Start9 already sell ready-made hardware for people who can't/don't want to setup a server from scratch except their platform is actually FOSS.

I've used Intel NUC's and currently an Asus Mini PC with an AMD Ryzen, all of them cost just a few hundred dollars including SSD and RAM, and had zero issues running both Umbrel and Start9.

And yes even tried out running Start9 on a Raspberry Pi. No issue there either.

Definitely don't need expensive hardware.

This is exactly what they should do, but given Umbrel itself isn't even FOSS, I don't have high hopes they will.

They'll definitely have a white label deal with some ODM.

I'm more concerned with the fact that Umbrel's platform is already closed source and now they're just gonna make more closed source hardware. We have enough of that already.

Start9 working with Purism is good - they make every layer of the stack as open as it can be, e.g. custom open source EFI bootloaders.

With Umbrel's software not being FOSS I don't see any reason their hardware will be. Could even be from a super cheap supplier in China who preloads malware on it, there's plenty of those around on Alibaba.

As you said they haven't disclosed where the hardware is coming from so who knows?

The Coldcard definitely doesn't scream "loads of wealth in Bitcoin here!" Just looks like a funky 90's calculator.

Problem with publicly traded companies is they have to be short sighted.

If there's a cashflow deficit (as mentioned in the article) and selling BTC will cover it, the board will push for it to keep shareholders happy.

Being objective here since obviously Elon is a controversial figure, but this is a Wall Street problem. If quarterly earnings are next week, they wouldn't even care if they had a crystal ball telling them for certain BTC will be worth 10x in a month. They want to see the fiat balance sheet go up NOW.

And the law enforces this type of thinking too (fiduciary duty), opening a company up to lawsuits if they don't go along with the Wall Street analysts.

Personally as a TSLA stonkholder I'd rather have a down quarter or two followed by a 100%+ ROI after, but a public company is a slave to Wall Street sadly.

I will give one small warning which is that your existing Alby wallet won't be accessible on the website after you do this. It will come back if you remove your node, and it still works on any lightning wallet you connected it to, but best make sure it's connected to your extension, Zeus if you wanna use it on mobile, etc first. Or just transfer the balance to your node before you make the switch.

Going away for the weekend.

Found a pizza place, a bar, and a cafe all a couple mins drive from the hotel that accept Bitcoin.

Fuck yeah. Loaded up my lightning wallet for this one.

Nope! If you connect your node directly to your Alby account (not the extension) you still get the notifications plus your Alby lightning address routes to your own node too.

LN Tips on Telegram does that.

Alby will email you max once an hour when you receive sats.

Couldn't agree more.

A circular Bitcoin economy is the way.

This is why I'm excited for P2P marketplaces using LN payments. It will allow anyone to sell any good or service for sats.

Since when was it one or the other?

I have two wallets on my Ledger: one for HODLing, one for spending.

I also have LN wallets, all for spending.

Much as with fiat you have a spending account and a savings account, you can do the same with Bitcoin.

Yeah like all security questions this comes down 100% to the individual's threat model.

For me it's enough to have a decoy or even just claim that the Lightning wallets on my phone are all the BTC I have because I'm just some unknown random guy who talks about Bitcoin. I don't tell anyone how much I have and I'm not especially wealthy or notable in any way.

If on the other hand I was a wealthy high profile bitcoiner who spoke at conferences etc, no this would not work and I'd probably use one of those cold storage services that holds BTC in underground airgapped servers or something.

And of course there's plenty of middleground options between those two extremes for various other threat models.

There's truthfully no one single answer here - it depends entirely on your threat model.

Update: Ordered the good one with a colour touchscreen (woah!). Should be here in 3-4 days.

Very impressed reading their site, they are clearly far more dedicated to true OPSEC over usability compared to Ledger and I can really respect that - e.g. devices don't even come with firmware, customer details erased after 90 days when you order, their app has Tor integration, this new coinjoin announcement, etc.

Shame there's no mobile app yet but I saw they have an Android app coming soon and the web version works in the meantime.

Excellent.

Not to mention, most bitcoiners are not using ordinals, whereas everyone was affected by high tx fees back then.

This is definitely a war they will never win and if they go through with it, it'll be another on the list of worthless forks.

Bitcoin came first. If anything it's the other way around. And that's exactly the issue.

I seriously cannot wait for this. Fuck the eBay and PayPal cartel. Fuck KYC. Fuck fiat.

I would love to just sell my stuff straight for BTC. I got some laptops, phones, iPads, etc that I'm sure someone would buy and get more use out of than myself, but PayPal keeps bugging me for KYC and will freeze my funds if I don't give it. Fuck 'em.

With a BTC powered P2P market I can sell my stuff on there and we can see a circular Bitcoin economy outside of zaps on social media. Don't get me wrong, SN and Nostr are awesome, but a Bitcoin eBay is next level.

I suspect full max level fudding from the state if this takes off since it'll be a free market they cannot control and, let's be real, some people will use it like Silk Road. But I'm not even against that. I've donated to the #FreeRoss campaign.

As long as it's resilient and censorship resistant this can change e-commerce just how Satoshi envisioned.

I hope the devs contributing to this are all using nyms that can't be doxxed though. From LE's perspective, they will view this as akin to a darknet market and go after the creators. Stay safe out there guys!

I use a Ledger but with the tight bitcoin specific integrations Trezor has I will probably order one today to check it out.

This famous xkcd: