Awesome haha! nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s and the Damus ban are featured :)
My book on Bitcoin + China is officially out on Amazon! Thanks again to nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu for the foreward. When I originally wrote this book, I wanted to portray China and Bitcoin as characters in a larger fight - for control over how finances and computing power would be arrayed. Would individuals be able to enjoy more liberty and financial freedom and dilute the control of tyrants - or would new technologies like the Digital Yuan create more control?
I hope you all enjoy. Any of you who DM me that you've bought the book - if I'm in your city, I'll try to meet and sign your copy! Love the Nostr community.
https://www.amazon.com/Would-Mao-Hold-Bitcoin-Techno-Nationalist/dp/B0D7672L8X/
Always good to dance with Bitcoiners haha
I wrote previously for Forbes about how "chat control" and European policy attempts to go around end-to-end encryption would invade millions if not billions of user phones. User privacy and control of what your device displays to who is so critical to human freedom. One of the things I love most about Bitcoin is that it aggregates people who think along this vein.
My profile picture on here commemorates Ba Jin, the leading anarchist Chinese writer. His short stories and novels animated a revolutionary generation that saw China break from thousands of years of dynastic rule - but he was personally punished by Mao during the Cultural Revolution. His wife was denied treatment for her cancer and she would die. Ba Jin took to writing about remembering the Cultural Revolution and reading Dante's Inferno to gain some small measure of comfort.
Some people talk about the "Chinese model" as if it is a matter of destiny, but the recent ideological fascination with Marx and a stronger Leninist state doesn't have as strong of a root as most assume, and even less so the idea of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" forged right after Ba Jin's torment. Ba Jin's story tells us that there was always a China that looked to temper the state's excesses and one rooted in a desire to engage the world (at the time in Esperanto, perhaps now with Bitcoin). Though the Chinese Communist Party has tried to seize his legacy, I believe it is Chinese cypherpunks looking to hedge and move away from one of the most unequal fiat kingdoms on Earth (China's income inequality by some measures surpasses that of the United States) that truly follow Ba Jin's legacy.
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It's not possible to be resilient to all threat models.
I don't even think China banned Bitcoin mining. They banned mining Bitcoin using the electric grid/fossil fuels iirc and only in a particular region.
Only a few manufacturers make most of Bitcoin newest most powerful ASICs and they are all from China. How is that not vulnerable to state attack?
-Over half Bitcoins hashpower is KYC
-It's obvious what you're doing with that ASIC
-Open to targeted mining censorship
Also, these give off a very obvious fingerprint (energy draw, heat, noise)
"Police raid a concealed #Bitcoin mining operation, initially mistaking it for an illegal marijuana farm due to the heat signature"
https://twitter.com/BitcoinNewsCom/status/1721359382745874489
China's State Council (under Liu He) pronounced Bitcoin mining as undesired, and the provinces started banning and kicking out Bitcoin miners. However, ever since then, people sell miners in Mainland and etc.
I wrote about how Bitcoin survived China's bans and actually grew much stronger - diving into the details on the level of what was attempted - really showing how Bitcoin thrived despite a very robust attack from a large state adversary - and what lessons can be drawn for future resilience.
Hattip to @`jb55`who gave me the whole story of how Damus had to face down Chinese censors firsthand who took the Damus app down and then banned the default relay IP addresses.
One of the cool features of Nostr is the automatic translation of different languages in mobile clients. I believe nostr:npub18m76awca3y37hkvuneavuw6pjj4525fw90necxmadrvjg0sdy6qsngq955 and nostr:npub1nz64zngcqm8vj8nhrdkcjpfwn2rcaqysnxec88tqfclp5afrpglsqm0w5y both have this feature. It's awesome to follow people from around the world.
I have been searching for a truly censorship-resistant platform ever since X banned my organization’s account this January under pressure from the Indian government.
I believe I have finally found one. Thanks for the introduction, nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m
We will be moving our organization here soon.
If you set up a zapping address, you can be sent/tipped sats (https://nostr.how/en/guides/setup-zapping-wallet)
The solution is to build open standards and networks resilient to all threat models. Monero is not resilient to nation-state level scrutiny, whereas Bitcoin is - and I can point to this simply because Chinese state authorities (including at the time, Vice-Premier Liu He) tried banning Bitcoin left and right but probably has no idea what Monero is.
Nostr hosts a lot of Chinese cypherpunks. None of them ever really post about Monero.
Github is clearly a problem for China - they've tried to take down Github repos multiple times. But they can't enforce protocol-level bans on Git because it's too useful.
If you set up a Lightning Address, with say Wallet of Satoshi, people can tip you Bitcoin for your contributions here https://nostr.how/en/guides/setup-zapping-wallet
I don't know of anybody en masse that uses Tor in China, but I know plenty of people who use VPNs. My point wasn't a direct analogue of the technology, it's the fact that once your tech is a narrow use case, it's easier to target. China can't target regular web traffic at a protocol level because too much useful stuff is there - they have to ban IP by IP. Even bridges for Tor don't work that well in Mainland. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.0447
Btw, if we want to be direct, I have never seen an instance yet of P2P trade in China with Monero vs. Tether/BTC. Which is my point. If the liquidity conditions are not met, the tech isn't even usable in certain jurisdictions. FYI, this isn't because Monero are some on-chain geniuses, most "traders" are nabbed by interactions with the Chinese banking system. But in arrests, public reporting, sleuthing on Chinese social media - very little known interest in Monero.
"A viable currency which has no privacy is no problem for any authoritarian state." - you shoehorn in one section, and you get the rest. Just like how Github is allowed in China because there's too many useful repos.
Obviously I think transactional privacy is legit, but governments don't. FYI, why Lightning usage is generally banned in China as well.
I think the problem with Monero is that it's like using Tor vs https:// - you need enough "legit" traffic and trade for it to be a viable currency rather than a privacy tool. Incidentally, this is why Tor, for example, is banned at the protocol level within China.
I wrote about the growth of Bitcoin and Nostr as essential tools for activists and dissidents making a difference around the world at the Financial Freedom Track in Oslo. I linked to everybody's Primal profile in the spirit of it all.
CC nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m nostr:npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu nostr:npub1wlkfvm7dvnusz9fv44wuwucu0jp3lc3wqt36ax0lz33hukjga7wq6hqwhy nostr:npub1cf3zeytdnwgwzz5pk2ax0vvmmlzad03xcft4d50ejrfhsh8pxcdsefx7gk nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg nostr:npub1hea99yd4xt5tjx8jmjvpfz2g5v7nurdqw7ydwst0ww6vw520prnq6fg9v2 nostr:npub1rxysxnjkhrmqd3ey73dp9n5y5yvyzcs64acc9g0k2epcpwwyya4spvhnp8
nostr:npub1dnzzyhmewrzkh862z7z2shwmhh5htx0rvkagepj2fkgst9ptwg3qj4x52h and nostr:npub1hwgw0uznr49t4gullpgfz4m5xnakl5a0l88m3k382xv7ys0tfmlsd503sg also have excellent articles on the topic on their Forbes profiles.