I’ve always been amazed that people go cashless, meaning they literally walk around and even travel without cash, and just rely on cards to pay.

Credit and debit cards are centralized and can be shut off or denied for all sorts of reasons, or can run into technical issues. BTC/LN is better because it’s decentralized, although it still needs power+internet and merchant acceptance. Cash as physical bearer asset money is great. Of course I wish cash was redeemable for something sound, but maybe in the future that’ll be the case again. In the meantime it’s good to have a few meals or taxis or hotel rooms worth of cash on hand.

I always have a diverse mix of digital and physical payment methods on hand, so I never get caught unable to pay.

So far in life I have only had one instance where I couldn’t pay. I was at a restaurant in Cairo a few years ago and their card machine/connection was down, and were only accepting cash. I had physical US dollars but they were part of a bigger corporate restaurant chain and so didn’t have the flexibility to accept them. My husband normally carries Egyptian currency but didn’t have any on him that day, and since he carried it, I previously did not. Neither did our friend that was with us. So we had to go on an awkward search for an ATM for a while and then come back and pay. And from that point I iterated, so I always carry Egyptian currency in Egypt as well as my other methods. And it has come in handy a bunch of times, when my husband needs some spare cash for tips or something I always have a little stockpile ready to go since I am a stickler about always having a certain amount whereas he is more flexible.

I always have a kind of “prepare for everything” type of mentality and like to be in control of my situation, and thus always have like backups for my backups in various contexts, including payment or being able to access various types of value anywhere, even when such preparation is not really needed.

You can see the blue line (v24) is to the left of the red line, which means it reaches higher block heights in less time.

Is anyone fucking around with LoRa for comms?

A short story.

“The biggest threats to #bitcoin are ignorance and apathy”

- Greg Maxwell

In certain macro circles, so many people (especially >50 y/o) are big into the idea of a gold-backed BRICS currency and how it'll subvert the dollar and moon the price of gold.

And while there's some truth to it directionally over a certain time frame (e.g. Zoltan Pozsar's "Bretton Woods 3.0" theme, and BRICS nations really are trying to de-dollarize or at least diversify their payments and savings exposure to varying degrees), it's clearly a weak solution in the long run.

Bretton Woods failed within like 12 years of being fully implemented. Why? Because the proliferation of IOUs was not constrained, but the underlying metal was.

And that was with America being a hyperpower. A bunch of separate BRICS nations, some of which don't even like each other much (e.g. China and India), putting together some coalition is shaky form the start. Who will trust the audits of how much gold or commodities they have in their reserves?

In the intermediate term, it does make sense for BRICS countries to route payments through other systems, such as the New Development Bank (formerly known as the BRICS Development Bank) or through various bilateral swaps. But the longevity of such a model is dubious.

Bitcoin is too small at the present time to serve as solution for this scale of global trade, but in the long arc of time it seems a far more obvious solution for global payments and reserves.

In developed markets, a lot of people wonder why they need bitcoin. Their payment systems work fine, inflation is usually in the single digits, etc. Instabilities are building up but they don’t see them, so they don’t perceive an immediate need for it. And because they have trouble seeing through other perspectives, they wonder why anyone would care about bitcoin.

In developing countries, at least the tech savvy ones, people get it faster. You don’t have to explain to an Argentinian why the peso is a disaster. They understand bitcoins and dollar stablecoins right away.

As today shows, the same is true for Nostr. When centralized platforms work “well enough” then Nostr is just an interesting techie protocol. Tech people see the power but most prople wonder why they need it.

But when centralized platforms make major errors, perform major censorship, or otherwise drop the ball, suddenly that open aspect becomes appreciated again. When people feel cucked by some central authority changing the rules on them, they go elsewhere.

Bitcoin and Nostr are hedges against clown world. The more problems that occur with centralized money or centralized communication, the more valuable Bitcoin and Nostr become.

I still think NFTs and NFT-like things are silly ideas. Whether they're called "inscriptions", "digital deeds", or "bobs". And the blockchain used to secure them is of no consideration to my argument.

If I ever see compelling utility, I'll be open to changing my mind, and I'll let y'all know.

How about wills and updated wills, verifiable based on tx blockheight?

#SouthAfrica has the highest income inequality in the World. The top 1% have more household wealth than the bottom 99% and the bottom 50% have negative wealth because their debt exceeds the value of their assets.

But sure, #Bitcoin is the problem 🤯

People who oppose the availability of certain tools (e.g. guns) are people who don’t trust themselves with said tools. You probably shouldn’t trust them either.