techfeudalist

Blessed by tech; working to bring the benefits to everyone. Freedom, incorruptible money, privacy.

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Last Notes

2024-09-30 04:03:51

https://image.nostr.build/72625d9b0fd1797ad1e9da738427e0065c5aff4728c36ec001d400efa4752cf3.jpg

2024-09-30 02:43:01

https://image.nostr.build/d87f17fb52ec92e018860be575728ccb2423e9d5654fa505bca6b32a39e630a4.jpg

2024-09-27 04:29:40

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Just saw this email. August 2020. What couldn’t the head of the NIH talk about on email? Something about Ecohealth and Wuhan.
Perhaps it was about the wet market where the virus would be discovered the next month?
This email wouldn’t exist if the virus was natural. But this email does exist. https://image.nostr.build/6e4fc3bcec4adcf2f19d2387cad299e54a3df20800bb48b37a97b2561e729f2e.jpg

2024-09-25 02:43:11

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Now he’s trying to remove spam filters from Bitcoin core.

2024-09-22 21:36:26

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➡️ “Very fair point. However if folks are okay with “slow”, what’s the likelihood they’re also okay with just waiting for lower feerates for their tx to be confirmed in the first place?”
They might be, but you’ll recall that this was the risk that Peter had identified in his paper — paying for cheaper transactions. My point was that Peter had overlooked the other case, specifically the risk that CTV could motivate people to pay for faster transactions. I believe both of these cases are risks and I don’t know for certain what the magnitude is (and I don’t believe anyone can know for certain — because our assumptions are based on the past and not what people might invent in the future).
➡️ “AMMs are not possible with CTV only, because there is not sufficient transaction introspection to achieve this (aka you can’t look back at previous txs which is necessary to have the price update in an AMM).”
I could imagine that this could be solved by the coordinator frequently reissuing the contracts with the current value.
Another possibility is to somehow link specific UTXOs in chains to track state. This is abstract; hope you understand what I mean.
Reissuing the contracts frequently or creating chains of UTXOs might also address your other point on the need to recalculate the contract for all the registered addresses. Creating more contract instances may reduce the complexity of trying to cram everything into one contract.
I recognize that republishing the contracts frequently would slow down trading, but again, this is me brainstorming for five minutes. Since it’s technically possible, it becomes an optimization problem. How do we know some clever person won’t solve it?
I understand your point that it looks infeasible and doubtful that a meaningful on-chain market could arise. But I recognize that this view is based on assumptions of past events, current technology, and current maturation of the bitcoin network. I don’t think we can look at it like this. We have to think about the future — the long and unknown future. Once these protocol changes are in, we can’t easily pull them out.
I believe that if something is technically possible, a sufficiently motivated person will eventually find a way. We can’t assume that it will never happen just because it seems infeasible today.
From another thread, but additional details on why I believe we should be conservative:
#note1r4t…4sjk

2024-09-20 02:02:59

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I agree with your characterization of the risks: ones that could harm the technology itself, and those that could harm the network’s decentralization.
Why we should be conservative for both:
➡️ Bitcoin is not merely a technical system. It’s also a social and economic system where incentives drive behavior. Over time, the incentives will either push the system to greater decentralization or greater centralization. Satoshi’s original incentives have been pushing the system towards greater decentralization. However, if we change these incentives, we could break what he gave us.
➡️ Devs understand technical risks but they generally aren’t experts in predicting the third order effects in dynamic systems. They have a huge blind spot. We’ve seen what happens when devs play around and mess things up (ethereum, witness discount).
➡️ You’re right, we shouldn’t try to stop abusive transactions. But we should try to prevent new classes of transactions which harm decentralization. This is a hard problem which is why we must be patient, long-term thinkers.
My perspective on CAT / CTV:
➡️ Every change to the core protocol has unknown risks. Therefore we should only make a change if it is both necessary and safe. “Necessary” means solving an existential problem that we believe cannot be solved in any other way. “Safe” means that we believe it to be safe and have reduced the attack surface as narrowly as possible to limit unintended side effects.
➡️ We can’t make risky changes to fix a potential future problem (“premature optimization”). Maybe someday there will be an existential scaling crisis, but we don’t have one right now. The mempool is clearing at a few sats/vbyte.
➡️ There are also alternatives that devs haven’t yet explored. We should exhaust all reasonable alternatives before proposing a core protocol change.
➡️ Even when we have a real problem, we should wait and see whether the pain of it can motivate creative solutions without a protocol change. Necessity being the mother of invention.
➡️ Both CTV and CAT were designed to maximize capability, enabling unknown use cases where we don’t know how they might be abused. This design philosophy is inappropriate for bitcoin (the world’s money and our hope for the future). We should instead identify key use cases (vaults?) that are absolutely essential (that can only be solved with a core protocol change) and build specific solutions, scoped as narrowly as possible to prevent unintentional side effects.
Appreciate the discussion ✌️

2024-09-19 02:28:25

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Curious about that. Why do you think that was?

2024-09-18 23:23:19

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It’s a really hard problem for devs because spammers can use AI to create profiles that are practically indistinguishable from regular users. The fake profiles could be filled in complete with avatars, background image, etc.
Imagine if every post with hit with 100 replies that you’re pretty sure aren’t real but you don’t know for certain.
Spammers will use TOR and VPNs so if relays block those, they’ll harm the privacy of real users. (Eg I’m using TOR right now)
Spammers can also target larger accounts or new users for abuse and can also flood your DMs with spam to make that unusable too.
It’s a hard problem. No easy solutions. I’m personally in favor of the WoT model with a guided onboarding process for new users to get into the web of trust.

2024-09-18 21:11:33

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I must be missing a ton of context. Such a strange situation. Getting mad for someone helping out and promoting nostr? 🤨
Derek’s message has a lot of “me” and “I” in it. 🚩🚩🚩

2024-09-18 15:56:50

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It seems we’re exploring the bounds of a new “pick two” trilemma:
1) free to post
2) free of spam
3) free to connect with anyone
The fundamental problem is that new users and spammers will be soon indistinguishable. LLMs will make sure that profiles are properly filled in with icons, the posts are unique, etc.
I worry that IP filtering, rate limiting and anti-spam algos will just consume your time as you fight one fire after another and spammers quickly adapt to whatever you just did. With every fix, new users will lose visibility without recourse.
I’m just thinking it’s best to solve the problem at the deeper level. eg. WoT plus an onboarding process for new users.

