I was intrigued by the stories of Mircea Popescu years ago. This story is a nice read: “You've got to earn your place on it by doing real things that serve other people, without fear or favor.” View quoted note →

At least we see an increase in people educating themselves with @Saifedean Ammous ‘s bitcoin standard in Dutch… View quoted note →

People don’t see what we’re dealing with behind the scenes. As a chairman of the United Bitcoin companies the Netherlands (VBNL) a lot is happening. In the last few months we had serious issues with the bank that facilitates most on/off ramping for exchanges in the Netherlands. In January a large part of the bitcoin exchanges received a cost increase from €499,- to €4999,- per month for their bank account. In April they received a letter that the companies had until 10th of June to move their funds and operation to another bank. The bank accounts were going to be closed down. The issue is that many exchanges have built extensive API’s for smooth on/off ramping with this bank. So this was a move that caused a lot of stress for many people. Communication with the bank was impossible. So every individual company took them to court. Only one case was actually brought into the court room and the company won. The other companies received a message they could hold their bank account. The insane cost increase is still there and creeping further through the list of bitcoin companies. We’re now looking at a way to reduce the cost, because for small companies it means bankruptcy. This we do as companies together. And VBNL has been doing this for over a decade now. For now it’s a bank, and on 10th of September we’re facing an even larger cost issue. The Dutch central bank. We won the court case with 11 exchanges but off course they appealed and now we’ll be standing at the Supreme Court. The central bank has burdened the exchanges with millions of regulatory oversight cost that were not lawful. A win during this court case would not only drop the cost for the exchanges between 2020-2024 but most likely also impact future cost under MICAR and the Authority of financial Markets. We’re currently looking at a €5.6 million cost from just AFM for the ongoing regulatory oversight for MICAR in 2025. Wish us luck. View quoted note →

Our little sovereignty shop is now on Nostr. Follow it and enjoy what we’re building and working on. There’s a lot of news coming in the next months. First a lot of proof of work to be done, by many. View quoted note →

Just updated our website with the new seedfan pictures and description. Everyone keeps on upgrading their stack. If you’re into @SeedSigner this is a great way to backup. If you’re really into extreme opsec you should go for a seedsafe. If you are a traveler, use a Tinyseed. We have all three options as backup solutions. We believe these are the best options currently available off the shelf.

As the official EU reseller we are glad to see this freedom tool being spread among people that need it most. View quoted note →

GM, great news, the bitaxes have arrived. Now we wait for @Printer to steam up to print the cases. Next to that we’re shipping our first zodiac seedsafe. And of course we have the regular Dutch book orders and some signing devices going out. Enjoy your Monday!

We have been looking at faraday bags for over a year now. Anyone has advise on these? Not just for your phone, but also for your signing device. View quoted note →

GM Pump up the ₿heat. It’s amazing to see how many people are going to heat their home / business with bitcoin miners upcoming winter.

For over 5 weeks I don’t have a blue checkmark on X anymore. The amount of views and likes of my posts has dropped significantly. If you don’t pay, you don’t matter apparently. I’m curious how this will work on #nostr. My latest posts don’t reach many it seems. Or I’m just sending out bad posts… don’t know what the cause is. I’m curious about future open source algorithms for Nostr. On X I created selections, so I just directly have the people I want to check out in different tabs. How far is this development in any client? I don’t seem to have found one yet.

Today I visited the new location of Kontena. The Antwerp based mining container/HPC manufacturer. They currently have a lot of work on the HPC market. Super interesting to see what they have been building throughout the years. We are looking at many different manufacturers and options for different projects. Great to see how far the mining industry has come.

Even the day after @Adopting Bitcoin Arnhem I keep on running into bitcoiners.

Packing 250 sealbag goodiebags for in the goodiebags with the family. Content, sealbag, SeedQR 12, 24 word thick paper. And a beautiful little card with explanation and discount code. We don’t really do discounts because the margins are basically zero and negative in bitcoin terms. Guess what a suitable bitcoiner discount would be? 🌷🔥⚡️ Come join our family @Adopting Bitcoin Arnhem. We’ll also test a new PoS solution by @Ton We accept bitcoin only and delete your data after shipment. @BitcoinBrabant

Coinjoin us tomorrow and the day after during @Adopting Bitcoin Arnhem. Come watch the first stainless steel coinjoin from the hands of @Kanuto. Looking forward seeing you all! Artwork on loan from the private collection of @BitcoinBrabant

Fix the money Fix the world View quoted note →

We're happy that some of you guys actually announce joining via DM. I understand if you don't like to RSVP via meetup. This is no problem. Also we now have more than enough space paying for the large venue. We are really looking forward to our first public workshop. View quoted note →