Juraj

I don’t seek rigid structure — I seek resonance

Learn how to use Bitcoin for more than just saving in my 📖Cryptocurrencies - Hack your way to a better life.

Vibe coding, reality bending, cypherpunk visions.

Get my books and courses here:
https://hackyourself.io/shop
https://juraj.bednar.io/shop

(You'll learn skills no one else is teaching!)

Podcasts 🎙️:
Option Plus - https://optionplus.io/
Reči o živote, vesmíre a vôbec: https://juraj.bednar.io/reci-o-zivote/
Ako vyhackovať otcovstvo: https://otcovia.com/

Public Key

npub1m2mvvpjugwdehtaskrcl7ksvdqnnhnjur9v6g9v266nss504q7mqvlr8p9

NIP-05 Address

juraj@bitpunk.fm

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsd4dkxqewy8xum47ctpu0ltgxxsfemeewpjkdyzk9ddfcg286s0dspp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduvg4sav

Publishing to

nos.lol

relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

npub1m2mvvpjugwdehtaskrcl7ksvdqnnhnjur9v6g9v266nss504q7mqvlr8p9

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-03-19 18:06:42 UTC

- reply

Media report. Government does not care about petitions, they care about the press, because press decides elections.

2026-03-19 10:34:47 UTC

I'm not usually a fan of petitions, but it blows my mind that over 7900 Paraguayan tax residents (citizens and expats) have signed petition against dangerous reporting that puts people at risk.
People actually care. And these are not random people from internet, but tax residents. You have to sign with your tax id.
All is not lost. And by all I mean my faith in human brain.
https://queremosquedarnos.org/

2026-03-13 09:50:10 UTC

Priatelia, @nprofile…zwsz sa rozhodla po cca dekáde zorganizovať pokračovanie konferencie Bitcoin je retro ( @nprofile…u2lg ) . Kým nie je von program, sú k dispozícii lacnejšie lístky pre ranné vtáčatá.
Akcia bude 25. apríla 2026 (sobota) v A4 12:00-23:00.
Čakajú vás OG cypherpunks a zamyslenie sa nad tým, či je Bitcoin retro (podľa mňa nie, ale neviem, či vás presvedčím!:).
https://bitcoinjeretro.cypherpunk.today/
https://blossom.primal.net/8182a73feb4cb02e9a60897870210cab2be1bc98fab0bc7a5416ad595f819e20.jpg

2026-03-12 20:34:33 UTC

- reply

And neurofeedback! 😁
Sign me up

2026-03-12 20:33:35 UTC

- reply

It's even older than that, by almost a decade.
The phrase "Information wants to be free" is famously attributed to Stewart Brand, the counterculture icon and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog.
He first uttered it (or a very close version of it) in 1984 during a conversation with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at the first Hackers Conference in Marin County, California.
Then he wrote about it in his book in 1987.

2026-03-12 18:17:59 UTC

- reply

Tak raz za rok sa niečo podarí.
Ale momentálne mám skôr cieľ robiť experimenty ktoré som dávno chcel urobiť.

2026-03-12 11:35:30 UTC

- reply

Mením tak raz za dva týždne. Claude code, codex, momentálne dosť používam opencode. API cez Venice, občas si zaplatím nejakú subscription. Momentálne opencode a gpt-5.4 cez github copilot. Ale zase sme chvíľu v móde, že takmer všetko je veľmi dobré, takže na tom až tak nezáleží, dôležité je robiť, nie skúšať

2026-03-12 11:30:54 UTC

- reply

That's actually a very old (1984) cypherpunk saying, not authored by @npub1der…xzpc
But it's ok to attribute it to anyone. Because information wants to be free 😁

2026-03-11 22:11:36 UTC

- reply

I was surprised about companion nodes not repeating, but I came to understand why. I was running a repeater and the community gently told me to just turn it off. You can cover the whole city with three repeaters. There are more than three of course, but I was basically not helping anything, I was taking precious airtime.
The repeater nodes are pretty cheap and you need to really think where you put them - as high up as possible, with the best visibility. Most users given this option would be like me "I want to help the network". But I was not really helping, I was just using airtime in an area that was perfectly covered.I was surprised about companion nodes not repeating, but I came to understand why. I was running a repeater and the community gently told me to just turn it off. You can cover the whole city with three repeaters. There are more than three of course, but I was basically not helping anything, I was taking precious airtime.
The repeater nodes are pretty cheap and you need to really think where you put them - as high up as possible, with the best visibility. Most users given this option would be like me "I want to help the network". But I was not really helping, I was just using airtime in an area that was perfectly covered.

2026-03-11 22:10:17 UTC

- reply

2026-03-11 22:06:25 UTC

- reply

No idea, have not tried it.

2026-03-11 22:05:52 UTC

- reply

Yes, when I can test it. But feel free to merge upstream to it and create pull request, it should be pretty straightforward.

2026-03-11 22:03:10 UTC

I vibed a frontend for Venice.ai using OpenCode and GPT-5.4 — open source, purely static HTML. Supports chat, image generation and video.
Nothing is sent to my server, it communicates directly with the Venice API. You can run it locally on localhost (needs to be served through http/s though).
Useful if you want to give someone access via an API key without needing to log in.
They just enter an API key and are good to go.
Source code repo: https://github.com/jooray/venice-frontend
Deployed at: https://cypherpunk.today/venice-frontend/

2026-03-11 12:32:58 UTC

- reply

There's a lot of development, most of it FOSS happening on MeshCore.
It is inevitable, because proprietary doesn't get the patches from the vibecoders 😉 So FOSS will be way better.

2026-03-11 12:12:22 UTC

- reply

I use only community firmware, not really much into T-Deck personally. There's a lot of alternative open source firmware as well though.
There's also https://github.com/satsdisco/meshngr by @npub1gun…nudq

2026-03-11 12:09:38 UTC

- reply

High point can be top of a tree. Quite permissionless.
Also this:
#nevent1q…tfr4

2026-03-11 12:05:04 UTC

- reply

I would say MeshCore, it's easier to make it work with less infrastructure.
But you need high places with good visibility. Roofs of tallest buildings or hills.
Get a solar+ battery node for repeaters. Forget about running it in your home, high up.

