Our latest olive oil delivery went out 🫒₿ It's always very special to share that labor of love side gig with the world 🙏🏼 #oliveoil #offgrid #farmstr #greece

Bringin released an enormous update of their app and services that's worth checking out, especially if you live in Europe! I copied the entire newsletter article here. Very interesting stuff that would make it way easier to live on a Bitcoin standard. @Bringin | The Complete ₿itcoin App "We launched a whole new version of Bringin, and there's genuinely a lot packed into it. I'll unpack the highlights below - but save this email and come back to it when you have time, because each of these is worth a proper look. I will try to briefly unpack them in this email. Debit cards - Not like any cards you've used before 1) Bitcoin-backed: The card can now hold a Bitcoin balance. Link your card to it and spend Bitcoin directly at any merchant - they receive euros, no pre-selling needed. Prefer euros? Relink the card to your euro balance and spend euros instead. You can top up the Bitcoin balance on-chain, over Lightning, or via an LN address - from a self-custody wallet or your euro account. 2) Multiple cards, virtual or physical: Create multiple cards, each linked to your euro or Bitcoin balance and relink any of them between the two whenever you like. 3) Zero Forex - Spend euros outside the eurozone at 0% forex, and Bitcoin anywhere in the world at our standard 1% fee. The cards are global, and you can withdraw cash at any ATM in any local currency. 4) Free express delivery (this month only): For the next month, delivery is via DHL Express at no extra cost - you'll have your card 2-3 days from when you order. Self-custody Wallet - Built for private, reliable payments. We rebuilt our self-customised wallet from the ground up. 1) Faster and Cheaper - It's as fast and reliable as the custodial wallet you're used to. Self-custody no longer means a worse experience. 2) Google back up - Talking to a lot of bitcoiners, I kept hearing the same thing - nobody wants to manage yet another set of 12 words. I get it. So you can now back up your wallet to Google Drive, and optionally encrypt it with a password. Backup and restore, without the mnemonic headache. 3) Both on-chain and Lightning - The wallet holds larger amounts securely and makes both on-chain and Lightning payments natively - no swap service in between. That makes it reliable for P2P, merchant payments, holding meaningful sums, and topping up your card when you need to. 4) Scan & Pay and Nearby Payments: A dedicated Scan & Pay button on the home screen for Lightning payments. And a new Nearby Payments feature that lets you pay other Bringin users peer-to-peer over Bluetooth, using a mesh protocol - the more Bringin users around, the further a payment can travel. 5) Outside compliance framework: These payments stay private. None of them touch transaction monitoring, KYC, or reporting - it's a pure self-custody wallet for payments. Lightning Addresses - money address for future payments You now get a few different Lightning addresses, each doing something specific: 1) {username}.btc@bringin.xyz - receive Bitcoin and keep it in Bitcoin, straight to your self-custody wallet. It accepts as little as 2 sats, so it's perfect for zaps, micropayments, donations, P2P, or just listing on your socials. 2) {username}.cards@bringin.xyz - funds your card balance directly, so you can spend instantly anywhere with your Bitcoin debit card. Hold your Bitcoin in whatever wallet you like and top up the card with a swipe - no lock-in, no need to keep a balance sitting on the card. 3) {username}@bringin.xyz - your existing address, which auto-converts incoming Bitcoin into euros instantly on your personal vIBAN. From there, move it to your bank or spend it on your cards. 4) An LN address straight to your bank - You can now create a Lightning address that drops euros directly into your bank account. Go to the Connect tab, create a Sell Connection, pick your bank, choose Lightning, claim an address (like pc_revolut@bringin.xyz), and confirm with the verification code - done. Every sat sent to that address lands in your bank in seconds. Over improvement is user expereince! 1) A simpler, more powerful experience: We obsessed over the experience this time - more power, less complexity. - No more orders to move money: Funding euros with Bitcoin, or selling Bitcoin from an external wallet straight to your bank, used to mean creating an order, sending an exact amount, and authenticating with an OTP. That's gone. You now get a static Bitcoin and Lightning address — send any amount, from anywhere, and the euros land in your Bringin vIBAN or bank account with nothing else to do. Every swap executes at market price, you get an email confirmation, and you can track it on your phone and check the full details once it's done. 2) A cleaner layout: Balances right on the home screen, and a separate Bitcoin Swaps section to move Bitcoin between anywhere and anywhere. If you don't need the euro account or the Bitcoin account, you don't have to touch them — all the flexibility, none of the clutter. - 3) Card management 10x better: Viewing card details, managing limits, setting your PIN, viewing and updating your 3D Secure password, handling your physical card — all rebuilt to match the neobank experience you're already used to. The goal behind all of this is simple: give you the tools to be more sovereign. Take real custody of your funds, buy Bitcoin instantly whenever you want, spend it in the real world, and liquidate larger amounts without the stress. Addresses, vIBAN, cards, wallets - everything you need to actually live with Bitcoin as a parallel currency in this dual-money era. What's next A few things we're already working on: - Third-party payments: so you can replace your bank with Bringin entirely. - Passkey, biometric, and authenticator-app login - instead of SMS. - And one more we're keeping under wraps for now - you'll get an update next month. That's the short version - there's a lot more to find once you're in the app. Update to the latest version and take it for a spin. If anything here raises a question, send it my way. Warm regards, Prashanth Founder, Bringin"

