After several years of FOMO, I finally attended HRF's #OsloFreedomForum. I took a friend who's political but not Bitcoiner, so I had the experience of seeing it through someone else's eyes, as well as my own. Obviously there's a lot to unpack: talking face-to-face with activists who are working in real danger is confronting in itself, and hearing their experiences fresh and recent is an emotional and impactful experience. I was surprised, however, at the large number of Bitcoiners at the conference: it's not a Bitcoin conference, but the HRF (particularly @gladstein) has been courting bitcoiners for technical assistance (and, presumably, donations) for several years now and it has resulted in a fascinating intersection. Those present are builders, not (just?) talkers. My non-bitcoiner friend noted the remarkable humility of those present: an insightful comment. Of all the discussions I had, the one which haunts me most is a conversation with Peter McCormack (ex- WBD, now rejuvinating his home town and trying to raise awareness of UK's pressing misgovernance issues). To paraphrase: "Where are the Bitcoiners improving the world? Wasn't that what this was about?". In a context of three days' exposure to people who are dedicating their lives to something much bigger than software, this question really affected me. I was expecting to leave the conference with a list of software priorities, and I did. But I still feel it's inadaquate, and so I'm now pondering the question: "what else should I be doing?".

I'm going to publish more on nostr. I need to settle on a desktop client though: mobile is always optimized for consumption and adds speed bumps to actual creation. I'm also going to need to run my own instance so that I can archive all my random thoughts and not lose them in the ether. I've made that mistake many times since I stopped publishing everything on my own blog...

I'm finally going to Oslo Freedom Forum this year. I'm going to listen, not speak. But TIL @calle is going to be there, so I finally get to fanboy^H^H^H^Hmeet him!

Sadly, "poof of reserves" is probably the next big thing in exchanges. Still.

When it comes to Bitcoin technical discussions, the phrase "Greg Maxwell was right" is almost tautological.

I restarted my "Shit Bitcoiners Say" Twixter account. I could have done in on nostr, but it's pure noise and I prefer to keep my Nostr bubble high signal as long as I can. As a side note: Reading the "For you" feed for that account is pure sewer-wading. Hard to do that and still be funny, not just snarky and horrified!

@jack mallers hasn't Tweeted yet, by reports that he's heading a new Pile of #Bitcoin venture are an interesting move. We shall, of course, refer to the new company as "Tether One".

Stacker News AMA coming up! I love doing these: always some surprising questions and answers

Stacker News

~AMA \ stacker news

It's like Hacker News but we pay you Bitcoin.

I've long been toying with the idea of an L2 for unenforceable ("trivial") amounts. The only mechanism here is that if the coordinator misbehaves, a user can prove it and send *all* the funds to a fallback. The default fallback is half-burn, half-fees*, but it could also be some custodian of last resort. This is strictly weaker than, say, lightning, but I think it's the best you can do for tiny amounts: ensure that there's no profit in cheating. The problem is that I don't think you can prove all the different ways the coordinator can screw you. It can fail to respond at all. It can claim to be unable to make any lightning payment you ask for. You can probably prove misbehaviour for any transfer to/from other internal users of the same system, but that's not very useful if you can't get funds out! So I'm posting here in case it forms a useful component for building something. Good luck! * Christian Decker nominated this a "Nero protocol", which I like.

Capitalism is good and noble and drives competition for the betterment of everyone! It's only the unholy fiat which drives people to lower quality or shrinkflate! They would never think to increase profits that way otherwise! Seriously, if you're making these arguments and nobody's pushing back, they're either not listening or you're in a bubble.

I both want and dread writing up my evaluation of OP_CTV. Any AIs good at drawing simple diagrams? I think a diagram showing what parts of the tx CTV covers is probably the best way to present it (and thus evaluate it against possible alternatives). Txid and wtxid hashing diagrams would complete the family.

Evergreen post: Bitcoin price predictions and stupid people attract.

Triquetral bone - Wikipedia

Damn. Can still type fine, though!

I don't identify as a #Bitcoiner. I do identify as a Free Software developer. From my perspective, Bitcoin is just the project that needs the most development from my skills right now (or, less charitably, where I can have the most fun!). But if you think of me as a #Bitcoiner you're going to be terribly disappointed with my non-traditional RL friends, oddball political views and weird hobbies.

"Tether is owned and operated by bitcoiners" Really? And if so, is it relevant? I suspect it is more reliable to predict behavior using current motivations, not self-proclaimed categories. And the incentives for Tether are to go further out on the risk curve, cover up any losses to avoid a run, cosy up to high-profile Bitcoiners to get endorsements, get "dumb money" holders so you never have to pay out fully. They've done all of these in the past. They're making so much money right now you might assume these things are behind them. But the incentives remain: many people thought FTX was making so much money they wouldn't flush it all doing stupid things, right?