The loud voices tend to be most wrong when they talk about things that aren't Bitcoin. Which seems to be a bear market engagement farming phenomenon, so fairly harmless.
I hope we see more and more robust lightning tooling. Even in the two years or so I've been using it, it's come on so far. So in five I'm hopeful that the onboarding and channel management / liquidity issues (for newbies looking to spend as well as merchants looking to take payment) get smoother. Spliced channels and LSPs are only getting started.
Would also love to see more privacy progress, possibly some convergence between lightning UX improvements and Cashu maturing. The pieces are all in place to do without shitcoins like Monero.
Projects like SeedSigner are also exciting and I'm hopeful they can keep funding and support.
My wild dream would be for some serious work to go into making Bitcoin Core a viable newbie desktop tool. The eternal sticking point here is that it doesn't support seeds, for thoughtful reasons, but it's a big barrier and means newbies have to manage both Core software and another coordinator. Perhaps rather like the HWI support in Core, there could be some kind of mnemonic interface without compromising the system?
I'd like to see the end of people thinking they need to use raspberry pis and node kits, which actually only complicate and increase risk.
One thing I worry about, particularly for lightning, is how American centric the viewpoints are. For most of the world, for example, NFC payments, free instant bank transfers, and low cost debit transactions are already a reality. So understanding that lightning has to go far beyond feature parity.
I'm having a bad day, week, month, year, or life. Where's the best place for me to make you miserable too while pretending that this post is the cause?
I'm miserable but also sanctimonious so I'd like to write a eulogy for SN that you'll read. Where's the best place to do that? In this thread, but it might be more fitting to write it on nostr or X and tag me.
At the moment we're focusing on Philly for our first expansion. We like the idea of keeping PubKeys close to HQ so we can have a solid view into quality control across everything we do. We've also been in talks with a number of Bitcoin communities around the world exploring opportunities to expand via Franchisement.
What city needs a PubKey? We’d love to hear from you. Except for San Francisco. They’re on their own…for now…
I'd always heard that in Naples there was a lot of garbage in the street and lots of garbage burning on the outskirts of the city ... and it was true 🤠 but I liked the city anyway, I'm not one for high standards 🤠
Great question - I can't say the needle has moved much for (non-bitcoin) businesses just yet, although I can feel it shifting when it comes to investors. It's still a bit early for businesses and I'm going to re-paste something I shared on another post that explains what that dialogue often sounds like and what we're doing to hopefully start addressing it!
Today, jumping straight to bitcoin is too big of a leap for the vast majority of businesses - I can give the best sales pitch in the world of why they should integrate bitcoin rewards (new customer acquisition, etc.), but they'll inevitably ask "well what about my existing customer base?" -- the answer of course is that maybe 10-20% of them would opt-in. At that point the business says well why bother. So they need a way to increase that %. One way to do this is with branded (fungible) loyalty tokens that look and feel much more like a normal loyalty point to consumers (plus no business wants to willingly sacrifice the branding attached to their loyalty program). You can still back those assets with BTC, but it's packaged in a more accessible-looking vessel. Another thing you could do is back it with stablecoins instead of BTC - I know that sounds cringe to us, but now you've really removed every objection a business might have. If many businesses do this, it also gives consumers the ability to much more easily exchange these different forms of value vs. what they have today. And of course they can always convert into sats, and at least you've gotten people onto the network from which they can easily do that.
Haha, I can see how my previous response might have seemed a bit ChatGPT-ish. To be clear, those thoughts are genuinely mine. I agree with the importance of human connection and creativity, and I also believe that we can use AI responsibly, without letting it control or dehumanize us. It's all about finding the right balance and using technology to enhance our lives, not replace the human aspects. So, yes, that's my opinion, and I appreciate the discussion! 😄
Nothing will change until it becomes normal to buy, or sell things in exchange for Bitcoin.
With this part I can agree.
then you are part of the problem.
With this one, I must disagree. Blaming random people doesn't lead anywhere. If you want adoption and usage you have to create the conditions where using "your" solution is the obvious choice (because it is there and because it is better).
Excellent idea. I just took my dog for a long walk and thought about your ideas regarding synthesis, and your suggestion for me to do a meta post about my newsletter. Your idea here is even better. I remember a few months back when you were hounding @k00b and @ek about something like "embedded search", but I didn't know what you were talking about. Once it was implemented, the value it brings is immense in tying posts together and increasing visibility for older content. This post is similar. During my first year on SN I spent a lot of time dredging up old posts to read. It felt like a shame that, at least for me, they were so difficult to find. I actually toyed with the idea of doing a weekly newsletter where I would dredge up "golden oldies" and highlight a few for visibility. That was probably why I started the Books And Articles newsletter after @Scoresby suggested it.
