🚨🚨 BREAKING!!! SHOCKING!!! YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS!!! 💥💥 RENEGADE BITCOIN DEV CAUGHT RED-HANDED... LISTENING TO USERS 😱 Knots 29.4.3 is out, and insiders are reeling. Luke has MERGED PR #468. He didn't write it. He personally disagrees with it. He publicly concept-NACKed it. So why did he merge it?! Sources confirm the motive is even more sinister than feared. Out of a whole pile of competing proposals to extend the 100-block coinbase maturity, this one had the strongest community support (or at least the least screaming). 🤢 But it gets WORSE. In a move experts are calling "deeply unsettling slippery slope," he openly DISCLOSED that he has a personal financial incentive AGAINST the change. In writing. Voluntarily. Without a subpoena. 😨 Let that sink in. A maintainer of his OWN project merged something pushed by the non-technical unwashed masses, at a cost to himself, and then TOLD YOU about his conflict of interest. Where are the backroom deals? Where's the "trust me bro"? Where's the merge-it-and-ignore-the-NACKs we've come to expect from respectable software developers?! Textbook dictator behavior. Obvious shitcoin. Avoid at all costs. 🚩🚩🚩 SHARE BEFORE THEY DELETE THIS!!! 👀

For those not paying attention: if Bitcoin on Blake2b wasn't doing some things right, do you really think anyone would bother attacking it? In less than two months: 1) They tried to get it delisted from the few exchanges that added it. One admin was even offered a six-figure sum. 2) They encouraged Chinese Siacoin miners (same algo) to 51% attack the chain. 3) They built a service to get around the Knots and RDTS filters and started dumping thousands of porn images, chopped into hundreds of small chunks, to bloat the UTXO set and troll the community. Still going on, but not for long. Who's behind it? No idea, they're not exactly putting their names on it. Most of this happened quietly and then got pushed out on social media to boost the effects. It's made to look like trolling, like nobody's doing it seriously. But dig a little and it gets ugly pretty fast. A million shitcoins get listed on CEXs and CoinMarketCap with no problem. XBT has a market cap in the billions, currently sits in the top 20, and somehow it's a struggle just to get it seen. Makes you wonder why. View quoted note →

It would be nice if one vote for the right candidate could secure a bright future for your children. If only it were that simple. Yet most people still believe that voting once every 4 years, at the cost of maybe an hour of their time, will improve their future. I know gamblers who are less naive.

The spammer dumping garbage on Bitcoin is about to get filtered out. Hope he doesn't mind. Core could have done the same on Spamcoin, if they'd served the network instead of doing the industry's bidding. The XBT devs got no grants. Nobody expected any, and nobody offered. At some point the difference in approach, and in results, will be hard to ignore.

Almost 2 months since Bitcoin on Blake2b went live. A lot has happened, even more was learned. Great data-driven overview by @Renaud Cuny on Block Space Weekly.

Eleven Weeks After the Split

A new proof of work, blocks a fifth the size and a delayed coinbase reward. Here is what the data shows so far

I don’t know who should be more embarrassed about this - @Saifedean Ammous or people who still believe Spamcoin is not captured. 🤷‍♂️ View quoted note →

Bulgaria held presidential elections yesterday, and what I liked most was how little anyone cared. Turnout averaged around 18%, and most of those who showed up were elderly. Some mainstream outlets ran panels with young, popular faces who condescendingly tried to guilt-trip viewers for staying home. There was plenty of talk about rights and civic duty, and a lot of blame shifted onto voters instead of the corrupt officials who earned their distrust. One young parent said he voted for his children's future. That's sweet, but your children's future is your responsibility, not that of some all-powerful nanny state. NPCs are slowly waking up to the political theatre. Voting harder won't change the outcome. Personal action and example will.

Hard to swallow pills 💊 View quoted note →

Dear Saylor bootlickers, hear me out: View quoted note →

You can fight me, but you can’t stop me from being insane and unreasonable. 20,000 bitcoins of miner rewards gets unlocked in a few days and I’m not gonna miss this buying opportunity.

Not finished and I may have f’ed up the development process and may have to start from scratch. But still a nice sunset scene.