2024-09-17 03:48:29

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnipresent-ai-cameras-will-ensure-good-behavior-says-larry-ellison/

2024-09-16 18:52:25

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Hey, you read Peter’s paper! Nice. You finally figured out that it wasn’t a podcast. 👍
Notice that Peter didn’t say “because it’s risk free”. Or maybe you didn’t? You got distracted on his comment regarding use cases. We weren’t even talking about that. 🤷‍♂️
Ah, you’re busy now. Still waiting for you to explain why Peter is wrong about the risk. I guess I’m going to be here a long time. 😴
PS. Remember, those who feel strongly about something they can’t defend…

2024-09-16 03:05:07

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It’s an interesting question. “Embrace and extend” was one of the techniques that Microsoft used to attack open protocols. They would make their implementation better and therefore create a new standard that only they controlled.
The risk would be if your relays extend the protocol, creating lock-in for the custom clients using it.

2024-09-15 17:49:51

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Oh, you’re not busy anymore! Hope you had the time to read the thread with Matt Black.
Correction: you told me your opinion and couldn’t provide any logic or evidence. Everyone can see you didn’t answer anything. Btw, you know that only midwits believe strongly in something they can’t defend, right? Must have been a blow to your ego to discover you had nothing.
I know, I know. The answer is just that Peter Todd, Matt Corallo, everyone is wrong. But why? …And you can’t explain. 🤡😂
It’s funny how you keep responding to me with nothing. I must be living rent free in there.

2024-09-14 04:43:07

https://image.nostr.build/030e700c7db471c4589f153beedd9ec5e204ab4afdbd92fe7ce6d87db8d76e7c.jpg

2024-09-14 04:11:18

You could probably get many Haitians (and Americans) to eat a cat on video for under $1000. https://image.nostr.build/a78f6419ea013a170a28d85b9797eb6b0f4958923c5924ab2b7c3e131beb5bef.jpg

2024-09-13 14:59:54

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I don’t see how that thread debunks because it assumes a choice between one or the other. Why not both? Wouldn’t a rational actor attempt the cheaper private API transaction first? And if it didn’t complete in time, to then expand distribution, first to other private APIs and then later to public broadcast?
Also moonsettler’s analysis in the thread seems handwavy. “There is no guarantee that they would find a block in the timeframe you need it.”
Isn’t that use case dependent? What % of use cases are infeasible? And if the transaction is sent to the two biggest miners, now what % of use cases are infeasible?
Once a potential risk is identified, then proponents opine that the risk could be small. But how do they know?
I don’t know the magnitude of the risk either. How could I? To say conclusively, we would need a crystal ball to know all the ways the feature could be used or abused at any time in the future, even 100 years from now. If we get it wrong, we can’t just say “Oops!” and easily remove it.
Responses to your points:
➡️ People can trade financial contracts with DLCs.
I’m not concerned with P2P trading, with primary origination on-chain, or with secondary trading off-chain that happens independently of miners. I think the issue is secondary trading of options directly on chain.
➡️ What specific centralizing MEV is enabled by CTV?
Right now, I’m concerned about the potential for time-based and cost-based private transactions that could create centralizing MEV.
➡️ No AMM can be built with CTV / Sapio.
I think you would need to show that all AMMs must have a fundamental marketplace or contractual state that cannot be modeled by Sapio. It seems to me that if there is any possibility that there could be any secondary on-chain trading, then we can’t rule out the potential for time-based centralizing MEV through arbitrage, front-running, etc.
➡️ MEV already exists elsewhere.
Sure, but we don’t want to open the door to other abuses and make it worse. Protocol changes should do no harm.
➡️ It’s difficult to extract MEV currently.
This is a statement of what is happening today given current use cases and bitcoin’s current size and maturity. Opportunities for MEVil will change over time as new abuses develop and as bitcoin grows. Once the door is open, we can’t close it.

2024-09-12 06:00:59

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I agree with your note.
Yes, CTV does make it worse. Peter focused on the difference in *cost* but he didn’t discuss the difference in *time*. Transactions through a private OOB API could be much faster than propagating a regular transaction through the entire network.
CTV opens up the potential to create financial marketplaces on Bitcoin. With CTV, you can run arbitrary code on chain, with the only exception being that you need to know in advance all the ways the program can return. You can use this to trade options, make atomic swaps, etc.
To learn more:
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/106850/is-there-anything-specific-to-the-design-of-the-sapio-language-that-makes-it-wel
It seems that most bitcoiners have the impression that CTV is just “covenants” to make channel factories and payments better. I believe this is misleading. CTV is actually an advanced NEW smart contract platform that RUNS ON CHAIN.
Are you familiar with Uniswap and all the MEV opportunities created by financial trading and arbitrage?
https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2024/07/09/mev-has-spread-to-bitcoin-in-subtler-forms-than-on-ethereum/
So, being able to trade quickly to front-run pending transactions can be profitable. CTV exacerbates the problem because it conducts everything on chain where it is visible because of the blockchain’s transparency. This trading wouldn’t be risk if it were conducted say on Liquid and later settled on bitcoin.
That article above ends with this quote:
“A fair conclusion to the preceding technobabble is this: The more complicated the thing you’re trying to do is, the more likely MEV will occur (just like in regular ol’ finance).”
I think this is true. If we add arbitrary code execution ON CHAIN, we are in uncharted waters.

2024-09-11 12:12:31

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Too many people are willing to risk the entire network because they are essentially impatient and have a need to be “innovative”.
They imagine all the future problems we might face, and get excited to “solve” them by changing the core protocol, ignoring the inherent risks.
We don’t get do-overs. We have one opportunity to have bitcoin and replace central banks. We can’t mess it up.

2024-09-11 11:49:13

Seems like good evidence for another conspiracy theory. The US and the UK may have interfered in the Ukrainian peace deal to provoke a Russian invasion.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nuland-admits-us-discouraged-ukraine-signing-russian-peace-deal-moment-it-was-really

2024-09-11 07:04:11

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I suspect it wont be long until there is a fresh npub with each post using an LLM so that there is no text pattern. It will just look like a new user.
Eventually each npub will have a full LLM created profile too, complete with an image icon. We won’t be able to mute or block, except to block new users.
The attacker might also fill up people’s DMs with useless messages to make DMs unusable too.
It does cost something for the attacker to maintain the attack, but they can reduce their costs by focusing it on large accounts and new users. If the attacker just focuses on new users, and makes the apps unusable for them, we might not even realize the severity of what’s going on.
Anyway, this is what I could do, and I’m assuming the attacker is more skilled than me.
We need to start putting in these defenses ahead of time, thinking like the attackers, so that we aren’t surprised by the ongoing escalations.

2024-09-11 06:46:28

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Three buildings. Two planes. Most people can’t do basic math.

