FRANCIS
FRANCIS - BULLBITCOIN.COM

Announcing Recoverbull, a privacy-first encrypted hot wallet backup and recovery protocol. Implemented in BULL wallet, it serves as an alternative to custodial wallets for beginners. A key milestone in our journey to make self-custody the safest default Bitcoin user experience!
https://www.bullbitcoin.com/blog/recoverbull-a-bitcoin-wallet-backup-system

2025-11-16 13:35:58 UTC

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BULL wallet is BIP172 compliant
#nevent1q…atk6

2025-11-15 21:13:28 UTC

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Its based in Bitcoin Country (Costa Rica)

2025-11-15 19:22:00 UTC

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I've build three physical Bitcoin hubs in my life, (Bitcoin Embassy, BlockHouse and Bitcoin Jungle help) and I've visited countless others.
The new Freedom Center we are building in Bitcoin Jungle will become the most awesome.
Think of it as a private members club with gym/sauna/cold plunge/pool with wellness activities, that's also a coworking space for digital nomads and expats, that has classrooms to teach freedom tech to locals, and dozens of monthly events on a massive rooftop terrasse.
Yes, it's real. Opening today!
#nevent1q…hct8

2025-11-14 15:31:27 UTC

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i don't know
What is the use case?

2025-11-14 01:56:15 UTC

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my nsec was in cold storage

2025-11-13 19:58:49 UTC

Guess who's back

2025-04-12 20:15:31 UTC

Here is @nprofile…4sn7 showing a room full of rest estate investors how to zap memes on Nostr with Primal 🤩
https://m.primal.net/QNPE.jpg

2025-01-23 19:48:07 UTC

one of the most iconic photos in Bitcoin history, it's so real
https://m.primal.net/Nwnr.jpg

2025-01-21 14:23:54 UTC

ma tentative d'expliquer l'impact de Trump sur Bitcoin à radio x
https://radiox.com/podcast/tu-ne-peux-pas-imprimer-des-bitcoins/

2025-01-21 14:23:07 UTC

y'a tu des quebecois icitte?

2025-01-20 12:41:35 UTC

We've entered the "Imperator Calligula" stage of crypto. Corruption and degeneracy no longer need justification. The industry acts a powerless senate mindlessly applauding, whoring its legitimacy with the plebs to remain in the inner circle of power Virtue is kept alive by a few philosophers in exile.

2025-01-20 12:32:28 UTC

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look at me now
I am the floor
#note150g…a7m0

2025-01-20 03:38:52 UTC

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no and that's when I was blocked by him

2025-01-20 02:31:25 UTC

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he changed his mind quite radically since
I think personally it's because saifedean and me argued with him about climate and covid

2025-01-20 02:26:05 UTC

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you are studying software engineering ?

2025-01-20 02:21:11 UTC

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as you can imagine, for many reasons, including the fact that I am to my knowledge the only person having been blocked TWICE by Taleb, and also that Taleb's books were probably the most influential on my intellectual and business development.... this is one of my most prized possessions.

2025-01-20 02:17:26 UTC

A world premier, on Nostr
Photo of my copy of Antifragile autographed by Nassim Taleb in 2016 with the phrase "en le remerciant de rendre la société plus sûre" which means "thank you for making society a safer place". This is in reference to my work in Bitcoin, as Taleb was visiting the Bitcoin Embassy in Montreal which he had coincidentally booked our event space for a private networking event.
I showed him our mining farm, our memes, some gadgets, explained how we turned cash into Bitcoin and vice versa and Nassim Taleb was very excited about what we were doing at the Bitcoin Embassy and about Bitcoin. I think it probably helped that I had a literal portrait of him in my office as well as "Antifragile" on my book shelf.
This copy has been burried in my personal museum vault for many years and I have not seen it since, this is the first time I release this photo (just found while backing an old drive) taken 8 years ago.
https://m.primal.net/NpRm.jpg

2025-01-20 01:58:26 UTC

currently reading about the fall of the Roman Republic right now
not sure if it's the biography of Cicero or Twitter. both probably

