loki
Roger H

Learning more every day. Writer of a book on Bitcoin + China and how the discourse there will affect your wallets and freedoms. Order the book at http://bit.ly/chinabtcbook. PFP: Ba Jin/巴金. Cover: Thomas Mann.

Public Key

npub12qxvc5evxqt3rky25mfskywugalx5vnhppfl32cu903cnwpyu0uqkmq8u9

NIP-05 Address

loki@verified-nostr.com

NIP-57 Address

shakysoap06@walletofsatoshi.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9qrxv2vkrq9c3mz92d5ctz8wywln2xfmss5lc4vwzhcufhqjw87q6rnsf7

Author Public Key

npub12qxvc5evxqt3rky25mfskywugalx5vnhppfl32cu903cnwpyu0uqkmq8u9

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Last Notes

2024-08-24 23:07:36

Nostr, as always, proves itself to be indispensable.
Remember, countries understand companies - how to exploit them, how to make them bend to their will - very well.
They really struggle with networks. How can you block people from accessing a network with a million different clients? China came to the closest to trying, and Bitcoin and Nostr have never been stronger.
Whether it's companies like Telegram that don't play to the game, or companies like Google banning @npub1vzj…x9gc because they play religiously to it - companies are weak, frail entities with human figureheads.
Networks are the name of the anti-censorship game.

2024-08-19 19:48:07

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I'm down!

2024-08-15 15:17:42

China could have been a vastly different country if Hu Yaobang - who thought Mao left nothing worth emulating, wanted freedom of the press, and wanted to erode centralized leadership and his faction of reformers had kept power. Instead, his death sparked the Tiananmen Square Protests that was the nail in the coffin for his "heir" Zhao Ziyang's career. And ironically, Hu Yaobang's rehabilitation of Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping's father, has led to a China now governed by the principles he always feared would root the Party out - a central tyrant like Mao who believes in crushing even the smallest pockets of dissent.
https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/the-long-reach-of-hu-yaobang/

2024-08-15 14:56:20

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Always plotting!

2024-08-11 23:21:48

It's @nprofile…j54p at Vancouver in Funk Coffee. Vancouver easily has one of the most underrated Bitcoin meetup scenes in the world https://image.nostr.build/cbb5aef29c4ad148f131618a0e4a32d500f4238ac4369c3faf75a045a9728761.jpg

2024-08-07 21:11:06

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Feel free to use the archive.is link: https://archive.is/D5JDq

2024-08-05 17:11:25

Part of the reason why I think Nostr will win, eventually, is that nations understand how to control and co-opt corporations very well, but don't understand how to do it with protocols.
There is no clear "face" or "villain" to paint. This is important because now Elon is seen as controlling X, which makes it an easy target and reduces the attack surface.
Maduro, the hamfisted and bloody tyrant calls Elon out - Starmer, the incompetent looking to implement force to cover up his failings has also side eyed Elon. This has come up with "left-wing governments" like Lula's Brazil as well. The sentiment makes for sport and is the kind of emotional BS that politicians ply to control their peoples every day. But this sort of attack is confusing at best when it comes to Nostr and Bitcoin - because who exactly do you attack? "Shadow coders" isn't as easy to define as "Elon Musk".

2024-07-17 20:35:46

Love that Nick Anthony is on Nostr - he's the one who built @npub17xv…c9as's CBDC tracker. https://cbdctracker.hrf.org/home
Great to have him on here.
#note1e5v…ay6w

2024-07-17 17:51:18

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Added a bunch to the guide, thanks for highlighting!

2024-07-17 17:39:09

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Yeah, I actually edited the article to update that more - it's meant for a more general audience that might not know anything about Nostr, but would love to add Other Stuff of Nostr beyond the mentions I have! I did cherrypick some apps. If people send theirs to me, I can add to the article directly, and perhaps incorporate in future guides.

