Kirk

Freedom Maximalist

Public Key

npub16dvms6kppqgnv9k0murxnp8zyap2y6yem5y2f74sm8dgxfdvtj4syj2dq2

NIP-05 Address

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsdxkdcdtqssyfkzm8a7pnfsn3zws4zdzva6z9yl2cdnk5rykk9e2cpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsfhsnz2

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub16dvms6kppqgnv9k0murxnp8zyap2y6yem5y2f74sm8dgxfdvtj4syj2dq2

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-03-24 09:23:08 UTC

- reply

Amazing accomplishment! Congrats 🥳

2026-03-21 10:33:44 UTC

- reply

I'm sorry, Katja. This sounds incredibly rough! It's one thing to be kicked out of your home, another to have so many memories and sentimental value stored there, and still another to be going through this while also navigating crippling seizures 💜 I hope you are able to stay strong through all of this.
Unfortunately, I live in the wrong hemisphere to be able to help you with a place to stay, but I wonder if there are some Lugano bitcoiners who might? Is it primarily just a place to stay you are looking for? Do you have a Geyser page for donations?

2026-03-20 10:01:53 UTC

- reply

Can you give some details on your situation?

2026-03-20 09:58:07 UTC

- reply

He talks the same way to those who supposedly won WW2

2026-03-16 01:21:10 UTC

Why is it that monetary debasement leads to a debasement in moral character of a huge swath of the individuals in a society?
Is it just that people are impoverished and desperate, and so all principles, integrity and ethical conduct get thrown by the wayside? But then why is it that you seem to see this kind of behaviour as prominently among the rich and societal elite as among the poor? Is it just that in a society like this only the cantillionaires and those with few scruples make it to the top?

2026-03-08 20:10:03 UTC

- reply

If you don't actually believe this war is to liberate Iranians, why do you support it? You appear to know this is just about Israel asserting hegemony across the middle east and quashing any meaningful resistance, and has nothing to do with how internally repressive the Iranian government is.
FAFO is just a psychotic way of saying "might makes right"... "Hey, you shouldn't have stood up to that genocidal apartheid state, Israel, if you didn't want to get your country bombed to oblivion".

2026-03-08 05:25:04 UTC

- reply

As an Iraqi, let me tell you why this war was our only way out...
I have bad news for you, this is not a rescue operation. Israel's goal is to turn Iran into Syria. They are not dropping bombs out of some overwhelming concern for the freedom of Iranians.

2026-03-07 09:10:03 UTC

- reply

Ah man, wish I could be there!

2026-02-27 09:00:00 UTC

- reply

https://fountain.fm/episode/9qJ5bwaUE3px4oMRd15K
#nevent1q…y48y

2026-02-27 08:59:19 UTC

- reply

https://fountain.fm/episode/9qJ5bwaUE3px4oMRd15K
#nevent1q…rg99

2026-02-23 09:46:30 UTC

- reply

💜

2026-01-27 08:14:54 UTC

- reply

Amen

2026-01-20 09:23:11 UTC

- reply

you mean a blind eye to the Gaza genocide

2026-01-05 04:55:39 UTC

- reply

How can you say this with such certainty? Did things get better for Iraqis after the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein? No, they got far worse.

2026-01-05 04:52:10 UTC

https://blossom.primal.net/b3d06e1e315a13be60a5c2613fec423b55753b7a95570e207bf61f495ef7eb5c.png
We are ruled over by pedophiles, so it makes sense they tweet like a 12 year old playing Call of Duty

2026-01-04 03:27:50 UTC

- reply

No American losses, perhaps

2025-12-31 02:35:19 UTC

- reply

Awesome!

2025-12-25 18:52:04 UTC

Merry Christmas to all you crazy, wonderful Nostriches! 🎄

2025-12-16 03:13:06 UTC

Is there any archive of the original Let's Talk Bitcoin podcast episodes (from 2013ish)?
The RSS feed only goes back to 2019: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/sjaeb-91e5b/Speaking-of-Bitcoin-%28formerly-Let%27s-Talk-Bitcoin%21%29-Podcast
Those early shows with Andreas, Stephanie and Adam were absolute gems. Would suck if they've just been scrubbed from the internet forever.