2024-09-11 05:45:11

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😂 so funny! You’re still pretending that I didn’t send you direct quotes from Peter and Matt! We all know why you ignore them. You’re not capable of responding. You were so overconfident and now you’re just embarrassed.
Here, I’ll send them again so everyone following you can see you’re pretending not to see them.
Here is Peter admitting that both CAT and CTV add risks. He says:
“Unlike OP_CAT, CTV doesn’t appear to raise much risk of unintended consequences beyond encouraging out-of-band fee payments in certain cases. This isn’t ideal.”
The risk that Peter identified for CTV is “encouraging out of band fee payments”.
https://petertodd.org/2024/covenant-dependent-layer-2-review
Here’s Matt Corallo explaining why these can motivate miner centralization:
https://x.com/TheBlueMatt/status/1780558009841643833
Matt argues that these payments to miners are a risk because they encourage centralization:
“More recently, out of band payments to miners have become popular again, allowing individuals to pay large pools for the inclusion of their transaction(s) using payments outside of the normal bitcoin transaction fee. This can create substantial MEVil [centralization MEV risk] […]”
There you go! You can keep ignoring them but we all know that I sent them and you couldn’t respond.
🫳 🎤

2024-09-10 21:34:01

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I presented TWO quotes from notable developers that contradict you and you replied with no evidence, no logic, nothing. There’s ELI5 and ALY5 - argue like you’re five.
You can’t just stomp your feet and say “No it doesn’t!”
Podcasts? Everyone can see that you just ignored the direct quotes. You just completely pretended you didn’t see them! 😂
You’re in disbelief because you thought I was misinformed and yet you found yourself unable to respond to DIRECT quotes from notable developers. I can tell that you still don’t understand what they said.
You said:
“Out of band payments are essentially no different then payments in LN channels which themselves are just unpublished bitcoin transactions and thus present little to no risk.“
This is why I can tell you don’t get it yet. The problem is not HOW they’re paying the miners. It’s WHY they’re paying them.
I can tell you want to learn but are very confused right now. My advice is to focus first on Matt’s article. Why does he say that private out of band payments to miners create centralization risk?
Once you understand that, then dig into why Peter admitted that CAT and CTV can encourage these private out-of-band payments.
BTW, to understand why Peter admitted the risk, you must first understand the difference between ON-CHAIN logic and OFF-CHAIN logic.
Covenants and arbitrary code execution in systems like Liquid, etc are OFF chain and don’t create centralizing MEV (“MEVil”).
With CAT and CTV, the logic is ON chain which why they can create centralizing MEV.
**That’s why Peter admitted the risk.** He knows the difference between on-chain and off-chain logic and you don’t (yet).
So again, you need to understand why Peter and Matt said what they did, and why that contradicts your original assumption.
If you get stuck or want to discuss, just let me know! I realize that this topic is nuanced and deeper into the weeds than most people decide to go.

2024-09-10 19:44:33

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Matt, for point five. My client moved the note link to the bottom and not under point 5 where I put it. If you can’t find it, just let me know. 🙏

2024-09-10 19:41:03

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Thank you Matt 🙏
Here’s my thought process and why I push back on CTV / CAT, etc.
1. Bitcoin is our hope for the future. We can’t mess it up. We must be careful and be long-term thinkers. We can’t rush or take unnecessary risks. We’ve seen first hand how changes to ethereum have increased centralization. We don’t want to make those same mistakes for the sake of “innovation”. Which is why the ethereum devs made those changes too.
2. Any change to the core protocol is risky. Even the best devs are not omniscient. Code can have bugs and unintended side effects. For example, I believe the witness discount with segwit was a mistake and inadvertently encouraged blocks filled with jpeg spam which harmed node decentralization.
3. Because changes have unknown risks, we should only make them when we believe the change is both necessary and safe. When I say “necessary” I mean solving an existential problem that we believe cannot be solved in any other way. “Safe” means that we believe it to be safe and have reduced the attack surface as narrowly as we can to limit unintended side effects.
4. I believe that CTV / CAT are both unnecessary at this time and potentially dangerous.
5. I’ve explained here why I believe they are potentially dangerous
#note1p90…pyh6
6. Most advocates point to CTV and CAT as helping to solve bitcoin scaling and payment non-interactivity. For a variety of reasons, I believe these are nice to have but unnecessary at this time. It’s possible that we will need these features in the future but we don’t right now. There are also alternatives that devs haven’t yet explored which I believe they should do before proposing a core protocol change.
So to summarize, i do appreciate the many positive features that CTV and CAT offer. It’s just that I believe the changes are not necessary at this time and potentially dangerous.
Thanks again for the link. Happy to dive into any of these points in more detail, if you wish.

2024-09-10 18:19:55

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Wow, did you really just ask me to dox myself? I guess you must be new here. 😆You know, you could just ask me technical questions.
Regarding whether Liquid is an L2… It’s amusing that you would argue the point pedantically given that there is no established definition.
If you want, you can listen to Adam Back and Sampson Mow describe liquid as a layer 2 here, right around the 4:00 mark. They should know, right?
https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/liquid-bitcoin-with-adam-back-samson-mow
Anyway, back to the main topic. I’ll walk you through, step by step, why CAT / CTV create centralizing incentives for miners…
First, did you see Peter Todd’s report?
#note1num…uxr9
In his report, Peter admits that both CAT and CTV add risks. He says:
“Unlike OP_CAT, CTV doesn’t appear to raise much risk of unintended consequences beyond encouraging out-of-band fee payments in certain cases. This isn’t ideal.”
The risk that Peter identified for CTV is “encouraging out of band fee payments”.
(If you’d like, just ask and I’ll explain WHY CTV encourages out of band fee payments.)
In case you’re unfamiliar, this is an example of private out of band payments to miners.
Eg, MARA’s Slipstream API:
https://x.com/JStefanop1/status/1760764664651133162
Next, why are out of band payments risky?
Here’s Matt Corallo explaining why these can motivate miner centralization:
https://x.com/TheBlueMatt/status/1780558009841643833
Matt argues that these payments to miners are a risk because they encourage centralization:
“More recently, out of band payments to miners have become popular again, allowing individuals to pay large pools for the inclusion of their transaction(s) using payments outside of the normal bitcoin transaction fee. This can create substantial MEVil [centralization MEV risk] […]”
So to recap, Peter admits that CAT / CTV can encourage out of band payments to miners. Matt explains that these payments can encourage miner centralization.
You said I was “grossly misinformed”, and “completely wrong”. I’ve provided you direct quotes from notable devs.
Ok, now your turn. Explain how I got it wrong and why you believe CTV or CAT “will help to decentralize mining pools”.
I’m hoping you’ll be able to respond with a reasonable rebuttal 🙏 so I might learn if I missed something. But I suspect you’re just mindlessly parroting what you heard. I hope you prove me wrong.
If you don’t respond, we’ll both know who didn’t do any research. 🫡

2024-09-09 06:36:49

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I found both extremely thought provoking but still really haven’t figured out what to make of it yet.
When I study historical events, I try to learn why decisions were made to better predict how people may respond to similar future events.
One thing I had never realized before but the “national socialist” party that the Nazi’s called themselves was anti-communist. I had assumed the nazi’s were socialist.
The other aspect that I never knew was the connection in hitler’s mind between Jews and communism. And it wasn’t just Hitler who harbored that belief. Churchill seemed to too!
I did a few searches and also learned that this is a “conspiracy theory”. I don’t know yet whether it is true or not, but it does seem that leaders on both sides of the battle seemed to believe it.
Did Germany in WWII believe it was fighting an anti-woke, anti-communist crusade??
I get now why people on the left compare Trump to Hitler. Nationalist, anti-woke, authoritarian.
Like I said, all very thought provoking.

