"Thus was the dubious “clear and present danger” standard born. Holmes himself sought to redefine the standard later that same... more

Bitcoin is ultimately just a piece of software, the network – the global, censorship resistant, immutable system – is ultimately... more

"The question that the fiat system answers is the following: who is allowed to counterfeit currency, and how much? Further,... more

"The financial system in the United States, and for most of the rest of the world for that matter, can... more

I joined John today for an over 2 hour rip on the nature of Bitcoin, numerous technical developments, the trade... more

There is no magic wand. There is no such thing as a free lunch. When we bail out an institution,... more

"One aspect that is still massively under-utilized is the programmability of Bitcoin. While simple things like scheduled payments and automated... more

"One immediate lesson many drew from this event was a reconsideration of the risk of fiat liabilities in an environment... more

"The 20th century was the first where technology enabled forms of violent state competition, as well as peaceful globalization, across... more

"Lightning is the way to make bitcoin the universal mainstream currency it was designed to be. This is how we’re... more

"Over the long run, I view the outcome, one way or the other, more as a matter of technology than politics. From the top-down side, there... more

"For proponents of privacy and open networks to win becomes a matter of making the technology easy to use, too costly to stamp out, and well-understood... more

"This context highlights the importance of the 1920–1921 depression. Here the government and Fed did the exact opposite of what... more

"But for me, when I think about what Bitcoin’s properties are as a store-of-value asset and then compare those properties... more

"People are very quick to project technology adoption curves onto Bitcoin. But the problem is that Bitcoin is not just a technology.... more

I recently had an awesome two-hour marathon chat about P2P social media with BitKarrot from the Nostrovia podcast. We chatted... more

Hot wallets, cold wallets, hardware wallets, custodial wallets, lightning wallets, holy crap! What does all of this mean and how... more

Nostr, OP_VAULT, decentralized media, privacy, the incredible progress of the past few years, the challenges of making Bitcoin hardware, why... more

"Here is a little story of how I built a #Bitcoin Lightning payments app used by more than 10,000 users... more

Not your keys, not your coins. What does this mean? Your Bitcoin keys are literally the keys to the kingdom. They... more

"If Fedipools prove to be viable we could find ourselves in a world where bitcoin mining pool centralization risk is... more

"This is the end of Lightning as a niche technology and the beginning of Lightning as a (ubiquitous) Service. In a... more

"Furthermore, when Bitcoiners develop privacy and scaling technology for Bitcoin, we make it substantially more challenging for anti-coiners to make... more

One thing to make abundantly clear: Nostr is a protocol. It’s a set of rules that servers and clients use to communicate... more

In order to truly understand why Bitcoin works, we must understand a fundamental tool that operates at basically every level... more

"But, I keep coming to the same conclusion: We are here for this movement. We are here to build a... more

"To wit, we have raised the debt limit 22 times from 1997 to 2022. Yep, we’ve raised the limit 22 times... more

Mathias and Paolo join us for a Twitter Spaces AMA to answer all of your questions about this cutting-edge technology.... more

WEN MOBILE!? No more do we have to ask because Keet mobile has finally arrived! Download from the App Store... more

"Today no money in the world fully performs all three services. National currencies are being used as means-of-payment and standard-of-value... more

Sure, everyone tells me that bitcoin is a new technology. That it's magic money for the internet and tokens you... more

"All of this is important because there has been a resurrection of Burns-type positions in the current debate about the... more

"Last night, lightning struck our house and burned it down. I escaped wearing only my nightclothes. In an instant, everything... more

"But as with all new technology, it can be incredibly hard to explain what’s actually happening, without getting too complex.... more

Today we break into the racket that is the IMF and World Bank monetary imperialism. Piggy backing off Gladstein's remarkable... more

"Bitcoin is paradoxical. It is simple yet complicated, ever-changing yet unchangeable. A novel machine without any novel parts; a technological... more

The problem today is that we have companies who own both the protocol and discovery of content. Which ultimately puts... more

Bringing back one of my favorites today that I mention often but we haven't covered in a very long time.... more

How much economic ignorance can you fit into 1 minute and 54 seconds? Well apparently its quite a lot. Peter... more

"Bitcoin is not a hedge against inflation; it is the permanent solution to inflation, and those are two very different... more

"If your money requires permission to be spent, it is not your money. If your money has counterparty risk, it... more

"So they fire out digital chaff frantically in every direction, they play whack-a-mole with high-engagement nodes that are or could... more

