This week, Tether issued more USDT-Liquid due to rising demand, tripling the amount in circulation (~100M) to surpass the total USDT in circulation on Tezos, Polkadot, and others.
A few points on why nostr:npub1nyyhnqahf3cgqzcc927x7eqyd2msgplfe27ddn6hpgu2m200wh2s0s7gan and other bitcoin L2s will continue to eat up liquidity from alts.
First, some context, Liquid has accomplished this with effectively:
- no speculative markets (governance token, NFTs, memecoins), the main driver of volume on alts.
- no comparable marketing budget, eg, Polkadot spent $37M alone in H1 2024 on promotion: https://forum.polkadot.network/t/polkadots-astonishing-marketing-spending/8945
Instead, the Liquid ecosystem has prioritized the development of native features and infra for bitcoin capital markets (confidentiality, nostr:npub1jg552aulj07skd6e7y2hu0vl5g8nl5jvfw8jhn6jpjk0vjd0waksvl6n8n AMP, legal frameworks, etc) -- resulting in organic growth of securities issuances. (RWA TVL on Liquid recently hit >2.5B).
This is further validation of the effectiveness of bitcoin's design philosophy vs crypto, ie the prioritization of security and low-time preference.
The downside, however, is that alts can fill these niche, emerging needs faster and extract value from bitcoin in the short term.
Alternatively, with the new language Simplicity coming to Liquid mainnet next month (and potentially bitcoin in the future), the gap in developer UX and expressivity will be largely addressed as Simplicity competes directly with ETH's Solidity.
It will certainly take longer for the larger-cap crypto L1s to succumb, but we've already started to see cracks and a shift back to bitcoin. Eg:
Vitalik wanting to simplify ETH like bitcoin: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/05/05/vitalik-buterin-wants-to-make-ethereum-as-simple-as-bitcoin
Hoksinson considering moving ADA treasury into BTC: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/charles-hoskinson-wants-to-swap-100m-in-ada-for-bitcoin-more/ar-AA1GJZq7
There's still a long way for Liquid to catch up, but as altcoin marketing budgets dry up and they continue to lose value relative to BTC, we will likely see this trend and convergence accelerate, possibly to the point where some re-denominate their governance tokens in BTC and market themselves as L2s.
The great thing is you can still front-run them all by buying bitcoin.
Does anyone have more info on the fedimint that went offline (via Fed app) for a certain amount of time a few months back and users were locked out? Was there ever a diagnostic report or anything explaining the incident and how it will be mitigated in the future?
A few months ago I was in BA and met the nostr:nprofile1qqsp7fxsmxnahv3pkqsx4pn9pqm5739sp4cy5d8gkxelex5tc9qrspsppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2ap0wj7txg guys. Their NFC card was the best bitcoin onboarding experience I’ve ever had and turned me into a NFC card maxi.
There’s a certain simplicity about just pulling out a tangible card and tapping it - hard to beat that UX with a phone.
It's almost inevitable at this point bitcoin will continue to eat up market dominance, and 99% of current crypto projects will deprecate or have to re-denominate and become bitcoin layer-2s.
thx but this looks like a twitch clone, was hoping for more like a live auction app similar to whatnot but this may suffice
Hah, anything’s possible - who should we sync with locally?
When am I going to be able to livestream on this and sell all my old fishing tackle for pristine sats?
Calling all turbo autists: here's your shot to yeet your dream project straight to market with the help of Blockstream. LFG.
blockstream.typeform.com/to/KLeflywl
Hah, did you apply? Ping me on TG and I’ll make sure we save a spot for ya
Currently at a nostr workshop from the guys at nostr:npub1wqpvs2tewfzm2vug3g3jk4935m2q32rmd6gptskeeffqwe4dnxvsj6fvyy.
What is everyone’s favorite client/wallet combo? If I’m using primal mobile, best to just use the in-app wallet?
Many are asking how Greenlight numbers can be so high and why they're not reflected in public Lightning datasets like 1ML.
To help put things in perspective, let's break down the numbers and what this implies for the 'Lightning is dead' narrative that certain influencers have been peddling:
The first thing to know is that Greenlight nodes are unannounced/private and on-demand, so they aren't included in public estimates. This isn’t unique to Greenlight--many other Lightning infrastructure providers (think Lightspark) don’t broadcast for privacy and other reasons.
Each Greenlight node roughly corresponds to one user, meaning the 150k nodes represent about 150k users (unless large swaths of users are gaming the numbers by using different seeds with the same or multiple devices). When a Greenlight node isn't in use, it becomes dormant and then reactivates later as well, so no new nodes are created or destroyed in this process that could obfuscate the numbers.
