Bitcoin means Freedom 🕊

We hear that a lot, I know. But why does Bitcoin actually mean freedom? A 🧵 🌐 Decentralization: Bitcoin is a decentralized network, meaning that no single entity or government has control over it. It takes the influence & control that traditional financial institutions and governments have over individuals' money & transactions and gives it back to you.

Bitcoin Price Surges During a War on Cash in #Nigeria

The Nigerian government together with the central bank have been trying to push the adoption of the digital naira, the country’s central bank digital currency, for a couple of months now. As I learned, during the @AfroBitcoinOrg conference in Ghana in December 2022, the digital naira has not been very well received by the population, for different reasons like

1/18 In a world where the majority of people 54% live under authoritarian rulers, there will always be a use-case for a censorship-resistant and immutable money like #Bitcoin

How Bitcoin enforces human rights
> read my article: anitaposch.com/bitcoin-enforc… 2/18 There seems to be some sort of correlation between corruption and failing democracies. That is corruption enables both human rights abuses and democratic decline. In turn, these factors lead to higher levels of corruption, setting off a vicious cycle.

We're in the middle of our Bitcoin Workshop and I we're learning receiving lightning. Anyone up to send some sats to Zambia? Please One minute we're preparing invoices

1/4 Sending Bitcoin without Internet!

Millions of people in Africa are using mobile money on their feature phones. It works without internet. They can't just download and use a Bitcoin wallet app.

Now it's possible to send #bitcoin just like mobile money with USSD code. 2/4 With @Machankura8333 it's possible to send and receive #lightning bitcoin in Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia on any mobile phone just with airtime.

Today I met @mulos and his friend @TheDabsEffect who recently opened a #Bitcoin kiosk in Lusaka #Zambia. Mulos has been helping people to exchange money for years. I brought the Bitcoin flyer, we installed a Lightning wallet and I sent a payment. They liked the small fees 😀 The Bitcoin flyer is a 2 pager for beginners and meetups. You can download it here and also translate it, just contact me to put it on the @BFFbtc website. bffbtc.org/flyer

1/39 A Black Raised Fist on My Book Cover - A “Bold Choice”

The logo on the cover of my book - a black raised fist in the shape of the African continent holding a Bitcoin logo - was described as being a “bold choice for a white Austrian author” recently. 2/39 The tweet author, a “white guy from New York” is currently writing a book about crypto and fraud. Hence I assume he is searching for all possible reasons to attack Bitcoin.

Why is no Bitcoiner except for @gladstein talking about the dark sides of governmental BTC adoption in El Salvador? Sure nocoiners use it as an attack. But Bitcoiners should ask questions and stay vigilant too. I wrote this @BitcoinMagazine. bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/report… In my research I found out among other things that
- the plans for Bitcoin City are a template downloaded from the internet archello.com/story/27299/at…

1/ 50 years ago today, the US, lead by President Richard Nixon, unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods system to an end and rendering the dollar a fiat currency. #wtfhappenedin1971 2/ Afterwards currencies around the world became fiat currencies, and the global monetary system became less ordered.

1/ Is This the End of Privacy?

It’s really sad and annoying to observe that Europe aims to be the next China regarding mass-surveillance. Backdoors in private messaging apps will fire back at those who are now in favor of these new legislations. 2/ Countries like Germany and Austria should actually know better, but it seems we haven’t been learning from our dark history. I’m thankful for all the “Cypherpunks who write code” as Eric Hughes put it in his Cypherpunk manifesto from 1993.

1/ Chatcontrol: Eu Parliament Approves Mass Surveillance of Private Communications patrick-breyer.de/en/chatcontrol… 2/ On July 6th, the European Parliament approved the ePrivacy Derogation, allowing providers of e-mail and messaging services to automatically search all personal messages of each citizen for presumed suspect content and report suspected cases to the police.

