Kind of like a credit system based on followers? A respected npub that you know is legit with a lot of followers would convey more weight than a npub with fewer followers.

I usually just do that manually on Primal but assigning a score for it would be pretty cool.

when searching for a user on nostr, maybe clients could filter out or deprioritize npubs that have invalid nostr addresses.

i.e. searching for 'Derek Ross' returns dozens and dozens of fake Derek Ross profiles. they all have invalid nostr addresses except one.

sure, those scammers could setup a domain and register a nostr address that's valid i.e. derekross@nostrpplebs.com (notice the extra 'p', but this requires more work and most scammers are low effort scammers.

thanks.

What have you found is the best and easiest LSP to get yourself an inbound lightning channel? I'm speaking specifically regarding your own node, not a mobile client.

Everyone who replies to this note will get absolutely nothing

Jack, from the map you showed Italy and Spain are not included. Is it confirmed? Any particular reason?

Keep calm and HODL #Bitcoin.

Everyone seems to be overreacting to the Samourai arrests, the FBI PSA, and Phoenix leaving the US. Here's my attempt to break it down.

Samourai

You have to unpack all of the different elements. Could this be a state attack on self-custody and privacy? Maybe. Probably not.

There are a few components here that need to be evaluated on their own.

1⃣ Samourai was a self-custodial wallet

2⃣ Samourai was a mixer

3⃣ Samourai was providing normal people with privacy

4⃣ Samourai were knowingly marketing the service to criminals and flaunting that fact

Reading the charges, it seems like #4 is pretty cut and dry for this case. Their getting arrested for #4, doesn't automatically mean #1, #2, #3 are under siege as well. If Samourai was a taco stand laundering money and bragging about it, I'm sure they would be taken down too.

They may be accused of running a money transmitter now, but that may or may not stick. We'll find out in the trial.

All that said, we should always be vigilant to attempts to erode privacy and the ability to self-custody. It just does not seem that this fight is *that* fight.

FBI PSA

Seems pretty normal that the FBI would advise people to use compliant services, and the entire announcement seems to revolve around potential disruptions due to Samourai being taken down, and potentially others in the future. Given they took action, they have to post some bulletin about it.

Remember that when people lose funds or have funds stolen from them, they do go to the FBI for help. From their point of view, the best thing for people to do is use compliant services where they can potentially help.

The announcement concludes saying that services that purposely break the law will be investigated - so again we go back to #4 above. This is nothing new, and self-custody is not being criminalized.

Phoenix Leaving

As nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m said, it's feels completely unnecessary. Phoenix obviously is not a MSB and they are not doing anything illegal. In my view, their exit from the US app stores is a complete overreaction.

Keep Calm

Could "they" come after wallets, developers, mixers, nodes, LSPs, sidechains, eCash, VPNs, encryption, etc? It's totally possible. But if you're not breaking the law, you have nothing to worry about.

To my knowledge, there is still rule of law in the US, property rights are still protected, and privacy is enshrined in the Bill of Rights (nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu).

It would be very difficult to change the law or stretch it to incriminate these things because it's all just information and software, which is speech. Some will try. But as they are trying, #Bitcoin is becoming more and more mainstream and integral to the world's financial system.

#Bitcoin is freedom technology and it will continue on.

Go outside this weekend and think about why you're here.

Are people aware that any relay, nostr address or media server admin can see their IP? 😅😂

Always assume that you will be, at a least, registered in a DB. Act accordingly.

Jack, from the map you showed Italy and Spain are not included. Is it confirmed? Any particular reason?

Yikes what wallet is that?

*The Rare Sat Lie*

Let's start with some facts.

You cannot own a satoshi (sat). You can only own a utxo, who's value is measured in sats. Just like you cannot own a "kilogram" but you can own something which weights a kilogram.

The idea that a sat can be rare is a lie, since sats don't exist.

A utxo also cannot be sold, because as soon as it is spent, a completely new utxo is created, and the creation of this new utxo makes the previous utxo (which you wanted to sell) spent. To act of spending "an unspent transaction output" (UTXO) transforms it into something fundamentally different, a "spent transaction output" (STXO) and creates a new UTXO.

The idea that a utxo can be sold is a lie, since even utxos cannot be sold.

The idea that a rare sat from a "special" utxo can be bought is thus a double lie.

*Rare Sat Sophistry*

The conmen, the useful idiots and the otherwise honest but contrarian pundits will rationalize the spreading of the "Rare Sat Lie" with sophistry and appeals to libertarian morality such as "it's a free market, people can believe whatever they want and waste their money however they wish".

Of course, this line of reasoning is meant to create strawmen arguments so that every person that is righteously indignated at the spreading of these lies can be painted as being opposed to the concept of individual freedon itself, which immediately places the TruthSeeker's outrage outside of the Overton Window (and subject to ridicule).

Let us dispell the strawman argument.

The "market" (a small niche of degenerate gamblers) can want whatever it wants, yes. But it till cannot change the reality that individual satoshis (sats) do not exist as "things" or virtual objects. This reality is not subjective.

The sophists will also rationalize that "it cannot be stopped" and thus all you can do is "cry harder" (ironic eh?) and that any and all attempts to combat the lies are futile (at best) or stupid.

It may be true all the truthseeker can do is cry and shout, but it is also true that to combat the spreading of such lies is a virtuous and noble pursuit. And it is also true that the direct result of the shouting can be to save a victim from otherwise being conned. Which is, we would all agree I hope, a moral good, if not a moral imperative.