2025-01-19 23:59:38 UTC

STRIKE WHEN THE IRON IS HOT
https://m.primal.net/NowI.gif

2025-01-19 23:51:11 UTC

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you gotta strike when the iron is hot 🔥🔥🌞

2025-01-19 23:46:30 UTC

let's fucking GO
https://m.primal.net/Notp.png

2025-01-19 17:28:33 UTC

I don't have any contacts to Ian Carroll but if ever there was an opportune time to nostr-pill him it's right now!
https://m.primal.net/NoFG.jpg

2025-01-19 16:01:02 UTC

someone for the love of God set up a meeting with Ian Carroll

2025-01-19 02:06:19 UTC

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the Canadian Bitcoin scene on the other hand is pure 🔥
#note1dft…fk3e

2025-01-18 17:15:56 UTC

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you are still running your own node when you use Phoenix!

2025-01-18 17:15:27 UTC

nice new little sticker for people that make the trip to Bitcoin Jungle
@npub14f2…v7lu
https://m.primal.net/Nmix.jpg

2025-01-18 17:14:21 UTC

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yes

2025-01-18 16:47:21 UTC

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🙏🙏🙏

2025-01-18 16:46:49 UTC

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meant to tag @npub1ds3…hzcn whoops

2025-01-18 16:46:10 UTC

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https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bullbitcoin.mobile
BETA version (safe to use but not pretty and has minor bugs sometimes)

2025-01-18 16:45:26 UTC

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bull Bitcoin a son propre wallet self-custodial !

2025-01-18 16:44:24 UTC

@npub1ds3…ough competition in the market for bitcoiner-made artisanal beef jerky 😁
from @npub1e86…dhu9
https://m.primal.net/Nmgx.jpg

2025-01-16 13:30:41 UTC

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FUCK YES

2025-01-15 23:12:48 UTC

when your brand is so strong that your are feature in an article from a country you have no business presence in, about another country where you also have no business presence in
@npub18ul…dcl9
https://m.primal.net/NiVu.jpg

2025-01-15 20:37:34 UTC

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dm'd

2025-01-15 20:20:00 UTC

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DM'd you

2025-01-15 20:19:02 UTC

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yeah that's about right. @npub148u…ty0w going to the printer tomorrow

2025-01-15 20:15:52 UTC

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👀

2025-01-15 20:14:35 UTC

anybody wants to make 100,000 sats to design a physical sticker for me? basically just using an existing logo I have and adding a bit of text to it and make it into a nice shape I can send to a printer? must be done very quickly and require zero effort on my part

2025-01-15 14:45:25 UTC

live later tonight at 6PM EST
https://www.youtube.com/live/8-i0UQ4oVN4?si=mGkPjvjbrkjqDBH8

2025-01-15 14:43:07 UTC

back in the @CBP tonigiht with my homies @npub1s63…tl0j and @joey

2025-01-15 14:41:55 UTC

back in the @npub1w4d…3vhw tonigiht with my homies @npub1s63…jand @npub1w9d…56ya

2025-01-14 22:26:01 UTC

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build whatever you want for yourself on your own time
something great will emerge

2025-01-14 22:23:45 UTC

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note1le582vdxv4x8ydt9235cvg5sec6s6jf2nrkyns667t34qu727aas4p8q8g

2025-01-14 21:48:27 UTC

PFC mixed martial artist lightweight world champion Olivier Aubin Mercier was the first and only professional athlete sponsored by Bull Bitcoin. Become world champion right after we sponsored him 🐂
https://m.primal.net/NgoH.jpg
https://m.primal.net/NgoI.jpg

2025-01-14 21:46:05 UTC

just created a Nostr feed that is only photos of steaks lmao and guess what... it actually does show me pretty much just photos of steaks. and apparently there are lots of photos of steaks on Nostr 😂
@npub12vk…pugg incredible

2025-01-14 02:11:11 UTC

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phenomenal video @npub1dzq…sjd3
#note16jm…trd2

2025-01-14 01:55:08 UTC

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I'd say "no identity documents or phone number required" instead of No KYC

2025-01-13 01:29:45 UTC

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pros: extremely easy, very low fees, payments always work
cons: custody risk, privacy risk

2025-01-12 20:38:24 UTC

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can confirm I only use this now I don't even use regular sims anymore

2025-01-12 20:00:32 UTC

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that is how users access/recover their Bitcoin jungle account

2025-01-12 19:27:04 UTC

Curate a playlist that makes you feel like a dangerous person, especially when working on Bitcoin. Start with High-Tech Minimal if you are coding privacy-related software.