"This is the root of our cultural concern for crypto DeFi. The cultural, and arguably even structural, commitment to financialization... more

This is the full, unabridged reading of Alex Gladstein's work, "STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT: HOW THE IMF AND WORLD BANK REPRESS POOR... more

"Research from Mexico — a typical country in terms of consistent involvement historically from the Bank and Fund — shows... more

"The “generosity” of the West enabled unaccountable leaders to plunge their nations into debt deeper than ever before. The system... more

"Far from playing the role of good samaritan, the Fund does not even follow the timeless human tradition, established more... more

"To give an example of what this might look like in a given year, in 2012 developing countries received $1.3... more

"A 2014 analysis showed that the IMF had attached, on average, 20 conditions to each loan it gave out in... more

There are about a million claims out there as to what blockchains are going to fix, and how NFTs are... more

"A data-driven exploration proving that Lightning scales bitcoin payments beyond Visa and that second-layer innovation is the way." - Stanislov... more

“They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few... more

"We believe the core of the cultural fissure between crypto and bitcoin comes down to financialization. While the ethos of... more

"One counterargument might be that the de facto state capture of Ethereum in gradually becoming more and more OFAC compliant... more

"A bitcoin full node is a certainty machine. When a user runs a full node, they are granted a level... more

On the nature of sovereignty, the challenges of the world we live in, the fog of war that has descended... more

"As the Web became much more complex, we now engage with multiple companies for each of those functions. Including all... more

"The primary work undertaken by thieves to maintain their systems of thievery is manipulation. Deceit and lies are the tools... more

"They used to own everything, and in a way they still do; the media, the banks, the NGOs, the international... more

"I will start with the conclusion: my piece failed. Nothing has changed. DeFi-driven blowups have continued. Therefore, in the strongest... more

"My learned opinion is that although your average toxic Bitcoin maximalist might be able to sniff out this bullshit a... more

“It must become embarrassing to admit one ever supported uninformed and nonconsensual participation in a medical experiment or mass house... more

Today we bring John Carvalho back on to talk about Bitkit and the release of Synonym's first major product in... more

"They will come to understand that Bitcoin is hope for non-violent revolutionaries in the environmental movement who seek to end... more

"The creation of new money by insiders debases the savings ability of the existing money. It is critically important for... more

"Money facilities a system — the economy — that is too complex, too unpredictable and too uncertain to be modeled... more

"A universal law can be understood to be an objective, observable, and eternal description of some facet of the universe.... more

"One might ask: if much of the U.K. pension money was about to vanish, where was it going? Partly to... more

"Imagine if all respectable business knowledge had been derived from studying large, established companies because there had never been a... more

"While Bitcoin does not litigate the ethics of hydrocarbon production, it is not controversial to point out that the dollar,... more

"to survive and prosper in this world, man can either make the things he needs and wants, or he can... more

"But if technological civilizations are more common, then we must resolve the Fermi Paradox in a different way. We know that... more

"Astrobiologists increasingly believe that conditions are frequently right for life. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and the life-sustaining molecules they form are the... more

Today we explore a highly earned Guy's Take for Dergigi's "Bitcoin is Digital Scarcity" as well as using a core... more

"The power of prices is the process of dynamic discovery that underpins their emergence, not the fleeting consensus of a... more

"Today, it’s a trucker protest. What if it’s a women’s rights protest next? A protest against abuses by a country... more

We dive into the chaotic world of 2022 with the insanity of the financial markets, the bond markets cracking apart,... more

"The difference between the Linden Dollar, World of Warcraft Gold, Fortnite V-Bucks, the Euro, and the U.S. dollar is in... more

"Lighting Network adoption is scaling Bitcoin around the world. And it will be key to protecting our freedoms in the... more

"Bitcoin is ripe for a massive disruption of systems like SWIFT, and at the rate the world is becoming both... more

"Given two competing views of the world, the state will always promote the one that increases its power to extract... more

"The whole tokenize-everything-thing so far is one fast hype train. It is exciting not for the technical efficiencies it may... more

"Everyone loves a good origin story. Some are true, some made-up, and some a mix of the two. The true origin... more

"Bitcoin is not merely a network, it's a foundation for an anti-authoritarian political movement in an increasingly authoritarian world. If... more

"This brings us to our fourth principle behind PoS, which is that **PoS relies on subjective truth**. There is simply... more

"That misinformation in the form of money wouldn’t just create polarization. Because money connects value between people and nations, it... more

"I’m going to clear things up here because most of the people piling on were deeply confused about me, my... more

