Running a bitcoin node costs less than $200. The culture of Bitcoin says increasing that cost would kill Bitcoin, so let's use banks instead. Cost is not the reason most Bitcoiners don't run nodes.

One cool thing about Pubky is you always feel loved with new notifications because tagging is low-friction and fun. Here's the current profile page in the pubky.app beta. Looking good!

What's the best content on Nostr that you can't find anywhere else? (besides me ragebaiting you)

The Lightning Network does not scale. This is why everyone is building fake centralized hybrid Lightning bullshit and using custodial apps. There are many reasons for this, here are some. Liquidity - Each channel requires funding, twice. That capital is frozen until you splice, rebalance, or close. As adoption grows, the liquidity requirement grows quadratically. As on-chain fees grow, cost of using LN goes up while security assurances go down. Complexity - Complexity breeds centralization. most users do not tolerate the base LN experience. Most devs do not tolerate depending on complex buggy self-custodial implementations. You've practically got to be an entire Lightning stack business to reliably provide a self-custodial product. Costs rise, leading to severe centralization at scale. Routing - Portrayed as the coolest part of LN, but truly the worst aspect due to liquidity requirements, uncertainty, complexity. Results in hubs, then centralization at scale. Breaking changes - Constant new complexity requires node runners to always run new, potentially insecure software. New channel types, new payment protocols, all destroy interoperability. Obscure Hacks Required - If you want to provide a LN wallet or app you need to learn all the weird solutions, like LNURL, misc patches & tools, that people hacked in because LN protocol devs and LN implementation companies rarely care about the user space (probably because it is hopeless). We get weird derivative things hacked into others, like subscriptions into one specific payment protocol, but not into others; or, weird email format nicknames that arent actually emails, and are all implemented in trusted ways. This results in LN businesses and LN devs requiring arcane understanding, and endless patience, in the LN world. Regulatory trap - Running a LSP business safely requires experienced lawyers for a constantly changing compliance landscape. New hybrid LN services like Spark, Liquid swaps, and taproot-asset edge nodes, will draw regulatory scrutiny the moment something goes wrong, or becomes too large. Lightning is still cool and useful, but it doesn't actually fix Bitcoin payments at scale, so much as kinda-sorta provide efficiencies as long as you don't actually scale too much... TLDR? The concept of a high-frequency bitcoin channel is sound, and proven now. The concept of a bitcoin-based routing network as an efficiency has not been proven, and, arguably, has failed.

Everyone: Wow, shoes are useful! Nostr: I'm cool because I don't wear shoes.

In the Pubky beta, we are creating the algorithm together. Our tags are merged into a social graph, creating a relevance system that could obsolete Google and centralized algorithms. Are you a "tech

GM Nostr, let me tell you a little about Pubky. Any questions?

Why don't people ask "which google.com?" when you tell them to go visit it? There are theoretically unlimited alternate versions of any given .com, right? Such dominance of reputation (ICANN allowing you to say ".com" with confidence, and know which website that really is) requires both great trust and actual physical enforcement (gov violence in this case). But, the truth is, in the background we do ask "which google.com?" when we send that URL into the browser. We ask through DNS, but we offer total trust and dominance to ICANN. Such naming solutions are not exclusive from any given network model anyway, thus arguably off-topic. Pubky users could put their key in ICANN DNS, or point to the same server from both the key and their .com, right? And finally, this of all begs the question of which situation you were really in where you had no other choice but to ask someone to memorize your domain name? It's barely an edge case imo, and I think if we scrutinize any examples, they would be weak... Here's the dynamic distilled: 1. Names are subjective, thus cannot be owned. 2. Names can be declared, but are unenforceable without real-world physical restriction. - Typically this requires violent enforcement my government - But could also include other physical limits, like distance, connectivity, and... encryption! What? How? We can map these concepts to PKDNS easily. But here we have the physical limits enforced by encryption instead of violence. It is too much work to brute-force an ed21559 key, so it allows enforcement of the "names" (signed dns records) you declare in your PKARR! This should all fit together as a consistent mental model for anyone interested in these ideas!

Everyone on Nostr keeps asking me where they can get Pubky merch so they can show their support. Here!

Tar & Feathers

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Tar & Feathers is where rebellion meets couture. We fuse a punk spirit with streetwear aesthetics to create prints as fearless as you. Our pieces a...

Bitcoin & LN are accepted, but no zippy-zappies, sorry.

I will try to show some love even if Pubky surpasses Nostr someday. But if fiatjaf moves on, I am out. View quoted note →

I bet Nostr is more fun with a villain than another purpleface anyway.