Central Pennsylvania Bitcoiners

Trying out something new: the 3rd Thursday of the month, we’re hosting what we’re calling BitPlebs. Essentially a less technical BitDevs (because nostr:npub1z9hy7a0n8zxnhgrcew2nnkr4sx6sum07exve99pqq30leujye3usgd858n is semi retarded and that’s the best he can do). Discussion on local and general bitcoin news. Bring your questions and stump the Cat! https://rockpaperbitcoin.fm/pa-bitplebs

Great meetup yesterday! Thanks to all those who came out. FYI, no 4th Sunday Coffee meetups scheduled for Nov/Dec.

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! We've got our monthly coffee meetup slated for 1pm this Sunday, Oct 26th, at Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg. Hope to see you there! Inflation is much more present in the common lexicon than it was before the supply of US dollars increased sharply following the 2020 lockdowns. Everyone, particularly in the past five years, has been feeling the increasing cost of things they want and things they need. The average price of a new car in the US just eclipsed $50k for the first time, and the price of beef has been particularly crazy this year. Inflation as reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has been in the ballpark of 3% for the past few years. If you think that prices of things you buy feel like they're increasing a lot faster than 3%, you're not alone. The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is based on a certain basket of goods, and that basket changes from year to year. For example, if ribeye steaks are an included input, and people begin buying ground beef instead of ribeyes due to increasing prices, the basket might then replace ribeyes with ground beef. In this case, the cost of items in the basket might not have changed, but the quality of what you're getting certainly has. Although Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet's right-hand man, may not have been a fan of bitcoin, he had a great quote: "show me the incentive, and I'll show you the result". There is a pretty large incentive for the powers that be to have CPI come in low. For one, social security payouts are linked to CPI: smaller CPI means smaller liabilities, and greater solvency for any CPI-linked pension system. The Chapwood Index is an alternative to government calculated inflation statistics such as the CPI. The goal is to calculate an inflation rate that is more consistent with how prices are changing on what Americans are actually spending on in the 50 largest cities. Any guess as to how those numbers compare to CPI? You guessed it...depending on the city, values over the past few years have been in the ballpark of 10-15%. Do you think that incomes also been increasing at that rate? Hope to see you at the meetup on Sunday! nostr:nprofile1qqsfvn9e8yympgq3t0thj0af90wn7stw7deu8wegpaakgy56y948s0gpramhxue69uhkummnw3ezuum9w35xvmmjwpexjanpvdujucm0d5hszythwden5te0dehhxarj9emkjmn99umtk6ym Central PA Bitcoiners

Next event: 4th Sunday coffee meetup, Sun Oct 26th, 1pm at Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg

Wonderful meetup at Denim Coffee today! Thanks to all those who came out

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! We had a great educational meetup two Saturdays ago. I love seeing new faces at meetups, especially educational events! Curiosity and thirst for knowledge are wonderful virtues, and in my experience, largely determine one's trajectory down the bitcoin rabbit hole. Keep learning, and keep stacking skills! Our next meetup is a coffee meetup this coming Sunday, September 28th, at 1pm. The venue is Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg...come find us in the back room. Parking is plentiful; there is ample parking behind the café, and street parking out front is also available. No op-ed this week. Instead, I'll share a blog article from a few years ago that was influential for me. Influential for my password/passphrase habits, anyway. Trezor published this blog on passphrase strength in 2019 (AKA "the before time"), and was one of my introductions to diceware passphrases. Six years ago, Trezor was a bit more respected amongst bitcoiners than they are now. There weren't many viable options for bitcoin only hardware devices then (Mk1 Coldcard anyone?) and Trezor was the device that many used for their bitcoin cold storage. Many of the bitcoin only devices we use and love today run software that are descendant from Trezor's source code. Great content. https://blog.trezor.io/is-your-passphrase-strong-enough-d687f44c63af Enjoy the rest of your week, and hope to see you at the meetup on Sunday! Keep stacking sats, and keep stacking skills. ~ nostr:nprofile1qqsfvn9e8yympgq3t0thj0af90wn7stw7deu8wegpaakgy56y948s0gpramhxue69uhkummnw3ezuum9w35xvmmjwpexjanpvdujucm0d5hszythwden5te0dehhxarj9emkjmn99umtk6ym Central PA Bitcoiners

