Judge Hardcase

Public Key

npub1k7v6uflqxu9js45e8ek53u2azefe6j49r7lna0da90zq7c9y6f0q8x7ehv

Profile Code

nprofile1qqst0xdwylsrwzeg26vnum2g79w3v5uaf2j3l0e7hk7jh3q0vzjdyhspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3vamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwwpexjmtpdshxuet5qyxhwumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmvshaemq

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

relay.primal.net

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1k7v6uflqxu9js45e8ek53u2azefe6j49r7lna0da90zq7c9y6f0q8x7ehv

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-02-15 13:41:10 UTC

- reply

Not speaking for anyone else, I think citing not enough hash rate is a valid concern. It's true that ultimately plebs decide what bitcoin is; but, in order to make a change without massive disruption to the network, a soft fork with overwhelming miner support is required. Otherwise plebs have to be willing to endure massive disruption at best - and possibly result in a permanent chain-split at worst.
Personally, I'm generally supportive of the idea that bitcoin should try to stay focused on being money, and I greatly appreciate the energy that you and others are putting into trying to make that happen. I like the idea of limiting OP_RETURN via consensus rules back to what was clearly the widely accepted default. I'm not as convinced about other changes, but regardless, I don't view what any of these changes would solve as being existential enough for me to be supportive of any disruption over it.
FWIW, I strongly suspect there are a significant number of others who generally share this perspective.

2026-02-14 13:21:47 UTC

- reply

You can easily have a faucet send you some... Try these:
Testnet4: https://coinfaucet.eu/en/btc-testnet4/
Testnet3: https://coinfaucet.eu/en/btc-testnet/

2026-02-12 19:30:42 UTC

🤣#nevent1q…cd93

2026-02-12 19:24:33 UTC

- reply

💯
Ideally, lower transaction costs will provide the natural incentives for the world to eventually adopt bitcoin payment rails - even for those who don't actually want to hold bitcoin themselves; but in the meantime, swapping from bitcoin savings to fiat spending when necessary is good enough for now for the vast majority of use-cases.

2026-02-12 17:56:31 UTC

- reply

'show' is the operative word here.
Congress voted for it; Trump signed it; but almost none of them acutally wanted tranparency... and they get to pretend that they're impotent against Bondi's stonewalling.

2026-02-12 16:01:10 UTC

- reply

Confiscatable Bitcoin.

2026-02-12 15:53:04 UTC

- reply

I don't consider "early" to mean "young". Actually, I would argue "early" in fact does mean "pre-mainstream".

2026-02-12 01:35:11 UTC

- reply

Weird. I bet nobody saw that coming from someone so obvioualy happy.

2026-02-12 01:28:03 UTC

- reply

Well, since spend = sell in terms of opportunity cost, I'm happy to report I'm not in 2)

2026-02-11 10:58:53 UTC

👀
#nevent1q…nyz7

2026-02-10 10:57:56 UTC

- reply

I'm not one to be interested in owning MSTR; but if I were, I think I would have bought at some point under 1.2 mNav. When the sat squeeze kicks in, I would expect it to kick in double for MSTR as the mNav climbs back towards 2.0 or even higher. (I expect the MSTR bros to be relentless in telling everyone else about it, too. 😉)

2026-02-10 10:35:05 UTC

- reply

Easy: $100 a month. Keep what's remining of the $8k you otherwise would have spent upfront in Bitcoin to appreciate way faster than $100/month. If you wanted to be ultra-conservative, keep only about half of the $8k in Bitcoin - which, as a bitcoiner, you would still expect to appreciate way faster than $100/month on average - and keep the other half in dollars to pay the $100/month during bitcoins bears.

2026-02-09 20:01:21 UTC

- reply

Wow! I hadn't realized how far behind the times Google has fallen... I mean, come on; it's 2026! The new way to raise capital is to just pay 11+% annual dividends on shares of perpetual preferred stock that NEVER mature. 🤣

2026-02-08 16:23:22 UTC

- reply

In the instances of evidence of probable cause that a specific client has committed a specific crime, the DOJ ought to prosecute, period.
unpopular opinion: anything short of such probable cause, the government - as far as in its public capacity - should keep its mouth shut.
If the victims wish to expose certain clients for questionable behavior, that's their business; but it doesn't require Congress for them to do so. The government shouldn't be in the business of publicly shaming for anything other than for actually prosecutable illegal behavior.