2024-09-09 05:53:50

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I read the post on HIV. I asked about covid and saw no note about covid with references. You just said it was a “conspiracy theory” and provided no evidence in response. When I asked you said the discussion was “unsustainable”.
Was there a post about covid with references that I missed?

2024-09-09 05:50:24

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Which part?

2024-09-08 21:45:35

Two (long but interesting) takes on historical events.
Why hitler hated communists and the Jews:
https://www.anarchonomicon.com/p/the-managerial-minority-adolf-hitler
Also, Tucker had this historian on to a lot of backlash but was an interesting discussion. The question that made me think: Why did these people act the way they did?
https://youtu.be/vOTgPEGYS2o

2024-09-08 13:50:34

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Interesting how you claim to be a specialist and you refuse to provide ANY evidence to support your claim. Disappointing.

2024-09-08 08:16:58

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I view it the same way. The system lurches between liquidity injections and liquidity crises. We’re in an induced liquidity crisis now. They’ll inject more liquidity soon.

2024-09-08 05:53:01

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Yeah, I’ve done a lot of research and am a developer.
I’ve written a lot of research on the topic already. You can start here and review my threads.
#note1w0l…rvd9
I’m happy to debate anything.
Liquid is an L2 because it operates as a secondary network on top of bitcoin, inheriting its security guarantees. Both lightning and liquid operate through two-way pegs from bitcoin. Sidechains can be secondary layers too, ya know.
We don’t need the ability to open a million lightning channels right now. Maybe people will want to use self-custodial lightning in the future, but they clearly don’t right now. You can ask the Mutiny devs if you’re unclear why.
#note1wr4…gyku

2024-09-07 20:51:15

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What evidence do you have that it is natural and not from a lab?

2024-09-07 20:19:53

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Are you saying that there is no evidence that the virus was modified by humans?
The Defuse proposal?
Ecohealth Alliance?
The furin cleavage site?
Etc.
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-war-against-the-lab-leak-hypothesis/

2024-09-07 19:54:24

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My thoughts exactly. Both are a waste of money. Ukraine was unnecessary and was provoked to boost military spending in the 🇺🇸 while harming Russia. I’m sure a lot of secret billionaires were made from the graft. Nobody cared about the Ukrainian lives lost.
Fix the money, fix the world.

2024-09-07 19:30:13

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What’s happening now in the profession regarding gain of function experiments? Is there any recognition that, in all likelihood, the scientists caused covid?

2024-09-07 18:43:25

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I’m pretty scared of on-chain covenants because of the risk that they promote mining centralization.
To me, covenants are perfectly fine on L2s like Liquid, but not on the main L1.

2024-09-07 16:39:06

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+ When I’m editing a note, tapping return can jump me to the bottom of the note even when I’m editing the middle of the content. To replicate, tap return at the bottom of a paragraph that is not the last.
+ enable long-press to download a video (like primal). This works for images but not video.

2024-09-06 15:11:29

Pattern matching is a game of wack a mole. The spammers are already evolving. Eventually this will be AI spam on a freshly minted npub. It will look like any new user. Nostr apps will either be forced to block new users or implement something radical.
Solutions are:
1) trust graph (accounts followed by people i follow and they people they follow, all the way up)
2) some significant cost for new users (which could be proof of bitcoin paid or owned, or proof of work in creating an account or for posting a message) #note1zfh…cdwx

2024-09-06 15:02:29

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Hmmm, not sure if you realize that bcash is already horribly centralized. This is what we’re trying to avoid with bitcoin.
Also, there is no risk to OP_CAT on Liquid because it doesn’t have mining like bitcoin.
The problem with enabling OP_CAT on the bitcoin timechain is that it can create arbitrage opportunities which can encourage miner centralization.
Here’s how:
CAT can enable on chain atomic swaps.
https://bitcoin-takeover.com/andrew-poelstra-bitcoin-covenants-op_cat-vs-op_ctv/
On chain atomic swaps can be used to create securities marketplaces (eg Uniswap on Ethereum)
https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/what-is-an-atomic-swap-token-swap
Unswap-like exchanges create the potential for centralizing MEV by allowing speculators to bribe miners to reorder transactions so the speculators can jump the queue.
https://medium.com/flashbots/frontrunning-the-mev-crisis-40629a613752
Smart contracts, arbitrary code execution, etc are fine if they’re off-chain. But if when they are used on-chain, then the they can harm bitcoin’s decentralization.
Devs who want to use OP_CAT should just use it on Liquid. No need to take unnecessary risks with bitcoin.

2024-09-06 13:56:57

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The explanation here on why OP_CAT was disabled is misleading. It wasn’t “developers” it was Satoshi. And nobody knows why Satoshi disabled it, because he never said.
Advocates of OP_CAT want us to believe that it’s safe. Notice that they never address the real risk - that the feature causes miners to become more centralized from MEV.
Maybe Satoshi noticed the risk to miners. Nobody knows. Regardless, OP_CAT is dangerous and unnecessary.

2024-09-06 06:15:19

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Explain the process step by step please so a dev could implement it into their nostr client.

2024-09-05 21:37:55

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New users have no reputation and it’s not clear how they can earn it in a decentralized system.

2024-09-05 21:22:25

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#note1m37…2nmn

2024-09-05 21:20:44

I only see two ways to stop this spam.
1) filter to see only posts from people in your trust graph
2) impose a real cost to post to all
Anything I’m missing?
Bottom line is that new users will be initially treated like spammers.
This attack is probably just a warm up. I would expect that we’ll soon see AI posts that you can’t pattern match, and overwhelming spam against both replies and DMs. I would expect them to initially target the folks with the largest follower count, then attacking new users.

