Nostr Web Client

Replying to

_

Feel like I’m not finding my tribe on #Nostr .

Not about to have the same experience i did on twitter.

Will be making some changes.

Have a nice day for those awake.

Sweet dreams for those in the other hemisphere.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

I am not on any social media anymore and feel exactly like this on X and NOSTR.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Asking for a friend, is btc prague affiliated with "Bitcoin Magazine" under BTC Media LTC?

I don't know why I always thought Prague was independent, cool, and Bitcoin only but not if it is linked to David Barnum and Bailey.

I hope the BTC Media LTC events are following Bitcoin's true lead and ticket prices are headed toward zero if so.

Not a fan.

Bitcoin is open source so should the events or at least the access to these events should be free worldwide via streaming.

Replying to

UNCLE ROCKSTAR

Everyone who goes on X and reports doxx posts of Fiatjaf for privacy violations, and publishes screenshot proof here in the replies, will receive at least 2121 sats from me.

Instructions by nostr:npub103a6vk43crw497dlaptwfmhctxqu22mwepshjcvvp29fzwrhtx4q675n6p: https://x.com/BitcoinBRS/status/1798804354322796589

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Done. No need for Sats, send them to FJ. Thanks for this post.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Either most apps have the worst built in 'search' function or I am a developer and I think differently on how search should function, or I have the gene where I just don't understand apps various ways to use search function.

Today's App (which I love and use constantly, nostr:npub1v5ufyh4lkeslgxxcclg8f0hzazhaw7rsrhvfquxzm2fk64c72hps45n0v5 , is it just me or are you listening to a podcast and struggle to get back to the home search? I "go to show", swipe like crazy various ways, and most of the times just close down the app and go back into it?

Just me?

Replying to

Bitcoin Mechanic

Wow just figured out Bitmain's latest fuckery in real time.

I'll give you the back story...

Once upon a time Bitmain was grinding merkle roots instead of nonces aka "covert ASICBOOST".

This gave them an advantage over other miners who didn't know this was possible. One company went out of business - KNC - citing "the Chinese having some secret advantage we don't know about" - which turned out to be true precisely for this reason.

It's one of the reasons ASIC manufacture is so centralized today and this is correctly identified by many as being one of the most vulnerable aspects of the entire bitcoin ecosystem.

The ASICBOOST issue came to a head when Bitmain used their influence to block the activation of SEGWIT (essential for Lightning) because it would break their ability to do it - at least covertly. Well, they would still be able to use asicboost, but just in an obvious way that would mean everyone else could do it too. They had patented it so as to try and prevent this because that's the kind of people we're dealing with here but I digress...

When asicboost was independently discovered by Greg Maxwell Bitmain lied and said they weren't in fact using it.

This was after years of bullshitting about segwit, with Bitmain pretending to be in favour of "alternative scaling solutions" or even doing segwit as a hard fork instead which would allow them to continue what they were doing.....

Absolutely nobody believed them thanks to GMax having reverse engineered one of their ASICs and demonstrating what they had built and tried to keep to themselves.

This was a watershed moment in the fork wars where everyone suddenly understood why Bitmain had been making nonsensical arguments against segwit forever. Wanting big/small blocks wasn't a related discussion. Segwit fixed TX malleability and was a no-brainer upgrade and in the end was combined with a block size increase anyway as a compromise.

So we proceeded with segwit anyway, at which point Bitmain switched to overt asicboost which is actually even more powerful, it just requires grinding version bits instead of merkle roots but it's obvious if a miner is doing this.

Now everybody does it so essentially the net effect of it being possible is zero, except your node asking you wtf miners are doing signalling for upgrades your node knows nothing about (upgrade coordination is what version bits are actually supposed to be used for).

Oh well, relatively little harm done. If you're happy to ignore the obvious dishonesty and effort to undermine what's arguably Bitcoin's most important ever upgrade.

Fun extra tidbit: Antbleed - an intentional backdoor with which Bitmain could remotely shutdown any Antminer in the world. They said it was for shutting down stolen ASICs but immediately patched it once it was discovered.

Anyway, this company now accounts for 25-30% of all blocks found, if you naively observe the blockchain.

That's not enough to spook anyone, but unfortunately many smaller pools are in fact just fronts for Bitmain which we know for three reasons:

1. The smaller pools are clearly using blocks constructed by, or for the benefit of, Antpool.

2. They share the same custodian of their newly mined coins (Cobo).

3. They have a lending program to bail out smaller pools who get in over their head due to FPPS.

And the trend is sadly in the wrong direction, given Braiins recently abandoning its old payout model and becoming just a simple proxy for Bitmain as result of switching to FPPS.

