B_for_Bitcoin

Politics_And_Law

I often notice a lot of mistrust from people who prefer paper ballots and are wary of digital technology. They fear potential fraud or worry that their vote might be visible to those in power. That's why I’m opening this topic for discussion.

Is it possible to build a fully anonymous voting system using existing anonymization technologies such as ring signatures, zero-knowledge, or MimbleWimble?

I invite anyone willing and able to contribute here. Please try to explain in simple terms, avoiding complicated mathematical jargon, so that even those unfamiliar with the technology can understand.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a centralized system (like Taxisnet), or something like Messenger/WhatsApp where Meta holds the keys.

I’m envisioning a completely decentralized digital voting system where individuals log in with their personal private key to vote, and yet no one—not even the system—can know who they voted for.

Blockchain-Based Electronic Voting System with Total Anonymity

Stacker Saloon

saloon

bitcoin

I was just reading some old posts on Bitcoin Forum and I found this post from July 06, 2011. It's crazy how people were thinking about Bitcoin back then. This dude could've made a ton of Bitcoins, but he chose to delete the wallets and "destroy" them. This is the dumbest Bitcoin story I've heard. Can't believe that. 

Read this to see how stupid those people were back then. 
___________________
>I am an IT specialist at a medium sized European insurance company. Not in the large datacenters or anything, just a smallish dependance. We're with only two people in my department and we work together so basically we can do with the computers at our disposal what we want.

>Including installing and running bitcoin miners.

>Good for you! You might think. Nice bitcoins for us, ready to spend or trade on an exchange or whatever and it doesn't cost us anything! Other than a few lost hours reading into bitcoin and then registering for a pool and setting up some miners.

>But. We're not in this for the money. The ideal is what matters to us, the idea behind bitcoin, the potential it has and what it could same day become. The problem is, we don't believe in that. We both feel bitcoin is an incredibly silly idea, a waste of resources (spare me the irony, we're aware of it) and a concept that is doomed to fail.

>So, we destroy every coin we mine. It's amazing how much effort it takes PC's to create a bitcoin yet how easily they can be destroyed. It literally takes us no more than a minute every week. Delete the wallet.dat and create a fresh one and another 5 coins or so are gone forever.

>Miner is running on 12 PC's at the moment, total hashing power close to 700 Mhash. Next week it's time roll it out on the other 40 machines.

>Of course you can join our quest and start deleting your wallets from today and help us get rid of bitcoin. Coin by coin by coin by coin! 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26539.0
____________________________
But this genius couldn't understand the idea of scarcity: The more coins he destroys, the more valuable the remaining coins become.

Destroying bitcoin, by coin, by coin...

Music

A Musical Experiment

IamSINGLE

https://youtu.be/Y9oZZzLr3BU?si=sjPcxmwSV_nr0n_x

econ

Business education exists since 1819, when the *École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris* established the first *grande école* of business. Since then, business schools have rapidly multiplied. Today, there are around 13,000 business schools worldwide, with around 3,000 being privately owned. In the UK, tuition for a local student ranges from £14,000 to £43,500 per year, excluding living expenses. For international students, the fees are much higher. An MBA from *Wharton* or *Harvard Business School*, even in Sydney, can cost anywhere from £25,000 to £100,000. However, in some cases, particularly in the US, an MBA doesn't guarantee a substantial salary increase. Today, these business schools surpass many large global companies in both revenue and influence.

Consider the large number of employees at these schools, the army of graduates they produce every year, and the significant sums of money that flow through them. It's no surprise that one of the key characteristics of these schools is the considerable amount they spend on marketing. Their *websites* use modern and attractive designs and techniques to promote their services. Ads with attention-grabbing headlines like "***Realize your dream!***", "***Knowledge is success***," and "***Find yourself***" seem more suited to promoting piano lessons, yoga classes, or mobile services rather than degree programs. The buildings are equally impressive—featuring *smartly* dressed receptionists behind glass sensor doors, modern cafés and dining halls, resort-style relaxation areas, and lecture rooms with thick carpets that sparkle with cleanliness.