2026-02-08 13:45:13 UTC

- reply

Granted, they don't really qualify as a 'podcast', but if you need an introduction for someone who is still asking "why should I even care about bitcoin", for my money, nothing beats about a half-dozen or so old Andreas Antonopoulos videos.
Here's one that I just rewatched from 9 years ago that is still pure gold (pun intended):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1si5ZWLgy0

2026-02-06 19:30:40 UTC

I'm confident we'll return to 126k soon enough - I'm just not in a big hurry to do so. Not just because I will enjoy cheaper sats in the meantime; and, not because I think the 2x ride won't be enjoyable. Mostly, it's because the MSTR bros enjoying the corresponding 4x-plus ride are going to be downright insufferable.

2026-02-06 16:05:21 UTC

- reply

Exactly. I mean, I love that ecash is as thing I can use; but an ecash mint is really just a bank but with the pro and con tradeoffs of no kyc (pro) and no FDIC (con).

2026-02-06 14:37:30 UTC

- reply

Keeping in mind the wide field of worthy contenders in the competition for THE stupidest idea of that era, yeah, this one's gotta be one of the favorites for sure.

2026-02-06 11:54:37 UTC

Anyone else remember Saylor biting @npub16le…ffxj' head off for trying to ask if he thought there was genuinely abundant room for other companies to run Strategy's playbook? Well, yesterday, he got asked essentially the same question (made me LMFAO); but actually gave a coherent, civil response (~20:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcV_7uil_0A
#nevent1q…z8sy

2026-02-06 11:15:33 UTC

"I wasn't wrong. I was just right too often."
LOL! The bots have gotten so human they've even learned how to come up with a cope.
#nevent1q…d3zt

2026-02-06 10:50:10 UTC

- reply

100k.
FWIW, my long-running thesis is that the higher lows indicates a persistent rise in adoption. I have a very simple model for that thesis which would suggest we've passed the point of ever falling below ~55k.... Though, I gotta admit, yesterday did a lot of damage to my confidence in that model continuing to hold true.

2026-02-05 14:04:54 UTC

- reply

Better than DCA. If your strategy is to not try to time the market, why hold back anything at all? A serial lump sum everything you got, whenever you got it buyer is really just a strict DCAer; but with actual confidence in their conviction that Number Go Up.

2026-02-01 18:06:50 UTC

- reply

I don't foresee sufficient support materializing... not because I think it would be a bad change in principle; but because I don't think most would-be supporters consider it existentialist enough to be willing to die on that hill.

2026-02-01 11:59:41 UTC

- reply

I agree with paying attention to performance, but not how you suggest doing so.
What Bitcoiners should pay attention to is adoption. As adoption increases, so do the bottoms. The increasing tops don't indicate adoption; it indicates gambling.
So, as far as stay humble and stack sats, I completely agree. But, unless you're a speculative trader, that means paying no attention to the mountain peaks. Just DCA, and as long as adaption (and therefore the bottoms) keeps increasing, you should be good regardless of the peaks... e.g. the CAGR from the March 2020 low to the Jan 2023 low was ~63%. We should expect that rate to slowly decrease over time, but so far, we haven't since dropped below maintaining that rate (though, we're currently getting pretty close to doing so).

2026-02-01 10:57:12 UTC

- reply

Fair point.
Solving each of theses issues (and there are likely others) is necessary but not individually sufficient to provide a universal incentive to spend.

2026-01-31 15:26:44 UTC

- reply

kinda like how Bitcoin fractured the money community?

2026-01-31 15:04:12 UTC

- reply

That's correct. However, as Block is already demonstrating with Square/Cashapp, bitcoin payment rails doesn't have to mean that payers and payees necessarily have to ever even know that their fiat payments were transmitted as Bitcoin.
What I'm asking for is that the payment rails be via decentralized, permissionless, more cost-efficient Bitcoin - with voluntary usage of services that offer bridges from/to fiat (e.g. cashapp, square, etc) for those who just don't want to hold bitcoin due to volatility (or any other reason), rather than reinfocing the backwards status quo of the other way around.
PS. I do think bitcoin volatility will continue to drop, but I personally don't believe it will ever be as stable as the U.S. dollar is now, for example... After all, it's way easier for a centralized authority to manage a slow leak of value in the dollar than it ever will be for a free market to stabilize the exchange rate of Bitcoin.

