Formulating some approaches when orange piling people.
Initially I would suggest that people acquire a small amount of bitcoin to start playing with.
But how can they play with it?
As it stands, there are still relatively few places that will accept bitcoin/lightning either online or in real life.
In order to promote adoption, we need to push the use of bitcoin as a medium of exchange.
The majority people people will not invest in significant amounts of bitcoin as most people don't have significant amounts to invest.
Hence they will start with small amounts.
There is little advantage in acquiring small amounts of bitcoin, as the returns over the short to medium timescales will not move the needle.
There needs to be a reason to purchase small amounts of bitcoin.
Organisations need to start accepting bitcoin as a means of payment, but with an incentive to offer discounted prices when paying with bitcoin, or premium pricing when paying with Fiat. The reduced costs of processing bitcoin/lightning payments needs to be passed onto the customer.
Once it can be seen that it's cheaper to use Bitcoin over time, in conjunction with the value of bitcoin increasing over the medium to long term, should encourage and enable people to start to adopt bitcoin more widely.
Thoughts?
Happy New Year!
Will start posting more on Nostr in 2025 although it does feel like I'm talking to myself most of the time.
What has bitcoin given me?
I think the main thing is hope. I can't imagine how scary the world must seem to pre-coiners.
Pondering what amazing announcements people are holding onto until the New Year?
Bitkey is a great way to onboard people. Just bought one each for my brother and sister
In response to the recent BIP proposal to rename sats as Bitcoin.
This is supposed to address the unit bias issue, now that a single BTC is $100k.
This proposal will not work for many reasons, primarily as it breaks the narrative that there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin. This will cause confusion, and give ammunition to those that are against bitcoin, who will say (incorrectly) that the supply has been inflated.
To address unit bias, we need to reduce the displayed cost of bitcoin to allow normal people to feel that it is affordable and within reach, whilst still keeping the only 21 million bitcoin supply factually true.
It would also be advantageous for people new to bitcoin to be comfortable with the way it is denominated. We need to move away from eight decimal places, and using the weird naming convention of thousands of Satoshis.
The simplest way to do this is to keep BTC and sats, but start representing Bitcoin in a decimalised format. The majority of the worlds population already use decimalised currency, for example:
United States: $1.00 is 100 cents
UK: £1.00 is 100 pence
Europe: €1.00 is 100 euro cents
For bitcoin, there already exists a unit called a 'bit'.
A bit is equal to 100 sats.
A bit of a bitcoin seems to be an ideal way to refer to a smaller amount of a bitcoin. We should also start using the ₿ symbol to represent bits.
So
Global Bitcoin: ₿1.00 is 100 sats
1 whole bitcoin (BTC) is still 100,000,000 sats, but is also ₿1,000,000 bits.
Exchanges could start using a USDBIT pair where at today's prices, USDBIT=$0.10
So you could go to an exchange and buy ₿1000.00 bits for $100.11
No need to change the number of bitcoin, no need to rename sats, just move the decimal place and start using bits to denominate bitcoin.
I'm sure newbies would be more comfortable saying 1 bit 25 rather than 125 satoshis, in the same way they are used to saying 1 dollar 25 or 1 pound 25.
It would also make it so much simpler to explain.
1 whole bitcoin is $100,000 but you can bits of a bitcoin. You can buy ₿1000 for just $100.
Simple.
Setting up nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm on my DIY nostr:npub126ntw5mnermmj0znhjhgdk8lh2af72sm8qfzq48umdlnhaj9kuns3le9ll with a guide from nostr:npub1rxysxnjkhrmqd3ey73dp9n5y5yvyzcs64acc9g0k2epcpwwyya4spvhnp8. I get it. This all makes sense now. I'm sure I'll have questions but let me know if there is anything important I should do!
nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm have done a terrific job with self hosting the Alby hub. The nostr:npub1rxysxnjkhrmqd3ey73dp9n5y5yvyzcs64acc9g0k2epcpwwyya4spvhnp8 video clarified a few things for me too.
Very sad news. A huge influence in the prog rock space. RIP Peter Sinfield
What’s the official all time price?
I forgot I had a @Bitkey wallet on my iPhone that I just wiped and replaced. Just restored the wallet in seconds on my new iPhone - simples!
Found this joke on Quora. Thought it was appropriate for Bitcoiners 😉
The world's richest man is dying. He's made peace with that. But what bothers him is no one in the afterlife will even know it.
