alfred
Alfred Hodler

Author of BIP351 | Privacy dev | Bitcoin only

Public Key

npub1tyvmpfftrnj7kdg26snpzlu6qvtv0w3arw7zxw6v94j0h9va4yaqcf0yql

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9jxds5543ee0tx59dgfs307dqx9k8hg73h0pr8dxz6e8mjkw6jwspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsj6enyj

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1tyvmpfftrnj7kdg26snpzlu6qvtv0w3arw7zxw6v94j0h9va4yaqcf0yql

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Last Notes

2024-06-03 07:42:58

Pushtx -- the Privacy-focused Bitcoin Transaction Broadcast Tool -- has received quality of life updates in v0.4.0:
- broadcast to a single peer for more privacy
- wait to see the transaction on the network for better confidence
- misc improvements
https://github.com/alfred-hodler/pushtx

2024-05-27 12:22:26

Fellow plebs, what kind of Bitcoin or privacy software would scratch an itch for you right now? Anything that you'd actively use but just isn't there yet?
#bitcoin

2024-05-27 03:22:42

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Twitter is broken for me so I'll just take your word for it. I agree that the interview was heavy on hyperbole. I didn't particularly care for the "changes to bitcoin are inflationary" argument.

2024-05-27 03:09:30

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Did he actually call them "central planners"? I listened through the whole interview and don't remember anything like that.
To my ears at least, his message was that we need to be very deliberate and slow with changes to the base protocol.

2024-05-27 02:36:08

💯. Constant API breakages make rust-bitcoin really hard to use when different dependencies rely on different versions of it and expose it as part of their public API. Every upgrade is an uphill battle.
Unfortunately the ecosystem does not offer an alternative yet. Should it? #note18rx…3ml2

2024-05-26 11:09:59

I just finished listening to @npub15dq…lm5m 's WBD episode on "ossification".
I largely agree with regard to the base protocol -- stop messing with it. Whatever you think you're bringing to the base layer probably isn't worth the risk.
But this shouldn't preclude innovation **on top of** Bitcoin. We need more L2 software, software that interacts with Bitcoin and lives symbiotically with it.

2024-05-24 01:40:08

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From Coinkite's official list of releases:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Coldcard/firmware/master/releases/signatures.txt
The PGP verification is done by the device itself.

2024-05-24 01:11:12

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The user-side upgrade process verifies that the firmware checksums match.
The actual cryptographic verification (i.e. "this firmware is official") is done by the Coldcard bootloader during the install process, since you should never trust the computer anyway.

2024-05-24 00:17:19

A new version of the Coldcard CLI and Rust lib has been published.
Use Bitcoin responsibly, do not use centralized services and custodians.
https://github.com/alfred-hodler/rust-coldcard
#rust #bitcoin https://image.nostr.build/3f425d237335c8a08724f8383b0684e35fae05a3d0280e2097c3d2799d9c333b.gif

2024-05-23 06:11:13

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There is no way to prevent it other than by running your own Electrum backend. There are some lightweight ones like the EPS (which still requires Core): https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server
The problem reduces to this: you're asking a potentially adversarial server to tell you your address balances. At which point the server knows what addresses you're interested in and therefore likely belong to "you" (they may not know who you are though).
Do this with a wallet that contains clean coinjoin outputs and you've just undone all your coinjoins.
AFAIK Sparrow isn't a good tool here because it uses public Electrum servers by default, thereby negating any benefits that its coinjoin feature provides.

2024-05-23 05:14:07

Politicians need to realize that not allowing permissionless innovation is a national security risk. Regardless of how you feel about the nation-state as a concept, putting a damper on innovation just causes your tribe to fall behind in civilizational terms.
Every time you require a license for people to build stuff, your enemies rejoice.

2024-05-22 23:15:08

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The same way: DNS seeds with a fixed peer list for fallback.

2024-05-22 23:13:49

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Tor doesn't help because Electrum bulk requests all your addresses from the remote server. At best Tor will keep your IP private but all your addresses are correlated as belonging to the same entity the moment you connect.

2024-05-22 11:56:11

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Yesterday I published a lightweight tool that broadcasts transactions in a private manner through Tor. Seems much simpler than Dandelion. It can be integrated into wallets too.
https://github.com/alfred-hodler/pushtx https://image.nostr.build/3a1acd8fd21b5e649b14e340f136c0dd5611a3bf1d23b3cd2201fbf666f27fc1.gif

2024-05-22 11:16:24

Never use Electrum unless you're hosting your own backend. There is no telling how many public Electrum servers are run by chain analysis companies and other adversaries that are in the business of attributing IP addresses to UTXOs.
Electrum was a great piece of software 10 years ago, but the surveillance landscape has changed a lot since then and it is not really safe to use it in its default state.
TLDR: run your own Electrum backend or don't use Electrum.

2024-05-21 15:06:09

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Broadcasting through Core has always worked well, if you have Core. This is meant for situations where Core isn't available or where you have serious privacy concerns.
Think mobile and desktop wallets that need to send out a set of transaction quickly and privately. Core is a massive dependency with a long bootstrap time and not available in many situations.

2024-05-21 14:02:54

I have released a unique privacy tool and code library that broadcasts Bitcoin transactions **directly** into the P2P network.
1. No external dependencies whatsoever.
2. No centralized backends.
3. Uses Tor if found running on the same system. Having the Tor Browser open in the background is enough.
Find the CLI here:
https://crates.io/crates/pushtx-cli
And the Rust crate here:
https://crates.io/crates/pushtx https://image.nostr.build/3a1acd8fd21b5e649b14e340f136c0dd5611a3bf1d23b3cd2201fbf666f27fc1.gif

2024-01-31 12:46:48

Want to upgrade your Coldcard firmware with the latest release over USB? The right tool for the job is now available.
https://github.com/alfred-hodler/rust-coldcard/tree/master/coldcard-cli
#coldcard #rust

2024-01-20 13:36:43

v0.11.0 of the #coldcard interface in Rust has been released. Support for Miniscript has been added.
https://github.com/alfred-hodler/rust-coldcard

2023-03-18 07:28:52

Legacy finance imploding, people escaping into Bitcoin because it's the most liquid thing and you can self custody it at almost no cost. You love to see it.

2023-03-07 03:31:58

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The Coldcard wallet will be able to do Nostr signing in hardware once Schnorr is in. I think it's something worth looking into. #[3]should have more details.

2023-03-06 13:12:10

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Grab an entry level tutorial for an easy language like Python. See if you're grokking it or not. Some people have the best intentions but they just can't figure it out. You won't know until you try.

2023-03-06 13:09:16

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Sorry, I'm not aware of anyone working on that.
I'm personally working on a Compact Block Filters (BIP157) client in Rust. Too many wallets rely on centralized backends or require complicated setups where you have to run a full node if you want to be private (most plebs can't/won't do it).

2023-03-06 12:16:31

If you're a cypherpunk, you need to write code. There's just no way around it. Ideas won't implement themselves, no matter how cool they are.
If you can't write code and you're into privacy, consider funding or promoting useful projects and their devs.

2023-03-06 10:42:34

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Whirlpool may be slower than competitors to get the same anonset but the slowness is a feature because it introduces Sybil resistance.

2023-03-06 10:32:03

Version 0.6 of Peerlink has been released. Peerlink is a networking library for building nodes and other Bitcoin p2p applications in Rust.
https://github.com/alfred-hodler/peerlink

2023-03-06 02:36:42

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What happens to sub-5000 sat inputs? Can't register them?

2023-03-04 05:28:15

The future is sovereign entities using fedimints internally and on-chain for interjurisdictional settlements between the mints.

2023-03-02 17:15:50

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Has that number been updated recently? I remember it being 0.1.
I stopped using Wasabi after the entity running both the coordinator and the wallet partnered with nefarious actors, so my numbers here may not be up to date.

2023-03-02 17:10:59

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That's a valid point, but the cost is really time then, not money. And it's what allows it to beat Wasabi in terms of pricing.

2023-03-02 17:01:51

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Unless you end up with slightly less than 0.1 BTC. In which case you have a large amount of toxic change that you can't do anything with.

2023-03-02 16:55:39

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I think you misunderstand the Whirlpool model. Only new entrants pay mining fees. Remixers ride free forever both in terms of coordinator fees and mining fees. It doesn't matter if it's your first remix or your 1000th. It's virtually free *in the long run*, not on a one off basis obviously. That's just math.
If I have a UTXO and I want to raise its anonset to 1000, which is cheaper: Wasabi which will probably require me to do 20 rounds and charge me for each, or Whirlpool which will require 200 rounds but charge only for the first one?