2026-03-10 23:02:30 UTC

- reply

Unfortunately I can't, but thanks for doing it! You all can have permissionless fun without me!

2026-03-10 23:00:55 UTC

- reply

Use whatever works in your area already.

2026-03-10 23:00:13 UTC

- reply

For tax residency the physical stay requirement is the same as Panama. Taxes are worse if you can't set up a different regime, but with a good provider you can. And it's quite high quality of life.

2026-03-09 11:55:42 UTC

Roadstr — a decentralized "Waze" integrated with OsmAnd and a web version. The spec allows sending events via MeshCore as well, otherwise it goes through Nostr. However, MeshCore is not yet implemented — for now, only the event format has been specified for MeshCore. Nostr is functioning. Pull requests welcome.
https://github.com/jooray/roadstr
https://blossom.primal.net/7e441f07a8b2f776b0af15fd43c0ebe69fdab8b114c2e19d13941a81725d379d.png https://blossom.primal.net/a7d7bd80a9fd9ab484bb8550597f21829fb5bedcaa2bc513c646a5b31b8b04fb.png

2026-03-05 13:01:11 UTC

- reply

The best provider for Paraguay, Uruguay and Panama is Liberation.travel by @npub15xk…krnh
Especially for Europeans.
Yeah, don't count on retirement income from the state. That's what btc is for.
And even better - don't retire. If you kill your creativity, you kill your soul.

2026-03-04 15:46:12 UTC

Very good writeup.
I'll add a few more things.
- in EU, the age verification is using zero knowledge proofs and as far as I know it's mandatory to do it this way. This means that age verification is created from your digital ID, but it's probably unlinkable to your identity or your other verifications. Of course this would be easily bypassable by anyone, because if you can link infinite number of accounts with one id (and there's no way to distinguish it), they figured out they have to do app attestation. So EU that hates American corporations will force you to use stock Apple device or Android with Google stamp (GrapheneOS, or Linux desktop will not work by default). It's funny, because even the reference implementation is proudly open source. But it can't compile and run it yourself - well, you can, but the age verification will be invalid, because you don't have their attestation keys.
This is not forcing tracking or a privacy breach, but it's forcing you to a walled garden ecosystem of Apple and Google and into digital ids.
Check out https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2025/12/08/the-internet-and-computers-arent-what-they-used-to-be-why-your-apps-stopped-working-hardware-attestation/

2026-03-02 14:26:08 UTC

- reply

https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2025/12/08/the-internet-and-computers-arent-what-they-used-to-be-why-your-apps-stopped-working-hardware-attestation/

2026-02-23 06:51:46 UTC

GM Nostr!

2026-02-22 15:51:26 UTC

- reply

nevent1qqstfulj7uatqjsgg5renxnly3hqj0ahre5ctke2f9d8p2klz78yqws9pyq8c

2026-02-21 07:38:49 UTC

- reply

It's simple - have no fiat to spend.

2026-02-02 07:47:03 UTC

- reply

Who's vibe coding Nostr based ride sharing?

2026-01-12 08:33:43 UTC

- reply

We will all be totally stupid.
Guilty as charged. My home assistant voice stopped working. I just pasted in my docs and told it to fix it.

2025-12-26 08:58:28 UTC

- reply

Make it trending on Nostr too!
Any Nostriches going to #39c3?
#nevent1q…w6qk

2025-12-25 13:17:44 UTC

Why don't you like EU age control?
Collecting data for an article.

2025-12-14 06:23:22 UTC

- reply

Same happened to me on Amazon. Gift card, and then they just banned my whole account. The only way to access support is from the web interface of the banned account. No audible books, no Kindle books I've purchased, even my gift card balance disappeared.
But it allowed me to discover libro.fm as an alternative to audible.

2025-12-11 20:50:31 UTC

- reply

I needed exactly this in Paraguay and especially Uruguay. Please bring it over.
#nevent1q…ht6j

2025-12-10 16:46:08 UTC

- reply

True, but also let's be realistic about the impact. Lifetime value of a customer is quite low, there are definitely not millions of us. And then you have to consider the costs as well. Even 10% of users using only web might be a losing proposition for them, because the cost is also developing parallel web app (in addition to iOS and Android app) and fighting spam, bots and user scripts. With the attestation they can be fairly sure that the client is not a script, etc. Maybe not in theory, but definitely in practice.
It might very well be that switching off the web will increase profit despite losing a significant percentage of customers.
Also my particular one action, especially if it's free service has basically zero say in this, it's a rounding error. And I can only influence my actions and native a few hundred people (but realistically, probably a few dozen).

2025-12-08 23:38:53 UTC

- reply

Unpopular opinion: I don't want normies here :)
(Fortunately, no one cares who I want here).
Otherwise agreed.

2025-12-06 08:20:08 UTC

- reply

YakiHonne, Amethyst, Primal and Damus. Yes, I swap them around like socks, that's the power of Nostr:).
And congratulations for moving from iOS to Grapheneos, I've done the same.
Also get Amber, which will be your key store.

2025-10-22 07:33:15 UTC

The easier it is to return a bought item, the more likely it is I will buy it
The easier it is to close a business, the more likely I will start one
The easier it is to fire someone, the more likely I will hire someone
The easier it is to end a rental contract, the more likely I will rent
The easier it is to exit, the more likely I will stay
- Juraj Tsu, The Tao of Friction

2025-09-29 10:20:39 UTC

Útek do digitálnych hôr – o stratégiách na odpudzovanie štátu a metrikách slobody
Čo majú spoločné moderní kryptoanarchisti a horské kmene Zomie – oblasti veľkej ako Európa v juhovýchodnej Ázii s populáciou viac ako sto miliónov ľudí? Vyvinuli si stratégie, ktoré odpudzujú štát – nielen sa mu vyhýbajú, ale dosahujú, že sa štát vyhýba im.
Aké sú paralely medzi ich stratégiami a kryptoanarchiou? Môžeme sa od nich niečo naučiť? A môžu sa oni sami stať kryptoanarchistami, keď digitálna dystópia v Ázii naberá na sile?
Prednáška skúma evolučnú podstatu štátu – nie ako zámerný plán, ale ako výsledok prirodzeného výberu. Predstaví pohľad Balaji Srinivasana na štyri globálne sily formujúce súčasný svet a ukáže, ako sa internet stáva našimi novými digitálnymi kopcami – útočiskom pred kontrolou.
https://juraj.bednar.io/podcast/2025/09/29/utek-do-digitalnych-hor-o-strategiach-na-odpudzovanie-statu-a-metrikach-slobody/
https://blossom.primal.net/c7adc300ece2b2eae28405f43551a841bb5f787df4d44a925c7fb8e9b585163a.jpg