2024-09-03 09:58:45

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That doesn’t make sense to me because it seems custodial lightning was preferred by plebs even *before* nostr existed and even *now* when there is no need for offline receipt. Like in El Salvador or Costa Rica, for everyday retail payments. Last I saw, WOS and Bitcoin Beach / Blink, were preferred before nostr, and probably still are. For your argument to be correct, I would expect to see widespread and growing self-custodial lightning usage in those communities.
Am I wrong about that?
You might be right that the early nostr adopters were all using self-custodial lightning, but surely you’d agree that is not a representative sample of plebs. As nostr grew, it was probably destined to become mostly custodial because of the existing preference of plebs.
I don’t know what percentage of lightning usage is custodial but I’ll bet that by almost any metric it will be custodial by a large and growing margin.
Maybe this is unpopular, but my current thesis is that self-custodial lightning will become used only by federations, exchanges, and other custodians. We, the plebs, will all migrate to ecash, presumably to large geo-federations when they exist. I’m just guessing here, but that’s the trend I see right now.

2024-09-02 20:27:57

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I think this was a very productive discussion. Thank you. 🙏
My position is that the rush to solve scaling is premature. Changes to the protocol must be both safe and necessary.
There is a debate over CTV’s safety and many devs acknowledge some risk. But what about its necessity?
Do we have an existential scaling problem today? As I type, the mempool is clearing at 3 sats/vbtye.
I’ve seen no evidence that normies want self-custodial bitcoin right now. It’s funny because @utxo just shared a meme on how normies want centralized apps where they can sign in with Google:
#note1ejc…cj2p
You want self-custodial bitcoin, I do too. But I’ve seen NO evidence that bitcoin is failing to grow because of an inability to scale or that CTV, CAT or anything else will “fix” whatever future problem we might have.
We can’t “solve” problems that don’t yet exist. Especially if we’re taking a risk to the bitcoin network in doing so.
Maybe you’ll be right and there will be an existential scaling problem someday. If there is, the best minds can solve it then. Isn’t premature optimization one of the worst “crimes” in computer science? In the meantime, we should continue to do research and test out options on other layers so we’re ready for what the future brings.
There is no ossification “now or never” line in the sand unless you believe C++ coding will somehow be lost to antiquity.
Devs arguing that they need to push this through quickly while they can is just an indictment that they believe that they have some power now that they won’t have later. Those devs believe they should have the governance power and not the nodes. This is a power grab, and an attack on the network.

2024-09-02 12:55:43

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Yes, and arguably any forced whitelisting makes non-whitelisted bitcoin more valuable. It’s terrible for people in those jurisdictions but doesn’t affect the bitcoin network as a whole.
I believe devs should follow the principle of, “first, do no harm”.
If there is potential risk, then we need to find a different way. Nobody can assess the magnitude of the risk.
We need to think long term and protect bitcoin for future generations.

2024-09-02 12:21:57

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#note19du…4kkr

2024-09-02 12:21:24

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Peter, you admit that it ADDS RISK:
“Unlike OP_CAT, CTV doesn’t appear to raise much risk of unintended consequences beyond encouraging out-of-band fee payments in certain cases. This isn’t ideal. But no-one has come up with a widely supported alternative.
My personal recommendation: do a consensus cleanup soft-fork, followed by CTV.”
YOU HAVE NO BASIS TO ASSESS FUTURE RISK. YOU CANT KNOW THE FUTURE AND HOW IT MIGHT BE ABUSED.
ADD NO RISK TO BITCOIN.
DEVS MUST FIRST DO NO HARM.
You have no right to gamble with the world’s money, and our hope for the future.
#note1w0l…rvd9

2024-09-02 12:01:56

Peter says:
“Unlike OP_CAT, CTV doesn’t appear to raise much risk of unintended consequences beyond encouraging out-of-band fee payments in certain cases. This isn’t ideal. But no-one has come up with a widely supported alternative.
My personal recommendation: do a consensus cleanup soft-fork, followed by CTV.”
Peter admits it creates risk, but then claims omniscience to state that the risk is minimal.
Activate OP_GFY instead!!
ADD NO RISK TO BITCOIN. You have no right to gamble with the world’s money, and our hope for the future.
@npub1h8n…rpev … another dev admitting that it adds risk. #note1nwv…fuqp

2024-09-02 06:07:43

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Thank you for the response!
I can see our conversation is misaligned. Might be helpful to clarify my position. I’m not pushing back on particular functionality, per se. I’m only pushing back on how particular functionality interacts with the base chain — if that interaction might create centralizing incentives.
For example, I don’t reject smart contracts, arbitrary code execution, or the like, if done via multisig, lightning pools, or even BitVM (as I understand it today). I push back when it is done in a way that could harm bitcoin decentralization (eg OP_CTV).
What’s the difference? On-chain vs off-chain logic.
CTV’s logic is on-chain so I’m concerned about CTV creating centralizing MEV and therefore potentially creating incentives that promote miner centralization.
Let’s imagine that there was a trading marketplace on bitcoin where speculators were buying and selling securities, like how Uniswap enables trading on Ethereum.
If bids, offers, and pending transactions were visible and transactable on-chain, there would be an incentive for traders to bribe miners to help them jump the queue to transact before other traders. These bribes would flow as out-of-band payments through private APIs to the largest miners, creating an advantage for larger miners (hence promoting centralization).
There seems to be much less risk if the bids, offers, and pending transactions are off-chain and where the chain is only used for final settlement. For example, I don’t see any risk of people trading stocks on Nasdaq and settling with bitcoin. That’s just using bitcoin as money. No problems there! I DO see a big risk if people are trading stocks on a “bitcoin Uniswap” if there is any possibility that people may want to pay miners privately to jump the queue.
This is why lightning pools and BitVM don’t concern me — the logic is off-chain and the chain is only used for final settlement.
This is why I perceive a difference with CTV / Sapio. Everything seems to be on-chain. If someone could use it to create something like Uniswap then it poses a centralization risk to miners.
You can also think about this another way, specifically that types of transactions classified as safe or unsafe.
For example, the safest transactions are using the chain for final settlement, and are publicly broadcast so that no miner can have an advantage.
Unsafe transactions are those using the chain for some other purpose where there is some incentive to connect privately to a large miner. (That’s why inscriptions were so bad. Promoting node centralization by filling the chain with spam, while promoting miner centralization through private transaction APIs. Double whammy!)
Eg, MARA’s Slipstream API:
https://x.com/JStefanop1/status/1760764664651133162
Jeremy was clear that OP_CTV could be used for anything. He even demo’ed playing tic tac toe on chain. This is why I put CTV in the unsafe category.
I’m also not trying to quantify the risk. I’m in no position to assess whether it’s likely or not that someone will abuse CTV, CAT, etc, or how they might try. (And, nobody can really know.) My position is that these changes to the protocol should be rejected solely based on their architecture and potential for abuse.