2023-03-02 16:43:56

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Strictly speaking Wasabi is worse because of the peeling model.
"Additionally Wasabi outputs are in the order in which they are registered". Has this been fixed?
https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1151882688053334016
Maybe #[9] wants to chime in.

2023-03-02 16:35:38

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Whirlpool fees tend to zero in the long run. The "pay once mix forever" model rewards building high anonymity sets by making it virtually free per anonset the more rounds you participate in. Wasabi fees look like a ripoff in comparison.

2023-03-02 16:30:02

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That's not at all what we were talking about. We were talking about pointing Wasabi at different coordinators because someone may not like your Chainalysis partnership. Now you're talking about spinning up your own coordinator using a 3rd party tool. That's completely unrelated to using the same Wasabi binary with a different coordinator.
I am thoroughly confused as to why you suddenly changed topics.

2023-03-02 15:56:06

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Until Wasabi adds a text input that allows casual users to point the wallet at a different WabiSabi coordinator, they're just playing shell games and the coordinator isn't really a separate entity from the wallet. Pretending it is doesn't change anything.

2023-03-02 14:56:36

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Wasabi blacklists UTXOs in partnership with Chainalysis. That alone should be enough for a rational actor to stay away from such software.

2023-03-02 08:22:52

The recent removal of Damus from the Apple AppStore in Hong Kong isn't necessarily a political problem.
Apple created a phone experience so slick that their market share is simply too big and people ultimately don't care about being walled in as long as the experience is smooth.
The root of the problem is:
1) no one else seems to be able to create a comparable phone experience (Android is junk unfortunately),
2) open source / privacy community has tried it several times with Linux etc. but it never works out due to how much money is needed to build a good device.
If the barrier to entry into the phone market was lower, we'd have more competition and less shenanigans like walled gardens. The state could still regulate app stores using traditional legislation but sideloading an alternate app store solves that problem.
TLDR: building a good phone that people like is still expensive and hard.

2023-02-28 15:03:20

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I will concede that Wasabj may be a bit cheaper for impatient participants. However, Whirlpool is much cheaper the longer you mix. If you mix indefinitely, the price per anonset tends to zero. The Wasabi model never offers this.
As for your second assertion, having more pools doesn't lead to less privacy. Privacy is solely a function of anonymity sets, it has nothing to do with pool sizes.
Anyway, since I'm not affiliated with Whirlpool and I'm not on their payroll, you should ask them directly about some of their design decisions.

2023-02-28 12:54:55

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Whirlpool is actually much cheaper in the long run since you only pay for the first round and after that every subsequent round is free. You can theoretically get anonsets in the thousand or tens of thousands for the cost of one round.
They also have different pool sizes that fit different scenarios, whereas Wasabi has only one pool.

2023-02-27 05:11:23

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Ordinals people grinding in order to get "rare sats"?

2023-02-26 17:44:28

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He can't stop it but he can put you in prison if he outlaws it and finds that you're using it.
This is why we need a politically decentralized world so that freedom can always find a save haven from corrupt empires.

2023-02-26 14:02:15

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Swapping UTXOs and breaking the UTXO link is not the sole purpose of coinjoin. Game theory says you have to do it in a publicly visible and provable way (coinjoins are very visible on the blockchain) in order to be able to say "After participating in N rounds my anonymity set is X and there's no point in trying to link me or any other participants to any particular UTXO in rounds 0..N-1. You can try but you can never prove a particular link".
If you do it privately using LN or other methods, you can end up receiving a "bad" (tracked) UTXO that will land you in trouble if you sell it on a KYC platform. Conversely, you could end up giving up your good KYCd UTXO to a "bad" party who will then use it for nefarious purposes and guess who will be getting a visit from the authorities in that situation. If you coinjoin, a rational opponent has to say "This peer clearly coinjoined with 50 other participants, so in order to prosecute him we'd have to prosecute everyone from that round".
Re Whirlpool vs Wasabi, WP is actually a lot cheaper in the long run (per anonset) because they charge only for the initial round. After that every subsequent round is free, indefinitely. Wasabi may be cheaper only for smaller anonsets.