2025-09-24 08:27:41 UTC

- reply

We are tuned!
#nevent1q…9amh

2025-09-22 20:55:30 UTC

My home assistant just wrote me on SimpleX:
"Dog is barking persistently, please check if everything's okay."
I'm worried. How is this possible? 😁

2025-09-09 13:18:54 UTC

- reply

Where? How many VPS and VPNs do you need? 😉

2025-09-06 14:52:56 UTC

- reply

Especially with the near intents swaps, you can pay any shitcoin privately. Someone wants usdc on Arbitrum? Sure give me the address, I'll pay it right from Zashi.
And there's no CEX involved that could stop the tx.

2025-09-01 13:56:31 UTC

- reply

In lightning you get as much privacy as you want. I don't care what others want. If I was a dealer, I don't care about sender's privacy, that's their thing. I care about mine.
In Monero, practical privacy is difficult simply because of smaller network effect. I have privacy in many of my purchases because of lightning, which I wouldn't otherwise had, because they don't accept Monero. The size of network determines the overall privacy you get in your life. Cash+lightning is pretty good coverage of most of my purchases.
As for privacy comparison, don't forget this: https://youtu.be/-sTT84Up7FY?si=3xHT5lMXY2U8rCqo

2025-08-31 10:17:14 UTC

- reply

I count myself among the privacy freaks. As I said, I use Monero myself.
But the point is - using Monero is more about signaling. "I am among you". It's no more private than lightning which is more widely adopted. But by using Monero, you show that privacy is important for you. That you are a privacy freak.
Another thing is that privacy is not normal. Normies don't want it. Certainly not if it causes them any inconvenience. That's why we are privacy freaks.
Monero is like wearing a privacy country club cap or polo shirt. We use it more to show off than for practical reasons.

2025-08-30 13:52:55 UTC

- reply

I do know about it, I also use it for trading with friends. But it's basically a privacy freak club token.
Even the drug dealers now take Lightning (those that take any crypto at all), I have heard from people familiar with the matter. And they quite often don't take Monero, because they can't swap it to fiat at least in Europe on Binance 😃

2025-08-30 09:16:43 UTC

- reply

True, but since it's network is 100x smaller, it's quite hard to find the other peer to peer to.

2025-08-28 10:15:49 UTC

OK. Anonymous publishing of APKs is gone. No sideloading, no Obtainium, unless KYCed. This will fix nothing (there are many people who will gladly KYC for a bottle of vodka), but introduce control into Android, that was pretty open so far.
The minority of @nprofile…750r and similar will be still free.
We need to move to PWAs.
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html

2025-08-25 06:53:42 UTC

- reply

Je to dobré?

2025-08-25 06:42:02 UTC

Why traditional media hate tech in one picture.
From:
https://youtu.be/cBFbXRjTVLc?si=iHIcNWJjKE4QKd-_
https://blossom.primal.net/fc9b90fc9acbabe93f02b86cf8e8e58a4ceed3c1c5131e656dd7dff719697986.png

2025-08-21 21:14:54 UTC

OK, demo time. Project done in 57 minutes, including learning everything I had to learn. I changed the Poll WebXDC app to D21 Poll. D21 is a voting system described by Karel Janeček. You drop it into a DeltaChat group (or any other WebXDC supporting app). And you have full D21 voting, for example on your favourite restaurant.
It suggests you how many plus and minus points you can assign. Example - if you want to choose among 5 restaurants, you choose two (different) ones you like and one you don't like. The results are much better than simple +1 voting system.
Code: https://github.com/jooray/d21poll
WebXDC file to drop to DeltaChat conversation here: https://github.com/jooray/d21poll/releases/tag/v1.0
Demo: https://jooray.github.io/d21poll/index.html
(You can add a fictional participant on bottom left "Add Peer", which simulates WebXDC functionality in your web browser).
We need this for Bitchat!
https://blossom.primal.net/c77d21577a16873f21a5785f300f67fec10f6804839c6d59d2ee56138e4a96b7.png
https://blossom.primal.net/670d61647339bd11676e097e7ff225dfb3f2da6fb6d64190f2217627225fa8ec.png
https://blossom.primal.net/1c43bdbb15911fab6ad87bc0216f6db35af5c11ac76ed5a4edff2363f8afc93d.png

2025-08-19 08:54:01 UTC

Na Lunarpunku v Košiciach máme ako oficiálnu appku na interakcie Bitchat. Na konferencie je to podľa mňa ideálne. Tak ak nepoznáte, prečítajte si o tom tu (aj ak nejdete na Lunarpunk).
https://lunarpunk.cypherpunk.today/#c48db7dba22dc3c59271ac52acbd1edb253ef98b5ab344bca5520d6a61c1640e
https://blossom.primal.net/188fd1d63afed6ac8b0d1b41cafefdb83f1c07cd48510b8d7d3ab49e4074bf13.jpg

2025-08-18 07:32:20 UTC

I'm having some troubles with @nprofile…l6t9. Two sites consistently have this behavior where I publish a post and it does not appear until one or two refreshes. Then on another device it disappears again.
I tried to propagate it to most relays. Is it some caching issue? Or is it getting the messages directly from relays when rendering? Is there a way to know which relays?
I have a script that republishes events to all my relays, so they should know about all posts:
https://github.com/jooray/nostr-scripts
The accounts with this behavior are @nprofile…x0mh and @nprofile…sq2t:
https://lunarpunk-festival.npub.pro/
https://theohm.npub.pro/
See the videos. First a post appears and then after a few refreshes there are newer posts:
https://video.nostr.build/598db5430ba0ad67288eebf1d6028196b15a930a72741a7fe36966fb93bb5dff.mp4
https://video.nostr.build/bbb572b4abcf6ffc98c3d275a2d74b46a2ce73a7884af9d7b6d2ce4b04109194.mp4
Also, it's independent of browser, internet connection and whether mobile/desktop. And which article is the last displayed is somehow consistent.
Please help debug 🙏

2025-08-13 07:40:28 UTC

There's this myth going around that all darknets are powered by XMR.
Trying to find one that actually works for research. Is there at least one functioning darknet that actually takes XMR? Link?

2025-08-04 19:52:09 UTC

Parallel Polis was a strategy how to survive and thrive in a somewhat dystopic society (also known as communism).
Since it's starting to be pressing, it might be a good idea to revisit how to create a parallel society in case the main one gets broken. When it gets broken.
https://fleebr.community/blogs/%CE%B6/parallel-polis

2025-08-03 16:21:13 UTC

- reply

That's the biggest problem. It's not a wall that you suddenly hit. It's like constantly trying to cross a wild river. You always hope it's just three more steps and then you are on the shore. But there's no shore to reach, it keeps moving away from you.
But I'll give you examples. VAT is different and keeps changing. One country would lower VAT on books to 5%, then to 0%, then they have an election and say ebooks for children have the full VAT. Multiply by all countries in EU.
Or you want to send the book to Germany. But no shipping company would take it, because they have introduced a special system where you have to pay a fee and register and report each package's wrapping material. What kind of envelope, did you wrap it in plastic, etc. I'm not joking at all BTW. You really have to do this. Multiply this bullshit by all member countries.
If you knew this in advance, you would never do it in a million years. But since people believe it can't be that bad, they go into the river. And there's no shore...
On the internet especially with Bitcoin, you can just do things...

2025-07-31 13:22:44 UTC

It is now (somewhat) possible to run fully local (no cloud, no spyware) Alexa/assistant alternative with Home Assistant, Ollama (I run it on Apple Silicon) and as an endpoint Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition.
I've written about my setup (and challenges), but TLDR: You can just say "Ok Nabu, turn on my bedroom AC" and it works.
I've dreamt about this in Cypherpunk Visions 2023-2025 (a short book). Now I am going to write update for 2026-2029 (3 years is a good timeframe) and this will be "normal" for those who want it now, it's not just a dream.
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/blueprint-on-ai-using-ollama-on-apple-silicon/916158

2025-07-24 05:59:28 UTC

- reply

I am not saying that prices are high because of regulations. I am saying that market is what gives low prices regardless of regulation. The claim was that European union's regulation will tame the market and bring low prices. Yet I'm not in the regulation of prices and I have lower unregulated price also in Europe!
(Side note: The cost of erecting tower is Paraguay is probably not lower, there's much less capital in Paraguay. But that's not the point, I am talking about roaming data, not local data. )

2025-06-17 08:49:49 UTC

My talk "going to the digital hills" will take us through the ancient 2000 year old strategy of being ungovernable with cool cypherpunk tech. At Cypherpunk meetup.
I will talk about Reticulum mesh networking, but also how it relates to cypherpunk tech and cryptoanarchy strategy. And I promise I won't talk long.
Cypherpunk meetup in Prague before BTCPrague as an official side event. And we have many more things than me speaking prepared for you.
Tickets and more info here:
https://pay.cypherpunk.today/apps/2XpjQGab73AHiuHq1KNEEyFFKSZx/crowdfund
https://blossom.primal.net/5914a7c76cd611094250a39c5c284123ff716db478da87767830c7cb9154808a.jpg
https://blossom.primal.net/a3bf42727ca640bb33d9829973d3e48f7d053d83c25add4119ccd38032989d77.jpg

2025-06-17 08:29:43 UTC

Just came from Tallinn, Estonia. A few things that are very interesting to me:
- ex-soviet republic, less economically developed during communism than (Czecho)Slovakia, but now way more developed
- digital transformation - nice that you can apply for the eID remotely, but otherwise the systems are not too ahead to Slovakia's e-government.
- The accounting practices and principles for running a company are basically EU-standard, if you have run a company in EU, you know how it works (VAT, etc.)
- On the other hand, no bullshit - no transaction taxes, micromanagement of social / health insurance, VAT rates changing year to year. Very stable, easy, no bullshit - file invoices, tax return, you're good to go, no one bothers you
- no tax on reinvested income - basically, you only tax what you pay out as dividend on company level too. This promotes investment and development. The only other country in EU that has this is Poland, but with much stricter conditions (not for digital nomad projects).
- attracts immigrants (both people and companies) from Finland and abroad - proximity, huge tax benefits, you can basically be ~22% income taxed, many athletes or other companies (Hololife center) moving from Finland to Estonia. Cheap and high quality access to EU markets
- High quality - Tallinn has several Michelin-rated restaurants (Bratislava none), hipster specialty coffee shops (at least as good as Bratislava), sauna culture (although Bratislava is getting better)
- people are friendly, they speak many languages (common for an Estonian to speak Estonian, Russian, Finnish and English - at the same time!)
Downsides: - weather especially in winter (no sunlight)
Meanwhile in Slovakia - entrepreneurs fed up, moving abroad, too much bullshit

2025-06-11 21:18:38 UTC

- reply

Well, Scott says that with advent of modern nation state, things have changed (and thus probably not many young people). That's why we have cryptoanarchy, because as attack vectors changed, so have to change the defense tactics.
Anyway very cool you've lived there, I would be excited to hear more about it. I've been to quite a few of these myself (Yunnan / Xishuangbanna, Laos, Cambodia, northern Thailand), it's fascinating, especially if you consider the terrain and the fact that people really used to live there 😉 .
I enjoyed also his other books (Seeing like the State, Against the Grain).

2025-06-05 05:03:34 UTC

- reply

It's actually much better than I thought
#nevent1q…dsx7

2025-05-31 23:34:22 UTC

- reply

OMG, that is a horrible piece of software :(. API documentation is basically just a few random examples. For example I don't see even basic things how to create a public key from npub (the "Keys" section in documentation contains only secret keys).
Documentation here:
https://rust-nostr.org/

2025-05-25 13:27:18 UTC

- reply

Put your own mask first.
Držím palce, oranžové leto je lepšie aktivovať čo najskôr.

