the gov just restricted fable 5 under export control law. we've been here before. in the 90s strong encryption was classified as a munition and placed under arms export controls. the cypherpunks fought and won. read the cypherpunk library.

The Cypherpunk Library

The Cypherpunk Library

A personal collection of good public-domain reads. Free to read, free to keep.

weekend project: cypherpunkbooks.com one shelf for books, manifestos, essays, etc... built it for myself to keep everything I want to read and everything i love in one place.

i dislike how taboo discussions around money are in leftist activist circles. i see a lot of hand waving. 'money won't be needed in a post capitalist world.' 'money is the root of evil.' 'money is exploitation.' then the conversation ends. i wish it didn't go like this. money is not inherently evil. it's just a technology. just like language. a technology for transporting value across space and time. that's it. it doesn't have to be exploitative. the current monetary system is deeply corrupt. imo it's the source of a lot of the world's problems, but the answer isn't to dismiss it. we should strive to build a better one. if the current implementation is broken fork and build your own.

i'm being one shotted by yanis varoufakis' technofeudalism. i can feel the dunning kruger setting in.

really enjoyed this from matt balez. a few things stuck: i learned subcent api fees via usdc on base is easy. a few weeks ago in vegas i highlighted this a unique value prop for bitcoin agentic payments. i was wrong. still true that stablecoins are inherently censorable, and freezable at any time. they don't optimize for human freedom. stablecoin privacy is very spooky. the fact that you can feed an agent's etherscan history to chatgpt and id the merchant should scare everyone. "open source AI deserves open source money" is a banger. how do we meme this into existence? watching steinberger go anti "crypto" was rough. surprised usdt on lightning wasn't covered. i know usdc has the regulatory momentum rn but @speedwallet 's wallet's usdt/lightning ux is quite good. they address the volatility and short term usd obligation point all on the ln network. we can have a convo about the tradeoffs re censorship resistance, but i think bitcoin builders can learn a lot from speed.

The Best Money For Agents

Spiral PM Mat Balez weighs the relative merits of stablecoins vs bitcoin for agentic payments and nudges us towards the more neutral option.

spoke at vegas a few weeks ago on lightning and ecash. @Shinobi moderated, @EVAN KALOUDIS and Alex held it down on @ZEUS and @Fedi . fun one. thanks for having me.

gm @Derek Ross

thanks @SoapMiner

the fbi director and acting attorney general were invited to give a talk on code as speech. the developers who wrote the code are in prison. #freesamourai

ecash nfc tap to pay with macadamia wallet on a square terminal. open protocol. open money.

russian satirists have mastered the art of writing around the censor. they do it while being funny too. that's what artists are for.

i like paying with cash. i see it as form of speech and a way of expressing freedom. no permission, no chain of where i was and what i bought.

i hope somewhere there’s an animal no person has ever seen. and i hope no one ever does.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

something i'm really proud of with numo: paying feels exactly like apple pay. press one button on your iphone, tap, beep, done. perfectly private. bitcoin as everyday money.