Diligent News: Bitcoin & Technology

NOSTR & Free Speech

Eomar — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 02:47:49 GMT

Maintaining our rights is not ‘easy’ and we will lose them if we remain idle. They say there is a reason the First Amendment covers speech & the Second covers our right to bear arms. These two rights are critical to maintaining all other freedoms. Our founders understood the power of decentralization when they enshrined the right for the PEOPLE to bear arms in the Bill of Rights. Free speech obviously applies to the people, but until recently we didn’t have a truly decentralized way to amplify our voices.

Legacy Media

The flaw with legacy, corporate media is that it is inherently centralized. While each individual reporter may work ‘independently’ they must get approval from editor who answer to bosses who answer to a smaller & smaller group of people. Even those who are well intentioned could see retaliation for stepping out of line and for many, especially those with family, the perceived risk is too great.

Social Media Platforms

Social media companies were initially the ‘cure’ to the legacy media. The people posting do not go through editors, they can post raw, uncensored material… right? Unfortunately, while that was the initial promise of social media it has been effectively curtailed. Mark Zuckerberg (facebook/instagram/meta) ‘promises to do better’ and openly talks about how the United States government pressured him & his employees to censor Americans, including things as trivial as memes[1]! Elon Musk bought Twitter and shared censorship details with who published the ‘twitter files’ showing how bad that had gotten. Unfortunately, Musk for all the good he has done and in my opinion still does via X, is also censoring people [2] [3]. A reoccurring theme I have seen is larger accounts being suspended and people rallying successfully to reinstate them. There is no rally for the small random user.

The best ‘centralized’ platform in terms of free speech is I believe this one, . What gives Substack its resilience is the fact that it does not rely on advertiser dollars. Instead Substack takes (in my opinion) a fair share of any subscriber revenue generated. To be clear, I don’t really know of how Substack’s algorithm works but I haven’t seen anyone here be banned. The leadership of Substack actually faced calls to ban ‘nazis’ from the platform and refused, some popular writers abandoned the platform as a result [4]. Everyone says they are ‘for free speech’, but increasingly few stand up for speech they disapprove of. What people & platforms do when pressured is what really matters, so far, Substack is holding strong.

Decentralization

In the 2A world, a centralized system would be police, decentralized would be you owning (and hopefully training with) a firearm. It is easier to simply call the police, but you are much safer if you are armed & know how to use a firearm. The difference could very well save your life. It is similar with free speech.

Legacy (corporate) media is the most centralized form of sharing information. It is easily corruptible and almost entirely captured by governments throughout the world. We see how social media platforms, while comprised of decentralized individuals are subject to a centralized control system which shape narratives & opinions. Even platforms that have thus far held strong in favor of free speech like Substack and at least to a degree X, are subject to government force. True decentralization means a system without a CEO, without a board, without advertisers, without corporate data centers & costs. To censor on a decentralized, distributed network is an extremely difficult task, there is no single point of failure.

NOSTR

“Nostr itself is just a protocol; an agreed upon procedure for passing messages around on the internet.” - NOSTR.How [5]

If, like me, hearing ‘it’s a protocol’ doesn’t clear things up for you, perhaps it will help to understand that email is a protocol. You may have seen SMTP/IMAP when setting up your email on different devices[6], these are protocols. To utilize the NOSTR protocol you utilize your choice of ‘client’ which is discussed further below. Think of how you can have an email address & access it through different apps.

Public Key & Private Key

Your public key, often referred to as ‘npub’, is how you identify yourself, it is like your username on other apps. While you can still attach a human readable ‘profile name’ on top of this it is not the same as a ‘username’ and is not how you are truly identified. After asking on the Bitcoin Veterans back channels, one of the many smart people there replied (paraphrasing a bit) ‘everything in NOSTR is an event… so updating profile information is an event that’s set up display name [etc]… the client [primal etc] looks for these events to populate your information’. Looking further into this confirms EVERYTHING is indeed an event and the client [primal etc] is ensuring that you are signing each event (with your private key) [7].

Seriously, if you are interested in this kind of stuff, go sign up at BitcoinVeterans.org (you don’t have to be a veteran), the group there is a great resource! The explanation i got above made researching this much easier!

On Primal, I can search for ‘eomar’ and see results for my profile, but if I went to another app (say Damus), I would need my npub to be able to log in etc.

Search for ‘Eomar’ yields results!

Profile name:

Eomar - Diligent.news

Public Key: npub1e53z3g8c0cz84t8ca8emx2s6emehzzssxmmnqrd2pwx9m5aswn4sulhrsa

NOSTR Apps

NOSTR is not a company, it has no CEO or board. There is no single point of failure for NOSTR, there are no investors that demand ever increasing revenues. The protocol exists & people can build ‘clients’ to access it. Anyone can make an app built upon the NOSTR network. Popular ones include Primal, Damus, Amethyst etc.. Personally, I have only really used Primal, though I have heard good things about other apps.

Lightning

For some small, or exchange type transactions, the time it takes to verify a transaction with Bitcoin was seen as prohibitive. If you are buying a cup of coffee, you don’t want to have to stand around waiting for the transaction to be confirmed before heading on your way. Lightning is ‘a layer’ on top of Bitcoin. In “Choose Bitcoin” I discussed the idea of ‘layers’ (see screenshot below). With lightning Bitcoin is the ‘first layer’ or base layer, it is the thing of ‘undeniable value’, lightning is ‘layer 2’ on top of that. By operating as a ‘layer 2’ on top of Bitcoin, it is still transacting Bitcoin, but it is NOT on the core chain.

