How do you convince @West Major that Bitcoin is important when the returns are higher and more instant on new inventory? It's all about exiting The Matrix.

Are entrepreneurs born or made? Wrong question. But let's answer it anyway. Sequoia Ventures, the best investors in the world, don’t ask this. Doug Leone, their former managing partner, has been clear. They screen for founders with a chip on their shoulder. Usually from broken backgrounds. Those who are obsessed with proving the world wrong. You don’t inherit that. and it doesn't develop in one day. It gets forged over time, due to constant pressure. So sure, they are made. But even that misses the point. Founders don’t care about this debate. It doesn’t help because you still have to do the work. The right questions for them are simple: - Do I have product market fit? - Can I obsess over this until I get it? That’s it. These questions matter because they filter fast. You have to be humble enough to seek brutal feedback and care enough to face it head on. That’s why Sequoia bets on people with chips on their shoulders. Most can’t stomach the truth. But those with something to prove are always hunting for it. The pain that built them is louder than bad customer feedback. They are not scared of hard conversations. They are scared of not winning. A massive public win might quiet the noise. And that’s why they make it happen.

On Nostr we have 1 simple rule. You Don't Tokenize Nipples. You ZAP em. ⚡

Living on a Bitcoin standard feels like real life finally got the difficulty setting right.

A Date with Lindy If the Lindy effect was a fruit it would be a Date. Dates are the oldest cultivated fruit in human history. They go back over 6,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. Archaeologists have even found date seeds in Egyptian tombs, meaning pharaohs were eating them thousands of years ago. I came across this during a period of reading about fasting - specifically how people break fasts during Ramadan with water and dates. That detail stuck with me, and eventually led me to try them for myself. From there, I was hooked. And yes, dates are high in natural sugar - mainly fructose and glucose - which makes up around 60–70% of their weight. That’s part of why they’re such a great source of quick energy. But they’re not the same as processed sugar, and the effect they have on your blood sugar is very different. Dates typically fall into the low-to-medium glycemic index range (between 35–55, depending on the variety). That means they release sugar into your bloodstream more gradually. The fiber in dates plays a big role - about 6–8 grams per 100 grams - slowing absorption and supporting digestion. Plus, they contain nutrients like potassium and magnesium, which are great for overall metabolic health. Moderate amounts - say, 2–3 dates - don’t cause major blood sugar spikes, even in people with type 2 diabetes. They’re not completely neutral, but they’re definitely better than most refined sweets or high-GI foods. Like anything, it depends on the individual and the context. Date palms are also dioecious, meaning male and female trees are separate - and only the females bear fruit. To grow dates, farmers manually pollinate the trees, often climbing up and transferring pollen from male to female flowers by hand. It’s a practice that’s been around for thousands of years and is still used in many traditional groves today. Our dates are organically farmed in California and Algeria. A Date Walks into a Bar Perfecting the bars started with dialing in the right pecan roast - a process that took time. Once that was set, I began experimenting with the ratios between two date varieties, which is part of what makes my bars unique. Trial and error refined the recipe to match what my palate was craving. The pecan butter (HODL Butter) ended up being the key - something I didn’t fully realize until recently. I tried making the bars without it and couldn’t. There’s something about the texture and granularity of the pecans that ties it all together that can’t be quite achieved with any other butter, or without it. I’m really glad I stumbled on that by chance. Thank for reading! This was a guest post written by @Oshi (推し), a Bitcoin Only Company.🤝 Oshi HODL Bars and HODL Butter here and only available in sats. Be sure to also check out the collab they are doing with CraftCanna:

Oshi — Artisan Nut Butters & Chocolate

Handcrafted nut butters, chocolates and more. Small batch. No fillers. Pay with Bitcoin.