On the other hand, these schools thrive because the demand for business education continues to grow. According to the *Aspen Institute*, students typically enroll in business schools with the belief that they will one day contribute to companies that create goods and services benefiting society. However, after completing their studies, this ideal often shifts, and students become convinced that their education’s main value lies in maximizing a company’s profits, with societal interests and other ideals taking a back seat. Many still believe that prestigious business schools provide unparalleled career opportunities, where *connections* and *networks* often matter more than the fees paid.

This is a *‘win-win’* situation for both parties: on one side, companies believe that employees educated at these institutions are more talented, creative, and professional, capable of making the right decisions to maximize profits; on the other, prestigious universities capitalize on the high demand for these professionals by increasing tuition fees every year. What business schools have created is a sort of utopia reserved for the wealthy and powerful—a privileged group you are encouraged to join, provided you can afford the hefty fees.

It is undeniable that we are now living in an era where giant multinational corporations often wield more power than governments and are fully capable of controlling the educational system, which in turn serves their interests. This system is designed to allow easy control over knowledge in line with the needs of an economic system that does not focus on the well-being of ordinary people or their harmonious coexistence with the environment, but rather on the needs of a global corporate system, where everything is for sale and has a market-determined price.

As a result, the global education system is heavily focused on business curricula, where young people, by the end of their studies, are imbued with Western culture in thought, vision, and philosophy. They are promised that they are being equipped with highly competitive skills for their careers. However, the true goal of this system is to serve the needs of multinational corporations, which rely on a steady influx of educated individuals to strengthen their position and power. Thus, the mission of universities remains primarily the creation of knowledge for a vast army of students, who will later sell their expertise to a handful of large companies. Those less fortunate may end up working as food delivery drivers, even after graduating from a business school.

In their seminar and lecture halls, business schools continue to adhere to outdated and out-of-touch teachings about business, the environment, and the socio-economic changes they themselves have triggered—what we now recognize as the crisis of globalization. Core subjects in these schools fail to address critical topics, such as identifying the winners and losers in the global economic system. There is little discussion about the rise of multinational corporations or who was responsible for the ecological destruction and social injustices that now define modern civilization and the global economy. Few lectures explore whose interests are served by allowing the mania for ownership to run unchecked—a phenomenon that has led to the consumption of nearly 60% of natural resources in just a few decades, not to mention the resulting climate crisis.

We also cannot overlook the hundreds of scandals involving major companies, such as child slave labor on plantations, environmental degradation, and the endless cycle of forced migration driven by natural resource conflicts. Business school curricula discourage students from confronting issues like overconsumption, where many people feel trapped, ensuring that sustainability, responsibility, and diversity remain little more than superficial topics. Of course, the central theme in these schools continues to be that *capitalism is inevitable* and that the financial and legal techniques supporting it are a pure science—an ideology that turns business schools into dangerous institutions.

What is needed now is action similar to that of the 1960s, when many sociology professors raised concerns about the *hidden curriculum*, which included lessons that were not part of the official university curriculum, such as topics related to women, people of color, the working class, and the local economy. These issues were raised to challenge the privilege and supremacy of *the white man*. Today, business schools have seemingly addressed this by introducing courses on ‘business ethics’ and ‘corporate social responsibility,’ but these topics often serve as little more than ways to ease institutional guilt rather than as genuine lessons on how to enact meaningful change, leaving the entire effort as just words without action.

Business schools have the privilege of shaping future leaders, and they must now reflect on what the world truly needs. There is ample data, statistics, and research from capable and idealistic economists that debunk the theories of Friedman and Hayek, who argued that the sole responsibility of corporations is to maximize profits, with no regard for the negative consequences on others. It is time for business schools to educate tomorrow’s leaders on finding sustainable solutions to the crisis caused by capitalism and globalization—the dead end humanity has been driven into by bad faith, for which business schools bear a significant portion of the blame. 

