Quality among all the trash. Sometimes I receive high-quality responses to my posts, with technical or philosophical arguments. And I can see that they have few followers, because they don't have a lot of posts, although the few they do have are of high quality. You can find quality among all the trash, if you know what to look for. It takes effort to learn, but it's worth the time it takes.

It seems that now, brothers Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss are the cypherpunk version of Michael Saylor: they are accumulating Zcash, the “permissioned privacy” Bitcoin that sounds rebellious, but within the confines of Wall Street. View quoted note →

This is when you realize that the word Cypherpunk is trendy, just like Zcash. The cypherpunks who dreamed of bringing down banks now sign PowerPoints so that Wall Street will accept their ‘revolutionary cryptocurrency’. Empty of philosophy, but full of dollars. 😏 👇 Tyler Winklevoss : "[...]That’s why we founded Cypherpunk — a company dedicated to privacy and self-sovereignty. We will execute on our mission by accumulating, building, and supporting privacy-protecting assets and technologies at a time when the world needs them more than ever. [...] To that end, Cypherpunk — Ticker: $LPTX (today), $CYPH (tomorrow) — was launched with a $50 million+ investment from Winklevoss Capital to begin accumulating Zcash ($ZEC) at what we believe to be a significant discount to Zcash’s true long-term value."

X (formerly Twitter)

Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) on X

Privacy is the precondition for many of our freedoms. It’s the point at which government and corporate reach end and our individual freedoms and ...

🕵️‍♂️ Monero nodes aren’t invisible (yet) Many claim Monero is “untraceable.” Ok, it is true, however, if your node connects directly to the Internet—without a VPN or Tor/I2P—regulators can identify you, as your IP address is exposed on the P2P network. You must differentiate between transaction traceability and connection traceability. Tor or I2P reduce that risk, but they’re not magic: syncing the full blockchain still often relies on clearnet connections, and malicious nodes can map network topology. This is not a minor detail: it’s an operational vulnerability that could be exploited in a future ban or under heavy regulatory pressure—e.g., by demanding ISP logs, compelling providers to hand over metadata, or deploying honeypot nodes to locate operators. In short: Monero protects your transactions, not necessarily your network connection. Real privacy depends on how you connect and the operational choices you make; ignoring that turns a powerful tool into an exposure vector.

💯 🎯 View quoted note →

What was the first hard fork of #Bitcoin BTC? A simple “/” caused a disaster in Bitcoin. In August 2010, a critical flaw was discovered in the Bitcoin code: block 74638 contained a transaction that created 184,467,440,737.09551616 BTC out of thin air (more than 9 times the maximum allowed supply of 21 million!). The bug was in a single line of code: a programmer had used the wrong operator (/ instead of %) when verifying transactions. This allowed blocks with invalid outputs to be created that the old software accepted. The bug is known as the “Value Overflow Incident.” Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin 0.3.1 patch in less than 5 hours. He then coordinated with the few miners that existed to adopt the corrected version and “delete” the contaminated chain. Result: A new official chain (hard fork) was created. The 184 billion fake BTC disappeared forever. It was the only time Satoshi intervened directly to save the network. A simple division symbol almost destroyed Bitcoin before it was even two years old!

