If you're out of the loop like me, this is a summary of the Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Knots debate. Please feel free to add to it to make sure it's right or not. ---- ## Introduction The current debate in Bitcoin is often framed as **Bitcoin Core vs. Bitcoin Knots**, but that’s not the real issue. At its core, the controversy is about **Ordinals vs. monetary-only Bitcoin**: - Should Bitcoin remain a **neutral, general-purpose ledger** where people can inscribe art, tokens, and other data? - Or should Bitcoin be kept **lean and focused strictly on monetary transactions**, preserving block space for payments and settlements? ⚔️ The Ordinals Debate in Bitcoin What Ordinals are A protocol that numbers individual sats and lets people inscribe arbitrary data (images, text, tokens) into Bitcoin blocks via SegWit/Taproot. Enables Bitcoin-native NFTs, meme coins, and permanent data storage. ## The Supporters’ View Innovation & new use cases: Bitcoin isn’t just money, it can be a foundation for art, collectibles, and tokenization. Miner revenue boost: High Ordinals activity drives up transaction fees, which helps secure Bitcoin as block subsidies shrink. Permissionless ethos: Bitcoin is supposed to be neutral — anyone should be free to use it without gatekeeping. The Critics’ View (e.g. Luke Dashjr / Bitcoin Knots) Spam & bloat: Inscriptions fill blocks with non-financial data, raising fees for ordinary payments. Against Bitcoin’s purpose: The base layer should prioritize financial transactions, not NFTs or memes. Centralization risks: Larger blocks → bigger storage/processing requirements → fewer people can run nodes. Policy response: Bitcoin Knots enforces stricter relay rules (e.g. 42-byte OP_RETURN) and filters some inscription transactions. ## The Broader Tension Bitcoin Core v30 (coming 2025) will loosen limits, making inscriptions easier. Bitcoin Knots is rising in popularity (~18% of nodes) as a counterweight, keeping “anti-spam” defaults. This creates a philosophical and technical split: Bitcoin as neutral, general-purpose ledger (pro-Ordinals). Bitcoin as lean, monetary-only system (anti-Ordinals). ✅ In one line: The Ordinals debate is really about what Bitcoin should be: A neutral, permissionless base layer for all kinds of data and innovation, or A strictly monetary network optimized only for peer-to-peer cash and settlement. --- Is this correct? Which side of the conversation are you on? #asknostr

Death meditation, which is a common thing in Buddhism, and even more so in Tibetan Buddhism, it's incredibly empowering and liberating. It's all going to end, why are you so worried about it?

Engel's story is very interesting. I highly empathise with his perspective and I think it's a part of history that needs more resolution. And I really never thought I would to be completely honest. We're living at a time where there's a complete polarization or detachment from history as if there's nothing to learn. As if some people are evil and others are good, period. And it's all emotional. For many years I completely ignored a lot of ideas and people just because there was a big movement in a different direction. I really don't want to be like that. If we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat it. Learning means really learning and putting ourselves into people's positions. Here's a text: When we hear “Engels,” most people think Marx’s sidekick. But Friedrich Engels wasn’t just a theorist — he was a witness. In 1842, Engels was sent to Manchester to work in his father’s textile business. What he saw there shocked him to the core: Overcrowded slums: Families packed into one damp room, with sewage running in the streets. Child labor: Kids as young as six working 12–14 hours, stunted, deformed, exhausted. Disease everywhere: Typhus, cholera, tuberculosis ripping through neighborhoods, while the wealthy lived just a short walk away in green suburbs. Misery and survival: Prostitution, alcoholism, petty crime — not because workers were “lazy,” but because they were being crushed by a system that treated them as disposable. Engels compared this to the comfort of the bourgeoisie — factory owners enjoying gardens and fine homes, funded by the destruction of the people who worked for them. This is why Engels was so annoyed by abstract “armchair” philosophers and utopian dreamers. While they debated theory, he had walked through neighborhoods where children were dying at ten. For Engels, socialism wasn’t about dogma or purity. It was about confronting real conditions: sewage in the streets, kids in factories, human lives shortened for profit. That’s why he never had patience for sects, cliques, or doctrinaire posturing. --- Now, Marxism later on lead to very bad outcomes as we all know. But don't you think we are in a similar situation? Isn't interesting that Engels actually had good intentions and a good diagnosis of the situation? #politics #philosophy #economics

I think quite some real estate capital (something like perhaps 2T to 5T) is going to flow to Bitcoin in the next 5 years. First it'll go through equities, mostly the S&P500 (and MSTR which will siphon a lot of that capital) and Bitcoin ETFs. Why? Because the housing crash is here. It'll take some years to bottom, maybe 3 years, but it's definitely here. In 2008 in some cities, the prices dropped 50%. Imagine that happening now? That would mean real estate would drop from 300T to something like 230T in this crisis. Almost a 1/3 wiped out. Do you think real estate people are going to accept those losses? A lot of them are going to try and sell. But who or what are they going to sell it to? Bitcoiners. In 5 years Bitcoin will be about 500k USD and houses will be at a 50% from top (in certain cities). Along the way a lot of trades will be made. #bitcoin #economics #economy #politics

So wait, there still isn't a good Nostr community website or client? Satellite.earth is still the best we've got? #asknostr

Half of the state should just be a UBI. #politics

A lot of times I feel like people don't care about each other. About how we live in a dog eat dog world. And I've been thinking about this and more and more I'm concluding that this feeling is fake. As in, it's just a distorted consequence of the context I'm in, what I'm exposed to, and not something that comes from me. In other words, I think this feeling that people don't care about each other is an artificial feeling mostly created by a fake monetary system. A psyop if you will. I don't think we are like this in our very deep nature. It's just that in the absence of real money people try to conquer that power top-down, completely disregarding service to others. Adding to that very bad top-down philosophy also, such as the expansionist philosophies of a lot of nation states. And then in this scenario/world, I really like Buddhism because in that the absence of real money and all the chaos that it creates, Buddhism very precisely reminds me exactly what is important and not. Buddhism reminds me to intentionally focus on being good to people. But with wisdom of course, not just being good per se. Compassion, generosity and wisdom is a thing. Eastern societies have been building on that for years. It's just that in the west it currently almost feels non-existent. We don't have good money or good philosophy in the west. But now we can have both :) #bitcoin #philosophy #politics #society

I really can't believe China/Russia want to monetize gold when the US/Trump already said that they want to revalue the gold in their asset sheets and buy Bitcoin with this liquidity? It's like, can't they really see the move? Do they really think they can win this battle? #bitcoin #politics

BRICS want to build a gold-backed currency but they have no idea how From

Russia, China to set their own gold exchanges, cut ties with Western control

Russia and China are taking concrete steps to reduce Western influence over global gold markets, signalling a broader move towards monetary ...

"Russia and China are taking concrete steps to reduce Western influence over global gold markets, signalling a broader move towards monetary self-reliance and the redomiciliation of gold reserves away from traditional Western centres. Russia is preparing to launch its own gold exchange, independent of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), which has dominated international price-setting since the early 20th century. According to officials, trading on the new Russian platform will be based on physical bullion, with participation open to BRICS member states." So what's the plan, cut out the West from buying gold reducing demand, gold demand that you need to monetize your BRICS gold backed currency? The new players might be even worse than the old players. #bitcoin #gold #economy #thoughts