Another day, another exchange I am suspended from.

All of my funds are conjoined or swapped between LN/XMR for privacy before sending to exchanges, triggering all sorts of nonsense AML flags.

The exchange I am with now is requesting proof of funds, meaning it wants to see fiat coming into my bank account from an entity I have a business relationship with, asking me to "kindly assist them" in surveilling me.

Except that all of my business relationships are handled in bitcoin – meaning that it is impossible for me to show proof of fiat funds.

Alternatively, the exchange says, I could send them “the address” to which I received payment in the last year, matching the amount of money I have exchanged on their platform.

Obviously no such address exists as I create a new address for each transaction (and so should you). Additionally, much of my money comes in through donations, for which I simply do not have an invoice.

I could now send them every single zap I ever received on nostr in the past year – for context, that would be over 250 zaps in the past week alone, s/o to all the zappers – or I could move my business to Switzerland, where I can exchange up to 1000 CHF per day KYC-free (for now), which is what I’m going to do.

However, since I’ll be more heavily relying on peer-to-peer exchanges from now on, I’ll likely have my bank account flagged for receiving weekly payments from randos on the internet, making it fairly foreseeable that I’ll be losing my bank account in the coming months as well.

Fundamental rights violations aside, the amount of complete nonsense work – and with that costs – this system creates both for the Government and private institutions is absolutely astonishing. If there ever was a true bullshit job, compliance officer would no doubt be it.

It’s time we end the global discrimination complex inherent to the financial system in which we are all guilty until proven innocent, only to upkeep an inefficient system that is useless in preventing crime but formidable for imposing mass surveillance on the people.

So no, I will not "kindly assist you" in surveilling me, and if I die on this hill.

Until then, shill me your favorite tools to pay my bills in bitcoin 👇

For all those cheering up for "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve"... this is what you get

Family came to visit yesterday and we did a small tour of our house. A few of them were looking at my Avalon nano 3 miner at one point, they were interested and asked me what it was. That was actually the first time someone asked me about it, so I got excited 😄.

I told them that it was a small #bitcoin miner, here’s how it went.

“So, what does it do?” they asked me…

“It’s mining Bitcoin”

“So, it notifies you when it’s a right time to buy Bitcoin?”

“Nooo… (really thinking how I should say this…) I could explain it to you, but it’s not that simple tbh. In short, it actually mines bitcoin, it’s a kind of computer that tries to solve complex calculations and if all goes well, it actually creates bitcoin in a way”

At that point I already lost them I think 😅

“And do you own Bitcoin?”

“Yep I do”

“1 Bitcoin?!”

“Noo haha that’d be insane 😅”

“It’s a good time to buy some now I’ve heard, the price has dipped a little. How much is one Bitcoin at this moment?”

“Around € 90.000 I believe, so yeah, it’s quite a lot of money tbh”

I’m happy that I’ve had that small conversation about Bitcoin but at the same time it kinda struck me that people have no idea how Bitcoin works and what it actually is.

Really made me think tbh.

I’m glad they didn’t see my S9 at that point 😂

#bitcoin #studybitcoin #canaan #avalon #avalonnano3 #bitcoinminer

#bitcoinmining

David Bailey just posted the draft for an executive order for the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve under Trump – and it's an absolute nightmare for anyone using bitcoin as money.

First, the draft order defines Bitcoin as "a finite store-of-value asset, akin to digital gold."

As someone who has lived on Bitcoin for a fairly long time, I can say that Bitcoin is not merely a "store-of-value asset", but a money for payment and day to day purchases.

Defining Bitcoin as a "store-of-value asset" reinforces the ossification narrative (who needs to move a stonk several times in a day?) which may put developers at risk when prioritizing changes to btc to make it more usable as money (think scaling for example).

With this definition, a softfork to activate covenants may become an issue of US national security that goes against the US' definition of its primary goals - directly putting developers in the firing line of the United States Government.

The draft states that federal agencies, such as the US Marshall's Service, may not auction seized Bitcoin off, but must contribute them to the strategic reserve.

This not only reduces the Bitcoin in circulation available to the public, but additionally sets the incentive for the US to increase its seizing efforts – think increased AML/KYC.

While I'm no fan of the strategic reserve in general, this draft is an even bigger disappointment than Sen. Lummis' proposed Bitcoin Act.

To compare this to how El Salvador has implemented Bitcoin, which I admit I initially wasn't a fan of either, ES directly gives citizens rights to use Bitcoin as money - which is a huge upside to benefit the people, and not just the national security state.

No offense, but letting a couple of children that just graduated college and a guy who runs a magazine draft US policy is a scene straight out of idiocracy.

Next time, maybe try speaking to the people actually building and using bitcoin, not just to the boomers and national security goons that sit on the money like a fat kid at the cake buffet.

Incredibly unprofessional conduct here by BPI, a huge risk to anyone using Bitcoin for anything other than an investment, and a testament to the people involved being more interested in furthering their own importance than to empower people with a money without state.

Sincerely hope that this EO is drastically challenged on all levels and hopefully somehow deemed unconstitutional to protect btc and the people developing it.

Tick tock next block #bitcoin #memestr

Are we still having the #Bitcoin 100K party or not?