I've been dealing with Bitcoin since pre-2013, and I've gotta say I've never seen it feel as powerful as it does on Nostr. The instant, effectively-free transactions that spring from having so many people on Lightning Addresses is like arriving on a different planet. Most people's experience with Bitcoin payments -- if they even have it -- is a 30-60 minute wait for mining + two-plus block confirmations, and a fee that made it feel dumb to send less than $20. Most people don't want that. They don't need that. They will never care about that. Some do -- I did -- but it's a permanent minority. This is what makes lightning-fast settlements a big deal. When normal people and businesses realize that global money transfers can be borderless, instant, free, and only take like two clicks, I think things are going to get very interesting. Still need to cover a lot of road on the privacy problem, but this already feels better than everything naked on-chain. The hardest problem has always been making it easy for people who don't care about Bitcoin to accept Bitcoin (tender resistance) -- without requiring them to start caring about Bitcoin. The way you do that is by making it "better than money." We're not there yet for everybody, but for the first time in many years, I caught a glimpse of how it might be possible.

It's a small network, so I'm basically just going to follow everybody right now. If you get unfollowed later, don't feel bad: it's probably not something you said. Just matching network size.

The fact that there's *any* native support for a neutral payment layer on Nostr is a big deal, because at the root of it, money is just another message: transmit, receive. I don't know if my Lightning address on here actually works (and I'm not excited about how centralized the LUD16 Lightning Address providers are...), so please don't try to send the family farm. But I'll let you know if something comes in.