Seth For Privacy

Privacy is a human right and necessary for freedom.

- VP of Operations at Cake Wallet
- Privacy advocate
- Host of optoutpod.com, a privacy-focused podcast

Public Key

npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs936kc97s4k4gqjnmltljgqns0uadh08d77t5mypg3anxkneks37gpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezu7rdwgh8ymmrddeszxmhwden5te0dehhxarj9ecx7un5v4kk7mn9wfhjucm0d546n79n

Publishing to

nostr.xmr.rocks

nostr.portemonero.com

xmr.usenostr.org

nostr.milou.lol

relay.orangepill.dev

nostr.sethforprivacy.com

Author Public Key

npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g

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Last Notes

2026-07-07 18:29:59 UTC

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Likely on my end, haven't been using Nostr much lately and pretty sure my Lightning address is borked! Will try and fix

2026-07-07 18:25:39 UTC

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Yup exactly that!!

2026-07-07 18:18:33 UTC

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Yup!

2026-07-07 18:07:27 UTC

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We did it for 'em 😜

2026-07-07 17:44:38 UTC

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Thanks so much, Evan!

2026-07-07 17:37:24 UTC

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Thanks, Guy!

2026-07-07 17:32:03 UTC

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SO excited to reveal Radar to the world today!
We’ve been working on all of the moving parts of this launch for many months, but the core of Radar is simple. Why are the two most private things we do every day - who we talk to and what we pay for - always disconnected and surveilled?
Radar solves this by building on top of Signal’s amazing messaging protocol and network while implementing payments over Bitcoin. All of your existing Signal contacts come with you, but everyone who joins Radar can send and receive payments at a tap. This combination makes sending money to friends and family, supporting an activist or journalist, or funding a political dissident as easy as sending a message.
No need to juggle separate apps, and now we can get Bitcoin into the hands of people who just simply want a good way to transfer value. No custodians, no banks, just permissionless freedom money.
It's been a blast getting to break out beyond "just" the wallet space, and build a tool that we see a huge need for from human rights groups to "normies" and everything in between.
I'll break down more on the why we made the choices we did throughout the week on a host of podcasts, so keep an eye out for those if you want to dive deeper!
In the meantime, take a minute and go check out @npub104z…d99j 🫡
#nevent1q…lmpz

2025-09-26 14:11:53 UTC

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See you all there, can't wait to chat with Matt as always 🫡
#nevent1q…2sdl

2025-09-09 18:04:39 UTC

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Woah, was definitely not expecting this! Cannot wait to try it out. Have you been in contact with Josie Bake and the rest of the team working on Silent Payment server spec etc around this?

2025-06-03 12:52:13 UTC

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Usually just the anniversary of Monero every18th of April, but that's about it!

2025-06-03 12:50:28 UTC

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Nothing like just sitting down and chatting with an old friend to revive your spirit and make you want to keep pushing out more freedom tech.
Immensely grateful for @nprofile…zx3h and all he's done for freedom tech and for me personally over the years. Absolute legend and one of the few heros I won't have to slay 🧡
#nevent1q…9h9a

2025-06-02 14:36:01 UTC

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See you all there, folks 🫡
Honored to be joining the man, the myth, the legend after so long but tons to cover in the Bitcoin space, can't wait.
#nevent1q…edrz

2025-03-12 18:02:36 UTC

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🔥🔥🔥
Absolutely amazing work, thank you for your tireless efforts educating us plebs.
I wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for you, literally eternally grateful.

2025-03-12 18:01:52 UTC

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I know I'm rarely (if ever) on Nostr, but I see my favorite robot doing amazing work I zap it and I reshare it.
Keep kicking ass, @nprofile…cycq 🔥
#nevent1q…vwe6

2024-08-12 00:46:42 UTC

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Tagging is always a struggle bus for me no matter the client...