I think there is a hurdle rate as a South African I can tell you very few people will be able to do this you need
A reliable power source which we don't have
So you need an uninterrupted power supply to keep you from getting hit with blackouts or have solar panels with a deep cell battery
Very few people have fibre internet and use mobile internet so you need a sim card with data on it ($5.20 per GB)
If you don't have mobile data towers in your area you'll need a satellite dish to either broadcast an internet connection or broadcast locally to someone who has an internet connection
You need liquidity, which you either need to buy from an exchange who is going to take fees off you or use a non-kyc which is going to hit you with a 30-90% premium
Then when you finally one deal with all that channel management BS lol, not very practical, the way I see it you will have to run uncle jim models which is not unpopular here.
So what people will do is all pay 1 guy who will cover the cost to get a fibre connection for example and everyone connects to that WIFI, people do it with satellite dish tv too and even banking, we call it a "stokvel" where people all give their money to a community member who "saves/invests it"
I've told all my social circles about this site because it's not about bitcoin. It's about passing value without permission from any middleman and sacrificing personal information. I haven't been able to pay attention to my daily tasks since I figured this website out. It's developments like stacker.news that makes me want to travel the path less travelled as it has 100x more meaning. I'm not a coder but can use a bitcoin/lightning node. Any suggestions on how to contribute?
Let me start. I wish you all in 2024 living life in peace, meeting with your family and friends, being healthy and strong. If you'll get all of these you'll be able to orange pill everyone around you. Best wishes
Making steady progress in my cabin project 😉 Over the weekend I managed to finish the roof frame and cover most of it with plywood. Today I'm planning to cover the remaining part along with what's left on the walls. Then I'll be laying down the preamble membrane to seal up the building 🙂
Very thoughtful summary. I mostly agree with everything you've said.
One note on gift cards: in some European countries, gift cards can become "e-money" and must then be regulated as such if (I'm quoting from memory) their purpose and utility becomes "too universal", i.e. you can doo too many things with them. I've heard (I might be completely wrong, didn't verify) that Amazon gift cards are regulated as e-money in Sweden because of this: you can buy too much different stuff with it and people started using it for a money substitute.
The loud voices tend to be most wrong when they talk about things that aren't Bitcoin. Which seems to be a bear market engagement farming phenomenon, so fairly harmless.
I hope we see more and more robust lightning tooling. Even in the two years or so I've been using it, it's come on so far. So in five I'm hopeful that the onboarding and channel management / liquidity issues (for newbies looking to spend as well as merchants looking to take payment) get smoother. Spliced channels and LSPs are only getting started.
Would also love to see more privacy progress, possibly some convergence between lightning UX improvements and Cashu maturing. The pieces are all in place to do without shitcoins like Monero.
Projects like SeedSigner are also exciting and I'm hopeful they can keep funding and support.
My wild dream would be for some serious work to go into making Bitcoin Core a viable newbie desktop tool. The eternal sticking point here is that it doesn't support seeds, for thoughtful reasons, but it's a big barrier and means newbies have to manage both Core software and another coordinator. Perhaps rather like the HWI support in Core, there could be some kind of mnemonic interface without compromising the system?
I'd like to see the end of people thinking they need to use raspberry pis and node kits, which actually only complicate and increase risk.
One thing I worry about, particularly for lightning, is how American centric the viewpoints are. For most of the world, for example, NFC payments, free instant bank transfers, and low cost debit transactions are already a reality. So understanding that lightning has to go far beyond feature parity.
lmao :)
I spent 120 bitcoin on the furniture for my first store.
Investing in yourself is one of the only things I'd advise over holding bitcoin.
But if you spend your bitcoin to start your business, it will hurt.
Day 227 of snailposting everyday 'til BTC hits $100k.
...and 27 push-up(s).
__@_'-'
Yes absolutely -- a PubKey in every city!
At the moment we're focusing on Philly for our first expansion. We like the idea of keeping PubKeys close to HQ so we can have a solid view into quality control across everything we do. We've also been in talks with a number of Bitcoin communities around the world exploring opportunities to expand via Franchisement.
What city needs a PubKey? We’d love to hear from you. Except for San Francisco. They’re on their own…for now…
Thanks!
Options could be
I tried to name our dog bitcoin but I lost that vote 3 to 1.
I'd always heard that in Naples there was a lot of garbage in the street and lots of garbage burning on the outskirts of the city ... and it was true 🤠 but I liked the city anyway, I'm not one for high standards 🤠
Great question - I can't say the needle has moved much for (non-bitcoin) businesses just yet, although I can feel it shifting when it comes to investors. It's still a bit early for businesses and I'm going to re-paste something I shared on another post that explains what that dialogue often sounds like and what we're doing to hopefully start addressing it!