2025-12-04 20:31:35 UTC

We won't get another bull market until Blue Collar Bitcoin returns

2025-12-03 14:40:17 UTC

- reply

Stunning!

2025-11-14 23:48:06 UTC

Feels right to be dumping on the anniversary of BitConnect launching

2025-11-13 09:05:32 UTC

Something I've recently realized is the extent to which Israel completely controls the US far beyond its middle-eastern foreign policy.
If Javier Millei had all the same positions he currently holds, only instead of being slavishly devoted to Israel he was critical, do you think the US govt would be creating a strategic peso reserve to bail out Argentina?
Of course not.
If María Corina Machado wasn't a pro-Israel fanatic who proclaims that "the struggle of Venezuela is the struggle of Israel", would she be such a darling of the US establishment?
Not a chance.
You can believe anything about any other issue, but if you aren't full-throated in your support of a genocidal ethnostate in the middle-east you will find yourself arrested, deported, fired, cancelled, regime changed and just generally demonized.
Almsot everything the US govt does is first-and-foremost to aid Israel: there's the direct financial aid, there's the endless weapons, there's the intelligence support, there's vetoing every UN resolution against Israel, there's running diplomatic cover for Israel, there's firing Ivy league professors and expelling US students critical of Israel, there's criminalizing US firms boycotting Israel, there's criminalizing speech against Israel in states like Florida, there's all the financial aid to surrounding Arab states so they don't intervene on behalf of the Palestinians but instead assist Israel whilst keeping their population in check (these are just bribes to look the other way), there's bombing Iran on behalf of Israel, the entire terror wars...
It's endless and it's utterly sickening.

2025-11-12 22:50:05 UTC

- reply

When are you integrating Kimi K2 thinking? The only thing holding Maple back is how outdated the models are.

2025-11-12 08:44:13 UTC

- reply

when kimi k2?

2025-11-08 18:51:29 UTC

Two things stand out watching this 1981 episode of Phil Donahue:
1. The arguments for unschooling/home schooling are pretty unassailable.
2. Donahue was a master, and his popularity speaks to how we had more intellectual, more curious America. Ironically, I think the government schools have played a large role in why a show like this would not be feasible today.
https://youtu.be/fXLWPpln0rQ?si=fKFmZpRDDWVg3zT4

2025-11-06 02:44:03 UTC

My citadel
https://blossom.primal.net/ba51af147ebd0f6626c494497b2329e59be6955afea9ee991a51c465a2551bf1.png

2025-11-02 10:03:19 UTC

- reply

I agree. Winston Churchill was also a monster.

2025-10-29 10:04:43 UTC

- reply

donated! kudos doing this

2025-10-28 08:10:19 UTC

- reply

Happy Birthday!

2025-10-23 19:15:55 UTC

- reply

This is surprising to me. My experience with bitcoiners is that they tend be very generous, with the notable exception of MSTR and penny stock promoters.
With your ETH donations, were they all from wealthy holders or the Ethereum Foundation? That would speak less to the culture within Ethereum community itself and more to the fact that those with the biggest pre-mined bags feared the Tornado Cash trial would become an existential threat to Ethereum's existence.

2025-10-20 07:07:41 UTC

- reply

https://blossom.primal.net/5724b4f9207420cfc3422837ba8792e010849c1bc6e658d316c84f27b4448d68.jpg

2025-10-11 23:10:51 UTC

I can't speak for 2013 and am not an OG, but the culture around Bitcoin was far more exciting during the 2018-2019 period.
Instead of simping for politicians, obsessing over zombie treasury companies, and arguing about things like op_return that don't matter, the discussion was serious and engaging. Lightning was just getting started, the earliest coinjoin implementations were launching, soft forks were actively being worked on and debated, the podcasters weren't all promoting penny stocks... It was a better time, imo.
This isn't hipster to recognize. We can be be glad that bitcoin is still alive, but there's more to bitcoin than NGU.
There's many ways in which things are better: Nostr exists now, there's a lot more sustainable funding for open source developers, bitcoin has been massively de-risked and normalized as an investment, and we've all gotten richer...but we've lost a lot too.
https://blossom.primal.net/c7df794961fdf56c6cd19777dffa23158aa19d7961e69f61e62a074dacaf9d87.png

2025-10-04 06:31:32 UTC

- reply

Max always has a great, principled perspective.
https://fountain.fm/episode/BGphNLL3sek1jYt3L84D
#nevent1q…a9du

2025-10-04 01:38:33 UTC

- reply

The change I'd make to this meme is the bald guy on the left saying "the truth is in the middle".
"Both sides are wrong" is often true. It is saying that both says are somehow correct that is morally weak, because you are being disingenous to avoid alienating anyone.