Great educational meetup today! Love to see both new and familiar faces

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! We've got an educational meetup lined up for this Saturday! Our educational meetups feature a presentation, and the topic for Saturday's meetup is "Stacking Sats or Stacking Shares?". If you're new to bitcoin or new to our meetup group, this is a great function for you to attend. 2025 has been a year that has seen bitcoin come further into the spotlight of legacy financial media and the mainstream consciousness in general. Turn on a legacy financial news show, or pull up Yahoo Finance, and most days there will be a headline about bitcoin. New financialized products have become available: spot ETF's, bitcoin treasury company stock, as well as bond/money market products offered by bitcoin treasury companies. What's the difference between MSTR, IBIT, and self-custody bitcoin? Although each has an exchange rate that correlates with BTCUSD, there are important differences. Topics... What's the purpose of bitcoin ETF's? What's the value proposition of bitcoin treasury companies? Individuals' freedom of choice vs an organization's restricted options Stacking sats & stacking skills Ideas for leveling up your skills and setup We'll begin at 1pm on Saturday, Sept 13th, at the Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg. Beginners welcome! Hope to see you there! Reminder: in addition to our quarterly educational meetups, we have monthly coffee meetups at 1pm on the fourth Sunday of every month at Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg. The next coffee meetup is on Sunday, Sept 28th. ------------------------------- There's one important technical news story to talk about from the past week week. News recently broke of a supply chain attack that can potentially affect wallets that use a certain node package manager (NPM) for javascript libraries. Here's the breakdown: when developers build wallets, they usually don't build them from scratch. One popular building block developers have is to use existing code libraries. As an analogy, if you're trying to build a ten story building, using one of these NPM libraries is like starting with the foundation and first couple of floors established already, which makes work a lot faster and easier. This week we learned the downside: if there's an issue in one of these code libraries, it can potentially affect all of the downstream software that builds upon it. Which wallets build upon this NPM? A lot. What can this malicious code do? When you're building a transaction, it can replace the recipient's address with the attacker's address. Not only are they replacing the address, they are using addresses that resemble portions of the intended recipient's address. This means that if you're trying to send to an address that ends in xyz, the attacker can insert one of their own addresses that also ends in xyz. They know that many people only check the first few and last few characters of an address, rather than parts of the middle, or the whole thing. This is where hardware wallets really shine. When using a hardware wallet that has a screen, addresses can be verified before transactions are signed, guarding against this attack. By verifying the address before signing, an attacker's address can be detected and the attack thwarted. When entrusting your hodl, it can't be stressed enough how valuable hardware devices are to protecting against such attacks. Mitigation Strategies: For hardware wallets: Verify the full address on the device's screen before signing; compare it to the intended recipient. Avoid signing if there's any discrepancy. Switch to non-NPM software like Sparrow Wallet for compatible hardware (e.g., Trezor, Ledger, BitBox, Jade, Keystone). For hardware devices without screens (e.g., BitKey, Tapsigner): Avoid on-chain transactions until updates are released. General advice: Check full addresses (not just first/last characters), especially for large transactions. There is no undo in Bitcoin—take time to verify. Unless you're willing to take the risk, refrain from sending hot wallet on-chain transactions until situation becomes more clear Stay informed as the situation evolves. Use open-source, air-gapped, bitcoin-only, screen-equipped hardware wallets for best security, and always verify addresses. Slow down and never panic! Ask for help from trusted contacts if you need help or advice. ------------------------- Hope to see you this Saturday! ~lonelypumpkins Central PA Bitcoiners

Next educational meetup: Stacking Sats or Stacking Shares? 1pm on Sat, Sept 13th, at Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg, PA https://www.meetup.com/central-pa-bitcoiners/events/310700668

