Passport control in the fast train between Barcelona and Paris. That’s a first.

Gm Barcelona

Gm Bordeaux

In one of the workshops at the gathering of local currencies in Bordeaux, I asked what social networks or communication channels people use. In that order: - WhatsApp - Signal - LinkedIn - Telegram - Instagram - Discord - Mastodon No twitter, no blue sky, no nostr.

3 local currencies within a 25km radius around Barcelona. Only 1 of them is still running.

“Transactions is the spark that allows us to tell stories, create connections, and, in a way, build a sense of community”

Why aren't there more communities with their own payment system? Many bottom up initiatives in the past decade but only a few still (barely) survive.

Bitcoin :: sovereign individual Ethereum :: sovereign collective

Gm Paris

🚆 On the fast train from Brussels to Bordeaux (via Paris) for the first European gathering of community currencies 🔅 Will share the gospel of web3 and ecash in a world still dominated by Postgres databases where a few admins have god access to everyone’s transaction details and balances. Crazy shit. 💩 Criticizing is easy. How can we make it easier for those communities to start from a much more sane digital infrastructure? We need to build bridges with local communities. They are the last mile to onboard citizens to the crypto future we desperately need.

We need a new generation of politicians. Beyond party politics. People that want to genuinely serve their community, with respect for other communities and the commons that we all share. How can we support them? How can we give them the (open source, decentralized, censorship resistant) tools they need to thrive?

Gm Brussels

We need open source cities. Cities that would operate much like Linux. A small kernel that provides a stable and efficient environment where processes/agents/citizens can easily access common resources.

I went to a local meeting about noise pollution in the city. The elected representative told people that there is no use to file a complain to the police. They should instead directly send them to him. That’s how our institutions collapse. They become useless, people stop using them and start looking for other ways to get things done. How could we create new institutions based on open source principles? Could we create a GitHub Issues equivalent for the city, based on Nostr? A common space where citizens could report issues in an open way?

On the left people want to talk about inequalities. On the right people want to talk about immigration. Two sides of the same coin: a sense of belonging to the same community.

Gm Brussels

President’s dinner gala ahead of the state of Europe roundtable in Brussels. My yearly reminder that the future won’t be defined by people in suits. Yet, we have to rally some of them to build bridges and make sure they don’t do stupid stuff (e.g. #chatcontrol) I can also recognize the good work of Friends of Europe that is trying hard to create bridges with entrepreneurs, artists and civil society. I respect and support that.

Weekly regen walk

Gm Brussels. #regenwalk

Gm Nivelles. Off we go for the 749th “Tour Sainte Gertrude”. 17km walk around my hometown on the footsteps of Saint Gertrude who established this city back in the 7th century.