"I believe Africa represents the most elegant use case for a Bitcoin standard in existence. In the paragraphs that follow... more

"Cryptocurrency market-isms are built on claims about the economic and computer science advances Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have achieved, and thus... more

"Many aspects of the Bitcoin mining industry are poorly understood and often misrepresented. But one practice in this sector stands apart... more

"A study of the hill tribes of Southeast Asia titled “The Art Of Not Being Governed” provided a fresh take.... more

"The answer that matters depends on the context. The context you need to have is that cryptocurrency, i.e. Bitcoin, was... more

"I think too many people in those early years interpreted “e-cash” to mean quick-and-easy payments for everyday goods using the... more

Tearing down the fallacies of the collective, and digging through the principles of liberty and personal responsibility with the one... more

"Back when the iPhone was introduced in 2007, few people thought, “wow this could really disrupt the taxi industry a decade from now.” A few... more

"But more broadly, one must ask, “at what point would someone want to permanently exchange their self-custodial scarce money (bitcoin)... more

"Simple “bubbles” don’t survive through several 70%+ drawdowns over a period lasting thirteen years and counting; it looks more like... more

"Today, people use inflation to refer to two separate things, and whenever you hear someone saying inflation it’s not always... more

WE ARE BACK! Were you wondering about everything that happened in the collapse of TerraUSD, the algorithmic stablecoin that got... more

"I think there are some important economic errors in the stories I see people telling about crypto, on Twitter and... more

"These two jobs are almost always in tension. Any added protection to keep a bad actor out adds a risk... more

Following up on the release of Keet.io and a simple to use, responsive, encrypted, & scalable P2P data sharing protocol... more

"It’s not and never was about equality or perfection. It’s about fairness and consequence. Bitcoin is “Responsibility go Up” technology."... more

Orange pilling the everyday user with Mash. Combining simple, fast onboarding into the Lightning ecosystem and enabling a unique monetizing... more

"Holepunch makes Hypercore more accessible by abstracting away low-level technical details of the protocol. It takes Hypercore one step further... more

"If a money (the most salable good) is easy to create more of, then any rational economic actor would just... more

“Fedi and Fedimint will help put monetary power back into the hands of everyone, everywhere,” said Fedi Inc. co-founder and... more

"Like any powerful technology, bitcoin can be used for good or ill. As proponents of the technology like to say,... more

"To put it into perspective, this international monetary system based around centrally-managed fiat currency is only 16 years older than... more

"If a money (the most salable good) is easy to create more of, then any rational economic actor would just... more

"Imposing limitations on monetary goods has always required tremendous amounts of time and energy, and trust. And yet, with all... more

"In a world awash in euphemisms and blatant lies, calling something by its proper name is rebellious in itself. Bitcoin... more

"People hold money to hedge against future uncertainty. This is why it is so crucial for a monetary system to... more

What if, sitting in the middle of a chaotic monetary environment, increasing capital controls, balkanizing political regimes, a failing petrodollar... more

I promised, and it's finally here. It's time to get a little perspective, with the price at all time lows,... more

"Coding, mining, infrastructure, and markets are all independent, happening in competing jurisdictions and geopolitical rivals, often done by anonymous or... more

"Base money is a liability of the central bank, and it’s used as a reserve asset by commercial banks. Broad... more

With the markets in chaos, with services halting withdraws, & Everyone's a Scammer" by Michael Goldstein, is one of those... more

"Bitcoin is a lifeboat on the sinking fiat ship. Lifeboats on a sinking ship don’t need a marketing department." -... more

"The reverse of that process – a so-called “death spiral” – was inevitable. Any time the immeasurably over-levered global fiat... more

This episode is partly a follow up from Read_628 on reviving a promising renewable energy technology. Partly a discussion of... more

"A typical Bitcoin mining operation will spend considerable amounts of time, energy and money cooling their ASIC miners with air... more

"Coming off the Bitcoin 2022 conference, you might feel a little down from the high of meeting and spending time with Bitcoiners.... more

"When I thought about what is the defining difference between the Bitcoin maximalists and my yuppie elite friends, the surface... more

"Several exchanges in the industry fuel bubbles for a quick buck as well. If something starts to get momentum, including... more

"This created a ticking time bomb with a very short timer. That money was going to "work" in completely artificial... more

So what exactly did I get wrong in Guy's Take #54, and why? Let's dig back into the economic of... more

"Despite all of these constraints, the free market finally provided the competition these incumbent banks so desperately needed. Bitcoin and the Lightning Network have... more

