<unnamed>

Public Key

npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsw4v882mfjhq9u63j08kzyhqzqxqc8tgf740p4nxnk9jdv02u37ncpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezumtpd35kutn0dekqz9nhwden5te0wfjkccte9ec8y6tdv9kzumn9wsq3gamnwvaz7tmwdaehgunnv968vcfwdejhgqg4waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxummnw3ezumn9wsq3gamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7qgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkchqfvp0

Publishing to

Last Notes

2026-02-27 16:15:05 CET

https://blossom.primal.net/51eff7f1e431300461f88770efa084ebe8848fe52bcfef8283bb98bae129d845.jpg

2026-02-26 23:38:16 CET

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The Stolguard Incident.

2026-02-26 22:45:28 CET

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An announcement made in this podcast is that both @nprofile…2jxw and @nprofile…ekkc are narrating the audiobook version of my upcoming sci fi novel.
There’s a broad array of characters, so I wanted the right firepower to do the many voices well. Serious, funny, and everything in between.
Can’t imagine a better duo for the project. Super pumped for how the audio production is coming together!
https://blossom.primal.net/cca9bc14f33a301b4fd3e3846e1e6f0bcd21e7a238f9e0e1dc51d69a490e228b.jpg
#nevent1q…e35d

2026-02-26 17:53:52 CET

I understand why people use AI to generate posts on social media, but I don’t understand why people use AI to generate replies to other people’s posts (other than for influencing campaigns).
I see this all the time on X. A small account will reply to one of my posts with something that is clearly AI generated. But it’s actually an attempt at being conversational- it agrees with and summarizes/rephrases my post, and then asks a follow-up question. It’s not some bot generating fake momentum for a polarizing topic or stirring hate and chaos.
Not sure I understand why so many people would set up a bot to do those types of semi-constructive replies. I guess they could be trying to grow an account by being perceived as a thoughtful participant, and their human owner might intend to use the account in the future (or in some cases already does use it too) but it doesn’t see to be working for the ones I looked at.

2026-02-25 22:00:10 CET

Men and women writing about how the opposite sex is dumb or to blame for everything, has got to be some of the lowest IQ slop on social media at the moment.
It’s often framed in intellectual-sounding ways tied to evolution and such, with a kernals of truth, but then it’s cherry-picked and pretty visibly biased, and the same sort of accounts keep putting out tons of it like an obsession.
Most of it is a waste of time. Just do cool things.

2026-02-24 01:19:59 CET

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I find that when LLMs summarize things, they don’t have a good track record of knowing what parts are worth emphasizing and what parts are not. They make it shorter by cutting out both signal and noise.

2026-02-23 18:52:56 CET

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I agree. Brevity is in relation to the topic.
But it means spending time to make a 6k word article 3k words in a way that’s actually more clear and logical.
More effort on cutting bloat, telling the audience what the signal is.

2026-02-23 18:51:26 CET

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Broken Money is precisely as long as it needs to be.
https://blossom.primal.net/0678337f4b8ee80e393bec6490fe8f8366bc85c488cc1040e9211233b28e169b.jpg

2026-02-23 17:16:25 CET

In a world of AI slop writing, I’m prioritizing brevity more than ever.
As Blaise Pascal (not Mark Twain to whom it is often attributed) once wrote, “I only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”
I am increasingly putting in the time to make things shorter.

2026-02-21 17:07:33 CET

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I think everyone has a little Punch inside of them. 😭

2026-02-21 16:47:30 CET

One of the most successful pirates in history was Zheng Yi Sao, a Chinese woman.
Historians aren't clear about her early life; she may have been a prostitute. But in her twenties she married a pirate lord who commanded a large confederation of pirates, and thus lived a live of piracy with him for years. When he died in the early1800s, rather than the confederation turning to chaos, she managed to take command of it. She married her late husband's adopted son Zhang Bao as well (she was in her 30s, he in his 20s), and he became basically the #2 in the fleet under her, and that helped cement things.
Over the next few years, the confederation grew to hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of pirates. They were one of the biggest powers in the South China Sea, rivaling the navies of China, Portugal, and Britain who were active in the region.
In 1810, however, she saw that the future probably wouldn't be so bright for her and the pirates. A pirate confederation is a chaotic thing, and cannot last against multiple navies indefinitely. But pirates rarely ever quit while they're ahead; they almost all end up dying violently. The Chinese and other navies were working together and were pretty desperate to get rid of piracy, and were willing to negotiate.
However after months, negotiations broke down between the authorities and the various pirate lords, including Zhang Bao, until Zheng Yi Sao went personally to the Chinese governor's mansion that they were primarily negotiating with, at great personal risk. Just walked right in there with a small delegation, without any fighting force, to negotiate, and got it done.
After that, the pirates surrendered from a position of strength. Zheng Yi Sao, Zhang Bao, and others received pardons and got to keep most of their wealth. Zhang Bao became an officer in the Chinese navy, commanding a fleet like he used to. Zheng Yi Sao received land and founded a gambling house. Their marriage was recognized by the Chinese government, having been an unofficial "pirate marriage" beforehand.
Zhang Bao eventually died age 39, still in service in the navy.
Zheng Yi Sao died at 68, having lived decades overseeing her gambling house, and with children from both her marriages. A pirate lord that retired wealthy and peacefully, and managed to navigate the transition away from piracy in a way that let the most reasonable pirates all quit while they were ahead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_Yi_Sao

2026-02-21 02:11:44 CET

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Welcome, Paul.

2026-02-21 02:11:03 CET

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(He’s not actually doing this. It’s a joke as I assemble my documents for my accountant.)

2026-02-20 21:14:21 CET

My accountant going through my zaps for tax season like
https://blossom.primal.net/64f1678477cc4ae80274f0dd76718e02dcee10b4fce146e4d1588e023b5a488e.png

2026-02-20 16:26:13 CET

The Supreme Court just struck down Trump's use of emergency powers to impose global, indefinite tariffs (i.e. the tariffs actually have to go through Congress like other taxes, if they're going to be imposed).
-Some specific tariffs, such as those on aluminum and steel, cite other laws for justification and can still be applied.
-The Trump administration previously said they'll attempt other laws as justification if the Supreme Court strikes down their use of emergency powers.