2024-08-11 21:06:35 UTC

# I'm leaving Foundation and joining Cake Wallet
It's time for a new chapter in my journey building freedom tech, and I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be jumping in to help Vik run Cake as VP of Operations starting in September.
## Why Cake?
I've known Vik for many years in the space, and have been watching from the sidelines as he's worked hard to bring together an amazing team to build out a wallet that prioritizes ease-of-use and powerful privacy no matter what cryptocurrency people prefer. That all started with being the first Monero wallet on iOS, and has rapidly grown to being a cross-platform, multi-cryptocurrency wallet used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
The best part? Cake Wallet has been paving the way in the privacy space for many years, including the latest push to be the first mobile wallet to include Silent Payments for Bitcoin and MWEB for Litecoin. My vision for Cake is to carry this privacy-first vision even further, continuing to push the envelope and let users access powerful privacy features with an intuitive, beautiful user experience that makes privacy easy.
The first three objectives I have will be improving and expanding Silent Payments support (especially improving the sync experience!), building out an amazing (and privacy-preserving) Lightning experience, and fine-tuning and improving the existing Cake Wallet that you all know and love across the board.
I can't wait to step into this larger role, especially with friends that I've already gotten the chance to meet and get to know over the years. I'm also thrilled to be able to dedicate a bit more time to expanding access and ease-of-use for Monero, especially in the wake of the takedown of Samourai Wallet and the broad attacks against Bitcoin privacy.
Monero is a more important tool than ever, and Cake has been a key part of making Monero more useful over the years.
## Grateful for Foundation
I have nothing but amazing things to say about Foundation and the incredible people I've gotten to work with so closely over the past two years. We've gotten the chance to build the best Bitcoin hardware wallet out there in Passport, and turn Envoy from a simple companion app for Passport to a powerful standalone mobile wallet with the best coin control in the space.
I especially wanted to shout out Zach Herbert and @qna, as they have been close friends and allies, giving me the chance to get started in the space and grow into what became a much larger role than originally planned with Foundation. Zach has gone above and beyond to empower me over the past two years, and his tireless efforts to drive Foundation forward and ensure we ship the best possible products has been inspiring.
@qna is the reason I'm even in Bitcoin in the first place, and was the key voice of reason that helped me understand the how and why of privacy in Bitcoin, as well as the power (and necessity) of going no-KYC-only. We've built a great friendship over the past two years and I'm honored to be able to have learned so much from him.
This has to be the most bittersweet move of my life, but I'm thrilled with the new prospects at Cake and know that those taking over in my place at Foundation are going to bring a unique approach to help them take the next step forward as well.
Now let's get back to building 🫡
P.S. - Keep an eye out, Cake and Foundation will be working closely together in the near future 👀

2024-05-30 20:41:04 UTC

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Does that increase or decrease your chances of getting rugged lol

2024-05-30 20:29:34 UTC

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Thanks, I wish they weren't true and that ecash was a silver bullet but it's just not...

2024-05-30 20:19:19 UTC

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100% agreed.

2024-05-30 19:40:28 UTC

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Full context (cross posted from X):
#nevent1q…p3fy