The Size of the Blockchain: a Future Risk Blockchain is an accounting record system that grows infinitely because it only accumulates records; it does not replace old ones. And that is correct from an accounting point of view. But have you thought about what will happen in a few years when most blockchains will be enormous in terms of GB? What resources are needed to manage a node? There are risks, let's see. A blockchain, by design, stores the complete transaction history from its genesis. Each new block is stacked on top of the previous ones, and none are deleted. This constant accumulation creates a file (the ledger) that grows in gigabytes without stopping. For example, the Bitcoin blockchain today weighs between 670 and 700 GB (depending on the source and inclusion of additional indexes) and continues to grow by 10 to 15 GB per month. Monero, Ethereum, and other networks also increase, at different rates. That said, not all networks store everything the same way: ─In Bitcoin, full nodes store everything, but there are "pruned nodes" that only keep recent blocks (generally ~5–10 GB for the current state). ─In Ethereum, "light clients" download only the minimum necessary to verify their own transactions. ─Other networks explore solutions like sharding (dividing the history into fragments) or off-chain layers (keeping part of the traffic outside the main chain). Does it become unmanageable? In theory, it could. In practice, the limit is set by the storage and bandwidth of those running nodes. If growth exceeds the average user’s capacity, the network centralizes: only large actors with powerful servers will be able to host it. That is the real risk: not so much that it "collapses," but that verification power becomes concentrated. The case of Monero In #Monero, the issue is addressed from the design, because its blockchain also grows indefinitely, but unlike other networks, it prioritizes privacy and decentralization, which complicates the balance between size, performance, and anonymity. Here’s how it handles it: ─Dynamic blocks: Monero does not set a rigid block size. If demand rises, the size adjusts automatically within limits (based on the median of the last 100 blocks, up to ~2×), avoiding bottlenecks without unnecessarily inflating the chain. ─Optional pruning: since 2019, a node can run in pruned mode, which stores only about one-third (~33%) of the total size, enough to validate and participate without storing the entire history. Today, the full blockchain is around ~230 GB, and pruned is close to 77–95 GB. ─Data compression and signature optimization: the use of RingCT increased the weight of each transaction significantly, but the community optimized cryptographic schemes (such as Bulletproofs in 2018), which reduced the size (~80%) and verification time. ─Conscious decentralization: the goal is not to have a lightweight chain at any cost, but to ensure that anyone with common hardware (a 256 GB disk and decent connection) can continue running a full node. In summary, Monero accepts that the history will always grow, but applies technical strategies to keep it accessible and verifiable without relying on corporate servers. The risk is not that it becomes unmanageable, but that the balance between privacy, efficiency, and decentralization is lost.

Bankers are partners with governments, but... Did you know bankers once LITERALLY became the State? ᴬⁿᵃˡʸᶻᵉ ʰⁱˢᵗᵒʳʸ ᵗᵒ ᵘⁿᵈᵉʳˢᵗᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖʳᵉˢᵉⁿᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵃⁿᵗⁱᶜⁱᵖᵃᵗᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᵘᵗᵘʳᵉ In 1407, bankrupt Genoa created the Banco di San Giorgio, run by its own creditors. In exchange for lending to the government, bankers became true partners of the State and got: -Collect taxes from entire cities -Rule colonies (Corsica, Cyprus, Crimea) -Their own army & navy -Veto power over the Doge People said Genoa had TWO governments: the official one… and the real one at the bank! Even Napoleon respected it. Shut down only in 1805. Lend enough to the State, and you don’t just influence policy… You BECOME the policy.

Two Ghosts of Cryptography: Why Nicolas van Saberhagen Is Even More Phantom Than Satoshi Nakamoto ➡️Satoshi Nakamoto Published the Bitcoin whitepaper on October 31, 2008, through the mailing list [cryptography@metzdowd.com] He(?) remained publicly active for over two years: 500+ posts on Bitcointalk.org under the username “satoshi,” dozens of private emails with developers such as Gavin Andresen, Hal Finney, and Mike Hearn, and direct commits to Bitcoin’s original code repository. His last known communication was in April 2011—an email to Gavin Andresen. After that, he vanished, leaving behind an enormous technical and historical footprint. ➡️Nicolas van Saberhagen The anonymous creator of the CryptoNote protocol, which forms the basis for the design of the #Monero blockchain, published two versions of his(?) whitepaper: * Version 1: December 2012 * Version 2: October 2013 Unlike Satoshi, he showed no public activity whatsoever afterward: no forum posts, no emails, no GitHub commits. His(?) identity and activity remain entirely unknown. There are rumors of a distorted-voice Skype call in 2015, but no verifiable recording or transcript has ever surfaced. While Satoshi continued developing Bitcoin for years after releasing his paper, van Saberhagen disappeared immediately after publishing, as if he had dropped his cryptographic scrolls and dissolved into the network. Bonus / a curious detail: the pseudonym “Nicolas van Saberhagen” may be a cryptic reference—combining Nicolas Flamel (the medieval alchemist) and Fred Saberhagen (author of Dracula novels). It could loosely translate as “the alchemist who knows.” There’s no proof this was intentional, but it fits the legend of someone who clearly never wanted to be found.

Wasabi vs Samourai: The Breaking Point of Anonymity ᶜᵃⁿ ᵖʳⁱᵛᵃᶜʸ ᵉᵛᵉʳ ᵇᵉ “ˡᵉᵍᵃˡˡʸ ᵃᵖᵖʳᵒᵛᵉᵈ”? Since 2022, Wasabi Wallet (zkSNACKs Ltd.) has enforced blacklisting of certain “tainted” UTXOs —funds linked to hacks or suspicious activity— in its main CoinJoin coordinator. It was a voluntary move, meant to protect the project and gain “regulatory clarity,” though not prompted by any explicit legal threat at first. Samourai Wallet fired back, arguing that CoinJoin coordinators “only pass data, not money,” and that submitting to blacklists posed a risk of censorship, likening it to a slippery slope toward full regulatory surrender. They reaffirmed their uncensorable philosophy — no blacklists, no moral filters over money. After the arrest of Samourai’s founders in April 2024, zkSNACKs blocked U.S. IPs and announced the shutdown of its CoinJoin service by June. It now emphasizes that it only provides non-custodial software, distancing itself from any direct coin-mixing operation. The result: a "chilling effect" that pushed Wasabi off the DOJ’s radar — and left the community facing an old question in a new disguise: Can privacy ever be “legally approved”?

Two Sides of the Same Coin Crypto-anarchists were the ones who pushed the more radical political theory behind cryptography and its applications in secure communications, digital money, and online #privacy. Cypherpunks were the engineers and craftsmen who built them. Monerists are on both sides of the same coin. #monerist #agorist #Monero #SovereignIndividual

Some privacy wallets have evolved: now you can access your anonymous funds on your favorite privacy blockchain... with your fingerprint. 🤨 Perfect, biometric security at the service of genetic traceability 😏

Payment methods. Properties of Sovereign Money. ─DEFINITIONS FIAT: you accept it because the state imposes it. ─GOING TO ZERO USDT: tokenized dollar with surveillance, possible freezes, built-in censorship. ─COVERED CBDC BITCOIN: good invention, but to function as p2p money it needs a “centralized” layer 2. ─ASSETS IN TREASURY ZCASH: traceability and luxury privacy... if you activate it. ─CONDITIONAL PRIVACY MONERO: voluntary, fungible money, processed in L1, uncensored, and with privacy by default. ─SOVEREIGN MONEY

#Monero Fun fact Many people know that Monero means “money” in Esperanto, but what is the plural form? It is Moneroj. BitMonero was the original name of the project when it was launched in April 2014 based on the CryptoNote protocol. It was proposed in 2014 by a user on the Bitcointalk forum with the pseudonym “thankful_for_today.” He chose the “Monero” part for the reason I mentioned earlier: it means “money” in Esperanto. The community didn't like the prefix “Bit” (from Bitcoin). A few days later, the project forked and was simply renamed Monero.

If you think that the crypto space is recent and started with Bitcoin, you are missing part of its history, and to better understand its fundamentals, you need to read it. In this article, I will make a brief review of the history of the crypto space, and I will leave you with material so that you can deepen your knowledge, if that is what you want. Spoiler alert: Throughout this article, you will see that the historical consistency of those who formed the cryptographic space, in the pursuit of privacy and individual sovereignty, is far removed from the speculative nature of today's cryptographic industry and, in my opinion, is a product of mass adoption and its “hasty and thoughtless” implementation. The Basics of Cryptoeconomics. Its History and Origin. The Cypherpunks. https://medium.com/coinmonks/the-basics-of-cryptoeconomics-its-history-and-origin-ba55223d53a7

