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erik
erik@primal.net
npub1zqsu...cqrs
Bitcoin Product Designer @ Hoseki. Human Rights Foundation grantee working on ecash.
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erik 2 months ago
gm. check out this episode about the guys who built the transatlantic telegraph cable. they failed over 3 times but remained locked in and eventually succeeded. we really need more people out there working on ambitious, human scaled projects like this.
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erik 2 months ago
i’m going to japan for the month of december to heal my soul. please send recs.
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erik 2 months ago
good job young men.
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erik 2 months ago
i want to speak to satoshi nakamoto and tell him i’m doing the best i can, but there’s simply so much to do.
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erik 2 months ago
the name of the game is ship as much great design as possible and remain allergic to fame.
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erik 2 months ago
been reflecting on the bitcoin for signal campaign. i want to share why we designed it in the way we did. a lot of bitcoin projects try to get people to come to them. 'latest layer 2/ecash/ark/lightning/spark/liquid!' 'simple wallet!' 'frictionless onboarding!' i think that's not always the best approach. image instead of promoting a new app or asking people to meet us, we should try to meet people where they already are and then make the case for bitcoin. millions already use signal everyday so why ask them to go somewhere else for private payments? bring bitcoin to them instead. i want to see more projects try to integrate bitcoin where people already hangout. cashapp nailed this imo. they didn't build a bitcoin app and ask people to come. they integrated bitcoin into a space that people already use to send $ to friends. try to follow that playbook.
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erik 2 months ago
bitcoin has been around for 16 years now which means there's a generation of designers who've been working through the core design and engineering tradeoffs for over a decade at this point. what excites me is that we're hitting this moment where there's a new generation who grew up using the tools we build. they didn't have to unlearn traditional finance ux or how money should work on the internet. crypto was always just a thing for them to use. the type of kids i think of are the ones from junseth's world. they met on minecraft and learned bitcoin early. figured out self custody, coinjoining, sim swapping, etc...there's other kids with that same native fluency pointed in a different direction. the stuff we build today shapes how the next gen of product designers will think. they will face problems we haven't even discovered yet. the choices we make now become the foundation for this next generation. let's do our best so they inherit better starting points.
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erik 2 months ago
If we succeed in building AGI, humans become demiurges and the gnostics might turn out to have been cooking all along image
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erik 2 months ago
i like how this shader reveal and hover effect is turning out.
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erik 2 months ago
i like the sound of winds over neo-tokyo. it sounds so laid back. i pirated the album after seeing akira.
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erik 2 months ago
i'm convinced the people who majorly move the needle on improving human life are civil engineers, computer programmers, electrical engineers, physicists, structural engineers, medical researchers etc...not politicians, nonprofit workers, or advocacy groups.
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erik 2 months ago
“who will run the mints?” i come from piracy/private trackers/ torrents. i know exactly who will: the same type of people motivated to keep torrent trackers alive. a wise man once said: “what the piratebay learned is that in the game of whack a mole, the moles win.”
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erik 2 months ago
did the branding and design for this campaign. goal is to show how cashu could bring private bitcoin payments to signal. keen to hear what you think. https://bitcoinforsignal.org/
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erik 2 months ago
milton friedman in 1990 on the future development of perfectly private ecash. i appreciate how he describes the push ux of ecash as just like handing someone a dollar bill.
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erik 2 months ago
gm let the blocks mined every ten minutes via proof of work be a ritual performance of software engineering greatness.