Nostr notes by Elch

#naddr1qq…zjqg

2026-04-02T18:48:48Z

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There are conversations that entertain, conversations that inform, and then there are conversations that rearrange the furniture inside your head. My episode with John (nprofile…0h78) Burnett was the third kind.

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John is an entrepreneur who has built and operated ventures across Germany, Czech Republic, Ireland, Costa Rica, and the United States. But what drew me to him had nothing to do with his résumé. I first caught him on a panel at Bitcoin Day Naples conference, with him, John Tarantino and Chris Sullivan, and they were doing the thing that very few people in Bitcoin circles are willing to do: trying to wake people up to the full scope of what's happening, not just the financial piece. I watched it on YouTube and thought, I need to have this man on my show.

What follows are 8 things that stayed with me. It’s like the residue of a great conversation with a good, smart friend that I'm still processing.

1. The financial system is an energy confiscation machine

This reframe hit me hard because of how precisely John articulated it. The financial system was never designed to manage money. It was designed to siphon off human energy and channel it upward into the control structure. Central banking, the fifth plank of the Communist Manifesto was deliberately erected rather than a natural societal evolution. The money printing is the source of the spring. Everything downstream: big tech, technocracy, the medical industrial complex, feeds off it.

Bitcoin's relevance in this framing is completely different from the price conversation. An absolutely scarce, unseizable form of money is a plug for the hole through which the control structure feeds itself. That's it. That's the whole thing. Looking at it as a better retirement account, or focusing only on it’s “number go up” attribute, is missing the point. Bitcoin is a barrier against the siphoning of human energy over time.

2. You are collateral. There's a CUSIP to prove it.

At birth, the state registers you. A birth certificate is issued. A trust is opened in your all-caps name; not your name, but a legal entity assigned to you. And that entity is bonded and securitized. John knows this from experience: he went through a decade-long commercial legal dispute and, through a contact, was able to look up his own case number in a CUSIP database — the Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures numbering system used for bonds and securities. His case was sitting in a large fund, pre-packaged and pre-determined.

Most people hear this and reach for the conspiracy theory label. That reflex is part of the design. The moment you call it crazy, you stop looking. But the mechanisms are visible if you know where to look… in municipal bond markets, in CUSIP databases, in the all-caps name on your driver's license that is not, legally, you.

3. Legal is not lawful. Courts are casinos.

This is where John spent a lot of time, and it's where I had the most to absorb.

We live, he argues, not under natural law or common law, but under Admiralty maritime law — the law of the sea — which is entirely commercial. Everything is contract. Everything is consent. We just don't know we're consenting, because we were never taught the language.

The legal system operates like a casino. Walk in without knowing that, and you will never understand why the house always wins. Attorneys are casino ushers: they can guide you between games, help you navigate, argue on your behalf within the rules — but they cannot go against the casino. They work for it. And cases, in large jurisdictions, are often securitized at the front end, with outcomes maneuvered to protect bond values. This is wild. When I got this I was really flabbergasted, and that doesn’t happen often. Justice is really just the branding, while commerce is the function.

The distinction that keeps ringing in my ears: legal is not lawful. A word in the Oxford Dictionary does not mean the same thing as that word in Black's Law Dictionary. "Information," in legal language, means evidence of a crime. We are walking through a foreign country, reading none of the signs, consenting to everything, and calling it freedom.

4. False history and the erasure of what we were

Before the conversation got to money and law, it started somewhere much older: with history itself.

John's working thesis — and he's careful not to claim certainty — is that most of what we know about the past is constructed. He recommended this YouTube channel to explore some of this false history we’ve been fed. Perhaps 95% of it false or heavily manipulated. The technological level of prior civilizations was likely far higher than the narrative admits. The capitol buildings across the United States are geometrically perfect, built on ley lines, structurally improbable given the official timeline. The world's fair cities — Omaha, Saint Louis, Chicago — looked like Rome. The structures were already there. The fairs were held in them. Then the narrative was written.

Tesla's work on free energy was suppressed. Ether — the fifth element, the medium through which energy propagates — was on the periodic table and then quietly removed in the early 1900s. The scarcity narrative that underpins the entire financial extraction system depends on people believing energy is finite. It isn't. The manufactured scarcity is the lie that makes the extraction feel necessary.

At this point when we talked about free energy, I recommended this great documentary – Thrive 2 – by Foster & Kimberly Gamble, which explores free energy and related breakthrough innovations from around the world.

5. The digital panopticon is the old control structure with a software upgrade

CBDCs are essentially the existing fiat system digitized for frictionless, algorithmic herd management. Digital identity frameworks are the consent-and-control legal structure moving to a checkbox interface, rather than novel tools of surveillance, unlike what most people think. Technocracy isn't a departure from what came before. It's the same machine running a faster processor.

John lived in East Berlin and used to take people to the Stasi Museum. He'd show them the hidden cameras, the microphones wired into heaters, the enormous operational apparatus required to surveil the East German population. The Stasi had to work for it. Today, he said, we buy the devices ourselves, carry them everywhere, and pay monthly subscriptions for the privilege. The phone in your pocket knows your GPS coordinates, altitude, velocity, and can be activated remotely, and we chose it because it was convenient.

Convenience is the most effective control mechanism of the digital age. John's framing: in digital privacy, you can only have two of three: privacy, security, or convenience. Reject convenience. That's more than a Luddite impulse, it’s the first act of digital self-defense available to everyone right now.

John offers a free, open-source, digital privacy course for anyone who wants to take the first steps into digital sovereignty. I see it as a great service to the community, you can take this course, and help spread the word about it: https://digitalprivacysessions.io/ - It includes short videos and is accessible to non-technical people, focused on practical navigation.

6. Bitcoin can be co-opted at the edges even if the protocol is untouchable

Here’s John’s take on how bitcoin can be co-opted: The Bitcoin protocol is not hijacked, and is not actually what's under attack. The implementations are; ETFs, KYC exchanges, treasury company stocks, spam flooding the chain, compromised nodes, noise campaigns around protocol debates… these are all attacks on sovereign Bitcoin without touching a single line of code. If you hold Bitcoin through an ETF, you don't hold Bitcoin. If you bought through a KYC exchange, they have your identity, and if the system needs to flip a switch, they can. The goal is to understand how to operate in and out of that network outside the fiat system, in a peer-to-peer, non-KYC, self-custodied manner, with a node you run yourself.

As John put it: the only thing that compares to allodial title, supreme, unencumbered claim to something, that any of us can achieve right now is bitcoin. When you hold your own keys, nobody can grant it and nobody can take it. That's the point.

7. The pillars of sovereignty

Across the full conversation, John laid out what he calls the pillars of sovereignty: the categories of life where decentralized personal action creates actual freedom. They aren't complicated, but they require commitment:

Sovereign money. Hold your own keys. Understand the difference between the protocol and its implementations. Learn to transact peer-to-peer. He mentioned tools such as Vexl and Bisq.

Lawful knowledge. Understand the difference between legal and lawful. Learn how consent operates. Don't let the casino manage you without knowing you're in one.

Digital privacy. Sovereign computing. Learn to navigate the digital jungle. Take John’s free beginner's course, or educate yourself otherwise on this critical topic.

Food and medicine independence. Decouple from centralized supply chains. Grow food. Build community.

Genuine community. The solution to a centralized problem is a decentralized one. Feed yourself, feed your family, trade locally, and the world feeds itself.

None of this requires changing the world. John's exact words: “all we have to do is change our own lives. The world reflects that back”, and I couldn’t agree more.

8. Fear is the operating system. Consciousness is the threat.

The deepest thing John said, and the thing I think about most, is this: the control structure's most fundamental lie is that consciousness is produced by the physical. Turn that around, and everything changes. If consciousness creates the physical, if we are energetic co-creators rather than biological accidents, then the immense effort poured into keeping humans small, afraid, and distracted makes complete sense. A population living in fear is a manageable population. A population that knows its own power is ungovernable.

Side note on this topic: I highly recommend to pull on the (amazing) thread represented in the work of Federico Faggin, my readers already know him I believe, and I’m currently reading his second great book – “Irreducible”.

The ontological shock, that first shattering of the worldview you were handed, is the hardest part. John calls it the scary part. A lot of people get stuck there, in what I'd call the black pill, or the “dark night of the soul” phase. But past it is something else entirely: the recognition that the control structure is fragile, that we are far more powerful than we've been allowed to believe, and that abundance is the natural state. Scarcity is the manufactured lie.

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I left this conversation more convinced than ever that the sovereign individual, the one Bitcoin was always pointing toward, is not primarily a financial project. The financial piece matters enormously, but the full picture is legal literacy, digital privacy, food sovereignty, genuine community, and the internal work of escaping the fear program.

Every person who does that work is one more pixel on the screen shifting toward a different picture.

--> Listen to the full episode with John Burnett on YoureTheVoice (nprofile…jf2l) here.

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2026-04-02T18:27:04Z

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TL;DR

A macro analyst who's been calling the debt crisis since 2022 just compared February 2026 to July 2007.

That's not a random comparison. In July 2007, two Bear Stearns hedge funds collapsed. Nobody panicked. Eight months later, Bear Stearns itself was gone. Six months after that, Lehman went down and the entire financial system nearly collapsed.

He thinks we're in that same window right now. And he has four years of receipts.

"February 2026 Was the Equivalent of July 2007"

Luke Gromen runs FFTT, a macro research firm. He's been appearing on podcasts since 2022 laying out a thesis about the end of the sovereign debt system. What Bitcoin Did. TFTC. Forward Guidance. The Peter McCormack Show. This Week in Bitcoin.

His track record on the big calls speaks for itself: - Gold: ~$1,920/oz in March 2022. Hit an all-time high of $5,595 in January 2026. Up 190%. - Bitcoin: ~$40,000 when he called it a hedge against the money printer. Hit $126,000 in October 2025. - 10-year Treasury yield: under 2.5% when he warned bond markets were out of options. Spiked past 5% eighteen months later.

He's missed on timing and magnitude in places. But the direction on the big ones has been right.

Now for his latest prediction - a hammer.

In March 2026, on The Peter McCormack Show, he said this:

"I think we're gonna look back in six months, twelve months, eighteen, twenty four months time, and we're gonna say February 2026 was the equivalent of July 2007."

That's a big claim. But Luke backs it up with a very strong track record. So let's take a look.

The Receipts (2022-2025)

March 2022 (TFTC, "The Popping of the 100 Year Sovereign Debt Bubble"): Gromen says the sovereign debt bubble, 100 years in the making, "may be beginning to pop." The language is conditional. He's building the framework.

September 2023 (Forward Guidance): He calls it: the bond market will panic unless oil prices drop or the dollar weakens. Within weeks, 10-year Treasury yields spike to levels not seen in over a decade.

November 2023 (What Bitcoin Did): He says the quiet part out loud. Despite the hawkish talk, money printing will resume. The debt levels make it inevitable. By late 2024, the Fed had begun cutting rates.

October 2025 (What Bitcoin Did, "Has the Debt Spiral Started?"): He lays out the binary. Default or print. "When you do dumb stuff with borrowed money for 40 years... you eventually get to this point."

October 2025 (TFTC, "China's Rare Earth Dominance and the End of the Dollar"): Central banks are visibly rotating from Treasuries to gold reserves. Gold hits multiple all-time highs throughout 2025.

December 2025 (This Week in Bitcoin, "The Perfect FUD"): Gromen sells a large portion of his Bitcoin. The community is shocked. His reasoning: tariffs will strengthen the dollar short term, and a strong dollar blows up everything.

His language shifted from "may be beginning to pop" in 2022 to "the only debate is how fast" in 2026. That's not a pundit changing his mind. That's an analyst watching his thesis play out.

What He's Saying Now

"China Was the First AI"

On What Bitcoin Did in October 2025, Gromen draws a parallel that cuts deep. What AI is about to do to white-collar workers is exactly what offshoring did to blue-collar workers when China entered the WTO.

"My mental model for all of this is what happened to the U.S. Rust Belt when China went into the WTO. China was the first AI."

"Everything I'm hearing from people on what AI is going to do to white collar is exactly what I heard from blue collar guys. I used to golf every Saturday."

His late father-in-law was a Teamster union official in Cleveland. He watched the Rust Belt hollowing happen firsthand. Now he sees the same pattern starting in office towers.

AI drives productivity without creating jobs. In a system built on debt, that's fatal. White-collar workers represent 50% of the tax base. As those wages deflate, the bottom Jenga blocks get pulled from government revenue. He calls it a "mathematical bookkeeping guarantee to blow up the entire freaking system."

The Dollar Is 85% Overvalued

On TFTC in October 2025 ("China's Rare Earth Dominance"), Gromen lays out an energy argument that's hard to argue with:

"A gig of electricity is a gig of electricity. It's not like there's some special yuan gig of electricity that gets them more or less power. They abide by the same physics. So if their gig of electricity costs 85% cheaper than ours, you know what that tells me?"

"A dollar's 85% overvalued against the yuan."

"It's that simple. That's where this movie's going."

If energy is the fundamental input and China's energy costs 85% less, the dollar isn't just overvalued. It's structurally mispriced. And that mispricing has to resolve one way or another.

The Only Way Out

By February 2026, on The Peter McCormack Show ("The Collision of AI and Debt"), everything conditional in his framework has become mathematical.