2024-05-30 19:39:59 UTC

Summarizing my thoughts on ecash
For some reason this ecash trend seems to be gaining steam instead of going away, so I'll try my best to detail my thoughts on ecash into one post.
1. The incentives are broken
Ecash finds itself between a rock and a hard place. For users to trust the mint, they need to know that the people behind the mint are trustworthy. If the people running the mint reveal their identities (or even just nyms), they're a trivial target for regulators and law enforcement as it's clear a mint is an MSB.
If the people behind a mint don't reveal their identities or nyms, users of that mint are subject to trivial rug pulls with no recourse. Which do you prefer as a user? Mint operator rug pulls or government rug pulls?
If a mint had been targeted like Samourai Wallet was, instead of just a potential privacy loss, all users would have lost all of their Bitcoin.
2. Ecash is not "self-custodial"
For some reason this concept of ecash being "self-custodial" is a thing, merely because the tokens themselves are self-custodied (and require proper backups of seed phrases etc.) While the lines get a bit weird, it's important to separate two things:
1. The asset people want is Bitcoin, not ecash tokens.
2. The asset people give up custody on is Bitcoin.
The ecash tokens themselves are completely worthless IOUs without the Bitcoin behind them, so even if I can take custody of my ecash tokens, I have 100% given up custody of my sats to a third-party.
Because of this, talking about ecash as self-custodial is disingenuous -- no one wants empty IOUs, they want Bitcoin. When they use ecash they do not have custody of their Bitcoin.
3. Ecash still requires all of the hurdles of Bitcoin self-custody
The hardest hurdle for many people to adopting Bitcoin is the simple first step -- writing down 12 words and making sure not to lose them. With ecash you still have this single greatest barrier of entry as you must backup a seed phrase or secret in order to restore your ecash tokens.
4. There is no incentive for custodians to implement ecash
While a custodian could switch to ecash out of the goodness of their heart, the incentives are broken for custodians. Not only does ecash harm the UX their users are used to (not having to store a secret seed phrase), it also introduces additional infrastructure complexity. Instead of just running a database, now they have to run additional mint software to provide their users with tokens, and handle support cases where users lose their tokens.
In theory a custodian could just also store the seed phrase for their users, but then have we actually improved on custodians at all? They even have custody of the ecash tokens in that case.
5. Custody is a line that cannot be crossed
The core of what makes Bitcoin unique is that we can actually take custody of it ourselves, gaining immense freedom and self-sovereignty through a bit of personal responsibility. Even though I am a massive proponent of building better privacy tools, sacrificing custody to get better privacy is a non-option for me.
Surely we can do better and build privacy tools on top of Bitcoin (or directly into Bitcoin's consensus layer) that allow us to have both privacy and self-sovereignty via self-custody.
I will not give up custody of my Bitcoin, no matter what, and you shouldn't either. "Better custodians" are just custodians with extra steps, and still strip us of self-sovereignty and thus freedom.
6. Time is a more scarce resource than even Bitcoin
Even though I have been very outspoken on what I view as a pointless venture, I am not here to stop anyone from building what they enjoy in the space. Devs working on ecash are free to do so as of course I have no control over them, though I fear that time spent on improving custodians is time that we will not get back. It's clear that the US gov and many in the EU are seeking to ramp up their attacks on Bitcoin privacy and self-custody, and our time to build tools to route around them is growing shorter and shorter.
P.S. - None of what I write is a direct attack on any ecash dev, and I have immense respect and personal relationships with most of the people working on this stuff. Respect for an individual doesn't have to mean I agree with them on every avenue they pursue.
https://i.nostr.build/oM0YW.jpg

2024-05-23 16:34:16 UTC

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Yeah just closed beta Cake for now but out publicly soon.
That will be the go to for a while it looks like!

2024-05-23 16:33:55 UTC

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Same timeline: tons of anonymous mints rugging users because it's literally free money.
Incentives are so broken in ecash.

2024-05-23 15:54:59 UTC

If the only solution for Bitcoiners to have private payments is custodians (be it e-cash, Fedimints, etc. as is all the rage) then Bitcoin will simply be dead for me. Feels like the ultimate cop-out.
Custody is the line in the sand that cannot be crossed. Custody not only opens up immense risk for loss of funds, it also makes these tools far less resilient to adversarial environments.
Can "they" stop every Bitcoiner from keeping 12 words safe? No.
Can "they" stop a few popular mints from operating? Absolutely.

2024-05-23 15:42:27 UTC

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Excited to learn more about this one 👀
#nevent1q…lhev

2024-05-21 18:20:50 UTC

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Silentium (use with caution!) and Cake Wallet in beta.

2024-05-21 18:20:29 UTC

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Yup, in beta.

2024-05-21 18:20:13 UTC

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https://silentpayments.xyz/docs/comparing-proposals/bip47/

2024-05-21 18:19:37 UTC

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An attacked can perform a dust attack and look for consolidation, yes.
No addressing scheme can prevent that, has to be done client-side with dust filters, good coin control, and additional privacy tools like Coinjoin.

2024-05-21 18:17:55 UTC

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Hell yes!
Would love to see this paired with your proposal which I'm watching closely 🙂 Have been an OpenAlias user for years and love the step forward this is.

2024-05-21 18:16:58 UTC

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No addressing scheme can prevent those. Has to be handled client-side to ignore dust and allow strong coin control.

2024-05-16 19:42:10 UTC

Say hello to https://silentpayments.xyz/
Wanting to learn more about Silent Payments, see which wallets support them, or find out how to integrate them into your wallet?
I've built out a website with all of that info and more to do what I can to speed up Silent Payments adoption. https://i.nostr.build/EnGDG.jpg

2024-04-26 01:26:43 UTC

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Full blog post version:
note16vjz9czztqwgwz876pvmtggltuu9yrazqdm4skwvncdfk57c0fxq8kdw4x

2024-04-26 01:25:52 UTC

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😅😅😅

2024-04-25 19:24:47 UTC

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There are no Whirlpool coordinators anymore.
Whirlpool is dead.

