GM Nostr.

@ cf7ed325:050194cf

The Sonesta Moon Goddess Nile Cruise and Oberoi Philae Nile Cruise offer luxurious experiences along the Nile, combining comfort, elegance, and cultural exploration. These cruises are ideal for travelers seeking a premium journey between Luxor and Aswan, filled with historical wonders and stunning landscapes.

The Sonesta Moon Goddess Nile Cruise features spacious cabins with private balconies, gourmet dining, and personalized service. Guests can explore iconic sites such as the Karnak Temple, Valley of the Kings, and Philae Temple while enjoying the ship's modern amenities. Similarly, the Oberoi Philae Nile Cruise provides an intimate setting with luxury suites, fine dining, and a wellness center, ensuring a tranquil and exclusive experience.

Both cruises are part of a broader collection of Nile cruises that cater to diverse preferences. For those seeking alternatives, the Movenpick Darakum Nile Cruise, Nile CruiseFarah , and Movenpick Sunray Nile Cruise provide exceptional options with distinctive features and world-class service. Travelers can also explore the elegance of the Oberoi Zahra Nile Cruise, known for its unparalleled luxury and curated itineraries.

The Sonesta Sun Goddess Nile Cruise, Sonesta Star Goddess Nile Cruise, Sonesta Nile Goddess Nile Cruise, and Sonesta St. George Nile Cruise are additional premium choices, each offering unique amenities and captivating itineraries. Meanwhile, the Historia Nile Cruise and Steigenberger Minerva Nile Cruise combine tradition and modernity, delivering unforgettable journeys.

For a well-rounded experience, consider the Movenpick Hamees Nile Cruise or the Movenpick Lotus Nile Cruise, both known for their comfort and exceptional service. Whether you choose the Sonesta Moon Goddess Nile Cruise, Oberoi Philae Nile Cruise, or any of these alternatives, your Nile adventure promises to be a memorable exploration of Egypt's rich history and culture.

🌐 Visit us at www.etbtoursegypt.com 📲 Contact us now! +20 10 21100873 📧 Email: info@etbtours.com 🏢 Company Address: 4 El Lebeny Axis , Nazlet Al Batran , Al Haram, Giza , Egypt

@ ed84ce10:cccf4c2a

Hackathon Summary

The Boundless Hackathon @Stanford, co-hosted by Stanford Blockchain Accelerator, Nautilus Chain, Zebec, and Rootz Labs, successfully concluded with 318 registered developers working on 159 projects. This event focused on advancing Web3 infrastructure through tracks in DeFi, Gaming, NFT, and infrastructure development.

Supported by DoraHacks, the hackathon featured significant contributions from strategic partners such as IOBC Capital, Eclipse, and OKX Wallet. Notably, there was strong technological collaboration with Aspecta. The event culminated in a closing ceremony at Stanford University, where the top projects received awards from a prize pool totaling $300,000. The first-place winner received $10,000, with additional incentives in the form of ecosystem and technical bonus prizes, including Amazon Cloud Credits.

The Boundless Hackathon fostered collaboration and innovation within the blockchain community, emphasizing the integration of new technologies across various blockchain platforms.

Hackathon Winners

Main Prize Winners

• Hexlink:
  Hexlink introduces a modular account layer for Web3 that emulates Web2 experiences by leveraging existing identities for crypto transactions. It eliminates the need for seed phrases, streamlining onboarding and security through modular authentication across dApps.
• Defi Board Options Exchange (DBOE):
  DBOE presents a novel on-chain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) with advanced risk management strategies. This enhances market infrastructure by improving price discovery and liquidity through a Dedicated Market Making (DMM) system.
• Nulink:
  Nulink integrates privacy-enhancing technologies for dApps, employing cryptography-based consensus to enable secure application development with advanced data privacy practices.

Sub-Award Winners

• Buff Network:
  Buff Network functions as a peer-to-pool derivatives trading platform, offering user-friendly interfaces for efficient trade execution. It elevates engagement in decentralized finance through innovative trading solutions.
• PoseiSwap:
  PoseiSwap facilitates the seamless exchange of DeFi and TradFi assets by extending DEX functionality to support diverse financial instruments, thus bridging crypto-native and traditional markets for improved interoperability.

Explore all projects from the hackathon at https://dorahacks.io/hackathon/stanfordhack/buidl.

Organization Overview

Stanford Blockchain Accelerator

The Stanford Blockchain Accelerator is a non-dilutive program run by students and alumni and is part of the Stanford Blockchain Club student group. They incubate Stanford student and alumni teams in a 5 month program, helping them build, raise, and launch blockchain projects. Over 90% of teams graduating from their program raise from the leading funds (>$80M cumulative raises), and over 60% launch and are post revenue within 6 months of their program!

@ 06639a38:655f8f71

A while back I shared this note via Nostr: https://njump.me/a0da4693dc761c649e46606ba4cc11cd05afbed2d7c763775d7ba29a473cbed3

I feel I need to ventilate some things I'm struggling with. As a indiepreneur I don't have many professionals around me with who I can share my daily struggles which I'm handling now. I'm aware it's a sort of a luxury position where the current fricton is coming from. It's because I've said too much yes to some responsabilties. I'm managing 4 client (Drupal) projects at this moment and all of them are asking for decent amount of my attention. Integrating new features, updating existing features, questions how things work, bugfixes etc. Normally their demand of them is steady. But as always, at the end of the year things are stacking up. It's no surprise that you can't manage their demands so it's the expection of my output to them I have to manage. It's the output I create for the value I deliver. Especially one project is getting all of my attention because I'm building a complete new commerce rental system with Drupal for campers. There is a deadline involved there, I've one month left to build it and have it tested.  
For me it's very challenging to manage those expectations and basicly saying no to things in a friendly way. But offcourse, this also takes time...

With this said, there is another project which is not actively demanding anything from me (it's not a kind of a customer client): Nostr-PHP. My work pace on this project is lacking, but it's the damn thing I love the most to work on 💜

So what is this? What do I feel?
It feels like cognitive dissonation. If I follow my intrinsic motivation I can work on Nostr-PHP and other Nostr stuff for whole days. If I follow my ratio, it's all the client work what has to be done (and is mostly also paying the bills).

Anyway, now I ventilated this it's time to go back building stuff ⚒️ ⚒️ ⚒️
One thing I know of myself is that when the pressure is really high, I'm able to finish stuff rapidly for a short period of time. 

Since then I made quite some hours on one specific project building out a commerce rental platform with Drupal. Progress is made and I'm already quite proud on the achievements there. Also the client is happy with the results so far. As things evolve and are being tested, new insights popup which result in adjustments in the features made and the wishlist of new features grow. To me that's natural if you're building a custom solution. But this doesn't change the challenge I mentioned earlier, managing expections and decide to what I will spent my attention to. 

With that said, the development for Nostr-PHP library pretty much halted since december. So I decided to ask OpenSats to pause my grant for 3 months, so I can finish up the client-work without guilty feelings. My plan is to pick up the development again around March. 

At last, let me sum up the the things I've done in week 48 and 49 in 2024:

Nostr-PHP

• Release 1.5.1 https://github.com/nostrver-se/nostr-php/releases/tag/1.5.1
• Thanks for this compliment Prolic (developer of Flutr) https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqwuvj7hf9phszffuf7ydgtgkapvv0jf9zw4l9uuz2xhlwy63f08xqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qg4waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxummnw3ezucn89uqzp94nzvmh7nlh3qte8g4g2kz075pqy6gz837y0emeqc9m8l4dlpl672l3gr
• Collaboration efforts on encoding / decoding TLV entries in NIP-19: https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqpnrnguxe8qszsshvgkvhn6qjzxy7xsvx03rlrtddr62haj4lrm3qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhxummnw3ezucnpdejz7qpqxh039ng4nr2w5q6np5gzhpfjjgxd4gtkraxeuv9ew5sve7pytawq8l5dzr
• Working on a fix for a lib_gmp issue with the latest PHP releases:
  • https://github.com/nostrver-se/nostr-php/pull/71
  • https://github.com/nostrver-se/nostr-php/issues/75
  • https://github.com/nostrver-se/nostr-php/pull/76
• Merged https://github.com/nostrver-se/nostr-php/pull/76 and created a 1.5.2 release with this change
  • https://github.com/nostrver-se/nostr-php/releases/tag/1.5.2

Other stuff

• Wrote and published my second 90-days progress report for OpenSats.
  https://nostrver.se/blog/nostr-php-helper-library-90-day-opensats-report-2

@ af9d7040:42d05d35

Oswald: Ruthlessness in the Pursuit of Power and Survival

In Gotham City, Oswald Cobblepot, known as “The Penguin,” lives by the unrelenting rules of the mob: ruthless, without compromise or boundaries. For him, survival demands sheer will, extreme cunning, and coldness. He will do anything to achieve his aims, even betray those closest to him—like his mother, who has profoundly influenced him. His attachment to her is rooted in a twisted, obsessive need for approval, and his ruthlessness is not only a survival strategy but also an expression of his deeply embedded self-centeredness.

The Penguin maneuvers through the shadows of Gotham City with manipulation, deceit, and vengeance, like a serpent coiling around its prey. His every success is built on a disregard for humanity and a relentless thirst for power. Though he appears to show devotion to his mother, this is only another facet of his self-serving nature. He cherishes her only so long as she provides him with a sense of security; the moment she becomes a liability, he discards her without hesitation. This twisted complexity makes him a character who elicits both fascination and repulsion.

The Penguin’s unique blend of cruelty and contradiction separates him from the typical mob character. His ruthless selfishness is rooted in self-preservation. He is capable of manipulating or even betraying those closest to him. His “loyalty” is merely a mask for his unyielding self-interest. This guise of loyalty makes him more isolated and untrustworthy than those around him, ultimately marking him as a true antihero—someone who cannot be trusted and who feels no attachment even to those he holds dear.

Sofia: A Tender Wound in the Cold Reality

In contrast to the Penguin’s dark nature, Sofia, the female lead, presents a softer, yet no less complex character. Like him, she exists within Gotham’s shadows, but she retains a degree of innocence and kindness. Sofia, too, has a damaged side, but hers is gentler, perhaps even curable; her inner nature is resilient and compassionate. The Penguin, however, is wholly different—cold and selfish, with his inner darkness shaping every decision and action. Where Sofia struggles within Gotham’s corruption but maintains her inner light, the Penguin is the opposite, allowing his cruelty to permeate every aspect of his life.

Sofia’s presence is like a quiet undercurrent, casting the Penguin’s icy nature in sharper relief. She occasionally brings light into his shadowed world, though her warmth is ultimately no match for his darkness. Sofia’s compassion exposes the Penguin’s pathological selfishness, and her fleeting kindness only emphasizes his chilling indifference.

The Solitude of a Drifter

With its muted color palette, the film portrays Gotham as a city almost devoid of life, where the clamor of daily existence only serves to conceal an underlying emptiness. The city’s visual loneliness, along with a slow, deliberate narrative and moments of silence, subtly reflects the Penguin’s inner struggle. His journey for power begins with a warped attachment to Gotham, and as the story unfolds, we see him descend into total darkness, losing all semblance of warmth. The scattered plot structure and somber music shape his evolution into a kind of melancholic, fragmented poem.

In this solitude, the director refrains from casting the Penguin in simple moral terms. Like life itself, the narrative is complex and fragmented, juxtaposing Gotham’s wealthy and impoverished neighborhoods to create a blurry psychological divide. In this “ruin” of Gotham, some people drift, some settle, while the Penguin himself wanders, searching for a place to belong. The pacing and cinematography draw the viewer in as though they are walking Gotham’s desolate streets, accompanied by a haunting piano melody.

The Paradox of Power and Loneliness

The Penguin’s loneliness is not merely a result of Gotham’s darkness; it is the byproduct of his dependence on power. His need for control and his fixation on security bind him, like twin shackles, to his misery. He cannot escape his solitude even when perched at the top of Gotham’s hierarchy. His attachment to his mother is merely an extension of his self-interest; he has never truly known love or warmth. His cold and selfish nature is not a choice but an innate part of him, driving him inevitably toward isolation.

The series offers no definitive moral compass nor romanticizes any side. The Penguin’s relationship with Sofia and the sacrifices, betrayals, and suffering they both endure on the road to power seem to reflect the harsh realities of life. Gotham’s “ruinous” stage presents each character grappling with their choices and their costs.

Moving Forward in the Darkness

The allure of The Penguin lies not only in its portrayal of an antihero but also in its exploration of the character’s inner lives. The Penguin’s turbulent life as a mobster intertwines with his attachment to Gotham, echoing those who search for belonging in places that feel forgotten. Sofia’s gentleness and fragile compassion, like a tender blade, continually pierce the Penguin’s illusions about power and loneliness.

The Penguin does not rise to power swiftly; instead, he edges toward a deep, inevitable abyss. The director’s pacing, intense and deliberate, brings the Penguin closer to the heights of power while making his solitude more profound. The Penguin strikes at the heart of adult disillusionment, showing us that the world will not soften simply because we yield. We can only stumble forward in the dark, perhaps even make peace with it.

— Written by @Shaun on November 13, 2024

Chinese version

@ cbaa0c82:e9313245

TheWholeGrain - #September2024

To start the second year of Bread and Toast off strong the September of 2024 includes five Sunday Singles, and the newest piece of cover art for a comic from Toast's Comic Collection includes a touch of color. Some bonus pieces of content were included this September. This includes one of the Political posts we all take so seriously, and a promotional piece for the upcoming npub10hj9rg5gds5x2gk0z0s2jlqnq04jg7g30aj2t5pqzdaaztfactgsnze5ny event coming up in October. The Concept Art released this month is an early design of a possible website logo. This month's Bitcoin Art stars End-Piece who is well informed on what money really is and asks the question, "Do you?"

September Sunday Singles

2024-09-01 | Sunday Single 055 Jump Rope https://i.nostr.build/ESlb23xVmTQLw7sw.png

2024-09-08 | Sunday Single 056 Trampoline https://i.nostr.build/1HNutqYQUjsA1JaG.png

2024-09-15 | Sunday Single 057 Hippity Hop https://i.nostr.build/5dTyLA0FJdK2rNol.png

2024-09-22 | Sunday Single 058 Jumping on the Bed https://i.nostr.build/PWaHDMroMjjfPmWS.png

2024-09-29 | Sunday Single 059 Shades https://i.nostr.build/pWeIZrttOjpcXAtz.png

Other Content Released in September 2024

2024-09-04 | Toast's Comic Collection Teenage Mutant Ninja Bread #5 Four brothers trained in ninjutsu live underneath the city and come up to the surface in order to save it! https://i.nostr.build/WPSB1qn2lMRlbdwJ.png

2024-09-10 | Politics Debate Night The first official debate between the candidates for Selection2024. https://i.nostr.build/wppFU8U3NJCww6U0.png

2024-09-11 | Concept Art Early Website Logo Design This is an early concept for a logo. It was never used. https://i.nostr.build/hxhzvtS4fCe0imNh.png

2024-09-18 | Bitcoin Art On Top of It End-Piece knows what money is. Do you? https://i.nostr.build/6TCWK5d1ynPhrteA.png

2024-09-27 | Nostr Valley Nostr Valley 001 Bread is getting prepared for NostrValley! Hope to see you there! https://i.nostr.build/nQqsPGmJ8hjvxROK.png

September Additions to The Bakery in 2024

2024-09-05 | npub1895dg7n47ldxxq8hyqj9h4xa3xwwxzpnn8lm7hydag4tck6cfj3qcmc4f0 https://m.primal.net/KgDW.jpg

2024-09-26 | npub1hcusg0xp9maamlh9vnv4mf635uwldsfeut00ghzrrjk7kjjh8j3sf9049l https://image.nostr.build/a0a64d709376b3650ebde0f3de5076748d69a999aef9e5fbd882574d5e64cf88.jpg

We hope you enjoyed this first issue of The Whole Grain. The Whole Grain will be released on the first of every month and will cover all of the content released by npub1ew4qeq576v3vz4gukeseknqghx3x4jtlld8ftys9amrca6f3xfzsrm8jpd in the previous month.

Thanks for checking it out, Bread, Toast, and End-Piece

BreadandToast #SundaySingle #ToastsComicCollection #ConceptArt #BitcoinArt #TheBakery #Bread #Toast #EndPiece #Art #Artstr #DigitalArt #Comic #Manga #NostrValley #NostrOnly #🖼️

@ 2063cd79:57bd1320

Singularität ist ein heißes Thema, da sie ein potenziell transformatives und disruptives Ereignis in verschiedenen Bereichen darstellt, darunter Technologie, künstliche Intelligenz und die Gesellschaft als Ganzes. Singularität stellt einen Punkt unbekannter und potenziell schneller Veränderung dar. Die Ungewissheit darüber, wie sich Technologien weiterentwickeln, welche Auswirkungen sie haben und welche möglichen Konsequenzen sie mit sich bringen, weckt Neugier, Spekulationen und Diskussionen.

Oft wird diskutiert, wie die Zukunft unseres Geldsystems aussehen könnte. Dem Euro wird keine rosige Zukunft zugesprochen, dem Dollar hingegen mittelfristig schon. Doch entwickelt sich unsere Gesellschaft und damit ihre Ansprüche und Bedürfnisse weiter. Die Entwicklung der letzten Jahrzehnte hat im Vergleich zu den Jahrhunderten davor und den Jahrtausenden davor extrem zugenommen.

Alleine das letzte Jahrhundert hat drei industrielle Revolutionen hervorgebracht: die Dampfmaschine, das Zeitalter der Wissenschaft und Massenproduktion und der Aufstieg der digitalen Technologie. Mit den digitalen Technologien kam zum ersten Mal auch das Bedürfnis nach einem Geld für den digitalen Raum, bzw. für den digital vernetzten Raum auf, in dem wir uns heutzutage bewegen. Das Geld in seiner jetzigen Form existiert seit dem 17ten Jahrhundert und obwohl es sich nach außen hin in seiner Form und Funktion wenig verändert hat, ist eine technologische Entwicklung auch hier nicht zu leugnen. Denn Geld ist nicht gleich Geld. Das Bargeld (Papier- und Münzgeld), das wir in unserem täglichen Leben verwenden, unterscheidet sich ganz deutlich von Buchgeld (Giralgeld) und Warengeld.

Wir sehen also, dass es verschiedene Arten von Geld gibt. Und um die Sache zu erschweren, gibt es jede dieser Formen von Geld auch noch in über 160 Währungen, die von den jeweiligen Zentralbanken gesteuert und gelenkt werden. Wenn wir also sagen, dass z.B. die türkische Lira keine Zukunft hat, dann meinen wir nicht nur, dass die Geldscheine mit dem Lira-Aufdruck bald verschwinden, sondern dass das ganze Finanzsystem, dass hinter der türkischen Lira steckt systemische Probleme aufweist, die es nicht mehr auffangen kann.

Dabei ist es dem Grunde nach eigentlich ganz natürlich und ganz normal, dass Währungen mit der Zeit verschwinden oder schlicht durch andere Währungen ersetzt werden. Denn Menschen tendieren von Natur aus dazu, ein gemeinsames Geld innerhalb einer definierten Region auf einem freien Markt zu verwenden, weil es uns die größte Wahlfreiheit bei der größten Anzahl von Handelspartnern und der höchsten Liquidität bietet.

Europa ist das beste Beispiel für diese Annahme. Um den Handel zu vereinfachen und Wertschöpfungsketten (yes, endlich mein Lieblings-Unwort eingebaut) zu steigern, haben sich 19 Länder dazu entschlossen, ihre Währung zugunsten des Euros aufzugeben. Dieses Phänomen der Bewegung hin zu einem gemeinsamen Geld ist nicht nur in der Ökonomie bekannt. Denn dieses Phänomen kann immer und insbesondere dann beobachtet werden, wenn die Konvergenz hin zu einem gemeinsamen Standard den Nutzer//innen den größten Nutzen bietet und Netzwerkeffekte fördert. Dieses Phänomen hat auch einen (inoffiziellen) Namen und zwar: monetäre Singularität - abgewandelt von der hypothetischen zukünftigen technologischen Singularität.

Obwohl „Monetäre Singularität“ im Wirtschafts- oder Finanzbereich keinen allgemein anerkannten Begriff darstellt, lässt sich durch seine Bestandteile ableiten, worauf sich der Name bezieht. "Monetär“ bezieht sich auf alles, was mit Geld oder Währung zu tun hat, während sich „Singularität“ häufig auf einen Punkt erheblicher Veränderung oder ein Ereignis bezieht, bei dem bestehende Regeln oder Normen nicht mehr gelten. Daraus lässt sich ableiten, dass sich „monetäre Singularität“ - also ein Kunstbegriff abgeleitet aus der Naturwissenschaft - auf ein hypothetisches Szenario bezieht, in dem es zu einer radikalen Veränderung der Funktionsweise des Geldes oder des Währungssystems kommt.

Mit Hinblick auf das aktuelle Finanzsystem hat Brent Johnson diesem Phänomen den viel eingängigen Namen "Dollar Milkshake Theory" verpasst. In dieser Theorie geht es darum, dass der US Dollar weiter an Stärke gewinnt und den Devisenmärkten auf der ganzen Welt Liquidität entzieht. Woher der Name? Man stelle sich vor, man hat einen Milchshake und sitzt an einem Tisch auf der anderen Seite des Raumes. Man stelle sich auch vor, jemand anderes hat einen wirklich langen Strohhalm. So kann der/diejenige seinen/ihren Strohhalm in den eigenen Milchshake stecken und ihn trinken, auch wenn man am anderen Ende des Raums sitzt. Der eigene Milchshake ist in diesem Fall eine Fremdwährung, der/diejenige, der/die trinkt, ist natürlich der US Dollar selbst. Das führt zu einer Konzentration aller Geschäfte in US Dollar.

Schaut man über den Tellerrand der heutigen Zentralbankgelder hinaus, ergeben sich einige weitere interessante Einordnungsversuche für die Singularität des Geldes, die die oben angesprochenen Bedürfnisse des digitalen Zeitalters in Betracht ziehen. Denn die Idee, dass Fortschritte in der Technologie, insbesondere im Bereich digitaler Währungen und Finanzsysteme, zu einer erheblichen Veränderung der Funktionsweise des Geldes führen könnten, klingt dann gar nicht mehr so abwegig. Es deutet darauf hin, dass zukünftige Entwicklungen, wie eine breite Adaption von Bitcoin, zu einer grundlegenden Veränderung in der Art und Weise führen könnten, wie Geld geschaffen, gespeichert, gehandelt und verwaltet wird.

Aus gesellschaftlicher Sicht besitzt Geld als soziales und kulturelles Konstrukt eine transformative Kraft, die menschliche Beziehungen, Werte und Verhaltensweisen umgestalten kann. Eine Singularität des Geldes würde in diesem Zusammenhang tiefgreifende und beispiellose Auswirkungen auf die Gesellschaft haben, die sich aus der veränderten Rolle des Geldes ergeben würden.

Aus gesellschaftlicher Sicht ist ein Streben nach technologischer Konvergenz hin ganz natürlich und passiert fast automatisch, solange es einen größten gemeinsamen Nutzen bietet und Netzwerkeffekte fördert. Das beste Beispiel dafür sind Sprachen. Es ist schwierig, genaue Zahlen zu nennen, aber Linguisten schätzen, dass es in der Geschichte der Menschheit etwa 31.000 Sprachen gab. Schätzungen zufolge werden heutzutage weltweit zwischen 6.000 und 7.000 Sprachen gesprochen. Forscher und Analysten prognostizieren, dass im frühen 22. Jahrhundert nur noch 600 bis 700 Sprachen im täglichen Gebrauch verbreitet sein werden. Sprache ist eine Technologie, sie wurde erfunden, verbessert, verändert, den Gegebenheiten angepasst und oft verschmolzen. Deshalb ist es kein Wunder, dass die Anzahl der gesprochenen Sprachen abnimmt. Denn Unterschiede erzeugen Reibung und Reibung ist ineffizient. Sowohl für das gesellschaftliche Miteinander als auch für den Handel und die Wirtschaft.

Gemeinsame Sprache hat viele Vorteile in einer globalisierten Welt, denn sie vereinfacht die Kommunikation und den Austausch zwischen Handelspartnern, politischen Einrichtungen und eröffnet auch viele neue Möglichkeiten in der Bildung. Wer z.B. Englisch spricht, hat einen viel größeren Pool an Literatur und Nachschlagewerken zur Verfügung, als jemand der/die "nur" eine lokale Sprache spricht. Das kann und wird dazu führen, dass menschliche Sprachen im Laufe der Zeit erhebliche Veränderungen, Anpassungen und manchmal sogar das Aussterben erfahren.

Gerade im Bereich der Programmiersprachen ist zu erwarten, dass zukünftige Entwicklungen in der künstlichen Intelligenz und im maschinellen Lernen einen tiefgreifenden Wandel in der Art und Weise bewirken, wie Sprachen verstanden, übersetzt und kommuniziert werden könnten.

Wie oben erwähnt, tendieren Menschen dazu, gemeinsame Technologien innerhalb definierter Regionen zu verwenden. Das war besonders in der Vergangenheit der Fall, als definierte Regionen übersichtlich waren. Mit der Globalisierung wurden diese lokalen Rahmen gesprengt, mit der Digitalisierung atomisiert!

Diese (künstlich) definierten Regionen werden immer weiter aufgebrochen. Im Falle von Sprachen vermischen sich Kulturen und ethnische Gruppen immer mehr und bringen dadurch auch eine Vermischung von Sprachen mit sich. Das Internet hat zu einer Atomisierung dieser Regionen geführt. Das kann man z.B. an der heutigen Sprache im deutschsprachigen Raum erkennen, wo das sogenannte Denglisch immer weiter Einzug erhält und einige Berufsgruppen hauptsächlich auf Englisch kommunizieren (man denke an den Flugverkehr, Hochseeschifffahrt, aber auch Bereiche des Finanzsektors, der Medien und der Beratungen).

Ein Beispiel von künstlich erzeugten Rahmen und mit durch äußerer Gewalt erzeugter Singularität kann in der Debatte um Antriebstechnologien in der EU beobachtet werden. Hier wird mit Hilfe von Gesetzen eine Technologie zum One-Size-Fits-All-Standard erhoben. Der Elektroantrieb bei Automobilen hat sicherlich seinen Platz, jedoch heißt es nicht, dass es verschiedene Anwendungsbereiche gibt, in denen Elektromobilität mehr oder weniger sinnvoll ist. Kleine Elektrofahrzeuge für den Innenstadtverkehr haben viele Vorteile gegenüber Abgase produzierenden Antrieben, die direkten Einfluss auf die Gesundheit der Menschen haben. Allerdings bedeutet dies nicht, dass Elektroantriebe auch für den Langstreckenverkehr sinnvoll sind, wenn die Alternative Wasserstoff- oder schadstoffarme Verbrennungsantriebe sind, die zum einen kostengünstiger, und zum anderen nachhaltiger sein können. Eine Gesetzgebung, die pauschal eine Technologie über seine Wettbewerbstechnologien stellt, führt zu einer künstlich hervorgerufenen Singularität, die aber nicht die oben genannten Kriterien der Nutzenmaximierung und der Netzwerkeffekte erfüllt.

Geld hat in seiner Geschichte eine ähnliche Entwicklung erfahren. Das ist eine ganz natürliche Entwicklung, da Geld einen Schutz vor Spezialisierung bietet. Denn die Spezialisierung auf einen bestimmten Produktions- / Dienstleistungsbereich ist erstmal positiv und führt zu einer Steigerung von Produktion und Wohlstand, allerdings ist diese auch riskant, da nicht alle Menschen das erzeugte Gut im Austausch oder im Handel akzeptieren werden. Wenn das erzeugte Gut in neutrales Geld getauscht werden kann, bietet das dem Produzenten einen gewissen Schutz.

Wenn ein Produzent sich nicht sicher sein kann, was er/sie in Zukunft mit seinen erwirtschafteten Überhängen erwerben oder investieren möchte, ist das Gut, das am besten zum Sparen dieser Profite geeignet ist, dasjenige, das über die besten Geldeigenschaften verfügt. In einem regional eingeschränkten Rahmen mag dies eine lokale Währung sein, doch in einer Welt, in der internationaler Handel und Austausch betrieben wird, erlangt das Geld mit der höchsten Neutralität oder der weitverbreitetsten Akzeptanz automatisch die besten Geldeigenschaften.

Wenn man z.B. den südafrikanischen Rand mit US Dollars vergleicht, wird man sehen, dass der USD eine viel höhere Akzeptanz genießt, als der ZAR. Man wird wahrscheinlich selbst in asiatischen Ländern im Notfall mit USD bezahlen können, einfach weil die Handelspartner dort wissen, dass es für sie einfach ist, USD in ihre lokale Währung umzutauschen. Mit Rand wird man Probleme bekommen, da diese als Tauschobjekt von Handelspartnern keine Zustimmung genießen.

https://www.genexyz.org/post/28-block-780040-ist-bitcoin-geld-wuwok0/

Wenn es in der Gesellschaft mehr als ein Geld gibt, gibt es immer einen gewissen Risikokompromiss das eine oder das Zahlungsmittel zu akzeptieren. Dies führt zu einem Anreiz, das beste Geld zu wählen - sofern diese Wahl überhaupt besteht - und damit zu einem natürlichen Druck nach einem gemeinsamen Geld, das diese Risikoabwägung eliminiert.

Dieser natürliche Druck nach einem gemeinsamen Geld sorgt für Wohlstand in der Gesellschaft. Doch ist die Realität eben auch, dass Staaten oder Regierungen genau hier eingreifen und den Menschen das eigene Geld auferlegen und diesem eben auch einen Wert zuweisen. Dies erlaubt den kontrollierenden Akteuren, den erzeugten Wohlstand abzusaugen (Steuern, Fiskal- und Geldpolitik), denn diesen können sie entweder für sich behalten oder verteilen ihn ungleichmäßig um.

Dieses Eingreifen in den marktwirtschaftlichen Prozess der Geldevolution kann nur ein Geld verhindern, das außerhalb dieser künstlich von außen geschaffenen Rahmen existiert. Ein Geld, das weder von Institutionen oder Regierungen geschaffen und in Umlauf gebracht wird. Ein Zahlungsmittel mit nahezu perfekten neutralen Geldeigenschaften (teilbar, austauschbar, einfach transportierbar, haltbar, prüfbar, knapp, universell akzeptiert und leicht sicherungsfähig, sowie erlaubnis- und vertrauenslos) ermöglicht den oben beschriebenen Druck nach einem gemeinsamen Geld und befeuert den damit einhergehenden Wohlstand in der Gesellschaft.

Wäre es nicht schön, wenn so ein Zahlungsmittel mit nahezu perfekten Geldeigenschaften vor knapp 14 Jahren entdeckt worden wäre? Der einzige Weg, den natürlichen Entwicklungsprozess hin zu einem singulären Geldstandard zu stoppen, ist durch Verbote und Regulierungen seitens der herrschenden Obrigkeiten - siehe Verbrennungsmotor. Doch ist es viel leichter ein Abgase emittierendes Auto von der Straße zu ziehen und stillzulegen, als einem/r mündigen Bürger//in zu verbieten sein/ihr Erspartes in einer harten Geldform zu lagern und mit anderen Nutzer//innen frei zu handeln.

🫳🎤

---

In diesem Sinne, 2... 1... Risiko!‌

@ c4f5e7a7:8856cac7

Best viewed on Habla, YakiHonne or Highlighter.

TL;DR

This article explores the links between public, community-driven data sources (such as OpenStreetMap) and private, cryptographically-owned data found on networks such as Nostr.

The following concepts are explored:

1. Attestations: Users signalling to their social graph that they believe something to be true by publishing Attestations. These social proofs act as a decentralised verification system that leverages your web-of-trust.
2. Proof of Place: An oracle-based system where physical letters are sent to real-world locations, confirming the corresponding digital ownership via cryptographic proofs. This binds physical locations in meatspace with their digital representations in the Nostrverse.
3. Check-ins: Foursquare-style check-ins that can be verified using attestations from place owners, ensuring authenticity. This approach uses web-of-trust to validate check-ins and location ownership over time.

The goal is to leverage cryptographic ownership where necessary while preserving the open, collaborative nature of public data systems.

Open Data in a public commons has a place and should not be thrown out with the Web 2.0 bathwater.

Cognitive Dissonance

Ever since discovering Nostr in August of 2022 I've been grappling with how BTC Map - a project that helps bitcoiners find places to spend sats - should most appropriately use this new protocol.

I am assuming, dear reader, that you are somewhat familiar with Nostr - a relatively new protocol for decentralised identity and communication. If you don’t know your nsec from your npub, please take some time to read these excellent posts: Nostr is Identity for the Internet and The Power of Nostr by @max and @lyn, respectively. Nostr is so much more than a short-form social media replacement.

The social features (check-ins, reviews, etc.) that Nostr unlocks for BTC Map are clear and exciting - all your silos are indeed broken - however, something fundamental has been bothering me for a while and I think it comes down to data ownership.

For those unfamiliar, BTC Map uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) as its main geographic database. OSM is centred on the concept of a commons of objectively verifiable data that is maintained by a global community of volunteer editors; a Wikipedia for maps. There is no data ownership; the data is free (as in freedom) and anyone can edit anything. It is the data equivalent of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) - FOSD if you will, but more commonly referred to as Open Data.

In contrast, Notes and Other Stuff on Nostr (Places in this cartographic context) are explicitly owned by the controller of the private key. These notes are free to propagate, but they are owned.

How do we reconcile the decentralised nature of Nostr, where data is cryptographically owned by individuals, with the community-managed data commons of OpenStreetMap, where no one owns the data?

Self-sovereign Identity

Before I address this coexistence question, I want to talk a little about identity as it pertains to ownership. If something is to be owned, it has to be owned by someone or something - an identity.

All identities that are not self-sovereign are, by definition, leased to you by a 3rd party. You rent your Facebook identity from Meta in exchange for your data. You rent your web domain from your DNS provider in exchange for your money.

Taken to the extreme, you rent your passport from your Government in exchange for your compliance. You are you at the pleasure of others. Where Bitcoin separates money from the state; Nostr separates identity from the state.

