marco

bitcoin

Things I learned about Luke Dashjr

Totally agree with you. Luke made indeed significant contributions.
What scares me is the huge number of followers that might give him the power to derail/delay bitcoin development, also because of his standing as a top contributor.



I wouldn't care about Luke's ideas either. As I said, totally legit ideas.

Unfortunately, he is trying to bring those ideas to bitcoin. 
And I am not happy that someone with that kind of influence could change bitcoin for moral reasons, blacklisting use cases, etc. 

I just finished reading the "comprehensive compilation of controversial actions and statements by Luke Dashjr assembled by Jameson Lopp [here](https://blog.lopp.net/knot-a-serious-project/), and I have to say ... wow! 

Beyond the nothingburgerness of the entire OP_RETURN debate, I am genuinely concerned that a significant number of people are following him in this crusade and are not troubled by his authoritarian tendencies. These include statements like: 

 - "disobeying the State is a sin"  
- "law is a subset of morality" 
- "laws are just by default" 
- "adultery is a crime that deserves capital punishment" 
- "Rosa Parks' actions were not justifiable" 
- ... and more.

These extreme "values", while totally legit, obviously have an impact on what Luke believes Bitcoin should be used for and who should be allowed to use it. To him, even blacklisting addresses is a viable option.

Perhaps the best option for Luke and his followers is to fork Bitcoin and launch a new coin with rules and a protocol that align with their morality and traditional values.

As for me, I remain deeply committed to Bitcoin as a tool for freedom, financial inclusion, and justice. A tool that can reduce the disparities and distortions of the current financial system. But critically, it must remain a tool for everyone, criminals included.

PS: Luke also believes the sun orbits the Earth as affirmed in [this podcast](https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/coindesk-podcast-network/bitcoin-season-2-inside-the-mind-of-luke-dashjr-bitcoin-s-most-polarizing-developer).

![](https://m.stacker.news/115921)

nostr

I stumbled upon a thoughtful article by renowned cybersecurity experts Bruce Schneier and Davi Ottenheimer.

They lament the fact that “the current state of digital identity is a mess.” Personal information is scattered across hundreds of locations and controlled by media companies, government agencies, and data brokers—entities that collect, store, and trade our data, often without our knowledge or consent. While privacy laws attempt to protect data confidentiality, they do little to safeguard **data integrity**. The result is a system that is “both redundant and inconsistent”, potentially leading to serious security failures.

The articles goes on to explain why we should consider adopting the Solid protocol invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a radical reimagining of how data operates online.

> Solid stands for “SOcial LInked Data.” At its core, it decouples data from applications by storing personal information in user-controlled “data wallets”: secure, personal data stores that users can host anywhere they choose. Applications can access specific data within these wallets, but users maintain ownership and control.

Am I the only one who sees a lot of similarities between **Nostr** and **Solid**?
Yes, there are architectural differences (what Solid calls “pods” are not comparable to Nostr “relays”), but the spirit is the same.
Solid is basically dead, while Nostr is growing—albeit slowly. Is there any chance to **join forces**?

Here is the link to the article: https://www.inrupt.com/blog/return-to-identity-first-architecture-how-solid-protocol-restores-digital-agency

And here is the website for this commendable—though largely overlooked—protocol:  https://solidproject.org/

Solid vs. Nostr

bitcoin_Mining

I'm considering giving [Rigly.io](https://rigly.io) a try.
Would you recommend this service?
Which kind of return may I expect?
Thanks!

What is your experience with Rigly?

Stacker Saloon

saloon

Not completely, since I never received CC before.
And it does not say if I can convert them into sats.

Why am I getting a mix of Cowboy Credits and sats?
My wallet is perfectly working, and I see no reason to receive CC.

May I convert them into sats?

An appeal to the bitcoiner community: can we stop using Telegram to organize meetups, Bitcoin Beer, conferences, etc? In general, can we stop using Telegram to talk to each other?

Apart from the non-existent encryption for groups and dubious cryptography for individual chats, apart from the obscure governance, do we really want to communicate on the go-to platform for scammers and shitcoiners of all kinds?

No, thank you.

How can we break the vicious cycle of Telegram? 
Is there a Nostr-based solution with good usability that is available for web, Android, and iOS?

Bitcoiners deserve better than Telegram!

While I work for a company ([Firefish.io](Firefish.io)) that has “Never sell your bitcoins” as its major claim, I do believe that spend-and-replace should be a more common practice, especially now that there is a growing number of merchants and service providers that do accept bitcoin as payment.

Easier said than done. Spend-and-replace is still hindered by many obstacles:

- Spending in most countries is a taxable event, meaning that the usual 3-5% discount for using bitcoin is often outweighed by the income taxes liability on the purchase.

