I got to wondering this evening, who are the old guards here. Who's been here more than a year? #asknostr

What are zaps? #asknostr

Is anyone here? 😛

I was just walking down the street, coffee in hand, suddenly realizing how "normal" it all is already. Like most days, I went to a coffee shop that accepts lightning. Like most days, I paid directly with sats that someone zapped me here on nostr. Like most days, neither the merchant nor myself thought twice about it, or took a minute to marvel at what just happened.

So, allow me to do just that. Marvel at what just happened. While everyone is having a fantastically crazy time at #nostriga, uncountable people are using bitcoin in a myriad of ways. Some for savings, large and small; some for transactions, large and small; some for other stuff. Bitcoin is slowly but surely entering the world stage. Some commentators will tell you that this is good. Some commentators will tell you that this is bad. Whatever the case may be, it is unavoidable.

I see nostr under a similar light. As platform-based manipulation and censorship ramps up—which it inevitably will—the usage of nostr will ramp up too, and with it the usage of zaps and everything else that comes with it. And soon enough, buying a coffee (or breakfast, lunch, and dinner) with zap-based income will be normal. Just like it's "normal" to be an "influencer" today, or a "YouTuber" or whatnot... It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a normal thing. Anyone can do it.

Back to my coffee. I remember when I had the "oh my god, I can live on bitcoin here!!!" experience for the first time. It was in Bitcoin Jungle, a couple of months after the initiative was launched. I stayed there for 2 weeks or so, buying the necessities of daily life with sats outright. And it worked. Flawlessly. I had zero payment failures, and was exclusively using Zeus with my own node. It was incredible.

Why is this incredible, you ask? Shouldn't stuff just work? Yes, it should. But building out the tech and the infrastructure to make it all work is BLOODY HARD. I remember the first Lightning Conference in Berlin, in 2019. Everyone came, everyone had all their channels and wallets and everything prepared, and ~50% of payments failed. For... reasons.

Fast-forward to today: I go to one of the 100+ merchants in the city that accept bitcoin, a quick tap on the PoS device & QR code scan, boom, done. Is it always perfect? Of course not. Will it get better still? 100% it will. Very soon these merchants will have NFC-enabled devices, and the tap-to-pay experience that people are used to with cards & Apple pay will be normal for bitcoin payments too. If you are in Riga right now, you'll experience this first-hand thanks to Bolt cards and BTCPay Server. It's awesome, it's open-source, and it works. And it will get better still.

We are truly living in the best and weirdest timeline; a timeline where shitposting on the internet can buy you lunch and dinner; a timeline that spawns amazing technological movements like #nostr; a timeline that, every ~10 minutes, allows for a small miracle to happen. A timeline where "magic internet money" is a normal thing; a timeline that, thanks to the magic dust of cryptography, enables anyone to speak about anything, without having to ask for permission. I'm grateful.

Thank you, Satoshi. 🙏🧡

Who wants to bet me that within the next 10 years, Mr digital energy city in cyberspace Saylor dumps a huge portion of his coins?

How can y'all not spot this larp from a mile away, so obvious

FUCK SAYLOR. SUPPORT OPEN SOURCE.

Best Gigi quote ever goes like this:

"If your friends don't think you're retarded, you're not bullish enough."

Musk is doing what he can with X. He's fighting government mandated censorship wherever it may be. Unfortunately, it only takes one loss to render the platform compromised.

Given that many of these orders are secret and do not allow Musk to reveal them, it's possible that it's already compromised.

In other words, it's only a matter of time before things get worse there. The future must be decentralized.

TRAVEL DAY.

AMA.

Had a beaver stew, can recommend, excellent meat.

The demonization of the productive class by the left in the US is sickening. It’ll start with taxes on unrealized gains, escalate to overt asset confiscation and ultimately physical harm against those who rightly try to protect their assets from the government.

Your “BPA free” drinking bottle and cutting boards probably have BPS instead, which is just as bad or worse for you.

Use wood, glass and metal as much as possible.

If you want to make big changes, then stop making excuses

Don't TALK about what you're going to do

SHOW what you did

Proof of Work or STFU