1/ One of the Oldest Hydro-Power Stations in the US Is Mining #Bitcoin
👇

https://twitter.com/DocumentingBTC/status/1413134698419789824?s=20

2/ “We think this is the oldest renewable energy facility in the world that’s still running,” said Jim Besha Sr., CEO of Albany Engineering Corp., which owns the Mechanicville hydroelectric station, built in 1897.

1/ Buy Bitcoin Without Fees

@jackmallers announced that it’s now possible to buy bitcoin on @ln_strike with no fees outside of the market spread. He shows what you get, when purchasing #BTC for $100 after fees:
Coinbase: $97.01
Venmo: $97.70
CashApp: $97.74 2/ We can see Coinbase remains the most expensive, at nearly 3%. Venmo and CashApp are cheaper, but still, often charge retail well over 2% to buy bitcoin.

1/ Banks Stormed in #Lebanon

“Lebanon, which already had a fragile economy, has been sinking into an unprecedented financial crisis since 2019. In two years, the local currency, the Lebanese pound, has lost about 90 per cent of its value.
equaltimes.org/in-the-midst-o… 2/ While the official rate set by the Central Bank of Lebanon is 1,500 pounds to the US dollar, and the bank rate is 3,900 pounds, in reality, on the black market, a dollar is today equivalent to 13,000 pounds. This inflation is having a dramatic impact on farmers.”

1/ Reactions towards El Salvador making #bitcoin legal tender: The head of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) said on Monday the bank will give El Salvador technical assistance to implement bitcoin as legal tender, reuters.com/business/cenam… even though… 2/ …it still issues debt only in dollars. CABEI’s executive president, Dante Mossi, said the move would offer Salvadorans many opportunities, including lowering the cost for relatives abroad to send remittances.

1/ #Bitcoin trading volume development:
I’ve built an animation showing the increase and decrease in trading volume on Bitcoin peer-to-peer platforms @LocalBitcoins and @Paxful within the last year. Data @MattAhlborg. 2/ A lot of trading on other platforms and directly between individuals goes unaccounted for in this illustration, but it shows the overall development in different regions around the world.

1/ Watch Out for Fake Hardware Wallets
A user reported on reddit that they were sent a Ledger hardware wallet although they didn’t order it. Victims of the latest data breach be aware, you might receive this Ledger Nano X too. 2/ It comes with a letter by Ledger’s CEO and in a Ledger branded bag. Enclosed in the package is a shrinkwrapped Ledger Nano X box that contains what appears to be a legitimate device. bleepingcomputer.com/news/cryptocur…

1/ I’m not into trading and I’m also not into price predictions. Nevertheless #Bitcoin’s transparency enables data analytics unseen in traditional financial systems.

Hodler net position change is one of those interesting metrics. 2/ It shows the monthly position change of long term investors (HODLers). It indicates when HODLers cash out (negative) and when net new positions are accumulated by HODLers. The metric was coined by Adamant Capital with @TuurDemeester.

1/ Radio amateurs from #Brazil outpaced companies and a certain billionaire in sending #Bitcoin to the #Moon and back to Earth. Mind-boggling! 2/ While you are maybe waiting for bitcoin’s price to go to the moon, one Bitcoin transaction was already on the moon. On April 24th 2021 a transaction was sent from Belo Horizonte to the Moon and back to Campinas.

1/ China does this, #China does that. Whenever China banned #Bitcoin, the price went up. Now as part of the roll-out of their digital surveillance currency, the digital yuan is handed out to citizens of Beijing in form of a lottery. cnbc.com/2021/06/02/chi… 2/ Residents can use two banking apps to apply to win 200 yuan each, in total 40 million renminbi ($6.2 million).

1/ A thread to understand taproot and its #Bitcoin improvements

“It doesn’t matter if you have nothing to hide. Because privacy isn’t about something to hide. #Privacy is about something to protect. And the thing to protect is a free and open society.” - Edward @Snowden 2/ Taproot is a very important update to the Bitcoin Core software. It is a backward compatible soft-fork, which might be locked-in in a few weeks. Locked-in means that the changes to the software will be activated automatically in November.