2025-10-03 02:08:59 UTC

"Don't hate the player, hate the game" is one of those flippant things people say to absolve people of responsibility for the most blatantly unethical actions. It's a shitcoiner morality slogan.
It is possible at once to understand that we are living in a golden age of grift, and that systems have evolved to incentivize people to check their principles at the door for a buck. Still, everyone has agency and can choose not to sel their soul for a few bucks, a few clicks, a few likes.
It's important to find it within yourself to hate both the player AND the game.

2025-09-30 09:14:54 UTC

- reply

Looking forward to watching!... and glad to see no flames in the thumbnail

2025-09-29 09:07:08 UTC

- reply

Getting rid of government is the final stage: when you realize marshmallow's are shit for you and you are better off without them.

2025-09-27 05:48:14 UTC

A perhaps unpopular opinion that I firmly believe: MSTR has not even been net positive for bitcoin’s price. It’s been a negative on every front.

2025-09-27 05:44:21 UTC

- reply

This is awesome! Can future episodes be live-streamed on Nostr?

2025-09-24 05:34:45 UTC

- reply

I don't really enjoy the superhero genre, but at least Superman had an admirable protagonist, and wasn't the same dark, nihilistic drivel we've been getting.

2025-09-24 01:43:52 UTC

- reply

While I agree that current inequality is out-of-control, the solution to the inequality and injustice produced by govt central planning is not to institute more central planning?
Aside from the hubris of this, think of what it would take and mean to enforce these.
Number 1 is unenforcable without a draconian left of govt overreach. Even then, how do we determine what CEO's compensation? Often it is in stock and stock options, with the dollar amount being nominally low. And then how do you determine who consitutes a worker? Does it include part-time employees doing gig work? Will companies be forced to pay the nighttime janitor 1/30th of the CEOs "compensation"?
Number 3 perversely incentivizes either graduates to earn a low income so that they qualify for the jubilee. How about just ending state involvment in the student loan business altogether and allow sudent loan holders to declare bankruptcy?
Number 5 is just turning to govt into an even bigger grave robber...

2025-09-22 03:34:10 UTC

- reply

Surely this is AI...

2025-09-20 19:41:19 UTC

- reply

I assume these are using pre-tax annual income. If you look at the largest cities in Australia that ratio is 9-13x median income.

2025-09-20 06:56:51 UTC

- reply

You calyx-ing that bad boy?

2025-09-19 00:16:37 UTC

- reply

This is the inverse of reality. The far larger threat to bitcoin is inadequate developer interest, talent and funding. If I were a spook I would try to make bitcoin development as thankless and miserable an experience as possible, wait for a critical bug to be introduced due to inadequate review and exploit it to destroy confidence in the network and asset.

2025-09-16 08:05:35 UTC

GM
https://blossom.primal.net/1ffdf090c489e3b51ad8498802b26451058dd3391c22916eaa818e7842df98c9.jpg

2025-09-15 05:28:27 UTC

- reply

I may be on the other side of this debate, but bitpaine is among the most insufferable people in bitcoin. He doesn't seem to be particularly knowledgeable and hides his ignorance behind snarky insults.

2025-09-15 05:23:12 UTC

For all the young father's out there, I can't recommend this book highly enough: https://www.thesovereignchild.com/
We all want to be good fathers. This takes that abstract desire and provides a concrete guide for that means in practice.

