hot take: I get that custodial lightning is not remotely decentralized, sovereign, trustless, etc. - all that good shit …

… but is nobody else outrageously excited by how much of an improvement over fiat it is? not just in its own right but even explicitly in terms of decentralisation, sovereignty, and trustlessness?

it strikes me as a key vector of bitcoin driving jurisdictional arbitrage, for one. say some authoritarian regime cracks down on bitcoin (whatever that ends up meaning in practice, doesn’t really matter) and makes it politically risky to run a node, or manage liquidity, or be seen as “transmitting money”, or whatever. if there is a trustworthy custodial lightning provider *literally anywhere in the world* you can anonymously spin up the ability to receive payments in seconds. “anonymously” and “in seconds” are both groundbreaking advances if you have any familiarity whatsoever with fiat banking and payment rails.

if you think about it, you actually can’t get this with “real” lightning either. it’s not instant (to set up) and you need to know people who presumably trust you to some small extent to get to the point of workable liquidity and stay there (perhaps under-discussed, but if channel partners “don’t trust you”, they will close or never open, and you can’t use lightning at all. WhO’s TrUsTlEsS nOw HuH?!?)

so yes, this requires trust, but like, fuck me, so does everything in real life 😂 - being overly negative on this strikes me as a kind of core fallacy of appreciating open and decentralized systems: that it’s a spectrum, not a binary. how open and decentralized the foundation is represents the maximum openness and decentralisation of anything built on top, *not the minimum*!

moving away from completely closed and centralised does not necessitate the opposite, it opens up an entire range of new possibilities, all of which come with tradeoffs. but tradeoffs are relative to circumstances in real life, and in real life, selective trust is very much a thing because We LiVe In A sOcIeTy 🤪 - talking about tradeoffs in absolute terms as if the decision to accept them can be made entirely devoid of context is highly regarded. and this isn’t even to get into the rather obvious line of argument that if you want people to ever get to the extreme, having a spectrum to gradually move along is far more appealing than requiring them to jump in at the deep end. i.e. it’s also amazing for adoption.

in conclusion, don’t be highly regarded. support adoption. agree with my hot take. gm, pv 🤙

So I'm starting to figure out a little more about Bitcoin, I've done some more research, stacked more and have done a few transfers.

Last night I had one go through in 4 hours for 1.93 sats/vbyte, the lowest of a transfer yet. Where should this generally be? I see a lot of talk of 1 not being attainable anymore.

Also, if time doesn't matter to me for payment conclusion, is there any downsides to a longer wait?

I’m so out of loop on culture that I had to Google “based”. Yes, I live under a rock.

Doggo is awake and out of the operating room. I’m by his side him keeping him company. The doctor still isn’t sure what’s wrong with him. He has some kind of growth in his lower abdomen, but they probably won’t know more until the biopsy comes back. Poor little dude, he just wants to chase the geese and play stick in the park. I’d like to think he’ll get a chance again. 🙏❤️‍🩹🐕

Thanks for all your support. It means so much to me and my family. 🥹

#[0]

zapping in a bubble bath⚡️🫧

teach me something new to earn some sats 🤓

Talk about awful luck...

I failed #MarchOffTwitter 5 days in. Sorry 😐

Purple Pilling a friend today.

(The orange pill is inside the purple one)

Please load your zap ⚡️ 🔫

🫂💜

Do you vote in elections?

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you are a parent, *actively raise* your children. I’m a single mom, I understand all too well how exhausting it is to have to deliver on consequences when you set rules but you absolutely must do it or you teach your children that they will not be held accountable.

Do not tell your children to do anything “because you said so“ or you are raising sheep. Take the time to sit down and explain to them the concepts, the logic, the rationale behind why the rules are what they are and teach them how to consider and weigh the potential outcomes of their choices.

If your child is hyper, lacking in focus, or acting out: do not put them on lifelong meds to poison their bodies and sedate their minds because you are too tired to do the work to shape them. Examine where your own parenting, their nutrition, or mental well being need pivoting and DO THE WORK.

Do not leave it to the schools to raise them. Ask them DAILY what they learned and talked about at school that day so you can add your own context, altering view, or stance on that subject and why.

Raise your children for the world they will have, not the world you had or that exists today. Raise them to be contenders with a competitive edge. This means sheltering your child from the truth or certain topics is doing them a disservice. When they grow up, they will be in for a wake up call and they will be forced to learn skills as adults that they should have learned as children.

Teach your children how to handle losing. Teach your children how to handle bullies. Teach your children how to process these things without losing their self worth. Teach them how to have honor amongst thieves.

How many of us, once we became adults, spent years udoing broken models we were taught? Do not do this to your kids. Bitcoin doesn’t fix this: YOU DO.

canada almost makes the US look like a utopia

My 4 year old was able to ride her pedal bike on her own today. Proud of her proof of work/practicing hard to make it happen #plebdad

Maybe fixed? Lmk, cheers!