Great coffee meeetup today! A few first timers, love seeing new faces

Coffee meetup tomorrow, 1pm at Denim in Mechanicsburg...hope to see y'all there

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! On August 15th, 1971, 54 years ago last Friday, the US "temporarily" went off the gold standard. This event would go down in history and be known as "Nixon Shock". Although in 1934 Franklin Roosevelt untethered gold from US dollars for Americans, and made gold holding illegal for us to hold until 1975, gold still backed dollars held by foreign nations up until 1971. Countries that had loaned the US money could be paid out in gold or USD, and USD itself was redeemable for gold in this respect. The dollar wasn't fully backed by gold from 1934-71, but there was still a connection. 1971 cut that last tie that the dollar had to a hard asset, making creation of new dollars restricted not by US gold holdings, but by the desire of a few powerful people's desire to click copy and paste. Since 1971, the dollar has lost about 90% of its value against the things we all need and want, especially food and shelter. If you've never checked out wtfhappenedin1971.com, it's a great collection of charts that show a variety of prosperity metrics over time, and what's happened to them since we fully decoupled from gold. Hint...it's been great for the top 1%, also known as the counterfeit class, and not so great for the rest of us. Fortunately, although many of us don't control in which asset we're paid for our work, we do have control over which asset we use to save for our future. Although it's never a dull week in bitcoin news stories, two headlines grabbed my attention last week. These headlines are relevant to bitcoin's function as freedom money, a property abbreviated as "FGU" (freedom go up). These headlines were the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) publishing a bulletin suggesting marking bitcoin addresses with "AML compliance scores", and Google announcing that all wallet apps in the Google Play store have to be licensed as money transmitters. The Google announcement was walked back a few hours later. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) functions as the central bank of central banks and is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. The released a paper last week entitled "An approach to anti-money laundering compliance for cryptoassets". In it, a key takeaway was "An AML (anti-money laundering) compliance score based on the likelihood that a particular cryptoasset unit or balance is linked with illicit activity may be referenced at points of contact with the banking system ("off-ramps"), preventing inflows of the proceeds of illicit activity". Societies learned a long time ago that for a money to work, it's got to be fungible, meaning every unit is interchangeable with every other unit. Ten $1 bills are worth as much as any other ten, or any single $10 bill. Imagine a scenario in which you go to pay for something, and pay using three $20 bills. If dollars weren't fungible, the person/company you're paying might say "well, the first $20 bill is good, but the second one has cocaine on it, and the third one is associated with a robbery from two years ago, so I'll need two more "good" $20 bills, please". Attacking the fungibility of a money is attacking its usefulness and viability at its core. All of the counterfeit class, BIS members included, have had a say over how people can use their money, and are desperate to hold onto power. It would be a dream come true for them to be able to say that this pile of bitcoin is "good" bitcoin (ie bitcoin owned by them, ETF's, MSTR, KYC exchanges) and this other pile of bitcoin is "bad" bitcoin. "Bad" bitcoin could be defined however they want to define it: mined bitcoin, bitcoin from non-KYC exchanges, or even coins that have been dormant in an address for 10 years and don't pass their murky chain analysis could become unspendable, if your counterparty subscribes to their nonsense. The second story regarding Google is also relevant to bitcoin's FGU property, even though it got walked back the same day. The initial announcement was that all wallet apps in the Google Play store, even if self-custody, would be required to have money transmitter licenses in their respective jurisdictions. The Play store is where the majority of Android users download and update their mobile apps, and this policy would effectively ban the wallet apps Android users have used and loved for years. All that would remain would be exchange apps like Coinbase and Strike; basically banking apps that are able to send bitcoin on your behalf if you ask them to, and if they feel like it. This was walked back shortly after, with Google clarifying that this policy doesn't apply to self-custody wallets. So basically, we ended up where we were a week ago, only that the overton window has been opened a bit wider. Apple had banned bitcoin wallets in their app store years ago, and eventually relented. Android phones have the ability to run apps from different sources outside of the Play store, and can even install apps from APK files downloaded from a web browser. However, the lion's share of Android users depend on the Play store for both new installs and updates. What would happen if this policy weren't walked back? If you have wallet apps installed on your Android phone, they'd still be there and functional after the ban, but updates wouldn't be available, nor would new installs. Developers may continue to update their software and/or make them available through other channels, however this would raise the barrier substantially when considering the majority of wallet users. Presumably, if this were actually executed by Google, Apple would eventually follow suit and reinstate their ban. Would this kill bitcoin? Absolutely not. Would it make it less usable? Yes. Although desktop apps would be unaffected by this, sending or receiving bitcoin from a mobile phone would change a lot. What would happen if your mobile wallet(s) stopped working? Do you have backups stored safely somewhere, so that you'd be able to import the seed phrase into a desktop wallet? A silver lining to the Google story is that it prompts us to take inventory of potential weak spots of our setups. These two stories relay how, even though there is positive progress being made regarding bitcoin's NGU property (number go up; bitcoin's performance against other assets), there are shots being fired across the bow of bitcoin's property as freedom money. When the suits and counterfeit class cheer on bitcoin, they might be cheering for a different future than you are. They're cheering on ETF's, stocks, and other assets that exist under the control of the legacy financial system. They think that bitcoiners' ability to pay "undesirable" people, or buy "undesirable" goods can be curtailed, and at the same time their bags can be pumped. What they don't realize is how much of bitcoin's value derives from how bitcoiners value it, and a massive part of that is being able to use it in sovereign way. Not only can your enemy use bitcoin...your enemy being able to use bitcoin makes it better and stronger for you. Keep learning, and particularly keep learning about the great tools that exist to use bitcoin in a sovereign way. Hope to see you at one of our upcoming meetups! Monthly coffee meetup is at Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg at 1pm on Sunday, 8/24. Bitcoin Mining @ The Park is being hosted by Business Cat at 3pm on Saturday 8/30 at Friendship Park in Mechanicsburg. And next month, we've got an education meetup scheduled for Saturday, 9/13 at the Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg, and the topic is "Stacking Sats or Stacking Shares?". nostr:nprofile1qqsfvn9e8yympgq3t0thj0af90wn7stw7deu8wegpaakgy56y948s0gpramhxue69uhkummnw3ezuum9w35xvmmjwpexjanpvdujucm0d5hseq0dx0 Central PA Bitcoiners

