Lightning payouts will be a game changer for small pleb miners I think.

Seems the real Bitcoin halving does not happen until those fees go right down. I look forward to the analysis over the coming days as to what mining pools are passing the fees on to the workers and which are being greedy.

Yes I must of edited my comment to be more precise after you replied, sorry. I don't believe the narrative of greedy businesses price gouging, but more likely the supermarkets would "take the hit" to maintain a stable price and either reduce the quality in the least damaging way possible or otherwise cut costs elsewhere while maintaining high standards.

E.g. in my experience if word got out that a place is "expensive" it would kill it and someone else would come in and work harder to undercut them.

One could probably write a book on the dynamics of "Japanese society", but there are expectations around price and quality and a very strong anchoring bias as the place has not had inflation for 30 years. That may change soon, you see stickers with new prices written in restaurants etc, but price increases are still emerging as a "thing".

I live in Japan but am lucky to have a mix of local and overseas income.

Overall wages are low compared to my home in New Zealand or USA etc. Minimum wage of ~¥1100 per hour, $7USD, most white-collar jobs pay way less than West. However cost of living is also relatively cheap. You can have a decent lunch for ¥900 and a comfortable apartment in Tokyo can be in the range of 80,000 - 160,000yen per month. Insurance and healthcare are also very cheap.

There is a sense that most companies try to keep their prices as similar and stable as possible due to lots of competition but there is also maybe a cultural component. If a company was seen to raise prices explicitly then I think people and media would come down very hard on them. There are expectations of what things should cost and it is hard to step outside of that unless the whole industry raises their prices at the same time, which has happened over the last few years.

The only time I have heard Japanese people experience the weakness of the yen is when they have tried to go overseas for travel.

There is more to it as I think the pernicious effect of a weak yen is manifesting in other places, but honestly my lived experience here even if I was earning only yen locally is much better than New Zealand. Housing and food in particular is super cheap compared to what I get back home.

SN has better vibes than legacy social media.

Just wondering if anyone else has seen this film by the way?

Just tried this out. Sent to onchain but my liquidity balance has stayed the same. Any ideas?

More autists = more bitcoin products, people, and projects. Normies are unable to get it.

This is good for Bitcoin.

Lightning cleaning machine - I like it. Thanks.

Thanks. What does the onchain footprint look for this?

E.g. Doxed / KYC Coins -> Phoenix pay to onchain -> Clean coins?

Recorded another episode for the pod today, released a great interview: Simplicity: Bitcoin’s Last Soft Fork? With Christian Lewe of Blockstream Research on Monday!

Lightning question please: Does sending onchain from Phoenix etc reduce inbound liquidity by the amount sent as the channel UTXO now has less funds in it, or does something else happen?

Yes I was out there a month or so. It really is beautiful. I know a few people here and there.

There is a really good board game bar in Kanazawa called Hello World that is run by a Bitcoiner and accepts Bitcoin for payment. https://gbhw.jp/

I saw that one, it is freaky.

The only thing you will be able to trust is what your Bitcoin node says.

Uh oh.

I had a great talk with Nicolas Dorier on the The Transformation of Value Podcast recently, and he reflected on and shared some of these sentiments and other topics. Check out the episode here: 🎧 BTCPay Server & Bitcoin Service Providers with Nicolas Dorier

Any kiwis here might be interested in this episode - Kōura Wealth KiwiSaver and Bitcoin with Rupert Carlyon