2026-02-11 17:49:15 CET

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https://blossom.primal.net/bb47d4b437ad60530bc674782c06d0d566c7ca0412cca8e1234362a54078b680.jpg
#nevent1q…6h68

2026-02-10 02:52:26 CET

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Good evening.
A year and a half ago, Nostr spoke. And so I listened. Here’s the cover reveal for my upcoming sci fi thriller, The Stolguard Incident.
I’ll share more info over the following weeks, but in the meantime I wanted to make sure folks on Nostr got the first look.
https://blossom.primal.net/179ab082c464ebc2a757a2ed80809e9e4cc9239db06d426b42959b1ba6406fd1.jpg
#nevent1q…vmz5

2026-02-08 19:46:28 CET

My February newsletter is out now. Because scheduling things on the day of the Super Bowl is apparently how I do things.
The issue focuses on the Fed's shift toward balance sheet expansion, the implications of Japan's rapidly rising bond yields, and the volatile moves in precious metals.
https://www.lynalden.com/february-2026-newsletter/
https://blossom.primal.net/74a94fca35bc76fc5c66fc329123bf5b32ead63d37e32f4db5ca1cf15d252215.png

2026-02-07 21:27:10 CET

RIP Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down.
https://youtu.be/xPU8OAjjS4k

2026-02-06 14:09:10 CET

Anyway, GM.
https://blossom.primal.net/dc3051e4530a978243d30f20fbc29961d9eb0364f89378d918017913c0922bff.jpg

2026-02-06 05:26:23 CET

Algos treating bitcoin like SaaS.
https://blossom.primal.net/942b76adae82e37449308ee1eb738083382e03ee62f140f34009003278f7d7aa.png
Relatively few new retail investors came in this cycle. Meanwhile, altcoins exhausted basically every possible narrative for why they should exist and are set to more persistently fade into irrelevance, with most of them not even really reaching new highs this time. Bitcoin separated from the pack for the most part, but had trouble catching a sustained bid nonetheless.
-Some institutional investors are indeed spooked by the quantum risk. That had a nonzero impact, and I have really good sources on that. But if quantum was the main catalyst for the underperformance as some like to argue, then there'd most likely be a big performance gap between bitcoin (hard to upgrade) vs more centralized altcoins (easy to upgrade) that are marketing quantum resiliency roadmaps. That's not happening, though, which largely disproves that as the main culprit.
-Most institutional investors I've looked into have little knowledge or even awareness of the spam issue, version wars, fork wars, etc.
-Biggest factor seems to just be a combo of 1) buyer exhaustion (lack of retail, lack of sovereigns, leaving basically a corporate play this cycle) and 2) weighed down by the more permanent stagnation of altcoins (which is good in the long run but a headwind here, because there is a lot of cross-ownership between them and bitcoin).

2026-02-04 16:27:48 CET

I read the novel Blood of the Bourgeoisie by Michael Sullivan.
Given all the corruption recently revealed about powerful people, it seems like a good season for it. It's a thriller about elite corruption, and features bitcoin prominently. Anyway, here's a review.
The book is a concise and well-paced read, with three point-of-view characters. All three of them are quite fleshed out, especially given how trim the overall page count is.
The plot is well-constructed and creative. Motivations make sense, the scale is significant, and I found myself consistently wanting to know what happens next.
The audiobook version is out now, narrated by the great @nprofile…yza6. I started with the ebook version, but then listened to the audiobook version for the second half, so I experienced the book both in prose form and through listening, and both were quite enjoyable.
I like there to be themes in novels. In other words, if the answer to why Prince Niceguy defeats Darklord Asshole in the climax is because "he's better with a sword", then that's just not that interesting to me. In addition to his training, what did Prince Niceguy learn that allowed him to defeat him? The original Star Wars trilogy handled this well: Luke loses to Vader in the middle movie and beats him in the third movie, not just because he improved with a saber between the duels but because he mastered himself and his emotions, and accepted the truth of things rather than deny them.
This novel has good themes, in my view. Clashes of ideology. Tough choices. Characters who have their worldviews tested. Good, evil, and shades of gray. Can evil be purged peacefully, or does it require violence?
There's a series of flashbacks in it, which is a structure that annoys a minority of readers (because it risks breaking your immersion by jumping back and forth), but I really like that structure in novels as long as it's well done. It helps flesh out a story and makes the reader wonder how the flashbacks are going to inform or intersect with the present-day plot. In this case, I thought the flashbacks were very well done and played nicely into the plot. I predicted how the flashbacks would intersect the main story, but there are other twists that surprised me a great deal. In my view that's the ideal combo, because as a reader I'm rewarded for thinking ahead, but also blindsided at times.
To the extent that I have any critiques of the novel to flesh out a full review, they're pretty limited and contextual.
-The bitcoin component is significant, both plot-wise and dialogue-wise. If someone doesn't like bitcoin, the plot can still work for them but it'll likely detract from their overall appreciation. On the other hand if someone is very knowledgeable on bitcoin, the "bitcoin 101" parts of it may feel skim-able. That's a tough balance for an author to navigate and I can't envision how it would be handled better. I would imagine that the sweet spot as a reader here is to be interested in bitcoin but a bit skeptical or not super knowledgeable about it.
-One of the challenges an author faces (including myself) is how to make dialogue seem realistic but not too realistic. That's an unintuitive thing. If you actually transcribe most real-life conversations, they are filled with "ums" and false starts and just tons of verbal clutter which makes them super annoying to read. So an author can't actually make dialogue perfectly realistic, all the time. On the other hand, if dialogue is too polished and expositionary, it sounds artificial: "Well how do you do today, Bob? Lovely weather isn't it? Have you heard about that deceased gardener? What a shame. They found him this morning. I heard he was sleeping with the countess."
Sullivan handles the dialogue well, but there were some times I would have preferred it pushed a bit closer to the realism side of the spectrum. There is not necessarily any ideal sweet spot, though. It's all trade-offs. An author has to put necessary exposition somewhere, and it can go in the narrative or in dialogue or some blend of the two, and readers have different preferences. There was one moment where characters whispered in front of another character as though they weren't heard and I was like, "guys, he's right there in earshot, looking at you..."
I'd be happy to pick up other books by Sullivan in the future. In fact, he's got an earlier sci fi novel out called The Final Flaw. I haven't gotten to that one yet, but after reading this one, I'd like to give that a read as well.
https://blossom.primal.net/b07e145b8ab7142540cdf2c2ff325fd9db7ce52b4d37000ca69cad4d16b09420.jpg

2026-02-04 15:10:16 CET

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The administration went silent on the Epstein files because they and their friends are in it a bunch. Just as much as their enemies.
Trump's first administration and Biden's administration both sat on the files. Trump's second administration campaigned on releasing them, then tried to conceal them until Massie and others legally forced the issue.
They hope just lying about it and ignoring it enough will make it go away. That strategy worked for them for other issues in the past. But this time they've fractured part of their base away, like MJT.
It's swamp all the way down.
#nevent1q…fm4s

2026-01-31 20:53:05 CET

Husband saw this on our yard and was like, “did someone get fucking raptured?”
https://blossom.primal.net/7b83c6653cd6a44b69c7d8405f5f30dc0877e2d317ae5cc80360ee1d26207f87.jpg

2026-01-30 01:39:23 CET

Trump has said that he would pick the next Fed chair tomorrow. Odds rapidly jumped for Warsh.
No matter who it is, nothing stops this train.
https://blossom.primal.net/957e6fc8815eea0a9f31e862626a06a6767e6bc4c752580ff590faa314ef62e1.jpg