Getting Started

This is looking at using lightning on NOSTR for zaps. You don’t NEED to use lightning/zaps to use NOSTR. The protocol is free to use, integrating lightning just makes it a little better as you can instantly send a few Sats to posts you really enjoy. If you just want a lightning wallet, you could basically follow the steps in ‘option 2’ below. This ‘guide’ assumes you have signed up on Primal (or another client) and have your private/public key.

Option 1

I think the easiest way is to probably use Primal’s built in wallet, due to where I live, I cant do that. BTC_Sessions, who was also a guest on the Bitcoin Veterans X space which I frequently speak on, has a video on it.

Option 2

This is the method I ultimately went with, it was messy getting here (maybe ill add the other notes in if people are interested). I assume you signed up via Primal so you have your private/public key. You can then go to coinos.io to setup a wallet, you can sign in using your NOSTR private key here as well (cool right?). This will create a wallet so you can get ‘zaps’. Click receive (on YOUR wallet, don’t use mine unless you want to donate to me lol).

You can then find/utilize an exchange that moves your ‘on chain’ Bitcoin to Lightning. I’ve heard something like boltz.exchange works well. For any of these, please, please, make sure they are reputable so you don’t lose your bitcoin. As with anything, I recommend small amounts so if you mess up you aren’t hurt too much by it. You can then drop the invoice info from above into the text spot (as seen below) and ‘create atomic swap’. The technical aspects of all this are honestly beyond me, but following these steps was the shortest route I found (without using primal wallet - I assume) to get bitcoin on the lightning network.

Alby

Last piece of this setup is Alby or some comparable alternative. You can sign up for Alby using your email address. Once done it will ask you to sign up for Alby hub which is a paid service (again a more streamlined option, but avoidable). If you followed the steps above, you should see an option to ‘connect a wallet’ It will ask for a connection string which you can get from coinos . Once this is setup make sure you install the browser extension and set it up (I think it requires your NOSTR key) . When you go to primal you can click on the icon on your browser to open & connect the extension to the site.

notes:

this is from memory, so I might be missing something here, will update as needed
Zeus was one of the other options I tried that i generally liked, but coinos seemed simpler and integrated with Alby via NWC

Zaps

If you have your wallet and everything setup, you should now be able to zap in primal. I recommend finding a good post and start zapping, I think I zapped a fellow Bitcoin Veteran to start. Alby should pop up to confirm, you can adjust the threshold for confirmation if you find the extra click too tedious.

Content

The biggest challenge to NOSTR is not everyone is on there yet. This however is also an opportunity, if you are creating great content, people there are hungry for it. I have been making an effort to mirror relevant posts to NOSTR as an effort to ensure more people find value in it. I am admittedly still mostly on twitter despite consistently having to duck & dodge various censorship attempts either by ‘x’ itself or just nefarious actors mass reporting me.

Popular enough that i made some sats on this post!

Government attacks on speech

I started writing this back in February (I got too busy to finish it!!), since then the US government under Donald Trump has taken drastic actions to curtail free speech in the United States. Under the guise of ‘combatting anti-Semitism’ (protecting Israel), the US government has established the concept of ‘illegal ideas’. I see this as a direct path to forcing aggressive censorship by social media platforms as described above and worse, increasing legal consequences for American citizens with ‘wrong think’.

A now deleted X post by ICE

Additionally, while those platforms all require & collect identifying information, as far as I can tell, you can maintain anonymity via NOSTR as the only identifier that is required to post is your public/private key (which it provides to you). If managed correctly, it will be much harder to tie your NOSTR posts to you than your centralized social media posts.

Conclusion

The attacks on free speech come from various angles, those seeking ‘advertisers’ & those simply seeking control. NOSTR is decentralized and resistant if not immune to hostile actions by ‘authorities’. There will be no ‘heroes’ or ‘champions’ of your rights that care more than you do. We saw & continue to see how even some of the richest people in the world can be bent to the will of nefarious actors. Decentralization is key to maintaining your rights, decentralized security (firearms), decentralized speech (NOSTR) & decentralized money (Bitcoin). All of them take more work than ‘convenient’ alternatives, but all of them better protect you & your freedom.

Resources

Choose Bitcoin

Eomar — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 06:18:37 GMT

Perhaps as a sign of how unqualified (legally and otherwise) I am to give financial advice, I will lead with the following: None of this is financial advice.

If you have been here for a while, or if you follow me on X, you know that one of the things I talk about a lot is Bitcoin. I don’t own Bitcoin in the same way I own stocks. Bitcoin is something different. I own stocks strictly as a vehicle of investment, to grow my ‘dollar’ wealth within the corrupt Federal Reserve system. I own Bitcoin to opt out of this corrupt system, its inflation, its attacks on liberty & its wars.

I hope this article helps you to understand the potential of Bitcoin, not just for ‘wealth’, but for freedom & peace.