What we do not learn in a Business School?

Photography

Life flows steadily, like the man’s steps

Years before Bitcoin came out, someone had a similar vision:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20170318155023/http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20060623/118484/?P=2](https://web.archive.org/web/20170318155023/http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20060623/118484/?P=2)

>Will CELL be a resolution to solving the bottleneck you mentioned?  
>Kutaragi: Exactly. CELL will transform the fundamentals of the network topology. The old mechanism functioned by reading memory data into resistors and rewriting the arithmetic into memories. In short, it was just a repetition of loading and storing. Because each cash memory differs in time of access and capacity, it worked out in such hierarchical structure as primary cache, second cache, etc. On the other hand, CELL might completely transform the concept of cache as it would drastically accelerate the speed of networking. What comes into reality is that **each of the astronomical number of computers around the globe could unite to form a CELL and operate by one operating system. Each CELL would be the broadband network itself. Just to give you a picture, it is like 1,000 units of computers at one company functioning as one server. In such a networking world, one would only see the overall strength of power decline when one computer drops out and vice versa.** It sounds like a human society.

It's quite reminiscent of the Bitcoin network with ASICs and hashing difficulty adjustment...

[https://web.archive.org/web/20170318155023/http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20060623/118484/?P=3](https://web.archive.org/web/20170318155023/http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20060623/118484/?P=3)

>What are your views on the world's confusion to the appearance of such services as Napster?  
  Kutaragi:It was an innovative event that a Peer-to-Peer software has debuted in the network. But the network became the current tropology when TCP/IP appeared. **Going back to the time five years ago, it could have been easy to predict the form of P-to-P. When looking back, it seems that even I could have worked out the model of P-to-P out if I had given a serious thought to the matter during the New Year holidays. It was the negligence of the Japanese networking engineers that they did not come up with the idea.** There are too many watchers who criticize other people's technologies and there are too little who really are giving everything a good thought. Those mere criticizers claim they are engineers, but alas, they are salaried workers. They think they understand their stints by reading NIKKEI ELECTRONICS, for instance. It is nothing if the magazine knows more than the field in which you specify. Don't you think?

Some, of course, claim that Satoshi Nakamoto was indeed Japanese! 😀😀

There was once a code specifically for Cell/PS3 that did BTC mining:

[https://github.com/rcprcp/PS3-Bitcoin-Mining](https://github.com/rcprcp/PS3-Bitcoin-Mining)

I should mention that in 2001 when the interview was conducted, not only was there no Bitcoin, but not even ADSL in most parts of the world!

Most people had dial-up up to 56 Kbps (really no more than 48-50), with incredible latency, and a lucky few had ISDN 64-128 Kbps (1-2 channels).

Charged 60-120 dirh (0,17-0,35€) per hour (night vs peak hours), without the cost of the ISP subscription (separate one, a couple of €20/month) and even if you had 2 ISDN channels (for double speed) you had to pay double the rate to EPAK (120-240 dirh)! Plenty of strokes on OTE's bills. Angry

ADSL originally came in 2002 from IntraConnect in a few areas (Nea Ionia) with speed 256/128 Kbps (down/up) and price €44/month

In 2003 by OTE in tiers of 384/128, 512/128, 1024/256. The 384 tier started at €150/month (we're talking about the hard euro of 2003, with pytoyro at €1.2 and gold lira at €74) and the 1024 tier went up to €600/month! (the basic salary was somewhere around €450 back then)

[https://www.theregister.com/2003/04/11/greece_stunned_by_adsl_charges/](https://www.theregister.com/2003/04/11/greece_stunned_by_adsl_charges/)

The old adslgr regulars remember them (and probably want to forget them)! Cheesy

I think it is now understandable why bitcoin came out in 2008-2009 and not earlier. Somewhere in 2009 ADSL really started to become mainstream.