Welcome to Bitcoin! 😆 For the best products and services to get you started in Bitcoin, our sponsors are literally a... more

[Caveat - A critical piece of the puzzle I lay out in this episode was something I incorrectly understood, which... more

"It is imperative that elected officials in the United States recognize that bitcoin, and the innovation of Proof of Work,... more

Everybody take a deep breath! Right now all the drama on Twitter and the Bitcoin community is all about CTV.... more

"One issue with Bitcoin’s privacy, the ability to receive funds without giving up valuable information, is addressed with 'silent payments.'"... more

"Even if you knew this was complete and utter bullshit, and that being an agent and not a principal ethically... more

"You’re a thirsty bitch. You like to gargle Peter’s balls." - DeaterBob This is happening and there is nothing I can... more

"Bitcoin miners are unique because of how fast, transparent, and flexible their response can be to pricing fluctuations.  Riot’s Whinstone mining... more

"There are still many extensions to build out in the protocol and areas with unsolved scaling issues. In general, the... more

"Taro enables bitcoin to serve as a protocol of value by allowing app developers to integrate assets alongside BTC in... more

LNpay, LNURL, LNauth, streaming sats, Bolt12, the past and future of Lightning. We dig into tons of great stuff around... more

"Besides the advantage of near-instant payments, there can be privacy improvements to Lightning as well. Unfortunately, there are scenarios where... more

This episode is because the previous read by Steve Barbour deserved a Guy's Take. Before we change topics to privacy... more

"As with freedom and oppression, Bitcoin and State money may exist in a perpetual tug of war between ideals. Where... more

"Much more to say. This is just a starting point, but I'm interested in Bitcoin for its potential to reorient... more

"...This purpose flounders, however, if their own evangelists and the community at large fails to lay the groundwork and impetus... more

"On a medium-term basis, it is time to back up the John Deere excavator and scoop up as much gold... more

"Thus, given enough time and popularity, every movie, every song, and every document will be available to the general public... more

"In sum, the U.S. government has shown that — through the GFC, repo spike crisis in 2019 and pandemic crisis... more

"As detailed in Saifedean Ammous’s “The Fiat Standard,” in November 1914 the British government “issued the first war bond, aiming... more

"Aspiring Republican politicians and conservative opinionators love talking in darkened tones about the malevolence of elites. And yet, for all... more

"If having 12 words in your head is illegal, something is terribly wrong with the law. If the police storm... more

"Only liquid, flowing capital generates a return. Unlike a bank account, capital on Lightning is productive when it is mobile,... more

"People tend to favor proposals that would benefit themselves and reject proposals that, at their own expense, would benefit others.... more

"Now what's that saying again. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you. It's starting to smell like... more

"The U.S. and its allies are now effectively backed into a series of corners. Can the U.S. attempt to ban... more

"By taking away their printing presses, Bitcoin stops the creeping totalitarianism that weaponizes our own blood, sweat and tears against... more

“Bitcoin as a superior monetary good is more valuable than a better payment network . This leads us to another point... more

"That is not to say that Bitcoin will lead us to a pacifist utopia in which any attempt at violence... more

Today we have an incredible chat as a followup to the recent piece Read_596 - Bitcoin is a Pioneer Species.... more

“And finally, given its asymmetric return distribution I believe It is more risky to have zero exposure to bitcoin than... more

“General Motors, Ford, AT&T and GE have cumulative debt that is larger than the entire HY market. Downgrades of any... more

With Twitter up in arms about a potentially invasive privacy measure and compliance for an invasive regulatory requirement, it's time... more

"What is money? Why is it used? Which type of money is best? And why?" - Eric Yakes Today we are... more

“This makes Bitcoin miners uniquely symbiotic with energy grids serving as “demand response” partners. If energy is ever in short... more

"Money, in the ideal (which we’ll likely always only ever strive for, and not achieve), turns a portion of ‘our... more

“Sacrifice is thus a critical component of value, as it is the use of one’s own limited resources, as that... more

"This confluence of Fed hikes and investor naivety “presents the setup for a severe washout” as the “pernicious effects of... more

“The people at the end of the line who are flipping NFTs do not fundamentally care about distributed trust models... more

"Our goal is basically to realize this concept we have created called the atomic economy. This is just my way... more

In a follow up to the State of Lightning Report from Arcane Research and OpenNode, we dive into the possibilities... more

"What the Internet has done for information, Bitcoin and the Lightning Network will do for money. " - Elizabeth Stark Finishing the... more