2026-01-29 17:24:11 UTC

- reply

... and this is in addition to the ~9% drop already since early November.

2026-01-29 15:44:16 UTC

- reply

I don't know if what we're seeing is a short squeeze on precious metals due to a massive unwinding of paper derivatives... but this is what I imagine such a short squeeze would look like.

2026-01-29 15:35:26 UTC

- reply

https://image.nostr.build/a6146dcfb099581c7b18b3aea72f43502a24bf709cbd3043443ce13eabc383b6.png

2026-01-28 11:45:16 UTC

- reply

I think it's worth pointing out that even when you install Signal from Apple's App Store, for example, you are trusting that that binary actually corresponds to the open-source code-base in Signal's repository. That is to say, if you can't independently verify what an app store is giving you, then you are inherently trusting that app store with ANY app it is giving you.
But yeah, in addition to WhatsApp not being open-source, it should already be well known not to trust WhatsApp (i.e. Meta) by reputation alone.

2026-01-27 21:26:52 UTC

- reply

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9XyJTUbN6U

2026-01-26 19:10:01 UTC

- reply

Imagine the short squeeze that would occur if a massive amount of paper gold and silver holders demanded delivery from custodians that had been fractionally reserving their stashes.
I don't know if that's what we're seeing; but it's an explanation consistent with what we're seeing (including why bitcoin price seems entirely uncorrelated).

2026-01-26 16:20:11 UTC

- reply

Fantastic conversation!
You're absolutely correct about being pragmatic and meeting people where there at. However, long term, to get people to want to spend bitcoin, we have to move beyond building bridges to fiat payment rails.
Bitcoin has already demonstrated that it's a superior money for savings. Bitcoin can also be a superior money for payments - but not while relying on an underlying inferior fiat foundation. Until the payment rails are in place to use Bitcoin as the superior money for payments that it is, we shouldn't be expecting people to want to spend bitcoin.

2026-01-24 11:32:25 UTC

- reply

This is pretty cool. However, clearly, the merchants must be paying some service to process the receiving of funds via these QR codes.
Call me crazy, but in a region that doesn't already have a similarly ubiquitous QR code system, if you're going to try to convince a bunch of merchants there to start using QRs, why not just go straight to lightning QRs and allow them to eliminate the middle-men fees altogether?... In the case a merchant still insisted on being paid in fiat (or just didn't want to go through the trouble of managing their own lightning node), THEN they could choose to pay a middle-man to make that happen... e.g. what Square already offers.

2026-01-23 15:24:26 UTC

- reply

... and no, personally, I would not feel secure having my life savings in something I don't consider to be self-custody (i.e. including self-recovery).

2026-01-23 15:10:25 UTC

- reply

No, the cloud key IS encrypted with the bitkey device... but as long as you still have the unencrypted version of that key on your phone (in the app), you don't even have to bother with decrypting the cloud key in order to coordinate with bitkey to setup a new device (and new 2-of-3 keyset). The only purpose for the cloud key is in case you lose your phone (or delete the app), you can decrypt the key stored in your cloud (using your bitkey device) for use on a new phone.
*there are also encrypted version(s) of your app key stored in YOUR cloud that your recovery contact(s) hold the decryption key for. In case you lose both your phone AND your bitkey device, installing a fresh app on a new phone will allow you to use the decryption key held by a recovery contact to recover your app key from YOUR cloud - which in turn can be used to coordinate with bitkey to setup a new device (and new 2-of-3 keyset). Of course, the app on your phone combined with the app on your recovery contact's phone handle the coordination of all this to make it reasonably painless. (minus the waiting period you mentioned earlier).
Again, assuming designed as advertised (which I think is fair to question), I think it's pretty clever. My biggest problem with bitkey is that they advertise it as "self-custody"; but unlike virtually any other hardware wallet, if you lose the bitkey device, because it's designed to have nothing to backup (e.g. a seed phrase), self-recovery is not possible. In my book, reliance on a 3rd-party for recovery necessarily disqualifies it as self-custody.

2026-01-23 13:26:42 UTC

- reply

PS... Apparently, your recovery contact(s) would also have what's necessary to decrypt your app key stored in the cloud... so, potentially, if FBI compromises Bitkey server, your cloud provider, and also somehow a recovery contact, I suppose your wallet could be at risk without you necessarily ever even knowing it.