2026-01-30 01:29:36 CET

So I watched The Rip. A Miami cop movie with Affleck and Damon.
I liked the first half quite a bit. Really intense opening scene, good mystery setup, high emotional stakes, etc. Always happy to see Affleck and Damon together.
The second half lost me a bit. Some aspects seemed unrealistic enough to distract me and pull me out of it. And I felt the heavy hand of the writers/director in terms of character choices not really making sense, convenient scene changes, etc.
But, all together a solid cop movie. Glad I watched it.
So far out of this recent run of movies, Sinners is comfortably my top choice even though I had some issues in the third act.
https://blossom.primal.net/b465aeebfc8be72294a2ce91285bd6b3e4642daac18a31072242e18ed7a34175.jpg

2026-01-29 17:43:47 CET

https://blossom.primal.net/e007070e14dc2f64a5ee21073511b93e8d0c36efe8983122738f46543b6130e6.jpg

2026-01-29 16:20:21 CET

I see some people saying, “it’s not gold going up, it’s the dollar going down” and things like that.
That’s not really the case, and there’s a simple test to see why.
When a currency crashes, it loses value relative to everything. Other currencies, real estate, stocks, precious metals, etc. Prices of normal goods and services skyrocket.
In this bull run, precious metals gained value vs other things. Gold vs oil. Gold vs stocks. Gold vs real estate. Silver vs oil, etc.
The dollar is rangebound vs other major currencies. The supply growth of the dollar this past year was 5%. It’s gold and other precious metals that went up vs everything. Partly based on fundamentals, and now seemingly due to momentum.
Now, where there is some truth to the statement: central banks in aggregate haven’t added to their holding of treasuries in ten years. The only foreign treasury purchases have been in the private sector, and at a rate lower than total US debt growth. But central banks have been buying gold. There is indeed a gradual shift toward neutral reserve assets afoot, ever since around 2009.
But that a very long process. That source of demand didn’t single-handedly drive the huge boom in precious metals over this past year. This was like a volleyball held under water and let go, soaring back up.

2026-01-28 22:26:04 CET

The number of people who spent the past decade complaining about the Fed's artificially low interest rates, only to turn around and constantly complain about their slowness of cutting rates lately (as if 3.75% is super high), is comical.

2026-01-25 17:12:57 CET

You know what there aren't a lot of? Horror musicals.
Anyway, I watched "Sinners" last night, and enjoyed it more than I expected. My husband and I are currently in a movie-a-night mode after a long stretch of zero movies. Here's a quick review.
Sinners is getting a lot of hype because it was nominated for a record-breaking16 oscars. Of course, with Hollywood quality deteriorating over time, an oscar nomination isn't really what it used to be. There's some oscar-inflation, basically. And there's often a huge disconnect between what critics and insiders like vs what the public likes, especially in this highly polarized environment.
Set in1930s Mississippi, Sinners is a stylized action story about the supernatural. It's one of those elevated type of stories, where there's 1) what's happening at the surface level for entertainment, and 2) what themes those actions are meant to represent. But it didn't get as heavy-handed as I expected. Well-executed themes can deepen the entertainment, whereas heavy-handed or misaligned themes can dampen entertainment, and for me the combo was neutral-to-positive.
The music and the directing/cinematography are truly incredible. Like, outlier masterpiece level, 10 out of 10. There's a huge blues component, and the visuals are just constantly surprisingly good.
My biggest complaint is the action in the third act. That's the only aspect that detracted from its entertainment value for me. Physical fights and gun battles don't work with a consistent set of rules or power scaling. As a result, the fights feel very unrealistic, and the outcomes feel determined by where the plot needs things to go, rather than maintaining the illusion of cause-and-effect (e.g. it distracted me enough to pull me out of the immersion, and I felt the writer's hand strongly at play). Overall fight choreography is like a 4/10 here.
Thus I consider it a flawed masterpiece. Really glad I watched it for its music and visuals and overall plot concept, but was sufficiently distracted by third act details and execution.
https://blossom.primal.net/56a60b07ae1ff14982d5ea56214adaea38c1e0aa79a9c6f62256569773a45993.jpg

2026-01-24 19:39:18 CET

Big fan of the Bill of Rights.
All ten of ‘em.

2026-01-17 15:54:26 CET

Canada lowered tariffs on Chinese EVs to similar levels of a few years ago (up to a limited number, and still 6% tariffs rather than zero).
US politicians are angry about about it, despite the fact that the US literally had/has a free trade agreement with Canada involving cars and many other products.
In the US, we keep dunking on our neighbors to the north about how lefty they are, since indeed they’re a lot more lefty than us, when ironically this decision by Canada is historically a conservative position: freer competition and lower taxes, and yet that’s the one we’re most angry about.
It's an example of how quickly perceptions can shift, the Overton window can shift, political parties ran rotate policies, etc. Everything becomes about optics and tribes.
A few years ago if someone said, "So Canada used to put 100% punitive tariffs on Chinese EVs, and now they're going to lower those a lot so that Canadians can buy more affordable EVs if they wish, and China will do the same for some Canadian stuff," most people would be like, "well, good."

2026-01-16 15:30:02 CET

You ever read a book in one sitting? I did that with the 1979 sci fi novella Electric Forest by Tanith Lee last night when going to bed. Ended up getting to sleep a bit later than intended because of it.
Anyway, here’s a review.
In a far future world where humanity exists on hundreds of planets, most people are genetically engineered to be beautiful, and not just the wealthy, but everyone. However, some rare accidents happen.
Magdala was born crippled and ugly in a beautiful world. Given up by her prostitute mother to a state-run orphanage, she was mercilessly bullied by other kids. Now in her 20s, she works a menial job, lives in a tiny apartment, and has no friends or partner. She has considered plastic surgery, but it’s too expensive, and for her full-body condition it wouldn’t be enough to fix the issues anyway. Thus, she lives in a perpetual state of loneliness and melancholy.
Then one day, a scientist shows up and says he can make her beautiful. And as a reader will expect, it certainly does come with a catch. What follows is a generally social-intrigue type of plot, where beautiful-Magdala has to do various things for her benefactor.
Overall, I’m glad I read it, but cannot really say I liked it. I’ve been meaning to read more of this era of sci fi.
The prose was quite good. The opening premise was interesting. I genuinely couldn’t really predict where the plot would go. A few individual scenes were great.
But I did not particularly like the characters, nor did I view them as making understandable choices. Of course, plenty of characters in fiction make bad choices, but when well-characterized, those bad choices are understandable, like we see the cause and effect, we know the character enough to be like, “yep, they’d do that.” I mostly didn’t feel that here.
I did not like the details/choreography of the one action scene (I mean, if you have exactly one, then do it really well), nor did I like the epilogue.
https://blossom.primal.net/afee4c64f58771114ea4e4485e9ea155163992db739dbe22543eefe31a8dd46d.jpg https://blossom.primal.net/a8353525231d790794a074d8dd8917b5767fa93b623cda9602a8083426d9a93a.jpg

