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8 days ago•••
GM
13 days ago•••
“He felt closer to dust, he said, than to light, air or water” WG Sebald, The Emigrants 1992
Frank Auerbach, Head of EOW 1960 (snap by me in 2023)
🤙
18 days ago
20 days ago•••
Kudos to Wilmington Grammar School for Boys and their inspiring teacher @Huxley for leading the UK’s first bitcoin program!
The My First Bitcoin Diploma equips students with skills in digital finance and critical thinking.
Read more here:
103 days ago•••
One of my favourite quotes is that 99% of success in life is just showing up.
It’s only just occurred to me that Bitcoin - of course - fits this rule.
Every ten minutes or so, Bitcoin shows up.
18 days ago•••
Woody Allen?
18 days ago
18 days ago•••
Latest article is out; posting this only on Nostr so please share on.
Reflections on the recent MSTR earnings call. @npub15dq...lm5m at the absolute top of his game. Next few years are going to be wild.
#microstrategy
#mstr
#saylor
#bitcoin @npub18aj...dmq0 @npub1tc0...gdxh true north reference was fantastic to see
24 days ago
24 days ago•••
"This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing; welcome to Manchester."
< B E A T D R O P>
🔥🔥🔥
24 days ago•••
Great film.
Now do the scene with Peter Kay and the transit van.
32 days ago
32 days ago•••
Just had an exciting moment that my normie friends will never appreciate.
I bought a couple beers.
...But it was more than that. I bought a couple beers with Bitcoin.
...But it was more than that. I bought a couple beers in Lugano Switzerland with lightning, through Zeus wallet with my own lightning channel, connected to Alby Hub, running on my Start9 node, on my shelf in my office back home in Canada.
So yes, I just bought a couple beers. But it was fucking exciting.
32 days ago•••
You stole the spirit of the post I was going to make when I did this for the first time in Lugano 😆
Been using Alby Go in the same way and it’s so fucking dope
32 days ago•••
Wait how did you connect Zeus though? Does it accept NWC now?
32 days ago•••
Zeus does it via lnd connect, which there's an option for on the web interface.
32 days ago•••
Yeah my LND connect has been giving me tons of trouble. Been super disappointed. @npub1wnl...n3wr has said it works fantastic for him. I just get constant disconnects, and the past 3 weeks it’s almost nothing but random RPC errors for seemingly no reason.
35 days ago•••
Like Bitcoin, gold hasn’t made an all-time high this year against the inflation-adjusted dollar.
38 days ago
39 days ago•••
We're celebrating our 100th episode today.
Just getting started. LFG.
38 days ago•••
Congratulations. Keep up the great work.
39 days ago
39 days ago•••
Craig Wright, discredited as Satoshi in UK courts, launches a £911B legal battle against Bitcoin Core developers.
My latest piece in Forbes featuring COPA & @hodlonaut #Bitcoin
39 days ago•••
Great piece. Beautifully structured and well explained.
38 days ago
39 days ago•••
Thank you. 🥰
39 days ago
40 days ago•••
41 days ago
🤙
41 days ago
42 days ago•••
This is the official #Bitaxe 601 Gamma giveaway!
How to enter: •Like this post •Share this post. •Follow us on NOSTR.
What you’ll receive: •1- Bitaxe 601 Gamma. •1- 5V, 6A power supply. •1-Solo Satoshi Bitaxe stand. •1- Bitaxe “Anarchy” t-shirt. •1- Limited Edition PEZ dispenser.
This package will be shipped anywhere in the world completely free of charge.
•One winner will be randomly picked 72 hours from the time this is posted.
The winner has 24 hours to claim the reward. If the package is not claimed, another person will be randomly picked.
#Bitcoin #SoloSatoshi #BTC
38 days ago•••
Congratulations @npub1th7...lr2t on being selected for the #Bitaxe 601 Gamma bundle giveaway!
Please contact us within 24 hours to claim your package. 😎
#Bitcoin
41 days ago•••
I'm in it for the pez dispenser
42 days ago•••
🤝
42 days ago•••
Done and done.
42 days ago•••
I could use a bitaxe. Hahaha
41 days ago
🤙
41 days ago
42 days ago•••
This is the official #Bitaxe 601 Gamma giveaway!
How to enter: •Like this post •Share this post. •Follow us on NOSTR.
What you’ll receive: •1- Bitaxe 601 Gamma. •1- 5V, 6A power supply. •1-Solo Satoshi Bitaxe stand. •1- Bitaxe “Anarchy” t-shirt. •1- Limited Edition PEZ dispenser.
This package will be shipped anywhere in the world completely free of charge.
