politician ::lies:: world ::sighs:: me ::sighs not so::

some people out there don't know who Barbara, Celarent, Darii, and Ferio are, and it shows

The miracle is not over. Rather, it hides, and you have to look closely to detect its presence. Bitcoin, Tor, nostr, bittorrent, e2ee messaging, VPNs — all flawed tech stacks that nonetheless protect us from full disenchantment.

Schrödinger's bitcoin: an asset superpositioned between youthful ('we are still early'), and aged indeed ('bitcoin is here to stay'). We collapse to whichever position is convenient, of course, and return to the superposition when the move is complete.

Airport calls for "Friends of Bill W" is an interesting use case for bitchat. I could see that finding actual use, and for the good. For those not acquainted with this subculture: People in recovery often find airports challenging — this is a place where one is socially permitted to drink at any hour of the day — and call for help there to remain sober. An anonymous location-based, p2p chat app fits the bill.

It is a good day to rise with the sun and to visit the bank branch for a sixth time to see if I can wire out my “own” money to my “own” account.

Rumors that bitcoin will destroy the state are exaggerated (Resistance Money, p. 255) View quoted note →

“The trade-off is a massive one-time off-chain data transfer of ~5 TB for a SNARK verifier circuit with 5 billion gates.” View quoted note →

This has always been what attracted me to bitcoin, and what I still look for on the internet today — something closer to the wild Usenet and IRC and forum experiences I had in the 90s than curated Instagram feeds or censored news and opinion on Twitter. Pirated music. Sharing ideas. An ever-shifting cast of pseudonyms. View quoted note →

In-depth discussion of 'What Satoshi Did', published in the recent _Satoshi Papers_ edited collection.

Nostr isn’t a drug; it’s food

Noah was a conspiracy theorist. And then it rained.

One of the best effects of the current American administration is to remind people that some laws are bad, and that some crime is good. I fear they will forget the lesson very quickly, upon taking back power. But it is a good lesson!

bitcoin is for criminals Source: HRF's Financial Freedom newsletter:

Financial Freedom Newsletter

Governments are increasingly using financial repression as a tool of control—surveilling transactions, denying banking services, freezing funds, ...

A big part of my job is career coaching: asking young adults what they want out of work life and how they'll get it. I get all sorts of answers. But never once has a student shared a dream of buying U.S. Treasuries.

I am officially neutral or slightly skeptical about a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But here's an argument I'd like to develop and evaluate: Our world is increasingly multi-polar, with realignments of who knows what kind on the horizon. Borders will change. Cross-border payment systems will realign too. It seems useful to have on hand a way to transfer value across those new and shifting borders, without the cooperation of intermediaries. Bitcoin, unlike other digital monies, can do this. So the reason to stockpile some bitcoin isn't merely that it is likely to become more valuable. It's that it is uniquely useful, and it is wise to stockpile useful tools you might need. Objection: if the USFG really needs to pay mercenaries or buy munitions or spy software or whatnot, and doesn't have a way to wire dollars to sellers, it can just buy bitcoin at the very moment of need — no need to buy it now. Reply: the objection only works if we assume that bitcoin's value will remain flat or decline. Otherwise, the counter is: acquiring some bitcoin now will allow the USFG to benefit from appreciation, and make any future purchases using bitcoin cheaper. Another reason I prefer this style of argument over the proposal that the USFG should buy bitcoin now, merely for the reason that it will likely rise in value, is that it is explicitly framed around bitcoin's unique point of usefulness. The fundamental reason to buy bitcoin isn't that Number Go Up, it's that bitcoin can do things other tools cannot. This also supplies us with a plausible answer to the question: why bitcoin? why not TSLA? Or NVDA? Because bitcoin can do things these other assets cannot. Its value lies, not merely in expectation of future appreciation, but in utility. Objection: acquiring bitcoin, in the hopes to someday use it for cross-border payments, is best done in secret. A Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is most useful when covert. Reply: that's probably correct. But there are limits to what a democratic government can do, covertly. And acquiring bitcoin in public enhances any Number Go Up effect, by providing a clear and widely-known signal of bitcoin's value.

hey I know that guy

Meet the Fellows: Andrew Bailey | Bitcoin Policy Institute

Philosophers: "that noble tradition of thinkers who were so annoying that their countrymen would either execute them (Socrates), banish them (Aristotle), excommunicate them (Spinoza), or not have sex with them (Kant)." From Robert Gressis' memoire, "The Most Awkward Man in Japan: Dispatches from a Philosopher Abroad" (2024) (It's good, and much funnier than one might guess, given that it's written by a philosophy professor!)

I get the most interesting emails!

- Will autocrats attempt to expand their power over payments? - Will central banks continue to print, and sometimes go belly up? - Will other cryptos prove to be fraud and delusion? If you say “yes” to these questions, congratulations: you understand the case for bitcoin.