Sure, but on the other hand, from the report: "If only you’d get it together and make a tool we all can use."

It's called Bitcoin. Bitcoiners have been screaming from the rooftops for 15 years that it is the future of currency and freedom. The same people you say are being "left out" have consistently, year on year, rejected these tools. And for the groups they are discussing specifically, they dismiss it out of hand because they associate it with their political enemies. Nobody hates Bitcoin more than the left. I say that as somebody who is much more liberal than most here, and a frequent donor to FFTF. Somebody who has tried for years to get the exact same people this paper is saying are "left out" to consider Bitcoin.

These same users who say they're "left out" could have a self-custody wallet downloaded on their phone in five minutes, they won't do that, but they'll gladly spend 10x that time figuring out how to use Discord or Venmo or whatever the newest tool is and getting all their friends to use it. Even among those people who are interested in decentralized tech, they'll flock to lemmy, bluesky, or anything except nostr because "eew bitcoin".

I'm glad to see FFTF writing on this topic but frankly the report absolutely misses the mark. It pits Bitcoin up against a bunch of other cryptocurrencies and don't even mention or include lightning, which significantly enhances the privacy of Bitcoin use. Lightning has been around for 5+ years, it is where the *majority* of Bitcoin transactions take place. FFS FFTF, get it together. If I didn't know FFTF better, I'd think this was a fluff piece written by coindesk to try to paint a variety of the latest shitcoins as being on par with Bitcoin so they can convince people to buy them.

I think FFTF is expressing, more than anything, that they are frustrated that the Bitcoin and "defi community" somehow owes them something because they sided with us on some legislation? They're mad that the crypto community is cozying up to Trump? I don't love it either, but I understand why it is that way, it's the only party that has ever shown any love to Bitcoin. But this problem FTFF is complaining about? I don't see EFF whining about that, or the ACLU, or other similar orgs. This is an FFTF problem, not a crypto/Bitcoin/DeFi problem.

I'm all for valid criticism of Bitcoin, this lays out a number of them, but to me it also reeks of "You didn't specifically use language to describe this product that places our ingroup above others, so it's not accessible". That said, you gotta meet users where they're at, Tor, for example, I think has done a great job of this. We shouldn't dismiss criticism out of hand, Bitcoiners are every day making it easier to use and more accessible. I hope we keep doing that.

lightning is grossly overlooked as a privacy layer

Most people don't have a correct mental model to understand privacy in the first place. This issue isn't specific to bitcoin. The problem is more fundamental, and these people will never learn it. Sort of like: Bitcoin doesn't fix stupid.

🎯

If Bitcoin was private enough it would be Monero – private enough but not without supply-audit problems and potential inflation bugs. You can't have everything in tech, there are trade-offs. Great minds working to make Bitcoin privacy better; Rusty who pioneered bolt12, which significantly increases privacy. Bitcoin has the biggest and brightest pool of devs and code scrutiny out there. It only serves us right that sometimes we are pissed off with the way shitcoiners try to downplay Bitcoin – citing privacy problems – while not even acknowledging the other side if the equation.

Using Vexl to buy bitcoin with no KYC has never been easier. There’s no excuse for using centralized KYC exchanges.

Glad to hear reports like this exist. The amount of gripes i have with btc and cln in particular, are massive. There are certainly ways to make it work and I have successfuly gotten a Google Play card out of some sats...but boy, the path there, was difficult as fuck. x.x

Also, most BTC tooling and services feel like US only - ones that properly "work" in europe and/or germany, are quite rare o.O'

13 EASY steps to reach Bitcoin privacy Nirvana :)

Step 1 - Ignore the fact that you live in a hostile environment with limited internet access and take a 1000 hour Bitcoin crash course. Juggle this task with other commitments like NOT DYING and STAYING ALIVE.

Step 2 - Purchase a laptop or a google pixel phone with no CCTV footage of yourself doing so from a person who doesn’t know you. Oh, by the way you have no money because you are a whistleblower and your bank account has been frozen.

Step 3 - Try and find a VPN provider that accepts sats as payment and download to your device. But you don’t have KYC free sats yet? VPN first then sats? Trust a free VPN provider? Decisions … you might have blown your cover before you started!

Step 4 - Purchase a burner Gmail address and password to access the google play store that is sandboxed on your mobile device so you can download a BTC wallet. Do this several times whilst paying for the privilege in a non private way because all the password and addresses don’t work!

Step 5 - Gotta run your own node! Yes, I’ll get one delivered to my house in downtown Gaza City. Verify, don’t trust! Gotta have a node! Might as well not even own Bitcoin if you aren’t running a node…

Step 6 - Download sparrow wallet and stamp your seed phrase into titanium! Again, just get a stamp seed sent to your house in rural Belorussia! Easy peasy! Paper backups suck! Or go and buy a stamp kit from the corner store in Kabul. You won’t have any problems...

Step 7 - Buy some KYC sats using an online marketplace! Except you don’t have any of the accepted fiat on and off ramps! You haven’t even got any KYC free collateral bitcoin yet to use robosats. Oh well, better luck next time! I guess you could rely on a donor … do you know them? Do you trust them with your life? Anyways you now have sats that are kinda private… 90% confident! Somehow you just made it work…

Step 8 - Perform a join market coinjoin and verify the transaction on your own node that was delivered to your apartment in Moscow… Forgot about sanctions. They don’t exist…

Step 9 - The answer to step 8. Build your own node! But hang on a minute, you share a room with 2 other people and security is a solid 1/10 in rural Sudan with rolling blackouts to boot. Ouch…

Step 10 - Use Wasabi with no node to mix the corn instead and trust the coordinator! 90% sure we are still good.

Step 11 - Make sure your primary Bitcoin internet connected device never comes into wifi or Bluetooth connection with any other device you have or any other persons device. Don’t make a single mistake. Ever.

Step 12 - Build your own faraday cages for all of your devices! Squeeze in the time to do this right after you have escaped across the border fleeing civil conflict.

Step 13 - Voila! You are now a private Bitcoin user!

Easy as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13!!!

Oh wait… how do I spend it privately? And where can I spend it privately in hostile non permissive environments? I’ve downloaded the BTC Company app but I can’t find Iraq listed? Maybe West Papua is a country I can select on Bitrefill?? Bummer…

hilarious, government regulations make privacy hard so blame it on programmers, got it

Sounds like porn.

Robosats and Bisq are both fairly easy. No matter how much it gets dumbed down, there will always be someone dumber to complain it's not easy enough.

ECash fixes this

#bitcoin is open public network .. just stay anonymous.. like #Satoshi ..

I’d be interested in hearing a Guy’s Take on this nostr:npub1h8nk2346qezka5cpm8jjh3yl5j88pf4ly2ptu7s6uu55wcfqy0wq36rpev

I'm not a coder or builder, just a teacher and user. IMO we just need to be patient. The network is growing exponentially as fast as it sustainably can. The solutions we want are currently being worked on already by someone somewhere, we just don't know it yet.

Everything occurs in it's own due time.

Nothing stops this train.

I have been asking a simple question about inflation, bitcoin vs fiat, and get completely ignored.

nostr:nprofile1qqsw54ajtaa903sa0hgt7cjpzfz2tqxkwz0y9gsy9r7ns8ufa7xk8kcpz4mhxue69uhk2er9dchxummnw3ezumrpdejqz9rhwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjmcpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhg5gnemy nostr:nprofile1qqsx5dvc2g3cmjgz4mgelwlk5p2ln2ljrsw23y2ar38z0agd7tefpkgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsynqns3