It was great to see a lot of in-person Nostr engagement and meetings in Nashville. Normalize sharing npubs

One of the most common questions I get is - will China unban Bitcoin? To save you a click, no. But it's well-worth diving into the whys and hows.

Forbes

Will China Unban Bitcoin, Creating A Huge Bitcoin Price Bump?

China was one of the first countries to recognize Bitcoin's threat to its model, from tight capital controls to control of energy.

Looks like we're starting to get fake accounts like Jack@primal.net on Nostr, but that's defrayed by the trust gained by Jack's main account. A sophisticated attacker might spawn accounts that aren't on the platform already, making things difficult to track. Right now, Nostr's verification process is longest-standing npub with most followers, but perhaps, in time, there should be tracking on people who zap back and forth as "verification". This has the incidental benefit of getting people to use Bitcoin/LN even if they're not Bitcoiners.

With the news that Proton is releasing a non-custodial Bitcoin wallet, fun easter egg, I've been interviewing their CEO and co-founder Andy about Bitcoin for a couple of years. In that entire time, I've asked each time about them accepting Lightning Network (lol) - but it's very fun to see them go from accepting Bitcoin and getting more actively involved in it.

Forbes

Proton’s CEO On Why They Continue To Take Bitcoin

The fact that it's decentralized - the fact that no government can just come in and block you.

I wrote about how Bangladesh spies on journalists, arrests people for freedom of expression and bans Bitcoin as part of a broader techno-surveillance state focused on control - now that nearly 200 are dead after protests and the Internet is being taken down by centralized authorities to hide videos and photos of the atrocities - we can see the real costs of these authoritarian, power-grabbing technical choices - along with real challenges to freedom money and freedom speech if we assume states are willing to take down the Internet in their borders.

Forbes

Bangladesh: Nearly 200 Dead Under The Cover Of Internet Censorship

What Bangladesh is doing shows the commitment of certain states to using technology in a way that suits state power - to bloody effect.

In Bangladesh, the Internet has been shut down - protestors are being killed and the military has been deployed. It's likely atrocities will continue to escalate.

AP News

Bangladesh imposes nationwide curfew as deadly protests over government jobs escalate

At least 28 people had been killed this week, local media reports say.

A thought that occurs to me - should journalists encourage the use of one-time nsec/npub pairs to be sources through Nostr? Generally speaking, any way to contact a journalist usually involves email/phone numbers and is an announced channel (meaning intelligence agencies will also be able to find those channels). In China, Signal has had a fake app placed (https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2023/08/30/malicious-signal-app-planted-on-google-play-by-china-linked-cyber-spies/) to trick people and in the past, I remember that some sources went dark because they had to download Signal to communicate with journalists, and the Great Firewall does pick up if you're trying to download Signal, which can be a crime in of itself. I want to hear as many downsides to this as possible, especially on the encryption/privacy front.

I wrote a guide on Nostr, trying to refresh people's knowledge of what you can do with Nostr access with the new apps and new people/content to follow. I also linked a tutorial for getting a zapping wallet set up, and NIP-05 as I've seen the most problems with that.

Forbes

Your Guide To Nostr, The Decentralized Network For Everything

Nostr is gaining prominence as a decentralized social media network - but that just scratches the surface of what it can do.

I wrote about the companies getting onto the Bitcoin standard - accepting Bitcoin, and more and more, paying their employees in Bitcoin, and putting their reserves in Bitcoin while spending fiat as an operating flow. Nostr helped me put together more members of this list!

Forbes

Businesses Are Getting Onto A Bitcoin Standard

Businesses are now aspiring to receive payment in Bitcoin and to pay their employees in Bitcoin - marking a new stage in Bitcoin's growth.

CC: @Start9, @Zaprite, @Leo, @DETERMINISTIC OPTIMISM 🌞, @Coinkite (old npup), @Jameson Lopp @Will Cole and the many Nostr peeps that help put this together.

I wrote an overview article on the latest on the Digital Yuan/e-CNY for Forbes. Summary: not a ton of adoption, but plenty of reasons for concern, as China continues to integrate the digital Yuan/CBDC with other countries.

Forbes

A 2025 Overview Of The E-CNY, China’s Digital Yuan

The latest on the Digital Yuan (called the e-CNY) as China seeks to roll out its central bank digital currency domestically and across the world.

me, interacting with Bitcoin topics via in-person BitDevs vs. me, interacting with Bitcoin topics via X/Twitter

This is probably the chart I spend the most time thinking about. You can fit a lot into this bad boy: history, industrial policy, food policy, geopolitics, defense, energy usage, compute (including Bitcoin), monetary policy etc. The big upshot is that much of the prosperity we see around us, and the number of people on the planet are due to a more than 9x increase in the amount of energy consumption from the 1940s to now. Can we maintain that energy growth going forward?

Our World in Data

Global primary energy consumption by source

Primary energy is based on the substitution method and measured in terawatt-hours.

Gotta give some love to Node Academy - thanks to @Leo for putting this together. The most comprehensive and easiest guide to get your own Lightning node running and truly control your own payments and "be your own bank."

Node Academy

Node Academy

Node Academy is an initiative of Vancouver Bitcoiners to help enthusiasts getting started with their own Bitcoin Lightning Network node. It is part...