[Massive shoutout to @mononautical and @0xB10C for helping uncover how centralized pools have become. Those are their Tweeter handles, idk if they're on Nostr.]

Summary - Bitmain is not just Antpool, it probably accounts for >50% of block templates and manufactures >90% of the mining hardware in the world.

So where am I going with all this?

Amazingly, it's about empty blocks.

What does that have to do with anything?

Well, famously OCEAN has found 3 empty blocks in its short existence, causing many to wrongly make allegations of some sort of issue with the pool itself.

This spurred on endless debate about why pools make empty templates in the first place and the actual reason so many of them get solved.

In short, pools send empty templates then immediately follow up with full templates. So quickly, that the interim period accounts for a tiny minority of the empty blocks that get found on the network, and none of ours.

In all three cases with OCEAN, the miner solved the empty block long after already having a full template to work on -

- leaving the pool in a position to either throw away a perfectly good (but empty) block or to broadcast it to the network and get miners >90% of the reward of a full block. Obviously the latter makes sense and does zero harm to the network while still adding to the overall PoW necessary for any attacker.

So why would an empty block happen a few seconds after the pool had already sent an updated job for a full block?

Because Antminers suck.

*What we didn't realize was that they intentionally sucked.*

You can send an updated job to an Antminer and watch it continue to work on an old job for over 60 seconds in edge cases.

This was something we assumed was due to design of the ASIC itself, and thus just poor engineering on the part of Bitmain.

But it turns out we were wrong, it's due to Antminer firmware.

We know this because they just released a fix for it.

So Bitmain watched, while people kept mining empty blocks, everyone would wrongly attribute it to pools, while explainers on popular websites like mempool(.)space would offer wrong explanations about it happening due to pools being slow to send proper templates and seemingly no one would understand even the motivation for sending empty templates, let alone the reason they get worked on for so long.

But the fix being something that gets released right after OCEAN starts explaining what's really going on here is beyond reasonable doubt.

They had a fix for it, and have been using that fix for their own mining.

Now they can't get away with it because increasingly people are realizing that Whatsminers and ASICs from other manufacturers aren't finding anything like the amount of empty blocks because they switch jobs far more quickly.

An Antminer has a far greater likelihood of finding an empty block because it spends longer working on old jobs.

We've been out here yelling that the issue is with the ASIC *NOT* the pool.

The fact that Bitmain intentionally crippled the firmware on the Antminers they would sell to the world, while keeping more functional units for their own mining is typical of everything Bitmain.

Sure it can be incompetence and coincidental timing on the fix, but I sincerely doubt it.

The conversation around empty blocks reached the point where people were beginning to realize something was broken with Antminers and then they just happen to release a fix for it right after people finally start catching wind of what's really going on.

__________________

So imagine this -

You sell shovels to gold miners, and as we all know, the people who make money during a gold rush are the people who sell the shovels.

But in this case the shovel seller is digging for gold himself too.

And he has intentionally sold crappy shovels to all of his customers so as give himself an advantage.

Empty blocks kept happening, people kept blaming pools.

OCEAN got attacked over it. We explained the real reason they happen so much, and Bitmain releases a fix right after.

Insane.

This goes further than empty blocks.

It's not just empty templates that take forever to work their way out of an Antminer, it's *all templates* and pools are constantly updating work as new transactions show up.

A super lucrative transaction shows up in your mempool?

All other pools are sending an updated job to hundreds of thousands of Antminers who will ignore it for a while, while Antpool has their miners working on it more quickly.

It's not hard to see the motivation for all this, especially going forward as TX fees become more and more important.

Again, insane.

_________________

If you want to watch @wk057 and I figure this all out in real time, watch the video below which was just intended to be a discussion on why empty blocks happen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BkyhdxnDrM

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Outstanding. As always.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

I apologize to the Bitcoin Development community, I am finally running a node. It was one of the easiest technical things (if you can even call a couple clicks technical) I have ever done.

I did post this on TwiX:

Sorry to even ask this, I am finally running a node and this is so damn basic. But to speed up the initial download/synching process, since the data is 100% static as of the past 10 minutes. Can't someone just zip up the ledger at a point in time, then download locally to underused CPUs/GPUs worldwide, unpack, then do a quick synch to catchup/synch in real time?

No different than how TurboTax does it on their (old) CDs or initial download and as the software/tax law changes you do updates? In this case, it's not software updating it's simply data.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

I absolutely love Jack Mallers which right there is one of the dumbest statements ever if you even remotely understand Bitcoin. He's super complex and smart, that said, can anyone tell me what is on his hat? I bet there is a hilarious reason behind it.