Or, as @nvk said recently: "Don't build your house on someone else's land.".

https://i.nostr.build/xpcCSkDg3uVw0yku.png

While we’ve had the tools for self-sovereign digital identity for decades (think PGP keys or WebAuthN), we haven't had the necessary social use cases nor the corresponding social graph to elevate these identities to the mainstream. Nostr fixes this.

Nostr is PGP for the masses and will take cryptographic identities mainstream.

Full NOSTARD?

Returning to the coexistence question: the data on OpenStreetMap isn’t directly owned by anyone, even though the physical entities the data represents might be privately owned. OSM is a data commons.

We can objectively agree on the location of a tree or a fire hydrant without needing permission to observe and record it. Sure, you could place a tree ‘on Nostr’, but why should you? Just because something can be ‘on Nostr’ doesn’t mean it should be.

https://i.nostr.build/s3So2JVAqoY4E1dI.png

There might be a dystopian future where we can't agree on what a tree is nor where it's located, but I hope we never get there. It's at this point we'll need a Wikifreedia variant of OpenStreetMap.

While integrating Nostr identities into OpenStreetMap would be valuable, the current OSM infrastructure, tools, and community already provide substantial benefits in managing this data commons without needing to go NOSTR-native - there's no need to go Full NOSTARD. H/T to @princeySOV for the original meme.

https://i.nostr.build/ot9jtM5cZtDHNKWc.png

So, how do we appropriately blend cryptographically owned data with the commons?

If a location is owned in meatspace and it's useful to signal that ownership, it should also be owned in cyberspace. Our efforts should therefore focus on entities like businesses, while allowing the commons to manage public data for as long as it can successfully mitigate the tragedy of the commons.

The remainder of this article explores how we can:

1. Verify ownership of a physical place in the real world;
2. Link that ownership to the corresponding digital place in cyberspace.

As a side note, I don't see private key custodianship - or, even worse, permissioned use of Places signed by another identity's key - as any more viable than the rented identities of Web 2.0.

And as we all know, the Second Law of Infodynamics (no citation!) states that:

"The total amount of sensitive information leaked will always increase over time."

This especially holds true if that data is centralised.

Not your keys, not your notes. Not your keys, not your identity.

Places and Web-of-Trust

@Arkinox has been leading the charge on the Places NIP, introducing Nostr notes (kind 37515) that represent physical locations. The draft is well-crafted, with bonus points for linking back to OSM (and other location repositories) via NIP-73 - External Content IDs (championed by @oscar of @fountain).

However, as Nostr is permissionless, authenticity poses a challenge. Just because someone claims to own a physical location on the Internet doesn’t necessarily mean they have ownership or control of that location in the real world.

Ultimately, this problem can only be solved in a decentralised way by using Web-of-Trust - using your social graph and the perspectives of trusted peers to inform your own perspective. In the context of Places, this requires your network to form a view on which digital identity (public key / npub) is truly the owner of a physical place like your local coffee shop.

This requires users to:

1. Verify the owner of a Place in cyberspace is the owner of a place in meatspace.
2. Signal this verification to their social graph.

Let's look at the latter idea first with the concept of Attestations ...

Attestations

A way to signal to your social graph that you believe something to be true (or false for that matter) would be by publishing an Attestation note. An Attestation note would signify to your social graph that you think something is either true or false.

Imagine you're a regular at a local coffee shop. You publish an Attestation that says the shop is real and the owner behind the Nostr public key is who they claim to be. Your friends trust you, so they start trusting the shop's digital identity too.

However, attestations applied to Places are just a single use case. The attestation concept could be more widely applied across Nostr in a variety of ways (key rotation, identity linking, etc).

Here is a recent example from @lyn that would carry more signal if it were an Attestation:

https://i.nostr.build/lZAXOEwvRIghgFY4.png

Parallels can be drawn between Attestations and transaction confirmations on the Bitcoin timechain; however, their importance to you would be weighted by clients and/or Data Vending Machines in accordance with:

1. Your social graph;
2. The type or subject of the content being attested and by whom;
3. Your personal preferences.

They could also have a validity duration to be temporally bound, which would be particularly useful in the case of Places.

NIP-25 (Reactions) do allow for users to up/downvote notes with optional content (e.g., emojis) and could work for Attestations, but I think we need something less ambiguous and more definitive.

‘This is true’ resonates more strongly than ‘I like this.’.

https://i.nostr.build/s8NIG2kXzUCLcoax.jpg

There are similar concepts in the Web 3 / Web 5 world such as Verified Credentials by tdb. However, Nostr is the Web 3 now and so wen Attestation NIP?

https://i.nostr.build/Cb047NWyHdJ7h5Ka.jpg

That said, I have seen @utxo has been exploring ‘smart contracts’ on nostr and Attestations may just be a relatively ‘dumb’ subset of the wider concept Nostr-native scripting combined with web-of-trust.

Proof of Place

Attestations handle the signalling of your truth, but what about the initial verification itself?

We already covered how this ultimately has to be derived from your social graph, but what if there was a way to help bootstrap this web-of-trust through the use of oracles? For those unfamiliar with oracles in the digital realm, they are simply trusted purveyors of truth.

Introducing Proof of Place, an out–of-band process where an oracle (such as BTC Map) would mail - yes physically mail- a shared secret to the address of the location being claimed in cyberspace. This shared secret would be locked to the public key (npub) making the claim, which, if unlocked, would prove that the associated private key (nsec) has physical access to the location in meatspace.

One way of doing this would be to mint a 1 sat cashu ecash token locked to the npub of the claimant and mail it to them. If they are able to redeem the token then they have cryptographically proven that they have physical access to the location.

Proof of Place is really nothing more than a weighted Attestation. In a web-of-trust Nostrverse, an oracle is simply a npub (say BTC Map) that you weigh heavily for its opinion on a given topic (say Places).

In the Bitcoin world, Proof of Work anchors digital scarcity in cyberspace to physical scarcity (energy and time) in meatspace and as @Gigi says in PoW is Essential:

"A failure to understand Proof of Work, is a failure to understand Bitcoin."

In the Nostrverse, Proof of Place helps bridge the digital and physical worlds.

@Gigi also observes in Memes vs The World that:

"In Bitcoin, the map is the territory. We can infer everything we care about by looking at the map alone."

https://i.nostr.build/dOnpxfI4u7EL2v4e.png

This isn’t true for Nostr.

In the Nostrverse, the map IS NOT the territory. However, Proof of Place enables us to send cryptographic drones down into the physical territory to help us interpret our digital maps. 🤯

Check-ins

Although not a draft NIP yet, @Arkinox has also been exploring the familiar concept of Foursquare-style Check-ins on Nostr (with kind 13811 notes).

For the uninitiated, Check-ins are simply notes that signal the publisher is at a given location. These locations could be Places (in the Nostr sense) or any other given digital representation of a location for that matter (such as OSM elements) if NIP-73 - External Content IDs are used.

Of course, not everyone will be a Check-in enjoyooor as the concept will not sit well with some people’s threat models and OpSec practices.

Bringing Check-ins to Nostr is possible (as @sebastix capably shows here), but they suffer the same authenticity issues as Places. Just because I say I'm at a given location doesn't mean that I am.

Back in the Web 2.0 days, Foursquare mitigated this by relying on the GPS position of the phone running their app, but this is of course spoofable.

How should we approach Check-in verifiability in the Nostrverse? Well, just like with Places, we can use Attestations and WoT. In the context of Check-ins, an Attestation from the identity (npub) of the Place being checked-in to would be a particularly strong signal. An NFC device could be placed in a coffee shop and attest to check-ins without requiring the owner to manually intervene - I’m sure @blackcoffee and @Ben Arc could hack something together over a weekend!

Check-ins could also be used as a signal for bonafide Place ownership over time.

Summary: Trust Your Bros

So, to recap, we have:

Places: Digital representations of physical locations on Nostr.

Check-ins: Users signalling their presence at a location.

Attestations: Verifiable social proofs used to confirm ownership or the truth of a claim.

You can visualise how these three concepts combine in the diagram below:

https://i.nostr.build/Uv2Jhx5BBfA51y0K.jpg

And, as always, top right trumps bottom left! We have:

Level 0 - Trust Me Bro: Anyone can check-in anywhere. The Place might not exist or might be impersonating the real place in meatspace. The person behind the npub may not have even been there at all.

Level 1 - Definitely Maybe Somewhere: This category covers the middle-ground of ‘Maybe at a Place’ and ‘Definitely Somewhere’. In these examples, you are either self-certifying that you have checked-in at an Attested Place or you are having others attest that you have checked-in at a Place that might not even exist IRL.

Level 2 - Trust Your Bros: An Attested Check-in at an Attested Place. Your individual level of trust would be a function of the number of Attestations and how you weigh them within your own social graph.

https://i.nostr.build/HtLAiJH1uQSTmdxf.jpg

Perhaps the gold standard (or should that be the Bitcoin standard?) would be a Check-in attested by the owner of the Place, which in itself was attested by BTC Map?

Or perhaps not. Ultimately, it’s the users responsibility to determine what they trust by forming their own perspective within the Nostrverse powered by web-of-trust algorithms they control. ‘Trust Me Bro’ or ‘Trust Your Bros’ - you decide.

As we navigate the frontier of cryptographic ownership and decentralised data, it’s up to us to find the balance between preserving the Open Data commons and embracing self-sovereign digital identities.

Thanks

With thanks to Arkinox, Avi, Ben Gunn, Kieran, Blackcoffee, Sebastix, Tomek, Calle, Short Fiat, Ben Weeks and Bitcoms for helping shape my thoughts and refine content, whether you know it or not!

@ d5301745:bc7cda1a

Do you need help with the "Orbi Connection Problem"? Your network's performance and connectivity may be affected by this frequent problem. The first step in fixing it is to use the default IP or web address to reach the Orbi Login page. Next, make sure all connections are safe, update firmware, and check your settings. Restarting your extender and router may also be beneficial. A steady and dependable internet connection can be promptly restored by troubleshooting via the Orbi Login interface.

@ 599f67f7:21fb3ea9

¿Qué es una dirección Lightning o Lightning address?

Una dirección Lightning es una dirección que visualmente se asemeja a una dirección de correo electrónico legible para los humanos, por ejemplo usuario@dominio.com pero que en realidad te permite recibir pagos en bitcoin instantáneos y económicos, sin la necesidad de tener un nodo en linea en tu dispositivo ni tener que generar facturas de forma manual cada vez que alguien te quiere hacer un pago.

¿Suena bien no?

¿Y cómo funciona?

Funciona utilizando el protocolo de pago LNURL.

Aquí se muestra un sencillo esquema de lo que ocurre en segundo plano.

En resumen, cuando otro usuario quiere pagarte usando tu dirección Lightning, tu billetera convierte la dirección Lightning en una solicitud de pago LNURL. Luego se utiliza esa solicitud de pago LNURL exitosa para obtener una factura BOLT11.

💡 Dirección Lightning > LNURLp > Factura BOLT 11.

Suena bien, pero ¿cuál es el problema?

Por el momento, muchas de las implementaciones de Lightning Address son de custodia, porque se necesita un dominio para que Lightning Address funcione y un nodo que esté siempre en línea para recibir los pagos. Debido a que es de custodia, el custodio puede atacarte en cualquier momento y monitorear tus transacciones.

Tienes que confiar en el propietario del dominio para no cambiar el registro de tu dirección Lightning. Y no funciona si el servidor LNURL no está en línea.

Bitcoin Txoko ofrece una sencilla solución de Lightning Address respaldada por LNbits. Esto también es de custodia, así que por favor mantén solo una pequeña cantidad en tu billetera Bitcoin Txoko y ve retirando a tu billetera de autocustodia a medida que recibas más sats.

Estoy listo, ¿qué necesito para empezar?

¡Todo lo que necesitas es un teléfono móvil o un ordenador y una conexión a Internet!

1. Creando tu billetera

Si aún no lo has hecho, navega a https://bitcointxoko.com y crea una nueva billetera. Puedes elegir el nombre que quieras.

2. Activar extensiones

Hace falta la extensión Pay Links para que las direcciones Lightning funcionen.

Abre Extensiones en la barra de herramientas y activa Pay Links.

3. Creando tu enlace de pago

• En a la extensión Pay Links, haz clic en New Pay Link.

• Elige la billetera que has creado.

• Para la descripción del artículo, puedes escribir lo que quieras.

• Elige un nombre de usuario de tu dirección Lightning. Tu dirección Lightning se verá como username@bitcointxoko.com.

• Desmarque Fixed amount y cambia el valor mínimo a 1 y el valor máximo a 500000.

⚠️ También puedes cambiar el valor máximo a algo más alto, pero es más probable que los pagos más grandes fallen debido a la limitada capacidad de entrada del nodo Lightning de Bitcoin Txoko. Así que recomendamos mantenerlo en 500000 sats.

• Ahora abre Advanced options y cambia Comment maximum characters a 799. Este paso no es necesario pero permite más funcionalidades más adelante.

• Marca Enable nostr zaps en la parte inferior, para que puedas utilizar tu dirección Lightning para recibir zaps.

• Las demás opciones avanzadas son opcionales, puedes configurarlas si quieres o dejarlas en blanco.

Al final debería verse algo así.

• Cuando hayas comprobado que todo es correcto, sigue adelante y haz clic en Create Pay Link.

Probando

Puedes probar si tu nueva dirección Lightning funciona yendo a otra cartera, pulsando en Enviar y escribiendo tu dirección Lightning como destino, y luego enviándote una pequeña cantidad de sats.

Vuelve a tu billetera Bitcoin Txoko y comprueba si has recibido tu propio pago. Es posible que tengas que actualizar la página.

Si todo funcionó correctamente, ¡enhorabuena! 🥳

Si no es así, háznoslo saber. Siempre estamos aquí para ayudar.

Próximos pasos

Nostr zaps

Puedes añadir tu dirección Bitcoin Txoko Lightning a tu perfil de nostr y usarla para recibir zaps. Normalmente, esto se hace yendo a Perfil > Editar > Dirección Lightning y cambiando la dirección Lightning.

LNDhub

Puedes importar tu billetera LNbits como un LNDhub en tu teléfono utilizando una aplicación como Zeus o BlueWallet, en lugar de visitar la billetera en el navegador cada vez que desees comprobar tu saldo o realizar un pago. Echa un vistazo a nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzqkvlvlma7a55ccp6d5rrdc27h3ssmdmael286mjaq5uxmqslk04fqqxnzd3exuerqdfkxccnyv3cs0uvul sobre cómo hacer esto.

Código QR

También puedes compartir o imprimir tu código QR LNURLp para que la gente pueda escanearlo fácilmente con sus teléfonos. ¡Muy útil si estás introduciendo bitcoin a tu comerciante local favorito para que pueda recibir propinas Lightning!

Simplemente comparte el enlace a tu página compartida, o imprime el código QR como PDF yendo a View Link > Print.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Table Of Content

• ZeroSync's Vision for Bitcoin

• The Privacy Advantage

• ZeroSync's Journey and Support

• Bitcoin's Resistance to Change

• The Future: Bitcoin Simplicity

• Conclusion

• FAQ

A Swiss non-profit, ZeroSync, is at the forefront of a groundbreaking initiative, working on the world's first zero-knowledge light client for Bitcoin. This significant advancement is aimed at integrating zero-knowledge proofs into the most valuable cryptocurrency network.

ZeroSync's Vision for Bitcoin

ZeroSync's verifier for Bitcoin's block headers paves the way for the creation of a zk proof-based light client. This is a monumental step in their vision of permissionless innovation, as explained by project lead Robin Linus. The immediate application of such a light client could be to operate a Bitcoin full node on devices as compact as mobile phones. Furthermore, ZeroSync envisions a second-layer protocol over Bitcoin that can introduce tokens, like stablecoins, to the Bitcoin network. This would also lead to a substantial increase in throughput, up to 20 to 50 times, without necessitating any forks.

The Privacy Advantage

One of the standout features of this solution is its ability to process around 100 transactions on the base layer. Additionally, it offers unparalleled privacy. Transactions can be encrypted, both in terms of amounts and transaction graphs, providing privacy levels on par with cryptocurrencies like Zcash. Interestingly, this privacy feature is a natural outcome of the protocol's utilization of STARKs, a proving system developed by StarkWare, rather than an intentional design element.

ZeroSync's Journey and Support

ZeroSync's endeavors have garnered support in the form of grants from Geometry Research in 2022 and StarkWare more recently. Their pioneering work marks the first attempt to employ StarkWare's Cairo programming language outside the Ethereum ecosystem. While a soft fork would be essential for the trustless bitcoin bridging on the envisioned layer-2 network, the network can still support features like token transfers where transaction fees are paid in stablecoins, eliminating the need for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin's Resistance to Change

Bitcoin's design inherently resists change, demanding consensus from Core developers and almost unanimous agreement from full node operators, including miners. The last soft fork, Taproot, which took place in 2021, was years in the making and was only activated after over 90% of node operators gave their approval. Linus emphasizes the importance of some changes, especially the integration of a zk proof verifier on Bitcoin. ZeroSync aims to play a pivotal role in determining the most viable approach and actively participates in the community to drive this vision forward.

The Future: Bitcoin Simplicity

Zero-knowledge proof technology is still nascent, with various proof systems available, each with its own set of trade-offs. Reaching a consensus on a single system is challenging. However, Linus anticipates that the Simplicity programming language, introduced by Blockstream about half a decade ago, might offer a solution. Described as "Bitcoin's last soft fork," Simplicity could significantly enhance Bitcoin's scripting capabilities. The adoption of Simplicity would provide zk proof teams with the flexibility to choose their preferred proof system, eliminating debates over which verifier to activate.

Conclusion

The advancements spearheaded by ZeroSync have the potential to usher in a new era for the Bitcoin network. By integrating zero-knowledge proofs, Bitcoin can achieve heightened levels of privacy and security, ensuring that transaction details remain confidential while still being verifiable. This not only enhances user trust but also positions Bitcoin as a more versatile and adaptable cryptocurrency. Furthermore, the potential adoption of the Simplicity programming language could be a game-changer. It promises to amplify Bitcoin's scripting capabilities, paving the way for more sophisticated applications and functionalities on the network.

FAQ

What is ZeroSync? ZeroSync is a Swiss non-profit working on the world's first zero-knowledge light client for Bitcoin.

What are zero-knowledge proofs? Zero-knowledge proofs are cryptographic methods that allow one party to prove to another that a statement is true without revealing any specific information about the statement itself.

How can ZeroSync benefit Bitcoin? ZeroSync aims to introduce a zk proof-based light client, enabling operations like running a Bitcoin full node on mobile devices and increasing transaction throughput without requiring forks.

What is the significance of STARKs in ZeroSync's protocol? STARKs, developed by StarkWare, are used in ZeroSync's protocol, providing enhanced transaction privacy as a natural outcome.

What is the Simplicity programming language? Introduced by Blockstream, Simplicity is a smart contract language that could significantly enhance Bitcoin's scripting capabilities, potentially being the last soft fork for Bitcoin.

That's all for today

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

NOSTR: croxroad@getalby.com

X: @croxroadnews

Instagram: @croxroadnews.co

Youtube: @croxroadnews

Store: https://croxroad.store

Subscribe to CROX ROAD Bitcoin Only Daily Newsletter

https://www.croxroad.co/subscribe

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.

@ 469fa704:2b6cb760

I joined Nostr a week ago and wanted to recap it for myself and also give other newbies a simple introduction. Maybe this will help you get started too.

Step 1: Create your identity and get your private key for a browser extension

I started with the Snort client on my local home server. It created my private/public key pair and I was good to go. Then I transferred the private key to Amethyst, a pretty good Android-based client. Before looking at various clients and other nostr-based websites, I tried transferring my private key into a browser extension. I looked at Alby and nos2x. I chose the latter because I wanted to keep my Lightning wallet separate from my identity management. You don't have to, I just found it easier.

Step 2: If you're confused, always check your feed settings

I tried many different clients and was very confused at first. Due to its decentralized nature, Nostr relies on relays, which are just small servers, and to each one you can connect to, all your data is stored. When you post a message, write a note, an article like this or simply who you follow. The main reason and benefit for this is that there is no single point of failure or server-like entity that could be censored. The side effect of this, combined with using different clients, was that not only did it look different everywhere, but the content was also very different. This was simply because I wasn't connected to all my different clients with the same relays. But the main reason why each feed looks different on each client is usually because you can choose different variations of feeds and some clients even offer filters for the feeds.

Scroll down to get a small overview of the clients I've tried.

Step 3: Set up your lightning wallet with something like Wallet of Satoshi

I made my Bitcoin Lightning wallet independent of my identity. That's why I just went with the number one Lightning wallet on the market: Satoshi's Wallet. It's very simple and provides you with a Lightning address that resembles and has the format of an email address. You can add this address to your Nostr profile description and you're ready to receive Sats. Anyone can send them to you, e.g. for a good message or something else they find valuable on Nostr (like a podcast, a video, an article, ...). Just be aware that Satoshi's wallet contains your key and the sats you have there are not really your sats. So only leave a small amount there or no more than you need for your nostr experience.

Step 4: Set up your Nostr address

I set up a unique NIP-05 identifier that is human readable and also looks like an email address. For me, that's tobiya@nostrplebs.com, also called a nostr address. It's much easier to read, share and remember than your public key, which is just a long, unwieldy string of characters.

Some popular services are: * NostrVerified * Alby * Iris * Primal * Snort * nostrplebs.com

Most offer free services or at least a free tier. I chose nostrplebs.com because it links my Nostr address (tobiya@nostrplebs.com) to my Lightning wallet. ⚡

Brief overview of the clients (I have tested)

Web/Browser:

• Primal: Fast, user-friendly, nice looking, easy to use
• Coracle: Focuses on decentralized reputation, privacy and trust metrics. Also well organized and structured
• noStrudel: The most comprehensive I've found, has everything
• Rabbit: Designed like X (Twitter) Pro, focuses on everything at once
• Nostter: Clearly structured, easy to find what you're looking for
• Snort: Fast web client for those who prefer simplicity and speed.

iOS

I'm not an iPhone user, but everything I've discovered says that Damus is the best app for iOS.

Android:

• Amethyst: Feature rich for Android, I only tried this program because it gives me everything I currently need on my phone.
• Primal: Works seamlessly with Primal on the web, which is a pretty convenient starting point if you only want to use one client.

As for the web clients, I'm still figuring out which one will be my favorite. But I think they're all good in their own way. In the time of writing, I am mainly using Primal on Android and Web, Amethyst and noStrudel.

Let's have fun!!

@ e3899a52:dd88183f

The term "gooch" is often used informally to refer to the area of skin between the genitals and the anus, also known as the perineum.

The three main functions are as follows, in case you have always wondered, but were embarrassed to ask:

1. It serves as a support structure for the pelvic organs.
2. The area is rich in nerve endings, which can contribute to sexual pleasure.
3. It can be a focus in certain medical examinations or procedures.

Well that is about all I know about gooches, but I would love to hear about your tips or fun facts.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/842897

@ 4d4fb5ff:1e821f47

Numerical heatmap derived from biologically-sourced data. I reversed the process of scientific discovery by stripping away the context of data collected in four of my published experiments, leaving only single digits. This makes the table appear to include only unrelated, random numbers. However, since the numbers come from real world data, there remains meaningful hidden structure in the grid. This invites the viewer to participate in parsing signal from noise.

@ 0edc2f47:730cff1b

Chef's notes

In this case, sweet-and-sour doesn’t mean Americanized Chinese food but rather the sauce that dominated the Shabbos and Pesach dinner table among American Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 30 minutes
• 🍳 Cook time: 6 hours
• 🍽️ Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 8-10 large cloves garlic
• 1 cup ketchup
• ¼ cup dry sherry
• ¼ cup sake
• ¼ cup cider vinegar
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• ¼ cup honey
• ¼ cup Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1½ cups Coca-Cola, ginger ale, or Dr. Pepper
• 1 first-cut brisket, 6 to 7 pounds (2.7-3.2kg), rinsed and patted thoroughly dry

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325F / 160C.
2. Combine all ingredients except brisket in a blender and blend until smooth.
3. Place brisket in a Dutch oven or other large pot with a tight-fitting lid.
4. Pour sauce over brisket, place lid on pot, roast in oven for 3 hours. Flip roast and return to oven for 3 hours or until fork tender.
5. Remove roast to rest. Skim fat from sauce and reduce if desired. Serve immediately with sauce or cool, cover brisket and refrigerate overnight in cooking pan. The next day, defat sauce, reduce if desired, and reheat meat in sauce before serving.

@ 4d4fb5ff:1e821f47

Overlay of the molecular structures of two proteins. This two-step work is comprised of animations I captured from public data while in graduate school, which marked the beginning of my interest in biological, data-driven art. After being stored for over a decade on a thumb drive, I merged two of the animations to create a new entity in 2024, linking past and present, which is mirrored in the interactions of the two major protein folds (alpha helices and beta sheets).

@ 4d4fb5ff:1e821f47

Sanger sequencing traces. I extracted DNA directly from my cells and determined their sequence, which is visualized by the bottom trace. In a second sample, I mutated my DNA enzymatically and used to same process to determine the sequence, shown in the top trace. Each peak and color represents a unique DNA base (A, T, C or G) in part of a gene with 13 bases shown here in total. This biogenerative process resulted in the center base changing from T to C, resulting in a slightly different, mixed peak by comparison. To further separate this work from being purely scientific, I did not record specific details about the experimental process.

@ 3b7fc823:e194354f

I dOn'T cAre ABouT pRivAcY. IT dOEsN'T maTtER. i'M nOT dOiNg AnyThiNg wRonG.

GHOSTn

Your phone is spying on you. Your apps are spying on you. Your websites, search engine, fitness tracker, smart watch, IoT device, EVERYTHING is collecting anything it can and sending it off to be stored, cross referenced, and sold.

Data is the new oil.

So what? I don't care if Google knows I like motorcycles. By itself one data point isn't a big deal but once you start bringing everything together...

Who are you talking to? When and how long did you talk to them? Where did you go? How often do you go there? On and on the profile starts to become overwhelmingly invasive.

Right now it is extremely cheap and easy to collect and store the data but it's hard and expensive to cross reference and tabulate the data down to the individual. But in the extremely near future using AI and faster processers, data profiles for sale go from white men between 25 - 30, with this education level, and background like XYZ to -> John loves motorcycls and steak.

Suddenly your insurance premiums are way higher than your friends because you partake in dangerous activities and eat too much red meat. You get denied that loan because you invest in risky assets and it raises your risk factors to pay it back. That job that you applied to never responded because they already ran you through the algorithm and you don't fit the culture.

Protect your data and privacy now before its too late.

privacy

@ 0155373a:ba3e1bed

Imagine an internet where you don’t need a big Internet Service Provider (ISP) to stay connected—an internet powered by the people, for the people. Decentralized internet is no longer a far-fetched idea; it's becoming a reality through community-driven networks. These networks rely on individuals within a community to act as "nodes," connecting their neighbors to the web and bypassing traditional ISPs.

What is Decentralized Internet?

Decentralized internet refers to a system where control over connectivity and access is distributed among individuals or local organizations rather than being concentrated in large ISPs. Instead of paying a single company for access, people in a community collaborate to build and maintain the network themselves.

How Does It Work?

1. Mesh Networks: Each participant (or node) in the network connects to nearby nodes, creating a web of connectivity. This eliminates the need for a central ISP.
2. Hardware: Nodes are powered by simple devices like routers or small computers running specialized software.
3. Peer-to-Peer Sharing: Data flows through multiple nodes in the network, ensuring redundancy and reliability.
4. Backbone Connection: Some networks may still rely on a single connection to a traditional ISP for broader internet access, but others can connect to decentralized backbone providers or satellites.

Benefits of Decentralized Internet

• Affordable Access: By cutting out traditional ISPs, communities can lower the cost of internet access.
• Empowerment: Communities gain control over their own connectivity and data, reducing reliance on corporations.
• Resilience: Decentralized networks are less prone to outages since they don’t depend on a single point of failure.
• Privacy: With less reliance on ISPs, there’s less risk of surveillance and data tracking.
• Inclusivity: Remote or underserved areas can establish connectivity without waiting for ISPs to expand their infrastructure.

Real-World Examples

• Guifi.net: A community network in Spain that has thousands of nodes providing internet to rural areas.
• NYC Mesh: A grassroots effort in New York City to create an affordable, community-owned internet.
• Althea: A project enabling neighbors to share internet bandwidth and earn income for participating in the network.

How to Get Started

1. Educate Yourself: Research mesh network technologies like OpenWRT, LibreMesh, or BATMAN.
2. Form a Group: Collaborate with neighbors or community organizations to pool resources.
3. Get the Hardware: Invest in routers and antennas that support mesh networking.
4. Set Up Nodes: Position nodes strategically to ensure strong connections across the community.
5. Collaborate: Join forces with regional or global decentralized internet initiatives for support and knowledge sharing.

The Future of Decentralized Internet

As internet access becomes increasingly vital, decentralized networks present a way to bridge the digital divide and democratize connectivity. By building these systems, communities can take charge of their digital futures and ensure that no one is left behind.

Together, we can create an internet that is truly open, accessible, and resilient. The power lies in our hands—let’s connect, one node at a time.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na startit.rs

25.12.2014 / Autor: Zoja Kukić

---

Ko je na početku prošle godine kupio Bitcoin, sigurno nije zadovoljan. Vrednost ove kritpovalute je u odnosu na početak godine pala 52% u odnosu na dolar, ali je zato iznos investicija u BTC projekte ove godine skoro 3 puta viši nego sve prethodne investicije zajedno. Ovaj negativan trend ga je do prošle nedelje činio najgorom investicijom, lošijim

Ko je na početku prošle godine kupio Bitcoin, sigurno nije zadovoljan. Vrednost ove kritpovalute je u odnosu na početak godine pala 52% u odnosu na dolar, ali je zato iznos investicija u BTC projekte ove godine skoro 3 puta viši nego sve prethodne investicije zajedno.

Ovaj negativan trend ga je do prošle nedelje činio najgorom investicijom, lošijim čak i od rublje koja prolazi kroz najveći svoj pad u poslednjih 16 godina, međutim ipak se izvukao u poslednjim danima.

U ovu godinu BTC ušao je vredan 770,44$, već 6. januara je dostigao svoju najvišu vrednost od 951$, a danas vredi 332$.

Kraj BTC kao spekulativne valute?

Pad Bitcoina može da se posmatra i sa pozitivne strane, jer može da označava njegov kraj kao spekulativne valute i ulazak u pravu bitcoin ekonomiju. Što pre ljudi prestanu da je kupuju samo da bi je kasnije prodali i zapravo počnu da ga koriste za kupovinu/prodaju dobara i usluga, to će pre postati stabilniji i realniji u vrednosti, a samim tim i prihvaćeniji, što opet utiče na njegovu vrednost.

U poslednjih nekoliko meseci Bitcoin nije ooscilirao kao ranije – kretao se između 300 i 400$.

Razlozi za smanjenu vrednost Bitcoina mogu biti različiti, pa se tako pretpostavlja da su rani prihvatioci sredinom ove godine prodavali svoje Bitcoine, briga oko regulative ili konkurencije, smanjeno učešće špekulanata, ali i jačanje dolara, sa kojim se najčešće stavlja u relaciju.

Iz ugla korisnika Bitcoina – bilo onoga koji kupuje njime, ili onog koji ga prodaje, ovo je dobar znak, jer je život mnogo lakši ako znate da je Bitcoin približno 350$.

Da bi ova kriptovaluta bila prihvaćena od strane masa, potrebno je da bude stabilna i ova godina može biti uvod u to. Stabilna valuta vodi većoj upotrebi BTC, a što je veći broj transakcija između kupovine Bitcoina i prodaje istog, to će valuta biti realnija i samim tim, stabilnija.

Broj kupaca i prodavaca koji koriste Bitcoin ove godine je drastično porastao i završićemo godinu sa više od 90.000 biznisa čije porizvode ili usluge možete kupiti ovom valutom. Iako su to uglavnom bili biznisi iz različitih niša, primetan je rast u prihvaćenosti od strane velikih kompanija, kao što su npr. Dell i Microsoft.

Bitcoin kao sredstvo plaćanja, a ne štednje ili investicije

Iako je vrednost Bitcoina opala i može dobiti titulu jedne od lošijih investicija (opet, ako ulažete samo da biste nakon određenog vremena pokupili kajmak), investitori i dalje intenzivno ulažu u BTC projekte. Razlog leži u tome što bez obzira na vrednost Bitcoina, njegova upotreba sve više raste i gledajući iz tog ugla, ova godina je bila prilično uspešna i to se vidi i po investicijama.

Od ukupno 317 miliona dolara koliko investicija su pridobili projekti zasnovani na BTC, čak 71% je investirano ove godine.

Špekulanti nisu samo negativno uticali na BTC – svakako su značajno uticali na nepredvidivost i česte promene vrednosti Bitcoina, ali su ove aktivnosti privukle pažnju medija i javnosti što je uticalo na rast baze korisnika Bitcoina. Moglo bi se pretpostaviti da je sada taj broj korisnika dostigao kritičnu masu i da je vreme za realnu BTC ekonomiju – onu u kojoj će ljudi zaista trgovati Bitcoinima, a ne držati ih da bi ih prodali.

Naravno, postoji i negativna strana priče, a to je mogućnost da špekulanti odlaze masovno, jer predviđaju još veći krah ove valute, kojoj je ishod sa regulativama i bezbednošču i dalje neizvestan. Kao i sve drugo, vreme će pokazati.