2026-01-14 20:27:56 CET

Back in 2018-2020, I wrote a lot about how the upcoming issue of fiscal dominance would contribute heavily to populist politics.
For example, 2020:
"Populist politics then become more commonplace, and while some strands of it can be quite rational based on countering prevailing policies that are rightly viewed as needing reform, there are also more dangerous or extreme strands that begin to emerge as well, particularly if those initial and more rational strands go unaddressed. Policymakers historically face the choice of doing something to alleviate the financial burdens of the broad population, or risking outright revolution."
https://www.lynalden.com/fiscal-and-monetary-policy/
During eras of fiscal dominance, the state tends to take more control of the economy, tends to restrict capital movement, and tends to limit personal freedom, whether it's a right or left government. And they drum up as much public support as possible with a narrative.
But witnessing it playing out first hand has still been a sight to behold. I could jot it all down on paper but then admittedly have still been surprised at times as it keeps playing out. And we see both left and right varieties occurring.
For folks who want to keep government pretty limited where possible, these past six years have been absolutely wild to watch in practice. So many people forget the basic principle that any power you give your current government, a future government that you don't agree with can use that power against you.
The poles of right and left keep drifting outward, and the horseshoe theory of politics is on full display as the two populist extremes are closer together than the moderates of each side are (but then ironically, some of those moderates also unite to oppose those extremes as well). So many people lose their minds and go full communist or full fascist. And then some normal things get labeled as extreme, so people who just believe in a handful of principles that were normal a few decades ago are like out in the wilderness now.
And the centralized algos certainly contribute to it. As someone who has been active on social media for a long time, 2025 really stuck out to me, at least as much as 2020 did. I see people reorienting their positions so rapidly around new things in a sort of mass groupthink, I see people retweeting so many things that support their view despite being obvious AI slop or clearly false or out of context with just a 2-minute factcheck. Some real populist momentum waves build, and then centralized algos give them rocket fuel. Both the main wave, and the reactionary wave on the other side, are fueled by the algos for maximum engagement.
When I interviewed @nprofile…zj6n at the Oslo Freedom Forum back in 2024, he focused on algos affecting not just what people can say, but what people think. And in the year and a half since then, I think that has very much played out.
There is an enormous premium these days for being able to recognize the algo's influence on you, and to continually factcheck and emotion-check yourself, take a breath and step back, touch grass, get sun, and assess what your foundational principles are.
https://blossom.primal.net/dd901c4be2394ca6a374689c98ff2460c04e6b1ca1e5385de8cb52308a93b7cb.png
https://blossom.primal.net/8d1518397db28f510a41b728c32f245dc4411651a258fd06f0b9c7a84fc7f3f5.jpg

2026-01-12 02:17:26 CET

The DOJ served the Fed with a subpoena and threatened Powell with a criminal indictment related to the Fed's expensive renovations.
Powell, rather than releasing the minimal version of a statement that merely disagreed with the accusation, instead released a statement and video that pretty much went scorched earth, saying this isn't really about the renovations and is instead about the Fed's independent control of interest rates.
Historically speaking, this is the biggest direct clash between the Fed and the Executive Branch since the 1940s/1950s.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20260111a.htm

2026-01-10 20:02:19 CET

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imo, one of the only things more valuable than time, is principles.

2026-01-10 19:03:34 CET

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https://blossom.primal.net/79d9c3fcb59fb930cc9710a7cdbacada83731e3e0d539c61a9a9b0b868724b9f.jpg

2026-01-10 18:40:45 CET

Rather than choosing their tribe based on shared principles, most people just reprogram their principles around whatever their tribe is doing.

2026-01-09 23:56:30 CET

Just rode with an uber driver who has a perfect 5.00 rating. Don’t think I’ve seen that before. It’s almost always 4.9 something.
It was an older gentleman wearing a three piece suit, driving a Corolla. Super friendly.
Basically the final boss of uber drivers.

2026-01-08 01:39:04 CET

I had to fly down south to help a relative with a health issue.
I’m at a Cracker Barrel for the first time, since it’s adjacent to my hotel. The 50-something waitress is calling me “baby girl” when asking if I need anything.
I texted my husband like, “there are apparently two people in the world comfortable enough to call me ‘baby girl’, you and this waitress.”
Southern hospitality tends to stand out for those that are not familiar with it. A couple years ago, my husband and I went down to South Carolina for a wedding, stayed at a random hotel, and in the parking lot as we walked up to it, a random couple that was leaving the hotel said “how y’all doin?” In the warmest possible tone. Up north, that kind of thing is rare. We just pass each other in parking lots. That’s our way. So we were like, “uh, good…” ::awkward smile::

2026-01-07 22:28:48 CET

The USDA’s new food pyramid is pretty lit.
https://blossom.primal.net/96145f641dc0486a856e7867f0f301dcde3bceb2329e6d3e05fde94dbea66957.jpg

2025-12-30 17:00:11 CET

The ratio of AI slop posts across Twitter now is pretty wild.

2025-12-30 01:37:29 CET

The mega-flop episode in this last season of Stranger Things gave me a new marketing pitch for my upcoming sci fi novel:
https://blossom.primal.net/8200e82326fa882b1299b6c57ed65d01b3427a216c9ecaa262d451a37ea4c386.png

2025-12-29 20:38:25 CET

You know what would be crazy? Just deciding to skip punctuation.
Cormac McCarthy, the bestselling and Pulitzer-winning author of books like No Country For Old Men, The Road, and Blood Meridian, famously didn't like quotation marks, felt they cluttered the page, and so he didn't use them.
When dialogue happens in his novels, there are no quotes around it, and you as the reader just have to figure out when a line is narration or dialogue. He also didn't use semicolons or exclamation points or certain other forms of punctuation. While he didn't exclude commas entirely, he did minimize them, and instead used extra "ands" in place of where many other authors would use commas. He used periods normally.
His prose isn't my cup of tea, but there's no denying his success, and it goes to show that you can kind of just do things.
https://blossom.primal.net/a3c2dff2e8680c831ab6df0244f23411acbe037e2e2e5040a739ca64ffce5d25.png

2025-12-24 18:27:43 CET

I for one am grateful for the work of those who seek ways to make Bitcoin quantum-secure.
I remember back in my freshman year of college, which would've been nearly twenty years ago now, hearing about quantum computers and thinking we might have them in a decade.
When I first bought bitcoin, it was with the notion in mind that maybe one day quantum computers at scale would exist, that one day the Bitcoin network might have to upgrade for it, as it has updated in the past for other things. Bitcoin is resilient against many risks, but I've generally thought that to be one worth watching.
I think some of the recent concerns about quantum are overdone. Bitcoin goes through seasons, and this is clearly quantum season. But it is true that some institutions and potential large buyers are worrying about bitcoin's quantum resistance, and thus its price can be impacted even if the software is not. This can pass, in time. And those who develop potential mitigation paths, that help figure out what the most efficient and resilient upgrades would be if they are needed, are doing good work on that front.
Much like how some people are understandably spooked by just the risk of quantum (i.e. even if you believe there's a ~5% chance of it happening in some investable time horizon, that factors into your expected value analysis), others are understandably relieved by knowing that people are working on it and that mitigation paths do exist. And I'm glad they're doing that.

