The modern, technocratic state of course!

Must have been the machine elves, for sure...

Its demonic, but the resistance is global yeah...

That inner dialogue is very much a collective, global thing :-)

Might work even now! But would totally depend on exactly who you run into...

Where I hang around there are very few from the West, and close to none on motorbikes, so even if there are patrols they probably prefer not using their English at all hehe, so its super relaxed

I used to have a 4 ounce gold chain, these days I'm mainly driving on well known roads, unlikely to run into any real trouble.

Still got a couple of ounces or so in a safe in the house, though!

Cash works of course as well. The thing with a heavy gold chain is that you'd instantly be regarded as high on the social ladder, combine that with being polite but not a pushover at all and things will get resolved ;-)

If you roam around on a motorbike in Asia, no helmet, no insurance, no license, no papers... Trying to be right if something happens, and especially pay off everyone with Bitcoin would be as stupid as accepting random injections from the state haha!

These are the things that gold still are for ;-)

In many ways the tunnel vision and toxicity is necessary to drive price and adoption, especially if its about non-KYC and private use of Bitcoin.

But as a way of living and investing in the future? Risky to blind oneself I'd say...

I'd try paying anonymously with a prepaid debit card, using a spoofed social media account/persona that is somewhat complete.

Then keep referring to that "mysterious group owner" who is very supportive, but who can never make it him or herself ;-)

OR you could have someone using their own ID and card for meetup.com, someone who would be a virtual host from outside the country. I'd be happy to help with that, I've been in a similar situation for too long...

All of this is assuming that you kinda need to use meetup.com of course!

Bitcoin as such has no shortcomings really, other than not covering what I need to monetize 4 decades of photography...

I've tested these things on Nostr, but Hive was what paid some decent amounts, still since its not Bitcoin I hesitate getting into it fully haha! (The easiest way to get started is Ecency, app and/or ecency.com)

Arweave is simple: pay once for at least theoretically long term storage, its what anyone publishing digital files would want to win. Of course maxis have killed off the ordinal space, without caring about supporting something similar, but maybe Arweave can get something done...

I've totally played around a lot with going 100% Bitcoin only, but these things hold me back from that... As a monetary storage I'm of course all in, except for what is lined up for near term spending :-)

Oh, forgot to mention that I sold that Ethereum at ~3500, bought at 200, Monero at ~150. That is what made them protect my main holdings in Bitcoin of course!

Actually shitcoins & gold is what has protected the Bitcoin I got at ~13800 in 2020...

Buying Ethereum at 200 and Monero at 30 made it so much easier to sell and spend those into the bear market, and also then spend the last stablecoins stashed away to buy in at 20k in 2023.

For too many reasons that are worth listing here I haven't got easy access to any fiat mines, actually the last time I had this "income" gig going was way back in 2018 haha!

It was not easy spend especially the gold, and yeah I lost some gains getting into the privacy space a bit too early in 2021, but overall I managed to get through all, while holding the same amount of Bitcoin since I totally melted my cards in 2020 ;-)

Another thing I find useful is to keep some stablecoins available for things like flying, I have used Travala for a couple of years, its a great service that just works. But, I do not want to manage even flights as a trade, its complicated getting the little travel I do right these days anyway...

Likewise I'll need to peel off some profits at some point later, the further I get in the process of starting some new, viable venture until then the less I need to convert of course.

I doubt that I've ever been below ~90% of value locked in Bitcoin versus whatever crypto I've used as tools, maybe except for when I made that 15x or so with Ethereum.

Another problem I've got is that although the Bitcoin community is getting around to producing platforms like SN and Nostr where I can get paid for content it also ignores functional projects like Hive, where I've made more on single posts than is realistic within the Bitcoin sphere.

Now, for these things too I do not want to venture outside of Bitcoin, which has been holding me back... I know I can get an interesting, rather comfortable and weird career in content, but only when I include any platform where I can earn, of course converting any excess gains into Bitcoin.

I've tried to discuss this part here and on Nostr, but its honestly like shouting into an abyss... I do hope Bitcoin comes around to rapidly building the same type of platforms, but I can also see a future where this does not happen... Competition to Hive and Arweave are the main things I need to see in order to go into content 100%, as of now I'm simply watching those projects to survive and get a boost into next year...

Might not read all replies, depends on the toxicity levels haha!

There is no value in being a toxic maxi, in my opinion its one of the few things that can bring Bitcoin down...

Nature and war does not take lightly to fanatical stances, regardless of how well construed they might be, something unexpected will always happen!

Now, this does not negate the nature and development arc of Bitcoin, but being right is different from being a nuisance.

What is really perplexing and kinda dark are the statist maxis who go along with all sorts of tax filings, regulation and other BS that will have to fail for Bitcoin to succeed... That combination is seriously weird and counterproductive.

Simply mint Fartcoin 2.0, you'll be a billionaire right off the bat!

Oh, and also a fugitive of course...

Tor should be extremely easy to use on Electrum, never failed for me at least! :-)

I'd never let that pompous twat get even close, I'd punch him in the mouth first!

Cool, I have a Tibetan Amitabha on my wall here :-)

Looks great, is the offer still on?

This is what I've been seeing as a pattern too, and that is without even being deep inside the industry.

Sure sign of real adoption and a collective, decentralized agreement that will shape things to come. Its one of the reasons that I'm confident going all in on time spent earning Bitcoin, time spent testing and looking for opportunities, and time spent spending as little as I can until its time :-)

500 sats is a fortune! This is the default for me hehehe...

Next is this: how what I am in investing in when I send, and what return did I get on what project I'm running myself when I receive?

Part of me knows that in the infinite possibilities out there somehow there is a highly improbably, but still viable project or way of using Bitcoin to survive & thrive, so searching for that totally makes sense...

Few are more stuck in the matrix than those... Bitcoin & Darwin will come around at some point, until then helping those that at least have the guts to try getting out is the only realistic take I think!