Here he's a self-made man who created this huge fortune from scratch, but he can't take it with him. Not that he could spend it,of course, but just to SHOW everyone what a great success the poor boy had become.
He broods over this so that his guardian angel is worried. One night the angel flies to Heaven to consult Jesus. Jesus says “Well, you know earthly wealth has no place here"
The angel replies “I know Lord, but he's been such a good man. Did a lot for charity, ran his business honestly. He's only human. He can't help having this little quirk. Isn't there something we can do to ease his mind?
Jesus thinks a moment. “”All right. Let's look him up in the Book of Life" The Book is like a film of this man's life and seeing his struggles, Jesus is moved.
He tells the guardian angel “Wake him and tell him I will allow him to bring one suitcase-only one, mind you. And he can fill it with whatever wealth he chooses. At the moment he of his death it will be brought to heaven with him.”
The angel goes down and gives the message .The guy is happy but what should he bring? Our money would mean nothing to people from another time, jewels could be faked, stocks and bonds could not be traded so they'd be so much paper. Finally it dawn's on him.
Gold.
Gold has been valued throughout history.
He sends out for the biggest suitcase he can find, fills it with gold bars, and sets it beside his bed. Now he can die in peace, and he does.
True to the promise he arrives at the Pearly Gates, suitcase in hand.
St. Peter greets him warmly and says “All right. Let's see what was so important to you that eternal life and bliss wasn't enough"
The man proudly opens the suitcase, stuffed with row after row of little gold bars.
St. Peter stares at it, puzzled, and says “You brought pavement?”
I had a chat with nostr:nprofile1qqsg2zqd8wkhpnxu6lm5c2dyfa2mhpwte57apjae2ldp6g2mmwf3ypqpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgtck0cpm9 about Bitcoin, Cashu, nostr, and privacy, and it was pretty good!
Thank you for having me 🫡
Great conversation and answered many questions I had about ecash
If you’re a vendor or a merchant why are you not offering a discount to those who want to pay in bitcoin
?
No worries about EV batteries.
My recent video on MacOS Sequoia has just been published on ScreenCastsOnline. I enjoyed putting this one together and learnt a few things myself in the process. Available as part of the free trial membership.
https://www.screencastsonline.com/tutorials/macos/macos-sequoia-overview
Just venting.
I’m done with nostr:npub1ex7mdykw786qxvmtuls208uyxmn0hse95rfwsarvfde5yg6wy7jq6qvyt9 UK
Deposited a lump sum of cash on Tuesday at 7am. BTC Price 58k. Not a huge amount but not small either.
It’s now Friday 8:28am and BTC price is 63K and the funds have still not released so have missed out on those gains.
I love nostr:npub1cn4t4cd78nm900qc2hhqte5aa8c9njm6qkfzw95tszufwcwtcnsq7g3vle and all he stands for and think Strike is the best exchange out there but this must be the third or fourth time this has happened but never for this long.
I appreciate it’s out of their hands but I’ve never had this level of friction with any other exchange. It must be hugely frustrating for Strike in the UK and they must have difficulty keeping UK customers.
Very envious of Strike customers in the US where this issue does not arise.
I’m finding Primal almost unusable this past week. Why are so many posts in my feed showing the raw note IDs instead of rendering the quoted note? Is this happening for anyone else on Primal? The quoted notes render fine in other clients. nostr:npub12vkcxr0luzwp8e673v29eqjhrr7p9vqq8asav85swaepclllj09sylpugg nostr:npub16c0nh3dnadzqpm76uctf5hqhe2lny344zsmpm6feee9p5rdxaa9q586nvr
Additionally having trouble tagging users in Primal. Posting this from Nostur because it just works.
Same here.
It’s mad how difficult it is to buy a significant amount of #bitcoin in the UK. Even if you manage to transfer cash from your bank account without the bank stepping in, there are no guarantees that the exchange can accept and process it in a timely fashion. I transferred some cash yesterday which was acknowledged by the exchange but here we are 24 hours later and it’s still not available to use to purchase #bitcoin.
And #bitcoin is up 5% since.
Seems the UK exchanges are working with one hand tied behind their backs.
Seems impossible for a newbie who wants to transfer any significant amount into #bitcoin at this point. I’d struggle orange pilling anyone at this point.