I'm Turkish, my parents are both Turkish, I have a Turkish passport and I speak Turkish. So I thought it would be great to live in Türkiye for some time and see what it's like.

Istanbul has always fascinated me. I think it's a legendary city and every human should see it once. It was also a great stepping stone to getting out of Europe and into Turkey.

I don't intend to stay in Istanbul longer though: too much traffic, too crowded, too little nature, too much turnover and I don't need to be there. Also Im not a bachelor any more, so my needs have changed. I don't need action as much as I used to.

My favorite thing living in Istanbul has been the constant flow of international bitcoiners visiting. I'm definitely going to miss that.

I was a self-custody at all times at all costs for everyone maximalist. Through Blink and by getting to know Blink user base, I learnt that Bitcoin has many more benefits than its "deep use cases" like censorship-resistance, permissionlessness, unconfiscatability which are unique to bitcoin, which led me to write the Bullish Case for Bitcoin Custodians to convey my learnings to the wider community. https://www.swanbitcoin.com/industry/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-custodians/

It's useful to have good situational awareness when making decisions and that includes having empathy and understanding for people in circumstances and situations different than your own.

I think the Salvadoran administration is very smart and playing the situation very well. They must have exceptional counsel to navigate the way they do. It's an absolute masterclass in statecraft what they put on.

I'm also quite pleased with the outcome for bitcoin. Nobody should be forced to use bitcoin (de facto never was), so as a bitcoiner I am happy. Bitcoin should be adopted voluntarily and from the bottom-up. It's the only sustainable path.

All the people screeching about El Salvador's move are either idiots or spooks and I am thankful that they felt compelled to come out as such. Thanks boys!

I see Menemen, I eat it. With or without.

Thieves in the Night together with Talib Kweli. I learnt it by heart in 2000 when English teacher required class to recite a poem. I still know it by heart to this day and lyrics are still on point.

I hate walled gardens and closed source software, so Android and it's not even close.

I think playing and thinking about poker constantly has improved my reasoning abilities like few other things and I am applying the things I learnt through poker constantly and everywhere. The biggest learning is that it's often sufficient to constantly "not be stupid" to win big and succeed. Success is often just a concatenation of steps that were not wrong - it's not one super ballsy 5D chess move, but rather continuous sold decision making.

Some things just are straight forward and they should be solved straight forward.

Also: discipline / self-control and patience are virtues that can be directly transferred to "the game of facilitating bitcoin adoption"

It's always been a goal of Blink to help Bitcoiners on their journey. Custodial interaction with the bitcoin network is the best starting point for most. But it's only a starting point. Education is one part, and we have it inside Blink with the Earn section, but we'd very much love to be the application that holds the hand of a beginner and guides them to best-practice usage of bitcoin i.e. allow users to develop from custodial user to sovereign user within Blink.

There are ideas for this e.g. here https://hackmd.io/@vindard/BkP8QsQKh or here https://github.com/GaloyMoney/blink-mobile/discussions/2059 but it might take some time to get there as we have to build up dev resources.

There are no dumb or bad questions. It may be hard for some to explain basic things over and over again after 16 years, especially if they are the result of willfully implanted misconceptions about bitcoin, it may be frustrating. I would recommend to pick and choose who you take the time to explain bitcoin to. Strategically, I think it's smart to go for the low-hanging fruit, that is people who are already interested to learn. You will often find them among people who have a pressing need for bitcoin because they have been excluded by the trad financial system. The most important thing about bringing bitcoin to a person is that the person wants bitcoin to be brought to them. Don't waste energy trying to make a horse drink that is not thirsty.

No. HNWI need self-custody wallets that are open source, properly reviewed and tested with multi-sig (probably MPC with FROST going forward) to avoid single points of failure that are easy and intuitive to use. Having vaults would probably also be desirable for added security.

A bespoke, one-off wallet sounds like sth that is neither open source nor properly reviewed. Smart people wouldn't put their money in sth that is experimental and not properly tested or reviewed. Most OGs probably still use Electrum because it's been around for so long.

Great to hear it. I'll pass it on to our contributors.

What do you like most about it?

We are trying to make bitcoin accessible and useful for all. A bitcoin wallet without bitcoin is not very useful so we're looking into improving onramping to Blink and offramping from Blink in as many places as possible. Since Blink is a regulated financial institution, we have to comply with regulations that apply.However, that doesn't translate to "massive full KYC for its users".

I like to play Basketball. Been playing for 25 years, even semi-professionally in my early 20s. I think its a great game. I like games. And I don't really like sports. I don't move if there is nobody to compete with. Don't see the point of it.

I have never really thought about combining bitcoin with sports as I don't like sports.

Honestly, I don't believe I have an original or unique belief about bitcoin that I haven't heard elaborated by another bitcoiner. I always feel a relief when that happens: "Thank God! I'm not crazy after all! This guy came to the same crazy conclusions like I did!"

I love it when Bitcoiners get a little cosmic when philosophizing bitcoin. If you're one of those that hold themselves back because they're afraid that people will think you're crazy: Please please don't! Just post as anon on stacker news or nostr but share your wild thoughts and theories with others! It's one of the magical things in bitcoin, the intelligence and creativity I found on forums that gave me the confidence that we'll succeed with this herculean task of overthrowing this devilish fiat scheme of enslavement: ingenuity, creativity and honesty.

Saifedean Ammous or Andreas Antonopoulos

I think Nostr is a bitcoin circular economy in bitcoin's natural habitat: the internet. Pushing bitcoin adoption through communities on the web scales much better than in meatspace. Geography doesn't matter, and people with similar views and ideas can connect and economize with each other irrespective of where they are.

Another good fit is that bitcoiners tend to be creative and creators, which is a requirement for a bitcoin circular economy

And nostr is bottom-up by design so I like that a lot. I think it's going to grow and get better in waves. I should do a deep-dive into it again. It's been some time since I've had a look into what is going besides social media.

Two reasons:

read more here: https://www.blink.sv/blog/simplifying-bitcoin-user-friendly-account-creation-and-recovery-in-blink

It's one of the best places to travel, but unfortunately the days of cheap are over as prices have gone up massively. Turkish Lira Inflation has always been a thing, but since 2020 prices have been going up on a dollar basis unfortunately.

Adopting Bitcoin's only goal is to put up a good and proper bitcoin conference. And since it is a not-for-profit conference, it has the right incentives. Everything starts there.

The organizing team is not trying to set the agenda, just stewarding the community by organizing what's necessary so we can get together to meet and talk about whatever the community thinks is important.