P2P premium = privacy & freedom tax. Worth it.

Wait until miners only include KYC transactions in those fucking blocks... Then what? North Korea? Yeah, I think #BTC was killed by it's own success.

No need for studies. As regulation increases with surveillance it's an ever increasing number.

Risk of confiscation today is two or three orders of magnitude higher than 5 years ago. If not more!

Soon everybody will know someone with a frozen account or transaction. It's inevitable.

My recommendation: Use credit cards for digital payments. More private than BTC and if KYC'ed a near zero chance of failing transactions.

For everything else there is Monero or cash.

Everything else is nearly worthless.

Imagine you have $1B. But you can not spend it. Is it really worth $1B?

This concept applies to all non-fungible coins including BTC. If you really think BTC NGU won't be broken in the future by the BTC ETF and pay your taxes on it

Some years ago, we speculated that a black and white market price may develop for bitcoin.

Yesterday, BTC was traded at a high of ~88k € on exchanges – while people paid an almost 30k € premium for peer-to-peer sats.

Parallel economy bitcoin > Wall Street bitcoin ftw 🔥

What does a non-transparent ledger solve with regards to a monopoly on violence ?

Any tips or suggestions on setting up an eSIM on a #pixel phone running #grapheneos ? #asknostr

I’ve been reading through the discussion forum and it seems like a lot of people have issues. Most say google play services is required.

Thanks in advance!

I could read that but I need first you to answer the following two questions:

Do you want to see btc success in the future or it is about something else? How much time is worth for that to get materialized based on your time-preference?

I understand why you need specific answers. IMHO, they are not yet available but will be in future if and only if everything goes well.

But I’m reaching my level of understanding (game theory) in btc at this point.

So I will remain as reader and see what others have to say about this

Still an appeal to feeling and personal consideration rather than actual fact or reason (and you ended that with a direct ad hominem lol).

And with seriousness, how is it childish to take responsibility and/or sacrifice for your property? I would go to jail or die before giving up my keys. Those who comply are at fault for not taking responsibility, sorry not sorry.

Still an appeal to feeling and personal consideration rather than actual fact or reason (and you ended that with a direct ad hominem lol).

And with seriousness, how is it childish to take responsibility and/or sacrifice for your property? I would go to jail or die before giving up my keys. Those who comply are at fault for not taking responsibility, sorry not sorry.

This is true of bank deposits, when data from large banks like JPM and NYM leaks, criminals all around the world know who has a lot of fiat and where they live.

So this is not a negative specific to bitcoin, no?

The fiat system provides no additional protection to violent attacks or extortion or confiscation than available to the bitcoin network. In my opinion, the fiat system provides provides less protection than many security models natively available in bitcoin.

Yes, I agree it does not change the fact that tainted coins is a problem, but I understood your argument to be that this was a specific problem to bitcoin, or one that is at least worse.

Further, in bitcoin solutions do exist to some extent, are possible in the future and are being built. There is no solution to this issue in fiat.

When I look at your arguments holistically, you seem to be arguing that bitcoin has not solved all the issue completely right away and therefore it is worse than other stores of value and is not going to end well. While I get the points you are making, I think the core of you point is fundamentally flawed.

great points/cases in there Chuck, thanks for sharing.

Personally I think he didn’t ignore your points. While he didn’t directly addressed them. What can make all of us a bit anxious for sure :)

In my opinion, he is a believer that the evolution of what we know today as btc based on our future us being more educated people spending in bitcoin-only creating new tools/adding-nodes/better-layers will be ultimately overcoming the attack (some of the valid cases your are detailing).

“Human action is what is centralizing” - I read this as btc gets tainted because it is being centralized it in first place.

Didn’t want to add noise in here just trying to contribute to this discussion and learn from you guys

Ad hominem for the win! Thanks for playing, better luck next time.

Sovereign Matt

@Sovereign_Matt

Bitcoin is NOT Decentralized!

While Bitcoin's design aims for decentralization, ASIC mining has led to large-scale industrial mining warehouses concentrated in cold climates with cheap electricity (e.g., China pre-ban, Kazakhstan, Texas, Canada). This centralization of mining power challenges the original vision of a truly distributed network.

Bitcoin is NOT Peer-to-Peer!

Bitcoin's limited block size (1MB) prevents it from scaling for everyday transactions, making custodial solutions (e.g., exchanges, Lightning Network custodians) necessary for it to function as a Medium of Exchange. This reliance on third parties undermines the peer-to-peer nature of the network.

Bitcoin is NOT Secure!

Bitcoin's security budget depends on transaction fees subsidizing miner incentives as block rewards decline. However, on-chain transactions are decreasing, leading to concerns about long-term miner incentives and potential security risks from 51% attacks or insufficient hash rate.