GM from the land ☀️

Not to forget: "It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -- J. Krishnamurti #krishnamurti #monemvasia

Through social media the internet has become increasingly closer to what TV represents - spoon-fed information. Less search-and-find is going on, instead there's more catch-and-scroll. YouTube is a good example: Originally it was about searching and finding a video that answers your question or following a beloved channel that entertains. Now the app is designed in a way that you forget what you wanted to search once you open it, and instead you start scrolling catchy stuff that perhaps matches your interests. Instagram doesn't even have a meaningful search function. There it's all about you being fed flashy stuff ('content') by Meta's algorithm with the occasional account you actually follow in between. Algorithm feeds have their place e.g. for discovery. But they've become the predominant way of using legacy social media. We are being led and numbed down, just like TV. Nostr could really set itself apart here. But right now, it doesn't have clients with proper search functionality. I'm not sure, maybe it's a difficult endeavor. But for the hopefully growing number of people who do understand what's at play here and who want to go back to basics and independence, for them it would be great if Nostr was THE choice. #whynostr

Ever since I first came across the word 'content creation' something felt off. Content. Content is something that fills up a container. A mass of unspecified things. And that's how most of social media feels to me. Just flashy stuff. Publishing stuff became the norm. Quality work and art, lasting impact and beauty are hidden. #whynostr

GM ☀️ I love these windfree nights with the moonlight casting shadows of our olive trees on the freshly mown field ... insane beauty 🏕️ Summer's definitely coming. #offgrid #olives #oliveoil #greece

Scenery during our ice bath ceremony at our recent Wim Hof Fundamentals workshop in Sparta 😎 Next workshops are at the Colibri Festival Sanctuary in Corfu, Greece from 5-12 July. See you there!! #sparta #wimhofmethod #icebath #workshop #breathwork #greece #wimhof

Here I am, celebrating the use of Bitcoin as medium of exchange ... with a Prosciutto for dirty fiat. 10,000 BTC back then. 0.00021217 BTC today. Our olive oil is available for sats though 😎🫒 #pizzaday

This is the kind of forward thinking we can embark on in an awakening society 🙏🏼 View quoted note →

Heavy bad dreams? How to brighten back up. I'm re-surfacing this video after some heavy 20th century fear dreams last night. Of course, I did the Wim Hof breathing in the morning right away, and voilà ... it's crazy how it clears up your brain. Now I can start the day with a brighter spirit worthy of the 21st century ;) https://plebs.app/#/video/5b64075d0103e714628e3c2a142d3fee4487b997638bc42e7f63a9bd3fd1cdec

The firewood proof-of-work in broad daylight. This year's pruning. It may not look like much. But this will carry us through an entire heating season (Dec-May). It works because our tiny house is well insulated, has big windows facing south, and temperatures in our region don't really go below 0°. But we have crazy winds. The sunlight heats up the house sufficiently during the day and then only in the night we burn a few sticks in the woodstove. That's it. I get salty when I read about EU regulations for sustainability (!) that try to cancel the use of wood-firing stoves. In the cities it's a different story with that local pollution in densely populated areas. But in the countryside, it doesn't get more sustainable than heating with firewood! If you have an efficient system ... and an olive grove 😁

GM ☀️ There are many things I love about off-grid life and living away in pure nature. And this one in particular brings me deep joy: It's the freedom of doing whatever the heck you want at any given time. Last night, from 22h-24h, I felt it, I just wanted to continue cutting firewood from this year's tree pruning. The moon - a lovely crescent sitting right up there with bright Jupiter or Venus. I turned on Silverchair's "Diorama" which lyrics I happen to know by hard. And so I was there, red torch light, sawing the wood by hand and singing along wholeheartedly with Daniel Johns. Dogs and cats around me. View on the sea and valley. After that brushing teeth naked on the deck. Nobody cares. You live. Priceless moments! Life is so rich. Keep your eyes and heart open 🙏🏼