2025-12-23 23:32:53 CET

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One of my most popular posts here was when I simply reminded people that our politicians are retarded.
This was when Trump was surging in the polls last year. I talked about why both him and Biden were retarded, not just Biden. This was at a time when many people needed hope that one side might be smart, that maybe Trump wasn’t retarded as his literally senile competitor was. As if they forgot the 2027-2021 run.
Now, here in December 2025, with a repeated failure to release the full Epstein files, and he himself implicated in many of them, and MAGA turning against him, are you surprised?
Everyone knew he was a bad person. People just argued for why a bad person was needed, or why his bad values wouldn’t interfere with his policies.
But yeah, bad people rule things badly.
Nothing stops this train.
#nevent1q…kn89

2025-12-23 15:39:38 CET

I've been slumping on my fitness this past month.
It got cold, so I stopped my daily biking. Then I got sick, so I wasn't hitting my basement gym either. Then even when I recovered I just wasn't doing it. Best I was doing was walking outside to get some sun and fresh air.
Yesterday I got back in. Stretches, push-ups, squats, bag-punching, deadlifts, dumbbell routines, and a few treadmill sprints. I'm super sore today, and my cardio is shit at the moment, but it feels great.
If you've been slumping a bit this winter, I'm right there with you! Use today as a catalyst to get back in. You'll be glad you did.

2025-12-22 18:26:35 CET

Imagine if you won the lottery, but were in another state, and now had to get back to that state with the lottery ticket. If you were to somehow lose the ticket, you’d lose it all. Like carrying a single private key to a few thousand bitcoin in your pocket or something.
Anyway, here’s a review of Night Moves by Jared Dillian. It’s a collection of 16 short stories about situations like that, and although they are drastically different from each other, I’d say the overall theme is “dark comedy slice-of-life”. Most are about some variation of death, addiction, sex, temptation, or compulsion.
I’m primarily familiar with Dillian’s financial work- he’s a former Wall Street trader and a current financial newsletter writer. He’s also a DJ and fiction writer, which is the side of his work I’m less familiar with, until now.
I usually read full novels rather than collections of short stories. And the majority of the novels I read tend to be fantasy or sci fi; basically stories about the past or the future. This one consists of short stories that are mostly set near the present day.
The characters in the stories range from grungy teenagers to aging dentists, from up-and-coming weather forecasters to divorced ladies, from working professionals to homeless alcoholics, and everything in between.
More than half could be classified as tragedies in the sense that you’re basically reading a slow-motion trainwreck happening. But tragedy is not the theme of the collection per se; some of them are quite constructive and happy. Others are kind of neutral and comical. And that keeps you guessing as you read- any given story might end happily or sadly, or somewhere in between.
I found the writing to be clear and smooth, and was always happy to get to another story. I’d spend 10 minutes reading one between periods of work or exercise or something, as a mental reset. My mind would get to enter this other character’s weird life for a moment to see what problem or situation they’re dealing with.
If I have to critique what was otherwise a great read, I’d say some of the stories ended rather abruptly or anti-climactically. In those cases I’d find myself wanting a few more pages of resolution. But that seems quite intentional, and basically the best critique an author could receive is that the reader wanted a bit more of what they were reading. If I were reading a 300+ page book that ended anti-climatically I’d be annoyed, but weird slice-of-life short stories ending anti-climactically is indeed like real life, and feels like the correct writing choice in these cases.
Since this one was quite enjoyable, I’ll look to pick up one of his essay collections such as “Those Bastards” or “Rule 62” at some point.
https://blossom.primal.net/4fd6d55edf3971a70057145a5e7ba047262721873a6bf39c4321ea0dfa5685ba.jpg

2025-12-20 21:23:36 CET

Good morning.
I’m bullish on Lightning, meanwhile quantum computing won’t matter here in the 2020s.

2025-12-10 23:45:13 CET

Here's the "No BS" macro news for today.
-The Fed projected, back in early 2024, that they would likely end balance sheet reduction around this time and transition toward gradually increasing their balance sheet in line with nominal GDP (so that banks' fractional reserve lending remains unaffected with current regulations).
-It got pulled forward slightly, perhaps two or three months, by the government shutdown overfilling the Treasury cash account (i.e. sucking cash out of the broader financial system).
-The Fed previously announced they would stop reducing their balance sheet. Today they said they would start gradually increasing it. Powell said the baseline is $20-$25 billion per month, but due to current liquidity shortages and April tax day (which drains liquidity), they plan to increase it by $40 billion per month through April (which afterward in May, conveniently, is when Powell will be replaced as chairman with a presumably more dovish chairman).
-They're focusing on printing money to buy short-term duration Treasuries, not long-term. This is for the financial system, not economic stimulus per se, and so they won't be calling it QE.
-The Fed will now be structurally expanding their balance sheet while inflation is above their own target.
-This is a gradual print scenario. It's bullish for liquidity and liquidity-correlated assets, in general. It's not explosively bullish, but it does lean dovish.
-Nothing stops this train.
https://blossom.primal.net/d415c82270a843cbf1350b96d0c72dc30c3f42d38ade9641c51da29f61256d80.png
https://blossom.primal.net/d3ea177cb78ebb015fcb99c72c29c2db87e94e5bf8aebfe226fee2b86196aa7b.png

2025-12-08 00:27:25 CET

Mt Everest had its first documented climb in 1953.
The first person went to space in 1961.
It's kind of crazy to think about how "new" mankind's spread over the world is. My father was already a teenager the first time someone climbed Everest, and in his twenties by the time someone went to space.
If we start the "modern era" as roughly coinciding with the telecommunications age (ie the dawn of the cross-continental telegraph in the1860s), it's less than two consecutive human lifetimes old.
Everything is new.

2025-12-07 23:18:47 CET

Whenever we go to the local Italian restaurant, the waitress asks if we want dessert or coffee afterward.
I know it's a common thing, but for the life of me I don't know why anyone would want coffee after a big meal at night.