The US is in what Gromen calls Zugzwang. Every move makes things worse. Raise rates to save the bond market? You choke off investment for the industrial and AI race. Devalue the dollar? You spark inflation. There's no clean move.

His prescription: a one-time snap devaluation of the dollar against gold. He gives a 2-5 year window (2026-2031). Without it, the Treasury market breaks in 7-10 days under any serious stress.

He wants a "great communicator" like FDR to level with the public. Apologize for offshoring the industrial base. Apologize for financializing the economy. Then launch a bipartisan 10-20 year reshoring effort.

The difference between now and 2008? Federal debt-to-GDP was 60% then. It's over 120% now. There's no balance sheet room for bailouts.

"And they'll print the money. I don't know how they're going to get there. To me, the only debate is how fast."

How I Tracked All of This

These clips came from five different podcasts over four years. No single listener caught all of them.

I used PullThatUpJamie.ai to search across all of them at once. Jamie is a podcast search and context engine. Type in a person, a topic, and a time range, and it finds the exact moments, with timestamps and clips you can verify.

Google gives you the latest take. Jamie gives you the evolution.

Jamie is open to humans and agents alike. Explore it yourself at pullthatupjamie.ai/app. Building something? Point your agent at pullthatupjamie.ai/llms.txt.

Try it:

"Luke Gromen Treasury crisis"

"Luke Gromen gold devaluation"

"Luke Gromen AI deflation"

Gromen is just one guest across one corner of the index. Jamie covers 170+ feeds from Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman to Huberman Lab, All-In, Planet Money, Tim Ferriss, Bloomberg, and dozens more. Pick a person. Pick a topic. Watch how their thinking evolves.

→ pullthatupjamie.ai

FAQ

Who is Luke Gromen?

Luke Gromen is the founder of FFTT, a macro research firm focused on sovereign debt, energy markets, and monetary policy. He's a frequent guest on What Bitcoin Did, TFTC, Forward Guidance, and The Peter McCormack Show.

What is Luke Gromen's main prediction for 2026?

Gromen believes the US will be forced into a one-time devaluation of the dollar against gold within 2-5 years (2026-2031). He views this as the only viable alternative to a Treasury market collapse and compares the current moment to July 2007, months before the global financial crisis.

Has Luke Gromen been right about his predictions?

Several calls have played out directionally. He predicted bond market stress in 2023 (it happened), money printing resumption (the Fed pivoted), and a structural shift from Treasuries to gold (gold hit all-time highs in 2025). His larger thesis about a forced dollar devaluation remains forward-looking.

What is Luke Gromen saying about AI and the economy?

Gromen argues AI-driven deflation will destroy the debt-based financial system. He compares it to what happened to the Rust Belt when China entered the WTO: productivity gains without proportional job creation. White-collar wage deflation erodes the tax base, which he calls a "mathematical bookkeeping guarantee" to blow up the system.

Why does Luke Gromen say the dollar is overvalued?

Gromen points to energy costs. If a gigawatt of electricity costs 85% less in China than in the US, and energy is the fundamental economic input, then the dollar is 85% overvalued against the yuan. He argues this structural mispricing must eventually resolve.

What is Luke Gromen saying about gold?

Gromen sees a one-time snap devaluation of the dollar against gold as the only viable policy exit. Central banks are already rotating reserves from Treasuries to gold. Without this devaluation, he believes the Treasury market would break within 7-10 days under serious stress.

What is PullThatUpJamie.ai?

PullThatUpJamie.ai is a podcast search and context engine that lets you search across episodes by person, topic, and time range using semantic search. It returns exact moments with timestamps and shareable clips. Humans can use it at pullthatupjamie.ai/app. AI agents can access it at pullthatupjamie.ai/llms.txt.

Why use Jamie instead of searching podcasts on Google or YouTube?

Google and YouTube search episode titles and show notes. Jamie searches the actual words people said. Its semantic index covers 179+ podcast feeds, roughly 12,000 episodes, and 2.5 million transcript paragraphs. You can filter by person, topic, and date range to find the exact moment someone said something, not just the episode it might be in. That's the difference between finding an episode titled "Treasury Crisis" and finding the 45-second window where Gromen says the dollar is 85% overvalued.

How much does Jamie cost?

Jamie has a free tier for browsing and basic search. The paid tier uses Lightning (L402) prepaid credits: 500 sats (roughly $0.33) covers over 150 searches. That includes semantic search, research session creation, clip generation with burned-in subtitles, and on-demand transcription of episodes not yet in the index. No subscription required.

Can AI agents use Jamie?

Yes. Jamie is built for both humans and agents. The full API is documented at pullthatupjamie.ai/llms.txt with an OpenAPI spec for machine integration. Agents can search transcripts, build research sessions, generate clips, and submit episodes for on-demand transcription. Auth for agents uses the same L402 Lightning protocol, so agents can pay per request without accounts or API keys.

Can I track other experts the same way?

Yes. Jamie's index spans hundreds of podcast feeds across macro, tech, health, politics, history, and culture. And it grows by the day. The same approach used in this piece works for any guest, from Peter Attia's longevity research to Scott Galloway's market takes to Andrew Huberman's protocol evolution. Search by name and topic to see how any thinker's views have changed across appearances.

Join me at bitcoin++ gets paid! 1. Oktober 2026 um 15:00 - ...

2026-04-02T16:06:49Z

Join me at bitcoin++ gets paid!

1. Oktober 2026 um 15:00 - 23:00GMT+2
w3 Hub, Berlin, Germany , Berlin, Germany

Join us in Berlin for our three day hacking and building showcase of payments on bitcoin

More info: https://www.btcplusplus.dev/conf/berlin26

https:...

https://plektos.app/event/naddr1qvzqqqrukvpzqejwqu87yhnkmh8054yjnsx7gtk26zqspy6s0cjdu33zqagumda2qqvrvwfnv9jxvcnzxfsnyvp4vvmk2wpjvvunwvenxu08apde

GM Juraj #nevent1q…0rhp

2026-04-02T06:24:56Z

GM Juraj

quoting
nevent1q…0rhp
GM!

Today I realized that people in the walled gardens can't even say GM anymore. Everything breaking for them.

So GM to you all!

Trump is a psychopath #nevent1q…7430

2026-04-02T06:22:46Z

Trump is a psychopath

quoting
nevent1q…7430
Trump Says US Will Hit Iran Hard in Next 2-3 Weeks, Threatens ‘Stone Age’

From Sputnik

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States will intensify strikes on Iran over the next two to three weeks and threatened to bring the country to the “Stone Ages.”

Apr 1st 2026 11:59pm EDT

Source Link: https://sputnikglobe.com/20260402/trump-says-us-will-hit-iran-hard-in-next-2-3-weeks-threatens-stone-age-1123931628.html

Share, promote & comment with Nostr: https://dissentwatch.com/boost/?boost_post_id=1121076

#naddr1qq…tccr

2026-04-02T06:18:56Z

quoting
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Backstory

Around 3 years ago, on March 18 2023, I published the first public draft of a rather ambitious metaphysical piece called "Unified Creation Energy Theory" (U-C-E-T, get it?)

I was traveling in Cambodia at the time, kind of lost, but had a clear understanding of how the physical/material part of reality was being used to drain us of energy and agency. I had a far-fetched idea of making a self-made documentary about "The Kingdom of Death" i.e. how this spiritual warfare was being waged against us, against life. I was already filming some footage for it, when a more complete picture was starting to form in my head as well as in the notes in my journal. I entered a state which I can only describe as divine inspiration, or perhaps madness, and worked to write it all down. I also made sure to publish it ASAP because I figured that if this was as accurate as I thought it was, doing so was of utmost importance.

Thinking that I was onto something big, I sent the article to a whole bunch of spiritually/philosophically inclined bitcoiners as well as podcasters. Most ignored me. However, some took the time to read it and/or even give feedback. In the 3 years since, many others have joined those ranks. Here's what some people have said about it:

"Wow. This a very powerful piece pulling together a lot of disciplines. For those with a philosophical bent I think you will be blown away. " — Lawrence Lepard (npub1d3f…r4xv)

"Totally on the same page, my friend." — RedTailHawk (npub1z4y…zpx6)

"Dude save some knowledge for the rest of us! 😅 Great read! Fantastic thinking! 🤙" — michaeldunworth (npub1n40…25h6)

"Have not experienced that kind of depth since diving with whale sharks off of Holbox. Thank you for sharing." — JW on X

"I want to smoke what that dude is smoking. Seems like a surreal experience." — some guy on Reddit

This revision was made in April of the same year (added figures, edited and added some text - page count went up by 50% from 14 to 21). I intend to finally update this piece again this year, but wanted the 2023 version to also remain accessible - personally, I like how spontaneous and unhinged this is. In the years since, I've picked up some additional thoughts to add, and perhaps a more grounded perspective, but that also hints at a possibility of the piece becoming more academic and less spiritual in nature. We'll see. In any case, here is the 2023 draft.

BEWARE! This is a fairly long text at 7000+ words. If you prefer, you can download the PDF, print it out and read it on paper (or have AI narrate the text to you or whatever).

Unified Creation Energy Theory

Subtitle: GOD IS ENERGY; EXPRESSED IN LAYERS

2nd published draft. Revised 22.04.2023

Introduction

Real discipline, like real love, does not stem from rules. It stems from truths. Rules must be enforced, thus there is resistance and energy expenditure. Truths just are. Spirituality is the same as religion. Religion is just a holistic way of experiencing reality. That's all it is. There is nothing supernatural to it. Real religion, or real spirituality, is supposed to be a description of the truth. Right now, all we have are descriptions of rules. It is impossible to efficiently convey truth or discipline through a system of rules.

The system has created division without us even realizing it's division. Religion and money are the same. Religion and science are the same. Education and morality are the same. Love and ethics are the same. There is no division. There is no fragmentation. We are all one.

Unified Creation Energy Theory is my attempt at putting together ideas from all fields of science and religion into a concise, cohesive description of the very nature of reality. Which is, in short, the science of energy.

More precisely: energy, expressed in layers.

The whole of our reality is based on energies. We are harnessing, directing, conserving and converting our energies. We, along with the rest of reality, are no more than energy fields ourselves. The whole universe is frequency, vibration. That means it's all music. That means it's all dance. Embrace it.

Precursors

There are a few precursors one should know before being able to fully grasp the essence, or the magnitude of this theory. "Know" as in having experienced these things to be true. To know it, and be fully aware of it, one must experience it. Because believing isn't enough. Studying about it isn't enough. One must know it, and knowledge comes from experience.

The precursors are as follows:

We are all just different expressions of the same underlying energy, so we are all one. You are the world and the world is you, and there is no past nor future, there is only now.

All life is precious and humans are the pinnacle of nature, of life, thus most precious. Through us, this energy can experience itself most fully.

In the absence of light, there is darkness. In the absence of vastness, there is nothingness. In the absence of life, there is death.

Do you know these things? Have you experienced them? If not, try to think why not? Have you even explored these questions? Questions of values, questions of who you are, on the absolute base layer. Not what people think you are or who you want to be. And not by reading books, or listening to gurus, or following programs. But by real, honest, inquisitive look inside?

Also, before I get into it, I'd like you to not take my words too literally. After all, they are just that, no more than words. Even though I do my best to articulate myself as accurately and elegantly as I can, mere words can never capture the true nature of reality. Again, it must be experienced. Besides the centrally controlled nature that doomed every religious institution, it was the taking words too literally (coupled with bending their meanings, of course), that most probably caused many of the distortions prevalent in religious/spiritual teachings today. All religions, all sciences; are stories. The words are mere symbols. As are the numbers, in math, for example. What these symbols are meant to do is convey the underlying truth as accurately as possible. Meanings of the words change. People define things differently. This is why I bring up parallels from religious stories, modern science or culture in general, and also use different words that describe the same principles. To embrace the symbolism. And also, to point out that once you understand the dynamics of what I'm trying to describe in one field of study, you can see the same mechanics working on all layers of human existence, thus (hopefully) giving you a much better grasp over reality itself.

The symbolism both conceals and reveals itself through language. Take the word UNIVERSE. U-N-I VERSE as in "you and I converse" and "verse" as in a story, so could also be said as "our story." God and good. Devil and evil. With all that in mind, let's get into the details.

Energy, Expressed in Layers

The way this reality works is all based on energy. The flow of energy, the conservation of energy, the conversion of energy from one form into another. We, along with the rest of reality, are no more than energy fields ourselves. These energy fields exist within layers. There are essentially 3 layers to reality as we perceive it.

The first is Unity. Where everything is one, and everything is infinite. It is both the vastness and the nothingness; life and death. It is everything.

Figure 0. Unity / The Vastness / The Nothingness

The second is *Duality.. On this layer, everything is divided into two. Feminine and masculine. Life and death. Heaven and Hell. The Yin and Yang symbol is a great visual representation of this idea. Not just because it represents the duality, but also because it shows duality in a wrapper of Unity (the whole circle), as well as that there are parts of the other side in each (the little white circle of Yang in the Yin side and vice versa), and also that there is a wave, a frequency, a movement between those two sides (the invisible line that separates the Yin and the Yang).