2025-01-12 19:10:56 UTC

The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally.
Get angry.
The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin.
If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them.
Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across.
That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous.
And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people.
Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate.
And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal.
Well, fuck them. Make it personal.
- Takeshi Kovacs (Altered Carbon)

2025-01-12 18:39:35 UTC

"What's the ROI?"
https://m.primal.net/NdkA.jpg

2025-01-12 18:28:15 UTC

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for sure it means LE BUNKER SPECIAL GUEST

2025-01-12 18:22:44 UTC

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Amazon ftw

2025-01-12 18:21:27 UTC

got some new toys. what mean? I don't know
https://m.primal.net/NdjF.jpg

2025-01-12 18:05:49 UTC

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FOR GOD'S SAKE DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE FEDERAL RESERVE THEY WILL GO DOWN THAT RABBIT HOLE BY THEMSELVES ON THEIR OWN LATER

2025-01-12 18:04:06 UTC

Orange-Pilling Costa Rican merchants
Total time: 5 minutes
ACT 1, SCENE 1
me: do you accept Bitcoin payments?
them: no
me: why not?
them: I don't know... I don't have the app
me: do you have a phone or tablet with you?
them: yeah
me: can I show you how it works quickly?
them: sure (shrugs)
me - I take the phone and download the Bitcoin Jungle, we add their phone number, and hand it back to them
me: here is how to receive Bitcoin, click receive enter the amount
them - they do as I say and the QR code pops up
me - use ninja speed to pay the invoice
me: congratulations you now accept Bitcoin payments
me - I show them the advanced settings and how to convert Bitcoin to local currency in a bank account with the Bull Bitcoin
me: you're all set. here is our phone number if you need help
them: cool, thanks
END
P.S. - When dealing with the owner of the shop the success rate is very high. Failure is usually do to the fact that they are not the owner of the shop. ACT 2 of this story is showing the owner how to use the Point of Sale feature and explaining how to make sure employees don't steal the money which takes another ~3-4 minutes.

2025-01-12 01:17:09 UTC

Costa Rica wagyu with fries cooked at low temperature in olive oil and fire roasted veggies
for medicinal purposes
paid with Bitcoin
https://m.primal.net/NcjO.jpg

2025-01-12 00:31:19 UTC

Now reading the Cicero series by Robert Harris. Book 1 "Imperium" was really good. I am enjoying it because I studied and translated Cicero's speeches from Latin when I was a youth. I went to Rome to visit the forum and was reading his speeches on the trip. might fuck around and bring back the Roman republic who knows

2025-01-12 00:24:45 UTC

"When in doubt, eat a goddam steak"
I have never failed to follow this advice by
@npub1gdu…6nak
https://m.primal.net/Ncga.jpg

2025-01-11 23:32:48 UTC

@npub1yzv…rf8q mobile app was very good and easy to use to publish my article

2025-01-11 18:43:47 UTC

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I posted it on Yakihonne and it shows up on Nostr Reads in Primal

2025-01-11 18:40:55 UTC

I have just added my article "The Hard Path" to Nostr #naddr1qq…wv8d

2025-01-11 18:15:52 UTC

What app should I use to write long-from content on Nostr?

