This painting by @🟤 isolabellart has quickly become one my prized possessions 💜 It isn't just the beauty of the art, and incredible expressivity in the brushstrokes, but the fact that I purchased it on Nostr, with bitcoin. Every time walk through my entryway and see it, it makes me smile. I think of how this nascent, censorship-resistant communications protocol connected me in New Zealand with an incredible artist in Italy. And using unstoppable money I was able to instantly transfer value across the globe. No middle-men. No "platforms" taking a cut and manipulating me with their ads and perverse incentives. Just two people, trading value for value. The best money in the world, for some the best art.

This is the least important election of our lifetime

Did Coracle go down?

Is anyone else finding their zaps only intermittently work on Primal? On Coracale and Iris they send every time, but on Primal I get maybe a 30% success rate.

It's interesting how two people can look at the same data point and take away diametrically opposed signals. To me, the fact the market has absorbed so much sell-side pressure over the past six months, and the most we got a 32% drawdown (and even that lasted for 48hrs), is bullish. TX believes that this cycle is going to be more muted than in the past. And that the fact that bitcoin could not even break $70k last cycle, even with all the covid stimulus, it would be unrealistic to expect bitcoin to perform anywhere near as well in tighter monetary conditions. My view is that the covid stimulus actually hurt bitcoin's performance last cycle. It turned the entire market into a casino. Pokemon cards, NFTs, rare watches, memecoins...every piece of shit asset mooned. It encouraged gambling, which actually drove liquidity out of bitcoin and into things way farther down the risk curve. What we are seeing this cycle is bitcoin decoupling as the market sobers up and has to actually work out what has fundamental value: What is real and what is fake. Long the real (bitcoin, gold, energy). Fade the fake (shitcoins, unprofitable tech).

Can anyone recommend the best relays to join, outside of what Primal automatically connects you to? I previously went and subscribed to a bunch of paid relays, yet it somehow made my Nostr experience worse 🤷‍♂️

I've been in UK for medical care at this place. I struggle to believe anyone has ever recovered from anything in this building.

Weird juxtaposition

In a hotel restaurant enjoying my morning sencha, I can’t help but overhear the only other person there ask the Hungarian waiter if he had heard that Ukraine had managed to take the fight into Russia (presumably referring to their recent assault on Kursk)? She sounded so excited, and clearly believed this was some sign that Ukraine was turning the tide of the war (which is exactly the PR effect Ukraine hoped to achieve). I found myself looking at her, just thinking how we are living in totally different universes. How, in the year 2024, could she still uncritically believe anything the news feeds her? Then I went back to enjoying my tea and the beauty of the courtyard garden. GM