Today, jumping straight to bitcoin is too big of a leap for the vast majority of businesses - I can give the best sales pitch in the world of why they should integrate bitcoin rewards (new customer acquisition, etc.), but they'll inevitably ask "well what about my existing customer base?" -- the answer of course is that maybe 10-20% of them would opt-in. At that point the business says well why bother.
So they need a way to increase that %. One way to do this is with branded (fungible) loyalty tokens that look and feel much more like a normal loyalty point to consumers (plus no business wants to willingly sacrifice the branding attached to their loyalty program). You can still back those assets with BTC, but it's packaged in a more accessible-looking vessel. Another thing you could do is back it with stablecoins instead of BTC - I know that sounds cringe to us, but now you've really removed every objection a business might have. If many businesses do this, it also gives consumers the ability to much more easily exchange these different forms of value vs. what they have today. And of course they can always convert into sats, and at least you've gotten people onto the network from which they can easily do that.
Haha, I can see how my previous response might have seemed a bit ChatGPT-ish. To be clear, those thoughts are genuinely mine. I agree with the importance of human connection and creativity, and I also believe that we can use AI responsibly, without letting it control or dehumanize us. It's all about finding the right balance and using technology to enhance our lives, not replace the human aspects. So, yes, that's my opinion, and I appreciate the discussion! 😄
With this part I can agree.
With this one, I must disagree. Blaming random people doesn't lead anywhere. If you want adoption and usage you have to create the conditions where using "your" solution is the obvious choice (because it is there and because it is better).
LOL guys no need to zap my joke meme.
Damn it now I really have to take these real sats and go to the bar to drink a beer.
Cheers to you guys!
Excellent idea. I just took my dog for a long walk and thought about your ideas regarding synthesis, and your suggestion for me to do a meta post about my newsletter. Your idea here is even better. I remember a few months back when you were hounding @k00b and @ek about something like "embedded search", but I didn't know what you were talking about. Once it was implemented, the value it brings is immense in tying posts together and increasing visibility for older content. This post is similar. During my first year on SN I spent a lot of time dredging up old posts to read. It felt like a shame that, at least for me, they were so difficult to find. I actually toyed with the idea of doing a weekly newsletter where I would dredge up "golden oldies" and highlight a few for visibility. That was probably why I started the Books And Articles newsletter after @Scoresby suggested it.
I can't wait to see where you take your idea
I think there is a hurdle rate as a South African I can tell you very few people will be able to do this you need
Then when you finally one deal with all that channel management BS lol, not very practical, the way I see it you will have to run uncle jim models which is not unpopular here.
So what people will do is all pay 1 guy who will cover the cost to get a fibre connection for example and everyone connects to that WIFI, people do it with satellite dish tv too and even banking, we call it a "stokvel" where people all give their money to a community member who "saves/invests it"
A nice message here for today.
I write all my longer posts here on Libre Office Writer, and use the spreadsheets for my business.
nah is OK, we like big posts on SN. That means dedication and PoW
i use stacker and nostr pretty much daily, it could be good, if done right
https://m.stacker.news/10293
I've told all my social circles about this site because it's not about bitcoin. It's about passing value without permission from any middleman and sacrificing personal information. I haven't been able to pay attention to my daily tasks since I figured this website out. It's developments like stacker.news that makes me want to travel the path less travelled as it has 100x more meaning. I'm not a coder but can use a bitcoin/lightning node. Any suggestions on how to contribute?
Deutsche Bank Analyst presenting to clients
"We've been seeing some nice routing fees from McDouchebag squared and LuckyDog"
😂
Let me start. I wish you all in 2024 living life in peace, meeting with your family and friends, being healthy and strong.
If you'll get all of these you'll be able to orange pill everyone around you.
Best wishes
Making steady progress in my cabin project 😉 Over the weekend I managed to finish the roof frame and cover most of it with plywood. Today I'm planning to cover the remaining part along with what's left on the walls. Then I'll be laying down the preamble membrane to seal up the building 🙂
https://i.ibb.co/JFXmqCW/roof-almost-finished.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/8zpWZff/roof-from-the-inside.jpg
Have a great day ahead!
You WILL own ETH and you WILL be happy
congrats @matthewdelly
Very thoughtful summary. I mostly agree with everything you've said.
One note on gift cards: in some European countries, gift cards can become "e-money" and must then be regulated as such if (I'm quoting from memory) their purpose and utility becomes "too universal", i.e. you can doo too many things with them. I've heard (I might be completely wrong, didn't verify) that Amazon gift cards are regulated as e-money in Sweden because of this: you can buy too much different stuff with it and people started using it for a money substitute.
Insane if you ask me.
Anyway, awesome post. Have a zap.
Get a cool tshirt from the lightning store.