60 - Palma - settling in...
🇪🇸 We are now into the second week of our stay in Palma Mallorca. We are pleased to be staying near Catalina Market. This is a great location and easy walk from the city center where we stayed last year. It's nice to have the market nearby - it is the best place to buy locally produced food and they have a great selection with friendly stall holders - time to practice my Spanish!
The weather is nice, being sunny every day. Mornings are fresh but not cold and the afternoons are around 20-22 degrees, so not yet hot. April and May should be pretty nice here.
This week we had the Mallorca Bitcoin meeting - a great group of folks that meet monthly. Very Germanic (this is Mallorca) but quite a few others who, like me, had arrived in the last week or so. Lots of good discussion including about the upcoming Bitcoin conference here in Palma 13-16 July. Do come along if you are here then - there are other great conferences too like BTC Prague June 8-10 and you likely do have a bitcoin meetup near you that you can just join.
We also discovered the Castell De Bellver (photo above). This has got to be a must-visit location when you are here. You can get there on the tourist bus or, like we did, walk up the hill (take water). At EUR 4 per person it is fairly good value and there is lots to see inside including interesting history panels and statues. And visits are free on Sundays!
Some things become obvious
Have you ever noticed when, after being away for some time, you go back to somewhere you easily spot things that have changed?
So it is that in Palma I am struck by the almost total absence of ATMs; the few that remain are now clustered only near the train and bus station. The war on cash is really here. Not only is it hard for you to get cash, but if you are a business you will not find any convenient branches where you can deposit the cash and of course there will be a shortage of coins to make paying exact amounts difficult. All of this is to force you to use digital payments that can (and will) be controlled and blocked by authoritarian governments and bureaucrats should you disagree with them.
This is well explained in an article sent to me by one of my subscribers during the week - you can read it here. Would you trust a convicted criminal to be leading the unaccountable organisation that is imposing totalitarian control on your country? Voice or exit - we talked about this back in Issue 07. There are practical "voice" suggestions below that many are taking and you may well want to join in and/or support.
Similarly, in Belfast you cannot help noticing the simplification of all the road junctions top of the imposition of taxi, bus and bicycle lanes not to mention inconvenient one-way systems and parking restrictions. This is clearly making way for driverless cars and they do not want you to own one. It should be apparent too if you use any GPS app - as you approach any junction it will tell you which lane to be in and where you need to head after crossing the junction - these are the instructions that the driverless cars need and will follow. More on this below in the AI section.
NLW has done a great series of interviews recently
I am including this series of five interviews by Nathaniel Whittemore up front in the newsletter this week because they are such a great listen and they all work well together, covering very important developing topics.
1. Leverage Gone, Tourists Flushed
First, an update on the current state of the market. Glassnode's James Check does a fantastic explainer of the bitcoin market currently and how this compares to the last year or so as well as how the "black swans" impacted things.
2. An AI Primer for Bitcoiners
A super useful monologue from NLW with lots of pointers to useful tools that developers can and should be using. One interesting concept that you need to catch and understand the implications of is that BTC delivers Internet-native money:
why would anyone using internet (a global service) want to get paid in any of the local corrupt fiat currencies (assuming they can pass KYC and all the other obstacles that are being put in the way) if they can receive the internet-native currency in seconds?
3. Autonomous AI is already here
And now, listen to this. You will hardly believe your ears when you understand what is being done now in open source development - you can see some examples in the screenshot below. Click to listen and reflect on the implications.
4. How Bitcoin Unlocks Last Mile Energy
Recall last week's discussion about how Anita Posch is raising bitcoin awareness and running a number of projects in Africa. Well Eric Hersman and his company, Gridless, are also doing fantastic work in Africa; hopefully we will not need this technology in the West - although if WEF and the ESG Eco Loons have their way you might yet be thankful for this.
5. New trust model is so much better than Web3
Lastly - this interview with Sergey Lazarov is a must-listen. Sergey discusses why society's trust model has broken down, how cryptographic truth serves as an alternative to the centralised controls of Web3, and why this alternative method of understanding truth will become even more important as a countermeasure to artificial intelligence. You really need to listen to this and reflect on the implications.
From all the above - it should be clear to you that these are "Interesting Times".
More in this issue
- Photo memories from around Palma this week
- Project Updates - Nostr, Cashu and Fedimint
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out with some thought provocation
🛠️ Project Updates
As promised, this week we are going to dive deeper into Nostr, Cashu, Nutstash and Fedimint.
Nostr
First up, Nostr is a decentralised messaging protocol that allows you to communicate easily with others and find communities of like-minded people. One of the main benefits of Nostr is that it provides censorship-free communication unlike traditional social messaging platforms. Because your messages are stored on as many relays as you choose there is no single point of failure or restriction that could be censored by governments or corporations in collusion.
Let's start with this but it can do much more.
By now everyone should be aware or how Governments are and have been colluding with service providers to censor and limit free speech on their platforms, often crowding it out with disinformation and propaganda. TwitterFiles...
A strong advantage of Nostr is that it allows for greater control over your data. Through your Private Key you own your messages. They are stored on distributed servers and you and others can access them from anywhere using any client at any time with your Public Key. Your Nostr messages are not stored on a central service controlled by a third-party where access can be restricted.
Even better - Nostr is fully integrated with Bitcoin Lightning payments - the native currency of the internet. This combination is already unleashing all sorts of innovation - more on this in subsequent newsletters.
