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Good morning. Here's why Nostr matters to me. It's personal now. Elon Musk is making exaggerated claims about South Africa. His statements imply there's an ongoing genocide currently happening against white people, which there isn't. I should know. I'm white and I live in South Africa. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 And try as I might, corrective statements I make on twitter get very little traction, far less than my average post. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 It may be true, it may not, but it's obvious that it's in the interest of Elon's algorithm to remove all nuance from the conversation and make it as divisive as possible. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 Case in point, this "major political party" he refers to got less than 10% of the vote in recent elections and they've been shrinking, not growing. Their habit of singing a song that calls for killing "boers" (aka white people) is absolutely despicable. But most people (of all races) can see that and have little appetite for it. Which is why there's no reason to expect that its leader, Julius Malema, will ever be South Africa's next president. Off course this may change, the future is uncertain, but as things stand now, it is a HIGHLY unlikely expectation. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 Don't me wrong. There are huge problems in South Africa. Our current president doesn't have the backbone to condemn the very obvious racist rhetoric of parties like the EFF, while pretending that very serious concerns raised aren't real. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 And in a way it's good that someone like Elon draws attention to it. However, I'm almost certain that his particular rhetoric isn't helping nearly as much as it's dividing people and inflaming the situation. And I wish he'd instead draw more attention to and amplify many of the more reasonable voices that do speak about this. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 But this won't happen. If it bleeds it leads. And if someone controls the algorithm, why would they push something that draws less attention to their own platform? Simple answer is, they won't. And this is why Nostr matters, to me. It doesn't fix this today. But at least I know there's a potential solution. Ready for us, when we are ready for it.

Solo mining looks fun, and (apparently) people are finding blocks, who would've thought ! So we moved some of our BItaxe miners, donated by @Solosatoshi.com 🇺🇸 to solo mining! Still running the mini-miner donated by the legends at Braiins Mining on a pool.

We have our FIRST EVER provincial champion!!! Avethandwa just won gold at the Surfing South Africa Grommet Games in Muizenberg, Cape Town!!! (This is in addition to the 4 silver medals and 1 bronze medal collected by The Surfer Kids at this event!) We started The Surfer Kids in 2010, with nothing. Literally nothing. If you told me then, that it'd take this long to get here, I wouldn't have believed you. But I don't know how to stop, so I didn't. That's the one thing I'm really good at. Not quitting 😂 And so, here we are. Almost 15 years later. I'm not getting too excited, however. Because this is just a small step in the bigger scheme of things. We're going to get a gold medal at South African Championships. And then, at a World Surf League Qualifying Event, and finally, at the Championship Tour level. Write it down, then come back, and check in, in another 15 years. The next Italo Ferreira, John John Florence, or Gabriel Medina, a future world champion, could already be among the kids who attend our surfing program next week. From where I'm sitting, looking at this, the obvious question is: "Why not? Why is anything impossible?" And if you don't see it that way, that's because you don't understand our (very open) secret. Our biggest challenge in accomplishing this, or any other goal, is self-belief. Getting the kids, the coaches and our entire team (including myself) to believe that the impossible is in fact possible. The question is not how do you train a champion? The question is, how do you instill the necessary self-belief? And the way you do that is by giving people tools with which to overcome self doubt, with which to combat hopelessness, and create for themselves the hope that a better future is possible. Our secret weapon, first deployed in 2021 with the creation of Bitcoin Ekasi, and now bearing real fruit, and by far the most potent tool I know of, is Bitcoin.

Thank you to the World Surf League for giving Lukhangele a wild card entry to today's Vic Bay pro! He surfed well against some tough competition. Great experience to carry forward and pass on to all the youngsters at The Surfer Kids!

It's not all fun and games at The Surfer Kids. We make serious effort to teach these kids many other skills, including lifesaving. What does it take to avoid a crisis situation in the ocean? And if it cannot be avoided, what does it take to respond to a crisis situation in the ocean?

We had a local hip-hop dance crew at the Bitcoin Bowl today, filming part of their upcoming music video, will have some of the kids featured in it too! Super cool!

Kids are ripping the Bitcoin Bowl! 🔥🔥🔥

Kids' rewards are back! February was The Surfer Kids first full month of operations in 2025, and all children who attended at least 80% of the sessions earned their monthly reward in sats! This is also the first time we're using our new cards, in combination with our own self-hosted @BTCPay Server instance! Thanks to @openoms and @El Flaco for helping us set it up! A brief overview of The Surfer Kids' program stats for February: Total surf sessions: 17 Total active recruits: 64 Average attendance / day: 30 children Average attendance / child: 8 sessions (49%) Total number of children earning rewards, with at least 80% attendance: 8

Little Avethandwa (11) getting a little head dip barrel, he was stoked! 🤩😅😂🤩🧡🤩

Stoked to see The Surfer Kids represent at today's Eden Surf Riders Trials! It's been a 15-year journey (buckets of blood, sweat, and tears) to get their surfing ability to this point. And we're only getting started.

Avethandwa (11) skates the Bitcoin Bowl almost every day!

Absolutely love watching these kids improve, surfing better and better every day!

Stoked with our first surf series competition this weekend! Over 50 surfers from the local Eden district surfing federation pulled in, and surfed for prizes, all paid in sats!

Recruiting gr. 6 & 7 pupils from our local primary school (TM Ndanda) for the next Bitcoin Diploma course. Looking to graduate our current cohort in March and start with a new one in April.

While competitive success is not The Surfer Kids' primary objective, we do want to give those kids who are hungry for it the best chance at success. But there aren't enough local surf comps for the kids, and so, when they're at the big events they struggle with nerves. They're not used to dealing with the pressures of competition. To fix this, we're launching our own little surf series and inviting all members of the local Eden surfing federation to come and compete. First event is this weekend. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Movie night tomorrow night! Next three months will be special El Salvador Movie nights, where we'll screen various documentaries on Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador, starting with: Follow The Money - Bitcoin in El Salvador, by @Peter McCormack @LuthandoSABTC🇿🇦 , Ms Nomsa, and Lukhangele will also use the opportunity to share with their community the experience they had visiting El Salvador and Bitcoin Beach, earlier this year!

Makes me happy to see kids learning to surf. Makes me even happier to know their coaches earn 100% of their salaries in Bitcoin.

Good morning! It's a beautiful day in the Southern Cape!