From:

https://primal.net/e/note1czw026g84z55ng8ea6mr3fcf2aszjxxsvy9d6fzmllskjfn0n7yqzhvfak

Replying to

jack mallers

Why the SEC pivot?

Because banks get crushed being forced to buy negative real yielding bonds. Selling #Bitcoin and now “Crypto” ETFs help them to monetize insane debt levels and inflation.

Banks call the shots, not government.

In the end, there is #Bitcoin and everything else

https://m.primal.net/IKoC.mov

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Outstanding, I simply salute you Jack Mallers. You are a one man wrecking and building crew. Wrecking and building the right stuff.

Replying to

jack

people are selling bitcoin to buy gamestop

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

RoaringKitty people's lives are BoringShitty.

Replying to unknown

nothing you said is relevant or a rational thought.

Nostr has been around for 3 years and nobody built anything decent yet for the normal user. The user experience sucks and Users are quickly leaving Nostr now.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Yeah...okay, as every one of your posts is clouded by your extreme disdain for Dorsey. What happened, why so butt hurt?

Replying to unknown

People do not like Nostr

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Duh...they don't like Ocean either, you would have hated the early Internet days too with the 404 Page Not Founds or 'This Page Under Construction' sites on dialup. This is the future, super easy to post why something will fail. Take a stance.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

"Two Jacks and a Saylor: Are they on the same page?"

Big fan of Jack Dorsey, he's following Saylor's lead with Block.

I always thought Jack Dorsey (JD), Jack Mallers, and Michael Saylor were all on the same page. That's naive. I am still a superfan of all three men but Dorsey to me has the most pure intent when it comes to Satoshi's vision.

I followed the public blow up with JD and a16z. I also listened intently to JD in Portugal. He was crystal clear on why he was there, for Open Source which completely houses Bitcoin/NOSTR thus he was wearing his infamous SATOSHI shirt and NOSTR hat.

He explained how much Big Tech has TAKEN from Open Source and has never GIVEN back to Open Source efforts.

Read, no one is giving big money, other than JD, back into Open Source:

Dorsey: Bitcoin/NOSTR:

- OpenSats $21 Million Donation May 4, 2024 https://news.bitcoin.com/jack-dorsey-backed-initiative-donates-21m-to-bitcoin-nonprofit-opensats-to-bolster-development/ (Essentially $15 Million for Bitcoin and $5 Million for NOSTR)

- His company Block just announced the creation of a 3nm ASIC

- Getting into Bitcoin Home Mining kits

- He supports Ocean and supports the people rightly concerned with SPAM and keeping mining/pools/nodes truly decentralized

- Hasn't publicly supported SPAM/Ordinals/Inscriptions/Runes/Stamps

- NOSTR champion

- Buying BTC for Block's Books

- Understands the Africa/unbanked/underbanked

- BTC SOV and MoE

Mallers: Bitcoin/NOSTR:

- Massive Supporter of Bitcoin

- LN guru and visionary

- Is indifferent on SPAM/Ordinals/Inscriptions/Runes/Stamps by his comments here, basically thanking them for financially supporting the Bitcoin Network's Health https://soundcloud.com/what-bitcoin-did/nobody-understands-bitcoin-with-jack-mallers-american-hodl-alex-thorn-calle (Never mind most of the panel underwhelmed by simply thinking the attack is a 'nothing burger.)

- NOSTR basic user

- I thought he understood Africa/unbanked/underbanked, but not if SPAM isn't a threat?

-BTC is SOV and MoE

Saylor: Bitcoin/NOSTR:

- Bitcoin Chad

- Pro LN

- Supportive of SPAM/Ordinals/Inscriptions/Runes/Stamps with his Orange Checkmark work

- NOSTR, no public support, a few posts

- Bitcoin Development, rumors are he tried to shut down ARK from donating

- I heard one comment in a Lightning Round with Natalie about Saylor talking Africa

- Has Saylor ever publicly supported Ocean or given money to Open Source projects?

- BTC a SOV (I align with this: https://bitcoinapolis.blogspot.com/2022/12/bitcoin-bitcoin-as-digital-property-is.html )

I agree with 99% of what Dorsey is doing, 98% of Saylor, and about 90% of Mallers (he's still a green horn with massive mentors.)

My favorite, albeit crappy, title I achieved in my BI Corporate America career was 'Principal Solutions Engineer' (even though they never listened to me when I said it should be Principle not Principal. Coders are all about precision.)