@ 91687725:a0de48ea

こんにちは。Kateです。

最近ちょっとお休みしていますが、日本でビットコインを専門に扱うDiamond Hands Magazineに寄稿したりしてます。

私がビットコインと出会ったのは2011年、まだビットコイン利用者はとても少なかった時代です。たまたま身内にビットコイン界隈の人がいました。もしかしたら今でいうビト妻だったかも？

まだビットコインが1ドル以下でおもちゃみたいな存在だった頃に知ったわけですが、その後勢いづいて、100ドル、1000ドルと価値が上がっていきました。

それを見て、ビットコインを少しずつ買って貯めておけば、将来リタイヤの蓄えになるかもと思ってお小遣い程度のビットコインを積立してました。でも、アクシデントで失くしちゃったんですよね。

その後、身内のごたごたで自分の生活が天地がひっくり返るように一変し、気がつけばカナダでただお金がないアジア系移民シングルマザー、しかも周りに家族が誰もいないという、非常にマイノリティな立場になりました。

人生、何事も経験。一度ビットコインを失くし、傷心もあり、数年はビットコインから離れました。でも気がつけばビットコインは冬の時代を終えて、また元気になっていたんですね。自分は海外でひとり子育てに追われ、なんとか生きてた感じですが！

ビットコインが500ドルくらいになっていた時に困窮していた私は、ふとペーパーウォレットと呼ばれた当時の携帯可能ウォレット？に0.5btc 残っていたのを発見して速攻換金しましたね。悔やまれます。

その後、2017年頃、カナダで当時大手の割と使い勝手のいい取引所があることを知って、再度ビットコイン貯蓄にチャレンジしました。2年ほどで、ほぼ1ビットコインと10ETHくらいあったんですけどね、今度は取引所の代表者が行方不明になり、またもやビットコインを失くしました。

ふつうだったら、もうやめますよね。2回もなくしたら。

けれど、自分はかつてインターネットが始まったころのワクワクを経験していました。90年代半ば、新宿にできたばかりのインターネットカフェで、GIFがかろうじて表示できるグレーのブラウザ画面と対面しました。世界を変える技術を体験した時の感動は今でも忘れられません。

（こう書くと立派なオバサンなのがバレちゃいますね。ビットコインネイティブ世代の中では年長者）

それから15年以上たって、初めてサトシナカモトのホワイトペーパーを読んだ時に、同じ衝撃を受けたのです。初めて実用化されたインターネット上で世界の誰とでも送り合えるマネー。その可能性は無限∞。

そのビットコインの進化を、実際に買ってみたり、使ってみたり、なくしたりしつつ、より深く知ろうと付き合ってきた自分は、いつの間にかビットコインを通して世の中のいろいろを見て考えるようになりました。

ビットコインが生まれ、実験段階を経て、すでに15年が経ちます。けれども、ビットコインは今でも多くの人から最も誤解されている技術・発明のように見えます。ここまで来たら、自分が生きている間に、ビットコインが世界とどう関わっていくのか見届けたいと思います！

そして、私自身がビットコインを知ることで発見した世界や新しい価値観を、誰かに伝えられたらいいなと願って、このブログをスタートすることにしました。

今回は自己紹介という形になりましたが、私がビットコインを通して学んだことや気づいたことをこれから少しづつアップしてみます！

週1くらいのペースで投稿が目標です。よろしくお願いします。

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na startit.rs

20.03.2014 / Autor: Pavle Mihajlović

---

Kada pomislimo na novac prvo nam prolete slike keša. Novac je pre svega sredstvo razmene, koje omogućava jednostavnu trgovinu. To je takođe merilo putem kojeg pratimo poslovanje i čuvamo ostvarenu ekonomsku vrednost.

Školjke, kamenčići, žito, tkanina, metalni novac i na kraju papir, koji su se svi koristili kao sredstvo plaćanja, pokazuju da je od materijala, za novac, mnogo važnije ispunjenje tri pomenute funkcije. Poslednja inovacija na tom polju je digitalna valuta koja bi mogla da omogući da se trgovina, obračun i čuvanje vrednosti obavljaju najjeftinije i najefikasnije do sada.

Postoji čitav niz tekstova koje možete pronaći na internetu koji će mnogo bolje i detaljnije objasniti tehničku stranu Bitcoina. Niti znam, niti bih mogao da razumem detalje, te ovde iznosim ekonomsku (teorijsku) perspektivu. Ukratko, Bitcoin nastaje procesom rudarenja “mining”, koji podrazumeva da vaš računar rešava izuzetno komplikovanu jednačinu. Rešavanjem dobijate pravo na nagradu – određeni deo jedinice bitcoina.

Otprilike u čitavom sistemu, 6 Bitcoina se izrudari svakog sata. U opticaju je trenutno 12 miliona Bitcoina a maksimalni potencijal je 21 milion. Bitcoin takođe možete kupiti na nekoj od više stotina aktivnih berzi za konvencionalne valute, ili neposredno od drugih vlasnika.

Nakon rudarenja ili kupovine, vaš bitcoin nalazi se u digitalnom novčaniku koji putem kriptovanih poruka i umršenih protokola komunicira sa drugim novčanicima. To vam omogućava da preko određenih sajtova i klijent servera koji pružaju uslugu uparivanja digitalnih novčanika, izdate transakciju prema nekom drugom korisniku koji ima digitalni novčanik.

Na kraju sve transakcije moraju proći kroz protokol verifikacije koji se, opet za nagradu, obavlja decentralizovano od strane mnogih korisnika. U suštini, to je primena koncepta klirinških kuća na digitalnu valutu.

Cilj osnivača Bitcoina je verovatno bio da ta valuta postane sredstvo razmene i merilo vrednosti u savremenoj realnoj i virtuelnoj privredi. Uz sve oscilacije vrednosti i problem koje valuta proživljava, ovo je jedna od najvažnijih inovacija u monetarnoj sferi koja bi mogla iz temelja da promeni ekonomski sistem u kojem ćemo živati za par decenija.

Kao decentralizovana digitalna valuta Bitcoin oživljava u digitalnom svetu, principe davno napuštenog sistema zlatnog standarda, kakav je postojao u srednjem veku i ranim fazama razvoja kapitalizma. Suštinske sličnosti sa zlatnim standardnom je ideja da se ograničenom ponudom Bitcoina i odsustvom bilo kojeg autoriteta koji upravlja ponudom očuva vrednost valute. Prednost bitcoina u odnosu na zlato je u tome što se može beskonačno deliti na mnogo decimala, što je gotovo besplatan za održavanje i skladištenje i vrlo jeftin za proizvodnju u poređenju sa zlatom.

Ograničenje ponude Bitcoina je važno jer čuva vrednost. Da je rudarenje neograničeno, dugoročno, njegova vrednost bi se svela na trošak struje, amortizaciju procesa i rad ljudi potrebnih da se izrudari. Uz napredovanje tehnologije rezultat bi bio da se Bitcoin ne bi fundamentalno razlikovao od konvencionalnih valuta, koje su kroz sto godina inflacije izgubile preko 90% svoje nominalne vrednosti.

Druga važna karakteristika je decentralizovanost. Svaki pojedinac može učestvovati u rudarenju, razmena je potpuno dobrovoljna, a kontrola protokola razmene je decentralizovana, jer mnogi članovi zajednice mogu vršiti kontrolu i nadzor sigurnosti transakcija.

Nijedna država ne može uticati na razmenski kurs između Bitcoina i drugih valuta – već je to prepušteno tržišnim silama. Za razliku od modernih nacionalnih valuta, ne postoji niti jedan monopol u ponudi valute, niti ograničenje korišćenja isključivo jednog platežnog sredstva (legal tender law).

Ako Bitcoin prestane da vrši funckije novca na dobar način, ako mu padne vrednost ili propadne uvek se može dobrovoljno preći na bilo koju drugu digitalnu valutu ili konvencionalan novac.

Pobednik ili pokojnik?

Bitcoin je novotarija i kao svaka novotarija ima veliki broj entuzijasta koji se brzo zainteresovao za digitalnu kripto-valutu. Koncept kriptovanih protokola, decentralizovane kontrole transakcija i ograničene ponude vrlo je primamljiv. Istraživanja korisnika verovatno bi pokazala da su korisnici Bitcoina oni koji tragaju za revolucionarnim rešenjima, koji ne veruju u savremeni finansijski sistem, ljudi koji su entuzijastični po pitanju uloge ICT u životu, oni koji traže visok nivo diskrecije i poverljivosti informacija na internetu, hakeri, kriminalci, trgovci ilegalnim robama i dr.

Međutim, kratkoročno mnogo važniji faktor za razvoj i opstanak Bitcoina su finansijski investitori – ljudi koji pre svega ulažu u bitcoin kako bi ga kasnije prodali po višoj ceni, a ne zbog neposrednog korišćenja valute za transakcije ili obračun. Sa rastom popularnosti i ograničenom ponudom cena Bitcoina je brzo porasla a tokom poslednjih 6 meseci doživela dramatičan skok i fluktuacije.

Bitcoin je balon čija vrednost je precenjena u odnosu na fundamentalnu funkcije novca. Upravo zbog toga, svaka negativna informacija ili dnevni pad vrednosti od 10% čine špekulativne investitore nervoznim i oni pokušavaju da se oslobode Bitcoina kako bi sačuvali prinos investicije. Time se urušava trenutna vrednost Bitcoina na berzama i dolazi do strmoglavog pada.

Takođe, negativan uticaj imaju i vlasti pojedinih nacionalnih država koje su promenama regulacije ili pretnjama uspele da na kratko uzdrmaju poverenje u digitalnu valutu. Veliki udarac dogodio se krajem februara kada je nestala berza za razmenu Bitcoina MtGox.com i oborio vrednost valute za jednu petinu. Pre nekoliko dana direktorka jedne od berzi pronađena je mrtva.

Svašta je moguće u uzburkanom svetu špekulacija koji danas čini Bitcoin. Nije isključeno da ćemo otkriti puno lakih zarada, puno primera vrednog i upornog rada koji se isplatio. Takođe, biće investitora koji će izgubiti bogatstva, kriminala, velikih prevara. Zato sa ovom valutom treba biti posebno oprezan.

Bitcoinom danas vladaju finansijski zakoni, mnogo više nego logika protokola, kriptografske karateristike primenjene tehnologije ili korisnost Bitcoina u izvrđenju transakcija. Ako želite da se obogatite, pametno i strpljivo ulaganje u Bitcoin može vam doneti veliku zaradu.

Ovaj tekst vam neće reći kako da ulažete, kao što vam nijedan tekst na internet ne može reći. Pritom ne zaboravite da je ulaganje u Bitcoin radi brzo zarade finansijsko ulaganje. Odvojite vaš sud od emocija, “osećaja” i entuzijazma za tehnologiom i ne zaboravite zlatno pravilo finansija: never risk what you cannot afford to lose!

Finansijske spekulacije mogu kratkoročno uzdići Bitcoin veoma visoko, ali ga mogu i uništiti u veoma kratkom roku. Međutim, jedna stvar je sigurna, digitalne valute predstavljaju budućnost. Pojava desetina drugih konkurentskih valuta pokazuje da je budućnost veoma blizu. U svetu oštre konkurencije i inovacija možemo očekivati mnoštvo različitih koncepata digitalnih valuta, tehnička rešenja i poboljšanja koja će sve bolje težiti ostvarenju funkcija novca.

U svetu decentralizacije, slobode i odustva autoriteta, mudrost miliona koji učestvuju u procesu stvaranja novog monetarnog sistema, dovešće do izdvajanja nekoliko ili jedne digitalne valute koja najbolje zadovoljava funkciju novca. Vrlo lako može da se desi da to uopšte ne bude Bitcoin, kao što su i mnoge vodeće inovacije izgubile bitku sa svojim sledbenicima.

Digitalna valuta osnovni preduslov za internet prodaju

Svi ljudi koji se bave ICT ili imaju startap moraju razmišljati sa perspektivom integrisanja digitalnih valuta u svoj portfolio usluga ili kao segment proizvoda, ukoliko žele da učestvuju u najvećoj monetarnoj revoluciji od štampanog novca. Najvažniji pokazatelj koji možete pratiti nije trenutna cena neke digitalne valute – ona je dugoročno irelevantna – već ukupnu vrednost svih transakcija koje se obave digitalnim valutama.

Sigurnost, lakoća transakcija, dobrovoljno učestvovanje, ograničena ponuda i decentralizacija kontrole nad valutama dovešće dugoročno do istiskivanja konvencionalnih valuta, prvo sa interneta, a potom verovatno i iz ostatka ekonomije.

@ bcbb3e40:a494e501

El hombre y el contexto

El pensamiento tradicionalista español cuenta con una amplia trayectoria en la que concurren personajes, situaciones e ideas gestadas en el transcurso de dos siglos, en los que debemos distinguir el conflicto dinástico y el papel del legitimismo de la propia doctrina, que es algo que se construirá en el tiempo, con la contribución de figuras como el protagonista de este escrito, Don Juan Vázquez de Mella, así como por la confluencia de fuerzas de diferente signo que tiene lugar a lo largo del siglo XIX y la consolidación del Estado liberal, que lo hará siempre en lucha abierta contra las peculiaridades y el carácter genuino del pueblo español. Vázquez de Mella, nuestro autor, quizás represente la consolidación y madurez doctrinal del movimiento tradicionalista español, uno de sus primeros y más brillantes sistematizadores. No se destacó por una obra extensa ni especialmente difundida más allá de sus discursos, de sus artículos en periódicos y sus escritos dispersos, los cuales fue capaz de dotar de una especial significación y dignidad fruto de su enorme carisma y especial clarividencia para dar una forma definida y meridianamente clara a las ideas y doctrinas que nutrieron el tradicionalismo español madurado al calor de las armas, de las tres guerras que el carlismo libró contra el liberalismo español.

|| |:-:| |Juan Vázquez de Mella|

Nuestro autor, de origen asturiano, y nacido en Cangas de Onís un 8 de junio de 1861, ha mantenido vivo su prestigio y el valor de sus aportaciones teórico-doctrinales, ampliamente reconocidos por sus sucesores, por Rafael Gambra Ciudad (1920-2004) y Francisco Elías de Tejada y Espinola (1918-1978), así como de otros autores como Álvaro D'Ors (1915-2004) y otros muchos, que han reivindicado su figura en el tiempo y se han nutrido de sus fecundas enseñanzas. Se ha destacado la rectitud de su pensamiento, su inquebrantable voluntad y su impagable contribución en la creación de un marco teórico y conceptual para dar un sentido y una forma a las ideas del tradicionalismo español. Hijo de un militar de origen gallego, muerto prematuramente, quedó huérfano de padre durante su niñez, por lo cual pasó al cuidado de unos parientes de origen modesto. Estudió en la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, donde mostró tempranamente su temperamento y habilidades oratorias, que explotó convenientemente a través de diarios como La Restauración o El pensamiento galaico, donde también mostró sus filiaciones militantes con el catolicismo tradicional. Sus habilidades y la brillantez de sus escritos pronto llegaron a Madrid, a las más altas instancias del Carlismo, lo que le permitió dar continuidad a sus actividades desde un medio más amplio, a través de El correo español.

En su militancia política llegó a las más altas cotas de su trayectoria con la elección en 1893 como representante de las Cortes por el distrito de Estella, Navarra, que ya con sus primeros discursos obtuvo un notable éxito, incluso entre los propios liberales, hasta 1900, fecha en la que se vio obligado a marcharse a Portugal, acusado de participar en una conspiración para derrocar el régimen de la Restauración. No regresó a España hasta 1905, manteniendo su estatus como diputado hasta 1919. De todos modos, no queremos dar más protagonismo a la biografía en detrimento de la doctrina, que es lo que nos interesa en este artículo, de ahí que obviemos otros datos biográficos trascendentes, polémicas con otras facciones del carlismo o sus posturas respecto a la dictadura del general Miguel Primo de Rivera, que nos harían desviar la atención del propósito principal que acabamos de enunciar.

La gran paradoja del Carlismo fue que a pesar de su derrota en la Tercera Guerra Carlista (1872-1876), y pese a la posterior escisión integrista en 1888, el partido carlista continuó manteniendo una fuerza y preponderancia significativa en la sociedad española del régimen de la Restauración durante el último cuarto de siglo. El Carlismo se vio inmerso en un buen número de paradojas, de situaciones encontradas, especialmente en relación al Desastre del 98 y la pérdida de los últimos territorios ultramarinos. Mientras que la gran esperanza del tradicionalismo español estaba depositada en el desmoronamiento y caída final de la restauración alfonsina, por otro lado este mismo régimen trataba de defender, al menos en teoría, los últimos restos del imperio español y, de algún modo, a la España católica frente a una nación protestante, como era la anglosajona estadounidense. Al mismo tiempo, durante esta época el tradicionalismo español se enfrentó a los grandes retos que presentaba una sociedad en cambio, con transformaciones políticas y sociales de gran calado como la emergencia del sufragio universal o el nacimiento de los separatismos periféricos (propiciados por la burguesía liberal), las cuales requerían de nuevas estrategias y reestructuraciones internas capaces de enfrentar la envergadura de todos estos cambios. Fue en este contexto donde se significó la figura de Juan Vázquez de Mella, quien merced a la obra de sistematización a la que ya hemos hecho alusión, y de sus concurridas conferencias, dio lugar a la denominada Acta Loredán, redactada por el tradicionalista asturiano y publicado en El correo español. Este escrito tenía como ejes fundamentales la defensa de la nación política española fundamentada en la monarquía, el catolicismo y el régimen foral. Al mismo tiempo, también recogía la reivindicación de un programa corporativista y gremial al abrigo de la doctrina social de la Iglesia defendido en la encíclica Rerum Novarum (1891), y es lo que se conoce como el «sociedalismo», cuyos antecedentes encontramos ya en autores como Donoso Cortés o Antonio Aparisi Guijarro. Son precisamente los atributos de esta doctrina, que contribuyó a la revitalización del pensamiento carlista, los que nos disponemos a desarrollar a continuación.

La figura del tradicionalista asturiano, de Don Juan Vázquez de Mella, aparece como necesaria ante una serie sucesiva de destrucciones que el régimen liberal ha producido sobre los fundamentos tradicionales de España, pero su papel no fue, como ya venimos apuntando, el de un gran intelectual erudito, y de hecho, como apunta Rafael Gambra, las mayores debilidades de su pensamiento se encuentran en los principios filosóficos, y destacando, en cambio, su papel de «revulsivo espiritual» podemos ubicarlo mejor en el ámbito de lo político y lo espiritual. Para ello debió tomar en cuenta las fuentes de sus predecesores, entre los cuales podemos ubicar perfectamente al ya mencionado Donoso Cortés y Jaime Balmes, así como también a otro contemporáneo suyo, Menéndez Pelayo. De los dos primeros tomó su capacidad de síntesis y la sencillez expositiva, mientras que de Menéndez Pelayo tomó, al menos en parte, el sentido de la crítica histórica en aras de la restauración de una Tradición nacional. Pero más allá de los sistemas de pensamiento y elementos retóricos, vemos a Vázquez de Mella profundamente interesado por la vida política de los pueblos medievales de Las Españas, lo cual fue, en definitiva, el marco de referencia para una síntesis política de conjunto más allá de los posicionamientos teóricos, como algo que puede ser llevado a la práctica en sus aspectos concretos y que es perfectamente viable. Todo un sistema edificado sobre el pensamiento tomista y una una profunda religiosidad, En este contexto, y más allá de las ideas formuladas por realistas y carlistas en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, Mella teoriza junto a la concepción del espíritu medieval, la idea de la coexistencia de dos soberanías, una política y otra social, una teoría de la soberanía tradicional inspirada por un principio dinámico y que se cimenta en las propias experiencias humanas en el devenir de la historia.

|| |:-:| |NITOGLIA, Curzio; En el mar de la nada: Metafísica y nihilismo a prueba en la posmodernidad, Hipérbola Janus, 2023|

El concepto de lo social

Lo social para Mella no tiene absolutamente nada que ver con las denominadas «políticas sociales», tan comunes en el lenguaje político de las democracias liberales, en las que se contempla lo social como un elemento externo a la propia estructura política, donde prevalece el individualismo a todos los niveles, y la sociedad aparece como un mero agregado de individuos. Muy al contrario, lo social, en el tradicionalismo de nuestro autor, implica la afirmación de un principio intrínseco tanto al modelo social como al tipo humano, así como a la naturaleza de las cosas en las que la persona desarrolla su existencia en común con los demás. Nos referimos a las instituciones, a los elementos jurídicos y otros órganos gestados en el tiempo por la experiencia histórica, que regulan la vida común.

En el ámbito de la sociedad cristiana medieval, en plena Reconquista, cuando todavía no existía un Estado unitario como tal, cada municipio tenía sus propias leyes y sus normas, adaptadas a su modelo de vida y costumbres, Las comunidades se concebían como agrupaciones de familias con un sistema de propiedad comunal y privado en las que el patrimonio y el estatus de cada uno de sus miembros venía garantizado por el ejercicio activo de una serie de derechos en defensa de las libertades concretas, cuya fuente última era el derecho natural. Los señores feudales y los reyes se limitaban a reclamar tributos para la guerra, pero sin interferir en la defensa de estas libertades concretas ni vulnerar el sistema que las sustentaba.

Eran gobiernos autárquicos, muy estables e inspirados por un principio democrático, el cual nada tenía que ver con las democracias liberales plutocráticas de la actualidad, cuya idea del derecho y la justicia está pervertida por el formalismo jurídico vacío e inane de sus constituciones, abstractas y plenamente funcionales a las oligarquías, al servicio de intereses espurios. En este caso, el hombre alcanzaba una plena dignidad y desarrollo en el contexto de una comunidad donde prevalecía el vínculo comunitario, al amparo de un modelo tradicional, de normas consuetudinarias y concretas que permitían la defensa efectiva del propio derecho. Ni siquiera con el advenimiento de los Estados modernos, y la centralización de algunos elementos de poder, como la Hacienda o el Ejército, se vieron alterados significativamente estos elementos, que representaban a los denominados «cuerpos intermedios» de la sociedad, y que adquirieron su propia expresión particular bajo el nombre de «Fueros», los que los propios reyes juraron respetar a lo largo de toda la Edad Moderna y hasta el advenimiento del régimen borbónico.

La antropología tradicional vincula al hombre a un medio social, a una familia, a una estirpe o a un pueblo, que reproducen esa misma estructura familiar, aunque a mayor escala. En nuestro caso particular lo vemos a través de la convivencia de pequeños grupos humanos, de ahí la importancia de los municipios o de los concejos en un marco de vida comunitaria fuertemente institucionalizada. Al mismo tiempo este modelo y estructura también se replicaba en otros ámbitos, como en la vida económica y profesional, impregnando todas las esferas de la vida del hombre. Instituciones naturales, amparadas en el derecho natural, y orientadas a la protección y garantía de prosperidad de los hombres, y esto por encima de cualquier interés particular y mercantil de negocio. Para Mella, la ruptura con este mundo, y en general con las experiencias del pasado, es la que nos lleva, merced a la acción del liberalismo, a los tiempos actuales, y lo hace recorriendo un itinerario que todos conocemos, y que tienen su punto de partida en la Ilustración y la posterior Revolución Francesa, la irrupción del elemento racional y abstracto y la destrucción de la religión, considerada como fruto de la superstición. La destrucción del orden feudal, que todavía pervivía como marco de convivencia en el mundo rural, como una suerte de prolongación de ese espíritu medieval, hizo desaparecer de un plumazo ese entorno de relaciones concretas y personales para sustituirlas por lo «público» entendido como la centralización estatal uniforme, ignorando las realidades particulares subyacentes en el cuerpo social, los denominados «cuerpos intermedios», que fueron despojados de su autonomía, corporaciones y patrimonios. De modo que la destrucción de estas «sociedades intermedias» que mediaban entre el Estado y la sociedad desenraizó y destruyó la propia sociedad, al mismo tiempo que los fundamentos cristianos del derecho natural sobre la cual se hallaba asentada, para hacer prevalecer esos principios racionales y abstractos traídos por la revolución.

Al mismo tiempo, y anejo a este desarraigo, del individuo se encuentra sometido a poderes arbitrarios del propio Estado liberal, sin un conglomerado institucional propio que lo proteja de estos atropellos, sumido en el individualismo ajeno a toda institución y destino colectivo, se limita al voto cada cuatro años de los partidos al servicio de oligarquías e intereses espurios, contrarios al Bien común. En este sentido, y advirtiendo las posibles acusaciones de «absolutismo» que en ocasiones se han lanzado contra el tradicionalismo, hay que señalar que Mella las rechaza por completo, dado que viola la idea de contrapoderes frente a la autoridad del rey que éste formula, ya que el absolutismo creía en la existencia de un poder ilimitado y tiránico del rey, transmitido por Dios y ajeno a la participación de la sociedad y sus estamentos. Como bien señaló Julius Evola, el absolutismo es un fenómeno antitradicional, vinculado a la descomposición y desacralización de las estructuras tradicionales. De hecho, el absolutismo, como los regímenes liberales de hoy, dejan al individuo totalmente desprotegido, sin un asidero sobre el que apoyarse en la defensa de sus libertades concretas. El propio Mella, como bien saben todos los que se adentren en su obra, fue partidario de contrarrestar el creciente poder del aparato estatal, tal y como hemos visto y seguiremos viendo en lo sucesivo, a lo largo del presente artículo.

|| |:-:| |EVOLA, Julis; Metapolítica, Tradición y Modernidad: Antología de artículos evolianos, Hipérbola Janus, 2020|

En nuestro caso particular, la desaparición de la organización gremial y corporativa tuvo unas consecuencias especialmente nefastas, y en especial después de las dos desamortizaciones liberales (Mendizabal y Madoz) al despojar a los grupos sociales populares de su natural organización sociohistórica. Asimismo, desvincularon la propiedad en las relaciones comunitarias y su uso patrimonial para vincularla al uso privado y anónimo, para fines puramente especulativos, los que caracterizan al liberal-capitalismo. De ahí nace la figura del asalariado, del contratado como mera mercancía, en un proceso de alienación del trabajo característico en el desarrollo del capitalismo burgués. De aquí parte lo que algunos tradicionalistas, como Gambra, denominan el «problema social», frente al cual, y al margen de las recetas ideológicas de la modernidad, Mella reivindica la restauración de los antiguos vínculos corporativos y orgánicos de inspiración medieval.

La idea de soberanía social

Todos los procesos disolutivos que conducen a la Modernidad liberal tienen su punto de inicio con el Renacimiento, con la afirmación del individualismo y la ruptura definitiva del ecumene cristiano medieval, algo que aparece indefectiblemente unido a la Reforma luterana, así como la «valorización» del mundo clásico, con la reemergencia de teorías de tipo hedonista, como las de Epicuro, por ejemplo, generando una disolución de los vínculos con el medio concreto. Esto supone la aparición de un nuevo tipo, que es el hombre abstracto que escapa cada vez más al entorno inmediato y vital, esto al tiempo que el poder del Estado se robustece y se vuelve omnipotente. Es por ese motivo que en lo sucesivo se ha impuesto en nuestras sociedades la falta de concreción, tanto en lo teórico como en lo político, lo cual ha propiciado el triunfo del contrato social roussoniano y la justificación del orden social en virtud de componendas voluntarias y totalmente artificiales. Estas construcciones político-ideológicas son las que contribuyen a la construcción de la sociedad liberal, asentada sobre patrones puramente racionales, individualistas y mercantilistas.

De hecho, la mayor preocupación de Mella es la destrucción de las instituciones locales y ese vínculo afectivo del hombre con su realidad inmediata, algo que impregnaba su relación con el trabajo, con su obra, con su impronta vocacional y devota, imprimiéndole, como en el caso del artesano, un sello propio y particular a su trabajo.

Y en este sentido, Mella afirma que la sociedad moderna ha perdido su sentido institucional como base estable de la sociabilidad. A través del elemento jurídico y la participación en las instituciones es el medio a partir del cual la comunidad se cohesiona y construye sus vínculos y su particular autonomía, que le hace tener una vida propia e interna, y con la institución nos podemos referir desde una asociación profesional, a la universidad o una cofradía etc. El individualismo ha representado el factor disolutivo y corrosivo que ha destruido este vínculo social fundado en múltiples solidaridades que han enfrentado y polarizado al cuerpo social, con el enfrentamiento entre «clases sociales» y la negación de las jerarquías naturales.

Ante todo lo relatado, y como consecuencia de las destrucciones provocadas por la revolución, Mella plantea su teoría de la soberanía social. Esta teoría consiste básicamente en encuadrar de nuevo a la sociedad en sus raíces naturales, concebida en todos sus órdenes como portadora de un dinamismo propio en una suerte de organización geométrica en la que conviven objetivos y finalidades variadas y concretas con su propia legitimidad y autonomía. Estas finalidades, amparadas en el derecho natural, son junto al poder del propio Estado las únicas formas de limitación del poder. La particularidad de esta idea de soberanía social está en el hecho de que la formación de la jerarquía social tiene una dirección ascendente, que tiene como punto de partida a las personas colectivas y concretas, pasando por una serie de instituciones, hasta llegar al Estado central, de forma escalonada y plenamente conscientes de sus funciones. Así lo expresa Mella en su propio lenguaje: «la jerar­quía de personas colectivas, de poderes organizados, de clases, que suben desde la familia hasta la sobera­nía que llamo política concretada en el Estado, que deben auxiliar, pero también contener». Es lo que Mella concibe como el sociedalismo, que supone la reintegración de la sociedad en la vida concreta de los hombres, con el desarrollo de una vida política común y estable en el marco de instituciones naturales que potencien las relaciones humanas y sociales, estimulando la sociabilidad. Y hablamos, desde la perspectiva de la integración de distintas sociedades, fuertemente institucionalizadas con funciones y finalidades concretas, más allá del sentido democrático y pactista que pueda entenderse en términos modernos o de cualquier asociación u organización relacionada con el «problema social».

¿Qué es la Tradición?

De este modo quedan formuladas las dos soberanías, la política y la social, que coexisten en un mismo espacio limitándose y apoyándose recíprocamente en lo que es uno de los fundamentos del sociedalismo de Mella. No obstante, esta doble soberanía no explica todavía la concreción política de cada pueblo y el vínculo superior que lo lleva a federarse con las diferentes sociedades y a mantenerse unido en una historia y espíritu comunes. Los vínculos que las mantienen unidas en el tiempo tienen que ver con un orden histórico concreto, con un vínculo espiritual que las entrelaza interiormente de una generación a otra, y en última instancia de ese orden tradicional que lo engloba todo, y que al mismo tiempo se asienta en la monarquía y la religión católica. La lealtad a Dios y a un solo rey en torno a los cuales se aglutina la fe, viene a coronar todas estas estructuras y lazos forjados en el fermento de la historia.

No se trata de la Tradición en términos de un «ultraconservadurismo», que ya sabemos que el prefijo «ultra» (lo que sea) es muy recurrente en nuestros días, con la idea de un medio social y político petrificado e invariable, sino que es el producto de un proceso de maduración y evolución histórica, de carácter dinámico y nutrido de experiencias humanas. Nada que ver con las monstruosas ideologías progresistas y modernas, nacidas de lo abstracto e impulsadas por un desbocado «ir hacia delante», desarraigado y que tiende siempre hacia la deshumanización y la destrucción de toda creación humana natural forjada en el devenir de los siglos. Este mismo dinamismo, planteado por Mella, en torno al concepto e idea de Tradición tiene continuidad y adquiere fuerza en sus sucesores y depositarios. Y al fin y al cabo, Mella no hace más que partir de la propia etimología del término, que viene del latín tradere, entregar, de la generación que entrega los frutos de su experiencia a la siguiente, perfeccionándola, haciéndola más estable y segura.

Podríamos seguir extrayendo más conclusiones del pensamiento tradicional de Vázquez de Mella, pero probablemente excedería, y por mucho, el modesto propósito de este escrito, de modo que nos quedaremos aquí, no sin advertir a nuestros lectores de la posibilidad de que en un futuro volvamos a retomar nuevamente el tema.

Antes de acabar queremos llamar la atención sobre una polémica acontecida hace unos años en torno a una Plaza en Madrid que llevaba el nombre de nuestro autor y que se cambio para dedicársela a un sujeto cuyos méritos eran, por decirlo suavemente, más que discutibles, concretamente a Pedro Zerolo, miembro del PSOE y activista al servicio del lobby homosexualista. Durante aquella época, en 2019, muchos miembros de la izquierda globalista trataron de identificar a Vázquez de Mella como un «pensador franquista», cuando en realidad ni cronológica ni ideológicamente tuvo nunca nada que ver con el franquismo. Recordemos que murió en 1928, y la impronta de su pensamiento ha tenido como continuadores a sus propios correligionarios dentro del ámbito tradicional, aunque en su tiempo llegó a ser muy respetado también por sus adversarios, los liberales. Aunque la retirada del nombre de una calle pueda resultar algo banal, o carente de una importancia excesiva, también contribuye, a su modo, a una forma de damnatio memoriae que condena al olvido y al ostracismo a grandes autores de la Tradición, portadores de un Patriotismo sano y capaz de entender las peculiaridades y el Dasein profundo de España, que si bien no nació invertebrada, como pretendían los Orteguianos, su esencia y naturaleza es mucho más compleja que cualquiera de las grandes naciones de Europa.

---

Artículo original: Hipérbola Janus, Juan Vázquez de Mella y el tradicionalismo español, 16/Ago/2024

@ 06830f6c:34da40c5

On August 10, 2024, the vibrant Sarit Expo was alive with energy as Bitcoin Dada celebrated the graduation of its seventh cohort. This momentous event, dedicated to advancing the understanding and application of cryptocurrency, showcased the dynamism and innovation of the Bitcoin Dada community. The evening began with the MC engaging the audience in a series of lively questions. “What is Bitcoin? Explain it to me like I’m five,” was one such question that underscored the diverse range of understanding in the room. While some answers were complex, others offered simpler explanations, highlighting the challenge of conveying intricate concepts.

As the MC continued, participants were asked for their impressions of the event space and suggestions for improvement. Comments ranged from critiques of overly bright lighting to discussions about the relevance of Bitcoin. One participant proposed an intriguing app idea that combined Eventbrite and WhatsApp, reflecting the innovative spirit of the audience.

The highlight of the evening was the inspiring opening speech by the CEO of Bitcoin Dada. She addressed the marginalization of women in tech, celebrating Bitcoin Dada’s commitment to inclusivity and support. She introduced her team

each member contributing uniquely: Edith, the community lead from Uganda; Sabina, the recruiter who found a sense of belonging; and Memelord, the project manager with a flair for comedy.

