You don't know what you're talking about, credit cards are the best UX. Don't you see they are used in many more places than Bitcoin? That means the market has decided and the market is always right. People will never learn to use Bitcoin because Bitcoin doesn't have sign up forms, and that is what my company, satoshisignupforms.com, is trying to solve, we are going to make paying with Bitcoin as easy as typing 25 numbers in three different fields and then your full name and tax number.

Being white in rural Japan gets me a lot of stares. Mostly from kids and old people. Kids almost always say “Herro” because that’s how they pronounce it. I ignore them. I used to reply but then it got tiring. Sometimes I’ll reply with a full sentence about something totally random and they look extremely puzzled 😂 I always get some fun out of that.

I used to be weirded out a little but now I don’t pay any attention. I speak English and I’m loud and I don’t care.

Sometimes the old people even run up to me while pointing at me and saying “foreigner”. I can’t tell if they are excited or disgusted 😂 I just pretend like they don’t exist and pay no attention. They usually walk away awkwardly.

Then there’s the kid who whispers about me to their parent. And the parent hushes them and explains it’s not polite to talk about people who are right there. I nod in agreement 😂. Occasionally I’ll say hello in Japanese and they get quiet because they realize I know what they’re saying 🤣

The kids are the best. I pick up my kid from school and large groups of kids stare at me and talk about me. They marvel at how my son and I have conversations in English. Occasionally some run up and practice their English on me.

There are also adults who speak some English. But that’s about it. They can say a sentence but it’s impossible to hold a conversation with them. I usually reply with a word or two and end it there. Even if they try to carry on, the moment I open my mouth to form a full sentence they are extremely lost and confused.

The joys of rural Japan 😆

Mullvad is fast and reliable, no KYC, accepts Bitcoin, doesn't store customer data as runs in RAM and has a track record of resisting police raids.

Even though many of us here have transitioned our time to a paradigm change that unites 8 billion people on this planet, many of our friends and people we love…have not yet.

Their world view (and maybe partly ours too) is then still infected by a system that preys on them. Extracts from them. Keeps them stuck. If that is true, then it is hard to stay above the noise when the people we love, people they love, and so on, are “experiencing” a pain that is very real.

All around us, unbelievable tragedy and chaos with people taking sides, while believing that they’re or their side is justified in the stealing from, harming, or killing of other people for “their” cause. Our politics, our media, our institutions are all similarity captured by it - leading to further division and righteousness, while people become numb to it all - mostly unaware of how it is hurting them deeply. How could it not?

This is the lens of the world that the majority is looking through, reinforcing, and making stronger through everything they see and do.

Just as real to them….as the truth, hope, and abundance that #Bitcoin imposes on the world is for us.

Yes, we “try” to stay above it because we know that the system problem cannot be solved from within it, and our time is more valuable in bending reality to the new system.

But

it is worth a reminder as we go this chaotic transition that so few understand:

When someone we love hurts, we hurt too.

And there is still much hurt.

Much love to you all!

#Bitcoin

#Nostr

First, they came from the entrepreneurs ...

Your IP address is visible to your relays.

If a relay operator was malicious they could abuse that information in identifying you (perhaps to punish you for how you use Bitcoin, in a country with an authoritarian regime) or could package your nostr activity with other data brokers’ information about you to sell into the profile(s) that exist on nearly everyone for as-targeting (at best) or government surveillance (in the US, for example, it’s illegal to spy on citizens, but not to buy the entirety of their internet activity from a broker and use that for profiling and “criminal prediction” police lists).

These are all “ugly” (although not “worst case”) scenarios, but it’s more likely that some of those things are already happening with your online data outside of nostr.

It depends also, of course, what relays you use. You asked “worst case” so yeah someone could go after nostriches in a few years with the assumption that many of them hold lots of (massively appreciated) Bitcoin. Kidnappings and theft already happen; user data from crypto exchanges is sold on the dark web every day, and people get scammed and stole from as a result.

Nostr isn’t necessarily “big” enough yet to make us targets… but data is forever.

Using an always-on VPN is just best practice, on Nostr or anywhere else, and while it’s of course far from a perfect solution, a high-quality VPN is such an easy way to limit the data that can be easily traced to you, making it just inconvenient enough that your average bad actor would prefer a different, easier target.

Hope this is helpful 🫡

MWhy use a VPN on Nostr (and anywhere/everywhere else)?

Well, without one: nostr:note18wuvkjvmamems0qmjl8glc6l0aqn30rzry4pszc8g53q0zwnf30q35ducd

Gold hit a new ATH on Friday

What’s challenging about that?

So familiar with this scenario. Hope you land and ground in the perfect home for your family. You in Aussie?

If alcohol is so bad for you, then why did Jesus turn water into wine?

If it’s good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me.

Being sober is essentially blasphemy.

We all know where the world is going - hint: it’s going to be an all out war on the individual. And we’re here to get ready to fight it.