Inception. The idea that a county’s central bank can hold bitcoin in its reserves alongside gold and can use these reserves as a tool to repay debt is now in politicians’ minds. A big mental barrier was broken today. All western democracies have a debt problem and until today none of them knew how to solve it.

Convenience vs Fragility

ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

Breaking: the Bitcoin network was not affected by a giant IT outage

The videos from #bitcoinasia are online at last. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBlQuSCrnmpRwx54tQ3CUeRcjZFDqPDUk&si=gWxprm-S_FGwi506

“The desire of people in the industry for banks to help pump their bags is way bigger than their desire to pave a way for freedom tech in general.” View quoted note →

The plot thickens: This is a water heater for home central heating. It has a Whatsminer inside. The company is called HeatCore and I was told this goes for under US$3000. This is a very acceptable price for a home water boiler that is also a retirement fund. #bitcoinasia

“If a saver had any hope of keeping up with inflation, it became necessary to deposit money in banks and collect interest. Bank deposits underperformed inflation from 1913 to the present, but at least underperformed less than holding physical banknotes that paid no interest. Therefore, this structurally inflationary system enhanced the power of banks by making them more necessary for everyone to deposit the bulk of their savings with. It also increased the power of the government to surveil account balances and transactions, collect taxes, and freeze funds on demand, since most of the money was in the banks rather than in the form of physical and private bearer assets. Put simply, an inflationary money necessitates the use of counterparties and leverage to try to keep up with inflation by earning interest, which is not the case with a hard money.” Lyn Alden, Broken Money

Today’s bitcoin price will be the bottom of the next bear market. So you might as well front-run it by 2 years and buy now.

How many tech conferences have you been that start with a 5K run? Tomorrow 7.30 am: Hal Finney Seaside Run starts from the Lido in Funchal.

Bitcoin Atlantis

A Bitcoin only conference in Madeira Island, in the middle of the Atlantic.

#bitcoinatlantis

"Not mining Bitcoin is a waste of energy" Alex Gladstein

Beautiful drone view of a new Gridless operation in Kenya. Water is diverted out of the river from a small dam and goes through a buried canal towards 3 turbines a few hundred meters downstream. This is how they extract 150kw out of a small river and provide electricity to the communities nearby. And this is partly financed by busy little ASICs hidden inside green sheds.

X (formerly Twitter)

Gridless (@GridlessCompute) on X

Nestled in the tea fields of the Kenyan highlands, our next run of river site is built. Testing begins next week on this 3 turbine, 150kW minigrid.

This looks like Blade Runner, very well made. You can actually see the first transaction in block 170 here:

The Mempool Open Source Project®

Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.

Il y a tout un dossier en français paru dans le journal des anciens de Polytechnique.

La Jaune et la Rouge

Accueil, présentation du site

Consultez le dernier numéro de La Jaune et la Rouge, les nouvelles de l'École polytechnique et de l'AX et des infos sur les alumni.

Pierre Noizat

La Jaune et la Rouge

Monnaie : valeur et énergie

Bitcoin n’a pas besoin d’être considéré comme une monnaie (énergie passée) pour être utilisé en tant que réseau de paiement.

Yves Choueifaty

La Jaune et la Rouge

Bitcoin : une thèse d’investissement

Une thèse d’investissement pour le bitcoin, c’est qu’il possède des qualités fondamentales d'un nouvel étalon de mesure de la valeur.

Bastien Teinturier

La Jaune et la Rouge

Bitcoin et Lightning : deux réseaux pour passer à l’échelle

Le réseau Lightning constitue avec le réseau Bitcoin une alternative offrant aux utilisateurs de cryptomonnaie un choix sécurisé.

Michel Khazzaka

La Jaune et la Rouge

Cryptomonnaies et paiements : adoption et coexistence avec la monnaie fiat

Nous orientons nous vers un monde où la monnaie classique cohabitera avec les cryptomonnaies pour les paiements du quotidien ?

Jad Comair

La Jaune et la Rouge

Bitcoin, une solution contre la libanisation du monde ?

Le Bitcoin serait-il une solution permettant la séparation de la monnaie et de l’État, prévenant le genre d’abus qu’a connu le Liban ?

There is a lot in @gladstein latest article:

Bitcoin Magazine

Stranded: How Bitcoin Is Saving Wasted Energy And Expanding Financial Freedom In Africa

Hundreds of millions of Africans face two problems holding them back from progress: 600 million lack electricity, while virtually all 1.4 billion p...

The most salient: 1. Details about a Gridless hydro operation in Bondo, Malawi. Capex vs opex funding. 2. Opportunities of geothermal mining in Malawi. 3. the recent situation in Malawi: 2023 devaluation of the local currency. Still reading it... Will add to my collection of references: https://099244.wixsite.com/mysite

Fountain would be perfect if it did video.

Gresham’s law: people tend to spend weaker money and hoard the harder money. ➡️ Therefore the harder money is not much used as a means of payment. However it is used for savings. Thiers’ law: at one point, weaker money is losing its purchasing power so fast that merchants stop accepting it and prefer being paid with harder money. ➡️ Harder money then replaces weaker money as a means of payment.

A quote that struck me while listening to Audible last night: "People have historically been willing to deal with weak money if it’s faster than gold, but if weak money doesn’t even have a speed advantage relative to harder money alternatives, then in a world of widely accepted bitcoin it would likely become harder for governments to convince their people to accept fiat currencies for payment and hold large amounts of value in them. Gresham’s law dominates until the weaker money is basically useless. At that point, Thiers’ law takes over, which observes that good money drives out bad money. A payee generally wants to pay for goods with weaker money, and a merchant generally wants to sell their goods for stronger money. If a weaker money gets bad enough that merchants won’t even accept it, that is when Gresham’s law gives over to Thiers’ law. ” Broken Money Lyn Alden

Oh that's fun, you can see the genesis block on mempool.space

The Mempool Open Source Project®

Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.

"Consequences do not exist until they are felt"

Take a tour of a Gridless site in Kenya.