Next one...
Aaron van Wirdum
npub1art8...m0w5
Author of The Genesis Book.
Former Editor-in-Chief at Bitcoin Magazine.
It's a bit hidden in the rhetoric, but Shinobi raises an important point in this article.
With CoinJoin, does everyone...
- send money to each other
- send money to themselves
(Technically, you can't really trace sats over the blockchain; each transaction destroys UTXOs and creates new UTXOs.)
Bitcoin Magazine
Samourai Did Nothing Wrong, Self Custodial Tools Are Not Money Transmitters
A reaction to the indictment charges against the Samourai developers yesterday, and the patently absurd distortions of reality, prior regulatory cl...
Long shot, but if anyone has more information about William Hill AKA TDevD / @SamouraiDev (in particular, name/contact info of his lawyer if he has one), please let me know?
aaton@bitcoinmagazine.com
AaronvanW.71 on Signal
Quick shout-out to anyone who left a rating and/or review for The Genesis Book on Amazon. You're awesome! Thank you 🙏 
Listened to Michael Saylor on the @npub1r8l0...x5dk podcast. It's 3 months old, but sheds some light on the ARK funding story.
TL;DW: Saylor strongly believes in *OSSIFICATION NOW*. From that POV, protocol development is a liability.
Some quotes (and thoughts)👇
"You only get to play God once. And Satoshi played God. And you can say 'well Satoshi got to do it, why can't I?' Well the answer is Satoshi did it, the reason we're talking about Satoshi is 'cause the other 100,000 would-be Satoshis failed. If you read the history of the world, work your way through 10,000 pages of Western history, there will be thousands and thousands and thousands of episodes of 'alpha male thinks he was put on this earth, you know, to change everything', full of hubris [...] he's gotta do more, change more, etcetera.'" (53:34)
"Bitcoin Core developers, or protocol developers, they want to fix something, or they want to make a contribution, because it's in their DNA, but developers are just the lawyers of cyberspace. When a lawyer shows up at the capital, they gotta make a law to save you from yourself, and the more laws they make, the more they cripple the economy, until eventually there's so many laws that the entire civilization collapses under its own weight." (58:06)
"The world is full of people that need something to do. I would say, the real key to wisdom, channel your energy constructively. If you're gonna do something, improve Lightning, build an application, persuade someone to adopt Bitcoin as a reserve asset, educate someone… these are all constructive things. Destructive, dilutive, distractive things are: fight with random people 'cause they want to fight with you, attack the core network and make it confusing and introduce anxiety, and confusion and fear, uncertainty and doubt into the base layer. Right? And then attempt to imprint your ego, you know, on the base protocol, you know? Like, 'I gotta introduce this so my name will go down in history forever'." (2:38:55)
My view: it's understandable to want Bitcoin to behave like the granite under Manhattan (his analogy); a solid bedrock that never changes. Especially if you truly believe Bitcoin will take over the world as SoV-only and "there is no second best". But IMO this is wishful thinking. While I agree it's near-impossible for an alt to overtake Bitcoin, I do think adoption could stall.
Luckily, Bitcoin isn't really a natural element. It's spontaneous order, more like language. Hard to change and no one can dictate changes, but if market wants it to change, it can.
Furthermore, despite Stephan asking a few questions in that direction, Saylor mostly failed to distinguish between protocol upgrades and general software maintenance.
Arguing against any hard/soft forks is one thing, but Bitcoin Core 26.0 can obviously not last for centuries...
Having said that, Saylor is of course free to not upgrade anymore and stick to Bitcoin Core 26.0 for as long as he lives.
In Bitcoin, Explained 92, @Sjors Provoost and I explain what's new in the upcoming Bitcoin Core 27.0 release.
👂👇
https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/@nado/episodes/episode-92-bitcoin-core-27-0-c4wla/embed/light
In Bitcoin, Explained 91, @Sjors Provoost and I are joined once more by @Jesse de Wit, this time to explain splicing.
👂👇
https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/@nado/episodes/episode-91-splicing-qh8g9
The Genesis Book review by former DigiCash employee Jurjen Bos.
Medium
I thought I understood BitCoin, until now
I don’t do book reviews, but I am happy to make an exception for this one. It all started when I was contacted by the Aaron van Wirdum, the…
Reason published an excerpt from The Genesis Book 🙌
Reason.com
How 1990s libertarians laid the groundwork for cryptocurrency
Economist Friedrich Hayek inspired an early foray into electronic cash.
Due to a shipping issue, no Genesis Books made it to Bitcoin Atlantis this weekend.
However, at 14:40 (2:40pm) today a grand total of ONE BOOK will be for sale in the book corner!
And yes there will be a signing session.
In Bitcoin, Explained 90, @Sjors Provoost,
@Jesse de Wit and I explain asynchronous Lightning payments.
👂👇
https://bitcoinexplainedpodcast.com/@nado/episodes/episode-90-asynchronous-lightning-payments-31owp
In 2011, Room 77 was the first bar in the world to start accepting bitcoin payments. In the years after, it became the best clubhouse the community ever had.
Unfortunately, the bar closed in 2020, but I'm leaving one Genesis Book here for a lucky finder
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I'm not in London anymore, but I do have access to the stream and will tune in from time to time.
So far tiday, Craig Wright was being his ranting self, lashing out at "BTC Core" and high fees and how the legal system was supposed to stop double spends.
#COPAvWright
Ok, for all you fashionistas out there, I did snap one quick photo of Craig with my potatoe from across the street as he paced out of the court house at the end of day 1.
https://image.nostr.build/75420e8f69986efc4613b51d8b8239dec367399fda3823cc0e9db5c3044eba9f.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1440x1920&blurhash=_CGkj%5DNGi%405X5vROi_%7BaRiV%3DENEoRiskw%5Bs%2COFWAt7WCsk%5E*xuXAoe%24dWYNH%2C9ozofkXwGW%3DNf%235xYa%7EX9V%3FkCX9%5EJ%251X9fPV%40ofNHxtt6ogs.nhogNIE1WAs%3An%7ExCWYf%2C&x=2c9e5ad7c992f165a00ffc4b07d5d707f2908bd3fc76cd1f1a969ec62039ae03
Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos, but I did make a courtroom sketch.
#COPAvWright
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Last hour was more of the same. CSW denies he forged docs, said he'd have done a better job if he did. Called into question expertise/objectivity of digital forensics experts (including his own). Etc. etc.
This was my last day at the #COPAvWright trial for now; heading home.
In block 3 of #COPAvWright (day 2), COPA asked Wright about documents that appeared to have been backdated.
Wright in response called into question the expertise and/or objectivity of the digital forensics expert that made these assessments.
One more block of CSW hearings today...
In block 2 of #COPAvWright (day 2), COPA asked CSW about BlackNet, an anonymous marketplace for information, originally proposed by Tim May.
CSW worked on his own version, says he realized it did not have to be anonymous, but pseudonymous and traceable.
May's BlackNet was itself an anonymous version of Phil Salin's AMIX, however, so I'm not sure what the new insight would have been. Was CSW's version of BlackNet just AMIX again? I don't have the answer.
(I also wrote about AMIX and BlackNet in The Genesis Book.)
Wright's defense did make one good point just before lunch break. The atmosphere in the court room is intolerable: a lack of fresh air makes it hot and stuffy inside.
First break.
Craig Wright claimed he's never forged a document to support his claim that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.
Says signs of forgery actually suggest he _didn't_ forge it. "If I forged the document, it would be perfect." Probably sets the tone for coming weeks.
#COPAvWright