Bitcoin is NOT Scarce!

While the protocol enforces a 21M BTC cap, custodians can engage in rehypothecation, fractional reserves, and IOU-based Bitcoin (e.g., paper Bitcoin on exchanges). If most users trust custodians instead of using Bitcoin on-chain, the practical scarcity is diluted.

Bitcoin is NOT Private!

Bitcoin's global public ledger records every transaction forever, making it less private than a bank account. Chain analysis firms (e.g., Chainalysis, Elliptic) track transactions, de-anonymizing users and enabling surveillance, leading to worse privacy than traditional finance.

However, Monero is the real deal:

Monero is Decentralized!

Unlike Bitcoin, Monero uses an ASIC-resistant mining algorithm (RandomX), ensuring mining remains accessible to CPU miners. This prevents industrial-scale mining centralization, allowing a more distributed and fair mining landscape.

Monero is Peer-to-Peer!

Monero is actively used in real-world transactions as a true Medium of Exchange, particularly in peer-to-peer markets and Darknet Markets (DNMs). Due to delistings by regulated exchanges, Monero has thrived as a censorship-resistant currency, with people using it for private transactions rather than just holding.

Monero is Secure!

Monero's tail emission ensures miners will always have a predictable and stable block reward (0.6 XMR per block forever), preventing the security budget crisis that Bitcoin faces. Additionally, since Monero is widely used as P2P cash, the natural transaction volume helps sustain miner incentives.

Monero is Scarce!

Monero enforces dynamic block sizes and a predictable emission curve. While tail emission introduces a small inflation (0.6 XMR per block, ~0.87% yearly decreasing over time), this eventually stabilizes into an equilibrium where lost coins balance out new supply. This ensures Monero remains scarce but usable, unlike Bitcoin, where hoarding leads to liquidity issues.

Monero is Private!

Monero's privacy tech is unmatched:

(1) Ring Signatures obscure the sender.

(2) Stealth Addresses hide the recipient.

(3) RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions) hides the transaction amount.

Unlike Bitcoin, Chainalysis firms have repeatedly failed to trace Monero transactions. The IRS even placed a bounty on breaking Monero’s privacy, yet no one has successfully cracked it. In 2024, Monero will introduce Full Membership Proofs (FMP), further enhancing anonymity by making every coin in the supply appear equally spent.

Monero isn’t just another crypto project—it’s working exactly as Satoshi envisioned in the Bitcoin White Paper as decentralised, secure, scarce, and private peer-to-peer cash.

On the kyc issue, it is true kyc is part of a system of control and an abomination and its constant leaking is an ever present and growing threat to everyone everywhere.

Leaving aside it is possible to acquire non-kyc bitcoin, important to recognise this issue applies even more so to all other stores of value reasonably available, certainly fiat. So I am not sure I understand your point of how bitcoin makes this worse?

On the tainted coins issue, again while this is a serious issue, it also applies to fiat and other mediums of exchange. With bitcoin they can't stop you receiving transfers without permission, while with fiat it is increasingly necessary to prove the exact source of funds, down to invoices, contracts and communications, etc before banks permit you to receive them - data which is far more dangerous when inevitably leaked It is also unclear to me how you think bitcoin makes this deteriorating situation worse?

Genuine questions.

Complying is the fault of the individual, not that of the technology. Again, those would be people who didn't properly prepare.

You're making valid points and I have no clue how ppl can responsibly recommend kyc'ed services. It's putting people on a raid list.

Referring to tainted utxos, I think they'll become less of an issue when the need for fiat offramps is gone. This indicates that you'll most likely never enjoy the results of your savings, but your kids will.

Seizure does not scale at an individual level. There will most likely be people who get their coins seized, yes, but those will be the people who didn't prepare and were unfortunately too care-free about their custody setups. This can be seen with the gold seizures.

Also, nationwide seizures are more indicative of a failing state rather than a failure of Bitcoin. If this were to come, it would be more of a signal for people to flee and for others not to enter that particular state. Those who own Bitcoin will be most well equipped to do so.

Human action is what is centralizing. Most people pricing bitcoin from a piece of paper - to get rich. That will centralize further because it is how people see the world. (Trust institutions, think prices naturally go up over time).

To prevent that outcome requires enough people who contribute their time in education, running nodes, economic nodes, spending in bitcoin, building additional layers, building companies that create value which “when” the attack comes (which it most certainly will) - there is enough knowledge, decentralization, power, privacy, etc to withstand that attack. (Or make the risk of that attack so great from the centralizing chain - that it is not worth it)

That is what is being built and those on Nostr are already a part of that future.

Giving in to a system of control only makes it stronger.

We are the change.