Figure 1. Duality

The third is Trinity. As you may have guessed, on this layer, everything is divided into three. The body, mind and soul. The physical, mental and spiritual (the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost). While they work in unison, the order is important, because one lays the foundation for the next. One is a precondition for the next. There cannot be the Son without the Father. There cannot be the mind without the body. Thus, there cannot be mental or spiritual fitness without physical fitness. Just like, according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there cannot be love, self-esteem or self-actualization unless the physiological and safety needs are met (man's core tasks of protecting and providing).

Figure 2. Trinity

If we were to stack those visual representations atop of each other, we would come up with something like this:

Figure 3: Duality & Trinity Layered

The Story of Creation

In the beginning, there was... you guessed it, energy. Primordial energy. The Source. Big Bang. God. The Universe. Brahma. The egg. The chicken. Whatever you wanna call it, there was this something, something that can also simply be called energy. (Where did this energy originate from, that I do not yet know). Some say this energy is infinite. I have not verified that claim, nor am I sure how to do so, but if we assume that time and space are infinite, then we can very well assume that this energy is infinite.

This energy dispersed itself into the cosmos, to experience itself. From there, reality as we know it, was created. But it was a gradual process. Everything is energy, which is frequency. So at first, as this construct was being "built" and rules were being made, the nature of reality was much more fluid, much more malleable compared to what it is today. That's why there are so many old stories and depictions of things that don't make sense looking at them from a modern perspective, stories of half-men, half-animals, stories of "miracles," stories of literal Gods walking amongst men on Earth. Sure, a lot of it is merely symbolic. A lot of it is probably artistic exaggeration on part of the ones telling the stories. Facts getting mixed up with rumors, with half-truths, etc. But there are fundamental truths presented in those stories, truths that held true at the time, because that's how the world worked, because that's how we all agreed upon. And yes, though much more ossified in terms of the rules, the vibratory nature of it all still deems it a high level of elasticity. Quantum physics and neuroscience are exploring these aspects of reality quite thoroughly these days.

So through the act of creation, or to be more exact, through converting this primordial energy continually from one form to another, gradually, we along with all the other inhabitants on this planet built up this world to look exactly the way it looks today. All of human flourishing has stemmed from us being able to harness more energy, or to direct and change the forms of energy more efficiently with the least amount of dissipation. Fire, wheel, combustion engine, microprocessors, etc. are all just ways of directing and changing the forms of energy. As are thoughts, words, squats. As is eating a burger. Because of the physicality of this world, most of these processes include a certain amount of friction, or energy loss. So reducing the friction, the energy wasted, or in other words, simply becoming more efficient in how much of the energy we are actually able to use is an important part of this equation (Ayurvedic approach to food and cooking is based on these principles, for example). The first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form. This means that any energy leaks in our systems are inherently to our detriment.

Universe, Unity and Its Expressions

The fact that the Universe is energy and that energy is God is expressed in many ways. Throughout religions and other types of belief systems, all entities with high amounts of energy were held in high regard. The forces of nature. The ocean. Forces of good and evil. A reason why the Sun and other stars were so highly praised and dominant in all ancient cultures. Even today, we worship the Sun, in our own ways. This also means that this Source, the primordial energy, or God, is fundamentally in all things. That is what gives a "soul" to everything. So on a very basic, absolutely fundamental level, everything is an expression of God, so everything is the same, so everything is one.

However. Everything is not the same. You and I are different. We see and experience different things. These differences stem from the differences we have assumed in our physical bodies. And they result in differences in our wishes, needs, capabilities, levels of sentience, as well as differences in our egos. The only fundamental difference between a man and a pile of bricks is that a man can use, consume and alter different forms of energy and create himself, and life, through that. A pile of bricks also has energy, but because of its physicality it can't do anything with it. Nor can it consume more energy to then, let's say, expand its mental and spiritual capabilities, or to find another nice pile of bricks, get together and make new piles of bricks. A pile of bricks needs another God, a higher God in order to come into existence.

The Rules of Creation

What is God? God is the Creator. Since we are a direct representation of God on Earth, our most basic need and mission is to create. Ourselves, first and foremost, through self-preservation and reproduction. That's why these are the fundamental rules of everything and anything we can loosely categorize as animate. That's why they're called "laws of nature." It is also why man-made constructs that have been given too much energy, become "alive" in some sense, uncontrollable by the people involved in it, with its main goals becoming the same as man's: to survive and procreate. Not to serve and protect us, which is what all man-made constructs should do. And likewise, these constructs will try to find ways to capture more and more energy and to expand themselves. If these constructs were to remain in the "serve and protect" mode, then them gaining more energy would not be a problem. However, since there are always people making and/or enforcing the rules, these groups of people have the power to bend the rules according to their interests or be bought out, and since our nature is to create, and to create we always want more energy, they will invariably, sooner or later, abuse that power. So power does corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes. This is literally the story of every empire there ever has been, the story of fiat money, the story of all institutions, governments, monopolies, oligarchies, etc. This is what happens when the construct is given the chance to use us for energy, rather than us using the constructs. The constructs become the Gods.

So on the very basic level, how we can create is through... yes, you guessed it again, energy. Our physical bodies give us the baseline rules of creation. A rose plant cannot harness the energy of a juicy piece of beef steak because it does not have the physical capability to do so. A cow cannot harness the energy of a nuclear reactor for the same reasons. Humans can harness all of these energies. That's why humans are at the top of the natural hierarchy commonly known as the food chain.

This is where Buddha gets it wrong. The Universe itself has given us the ability to harness these energies, thus we have the right to use them. The right to use them, but also the responsibility to use them to create more. More beauty, love, life, abundance, God. More of us, first and foremost, because we are the top of the food chain. We are the most perfect, most capable representation of that primordial energy on Earth. God made man in his own image. So according to the story, we are the apex, the alpha. But that also means that we are the ones responsible. And alphas, as one should know, are not responsible just for themselves, they are also responsible for everything else. The actual sense of that responsibility is not something that can be taught in school or what you get after finishing this text if you haven't felt it yet. It stems from the real underlying knowledge of the oneness of everything.

Heaven, Hell & the Human Experience

Since life on Earth is the expression of love, which is truth, which is God, which is energy; or the lack of it, which is Hell, then the concepts of Heaven and Hell become much more of a gray area rather than black and white. And what I'm feeling now is that humanity as a whole is getting sucked into the system, which is the literal hell, so deeply and so wholly, that it may soon become difficult to reverse course.

The notion of Heaven and Earth is incorrect in and of itself. On that layer, there is only the duality - Heaven (vastness) and Hell (nothingness). The Earth, life as we live it, is merely an exchange between the two.

LIFE

04.04.2022

The vastness

And the nothingness

The difference between them

Is the human experience

In the absence of light, there is darkness. In the absence of vastness, there is nothingness. In the absence of life, there is death. It's the invisible line between the black and the white in the Yin Yang symbol. It can choose.

This little poem is also literally a mathematical expression of the Earth's "score" on a Universal scale, for example:

The vastness (Heaven) = 10

The nothingness (Hell) = 8

The difference between them = -

Is the human experience = 2

By the way, I can't help but draw parallels between hell and bodily functions. Perhaps the process of going through (and coming out of) hell is something similar to the digestive process. You will still exist afterwards. Only you have been used up for all your energies and compared to what you were before, you're shit. The fact that we are like little hell furnaces ourselves, and the fact that this whole ordeal in our bodies is also so close to the reproductive organs, is fascinating in and of itself. The duality of man expressing itself in yet another form.

God Particles & the Kingdom of Death

We really are just parts of one whole. God particles, as I called them in "Life is Meaningless." So the hierarchy which is called the food chain pretty much dictates who consumes whom's energy i.e. eats them. Since the human form has captured its place at the top of the chain by being the most capable, most resistant to the elements, and creating the most, we have the right and indeed, a task to use these energies, everything that is natural, everything the Earth has to offer to us, to create more beauty, life and more of us, the sacred Guardians of it. Right now, we are letting The Kingdom of Death, or what others might call The Matrix, or what again others might call Hell get the best of us.

It is draining us of our life energy and we are allowing for it to happen. We are killing ourselves as well as all other forms of life on this planet. If this continues, then, at one point, mother Earth or the Universe at large must reset the gameboard and assign new Guardians. So the keys to survive and thrive are to pretty much just consume and conserve energy and create even better things out of it. Not just consume energy and waste it, or let it be taken from us unfairly. And, again, since energy cannot be created or destroyed but only changed in form, this means all types of energy. Sexual/life energy. Mental energy. Physical energy. Spiritual or psychic or soul energy which stems from living in harmony and in tune (we are all frequency :) ) with ourselves and nature. Economic energy.

I've mentioned the vastness and the nothingness. The vastness is God, the Universe, and nothingness is death, and not even just death, I think it's actually what they call Hell. The mission of The Kingdom of Death is to pull as much energy into the nothingness as it can. These "God particles" that are distributed between us and the whole of reality as we perceive it, is the absolute highest form of energy. God particles or pieces of this one unified consciousness we are all a part of. We are the highest level of creation, thus we have, in a sense, the highest concentration of said particles within us. Perhaps the purest form of this energy is what we can sometimes visually perceive as auras. The enlightenment from within, which is emanating to the outside. True wealth emanates from within. So just like there is a competition between species here on Earth for who gets to be at the top of the hierarchy, there is one on another level, where Death is trying to feast on all the energies we, humans, have and control. If it can kill and misguide us, life's Guardians, then it can by default kill literally everything and anything else because through us, by using us, it is also able to consume all other forms of energy.

Physical as the Base Layer

One of the first things I learned when I started doing yoga was how interconnected really our physical, mental and spiritual layers are. As I took better care of myself and got stronger, I could notice my mental and spiritual capabilities also increase. Moreover, I could notice how physical effort made a difference on mental and spiritual energy levels. Physical effort made meditation achievable. This is why the best mental help advice is to do something physical. This is why Jordan Peterson talks about the importance of "keeping your sock drawer in order." And this is why, one could get caught up with the channelings and the crystals and all that, which is what happens when people willfully direct too much energy into the mental and spiritual realms without taking proper care of the physical first. Since everything is a reflection of everything, the base layer of the world we live in is also very physical, or at least, we perceive and experience it mostly as physical, we have to obey its constraints and rules first and foremost. They are the rules of the larger game. If we want to successfully play our own little games within this big game (these games also work in layers), we have to know this. Besides our technological prowess and actual physical strength and power, it is the economic energy that can give us the highest capabilities of creating something on the base layer.

(Fiat) Money is the Root of Evil

Let's get to the root of not all, but most of all evil. What we have to protect against and where we are still failing. The greatest fallacy of "spiritual" people is discounting the value of money (no pun intended). Money is not a goal. It's a tool. But more importantly, it's energy (literally, purchasing power). An abstraction of time and work. A tool that helps us fulfill most of our basic physiological and safety needs, the first 2 layers of Maslow's hierarchy. You don't want the money, but you do want the optionality that money gives you. You want to be able to support your wife and kids. You want more free time. You want respect. You want to go on a vacation to the Caribbean. You want a big house. You want to save for a rainy day. Money is liquid energy, meaning the type of energy that can very easily be converted into another form. It's also a measure of freedom, because it is that energy that literally allows us to purchase space (land, real estate, part of a company, a car, anything physical) and time (go on holidays, quit your job, hire people or machines to do things for you, etc). Since economic energy is very physical in nature, and the foundation of this reality itself is very physical, we require it to survive. And if you don't have enough money, that economic energy to sustain an inspiring and nourishing lifestyle, or the money that you use is broken by design, then you are forced to convert other types of energies into it. The types of energies that you might actually really need for yourself, for other activities. You have to sell your time and space, and your soul. This essentially corresponds to the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy always increases; and heat always moves from hotter objects to colder objects, or "downhill."

Money is also a battery for this economic energy because it has to hold, conserve that energy for whenever you want to use it. In the current financial system, called the fiat system (fiat meaning by decree), the battery is being drained through taxation, inflation, outright theft and by conditioning you to spend that energy on things that are actually harmful or simply useless for you. As that happens, and as we naturally need a balance between the different energy bodies, we automatically start balancing out that loss by pulling energies down from our spiritual and mental layers and into the physical, thus making us poorer on all levels of our being in the process. In addition, there tends to be some degree of friction when converting energies from one form to another, so there is also additional energy dissipation. When you see and understand these mechanics, and how all types of the different energies we have are interrelated and interchangeable, you can clearly see how through this giant hole in the foundation of the house that we live in, the life energy of our very beings is being stolen.

It then becomes obvious that any sort of spiritual awakening on a grand scale is virtually impossible because people simply don't have the energy for it. Furthermore, the requirement for inflation in the fiat system means prices have to go up forever, which then in turn means we will be forever stuck in a mindset of scarcity, poverty and ever-growing divide between the haves and the have-nots.

Weak Men Create Hard Times

Since economic energy is very much a physical issue, and it is the men who are mainly in charge of the physical, it is safe to say that at the core of the problem are the weak men. Not the minority of men who are "too strong," "too competitive" or portray other qualities of "toxic masculinity." But the majority of men, my old self included, who have been too weak and too lazy, giving away their most basic capabilities of being able to protect and provide in exchange for "safety," for control, for an easy life filled with mindless pleasures. The old adage "weak men create hard times" is certainly true. These are the hard times, in case you hadn't noticed. The institution of fiat money has made men weak, yes. But it is the men that allowed for it to happen, in exchange for "safety," in exchange for empty promises, fake money and life in debt. Fiat money was given this energy by men. It is literally based on trust and nothing else. And trust, although a very powerful type of energy, is also extremely fragile. The fragility of this trust is starting to show and this is why it is so important to be aware of the alternative.

