We're seeing that with the current ambiguity around what a "licensed money transmitter" is with the Samurai Wallet verdict. Combine this with the CSAM shit and you have the major attack vectors against node runners. We very may well see legal pressure on node runners to be licensed or KYC'd or something to add friction, and forced node censorship on-chain to protect the children.

Yes, I have written an article on this I haven't posted yet, and fully agree. Nodes don't need to be declared Money Service Businesses in statute; they only need to be declarable as such when convenient. In other words, you only need Soft designation. Effect: 60–80% of visible nodes migrate to approved endpoints; Lightning/RPC providers register; pools publish filters.

Very true. As we've seen, feds will harass and imprison you based on soft designations and changing the rules mid-case. They're not gonna play fair when it comes to taking your freedom. You're right to bring up lightning too, since each node is literally transmitting Bitcoin through it, unlike on-chain nodes, it actually is more of a money transmitter (by vague FinCEN definitions) than whirpool is. Combine this with most lightning volume being custodial (WoS, Strike, Square, CashApp, Ecash) its not boding well for KYC free, private self custodial Bitcoin.

Governments don't like sovereign Bitcoin nodes and they're doing something about it Bitcoin Core v30 installed the “Problem” component of the “Problem → Reaction → Solution“ chain (Hegelian dialectic) that Elizabeth Warren’s bosses so desperately needed. At the same time, Bitcoin Core v30 primed the network for fee-floor attacks. For a fee-floor attack, OP_RETURN is an efficient “pure byte” filler: maximum congestion, minimal future state; attackers aren’t “paying” with future UTXO pressure. So the attacker maximizes congestion per Satoshi paid today while leaving no long-term UTXO bloat to “pay for” later. In other words, if someone with deep pockets (e.g. State actor) wants a persistent 200–400 sat/vB floor to price out Medium-of-Exchange, they can buy it. Only changes that (1) harden fee predictability, (2) make privacy and self-custody defaults, and (3) blunt perimeter levers can keep Bitcoin useful as money. Bitcoin Core v30 is an attack on Bitcoin's sovereign/Medium-of-Exchange use.

Governments don't like sovereign Bitcoin nodes and they're doing something about it

Nodes don’t need to be declared Money Services Businesses in statute; they only need to be declarable as such when convenient.

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The signs on the road are clear. Bitcoin will not be freedom money. It won't become the libertarian ideal. Monero is better suited for it, but that too won't last long. And if it does it will quickly become irrelevant due to the technical and legal challenges to get it working. If we want freedom we need to start at the beginning. Philosophy. If more people will adopt a freedom centered philosophy, it will be harder to pass freedom striping laws or to enforce them.

They make the culture. Good luck convincing a critical masse. Best case scenario is to form Amish type communities that opt out. Alaska has the making of this, Monero already has strong adoption there. What are Monero's technical challenges? I'd argue the legal ones make it stronger which is why state intelligence intentionally omit its name in public documents.

Moneros technical challenges are mostly in usability. Someone who has advanced tech capabilities will have no issue with Monero. But someone who is not tech savvy? Another issue is moving fiat to Monero. It's becoming nearly impossible. Regarding what is the best way moving forward, I can see the appeal of a freedom hideout. A Galt's Gulch if you may. But remember why they kept the place a secret. They knew that if they were revealed, the looters will come looting. Even now there is a proposal in the UN for a international treatyto put business income tax at 30%. The idea is to make moving to another country for tax benefits a moot idea. They also want to put sanctions on countries that won't sign. You understand where this is going. Convincing the masses is hard, but it is the only way.

Yeah it's a worthy effort, I'm not hopeful about mass adoption though. Slow organic growth is the only way forward I can see. The technical barrier is high, and likely to remain so. The way I've phrased it to friends and family is that Big Tech does the work for you at the expense of your freedom. Independent tech specialists will have to set up and manage these systems for the majority. Just as we have plumbers to route water to the sink and mechanics to fix our cars, we need to move to a model where we trust individual specialists instead of conglomerates. The technical barrier will remain impossibly high for the majority no matter how easy it is solely due to the fact that you can't buy a device that has all of this installed by default and have it work everywhere without issue. Self custodial finance requires key management at the minimum which is the biggest hurdle, combine that with on-ramps being difficult with Monero and you have the recipe for no adoption. I emphasize again, I don't believe these problems can be solved on a mass scale without hyper regulation, surveillance and censorship (Custodial exchanges). We need to normalize outsourcing tech stuff to local tech specialists for a fee, and have local custodial models for holding keys for those who would be likely to mess up that responsibility (most). Now the culture of tech stuff is to have everyone either go with the default, or become sys admin Linux experts to do things the right way. The middle ground is not everyone become somewhat competent at tech (never gonna happen) its to have a handful of tech illiterate people trusting a friend or family member who is literate to manage it for them. Curious what you think of this.

I mostly agree. Even if everyone held a freedom based philosophy, to maintain such a society will need highly skilled individuals and trust. Trust works only in small circles. And it's best in families. Adoption should start in small circles. One family member becomes the technical expert and the rest rely on him. But this will work only if the whole family thinks that this privacy is worth investing. I have a sister who refuses to install signal. She just doesn't believe privacy is important enough to have another app on her phone. And that is without the government banning signal. Imagine how hard it would be to convince her to jail break her phone, install @Zapstore and then install @White Noise and yes, soon we will need to jail break our phones to install non. Google (government) approved apps. It starts with philosophy and will end with philosophy. How do we capture the masses? Art. We need more stories, movies comics and video games that emphasis the need for freedom and privacy.