flexbit @[email protected]

Recommended Sunday reading:
Ben Kaufman, Oct 5, 2019
The Monetary Case for Bitcoin
https://link.medium.com/TQla8yhJx0

Finally I am a first-class Bitcoin citizen. The setup is inspired by the Hodl Guide:
https://github.com/DriftwoodPalace/guides/tree/master/hodl-guide
Key ingredients:
- Bitcoin Core https://launchpad.net/~luke-jr/+archive/ubuntu/bitcoincore
- Wasabi Wallet https://www.wasabiwallet.io/
- Electrum Personal Server https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server
- Electrum Bitcoin Wallet https://electrum.org/
- Tails https://tails.boum.org/
- Hardware wallets for a multi-signature setup.
A similar commercial alternative would be the 3-of-5 setup of Casa Hodl Platinum but it would cost $1800/year.

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, flirts with the idea of a virtual currency as a substitute for the USD:

"As a consequence, it is an open question whether such a new Synthetic Hegemonic Currency (SHC) would be best provided by the public sector, perhaps through a network of central bank digital currencies. Even if the initial variants of the idea prove wanting, the concept is intriguing."
Source: https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/sympos/2019/governor%20carney%20speech%20jackson%20hole.pdf

Bitcoin fixes this.

Pinch me. And please excuse my first reference of the bird site. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey takes part in the Lightning Torch game and passes it on to Starkness.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/lightning-torchs-bitcoin-payment-is-running-a-worldwide-marathon/
Jack on why Bitcoin:

On Dec. 2 I talked about it, now it's reality: tooting on a #Vikings D8 workstation. https://www.vikings.net/
Vikings sells hardware certified by the #FSF
https://www.fsf.org/news/three-devices-from-vikings-gmbh-now-fsf-certified-to-respect-your-freedom
Its operating system #Trisquel Linux is similar to Ubuntu. https://trisquel.info/
This #Linux distribution is among the few endorsed by the FSF.
https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

A big "thank you" to everybody who is contributing to such a product and similar ones helping to secure freedom.

A first test of my new Bitwala "blockchain banking" account has been successful. https://www.bitwala.com/ It is a EUR bank account in combination with a Bitcoin wallet. Funds can be exchanged between BTC and EUR. Spending is possible via SEPA transfers or a Mastercard debit card. Yes, another 3rd party but one more tool while waiting for hyperbitcoinization. Three grocery spendings were shown quickly online, on a Saturday. With a traditional bank it takes two days longer.

My BTC full node journey: I started with a Raspberry Pi in autumn 2017 during the fork wars. I became impatient during the sync (1 month) and assembled an i3 NUC, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD. Sync time: 4 days. At the end of 2018 I wanted to explore virtualization. I tried a Xeon with a HDD and VMware ESXi. The free ESXi version only allows one thread per VM. Sync: 11 days. Next attempt: an i7 NUC, now with 32 GB RAM and NVMe SSD. Sync just finished: *less than four hours*. Now that is a speed I like.

Just a rumor for now but if it comes true the BTC bear market is over.

Russia Prepares To Buy Up To $10 Billion In Bitcoin To Evade US Sanctions
Zero Hedge Mon, 01/14/2019 - 14:28
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-14/russia-prepares-buy-10-billion-bitcoin-evade-us-sanctions

This needs to be recorded.

The Bank of International Settlements (the "Bank of Banks") is afraid of a financial meltdown.

Plus: The US Treasury "confirms ample liquidity".

Got Bitcoin?

BIS fears financial seizure at the heart of the world's clearing system
Telegraph, 16 December 2018
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/12/16/bis-fears-financial-seizure-heart-worlds-clearing-system/

@USTreasury
Dec. 23, 2018
Secretary Mnuchin convened individual calls with the CEOs of the nation's six largest banks.
https://twitter.com/USTreasury/status/1076959260205113345

Michael Pento in interview with Greg Hunter (Dec. 8, 2018)
https://youtu.be/XOpt13VQy0A
His take: first recession, then massive reinflation by central banks with obvious effects.

@BitcoinBelle Happy birthday!

BTC dominance getting close to 60% at OnChainFX. https://messari.io/onchainfx/

More "libre hardware":
Respects Your Freedom hardware product certification
https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom
Notebooks, routers, tablets, smartphones...

Why did it take me so long to discover #libreboot? I was checking the delivery options for a Raptor Talos II system. Just the shipping to my country is >$650. I then discovered #Vikings and their "libre workstation": https://store.vikings.net/vikings-d16-workstation It uses an AMD Opteron 6278 with Libreboot bypassing the AMD "boot blob". https://libreboot.org/

Kerry Lutz predicts the end of Bitcoin. https://youtu.be/f5anpS0AU9w Another entry for the Bitcoin obituaries.
https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/

My current substitution list:
Searching: Google -> DuckDuckGo
Mail: Google -> Mailbox.org
Messaging: Twitter -> Mastodon
Office suite: Google Docs -> OpenOffice/LibreOffice
OS: Windows -> Ubuntu
File hosting: Google Drive/Dropbox -> Nextcloud
Password management: LastPass -> KeePass
Note taking: Evernote -> Joplin
To be done:
Connections: Facebook -> WordPress blog
CPU: POWER9?