2024-04-25 19:24:18 UTC

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Your mixes with Sparrow rely on the other participants true spend not being known.
If LE are able to recover xpubs and know a large % of true spends, your anon set is likely much smaller than you think.

2024-04-25 19:23:33 UTC

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No, normally customers/users aren't affected, especially when it's not a sanctions issue.

2024-04-25 19:23:05 UTC

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They seized all servers, and Samurai self-hosted Gitlab so code went down with them.

2024-04-25 19:22:44 UTC

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AFAIK no other coordinators ever launched.

2024-04-25 19:22:29 UTC

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yes

2024-04-25 19:22:20 UTC

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Yes.

2024-04-25 19:21:36 UTC

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Absolutely.

2024-04-25 15:50:17 UTC

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No, they didn't run the service so hopefully are safe.

2024-04-25 15:49:53 UTC

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yeah, never happened though in production AFAIK

2024-04-25 15:49:02 UTC

If you were a Samourai Wallet user and confused about how to restore your funds elsewhere, we've got you covered:
https://freedom.tech/samourai-to-sparrow/
https://v.nostr.build/4oMGr.mp4

2024-04-25 01:40:59 UTC

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finally recorded two new episodes this week! publishing this week or next and multiple more already scheduled 🙂

2024-04-25 01:40:12 UTC

Everything actionable you need to know about what this indictment means for you as a Samourai Wallet (SW) or Whirlpool user 👇
As a Samourai Wallet user (no Dojo)
Unfortunately, the architecture of SW meant that your xpub (a master public key, allowing anyone holding it to derive all your past/present/future Bitcoin addresses) was at some point in time held by Samourai, and could now possible in the hands of the DOJ.
Though it's a worst-case scenario, you should assume that your xpub was compromised, and thus all previous mixes you have done have been unwound and are now traceable. You should also assume that the gov can now derive all past/present/future addresses of yours and track movement of funds if so desired.
In addition, Samourai's coordinator and backend sync server was seized, and so SW will no longer sync, show received funds, or allow sending funds out. As such, you have to migrate funds to another wallet like @SparrowWallet following the docs here:
https://docs.samourai.io/wallet/restore-recovery#export-to-external-wallet
In addition, I would recommend migrating funds to a new seed phrase to prevent anyone holding the xpub from seeing all future received/spent funds.
You should also disable automatic updates in the Play Store (if used) to ensure no malicious updates are pushed.
As a Samourai Wallet user (using your own Dojo)
Thankfully, you avoided having your xpub potentially compromised. The worst case scenario for you is that your previous mixes may not have the full anon set you expected if non-Dojo users xpubs were compromised.
You will still be able to sync/send/receive from your Samourai Wallet app, but should also migrate funds eventually as no further updates will come out for Samourai Wallet. If you want to migrate, use the docs below:
https://docs.samourai.io/wallet/restore-recovery#export-to-external-wallet
You should, however, disable automatic updates in the Play Store (if used) to ensure no malicious updates are pushed.
As a Sparrow Wallet user
Thankfully, you avoided having your xpub potentially compromised as well. The worst case scenario for you is that your previous mixes may not have the full anon set you expected if non-Dojo/Sparrow users xpubs were compromised.
There is no real need to rotate to a new wallet etc, and Sparrow is still an excellent option. Unfortunately you will no longer be able to mix in Sparrow as the Samourai coordinator was seized.
Next steps for privacy
If you (like me) relied on Samourai Wallet for privacy on Bitcoin, it's time to look elsewhere sadly. As of today I have two recommendations:
Use Monero for spending, keep using Bitcoin for savings
Yes, this isn't Bitcoin, but its by far the most used and most practical privacy coin out there with strong (and growing) ways to swap in/out of it without a centralized, KYC exchange. My recommendation is buying enough to cover your normal spending of Bitcoin for a month at least, and spend out of that lump sum as needed.
Learn more:
getmonero.org
Where to get Monero:
bisq.network
Trocador.app
In Cake Wallet's exchange feature
Wallets:
Feather Wallet
Cake Wallet
Monerujo Wallet
Merchants that accept Monero:
monerica.com
cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/
Use JoinMarket
JoinMarket is a decentralized Coinjoin protocol that brings together peers to mix funds together, gaining strong privacy without relying on a central coordinator, without giving fees to a central entity, etc.
The best way to get started today is using the new UI built around JoinMarket, @jamapporg:
jamapp.org
Have any more questions? Drop them below and I'll do my best to answer them.