2025-09-14 05:58:01 UTC

- reply

The danger with believing in collective guilt is that you necessarily must then believe in collective punishment

2025-09-10 04:09:59 UTC

- reply

https://fountain.fm/episode/iCQcMXw9gD04pPtDgB31
#nevent1q…wu2u

2025-09-09 05:26:17 UTC

- reply

Great ep!
https://fountain.fm/episode/F2XMl0iPF4tPxN3AEXQO
#nevent1q…60hp

2025-09-07 04:08:55 UTC

- reply

I know you read Peter Attia's series on lipidology, but are you familiar with Dave Feldman's lean mass hyper-responder hypothesis? https://cholesterolcode.com/lmhr/

2025-09-06 20:56:31 UTC

God I hate the bellcurve meme

2025-09-06 02:15:19 UTC

- reply

https://fountain.fm/episode/xdISRqZvcFCJcwvTNA7o
#nevent1q…0yaj

2025-09-03 05:28:42 UTC

- reply

Welcome! Do you sell your art for sats?

2025-09-02 04:14:26 UTC

While I agree that “everything is good for bitcoin” is mostly true, I don’t think it pertains just to attacks that don’t kill or meaningfully cripple bitcoin.
Shitcoins are the prime example here. They aren’t able to outcompete bitcoin in the marketplace, but they have been wildly successful at poisoning public sentiment. People see the grifting and associate it with bitcoin…they aren’t particularly discerning with their hatred.
Even otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people, like Cory Doctorow, can’t seem to disentangle bitcoin from “crypto”. It’s all just a VC and tech bro con.
This reputational damage has proven to be fairly durable, which I think is why we haven’t seen much retail interest in bitcoin this cycle (even though the we’ve 6x’d since the 2022 lows).
Anecdotally, I have many casual friends, who were previously at least open to bitcoin and are now ideologically opposed to it.
To give an example: a couple days ago I was having my annual fantasy football draft zoom with 11 guys I went to high school with, and the topic of bitcoin came up. One of the guys is a professional videographer. He was talking about having just been hired to film Eric Trump at the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong a week ago, and apparently had been re-hired to do another shoot during Eric’s travels in Japan.
The body language and derisive comments from guys on the call, not towards Trump but rather bitcoin itself, made me think that there is literally no price bitcoin can go to where these guys will ever purchase any. They will only hate it more as it grows.
I can’t say how exactly it will manifest, but this will hurt bitcoin at some point. It certainly won’t kill it, but there are going to be political backlashes in a lot of countries where politicians tap into this animosity.
I know npub1n3sjlzmhpu8rl56umtptc4lua6zkretq2p82yhytnmlcuq639vlqd0te5l and others have done great work showing how bitcoin is widely owned by people across the political spectrum. What I would be curious to see, though, is how prevalent extremely negative sentiment towards bitcoin is amongst the population, how rigid those beliefs are, and where those people lie politically.

2025-08-31 18:42:24 UTC

- reply

https://fountain.fm/episode/XRHxPWDK43EF80B3M3bM
#nevent1q…3758

2025-08-29 05:48:33 UTC

This is very fiat, but are there any Nostrich Fantasy Football leagues going this year?
If not, I'm keen to make one. I'm thinking 250k sats buy-in.

2025-08-28 02:28:25 UTC

- reply

Great wallet. Just please add UTXO labelling

2025-08-24 09:17:44 UTC

- reply

Alita: Battle Angel... though that was six years ago

2025-08-17 10:29:59 UTC

- reply

GM! 100%

2025-07-06 03:07:31 UTC

- reply

I can second to this. Jon Atack is an awesome core dev and a great guy besides.
Few have contributed as much as he has, and it's imperative we do everything we can to help him.
#nevent1q…7fzk

2025-06-18 17:01:44 UTC

- reply

2, then 6 (the Jack Bauer phone), then 10.

2025-06-17 22:00:37 UTC

- reply

Kiaora, Malcolm! If you ever come down to Christchurch, we've got a great community of bitcoiners and nostriches.

2025-06-15 22:02:12 UTC

- reply

Nice! Just purchased my ticket 🎫

2025-06-13 05:27:52 UTC

- reply

What Walker means to say is "can Israel chill for like 5 minutes?"
Literally no-one else is trying to instigate WW3 here.
#nevent1q…jr9g

2025-06-09 13:35:29 UTC

- reply

Can you ship to the UK?

2025-06-06 20:34:48 UTC

A friend just told me that, in the original story of Howl's Moving Castle, the reason he wanted his home to move around was to avoid property tax.
Makes me love it all the more.

