654: Creating Discord in the Matrix

I’d like to hear more about places to use Bitcoin as money. Especially any online services you use or are aware of. I know there are VPNs, Email services and AI aggregators who accept sats. Any more? I’ve always thought using sats to support Open Source projects and developers should be an easy win. Thanks

Part 2: A listener shared this website, which has some excellent explainers and guides on wallets, entropy, keys, seeds and more. Awesome resource, all tools are free to use under the MIT license. https://selfcustodylabs.com/

My question last week was more about generating the seed phrase and checksum in an offline way. I rolled the dice so can get the entropy offline, but wonder how to generate and verify the actual seed words and checksum. It seems like that part is harder to do in a truely offline way. Do you have any tips on that? Thanks.

Add this to the previous boost. Got fat fingered in my rage! And while I’m at it, did Bitcoin maxi culture fail? 100%, yes. It failed. NVK and his mates personified it and look what happened.

If I think back to all the BS “podcasters” spouted about “don’t trust, verify” and all that crap, without doing it themselves, it makes me feel sick. V4V pods with zero paid ads is the only way we’ll get reliable information. As they say “show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome”. Turns out they were right. Keep it up Chris. Thanks.

Part 2: Do you see any opportunities in the Bitcoin education space through TWIB? Memberships and courses, educational content? And are there any ways to “open source” any of this via V4V community contributions or something like that? I see why you’ve done with Linux Unplugged and wonder if it’s possible to do a TWIB version of this. Anyway, some thoughts to ponder. Your show drops on Thursday in my part of the world, and I always look forward to “TWIB Thursdays” now.

Hey Chris It was interesting to hear you say that you look at each of your shows as businesses. Tell us more about the vision for TWIB. Do you see it following the same path as LUP, with V4V, memberships and bonus content, but no paid ads? Are there other unique things you’re considering for TWIB? TBC in the next boost.

Part 2… When sentiment is low (and fuck me, it is as low as I have ever seen it), my happy place is a deep technical rabbit hole. When the price is crashing or the sky falling in, work on your skills and learn new things. Like running your own node on a self hosted Linux server. This week I’m hardening my node and learning all about reverse proxies. It really is the gift that keeps on giving and if you don’t get rich off Bitcoin, you’ll have some valuable skills to hit the job market with!

Bitcoin meetups and events are the best. Meeting other Bitcoiners IRL is like being reunited with old friends. I attend all the meetups and events I can and even travel to some. I would definitely attend a TWIB event. Thanks for the quality content every week, and for the laughs too! Gotta keep smiling (and stacking) through the bear :)

A question about nodes and one for Wes. What is Nix Bitcoin? I hear you talk about Nix on LUP, and as I understand it Nix is a distro, but maybe it’s not? And how does Nix Bitcoin fit in? Is it a node implementation? Or not? Help me out with this one please. For Wes: What would it take for more Open Source believers to get into Bitcoin more? I’d love to hear his thoughts on this, hopefully you have some time on the road for some Bitcoin chat. Safe travels.

Has AI affected my job? Yes, in a positive way. I am self employed and take care of clients’ website and e-commerce infrastructure. AI allows me to do way more than before. An example is testing, I use AI to write scripts to automate testing, saves me hours each time. AI helps me troubleshoot issues on tools I have very little experience with. And this is just the beginning, I haven’t even gone deep into the Agent world yet. AI is going to disrupt and create opportunities at the same time. It’s up to all of us to make sure we’re in the right place to benefit.

Part 2: I’d love to hear more about your node config on Bitcoin Core and what version you’re running. I’ve been holding off upgrading and am still running v28 but as v31 is coming out soon I think I need to upgrade to keep within the maintenance window. What configuration changes have you made to the defaults and what do you suggest for version updates and basic config changes?

+1 for ppq.ai This has been my go to AI for about a year now. It’s built by a Bitcoiner, you get discount when you pay in Sats and if you pay over LN, there’s zero KYC and the built in privacy of Lightning. Use it with a VPN (like Mullvad, also paid for in Sats) and offers pretty good privacy for general use. You can connect via a browser or with API keys. I use it for general topics or learning, not for anything private is sensitive. You can connect to all the latest models and it’s really good value as you pay per query (PPQ). There are more and more online services like this that accept sats and if we’re going to get the world using Bitcoin as money, these are great places to support the global P2P Bitcoin economy.