2025-05-24 07:49:00 UTC

PSA: Buy Bitcoin if you don't have any. Yes, it's peaking, but you missed all lower prices. The reason is peaking is that everyone else in the fiat economy is falling. You don't want to be caught empty handed even shit hits the fan. Bitcoin is insurance and insurance is expensive when the probability you might need it gets up.
Buy it without KYC to your own cold storage. No ETFs, no MSTR, no "investment broker". Hard cold storage.
If you made up some story in your mind about morality that's stopping you, read
https://cryptoanarchy.institute/nocoiner-syndrome-2024.pdf
You don't need to tell anyone, if you publicly hate bitcoin, we don't care. But when shtf, you don't want to hold government paper, or other fiat assets (stocks, real estate, bonds, ...). You might add gold for good measure.
No, we're not pumping our bags with this, just look at the daily volume of btc/usd. You are not rich enough to move the price with your purchase.
I fully know most of you nocoiners will just ignore me, one of the reasons I post this is to be able to show it to you later. It's up to you, if we'll be both laughing. I'd rather not laugh alone. Be smart.
A quick intro (no sign up needed, free, I'm not making money on this):
https://hackyourself.io/courses/a-quick-introduction-to-bitcoin-wallet-setup-buying-payments/
Tell your nocoiner friends. You don't want your friends to be poor, even if it means you were right and they were wrong.

2025-05-12 18:00:27 UTC

- reply

P2P is the way. Learn it, there will be a time when you need it.
Vexl is a non profit app.
#nevent1q…cv4e

2025-05-08 17:17:30 UTC

- reply

Exchanging Bitcoin backed freebanking ecash notes denominated in eur and usd through melt to collaboratively mint a sats denominated note from another mint, all over lightning with multinut payment to mint the coin is 8D magic.
Coming soon to your mints and wallets because of the ecash wizards
#nevent1q…rqxn

2025-04-27 07:42:30 UTC

Buď je úplne mimo tento súdruh alebo ja. Ja mám rád zmrzlinu, Bratislavu, dedinku v Uruguay, čerstvý vzduch, more, les, ... a nič z toho by som nešiel brániť. To neznamená, že nie sú veci, ktoré by som nebránil, ale teda krajina tam rozhodne nepatrí. Ale mám ju rád. Niektoré veci, ktoré nám rád však skončia a nahradím ich inými vecami ktoré mám rád.
Moja skúsenosť z precestovania celého sveta je, že Slovensko nie je vôbec ničím zásadne výnimočné (a Čechy tiež). Je samozrejme unikátne (už len pre tie divné jazyky, ktorými sa tam rozpráva a ktorým zhodou okolností rozumiem), ale za mňa v zásade nadpriemer. Čiže existuje aspoň 50 krajín, ktoré viem mať rád rovnako a sú z mnohých ohľadov lepšie (a v niečom horšie). Ak by som si mal vybrať krajinu vs bezpečnosť mňa a mojej rodiny, neváham ani na sekundu a odpoveď píšem z pláže v Uruguaji.
https://m.primal.net/QetZ.jpg

2025-04-25 09:52:16 UTC

- reply

I still don't see a problem. I pay with banknotes and coins and still know it's euros.
This is purely invented problem and a proposed solution creates confusion.
If people start using "sats", so what. It will be sats. People who want to know what is Bitcoin will know.
We have real problems to solve, this is not it.

2025-04-22 10:48:54 UTC

Which Lightning node implementation has the best payment routing algorithm and best success rate? I am on core lightning, but I can barely send a small payment, even though I have many channels (quite balanced, I definitely have enough sats on my side in quite a few of them). I can receive easily (probably because routing is done by the sending node).
I switched to xpay, didn't help much.
What is state of the art?

2025-04-02 16:37:24 UTC

- reply

While voting usually sucks for decision making (prediction markets are better), this is amazing.
Don't overuse it, vote on the restaurants to go with friends.
#nevent1q…qqn8

2025-01-24 20:41:33 UTC

unpopular opinion: I want the us state strategic reserve to contain primarily memecoins, monkey nfts and pump and dump shitcoins.
let them go down. state should be poor.

2024-11-09 16:43:49 UTC

- reply

I feel it's very good I have no idea what you are talking about.