2025-06-06 13:08:45 UTC

- reply

🫂

2025-06-06 09:05:52 UTC

The further I get into my bitcoin journey, the more I look back on the 2018-19 bear as the high-point of bitcoiner culture.
Bitcoin felt punk back then. We’d just emerged victorious from the block size wars, price had crashed to sub-$4k, lightning was just getting going, regulators were trying crush us...good times.
And, while on one hand, bitcoin has been substantially de-rerisked, open source funding has improved dramatically, the political environment has become more favourable…the culture feels like it has rotted (except for here on Nostr).
When I look at the empty mempools and lack of retail interest/search volume for bitcoin (despite basically being at ATHs), I can’t help but think it is because bitcoin has lost its counter-culture appeal in the eyes of most people. Between hyping MSTR and its myriad of clones, simping for politicians and cronyism, ‘strategic’ reserve bs, we’ve gone from suits not wanting to associate us because bitcoin is just used for drugs and terrorism dontcha know, to regular people not wanting to associate with us because of all the suits.
Feels like a kinda shitty timeline tbh.

2025-05-29 09:02:27 UTC

- reply

So this is replacing Green Wallet...?

2025-05-22 20:31:38 UTC

- reply

For me it isn't whether someone says something stupid, it's whether they are acting in good faith, or just pretending to believe something for ulterior reasons.

2025-05-12 20:08:44 UTC

- reply

Last 15mins was A+
https://fountain.fm/episode/oTbUzIEm58wf78ZOA6HN
#nevent1q…26fy

2025-05-09 17:27:48 UTC

- reply

Not for me

2025-05-09 12:29:48 UTC

Listening to this 1979 talk by the late psychologist, Nathaniel Branden. Though the topic is how libertarians can unwittingly work to undermine their own movement, it all equally applies to bitcoiners.
What starts as earnest and principled can so easily become performative if we don't engage in constant self-reflection.
https://youtu.be/pZiE_jcShXg?si=dPTvhKDRMaBUKuRP

2025-05-02 06:27:01 UTC

- reply

I think it did this to support stable coins more than ETH

2025-04-19 17:34:06 UTC

- reply

I've been using o3 for a complex surgical and unfortunately it still hallucinates a ton. It fully fabricated a couple of citations.
Would recommend using 'Deep Research' for investigating a topic, and then o3 for contextual reasoning about the results of that investigation.
npub1fls5au5fxj6qj0t36sage857cs4tgfpla0ll8prshlhstagejtkqc9s2yl#nevent1q…5cll

2025-04-17 11:25:24 UTC

- reply

Psychiatry has to be the most pretensious form of witch-doctory.

2025-04-15 15:54:59 UTC

- reply

We could also all stand to become a little weirder ourselves

2025-04-03 12:26:04 UTC

- reply

Great interview, Max! Stellar work 🔥

2025-03-18 08:52:50 UTC

- reply

I'm really not a fan of MSTR getting these kinds of passive flows.
Within bitcoin we rightly view yield with a mixture of suspicion and contempt, often saying things like "you are the yield".
MSTR stock has a perpetual gravity that pushes the stock price back to the value of their bitcoin treasury. The way Saylor generates his "BTC yield" is from indiscriminate buyers who pile in at multiples to MSTR's underlying bitcoin holdings. They are the ones being harvested.
Having retail investors passively and indiscriminately buying this thing every month makes them easy to harvest. Being charitable, MSTR is a strategic trading vehicle and shouldn't be treated as something you just allocate to the same way you DCA bitcoin.
#nevent1q…20pc

2025-03-18 08:31:59 UTC

- reply

Spontaneous Order looks pretty interesting

2025-03-16 18:49:38 UTC

Bitcoiners make fun of goldbugs a lot (and often for good reason).
However, gold is still the only other asset that it really makes sense to own. The kind of asset you would feel comfortable holding if you knew you were about to go into a coma for a decade.
Gold is the perfect compliment to bitcoin in a portfolio. The tail risks that could make bitcoin go to zero are twofold: political and technological. The tail risk that could make gold fall is that bitcoin's tail risks don't materialize.