I also have a serious question for you. I recently listened to an interview with the Samurai wallet dev who has been sentenced to 5 years prison for writing open source software. In the interview he talked about how his constitutional rights were not respected and how hostile the judge was. They had no evidence of an actual crime being committed, so the charges are for “conspiracy” to commit crimes. Basically, as they were “aware” that their software could be used for illegal purposes, they’re guilty of conspiring to commit that crime. This is pretty scary, does this mean any open source dev could be guilty of a similar crime? With your background in FOSS and Linux, I’d like to hear what you think about this? https://fountain.fm/episode/GgxUJOIxjJ96e0YFuVO2 Here’s the interview for anyone interested. Also a V4V pod with no ads.

Yes, my nephew did complete his sats quest. I made it easy for him by loading up a Lightning wallet and telling him about a bar where he lives which accepts sats. Told him he has to take some friends and shout them a drink with the Sats. And offered some additional cold storage sats as a “reward” once the quest was completed. Incentives at work :)

Hey Chris. I want to echo some of the other comments here and say that TWIB is a highlight of my week and that the signal and value you provide is awesome. The fact that you live and breathe Open Source and live off V4V means the content is of the highest quality. It seems like all the other Bitcoin pods have either lost their values, sold out to advertisers or just gone bat shit crazy, so we need you here buddy. I’d like to see more of the membership for TWIB and think there must be opportunities there for you. An Open Source Bitcoin community centered around TWIB, learning new skills and helping each other out, I’d be a part of that. Over and out.

Congrats on the 100 Chris. How to celebrate? Do whatever you want Chris, just have some fun. A guest sounds like a good idea, or how about some listeners calling in? I’m surprised to hear you say that you’re thinking of stopping at 100. I hope you don’t and I will continue to listen and support as long as you keep going. But you gotta do what feels right for you and your family. May the force be with you.

Belated boost for this, and other episodes. So much of what Dash talked about resonated with me. Running multiple nodes, disappointment in Bitcoiners and looking for answers somewhere else. Thanks for the thought provoking conversations Cody.

Belated boost for the last few episodes. Thanks for the useful and thought provoking content. Where else can I find Mishima Yukio, Taiwan and Bitcoin Policy in NZ on the same stream!

Please don't cancel the show!

Thanks for the update on this Chris. Keep ‘em coming, people are afraid and a bit freaked out so some calm words and solid advice from an OG like you will be really helpful. Interesting spin on random numbers on LUP too, seems like this is not the first time generating random numbers has led to problems.

I think you did have a technical problem last week, I could see more sats in the fountain stream alone than the total you read out on the show. So here’s a double for this week. Stick to the signal and leave the $1 million dollar price talk for the other B grade podcasters.

About node setups and security: I started with a Raspiblitz about 3 years ago, this was a great first node if you want to learn the more technical side of running a node as it packages everything up and has a very simple GUI but also allows you to use the command line as well. It runs over Tor by default, so gives you that extra layer of privacy. Two years in I started running Bitcoin Core directly on an Ubuntu server, which in many ways is simpler than the Raspiblitz once you get used to doing everything in the command line. You’re running way less services, just what you need: Bitcoin Core, Fulcrum Server, Mempool.space and Tor. I went on to run a Lightning Node a year later and am still going strong, using that to route all my payments. Both my Bitcoin node and LND run over Tor, which for personal use (not routing on Lightning) has been good for me. I followed the guides on the Ministry of Nodes You Tube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@MinistryofNodes) , Ketan is a well known Aussie Bitcoiner and a big open source and Linux guy. His guides are excellent. Next step is to connect Alby Hub to my LND node, so I can route my own boosts on Fountain.

Double boost for this and the episode with Oscar. Conversations with people like Oscar who are creating real use cases for Bitcoin are great. Is there a way to connect my LND node to Fountain? Can I do this with Alby hub? I’d love to connect directly and not have to manually top up my Fountain wallet if I could. Keep the signal coming, thanks.

Now that we’re all entropy enthusiasts, can you share some tips on how to create a seed 100% offline. The best method I found was to roll dice and then create the seed phrase offline on Tails, which is then wiped after shutdown. But I still wonder how “offline” that could be? I saw another boost here talking about using a NixOS offline to do it. Do you have any tips or shared experience in this area? Thanks

Thanks for the signal Chris, as always. Can you help us understand the game theory for BIP110 in relation to mining. If they have very low hashrate (<10%) can this still cause a disruption and potential chain split? My initial thoughts were that they won’t get a significant amount of hash so it will just die on the vine. But the proponents of 110 are talking like they can still force a counter fork if they have minority hash. Maybe I’ve got this wrong so can you talk us through this pls.

