Is there a logical argument that differentiates a lightning network node from a World of Warcraft or Fortnite server? Does "unlicensed money transmitter" just mean anything we dislike?

Celebrated at a bar outside the MIT Bitcoin Expo with a bunch of bitcoiners. We counted down the last couple blocks and everyone cheered when block 840,000 was mined. The 6 normies were totally confused. Followed that up with a trip to Ruth's Chris for a New York strip and more bitcoin talk.

It's going to be hard to follow that up for the next halving.

Yes! It had the big flag of tape or else you mix it up with a standard ethernet cable and spend half an hour troubleshooting your LAN setup.

The power of open source devs reviewing code!

A few years ago it was Panasonic, and I think they're still fairly big on the LiFePO4 scene. They invest quite a lot in battery R&D as well. I feel like everyone's trying to play catch up now though. I wouldn't pretend to know what the current landscape is like. Chinese production has ramped up a lot, so it might be worth comparing Tesla's latest cells to BYD's. There are also smaller players constantly coming onto the scene - Microvast might be interesting for instance. No idea about the major automotive makers, but I'm sure they're progressing as well.

I'm not a fan of Tesla's vehicles, but their batteries are seriously impressive. I love the innovation they've brought to cell design, chemistry, thermal management, and even the BMS. The last time I looked into it, they were leagues ahead of the competition on several fronts.

I think MSTR is clearly overpriced right now, but assuming a bitcoin bull market, it could easily hit new highs over the next year even if the premium over NAV were to totally evaporate. I think this premium is something like 127% currently, which would mean $160K USD bitcoin would erase the premium.

It's a bold gamble they're making - even if they're equally long bitcoin they could still end up losing. They're basically trying to time the disappearance of market irrationality in the middle of a bull market! I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

25 years is the answer. https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/1773376299626574125

I love this gossip deep dive you're doing. Another question is "what is the role of the address in the node announcement?" Is it needed for public channels?

I would argue its role is to allow other nodes to find and connect to you for the first time. I would prefer to have a separate peer message to provide an inbound connection address privately to your peer - this would be an unsigned message, unlike the node announcement. I think this makes sense as public gossip is mostly public data about nodes and channel topology while channel activity is all private between two peers. Better for reliability, privacy, and latency if these public and private connection addresses aren't necessarily the same.

Yeah, I noticed grocery expenses went up drastically, but (for me) that adjustment is moderated quite a lot by shelter due to a low fixed rate mortgage. I can imagine the numbers would be much more volatile if renting or with an adjustable rate mortgage.

I think everyone should monitor their expenses for a time and try calculating their own CPI. It's a pretty fraught measurement even for the well intentioned, but ultimately it matters most how your own spending is affected. I first calculated my family's CPI in early 2020 and came up with ~7% while the official number was an insanely low 2% I believe. I think the 7% figure was still roughly accurate the last time I tried this, though I'm sure it would have been higher in the '21 - '22 period. Regardless, it's an easy statistic to figure for yourself if you take your biggest monthly expenses and compare them to a period a year ago (assuming you have some financial records.)

I use this when evaluating major investment decisions, before assuming any new debt or making major purchases, etc.. Leaving that calculation to a bureaucratic agency which could care less about your well being just feels a bit irresponsible. Also, everyone's personal circumstance is so different that one generic index falls short of being very useful.

Be the change you want to see. Run a routing node. Run a liquidity ad to lower inbound liquidity rates for new operators. Attend a spec meeting. Pick an issue and contribute to one of the lightning implementations.

I do all of these btw, with no background in bitcoin or software development except a fascination with the lightning network and an interest to learn.

My in-laws built one of these in the mountains of New Mexico north of Tijeras. Not quite this extreme - they stopped short of the indoor plants and bottle walls, but 3 of 4 exterior walls were rammed earth in tires, giant south-facing windows to maximize solar gain in the winter, off-grid solar and a metal roof to catch water. It looked really nice (walls were finished with stucco) and was in a beautiful spot on a south facing mountain slope. They eventually sold it for a live aboard boat, but it was an incredible place for the couple decades they were there.

I would love to live in an earthship. I will say, builders/owners should develop an instruction manual for all of the off-grid systems. They're all a bit unique and visitors will be totally unfamiliar with their operation and peculiarities.

I've been trying to get back into intermittent fasting. Skipping breakfast, lunch and snacks is actually pretty refreshing. It's nice to reset the system every now and then.

I've been trying to figure out MSTR's valuation. You can't strictly compare their bitcoin holding to their market cap due to their USD debt load. As you mention, there's also the underlying value in their business. But there's no good way to square these three aspects. The best I've been able to do is cancel out their business income with the cost of servicing their debt, but that still assumes access to capital at current interest rates, etc..

In the end, it's basically a leveraged play on the price of bitcoin coupled with a short position on their effective real interest rate. Both of those are well positioned right now, but I think there are more factors at play - 61% of MSTR shares are held by institutions. These may be restricted in the types of investments they can make. Perhaps custodying their own bitcoin wasn't an option to them, nor the ETFs. In that case, buying the MSTR bonds may have been a unique opportunity that could result in an increased demand for MSTR beyond the underlying bitcoin price. My thinking is there must be more of these types of investors where MSTR is somehow their best option.

Beyond all of that, there's rampant speculation as well. Something like 21% of the MSTR shares available to trade are held short. This is actually down substantially from previous weeks. This active short squeeze is just another dimension to the puzzle, but it has definitely been boosting the share price.

Conclusion: I have no idea what Microstrategy's fair value really is.

My lightning node runs on a Pi400. I love the massive heatsink and passive cooling. The opsec of an extra keyboard in the closet is nice too.

'Sesquipedalophobia' is not much better!

What I took from When Money Dies is that the root cause is unlikely to be identified. It was much easier for society to latch onto market speculators and Jews as the culprits of inflation than the money printing. It was really heartbreaking to read about the social fabric fraying, millions of people angry and hurting, and then instead of facing the root causes - onerous reparations and the relentless monetary debasement - instead the frustration was all redirected onto innocent people just trying to protect themselves in the midst of a horrible situation.

This book didn't make me optimistic for the societal response to the coming difficult times. Especially with all of the current vitriol toward "greedy corporations." (And it's not like I want to defend some asshole corporate oligarchs, but the reasoning here is just lazy and wrong!) I just hope the transition away from fiat/dollars is slow enough and gets enough people onboard that tempers don't explode and so that a substantial portion of the population can be protected through it. I've got to say, I'm nervous.

When you said "such as cashu wallets and mints" I thought you were including fedimint in the discussion as well. Yes, a cashu mint could be quite vulnerable if it's a known entity - much easier to shut down if there's a single point of failure and that point is known.

I think there's a good argument that such a mint would be more open, permissive, and available. On the other hand, if a mint is unable to collect data on its users, and especially if each signer is only part of a quorum (jurisdictionally distributed perhaps), it could be argued that they're powerless to do much anyhow. Of course if a majority of the traffic appears to support North Korea's Lazarus group, that argument could quickly fall apart. The jurisdictions could decide that the collateral damage in completely shutting down the mint may be worth it.

What's worse is a lot of it just ends up bundled up and stacked on container ships bound for SE Asia. When weather picks up, it gets swept overboard all the time, making a contribution to the great Pacific garbage patch. I think running it through an incinerator and recouping some energy may be the least worst option.

It's amazing how many problems originate from incentive misalignment. This is just one more example. I like how the milk industry used to reuse glass milk bottles - I wish more companies had a cradle-to-grave approach, but it's cheaper to abandon responsibility for your product as soon as it's off the shelf.