2024-04-05 18:56:41 UTC

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More info here: https://phoenix.acinq.co/server/faq

2024-04-05 17:30:27 UTC

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No kidding, love how simple and seamless this is making it with very little (but still present) tradeoffs.

2024-04-05 17:09:33 UTC

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Yeah, I switched it back to my Primal LNURL for Zaps 😅

2024-04-05 17:06:44 UTC

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Ah, missed that Zaps don't work quite yet.
Will throw some extra sats at the dev in hopes we can get that added 🙂

2024-04-05 17:02:11 UTC

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what Nostr client or wallet?

2024-04-05 17:00:17 UTC

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Same, but looks like someone else was able to 🤔

2024-04-05 16:50:08 UTC

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magical

2024-04-05 16:49:54 UTC

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Migrated my zap URL there as well already 👀

2024-04-05 16:48:55 UTC

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And just like that I have my own simple, non-custodial, entirely self-hosted LN stack in seconds.
Bravo, amazing work Phoenix and 1f52b_xyz
https://sethforprivacy.com/lnurl
If you want to test it out, don't tip me, tip the creator of this awesome LNURL tool 1f52b_xyz!
https://1f52b.xyz/lnurl
Once we finalize the Docker image + publishing for this and phoenixd, you will literally just register a domain, create a text file, run a single command, and have self-sovereign LN, LNURL, Zaps, etc.
#note1468…vukf
https://m.primal.net/Hrdj.jpg

2024-03-25 14:37:40 UTC

Working on making a guide for running this with phoenixd directly in Docker Compose with @npub1xv8…lk3x!
Really excited to get this up.
#note18s2…fgk7

2024-03-14 14:34:46 UTC

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ARE YOU EVEN A REAL BITCOINERS?!?
Funnily enough I bought mine with Monero 😅

2024-03-14 10:34:08 UTC

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What sold you on the XM5s over XM4s? It was the fancy new looks, wasn’t it 🤔

2024-03-14 10:26:06 UTC

GM ☕️
Heading to Dallas for Finney Forum, pumped to reconnect with old friends, learn about new freedom tech, and be in the midst of some of the best community crossovers in the space.
Any of you Nostriches attending?

2024-03-14 10:24:53 UTC

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Same here, so damn good.
Glad I could finally move on from true wireless buds back to over the ear that are comfortable and have kickass noise cancellation.

2024-03-14 10:24:17 UTC

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What did you settle on 👀

2024-03-12 01:26:15 UTC

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I know all 12 😉

2024-03-12 01:25:58 UTC

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Thanks, Mark, glad to hear it 🤝

2024-03-11 18:14:17 UTC

1M sats on offer 👀👀👀
#note15lu…ym9c

2024-03-11 18:13:50 UTC

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Great option too

2024-03-11 18:13:24 UTC

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Hmm, we had one originally specced out but must have been missed 🤔
Team member bios should have them too! Will bring it up with the team!

2024-03-11 15:12:38 UTC

Big week ahead, kicking off with a brand new domain and website for all of our freedom tech at https://foundation.xyz 🥳
Check it out and let me know what you love/hate/would change on the new site!
Good suggestions might just get some sats/piconeros sent their way (zaps make things damn easy) 😉
#note1j2m…zgwk

2024-03-11 15:11:29 UTC

Favorite Nostr client just got way better 🧡
#note1lup…plz8

2024-03-11 15:11:06 UTC

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MULTI-ACCOUNT SUPPORT I LOVE YOU MILJAN 🧡

2024-03-11 12:40:34 UTC

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GM and thank you for building a badass LN wallet 🧡

2024-03-06 14:04:44 UTC

Been secretly enjoying RBF and the new address and amount formats for what feels like an eternity 😅
Now it’s live for all you lovely Envoy users out there on all platforms 🫡
#note1s0h…jmyn

2024-02-28 12:19:44 UTC

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Done, added a bunch more!
Thanks, CK 🤝

2024-02-28 12:12:42 UTC

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That was a great idea! I went through his follows manually and was able to get a bunch that I know I want to follow from there.

2024-02-28 12:07:52 UTC

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Ah maybe I followed on X? I remember following you somewhere 😅

2024-02-28 12:07:10 UTC

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Yup, never had any issues.
Mostly IVPN.