2024-09-02 05:31:43

Do you love a good conspiracy 🐇 🕳️ ?
Here ya go…
https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=1199048941148695&vanity=61551094531099
https://vegasshootingmap.com/

2024-09-01 21:40:01

https://image.nostr.build/4e2ca1e1d5442c4774af9dfced1b1bb89156854f9b5a80fe326d9cfd483c5fc0.jpg

2024-09-01 07:04:26

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You’ll recall that when I was busy, i politely thanked you for your message and let you know that I would reply when I could.
Perhaps you forgot saying “I already left this convo and don’t have time to read all that…” But you always intended to reply? Ok, sure.
Repeating “Sapio doesn’t change anything” is weak sauce — baseless contradiction, no logic, no evidence, just nothing.
I’ve quoted the author of OP_CTV extensively and he clearly contradicts you. I was hoping you would respond with something coherent so I might be able to learn, if I was missing something.

2024-08-31 15:10:05

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Sapio runs logic on-chain but BitVM is currently designed to run logic off-chain. You can’t equate them.
Big difference in terms of risk to centralizing MEV, don’t you think?
It will be interesting to see how BitVM develops though.
You’re not going to respond? Once I brought receipts and then you suddenly “didn’t have the time”? Disappointed. I thought we cared about what’s best for bitcoin rather than our established positions.

2024-08-31 13:57:06

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I haven’t looked at this in depth but I’ve always thought that the combination of Liquid + Lightning allows anon bitcoin payments. Do you know if this isn’t true?

2024-08-31 13:53:46

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Hey Guy, did you fall down the Sapio rabbit hole as I did? Pretty interesting (and disturbing) stuff!
Anyway, unless I’m missing something, it seems that you were misled on CTV’s capabilities.
You said: “CTV doesn’t “enable smart contracts” in some elaborate way that isn’t already possible…”
Your statement is not true … straight from Jeremy Rubin himself:
“When we write a program in Sapio, we are designing an arbitrary state machine that can run any program.”
…and…
“As such, Sapio is a very powerful framework for designing Bitcoin smart contracts […].”
So CTV does provide a NEW powerful framework that allows ARBITRARY programs, which aren’t possible today.
Jeremy even says at one point that you can write options contracts in Sapio. This confirms what I said about financial trading.
Jeremy also says clearly that Sapio is ONLY POSSIBLE with CTV:
“CTV makes all this stuff really possible and without it it is severely limited in what contexts you’d want to be able to use it. …
Getting CTV adopted is really instrumental to making this vision that I showed you actually work.”
So, to recap:
You’ve said repeatedly that CTV was only providing capabilities that we have already.
You said that CTV doesn’t provide “elaborate” new smart contract capabilities.
You now have strong evidence that both of these statements are not true.
Do you understand now why my earlier framing was accurate? If you’re still fuzzy on anything please let me know.
Hoping you also understand better why I challenge these attempts to quickly change bitcoin’s core protocol.
Of course I would love to have channel factories capable of opening a million lightning channels at once. But not if there is any risk to bitcoin.
The problem is that none of us really know what OP_CTV can do. It seems this discussion is a perfect case in point. You’re super smart, incredibly well read, spending most of your time in this space, but still under the belief that OP_CTV just provides better hashing, stuff we already have.
Nobody understands all the ways it can be abused, so nobody really understands what the risk to bitcoin really is.
You think we need channel factories? Great! The dev community should explore how to add that without any “side effects”. We absolutely need vaults. Hopefully they can figure out how to get that done without side effects too.
But adding arbitrary programs to the core protocol which could harm decentralization? No freaking way. We’ve seen that horror story play out on crypto blockchains.

2024-08-31 13:24:23

I was shocked to learn from the book Broken Money how France, to this day, continues to subjugate and impoverish poor African countries through the CFA franc.
And when anyone seeks monetary independence and opposes the franc, they are assassinated.
I wonder how many French know that their country steals from poor Africans?

2024-08-31 12:46:36

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The thesis of the book The Sovereign Individual, playing out as we watch.

2024-08-31 11:20:46

The guy, who spends his time bringing shitcoins to Bitcoin, is advocating for op_cat.
No kidding. I guess that’s the quick TL;DR on why it’s a terrible idea. https://image.nostr.build/4f5c3f2ba18c06de6d3a09213fbf6616551ba6b467aab03f2c5ed48143c3e762.jpg

2024-08-31 09:59:08

The plot thickens…
Macron lured Durov to France on the pretext of having dinner? https://image.nostr.build/2feb4c1a04ea1e9d4ccab3a178d52f740d6d15452ce512164bb824d342541643.jpg

2024-08-31 04:49:27

Interesting research paper shows the potential link between the covid vax and many diseases, including cancer.
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/ucsf-researchers-identify-major-driver-behind-covid-and-long-covid-potential-treatment

2024-08-30 20:36:12

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Honestly, don’t know what I want to see more. People not complying with that stupid diktat or people moving over here. 🤔😀

2024-08-30 19:17:17

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Our need to protect the earth stems from our need to protect our children and grandchildren.
Environmentalists have lost the plot. Perhaps because they lost focus on family.
As a result, they miss sight of the true problems: toxins in our air, food, and water. They virtue signal about carbon while throwing toxins into our environment.
Environmentalism should be about leaving a beautiful legacy for our family.

2024-08-30 10:34:58

Must listen!
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-mike-benz-2

2024-08-30 10:31:02

👀 interesting. Very disruptive to big tech if this is allowed to stand. But let’s see what happens on appeal. #note1z65…3j33

2024-08-30 07:04:01

Quick summary in case you’re wondering what this debate is all about.
Right now, nostr is very centralized. Potentially 90% or more of us are connected to a few massive relays.
These relays are an easy target for govts, with the possibility that their operators could be punished. This is obviously not good for free speech.
In this video, Will is talking about an “outbox” model. Nostr devs believe that moving to an inbox / outbox model will make nostr decentralized.
Right now, your app is “dumb”. It just uses the relays you’ve set. The inbox / outbox model will make your nostr app smarter. For example, your app may know which relays are used by your followers. Your app will then send your post to the relays that they use.
Likewise, to download messages from people you follow, your app will check first on your relays (they may have sent it to you) and/or your app can also check on their home relay.
This is definitely a theoretical improvement. Some remaining issues though:
1. How will apps know the best relays for the people you follow and for each of your followers? If apps need to ask the central relays, then nostr might stay centralized.
2. The apps will need to actively discourage the large relays and this will worsen the UX by making everything slower. Users may not like it and may just use apps that only use the large central relays.
3. Right now, the apps just check a few relays. This makes it easy on apps. With the new system, apps won’t know where messages are so they will need to check a lot more. This increases the load on both relays and apps. We don’t yet know how well this will work. #note1dqk…mahc

