Not really but people always need their boogymen. Blackrock is generally viewed negatively but Larry is very clear about what Blackrock does. The company manages money. None of the trillions they have access to is their money. He repeats it over and over. Blackrock is behaving based on the requests of its clients. But that falls on deaf ears because people would rather rip into Fink for ESG stuff while Blackrock also has oil and gas investments. Instead of reaching for the logical conclusion that maybe with trillions under management Blackrock has sizeable clients from both industries I guess its just easier to say "REEE FINK BAD REEE" and put no energy into thinking about things.

So, ETF's are not bad. In the case of Blackrock this is them attempting to meet the needs and demands of their clients. ETF's can be integrated into retirement plans which means you no longer have to hold Bitcoin to feel its effects. Its effects can be felt by your automatically managed 401k account instead. You don't even have to be aware and most people won't because most just open an account with their employer's provider and let it do its thing. This is how Bitcoin integrates into every day lives.

Custody of Bitcoin really has no need to be the focus of everything involved with Bitcoin. Care less about the custody and more about the utility.

Roundtable feature enhancements thread. Going to write things as they come to me.

• comment ranking priority should always be given to OP (mod of discussion)
• while the roundtable is ongoing, it might be best to sort by most recent first
  • when the roundtable is over, sorting by top makes sense

ln.cash is perfect for this, just leave printed the qr code.

Is it me or something doesn't smell right here?

The post (by a freebie acount) is immediately shilled by two other freebie accounts.

The project bangs on about open source, but the source couldn't be found (just an empty github organisation). Where is this gitea box?

Also, why is there no explanation of how this technology actually works? I found the docs, but there doesn't seem to be an architecture diagram, nor any technical service descriptions whatsoever.

How do we know this isn't just a bunch of cloud VMs?

I appreciate that sales are important, and 'fluffy marketing websites' probably make more money than dry white papers, but if you're offering self-sovereignty, doesn't that also mean being sovereign from your good selves?

Start 9 are leagues ahead in this regard. Their offering is totally open source, you can run on your own (sovereign) machine, and I'm confused why people think it's too hard to administrate - it basically runs itself.

If you can't run a Start 9 box, then I say, you deserve to pay 39 american dollars a month to this foreign company to host your data in their black box.

(I'm being abrasive, but if you can set the record straight, I will eat my words)

Also, why choose a name so close to Fedi? https://fedimint.org/ "Fedimint is a framework for federated applications. "

1 - "Bookend" the day. Reading first thing in the morning (especially before going online in any fashion) and then reading at night before sleep.

2 - Decide how long you'll read for, set a timer, and read until it beeps. Even if you're getting distracted and feeling the pull to go do something else, looking at the timer and knowing you've got just a few more minutes can help you resist that pull.

When you get used to that you'll also feel less of those little distracting thoughts. You train your mind that it's reading time, and all the things will still be there waiting for you when the timer goes off.

3 - Have multiple books going at once, ideally different genres and topics. I recently started this and it's been fantastic. If you encounter resistance reading something because you're just not in the right mental space, there's no need to force it. Just pop over to another book which feels smoother in that moment.

Also if your day is busy like you mentioned, some books are more suitable for short sessions than others, so it helps to have at least one of those on hand. If you have 5 or 10 minutes to spare you can more easily pop in and out of a fiction book than something like, "Introduction to General Systems Thinking." Doesn't have to be fiction though, some books just lend themselves better to short breaks throughout the day.

4 - Highlighting and rereading. I want to digest the material and maybe hold it up for scrutiny - to decide how, why, if and where it fits in to the knowledge and models in my head. But I don't want to get bogged down every other page in analysis or detailed note taking.

When I find a passage that deserves some attention, I'll just highlight it or take a quick shorthand note and keep moving. Because I've built the habit of circling back to these highlights and doing a deeper read later, I trust that I can safely move on.