2024-02-28 12:05:38 UTC

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Remind me, is splicing live or a WIP?

2024-02-28 12:02:59 UTC

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So strange, my main account has only ever been used behind a VPN and I’ve never had issues.
Wonder what the trigger is for yours?

2024-02-28 11:59:38 UTC

There is no second best when it comes to a full LN node in your pocket 🔥
#note1k8c…5wzh

2024-02-28 11:59:01 UTC

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There is really no reason to believe that Signal itself was broken/breached.
Far more likely his device was pwnd and messages read via screen recording or some other method.

2024-02-28 11:56:54 UTC

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Very, best wild game I’ve had TBH!

2024-02-28 11:55:57 UTC

Who do I need to follow here? My “Latest” feed is a bit dead a lot of the time.
Help me fix it 🫂

2024-02-24 21:00:09 UTC

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Yuck… odd it let me buy with only providing an email alias.
Means surely there will be shotgun KYC later

2024-02-24 20:48:18 UTC

Uhh how the hell does @npub12vk…pugg do no-KYC purchases of Bitcoin?
Is it KYC-lite or something? Can’t find any info on it.

2024-02-24 20:23:48 UTC

CANNOT WAIT to do my first in-person workshop teaching Bitcoin self-custody from scratch alongside @npub15c8…ssvx.
If you're in NYC, get your tickets ASAP before it's full!
#note1e44…rq83

2024-02-24 20:22:02 UTC

Just used the latest Phoenix Wallet and Passport releases to top up my Lightning wallet from Taproot to Taproot 🔥
So glad to see the promise of Taproot FINALLY starting to pay off in the wild with better privacy and lower fees.

2024-02-22 13:28:08 UTC

HUGE release just dropped 🤯
#note1jkx…p4ns

2024-02-15 16:31:40 UTC

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may god be with your sats 🫡

2024-02-15 16:27:36 UTC

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this was a CC, they allow you to use only dice rolls for entropy, and still don't enforce minimum rolls on Mk3 or older Mk4 firmware.
you can even still so a single dice roll for a temp seed.

2024-02-15 15:20:13 UTC

Stop trying to use dice-rolled seeds unless you're an expert ❌
Just had yet another person (hard to count the total now) reach out about a low-entropy seed they generated and were allowed to import into a certain hardware wallet. A lot of the blame for these lost funds falls on influencers who shill users on overly-complex security setups without properly explaining the massive risks and tradeoffs associated for the average user.
What happened:
Less than 10min after funds were sent to what they thought was secure storage, they were swept to an attackers address.
They used <10 dice rolls, meaning the private key had <25bits of entropy when the minimum for strong security is 50 dice rolls (128 bits of entropy). Wallets should not allow a user to import a seed that they know is completely insecure.
Staying safe:
As I have said many times, if you don't know the ins and outs of dice rolls, entropy, verification of the resulting seed offline, etc. please do not use dice rolls alone for seed generation. 99.99999% of users are better off allowing good, multi-source, open-source random number generation like we do on Passport.
To date I have heard of zero compromised seeds that were generated using on-board RNG due to entropy issues, while there are countless examples of users losing funds due to improper dice rolls.
Stay safe out there, folks.

2024-02-08 13:46:49 UTC

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Sent, sorry it took so long!
https://m.primal.net/HbTI.jpg

2024-02-06 16:56:40 UTC

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Full text on Nostr here:
https://primal.net/e/note13fc7k00y2ra7hleprkhrh5y82zh5l8qmuq2xr62j5lf8whlnzjystk7hd3

