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One year ago I was asking my followers for bitcoin donations for St. Annes School in Zimbabwe. With these funds Miss Aurra, headmistress of the school, was able to secure a new school building and to re-open. Since my visit in Zimbabwe in early 2020 the economic and living situation for Zimbabweans has gone worse. High inflation, a complicated and not-functional multi-currency banking system, as well as capital controls make Bitcoin the seemingly perfect solution.
Listen to Miss Aurra how Bitcoin empowers Zimbabweans. This use-case is mainly the reason for me to advocate for Bitcoin.
“Wealth isn’t the gold of pirates - wealth is energy.” - Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983) was an American architect, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. In 1967 he predicted something like Bitcoin and the new wealth it would create. He concludes, “we’re going to be able to afford to make all humanity successful.” Thanks to Brian Roemmel for digging that up.
1967 Richard Buckminster Fuller predicted Bitcoin and the new wealth it would create.
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) August 31, 2019
“I’ll talk about something that would be one of the realizations by 2018, a realistic—scientific accounting system—of what is wealth. Wealth isn’t the gold of pirates—wealth is energy” pic.twitter.com/r0MM65E7kJ
Mining is done with energy. That’s the segway to the Central Bank of Iran which is banning transactions with Bitcoin that were mined outside of Iran. Within Iran it’s only possible to transact with locally mined coins.
Iran’s central bank has declared that transactions of cryptocurrencies which were mined outside of Iran are forbidden - in Iran, one can only transact with locally mined coins! https://t.co/YuOwdIkPG5
— Meh (@Fatalmeh) May 6, 2021
Hm. It’s a known, that there are Iranian mining farms. In April it was announced that miners, who connect to local mining pools could receive a 15% discount on their electricity tariff.
“The spokesman added that a 15% discount would be considered for miners who connect to local mining pools.”
— شتر دیدی؟ ندیدی (@arbedout) April 11, 2021https://t.co/4tO5Y2MNxA
It seems the idea of the Iranian government is to get a foot in the Bitcoin world by enabling value extraction via taxation or hold and use Bitcoin themselves. I agree with @TuurDemeester, who expects that after experiments like these, we might see countries allow for Bitcoin to be used as a full currency alternative to the national currency. It’s really a good idea for countries with cheap and renewable energy resources to mine Bitcoin for themselves.
Trying to take control of mining is really going to be a thing. Early this year two of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in North America, Marathon Patent Inc. and DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc., joined forces to create the Digital Currency Miners of North America (DCMNA), the first North American mining pool with a legal entity. Together, they’re pledging to only process transactions that comply with American laws.
They are pioneering a technique called “clean mining,” meaning they select which transactions to process based on wallet information instead of the most lucrative fee options. They’re promising to only mine transactions that the government approves of.
I would say, “clean mining” is: censored mining. On episode 100 Jameson Lopp and I am discussing the possible strategies and outcomes of this attempted attack on Bitcoin.
Yesterday, May 6th 2021, Marathon mined their first “clean block”. Bitcoiners started to sending “noncompliant” bitcoin to Marathon’s address from sanctioned nations to taint the clean block.
Regulators, it’s a hard job. But if you feel that someone’s got to do it. Try.It would be a shame - an absolute shame, I tell you - if Iranian Bitcoiners were to dust the coinbase output address in this block; receiving payments from Iranians is considered sanctions circumvention by OFAC
— شتر دیدی؟ ندیدی (@arbedout) May 6, 2021
It’s 3LC8dDKyBsrWPfzhXyt7aAyjXxGYkfDdHu btw https://t.co/ukiYl4O5TC https://t.co/raR0JvclsF
Hahaha, this is great. https://t.co/CPXHzQ2H5W
— Anita 🟩🏳️
🏻
♂️ (@AnitaPosch) May 6, 2021
Last week I pleaded for China to ban mining especially with energy from coal power stations. This week one of the biggest mining pools F2Pool announced that the first time in their 8 years of operations they have seen more hashrate coming from outside of China than from inside.
Here at @f2pool_official, in April 2021, the first month in our 8 years of operation, we have seen more $BTC hashrate coming from outside of China than from the inside. The shifting is real. https://t.co/nf2gBy62re
— Chun @ dogecoin.org (@BocaChicaDoge) May 3, 2021
What is Taproot? In short: it is a soft fork to the Bitcoin network - a software change that will improve the scripting capabilities and most importantly the privacy of Bitcoin and Lightning by making channels look like regular bitcoin transactions. With Taproot even the most complex smart contracts would, on the blockchain, typically be indistinguishable from regular transactions.
Since Bitcoin is the best chance to secure financial privacy in the future, it is very important that Taproot is adapted. To start the activation process 90% of the mined blocks have to signal the deployment by their mining pools.
The signalling method is called Speedy Trial and it works in periods of 2016 blocks, meaning that within a 2016 block period, 90%, or 1815 of the 2016 blocks have to signal for readiness.
It’s not necessarily over if one period does not succeed to reach 90%, it just means that we will have to wait until the next period. The Speedy Trial ends in August, after this no Speedy Trial deployments are possible anymore and a new softfork deployment method has to be developed.
If 1815 (90%) of the blocks signal for readiness within a period, then full nodes that have upgraded to Bitcoin Core or any other compatible implementation will consider the signalling a success and activate the Taproot softfork in November.
On https://taproot.watch/ you can watch the current signalling.No need to watch crime stories anymore. https://t.co/YSK0TZIl6l is here.
— Anita 🟩
Shout out to @slush_pool being the first signalling for Taproot activation.
Thanks to @fiatjaf and @hampus_s for building the tool. pic.twitter.com/p8kTc36pNr
Hybris in 60 seconds. Fucking rich old men, who got successful in a rigged system shouting at a future they don’t understand… https://t.co/GPX6GYwTIT
— Anita 🟩
— The Laughing Man (@laughingmantwit) May 2, 2021
In all the hype around NFTs, Ethereum and people who in all earnest think that Dogecoin could replace Bitcoin…take a big breath, because DeFi on Bitcoin is coming, no it’s already here.
Rootstock is a sidechain of Bitcoin that enables a virtual machine running smart contracts. The launch of @Sovryn has helped Rootstock surpass 1,400 BTC in total value locked. RSK has a currently over 259,000 smart contract transactions, and almost 50,000 active users. As a result, RSK Network exceeded fellow Bitcoin-based blockchain Lighting Network for the first time. In addition, the high value of TVL is proof of the growing demand for DeFi on the Bitcoin network.
Sovryn co-founder Edan Yago is explaining the advantages of Bitcoin DeFi to other blockchains in this interview:
This week Paul Barron invited me on his show to talk about the different aspects of Bitcoin’s adoption including DeFi.
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If you want to check, here is today’s Bitcoin price.
No financial advice. DYOR.
