“You can just do things” is one of my favorite meme phrases that I see out there. Back around my senior year of high school, I consciously decided to shift to that mindset. I went from kind of operating within rules, and trying to leave a light touch around me, to being more assertive and creative about what I want to do. It was kind of a quiet “I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me” vibe shift. At the time I think the terminology I filtered it through was Sagan’s pale blue dot. Like, everything that has ever been done is on this crazy little ball spinning through space. So it’s okay to just do things, to take chances, to think outside of the box. Because the box itself is already actually kind of crazy. And then in the mid-2010s, like around 2016, I did kind of a checkup on how I’m doing, and felt that while I had used that strategy well, I wasn’t thinking big enough. I had primarily used that strategy to climb up the ranks in the engineering world, with the goal of making things better for myself and my colleagues/division; I would just do things and be the person who pushed to say “yes” a lot and it had worked out really well. But for my next phase, I felt I needed to “just do things” outside of an organizational structure as well. So I started my namesake website. I previously had a small anon website on stock investing which I was able to sell to some publisher and that gave me experience, but this one would be different. It would have my face on it. Any sort of content creator starts by being a little crazy. It starts with the improbable concept that you could create written or audio or visual content that thousands or millions of people will actually want to see and get value out of, in the sea of endless content that already exists. But it starts somewhere. With just doing things. My view was that I would do my best, leverage the experience that I had, and give it my honest shot. Never looked back since. It’s been a wild journey.

My March newsletter talks mainly about AI, and some of the nuances between datacenter AI and portable AI.

Lyn Alden

March 2025 Newsletter: AI's Impact on the Investing Landscape

March 27, 2025 This newsletter issue focuses on the topic of artificial intelligence, and provides a framework for separating datacenter AI from po...

ChatGPT can’t be all that smart, since it keeps trying to show my left ear. Also titled as, me trying and failing to be productive today.

-What’s a movie from the past 25 years that hasn’t gotten enough attention in your view? Something that punches way above its weight. 😇 -The spicier question. What’s a movie from that same time period that is very popular, including kind of in your own social circle, that you think is kind of mid or overrated but it’s too awkward to say, but you’ll drop it in a Nostr comment? 😈

I find the nation state and corporate treasury adoption story pretty boring. It’s not because I disagree with it. Once a liquid asset reaches this scale, it’s natural for larger entities to want to own it. A lot of people actively *don’t want* those big entities to buy it, which I think is kind of delusional since it’s a permissionless asset. Those anti-treasurers don’t find it boring; it’s their new thing to argue against. And yet at the same time I have little interest in talking about them buying it. Yes, I think more of them will over time. So I just find the topic boring. Neither for or against. Would rather focus on other uses of bitcoin.

My Nostr post from two years ago where I criticized Elon (which was probably the only time I ever lost my temper online, being actively censored, and still stand by it) is getting a lot of new replies lately. People agreeing or disagreeing, etc. It seems to be an influx of users, rather than a resurgence of the post itself. Noting this because it’s statistically interesting.

It’s been about five years now since Swan Bitcoin opened their doors and started doing business. In addition to successes, they ran into various frictions and controversies during that time due to limitations at their counter parties that they had to work through and upscale from, but at the end of the day, they have promoted self custody from the start, still do, and people can withdraw their sats safe and sound. They want you to, and you should, ideally. Their vision from founding was that sats probably shouldn’t be on the balance sheet liability side of a startup (them) and instead should be in qualified custodians held in buyers’ names, to the extent that they’re not self custodied. They made it free to pull sats into self custody from the start and have a really high ratio of buyers pulling into self custody. Cheers to them for being five years in operation and still working for their users. When people are like “You should pull sats from Swan due to headline XYZ” Swan is like “headline XYZ is mostly wrong, here’s why, but yes you should pull sats from us, which we’ve been saying from the start!”

I agree with this take. I would add that connections matter. I see many people on Nostr say that blue-checks still use Twitter mainly for audience reach. They’re addicted to the reach, and so forth. While I do love the dunking on blue-checks overall (as a blue-check myself, it amuses me and you should keep it coming), I’d point out that it’s more than that. When I was temporarily locked out of my 700k+ follower permissioned account on Twitter, I didn’t lose sleep over not being able to broadcast to people. I have email lists and other mechanisms for that, where it economically matters. What I lost sleep over is that I couldn’t see my friends’ posts or DMs. The *receiver* side of it all. Similarly, when people ask me why I don’t just leave Twitter and be Nostr exclusive, that’s the reason. My friends aren’t just bitcoiners; they’re also tradfi people. Twitter is where they are. Leaving that network would mean leaving friends. Would mean not seeing their content. -Twitter is the fastest news source. I literally monitor it as part of my research process. -Twitter is where my friends are. The tradfi community isn’t on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook. It’s on Twitter. Bitcoiners too. I’ve been open here on Nostr about dealing with isolation when my husband has had to be in Egypt longer than normal due to a construction process, and my social media life, both here and on Twitter, has been helpful for me at dealing with that. The sheer amount of people I know on Twitter, and the rapidity of responses, is really powerful. That network effect is so strong. It’s generally not optimal to try to attack it directly. Instead, you need to build and popularize things that *can’t* be done by Twitter. Zaps are the go-to example. But also using the social graph for non-social media things (ie reviews). Be a compliment to Twitter that a user *also* needs, rather than trying to convince a user to leave Twitter and join Nostr. That’s how you win. How we win. View quoted note →

