New rule: if you have a hard shell suitcase, you need to check it in. The entire point of these annoying things is that they can survive the airplane hold and ground crew tosses. As hand luggage they are ridiculously space inefficient and make boarding take twice as long as needed. Just don't do it.

TIL "nostrum" is a word:

Definition of NOSTRUM

a medicine of secret composition recommended by its preparer but usually without scientific proof of its effectiveness; a usually questionable reme...

So I'm part of that elite 3% of Youtube users who mostly use the Subscriptions tab (unless I'm actively looking for new stuff to follow).

So if the stolen ETH went to North Korea, which is sanctioned, and the Ethereum community rolls back their blockchain, does that mean Bybit would have money "from" North Korea, and therefor needs to freeze it and get a sanctions exception? (because so many lawyers have free time these days to worry about this) View quoted note →

With all respect to GrapheneOS, which itself is great, Android phones are like emergency food rations: you should have them, but only use them if you don't have a choice :-)

Apple yields to UK fascist regime. A matter of time before they yield to others unfortunately. We really need to get control over our own devices.

TechCrunch

Apple pulls iCloud end-to-end encryption feature for UK users after government demanded backdoor | TechCrunch

In an unprecedented step, Apple caved to a reported U.K. government’s demand to prevent users from using end-to-end encryption in iCloud.

@Obscura VPN one feature from the WireGuard app that I like is the ability to automatically turn it off on LAN and on specific trusted wifi networks. This would be a nice option to have (though perhaps the performance is such that I won't be tempted).

I'm too stupid to understand selfish mining, please help:

Bitcoin Stack Exchange

Why is a selfish-mining attack with bad propagation (γ=0) still profitable?

The 2013 selfish-mining paper by Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer [0] introduces a variable γ:

We denote by γ the ratio of h...

Not a fan of Github's new design where lots of red is used when there's no actual issue. The fact that someone still needs to review isn't an error.

BitDevs #Rotterdam is happening tomorrow! Agenda is up:

BitDevs Amsterdam

BitDevs Rotterdam, February 20, 2025

BitDevs Rotterdam meeting 015, a second Rotterdam edition!

I sent an annoyed email to EBA (European Banking Authority) telling them that they need to remove the #SatoshiTest from their Travel Rules guidance in EBA/GL/2024/11 (item 83c on page 31). And that they need to immediately ban the practice. Companies are doing this because they're lazy. On-chain privacy harm is irreversible. The other methods are bad too, but they at least don't put stuff on the chain. I expect them to ignore my email of course, but who knows.

Guidelines on information requirements in relation to transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets transfers under Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 | European Banking Authority

Is anyone keeping track, using on-chain analytics, of how many people are doing this idiotic EU "satoshi test"? E.g, Kraken describes the procedure here, presumably other exchanges use variants, which makes for great fingerprinting. https://support.kraken.com/hc/nl/articles/what-is-a-satoshi-test

Occasional self-indulgent reminder that I wrote a book:

Bitcoin: A Work in Progress

Bitcoin: A Work in Progress

A book about soft forks, challenges of keeping open source software free of money-stealing bugs, new ways to protect Bitcoin nodes against evildoer...

View quoted note →

This might be the first privacy stablecoin? (assuming you use it with a non-custodial lightning wallet, and some other caveats)

Tether Brings USDt to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, Ushering in a New Era of Unstoppable Technology - Tether.io

San Salvador, El Salvador – 30th January 2025 – Tether, the largest company in the digital assets industry, announced the integration of USDt i...