Every media source is heavily biased.
Every podcaster.
Every news outlet.
Every algorithmic feed.
Every “content creator”. (Fuck “content creators”.)
Every journalist.
Every influencer.
There’s no avoiding bias. MAGA bias. Liberal bias. Centrist bias. Radical left/right bias.
To say that XYZ source is biased is to say nothing at all. Of course it is.
Every perspective comes prepackaged with a set of beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil.
The key is to ensure you consume a range of biases - especially those you disagree with - and use your own senses, your own knowledge, your own mind to triangulate the truth.
What are your #freedom-related goals in 2026?
Mine: Onboard one merchant to #Monero every month. Brick and mortar, local, or online.
If we use it, we win.
#asknostr
#Bitcoin and #Lightning is a hard dealbreaker. It’s like KYC++ with terrible usability, high fees, and wild volatility.
#Monero offers the following benefits to merchants:
* easy to set up and use
* low fees (much lower than legacy bank/credit cards, Stripe, etc.)
* low volatility (its price is not driven by the hollow promises of orange-coloured presidents and laser-eyed ETF hodlers hoping to make easy money)
* battle tested, strong privacy for buyer and seller
* marketing, i.e. some buyers actively choose merchants because they accept Monero
Of course, a merchant still needs to care enough about the freedom, privacy, and cost benefits to accept the tradeoffs of a more complicated tax return - but thankfully many already do.
I think online merchants are an easier sell than brick and mortar for now. Indeed I already pay for most of my core (digital) services with it.
Regardless of the hurdles to overcome, merchant adoption is everything.
I won’t either unless it’s on your profile. But it’s your profile of course.
It would be *amazing* if the greatest obstacle to freedom was not enough wallets, nodes, DEX’s, E2EE messengers, digital cash options.
It’s not.
The greatest obstacle now is merchant adoption. A marketplace of buyers and sellers that wears its desire for free speech and free trade on its sleeve.
Accept #Monero. Spend Monero. Put some of your savings in Monero.
If we use it, we win.
#freedom #freedomtech
Freedom doesn’t need yet another wallet, yet another decentralised way to communicate, or yet another DEX.
The greatest contribution you can make to #Monero in 2026 is to provide your good or your service in exchange for it.
#freedom #freedomtech #privacy
As an aside, I get #Monero donations to the address on my profile with a fraction of the follower count you have. 😎
Not to belabour the point, but: how will you get more people sending you #Monero when there’s no way to do so on your profile?
Can you add accepting #Monero to your profile as well? It’d be great for this option to be readily visible to others too! 😎
Murphy’s Law, applied to freedom:
If it can be surveilled, it will be surveilled.
If it can be controlled by a single, centralised entity, it will be controlled by a single, centralised entity.
If it can be censored, it will be censored.
If it can be hacked, it will be hacked.
If it can be used in a way you don’t like, it will be used in a way you don’t like.
If it can compromise your privacy, it will compromise your privacy.
If a single individual can cause the whole system to crumble, a single individual will cause the whole system to crumble.
If you can get rugged, you will get rugged.
#privacy #freedom #freedomtech #monero
Profit does not make a project sustainable.
Decentralisation, privacy preserving protocols, and an enthusiastic community of contributors do.
Profit can help fuel that. Donations do too. So can a desire to solve one’s own problem, coupled with the free time and energy to do so.
A profitable project without decentralisation can be captured and controlled.
A profitable product without privacy punishes you for using it. The more you use it, the more control the profit maker has over you.
A profitable project without contributions from a wider community survives only as long as the profit maker decides. And evolves in only the way they allow.
Freedom is intrinsically decentralised, private, and supported and sustained by a community. Design your system, product, or service accordingly.
#freedom #privacy
It used to be that “cryptoanarchists write code.”
