GM nostr ☕️🌞
Happy Sunday! If you haven’t switched to graphene OS yet, feels like a good day to look into it.
One nan went to climb,
Went to climb a mountain.
One man and his dog,
Went to climb a mountain!
(Curious to know if the nursery rhyme gets in your head on your misogi!)
A few thoughts after trip to UK and Spain. Both still amazing countries to visit with great culture, architecture and food (yes, UK is pretty damned good these days).
Conversations suggest people finally waking up to the vaccine damage. Lots of talk in both countries of strokes, cancers and heart attacks although anecdotally, seemed more prevalent in Spain. People are definitely struggling with inflation and although shocked to see steaks in tamper proof containers in UK requiring the counter staff to open, having to point to photo of olive oil desired in Spain and waiting for store worker to go and retrieve was possibly more shocking. So obviously, pretty easy to see where crime level is. 1 friend in Spain recently burgled and uber driver telling me he warns all incoming visitors about theft and safety. That's new to me and not the place I lived in for 15 years.
So then money. I am surprised so many people are still so incredibly ignorant about bitcoin. That being said, I found it easy to get people to think about money by simply asking when they'd bought their house and for how much. I converted to gold equivalent when they bought and did the same with current price. Once people see how much their house value has dropped when not denominated in confetti currency, they start to think about money and the conversation about bitcoin is easier. For those not interested, well I got a couple of people buying gold. Second best is still on the podium!
I saw articles about UK economy posting GDP growth for the first quarter and asked various people what they thought. Once they said it was positive, we looked up the projected deficit for 2024 and they sobered up at being gaslit about economic performance once the realise it's a sham based on deficit spending.
I don't really see europeans waking up soon enough to avoid a lot of suffering myself. I hate saying that as a european myself but they do seem to be sleepwalking into disaster and still talk about voting as if there's any form of betterment through selecting which jailor to have and essentially giving consent to being ruled by the parasites up top. I don't know where this goes over the next few years but I can imagine a world where many europeans stop criticising american's love of personal gun ownership.
Stay humble all, stack sats and build community cause this edifice is looking pretty shaky! And remember to start the conversations, share knowledge and learn from others, it's the only way.
#gold #bitcoin #UK #Spain #europe
Any time but I really should’ve read the cocktails bit! If in flamingo, go to coco loco for beach cocktails or look up Gracia restaurant for epic sunset views with cocktails and dinner. They have an infinity pool with views over the entire flamingo potrero area. On a good day, one of the best sunsets in the area. If going more humble, take your own in a cooler and head to penca beach. No shops or bars or anything. Just a beautiful beach with a few locals. Nice and quiet
I saw nostr:npub1nkn4k86w8advjau7hmxj0j5qx2exxgufu8cqaru7khkdgreym3ks9y3chw is in CR too maybe he has some ideas 😁🙏
Another thought. On arrival, check weather and if looking good, head up to poas volcano. Just it’s close to airport ish and easy to put on route to fortuna.
I saw nostr:npub1nkn4k86w8advjau7hmxj0j5qx2exxgufu8cqaru7khkdgreym3ks9y3chw is in CR too maybe he has some ideas 😁🙏
Hmm la fortuna to jaco is a long drive time. There’s plenty other options available so not spending too much time in the car.
Look up la leona waterfall near Liberia. That’s a walk through the jungle and through river (footwear required that can get wet) followed by pulling yourself up a rope with rock faces on both sides in a little canyon to see the waterfall. It’s pretty cool.
Finca la amistad is a wonderful place to stay. Lots of toucans and sloths on a chocolate finca. Making your own chocolate is always a crowd and stomach pleaser!
If intending to go to Jaco as last stop, detour to Monteverde is a must. If not, then consider replacing beach time at flamingo and Conchal/potrero area for a spot of fishing, diving or sailing. Plenty sunset cruises but if you sail and want to take your own boat out, there’s a sailing center in surfside (brewery there takes bitcoin!).
Before finalising any plans though, look up if the turtles likely to be around and shake everything up for that spectacle!
GM nostr ☕☀️
Back in costa rica and the greening continues. A reminder of cycles and opportunities for regrowth
#costarica #PV
He does a newsletter, Substack and podcast called rounding the earth. I did have a Quick Look in archive but didn’t find. Sorry, just got home after being away 2 weeks and can see fixing everything here taking longer than the holiday potentially so a little busy. If you take a look and don’t find, let me know and will see if I can find the time
Trying an experiment. For some reason, regular posts get engagement here, but long-form articles almost never do. So I’m putting this straight into Nostur — see what happens.
This is something *I think* would be of interest here:
*I heard it somewhere, I think it was from nostr:npub1s5yq6wadwrxde4lhfs56gn64hwzuhnfa6r9mj476r5s4hkunzgzqrs6q7z, who suggested the bitcoin ETFs might be a trap of sorts, wherein once a sufficient number of coins were in their custody, the government would “6102” them for national security.
