Did it really happen in China? Doesn't seem so, looks like they still have half of the hashing power.

when they get old enough you can just get them to build the ikea furniture so you don’t have to. Investment is paying off.

On this day 13 years ago yesterday, Gavin Andresen, one of the first bitcoin developers, told Satoshi Nakamoto that he was going to the CIA to give a presentation on #Bitcoin.

After this Satoshi disappeared, no doubt a smart guy.

Did you ever stop and *really* think about what it means to "do a Satoshi Nakamoto"?

Context for my weird question: I have met many, many bitcoiners over the years. Many of them take a stab at keeping privacy by doing some combo of: not revealing name, not revealing location, not revealing face. Etc. So often, if I happen to meet them in person, they end up revealing the things that they were hiding online. Quite literally a mask came off (pre covid!) once we started drinking - a simple, funny anecdotal example of what I mean. Many complain about photos being taken, many focus on always using a pseudonym. I'm sure most people reading recognize these patterns of behaviour.

I can see the purpose, up to a point, so this is not criticism. It's a little like me doing coinjoin "here and there" - you don't expect to defend yourself against a hyper powerful aggressor, only against a casual criminal looking for an easy score.

But if you do want *real* defence against *strong* attackers, you have a huge problem. These half-measures will be useless, perhaps worse than that, if you get overconfident, because the determined investigator only needs *one* strand to pull on, and the measures I describe above, which are almost always rules only half-stuck to anyway, don't cut it, at all.

Which brings me to my point: is it even possible to "go all the way"? Clearly it is; Satoshi Nakamoto is not the only person who's ever done it, but it's pretty damn rare at the very least.

Imagine what it would mean. If you are engaged in a serious project, that takes let's say at least a year's worth of full time work, then you are going to do that for no reward. Not just, no money, people do that quite often when it comes to things they genuinely enjoy, but no recognition, no social context, not even "oh I won't bother you because I know you're busy with that project". Nobody will say that because nobody will know. Imagine doing a full, intense 8 hour day of work (more likely, split over many days) and knowing that there will *never* be a direct reward of any form, for that. And then doing it again, and again.

What's more, you don't just "not get a reward". You have to do almost double the work, to ensure that at every step, every pushed commit or technical discussion, does not expose anything at the network trace level, or the language, vocabulary etc. Managing tricky pseudonym accounts, handling the headaches of Tor etc. I'm not trying to say it needs super-genius level tech skills, I'm trying to say it's a massive amount of effort.

Could you do that? I daren't even ask the question of myself, because I'm almost sure it's a no. But to *imagine* where that kind of motivation would come from, that's what fascinates me.

These “Bitcoiners” are more fragile than shitcoiners. Can’t imagine a world where they have a horrible take and their ego can’t handle being called out for it.

My star 💫 will only continue to rise while they are stuck in their ego chambers.

Muting is a super power. It allows toxic people to continue on with their vitriol. It also allows the recipient to gain control of their feed and social experiences, seeing only the content that they want to see. Both parties win here.

The toxic people can have their corner of doom and gloom on Nostr. The vast majority of us will be here spreading 🫂 with 💜 and lots of 🤙🏻

Zaps also help here. More positive people exist in the world than negative ones. Zaps incentivize positive behavior. You can only get Zapped by so many negative people. Kind and loving people and their Zaps far out shine the other group's contributions to the world. Zaps will reflect this too.

He can't block you on nostr, go nuts

No, they seem to prioritize by volume, with special preference for things sanctioned countries use. Lightning is still in its 'bunch of nerds' phase. Even LSPs are, which will be a target long before your basement routing node is.

That said: best to not cede an inch of territory here! Push them right back to custodians or even further. That may take a Supreme Court or Congress though, neither particularly easy to influence.

lightning nodes are next nostr:note1u7ddfz86eqa4x8lyy87rwqlpwu40qae97gurth5mvfkkc7gkevmqdvgccd

The bank runs continue.