Reflections, Disconnections

Since these men, "the elite" (which is an utterly inappropriate expression, Aleks Svetski's proposed "parasites" is a much more apt way to put it), have garnered their power in a system that resembles Hell rather than Heaven, then of course they will be disconnected from their mental and spiritual bodies, and make bad decisions on those layers. Since through the physical, economic layer of reality they are awarded not for adding value, but for bending and changing the rules, and detracting value, then they won't even realize that they are doing anything wrong. Because the system keeps awarding them for their misguided actions. Since these people have gathered so much power, then their system, their way of doing things reflects itself onto all other layers of reality as well.

What is Money?

The question of "What is Money?" has been obscured and made painfully difficult to answer, and for a reason. You are not supposed to understand how money works, because if you did, you would see the absolute scam behind it. Especially the monstrosity which we know as the fiat system today, has been deliberately designed in a way that even someone proficient with money in general, would have a hard time understanding and articulating. In fact, the "education" system never really asks the question of what is money at all, they just tell you what money is.

Fixing the Incentives; Proof of Work

If the money is broken, then the incentives are broken. And incentives are everything, incentives are what make people work. Incentives determine the flow of energy. People naturally want money, because they want energy, because their primary task is to create, and to create is to simply change one form of energy into another. Thus, if money can be manipulated by people, it will be. It always has been. Until Bitcoin. The beauty of Bitcoin is that it is a system where everybody has the same rules and nobody can bend them in their favor. Whether it be me, you, Elon Musk or the country of Japan, the rules are the same. This is why it is a trustless system - no trust in any 3rd party required. The Bitcoin Standard will allow us to move into a world where:

Actual time, encrypted energy and physical scarcity are the de facto inputs for the money, giving the money supply an ever-expanding baseline of energy even without any human labor attached to it

The time and work that you put into it while acquiring it can not be siphoned away by anyone changing the rules of the system. It is, what Michael Saylor would call, a "thermodynamically secure" system, because the energy is encrypted and the underlying asset carrying that energy, is scarce

This, also, might sound complicated, but in reality it is really not. On a fundamental level, looking at it from the perspective of energy, then in the current system, the money simply has no energy inputs (it can be "printed out of thin air"), thus it has no baseline energy attached to it. The only energies it contains are the trust we put in it (we trust that we can take our $20 bill and go to the store, and they will accept the bill for goods and services) and the work we ourselves directly put into it by working for it. And since the rules of the system can easily be changed by those in power, they will be changed, and those changes will inevitably favor those in power. Through the constant changes in the rules of the game, the energy that we do attach to the money via trust and work, is being siphoned away from us at all times. And if that's not enough, most of the "money" circulating today is actually credit i.e. debt, which means the amount owed is always larger than the actual amount of money, which means the current system needs inflation, because it needs for the money supply to grow because otherwise the debt can't be repaid and the world will go bankrupt. Quite simple.

In the Bitcoin system, money creation has an actual cost, real energy inputs, expressed in the forms of time (which is ever-increasing because of how the rules of the system have been set, with the number of new bitcoin being issued cut in half approximately every 4 years), electricity (which is also ever-increasing because as more and more people choose this system, the competition to mine the new Bitcoin gets tougher and people have to come up with more efficient ways to generate electricity to mine Bitcoin), physical scarcity (directly in the form of the mining hardware, and indirectly in the form of the energy production infrastructure powering it) and human ingenuity (in the forms of increasing the efficiency of both energy production and the mining hardware). These 4 inputs, in short, are what makes this system increase in value and purchasing power, forever, even if you yourself don't work for it. That's one of the ways this system is so beautiful and so charitable. Just by choosing this system, you can enjoy the fruits of ever-increasing human creativity, efficiency, productivity, and innovation. Such a system has never before existed before Bitcoin, and perhaps never will after it. Every system so far has been subject to manipulation. That is why we can't even begin to imagine the new world. Nobody's ever experienced it yet, nobody's seen it yet. We can only speculate, but in the end we are simply stuck in extrapolating truths from the fake fiat world into a world of pure truth. We just don't know what exactly will be. But since we know how the system works and how incentives work, and some of us are already experiencing these things, we do know some things that will hold true.

How this energy accumulation and conservation is expressed in reality is that prices (it is important to remember that "prices" are merely an agreement) of everything are going down forever, thus bringing us to an age of abundance. Through abundance we can heal and nourish our physical world and bodies, and then cultivating mental and spiritual health becomes not only easily, but naturally. When the three realms of consciousness are properly energized, only then can the new, improved generation of leaders, masters of various disciplines, philosophers, entrepreneurs, Guardians of Life, be born and raised. I believe we will see a world where men like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Tesla, are not only commonplace, but average.

Reflections, the Story of Creation

Bitcoin is also an analogy. And it is such a perfect analogy that I don't think it's a coincidence. I think it was meant to be that way, or in other words, it's another expression of the fact that everything is a reflection of everything. The story of how Bitcoin came to be mirrors the story of Creation itself. First there was some energy/entity (God/Satoshi). Now, some say it's one God, some say there's multiple. Nobody really agrees on who the actual God is. Some claim to be God, but clearly, are not. Sounds quite similar to the story of Satoshi. Anyway, he created this thing. Seemingly out of nowhere. Of course, that is not the case. There are always prototypes, previous lessons and precursors. At first, the rules of the system are not yet set in stone. There is dialogue between Satoshi and the first members of the system. As was between God and the first humans. He watches over his creation for a while, as it grows and develops, protects it and tries to teach it a few things. There was a bug in the original code of Bitcoin, one that would have let a nefarious entity create more Bitcoin. It was discovered and fixed. Later, as the network grew, the rules started to become ossified. Then, there was a moment. In the Bible, Eve bit the apple. Here, it was WikiLeaks starting to accept Bitcoin. That's when the responsibility became real. That's when God gave his powers over to us, as did Satoshi. That's why the saying "We are all Satoshi" is literally the same as saying "We are all God." We are all the creators, upholders of this system. "Have fun staying poor" is the equivalent to "Go to Hell." Bitcoin has, like any system that has significant energy inputs, also gained a sort of sentience. And it will keep "consuming" increasingly large amounts of energy. However, in that system, the energy is also conserved (thermodynamically secure) and the rules have become truths, thus no one can change them, thus the game is fair. Also, similarly to how the system which we call our reality works, Bitcoin also works in layers. There must be the base layer of immutable truth, of pure information and energy. Then, other solutions can be built on top, so that it is the previous layer that provides the rules/framework for the next, and the next layer itself has the ability to be more malleable, more creative. We see this happening with Bitcoin/Lightning Network/Nostr now already. And again, the systems reflect each other. The social network of Bitcoin is another layer. The businesses working on Bitcoin products is another, etc. Also, like God, Bitcoin is permissionless, meaning that anybody, at any time, can join the network.

Last, but definitely not least, Satoshi also knew the ultimate and final step to life and death: to let go. He has not moved his coins nor spoken ever again after the departure. Satoshi chose to let go twice: first by giving up control of the Bitcoin project, and then again by deciding not to move the coins that he mined in the early days, thus making a donation to all Bitcoin holders forever.

God is a decentralized entity. We became Gods the moment Eve bit the apple, and again when Satoshi left. That was the moment we got the powers, the knowledge, the sentience as we perceive it as humans. Before that we were on the same level with plants and animals, and God watched over us. But in that moment, we took over God's place as the supreme creators and Guardians of all life on Earth. And since it was Eve that took the first bite, women were tasked with the highest task of all: to bring more life, more of God into the world (Julian Assange, of course, was thrown in jail). That's why we call her mother Earth. Selflessly, she gives us these energies to sustain and create ourselves. And she also gives us this beautiful, nurturing environment where we can do so.

We Are Divine

Beauty is divinity. This is why all the old religious buildings are so grandiose, with intricate sculptures, paintings and all sorts of energy intensive artwork in them. They were expressing that energy, God, love, creation, the same thing. That's also sexual attraction. You see a beautiful person and your body is like: "Yes. We could create a beautiful, capable life, an extension of God, together." That's why it's also a huge shame that this beauty, just like the money, this divinity is constantly being used against us.

Since we are all Gods in a way, we do have our own personal truths. There is but one universal truth, and that is love, and that is God, and that is the Universe, and that is the Tao. Truths and rules are not entirely the same thing though. The base rules of this reality are built on its physicality. The differences between forms of creative expression. The differences between man and the ocean. The differences between man and woman. The duality is vital to maintain balance. Women are more mental and spiritual, men are more mental and physical. Economic energy is also very physical in nature, which is one of the reasons men are naturally more interested and better in fields related to economics and finance. What I learned from yoga I was already learning from life: it is that the physical, mental and spiritual framework must all be there, strong and developed, in order to build higher order values on top of it. Again, similarly, we need a strong and developed base layer on the economic level in the form of hard money. The blood of the economic body, exchange of energy between supply and demand. That's also why any religious or spiritual practice that doesn't include physical training or disregards the physical body, is incorrect. Only then, if there is a balanced foundation, the right environment, can we create anything we can possibly dream of. I can see a future for us, for the whole of humanity, where we actually fulfill our duties as the highest form of expression on Earth and as the Guardians of Life. We are the warriors in the garden. We are The Legion of Love.

Control the Energy

The first order of duties is to regain control over our energies. Starting with the physical, the body and the money. What I'm saying is nothing new. I'm saying the same things Jesus was saying. We are all God; sons and daughters of the same primordial energy, of love. But we don't act like it, because we can't, because we don't have the energy.

If we are all one, and everything is a reflection of everything, then religion is a reflection of God, and God is a reflection of money, and government is a reflection of that, then it becomes apparent it was only the centralized nature of these institutions that doomed them. Now, since we have Bitcoin, this perfect system mimicking the system of reality itself, then this particular system also starts reflecting itself into other systems. This is why bitcoiners tend to become more aware of some of the really basic things like the importance of food, family, art, spirituality, they actually start to understand the fact that energy underpins everything because they are experiencing it, unfolding in real time.

To go further into the symbolism and back to the visual representation of Unity/Duality/Trinity, we can overlay the universal symbol for love (heart) on top of the figure, and we get a representation of how love leads to enlightenment, which is a way of breaking through the borders of the underlying structures.

Figure 4: Enlightenment stems from love

Time, Space, Layers in All Systems

Time and space itself also works as a system of layers. You can look at time as not a linear string of events, but rather a series of snapshots layered atop of each other. Both are, again, just frequencies (the definition of "time" itself implies a frequency). Maybe since time and space are linked, and time keeps expanding, then the Universe must expand also? Like a tree, adding layers of rings on its trunk with each passing year. And perhaps time is not linear, but rather exponential, and that is why both space and time are expanding faster and faster, and perhaps that is why we must expand/raise our consciousness/vibration higher and higher, to keep in tune with the symphony of the Universe? And maybe, when there is a high enough frequency, then we reach escape velocity, everything and anything literally turns into light, the whole of reality as we know it becomes enlightened, and thus, like an explosion, we are thrown back into where we started from. All this energy floating around, trying to find shape and function (isn't that what we still are...?). If time had a shape, I'd bet it's an elliptical sphere (which is apparently called an ellipsoid, which is also what the Earth is). Obviously I am only speculating, but my main point is the following:

Now that we have an understanding of the underlying systems, which are energetic in nature and in which our abilities to survive and flourish are based on our capabilities to sense, direct and use these energies on different layers of our being, we can:

Start noticing this system expressing itself in different layers of existence

Experience it and thus verify that it is true

Start voting for better things with our energies and detach from systems that are draining ours

Voting

How we really vote and manifest things is through our... energies. Starting to get pretty simple, right? Mantras, prayers are types of voting, types of directing energies towards a certain direction. As are thoughts. As is money. As is time. Attention. So one of the core themes of getting the base layer, the physical, correct, is voting with time, money and attention. Whatever we vote for, whatever we buy, whatever we watch or listen to, whatever we do with our time: we are voting for more of that, we are saying to the Universe that this is good. You buy a can of beer, you are voting for more beer. You spend time at the beach, you are voting for more time at the beach. You keep your money in the fiat system and in a bank, you are voting for more fiat money and more banks. Where there is demand, there will be supply. Simple economics.

This is why I believe real intelligence, real awakening is actually so easy, it's scarily easy even. Because it's important to understand and follow just the few fundamental laws according to which our experience here is built upon. Everything is a reflection of everything. The same mechanics play out on all levels. The atom looks eerily similar to the solar system, doesn't it?

Energy is God, since energy is the source of all creation, and God is the source of all creation, and to regain your energy is to regain our energy and our status as an integral and powerful part of it.

God = love = truth = energy = time = Bitcoin

Figure 5: Life is an exchange between the vastness and the nothingness

This is all still a work in progress. Please do correct me where I'm wrong or am missing something. Keen to hear your thoughts, feedback, counterarguments, perhaps other areas of life where you see these mechanics play out, etc.