But I do like Solutions, so what will it take? Open Source is way harder than Closed/Corporate/Legacy/FIAT. So much of it was 'organic' with TCP/IP, SMTP, VOIP, Linux, and now Bitcoin and NOSTR. There are so many ways to 'armchair quarterback' why something will fail, no different than NOSTR or Bitcoin, but you also have to plan for your success. We have to plan for Bitcoin/NOSTRs success. What does that look like? How can we help in a positive way, I can't give millions but I can donate a ton of my precious time. (Only my cancer advocacy is more important.)

Projects I would love to help:

- Decentralization of Nodes -

https://x.com/Bitcoinapolis55/status/1789627285198242153

"...so yah 77% of the UTXOs are useless and are a waste of resources."

- Decentralization of the miners/Pools

I am pro JD's Ocean, but how do we overcome the $$$$$ incentive when people go with the disingenuous because greed overrides what is right? How do we take Ocean from Minority to Majority?

- Developers: How do we make sure we are funding the 'right' projects and are not just turning into shills or supporting those developers who losers like a16z/Bitcoin Magazine support?

Once again, most pressing, elevating Ocean. If you look at our past, some of the best projects and things never made it to mass adoption. Mainly because people with the FIAT money had the best marketing and advertising.

Satoshi had a little budget, how can we get back on the right path and incentivize people to go with Ocean and Bitcoin Knots?

I can't help but think of the story of the guy who developed the Weber Grill. How many demos he had to do in order to get mass adoption. Fueled simply by passion, for his product.

How can we recapture Bitcoin and make it boring again, and move all the SPAM and other non-monetary projects like the Orange Check off the Bitcoin Base Layer onto L2+?

We capture stranded energy for Bitcoin Mining, how do we capture stranded passion for Bitcoin advocacy?

We can't simply let 2 Jacks and a Saylor do everything. There is power in numbers, not images.

Replying to

jack

block's entire shareholder letter was dedicated to why we're focused on bitcoin, not crypto. the internet needs decentralized digital cash. we will do our part to help make it accessible, make it secure, and make it usable every day.

https://s29.q4cdn.com/628966176/files/doc_financials/2024/q1/Shareholder-Letter_1Q24_Block.pdf

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Beautiful, long time shareholder in a handful of companies now because of leaders like you. Thank you. Simply. Thank you.

Replying to

utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻

Gm,

The most offensive and disrespectful term you can call a bitcoiner is "scammer".

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Promoting Bitcoin scammers is a class in of itself.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

I have been getting a pop-up box every time I try to follow someone new (Primal) and it warns me I will lose all those I follow. Well, I finally clicked it and it was true, I am down from 1000 to 0.

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Censorship isn't cool but sometimes the effort people take to post on any platform, including NOSTR is lame.

Take your time. Post something deep, aside from "GM" and "NGU" or a stolen Meme.*****

***** - Yes, I stole this image but tried (my effort) to cater it

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Fountain is my favorite podcast app, it just works great, remembers where I left off etc.

Great app and earning Sats listening.

Replying to

JG

I'm not a Bitcoin dev, but I've built software tools for people and can code. Everyone knows that the systems like these always needs tweaks, vulnerability fixes, etc. Maybe I'm misreading, but my read is that responsible development should kind of follow a similar mantra to "first, do no harm".

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

Exactly, in Corporate America the really bad outsourced IT resources (for decades it was India) were held to a totally different quality standard.

My entire career I'd lie in bed awake hoping I didn't break something with my latest patch, upgrade, etc. These guys were paid to essentially break things then hand the breaks to another outsourced "Production Support" group under the same umbrella.

Huge money to be made in prolonging the solution.

These guys just put in garbage and wouldn't fix things most of the time and break way more than they fixed.

We called it, "Fix Something, Break Something."

I am all for giving money to the right projects and people. That detail needs to be flushed out is all, down to the names and those individuals motivation to add to Bitcoin.

Are they pushing the BIP to benefit for themselves from: Ordinals/Inscriptions/Stamps/Ruins?/

Replying to

utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻

What is the most delicious fruit? Pineapple right?

BR Bitcoinapolis 1y ago

I thought I knew fruit, I mean really knew fruit until I went to Costa Rica. My wife planned an excursion on a small 2 acre family owned business that was fruit and cocoa.

It was one of the most incredible 2 hours of my life, these guys were experts on fruit, knowing EXACTLY when to pick it and how to serve it.

One that isn't available in the United States (too fragile) was Soursop and a few others I can't even remember. Incredible is all I can say.