2024-08-30 06:36:22

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“CTV doesn’t “enable smart contracts” in some elaborate way that isn’t already possible.”
Have you heard of Sapio?
https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/07/14/this-new-coding-language-could-help-unlock-bitcoins-smart-contract-potential/
https://btctranscripts.com/vr-bitcoin/2020-07-11-jeremy-rubin-sapio-101/
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/106850/is-there-anything-specific-to-the-design-of-the-sapio-language-that-makes-it-wel
https://blog.primebit.com/2020/07/22/sapio-a-new-language-aimed-at-increasing-bitcoins-smart-contract-potential/?amp=1

2024-08-30 05:13:17

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Ok, could you please tell me which statements you disagree with so we can start from there:
1. Centralizing MEV is bad
2. Out of band payment to miners to enter private mempool can create centralizing MEV
3. Speculators may pay miners out of band fees if they can receive a financial advantage.
4. Trading financial instruments creates opportunities for financial advantage if you can execute your transaction quicker than others.
5. Op_CTV enables smart contracts that could be used to create and trade financial contacts, possibly even creating a Uniswap-like DEX.
6. There is a risk that op_ctv could create centralizing MEV

2024-08-29 15:59:56

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You made no such case. You only made unsubstantiated claims that it was the same as P2SH.
I just pointed out that it was a false analogy to see if you could back it up. And you didn’t.
It seems you’re just parroting talking points given to you from other people. Just like that meme where the NPCs all download their latest update. Did you sit in on a talk once or twice and conclude you now know everything there is to know?
I often find that folks who see the world in superficial simplicity often have never built anything of value or complexity. Those who have usually realize that many of their preconceived assumptions were wrong.
By the way, what they didn’t discuss in that talk you attended:
Op_ctv can be used to expand time-based trading opportunities, options, futures, DLCs.
https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/05/20/bip-119-unpacking-ctv-and-how-it-would-change-bitcoin/
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2022/02/02/
Trading and marketplaces create opportunities for people to front-run transactions.
https://www.coinbase.com/en-it/learn/advanced-trading/what-are-frontrunners-and-mev-when-it-comes-to-crypto-trading
This creates MEV or MEVil, as some people term it. MEVil motivates miner centralization.
https://bluematt.bitcoin.ninja/2024/04/16/stop-calling-it-mev/
Here’s a primer on MEV in case you forgot!
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/mev-monster-bitcoin
Anyway my point is that it’s not clear that it’s necessary and we definitely don’t know that it’s safe. I can see that there is a potential risk. I just don’t know the severity of the risk and neither do you.

2024-08-29 12:48:41

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You didn’t show anything. You just made claims I didn’t know what I’m talking about. Ad hominem attacks are always the fallback, aren’t they?
It’s not on me to prove it’s necessary and safe. It’s on those advocating for it. And apparently that’s not you. 😂
Do you just jump into random convos and yell “you don’t know what you’re talking about!!” And then refuse to support you point when challenged? Pretty funny. 😄

2024-08-29 12:12:08

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Do you know what percentage of users right now are connected to the top three relays?
My assumption is that it’s more than 90%.
If I’m right (>90%) then this gravity will be hard to fight. The large relays will become stronger through network effects.
I remember reading that the devs were going to try an inbox / outbox solution where the large relays would be used for addressing. Is that still the plan? I didn’t see any discussion on removing the dependency on the large relays.
Did I miss that? Is there a way to remove the client dependency on the large relays?

2024-08-29 11:47:22

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It’s for the reason you wrote this:
“1 large public, international relay: nos.lol, nostr.mom, relay.damus.io, etc. “
You seem to be saying that it matters which relays you use. That, if you don’t use large relays, then you will lose visibility and content.
If everyone prefers to connect to large relays, then the system will stay centralized and become even more centralized over time.
The only way nostr becomes more decentralized is if it DOESNT matter which relays you use.
This is architecture which promotes centralization over time:
“make sure to choose a large international relay”…
This would promote decentralization:
“just randomly choose any 10 public relays and you’ll never miss a post and all your followers will receive your content.”
Am I missing something? If it doesn’t matter which relays to use (we can choose randomly), then please let me know.

2024-08-29 06:54:32

This is what I was referring to when I said that nostr has “centralizing gravity”.
This guide essentially says that all users must connect to one of the large international relays.
Clearly having all users gravitate to a few large relays isn’t the best for freedom of speech and increases legal risk for those operators.
There could be many ways to fix this problem but it starts with acknowledging that it exists and working with the community to solve it. #note1fsd…s3gg

2024-08-28 21:45:07

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Ok, then prove to me that it can’t be abused.
You can’t prove a negative so to prove it can’t be abused, you must first list all classes of ways it can be used and then prove those can’t be abused.
Since you can’t list all the classes of ways it can be used, you can’t prove it can’t be abused.
So therefore your statement that you know the limits of it and that it’s safe is not true.
You don’t know the limits of it. If you did, you could tell me. Right?
Timelocks and multisig have classes of uses beyond lightning so you’re right, it would have been silly to reject them because we didn’t know of the potential of lightning. We already knew other ways they could be used. For example, shared custody.
It’s not just a hashlock, is it? If it were just a hashlock we could use pay-to-script-hash (P2SH).
Think about it more. You have everything backwards. In product design, we don’t build technology first and then hunt for a problem to solve. We first identify a human centered problem to solve and then design technology to make people’s lives better.
Imagine that you are a systems designer for a nuclear reactor. Would you agree to release a public API that could do a bunch of stuff that people will figure out later? No, you wouldn’t. Someone might accidentally melt down the core. Instead, you would make the most limited changes that you knew would be safe.
When I look at the bitcoin core protocol. I see something more important than a nuclear reactor. The core devs are one of the most centralized and dangerous systems in the bitcoin ecosystem. Unlike individual govts, they actually do have the power to destroy the entire network.
Let’s not “melt down” bitcoin’s core. Future generations are counting on us.

2024-08-28 20:49:29

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Op_vault is more limited and specifically designed to enable that one feature: vaults.
This article discusses vault as a subset of ctv.
https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/28/proposed-bitcoin-vault-feature-could-thwart-malicious-hackers/
But the fact that vault is a subset of CTV is not my point.
My point is that changes to the core protocol should be specifically limited in scope so that we can have more certainty that the change is technically safe, and also doesn’t disrupt the network ecosystem.
Maybe op_vault is the right approach to solve vaults, or maybe not. What makes it better is that it’s *specifically* designed to solve vaults.
CTV can be used and abused in more ways, including ways we don’t yet know.