•One winner will be randomly picked 72 hours from the time this is posted.
The winner has 24 hours to claim the reward. If the package is not claimed, another person will be randomly picked.
42 days ago•••
LIKDID POSTDID SHAREDID COMMENTID
GIV ME BITAXE
44 days ago•••
GM
🤙
45 days ago
45 days ago•••
46 days ago•••
BITCOIN IS 'GREEN'
Many wrongly believe Bitcoin miners are devouring all the world’s energy and destroying the planet. This is due to erroneous ‘green’ anti-Bitcoin propaganda peddled by those who see Bitcoin as a threat, or (misguidedly) believe they are competing with it, or are simply poorly informed and parroting mainstream disinformation.
Bitcoin consumes a lot of energy annually, but in world terms this is tiny: even a probable overestimate of low hundreds of terrawat hours per year is a tiny fraction of a single percent of global energy use. But unlike most activities, which use mostly carbon-based power, Bitcoin runs primarily on sustainable energy, making it far ‘greener’ than other industries in terms of carbon emissions.
Worse, those advocating against Bitcoin from a carbon perspective have it backwards, because they fail to grasp the network’s revolutionary utility and efficiency: they should instead campaign to have energy-guzzling classical payments systems replaced by Bitcoin, as this would result in vastly reduced energy use, as well as a consequentially far lower 'carbon footprint'.
And what about methane, which is widely considered orders of magnitude worse for atmospheric warming than carbon dioxide? Bitcoin is already eliminating methane emitted by natural gas flaring, landfill sites and animal farms. At scale, this could contribute significantly to achieving emission reduction targets.
Agile and mobile, Bitcoin miners are also happy to be intermittent power consumers, helping to balance grids by using off-peak excess generation, improving overall system efficiency and thereby reducing consumption and emissions.
None of this is because Bitcoin desires to be ‘green’. It’s just that Bitcoin miners' incentives – to use the cheapest electricity they can find – aligns with using otherwise wasted energy which doesn’t have rival consumers. Because renewable electricity generation is often inefficient and wasteful, and many energy sources are not exploitable by grids, Bitcoin gravitates towards their cheap, otherwise stranded power.
Bitcoin is ‘green’.
53 days ago•••
Who do you trust when it comes to health topics?
I’m looking for interesting people to talk to and make videos about health topics right now.
53 days ago•••
You shouldn't trust anyone, ever. The average health podcaster has no idea what they are talking about, yet they are quite confident in their (lack of) knowledge.
Probably easy for me to talk since I am a doctor, so I can smell the bullshit, but any person owes it to themselves to verify information. People should get comfortable using pubmed and get educated on how to verify medical information.
1. Always search for RCTs and Systematic reviews of RCTs, observational studies CANNOT establish a causal link.
2. Always make sure to read the proposed effect size. If the RR of an observational study is 1.2, just ignore it and continue living your life (that's the correlation between LDL and heart disease btw). Anything under 2 is simply not worth your time.
3. Always check who funded and authored the study. I ignore any nutritional study, no matter its supposed quality, published by Loma Linda university because those people have a religious goal with promoting vegetarianism.
4. Don't trust any new drug studies, always wait for at least ~7years before taking any new drug seriously. 7 years is the average time it takes to recall a dangerous drug from the market.
5. Be very skeptical about large effect claims and surrogate markers. I don't care if a diabetic drug improves glycemic control if people die more frequently while taking it or if the mortality rate remains the same.
I recommend reading Malcolm Kendrick's book "Doctoring Data" and "Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime" by P. Gotzsche to learn more.
It is essential for the person to understand that medical research and medicine in general has been completely corrupted by pharmaceutical companies and governmental regulators. It is better to assume deception while reading a research study than honesty.
53 days ago•••
Looks like very sound advice.
Any further tips on specific areas?
(I’m currently looking into hypertension management)
52 days ago
53 days ago•••
I'll just say that the definition for hypertension gets updated to lower and lower values every ~15 years or so. Used to be that a systolic BP of over 140 was considered hypertensive and an indication to treat, but now...
The AHA, which is probably the most corrupt health organization in America, has decided that a BP over 130 is hypertensive and should be treated. As a rule, it is probably best to ignore what the AHA has to say, since it is more of a marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies than a real medical organization. I would treat all the medical doctors working for them as prostitutes.
52 days ago•••
Many thanks Vlada.
UK soon to follow I’d wager, with >130 already rebranded ‘pre high’.
53 days ago•••
Would you want to jump on a podcast talking about this?