Dial-up is not always online and I don't know anyone who has set up node/miner behind such a line.

Why am I writing the above?

Because we need to look ahead and try to guess the next step of evolution:

[https://techmaniacs.gr/dei-internet-os-10gbps-i-episimi-anakoinosi-kai-oi-perioches/](https://techmaniacs.gr/dei-internet-os-10gbps-i-episimi-anakoinosi-kai-oi-perioches/)

Theoretically symmetric 10 Gbps:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10G-PON](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10G-PON)

Of course due to the EETT ratio (10:1) I expect at worst 1 Gbps once the 10 is given. Initially, they said they will give up to 2.5 Gbps.

Think what p2p applications we can see with 1 Gbps upload and more...

I personally never trusted cloud services, not even the promises of "lifetime", but a corresponding encrypted p2p network would seriously bake me (not only as a user, but also as a participant to set up a PC with 20 HDDs). Cool

Probably other applications I can't imagine right now...


Years before Bitcoin came out, someone had a similar vision

news

Iran is Preparing Imminent Ballistic Missile Attack Against Israel - White House

Cje95

Those fucking idiot politicians are going to destroy this planet. 

alter_native

The Earth rotates on its axis and quietly embarks on its journey toward the infinite sky. Historical events, too, follow along. From the formation of the first human being to the modern era, with its milestones marking each stage of this journey—each one characterized by a Model Human.

Every age has its New Human, its archetype, who not only fights to adapt to each new clash but also succeeds in becoming the true model for the new social, cultural, and political circumstances that time brings.

A human being, in the beginning closely tied to nature, later attached to the supreme leader, and now connected to technology. In all three cases, the essence remains the same: revolving around the boundaries of life, often lacking foresight, where fear of the new always drives them toward chaos and anarchy.

If nature and the leader are easily accepted by the human mind as two secure components in which humanity, in every era, has placed its trust—also including the worship of gods—technology is expected to go beyond these expectations.

Its rapid development in the 21st century, as seen in one of its most advanced applications, Artificial Intelligence, seems to herald the dawn of a new revolution, poised to produce yet another, newer model.

Though evolution is physical, this time it is taking on dimensions of an entirely different and incomprehensible nature, something wholly unknown. This is described in the latest book by the renowned scholar Yuval Harari. According to him, we are only a short time away from humans transforming into mechanical beings, into robots.

As a result, with technology holding humanity 'hostage,' humanism, freedom, and faith have significantly diminished in our everyday lives. Given this trajectory, several questions arise in public debate:

How will humans cooperate with AI? 

Is the enormous influence of such advanced technology on our lives something to fear?

Could this pursuit lead to a permanent dependence? 


Is our existence at risk in the distant future?

Loneliness is dangerous. It's addictive. Once you see how peaceful it is, you don't wanna deal with people.
![](https://m.stacker.news/53520)

https://x.com/BoldBitcoin/status/1835438538118095275

Bitcoin adoption: Starbucks accepting Bitcoin as payment in El Salvador

Dear Gregor Samsa,

Alienation isn’t just personal—it’s political. Exploitative and oppressive systems strip us of our humanity, forcing us to conform in a world that values only utility and productivity. The cost of not fitting into this mold is steep, and like you, many are discarded when they no longer serve the market's needs.

Alienation is more than just a feeling—it’s a symptom of systemic oppression.

Yet we must stay strong and continue the fight for dignity and justice, even in a world that seeks to dehumanize us.

bitcoin_beginners

![](https://m.stacker.news/52246)
**So I just saw this on platform X and it really got my attention because when I reasoned it, it's actually quite crazy but real too, and many Bitcoin HODLers today don't really know the power and benefits behind this particular thought of action.**

**Here is the link** from 0.20$ to $70k

HODLing of Bitcoin is probably the most talked about and deliberated matter in the crypto space and even here in the community. And it's funny how many people have turned a blind eye to this and some persons are feeling that Bitcoin price today is too big to buy well the thing is that every time is a good time to buy, that's if you are a long-term holder and I for one, am shocked at seeing how Bitcoin has been held for almost 14 years now although I know they are still some folks still HODLing and even planning to keep for longer terms maybe when Bitcoin reaches $200k to $500k before they actually sell-off.

