Interesting Stuff
African Funerals - David Oks writes about the elaborate multi-day funeral celebrations of African cultures which consume savings equivalent to months of income, creating a social obligation that functions as a poverty trap. The pressure is communal and refusing to spend lavishly on a funeral brings social ostracism, which results in elaborate, wasteful spending. It’s a bit jarring to see how cultural norms can be as destructive as rent-seeking, but it does show that there’s a communal instinct of economic equality which probably accounts for the appeal of socialism.
This is Serious - David Pinsof argues that our inability to be serious about anything (e.g. politics, relationships, truth) is itself the crisis, not just a symptom. Irony and cynicism became default modes because sincerity is socially dangerous in a world that punishes conviction. A constantly debasing culture that can't take anything seriously which in turn can't build anything lasting. This is why Bitcoin's earnestness feels refreshing to some, but alien to many others.
Grade Hyperinflation - Kelsey Piper writes about how grades have reached hyperinflation as to render academic achievement meaningless. The median GPA at Yale, for example, is 3.7, and an A signifies attendance rather than excellence. This is credential debasement mirroring the monetary debasement. The supply of credentials have inflated, even as the costs have skyrocketed, suggesting that degrees are bought, and not earned. As with most things in a fiat economy, the expansion of money has taken over education, and the unfortunate victims are the students who actually earned their grades, much like savers are robbed by money printing.
Debasement of Dating - Elisabeth Stone argues that the dating crisis is a mirror and reflects on the people complaining. The apps, as horrible as they are, aren't the problem. The users are bringing their worst selves, optimizing for convenience and instant gratification over genuine connection and long term partnership. It's the same high time preference mentality that fiat money creates in everything. All things are quickly disposable and nothing is worth waiting for.
The Corruption of Christianity - Librarian of Celaeno argues that Christianity's biggest threat isn't external persecution but internal corruption. Its leaders accommodate the world's values to maintain institutional comfort. Historical examples from Arian bishops to modern megachurch pastors show that doctrinal compromise always begins with the clergy, not the laity. And sadly, clergy have been corrupted by fiat money and the values it espouses. The shepherds, in other words, have become wolves whether they recognize it or not.
What I'm up to
Debate Room - I was on this debate show where we talked about Bitcoin and real estate. There was also a Solana shill on the show, so I had a fun time dissecting the terrible arguments for multiple currencies. Generally, centralized currencies are incentivized to trap you in their ecosystem so that they can keep printing money.
BTC Prague - I will be at this conference in Europe June 11-13. There will be books available for those that want to donate to productionready.org.
Nostr Note of the Week
What I’m Promoting
Bitcoin
Multisig Digital Bearer Instruments - A new proposal uses inverted threshold multisig to create Bitcoin-based digital bearer instruments that can be transferred peer-to-peer without touching the blockchain. The recipient holds two of the three keys needed to spend, while the issuer’s key becomes cryptographically irrelevant after issuance. It’s an interesting idea because it doesn’t require blockchain txs for transfer, but it does put an awful lot of trust in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) which purportedly refuse to export private keys and can securely delete keys.
CoinJoin Probing Attack - Researchers demonstrated that attackers can deanonymize up to 79 percent of CoinJoin participants through repeated probing attacks. The good news is that a defense-in-depth strategy combining six countermeasures can reduce deanonymization to zero even under sustained attack. Privacy on Bitcoin is hard-won but achievable, though we’re far from it given the nascent nature of many anonymizing tools.
Electrum Swap Protocol - Whales Exchange offers a decentralized, non-custodial bridge between Bitcoin mainchain and Lightning using the Electrum Swap protocol. Users maintain control of their own funds throughout the entire swap process, which is how it can get around KYC restrictions and removes custodial risk. The swaps also function as an anonymizer, for which some fee might be worthwhile.
Lightning
Fountain 1.5 - Fountain's latest update surfaces trending podcasts based on zaps rather than likes or algorithmic manipulation, prioritizing value-for-value, which might very well work as a content discovery mechanism. The app also added passkey login and offline browsing, making it increasingly competitive with legacy podcast platforms. When your engagement metric is actual money rather than dopamine-harvesting clicks, you hopefully get better content rising to the top.
Linux guides for Lightning - This is a no-nonsense collection of tested Linux configurations for Bitcoin and Lightning node operators covering encryption, key management, and network hardening. The guide is helpful for those that want step-by-step commands on their own systems. What’s nice is that you can feed these commands into agentic AIs and get them to do them on your behalf. I suspect that’s the real use, even if you don’t read all of these guides.
Split Loyalty - Split is a mobile wallet that pays you Bitcoin rewards proportional to your spending with verified merchants. The idea is to incentivize a circular Bitcoin economy. Earn sats for spending sats is a clever flywheel, and much more useful than most credit card points. That said, the merchant adoption is the real bottleneck and the consumer protections that come with Visa/Amex are really what gate consumer behavior. Still, rewards are a good first step.
Economics, Engineering, Etc.
Core Power - hodlonaut goes through the experience of 3 different developers and how they were sidelined in some political power plays within Bitcoin Core. The post covers the experience of Luke Dash Jr., James O’Beirne and Jon Atack and contrasts that specifically with Amiti Uttarwar and Gloria Zhao. It’s a lot of inside baseball, particularly what constitutes enough review or not, who gets to choose maintainers and certain people are defended or attacked based on their position in the status hierarchy of the development organization. For me, the post shows how despite the claims of a meritocratic development process, there are gatekeepers and onramps that have considerations other than pure merit.
35 ideas worth exploring - Someone cataloged 988 Bitcoin products across 118 hackathons since 2011 and distilled 35 ideas still worth building. It is a sobering reminder of how much has been tried and how much runway remains for entrepreneurs who actually want to serve Bitcoiners rather than chase VC hype cycles. If you are looking for your next project, start here instead of reinventing another custodial wallet.
Bitcoin FUD responder - A new research tool lets you paste any anti-Bitcoin claim and get back a fact-checked response drawn from peer-reviewed academic studies from Cambridge and the Human Rights Foundation. This is exactly the kind of resource Bitcoiners need when Uncle Joe starts repeating mainstream talking points at Thanksgiving dinner. Evidence-based apologetics should beat emotional arguments, though of course, they don’t for many people.
Quick Hits
Big Merger - Jack Mallers’ companies XXI and Strike will apparently be merging, though it looks like Tether is in favor of Elektron’s CEO becoming the new president of the joint company.
Bitcoin ATMs banned in Indiana - The state joins Tennessee in banning the ubiquitous devices.
Bisq Vulnerability - A missing validation check in Bisq v1 let an attacker drain funds from active offers, forcing the team to halt trading entirely.
The Gold Laundering - Drug cartels in Colombia have been laundering money through the gold supply chain, with dirty gold ending up at the US Mint itself.
SatoshiGuesser - A browser-based slot machine tries to randomly generate private keys matching Satoshi's estimated 22,000 addresses. The odds are roughly 1 in 5.27 times 10 to the 72nd power.
Fiat delenda est.
One highlight that deserves attention this week is Jeff Booth’s talk in Vegas, where he breaks down the four ways people see Bitcoin.
It’s a simple framework, but it explains a lot of the confusion we still see, from outright rejection to treating it as just another asset. Worth reflecting on, especially how many are still measuring Bitcoin through the system it challenges.
https://bitcoinawareness.substack.com/p/the-four-ways-people-see-bitcoin