2024-07-17 17:16:06

I wrote a guide on Nostr, trying to refresh people's knowledge of what you can do with Nostr access with the new apps and new people/content to follow. I also linked a tutorial for getting a zapping wallet set up, and NIP-05 as I've seen the most problems with that.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/07/17/your-guide-to-nostr-the-decentralized-network-for-everything/

2024-07-16 18:02:17

I wrote about the companies getting onto the Bitcoin standard - accepting Bitcoin, and more and more, paying their employees in Bitcoin, and putting their reserves in Bitcoin while spending fiat as an operating flow. Nostr helped me put together more members of this list!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/07/16/companies-are-getting-onto-a-bitcoin-standard/
CC: @npub126n…e9ll, @npub1cwn…raju, @npub1spy…5j7y, @npub1az9…m8y8, @npub1wu4…3vw0, @npub17u5…t4tp @npub1du6…yf3c and the many Nostr peeps that help put this together.

2024-07-11 16:37:53

Working on an article for Forbes, does anybody know cool businesses (especially non-Bitcoin oriented ones) that take Bitcoin as payment - would love to incorporate as many as possible.

2024-07-10 16:31:05

I wrote a review of Resistance Money on Forbes. Overall, I recommend it for every bookshelf, and I think it fits a new era of deeper Bitcoin books on every topic, from its history to its geography.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/07/10/resistance-money-a-review-on-the-philosophy-of-bitcoin/
CC: @npub1yez…awc7

2024-07-09 18:36:25

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My only response to this: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=EX5hcbzZCow

2024-07-09 16:53:23

I wrote about the mainland Chinese who are using Nostr, educating each other how to use it, to talk about their daily lives and other uncensored thoughts.
Hattip to @npub1xts…kk5s as always for his stories and anecdotes, and @npub13v4…l3l8 for helping me carve a path to getting this data.
https://chinabitcoinbook.com/?p=181

2024-06-30 22:43:27

when somebody pitches me their "quantum-resistant", 47389579834 TPS blockchain token and tells me to read their whitepaper
https://m.primal.net/JDoC.jpg

2024-06-27 20:01:04

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Thanks for the support :)

2024-06-26 15:38:04

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I'd love to learn more - I have a Bitcoiner friend in Thailand right now. I'd also love to support the Bitcoin community in Thailand :)

2024-06-26 07:25:56

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However, if people prefer, they can also donate to a link Stella Assange has tweeted out, though that's on-chain.
https://freeassange.org/donate/
https://x.com/Stella_Assange/status/1805774488828887288
I really have no skin in the game, beyond trying to share an option for Bitcoin/Lightning Network users. I understand the way information was presented initially (which I take responsibility for) left room for doubt. I applaud the skeptical attitude. I like that you thought of me as an untrusted entity, which you should. I hope I have been able to clear up some doubt about the matter.

2024-06-26 07:20:26

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Hey Uno, I totally understand where you're coming from and applaud the skepticism. I want to take responsibility for jumping ahead of the curve a bit because I had to rush for a meetup.
However, I hope this serves as proof that this is real.
The Forbes article I wrote on the topic: (https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/06/25/julian-assanges-family-is-raising-funds-for-him-with-bitcoin/) which contains the BTCPay address.
https://m.primal.net/IyQW.png
I've attached a screenshot of Gabriel Shipton, Assange's half-brother, posting the article. You can find the Tweet here: https://x.com/GabrielShipton/status/1805860556072796314

2024-06-25 22:19:30

A lot of people have been wondering about how to get Bitcoin donations to Julian Assange after @npub1xw7…umsa wrote about the need to fundraise for the USD 520,000 to cover his flight on VJT199 to Saipan. I talked with his half-brother Gabriel, who set up this link on their @npub155m…dcvg instance.
https://btcpay0.voltageapp.io/apps/3sEmBheBrxi3NCzSwguMeSVJtZ5y/pos
cc: @npub1sg6…f63m @npub1trr…hdpu
Verify, don't trust as always. All I can say is that I sent sats to this BTCPay instance, and that it came to me from the same Signal account as when I interviewed Gabriel for articles like the following: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2021/06/21/julian-assanges-continued-imprisonment-is-a-test-for-bitcoins-values/