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! We've got two meetup events on the docket for August. The first is our monthly coffee meetup, which we have every month on the fourth Sunday. That's at Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg at 1pm on Sunday, 8/24. The second is taking place Friendship Park in Mechanicsburg at 3pm on Saturday, 8/30. Hosted by Business Cat, the 8/30 event is entitled "Bitcoin Mining @ The Park" and features a live demo of solar powered bitcoin mining. And as a head-up, we've got an education meetup scheduled for Saturday, 9/13 at the Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg...stay tuned for the topic. The hiking event went really well last month! We did the whole 4.2 mile loop as intended, and were gifted with great weather and a fantastic lookout spot. Thanks to those who came, and especially those who brought their families! We'll definitely get another hike on the books. Pine Grove Furnace was a great hike. Due it how remote it was though, grabbing lunch together afterwards wasn't doable. Next time we'll see if we can find a hiking location where we can finish off the event with a lunch. Harvard's endowment investment disclosure made some news in the bitcoin space this week. Per their recently submitted SEC filing, they recently acquired $116 million of IBIT, BlackRock's bitcoin ETF. Like BlackRock themselves, Harvard has done quite the about face on their philosophy regarding bitcoin. In many ways, finally accepting that stacking bitcoin is in one's best interest is a humility test. All bitcoiners started as skeptics, and admitting to oneself that perhaps they may have been wrong is one of the first steps down the rabbit hole. Harvard's actions and recommendations carry a lot of weight in the old-school, slow moving world of money management. It stands to reason that there are many CFO's who will now feel much more at ease taking a bitcoin allocation now that Harvard has endorsed it. Also recently in the news, the current executive administration has signed an executive order that directs the Department of Labor and SEC to permit bitcoin access in 401(k) plans. Historically, even though bitcoin ETF's have existed for almost two years, and other derivative products like GBTC have existed for over a decade, such products have not been allowed in 401(k) plans. This executive order represents one of the first steps for bitcoin derivative products such as spot ETFs being able to be held in 401(k)'s. Notably, this is also a step potentially for some other assets to be allowed in 401(k) plans, namely shitcoins. Scam promoters' mouths undoubtedly water at the thought of tapping just a tiny piece of the $9T currently held in 401(k) plans. Such charlatans are always in search of new exit liquidity, and this would certainly be a great source of it for them. Although this step has been taken, I wouldn't expect to see a bitcoin ETF available in your 401(k) anytime soon. There are several different entities that would have to take action on this this option to be available. Consider that the ETF's have been available since January of last year, and Vanguard still blocks their customers from buying them, regardless of if their account is tax-advantaged or not. Although increasing people's access to ETF shares is good for NGU (number go up), it doesn't teach anyone anything about actually using bitcoin. Acquiring sats and receiving them to your own wallet is what generates that a-ha moment, enticing one to delve further down the rabbit hole. This allows you to realize another benefit of bitcoin: FGU (freedom go up). Keep stacking sats, and keep stacking skills! Let your education drive your allocation. Hope to see you at one of our upcoming meetups! ~Lonelypumpkins Central PA Bitcoiners