I think there's probably a reason why they say patience is a virtue and it's something most humans don't have in the case of the Bitcoin journey, it's something that everyone needs to actually achieve that financial boost goal in the HODLing of our Bitcoin.

So I bring this for some folks to actually share at least boost our spirits in the HODL journey especially those newbies to the space, that if someone out there is still HODLing why not HODL?

Note:: **remember to keep your coins safe too that's based on the preference of a non-custodial wallet or cold wallet if you are HODLing for long-term**

The power of HODLing BTC


I have been thinking about this for some time.

The cue to open this discussion comes from the joke made on FB about Satoshi Nakamoto's letters.

I am copying and pasting this joke:

>Already I glimpse the future of places of worship, this is how they function today:
>“From the letters of St. Paul the Apostle to the Cretans, “brothers...”
>100 years from now:
“From Satoshi Nakamoto's letter to Sirius: “my choice ...”

We already have exactly the parallelism with classical religions, we have the prophet (Satoshi Nakamoto) giving salvation to humanity (Bitcoin), we have the various maximalist apostles and disciples.

We have the Force with which "missionaries" seek conversion in Grin "nocoiners" and try to take the word to all populations emphasizing this sense of salvation found only in Bitcoin etc..

In my opinion, Bitcoin is already a religion, a cult for many, but the reflections really go further and really we have all the elements of so many invented religions in every latitude, but these fantasies could now really be turned into something absolutely concrete, real!

Let's look at some of the elements:

1 - We have a kind of "divine" platform that is technically immortal and beyond human control, that can theoretically give eternal life to any essence you put into it. A kind of immovable engine, but also "creator" and "keeper" with bitcoin.

2 - We have a "beyond" and an "afterlife": Like so many religions where we think of the "earthly, physical, corrupt world" and a "beyond" that can be eternal, pure, incorruptible like heaven or nirvana etc.

Bitcoin somehow offers this vision as well, we have a bridge between the physical world and the digital world, a physical connection with mining the energy etc. and a creation of a digital cyberspace that can create worlds and essences that are somehow "eternal" "incorruptible by space and time and man" and in which one can also create, let's say, ideal worlds by giving birth to some form of realities that are "beyond" the physical world but also connected to "beyond" and' that would tend to have the presumption of eternal incorruptibility like an idyllic Eden in some kind of immortal metaverse built on e. g. a layer 2, which would guarantee a world with inviolable, untouchable, incorruptible, immortal goods, etc. ... in dichotomy with the world physically corrupted by man and obviously becoming.

3 - Ideologies related to the soul, the spirit, reincarnation or demonic angels or in any case this whole narrative of so many religions related to the existence of this kind of presences that are neither in the beyond nor in the hereafter, etc.

Let's try to imagine a sentient/conscious AI and put it in some kind of layer 2 and build some kind of "essence" beyond time and space, immortal humanoid but not human. Maybe ubiquitous even with a reality where maybe we all have visors or contact lenses and we are connected 24/24 living a hybrid world between real and virtual/digital augmented to say, and we can interact with these "presences" that are everywhere and nowhere, they are like angels or demons beyond time and space, ubiquitous but not physical.

Beings that may be tied to some sort of immortal essence built into the blockchain that you can communicate and interact with, and they can also be helpful or saviors, or they can also get out of control and become some sort of terminetor-like demons.

The same with the question of the soul, reincarnation or something like that, if there's maybe a future where we can somehow pick up a consciousness of ours and insert it into the protocol forever, theoretically we have some kind of weird digital eternal life that would be like our prayer of salvation like "one day we'll all be able to go happily to Eden" (which may end up being some kind of giant Matrix-like metaverse where all the steaks can be really "juicy and delicious".

