the great hackening

239 - Belfast - just visiting

Roger Price

26 Sep 2026 • 10 min read

Stormont in the autumn sunshine

🇵🇹 🇮🇪 🇬🇧 During the week V and I travelled up to Dublin and then on to Northern Ireland. We are doing a short visit to Holywood and Belfast this week to see family and friends before we head back home to Hong Kong.

Before leaving Lisbon we made the most of the excellent weather and got to visit all sorts of interesting sights. Among other things we did a boat tour around Lisbon harbour; it was interesting to learn more of the history and to hear from others who have moved recently to Portugal. We did really enjoy our stay and I'm sure we will be back. We have also lined up some interesting accommodation options that we would consider on any return visit.

Back in Holywood the weather has been surprisingly good - something of an "Indian Summer". We made the most of our time here, being out and about every day and I got to meet up again with some of the local Bitcoiners and former school colleagues.

Inspiration of the week

A couple of inspirational items this week, each with practical suggestions that you can immediately apply and get benefit from. First up is an excellent one from Daniel Pink. I have shared some of his advice before and this is another good one that you can put to work right away.

Click for notes and summary and to listen to his explanation

How is your "To Do" list progressing?

I have recently been helping some folks get on top of their "To Do" lists. In doing so I usually share a couple of things that I have found to be most helpful over the years.

First up, of course, is The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. For me, this is the foundation that you must be aware of and build on. By default, everyone does the opposite of each of the 7-Habits! This is remarkable but true.

Next is to stay on top of your daily and weekly tasks and activities. For me, a good paper list works best and I'm happy to share an interesting technique that you may well want to try - The Resistance Zero System. Ben explains it in his video below with some real life examples:

Click for Ben's very practical guide to this useful system

This really does work extremely well. Essential tips are:
- review and progress your list daily, starting from the bottom of the list
- items that have been static for too long likely need closing by re-phrasing and splitting
- when you near 3/4 page with closed items it's good to copy open items to a new page and continue there. This may also prompt you to rephrase and split some items.

Have you tried this? What are your tips and tricks?

🛠️ Project Updates

Informational updates this week since all the travel and family priorities have limited my hands-on project work - I'm looking forward to having more time to focus again when we are back in Asia. What are you doing?

Laptops - it's easy when you know how

I have long recommended that you should obtain and use second-hand or refurbished corporate laptops on which you run Linux. I have quite a few of these and am always ready to pick up another one when I see a bargain.

I have followed this guy for a while and his work is amazing and inspirational. His business is to repair laptops that others cannot. Watching him work and explain his approach is really fun and you might even learn a thing or two.

He works with Dell computers - they are a good alternative to Lenovo (my preference). His skills are beyond mine but I do take inspiration from this - how about you?

The Great Hackening

2026 has seen a wave of cyberattacks targeting Bitcoin infrastructure. Like Guy, I see this as a transformative stress test for the network's long-term security. Two incidents in particular stand out - somewhat reminiscent of Celsius and FTX in scope and impact.

Coldcard devices experienced a critical entropy vulnerability in the firmware protection mode, where a faulty check caused seed generation to fall back to a weak pseudo-random number generator; you must move to an alternative setup - Coldcard has lost trust.
The Liquid Network by Blockstream suffered a 4,200 BTC drain due to a key cache bug in confidential transactions, with the attacker returning most funds in a grey hat display of rational opportunism.

Guy concludes with some practical tips and suggestions. These are good and I would say you want to consider the following article too.

Self Custody options and Multisig

As we have discussed before, you do need to plan for the value of your assets (in fiat terms) to increase significantly and you will likely want to re-evaluate your setup and custody options - considering all risks.

Mike Belshe (CEO of Bitgo) emphasizes that balancing self-custody and custodial services is essential for security as holdings grow. The BitGo model utilizes a multisig (2-of-3) framework to mitigate risks of theft and loss without relying on a single point of failure.

This is a most interesting discussion. I am not endorsing his company and he is not pushing his company's services, rather he describes rather clearly options that you likely want to consider.

Diversification and having multiple options in place can be a good policy - be sure to evaluate your situation with a clear head.

🔗 Links for your edification

The following are links from my Liferea RSS feeds - learn, enjoy and share.

