Yes, I remember. Now the biggest assholes of the universe are connected to Bitcoin.
I am „I started baking my own sourdough bread“ years old. 
Custodial is the way to go for Lightning, I don’t know why everybody makes such a drama of it. Yes, you have to trust someone else, but unless you have huge amounts of money in your wallet, I think that’s ok, I can live with that. If someone steals your money, he‘s still committing a crime, it’s illegal. But if you have let’s say 500,000 Sats in your wallet, even if it gets stolen, it‘s not the end of the world. You probably get more likely scammed somewhere else in your life.
„I cannot send or receive money before I opened a channel“, „the amount of money I can send is determined by the size of the Lightning channel“ - all these are no-go‘s. If you cannot send or receive money immediately after installing the wallet, nobody will use it. Why? Because there are many other options to send your money - instantly and free, in the fiat world and in the crypto world.
Lightning won’t work, if every user has to make on-chain transactions. This needs to be hidden from the user. Phoenix is doing a pretty good job here, but to make stuff really work smoothly, I would go custodial.
Stil not regretting having left/leaving the Bitcoin space.
It remains a shady place.
Milei and $Libra: Pathetic. Ridiculous. Like a crypto beginner.
Did anyone try Proton Wallet? 
ETHBTC 👀 
Nice. Would be great if it actually worked and 50% payments wouldn’t fail/time out.
El Salvador ditched Bitcoin for a penny.
Let that sink in.
Goodbye, Bitcoin.
After 10 years, I’m done. This is my last cycle, It’s time to move on. I bought my first BTC back in 2015 for one reason: greed. Pure, simple greed. Same in 2017, when I went all in and stumbled onto Andreas' talks. That led to a deep dive into the protocol, and later into the Lightning Network. I learned a ton about money, society, history, politics—I ran nodes, bought almost every hardware and tried out every software wallet, and leveled up my personal privacy. But in the end, I don’t believe—anymore—that anything truly groundbreaking will emerge from this space. There’s never going to be a "Bitcoin Standard," and honestly, thank god for that. Hyperbitcoinization? Not happening. That’s just a fantasy cooked up by a loud, delusional group in Bitcoin, with their “winner takes all” and "law of the jungle" mentality. Angry, young, inexperienced guys who want to burn everything down with zero idea of what comes next.
The tribalism in Bitcoin? Yeah, I could never vibe with that.
As an asset? Sure, Bitcoin did a 20x in 2020/2021, but then lost 80% right after. That's a terrible performance for any investment and not a stable store of value. Why would you risk losing 80% of your money just to end up where you started?
I will turn 50 next year, and there is no room in my retirement savings for an asset that fluctuates so wildly in value. I can’t start over again.
Anonymity on the base layer? Not happening anymore. And if it’s not anonymous, I don’t want it. So no thanks to Bitcoin on the base layer. Is a cryptocurrency that lacks anonymity really better in terms of privacy than PayPal and similar services? I can transfer my money back and forth in seconds with SEPA instant transfers. For free! Why wait for a block?
As for the whole “not your keys, not your coins” mantra—let’s be real, if you still want to be in Bitcoin, you’re probably better off just buying it through apps and forgetting about owning your own keys. Hardware wallets? They’re clunky, ugly, expensive, and a pain to use. They never caught on, and once you’ve used them, they’re basically electronic junk.
Acceptance? Nobody was using Bitcoin 10 years ago, and nobody’s using it today. Meanwhile, stablecoins seem to see much broader adoption. And in the end, what’s the point of all these cryptocurrencies anyway? Sure, you can move your money from A to B without government interference, great. But who really needs that? Some do, but most of us don’t. Any cryptocurrency can do that. Ethereum works fine without Proof of Work, and so do many others. Can we just admit that? Why cling to the old, slow system when newer ones don’t need massive amounts of energy and do the same job - which is to achieve consensus. Bitcoin is an ELECTRONIC peer-to-peer cash system. Do we need that? An electronic apparatus, spread across the globe, doing what? Writing a ledger while consuming a huge amount of energy. Everything is software these days. Why use the old, noisy, polluting apparatus when the new ones can achieve consensus without it - faster?
Andreas once said, “Bitcoin is unstoppable.” Well, after 10 years of watching Bitcoin and its community, I disagree. I think it *is* stoppable, and honestly, I hope it’s not the future. Someone once said, “Bitcoin is an old man full of regrets” and I get it now. It’s a slow, inefficient database. And let’s be honest, many Bitcoiners are assholes with that infuriating captain hindsight attitude. Sure, there are great & lovely people—Anita, Andreas, Alex Gladstein, Troy Cross— but they are the same people that were around a decade ago. The overwhelming number of assholes in this space is crushing. That’s why so many people can’t stand Bitcoiners. And that’s never going to change, because Bitcoin won’t change. The community is too stubborn.
Also: The wrong idols. Why are so many people worshiping the worst of the worst? Alex Jones? People celebrating Michael Saylor on *Fox News* with Tucker Carlson? Kneeling at the feet of characters like Javier Milei and other bizarros? Even though Bitcoiners call it the ‘truth bubble,’ they still cheer for the chronic liar Trump? It’s embarrassing. As a German with a bit of historical sensitivity, I’m naturally skeptical of loud, aggressive politicians who just want to tear everything down. And as a gay person, I can’t help but ask: Why are there no openly LGBTQ people in this space? Sure, there’s Anita, and I know of one conservative 🙄 lawyer from the US who came out, but that’s about it. Gays and lesbians are everywhere—so why
aren’t they in Bitcoin? Well, I know why: because Bitcoiners are assholes, and they’ll weaponize it against you the second they can. Hell no, I’d never put a rainbow flag on my profile, not in this hate-fueled community.
I'm gonna donate and support some people in this space. For the family. After that, I’ll leave the crypto space or switch to Ethereum/other chains. They go on about 'ultra-sound money' and other nonsense, but they seem nicer to me.
All in all, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Bitcoin community is just not a very likable one.
Peace & Love (because that’s what’s missing in Bitcoin)
Thank you, Andreas, Thank you Anita, and Goodbye Bitcoin.
Nothing ground-breaking will ever emerge from this space. Ethereum is better, faster and doesn’t harm our environment.
Just admit it. Did you ever use it? No? Well, give it a try.
And: The only thing that matters with ALL of these cryptocurrencies is the price. That’s it.
Yes, because the price is the only thing that matters. With all cryptocurrencies.