Let's analyze this news using my OpenSource L3 protocol, explained in one of my articles. Signals of #Technocracy #Agenda2030 #AI "Trump says a tariff dividend of 'at least' $2,000 will be paid to most Americans" Layer 1 — Surface (the visible) Announcement: a $2,000 one-time payment funded by tariffs. Framing: “national prosperity,” record stock market and 401(k)s. Narrative: the State “distributes profits” like an efficient corporation. Layer 2 — Depth (the implicit) Fiscal engineering: not a classic subsidy; it’s a cash-out of tariff income to legitimize protectionism and sustain consumption. Governance by KPI: efficiency of revenue replaces social-justice logic. Cultural rehearsal: citizens as passive shareholders, normalizing programmable disbursements (CBDCs). Hidden trade-offs: regressive effects of tariffs, sectoral inflation, and potential trade retaliation. Layer 3 — Hidden Structure (the intentional) State-as-corporation + AI: legitimacy shifts from political deliberation to system performance (data, models, KPIs). Path to UBI/CBDC: periodic “system dividends” leading to behavioral conditioning (geofencing, expiration, compliance). Frictionless politics: automated budget allocation bypasses public debate — rule by dashboard. Power alignment: finance, big tech, and state bureaucracy converge around stability and traceability; dissent becomes “inefficient.” Concise takeaway The “dividend” acts as a pilot for technocracy: efficiency first, programmability next, algorithmic governance of income after that. The question isn’t whether money exists — it’s who programs its conditions. Key risks —Politically conditioned income. —Loss of financial privacy and fungibility. —Regulatory capture and technological lock-in.

Business Insider

Trump says a tariff dividend of 'at least' $2,000 will be paid to most Americans

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said the payments would be for all but "high income people."

The Paradox of the “Rebels” Who Fear Real Privacy I still can’t quite grasp how some people claim to defend #privacy and individual sovereignty, yet flinch when they hear #Monero. It’s like listening to a vegetarian preaching ethics while flipping steaks on the grill. Then you see them talking about decentralization with tokens that require KYC, or about freedom while using wallets that report their activity. But of course, Monero is dangerous, they say. Most are normies disguised as rebels without a cause, shouting against the system from their favorite exchange. Sure, you can criticize Monero — nothing is perfect, everything is improvable, evolvable. But what truly matters is the philosophy behind it, steady for over a decade, powered by a strong, growing community convinced this is the path to resist the technocracy rising ahead. Meanwhile, those “rebels”, who are only seeking profits in fiat currency, keep asking for permission to be free 😏

Imagine receiving a transfer to your bank account or some crypto in your exchange wallet as payment for work, or even from an unknown contact with no clear reason—maybe as a gift or an airdrop, common in the crypto industry. It seems like good luck. But in a world where most systems are designed so every transaction leaves a trail, that incoming money could be "dirty"—linked to previous illegal activities such as drug trafficking or fraud—without you even knowing it. In this article, I explain how a transparent money system presents a greater risk than non-fungibility itself. When money—physical, digital, or tokenized (cryptocurrencies)—can be marked, it creates risks even for honest citizens. We’ll explore the potential economic and criminal risks. My article: Beyond Non-Fungibility: The Invisible Risk of Traceability https://medium.com/@liberlion/beyond-non-fungibility-the-invisible-risk-of-traceability-d103e8fab614

This guy is always bringing up information that only matters to him and two other nerds! He must be one of those people who brings water to parties to drink, saying it's healthier! 😝😂 View quoted note →

Monero and the Battle for Decentralization: from CryptoNight to RandomX In 2013, the CryptoNote protocol introduced CryptoNight, an algorithm built to democratize mining: anyone could mine with a regular CPU or GPU, avoiding the ASIC dominance that centralized Bitcoin’s hash power. #Monero adopted it in 2014, but by 2017–2018, manufacturers like Bitmain had developed ASICs capable of breaking that balance. The community fought back with regular hard forks and variants such as CryptoNightV7 and CryptoNightR, defending decentralization through constant adaptation. The real breakthrough came in 2019 with RandomX, designed by the community (led by tevador and hyc). This new algorithm uses random code execution and memory-intensive operations, making ASIC development economically unfeasible. As of 2025, Monero remains CPU-friendly, proving that #privacy and #Decentralization aren’t slogans — they’re coded into the protocol itself.