2025-01-11 09:29:21 UTC

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I haven't been keeping up with Bitcoin mining at all. What makes foundry so "special" that if can capture the market? I bet it's some stupid reason like they have a neat accounting dashboard or something.
#note12e4…gqs6

2025-01-10 16:13:24 UTC

really nice obituary of Hal Finney in the Economist. part of my personal Bitcoin history collection
https://www.economist.com/obituary/2014/09/09/hal-finney
https://m.primal.net/NaiN.jpg

2025-01-10 15:42:00 UTC

Congratulations Pieter and Gmax on winning the Finney Prize! If I had been asked, it would have been a very tough call between these two and Adam Back. Many others deserve recognition (such as Luke). Finney prize is a really nice initiative.
www.finneyprize.org
https://m.primal.net/NagI.jpg

2025-01-10 14:51:49 UTC

affirmation: in 2025 we will deliver the greatest open-source mobile Bitcoin app of all time

2025-01-10 07:29:57 UTC

testing in production on mainnet
https://m.primal.net/NaHS.jpg

2024-12-31 16:40:40 UTC

cool! Joinstr wallet library in Rust. I'm excited with Nostr as a protocol for wallets to communicate and Bull Bitcoin is happy to support projects that leverage nostr for this purpose.
Bull Bitcoin has also been working (stealth) on our own protocol for wallets to communicate over Nostr for another purpose which doesn't have anything to do with collaborative transactions... I think it will be a huge breakthrough in Bitcoin wallet user experience. coming soon... but yes the Bull Bitcoin will have a Nostr component soon (but it won't be for social media, since that area is already well covered by Primal Damus etc.)
https://m.primal.net/NMmj.jpg

2024-12-29 22:51:30 UTC

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we're going to change the message. to receive via Payjoin you need to already have funds in the wallet

2024-12-29 14:29:13 UTC

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no, Payjoin implies that you transact with someone else. self-spend with Payjoin does nothing

2024-12-28 18:02:12 UTC

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the open-source non-custodial wallet: yes
the exchange service: no

2024-12-28 16:43:21 UTC

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eventually yes!