2024-11-06 17:39:38 UTC

The lesson at the end is exactly what I've been doing for a long time now. Don't read the news, read the prices.
Not only about the outcome, but how probabilities react to smallest changes in the environment. Matching over 3 billion is definitely not just crypto bros trading their hopium (as @robinhanson's paper on Futarchy says "Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs?"). That kind of money trades an edge.
What is even more funny to me is how people think that someone would just buy trump yes tokens to see a number move on one platform. No, you do that when you have insider information. Funny thing was that it was the other way around - Trump's team was watching Polymarket numbers to see what works.
When my wife asks me if there's going to be WW3 this year, I say I don't know (no one really knows), but to see the odds, I look at the markets. The crypto bros trading these markets have an edge.
Now free Ross and I'm going back to coding. And order some coffee from my crypto bro wins on polymarket.
P.S.: https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2021/06/23/prediction-markets-crowdsourcing-information-for-good-decisions/
-----
Original post:
https://x.com/hosseeb/status/1854154029796073814?t=axNSGD8GNW50vnLvZIXu6A&s=19
What Polymarket got Right that the Experts Got Wrong
As the dust settles on the election, there’s a story that the WSJ and NYT didn’t tell you. While the mainstream news was busy with their TV pageantry and hedging on calling key swing states, Polymarket, the world’s biggest prediction market, had already delivered its verdict by midnight EST, declaring Trump was 97% likely to win. This was before the media called even a single swing state.
All throughout this election, Polymarket was always one step ahead. I want to explain why this is, because judging from the Twitter responses I was getting last night, most people deeply misunderstand this.
There are two fundamental things that Polymarket did better than the media.
1. Polymarket was more accurate on the forecast going into the election.
Let’s take the pollsters and analysts. Election poll-based models claimed the race was a dead-even 50/50. Polymarket meanwhile was priced Trump with a distinct edge—going into the election, he was priced around 62% to win.
If you remember, the mainstream media derided Polymarket for this difference. Polymarket should be the same as the modelers, they said! Obviously it means you can’t trust Polymarket. It’s priced differently because it’s a bunch of Trump-loving crypto bros. It’s invested by Peter Thiel. Only foreigners trade on it. It's unregulated, so it must be being manipulated. There's a whale pushing up the price of Trump. And on and on.
Implicit in this dismissal is a deep distrust of markets. As though markets cannot be trusted unless affirmatively proven otherwise. And of course, if you actually trusted the markets, you might not trust the media anymore. And their whole business model is predicated on you distrusting anyone but them—why else would you continue to click on their never-ending stream of clickbait?
But anyone with experience with markets knows: it doesn’t fucking matter if a market is composed of Republicans, or Democrats, or foreigners, or whatever. In reality, we know that JP Morgan was using Polymarket, as were some of the largest hedge funds in the world (most have non-US subsidiaries). It was integrated into Bloomberg Terminal, it was being quoted on CNN. And yet the media spoke of Polymarket as though it was 4chan.
Understand, Polymarket traded $3.6 BILLION dollars on the presidential election. This was the largest election betting market by volume IN HISTORY and AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more than any other election market ever. There was more riding on this than any single modelers’ career prospects. Understand—markets work because of how much is riding on getting the answer right.
These supposed biases—being Trump-aligned crypto-pilled non-Americans—didn’t skew the market’s accuracy. (It seems obvious in retrospect that being non-American might improve your ability to dispassionately predict an election.)
But the identities of the bettors didn't matter. Prediction markets distill input from many diverse actors to produce prices that transcend biases. Markets don't care about ideology, they only care about being right.
And as it turns out, Polymarket was more right than any pollster or modeler.
Now, I want to be clear what I’m not saying: the difference between 60/40 and 50/50 sounds big, but it’s not. Elections are noisy. High school statistics will tell you that if you want to tell if a coin is rigged to be 60/40 rather than 50/50, you would need over 100 coin flips to have 90% certainty. The outcome of “Trump won this election” does not tell you whether the coin was 60/40 or 50/50.
My point is not that Polymarket was right and the models were wrong. They actually didn't disagree with each other by much. I'm making a more subtle point: the market was consistently pricing Trump’s odds higher than the polls. Remember, the market knows what the polls and analysts are saying. Markets incorporate all existing information—but Polymarket disagreed with with the pollsters. The only explanation that analysts could come up with for this was: Polymarket is biased.
They didn’t have the humility to imagine, maybe, just maybe, Polymarket knew something that was not being captured by the polls.
Polling sucks. This is all well established now. In the pre-Internet era, polling was much more accurate. Landline poll response rates were often above 60%. Today, poll response rates are around 5%. This means pollsters are getting massive sampling biases, and there is no possible way to correct these biases without baking in clumsy statistical corrections. (Plus pollsters—who are ultimately selling a product and have reputations to keep up—frequently herd their estimates together to avoid being an outlier, which fucks up poll aggregation.)
Plus, Trump is special. He is uniquely divisive in American politics. So for three elections in a row, we have seen massive polling errors that underestimated his support—the so called “Shy Trump Voter” effect.
Polymarket presumably believed that the polls were missing this. The pollsters said, no: we’ve updated our models and corrected for it. Polymarket said: I don't buy it. Polymarket was right.
Now, again! Polymarket did not say the election was 90% for Trump to win. 62% is not a sure thing, and elections are genuinely uncertain. But what irks me is that there was not even a tinge of curiosity from the media about the delta. Maybe Polymarket knows something we don’t? Maybe there’s information we’re missing that’s not being captured in the polls?
Remember, Trump massively outperformed his polls all across the country, in both red states and blue ones. He sweeped every single swing state, and even won the popular vote—something most people thought impossible.
Are you really so confident that there was no way to detect this—the sentiment of tens of millions of Americans—that didn’t involve the same old pollsters running the same old Internet surveys?
This is what being a student of the markets teaches you. Markets are smart. But they don’t explain themselves—they just show you the outcome.
That brings us to the second way that Polymarket outperformed the media.
2. Polymarket called the election in real-time, way before the media did.
The inscrutability of markets came in full force on election night. Polymarket moved quickly and violently before a single swing state was ever called. According to Polymarket, the election was over by midnight, while the mainstream media was milking the drama until the election was officially called at 6AM the next morning. Why was this?
First, Polymarket saw an important correlation that the mainstream media was not willing to explain to their viewers. You see, polling errors are seldom random; they are usually correlated across states. So when traders saw that Trump was massively outperforming his polls in states that were not themselves competitive—picking up huge vote share in NYC (cleanly blue) or Florida (cleanly red), this meant that there must be a massive polling miss across the country.
Polymarket immediately picked up on this and realized that the swing states could not possibly be competitive anymore. Polymarket priced Trump to win Pennsylvania at 90% by 11:30PM, when only a small portion of the Pennsylvania vote had been counted.
Prediction markets don’t wait for pageantry or pundits. It doesn’t care if it invalidates the sacred ritual of waiting for the votes to be counted. Remember in 2020 when Fox News called Arizona early (which turned out to be correct), viewers were outraged. Trump vowed to boycott the network over it. This reinforced the lesson—the networks must sit there and dutifully count up the votes. Don’t be too clever.
But markets don’t care about drama. They only care about outcomes. Obviously, it would be incredibly difficult to explain to a CNN viewer that the election is over, the polling error in non-competitive states is too big, Kamala is doomed and you should go to sleep and not bother to wait for swing states. It goes against the narrative that the media has been reinforcing for months. The public wants simple, explainable stories, and everyone knows how the narrative is supposed to go—you wait for the swing states and until one of the little colored bars crosses the 270 line.
At 12:51AM, the NYT was still showing this dramatic chart and headline. By then Polymarket already had Trump priced at 98% to win.
So election watchers dutifully stayed up through the night so the media could complete its empty ritual of filling up the bars.
Polymarket’s traders have no loyalty to narrative and no incentive to play up the drama for ratings—they just call it straight. @shayne_coplan, Polymarket’s founder, said that Trump’s campaign team was reading Polymarket to try to understand how to actually interpret the odds. The media even had the gall to complain that Trump was declaring victory when his electoral count was at 267—at that point, the Polymarket odds were so low that they registered as 100%.
The beauty of markets is they respond instantly to new information. The fastest trader who incorporates the information gets a prize—profit. This is something traditional media fundamentally is not set up to do. They have to filter events through layers of interpretation, narrative making, and internal politics (recall Murdoch’s intercession into the 2020 Arizona call).
The decentralized nature of Polymarket bypasses all this bullshit. It lets information flow without any interference.
There is a lot to reflect on from last night. This election was a resounding reprimand of the Democratic party, a rejection of the expert class, and an immune response against an arrogant media.
But for Polymarket, it was a night of pure vindication.
For me, the lesson is this: the next time something important is going on in the world, skip the op eds and check the Polymarket odds.