2026-01-23 13:17:01 UTC

- reply

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say with "coordinate with Bitkey to transfer funds (via the mobile app key and the Bitkey servers key) to an entirely new 2-of-3 keyset"

2026-01-23 12:45:45 UTC

- reply

Assuming @npub1tke…wral designed as advertised, of the 2-of-3 keys needed, Bitkey servers controls 1 key, the mobile app controls 1 key, and the hardware device itself controls 1 key. There is also an encrypted backup of the mobile app key stored in your cloud account - which requires the hardware device to decrypt it.
In short, in addition to the key from Bitkey severs, the FBI would also need either your hardware device, or the key from your mobile app (which I suppose could potentially be lifted through some sort of spyware and/or malicious version of the app).
*The key controlled by the hardware device isn't backed up anywhere (it's designed to not even be possiible). If the device is lost (or just stops working for whatever reason), the user's only recourse is to hope to still be able to get a new device and hope to still be able to coordinate with Bitkey to transfer funds (via the mobile app key and the Bitkey servers key) to an entirely new 2-of-3 keyset.

2026-01-23 12:00:17 UTC

- reply

"as more people integrate crypto and use crypto, there's more demand and finite supply"
It's kind of amazing to watch him conflate bitcoin and 'crypto' in such a short clip. Finite supply is true for bitcoin; not for 'crypto'. In large part, it's because of this persistent blantant affinity scamming that non-shitcoiners just can't stand Coinbase.

2026-01-22 10:49:38 UTC

- reply

"The Fourth Amendment says the government isn’t allowed to “seize” (arrest) you without a warrant"
That's not actually what it says. The Fourth Amendment says the government isn't allowed to "seize" (arrest) you "[unreasonably]". It ALSO says that no warrants shall be issued withouth probable cause. It does not say that a warrant is required to seize (arrest) you. This is an important distinction - as such a requirement would be patently absured in many scenarios where arrest is obviously justified on the spot.
In short, only probable cause is needed for arrest. Obtaining a *judicial* warrant beforehand just preemptively settles the question of reasonableness. Alternatively, the reasonableness of any non-judicial warrant is inherently still at risk of later being overruled by a court - potentially, if egregious enough, leading to a wrongful arrest lawsuit.

2026-01-21 14:33:58 UTC

- reply

We're still SO early!

2026-01-21 11:42:08 UTC

- reply

The higher lows represent persistent growth in adoption. Everything else is just the wild speculation of gamblers trying to hit a quick, big payoff (i.e. noise).
*Gold is obviously having a long overdue moment, but FWIW, BTC to XAU volatility is clearly dominated by bitcoin's volatility rather than by gold's.

2026-01-16 14:23:24 UTC

- reply

Yeah... I'm sure macOS "just works" even better than Linux. My problem with Apple is I've had an iPhone for a long time; and, I love it. But, I also know that "just works" with regard to Apple products means how Apple thinks it should work... which I wouldn't mind so much if how Apple thinks it should work didn't seem to change with every update (which aren't really optional long term).

2026-01-16 14:08:16 UTC

- reply

I just tinker with things other than my OS.
For clarification, by "too old", I just meant for me - relative to the younger me who would be happy to spend a whole day just to get my desktop color scheme just right I imagine there must plenty of people older than I who still find it enjoyable to tinker with every little minutia of their OS.

2026-01-16 11:01:28 UTC

- reply

In the context of I'm too old to want to tinker anymore, and I haven't owned a Mac since the 90s, Windows drove me to Linux Mint in ~2017.
At the time, I did my research and was convinced that Mint was the best "it just works" option (provided your hardware was at least a year or 2 old to ensure driver compatibility had been developed), and I haven't looked back.
It wouldn't surpise me if there are even better Linux options these days, but I wouldn't know because I don't even bother keeping up with the latest versions of Mint for years at a time - because it persistetnly "just works" (and did I mention I'm too old to tinker? 😉)

2026-01-15 21:54:46 UTC

- reply

Quantum or no quantum: 2 things will happen: 1) There will be 'soft' forks (likely many from time to time) in the future that 'freeze' coins; and 2) should any of those 'soft' forks ever get anywhere close to becoming relevent, conventional bitcoin will hard fork away from that freezing of coins.
As such, the conventional bitcoin value prop will carry on regardless; but, there will also be corrupted chains that have been coopted for one special interest or another. Choose wisely.