- Replacing should be done timely and effortlessly, unfortunately it isn’t. You have to maintain an account on some exchange, actively connected to your source of fiat money (bank, credit card) and then transferring the newly purchased bitcoins to your self-custodial wallet.

While this process might make sense when spending significant amount of bitcoins (equivalent to hundreds or thousands of euros), it is just prohibitive for small expenses (the daily sandwich at the nearby place, or a cool gadget from an Etsy seller).

The solution we need to make spend-and-replace the norm is not a technical one, but new favorable regulations.

In certain Countries (UK being one, if I am not mistaken), sales of shares that are compensated by purchase of the same amount within 30 days are exempt from capital gain taxation.

If such an exemption was valid for Bitcoin, spend-and-replace would become a no-brainer!

My wallet would just send a monthly alert saying:
> “Time to replace your Bitcoins! In order to avoid capital gain taxation, consider buying XXX BTC within 7 days. I will remind you in 3 days.” 

Ideally the same wallet, might be able to facilitate the Bitcoin purchase (e.g. Relai, Bitcoin Well wallets). I would switch immediately to any wallet offering this feature!

⇒ Fellow Italian bitcoiners, is there any such provision in the messy Italian regulation?

How to make spend-and-replace a no-brainer

RSS is one of those humble protocols that glues the web. It was born out of the same values (openness, data portability, ...) that are the foundation of Nostr.
You may not be aware, but you can already export most of the content you create and publish today into an RSS feed.

- Most blog platforms allow users to make their content available as an RSS feed.
- Most bookmark services allow users to create an RSS feed from their bookmarks.
- Plenty of third-party services enable the creation of RSS feeds for your Twitter, Instagram, Facebook accounts (think RSS.app, IFTTT, ...).
- Most podcast platforms generate an RSS feed for your show.
- ...

On the other hand, Nostr is poised to become the new web infrastructure. It will dismantle the walled gardens we've been living in for too long and is already shaping an ecosystem of decentralized apps that will gradually replace centralized ones, one by one.

Connecting RSS and Nostr is obviously a necessary step to accelerate the transition toward this new web powered by Nostr. This Geyser Project (link below) aims to build the necessary momentum to create a tool that enables everyone to make the most of RSS in a Nostr world.

Applications are countless: just imagine turning the RSS feed of bookmarks about a specific topic into a nice stream of Nostr notes pushed to a specific npub profile, and then transformin those Nostr notes into a beautiful website built with [Npub.pro](https://npub.pro).

⇒ Help me build rss2nostr!

I'm fully aware there are already a few tools out there attempting this, but all of them are quite limited in features or designed to only serve tech users.

What we need is a web app that allows users to:

- Submit the RSS feed they want to connect with Nostr
- Define rules and parameters for converting RSS items into Nostr events
- Specify the Nostr profile they would like to publish the events to

Furthermore, using a liberal open-source license, we may enable the development of competing/specialized web apps.

https://geyser.fund/project/rss2nostr?hero=marcobarulli

![](https://m.stacker.news/79537)

Let's bring RSS to Nostr! [Geyser Project]

Looking for a (paid) RSS to Nostr service

Unfortunately, it only answers to some of my requests:
- publish to a new profile, not to a specific, existing one
- ignore the <category> element


Thanks @rottenwheel !
I'm not sure I'm capable of installing and running it on my machine, not that proficient ...

However, I noticed that Templating might benefit from some additional variables in order to produce better Nostr notes:
- `category` of each RSS `item` (converted into hashtags)
- `image` (embedded into the note body)

Thanks!

I use a bookmark service that generates an RSS feed of the bookmarked items.

The RSS feed is fairly rich (title, link, description, categories, image).

I would like to convert each item in the RSS feed into a Nostr note and publish it to a specific Nostr profile. The description element should become the text of the note, images should be included in the note, categories should become hashtags, and the link should be added at the bottom of the post.

Is there any service (paid options are fine) capable of polling the RSS feed and producing new notes when new items are detected in the feed?

![](https://m.stacker.news/77964)


About one year ago, I decided to try mining. After assessing the various options, from solo mining to cloud mining, I selected [Sazmining](https://www.sazmining.com) since I liked the interest alignment between the company and its customers.

If you're not familiar with Sazmining, it's a company that offers hosted mining services. Here's how it works:

1. You purchase a mining rig from Sazmining, which gets shipped and deployed at one of their farms (located in Paraguay or Norway).
2. You pay a monthly hosting fee that covers energy and basic maintenance costs.
3. The hashrate of your rig is directed to the Luxor mining pool.
4. You earn sats, with Sazmining taking a 15% fee on your earnings.