The ideathon segment was particularly thrilling. Debra’s third-place pitch proposed a Bitcoin-powered marketplace aimed at reducing youth unemployment by showcasing skills. Shantelle’s second-place idea focused on using Bitcoin to address global issues, such as helping refugees find safe zones with GPS technology. The top prize went to Meg, with her solution promising a significant impact—though the specifics were left as a tantalizing cliffhanger. 🌟🏆

PS : Sabina also gave a preview of the #tando app tha you can check out here on my youtube channel Link HERE

Meeting Inspiring Figures and Making Connections 📸

Throughout the event, I had the pleasure of meeting some remarkable individuals who are deeply involved in the Bitcoin community.

First, I met Felix from TheCore, a key panelist in the discussion on the financial revolution amidst economic unrest. We took a photo together, capturing a moment of shared enthusiasm for the potential of Bitcoin.

Later, I connected with a Bitcoin Dada and gamer who is actively involved with Thndr Games, Mary Imasuen. We took a photo showcasing our shared passion for Bitcoin and gaming.

I also had the chance to meet a Bitcoin enthusiast named Hope and she was adorned in Bitcoin-themed merchandise. We snapped a photo together, celebrating our mutual enthusiasm for Bitcoin and its future.

Panel Discussions: Insightful Exchanges and Thoughtful Dialogues

The panel discussion titled “Financial Revolution Amidst Economic Unrest” featured Felix from TheCore, Jason, a Bitcoin Dada supporter, and Bill, a lawyer with expertise in Bitcoin. They delved into the major challenges Kenyans face in adopting Bitcoin, emphasizing the importance of education and community support. They discussed the solid foundation of Bitcoin’s base layer and the need for further development in subsequent layers to enhance its functionality.

The discussion also touched on Kenya’s future in the Bitcoin space. Bill suggested integrating Bitcoin with fiat transactions and stock exchanges, while Jason highlighted the government's welcoming stance and the need for energy to support Bitcoin. Felix proposed making Bitcoin legal tender and finding sustainable energy sources to bolster its use. ⚖️🌍

Audience questions added further depth to the conversation. One attendee asked about using Bitcoin to offset government debt, while another inquired about measures for improving public education on Bitcoin. The responses stressed the need for comprehensive educational initiatives. When asked about alternative cryptocurrencies, the panel firmly rejected the idea of “shitcoins,” focusing instead on the value of Bitcoin. 🚫💸

The second panel discussion, moderated by Sharon from ₿-Trust, explored personal experiences with Bitcoin Dada. Panelists Anon, Vera, and Caroline shared how the program impacted their perspectives.

• Anon discovered a niche and a supportive community, emphasizing Bitcoin’s role as “lightning-fast internet money,” especially with Layer 2 advancements. 🌐⚡
• Vera found Bitcoin to be a valuable medium of exchange, advocated against other cryptocurrencies as “shitcoins,” and highlighted opportunities for women. 💪💰
• Caroline expanded her knowledge and aimed to educate others, describing Bitcoin as a store of value and emphasizing the importance of combating inflation through education. 📚🔍

The panelists also discussed opportunities for Bitcoin in their communities: - Anon saw potential for learning and growth through knowledge-sharing. - Vera mentioned BitSacco, a solution for saving in Bitcoin, and other upcoming projects like Sabina’s Tando app. - Caroline stressed the importance of education to counteract misconceptions about Bitcoin and its benefits. 🏡📈

In their closing remarks, the panelists shared their future aspirations: - Anon aimed to become a developer impacted by Bitcoin. - Vera planned to engage with the community and learn from others. - Caroline focused on educating the community to dispel myths about Bitcoin. 🌟👩‍💻

The event concluded with a warm dinner where attendees mingled, exchanged ideas, and enjoyed a meal together. WATCH https://video.nostr.build/4d0fbc2dd6ae0c20e0d45aa071a9e88000a9544f4289414900c91134d13960da.mp4

The Bitcoin Dada Cohort 7 graduation was more than just a celebration of individual achievements; it was a testament to the collective potential of the Bitcoin community.

As the event wrapped up, the atmosphere was charged with optimism and a shared commitment to advancing bitcoin technology. The graduating cohort left with new skills, fresh ideas, and a network of like-minded individuals, ready to make a significant impact on the future of Bitcoin. 🌍💡 #kenya #bitbiashara #kenya

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na velikeprice.com

28.01.2024 / Autor: Uroš Popović

---

Najpopularnija i najkontroverznija kriptovaluta napunila je 15 godina ali razlog za otvaranje hladnog šampanjca nemaju baš svi. Već na početku, vreme je za trenutak iskrenosti – autor ovih redova nije u grupi onih kojima je bitcoin promenio život. Makar ne zasada.

Dok slavimo petnaesti rođendan prve BTC transakcije, svima nama koji smo ušli u to digitalno kolo u glavi je verovatno samo jedno pitanje – kako smo propustili šansu da na vreme obezbedimo budućnost? Ja bih dodao i taj crveni kabriolet o kojem godinama maštam…

Satoshi Nakamoto – heroj ili zločinac?

Sasvim sigurno najzvučniji pseudonim na svetu decenijama prati misterioznu osobu koja (navodno) stoji iza projekta zvanog bitcoin. Japanac ili ne, još uvek ne znamo i male su šanse da ćemo ikada saznati.

Ono što znamo je sledeće – izvesni avatar Satoshi Nakamoto tog januara 2009. započeo je svojevrsni monetarni udar. Mnogi će danas reći – čak i revoluciju! I neće mnogo pogrešiti.

Iako ga skoro svi posmatraju kao prečicu do brzog i lakog bogaćenja, što on za mali broj srećnika definitivno i jeste, bitcoin je prvenstveno označio uspešno odvajanje novca od strogog zagrljaja države i interesa nezajažljivih banaka. A to ima dobre i one manje pozitivne strane.

Bitcoin je od starta rastao na FOMO talasu, kojem su u velikoj meri doprineli i mediji. Bili su to dani kada je popularnost kriptovaluta bila na istorijskom maksimumu i svi su želeli parče tog digitalnog kolača. Mamac je bila instant zarada, što je udica kojoj nisam odoleo…

Bitcoin je pre svega postmodernistička alternativa za papirni novac. Satoshi Nakamoto je omogućio korisnicima da urade ono o čemu su sanjale generacije – da efikasno zaobiđu finansijske institucije (u najkraćem provizije i praćenje tokova novca) kako bi obavljali transakcije. Sve to širom sveta, praktično bez ikakvih granica i ograničenja. Uslov je bio i ostao jedino pristup internetu.

Paradoksalno, bitcoin u prvih godinu dana praktično nije vredeo ništa. Tako je bilo sve do 22. maja 2010. kada se sve preko noći promenilo. Tada su za 10.000 bitcoina kupljene dve pice, cena je počela da raste i ostalo je istorija. Danas se u BTC zajednici 22. maj simbolično slavi kao Pizza Day, prelomni momenat u svetu kriptovaluta.

Prednosti su već u početku bile brojne i evidentne. Jedan od glavnih ciljeva prilikom stvaranja kriptovalute bila je sloboda, tj. nezavisnost mreže od bilo kojeg organa vlasti. Svi znamo da banke danas znaju praktično sve o nama, klijentima, dok je s bitcoinom drugačije jer digitalni novčanik ne mora biti vezan ni za jednu ličnu informaciju.

Osim sve traženije anonimnosti tu je i brzina – bitcoin mreža obrađuje transfere gotovo trenutno. Potrebno je svega nekoliko minuta da na drugoj strani sveta zaista i primite bitcoin ili njegov deo, čemu je priznaćete nemoguće parirati. Ruku na srce, novi sistem nije mogao da prođe i bez zloupotreba pa je Satoshi Nakamoto (svesno ili ne) stvorio verovatno idealan ambijent za ilegalne aktivnosti koje su bez izuzetka ostajale ispod radara.

Prvo i najvažnije pravilo ulaganja u kriptovalute glasi – nikada ne bi trebalo da uložite novac koji niste spremni da izgubite! Ponovite ovu rečenicu mnogo, mnogo puta… A onda još jednom!

Rast vrednosti kriptovaluta, prvenstveno bitcoina, i interesovanje medija podstakli su s vremenom i radoznale laike, među njima i moju malenkost. I tako je započelo pumpanje balona koji u svakom momentu može da pukne! Ali i ne mora.

Privlačnost virtuelnog novčića vezana je za ono hazardersko u nama. Priznali to sebi ili ne, svi ga imamo i stoji nam na ramenu. Taj homo ludens je u jednom momentu prevladao, nije odoleo izazovu igre, lakog novca. Narodski, bez motike…

Iako sam propustio prve vagone, u kripto voz ušao sam dovoljno brzo da simboličan ulog u relativno kratkom periodu višestruko naraste. I tu leži prokletstvo – kada je zaista dovoljno, postoji li pravi momenat za rikverc i povlačenje iz bitcoin ruleta?

U mom slučaju taj trenutak je prošao i ulog se (mnogo) brže nego što sam očekivao smanjivao, topio i gotovo nestao. Sportskim rečnikom, platio sam danak neiskustvu. Tako sam na teži način usvojio najvažniju lekciju – za uspeh u kripto svetu je osim velike doze sreće potrebno mnogo znanja, pravovremene reakcije ali i monaškog strpljenja. Svega što tada nisam imao. Prvi korak bilo je učenje, štrebersko. Prva klupa i baby steps!

Greater fool theory – da li je bitcoin digitalno zlato?

Iako ime poznate teorije zvuči uvredljivo, Greater fool theory bazira se na verovanju da će izvesni artikal biti prodat po većoj ceni nekom drugom, sledećem kupcu. Da ne kažemo većoj budali… To je princip na kojem u dobroj meri funkcioniše i bitcoin.

Iz ekonomske perspektive, bitcoin se lako može uporediti sa zlatom jer je njegova najveća vrednost ograničena količina. I BTC kao i Au gotovo svi žele. Kao dodatak, ni zlato ni bitcoin se ne mogu pronaći baš na svakom koraku.

Simbolika je i više nego jasna. Od sudbonosnog januara 2009. zamišljeno je da svetom cirkuliše ograničen broj digitalnih „novčanica“, preciznije 21 milion, što BTC bitno razlikuje od zvaničnog novca države koji se, kao što znamo, po potrebi štampa.

Sličnostima tu nije kraj. Poput nekadašnje zlatne groznice i bitcoin je potrebno pronaći, što nije jednostavan a ni jeftin zadatak. A za tu rabotu je bilo neophodno mukotrpno kopanje, prilagođeno 21. veku.

Iako sada to verovatno znaju i vrapci na grani, digitalni grumen dobija se procesom rudarenja (engleski mining) koje obavljaju moćni kompjuteri. Drugi način je kupovina već izrudarenih bitcoina na berzi. Pogađate, odabrao sam taj drugi, lakši put i uštedeo na računima za struju.

Optimizam ulagača (pa i mene) i dalje se u velikoj meri bazira na veri, jer bitcoinu leđa ne drži država a nije pokriven ni hipotekama. Srećom, postoje nepisana pravila koja su u proteklih petnaest godina potvrdila da određene zakonitosti ipak postoje.

Čekajući kraj kripto zime: kalendar promena i zašto je bitan

Najbrži rast cena desio se u prvih nekoliko godina akcije, kada je za BTC malo ko znao i kada se retko trgovalo. Taj momenat je prošao, pa sada moramo da se oslonimo na taktiku praćenja popularnih „bear“ i „bull“ perioda. Objasniću.

Termini „bik“ i „medved“ obično se koriste za opisivanje tržišta, deonica ili kriptovaluta. U tom kontekstu, tržište u porastu naziva se tržištem bikova, dok se tržište u padu naziva tržištem medveda.

Nakon veoma loših godina kojima su vladale medveđe šape, konačno se nazire svetlo na kraju tunela. Period poznat kao kripto zima najčešće traje oko dve godine nakon čega cena kriptovaluta ponovo počinje da raste. Takav trend se čeka u 2024. godini!

Vreme je za novi bull run!

Početak godine obeležila je vest da je američka administracija konačno spustila gard prema kriptovalutama. Finansijske institucije su u SAD donele dugo očekivanu odluku koja dozvoljava investicionim kompanijama da aktivno ulažu u bitcoin, za klijente. Ovo zeleno svetlo obeležava jednu od najznačajnijih prekretnica u razvoju kripto industrije i veliki korak u širokom prihvatanju kriptovaluta.

Temelji novog, pa i mog optimizma leže i u šablonima po kojima bitcoin od samog početka funkcioniše. Taj kalendar pravilnosti kaže da je najkasnije sredinom 2024. (šuška se, već u aprilu) vreme za očekivani halving, osnovni mehanizam u bitcoin protokolu. Šta zapravo donosi fenomen halvinga?

Hrabrost ili ludost?! Prkoseći upozorenjima ali i neslaganju većine stanovništva Salvador je 2021. postao prva zemlja na svetu u kojoj se bitcoin koristi kao zvanična valuta. Ovaj eksperiment je makar zasada jedini…

Nakon što se izrudari oko 210.000 blokova, za šta je potrebno oko četiri godine, nagrada koja se dodeljuje rudarima za obradu transakcija pada za pedeset procenata. Halving smanjuje stopu po kojoj se novi digitalni novčići puštaju u opticaj, pa u skladu s opštim zakonom ekonomije dovodi do situacije u kojoj manja ponuda uz stabilnu tražnju rezultira višim cenama. Tako bi makar trebalo da bude, do sada je i bilo.

Ova imitacija oskudice ima za cilj da odbrani BTC tokom vremena, čineći ga atraktivnim čuvarom vrednosti. Kao rezultat toga, halving je ključna komponenta dugoročne ekonomske održivosti i trenutak koji svi (mi) nestrpljivo čekamo…

Iako su prognoze apsolutno nezahvalne, sve su to faktori koji najavljuju da bi cena bitcoina do kraja 2024. mogla čak da pređe i psihološku granicu od 100.000 dolara. A onda je nebo granica…

Informacije radi, u trenutku kada je ovaj tekst nastajao, cena za 1 BTC bila je 40.904,70 USD. Ne očajavajte, uvek možete kupiti i manji deo bitcoina, pošto je ta valuta deljiva čak do osme decimale.

I zato, this time next year…

Uroš Popović je lifestyle novinar iz Beograda, pasionirani ljubitelj automobila i saradnik Velikih priča.

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

The Law Giver

In my previous article, I briefly went into the topic of how contract law is holy law.

The Father of the Christians, you see, is a God of Covenants, and He sent His Son to Earth to fulfill the Law and pay a Price for our salvation. The Father also created the Natural Order to confirm His Laws through our observation of that Law in action.

That is why Christians have a deep respect for honest contracts, true prices, fair measures, natural systems, and good laws. Not merely for their own sake, but also because understanding them helps us to understand and emulate the Law Giver.

The tired What would Jesus do? meme is actually an attempt to capture this emulation of the Highest Judge. Jesus knows the Law, since His Father defined it and He is One with the Father, so how would He apply the Law best, in this situation?

The Last Things

Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.”

Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

-- 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 New Testament, RSV Bible

One of the things most devout Christians frequently ruminate over, is when Christ will return.

Every day, we ponder. We go for a walk, and ponder. We cook dinner, and ponder.

At the same time, we are called upon to live each day in a productive manner, and to not simply lie around, vegetating, and staring at the heavens. Not only for our own sake, but also because to do so would be to limit our ability to inform others about the Good News, so that they can take to pondering with us. We are called to ponder with as many people as we can produce, adopt, convert, or simply collect through our daily interactions.

This means that we are not of the world (as our eyes are watching God and baptism has made us Immortals), but we are definitely in the world (involved in, and effected by, the everyday dealings around us.) It is a very difficult balancing act to know when we are paying too much attention to the one or the other, or to know where to store up our treasures, if we can't put them all immediately into the Final Treasury.

So, we worked today and earned a bit of fiat cash and we have no immediate usage for it. What to do with it?

Well, some of it should go to charity or be invested in a business that provides important goods, services, and employment. Some of it will be needed to simply cover the day-to-day costs of our own life, or that of those dependent upon us. But it might be prudent to store up some of it, for the mysterious length of time between receipt of the monies and our own ascent into Heaven.

Typically, that store was the local currency, but that's being inflated away at an alarming rate. Then we all began to move to precious metals, and many of us still do, but they are so difficult to spend and can't be broken into small bits or transported over wide distances at low cost.

Enter Bitcoin.

The Great Ledger

In our frustration, more and more Christians are turning to a new technology, to save up some treasure in a liquid asset, for the mid-term. And, once we begin using it, and begin to understand how it works, we quickly grow fond of it.

Bitcoin is a beautiful money because it is a money based upon keeping precise accounts, using a fair measure, and obeying the Laws of Nature.

In essence, Bitcoin is a debt note emitted by a universal debtor (the network) in exchange for some good or service. This frees the individual people using it from ever needing to carry debt, as the debt stays in the network, the value and enforceability of that debt note is protected by the effort used to create and maintain the network, and the eagerness with which other people wish to store their efforts up in that same network. The debt still exists, but it can be so thinly and widely spread that it no longer rests as a burden upon one particular person.

The debt, in other words, has been disassociated from humans and the management has been distributed to machines. This is the precise opposite process of a "fiat" (by decree) currency, which only has value so long as it is associated with some particularly solvent group of humans (who personally vouch for repayment of any debts denominated in the currency), and where management is centralized to some other group of humans.

Have you accepted Bitcoin as your personal money and store of value?

You have invested $10 to buy the electricity to mine Bitcoin? Then you receive $10 of Bitcoin in return. The Bitcoin network now owes you the $10 purchasing power equivalent of that electricity.

If someone then gives you $5 worth of pizza, then you can then give them a $5 portion of your $10 worth of Bitcoin. You have taken a part of your Bitcoin debt note and shared it with them.

They now hold $5 worth of Bitcoin invested in the network and can spend it on some other good or service. Or they can simply hold it and wait for it to rise in value, as more people "mine" more of it (and produce more notes, paradoxically making the existing notes more useful and therefore valuable) and more people try to gain the notes in order to manage their own finances by storing their energy in the network or transporting their energy using the network.

Bitcoin, in other words, is an accounting book that needs no accountant because it stores, tracks, and controls the ledger on its own. It is a Natural Ledger that runs according to the the Laws.

It is the only human-made ledger that allows for true and immediate Final Settlement. This Final Settlement is what allows people to trade using the convenience of digital debt notes, with neither person occurring or even risking any personal debt. We Christians know that all debt is a burden, including monetary debts, which is why we are called to forgive each other's debt and to hope that our own debts are forgiven. Better still, is to avoid the accumulation of debts, altogether.

So, Final Settlement? Final Settlement is what Jesus would do.

@ 30ceb64e:7f08bdf5

In a world dominated by surveillance banking and inflationary currencies, a new paradigm is emerging—one where individuals can operate sovereign, theft-resistant checking accounts using the world's hardest money. This isn't your grandfather's checking account; it's an entirely new financial operating system built on Bitcoin and Lightning technology.

---

The Bitcoin Checking Account Revolution

Traditional checking accounts are permission-based systems where banks maintain ultimate control over your money. In contrast, a sovereign Bitcoin checking account operates on a fundamentally different principle: you hold your own keys, control your own node, and maintain custody of your funds at all times. This architecture is built on several key components:

• Self-hosted nodes providing direct network access
• Lightning channels for instant settlement
• Hardware wallets for secure key storage
• Non-custodial software interfaces
• Automated accounting and payment systems

The concept of a Bitcoin checking account represents a paradigm shift in daily financial operations. Imagine getting a direct deposit sent to your lightning node and using NWC and a variety of plug and play solutions to handle things regarding accounting, bill pay, and daily POS transactions. We're starting to see these options emerge through services like Bitcoin Well, Albyhub, Strike, Clams and Cash App.

Breaking Free from Financial Surveillance

The current banking system tracks every transaction, creating a detailed financial surveillance network. Sovereign Bitcoin checking accounts offer a powerful alternative:

• Private lightning channels for daily transactions
• E-cash protocols for enhanced privacy
• Peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries
• No account freezes or arbitrary limits
• Freedom from traditional banking hours and restrictions

Lightning and Cashu offer additional privacy and settlement speeds while enabling low cost transactions, and I believe these protocols will grow and exceed our expectations. The products and services for managing your bitcoin checking account will get more private and efficient as time moves forward.

The Daily Operations Revolution

Operating a sovereign checking account transforms everyday financial activities:

1. Income Reception

2. Direct deposit straight to Lightning

3. Instant availability of funds
4. No hold periods or bank delays

5. Multiple invoice routes for different income streams

6. Payment Management

7. Automated bill payments via Lightning

8. Instant merchant settlements
9. Cross-border transactions without fees

10. Dynamic fee management for optimal efficiency

11. Liquidity Control

12. Self-managed channel balances

13. Cold storage integration for savings
14. Automated rebalancing protocols
15. Real-time capital efficiency

The Deflationary Advantage

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect is operating a checking account in deflationary money. This fundamentally changes spending psychology and financial planning:

• Each sat potentially appreciates over time
• Natural incentive for thoughtful spending
• Built-in savings mechanism
• Protection from currency debasement

Global Market Integration

This new financial infrastructure enables seamless participation in the global economy:

• Borderless transactions
• 24/7 market access
• Direct international trade
• No forex fees or exchange rate manipulation
• Instant settlement across time zones

Security and Resilience

The system's security model represents a significant advancement:

• Multi-signature protocols
• Timelocked recovery options
• Distributed backup systems
• Attack-resistant architecture
• No single points of failure

The Future of Personal Banking

As this technology matures, we're likely to see:

• Simplified user interfaces
• Enhanced privacy tools
• Better integration with existing systems
• More automated financial management
• Increased merchant adoption

In conclusion, sovereign Bitcoin checking accounts represent more than just a new way to bank—they're a fundamental reset of the relationship between individuals and their money. This system combines the security of cold storage with the utility of traditional checking accounts, all while leveraging the strength of deflationary sound money. As adoption grows, these accounts will likely become the standard for those seeking financial sovereignty in an increasingly digital world.

---

The revolution isn't just about holding bitcoin—it's about using it in a way that maintains sovereignty while enabling practical daily finance. This is the future of money, and it's already here for those ready to embrace it.

@ f88e6629:e5254dd5

• Send a transaction, and the recipient uses the coin for another payment. You then merge these two transactions together and save on fees. 🔥

If you have a Trezor, you can try this out on: https://coiner-mu.vercel.app/

But be cautious. This is a hobby project without any guarantee.

How does it work?

1. Connect Trezor, enter the passphrase, and select an account.
2. The application display your coins, pending transactions, and descendant transactions.
3. Then app shows you how much you can save by merging all transactions and removing duplicate information.
4. Finally, you can sign and broadcast this more efficient transaction

@ 3c7d12a6:9532013e

NUD: Pubkey to colors

This NUD defines how to convert pubkey to colors.

Live demo

Why?

• npub is nonsense to display.
• too long.
• npub1bla...bla is nonsense to display.
• npub1 takes too much space.
• ... means nothing.

Specs

• Uses hex pubkey.
• Converts 64 characters to 8 colors.
• Splits 64 with 8 length chunks.
• Converts each 2 in 8 into
  • Alpha (0-255 -> 0.0-1.0)
  • Hue (0-255 -> 0.0-360.0)
  • Saturation (0-255 -> 0.0-1.0)
  • Light (0-255 -> 0.0-1.0)
• Supports dark and light theme.
• When Light is 1.0, flip the Light for light theme (0.0).

@ 2fb77d26:c47a6ee1

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

wenn wir an Schlachtfelder denken, sehen wir vor unserem inneren Auge düstere Bilder von verkohlten Wracks, von Einschlagkratern, schreienden Verwundeten, Leichen und dichten Rauchschwaden, die am Horizont über verbrannter Erde wabern.

Vergleichbare Assoziationen drängen sich auf, versucht man in Bilder zu fassen, in was für einer Gesellschaft wir mittlerweile leben. Intellektuelle Wracks, mediales Flächenbombardement, stumme Schreie von Pharmaopfern und hungernden Kindern, weggescrollt von Smartphone-Zombies, deren letzter Hauch Empathie am Rande ihres dissoziativen Wahrnehmungshorizontes verblasst. Zivilisatorische Transformation als Kriegsfilm.

Früher verliefen die Frontlinien von Klassenkampf und Propagandakrieg durch die Auslagen der Zeitungskioske, durch Rundfunkredaktionen und über die nach Sendeschluss flimmernden Bildschirme der Mattscheibe. Heute durch den Kopf.

Sprichwörtlich. Denn die »Vierte Industrielle Revolution« begegnet zunehmendem Desinteresse an Erziehungsfunk und aufkeimender Renitenz mit Dopamin-Shots, Implantaten und Nanotechnologie. Das erklärte Ziel der Herrschaftskaste ist nicht mehr die Manipulation, sondern die Fernsteuerung der Steuersklaven. Das »Hive Mind«.

Sendeschluss gibt es nicht mehr. Und der Newsfeed ist unerschöpflich, ist Manifestation dessen, was Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie für uns bedeutet: Den Verlust wertvoller Lebenszeit an neonbunte Sinnlosigkeit. Das Smartphone dient nicht der Evolution, sondern der Degeneration der Spezies Mensch. Es ist kein Werkzeug, sondern eine Waffe. Aber das Handy lässt sich — wie das TV-Gerät — abschalten. Oder abschaffen. Das birgt Risiken — denn nur Lufthoheit über dem Debattenraum garantiert dem postmodernen Feudalismus Machterhalt. Dementsprechend setzen seine Vertreter nun alles daran, invasive Technologien ins Feld zu führen, um sich unserer Gedanken bemächtigen zu können.

Der Kriegsfilm spielt sich also nicht mehr nur als dunkles Phantasma vor unserem inneren Auge ab, er handelt nicht von irgendeinem fernen Land — das zu erobernde Terrain, das primäre Schlachtfeld der biodigitalen Konvergenz liegt unmittelbar hinter dem Sehnerv. Kriegsziel: Die Verschmelzung von Mensch und Maschine. Transhumanismus. Und bei so manchem Zeitgenossen scheint bereits eine gewisse Konträrfaszination am eigenen Untergang Einzug zu halten. Die Résistance des Mediazän verteidigt demnach nicht nur das Recht auf Meinungsfreiheit, sie kämpft um den Erhalt des freien Willens. Um Menschlichkeit. Um das Fortbestehen unserer Spezies.

Vor diesem Hintergrund beschäftigt sich die dritte GEGENDRUCK mit dem »Schlachtfeld Gehirn«. Mit dem zerebralen Status quo. Die Autoren analysieren und dokumentieren den Stand von Forschung, Angriffswellen, Waffenarsenal und Verteidigungsmechanismen. Denn unser Leben ist das Produkt unserer Gedanken. Unserer Erinnerungen. Sie sind die Basis unserer Freiheit, unserer Geschichte und Zukunft. Wir müssen sie schützen. Mit allen Mitteln.

Denn »ein Kopf ohne Gedächtnis ist eine Festung ohne Besatzung« (Napoleon).

Im Namen des gesamten Teams,

Tom-Oliver Regenauer

Printausgabe bestellen unter: www.gegendruck.de

@ 714f9dc3:76659adb

Last week, I was reading “The Air We Breathe”, by Glen Scrivener. It’s about “How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality”, and it explores the Christian roots of the values we prize in today's western society. It’s all around us, but we don’t really know where it came from: It’s the air we’re breathing. The ideas and ethics behind Christianity, whether you believe in them or not, are embedded in our culture.

As I was reading this, I saw so many parallels with Bitcoin, so wanted to list them below and share some of my thoughts. Can Bitcoin also become “The Air We Breathe”? Or in plebs words: hyperbitcoinization?

Can Bitcoin become so ubiquitous that it becomes normal? Can there be a world in which we don’t even know where Bitcoin came from? It would be a world with many similar views as with today's view on Christianity. It becomes the air we breathe, something that used to be a counterculture that over time became ubiquitous. What can we learn from it?

These are my ten parallels of Bitcoin with the early days of Christianity.

1. Separation from state
2. From obscure counterculture to dominant force
3. Exponential grassroots growth
4. Conversion of emperors/politicians
5. Sudden tolerance and protection for ideology
6. Fall of the empire, end of the status quo
7. Missionaries spreading the word
8. Persuasion and education are key
9. Age of Enlightenment

Note: I’m no expert on Christianity, nor a historian of the Roman Empire, and I know just a bit about Bitcoin. See this as a thought experiment.

1. Separation from state

In all fairness, I’m not the first to draw this first parallel. It was Satoshi Nakamoto themself who made the connection even before Bitcoin was available to the public, with several hints pointing back to important dates and moments in Christian history. The big parallel here is the “separation of money and state” and “separation of church and state”.

Before going back to the early days of Christianity in the first centuries AD, I first want to draw this parallel with Satoshi.

It’s 1517. The German Priest Maarten Luther writes his Ninety-five Theses, and nails this on the church doors in Wittenberg. The theses are also known as the “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”. He kickstarted a movement with a radical new idea for that time: The separation of the church from the state.

The Catholic Church had become one with the state. Via the means of indulgences, there was an ability to pay for your redemption. The church was corrupted by money, power and politics. The church and indulgences replaced the need for personal responsibility and an individual faith with money and perverse structures.

Reformation Day is a Protestant Christian religious holiday celebrated on 31 October in remembrance of the onset of the Reformation. But the 31st of October is also the day in which Satoshi shared his pamphlet with the world: in 2008 they published the Bitcoin Whitepaper. It kickstarted a movement with a radical new idea for that time: The separation of the money from the state.

But this was not Satoshi’s only hint. Another one is the date of Bitcoin’s Genesis Block: January 3, 2009. It was the day that the idea of the separation of money and the state became reality, more than just an idea in an individual's mind.

Did you know that Maarten Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1521 by Pope Leo X for sparking this revolutionary new way of thinking (and being). It happened on January 3 as well. I bet Satoshi Nakamoto knew.

To be fair, this parallel is not new and known by many bitcoiners. But it’s a good introduction to the topic, and after reading “The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality”, I automatically started to see more parallels between (the early days of) Christianity and todays adoption of Bitcoin. Because it was of course not Maarten Luther who sparked these rebellious thoughts in 1500, but it was Jesus himself approx. 2000 years ago.

Let’s go back from the 1500s to the first decades AD to the beginning of this radical new belief system. During the dominance of the Roman empire in the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, someone told a story that opposed every mainstream paradigm.

Jesus’ idea was radically different from the belief systems of that day. He preached Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality in a world that was full of Debauchery and Violence, with Gladiator Games, Slavery, Public Crucifixion, and Brutalities. The belief system of that time was not like todays.

There were superior races (Greek/Romans over barbarians), superior sexes (man over women), superior classes (free man over slaves) and the concept of justice was more something in the realm of “restoring rights of those that were superior”, than “equality for all, men and women, Greek and barbarian, free and slave”.

Jesus opposed the status quo. It started small and irrelevant; as a counterculture. But it didn’t stay that way.

2. From obscure counterculture to dominant force

In “The Air We Breathe”, Scrivener asks the question:

“How did the obscure, marginal Jesus movement of the 1st century become the dominant religious force in the Western world in a few centuries?”

Important to know, is that the Christian faith was the opposite of the narrative. Concepts like Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality didn’t exist in the Roman Empire. Human rights neither. Individual rights neither. The emperor was almost de facto God himself.

Early Christians were persecuted for preaching a different story: that God is NOT the ruler of the empire. Jesus preached the separation of politics from God; separating faith from the state. As a result, he was crucified, and many of his followers were killed by Nero (between 54 and 68 AD), Domitian (81–96 AD), Trajan (98–117 AD) and Decius (249–251 AD). This new narrative was a thread for the Roman rulers.

Draw the parallels of how there have been many attempts to “kill” bitcoin, not with physical persecution but with an information war. Not by physical violence, but by misinformation. Bitcoin threatens the status quo, just like Christianity threatened the Roman Empire.

You see?

But how is the obscure movement of Bitcoin in the 21st century becoming the dominant force, similar to the question that Scrivener asked about Christianity? Perhaps the answer lies in the following parallel.

3. Exponential grassroots growth

Sociologist Rodney Stark estimates in “The Rise of Christianity” that from the time of the first Easter, the church began growing at a rate of 40% per decade, a modest but relentless 3.4% per year. By the year 300, Christians numbered perhaps 6 million: about a tenth of the empire.

Despite pushbacks, the army of believers continued to grow. Grassroots, peer-to-peer. It was not the state-religion, it was a peaceful army of believers that spread the word, resulting in an exponential growth of its followers. The counterculture became more and more dominant.

You may see what I’m doing here. It was basically the meme that all Bitcoiners know: Gradually, then suddenly. Against the current.

4. Conversion of emperors/politicians

In 312 a big change happened: Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. As Stark writes, "Constantine's conversion would better be seen as a response to the massive exponential wave in progress, not as its cause".

Are we living in that same era, where nation states start to embrace Bitcoin? Where politicians don’t oppose as strongly anymore, but are flirting with the idea of embracing it? And again the parallel: it’s responsive to the exponential wave of progress, not as its cause.

Whether Constantine is Nayib Bukele, Donald Trump, or Milei: it doesn’t matter. It’s the dynamic that matters. The counterculture becomes so dominant, that the “rulers” of the world are wanting to be part of it. Which will be followed by “rules” that favour the ideology, movement, and beliefs.

6. Tolerance and protection for ideology

In 313 Constantine's Edict of Milan granted freedom to Christians that were remarkable for that time and a model for religious toleration for the coming centuries.

The tide was turning, and by 380 Emperor Theodosius made Christianity Rome's official religion, more than half the population had already converted. In a few short centuries Christianity had gone from radical counterculture to dominant cultural power. This was an extraordinary shift in the church's relationship with the world. The edict expressly grants religious liberty to Christians, who had been the object of special persecution, but also goes even further and grants liberty to all other religions. And then, in 410, the world itself changed.