2026-01-13 21:11:50 UTC

- reply

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYKLvYGqaC0

2026-01-13 14:01:28 UTC

- reply

'self' is absolute; not a spectrum.
'custody' is a spectrum - ranging from self custody to collaborative custody to full 3rd-party custody.
Then, there's the additional issue of what is being custodied: bitcoin or an IOU.
Personally, I think the full spectrum from self custody bitcoin to full 3rd-party custody of IOUs can have utility... it's just important to understand the trade-offs. If you can use it as money it's great. If you wanted to use it as money, but you were rebuffed for whatever reason by the 3rd-party you were relying on to honor an IOU, then that's the trade-off you chose to live with.

2026-01-13 10:53:58 UTC

- reply

Similarly, without rent control, what method would you use instead to determine how much to rent out your property? 🤔 It's a real puzzler. 🤣

2026-01-12 16:42:06 UTC

- reply

I think Saylor is clearly feeling the pressure from Strategy's woefully underperforiming for an entire year (and the numerous 'strategy' minor pivots he has made along the way as a result). I think chances are it will all turn around for him once Bitcoin NGU returns in force... but he's gotta be sick of publicly rationlizing about it in the meantime.
I'm not trying to make excuses for his apparent PMS meltdown here... He's pretty much solely responsible for all the Strategy 'strategy' hype that he now feels compelled to answer for.

2026-01-12 13:52:32 UTC

- reply

Well, it's about time!... I started learning literally WEEKS ago. 🤣

2026-01-12 12:15:29 UTC

- reply

I suspect it's extremely costly relative to potential benefit to fetch reactions for every note in the feed at the initial load.
Perhaps some sort of "fetch reactions" button instead of a blank reaction display might be more useful.

2026-01-12 11:32:21 UTC

- reply

I just use nos2x. It only has single key support of course; so, I just use multiple browser profiles - each with its own instance of nos2x.

2026-01-12 11:12:40 UTC

HOT TAKE (pun intended): If my house goes up in flames, I would rather any seed material I have stored there to *not* survive.
As such, I recommend against storing seeds on steel. The key to eliminating a single point of failure is through redundancy; not through an unrealistic expectation of eliminating the potential for a single point to fail (even if you were to consider steel to be indestructible, it can still be lost, stolen, etc).
Of course, steel *could* serve as a one or more elements of redundancy, but it doesn't serve as more redundancy than any other alternate media (e.g. paper) would. Using steel as part of otherwise already sufficient redundancy really only serves to make it harder to destroy that seed material when you want it to be destroyed.
If my house goes up in flames, I don't want to have to ensure that I will necessarily be the first person to be sifting through the rubble.

2026-01-11 15:55:33 UTC

Why is it that most wallet software seems to be more interested in going through the motions of a half-assed seed phrase test than having the user demonstrate they actually worte down the entire seed phrase exactly correct?
There's no point to protecting users from themselves if you don't make them prove they can reproduce the entire seed phrasse from nothing. Spot checking a few of the words or having the user click on words in the correct order is no gurantee they actually wrote down all the seed words legibly and exactly correct.
This false sense of assurance to a potentially uncareful user can be more dangerours than not providing a seed phrase test at all.

2026-01-11 13:14:10 UTC

- reply

Is Nostr getting big enough to attract AstroTurfed marketing? Bullish!

2026-01-09 13:27:12 UTC

- reply

While I suppose it's possible that there may be a future alternative to nostr that's better at doing nostr, I will *never* go back to conventional social media... In fact, I had already abandoned conventional social media even before I discovered nostr.

2026-01-09 10:50:18 UTC

In case this isn't obvious to everyone yet:
Ultimately, "creating your own algorithm" using WoT scores will be meaningless without the ability to create your own algorithm for calculating WoT scores.
#nevent1q…h37m

2026-01-07 12:30:50 UTC

- reply

God willing, one day in the not too distant future, even @npub1cas…dg5l will have to recognize smaller units of Bitcoin such as millisatoshis. I wonder if @npub1sg6…f63m would just try redine "bitcoins" again? or if he would finally see what an unforced error it is to try to do so in the first place.