2025-12-03 04:45:20 CET

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You know what show ended right when it should have?
Breaking Bad, of course.
#nevent1q…3xzh

2025-12-02 23:40:42 CET

Finally getting a moment to start watching The Boys season 4.
Watched up to season 3 a while back, which is where it was up to at the time. Anyone else watch it?
https://blossom.primal.net/c1c0fe150948499d6d78b607c2cf2ffb92957c1f3e2af7687c2180872c9a1899.jpg

2025-11-23 20:21:22 CET

Receiving zaps from users is a way better incentive model than paying out a share of advertising revenue to posters based on engagement.
Zaps tend to reward quality and sincerity. Giving an advertising share in proportion to engagement rewards slop and rage.
https://blossom.primal.net/172f8dc4f730e1b1e9a173c49b652a9c60f11943ed98d3a4ca2f3109e007ea07.png

2025-11-23 18:44:20 CET

I find Bladerunner 2049 frustrating, because I *almost* love it.
The characters, themes, acting, and the overall plot structure are great, imo.
However, villains give melodramatic exposition monologues, villains leave heroes alive for no reason other than the plot needs them to, important things are left thinly guarded for no reason other than the plot needs the heroes or villains to easily get at them, etc. In other words, there are distracting writing/execution issues in what could otherwise be a masterpiece.
The first time I watched it, I didn't love it. It did stick with me though; I think about it sometimes, for years afterward. And watching it a second time I appreciated it more, but still was frustrated by the same things.
What does everyone else feel about it?
https://blossom.primal.net/9ebe083032f03d51762fbdc6458a40969fc68e8f7d582ffe036ca1afcaabfb91.jpg

2025-11-21 06:37:49 CET

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lol
#nevent1q…ezy9

2025-11-19 17:02:34 CET

As long as borrowing stress remains elevated, many asset prices are likely to remain choppy.
This is why the Fed is ending balance sheet reduction, but simply ending it is not necessarily sufficient. By 2026 they will likely go back to balance sheet expansion to put out this fire. Notably, it likely won't be very fast/large balance sheet expansion, but rather will be just enough to help settle this down, which makes a big difference.
https://blossom.primal.net/9ed881da37545f459d6a79d9aeaff6e1dfcfeb98ad450260b723c4126b964fbb.png

2025-11-16 17:33:02 CET

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You can store a private key at long distances. You just can’t actively participate in the network when that far away. And you can use custodians for transactions in the meantime, like a checking account.

2025-11-16 17:18:54 CET

What if humanity could find some alien tech and thus greatly accelerate its own technological progress? But what if that tech was hoarded by a small group of people?
Anyway, here's a review of Theft of Fire by Devon Eriksen. It's a 22nd century hard science space opera set in our solar system, written by a retired engineer. One of the more successful indie sci fi books in recent years. It's also one of the most successful books to have bitcoin in it; it's a small background role, but bitcoin is one of the leading types of money in the solar system.
Marcus, an indebted down-on-his-luck asteroid miner (and secretly, a bit of a space pirate as of late, given how bad things have gotten) finds his ship taken over by a wealthy genetically modified corporate heiress named Miranda. She has bought his defaulting debt contract that his ship collateralizes, and has gained admin access over his ship's computer. And she knows he is secretly a space pirate, which altogether gives her multiple types of leverage over him. She wants him to take her on a mission to the edge of the solar system to do something she won't say, involving unimaginable treasure, and he has little choice but to go along with it. Secretly, however, he plots how to regain control of his ship as they go, because he recognizes how much of a suicide mission it is because of who guards the space out there.
Pros:
-The hard scientific realism in the book is great. The type that basically takes an engineer to write. No wonder he has endorsements from like, the co-founder of Autocad and such. It's also a smooth read, all from Marcus's perspective.
-Although the story mostly takes place on one ship with a few characters, the worldbuilding is a solid start. I assume it'll be expanded later in the series. The technological situation and structure of society are very fleshed out relative to how little we actually see, given the tight setting. The world feels realistic and lived-in.
-High nostalgia factor. Fans of Firefly and Cowboy Bebop, and more recently the Expanse, and all sorts of classic sci fi literature over decades, will find a lot of references or similarities in a good way. The author is very well-read on the genre.
-The audiobook is pretty unique and great. Unlike most audiobooks, it has a full-cast production, meaning that each line of dialogue sounds like the person speaking it, rather than just one person reading a given chapter's narration and dialogue. I listened to this one rather than read it. You can only buy the audiobook on the author's website though, not Amazon/Audible. (Amazon/Audible have been kind of shitty to authors lately.) The other version of the book are available on Amazon.
-AI gets a really good treatment here, and the third main character, an AI, is my favorite character in the book.
-There's a lot of suspense throughout. Most of it is not really predictable how it's going to end since it doesn't follow a basic tropey structure. Even if you don't particularly like some of the characters (and indeed they're designed to be rather unlikable), you're likely to find yourself reading further to see what happens.
Cons:
-The book is about 500 pages, and I think 50+ could have been cut out of the middle to make it stronger. The dialogue between Marcus and Miranda gets rather repetitive after a while. And because of the limited setting (mostly on one ship), most of the worldbuilding is done via exposition by Marcus. So if readers hate "info dumps", they'll probably get annoyed at this. I personally don't really mind exposition as long as it's good, so this wasn't a dealbreaker for me (the "don't do exposition!" advice to authors is overdone in my view). I just think the middle could have used a trim. And although most of the book is not predictable, one aspect imo very much is, and that's where a lot of the repetition is.
-There are some unnerving aspects/scenes in it. I can't really say what they are without spoilers. Let's just say being in Marcus's head for 500 pages isn't, uh, my cup of tea. The book is self-aware about it, though. It's an intentional choice to have put these unnerving aspects in, so it's not a con per se but it's more something that will put off some readers. And it's a little more understandable by the end.
Overall, a unique story. And for the audiobook, I do think that over time more audiobooks will be made with this more complete type of cast. Audiobooks used to be very expensive and a small piece of the market, and only in recent years have they become very popular. As they become a bigger and bigger share of the fiction market up to some substantial percentage, I think more work will go into their quality and details.
https://blossom.primal.net/97ffcbd483eb7a8d4dcabe38c61846dc09bff96901e9abd7334c2d93f497c8c2.jpg

2025-11-10 22:38:36 CET

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Infrastructure to facilitate merchant acceptance is way more interesting than nation state bitcoin reserves, imo.
#nevent1q…yvv9

2025-11-09 16:57:57 CET

People have discussed how there's been a lot of bitcoin selling among 5+ year hodlers.
What often gets left out of the discussion is that over time, more and more hodlers naturally age into being 5+ year hodlers. So, some long-term hodlers are selling, but that's part of more and more people becoming long-term hodlers.
At 30%, the percentage of bitcoin that has been unmoved onchain for 5+ years is near its peak level.
https://blossom.primal.net/4ede1cd03c75e5c3403298c57166debd184ef950a5fb2c23d6f854f7b23bc4ff.png

