Best of luck with that 😄

A: #Bitcoin is dumb, digital nothing. I own #land, instead!

B: can you build a house on your land?

A: of course! I just need to ask the gov for permission.

B: so, you don't own the land. You just rent it from the gov. I don't need anyone's permission to spend my #BTC

A: 😡

Try and be really fucking grateful for super ordinary shit often and watch your life improve tremendously.

I was just walking down the street, coffee in hand, suddenly realizing how "normal" it all is already. Like most days, I went to a coffee shop that accepts lightning. Like most days, I paid directly with sats that someone zapped me here on nostr. Like most days, neither the merchant nor myself thought twice about it, or took a minute to marvel at what just happened.

So, allow me to do just that. Marvel at what just happened. While everyone is having a fantastically crazy time at #nostriga, uncountable people are using bitcoin in a myriad of ways. Some for savings, large and small; some for transactions, large and small; some for other stuff. Bitcoin is slowly but surely entering the world stage. Some commentators will tell you that this is good. Some commentators will tell you that this is bad. Whatever the case may be, it is unavoidable.

I see nostr under a similar light. As platform-based manipulation and censorship ramps up—which it inevitably will—the usage of nostr will ramp up too, and with it the usage of zaps and everything else that comes with it. And soon enough, buying a coffee (or breakfast, lunch, and dinner) with zap-based income will be normal. Just like it's "normal" to be an "influencer" today, or a "YouTuber" or whatnot... It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a normal thing. Anyone can do it.

Back to my coffee. I remember when I had the "oh my god, I can live on bitcoin here!!!" experience for the first time. It was in Bitcoin Jungle, a couple of months after the initiative was launched. I stayed there for 2 weeks or so, buying the necessities of daily life with sats outright. And it worked. Flawlessly. I had zero payment failures, and was exclusively using Zeus with my own node. It was incredible.

Why is this incredible, you ask? Shouldn't stuff just work? Yes, it should. But building out the tech and the infrastructure to make it all work is BLOODY HARD. I remember the first Lightning Conference in Berlin, in 2019. Everyone came, everyone had all their channels and wallets and everything prepared, and ~50% of payments failed. For... reasons.

Fast-forward to today: I go to one of the 100+ merchants in the city that accept bitcoin, a quick tap on the PoS device & QR code scan, boom, done. Is it always perfect? Of course not. Will it get better still? 100% it will. Very soon these merchants will have NFC-enabled devices, and the tap-to-pay experience that people are used to with cards & Apple pay will be normal for bitcoin payments too. If you are in Riga right now, you'll experience this first-hand thanks to Bolt cards and BTCPay Server. It's awesome, it's open-source, and it works. And it will get better still.

We are truly living in the best and weirdest timeline; a timeline where shitposting on the internet can buy you lunch and dinner; a timeline that spawns amazing technological movements like #nostr; a timeline that, every ~10 minutes, allows for a small miracle to happen. A timeline where "magic internet money" is a normal thing; a timeline that, thanks to the magic dust of cryptography, enables anyone to speak about anything, without having to ask for permission. I'm grateful.

Thank you, Satoshi. 🙏🧡

Alright, I’ve deleted X off of my phone. I’m taking 6 days off to see how it goes. After that I’ll take a longer break and I’d like to work up to just deleting it all together.

Damn, the public library is the frontlines of the Maoist revolution. All of the displayed books are super woke. Sad to see it become politicized like all other public spaces.

Months later, deleting twitter feels like ending a relationship with someone who’d once been an uplifting influence, but became a self-destructive, emotional vampire. You knew it wasn’t healthy, but you kept making excuses.

Until, finally, you’d had enough. You cut them out, and you don’t look back.

Instead of frequently doing/joining Twitter Spaces, I'm thinking of firing up #Nostr Nests going forward.

A good idea or nah?

Is there significant interest here on #nostr for macro, investing and (obviously) Bitcoin-related discussions?

I'd love to build and share ideas more on #nostr rather than on X.

God. Family. Bitcoin.

That’s the tweet. That’s what I’m thankful for today!

Well no zaps for you since you said Tweet nostr:note1xk3t75wpnmd8z8ywrt2k5nskzwfuzkjnfuw3yzkfxa097an4qcfq33dz79

It ain’t dead yet, but Dr. Bullcrab is on life support.

Make way for the emergence of Dr. Bull in the coming weeks and months.