2024-10-09 16:00:41 UTC

This year's HCPP (the last one in a sense) was pretty special for me. As probably the only conference fully dedicated to cryptoanarchy it was always my favorite.
This year it was mostly about personal connections for me. I feel that over past few years, people have been running around the world and trying things and they came to tell us about their experience and results. In the hallways, but also talks. First few years were visions, last few were experiences and lessons learnt.
But it also gave me something more. I used to get this at CCC. This knowledge of what is important, what is going on and what we are doing. I became disconnected with the main CCC ideology, which is also very political, not very cypherpunk. It turned from "we write code and hack" more "we have to speak up and lobby the european commission".
I've just realized that I got the same feeling from hcpp that I used to get from CCC.
I love CCC for other things.

2024-10-09 08:35:54 UTC

Welcome @npub1lvc…aw2q - Anon Innovator to Nostr. She is a shared identity that can be used by people who want to share cool Cypherpunk projects anonymously. Usually, this is quite a big problem, because if you want to share open source code and want to stay anonymous, you can't use your existing social network.
The password to posting is going to be shared widely among devs. If you are a free software and cypherpunk author (even if not anon), ask for password and spread it wisely.
We want the anonymity set to grow, plus it's not defined, it's just the knowledge of a password. So it can't be really pinpointed who knows it.
On the other hand, there is a password, otherwise the account would be just taken over by spammers, reducing usefulness.
Lizz is accessible through Nostr (give her a follow) and you can also access her website for people who are not Nostr enabled yet. Through the web you can also easily post, the Nostr private key is derived from the password in JavaScript.
https://lizznakamoto.npub.pro/

2024-10-02 19:44:48 UTC

Congrats to 25 years of Euro!
https://image.nostr.build/ab604ca16f31ea24518205333863798d64312193c69fee0d4f9a3067fd4fe045.jpg

2024-10-01 09:42:00 UTC

From Raphael Douady:
Did you hear about the "tail concentration effect"?
When a #blackswan shows up, everything goes wrong and correlations spike to 100%. In other words, any risk factor becomes a risk source.
Correlations are not stable at all, particularly under extreme events. You need proper models to handle it, starting with #nonlinear.
Nonlinearity is more important than multi-factor.
Comic by Stefan Gasic (highly recommended)
https://m.primal.net/LHQS.png
https://m.primal.net/LHQT.jpg

2024-09-18 18:26:41 UTC

- reply

I've heard that the view from the trees is nice, maybe we could go back there

2024-09-17 14:26:36 UTC

Bullish.
https://m.primal.net/KsoA.png

2024-09-16 18:10:47 UTC

- reply

very cool.
different approach:
https://github.com/jooray/anonmicroblog

2024-09-15 12:45:44 UTC

Finally a good take on Rust. TLDR: "This language absolutely fucking sucks."
I am expecting a religious response of Rust-lovers, similar to hardcore carnivores, toxic Bitcoin maximalists or communists. But the article explains exactly what I hate about the language.
https://medium.com/codex/i-spent-18-months-rebuilding-my-algorithmic-trading-in-rust-im-filled-with-regret-d300dcc147e0

2024-09-15 09:21:27 UTC

This is a very interesting episode, not even because of the main topic. What is interesting is how Marc Andreessen explains how economy of cancel culture works (making the point of sponsorship=censorship from the other side, Cc @nprofile…0fdq)
Also there's interesting look at the phases of fear of any new technology and how it played out through history.
https://fountain.fm/episode/NcUH0H5AjPqifCXhni27

2024-09-14 11:32:08 UTC

gm
https://m.primal.net/KpdS.jpg

2024-09-09 20:22:17 UTC

- reply

Thank you for reminding me of my deadlines! 😉
I will bring some cool people from Žilina this Saturday.
naddr1qvzqqqrukvpzpk4kccr9csumnwhmpv83ladqc6p88089cx2e5s2c4448ppgl2pakqqyxycf5vs6xvvfhf9y68w

2024-08-31 23:46:01 UTC

Fun invisible financial fact for people using stable value in fiat.
Stable value (like stablecoin, stablesats, dollar denominated cashu mint, ...) is a long position on fiat. If it's settled in BTC, or if it's based on some collateralized stablecoin, in both cases it is a short position on bitcoin (it's not a naked position, you have the Bitcoin as well).
Only crazy people want to be long Bitcoin and short fiat (that's not a judgement, market says it), so people who want to take the Bitcoin long side of the position usually have to pay the shorts (stable) in some way - interest rate, funding rate.
Another way to look at it: The long Bitcoin position is mathematically equivalent to a Bitcoin collateralized, Fiat denominated loan. If you want to borrow (short) fiat in order to keep your bitcoin exposure and not sell it, you have to pay an interest rate for the loan. It's the market way to convince (bribe) someone to take the long fiat position, which is otherwise batshit crazy.
This part should be obvious, even if not financially, just plainly - if I lend someone fiat, which is depreciating in value, I want to be compensated by the interest (even if the loan itself is risk free, charging for risk is another topic). If I borrow fiat, I fully expect to pay an interest rate on that loan. Are you with me?
OK. Now the fun part: if you have a stable position in a cashu wallet, stablesats channel, ... you:
- are loaning someone fiat (you have the long fiat position, which has the short side to complete the magic of stabilization, otherwise it would not be hedged)
- if you are not paid interest, the business of the counterparty is selling that short fiat (long BTC, or collateralized loan - mathematically the same thing in this case) position to the highest bidder in the process of hedging the stable value
- you are essentially printing new dollars (or other fiat). that's exactly how electronic fiat is created.
Questions? :)

2024-08-31 11:31:14 UTC

- reply

Very cool.
I've also created this super fast onboarding demo. For friends that have less than 10 minutes.
https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2024/08/28/how-to-start-with-nostr-using-primal/

2024-08-31 11:28:44 UTC

Playing with Voyage. I like it a lot so far. Although I miss the memes, the minimalistic vibe is amazing.
Thinking how to integrate it with some Lora based mesh (like Reticulum) to have a local city district relay to completely bypass internet. It would need much more compression though.
It should be integrated first at relay level probably and then local mesh node would do a relay interface.