2025-11-08 22:47:40 CET

Much of life comes down to trying to find the most workable point between two extremes.
We do that for a lot of things at the individual level, the institutional level, and the sovereign level. Even Aristotle wrote about this thousands of years ago with the Golden Mean (e.g. that the virtue of courage is somewhere between the extremes of cowardice and recklessness, and not necessarily right in the middle).
I think one of the hardest ones in today's age is the "tribal ignorance vs analysis paralysis" problem.
On on hand, people are very emotional decision-makers, and then they also are hardwired to form into groups. Agreeing with each other on one thing often then comes with an overlay of other things to form basically a tribal culture around it, as people start to adapt the mannerisms and ideas of those they already partially agree with. This is an effective shortcut in some cases, basically like ancestral/cultural knowledge rather than having to figure out everything from scratch ("this person seems like he's doing well, and he does/thinks these 25 things, so maybe I should do/think those 25 things too"), but has its obvious shortcomings. Social media algorithms further amplify it as well, connecting people of similar tribes together across space and helping them build echo chambers around themselves, often unknowingly.
On the other hand, human reason lets us apply logic and cold hard analysis to things. You can make an argument, and then spend equal time building up the strongest possible counterargument, fully understand your opponent's position in order to test your own position, see why a given thing often can have two rational people that disagree over it, etc. You can replace anecdotes with statistical analysis, you can compile tons of case studies, you can separate arguments themselves from the characteristics of those arguing them, etc. But then it often leads to a form of anti-tribalism which doesn't necessarily work well either: you become so aware of multiple perspectives that it's hard to commit to one. Your mind is so open that your brain falls out. You have so much data you barely know what to do with it. It plays a role in why academics are often not effective leaders, capable of getting a bunch of people to organize and achieve something specific.
Ideally, the right balance on important things is to do a lot of research, steelman the major opposition positions to understand them properly, but then find the right point to put it to rest and make a firm decision. Knowing where that point is can be the hard part, akin to finding Aristotle's Golden Mean.
That's the ideal to strive for, and likely impossible to reach most of the time. But there are still exercises one can do to get a bit closer to it.
If someone finds themselves more commonly in that tribal mindset, then forming a habit to remind oneself to research and steelman an opponent's argument, and separate the argument from the person making the argument, can go a long way toward making better decisions. It puts a brake on making too many emotional, overconfident decisions.
If someone finds themselves more commonly in the analysis paralysis mindset, then forming a habit to remind oneself to stop overanalyzing, go out and touch grass, pay attention to what your "gut" or "vibes" are telling you, and a make a decision you're willing to live with either way, can also go a long way. It puts an accelerator on your stalled condition.
The key part, then, is having self awareness to see which direction you tend to err in more often. That allows you to nudge your baseline toward that more optimal point, even if you never do quite reach it.

2025-11-03 23:33:14 CET

I realized the other day that Wikipedia has an article for me now.
It doesn't mention most of my work or Broken Money, but it does mention that nothing stops this train. 🤷
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyn_Alden
https://blossom.primal.net/6f6476b72a10b242e0d8098de29992693d6a47d06f38a6bdf379a58c3292d791.png

2025-10-27 17:30:14 CET

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https://blossom.primal.net/ca79aeff96525e400819c3351f820fb8016103487e85c8eaa6ba1f6d6c5b0ac9.png

2025-10-25 17:16:59 CEST

Russell Napier is one of my favorite macro analysts that I've learned a lot from over the years. Had the chance to meet him at a dinner the other day and discuss macro with him.
Him and I often have similar macro views and a focus on the topic of fiscal dominance and the financial repression that follows. But an area of historic difference is that he has viewed Bitcoin as unlikely to win. He has viewed it as something that governments will ultimately not allow to function once the gloves come off and financial repression gets real from the major powers.
So I discussed that with him, since while I acknowledge that threat as being real, I think Bitcoin is a solid foundation to push back with. But in addition, I also highlighted Nostr, and decentralized comms and social media in general.
Back in the 1930s-1940s when the US banned gold ownership and implemented yield curve control (hard core financial repression), information moved slowly. A lot of information was one-directional. It was hard for people to coordinate with each other at large scales.
But social media changes the game entirely. People can meme about it in real time. Government and central bank social media accounts can get ratio'd. Maybe one day they'll try to put a stop to that on centralized social media platforms, but that's why the decentralized protocols are so important. The tools are simply much better today, making that type of smooth and coordinated financial repression harder to do since all of their reasons can be dissected and dunked on in real time.

2025-10-05 22:32:31 CEST

In a couple of decades, what percentage of people do you think will be using centralized systems for money and communication vs decentralized ones?

2025-10-03 01:00:15 CEST

Government officials often use “security” as an excuse to take your rights. They’ll increasingly say they need to surveil and control your communications and payments to keep people secure.
How about starting with the streets and trains and such? If they were actually serious about security more-so than control, they’d make sure that basic stuff is sorted out first.

2025-09-23 23:02:22 CEST

Can anyone shill me on why Superman 2025 was a good movie?
I thought it was awful, but apparently I'm in the minority.
https://blossom.primal.net/1cca5fffe79d20d006c592eadd4b3cb022e914cf68d43df7f1b71386062b0f8f.png

2025-09-13 21:10:57 CEST

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Mood after taking a partial social media break.
#nevent1q…57jy

2025-08-25 03:28:52 CEST

There are those who say Bitcoin doesn't scale, and build blockchains with more throughput at the cost of more centralization (generally in the form of it being way harder to run a node), and then also point to Bitcoin as having low fees as a criticism.
The limiter it turns out, 16 years in, is not how many people *can* self-custody bitcoin. It's how many people *want* to.
Not everyone wants to deal with the technicalities of their own car, and not everyone wants to handle the technicalities of their own money. Quite few, in fact. It's always a subset for these types of things. People who are hardcore over their area of knowledge.
I leave my car details to pros down the street who I know the name of, and handle my money myself. There are those who handle their own cars but leave their money details to others.
Bitcoin currently processes about as many transactions per year as Fedwire, which handles $1 quadrillion worth of gross settlement volume per year for the US and for a good chunk of the world (in context, it's approximately 200 million $5 million average-sized transactions). That's actually a crazy stat. Bitcoin is casually this open-source global Fedwire with its own scarce units, and unlike Fedwire anyone can permissionlessly build on it or transact with it, for low fees despite it being a +$2T network. And if it gets clogged there are all sorts of permissionless layers above it with certain trade-offs.
Some people say paper bitcoin holders detract from the network. I say the opposite- their willingness to hold IOUs helps add to price stability and network size without clogging it. That leaves more room for cypherpunks to develop with, and work on. And those who finance them.
This has been foreseen as early as Hal Finney in 2010, when he wrote about bitcoin banks (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2500.msg34211#msg34211).
We live in a sweet spot by most metrics. A golden age. Historically, so few recognize it when they have it so good.
Bitcoin is big enough to be of interest to many, and yet is still niche enough in a global context to have low base-layer fees. Suitcoiners are happy to add to its scale, and yet cypherpunks can also build, and users can transact right on the base layer, and move to Lightning and Ark and BitVM and Liquid and any sort of trade-off they want if fees get high.
And you're bearish, anon?
The real battle, though, is the ongoing government crackdown on privacy.
Bitcoin itself is in a pretty good technical place. It's a great tool. Certain conservative low-risk covenants might make it better, but even the existing design space is great and still expanding.
The US, Europe, and China cracking down on privacy is the threat. The headwind. And they're all expected. They're not surprising, but they're indeed fierce. That's the real battle- for the hearts and minds of people to embrace why privacy and permissionlessness are good traits.
In this ongoing funny contrast between podcasters and developers, that's the ideal role of podcasters- to spread the good news of what developers have built. To educate people. To tell them what's now possible thanks to developers. To articulate why cypherpunk values are good to a broad non-technical audience. That's where the overlap is. In overly-simplistic D&D terms, those with high CHA try to spread the work of those with high INT. It's not so much that "governments" are the problem. Governments often at least partially represent the people. If you convince a lot of people that privacy and sound money are good things, then you defang the problem. And you also challenge them legally in jurisdictions where it makes sense.
The technical foundation is good. The development of the past 16 years has been amazing, and it has brought us here. The scale has reached institutions, which is expected, not a threat. The actual threat is not treasury companies; it's anti-privacy regulations by governments. And more deeply that's a social issue, given how many people accept it. A vast amount of people believe privacy is only important for bad people who have something to hide. There's a ton of education work to do on it. Privacy is good. It's the default. But most people don't realize it when it comes to money.
We're winning. For 16 years ya'll have been amazing. But we'll need another 16 years more. More developers. More podcasters. All of it. We're a $2 trillion in market cap entering into a global fiat network of hundreds of trillions. And as their own institutions melt down from their own failures, their own top-heavy demographics and false promises, they will look for scapegoats. They will look toward those who are winning, and say they are the enemy.
When interviewers ask my price predictions, I tend to be conservative. That's mostly a liquidity assessment, and a rotation from OGs to new buyers. Price growth does take time.
But under that surface, I also have the benefit of being a general partner at among the largest bitcoin-only venture funds. I see what people are building, and I'm bullish. And for those who are working on stuff that doesn't align with profit, entities like the HRF and OpenSats are doing great work. Across all of the options, people are building great things.
I couldn't be more bullish on the ecosystem that's in place. All of you.
Let's go.
Good evening.