2024-12-28 16:33:10 UTC

Bull Bitcoin becomes the first mobile Bitcoin wallet that allows users to send and receive asynchronous Payjoin transactions without needing to run their own server, using BIP77!
I am very excited about this new and bleeding-edge feature, because it has been a long-standing ambition of Bull Bitcoin to become the first Bitcoin exchange to process Bitcoin withdrawals via Payjoin (Pay-to-Endpoint) transactions.
However, it was hard to justify Bull Bitcoin investing time into building this feature since there were no commercially available end-user Bitcoin wallets that were able to receive Payjoin payments.
Indeed, in order to receive Payjoin payments (BIP78), a Bitcoin wallet needed to be connected to a full node server and be online at the moment the payment is made. This means in practice that only merchants, professional service providers and advanced full node users had the capacity to receive Payjoin payments. This is, we believe, one of the major reasons why Payjoin had failed to gain significant traction among Bitcoin users.
For this reason, the Payjoin V2 protocol (BIP77) was conceived and developed by Dan Gould, as part of the Payjoin Dev Kit project, to outsource the receiver's requirement to run his own server to an untrusted third-party server called the Payjoin Directory. In order to prevent the server from spying on users, the information is encrypted and relayed to the Payjoin Directory via an Oblivious HTTP server.
Bull Bitcoin’s Payjoin ambitions had been put on hold since 2020, until there was more adoption of Payjoin receiving capabilities among end-user Bitcoin wallets…
But it turns out that in the meanwhile, Bull Bitcoin developed its own mobile Bitcoin wallet. And it also turns out that the open-source Bitcoin development firm Let There Be Lightning, which we had collaborated with in the past, had itself collaborated with Dan to build a software library for Payjoin that was compatible with and relatively straightforward to integrate into our own wallet software. All that was missing was to put the pieces together into a finished product.
Thanks to the collaborative open source effort of the Payjoin Dev Kit team, Let There Be Lightning team and the Bull Bitcoin team, the Bull Bitcoin wallet has now become the first commercially available end-user mobile wallet on the Google Play store to implement the BIP 77 Payjoin V2 protocol.
Moreover, the Bull Bitcoin wallet has also implemented asynchronous Payjoin payments, which means that a Payjoin transaction can be “paused” until the receiver or the sender come back online. This way, the receiver's mobile phone can be “turned off” when the sender makes the payment. As soon as the recipient’s phone is turned back on, the Payjoin session will resume and the recipient will receive the payment. This is a major breakthrough in the mobile Payjoin user experience.
We would like to thank the Human Rights Foundation for allocating a generous bounty for the development of a Serverless Payjoin protocol and its implementation in a mobile Bitcoin wallet, as well as OpenSats and Spiral for supporting the work of Payjoin Dev Kit, which made this all possible.
Why does this matter?
Payjoin, also known as Pay-to-endpoint, is a protocol which allows the Bitcoin wallet of a payments receiver and the Bitcoin wallet a payments sender to communicate with each other for the purpose of collaborating on creating a Bitcoin transaction.
I first heard about Payjoin (then called Pay-to-endpoint) in 2018 and it completely blew my mind. What I liked most about it was that it was not a protocol change to Bitcoin, but rather it was an application-layer protocol that allows wallets to communicate in order to create smarter and more efficient Bitcoin transactions.
Whereas in a normal Bitcoin payment the transaction is created by the sender, and all the inputs of that transaction belong to the sender, in a Payjoin payment both the sender and the receiver contribute coins as inputs.
In the Bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi wrote:
"some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner"
With Payjoin, this assumption is no longer true. With Payjoin, we have fixed one of Bitcoin’s most fundamental privacy problems... without changing the Bitcoin protocol!
In a Payjoin transaction, the output amounts visible on the blockchain does not necessarily reflect the value of the payment that was actually exchanged. In other words, you can’t easily tell how much money one wallet sent to the other. This is great for users that are concerned a malicious third party may be attempting to obtain sensitive information about their finances without their consent. This does not however pose an accounting problem for the Bitcoin wallets involved in that transaction: since both wallets are aware of which coins they used as inputs and outputs, they are independently able to calculate the "actual" value of the payment that was sent even if the payment on the blockchain appears to be a of a different amount.
Payjoin breaks the common input ownership heuristic, an assumption used by hackers and fraudsters to track ownership of addresses on the blockchain. The neat thing about this property of Payjoin is that it benefits everyone on the network, not just the Payjoin users themselves.
It allows the receiver of a payment to opportunistically consolidate his utxos when he is receiving funds, in a way which does not necessarily appear to be a consolidation transaction on the blockchain. Depending on the configuration of a payment transaction, it can also make a regular payment look like a consolidation.
In addition to these benefits, the introduction of collaborative peer-to-peer transaction protocols opens up exciting opportunities for the creation of Lightning Network channels, as well as efficiencies for transaction batching.
How to use Payjoin in the Bull Bitcoin wallet:
It’s so seamless, you may not even realize you are using it!
To receive via Payjoin, simply navigate to the “Receive tab” using the network “Bitcoin” and you will see a Payjoin invoice. When you want to get paid, send this invoice to the payer, or show them the QR code. If the sender’s wallet is compatible with Payjoin, it will be up to the sender to decide whether or not they want to use Payjoin.
To send via Payjoin, simply paste the receiver's Payjoin invoice, or scan the associated QR code, in the Bull Bitcoin wallet. If you decide that you don’t want to pay with Payjoin, simply turn off the Payjoin toggle.
Original post: https://www.bullbitcoin.com/blog/bull-bitcoin-wallet-payjoin
Download the wallet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bullbitcoin.mobile&hl=en-IN
https://m.primal.net/NJWD.png

2024-12-14 05:31:22 UTC

raw milk latte Costa Rican coffee paid with Bitcoin in the middle of the jungle hits different
https://m.primal.net/MveB.jpg

2024-12-13 20:49:40 UTC

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time for the weekly board
#note1qut…c8fk
https://m.primal.net/MvMg.jpg

2024-12-06 15:12:52 UTC

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another week, another whiteboard
@npub148u…ty0w
🤩
#note1m9a…w2d9
https://m.primal.net/MpAp.jpg

2024-12-01 15:47:32 UTC

The backside of the new BULLBITCOIN t-shirt collection designed by @npub1ndk…gk2v
unprecedented level of brand distinction
I swear we are a financial technology company not a cyberpunk motorcycle gang
limited quantities only here https://store.bullbitcoin.com
https://m.primal.net/MlXi.jpg
https://m.primal.net/MlXl.jpg
https://m.primal.net/MlXk.jpg