Reach out:

I'm on Nostr: Kontext (npub1qfc…xnrh))

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kontext17

Everywhere else: KONTEXT.EE

Much love,

KONTEXT

Additional credits:

Taoism icon by Pham Duy Phuong Hung via Noun Project (used in figures 1, 3, 4, 5)

Infinity icon by Martin Chapman Fromm via Noun Project (used in figure 5)

#naddr1qq…lx59

2026-04-02T06:08:09Z

quoting
naddr1qq…lx59

Or: Why I Stopped Trusting Google Maps

Recently, I wanted to find a café in an unfamiliar city. Google Maps showed me several options - all marked "Sponsored." Only after scrolling did the other 47 cafés in the area appear. That's when it hit me: This map doesn't show me the world. It shows me what someone wants me to see.

Big Tech's Maps

Commercial map services prioritize consumption. Hotels and restaurants that pay for better placement appear higher up. The small "Sponsored" label is easy to overlook.

Even more subtle is the filtering by zoom level: At an overview, only selected places are shown. Only when zooming in do all locations appear. No indication that the view is incomplete. You simply don't notice.

Big tech companies focus on regions that are profitable. Areas with less purchasing power get less attention. Understandable from a business perspective - but good for us users?

Free as in Freedom

OpenStreetMap (OSM for short) offers a way out, an alternative. OpenStreetMap is not just free of charge, but free as in freedom. The data belongs to no one and everyone. Anyone can use it, modify it, redistribute it - as long as the results remain free (Copyleft) and the source is credited.

Users can add places themselves and correct errors. Sounds chaotic? It is sometimes. Still works remarkably well - like Wikipedia, but for maps.

This helps especially in areas that are uninteresting to big companies. In some parts of Africa or Asia, OpenStreetMap is more accurate and up-to-date than any commercial service. Because local people maintain the data. Not for money. Simply because they think it's the right thing to do.

Wait, Who Actually Uses OpenStreetMap?

Before you think "Sounds like a nerd project" - here are some names:

Apple Maps uses OSM data in many countries. The ride-hailing service Grab in Southeast Asia has completely switched to OSM (saving millions in Google fees). Strava, Komoot, Geocaching - all OSM under the hood.

So no, not a niche project. More like: The "Wikipedia of Maps."

Data Google Would Never Collect

In OSM, you can record almost anything. A restaurant? Sure - but also whether it has vegan options, air conditioning, outdoor seating, a baby changing table, accepts Bitcoin, or is wheelchair accessible. Individual park benches and their nearby trash cans? Those too.

This sounds overly detailed until you're out with a stroller and need a changing table. Or you're 80 years old looking for a bench to rest. Or you're in a wheelchair facing stairs without a ramp. Suddenly these "unimportant" details become very important.

Many different organizations and groups use various details for analysis, planning, maintenance, and mapping. The map becomes a living representation of the world. And shows you what many others don't. Free of charge and free to use.

More Than Streets

Specialized maps emerge from the open data for almost every area:

Winter Sports: Ski slopes, cross-country trails, and ski touring routes with difficulty ratings.

Hiking: Marked trails, mountain huts, drinking water sources, and viewpoints - in many regions more detailed than Google.

Boaters: Buoys, lighthouses, anchorages, and harbor info for trip planning.

Cyclists & Co: Road surface, elevation, and bike path quality - ideal for road bikes, gravel bikes, or inline skaters.

Many popular outdoor apps like Komoot or Locus Map are based on OpenStreetMap - often without users knowing.

Apps for Niches (That Aren't Really Niches)

The open data enables apps that commercial providers would never build. Too small an audience, too little money to be made. But for the people who need them, they're indispensable.

Wheelmap: Shows via traffic light system whether places are wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair friednly places rated worldwide. Anyone can participate - just a glance at the entrance is enough.

BlindSquare: Describes the surroundings via voice output for the visually impaired. Uses OSM data for streets and intersections - one of the few apps that makes navigation practical for blind people.

Touch Mapper: Creates 3D-printable tactile maps from OSM data. Streets become touchable grooves, buildings become raised surfaces.

Veggiekarte: Filters restaurants by dietary options - vegan, vegetarian.

BTC Map: Shows places where Bitcoin is accepted as payment.

OpenFireMap: Hydrants, fire stations, firefighting ponds - all at a glance.

The beauty of all these apps: They all benefit simultaneously from every change. When a restaurant closes, someone enters it in OpenStreetMap - and it automatically disappears from Wheelmap, Veggiekarte, BTC Map, and all the others. No duplicate maintenance, no "it's still listed in App X." One change - effective everywhere.

Ready to Try? Here's How to Start

Three apps, download today, let's go:

CoMaps - The entry point. No ads, no tracking, just a good offline map. Ideal for everyone who wants things to "just work."

OsmAnd - The classic for advanced users. Can do everything: cycling, hiking, ski slopes, nautical charts. Not necessarily the most intuitive app, but lots of possibilities.

Magic Earth - For drivers. Free navigation with traffic info. Feels almost like Google Maps, just without Google.

Where OpenStreetMap (Still) Falls Short

Unfortunately, some OpenStreetMap apps look outdated compared to Google Maps. There's no corporation with thousands of developers behind OSM polishing until the interface shines. It's people like you and me investing their free time to create OSM apps.

But this is also the big advantage. Everyone can participate, everyone can implement their ideas and help create a better map. Google's data is neither as detailed nor freely usable. You can't download it, can't reuse it, can't improve it - they're not your maps - they belong to Google.

Conclusion

OSM belongs to no one. Charges no money. Shows no ads. Sells no data. And if something's missing, you can add it yourself.

Try one of the apps. Maybe you'll notice that the small park in your area is missing. Or the new bakery. Then you add it. And next time, someone else finds it.

And if you want to know exactly how you can help, stay tuned for my next post.

#osm #openstreetmap #opensource

#naddr1qq…wh7t

2026-04-01T13:56:46Z

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naddr1qq…wh7t

You don’t need permission. 🥷 That’s the core of it.

No one has to approve your product, your price, your description, your customer list, or your right to exist.

You list it. You sell it. Buyers find it. Sats flow direct.

Done.

That’s the whole point. ✨

The hosted plebeian.market website is just one instance. The real magic is the FOSS software itself.

Download it. Fork it. Run your own server. Set your own rules; or no rules. 🖥️

Build the exact community you want: strict, loose, niche, whatever. No one can shut it down. Your stall lives on relays. Plebeian Market isn’t just a website; it is infrastructure for fiat escape.

Farmers sell coffee without bank approval. 👩‍🌾☕ Artists drop paintings without gallery cuts. 🎨 Jam makers, musicians, creators: list it, sell it, keep every sat.

Set Up Your Shop Today!

When you buy from a seller on Plebeian (hosted or self-hosted), you’re not just buying a product.

You’re funding the mindset🧠:

✅ P2P is default

✅ Permissionless is normal

✅ Sovereignty is the baseline

✅ Every zap builds that world

✅ Support plebs who are already doing the work! Not just larping about it

The circular economy starts with us. 🏘️🤝🏘️

We’re not competing with Amazon or Etsy. We’re giving you the tools to obsolete them.🕱

Join the Revolution

Think about it! Is that reasonable? Is that humane? ...

2026-04-01T13:54:17Z

Think about it! Is that reasonable? Is that humane?

https://warspend.com/

April, April!

2026-04-01T07:01:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…8gfw
_________________________

April, April!

#naddr1qq…754y

2026-03-31T17:24:18Z

quoting
naddr1qq…754y

Welcome to the eighth edition of the Human Rights Foundation's AI for Individual Rights newsletter.

We begin with research from the African Digital Rights Network, which documents how 11 African countries have collectively spent more than $2 billion on Chinese-built “smart city” AI-powered surveillance systems. Sold as tools to reduce crime and manage traffic, these systems threaten civil liberties. They track movements, identify faces, and build the infrastructure for autocrats to silence dissent at scale.

This month’s counter-story is just as powerful. NVIDIA committed $26 billion to open AI models and partnered with Mistral, the French lab building some of the strongest open-weight models outside of China. Meanwhile, Microsoft open-sourced BitNet, a framework that lets 100-billion-parameter models run on ordinary CPUs. The direction is clear: powerful AI is moving onto personal devices, where it can work without an internet connection and without exposing data to anyone.

At SXSW, the world’s largest creative festival, HRF’s AI for Individual Rights Program brought this future to life. Our ESC TYRANNY booth showed what happens when activists from Togo, Venezuela, and Russia get their hands on AI: they vibe code resistance websites, build tools for movements under siege, and turn plain-language prompts into working infrastructure. Thousands of visitors stopped by our exhibit to try it themselves. Many had never written a line of code, but walked away having built something real.

We close with reflections from HRF’s Chief Strategy Officer Alex Gladstein on what happens when individuals control their own intelligence. OpenClaw, an open-source AI assistant, lets anyone execute complex tasks through simple prompts. Pair it with Bitcoin for censorship-resistant money and Nostr for censorship-resistant communications, and individuals gain capabilities that once required large teams and significant resources. The moment to jump in is now.

The Latest in AI for Repression

AI-Powered “Smart City” Risks Across Africa

A new report authored by researchers from the African Digital Rights Network, maps the spread of Chinese AI surveillance across eleven African countries. Algeria, Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and six others have collectively spent more than $2 billion on “smart city” technologies: CCTV networks, license plate recognition, and AI-powered data analysis. The systems are marketed as tools to monitor roads and reduce crime, but the pattern is consistent: governments buy Chinese surveillance hardware under the banner of public safety, then point it at their own citizens. As these systems scale, they normalize mass monitoring and erode fundamental freedoms across the continent.

China Restricts Access to AI Agent OpenClaw

Chinese officials warned state-run enterprises and government bodies against installing OpenClaw on office computers without prior approval. The restriction extends to personal phones connected to workplace networks and even to the families of military personnel. The warnings come as OpenClaw sweeps rapidly across China. Schoolchildren, retirees, and professionals are all trying to use it to automate daily tasks and accelerate productivity. Reuters reported that the agent has “gone viral” across the country. OpenClaw does carry real security risks if deployed carelessly. But Beijing’s response reveals a familiar reflex: when an open, decentralized technology empowers individuals, the CCP moves to restrict access.

Iran Surveils Population with Russian Facial Recognition Tech

A joint investigation by Le Monde, Forbidden Stories, and other media partners revealed that Iran secretly acquired FindFace, a Russian-made facial recognition system developed by NtechLab, a company sanctioned by the EU in 2023 and blacklisted by the United States in 2024. Iranian front companies purchased the software in 2019 and distributed it to regime security services. FindFace matches faces across street cameras, identity databases, and social networks, giving the regime the ability to identify and track protesters with unprecedented precision. Russia has used the same software to hunt down supporters of murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny and independent journalists.

China’s AI-Powered Operations to Target Dissent

OpenAI banned a ChatGPT account linked to Chinese law enforcement that was planning what it called “cyber special operations” that included Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi among its targets. The operations sought to generate fake content, impersonate officials, and organize coordinated harassment campaigns against critics inside China and abroad. When ChatGPT refused certain requests, the operator switched to locally deployed AI models to carry out the attacks faster and at greater scale. The case reminds us that authoritarian states are weaponizing AI not just for surveillance, but for active manipulation of public narratives across borders.

Guinea Expands Video Surveillance Network with Chinese Financing

Guinea's military junta, led by Mamady Doumbouya, approved a $56 million loan from China's Export-Import Bank to build a nationwide “safe city” surveillance program. The system will install 324 video surveillance sites across eight cities, with centralized command centers analyzing feeds in real time and police devices streaming live camera alerts. Guinea’s junta banned all protests in 2022, has used gunfire against demonstrators, and dissolved 40 political parties earlier this month. A regime that shoots protesters is now buying the tools to identify them by face.

Recommended Content

Human Rights at Risk in the Sprint Toward AI Sovereignty

Writing in Just Security, technology and democracy researchers warn that the global push toward national “AI sovereignty” carries serious human rights risks. When authoritarian states control their entire AI stack, they gain new tools for censorship, surveillance, internet isolation, and propaganda. Thailand, Vietnam, and China are already using sovereign AI infrastructure to expand mass surveillance and political control. While “sovereign AI” in the context of individuals controlling their intelligence is a noble goal, and one that HRF’s AI program is focused on, in the context of regimes developing their own AI, it can lead to a dramatic loss of civil liberties.

The Latest in AI for Freedom

NVIDIA and Mistral Advance Open AI for Global Access

NVIDIA committed $26 billion over the next five years to building open AI models, and the company partnered with Mistral AI, a French lab developing some of the most advanced open models outside of China, to co-develop them. Mistral also launched Mistral Small 4, an open model capable of general chat, coding, agentic workflows, and complex reasoning. This matters because open models run locally, privately, and offline, and they can be accessed through encrypted services like Maple without retaining conversation logs or user data. For human rights defenders working under surveillance, open models should be a security north star.

HRF Hosts ESC TYRANNY at South by Southwest

HRF brought AI for freedom to life at this year’s SXSW. Our ESC TYRANNY booth showed what "vibe coding" looks like in practice: activists in Togo building websites like Free-Togo to mobilize against the Gnassingbé regime, and movements from Uganda to Iran deploying Bitchat, a vibe-coded private messaging app that works offline, enabling people to communicate and share information during internet shutdowns. Visitors stepped up and built their own sites using nothing but plain-language prompts. Many walked away having seen, for the first time, how AI can turn the needs of human rights defenders into working infrastructure while saving significant time and costs.