Disclosure: The book links in this article are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Bitcoin Exposure

I can’t remember my first ‘exposure’ to Bitcoin, but I know when I spoke with my Bitcoiner co-worker back in ~2017 I had heard of it before. I was on the cusp of buying bitcoin, but I wanted to learn more and didn’t know where to go, so this co-worker was essentially it. By this point I had been listening to The investors podcast (hosted by Preston Pysh & Stig Broderson) for at least a year. While the focus of that podcast is ‘investing’ the real message I got was in reading. The start of my ever expanding library, The Intelligent Investor and many other books, can be traced back to that podcast. Unfortunately, I trailed off as a listener before Bitcoin became a prominent topic there.

Around the same time I bought my first tiny fraction of Bitcoin I bought Nik Bhatia’s “Layered Money” (this is probably episode that led to the purchase). Soon after that, I read “The Bitcoin Standard” by Saifedean Ammous. I watched videos, listened to podcasts and continued to purchase satoshis with ‘extra’ money. I went from a ‘gambler’ to a ‘believer’, relatively quick.

Layered Money

The concept of Layered Money is relatively simple. A ‘first layer’ would be something of ‘undeniable value’ like a gold coin. The second layer would be a promise to pay a certain amount of that first layer money. This was the system the United States used with the Gold Standard. We had gold reserves and every dollar was “redeemable” for a specific amount of gold. This book goes into the details & the history of Layered Money and helped me truly understand how we got where we are today.

The Bitcoin Standard

The Bitcoin Standard is often considered the ‘go-to’ first Bitcoin book. This book clearly lays out the many issues caused by our “unsound money” and explains how Bitcoin fixes it. Many of the topics I introduce in this article are explained at greater length & detail by Ammous in The Bitcoin Standard.

Money Troubles

Before I knew about Bitcoin I understood that there was something very wrong with our current monetary system. The Great Ron Paul helped me understand that much. I first wrote about our ‘money troubles’ (among other issues) in ‘America’s waning power’. Some of the information below is ‘borrowed’ from that article, though I have added enough to keep it interesting.

Fiat

I will use the term ‘Fiat’ a lot in the article (as in “Fiat Money”), enough that I went back to add this section in. “Fiat” is derived from Latin and means ‘by decree’. This “money” exists because the government says it does, and is willing to use force to make you believe. Essentially, if the ‘First layer’ of money is ‘gold’ as in our earlier gold redeemable currency than the first layer, the actual ‘money’ is gold. In today’s world, Bhatia argues in Layered Money, that the first layer IS the dollar, making it pure Fiat.

Inflation

“Inflation is a gradual loss of purchasing power that is reflected in a broad rise in prices for goods and services over time.” —Investopedia

On December 23, 1913, America’s worst President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act starting the decline of American monetary power. In short this gave the Fed the ability to print money.

The Theft of Gold & the Destruction of the Dollar

In 1933 FDR, one of America’s worst Presidents (I think #2 right behind Wilson), forced Americans to turn in their gold under threat of 10 years in prison or a fine of $10,000 [0]. This treasonous executive order made it a crime for people to hold onto their wealth but made exceptions for the holdings of foreign nations. FDR, as shown time & again during his presidency, was willing to violate the Constitutional rights of Americans. Bhatia, in Layered Money, gives the background and history for this action, essentially the 35% gold coverage ratio imposed on the Federal Reserve was blamed for exasperating the Depression & the government used that as momentum to conduct this theft. Within a year we saw how this would go for the American people. They were forced to sell their gold at $20.67 per ounce, The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 significantly devalued the dollar by setting the price per ounce to $35 [Bhatia] .

The damaging effects can be immediately seen in the Federal Reserve Economic Data ‘purchasing power’ chart below [1]. Purchasing power is about 3% of what it was before the Federal Reserve Act. When looking at the price of an ounce of gold, in 1913 it cost $18.92, today it is $2051.77[2].

We often hear the Fed talking about ‘target rates’ of inflation, they want you to believe that since “Inflation is by design”, that its ‘ok’. In reality, inflation ‘by design’ doesn’t rob you any less than ‘unintended inflation’ of the same rate. Despite this robbery, it has become abundantly clear that people in power don’t care and that the people not in power often understand too little of it to care.

US National Debt

The United States Federal debt is completely out of control. WE have more that ~~$34 $~~36.1 TRILLION in debt. It was 391 billion in 1971 & $34.5 Trillion in January 2024.

Interest on our debt was the 4th largest item in the federal expenditures behind Social Security, Medicare and the military [3]. It will soon surpass even our military spending. Some will argue that this level of debt is still ‘manageable’ that it is ‘ok’. We have to assess not just the ability to continue these massive payments but also the willingness of the world to take on our debt-risk. The risk is not only ‘failure to pay’ but the methods of how we may decide to pay, one option, one used historically by indebted nations, is to print money, to increase inflation and devalue the currency in order to ‘lessen’ the burden of debt. That risk does not bode well for the dollar as a reserve currency.

Fiat’s Crimes

Theft

Inflation robs the most from the poorest, those living paycheck to paycheck who don’t have money invested in assets that adjust to inflation. This is not a new feature of the Federal Reserve & its inflation, it by design. What the Federal reserve is doing with its ‘targeted inflation’ numbers is balancing just how much wealth it can steal without triggering a response. Today we see many ‘disillusioned’ with “capitalism” because of the growing wealth gap between the richest & the poorest. It is something to be critical of, but ‘capitalism’ isn’t the cause. The cause is a corrupt monetary system that is designed to slowly rob anyone who isn’t solidly invested in ‘inflation protected’ assets. Our politicians are lying to us when they use the stock market as a metric of prosperity, it means SOME are benefiting, but not everyone.

