When I was a child and spent for the first time a single note of 5$ (they were actually Italian Liras) for an ice-cream worth 1$, I felt richer and excited in getting a change made by several notes summing up to 4$...several notes against one single was definitely better for me... : )
I treat banks like I do hot wallets. Keep a losable balance!!!!!!
I also exploit consumer protection laws. Every March since 2020 I claim $5k in theft. They have to legally replace the money while they "vestigate". By then that money is in bitcoin. They haven't shut me down yet either. I'm not doing anything immoral by doing this. I do this because I was once stranded in another country and couldn't get a ticket back because they were "vestigating" valid charges I previously confirmed were mine. Then Covid restrictions hit the next day and I got stuck, and lost a job opportunity. I will claim my $5k every March for the rest of my fucking life. In fact, I need to adjust that for inflation.
Unfortunately I don't remember what I bought with Lightning. Most of the things I buy online are over the Bitcoin network. I wanted to have an online piano subscription, to learn piano, but they only accepted creditcard payments. I ask if I could pay with Bitcoin and that was possible :-) They weren't were familiar with Bitcoin, but open to suggestions. Maybe to suggest using Phoenix wallet?
To help merchants accept Lightning payments, I think giving a demo workshop (free or paid) would be the best thing. As a merchant you get to experience it, not only see it. Besides that, a merchant for the first time sees a huge number of possibilities on the Lightning network to acquire new customers and have new business models.
Yes, it's now up at 7.3% of total USD value. Of just bitcoin volume (lightning and onchain) Lightning is now at 23%.
Main growth factors are the launch of the US bill payment service which has attracted many US customers who often use Strike. Also El Salvador is growing nicely, along with a general growth in everything Lightning
Cocaine is not really "synthesized" per se, it's basically extracted from the leaves of the coca plant. It's not too complicated of a process, it's just quite labor intensive and you'll need many (many) kilos of leaves to do the extraction. Aside from the leaves though, the necessary chemicals are pretty basic as is the procedure, can be done (and frequently is) in the remote areas of the jungle where gangs like FARC and Shining Path down in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru have a ton of makeshift labs. More often than not they'll usually do the rudimentary initial extraction out there in the jungle, and get a crude cocaine base which is later further refined into the final cocaine hydrochloride powder most people know as "coke", which can be done anywhere from professional type labs to some random guys' apartment in Lima.
In case I didn't give it away already by my likely unnecessarily detailed opening paragraph, you can say that I...am familiar with such subjects, and am a chemistry dork. That said, the article in question raises some interesting points, but I strongly doubt that we will see an emergence of the actual drug referenced (fenethylline aka captagon) in any real way, at least not in the US. I think it'll remain as it currently is; a weird regionally popular drug mostly used by people in Gulf/Arab nations. It's pretty popular in places like Saudi Arabia, Syria and some other places in that region. It's more or less the same thing as classic "speed", it's a prodrug for amphetamine, so the effects are similar to adderall as well as meth, just not as strong.
Given the abundance of dirt cheap and potent methamphetamine all across the US (and increasingly in Europe as well), anyone trying to bring this stuff to the market would face an uphill battle trying to get drug users to even want to use it versus the alternatives, to begin with. Then there's the fact that said pushers attempting to bring this to market would be stepping on the toes of the very powerful, very scary, very violent Mexican cartels who specialize in the manufacture, trafficking and sale of that aforementioned methamphetamine.
