Quite a good interview It’s rare to see an open dialogue with shahid but it gives a good opportunity for some questions asked back

Iran mining Bitcoin?!

Bitcoin Mining in Iran, IRGC Operations and the Power Grid Crisis - NCRI

This was a fascinating article. Lots to think about and it highlighted something I’ve been talking about for a while now. What happens when a nation state decides that mining Bitcoin is more important (and more profitable/productive) than providing energy to its people!! I suggested that there’s nothing that can stop this, but don’t expect it to manifest the way it did in Iran. Fascinating!! So some key takeaways from this: 1) If a nation state is sanctioned, and prevented from normal market functions, things get skewed. The government has to do things to help its people (ie subsidies for utilities) but then now we get miners taking advantage of such subsidies. Now the government is in a predicament. Either cut the subsidies and push out the miners (ie make them pay for their consumption, the real price) but then the people who need it suffer, or leave the subsidies and miners come in and suck up that value. The problem is the lack of market balance between what people can afford and earn. The only solution is for ppls wages to increase through commerce and economic activity, which requires sanctions to be raised. So Bitcoin mining isn’t necessarily the magic bullet to sanctions. 2) You can’t regulate or stop illegal mining. If you try to put rules to stop it at peak times, all you do is hand over more money to those mining in secret while punishing those who have licences. So there is a strong case to regulate mining and not to be done in secret, if mining is proven to be a factor that harms the wider society. It also explains why some nations ban it entirely or are slow to adopt it. It has a lot of other implications for grid stability. The idea that mining can soak up ‘excess energy’ only works to a point, where the price of electricity matches market demand. The moment the every day ppl and industry cannot compete with mining, then we get an imbalance. An imbalance between ‘consumption necessary for human existence’ and ‘consumption for profit’. One may argue that a miner is making money just like any other industry, which is true, but Bitcoin mining doesn’t seem to have similar constrains. There are places in the world where ai data centres are drawing massive amounts of energy and water, taking it away from local consumption, but I don’t know of any ‘illegal data centres’ in ppls homes, offices and even mosques!! Bitcoin, and us all, are becoming victims of its own success lol 😂 I think we will see many different examples and case studies of how Bitcoin mining is adopted across the world, but with countries like Bhutan, who has not had similar issues as Iran (albeit not under sanctions) and now Pakistan and Ethiopia entering into the space, it will take time for this to reach equilibrium and balance to be a NET positive for all.

Imagine if social media was available a century ago…

“You buried mercy under the rubble and now you ask for compassion!!!”

In addition to what @Matthew Kratter said in this video I would add the following I will add the following points: 1) Israel, the son of Abraham, had a brother also, Ishmael. Ishmael being the father of the modern day Arabs 2) Allaah also blessed Ishmael and promised to make his children a great nation. 3) When have the Arabs ever been a ‘great nation’? After advent of Muhammad 4) As Matt Kratter pointed out, the Bible has a long history of corruption & ambiguity in its message. 5) Such ambiguity now leads some to be ok with genocide in Gaza thinking they are ordered to. 6) Such ideas seems ironic considering what muslims are accuse of. 7) In Islam, what matters is YOUR actions, not your lineage. “Never will your relatives or your children benefit you; the Day of Resurrection He will judge between you. & Allāh, of what you do, is Seeing.” Quran

Matt kratter kills it once again

A great video here by @Matthew Kratter regarding recent developments, and I was extra pleased to see Bruce Fenton heavily mentioned in it. Bruce has always had a solid stance regarding these stupid forever-wars, & I wish the American Gov was more like him https://www.youtube.com/embed/BBu-1zfc-OQ

For those who were/are concerned about quantum computing breaking stuff, then this may be useful info. It’s worth checking out the full video if you’re mathematically inclined.

I saw this and immediately recognised the argument about the OP_RETURN limits being lifted. Why not just say “I want to help spam and don’t really have a good argument to justify it.

HMRC is coming for you!!

Bolt is good

An analogy: if a government provided public transportation to help ppl get from A to B throughout the city, but then some ppl increasingly began to use it to sleep on instead as a short stay hotel, or as an office for remote workers. They may even say “but I paid my fair to be on the bus!” But if enough ppl do that, then it turns the entire system into a short stay hotel or hot desk office and crowds out those who want to use the it for its original purpose. The general public (and the bus system) are harmed by this use of the bus that wasn’t ever the intention. So if ppl are unable to get to work due to busses being filled with ppl sleeping, thats analogous to ppl not being able to run nodes anymore because it’s now too difficult. The purpose was that everyone should be able to run a node at little cost. More node runners means more decentralisation, fewer node runners means more centralisation.

A great video by @GrassFedBitcoin I get the feeling that 2017, nodes took back control reminders, but today, nodes are trying to take back control from the devs. The one thing I know about Bitcoin is that it’s a network that serves node runners. If you’re attempting to serve anyone else then you’re not working in Bitcoins best interests.

A great interview with Luke regarding the topic of spam on the network.

A great video for node runners

One of the best take downs of ‘GDP’ I’ve ever seen. Absolute carnage