The number “6102” refers to the Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933 and Executive Order 6102 that authorized President Roosevelt to force American citizens to turn in their gold. (He did this to issue more gold-backed money during The Great Depression.)
Because bitcoin private keys are merely information and therefore difficult to seize from individuals en masse (you’d have to make people cough up information they could claim to have lost or forgotten), the ETFs could be a roundabout way to create a concentrated and easy-to-seize hard money to which to peg the dollar.
As it stands, the US-based ETFs collectively have amassed nearly a million coins, roughly five percent of the total 21 million supply, (a few million of which are likely lost forever.) Let’s fast forward a few years and assume the following (all of which seem plausible to me, though the exact numbers are not important):
The national debt, presently at $35 trillion, balloons to $50 trillion. The interest expense alone on the debt at five percent rates is 2.5 trillion per year, roughly three times the size of the entire (on the books) defense budget. Official inflation numbers are running north of five percent, even though people know real inflation is upwards of 10. Bitcoin is trading at $1 million per coin (roughly 14x where it is now.) If you think that’s crazy, consider $70K is 14x 5K where it was in the spring of 2020. Let’s also assume the ETFs collectively have two million coins (more than 10 percent) at that point.
Essentially, the dollar is on the brink of hyper-inflating, the US at risk of going full Weimar. Gold is at 10K per ounce, but it’s just a rock and can’t underpin a global system where money moves at the speed of light, and there’s no way for people to audit its supply in an environment of increasing global distrust.
The US government policy makers put on a poker face for the public to buy time, but are well aware of the precarity. They are faced with two terrible choices: raise rates to try and tame inflation the way Paul Volcker did in the 1970s, thereby skyrocketing the interest expense on our much larger debt and crippling the economy, or cut rates, make already severely debased money even cheaper and usher in almost certain hyperinflation.
Under these circumstances, where both choices portend a high likelihood of government collapse, it’s not only conceivable, but I’d argue, probable they avail themselves of a third option: 6102 the ETF coins.
I imagine it might go down like this: The administration, whoever it is, meets with Brian Armstrong of Coinbase and the CEOs of the ETF issuers, gives them a very brief heads up: “We’re taking the coins for national security and compensating all your clients at the face value at which they’re trading,” i.e., they would just give them today’s market value if they were to sell, i.e., $1M per coin. So if there were two million coins in ETF custody, that would be $2T distributed pro rata among the investors.
Most of the investors would realize a significant (nominal) profit from where they bought. Moreover, the CEOs would be considered patriots (by the government) if they complied and criminals if they refused. They would probably be allowed/encouraged to buy underlying coins for themselves that day, knowing what was about to happen too. In short, it’s almost inconceivable to me they wouldn’t go along, and in fact, might have an inkling of this end game already.
After the government surreptitiously gained control of the keys to the ETF coins, they would make an announcement: the US dollar is now fully backed by the hardest money in human history and fully redeemable at $30M USD per coin. In other words, their two million coins would now be worth $60 trillion, more than enough to pay off the debt in its entirety and restore confidence in the dollar.
The dollar would inflate immediately now that it was debased 30:1 vs its prior bitcoin price. But that ratio would apply only to bitcoin. Real estate prices might go up 5x, food 2x, it’s impossible to say. The dollar would have real redeemable value for something of finite supply and would no longer be printable via fiat so long as that tether remained in place. In fact, and this is beyond my tech knowledge, the announcement could be tied to some kind of cryptographically unforgeable and legally binding arrangement wherein the dollar must always be pegged at that 30:1 rate. If it could be arbitrarily debased further, there might be no point.
Of course, this would handicap the government significantly — no longer could it print money to fund proxy wars in Ukraine, invade Iraq or shell out off-the-books blank checks for CIA operations in Central America. It would lose much of its power as the expenses of empire would have to be justified or greatly curtailed. And while those that wield this excessive and dangerous power would never go along with it voluntarily, under the circumstances above — facing chaotic collapse — they would have little choice.
There would be significant pain — even my arbitrary estimates of real estate and food inflation would be catastrophic for many, and it could easily be much worse than that. But compared to the alternative it would be like an airplane touching down on the runway during a storm with but a mild bump.*
Have you seen Matthew Crawford elaborate his theory on US Navy as well? Its a rather intererestung perspective.
The ETF coin confiscation is a good backstop. Been mulling over this with a friend since approval. Any centralised holdings become a potential attack or control vector
GM nostr ☕️
Last day and finally a truly British sky! 
GM nostr ☕️🌞
Last day in uk. Time for a cliff top walk. Coming back to Europe first time in a few years has been interesting. I’ll write up my thoughts sometime when home. It’s sometimes a little thought provoking to see the societal effects of why one is bullish for #bitcoin. I fear there will be suffering.
#GM
Nothing says Fiat more than premium oxygen and hydrogen!
#fiat #bitcoin 
Would be rude to paint it purple with such a nice sign!
#nostr #nostrich 
Live and let live with no imposition or encroachment