UPCOMING EVENTS: • Bitcoin & Coffee Meetup ☕️ Date/time: Sun, Aug 24th, 1pm (every month, 4th Sunday) Location: Denim Coffee, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania • Mining Bitcoin with Sunlight ☀️ Date/time: Sat, Aug 30th, 3pm Location: Friendship Park, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania • Educational Meetup ✏️ Date/time: Sat, Sept 13th, 1pm Location: Simpson Library, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

Great hike everyone! Great turnout today too...it's an event we've been wanting to do for a while, and it was definitely a success 🙌

This is the latest revision of our intro to bitcoin pamphlet. Happy to share the pdf if you DM us 🫡 nostr:nprofile1qqsrf5h4ya83jk8u6t9jgc76h6kalz3plp9vusjpm2ygqgalqhxgp9gpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgqg4waehxw309aex2mrp0yhx6mmnw3ezuur4vg7wqp0l nostr:nprofile1qqsrtv3u6qkj6a09tnhr3l0wy67g9uw3t57ftqyqpvztpk3wmd6306spz4mhxue69uhk2er9dchxummnw3ezumrpdejqz9mhwden5te0dehhxarj9enx6apwwa5h5tnzd9aqeklne3

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! In past months, it had made news that bitcoin's market cap exceeded the value of all silver ever mined. In the past day, it also eclipsed Amazon's market cap. BTC Sessions is a well-known educator and podcaster and has been making educational videos for almost 10 years. IMHO, he's been going a little far with his video's clickbaity titles and some of his ads recently, however, he is still a great source of education and signal, and his channel is a great and accessible find for newcoiners. He released a 20 minute video last week that details some top scams relevant today to bitcoiners, and it's a great watch/listen. As a caveat, I don't know what ads are being served to everyone by YouTube. The comment sections of his videos are also a mess. If you want to avoid YT, there's an MP3 file attached for your listening enjoyment. My favorite quote: "If you're already holding bitcoin, you've won! You don't need to chase yield. Remember, if you can't clearly see where the yield comes from, YOU are the yield. Just stack sats, hold securely, and let time do the work for you." His scam #4 is a gem as well. Also attached is a flyer for our hike taking place this coming Sunday (July 20th) at Pine Grove Furnace. We're excited for our inaugural hiking event...hope you can make it! In addition to the hiking event, there's also a pizza event at 6pm this Thursday (July 17th) in Mechanicsburg at DaVinci Pizza, hosted by Business Cat. Our motto: 1. Provide value to others 2. Spend less than you earn 3. Save part of the difference in a money no one else can create for free When making decisions around your stacking goals and setup, always let your education drive your allocation. Hope everyone is having a great summer! nostr:nprofile1qqsfvn9e8yympgq3t0thj0af90wn7stw7deu8wegpaakgy56y948s0g9r6jdr Central PA Bitcoiners Join our group chat in Telegram! Follow Us on Nostr!

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! We're pleased to announce that we have two meetups slated for July, both happening in the middle of the month. The first is a pizza meetup at 6pm on Thursday July 17th, hosted by Business Cat, at DaVinci Italian Eatery in Mechanicsbug. The second is a new and much anticipated format for us, a hiking event. That'll be at 7:30am on Sunday July 20th at the Pole Steeple Trailhead, which is located in Pine Grove Furnace state park. See attached flyer. Note: there's no fourth Sunday coffee meetup for July. It was great seeing all those who came out to last coffee meetup. One topic that we broached: What's the current recommended wallet for a newcoiner who's looking to make lightning payments? Today we're going to talk about two such wallets, Muun and Aqua. Both of these wallets are available on both Android and iOS, and can make both on-chain and lightning bitcoin transactions. Unfamiliar with lightning? It's a second layer on top of bitcoin that's become the customary way to make day to day payments. To make an analogy to legacy banking, on-chain bitcoin is to a wire transfer as lightning is to a tap to pay credit card payment. Small, day to day payments are increasingly best served by lightning, whereas larger, infrequent transactions such as buying a house/car, or moving one's cold storage sats, are best served by on-chain. On-chain offers maximum security, reliability, and redundancy, whereas lightning makes some tradeoffs that allow for faster and cheaper payments. Both Muun and Aqua are very user friendly, and can have you (or the person you're helping) making lightning payments very quickly without the need connect to a personal lightning node. In order to provide this smooth process, both of these wallets do make some tradeoffs against what seasoned bitcoiners expect from a sovereign setup, which we'll delve into. Muun: When you open Muun and use a new wallet for the first time, you can begin sending and receiving payments immediately, without the need to deal with any kind of backup process right away. When you eventually choose to back it up (highly recommended) you can either give them an email and password for recovery, or generate a PDF recovery kit that also includes a security code. This backup/recovery process is unique to Muun. On the plus side, it's very easy and fast; on the downside, it can only be recovered via their app or using their tools on github. Sending is simple in Muun...there's only one send button for both on-chain and lightning payments. You can scan or paste in either a bitcoin address or lightning invoice, and it'll figure out which one it is automatically. For receiving, you can toggle between lightning and on-chain bitcoin. Muun actually uses on-chain bitcoin transactions under the hood when you're sending a lightning transaction. This is abstracted away from users and can introduce drawbacks to the experience, namely when on-chain fees happen to be high. When that's the case, the fee to send a lightning payment can get quite high. Historically, on-chain fees tend to be on the low end for the majority of time and have occasional spikes. There's always the risk that you'll go to make a lightning payment in Muun and the fee will be very high, though. Since low fee transactions is one of lightning's benefits and selling points, this is a sore spot for Muun users. Pros: off and running right away with sending/receiving email backup available one balance and one send button for both lighting and on-chain Cons: doesn't use 12 or 24 work backups like almost every other wallet high fees are a possibility Aqua: When you open Aqua for the first time, you'll have the experience that bitcoiners have come to expect, which is to either make a new wallet, or import an existing one. If you create a new wallet, it will generate a 12 word seed phrase, which you can backup by writing down and keeping in a safe place. By following the current standard for wallet initialization and backup, BIP-39 seed phrases, this is a big pro for Aqua in my book. These seed word backups make for a wonderfully robust and sovereign setup. Both Muun and Aqua can send and receive lightning payments. Whereas Muun uses on-chain bitcoin transactions under the hood, Aqua uses liquid bitcoin transactions. What is liquid bitcoin? Although that's a topic for another day, for now let's just say it's a way to make some tradeoffs in order to get faster and cheaper transactions. Because Aqua made this design choice, you don't run the risk of your lightning payment being costly to make due to a high-fee environment on the bitcoin network. Unlike Muun, Aqua treats on-chain bitcoin and L2 (layer 2) bitcoin separately. Aqua can hold a balance of either, and allows you to convert between the two. When sending or receiving, you're given four options: on-chain bitcoin, lightning bitcoin, liquid bitcoin, and tether USD on liquid. Although this offers more choices than Muun, it does take away from approachability and simplicity. Incorporation of tether functionality is a touchy subject. Aqua's promotion among bitcoiners argues that lots of people, especially outside the US, use fiatcoins, AKA stablecoins, to hold value in USD instead of their local (more inflationary) currency. Aqua argues that since such people are going to be using a wallet that handles fiatcoins anyway, it's better for them to be doing it in a more bitcoin-centric wallet. Americans don't have much use for fiatcoins, IMHO. Pros: off and running right away with sending/receiving uses seed phrase backups that bitcoiners know and trust fees are low and consistent Cons: four choices of assets when doing a send or receive integrates tether, which is a faux pas in the eyes of many bitcoiners treats L1 and L2 bitcoin as separate assets In closing, Aqua and Muun are both great choices if someone's looking to get up and running with lightning payments. Like most technologies that abstract certain functionality away from users to make for a smoother experience, they do make certain tradeoffs. ~ nostr:nprofile1qqsfvn9e8yympgq3t0thj0af90wn7stw7deu8wegpaakgy56y948s0gpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchszv3cef Central PA Bitcoiners