People are free to spread the lie that such things ("rare" "sats") are real, and fraudulently sell utxos of low value presented as "rare" "sats" for utxos of higher value, but to do so by exploiting the ignorance of people and confusion around the complex technology of Bitcoin is evil according to nearly almost moral code that ancient and modern civilizations have produced.

I am the last person that would deny someone the right to be evil. But I believe if you see a fraud and you don't call out the fraud then you too are a fraud.

So, the strawman is really just straw.

*The Rare Sat Con*

Beyond it being morally bad to spread lies generally, the spreading of the lie also occurs within the context of textbook confidence trick.

Confidence tricks involve :

- the mark: the victims whose money is to be acquired fraudulently

- the roper: reels in the mark via exposure and marketing, peaking the curiosity of the mark (i.e. a conference or media organization)

- the inside man: provides a venue for the con to take place, or supplies goods and services used in the context of the scam (a mining pool or a marketplace)

- the conman: gains the confidence of the mark extracts the money (the seller of a rare sat)

- the convincer: an acolyte of the conman which gives a taste of the profits to the mark either by investing in the mark, or showing off his profits to the mark (a fellow rare sat trader)

The conman and the convincer can interchange roles. For example, conmen and convincers can publicly con each other repeatedly and alternatively, with gains and losses which compensate, with the tacit understanding that the goal is really to gain the confidence of a mark from which both convincer and conman can extract money from.

Everyone except benefits in this zero sum game, except obviously the mark.

In the end, the mark was never forced to give up his money. He willingly parted ways with his funds, deceived by the confidence trick.

Selling "rare sats" for utxos of higher sat value is without doubt a confidence trick.

I will let it up to your imagination who you think plays which role in the rare sat con.

I would make it simpler than that. Just provide enough to take custody via an LSP at a certain threshold but have something like fedimints for temporary custody for receiving zaps when your phone is off. Going to study ark to see if there’s an even better way.

Any of you try your hand at print-on-demand drop ship type businesses? Considering trying it out you make some cash on the side.

If so, big pitfalls to avoid?

#asknostr

No business is gonna spend this time and mental energy so 1% of their customers can pay with BTC. I was in this business for years I've heard from hundreds of them directly. If it's not dead simple and easy they'll just continue using credit cards

me: monero is an awesome addition to bitcoin (it is), one for stacking, the other for private spending

the church of satoshi nakamoto of latter-day bitcoin saints:

#m=image%2Fgif&dim=360x360&blurhash=U7B%7By6JC00%7D%40MKIpPV-U%25N%24%23MxIo0Ls.%5EkI%40&x=7ca64596798d52d8d04e9a72fae20d32b7d94772c643af46a71cbdf5c551782f

lol. not saying this about everyone, love my bitcoin fam, but it needs to be said that the 'toxic btc cult' reputation seems well earned for more than a few of you.

it's generally the one's who just parrot blanket 'btc is the saviour, everything else is a shitcoin' statements, don't speak with their own words, link to sources they don't really comprehend, think nostr is private, only recently learned why they need a vpn on the internet and don't actually understand how all this privacy stuff works.

harsh? yes. so have recent comments been. bring it. love the free speech.

again this is not for most of you #plebchain. most of you have level heads and still love bitcoin. i am an avid bitcoiner, but i don't drink the cool-aid and ignore it's shortcomings.

bitcoin is about freedom. privacy is essential for freedom. it is complicated to have privacy on a public ledger. bitcoin is an awesome store of value, but it needs a 2nd layer for greater privacy and to solve the fungibility problem. lightning is maturing. cashu is also maturing. monero solves the spend issue now with privacy baked in on a protocol level. it is currency. it's meant to be spent.

#cybersecgirl #privacytechpro #bitcoin #monero

Users define what relays they read from and write to in their relay list. Then clients know where to send notes when tagging specific people. Clients then also know where to read notes from when pulling their profile feed.

Timelines are a bit more tricky: you have to gather everyone you follow’s relay list somehow, then find the common relay subsets among all of them:

Alice, bob and jack are writing to relay A

Tom, Jerry are writing to relay B

phil is writing to A,C

Then your timeline feed is:

subscribe on A to alice,bob,jack,phil

subscribe on B to tom, jerry

With an algorithm that minimizes the total relays you connect to.

You’re also hoping these relays are reliable and have decent uptime.

Overall it might save a bit of upload bandwidth when querying, but it makes your client connect to a bunch of random relays that other users have defined in their profile. Many of which might be offline, unreliable or malicious. So you need to make sure your client is hardened against bad relays.

The dumbest way of doing it is damus’ original model that just reading and writing to relays in your relay list. It’s much simpler client-logic-wise but you have to manually add/remove relays to stay overlapped with your friends.

If you reply to one of my posts and fail to put it into one of my inbox relays, I'm sorry but I cannot see it. I'm not going to scour all the relays on nostr looking for stray replies. Don't get mad at me thinking I'm ignoring you, when you failed to deliver the message to me.

Alright so btcpay server is the defacto technology? Thanks

What's the best way to implement LN payments for e-commerce?

Second question - does CASHU have capability for e-commerce payments yet?

Jw. If the society and it's infrastructure collapses due to a junk fist system, how do we expect bitcoin node connectivity will remain as strong as it it now?

"wen lightning?"

Well, today.

100,000 Relai users now have access to ultra-fast and cheap #bitcoin transactions.

Just update your app 📲

To celebrate, paste an LN invoice for the 1K below, and we'll pay the fastest 10!⚡️

I see all the same people everytime I startup Damus. Reply if I’m not following you.