In my opinion we are already at the cult level, already many maximalists look like devoted followers and have the classic attitudes of initiates or even a bit of fanatics.

Imagine if all this could happen slowly, it would be, let's say, the most "real" religion that has ever existed, that is, it would really have all the elements of religions, but without the question of "faith", which is translated as "belief in fairy tales", we will really have these elements in a concrete and tangible sense, because it would really "appear" to you concretely every day, and they would not just be fantasies, but basically somehow we as humanity will have created just a kind of almost immortal religion/God.

To this day, we are still stuck with the usual "digital gold blah blah blah" narrative, and as it is, we are at cult level, if these things really come to life in the future, we will go to mass to listen to the very verb proffered like this "from Satoshi Nakamoto's letters to Sirius" Roll Eyes

What do you think? Too much? 




BITCOIN: The New Godhead of the Religion of the Future

Guilt: I fucked up.

Shame: I’m fucked up.

Blame: You fucked up.

Reframe: We all fuck up sometimes—it’s part of life.

Dialectic: I fucked up and I’m learning how not to.

Accountability: When I fuck up, I address it.

Empowerment: Fuckups are opportunities to grow and improve.

Bitcoin entering the U.S. presidential election soundly and moving votes, certainly highlights a step forward in the much-needed adoption and equally helps to talk about it as we approach the real bullrun 2025, then in future adoption.

Let's go in order:

At the beginning of 2022, President Biden seemed to want to integrate the crypto sector into federal economic strategies, only to backtrack when the events of the three arrows, Celsius, Earth, and the worst with FTX occurred. At this point, an executive order by POTUS Biden tends to regulate the crypto sector by creating a crypto central bank and unleashing the SEC to wage war against the sector. The SEC has lost every battle so far: from the Ripple case to BTC ETFs and ETH. The watchwords have always been industry stability, consumer protection, some regulation, in short CONTROL. Then, in early 2024, another change of direction with meetings with crypto industry representatives and entrepreneurs to discuss the evolution of the crypto industry and possible federal support.

May 2024: At the Libertarian Convention, Trump, in addition to the usual MAGA theory, comes out with a totally opposite vision to the one Biden had up to that point, in fact, whether for reasons of vision, expediency or simply because the little guy from Mar-a-Lago has a superior flair by orders of magnitude to his opponent, he comes up with 4 key points for the crypto industry:
- Ensure a future for the crypto sector in the U.S.
- Support the right to self-protection
- Prevent the creation of a crypto central bank
- Grant pardon status to Ross Ulbricht

Of course, for those who experienced it live, it was a jubilation, at that moment trending on X, the agencies beating news go-go, a future with clouds finally unraveling. Then, when all is said and done, as always, you're looking at a politician on the campaign trail, so we'll see. Of course, admitting that he will do some things on his "day one" can hardly make him run away for four years.

At this point, precisely because the whole world is one country and a politician has to jump on as many bandwagons as possible, Biden decides to repeal the regulation under discussion in the House (SAB 121), deeming it outdated and thus rejecting the line of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a discreet octogenarian professor at Berkley and with a brilliant past at the Federal Reserve, so much so that she was an advocate of the much discussed 2% inflation target instead of the zero target that Greenspan wanted. The subsequent toying with interest rates led to the bursting of the dot-com bubble. So the Biden gerontocracy takes another step towards the crypto sector and we are in the fourth or fifth gear, just to say how much they and their advisors understand about crypto.

My personal opinion: the crypto sector in general is one thing, bitcoin is another and they should be treated separately.Perhaps ETH could fit into the inner circle defined by Bitcoin as a proponent of future DeFi.I certainly wouldn't mix it up with various dogs and frogs.

We'll see how things develop, in the meantime let's collect, add and then in the next 4 years evaluate who did what.