When Money Dies, by Adam Ferguson, shows us what happens in a hyperinflationary environment, using the collapse of the German Mark as an example. The mechanism is the same with ‘regular’ inflation, its just less noticeable and, in the short term, less catastrophic. Wealth and assets will flow upwards, away from those living paycheck to paycheck, whose salaries cannot keep up with inflation, and into the stock markets. Hard assets, like homes, land etc will see their prices inflate as the currency is devalued. An interesting note from When Money Dies, farmers did relatively well during the Mark’s collapse, people still needed food. Today we have people like Billionaire Bill Gates, who owns SUBSTANTIAL amounts of farmland. Does he see what is coming ?

Property Tax & inflation

It should be noted that even some of these ‘inflation protected’ assets are subject to government & fiat theft as EVERY state has property tax. 75% of Americans see the inherit madness of a tax on ‘unrealized gains’ [4] yet many don’t realize that this is EXACTLY how property taxes behave. States tax on what they ‘perceive’ the value of your property to be. This means as your ‘asset’ (your home etc) goes up in value due to inflation, so do your taxes. For some, it will outpace their ability to pay and they will lose their home/land.

Farmers, mentioned above, pay $15 billion on fuel & oil, they pay $19 billion on property taxes[5]. Wildly, there are exemptions targeted specifically towards ‘agricultural organizations’ that exclude small individual farmers. As real property prices increase along with inflation , the taxes on these properties increase as well. Q1 2020, the median sale price of a home was $329,000 in Q2 of 2024 it was $414,500 [6] . With rapid increases like this, a farmer faces the challenge of anticipating increasing tax (and other) costs, and adjusting their prices to offset it while not causing potential customer to balk at the price as they too struggle with inflation. Those that fail at this calculation risk losing their farm, with billionaires & corporations eager to snatch it up at a discount.

FRED Median sales price of houses sold for the United States

War

“For as long as the government could print more money and have that money accepted by its citizens and foreigners, it could keep financing the war” — Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard

Before we could simply print money, governments had to raise funds via “war bonds” and similar functions in order to finance wars. This helped ensure that is wasn’t only the soldier and his family suffering, a larger part of the population at least directly financially contributed. Additionally, it was like a voting mechanism, petitioning people for their hard earned money as opposed to putting a budget increase on page 1107 of some bill. Though it still often failed as a control mechanism, having it in place was at least one more barrier to entering into needless wars and helped prevent the endless wars we now have.

Between 1917 and 1919 The sale of War bonds (“Liberty Bonds”) raised the equivalent of more than $5 trillion[7]. They were used again in WW2 accounting for 20% of the debt the US government took on during the war [7]. Despite their widespread ‘appeal’ War Bonds were a terrible investment, with a negative 13% real return due to rampant inflation [8].

The Federal Reserve boasts on their own website about their ‘war efforts’ while shamelessly writing how “Reserve Bank employees were not subject to the draft, although hundreds of Federal Reserve employees volunteered for military service” … “Hundreds”… of the ballooned ‘war time peak’ of 24,000 employees [9]. Throughout that same article we can see the various machinations the Fed employed to ensure the war could go on. Most importantly is the mention of an amendment that loosened reserve requirements even further.

A paper from 1945 titled “The Federal Reserve System in Wartime” laid out the risks that our nation accepted and foreshadowed the issues that were to come [10]. On reserve requirements, it states a 2% reserve allows $1 to “support an increase of $50 in deposits” whereas a 20% reserve supports “only $5 in deposits”. Later in the paper it warns: “The chief objections usually raised to direct sale of government securities to the Reserve Banks except to meet temporary needs of the Treasury are: (1) that it is a highly inflationary financing expedient and (2) that it is likely to encourage extravagant expenditure and an unnecessarily rapid increase of federal debt” . They even warn against the “establishment of a precedent for direct borrowing”. I mentioned before the German example, in 1945, the authors of this article saw the same similarities “It is the kind of borrowing that brought about uncontrollable inflation in Germany and other countries after World War I”.

Fear not, today the Fed DOES NOT buy directly. They buy through “primary dealers”, the NY Fed defines this for us: “Primary dealers are trading counterparties of the New York Fed in its implementation of monetary policy. They are also expected to make markets for the New York Fed on behalf of its official accountholders as needed, and to bid on a pro-rata basis in all Treasury auctions at reasonably competitive prices”. This sounds A LOT to me like they have a façade ‘middle man’ as a loop hole to get around legal barriers.

As General Butler warned us in War is a Racket, and as I wrote about in War is STILL a Racket, the corrupt system seeks wars for profits. As the Fed manipulates money to fund more wars their ‘primary dealers’ reap in the benefits as major shareholders of the various ~~defense~~ war stocks. As I said in that earlier article, it is a racket “Fueled by blood and sacrifice, motivated by quarterly dividends”.