It changed from grassroots, bottom-up adoption to some kind of nation state adoption. One that was driven by decrees and edicts, instead of the analog cyberhornets of that day. Actually, the ideas of Indulgences were introduced via these Edicts, something that Maarten Luther actually was fighting against in the 1500s.

The world changed from the state-less Christian belief and moved (back) towards a system in which the state and church were connected again. Yes — the Roman Catholic Church. Until the previously mentioned critics during the Reformation.

6. Fall of the empire, end of the status quo

When people speak of the fall of the Roman Empire, they usually mean in the 5th century when the western half fell. But there was also an eastern half, known as the Byzantine Empire (with its capital in what is modern-day Istanbul).

How did this relate to the movement that once was Cult, and now suddenly had become Culture?

It was Augustine, the north African bishop (354-430), who laid the foundation for a new philosophical, theological, and legal system. He distinguished between the fragile earthly realm and the eternal heavenly kingdom. Rome was “a city of man”, which fell. But the “city of God” was forever. He continued to separate the Roman Catholic Church from the faith that it once was. This distinction was vital, and it gave rise to the concept of "the secular realm". He planted the first ideas of "the separation of church and state" again, which started to spread throughout Europe during the supposedly "sandy desert" of the Middle Ages.

The parallel and lesson here might be that narratives can be taken over, for the worse. And that it takes centuries to take back the narrative, but/and only after an empire has fallen. Whether we refer to “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe or “Changing World Orders” by Ray Dalio. There is something to preserve, and it needs active monitoring and pushbacks!

7. Missionary, spreading the word

The way the church sought to spread its influence would become a question that would take many centuries (and many failures) to settle. In the past, empires sought to spread their influence almost always by force. Christianity has been a missionary faith from the beginning. It was for this reason that Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine to Britain to convert the Anglo-Saxons.

Augustine was commanded by Gregory to use only "gentle means". His goal was persuasion. His method was teaching and preaching. And he was successful, converting King Aethelbert of Kent and becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

You see what I’m talking about again: the parallel is simple. Bitcoin is a similar peaceful revolution, a missionary movement, of those that wish to see their Cult turn into a Culture. “Genle means”, teachings, persuasions. Or in pleb terminology: Orangepilling.

8. Persuasion and education are key

Over the next decades and centuries, this movement continued. English Benedictine monk (675-754) Boniface was sent from the previously “barbarian” Britain to “orangepill the East” – in this case the Saxons in the Germanic lands. In the words of his advisor, the Bishop of Winchester, his goal was "to convince them by many documents and arguments". This mission of persuasion and education was largely successful. Today he’s better known as “the Apostle to the Germans". He was killed in The Netherlands (in Dokkum).

Boniface kept to a policy of non-violence and non-retaliation, even to the point of death. Another famous writer about this topic, Tom Holland, summarises the lesson we learn from Boniface: "to convert was to educate".

In the following century this lesson was sorely needed by the Frankish king Charles the Great, aka Charlemagne (742-814). Charlemagne's path to power was a brutal one. When the Saxons stood in his way, Charlemagne beheaded 4,500 of them in a single day. There are concrete reasons why "getting medieval" might be associated today with brutality.

Is “Bitcoin as Legal Tender”, whether this is peaceful or violently, the way to go? Are we “getting medieval” with these kind of measures, in order to go from Cult to Culture, from counterculture to dominant culture, in which we lose the true essence of our revolution of separation of the state from the matter?

9. Age of Enlightenment

Alcuin of York (735-804), was bold enough to write to Charlemagne directly with his criticism. "A person can be drawn into the faith, not forced into it". Be a lighthouse, not a tugboat!

The church's official teaching would later agree with Alcuin's position. In the 12th century all "harsh means" were forbidden since faith arises from the will, not compulsion. Enlightenment comes through education and persuasion.

There’s work to do. Grassroots. Education. Peer-to-peer. Not directed by politicians, nor opposed by those in power. Through education and persuasion. Rules without rulers. Because eventually, with the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, there are stark examples of the church using “harsh means" again. Forcing Bitcoin on people will never be the way: it’s a cheat code to the end goal. In order to succeed, we’ll need to be a missionary.

Final words

I don’t want in any way to compare Christianity in itself as a faith, and Bitcoin as a technology, with each other. I enjoyed exploring the sociological phenomena between two countercultures, the grassroots movement and missionary parallels between both of them. Satoshi gave the first assist, with the 31st of October (Whitepaper Day) and the Genesis Block on January 3rd.

Let’s not mix religion with monetary systems, even though there are many similarities between certain movements. That’s not my goal for sharing this brain dump. But let’s learn from the past, from Constantine’s Edict and from Augustine, from Charlemagne (and especially Alcuin of York), from Boniface and from Maarten Luther. And from Satoshi Nakamoto.

@ 38f9a05c:6999fc04

In today's world, where self-promotion appears to be the standard, there exists a subtle charm in modesty. As a child, I frequently encountered the expression, "Only a donkey praises their tail." its significance has remained with me throughout my life. It serves as a reminder that authentic excellence does not require shouting from the rooftops; instead, it manifests itself in actions, not words.

Allow me to now introduce Alfred Adler, a pioneer in the field of psychology. Born in Vienna in 1870, Adler's theories challenged the prevailing views of his time, particularly Sigmund Freud's emphasis on the unconscious mind. Adler proposed individual psychology, focusing on the unique experiences and perceptions that shape each person's worldview. Central to his theories was the concept of the "inferiority complex" and its counterpart, the "superiority complex," shedding light on how individuals grapple with feelings of inadequacy and superiority.

Inferiority complex

The "inferiority complex" describes persistent feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, stemming from early experiences. Individuals afflicted with this complex often seek validation and may engage in compensatory behaviors. Therapy and self-reflection are key to addressing and overcoming these feelings, fostering healthier self-esteem and confidence.

An example of an inferiority complex might be a person who, from a young age, consistently felt overshadowed by their siblings' achievements and talents. Despite their own unique abilities and successes, they internalize a belief that they are inherently inferior to others. This belief could manifest in various ways throughout their life, such as constantly seeking approval from others, feeling anxious or inadequate in social situations, or striving excessively for success in an attempt to prove their worth.

Superiority Complex

Conversely, the "superiority complex" manifests as an exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement. Individuals with this complex may exhibit arrogance and lack empathy towards others, struggling with meaningful relationships and criticism.

An example of a superiority complex could be seen in a person who consistently belittles others and insists on being the center of attention in social settings. They might boast about their achievements, talents, or possessions in an attempt to assert their superiority over those around them.

Back to the childhood phrase "Only a donkey brags praises their tail." Returning to the childhood adage "Only a donkey brags praises their tail,” modesty and humility are often misconstrued as weakness or a lack of self-confidence. Nevertheless, it is far from that. It entails possessing a realistic view of oneself and comprehending that one's value should not rely solely on external validation or praise. Instead, it's found in the genuine connections we make with others and the positive impact we have on the world around us.

By abstaining from boasting about ourselves, we provide room for others to shine. It is not about denigrating our accomplishments or pretending to be less than we are. On the contrary, it involves acknowledging our abilities without feeling compelled to advertise them to the public continually. Therein lies the elegance of allowing our actions to speak louder than our words.

Moreover, humility allows for personal growth and learning. When we're humble, we're open to feedback and constructive criticism. Instead of becoming defensive or dismissive, we approach each opportunity for improvement with an open mind and a willingness to learn. This mindset not only helps us develop professionally but also fosters a sense of humility and gratitude for the knowledge and experiences that others bring to the table.

Humility enables personal development and learning. When we're not constantly focused on ourselves, we become more attuned to the needs and experiences of those around us. We listen more intently, offer support more readily, and celebrate the successes of others with genuine enthusiasm. In doing so, we cultivate deeper connections and create a more inclusive and supportive community.

In a society that often glorifies self-promotion and individualism, it can be challenging to embrace humility fully. However, it's a quality worth cultivating, both personally and professionally. By focusing on what we can contribute rather than what we can gain, we create a more harmonious and compassionate world. Hence, should you ever find the urge to trumpet your achievements or magnify your ego, pause to reflect on the timeless wisdom encapsulated in the age-old adage: "Only a donkey praises their tail," alongside the profound insights of the Austrian psychiatrist's psychological framework. Instead of trying to prove yourself with words, show who you are through your actions. Embrace humility, which means being modest and not bragging. True greatness isn't about loudly boasting about your good qualities. It's about having inner strength and making a positive impact on the people around you.

Lastly as the Great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said, "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

@ 3c984938:2ec11289

A long time ago, a girl resided on a tropical island. The girl's name is Sirena. She resided with her mother in close proximity to the Hagåtña River. Sirena's mother was a bit strict and tried to teach her to follow her in footsteps to be a lady, but Sirena only dreamed of swimming all day.\ \ Sirena's only outlet was when her Godmother would come visit. She always brought surprises, such as new trinkets, stories, and secretly gave her coconut candy.

Sirena's mother was preparing for a special event and needed her to acquire special ingredients from the nearby village. She had a significant amount of preparations to complete, therefore she requested that Sirena procure the necessary ingredients and return promptly. Sirena made a promised to her mother that she would hurry back.\

She was on the village path. She kept her eyes on the trail, trying her best to be a good daughter and hurry back. But she took one glance briefly at the river.

\ She is mesmerized by the water and jumps in before she realizes it. She swims down the river to the ocean, completely forgetting her mother's errand and promise. Sirena does not returned home even after the sun has set and was still swimming. Her mother, frustrated and angry, unleashes a powerful curse. The godmother begged her daughter to calm down. She shouted, "She's swimming again! Look at how late it is! "If you have such a profound love for the ocean, then become a fish," she exclaims to the ocean. Knowing the extent of her daughter's curse. She tries to counteract her daughter's curse. She pleads to the ocean, "Please, let me keep my Goddaughter's heart, please let that much remain."\ \ In the eerie glow of the moonlight, upon realizing her mother's task, she swims back to where the ocean meets the river. But she experiences a strange sensation in her lower half. The water swirls around her. She looks down to see that she has now fins instead of feet. With the new transformation, she regrets not finishing her mother's errand.

Sirena was happy because now she can be in the water all day long. However, Sirena also wished she did what her mother asked and found another way to punish her. A part of her will forever be saddened by the loss of her Mother and Godmother.

It said that sailors have spotted mermaids on their voyage across the sea. Just that their too crafty & swift to be caught.

Historical Notes/context

The story originates from the indigenous island of Guam and has been shared for generations. There are multiple versions of the story. The term Sirena is not present in the Chamorro language; however, in Spanish, it refers to the mythological creature known as the mermaid. The capital of the Island is Hagåtña. The Hagåtña river flows beneath the Spanish Bridge, where it is possible to observe her monument. Many believe Sirena resided here. There is speculation that this story was crafted to frighten children into listening to their parents and not playing in the river's water, as it was a vital water source. This was more prevalent when the Spanish established Guam as a port for whaling, pirates, and trade during the Spanish Galleon trade era(16th century). It should be noted that the women's role in the Chamorro version reflects a matrilineal society, which can be seen with Grandma/Godmother.

👉I like to point out in this, Thomas Edison patented the light bulb in 1879. So visually the lights outside and inside the huts as flames. As Ai(text to image) does not account for these type of items.

👉This also goes back to be careful what you wish for because you may actual get your wish.

👉Chamorro people are Pacific Islanders, similar to Hawaiians, and have a brown/tan skin complexion.\

👉My mermaid looks strikingly similar to the Disney's recent version of Ariel. I Thought that was interesting because I put just "mermaid" into the text prompt. Its worth pointing out ai limitations as it's not advanced as I originally thought, likely due to its limited data. In this case only disney as a reference for mermaid.

based on ordinary prompts\ Prompt used:\ That's all-Thank you until next time (N)osyters!

If you like it, send me some ❤❤hearts❤ and if you didn't like it-⚡⚡🍑🍑zap⚡⚡🍑🍑 me!🍑🍑 me!

For email updates you can subscribe to my paragraph.xyz/\@onigirl or below if using the Yakihonne App

@ 97c70a44:ad98e322

The last few days on developer nostr have involved quite a kerfluffle over the gossip model, blastr, banning jack, and many related misunderstandings. This post is an attempt to lay out my thoughts on the matter in an organized and hopefully helpful way.

What's wrong with gossip?

It all started with a post from jack asking why more devs haven't implemented the gossip model. There are many answers to this question, not least having to do with there being two standards for user relay selections, and ongoing changes to NIP 65. But I don't want to talk about compatibility here.

nevent1qydhwumn8ghj7argv4nx7un9wd6zumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcprfmhxue69uhhq7tjv9kkjepwve5kzar2v9nzucm0d5hszymhwden5te0wfjkccte9enrw73wd9hj7qpq2uf488j3uy084kpsn594xcef9g9x3lplx4xnglf0xwghyw2n3tfqqnrm02

Mazin responded with some numbers which estimate how many connections the gossip model requires. Too many connections can become expensive for low-power clients like mobile phones, not to mention some privacy issues stemming from nosy relays.

nevent1qyd8wumn8ghj7urewfsk66ty9enxjct5dfskvtnrdakj7qgewaehxw309amk2mrrdakk2tnwdaehgu3wwa5kuef0qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcqyp2xzsjktypudzmygplljkupmuyadzzr6rkgnvx9e0fx3zwhdm0vkz4ceg7

I have some minor disagreements with Mazin's numbers, but I basically agree with his point — a purist gossip model, where a large proportion of nostr users run their own relays results in a high number of connections to different relays. I brought this question up late last year in my interview with Mike Dilger and in a conversation with fiatjaf, who convinced me that in practice, this doesn't matter — enough people will use a handful of larger hubs that there will be a good amount of overlap in relay selections between most pubkeys.

To articulate this more clearly: the goal is not "personal web nodes", which is a pipe dream the Farcasters and BlueSkys (BlueSkies?) of the world aim at, but a more pragmatic mix between large hubs and smaller purpose-built relays. These small relays might be outlets for large publishers, small groups, or nerds who also run their own SMTP servers and lightning nodes.

The point of the gossip model is that these small nodes be possible to run, and discoverable from the rest of the network so that we can preserve the censorship-resistant qualities of nostr that brought us here in the first place.

Blast It!

It's no secret that I've long been a critic of Mutiny's blastr relay implementation. My main objection is that the blastr approach doesn't account for the hard limits involved in scaling smaller relays. If the goal is to cross-pollinate notes across all relays in the network, all relays will require the same size database, and contain all notes in the network. This works right now (sort of), but as the network grows, the relays running on a $5 VPS are going to have their disks fill up and will inevitably fall over.

nevent1qyvhwumn8ghj76r0v3kxymmy9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hszxnhwden5te0wpuhyctdd9jzuenfv96x5ctx9e3k7mf0qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehgu3wvfskuep0qqs07jr9qx49h53nhw76u7c3up2s72k7le2zj94h5fugmcgtyde4j9qfrnwxj

Not only that, but the content breakdown on any given relay by default becomes an undifferentiated soup of "GM", chinese notes, bots, bitcoin memes, and porn. Blastr makes it impossible to run an interesting relay without implementing write policies.

Which is actually fine! Because that's always been true — servers that allow anonymous uploads always get abused. Tony is just helpfully pointing out to us that this is no less true of nostr relays. I only wish he could have waited a little longer before mounting his attack on the network, because lots of hobbyists are interested in running interesting relays, but the tools don't yet exist to protect those servers from unsolicited notes.

One other note on blastr — Tony at one point described blastr as a relay proxy. This is an interesting perspective, which puts things in a different light. More on proxies later.

Ban Jack?

Here's a thought experiment: how might we actually "ban blastr"? @Pablof7z suggested to me in a conversation that you could configure your relay to check every note that gets published to your relay against the big nostr hubs, and if it exists on any of them to simply delete it. Of course, that would result in your relay being basically empty, and the hubs having all of your content. That's game theory for you I guess.

Another approach that was floated was to encourage users to only publish to small relays. In theory, this would force clients to implement gossip so users could still see the content they were subscribed to. Fiatjaf even posted two identical notes, one to his personal relay, and one to a hub to see which would get more engagement. The note posted to the mainstream relay got 10x more replies and likes than the more obscure note.

nostr:nevent1qyd8wumn8ghj7urewfsk66ty9enxjct5dfskvtnrdakj7qgmwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8wetnw3jhymnzw33jucm0d5hszymhwden5te0wp6hyurvv4cxzeewv4ej7qpqdc2drrmdmlkcyna5kkcv8yls4f8zaj82jjl00xrh2tmmhw3ejsmsmp945r

Of course, this is thwarted by blastr, since blastr not only replicates notes posted to it, it also actively crawls the network as well. So the next logical step in this train of thought would be for hubs to encourage people to use small relays by actively blocking high-profile accounts.

nostr:nevent1qydhwumn8ghj7argv4nx7un9wd6zumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpzdmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujue3h0ghxjme0qyd8wumn8ghj7urewfsk66ty9enxjct5dfskvtnrdakj7qpqpjhnn69lej55kde9l64jgmdkx2ngy2yk87trgjuzdte2skkwwnhqv5esfq

This would of course never happen (Damus is one client that hasn't implemented NIP 65, and they also run the biggest relay), but it was a fun thought experiment. At any rate, the silliness of the suggestion didn't stop certain people from getting offended that we would "disrupt the free market" by "forcing" our opinions on everyone else. Oh well.

Death to Blastr

In reality, even though blastr makes it a little harder to adopt gossip in the short term, its days are numbered. Eventually, relay operators will start to feel the pain of unsolicted notes, and will either shut their relays down or look for tools that will help them curate the content they host.

From my perspective, these tools take two forms — read protection and write protection. This is something I alluded to in my talk at Nostrasia last November.

Write protection is straightforward — already many relays have access control lists based on active subscriptions, invite codes, or just static whitelists that determine who is allowed to post to a given relay, or what event authors are represented there. This approach effectively prevents blastr from using relays as free storage, which is a huge improvement.

Read protection is more tricky, because anything publicly readable will be scraped by blastr and replicated to unauthenticated-write relays across the network. In most cases, this is ok, but there are use cases for relays to exist that host a unique collection of notes oriented around some organizing principle. Unfortunately, with blastr in action (or any scraper that might exist), the only way to do this is to actively protect proprietary content. There are a few approaches that can work to make this happen:

• IP-based access control lists
• AUTH-based access control lists
• Stripping signatures when serving events
• Storing and serving encrypted content

Each of these approaches has its own set of trade-offs. But depending on use case, any of them or a combination of them could work to allow relay operators to carve out their own piece of the nostr-verse. In fact, this is a big part of what Coracle is about — the white-labeled version of the product confines certain notes to proprietary relays, with optional encrypted group support.

Enough of my polemic against blastr. Let's talk about how to make the gossip model actually work.

Hints are pointless

Right now, clients that implement the gossip model rely pretty heavily on relay hints to find related notes — whether user profiles, reply parents, or community definitions. The problem with hints is that they are prone to link rot. Many of the relays that were set up a year ago when nostr took off are no longer online, and yet they persist in user relay lists, and in relay hints. These hints can't be updated — they are set in stone. What this means is that a different mechanism has to be used to find the notes the hints were supposed to help locate.

Because of this, I've come around to the position that hints are basically pointless. They are fine as a stopgap, and might be appropriate for certain obscure and ill-defined use cases where relay urls are the most durable address type available. But they provide basically no value in supporting the long-term robustness of the network.

What are durable, however, are pubkeys. Pubkeys are available pretty much everywhere, except in event id hints — and there is a proposal in the works to add a pubkey to those too. The cool thing about pubkeys as hints is that once you have a pubkey, all you need to do is find that person's kind 10002 inbox/outbox selections, and you should be able to find any note they have published.

This goes with the caveat that when users change their relay selections, or rotate their key, they (or their relays) should be sure to copy their notes to the new relay/pubkey.

The question then is: how do I find a given pubkey's relay selections?

There are already several mechanisms that make this reasonably easy. First of all, NIP 65 explicitly recommends publishing relay selections to a wide range of relays. This is a place where the blastr approach is appropriate. As a result, relay selections are usually available on the most popular public relays. Then there are special purpose relays like purplepag.es, which actively seek out these notes and index them.

These indexes are not confined to relays either. It would be trivial to create a DVM that you could ask for a pubkey's relay selections, optionally for a fee. Alex Gleason's proxy tag could also be used to indicate indexes that exist outside the nostr network — whether that be torrents, DHT keys, or what have you.

The best part is that this doesn't negatively impact the decentralization of the network because in principle these indexes are stateless — in other words, they're easily derived from the state of the public part of the nostr network.

Just do it for me

Looping back to where we started — the complexity and technical challenges of implementing the gossip model — there is a simple solution that many people have experimented with in different ways that could solve both issues at once: proxies.

As I mentioned above, Tony thinks of blastr as a proxy, and he's right. More specifically, it's a write-proxy. This is only part of its functionality (it also acts as an independent agent which crawls the network. EDIT: apparently this is not true!), but it is an essential part of how people use it.

Another kind of proxy is a read proxy. There are several implementations of these, including my own multiplextr proxy, which is gossip-compatible (although it requires a wrapper protocol for use). The advantage of a proxy like this is that it can reduce the number of connections a client has to open, and the number of duplicate events it has to download.

Proxies can do all kinds of fancy things in the background too, like managing the gossip model on behalf of the client, building an index of everything the user would be likely to ask for in advance to speed up response times, and more.

One interesting possibility is that a NIP 46 signer could double as a proxy, reducing the number of round trips needed. And since a signer already has access to your private key, this kind of proxy would not result in an escalation in permissions necessary for the proxy to work.

It's simple

The number of cool and creative solutions to the content replication and indexing problem is huge, and certainly doesn't end with blastr. Just to summarize the next steps I'm excited to see (to be honest, I want to build them myself, but we all know how that goes):

• More clients supporting gossip
• Gossip implementations maturing (Coracle's still has some issues that need to be worked out)
• A shift from relying on relay hints to relying on pubkey hints + relay selection indexes of some kind
• Proxy/signer combos which can take on some of the heavy lifting for clients of delivering events to the right inboxes, and pulling events from the right outboxes

Let's get building!

@ f9c0ea75:44e849f4

If there's one thing Brazil's economic history has proven time and time again, it’s that no currency lasts forever. Brazil has had nine different currencies, and all of them failed in the same way: losing value until the government decided to "fix" the problem by introducing a new one.

On average, since 1900, each currency lasted only 13.9 years, and if we look at the trajectory of the Real, the question remains: how much longer can it survive?

The Graveyard of Brazilian Currencies

Every time inflation spirals out of control, the government finds the same solution: rename the currency and cut zeros, pretending that the underlying economic problems have been solved. Here’s the long list of failures:

Réis (1500-1942) → Lasted centuries but was eaten away by inflation and replaced by the Cruzeiro.

Cruzeiro (1942-1967) → Introduced to modernize the economy but quickly lost its purchasing power.

Cruzeiro Novo (1967-1970) → A redenomination that cut three zeros, but it only lasted 3 years.

Cruzeiro (1970-1986) → Inflation skyrocketed, leading to another currency shift.

Cruzado (1986-1989) → Promised stability by removing zeros, but lasted just 3 years.

Cruzado Novo (1989-1990) → Another reset, another failure, lasting just 1 year.

Cruzeiro (1990-1993) → Brought back an old name, but inflation remained unchecked.

Cruzeiro Real (1993-1994) → A short-lived transition currency, lasting just 1 year before the Real.

Real (1994-present) → ˜30 years old, it has already lost more than 85% of its purchasing power. The Real is now showing the same symptoms that led to the collapse of its predecessors. Inflation is eroding its value, and government intervention keeps distorting the market. We are just waiting for the next excuse to rename the currency and "reset" the system once again.

DREX: The Next Rebranding of Brazilian Money?

This time, the change might not come as a simple rebranding or a few zeroes being cut. The Brazilian government is already preparing DREX, a digital currency controlled by the Central Bank. Officially, it will be a "digital Real," but in reality, it could serve as a way to impose new monetary rules, redefine values, and quietly restructure the economy—just like every previous currency reset.

The pattern is clear: give a new name to an old problem and keep extracting value from citizens.

The Fate of the Real? We Don’t Know. But Bitcoin is Better.

Looking at history, it’s clear that Brazil’s fiat currencies have a built-in expiration date. The government will always find a way to reset the system, rename the currency, and erase the traces of inflation.

But for the first time in history, there is a real alternative: Bitcoin.

Unlike all of Brazil’s previous currencies, Bitcoin cannot be manipulated, inflated, or rebranded by government decree. It doesn’t rely on empty promises or central authorities that can change the rules whenever it suits them.

In the end, the Real might last a few more years or be replaced soon by DREX—but one thing is certain: BITCOIN IS BETTER.

@ bcea2b98:7ccef3c9

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/842405

@ 23b0e2f8:d8af76fc

Necessário

• Um Android que você não use mais (a câmera deve estar funcionando).
• Um cartão microSD (opcional, usado apenas uma vez).
• Um dispositivo para acompanhar seus fundos (provavelmente você já tem um).

Algumas coisas que você precisa saber

• O dispositivo servirá como um assinador. Qualquer movimentação só será efetuada após ser assinada por ele.
• O cartão microSD será usado para transferir o APK do Electrum e garantir que o aparelho não terá contato com outras fontes de dados externas após sua formatação. Contudo, é possível usar um cabo USB para o mesmo propósito.
• A ideia é deixar sua chave privada em um dispositivo offline, que ficará desligado em 99% do tempo. Você poderá acompanhar seus fundos em outro dispositivo conectado à internet, como seu celular ou computador pessoal.

---

O tutorial será dividido em dois módulos:

• Módulo 1 - Criando uma carteira fria/assinador.
• Módulo 2 - Configurando um dispositivo para visualizar seus fundos e assinando transações com o assinador.

---

No final, teremos:

• Uma carteira fria que também servirá como assinador.
• Um dispositivo para acompanhar os fundos da carteira.

---

Módulo 1 - Criando uma carteira fria/assinador

1. Baixe o APK do Electrum na aba de downloads em https://electrum.org/. Fique à vontade para verificar as assinaturas do software, garantindo sua autenticidade.

2. Formate o cartão microSD e coloque o APK do Electrum nele. Caso não tenha um cartão microSD, pule este passo.

1. Retire os chips e acessórios do aparelho que será usado como assinador, formate-o e aguarde a inicialização.

1. Durante a inicialização, pule a etapa de conexão ao Wi-Fi e rejeite todas as solicitações de conexão. Após isso, você pode desinstalar aplicativos desnecessários, pois precisará apenas do Electrum. Certifique-se de que Wi-Fi, Bluetooth e dados móveis estejam desligados. Você também pode ativar o modo avião.\ (Curiosidade: algumas pessoas optam por abrir o aparelho e danificar a antena do Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, impossibilitando essas funcionalidades.)

1. Insira o cartão microSD com o APK do Electrum no dispositivo e instale-o. Será necessário permitir instalações de fontes não oficiais.

1. No Electrum, crie uma carteira padrão e gere suas palavras-chave (seed). Anote-as em um local seguro. Caso algo aconteça com seu assinador, essas palavras permitirão o acesso aos seus fundos novamente. (Aqui entra seu método pessoal de backup.)

---

Módulo 2 - Configurando um dispositivo para visualizar seus fundos e assinando transações com o assinador.

1. Criar uma carteira somente leitura em outro dispositivo, como seu celular ou computador pessoal, é uma etapa bastante simples. Para este tutorial, usaremos outro smartphone Android com Electrum. Instale o Electrum a partir da aba de downloads em https://electrum.org/ ou da própria Play Store. (ATENÇÃO: O Electrum não existe oficialmente para iPhone. Desconfie se encontrar algum.)

2. Após instalar o Electrum, crie uma carteira padrão, mas desta vez escolha a opção Usar uma chave mestra.

1. Agora, no assinador que criamos no primeiro módulo, exporte sua chave pública: vá em Carteira > Detalhes da carteira > Compartilhar chave mestra pública.

1. Escaneie o QR gerado da chave pública com o dispositivo de consulta. Assim, ele poderá acompanhar seus fundos, mas sem permissão para movimentá-los.

2. Para receber fundos, envie Bitcoin para um dos endereços gerados pela sua carteira: Carteira > Addresses/Coins.

3. Para movimentar fundos, crie uma transação no dispositivo de consulta. Como ele não possui a chave privada, será necessário assiná-la com o dispositivo assinador.

1. No assinador, escaneie a transação não assinada, confirme os detalhes, assine e compartilhe. Será gerado outro QR, desta vez com a transação já assinada.

1. No dispositivo de consulta, escaneie o QR da transação assinada e transmita-a para a rede.

---

Conclusão

Pontos positivos do setup:

• Simplicidade: Basta um dispositivo Android antigo.
• Flexibilidade: Funciona como uma ótima carteira fria, ideal para holders.

Pontos negativos do setup:

• Padronização: Não utiliza seeds no padrão BIP-39, você sempre precisará usar o electrum.
• Interface: A aparência do Electrum pode parecer antiquada para alguns usuários.

Nesse ponto, temos uma carteira fria que também serve para assinar transações. O fluxo de assinar uma transação se torna: Gerar uma transação não assinada > Escanear o QR da transação não assinada > Conferir e assinar essa transação com o assinador > Gerar QR da transação assinada > Escanear a transação assinada com qualquer outro dispositivo que possa transmiti-la para a rede.

Como alguns devem saber, uma transação assinada de Bitcoin é praticamente impossível de ser fraudada. Em um cenário catastrófico, você pode mesmo que sem internet, repassar essa transação assinada para alguém que tenha acesso à rede por qualquer meio de comunicação. Mesmo que não queiramos que isso aconteça um dia, esse setup acaba por tornar essa prática possível.

---

@ 6871d8df:4a9396c1

The Apple Vision Pro was released, and it is the talk of the town right now. To be frank, I think it's a stupid product. It's not useful or particularly enticing to me in its current form factor. It's a toy, not a tool. All the features seem gimmicky as opposed to generally helpful. I'm not saying it may never be worthwhile, but as of this first release, it is only a party trick.

Coincidently, this is the first product that does not have any of Steve Jobs' influence. To me, it shows. I don't think Jobs would have ever let this product see the light of day.


Jobs understood product. He didn't make things for the sake of progress or to make sci-fi reality; he made things because he 'wanted to make a dent in the world.' He wanted to solve problems for everyday people by innovating with cutting-edge technology. He aspired to make people's lives better. Steve Jobs' genius was the way he married cutting-edge technologies with valuable tools that made those cutting-edge technologies simple and elegant.


The Vision Pro may be technically innovative, but it is not a tool, at least in its current form. It may be one day, but that is precisely my point; Jobs would have never released a product where the form factor would hold it back from becoming a tool. At best, it is an intriguing toy that is additive to some content at the behest of being very awkward to wear or be seen in. In my view, mainstream adoption can happen only in a world where we can use the Vision Pro as a contact lens or very small, discreet, minimalist glasses, but certainly not this iteration where it covers more than half your face.


Seeing people's eyes makes us human. So much emotion, understanding, and communication happens with just a look. It is a window into the soul. I don't want to live in a world where we are actively bringing all the negatives about communicating in the digital world to the physical one.

https://image.nostr.build/2365609411f144f5d789ffd684ffce9b4d867626a7bfe11bb311cb0f61057199.jpg

I can't help but wonder or hypothesize what Steve Jobs would focus on if he were still alive today. I think Apple's priorities would be completely different. My gut tells me he would not have let Siri get as bad as it is. Siri is a horrible product; I never use it, and everyone I know who tries to use it does so unsuccessfully, at least most of the time. I personally always default to ChatGPT or Bard. These AI systems make my life dramatically more productive. They are tools in the purest sense.

In my opinion, Steve would not have missed this train. Sure, Apple could wake up and integrate these systems into Siri — if they were smart, they would — but in its current form, it is so far behind that it almost astounds me. My intuition leads me to believe he would be closer to what [Rabbit] is doing.

Who knows? Maybe I am entirely wrong, and Apple just kickstarted VR's mass adoption phase. Unfortunately, I think this will likely be the biggest failure of a physical product that Apple will have seen since Jobs returned ages ago. The Vision Pro is only slightly better than the Oculus, and Facebook has already deprioritized VR for AI. Apple is further behind, and I don't see a world where they do not make the same pivot. There is a skill to creating successful, innovative products, and it makes me sad to see the torch that Jobs passed lose its flame. As someone who respected how Apple used to innovate, watching this decay in real-time is jarring as this is just the latest in a string of disappointing decisions that exemplify that 'peak Apple' is behind us.

@ f9c0ea75:44e849f4

Nos anos 80, o Brasil testemunhou um dos momentos mais patéticos da sua história econômica: os "Fiscais do Sarney". Movidos por um decreto inútil, cidadãos foram incentivados a denunciar comerciantes que não seguissem o tabelamento de preços imposto pelo governo. O resultado? Um fracasso absoluto, prateleiras vazias, inflação descontrolada e a certeza de que a mentalidade fiscalizadora não gera valor para ninguém – apenas sufoca a economia e reforça o atraso.

Agora, décadas depois, vemos a mesma mentalidade derrotada ressurgir na Receita Federal com a fiscalização automática sobre transações acima de R$ 5.000 via PIX. Em vez de buscar um ambiente mais produtivo e inovador, o governo se empenha em monitorar cada centavo que circula, tratando qualquer movimentação um pouco maior como suspeita. Quem ganha com isso? Certamente não é o cidadão honesto, nem a economia real.

E quem são os protagonistas dessa história? Os novos fiscais da Receita Federal, que assumem um papel tão irrelevante quanto o dos fiscais de Sarney. Um trabalho de baixo valor agregado, que não contribui para a criação de riqueza ou inovação. São apenas burocratas modernos, presos na mentalidade de que controlar e punir é mais importante do que fomentar o crescimento e a liberdade financeira.

A história já provou que o fiscalismo estatal é um modelo falido, seja tabelando preços ou perseguindo transações financeiras. Enquanto alguns criam, inovam e geram valor, outros se ocupam apenas de vigiar e tributar. O tempo sempre mostrou quem estava certo.

