I just went to Spain for the first time, and I was surprised how little they checked me at customs. Literally zero questions asked. Just stamped my passport and handed it back.

Normally, I'm at least asked how long I plan to stay. Spain was nice. I wanna go back and spend longer.

If you need "god" to be a good person, you weren't a good person to begin with.

If you need "sacred and eternal vows" in order to have a healthy, lasting relationship, then you probably shouldn't be in a relationship to begin with.

True. But, like OP, Aliens are top of mind every time I'm in the mountains.

Yea, I knew about that piece, and it's cool they at least have that.

But I'd like to be able to withdraw rewards via LN, and fund the debit card with it.

Can someone explain to me why in the bowels of hell Fold has still not implemented Lightning into their tech stack?!?!?!

I agree with @DarthCoin and I want to expand on what he said:

This is an absolutely awesome way to make a user friendly Bitcoin wallet. I love the idea.

BUT. You need to find a way to abstract this stuff away from users altogether. Automatically assign them to different layers depending on their balance. I know this is easier said than done, because of the differences in disclosures on the different layers. But I think more effort should be put into it.

I strongly believe that "ecash" should be thought of in the same way we think of the database layer of an app. Typical apps do not start off by confusing users with sentences like: "This app uses SQLite. Please be aware that SQLite is not meant to be used for heavy industrial data solutions. Please be aware your data could be lost using this database."

Fuck that. Developers abstract these sorts of details away, and at the moment, Bitcoin developers are doing an absolute garbage job with the PR surrounding "ecash". It sounds like a shitcoin. People are confused.

Sure, we developer types get it. We love ecash, just like we love SQLite or mySQL. But FFS, keep this shit out of the public eye!

See my comment thread on this subject from a few months back: #557913

I want an app with all the features of Blitz, but with a UI like Zues. Actually, fuck that. Even Zues is silly by not finding a way to abstract LN/on-chain concepts from users. CashApp or Strike might be doing it best. Just find a way to be like CashApp, but add self-custody features for users with high balances.

But whatever, the main point I want my post here to get across is that ecash should be thought of like a DB layer. And we should only be talking about it in highly technical Bitcoin communities and podcasts. Don't confuse the non-techies.

I just set it up through the UI provided by the StartOS app. Never used a CLI or anything.

It looks like all the permissions were added to the connections I created. Read, create, send, etc....

Thanks for the info about NWC not being supported! I see that Alby Hub is available on StartOS, so I will download it and learn how to use it. Thanks!

I'm on StartOS using the Nostr Wallet Connect app.

It's a cover for something.

They know about the alien base on the dark side.

They know the moon isn't a naturally formed body; that it was placed in our orbit by "someone" in the far past.

Doubt they have any plans of ever going back to the moon after what they've learned recently.

Jokes on them. Every time I vote, I use a fake ID.

Your title reporting the value in BTC instead of dollars makes me so happy.

Yea, I agree.

But why are there so many people who disagree? People who agree with us all the way up to the very end. They aren't stupid.

While, I personally love each of your bullet points..... the intelligent individuals from r/btc would tear each of your points apart.

I want to briefly mention that I don't believe Blackrock to be part of "the creature". (apart from it being a slave to it the way the rest of us are)

The creature we're referring to is even deeper than that.

Merchant adoption was happening at the fastest rate we've ever seen, back in 2015, during the block size war. It's not hard to imagine a world where the entire globe would have adopted Bitcoin if that had been allowed to continue.

But it was stunted.

I believe it was stunted for good reason. But I want to hear what those reasons were by the people involved at that time. I want a trial. Roger Ver has accused them of treason, let's have a trial.

In Roger's book, he claims that their first goal was to prevent Bitcoin from gaining too much traction before they could counter with their own digital money movements such as Venmo. It was a 2 part plan to ensure Bitcoin adoption didn't take off, while increasing the ability to use fiat digitally and seamlessly.

Part 1, ramp up the ability to send fiat money over phone apps. Remove the friction to send fiat.

Part 2, stop the institutional usage of Bitcoin as a way to move money, at least until they've finished development of Part 1.

Ultimately, this doesn't matter, and I think that's your point. Who cares about the details... BTC wins in every scenario, right?

The problem comes in when it becomes clear that they succeeded. Perhaps without their influence, the community would have figured out a better solution. For example, a small block size increase, followed by a long term L2 plan. Lightning with 6MB blocks would probably be the perfect risk/reward play. But LN on 2MB is tough.

I'm playing devil's advocate, though. I don't think any of us can decide to increase the blocksize. That's the whole point.... who has the power to decide? No one, and that's what makes Bitcoin special.

However, I think it's probably true that Satoshi did not mean to keep the 1MB block size. He hoped we would increase it. Increasing it around 2016 would have been perfect to help maintain momentum of adoption. Ossifying after that, and moving to layer 2's would be the correct choice. I'm afraid the central banks applied their influence to ensure we never increased the block size..... especially when they didn't have their shit, like Venmo, in place yet.

I agree.

But I'm concerned that, after 1.5 decades, "the creature" is no closer to being destroyed. In fact, it appears to have found a way to benefit from our revolution.

Ugh. I think fear of DarthCoin's wrath is the reason I haven't posted this until now. Been holding out a while...

I threw away all my collared shirts in anticipation of this conversation.

To add some clarity to my post:

The big blockers have not convinced me to convert. I think their implementation of Bitcoin will fail over time. BCH relies on mass adoption in order to keep miners in business. It doesn't allow for a slow adoption over time.... a Trojan horse. It cuts corners and makes tradeoffs I'm not okay with.

However, they have convinced me that BTC has been captured. Central banks.... the creature..... have found a way to ensure Bitcoin doesn't threaten the creature's reign.

I don't think BCH or XMR is the solution, due to technical reasons and social ones around forking etc.... I almost think we're back at square one... where Satoshi began. Can we ever beat them when they are always one step ahead of us?

(even with these newfound beliefs, I'm fully allocated to Bitcoin. So don't hate me bro. It's just the cleanest shirt in the dirty laundry pile.)

I agree. But I can't shake the feeling that there's more to this story. We know the surface level reasons why BCH doesn't work.

I spent years in an evangelical christian church where they had their reasons for why Buddhism or other religions were trash. Then I went and lived with Buddhists.... and I realized those christians didn't know shit.

So, yea, I understand the surface level reasons for BCH and XMR being trash. But when you try having a conversation with them about it, they seem to have well thought out answers. They understand it just as well as we do, and they think we're wrong. So, obviously, there's more conversation to have here.