Probably Coldcard is the best option: feature rich, security oriented, secure element, unfortunately is relatively expensive. I would also give a chance to Blockstream Jade as an emergent player. Trezor is a popular choice but lack of secure element is a deal breaker for my threat model. Ledger used to be a valid recommendation but support of multiple coins and latest decisions about seed recovery make it sub-pair in my opinion.

Bitcoin is not a piece of software or a product like a car or a "Facebook", Bitcoin is a protocol and more importantly an idea: the idea of digital scarcity. You cannot improve absolute digital scarcity because that's already *the* thing. The software we run is just a means to achieving such absolute digital scarcity and certainly can be improved and that's why we have development happening and new ideas coming up. Those are "new" bitcoins that by social consensus become "Bitcoin", the Schelling point in game-theory terms. But your friend refers to a different, incompatible token I guess. How would it be better? Faster? Cheaper? More secure? Well these all could fall in the "improvement" category but the real question would be "would it more absolutely scarce?", I believe it could not be "more" scarce, so at best it would be "as scarce as" so it would simply candidate to be the next evolution of Bitcoin and at that point it will be the market deciding it's faith, would bitcoiners elige this "equivalently scarce" token as the replacement to Bitcoin? I doubt, they wouldn't have the incentive for that. So it would need to be the non-bitcoiners jumping on that bandwagon to build more critical mass than Bitcoin but can you imagine that happening with all the network effect, projects, investments, brand recognition and deeply committed people that Bitcoin has? And for something that's at best as scarce as? That's a very remote chance, that's how I see it, you decide for yourself like everyone: self responsibility about your future and your wealth

https://pca.st/episode/35850a4c-9a36-4e1c-98b2-6bff73dfb7d4

This is an interesting point, it's true they have the IBAN, and IBAN is connected to KYC, but it also true that it doesn't need to be your IBAN, they are not required a picture of you holding your passport signing your name with the blood of your firstborn. Let's call it "soft-KYC" which depending on your threat model might be acceptable. Surely ATMs, face-to-face and everything involving cash is preferable, but again depending on your threat model you might want to go to the meetup with sunglasses and fake beard as also your face can be linked to your identity via face-recognition software. There's always a trade-off.

PoS is inherently flawed because a 51% attacker cannot be overthrown, it has control over the validation and can keep it indefinitely, which is never true for PoW. If you look closer at slashing, which I assume you consider the countermeasure against the above, you should look closer a fundamental aspect: how is the slashing action decided? If it's reached by consensus then you again have the problem of how to reach consensus and you're back to square 1, if it's decided "algorithmically" then you surely have a centralised (or centralized-ish) authority that can decide what this algorithm is and how/when it can change. Simply look at the slashing for downtime: who decides what is percentage of downtime acceptable? Who decides is this threshold can be modified? PoS tries to "fix" the quintessential solution to the decentralization problem (the byzantine generals problem) hence putting itself in the impossible position of trying to solve a myriad of side problems in creative and over-complicated ways, trying to sweep the centralization under the rug hoping nobody will notice it. It's like the perpetual motion problem: (crazy) people continue coming up with ingenious new ways of building a working example, but you already know they are doomed to fail without even looking into the details of their inventions simply because you know that there are fundamental principles that cannot be violated, accidentally related to energy and entropy like in the case of PoW.

I know Knut Svanholm has a book titled Praxeology which looks accessible, I haven't read it, just read Everything divided by 21 million and it was an enjoyable read, you might give that a try

It goes in my list because it was the first I read and I realized Bitcoin would really work.

Ah, how could I forget Human action by Ludwig von Mises?! 😅

Amazing, thanks. I have already read a bunch of those or they are in the wishlist. Some others were out of my radar so I appreciate. Quick list of what I've also read you might be interested in:

Mastering Bitcoin - Andreas Antonopoulos

Grokking bitcoin - Kalle Rosenbaum

Mastering the Lightning Network - Andreas Antonopoulos

Cryptoenonomics - Eric Voskuil

For a New Liberty - Murray Rothbard

Hidden Repression - Alex Gladstein

The Blocksize War - Jonathan Bier

The ethics of money production - Guido Hüllsman

How to think about the economy - Per Bylund

What has the government done to our money - Murray Rothbard

Principles of Economics - Saifedean Ammous

Abundance through Scarcity - Io i Appelberg

Enjoy 😊

Bisq, Robosats, Relai, Bity, Bittr, Azteco, at meetups in any major city. ATMs in some countries. I assume you're talking about withing the European Union and with EUR fiat currency. Need further details?

Where can I find the list? I've read many Bitcoin-related books, always looking for new ones to add to my list. Happy to share recommendations if you like

And fees are ~ $7 😑

Thanks, feels empowering 💪

I've never received a #zap, can someone help. Me with that? 😞

... or 5% in the OG seed, and 5% in an easier-to-crack honeypot passphrase wallet 😊

Actually I don't see shitcoining as an attack to Bitcoin more than gambling is an attack to the USD. It's rather an attack on people, temporarely diverting them from understanding true, sound, honest money. But this is more like a tuition fee at the University of Life, they will learn their lesson the hard way and probably will becoming more bitcoiners than others that were just lucky to have friends who guided them by hand directly to Bitcoin.

My take on the game theory is that rules are self enforcing and people being greedy and following self-interest are benefitting everyone, like for example miners. Bitcoin and the whole human race live in a super- symbiotic relationship, as individuals we can act according to our own will and altogether benefit the super-symbiont which is our society

Game theory: how carefully engineered incentives turn the greedy nature of people into a useful tool for humanity.

It's great to visit a bank venue from time to time, feel like in a museum: fax machines, dot matrix printers, stamps, signatures... You have a glimpse of how life looked like back in the good ol' days when you could peacefully send 2 damn hours trying to closie an account.

Protocols with the right incentives win over centralized apps in the long run.

III