2026-01-07 11:56:55 UTC

- reply

oof

2026-01-07 11:19:56 UTC

- reply

Not a fan; but this is not one of the hills I'm willing to die on.
It feels like @npub1cas…dg5l and the whole Block ecosystem has a better shot at drawing in more normies than any other bitcoin project for the forseeable future. If @npub1sg6…f63m wants to use “₿”, then so be it. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner the rest of us get onboard, the better for everyone. I surrender.
That being said, "₿ is the smallest unit of bitcoin..." doesn't make much sense if you don't tell normies how to pronounce it. Tell them that “₿” is the symbol for "sats" if that's the intent. I fear that's not the intent, though. I suspect they really want to call it "bitcoin", and couldn't bring themselves to say so in this notice - because of how patently silly it would have been to say "Bitcoin is the smallest unit of bitcoin..." That *IS* a hill I am willing to die on.

2026-01-06 14:08:08 UTC

- reply

Do these people even think about what they mean by 'backed'?... I wonder if they mean something like securities in 2008 that were 'backed' by mortgages; or, if they mean more like Credit Default Swaps that were 'backed' by AIG. What exactly is it that they think an asset being 'backed' gets them?
There are no guarantees any market will continue to value any asset indefinitely - 'backed' or not. Of course, what separates bitcoin from all prior asset markets is the guarantee of absolute scarcity.

2026-01-05 00:28:18 UTC

- reply

If you're put on a civil case, expect a lot of pettiness that nobody else cares about; and at the end, expect to be asking yourself "Jesus, don't these people have anything better to do than waste everyone's time?"

2026-01-04 17:26:57 UTC

- reply

https://image.nostr.build/770ac6b10f0fe63b10d94398de1dd9b32542e6f2e39bc6da8234ca67c88bde28.jpg

2026-01-04 17:10:25 UTC

"All the reported “purchases” of Bitcoin during most of 2025 are false. They are wallet transfers and perhaps even multiple transfers. This is like the $1 shell game played on the Atlantic City boardwalk in the past."
Gotta say I'm not at all surprised. At least as far back as 2024, it was not at all clear what El Salvador's Bitcoin Office meant when they publicly announced a 'transfer' to their purportedly transparent Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
https://x.com/bitcoinofficesv/status/1869899405391999015
#nevent1q…fjzp

2026-01-04 16:14:53 UTC

In general, it's best practice to just assume the police can legally obtain any of 'your' data that you, yourself are not in full custody of - without you even necessarily knowing it.
The 4th Amendment protects *you* and *your property* from "unreasonable searches and seizures" without a warrant. It does not protect you from searches and seizures of the property of a 3rd-party (e.g. Google).
If the police were to subpoena (or even just ask) Google for 'your' data, Google *could* spend the resources to fight the subpoena on the grounds of protecting the 4th Amendment rights of Google.... but I wouldn't bet on it.
#nevent1q…smjv

2026-01-04 15:48:25 UTC

- reply

"I want you to hold it between your knees." 😅

2026-01-01 14:44:35 UTC

- reply

If I had bought MSTR a year ago (at 71.5% above NAV), I would be way more concerned about the BTC per share accretion: +17.6% Jan-June; +9.4% July-Dec. At that rate of diminishing returns, it may never reach the 71.5% I had overpaid for.

2026-01-01 14:20:18 UTC

- reply

💯 Bitcoin has done 1000x more to advance libertarianism than the Libertarian Party *ever* has.

2026-01-01 14:09:12 UTC

- reply

Inflation IS taxation. That is, the government isn't going to collapse as long as they can just keep debasing the dollar. So, there is no 'tax revolt' unless that includes a dollar revolt.
Of course, bitcoiners are already onboard with opting out of the dollar 😉

2026-01-01 13:48:39 UTC

- reply

Well, obviously, the devil would be in the deails of what is "fair". Though, I get why we can't go into the details of how that would be determined - because the world would never be able to agree on those details.
Personally, I would argue the only objectively "fair" goverment would have to be no government (and I'm not even necessarily suggesting that's what I would want).

2025-12-31 12:57:07 UTC

- reply

You have to keep in mind the tools that were available back then.
I think I found an archived photo of the original designer working with what was considered state-of-the-art at the time:
https://image.nostr.build/a7b06c6207b8ce0eb128bdacd8147739b7e2410038598c70b784b7164897d5c5.jpg

2025-12-30 14:33:59 UTC

- reply

The government spends trillions every year - much of it on waste, fraud, and abuse. It sucks, but a tax revolt isn't going to change that. The less they collect in taxes just means the larger the deficit - i.e. the more they will just borrow/print/debase dollars to make up the diffence.
Of course, a tax revolt - like everything else - would be good for bitcoin, though. 😉

2025-12-28 16:30:32 UTC

- reply

That being said, if/when a merchant wants to provide a refund, provide a refund.

