1/7 Surveillance Capitalism: The Collapse of Internet Anonymity and the Rise of the Dark Web

Large technology companies, government contractors, are pushing for a future in which Internet anonymity will be a thing of the past. 2/7 They are incentivized by their own profits, contracts with the state, and control of network traffic.

In this emerging landscape, accessing the internet will require personal credentials, meaning every individual will be assigned a digital ID.

1/5
The Crypto Cartel

While presented as a tool for decentralization, stablecoins are being used to centralize power within the cryptocurrency space.

A group of insiders, venture capital firms, and currency speculators, many linked to the PayPal mafia, are using stablecoins.. 2/5
..to influence market direction and gain significant control over the infrastructure and governance of cryptocurrencies.

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and a central figure in the "PayPal mafia," has played a pivotal role in shaping the cryptocurrency landscape..

1/7 Chainalysis Hijacked the DNS of some #Monero nodes to compromise them.

What happened?

Let me explain what I have researched. 2/7 It probably wouldn't make much financial sense for malicious actors to operate their dedicated nodes, given the resource requirements.

1/8 How Will #Monero Be Attacked?

First of all I want to tell you that this is not teaching the network attackers, the central regulators. They already know how to attack the network, they are just preparing. 2/8 This is a warning to the Monero community, users and developers, to be prepared in defense.

I have been saying for a long time that Monero, like other privacy networks, will be a niche market for those individuals seeking autonomy and personal freedom.

1/10
Common mistakes when talking about Blockchain

(1) *Blockchain is just Bitcoin*

Blockchain is a distributed ledger, designed to operate in an open and extremely hostile environment. 2/10
Its value derives from the tamper-proof security of its records through cryptography and full network collaboration. It was born with Bitcoin as a pioneer, but today it has expanded its utility with other programmable networks.

1/4
The Three Laws of Robotics, presented by the writer Isaac Asimov, are a set of rules introduced in his 1942 short story “Runaround”:
—A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
—A robot must obey orders given it by.. 2/4
..human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
—A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Why did I mention Asimov’s Laws? ..

1/5
#Bitcoin is traveling a path it was not designed for.
And this is thanks to the modifications introduced in the protocol to alleviate its poor scalability due to its block size.

Bitcoin’s quickly maturing ordinals scene has come a long way since January 2023. 2/5
First envisioned as a method to “inscribe” NFTs on bitcoin’s smallest denomination, the satoshi, the ordinals protocol has since become a gateway for creating all sorts of tokens including Stably USD.

1/4
Value is subjective.

This simple revelation, formulated by Carl Menger (Von Mises’ teacher), revolutionized primitive economics and solved most of the problems that had plagued the science since Adam Smith. 2/4
If Marx had paid attention to Menger, communism would have been abandoned.

Subjective value leads to individualism.

The State with its coercive regulations acts on the economy, making predictions about the consequences of this or that measure implemented ..

1/4 #Monero has dynamic block sizing, which impacts greater network scalability.

Important points about Monero block size:

—Dynamic blocks does NOT mean perfectly elastic blocks. Monero does not just slam the entire mempool into the next block. 2/4 Fees have to be paid to exceed certain limits, and there are limits that cannot be exceeded no matter how much is paid. These limits adjust in response to recent blocks, hence 'dynamic.'

—Monero is very adaptive if we assume higher fees are paid.

1/6
After 1 year of Monero Tail Emission practice, this monetary policy seems to be well designed and giving good non-inflationary results.

https://twitter.com/liberlion17/status/1657775287952613376

2/6
A year ago, and two months after starting Tail Emission in Monero, I published a critical article, about the proposed modification of Bitcoin monetary policy towards Tail Emission. Clearly, for $XMR to be non-inflationary is the right design.

1/4 In terms of profitability, while BTC took 900 days to reach 37x in its first bull market cycle, #Monero took 1279 days to give a return of 95x. 2/4 This is not a financial advice, it is a utility tip, because it is important to understand that price follows value, and the utility of Monero will become evident over the next few years.

1/5 When superficial changes are implemented to address underlying problems, there are often poor results. 2/5 Bitcoin Core developers have always denied the possibility of increasing the block size directly, but have introduced patches like SegWit and Taproot to gain efficiency and security.
This allowed data to be added to the blockchain at low cost.

1/8
You may have wondered, (I have), how on earth can I use an anonymity network when they will be heavily prosecuted?
It's very "romantic" Cypherpunk philosophy, but it's almost like living outside the traditional system.

Let's be practical. 2/8
The answer is that for certain uses it is very useful. Let's see.
Cardano is a blockchain that will surely succeed, because of its good design but also because it is regulator friendly, then institutional investments will be allowed.

1/6 Many are obsessed with "mass adoption."
It makes sense to think about adoption because #Cardano was designed as an operating system for global finance #RealFi.
We must define what is mass adoption. 2/6 I believe that first is its global distribution, meaning that there is interest in the different citizens of any country for the utility it provides, then the number of people comes second.
It may be a blockchain of use to many but not to all.

1/4 There are voices for and against KYC and #ContingentStaking
In favor are those who are not against regulators and encourage mass adoption regulated by governments.
In this case, for me, it will be banking 3.0.

Others advocate privacy. 2/4 Remember the strong discussion in the Bitcoin community regarding the size of the blocks, which led to the Bitcoin Cash fork in 2017.

Do you think it is impossible for a Cardano fork to happen?

1/4 The Cypherpunks' cause of struggle was the defense of people's privacy. The tools they used and designed were based on cryptography.
Thanks to them today we have the crypto space. 2/4 Our job is to defend it and not allow central regulators to restrict the scope, with rules to limit or prohibit them. KYC, to defend society from bad actors is the best excuse for governments to spy on your privacy and actions.

1/4
Three of my articles, published a year ago.

I understand that most of them are not anarchist, but this philosophical perspective can perhaps give an unknown point of view.
If you are interested, read them with an open mind and understanding the concepts. 🧵 2/4
I don't intend to turn you into anarchists, but to make you think outside the box.
medium.com/coinmonks/cryp…

1/9 How the degradation of #Bitcoin begins.
A lesson to learn.
The remembered block size battle led to a hard fork, the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. 2/9 Bitcoin Core developers have always denied the possibility of increasing the block size, but have introduced patches like SegWit and Taproot to gain efficiency.
This allowed data to be aggregated on the blockchain at low cost.

1/3 What is the goal of central regulators in the crypto industry?
They say regulations are to protect citizens, but they legislate to control the flow of money and collect taxes to sustain the power of the political system. 2/3 They will pass laws so that you can only buy cryptocurrencies wrapped and with KYC, at heavily regulated CEXs with their CBDCs.

Governments will not allow you owning tokens native to many blockchains, and only wrapped in their own blockchains.
Privacy coins will be banned.

1/5 IOG Official announcement

Hey SPOs! 👋

IOG is pleased to report that the SECP upgrade, now known as ‘Valentine’ – introducing new Plutus SECP cryptographic primitives to Cardano – has been confirmed for 14th February. 2/5 Following a period of community testing, and continued close liaison with SPOs, developers and exchange engineering teams, an update proposal has been submitted today by a joint IOG, Cardano Foundation & EMURGO technical team to upgrade the Cardano mainnet to protocol v8.

1/6 Time management in the blockchain #Cardano according to Ouroboros 🧵 2/6 The network parameters are set such that the granularity of the observable time intervals ( eg, block time ) in the chain is 20s, which is equal to the slot length ( 1s ) divided by the block coefficient f ( the expected block frequency, 0.05 ).