More context: most of these new nodes are from Relai's recent integration of the Breez SDK, which runs Greenlight under the hood. A growing number of small Lightning startups, like Blitz, also use Greenlight on the backend, but those numbers often go unreported.
So, the narrative of Lightning's impending doom is likely vastly overstated, especially when infrastructure projects like Greenlight and their impact are almost always overlooked when discussing the growth of the network.
In my opinion, it's far more believable that Lightning is in a transitional phase due to new developments in bitcoin payment technology and infrastructure (Greenlight, Lightspark, Breez SDK, Ark, etc) and is just now coming into its own.
Greenlight's numbers are proof of this.
nostr:note14y00ejc0ja6mfhtnn0xm4xd554qz5sas6k4vnp3jfuz2dg48s9dshw7899
This would be sick
More info on the lower sats/vB protocol change: https://community.liquid.net/c/announcements/beta-0-1-to-0-01-sats-vbyte
Many in the comments under impression fees would be too high…and though, yes, fees would be higher than Lightning, the idea here is to use nostr:npub1psm37hke2pmxzdzraqe3cjmqs28dv77da74pdx8mtn5a0vegtlas9q8970 on the backend, which has a sats/vB 10x lower (0.01) than usual (Liquid default is 0.1). This makes average fees ~40 sats. Pair the lower network fee rate with a threshold to be able to swap to Liquid from zaps…and you can see how it might be useful - as Liquid is more federated (15 vs a single custodian), has confidential transactions and you can cold store sats. nostr:note17u9th4zx8vm7s97wnv6agdj3qq5kgjy9ucmmd8qk4uuedza5jt4sdnvpqn
The idea would be to use nostr:npub1psm37hke2pmxzdzraqe3cjmqs28dv77da74pdx8mtn5a0vegtlas9q8970 on the backend, which uses a lower sats/vB…so tx fees would be ~40 sats, and liquid would only be available until a certain threshold would be met, say like 1000 sats.
There’s lots of innovation happening in the L2 wallet space.
We used nostr:npub1ajlrwgfj4yerhqf7ady03h7wmtk2qr3gs7h3sxcx83k05yld36sswpzx3q to accept mainchain, Lightning, and even some USDT (via nostr:npub1nyyhnqahf3cgqzcc927x7eqyd2msgplfe27ddn6hpgu2m200wh2s0s7gan) at the Blockstream booth at B24 without a hitch. It’s one of the best mobile wallets for POS and is what I personally recommend for onboarding newbies these days, given there is no channel rebalancing/management.
And if the rumors are true, looking forward to even more stables (there are quite a few now on Liquid) being added to the Aqua app soon.
My basic set up is using Aqua day to day and Green for long-term hodl - given it has hardware wallet integration and you can connect your node - but I am also keeping a close eye on the Blitz wallet.
Exciting times ahead!
re: Fold going public
I was fold-pilled a few years ago, it's a great stacking tool, sometimes up to 10% back at select stores, but I've been quietly anticipating a bitcoin cashback credit card. That's when the real fun begins and they could 10x their appeal.
Many families - if financially literate and prudent - try to optimize cashback rewards in some way. Even with a standard 2% cashback on all purchases, a Fold credit card would be competitive, but many may not opt in, given that it's bitcoin.
If they can offer a 3% flat cashback (as no other issuer really offers this anymore besides the new RH Gold) or even 5% in select categories, it will be very appealing to individuals and families trying to save. (There is also an entire subculture of nerds who churn cards/optimize rewards - Fold should target these guys.) With a 3%/5%, these types will likely overcome their initial bitcoin hesitancy to give it a try.
Then once bitcoin's monetary theory becomes clear and their cashback grows (3% becomes 6% etc), you'll have effectively orangepilled them on bitcoin as a value savings mechanism
For those actually looking to make legitimate yield on their corn and not get rugged, check out the Blockstream Mining Note. It’s a tradeable hashrate backed token, so you can participate in proof of work and help secure the network without all the overhead of mining operations.
BMN1 yielded a net average of 32% bitcoin-on-bitcoin return or just under 2 BTC per BMN. The net average return in fiat terms was even greater, at 61%, and in both scenarios, it outperformed buying spot bitcoin.
Most are sleeping on security tokens, which come with investor protections and obligations from the issuer, they are not random sh*tcoins with empty promises.
32% was the average net return across all 8 series of the BMN1, too, some outperformed others, eg series 1 of BMN1 had a net btc return of 62%, so entry point in the market cycle is a factor.
nostr:note1ueupx74vyc7ek5ad3a4ag8uc06arnyz4tkt3yu089jj0ffmld34ss30q9j
Yes they’re full of shit, just eat like a hunter gatherer, no processed food and all good
Those of you wondering if you’re still early to Bitcoin.
https://www.rooster.info/p/ohio-state-chris-pan