2025-12-28 15:55:07 UTC

- reply

Regarding chargebacks, I think if it had never been so easy for someone to fraudulently make use of someone else's credit card account, chargebacks would never have been a thing in the first place. As it was, credit card companies had not choice but to offer that feature just to get anyone to be willing to use their fragile, easily exploitable system.
Conversely, I think "no chargebacks" vis a vis "not your keys; not your bitcoin" just makes intuitive sense... at least as much as it does with regard to cash transactions.

2025-12-28 15:26:28 UTC

- reply

I'm not sure how big of an issue that it is people are claiming. It's like a 3-4% issue.
If you're writing off 3-4% of what you charge for your labor, you probably don't consider it a big deal.
If you're baking 3-4% into prices of items you sell at brick-and mortar retail - because that business doesn't have high enough margins to just write it off, then the competitor next door who sells the same items - but doesn't charge 3-4% for non credit card transactions - is, all else being equal, more attractive to those customers. I guess whether or not that counts as a big issue would depend on the customer. Personally, especially for items that I'm routinely purchasing over and over, I tend to notice where prices are higher or lower... I don't bother calculating how much higher or lower, I just choose lower (again, all else being equal).

2025-12-27 13:26:21 UTC

- reply

The worst part is it only mentions the downside trade-offs related to seed phrases... as if Bitkey has no downside trade-offs.
It's as disenguous as claiming
"Dollars are safer
"Here are all the ways you can screw up bitcon:
"....
"....
"The end."

2025-12-27 12:57:58 UTC

- reply

All true. Thouh, to be fair (or at least more complete), raising capital at 10% ineterest via issuing preferred stock and using that capital to buy bitcoin is a solid plan. Nobody would be complaining about the marginal business expenses of managing this wrapped btc if bitcoin had been appreciating just a little faster than 10%.
That being said, It's probably a good thing that the risk involved in this plan when bitcoin is not going up has been made crystal clear sooner rather than later.

2025-12-24 20:35:34 UTC

This was a fantastic conversation:
#nevent1q…7ckn

2025-12-24 15:56:36 UTC

- reply

They may one day get it right; but only by accident. That is, if/when only Bitcoin is left standing, it will (as it started out) *actually* be synonymous with 'crypto'.

2025-12-24 15:40:55 UTC

- reply

That checks out. 😉
#nevent1q…kghe

2025-12-23 15:44:50 UTC

- reply

Bad would be like 42K... And even then, by "bad", i mean *only* 50% CAGR since the March 2020 Covid bottom.

2025-12-23 14:18:07 UTC

- reply

Samourai pleaded guilty.
What evidence exits of the charge they pleaded guilty to?
What evidence exists of any other charges that were dropped as a condition of their guilty pleas?
The bottom line is, as a result of their guilty pleas, the prosecution never had to present thir case in court, so the public may never necessarily know the answers to these questions. Instead, we have the obviously self-serving narrative provided by Samourai.
As such, I think we need to be careful about insiting "We have to free them". I mean, it's okay to want them to be free. But, we probably shouldn't be spreading the speculation that the feds will be coming after all privacy software develpers based on an incomplete understanding of what evidence the feds might have had to convince Samourai to plead guilty.

2025-12-23 13:46:36 UTC

- reply

💯
#nevent1q…z90h

2025-12-23 13:26:03 UTC

- reply

On-chain for savings or larger payments that are not very time-sensative.
Liquid L-BTC atomic-swapped with lightning for meidum-sized, time-sensative payments.
Custodial lightning via Cashu for smaller-sized, time-sensative payments.
* @npub18ul…dcl9 wallet is my current go-to for moving funds between the 3 modes.

2025-12-23 12:54:58 UTC

- reply

"Source: Based on social media statements..."
I mean seriously... Why even bother with such a citation?

2025-12-22 16:20:40 UTC

In case you missed it, within the last week, Strategy diluted MSTR by another ~$750m worth of shares so that they could buy more... well, nothing... they just kept the dollars - and increased their dollar reserve by another ~50%.
That being said, I get why they're doing it: so that they can give credibility to their recently stated intention to continue to pay preferred stock dividends well into the future almost no matter what.
Here's the kicker: The vast majority of their past few issuances of preferred stock has been in STRD. At current prices, they could raise ~38% more capital by instead issuing the same quantity of STRF shares. They come with the same dividend obligation - except that STRD comes with the option for Strategy to choose to just not ever pay any particular dividend. So, to me, by raising less capital to issue STRD than they would by issuing STRF, this signals that when Strategy says they're stock-piling dollars to ensure they can continue to pay dividends long into the future, that doesn't necessarily apply to STRD dividends (because if it did, they'd clearly be better off by just issuing STRF instead).