Microsoft Launches BitNet to Advance Local AI’s Power

Microsoft Research open-sourced BitNet, a framework that reduces AI models to 1-bit precision, allowing 100-billion-parameter models to run on standard CPUs with six times the speed and 82% less energy than conventional approaches. No costly GPUs or internet connection required, and no data will leave the device. For dissidents working during internet shutdowns or under surveillance, BitNet is another step toward powerful AI that can run locally on a laptop, entirely offline, entirely private.

NVIDIA Developing an Open-Source AI Agent

NVIDIA introduced NemoClaw, an open-source enterprise AI agent. The move follows the lead of OpenClaw, which NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang called “the most important software release probably ever.” NemoClaw will autonomously process emails, schedule tasks, analyze data, and automate workflows, with security and privacy tools built in. The key detail: It is open source. Developers can inspect the code, modify it, fork it, and deploy it for projects that have nothing to do with enterprise IT. In great news for civil liberties and individual sovereignty, open-source agents are becoming the norm, not the exception.

PayPerQ Launches an Encrypted AI

PayPerQ (PPQ) launched end-to-end encrypted AI models accessible without an account and payable with Bitcoin over Lightning. The service mixes user queries together, making individual conversations harder to trace. PPQ does not require registration, credit card, or identification. Users pay per query with satoshis (using any method that speaks Lightning: ecash, ark, and spark would all work) and get access to frontier models including GPT-4o, Claude, and DeepSeek. PPQ now also provides encrypted conversations with top open models like GPT-oss, Kimi, DeepSeek, and Llama. These models can plug into AI agents like OpenClaw, enabling private, automated workflows. For a human rights defender operating under surveillance, the difference between a chatbot that knows your name and one that does not could be the difference between safety and a prison cell.

Google Releases Dataset to Improve AI in Sub-Saharan Africa

Google Research released WAXAL, an open-source speech dataset of thousands of hours of recorded and transcribed speech in 27 African languages previously ignored in AI ecosystems. The dataset includes Wolof, Fon, Bambara, Igbo, and dozens of other languages spoken by over 100 million people. The dataset will enable developers to build voice assistants and transcription tools in languages that frontier AI models currently cannot understand. For activists and organizations working in local languages under dozens of authoritarian regimes in the area, this marks a major step forward.

Recommended Content

In a recent thread on X, HRF's Chief Strategy Officer Alex Gladstein argued that OpenClaw represents a Satoshi Nakamoto-like turning point: the moment individuals gained the ability to control their own intelligence. The software will become easier to install, more secure, and will integrate with a broader freedom technology stack, including Bitcoin for censorship-resistant money and Nostr for censorship-resistant communications. A single dissident with a laptop will be able to accomplish what once required a team of engineers, and can do it on their own terms. Read his full reflections here.

#naddr1qq…syf4

2026-03-30T06:53:09Z

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naddr1qq…syf4

Ecash Deserves a Bigger Playground

If you use Cashu, you probably love it for the right reasons. Bearer tokens. Privacy by default. Instant transfers. It feels like what digital cash should have always been.

But let's be honest: the Cashu app ecosystem is still early. A handful of great wallets, a growing community, real momentum. And yet, there's a whole world of NWC-powered apps out there that you can't really plug into with ecash. Until now.

NUTbits makes your Cashu mint speak NWC. And NWC is everywhere.

NWC Is the Universal Plug

Nostr Wallet Connect has quietly become one of the most widely supported wallet protocols. Alby uses it. Amethyst, Damus, Primal - they all support it. LNBits accepts it as a funding source. The list keeps growing.

NUTbits speaks the same NWC language all these apps expect. It can report a balance, create invoices, pay invoices, look up payment status. The full set of wallet operations.

The difference is what's behind it. Instead of connecting directly to a Lightning wallet, NUTbits connects to a Cashu mint. When an app asks to pay an invoice, the mint settles it through Lightning. When someone pays an invoice, the mint receives it and NUTbits holds the ecash.

From the app's perspective, nothing is different. It just sees a wallet. Your ecash does the rest.

Where This Gets Interesting

Nostr Clients

Paste your NUTbits connection string into Amethyst, Damus, or any Nostr client that supports NWC. Zap people, tip creators, pay for relay access, all backed by ecash from your mint.

Your Nostr experience stays the same. You just have a different kind of wallet behind it, one that starts with ecash.

Browser Extensions

Alby's browser extension supports NWC. Add a NUTbits connection, and you can pay for content behind Lightning paywalls, boost podcasts, or use any website that accepts Lightning, all flowing through your mint.

LNBits

This is the big one. Plug NUTbits into LNBits as a funding source, and you unlock the entire extension ecosystem. Point-of-sale, payment links, Lightning addresses, NFC cards, automatic payment splitting, all of it powered by ecash.

Your Own Projects

Building something that needs payment integration? Create a NUTbits connection with the right permissions and limits, and use any NWC client library. You get a working payment backend from a connection string, backed by a mint you already trust.

One Wallet, Many Apps

You don't need a separate setup for each app. Create a different NWC connection for each one, each with its own spending limits and permissions.

One connection for your Nostr client with a small daily limit for zaps. Another for LNBits with full permissions. A third for a side project with pay-only access.

If one connection gets compromised, revoke it without touching the others. Your ecash balance is shared, but each connection's access is isolated.

The Privacy Angle

This is where ecash enthusiasts will appreciate what's happening. When you use NUTbits, your payments start as ecash before reaching Lightning. The Nostr relay only sees encrypted messages. The mint sees ecash operations. There's a separation between the NWC layer and the Lightning layer that doesn't exist when you connect directly to a wallet service.

It's not a silver bullet; the mint still processes the Lightning payments. But if you already trust your mint (or run your own), the privacy properties of ecash travel with you into every NWC app you use.

That's kind of the point. Ecash shouldn't be limited to Cashu wallets. It should be usable everywhere. NUTbits makes that real.

What You Need

A Cashu mint you trust (or your own). NUTbits connected to it. And any app that supports NWC.

Create a connection, paste the string, and go. The app doesn't know ecash is involved. It just sees a wallet that works. But you know, and the properties of ecash are there, doing their thing, underneath.

Your ecash works everywhere NWC does. Pick your app, create a connection, and bring ecash with you.

GitHub

#nevent1q…tqlw

2026-03-30T06:35:40Z

quoting
nevent1q…tqlw

#naddr1qq…dzhz

2026-03-23T16:12:11Z

quoting
naddr1qq…dzhz

Nostria is a social network with a lot of features - probably overwhelming to a lot of new users. There are multiple reasons for this, number one being that it attempts to be a social networking app that gives you a lot of features in a unified experience. Instead of spreading across multiple apps, having to deal with different UX and UIs, Nostria gives you a lot more than you think you need and as you learn the UI, you won't be afraid to explore what is there.

From my own personal use of messaging and social apps, there is a repeating pattern that happens: I find something funny, cool or interesting, and I share it with my friends and family in a private chat.

So I end up needing to create accounts on every app that exists. Then I need to bring my friends and families onto each of those apps. So I end up with some chats on Signal, some on Snapchat, some on WhatsApp, some on Messenger (Meta), many on Telegram, some on Twitch, some on Spotify (yes, they also have messages now), very few on TikTok and plenty on Instagram. Instagram has perfected this experience, find something and you quickly share it in private messages.

Nostria has focused on making the same UX work well: Click Share and pick the people you want to send it to.

I wanted this user experience, and others, in a single app and single social network. So I decided to build Nostria, running on Nostr protocol, which is a decentralized social network. That means my app is not the only app on Nostr, there are hundreds of apps available - all with different features, different focus.

Yet, I didn't want Nostria to be yet another app on Nostr - I wanted it to be the place to go for everything. People are fatigued with apps, long ago. Now each of the different apps all is doing the same features, they are becoming similar and equal - yet the content, and your profile, your identity, is owned by different corporations. It can be taken away from you at any second.

With Nostria, you own your data and you own your identity. It is portable across hundreds of apps - it can't be taken away.

I want to be able to discover music, enjoy that music, at the same time I'm reading a feed of posts or engaging in a public or private chat. I want to be able to quickly share some banger tunes with my friends and family, in one unified experience. I hate clicking the "Share" button on my phone then having to scroll through a long list of apps - and required to remember "is that group chat on Signal or Telegram?", "is John on Snapchat or Messenger?".

Yes, it's a big task to get your friends and family to move to yet another app, in this case Nostria and Nostr. Yet the benefits are greater than adopting yet another centralized social media app.

So yes, there is a lot of features, it does go against the common promoted idea of building only singularly focused apps that does one thing, and does that well. Why limit ourselves and create this mental exhaustion with data fragmented across so many different apps and services?

If this resonates with you, join Nostria.

https://www.nostria.app/

Centralisation isn't cool but dangerous. Dezentralisation is ...

2026-03-22T17:55:03Z

Centralisation isn't cool but dangerous. Dezentralisation is the future.

quoting
nevent1q…8yfw
1 Nostr keypair - 4 apps
1 Wallet - 6 apps.

Moment of appreciation for how cool this is.

Interoperability is the antidote to enshittification.

We have technical solutions like ZK proofs to verify age without ...

2026-03-22T10:39:12Z

We have technical solutions like ZK proofs to verify age without exposing the whole identity.

quoting
naddr1qq…2ed5

Every case is unique. Some of these emerged naturally. Some of them are imposed by governments.

CAPTCHA, the way we still encounter it, is the result of ignorance of the first signs of passing the Turing test. The KYC is more complicated: usually it's associated with reductionistic opinions, that it's just the lobbyists' mass surveillance thing, while still this also could happen semi-unconsciously because of a lack of proper alternatives that governments could even consider in order to counterattack... their own helplessness and accumulated stress from the polycrisis we are all facing, probably.

My proposal here is to recontextualize the issues, observe more fundamental problems, and solve them instead. Solve something that at least seems to be solvable today.

CAPTCHA/PoW Torture Test

It seems like CAPTCHAs are almost testing the opposite thing already: if user is so desperately passing these puzzles all the time, if user doesn't feel tortured enough to leave these absurd pages—it's probably a bot.

Detecting simple malicious attacks (dumb social spamming, dumb technical DoSing, etc.) still makes a lot of sense. Using (unexpected) traffic as a source of useful computations makes even more sense (especially traffic from the users who were reported by highly trusted ones, e.g. from WoTs). But attempts to specifically target bots—this doesn't have the potential to work in the long run (if at all, already).

A partial solution is already there

CAPTCHAs have been testing the wrong thing. Now it's also weird to see how some PoW pages still say "we're checking that you are not a bot"—this is obviously false; they are checking that I'm a "non-malicious bot" now. And that's much better!

But still, PoW pages are torturous as well: they shouldn't block users from interacting with a website; the mining should happen only in the background, probably for certain actions only, so non-malicious users/bots won't even notice it. That's why I'm relatively tolerant of NIP-13, even though it's far from an ecologically optimal solution.

The best solutions will possibly arise from decentralized UPoW.

nevent1q…nqhf

I think it's the best time to start working on the related NIPs.

KYC and "children's safety"

Massive papers uploading to servers, besides obvious privacy issues, is something like another irrelevant cookie banner annoyance tyranny: it won't solve the core issue of the so-called children's safety. It will produce even more chaos: more advanced AI systems to bypass such checks will become a new normality. New absurd AI regulations as the result of this mistake.

A domino of mistakes. Then they will require full access to the servers to ensure they are "safe enough". What's next? Even if it's full hardware surveillance totalitarianism with client side included, what will they do with the radio amateurs and open-source hardware, for example? Pointless tyranny.

It seems this won't ever work, no matter how much tax money will be wasted. But that's not obvious to the masses, which pay for all this circus. And postmodern-ish art doesn't really help them; we need to be clear, and we need to provide actual solutions. Ideally, change the trend.

Dating example

I recently discovered how ethically and legally running a dating/friendship app became problematic today. Especially for children.

nevent1q…8yrp

I also heard that some people are now asking governments to require KYC as a solution 🤦‍♂️ And I can understand them. Imagine you're an average non-hacker parent that faces your child's abuse using one of these apps. What would you do? Blame those who made the app? Configure a parent control?

The way the society is currently structured is that it would be a natural thing to complain specifically to governmental systems about everything related to the online abuse issues.

But bureaucrats are not designed to solve issues of such complexity! Bureaucrats are not hackers, and unfortunately, historically, they were always dramatically bad at systems thinking.

It's not just a conspiracy/authoritarianism, if you will; it's also a lack of cognitive complexity in these systems. It's better to interpret some of them as naive medieval inquisitors rather than stereotypical Dr. Eggman/Evil/etc.

Protesting by implementing something better is only a partial solution

Now we're not perfect as well. We've put ourselves in a position where we're always in an ideological confrontation with the governments and teaching people how to resist them. How sustainable is that position?

I believe just teaching the masses about privacy isn't enough. We tell them what not to do, but what should they then do to address the issues like child abuse on the dating websites?

This is a complex question. But when it comes to a specifically technical part—I think we need new social institutions, made by ethical hackers, specialized on the socio-technical issues in various systems. Not something like EFF (which works in the scope of confronting governments), but something that focuses on monitoring, receiving, and processing the relevant complaints, and something that designs solutions that all sides, including governments, actually may like. Something that ideally competes with and outruns governments before they even need to "think" about the next regulation.

