technically, yes. if you generated your key / created a new account on one of these websites, then yes, your private key is stored in your web browser cache. hopefully nothing malicious is reading that cache, but there is always a chance for that to happen. one nostr client has cross site scripting attacks back in november or december. it's absolutely possible.

i'd recommend taking your key and using one of the extensions that i recommended. then clearing your browser cache to get your key out of your cache.

I spoke at a big bitcoin-adjacent company this week and one of the best questions was from someone who asked what the downsides of bitcoin adoption might be.

I always do appreciate these steelman questions, the skeptical questions, the ones where we challenge ourselves. Only when we can answer those types of questions do we understand the concept that we are promoting.

So the classic example is that in modern economic literature, "deflation is bad". This, however, is only the case in a highly indebted system. Normally, deflation is good. Money appreciates, technology improves, and goods and services get cheaper over time as they should. Price of Tomorrow covers this well. My book touches on this too, etc. The "deflation is bad" meme is still alive in modern economic discourse and thus is worth countering, but I think in the bitcoin spectrum of communities, people get that deflation is fine and good.

My answer to the question was in two parts.

The first part was technological determinism. In other words, if we were to re-run humanity multiple times, there are certain rare accidents that might not replicate, and other commonalities that probably would. Much like steam engines, internal combustion engines, electricity, and nuclear power, I think a decentralized network of money is something we would eventually come across. In our case, Bitcoin came into existence as soon as the bandwidth and encryption tech allowed it to. In other universes or simulations it might look a bit different (e.g. might not be 21 million or ten minute block times exactly), but I think decentralized real-time settlement would become apparent as readily as electricity does, for any civilization that reaches this point. So ethics aside, it just is what it is. It exists, and thus we must deal with it.

The second part was that in my view, transparency and individual empowerment is rarely a bad thing. Half of the world is autocratic. And half of the world (not quite the same half) deals with massive structural inflation. A decentralized spreadsheet that allows individuals to store and send value can't possibly be a bad thing, unless humanity itself is totally corrupted. I then went into more detail with examples about historical war financing, and all sorts of tangible stuff. In other words, a whole chapter full of stuff. I've addressed this in some articles to.

In your view, if you had to steelman the argument as best as you could, what are the scenarios where bitcoin is *BAD* for humanity rather than good for it, on net?

I spoke at a big bitcoin-adjacent company this week and one of the best questions was from someone who asked what the downsides of bitcoin adoption might be.

I always do appreciate these steelman questions, the skeptical questions, the ones where we challenge ourselves. Only when we can answer those types of questions do we understand the concept that we are promoting.

So the classic example is that in modern economic literature, "deflation is bad". This, however, is only the case in a highly indebted system. Normally, deflation is good. Money appreciates, technology improves, and goods and services get cheaper over time as they should. Price of Tomorrow covers this well. My book touches on this too, etc. The "deflation is bad" meme is still alive in modern economic discourse and thus is worth countering, but I think in the bitcoin spectrum of communities, people get that deflation is fine and good.

My answer to the question was in two parts.

The first part was technological determinism. In other words, if we were to re-run humanity multiple times, there are certain rare accidents that might not replicate, and other commonalities that probably would. Much like steam engines, internal combustion engines, electricity, and nuclear power, I think a decentralized network of money is something we would eventually come across. In our case, Bitcoin came into existence as soon as the bandwidth and encryption tech allowed it to. In other universes or simulations it might look a bit different (e.g. might not be 21 million or ten minute block times exactly), but I think decentralized real-time settlement would become apparent as readily as electricity does, for any civilization that reaches this point. So ethics aside, it just is what it is. It exists, and thus we must deal with it.

The second part was that in my view, transparency and individual empowerment is rarely a bad thing. Half of the world is autocratic. And half of the world (not quite the same half) deals with massive structural inflation. A decentralized spreadsheet that allows individuals to store and send value can't possibly be a bad thing, unless humanity itself is totally corrupted. I then went into more detail with examples about historical war financing, and all sorts of tangible stuff. In other words, a whole chapter full of stuff. I've addressed this in some articles to.

In your view, if you had to steelman the argument as best as you could, what are the scenarios where bitcoin is *BAD* for humanity rather than good for it, on net?

the more I think about nostr the more excited I get

momentum is building, can you feel it?

What is supposed to deter scammers from operating with impunity if no one can punish them?

- Harambe

- Bitcoin

- Nostr

- Superconductors

- Aliens

- ???

Buenos Aires, Argentina

there’s people who come and go but then there’s people who post here every day, making the dream become reality. These are the folks who are pushing us into the future. Keep pushing 💜

I won’t judge, some plebs use watermelons

I know physicians in Egypt that, after their shift, go home and stack physical dollar bills. They earn no interest. If a thief or a fire takes their home, they're done.

They have looked around at the monetary technologies available to them, and decided that this was the best one: stacks of paper claims issued by the global hegemon that they're not particularly fond of, stored in their own home rather than trust the banks. What a sad state of affairs.

They put as much of their illiquid net worth as possible into buying a condo, and the rest of their liquid net worth goes into paper dollars with no interest. So, for starters, they have to sacrifice liquidity for savings.

Egypt is not a very tech-savvy market; bitcoin, stablecoins, and other similar tech are all on the fringes. Many Muslims believe that bitcoin is speculation and thus bad, and so I appreciate the work that Saifedean and others do to show that no, bitcoin is interest-free sound money and good. If anything it's fiat money that doesn't conform to Muslim ideals. But more importantly, most Egyptians haven't actually spent time to understand the tech, unlike Nigeria or other countries. It's just not a "thing" there yet.

The only time I encountered someone in person who had not yet heard of bitcoin, was in Egypt. I was speaking to a friend, and we were talking about the Iranian protests; she was happy that many women had taken off their head coverings if they wanted to (she herself was someone who did so in Egypt, where it's permissible). I was like, "yeah, but it's rough for them. They risk getting bank accounts shut off. That's why some of them have promoted bitcoin. but I think it's still way too small yet."

And she was like, "what's bitcoin?"

And I was surprised. Many people haven't understood bitcoin, but most have heard the name. She hadn't heard the name even in 2022.

What we have today is clearly a local maximum. This is clearly not the height of monetary technology.

nostr:note1thet3ggupzn9rmll84u4s2zunhah9a6l2ucjkvr95xlcp0h36tqqsg9eqc

live free or fucking die