2025-03-13 19:14:10 UTC

- reply

Brian, didn't recognize you without your caps on

2025-03-13 06:58:30 UTC

- reply

We have to remember, he’s saying this to a man who referred to Abu Dhabi as Aboo Daboo four times after having spent a week there.
#nevent1q…wtrz

2025-03-11 03:22:40 UTC

So much for the first amendment
https://m.primal.net/PbdT.png

2025-03-07 09:32:43 UTC

I like how, when a zap fails to send on Primal, it gives you a notification with the option "No"
https://m.primal.net/PWnV.png

2025-03-07 08:14:32 UTC

Civil asset forfeiture is just a fancy term for theft

2025-03-02 20:44:52 UTC

- reply

Why do we need a strategic bitcoin reserve? Why steal my money to buy the asset I want to buy more of? Why not just stop stealing my money and let me buy it?

2025-03-02 19:22:27 UTC

- reply

It's such naked corruption, I kinda am

2025-02-28 03:19:44 UTC

https://m.primal.net/POFl.png

2025-02-25 18:14:56 UTC

- reply

A nation of genocidal Jussie Smollett's
#nevent1q…judu

2025-02-17 02:31:13 UTC

https://m.primal.net/Oznb.png 😂

2025-02-16 06:09:52 UTC

- reply

https://m.primal.net/Oydw.png
Full tank of gas!
#nevent1q…8g39

2025-02-12 03:55:08 UTC

https://m.primal.net/Obuk.jpg
GM

2025-02-09 08:24:40 UTC

- reply

As do I 💔

2025-02-02 21:14:35 UTC

- reply

Are you optimistic about bitcoin's future as freedom tech? Does a future where the vast majority of people interact with bitcoin through large custodians seem inevitable to you?

2025-02-01 04:19:05 UTC

I normally agree with Lola, but she’s mistaken here on virtually every point of this: 
1. USDT on lightning is in no way “expanding US hegemony over the global south”. Most people in third world countries are desperate for dollars (Jack Mallers talks about this a lot, and this bottom-up demand is why Strike started supporting USDT on Tron). Compared to their local govt shitcoin, the USD is a pretty decent store-of-value.  
While it used to be that only fairly wealthy people in these countries who were able to save in dollars (as they either had to have offshore bank accounts or purchase physical cash on the grey market), USDT vastly expands who has access to dollars. As much as I hate the dollar and the entire fiat system, in this context it is the opposite of subjugation. It is liberation for potentially billions of people.   
It is also entirely opt-in. Compare some individual buying USDT on an app in their phone to vs the IMF or World Bank giving massive loans to their country’s dictator and then forcing all the citizens to pay off the debt once that dictator inevitably embezzles the funds. One is liberatory and voluntary, the other repressive and forced. 
2. As for Lola’s second paragraph: “The collab circumvents US dependency on selling debt to other nations while furthering Tether's position as one of the largest buyers of US Treasuries, custodied by a private entity formerly owned and operated by the US Secretary of Commerce.” I’m not sure what is particularly negative about any of this.
  We should want Tether’s position as one of the largest buyers of US Treasuries to be further cemented. Demand for USDT has historically been directly proportional to demand for bitcoin. If the US govt is dependent on Tether to buy its treasuries so it can fund itself, it can’t then go cracking down on bitcoin because that will affect demand for USDT and thus demand for treasuries.   
This is unambiguously a good thing.  
3. As for USDT being a CBDC… I’m not sure how Lola could be defining CBDC for this to make sense.   
Despite being issued by the company, Tether, this company has virtually zero insight into who actually holds USDT. Tether only has direct knowledge of the KYC-verified accounts that deposit/redeem USDT directly with them.   
This makes accurately discerning and freezing certain USDT wallets incredibly difficult. Especially since USDT is on a bunch of chains and swapped on all kinds of DEXes.   
Chainalysis is already a bunch of probabilistic nonsensical voodoo akin to blood spatter analysis or the polygraph.   Imagine how much harder things are going to be for the surveillers with USDT on lightning, where you already have pretty good privacy. Especially since you will be able to atomically swap USDT on lightning to USDT on Liquid (with confidential transactions).   
This seems like the opposite of a CBDC. It’s far closer to the creation of dark, digital USDs.
https://m.primal.net/OKnR.png

2025-01-27 08:44:16 UTC

- reply

Check's the best! Great episode 🔥