2024-11-30 14:12:14 UTC

when I come into the Bitcoin Jungle office and I know that @npub148u…ty0w held a Bitcoin class the day before 🧡
https://m.primal.net/MksJ.jpg

2024-11-25 23:50:11 UTC

officially a NodeRunner
@npub1ua6…h6v6
https://m.primal.net/MhPY.jpg
https://m.primal.net/MhPZ.jpg

2024-11-21 01:07:55 UTC

@npub1mea…nglh
https://m.primal.net/Mcka.jpg

2024-10-17 00:44:47 UTC

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absolute pain in the ass to operate and overpriced
#note1dhg…m4e5

2024-09-16 13:33:26 UTC

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FOLLOW MADEX
#note1s43…2ez5

2024-08-09 20:33:22 UTC

follow @npub18ul…dcl9 !

2024-06-14 10:00:30 UTC

how did I get 12000 followers? I assume of bunch of that is bots?

2024-06-14 09:58:55 UTC

say that someone wants to nuke a Twitter account but wants to have a professional-grade archive of the tweets which include media and is nearly organized, going back 10+ years with tens of thousands of tweets.
is there a service to do this? willing to pay a few hundred bucks

2024-06-05 04:42:08 UTC

🇨🇷📢 Anuncio importante para Ticos y Ticas de la comunidad Bitcoin de Costa Rica.
Es un placer y un honor presentarles la versión más nueva de la mejor experiencia de pagos Bitcoin del mundo: la integración BULL BITCOIN en la billetera de Bitcoin Jungle, disponible para todos en Costa Rica, nacionales o extranjeros, sin necesidad de cuenta bancaria.
Convierta instantáneamente Bitcoin a Colones y envíe un pago vía SINPE a cualquier persona y empresa en Costa Rica usando solo su número de teléfono. Con esta nueva versión de Bull Bitcoin, desarrollada exclusivamente para Costa Rica, los usuarios ahora también pueden administrar múltiples beneficiarios, ver comprobantes SINPE en la aplicación y consultar su historial de transacciones. Por supuesto, también puedes comprar Bitcoin con SINPE Móvil y transferencias bancarias en CRC o USD. En este video, me verás enviando 2000 colones a una organización benéfica local en Uvita en solo unos segundos, directamente desde una billetera Lightning Network.
Imagínese: un pago proveniente de cualquier parte del planeta directamente a la cuenta bancaria local de una empresa costarricense con solo unos pocos clics... esto abre un conjunto completamente nuevo de oportunidades para ayudar a las personas más trabajadoras del planeta a recibir pagos. fácilmente. de forma segura y con tarifas mínimas.
Nuestras tarifas totales para convertir Bitcoin a Colones se mantienen por ahora en menos del 1%, que es el mínimo requerido para que no perdamos dinero al ofrecer este servicio.
Estamos trabajando duro para reducir nuestros costos y hacer que este servicio sea sostenible en los años venideros. Estoy muy agradecida de que Costa Rica me haya recibido y haré todo lo que pueda para aportar mis habilidades y capital a este hermoso país.
Pura vida!
https://m.primal.net/IZIo.png