These wars come with MANY costs. The suffering of those we send overseas & their families is perhaps the most direct ‘pain’ felt from these wars, though since so few serve, it is easily forgotten by the rest of the nation. Most of the population simply shakes their fist at expensive groceries & gas without looking any deeper into what is happening. Overseas trauma & destruction born out of these unnecessary conflicts give rise to hatred and a desire for revenge, that if fulfilled, will be used on a poster to justify the next war.

Nutrient Poor Food

In Fiat Food, Matthew Lysiak describes how the government was incentivized to push low quality, nutrient poor, cheap to produce food onto the American population to hide the pains involved with abandoning the gold standard and printing money. The example that resonated most with me was them pushing a “study” on eggs, labeling them ‘unhealthy’ to avoid a price increase that resulted from Nixon’s abandonment of the gold standard.

The Big Fat Surprise also discusses (from a different angle) the creation of our ‘carb based’ food pyramid. Of particular note, was how the various agencies, government & academic, colluded to silence opposition to the ‘low fat diet’. From controlling grants to simply not inviting critics to conferences, they effectively silenced the opposition, allowing them to continue to push heavily flawed studies in support of their cause. If you lived through 2020, these tactics probably sound VERY familiar to you…

What is Bitcoin

A few Key terms (from Mastering Bitcoin)

Bitcoin: The name of the currency unit (the coin), the network & the software

Block: a grouping of transactions, marked with a timestamp, and a fingerprint of the previous block. The block header is hashed to produce a proof of work, thereby validating the transactions. Valid blocks are added to the main blockchain by network consensus.

Blockchain: A list of validated blocks, each linking to its predecessor all the way to the genesis block.

As we can see above, Bitcoin’s main challenge was to solve the ‘double-spending problem’ without involving a ‘trusted 3rd party’, basically to ensure that I don’t promise 2 people the same Bitcoin, without needing a bank (trusted 3rd party) to vouch for the funds availability. By appending a group of timestamped transactions (a block) to the end of the blockchain (the complete history of transactions), the system ensures that the preceding blocks cannot be changed. This process of ‘appending a block’ to the block chain is commonly referred to as ‘hashing’ or ‘mining’. It is a computationally expensive process at the core of the ‘proof-of-work’ system that Bitcoin is built upon. These miners work to find the solution to the SHA-256 algorithm & the successful miner is rewarded with the Block reward (currently, 3.125 Bitcoin). While solving the equation is expensive, validating it is not. Nodes validate the transaction and can be run on very simple computers like a raspberry pi.

Bitcoin Veterans has additional resources & a great community for those looking for more information.

Against FUD

FUD, “Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt”, is the common talking points, often empty throw away lines, for ‘why you shouldn’t buy Bitcoin’. These are easy to debunk which is why they are often presented on platforms that do not allow for a rebuttal, such as corporate news shows etc.

‘This other thing is cheaper’

“Crypto” is not Bitcoin, “blockchain” is not Bitcoin. Do not be misled by those pushing ‘alternatives’ to Bitcoin. Discussing the “privatization” of money in The Sovereign Individual, the authors mention Hayek’s 1976 argument on ‘private currencies’. They state, “Any issuer of private currency failing to maintain its value would soon lose its customers”.

The work-safe ‘altcoin’ though more appropriately named ‘shitcoin’ is NOT an alternative to Bitcoin. A key aspect on why all of what I have wrote and what I write below is relevant is because Bitcoin is decentralized and it is in every miner & node operator’s interests to keep Bitcoin true to form. Some ‘crypto’ may appear legitimate, and may even have uses, but they certainly do not function as a store of value or an alternative to the corrupt system we have today. The worst of them are pure ‘pump & dump’ schemes (see Hawk Tuah coin and the many like it).

A major flaw of many ‘altcoins’ is their reliance on a CEO-like figure. This single point of failure makes the entire system vulnerable to government sized ‘five-dollar wrench attacks’ (ie force). Others use more corruptible ‘proof-of-stake’ which gives those with more ‘coins’ more say. The below excerpt from Bitcoin Magazine sums up some of the issues nicely.

“Ethereum, for example, is so bloated that YOU CANNOT download the blockchain and run a node… [with] proof of stake, the 32 ETH required to be a validator will price 99.9% of people out. In other words, Ethereum will be run by those with all of the ETH. Sounds just like modern central banking to me.” — Aleksandar Svetski [11]

Many see ‘the other thing’ as a gamble or potential lottery ticket to ‘win big’. As with most gambling, be it in the stock market, in vegas or on shitcoins, you usually end up in the red. If really looking to ‘play the lottery’ you can grab a SoloSatoshi Bitaxe or (for more money) a FutureBit Apollo 2 and mine Bitcoin with a (extremely slim) chance to find the block (reviews of each coming soon).

Note: neither of those companies pay me. SoloSatoshi does sponsor Bitcoin Veterans, which is an awesome organization with an awesome cause. If either of those companies DO want to pay me or send me free stuff, they are welcome to do so immediately :)

Bitcoin is ‘Too Complicated’

Do you really understand the current banking system? It is infinitely complex. Layered Money & The Bitcoin Standard do a great job explaining this in detail. For a quicker read, River published an article on the Dollar system, some of the topics were already covered here. However, the graphic they present (below) I believe PERFECTLY captures the complexity of the 'US Dollar System’. [12] I assure you, reading this article, and the suggested readings you will understand Bitcoin more than you understand our current US Dollar System.