I am super interested in knowing more about this and having an open discussion
53 days ago•••
I am truly flattered by your offer, but I am not confident enough for the public spotlight yet.
I recommend contacting dr. Kendrick (the author of the book I recommended), he might be interested in making a video. Ken Berry recently made a nostr account and he might be interested as well.
Personally, I have grown very disillusioned with my profession. All I see is either profiteering off chronic disease while prostituting the profession to big pharma, or overworked colleagues who are just following whatever the guidelines say. Breaking ranks and criticizing dogma is severely punished usually, unless it leads to more drug recommendations.
Always, always remember: Don't trust, verify.
53 days ago•••
GM
(Skit Note, Banksy, 2004)
53 days ago•••
BITCOIN IS NOT A PONZI
“A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors… Ponzi scheme organizers often promise high returns with little or no risk. Instead, they use money from new investors to pay earlier investors and may steal some of the money for themselves.” - US Securities and Exchange Commission
Many governments such as the UK and US have large debts and spend more than they earn. They repay existing debts by taking on new debt. They pay returns and portray themselves as ‘risk free’. And by continuing to run spending deficits, the governments always take some of the money for themselves. Given this, government debt schemes such as US Treasuries and UK Gilts look very much like Ponzi schemes.
With only a small percentage of cash reserves compared with customer deposits, fractionally-reserved commercial banks can often only repay existing customers with new cash deposits. They also promise returns in the form of interest with little or no risk. And by charging fees and paying out less interest than they earn from depositors’ funds, they always take some money for themselves. Therefore commercial banks also resemble Ponzi schemes.
Cryptos (as distinct from Bitcoin) typically have Ponzi-like features. Insiders often receive a large proportion of the coins ‘pre-mine’, generate hype around the retail launch and drive up (‘pump’) the price. They then sell (‘dump’) their large stake to new investors, crashing the price and leaving outsiders holding all the coins. They often entice victims by promising high returns in the form of ‘yield’, normally above prevailing market interest rates.
By contrast, bitcoin holders are promised no repayment, returns, interest or yield. The only payments Bitcoin makes are to nodes called ‘miners’ (which need not already hold any bitcoin) for providing transaction processing and security services. Bitcoin makes no claims about risk, and does not receive or steal any money. Bitcoin isn’t even an investment scheme – it’s simply a monetary good.
Unlike government bonds, commercial banks and many cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin exhibits no Ponzi-like characteristics.
Bitcoin is not a Ponzi.
59 days ago
59 days ago•••
From 1776, when the U.S. was founded, to 2008, they accumulated debts totalling 9.5 trillion dollars. From 2008 to today, they have accumulated $25 trillion in debt.
The MFs have managed to accumulate 2.6 times the amount of debt in 16 years than in 223 years.
61 days ago•••
BITCOIN IS NOT CRYPTO
Bitcoin is the best digital monetary system due to its rock-solid core properties, its fairness to all participants and – crucially – because it eliminates trust.
Despite publicly being declared dead hundreds of times every year since its birth, Bitcoin is now the world’s most secure large computer network with millions of users worldwide. Robust in design, it continues to grow, with the Lindy Effect already suggesting that it has a very long future indeed.
Since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009, many thousands of imitators have been created – ‘crypto’ as distinct from Bitcoin. But because Bitcoin is the first successful digital money, any crypto trying to be money, irrespective of its characteristics, cannot compete with Bitcoin’s established network effects. Even near-identical copies ‘hard-forked’ from Bitcoin itself have all diminished in value, participation and security relative to Bitcoin over time. As time passes, this network effect is getting stronger. It is a key reason why no crypto network comes close to Bitcoin’s value, and – due to Metcalfe’s Law – is unlikely to do so in the future.
Some cryptos are better than Bitcoin at various non-monetary things, e.g. using less power, being more private, and acting as a platform for other cryptos and so-called ‘smart contracts’. But all cryptos are inferior to Bitcoin at being money. This isn’t just due to Bitcoin’s network effect: it is also because almost all cryptos suffer from one or more of four critical shortcomings.
First, most cryptos rely on trust because they eschew Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism for the misleadingly named ‘proof of stake’. In reality, this is proof of nothing because it trusts subjective abstract power (the opinion of the privileged), rather than verifying objective physical power (via computational work irrefutably done). By design, proof of stake also increases centralisation, ensuring the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful: in proof of work, work begets wealth, but in proof of stake, wealth begets wealth.
Second, most cryptos are less censorship resistant than Bitcoin because, instead of being controlled by a large number of ordinary users, they are instead effectively controlled by a small number of privileged users. Even though they cloak themselves in the verbiage of decentralisation, they are in reality decentralised in name only.
