El Salvador is making a disappointing move by allowing the IMF to dictate terms on their sovereignty for a loan they say they don’t need. But let’s have a little perspective 1. Bukele can’t stay in office forever - democracies with term limits are not good structures for long term Bitcoin projects that need decision continuity for decades 2. El Salvador shot for the moon. Just because they missed doesn’t make them shit. They are an inspiration for being so unreasonable and they gave a lot of people hope. 3. The fact to face is that the IMF is undefeated and will remain so. No nation can truly resist the corruption of Fiat money. It’s just a statement of how early we still are

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The Bitcoin Standard: A Perspective Shift Living on a Bitcoin Standard requires a significant perspective shift from the fiat-based mindset most people are accustomed to. Here's a summary of how one should view this transition, based on insights from the sources provided: 1. Bitcoin as a Tool for Freedom and Sovereignty: Embrace Bitcoin's potential to provide financial freedom and sovereignty. This means taking self-custody of your Bitcoin to a "gulp limit" - an amount you're comfortable holding yourself. [3] This act of self-reliance fosters a sense of personal power and independence from traditional financial institutions. Recognize that a Bitcoin Standard prioritizes individual responsibility and honesty. It encourages transparency in valuing your time, skills, and contributions, leading to a more equitable exchange of value. 2. Shifting Away from Fiat-Centric Thinking: Challenge the ingrained notion of chasing fiat gains as the primary measure of success. Recognize that the pursuit of fiat gains often leads to a focus on short-term profits and speculation, rather than building long-term value. Focus on developing skills and expertise to earn Bitcoin directly, rather than relying on traditional investment vehicles designed for a fiat system. This aligns with the Bitcoin ethos of value creation and exchange. Decouple from the expectation of salaries as the primary form of compensation. Instead, explore alternative models like contract work or value-for-value systems that are better suited for a Bitcoin Standard. Understand that Bitcoin's value proposition extends beyond being just a store of value. It can be a tool to reduce expenses and increase purchasing power by transacting directly in Bitcoin. 3. Embracing a Long-Term Perspective: Develop patience and resist the urge to constantly measure Bitcoin's value in fiat terms. This long-term view allows you to weather market volatility and benefit from Bitcoin's potential for appreciation over time. Recognize that living on a Bitcoin Standard is a journey, not a destination. It requires a willingness to adapt, learn, and connect with like-minded individuals building a new financial system. 4. Navigating the Transition Phase: Engage with the fiat system strategically while prioritizing your transition to a Bitcoin Standard. This might involve earning fiat income while simultaneously accumulating Bitcoin and seeking out opportunities to transact in Bitcoin whenever possible. Surround yourself with a community of Bitcoiners who share your values and vision. This provides support, fosters learning, and strengthens your resolve during the transition. Be wary of influential figures who promote Bitcoin while clinging to fiat-centric thinking. Their actions might not align with the principles of decentralization and individual sovereignty that underpin a Bitcoin Standard. Living on a Bitcoin Standard is about embracing a new paradigm—one where individual sovereignty, financial freedom, and a long-term perspective are paramount. It requires a shift in mindset, a willingness to challenge conventional thinking, and a commitment to building a more equitable and decentralized future.

My personal reflection is that its much easier to attack things than to get behind things - but thats not a reason to stop attacking things that need to be attacked. I just need to make sure I'm also building.

Ever wonder why companies don’t try to make money anymore? It’s all about corporate debt and “stakeholder equity” A company cannot be viewed as having a likelihood of defaulting on It’s debt. In order for that to happen, they have to be eligible for a bailout if things really do go badly. So companies need to commit significant resources - just about all they have - toward being “worthy” of a bailout should the time come. This entails malinvestments of time and effort such as DEI, Climate, etc. and generally being on the good side of the state and those who determine who gets bailed out. You know who’ determines who gets bailed out? Think Blackrock. So all of these unproductive projects ate sucking resources, as a priority above making money. Additionally, companies are at the gunpoint of the centralized voting proxies of asset managers like Vanguard, State Street, and Blackrock. No company’s board wants to be ousted by these people. These people who have nothing to do with these companies - just custody the assets of their investors - end up driving the fulcrum of governance at all of these companies to the end that they are no longer allocating resources to profitable projects in fear of upsetting these terrorists. Companies are violating their fiduciary duty to their shareholders en masse and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

@Guy Swann and I running into Zeno’s paradox in the same week and connecting it to Bitcoin is an act of God. Happens also to be the same week I started reading my blogs and also in which i brought the secret society discovery of irrational numbers in an essay about the value of miners https://risk-fundamentals.ghost.io/what-is-the-value-of-a-bitcoin-miner/

I’m boosting this now so my Nostr friends see this: We covered this episode on Rock Laper Bitcoin. If you’re seeing this , you definitely want to listen to this and a couple of the preceding eps

Fountain

The Path to Bitcoin • Episode #130 – A Message From Us • Listen on Fountain

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There is no requirement for any Bitcoin treasury to prove they can move their coins in order to tell the world of its value in their accounting statements. Microstrategy, Blackrock, etc. can claim billions on their Balance Sheet today thanks to the trust people have in their Bitcoin. Next cycle, it could be trillions of USD value. However, there is no requirement to prove that they control those coins. The reader of financial statements has to accept the value without that proof. The trillions of dollars on balance sheets will be subject to total and complete write-downs to ZERO in the event that an entity discovers they can’t move the Bitcoin. The incentives are also now for those entities to run Ponzis on their Treasuries and not disclose the loss to the public. A requirement would incentivize companies to implement best practices and reduce the likelihood of such a loss significantly. Be aware.