2024-06-17 16:33:11

My profile picture on here commemorates Ba Jin, the leading anarchist Chinese writer. His short stories and novels animated a revolutionary generation that saw China break from thousands of years of dynastic rule - but he was personally punished by Mao during the Cultural Revolution. His wife was denied treatment for her cancer and she would die. Ba Jin took to writing about remembering the Cultural Revolution and reading Dante's Inferno to gain some small measure of comfort.
Some people talk about the "Chinese model" as if it is a matter of destiny, but the recent ideological fascination with Marx and a stronger Leninist state doesn't have as strong of a root as most assume, and even less so the idea of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" forged right after Ba Jin's torment. Ba Jin's story tells us that there was always a China that looked to temper the state's excesses and one rooted in a desire to engage the world (at the time in Esperanto, perhaps now with Bitcoin). Though the Chinese Communist Party has tried to seize his legacy, I believe it is Chinese cypherpunks looking to hedge and move away from one of the most unequal fiat kingdoms on Earth (China's income inequality by some measures surpasses that of the United States) that truly follow Ba Jin's legacy.
https://m.primal.net/IoNE.jpg ) https://m.primal.net/IoNF.jpg https://m.primal.net/IoNG.jpg

2024-06-13 17:59:23

I wrote about how Bitcoin survived China's bans and actually grew much stronger - diving into the details on the level of what was attempted - really showing how Bitcoin thrived despite a very robust attack from a large state adversary - and what lessons can be drawn for future resilience.
Hattip to @`jb55`who gave me the whole story of how Damus had to face down Chinese censors firsthand who took the Damus app down and then banned the default relay IP addresses.
https://chinabitcoinbook.com/?p=158

2024-06-13 14:22:11

One of the cool features of Nostr is the automatic translation of different languages in mobile clients. I believe @npub18m7…q955 and @npub1nz6…0w5y both have this feature. It's awesome to follow people from around the world.

2024-06-12 15:53:52

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The solution is to build open standards and networks resilient to all threat models. Monero is not resilient to nation-state level scrutiny, whereas Bitcoin is - and I can point to this simply because Chinese state authorities (including at the time, Vice-Premier Liu He) tried banning Bitcoin left and right but probably has no idea what Monero is.
Nostr hosts a lot of Chinese cypherpunks. None of them ever really post about Monero.

2024-06-12 13:28:34

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I don't know of anybody en masse that uses Tor in China, but I know plenty of people who use VPNs. My point wasn't a direct analogue of the technology, it's the fact that once your tech is a narrow use case, it's easier to target. China can't target regular web traffic at a protocol level because too much useful stuff is there - they have to ban IP by IP. Even bridges for Tor don't work that well in Mainland. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.0447
Btw, if we want to be direct, I have never seen an instance yet of P2P trade in China with Monero vs. Tether/BTC. Which is my point. If the liquidity conditions are not met, the tech isn't even usable in certain jurisdictions. FYI, this isn't because Monero are some on-chain geniuses, most "traders" are nabbed by interactions with the Chinese banking system. But in arrests, public reporting, sleuthing on Chinese social media - very little known interest in Monero.

2024-06-12 13:20:38

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Obviously I think transactional privacy is legit, but governments don't. FYI, why Lightning usage is generally banned in China as well.

2024-06-11 18:18:35

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I think the problem with Monero is that it's like using Tor vs https:// - you need enough "legit" traffic and trade for it to be a viable currency rather than a privacy tool. Incidentally, this is why Tor, for example, is banned at the protocol level within China.

2024-06-11 16:40:26

I wrote about the growth of Bitcoin and Nostr as essential tools for activists and dissidents making a difference around the world at the Financial Freedom Track in Oslo. I linked to everybody's Primal profile in the spirit of it all.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/06/11/oslo-freedom-forum-why-bitcoin-matters-more-than-its-price/
CC @npub1sg6…f63m @npub1a2c…w83a @npub1trr…hdpu @npub1wlk…qwhy @npub1cf3…x7gk @npub12rv…85vg @npub1hea…g9v2 @npub1rxy…hnp8
@npub1dnz…x52h and @npub1hwg…03sg also have excellent articles on the topic on their Forbes profiles.

2024-06-04 10:52:00

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I've started linking only to people's Nostr in my articles or their website https://image.nostr.build/b3244af396e007f8a1668938355c20608ab5b850bd2f49f23db8d4b084292891.jpg

2024-06-04 05:49:02

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The reason why it still matters is because China drives its political class from the descendants of those who authorized mass state violence and continues to perpetuate it on innocents trying to remember the event. For Bitcoiners and freedomtech adherents who might view the China model as dystopia - know that it had its roots 35 years ago when the Chinese state killed protesting citizens and then tried to kill the memory of the event.
#八九六四