The bear market getting you down? BIP110 doing your head in? Well here’s just what you need, all of you! A Bitcoin meetup in New Zealand. We run these really relaxed and friendly meetups, called Bitkiwi, three times a year and all Bitcoiners are welcome. We often have overseas Bitcoiners come along too. The next one is real soon, we’ll let you off Chris cos I know you’re at Planet Nix. But next time. Everyone welcome! https://kiwibitcoinguide.org/home/bitkiwi-meetups/bitkiwi-x…

In 2020 I was trying to buy a house, and when the global economy shut down and everyone went into lockdown I thought house prices must fall. But they didn’t, they went higher than I could ever imagine and I couldn’t understand why. So I took it upon myself to find out why, I learnt about how money really works and what quantitative easing and money printing were. A couple of friends told me about Bitcoin so I decided to find out for myself what it is and how it works. It took me down the rabbit hole, I’m still here I am and I’m not going back.

What do I think of BIP444? If you’re interested, read the original BIP, understand it properly then make your own judgement. Too many Bitcoiners are just listening to their favorite influencer and picking a side to support. The BIP makes no reference to a decision being made to determine if arbitrary data is objectionable. The BIP lists 7 Op Codes or conditions which would further restrict arbitrary data at the consensus level. I think Matthew Kratter picked that ball up and ran with it himself for some shock value. This BIP seems unlikely to have legs, but if we’re going to debate it we should at least understand it properly. My 2 sats worth. (Bonus boost for “nose candy Mark” in the last ep. I approve!)

Thanks for the signal and we’re glad you do what you do. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Samurai and Tornado Cash developer trials. These aren’t getting anywhere near as much coverage as the Treasury Companies and Stablecoin regulations but there are some concerning developments in these cases which could have effects on the development of all kinds of Bitcoin applications. I also saw a report on the Rage summarizing the privacy measures the White House are asking FinCEN to deem as money laundering concerns and they cover lots of general uses all of us would do regularly. Would love to hear your thoughts on these, considering your background in both Bitcoin and the FOSS space. Thanks.

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Road trip boost from New Zealand! At a Bitkiwi event on the weekend here a few of us were swapping notes about podcasts and TWIB came up as the one with the most signal. We have a saying here: “World famous in New Zealand”!

I’d like to hear some more of your story Chris. I’ve heard a bit from you over the years on your shows but I’d love to hear more about how you found Bitcoin, what you’ve learnt from it, what has surprised or disappointed you in the Bitcoin world. I always enjoy hearing people’s stories!

In the Clarity Act, I’ve heard there are clauses which offer protections for Open Source Developers. They seem to be in one version, and then out in the next amendment. Do you know any more about this Chris? It sounds like one of those Omnibus bill tricks, where the act is about something else (eg. Stablecoins) but it includes some nasty surprises in other areas in the small print. (Eg. Removing protections for FOSS developers). Wondering if you have any insights on this?

Thanks for sharing your agent and node methodology. I kind of knew the answer wouldn’t be something like “put a few wrappers in place and let ‘em loose on your nodes”. But I didn’t think the answer would be Nix, even though I hear you talk about it all the time on LUP. another rabbit hole to discover! Here we go again! :)

How do you handle updates on your nodes? I often have updates to run on Ubuntu and many of the other services on my Bitcoin & LND nodes. I know you are running agents for a lot of things, do you give agents access to your nodes for updates? Sounds a bit risky, especially on an LND node, so I wanted to hear how you approach managing your updates. Thanks.

I need to open some new Lightning channels to connect me to regular merchants I use. What would you suggest to find the right nodes to open channels to? Is there a tool I could use to input my payments history and help me find the right channel partners? After a long stable run I’m suddenly experiencing lots of failed payments to merchants I’ve been paying for years, including Fountain for your boosts! Got any tips or tools that could help? Thanks.

When the Op Return drama started I was interested to learn more about Knots. And I did. But over time I came to the conclusion I would not run it for the following reasons. Key person (and crazy person) risk with Luke, limited number of developers and support of BIP110. Then I also learnt that each version of Knots includes a built in depreciation setting by default. So Knot for me!