2023-02-26 07:04:35

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The OG. Keep up the good work.

2023-02-26 06:45:17

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It's hard to believe a guy as smart as yourself can fall for jingoistic think-tank propaganda like this. I guess no one is immune to statist brainwashing. Is this really a gamble a sane person would take? What if just 1-5% of their nukes hit their target?
I don't want my family to die in a nuclear winter. Something tells me you probably feel the same way, even if the chance of that happening is just 1%. You panicked pretty hard after you got swatted.

2023-02-25 17:23:08

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In many countries you can't even check into a hotel using a pseudonym anymore. No government issued id -> no room.

2023-02-25 16:57:34

Any interest in using a hardware wallet as a signer and source of identity for Nostr? Nostr's "cold identity" to Bitcoin's "cold storage", your private key never leaves the secure element.

2023-02-25 14:40:40

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I'm surprised it didn't say it's used by racists and right wing extremists and that it's boiling the planet.

2023-02-21 14:27:53

What's the chance that once governments realize they can't control and censor the content on Nostr, that they go after app stores instead? There's a precedent for doing just that. While it wouldn't hurt the PC segment, it'd hurt the mobile segment quite a bit.

2023-02-21 06:10:59

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Inscriptions are simply taking advantage of the fact that block space is cheap now. Once block space starts commanding a premium, their usage will decrease.
The market demand for block space is virtually unlimited, so when transaction volume is low, other use cases will fill that space. That's just market dynamics at work.

2023-02-19 13:38:20

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Fair enough. That said, going public with your identities seems to have been a bad idea because you're now in a position where you can be blackmailed and threatened. But what's done is done.

2023-02-19 12:58:22

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Correct. Sending out xpubs by default isn't great.
That said, their coordinator doesn't require client xpubs. That's strictly a shortcoming of their wallet architecture. You can still write third party wallets talking to Whirlpool through Tor, without losing privacy. Or you can set up a Dojo on your own computer. Whereas your coordinator interacts with Chainalysis no matter what.
Would you be so kind as to answer my question from the other post, about why you chose to plug into Chainalysis in the first place. Was there external pressure? Why are you guys so evasive about it?

2023-02-19 06:43:54

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I see what you're getting at but accusing them of being a honeypot is a pretty harsh. I agree that their default model is far from ideal however.
You're still not explaining why Wasabi needs to run UTXOs against Chainalysis. Was there pressure from the regulators? Or are you trying to preempt something?

2023-02-19 06:38:55

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Yeah there's no good reason to boycott BIP157. It's the best trade off we have between privacy and the ability to ship p2p functionality in light clients.
They do let you run your own Dojo, but that not being the default is just as bad as Wasabi not allowing non-blacklisting coordinators without recompilation.
So we have two wrongs here and that doesn't make a right.

2023-02-19 05:39:56

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And appealing to the "free market" is a cop out. Do you want to answer the question why you need such partners and solutions to begin with, when your competitors don't?

2023-02-19 05:37:04

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I completely agree about the free market principle. We'll keep better building tools and helping people move away from shady, bad-faith "free market agents" to who value human freedom and privacy.

2023-02-19 05:26:28

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1. I don't want to contribute code to solutions written by incompetent or bad faith actors.
2. The Samourai guy in the link I posted already explained how you're obligated to share data with Chainalysis.
3. For what reason is the Wasabi coordinator working with Chainalysis? Samourai isn't doing it and they don't claim to have been pressured.
4. Let's say I get a "bad" UTXO through an OTC trade. Why should I be blacklisted from using Wasabi in order to increase the privacy of my UTXO?

2023-02-19 05:16:45

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Does Wasabi allow one to change coordinators in a simple way, i.e. without recompiling or digging through obscure configuration files?
If not, it's corralling users into a solution where their data is run against blacklists compiled by an anti-privacy industry is disingenuous.

2023-02-19 05:05:52

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But you do run UTXOs trying to register for coinjoin against Chainalysis blacklists, don't you? Or if not, what exactly are you using Chainalysis for? Please, let's clear this up once and for all.
"It's open source" is classic hand waving for the plebs who can't read code. You can be open source and still do untoward things.