2024-04-17 22:36:23 UTC

*The Rare Sat Lie*
Let's start with some facts.
You cannot own a satoshi (sat). You can only own a utxo, who's value is measured in sats. Just like you cannot own a "kilogram" but you can own something which weights a kilogram.
The idea that a sat can be rare is a lie, since sats don't exist.
A utxo also cannot be sold, because as soon as it is spent, a completely new utxo is created, and the creation of this new utxo makes the previous utxo (which you wanted to sell) spent. To act of spending "an unspent transaction output" (UTXO) transforms it into something fundamentally different, a "spent transaction output" (STXO) and creates a new UTXO.
The idea that a utxo can be sold is a lie, since even utxos cannot be sold.
The idea that a rare sat from a "special" utxo can be bought is thus a double lie.
*Rare Sat Sophistry*
The conmen, the useful idiots and the otherwise honest but contrarian pundits will rationalize the spreading of the "Rare Sat Lie" with sophistry and appeals to libertarian morality such as "it's a free market, people can believe whatever they want and waste their money however they wish".
Of course, this line of reasoning is meant to create strawmen arguments so that every person that is righteously indignated at the spreading of these lies can be painted as being opposed to the concept of individual freedon itself, which immediately places the TruthSeeker's outrage outside of the Overton Window (and subject to ridicule).
Let us dispell the strawman argument.
The "market" (a small niche of degenerate gamblers) can want whatever it wants, yes. But it till cannot change the reality that individual satoshis (sats) do not exist as "things" or virtual objects. This reality is not subjective.
The sophists will also rationalize that "it cannot be stopped" and thus all you can do is "cry harder" (ironic eh?) and that any and all attempts to combat the lies are futile (at best) or stupid.
It may be true all the truthseeker can do is cry and shout, but it is also true that to combat the spreading of such lies is a virtuous and noble pursuit. And it is also true that the direct result of the shouting can be to save a victim from otherwise being conned. Which is, we would all agree I hope, a moral good, if not a moral imperative.
People are free to spread the lie that such things ("rare" "sats") are real, and fraudulently sell utxos of low value presented as "rare" "sats" for utxos of higher value, but to do so by exploiting the ignorance of people and confusion around the complex technology of Bitcoin is evil according to nearly almost moral code that ancient and modern civilizations have produced.
I am the last person that would deny someone the right to be evil. But I believe if you see a fraud and you don't call out the fraud then you too are a fraud.
So, the strawman is really just straw.
*The Rare Sat Con*
Beyond it being morally bad to spread lies generally, the spreading of the lie also occurs within the context of textbook confidence trick.
Confidence tricks involve :
- the mark: the victims whose money is to be acquired fraudulently
- the roper: reels in the mark via exposure and marketing, peaking the curiosity of the mark (i.e. a conference or media organization)
- the inside man: provides a venue for the con to take place, or supplies goods and services used in the context of the scam (a mining pool or a marketplace)
- the conman: gains the confidence of the mark extracts the money (the seller of a rare sat)
- the convincer: an acolyte of the conman which gives a taste of the profits to the mark either by investing in the mark, or showing off his profits to the mark (a fellow rare sat trader)
The conman and the convincer can interchange roles. For example, conmen and convincers can publicly con each other repeatedly and alternatively, with gains and losses which compensate, with the tacit understanding that the goal is really to gain the confidence of a mark from which both convincer and conman can extract money from.
Everyone except benefits in this zero sum game, except obviously the mark.
In the end, the mark was never forced to give up his money. He willingly parted ways with his funds, deceived by the confidence trick.
Selling "rare sats" for utxos of higher sat value is without doubt a confidence trick.
I will let it up to your imagination who you think plays which role in the rare sat con.