River ‘How Does Money Printing Work’

Security

“But as long as there are people who want to use it [Bitcoin], it’s very hard to kill, or corrupt, or stop, or interrupt” — Ralph Merkle

Saifedean included a larger quote from Ralph Merkle in The Bitcoin Standard, but I think the above sums it up. Saifedean elaborates that attempts at fraud on the Bitcoin network would require massive dedication of resources and would then be caught and rejected by the nodes which are almost free to run. The fraudulent miner would get no reward & thus eventually become bankrupt.

Quantum Computing

The vulnerability, as I understand it is when one sends Bitcoin from their wallet to another it exposes the public key of the sending wallet (depending on the wallet type) [13]. Quantum computing is a threat when it can hash the private key from the public key before the next block (roughly 10 minutes), which is roughly estimated to be a decade or more away. I think that additionally, if one were to have moved Bitcoin from a wallet but that wallet still had Bitcoin in it, the ‘Quantum attack’ could steal that Bitcoin by hashing the private key over a longer time period. Mark Webber, a quantum architect at Universal Quantum: “State-of-the-art quantum computers today only have 50-100 qubits. Our estimated requirement of 13-300 million physical qubits suggests Bitcoin should be considered safe from a quantum attack for now, but quantum computing technologies are scaling quickly with regular breakthroughs affecting such estimates and making them a very possible scenario within the next 10 years” [14]. An important note on the time this would still take: “a quantum computer with 13 million physical qubits could break Bitcoin encryption within a day; and it would take a 300 million qubit computer to break it within an hour”[14]. This means, those being careless may be at risk before those who are aware of the threat and behave accordingly.

There are many complexities & challenges involved but as the Quantum computing threat becomes a more legitimate threat, Bitcoin can be ‘upgraded’. The challenge is getting 90% of miners to agree upon the upgrade and to do so early enough that Quantum is not a threat as it will take minimum 76 days for everyone to get to a ‘secure’ wallet [15]. Now with the threat ‘far off’ it is more challenging, I think as the threat gets closer, consensus will be achieved and this will all become moot.

One final note, Quantum attacks are NOT Bitcoin specific. Quantum computing can attack any system that is not ‘quantum secure’. From hospitals, banking, utilities etc, everything that relies on encrypted systems can be at risk if not properly upgraded.

Volatility

Bitcoin can be volatile in the short term, but after reading this article, I hope the reader views Bitcoin as more than a ‘short-term’ mechanism to acquire more Fiat. If you are asking ‘whether you should buy bitcoin’ I refer you to the top of the article & suggest you contact a financial advisor. In regards to nation states, I discuss in more detail below.

‘You are Too Late’

I forget the source of it or if its just a common phrase at this point but there is a saying ‘as long as they accept Fiat for Bitcoin, you are not too late’. Another oft used quote (I think this one from Buffet on stock investing) “Time in the Market beats timing the market”. There is an entire industry of snake oil salesmen that tell you “this [stock/shitcoin/bitcoin] will go to x price on y date because reasons” they will rarely acknowledge their many misses and just continue churning out predictive content because it gets clicks and THAT is their real business.

There is no real alternative that offers what Bitcoin offers (again, I am not referencing the potential for ‘monetary gains’). You may look back and wish you had bought earlier, as almost all of us do, but the options are to buy now or not. This is not something I can tell you, it is a decision for you alone to make (or in coordination with your financial advisor). The chart below from Bitinfocharts.com, shows the distribution of Bitcoin currently held in addresses. Bitbo.io estimates 106 million people own Bitcoin [16], while I don’t know this company well, I do appreciate they broke down there reasoning.

Bitcoin Rich List Bitinfocharts.com

National Sovereignty

I wrote in “America’s Waning Power” how nations are living under the oppressive heel of the dollar. As Bhatia points out in Layered Money, despite its MANY flaws the dollar is still the ‘first layer’ money and the ‘risk free asset’ of the world . Compared to other Fiat currencies this is hard to argue against. See the below excerpt from “America’s Waning Power”:

Excerpt:

The American Institute for Economic Research states that BRICS currencies still lose value faster than the dollar when based on gold purchasing power (visualized in graphic below)[x]. However, if we add Bitcoin into the comparison, there is a clear alternative. Many may scoff at this idea but the United States owns ~200,000 Bitcoin that it confiscated[xi]. China also confiscated ~195,000 Bitcoin though it is unclear if it has been sold[xii]. Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Aramco has agreed in December 2023 to work with Japanese company SBI Holdings “in the field of digital assets”[xiii].

AIER

The complexities and potential manipulations of the paper gold market as well as the infeasibility of using it for transactions, make it a non-viable alternative. Yet we see above how Bitcoin stacks up against both the BRICS currencies AND the Dollar. It has clearly been a better ‘store of value’ since its existence.

I wrote about this first in in January and since then nations have begun to echo similar sentiments. I wrote on Trump’s Bitcoin pledges shortly after he won the election in “Trump: Accountability & Expectations”. To summarize, in July at the annual Bitcoin Conference, Trump pledged to form a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve”, he pledged to establish a Bitcoin advisory council and generally to make a more favorable Bitcoin environment[17]. Senator Lummis’ Bill calls for purchasing up to 200,000 Bitcoin a year to get to a total of 1 million Bitcoin [18]. The US is currently the largest known state holder of Bitcoin, with 213,000 Bitcoin [19], at the time of this writing, that puts the United States as one of the top Bitcoin owning entities in the world [20].

