I am still learning, so forgive me if I digress.
I have been systematically reading about Bitcoin since I joined this forum. One of the first things I learned (and I love it) is that decentralization is a unique feature of Bitcoin. This feature allows Bitcoin users to have complete control over their Bitcoin and be their own bank.
From my recent readings, I realized that many "bitcoin" users are still stuck in the traditional idea of saving money with a central authority. Importing this idea into a decentralized bitcoin system has led to the invention of bitcoin banks, exchanges, and custodial wallets, all of which are centralized systems. I have the idea (probably wrong) that more and more "bit(shit)coiners are becoming centralized in the sense that they're using more and more of these centralized systems rather than trying to control their own bitcoins and be their bank.
Personally, I don't want to use any of these centralized systems and put my sats on these systems. For me, it is enough to use the traditional banks that I am forced to use to get paid for my work, because there is no other way to get paid in Bitcoin. That's why I don't want to use even Bitcoin in a centralized way, because I want to have control over my coins and be my own bank.
Is this very difficult to achieve? I don't know. Probably it is a little bit difficult, because every valuable thing takes some effort to achieve.
I have noticed that here in Stacker News there are a lot of stackers using Bitcoin as Satoshi's vision and I would like to join this group. It's true that I don't post much about Bitcoin, not because of a lack of interest, but because of a lack of knowledge. However, I'm learning a lot from you.
I would like to hear your thoughts!
Yeah absolutely would want to avoid centralized solutions to the best of our abilities. I've connected my Blixt wallet to SN for example because Blixt (a self custodial lightning wallet) gives you an LNURL if you use lightning box.
You should join this Bitcoin discord where we help people learn how to be self sovereign using Bitcoin.
http://bitcointech.help/ redirects to the discord invite link.
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Thanks for the invitation! I’ll check it out.
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I also like decentralization, but to play the devil's advocate here, I would argue that centralization of "money services" is acceptable, however, centralization of "money policy" is not acceptable.
In the Fiat systems, money policy is enforced by central governments and/or central banks. This makes it easy for certain powerful people to change the qualities of everyone's money on a whim (like its supply/inflation rate).
In the Bitcoin system, money policy is enforced by the network of nodes. This makes it difficult to change the policy of everyone's money.
If you use your own node to validate your txns, then its impossible for the rules of your money to change unless you change the software running on your node.
However, economies of scale are real and free people should be able to self-organize if they trust one another in order to take advantage of scale when it comes to money services like custody and payments.
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centralization of "money policy" is not acceptable.
I think I’ll agree with you!
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There will always be chokepoints of centralization on the on and off ramps when it comes to bitcoin. The best you can do is self custody, run your own bitcoin node & participate with others discussing the health of the network - and maybe even learning bitcoin core. Best of luck on your journey!!!
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For small amounts like your Stacker News wallet, it being custodial or not doesn’t really matter, just like how the amount in your pocket shouldn’t be more than you mind losing.
Way to focus on being your own bank and owning your own sats. @DarthCoin would be proud (I think).
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @mtb 4 Jun
Threre are some ways to get pay in bitcoin. If you are a freelancer, you can let your clients know that you're using BTC as a payment method.
If you're a employee, you can use some centralized companies in order to exchange your salary (part of ) and automatically receive BTC, for example https://www.bitwage.com/ offers this service.
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Thanks for the advice. I’m an employee. I’m a teacher. 🤷🏼‍♀️
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