Imagine saying that all "true" Bitcoiners bury their keys in the backyard...

No exceptions.

And all 'operating systems' must be Linux Gentoo.

And all Lightning Nodes are reproduced from source...

That means NO Zeus wallet, downloaded via an App Store, no Obtanium, no Google Play Store no shortcuts... Even though "App Stores" are what made iPhones BIG. Because if you don't run your "own" Lightning Node that you compiled from source on Arch/Gentoo/OpenSUSE then you are not a real Lightning user.

Hell we don't want Lightning to be Easy we want it to be HARD! :D

I don't know how many of you have purchased a coffee with eCash, at McDonald's no less... But I have.

Could I have gotten "rugged"? Maybe. Was it self-custodial? No. Did McDonald's give a fuck? No of course not and to be honest I didn't either because I only had a small amount of money in my "custodial" wallet and it worked well it was cheap, easy, and the risk was tolerable.

I have written many posts about using self-custodial Lightning, tor, the importance of self-custody, and non-kyc Bitcoin to make sure all of these systems actually "work" on a technical level.

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Because if they don't work or CAN'T WORK then we have BIG problems.

However if we expect users to do all of these things, to be 100% self-sovereign, to do everything themselves then I don't think we will get anywhere and certainly not anytime soon.

I still don't know any way to use computers that is 100%, completely untraceably private and Bitcoin is no different. In fact, how could Bitcoin be 100% private and yet everyone use it? You have to use Bitcoin for it to be adopted, but it you use it for payments and to transact and to engage in commerce (what it was designed for) you are literally out in public and asking to pay in Bitcoin.

Furthermore, Ark Spark "fake L2s" they don't offer the same "unilateral exit" or "privacy" or anti-rug or "counter-surveillance" that real Lightning does I think everyone agrees with this.

However I don't think the Ethereum/Solana/USDC people (on Spark) are interested in buying anything anyway and if they do... they are at serious, real *possible* risk of getting rugged.

I don't expect this of ever being really, truly mainstream (and I say this as someone who likes Coinkite).

As a matter of fact, most Americans cannot afford a 1000$ "emergency expense" much less spend hundreds of dollars on a very fancy python-computer.

That doesn't mean hardware wallets aren't important... they are, but they aren't a substitute for user education and most Americans have so little to spend on Bitcoin anyway they probably can't justify buying one now...

If you hadn't noticed the "crypto market" is "down bad."

NFTs weren't, after all, a way to "get rich quick."

And neither, frankly, is Bitcoin.

However I believe that one day I won't have to put up with this Bullshit from Google.

Because I will pay a few sats instantly and cheaply... to prove 'proof of intent' not to spam or attack, and my user experience, just like my overall online experience, will be so much better Using Bitcoin.

Which I believe will be widespread on the internet one day.

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It's logical that, in my opinion eventually, through the digitization of media and the revolution of AI, all of our lives will necessitate the management of energy through Cyberspace. Social media, messaging, email, text messages, website-verification, anti-DDoS, online interaction... all civilization is based on energy and the basic unit of friction and energy in Cyberspace is the sat. It's the logical foundation.

The basic unit of friction and energy in Cyberspace is the Sat...

The most perfectly secure "Bitcoin custody" isn't the most convenient. And the most "convenient" isn't the most decentralized... running a node is a nuisance, and despite the node-in-a-box revolution home nodes "from the box" are still a work in progress.

And they do come with tradeoffs.

But Bitcoin mining, Lightning, and privacy-preserving nodes out of the box are an incredible improvement from just a few years ago when they did not exist.

They MIGHT not be as trustworthy as running Bitcoin Core on a laptop you put together yourself with Arch you installed yourself...

with the binaries you compiled yourself...

with Bitcoin your mined yourself using solar on your roof eetc (which is very cool and people actually do)...

BUT MORE copies of the ledger into the hands of MORE people, quickly, with the tools they need in order to use Bitcoin in the way they want is a VERY good thing.

At the end of they day, proof-of-work, quality of design, and decentralization give Bitcoin its value and it's impossible to force that on people, they have to appreciate it themselves.

Give them "all the Spark" all the "fake L2s" all the "shitcoins" "all the stables" (which they don't really want anyway) people don't actually want those things when they can't use them or trust them.

Do you hold, to the best of your ability, the private keys or not, and will you pay a *high enough fee* to get your transaction mined if necessary outbidding everyone else?

At the end of the day nothing else in Bitcoin really matters.