Ahead of the BRICS conference ~~the ECB~~ just some guys from the ECB, definitely not the ECB, seemingly in a panic, published a poorly researched & poorly written lazy hit piece against Bitcoin [21]. For a rebuttal, read this. I saw this as one thing, recognition of the Bitcoin’s viability as an alternative to the current monetary system. Bitcoin was discussed at the conference, with Putin even stating (as I did) "The dollar was used as a weapon” [22]. Earlier this month, Putin stated “who can ban Bitcoin, no one” [23], shortly after, reports reveal that a bill was proposed in Russia for a ‘Bitcoin Reserve’ [24].

They don’t need to ‘win’, they need the dollar to lose

What we need to realize is that we, as Putin stated, have used the dollar as a weapon. We have done this time & again and while we often see sanctions as a ‘peaceful alternative’ to war, they often claim hundreds of thousands of lives, now totaling in the millions of lives (this includes >500k Iraqi Children). Our aggressive use of sanctions & our outright theft of Russia’s dollar reserves made it clear that there are no lines we won’t cross.

The dollar system requires that nations yield at least some of their sovereignty to the United States in order to ‘stay in the system’. In the past, before Bitcoin, the only possible option was to choose a new nation to yield to. Now, with Bitcoin, there is an alternative that would strip the US of this power while not requiring (nor allowing) another nation to take its place. For adversarial nations, ‘choosing Bitcoin’ is beating the dollar & thus beating the US. Additionally, many nations we currently wield this power most heavily against are energy rich, meaning they could shift resources into Bitcoin mining (with the right hardware). Imagine OPEC, instead of downscaling production, shifting it into energy production & mining.

Responsibility of the American Government

As it becomes increasingly probable that Bitcoin will have a role in the global economy, it is irresponsible for the US to sit idly. The best option for the United States is to utilize our current ability to ‘weaponize the dollar’ to buy Bitcoin, energy (infrastructure etc) & technology (mining equipment, components & the ability to create them). This will ensure that when we lose our reserve status we are well prepared & well positioned for what comes next. This is the best option, even for those who do not ‘believe’ in Bitcoin. Just as we hold (at least on paper) gold reserves as a contingency, we should adapt to the current era & hold Bitcoin.

Note: I have Softwar by Jason Lowery on my bookcase waiting to be read, when I do, if appropriate I will write an article & link to it here. (it comes highly recommended to me). I’m not putting a link because it seems to come in and out of print and when out of print, its price gets really high.

Opting out

“Simply saving part of their income will not necessarily reduce aggregate demand because the money that is put into banks or other financial institutions is in turn lent or invested elsewhere. That money is then spent by different people for different things but it is spent nonetheless, whether to buy homes, build factories, or otherwise.” — Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics

Bitcoin is more than an investment to increase your dollar denominated ‘wealth’, it is a means to reject this system that runs on blood, suffering & death.

In The Bitcoin Standard, Ammous defines salability as “The ease with which a good can be sold on the market whenever its holder desires, with the least loss in price”. He goes on to assert there are “3 facets of salability …across scales, across space & across time”. Meaning, to be a viable ‘money’ it should be easily divisible, easy to transport and maintain its value over time.

We can see in the ‘Theft’ section how the dollar is failing as a store of value. If you simply held onto dollars as a method of savings your purchasing power would decline and the value of your dollars would dissipate. The system doesn’t want you saving, it demands the results of your labor be pushed back into the system, flowing upward and away from you.

If the world functioned on ‘A Bitcoin Standard’ , you would have the option to accumulate & hold onto your earnings. Your bitcoin would not be ‘inflated away’ like the dollar’s value. You would have a truly ‘risk free’ option for maintaining your wealth, like holding gold when we had a gold standard, something that Fiat stole from us.

Individual Sovereignty

“The state has grown used to treating its taxpayers as a farmer treats his cows, keeping them in a field to be milked” — The Sovereign Individual

Just as nations would break free of the dollar-dominance, so too could individuals. In the eyes of the government, it is still THEIR money and we are simply ‘allowed to use it’. Just as we reject the notion that the government should have a say in how you earn your money, so to should we reject the notion that they have a say in how you spend your money.

Perhaps ultimately we will travel the world as ‘Sovereign Individuals’, yet, for now I’d happily take escaping from government tyranny enforced by their banks. In Canada, protesting against COVID-19 related restrictions led to individuals being debanked [25]. In the United States, we had operation Choke Point seeking to strangle the second Amendment and ‘high risk’ businesses [26]. Then we had ‘Choke Point 2.0’ aimed at Bitcoin [27] , this one I had personal experience with as no one would bank my small mining LLC and I was effectively forced into using Bitcoin only for my business. Many businesses still must avoid Bitcoin under threat of debanking. In the UK, banks were prohibiting donations to UNRWA during the still ongoing Genocide in Gaza, based off of more zionist lies. Bitcoin, however, still functioned and people could donate via Bitcoin instead [28].