What are you waiting for? Get started, follow me and let's discuss further there.
Cashu, Nutstash and Fedimint
Next up we dive into eCash and Federated Mints. As we have discussed before Chaumian eCash is a digital currency system proposed by cryptographer David Chaum in 1983. The system was designed to provide anonymous transactions over the internet without relying on a trusted third party - at the time it failed to take off mainly because there was no internet and it was impossible to interface with legacy finance.
In the the latest implementations of Chaumian eCash, digital coins are created by a Mint and are denominated in Satoshis (fractions of a bitcoin). The coins are then stored on a user's computer or other digital device. When a user wants to make a payment, they transfer the coins to the recipient's device. The recipient may transfer these on to any other user in payment or deposit the coins at the Mint for redemption which is handled over the Lightning network.
There are so many advantages with this system. For one it is based on absolutely solid cryptography and the tokens that are used are unforgeable and transfers are fully private. The system is immensely scalable and does not require any blockchain to transfer tokens between individuals - you can use any means you like: text message, email, URL link - even voice to text could presumably work too! All that is required is for the recipient to have a transient connection to the mint to validate the received tokens and this effects the transfer. This is real digital cash.
Cashu is the simplest complete implementation of Chaumian Mint and Client. Nutstash is one (of likely many) Clients - somewhat analogous to a digital wallet. Fedimint is a larger/industrial scale Mint and Client that allows for multi-party (federated) custody so that the underlying assets can be held provably and securely without the need to trust any single party. Mints can transfer bitcoin between eachother as needed for redemptions over Lightning provding full interoperability.
Listen to this superb discussion hosted by NVK with Calle, Eric, Odell and Rijndael as they discuss the underlying technology. Be amazed.
Why not help the developers by supporting their project and be part of the solution? You can easily donate via Lightning or even using eCash - yes, it really works. Follow the instructions that I gave you back in Issue 57.
- Cashu https://docs.cashu.space/contribute
- Support http://nutstash.app Cashu wallet developer @gandlaf21 with a big nut: https://gandlaf.com/donate
- A Cashu faucet that anyone can refill: https://gandlaf.com/faucet/anarchy
🔗 Links for your edification
Everything around "social distancing" and quarantine was done to break social cohesion and to force people into isolation or, at best some sort of online only existence. It is super important that you get out and talk with people and it is really easy. Here in Spain I have the complication of not really speaking much Spanish but that need not be an issue and can be fun. Listen carefully to this update from James.
Happily more and more people are waking up and realising that now is the time to push back and stop the nonsense. There are steps you can easily take once you start talking and collaborating with like-minded people around you - you will also quickly understand why this was forcefully prevented over the last few years.
Download the help pack at: https://www.ukcitizen.org/
It is somewhat symptomatic of current times that this next video from Richard would even be understood, likely by most of you. Likely some of the items he covers are not true - but the fact that quite a few more than likely are true and the government denies or plays dead on them should make you think.
Topics include: is the earth flat; who shot JFK; did moon landings happen or were they really shot in a hangar in Nevada; was 911 a false flag - how come Building 7 fell down and why was there no airplane at the Pentagon (outside the budget investigation office)? Is Elvis still alive - how about Hitler and Michael Jackson? If Bird Flu is so dangerous why do you almost never see dead birds? What is really the truth about Vaccine, myocarditis, strokes, shingles, autism and blood clots and how come so many people are dying suddenly? Are there really bugs in food? How about TriCity in Netherlands and Chemtrails and was it really an accident that killed Diana? Is 5G really dangerous and why are 15 minute cities locking you in? Net Zer0 - are we the carbon they want to eliminate? What about Climate Change/Global warming, Tilt of the earth and pole-shift, the Underworld and CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections)? Will there be another 1858 Carrington Event - was there even one back then? Are Digital IDs demonic? Will CBDCs usher in authoritarianism and Social Credit controls? Is Bitcoin..the saviour and how is it different from Cypto? How dangerous are Biometrics really? Is the End of cash imminent? What is all this discussion about Court Systems, King Charles, the Antichrist and what will happen on May 6 at the coronation and eclipse?
You can have fun reading the discussion in the comments under the video and you may well learn lots and it should give you plenty to talk about when you meet people face to face.
🤔 Closing Thoughts
Over the last few weeks we have been considering all the religions in the world and wondering how there can be so many. Also wondering which one is correct 0r whether they are all correct or could even all be wrong. I was happy to discover this simple explainer - listen and reflect.
- Proto-Indo-Iranian Religion: 1:14 Zoroastrianism: 3:39 Judaism: 6:42 Christianity: 8:58 Islam: 10:19 Hinduism: 10:51 Buddhism: 12:08 Jainism: 13:08 Sikhism: 14:06 Baha'i: 15:33
If you have not listened to Billy Carson before you will be surprised. He is straight talking and, like Jason (back in Issue 54), he knows his source material very well and he independently paints pretty much the same picture as Jason. You would do well to make an informed decision yourself. To that end he points you to plenty of supporting references.
As additional background to this, recall what we discussed last week from Genesis 6:4 and the Nephilim as well as the Book of Enoch; make a note to catch up on this if you did not do it yet. Links to additional references are below.
You can read The Nag Hammadi Scriptures or listen to the audiobook if you prefer.
You can read the Apocrypha or listen to the audiobook if you prefer
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