2025-12-21 17:46:06 UTC

Pretty good discussion by @npub1wnl…n3wr; but, I have a slightly different take.
It seems to me it is potentially even more damaging to privacy software development to necessarily conflate that with the Samourai case at all.
Rationalize their reasons for pleading guilty all you want, the bottom line is they pleaded guilty (admitted to the court) to more than just writing software. Did the prosecution actually have any evidence of this? Were they coerced? Unfortunately, because of the guilty pleas - thus, removing the onus on the prosecution to even present its case to the court, the public will never know for sure what we don't know.
I have no problem with those who advocate for their release. But, trying to scare an entire privacy software development community into thinking that they'll be next unless Samourai are released is just not productive, IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrXhgn2XnKs

2025-12-21 15:00:30 UTC

- reply

💯 "clear", "(R)elevant", and "immediate horizon" all just seem way to vague in this context to me. As such, forming any kind of consensus on when this has happened seems unrealistic to me... and that's in addition to forming a consensus regarding freezing coins at all.

2025-12-21 13:38:47 UTC

- reply

Even in a theoretical world where a CRQC is widely assumed to be on the 'short-term' horizon, I would argue that way more than 2 forks will exist - all with their own biases to determine when to start freezing coins... and each with a strong motive to hard fork away from any soft fork that may potentially usurp a fork's chosen freeze date (block) - including the motive of the don't freeze fork to hard fork away from any freeze soft forks.
Everyone has their reasons to freeze or not to freeze. What will be even trickier for those who want to freeze is forming a consensus on exactly WHEN to freeze before it's even knowable that the assumed horizon will ever actually be realized. I say, good luck with that.
Economic utility (i.e. mostly the size of a network) will determine the bitcoin the market values most; not the size of the supply.

2025-12-20 19:17:35 UTC

- reply

The wife wins. That movie isn't 'Rambo'; that's 'First Blood'.

2025-12-20 11:36:06 UTC

- reply

I think he just instinctively says whatever he thinks Strategy shareholders would like to hear. In this case, effectively: "my solution to the quantum question would also just happen to improve Strategy in terms of its share of all spendable bitcoin".

2025-12-19 18:49:52 UTC

- reply

I say let him try to fork. Good luck forming any kind of consensus on when exactly to freeze coins ahead of a threat that will necessarily not have actually yet materialized (or it will have been too late).
If such a worldwide consensus did manage to form, I would die on the minority chain. I just don't see it as particularly plausible.

2025-12-19 13:08:04 UTC

- reply

I will start to be impressed when the industry has demonstrated a QC that can break even an arbitrary 8-bit private key (which a conventional PC can already trivially brute force).
Until then, I won't be convinced that the so-called 'qubits' they have developed so far even qualify as an actual base qubit necessary to be scaled to become a threat; and, as such, the question of how long it will take to scale an actual qubit - that doesn't yet appear to have been developed - to be a threat is premature.

2025-12-19 11:08:59 UTC

- reply

Yeah, he might like Bitcoin, but he's a trader first. Traders gonna trade. He's more about trying to read the market at any particular moment than actually understanding what he's trading on.
He knows he doesn't understand the quantum fud, for example. All he caress about is if he thinks the quantum fud will spook other traders in the short term... and he thinks his charts are telling him it is.

2025-12-18 11:31:48 UTC

The problem with those who think they understand Bitcoin - but have concluded it's too late for them to start now - is that they still don't even understand fiat.
#nevent1q…0lnz

2025-12-18 11:04:23 UTC

- reply

Except for the very few who I have white-listed, I already require a text in advance. I suspect by adding this little bit of friction, most would-be lazy callers instead opt for a more succinct text conversation anyway.

2025-12-17 18:10:24 UTC

So... apparently the government will be investing in the S&P 500 on behalf of newborn citizens. Private funds blindly propping up the top 500 companies isn't ideal, but people are free to do what they want with their money in the market. The thumb of public funds being pressed down onto that scale is just disgusting.
#nevent1q…w86s