In 2026, one of the most revolutionary, cryptoanarchist acts you can do is not to implement yet another form of digital cash that nobody will use, but to sell bread, milk, cheese, or coffee in the one that people already do. #Monero
The beautiful thing about an actually useful (actually used!), private, permissionless currency like #Monero is that it’s even become much better NGU technology than #Bitcoin.
Solving real problems generates wealth. Endlessly elaborate narratives hoping to project future valuations about a thing nobody actually uses do not.
nostr:note1mnewka5t7kzyv36c86f68j25wt5tg9nr3un3zrvrg7wkxwqfuqksmm2x5d
Whenever you're ready for permissionless, private, practical and simple payments, #Monero is ready for you.
Self-interest is the least corruptible force in the universe. Design your systems accordingly.
Like Reddit, but not controlled by a single individual. Anyone can host their own instance and federate into the network (like Mastodon).
Easiest way to get started is to download a client like Voyager (Android) or Mlem (iOS), and choose an instance on which to create an account.
In times like these, I'm incredibly grateful we have:
#Monero - digital cash
#GrapheneOS - mobile freedom
#Nostr - social freedom
#NymVPN - truly private VPN
#KeePassXC - open source password management
#Lemmy - federated communities
#SimpleX - truly private chat
#NanoGPT - access to the best AI models, without needing an account (and payment with Monero)
In a world where governments are doing everything they can to command and control, free software developers are building and shipping tools that offer us unparalleled freedom.
If you haven't tried some of these tools, let today be the day you choose one to explore. And if you use and love some of these tools, consider making a donation to one today!
On behalf of the organisers of World Nostr Day, I'd like to thank our platinum sponsors, AWS, for their tremendous efforts to demonstrate that even a worldwide outage of the world's largest hosting provider cannot slow us down even one teeny, tiny, little bit.
Thank you!
#decentralized #permissionless #freedom
Sadly, anything that you own that relies on a connection to some corporation's centralised servers is not your property.
Never has been, never could be.
Measuring your net worth (or income) progression in fiat terms debases the way you think about value. Fiat number-go-up doesn't mean much.
Measure it in #Monero to get more useful feedback on your returns.
You'll develop a better sense of how and where to allocate your energy and resources to increase real value generation over time.
Looks like this is available in settings (at the bottom) as of today (show open source models only.) But seems to only affect selection dropdown. Auto Model still chooses proprietary models too.
Yeah, Monero users already know the answer to that question. The delistings there made me only more optimistic about its future, and more confident in its relative price stability.
OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoin's true price (i.e. removing the intense institutional pressure to rally greater fools into the NGU casino) is lower than Monero's.
Two paths for adoption (of #privacy and #permissionless tech):
- Try to convince normies, whose eyes tend to glaze over the minute you mention words like fiat, inflation, privacy, surveillance, etc.
- Focus on those who are actually interested in the value freedom tech offers, and have consciously experienced the pain of not using it. Collaborate. Build and ship stuff that helps amplify their and your potential.
Normies gonna norm. That's OK. They have different priorities. Life is agonisingly short. They accept a different set of tradeoffs.
Preach to the converted. Make stuff for the converted. Sell stuff to the converted - and expand outward from there.
#grownostr #Monero
Numbers that can go up in relation to #Monero (or #Bitcoin):
* Number of products and services you pay for with it and/or total spend
* Amount you've earned from selling products and services for it
* Number of friends, family, local and online businesses you've helped introduce and/or onboard to it
* Percentage of a hard asset (like a house or car) you can buy with some fixed quantity of it today vs 6/12/24/36 months ago
* Amount of an already rapidly expanding supply of government controlled currency it is equivalent to
Be careful what you measure. Some numbers you can control, other numbers control you.
Side note: I highly recommend nostr:npub12qz56plzehejkyp4waaannmnny4y4c30j8q55a3wlk49haslga2snypdx8's podcast. The only honest takes I’ve seen recently in “the space”, and a great way to learn about various freedom projects like #Monero, #Zano, and #Mimblewimble, etc.