Maybe I should build my own Nostr client for Android.

Logged into Nostr after a month. Let's see if the experience got any better on Android since then.

The place we failed as Bitcoiners is merchant adoption. I cannot even describe how bad it is, I have all these fancy non-custodial wallets I use and I even contribute to one but I can't use them to spend anywhere because nobody wants/accepts Bitcoin.

Not changing Bitcoin core because it's risky and Bitcoin is a store of value first is a valid argument, however one of the core principles of Bitcoin is holding your own keys, with the current state of Bitcoin, everyone cannot hold their own keys because it doesn't scale to everyone in a non-custodial way.

Firefox is one of the most important software projects out there. Don't let it die. Its still a great product and I don't understand why people are switching to chromium based browsers. It makes sense if you move from something Google chrome to Brave or Ark but I don't understand the reasons to switch away from Firefox to another chromium based browser.

OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV-BIP119) is a proposed soft fork into #Bitcoin that I'd really love to see activated, here's what it is! 👇 Before we get into the BIP, let's understand what covenants are because it's what BIP introduces. Generally if you want to spend your Bitcoin you just need to own keys to be able to spend them but covenants can introduce additional restrictions on coins maybe spent. Like if you're passing on your Bitcoin (private keys) to your kids but you add a restriction saying it can only be spent after a certain block height which is like 10 years in the future. You could do savings accounts where you can only spend over a period of time. Or advanced escrows where payments are released only when certain conditions are met. Exchanges can easily manage funds flowing between their cold and hot wallets. The use cases are endless, you can imagine so many different things that can be done. Without CTV you can do some level of restrictions on how coins can be spent but nothing is straightforward and it's messy. Ok now let's get into the BIP. The basic idea behind OP_CTV is to restrict on how a UTXO can be spent and it does this by committing to a "TEMPLATE" for the next transaction. In a regular bitcoin transaction to spend coins, you have to satisfy the script in the utxos like for example, these utxos can only be spent if they are signed by some X public key but ctv restricts the structure of the next transaction that spends these utxos. What does this mean? When you spend a utxo with op_ctv the transaction must satisfy the committed template, like specific outputs, amounts and other parts of the spending transaction. The way all this is done is, you build a template for the future transaction, put all the crap you want to put inside of it, hash the template and then shove the hash in the utxo's script. Remember you have to satisfy the script in the outputs to spend them, now only way to spend them is to satisfy the op_ctv script. The spending tx must hash to the committed hash when you pull stuff from the template and hash them. In short if a utxo has op_checktemplateverify in it, the spending tx must satisfy it. Criticism: One big criticism that people have said about covenants is the risk of fungibility where coins could have permanent restriction on how they can/cannot be spent. Ctv introduces very simple covenants where your templates are restricted to be very simple where outputs are known at the time of creation of the template. Based on a destructuring argument, it is only possible to create templates which expand in a finite number of steps. CTV also enables several other cool things like payment pools where multiple people can own one utxo, it is a massive privacy benefit because when that utxo is being spent it will appear on chain as the whole utxo is being spent when in real someone is spending their portion. Another cool thing is ctv can enable vaults in Bitcoin which would look something like this giving so much more security and peace of mind. You can read a lot more on this website:

Bitcoin Optech

OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY

OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV) is a proposed new opcode that takes a commitment and requires any transaction executing the opcode to match the commit...

Overall I think op_ctv is a really cool upgrade to Bitcoin and could prove to be very valuable and seems like the only only soft fork right now most people are happy with. Here's the BIP and the authors are Jeremy Rubin and James O'Beirne.

GitHub

bips/bip-0119.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips

Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. Contribute to bitcoin/bips development by creating an account on GitHub.

I switched to Primal for Android from Amethyst. I'm going to give Nostr another go.

My explanation for sighash_anyprevout (BIP-118).

X (formerly Twitter)

Nitesh ₿⚡️ (@nitesh_btc) on X

1/ BIP-118 (sighash_anyprevout) is one of the soft forks i want to be activated. Here's what it is: 👇

Concept major ACK from me. No brained to remove the restrictions.

GitHub

Remove arbitrary restrictions on OP_RETURN by default by petertodd · Pull Request #28130 · bitcoin/bitcoin

Any number or size of data-carrying OP_RETURN outputs are allowed, and the -datacarrier option is removed. For those who want to limit data carryin...

Had to switch back to stock android from grapheneOS. What a pain in the ass 4 months it was. Even though I have very restricted settings on Android I should probably go back to iOS.

I started using SolidJS two weeks ago and I am not going back to working with React again. It's so much more simple to work with and it's very predictable on what actually happens. Loving it!

Let's say Bolt12 offers becomes a thing with route blinding. Let's take ACINQ node as an example, they nearly have 3000 channels and God knows how many private channels. Most lightning payments people make are probably 3 hops or less, in this scenario what exactly are you blinding? One hop? Why can't you just use keysend and chuck route blinding at this point?

When so many people talk about why #Bitcoin is important, they must know something that you don't know. Consider listening.

I just tried Threads. The UX is garbage and it's run by Meta. Exactly what the world needs right now!

Saudi Arabian Pro League thinks it can throw money and replicate European football. I would never watch it.