I do think that we'll continue to see the same kind of macro trends we are seeing in the drug market overall, similar to trends we see in the traditional economy: drugs which have a high cost or are labor intensive to produce which can be replaced by cheaper synthetic alternatives, will be, for most users. This has happened already on an unprecedented scale with heroin in the US and Canada over the last 5+ years...traditional heroin has all but disappeared from the black market, replaced by fentanyl and other, often quite potent and dangerous research chemical opioids; both fentanyl analogues and some more 'interesting' compounds like the *nitazenes (isotonitazene, metonitazene, protonitazene, etc.) which are an entire thread's worth of interesting discussion on their own. Fun fact: the original nitazene drug that gained prominence in underground drug discussion groups and chemistry forums was a drug known as etonitazene; a legendary substance which was for many considered to be a holy grail type ridiculously potent drug, a benzimidazole opioid with an unprecedented level of addiction potential (it's about 1000 to 1500 times as potent as morphine) and is notorious for it's euphoria and the fiendish habit that develops in those who dare to use it. The withdrawals from these drugs are so bad that users often commit suicide because they are unable to take the agony, talk about yikes.
So yeah, as you can imagine -- not a good thing that these kinds of substances, once relegated to the dustbin of pharmaceutical research history, have resurfaced as novel drugs of abuse which are being synthesized in shady Chinese labs and tweaked by people who may or may not have any idea what they are doing, to get around laws like the US analogue act and stay in a legal grey area.
We'll continue to see dangerous synthetic opioids proliferate and killing hundreds of thousands of people, needlessly...the war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure, in my opinion they need to fully legalize and regulate ALL drugs (not decriminalize, which is a half-assed non solution). Focus instead on providing people who want treatment for addiction or drug abuse, we aren't going to arrest our way out of this crisis...the wealthy are able to continue doing whatever drugs they want with impunity and if they are caught it's a slap on the wrist for them. Most high-schoolers have access to a wider variety of different illicit substances than your average "drug dealer" 25 years ago would've been able to acquire, clearly what we've been doing is not working.
Apologies for the rant....kind of wanted to write about this anyway so I figured I would take the time to let my fingers do the walking on these keys and will wind up mirroring this content in other ways on my blog or something, toodles.
If you are OK with the tradeoffs this could be interesting: https://github.com/nbd-wtf/trustedcoin (by fiatjaf) and it's designed for CLN. Never tried it though
When I was a child and spent for the first time a single note of 5$ (they were actually Italian Liras) for an ice-cream worth 1$, I felt richer and excited in getting a change made by several notes summing up to 4$...several notes against one single was definitely better for me... : )
I treat banks like I do hot wallets. Keep a losable balance!!!!!!
I also exploit consumer protection laws. Every March since 2020 I claim $5k in theft. They have to legally replace the money while they "vestigate". By then that money is in bitcoin. They haven't shut me down yet either. I'm not doing anything immoral by doing this. I do this because I was once stranded in another country and couldn't get a ticket back because they were "vestigating" valid charges I previously confirmed were mine. Then Covid restrictions hit the next day and I got stuck, and lost a job opportunity. I will claim my $5k every March for the rest of my fucking life. In fact, I need to adjust that for inflation.
Unfortunately I don't remember what I bought with Lightning. Most of the things I buy online are over the Bitcoin network. I wanted to have an online piano subscription, to learn piano, but they only accepted creditcard payments. I ask if I could pay with Bitcoin and that was possible :-) They weren't were familiar with Bitcoin, but open to suggestions. Maybe to suggest using Phoenix wallet?
To help merchants accept Lightning payments, I think giving a demo workshop (free or paid) would be the best thing. As a merchant you get to experience it, not only see it. Besides that, a merchant for the first time sees a huge number of possibilities on the Lightning network to acquire new customers and have new business models.
Yes, it's now up at 7.3% of total USD value.
Of just bitcoin volume (lightning and onchain) Lightning is now at 23%.
Main growth factors are the launch of the US bill payment service which has attracted many US customers who often use Strike. Also El Salvador is growing nicely, along with a general growth in everything Lightning
still posting meta takeovers 😂😂😂
Cocaine is not really "synthesized" per se, it's basically extracted from the leaves of the coca plant. It's not too complicated of a process, it's just quite labor intensive and you'll need many (many) kilos of leaves to do the extraction. Aside from the leaves though, the necessary chemicals are pretty basic as is the procedure, can be done (and frequently is) in the remote areas of the jungle where gangs like FARC and Shining Path down in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru have a ton of makeshift labs. More often than not they'll usually do the rudimentary initial extraction out there in the jungle, and get a crude cocaine base which is later further refined into the final cocaine hydrochloride powder most people know as "coke", which can be done anywhere from professional type labs to some random guys' apartment in Lima.