Greetings Central PA Bitcoiners! We've got two meetup events upcoming in the next week. On Thursday, May 22nd at 6pm, nostr:nprofile1qqspzmj0when3rfm5puvh9femp6crdgwdhlvnxvjjssqghlu7fzvc7gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3yamnwvaz7tm0venxx6rpd9hzuur4vgq3samnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwwdhx7un59eek7cmfv9kqfx9gvz is hosting a pizza day celebration meetup at DaVinci Italian Eatery on 6617 Carlisle Pike in Mechanicsburg.  Then, on Sunday, the 25th at 1pm, we've got our monthly coffee meetup at Denim Coffee in Mechanicsburg. We're also working on plans for a hiking event in the near future... stay tuned for that. Op-return debate heats up: Reminiscent of the infamous block-size wars of 2016-17, the op-return debate has been increasingly gaining traction. What is op-return? Basically a way to store data on the Bitcoin blockchain that's not financial transactions. This is a deep and nuanced discussion, but basically one side wants to be less restrictive over what kind of data nodes pass around, and the other wants to optimize for financial data only by attempting to filter out non-financial data. An educated, feisty user base that fights for what they want is what keeps Bitcoin running the way it does, and the difficulty in getting changes through are one of its most valuable attributes. In 2017, a majority of the most powerful and prevalent companies in Bitcoin wanted to make changes to the protocol that the community didn't want, and the users won. Contrast this with if there were a desire to change a key property of the internet, and Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Verizon, and Samsung were all in agreement over the change, yet most internet users wanted to keep the status quo. Then when it came time to execute this change, it turned out all of those massive companies were powerless to effect the change they wanted. Bitcoin changes the world by not changing. https://bitbo.io/news/op-return-bitcoin-debate/ If you're interested in learning more about the five constituents of Bitcoin governance (developers, miners, exchanges, wallet software, and node runners) I suggest reading The Blocksize War by Jonathan Bier.  JP Morgan acquiesces to offering bitcoin ETF to clients: JP Morgan, or rather, Jamie Dimon, its long-standing CEO, has been one of the most harsh and consistent critics of Bitcoin for years. He's called Bitcoin a "pet rock" on several occasions, and has said that he'd fire JP Morgan employees who use or trade it. Dimon has said that he considers its use case to be sex trafficking and money laundering. It's hard to argue with his credentials in making such a statement; as Jeffrey Epstein's personal banker, Dimon is indeed an expert on those topics. Considering that he's made billions of dollars from sitting in one of the highest positions in the fiat castle, it's unsurprising why he's taken such a hostile stance toward a technology and asset that undermines and disrupts the system that's made him rich. https://bitbo.io/news/jpmorgan-bitcoin-etf-access/ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-said-193043218.html He likely understands it more than he leads on. Despite his years of bitcoin bashing, all of his competitors are offering bitcoin investing products to their clients, and his thirst for market share has exceeded his desire to remain consistent in his public opinions. Coinbase data breach exposes user data: Brian Armstrong, the CEO of shitcoin casino Coinbase (which also happens to sell bitcoin), announced a recent data breach. Apparently, overseas support agents that they employ were bribed by hackers to reveal account data, and the bribes worked. The hackers offered to keep that sensitive info a secret if Coinbase paid them a $20 million ransom. Instead, Coinbase offered a reward of $20 million for helping to catch the hackers. The information that was obtained wasn't bitcoin itself, or shitcoins themself, rather it was user data such as home addresses and account balances. This might not seem like that sensitive of information, however, physical attacks targeting bitcoiners and crypto investors are on the rise, and this leaked information is just what attackers would want. The lesson to be learned from this: be judicious with who you give your personal information out to, especially for bitcoin related services. Also, if you're using Coinbase, stop. Dropping the ball with protecting user data aside, they don't cater to people looking to stack bitcoin. Rather, their business model is flashing yoyocoin and dentacoin at you and getting you to trade in and out of this junk, which generates their trading fees. There are several bitcoin-only exchanges, including CashApp, Strike, River, Swan to name a few. Bitcoin can also be obtained without handing over your data to a big company, via working for it or trading dollars for it with someone you know. https://bitbo.io/news/coinbase-data-leak-risk/ Hope to see you at one of the upcoming meetups! nostr:nprofile1qqsfvn9e8yympgq3t0thj0af90wn7stw7deu8wegpaakgy56y948s0gpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5hsfjlce4 nostr:nprofile1qqsww0ncvgjvdxzzzraplst3f5v2zcuq2eg8szmre5uu5zgp8npwmnqpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctv9uqknp0t