I get a ton of questions about my husband. As a somewhat public figure I suck at privacy, while he is a privacy maxi. He’s my main editor, oversees support on my website, and yet quietly is like “nah, don’t want any attention.” In 2021 when I went to a dinner/meeting at Saylor’s house, my husband dropped me off and then picked me up as my personal ride. To Saylor’s credit, he came out personally at night to make sure I was safe while I waited on the curb for a ride, as his only female guest that night and Miami at night can be challenging. The next day my husband dropped me off at some VC event and my friend Elizabeth Stark was aware enough to be like “you got out of the front seat of that uber. It wasn’t an uber, was it?” And I was like “No, that was my husband, lol.” He dropped me off at every similar event event that year (Ubers were hard to hire in 2021, amid pandemic constraints, so he rented a Camaro, since normal utility cars were sold out, and he drove me around in it to my various events and then wouldn’t enter them even though he could. For years since then he does stuff like this. Touches events but purposely won’t attend. We have a ton of pictures, but he doesn’t like them to be public, and allowed a 2022 vacation post, which I still use. Adding a second one here as a Nostr exclusive. The second ever public pic of him. His first name is Mohamed, the most popular first name in the world, and yet hardly anyone knows his last name. Which is how he wants it. He had dinner with Peter McCormack in Manhattan once, and then the only side event I ever got him to show up at was in Bedford at Peter’s CheatCode event. So Mohamed met Natalie Brunell, Preston Pysh, and a few other people there. And then went dark again. In 2022 amid the bitcoin bear market capitulation depths while I was buying, he was like “So, how many do we have? Okay thanks for the breakdown, add way more here.” It’s up 500% since then. When family members ask me about. Bitcoin, I’m like “well it’s this open source people can…” and then Mohamed intervenes and is like “She’s being polite. And also kind of her robotic retard self. You should buy a lot of it, here’s why.” Then proceeds to orange pill the entire extended family. He watches some of my podcasts and knows a ton of people in both the bitcoin space and macro space, and then quietly is like “I’ll literally drive you there but then I’ll stay away, privately.” He’s the GOAT at not drawing attention. He also lies Nostr but doesn’t post here; or anywhere. He likes hearing updates though. He unintentionally made himself as a meme by not posting publicly and being private. And yet if he saw it, embed be like “it’s ephemeral. Building a fitness facility is her gets direct sun. Need your input on whether it will meet our goals, since you optimize all these details.” My favorite bitcoiner, who isn’t a bitcoiner.

One of the things I find most challenging in fiction lately is over-editing. Like, I managed to write my thing, but no I’m not stephen king; so I’m always looking for areas to improve. Under-editing would risk plot holes or other major issues. I would only publish something I put a ton of thought into. Over-editing risks detracting from author voice. I send drafts to my husband, since we’re currently apart due to a construction project, and he’s one of the few people that amuses me because he’ll literally comment on my manuscript with brutal inside jokes like “I know you were raised poor and you don’t know better, but this change would be retarded, you should revert” or “I get what you’re doing here, but ultimately you should respect the reader. This edit would be incorrect. Go out and touch grass instead of propose bad changes like this.”

Look at the zaps on the image. I’m currently working through an email backlog and a Twitter/X DM backlog. Like, whatever it is, I love what you’re working on but I’m too busy. Meanwhile: Blockstream intern: “if I zap her 250 sats or 21 cents, she broadcasts about us. She finds it funny and also relevant for Nostr.” Blockstream exec: “1) What” Blockstream intern: “Literally, Lyn is meming about this exchange right now. She said good stuff about the Jade Plus. I tried to send her one on Twitter and she ignored it, and yet I just had to zap about it, look, she keeps posting about it.”

Stablecoins quietly the biggest attack ever on fractional reserve banking, and I’m here for it.

I look at my post comments and see Blockstream advertising again. Part of me wants to make their advertising campaign here so successful that their intern gets hired or gets a raise. Like in the boardroom, the Nostr idea guy does the numbers, lol.

There are so many reply-guy comments on Twitter/X that my mind quickly puts into a "your mom" joke framework, but then I never post it. As soon as I read, "You didn't even" or "Bitcoin is" or things along those lines, my mind is like "Your mom didn't" or "Your mom is". And if I wrote them out in those thread's context, they're kind of funny. Mainly I don't post them out of respect for moms, since moms are fucking awesome and I only want to send positive vibes. It's quietly my biggest restraint.

My mom texted that she's fed up with politics and is watching The Matrix for the first time. So, there's that.

It’s actually crazy that I can just randomly pay/tip Calle, without knowing his real name or business identity, and yet still know it’s actually him due to a self-organizing social graph. Ecash can make it even easier and more private. But the capability is already under-appreciated.

Zap marketing is cooler to see than platform marketing, imo. Commenters getting micro-paid, love to see it. From my recent lightning bounty thread: