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27 hours ago•••
This was a fascinating read. It covers various CIA shenanigans against the Soviet Union, mainly their support for Solidarity in Poland and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. It was written long before 9/11 when the long term effects showed up.
But for the audience here, the most interesting tidbit is how they spread misleading technical documentation to delay the gas pipelines to Europe (and generally sabotage the economy).
31 hours ago•••
More generally, I agree with James' observation that Bitcoin Core devs are paying much less attention to soft forks than they used to.
I can only speak for myself here. Part of the problem is that the current proposals don't excite me, yet. That's even after spending time at the op_next conference.
SegWit (which happened before I was involved) brought the promise of Lightning. Taproot lets you build cold storage with hidden fallback options.
I'm still waiting for MuSig2 to finally have broad adoption, something that's higher on my review list than new soft forks, and I barely get to it.
In that light, talk of a vault soft fork seems premature. The tool development is too far behind even for forks that already activated.
Similarly congestion control doesn't excite me. I'm general I'm skeptical of claims that the masses are suddenly going to self-custody because of a dramatic event in US politics. Especially given that plenty of other countries are in worse shape and we don't see self custody blossom at a scale where it causes congestion. The US is 5% of the world population.
That's not to say that I'm against these ideas. If I see other people work on and activate them in a competent and careful manner I might be fine with it. It's sad that their main proponents and developers burned out, and that certainly won't speed things up. Maybe grants tailored for potential soft fork devs can help here, as long as the right expectations are set.
But not being opposed does not reach the bar of me actively reviewing it, which is part of what pushes things forward.
If I see a more fleshed out design for a (BitVM powered?) sidechain with unilateral (no 1 of N nonsense) exit that gives me full privacy (Shielded CSV?), that would get me more excited. Especially if it's clear which specific opcodes are best to get there.
Other devs will have other things and other thresholds that get them out of their soft-fork winter sleep. There's a "I know it when I see it" aspect to this too.
All that said, it might be the case that one day every single core dev is excited about a soft fork proposal, or would be if they read enough about it, yet is too distracted by their day to day focus. But I'm not sure if that is really what's happening.
32 hours ago•••
The problem is that time is running out.
Bitcoin has serious trauma with claims like this.
8685ebef...faf8 replied 30 hours ago
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2 days ago•••
Interesting analysis. Two shitcoiner shenanigans in particular:
1. Attack ads against candidates that don't mention crypto at all (and obfuscating the crypto connection by how they named the PACs). This wasn't some broader cultural push either, they would support radically opposed candidates.
2. Mostly supporting candidates that were likely to win anyway
Molly assesses that this was done to impress / intimidate politicians to pay attention to their demands moving forward, even if it's against the interests of their constituents.
A big goal of the industry is to get rid of SEC enforcement against them. Regardless of your opinion about the SEC, I think it's fair to say they're mostly a problem for "crypto", not for Bitcoin. The ETFs are there, that's pretty much all the Bitcoin subset of the crypto industry needs, afaik.
A more relevant goal of the lobby is to deal with unbanking of the industry. But Molly is worried that they want to go beyond that and make the government bail them out next time things implode. Which is also something I expect to happen. Though there's no concrete evidence for this yet. https://youtu.be/06DGU_o8h5A
2 days ago•••
@npub1xts...kk5s can you make @npub18m7...q955 fold mega long posts?
2 days ago•••
Meanwhile Pertsev is still rotting in Dutch jail awaiting #TornadoCash trial. At this point even if he gets acquitted he'll probably have served the full sentence.
Habeas Corpus my ass, is what the judge presumably said, but I didn't attend the hearings. https://x.com/alex_pertsev/status/1859701374814126484
3 days ago•••
Voor de ZZP'ers... https://youtu.be/skWoCfOWGjU
3 days ago•••
TV segment [Dutch] about the ongoing phishing fiasco at Booking and other hotel platforms. I've even had this happen when I booked directly with a hotel.
So far no sats were hurt in my case, but these criminals probably gained access to my personal details. Which neither Booking not only hotel has ever done a proper GDPR data breach disclosure for. https://youtu.be/sB4z-UcZbBk
8685ebef...faf8 replied 3 days ago
2
3 days ago•••
4 days ago•••
If you pay capital gains tax on your Bitcoin, do you then owe more capital gains tax?
4 days ago•••
8685ebef...faf8 replied 4 days ago
1
4 days ago•••
Dutch Central Bank continues it's fight for mass surveillance. Apparently there were some (web) shops where you could buy gift cards with fiat which could be exchanged for bitcoin or shitcoin.
They admit they have no evidence that it's used money laundering, but they suspect it's possible. They simply told the shops that they working with unregistered brokers, and that was enough for the webshops to delist the gift cards. https://www.nu.nl/economie/6336160/webwinkels-teruggefloten-die-voor-miljoenen-aan-cryptobonnen-verkochten.html
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