59 - Mallorca again for a bit
🇪🇸 This week we travelled back to Mallorca and we plan to be based here in Palma for a while. The weather here is great - not cold and rainy like up north and it is not yet hot like Bangkok certainly was when we left a few weeks ago. It should be good here for a while.
Travel from Belfast to Dublin was fairly smooth - we took the Aircoach as usual. Pro tip is to be sure that you buy your ticket in advance and have a printout in your hands. V and I split up when the bus arrives - she goes in to get us handy seats and I get the luggage in somewhere that it is unlikely to get tampered with.
Dublin airport and Ryanair were less smooth than we had hoped. Airport security decided to completely unpack and inspect my carry-on bag - these people add no value - they subtract from the human race. We have talked previously about rituals; airport security is just another ritual that you are required to perform and it gets more ridiculous over time. Beyond that the flight was delayed nearly an hour due to a broken seat! On arrival we had to wait nearly an hour for the luggage to arrive.
Palma is fairly busy with visitors and tourists though I do find that many of the shops in the shopping streets have either closed down or not yet opened for the season; I guess the coming weeks will make it clear which. It is nice to come back to a place that you are familiar with and we look forward to getting our routines re-established here.
There is a Bitcoin meetup here in Palma next Wednesday evening - so I will be there and if you are near, do join. I have also met up with a few Bitcoiners using the OrangePill App - give it a go if you are looking for interesting contacts.
I have been sleeping rather well since we got here and also having vivid dreams again; seems like the force is strong here! Likely time to dust off the Lucid Dreaming notes and give it a good try - recall our previous discussion back in Issue 25.
Long Read - How To Wreck a Big Old GSIB
This is a great long-read for your weekend. It is one of those things that, after you have read it, you think that is totally obvious...do you think that other people have realised this too.. and if so, what then? TL;DR - if you weaponise your currency against so many other countries (recall Confessions of an Economic Hitman) would it be surprising if/when one or more of those on the receiving end decided to fight back? If that were to happen, might some of the signs or symptoms be things that have been happening recently?
If you recall our discussion of The Mandibles back in Issue 48 and the interview of the author by Matt back in Issue 54 this should be familiar territory for you.
You can read the article - click the image below or else let Guy read it to you.
DeepThroatIPO
Feel free to check out his other articles on many relevant topics - they are most insightful.
A most interesting and somewhat complementary view with a few challenging perspectives comes in Marty's recent interview with Tom Luongo where they discuss: is The Fed Is Trying To Bring Down The European Banks? The discussion may well surprise you. I must say that I have had very similar thoughts on quite a few occasions and J Powell's fall-out with the EU on Green and Climate nonsense was certainly real and persists.
If you think that the Americans (allies of Europe?) would never do such a thing, ask yourself: "who blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline last winter?" Link below in case you are still confused or could not find the answer.
Seymour Hersh
Speaking of dishonesty from what you would expect to be objective and responsible sources, listen to the lies and outright fraud being perpetrated by NY Times in their provably false article on bitcoin mining - link to the article is below.
Link to the article and plenty of informed discussion - here (archive here). If you are wondering why would NY Times do such a thing then Charlie's explainer below will tell you all.
Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
Required watching this week is Charlie's latest monologue about the Fabian Society - material starts at 07:00. You will really be surprised. How did you miss these clues?
This is certainly one of the UK's less glorious exports and the UK population has also been well treated to it over the last few decades as well and it continues to be so unless and until more people wake up and take action. The analogy of the boiling frog seems very appropriate - so too the Tortoise and the Wolf in Sheep's clothing as Charlie explains.
End of Empire Times reflections
I do love Grace's sense of humour and her way of communicating difficult topics clearly with supporting evidence that everyone can understand. She hits the nail on the head with this next one.
BTW - I have bought and do recommend her book: The Deep State Encyclopedia: Exposing the Cabal's Playbook.
Sovereign Individuals take a stand
And this interview by Richard ought to make you think. There really are interesting ways to take things forward constructively and people who are sharing guidelines and offering support to others. This is rather encouraging.
How great that people are now working the system against the corrupt bureaucrats and administrators that are working against the people using threats and fear as a weapon. There really is a great awakening starting and thank you to those who are leading the way.
Withdrawing and withholding your consent as well as mass non-compliance with nonsense and authoritarian regulations is clearly the way forward; take back the power.
Meanwhile in Africa
I have got to recommend that you follow Anita Posch. She is German and working actively in Africa to enable people to take back their autonomy and power from the unaccountable governments and colonial oppression. Listen to her explain to you why this is important - not just in Africa but everywhere.
Anita runs and contributes to a number of important projects. As for the other bitcoin projects that I explain below you too can support her and these projects .