2024-04-10 18:39:54 UTC

The blocksize war wasn't so much about the blocksize (or, even, scaling Bitcoin). It was really about who controls the consensus rules and how we upgrade the protocol.
For context, a bunch of startups raised tons of money between 2013 and 2016 based on ridiculous user sign-up projections and then we had a long and painful bear market and they were looking for scapegoats (the developpers that were "throttling the network") to justify the lack of growth. I am thinking here specifically of Coinbase, Bitpay and Blockchain.info.
The vibe I got is that they thought of Bitcoin itself as a corporation, that they were the equivalent of Bitcoin's board of directors because they represented the interest of VC investors, and thus they were entitled to decision making power over the network.
I don't doubt that a few people were genuine about scaling p2p e-cash (e.g. Roger Ver) but I suspect what really motivated them is that they believed control of the Bitcoin network would be an asset to their business interests, and lack of control was being used as an excuse to why their interests weren't being satisfied.
There was also a bunch of developers that I believe may have been afraid of losing their relevance (Gavin and Garzik specifically). Regardless of their intentions or psychology, it seemed clear to me that the consortium of vc-backed startups (particularly Bitpay, Coinbase, blockchain(.)info and Roger) had picked a team of developers they thought they could control and wanted to appoint them as a technical management team whicn would execute their strategy, and these guys were willing to step up for that role.
I was physically in the room when the CEO of Blockchain.info (with the very obvious support of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong) announced that Bitcoin Core devs were being fired and would be replaced. This was after a couple days of failed discussions with other industry people. This was the moment when I realized what was really going on.
And finally, you had a Bitcoin mining giant (Bitmain) controlling both asic production and mining pools with a vested interest in promoting the idea that Bitcoin was a democracy and the way to vote was to buy hashing power. The main ideology being pushed here was that a formal governance mechanism of the protocol needed to be established and that hashrate was the only objective measure of who makes decisions.
The underlying big blocker ideology was that the chaos of spontaneous consensus of nodes is unpredictable, flimsy, bad for business. The absence of a formal governance process was seen as the root cause of the issue.
These companies really believed they could control the protocol, and controlling development of the protocol was seen as a very valuable asset to your company. I imagine they thought of themselves as the founders of a new consortium that would solidify itself into a permanent institution. The business interests would pay developers and set the goals, and the mining interests would ratify their decisions with hash power voting. That was their plan.
This became blatantly obvious when Bitmain used its refusal to activate segwit as leverage to get what it wanted (a blocksize increase and recognition of its hashpower as a vote mecanism) even though Bitmain iself acknowledged it was not really opposed segwit.
It was classic traditional politics: I'll give you segwit if you give me something in return.
This is the language the VC suits, investors and tech startup people understand and they were very happy to "negotiate" and find "consensus".
This eventually materialized into the New York Agreement, negotiated literally as a backroom deal during theConsensuss shitcoin conference. I was there and I refused to attend.
This (private) meeting consecrated the alliance of startups/investors and bitcoin mining interests in their appointment of a technical management committee. If you think this sounds like Jekyll Island, you're not alone.
They packaged segwit with a blocksize increase (Segwit2x) and decided to force a hard fork as a condition to "allow" us to have Segwit.
We know the rest of the story: we ended up activating anyway via UASF (or more precisely, the miners activated Segwit after they New York Agreement signatories became scared UASF would lead to a chain split which they were going to lose). And the blocksize increase was also abandoned shortly after when they realized their hard fork would cause a chain split and that they would not be able to claim that their new shitcoin is the real bitcoin.
All these people were subsequently were very pissed off they couldn't control the network, which they thought they were entitled to. Some ragequit, others created a bunch of shitcoins out of spite, Roger went on to spearhead BCH as the real Bitcoin, all these fools realized they might as well make some money off of it, everyone went all-in on the shitcoin casinos after that. The "small blockers" eventually went on to evolve into the Bitcoin Maximalists and cypherpunks that today tell you to run your own node and own your own keys.

2024-04-10 18:17:31 UTC

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I was there. Peter Smith fromBlockchain literally stood up and made a dramatic show of firing the bitcoin core developers. it was cringe and pathetic

2024-04-10 16:06:28 UTC

https://m.primal.net/HtQc.jpg

2024-04-09 19:59:40 UTC

would anybody in the class like to explain what the author means by this?
https://m.primal.net/Hszl.jpg

2024-04-09 19:56:33 UTC

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weird, that is an actually retarded opinion to have

2024-04-09 16:46:31 UTC

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the likehood that this is actually what Saylor thinks is probably zero because my thoughts on this are very nuanced

2024-04-09 16:45:34 UTC

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there is a contrarian position on this... the Bitcoin Core clique of devs is very hermetic and exclusive, and one could argue that giving too much money to the same clique of people is counterproductive in the long term but if this was true one would also fund other groups of devs simultaneously (e.g. Knots, BDK) and especially one would also fund non-protocol developers as well. I have no confidence in the Bitcoin Core development process at all (especially since speedy trial).
#note1snf…m039

2024-04-07 16:12:24 UTC

what it's like ordering raw milk and grassfed beef and get it delivered in the jungle in Costa Rica
https://m.primal.net/HsIM.jpg