So essentially if Bitcoin ossifies right now, Coinbase, Wall Street, and the surveillance grid becomes Bitcoins predominant layer 2. Yes we can have fun lightning deals like this, but the states boot will come down so hard on individuals operating sites like this' necks it won't be even funny.

Shinobi told me Bitcoin needs consensus changes to scale and what we have currently is not sufficient. I'm the journalist and he's the technical editor plus Twitter space debater so I will hold his opinion higher on the topic than mine. Though I may be underestimating my IQ on the subject because I definitely smoke more cigarettes than Shinobi, who probably vapes or something. If those supposed crucial protocol changes happen, then things could be very interesting.

If individuals concerned about Bitcoin not being able to scale are correct, and those changes don't happen, the majority of the market is going to get captured by KYC and things are going to look very similar to how they do with fiat currency. But with Bitcoin it is theoretically more scarce and will retain deflationary purchasing power (I'm sure the fiat maxis and shitcoiners will screw this utopian vision up somehow).

The hope in all of this is that markets are incredibly powerful. A bunch of red necks brewing booze in Appalachia, kicked Uncle Sam's ass during "prohibition." With growing surveillance, there is a growing market for privacy technologies. Just recently, Larry Fink complained that the current ruling class was recruiting too many ancaps.

There are markets for anything you want and nobody will ever stop it. There are casualties along the line such as Ross Ulbricht may he be freed, and Jullian Assange. Even those shitcoiners over at Tornado Cash are casualties of this battle. But regardless of what the looters in Washington decree, shadowy supercoders will be developing incredible ways to circumvent howlers like Elizabeth Warren.

There has been much focus on the software side, but very little focus on the hardware side. Essentially 1 Chinese company makes all the mining hardware and there's very little way to be confident in the supply chains for consumer devices and maybe even some commercial hardware wallets. There's too many stops along the supply chain where spooks can intercept and meddle with stuff. We live in a wacky world so it's difficult to be an educated journalist with an IQ over 80 and not see the clear attack vectors.

Seriously, the NSA/Israelis made phone security a thing of the past. The only way around this is air gapped devices, theoretically. There is nothing more air gapped than a type writer which is a great candidate for a cold storage device. I have speculation that Coinbase and other top tier custodians use type writers for cold storage.

But it would also be pretty cool to be able to run Bitcoin core off of a type writer. I know it would be kind of like a cyborg where you mesh a computer with a type writer, but it would just have so much class. I bet you the CIA has not found a way to exploit typewriterOS because I may be the only one in the world running it at this present moment. Umbrel or some other builder like Start 9 or something... It would be cool if you got on that for me.

I promise to report on it if you do. Maybe I will report on it if you don't.