And we need to teach the masses to ask these institutions for relevant solutions, not the governments that tend to oversimplify everything and literally solve technical problems with bureaucratic barbarianism.

Now, of course, while we still lack these institutions, we need to keep exchanging better ideas and implementing them, demonstrating that they are actually possible.

Alternative to KYC

What would be an appropriate nostr-based dating/friendship app solution? Specifically designed for finding people in the same location for further offline dating. Let's try to imagine one.

Dating from a normal trusted npub is probably not appropriate for many people. On the other hand, new, almost empty pseudoanonymous npubs don't make much sense, as they have no trust.

Suppose you create special pseudoanonymous profile(s) designed specifically for dating. Such a profile will be visible in dating apps only.

Here you can set your bio with the relevant facts that you like ~~foot hugs~~ certain hobbies, or whatever, without being embarrassed. You can set your age and so on, just like on the normal dating websites.

This pseudoanonymous profile is still not trusted, but users can explicitly give permission to trust ranking services of their choice to acknowledge the normal-pseudoanonymous connection (with cryptographic proofs from both profiles) so the services could assign the same trust rank as on the normal profile.

Now this dating profile can be prioritized for matching. Untrusted profiles will receive a corresponding warning badge (or will simply be ignored, using the app settings, probably by default).

What would we do with the abusive scenarios?

Every pseudoanonymous dating profile can report another one (if they at least had a conversation). They can provide the related location and even forward some of the DM messages as part of the report (much better than cryptographically unverifiable, possibly fabricated screenshots with "removed" messages that are usually shown to cops). The reports should be private. But who is the receiver?

Now the scary part. It's scary, but only for abusers.

Suppose you also have the cop bots, dedicated to specific locations, a FOSS solution that can:

receive the private reports

probably analyze them with local AI models (from simple spam checks to identifying the severity and priority of the report, aggregating them somehow)

forward the reports to the real cops of the related location

send acknowledgement/proof back to the reporter that the report is actually recognized as valid, that it's accepted and forwarded to the real cop

provide the possibility for further communication with a real cop for the reported case, for instance, for additional DMs forwarding; or to help with a new date arrangement with the abuser, but also with a cop instead of the victim this time.

All this without prematurely revealing the real identity of both the reporter and the reported. Reporters technically aren't required to reveal their identity at all if they don't trust the real cops; they may keep reporting abusers without further legal procedures; these reports later will be useful if some other reporter attempts to start a legal case against the same abuser.

This can go with further complexification, to the point where this cop bot would attempt to deceive the reported abusers by automatically generating fake pseudoanonymous profiles relevant enough to the abusers. These profiles will automatically match only with the abusers and will be instantly removed when neither of the expected abusers accepts the match with them. Those who matched will be provided to the real cops for the "special dating".

Of course the connection between real cops and the bot cops should also be cryptographically verifiable by apps. Real cops should have the .well-known/nostr.json (NIP-05) on their governmental website. The cops can run the bots themselves if they want and if they have enough capabilities for that.

Real cops that would attempt to abuse the system will be, for instance, disconnected from trust services: their fake dating profiles will become invisible to most dating app users.

If cops don't really work in your country—maybe you have any related volunteers? They can also run these bots and, for instance, spread certain cases to journalists and provide statistics to them.

This is briefly it

No KYC is required to catch another Appstein. And no KYC would ever help there. Real abusers will fake KYC, but they won't be able to fake the dating with a... sudden cop.

And all this has nothing to do with the particular age range. When the boundaries are that healthy, this is useful for everyone. Further legal processes will take age into account as usual.

My guess is that governments will be interested in these bots. If they don't or if they attempt to pervert this idea somehow—this will be another sign that they are interested in something different from solving the real systemic issues.

Good start with Spark. :-) #nevent1q…yvex

2026-03-20T15:04:28Z

Good start with Spark. :-)

quoting
nevent1q…yvex
Nostr will be responsible for battle hardening every lightning service. Strong work everyone 🫡😂

nevent1q…c3u6

#naddr1qq…22hk

2026-03-20T06:58:31Z

quoting
naddr1qq…22hk

hearing that the systemd file will apply the age verification seems like a small thing but in reality they are touching the most delicate part of what most Linux-based distributions currently use.

if the kernel is like the heart of Linux, for many distributions, systemd is like the brain of the operating system, it is responsible for starting the boot when you turn on the PC, it allows the execution of user profiles, turning off, suspending and restarting the system, helps open applications and keep them running, it allows several runs in parallel controlling various parts of the hardware including the internet connection.

so if the first thing that file does is, instead of doing its tasks, it reviews the user's status, connects to external servers to approve the execution, we are talking about the operating system, someone outside could control everything you can do with it. your pc.

if the age verification laws in the operating system decide not only to limit themselves to just giving your age to classify users in a category and start asking for ID, connect the PC to external servers such as those of the PERSONA company or the servers of Au10tix found in Israel, we are talking about how when your PC starts up, the first thing it will do is connect to a database and check if they allow you to use your own PC or if not, they block you from your own machine.

let's imagine what things they can do if they only control that point:

If you do or publish something they don't like, they could turn you off or lock your PC from the outside by locking your own machine.

If systemd is also asked to send what you hear on your headphones, what things you are ru

nning and how long you use your PC, they could ban you from your own profile and tell you you can only use your PC at x hours or worse than Now block basic functions by returning them to subscriptions in which you must pay, for example, just to use the mouse what keyboards can you only buy or what services can you only receive, because this also takes care of port connections.

They could make certain applications never run by leaving the user only able to run applications that they only approve by limiting what things one can install and what things one cannot install on their own PC.

or worse, with just a systemd update they could turn off all bitcoin or monero nodes, because it is said that it is more advisable to run nodes in Linux because of how Libyan they are compared to Windows a backdoor would no longer be necessary in ASIC chips because with that point alone they can prohibit one from running their own nodes or having their own wallets.

trying to leave systemd is not so easy because most distributions use this library because it is the fastest and most comfortable. Trying to switch to other libraries would involve modifying their distributions from within, something that many will not be able to do.

if many distributions had resisted not applying age verification, just with an update to that library they already had an entire surveillance system sneak in without needing approval from any developer.

this move was like killing 1000 birds with a single shot.

This is the strategy from governments and big tech. Reduce the ...

2026-03-18T08:33:53Z

This is the strategy from governments and big tech. Reduce the options with regulation (KYC), than offer a "solution". The crowd will follow that path, and that's how we are guided. Therefore, better trust a Fedi Mint or a Cashu Mint from Uncle Jim instead of the Wall Street companies.

quoting
nevent1q…yf3s
"no-KYC" here actually means -- the Marcus family has not required you to KYC yet to use their Lightning nodes. Please don't believe that they won't at some point in the future change their minds.

Good UX, good devs, good marketing. But all the dependencys ...

2026-03-17T22:23:14Z

Good UX, good devs, good marketing. But all the dependencys contradict the Nostr philosophy.

quoting
nevent1q…4mep
Digging the new primal (nprofile…wsar) 3.0.

Good work to the team.

Excited to see this app grow & develop over time.

Are you joking? #nevent1q…40h0

2026-03-17T22:15:53Z

Are you joking?

quoting
nevent1q…40h0
Primal self-custody wallet, nice

I suppose it's not totally open. And you can exit with your ...

2026-03-17T21:57:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…7qsm
_________________________

I suppose it's not totally open. And you can exit with your sats, but not the traces you left.

Take a great eCash-Wallet like Minibits and use NWC to connect it ...

2026-03-17T21:52:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…n2ss
_________________________

Take a great eCash-Wallet like Minibits and use NWC to connect it to all your Nostr-Apps, and Fountain, Wavlake and others...

Nostr entwickelt sich schnell, ständig erscheinen neue Apps und ...

2026-03-17T15:52:27Z

Nostr entwickelt sich schnell, ständig erscheinen neue Apps und Funktionen. Trotz allem gibt es immer noch signifikante Defizite. Was fehlt Dir am meisten?
PS: ich freue mich auf viele Antworten, denn der Diskurs ist ein USP von Nostr

AI performance is impressive. Audits seems to be wasted money.

2026-03-15T20:19:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…2nnr
_________________________

AI performance is impressive. Audits seems to be wasted money.

#naddr1qz…yjgw

2026-03-15T19:56:45Z

nostr:naddr1qzqkzm3ddac8xetr94nh26tyv5khgmedwp6kymrfwd5xjmn894hkuttwdaehgu3dwpshyapdw358yet994kx2empdskkvunpd4jhwmmjddej6ctwvskk5atjd9ekg6trw35k7mnpdskhxarjv96x2eme94nx7u3dv3jkxetww3exzmrf0fjkgtt2da6hymnpd35hxmfdxf6rxmn9xcpzp56wsvk59tvtj0q6rs7ggqyngszlxz7tlptl884z7qyvycur77xsqvzqqqr4gujxyjgw

#naddr1qq…5h7f

2026-03-15T19:51:34Z

quoting
naddr1qq…5h7f

Auch in meiner Heimat Sachsen engagieren sich viele Menschen für den Frieden. Die Schwerter-zu-Pflugscharen-Allianz gründete sich 2024. Das Mitgliedernetzwerk besteht aus Vereinen und Initiativen, darunter das Martin-Luther-King-Zentrum Werdau, die Friedensbündnis Kamenz, Leipzig bleibt friedlich!, Frieden wagen, Muldental und Planet des Friedens, Bautzen, Bündnis Friedenskorn Thiendorf. Mitglieder sind u.a. Harald Brettschneider, Oberkirchenrat i.R. und Mitinitiator der Schwerter-zu-Pflugscharen-Aktion in den 1980er Jahren, Horst Rasch, ehem. Innenminister Sachsens und Gerhard Gey, langjähriger, ehemaliger Landrat.

Gemeinsam mit der Initiative Leipzig bleibt friedlich! und dem European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) wurde am 13. Oktober 2025 in der Leipziger Nikolaikirche der Leipziger Appell „Mit Recht gegen Krieg“ verabschiedet.

Die Nikolaikirche ist der Ort, an dem 1989 das Wort „Keine Gewalt“ zum Durchbruch der Friedlichen Revolution beitrug. Heute richtet sich der Ruf erneut an die Politik: Der Schutz des Friedens ist keine Frage politischer Stimmung, sondern eine rechtliche Verpflichtung.\ \ Der Appell erinnert die Bundesregierung und die Europäische Union daran, dass das Völkerrecht bindende Vorgaben für ein friedliches Zusammenleben setzt:

Das Gewaltverbot der UN-Charta ist nicht verhandelbar.

Jede militärische Maßnahme braucht eine eindeutige völkerrechtliche Grundlage.

Waffenexporte sind an strenge menschenrechtliche und rechtliche Prüfungen gebunden, nicht an geopolitische Bequemlichkeit.

Mehr als 100 Persönlichkeiten aus Wissenschaft, Recht, Kultur, Kirche und Zivilgesellschaft unterstützen diese Positionen.

Am 19. November 2025 wurde im Bundeskanzleramt der Leipziger Appell „Mit Recht gegen Krieg“ überreicht.

Als in der Ruinenstadt Leipzig aufgewachsener Mensch wünsche ich dieser Initiative sowie allen weiteren Aktionen für den Frieden, dass sie zur Umkehr zu einem friedlichen Miteinander von Menschen und Völkern beitragen.

RBM hat mehr Boosts verdient.

2026-03-14T11:44:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…39fj
_________________________

RBM hat mehr Boosts verdient.

No packages in the repo. :-( #nevent1q…hkm2

2026-03-13T12:23:06Z

No packages in the repo. :-(

quoting
nevent1q…hkm2
https://github.com/ikarius6/entropy

#naddr1qq…hy3z

2026-03-13T08:50:21Z

quoting
naddr1qq…hy3z

We're happy to announce the first tagged release of FIPS, the Free Internetworking Peering System.

FIPS is a self-organizing mesh network that lets nodes discover each other and route traffic without any central authority. It works natively over local area networks, the internet as an overlay, and is designed for Bluetooth, serial links, and radio. Nodes use Nostr keypairs as their identity — no registration, no servers, just generate a key and join.

This release marks the point where the core protocol works end-to-end and is ready for broader testing. It is alpha software: the wire format is not yet stable and will have breaking changes.

Where to Find Us

Repository: The codebase lives at two official locations:

GitHub: https://github.com/jmcorgan/fips

ngit: https://gitworkshop.dev/npub1y0gja7r4re0wyelmvdqa03qmjs62rwvcd8szzt4nf4t2hd43969qj000ly/relay.ngit.dev/fips

(The fips-network GitHub organization was flagged by GitHub and is under review. We've restored the original jmcorgan/fips URL in the meantime. So, if you starred or forked the original repository, you'll need to do so again.)

Website: https://fips.network

Nostr: Follow the FIPS project account for updates and discussion.

What's in v0.1.0

This release targets Linux (x86_64, aarch64) and OpenWrt (aarch64, x86_64). Other platforms are not yet supported.

Multi-Transport Mesh

FIPS nodes connect over UDP, TCP, or raw Ethernet/WiFi. Ethernet transport includes automatic peer discovery — plug into a LAN and nodes find each other without configuration. The transport layer is designed to be extended to Bluetooth, Tor, serial, and radio.

