I agree with Darth 100%!!!!! No need to buy a hardware signer. If they are already familiar with how to use a bitcoin wallet and just looking to take the next step in security, get them learning how to secure their seed/key backups.

If you want to include a device (playing around with backups isn't terribly fun), get 'em going on a node. Any old laptop will do. You can run Bitcoin Core (or Knots) on whatever operating system you like (Windows, Mac, Linux). You don't have to be technical. It's pretty much just download and install.

There are lots of great tutorials about how to connect your wallet to your node. Most wallets make this pretty easy. It'd be a fun experience and they would probably learn a lot.

It needs to be said that this would not have happened if it weren't for @BlokchainB!

I am very grateful you took the initiative to set this up! Getting to talk to other stackers in real life and having the experience of explaining Stacker News to Bitcoiners for several days in a row was incredible!

(you beat me to a summary, but I'm still gonna post one in a bit)

Every bitcoin address is really just a locking script (learnmeabitcoin is good on this). So you could create an address with a timelock that applies to all the coins sent to that address. But I don't think it would be a good idea.

Timelocks in Bitcoin are super confusing because there are a number of ways to do them.

You may have heard of nLocktime, which is a field in every bitcoin transaction. You can include a value here that is interpreted either as a date or blockheight and its inclusion means that the transaction will not be treated as valid (won't be mined into a block) until that date or blockheight is reached. This kind of timelock doesn't apply to coins, but rather to the transaction and is probably the least useful kind of timelock and it definitely wouldn't help you do what you describe.

There are also timelocks that are enforced by Bitcoin Script. You may have heard of CLTV and CSV. CLTV is a way of locking your coins so that they cannot be spent until a certain blockheight or date is reached. CSV is a way of locking your coins so that they cannot be spent until a certain blockheight or timelength has passed since the utxos were created.

Here's a CLTV example: you generate an address with a locking script that uses CLTV to lock any coins sent to that address till block 950000. After a transaction is confirmed where you send coins to that address they won't be able to be spent in another transaction until blockheight 950000 is reached. If you send new coins to this address, they also won't be able to be mined until 950000.

Here's a CSV example: you generate an address with a locking script that uses CSV to lock any coins sent to that address for 1000 blocks. After a transaction is confirmed where you send coins to that address, they won't be able to be spent in another transaction until 1000 blocks have passed. However, if you send new coins to that block, the 1000 lock timer will start fresh for those coins, but not the ones that were already there.

Very few wallets (I believe you can do it in Sparrow) allow you to do customizable CLTV timelocks because of the risk of locking coins for a long time. If you get the number wrong, there is no recourse. Also a long timelock (5+ years) risks that Bitcoin changes in the meantime.

Wallets like Liana, Nunchuk, Keeper, and Bitcoin Safe allow you to do CSV "relative" timelocks, usually in conjunction with other paths to spending so that it's harder to shoot yourself in the foot. The downside is that these relative timelocks have to be "refreshed" by sending the coins to yourself to restart the timer. This is a pretty safe way to use timelocks and might work for your use case.

As to reusing addresses:

Remember from the top of this comment that addresses are just encodings of the locking script on your coins? A wallet is a way of generating a bunch of these addresses that all have the same locking scripts except that they require a signature from a different private key. This different key is derived from the master key to the wallet. Using this kind of construction helps to preserve your privacy by keeping the inputs separate until you decide to combine them in a spend.

So if you are determined to do something like this, I'd suggest creating a wallet and generating a new address for each time someone wants to send coins to it.

don't own a ring?

I tried to make this point to my brother (who recently installed some ring stuff): it's like inviting someone else to just use your webcam whenever they like. Just don't use it.

Without wanting to diminish the tribulations of the Gen-Z-ers, the youth have always been a disaster.

I hear the assessments of Gen Z as being shallow or lacking focus or incapable of hard work, and I'm cognizant that the boomers were a youth who their parents no doubt felt lacked all that was good and holy.

It's not that I think humanity doesn't change or that there is nothing to worry about in the changes that occur with each new generation, but at least since the beginning of the industrial revolution, change = human, and it seems to have gotten us somewhere...well...not bad, at least.

Gen Z is going to be pretty different. I'm sure a lots of the different will be bad. But I'm also aware that the last few generations haven't exactly been able to claim unvarnished success with their way of doing things.

I'm glad for your optimism. It's easy to feel the opposite, and I need the reminders.

stupid easy convenience?

These things are all over my neighborhood. Even if I try to avoid them, they capture my stride, probably posture, maybe face. I don't like the world they are building.

This is one I need to watch. I love caves!

I remember in the 90s in the US, buying organic products (pesticide, herbicide free) was expensive. Often it was difficult to find. Now organic products are widespread¹ and often the price is only slightly elevated from normal.

It seems that open source phones are like organic products in the '90s. There really is very small demand for them. The popular culture around devices and software is so far from caring about open source devices that most people you speak to don't even know what you mean, much less have an understanding of why it is important.

Until more people demand it, I don't see a viable path. Perhaps we could learn from the granola crunchers.

The title is excellent. She deserves credit just for that. It's funny how sometimes just being honest about our inner thoughts -- perhaps brutally so -- can make for such compelling reading.

I saw this! Gotta love that comeback!

I have come to greatly appreciate Justin's take on ecash.

I remember when @TonyGiorgio posted his ecash is self custodial article (#395461) and calle came out with some pretty harsh criticism that it was a bad way to think about ecash tokens.

That's the thing: Ecash are tokens. They are a different coin. Maybe they are a shitcoin, but they might be a useful shitcoin.

Cashu is not bitcoin. However, I still kinda like it and I hope people keep building on it.

I'm very curious to see where you find your readers.

I'm also quite interested to see a little more of your writing.

Writing is changing. As is finding readers. Of love to hear some more about how you are thinking on writing as a profession and how that has changed for you. Especially since you've been doing it professionally for a good while.

Fair answer. We will each run the relay policy we like and we will see where things go.

So run knots.

Do you have any way of preventing people from running nodes with relay policies you don't like?

Very cool! Thanks for building this.

No, I appreciate your perspective. I see where you are coming from. I don't risk my sats in too many other ways, so I think I'm okay risking them in this manner.

Squirrels are rats.

But what if it's a real person and they just end up with CCs? I want them to feel the energy of a zap.

Why not sats?

Ooh, that looks good. My sister in law is Columbian and she makes really good ceviche. Wish I had some right now...