Nos anos 80, o Brasil testemunhou um dos momentos mais patéticos da sua história econômica: os "Fiscais do Sarney". Movidos por um decreto inútil, cidadãos foram incentivados a denunciar comerciantes que não seguissem o tabelamento de preços imposto pelo governo. O resultado? Um fracasso absoluto, prateleiras vazias, inflação descontrolada e a certeza de que a mentalidade fiscalizadora não gera valor para ninguém – apenas sufoca a economia e reforça o atraso.

Agora, décadas depois, vemos a mesma mentalidade derrotada ressurgir na Receita Federal com a fiscalização automática sobre transações acima de R$ 5.000 via PIX. Em vez de buscar um ambiente mais produtivo e inovador, o governo se empenha em monitorar cada centavo que circula, tratando qualquer movimentação um pouco maior como suspeita. Quem ganha com isso? Certamente não é o cidadão honesto, nem a economia real.

E quem são os protagonistas dessa história? Os novos fiscais da Receita Federal, que assumem um papel tão irrelevante quanto o dos fiscais de Sarney. Um trabalho de baixo valor agregado, que não contribui para a criação de riqueza ou inovação. São apenas burocratas modernos, presos na mentalidade de que controlar e punir é mais importante do que fomentar o crescimento e a liberdade financeira.

A história já provou que o fiscalismo estatal é um modelo falido, seja tabelando preços ou perseguindo transações financeiras. Enquanto alguns criam, inovam e geram valor, outros se ocupam apenas de vigiar e tributar. O tempo sempre mostrou quem estava certo.

@ 57fe4c4a:c3a0271f

📝 Summary: Batched splicing can be risky due to certain conditions like no funds in a channel and using an old state. It is important for batched splicing mechanisms to have a backout option to prevent disruptions caused by confirmed old states. Additionally, not all splice implementations performing a check can lead to potential loss of funds.

👥 Authors: • Greg Sanders ( nostr:npub1jdl3plz00rvxwc6g2ckemzrgg0amx5wen4kfvs3laxtssxvk9cvsf3gh0m ) • ZmnSCPxj ( nostr:npub1g5zswf6y48f7fy90jf3tlcuwdmjn8znhzaa4vkmtxaeskca8hpss23ms3l )

📅 Messages Date: 2023-10-17

✉️ Message Count: 3

📚 Total Characters in Messages: 5405

Messages Summaries

✉️ Message by ZmnSCPxj on 17/10/2023: Batched splicing can be risky if certain conditions are met, such as having no funds in a channel and using an old state. It is important for batched splicing mechanisms to have a backout option to prevent disruptions.

✉️ Message by Greg Sanders on 17/10/2023: Batched splicing is risky because if an old state is broadcasted and confirmed before the splice, it can disrupt the process. It is important for batched splicing mechanisms to have a backout option.

✉️ Message by ZmnSCPxj on 17/10/2023: Batched splicing can be risky if not all splice implementations perform a check to ensure subsequent splices confirm, potentially leading to loss of funds.

Follow nostr:npub1j3t00t9hv042ktszhk8xpnchma60x5kz4etemnslrhf9e9wavywqf94gll for full threads

@ 1cb14ab3:95d52462

---

Previous Works in the Series:

TAIPEI

TIANJIN

KYOTO

---

More from Hes:

Art

Store

Travel Guides

Photography

Writings

---

All images are credit of Hes, but you are free to download and use for any purpose. If you find joy from these photos, please feel free to send a zap. Enjoy life on a Bitcoin standard.

@ 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) NIP 43: Fast Auth between clients and relays

Some relays are member-only. There has to be some way for relays to verify the content being sent/requested is from an authorized user (one of the members). Most methods for this are clunky and slow.

This NIP proposes a faster method for auth between clients and relays. From what I can tell when clients open a connection to a relay they’ll open it with an “authorization” query parameter on the end of the relay url. That query param will actually be an encoded Nostr event whose payload has the necessary info for the relay to authenticate the user opening the connection.

Kinda looks like an auth header like you’d see in an http request but shoehorned into a query parameter since websockets (which are used for connections to relays) don’t traditionally support headers.

Author: aruthurfranca

2) (Proposed) Updates to NIP 03: Timestamps you can rely on

Sometimes you want to make sure that a piece of Nostr content was actually created/pushed to a relay at a specific time. The example from last week was in the case of a future betting system built on Nostr, you really don’t want people to be able to publish that they made a bet 2 weeks ago for something whose outcome was determined twenty minutes ago.

NIP-3 already outlines a way to add OpenTimestamp attestations to Nostr events essentially allowing Nostr clients to outsource trust to a third party on whether a piece of content was created when it claims to be created. As is, NIP 3 is a little hard to use. This update would make it far simpler.

In the new methodology, you’d publish a Nostr event of kind 1040 with the proof of timestamp and point to the event that you’re trying to prove the timestamp for.

Author: nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6

Notable Projects

Cellar Relay

If you haven’t been graced by the nostr.wine community they are a group of fine folks that host wine-themed relays. They’re some of the most reliable and widely used public and paid relays around.

nostr:npub18kzz4lkdtc5n729kvfunxuz287uvu9f64ywhjz43ra482t2y5sks0mx5sz recently announced the “Cellar” Relay that will store notes long term for paid users. Like we talked about in last week’s #NostrTechWeekly long-term note storage is a challenge for relay hosts (especially for relays that are free to users). But solving long term storage will help folks on Nostr feel like they’re building a persistent social experience instead of building an ephemeral feed.

Nice work! Glad to see the trend continuing for long-term note storage. 💪

Memestr.app

I can’t tell you how many times folks I talk to have said there should be a meme-focused client on Nostr. nostr:npub1zumzudhtu2558fgvycnjlc7pq9l4m338vghgcfzafftz9qg45ruslzpl4x delivers with https://memestr.app I definitely had some giggles when I logged on.

This could quickly evolve into a nostr-based Imgur and be far better for being nostr-based. But one thing I think is missing from the internet (not just Nostr) is a way to iterate on memes easily in the same place where you can share them. In combination with prisms/boosts this could be an interesting way for people to make money for their content and earn from what is built on top of their content.

Zap threads

Threaded conversations are an important component to social experiences on the internet. Reddit and Hackernews have really shown its power, we’ve seen StackerNews also leverage this format as well.

nostr:npub1wf4pufsucer5va8g9p0rj5dnhvfeh6d8w0g6eayaep5dhps6rsgs43dgh9 has created a nostr-based component for supporting the threaded comments, and it looks like it could be used in any web-application that needs commenting, spreading Nostr to every corner of the internet. It’s already powering the commenting on Habla.News

nostr:npub1wf4pufsucer5va8g9p0rj5dnhvfeh6d8w0g6eayaep5dhps6rsgs43dgh9 also did a great writeup on the reasoning for this project and where it’s going: https://habla.news/franzap/threading-the-web-with-nostr

If you need comments on your project, take a look!

Latest conversations: How decentralized is decentralized enough?

Distributed vs Decentralized

These two concepts are often used interchangeably, and it’s worth highlighting their distinction, especially in the context of Nostr. This is a good visualization to illustrate the difference.

Distributed: the P2P model

Robust, distributed systems are extremely censorship resistant, and include a lot of redundancy. Distributed systems distribute power widely, everyone is a peer.

Biological systems (cells, ecosystems, etc) are like this, cells are all peers and replaceable. Napster was distributed, everyone in the Napster ecosystem stored and shared some of the songs. IP (the “internet protocol”), which is how computers find each other on the internet, is a peer to peer technology where every node gossips about where to find other nodes.

Ideally all systems would be built this way, but in practice distributed / P2P systems are generally used when there’s a high chance of node failure (the death of individual cells) or attack (government takedowns). The challenge is that they’re expensive to run.

This might be confusing because Napster was “free” right? Most P2P software feels free-ish because many are donating some of their existing hardware/bandwidth/etc. But if you take the aggregate resources to run Napster versus just the parts of Spotify that help users to upload and download music, Spotify for sure uses fewer resources.

Distributed systems by their very nature have to assume that most peers in the network may fail. In order to maintain uptime, that results in P2P systems having many copies of what’s being shared and/or sending data many times to ensure it arrives.

I think most people would say they’d prefer everything to be P2P but it’s difficult to maintain a good experience in a P2P system and so it’s often only used in cases where it’s absolutely necessary.

Where does decentralization work better?

I wrote up a whole thing about decentralization a while back but the TL;DR is decentralized systems are better than centralized systems at distributing power widely, but they are generally still more performant than peer to peer systems.

Sometimes you need a mix of preventing abuses of power but still maintain a good experience for users. Freedom minded folks usually end up supporting decentralized solutions because they’re viable in the market and still take power away from centralized players.

Is Bitcoin decentralized or distributed?

The Bitcoin blockchain is a distributed system. Every Bitcoin full-node is an equal participant in storing, updating, and validating the blockchain.

Bitcoin as a monetary system, on the other hand, is decentralized: there are many more Bitcoin users than Bitcoin full-nodes. The nodes are the hubs and the users are the spokes.

There’s a reason for this architecture. Bitcoin nodes are ultimately in control of Bitcoin, it must be the least corruptible, most censorship resistant architecture possible. On the other hand a decentralized system has efficiency gains that make Bitcoin more competitive in comparison to existing financial systems. By having hubs (full-nodes, Bitcoin banks, wallet providers, exchanges, etc), the system is more efficient (and therefore cheaper). But by having many hubs, power is still spread widely.

Nostr: Decentralized or Distributed?

Nostr, as introduced by FiatJaf, seems like it was intended to be decentralized. Relays are the hubs and users are the spokes. Clients help connect users to relays (and therefore each other). There is wisdom to this architecture, because it will scale better than a P2P system.

Think of it this way, there are on the order of hundreds of millions of songs available for human consumption. With 10 million users storing a few hundred songs, there would be plenty of redundancy to allow Napster to distribute every song in a P2P manner. There are on the order of trillions of social media posts, if you include follows, reactions, DMs, etc, it’s likely in the quadrillions. With current technology a P2P system would never be able to provide coverage of every post and make it available in a reasonable time.

That said, there are some elements of Nostr that could benefit from being more P2P. Especially operations that would benefit from greater privacy (DMs, zaps, and reactions). Right now privacy around these actions is not well supported via Nostr.

Dev work has started on some P2P Nostr functionality announced by nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z and it’s right along those lines: maximizing privacy and security for nostr-based comms. It will have all the great things and all the difficulties of any P2P system, but it may be necessary to improve privacy on Nostr.

One thing that is great about Nostr is everyone can try things out and see if they work and if people want them. I see a lot of demand for privacy for certain Nostr operations, and if a P2P model would help, it needs to be tried. We’ll see whether the trade offs of P2P make Nostr better or if they make it less likely to succeed. We’ll see as development continues!

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 at nostr:npub19mduaf5569jx9xz555jcx3v06mvktvtpu0zgk47n4lcpjsz43zzqhj6vzk

Stay Classy, Nostr.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na danas.rs

22.09.2024 / Autor: Marko Matanović

---

Bitkoin je 2009. godine zamišljen da bude digitalni keš. Zvučalo je revolucionarno zbog toga što je mnoge dovelo u dilemu: kako nešto potpuno digitalno može da ima vrednost i bude valuta.

Pre 15 godina smo živeli u društvu u kome je preko 95 odsto ukupnog novca u opticaju već potpuno digitalno i virtuelno.

Danas je još više izražena digitalizacija novca. Bitkoin je bio deo procesa evolucije više nego revolucije kada je u pitanju barem forma “novca”.

Petnaest godina kasnije bitkoin nije zamenio tradicionalne valute: dolare, evre, dinare. I verovatno to neće uraditi. Nije ispunio početnu zamisao, digitalni novac.

Ali se nametnuo kao čuvar vrednosti. Jedan od razloga je jednostavan. Kada posedujemo bilo koji oblik imovine, uvek ćemo za plaćanje (čemu novac većini ljudi i služi) koristiti najmanje kvalitetan novac, onaj koji vremenom ne dobija na vrednosti ili je gubi čak.

Veći deo vlasnika bitkoina veruje da će njegova vrednost rasti vremenom. Dok s druge strane imamo dinar, evro ili dolar koji će 100 odsto za godinu dana vredeti dva odsto ili 15 odsto manje. Zbog toga većina vlasnika bitkoina ga neće koristiti da kupuje hleb ili plaća račune za telefon, tj. kao sredstvo plaćanja.

Za razliku od fizičkog zlata, svima poznatog, jedna od prednosti bitkoina je prenosivost. Bitkoin infrastruktura funkcioniše tako da se svaka transakcija prenosa bitkoina obavlja u proseku za 10-ak minuta, 24/7/365.

Ta transakcija će se realizovati 100 odsto ako je usklađena sa pravilima Bitkoin ekosistema. Pravila su pritom transparentna, ista, lako primenljiva za sve. Iz ovoga se nameće i druga i treća potencijalna prednost bitkoina u odnosu na zlato. Bez obzira na količinu i vrednost bitkoina koji se kroz transakciju prenose, vreme tog prenosa je oko 10 minuta. A cena obrade transakcije zanemarljiva. Par dolara ili manje. Na dan pisanja teksta, kilogram zlata je vredeo oko 84.000 dolara ili 10 kilograma oko 840.000 dolara itd. Slične vrednosti je 1,4 bitkoin, tj. 14 bitkoina…

Postoje ozbiljni regulatorni, sigurnosni, vremenski, troškovni izazovi prenosa pomenutih količina zlata s jedne lokacije na drugu ili u drugu državu. Za prenos 0.0001 btc-a (bitkoina), vrednosti oko šest dolara ili za prenos 1.000 btc, vrednosti oko 60 miliona dolara trebaće vam 10 minuta. Transakcije vas mogu koštati i manje od jednog dolara!

I ne postoji bezbednosni rizik. Neuporedivo brže, sigurnije, jeftinije. Neki kažu da je bitkoin „digitalno zlato“ i pouzdana mreža za prenos vrednosti.

Bitkoin su u početku koristili samo pojedinci, fizička lica. Danas ga koriste i kompanije i neke države. Pojedinci deo sredstava prebacuju u bitkoine, kako bi se sačuvali od inflacije koja je u skoro svim ekonomijama prisutna i obezvređuje novac koji posedujemo.

Neki u njemu vide potencijal rasta vrednosti. Neki se bave “trading-om”, špekulisanjem u nadi da će kratkoročno zaraditi. Neki ga koriste da bi preneli vrednost brže i lakše.

U ratom zahvaćenih delovima sveta, deo populacije je kroz bitkoin i kriptovalute imao jedinu mogućnost da spase svoju do tada stečenu imovinu. U tim situacijama ne možete nekretninu, zlato, umetnička dela, automobile lako preneti ili sačuvati. Često su tada blokirani bankarski računi ili rad banaka. Ali, deo sredstava se može prebaciti u kriptovalute.

Zbog toga u Srbiji puno ljudi koji su se sklonili iz Rusije i Ukrajine zapravo koristi kriptovalute. Globalno, kompanije kupuju bitkoine, jer imaju investiciono usmerenje ili usmerenje ka diversifikaciji sredstava. I takođe bitkoin ili neke druge kriptovalute koriste kao sredstvo plaćanja u internacionalnom poslovanju. Neuporedivo je veća brzina realizacije transakcija kritpovaluta u poređenju sa transakcijama koje idu kroz bankarski sistem.

Postoje jurisdikcije koje nisu integrisane u globalne finansijske sisteme i ne postoji način naplate i saradnje dve kompanije iz dve države. Sve dok se kripto nije pojavio. Države imaju različite stavove po pitanju kripta. Neke ga kupuju. Neke ga rudare čak.

Ali većina je donela regulatorne okvire koji definišu zakonske mogućnosti i načine korišćenja kriptovaluta. I za građane i za kompanije. I za firme koje pružaju usluge povezane za kriptovalutama u tim državama. U Srbiji se primenjuje Zakon o digitalnoj imovini od 2021. godine i time su postavljeni dodatni regulatorni okviri.

SPLET konferencija koja se 8. oktobra održava u Beogradu je deo svog programa posvetila temama povezanim sa kriptovalutama, tokenizacijom, pravnim aspektima tog sveta.

ECD.rs, prva kriptomenjačnica u Srbiji, će imati svoje predstavnike i paneliste na SPLET-u. Cilj je da još dublje zaronimo u ove teme. Želimo da ponudimo dodatne uvide, odgovore. Delićemo iskustvo od 12 i više godina bavljenja kriptovalutama. Vidimo se na SPLET-u!

Splet konferenciju zajednički organizuju projekti „Preduzmi ideju“ u realizaciji Inicijative „Digitalna Srbija“ i „Srbija Inovira“, koje sprovodi ICT HUB, u saradnji sa Američkom agencijom za međunarodni razvoj (USAID). Ovogodišnju konferenciju realizuju i uz podršku i pokroviteljstvo Ministarstva nauke, tehnološkog razvoja i inovacija.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst za nin.rs.

09.10.2024 / Autor: Marko Matanović

---

Najveći deo stvari merimo zajedničkim imeniteljem – novcem. Fantastični izum društva. Olakšava komunikaciju, saradnju i napredak civilizacije. Trenutna novčana vrednost mnogih stvari ne mora biti pokazatelj realne ili vrednosti na duge staze.

Bitkoin kao kriptovaluta ima svojih uspona i padova. U ceni. Kada nešto vredi nula pa krene od par mesta desno iza decimalnog zareza u $ protivvrednosti i završi na 50.000 ili 70.000$, može se reći da je bilo više uspona nego padova.

Zamišljen i najavljen je kao digitalni keš 2008. godine. Preskačući prvu godinu ili dve, rezervisane skoro isključivo za uzak krug programera, sledi poistovećivanje bitkoina sa sredstvom za plaćanja ilegalnih usluga i proizvoda. Zbog delimične zablude da su transakcije bitkoinom anonimne.

Godine 2013. godine pada Silk Road platforma, online marketplace, na kome se za bitkoin moglo kupiti puno toga ilegalnog. Po nekima to je i konačni pad bitkoina. Iz današnje perspektive, neupućena osoba može i dalje ostati pri stavu da je bitkoin pretežno tu za izvršenje ilegalnih transakcija. Bitkoin i danas postoji, Silk Road ne.

Par meseci posle Silk Road-a, pada i tada pratkično jedina “ozbiljna” kripto berza Mt. Gox. U to vreme odgovorna za 70%+ svih bitkoin transakcija. Tačno 10 godina kasnije, svedoci smo vraćanja dela izgubljenih sredstava (oko 25%) tadašnjim vlasnicima naloga na Mt. Gox berzi. Bitkoin je danas 100 puta vredniji nego pre 2014. Taj vraćeni “delić” izgubljenih bitkoina njegovim vlasnicima je danas “samo” 25 puta vredniji.

Bilo je još dosta propalih kripto projekata. I biće ih. Među poznatijim, prevara iza OneCoin-a. Sunovrat UST-a i Lune, Celsius i FTX bankroti. Svaki odogovoran za gubitke koji prelaze milijarde dolara. Bitkoin je i dalje tu. Bitkoin je imao i konkurente iz redova kriptovaluta. Poslednji pravi je iz 2017. godine i “Bitcoin Cash”. Danas kada se pogleda gde je jedan a gde drugi sve je jasno.

Satoshi Nakamoto, ime iza ideje bitkoina i njegovog lansiranja, je postavio fascinantne postulate na kojima će prva kriptovaluta funkcionisati. A inspirisan manjkavostima globalnog finansijskog sistema. Bitkoin je baziran na transparentnom, decentralizovanom sistemu. Dostupan svima, sa jednakim i izuzetno niskim barijerama ulaska i izlaska iz tog ekosistema. Funkcioniše po setu pravila koja su ista za sve. Ukoliko se poštuju, transakciju bitkoinom niko ne može osporiti i ne može se retroaktivno manipulisati.

Prvi put imamo digitalni sadržaj koji se ne može kopirati. Bitkoin ekosistem funkcioniše 15 godina pratkično bez down-time-a. Usko je shvatanje reći da je rudarenje bitkoina proces koji bespotrebno troši previše energije. Ili da bitkoin nema uporište u nekoj opipljivoj vrednosti. Ta skupa reč je poverenje. Ničijom svesnom namerom, već organski, bitkoin je od digitalnog keša postao prepoznat kao čuvar vrednosti, digitalno zlato. Jer zašto da koristiš za svakodnevna plaćanja nešto što može vredeti za godinu ili godine 5%,10%, 50% više, ako imaš RSD, EUR ili $ koji će 100% za godinu dana vredeti 2% ili 15% manje?

Danas bitkoin koriste obični ljudi, kompanije i države.

Satoshi je svakako imao drugačiju viziju ove kriptovalute – digitalni keš i pošteniji novac. Kreirajući ekosistem na koji svi mi možemo vršiti uticaj barem podjednako koliko i Satoshi, ostavljena su otvorena vrata da se vizija promeni. Vizija je prilagođena, prepuštena našim prethodnim i budućim postupcima i društvenim okolnostima. Važno je da su postulati i dalje tu. Sa njima i Bitkoin.

@ 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

---

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”

---

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.

---

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)

---

>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

@ 4720beb1:fde5de50

I just published the new version of my NIP-404. It basically a way to have real ephemeral interactions on Nostr, so developers can model Stories and messages that disappear etc and providing a good level of plausible deniability. Here is the new version: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/1676

This is a follow-up of a previous proposal I did in last November. I tried to tackle most of issues that npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkj npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft npub1acg6thl5psv62405rljzkj8spesceyfz2c32udakc2ak0dmvfeyse9p35c have raised.

There is a "working" example (I'm not a cryptographer, have mercy on me): https://github.com/gu1p/nip404_demo

TL;DR;

NIP-404: Ghost Events

This NIP introduces Ghost Events—a protocol for creating events that are plausibly deniable with a ephemeral nature, providing a weak binding to the author's identity. It leverages ring signatures, elliptic curve point-hashing, and a distance-based proof-of-work that references Bitcoin block hashes for chronological anchoring.

High-Level Mechanics

• Ring Signature over exactly two keys:
  1) Your real key
  2) A “mined” key — found by solving a proof-of-work puzzle (attacker) or randomly (by the real signer).
• Distance-based PoW: The mined key’s public key must be within distance δ of a “challenge point” derived from your public key and a Bitcoin block hash.
• Deniability: Verifiers can only tell that one of the two keys signed the event, not which one. Because all components are public, anyone can forge a Ghost Event referencing your key.

---

2. Detailed Protocol

2.1. Reference a Bitcoin Block

Pick a Bitcoin block B with hash H_B and timestamp t_B. This block anchors the event in time.

2.2. Derive a Challenge Point

1. Take your main public key P_A and concatenate it with H_B.
2. Compute S = SHA256(P_A || H_B)
3. Map S to secp256k1 (RFC 9380 “Hashing to Elliptic Curves”): challenge_PK = HashToCurve(S)

Anyone can verify this point by performing the same steps.

2.3. Pick a “Mined Key” P_mined

• Let x_c be the x-coordinate of challenge_PK.
• Find x_m such that |x_m - x_c| <= δ and (x_m, y_m) is a valid secp256k1 point.

• δ reflects the “difficulty” of finding such a key.

• In the proposal I have provide a way to get a δ given the number of tries and target probability you expect someone to mine the P_mined and also the inverse, compute the δ given a number of tries.

• Compute $T$ (number of tries) given $\delta$ and target probability.

2.4. Create a Ring Signature

Form a ring of two public keys: {P_A, P_mined}.
Use your real private key to sign, producing a ring signature that proves one of the private keys (either sk_A or sk_mined) signed — but not which one.

2.5. Publish the Ghost Event

Publish a standard Nostr event (kind, content, etc.) plus tags:

• ["ghost", "block-hash", "<H_B>"]
• ["ghost", "block-hash-timestamp", "<t_B>"]

The event’s sig field is the ring signature. Verifiers can:

1. Check validity of the ring signature over {P_A, P_mined}.
2. Recompute challenge_PK from <P_A, H_B>.
3. Measure how close P_mined is to challenge_PK (i.e., proof-of-work difficulty).
4. Conclude: “Either Alice really signed, or someone else who found a matching P_mined did.”

Practical Tips

• Picking δ:

• Decide how quickly you want deniability to set in. If you pick a very small δ, it requires more CPU time for an attacker to replicate—but also temporarily ties the event more strongly to you.

• If you want faster deniability, pick a larger δ, but accept that forging a second “mined” key becomes easier.

• If you want avoid OTS, pick a larger δ and reference older blocks.

• Verifying a Received Ghost Event:

• Check the actual δ provided.
• Estimate the tries T needed for a given success probability.
• Check the Key/s rate necessary to produce the event since the block was mined.

---

7. Example Ghost Event JSON

Alice: Today is a good day to post wild picture of me on Nostr! Maybe I will regret it later...
Alice: Let post as a ghost event!
Alice: I will set a PoW of 86400000000 tries for a 30% of success. It is an easy one!

json { "id": "f9d32cace9ead9457d121041c4c17a779ab84cecf90f08d90ccacd9673f1bab4", "pubkey": "npub1r587vuykqhf8k7x4e06380edc7mr7pkz59r44tausmlwq970wkyqv9dh85", "created_at": 1736350383, "kind": 1, "tags": [ [ "ghost", "block-hash", "00000000000000000000c75dc9d3296751a8bb62b2463fbc49035ee75ab45f39" ], [ "ghost", "block-hash-timestamp", 1736264059 ] ], "content": "Hi! This is Alice... Here is a picture of me drinking a beer!", "sig": "...<ring signature>...." }

Bob: Wow! There is an event from Alice!
Bob: Let's check the signature to make sure it is from Alice
Bob: Alice didn't sign this event!
Bob: I see some ghost tags here...
Bob: It is a ghost event!
Bob: There are 2 possible signers!
Bob: Alice is one of the possible signers!
It was produced, allegedly, after the block a 00000000000000000000c75dc9d3296751a8bb62b2463fbc49035ee75ab45f39
Bob: It says that the block was mined at 1736264059
Bob: Let see if this block is real!
Bob: The block is real!
Bob: Let's check the PoW
Bob: The other signer is: npub1jktevjlge6vjp2yfaltrlvuv99th2uxaxy8eglvcsvr7e2r9h5lq2978dz
Bob: The challenge public key is: npub1jktevjldsr7kr52f90602gfhmc8cac9quq6yy8k9vy94w2qptsasz9cfps
Bob: Let's figure out how hard it was to mine the private key
Bob: The distance between the challenge and the alleged mined public key is 494635222290174920048599093528121665305037827746663102318405983997
Bob: For having 50% of chance of figuring out this key, the signer should have done 83496150448 tries
Bob: The signer should have mined 967231 keys per second, since the block was mined
Bob: It is not a hard PoW!

@ 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

@ 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.

@ 2355757c:5ad3e04d

Originally published Feb, 23, 2024

Introduction

Sunlight is the most important nutrient for our body. That may sound delusional to some, but the definition of a nutrient is: a substance that provides nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life. Sunlight certainly is necessary and essential for growth and the maintenance of life, but most don’t understand why. Most do not understand that the real benefit of sunlight is that it provides a vast spectrum of electromagnetic radiation (light) that signals different functions in our biology. This is why we can never replace sunlight with artificial lights, because the sun is a “broad band emitter” and all artificial lights are “narrow band emitters”. This means they only have a few isolated wavelengths, whereas sunlight contains the whole swath. 

The other most important aspect of sunlight is that it is time and location dependent. It is always changing…and that change or shift in light frequencies is providing our body the right information about how to function properly in our given environment. Artificial light is constant and provides a consistent/un-natural input signal that confuses our biology. 

The last piece, which I will dive into more in a future post…is the fact that sunlight is a continuous electromagnetic wave while indoor lighting is highly pulsed. This is a major reason why eye strain and headaches from staring at screens is so common.

Let’s dive into the important biological effects of the various wavelengths in full spectrum sunlight. 

Summary

• Sunlight is a broad band emitter and artificial light is a narrow band emitter

• Sunlight is an un-polarized, continuous source of electromagnetic radiation. Artificial light is highly pulsed

• Sunlight that reaches the earth is comprised of light frequencies that range from 280nm (UVB) to 2500nm (NIR) and everything in between. Each category of wavelength serves as a different biological stimuli

• UVB radiation stimulates the production of vitamin D, as well as serotonin and beta-endorphins, UVA promotes the release of nitric oxide into the blood, and both have a positive effect on the diversity of the microbiome and our endogenous hormone production

• Violet light can reverse myopia and potentially improve sleep quality

• Blue light is the master circadian signaler, turning on/off the SCN via melanopsin photoreceptor…thus regulating cortisol/melatonin production as well as all circadian timing in the body

• Green light can treat skin issues and also be used as a pain releiver

• Red light, near-infrared radiation (NIR), and far-infrared (FIR) radiation have anti-inflammatory and tissue healing effects…NIR also stimulates the production of melatonin inside the mitochondria, a master anti-oxidant.

The Biological Effects of Sunlight: By Color/Wavelength

There are several wavelengths of energy from the sun that reach the earth’s surface and trigger specific actions within the body to influence our health. And, just as some of this spectrum is able to make it through the atmosphere, different wavelengths are also able to penetrate the skin to different depths of the body’s tissues and have certain effects on the cells within those tissues, as you can see in the figure below.

Those at the lower wavelengths (such as UVB) only penetrate the very surface of the skin, while those at higher wavelengths (such as visible light) are able to penetrate deeper. Think of how you are able to see the light from a flashlight on the back of your hand when held against the skin on the palm of the hand – you can visually see the energy traveling through the skin, muscles, blood vessels and tissues of the hand. Infrared radiation can even get into the cells and mitochondria, and can get through clothing and bone!

Ultraviolet-B Radiation (UVB) – Vitamin D, Neurotransmitters, Melanin and Beta-endorphins

UVB (280-315nm) is the highest energy wavelength that reaches surface of the earth. It is only present when the sun is >30 degrees above the horizon. You can use apps like “Circadian” and “dminder” to tell you when UVB is present. At the 45th latitude in Wyoming, I go WITHOUT UVB for around 2 months in winter time. This is a big deal, because UVB light stimulates vitamin D synthesis, one of the most important molecules/hormones in the body. More importantly, it stimulates synthesis of sulfated Vitamin D, which is more bioactive and has far more biological relevance compared to un-sulfated Vitamin D as you would get from a supplement. This is why you can’t replace sunlight with a supplement, especially when it comes to Vitamin D. Using a UVB lamp (outside or in combo with NIR) would be in my opinion a better option than supplementing Vit D, or if you do take a supplement take it mid day and get some UVB exposure after taking it. I wrote extensively about Vitamin D supplementation in a previous newsletter. 

The vitamin D produced in the skin can also help protect the skin cells from DNA damage, facilitate DNA repair directly upon any UV damage, help prevent cell death, and protect against melanoma. In fact, keratinocytes, which make up over 90% of the outermost layer of skin, cannot rely on vitamin D3 from supplements and must synthesize their own supply of vitamin D directly from sun exposure, or by topical application.

Besides vitamin D, UVB radiation also promotes the production of neurotransmitters and beta-endorphins, chemicals that drive cognition, mood, relaxation, pain relief, and boost immunity. It also triggers the synthesis of MELANIN. It does this by stimulating proopiomelanocortin (POMC) activity in the brain and via exciting our aromatic amino acids. 

POMC is a precursor protein of several neuropeptides, including adrenocorticotropin (ACTH), α-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH) and β-endorphin (β-END). Our aromatic amino acids (tryptophan, tyrosine, and phenylalanine) have ringed structures that allow them to trap UV light energy, and these aromatic amino acids are the precursors to neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, as well as melatonin and melanin. Serotonin is involved in cognition, regulation of feeding behavior, anxiety, aggression, pain, sexual activity, and sleep. These aromatics absorb heavily in the UVB/UVC range.

This UV-induced release of beta-endorphins means only one thing: there is an innate built in addiction pathway to the sun. Our biology is able to provide a “reward” for UV-induced vitamin D synthesis when vitamin D levels are low, during which time a greater amount of beta-endorphins are released upon exposure to UVB. As vitamin D levels rise, the sun-seeking behavior and resulting opioid response become repressed as less vitamin D is needed. It’s almost as if our body knows best, and we should go out of our way to listen to it. Instead, most people will continue to pour the Vit D supplements down their gully. 

Melanin, which is synthesized from UV light exposure and activation of alpha-MSH via POMC, is one of the most important molecules in our biology. It absorbs the entire EMR spectrum and acts as both a biological semiconductor and energy storage system (battery). I have written more about it in a previous newsletter and will dive even deeper very soon.

Ultraviolet-A Radiation (UVA) – Nitric Oxide + More

UVA (315-380nm) exists at a wavelength between UVB and visible light, and is able to reach deeper than UVB light but still only a few millimeters. UVA leads to the release of nitric oxide into the bloodstream which in turn benefits the cardiovascular and metabolic systems, and may offer other immunological benefits beyond those offered by nitric oxide. This vasodilatory effect enhances blood flow, lowers blood prressure and improves circulation. 

UVA can have similar effects to UVB such as stimulating POMC and the neuroendocrine axis, just with lesser efficiency compared to UVB light as it is a lower energy wavelength spectrum so it does not have as great of an excitatory effect on our biology. 

“UVA has better penetration reaching the reticular dermis but has 1000 times lower efficiency at inducing biological effects (expressed as the minimal erythema dose) than UVB”

For a deeper dive on UV lights impact on the brain and endocrine system, and the difference between UVC/UVB/UVA effects check out this paper.

UVA also shares some benefits with violet light (visible) such as reversing myopia in the eyes. Will discuss that more in the Violet light section. 

Ultraviolet Radiation (UVA + UVB) – The Most Important Input for Your Microbiome

Your gastrointestinal tract and the surface of the skin are home to trillions of microbes (bacteria, viruses, and yeast), called your “microbiome,” which act as their own organ and are crucial to your overall health. Skin health in particular is maintained by a balanced, diverse microbiome, which is in turn affected by nutrition, pH level, hygiene, exposure to toxins, barrier strength, stress levels, sunlight exposure, and overall health. 