“The Lightning Network, and the possibility to perform micropayments instantaneously, will most likely change how we pay for certain services.... more

“Crypto exchanges with numerous coins have an incentive to get you excited about new coins, because they make money from... more

"If Bitcoin were built on a proof-of-stake model, where the more coins you have the more votes you have on... more

"These pioneers are akin to the Bitcoiners who showed up post-Mt. Gox, through to the Class of 2020. These are the... more

"If Bitcoin had existed in Tesla’s time, it would have removed the need for a corrupted monetary arrangement. Bitcoin mining... more

"Neither is a Central Bank Digital Currency a State-level embrace of cryptocurrency—at least not of cryptocurrency as pretty much everyone... more

If you missed the awesome Twitter spaces we had with Lixin Liu from Keystone and Douglas Bakkum from Shift Crypto,... more

“'Smart contracts' as a term was coined by Nick Szabo back in 1996 before the idea of a blockchain was... more

"Even if we could somehow convince the world or the U.S. government to adopt a gold standard, there’s not really... more

“Money appreciates in value over time so that individuals can plan their future knowing their wealth will be protected. This... more

“Often, in an argument, what people think they are arguing about is not the real subject of disagreement, which is... more

“If price is truth, then a market capitalization of over $1 billion for over 100 different cryptocurrencies tells a story:... more

"The Bitcoin network itself and the personal owning of bitcoin is an act of peaceful rebellion against the fiat money... more

“as the internet has slowly but surely eroded the obstacle of restricted information access in the past decades, the limiting... more

"Hudson’s thesis was that America had forced other countries to pay for its wars regardless of whether they wanted to... more

Today we have an incredible conversation with Preston Pysh and Greg Foss on the Bond markets, the shifting sands of... more

"The passage of time is one thing that we can never get back. Once it has been spent, there’s no... more

“I wish people engineered things to be self-replicating, self adjusting, self-governing, and ever-lasting. But nobody has engineered anything to do... more

"We’re revolutionaries. There’s no reason to be coy about it. Our goal is to replace fiat with bitcoin. “Disruption” is... more

“Freedom, transparency, honesty, meritocracy, fairness, voluntaryism and hard work are great things one should strive toward, whether it is in... more

"It is understandably difficult for most of us to imagine a monetary world aside from the one in which we've... more

"The fight that the cypherpunks mounted was one of the main reasons that the U.S. government lost the Crypto Wars.... more

"Nodes are the law, and miners are the muscle." - Harry Sudock Harry Sudock, Vice President of Strategy at Griid, and I... more

"The precise magnitude and schedule for the westward move is currently unknown, but all signals seem to be indicating the... more

"Wake up people, this is not a drill. Contagion risks are increasing due to potential global stagflation... The intrinsic value of BTC... more

“Using Bitcoin can level the playing field for the world’s poor as we work toward economic justice.” - Bradley Rettler Author Bradley... more

"Not only is the world experiencing greater dispersion of outcomes, it is also changing at an increasingly faster pace. Raw... more

"The individual investor is professionalizing at the end of one of the biggest, most Homeric blow-out parties of all time.... more

"In this piece we discuss our concerns around the broader “crypto” space beyond Bitcoin. Our arguments revolve around three primary... more

"The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant... more

“As Gall’s Law suggests, we believe the general principle favoring Bitcoin’s layered architecture is not one of software engineering so... more

"Lyn Alden captured this well in her excellent piece, An Economic Analysis of Ethereum, which we highly recommend in addition to our own. Similarly observing that there does seem to be a lot of... more

"The consensus is what matters. The breakthrough of proof-of-work and the difficulty adjustment is far more about harnessing energy and existing communications infrastructure to calibrate incentives than it has to do with... more

“Sandwiched between Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador — the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, with an... more

"Schumpeter would have loved Bitcoin. He would have seen in Bitcoin a living representation of his theory of capitalism, so... more

"we often hear the U.S. dollar called an “exorbitant privilege.” Namely, that the U.S. benefits disproportionately from the dollar’s reserve... more

"For those with the curiosity to look, Bitcoin has emerged as a vast and mysterious space to explore, with treasures,... more

"the fact that bitcoin is now legal tender in a country is absolutely astonishing. Yesterday, some nerds discovered a system... more

"There has never been a more secure, scarce, valuable, transportable, decentralized and networked asset in all of humanity’s history. It’s... more

"Long before we had the Bitcoin energy debate, we had the gold resource cost debate. The contours were similar: the... more