Dual-Layer Noise Encryption

All traffic is encrypted twice: hop-by-hop between mesh peers (Noise IK) and independently end-to-end between communicating nodes (Noise XK). Both layers perform periodic rekeying with fresh Diffie-Hellman exchanges for forward secrecy.

IPv6 Adaptation

Each node gets a deterministic fd00::/8 IPv6 address derived from its npub. A TUN interface and built-in DNS resolver let unmodified IP applications reach any mesh node:
ping6 npub1abc...def.fips
ssh   npub1abc...def.fips
Static hostname mappings (/etc/fips/hosts) let you assign friendly names like myserver.fips.

Operator Tooling

fipsctl provides runtime inspection of peers, links, sessions, tree state, routing, and transport statistics. fipstop is an interactive TUI dashboard with live-updating views of the entire node state.

Packaging

Multiple installation paths are ready for testing:

Debian/Ubuntu: .deb package via cargo-deb with systemd integration

Generic Linux: systemd tarball installer

OpenWrt: .ipk packages for aarch64 and x86_64

Docker: sidecar deployment for containerized services

Quick Start
# Build from source (Rust 1.85+, Linux)
git clone https://github.com/jmcorgan/fips.git
cd fips
cargo build --release

# Install (Debian/Ubuntu)
cargo install cargo-deb
cargo deb
sudo dpkg -i target/debian/fips_*.deb

# Or use the systemd tarball
./packaging/systemd/build-tarball.sh
tar xzf deploy/fips-*-linux-*.tar.gz
cd fips-*-linux-*/
sudo ./install.sh
Edit /etc/fips/fips.yaml to add a bootstrap peer and start the daemon:
peers:
  - npub: "npub1qmc3cvfz0yu2hx96nq3gp55zdan2qclealn7xshgr448d3nh6lks7zel98"
    alias: "fips-test-node"
    addresses:
      - transport: udp
        addr: "217.77.8.91:2121"
    connect_policy: auto_connect
sudo systemctl start fips
fipsctl show status
fipstop
To run fipsctl and fipstop without sudo, add your user to the fips group: sudo usermod -aG fips $USER (log out and back in to take effect).

Call for Testing

This is an alpha release — we want people to try it, break it, and tell us what happens. Here's how you can help:

Join the mesh: Build and run a node. The test node listed above is a good bootstrap peer.

Try the installers: We're particularly interested in feedback on the .deb, systemd tarball, and OpenWrt .ipk packages. Do they install cleanly? Does the systemd service start correctly?

Report issues: File bugs on GitHub or ngit.

Read the design docs: The full protocol specification is at docs/design/ in the repository, starting with fips-intro.md.

Work in Progress

Additional transports (native Bluetooth, Tor overlay)

Native FIPS API access (no IPv6 shim) via in-process library interface

Peer discovery via Nostr relays

Security audit of the cryptographic protocols

Binary release packages

The full changelog is in the repository at CHANGELOG.md.

Hodlbod is involved?

2026-03-11T12:49:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…anuc
_________________________

Hodlbod is involved?

That would be nice, we count on you.

2026-03-11T08:31:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…557j
_________________________

That would be nice, we count on you.

#naddr1qq…guuy

2026-03-10T17:34:36Z

quoting
naddr1qq…guuy

The European Central Bank is working to create a full-fledged system for sanctions evasion, and no one seems to have noticed.

Central bankers often complain that cryptocurrencies are used to avoid sanctions, but the subject of today’s issue isn’t Bitcoin, stablecoins, or any other cryptocurrency. It’s the digital euro.

At times, this use case has been mentioned subtly in the context of Europe’s resiliency and sovereignty. “The digital euro is not merely a ‘nice to have,’” said European Central Bank official Piero Cipollone. “Europe is increasingly dependent on non-European payment solutions. This puts us at the mercy of decisions made elsewhere.”

However, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde was even more explicit about the digital euro’s role for sanctions evasion when she was interviewed by the Financial Times.

“You know, there is a very strange situation at the moment where people can be barred from access to any financing because of a decision made on the other side of the pond. There’s the case of the International Criminal Court judges at the moment who have no access to finance. If we had a digital euro in place, that person could use financing in whichever way he wants and should, because he would not be deprived of his financial sovereignty himself.”

European officials are not alone in seeing CBDCs as tools for sanctions evasion. China, Russia, and other authoritarian nations have been touting this reasoning for years. When the Bank for International Settlements announced that it would stop supporting the People’s Bank of China’s Project mBridge—a system for exchanging CBDCs from multiple countries—it even felt compelled to deny that the system was meant to enable sanctions evasion. Perhaps that was enough to cover their liability, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.

As her tenure comes to a close, journalists should press European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde to fully explain the true purpose of what the central bank is doing. The digital euro isn’t about financial inclusion, monetary policy, or any of the other popular items officials have proclaimed. The digital euro is about sanctions evasion.

#naddr1qq…eash

2026-02-26T13:01:09Z

quoting
naddr1qq…eash

The European payment landscape in 2026 is defined by a deep tension between institutional stability and grassroots innovation. For decades, the "rails" of commerce were invisible—merchants accepted cards because that was simply what one did, paying a quiet but significant percentage of their revenue for the privilege of participating in the global economy. Today, that invisibility has vanished. Merchants are now active strategists, navigating a world where the traditional "Sovereign Rails" of the European banking system are being challenged by the "Sovereign Protocols" of the Bitcoin ecosystem. This evolution is not merely a technical upgrade; it is a fundamental shift in how value is settled, who holds the keys to liquidity, and how much a business must pay to simply exist.

The Institutional Baseline: Efficiency within the Walled Garden

Traditional payments in the EU are currently shaped by the ambitious PSD3 directive and the finalized Instant Payments Regulation. These legal frameworks were designed to break the dominance of non-European card schemes by mandating that SEPA Instant transfers be as cheap and accessible as standard bank transfers. The flagship of this movement is Wero, the pan-European digital wallet. For a merchant, Wero represents the ultimate refinement of the traditional system. It bypasses the high interchange fees associated with Visa and Mastercard by moving money directly from the customer’s bank account to the merchant’s account in under ten seconds.

In specific regions, local champions still dictate the flow of commerce. In the Netherlands, iDEAL has evolved into a powerhouse of e-commerce, while in Spain, Bizum has transitioned into a viable merchant solution. The allure of these systems is their familiarity and their regulatory "safety net." When a merchant uses a standard card terminal, they are operating within a system that handles their compliance and plugs directly into their existing accounting software. However, this convenience comes at a price: the merchant remains a "tenant" on someone else’s infrastructure, subject to account freezes, data harvesting, or sudden fee hikes.

The Bitcoin Alternative: Scaling via Ecash and Protocols

While the banking sector was busy refining the Euro, a parallel ecosystem was built on the Lightning Network and the Cashu protocol. By 2026, Bitcoin has evolved into a high-velocity payment rail. The breakthrough that finally solved the "scalability vs. privacy" debate for everyday users was the rise of federated ecash.

Consumers are increasingly choosing ecash wallets like Minibits or FEDI. The reason is simple: they are incredibly easy to set up, require no complex channel management, and offer near-perfect privacy. From a user's perspective, paying for a coffee with Minibits is as seamless as a "Tap-to-Pay" transaction. Behind the scenes, the wallet uses blinded tokens that move instantly without bloating the Bitcoin blockchain. This makes ecash the ideal "daily spender"—it is fast, cheap, and private, mimicking the physical cash experience in a digital format.

For the merchant, the entry point is equally frictionless. The recently launched Numo Pay app allows a shop owner to turn any Android phone into a Point of Sale (POS) terminal by leveraging these same ecash protocols. A merchant types in a price, the customer taps their phone, and the transaction is complete. While ecash is technically a custodial model (funds are held in a "Mint"), it provides the high-speed liquidity needed for a busy retail environment.

Nostr: The Merchant's Social and Financial Layer

A critical evolution in 2026 is the integration of Nostr as both a marketing and a payment orchestration layer for businesses. Merchants are no longer just "accepting" payments; they are building a community on a decentralized protocol. By using a Nostr client like YakiHonne, a business can publish long-form updates, product launches, and catalogs directly to their followers without the risk of being de-platformed by a central authority.

The true magic happens in the connection between social and financial. Within these Nostr apps, merchants can link their preferred Lightning wallet via Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC). This creates a unified experience where "zaps" (micro-payments) and product purchases flow directly into the merchant's treasury. For merchants prioritizing speed and privacy, YakiHonne and other modern clients allow the use of ecash wallets like Minibits directly within the app. This means a merchant can receive ecash tokens for their digital content or physical goods with the same ease as a social media "like," while maintaining the option to sweep those funds into a more permanent self-custodial vault.

The Merchant's Path to Sovereignty: Self-Custody and Off-Ramps

As merchants become more comfortable with the ecosystem, their strategy often matures toward full sovereignty. While they may use Numo for the "front-end" tap-to-pay experience or Nostr for community engagement, their "back-end" treasury is increasingly held in robust, self-custodial wallets like Bitkit or Blitz Wallet. These wallets allow merchants to be their own bank, holding the private keys to their revenue and interacting directly with the Lightning Network without intermediaries.

The final piece of the puzzle for a European business is the "Bridge to Fiat." This is where a Bringin account becomes essential. Bringin provides a compliant interface for Europeans to bridge the gap between self-custody and the traditional banking system. By providing a personal virtual IBAN, Bringin allows a merchant to off-ramp Bitcoin into Euro instantly and safely. A merchant can receive Bitcoin via their Blitz Wallet, and when they need to pay their electricity bill, they send a portion to their Bringin IBAN, where it arrives as a SEPA Instant transfer in seconds.

Achieving Total Connection: The Integrated POS

A significant advantage for modern merchants is the ability to achieve a "Total Connection" between these various tools. The Numo app, for instance, is far more than a simple payment receiver; it is a professional Point of Sale suite. It allows merchants to create detailed product catalogs, organize items into categories, and manage inventory directly on the phone.

Crucially, Numo supports auto-withdrawal settings. By providing a Lightning Address, a merchant can instruct Numo to automatically sweep received payments to another destination. This allows for an elegant, automated flow: payments collected via Numo’s merchant interface can be sent instantly to a self-custodial treasury like Blitz Wallet or directly to a Bringin vIBAN, which comes with its own native Lightning Address.

For the modern merchant, understanding the hardware and wallet ecosystem is vital for a smooth customer experience. The tap-to-pay function on Numo requires a compatible Cashu Wallet, such as eNuts, Sovran, Macadamia, Cashu.me, Minibits, or Phoenix. Lightning payments, on the other hand, work with practically all common wallets, including Alby Go, Blink Wallet, Cash App, Fedi, Muun, Strike, Wallet of Satoshi, or Zeus. It is important to note that the NFC function for Bitcoin Tap-to-Pay currently only works on Android devices, as direct NFC payment is not possible on iPhones due to iOS restrictions. However, iOS users can still pay via Lightning QR without any problems, ensuring no customer is left unable to pay.

Summary Comparison of Payment Rails

Conclusion: The Winner is the Open Protocol

In the final analysis, the "best" payment method for a European merchant in 2026 is a hybrid stack that prioritizes autonomy. While Wero and SEPA Instant have improved the status quo, they remain permissioned systems subject to the whims of centralized policy.

The winning strategy for the modern merchant is the Protocol Stack:

For the Consumer: Convenience and privacy via ecash wallets like Minibits.

For the Community: Censorship-resistant engagement and zaps via Nostr.

For the Terminal: Catalog management and POS ease via the Numo app.

For the Treasury: Absolute control via self-custodial wallets like Blitz or Bitkit.

For the Bridge: Instant SEPA off-ramping via Bringin’s vIBAN and Lightning Address.

By combining these tools, a European business can finally reclaim the "card tax," eliminate the risk of frozen accounts, and provide their customers with the most private and efficient payment experience in the world. The bridge to the Bitcoin standard is no longer a theoretical concept; it is a functional, everyday reality.

Great work guys. I'd like to get in contact with you. Do you ...

2026-02-24T07:08:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…q4hc
_________________________

Great work guys. I'd like to get in contact with you. Do you mind sending me your app comparison list?

Guter Punkt, die Motivation muss Unabhängigkeit sein, Zensur ist ...

2026-02-22T12:34:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…q3xx
_________________________

Guter Punkt, die Motivation muss Unabhängigkeit sein, Zensur ist nur eine mögliche Konsequenz von Abhängigkeit.

Unabhängigkeit als Voreinstellung ist ein schöner Gedanke, aber aktuell ist das in Nostr nicht "by design" (Mediadaten, NIP-05, LUD-16). Wie stellst Du Dir den local first Layer also konkret vor?

Das ist die offiziell verbreitete Information, die uns alle in ...

2025-12-23T21:53:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…73m5
_________________________

Das ist die offiziell verbreitete Information, die uns alle in die Resignation treiben soll. Tatsächlich gab es bei Milgram über 20 Versuchsanordnungen, in einer gab es nur 15% Akzeptanz, wenn mindestens eine Person sich öffentlich der vermeintlichen Autorität widersetzte. Zum selben Ergebnis war 10 Jahre vorher bereits Solomon Ash in seinen Experimenten gekommen.
Nachzulesen in meinem Artikel "Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen" auf https://pareto.space/read

Sind wir nicht schon mittendrin?

2025-02-20T21:19:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…ux84
_________________________

Sind wir nicht schon mittendrin?