UV exposure (and vitamin D itself) can have a healthy, regulatory effect on the microbiome of the skin and the gut, with UVB light having a beneficial impact on the diversity and abundance of the bacteria species of the gut microbiome, and UVB as well as UVA benefitting the skin microbiome. Studies have even shown that several molecules that help protect our skin from UV damage can be produced by the microbiome on our skin upon UV exposure, acting as a sort of natural sunscreen.

Why is UV light so good for our gut? Two reasons:

1. Remember those aromatic amino acids and neurotransmitters mentioned earlier? Well a vast majority of aromatics are synthesized by your gut microbes via the famous shikamate pathway (famous because glyphosate disrupts this). As a result, most of your neurotransmitter synthesis is happening in the gut. 90-95% of serotonin and 50% of dopamine is produced and stored in the gut. There is a reason it is called your second brain, and it is not fully due to the vagal nerve connection. 

2. Your bacteria absorb and fluoresce light constantly. We are made up of far more “bacteria” cells than our own cells and this microbiota is highly dependent on light input. It seems that UV light modulates pathogenic bacteria and helps beneficial bacteria proliferate. This is why UV light has been known as an effective method for cleaning surfaces.

UV Light Summary

UV light is imperative for properly functioning biology, and the fact that it has been demonized for “causing skin cancer” has resulted in a chronic health epidemic. Yes, solar tolerance and callus matters…that is why being outside all year round is imperative. UV light is the reason life began on this planet in the first place (read Nick Lane’s work on deep sea vents), and it stands true today that nearly ALL of the biological semi-conductors that power our biology absorb strongest in the UV range. When you can harness UV light, you become what it truly means to be a human being. 

Blue Light – Regulation of Circadian Rhythm, and Melatonin

Blue light (420-500nm) perhaps ma be the most well known light in the visible spectrum. It has been vilified (for good reason) as the light that will disrupt our sleep. This is true, but that does not mean that blue light has a negative impact on our health in the right context, the opposite actually. 

Blue light is the master circadian signaler. We sense it in our eyes and skin via the melanopsin receptor and the signal is what sets our bodies master circadian clock: the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). This is how our body tells time, and this is why our blue light and overall light environment is so important. Blue light at night suppresses melatonin production far greater than any other color of light. Blue light conversely stimulates cortisol production, which is what provides wakefulness in the morning. 

Blue light is the highest energy wavelength that is present for almost the entirety of sunlight exposure, with an ever increasing amount until solar noon…and then decreasing amount in the afternoon. Again, this is how our body tells time. If you subscribe to the fact that our circadian rhythm is one of if not the most important aspect of our biology (timing is everything), then you would agree that your blue light environment may be the most important area of your health to tackle. This is why there has been such a monumental push on the education around artificial blue light and an entire industry made around blocking blue light. 

A healthy, regular circadian rhythm promotes healthy mood and improved cognition. Disruptions to circadian rhythm have been shown to increase the risk of most chornic diseases: including cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative disease and metabolic conditions. Research has found that, compared to white light therapy, blue light is more effective for resetting circadian rhythms, suppressing nighttime melatonin, and enhancing performance. Other physiological actions of blue light suggested by the scientific literature include an increase in circulating beta endorphins, decreased systolic blood pressure due to nitric oxide mechanisms in the skin, an anti-bacterial effect, and a potential bio-modulating effect within the cells.

Blue light (like all areas of the light spectra) deserves an article of its own. I will be releasing an article dedicated to artificial blue light next month so stay tuned!

Red and Infrared Light - Healing Wavelengths

Red and infrared light is the most abundant portion of full spectrum sunlight, making up over 50% of the sunlight that hits the earth. Most of this is coming in the form of Near Infrared light (750-3000nm). Photo-biomodulation is a term used to describe the physiological effects from irradiation by red or near-infrared wavelengths. Red and near-infrared wavelengths have the ability to penetrate inside of our body’s tissues and cells, and can even penetrate through clothing. Studies have shown benefits such as improved tissue function, wound healing, anti-inflammatory effects, and improved energy metabolism from red and near-infrared wavelengths.

Conditions that may benefit from photobiomodulation include allergies, hypothyroidism, depression, dementia, cancer, diabetes related symptoms, exercise performance and recovery, pain, and cardiovascular diseases.

I have written an article on this substack that dives deep into the benefits of NIR light, and why I think it is the biggest nutrient deficiency worldwide (sunlight = NIR). NIR light (over 950 nm) may penetrate as deep as 8 cm and can penetrate bone, enter the cerebrospinal fluid and the brain.

Why is Red/NIR light so beneficial for our health ? Because it up-regulates ATP production and expands our exclusion zone water. You may have heard how fantastic Red/NIR light is for mitochondria…that is 100% true. Part of that reason is due to melatonin synthesis which is highlighted below. The other part is because it up regulates ATP production by expanding the exclusion zone water around the ATP nanomotor-reducing its viscosity and improving rotational torque. Bit complex yes, but that is the reality of our biology. ATP opens the binding site of proteins to water, which need to be hydrated to function properly as biological semiconductors so you could say that Red/NIR is IMPERATIVE for optimal biological function. 

NIR light & Intracellular Melatonin Synthesis

Recent research by Zimmerman, S. and Reiter R. suggests that melatonin (a master antioxidant) exists in two main forms within the body – circulatory melatonin, which is suppressed during the day upon exposure to blue light and has its major effect on sleep and the circadian rhythm, and sub-cellular melatonin, which is produced and used locally by the mitochondria within our cells. NIR light stimulates melatonin production in the mitochondria, which helps protect the cells from oxidative stress from whatever stressors/toxins make their way into the mitochondria. It also helps naturally combat the free radicals generated from UV exposure. This is why Red/NIR wavelengths are so healing, and balance out the high energy and biologically damaging (to some degree) Blue/UV wavelengths. There is always a far higher amount of NIR light than any other light in the spectrum when it comes to energy and power density.

I have written an in depth article about Melatonin as well, because it is so much more than a “sleep hormone”. Zimmerman brilliantly discusses this in his work and how most of the circadian community misses this piece. Melatonin is THE MASTER ANTIOXIDANT, being able to stabilize up to 10 free radicals per molecule due to its remarkable cascading antioxidant abilities.

Violet, Green, Yellow/Orange Light

Violet light (visible) is hard to find research on but can be thought to range from 360-420nm, right after UVA (or even some overlap) and right before blue light in the ascending wavelength spectrum of full spectrum sunlight. 

Japanese research showed that violet light (360–400 nm wavelengths) suppressed the axial length elongation both in a chick myopia model and in human. They also spiked out the fact that we are violet light deficient in a modern, indoor world because of the fear mongering around UV light. Blue light from screens causes myopia and violet/UVA light reverses it…

Violet light is also being studied for its potential benefit to improve sleep quality. 

Green light (495-570nm) penetrates your dermis, almost reaching the subcutaneous tissue below. Studies have shown that green light is effective for relieving pain. Green light is also beneficial for treating skin condictions, especially with regard to skin tone and complexion. Sunspots, melasma, rosacea, eczema, and psoriasis can all benefit from green light. Another tout to the importance of full spectrum sun is the under discussed skin HEALING frequencies such as green + red to balance the high energy UV.

Green Light:

• Might be used in attempts to reduce skin redness and irritation.

• Has been studied for potential pain-reducing properties.

Yellow and Orange light. Lesser research around these wavelengths but including them anyways. These wavelengths penetrate the subcutaneous tissue beneath your dermis. Like green and blue light, they are effective at treating skin issues like eczema, sunburn, psoriasis, and creating an even skin tone. Yellow and orange light therapy is one of the less common types; however, it can help flush waste from your skin, elevate the functioning of your lymphatic system, and stimulate cellular energy to some extent.

One study proved that 590 nm light therapy after laser skin treatments reduced the intensity and healing time of skin irritation. 

Yellow light:

• Sometimes used to stimulate collagen production in the skin.

• Has been used in lightbox therapies for mood regulation.

Orange light:

• Often used in attempts to revitalize skin and promote a vibrant complexion.

• Might be utilized for its potentially energizing and uplifting effects.

Conclusion

You can not replace full spectrum sunlight with light therapies that have only a few isolated frequencies. Sunlight contains such a vast amount of frequencies that all affect our biology in different ways and together provides a very synergistic affect. Our biology has evolved over millions of years to take the FULL SPECTRUM sun as our main input signal. 

Light therapy can still be beneficial in certain scenarios without a doubt, but it will never replace full spectrum sunlight. This is a challenge in our modern indoor world we live in, and that is why we need to be so deliberate about going outside. That is also why I am so excited to be working with Daylight Computer, the world’s first computer that is designed to be used outside and has reflective screen technology that doesn’t destroy your retinas. Much more to come on Daylight Computer …so for now here is a repeat of the summary:

• Sunlight is a broad band emitter and artificial light is a narrow band emitter

• Sunlight is an un-polarized, continuous source of electromagnetic radiation. Artificial light is highly pulsed

• Sunlight that reaches the earth is comprised of light frequencies that range from 280nm (UVB) to 2500nm (NIR) and everything in between. Each category of wavelength serves as a different biological stimuli

• UVB radiation stimulates the production of vitamin D, as well as serotonin and beta-endorphins, UVA promotes the release of nitric oxide into the blood, and both have a positive effect on the diversity of the microbiome and our endogenous hormone production

• Violet light can reverse myopia and potentially improve sleep quality

• Blue light is the master circadian signaler, turning on/off the SCN via melanopsin photoreceptor…thus regulating cortisol/melatonin production as well as all circadian timing in the body

• Green light can treat skin issues and also be used as a pain releiver

• Red light, near-infrared radiation (NIR), and far-infrared (FIR) radiation have anti-inflammatory and tissue healing effects…NIR also stimulates the production of melatonin inside the mitochondria, a master anti-oxidant

Sunlight is the ultimate provider of light. Your light/EMF diet matters more than anything else in regards to health.

Biology is fundamentally electromagnetic.

Stay Sovereign,

Tristan

---

My NEW COURSE EMF-201 is officially out! An in depth educational course that follows my flagship EMF-101 course. Diving deep into Radio Frequencies, 5G, and Modern Tech with an appearance from an RF Engineer who has 20+ years of industry experience. 

Follow my Decentralized Radio podcast for some brilliant upcoming episodes on light and EMFs.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na novaekonomija.rs

05.12.2024 / Autor: Dragan Milić

---

Kada se desio prvi veliki „hajp“ oko bitkoina i kriptovaluta generalno (veći od prethodnih), negde krajem 2017-te, verujem da nije bilo čoveka koji tada bar u prolazu nije čuo da neko pominje te čudne, nove reči i fraze. Sećam se da mi je neki taksista, ničim izazvan, rekao da ulazi u posao sa rudarenjem kripta i da je uložio novac u grafičke karte koje treba da stignu preko veze, jer ih nema u prodaji. U tom trenutku to je moglo imati dvojako značenje. Ili da je kripto konačno ušao u mejnstrim i da ga je zajednica široko prihvatila ili da je vreme za izlazak iz tog biznisa i rasprodaju silnih altkoina koji su nicali kao pečurke posle kiše. Ispostavilo se da je ovo drugo bio ispravan odgovor odnosno dobra odluka.

Već u januaru sledeće, 2018. godine ceo sistem je počeo da se urušava kao kula od karata. Zagovornici kripta su govorili da je u pitanju samo korekcija i da će se stvar već na proleće popraviti, ali bitkoin se nije vratio na 17.000 dolara naredne tri godine. A mnoge druge kriptovalute zauvek su izgubile svoju vrednost.

Iako je to novo tržište volatilnost pratila godinama, a prati ga i danas, sada, na izmaku 2024. godine možda već možemo reći da je bitkoin na neki način prošao test vremena i „da je tu da ostane“. Dugo se bitkoin kretao u granicama između 50 i 70 hiljada američkih dolara, ali poguran rezultatima izbora u SAD i drugim makroekonomskim efektima koji su već konstanta, početkom decembra 2024. probio je psihološku granicu od 100.000 USD, čime su se dokazale tvrdnje da vreme digitalne imovine tek dolazi. Dan pre probijanja ovog limita, Džerom Pauel predsednik FED-a, nazvao je bitkoin digitalnim zlatom, i dodatno ubrzao ceo proces.

Mnogima ni danas nije jasno šta je zapravo kripto imovina i kako funkcioniše blokčejn na kojoj ista počiva. Što je opravdano jer je reč o veoma kompleksnoj tehnologiji čije razumevanje podrazumeva solidnu tehničku potkovanost i informisanost.

Činjenica je da nije potrebno poznavati tehnološki aspekt kripta da bi ga posedovali i trgovali istim, međutim to nas dovodi do starog pravila da investirate samo u stvari odnosno poslove koje razumete. Možda je to razlog zašto se tradicionalni ulagač i dalje drži S&P500 indeksa i nekretnina kao primarnog izbora, koji su uvek sigurnija opcija i manje podložna nestabilnosti.

Međutim, kako vreme odmiče, polako se stvara poverenje i u digitalnu imovinu kao opciju za ulaganje, koja nosi veliki rizik ali i veliku mogućnost zarade. Na primer, ko je pre nekoliko godina kupio bitkoin, na srednji rok je mogao višestruko da umnoži svoje ulaganje. A ko je bio u stanju da izađe iz okvira saveta „uloži onoliko koliko si spreman da oprostiš“ mogao je značajno da uveća svoj kapital. Na primer, da sam početkom 2020-te u jeku pandemije imao hrabrosti da kupim bitkoin po 5.000 dolara, sada bih zaradio dvadeset puta više. Ali, moglo je da bude i drugačije. Naknadna pamet ne važi…

Inače, moja lična predviđanja iz perioda s početka ove priče, dakle iz 2017-te, su bila polovično optimistična. Smeo sam se kladiti na blokčejn kao tehnologiju i njenu budućnost, međutim nisam bio siguran u bitkoin, jer sam mislio da će ubrzo biti prevaziđen. Naročito zbog svog Proof of work-a odnosno trošenja velike količine energije i računarskih resursa za odobravanje transakcija što nije bio slučaj kod nekih, u to vreme, novih kriptovaluta.

U avgustu 2017. u autorskom tekstu za jedan portal, sam napisao da kako god da završi Bitcoin kao čudo koje je okrenulo ekonomiju naglavačke ili i sam padne u revoluciji čiji je pionir i začetnik, Blockchain kao jedinstveno i genijalno tehnološko rešenje za transferisanje digitalnog novca će ostati. I mnogi upravo u ovoj tehnologiji vide budućnost novca. I pogrešio sam. Blokčejn i dalje čeka na svojih pet minuta, ali bitkoin odoleva i uči nas da na njega moramo računati.

U međuvremenu se dakle mnogo toga promenilo. Bitkoin se i pored volatilnosti uvukao u portfolije ozbiljnih investitora, odobreni su takozvani ETF-ovi (Exchange-Traded Fund), koji omogućavaju investitorima da ulažu u bitkoin bez potrebe da ga direktno poseduju ili upravljaju svojim digitalnim novčanicima i privatnim ključevima.

Glavna prepreka, u vidu nedostatka regulative, takođe je prevaziđena u mnogim pravnim sistemima. Možemo s ponosom istaći da je Republika Srbija jedna od prvih država u Evropi koja je regulisala Digitalnu imovinu. Ubrzo nakon usvajanja Zakona o digitalnoj imovini, izmenjen je i Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana, gde je bar na papiru, osvetljen i poreski tretman kripta. Problema u praksi i dalje ima, naročito oko podnošenja poreskih prijava i utvrđivanja poreske osnovice odnosno obračuna poreza, ali bar u delu vrste poreza i poreske stope pravne nesigurnosti više nema. Takođe, svako ko želi da se bavi pružanjem usluga može proći ne tako jednostavnu proceduru pribavljanja odgovarajućih dozvola u skladu sa zakonom i otpočeti taj posao u potpuno legalnim okvirima, što je do pre nekoliko godina bila siva zona i kod nas i u većini zemalja.

Bitkoinova mlađa braća nešto kaskaju sa dostizanjem svog ATH-a (All Time High), pa na primer ETH (Itirijum) u trenutku pisanja ovog teksta još uvek nije dostigao za njega magičnih 5.000 dolara, ali sva je prilika da će bitkoin prokrčiti put i za druge tokene odnosno kriptovalute na tržištu. Bar one koji su prošli test vremena i iza kojih postoji ozbiljnija infrastruktura i poslovanje.

@ 6e4f2866:a76f7a29

Foreword

“What’s the best sex you’ve ever had?”

Imagine that being the question that changed your life’s work!

And no, it didn’t come from a sleazy porn director in the basement

of a dingy house directed towards the person sitting on the

casting couch. It was asked by Rob Brinded at Chelsea FC’s stateof-

the-art Sports and Injury Prevention Medical facility and directed

at one of the best Football players in the world at that time.

Why did Rob ask that question? What did it reveal to him, and

how did that lead to him quitting his ‘perfect life’?

Even before the athlete answered, Rob knew he had unlocked

an incredibly important discovery. A discovery that would change

the trajectory of his life. One that would trigger him to walk

away from a high-paying job, get dumped by his girlfriend, and be

shunned by his professional peers while facing the inner demons

and self-torture of disappointment.

During this time, Rob forged a new mindset, armed himself

with the tools to cure himself, and extended that healing touch to

anyone who had the fortune of interacting with him.

Like many of my new friends, I first met Rob on Twitter. He

approached me after I had been the featured guest on The Bitcoin

Standard Podcast. My discussion with host Saifedean Ammous \ \ centred around the intricacies of the current education system

and the benefits of homeschooling. Rob had been particularly

intrigued by my insights about teaching versus learning and

how our education system is designed to mould kids rather than

nurture and inspire them. But what truly piqued Rob’s curiosity

was what I didn’t say. Throughout the podcast conversation,

he wanted to ask about certain nuances, the pauses. Because, well,

that’s the way Rob’s mind works now!

Over the next few months, Rob and I stayed in contact and

eventually had the pleasure of meeting each other in Madeira when

we received an invitation to assemble with other bitcoiners to meet

the President, as he and his cabinet wanted to learn more about

bitcoin and the opportunities it might bring to their island.

Extended, in-person conversations with Rob about his work

are truly fascinating. During our first meet-up, I found myself

open to everything he shared. Some people he has encountered

have brushed him off as a ‘Guru’ or too ‘Woo-Woo’ and thought

his ideas were too far out there. The irony here is that their feelings

are triggered by the very conditioning and programming that

these people have been subjected to and have been running from

their whole lives. As Rob would explain, the only way to step off

the hamster wheel is to realise you are on it in the first place. Most

people don’t and will forever be trapped, running the same selfdeprecating

programmes for their whole lives.

I was so captivated by Rob’s ideas that I booked him for a

few sessions (paid in bitcoin) to learn more about his work and,

of course, myself. My goal was to understand why I thought the

way I thought and why I acted the way I acted under certain stressors.

With a spirit of open exploration, we embarked on a journey

through my past, present and future, engaging in candid conversations

that flowed effortlessly. Rob’s guidance helped me decipher

the programs I had been running in my head (my OS system) and

how to close them down. I can best surmise it with the analogy

of ‘force-quitting’ a program on your computer when you get the

‘spinning beach ball of death’.

Once you do this simple visualisation exercise, a remarkable

transformation occurs — you feel lighter and think clearer. Like

our minds, our bodies can react in the most incredible ways. Lifelong

ailments, aches, or pains can feel instantly better and even disappear

completely.

Rob’s conviction in his work is not from blind luck; it’s rooted

in decades of deep introspection mixed with theoretical and practical

study — and, importantly, from results. The outcomes Rob

has seen and shared in this book are beyond remarkable and worth

everyone’s attention. As you journey through these pages and into

this rabbit hole, remember to note what emotions are triggered

within YOU carefully. Because that, dear reader, is your personal

hamster wheel. Those triggered emotions have been programmed

into your OS since you were born, and those programs are what

hold you back mentally and physically from being your best self

and living a happier and freer life.

So, sit back and enjoy the ride. Welcome to the rabbit hole of

decentralising your mind!

Daniel Prince

Host of The Once Bitten Podcast and Author of Choose Life

Block Height 800,608 — SW France \ \ M I N D , D E C E N T R A L I S E D

@ 7ed7d5c3:6927e200

Can't decide if the terrible book you just read is a 1 or 1.5 star book? Look no further than this chart. Was it Shit or just Bad? Was that movie you watched Very Good or just Decent? How many things out there are really Life Changing?

Finally, a rating scale for humans. Use it for anything in your life that needs a rating out of 5 stars.

Rating / Description

0.5 – The worst 1.0 – Shit 1.5 – Bad 2.0 – Eh 2.5 – Entertaining, but not great 3.0 – Neutral 3.5 – Alright 4.0 – Decent 4.5 – Very good 5.0 – Life Changing

P.S. Do not use it to rate your wife's cooking. The author is not liable for any damages.

@ 2355757c:5ad3e04d

Non-Native Electromagnetic Fields (nnEMFs) are in my opinion, the least discussed and most pervasive environmental toxin in modern society that is negatively affecting our health. We live in a toxic soup world, where we are being attacked from every angle. Polluted air, water, plastics, chemicals in our food/clothes, endocrine disruptors in our personal care and cooking products…the list goes on and on. It is the unfortunate reality of living in a modern fiat world, where all big companies cut corners with cheap, toxic ingredients just so you can have a $20 cooking pan and a $15 t-shirt. 

On the bright side of things, most of those toxins are pretty easily avoidable by just swapping for higher quality or more natural alternatives. You can also filter or buy better water and eat real food that was raised locally without toxic herbicides (to a pretty easy degree). Enter nnEMFs, something that is IMPOSSIBLE to fully avoid and MUCH more challenging to mitigate exposure to. That is because technology is so ubiquitous in our modern society. Cell phones and wifi routers in every house, smart appliances, cell towers on every block, power distribution and transmission lines, 5G rollout…we are surrounded by nnEMFs on a daily basis.

What are nnEMFs and why are they bad for my health?

A nnEMF is any EMF generated from a non-native source AKA a result of modern human technology. The three most common sources of nnEMFs are from our electrical power grid, radiofrequency (RF) communication, and microwave frequencies. These three sources differ by function and frequency. 

• Electrical Power Grid - 60Hz Frequency - In “Extremely Low Frequency Range (ELF)”

• Radio Frequency (RF) - 3kHz to 300GHz - Mobile/Societal Communication/TV/Radio 

• Microwave (MW) - 300MHz to 300GHz - Radar/Satellite/Space Communication

It gets a bit confusing in the nomenclature between RF and MW, but in reality the only difference is the type of application above 300MHz. Below 300MHz and it is distinctly an RF frequency. All transmission and distribution of power to industry/homes/businesses is occurring at 60Hz. Vast differences in frequency, both turn out to be pretty detrimental for our health. Here’s a few reasons why:

1. Classified as a possible carcinogen by the IARC (Group 2B)

RF-EMFs and ELF EMFs have been classified by the IARC as possibly carcinogenic based on the current scientific evidence. Now this is still a lower classification than red meat, so does this carry any merit? I say yes. Many researchers agree, such as in THIS study where researchers looked at mobile phone radiation and risk of brain tumors and concluded that RF fields should be classified as a probable carcinogenunder the criteria used by the IARC. 

1. RF and ELF Fields Increase Oxidative Stress

Oxidative stress. If you are a regular here in the health space you know how much comes down to maintaining redox homeostasis in our mitochondria (the supplier of ATP in our cells). Dysfunctional mitochondria = dysfunctional health and it just so happens that nnEMFs can significantly increase oxidative stress in our cells, with review studies like THIS one documenting how the most electromagnetic organs (brain, heart) as well as reproductive organs (testes, ovaries) were the MOST affected. (I wrote a recent substack post on declining sperm count and nnEMFs was the star of the show). Increased oxidative stress is consistent with OG findings from the likes of Dr. Robert Becker and Dr. Andrew Marino in their research. It is high level, but increased levels of oxidative stress predisposes you to increased risk of ALL KNOWN CHRONIC DISEASES. Because of this, nnEMFs have been strongly linked to increased risk of the following:

• Neurodegenerative diseases

• Reproductive issues

• Cancer 

• Cardiovascular disease 

• Diabetes

• Disturbed Sleep

We live in a toxic soup world. Achieving restorative sleep is the only way our body is able to fight back and restore our health from all of these toxic exposures. ANYTHING that impedes sleep restoration is a premature nail in the coffin in my eyes. Don’t believe me on the importance and power of melatonin and our circadian rhythm? Check out THIS thread I wrote on melatonin (anti-cancer, potent anti-oxidant, mitochondrial composer, etc.). Exposure to nnEMFs during the day AND at night disturb our sleep and prevent the ability to have that highly restorative sleep needed to detoxify and replenish our cells. Lose quality sleep, lose the ability to handle stressors that you are exposed to daily.

DON’T BELIEVE ME THAT nnEMFs are harmful to human health? You are not alone. Many mainstream media outlets, researchers, and industry “experts” dismiss the level of non-ionizing radiation coming from things like cell phones as dangerous to human health. This is has been ongoing since the 1970s. However, if you are subscribed to this newsletter you may have more of an open mind to believing everything you read from CNN, Forbes, or the WHO. I know you all question things more than the average member of society. So if you question the efficacy and morality of the vaccine, why would you not also question the potential health hazards of nnEMF exposure? Even Presidential Nominee RFK is on board. Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Food…there is no difference! Centralized industry will do anything it takes to cover up research that is sound and not funded by themselves. Here is an example…

Dr. Henry Lai from University of Washington Emeritus has compiled the most comprehensive set of research articles regarding nnEMFs and biological impacts. He has reviewed OVER 2,500 studies. His conclusion?

Dr. Lai reports concluded from his research that exposure to RFR or ELF EMF produces oxidative effects or free radicals, and damages DNA. Downstream effects of studies examined include significant effects on genetic, neurological and reproductive functions. Among hundreds of studies of Radio Frequency Radiation (RFR), 70% to 89% reported significant biological effects. Among hundreds of studies of Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) and static fields, 74% to 91% reported significant biological effects.

Still don’t believe me, read the book Going Somewhere by Dr. Andrew Marino. It will blow your mind on how much effort has gone to cover up research on the biological effects of nnEMFs since the 1970s. Or Google Russia’s stance on nnEMFs. 

You can also listen to one of our latest Decentralized Radio episodes with Anthony Smith, COO of EMF Safe. EMF Safe is a fantastic company that offers, in my opinion, the MOST effective nnEMF mitigation technology for your house. Hint: it’s not a f*cking pendant or harmonizer. YouTube link or Spotify link HERE.

Now that we got through the depressing side of the story, let's talk about WHAT YOU CAN DO to protect yourself from the harmful effects of nnEMFs without having to live in the woods-not a perfect solution either ;) 

HOW TO MITIGATE nnEMF detrimental health effects: DURATION + DISTANCE \

\ TIME/DURATION. Your worst enemy in being exposed to nnEMFs is the duration of exposure. Nearly all of the negative studies showed that after 48-72hrs of exposure (chronic), detrimental health effects were seen. HOWEVER, the same studies showed less conclusive negative health effects for exposures less than 24-48hrs (with variance). For me that means the following action items:

• Turn off the wifi-router at night 

• Turn phone on airplane mode when not using for >10 min

• Turn appliances OFF when not in use in your home 

• Create a sleep sanctuary with minimal/no electronics in the bedroom 

• Do not move to an area right next to High Voltage Transmission Lines, Substation, Airport, Hospital, etc. (any area with high powered communication/RF equipment or power distribution equipment) 

DISTANCE. Distance is your best friend in mitigating nnEMFs. Why? Inverse square law. Inverse square law is the fact that the magnitude of the EMF is calculated with the square of the distance in the denominator of the equation. This means that for every doubling of distance you have between you and the EMF source, the magnitude weakens by a factor of FOUR. Triple the distance, EMF magnitude goes down by a factor of NINE (and so forth). For me that results in the following action items:

• Do not keep your cell phone ON your body when ON & receiving calls/texts 

• Do NOT hold your cell phone up to your ear when making calls (use headphones/speaker)

• Move your bed 6-12 inches AWAY from any electrical outlets in your bedroom (especially near your head)

• Do not stand immediately next to high powered appliances when ON & in use (microwave, washer, dryer, blender, etc.)

There exists a lot of other nnEMF “mitigating/harmonizing” technologies, however I would be highly suspect of anyone trying to sell you something. EMFs are extremely complex. The angle of incidence, power level, and frequency matter tremendously. Most folks who aren’t engineers or have a deep knowledge of physics likely won’t be able to have the baseline knowledge to know what is a scam and what is not. OR what to prioritize from an nnEMF mitigation perspective. I gave a pretty good starting point above for what actionable steps you can take. THis does not mean all products are a scam. nnEMF shielding has its place and I use some of these products…but whenever a topic is extremely complex to the layperson, it is easy for someone to convince you that a product works. Especially when proof is challenging to come up with (EMF readers are an okay tool at best). 

As someone who holds a M.S. in Electrical Engineering, I never thought that my degree would come in handy for health optimization. Now in 2023, here I am realizing how electromagnetism is likely the MOST important topic to conceptualize to really crack the optimal health code. We are electromagnetic beings, and the research in this space has only just begun to scratch the surface.

If you want to learn more in depth about nnEMFs, mitigation tactics, what products work and do not, etc…subscribe to stay up to date on the latest. I am directly working with some renowned EMF experts on developing more educational content/courses that I will be launching in the near future to help practitioners and fellow esoteric health connoisseurs better understand nnEMFs more in depth to help themselves and their clients live a more optimal life. 

Here on Decentralized Health, I will be writing in depth about the electromagnetic aspects of health alongside other topics I am passionate about such as environmental toxins, regenerative agriculture, decentralization, Bitcoin and more. I want as many people as possible to become empowered through education so that they can escape the dependencies of the centralized systems that are tarnishing our quality of life. 

This is just the tip of the nnEMF iceberg. 

Stay Sovereign,

Tristan

Originally published Sep 25. 2023

@ f96073dc:5951c7c2

Introduction

The food we consume plays an obvious yet undervalued role in not just sustaining us, but also in shaping who we become.

The phrase "You are what you eat" transcends cliché to embody a profound truth: our diet directly influences our life experience.

Debates continue about the optimal food sources for human health and longevity.

These discussions often involve emotionally charged arguments influenced by faith, traditions, economic interests, and political opinions concerning the global climate crisis and sustainability.

My goal isn’t to delve into the weeds of this emotional & political debate, but instead to strip things back and provide a birds eye view on nutrition, whilst offering alternative lenses through which we can view food.

## Understanding Food as Information

More than mere fuel, food serves as crucial information for our bodies.

This concept may sound strange, as much of our nutritional understanding has been dumbed down to ‘energy in, energy out’, or ‘calories in, calories out’.

This perspective bypasses the importance of micro nutrients—the vitamins & minerals our bodies interrelate with, or don’t.

Food information determines how our cells function and regenerate, impacting everything from energy levels to cognitive ability.

The challenge lies in deciphering what constitutes "good information."

For centuries, nature provided a simple guide.

Our ancestors thrived on a diet of organ meats, plants, seafood, fruit, muscle meats, bones, and eggs—foods naturally rich in nutrients and absent of modern chemicals.

The question remains: If our forebears thrived on these natural foods, why have we deviated so drastically?

## The Shift in Food Paradigms

The introduction of heavily processed "Frankenfoods" laden with chemicals represents a stark departure from the diets of our grandparents and great-grandparents.

They consumed what we now coin "organic" food out of necessity rather than choice.

Food is pleasure, but it’s also a tool for a healthy self.

This ratio has been disproportionally thrown out of alignment.

The modern supermarket, with its aisles dominated by hyper palatable and processed products, reflects a concerning shift in our eating habits.

On the periphery of supermarkets lie fruits, vegetables, dairy, and animal based products, many of which have been sprayed with chemicals like glyphosate, or raised under inhumane conditions.

This brings us to the troubling paradox: while some parts of the world suffer from over-consumption and associated health issues like obesity and metabolic diseases, others face malnutrition and starvation due to food scarcity. (See red line below)

*HFCS: High fructose corn syrup

Questioning Current Food Paradigms

Our current food systems are broken.

A hard truth and pill to swallow, but if you look around, people have never been this unwell and overweight.

Misleading ‘Health Star Ratings’ and a flawed food pyramid, reflect a deeper societal malaise.

These systems often promote products that are not conducive to health, with processed carbohydrate forms serving as our staple, while nutrient and caloric dense foods like meat, fish, dairy, and natural fats have been marginalised.

## Whole Foods and Balanced Nutrients

So, what’s the ideal diet?

There is no universal diet that fits everybody.

The journey to finding the right diet involves personal experimentation.

However, a diet emphasising whole foods, which humans have consumed for millennia, remains a sound choice.

Eating natural foods avoids the pitfalls of ultra-processed foods and provides a balanced array of nutrients.

Side note: historically, meat was always the prized resource.

## Beyond Pesticides

Every year, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts together a list of 15 foods with the lowest amounts of pesticide residues, and conversely, 12 of the most contaminated foods with pesticides.

This is known as the ‘Clean Fifteen’ and ‘Dirty Dozen’.

When financially feasible, it’s advised to consume organic and pasture raised products.

If buying organic isn’t possible, one strategy to reduce pesticides is to soak the produce in water and a teaspoon of baking soda or a splash of apple cider vinegar for a few minutes.

## Nutritional Strategies for Specific Needs

Strategies like the elimination diet can help individuals identify how specific foods affect their bodies, allowing them to make informed choices that resonate with their unique physiological needs.

Tracking macronutrients and particularly protein intake can be crucial for specific health goals like muscle growth or weight loss.

Gaining a baseline understanding of the macros in your food can be an important piece of the puzzle, but should not become an obsessive practice.

Many diets serve a purpose, and depending on your goals as well as physiology, can be leveraged for great benefit.

This broad concept has been developed into a growing area of research called Nutrigenomics, defined as the study of how different foods may interact with specific genes to modify the risk of common chronic diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers.

For example, a ketogenic diet can help those with neurological disorders such as epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease, intermittent fasting can facilitate weight loss, and a carnivore diet can heal chronic skin or gut issues.