In this scheme, Sazmining has all the incentives to keep your rig running constantly and efficiently.

Sazmining claims that mining with them will allow you to acquire Bitcoin at a much lower price than the market price. As of today, they claim on their homepage that you can get 1 BTC for $58K, which would be almost a 50% discount.

However, my personal experience tells a different story. I'd like to share my numbers with you. I purchased a Bitmain S21 for $5K and had it shipped to the Paraguay farm where the energy costs (0.047$/KWh) are covered by the hosting subscription ($120/month). Note that your monthly fee may vary slightly due to factors like local energy curtailments or overconsumption by your rig.

When I purchased my mining rig from Sazmining, they estimated that I could reach break-even within 15 months (by May 2025). At that time, their website featured a useful simulator that allowed me to experiment with different scenarios and estimate my potential returns. Unfortunately, this simulator is no longer available.

However, I've had to revise that forecast significantly. Today, my optimistic estimate suggests that it will take around 27 months (until July 2026) for me to reach break-even. Notably, this change isn't of course due to any decrease in Bitcoin's price.

So far, I’ve earned 3.4M sats, but the pace of payouts to my wallet is getting slower: from 340K every 3 weeks at the start, to 340K every 6 weeks now. Quite likely this is due to the significant increase in the global hashrate.

Combining both upfront hardware expenses ($5K) along accumulated hosting fees ($1300), I’ve paid a 110K USD/BTC price for my 3.4M sats!

After one year I’m still pretty far from enjoying the advertised discount and, of course, if I had opted for DCA purchases, I would have enjoyed much better results.

Hopefully, my return on investment will improve in the coming months, but there are no certainties, since global hashpower keeps growing.

I have the feeling that any other strategy (e.g. DCA) would have performed much better over the past year.

![](https://m.stacker.news/75278)

My Sazmining experience: a cautionary tale of mining expectations

![](https://m.stacker.news/73647)

I'm relentlessly chasing Italian-speaking users on Nostr. So far I've collected 153 of them in this list. 😄

Should you too be in the list? Reply here with your npub and I'll add you.
Do you know of others who should be included? Add their npubs in the comments. Thank you!

===
La mia mappatura degli utilizzatori italiani di Nostr prosegue implacabile. Finora ne ho raccolti 153 in questa lista. 😄

Dovresti esserci anche tu, ma ancora non ci sei? Rispondi qui con il tuo npub e ti aggiungerò.
Conosci altri che dovrebbero essere inseriti in questo elenco? Aggiungi i loro npub nei commenti, grazie!

nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzq086s94mfzf056lfjwk8920umwcgn002p3weqy0aypx32329lgkeq9zhwumn8ghj7amx0qenv6ttw3nhz6tddekk5mte0fm8yet0venxjur8xa3x5cfjv3k85mnsw4h8qentwpmxwefhxgexs6e4x34xzepwd3hkxctv9uq3wamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwwpexjmtpdshxuet59uqz5mrfwd68ytfcvfjrgvmrxe3j6ep48q6z6drzx5ej6wphxajj6v35xesnwenrxfskvwp3yhv9yn





Nostr: a List of Italian users

![](https://m.stacker.news/66239)

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/68424059-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin-btc

Celebrating 100K with a new t-shirt

Cory Doctorow on why he's not joining Bluesky

Diversify your feed, follow them!

=> Reply with your non-Bitcoin, non-Nostr favorite accounts, thanks!

[FckCars](https://primal.net/p/npub1cyusfjdgr8mvgwq74jxjgd9svwq5ymf0kfsj7us3yt75zmjuw49qwkh2er) - The name says it all. An account that emphasizes how absurd is our dependency on cars.

[Seth for Privacy](https://primal.net/p/npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g) - A well-known expert on privacy. He recently stopped posting, but if you follow him he may come back!

[Chomsky](https://primal.net/p/npub1a7mxreazql8ld0csdzk7wk6a5xjzcg7h632q78u3008lyr32lxks5t4ske) - An account to celebrate Noam Chomsky’s work and related content. 

[European Commission](https://primal.net/p/npub17kfqm4kc55eksq5sxw7ac0z557sj8c5vucumjegnhnq9f62qjlvsgn0w2a) - News and information from the European Commission. Surprisingly interesting and diverse.

[Historic Vids](https://primal.net/p/npub1ra0pq4fz82khtykc7whap8mdfdpdsjqvdmjuweg8vwjj2466rvcsgc9dgt) - Daily history lessons through videos, pictures and memes. Really fascinating.

And [follow me](primal.net/p/npub18nagz6a53yh6d05e8trj487dhvyfhh4qchvsz87jqng4g4zl5tvs825evl) for more!