2024-08-28 18:42:40

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I know, but that’s terrifying isn’t it. It’s why we ended up inadvertently centralizing mining with Taproot and making it difficult for folks like me to periodically sync the blockchain on our small TOR nodes. Secret blocksize increase after fighting to keep it small.
Why not simpler still? Why not op_vault?
What specific use cases are your priorities? I’m sure the community had a top one. Why can’t we just focus on it first?
I’ve only heard from devs, “I think it’s safe”, which isn’t appropriate for the system that protects the world’s money. We need to be absolutely certain that it’s safe.

2024-08-28 18:33:34

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I’m not in favor of generic expanded capabilities to the core protocol where we don’t know the limits of how they will be used.
It would be better, IMHO, to pick specific use cases that the community wants and to then engineer the best, most limited change that meets that need. Vaults? Payment channels? Etc. We should design a change to do just that and only that.
We need to learn our lesson with Taproot and discounted witness data. Devs didn’t realize how it would be used for spam.
Devs aren’t omniscient and can’t predict all ways a change can be abused. Some of the abuses will even be indirect and attack the incentives underpinning key operations (like mining). Best to lock it down to reduce the attack surface area.

2024-08-28 18:07:12

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Always fun to see a good retest of the laffer curve. 🍿
The destruction seems so stupid it must be intentional, right?

2024-08-27 20:21:34

Such an incredible video. He lied to Congress — which is a crime. Ask yourself… will there be any accountability?
Is the rule of law dead? I think it is. And, if it *is* dead, what does that mean for the future of the country?
This obviously sounds like crazy hyperbole, but it’s possible that we could be watching the last “real” election in the 🇺🇸. After this point, half the country may believe that there is no point to voting anymore.
IMHO, to step back from the brink, there should be a truth and reconciliation process (with accountability) immediately.
Not gonna happen. 🙅‍♂️ #note155f…fsyt

2024-08-26 21:05:33

Many people are saying “put it in the client”. Of course, this would be ideal.
A few challenges:
1) Right now, each client can only connect to a limited number of relays. For example, Damus recommends ~10. This forces nostr clients to connect to a small number of large (high bandwidth) relays to reach all other users. Basically, if you can only connect to 10, then you want to connect to the same 10 as everyone else so that you can reach everyone.
2) If relays were installed in phones, they would quickly go online and offline. Each client would then be forced to connect to a massive number of low bandwidth relays. This is the opposite of what happens today.
3) Mobile devices have limited bandwidth and aren’t designed to be low latency servers. Desktops can handle more load, they generally have higher bandwidth limits, and can be left running for longer. People need to be motivated to run desktops to support the network.
To move the relays into the clients (which should be done to make the network decentralized) the core underlying protocol would need to be completely redesigned.
I’ve been brainstorming and experimenting with such a thing but it’s not ready for presentation. I think I’ve loosely “solved” the broadcasting piece (hint: bees and flowers). But I still have two massive missing pieces.
First - replies (replying to someone else’s message so that 3rd parties can see it)
Second - data efficient discovery (eg. how to allow hashtags in a way that doesn’t drown your device in spam).
Both of the missing pieces are essentially data discoverability problems so perhaps they will eventually have a common solution 🤞
The challenge is minimizing latency, bandwidth, and data replication. Also, no matter what, moving the relays into the clients will likely degrade the UX. Centralized systems are faster, more responsive, and therefore generally have better UX. #note1l7y…qtw0

2024-08-26 10:25:25

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They might not know who their customers are. But they can take the service offline or they can spy on the users if they want to or are compelled. You won’t know because you can’t verify. This is why I’m saying that the service isn’t decentralized.

2024-08-26 10:15:38

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Better than nothing, sure. But why do you think the hosting company will not take the relay offline if demanded?
Why do you think they will not deliver the IP addresses of the poster’s npubs, if demanded?
Centralized hosting providers are also one throat to choke.

2024-08-26 08:41:23

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This is a fantastic use of his skills. Hope he spends more time on nostr and less on GSR.

2024-08-26 08:16:10

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If it’s not “private by default” then can it ever be safe for regular users?
Or does a newbie introduction to nostr now require a lesson in VPNs and onion routing?

2024-08-26 07:33:43

Were you confused when you saw Russia criticize and quickly attempt consular support for Durov given their history?
Me too.
The rumor I’m hearing is that many in the Russian military (potentially Iran too) were using Telegram. I find this hard to believe given Telegram’s insecurity, but who knows. Apparently Western countries want access to these military messages. 🤷‍♂️

2024-08-26 07:26:29

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Because each relay has a single known controlling individual. A single KYC’d throat to choke.
Distributed isn’t decentralized

2024-08-26 07:10:24

This is true. I would also add that nostr’s use of public keys while lacking IP privacy is dangerous because it could mislead posters to believe that they are anonymous.
So not only are relays not decentralized but any govt agent with access to a relay can figure out who you are. #note1lcl…dydg

2024-08-26 06:57:44

Enjoyed this
https://youtu.be/5Peima-Uw7w

2024-08-25 20:12:55

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Yep. I’ve found that giving all divs unique ids as I go along makes it easy to scan the DOM and identify the offender. Then I try to simplify things as best I can.

2024-08-25 15:05:03

💯 https://image.nostr.build/dae0378806ab653e899c7ac2168dda0b4e053fdb582f626c2e91525f14e2d710.jpg

2024-08-25 08:00:12

Interesting to see we’re back to even odds on the election. I know it doesn’t matter but like watching for the glimpse into normie minds. 🍿
https://polymarket.com/event/presidential-election-winner-2024?tid=1724572357219

2024-08-24 08:02:37

@npub1exc…n72a @npub1au2…t53j @npub1su6…su60 @npub1y02…fvpl https://image.nostr.build/af8034caf10cc08e5dd5f2bae035d24b8973d9b8a7f78a5dec0f4b2ea2dc3576.jpg

2024-08-22 21:21:53

@Rusty Russell is still making the rounds, trying to turn bitcoin into ethereum.
I don’t get it. They cannot show why this is safe and necessary but still push these changes. Why?
Prove it’s safe.
Prove this fixes an existential failure.
Prove that only this change to the core protocol can remedy the existential failure.
Can’t do that? Then GFY.
The world’s money is not your plaything.
#note1r8x…q20h

2024-08-21 15:49:59

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But not until we know that it isn’t a potential risk to the network.

2024-08-21 05:21:54

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Also, UDP connections bypass TOR

2024-08-19 19:57:55

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It’s probably true. But he didn’t really need to do shock stuff for clicks. His earlier content was so good. I just zapped him 10k sats a few weeks ago to thank him after watching his movie on Peru. And now I had to unfollow and mute him to stop all this garbage from hitting my feed. 🤷‍♂️