More in this issue
- Photo memories from around Palma this week
- Project Updates - Mercury and Mutiny wallets are amazing
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing thoughts - continuing the theme from last week
Project Updates
Did you know that there are hundreds of great Bitcoin projects that anyone can contribute to? This is the wonderful advantage of open source, collaborative development. Thanks to git and github (and similar) you can easily view and follow the development on any project that interests you. If you want to go further you can download the software on your computer and build it with the instructions on the site. You can go further and test it for bugs or even write test-cases and test suites to help automate quality control. You can also make "pull requests" for new features where you write code to be included in the project by the owner. You can also help with user documentation, training material and promotion - you do not need to be a programmer to help.
The other way that you can contribute (and everyone can) is with financial support. With bitcoin payments over lightning you can make instant payments to the developer anywhere in the world in seconds without any interference from anyone and this helps to move things forward. Look for "pay me with bitcoin" QR codes or Lightning Addresses - just do it!
If you have not done it yet - do download Wallet of Satoshi on your phone and let me know your lightning address and I will send you your first bitcoin - instructions in Issue 57. Like that you will understand how easy it is to become part of the solution.
With the advent of Nostr and Zaps and Development Bounties being paid in bitcoin there are now hundreds of talented developers who are piling in to contribute.
The best overview of what is happening in the bitcoin space comes from the Bitcoin.review podcast by NVK. Just listen to the latest one and be amazed!
I have got to highlight a couple of projects that have got me super interested.
First up is Mercury Wallet. My mind was totally blown by the idea of off-chain UTXO swapping. This is incredible and surprisingly complementary to Collaborative Transactions or "coinjoins". Not just that but the recent influx of Ordinals and Inscriptions to bitcoin (whilst controversial as we have discussed) has brought in a whole swathe of talented developers who are working on all sorts of new ways of working with the bearer asset that is bitcoin whilst enabling self-custody and minimising on-chain transaction costs. Mercury wallet and the developers on it are well immersed in all of this. Interesting times ahead.
Gotta shout out too Mutiny Wallet. As Matt Odell explains, this is "back to the future"; by enabling browser-based nodes you remove the dependency on App-st0res (and eventual censorship - "this item is not available in your region") - just for starters! The also makes the technology available to anyone with a smartphone (or PC) without any corporate intermediation and interference.
Mutiny wallet is a web-first wallet capable of running anywhere (including in the browser), providing instant onboarding and platform censorship resistance. Self-custodial, privacy-focused, and user-friendly.
They are also working on a Routing Node / Lightning Service Provider (LSP), Coinjoin and even Synthetic dollars via DLCs - click below to read more.
Paul
These are just a couple of the projects that I have been working on this week. As I explained, I am learning, building, testing and will be contributing through various channels as explained above. What are you doing?
A first simple test you can try with your bitcoin
Try these steps that Calle describes with the bitcoin that you now have in your wallet; if you don't have any yet just follow the steps in Issue 57 and ask me!
1) Put 10 sats into http://wallet.cashu.me
2) Send those 10 sats in ecash to http://wallet.nutstash.app
3) Send them back your Lightning address via http://redeem.cashu.space
Lots more to come on Nostr, Cashu, Fedimint, Nutstash and RedeemApp in the coming weeks.
🔗 Links - don't say nobody told you
Millions have been asking "How did it happen", "Why were some baled out and not others", "Is my bank at risk" and quite a few more things. Listen to Guy's summary from the 8 hours of testimony about what happened and what is now coming out in the wash.
James weekly review of the On Chain Data is a must-watch - in addition to blockchain data there is plethora of meaningful and important financial indicators with suggested interpretations.
I do not trust Elon Musk; for sure "what you see is not what you get". Even so it was a joy to watch him destroy the BBC stooge that they sent to interview him. The BBC is and always has been state-funded propaganda.
Recall our discussion a few weeks ago where we considered what are all the religions in the world and pondered which was right or whether they were all right or even all wrong. This next link is a nice deep dive into what makes up all the Christian denominations - I am still looking for similarly concise explainers on the other religions...if you have them, do say!
Last link for this week is a rather interesting and thought-provoking interview of Eric Cason By Stephan Livera. Stephan's interviews can be rather technical but this is a good down-to-earth discussion about what is happening and why and practical steps you can take to preserve wealth - reminding you of lessons that you really should learn from previous similar situations.
🤔 Closing Thoughts
We talked last week about Genesis 6:4 and the Nephilim - something you likely have never learned and would have been actively discouraged should you ever have tried. How interesting that the forced interpretation goes much further - see below from Neuro-Apocalypse and then watch the fascinating interview of Mauro Biglino by Graham Handcock - read and click the image below.
You can go further and watch Graham's recent series, Ancient Apocalypse (that he discusses) or even read Mauro's book (just out): Gods of the Bible: A New Interpretation of the Bible Reveals the Oldest Secret in History.
For those of you that think this all sounds pretty unlikely you might want to check out this simple, factual explainer - there are many more versions than you could have imagined and there have been many more changes than you would have thought possible - were all of these genuine and proper corrections?
This ought to remind you of Jason's arguments that we heard back in issue 54; do check back and re-listen. You might also want to check out this long-form interview of Gary Wayne by Eric Rolon.
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