2025-08-06 17:17:31 CEST

A big conservative political podcast (seven figure YouTube subscribers) asked me to come on and talk about bitcoin (sat next to them on the plane out of the May conference in Vegas, which sparked their request).
Last week when I went on the show, they decided to emphasize a talking point of why tariffs are great and will usher in a golden age, and some questions about bitcoin.
When asked about tariffs, I generally disagreed that they would be bullish or usher in a new golden age, mentioned that the past three months of data doesn’t show a decline in import prices which means it has been a tax on Americans, and eventually we moved to discussing bitcoin.
They ended up not airing the talk, and instead ran the clip with someone else who agreed on the tariff points. Waste of time, basically.
It’s a reminder that a big percentage of what you see in heavily politicized media is about narrative framing and talking points rather than genuine attempts to discuss or explore. It reminded me why I normally decline to go on political shows; I had only agreed to this one because the catalyst was in person and so the agreeable side of me was like “sure, why not”.
Well, that’s why not.

2025-07-26 15:57:34 CEST

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It's a healthy bull market, imo. And now that bitcoin is a $2T+ network, it's normal for it to move like a more liquid asset should.
And it's still up like 8x from the 2022 low. The S&P 500 is up less than 2x.
#nevent1q…z2xe

2025-07-20 18:52:57 CEST

With every year that goes by, I’m kind of low-key surprised that North Korea is still a thing.
Third generation dictator, hasn’t been revolution’ed yet, basically the most closed out country in the world.

2025-07-20 17:05:20 CEST

The latest altcoin narrative is ironically altcoin treasury companies.
Ethereum, Solana, Doge, Litecoin, etc treasury companies.
Just like past cycles, they’ll have their day in the sun and then roll over into obscurity again.

2025-07-12 16:52:26 CEST

I’ve crossed 100k followers.
So, I want to give a heartfelt thanks to all the bots that made that possible. 😂

2025-07-10 16:33:01 CEST

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I think the combo of both is important.
Meme-only arguments lack depth.
I view memes as signposts and long-form articles/discussions as useful deep dives. The memes help point to which longer things are worth taking the time to consume.

2025-07-08 15:17:03 CEST

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/08/ego-death-100-million-bitcoin-companies

2025-07-05 02:05:51 CEST

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Winning power is hard.
Stepping away from power is legendary.
#nevent1q…wzjn

2025-07-02 03:58:15 CEST

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In my sci fi novel draft (currently in editing), this is a topic that comes up a handful of times.
Much of the social media in the book is key-based, and some analysts are dealing with overwhelming AI slop and examine social graphs and such.
I don't portray it as a silver bullet (very expensive misinformation attacks like the ones they are dealing with in the book can exploit existing social graphs and build new ones), but the analysts nonetheless use social graphs to fish out some of the drowned truths.
#nevent1q…4x8q

2025-06-27 20:04:17 CEST

I made a short recap of the deficit situation. My first ever video meme. Enjoy:
https://www.captiongenerator.com/v/2310386/recap-of-the-deficit-situation

2025-06-22 02:08:12 CEST

Just finished reading a book, then went online and saw that the U.S. bombed Iran’s major nuclear sites.

2025-06-21 23:00:28 CEST

Fresh out of the peak 1990s, Millennials and Zoomers navigating life like:
https://blossom.primal.net/ea87ab570536fa4fcc0c7a8cdba4d36b18cc4be1984528891cd010db52dcfae1.png

2025-06-21 14:49:14 CEST

Humans figured out how to harness hydrocarbons, electricity, and telecommunications in the1800s, leading to an unprecedented growth in technology and population by the time all of that got some momentum in the 1900s.
And then economists were like “wow, look how beneficial fiat currency was for humanity.”

2025-06-20 04:04:14 CEST

Hey, remember that time Elon Musk said that President Trump hasn’t released the Epstein files because Trump is in them, and then deleted the tweet?
https://blossom.primal.net/c44d2fed9bf19d402609de810ebe300a6927c3cc139fefc6d81126b8055ab115.jpg

2025-06-19 00:32:12 CEST

Apparently JD Vance made a Blue Sky account and got banned/suspended within like 20 minutes.

2025-06-11 21:30:43 CEST

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Gm.
The attempt to cut the fiscal deficit was largely performative.
The 2024 GOP platform explicitly said they wouldn’t cut Social Security or Medicare. They also said they wanted to modernize the military, so that makes cuts there unlikely (and every Congress person will fight for DoD pork in their district). Veterans benefits are not easy to cut (should have thought of that before sending so many of them abroad for frivolous reasons; now we owe them). High interest expense is the result of accumulated debt. Those are the big spending areas. All hard to cut.
That leaves the little areas. The small slices on the pie chart. Those areas were where DOGE was digging around in when the Big Beautiful Bill came and began slowly running them over. Even before the bill, federal spending has been higher here in the first half of 2025 than the first half of 2024.
Nothing stops this train. Most of the debates are just about whether to toggle it 10% faster or slower, basically.
#nevent1q…68vv

2025-06-11 05:39:50 CEST

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What is something that is generally regarded as great, but you don’t like it?
#asknostr
https://blossom.primal.net/fd433259370345c78104ff4cbd6bcec81877e8feaabda9361dd9f3a0e56a38b2.jpg
#nevent1q…nrra