Note: The Sovereign Individual is a really interesting book. What really blew my mind is that it was written in 1997 and predicted so much. Unfortunately I did not take great notes on it so I didn’t reference it as much here, but I am re-reading it now and taking more notes for future articles.

Some Closing thoughts

As you continue to learn about Bitcoin, these bits of information might be of use to you.

Dollar Cost Averaging

Dollar cost averaging (DCA) is an important concept that often comes up in discussions about Bitcoin (or investing in general). I believe I first heard of it from the above mentioned podcast and in reference to simply DCA into the stock market. It is essentially just setting up a recurring buy that automatically buys the specified dollar amount at the specified time. This operates much like how we buy index funds with our 401k each paycheck without looking at prices. I think all major exchanges allow you to set up recurring buys.

All exchanges are not equal

I have used a variety of exchanges. I started with Coinbase and used it until I started a mining business and they were impossible to deal with. I then switched to Gemini and used them until they prevented me from moving my personal Bitcoin (accumulated via DCA) to my cold wallet. I now use Cashapp to DCA. No issues so far but it hasn’t been long.

Two lessons learned here.

First, if a service is compromising on Bitcoin for profits (ie offering you shitcoins) they will likely compromise on other things. I will personally do my best to steer away from ‘crypto’ companies and deal only with Bitcoin companies.

Second, Regardless of what exchange you use, it is best NOT to keep it there (see FTX, MT Gox etc ). I cover this in more detail in ‘Cold Storage’, below.

Also, don’t use Binance, they reportedly aided IDF in seizing assets and even sharing address information that was used in targeting Palestinians.

Cold Storage

“Not your Keys, Not your coin” — Everyone who knows

Just as banks can be coerced to comply with governments so to can exchanges. Exchanges have CEOs and staff who can do illegal or unwise things with your assets (again see FTX). Exchanges can run into compliance walls that freeze your assets. The government can decide to force these companies to forfeit the Bitcoin they hold ‘for you’. Do not forget what they did with Gold.

Exchanges are a 3rd party that may be needed for purchasing Bitcoin but should not be used to store it. There are many options available for cold storage, I have personally used ledger & Coldcard. I recommend not using ledger as they push shitcoins & have a myriad of other issues.

Coldcard is widely regarded as among the best options and once you get into it isn’t hard to operate. The resources they have on their site were sufficient to get me going,

Bitkey is ‘newer’ but a lot of the guys at Bitcoin Veterans have been using them to onboard friends & family and I haven’t heard any negatives. From my understanding the main perk is the ‘recoverability’ of assets if you lose your Bitkey. This is a red flag to many but is better than an exchange, if nothing else, perhaps this is a good middle ground before getting to a coldcard.

Seed Storage

NEVER PUT YOUR SEED ON ANYTHING DIGITAL

This means a phone, a digital note, a word document, a picture, no digital (hackable) records. Additionally, as soon as possible transfer to something metal. I bought some random titanium plate on amazon and a Dremel and it was a PAIN, but my seed words are safe! Punchplate sponsors Bitcoin Veterans & was on their video podcast, I think they offer a good, easier to use solution that the ‘scratch the titanium’ method I used.

Conclusion

“What really broke Germany was the constant taking of the soft political option in respect of money” — Adam Ferguson, When Money Dies

My hope & effort on Bitcoin isn’t just wealth accumulation, I hope for change. We are familiar with the concept of ‘voting with your feet’, we understand boycotting a company or a product. Bitcoin gives us the ability to opt out of the corrupt Federal Reserve System.

With global instability & violence at peak levels, I feel the nation-state abandonment of the dollar is drawing closer. What could have taken decades before may have been forced far ahead due to our own misuse & abuse of the power that came with the dollar. We do not have to sit by and wait for the government to slowly react to a developing new reality.

The Dollar is ‘the Government’s money’, Bitcoin can be OUR money. We no longer need to gamble on evil companies in the hopes that we will avoid inflation’s soulless theft. We can choose to measure our labor & time in something that they do not own and control. We can choose something that doesn’t allow for ever-expanding government power & unending wars. We can choose Bitcoin.

Note:

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Reading list

The Sovereign Individual

War is a Racket

Principles of Economics

For additional Resources check out BitcoinVeterans

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Resources

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-6102-forbidding-the-hoarding-gold-coin-gold-bullion-and-gold-certificates

xi. https://www.aier.org/article/can-brics-displace-the-dollar/

xii. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/us-federal-government-holds-massive-bitcoin-stash-amidst-price-rocket#:~:text=Over%20the%20years%2C%20it%20has,stockpile%20of%20bitcoin%2C%20approximately%20200%2C000.

xii. https://beincrypto.com/chinese-gov-bitcoin-holdings-outrank-microstrategy-despite-crypto-ban/

xiii. https://www.cointribune.com/en/saudi-aramco-on-the-verge-of-embracing-bitcoin/

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Choose Bitcoin

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‘You are Too Late’

National Sovereignty

Excerpt:

They don’t need to ‘win’, they need the dollar to lose

Responsibility of the American Government

Opting out

Individual Sovereignty

Some Closing thoughts

Dollar Cost Averaging

All exchanges are not equal

Cold Storage

Seed Storage

Conclusion

Reading list

Diligent Gear

Related Articles

Resources