2023-02-19 04:46:15

Coinjoin solutions that plug into Chainalysis and preemptively blacklist UTXOs are working against you. They purport to protect your privacy while selling you out to oligarchs, bureaucrats and a class of people that wants to enslave you.
Wasabi devs should be ashamed of themselves, especially since nobody approached them to start doing that -- they simple lost their nerve and submitted of their own accord, out of fear. If you're afraid, don't offer such platforms in the first place. Or do a better job of protecting your anonymity as a privacy dev.
https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1539618567276093441

2023-02-19 04:37:32

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Ok so by default Wasabi doesn't use Bitcoin according to the bar you set. But it can after a 1 click toggle.

2023-02-19 04:25:31

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We cover all these scenarios here:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0351.mediawiki#motivation

2023-02-19 04:22:33

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Does Wasabi download and consensus validate every single block?

2023-02-19 02:50:57

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Furthermore, BIP351 only need notifications for the first interaction between two peers. After that, they can rely solely on SPV or Compact Block Filters in order to interact.
And they don't even need to rely on on-chain notifications since they can connect out-of-band via email, Nostr or any other communication medium.
In that sense, the featureset of 351 is strictly a superset of what SP offers and therefore superior.
Another downfall of SP is that it isn't even a standard. It's a stream of consciousness in a GitHub gist, without a real spec or reference implementation.

2023-02-19 01:01:20

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Which mobile wallets require you to run your own node at home? Most rely either on centralized backends or some kind of SPV/Neutrino system.
BIP351 gives you the ability to run your own notification scanner if you're paranoid, but in practice most users can rely on a few high profile scanners and cross check them for honesty.

2023-02-19 00:49:13

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Silent Payments doesn't work with light clients such as mobile wallets. It needs full block data. The theory behind the standard is sound but in practice you need to support light clients or you won't find adoption.
BIP351 elegantly solved that problem by outsourcing notification scanning. Worst case scenario (you don't trust anyone), you run your own notification scanner. Most people will trust a few high profile notification repos or the one run by their mobile wallet vendor.

2023-02-18 17:28:40

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Enemies of monetary fungibility are enemies of humanity. They want slavery for you.

2023-02-17 14:22:57

Paynyms done right
https://privatepayments.org/

2023-02-17 13:36:06

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No need to insult. There are no good guys in power looking out for the little guy, no matter the country. So our job is to build the tools we need to stay free. The EU will do whatever it's allowed to get away with, and people have been allowing it to get away with a lot lately.

2023-02-17 13:14:39

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I think you're very generous to the average European. All I see is endless masses primed to fall for the next "current thing", whatever that may be. They ate up the pandemic censorship (and actively supported it in many cases), called the police on people hiking in the woods alone, snitched on their fellow man and now they obsess with the destruction of the biggest nuclear power on the planet, regardless of the consequences.
In a nutshell, I wouldn't extend them a lot of credit at this point.

2023-02-17 13:00:01

Nostr is just too good. If it doesn't replace centralized social networks, there's simply no hope for the plebs.

2023-02-17 09:46:55

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Many totalitarian regimes lasted a lot longer than the EU and ended up doing much worse thing in the process. The EU will collapse one day, but it can do plenty of damage in the meantime. Luckily, they're still not building walls and stopping people from leaving, although that may happen as well eventually.

2023-02-17 02:04:17

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That makes sense.

2023-02-16 08:22:52

Isn't it self defeating to require a Twitter account in order to get verified on a network that wants to supplant it?
https://nostrverified.com

2023-02-16 07:57:14

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Only those blocks that contain transactions relevant to the wallet are downloaded. So the overhead is minimal. That's the magic of filters.
Privacy comes from the fact that wallets can get UTXO data in a p2p fashion, without relying on centralized backends.

2023-02-16 07:24:17

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It's a client for Compact Block Filters. The standard allows wallets to get transaction data directly from the network without losing privacy. It's essentially an improved take on SPV. Details:
https://bitcoinops.org/en/topics/compact-block-filters/

2023-02-16 05:39:13

I've started working on a Neutrino (BIP157/158) client in Rust, designed for integration and done properly. This is the first building block -- the network reactor. Anyone interested in contributing dev resources?
https://github.com/alfred-hodler/peerlink

2023-02-15 12:50:30

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Nakamoto has many usability issues and outright bugs. The architectural foundation is shaky.