## Conclusion

In an era where diet-related health issues are rampant, returning to a more natural, informed way of eating is not just beneficial; it is necessary.

The prevalence of heavily processed "Frankenfoods" deviates from the nutrient-rich diets of our ancestors, contributing to a paradox of overconsumption and malnutrition.

Challenging current food paradigms is necessary to address misleading nutritional guidelines and flawed food systems.

Empower yourself to explore food in a deeper fashion, seeking a diet that not only nourishes your body but also aligns with your lifestyle goals and fosters a sense of vitality and well-being.

Eating well is a form of a self respect, and while we get the chance to inhabit this physical form, it should be our duty to make the most of this life and embody our fullest potential.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na danas.rs

11.01.2021 / Autor: Aleksandar Milošević

---

Ima više od osam godina otkako sam prvi put čuo za to nešto što se zvalo bitkoin.

Libertarijanski san: „Decentralizovana“ valuta koju ne kontroliše nijedna država; na koju nijedna centralna banka ne može da utiče; koju je zahvaljujući „blokčejn“ tehnologiji nemoguće falsifikovati i koja nudi anonimnost kakvu poznaje samo keš.

Valuta čija je ukupna količina unapred fiksirana pa joj je rast vrednosti usađen u DNK.

I to još valuta koju je moguće dobiti besplatno, ali po zasluzi, jer bitkoini nastaju tako što vaš kompjuter reši komplikovani matematički zadatak iza kojeg se „krije“ jedan od ovih magičnih novčića.

To što je čitav sistem osmislio misteriozni matematički genije poznat kao Satoši Nakamoto, koji možda postoji, a možda i ne postoji i što se ceo finansijski establišment obrušio na čitavu bitkoin-maniju kombinacijom podsmeha i represivnih pretnji, moglo je samo da ubrza moju tadašnju odluku da kupim XFX ATI RADEON HD 5870 grafičku karticu za nekih 200 evra (maksimum koji sam od skromne novinarske plate mogao sebi da oprostim) i priključim se drugoj velikoj zlatnoj groznici, nekih 150 godina nakon one originalne, kalifornijske.

Ipak, kao što se da pretpostaviti iz činjenice da danas pišem ovaj tekst umesto da na nekom tropskom ostrvu vežbam skokove u vodu, sudbina nije htela da se obogatim rudareći bitkoine.

Ispostavilo se, naime, da moja moćna grafička karta ne odgovara mojoj dosta nesposobnoj matičnoj ploči, pa sam uz pomoć najgore „cost-benefit“ analize u istoriji biznisa zaključio da je bolje da prodam grafičku sa 20 evra gubitka i zaboravim na sve, nego da zarad svoje igrarije menjam čitav kompjuter.

Ta greška koštala me je nekih 700.000 dolara.

Toliko bih, žalosno je, danas imao da sam propalu investiciju u pogrešan hardver pretvorio u novotariju zvanu kriptovaluta, po tadašnjem kursu od 10 dolara za novčić, umesto što sam „zaboravio na sve“.

Bitkoin je, ispostavilo se, postao prilično velika stvar.

S kursom od 40.000 dolara za jedan bitkoin, s međunarodnim bankama koje spekulišu ovom valutom, s nuklearnim naučnicima hapšenim jer su ruski državni superkompjuter upregli da za njih rudari bitkoin, sa novinskim izveštajima o ljudima koji idu u zemlje s jeftinom strujom da u njima instaliraju čitava skladišta puna računara za traženje bitkoina, pa čak i sa poslednjim pričama koje krive upravo bitkoin za to što je u Pakistanu pao napon struje za 200 miliona ljudi i što je 500 miliona Evropljana zamalo ostalo bez svetla, nema nikakve sumnje da je bitkoin nešto veliko.

A opet, to nešto veliko i dalje uporno ostaje – ništa.

Ma koliko neverovatna cena od 40.000 dolara delovala zavodljivo, bitkoin entuzijasti su već jednom, pre tačno dve godine, sve to već doživeli, kada je ova valuta prvi put u meteorskom usponu za samo par nedelja dostigla 20.000 dolara, da bi se onda jednako naglo i jednako neobjašnjivo survala nazad, ostavljajući mnoge sa velikom i nimalo virtuelnom rupom u džepu.

Osnovni problem bitkoina, uzrok njegove karakteristične nestabilnosti – ogromnih skokova i jednako spektakularnih padova – jeste to što niko ne zna za šta je on koristan.

Ma kako uzbudljivo delovala čitava priča o novcu koji je van kontrole vlade, koji nudi anonimnost transakcija i koji je navodno nemoguće falsifikovati, činjenica je da prosečnoj osobi ništa od toga nije potrebno.

Tačnije, bitkoin – sem u uskom krugu slučajeva – ne nudi ništa što već ne možete da dobijete sa svojom valutom, a da vam je potrebno.

Za anonimnost je većini dovoljan keš, rizik od falsifikata je dovoljno mali da je zanemarljiv, a kontrola države i nezavisnost od monetarnih vlasti su priče koje su ljudima eventualno intelektualno zanimljive, ali nikog neće naterati da u praksi krene da koristi neku virtuelnu valutu.

Zato je bitkoin ostao novac ponajviše upotrebljavan za nezakonite transakcije – otkup podataka od hakera, prodaju droge i tome slično – gde su anonimnost i elektronski transfer novca bitniji od svega.

Zašto onda raste cena bitkoinu?

Zato što svi kupuju bitkoine nadajući se da će im cena skočiti i da će zaraditi.

Kako raste tražnja tako raste cena i očekivanje se ispunjava.

Onda kad tražnja nestane, a to će se desiti kad svi koji su upravo sad čuli za bitkoin pokupuju virtuelne novčiće videvši koliki je rast cene u poslednjim danima, cena će krenuti da pada.

Jer – bitkoini nikom nisu potrebni i niko ne želi da ih zadrži. Sve što svi žele je da ih kupe, da im cena „iz nekog razloga skoči“ i da ih onda zamene za „pravi novac“.

U toj igri, koja se stalno ponavlja kako naiđe novi talas publiciteta, neko naravno mora i da izgubi.

Bitkoin neće postići stabilnost i neće uspeti da iskaže svoju „deflatornu“ prirodu u koju se svi uzdaju da im trajno podiže vrednost novčića koje poseduju, sve dok se ne bude pronašla njegova svrha kao valute.

Dok dovoljno veliki broj ljudi ne bude hteo da drži i koristi bitkoine za ono za šta je svaka valuta namenjena – za kupovinu roba i usluga.

Droga, oružje, ucene i ostale oblasti kriminalne ekonomije nisu dovoljni da bi se takva stabilnost postigla.

Glavni problem bitkoina je zato njegova praznina.

Bitkoin nije zlato našeg doba. Pre je blato.

@ 00cfe60d:2819cc65

Lets start with the money talk, at its core, a good form of money is created from two key ingredients: time and energy.

**Money = Time + Energy ** This simple idea explains why money has value. Time is something we can never get back, and energy is what powers everything we do, both mentally and physically. Together, they create value.

Why Energy is So Important Energy is what keeps life going. It’s essential for everything we use and do every day. For example:

• Food without energy to cook is raw and not very tasty.
• A car without energy doesn’t go anywhere.
• A person without energy feels tired and can’t work or play.
• Your work without energy gets nothing done.
• Football without energy means no running, no cheering, and no fun.
• A phone without energy is just a useless object.
• A house without energy is cold, dark, and uncomfortable.
• Transportation without energy means no moving buses, trains, or planes.
• The internet without energy means no websites, no games, and no communication.
• Nature without energy means plants don’t grow and animals can’t survive.

And what about money without energy? ** We often hear that “time is money” but if money is created without any time or energy, it becomes worthless. That’s why energy is so important in giving money its value.

Why Bitcoin is Different

Bitcoin is special because it follows the equation of money perfectly. It’s the best kind of money because it requires both time and energy to exist. Here’s how:

• Time: Bitcoin’s network is designed to create new bitcoins at regular intervals, so time is built into the system.

• Energy: Bitcoin is made using a process called Proof-of-Work, which uses real-world energy to produce and secure it. This ties its value to effort and cost.

Thanks to this process, Bitcoin is:

1. Scarce: There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins. It can’t be copied or faked.

2. Reliable: Its value is tied to real-world energy, making it solid and trustworthy.

3. Effort-Based: No one can create bitcoins out of thin air. It takes real work.

This makes Bitcoin an honest form of money, free from manipulation or shortcuts. It connects the digital and physical worlds through energy, just like gold was in the past, requiring time and energy to extract and maintain its value.

The Problem with Regular Money (Fiat Money)

On the other hand, fiat money, the kind printed by governments, doesn’t follow the same rules. It’s made without effort, just by pressing a button. This leads to big problems:

1. Inflation: More money is printed, making the money you already have worth less.

2. Manipulation: Governments and banks can change the rules whenever they want.

3. Unfairness: People closest to the money printers benefit the most, while everyone else pays the price.

4. Fiat money breaks the rule of time and energy. It’s just a symbol, not a true store of value.

**Henry Ford’s Energy Currency Idea ** Over 100 years ago, Henry Ford had a bold idea: What if money was based on energy? He believed energy was the ultimate resource because it’s measurable and valuable to everyone.

Bitcoin brings Ford’s vision to life. Its Proof-of-Work system ties money directly to energy. Bitcoin acts as a global, incorruptible energy currency that rewards effort and aligns money with real-world value.

Why Energy-Based Money Matters

Money that’s rooted in time and energy isn’t just an idea, it’s a principle we live by every day. To truly understand the value of energy and effort, let me share a personal story.

Every single day of the week, I train. I pour my energy and effort into CrossFit, pushing my body and mind to their limits. Last year, during a competition, I achieved something I’d never done before: 12 ring muscle-ups. Before that, my maximum was just three. Through consistent training, spending my time and energy at the gym, I earned that reward. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.

This is Proof-of-Work in action. Just like my training required time and energy to achieve results, Bitcoin requires time and energy to exist. Its

Proof-of-Work mechanism ensures:

• It can’t be faked or inflated.
• It rewards hard work and energy, not shortcuts or manipulation.
• It restores trust by linking value to real-world effort.

In a world where fiat money can be printed without effort, Bitcoin shines as a clear and honest form of money. Like the work I put into my training, Bitcoin ties time and energy to value, creating a system that’s fair, transparent, and built to last.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na politika.rs

13.09.2021 / Autor: Aleksandar Apostolovski

---

Za svet virtuelne banalnosti u koji smo umarširali potrebna je i njegova moneta. Kakav svet takvo i sredstvo plaćanja.

Ni četnički jataci nisu kao što su nekada bili. Ne skrivaju se u zemunicama, ne spremaju masnu gibanicu – prste da poližeš – ne čekaju zapadne saveznike da se iskrcaju na Jadranu. Verovatno nemaju ni brade modne linije starog američkog benda „Zi Zi Top”.

Nepoznata sajber ilegalna grupa upala je u podrum kuće čiča Draže u Ivanjici. Zaista, prvorazredna vest. Instalirali su snažne procesore i mašine za rudarenje bitkoinima i daljinskim sistemom. Ko zna odakle. Možda sa Kariba, možda iz Kosjerića, možda iz Jajca – ako su ipak partizani. Trgovali su kriptovalutama. Umalo da tako rasture uličnu rasvetu tokom „Nušićijade”, pa su čelnici opštine sproveli internu istragu, tražeći ilegalce koji vrše diverziju nad elektroenergetskim sistemom grada i festivalom satire.

Upali su u Dražin dom, sišli u podrum i zatekli sofisticiranu opremu, snažne procesore i nekakve mašine za rudarenje po internetu. Kompjuterski komandosi, naravno, nisu bili prisutni. Sada ih juri policija. Potrošili su oko 55.000 kilovat-sati struje. Verovatno se skrivaju pod stripovskim kodnim imenima, poput hakera iz Niša koji su ojadili Teksašane, pa im je doakao FBI, jer Ameri možda trpe svoje prevarante koji muzu kockare na globalnom groblju kriptovaluta, ali ne dozvoljavaju da se u međunarodnu spekulativnu igru ubace mozgovi sa južne pruge, gde je dozvoljeno da se prži paprika, pravi ajvar i sluša melanholični džez na „Nišvilu”.

Jedan od članova niške hakerske grupe je Antonije Stojiljković, koji se krio iza lažnih imena „Toni Rivas” i „Džejkob Gold”, a u slobodno vreme bio je reper poznatiji kao „Zli Toni”. Stojiljković je izručen Americi zbog računarskih prevara. Dobrovoljno se prijavio kako bi se sklonio u Ameriku.

Ti momci su nudili bitkoin upola cene i stvorili takvu virtuelnu međunarodnu mrežu lažnih kompanija, menadžera, uz organizaciju video-konferencija, da su omađijali dobar deo internet investitora iz Teksasa, te je Federalni istražni biro morao da spasava čast kauboja koje su izradile Nišlije. Njihov vođa, izvesni Kristijan Krstić, prestao je da se javlja policiji, nestao je sa suprugom i ortakom Markom Pavlovićem bez traga, iako su pod istragom, što može da poremeti i diplomatske odnose između Srbije i SAD.

Taj Kristijan, ne onaj Kristijan koji se seli iz rijalitija u rijaliti, koristio je nadimke poput „Feliksa Logana” ili „Maršala Grahama” i na internet prevarama zaradio je više desetina miliona evra. Priča nije nimalo bezazlena. Veze „Zlog Tonija” dosežu, bar po dosadašnjem toku istrage, sve do klana Belivuka.

Ali, to će rešavati sudovi i policija, mada i podaci koji su procurili otkrivaju suštinu fame bitkoin i na hiljade kriptovaluta koje može stvoriti bilo koji maher, avanturista, šaljivdžija, klinac, multimilioner, tajne službe, trgovci oružjem, narko-bosovi, plaćene ubice ili Del Bojevi koji će iduće godine postati milioneri.

Virtuelni svet ne može postojati bez virtuelnih valuta, s tim što one nisu opipljive, iza njih ne stoje centralne banke i vlade. Dakle, nemate pojma ko ih je stvorio, nemate pojma s kime trgujete i ko su brokeri.

Vidim da na „Jutjubu”, u motelu „Stari Hrast” na Koridoru 10, neki momci plaćaju prebranac i vešalice bitkoinima, preko mobilnih telefona. U kafani primaju i etereume, digitalni novčić u usponu, odmah iza bitkoina. I za to čudo je potreban digitalni novčanik... Ovde ću se zaustaviti jer je za svet banalnosti u koji smo umarširali potrebna i njegova moneta. Kakav svet takvo i sredstvo plaćanja.

Kako su kompjuterski podaci svih vrsta, od pretraživača, društvenih mreža, aplikacija, do podataka kompanija, državnih i međunarodnih organizacija, i onih ličnih, koje upravo vi posedujete, postali nezamislivo ogromna baza koju je nemoguće uskladištiti, otvorena je berza za internet magacionere koji će, rudareći na internetu, postati kandidati za potencijalne šefove skladišta. Teoretski, možete izrudariti deo arhive CIA. Preporuka – ako saznate ko je ukokao Kenedija, ćutite ko zaliveni!

(Dragan Stojanović)

Da je Alija Sirotanović kojim slučajem rudario kao specijalci iz Dražinog podruma, postao bi Bil Gejts. Alija je znao da nema ’leba bez motike, odnosno krampa. Zato je ostao Sirotanović. Ovo je novo doba. Mašina krampuje u simuliranoj stvarnosti, a virtuelni homo sapijens upravlja procesorima. Bitkoin vrti gde burgija neće! Stvar ipak nije tako idilična. Te skalamerije troše ogromne količine električne energije i strahovito zagrevaju prostorije, pa je u Dražinom podrumu bilo nešto vrelije nego u sauni. Priča se da su najveći mešetari otperjali na Island da se prirodno rashlade. Sledeće stanište im je Grenland.

Kome god je stalo do računarskog kriptovalutnog avanturizma može da formira svoj mali rudnik, gde nema zlata ni dijamanata, ali ima koina, odnosno stotog dela bitkoina. Jedan trenutno vredi 50.000 dolara. Pitam se, ovako zastareo, gde su banke i menjačnice?

Sa ono malo informatičkog znanja – valjda ću uspeti nekako imejlom da pošaljem ovaj tekst – saznao sam da vrednost bitkoina vrtoglavo skače i pada na dnevnom nivou, a kako je njegov broj ograničen na globalnom nivou, a neformalni šef Federalnih rezervi bitkoina je donedavno bio jedan od najbogatijih ljudi sveta Ilon Mask, koji je na svom tviter nalogu svakodnevno formirao grafikon rasta i pada svojim opaskama, tu već naslućujem elemente bondovskog zapleta. Harizmatični superbogataš koji leti u svemir, poseduje kompaniju električnih automobila „Tesla”, upravljao je donedavno imaginarnom berzom i valutom, ali je nedavno odustao. Možda zato emigrira u kosmos?

Stvar zaista može izmaći kontroli ili će, možda, bitkoin postati naša sudbina, a mi rudari iz sauna? Salvador je pre nekoliko dana postao prva zemlja na svetu koja je usvojila bitkoin kao zakonsko sredstvo plaćanja, uz američki dolar, s planovima korišćenja vulkanske geotermalne energije za napajanje rudarenja digitalne valute. Postavili su i bankomate. Tamošnjem narodu, kao i meni, ništa nije jasno.

Međutim, broj bitkoina je ograničen i zato pomalo podseća na zlato. Ali kod zlata ipak ponešto razumem. Recimo, ako imam zlatnu polugu i neko me napadne, mogu da je koristim u samoodbrani, a onda je sklonim u trezor banke.

Mogu da učinim i nešto drugo, jednako glupo. Da stvorim sopstvenu kriptovalutu. Nazvaću je „Ser Oliver koin”. Cijena će joj, logično, biti prava sitnica. Trebaju mi saradnici. Kruži fama da se popriličan broj klinaca, mahom dvadesetogodišnjaka, pridružio kultu bitkoina. Tokom korone izgubili su poverenje u sve, naročito u nas matore. Optužuju nas za izdaju i predviđaju propast država i zvaničnih valuta, uz uspon dvoglave aždaje – saveza bogataša i političara.

Delimično su u pravu, ali nisu ukapirali ključnu stvar. Aždaja raste, a oni rudare. Na kraju će završiti još gore nego Alija Sirotanović. Likovi im neće biti na novčanicama, a kablovima će biti priključeni za superkompjuter. Njihov novi vlasnik, s kodnim imenom „Procesor”, plaćaće ih idiot-koinima. Tražili smo, gledaćemo.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na trzisnoresenje.blogspot.com

22.12.2017 / Autor: Slaviša Tasić

---

Ovoliki uspon Bitcoina neobjašnjiv je za ekonomiste. Ne znam da li je to problem za bitcoin ili za ekonomiste, ali činjenica je da se uspeh bitcoina ne uklapa u postojeće ekonomske koncepte bar kada se radi o njemu kao valuti (blockchain kao tehnološka podloga je druga stvar). Možda su tinejdžeri koji su kupovali bitcoin 2010. i sada postali milioneri ispali pametniji od ekonomista, ali ja i dalje ne vidim odgovor bitcoina na neka standardna konceptualna pitanja. Postoji apokrifna izjava pripisana nekom profesoru ekonomije: "OK, vidim da to radi u praksi -- ali čik da vidim da li radi u teoriji?" Ovo je nešto tog tipa.

O poreklu novca, od Aristotela nasuprot Platonu pa sve do danas, postoje dve teorije. Jedna je teorija robnog novca i po njoj je novac nastao kada su neke vredne stvari počele da se češće koriste u razmeni. Plemeniti metali, naročito srebro i zlato, najpogodniji za čuvanje, oblikovanje i seckanje tako su postali novac. Kada se kasnije pojavio papirni novac on je sve do prvih decenija 20. veka bio samo hartija od vrednosti koja donosiocu daje pravo na propisanu količinu zlata.

Druga teorija je kartalizam, po kojoj neku robu novcem ne čini njena unutrašnja vrednost ili robna podloga, već država onda kada odluči da tu robu prihvata za naplatu poreza. Zbog toga je prelaz na papirni novac tokom 20. veka bio tako bezbolan i papirne valute se danas bez problema prihvataju. Današnji papirni novac nije više sertifikat koji vam daje pravo na zlato, ali vrednost ima jer u krajnjoj liniji znate da njime uvek možete platiti državi za porez ili usluge.

Bitcoin se ne uklapa ni u jednu od ovih teorija. On nema imanentnu vrednost kao robni novac, niti se može koristiti za plaćanje državi. Jedini način za bitcoin da ima neku vrednost je da ga prihvataju druge privatne strane u transakcijama. To je potpuni novitet u istoriji novca, jer se po prvi put radi o privatnom dekretnom (proklamovanom ili fiat) novcu. Postojao je privatni novac sa robnom podlogom; postoji državni dekretni novac; ali nikad privatni dekretni novac.

Najveći problem sa bitcoinom kao valutom je nestabilnost. To što njegova vrednost vrtoglavo raste nikako nije argument u prilog njemu jer nestabilnost valute isključuje mogućnost smislenog ugovaranja u njoj. Pristalice bitcoina dobro znaju da je njegova ponuda automatski ograničena i to je čest argument u odbranu bitcoina kao valute i navodno u prilog njegove stabilnosti. Ja nisam siguran da ograničenost ponude igra tako veliku ulogu.

Prvo, iako je količina bitcoina ograničena, može se napraviti neograničeno mnogo kopija bitcoina ili boljih kripto valuta. Već sada postoji na hiljade njih. Šta ograničenost ponude bitcoina uopšte znači kada ima neograničeno mnogo alternativa?

Drugo, iako je ponuda ograničena, cenu novca, kao i svega drugog, određuju ponuda i tražnja. A tražnja je kao što vidimo veoma varijabilna. Tako na jednoj strani imamo kvaziograničenost ponude a na drugoj veliku neizvesnost tražnje. To sve ukazuje na ogromnu nestabilnost.

Kod klasičnih valuta, poput evra ili dinara, ponuda je ograničena politikom centralne banke. Mnogi će reći da to nije nikakva garancija, ali zapadne valute već 30 godina nemaju nikakvu inflaciju, a u proteklih desetak godina veći problem bila je deflacija. Tražnja - želja za držanjem novca - je kod državnih valuta takođe varijabilna, ali mnogo manje jer monopolski karakter ovih valuta i naplata poreza u njima garantuju njihovu upotrebu. I kod tradicionalnih valuta ne samo da je tražnja novca relativno stabilna, već u situacijama kada tražnja novca bude nestabilna, fleksibilnost njegove ponude postaje prednost a ne mana. Na primer, tražnja za švajcarskim francima je negde oko 2009. naglo porasla. Švajcarska centralna banka je na to reagovala ogromnim povećanjem ponude, tako da je franak sačuvao bazičnu stabilnost. Jeste ojačao ali u razumnoj meri - ne desetostruko ili stostruko kao što rade kriptovalute.

Zato ne vidim kako se oscilacije bitcoina mogu zaustaviti. Jasno je da kriptovalute imaju neku korisnost u transakcijama, makar to bilo i za ilegalne aktivnosti, ali kada je ponuda neograničena a tražnja neizvesna onda nema nikakvih smernica buduće vrednosti. Ne znam koliko se to čak i može nazvati balonom jer se uopšte nemamo na šta osloniti u proceni nekakve prave vrednosti -- nema nikakvog fundamentalnog razloga ni da cena bitcoina poraste na $19,000 niti da danas padne na $12,500. Jedina vrednost koja u teoriji ima smisla je nula ili vrlo blizu nule.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na trzisnoresenje.blogspot.com

06.10.2014 / Autor: Slaviša Tasić

---

Od kako je bitcoin postao popularan vodi se rasprava među zagovornicima slobodnog tržišta oko njegovo gpravog statusa: da li je to budući novac, efikasan sistem zaobilaženja državne kontrole i garant slobode pojedinca, ili pak fikcija i pomodarstvo iza koje nema ničeg stvarnog?

Teorijski centar debate je pitanje da li je bitcoin "zapravo" novac ili ne. Jedna grupa tvrdi da jeste, pozivajući se na to da je nastao hiljadama dobrovoljnih akata potrošača na tržištu i time uspostavljen kao konvencija. Ko ste vi, teoretičari iz fotelje, da u ime naroda koji prihvata bitcoin definišete šte je "pravi" novac a šta nije? Druga škola tvrdi da je to irelevantno, da je takozvana vrednost bitcoina fiktivna i naduvana, i da će uskoro pući, jer nema nikakve realne pozadine: svaki novac kroz istoriju je uvek morao da ima podlogu nećeg realnog, najčešće plemenitog metala neke vrste, novac nikad ne nastaje nečijom naredbom ili proizvoljnom odlukom.

Vrlo često se u ovom kontekstu pominje Misesova čuena "teorema regresije". Ona kaže da je novac univerzalno razmensko sredstvo koje svoju vrednost crpe iz prethodne upotrebne vrednosti materijala od kojeg je sačinjeno. Recimo, zlato i srebro imaju vrednost kao nakit i luksuzna roba koju ljudi traže iz ne-monetarnih razloga, a njihova vrednost kao novca se onda izvodi iz te prethodne evaluacije njegove ne monetarne upotrebne "vrednosti". Tehnički rečeno, tražnja za zlatom kao monetarnim dobrom izvedena je iz tražnje za zlatom kao nemonetarnim dobrom.

Problem sa bitcoinom je što na prvi pogled on nema nikakvu ne-monetarnu vrednost. Nije zasnovan ni na kakvom fizičkom materijalu ili robi, već predstavlja kompjuterski algoritam. Bitcoin je beskoristan za bilo šta drugo osim kao sredstvo plaćanja. Ako je tome tako, onda postoje samo dve mogućnosti: ili bitcoin ne može da bude novac, ili je teorija o realnoj, nemonetarnoj osnovi novca netačna.

Izgleda da ni jedno ni drugo nije slučaj. Bitcoin jeste sredstvo razmene, iako još uvek nije novac, budući da nije univerzalno prihvaćen (što ne znači da ne može ili da neće biti prihvaćen), ali bitcoin istovremeno JESTE zasnovan na nečem realnom, tj ima vrednost i mimo svoje uloge kao novca. Ta prethodna vrednost bitcoina je njegova uloga kao efikasnog sistema plaćanja. Kao što Jeffrey Tucker naglašava u svom novom tekstu, Bitcoin je 2008 uveden kao sistem plaćanja koji bi omogućio efikasni transfer resursa između pojedinaca u raznim delovima sveta uz potpuno zaobilaženje zvaničnog finansijskog sistema. Programski dokument osnivača Bitcoina nije uopšte spominjao novac nego samo sistem plaćanja koji omogućava pouzdanost, anonimonst i operisanje izvan zvaničnih finansijkih tokova. Tehnički detalji su ovde.

Bitcoin kao sistem je lansiran 9 januara 2009, ali u tom trenutku njegova vrednost je bila nula! Sve do oktobra 2009 potenicjalni klijenti su mogli da dobiju besplatno koliko god hoće bitcoina da eksperimentišu. Ljudi su vršili prve transakcije, proveravali da li je sistem pouzdan, da li radi onako kako je obećano itd. Taj proces eksperminetisanja je trajao oko deset meseci. U tom periodu Bitcoin kao novac nije imao nikakvu tržišnu vrednost. Pre tačno pet godina, 5 oktobra 2009 postavljena je prva tržišna cena. Ona je bila 1390 bitcoina za jedan američki dolar, odnosno jedan bitcoin je vredeo manje od desetog dela penija. U tom trenutku publika je bila još uvek skeptična, što se pokazalo u vrlo niskoj ceni, ali kako je vreme prolazilo cena je rasla jer je evaluacija sistema, sa protokom vremena i daljim potvrđivanjem njegove vrednosti i pouzdanosti, kao i ulaskom mnogo šireg kurga ljudi u igru, postajala sve viša. Međutim, to je sve sa teorijske tačke gledišta irelevantno; ključna stvar je da je početna evaluacija bitcoina, prva tržišna cena objavljena 5 oktobra 2009 bila zapravo izraz evaluacije sistema plaćanja koja je vršena mesecima nezavisno od samog novca (tj njegove potencijalne vrednosti). Bitcoin kao novac "regresira" u mizesovskom smislu na bitcoin kao sistem plaćanja.

Dakle, bitcoin nije fiat novac. On predstavlja potencijalnu valutu koja je izvedena iz tržišne vrednosti specifičnog sistema plaćanja koji klijentima omogućava značajne prednosti koje drugi sistemi ne pružaju. I stoga oza njega stoji "realna vrednost" u istom smislu u kome nešto "realno" stoji iza zlata i srebra kao novca, ili iza modernih fiat valuta izvedenih iz zlata i srebra. Ja ne verujem da bi bitcoin imao velike šanse protiv zlata i srebra na slobodnom tržištu valuta, ali u ovom trenutku ne postoji slobodno tržište valuta, tj onaj ko pokuša da trguje u zlatu završiće u zatvoru. U takvim okolnostima, virtuelnost bitcoina predstavlja komparativnu prednost u odnosu na svaku vrstu robnog novca uključujući i zlato: vlasnik ne poseduje nikakvu fizičku supstancu koju vlada može da mu konfiskuje. Naravno, to bi moglo da se promeni ukoliko vlade ocene da je bitcoin značajna opasnost i krene u tehnološki rat protiv njega. U tom slučaju bi i cena verovatno pala.

@ bf47c19e:c3d2573b

Originalni tekst na trzisnoresenje.blogspot.com

15.12.2023 / Autor: Slaviša Tasić

---

Ovako sam pisao u aprilu kad je Bitcoin vredeo $50-100 dolara:

"Koja je budućnost Bitcoina? Većina mu predviđa propast, ali već smo videli da ima neprijatelje sa obeju strana i obe imaju svoje razloge. ... Ali ekonomski gledano, sada kad je Bitcoin došao dovde, meni se čini da može još mnogo rasti."

...

"Zato mislim da ekonomski Bitcoin više nema problem. Sa ovako ograničenom ponudom, a uz održanje sadašnje tražnje ili njen rast, njegove vrednost može i još mnogo da poraste."

U međuvremenu je otišao na preko $1,000. Ali mislite da sam kupio neki Bitcoin? Nisam, teško je baviti se takvim sitnicama kad morate da pišete blog.

Evo šta sada mislim o Bitcoinu.

Najvažnije je razumeti zašto Bitcoin uopšte ima vrednost. To što ima neku vrednost i nije tako iznenađujuće. Valute su istorijski spontano nastajale najčešće od nečega što ima istinsku vrednost, bronze, srebra ili zlata. Ali nije neviđeno ni da novac bez intristične vrednosti bude široko prihvaćen. Poznat je slučaj ostrva kamenog novca, gde je novac bilo kamenje, neka vrsta krečnjaka (vidi sliku ispod). Stanovnici jednog polinezijskog ostrva su koristili ovaj kamen kao novac zbog samo jedne osobine -- zato što nije postojao na ostrvu. Da biste nabavili takvo kamenje morali ste ići na drugo ostrvo, što je bilo skupo i naporno. I to je jedina osobina koja je krečnjak činila novcem, nisu ga koristili ni za šta drugo.

Štaviše, da ne bi kotrljali kamenje pri svakoj kupovini, trgovali su samo pravima na odrđeni kamen, a da se kamen uopšte nije morao pomeriti s mesta. To je suštinski isto kao današnje elektronsko bankarstvo, ali to je druga priča.

Bitcoin je nešto najbliže tome. Kad se uspostavi konvencija, onda novac ne mora imati imanentnu vrednost. Konvencija je, iz garantovanu retkost dovoljan uslov da nešto uspe kao novac. Kao i krečnjak na tom ostrvu, Bitcoin je suštinski bezvredan, ali 1) ne može se naći lako (ima retkost) i 2) postoji konvencija da se prihvata kao novac -- prihvatate ga jer znate da će ga i drugi prihvatiti.

Ali koliko je Bitcoin zaista redak? Sam Bitcoin jeste, jer mu je ponuda programski ograničena. Ali sada vidimo uspon drugih kripto valuta -- Litecoin, Peercoin, i drugi. Bitcoin je redak, ali svako može da napravi nešto jako slično bitcoinu i zvati ga drugačije. To se uveliko i dešava, za sada bez efekta na vrednost Bitcoina.

Za sada Bitcoin ima rastuću snagu konvencije, ili ekonomskim rečnikom, za njega radi efekat mreže. Efekat mreže postoji kada svaki dodatni korisnik povećava vrednost dobra -- vi koristite tastaturu sa početnim slovima QWERTY zato što svi drugi koriste istu tastaturu pa je glupo da počinjete nešto drugo; otvorili ste Facebook nalog ne zato što je Facebook tehnološki najbolje urađen nego zato što svi drugi imaju Facebook pa se tako nalkaše povezujete; nemate Google Plus jer niko drugi nema Google Plus što ga čini beskorisnim, i tako dalje. Uspostavljene mreže je jako teško srušiti, one se perpetuiraju i rastu na principu začaranog kruga.

Kad se jednom uspostave, mreže kao Facebook ili Bitcoin imaju ugrađenu prednost i teško ih je srušiti. Ali znate li ko je još imao efekat mreže u svoju korist? Imao je Windows i imao je MySpace. Windows se još drži ali nije ni blizu moći od pre desetak godina, a MySpace je potpuno propao -- a ljudi su 2008. MySpaceu predviđali večni monopol zbog efekta mreže. Poenta je, efekat mreže je prednost ali nikome ne garantuje monopol, pa čak ni opstanak.

Situacija sa Bitcoinom je ovakva. Sa pojavom drugih valuta retkost je izgubio. Nije bitno što nema Bitcoina, Bitcoin je samo ime. Ima ili može biti neograničeno mnogo kriptovaluta istog tipa i to je ono što je važno. Konvenciju odnosno efekat mreže Bitcoin još uvek ima, štaviše tu je i dalje u usponu. Ali to mu ne garantuje dugoročni uspeh. Kad se ta dva saberu, mislim da Bitcoin nema dobrih dugoročnih izgleda. Da sam onda u aprilu kupio Bitcoine, sada bih prodao.