In case I didn't give it away already by my likely unnecessarily detailed opening paragraph, you can say that I...am familiar with such subjects, and am a chemistry dork. That said, the article in question raises some interesting points, but I strongly doubt that we will see an emergence of the actual drug referenced (fenethylline aka captagon) in any real way, at least not in the US. I think it'll remain as it currently is; a weird regionally popular drug mostly used by people in Gulf/Arab nations. It's pretty popular in places like Saudi Arabia, Syria and some other places in that region. It's more or less the same thing as classic "speed", it's a prodrug for amphetamine, so the effects are similar to adderall as well as meth, just not as strong.
Given the abundance of dirt cheap and potent methamphetamine all across the US (and increasingly in Europe as well), anyone trying to bring this stuff to the market would face an uphill battle trying to get drug users to even want to use it versus the alternatives, to begin with. Then there's the fact that said pushers attempting to bring this to market would be stepping on the toes of the very powerful, very scary, very violent Mexican cartels who specialize in the manufacture, trafficking and sale of that aforementioned methamphetamine.
I do think that we'll continue to see the same kind of macro trends we are seeing in the drug market overall, similar to trends we see in the traditional economy: drugs which have a high cost or are labor intensive to produce which can be replaced by cheaper synthetic alternatives, will be, for most users. This has happened already on an unprecedented scale with heroin in the US and Canada over the last 5+ years...traditional heroin has all but disappeared from the black market, replaced by fentanyl and other, often quite potent and dangerous research chemical opioids; both fentanyl analogues and some more 'interesting' compounds like the *nitazenes (isotonitazene, metonitazene, protonitazene, etc.) which are an entire thread's worth of interesting discussion on their own. Fun fact: the original nitazene drug that gained prominence in underground drug discussion groups and chemistry forums was a drug known as etonitazene; a legendary substance which was for many considered to be a holy grail type ridiculously potent drug, a benzimidazole opioid with an unprecedented level of addiction potential (it's about 1000 to 1500 times as potent as morphine) and is notorious for it's euphoria and the fiendish habit that develops in those who dare to use it. The withdrawals from these drugs are so bad that users often commit suicide because they are unable to take the agony, talk about yikes.
So yeah, as you can imagine -- not a good thing that these kinds of substances, once relegated to the dustbin of pharmaceutical research history, have resurfaced as novel drugs of abuse which are being synthesized in shady Chinese labs and tweaked by people who may or may not have any idea what they are doing, to get around laws like the US analogue act and stay in a legal grey area.
We'll continue to see dangerous synthetic opioids proliferate and killing hundreds of thousands of people, needlessly...the war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure, in my opinion they need to fully legalize and regulate ALL drugs (not decriminalize, which is a half-assed non solution). Focus instead on providing people who want treatment for addiction or drug abuse, we aren't going to arrest our way out of this crisis...the wealthy are able to continue doing whatever drugs they want with impunity and if they are caught it's a slap on the wrist for them. Most high-schoolers have access to a wider variety of different illicit substances than your average "drug dealer" 25 years ago would've been able to acquire, clearly what we've been doing is not working.
Apologies for the rant....kind of wanted to write about this anyway so I figured I would take the time to let my fingers do the walking on these keys and will wind up mirroring this content in other ways on my blog or something, toodles.
If you are OK with the tradeoffs this could be interesting: https://github.com/nbd-wtf/trustedcoin (by fiatjaf) and it's designed for CLN. Never tried it though
I say bring it on, expose any weaknesses in the system, if bitcoin is robust enough we need to prove it, not larp about it
I have done this once but this is seriously bad ass. This is a great usage of this command!
Ebano by Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa
https://m.stacker.news/13107