Work, Rewards & Monetary Premiums🧵 A shovel moves dirt. The reward is gold. A miner guesses numbers. The reward is a block. A farmer grows hay. The reward is a bale. A builder moves machines. The reward is a house. Simple enough. Work produces an asset. But what matters is what kind of asset. - Gold is elemental. - Bitcoin is economical. - Hay is consumable. - Housing is protective. Each one solves a real problem: - Gold conducts. - Bitcoin...? - Hay sustains. - Housing protects. And when you look closer, you see who is playing status games. - Gold carries monetary and status premium. - Housing does too. - Bitcoin strips the games out. It holds value without playing them. - Hay just keeps things alive. The real difference is in how the premium flows. In the fiat world, monetary premiums leak away into politics, media, prestige. In the Bitcoin world, the premium loops back into the circular economy. It stays closer to the people who built it. Work. Reward. Real value. Circular reinforcement. That is the bright orange future.

What It Actually Feels Like to Start a Company Most nights, it’s hard to sleep. Weekends don’t mean anything anymore. Closing a round of financing is not a relief. It just means more people are counting on you to turn their money into something twenty times bigger. You cannot just "turn it off." Television, movies, vacations all feel boring once you realize your company’s future might be sitting in your inbox or in the results of a test you forgot to run. You feel guilty doing anything outside of work. It takes years of fighting this to realize that balance is not a soft skill. It is an essential one. The best ideas come when you are not staring at a screen. Healthy distractions are not a luxury. They are a competitive advantage. You learn to respect the Duck: Paddle like hell under the water. Stay smooth and calm on top where everyone can see you. Lose your cool, and you lose everything. You keep asking if you are making the world better. You start turning every conversation into an opportunity. You see how hard it is to relate to people who are not risking it all every day. You stop blaming them for not understanding. You start finding your people: the ones who do. You realize your real job is not the product. It is the vision. The culture. The team. The energy. You will never forget the feeling when you look around and realize your team believes in the mission as much as you do. You stop settling for mediocrity. You know what excellence looks like now, and you are not going backwards. You turn down offers. Not because of pride, but because you know the team you have is too good to sell short. You know quitting is not an option. You learn how to laugh at everything. Because all the bad things you imagine happening? They will happen. You will work two years on something and realize it was wrong in one day. And you will still find yourself laughing at how ridiculous it all is. You stop chasing money. Freedom, autonomy, responsibility, and recognition become your currencies. And they are the same currencies of the people you want to keep around. You feel like a parent to your customers. They will never know how much you love them. They are the reason you are not crazy. You learn who you really are. What you do when you get punched in the face over and over again. What you do when no one is watching. You realize the only thing you can be truly great at is being yourself. Compromise that, and you lose everything. You get grateful for the hard days. Because they show you who is really with you. Because they teach you things winning never could. You realize that most people only get one shot at something great. And you are holding yours in your hands right now. It is not easy. It is not peaceful. But it is exciting. Every day is different. Every day matters. Even the worst days are better than a life spent wondering. And that is why you cannot do anything else.

Watched Arrival again last night. Seen TENET 15 times. Read Bitcoin is Time 10 times. Watched Interstellar and decided gravity-based time travel is creative fiction. Followed Ashton Forbes for the fun of it. Saw the White House casually post about space-time manipulation and no one care. This post is brought to you by @Oshi (推し) and @CraftCanna Support your circular economy. It's real. The rest might not be.

Show the incentive and you’ll see the outcome. Medium of exchange in the Bitcoin circular economy isn’t about scale. It’s not a daily active user chart. It’s not a dashboard metric. It’s trading wine for soap. Shirts for salmon. Bitcoin for beef. It’s real relationships with founders who care about their product, their freedom, and the people they serve. It’s conversations about Bitcoin, health, and building lives outside the system. This is the real world. One built on value, trust, and skin in the game. Meanwhile, the macro analysts go home and log into someone else’s world. The Bitcoin economy is small. It’s real. And it’s growing. Just like Bitcoin itself, it’s there for anyone ready to exit the matrix and stop needing their money and goods.

Soak Quest made is to #31 on the Primal trending 24hr list after only 9 hours without using BuzzBot Medal incoming

With the first pick in the "I wish they were on NOSTR Draft" Soak Quest selects: PARKER LEWIS of Zaprite. Make Zaps Rite Again With the 2nd pick, I nominate @Ben Justman🍷 Rules: - Quote Post your pick - Person cannot be picked in the thread of picks - Tell us why you picked them