You do not hate Big Tech enough - Enterprise Version

In a healthy market, a vendor that sues loyal customers, forces billion-dollar upgrades and treats layoffs as routine would lose customers — but SAP customers are stuck, because switching costs engineered over decades work exactly as intended.

TLDR: this is the enterprise version of Adobe's criminal practices, with correspondingly larger amounts of money and implications to follow.

I share this one with mixed feelings since both V and I have participated in SAP implementations and migrations over the years. With hindsight, just like my years at SWIFT, it's easy to see how "compartmentalisation" prevents people from understanding their participation in the Beast System of the Empire.

Four theories - likely all true

Andre analyzes the ongoing geopolitical instability that has driven record diesel prices and economic uncertainty. The situation escalated following military conflicts in the Middle East, including attacks on vital oil straits and infrastructure, which disrupted global energy supplies and prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates despite significant national debt.

To explain these events, Andre outlines four theories with supporting evidence:

Iran is targeting the US bond market to force the Federal Reserve to either break the economy with rate hikes or lose credibility due to inflation
Transnational capital in the defense industry, Wall Street, and Big Tech, such as the GENIUS Act, benefits from crises and rising interest rates
US is deliberately disrupting energy infrastructure to maintain dominance, referencing the Nord Stream 2 precedent and the Monroe Doctrine.
Prophecy-driven decision-making among leadership in the US, Israel and Iran, using religion as an excuse to divide populations against each other

All this suggests that current crises are calculated moves rather than mismanagement. Regarding the question of whether leadership has lost its mind or is following a specific plan, Andre concludes that all of these theories are in play (at least to some extent) and the various actors are pursuing self-serving incentives at the expense of others. This pretty much aligns with Simon Dixon's conclusions, as we have been discussing.

He suggests it is time to prepare for either an inflationary or deflationary collapse by holding tangible assets, gold, or cash, while maintaining basic supplies to hedge against potential infrastructure disruptions.

Society has been in a similar predicament before - recall When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson - The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar, Germany. Yes it recounts the story of a hundred years ago but you will be surprised to see how relevant this is today, albeit on a bigger scale.

The Mind of the Millennial

Emily reflects on how growing up with social media and unmoderated online spaces shaped her development. She highlights the generational divide regarding digital influence and her eventual choice to disconnect to combat exhaustion.

Click for some frank talking and interesting insights

I found this rather interesting. I had never realised the number of platforms that this generation got exposed to and felt required to use. Good that some, like her, are coming round to some sensible thinking.

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If it is in the news - it is a ruse. There are no coincidences.

🤔 Closing Thoughts

This week I am closing out with a series of video explainers that will take you on a journey. You will learn from these and you will see things differently as a result. These are AI-produced videos but do not write them off. They do correctly and objectively explain material that I am well familiar with and likely do so better than I am able.

Nobody saves you - you wake up or you do not!

I remember vividly the day that my father took me to watch "2001: A Space Odyssey". I remember our confusion, and that of those around us, as the movie progressed. We did watch through to the end. With hindsight the messages become clearer - this is one of the better and more succinct explainers.

Another step in the journey is to understand the work of Philip K Dick. He was a prolific writer and the story of his awakening that led him to write what became many influential movies of our time.

Click to listen to the full story of Philip's awakening and implications

Movies, inspired by Philip K Dick's writings and insights

All of the above leads you along a path that has long been clear to me. You may recall when I first asked you to consider which of the world religions was correct or indeed if they could all be right and wrong in their own ways - refresh your mind. Well this next one is a great summary of what you will see when you dig deeper.

Click for a clear and thought-provoking explainer

Remember to consider the above in the spirit of Ethical Skepticism. Likely it is not entirely correct, nor is it entirely false. The truth is out there and you likely know much of it already but you do not want to accept it or where it leads.

Forward to a friend and let them know where they can subscribe

No one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
- Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix

How to exit the matrix - do you see it yet? Click here: Morpheus will explain it to you

Any questions or anything else? Feel free to comment below!
You can also email me at: LetterFrom@rogerprice.me

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"99% of all subjects accepted the program if they were given a choice - even if they were only aware of the choice at an unconscious level"
- The Architect

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