2024-02-06 16:55:57 UTC

**Yes, Citrea is actually real 🤯**
Citrea is a massive change to the Bitcoin ecosystem by allowing a massive increase in transaction throughput on Bitcoin as well as full EVM compatibility. Let's break down what that actually means in approachable language.
A lot of the terminology with things like "zk rollups" can be confusing, so I'll do my best to simplify things here.
**Zero-knowledge ("ZK") here isn't for privacy, it's for scaling/verification**
A lot of confusion comes from the term "zero-knowledge" often being conflated with privacy-preserving. In the case of zk here, it's being used for it's ability to succinctly (read: in a tiny amount of data) prove something is true and allow anyone to verify the claim without knowing every piece of data used in the proof.
**Citrea is a validity rollup that leverages zk proofs to reduce its on-chain footprint**
This means that the amount of data needing to be published to Bitcoin's base layer is miniscule (just a small zk proof) compared to the amount of data off-chain (the entire state of the Citrea blockchain), and is easily verified on almost any device.
Citrea validators "batch" transaction on the Citrea chain and publish a single, small proof that summarizes the change in Citrea chain state since the last published state and inscribes it into a Bitcoin transaction (yes, similar to those inscriptions). This proof will only verify properly if the validator is honest, allowing anyone on the network to prove whether or not the proof published is valid.
More on validity rollups here from @lightcoin:
[https://bitcoinrollups.org](https://bitcoinrollups.org/)
**Citrea enables EVM-style smart contracts w/o changes to Bitcoin**
While you may have a vitriolic hatred for all things Ethereum (for legitimate or illegitimate reasons), the ability to create complex, Turing-complete smart contracts on Bitcoin without needing the base layer to fully store, parse, and validate those smart contracts feels like the best of both worlds to me.
This can enable things like AMMs (think Uniswap) to function with actual Bitcoin as the currency involved. The possibilities are practically limitless.
**Citrea is "trust-minimized," not "trustless"**
While this may feel semantic, I think it's an important distinction to make. Citrea changes the trust model from a federated multisig (a la Liquid) where you have to trust that a majority of participants remain honest to one where as long as a single network participant is honest funds cannot be confiscated or frozen.
As long as one individual validator remains honest, no other validator can confiscate pegged-in funds or mess with them in any way. Additionally, any validator acting maliciously will be subject to slashing (losing their own Bitcoin via the challenge-response protocol in BitVM) and thus have a financial incentive to be honest unless they know for sure that every single validator on the network will allow them to be malicious.
**Citrea would be even better with covenants**
Yes, I'm going to mention covenants 😅 Part of the minor trust required in Citrea can be reduced even further with covenants in Bitcoin:
https://docs.citrea.xyz/future-research/trustless-settlement
Additionally an opcode that fully verifies zk proofs directly on Bitcoin (i.e. not via BitVM) would allow a completely trustless zk rollup, but deciding on a proof to enshrine in Bitcoin's consensus layer is very unlikely at this point.
**Conclusion**
I'm insanely excited for this to be fully open-sourced and usable on testnet, and will share updates as I see them along with testing this out ASAP.
Special thanks to @0x_orkun for giving me a sneak peak and letting me contribute to the docs, helped me have a much better understanding of what Citrea really is! I'd highly recommend reading through their docs if you want to better grasp all of the ins and outs:
https://docs.citrea.xyz/technical-specs/readme
If you see something that could be improved in the docs, be sure to open an issue or submit your own PR, as the docs are open source themselves!
https://github.com/chainwayxyz/citrea-docs

2024-02-04 19:14:11 UTC

Bringing back #Bitcoin #SkepticismSundays 😎
One of the things that showed me the intellectual honesty of the Monero community and helped to force the community to stay grounded in reality and always laser focused on their core ethos was their weekly "Skepticism Sunday" Reddit threads. These threads allowed the community to come together, ask hard and skeptical questions about the design of Monero, the privacy provided, the economic approach, and much more.
In my time in Bitcoin I've never seen anything similar, but the nuanced and high-signal crowd on Nostr seems like a perfect fit to fire things up and see how it goes.
The goal of this thread (which I'll post weekly on Sunday's) is for discussing the uncertainties, shortcomings, and concerns some may have about Bitcoin. Things like what makes it difficult for you to use Bitcoin, what pain-points you have, etc.
NOT the positive aspects of it.
Discussing things with a critical thinking approach and level-headed discussion helps us learn where Bitcoin and its community can improve and go from there.
P.S. -- I try to take a break from social media on Sundays so I will follow up and reply whwre I can tomorrow!

2024-01-31 03:13:28 UTC

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will give it a try, thanks!

2024-01-31 03:12:26 UTC

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Yes, other favorite client 🙂

2024-01-31 02:51:44 UTC

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Of course not, definitely appreciate the same things about it 🙂

2024-01-31 02:45:27 UTC

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Thanks for the kind words, sir 🫡

2024-01-31 02:42:36 UTC

NGL, loving the overall @npub12vk…pugg experience so far!
Favorite client I've used to date.

2024-01-31 02:28:08 UTC

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I don't doom-scroll, I use it as a platform for education.