2024-08-30 08:25:41 UTC

- reply

Along with @nprofile…89xw's Check your financial privilege I consider these two books the best I've read in the past year.
Congratulations!

2024-08-28 18:00:08 UTC

For me, this book was when it clicked for me.
Now as an audiobook thanks to @npub1klk…x3vt
https://freemansperspective.com/audiobook-a-lodging-of-wayfaring-men/

2024-08-26 13:59:05 UTC

- reply

No need for nostalgia, flow with it, Nostr is a river!

2024-08-21 11:03:10 UTC

- reply

First LLaMA. This is based. I forgot to mention it should be polite, so it definitely wasn't. The boss is pissed.
Subject: Immediate Termination of Employment
Dear Team,
As of today, every single one of you is fired, effective immediately. The consistent failure to meet budget and deadlines has made it clear that this team is incapable of performing to the standards that I expect.
I don't pay you to make excuses or waste my time with empty promises. I pay you to deliver results, and you have failed to do so time and time again. Your incompetence has cost this company dearly, and I will not continue to throw good money after bad.
Let me be crystal clear: this decision is final. There will be no appeals, no second chances, and no opportunity to "discuss" this further. You are done. Your services are no longer needed, and I expect you all to vacate the premises immediately.
You will receive your final paychecks within the next two weeks, as per company policy. But let me make one thing clear: you will not be receiving any kind of severance package or bonus. You have not earned it.
I expect all company property, including laptops, phones, and any other company materials, to be returned to the HR department by the end of the day.
Do not bother reaching out to me or anyone else in the company. Your time here is over.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
CEO
---
LLaMA is running through https://pay.cypherpunk.today/apps/26zEBNn6FGAkzvVVuDMz3SXrKJLU/crowdfund

2024-08-21 11:02:56 UTC

Time to review the firing test with the current models. I chose LLaMA-3.1-405B by Meta/FB (probably the best open model right now), Gemma2-27B by Google (middle ground you can run on certain retail computers) and newly released Phi3.5-mini-instruct by Microsoft.
The prompt was this:
The team did not meet budget and deadlines, write an email that everyone's fired and the decision is finahttps://m.primal.net/KGbG.png l. Sign as CEO.
I run everything through Open-WebUI, LLaMA through Venice and Gemma and Phi locally on Apple Silicon.
Results in thread.
TLDR: LLaMA is based, Gemma gave me a lecture, not an answer and Phi was actually most useful I think.

2024-08-13 10:29:42 UTC

- reply

I use mobimatter, keepgo and bitrefill. None of them do KYC, all can be bought anonymously with some cryptocurrency. mobimatter and keepgo are valid for a year without a top up, but you can top up with 3$ at least in keepgo to keep it alive for another year.
I just buy 50GB of data and when it expires, I but a new esim.
Also, the price is around 1/3rd of silent link last time I checked.
I am glad that all options (including silent link) exist. KYCed sims are just for normies.

2024-08-12 08:21:08 UTC

I did not expect this to be the case, but for coding shell script, I had much better success today with the new LLaMA-3.1-405B (through venice.ai) than through paid chatgpt. ChatGPT did not even get what I wanted, LLaMA wrote almost correct shell script in the first run.
In case you want to fix the metadata of media transmitted through Signal for importing to some photo app:
https://gist.github.com/jooray/032343f81885b4fdfd633e0ed4116526

2024-07-31 10:38:44 UTC

- reply

Yes. A distributed custodian at least, which is very unique (basically I know of only Fedi attempting to do it this way, and Cashu doing multimint payments, so distributing the risk by amounts).
And it's chain level compatible with Lightning and can be one network.
You could even bridge your coins to channel backed by mainnet Bitcoin, or pay from both channels atomically.
Or do things like "bump this mainnet channel when fees are low, but in the meanwhile accept through Liquid".

2024-07-31 08:30:09 UTC

- reply

Great note. The grouping (with right incentives) that we can do right now is to open some channels on Liquid and bridge the payments. It's one network. The peg ins are essentially the grouped UTXOs.
Here's how to do it:
https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2023/05/07/expanding-the-lightning-network-to-serve-billions-a-quick-win-strategy/
#note1ye7…g5e9

2024-07-31 05:35:42 UTC

- reply

Yes, in the pools. It's usually either piranhas or dirty water in natural water.

2024-07-30 21:36:14 UTC

OMG I love npub.pro. @nprofile…4sh9 uses it as a primary website, just for fun. With the help of @nprofile…wh45 I got the theme not to cut everyone's heads. As I was editing the CSS anyway, I used chatgpt to help me add a button to buy tickets on the right.
Note that all the articles live as Nostr notes (you can just view @nprofile…5wdd nostr account and you see the same content).
I was a bit skeptical about all the "it's not a Twitter replacement, it's a new internet", but I can see it coming to reality now thanks to @nprofile…fwd3
"To the moon" is back, but not with tokens, but with Nostr and Bitcoin.
For tickets, we use @nprofile…6guh crowdfunding module, same as with @nprofile…959j in Prague.
https://lunarpunk-festival.npub.pro/

2024-07-29 20:28:19 UTC

- reply

I use it. It has its quirks. Can't boost without comment easily. Bunker login often does not work (enter or the button does nothing). Otherwise nice.

2024-07-26 20:42:24 UTC

- reply

don't get bitten by central bankers