Third, far from being sound and fair monetary systems, many cryptos are scams with sizeable ‘pre-mines’, where before launch insiders take a large proportion (or even most of) the coins which will be created. This exacerbates the problems of proof of stake, with the insiders accruing even more profit and control at the expense of the outsiders.
Fourth, many cryptos do not have a hard monetary limit, or that limit is not clearly defined. This makes them vulnerable to inflation, where the privileged participants can be enriched at the expense of the others.
Some crypto creators have genuinely noble intentions, and are trying to improve on Bitcoin: it may be the most secure and decentralised computer network in history, but its limited transaction throughput means it is not particularly scalable. Unfortunately, these attempts all fail due to the so-called ‘blockchain trilemma’, which states that security, scalability and decentralisation cannot all be achieved together. Bitcoin wins by not trying to resolve this trilemma at all on the ledger itself, instead incentivising large-volume small-value transactions to move to second-layer networks with far higher capacity than any crypto's blockchain.
Note that Bitcoin’s superiority as money isn’t only the opinion of individual Bitcoiners. It’s also the view of large financial institutions.
“Bitcoin is fundamentally different from any other digital asset. No other digital asset is likely to improve upon bitcoin as a monetary good because bitcoin is the most (relative to other digital assets) secure, decentralized, sound digital money and any ‘improvement’ will necessarily face tradeoffs.” – Fidelity Research Study 'Bitcoin First: Why Investors Need to Consider Bitcoin Separately from Other Digital Assets, 2022
Bitcoin is not crypto.
59 days ago
60 days ago•••
Let's just stop with this weird narrative. Bitcoin is crypto.
Satoshi called Bitcoin crypto. Satoshi even enjoyed other cryptos - he created Namecoin after all. He obviously didn't think Bitcoin would be the only one.
"But because Bitcoin is the first successful digital money, any crypto trying to be money, irrespective of its characteristics, cannot compete with Bitcoin’s established network effects" 👇
59 days ago•••
I don’t see a crypto challenging Bitcoin in the first chart. Even all of them put together look to be in the minority and declining.
With its transparent public ledger, Bitcoin is the antithesis of privacy, and can’t even try and compete with opaque systems such as Monero and the fiat system. So Bitcoin being the most accepted currency on the ‘darknet’ is surprising: even where secrecy is most prized, Bitcoin is still leading. If anything, that seems to demonstrate Bitcoin’s supremacy.
Can you point me at any resources on Monero? Genuinely interested to find out more, particularly its levels of use and decentralisation.
59 days ago•••
The long term general trend on the first chart is Bitcoin losing dominance over time with the cryptocurrency market overall. Second one shows it being displaced on specific markets like the darknet (Bitcoins first use case and the only place your can transact without permission). Wouldn't be surprised if Monero has surpassed Bitcoin in the present since that is from 2021. Most DNMs have included Monero and a few of the largest markets have gone exclusively Monero since then.
Besides the darknet, here are a few recent metrics on Monero adoption and decentralization. Nodes count and distribution are in the same ballpark as Bitcoin. Mining can be argued to be more decentralized since nearly everyone has access to a general purpose computer. It doesn't require a specialized equipment:
https://monero.fail/map note1japrdgyh9hkkqd922ahhq0n0jwv034vtj57xtuv5wn2e0gq2u92qeqhqa0
59 days ago•••
Another metric where Bitcoin is obviously losing adoption (and didn't have to) to stablecoins outside of western countries. Despite being (mostly) permissioned systems, stablecoins are still very useful and popular in Asia, Africa, and South America (majority of the world). Why is Bitcoin losing in all these different markets? It fell behind and didn't offer a helpful alternative for all these users. I still don't think Bitcoin is going anywhere, but it will continue losing in these areas if it doesn't provide any competitive alternatives. Potentially fatally over the long term.
59 days ago
60 days ago•••
For something to become money it must be #fungible. #Bitcoin is not. But it doesn't need to have a hard limit. #Gold was money for centuries, if not longer and it doesn't have a hard limit. Also, it's ironic that you are using large corporations to support your argument.
Bitcoin is good for saving. If you want money, you want #Monero.
59 days ago•••
Can you tell me more about why Bitcoin is not fungible?
Before Bitcoin, you could argue that nothing was functionally finite except time. However, gold comes closer than most things: it is scarce and hard to produce, qualities which help make it a good money.
Whether we like it or not, large finance houses promoting Bitcoin means one thing above all: adoption.
How decentralised is Monero? How many people likely hold it? Can you post me at any resources (genuinely interested to know)?
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