My biggest takeaways from the Bitcoin Conference 1. Matt Odell can’t take a joke (from a comedian he hired to be on his own show) and it’s actually worrisome to me how bad he is at it. An exercise in humility is warranted given how many people rely on his leadership 2. The next 4 years are going to be the craziest in my 50 years of life and I’m not prepared. 3. Privacy will continue go be reduced to a niche movement. 4, Ross Ulbricht should not be in prison but he became a virtue signal at the conference. Nobody seems to be putting pressure to discuss Samourai when they broke no laws and is a far more meaningful and consequential situation to Bitcoin. 5. There are young guys in the space who inspire the hell out of me and it’s good to know that there are people who will fight the good fight. 6. Bitcoin is great and doesn’t GAF about the circus. It’s the constant.

Why Financial Planners are fiat charlatans and you should eliminate them from your life if you’re a Bitcoiner: There are only 3 choices to make if you have savings: 1. Hold on cash and pray you don’t get heavily debased or confiscated. 2. Go all-in on debt and YOLO and pay back pennies on the dollar. This is the current Cantilonairre strategy and it’s not bad if you’re a Nihilist and know you’ll stay one forever. 3. Go all-in on Bitcoin and protect your savings from debasement and confiscation. The only allocation choice is between 1 & 3 or all in #2. You don’t need a planner to do this for you. The mere suggestion that another can do this for you makes them liars and frauds. If you can’t do your own financial planning under these scenarios, you may as well enjoy life and go with #2 but not pay 2% or more for the privilege.

When you tell a doctor you don’t take any medication and they try to tell you how lucky you are - The scam is revealed. They don’t even know. They think it’s luck. This disqualifies them from diagnosing anything I care about.

The ETF is irrelevant to Bitcoin but will begin the demise of Blackrock. No centralized entity can maintain itself while also holding Bitcoin for its stakeholders. Greyscale was discounted to zero. Micro strategy had their founder step down as CEO. The state we used to know as El Salvador is being dismantled before our eyes. Elon let go of the bitcoin before he allowed this rate on his institutions. The list is already large. It’s only a matter of time before millions of people realize that a few thousand real sats in their custody is more valuable than the sum of all the IOUs they hold. Bitcoin is for individual power, not institutional power. We will see this time and again as we see the individuals who bring Bitcoin to their institutions ultimately choose Bitcoin over their institutions.

Closed source code seeking network adoption is inherently evil.

There will exist a Bitcoin University. My admission standard would be to show ownership of 10% of the prior epoch block reward as held Bitcoin. Sign the UTXOs and you’re in. No academic pursuit can ever exist unless the student is in total control of his time.

Time preference and mathematics: Human beings think they suck at math but it turns out that they are too high time preference to see through the tedium of it. Math is NOT complicated. It’s tedious. Math is about generalizing to any system. Doing this with simple addition is very tedious so we only teach our society how to do it in ONE BASE (base 10) and even that is too tedious for people. They scream - What am I ever going to use this for? And their high time preference tells them: NOTHING This is why the successful math students in the world tend to come from privilege - it’s not because they paid for better teachers - rich kids with high time preference don’t learn math no matter how good the teacher is. But some kids have a time preference low enough to see value in going deep and will spend their time ensuring the ruthless tediousness that mathematics entails. It’s not about intelligence. It’s about time preference. Bitcoin will bring a renaissance of mathematics once we lower the time preference of children and the adults who choose their education.

tldr on Blackrock from RockPaperBitcoin Blackrock is a liability driven investor who : 1) doesn’t want to be bailed out ever again; 2) hates bonds with a passionate vitriol 3) understands btc enough to use it as the risk-free asset for portfolio construction 4) sees the ETF as a way to hedge the upshock risk that bit them last September. Implication is that they’re not necessarily in it for NGU - but they’re using it for existential purposes and will likely see it through. Will start to create enhanced SPX etfs sprinkling in the btc ETF - then will move as far as they can towards 100%

I’m reclaiming the saying “laying an egg” to be positive and life-giving. Only in the dystopian Malthusian hell do we consider laying an egg to be embarrassing and shameful. Go forth and lay eggs!!!

Choose your difficulty adjustment. Bitcoin or A few weak men acting in service of a corrupt state with a monopoly on violence

A great thing about nostr is that nobody puts their fiat credentials in their profile and attempts to give value to Bitcoiners

Decoupling alert!